Part 12 (1/2)

An owl hooted overhead. A whip-poor-will in a distant swamp sounded his plaintive call.

Randy could not have a.n.a.lyzed the instinct which sent him back to Becky. It was not in the least to spy upon her, nor upon Dalton. He only knew that he could not sleep, that something drew him on and on, as Romeo was drawn perchance to Capulet's orchard.

He came out from under the trees to other hills. He was still on his own land. These acres had belonged to his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, and back of that to a certain gallant gentleman who had come to Virginia with grants from the King. There had been, too, a great chief, whose blood was in his veins, and who had roamed through this land before Europe knew it. Powhatan was a rare old name to link with one's own, and Randy had a Virginian's pride in his savage strain.

So, as he went along, he saw canoes upon the s.h.i.+ning river. He saw tall forms with feathers blowing. He saw fires on the heights.

The hill in front of him dipped to a little stream. He and Becky had once waded in that stream together. How white her feet had been on the brown stones. His life, as he thought of it, was bound up in memories of Becky. She had come down from school for blissful week-ends and holidays, and she and Randy had tramped over the hills and through the pine woods, finding wild-flowers in the spring, arbutus, flus.h.i.+ng to beauty in its hidden bed, blood-root, hepatica, wind-flowers, violets in a purple glory; finding in the summer wild roses, dewberries, blackberries, bees and b.u.t.terflies, the cool shade of the little groves, the s.h.i.+ne and s.h.i.+mmer of the streams; finding in the fall a golden stillness and the redness of Virginia Creeper. They had ridden on horseback over the clay roads, they had roamed the stubble with a pack of wiry hounds at their heels, they had gathered Christmas greens, they had sung carols, they had watched the Old Year out and the New Year in, and their souls had been knit in a comrades.h.i.+p which had been a very fine thing indeed for a boy like Randy and a girl like Becky.

There had been, too, about their friends.h.i.+p a rather engaging seriousness. They had talked a great deal of futures. They had dreamed together very great dreams. Their dreams had, of course, changed from time to time. There had been that dream of Becky's when she first went to the convent, that she wanted some day to be a nun like Sister Loretto. The fact that it would involve a change of faith was thrashed over flamingly by Randy. ”It is all very well for an old woman, Becky. But you'd hate it.”

Becky had been sure that she would not hate it. ”You don't know how lovely she looks in the chapel.”

”Well, there are other ways to look lovely.”

”But it would be nice to be--good.”

”You are good enough.”

”I am not really, Randy. Sister Loretto says her prayers all day----”

”How often do you say yours?”

”Oh, at night. And in the mornings--sometimes----”

”That's enough for anybody. If you say them hard enough once, what more can the Lord ask?”

He had been a rather fierce figure as he had flung his questions, but he had not swerved her in the least from her thought of herself as a novice in a white veil, and later as a full-fledged sister, with beads and a black head-dress.

This dream had, in time, been supplanted by one imposed upon her by the ambitions of a much-admired cla.s.smate.

”Maude and I are going to be doctors,” Becky had announced as she and Randy had walked over the fields with the hounds at their heels. ”It's a great opportunity for women, Randy, and we shall study in Philadelphia.”

”Shall you like cutting people up?” he had demanded brutally.

She had shuddered. ”I shan't have to cut them up very much, shall I?”

”You'll have to cut them up a lot. All doctors do, and sometimes they are dead.”

She had argued a bit shakily after that, and that night she had slept badly. The next morning they had gone over it again. ”You fainted when the kitten's paw was crushed in the door.”

”It was dreadful----”

”And you cried when I cut my foot with the hatchet and we were out in the woods. And if you are going to be a doctor you'll have to look at people who are crushed and cut----”

”Oh, please, Randy----”

Three days of such intensive argument had settled it. Becky decided that it was, after all, better to be an auth.o.r.ess. ”There was Louisa Alcott, you know, Randy.”

He was scornful. ”Women weren't made for that--to sit in an attic and write. Why do you keep talking about doing things, Becky? You'll get married when you grow up and that will be the end of it.”