Part 1 (1/2)
Jane Allen: Center.
by Edith Bancroft.
CHAPTER I-THE SILVER LINING
Jolly round fleecy clouds tumbled over their playmates in the great, broad playfield of endless blue; baby cloudlets climbed to tops, only to slide down the other side, while haughty, majestic, dignified leaders paraded straight to the prairie line, taking on tones more sombre with each lap of earth left below. A shower should be marshalled, it had been promised the wheat fields, but those young sky rowdies never wanted to work, always romping and skylarking, allowing the silliest little breezes to blow them off their course.
The girl on the gra.s.s gazed up; in her gray eyes the steely glints quivered into sharp, silver blade-like flashes, reflected from the arrow of some little G.o.d just peeking from behind the cloud mountain.
He warned her of the shower, he knew the parade would soon be formed into battle line, yet the girl saw only the suns.h.i.+ne still braving the cloud's attack.
”Just like one's fortune,” she mused, ”clouds and suns.h.i.+ne, pleasant here and a storm somewhere else. I wonder why we take things so seriously? I believe the greatest philosophy of life is moderation: and I am going to be very moderate with my little worries. The suns.h.i.+ne is only behind the cloud, and the reaction is always crowding the perplexities. I am not going to worry about going away this year.”
The girl was retrospective. Vacation was almost over, and Jane Allen would soon leave the hills of El Capitan, her ranch home, to take up her Junior year at Wellington college. Fortified with the resolution against loneliness Jane would try to cover the thought of leaving her dear dad, and her Aunt Mary, with the antic.i.p.ation of so much joy at the homecoming when the school term would end. A drop of rain fell into her eye with the precision of an eye dropper. She blinked, then jumped to her feet.
”Jan, Janie also Jeanie,” she roused herself. ”Do you want some woozy gnome to turn you into an old maid? Why the ruminating? In the words of Judy Stearns, why the w.i.l.l.i.e.s? Don't you want to go back to Wellington?” she asked herself.
A light sprinkle answered her. That shower would come in spite of the sun still showing blades of defiance. A rumble of thunder chased the flash from her eyes and the playful sky G.o.d ducked behind the black mountain. Jane stretched her arms unconsciously into gym rhythm, did a one, two, three and a couple of doubles, then straightened her lithe form, squared her shoulders, and made a quarter of a mile dash to the house. She tumbled into the cus.h.i.+ons at Aunt Mary's feet just as the drops a.s.sumed the magnitude of splatter and splash.
”Auntie Mary,” she panted, ”did you notice it is raining?”
”Notice it? I behold it, Janie dear. I am glad you got back in time.
These late summer showers often turn into good sizable storms. Where have you been?”
”Under my particular tree. I was telling my fortune in the sky when I espied a whole flock of clouds, that wanted to play with an earth maiden. They flirted outrageously, but I knew you would never consent to my taking up with sky-G.o.ds without being properly introduced. So I shook my head, and wig-wagged that they should send their cards to the astronomy cla.s.s. Auntie, hast any mail?”
”Yes, dear. And one from Wellington.”
”Oh, goody-good! It will tell us who won the scholars.h.i.+p. But look at that rain. I wonder if Firefly got to his shed? I must see.”
”Janie, don't run in that downpour, Janie!” But the girl was off down the bridle path, waving her arms backward to signify how splendid the sheets of rain felt, tossing up her bronze head, determined to accept the full charge of the unequaled beauty bath in her joyous face. Oh! it was wonderful to be alive and at El Capitan!
”The dear,” murmured her aunt, ”and some folks think her willful. I have always noticed that her self will ran in the right direction. She didn't care to leave home for school, of course, but now she loves college life. Well, I do wonder if there is anything more beautiful in life than a glorious young girl.”
Was Aunt Mary a little regretful? She had been a young girl once. She had been glorious too. Jane had inherited her own swirl of bronze hair from this self-same Aunt Mary, while the mother, a woman of rare beauty had given the daughter those metallic gray eyes. Their glints could be as soft as silver, or as flashy as steel, so, beautiful eyes, that were velvet in meekness were really metallic in their moody changes.
Presently a gale of laughter announced Jane's return.
”Auntie,” called the girl who was thus being eulogized, ”I am bringing you a guest. Here is Uncle Todd, got caught in the storm, purposes to give you a jolly chat. Come on, Uncle. Aunt Mary wants to hear all about the auction over Lincoln way. They even sold the big tree, Aunt Mary.”
On the arm of the young girl there came trudging along the tanbark path Uncle Todd; old, gray, tottering, his cane so much a part of himself as to seem a third member, his uncertain smile ever making its way to Jane's happy face, while she urged and a.s.sisted him to the porch.
Plainly he loved Jane, and he enjoyed the prospect of a chat with Aunt Mary, for Uncle Todd was a ranch character, serving, by contrast, to picture more clearly the types so varied and so completely different from that which he presented. Uncle Todd was a conservative in a group of rebels. He kept with him the mannerisms of old New York State and was a Yankee of the strongest and deepest dye. Even the tw.a.n.g of voice, and tworl of words, had not been rounded out into the drawl of the hills around El Capitan.
”Good afternoon, or is it still mornin'?” wheezed the old man. ”Glad I met Janie or that there shower might have blown me clean into the hereafter. Sich a blow,” and he adjusted the confidential cane. ”Jest like the one that came one afternoon last summer, when that there city fellar tried to sell me the trick umbrel.” He clambered the low steps unsteadily. ”And I mind, Janie girl, you happened along that day too.
Seems like as if you know just when to happen,” chuckling, he put his arm more firmly into that of the girl who urged him along.
”Now, Uncle Todd, you know very well you were perfectly all right when I found you just now. I do believe you were going to sit plumb down and defy the storm. Just to see what it would do at its worst. But you are a little wet,” feeling the green coat that covered the bent shoulders.
”I wonder, Aunt Mary, if we can't fit Uncle Todd out in some of daddy's regimentals.”