Greenhills was shut up; the cows stabled in town and turned out daily
to the meagre winter pasture with the town herd; the horses also, Zeph
having represented to Miss Sophy that this would be far her best plan; it
was nonsense keeping the ranch house open all winter, he said.
“Just cuttin’ himself right out o’ bread an’ butter,” thought Miss Sophy.
“That’s the kind o’ man I knew he was. But what will you do, Zeph?” she
said.
“Oh, I shall do very well,” he replied. “I’ve got my house, and there is
always teamin’ to do, and odd jobs o’ carpenterin’; they say there’ll be
considerable buildin’ here this winter.”
Building! Ah! the word reminded Miss Sophy. She had long wanted to build
an addition to her house; she had more than once had estimates made
for it, but had given it up on account of the exorbitant price—or so it
seemed to her—asked by the builders. Here was her chance.
“I want some buildin’ done,” she said. “I’ve been wantin’ it for a long
time. I suppose you’d as soon carpenter by the month as do anything else?”
“I would sooner do anything for you, Miss Burr, than do anything else,”
replied Zeph, with an unconscious emphasis on the “you” which made
Miss Sophy feel ashamed of the undercurrent of avariciousness in her
proposition.
The plans were soon drawn, the materials procured, and Zeph’s winter
work was begun. And now began also new and undreamed-of experiences in
Miss Sophy’s breast. Nothing was more natural than that she should be in
frequent consultation with her builder, should be continually taking a
look at the progress of the building; this she would have done, whoever
had been laboring on her new rooms. But to no other man’s hammer would
she have listened as she did to Zeph’s. Not a sound of it escaped her
ear; if she had been a poet she could have sung a strange song of the
things it seemed to say: every vibration its steady stroke made in the
air seemed to her to be telling the story of his sad life and his patient
goodness. When it stopped, she wondered what he was doing, and often ran
in to see. Hour by hour, day by day, she listened to and studied the
building up of the walls, the laying of the floors.
“I ’most think I could build a house myself, I’ve watched you so, Zeph,”
she said one day.
“I reckon there’s nothin’ you couldn’t do, if you was to try, Miss Burr,”
replied Zeph, as he stepped back from a window-sill he was fitting and
half shut his eyes to see if it were straight. “There ain’t many women
like you.” And Zeph sighed. Women were to him a terrible problem. He
was an innocent-minded man by nature, and had remained so spite of
rough surroundings. His own experience of the falsity of a fair face
and cooing voice had made him not so much bitter as afraid. He could
not read the riddle. What was there in a woman to make her such an
embodiment of heaven or of hell to a man? Zeph did not like to look any
fair woman in the eye since he knew what Rushy was at heart. As for Miss
Sophy,—poor Miss Sophy!—into his meditations on her the thought of sex
seldom entered. He thought of her only as a force,—a helping, guiding,
protecting personality. Perhaps his thoughts of her might have formulated
themselves, even yet, somewhat as they did when he crouched in the church
pew in instinctive fear of her “dreadful” activity. But by whatever name
or trait she stood in his mind, she possessed the grateful loyalty of his
steadfast nature. He had no phrases for this sentiment; neither avowed,
measured, nor questioned it; he simply acted it. A doubt as to the fealty
and service he owed to her no more occurred to him than a doubt as to
the love he bore to his children. Money could not have bought from him
one hour for which Miss Sophy had need or use. This was simply the man’s
instinct; the way he was made; he did not know that there was anything
out of the ordinary in it. Persons of this order do not analyze either
their own or other men’s motives. They simply are what they are, and live
their lives out day by day. They are spared much which more subjective
natures suffer of perplexity and pain. But sometimes when a blow strikes
them they are shivered to the ground as fatally as a tree is rent by a
lightning shaft or uprooted by a sudden blast. And when this happens,
nobody knows what did it. People wonder of what they have died.
A dim knowledge of some such quality as this in Zeph was slowly filtering
into Miss Sophy’s perception.
“He hasn’t ever got over it,” she said to herself as she went stirring
about the house, quite unaware that she was always thinking of Zeph. “He
hasn’t ever got over it, ’n’ I don’t suppose he ever will. If he’d only
get the children with him he’d stand it better. I shouldn’t wonder if
’twas the death o’ the man yet! The hussy!”
Perhaps if Miss Sophy had not been so absorbed in these reviewings
of Zeph’s situation and emotions she might have come sooner to the
realization of her own. But she had no time to think of herself. She was
forever groping, groping, like one in the dark; half blinded by pity and
by a stinging sense of the utter impotence of all outside help for this
sorrowing man whose life had been so strangely set side by side with her
own.
However, the groping days were nearly over. They could not last forever.
Such situations clear themselves by laws no less fixed than the laws
which determine the joining and the separating of chemical elements.
Events combined to help on the clearing up. Strange things had been
happening to Zeph of which Miss Sophy knew nothing, and never would have
known except for her half ally and confidante in regard to him, Gammer
Stein.
Miss Sophy and Gammer had seen each other seldom of late. The winter had
been a severe one, with frequent snows and bitter cold; a foot of snow
was to Gammer a more absolute barrier than a stone wall; and to Miss
Sophy the mercury at zero meant simply a stiffening of every faculty as
well as every muscle. Her energy was in direct ratio to the warmth of the
air; at ninety Fahrenheit she was in full vigor; even at a hundred she
worked on with delight. In cold weather she grew inert and torpid, and
used to say she would like to curl up like a spider and lie in a dark
corner till spring.
Thus it had happened that nearly three months had gone by without her
seeing Gammer; and one morning in March she said to herself, as she was
washing the breakfast dishes, “I really must go and see Gammer to-day. If
this wind’ll only stop blowin’, I’ll go right after dinner.” The words
had hardly formed themselves in her thought, when, seeing a shadow darken
the window, she looked up and saw Gammer herself at the door.
“I never!” said Miss Sophy aloud. “If that ain’t speakin’ o’ angels, sure
enough! There’s somethin’ cur’us about its so often happenin’ that way!”
“I was just this very minute sayin’ to myself I’d come up ’n’ see you
this afternoon, Gammer!” she exclaimed, as she opened the door. “I’m real
glad to see you.”
“Then yer’ve heered it!” gasped Gammer, sinking breathless into a chair.
“Heard what?” cried Miss Sophy, instantly alert, already, in her heart,
sure it was something about Zeph. “I hain’t heard anything. What’s
happened?”
“Rushy Riker’s got her bill,” cried Gammer. “She’s got it; ’n’ she ’n’
thet Nat wuz married last night.”
“Married!” cried Miss Sophy. “What do you mean? How could she be married?”
“Why, she’s billed,” retorted Gammer. “Ther papers come yisterday ’t
noon, ’n’ she ’n’ Nat wuz married last night. I allow ther won’t nobody
hev nothin’ ter do with ’em,—nobody thet’s decent. I allow ’t ’s the
dearest day’s work ever she’s done ’n her life. Thet Nat’ll go off ’n’
leave her some day; he’s none too good; ’n’ she can’t lay down on Zeph
agen.”
Miss Sophy stood like a statue, her face scarlet, her eyes flashing.
“Divorced!” she shrieked. “How’d she ever get a divorce? There ain’t a
thing against that man, not one!”
“Ter be sure ther ain’t,” said Gammer, settling back in her chair. “I
allow thar ain’t no two sides ter thet; she couldn’t hev got no bill ef
he’d hev appeared agen it; but he wouldn’t. He talked it over with me.
She come up thar ter ther house ’s long ago ’s—wall, somewhar abaout New
Year’s, I allaow ’twuz, ’n’ she told Zeph she wuz gwine to bill him ’n’
marry Nat; ’n’ he told her she couldn’t; ’n’ she sez, sez she, ‘I kin ’n’
I will; ’n’ ’tany rate I’m gwine ter live with Nat.’ ‘He’ll never marry
ye, Rushy,’ sez Zeph. ‘He will too,’ sez she; an’ then, ef yer’ll b’leeve
me, thet thar Zeph,—I swar, I donno ef the man’s flesh ’n’ blood, er what
he ez,—sez he, ‘Ef he’ll marry yer, Rushy, I won’t hender yer gettin’
ther bill. Then yer kin live decent. But he’s got ter swar ter marry ye;’
’n’ I allaow ter yeow, the next night, ef they didn’t both on ’em, she
’n’ Nat, the pizen skunk,—ef thar warn’t both on ’em thar to Zeph’s,
tellin’ him what they’d made up thar minds ter dew; ’n’ naow they’ve
got ’t done. Thet’s the kind er law thar ez in this hyar country; she’s
billed aout clar ’n’ free ez ef she’d been ’z decent ez enny woman could
be, ’n’ he wuz ther one ’twuz wrong. He jest never ’peared ’t all. Thet
wuz all they wanted. I’d jest like ter see ’em both jugged! I allaow ther
wouldn’t nothin’ short er thet tech ’em. ’Twan’t but er few nights sence,
thar wuz er dance, a real respectable dance, down thar whar she lives,
’n’ she ’n’ Nat went in, ’n’ thar come up one o’ ther managers, ’n’ sez
he, ‘Yer’ll be ser good ’s ter git aout er this room, ’n’ be mighty quick
abaout et, tew, or yer’ll git holped aout;’ ’n’ they jest larfed, ’n’
went aout a tossin’ thar heads ez high ’n’ mighty. I allaow naow they’re
married they’ll brazen ’t aout. Folks forgits everythin’.”
“Has she got the right to keep the children?” asked Miss Sophy in a
hoarse whisper. Her face was very pale now, and the flashing of her eye
strangely dimmed.
“I didn’t heer ’t said,” replied Gammer, “but she’s got ’em. I allaow ef
he didn’t ’pear, the childen ’d go to her, same ez she got ther bill.
’N’ he sez he’d ruther she hed ’em; they’ll dew more fur her, he sez, ’n
everythin’ else. She’s allers good ter ’em. He’ll keep an eye ter ’em.”
“Then he’s ’s free to-day ’s if he’d never been married ’t all,” said
Miss Sophy, still in a whisper, still pale, and with dimmed eyes.
“I allaow he ez,” said Gammer; “’n’ I allaow ter yeow thet, much ’s I’m
agen bills, ’n’ billed folks marryin’ agen, I’d like ter see Zeph Riker
git him another wife, pesky quick tew, jest ter spite them tew devils
thet ’s kep’ him in er hell, ’s yer might say, these tew years, goin’ on
three. Mebbe ’tain’t right, ’n’ mebbe ’tis. I allaow I’d take the resk on
’t ef ’twuz me.”
And now a startling thing occurred. Miss Sophy, who had been standing,
immovable, rigid, in front of Gammer, listening to this narrative,
turning first red, then pale, and fast losing her self-control, suddenly
lost it altogether, and flinging herself into a chair, buried her face
in her hands, and burst into tears, sobbing out, half apologetically, “I
never heard such a story in my life! Such things never happened where I
was brought up.”
Gammer was astounded. Miss Sophy’s bearing, her attitude throughout all
her active interest in Zeph’s affairs, had always been unmistakably
that of the cool, common-sense, kindly benefactor. Her sudden change
to the level of a weeping friend baffled Gammer’s utmost powers of
understanding. Bewilderment made her dumb. Finally she stammered: “I
allaow yer tired, mebbe. I git plum beat aout sometimes, ’n’ ther
leastest thing’ll set me off cryin’.” At which Miss Sophy cried harder
than ever, and Gammer’s bewilderment deepened.
At last Miss Sophy, recovering herself, said: “That’s so. This long spell
o’ cold weather’s got my nerves all strung up, somehow, so I can’t bear
anything; an’ I’m sure it’s enough to make anybody cry, to think what
that man’s gone through with. I’ve got to know him real well, you see,
havin’ him here this winter to work on the addition,” she added.
“Yes,” said Gammer, glad to change to a less exciting topic. “He wuz er
tellin’ us abaout it. He allowed he hed reel pleasure buildin’ it fur
ye. He sets a heap by yer; donno’s yer know it, but he doos. He sez thar
warn’t never sech er woman ’n the world ez yeow be.”
Miss Sophy’s cheeks were red again, and her eyes, brighter than before,
fastened on Gammer’s face as she spoke these words,—fastened there with
an expression which the honest old woman was far from understanding.
Miss Sophy had had a revelation. No more disguise, equivocation,
illusion, ignorance, on her part, in regard to her feeling toward Zeph.
She loved him, and she knew it.
What would come of it? Nothing; she said to herself sternly,—nothing
could come of it. The man’s heart was not his own, was no longer to be
won by any woman; it had been given once for all, and he was not a man to
love twice, said Miss Sophy in her simplicity,—given once for all to that
wretched, wicked woman, the mother of his children, who had now separated
herself from him forever. It was bitter. But there were consolations.
Very well Miss Sophy knew that his life would not be severed from hers
unless she herself chose; that they would work together, her interests
the same to him as his own, her wishes and needs determining his daily
duties, and, what was still more, the sight of her, and talking with
her, the greatest comfort and happiness left to his saddened life. This
was a great deal. With this, Miss Sophy thought she could be contented.
“And if I can’t, I can go away,” she said to herself. All this and much
more had passed through her mind while she was saying her final words of
parting with Gammer, who had, as she phrased it, “dropped everything ’n’
run to tell the noos on’t,” and was in haste to get home.
After Gammer had gone, Miss Sophy turned her back on her work, and locked
herself into her room for a resolute thinking. She did not mince matters
with herself any more than she would have done with another.
“Here you are, Sophy Burr,” she said, as she would have said it aloud
to a culprit standing bodily before her. “Here you are! Now what?” At
the end of the hour she was no nearer knowing. Her second soliloquy had
closed, like her first, with the words, “If I can’t, I can go away.”
The March snows, and the April snows, and the May snows, came and went.
June followed like a midsummer close on their icy days, and Greenhills
was green again. Young vegetables were peering up in the garden; the cows
were revelling in fresh grass; and Zeph, back at his post on the ranch,
was proud of the cream and butter he had for Miss Sophy twice a week. On
the face of things were prosperity and peace in both Miss Sophy’s houses.
Zeph’s countenance wore a new look of contentment and calm. He had put
behind him the things that were dead, and was pressing forward to the
things that remained alive, in way of duty and work.
A change had come about in his relations with Miss Sophy, which had given
him a new self-respect, and a sense of manly independence, which were an
ever-present stimulus and pleasure. He did not clearly know how this had
happened. Miss Sophy knew. It had begun by her calling him “Mr. Riker”
one day.
Startled and uneasy, he looked at her,—looked the question he did not
speak. Miss Sophy laughed. Relieved, he exclaimed, “Ye scared me, Miss
Burr. I was afraid I’d ’fended ye.”
“Oh, no!” said the clever Miss Sophy. “Far from it. But I don’t feel
it’s respectful for me to go on calling a man by his first name, when he
manages all my affairs for me. I look to you for ’most everything now,
and I ain’t goin’ to call you Zeph any longer.”
“’Most everybody does,” said Zeph.
“That’s because they don’t know you so well as I do,” said Miss Sophy.
All the way out to Greenhills Zeph kept thinking this over. It puzzled
him. He was pleased, and yet not pleased. It seemed to put him farther
from Miss Sophy, and yet nearer. He gave up trying to understand the
mystery of it. On the whole, however, he wished that she would say
“Zeph.” But she did not,—not for many a day.
The next thing Miss Sophy did was simply an act of justice. She said to
him one day, “Mr. Riker, at the rate you are going on, you will double
the value of my ranch for me. I can see that. You are working as if you
were working for yourself.”
“Of course,” said Zeph, simply.
“Well,” continued Miss Sophy, “that’s a thing money doesn’t pay for.
Wages don’t cut any figure at all when a man takes hold of a place that
way; you ought to have a share in the place. Now, what I’ve been thinking
would be a fairer way, would be for me to reckon your year’s wages in a
lump as so much put into the ranch on your account, so we shall be owning
it together; do you understand? And if you want to go into stock a little
more, why I’ll go shares in that too.”
Zeph stared. The good luck of the thing amazed him. Yet he saw that there
was a certain fairness in it. Miss Sophy was not making him a gift, only
helping him to a good investment of his earnings.
He did not make any profuse expressions of gratitude. It was not his way.
But his “Thank you, Miss Burr, I couldn’t ask for anythin’ better ’n that
if I’d had my choice given t’ me,” was all that Miss Sophy needed. And
the new life and spirit in him which dated from that day were also new
life and spirit to her affectionate soul.
Good as it was for Zeph to be called Mr. Riker, he did not like it. At
last it seemed to him he could not bear it. Vainly he wondered at the
intensity of his feeling in regard to it. “What odds does ’t make what
she calls me? I swear it’s queer how I hate to hear her say Mr. Riker t’
me,” he said.
Finally he mustered courage to say this. It was at Miss Sophy’s back
gate; he had come in as usual with the Greenhills butter and cream, and
a fine lot of green peas, the first of the season,—and Greenhills peas
were always two weeks ahead of anybody’s else in the region. Miss Sophy
was delighted, and as she bade him good-by, she said, “I’m proud enough,
to have peas so early. I can’t see how you did it. I’m ever so much
obliged to you, Mr. Riker.”
“My name’s Zeph,” said Zeph, in a sudden impulse of desperate courage.
“So’s mine Sophy,” retorted Miss Sophy, in an equally sudden impulse of
desperate courage, looking full into his eyes.
“Why! Miss Burr!” gasped Zeph, dropping the reins in his agitation. But
Miss Sophy had turned and run up the path as fast as her feet could carry
her, laughing, however, and looking back at Zeph, who sat gazing after
her in consternation.
“Good Lord!” he said to himself as she disappeared in the doorway. “What
did she mean? She wan’t mad, anyhow. She couldn’t ha’ meant I was to
call her Sophy! O’ course it couldn’t ha’ been that!”
“What did she mean?” was a constant refrain in Zeph’s thoughts for the
next three days; and, “I wonder what he’ll do when he comes in Thursday?”
was the refrain in Miss Sophy’s. And when Thursday morning came, and
the Greenhills wagon was seen turning into the lane at the back of Miss
Sophy’s house, her heart thumped like a hammer in her bosom.
“If he don’t call me Sophy now, he never will,” she thought.
Zeph was also in trepidation. “I dassent open my mouth,” he thought,
“till she’s said something first. Perhaps she’s forgotten all about it.”
She met him on the porch. The instant he looked in her face, he knew she
had not forgotten. The instant Miss Sophy looked in his, she divined his
thought; divined also that it would be hers, and not his, to speak the
first word.
“Good morning,” she said; and after a second’s pause, “Is it to be Mr.
Riker, then, or Zeph?”
“Zeph,” he said, in a voice so low it seemed less than a whisper. “I
can’t bear it, somehow, to have ye call me anythin’ else.”
“Well, then, Zeph it is,” replied Miss Sophy, as lightly and glibly as
if she had nothing more at stake than a jest of an idle moment; “but you
know what I told you. If Zeph’s your name, Sophy’s mine. Give and take’s
fair play.”
Zeph’s hands were full—his hands and arms also—of parcels from
Greenhills: the butter, the jug of cream, young radishes, lettuce, peas.
He did not speak, but went on slowly laying them down one by one, trying
to think what he should say.
“Well?” said Miss Sophy. “Bargain?”
Her light tone deceived him. “I can’t think ye’d make fun o’ me, Miss
Burr,” he said. “I don’t make out your meanin’.”
“I couldn’t ever make fun of you, Mr. Riker,” retorted Miss Sophy, in a
tone still merry, but with an under note in it which Zeph had not been
man if he had failed to perceive.
“You’re the best friend I ever had, or ever shall have, in this world,”
cried Zeph.
“And you’re the best friend I have, or ever expect to have, in this
world,” answered Miss Sophy; “the very best—Zeph!”
Their eyes met,—Miss Sophy’s shining with resolution and tears, Zeph’s,
dark with unfathomable emotion and bewilderment. He opened his lips to
speak; then slowly shaking his head, turned to go.
“Good-by, Zeph!” said Miss Sophy, smiling. She had conquered, she was
sure. It would not be on that day, or the next, perhaps, that Zeph could
speak her name, but it would come.
“If you can’t say Sophy, you needn’t say anything,” she continued. “I
don’t like Miss Burr any better than you do Mr. Riker!”
Zeph’s eyes lighted up. His tongue was loosed now. “Don’t ye?” he
exclaimed. “If I thought that, I could learn any name ye wanted me to!”
“Sophy’ll do,” said Miss Sophy, dryly. “It’s as good as Zeph. They ain’t
either of ’em any great beauties o’ names to boast of!” And now they
both laughed merrily, and parted without another word, only a farewell
smile to each other,—a smile out of which all the sparkle of the mirthful
laughter had gone, leaving behind the soft light of a deep affection.
And the next time the Greenhills wagon came in (it was but three days
from Thursday to Monday), Miss Sophy met it at the gate, and said with
sweet gravity, “Good-morning, Zeph;” and Zeph made answer, “Good-morning,
Sophy.” And it would have been hard to say which of them was the happier
in the new sound the syllables bore and the new bond their speaking made.
The happiness of it lasted Miss Sophy for many days; but as the summer
wore away she began to look for something more,—she hardly dared phrase
to herself for what, yet in her heart she knew; and knew, too, that the
thing she craved was hers by right; that the lonely, sorrowful, deserted
man for whom she had come to care so tenderly had come also to love her
with a true devotion. But gradually there grew up in her a fear that
he would never say so. Not by word or look did he show that any idea
of any relation beyond or different from their present one was in his
mind. Whether it were that he lacked courage, or that he still held
himself bound by the bond which his wife had broken, Miss Sophy could
not determine. On the latter point she herself had had doubts, but by
some surreptitious reading on the subject of divorce, and by several
cautiously conducted consultations with her minister and with other
persons, she had at length become fully satisfied that there could be
no possible shadow of wrong in the second marriage of a man whose wife
had not only betrayed and deserted him, but become legally the wife of
another.
“It hasn’t got any business to stand in his way one minute,” she said to
herself again and again; “and perhaps ’tain’t that that is standing in
his way. But what else can it be? ’Tain’t any love for her; I’m sure o’
that. That’s one comfort!”
And by the help of this last item of comfort Miss Sophy weathered the
summer fairly well. But when the autumn signals were flung out,—great
yellow patches of aspens high up on the mountain-sides, and tossing
plumes of purple asters around the Greenhills spring,—Miss Sophy lost
heart.
“Winter’ll be here in a jiffy,” she said, “an’ he won’t let me keep the
ranch open, an’ I can’t stand it; I can’t stand not to see him ’s I’ve
been seein’ him!” And Miss Sophy racked her brain vainly for a device.
Finally one occurred to her,—so desperate, so final, it almost took her
breath away as it first flashed through her thoughts; but the longer she
thought, the more she believed it good. It was desperate, and it would be
final: if she won, she won; if she lost, she lost—all. This is a common
trick of Love’s winning. He makes gamesters, desperate gamesters, of most
of us at least once in our lives. We throw down our last card and bravely
call out color or number, all the while feeling a death-grip at our
throats.
“I might as well!” said Miss Sophy. “There’s no use going on this way
forever. It’s nonsense; besides that, it’ll kill me. I can’t stand it.
I’d rather go away.”
And she made up her mind. But after she had made it up, she hesitated day
after day. She trembled. More than once she opened her lips to speak the
words, and terror held her dumb. If she lost, she lost all.
At last she spoke. It was at Greenhills. Already the foreshadowing of
winter glooms had touched the place; frost had turned the vines black
and shrivelled every leaf in the garden. Yet it was only the middle of
September. It looked desolate.
“Looks as I feel,” said Miss Sophy, grim and resolute; “but I’ll feel
worse, mebbe, before I’m done with it.”
“Zeph,” she said. Zeph was standing by her side at the bars of the corral
where all the yearlings had been put. He had been pointing them out to
her with great satisfaction.
There was something in Miss Sophy’s tone which fell strangely on Zeph’s
ear. He knew the inflections of her voice better than she dreamed. What
was coming? She had never pronounced his name thus before. Never, indeed!
He turned his face quickly towards her, inquiringly.
“Zeph!” she said again, and again the words refused to come. She took
firm hold of the upper rail of the fence to support herself, and began
once more: “Zeph, I’ve made up my mind to go to California. I’m goin’ to
sell out an’ go this fall. I about made up my mind last winter I’d never
stand another o’ these Colorado winters; but it’s been so pleasant this
summer, it kind of put me out o’ the notion; but now I see it settin’
in again I feel just ’s I did, ’n’ I’m goin’! I’m gettin’ too old to
stand any more snow. Do you know anybody that ud like to buy this ranch?
There’s a man ready to take the other house right off my hands just as
’tis, furniture ’n’ all.”
Astonishment, incredulity, pain, bewilderment, each in turn and all
together, had swept over Zeph’s face while Miss Sophy was speaking these
words. His eyes fastened themselves on hers blankly. As soon as she
ceased speaking, he stammered: “Sophy! you! going to California! goin’
away! You can’t mean it, Sophy! What are ye goin’ for? You’re doin’
splendid here!” The words came slower and slower; the man was half
stunned; and before the hesitating sentences were concluded, he, too, had
instinctively grasped the bars for support. “Ye can’t mean it, Sophy! I
’most think ye’re crazy.”
“I guess not,” said Miss Sophy, more at ease already. If he felt it like
this, he would never let her go alone, surely. Her winning must be close
at hand. She did not yet thoroughly know the nature of the man she was
dealing with.
“I guess not,” she repeated. “I hain’t ever had the name o’ bein’
light-headed. I’ve been a long time makin’ up my mind to this.”
“I wish ye’d ha’ let me know on ’t sooner,” said Zeph, in an aggrieved
tone, which was music to Miss Sophy’s ears.
“Why?” she said.
“I could ha’ got used t’ ’t by degrees,” he replied sadly. “It’s struck
me all of a heap. But I’ll do all I can to help ye, Sophy,” he continued,
bracing himself up, and looking away from her for a minute. “I could ha’
got a buyer for the ranch better in the summer than now. It’s a bad time
to sell. I expect it would be better to let it lay ’s ’tis till spring. I
can look after it for ye till then, same ’s I have done.” And Zeph sighed.
Alas! Had she lost? What was Miss Sophy to say next? The talk had taken a
hopeless turn. To gain time, she replied meaninglessly: “I don’t know! I
suppose ’tis a bad time! I never thought o’ that. But I want to go before
the cold weather sets in. There’s flowers all winter long in the south
part o’ California, they say; an’ that’s where I’m goin’.”
“Ye’ve always seemed real happy here, Sophy,” cried Zeph, “’n’ real well
too! ’T never so much’s crossed my mind ye’d ever leave; ye ain’t got
nothin’ ailin’ ye, have ye, to make ye need to go?” And his face clouded
over with the new anxiety which had that instant occurred to him.
What tantalizing cruelty sometimes in these impenetrable veils between
human hearts, which are at other times such merciful protection! If Miss
Sophy could have known that as Zeph asked this question his racked heart
was saying, “If she’s got any disease hold on her I’ll coax her t’ let
me go ’long too, ’n’ take care of her,” she would have then and there
feigned herself the victim of any known malady. But in her pride of
energetic health she made haste to repudiate any such implication.
“Mercy, no!” she said. “Do I look like a sick woman? Never felt better.
But I’m tired o’ this place, an’ this life, an’ everything about it, an’
especially o’ these winters. I’d like to go where I’d never see another
flake o’ snow ’s long ’s I live. I was brought up on snow; ’n’ I’ve had
six months o’ snow—that is o’ bein’ liable to snow—out o’ every year I’ve
been here; ’n’ I’m sick on ’t, ’n’ I’m goin’. I’ve got enough to get me a
place that I can make a livin’ off anywhere; ’n’ I don’t know any reason
why I should slave myself here, ’n’ freeze to death every winter.”
Luckless Miss Sophy. Each one of these last sentences went like a bullet
to Zeph’s heart. “Tired o’ this place,” was she? The place which had
seemed to him almost blissful of late; and the work which they had been
jointly doing, he and she, the fruitful ranch, the increasing herd, the
prosperous boarding-house,—all this was to her “slaving to death,” and
she was going. She had made up her mind to it without a word to him any
more than if he had been the poorest cattle-herder, on the ranch,—to him,
to whom she had said, only a few short months ago, that he was the best
friend she had on the earth! Very well! woman like woman! They were all
the same, heartless and untrue,—one from vanity and passion, another from
caprice! They were all alike! This was the last woman whom he would ever
trust! The storm of all these bitter thoughts turned Zeph’s face stern
and his voice cold, and when he replied curtly, “Well, ye’d better go,
then, if that’s the way ye feel, Sophy,” poor Miss Sophy had to clutch
tight to her rail to keep from staggering.
The hurt that he gave her, however, was their salvation. Without it they
might have perhaps parted forever, then and there, neither knowing that
the other was wounded. But this hurt was too sudden and too deep to be
borne without a cry; and Miss Sophy’s voice, even without the tears in
her eyes, would have appealed to any man like a cry, as she exclaimed,
“Oh, Zeph! I don’t see why you take it that way! I think you’re real
cruel!”
“I don’t never mean to be that,” said Zeph, “not to nobody. But you
don’t seem to think it’s anythin’ for a fellow to be turned off all in a
minute, an’ everythin’ all broke up!”
Miss Sophy took heart again. “Who said anything about turning off?” she
asked, with a faint smiling in her tearful eyes.
“Well, you didn’t say anythin’ about anythin’ else!” retorted Zeph, still
sullen. “You hadn’t any idee o’ takin’ me with ye?”
“I’ve been thinkin’ all the time, Zeph,” said Miss Sophy, “that I didn’t
know how I’d ever get along without you!”
“Why didn’t ye say so, then?”
“How could I?”
“How could ye? What’s to hender? Ye got me to do your business for ye
here, ’n’ let on to think so much o’ my managin’; ’n’ why couldn’t ye’ve
said ye’d like to have me keep on with it there? No, ye’re tired o’ the
place ’n’ everybody in it! That’s what’s the matter with you!”
Was this Zeph? What was to become of Miss Sophy in this chaos of
confusion which she had drawn down on her head? Stretching out both her
hands, she cried: “Zeph, I don’t know what’s got into you ’n’ me to be
quarrellin’ here, nor what we’re quarrellin’ about, neither. I should
think you’d know that the last thing I’d want to do, would be to part
from you, an’ that I’d rather have you manage for me than anybody!”
The pleading in her voice was unmistakable; her face glowed with
affection. Still Zeph seemed both deaf and blind.
“Then why didn’t ye ask me to go ’long too?” he reiterated. “Why didn’t
ye take me into any o’ your plans? Will you take me now?” he added, with
a half-surly and incredulous emphasis.
Miss Sophy hid her face in both her hands; she was rosy red; she saw a
vista opening.
“How could I, Zeph?” she whispered. “Folks don’t know us out there. It’s
very different here, where everybody knows us. I don’t want to go without
you, Zeph, you needn’t think!”
Into the chambers of Zeph’s brain light had broken at last. What a dolt
he had been!
“Oh, Sophy, Sophy!” he cried, “was ye a tryin’ me? I do believe ye was!”
and he threw his arms around her. “Sophy, it ’most killed me to hear ye
talk so cool o’ goin’ away ’n’ leavin’ me, when I hain’t had a thought,
day nor night, except o’ servin’ you ’n’ belongin’ to you, for so long!”
“Well, why didn’t you say so, then?” retorted Miss Sophy, half laughing,
half crying, making haste to turn the tables on him and avenge herself.
“Why didn’t you say so, and not drive me into just about offerin’ myself
to you?”
“Sophy! Sophy!” answered Zeph, “don’t you go to talkin’ any such way’s
that. I don’t know about offerin’, ’s you call it; givin’ ’s more ’n
offerin’, an’ you know well enough I giv’ myself to you a long ways
back, an’ hain’t ever had, from that day to this, any idee o’ doin’
anythin’ but helpin’ ye an’ lovin’ ye ’s long’s I live on this earth!”
And Miss Sophy was content.