The Rapture of Hetty

by Mary Hallock Foote

　　The dance was set for Christmas night at Walling's, a horse-ranch wherethere were women, situated in a high, watered valley shut in by foothills,sixteen miles from the nearest town. The cabin with its roof of shakes, thesheds and corrals, can be seen from any divide between Packer's ferry andthe Fayette.The "boys" had been generally invited, with one exception to the usualcompany. The youngest of the sons of Basset, a pastoral and nomadic house,was socially under a cloud, on the charge of having been "too handy withthe frying-pan brand."The charge could not be substantiated, but the boy's name had been roughlyhandled in those wide, loosely defined circles of the range where the forceof private judgment makes up for the weakness of the law, in dealing withcrimes that are difficult of detection and uncertain of punishment. He thathas obliterated his neighbor's brand or misapplied his own, is held as, inthe age of tribal government and ownership, was held the remover of hisneighbor's landmarks. A word goes forth against him potent as the leviticalcurse, and all the people say amen.As society's first public and pointed rejection of him the slight hadrankled with the son of Basset, and grievously it wore on him thatHetty Rhodes was going, with the man who had been his earliest and mostpersistent accuser: Hetty, prettiest of all the bunch-grass belles, whonever reproached nor quarreled, but judged people with her smile and letthem go. He had not complained, though he had her promise,--one of herpromises,--nor asked a hearing in his own defense. The sons of Bassetwere many and poor; their stock had dwindled upon the range; her men-folkcondemned him, and Hetty believed, or seemed to believe, as the others.Had she forgotten the night when two men's horses stood at her father'sfence,--the Basset boy's and that of him who was afterward his accuser; andthe other's horse was unhitched when the evening was but half spent, andfuriously ridden away, while the Basset boy's stood at the rails till closeupon midnight? Had the coincidence escaped her that from this night, of oneman's rage and another's bliss, the ugly charge had dated? Of these thingsa girl may not testify.They met in town on the Saturday before the dance, Hetty buying herdancing-shoes at the back of the store, where the shoe-cases framed in asnug little alcove for the exhibition of a "fit." The boy, in his belledspurs and "shaps" of goat-hide, was lounging disconsolate and sulkyagainst one of the front counters; she wore a striped ulster, an enchantedgarment his arm had pressed, and a pink crocheted tam-o'-shanter cockedbewitchingly over her dark eyes.Her hair was ruffled, her cheeks were red, with the wind she had faced fortwo hours on the spring-seat of her father's "dead axe" wagon. Criticalfeminine eyes might have found her a trifle blowzy; the sick-hearted Bassetboy looked once,--he dared not look again.Hetty coquetted with her partner in the shoe bargain, a curly-headed youngHebrew, who flattered her familiarly and talked as if he had known her froma child, but always with an eye to business. She stood, holding back herskirts and rocking her instep from right to left, while she considered theeffect of the new style; patent-leather foxings and tan-cloth tops, andheels that came under the middle of her foot, and narrow toes with tips ofstamped leather;--but what a price! More than a third of her chicken-moneygone for that one fancy's satisfaction. But who can know the joy of areally distinguished choice in shoe-leather like one who in her childhoodhas trotted barefoot through the sage-brush and associated shoes only withcold weather or going to town? The Basset boy tried to fix his strainedattention upon anything rather than upon that tone of high jocosity betweenHetty and the shiny-haired clerk. He tried to summon his own self-respectand leave the place.What was the tax, he inquired, on those neck-handkerchiefs; and he pointedwith the loaded butt of his braided leather quirt to a row of daintysilk mufflers, signaling custom from a cord stretched above thegentlemen's-furnishing counter.The clerk explained that the goods in question were first class, all silk,brocaded, and of an extra size. Plainly he expected that a casual mentionof the price would cool the inexperienced customer's curiosity, especiallyas the colors displayed in the handkerchiefs were not those commonlyaffected by the cow-boy cult. The Basset boy threw down his last half-eagleand carelessly called for the one with a blue border. The delicate "babyblue" attracted him by its perishability, its suggestion of impossiblerefinements beyond the soilure and dust of his own grimy circumstances. Yethe pocketed his purchase as though it had been any common thing, not toshow his pride in it before the patronizing salesman.He waited foolishly for Hetty, not knowing if she would even speak to him.When she came at last, loitering down the shop, with her eyes on the gayChristmas counters and her arms filled with bundles, he silently fell inbehind her and followed her to her father's wagon, where he helped herunload her purchases."Been buying out the store?" he opened the conversation."Buying more than father'll want to pay for," she drawled, glancing at himsweetly. Those entoiling looks of Hetty's dark-lashed eyes had grown to ahabit with her; even now the little Jewish salesman was smiling over hisbrief portion in them. Her own coolness made her careless, as children arein playing with fire."Here's some Christmas the old man won't have to pay for." A soft paperparcel was crushed into her hand."Who is going to pay for it, I'd like to know? If it's some of your doings,Jim Basset, I can't take it--so there!"She thrust the package back upon him. He tore off the wrapper and letthe wind carry his rejected token into the trampled mud and slush of thestreet.Hetty screamed and pounced to the rescue. "What a shame! It's a beauty ofa handkerchief. It must have cost a lot of money. I shan't let you use itso."She shook it, and wiped away the spots from its delicate sheen, and foldedit into its folds again."I don't want the thing." He spurned it fiercely."Then give it to some one else." She endeavored coquettishly to force itinto his hands, or into the pockets of his coat. He could not withstand herthrilling little liberties in the face of all the street."I'll wear it Monday night," said he. "May be you think I won't be there?"he added hoarsely, for he had noted her look of surprise, mingled with aninfuriating touch of pity. "You kin bank on it I'll be there."Hetty toyed with the thought that after all it might be better that sheshould not go to the dance. There might be trouble, for certainly JimBasset had looked as if he meant it when he had said he would be there; andHetty knew the temper of the company, the male portion of it, too well todoubt what their attitude would be toward an inhibited guest who disputedthe popular verdict, and claimed social privileges which it had been agreedthat he had forfeited. But it was never really in her mind to deny herselfthe excitement of going. She and her escort were among the first couplesto cross the snowy pastures stretching between her father's claim and thelights of the lonely horse-ranch.It was a cloudy night, the air soft, chill, and spring-like. Snow hadfallen early and frozen upon the ground; the stockmen welcomed the "chinookwind" as the promise of a break in the hard weather. Shadows came out andplayed upon the pale slopes, as the riders rose and dropped past one longswell and another of dim country falling away like a ghostly land seekinga ghostly sea. And often Hetty looked back, fearing, yet half hoping, thatthe interdicted one might be on his way, among the dusky, straggling shapesbehind.The company was not large, nor, up to nine o'clock, particularly merry.The women were engaged in cooking supper, or were above in the roof-roombrushing out their crimps by the light of an unshaded kerosene lamp, placedon the pine wash-stand which did duty as a dressing-table. The men's voicescame jarringly through the loose boards of the floor from below.About that hour arrived the unbidden guest, and like the others he hadbrought his "gun." He was stopped at the door and told that he couldnot come in among the girls to make trouble. He denied that he had comewith any such intention. There were persons present,--he mentioned nonames,--who were no more eligible, socially speaking, than himself, and heranked himself low in saying so; where such as these could be admitted, heproposed to show that he could. He offered, in evidence of his good faithand peaceable intentions, to give up his gun; but on the condition that hebe allowed one dance with the partner of his choosing, regardless of herprevious engagements.This unprecedented proposal was referred to the girls, who were charmedwith its audacity. But none of them spoke up for the outcast till Hettysaid she could not think what they were all afraid of; a dozen to one, andthat one without his weapon! Then the other girls chimed in and added theirtimid suffrages.There may have been some twinges of disappointment, there could hardly havebeen surprise, when the black sheep directed his choice without a lookelsewhere to Hetty. She stood up, smiling but rather pale, and he rushedher to the head of the room, securing the most conspicuous place before hisrival, who with his partner took the place of second couple opposite."Keep right on!" the fiddler chanted, in sonorous cadence to the music, asthe last figure of the set ended with "Promenade all!" He swung into theair of the first figure again, smiling, with his cheek upon his instrumentand his eyes upon the floor. Hetty fancied that his smile meant more thanmerely the artist's pleasure in the joy he evokes."Keep your places!" he shouted again, after the "Promenade all!" a secondtime had raised the dust and made the lamps flare, and lighted with smilesof sympathy the rugged faces of the elders ranged against the walls. Theside couples dropped off exhausted, but the tops held the floor, andneither of the men was smiling.The whimsical fiddler invented new figures, which he "called off" in timeto his music, to vary the monotony of a quadrille with two couples missing.The opposite girl was laughing hysterically; she could no longer dance norstand. The rival gentleman looked about him for another partner. One girljumped up, then, hesitating, sat down again. The music passed smoothly intoa waltz, and Hetty and her bad boy kept the floor, regardless of shouts andprotests warning the trespasser that his time was up and the game in otherhands.Three times they circled the room; they looked neither to right nor left;their eyes were upon each other. The men were all on their feet, the musicplaying madly. A group of half-scared girls was huddled, giggling andwhispering, near the door of the dimly lighted shed-room. Into the midstof them Hetty's partner plunged, with his breathless, smiling dancer in hisarms, passed into the dim outer place to the door where his horse stoodsaddled, and they were gone.They crossed the little valley known as Seven Pines; they crashedthrough the thin ice of the creek; they rode double sixteen miles beforedaybreak, Hetty wrapped in her lover's "slicker," with the blue-borderedhandkerchief, her only wedding-gift, tied over her blowing hair.