The Biography of a Prairie Girl. Gates Eleanor
those who lay beneath the drifts that covered it.
But discussion over the naming never flagged among the big brothers, for they did not yet share her anxiety. The chores were their only interruption; still, while they made twists for the stove, melted snow for the thirsty stock, or pitched hay out of the shaft that had been sunk to the half-used stack and piled it into the covered barn through a hole in the roof, they kept up the debate. But with all the time and talk given the matter, no agreement seemed possible, until one day when the biggest brother made a suggestion.
He proposed that each write a name upon a piece of paper and place it in a hat, and that the little girl's hand be put in among the pieces, so that she could take hold of one. The name on the slip she seized should be hers. So the ballots were prepared, the neighbor woman brought the little girl, and one tiny clinging fist was guided into the crown. But though the pink palm would close on a finger, it refused to grasp a ballot; and, to show her disapproval of the scheme, the little girl held her breath until she was purple, screwed up her face, and began to cry lustily.
The big brothers, when they found that she would not choose for herself, repaired in disgust to the attic. But as they gathered gloomily about the stovepipe, a second plan offered itself to them in the shape of the dominoes, and they began to play, with the understanding that whoever came out winner in the end might name the little girl.
The contests were exciting and raged from dinner-time till dusk, the dogs looking on from an outer circle and joining their barks to the shouts of the boys. When the last game came to a close under the swinging, smoky lantern that lighted the room from its nail on a rafter, the eldest brother, victorious, arose and led the way to the sitting-room, the other two following with the pack, and proudly proclaimed the little girl Edith Maud.
But he had not counted on his mother's wishes. For when she heard the result of the dominoes, she overturned the whole project, much to the delight of the vanquished, by declaring that she did not like Edith Maud at all; and added that the selection would be made from the Bible when their father returned. So the big brothers carefully hunted out every feminine name between Genesis and Revelations.
But at the end of a fortnight they too grew anxious, and the christening was forgotten. No news had come from the army post, and so, one morning, they set forth toward it with the St. Bernard, when the warm sun was melting the white caps of the ridges. They did not have to go far. The dog led them unerringly to a near-by bluff, from which they returned a sad procession. And next day a mound rose on the southern slope of the carnelian bluff and was covered high with stones, to keep away the hungry prowlers of the plains. The storm that had ushered in the new life had robbed the farm-house of the old.
Spring had opened, and the thawing prairie lay in splotches of black and white like the hide of a calico pony, before the family again thought of the naming of the little girl. Then her mother despatched the youngest brother to the post-office, a day's ride to the east, to mail an order to a store in a far-away city. Though there seemed no possibility that it would soon be decided what to call the little girl, preparations had begun for the baptism at the sod church on the reservation, and the order asked for five yards of fine linen and a pair of white kid shoes.
During the busy days of plowing and planting that followed, interest in the christening was almost lost. And when the arrival of the linen and the shoes revived it one afternoon in early summer, it was lost sight of again in a rush of hoeing and herding. So it was not until late fall, when all the crops were harvested and the threshers had come and gone, that the family began once more to consider it.
It was time that the little girl had a name of her own, for she could trot the length of the sitting-room, if she held on to the biggest brother's finger, and walk, all by herself, from the lounge to the table. Besides, she was learning to eat with a spoon, which she pounded crossly on the oil-cloth when she could not find her mouth, and was teething, without any worry to her mother, on an old soft cartridge-belt.
The subject reopened the night the little girl's mother cut out the baptismal robe. And while she tucked it in one succession of narrow rows and began to embroider it in lacy patterns that she had learned to do when she was a little girl in England, the big brothers hunted up the lists from the dictionary, atlas, almanac, and Bible, and reviewed them. But when the autumn days had been stitched and discussed away and winter had come in, the family was still undecided. What pleased one big brother did not please another; and if two agreed, the third opposed them. The little girl's mother was even harder to suit than they.
The afternoon of the first birthday anniversary two important things happened: the baptismal robe was finished and the christening controversy took a new turn. The big brothers, arguing hotly, urged that if a name could be found for every new calf and colt on the place, the only baby in the house ought to have one. Now, the little girl's mother always named the animals, so, when she heard their reproof, she promptly declared that she would christen the little girl at once—and after an English queen.
The big brothers were astounded, recalling how their American father had objected to their having been named after English kings. But their mother, unheeding their exclamations, wrote down a new list, which started at Mary Beatrice and included all the consorts she could remember. But when the queens had been considered from first to last, and the little girl's mother had made up her mind fully and finally, the house was again torn with dissension. The eldest brother favored Elizabeth; the biggest, Mary; and the youngest, Anne. The little girl, happy over a big, blue glass ball with a white sheep in the center, alone was indifferent to the dispute, and crooned to herself contentedly from the top of the pile of hay twists.
But, in spite of the wishes of the big brothers, the christening would have been decided that day and forever if it had not been for one circumstance. The eldest brother, protesting vigorously against every name but Elizabeth, demanded of the little girl's mother what she had selected.
"Caroline Matilda," she said firmly.
The eldest brother sprang to his feet like a flash, knocking over a bench in his excitement.
"Caroline Matilda!" he roared, waving his arms—"Caroline Matilda!"
And the little girl, frightened at his shouting, dropped the blue glass ball, and scurried under the bed.
It was plain, therefore, that she did not like the name her mother had chosen. So the christening continued to disturb the farm-house. By spring the eldest and the youngest brothers were calling the little girl Anne, while the mother and the biggest brother were saluting her as Victoria.
Matters were still in this unsettled condition when the army chaplain rode in from the reservation one night late in the summer. He was on his way to a big Sioux tepee camp, and carried in the saddle-bags flung across his pommel a well-worn Bible and a brace of pistols. As he entered the sitting-room, the little girl eyed him tremblingly, for his spurs jingled loudly as he strode, and the leather fringe on his riding-breeches snapped against his high boot-legs.
He was grieved to find the farm-house in such a state, and counseled the little girl's mother to delay the christening no longer, suggesting a private baptism, such as the big brothers had had. But to no effect. She declared that a private baptism might do very well for boys, but that the only daughter in the family should be named with more ceremony. The chaplain, finding that he could not settle the question, made it the subject of his evening prayer in the home circle.
The fame of the baptismal robe and the white kid shoes had gone far and wide over the prairie, and they were talked of from the valley of the Missouri to Devil's Lake, and from the pipestone country to the reservations. So every week of that summer the family welcomed squatters' wives from the scattered claims round about, and women from the northern forts, whose eyes, strange to dainty things or long starved of them, fed greedily on the smooth skin of the ivory boots and the soft folds of the dress. Shortly after the chaplain's stay, a swarthy Polish woman, shod in buckskin, came on a pilgrimage to the farm-house, and the little girl's mother, eager to show her handiwork, lifted the dress tenderly, but with a flourish, from the pasteboard box where it lay upon wild-rose leaves and a fragrant red apple, and held it against the little girl with one hand, while with the other she displayed the pretty boots. The big brothers,