That Girl Montana

“But why?”

“Don’t you know? He was the man – my partner – who took Fannie away. Don’t you – understand?”

“Yes,” and Overton, after a moment, shook hands with him.

“I didn’t want ’Tana to go back on me – while I lived,” he whispered. It was his one reason for keeping silence – the dread that she could never talk to him freely, nor ever clasp his hand again; and Overton promised his wish should be regarded.

When he went to find ’Tana, Mrs. Huzzard had possession of her, and the two women were seeing that the baby got her “bek-fas,” and doing some talking at the same time.

“And he’s got his new boat, has he?” she was saying. “Well, now! And it’s to be a new house next, and a fine one, he says, if he can only get the right woman to live in it,” and she smoothed her hair complacently. “He thinks a heap of fine manners in a woman, too; and right enough, for he’ll have an elegant home to put one in and she never to wet her hands in dish-water! But he is so backward like; but maybe this time – ”

“Oh, you must cure him of that,” laughed the girl. “He is a splendid fellow, and I won’t forgive you if you don’t marry him before the summer is over.”

At that instant Overton opened the door.

“If you are ready now to see me – ” he began, and she nodded her head and went toward him, her face a little pale and visibly embarrassed.

Then she turned and went back.

“Come, Toddles,” she said; “you come with ’Tana.”

A faint flush was tingeing the east, and over the water-courses a silvery mist was spread. She looked out from the window and then up the mountain.

“Let us go out – up on the bluff,” she suggested. “I have been shut up in houses so long! I want to feel that the trees are close to me again.”

He assented in silence and the child, having appeased its hunger, was disposed to be more gracious, and the little hands were reached to him while she said:

“Up.”

He lifted her to his shoulder, where she laughed down in high glee at the girl who walked beside in silence. It was so much easier to plan, while far away from him, what she would say, than to say it.

But he himself broke the silence.

“You call her Toddles,” he remarked. “It is not a pretty name for so pretty a child. Has she no other one?”

They had reached the bluff above the camp that was almost a town now. She sat down on a log and wished she could keep from trembling so.

“Yes – she has another one – a pretty one, I think,” she said, at last. “It is Gracie – Grace – ”

She looked up at him appealingly.

But the emotion in her face made his lips tighten. He had heard so many revelations of her that morning. What was this last to be?

“Well,” he said, coldly, “that is a pretty name, so far as it goes; but what is the rest of it?”

“Overton,” she said, in a low voice, and his face flushed scarlet.

“What do you mean?” he asked, harshly, and the little one, disliking his tone, reached her arms to ’Tana. “Whose child is this?”

“Your child.”

“It is not true.”

“It is true,” she answered, as decidedly as himself. “Her mother – the woman you married – told me so when she was dying.”

He stared at her incredulously.

“I wouldn’t believe her even then,” he answered. “But how does it come that you – ”

“You don’t need to claim her, if you don’t want to,” she said, ignoring all his astonishment. “Her mother gave her to me. She is mine, unless you claim her. I don’t care who her father was – or her mother, either. She is a helpless, innocent little child, thrown on the world – that is all the certificate of parentage I am asking for. She shall have what I never had – a childhood.”

He walked back and forth several times, turning sometimes to look at the girl, whom the child was patting on the cheek while she put up her little red mouth every now and then for kisses.

“Her mother is dead?” he asked at last, halting and looking down at her.

She thought his face was very hard and stern, and did not know it was because he, too, longed to take her in his arms and ask for kisses.

“Her mother is dead.”

“Then – I will take the child, if you will let me.”

“I don’t know,” she said, and tried to smile up at him. “You don’t seem very eager.”

“And you came back here for that?” he said, slowly, regarding her. “’Tana, what of Max? What of your school?”

“Well, I guess I have money enough to have private teachers out here for the things I don’t know – and there are several of them! And as for Max – he didn’t say much. I saw Mr. Seldon in Chicago and he scolded me when I told him I was coming back to the woods to stay – ”

“To stay?” and he took a step nearer to her. “’Tana!”

“Don’t you want me to?” she asked. “I thought maybe – after what you said to me in the cabin – that day – ”

“You’d better be careful!” he said. “Don’t make me remember that unless – unless you are willing to tell me what I told you that day – unless you are willing to say that you – care for me – that you will be my wife. God knows I never hoped to say this to you. I have fought myself into the idea that you belong to Max. But now that it is said – answer me!”

She smiled up at him and kissed the child happily.

“What shall I say?” she asked. “You should know without words. I told you once I would make coffee for no man but you. Do you remember? Well, I have come back to you for that. And see! I don’t wear Max’s ring any longer. Don’t you understand?”

“That you have come back to me– ’Tana!”

“Now don’t eat me! I may not always be a blessing, so don’t be too jubilant. I have bad blood in my veins, but you have had fair warning.”

He only laughed and drew her to him, and she could never again say no man had kissed her.

“’Tana!” said the child, “’ook.”

She looked where the little hand pointed and saw all the clouds of the east flooded with gold, and higher up they lay blushing above the far hills.

A new day was creeping over the mountains to banish shadows from the Kootenai land.