HOME FOLKS
Noon found them within sight of the ranch-house. In an hour they were
unsaddling at the corral, having ridden in the back way, at Andy's
suggestion, that they might surprise the folks. But it did not take them
long to discover that there were no folks to surprise. The bunk-house
was open, but the house across from it was locked, and Andy knew
immediately that the Baileys had driven to town, because the pup was
gone, and he always followed the buckboard.
Pete was not displeased, for he wanted to shave and "slick up a bit"
after his long journey. "They'll see my hoss and know that I'm back,"
said Andy, as he filled the kettle on the box-stove in the bunk-house.
"But we can put Blue Smoke in a stall and keep him out of sight till you
walk in right from nowhere. I can see Ma Bailey and Jim and the boys!
'Course Ma's like to be back in time to get supper, so mebby you'll have
to hide out in the barn till you hear the bell."
"I ain't awful strong on that conquerin' hero stuff, Andy. I jest as
soon set right here--"
"And spoil the whole darn show! Look here, Pete,--you leave it to me and
if we don't surprise Ma Bailey clean out of her--specs, why, I'll quit
and go to herdin' sheep."
"A11 right. I'm willin'. Only you might see if you kin git in the back
way and lift a piece of pie, or somethin'." Which Andy managed to do
while Pete shaved himself and put on a clean shirt.
They sat in the bunk-house doorway chatting about the various happenings
during Pete's absence until they saw the buckboard top the distant edge
of the mesa. Pete immediately secluded himself in the barn, while Andy
hazed Blue Smoke into a box stall and hid Pete's saddle.
Ma Bailey, alighting from the buckboard, heard Andy's brief explanation
of his absence with indifference most unusual in her, and glanced sharply
at him when he mentioned having shot a wild turkey.
"I suppose you picked it and cleaned it and got it all ready to roast,"
she inquired. "Or have you just been loafing around waiting for me to do
it?"
"I et it," asserted Andy.
Ma Bailey glared at him, shook her head, and marched into the house while
Andy helped Bailey put up the horses.
"Ma's upset about somethin'," explained Bailey. "Seems a letter came for
Pete--"
"Letter from Pete! Why, he ain't comin' back, is he?"
"A letter for Pete. Ma says it looks like a lady's writin' on the
envelope. She says she'd like to know what female is writin' to Pete,
and him goodness knows where, and not a word to say whether he's sick or
broke, or anything."
"I sure would like to see him," said Andy fervently.
"Well, if somebody's writin' to him here at the Concho, looks like he
might drift in one of these days. I'd sure like to know how the kid's
makin' it."
And Bailey strode to the house, while Andy led the team to the corral.
Later Andy appeared in the kitchen and asked Mrs. Bailey if he couldn't
help her set the table, or peel potatoes, or something. Ma Bailey gazed
at him suspiciously over her glasses. "I don't know what's ailin' you,
Andy, but you ain't actin' right. First you tell me that you had to camp
at the Blue last night account o' killin' a turkey. Then you tell me
that you et the whole of it. Was you scared you wouldn't get your share
if you fetched it home? Then you want to help me get supper. You been
up to something! You just keep me plumb wore out worrying about you.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself."
"For why, Ma? What have I done?"
"I don't know, but it'll come to the top. There's the boys now--and me
a-standing here-- Run along and set the table if you ain't so full of
whatever is got into you that you can't count straight. Bill won't be in
to-night. Leastwise, Jim don't expect him." And Ma Bailey flapped her
apron at him and shooed him out as though he were a chicken that had
dared to poke its inquisitive neck into the kitchen.
"Count straight!" chuckled Andy. "Mebby I know more about how many's
here than Ma does."
Meanwhile Ma Bailey busied herself preparing supper, and it was evident
to the boys in the bunkhouse that Ma had something on her mind from the
sounds which came from the kitchen. Ma scolded the potatoes as she fried
them, rebuked the biscuits because they had browned a little too soon,
censured the stove for its misbehavior in having scorched the biscuits,
accused the wood of being a factor in the conspiracy, reprimanded the
mammoth coffee-pot that threatened to deluge the steak, and finally
chased Andy from the premises when she discovered that he had laid the
table with her best set of dishes.
"Ma's steamin' about somethin'," remarked Andy as he entered the
bunk-house.
This information was received with characteristic silence as each and
every cowboy mentally straightened up, vowing silently that he wasn't
goin' to take any chances of Ma b'ilin' over on him.
The clatter of the pack-horse bell brought the men to their feet and they
filed across to the house, a preternaturally silent aggregation that
confirmed Ma Bailey's suspicion that there was something afoot.
Andy, loitering behind them, saw Pete coming from the stables, tried to
compose himself, but could not get rid of the boyish grin, which provoked
Ma Bailey to mutter something which sounded like "idiot," to which the
cowboys nodded in cheerful concurrence, without other comment.
Hank Barley, the silent, was gazing surreptitiously at Ma's face when he
saw her eyes widen, saw her rise, and stand staring at the doorway as
Andy clumped in, followed by Pete.
Ma Bailey sat down suddenly.
"It's all right, Ma," laughed Andy, alarmed at the expression on her
face. "It's just Pete."
"Just Pete!" echoed Ma Bailey faintly. And then, "Goodness alive, child,
where you been?"
Pete's reply was lost in the shuffle of feet as the men rose and shook
hands with him, asking him a dozen questions in as many seconds,
asserting that he was looking fine, and generally behaving like a crowd
of schoolboys, as they welcomed him to their midst again.
Pete sat in the absent Bill Haskins's place. And "You must 'a' knowed he
was coming" asserted Avery. "Bill is over to the line shack."
"I got a _letter_," asserted Ma Bailey mysteriously.
"And you jest said nothin' and sprung him on us! Well, Ma, you sure
fooled me," said Andy, grinning.
"You go 'long." Mrs. Bailey smiled at Andy, who had earned her
forgiveness by crediting her--rather wisely--with having originated the
surprise.
They were chatting and joking when Bill Haskins appeared in the door-way,
his hand wrapped in a handkerchief.
Ma Bailey glared at him over her spectacles. "Got any stickin'-plaster?"
he asked plaintively, as though he had committed some misdemeanor. She
rose and placed a plate and chair for him as he shook hands with Pete,
led him to the kitchen and inspected and bandaged his hand, which he had
jagged on a wire gate, and finally reinstated him at the table, where he
proved himself quite as efficient as most men are with two hands. "Give
Bill all the coffee he wants and plenty stickin'-plaster, and I reckon he
never would do no work," suggested Hank Barley.
Bill Haskins grinned good-naturedly. "I see Pete's got back," he
ventured, as a sort of mild intimation that there were other subjects
worth discussing. He accompanied this brilliant observation by a modest
request for another cup of coffee, his fourth. The men rose, leaving
Bill engaged in his favorite indoor pastime, and intimated that Pete
should go with them. But Ma Bailey would not bear of it. Pete was going
to help her with the dishes. Andy could go, however, and Bill Haskins,
as soon as he was convinced that the coffee-pot was empty. Ma Bailey's
chief interest in life at the moment was to get the dishes put away, the
men out of the way, and Pete in the most comfortable rocking-chair in the
room, that she might hear his account of how it all happened.
And Pete told her--omitting no circumstance, albeit he did not accentuate
that part of his recital having to do with Doris Gray, merely mentioning
her as "that little gray-eyed nurse in El Paso"--and in such an offhand
manner that Ma Bailey began to suspect that Pete was keeping something to
himself. Finally, by a series of cross-questioning, comment, and
sympathetic concurrence, she arrived at the feminine conclusion that the
gray-eyed nurse in El Paso had set her cap for Pete--of course Pete was
innocent of any such adjustment of headgear--to substantiate which she
rose, and, stepping to the bedroom, returned with the letter which had
caused her so much speculation as to who was writing to Pete, and why the
letter had been directed to the Concho.
Pete glanced at the letter, and thanked Ma Bailey as he tucked it in his
pocket.
"I don't mind if you open it, Pete," she told him. "Goodness knows how
long it's been laying in the post-office! And it, mebby, is
important--from that doctor, or that lawyer, mebby. Oh, mebby it's from
the bank. Sakes alive! To think of that man leaving you all that money!
Mebby that bank has failed!"
"Well, I'd be right where I started when I first come
here--broke--lookin' for a job."
"And the boys'll worry you most to death if you try to read any letters
in the bunk-house to-night. They're waitin' to hear you talk."
"Guess the letter can wait. I ain't such a fast reader, anyhow."
"And you're like to lose it, carryin' it round."
"I--I--reckon I better read it," stammered Pete helplessly.
He felt somehow that Ma would feel slighted if he didn't. Ma Bailey
watched his face as he read the rather brief note from Doris, thanking
him for his letter to her and congratulating him on the outcome of his
trial, and assuring him of her confidence in his ultimate success in
life. "Little Ruth," wrote Doris, "cried bitterly when I told her that
you had gone and would not come back. She said that when you said
'good-bye' to her you promised to come back--and of course I had to tell
her that you would, just to make her happy. She has lost all interest in
the puzzle game since you left, but that queer watch that you gave her,
that has to be shaken before taken--and then not taken seriously--amuses
her quite a bit. She gets me to wind it up--her fingers are not strong
enough--and then she laughs as the hands race around. When they stop she
puts her finger on the hour and says, 'Pitty soon Pete come back.'
Little Ruth misses you very much."
Pete folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "From a friend of
mine," he said, flushing slightly.
Ma Bailey sighed, smiled, and sighed again. "You're just itching to go
see the boys. Well, run along, and tell Jim not to set up all night." Ma
Bailey rose, and stepping to the bedroom returned with some blankets.
"You'll have your old bunk. It's yours just as long as you want to stay,
Pete. And--and I hope that girl in El Paso--is a--a nice--sensible--"
"Why, Ma! What's the matter?--" as Mrs. Bailey blinked and showed
unmistakable signs of emotion.
"Nothing, Pete. I reckon your coming back so sudden and all you been
through, and that letter, kind of upset me. D-does she powder her face,
Pete?"
"Who? You mean Miss Gray? Why, what would she do that for?"
"Does she wear clothes that--that cost lots of money?"
"Great snakes, Ma! I dunno. I never seen her except in the hospital,
dressed jest like all the nurses."
"Is--is she handsome?"
"Say, Ma, you let me hold them blankets. They're gittin' you all sagged
down. Why, she ain't what I'd say was _handsome_, but she sure got
pretty eyes and hair--and complexion--and the smoothest little hands--and
she's built right neat. She steps easy--like a thoroughbred filly--and
she's plumb sensible, jest like you folks."
This latter assurance did not seem to comfort Ma Bailey as much as the
implied compliment might intimate.
"And there's only one other woman I ever saw that made me feel right to
home and kind o' glad to have her round, like her. And she's got gray
eyes and the same kind of hair, and--"
"Sakes alive, Pete Annersley! Another?"
"Uh-huh. And I'm kissin' her good-night--right now." And Pete grabbed
the blankets and as much of Ma Bailey as could be included in that large
armful, and kissed her heartily.
"He's changed," Ma Bailey confided to herself, after Pete had
disappeared. "Actin' like a boy--to cheer me up. But it weren't no boy
that set there readin' that letter. It was a growed man, and no wonder.
Yes, Pete's changed, bless his heart!"
Ma Bailey did not bless Pete's heart because he had changed, however, nor
because he had suffered, nor yet because he was unconsciously in love
with a little nurse in El Paso, nor yet because he kissed her, but
because she liked him: and because no amount of money or misfortune,
blame or praise, could really change him toward his friends. What Ma
Bailey meant was that he had grown a little more serious, a little more
gentle in his manner of addressing her--aside from saying good-night--and
a little more intense in a quiet way. To sum it all up, Pete had just
begun to think--something that few people do on the verdant side of
forty, and rather dread having to do on the other side of that mile-post.
A week later, as they sat at table asking one another whether Ma Bailey
had took to makin' pies ag'in jest for practice or for Pete, and plaguing
that good woman considerably with their good-natured banter, it occurred
to Bill Haskins to ask Pete if he were going to become a permanent member
of the family or if he were simply visiting; only Bill said, "Are you
aimin' to throw in with us--or are you goin' to curl your tail and drift,
when the snow flies?"
"I reckon I'll drift," said Pete.
This was news. Andy White demurred forcibly. Bailey himself seemed
surprised, and even old Hank Barley, the silent, expressed himself as
mildly astonished.
"We figured you'd stay till after the round-up, anyhow," said Bailey.
"Reckon it's too tame for Pete here," growled Andy.
"That's no fault of yours, Andrew," observed Ma Bailey.
"You're always peckin' at me," grumbled Andy, who detested being called
"Andrew" quite as much as that robust individual known to his friends as
Bill detests being called "Willie"--and Ma Bailey knew it.
"So you aim to leave us," said Haskins, quite unaware of Ma Bailey's eye
which glared disapproval of the subject.
"Pete's going--next Tuesday--and just to set your mind at rest and give
you a chance to eat your supper"--Bill had been doing scarcely anything
else since he sat down--"Pete has a right good reason to go."
"Kin I have another cup of coffee?" queried Bill.
"Sakes alive, yes! I reckon that's what's ailing you."
"I only had three, Ma."
"Pete is going away _on business_," asserted Ma Bailey.
"Huh," snorted Andy.
Bailey glanced at his wife, who telegraphed to him to change the subject.
And that good man, who had been married twenty-five years, changed the
subject immediately.
But Andy did not let it drop. After supper he cornered Pete in the
bunk-house, and following some wordy fencing, ascertained that Pete was
going to Tucson for the winter to get an education. Pete blushingly
admitted that that was his sole intent, swore Andy to secrecy, and told
him that he had discussed the subject with Ma Bailey, who had advised him
to go.
"So you're quittin' the game," mourned Andy.
"Nope, jest beginnin'."
"Well, you might 'a' said somethin', anyhow."
Pete put his hand on Andy's shoulder. "I wa'n't sure--till yesterday. I
_was_ goin' to tell _you_, Andy. Shucks! Didn't I tell you about the
money and everything--and you didn't say a word to the boys. I ain't
forgittin'."
"Oh, I knowed havin' money wouldn't swell you up. It ain't that. Only,
I was wonderin'--"
"So was I, Andy. And I been wonderin' for quite a spell. Come on out
and let's go set on the corral bars and smoke and--jest smoke."
But they did more than just smoke. The Arizona stars shot wondrous
shafts of white fire through the nipping air as the chums sensed the
comfortable companionship of horses moving slowly about the corral; and
they heard the far, faint call of the coyote as a drift of wind brought
the keen tang of the distant timberlands. They talked together as only
youth may talk with youth, when Romance lights the trail, when the heart
speaks from itself to heart in sympathy. Yet their chat was not without
humor or they would not have been Pete and Andy.
"You always was a wise one," asserted Andy; "pickin' out a professional
nurse for _your_ girl ain't a bad idee."
"I had a whole lot to do with pickin' her out, didn't I?"
"Well, you can't make me believe that she did the pickin', for you was
tellin' me she had good eyes."
"I reckon it was the Doc that did the pickin',"' suggested Pete.
"Well, I suppose the next thing you'll be givin' the preacher a chanct."
"Nope. Next thing I'll be givin' Miss Gray a chanct to tell me I'm a
doggone idiot--only she don't talk like that."
"Then it'll be because she don't know you like I do. But you're lucky--
No tellin'--" Andy climbed down from the bars.
"No tellin' what?" queried Pete.
"No tellin' you how much I sure want you to win, pardner--because you
know it."
Pete leapt from the top rail square on to Andy, who, taken off his guard,
toppled and fell. They rolled over and over, not even trying to miss the
puddle of water beside the drinking-trough. Andy managed to get his free
hand in the mud and thought of feeding some of it to Pete, but Pete was
too quick for him, squirming loose and making for the bunkhouse at top
speed.
Pete entrenched himself in the far corner of the room where Bill Haskins
was reading a novel,--exceedingly popular, if the debilitated condition
of the pages and covers were any criterion,--when Andy entered, holding
one hand behind him in a suspicious manner. Pete wondered what was
coming when it came. Andy swung his arm and plugged a fair-sized
mud-ball at Pete, which missed him and hit the innocent and unsuspecting
Bill on the ear, and stayed there. Bill Haskins, who was at the moment
helping the hero hold a spirited pair of horses while the heroine climbed
to a seat in the romantic buckboard, promptly pulled on the reins and
shouted "Whoa!" and the debilitated novel came apart in his hands with a
soft, ripping sound. It took Bill several seconds to think of something
to say, and several more to realize just what had happened. He opened
his mouth--but Andy interrupted with "Honest, Bill, I wasn't meanin' to
hit you. I was pluggin' at Pete, there. It was his fault; he went and
hid out behind you. Honest, Bill--wait and I'll help you dig that there
mud out of your ear."
Bill shook his head and growled as he scraped the mud from his face and
neck. Andy, gravely solicitous, helped to remove the mud and
affectionately wiped his fingers in Bill's hair.
"Here--what in hell you doin'!" snorted Bill.
"That's right! I was forgittin'! Honest, Bill!"
"I'll honest you! I'll give you somethin' to forgit." But Andy did not
wait.
A little later Bill appeared at the kitchen door and plaintively asked Ma
Bailey if she had any sticking-plaster.
"Sakes alive! Now what you done to yourself, William?"
"Nothin' this time, Miss Bailey. I--I done tore a book--and jest want to
fix it."
When Bill returned to the bunk-house with the "sticking-plaster," Pete
and Andy both said they were sorry for the occurrence, but Bill was
mighty suspicious of their sincerity. They were silent while Bill
laboriously patched up the book and settled himself to take up the reins
where he had dropped them. The heroine had just taken her seat beside
the driver--when-- "It's a darned shame!" said a voice, Pete's voice.
"It sure is--and Bill jest learnin' to read. He might 'a' spelled out a
whole page afore mornin'."
"I wa'n't meanin' Bill," asserted Pete.
"Oh, you won't bother Bill none. He can't hear you. His off ear is full
of mud. Go on and say anything you like about him."
Bill slowly laid down his book, stepped to his bunk, and drew his
six-shooter from its holster. He marched back to the table and laid the
gun quite handy to him, and resumed his chair.
Bill Haskins was long-suffering--but both Andy and Pete realized that it
was high time to turn their bright particular talents in some other
direction. So they undressed and turned in. They had been asleep an
hour or two before Bill closed his book regretfully, picked up his gun,
and walked to his bunk. He stood for a moment gazing at Andy, and then
turned to gaze at Pete. Then he shook his head--and a slow smile lighted
his weathered face. For despite defunct mountain lions, bent nails, and
other sundries, Bill Haskins liked Andy and Pete--and he knew if it came
to a test of friendship that either of them would stand by him to the
last dollar, or the last shot even, as he would have gladly done to help
them.