"I was writing a letter," said Sheila in a low voice, beginning to wash the plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water.

"Hmp! Writing letters at this hour! One of your friends back East? I thought it was about time somebody was looking you up. What do your acquaintance think of you comin' West with Sylly?"

Now that she was at liberty to put a "stroke" of work; on Babe's dress, "Momma" seemed in no particular hurry to do so. She stood in the middle of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked ap.r.o.n and staring at Sheila. Her eyes were like Girlie's turned to stone, as blank and blind as living eyes can be.

Sheila did not answer. She was white and her hands shook.

"Hmp!" said "Momma" again. "We aren't goin' to talk about our acquaintance, are we? Well, some folks' acquaintance don't bear talkin'

about; they're either too fine or they ain't the kind that gets into decent conversation." She walked away.

Sheila did her work, holding her anger and her misery away from her, refusing to look at them, to a.n.a.lyze their cause. It was a very busy day.

The help Babe usually gave, and "Momma's" more effectual a.s.sistance, were not to be had. Sheila cleaned up the kitchen, swept the dining-room, set the table and cooked the supper. Her exquisite French omelette and savory baked tomatoes were reviled. The West knows no cooking but its own, and, like all victims of uneducated taste, it prefers the familiar bad to the unfamiliar good.

"You've spoiled a whole can of tomatoes," said Babe.

Sylvester laughed good-humoredly: "Oh, well, Miss Sheila, you'll learn!"

This, to Sheila, whose omelette had been taught her by Mimi Lolotte and whose baked tomatoes, delicately flavored with onion, were something to dream about. And she had toasted the bread golden brown and b.u.t.tered it, and she had made a delectable vegetable soup! She had never before been asked to cook a meal at Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue and she was eager to please Sylvester. His comment, "You'll learn," fairly took her breath.

She would not sit down with them at the table, but hurried back into the kitchen, put her scorched cheek against some cold linoleum, and cried.

By the time dinner was over and more dishes ready to be washed, the cook's wounded pride was under control. Her few tears had left no marks on her face. Babe, helping her, did not even know that there had been a shower.

Babe was excited; her chewing was more energetic even than usual. It smacked audibly.

"Say, Sheila, wot'll you wear to-night?" she yelled above the clatter.

"Wear?" repeated Sheila.

"To the dance, you silly! What did you think I meant--to bed?"

Sheila's tired pallor deepened a little. "I am not going to the dance."

"Not going?" Babe put down a plate. "What do you mean? Of course you're going! You've gotta go. Say--Momma, Pap, Girlie"--she ran, at a sort of sliding gallop across the oilcloth through the swinging door into the dining-room--"will you listen to this? Sheila says she's not going to the dance!"

"Well," said "Momma" audibly, "she'd better. I'm agoin' to put out the fires, and the house'll be about 12 below."

Sylvester murmured, "Oh, we must change that."

And Girlie said nothing.

"Well," vociferated Babe. "I call it too mean for words. I've just set my heart on her meeting some of the folks and getting to know Millings.

She's been here a whole two weeks and she hasn't met a single fellow but d.i.c.kie, and he don't count, and she hasn't even got friendly with any of the girls. And I wanted her to see one of our real swell affairs.

Why--just for the credit of Millings, she's gotta go."

"Why fuss her about it, if she don't want to?" Girlie's soft voice was poured like oil on the troubled billows of Babe's outburst.

"I'll see to her," Sylvester's chair sc.r.a.ped the floor as he rose. "I know how to manage girls. Trust Poppa!"

He pushed through the door, followed by Babe. Sheila looked up at him helplessly. She had her box under her feet, and so was not entirely hidden by the dishpan. She drew up her head and faced him.

"Mr. Hudson," she began--"please! I can't go to a dance. You know I can't--"

"Nonsense!" said Pap. "In the bright lexicon of youth there's no such word as 'can't.' Say, girl, you can and you must. I won't have Babe crying her eyes out and myself the most unpopular man in Millings. Say, leave your dishes and go up and put on your best duds."

"That's talking," commented Babe.

In the dining-room "Momma" said, "Hmp!" and Girlie was silent.

Sheila looked at her protector. "But, you see, Mr. Hudson, I--I--it was only a month ago--" She made a gesture with her hands to show him her black dress, and her lips trembled.

Pap walked round to her and patted her shoulder. "I know," he said. "I savvy. I get you, little girl. But, say, it won't do. You've got to begin to live again and brighten up. You're only seventeen and that's no age for mourning, no, nor moping. You must learn to forget, at least, that is"--for he saw the horrified pain of her eyes--"that is, to be happy again. Yes'm. Happiness--that's got to be your middle name. Now, Miss Sheila, as a favor to me!"

Sheila put up both her hands and pushed his from her shoulder. She ran from him past Babe into the dining-room, where, as she would have sped by, "Momma" caught her by the arm.

"If you're not aimin' to please _him_," said "Momma" harshly, "wot are you here for?"

Sheila looked at her unseeingly, pulled herself away, and went upstairs on wings. In her room the tumult, held down all through the ugly, cluttered, drudging day, broke out and had its violent course. She flew about the room or tossed on the bed, sobbing and whispering to herself.

Her wound bled freely for the first time since it had been given her by death. She called to her father, and her heart writhed in the grim talons of its loneliness. That was her first agony and then came the lesser stings of "Momma's" insults, and at last, a fear. An incomprehensible fear. She began to doubt the wisdom of her Western venture. She began to be terrified at her situation. All about her lay a frozen world, a wilderness, so many thousand miles from anything that she and her father had ever known. And in her pocket there was no penny for rescue or escape. Over her life brooded powerfully Sylvester Hudson, with his sallow face and gentle, contemplative eyes. He had brought her to his home. Surely that was an honorable and generous deed. He had given her over to the care and protection of his wife and daughters. But why didn't Mrs. Hudson like it? Why did she tighten her lips and pull her nostrils when she looked at her helper? And what was the sinister, inner meaning of those two speeches ... about the purpose of her being in the house at all? "An ornament on the parlor mantel" ... "aiming to please him...." Of the existence of a sinister, inner meaning, "Momma's"

voice and look left no doubt.

Something was wrong. Something was hideously wrong. And to whom might she go for help or for advice? As though to answer her question came a foot-step on the stair. It was a slow, not very heavy step. It came to her door and there followed a sharp but gentle rap.

"Who is it?" asked Sheila. And suddenly she felt very weak.

"It's Pap. Open your door, girl."

She hesitated. Her head seemed to go round. Then she obeyed his gentle request.

Pap walked into the room.

CHAPTER VIII

ARTISTS

Pap closed the door carefully behind him before he looked at Sheila. At once his face changed to one of deep concern.

"Why, girl! What's happened to you? You got no call to feel like that!"

He went over to her and took her limp hand. She half turned away. He patted the hand.

"Why, girl! This isn't very pleasant for me. I aimed to make you happy when I brought you out to Millings. I kind of wanted to work myself into your Poppa's place, kind of meant to make it up to you some way. I aimed to give you a home. 'Home, sweet home, there's no place like home'--that was my motto. And here you are, all pale around the gills and tears all over your face--and, say, there's a regular pool there on your pillow.

Now, now--" he clicked with his tongue. "You're a bad girl, a regular bad, ungrateful girl, hanged if you aren't! You know what I'd do to you if you were as young as you are little and foolish? Smack you--good and plenty. But I'm not agoin' to do it, no, ma'am. Don't pull your hand away. Smacking's not in my line. I never smacked my own children in their lives, except d.i.c.kie. There was no other way with him. He was ornery.

You come and set down here in the big chair and I'll pull up the little one and we'll talk things over. Put your trust in me, Miss Sheila. I'm all heart. I wasn't called 'Pap' for nothing. You know what I am? I'm your guardian. Yes'm. And you just got to make up your mind to cast your care upon me, as the hymn says. Nary worry must you keep to yourself.

Come on now, kid, out with it. Get it off your chest."