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Liberty Jones’s Discovery
by
Yet this did not keep her from her care of the stock nor her rambles in the forest; she was quick to utilize her rediscovery of the spring for watering the cattle; it was not so far afield as the half-dried creek in the canyon, and was a quiet sylvan spot. She ate her frugal midday meal there and drank of its waters, and, secure in her seclusion, bathed there and made her rude toilet when the cows were driven home. But she did not again look into its mirrored surface when it was tranquil!
And so a month passed. But when Doctor Ruysdael was again due at the cabin, a letter was brought by Hoskins, with the news that he was called away on professional business down the coast, and could not come until two weeks later. In the disappointment that overcame her, she did not at first notice that Hoskins was gazing at her with a singular expression, which was really one of undisguised admiration. Never having seen this before in the eyes of any man who looked at her, she referred it to some vague “larking” or jocularity, for which she was in no mood.
“Say, Libby! you’re gettin’ to be a right smart-lookin’ gal. Seems to agree with ye up here,” said Hoskins with an awkward laugh. “Darned ef ye ain’t lookin’ awful purty!”
“G’long!” said Liberty Jones, more than ever convinced of his badinage.
“Fact,” said Hoskins energetically. “Why, Doc would tell ye so, too. See ef he don’t!”
At this Liberty Jones felt her face grow hot. “You jess get!” she said, turning away in as much embarrassment as anger. Yet he hovered near her with awkward attentions that pleased while it still angered her. He offered to go with her to look up the cows; she flatly declined, yet with a strange satisfaction in his evident embarrassment. This may have lent some animation to her face, for he drew a long breath and said:–
“Don’t go pertendin’ ye don’t know yer purty. Say, let me and you walk a bit and have a talk together.” But Libby had another idea in her mind and curtly dismissed him. Then she ran swiftly to the spring, for the words “The Doc will tell ye so, too” were ringing in her ears. The doctor who came with the two beautifully dressed women! HE–would tell her she was pretty! She had not dared to look at herself in that crystal mirror since that dreadful day two months ago. She would now.
It was a pretty place in the cool shade of the giant trees, and the hoof-marks of cattle drinking from the run beneath the pool had not disturbed the margin of that tranquil sylvan basin. For a moment she stood tremulous and uncertain, and then going up to the shining mirror, dropped on her knees before it with her thin red hands clasped on her lap. Unconsciously she had taken the attitude of prayer; perhaps there was something like it in her mind.
And then the light glanced full on the figure that she saw there!
It fell on a full oval face and throat guileless of fleck or stain, smooth as a child’s and glowing with health; on large dark eyes, no longer sunk in their orbits, but filled with an eager, happy light; on bared arms now shapely in contour and cushioned with firm flesh; on a dazzling smile, the like of which had never been on the face of Liberty Jones before!
She rose to her feet, and yet lingered as if loath to part from this delightful vision. Then a fear overcame her that it was some trick of the water, and she sped swiftly back to the house to consult the little mirror which hung in her sleeping-room, but which she had never glanced at since the momentous day of the spring. She took it shyly into the sunshine, and found that it corroborated the reflection of the spring. That night she worked until late at the calico Doctor Ruysdael had sent her, and went to bed happy. The next day brought her Hoskins again with a feeble excuse of inquiring if she had a letter for the doctor, and she was surprised to find that he was reinforced by a stranger from Hoskins’s farm, who was equally awkward and vaguely admiring. But the appearance of the TWO men produced a singular phase in her impressions and experience. She was no longer indignant at Hoskins, but she found relief in accepting the compliments of the stranger in preference, and felt a delight in Hoskins’s discomfiture. Waya, promoted to the burlesque of a chaperone, grinned with infinite delight and understanding.