THE FINEST LITTLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD
"You tell Mr. Picardy that I ain't visitin' nobody, so he needn't
consider that I'm company," announced Jerry, after a wait that was
beginning to rasp the nerves of his visitors. "I come here to live!
He's called this land hisn, by authority uh the king uh Spain, you
say, for over twenty year. Wall, in twenty year he ain't set so much
as a fence-post fur as the eye can see. I been five mile from here on
every side, and I don't see no signs of his ever usin' the land fer
nothin'. Now, mebby the king uh Spain knew what he was talkin' about
when he give this land away, and then agin mebby he didn't. 'T any
rate, I don't know as I think much of a king that'll give away a hull
great gob uh land he never seen, and give it to one feller--more 'n
that feller could use in a hull lifetime; more 'n he would ever need
fer his young 'uns, even s'posin' he had a couple uh dozen--which
ain't skurcely respectable fer one man, nohow. How many's he got,
mister?"
"One--his daughter, over there."
"Hum-mh! Wall, she ain't goin' to need so derned much. You tell Mr.
Picardy I've come a long ways to find a home fer Mary and me; a long
road and a hard road. I can't go no further without I swim fer it, and
that I don't calc'late on doin'. I ain't the kind to hog more land
'n what I can use--not mentionin' no names; but I calc'late on havin'
what I need, if I can get it honest. My old mother used to read outa
the Bible that the earth was the Lord's and the fullness thereof; and
I ain't never heard of him handin' over two-thirds of it to any king
uh Spain. What he's snoopin' around in Ameriky fur, givin' away
great big patches uh country he never seen, I ain't askin'. Californy
belongs to the United States of Ameriky, and the United States of
Ameriky lets her citizens make homes for themselves and their families
on land that ain't already in use. If Mr. Picardy can show me a deed
from Gawd Almighty, signed, sealed, and delivered along about the time
Moses got hisn fer the Land uh Canyan, or if he can show a paper from
Uncle Sam, sayin' this place belongs to him, I'll throw off these
logs, h'ist the box back on the wagon and look further; but I ain't
goin' to move on the say-so uh no furrin' king, which I don't believe
in nohow."
He took the pipe from his mouth, and with it pointed to a spot twenty
feet away, so that they all looked towards the place.
"Right thar," he stated slowly, "is whar I'm goin' to build my cabin,
fer me and Mary. And right over thar I'm goin' to plow me up a truck
patch. I'm a peaceable man, mister. I don't aim to have no fussin'
with my neighbors. But you tell Mr. Picardy that thar'll be loopholes
cut on all four sides uh that thar cabin, and Jemimy and the twins'll
be ready to argy with anybody that comes moochin' around unfriendly.
I'm the peaceablest man you ever seen, but when I make up my mind to
a thing, I'm firm! Pur-ty tol'able firm!" he added with complacent
emphasis.
He waited expectantly while Dade put a revised version of this speech
into Spanish, and placidly smoked his little black pipe while the don
made answer.
"Already I find that I have done well to choose an Americano for my
majordomo," Don Andres observed, a smile in his eyes. "With a few more
such as this great hombre, who is firm and peaceful together, I should
find my days full of trouble with a hot-blooded Manuel to deal with
them. But with you, Señor, I have no fear. Something there is in the
face of this Señor Seem'son which pleases me; we shall be friends,
and he shall stay and plant his garden and build his house where it
pleases him to do. You may tell him that I say so, and that I shall
rely upon his honor to pay me for the land a reasonable price when the
American government places its seal beside the seal on his Majesty's
grant. For that it will be done I am very sure. The land is mine, even
though I have no tablet of stone to proclaim from the Creator my right
to call it so. But he shall have his home if he is honest, without
swimming across the ocean to find it."
"Wall, now, that's fair enough fer anybody. Hey, Mary! Come on out and
git acquainted with yer neighbor's girl. Likely-lookin' young woman,"
he passed judgment, nodding towards Teresita. "Skittish, mebby--young
blood most gen'rally is, when there's any ginger in it. What's yer
name, mister? I want yuh all to meet the finest little woman in the
world--Mrs. Jerry Simpson. We've pulled in the harness together fer
twelve year, now, so I guess I know! Come out, Mary."
She came shyly from the makeshift tent, her dingy brown sunbonnet
in her hand, and the redoubtable Tige walking close to her shapeless
brown skirt. And although her face was tanned nearly as brown as
her bonnet, with the desert sun and desert winds of that long, weary
journey in search of a home, it was as delicately modeled as that of
the girl who rode forward to greet her; and sweet with the sweetness
of soul which made that big man worship her. Her hair was a soft gold
such as one sees sometimes upon the head of a child or in the pictures
of angels, and it was cut short and curled in distracting little rings
about her head, and framed softly her smooth forehead. Her eyes
were brown and soft and wistful--with a twinkle at the corners,
nevertheless, which brightened them wonderfully; and although her
mouth drooped slightly with the same wistfulness, a little smile
lurked there also, as though her life had been spent largely in
longing for the unattainable, and in laughing at herself because she
knew the futility of the longing.
"I hope you've taken a good look at Jerry's face," she said, "and seen
that he ain't half as bad as he tries to make out. Jerry'll make a
fine neighbor for any man if he's let be; and we do want a home of
our own, awful bad! We was ten years paying for a little farm back
in Illinois, and then we lost it at the last minute because there was
something wrong with the deed, and we didn't have any money to go to
law about it. Jerry didn't tell you that; but it's that makes him talk
kinda bitter, sometimes. He was terrible disappointed about losing the
farm. And when we took what we had left and struck out, he said he
was going as far as he could get and be away from lawyers and law, and
make us a home on land that nobody but the Lord laid any claim to. So
he picked out this place; and then along come that Spaniard and a lot
of fellows with him and said we hadn't no right here. So I hope you
won't blame Jerry for being a little mite uppish. That Spaniard got
him kinda wrought up."
Her voice was as soft as her eyes, and winsome as her wistful little
smile. She had those four smiling with her in sheer sympathy before
she had spoken three sentences; and the two who did not understand her
words smiled just as sympathetically as the two who knew what she was
talking about.
"Tell the señora I am sorry, and she shall stay; and my mother will
give her hens and a bottle of her very good medicine, which Manuel
drinks so greedily," Teresita cried, when Dade told her what the woman
said, and leaned impulsively and held out her hand. "I would do as
the Americanos do, and shake the hands for a new friendship," she
explained, blushing a little. "We shall be friends. Señor Hunter, tell
the pretty señora that I say we shall be friends. Amiga mia, I shall
call her, and I shall learn the Americano language, that we may talk
together."
She meant every word of it, Dade knew; and with a troublesome,
squeezed feeling in his throat he interpreted her speech with
painstaking exactness.
Mrs. Jerry took the señorita's hand and smiled up at her with the
brightness of tears in her eyes. "You've got lots of friends, honey,"
she said simply, "and I've left all of mine so far behind me they
might as well be dead, as far as ever seeing 'em again is concerned;
so it's like finding gold to find a woman friend away out here. I
ain't casting no reflections on Jerry, mind," she hastened to
warn them, blinking the tears away and leaving the twinkle in full
possession; "but good as he is, and satisfying as his company is, he
ain't a woman. And, my dear, a woman does get awful hungry sometimes
for woman-talk!"
[Illustration: Mrs. Jerry took the señorita's hand and smiled up at
her.]
"Santa Maria! that must be true. She shall come and let my mother be
her friend also. I will send a carriage, or if she can ride--ask the
big señor if he has no horses!"
Jack it was who took up right willingly the burden of translation, for
the pure pleasure of repeating the señorita's words and doing her a
service; and Dade dropped back beside the don, where he thought he
belonged, and stayed there.
"Wall, I ain't got any horses, but I got two of the derndest mules you
ever seen, mister. Moll and Poll's good as any mustang in this valley.
Mary and me can ride 'em anywheres; that's why I brung 'em along, to
ride in case we had to eat the cattle."
"Then they must surely ride Moll and Poll to visit my mother!" the
señorita declared with her customary decisiveness. "Padre mio!"
Obediently the don accepted the responsibility laid upon him by
his sole-born who ruled him without question, and made official the
invitation. It was not what he had expected to do; he was not quite
sure that it was what he wanted to do; but he did it, and did it
with the courtliness which would have flowered his invitation to
the governor to honor his poor household by his presence; he did it
because his daughter had glanced at him and said "My father?" in a
certain tone which he knew well.
Something else was done, which no one had expected to do when the four
galloped up to the trespassers. Jack and Dade dismounted and helped
Jerry unload the logs from the wagon, for one thing; while Teresita
inspected Mrs. Jerry's ingenious domestic makeshifts and managed
somehow, with Mrs. Jerry's help, to make the bond of mutual liking
serve very well in the place of intelligible speech. For another, the
don fairly committed himself to the promise of a peon or two to help
in the further devastation of the trees upon the Picardo mountain
slope behind the little, natural meadow, which Jerry Simpson had so
calmly appropriated to his own use.
"He is honest," Don Andres asserted more than once on the ride home,
perhaps in self-justification for his soft dealing. "He is honest;
and when he sees that the land is mine, he will pay; or if he does
not pay, he will go--and tilled acres and a cabin will not harm me.
Valencia, if he marries the daughter of Carlos (as the señora says
will come to pass), will be glad to have a cabin to live in apart from
the mother of his wife, who is a shrew and will be disquieting in any
man's household. Therefore, Señor Hunter, you may order the peons to
assist the big hombre and his beautiful señora, that they may soon
have a hut to shelter them from the rains. It is not good to see so
gentle a woman endure hardship within my boundary. Many tules, they
will need," he added after a minute, "and it is unlikely that the
Señor Seem'son understands the making of a thatch. Diego and Juan are
skillful; and the tules they lay upon a roof will let no drop of rain
fall within the room. Order them to assist."
"I shall tell Margarita to bake many little cakes," cried Teresita,
riding up between her father and Dade, that she might assist in the
planning. "And madre mia will give me coffee and sugar for the pretty
señora. So soft is her voice, like one of my pigeons! And her hair is
more beautiful than the golden hair of our Blessed Lady at Dolores.
Oh, if the Blessed Virgin would make me as beautiful as she, and as
gentle, I should--I should finish the altar cloth immediately, which I
began two years ago!"
"Thou art well enough as thou art," comforted her father, trying
to hide his pride in her under frowning brows, and to sterilize the
praise with a tone of belittlement.
"I love that pretty señora," sighed Teresita, turning in the saddle to
glance wistfully back at the meager little camp. "She shall have the
black puppy Rosa gave me when last I was at the Mission San José. But
I hope," she added plaintively, like the child she was at heart, "she
will make that big, ugly beast they called Tige be kind to her; and
the milk must be warm to the finger when Chico is fed. To-night, Señor
Allen, you shall teach me Americano words that I may say to the señora
what is necessary, for the happiness of my black puppy. I must learn
to say that her name is Chico, and that the milk must be warm to the
finger, and that the big dog must be kind."