ALETHEA-BELLE

BY HORACE ANNESLEY VACHELL.

In the early eighties, when my brother Ajax and I were raising cattle in the foothills of Southern California, our ranch-house was used as a stopping-place by the teamsters hauling freight across the Coast Range; and after the boom began, while the village of Preston was evolving itself out of rough timber, we were obliged to furnish all comers with board and lodging. Hardly a day passed without some 'prairie schooner' (the canvas-covered wagon of the squatter) creaking into our corral; and the quiet gulches and cañons where Ajax and I had shot quail and deer began to re-echo to the shouts of the children of the rough folk from the mid-West and Missouri. These Pikers,' so called, settled thickly upon the sage-brush hills to the south and east of us, and took up all the land they could claim from the Government. Before spring was over, we were asked to lend an old adobe building to the village fathers, to be used as a schoolhouse, until the schoolhouse proper was built. At that time a New England family of the name of Spafford was working for us. Mrs. Spafford, having two children of her own, tried to enlist our sympathies.

'I'm kinder sick,' she told us, ' of cookin' an' teachin'; an' the hot weather's comin' on, too. You'd oughter let 'em hev that old adobe.'

'But who will teach the children?' we asked.

'We've fixed that,' said Mrs. Spafford. "Tain't everyone as 'd want to come into this wilderness, but my auntie's cousin, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, is willin' to take the job.'

'Is she able?' we asked doubtfully.

She's her father's daughter,' Mrs. Spafford replied. 'Abram Buchanan was as fine an' brave a man as ever preached the Gospel. An' clever, too. My sakes, he never done but one foolish thing, and that was when he merried his wife.'

'Tell us about her,' said that inveterate gossip, Ajax.

Mrs. Spafford sniffed.

'I seen her once that was once too much fer me. One o'

Copyright, 1905, by Horace Annesley Vachell, in the United States of America.

them lackadaisical, wear-a-wrapper-in-the-mornin', soft, pulpy Southerners. Pretty-yes, in a spindlin', pink an' white soonwashed-out pattern, but without backbone. I've no patience with sech.'

'Her daughter won't be able to halter-break these wild colts.'

'Didn't I say that Alethea-Belle took after her father? She must hev consid'able snap an' nerve, fer she's put in the last year, sence Abram died, in sellin' books in this State.'

'A book agent?'

'Yes, sir, a book agent.'

If Mrs. Spafford had said road agent, which means highwayman in California, we could not have been more surprised. A successful book agent must have the hide of a rhinoceros, the guile of a serpent, the obstinacy of a mule, and the persuasive notes of a nightingale.

'If Miss Buchanan has been a book agent, she'll do,' said Ajax.

She arrived at Preston on the ramshackle old stage-coach late one Saturday afternoon. Ajax and I carried her small hair-trunk into the ranch-house; Mrs. Spafford received her. We retreated to the corrals.

She'll never, never do,' said Ajax. 'Never,' said I.

Alethea-Belle Buchanan looked about eighteen; and her face was white as the dust that lay thick upon her grey linen cloak. Under the cloak we had caught a glimpse of a thin, slab-chested figure. She wore thread gloves, and said 'I thank you' in a prim, New England accent.

'Depend upon it, she's had pie for breakfast ever since she was born,' said Ajax, ' and it's not agreed with her. She'll keep a foothill school in order just about two minutes-and no longer!'

At supper, however, she surprised us. She was very plainfeatured, but the men-the rough teamsters, for instance-could not keep their eyes off her. She was the most amazing mixture of boldness and timidity I had ever met. We were about to plump ourselves down at table, for instance, when Miss Buchanan, folding her hands and raising her eyes, said grace; but to our first questions she replied, blushing, in timid monosyllables.

After supper, Mrs. Spafford and she washed up. Later, they brought their sewing into the sitting-room. While we were trying to thaw the little schoolmarm's shyness, a mouse ran across the

floor. In an instant Miss Buchanan was on her chair. The mouse ran round the room and vanished; the girl who had been sent to Preston to keep in order the turbulent children of the foothills stepped down from her chair.

'I'm scared to death of mice,' she confessed.

My brother Ajax scowled.

Fancy sending that whey-faced little coward-here!' he whispered to me.

'Have you taught school before?' I asked.

'Oh, yes, indeed,' she answered; and I know something of your foothill folks. I've been a book agent. Oh, indeed? You know that. Well, I did first-rate, but that was the book, which sold itself a beautiful book. Maybe you know it-" The Milk of Human Kindness"? When we're better acquainted, I'd like to read you,' she looked hard at Ajax, 'some o' my favourite passages.' 'Thanks,' said Ajax stiffly.

Next day was Sunday. At breakfast the schoolmarm asked Ajax if there was likely to be a prayer-meeting. "A prayer-meeting, Miss Buchanan ? '

'It's the Sabbath, you know.'

'Yes-er-so it is. Well, you see,' he smiled feebly, 'the cathedral isn't built yet.'

'Why, what's the matter with the schoolhouse? I presume you're all church-members?'

Her grey eyes examined each of us in turn, and each made confession. One of the teamsters was a Baptist; another a Latterday Adventist; the Spaffords were Presbyterians; we, of course, belonged to the Church of England.

'We ought to have a prayer-meeting,' said the little school

marm.

'Yes; we did oughter,' assented Mrs. Spafford.

'I kin pray first-rate whin I git started,' said the Baptist

teamster.

The prayer-meeting took place. Afterwards Ajax said to me : 'She's very small, is whey-face, but somehow she seemed to fill the adobe.'

In the afternoon we had an adventure which gave us further insight into the character and temperament of the new school

marm.

We all walked to Preston across the home pasture, for Miss Buchanan was anxious to inspect the site-there was nothing else

then-of the proposed schoolhouse. Her childlike simplicity and assurance in taking for granted that she would eventually occupy that unbuilt academy struck us as pathetic.

'I give her one week,' said Ajax, 'not a day more.'

Coming back we called a halt under some willows near the creek. The shade invited us to sit down.

'Are there snakes-rattlesnakes?' Miss Buchanan asked nervously.

'In the brush-hills-yes; here-no,' replied my brother.

By a singular coincidence, the words were hardly out of his mouth when we heard the familiar warning, the whirring, never-tobe-forgotten sound of the beast known to the Indians as 'death in the grass.'

'Mercy!' exclaimed the schoolmarm, staring wildly about her. It is not easy to localise the exact position of a coiled rattlesnake by the sound of his rattle.

'Don't move!' said Ajax. 'Ah, I see him! There he is! I must find a stick.'

The snake was coiled some half-dozen yards from us. Upon the top coil was poised his hideous head; above it vibrated the bony, fleshless vertebræ of the tail. The little schoolmarm stared at the beast, fascinated by fear and horror. Ajax cut a switch from a willow; then he advanced, smiling.

'Oh !' entreated Miss Buchanan, 'please don't go so near.' Ajax stopped laughing.

'There's no danger,' he said. 'I've never been able to understand why rattlers inspire such terror. They can't strike except at objects within half their length, and one little tap, as you will see, breaks their backbone. Now watch! I'm going to provoke this chap to strike; and then I shall kill him.'

He held the end of the stick about eighteen inches from the glaring, lidless eyes. With incredible speed the poised head shot forth. Ajax laughed. The snake was recoiling, as he struck it on the neck. Instantly it writhed impotently. My brother set the heel of his heavy boot upon the skull, crushing it into the ground. 'Now let's sit down,' said he.

'Hark!' cried the little schoolmarm.

Another snake was rattling within a yard or two of the first. 'It's the mate,' said I. 'At this time of year they run in We ought to have thought of that.'

pairs.

'I'll have him in a jiffy,' said my brother.

As he spoke I happened to be watching the schoolmarm. Her face was painfully white, but her eyes were shining, and her lips set above a small, resolute chin.

'It's easy enough, but one mustn't-er-miss.'
'I sha'n't miss.'

She took the willow stick from my brother's hand. Every movement of his she reproduced exactly, even to the setting of her heel upon the serpent's head. Then she smiled at us apologetically.

'I hated to do it. I was scared to death, but I wanted to conquer that cowardly Belle. It's just as you say, they're killed mighty easy. If we could kill the Old Serpent as easy—' she sighed, not finishing the sentence.

Ajax, who has a trick of saying what others think, blurted out: 'What do you mean by conquering—Belle ? '

We sat down.

'My name is Alethea-Belle, a double name. Father wanted to call me Alethea; but mother fancied Belle. Father, you know, was a Massachusetts minister; mother came from way down south. She died when I was a child. She-she was not very strong, poor mother, but father,' she spoke proudly, father was the best man that ever lived.'

All her self-consciousness had vanished. Somehow we felt that the daughter of the New England parson was speaking, not the Ichild of the invertebrate Southerner.

'I had to take to selling books,' she continued, speaking more to herself than to us, 'because of Belle. That miserable girl got into debt. Father left her a little money. Belle squandered it sinfully on clothes and pleasure. She'd a rose silk dress

'A rose silk dress,' repeated Ajax.

'It was just too lovely-that dress,' said the little schoolmarm, reflectively.

'Even Alethea could not resist that,' said I.

She blushed, and her shyness, her awkwardness, returned. 'Alethea had to pay for it,' she replied primly. 'I ask your pardon for speaking so foolishly and improperly of—myself.'

After this, behind her back, Ajax and I invariably called her Alethea-Belle.