PAGE 8
My Mother
by
Some inevitable force seemed to be driving him towards–circumstances seemed to pave the way to–their ultimate union; even now chance placed her in the path, literally, for as he threaded his way uphill, across the open, and on to the little log bridge which crossed the ravine immediately behind the Mission, he saw her standing at the further side, leaning upon the unpeeled sapling which formed the bridge guard. She was looking into the tiny stream beneath. He made no sound as he approached. Generations of moccasin-shod ancestors had made his own movements swift and silent. Notwithstanding this, she turned, and, with a bright girlish smile, she said:
“I knew you were coming, Chief.”
“Why? How?” he asked, accepting his new title from her with a graceful indifference almost beyond his four and twenty years.
“I can hardly say just how–but–” she ended with only a smile. For a full minute he caught and held her glance. She seemed unable to look away, but her grave, blue English eyes were neither shy nor confident. They just seemed to answer his–then,
“Miss Bestman, will you be my wife?” he asked gently. She was neither surprised nor dismayed, only stood silent, as if she had forgotten the art of speech. “You knew I should ask this some day,” he continued, rather rapidly. “This is the day.”
“I did not really know–I don’t know how I feel–” she began, faltering.
“I did not know how I felt, either, until an hour ago,” he explained. “When my father and my mother told me they had arranged my marriage with–“
“With whom?” she almost demanded.
“A girl of my own people,” he said, grudgingly. “A girl I honor and respect, but–“
“But what?” she said weakly, for the mention of his possible marriage with another had flung her own feelings into her very face.
“But unless you will be my wife, I shall never marry.” He folded his arms across his chest as he said it–the very action expressed finality. For a second he stood erect, dark, slender, lithe, immovable, then with sudden impulse he held out one hand to her and spoke very quietly. “I love you, Lydia. Will you come to me?”
“Yes,” she answered clearly. “I will come.”
He caught her hands very tightly, bending his head until his fine face rested against her hair. She knew then that she had loved him through all these years, and that come what might, she would love him through all the years to be.
That night she told her frail and fading sister, whom she found alone resting among her pillows.
“‘Liza dear, you are crying,” she half sobbed in alarm, as the great tears rolled slowly down the wan cheeks. “I have made you unhappy, and you are ill, too. Oh, how selfish I am! I did not think that perhaps it might distress you.”
“Liddy, Liddy darling, these are the only tears of joy that I have ever shed!” cried Elizabeth. “Joy, joy, girlie! I have wished this to come before I left you, wished it for years. I love George Mansion better than I ever loved brother of mine. Of all the world I should have chosen him for your husband. Oh! I am happy, happy, child, and you will be happy with him, too.”
And that night Lydia Bestman laid her down to rest, with her heart knowing the greatest human love that had ever entered into her life.
Mr. Evans was almost beside himself with joyousness when the young people rather shyly confessed their engagement to him. He was deeply attached to his wife’s young sister, and George Mansion had been more to him than many a man’s son ever is. Seemingly cold and undemonstrative, this reserved Scotch missionary had given all his heart and life to the Indians, and this one boy was the apple of his eye. Far-sighted and cautious, he saw endless trouble shadowing the young lovers–opposition to the marriage from both sides of the house. He could already see Lydia’s family smarting under the seeming disgrace of her marriage to an Indian; he could see George’s family indignant and hurt to the core at his marriage with a white girl; he could see how impossible it would be for Lydia’s people to ever understand the fierce resentment of the Indian parents that the family title could never continue under the family name. He could see how little George’s people would ever understand the “white” prejudice against them. But the good man kept his own counsel, determining only that when the war did break out, he would stand shoulder to shoulder with these young lovers and be their friend and helper when even their own blood and kin should cut them off.