Mackinac and Lake StoriesCatherwood, Mary Hartwell
General
Mackinac and Lake Stories
Catherwood, Mary Hartwell
Mackinac Island (Mich. : Island) -- Fiction; Michigan -- Fiction; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“There were sailors on the steamer. After I found Rosanne was left
behind I would have had a boat or killed the man that prevented me. I
had to wait out on the lake until it got dark. I knew your wife would
take care of her. I told myself that when I couldn't find any chance
to land in St. James's Bay until sunset.”
“She's been hiding in the lumber on the dock all day.”
“Did any one hurt her?”
“Evidently not.”
The Mormon husband's face cleared with a convulsion which in woman
would have been a relieving burst of tears.
“Sit down, Elizabeth,” said the lighthouse-keeper. “You look fit to
fall.”
“Yes, sit down, Elizabeth,” James Baker repeated, turning to her with
secondary interest. But she remained standing, a tall Greek figure in
bloomers, so sure of pose that drapery or its lack was an accident
of which the eye took no account. She had pushed her soft brown
hair, dampened by the lake, behind her ears. They showed delicately
against the two shining masses. Her forehead and chin were of noble
and courageous shape. If there was fault, it was in the breadth and
height of brows masterful rather than feminine. She had not one
delicious sensuous charm to lure man. Her large eyes were blotted with
a hopeless blankness. She waited to see what would be done next.
“Now I'll tell you,” said Baker to his friend, with decision, “I'm not
going to bring the howling Gentiles around you.”
“I don't care whether they come or not.”
“I know you don't. It isn't necessary in such a time as this for you
and me to look back.”
“I told you at the time I wouldn't forget it, Jim. You stood by me
when I married Cecilia in the teeth of the Mormons, and I'll stand by
you through any mob of Gentiles. My sail-boat's out yonder, and it's
yours as long as you want it; and we'll provision it.”
“That's what I was going to ask, Ludlow.”
“If I were you I'd put for Green Bay. Old neighbors are there, my
father among them.”
“That was my plan!”
“But,” Ludlow added, turning his thumb over his shoulder with
embarrassment, “they're all Gentiles in Green Bay.”
“Elizabeth and I talked it over in the boat. I told her the truth
before God. We've agreed to live apart. Ludlow, I never wanted any
wife but Rosanne, and I don't want any wife but Rosanne now. You
don't know how it happened; I was first of the young men called on to
set an example. Brother Strang could bring a pressure to bear that
it was impossible to resist. He might have threatened till doomsday.
But I don't know what he did with me. I told him it wasn't treating
Elizabeth fair. Still, I married her according to Saints' law, and I
consider myself bound by my pledge to provide for her. She's a good
girl. She has no one to look to but me. And I'm not going to turn her
off to shift for herself if the whole United States musters against
me.”
“Now you talk like a man. I think better of you than I have for a
couple of weeks past.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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