From the Improvement Era, April 1934 –

Fine Raiment

By Olive M. Nicholes

Silas Lane closed the brass-bound covers of the great Bible with reverent fingers and gazed with concern at his eldest born beside him. Marcia did not return his gaze but sat with drooping head, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She felt the eyes of the entire family upon her — from Ben, two years her junior, to little Nancy May. Her mother’s gentle voice, alone, broke the oppressive silence that had settled down upon the supper table, as she served, impartially, corn bread and molasses and heavy tin cups, foaming with fresh milk.

“Ben will take a written message to Rod, for you. It is not too late to accept his invitation to the festival,” her father resumed at last.

Marcia nodded and tried to force the morsel of corn bread past the lump in her throat. It was no use to argue that she had promised to go to the dance with Arthur Dancey — graceful, debonair, well-dressed Arthur who could swing his partner through all the intricacies of quadrille and reel without once stepping on her toes.

To be sure she liked Rod’s honest, ruddy face beneath the rumpled shock of corn-colored hair, the steadfast blue eyes and his great breath-taking strength. Beside Arthur’s lithesome figure he seemed like something primitive — better fitted to stalk through the forest with a wolf-skin across his muscular shoulders and a stone-ax in his hand. He appeared at the dances in homespun and hickory, ridiculously short as to wrists and ankles — beating time with his bare feet to the glide and dip of Old Ezra’s fiddle bow. Marcia almost laughed aloud as she compared the two in her mind’s eye, but came to herself with a start as her father’s voice fell upon her ear.

“You are to go with Rod, you understand,” he reiterated.

“Yes, father,” she answered, obediently, lifting soft, brown eyes to meet his own. Deep, within her own soul, she knew her father was right. Kind and gentle as a woman to the weak and helpless, he made no compromise with evil. He had crossed the plains by handcart, scarcely resting in “the Valley” before the call to “Dixie” had found him ready and willing to place his all, again, upon the altar of his faith. They had stood upon the crest of those formidable, black ledges and looked with awe upon the desert valley beneath them.

Just so Escalante had stood — seeing only wastelands rimmed by worn, Vermillion cliffs and the muddy waters of a sluggish river. Hot, dry, and uncompromising — he had left it without a backward glance.

Not so these valiants of the Faith. The unconquered valley lay beneath them, drowsing in the brilliant, winter sunshine. Their eyes, kindled with vision, saw within the hollow of its sandy palm the fate of many commonwealths — radiating from its center like spokes of a gigantic wheel. They wrestled with the treacherous waters of the river. The Indian, no less treacherous, skulked beside them. They poured their hearts’ blood out upon the thirsty sand. Unflinchingly they fought on, until Temple, chapel, homes, and schools, fragrant vineyards, fields of grain, and orchards heavy with abundant yield replaced the cactus and the chaparral, the yucca and the purple sage. Small wonder, then, that he should strive to keep that vision shining in his children’s eyes. Down the vista of the years he saw the vision grow; saw the answer to the prophecy, “Some day this valley should be the head and not the ‘tail-end’ of Zion;” and bent his back, again, above the creaking plow.

Marcia was only seventeen and the rigors of pioneer life pressed hard upon her beauty-loving soul. Although she pitted her young strength against the wilderness without complaint, she held close her dreams of other lands and times. For this reason, alone, she found a close companion in the rotund person of Miss Emmeline Dancey — known affectionately as “Em”.

Back in the glorious and obscure past, an ancestress to the Dancey Clan had served as “Maid-in-Waiting” to a Queen. That this was the unadulterated truth and not the figment of a fanciful, dream, was borne out by a huge chest, overflowing with silk and satin and velvet gowns — musty and mil- dewed and brittle with age. Marcia and Em spent” many happy hours in the Dancey attic, “trying-on,” dancing, or planning alterations that Em and her leisure-loving mother never found time to undertake.

Marcia was thinking of this as she slipped through the pomegranate hedge — aglow with rosy-tinted fruit, gleaming like little golden lanterns through the varnished green leaves. Late roses, struggling for one more day of fragrant supremacy, rioted amongst young ailanthus shoots that screened the dilapidated old house from the street.

Marcia found Em and her mother seated on the rickety veranda — a gorgeous heap of great-grand-aunt’s finery billowing about their feet. Mrs. Dancey surrendered her needle, with little argument to Marcia’s ingenious fingers. She enjoyed nothing better than to talk and rock. Having anticipated the corsetless figure by half-a-century, she surrendered herself to the comfort of the rocking-chair with a happy sigh — her nested chin resting in triple sequence upon the calico expanse of her ample bosom.

Marcia ripped, and stitched and fitted until the last rays of the November sunshine gilded the distant ridge. She sighed a little as she draped the heavy brocade about Em’s too plump shoulders. Silas Lane would never tolerate such open defiance to Brother Brigham’s counsel and advice. For what reason other than this wanton display of fashion and figure had their leader urged Retrenchment upon them? Marcia, herself, would go to the dance under the Bowery of cotton-wood boughs, dressed in full-skirted calico and home-made, square-toed little shoes, and perhaps, her mother’s coral beads around her slender throat.

Em’s father had come of sturdy stock, the last of a line of indomitable pioneers. When he had journeyed west, his wife and children followed — not so much from desire as necessity. They leaned upon him with childish dependence and, once this support was gone, slumped into the easier ways of idleness and indifference. Arthur might have been a different man but for his mother’s shielding hand. Hot blood flowed in his veins and the urge for conquest and honest victory found its outlet in the muddy channels of trickery and deceit. It was because of such as these — the luke-warm in the Faith — that Brother Brigham’s heavy cane had crashed, in righteous wrath, across the Temple pulpit top. There the great welt, as deep as a man’s thumb, lies today as then — displayed with equal pride and reverence, to the faithful, by the keeper of the sacred House.

Arthur had not yet returned from one of those mysterious journeys that took him so far afield. Em hinted of San Bernardino and “store-shoes,” and perhaps a sack of white sugar, shipped in from Cuba. That he would be home for the festival was assured by a pair of new chaps, made of rippling white goat-hides, gay, embroidered boots of softest leather, and silver spurs wrought cunningly in filigree. The new sombrero and “boiled shirt” would accompany him home from “the trip.” He could not miss the dance that preceded the Autumn round-up.

Then, men and boys, cheered by the festivities, rode out to brand the “Canaan Cattle.” Marcia hesitated to leave her message with the two gossipy women. She preferred to meet Arthur at her Aunt Priscilla Downing’s whose tongue, though sharp, spoke from a capacious heart. Aunt Pris had tried with fruitless effort to turn the “black-sheep” back into the fold, assuring herself of his reconversion even after Poor Sally Indian’s bitter confidences.

Aunt Priscilla was an anchor to the Indians. Many a papoose owed his free existence to her tact and bravery. Many a bloody battle was averted by her knowledge of the Indian tongue. She gave them food when they were hungry; washed their wounds; and cured their aches and pains; and berated them roundly for their lazy, shiftless ways.

Charley Indian was the proverbial “apple” of his mother’s eye. For a year, now, she had puzzled over his secretive ways; wept over his frequent absences; and cringed with apprehension at the “White Man’s money” he so openly displayed. That Arthur Dancey was responsible for her boy’s degeneration was no fancy in Sally’s subtle brain. Had she not tracked them for miles in the darkness with all the stealth and cunning of her race?

So it was that Marcia found her the following evening crouching in abject terror before Aunt Pris’s dying fire. Marcia hurried into the adjoining room in search of her aunt just as Arthur sauntered through the outside door. His whistle of assurance was cut short with a terrible oath at the sight of the wretched old savage cringing there.

“You black witch, where’s that young jackass of yours. He promised to meet me at daybreak on the Black Ridge with some horses we’d — traded on.”

“Cha’ly heap sick. Heap big man shoot. Me come Missy Downy,” and old Sally spread her trembling arms in a desperate gesture of renunciation.

Arthur grasped her by the shoulders and jerked her to her feet. Marcia, peering through the slit in the doorway, almost fainted at the evil that distorted his features.

“Where is he? Where is he?” he raged.

“I no tell; I no tell,” she screeched. Then with a fierce glitter in her beady, black eyes she leaned toward him with a leer. “Big man say ‘me fin’ p’etty boy — me shoot heem too’.”

Arthur’s transformation was tragic but complete. The man he might have been rose up for one brief moment, then he seemed to shrivel — to shrink within himself.

His abject, terror-stricken figure, wrung a cry of pity from Marcia’s trembling lips.

“Where’s your — horse — Sally? I’ve gotta — have him. I’ve — gotta go; I’ll—”

At the sound of Aunt Priscilla’s step at the door he fled past her into the night with Sally at his heels, crying, “No take Sally’s horse! Sally no go! Cha’ly heap sick.”

“Well, I swan,” ejaculated the good woman, peering after the two long after the clatter of hoofs had died away. “Told me Em ud had another spell, just to get me outa the way. Found her fit as a fiddle dressed up like a Jezebel for the dance.”

Her soliloquy was cut short by the sound of happy laughter and the hum of voices as old folks and young trooped into her house, bearing trays and baskets, buckets and platters covered from young, prying eyes. Little David Lane and the bishop’s son bore a tub of luscious mission grapes between them. Rod, with a willow basket heaped up with mellow casabas, loomed at last in the doorway. Marcia, taking advantage of the crowd, slipped unobserved amongst the laughing, jostling company just as Rod swung the basket to the floor.

Their eyes met and clung, hers with gratitude and relief; his with the tender adoration a brave and true man feels for the woman he loves. There was no time for speech for just then Em, hobbled rather than walked into the room. Her hair had been frizzed and crimped beyond all recognition and festooned behind gay ribbons and roses into a fashionable “waterfall.” “Store-shoes” squeezed her poor toes in a vise. Marcia came quickly to her side and tried gently to lead her to a chair.

“Do your shoes hurt you, Em?” she whispered affectionately.

“Land! no! I turned my ankle as I come in at the gate.” She tossed her head and spurned the chair with an indignant shove even as her eyes, moist with pain, devoured its comfort and security.

The girls covertly inspected the brocaded gown and the new hairdress; the boys stared in amazement; while Em stood fanning her flushed face and strutting like a peacock among drab barnyard fowls. Driven beyond endurance at last, she stooped to unfasten the tightest buttons. A rip! A scream! “Great-grand-aunt’s” bodice split from shoulder to hip like the skin of an over-ripe pomegranate in the sun. A dozen young ladies quickly encircled the stricken Em, for the while chemise released from its confines billowed out like a sail in the wind.

“I told Ma she wasn’t lacin’ me half tight enough,” she sobbed. “Take me home. My hull even’s spoilt.”

“Tut! Tut! ‘Pride goeth before a fall;’ I’ll go home with you, Emmeline and you’ll get to the dance dressed as a young woman in Zion should be,” and Aunt Pris enveloped the hysterical girl in the folds of her best Paisley shawl.

Some of the girls giggled, others stared after the departing pair with mingled pity and relief. The boys laughed openly and swung their partners into position for a Reel as Old Ezra mounted the bedroom steps and tucked his fiddle under his chin.

The noise ceased almost as abruptly as it had begun. Everyone turned and stared at the open doorway. Tongues clove to roofs of mouths, at the memory of pilfered melons. The bishop’s son turned white as chalk. He had ridden his uncle’s gelding in the pasture against strict instructions. Even gentle Benny Lane cast his eyes alternately from floor to ceiling in a vain endeavor to recall some luckless indiscretion.

The figure in the doorway loomed larger — if such a feat were possible and slipped a wicked-looking gun from one of the holsters that hung from his hips. He seemed to crush the door-frame into the very walls. No one had ever seen the sheriff from Nevada; but his reputation had long preceded his appearance. Cold as steel, hard as flint — he stood there a veritable Goliath — a colossal pillar of the law. In the merriment no one had heard the wheels of his buggy crunching through the sand. No riding horse was born that could sustain his great bulk of bone and sinew. The teams that relayed his “White-top” through the country were bred for strength and endurance.

“I am looking for horse-thieves,” he bellowed, while his glittering black eyes swept the room.

The blood drained from Marcia’s fingers, leaving them in a shell of ice. She knew before he spoke the name; he was looking for Arthur. She felt the sheriff’s eyes upon her. Fear, humiliation, disgrace, swept over her in a sickening flood. Rod’s arm encircled her shoulders in a reassuring grip, then his hand slipped down her arm and found her own. They stood there with fingers interlaced, facing the sheriff, together.

“Your honor,” Rod said quietly, neither cowering nor cringing, “There is no one here answering to that name. We are law-abiding people, tilling our own fields, tending our flocks and herds. We envy no man his increase, neither do we ask for largess.” He had not carried a book for nothing on those long journeys when freighting had threatened to become as monotonous as it had been exciting. His voice flowed on like a swift river.

All eyes turned upon him in incredulous amazement. Rod, the “tongue-tied,” the country yokel, the awkward lover! He stood there as calm, as secure in his splendid strength as any Viking forbear driving his barge into the teeth of the gale.

The Sheriff’s eyes bore through him like a gimlet; saw the real man beneath the homespun shirt and raised his hand in acquiescence.

“I believe you,” he thundered. Then turning to Marcia, “You do well, young lady, to trust your heart to such safe keeping.”

He stepped back just as Aunt Pris bustled into the room.

‘To whom am I indebted for this visit?” she demanded. “I, Priscilla Downey, who never has stolen as much as a pin, accosted by a Sheriff in search of horse thieves!”

It was the Sheriff’s turn to feel the gimlet; and he flushed to the roots of his hair.

Now that she had put him in his place, her warm nature came to his rescue. Knowing with certitude the highway to a gentleman’s heart be he either red or white, she stepped to the “white-top” and inspected his grub-box.

“As empty as your stummick, this very minute, I’ll wager. Well, you’re not among heathens. I’m as good a cook as ever crossed the Mississippi. Here, Marcia,” she called as she hurried into the room, “hand me that loaf of “salt-risin” in the bin and get that jar of carrot jam on the shelf. There’s a pat of butter in the crock, too, and if Pa didn’t give it to Jim Big Arrow, there’s half a rabbit in the dripper.” Meanwhile Rod had gathered up a pan of grapes as black as tar and honey-sweet, a dozen yellow casabas, and a basket of sugared figs. By the time the grub-box was filled to overflowing the Sheriff was docile as a huge grizzly in berry time. He deferentially shook hands with Aunt Priscilla; complimented Marcia with an elegant sweep of his “ten-gallon” hat; and gave Rod a generous dig in the ribs, that left him fairly gasping for breath.

They watched him ride off under the stars but when Rod and Marcia turned back into the room, they found the crowd and Aunt Prissy too, had slipped away into the night.

“I’d b-better get the picnic ready,” Marcia stammered, trembling to find herself alone with this strange, new Rod.

Aunt Pris had laid the home-spun cloth conveniently at hand. She shook out its creamy folds, smoothed and straightened it as Rod carried delicious cakes and cookies made with saleratus and buttermilk to their respective places of honor on the long table. Bake-ovens emitting savory odors of roast beef, mutton, quail, rabbit, sage-hens, venison and even crisp, brown trout, were set to keep hot in the ashes. Vinegar pies, apple dumplings, carrot jam, preserved ground cherries and sarvis berries, watermelon rind, pickled in its own sweet juices, sugared figs and rosy pomegranates — bursting with their own importance; filled the “granny” cupboard to overflowing. The great apple-sauce cake, redolent with spices and brown sugar and made by Aunt Prissy’s old New England recipe, held the center of the table.

Marcia worked in silence, only too anxious to prolong the inevitable words Rod was longing to speak. At last even her industrious hands could find no more to do and Rod, reaching across the bounteous board, caught them in his own, and —

“Marcia, I’ve got a job freight- ing to Salt Lake until it freezes and then down the Muddy and on the coast ’till spring. I’d — I’d like to bring you something nice — to wear.”

Marcia, tracing a pattern on the hooked rug with the toe of her shoe, gave no word.

“Would you like a fan?”

An emphatic shake of the brown head was his only answer.

“Please, Marcia — let me bring you something nice. A piece of silk for a bodice?” he coaxed.

She raised her eyes, dewy with tears, her red lips trembling for his kiss.

“Oh, Rod, let Em have the fans and the silks and the store shoes; just bring me back yourself!”