“Hey, come back here.”
“Oh, he’s easy.”
“Don’t be in a hurry, Grandpa.”
“Say, you want to drive all the rabbits yourself.”
Later on, a certain group of these fellows started a huge “josh.”
“Say, that’s what we’re waiting for, the ‘do-funny.’ ”
“The do-funny?”
“Sure, you can’t drive rabbits without the ‘do-funny.’ ”
“What’s the do-funny?”
“Oh, say, she don’t know what the do-funny is. We can’t start without it, sure. Pete went back to get it.”
“Oh, you’re joking me, there’s no such thing.”
“Well, aren’t we waiting for it?”
“Oh, look, look,” cried some women in a covered rig. “See, they are starting already ’way over there.”
In fact, it did appear as if the far extremity of the line was in motion. Dust rose in the air above it.
“They are starting. Why don’t we start?”
“No, they’ve stopped. False alarm.”
“They’ve not, either. Why don’t we move?”
But as one or two began to move off, the nearest marshal shouted wrathfully:
“Get back there, get back there.”
“Well, they’ve started over there.”
“Get back, I tell you.”
“Where’s the ‘do-funny?’ ”
“Say, we’re going to miss it all. They’ve all started over there.”
A lieutenant came galloping along in front of the line, shouting:
“Here, what’s the matter here? Why don’t you start?”
There was a great shout. Everybody simultaneously uttered a prolonged “Oh‑h.”
“We’re off.”
“Here we go for sure this time.”
“Remember to keep the alignment,” roared the lieutenant. “Don’t go too fast.”
And the marshals, rushing here and there on their sweating horses to points where the line bulged forward, shouted, waving their arms: “Not too fast, not too fast. … Keep back here. … Here, keep closer together here. Do you want to let all the rabbits run back between you?”
A great confused sound rose into the air—the creaking of axles, the jolt of iron tires over the dry clods, the click of brittle stubble under the horses’ hoofs, the barking of dogs, the shouts of conversation and laughter.
The entire line, horses, buggies, wagons, gigs, dogs, men and boys on foot, and armed with clubs, moved slowly across the fields, sending up a cloud of white dust, that hung above the scene like smoke. A brisk gaiety was in the air. Everyone was in the best of humor, calling from team to team, laughing, skylarking, joshing. Garnett, of the Ruby Rancho, and Gethings, of the San Pablo, both on horseback, found themselves side by side. Ignoring the drive and the spirit of the occasion, they kept up a prolonged and serious conversation on an expected rise in the price of wheat. Dabney, also on horseback, followed them, listening attentively to every word, but hazarding no remark.
Mrs. Derrick and Hilma sat in the back seat of the carryall, behind young Vacca. Mrs. Derrick, a little disturbed by such a great concourse of people, frightened at the idea of the killing of so many rabbits, drew back in her place, her young-girl eyes troubled and filled with a vague distress. Hilma, very much excited, leaned from the carryall, anxious to see everything, watching for rabbits, asking innumerable questions of Annixter, who rode at her side.
The change that had been progressing in Hilma, ever since the night of the famous barn-dance, now seemed to be approaching its climax; first the girl, then the woman, last of all the Mother. Conscious dignity, a new element in her character, developed. The shrinking, the timidity of the girl just awakening to the consciousness of sex, passed away from her. The confusion, the troublous complexity of the woman, a mystery even to herself, disappeared. Motherhood dawned, the old simplicity of her maiden days came back to her. It was no longer a simplicity of ignorance, but of supreme knowledge, the simplicity of the perfect, the simplicity of greatness. She looked the world fearlessly in the eyes. At last, the confusion of her ideas, like frightened birds, resettling, adjusted itself, and she emerged from the trouble calm, serene, entering into her divine right, like a queen into the rule of a realm of perpetual peace.
And with this, with the knowledge that the crown hung poised above her head, there came upon Hilma a gentleness infinitely beautiful, infinitely pathetic; a sweetness that touched all who came near her with the softness of a caress. She moved surrounded by an invisible atmosphere of Love. Love was in her wide-opened brown eyes, Love—the dim reflection of that descending crown poised over her head—radiated in a faint lustre from her dark, thick hair. Around her beautiful neck, sloping to her shoulders with full, graceful curves, Love lay encircled like a necklace—Love that was beyond words, sweet, breathed from her parted lips. From her white, large arms downward to her pink fingertips—Love, an invisible electric fluid, disengaged itself, subtle, alluring. In the velvety huskiness of her voice, Love vibrated like a note of unknown music.
Annixter, her uncouth, rugged husband, living in this influence of a wife, who was also a mother, at all hours touched to the quick by this sense of nobility, of gentleness and of love, the instincts of a father already clutching and tugging at his heart, was trembling on the verge of a mighty transformation. The hardness and inhumanity of the man was fast breaking up. One night, returning late to the Ranch house, after a compulsory visit to the city, he had come upon Hilma asleep. He had never forgotten that night. A realization of his boundless happiness in this love he gave and received, the thought that Hilma trusted him, a knowledge of his own unworthiness, a vast and humble thankfulness that his God had chosen him of all men for this great joy, had brought him to his knees for the first time in all his troubled, restless life of combat and aggression. He prayed, he knew not what—vague words, wordless thoughts, resolving fiercely to do right, to make some return for God’s gift thus placed within his hands.
Where once Annixter had thought only of himself, he now thought only of Hilma. The time when this thought of another should broaden and widen into
