The Man of the Desert (12 page)

“The landlord said you wouldn’t mind if I came over to see your flowers,” Hazel said with a shy, half-frightened catch in her voice. Now that she was here she was almost sorry she’d come. It mightn’t be his mother at all, and what could she say anyway? Yet her first glimpse told her this was a mother to be proud of.

“The most beautiful mother in the world,”
he’d called her, and surely this woman could be none other than the one who had mothered such a son. Hazel’s highest ideals of motherhood seemed realized as she gazed upon the invalid’s peaceful face.

And then the voice! The woman was speaking now, holding out a lily-white hand to her and bidding her be seated in the Chinese willow chair that stood close by the wheeled one. A green silk cushion sat at the back, and a large palm leaf fan lay on the table beside it.

“I’m so pleased you came over,” Mrs. Brownleigh was saying. “I’ve been wondering if someone wouldn’t come to me. I keep my flowers partly to attract my friends, for I can stand a great deal of company since I’m all alone. You came in the big motorcar that broke down, didn’t you? I’ve been watching the pretty girls over there, in their lovely ribbons and veils. They look like human flowers. Rest here and tell me where you’ve come from and where you’re going, while Amelia Ellen picks you some flowers to take along. Afterward you must go among them and see if you like any she missed.

“Amelia Ellen! Get your basket and scissors and pick a great many flowers for this young lady. It’s getting late, and they haven’t much longer to bloom. The rosebush has three white buds. Pick them all. I think they fit your face, my dear. Now take off your hat and let me see your pretty hair without its covering. I want to fix your picture in my heart so I can look at you after you’re gone.”

And so quite simply they fell into easy talk about each other, the day, the village, and the flowers.

“You see the little white church down the street? My husband was its pastor for twenty years. I came to this house a bride, and our boy was born here. Afterward, when his father was taken away, I stayed right here with the people who loved him. The boy was in college then, getting ready to take up his father’s work. I’ve stayed here ever since. I love the people, and they love me, and I couldn’t very well be moved, you know. My boy is out in Arizona, a home missionary!” She said it as Abraham Lincoln’s mother might have said, “My boy is president of the United States!”

Her face wore a kind of glory that bore a startling resemblance to the man of the desert. Hazel marveled and understood what made the son so great.

“I don’t see how he could go and leave you alone!” she exclaimed almost bitterly. “I’d think his duty was here with his mother!”

“Yes, I know,” the mother smiled. “Some of them say that, but it’s because they don’t understand. You see, we gave John to God when he was born, and it was our hope from the first he’d choose to be a minister and a missionary. Of course, John thought at first after his father went away that he couldn’t leave me, but I made him see I’d be happier this way. He wanted me to go with him, but I knew I’d only hinder the work, and it came to me that my part in the work was to stay at home and let him go. It was all I had left to do after I became an invalid. And I’m very comfortable. Amelia Ellen takes care of me like a baby, and there are plenty of friends. My boy writes me beautiful letters twice a week, and we have such nice talks about the work. He’s very like his father and growing more so every day.

“Perhaps,” she faltered and fumbled under the lap robe, “perhaps you’d like to read a bit of one of his letters. I have it here. It came yesterday, and I’ve only read it twice. I don’t let myself read them too often because they have to last three days apiece at least. Perhaps you’d read it out loud to me. I like to hear John’s words out loud sometimes, and Amelia Ellen never spends much time reading. She’s peculiar in her pronunciation. Do you mind reading it to me?”

She held a letter out, written in a strong free hand, the same that had signed the name
John Chadwick Brownleigh
in the little book. Hazel’s heart beat eagerly, and her hand trembled as she reached it shyly toward the letter. What a miracle this was! His very letter was being put into her hand to read! Was it possible? Could there be a mistake? No, surely not. There couldn’t be two John Brownleighs, both missionaries to Arizona.

“Dear little mother o’ mine,”
it began and plunged at once into the breezy life of the Western country. He went to a cattle roundup the week before and described it minutely in terse, vivid language, with flashes of wit or touches of wisdom and an occasional boyish expression that showed him young at heart and devoted to his mother.

Then he wrote about visiting the Hopi Indians and about their strange villages, each like a gigantic house with many rooms, called a pueblo, built on the edges of lofty crags or mesas and looking like huge castles five or six hundred feet above the desert floor. He described Walpi, a village out on the end of a great promontory. Its only access was a narrow neck of land less than a rod wide, with one little path worn more than a foot deep in the solid rock by the feet of ten generations passing over it, where about 230 people lived in one building. Seven of these villages were built on mesas reaching out from the northern desert like three great fingers. Oraibi, the largest, had over a thousand people. He explained that Spanish explorers found these Hopis in 1540, long before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, and called the country Tusayan.

Then he described a remarkable meeting in which the Indians manifested deep interest in spiritual things and asked many curious questions about life, death, and the hereafter.

“You see, dear,” said the mother, her eyes shining eagerly. “You see how much they need him, and I’m glad I can give him. It gives me a part in the work.”

Hazel turned back to the letter and went on reading to hide the tears that were gathering in her own eyes as she looked upon the mother’s glowing face.

He gave a detailed account of a missionary conference he rode ninety miles on horseback to attend. And at the close was an exquisite description of the spot where they’d camped the last night of their ride. She knew it from the first word almost, and her heart beat so wildly she could hardly keep her voice steady to read.

“I stopped overnight on the way home at a place I love. There’s a great rock, shelving and overhanging, for shelter from any passing storm, and nearby is a charming green ‘room’ of cedars on three sides and rock on the fourth. An abundant waterhole makes camping easy for me and Billy, and the stars overhead are good tapers. I build my fire here and boil the kettle, read my portion, and lie down to watch the heavens. Mother, I wish you knew how near to God one feels out in the desert with the stars. Last night about three o’clock I woke to replenish my fire and watched a great comet, the finest one for many years.

“I’d tell you about it, but this letter’s too long already, and Billy and I must be on our way again. I love this spot beside the big rock and often come back to it on my journeys—perhaps because I camped here once with a dear friend, and we had a pleasant conversation together around our brushwood fire. It makes the desert seem less lonely because I can sometimes imagine my friend still reclining over on the other side of the fire in the light that plays against the great rock.

“Well, little mother o’ mine, I must close. Cheer up, for it’s been intimated to me that I may be sent East to the general assembly in the spring—and then for three whole weeks with you! That will be when the wild strawberries are out, and I’ll carry you in my arms and spread a couch for you on the strawberry hill behind the house, and you’ll pick again with your own hands.”

With a sudden catch in her throat the reading ended, and Hazel, her eyes shining with tears, handed the letter reverently back to the mother whose face was bright with smiles.

“Isn’t he a boy worth giving?” she asked as she folded the letter and slipped it back under the cover.

“He’s a great gift,” said Hazel in a low voice.

She was almost glad Amelia Ellen walked up with an armful of flowers just then and she might bury her face in their freshness and hide the tears that wouldn’t be stayed. Then before she’d half admired their beauty she heard a loud “Honk-honk!” from the road, followed by a more impatient one, that made Hazel aware she was being waited for.

“I’m sorry you must go, dear,” said the gentle woman. “I haven’t seen such a beautiful girl in years, and I’m sure you have a lovely heart, too. I wish you could visit me again.”

“I’ll come again sometime if you’ll let me!” said the girl impulsively. Then she stooped and kissed the soft cheek and fled down the path, trying to gain control of her emotions before meeting her companions.

Hazel was quiet the rest of the way and was reproached often for her solemnity. She pleaded a headache and closed her eyes, while each heartthrob carried her back over the months and brought her again to the little camp under the rock beneath the stars.

He remembered still! He cared!
her glad thoughts sang as the car whirled on. And her companions forgot her as they chattered about their activities.

How wonderful I found his mother!
she said again and again to herself. Yet it wasn’t so wonderful. He’d told her the name of the town, and she might have come here anytime of her own accord. But it was strange and beautiful that the accident brought her straight to the door of the house where he was born and brought up! What a beautiful, happy boyhood he must have had with a mother like that! Hazel found herself thinking wistfully, out of the emptiness of her own motherless girlhood. Yes, she’d go back and see the sweet mother someday, and she fell to planning how it could be.

Refuge

M
ilton Hamar hadn’t troubled Hazel all summer. From time to time her father mentioned him as being connected with business enterprises, and it was openly spoken of now that a divorce was granted him and his former wife was soon to marry again. All this, however, was distasteful to the girl to whom the slightest word about the man brought up the hateful desert scene.

But early in the fall he appeared among them again, assuming his old friendly attitude toward the whole family, dropping in to lunch or dinner whenever it suited him. He seemed to choose to forget what had passed between Hazel and him, to act as if it hadn’t happened, and resumed his former playful attitude of extreme interest in the girl of whom he was always fond.

Hazel, however, found a certain air of proprietorship in his gaze, a too-open expression of his admiration, which was offensive. She couldn’t forget and tried as hard as she might for her father’s sake to forgive. She shrank from the man’s company and avoided him whenever possible. At last when he seemed almost omnipresent and becoming more insistent in his attentions, she sought some absorbing interest that would take her out of his sphere.

Then a strange notion took hold of her.

In the middle of the night it came to her, when she’d turned her luxurious pillow over for two hours trying in vain to tempt a drowsiness that wouldn’t come. She arose at once and wrote a brief, businesslike letter to the landlord of the little New Hampshire inn where she’d been delayed in the fall.

In the morning, true to her impulsive nature, she besieged her father until he gave his permission for her to take her maid and a quiet elderly cousin of his and go away for a complete rest before the society season began.

It was a strange whim for his butterfly daughter to take, but the busy man saw no harm in it. He was fully convinced it was merely her way of punishing some overardent follower for a few days. Feeling sure she’d return soon, he let her go. She’d had her way all her life, and why should he cross her in such a simple matter as a few days’ rest in a country inn with a respectable chaperone?

The letter to the landlord was outdistanced by a telegram whose answer sent Hazel on her way the next morning, thankful she could get away during a temporary absence of Milton Hamar. Her father promised not to let any of her friends know of her whereabouts. His eye twinkled as he promised. He was quite sure which of her many admirers was being punished, but he didn’t tell her so. He intended to be judicious with all her young men friends. He so confided his intentions to Milton Hamar that evening, having no thought Hazel would mind their old friend’s knowing.

Two days later, Hazel had established her little party comfortably in the best rooms the New Hampshire inn afforded, put a large box of novels and another of sweets at their disposal, and sent orders for new magazines to be forwarded. Then she went over to call on the sweet old lady who had won her heart that first accidental, or providential, meeting.

When she returned, through the first early snowstorm, with her cheeks like winter roses and her hat feathered with great white flakes, she found Milton Hamar seated in front of the open fire in the office making the air heavy with his best tobacco and frowning impatiently through the small-paned windows.

The bright look faded instantly from her face, along with the peace she’d almost caught from the woman across the street. Her eyes flashed indignantly, and her whole small frame stiffened for the combat she knew must come now.

There was no mistaking her look. Milton Hamar knew at once he wasn’t welcome.

She stood for an instant with the door wide open, and a great gust of biting air blew across the wide room and into his face. A cloud of smoke sprang out from the fireplace to meet it, and the two came together in front of the man and made a visible wall for a second between him and the girl.

He sprang to his feet, cigar in hand and an angry exclamation on his lips. The office, fortunately, had no other occupants.

“Why in the name of all that’s unholy did you lead me in a race to this forsaken little hole in midwinter, Hazel?” he cried.

Hazel drew herself to her full height and with dignity answered him. “Really, Mr. Hamar, what right do you have to speak to me that way? And what right did you have to follow me?”