Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 February 1893 — MISS BAXTER’S BLINDNESS. [ARTICLE]

MISS BAXTER’S BLINDNESS.

The dining car was in a shimmer of light. The dead white of heavy linen, the opalescent glare of glassware, and the quiet gleam of silver trembled together in the swift motion of the train. Miss Baxter, who had but recently left her berth, dropped into a seat and leaned back a moment, dazed by the lavish waste of color. Meanwhile the insistent sunlight took liberties with the dull brown of her severely brushed hair, ran burning fingers through it, and edged it with coquettish gold. Then she hastened to draw the curtain and throw a blue square of shade over her corner of the table, sighing as she settled down again, and all the painful scene of the evening before came surging back. She felt half a notion to lay her head on the table and cry outright. She glanced down instead and fingered her ring—his ring—while her eyes grew misty. She wondered whether she should have kept the ring, now that it no longer meant anything. The question was yet undecided when she pulled herself together with a visible tremor and turned to the menu card. Dining-car breakfasts were not timed to wait on the lsttlemei)t of subtleties in ethics, particularly after the steward has made his “last call.” In the ftw minutes Miss Baxter had been in the car she had not noticed her companions. As she raised her head she was startled to see a familiar face dimly taking shape across the table. She had removed her glasses and was about to pass her handkerchief to her eyes, but she put them resolutely on again and jerked fixedly through their misty crystals.

"Mr. Woodson, where did you come from?" she demanded at length, as his well-known features gradually took shape before her. Woodson did not Speak at once. He was noticing how her hair would tumble down in wayward ringlets in spite of her efforts to keep it staidly back, and how her cheeks persisted in dimpling, however resolutely she shut her lips together. Then he said: “From New York, of course. Does my dress suit look as though I’d boarded the train in these rural precincts? I thought .you knew the cut better.” “Do you mean to say that you’ve been on this train all this while—after—after —last night?” Miss Baxter asked, with .slightly heightened color. “Guessed it the first time,” AVoodson exclaimed, brightening. “I tell you, Grace, you should have gone into'the law instead of art. You’d have been great on cross-examination.” “Never mind, Mr. Woodson, you seem to forget that I prefer to make my own career—we've discussed that before, however. And so you’ve been on this train ever since I have?” she concluded,

reflectively. “A little longer, in fact. I made a mistake and got here half an hour early —read the time table backward—hence the clothes. But now, see here, small girl,” Woodson went on with great deliberation, shaking out his napkin into his lap and gazing into the blurred, blue depth of Miss Baxter’s glasses. “See here, now do you suppose just because a girl jilts me—” Miss Baxter here interposed a depreciating gesture—'“yes, I repeat it. Do you suppose because a girl jilts me, and I have reason to believe is going to the ends of the earth to get where she will never see me again, that my sense of responsibility ends till I’ve seen her safely where she wants to go? No, I’ve made New York uninhabitable for you and I shall make what amends I can by chaperoning you to Colorado or Kamchatka or -wherever it is you are going. Now, what shall I order for breakfast?” “Harry, you’re cruel. You know Mr. Fleming was going out there for the color and I thought it wouid be a good chance to continue my outdoor work.” “Fleming? That prig! Well, I didn’t

know before that he was going. I see there is still more reason why I should go now—and stay.” “But I forbid you doing any such foolish thing.” “To tell the truth, Grace, I though* of staying all the time—of going into some business there.” “Why, you never told me of it before.” “Well, I never thought of it till after I left you last night.” Then it occurred to me that I might go into sheep or cattle or something like that.” “At ManitouT’ “Why notT” “It’s a summer resort.” “So much the better. I’d only want to be there in the summer, anyhow.” “Harry, you’re a tritkr. ” “Well, I can peel an orange, anyhow —if you'll allow me,” Woodson exclaimed, taking from her hand the one she was making a sad mess of. “Harry, I never can forgive you for doing this," Miss Baxter concluded, after a moment’s contemplation of the whirling blur of green through the car win- “ Well, I never could have forgiven myself if I hadn’t—and there it was,” he asserted dispassionately, laying the pulpy, broken sphere of the orange before her. It ia quite a jaunt from Manhattan to Manitou; but one morning they exchanged the cushioned weariness of the train foe that blue hollow of the hills, with it* gayly-colored roofs aud gables . 5

showing here and there up the canyon like a scattered troop of butterflies. Then life became one long breath of delight. What color there wasl The earth seemed hung in some rarer medium than common air. The yellow cactus blossoms were like flakes of flame A scarlet flower fairly burned into the sight. Grace developed a new enthusiasm every day, and piled her palette with cobalt and'chrome. Even Fleming, who had preceded them, grunted out now and then, “Put in your loore pure. Make her jump.” So they painted from morning till night, keeping two or three studies under way at once—putting iu blues where Woodson saw greens and purples where he saw nothing but nondescript sand, and doing all the inexplicable things that should be done according to the gospel of the lu ministers.

Woodson sat by and chaffed. He couldn't paint. .He wouldn’t smoke. He parried Grace's occasional inquiring glances by explaining that he was negotiating to go into the cattle business—a man was going to bring him a herd on trial. Meanwhile -lie arrayed his shapely figure in cowboyish top boots, blue shirt, and slouch hat, which became him immensely, and made a sinister impression among the blazers and tennis suits of summering Manitou. Grace was absorbed and satisfied. One day an idea struck him. “Grace,” said he, “I found a little bit down here the other day that I’d like to have you sketch—to send home, you know. You’ll do it, won’t you?” “Why, of course. I’ll speak to Mr. Fleming.” “Oh, hang Mr. Fleming!” Woodson broke iu. “Fleming is all right in his way, but I want you—your sketch, you know.” The place was quite a distance away, over the mesa. They set out for it next dav.

“Here it is," Woodson exclaimed, after a long tramp, pointing over the burning plain to where a row of cottonwoods were banked against the sky, tremulous in the vibrant air. “There, do that; call it ‘A Hundred in the Shade,’ or something like that.” “It doesn’t seem to compose very well,’’ Grace murmured, holding the tips of her fingers together and inclosing the picture in a rosy frame through which she gazed, half shutting her eyes in truly artistic intentness.

“Well, never mind that; get the character of it. You know Fleming says the character's the thing. That’s what I want—the character—the true character of this beastly country.” So Grace donned her big blue apron and set to work with her biggest brushes. But somehow she had trouble. The quality of that sky, burning with light and yet deep in hue, did not seem to reside in cobalt, however fresh from the tube. The value of the stretch of plain, tremulous under the flaring heavens, dßturbed her, too, and when she came to put in the airy wall of cottonwoods along the horizon the whole thing ended in a painty muddle.

“Oh, I can't do anything to-day,” Grace exclaimed, petulantly, wiping hei troubled brow with the back of her hand and leaving a streak along her forehead that intensified her puzzled look. "Why don’t you put those trees in green ?” Woodson asked with a serious concern, as Grace renewed her struggle with the regulation blues and purple. “But I don’t see them so,” she murmured, in a moment of absorbed effort.

“Grace,” he blurted out almost before he knew it, “I don’t believe you see anything. Excuse me, but I don’t believe you qver did. I don’t believe in your art: I don't believe in your career; 1 don’t believe in your independence! You’re simply spoiling the nicest girl in the world with it. You see everything through Fleming's eyes. You see things blue and purple because he does; and he—well, he sees things that way because some fellows over iu Paris do, and I don’t believe in it. There, now, I’ve saidit, come.” But it was not arranged that he should finish what he had to say. He had looked down to the ground where he sat as he spoke of Fleming. When he looked up Grace was several feet away from him, hurrying down the hill, with her head bowed. “I’m a brute—a miserable brute!” Woodson remarked to himself with considerable force, as he watched her striding toward the half-dry creek, “ Bui some one ought to have told. Her ait is all foolishness. Look at Fleming, even. He’s 40, and I’d like to know where he’d be if it wasn’t for his teaching. B«t I’m a brute, just the same—a heartless brute.”

There was a plum thicket along the creek, and after watching Grace disapjeat within .it Woodson set about pick:ng up her sketching kit. This done, it occurred to him that it would be a propel penance On his part to wash her brushes —he had always hated dirty brushes so. 'Gathering them Up he started toward the creek. When he got there he could see no "sign's Of Grace. Could it be that anything had happened to her? The thought made him catch his breath for a moment. He knew she was impulsive—capable of any rash move in a moment of excitement. Then he heard a stirring in the plum thicket and he came face to face upon her in a little opening, crying softly to herself. “Grace,” he called, “why, what's the matter? I know I’m a brute, but I didn’t think you’d take it so.” “Oh, can’t you help me?” she pleaded, and began groping about and feeling aimlessly with her hands.

He saw that her hair was loosened and that her wrists aud face were scratched and bleeding in a dozen places. “Why, what’s the matter?” he queried again, as she came groping toward him and stumbled against him. “Can’t you help me at all?” “Of course I can, small girl; you’re all right. Nothing shall touch you,” he reiterated as his arms closed tightly around her. “Oh, silly, can’t you see I’ve lost my glasses?” she exclaimed, pulliDg away from him and flushing red among the greenery. But lieheld her tight. “You don’t want them; you see better without them, blue eyes. Confess, now, you never really saw before. Give up trusting in those wretched glasses and trying to be independent. Come, sec your career through my eyes.” But still she held back an arm’s length really defiant. His fingers left a white circle where they clasped her wrists. She seemed ready to cry aud then smiled instead : “You'll get my glasses if I promise?”

He nodded. Suddenly throwing her arms about his neck she said: “I always liked voui eyes, ” and pressed a kiss on either lid. “Maybe you were right about my art,’ she added seriously. “But—this needn’l interfere, need it?” “Interfere! Why, I’ll tell that mai that I’ve decided not to take his cattle, and we’ll turn the whole herd into paint.’ —{G. Melville Upton, in Kate Field! Washington.!