Part 9 (1/2)

But she fretted under a discontent that made her miserable, even though it did not strain her reason like the lonesomeness. Something was wanting to fill her life. He cast about him, wondering what it could be, wis.h.i.+ng that he might supply it and take away the shadow out of her eyes.

It was his last thought as he fell asleep in a little swale below the wagon where the gra.s.s was tall and soft--that he might find what was lacking to make Joan content with the peace and plenty of the sheeplands, and supply that want.

CHAPTER VII

THE EASIEST LESSON

”Why do they always begin the conjugations on _love_?”

There was no perplexity in Joan's eyes as she asked the question; rather, a dreamy and far-away look, the open book face-downward on the ground beside her.

”Because it's a good example of the first termination, I suppose,”

Mackenzie replied, his eyes measuring off the leagues with her own, as if they together sought the door that opened out of that gray land into romance that quiet summer afternoon.

”It was that way in the Spanish grammar,” said Joan, shaking her head, unconvinced by the reason he advanced. ”There are plenty of words in the first termination that are just as short. Why? You're the teacher; you ought to know.”

She said it banteringly, as if she dared him to give the reason. His eyes came back from their distant groping, meeting hers with gentle boldness. So for a little while he looked silently into her appealing eyes, then turned away.

”Maybe, Joan, because it is the easiest lesson to learn and the hardest to forget,” he said.

Joan bent her gaze upon the ground, a flush tinting her brown face, plucking at the gra.s.s with aimless fingers.

”Anyway, we've pa.s.sed it,” said she.

”No, it recurs all through the book; it's something that can't be left out of it, any more than it can be left out of life. Well, it doesn't need to trouble you and me.”

”No; we could use some other word,” said Joan, turning her face away.

”But mean the same, Joan. I had an old maid English teacher when I was a boy who made us conjugate _to like_ instead of the more intimate and tender word. Poor old soul! I hope it saved her feelings and eased her regrets.”

”Maybe she'd had a romance,” said Joan.

”I hope so; there's at least one romance coming to every woman in this world. If she misses it she's being cheated.”

Mackenzie took up the Latin grammar, marking off her next lesson, and piling it on with unsparing hand, too. Yet not in accord with Tim Sullivan's advice; solely because his pupil was one of extraordinary capacity. There was no such thing as discouraging Joan; she absorbed learning and retained it, as the sandstone absorbs oil under the pressure of the earth, holding it without wasting a drop until the day it gladdens man in his exploration.

So with Joan. She was storing learning in the undefiled reservoir of her mind, to be found like unexpected jewels by some hand in after time. As she followed the sheep she carried her books; at night, long after Charley had gone to sleep, she sat with them by the lantern light in the sheep-wagon. Unspoiled by the diversions and distractions which divide the mind of the city student, she acquired and held a month's tasks in a week. The thirsty traveler in the desert places had come to the oasis of her dreams.

Daily Joan rode to the sheep-camp where Mackenzie was learning the business of running sheep under Dad Frazer. There were no holidays in the term Joan had set for herself, no unbending, no relaxation from her books. Perhaps she did not expect her teacher to remain there in the sheeplands, shut away from the life that he had breathed so long and put aside for what seemed to her an unaccountable whim.

”You'll be reading Caesar by winter,” Mackenzie told her as she prepared to ride back to her camp. ”You'll have to take it slower then; we can't have lessons every day.”

”Why not?” She was standing beside her horse, hat in hand, her rich hair lifting in the wind from her wise, placid brow. Her books she had strapped to the saddle-horn; there was a yellow slicker at the cantle.

”You'll be at home, I'll be out here with the sheep. I expect about once a week will be as often as we can make it then.”

”I'll be out here on the range,” she said, shaking her determined head, ”a sheepman's got to stick with his flock through all kinds of weather. If I run home for the winter I'll have to hire a herder, and that would eat my profits up; I'd never get away from here.”

”Maybe by the time you've got enough money to carry out your plans, Joan, you'll not want to leave.”