Josephine Opens the Sluices
Entering the living-room, Bud found Echo surrounded by several girls
from Florence and the neighboring ranches, who were driving her almost
distracted with their admiring attentions, for she was greatly
disturbed about her lover's inexplicable absence. Had she been free
from the duties of hospitality, she would have leaped on her horse and
gone in search of him.
Echo's wedding-attire would seem as incongruous as Jack's to the eyes
of an Easterner, yet it was entirely suited to the circumstances, for
the couple intended, as soon as they were married, to ride to a little
hunting-cabin of Jack's in the Tortilla Mountains, where they would
spend their honeymoon.
She was dressed in an olive-green riding-habit, which she had brought
from the East. The skirt was divided, and reached just below the knee;
her blouse, of lighter material, and brown in color, was loose,
allowing free play for her arms and shoulders. High riding-boots were
laced to the knee. A sombrero and riding-gloves lay on the table ready
to complete her costume.
Bud coldly acknowledged Echo's affectionate and happy greeting, and
curtly informed her that Jack had arrived.
She rushed out of doors with a cry of joy.
Running across the courtyard toward her lover, who awaited her with
outstretched arms, she began:
"Well, this is a nice time, you outrageous--" when Polly stopped her
with a mock-serious look. "Wait a minute--wait a minute" (the girl
drawled as if reining in a too eager horse) "don't commence calling
love-names before you get the hitch--time enough after. He has been
actin' up something scandalous with me."
Jack threw up his hands in protest, hastily denying any probable charge
that the tease might make. "Why, I haven't been saying a word!" he
cried.
Polly laughed as she ran to the door.
"No, you haven't," she answered mockingly, as one agrees with a child
whose feelings have been hurt. "He's only been tellin' me he loved--"
Pausing an instant, she pointed at Echo, ending her sentence with a
shouted "you."
With her hand on Jack's shoulder, Echo said: "Polly, you are a flirt.
You've too many strings to your bow."
"You mean I've too many beaux to my string!" laughingly answered the
girl.
"You'll have Slim Hoover and Bud Lane shooting each other up all on
your account," chided Echo.
"Nothing of the kind," pouted Polly. "Can't a girl have friends? But I
know what you two are waiting for?"
"What?" asked Jack.
"You want me to vamose. I'm hep. I'll vam."
And Polly ran into the kitchen to tell the men that the bridegroom had
arrived, but couldn't be seen until the bride was through with an
important interview with him. So she hustled them all into the
living-room, where the girls were.
This room was a long and low apartment, roughly plastered. The heavy
ceiling-beams, hewn with axes, were uncovered, giving an old English
effect, although this was not striven for, but made under the stress of
necessity. The broad windows were trellised with vines, through which
filtered the sunshine. A cooling evening breeze stirred the leaves
lazily. The chairs were broad and comfortable--the workmanship of the
monks of the neighboring mission. In the corners stood squat, earthen
water-jars of Mexican molding. On the adobe walls were hung trophies
of the hunt; war-bonnets and the crudely made adornments of the Apaches.
Navajo blankets covered the window-seats, and were used as screens for
sets of shelves built into the spaces between the windows.
Polly carried in on a tray a large bowl of punch surrounded by glasses
and gourds. This was received with riotous demonstrations. She placed
it in the center of a table made of planks laid on trestles, and
assisted by the other girls, served the men liberally from the bowl.
The guests showed the effects of outdoor life and training. Their
gestures were full and free. The tones of their voices were
high-pitched, but they spoke more slowly than their Eastern cousins, as
if feeling the necessity, even when confined, of making every word
carry. No one lolled in his seat, but sat upright, as if still having
the feel of the saddle under him.
Toward women in all social gatherings, the cowboys act with exaggerated
chivalry, but, as Sage-brush would describe it, they "herd by their
lonesome." There is none of the commingling of sexes seen in the East.
At a dance the girls sit at one end of the room, the men group
themselves about the doorway until the music strikes up. Then each
will seize his partner after the boldest has made the first move. When
the dance-measure ends the cowboy will rarely escort partner to her
seat, but will leave her to find her way back to her chum, while he
moves sheepishly back to the doorway, to be received by his fellows
with slaps on the back and loud jests. At table cowboys carry on
little conversation with the girls. They talk amongst themselves, but
at the women. The presence of the girls leads them to play many pranks
on one another. The ice is long in breaking, for their habitual
reserve is not easily worn off. Later in the evening this shyness is
less marked.
As Jack and Echo entered the doorway, Parenthesis had arisen from his
seat at the head of table and was beginning: "Fellow citizens--"
Confused cries of "Sit down," "Let him talk!" greeted him.
Sage-brush held up his hand for silence: "Go ahead, Parenthesis," he
cried encouragingly.
Parenthesis climbed on a chair and put a foot on the table. This was
too much for the orderly soul of Mrs. Allen. "Take your dirty feet off
my tablecloth!" she commanded, making a threatening move toward the
offender.
Allen restrained her, and Fresno caused Parenthesis to subside by
yelling: "Get down offen that table, you idiot. There's the bride an'
groom comin' in behind you. We CAN see 'em through yer legs, but we
don't like that kin' of a frame."
Jack had slipped his arm about Echo's waist. She was holding his hand,
smiling at the exuberance of their guests. Buck McKee, who had been
drinking freely, staggered to his feet and hiccoughed: "Here, now,
this, yere don't go--this spoonin' business--there ain't goin' to be no
mush and milk served out before the weddin'--"
"Will you shut up?" admonished Slim Hoover.
"No, siree," cried the belligerent McKee. "There ain't no man here can
shut me up. I'm Buck McKee, I am, and when I starts in on a
weddin'-festivities--I deal--"
"This is one game you are not in on," answered Jack quietly, feeling
that he would have to take the lead in the settlement of the
unfortunate interruption of the fun.
"That's all right, Jack," McKee began, holding out his hand--"let
bygones--"
Jack was in no mood to parley with the offender. McKee had not been
invited to the wedding. The young bridegroom knew that if the first
offense were overlooked it would only encourage him, and he would make
trouble all evening. Moreover, he disliked Buck because of his evil
habits and ugly record.
"You came to this weddin' without an invite," claimed Jack.
"I'm here," he growled.
"You're not wanted."
"What?" shouted McKee, paling with anger.
Turning to his friends, speaking calmly and paying no attention to the
aroused desperado, Jack said: "Boys, you all know my objection to this
man. Dick Lane caught him spring before last slitting the tongue of
one of Uncle Jim's calves."
"It's a lie!" shouted McKee, pulling his revolver and attempting to
level it at his accuser. Hoover was too quick for him. Catching him by
the wrist, he deftly forced him to drop the muzzle toward the floor.
With frightened cries the girls huddled in a corner. The other cowboys
upset chairs, springing to their feet, drawing revolvers half-way from
holsters as they did so.
Hoover had pressed his thumb into the back of McKee's hand, forcing him
to open his fingers and drop his gun on the table. Picking it up,
Hoover snapped the weapon open, emptied the cylinders of the cartridges.
Jack made no move to defend himself. He was aware his friends could
protect him.
"That'll do," he said to the raging, disarmed puncher. "You can go,
Buck. When I want you in any festivities, I'll send a special invite
to you."
"I'm sure much obliged," sneered McKee, making his way toward the door.
"Here's your gun," cried Slim, tossing the weapon toward him.
McKee caught the weapon, muttering "Thanks."
"It needs cleaning," sneered the Sheriff.
Turning at the doorway, McKee said; "I ain't much stuck on weddin's,
anyway." Looking at Jack, he continued threateningly: "Next time we
meet it'll be at a little swaree of my own."
"Get," was Jack's laconic and ominous command.
With assumed carelessness, McKee answered: "I'm a-gettin'. Well,
gents, I hopes you all'll enjoy this yere pink tea. Say, Bud, put a
piece of weddin'-cake in your pocket for me. I wants to dream on it."
"Who brought him here?" asked Jack, facing his guests.
"I did," answered Bud defiantly.
"You might have known better," was Jack's only comment.
"I'm not a-sayin' who's to come and go. This ain't none of my weddin'."
Polly stopped further comment by laying her hand over his mouth and
slipping into the seat beside him.
"Well, let it go at that," said Jack, closing the incident.
He rejoined Echo as he spoke. The guests reseated themselves. Mrs.
Allen laid her hand on Jack's shoulder and said: "Just the same, it
ain't right and proper for you to be together before the ceremony
without a chaperonie."
"Nothin' that's right nice is ever right proper," laughed Slim.
"Well, it ain't the way folks does back East," replied Mrs. Allen
tartly, glaring at the Sheriff.
"Blast the East," growled Allen. "We does things in our own way out
here."
With a mischievous smile, Slim glanced at his comrades, and then
solemnly observed: "Still, I hear they does make the two
contractin'-parties sit off alone by themselves--"
"What for?" asked Jack.
"Why, to give them the last bit of quiet enjoyment they're goin' to
have for the rest of their lives," chuckled Slim.
The cowboys laughed hilariously at the sally, but Mrs. Allen, throwing
her arms about Echo's neck, burst into tears, crying: "My little girl."
"What's the use of opening up the sluices now, Josephine?"
"Let her alone, Jim," drawled Slim; "her feelin's is harrowed some, an'
irrigation is what they needs most."
The outburst of tears was incomprehensible to the bridegroom. Already
irritated by the McKee incident, he took affront at the display of
sentiment.
"I don't want any crying at MY wedding."
"It's half my wedding," pouted Echo tearfully.
"Ain't I losin' my daughter," sobbed Mrs. Allen.
"Ain't you getting my mother's son?" snapped Jack.
The men howled with glee at the rude badinage which only called forth a
fresh burst of weeping on the part of Mrs. Allen, in which the girls
began show symptoms of joining.
Polly sought to soothe the trouble by pushing Jack playfully to one
side, and saying: "Oh, stop it all. Look here, Echo Allen, you know
your hair ain't fixed yet."
"An' the minister due here at any minute," added Mrs. Allen.
"Come along, we will take charge of you now," ordered Polly. The girls
gathered in a group about the bride, bustling and chattering, telling
her all men were brutes at time and, looking at the fat Sheriff, who
blushed to the roots of his hair at the charge, that "Slim Hoover was
the worst of the lot." Mrs. Allen pushed them away, and again fell
weeping on Echo's shoulder. "Hold on now, They ain't a soul goin' to do
nothin' for her except her mother," she whimpered.
"There she goes again," said Jack in disgust.
"He's goin' to take my child away from me," wailed the mother.
Tears were streaming down Echo's cheek. "Don't cry, mother," she wept.
"No, no, don't cry," echoed the girls.
"It's all for the best," began Polly.
"It's all for the best, it's all for the best," chorused the group.
"Well, I'll be--" gasped Jack.
"Jack Payson you just ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Polly,
stamping her foot. "You nasty, mean old thing," she threw in for good
measure.
Mrs. Allen led Echo from the room. The girls followed, crying "You
nasty, mean old thing" to the unfortunate bridegroom.
The cowboys enjoyed the scene immensely. It was a bit of human comedy,
totally unexpected. First they imitated the weeping women, and then
laughed uproariously at Jack.
"Did you ever see such darned carryings on," said the bridegroom, in
disgust. "What have I done?"
"Shucks! All mothers is like that," remarked Allen sympathetically.
"They fuss if their girls marry and they fuss if they don't. Why, my
ma carried on something scandalous when Josephine roped me."
All of the men chuckled except Jack.
"I'm appointed a committees," continued the old rancher, "to sit up
with you till the fatal moment."
"I'm game," responded Jack grimly. "I know what's coming, but I won't
squeal."
"You'll git all that's a-comin' to you," grinned Allen.
Slim had maneuvered until he reached the door blocking Jack's way. As
the bridegroom started to leave the room he took his hand, and with an
assumption of deep dejection and sorrow bade him "Good-bye."
"Oh, dry up!" laughed Jack, pushing the Sheriff aside. Halting, he
requested: "One thing I want to understand right now, if you're goin'
to fling any old boots after me remove the spurs."
"This yere's a sure enough event, an' I'm goin' to tap the barrel--an'
throw away the bung. Wow!" shouted Sage-brush.