THE WAYS OF MR. GARDNER
Two figures stood regarding Doctor Barnes as his car turned into the
willow lane out-bound for the highway.
"Why didn't he say good-by, anyways, when he left?" commented Wid,
turning to Annie Squires. "Went off like he'd forgot something."
"That's his way," replied Annie, rolling down her sleeves. They had
met as she was passing from the barracks cabin. "He's a live wire,
anyways. God knows this country needs them."
"Why, what's the matter with this country?" demanded Wid mildly.
"Ain't it all right?"
"No, it ain't. Till I come here it was inhabited exclusively with
corpses."
"Well, then?"
"And since then, if it wouldn't of been for the Doctor yonder, you and
Sim Gage would be setting down here yet and looking at the burned
places and saying, 'Well, I wonder how that happened?'"
"Well, if you didn't like this here country, now what made you come
here?" demanded Wid calmly and without resentment.
"You know why I come. That lamb in there was needing me. A fine sight
you'd be, to come a thousand miles to look at! You and him! Say,
hanging would be too good for him, and drowning too expensive for you."
"Oh, come now--that's making it a little strong, now, Miss Annie, ain't
it? What have I done to you to make you feel that way? _I_ ain't ever
advertised for no wife, have I? Comes to that, I can make just as good
bread as you kin."
"Huh! Is that so!"
"Yes, and cook apricots and bacon, and fry ham as good as you can if
there was any to fry. Me, I'd be happy if they wasn't no women in the
whole wide world. They're a damn nuisance, anyways, ask me about it."
He was looking out of the corner of his eye at Annie, witnessing her
wrath.
"The gall of you!" exclaimed Annie, red of face and with snapping eye.
"Oh, they're damn nuisances, are they? Well, then, I'll tell you. I
fixed your socks up last night for you. Holes? Gee! Me setting in
there by a bum lamp that you had to strike a match to see where it was.
Never again! You can go plumb to, for all of me, henceforth and
forever."
"I ain't never going to wear them socks again," said Wid calmly. "I'm
a-going to keep them socks for soovenirs. Such darning I never have
saw in my born days. If I couldn't darn better'n that I'd go jump in
the creek. I didn't ask you to darn them socks noways. Spoiled a
perfectly good pair of socks for me, that's what you done."
The war light grew strong in Annie's eyes. "You never did need but one
pair anyways, all summer. Souvenirs! Why, one pair'd last you your
whole life. I suppose you wrop things around your feet in the winter
time, like the Rooshians in the factory. Say, you're every way the
grandest little man that ever lived alone by hisself! Well, here's
where you'll get your chance to be left alone again."
"You ain't gone yet," said Wid calmly.
"What's the reason I ain't, or won't be?"
"Well," said Wid Gardner, reaching down for a straw and moving slowly
over toward a saw horse that stood in the yard, "like enough I won't
let you go."
"What's that you say?" demanded Annie scoffingly. None the less she
slowly drew over to the end of another saw horse and seated herself.
"I'll go when I get good and ready."
"Of course, you can't tell much about a woman first few weeks. They
put on their best airs then. But anyways, I've sort of got reconciled
to seeing you around here. I had a po'try book in my house. Like it
says, I first endured seeing you, and then felt sorry for you, and
then----"
"Cut out the poetry stuff," said Annie. "It ain't past noon yet."
"I ain't had time to build my own house over yet. Pianny and all gone
now, though."
"Gee, but you do lie easy," said Annie. "You're the smoothest running
liar I ever did see."
"And all my books and things, and pictures and dishes."
"All of your both two tin plates, huh?"
"And my other suits of clothes, and my bedstead, and my dewingport, and
everything--all, all gone, Miss Squires!"
"Is that so! Oh, sad! sad! You must of been reading some of them mail
order catalogues in your dreams."
"And my cook stove too. I've just been cooking out in the open air
when I couldn't stand your cooking here no more--out of doors, like I
was camping out."
"If any sheep herder was ever worse than you two, God help him! You
wasn't one of you fit for her to wipe a foot on,--that doctor least of
all, that got me out here under pretences that she was married happy.
And I find her married to that! I wish to God she could see all this,
and see you all, for just one minute. Just once, that's all!"
"Yes," said Wid Gardner, suddenly serious. "I know. There ain't
nothing I can do to square it. But all I've got or expect to
have--why, it's free for you to take along and do anything you can for
her and your own self, Miss Annie, if you want to, even if you do go
away and leave us.
"But look at my land over there." He swept a long arm toward the
waving grasses of the valley. "I've got my land all clear. She's
worth fifty a acre as she lays, and'll be worth a hundred and fifty
when I get water out of the creek on to her. I got three hundred and
twenty acres under fence. I been saving the money the Doc's paying me
here.
"Say," he added, presently, "what kind of a place is that Niagry place
I been reading about? Is it far from Cleveland?"
"Not so very," replied Annie to his sudden and irrelevant query.
"It's a great place for young married folks to go and visit, I reckon?
I was reading about in a book onct, before my books was burned up.
Seems like it was called 'A Chanct Acquaintance.' Ever since, I
allowed I'd go to Niagry on my wedding journey."
"Well," said Annie, judicially, "I been around some, what with
floor-walkers and foremen and men in the factory, but I'm going to say
that when it comes to chanct acquaintances, this here place has got 'em
faded for suddenness! Go on over home and rub your eyes and wake up,
man! You're dopy."
"No, I ain't," said Wid. "I'm in a perfectly sane, sound and disposin'
mind. You're getting awful sun-burned, but it only makes you
good-lookinger, Miss Annie.
"But now lemme tell you one thing," he went on, "I don't want to see
you making no more eyes at that corporal in there. Plenty of men in
the Army has run away and left three, four wives at home."
"I don't care nothing about no man's past," said Annie. "They all look
alike to me."
"Well, I can't say that about you. Some ways you're a powerful homely
girl. Your hair's gettin' sunburned around the ends like Karen
Jensen's. And your eyes--turn around, won't you, so I kin remember
what color your eyes is. I sort of forgot, but they ain't much. Not
that I care about it. Women is nothing in my young life."
"Huh! you're eighty if you're a day."
"It's the way I got my hair combed."
Extending a strong right arm she pushed him off the end of the saw
horse. He rose, dusting his trousers calmly. "Oh, dear, I didn't
think so much sinfulness could be packed in so young a life! But say,
Annie, what's the use of fooling? I got to tell you the truth about it
sometime. Like on my flour sack: 'Eventual, why not now?' And the
plain, plumb truth is, you're the best as well as the pertiest girl
that ever set a foot on Montana dirt."
Annie's face was turned away now.
"Your hair and eyes and teeth, and your way of talking, and your way of
taking hold of things and making a home--haven't you been making a home
fer all of us people here? I told you I'd have to tell the truth at
last. Besides, I said I was to blame for everything that's gone wrong
here. I was. But I'll give you all I am and all I got to square it,
anyways you like."
"Well, anyways," said Annie Squires, drawing a long breath, "I think if
you took on something, you'd see it through; and you wouldn't pass the
buck if you fell down."
"That's me," said Wid.
"I get you," said Annie.
"You said that to me right out here in broad daylight, in presence of
witnesses, four hens and a dog."
"I said I understood you. That was all."
Wid Gardner turned to her and looked her squarely, in the eyes. "Not
appropry to nothing, neither here nor there, ner bragging none, I'm
able to put up as much hay in a day as any two Mormons in the Two Forks
Valley. In the hay fields of life, it's deeds and not words that
counts. I read that in a book somewheres."
"Say," he went on, suddenly, "have you noticed how perty the moonlight
is on the medders these nights? You reckon it shines that same way
over at Niagry?"
Annie did not answer at the instant. "Well," said she at last, "in
some ways this country is a lot like Cleveland. Go on over to your own
house, if you've got one, and don't you never speak to me again, so
long as you live."
"Well, anyways," said Wid, chuckling, "you didn't really call me a
sheep man. But listen--I've told you almost the truth about
everything. Now I got to be going."
"I was _afraid_ you'd be making some break," said Annie Squires. "I
was _expecting_ you'd do some fool thing or other. I almost _knew_
you'd do it. But then----"
"Yes; and but then?"
"But then----" concluded Annie.