words as sure as if they was aces--with more, if needed, up his
sleeve. "It is used by our most advanced class in arithmetic, madam,"
he said. "The mechanism, you will observe, is arranged to revolve"--he
set it a-going--"in such a way that the small sphere also is put in
motion. And as the motion ceases"--it was slowing down to a stop--"the
sphere comes to rest on one of the numbers painted legibly on either a
black or a red ground. The children, seated around the table, are
provided with the numerating disks to which I have already called your
attention; and--with a varying rapidity, regulated by their individual
intelligence--they severally, as promptly as possible, arrange their
disks in piles corresponding with the number indicated by the purely
fortuitous resting-place of the sphere. The purpose of this ingenious
contrivance, as I scarcely need to point out to you, is to combine the
amusement of a species of game with the mental stimulus that the rapid
computation of figures imparts. I may add that we arouse a desirable
spirit of emulation among our little ones by providing that the child
who first correctly arranges his disks to represent the indicated
figure is given--until the game is concluded--the disks of the
children whose calculation has been slow, or at fault."
"Well, of all things in the world, Mr. Charles," said Hart's
aunt, "to think of my finding such a good thing as this out
here in New Mexico--when I've time and again been over the best
kindergarten-supply places in Boston, and have been reading all I
could lay my hands on about kindergartens for twenty years!"
"Oh, we do try not to be too primitive out here, madam," said Santa
Fé, taking a long breath over having got through all right; "and I am
even vain enough to think that perhaps we manage to keep pretty well
up with the times. But I must say that it is a pleasant surprise to me
to find that I have been able to give more than one point to a lady
like you, who knows every card--I should say, to whom kindergarten
processes are so exceptionally well known.
"And now I really must beg your permission to leave you, that I may
return to my sermon. I give much time to my sermons; and I am cheered
by the conviction--you must not think me boastful--that it is time
well employed. When I look around me and perceive the lawless, and
even outrageous, conditions which obtain in so many other towns in the
Territory, and contrast them with the orderly rectitude of Palomitas,
I rejoice that my humble toil in the vineyard has brought so rich a
reward. I deeply regret, madam, that your present stay with us must be
so short; and with an equal earnestness I hope that it may be my
privilege soon again to welcome you to our happy little town."
Hart's aunt--she was just pleased all over--was beginning to make a
speech back to him; but Santa Fé looked so wore out Hart didn't give
her the chance to go on. He just grabbed her, and got her away in a
hurry--and Charley went to fussing with the cover of the wheel,
putting it on again, so she couldn't get at him to shake hands for
good-bye. He said afterwards he felt that weak, when he fairly was
shut of her, all he could do was to flop down into a chair anyway and
sing out to Blister Mike to come and get the sheets off the bar quick
and give him his own bottle of Bourbon and a tumbler. And he said he
never took so many drinks, one right on top of another, since he was
born!
There was more'n the usual crowd down at the deepo that night when the
Denver train pulled out--with Hart's aunt in the Pullman, and Hart
standing on the Pullman platform telling the boys up to the last
minute how much he was obliged.
Things went that same Sunday-school way right on to the end of the
game; and Hart said his aunt told him--as they was coming along down
to the deepo--she never would a-believed there could be such a town as
Palomitas was, out in that wild frontier country, if she hadn't seen
it with her own eyes. As to the ladies of the town, he said she told
him they certainly was the most domestic she'd ever known!
Hart was so grateful--and he had a right to be--he left a hunderd
dollars with Tenderfoot Sal and told her to blow off the town for him
that night by running a free bar. Sal done it, right enough--and that
turned out to be about the hottest night Palomitas ever had. Most of
the trouble was in the dance-hall, where it was apt to be, and had its
start, as it did generally, right around the Sage-Brush Hen: who kept
on being dressed up in her white frock and wearing her white
sun-bonnet, and looked as demure as a cotton-tail rabbit, and cut up
so reckless I reckon she about made a record for carryings on! Santa
Fé had to fix one feller because of her--shooting him like he was used
to, through his pants-pocket--and more'n a dozen got hurt in the
ordinary way.
Some of the shooting didn't seem quite as if it was needed; but it was
allowed afterwards--even if there hadn't been no free bar--there was
excuse for it: seeing the town was all strung up and had to work
itself off. Santa Fé, of course, had more excuse than anybody, being
most strung-upest. Bluffing his way through that kindergarten game, he
said, was the biggest strain he'd ever had. But he didn't mind what
trouble he'd took, he said, seeing he'd got Hart out of his hole by
taking it; and he looked real pleased when Hill spoke up--just about
voicing what all the rest of us was thinking--saying he was ready,
after the way he'd played his kindergarten hand, to put his pile on
Santa Fé Charley to make iced drinks in hell!
Of course Hill oughtn't to have spoke like that. But allowances was to
be made for Hill--owing to the ways he'd got into driving mules.
V
BOSTON'S LION-HUNT
As I've said, folks in Palomitas mostly got for names what happened to
come handiest and fitted. Likely that dude's cuffs was marked with
something he was knowed by; but as most of us wasn't particular what
his cuffs was marked, or him either, we just called him Boston--after
the town he made out he belonged to--and let it go at that. Big game
was what he said he was looking for: and Santa Fé Charley, with Shorty
Smith and others helping, saw to it he got all he wanted and some
over--but I reckon the exercises would a-been less spirited if the
Sage-Brush Hen hadn't chipped in and played a full hand.
He was one of the sporting kind, Boston was, that turned up frequent
in the Territory in them days. Most of 'em was friends of officers at
some of the posts, with a sprinkling throwed in of sons and nephews of
directors of the road. Big game was what they all made out they come
for; and they was apt to have about as much use for big game--when
they happened to find any--as a cat has for two tails. But they seemed
to enjoy letting off ca'tridges--and used to buy what skins was in the
market to take home.
Boston turned out to be a nephew--nephews was apt to be worse'n sons
for stuck-upness--and he come in one morning in a private car hitched
onto the Denver train. He had a colored man along to cook and clean
his guns for him--he had more things to shoot with, and of more shapes
and sizes, than you ever seen in one place outside of a gun-store--and
he was dressed that nice in green corduroys, with new-fangled knives
and hunting fixings hanging all over him like he was a Christmas-tree,
he might have hired out for a show. He wasn't a bad set-up young
feller; but with them green clothes on, and being clean shaved and
wearing eye-glasses, he did look just about what he truly was.
Wood had a wire a director's nephew was coming--he was the agent, Wood
was--and orders to side-track his car and see he was took care of; and
of course Wood passed the word along to the rest of us what sort of a
game was on. But he begged so hard, Wood did, the town would hold
itself in--saying if rigs was put up on a director's nephew he was
dead sure to lose his job--we all allowed we'd give the young feller a
day or two to turn round in, anyway; and we promised Wood--who was
liked--we'd let the critter get through his hunting picnic without
putting up no rigs on him if he made any sort of a show of knowing how
to behave. Howsomedever, he didn't--and things started up, and nobody
but Boston himself to blame for it, that very first night over in the
bar-room at the Forest Queen.
He had Wood in to supper with him in his car, Boston did, the darky
cooking it; and Wood said--except it begun with their having pickled
green plums, and some sort of messed-up stuff that tasted like spoilt
salt fish and made him feel sickish--it was the best supper he ever
eat. Each of 'em had a bottle of iced wine, he said; and he said they
topped off with coffee that only wanted milk to make it a real wonder,
and a drink like rock-and-rye, but chalks better, and such seegars as
he'd never smoked in his born days.
All the time they was hashing--and Wood said he reckoned they was at
it a'most a full hour--Boston kept a-telling what a hell of a one
(that was the sort of careless way Wood put it) he was at big-game
hunting; but Wood judged--taking all his talk together--the only thing
he'd ever really shot bigger'n a duck or a pa'tridge was a deer the
dogs had chased into a pond for him so it hadn't no chance. But it
wasn't none of Wood's business to stop a director's nephew from
blowing if he felt like it, and so he just let him fan away. Bears
wasn't bad sport, he said, and he didn't mind filling in time with
'em if he couldn't get nothing better; but what he'd come to Palomitas
for 'special, he said, was mountain-lions--he seemed to have it in his
head he'd find 'em walking all over the place, same as cats--and he
wanted to know if any'd lately been seen.
Wood told him them animals wasn't met with frequent in them parts (and
they wasn't, for a fact, and hadn't been for about a hunderd years,
likely) and maybe he'd do better to set his mind on jack-rabbits--which
there was enough of out in the sage-brush, Wood told him, to load his
car. And then he looked so real down disappointed, seeming to think
jack-rabbits wasn't anyways satisfactory, Wood said he told him there
was chances some of the boys over at the Forest Queen--they being all
the time out in the mountains looking for prospects--might put him
on to finding a bear, anyway; and it wouldn't do no harm to go across to
the Queen and ask. And so over the both of 'em come.
It was Wood's mistake bringing that green-corduroyed pill right in
among the boys without giving notice, and Wood owned up it was
later--allowing he'd a-been more careful if the rock-and-rye stuff on
top of the wine, not being used to either of 'em, hadn't loaded him
more'n he knowed about at the time. Boston didn't seem to be much
loaded, likely having the habit of taking such drinks and so being
able to carry 'em; but he was that high-horsey--putting on his
eye-glasses and staring 'round the place same as if he'd struck a
menagerie and the boys was beasts in cages--all hands was set spiteful
to him right off.
Things was running about as usual at the Queen: most of the boys
setting around the table and Santa Fé dealing; a few of 'em standing
back of the others looking on; two or three getting drinks at the bar
and talking to Blister; and the girls kicking their heels on the
benches, waiting till it come time to start up dancing in the other
room. The only touch out of the common was the way the Sage-Brush Hen
had fixed herself--she being rigged up in the same white duds she'd
wore when Hart's aunt come to town, and looking so real cute and
pretty in 'em, and acting demure to suit, nobody'd ever a-sized her
for the gay old licketty-split Hen she was.
[Illustration: "STARING 'ROUND THE PLACE SAME AS IF HE'D STRUCK A
MENAGERIE"]
It was between deals when Wood and Boston come in, and Santa Fé got up
from the table and crossed over to 'em--Charley always was that polite
you'd a-thought he was a fish-hook with pants on--and told Boston he
hoped he seen him well, and was glad he'd come along. Then Wood told
how he was after mountain-lions, and wasn't likely to get none; and
Charley owned up they was few, and what there was of 'em was so sort
of scattered the chances for finding 'em was poor.
Boston didn't say much of nothing at first, seeming to be took up with
trying to make out where Santa Fé belonged to--hitching on his
eye-glasses and looking him over careful, but only getting puzzleder
the more he stared. You see, Charley--in them black clothes and a
white tie on--looked for certain sure like he was a minister; and
there he was getting up red-hot from dealing faro, and having on each
side of where he set at the table a forty-five gun. It was more of a
mix-up than Boston could manage, and you could see he didn't know
where he was at. Howsomedever, Wood had told him he'd better make out
to be friendly, and take just what happened to come along without
asking no questions; and I reckon the shoat really meant, as well as
he knowed how to, to do what he was told. So he give up trying to size
Santa Fé, and said back to him he was obliged and was feeling hearty;
and then he took to grinning, like as if he wanted to make things
pleasant, and says: "Really, I am very much interested in my
surroundings. This place has quite the air of being a barbarian Monte
Carlo. It really has, you know."
That was a non-plusser for Charley--and Santa Fé wasn't non-plustered
often, and didn't like it when he was--but he pulled himself together
and put down what cards he had: telling Boston monte was a game he
sometimes played with friends for amusement--which was the everlasting
truth, only the friends mostly was less amused than he was--and he'd
had a dog named Carlo, he said, when he was a boy.
Boston seemed to think that was funny, and took to snickering sort of
superior. He was about a full dose for uppishness, that young feller
was: going on as if he'd bought the Territory, and as if the folks in
it was the peones he'd took over--Mexican fashion--along with the
land. Then he said he guessed Santa Fé did not ketch his meaning, and
Monte Carlo was the biggest gambling hell there was.
Being in the business, Santa Fé was apt to get peevish when anybody
took to talking about gambling; and Boston's throwing in hell on top
of it that way was more'n he cared to stand. He didn't let on--at
least not so the fool could see it--his dander was started, setting on
himself being one of the things his work trained him to; but the boys
noticed he begun to get palish up at the top of his forehead--where
there was a white streak between his hair and where his hat come--and
all hands knowed that for a bad sign. Boston, of course--being
strangers with him--didn't know what Charley's signs was; and he just
kept on a-talking as fresh as his green clothes.
"Not less psychologically than sociologically," says he, "is it
interesting to find in this slum of the wilderness the degenerate
Old-World vices in crude New-World garb. Here," says he, jerking his
head across to the table, "is a coarse reproduction of Monaco's
essence; and there, I observe, are other repulsive features equally
coarse"--and he jerked his head over to where Shorty Smith was setting
up drinks for Carrots at the bar.
"If you dare to say one word more about my features, young man," says
Carrots--having a pug-nose, Carrots was techy about her features; and
she had a temper the same color as her hair--"I'll smack you in the
mouth!"
"And Oi'll smack your whole domn head off!" put in Blister Mike.
"D'you think Oi'm going to have ladies drinking at my bar insulted by
slush like you?" And Blister reached down to where he kept it among
the tumblers to get his gun.
It looked as if there was going to be a ruction right off. There was
Carrots red-hotter than her hair; and Blister, who was special
friends with Carrots, shooting mad at having anybody sassing her; and
Santa Fé's forehead getting whiter and whiter; and all hands on their
hind legs at having Palomitas called a slum of the wilderness--and
likely worse things said about the place in words nobody'd ever heard
tell of longer'n your arm. The only one keeping quiet was Wood. He was
sure, Wood was, trouble was coming beyond his stopping; and as he
knowed which side his bread was buttered, and how he'd be fired from
his job if things happened to go serious, he just went and sat down
in a corner and swore to himself sorrowful, and was about the
miserablest-looking man you ever seen alive. I guess it was more'n
anything else being pitiful for Wood made things take the turn they
did when the Sage-Brush Hen come into the game.
"Now you all hear _me_!" the Hen sung out sudden--and as the Hen
wasn't much given to no such public speaking, and the boys was used to
doing quick what she wanted when she asked for it, everybody stopped
talking and Blister put his gun down on the bar. Most of us, I reckon,
had a feeling the Hen was going to let things out in some queer way
she'd thought of in that funny head of hers--same as she'd done other
times when matters was getting serious--and we all was ready to help
her with any skylarking she was up to that would put a stop to the
rumpus and so get Wood out of his hole. As for Boston--being too much
of a fool to know what he'd done to start such a racket--he was all
mazed-up by it: staring straight ahead of him like a horse with
staggers, and looking like he wished he'd never been born.
"You all hear _me_, I tell you!" says the Hen, taking a-hold of
Boston's arm sort of motherly. "While I am the school-teacher in
Palomitas I shall not permit you boys to play your pranks on
strangers; and 'specially not on this gentleman--whom I claim as a
friend of mine because we both come from the same dear old town."
That was the first time anybody'd ever heard the Hen wasn't
hatched-out in Kansas City. But it didn't seem as if calling her hand
would be gentlemanly, so nobody said nothing; and off she went
again--talking this time to Boston, but winking the eye away from him
at the boys.
"It is merely a joke, sir," says the Hen, "that these young men are
playing on you--and as silly a joke as silly can be. Sometimes, in
spite of my most earnest efforts to stop them, they will go on in this
foolish way: pretending to be wild and wicked and murderous and all
such nonsense, when in reality there is not a single one among them
who willingly would hurt a fly. What Miss Mortimer said about smacking
you, as I hardly need to explain, was a joke too. Dear Miss Mortimer!
She is as full of fun as a kitten, and as sweet and gentle"--Carrots,
not seeing what the Hen was driving at, all the time was looking like
a red-headed thunder-storm--"as the kindest-hearted kitten that ever
was!
"And now, I assure you, sir, this reprehensible practical joking--for
which I beg your indulgence--definitely is ended; and I am glad to
promise that you will find in evidence, during the remainder of your
stay in Palomitas, only the friendliness and the courtesy which truly
are the essential characteristics of our seemingly turbulent little
town."
The Hen stopped for a minute to get her wind back--which give the boys
a chance to study over what they was told they was, and what kind of a
town it turned out to be they was living in--and then off she went
again, saying: "I beg that you will pardon me, sir, for addressing you
so informally, without waiting for an introduction. We do not always
stand strictly on etiquette here in Palomitas; and I saw that I had to
put my cards down quick--I mean that I had to intervene hurriedly--to
save you from being really annoyed. Now that I have cleared up the
trifling misunderstanding, I trust satisfactorily, we will go back to
where we ought to have started and I will ask Mr. Charles to introduce
us." And round she cracked to Santa Fé and says: "Will you be so kind
as to introduce my fellow-townsman to me, Mr. Charles?"
Santa Fé had begun to get a little cooled off by that time; and, like
as not--it was a wonder the way them two passed cards to each
other--the Hen give him some sort of a look that made him suspicion
what her game was. Anyway, into it he come--saying to Boston, talking
high-toned and polite like he knowed how to: "I have much pleasure,
sir, in presenting you to Miss Sage, who is Palomitas's idol--and a
near relative, as you may be interested in knowing, of the eminent
Eastern capitalist of the same name. As she herself has mentioned,
Miss Sage is our school-teacher; but her modest cheek would be
suffused with blushes were I to tell you how much more she is to
us--how broadly her generous nature prompts her to construe her duties
as the instructress of innocent youth. Only a moment ago you had an
opportunity for observing that her word is our law paramount. I am
within bounds in saying, sir, that in Palomitas she is universally
adored."
"Oh, Mr. Charles! How can you!" says the Hen, kind of turning away and
looking as if what Charley'd said really had made her feel like
blushing a little. Then she faced round again and shook hands with
Boston--who was so rattled he seemed only about half awake, and done
it like a pump--and says to him: "Mr. Charles is a born flatterer if
ever there was one, sir, and you must pay no attention whatever to his
extravagant words. I only try in my poor way, as occasion presents
itself"--she let her voice drop down so it went sort of soft and
ketchy--"to mollify some of the harsher asperities of our youthfully
strenuous community; to apply, as it were, the touchstone of Boston
social standards--the standards that you and I, sir, recognize--to the
sometimes too rough ways of our rough little frontier settlement. It
is true, though, and I am proud to say it, that the boys do like
me--of course Mr. Charles's talk about my being an idol and adored is
only his nonsense; and it is true that they always are nice about
doing what I ask them to do--as they were just now, when they were
naughty and I had to make them behave.
"And now, since the formalities have been attended to and we have been
introduced properly, and since you and I are fellow-Bostonians and
ought to be friendly"--the Hen give him one of them fetching looks of
hers--"you must come over to the bar and have a drink on me. And while
we are performing this rite of hospitality," says the Hen--pretending
not to see the jump he give--"we can discuss your projected lion-hunt:
in which, with your permission, I shall take part." Boston give a
bigger jump at that; and the Hen says on to him, sort of explaining
matters: "You need not fear that I shall not sustain my end of the
adventure. As any of the boys here will tell you, I can handle a
forty-five or a Winchester about as well as anybody--and big-game
hunting really is my forte. Indeed, I may say--using one of our
homely but expressive colloquialisms--that when it comes to
lion-hunting I am simply hell!"
Boston seemed to be getting worse and worse mixed while the Hen was
rattling her stuff off to him--and I reckon, all things considered, he
wasn't to be blamed. He'd got a jolt to start with, when he come in
and found what he took to be a preacher dealing faro; and he was worse
jolted when his fool-talk--and he not knowing how he'd done it--run
him so close up against a shooting-scrape. But the Hen was the limit:
she looking and acting like the school-ma'am she said she was, and yet
tangled up in a bar-room with a lot of gamblers and such as Kerosene
Kate and old Tenderfoot Sal and Carrots--and then bringing the two
ends together by talking one minute like he was used to East, and the
next one wanting to set up drinks for him and telling him she knowed
all there was to know about gun-handling and how at lion-hunting she
was just hell! I guess he was more'n half excusable, that young feller
was, for looking like he couldn't be counted on for telling for
certain on which end of him was his heels!
What he did manage to work out clear in that fool head of his was he
had the chance to get the drink he needed, and needed bad, to brace
him; so over he come with the Hen to the bar and got it--and it seemed
to do him some good. Then Carrots--who'd begun to ketch on a little to
what the Hen was after--spoke up and told him it was true what Miss
Sage had told him about her kittenishness, and she hadn't meant
nothing when she was talking about smacking him; and to show he had no
hard feeling, she said, he must have one on her. Then Blister Mike,
having sized matters up, chipped in too: saying it would make him feel
comfortabler--having done some joking himself by talking the way he
did and getting his gun out--if they'd all have one on the bar.
As drinks in Palomitas was sighted for a thousand yards, and carried
to kill further, by the time Boston had three of 'em in him--on top of
the ones he'd had with Wood at supper--he was loaded enough to be
careless about what was happening among the sunspots and ready to
take things pretty much as they come along. The boys was ready for
what might be coming too: allowing for sure the Hen was getting a
circus started, and only waiting to follow suit to the cards she put
down.
What was needed, it turned out, was stacked with Shorty Smith; and the
Hen sort of picked up Shorty with her eyes and says to him: "Your
little boy Gustavus--he is _such_ a dear little fellow, and I do love
him so!--was telling me at recess to-day, Mr. Smith, that you saw a
lion when you were out in the mountains day before yesterday
prospecting. I think that very likely you may have seen the fierce
creature even more recently; and perhaps you will have the kindness to
tell us"--the Hen winked her off eye at Shorty to show him what was
wanted--"where he probably may be found at the present time?"