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Page 42
"No, he is not. But that does not alter the case."
"Carley, we're not well acquainted," went on Flo, more carefully feeling
her way, "and I'm not your kind. I don't know your Eastern ways. But I know
what the West does to a man. The war ruined your friend--both his body and
mind. . . . How sorry mother and I were for Glenn, those days when it
looked he'd sure 'go west,' for good! . . . Did you know he'd been gassed
and that he had five hemorrhages?"
"Oh! I knew his lungs had been weakened by gas. But he never told me about
having hemorrhages."
"Well, he shore had them. The last one I'll never forget. Every time he'd
cough it would fetch the blood. I could tell! . . . Oh, it was awful. I
begged him not to cough. He smiled--like a ghost smiling--and he whispered,
'I'll quit.' . . . And he did. The doctor came from Flagstaff and packed
him in ice. Glenn sat propped up all night and never moved a muscle. Never
coughed again! And the bleeding stopped. After that we put him out on the
porch where he could breathe fresh air all the time. There's something
wonderfully healing in Arizona air. It's from the dry desert and here it's
full of cedar and pine. Anyway Glenn got well. And I think the West has
cured his mind, too."
"Of what?" queried Carley, in an intense curiosity she could scarcely hide.
"Oh, God only knows!" exclaimed Flo, throwing up her gloved hands. "I never
could understand. But I hated what the war did to him."
Carley leaned back against the log, quite spent. Flo was unwittingly
torturing her. Carley wanted passionately to give in to jealousy of this
Western girl, but she could not do it. Flo Hutter deserved better than
that. And Carley's baser nature seemed in conflict with all that was noble
in her. The victory did not yet go to either side. This was a bad hour for
Carley. Her strength had about played out, and her spirit was at low ebb.
"Carley, you're all in," declared Flo. "You needn't deny it. I'm shore
you've made good with me as a tenderfoot who stayed the limit. But there's
no sense in your killing yourself, nor in me letting you. So I'm going to
tell dad we want to go home."
She left Carley there. The word home had struck strangely into Carley's
mind and remained there. Suddenly she realized what it was to be homesick.
The comfort, the ease, the luxury, the rest, the sweetness, the pleasure,
the cleanliness, the gratification to eye and ear--to all the senses--how
these thoughts came to haunt her! All of Carley's will power had been
needed to sustain her on this trip to keep her from miserably failing. She
had not failed. But contact with the West had affronted, disgusted,
shocked, and alienated her. In that moment she could not be fair minded;
she knew it; she did not care.
Carley gazed around her. Only one of the cabins was in sight from this
position. Evidently it was a home for some of these men. On one side the
peaked rough roof had been built out beyond the wall, evidently to serve as
a kind of porch. On that wall hung the motliest assortment of things Carley
had ever seen--utensils, sheep and cow hides, saddles, harness, leather
clothes, ropes, old sombreros, shovels, stove pipe, and many other articles
for which she could find no name. The most striking characteristic manifest
in this collection was that of service. How they had been used! They had
enabled people to live under primitive conditions. Somehow this fact
inhibited Carley's sense of repulsion at their rude and uncouth appearance.
Had any of her forefathers ever been pioneers? Carley did not know, but the
thought was disturbing. It was thought-provoking. Many times at home, when
she was dressing for dinner, she had gazed into the mirror at the graceful
lines of her throat and arms, at the proud poise of her head, at the
alabaster whiteness of her skin, and wonderingly she had asked of her image:
"Can it be possible that I am a descendant of cavemen?" She had never been
able to realize it, yet she knew it was true. Perhaps somewhere not far
back along her line there had been a great-great-grandmother who had lived
some kind of a primitive life, using such implements and necessaries as
hung on this cabin wall, and thereby helped some man to conquer the
wilderness, to live in it, and reproduce his kind. Like flashes Glenn's
words came back to Carley--"Work and children!"
Some interpretation of his meaning and how it related to this hour held
aloof from Carley. If she would ever be big enough to understand it and
broad enough to accept it the time was far distant. Just now she was sore
and sick physically, and therefore certainly not in a receptive state of
mind. Yet how could she have keener impressions than these she was
receiving? It was all a problem. She grew tired of thinking. But even then
her mind pondered on, a stream of consciousness over which she had no
control. This dreary woods was deserted. No birds, no squirrels, no
creatures such as fancy anticipated! In another direction, across the
canyon, she saw cattle, gaunt, ragged, lumbering, and stolid. And on the
moment the scent of sheep came on the breeze. Time seemed to stand still
here, and what Carley wanted most was for the hours and days to fly, so
that she would be home again.
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