MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT
Late that same evening Mr. Wilson called again. He was on his way
home, and stopped to tell us--with evident chagrin--that his mission
had been a failure.
"You'll have to take the trail in the morning, Leslie, and see what
you can do," he said, as he went away.
The cows broke out of the corral that night, and it took so long to
hunt them up, get them back into the corral, and milk them, that it
was quite the middle of the day when I was ready to start out on my
unwelcome business. Try as I might to convince myself to the contrary,
the effort to borrow money seemed to me, somehow, akin to beggary. In
my heart I had a cowardly wish that Joe had been on hand to take my
place, but I kept all such reflections to myself. I had changed my
print dress for the worn old riding habit of green serge, and was
about starting for the barn to get Frank, when Jessie remarked:
"While you are hunting for a chance to borrow money, I'll be
earning some. If I can finish this work to-day--it's Annie Ellis'
wrapper--I'll have two dollars to add to the fund. Why, Leslie, I'd
pretty nearly sell the dress off my back to raise money to-day!"
"Well, I know I'd do that, with half the reason for it that we have
now. Dresses are a bother, anyway"--my habit was too short and too
tight, not having kept pace with my growth--"but, all the same, I hate
to see you working so hard. You've really grown thin and pale lately,"
I added.
"It won't be for long; I'll soon be through with it now--" Jessie was
beginning, when a cheerful voice from the doorway echoed her words:
"No; it won't be for long! That's a comfort, ain't it?"
We both started. We had been so engrossed that we had heard no one
approaching, and, even if we had, we could scarcely have been less
startled, for the man leaning comfortably against the door-jamb was
Jacob Horton. It had been many weeks since he had, to our knowledge,
set foot on our premises.
"Good morning, Miss Jessie and Leslie," he began affably. "Nice
morning, ain't it? I've been living in this valley going on eight
year, and I don't recollect as ever I see a nicer mornin' than this
is."
He put one foot upon the door sill--a suggestive attitude--but neither
of us invited him to enter. He was not easily daunted, however. The
hand that rested against the door-jamb was still bandaged, and, as I
made out with a swift glance, a button was still missing from his
coat. It was the coat that he had worn on the night that he had
ostensibly salted the cattle in the far pasture. From his point of
observation Mr. Horton, turning slightly, threw an admiring glance
around. The glance seemed to include the outer prospect as well as the
inner.
"This is a sightly place for a house, ain't it?" he remarked. "I
do'no--I really do'no but I'd like that knoll t'other side the river
just as well, though, and it would be nigher the spring. I'll speak to
my wife about it; if she likes this spot better, why, here our house
goes up. I shan't object. We can move this contraption that your
father built, back for a hen house, or a pig-pen; just as she says. I
always try to please my wife."
"When you get ready, perhaps you'll kindly tell us what you are
talking about, Mr. Horton," Jessie said, rising from the sewing
machine and going toward the door, whither I followed her.
"Tell you? Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course you girls can't be expected to
know--young as you be--that you can't hold this claim. This claim was
open for re-entry the day that your father was drowned. I wasn't ready
to take it up just then; I am ready now. Odd, ain't it? I've been
hearin' some talk--my wife told me, in fact--that you girls had laid
out to go down to the land office with your witnesses to offer final
proof to-morrow; Well, now--he, he! That's a reg'lar joke, for if
you'll believe it, to-morrow's the day I've set to go down and file on
this claim, 'count of it's being vacant! I don't s'pose, now, that you
girls are reely in earnest about trying to keep the place? It would be
a sight of trouble to you, even if the law would allow it, which it
won't."
"Why not, Mr. Horton?" I asked.
"Why not? Wal', I don't know just why; I didn't make the homestead
laws--reasonable laws they be, though; I couldn't 'a' made better ones
myself--but I can tell you two girls one big, fundamental clause, so
to speak, of the Homestead Act, under which you don't come--yes, two
of 'em. First, foremost, and enough to swamp your whole outfit, if
there was nothing else, you ain't neither of you of age. Second, not
being of age, you ain't neither of you the head of a family."
I looked at Mr. Horton's bandaged hand, and a thrill of genuine
delight went through me, as I hastened to dispute one of his
fundamental clauses.
"Jessie is the head of a family, Mr. Horton--Ralph and I are her
family."
"Maybe! Maybe! I s'pose, no doubt, you regard yourselves in that
light. No harm's done, as long as you keep it to yourselves, but
you'll find that the law won't recognize you in that way. The law's
everlastin' partic'lar about such things. But, again, there's the
matter of your both being under age! Now, what a misfortune that is to
you--s'posing that you're in earnest about wanting to keep this place,
but I reckon you ain't--if you recollect, you two, I've always said
that I'd have this place. It may save you some trouble and expense, if
I say right here and now, that I mean to have it! I mean to have it!
Don't forget that! But I ain't a hard man--not at all--and I'm willing
to make it as easy as I can for you. Why, I could 'a' filed on this
any time since your pa died, but I didn't, and why not?"
"If you ask me," I said, speaking very quietly, though I was
trembling with indignation, "I suppose you didn't file on it because
you thought it would be better to let us get a crop in before you did
it; then you could steal the crop along with the place."
"Leslie!" Jessie exclaimed, aghast.
But Mr. Horton's thin lips parted in a wolfish smile. "Oh--ho! you're
up on the homestead laws to some extent, I see. Crops do go with the
land when the claimant forfeits his right to the land that bears them.
Your father, he forfeited his right by getting drownded, and no one
has entered the claim since, so I'm about to enter it. As I said
before I ain't a hard man, and I'm willing to make it as easy as I can
for you, so I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll pay a fair price for such
improvements as your father made. They don't amount to much--"
"But if you should decide to commute the claim, instead of waiting
five years to prove up, it would be worth a good deal to you to be
able to swear that such and such things had stood on the place so
long, which you could not do if we took our improvements away; for we
have a right to remove whatever we have built, if we do not keep the
claim."
Mr. Horton's narrow eyes rested on me with anything but a friendly
expression. "You're posted quite a consid'able; ain't you, Miss
Smarty? Pity you didn't know jest a little mite more. Well; we won't
quarrel over a little thing like that. I'll pay for the improvements,
and you'll jest leave 'em where they are. This house, now, I'll take a
look at it; it don't amount to much, that's so, but such as 'tis, I'll
look at it."
"You are welcome to do so," Jessie assured him.
I think it came into her mind, as it certainly did into mine, that he
wished to ascertain if the house were not lacking in some one or more
of the essential equipments of a homesteader's claim. If he should
discover such a lack his task would be all the easier. I ran over a
hasty, furtive inventory on my fingers: "Cat, clock, table, chairs,
stove--"
The cat was lying comfortably outstretched on the window ledge, her
head resting on the open pages of the Bible, that we had both
neglected to replace. The clock ticked loudly from its place on the
mantel-piece; there was a fire in the stove, and, absorbed in staring,
Mr. Horton stumbled over one of the chairs. The result of his
inspection did not please him; he scowled at the cat, who resented his
glance by springing from the window and hissing spitefully at his legs
as she passed him on her way out. Her sudden spring drew our visitor's
attention to the book on which her head had been resting; the written
pages attracted his notice.
"What's that?" he demanded, going nearer, the better to examine them.
"That is our family Bible," Jessie replied, laying her hand upon it
reverently. "This"--she looked up at him with a kind of still, pale
defiance--"this is the Gordon family record! It has been kept in these
pages since the days of our great-great-grandfather, and"--she turned
the book so that Mr. Horton's eyes rested on the entry--"it may
interest you to know that I am eighteen, of legal age, to-day."
Mr. Horton's jaw dropped, and for a speechless instant he looked the
picture of blank amazement, then he rallied.
"Records can lie," he declared, brutally. "You don't look eighteen,
Jessie Gordon, and I don't believe you are. It's a likely story, ain't
it now, that you should happen to be of age on the very day, almost,
that it's a matter of life or death, as one might say, that you should
be! No, that's too thin; it won't wash. You've made a little mistake
in your entry, that's all. One of them convenient mistakes that folks
are apt to make when it's to their interest to do so."
"As there is no man here to kick you out of the house, I suppose you
feel at liberty to say whatever comes into your wicked head, and we
must bear it!" Jessie said, her voice shaken with anger.
In spite of himself, Mr. Horton winced at that. "I ain't one to take
advantage of your being helpless," he declared, virtuously. "You've
no call to hint as much. But you know as well as I do that you don't
look a day over sixteen, if you do that, and you couldn't make
nobody--no land agent--believe that you are of age, if you didn't have
that record to swear by."
"As we do have it, it will probably answer our purpose."
"Oh, well; maybe 'twill; maybe 'twill!" his glance ranged up and down
the window, where lay the book with its irrefutable evidence. Then his
eyes fell, and his tones changed to blandness once more. "I must be
going," he announced, edging toward the door; "I was passing along,
and an idee popped into my head. You've been to some expense in
helping to find your pa's body--though why you should 'a' been so set
on finding it, nobody knows; folks is so cur'ous, that way! If it had
been my case, I reckon my folks would 'a' had sense enough to leave me
where I was--"
"I am sure they would--gladly!" I interposed, quickly.
Mr. Horton shot an evil glance in my direction, and went on: "Well,
you've been to some expense, and the mines have shut down so's 't that
old crackerjack of a nigger that hangs 'round your place is out of
work. I'm going to pre-empt this place--none o' your slack-twisted
homestead rights for me--and I thought it would be neighborly if I was
to step in and tell you, Jess, that my wife's wanting a hired girl.
She was speaking of it last night, and the thought came into my head
right off, though I didn't mention it to her, that you was going
to need a home, and there was your chance. Being so young and
inexperienced--for you don't look eighteen, no--I reckon you'd be
willing to work without any more wages than jest your board and
lodging until you had kind o' got trained into doing things our way."
"I'm afraid that I should never earn any wages at anything--not if I
were to live a thousand years, if I had to be trained to do things
your way first!" Jessie told him, with flashing eyes.
"Oh, that's all right; you'll get over some of your high notions when
you get to be a hired girl. You'll prob'ly acquire the ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit, same's the Bible speaks of, and it's one that
you ain't got at present. As for you"--he turned on me savagely, and
it was evident that he held me in even less esteem than he did my
sister--"you can get out, and that brat"--he glared at Ralph, who had
drawn near, and was regarding him with a kind of solemn, impersonal
interest--"you can get shet of him easy enough--you can send him to
the poor-house."