The Wrong Woman. Charles D. Stewart
This time, after a moment of inaction, he reared again, and as he stood up with his hind hoof in the stirrup the girth strap parted and the saddle dropped from him. He jumped suddenly aside as if he were startled at his success, and finding himself rid of it he gave a final flourish to his heels and galloped away. The last Janet saw of him, he was going over a knoll with a cow running on before. He seemed to be chasing it. We are not at liberty to doubt that this was the case, for many a cow-pony takes so much interest in his work that he will even crowd a cow as if to bite her tail, and outdodge her every move. And so it is possible that Billy, finding a cow running before him, took a little turn at his trade.
Janet, hatless, her hair half-down and her chatelaine bag yawning open, had thus far given little thought to her various belongings scattered about in the grass; but now that the accident was all done happening and she saw that she would have to continue her journey afoot, her first concern was to get herself together again. Luckily the comb and the hatpin had fallen in the same small territory with the hat and were easily found—though the hatpin, standing upright amid the flowers, was hard to distinguish for a while; and the contents of her bag, having spilled almost together, were soon accounted for except a small circular mirror. This was very difficult, but presently she caught the flash of it in the grass and gathered it up also. And now, ascertaining the condition of her hair, she went to the place that had been made by her tumble from the horse, and seating herself in it tailor-fashion, she set to work pulling out hairpins and dropping them into her lap beside the rest of her property.
Having her hair in shape, she took up the hat. This part of her apparel, which had been stepped on without detriment but needed brushing, might be described as a man's hat in the sense that its maker had not intended it for a young lady. It was a black hat, of soft felt, with a wide flat rim which had been turned up in front and fastened with a breastpin, a measure which had obviously been taken because the rim caught the wind in such a way as to cause it to blow down over the eyes—a thing which a true sombrero would not do. When she had furbished it and put it on, she glanced at the image of herself in her lap, and then, having held the little mirror at a distance to better view the effect, she took it off and set to work with pins, making it three-cornered. This proved to be quite a change; for whatever it might be said to look like in her hands, it became a hat the moment she put it on; it had an appearance and an air; and now the dark surface lent itself all to contrast with her light, soft-hued hair and clear, delicate skin. It was still further improved, when, having removed it again, she set it on at a rakish artillery angle. Possibly, if hers had been the dark, nut-brown beauty, she would have seen that she looked best lurking beneath its sombre shade, and therefore have turned the rim down some way to even increase the shade; but Janet fitted that which was frank, open, and aboveboard. And so she used the black for contrast rather than obscurity—besides which there was another sort of contrast, for a soldier hat on Janet was a striking foil for her utter femininity. And its romantic pretense (so different from the dark gypsy-like romantic) was such an arrant little piece of make-believe that it had the effect of playful candor, acknowledging how impossible a man she would make; and while it was, strikingly, a pure case of art for art's sake, you could not but remark how much better she looked in it than any soldier could ever have done. To tell the truth, we do not really pretend to know why Janet did this, or what taught her how to do it; anyway, she did it; and now, having so easily accomplished one of the most difficult parts of a self-made woman, she fixed it in position with the hatpin, snapped shut her chatelaine bag, and rose to go.
Looking forward in the direction she had turned to, her mind began to be crossed with doubts as to whether that was the right way. She looked in other directions. Then she turned slowly about. What she saw was simply prairie all the way round. Which part of that horizon had she come from—what point in space? There is nothing so answerless.
She was now in a world where there was no such thing as direction except that one side was opposite the other. There seemed to be nowhere that she could really consider as a Place! The spot where she had been sitting seemed to be a place; but now she realized that she could go far from it in any direction and still be resting in the middle of nature's lap.
How she strained her mind out to the very edge of things and tried to think! What endeavor she made to get out of her mind that which was not in it! She could not but feel that it was all because she was "such a fool"—for she could hardly believe that a whole country could be so lacking in information.
Poor Janet! She even looked up toward the high sun and wondered what kind of sailor science would compel him to divulge his relations with a certain wooden gate. But there was no recognition there, no acknowledgment. The four quarters of heaven were fitted together with a viewless joint. All was silent. Everything was a secret.
Of course she finally thought of the obvious thing to do; but afterwards she was sorry that she did, for that was just how she lost a good part of the afternoon. She found traces of her horse's course—here some flower stems had been broken, and a little farther on, some more; and now that all was made plain she took her slicker, which was tied in a roll behind the saddle, and, putting her mind straight ahead on the course, she set out.
In his high gallop her horse had left no trail that she could follow as a path—nothing but slight records which might be discovered upon close and particular search. As his shoeless feet had made little or no impression on the sward, and there were wide spaces where flowers were sparse, she decided, in order to make progress, to go straight forward in the direction which had been determined, and then, if the fence did not put in an appearance, to refer to the trail again.
After a time, seeing nothing ahead, she began to look about, this side and that, in doubt; and now, being "all turned round" again, she looked for the trail. But she could not find it. Looking about everywhere, round and round and farther and wider, she at last found herself inspecting her own footsteps and following her own wandering path; and here she gave it up utterly. She knew she was lost.
Again she peered out at a point in space and wondered if that was the place she came from. How different the distance looked now from what it did when she saw it down that endless road. That, at least, gave some shape to the future; and though she had been in doubt as to what it might be like, she at least knew it was there. Now the future was all around her. A thousand futures now confronted her—all done up alike in blue and awaiting her chance move, this direction or that; whereby she may be said to have been confronted with the world as it is—a veritable old wheel of fortune. But she had to do something; and the only thing to do was to walk. Making up her mind to the Somewhere in front of her, she simply went ahead; for the afternoon was going and the night was sure to come—a prospect that filled her with dread.
It is no wonder that Lot's wife looked back when she was well out on the plain. Probably she wanted to see where she was going—so Janet thought, as she trudged wearily along. Or possibly the poor woman wanted to make sure that she was going at all; for when you are walking always at the middle of things, and not coming to anything, there is no progress. Janet thought—for she had to think something—that she knew just how stationary Lot's wife felt when she was turned into a pillar of salt. Possibly, if the truth were known, Lot's wife desired to be turned into a pillar of salt—who can tell? Janet, walking along so unrelated and ineffectual, rather fancied that she herself might want to be turned into a salt-lick (she had passed one all worn hollow as the stone of Mecca by the tongues of many Pilgrims); because if she were such a thing she would not be so utterly useless and foolish under the eye of heaven. But still she kept trudging along, feeling the growing weight of the slicker in her arms, for Janet was not much of a hand to carry anything on her shoulder.
Janet walked and walked, but her walking did not seem to have any effect upon that endless land. The fence did not put in its appearance, neither did a house nor a path, nor anything else which would make it different from the sky-covered plain that it was. It persisted in being itself, world without end, amen. To make matters worse, her shoe began to hurt (she had suspected it would and taken the man's promise that it would n't), and the more she persevered the more it clamped her toe and wrung her heel and drew fire to her instep. But there was nothing to do but walk; and she kept on with her footsteps till the operation became monotonous. Still that roadless scene was unmoved. The world was "round like an apple"; that she could plainly see.