A TRADE AND NEW RESOLUTIONS
IN the “borrow pit” to the left of the long dirt fill that was slowly
creeping across the desert one Phinehas Daisy was at work with his snap
team. The expert skinners in dirt work drive either the snap team or
the plow team. Halfaman’s three white Percherons were beauties, willing
workers, and it was a pleasure and an honor to handle them. To see
their great muscles at work when he had hooked the trio to the pole
of a loaded wheeler, to help out the two mules already pulling to the
limit of their strength, was a pleasing sight.
The long line of wheelers and slips moved through the borrow pit,
were loaded, and traveled on to the evergrowing fill and the dump--an
endless chain. Mr. Daisy rested while a wheeler team was working up to
the snap with the earth, previously loosened by the plow, billowing
into the pan. During these brief intervals he was thoughtful. Then
nonchalantly he would swing the heavy eveners by their chain, hook on
to the wheeler pole, and drawl: “Le’s go!”
Then the five animals, with the three proud Percherons abreast in the
lead, would heave into their collars and make life hugely enjoyable
for Mr. Daisy. “High!” would come the yell of the wheeler holders. The
five would stop in their tracks, and Halfaman would quickly disconnect
the snap. Then, swinging sharply to one side, the mule skinner with
his loaded wheeler would laze away toward the fill. Behind him another
wheeler would be moving up to the wheeler holders, and again for a
brief interval Halfaman would rest, an elbow on the expansive rump of
one of his whites, and grow pensive.
From Squawtooth Ranch came a big tank wagon, drawn by six mules that
labored ploddingly in the desert sand. Demijohn drove the tank-wagon
team. The work was not difficult, but monotonous, consisting as it
did of trip after trip between the pipe that spouted artesian water
at Squawtooth and the Mangan-Hatton camp. Demijohn was an active
man and loved to be moving about. Furthermore, he was considered an
excellent snap driver, and he cast a look of envy at Mr. Daisy and
his magnificent three white Percherons. Demijohn was a horse lover;
he merely tolerated mules. Again, six mules required more “cuffing”
and harnessing and collar scraping than did three horses--a child
might figure that! Also the snap team got through work fifteen minutes
earlier than the other teams, and at times the water wagon was out so
late that the driver was obliged to eat alone, after everybody else had
finished. And above all, Demijohn was human; and what human does not
wish that he had the other fellow’s job and that the other fellow had
his?
Just what was running through Mr. Daisy’s thoughts which caused him
to wish that he were driving the tank wagon, and that Demijohn had
the snap, would require more space to depict than in the case of the
tank-wagon skinner. But if the statement he made that the Mangan-Hatton
water wagon was now supplying the comparatively slight wants of the
tiny camp of Jeddo the Crow, Jeddo having lost his own tank wagon by
reason of careless chocking on the gondola which was to have brought it
west, and not being financially able to buy a new one.
“Hey, Demi, how’ll you trade jobs?”
“Nuttin’ doin’, ol’-timer! Dis suits me.”
Demijohn lolled on the high seat to show just how thoroughly it did
suit him and how comfortable were the accommodations of the water wagon.
“I ain’t talkin’ through me hat, ol’ settler!”
“Me neider, Jack. Kinda doity in dat borry pit, ain’t she? Dat looks
like doity doit to me.”
“You oughta know. You got half o’ Squawtooth on yer face. This here’s
the same dirt.”
“Wot’ll youse gi’me to trade jobs?”
“What’ll I give you! Say, this is gonta be good!”
“Gi’me ten?”
“Ten swift kicks!”
“Hejup, Ned!”
“Le’s go, white folks!”
But for half an hour that night in their bunk tent each dwelt at length
on the superior advantages of his particular job and scorned the task
of the other. Then they traded.
Halfaman Daisy sang as he drove from camp next morning with the empty
tank wagon--sang thusly, out of one corner of his drooping mouth:
“Oh, a-workin’ on the levee outa New Orleans,
A-livin’ on-a bananas and-a wormy beans,
Mosquitoes a-bit me through a-nineteen screens,
And an alligator gobbled up me ramblin’ jeans!--
And me pay day--for me ba-bay!
And me pay day outa New Orleans!”
He did not pass near the camp of Jeddo the Crow on his first trip; but
from a distance he saw that the small, ragged, dirty tents were up,
saw the familiar van backed to the cook-tent door, saw the teamsters
already at work at moving dirt. He made out the well-known figure of
Abishua Jeddo, but he saw nothing of his daughter.
“Some speed! She’s cleanin’ up after breakfast, I guess. ‘The sons of
Levi; Jershon and Kohath and Murari. And the sons of Kohath; Amram,
Ishar, and Hebron, and Uzziel. And the children of Amram----’
“Oh, a king snipe’s wife on the Rio Grand’,
She fried a Gila monster for a section hand.
She put it on the track to make it tender--and
It ditched the train that hit it in the desert sand!--
On a pay day--oh, ba-bay!
Oh, pay day on the Rio Grand’!
“Ho-hum! ‘The sons also af Aaron; Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.
Eleazar begat Phinehas; Phinehas begat Abishua.’ Hejup, Ned! _He_jup,
Jack!
“Oh, a-ridin’ the rods outa Kankakee,
A rail flopped up and-a hit-a me knee;
I took it along to the old Pedee,
And I sold it for a dollar down in Tennessee!
It was pay day--oh, me ba-bay!
It was pay day down in Tennessee!
“Huh! Nothin’ doin’! Still washin’ dishes, I guess. It was pay day down
in Tennessee! He_jup_ah!”
Two hours later Mr. Daisy dexterously backed to the watering trough at
the stable tent of the Mangan-Hatton camp and emptied his tank. Then
he made another trip to Squawtooth Ranch, and on the return stopped
his wagon abreast a small galvanized tank beside the cook-tent door of
Jeddo the Crow.
“Hey, in there! In the cook tent! Wake up and hear the horned toads
sing! Ship ahoy! Want water in this ole tin can this mornin’?
“Oh, I been a-down on-a the gumbo line,
A-skinnin’ mules when the weather’s fine,
A-shootin’ craps----
“Oh! Why, howdy do, Miss Wing o’ the Crow Jeddo! This is a surprise, as
the fella says. Welcome to our city! Nice mornin’, I’ll say!”
Breast heaving, Wing o’ the Crow stood in the cook-tent door, black
eyes wide but narrowing. Dough and flour covered her brown bare arms.
“Well, for Heaven’s sake! Was all the jails full in Nebrasky?”
Halfaman clambered lightly down over the wide-tired wheels. A painful
grin creased his freckled face as he sidled toward the door.
“Hello, honey,” he said. “How’s every little insignificant item?”
“Well, you got a nerve!” said Wing o’ the Crow. “Who put you on that
water wagon?”
“I did, Wing-o. And I rode the rods all the way here from that little
State called Nebrasky to get on ’er and haul water to you. Slip us a
kiss, Wing-o!”
“I’ll slip you a poke in that rubber jaw! Go kiss Lil o’ the Lobbies!”
“Now, lissen here, sweetheart! Ain’t you ever gonta ferget that? Here
I rambled over four States to say hello to you, and you slip me a line
o’ begone-sir patter like that! Didn’t I say I was sorry? I ain’t seen
Lil for six months.”
“Ain’t she here?”
“Search me! I ain’t been to Stlingbloke once.”
“Tell it to the marines, Halfaman!”
He pulled forth a roll of bills. “There’s me pay day,” he said. “Every
cent, ’ceptin’ for a shirt and tobacco and things. I’m off that stuff.
I just slipped that time, anyway.”
“I heard you was drivin’ snap.”
“I was--till last night. Then I traded with Demijohn and got the water
wagon. I’m on it, too.”
“Why’d you want the tank? Snap’s better.”
“D’ye really wanta to know, now?”
“Uh-huh! Why’d ye s’pose I ast?”
“Well, now maybe I heard Mangan-Hatton’s tank was supplyin’ Jeddo the
Crow. What would you say if I was to tell you that, Wing-o?”
“I’d say you was a nut!”
“That’s the right answer. Nuts about you, kiddo. Say, I’m savin’ me
jack these days. Everything’s gonta be jake with me. No more booze--no
more slips. Now what d’ye say you an’ me----”
“Tell it to Lil o’ the Lobbies--she’d like to hear it, I guess.”
“Aw, cut that old stuff! Be reasonable, now. Slip us a kiss. Wing-o,
and le’s ferget the bitter past. Le’s you an’ me get married whether
The Crow cares or not. Then I c’n get in here and help move things
along. I c’n get some stiffs, I’ll bet. You an’ me c’n keep yer dad
away from the booze--and we’ll make some jack. Leave it to us, kid,
hey?”
She looked him over. “I’m sore on you, I’ll admit,” she said at last.
“I liked you a little--once, but now it’s all off. That’s all’s to
it. You might jes’ as well trade back with Demijohn and drive snap.
’Cause I ain’t gonta see you any more. I can’t trust you. If you keep
on haulin’ water, you c’n find out fer yerself if the tank’s empty.
I won’t come out. So you better go back to yer snap. I’m off you for
life!”
“Now, lissen, honey--lissen----”
“On yer way! I’m busy. I’m gettin’ dinner. You deceived me once, and
you got my goat. Find Lil o’ the Lobbies; she’ll listen to you!”
“Now, lissen--lissen!”
But the flaps of the tent had dropped, and from inside came a hummed
tune as Wing o’ the Crow went on with her work.
Mr. Daisy sighed wearily, examined the galvanized tank and filled it,
then drove to the watering trough at the stable tent, all unaware that
a black eye was peering at him through a tiny hole in the cook tent.
“Can you beat it! I rambles across four States, eatin’ once every two
days whether I felt it or not, and trades the best snap job on the line
for--what I got! ‘I’m off you fer life,’ she says--just like that.
Slipped once--just once! Good night! Hejupah, ole Ned!--can’t keep a
good man down!
“Oh, a-stickin’ pigs in that Lone Star State,
Ate corn bread and-a molasses straight,
On a dime’s worth o’ snuff I gets an awful skate--
And I saw St. Peter in the Golden Gate!
It was pay day--for me ba-bay!
It was pay day in that Texas State!”
“Now, you hold both handles tight, and kinda jiggle the slip up an’
down, see? You gotta hold ’er jest right, er you’ll take on too much
dirt to begin with. Not too straight up and down at first, and not too
slow. Now try it.”
Miss Manzanita Canby, with a line in each hand and also the handle of a
scraper in each hand, looked doubtfully at the two scrawny mules before
her.
“Start ’em up,” urged Wing o’ the Crow.
Manzanita flipped the lines and started the mules, stooping over the
slip, following it in the attitude of a sprinter who starts with
fingers touching the ground.
“Now set yer slip.”
Manzanita lifted the handles slightly and set the point of the pan in
the ground. The fine dirt began entering.
“Now keep liftin’ it--a little higher--a leetle higher--but not too
high, or----”
_Bam!_
The mules, suddenly relieved of their load lurched forward. The pan of
the slip had flopped over, the handles striking the doubletrees with
force almost enough to snap them off. Manzanita lay sprawled on the
ground, her mouth full of sand.
“You let ’em go too fast, and you raised the pan too high,” said Wing
o’ the Crow gravely. “Did it hurt you?”
“I never get hurt much,” Manzanita said cheerfully. “I’m down half the
time, for one reason or another. Don’t mind me.”
“Now watch me,” suggested Wing o’ the Crow.
She picked up the lines, and with a deft flip righted the slip. She
laid hold of the handles.
“Hehup, Ned!” she chirruped.
And in almost no time the pan was full and running over, and the team
was moving off with it toward the fill.
“It looks so easy when you do it,” Manzanita complained. “Dump it and
I’ll try again.”
“You jest watch a little,” advised Wing o’ the Crow.
Manzanita felt humiliated by the words. She thought that her efforts to
become a dirt mover were hampering the work. She had tried six times
to load a slip, always with the same result, except that now and then
she had managed to keep her feet.
Jeddo the Crow was driving the snap team, which is used only in loading
the scrapers with wheels. In “sticking pigs” the skinner himself loads
and drives and dumps. As Wing o’ the Crow came down the dump with her
empty slip Jeddo called to her. Manzanita saw him hurry to camp for
something, and while he was away his daughter let her slip team stand
and drove the trio on the snap.
Manzanita watched her enviously. She swung the cumbersome eveners as
easily as had her one-armed father. Earlier in the afternoon the desert
girl had seen her driving six mules hitched to a huge railroad plow.
In the saddle Manzanita was at home, but as a railroad builder she had
shown many shortcomings. Mart had been driven to the mountains to build
drift fence by his father. Manzanita was lonesome. She envied this girl
who could do things that really counted. She had forgotten her aversion
to the railroad. Suddenly she had grown ambitious to be doing something
in life besides riding over the desert on a pinto, wandering aimlessly.
She even did not wish to become a moving picture actress now. “Life is
real and life is earnest,” she had quoted to Mrs. Ehrhart, apropos
of nothing at all, that morning, greatly to the kindly housekeeper’s
surprise.
She sighed pensively now; and when Jeddo returned and Wing o’ the Crow
drove into the borrow pit with the slip team again, she arose from her
seat on a felled yucca.
“I guess I’d better be riding home, Wing-o,” she said. “I’ve lots to
do. I’ll see you to-morrow maybe, if I can find the time.”
Whereupon she mounted her mare and galloped toward Squawtooth.
At the ranch she threw off the big saddle and corralled the mare. It
was four o’clock in the afternoon. She hurried to the low adobe house
and entered the kitchen.
“Mrs. Ehrhart,” she said, “is there anything for me to do toward
getting supper?”
The housekeeper turned from her glossy range and gazed at her in
consternation.
“Child, are you sick?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” returned Manzanita “I’m quite well, thank you. I just thought
if there was nothing I could do here right now, I’d get at that
alfalfa.”
“Get at the alfalfa! What alfalfa?”
“Why, our alfalfa. It needs irrigating badly. I heard Pa Squawtooth say
so.”
At which she left the kitchen and the speechless housekeeper.
A little later Squawtooth Canby rode in on his big black and found his
rubber hip boots walking around and carrying a shovel. So he expressed
it, anyway. But in reality the boots had a motive power not their
own, for Manzanita, with her skirt tucked into the tops of them, was
responsible for their sluggish progress.
Canby stopped his horse and gazed at the apparition.
“Nita, what in th’ name o’ Heaven are you doin’ in them boots?”
“Irrigatin’.”
“Is the water runnin’ on the ’falfy?”
“Yep. I turned her on. It needed it pretty badly, pa.”
“Why, that patch was irrigated only last week, girl!” he cried. “It’s
the tent north o’ the house that’s dry.”
“Oh!” said Manzanita. “I didn’t know. I heard you say---- I haven’t
hurt anything, have I, pa?”
He dismounted deliberately and walked toward her, chuckling as he
thought of the size of the feet within his number eleven boots.
“What’s the matter with ye, daughter?” he asked, kissing her.
“I have awakened,” said Manzanita. “I realize that my life has been
wasted. I’ve been a useless creature--a drone--a millstone about the
neck of progress.”
“Wait a minute! How’s that?”
“But it’s not too late,” she went on. “It is never too late. From now
on I mean to accomplish things before undreamed of. I am not only going
to help about the housework, but during my spare moments I mean to
work outside and develop this ranch. I’m sorry I got the wrong alfalfa
patch. I’ll shut off the water here and start it over there. Go on and
do whatever is necessary, pa, and don’t worry about the alfalfa. I feel
like a new being already. My coma is over.”
“Your which?”
“My coma. I’ve been asleep--stunned--dazed. But thank goodness I see
myself in the true light at last.”
“How d’ye keep them boots on?”
“I don’t. They stick every now and then, and I can’t pull ’em out of
the mud. Then I have to step out and lift them free with my hands. I’m
barefooted inside the boots.”
“And d’ye wash yer feet before ye put ’em in the boots ag’in?”
“Well--no. I can’t very well. They get all muddy again if I do. I’ll
have to have smaller boots.”
“And how d’ye think I’m to get the mud outa the inside o’ them boots?
Don’t they hurt yer feet, Nita?”
“Terribly. Little rocks get in. But I can stand it.”
Here her father’s weakening gravity forsook him entirely, and with his
long arms he swept up boots, shovel, and girl and carried them to the
house.
“I guess we got men enough round here to irrigate the ’falfy,” he said
as he set her down on the old Mexican doorstep, a foot thick and a foot
high. “Now I’m gonta put up the black, and time I get back here you
have them boots off an’ washed out, and yer feet washed and all, and
then we’ll find out about this new ambition o’ yours. I’m interested,
I’ll admit. Get busy, now!”