Clever Betsy

Rosalie looked off at the distant mountains, and then back at the nape of Miss Maynard’s pretty neck, and began to wonder if she was as lonely as herself. Apparently Mrs. Nixon addressed no one except her son, and Rosalie guessed that Miss Maynard, placed behind her employer’s cold shoulder, was in reality as far removed from her as she herself felt with regard to her neighbor.

The beautiful, beautiful world! Rosalie sighed and leaned forward, the better to get the splendid sweep of vale and mountain, and suddenly caught the eyes of Robert Nixon, his arm thrown along the back of the seat as he turned to converse with his mother. Rosalie shrank back into her corner. Betsy Foster might turn around, too!

CHAPTER VII

THE NATIONAL PARK

Perched on the driver’s seat, with Irving beside her, Mrs. Bruce was as near the zenith of contentment as falls to the lot of mortal.

The driver himself, philosopher as he was, discovered in the first three miles that it would not be necessary for him to volunteer any information, as everything he knew would be extracted from him, down to the last dregs of supposition.

“Three thousand feet of ascent in a mile, Irving! Think of it!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce, as they neared the Hoodoo Rocks.

“I’d rather think of an ascent of one thousand feet in three miles,” returned Irving. “It’s less strain on the brain.”

The driver gave him an appreciative glance across Mrs. Bruce’s smart traveling hat.

“Oh, is that it?” she rejoined. “Perhaps I did get it a little twisted.”

Here they came in full view of the desert of gaunt, pallid trees, amid the gigantic Hoodoo Rocks.

“Oh, what a dreadful scene!” exclaimed Mrs. Bruce. “Such a dreary stretch of death and desolation! Driver, why do they allow such a thing in the Park?”

A hunted expression came into the driver’s eyes. He had been gradually growing more and more mechanical in his replies. Now he maintained a stony silence.

“If I were here at night, alone,” continued Mrs. Bruce, “I should go straight out of my mind! I’m so temperamental I could not – I really could not bear it;” and she shuddered.

“Then I positively forbid your coming here alone at night,” declared Irving. “We must preserve your mind, Madama, at all costs.”

“But it’s a blot on the Park. It’s more suggestive than the worst Doré picture. Boo!” Mrs. Bruce shuddered again, and looked fearfully at the dead forest, sparse and wild, rearing its barkless trunks amid the giant rocks of wild and threatening form. “The government ought to do something about it.”

“You flatter Uncle Sam,” said Irving. “I don’t think any one else expects him to move mountains.”

“Well, they might train vines over it,” suggested Mrs. Bruce; and the driver burst into some sound which ended in a fit of coughing, while Irving laughed.

The sudden beauty of the scenery diverted Mrs. Bruce from her plans for reform. Her enthusiasm over the view led her to turn and look down to catch Betsy’s eye.

“Are you seeing?” she cried.

Betsy nodded several times to express appreciation.

“It’s just like life, isn’t it?” went on Mrs. Bruce pensively to her son. “Full of startling contrasts. Do you know, Irving, I think Mr. Nixon is talking to Betsy?”

“No doubt he remembers her,” returned Irving. “He has seen her as often as he has you.”

“That’s true; but it’s nice of him, just the same.”

Irving smiled. “Nixie’s got to talk,” he remarked.

“But you know,” said Mrs. Bruce, “there are snobs in the world.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“I like Mr. Nixon, anyway,” she went on argumentatively. “It isn’t necessary for a man to be handsome.”

Irving sighed. “What a blessed relief that you think so, Madama! Otherwise I’m sure you’d call upon the Creator, and make it a subject of prayer.”

“Irving, you’re making fun of me.”

“You know, Madama, that I never did such a thing.”

The stage drew to a standstill. Rosalie Vincent’s eyes were starry as she looked in worshipful silence, and she momentarily forgot her situation.

Miss Hickey gazed and chewed.

“I’ve got to have me a new apron,” she said. “A chump in the kitchen burned one o’ mine yesterday.”

The stage moved on and paused again in the picturesque pass that leads to the Golden Gate, while all eyes rested upon the Rustic Waterfall, whose tuneful grace as it leaps from ledge to ledge down the worn rock, speaks of life and beauty, striking after the desolation just passed.

Mrs. Bruce’s suspended accusation was repeated as the horses started. “You do make fun of me, Irving,” she said.

“No, no,” he returned. “I simply recognize your spirit of knight-errantry. Glorious business.” He smiled at her. “Journeying through the world and righting wrongs as you go.”

“I really do think the vines would be a lovely idea,” she declared; and the driver coughed again.

“See how the Hoodoos prepared you to revel in the present beauty,” said Irving. “You just said that it wasn’t necessary for all men to be handsome. Same thing applies to landscape, doesn’t it?”

“But his mother is very handsome, I think,” replied Mrs. Bruce, her butterfly habit of mind coming in play; “and that gentleman, – did he say – ”

“Are you talking about Nixie? Oh yes, his mother is grande dame, and I’ve heard him speak of that uncle, Mr. Derwent, often. He’s the capitalist of the family, I believe.”

“The girl,” went on Mrs. Bruce, “seems to be a companion. I noticed Mrs. Nixon didn’t say much to her.”

“Is that the sign of companionship?” asked Irving. “Something for you to fix, Madama.”

“She’s a very ladylike looking girl,” replied Mrs. Bruce.

“Nixie’ll talk to her all right if she has ears,” remarked Irving.

“It’s very nice of him to be nice to Betsy. Who else is in the stage?”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Driver,” Mrs. Bruce turned to her bureau of information, “did you notice who is on the back seat of our stage?”

The driver’s imperturbable lips parted. “They put two heavers in there, I believe,” he replied.

“Who?” Mrs. Bruce spoke in italics.

“Waitresses from the hotel. They move them sometimes with the crowd.”

Mrs. Bruce kept silence a moment to recover the shock. The presence of the Nixon party still proved the respectability of the last stage, however.

“Heavers! Is that your slang out here?” she asked at last, and laughed. “I hope that isn’t descriptive of the way we’re going to be waited on, Irving.”

Rosalie’s heart fluttered again on leaving the stage at Norris Basin; but the celerity with which the experienced Miss Hickey hurried her into the hotel to take up their duties aided her wish to be unnoticed. The verandas were alive with passengers already arrived, all ravenous from hours of coaching in the mountain air.

At last Rosalie, in her white gown and apron, stood in her appointed place, and the crowds began to be let into the dining-room. Miss Hickey was at some distance from Rosalie, and the latter felt a little hysterical rise in her throat in the knowledge that the snapping black eyes were watching for Irving Bruce.

The Nixon party came before the Bruces, and Mr. Derwent spied Rosalie and hastened his dignified footsteps toward her table.

“The waitress we had this morning,” he said to Mrs. Nixon. “She has a head on her.”

“Sounds alluringly like champagne,” murmured Robert to Miss Maynard, who ignored him.

Rosalie involuntarily gave a shy smile as Mr. Derwent nodded at her. She could have embraced them all in her gladness to be delivered from waiting on the Bruces, who now entered, and, tragical to relate, fell short of Miss Hickey’s table. That damsel, however, being at once overwhelmed with orders from a famished group, had no time to mourn.

Mr. Derwent looked with pleasant eyes at Rosalie when he ordered his soup.

“You enjoyed the drive over,” he said. “There are roses in your cheeks.”

“Yes, sir. Consommé?” returned Rosalie faintly, the blush roses referred to deepening to Jacqueminot.

Robert glanced up and saw that this was the fair girl who had kept so still behind her veil on the back seat all the morning.

“I take my hat off to Uncle Henry,” he said, again addressing Helen Maynard, who was seated beside him. “He can see more out of the back of his head than I can with my eyes.”

“I will order for us both,” said Mrs. Nixon to Rosalie; and forthwith proceeded to do so with an air which forbade levity.

When Rosalie had received her orders and hastened from the room, Robert again unburdened himself.

“If I could get at that rubber ear of Uncle Henry’s,” he remarked to his demure neighbor, “I’d tell him he was a sad dog. A very good thing he brought me on this trip.”

“Mr. Derwent’s eyes mean more to him than ours do to us, naturally,” returned Helen.

“And I tell you,” returned Robert devoutly, “anybody endears himself to Uncle Henry who brings his coffee just right. That blonde must have done it this morning. How,” turning to his mother, “does my mother enjoy democratic traveling? This girl is a peach; but you should see the other one that was with her this morning in the coach. Did you?”

“No,” returned Mrs. Nixon coldly. “Why should I trouble myself about my neighbors? I came to see the scenery.”

“Well,” Robert shrugged his shoulders, “all is, you’ve missed a chance to see how a perfect lady should behave. Her gum-manners were a dream; but cheer up! You’ll have a chance this afternoon, doubtless.”

Here Rosalie brought the soup. Helen Maynard looked up at her and received a strange impression of familiarity.

“She looks like some one,” she said softly. “Who is it?”

“I know,” responded Robert promptly, “Hebe.”

“I haven’t met her yet,” returned Helen. “I’m climbing the mount of Olympus by slow and easy stages.”

“Now if you mean anything about me,” returned Robert briskly, “speak right out. I can’t cope with clever people. If you’re clever, I’m done for.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Helen softly. “Lambeth!”

“Is that any relative to shibboleth?” effervesced Robert. “Because I can say it. See? Better let me in.”

“Lambeth is a school,” returned Helen, and stole another look at their busy waitress; “a school where I went.”

Irving Bruce had Betsy on his right hand, but Mrs. Bruce absorbed him; and Betsy sat looking before her, idly waiting for her meal. Her roving glance fell suddenly on Rosalie’s blond head as the girl was leaving the dining-room.

“Why, that looked like Rosalie Vincent,” she reflected; then thought no more of it until later, when, her eyes again roving to that table, she obtained a full view of the fair-haired waitress as the girl refilled Mr. Derwent’s glass.

Betsy held her knife and fork poised, while her steady-going heart contracted for a second. “That is Rosalie Vincent!” She held the exclamation well inside, and looked at her neighbors. They had evidently noticed nothing, and Betsy devoutly hoped they would not. It was doubtful whether Mrs. Bruce would recognize her protégée in any case; but instinctively Betsy desired to prevent her from doing so; and contrary to her habit of speaking only when she was spoken to, she began commenting on the scenery; and Mrs. Bruce was impressed with the unusual docility and willingness to be enlightened displayed by her stiff-necked maid, whose thoughts were busy during the whole of her mistress’s patronizing information.

“And some time, Betsy,” finished Mrs. Bruce, “I will show you some pictures by a great artist named Doré, illustrating the Inferno, and you will be reminded of the Hoodoo Rocks.”

Betsy listened and replied so respectfully that her mistress remarked on it afterwards to Irving.

“All this travel is developing that hard, narrow New England mind of Betsy’s,” she said. “You can see it.”

And all the time Miss Foster was in a mild Inferno of her own, for her heart had always warmed to Rosalie Vincent, who used frequently to make her the confidante of her small hopes and fears, and whose sunny, confiding nature had endeared her to Betsy, and often aroused an unspoken sympathy in the sordid conditions of the girl’s lot.

Betsy’s one ambition now was to get the Bruces out of the dining-room before Mrs. Bruce should discover where the wings she had bestowed upon Rosalie had fluttered.

“I won’t try to see the child,” thought Betsy, “but I’ll write to her as soon as we get away from here.” She cast a furtive glance at the young girl. “She looks like one o’ these pretty actresses,” she thought, “rigged up to wait on table on the stage.”

She saw that Rosalie was keeping an eye on the Bruce party, and nervous in the fear of recognition; and this added to her relief when, Mrs. Bruce’s appetite satisfied, she begged Irving to hurry so that they might view the smoking wonders without.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BLONDE HEAVER

“Isn’t it remarkable,” asked Mrs. Bruce, “that we were just talking about the Inferno?”

She, with her companions, had come down from the hotel into the hissing, steaming tract of the Norris Basin.

Deep rumblings were in their ears. Narrow plank-walks formed a footing amid innumerable tiny boiling springs, while the threatening roar of larger ebullitions and the heavy sulphurous odors of the air gave every indication that here indeed was the gateway to that region where our forefathers believed that the unlucky majority paid the uttermost farthing.

The Nixons had also elected to walk through the Basin, meeting the stage at a point farther on.

“Say, Brute,” called Robert, “doesn’t this beat New Year’s for the time, the place, and the good resolution?”

Mrs. Nixon’s nostrils dilated in disgust at the evil smells.

Irving caught a glimpse of her expression.

“Mrs. Nixon is making up her mind never again to do anything wrong,” he remarked.

“I always said my Hades would be noise,” she replied, “but I begin to think it will be odors.”

“I always said mine would be dirt,” declared Mrs. Bruce, “but I believe I’d prefer that to being boiled. Irving, don’t you let go of me. This is the wickedest place I ever saw. Those little sizzling springs are just hissing to catch my feet.”

The party stopped to watch the heavy plop-plop of a mud geyser.

“Now,” said Robert, “while we’re all thinking on our sins and properly humble, is the time to get acquainted. Mrs. Bruce, this is my mother, and my uncle Mr. Derwent, and Miss Maynard; and Mr. Bruce you all know by reputation.”

Betsy had moved to a remote corner of the geyser.

“I never know just how to address that member of your party,” said Robert to Irving.

The latter smiled. “She would tell you she was just Betsy. She’s such a good soul that down East, in the village where she comes from, they call her Clever Betsy; and she’s all that New England means by the adjective, and all that Old England means, too.”

Meanwhile Rosalie Vincent was making her hasty preparations for another move, and to her came Miss Hickey in a state of high satisfaction.

“I’m staying, Baby,” she cried, her eyes snapping. “I guess there must be a lot of lay-overs. Anyway they need me, and there’s a Swattie ball to-night. Hurray!” Miss Hickey executed a triumphant two-step and knocked over a chair.

Rosalie seized her arm. “Can’t I stay too, then?” she asked anxiously.

“No, you can’t, Blue-eyes. You’re to go.”

“Oh, you go and let me stay!” begged Rosalie nervously.

“And lose the ball?” exclaimed Miss Hickey. “Well, believe me, you’ve got nerve!”

Rosalie looked as if she were going to cry, and Miss Hickey’s good-nature prompted a bit of comfort.

“Besides, if you’re afraid of the lock-up, this is your chance to side-step those folks. More’n as like as not they’re among the lay-overs.”

At this consideration Rosalie did brighten, and when the last stage came around, Miss Hickey was present to speed the parting heaver whose apprehensive glance about her saw no familiar figure.

“Oh, they are staying, Miss Hickey!” she exclaimed, in hushed tones.

The sophisticated Miss Hickey did not respond, but nodded affably to the driver.

Rosalie breathed a relieved farewell as she left the big-boned bulwark of her friend and obeyed the agent’s signal to enter the back seat of the stage. The vehicle was empty but for a stout man with a field glass strapped across his shoulders who mounted to the seat beside the driver, and they started.

The whole stage to herself! Rosalie could scarcely believe it.

She listened to the strange noises in the air and watched the steam which, mounting high, would make one believe that the locality was alive with factories. The girl’s curious gaze roamed about, and she thought wistfully of such travelers as might visit at their leisure the wonders about her.

There were great beauties, however, even for a heaver to enjoy. The morning’s ride had been a keen pleasure in the intervals of her embarrassment. The profusion of wild flowers; monk’s-hood, hare-bells, and Indian paintbrush, had fed her eyes with their splashes of color; and the behavior of the wild animals made one think of the millennium. Sure of protection from being hunted and slain, the chipmunks sat up on their hind legs close to the road, to watch the stage go by, clasping their tiny hands beneath their chins, like children in ecstasy at seeing a pretty show. Frequently one would be seen sitting up and nibbling the seeds from a long stem of grass, which he held in such a manner that he appeared to be playing a flute. A big marmot here and there lay along a bough or rock, turning his head lazily to view the tourists through his Eden. Boiling springs and boiling rivers, hill, vale, mountain, and waterfall – all these had Rosalie enjoyed, even with the fear that the Bruces would turn around; and now! Think of making one stage of the picturesque journey with no companion but her own thoughts! It seemed too good to be true; and she soon found that indeed it was so.

The driver drew his horses to a walk, and Rosalie perceived that many of the other stages were in sight, some of them stopping, and that tourists were entering them from the roadside.

Soon it became the turn of the last stage, and Rosalie’s heart bounded to recognize all the companions of the morning.

She saw Mrs. Bruce gaze sharply at the stout man in her seat by the driver.

“Won’t your mother go up there, Nixie?” asked Irving.

Mrs. Nixon refusing, her son put Miss Maynard up, the young woman climbing to the place with alacrity.

Rosalie turned her head to gaze fixedly at the other side of the road. She grew warm as she felt some one climb into the seat beside her, but did not turn her head back, even when the coach started.

Finding herself not addressed, presently she turned about and looked squarely into the eyes of Betsy Foster.

“How do you do, Rosalie?” said the latter composedly.

“O Betsy!” exclaimed the girl softly, and seized the older woman’s hand with an appealing grasp.

Betsy gave her one-sided smile, and Rosalie’s eyes filled.

“You don’t seem surprised!” she said unsteadily.

“I am, though,” returned Betsy. “I supposed we’d left you behind at Norris.”

“You saw me there! Did the – did Mrs. Bruce?”

Betsy shook her head. “No; and she hasn’t yet; but I was thinkin’ about you as we came up to the stage, and when all of a sudden I saw you, I thought I’d get in here.”

The Nixon party were directly in front of them, and the Bruces in the next seat, and all were conversing busily among themselves.

“I’m so glad to see you, Betsy, that I can hardly bear it;” and a bright tear rolled swiftly down Rosalie’s cheek, as she leaned back in her corner to regain her self-control.

“I’ve thought about you considerable,” returned Betsy, “and I haven’t been any too easy.”

“I told Mrs. Pogram, I promised her, that if I were in any trouble I would write. How kind of you!” with a sudden burst of gratitude and a continued clinging to Betsy’s slender fingers. “How kind of you to care!”

“Of course I cared, child,” returned the other.

“And you saw me being a waitress!”

“Yes. First-rate idea for college boys,” answered Betsy quietly. “It’s quite the fashion for a lot of ’em to help themselves through school that way. I don’t know about it exactly for girls in a strange land, – little country girls that don’t know anything about the world; I don’t know whether I like it or not.”

“It’s a good way to see the world,” said Rosalie, without enthusiasm.

“Yes; and ain’t it a beautiful one out here? Is that what you did it for, Rosalie?”

“Partly – not exactly. I was getting away from Loomis.”

Betsy nodded. “I heard he pestered you.”

Rosalie looked off reminiscently. “I didn’t tell Auntie Pogram, because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings; but the reason Loomis began being so unkind to me was because I wouldn’t marry him.”

“I suspected as much,” said Betsy.

“So long as he was Auntie Pogram’s brother I knew there was no hope of escaping him if I stayed there, and so – I ran away. It was selfish. My conscience has never felt easy; but I couldn’t endure his insults.”

“I suppose not,” returned Betsy. Her tone was quiet, but there were sparks in her usually inexpressive eyes, and had Loomis Brown suddenly appeared it might have gone ill with his rapidly thinning hair.

“What did you do? How did you manage to get so far from home?” continued Betsy.

“I first went to a boarding-house that I knew of in Portland, and there I met a lady who had been taken ill and wanted to go back to her home in Chicago; but she had a little child and didn’t feel able to travel with him alone; so she agreed to pay my fare to Chicago if I would help her home. I didn’t know how I would ever get back, but it was getting away from Loomis, so I went. On the train I met a woman who spoke of a place in Chicago where they took girls to wait on table in the Yellowstone; so as soon as I could, I applied, and they took me and sent me out here.”

“And do you like it?” asked Betsy, eyeing the mignonne face closely.

“No, of course I don’t like it, exactly, and I’ve been frightened ever since I saw you all at the Mammoth Hot Springs, for I was sure Mrs. Bruce would be disgusted with me. She expected me to make some use of her kindness.”

“Don’t worry,” returned Betsy dryly. “She’s short-sighted, and ten to one she won’t see you; and if she does, she probably won’t remember you.”

“I may yet, you know,” said Rosalie eagerly, “I may yet reward her kindness; but I had no money, so I couldn’t stop to see about any school position; and besides, Loomis lives in Portland.”

“Oh, don’t bother about him,” said Betsy carelessly. “One donkey more or less that you meet in the street isn’t goin’ to affect you. He’ll be busy wavin’ his long ears at Mrs. Pogram’s new help; for she’ll have to get somebody. I went to see her just before we left, and heard the whole story.”

Rosalie laughed softly, and her eyes filled again. “O Betsy, it’s so long since I laughed!” she said; and her tone was so earnest and sad that Betsy averted her head and saw the scenery through a blur. “I was in the stage all this morning. It’s a wonder you didn’t feel how longingly I looked at the back of your head.”

“You were?” asked Betsy, surprised. “Are you goin’ with us all the way?”

“I don’t know. I may be left anywhere. I thought I had left you this time and hoped so, Betsy, because I was afraid of Mrs. Bruce; but oh, how glad I am now! for it’s such a comfort to see you, since you’re not angry with me.”

“Not a bit,” replied Miss Foster, going to the length of patting the hand that held hers. “I would be, though, if you’d gone off and didn’t write me or let me know where you were; but you didn’t know that we were home.”

“No. That’s why I was so startled to see you at the Hot Springs. I had thought I was thousands of miles from any one who knew me.”

“I shan’t lose track of you again,” declared Betsy quietly.

“O Betsy, do you care?” The girl drew closer to her neighbor’s angular shoulder. The expression in her lovely eyes disconcerted Betsy as she met it. “There isn’t any one else in the world to care. I’ve had lots of time since I left Chicago to think how alone I am, and I’ve been as disappointed in myself as Mrs. Bruce could be because I’m not brave about it. There have been moments at night when I was sorry, Loomis and all, that I ever left Fairport.”