Reclaimed

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Reclaimed By Annie D. Palmer

The day had been dark and stormy, with gusts of wind and roar of thunder. Virginia Briggs had been alone in the big house where she was "hired girl," busily engaged in the regular service of the home, and then in picking over a big pan of gooseberries for preserving. The storm that raged in her mind was scarcely less violent than the raging of the elements without; for Virginia was a girl of spirit, and had been casting reflections on her home life that were not at all conducive to calmness. Virginia threw her handful of gooseberries into the pan with an angry jerk, and gave her head a decided toss as she went to the door to admit a visitor whose knock she knew to be that of her lover. "Hello, Jinny! Blamed if it haint ben so long sence I seen ye thet I've almost f ergot the color of yer hair!" How be ye, anyway?" "I'm very well, Lynn. Have a chair and set down." "Shall I help ye pick over the gooseberries?" This as she seated herself at her work, after hanging his hat in the hall. "If you like. Don't eat more than half you pick, though." "I ain't very hungry, Jinny, not fer sour — "Mrs. King calls me Virgie. It's so much like Virginia, an' I like it lots better." "All right. We won't quarrel about that, Virgie, dear. Are ye working awful hard? Must be a lot to do in this big house." "There's a lot to do all right, but there's a lot of comfort in doin' it, too. Did ye ever see the inside of a real house, Lynn?" — "I dunno. I guess not unless this is it." "Well this is only the kitchen. Come an' look at some of the other rooms. "Are ye sure it will be all right?" Lynn looked himself over and brushed his arms as if afraid of carrying dust into the sacred domain. "Of course, it's all right, Lynn. Mrs. King says I'm to be like one of the family. Here's the living room. Jest try one o' — them chairs an' that's the parlor on that side, an' the dining room on this. Here, take a peep at the bath. What d'ye know about that!"

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"My! that 'ud make a feller want to keep hisself mighty clean —to have that in the house!" "They's four bedrooms upstairs, with lookin' glasses an' clean beds and fresh air, and the purtiest curtains and white quilts ye ever saw. I love to live here, Lynn." "It's a blamed nice place, all right. Maybe some time, Jinny —Vergie, we'll git enough tin to make us one on the same pattern." He took her hand and stroked her hair gently while she turned her head away and answered: "I ain't goin' to marry you, Lynn. I guess it's awful wicked not to, after I said I would — —— "You ain't goin' to marry me? Wy, Jinny I I can make a fine house some time. I'll go away and work for ten years I'll go away forever, almost, and work like thunder and — — then I'll Jinny, I didn't know you cared so much for a fine house." "It ain't jest the house, Lynn. I reckon I could live in a shack, too, if I could live like decent folks. But look at us, Lynn! Look at the whole bunch of us that live down by the tracks on Poverty Row!" "You look good enough to me, Jinny, that's a cinch." "When we get a calico dress, we wear it till it falls off in rags and is so dirty there won't no more dirt hang on. And the women set inside the shacks an' gossip while they's so much dirt ye can almost see the germs a-growin' in it. An' the men set an' sun theirselves outside, with piles of ashes, an' rags an' old tins an' sticks an' other kinds of rubbish layin' around so thick it looks like what Mrs. King calls Hell's Half Acre." "It don't need to be so dirty, Jinny. I'm a-gonta clean — "An' then look at the kids! Any time you go down our street you can see 'em, playin' in the ash-heaps or ridin' the pigs, so ragged and dirty and touseled, even their own mothers can't love 'em." "You wouldn't let your kids — you could rinse 'em — off "Yes, I could rinse 'em off; butI couldn't keep 'em the off street, with no other place fer 'em to go; an' I couldn't learn 'em manners, nor make 'em smart an' perky, nor make their clothes look like white folks' ought to." "The kids would have to go to school. It's a cinch if I ever have" any kids they've gotta git more sense into their nuts than I have in mine, even if it has to be hammered in." "That's it again. You haint ben to school, an' I haint. An' I've noticed that kids learn a sight more about talkin' at home than they do in school."

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— "But, Jinny, we can go to school to night school. I can begin right away." "It ain't no use, Lynn, 's fur 's I'm concerned. I'm goin' to live here with Mrs. King as long as she'll keep me. I don't — think I'll ever get married no how at least not unless I can — marry decent. I'm sorry, Lynn I like you a lot in some ways — hut since I've come here Virginia paused. She had pretty well gone over the life to which she objected, but she had not yet shown Lynn exactly where he stood himself in her estimation. She felt that for his own good he ought to know; yet it was hard for her to wound him as she knew he would be wounded. — "Well, since you came here what else?" "I've seen that men don't bully and swear and chaw and smoke tobacker and drink booze." "Oh, some of the rich fellers does." '

"Mr. King don't. I ain't never goin' to marry any one — that does never. The man I marry has gotta be clean jest — plumb clean and decent." "Goodby." The young man arose and stood in a haughty attitude while she brought his hat. Then he turned on his heel and hurried from the room. The last thrust had hurt his pride, and the decided tone in which the girl had uttered the final statement, had crushed his hope. "If she thinks I ain't decent enough, it ain't fer me to argue the point," he said to himself as he went away. "I never did have no use fer fellers that toots their own horn." Lynn smoked for a full hour that night before he went to bed. When he had been in bed for nearly two hours trying vainly to go to sleep, he got up and smoked some more. At last when the day was almost dawning, he threw himself across the bed and fell into a heavy stupefied sleep. When he was called at half past six, he answered gruffly that he did not want to get up, and rolled over and slept again. When he went to work in the middle of the forenoon, he found that he had lost his job. There were so manv idle men looking for the jobs that go for one seventy-five per day. "Maybe Jinny is right," he said to himself later in the day, — "mavbe she what was it she asked me to call her? Virgie! Mavbe Virgie is right. Dirty dresses, ash heaps, rags, unmannerly kids, swearing, tobacker! I guess they're all here all right enough. But Virgie needn't get so darned mighty and highfalutin all at once, I'm as good as she is anyway, and my lodgin's as good as hern. But she lives at King's. Well, darn my luck, if I haint gonna live somewhere, too. If Jimmy Briggs

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can git a seat on a swell high perch, so can Lynn Lunt. Decent, huh? Clean and decent. Well, they's decent people in the world other places besides in Royaltown, an' I'll jest hit the trail fer Paranagat with the next caravan." It was two o'clock in the afternoon when this decision took final hold upon the young man's dizzy brain. Immediately he proceeded to throw his work shirt and overalls and extra socks into an old telescope that was under his bed; and at two-thirty he was on his way to catch the three-ten north-bound train. "Gimmie a ticket as fur as I can go fur forty plunks," Lynn said, counting out from a dirty canvas bag, forty-five silver dollars. To himself he had argued, "Forty ought to take me fur enough. They's only forty-nine in the hull darn pile, an' I gotta have the price of a meal or two, an' a shakedown fur a night." "Return?" asked the agent smiling at the heap of coins. "Return nothing!" replied Lynn stolidly. "What ye got to return fur? Yer hull blamed town ain't nothin' but ash heaps an' rubbish an' touseled kids." Lynn spoke the new idea that was in his mind concerning Poverty Row, and applied it in a broad sense. The agent began to fancy the young man's breath smelled of whiskey, so he let the matter drop. "You can go to Seattle for forty-one fifty," the agent began, consulting his tariff book. "Where's Seattle?" "Up in the direction of Klondike," was the reply in an offhand manner. "Then I'll take it." Lynn planked down two more of his silver dollars and received a ticket for Seattle and fifty cents. Ten minutes later he boarded the train, saying under his breath, "If I never come back to this dirty town, I'll be decent. I'm as good as Virgie Briggs, an' I can git on as high a perch an' — stay on it, too! Decent, huh? Clean an' decent?"

Virginia sat picking over the gooseberries until far into the night. She was glad she had the gooseberries to pick, for her mind was sorely troubled and she did not want to go to bed. She had loved Lynn Lunt, and had promised to marry him when the wild roses blossomed. She knew Lynn had been trying to save his money. He had told her that by the "rose time" he would be able to rent a place, and set up for house-keeping. Now it was all over. She had raised her ideals, and in raising them she had well nigh crushed her hope. Lynn would never lift himself from his environment for her or any one else, according to present indications. She pondered sorrowfully, and wondered if she had made an awful mistake.

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Mira Sackett came the next evening to talk over the news that was in everybody's mouth in Poverty Row. Mira was Virginia's chum. "You're shore he went on the train?" Virginia asked. "Shore. Dave Peter saw him count out a great pile o' silver to the agent, and buy a ticket to see somebody. He haint got no kin way off somewhere, has he?" "He ain't never told about any." "Well he's jest gone crazy, that's all. Dave Peter said he most knowed you'd mittened 'im, an' I up an' told Dave to shet his mouth. As soon as I seen you I seen his ring on yer finger. They's some honor yit in the girls of Poverty Row, an' when they git engaged to a feller they've got enough every day common sense to stay there." "Mira, I ain't goin' to marry Lynn." "Ye ain't?" "Huh-uh." "Fer the good land sakes, why not? Why be ye wearin' his ring?" "I fergot the ring." "Oh, well, grandma Simms used to say, — *Break a promise keep a ring, — Marry later dead sure thing.' "Why did ye throw him over?" "I don't want to marry nobody, Mira, that's all. I ain't good enough to marry anybody that's decent an' " the girl — hid her face in her apron and cried. "Mira, I can't live in a shanty, like ma lives in— an' live with a man that's a fish like pa. An' — I can't

"Lynn ain't no fish." "Pa wasn't neither when ma married him. Mrs. King says all the drunkenest sots in the world, jest drunk a little at first." "Oh, it's Mrs. King, is it? What does Mrs. King know about Lynn Lunt?" "She ain't said nothin' about him neither. But Mira, do you reckon I could live here two weeks an' be with Mrs. King, an' not see how different things is?" "Of course—" "Maybe I done wrong, Mira, an' maybe I'll be an old maid till crack o' doom to pay fer it — an' maybe I'll never love any- — body, an' nobody'll ever love me any more but, Mira, I can't — do it — be decent I I gotta —— "How long ye gonna stay here?" "I don't know. Forever, maybe. I'll take off Lynn's ring an' put it away till I git a chance to give it back to him." — She took the ring from her finger a little gold-colored one

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with clasped hands for a set —and wrapped it in a bit of tissue paper. As she folded it away it seemed to the little girl that she was parting with her last hope of future joy. Mira, being eager to talk over with another chum the information she had received, made some excuse for hurrying away, and Virginia was left alone. How doubly lonely she felt, since she had heard that Lynn was gone! Of course, it really made no difference whatever to her, and yet there was a sadness in the thought of his being away, far away. Mrs. King came home the next day, and to her the young girl confided the sorrow of her heart. "I ain't never had no chance at all," she ended by saying, "but I do so want to be decent." The motherly woman gave kind encouragement and told Virgie that so long as she did right she could have a home with them. She also promised to help the girl to correct her habits of speech and manner. • • « "Whoopee! The jersey cow's got twins! two of the finest heifer calves that ever opened their eyes on a white man's ranch And the darned little rip is so proud of 'em an' so all fired mad at me, that she don't do a blamed thing but stand there and bel- She's gotta have an extra feed of bran this evening. Jest ler. pour out all they is in the sack — "All there is," corrected Martin Bradford. "Now lookee here, old man, don't be so cussed perticular about the way I express myself on this occasion. It's true I hired ye to correct my speech an' manners an' all that, an' regularly I'm takin' all ye got to say about it in good part. But this — a special occasion a great big special occasion, an' is I've gotta celebrate. Do ye realize that it's nearly a year sense we built this shanty an' yourn across the line, jest twenty paces away? Well, them two calves is the first real profit I've seen in the hull year." "There's a big profit on the land. It's worth ten times what itwas when we came here." "Growing crops an' all, I guess it is. We've done a sight of work on these here homesteads — "You have. Remember I have done nothing." "You've cooked the vittles an' tidied the house, an' tussled with my poor readin' an' writin' an' awful speech that must really hurt yer ears. I reckon your work has been as hard as mine. At any rate, I count the money I pay ye as my very best investment —the best I've made yit."

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"I shall have to give up my position, unless you cease to lapse so into your old habits of bad English." "Now lookee here, Martin, when I hired ye to be my cook an' tutor, I agreed to give ye a fourth of what I made — "And to honestly try to correct your speech, remember that." "Well haven't I tried? And don't I intend to do a lot more tryin'? But, Martin, this is a special occasion, I'm tellin' ye it's a great, roarin' big occasion — an' blame my leggin',they haint no reason fur not indulgin' in a bloomin' all-fired good whoop. Why, it's the first fruits of the herd, Martin, an' it's twin heifers Do ye hear what I'm sayin'? Why, my fortune's as good as made, an' a fourth of it goes to you. Stand up old man, stand up and whoop!" As Martin made no move to stand up and whoop, he was seized around the shoulders and summarily placed on his feet in the middle of the floor. "Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! The twins!" he shouted much as a school girl would have shouted it. "Excused," said Lynn, "and now I'll try to be good. How shall we celebrate? — We take no booze and since the day I spent my last quarter for tobacco, and went without food for three days, tobacco doesn't tempt me. Let's have fried potatoes, hot biscuits, and a good dried apple pie. Then you'll read to me — "No, you are to read to me." "As you like. Martin, how long will it take me to learn to be decent?" "A long time, if you allow many lapses like this one tonight." "I won't. This is a special." It may be that there came into the young man's mind that night a thought of returning to Royaltown, to the girl he loved, of telling her about the ranch, the growing crops, the twin heifers, and all the prospects that looked so good to him. If such a thought came, he put it away at once. He knew that he must be able to present to her, not prosperity alone, but man- — — hood a cultured speech, a clean personality a something, corresponding to her definite idea of decent. So with bright hopes of the good fortune that was beginning to dawn, he set to work with renewed zeal upon this ideal. Martin Bradford was in all his trusted friend as well as his instructor; nor could he have found in all the world a man more worthy. Martin was educated, cultured, refined. In his New Jersey home he had mingled in the highest circles of society. He was honorable and high-minded. He had a deep

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reverence for religion. Indeed, the text book he had used most, in teaching his pupil to read, was the New Testament. In it he found solace for his own sorrow over the beautiful young wife he had lost, as well as morality and uplift for the young man he was tutoring. Drew Bilby, for as such we must now know the young rancher, had met Martin Bradford in a restaurant the day he arrived in Seattle. Being attracted by the man's elegance of manner, he had eagerly sought an acquaintance, and later offered to give Martin a fourth of all his earnings for tutorship, as we have already learned. Then they had gone into the wilds together and settled upon the homesteads. Each had taken all the land he was allowed under the homestead law, and in the long days while Drew worked at clearing and planting his farm, the man of letters dreamed and wrote and sent articles teeming with brilliant thought to his publishers. The partnership had been a boon to both of them, for Martin had gained hardihood and strength from his pupil, while Drew was growing in culture and nobility faster than he knew. The advent of the heifers was indeed the heralding of a season of prosperity for the ranchers. The few cattle they had besides the jersey, gave increase beyond their hopes. The crops yielded in abundance. The products of the farm brought better prices than they had done for years. And as the men lived simply, there was little expense besides that of farm implements. Occasionally in the winter season they rode into the nearest town to attend a theater or ball; and on such occasions Martin would give instruction in etiquette on the way to town and offer criticism on the way back. For Drew had told his teacher about the little girl in Royaltown who loved him once, but could not marry a man ignorant and unrefined. He entertained a vague feeling, coupled with a great hope, that she was waiting for him, and that when he had really made good he could return and win her. And so while he was working, hoping, striving, the months and years were fleeting by.

The ball room was so crowded that standing room was at a premium. The occasion was a character ball, given by one of the church organizations to benefit a poor family whose house had burned down. Virgie Briggs looked unusually charming in the quaint costume of a puritan maiden. She had just finished a two-

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step with Jarvis Winters, the minister's nephew, when Mr. King accompanied by a stranger, in the dress of the Marquis de Lafayette, approached her. The stranger stopped in the crowd a few paces away, while Mr. King ascertained whether or not an introduction would be acceptable. All eyes were upon them while they danced. Never had a more graceful couple gone through the figures of Sir Roger de Coverly than this handsome stranger and the unassuming Virginia. "Will your ladyship honor me with the next waltz?" he asked as they walked to her place after the Sir Roger. "With pleasure," answered Virginia, meeting his eye squarely for the first time. A deep crimson overspread her face, but the stranger had turned away. By the time he came to claim the waltz she had calmed herself. "You waltz most beautifully," he said when they had been for some time on the floor. "Thank you. It depends so much upon one's partner," she answered pleasantly. "I could almost wish this waltz to continue through the entire evening. — — Would it be of course you could not allow me — the last one?" He hesitated so much that it was easy to answer him. "I have a chaperone." "Forgive me, I should have known."

"Who is the man you just danced with, dear?" asked Mrs. King when Virgie rejoined her after the waltz. "Mr. King introduced him as Drew Bilby." "He certainly dances elegantly. See he is talking with Mr. King now. Have you had a good time, dear?" "The best time I have ever had, Mrs. King. You and Mr. King are so good to me." "Why shouldn't we be? You are good to us, and the children adore you. Are you ready to go home?" "Whenever you wish." The dance had no charm for Drew Bilby when the King party were gone.

"Was I decent tonight?" he asked Martin Bradford when they were alone in their hotel. "According to my ideas, yes. You were handsome, and well behaved, and a perfect gentleman in appearance." "And clean?" "Yes. I do not know a man who is more clean."

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"Then, that will do. Did you notice the little girl I danced with?" "The pretty Puritan?" — "Yes. She is the girl I was engaged to marry the girl who broke the engagement because she wanted a man who was clean and decent. It meant a lot of things to her —correct speech, respectable home, good habits— -" 1

"She ought to have them, too. She appears to be a girl who deserves all that. Did she recognize you, tonight?" "When I went away, five years ago, I changed my name, taking my second name and the maiden name of my mother. That is the name by which you have always known me. As a stranger I must win her again. We shall dine with the Kings tomorrow evening. That is where she lives." "They have invited us?" "No, but they will." "Very well. Then we dine with them." Early the next morning, before business began to be rushing, Drew Bilby and Martin Bradford betook themselves to Mr. King's place of business. "Good morning, Mr. King," Drew Bilby began. "I confided a good bit ofmy history to you at the dance last night in order to get an introduction to Miss Briggs, and now I have brought my tutor to tell you the rest of it. You may not care much about it, but I've got to have a passport to your home, and so you'll almost be obliged to listen. Now I propose to leave my friend alone with you ; and if when you get through questioning him, you feel as you can invite us to take din- if ner at your home — well, today will do as well as any time. You see I am anxious to get in my work before I am discovered. I told you about the alias." "It will not be necessary for you to go away," said Mr. King. "We can talk very well in your presence." "I want Mr. Bradford to feel free to say whatever he chooses to say, and you to ask any question you desire to ask. There is only one thing that I desire not to have discussed my financial standing. You see, Mr. Bradford and I have been struggling along together for the last five years at ranching, and while we are not among the pauper class — "Neither I nor any of my household basv; our judgment upon that, Mr. Bilby. I was poor myself once. I was poor when I married Mrs. King. I have often heard Miss Briggs declare that if she knew a man to be worthy of her love, she would not question his ability to take care of her. But there is another question in mv mind." "And that?"

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406 IMPROVEMENT ERA "That is whether or not I ought to let any one entice her away from us." Mr. King laughed goocUnaturedly, and Drew joined in the laugh as he took his departure. It all came out as Bilby had planned that it should, and the early evening found him seated alone with Virginia in the cosy little back parlor of the Kings home. They chatted about the weather, the dance, the books they were reading, and various other topics. Now for a moment the conversation lagged. Virginia looked down at her hand on which she had put the little ring with the clasped hands for a set. It was not — gold color it had been so long in the tissue paper. Bilby's glance followed hers. There was a great thumping at his heart at sight of the little old ring. "That's an odd little ring," he said taking her hand and looking at it closely. "Yes, my engagement ring." "Ah! You are engaged?" — "Well I hardly know. I was engaged once, but I broke — the engagement. Only "Only what? Tell me about it." "Well, you see the man went away, and did not let me give back his ring." "Was he a decent sort of fellow?" "There was room for improvement." — "Will you not throw away his ring see it is valueless — and wear another one for me?" "I shall keep this one, valueless as it is, until I can return it to the man who gave it to me." He took from his pocket a sparkling diamond and slipped it on her finger over the other. She looked at it a moment in admiration and shook her head. "I shall wear the gift of the man I love. Do not think to buy me. The beautiful things of earth are valuable only as they minister to the enjoyment of those we love. This old little band with its clasped hands is dearer to me than diamonds, because of the memories connected with it." "Let us create a memory for the diamond. Five years ago a young man as worthless as your little ring, went away from Royaltown, vowing that he would make a man of himself or he would never return." "Just last evening he presented himself at a fancy ball in the dress of the Marquis de Lafayette, and was the — "Virgie! You know me?" "I knew you the moment I saw you." "And yet you let me come. Virgie, I have tried for five