The Girl from Montana by Grace Livingston Hill

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Robin, poor beast, was well housed and well fed; but he worked for his
living as did his mistress. He was a grocer's delivery horse, worked from
Monday morning early till Saturday night at ten o'clock, subject to curses
and kicks from the grocery boy, expected to stand meekly at the
curbstones, snuffing the dusty brick pavements while the boy delivered a
box of goods, and while trolleys and beer-wagons and automobiles slammed
and rumbled and tooted by him, and then to start on the double-quick to
the next stopping-place.

He to be thus under the rod who had trod the plains with a free foot and
snuffed the mountain air! It was a great come-down, and his life became a
weariness to him. But he earned his mistress a dollar a week besides his
board. There would have been some consolation in that to his faithful
heart if he only could have known it. Albeit she would have gladly gone
without the dollar if Robin could have been free and happy.

One day, one dreadful day, the manager of the ten-cent store came to
Elizabeth with a look in his eyes that reminded her of the man in Montana
from whom she had fled. He was smiling, and his words were unduly
pleasant. He wanted her to go with him to the theatre that evening, and he
complimented her on her appearance. He stated that he admired her
exceedingly, and wanted to give her pleasure. But somehow Elizabeth had
fallen into the habit ever since she left the prairies of comparing all
men with George Trescott Benedict; and this man, although he dressed well,
and was every bit as handsome, did not compare well. There was a sinister,
selfish glitter in his eyes that made Elizabeth think of the serpent on
the plain just before she shot it. Therefore Elizabeth declined the
invitation.

It happened that there was a missionary meeting at the church that
evening. All the Christian Endeavorers had been urged to attend. Elizabeth
gave this as an excuse; but the manager quickly swept that away, saying
she could go to church any night, but she could not go to this particular
play with him always. The girl eyed him calmly with much the same attitude
with which she might have pointed her pistol at his head, and said
gravely,

"But I do not want to go with you."

After that the manager hated her. He always hated girls who resisted him.
He hated her, and wanted to do her harm. But he fairly persecuted her to
receive his attentions. He was a young fellow, extremely young to be
occupying so responsible a position. He undoubtedly had business ability.
He showed it in his management of Elizabeth. The girl's life became a
torment to her. In proportion as she appeared to be the manager's favorite
the other girls became jealous of her. They taunted her with the manager's
attentions on every possible occasion. When they found anything wrong,
they charged it upon her; and so she was kept constantly going to the
manager, which was perhaps just what he wanted.

She grew paler and paler, and more and more desperate. She had run away
from one man; she had run away from a woman; but here was a man from whom
she could not run away unless she gave up her position. If it had not been
for her grandmother, she would have done so at once; but, if she gave up
her position, she would be thrown upon her grandmother for support, and
that must not be. She understood from the family talk that they were
having just as much as they could do already to make both ends meet and
keep the all-important god of Fashion satisfied. This god of Fashion had
come to seem to Elizabeth an enemy of the living God. It seemed to occupy
all people's thoughts, and everything else had to be sacrificed to meet
its demands.

She had broached the subject of school one evening soon after she arrived,
but was completely squelched by her aunt and cousin.

"You're too old!" sneered Lizzie. "School is for children."

"Lizzie went through grammar school, and we talked about high for her,"
said the grandmother proudly.

"But I just hated school," grinned Lizzie. "It ain't so nice as it's
cracked up to be. Just sit and study all day long. Why, they were always
keeping me after school for talking or laughing. I was glad enough when I
got through. You may thank your stars you didn't have to go, Bess."

"People who have to earn their bread can't lie around and go to school,"
remarked Aunt Nan dryly, and Elizabeth said no more.

But later she heard of a night-school, and then she took up the subject
once more. Lizzie scoffed at this. She said night-school was only for very
poor people, and it was a sort of disgrace to go. But Elizabeth stuck to
her point, until one day Lizzie came home with a tale about Temple
College. She had heard it was very cheap. You could go for ten cents a
night, or something like that. Things that were ten cents appealed to her.
She was used to bargain-counters.

She heard it was quite respectable to go there, and they had classes in
the evening. You could study gymnastics, and it would make you graceful.
She wanted to be graceful. And she heard they had a course in millinery.
If it was so, she believed she would go herself, and learn to make the new
kind of bows they were having on hats this winter. She could not seem to
get the right twist to the ribbon.

Elizabeth wanted to study geography. At least, that was the study Lizzie
said would tell her where the Desert of Sahara was. She wanted to know
things, all kinds of things; but Lizzie said such things were only for
children, and she didn't believe they taught such baby studies in a
college. But she would inquire. It was silly of Bessie to want to know,
she thought, and she was half ashamed to ask. But she would find out.

It was about this time that Elizabeth's life at the store grew
intolerable.

One morning--it was little more than a week before Christmas--Elizabeth
had been sent to the cellar to get seven little red tin pails and shovels
for a woman who wanted them for Christmas gifts for some Sunday-school
class. She had just counted out the requisite number and turned to go
up-stairs when she heard some one step near her, and, as she looked up in
the dim light, there stood the manager.

"At last I've got you alone, Bessie, my dear!" He said it with suave
triumph in his tones. He caught Elizabeth by the wrists, and before she
could wrench herself away he had kissed her.

With a scream Elizabeth dropped the seven tin pails and the seven tin
shovels, and with one mighty wrench took her hands from his grasp.
Instinctively her hand went to her belt, where were now no pistols. If one
had been there she certainly would have shot him in her horror and fury.
But, as she had no other weapon, she seized a little shovel, and struck
him in the face. Then with the frenzy of the desert back upon her she
rushed up the stairs, out through the crowded store, and into the street,
hatless and coatless in the cold December air. The passers-by made way for
her, thinking she had been sent out on some hurried errand.

She had left her pocketbook, with its pitifully few nickels for car-fare
and lunch, in the cloak-room with her coat and hat. But she did not stop
to think of that. She was fleeing again, this time on foot, from a man.
She half expected he might pursue her, and make her come back to the hated
work in the stifling store with his wicked face moving everywhere above
the crowds. But she turned not to look back. On over the slushy
pavements, under the leaden sky, with a few busy flakes floating about
her.

The day seemed pitiless as the world. Where could she go and what should
she do? There seemed no refuge for her in the wide world. Instinctively
she felt her grandmother would feel that a calamity had befallen them in
losing the patronage of the manager of the ten-cent store. Perhaps Lizzie
would get into trouble. What should she do?

She had reached the corner where she and Lizzie usually took the car for
home. The car was coming now; but she had no hat nor coat, and no money to
pay for a ride. She must walk. She paused not, but fled on in a steady
run, for which her years on the mountain had given her breath. Three miles
it was to Flora Street, and she scarcely slackened her pace after she had
settled into that steady half-run, half-walk. Only at the corner of Flora
Street she paused, and allowed herself to glance back once. No, the
manager had not pursued her. She was safe. She might go in and tell her
grandmother without fearing he would come behind her as soon as her back
was turned.

CHAPTER XII

ELIZABETH'S DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Mrs. Brady was at the wash-tub again when her most uncommon and unexpected
grandchild burst into the room.

She wiped her hands on her apron, and sat down with her usual exclamation,
"Fer the land sakes! What's happened? Bessie, tell me quick. Is anything
the matter with Lizzie? Where is she?"

But Elizabeth was on the floor at her feet in tears. She was shaking with
sobs, and could scarcely manage to stammer out that Lizzie was all right.
Mrs. Brady settled back with a relieved sigh. Lizzie was the first
grandchild, and therefore the idol of her heart. If Lizzie was all right,
she could afford to be patient and find out by degrees.

"It's that awful man, grandmother!" Elizabeth sobbed out.

"What man? That feller in Montana you run away from?" The grandmother sat
up with snapping eyes. She was not afraid of a man, even if he did shoot
people. She would call in the police and protect her own flesh and blood.
Let him come. Mrs. Brady was ready for him.

"No, no, grandmother, the man--man--manager at the ten-cent store," sobbed
the girl; "he kissed me! Oh!" and she shuddered as if the memory was the
most terrible thing that ever came to her.

"Fer the land sakes! Is that all?" said the woman with much relief and a
degree of satisfaction. "Why, that's nothing. You ought to be proud. Many
a girl would go boasting round about that. What are you crying for? He
didn't hurt you, did he? Why, Lizzie seems to think he's fine. I tell you
Lizzie wouldn't cry if he was to kiss her, I'm sure. She'd just laugh, and
ask him fer a holiday. Here, sit up, child, and wash your face, and go
back to your work. You've evidently struck the manager on the right side,
and you're bound to get a rise in your wages. Every girl he takes a notion
to gets up and does well. Perhaps you'll get money enough to go to school.
Goodness knows what you want to go for. I s'pose it's in the blood, though
Bess used to say your pa wa'n't any great at study. But, if you've struck
the manager the right way, no telling what he might do. He might even want
to marry you."

"Grandmother!"

Mrs. Brady was favored with the flashing of the Bailey eyes. She viewed it
in astonishment not unmixed with admiration.

"Well, you certainly have got spirit," she ejaculated. "I don't wonder he
liked you. I didn't know you was so pretty, Bessie; you look like your
mother when she was eighteen; you really do. I never saw the resemblance
before. I believe you'll get on all right. Don't you be afraid. I wish you
had your chance if you're so anxious to go to school. I shouldn't wonder
ef you'd turn out to be something and marry rich. Well, I must be getting
back to me tub. Land sakes, but you did give me a turn. I thought Lizzie
had been run over. I couldn't think what else'd make you run off way here
without your coat. Come, get up, child, and go back to your work. It's
too bad you don't like to be kissed, but don't let that worry you. You'll
have lots worse than that to come up against. When you've lived as long as
I have and worked as hard, you'll be pleased to have some one admire you.
You better wash your face, and eat a bite of lunch, and hustle back. You
needn't be afraid. If he's fond of you, he won't bother about your running
away a little. He'll excuse you ef 'tis busy times, and not dock your pay
neither."

"Grandmother!" said Elizabeth. "Don't! I can never go back to that awful
place and that man. I would rather go back to Montana. I would rather be
dead."

"Hoity-toity!" said the easy-going grandmother, sitting down to her task,
for she perceived some wholesome discipline was necessary. "You can't talk
that way, Bess. You got to go to your work. We ain't got money to keep you
in idleness, and land knows where you'd get another place as good's this
one. Ef you stay home all day, you might make him awful mad; and then it
would be no use goin' back, and you might lose Lizzie her place too."

But, though the grandmother talked and argued and soothed by turns,
Elizabeth was firm. She would not go back. She would never go back. She
would go to Montana if her grandmother said any more about it.

With a sigh at last Mrs. Brady gave up. She had given up once before
nearly twenty years ago. Bessie, her oldest daughter, had a will like
that, and tastes far above her station. Mrs. Brady wondered where she got
them.

"You're fer all the world like yer ma," she said as she thumped the
clothes in the wash-tub. "She was jest that way, when she would marry your
pa. She could 'a' had Jim Stokes, the groceryman, or Lodge, the milkman,
or her choice of three railroad men, all of 'em doing well, and ready to
let her walk over 'em; but she would have your pa, the drunken,
good-for-nothing, slippery dude. The only thing I'm surprised at was that
he ever married her. I never expected it. I s'posed they'd run off, and
he'd leave her when he got tired of her; but it seems he stuck to her.
It's the only good thing he ever done, and I'm not sure but she'd 'a' been
better off ef he hadn't 'a' done that."

"Grandmother!" Elizabeth's face blazed.

"Yes, _gran_'mother!" snapped Mrs. Brady. "It's all true, and you might's
well face it. He met her in church. She used to go reg'lar. Some boys used
to come and set in the back seat behind the girls, and then go home with
them. They was all nice enough boys 'cept him. I never had a bit a use fer
him. He belonged to the swells and the stuck-ups; and he knowed it, and
presumed upon it. He jest thought he could wind Bessie round his finger,
and he did. If he said, 'Go,' she went, no matter what I'd do. So, when
his ma found it out, she was hoppin' mad. She jest came driving round here
to me house, and presumed to talk to me. She said Bessie was a designing
snip, and a bad girl, and a whole lot of things. Said she was leading her
son astray, and would come to no good end, and a whole lot of stuff; and
told me to look after her. It wasn't so. Bess got John Bailey to quit
smoking fer a whole week at a time, and he said if she'd marry him he'd
quit drinking too. His ma couldn't 'a' got him to promise that. She
wouldn't even believe he got drunk. I told her a few things about her
precious son, but she curled her fine, aristocratic lip up, and said,
'Gentlemen never get drunk.' Humph! Gentlemen! That's all she knowed about
it. He got drunk all right, and stayed drunk, too. So after that, when I
tried to keep Bess at home, she slipped away one night; said she was going
to church; and she did too; went to the minister's study in a strange
church, and got married, her and John; and then they up and off West.
John, he'd sold his watch and his fine diamond stud his ma had give him;
and he borrowed some money from some friends of his father's, and he off
with three hundred dollars and Bess; and that's all I ever saw more of me
Bessie."

The poor woman sat down in her chair, and wept into her apron regardless
for once of the soap-suds that rolled down her red, wet arms.

"Is my grandmother living yet?" asked Elizabeth. She was sorry for this
grandmother, but did not know what to say. She was afraid to comfort her
lest she take it for yielding.

"Yes, they say she is," said Mrs. Brady, sitting up with a show of
interest. She was always ready for a bit of gossip. "Her husband's dead,
and her other son's dead, and she's all alone. She lives in a big house on
Rittenhouse Square. If she was any 'count, she'd ought to provide fer you.
I never thought about it. But I don't suppose it would be any use to try.
You might ask her. Perhaps she'd help you go to school. You've got a claim
on her. She ought to give you her son's share of his father's property,
though I've heard she disowned him when he married our Bess. You might fix
up in some of Lizzie's best things, and go up there and try. She might
give you some money."

"I don't want her money," said Elizabeth stiffly. "I guess there's work
somewhere in the world I can do without begging even of grandmothers. But
I think I ought to go and see her. She might want to know about father."

Mrs. Brady looked at her granddaughter wonderingly. This was a view of
things she had never taken.

"Well," said she resignedly, "go your own gait. I don't know where you'll
come up at. All I say is, ef you're going through the world with such high
and mighty fine notions, you'll have a hard time. You can't pick out roses
and cream and a bed of down every day. You have to put up with life as you
find it."

Elizabeth went to her room, the room she shared with Lizzie. She wanted to
get away from her grandmother's disapproval. It lay on her heart like
lead. Was there no refuge in the world? If grandmothers were not refuges,
where should one flee? The old lady in Chicago had understood; why had not
Grandmother Brady?

Then came the sweet old words, "Let not your heart be troubled." "In the
time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion; in the secret of his
tabernacle shall he hide me." She knelt down by the bed and said "Our
Father." She was beginning to add some words of her own now. She had heard
them pray so in Christian Endeavor in the sentence prayers. She wished she
knew more about God, and His Book. She had had so little time to ask or
think about it. Life seemed all one rush for clothes and position.

At supper-time Lizzie came home much excited. She had been in hot water
all the afternoon. The girls had said at lunch-time that the manager was
angry with Bessie, and had discharged her. She found her coat and hat, and
had brought them home. The pocketbook was missing. There was only fifteen
cents in it; but Lizzie was much disturbed, and so was the grandmother.
They had a quiet consultation in the kitchen; and, when the aunt came,
there was another whispered conversation among the three.

Elizabeth felt disapproval in the air. Aunt Nan came, and sat down beside
her, and talked very coldly about expenses and being dependent upon one's
relatives, and let her understand thoroughly that she could not sit around
and do nothing; but Elizabeth answered by telling her how the manager had
been treating her. The aunt then gave her a dose of worldly wisdom, which
made the girl shrink into herself. It needed only Lizzie's loud-voiced
exhortations to add to her misery and make her feel ready to do anything.
Supper was a most unpleasant meal. At last the grandmother spoke up.

"Well, Bessie," she said firmly, "we've decided, all of us, that, if you
are going to be stubborn about this, something will have to be done; and I
think the best thing is for you to go to Mrs. Bailey and see what she'll
do for you. It's her business, anyway."

Elizabeth's cheeks were very red. She said nothing. She let them go on
with the arrangements. Lizzie went and got her best hat, and tried it on
Elizabeth to see how she would look, and produced a silk waist from her
store of garments, and a spring jacket. It wasn't very warm, it is true;
but Lizzie explained that the occasion demanded strenuous measures, and
the jacket was undoubtedly stylish, which was the main thing to be
considered. One could afford to be cold if one was stylish.

Lizzie was up early the next morning. She had agreed to put Elizabeth in
battle-array for her visit to Rittenhouse Square. Elizabeth submitted
meekly to her borrowed adornings. Her hair was brushed over her face, and
curled on a hot iron, and brushed backward in a perfect mat, and then
puffed out in a bigger pompadour than usual. The silk waist was put on
with Lizzie's best skirt, and she was adjured not to let that drag. Then
the best hat with the cheap pink plumes was set atop the elaborate
coiffure; the jacket was put on; and a pair of Lizzie's long silk gloves
were struggled into. They were a trite large when on, but to the hands
unaccustomed to gloves they were like being run into a mould.

Elizabeth stood it all until she was pronounced complete. Then she came
and stood in front of the cheap little glass, and surveyed herself. There
were blisters in the glass that twisted her head into a grotesque shape.
The hairpins stuck into her head. Lizzie had tied a spotted veil tight
over her nose and eyes. The collar of the silk waist was frayed, and cut
her neck. The skirt-band was too tight, and the gloves were torture.
Elizabeth turned slowly, and went down-stairs, past the admiring aunt and
grandmother, who exclaimed at the girl's beauty, now that she was attired
to their mind, and encouraged her by saying they were sure her grandmother
would want to do something for so pretty a girl.

Lizzie called out to her not to worry, as she flew for her car. She said
she had heard there was a variety show in town where they wanted a girl
who could shoot. If she didn't succeed with her grandmother, they would
try and get her in at the show. The girls at the store knew a man who had
charge of it. They said he liked pretty girls, and they thought would be
glad to get her. Indeed, Mary James had promised to speak to him last
night, and would let her know to-day about it. It would likely be a job
more suited to her cousin's liking.

Elizabeth shuddered. Another man! Would he be like all the rest?--all the
rest save one!

She walked a few steps in the direction she had been told to go, and then
turned resolutely around, and came back. The watching grandmother felt her
heart sink. What was this headstrong girl going to do next? Rebel again?

"What's the matter, Bessie?" she asked, meeting her anxiously at the door.
"It's bad luck to turn back when you've started."

"I can't go this way," said the girl excitedly. "It's all a cheat. I'm not
like this. It isn't mine, and I'm not going in it. I must have my own
clothes and be myself when I go to see her. If she doesn't like me and
want me, then I can take Robin and go back." And like another David
burdened with Saul's armor she came back to get her little sling and
stones.

She tore off the veil, and the sticky gloves from her cold hands, and all
the finery of silk waist and belt, and donned her old plain blue coat and
skirt in which she had arrived in Philadelphia. They had been frugally
brushed and sponged, and made neat for a working dress. Elizabeth felt
that they belonged to her. Under the jacket, which fortunately was long
enough to hide her waist, she buckled her belt with the two pistols. Then
she took the battered old felt hat from the closet, and tried to fasten it
on; but the pompadour interfered. Relentlessly she pulled down the work of
art that Lizzie had created, and brushed and combed her long, thick hair
into subjection again, and put it in its long braid down her back. Her
grandmother should see her just as she was. She should know what kind of a
girl belonged to her. Then, if she chose to be a real grandmother, well
and good.

Mrs. Brady was much disturbed in mind when Elizabeth came down-stairs. She
exclaimed in horror, and tried to force the girl to go back, telling her
it was a shame and disgrace to go in such garments into the sacred
precincts of Rittenhouse Square; but the girl was not to be turned back.
She would not even wait till her aunt and Lizzie came home. She would go
now, at once.

Mrs. Brady sat down in her rocking-chair in despair for full five minutes
after she had watched the reprehensible girl go down the street. She had
not been so completely beaten since the day when her own Bessie left the
house and went away to a wild West to die in her own time and way. The
grandmother shed a few tears. This girl was like her own Bessie, and she
could not help loving her, though there was a streak of something else
about her that made her seem above them all; and that was hard to bear. It
must be the Bailey streak, of course. Mrs. Brady did not admire the
Baileys, but she was obliged to reverence them.

If she had watched or followed Elizabeth, she would have been still more
horrified. The girl went straight to the corner grocery, and demanded her
own horse, handing back to the man the dollar he had paid her last
Saturday night, and saying she had need of the horse at once. After some
parley, in which she showed her ability to stand her own ground, the boy
unhitched the horse from the wagon, and got her own old saddle for her
from the stable. Then Elizabeth mounted her horse and rode away to
Rittenhouse Square.

CHAPTER XIII

ANOTHER GRANDMOTHER

Elizabeth's idea in taking the horse along with her was to have all her
armor on, as a warrior goes out to meet the foe. If this grandmother
proved impossible, why, then so long as she had life and breath and a
horse she could flee. The world was wide, and the West was still open to
her. She could flee back to the wilderness that gave her breath.

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