One of Ours - Willa Cather (great book club books .TXT) 📗

as soon as he was out of his crate. Consequently all the lambs were born at the wrong season; came at the beginning of March, in a blinding blizzard, and the mothers died from exposure. The gallant Trevor took horse and spurred all over the county, from one little settlement to another, buying up nursing bottles and nipples to feed the orphan lambs.

The rich bottom land about the Trevor place had been rented out to a truck gardener for years now; the comfortable house with its billiard-room annex⁠—a wonder for that part of the country in its day⁠—remained closed, its windows boarded up. It sat on the top of a round knoll, a fine cottonwood grove behind it. Tonight, as Claude drove toward it, the hill with its tall straight trees looked like a big fur cap put down on the snow.

“Why hasn’t someone bought that house long ago and fixed it up?” Enid remarked. “There is no building site around here to compare with it. It looks like the place where the leading citizen of the town ought to live.”

“I’m glad you like it, Enid,” said Bayliss in a guarded voice. “I’ve always had a sneaking fancy for the place myself. Those fellows back there never wanted to sell it. But now the estate’s got to be settled up. I bought it yesterday. The deed is on its way to Hartford for signature.”

Enid turned round in her seat. “Why Bayliss, are you in earnest? Think of just buying the Trevor place offhand, as if it were any ordinary piece of real estate! Will you make over the house, and live there some day?”

“I don’t know about living there. It’s too far to walk to my business, and the road across this bottom gets pretty muddy for a car in the spring.”

“But it’s not far, less than a mile. If I once owned that spot, I’d surely never let anybody else live there. Even Carrie remembers it. She often asks in her letters whether anyone has bought the Trevor place yet.”

Carrie Royce, Enid’s older sister, was a missionary in China.

“Well,” Bayliss admitted, “I didn’t buy it for an investment, exactly. I paid all it was worth.”

Enid turned to Gladys, who was apparently not listening. “You’d be the one who could plan a mansion for Trevor Hill, Gladys. You always have such original ideas about houses.”

“Yes, people who have no houses of their own often seem to have ideas about building,” said Gladys quietly. “But I like the Trevor place as it is. I hate to think that one of them is dead. People say they did have such good times up there.”

Bayliss grunted. “Call it good times if you like. The kids were still grubbing whiskey bottles out of the cellar when I first came to town. Of course, if I decide to live there, I’ll pull down that old trap and put up something modern.” He often took this gruff tone with Gladys in public.

Enid tried to draw the driver into the conversation. “There seems to be a difference of opinion here, Claude.”

“Oh,” said Gladys carelessly, “it’s Bayliss’ property, or soon will be. He will build what he likes. I’ve always known somebody would get that place away from me, so I’m prepared.”

“Get it away from you?” muttered Bayliss, amazed.

“Yes. As long as no one bought it and spoiled it, it was mine as much as it was anybody’s.”

“Claude,” said Enid banteringly, “now both your brothers have houses. Where are you going to have yours?”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever have one. I think I’ll run about the world a little before I draw my plans,” he replied sarcastically.

“Take me with you, Claude!” said Gladys in a tone of sudden weariness. From that spiritless murmur Enid suspected that Bayliss had captured Gladys’ hand under the buffalo robe.

Grimness had settled down over the sleighing party. Even Enid, who was not highly sensitive to unuttered feelings, saw that there was an uncomfortable constraint. A sharp wind had come up. Bayliss twice suggested turning back, but his brother answered, “Pretty soon,” and drove on. He meant that Bayliss should have enough of it. Not until Enid whispered reproachfully, “I really think you ought to turn; we’re all getting cold,” did he realize that he had made his sleighing party into a punishment! There was certainly nothing to punish Enid for; she had done her best, and had tried to make his own bad manners less conspicuous. He muttered a blundering apology to her when he lifted her from the sleigh at the mill house. On his long drive home he had bitter thoughts for company.

He was so angry with Gladys that he hadn’t been able to bid her good night. Everything she said on the ride had nettled him. If she meant to marry Bayliss, then she ought to throw off this affectation of freedom and independence. If she did not mean to, why did she accept favours from him and let him get into the habit of walking into her house and putting his box of candy on the table, as all Frankfort fellows did when they were courting? Certainly she couldn’t make herself believe that she liked his society!

When they were classmates at the Frankfort High School, Gladys was Claude’s aesthetic proxy. It wasn’t the proper thing for a boy to be too clean, or too careful about his dress and manners. But if he selected a girl who was irreproachable in these respects, got his Latin and did his laboratory work with her, then all her personal attractions redounded to his credit. Gladys had seemed to appreciate the honour Claude did her, and it was not all on her own account that she wore such beautifully ironed muslin dresses when they went on botanical expeditions.

Driving home after that miserable sleigh-ride, Claude told himself that in so far as Gladys was concerned he could make up his mind to the fact that he had been “stung” all along. He had