A VITAL POINT
It was the day but one after our exciting trip to the Water Storage
Reservoir when, as we were busy about our usual work, our attention
was attracted by a loud voice at the gate, shouting: "Whoa! Whoa, sir!
Whoa, now, I tell you!" and I was guilty of a disrespectful laugh.
"There comes Mr. Wilson, Jessie. You can always tell when he is
coming, for he begins shouting to his horses to stop as soon as he
sights a point where he wishes them to halt. Evidently he is intending
to call on us."
"Good morning, young folks, good morning!" was the hearty salutation,
a moment after, as our neighbor himself stood on the threshold.
"No, I can't stop," he declared, as usual, when Jessie offered him a
chair. "If I set," he continued, "I shall stay right on, like a big
clam that's got fixed to his liking, prob'ly, and I've got a heap to
do to-day."
Nevertheless, he dropped easily into the seat as he continued:
"Day after to-morrow's the day, I s'pose?"
"Yes," Jessie responded, dejectedly, "it is."
"Hu--m--wal', wal', you don't seem real animated about it, if you'll
excuse my saying so. I swan, I 'lowed you all would be right pleased
to think the long waiting's so nearly over."
"It isn't that," Jessie told him, trying to keep her lips from
quivering, "but--Joe has gone."
"What!"
Jessie repeated the statement.
"Pshaw! Now, that's too bad!" Mr. Wilson exclaimed, rubbing his hair
upright, as he always did when perplexed. "Wal', I don't know when
I've heard anything more surprising," he continued, when Jessie had
detailed the manner of Joe's disappearance to him; "I'd a banked on
that old man to the last breath o' life. And he's gone! Appearances
are all-fired deceivin', that's so, but don't you grieve over it,
girls; it'll all come out all right in the end. The old man has stayed
right by you and helped you good since your pa was taken, but we must
remember that he never was in the habit of tyin' himself down to one
place before this, and, more'n likely's not, his old, rovin' habits
have suddenly proved too strong fer him, and he's jest lit out because
he couldn't stan' the pressure any longer."
"But Joe is so faithful; he has always been just like one of the
family, and he knows so well how badly we need him," I objected; "it
does not seem possible for him to have deserted us."
"Desert is a purty ha'sh word, Miss Leslie. There's some mystery about
it, take my word for it. Joe'll be back again, and when he comes I'll
guarantee that he'll be able to give some good reason for going away."
Jessie shook her head, tearfully. "I don't believe he will ever come
back," she said.
"Wal', s'pose he doesn't? I reckon you two ain't goin' to let go your
grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o' thicken around
you! That's so."
He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage
of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of
the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old
playfellow, the big cat: "My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?"
he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection.
"Yes, yes, I see, little feller," was the absent reply.
Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. "Her won't bite; 'oo
needn't be 'fraid," he said.
Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to
the ground--using its tail for a handle, to Ralph's speechless
indignation--then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with
anxious wrinkles: "There's one thing that I never thought of until
early this morning--when I did, I hurried through with my chores and
came right over here. It's a stunner to find that Joe's gone, now, in
addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is,
I'm to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks--yes, three
months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children," he swept us all
with a compassionate glance, "the day that your father died. I'd be
willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man--which I'm thankful
to say that I ain't--that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it
well in mind all along; he ain't the man to overlook such a thing as
that." Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that
he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately:
"This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up
by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal'," he ran his fingers again
through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright
than ever, "there ain't no Ralph C. Gordon!"
The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first
time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital
importance, as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at
first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in
stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and
began to brighten as our friend proceeded.
"There are ways," he said. "I've been thinking of some of 'em; but I
am desperate afraid that none of 'em will do. The agent might, if he
was disposed to be obligin', transfer your father's claim to you,
Jessie, if you could swear that you are the head of a family, and
that's what you can't do--not as the law requires it, you can't. The
law don't recognize any one as the head of a family until of legal
age. Even if you were of legal age, the agent might refuse, if he saw
fit. If he should, all that you can do will be to file on the claim
again and go in for another five years' tussle with the homesteading
problem. 'Pears like there was a pretty fair prospect of your whole
family coming of age before another siege of homesteading is ended.
Why didn't I think of all this before? 'Cause I'm an old wooden head,
I s'pose! No, I'm mighty afeared that the only thing we can do is for
you to jest go down and file on the land in your own name, and say
nothing about age, if the agent asks no questions. As I said before,
you'll be old enough for anything before it comes time for a second
proving up."
Jessie, who had been listening intently, here suddenly interposed with
sparkling eyes, "I'm old enough now, Mr. Wilson, or, at least, I shall
be to-morrow. To-morrow is my birthday, and I shall be eighteen!"
Mr. Wilson sprang up so suddenly that he overturned his chair, and
sent Ralph's new pet scurrying from the room in wild alarm.
"Hooray for us!" he cried, seizing Jessie's hand. "The Gordons
forever! Now we're all right. I've felt certain all along that the
agent would give you a deed if he could, but he couldn't if you were
all under age. 'Twouldn't 'a' been legal. But if one of you is of
legal age, the homestead business is settled."
"But suppose he should refuse to give us a deed on account of the
claim's standing in father's name?" Jessie asked.
"In that case the thing to do is to file on it again, right there and
then, in your own name--strange, ain't it," he interjected, suddenly,
"that the law 'pears to declare that a girl's as smart at eighteen as
a boy is at twenty-one? Wal', the law don't know everything; you must
go down there day after to-morrow, prepared to enter the claim again,
though I do hope it won't come to that."
"That will cost a good deal, too, won't it?" Jessie inquired,
dejectedly.
"Yes; it will. I don't see but you must go down with money enough not
only to pay up the final fees, but to file on the land again in case
of the agent's refusal."
"Will that take more than the fees would amount to?" I inquired.
"Bless you, yes! I don't know jest how much, but a right smart. How
much have you got now?"
It needed no reckoning to tell the sum total of our painfully
garnered hoard. Mr. Wilson shook his head when Jessie named the sum
total. "Not enough; not enough, by half! And, as the worst luck will
have it, I'm clean out of money myself jest now. I declare, I don't
see where my money all goes! It don't 'pear to matter how much I may
have one day, it's all gone the next; beats all, it does!" He looked
at us solemnly, sitting with his lips pursed up, his hair standing
bolt upright, and his brows knit over the problem of his own financial
shortage, yet, to one who knew him, no problem was of easier solution.
Up and down the length and breadth of the valley, in miner's lonely
cabin, in cowboy's rough shack, or struggling rancher's rude
domicile--wherever a helpful friend was needed, Mr. Wilson was known
and loved, and, if money was needed, all that he had was freely given.
So it was no surprise to learn that he was suffering from temporary
financial embarrassment at a time when he would have liked, as usual,
to help a friend.
"Say," he suddenly exclaimed, starting from his troubled reverie; "in
order to make all safe, you've got to have money enough to file on
that land when you go down; there's no 'if's' nor 'and's' about that!
Your father would never 'a' hesitated a minute about borrowing the
money for such a purpose, if he had it to do. Now, Jim Jackson--over
Archeleuta way--he's owing me quite a consid'able. I'll go over there
to-day and see what I can do with him. He'll help us out if he can,
but he's been having sickness in his family, and maybe he can't; we'll
have to take our chances. I do' no's a hold-up is ever justifiable,"
he continued, with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes; "but if it
is, this would be one of the times. I hope we won't be drove to that!"
He took his departure shortly after, going back home to exchange his
team--to the detriment of his own affairs, I'm afraid--for a
saddle-horse, the better to perform the somewhat hazardous journey up
"Archeleuta way," but, before going, he enjoined us, if we had any
written proof of Jessie's coming of age on the morrow, to look it up
and have it in readiness to offer in evidence, in case the fact were
questioned.
"Your coming of age to-morrow is of so much importance that it seems
almost too good to be true," he said, earnestly.
So, after he had gone, Jessie took the big family Bible down from the
book shelf, and, opening the book, turned to the pages where the
Gordon family record had been carefully kept for many years. We knew,
of course, that there could be no mistake, but it was pleasant to see
the proof of our security in indisputable black and white.
"I'm afraid that Mr. Wilson will get nothing out of the Jacksons,"
Jessie remarked, as we turned away from a prolonged inspection of the
record; "he has had bad luck, and I heard, the other day, that Ted had
broken his arm."
"I'm not going to be afraid about anything now," I declared valiantly.
"I'm sure we'll come out all right. Mercy on us! What was that?" I
broke off, as a chorus of mingled outcries came to our ears. Outside
the doorway there appeared to be, judging by the sound, a lively
commotion, in which cat, dog, and boy were each bearing a part. We ran
out in alarm and found Ralph just picking himself up off the ground
upon which he seemed to have been thrown with some force.
Ralph, unnoticed in the interest of our talk with Mr. Wilson, had been
amusing himself in his own way. His way had been to overturn the empty
bushel basket and put it over Guard, who was lying by the doorstep.
Guard had submitted to imprisonment with placid indifference until it
came to Ralph's thrusting the new cat in with him; this he instantly
resented, so, to insure the dog's staying within, Ralph had climbed
upon the basket. Whereupon Guard sprang up, overturning both jail and
jailor. The liberated cat fled with all speed, and Guard walked off in
disgust.
"What on earth are you trying to do?" I demanded.
Ralph raised his violet eyes soberly to my face as he replied: "Us
was havin' a round-up; now us all 'tampeded," and the violet eyes were
drenched with raindrops, as the little cattleman threw himself on the
ground, sobbing.
"Never mind, darling, your herd will all come home," I said,
consolingly.
"Me don't want 'em to tum back; me's so mad!" was the uncompromising
reply.