You Never Know Your Luck: Epilogue

Epilogue

Golden, all golden, save where there was a fringe of trees at a
watercourse; save where a garden, like a spot of emerald, made a button
on the royal garment wrapped across the breast of the prairie. Above,
making for the trees of the foothills far away, a golden eagle floated, a
prairie-hen sped affrighted from some invisible thing; and in the far
distance a railway train slipped down the plain like a serpent making for
a covert in the first hills of the first world that ever was.

At a casual glance the vast plain seemed uninhabited, yet here and there
were men and horses, tiny in the vastness, but conquering. Here and there
also--for it was July--a haymaker sharpened his scythe, and the sound
came singing through the air radiant and stirring with life.

Seated in the shade of a clump of trees a girl sat with her chin in her
hands looking out over the prairie, an intense dreaming in her eyes. Her
horse was tethered near by, but it scarcely made a sound. It was a horse
which had once won a great race, with an Irish gentleman on his back.
Long time the girl sat absorbed, her golden colour, her brown-gold hair
in harmony with the universal stencil of gold. With her eyes drowned in
the distance, she presently murmured something to herself, and as she did
so the eyes deepened to a nameless umber tone, deeper than gold, warmer
than brown; such a colour as only can be found in a jewel or in a leaf
the frost has touched.

The frost had touched the soul which gave the colour to the eyes of the
girl. Yet she seemed all summer, all glow and youth and gladness. Her
voice was golden, too, and the words which fell from her lips were as
though tuned to the sound of falling water. The tone of the voice would
last when the gold of all else became faded or tarnished. It had its
origin in the soul:

     "Whereaway goes my lad? Tell me, has he gone alone?
     Never harsh word did I speak; never hurt I gave;
     Strong he was and beautiful; like a heron he has flown
     Hereaway, hereaway will I make my grave."

The voice lingered on the words till it trailed away into nothing, like
the vanishing note of a violin which seems still to pulse faintly after
the sound has ceased.

"But he did not go alone, and I have not made my grave," the girl said,
and raised her head at the sound of footsteps. With an effort she emerged
from the half-trance in which she had been, and smiled at a man hastening
towards her.

"Dear bully, bulbous being--how that word 'bully' would have, made her
cringe!" she said as the man ambled nearer. He could not go as fast as
his mind urged him.

"I've got news--news, news!" he exclaimed, wading through his own
perspiration to where she sat. "I can guess what it is," the girl
remarked smilingly, as she reached out a hand to him, but remained
seated. "It's a real, live baby born to Lydia, wife of Methuselah, the
woman also being of goodly years. It is, isn't it."

"The fattest, finest, most 'scrumpshus' son of all the ages that ever--"

Kitty laughed happily and very whimsically. "Like none since Moses was
found among the bulrushes! Where was this one found, and what do you
intend to call him--Jesse, after his 'pa'?"

"No--nothing so common. He's to be called Shiel--Shiel Crozier Bulrush,
that's to be his name."

The face of the girl became a shade pensive now. "Oh! And do you think
you can guarantee that he will be worth the name? Do you never think what
his father is?"

"I'm starting him right with that name. I can do so much, anyway,"
laughed the imperturbable one. "And Mrs. Bulrush, after her great
effort--how is she?

"Flying--simply flying. Earth not good enough for her. Simply flying. But
here--here is more news. Guess what--it's for you. I've just come from
the post office, and they said there was an English letter for you, so I
brought it."

He handed it over. She laid it in her lap and waited as though for him to
go.

"Can't I hear how he is? He's the best man that ever crossed my path," he
said.

"It happens to be in his wife's, not his, handwriting--did ever such a
scrap of a woman write so sprawling a hand!" she replied, holding the
letter up.

"But she'll let us know in the letter how Crozier is, won't she?"

Kitty had now recovered herself, and slowly she opened the envelope and
took out the letter. As she did so something fluttered to the ground.

Jesse Bulrush picked it up. "That looks nice," he said, and he whistled
in surprise. "It's a money-draft on a bank."

Kitty, whose eyes were fixed on the big, important handwriting, answered
calmly and without apparently looking, as she took the paper from his
hand: "Yes, it's a wedding present--five hundred dollars to buy what I
like best for my home. So she says."

"Mrs. Crozier, of course."

"Of course."

"Well, that's magnificent. What will you do with it?"

Kitty rose and held out her hand. "Go back to your flying partner, happy
man, and ask her what she would do with five hundred dollars if she had
it."

"She'd buy her lord and master a present with it, of course," he
answered.

"Good-bye, Mr. Rolypoly," she responded, laughing. "You always could
think of things for other people to do; and have never done anything
yourself until now. Good-bye, father."

When he was gone and out of sight her face changed. With sudden anger she
crushed and crumpled up the draft for five hundred in her hand. "'A token
of affection from both!'" she exclaimed, quoting from the letter. "One
lone leaf of Irish shamrock from him would--"

She stopped. "But he will send a message of his own," she continued. "He
will--he will. Even if he doesn't, I'll know that he remembers just the
same. He does--he does remember."

She drew herself up with an effort, and, as it were, shook herself free
from the memories which dimmed her eyes.

Not far away a man was riding towards the clump of trees where she was.
She saw, and hastened to her horse.

"If I told John all I feel he'd understand. I believe he always has
understood," she added with a far-off look.

The draft was still crushed in her hand when she mounted the beloved
horse, whose name now was Shiel.

Presently she smoothed out the crumpled paper. "Yes, I'll take it; I'll
put it by," she murmured. "John will keep on betting. He'll be broke some
day and he'll need it, maybe."

A moment later she was riding hard to meet the man who, before the
wheat-harvest came, would call her wife.

THE END.

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