Part 31

“Who would have dreamed it!” said Molly, with well-measured mockery. She knew that she had scored at last, and that this day was hers. “Don’t be too sure you are glad I’m not a man,” she now told him. There was something like a challenge in her voice.

“I risk it,” he remarked.

“For I am almost twenty-three myself,” she concluded. And she gave him a look on her own account.

“And you’ll not come a-ridin’?” he persisted.

“No,” she answered him; “no.” And he knew that he could not make her.

“Then I will tell yu’ good-by,” said he. “But I am comin’ again. And next time I’ll have along a gentle hawss for yu’.”

“Next time! Next time! Well, perhaps I will go with you. Do you live far?”

“I live on Judge Henry’s ranch, over yondeh.” He pointed across the mountains. “It’s on Sunk Creek. A pretty rough trail; but I can come hyeh to see you in a day, I reckon. Well, I hope you’ll cert’nly enjoy good health, ma’am.”

“Oh, there’s one thing!” said Molly Wood, calling after him rather quickly. “I--I’m not at all afraid of horses. You needn’t bring such a gentle one. I--was very tired that day, and--and I don’t scream as a rule.”

He turned and looked at her so that she could not meet his glance. “Bless your heart!” said he. “Will yu’ give me one o’ those flowers?”

“Oh, certainly! I’m always so glad when people like them.”

“They’re pretty near the color of your eyes.”

“Never mind my eyes.”

“Can’t help it, ma’am. Not since South Fork.”

He put the flower in the leather band of his hat, and rode away on his Monte horse. Miss Wood lingered a moment, then made some steps toward her gate, from which he could still be seen; and then, with something like a toss of the head, she went in and shut her door.

Later in the day the Virginian met Mr. McLean, who looked at his hat and innocently quoted, “‘My Looloo picked a daisy.’”

“Don’t yu’, Lin,” said the Southerner.

“Then I won’t,” said Lin.

Thus, for this occasion, did the Virginian part from his lady--and nothing said one way or another about the handkerchief that had disappeared during the South Fork incident.

As we fall asleep at night, our thoughts will often ramble back and forth between the two worlds.

“What color were his eyes?” wondered Molly on her pillow. “His mustache is not bristly like so many of them. Sam never gave me such a look at Hoosic Junction. No.... You can’t come with me.... Get off your horse.... The passengers are all staring....”

And while Molly was thus dreaming that the Virginian had ridden his horse into the railroad car, and sat down beside her, the fire in the great stone chimney of her cabin flickered quietly, its gleams now and again touching the miniature of Grandmother Stark upon the wall.

Camped on the Sunk Creek trail, the Virginian was telling himself in his blankets: “I ain’t too old for education. Maybe she will lend me books. And I’ll watch her ways and learn ... stand still, Monte. I can learn a lot more than the kids on that. There’s Monte ... you pie-biter, stop.... He has ate up your book, ma’am, but I’ll get yu’....”

And then the Virginian was fast asleep.

XII. QUALITY AND EQUALITY

To the circle at Bennington, a letter from Bear Creek was always a welcome summons to gather and hear of doings very strange to Vermont. And when the tale of the changed babies arrived duly by the post, it created a more than usual sensation, and was read to a large number of pleased and scandalized neighbors. “I hate her to be where such things can happen,” said Mrs. Wood.

“I wish I could have been there,” said her son-in-law, Andrew Bell.

“She does not mention who played the trick,” said Mrs. Andrew Bell.