Evelyn Byrd

My Evelyn is not to fail in her promise to come back to me to-morrow. I have not yet completed the reading of the manuscript, though I hope to do so to-night, if a late vigil shall enable me to accomplish that purpose. I have asked Arthur to let me sleep in the nursery to-night, if I finish the reading in time to sleep at all. So I can sit up as late as I please without fear of disturbing him. Poor fellow, he is working too hard and thinking too hard even for his magnificent strength.

But whether I finish your manuscript to-night or not, Evelyn dear, I have read enough of it to know that your life-story only confirms the judgment I had formed of your character, and draws you nearer to my sympathies. So come home in the morning, and don’t disappoint me.

When she took up the manuscript again, this is what she read: —

Chapter the Twelfth

WE travelled by the railroad as far as it went. Then we had to get into a big wagon, drawn by six mules.

The country we passed through was wild, and quite uninhabited, I think. At any rate, we saw no houses, and no people except now and then a little party of Indians. There were no roads, only dim trails, and there were no bridges, so that it sometimes took us three or four days to get across a river.

We carried all our provisions in the wagon, and when we stopped for the night we cooked our suppers by great big fires, built out of doors. It was usually about nightfall when we pitched our camp, and so long as our way lay through the woods, I used to lie awake for hours every night, looking up and watching the light from the camp-fire as it played hide and seek among the great trees. When at last we got out of the woods and began travelling over a vast prairie, the camping was far less pleasant, particularly when a norther blew, making it bitter cold. Still, I insisted on sleeping out of doors, although Campbell had fitted up a cosy little bedroom for me in the big wagon. That was because it was Campbell’s wagon. Out of doors I felt a sort of freedom, while if I even looked into the wagon I realised that I was that man’s prisoner.

He was trying to be good to me then. That is to say, he was trying to make me think him kind and to make me like him. Among other things, he gave me a horse to ride on. He had intended at first that I should travel in the wagon, but I would not do that. I preferred to walk, instead. So, after the second day, when we met a party of Indians, he bought a horse of them and gave it to me to ride. It was a vicious brute, bent upon breaking my neck, but I knew how to ride, and within a day or two I had taught the animal to like me a little, and to obey me altogether. I had no saddle, of course, but I never did like a saddle, and I don’t, even now, as you know. So I got one of the men to strap a blanket on my horse’s back with a surcingle, and I rode upon that.

The men who drove our mules were very rough fellows, but they soon got to liking me. I suppose that was because I knew how to ride and wasn’t afraid of anything. However that may be, they seemed to like me. They would do their best to make me comfortable, giving me the best they could get to eat – birds, squirrels, and the like – and always making for me a pallet of dry grass or leaves to sleep upon.

Finally, one evening, when Campbell had gone away from the camp for some purpose or other, one of the rough men came to me and said: —

“Little Missy” – that is what they always called me – “little Missy, you don’t like Campbell an’ you want to get away from him. Now he’s pretty quick on trigger, but I’m a bit quicker’n he is, an’ anyhow I’ll take the chances for you. Ef you say the word, I’ll pick a quarrel with him an’ kill him in fair fight. Then my pards an’ me’ll take you to some civilised town an’ leave you there, so’s you kin git back to your friends. Only say the word, an’ I’ll git him ready for his funeral afore mornin’.”

Of course this horrified me, particularly the indifference with which the man thought of murder. I told him he must never think of doing anything of the kind, and asked him to promise me.

“It’s jest as you says, little Missy,” he answered. “Only me an’ my pards wants you to know how ready we are to do you any little favour like that ef you want it done.”

That night I couldn’t sleep. I lay all night looking up at the stars and thinking with horror of the light way in which this man had proposed to commit a murder for me. Then the thought came to me that I had myself tried to kill Campbell once with a hair-brush, and for a while I felt that after all I was no better than these murderous men. But, after thinking the thing out, I saw that the two cases were quite different. I had hit Campbell in self-defence, and I could not even yet feel sorry that I had wanted to kill him.

Chapter the Thirteenth

CAMPBELL was living, at that time, in a little town somewhere in Texas, and we got there after two or three weeks.

It was a dismal-looking place. All the houses were built of rough boards, set upon end, and most of them were saloons. Campbell’s house was like all the rest, and when I asked my mother why he lived in so small a house, and what he had done with the fine one that I remembered, she told me he had lost most of his money.

Almost immediately after I got to his house, Campbell took me before a sort of judge who had two pistols and a knife in his belt. Campbell told the judge that he wanted to adopt me as his daughter. When the judge asked him how old I was, he said I was thirteen, and then the judge said that my consent to his adoption of me was not necessary.

The reason he said that was because I had told him that I didn’t want to be Campbell’s daughter. The judge signed the papers, and told me that Campbell was my father now, and that I must obey him in everything. Campbell told me that my name would hereafter be Evelyn Byrd Campbell. I supposed then that he was telling the truth.

When he got home that evening, he had been drinking heavily, and he seemed particularly happy. He told my mother that he had “fixed things,” so that they wouldn’t be poor any longer. He said he was going to buy a big ranch and raise horses.

That night when I went to my bed, I found that somebody had broken into my closet and taken the satchel in which I kept my papers. When I raised an alarm, Campbell told me he had taken the papers and put them in a secure place, lest I should lose them. He said he was my father now, and that it was his duty to take care of my property.

I was terribly angry – so angry that if the teamster who had offered to kill Campbell for me had been there, I think I should have asked him to get my papers for me, although I knew that he would probably kill Campbell in doing so. But the teamster was gone from the town, and I was helpless.

Campbell and my mother did not get on together very well at this time. They never exactly quarrelled, at least in my presence, but I think that was because my mother regarded quarrelling as vulgar. She was a refined woman, or had been. She seemed now to be very unhappy, and I was sorry for her, though I could not love her. I never had loved her since she had married Campbell while her real husband, my father, was still living. One day I asked her if she didn’t think she had made a mistake in doing that, and if she didn’t think it wrong and wicked and vulgar for a woman to have two husbands alive at the same time. She rebuked me severely for what she called my insolence, and bade me never mention that subject again. I never did – to her.

Chapter the Fourteenth

VERY soon after this, Campbell bought a large ranch, as he said he would do, and we moved away from the town to live on the ranch.

I know now that he bought it with my money. When he had me made his daughter, and got hold of my papers, the law somehow allowed him to sell the stocks and bonds my father had given me, and he did so. I never knew this until a very little time ago – since I have been at Wyanoke. I’ll tell you about that in the proper place.

There were many horses on the ranch, and I spent nearly all my time riding them bareback and teaching them little tricks. It was the only thing I could do to amuse myself; for I did not like to be with my mother, and I hated the very sight of Campbell.

I had already learned to ride standing on the back of a horse, and I decided to learn all about that sort of riding. I enjoyed the danger involved in it, for one thing, especially when I learned to ride two horses at once in that way. But I did not practise these things for the sake of the excitement alone. I had a plan to carry out. I had determined to run away with the first circus that should come to that part of the country. I thought that if I could learn to be a really good bareback rider, the circus people would be glad to take me with them, and in that way I should get away from Campbell.

So I practised my riding every day, growing steadily surer of myself and more expert. I practised jumping through hoops, too – forward and backward – and standing on my hands on horseback, and throwing somersaults.

At last a circus came to the town twelve miles from the ranch, and Campbell offered to take me to see it. He was in one of his placative moods just then, and thought he would please me by this. But I declined the invitation. I did that because I meant to run away and join that circus, and I wanted him to think I cared nothing about a circus, so that he shouldn’t look for me among the show people. I still had the horse he had bought from the Indians and given to me, so that I could take that without being accused of horse-stealing. The horse was a tough, wiry fellow, who liked nothing so much as to run with all his might. I think he could have travelled at half-speed for twenty or thirty miles without growing tired.

One night, while the circus was in the town, I mounted my horse just after dark and set off for a ride. As I often rode for half the night, I knew Campbell would think nothing of my doing this. As soon as I was well away from the house, I turned into the road that led to the town, and put my horse – Little Chief – at a rapid gallop. Within less than two hours, I reached the town. Just before getting there, I turned Little Chief loose, set his head toward the ranch, and bade him “scamper.” I had taught him always to go to his stable as quickly as possible when I said that word “scamper” to him. This time I had removed the blanket from his back and the bridle from his head. I knew, therefore, he would be found in his stall next morning with nothing on him to show that he had been ridden.

As soon as Little Chief had started on his scamper, I turned and walked into the town. The circus performance was not quite over, so I went to the door of the big tent and told the man there that I wanted to see the proprietor of the show on important business. I hadn’t a cent of money, so I didn’t expect to go in. But the man at the door politely invited me to enter and see the end of the show. For a moment I thought of accepting his invitation, but then I remembered that all the ranch-men for twenty miles round would be there, and that they all knew me by sight as “that wild gal of Campbell’s.” I didn’t want any of them to see me at the circus, lest they should tell of it when the search for me began. So I told the man that I would not go in, and asked him where and how I could see the owner of the show after the performance. He called a man and told him to take me to “the Lady Superior, in the dressing-tent.” I found out presently that all the people in the circus called the manager’s wife by that name, and the manager they called “the Grand Panjandrum.” In fact, they had a nickname of some sort for every one in authority.

The Lady Superior received me as a queen might. She had just been riding around the ring in a red and gold chariot drawn by six white horses, and playing Cleopatra in what they called “the magnificent and gorgeous historical panorama of human splendour.” As Cleopatra, Napoleon, Alexander the Great, George Washington, Genghis Khan, Julius Cæsar, and a great many others took part in the spectacle, the people in the audience must have got their notions of history considerably mixed up, but at any rate the Lady Superior always seemed to enjoy her part, and particularly her gorgeous raiment. I had a hard time trying not to laugh in her face when I was first presented to her on that night. She was still dressed in her robe of flaming, high-coloured silk, trimmed with ermine and spangles, with her crown still on her head, and she was almost greedily eating a dish of beef à la mode with roast onions. But in spite of her gorgeous apparel and her defective grammar, she proved to be a good-natured creature, and she received me very kindly.

I told her what I could do as a bareback rider, and she took me to her hotel in her carriage as soon as she had put on some plain clothes. I told her that I didn’t want anybody in that town to see me, so she drove up to a back door of the little tavern and smuggled me into her room. I remember that the tavern was a little two-story, wooden building, with the inside partition walls made of rough boards set on end so loosely that one could see through the cracks into the next room. But it was called the Transcontinental Hotel, and the painter had found some difficulty in getting the big name into one line across the narrow front of the building.

In her room the Lady Superior gave me some supper, she eating with me as heartily as if she had not had a dish of beef à la mode with roast onions less than half an hour before. She explained to me that the circus people never take their supper till after the performance.

“It makes ’em lazy and not up to their work,” she said.

When her husband, the Grand Panjandrum, came in, she introduced me to him and told him about my accomplishments.

He slapped his thigh with his palm and exclaimed: —

“That’s superb! We’ve just lost Mademoiselle Fifine, our ‘matchless female equestrienne,’ and as we have advertised her everywhere, the audiences are threatening to shoot me every time I go into the ring as clown. You see, audiences don’t like to be disappointed. I’ll let you show me your paces in the morning, and if you can do the stunts, I shall engage you, and you shall appear as Mademoiselle Fifine to-morrow afternoon and evening.”

I objected that I mustn’t be seen in that town, lest I be recognised, whereupon he broke into a laugh and exclaimed: —

“Recognised! Why, your own mother won’t know you when the dresser gets you into Mademoiselle Fifine’s finery, and daubs your face with grease paint, and plasters it with powder. Bridget’s clothes will just fit you.”

“Who is Bridget?” I asked, as I had not heard of that person before. The manager laughed, and answered: —

“Bridget? Why, she was Mademoiselle Fifine, you know. She wasn’t well up to the business, but she was plucky and took risks, so she got a very bad fall that broke her up, and she had to quit and go to a hospital. She was a good girl, and I am paying her expenses. If she don’t die of her injuries, I’ll pay her board somewhere as long as she lives. For she will never ride again.”

Then a sudden thought occurred to the Grand Panjandrum.

“Tell you what, Sis,” he said. “Why can’t we drive down to the tent, and you let me see you ride a little to-night? You see, it will be a sort of life insurance to me; for if we give the show again without Fifine in it, some o’ them wild Texans will shoot me, like as not. If you can do the trick, I’ll get a printer to work, and early in the morning we’ll come out with a flaming announcement of ‘The Return of Mademoiselle Fifine, the Matchless Equestrienne of the Universe,’ and you can go into the ring at the afternoon performance.”

I didn’t like the lies he intended to tell, and I said so. I wanted him to give me some other ring name, but he said that all his big, coloured posters had Mademoiselle’s name on them, with coloured pictures of her on horseback, and that he couldn’t afford to throw the posters away, even if there had been any printers in Texas who could make new ones, as there were not.

“Besides,” he added, “you’ll be Mademoiselle Fifine, just as much as Bridget was. Everybody knows that the name is fictitious. All they want is to see good riding, and if you can’t ride as well as poor Bridget did, I couldn’t think of engaging you.”

I had to consent, and indeed I saw that there was really no deception to be practised. So the Grand Panjandrum and the Lady Superior and I sent for the carriage and drove back to the circus tent, which was dark now, except for the dim light of a few watchmen’s lanterns. I went to the dressing-room and put on some of Fifine’s riding-clothes – not those she wore in the presence of the audience, but a plain practice gown of black. Meanwhile the manager had made the men light up a little and bring out some horses.

I mounted and rode a little, doing my very best, though I was extremely nervous for fear that I should not prove to be acceptable. I suppose I rode a good deal better than Bridget had done, for the manager, his wife, and all the men in the ring seemed greatly delighted. I ended by throwing some somersaults, and that set them almost wild. The manager engaged me on the spot, making me sign the contract in the dressing-room tent before I had changed my clothing. Then he hurried me back to the tavern, registered me as Mademoiselle Fifine, writing the name in a big hand all across the page, and ordered me to bed.

“You mustn’t be nervous at your first performance,” he said; “so you must get plenty of sleep.”