look of it," said Red. "And as far as that's concerned, I kinder
don't know what to say myself. There's such a heap to talk about
it's hard to tell where to begin--but we've got to be friends
though, Mattie--we've just _got_ to be friends. Good Lord! We're
all there's left! Funny, I never thought of such a thing! Well,
blast it! That's enough of such talk! I've brought you a present,
Mattie." He stretched out a leg that reached beyond the limits of
the front porch, and dove into his trousers pocket, bringing out a
buck-skin sack. He fumbled at the knot a minute and then passed it
over saying, "You untie it--your fingers are soopler than mine,"
Miss Mattie's fingers were shaking, but the knots finally came
undone, and from the sack she brought forth a chain of rich, dull
yellow lumps, fashioned into a necklace. It weighed a pound. She
spread it out and looked at it astounded. "Gracious, Will! Is
that _gold_?" she asked.
"That's what," he replied. "The real article, just as it came out
of the ground: I dug it myself. That's the reason I'm here. I'd
never got money enough to go anywheres further than a horse could
carry me if I hadn't taken a fly at placer mining and hit her to
beat h--er--the very mischief."
Miss Mattie looked first at the barbaric, splendid necklace and
then at the barbaric, splendid man. Things grew confused before
her in trying to realise that it was real. What two planets so
separated in their orbits as her world and his? She had the
imagination that is usually lacking in small communities, and the
feeling of a fairy story come true, possessed her.
"And now, Mattie," said he, "I don't know what's manners in this
part of the country, but I'll make free enough on the cousin part
of it to tell you that I could look at some supper without
flinching. I've walked a heap to-day, and I ain't used to walking."
Miss Mattie sprang up, herself again at the chance to offer
hospitality.
"Why, you poor man!" said she. "Of course you're starved! It must
be nearly eight o'clock! I almost forget about eating, living here
alone. You shall have supper directly. Will you come in or sit a
spell outside?"
"Reckon I'll come in," said Red. "Don't want to lose sight of you
now that I've found you."
It was some time since Miss Mattie had felt that anyone had cared
enough for her not to want to lose sight of her, and a delicate
warm bloom went over her cheeks. She hurried into the little
kitchen.
"Mattie!" called Red.
"What is it, Will?" she answered, coming to the door.
"Can I smoke in this little house?"
"Cer--tainly! Sit right down and make yourself comfortable. Don't
you remember what a smoker father was?"
Red tried the different chairs with his hand. They were not a
stalwart lot. Finally he spied the home-made rocker in the corner.
"There's the lad for me," he said, drawing it out. "Got to be
kinder careful how you throw two-hundred-fifty pounds around."
"Mercy!" cried Miss Mattie, pan in hand. "Do you weigh as much as
that, Will?"
"I do," returned Red, with much satisfaction. "And there isn't
over two pounds of it fat at that."
"What a great man you have grown up to be, Will!"
Red took in a deep draught of tobacco and sent the vapor clear
across the little room.
"On the hay-scales, yes," he answered, with a sort of joking
earnestness--"but otherwise, I don't know."
The return to the old home had touched the big man deeply, and as
he leaned back in his chair there was a shade of melancholy on his
face that became it well.
Miss Mattie took in the mass of him stretched out at his ease, his
legs crossed, and the patrician cut of his face, to which the
upturned moustache gave a cavalier touch. They were good stock,
the Saunders, and the breed had not declined in the only two extant.
"He's my own cousin!" she whispered to herself, in the safety of
the kitchen. "And such a splendid looking man!" She felt a pride
of possession she had never known before. Nobody in Fairfield or
vicinity had such a cousin as that. And Miss Mattie went on
joyfully fulfilling an inherited instinct to minister to the wants
of some man. She said to herself there was some satisfaction in
cooking for somebody else. But alack-a-day, Miss Mattie's ideas of
the wants of somebody else had suffered a Fairfield change.
Nothing was done on a large scale in Fairfield. But she sat the
little cakes--lucky that she had made them yesterday--and the fried
mush, and the small pitcher of milk, and the cold ham, and the cold
biscuit on the table with a pride in the appearance of the feast.
"Supper's ready, Will," said she.
Red responded instanter. Took a look at the board and understood.
He ate the little cakes and biscuit, and said they were the durned
best he ever tasted. He also took some pot-cheese under a
misapprehension; swallowed it, and said to himself that he had been
through worse things than that. Then, when his appetite had just
begun to develop, the inroads on the provisions warned him that it
was time to stop. Meanwhile they had ranged the fields of old
times at random, and as Red took in Miss Mattie, pink with
excitement and sparkling as to eyes, he thought, "Blast the supper!
It's a square meal just to look at her. If she ain't pretty good
people, I miss my guess."
It was a merry meal. He had such a way of telling things! Miss
Mattie hadn't laughed so much for years, and she felt that there
was no one that she had known so long and so well as Cousin Will.
There was only one jarring note. Red spoke of the vigorous
celebration that had been followed by the finding of gold. It was
certainly well told, but Miss Mattie asked in soft horror when he
had finished, "You didn't get--_intoxicated_--Will?"
"DID I?" said he, lost in memory, and not noticing the tone.
"Well, I put my hand down the throat of that man's town, and turned
her inside out! It was like as if Christmas and Fourth of July had
happened on the same day."
"Oh, Will!" cried Miss Mattie, "I can't think of you like
that--rolling in the gutter." Her voice shook and broke off. Her
knowledge of the effect of stimulants was limited to Fairfield's
one drunkard--old Tommy McKee, a disreputable old Irishman--but
drunkenness was the worst vice in her world.
"Rolling in the gutter!" cried Red, in astonishment. "Why girl!
What for would I roll in the gutter? What's the fun in that?
Jiminy Christmas! I wanted to walk on the telegraph wires--there
wasn't anything in that town high enough for me--what put gutters
into your head?"
"I--I supposed people did that when they were--like that."
"I wouldn't waste my money on whisky, if that's all the inspiration
I got out of it," replied Red.
"Well, of course I don't know about those things, but I wish you'd
promise me one thing."
"Done!" cried Red. "What is it?"
"I wish you'd promise me not to touch whisky again!"
"Phew! That's a pretty big order!" He stopped and thought a
minute. "If you'll make that 'never touch it when it ain't
needed,' leaving when it's needed to what's my idea of the square
thing on a promise, I'll go you, Mattie--there's my hand."
"Oh, I shouldn't have said anything at all, Will! I have no right.
But it seemed such a pity such a splendid man--I mean--I think--.
You mustn't promise me anything, Will," stammered Miss Mattie,
shocked at her own daring.
"Here!" he cried, "I'm no little kid! When I promise I mean it!
As for your not having any right, ain't we all there is? You've
got to be mother and sister and aunt and everything to me. I ain't
as young as I have been, Mattie, and I miss she-ways terrible at
times. Now put out your fin like a good pardner, and here goes for
no more rhinecaboos for Chantay Seeche Red--time I quit drinking,
anyhow," he slipped a ring off his little finger. "Here, hold out
your hand," said he, "I'll put this on for luck, and the sake of
the promise--by the same token, I've got a noose on you now, and
you're my property."
This, of course, was only Cousin Will's joking, but Miss Mattie
noticed with a sudden hot flush, that he had chosen the engagement
finger--in all ignorance, she felt sure. The last thing she could
do would be to call his attention to the fact, or run the risk of
hurting his feelings by transferring the ring; besides, it was a
pretty ring--a rough ruby in a plain gold band--and looked very
well where it was.
Then they settled down for what Red called a good medicine talk.
Miss Mattie found herself boldly speaking of little fancies and
notions that had remained in the inner shrine of her soul for
years, shrinking from the matter-of-fact eye of Fairfield; yet this
big, ferocious looking Cousin Will seemed to find them both sane
and interesting, and as her self-respect went up in the
arithmetical, her admiration for Cousin Will went up in the
geometrical ratio. He frankly admitted weaknesses and fears that
the males of Fairfield would have rejected scornfully.
Miss Mattie spoke of sleeping upstairs, because she could not rid
herself of the fear of somebody coming in.
"I know just how you feel about that," said Red. "My hair used to
be on its feet most of the time when we were in the hay camp at the
lake beds. Gee whizz! The rattlers! We put hair ropes
around--but them rattlers liked to squirm over hair ropes for
exercise. One morning I woke up and there was a crawler on my
chest. 'For God's sake, Pete!' says I to Antelope Pete, who was
rolled up next me, 'come take my friend away!' and I didn't holler
very loud, neither. Pete was chain lightning in pants, and he
grabs Mr. Rattler by the tail and snaps his neck, but I felt
lonesome in my inside till dinner time. You bet! I know just how
you feel, exactly. I didn't have a man's sized night's rest whilst
we was in that part of the country."
It struck Miss Mattie that the cases were hardly parallel. "A
rattlesnake on your chest, Will!" she cried, with her hands clasped
in terror.
"Oh! it wasn't as bad as it sounds--he was asleep--coiled up there
to get warm--sharpish nights on the prairie in August--but darn it!
Mattie!" wrinkling up his nose in disgust, "I hate the sight of the
brutes!"
"But you wouldn't be afraid of a man, Will!"
"Well, no," admitted he. "I've never been troubled much that way.
You see, everybody has a different fear to throw a crimp in them.
Mine's rattlesnakes and these little bugs with forty million pairs
of legs. I pass right out when I see one of them things. They
give me a feeling as if my stummick had melted."
"Weren't the Indians terrible out there, too?" asked Miss Mattie.
"I'm sure they must have been."
"Oh, they ain't bad people if you use 'em right," said Red. "Not
that I like 'em any better on the ground, than in it," he added
hastily, fearful of betraying the sentiment of his country, "but I
never had but one real argument, man to man. Black Wolf and I come
together over a matter of who owned my cayuse, and from words we
backed off and got to shooting. He raked me from knee to hip, as I
was kneeling down, doing the best I could by him, and wasting
ammunition because I was in a hurry. Still, I did bust his ankle.
In the middle of the fuss a stray shot hit the cayuse in the head
and he croaked without a remark, so there we were, a pair of fools
miles from home with nothing left to quarrel about! You could have
fried an egg on a rock that day, and it always makes you thirsty to
get shot anyways serious, thinking of which I hollered peace to old
Black Wolf and told him I'd pull straws with him to see who took my
canteen down to the creek and got some fresh water. He was
agreeable and we hunched up to each other. It ain't to my credit
to say it, but I was worse hurt than that Injun, so I worked him.
He got the short straw, and had to crawl a mile through cactus,
while I sat comfortable on the cause of the disagreement and yelled
to him that he looked like a badger, and other things that an Injun
wouldn't feel was a compliment." Red leaned back and roared. "I
can see him now putting his hands down so careful, and turning back
every once in awhile to cuss me. Turned out that it was his
cayuse, too. Feller that sold it to me had stole it from him. I
oughtn't to laugh over it, but I can't help but snicker when I
think how I did that Injun."
Generally speaking, Miss Mattie had a lively sense of humour, but
the joke of this was lost on her. Her education had been that
getting shot was far from funny.
"Why, I should have thought you would have died, Will!"
"What! For a little crack in the leg!" cried Red, with some
impatience. "You people must quit easy in this country. Die
nothin'. One of our boys came along and took us to camp, and we
was up and doing again in no time. 'Course, Black Wolf has a game
leg for good, but the worst that's stuck to me is a yank or two of
rheumatism in the rainy season. I paid Wolf for his cayuse," he
finished shamefacedly. "I had the laugh on him anyhow."
Miss Mattie told him she thought that was noble of him, which
tribute Red took as medicine, and shifted the subject with speed,
to practical affairs. He asked Miss Mattie how much money she had
and how she managed to make out. Now, it was one of the canons of
good manners in Fairfield not to speak of material matters--perhaps
because there was so little material matter in the community, but
Miss Mattie, doomed to a thousand irksome petty economies, had
often longed for a sympathetic ear, to pour into it a good honest
complaint of hating to do this and that. She could not exactly go
this far with Cousin Will, but she could say that it was pretty
hard to get along, and give some details. She felt that she knew
him so very well, in those few hours! Red heard with nods of
assent. He had scented the conditions at once.
"It ain't any fun, skidding on the thin ice," said he, when they
had concluded the talk. "I've had to count the beans I put in the
pot, and it made me hate arithmetic worse than when I went over
yonder to school. Well, them days have gone by for you, Mattie."
He reached down and pulling out a green roll, slapped it on the
centre table. "Blow that in, and limber up, and remember that
there's more behind it."
Miss Mattie's pride rose at a leap.
"Will!" she said, "I hope you don't think I've told you this to get
money from you?"
He leaned forward, put his hand on her shoulder and held her eyes
with a sudden access of sternness and authority.
"And I hope, Mattie," said he, "that you don't think that I think
anything of the kind?"
The cousins stared into each other's eyes for a full minute. Then
Miss Mattie spoke. "No, Will," said she, "I don't believe you do."
"I shouldn't think I did," retorted Red. "What in thunder would I
do with all that money? Why, good Lord, girl, I could paper your
house with ten-dollar bills--now you try to fly them green kites,
like I tell you."
Miss Mattie broke down, the not fully realised strain of fifteen
years had made itself felt when the cord snapped. "I don't know
how to thank you. I don't know what to say. Oh, William! it seems
too good to be true."
"What you crying about, Mattie?" said he in sore distress. "Now
hold on! Listen to me a minute! There's something I want you to
do for me."
"What is it?" she asked, drying her eyes. "For dinner to-morrow,"
he replied, "let's have a roast of beef about that size,"
indicating a wash-tub.
The diversion was complete.
"Why, Will! What would we ever do with it?" said she.
"Do with it? Why, eat it!"
"But we couldn't eat all that!"
"Then throw what's left to the cats. You ain't going to fall down
on me the first favour I ask?" with mock seriousness.
"You shall have the roast of beef. 'Pears to me that you're fond
of your stomach, Will," said Miss Mattie, with a recovering smile.
"I have a good stomach, that's always done the right thing by me,
when I've done the right thing by _it_," said Red. "And moreover,
just look at the constitution I have to support. But say, old
lady, look at that!" pointing to the clock. "Eleven-thirty; time
decent people were putting up for the night."
The words brought to an acute stage a wandering fear which had
passed through Miss Mattie's mind at intervals during the evening.
Where was she to look for sleeping accommodations for a man? She
revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as
the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the
purpose. Long habit of thought had made these niceties
constitutional. It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say
"I'll fix up your bed right there on the sofa" as it would have
been for Red to pick a man's pocket, yet, when she thought of his
instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it
would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have
no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the
winds, and speak.
But the difficulty was cut in another fashion.
"There's a little barn in the back-yard that caught my eye," said
Red, "and if you'll lend me a blanket I'll roll it out there."
"Sleep in the barn! You'll not do any such thing!" cried Miss
Mattie. "You'll sleep right here on the sofa, or upstairs in my
bed, just as you choose."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not. So help me Bob! I'd
smother in here. Had the darnedest time coming on that ever
was--hotels. Little white rooms with the walls coming in on you.
Worse than rattlesnakes for keeping a man awake. Reminds me of the
hospital. Horse fell on me once and smashed me up so that I had to
be sent to get puttied up again, and I never struck such a month as
that since I was born. The doc. told me I mustn't move, but I told
him I'd chuck him out of the window if he tried to stop me, and up
I got. I'd have gone dead sure if they'd held me a week more. I
speak for the barn, Mattie, and I speak real loud; that is, I mean
to say I'm going to sleep in the barn, unless there's somebody a
heap larger than you on the premises. Now, there's no use for you
to talk--I'm going to do just as I say."
"Well, I think that's just dreadful!" said Miss Mattie. "I'd like
to know what folks will think of me to hear I turned my own cousin
out in the barn." Her voice trailed off a little at the end as the
gist of what they might say if he stayed in the house, occurred to
her. "Well," she continued, "if you're set, I suppose I can't
object." Miss Mattie was not a good hand at playing a part.
"I'm set," said Red. "Get me a blanket." As she came in with this,
he added, "Say, Mattie, could you let me have a loaf of bread?
I've got a habit of wanting something to eat in the middle of the
night."
"Certainly! Don't you want some butter with it? Here, I'll fix it
for you on a plate."
"No, don't waste dish-washing--I'll show you how to fix it." He
cut the loaf of bread in half, pulled out a portion of the soft
part and filled the hole with butter. "There we are, and nothing
to bother with afterwards."
"That's a right smart notion, Will--but you'll want a knife."
In answer he drew out a leather case from his breast pocket and
opened it. Within was knife, fork, spoon and two flat boxes for
salt and pepper. "You see I'm fixed," said he.
"Isn't that a cute trick!" she cried admiringly. "You're ready for
most anything."
"Sure," said Red. "Now, good night, old lady!" He bent down in so
natural a fashion that Miss Mattie had kissed him before she knew
what she was going to do.
Down to the barn, through the soft June evening, went Red,
whistling a Mexican love song most melodiously.
Miss Mattie stood in the half-opened door and listened. Without
was balm and starlight and the spirit of flowers, breathed out in
odours. The quaint and pretty tune rose and fell, quavered, lilted
along as it listed without regard for law and order. It struck
Miss Mattie to the heart. Her girlhood, with its misty dreams of
happiness, came back to her on the wings of music.
"Isn't that a sweet tune," she said, with a lump in her throat.
She went up into her room and sat down a moment in confusion,
trying to grasp the reality of all that had happened. In the
middle of the belief that these things were not so, came the regret
of a sensitive mind for errors committed. She remembered with a
sudden sinking, that she had not thanked him for the necklace--and
the money lay even now on the parlor table, where he had cast it!
This added the physical fear of thieves. Down she went and got the
money, counted out, to her unmitigated astonishment, five hundred
dollars and thrust it beneath her pillow with a shiver. She wished
she had thought to tell him to take care of it--but suppose the
thieves were to fall on him as he slept? Red's friends would have
spent their sympathy on the thieves. She rejoiced that the money
was where it was. Then she tried to remember what she had said
throughout the evening.
"Well, I suppose I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded.
"But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face,
with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted.
"I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how
excited I was," said she. "He seems to understand those things,
for all he's such a large man. Well, it doesn't seem as if it
could be true." With a half sigh Miss Mattie knelt and sent up her
modest petition to her Maker and got into her little white bed.
In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion. He
hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and
rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the
inhabitants, the hens.
"One, two, three, four," he counted. "Reckon I can last out till
morning on that. Mattie, she's white people--just the nicest I
ever saw, but she ain't used to providing for a full-grown man."
He stepped to the back of the barn and looked about him. "Nobody
can see me from here," he said, in satisfaction. Then he scraped
together a pile of chips and sticks and built a fire, filled the
tin can at the brook, sat it on two stones over the fire, rolled
himself a cigarette and waited. A large, yellow tom-cat came out
of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing
tentatively.
"Hello, pussy!" said Red. "You hungry too? Well, just wait a
minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, pussy?" The cat
gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more. The
tin can boiled over. Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette
to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light. "Gee! Ten
minutes more, now!" said he. "Hardly seems to me as if I could
wait." He pulled the watch out several times. "What's the matter
with the damn thing? I believe it's stopped," he growled. But at
last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered
up its treasures in his handkerchief.
"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he. "Just
sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by
Jinks!" Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in
generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.
"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep." He
swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still
fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.
"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused. "If I have got
only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice.
She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."
The cat came up, purring and "making bread." He sniffed feline
fashion at Red's face.
"Foo! Shoo! Go 'way, pussy! Settle yourself down and we'll pound
our ear for another forty miles. I like you first rate when you
don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously. "Yes
sir! Mattie's all right," said he. "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay
Seeche Red was in the land of dreams. Here, back in God's country,
within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer
laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and
poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all,
sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous,
devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.
II
The next morning when Red awoke,
arrows of gold were shooting through
the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird
life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent
whistle and the warble, the cackle and the
pompous crow, were in full chorus.
"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as
he took in the view. "Oh, I remember!" and
his heart leapt. "I'm in my own home, by
the Lord!"
He went down to the brook and washed,
drying hands and face on the silk neckerchief,
which is meant for use as well as for decoration.
In the meantime, Miss Mattie had
awakened, with a sense of something delightful at
hand, the meaning of which escaped her for
the time. And then she remembered, and
sprang out of bed like a girl. She went to
the window, threw open the shutters and let
the stirring morning air flow in. This had
been her habit for a long time. The window
faced away from the road, and no one could
see who was not on Miss Mattie's own premises.