EVE AT HEART'S DESIRE
_How the Said Eve arrived on the Same Stage with Eastern Capital, to
the Interest of All, and the Embarrassment of Some._
The sun drew on across the enchanted valley and began to sink toward
the rim of the distant Baxter Peak. The tremendous velvet robes of the
purple evening shadows dropped slowly down upon the majestic shoulders
of Carrizo, guardian of the valley. A delicious kindness came into the
air, sweet, although no flower was in all that land, and soft, though
this was far from any sea, unless it were the waters immeasurably deep
beneath this sun-dried soil. There was no cloud even at the falling of
the sun, but the gun had no harshness in his glow. There was a blue
and purple mystery over all the world, and calm and sweetness and
strength came down as it were a mantle. Ah, never in all the world was
a place like this Eden, this man's Eden of Heart's Desire!
A gentle wind sighed up the valley from the narrow cañon mouth, as it
did every day. There was no variableness. Surprises did not come
thither. The world ran always in one pleasant and unchanging groove.
But the breeze this evening brought no smile of content to Dan
Anderson's face as he sat waiting for the coming of the new and fateful
visitor to our ancient Eden.
"They'll be about at the Carrizoso Springs now," said Dan Anderson,
"twelve miles away down the trail. Can't you smell the cold cream?"
This was beyond ken, but he became more explicit. "Cold cream to the
eyes and ears," said he. "To the untutored face, the sun of this
heathen district is something sinful; and like enough she never heard
of collodion for cracked lips in an alkali country. And a veil--oh,
sacred spirits! that veil and its contents is now hatin' Carrizoso
flats and all the inarticulate earth till fare-ye-well! Wrapped up to
the topmast in a white veil,--or one of was-white,--gray travelling
gown, common-sense boots. Gloves--ah, yes. And hate--hate--why, can't
you feel the simmerin', boilin' hatred of that States girl just raisin'
the temperature of this land of Canaan? Hate us? Why, she'll be
poisonous. Ninety miles in the sun, at ninety in the shade. Water
once at the Mal Pais, and it alkali."
I reminded Dan Anderson that in view of his promise to absent himself
at the time of the arrival of the Socorro stage, he was not conducting
himself with the proper regard either to decorum or historical accuracy.
"I want to go," said Dan Anderson, "and I ought to go. I ought to go
climb that tree and leave a pink and lavender card of regrets for the
lady and her dad. I reckon I will go, too, if I can ever get this
faintness out of my legs. But somehow I can't get started. I'd look
well, tryin' to climb a tree with my legs this way, wouldn't I? Man,
haven't you any sympathy?"
So we sat on a log out in front of Uncle Jim Brothers's hotel, and
waited for the worst to happen.
"Don't you go away," said Dan Anderson. "I want you for my second.
You can go for the doctor. I ain't feelin' very well."
Now, there was no doctor in Heart's Desire, nor had there ever been, as
Dan Anderson knew. Neither did he look in need of any help whatsoever.
He made no foolish masculine attempt at personal adornment, but his
long figure, with good bony shoulders and a visible waist line, looked
well enough in the man's garb of blue shirt and belted trousers. A
rope of hair straggled from under his wide hat; for in Heart's Desire
wide hats were worn of right and not in affectation. He was a manly
man enough, in a place where weak men were rare. The one most vitally
concerned in all the population of Heart's Desire, he was now the one
least visibly affected. All the rest of the settlement, suddenly
smitten by the news that the stage was coming with Eastern Capital and
a live Woman, had hastened under cover in search of coats and neckties.
Dan Anderson sat out on the street just as he had been, and watched the
purple mysteries dropping on the mountains, and waited grimly for that
which was to come to him. True, there was the slight moisture on his
brow and on his under lip, but otherwise his agitation displayed itself
only in an occasional exuberance of metaphor.
For my own part, I remained unreconciled to these impending events.
"What will you do?" I asked Dan Anderson bitterly, "now that you've
been ass enough to allow this girl to come on down in here? You'll
have some one killed in this town before long. Besides, where can a
white girl live in this place? There's not a bedspread or a linen
sheet in the whole town."
"You talk like a chambermaid," said Dan Anderson, scornfully. "Do you
suppose a Wellesley girl, accustomed steady to high thinkin', can't get
along with a little plain livin' once in a while? As for women folks,
why can't Curly's girl take care of her? Does a chance lady caller in
this city need a _thousand_ women to entertain her? And
blankets--why, you know well enough, that blankets are better after
sundown here than much fine linen. Heart's Desire'll be here calm and
confident after this brief pageantry has passed from our midst."
As he spoke, he half turned and started, with a broken exclamation. I
followed his gaze. The street was vacant, barren of the accustomed
throng that usually awaited near the post-office the arrival of the
infrequent stagecoach. But there, at the mouth of the cañon, almost
under the edge of the deepening shadow from the purple-topped mountain,
appeared the dusty top of the creeping vehicle that bore with it the
fate of Heart's Desire. Dan Anderson was pale now, and he put his hand
to his shirt collar, as though it were too tight; but he sat gazing
down the valley.
"That old fool, Bill Godfrey, is showin' them our sign," said he, in
exasperation. "That's a nice thing, ain't it, for Eastern Capital, or
a woman, to see the first thing?"
It was Charlie Lee, a landscape artist of Heart's Desire, who
subsequently turned his studio into a shop for sign-painting, who had
prepared the grim blazonry on the cañon wall to which Dan Anderson had
made reference. "Prepare to meet thy God!" was the sign that Charlie
Lee had painted there. It was the last thing he did on his way out of
town. That was the day after certain outlaws had killed a leading
citizen. Charlie's emotions, of necessity, turned to paint for
expression; and there had never been any other funeral sermon. The
inhabitants had always left the sign standing there. But at this time
it seemed not wholly suitable, in the opinion of Dan Anderson.
"They ain't goin' to understand that," said he. "They can't think the
way we do. Oh, why didn't that old fool Godfrey call their attention
the other way? Oh, that'll set fine, won't it, with a man comin' to
buy a coal mine, and a girl with a pot of white vaseline on her face
and a consumin' vision of tarantulas in her soul! This'll be another
case of New Jersey Gold Mill. Old Mr. Eastern Capital, why, he'll run
out at the same door wherein he went; that's what he'll do. And, oh,
doctors and saints, look at that, now!" Bill Godfrey was leaning out
of the coach-box and pointing with his whip. "He's showin' them the
town now," said Dan Anderson. "Why--I hadn't thought before but what
this place was all right."
I looked anxiously about, sharing his consternation. It had been our
world for these years, a world set apart, distant and unknown; but it
had been satisfactory until now. Never before that moment had the
scattering little one-story cabins of log and adobe seemed so small and
insignificant, so unfit for human occupancy. We were suddenly ashamed.
Dan Anderson, awaiting his fate, did not fly, but sat gravely on the
log in front of Uncle Jim's hotel, and waited for the creaking, stage,
white with far-gathered dust, to climb the last pitch of the road up
from the arroyo and come on with the shambling trot of a pair of tired
mules for the final nourish at the end of the long, dry trail.
He waited, and as the stagecoach, stopped, arose and walked steadily
forward. Another man might have smiled and stammered and nervously
have offered assistance to the newcomers; but Dan Anderson was master
of his faculties.
The curtains still concealed the tenant of the farther side of the rear
seat, when there appeared the passenger nearest to our side of the
coach,--a citizen of the eminently respectable sort, forty inches in
girth, and of gray chin whiskers and mustache. He was well shod and
well clad; so much could be seen as he climbed down between the wheels
and stood stamping his feet to shake the travel cramp out of his legs.
He looked thirsty and unhappy and bored. A flush of recognition
crossed his face when he saw the tall figure approaching him.
"Well, Andersen," Mr. Ellsworth said, extending a hand, "how are you?
Got here at last--awful drive. Where do we stop? You know my
daughter, of course."
What treachery to Heart's Desire was here! Dan Anderson, a man who had
come to stay, shaking hands on terms of old acquaintanceship,
apparently, with Eastern Capital itself; and not content with that,
advancing easily and courteously, hat in hand, to greet the daughter of
Eastern Capital as though it were but yesterday that last they met.
Moreover, and bitterest of all for a loyal man of Heart's Desire, was
there not a glance, a word between them? Did Dan Anderson whisper a
word and did she flush faint and rosy? or was it a touch of the light?
Certain it was he reached up his hand to take hers, shaking it not too
long nor too fervently.
"I do remember Miss Ellsworth very well, of course, Mr. Ellsworth,"
said he. "We are all very glad to see you."
"And we're very glad to _see_ you!" echoed the girl. "Oh! the dust,
the dust!" She spoke in a full, sweet voice, excellent even for
outlanders to hear. If there were agitation in her tones, agitation in
Dan Andersen's heart, none might know it. This meeting, five years and
two thousand miles from a parting, seemed the most natural and ordinary
thing in all the world. Mr. Ellsworth was of the belief that he
himself had planned it so far as himself and Dan Anderson were
concerned.
"My daughter was on her way out to California, you see," Ellsworth
began again; "down at El Paso she took a sudden freak for coming up
here to see about the climate--lots of folks go West nowadays, you
know, even in the spring. I'll warrant she's sick of the trip by now.
A good climate has to have dust to season it. One of the mules went
lame--thought we would never get here. And now tell me, where'll she
stop?" The personification of Eastern Capital looked about him
dubiously at the only hotel of Heart's Desire, before which the coach
had pulled up as a matter of course. "Any women folks in town,
anywhere?" he inquired, bringing his roving eye to rest upon Dan
Andersen's impassive face.
"I was upon the point of saying, Mr. Ellsworth," replied Dan
Anderson--and vaguely one felt that his diction was once more that of
Princeton--"that my friend here, a prominent member of the bar, will go
with Miss Ellsworth to the house of a nice little woman, wife of--er--a
cow gentleman of our acquaintance. That will be best for her. I'll
try to take care of you myself, sir, if you like, while the Learned
Counsel goes with Miss Ellsworth."
There were introductions and further small talk, and presently Learned
Counsel found himself climbing up to the seat beside Eve; beside the
Temptress who, he made no manner of doubt, had come to put an end to
Paradise.
But ah! she was Eve enough for any Eden--a tall girl, rounded, firm
formed, with a mass of good brown hair, and a frank gray eye, and a
regular and smooth forehead. Her garb was a cool, gray serge, and, a
miracle here in this desert, it was touched here and there with
immaculate white, how, after that cruel ninety miles, none but a woman
might tell. A cool, gray veil was rolled about her hatbrim. Her
hands, shapely and good, were gloved in gray. Her foot, trim and well
shaped,--for even a desolate pariah might note so much,--was shod in no
ultra fashion, but in good feminine gear with high and girlish heels,
all unsuited to gravel and slide-rock, yet exceeding good, as it seemed
at that time. The girl raised her eyes, smiling frankly. There was no
cold cream traceable. The first thought of Learned Counsel was that
her complexion would brown nicely under sunburn; his second thought was
that he had on overalls,--a fact which had escaped him for more than
four years.
If Eve, new come within Heart's Desire, felt any surprise, or if she
even experienced any pique at the calm deportment of Dan Anderson, she
masked it all and put all at ease with a few words spoken in that
manner of voice which is an excellent thing in woman. In a sort of
dream the coach trundled on up the street, to pause for half an instant
in front of the commercial emporium of Whiteman the Jew. Whiteman came
out with his hat above his head, and said, "Velgome."
The girl looked backward down the street as they turned to cross the
_arroyo_ beyond which stood the house of the Kansas family, where Curly
lived. The off mule limped. "Poor little fellow," she said; "I wanted
them to stop. They have no pity--"
"No," said Learned Counsel to her, "there is no such thing as pity in
all the world." She fell silent at this, and looked back once more,
unconsciously, down the street, as one who would gladly pity, or be
pitied. But soon the coach was at Curly's house, and there came out to
meet it, already forewarned of her guest, the Littlest Girl, wiping her
hands on her apron, which means Welcome on the frontier.
The Littlest Girl, uncertain and overawed by her visitor, came forward
and took a first look. Then she suddenly held out her arms; and
Constance Ellsworth, from the East, lonely, perhaps grieved, walked
straight into the outstretched arms and straight into the heart of the
Littlest Girl from Kansas.