A Whisper
I stayed in my room for half an hour, thinking with all my might that
I was thinking. At the end of that time, discovering that I had not
turned out one single rational thought, I gave it up and went to find
John.
I forgot all about the men who were guarding the ranch. I went
straight down to the outfit’s quarters. I hadn’t been on the back of a
horse for more than ten years. I got a lazy puncher to stop doing
nothing long enough to saddle an old nag for me, and boost me up on
her, and off I went.
Jogging along through the clean, clear air, I at last began really to
do some thinking. I came to my senses in consequence. It was high
time. I turned the nag around and rode back to the outfit’s quarters.
I slid off of her, and left her there, and went walking to the house.
It was fortunate that I had given up my wild goose chase. There on the
porch sat John, talking to Miss MacDonald. When I got close enough to
them to see how he looked, I felt as if my heart would break for him.
He looked, in spite of his tan, like death.
When I had reached the foot of the steps, both of them, without saying
an aye, yes, nor no to me, got up and went into the house.
My legs were shaking under me. I had to go slowly up the steps.
Neither John nor Miss MacDonald was in the living-room when I got
there. I went on into the kitchen.
Miss MacDonald was putting on her big apron. Zinnia was clattering the
silver in the dining-room.
“John knows, doesn’t he?” I questioned.
“Knows?”
“I think that I know what you——”
“Don’t!” she shot out at me, and I wouldn’t have jumped any higher if
she had shot a gun instead of a word.
“Don’t,” she calmed down and came over to me and spoke in a whisper,
“say anything in here. Not anything.”
“I’ve got to,” I said. “I’m human. You listen to me.” I whispered it,
right into her ear.
I hadn’t half finished what I had to say before she moved away from
me; but she nodded her head, with those quick, short little nods that
always mean confidential agreement.
For almost an hour I had been thinking that I knew it. That nodding of
hers made me realize that I had only feared it; that I had believed
that she could deny and disprove it.
I had planned biscuits for dinner. I went and got out the bread-board,
and opened the floor bin, but I couldn’t do it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and to my disgust I began to cry. “I guess you’ll
have to make out to do alone, for a while. I—I’m not feeling well.
I’ll have to go and lie down——”
Still blubbering and blind with tears I went upstairs, and bumped into
Sam, standing outside John’s door. I dried my eyes and saw that he was
holding his six-gun, ready for shooting, in his hand.