Part 15 (1/2)

Sue danced with the gaiety and lightness of a kitten among wind-blown leaves, Vivian with gliding grace, smooth and harmonious, Miss Orella with skill and evident enjoyment, though still conscientious in every accurate step.

Presently Mrs. Pettigrew appeared, sedately glorious in black silk, jet-beaded, and with much fine old lace. She bore in front of her a small wicker rocking chair, and headed for a corner near the door. Her burden was promptly taken from her by one of the latest comers, a tall person with a most devoted manner.

”Allow _me_, ma'am,” he said, and placed the little chair at the point she indicated. ”No lady ought to rustle for rockin' chairs with so many gentlemen present.”

He was a man of somewhat advanced age, but his hair was still more black than white and had a curly, wiggish effect save as its indigenous character was proven by three small bare patches of a conspicuous nature.

He bowed so low before her that she could not help observing these distinctions, and then answered her startled look before she had time to question him.

”Yes'm,” he explained, pa.s.sing his hand over head; ”scalped three several times and left for dead. But I'm here yet. Mr. Elmer Skee, at your service.”

”I thought when an Indian scalped you there wasn't enough hair left to make Greeley whiskers,” said Grandma, rising to the occasion.

”Oh, no, ma'am, they ain't so efficacious as all that--not in these parts. I don't know what the ancient Mohawks may have done, but the Apaches only want a patch--smaller to carry and just as good to show off. They're collectors, you know--like a phil-e-a-to-lol-o-gist!”

”Skee, did you say?” pursued the old lady, regarding him with interest and convinced that there was something wrong with the name of that species of collector.

”Yes'm. Skee--Elmer Skee. No'm, _not_ p.r.o.nounced 'she.' Do I look like it?”

Mr. Skee was an interesting relic of that stormy past of the once Wild West which has left so few surviving. He had crossed the plains as a child, he told her, in the days of the prairie schooner, had then and there lost his parents and his first bit of scalp, was picked up alive by a party of ”movers,” and had grown up in a playground of sixteen states and territories.

Grandma gazed upon him fascinated. ”I judge you might be interesting to talk with,” she said, after he had given her this brief sketch of his youth.

”Thank you, ma'am,” said Mr. Skee. ”May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

”I haven't danced in thirty years,” said she, dubitating.

”The more reason for doing it now,” he calmly insisted.

”Why not?” said Mrs. Pettigrew, and they forthwith executed a species of march, the gentleman pacing with the elaborate grace of a circus horse, and Grandma stepping at his side with great decorum.

Later on, warming to the occasion, Mr. Skee frisked and high-stepped with the youngest and gayest, and found the supper so wholly to his liking that he promptly applied for a room, and as soon as one was vacant it was given to him.

Vivian danced to her heart's content and enjoyed the friendly merriment about her; but when Fordham Greer took her out on the long piazza to rest and breathe a little, she saw the dark bulk of the house across the street and the office with its half-lit window, and could not avoid thinking of the lonely man there.

He had not come to the dance, no one expected that, of course; but all his boys had come and were having the best of times.

”It's his own fault, of course; but it's a shame,” she thought.

The music sounded gaily from within, and young Greer urged for another dance.

She stood there for a moment, hesitating, her hand on his arm, when a tall figure came briskly up the street from the station, turned in at their gate, came up the steps----

The girl gave a little cry, and shrank back for an instant, then eagerly came forward and gave her hand to him.

It was Morton.

CHAPTER VI