A QUESTION OF DRESS.

One morning eight years later Flaxen left the home of Gearheart and Wood with old Doll and the buggy, bound for Belleplain after groceries for harvest. She drove with a dash, her hat on the back of her head. She was seemingly intent on getting all there was possible out of a chew of kerosene gum, which she had resolved to throw away upon entering town, intending to get a new supply.

She had thriven on Western air and gum, and though hardly more than fourteen years of age, her bust and limbs revealed the grace of approaching womanhood, however childish her short dress and braided hair might still show her to be. Her face was large and decidedly of Scandinavian type, fair in spite of wind and sun, and broad at the cheekbones. Her eyes were as blue and clear as winter ice.

As she rode along she sang as well as she could without neglecting the gum, sitting at one end of the seat like a man, the reins held carelessly in her left hand, notwithstanding the swift gait of the horse, who always knew when Flaxen was driving. She met a friend on the road, and said, "Hello!" pulling up her horse with one strong hand.

"Can't stop," she explained; "got to go over to the city to get some groceries for harvest. Goin' to the sociable to-morrow?"

"You bet," replied the friend, "You?"

"I d'know; mebbe, if the boys'll go. Ta-ta; see ye later." And away she spun.

Belleplain had not thriven, or, to be more exact, it had had a rise and fall; and as the rise had been considerable, so the fall was something worth chronicling. It was now a collection of wooden buildings, mostly empty, graying under the storms and suns of pitiless winters and summers, and now, just in mid-summer, surrounded by splendid troops and phalanxes of gorgeous sunflowers, whose brown crowns, gold-dusted, looked ever toward the sun as it swung through the wide arch of cloudless sky. The signs of the empty buildings still remained, and one might still read the melancholy decline from splendours of the past in "emporiums," "palace drug stores," and "mansion-houses."

As Flaxen would have said, "Belleplain's boom had bu'sted." Her glory had gone with the C., B. and Q., which formed the junction at Boomtown and left the luckless citizens of Belleplain "high and dry" on the prairie, with nothing but a "spur" to travel on. However, a few stores yet remained in the midst of desolation.

After making her other purchases, Flaxen entered the "red-front drug store" to secure the special brand of gum which seemed most delectable and to buy a couple of cigars for the "boys."

The clerk, who was lately from the East, and wore his moustache curled upward like the whiskers of a cat, was "gassing" with another young man, who sat in a chair with his heels on the counter.

"Well, my dear, what can I do for you to-day?" he said, winking at the loafer, as if to say, "Now watch me."

"I want some gum."

"What kind, darling?" he asked, encouraged by the fellow in the chair.

"I ain't your darling.—Kerosene, shoofly, an' ten cents' worth."

"Say, Jack," drawled the other fellow, "git onto the ankles! Say, sissy, you picked your dress too soon. She's goin' to be a daisy, first you know. Ain't y', honey?" he said, leaning over and pinching her arm.

"Let me alone, you great, mean thing! I'll tell ol' pap on you, see if I don't," cried Flaxen, her eyes filling with angry tears. And as they proceeded to other and bolder remarks she rushed out, feeling vaguely the degradation of being so spoken to and so touched. It seemed to become more atrocious the more she thought upon it.

When she reached home there were still signs of tears on her face, and when Anson came out to help her alight, and noticing it asked, "What's the matter?" she burst out afresh, crying, and talking incoherently. Anson was astonished.

"Why, what's the matter, Flaxie? Can't you tell ol' pap? Are ye sick?"

She shook her head, and rushed past him into the house and into her bedroom, like a little cyclone of wrath. Ans slowly followed her, much perplexed. She was lying face downward on the bed, sobbing.

"What's the matter, little one? Can't y' tell ol' pap? Have the girls be'n makin' fun o' yeh again?"

She shook her head.

"Have the boys be'n botherin' yeh?" No reply. "Who was it?" Still silence. He was getting stern now. "Tell me right now."

"Jack Reeves—an'—an' another feller."

"Wha' d' they do?" Silence. "Tell me." "They—pinched me, an'—an'—talked mean to me," she replied, breaking down again with the memory of the insult.

Anson began to understand.

"Wal, there! You dry y'r eyes, Flaxie, an' go an' git supper; they won't do it again—not this harvest," he added grimly as he marched to the door to enter the buggy.

Bert, coming along from the barn and seeing Anson about to drive away, asked where he was going. Anson tried to look indifferent.

"Oh, I've got a little business to transact with Reeves and some other smart Aleck downtown."

"What's up? What have they be'n doing?" asked Gearheart, reading trouble in the eyes of his friend.

"Well, they have be'n a little too fresh with Flaxen to-day, an' need a lesson."

"They're equal to it. Say, Anson, let me go," laying his hand on the dasher, ready to leap in.

"No: you're too brash. You wouldn't know when to quit. No: you stay right here. Don't say anything to Flaxen about it; if she wants to know where I'm gone, tell her I found I was out o' nails."

As Anson drove along swiftly he was in a savage mood and thinking deeply. Two or three times of late some of his friends had touched rather freely upon the fact that Flaxen was becoming a woman. "Girls ripen early out in this climate," one old chap had said, "and your little Norsk there is likely to leave you one of these days." He felt now that something deliberately and inexpressibly offensive had been said and done to his little girl. He didn't want to know just what it was, but just who did it; that was all. It was time to make a protest.

Hitching his horse to a ring in the sidewalk upon arrival, he walked into the drug store, which was also the post-office. Young Reeves was inside the post-office corner giving out the mail, and Anson sauntered about the store waiting his chance.

He was a dangerous-looking man just now. Ordinarily his vast frame, huge, grizzled beard, and stern, steady eyes would quell a panther; but now as he leaned against the counter a shrewd observer would have said, "Lookout for him; he's dangerous."

His gray shirt, loose at the throat, showed a neck that resembled the spreading base of an oak tree, and his crossed limbs and half-recumbent pose formed a curious opposition to the look in his eyes.

Nobody noticed him specially. Most comers and goers, being occupied with their mail, merely nodded and passed on.

Finally some one called for a cigar, and Reeves, having finished in the post-office department, came jauntily along behind the counter directly to where Anson stood. As he looked casually into the giant's eyes he started back, but too late; one vast hand had clutched him by the collar, and he was jerked over the counter and cuffed from hand to hand, like a mouse in the paws of a cat. Though Ans used his open palm, the punishment was fearful. Blood burst from his victim's nose and mouth; he yelled with fright and pain. The rest rushed to help.

"Stand back! This is a private affair," said Ans, throwing up a warning hand. They paused; all knew his strength.

"It wasn't me!" screamed Reeves as the punishment increased; "it was Doc Coe."

Coe, his hands full of papers and letters, horrified at what had overtaken Reeves, stood looking on. But now he tried to escape. Flinging the battered, half-senseless Reeves back over the counter, where he lay in a heap, Anson caught Coe by the coat just as he was rushing past him, and duplicated the punishment, ending by kicking him into the street, where he lay stunned and helpless. Ans said then, in a voice that the rest heard, "The next time you insult a girl, you'd better inquire into the qualities of her guardeen."

This little matter attended to, he unhitched his horse from the sidewalk, and refusing to answer any questions, rode off home, outwardly as calm as though he had just been shaking hands. Supper was about ready when he drove up, and through the open door he could see the white-covered table and could hear the cheerful clatter of dishes. Flaxen was whistling. Eight years of hard work had not done much for these sturdy souls, but they had managed to secure with incredible toil a comfortable little house surrounded with outbuildings. Calves and chickens gave life to the barn-yard, and fields of wheat rippled and ran with swash of heavy-bearded heads and dapple of shadow and sheen.

Flaxen was now the housewife and daughter of these hard-working pioneers, and a cheery and capable one she had become. No one had ever turned up with a better claim to her, and so she had grown up with Ans and Bert, going to school when she could spare the time, but mainly being adviser and associate at the farm.

Ans and Bert had worked hard winter and summer trying to get ahead, but had not succeeded as they had hoped. Crops had failed for three or four years, and money was scarce with them; but they had managed to build this small frame house and to get a little stock about them, and this year, with a good crop, would "swing clear," and be able to do something for Flaxen—perhaps send her to Belleplain to school, togged out like a little queen.

When Anson returned to the house after putting out the horse, he found Bert reading the paper in the little sitting-room and Flaxen putting the tea on the stove.

"Wha' d' y' do to him, pap?" laughed she, all her anger gone. Bert came out to listen.

"Oh, nothin' p'tic'lar," answered Ans, flinging his hat at a chicken that made as though to come in, and rolling up his sleeves preparatory to sozzling his face at the sink. "I jest cuffed 'em a little, an' let 'em go."

"Is that all?" said Flaxen, disappointedly, a comical look on her round face.

"Now, don't you worry," put in Bert. "Anson's cuffin' a man is rather severe experience. I saw him cuff a man once; it ain't anythin' to be desired a second time." They all drew about the table. Flaxen looked very womanly as she sat cutting the bread and pouring the tea. She had always been old in her ways about the house, for she had very early assumed the housewife's duties and cares. Her fresh-coloured face beamed with delight as she watched the hungry men devouring the fried pork, potatoes, and cheese.

"When y' goin' to begin cuttin', boys?" Collectively they were boys to her, but when addressing them separately they were "Bert" and "Pap."

"To-morrow 'r nex' day, I guess," answered Anson, looking out of the open door. "Don't it look fine—all yeller an' green? I tell ye they ain't anything lays over a ripe field o' wheat in my eyes. You jest take it when the sun strikes it right, an' the wind is playin' on it—when it kind o' sloshes around like water—an' the clouds go over it, droppin' shadders down on it, an' a hawk kind o' goes skimmin' over it, divin' into it once in a while—"

He did not finish; it was not necessary. "Yes, sir!" adjudged Gearheart, after a pause, leaning his elbows on the table and looking out of the door on the far-stretching, sun-glorified plain.

"The harvest kind o' justifies the winter we have out here. That is, when we have a harvest such as this. Fact is, we fellers live six months o' the year lookin' ahead to harvest, an' t'other six months lookin' back to it. Well, this won't buy the woman a dress, Ans. We must get that header set up to-night if we can."

They pushed their chairs back noisily and rose to go out. Flaxen said:

"Say, which o' you boys is goin' to help me churn to-night?"

Anson groaned, while she laughed.

"I don't know, Flax; ask us an easier one."

"We'll attend to that after it gets too dark to work on the machine," added Bert.

"Well, see 't y' do. I can't do it; I've got bread to mix an' a chicken to dress. Say, if you don't begin cuttin' till day after to-morrow, we can go down to the sociable to-morrow night. Last one o' the season."

"I wish it was the last one before the kingdom come," growled Bert as he "stomped" out the door. "They're a bad lot. The idea o' takin' down four dollars' worth o' grub an' then payin' four dollars for the privilege of eatin' half of it! I'll take my chicken here, when I'm hungry."

"Bert ain't partial to sociables, is he, pap?" laughed Flaxen.

"I should hate to have the minister dependin' on Bert for a livin'."

"Sa-ay, pap!"

"Wal, babe?"

"I expect I'll haf t' have a new dress one o' these days."

"Think so?"

"You bet."

"Why, what's the matter with the one y' got on? Ain't no holes in it that I can see," looking at it carefully and turning her around as if she were on a pivot.

"Well, ain't it purty short, pap?" she said suggestively. "I swear, I don't know but it is," conceded Anson, scratching his head; "I hadn't paid much 'tention to it before. It certainly is a lee-tle too short. Lemme see: ain't no way o' lettin' it down, is they?"

"Nary. She's clean down to the last notch now," replied Flaxen convincingly.

"Couldn't pull through till we thrash?" he continued, still in a tentative manner.

"Could, but don't like to," she answered, laughing again, and showing her white teeth pleasantly.

"I s'pose it'll cost suthin'," he insinuated in a dubious tone.

"Mattie Stuart paid seven dollars fer her'n, pap, an' I—"

"Seven how manys?"

"Dollars, pap, makin' an' everythin'. An' then I ought to have a new hat to go with the dress, an' a new pair o' shoes. All the girls are wearin' white, but I reckon I can git along with a good coloured one that'll do fer winter."

"Wal, all right. I'll fix it—some way," Ans said, turning away only to look back and smile to see her dancing up and down and crying:

"Oh, goody, goody!"

"I'll do it if I haf to borrow money at two per cent a month," said he to Bert, as he explained the case. "Hear her sing! Why, dern it! I'd spend all I've got to keep that child twitterin' like that. Wouldn't you, eh?"

Bert was silent, thinking deeply on a variety of matters suggested by Anson's words. The crickets were singing from out the weeds near by; a lost little wild chicken was whistling in plaintive sweetness down in the barley-field; the flaming light from the half-sunk sun swept along the green and yellow grain, glorifying as with a bath of gold everything it touched.

"I wish that grain hadn't ripened so fast, Ans. It's blightin'."

"Think so?"

"No: I know it. I went out to look at it before supper, an' every one of those spots that look so pretty are just simply burnin' up! But, say, ain't it a little singular that Flaxen should blossom out in a desire for a new dress all at once? Ain't it rather sudden?"

"Wal, no: I don't think it is. Come to look it all over, up one side an' down the other, she's been growin' about an inch a month this summer, an' her best dress is gittin' turrible short the best way you can fix it. She's gittin' to be 'most a woman, Bert."

"Yes: I know she is," said Bert, significantly. "An' something's got to be done right off."

"Wha' d' ye mean by that, ol' man?"

"I mean jest this. It's time we did something religious for that girl. She ain't had much chance since she's been here with us. She ain't had no chance at all. Now I move that we send her away to school this winter. Give her a good outfit an' send her away. This ain't no sort o' way for a girl to grow up in."

"Wal, I've be'n thinkin' o' that myself; but where'll we send her?"

"Oh, back to the States somewhere; Wisconsin or Minnesota—somewhere."

"Why not to Boomtown?" "Well, I'll tell yeh, Ans. I've been hearing a good 'eal off an' on about the way we're bringin' her up here 'alone with two rough old codgers,' an' I jest want to give her a better chance than the Territory affords. I want her to git free of us and all like us, for a while; let her see something of the world. Besides, that business over in Belleplain to-day kind o' settled me. The plain facts are, Ans, the people are a little too free with her because she is growin' up here—"

"I know some fellers that won't be again."

"Well, they are beginnin' to wink an' nudge each other an' to say—"

"Go on! What do they say?"

"They say she's goin' to be a woman soon; that this fatherly business is bound to play out."

"I'd like to see anybody wink when I'm around. I'd smash 'em!" said Anson through his set teeth. "Why, she's our little babe," he broke out, as the full significance of the matter came to him. "My little un; I'm her ol' pap. Why—" He ended in despair. "It's none o' their darn business."

"There ain't no use o' howlin', Ans. You can't smash a whole neighborhood."

"But what are we goin' to do?"

"Well, I'll tell ye what we mustn't do. We mustn't tog her out jest yet."

"Why not?" asked Anson, not seeing these subtle distinctions of time and place.

"Because, you tog her out this week or next, without any apparent reason, in a new hat an' dress an' gloves, an' go down to one o' these sociables with her, an' you'd have to clean out the whole crowd. They'd all be winkin' an' nudgin' an' grinnin'—see?"

"Wal, go on," said the crushed giant. "What'll we do?"

"Just let things go on as they are for the present till we git ready to send her to school."

"But I promised the togs."

"All right. I've stated the case," Gearheart returned, with the air of a man who washed his hands of the whole affair. Anson rose with a sudden gesture. "Jest hear her! whistlin' away like a lark. I don't see how I'm goin' to go in there an' spoil all her fun; I can't do it, that's all."

"Well, now, you leave it all to me. I'll state the case to her in a way that'll catch her—see if I don't. She ain't no common girl."

It was growing dark as they went in, and the girl's face could not be seen.

"Well, Bert, are y' ready to help churn?"

"Yes, I guess so, if Ans'll milk."

"Oh, he'll milk; he jest loves to milk ol' Brindle when the flies are thick."

"Oh, you bet," said Ans, to make her laugh.

"Now, Flaxen," coughed Gearheart in beginning, "we've been discussin' your case, an' we've come to the conclusion that you ought to have the togs specified in the indictment" (this to take away the gravity of what was to follow); "but we're kind o' up a tree about just what we'd better do. The case is this. We've got to buy a horse to fill out our team, an' that's a-goin' to take about all we can rake an' scrape."

"We may have to git our groceries on tick. Now, if you could only pull through till after—" Anson broke in.

"It's purty tough, Flaxie, an' pap's awful sorry; but if you could jest pull through—"

It was a great blow to poor little Flaxen, and she broke down and cried unrestrainedly.

"I—I—don't see why I can't have things like the rest o' the girls." It was her first reproach, and it cut to the heart. Anson swore under his breath, and was stepping forward to say something when Gearheart restrained him.

"But, y' see, Flaxie, we ain't askin' you to give up the dress, only to wait on us for a month or so, till we thrash."

"That's it, babe," said Anson, going over to where she sat, with her arms lying on the table and her face hidden upon them. "We could spend dollars then where we couldn't cents now." "And they won't be any more thingumyjigs at the church, anyhow, an' the wheat's blightin' on the knolls, besides."

But the first keen disappointment over, she was her brave self once more.

"Well, all right, boys," she said, her trembling voice curiously at variance with her words; "I'll get along somehow, but I tell you I'll have something scrumptious to pay for this—see if I don't." She was smiling again faintly, "It'll cost more'n one ten dollars for my togs, as you call 'em. Now, pap, you go an' milk that cow! An', Bert, you glue yerself to that churn-dasher, an' don't you stop to breathe or swear till it's done."

"That's the girl to have—that's our own Flaxie! She knows how hard things come on a farm," cheered Anson.

"I bet I do," she said, wiping away the last trace of her tears and smiling at her palpable hit. And then began the thump of the dasher, and out in the dusk Anson was whistling as he milked.

She went down to the sociable the next night in her old dress, and bravely looked happy for pap's sake. Bert did not go. Anson was a rather handsome old fellow. Huge, bearded like a Russian, though the colour of his beard was a wolf brindle, resembling a bunch of dry buffalo-grass, Bert was accustomed to say that he looked the father of the girl, for she had the same robust development, carried herself as erect, and looked everybody in the eye with the same laughing directness.

There were some sly remarks among a ribald few, but on the whole everything passed off as usual. They were both general favorites, and as a matter of fact few people remarked that Flaxen's dress was not good enough. She certainly forgot all about it, so complete was her absorption in the gayety of the evening.

"Wal, now for four weeks' hard times, Flaxen," said Anson, as they were jogging homeward about eleven o'clock.

"I can stand my share of it, pap," she stoutly replied. "I'm no chicken."