THE CORPORATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
_This being the Story of a Parrot, Certain Twins, and a Pair of Candy
Legs_
Time wore on at Heart's Desire, uncalendared and unclocked. The sun
rose, passed through a sky impenetrably blue, and sank behind Baxter
Peak at evening. These were the main events of the day. All men had
apparently long ago forgotten the departure of the stage-coach that had
borne away at one voyaging both Eve and Eastern Capital. Eve had gone
forever, as she supposed, although Capital secretly knew full well that
it, at least, was coming back again.
The population shifted and changed, coming and going, as was the wont
of the land, but none questioned the man booted and spurred who rode
out of town or who came into town. Of late, however, certain booted
and bearded men wandered afoot over the mountain sides, doing strange
things with strange instruments. A railroad was about to cross the
country somewhere. Grave and moody, Heart's Desire sat in the sun, and
for two months did not mention the subject which weighed upon its mind.
Curly broke the silence one morning at a plebiscite of four men who
gathered to bask near Whiteman's corral.
"I hit the trail of them surveyors," said he, "other side of Lone
Mountain, day before yestiday. They've got a line of pegs drove in the
ground. Looks like they was afraid their old railroad was goin' to git
lost from 'em, unless they picketed it out right strong."
Reproachful eyes were turned on Curly, but he went on.
"It's goin' to run right between Carrizoso ranch and the mouth of our
cañon," said he. "You'll have to cross it every time you come to town,
McKinney. When she gits to runnin' right free and general, there'll be
a double row of cow corpses from here to Santa Rosa. What this here
new railroad is a-goin' to do to your English stockholders, Mac, is a
deep and abidin' plenty."
McKinney made no reply, but looked stolidly out across the valley.
"Them fellers come up into town for tobacco, Doc." Curly threw out the
suggestion cheerfully.
"Tobacco ain't _drugs_," said Doc Tomlinson, annoyed. He was
sensitive about allusions to his stock of drugs, which had been
imported some years before, and under a misapprehension as to Heart's
Desire's future.
"We might shoot up the surveyors," said Curly, tentatively. But Dan
Anderson shook his head.
"That's the worst of it," he answered, "We might shoot any one of us
here, and the world wouldn't care. But if we shot even a leg off one
of the least of these, them States folks would never rest content. For
me, I'm goin' in with the railroad. Looks like I'd have to be
corporation counsel."
"Well, I reckon we won't have to drive our cows quite so far to
market," apologized McKinney, striving to see the silver lining.
"Oh, drop it," snapped Doc Tomlinson. "I might as well say I could get
in my drugs easier. Cows can walk; and as for importin' things,
everybody knows that Tom Osby can haul in everything that's needed in
this valley."
The members of the plebiscite fell silent for a time, willing to wait
for Tom Osby's arrival, whenever that might be.
"Now, we ain't downtrod none in this country," finally began Doc
Tomlinson, who had made political speeches in Kansas.
"Is _any_body?" asked Curly, who had never lived anywhere but on the
free range.
"We've had three squares a day," said McKinney. "This country's just
as good as the States."
"States!" cried Dan Anderson. "We've got a state of our own, or did
have, right here, the Free State of Heart's Desire. But it ain't good
enough for us. We want to hitch our little wagon to the star of
progress. I reckon we oughtn't to holler if the star travels some
fast. It was ours, the Free State of Heart's Desire! And we--well--"
"Well," said Curly, ruminatingly, "I don't see as ole Carrizo is
frettin' any about these here things." He glanced up at the big
mountain whose shadow lay athwart the valley. Dan Anderson gazed
thither as well. McKinney sat looking quietly up the street.
"No use frettin' about it, anyhow," said he, in his matter-of-fact way.
"And as to Tom Osby, fellers, I'll bet a plug of tobacco that's him
pullin' in at the head of town right now."
"Just like I said," exclaimed Doc Tomlinson. "He's good enough
railroad for any one, and he's safe! I wonder what did he bring this
time."
What Tom Osby brought this time, besides sundry merchandise for
Whiteman the Jew, was a parrot and a pair of twins. Neither of these
specialties had ever before been seen in Heart's Desire.
"Twins!" exclaimed Dan Anderson, when the facts were divulged, "and a
parrot!"
Tom Osby, after making known the full nature of his cargo, discharged
divers boxes, bales, and other packages at the store of Whiteman the
Jew. The parrot was not disposed to wait for the close of these
formalities. From under the white cover of the wagon there came sounds
of profane speech. Tom Osby paused and filled his pipe. "Him?" said
he, jerking his head toward the cover, as he scratched a match on the
side of the wagon seat. "He's a shore peach. Talked to me all the way
from Vegas down."
"Quork!" said the parrot. "Look out! Look out! Brrrrrrrr--awk--awk!
Quork!"
"I told you so," said Tom.
"Oh, dang it, I'm tired!" continued the bird.
"This," remarked Dan Anderson, "seems to be a cultivated gentleman.
But how about the twins? Where are they? And might we--er--ask whose
are they?"
"Them?" said Tom. "Why, they're for Curly. They're asleep down under
the seat here. Now, between the parrot and them twins, my trip down
ain't been any lonesome to speak of."
All eyes were turned on Curly, the newly wedded cow puncher, who
blushed a bright brick red to the roots of his hair. "Wh--where did
they come from?" stammered he.
"I presume, Curly," said Dan Anderson, gravely, "like enough they came
from somewhere over on the Brazos, your earlier home. Why didn't you
tell us you were a married man?"
"I ain't--I never was!" cried Curly, hotly. "I never did have no twins
nowhere. Where'd you git 'em, Tom?"
The freighter threw his leg across the seat. "Oh, they're yours all
right, I reckon, Curly," said he. "Mother's dead. No relations. They
come from Kansas, where all the twins comes from. I found 'em waitin'
up there in Vegas, billed through to you. Both dead broke, both plumb
happy, and airy one of 'em worth its weight in gold. Its name is
Susabella and Aryann, or somethin' like that. Shall I wake it up?
It's both alike."
"Now, why, my woman's folks," began Curly, "up there in Kansas--I
reckon maybe _that's_ how it happened! She had a sister done married
a Baptis' preacher, onct. Say, now, I bet a horse that's right how
this here happened. Say, they was so pore they didn't have enough to
eat."
"Letter come with 'em," said Tom, taking out a handful of tobacco from
his pocket with the missive. "I reckon, that explains it, I wouldn't
take a thousand dollars for 'em if they was mine. Here, you kids, get
out of there and come and see the nice gentlemen. Here they are,
fellers."
He haled forth from beneath the wagon cover two solemn-eyed and sleepy
little girls, perhaps five years of age, and of so close a personal
resemblance to each other as impressed all as uncanny. The four men
stepped to the wagon side, and in silence gazed at the curly-headed
pair, who looked back, equally silent, upon the strange group
confronting them. At length the twins buried their faces in Tom Osby's
overalls.
"Look here, friend," said Tom Osby to Curly, with asperity, "if you
don't want these here twins, why, I'll take 'em off your hands mighty
damn quick. They're corral broke and right well gentled now, half good
stock anyway, and is due to be right free steppers. If you don't want
'em, they're mine for the board bill."
But Curly stepped up and laid an awkward hand on the head of each of
the twins. "Fellers," said he, "I ain't got a whole lot of experience
in this here twin game, but this goes. These here twins is mine. This
is some sudden, but I expect it'll tickle the little woman about half
to death. I reckon I can get enough for 'em all to eat, somehow."
McKinney looked at him with anger in his gaze. "I told you, Curly," he
reminded the cow puncher with undue emphasis, "that you was drawin' ten
extry from day before yestiday. I reckon the stockholders can stand
that."
"That'll make it about break even," Curly answered simply.
"Now," said Doc Tomlinson, "if either of them twins should need any
drugs--"
"Drugs!" snorted Dan Anderson. "What would they want with drugs?
After they've run around in here for two weeks, you couldn't kill 'em
with an axe. If the coyotes don't catch 'em, there's nothing else can
happen to 'em."
"I'll give you about eight dollars for the green canary, Tom," said Doc
Tomlinson. "I want to hang him in my store."
"But I want to hang him in my wagon," objected Tom Osby. "He's
company. You fellers plumb rob me every time I come to town." His
voice was plaintive.
"The court rules," observed Dan Anderson, judicially, "that the parrot
goes with the twins." And it was finally so decided by the referendum.
Whereupon Tom Osby, grumbling and bewailing his hard lot as common
carrier, drove off with Curly across the _arroyo_ in search of a new
mother for the twins.
The Littlest Girl, Curly's wife, read the letter which Tom offered.
Tears sprang to her eyes; and then, as might have been expected of the
Littlest Girl, she reached up her arms to the homeless waifs, who stood
at the wagon front, each clasping a stubby forefinger of Tom Osby's
hand.
"Babies!" cried she. "You poor little babies! Oh!" And so she
gathered them to her breast and bore them away, even though a curly
head over each shoulder gazed back longingly at the gnarled freighter
on his wagon seat. Tom Osby picked up his reins and drove back across
the _arroyo_. Thus, without unbecoming ostentation, Heart's Desire
became possessed of certain features never before known in its history.
Within a few weeks the parrot and the twins had so firmly established
themselves in the social system of the place as to become matters of
regular conversation. Curly never appeared at the forum of Whiteman's
corral without finding himself the recipient of many queries.
"Why, them twins," he replied one day, "they're in full charge of the
_rodeo_. They've got me and the woman hobbled, hitched, and
side-lined for keeps. Dead heat between them and Bill, the parrot.
They're in on all the plays together. Wherever they go, he's right
after 'em, and he night-and-day-herds 'em closer'n a Mexican shepherd
dog does a bunch of sheep. Now, I blew in last night, intoe their
room, and there was old Bill, settin' on the foot of the bed, watchin'
of 'em, them fast asleep. 'Too late now,' says he to me. 'Too late.
All over now!' I didn't know what he meant till I looked under the
bedclothes; and there was a pan full of ginger cakes the woman had made
for the fam'ly. You needn't tell me a parrot can't think."
"It would seem," said Dan Anderson, meditatively, "that we may report
progress in civilization."
"But say, fellers," remarked Curly, taking off his hat and scratching
his head perplexedly, "sometimes I wish Bill was a chicken hawk instead
of a talker. There is rats, or mice, or something, got into this
valley at last."
"Do you want any drugs?" asked Doc Tomlinson, suddenly.
"No, not yet," Curly shook his head. "Never did see airy rat or mouse
round here, but still, things is happenin' that looks right strange.
"It's this-a-way, fellers," he continued, "--set down here and let me
tell you." So they all sat down and leaned back against the fence of
Whiteman's corral.
"Last Christmas," Curly began at the beginning, "why, you see, my girl,
she got a Christmas present from some of her folks back in Kansas, in
the States. It was a pair of candy legs."
"What's that, Curly?" said Dan Anderson, half sitting up.
"Legs," said Curly, "made out of candy, about so long, or maybe a
little longer. Red, and white, and blue--all made out of candy, you
know. Shoes on the feet, buckles on the shoes, and heels. Sort of
frill around on top. The feller that made them things could shore do
candy a-plenty. They was too pretty to eat up, so the little woman,
she done put 'em in the parlor,--on the table like, in the middle of
the floor; tied 'em together with a blue ribbon and left 'em there.
Now, you all know right well that's the only pair of candy legs in
Heart's Desire."
"That's legitimate distinction, Curly," Dan Anderson decided. "It
entitles your family to social prominence."
"Oh, we wasn't stuck up none over that," laughed Curly, modestly, "but
we always felt kind of comfortable, thinkin' them there legs was right
there on the parlor table in the other room. You can't help feelin'
good to have some little ornyment like that around the place, you know,
special if there's women around. But now, fellers, what I was goin' to
say is, there's mice, or rats, got in on this range some how, and
they--"
"Why didn't you put 'em in a box?" asked McKinney, severely. "You
ain't got sense enough to know the difference between a hair rope and a
can of California apricots."
"Put 'em in a box?" cried Curly. "Why? Them was _ornyments_! Now
you ain't got a ornyment on your whole place, except a horned toad and
four tarantulas in a teacup. Now a real ornyment is somethin' you put
on the parlor table, man, and show it free and open. It's sort of
sacred like."
"Not for rats," said McKinney.
"You'd better keep your eye on that parrot," warned Doc Tomlinson.
"About to-morrow, you tell us what you find out."
But on the morrow the mystery remained unsolved. "One heel's plumb
gone," said Curly, sighing. "And they've begun on the toe of the other
foot."
Bill, the parrot, remained under increasing suspicion. "He's got a
wall eye," said McKinney, "and I never seen a wall eye in a man, woman,
or mustang, that it didn't mean bad. This here bird ain't no Hereford,
nor yet a short-horn. He's a dogy that ain't bred right, and he ain't
due to act right." All Curly could do was to shake his head,
unpersuaded.
Meantime, there went on in the little cabin across the _arroyo_, a
reproduction of an old, old drama. Should we, after all, criticise
these two descendants of the first sweet human woman of the world?
Consider; to their young and inexperienced eyes appealed all the
fascinations of this august but tempting object, new, strange,
appealing. For a time their hearts were strong, upon their souls
rested the ancient mandate of denial. They gazed, short breathed, in
awe, upon this radiantly bestriped, unspeakably fascinating, wholly and
resplendently pulchritudinous creation. They must have known that it
was a part of the family pride, a part of the parlor--a part, indeed,
of the intermingled fabric of the civilization of Heart's Desire! And
yet--alas!
One morning the twins foregathered in the parlor. The hour of
temptation, as is always the case, found all things well ordered for
the success of evil.
"Everybody's gone," whispered Suzanne. "There ain't nobody here at
all."
"Only Bill," said Arabella, looking at the parrot, which regarded them
with a badly bored aspect. "I wonder if he'd tell?"
"Oh, dang it all!" remarked Bill; "I'm tired!"
"He's awful," remarked Arabella. "He swears. Folks that swears goes
to the bad place. Besides, Bill wouldn't tell, would you, Bill?"
"He'll go to sleep," said Suzanne. "Besides, we ain't goin' to bite
off only just a little _bit_ of a _bite_! Nobody'll never notice it."
Twofold Eve edged up to the centre table. "You first," said Arabella.
"No, you."
"You first," insisted Arabella. "I'm afraid. Bill, he's lookin'."
"I ain't afraid," Suzanne asserted boldly, and stretched out her hand.
That was the time when the first heel disappeared. Even as Suzanne's
white teeth closed upon it, the parrot gave a vast screech of
disapproval. "Quork!" cried he. "Look out! Look out!" At which
warning both the twins fled precipitately underneath the bed; whence
presently their heads peered out, with wide and frightened eyes.
"I didn't have my bite," whimpered Arabella.
"It's only Bill!" Suzanne was disgusted with herself for running.
"Come on. Who's afraid?" Arabella chose the toe of the other foot.
Thus it was that temptation, at first insidious, at length
irresistible, had its way. The lustre paled and dimmed on one gaudily
bepainted leg. The remaining heel disappeared. A slight nick became
visible on the cap of the right knee.
"Well, I'll be darned!" said Curly, scratching his head, as he observed
these developments.
"So'll I," remarked Bill, in frank friendship. "Ha! Ha!"
Curly looked at him pugnaciously for a moment. "For one cent, Bill,"
said he, "I'd wring your cussed green neck for you. I'll bet a hundred
you're the feller that's been a-doin' all this devilment. Here
you,--Susy--Airey,--have you seen Bill a-eatin' the ornyment?" Both
the young ladies solemnly and truthfully declared that they had never
noticed any such thing; and pointed out that parrots, in their belief,
did not eat candy.
The next day amputation and subtraction had proceeded yet further.
Only Bill was present when Arabella broke out into tears.
"What's the matter?" asked stout-hearted Suzanne.
"Why, we--we--we--can't eat it but _once_," mourned Arabella.
"Now--now--now it's most _gone_! OO--oo--oo!"
"It's good," said Suzanne.
"Will we go to the bad place?" asked Arabella.
Suzanne evaded this question. "How can we _help_ it, when it looks so
pretty, and tastes so good? They ought to put 'em in a _box_. I
c-c-can't help it!" And now tears broke from her eyes also. They
leaned their heads upon each other's shoulders and wept. But even as
they did so, the hand of either, upon the side nearest to the table,
reached out toward the disfigured remnant. A week later the last bite
was taken. The parlor table was bare and vacant. Heart's Desire, in
all its length and breadth, contained no parlor ornament!
That was the last day when Curly reported to the group at the side of
Whiteman's corral. "They're gone, up to both knees now," said he,
gloomily. "The finish ain't far off. You all come on over across the
_arroyo_ with me, and if you can find a sign showin' how this thing
happened, I'll make you a present of the whole shootin' match."
It was thus that Curly, Dan Anderson, Doc Tomlinson, McKinney, and
Learned Counsel rose and adjourned across the _arroyo_. They found
Suzanne and Arabella industriously carrying in aprons full of piñon
chips for the kitchen stove.
The clean-swept room at which the visitors entered was the neatest one
in Heart's Desire. The tall, narrow fireplace of clay in the corner of
the other room was swept clean, spick and span. A chair stood exactly
against the wall. The parlor table--ah, appalling spectacle! the
parlor table, bare and empty, held upon its surface no object of any
sort whatever!
"They're gone!" cried Curly, "plumb gone!" His hand instinctively
reached toward his hip, and he cast a swift glance upon Bill, the
parrot, who sat blinking at the edge of the table.
"All over now!" remarked Bill. "All over! Too late! Quork!"
"Rope him and throw him," urged Doc Tomlinson, "Search his person. We
got to look in his teeth."
"Not necessary," said Dan Anderson. "He hasn't got any teeth." The
entire party looked with enmity at Bill, but the latter turned upon
them so brave and unflinching a front that none dared question his
honor.
Dan Anderson, his hands in his pockets, turned and strolled alone into
the other room, and thence out of the door into the sunlight, where the
twins were still continuing their unwonted industry at the chip pile.
He stood and looked at them, saying no word, but with a certain smile
on his face. A corner of each apron fell down, spilling the chips upon
the ground. The other hand of each twin was raised as though to wipe a
furtive tear. Dan Andersen put out his arms to them.
"Come here, little women," he said softly, and took them in his arms.
One chubby face rested against each side of his own. His long arms
tightened around them protectingly. Tears now began to wet his cheeks,
falling from the eyes of the twins.
"You--you won't tell?" whispered Suzanne, in his right ear, and
Arabella begged as much upon the left.
"No," said Dan Anderson, hugging them the tighter, "I won't tell."
"It's gone!" said Suzanne, vaguely.
"Yes," said Dan Anderson, "it's gone." He turned at the sound of
voices. Curly appeared at the door, carrying in his hand a limp,
bedraggled figure.
"That," said Dan Anderson, "I take to be the remains of our late friend
Bill, the parrot. What made you, Curly?"
"Well," said Curly, defensively, as he held the body of Bill suspended
by the head between two fingers, "I was lookin' for his teeth, to see
if he had any candy in 'em, and he bit my finger nigh about off. So I
just wrung his neck. Do you reckon he'd be good fried?"
"He'd like enough be tolerable tough," said McKinney. "Them parrots
gets shore old."
"You ought to have some drugs to tan his hide," Doc Tomlinson
volunteered hopefully. "It'd be right stylish on a hat."
Dan Anderson gazed at Curly with reproach in his eyes. "Now, I just
wrung his neck," repeated the latter, protesting.
"Yes," said Dan Anderson, "and you've wrung the wrong neck. Bill was
innocent."
"Then who done et the legs?"
"That," said Dan Anderson, "brings me again to the position which I
enunciated this morning. In these modern days of engineers, mining
companies, parrots, and twins, the structure of our civilization is so
complex as to require the services of a highly intelligent corporation
counsel. You ask who ate the candy ornament, representation, or image
formerly existent on your premises. I reply that in all likelihood it
was done by a corporation; but these matters must appear in court at a
later time."
"Well," said McKinney, "it looks like the joke was on us."
Dan Anderson smiled gravely. "In the opinion of myself and the
consolidation which I represent," said he, and he hugged the twins, who
looked down frightened from his arms, "the joke is on Bill, the
prisoner at the bar."
The group would have separated, had it not been for a sudden
exclamation from Curly. "Ouch!" cried that worthy, and cast from him
the body of Bill. supposedly defunct. "He bit me again, blame him!"
said Curly, sucking his thumb.
"If he bit you for true," said McKinney, who was of a practical turn of
mind, "like enough he ain't been dead at all."
Corroboration was not lacking. The prisoner at the bar, thrown
violently upon the ground, now sat up, half leaning against a pinon
log, and contemplated those present with a cynical and unfriendly gray
eye.
"Now," said Doc Tomlinson, regarding him, "you get him a few drugs, and
he'll be just as good as new, right soon."
"All I got to say," grumbled Curly, "is, for a thing that ain't got no
teeth, and that's dead, both, he can bite a leetle the hardest of
anything I ever did see."
"Yet it is strange," remarked Dan Anderson, "that the innocent
bystander should sit up and take notice, after all. How are you
feeling, friend?"
This to Bill, who was now faintly fanning a wing and ruffling up his
yellow crest.
"I'm mighty tired," said Bill.
"I don't blame you," remarked Dan Anderson, cheerfully, turning to put
down Suzanne and Arabella safe within the door, "but as corporation
counsel I am bound to protect the interests of my clients. Run, you
kids!
"As to you, Curly," he continued, "you represent, in your ignorance,
ourselves and all Heart's Desire. We have intrusted to us a candy
palladium of liberty, which, being interpreted, means a man's chance to
be a grown man, with whiskers, in a free state of Heart's Desire. What
do we do then? Ask in a railroad corporation, and shut our eyes!"
"And a corporation," said Curly, meditatively, "can be a shore cheerful
performer."