The Right Thing

The girl stood quiet in the cabin doorway looking out at the brilliant, frosty night. Over Sugar Loaf the cold, glittering moon shone full; the big fir on its summit stood stark and black against the vivid blue of the star-studded sky behind, like a giant sentinel watching over the silent valley.

Below her, at the bottom of the little pass, the winding trail with its single strand of telephone wire beside it, showed plainly in the moonlight. Up the mountain a wolf began howling. The girl turned back into the cabin abruptly and closed the door behind her.

The supper she had been preparing was almost ready. The little board table near the fireplace was set for one; over in a corner from a large, wood-burning stove came the odor of steaming coffee.

The girl put a lighted kerosene lamp upon the table and served herself with a single plateful of food from the frying-pan. Once she stood still, listening, but only the muffled noise of the brook and the lone wolf baying broke the silence. For a brief instant her glance rested on the telephone instrument fastened to the wall beside the fireplace; then, as though reassured, she sat down and began her solitary meal.

A knock upon the door made her leap to her feet and stand for an instant trembling. She put her hand into the pocket of her gingham apron, her fingers gripping a little revolver that lay there. The knock was repeated. The girl withdrew her hand—empty—and with a trembling smile that seemed to belittle her fear, she crossed the room swiftly and flung open the door.

A man stood on the threshold—a slim young man in a short heavy coat, blue flannel shirt, corduroy trousers, and neat, incongruous leather puttees. He was bareheaded. He stood wavering with a hand against the doorway to steady himself, all his weight on one foot and the toe of the other just touching the ground.

“You!” cried the girl. Her tone held amazement, but it was tender, too, with love. Then as she saw the pallor of his face in the lamplight, and his lips pressed together in a thin straight line of pain, she cried again:

“Tom, you’re hurt!”

Her arms went around him, and leaning heavily on her, he hobbled across the room. The pain made him moan, and he sank back in the chair and closed his eyes. The girl knelt on the floor beside him, and began gently to unstrap one of his puttees. After a moment he seemed to recover a little. He sat up and wiped the sweat of weakness from his forehead with his coat sleeve.

“I know I shouldn’t have stopped, Beth, but I—I knew you were alone tonight.” For an instant the drawn lines of pain left his face; his eyes looked into the girl’s tenderly.

Beth looked up into his face, brushing back a wisp of hair that had fallen forward over her eyes. That he had come here frightened her. But she was glad that he had come, and the sight of his pale face with the look of pain on it made her eyes fill with tears of love and sympathy.

“What happened, Tom?” she asked.

The boy shook himself together. “I wouldn’t have stopped, honest, Beth—only my horse threw me—a mile back toward Rocky Gulch.” He winced as the girl withdrew the puttee and began unlacing his shoe.

“Only sprained, I guess,” he added. “But it hurts like the devil—and I’m bruised all over from the fall.” He laughed a little in boyish apology for showing his pain to a girl.

“It was about an hour ago. I wasn’t going to stop—I wanted to get to Vailstown tonight. The horse shied at something, and bolted, and left me lying there. I don’t know—I guess I’m a rotten rider.” He grinned sheepishly.

He had come to her! Of course, it was all he could do then, without a horse and with a sprained ankle at night on the Vailstown road. At the thought of having him here with her when he was hurt and needed her help, the girl’s heart grew very loving and tender.

“I’ve been an hour coming,” he went on quietly—he brushed her hair lightly with his fingers and smiled—“and now I’m here, Beth, I’m—I’m sort of glad the accident happened.”

She made no answer, but went on taking off his shoe and the heavy woolen sock; his ankle was red and swollen. She raised his foot to a low wooden bench, and he watched her silently while she filled a pail with hot water. Then he noticed the food on the table.

“Finish eating, Beth,” he said. “This can wait—it doesn’t hurt much when I hold it still.”

Again she did not reply, but held his foot and ankle in the water a moment, and then, wrapping it in an improvised bandage, replaced the sock. She was very tender and gentle. Once the boy made as if to kiss her, but she pulled away, effectually but without resentment. Wonderment was in his eyes as he followed her swift, deft movements.

“Why don’t you say something, Beth?” he asked after a moment. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Now you can eat with me,” she said. She had made him as comfortable as possible, and returned to the stove.

He took the plate of food she handed him. “I know I shouldn’t have stopped, Beth—but I couldn’t do anything else, could I?”

“How did you know I was alone?” She knew what he was going to answer, and it frightened her.

“I saw your stepfather in Rocky Gulch this afternoon—no, wait, listen Beth—I’d tell you, wouldn’t I, if anything had happened?”

He went on impetuously, as though to dispel her rising fear.

“He was drunk, Beth, and he’s too old a man. Look at that”—he clenched his fist, and the muscles of his bared forearm rose up in knots—“I could have twisted his neck with that for what he said about me and you. But I promised I wouldn’t lift a hand to him, and I didn’t, no matter what he said. I didn’t mean to meet him—and then—when he said what he did I—well, I just listened and beat it, that’s all.”

The boy shoved his food away from him untouched, and looked across the table to meet Beth’s frightened eyes.

“Don’t you worry, kid,” he added reassuringly, “I won’t hurt him, and he can’t hurt me—except with his gun.” The girl shuddered, and he hastened to add:

“He wouldn’t do that, Beth. Don’t you think it for a minute! Even when he’s drunk he wouldn’t do that—he’s too much of a coward—he knows he’d swing for it.”

“He said he would, Tom.”

“He said he would if I come up here again. I didn’t come, did I?”

It was a month now since her stepfather in drunken rage had ordered Tom from the house and threatened to shoot him if he ever came there again. But after all, he had to come tonight, as things happened. And her stepfather was away—the first time he had been away in months—and he need never know that Tom had been here.

“He won’t be back until tomorrow—you’ll be gone then,” said Beth, voicing her thoughts.

Her words seemed to rouse the boy to sudden anger. “Why should he forbid my seeing you, anyway?” he went on, resentfully. “I love you, Beth, and you love me. And I want to marry you!” His tone changed abruptly. “You do love me, Beth?”

He held out his arms appealingly, and in answer the girl rose silently and kissed him. “You know that, Tom,” she said simply.

“Then why do I have to sneak away like a thief? Just because we love each other, what’s that he’s got against me?”

“You know why he said it was, Tom.” She crossed the room again to attend to the stove.

“Because I haven’t got any money. I know—that’s what he said. But I’ve got enough to keep you as well as he does—and better.” He glanced around the cabin contemptuously. “You know that isn’t the reason. It’d be the same, anyway—unless maybe I had a fortune and would give him some of it.”

Beth winced. It hurt, somehow, to have him say things like that. But she knew it was true. And she knew, too, just how he felt—how he resented the way he had been treated.