CIVILIZATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
_How the Men of Heart's Desire surrendered to the Softening Seductions
of Croquet and other Pastimes_
"Go on, Curly, it's your next shot. Hurry up," said McKinney, who was
nervous.
"Now you just hold on, Mac," replied the former. "This here croquet is
a new style of shootin', and with two dollars on the game I ain't goin'
to be hurried none."
"It ain't a half-decent outfit, either," complained Doc Tomlinson.
"Hay wire ain't any good for croquet arches; and as for these here
balls and mallets you bought sight-unseen by mail, they're a disgrace
to civilization."
"_Pronto_! _Pronto_! Hurry up!" called Dan Anderson from his perch
on the fence of Whiteman's corral, from which he was observing what was
probably the first game of croquet ever played between the Pecos and
Rio Grande rivers. There were certain features of the contest in
question which were perhaps not usual. Indeed, I do not recall ever to
have seen any other game of croquet in which two of the high
contracting parties wore "chaps" and spurs and the other two overalls
and blue shirts. But in spite of all admonition Curly stood perplexed,
with his hat pushed back on his forehead and his mallet held gingerly
between the fingers of one hand, while a cigarette graced those of the
other.
"The court rules," resumed Dan Anderson, "that this game can't wait for
arguments of counsel. Curly, you are a disgrace. You and McKinney
ought to skin Doc and the Learned Counsel easy if you had a bit of
savvy. Can't you hit that stake?"
"I could if you'd let me take a six-shooter or a rope," said Curly. "I
ain't fixed for this here tenderfoot game you-all have sprung on me.
If it wasn't for that there spur, I'd have sent Doc's ball plumb over
Carrizy Mountain that last carrom. You watch me when onct I get the
hang of this thing."
"You can't get the hang of nothing," said McKinney. "A cow puncher
ain't got no sense except to ride mean horses and eat canned tomatoes."
"Maybe you don't like your pardner," said Curly. "Now you change
around next game, and I'll bet me and the lawyer can skin Doc and you
to a finish. Bet you three _pesos_. Of course, I can't play this
thing first jump like a borned tenderfoot. I wonder what my mammy'd
say to me if she caught me foolin' around here with this here little
wooden tack hammer."
"It all comes of Mac's believin' everything he saw in an
advertisement," said Dan Anderson.
"Well, you put me up to it," retorted McKinney, flushing.
"Now, there you go!" exclaimed Dan Anderson. "I didn't figure on what
it might do to our mortality tables. You fellows can't play the game
wearin' spurs, and I'm afraid to see you try any further with your guns
on. Here, all of you, come over here. The umpire decides that you've
got to check your guns during the game. I don't mind bein' umpire in
the ancient and honorable game of croquet, but I ain't goin' to assume
no unpaid obligations as coroner."
[Illustration: "'The umpire decides that you've got to check your guns
during the game.'"]
With some protests all those engaged handed their belts to Dan
Anderson, who casually flung them over a projecting cedar limb of the
fence. "For shame! Curly," said he. "Talk about tenderfeet! Here
you are, wearin' a pearl handle on your gun, just like a cheap Nebraska
sheepherder with social ambitions. I thought you was a real cowman.
The court fines you--"
"It ain't my fault," said Curly, blushing. "The girl--the little
woman--that's my wife--she done that last Christmas. She allowed it
was fine--and it goes."
"Yes, and put enough money into this handle to buy a whole new croquet
set for the family. Ain't that awful! All this comes of takin' a
daily newspaper once a month and readin' the advertisin' columns.
We're going to be plumb effete, if we ain't mighty careful, down in
here."
"That's so," said McKinney, scratching his head. "Times is changin'.
That reminds me, I ordered a new suit of clothes by mail from
Philadelphy, and they ought to be just about due when Tom Osby comes
down; and that ought to be to-day."
"That's so," assented Doc Tomlinson. "He's got a little bill of goods
for me, too."
"Oh, why, oh, why this profligacy, Doc?" said Dan Anderson. "Didn't
you order two pounds of alum the last trip Tom made? What do you want
of so many drugs, anyhow?"
"Hush, fellers," said Curly. "Listen a minute!"
Curly's ears had detected the rattle of distant wagon wheels. "That's
Tom comin' now," said he. "He's a heap more regular than the Socorro
stage. That's him, because I can hear him singin'."
"Tom, he's stuck on music," said McKinney.
Afar, but approaching steadily, might be heard the jolting vehicle
coming down the cañon; and presently there was borne to our ears the
sound of Tom Osby's voice in his favorite melody:--
"I never _lo-o-oved_ a fo-o-o-o-nd ga-a-a-z-elle!"
He proclaimed this loudly.
We knew that Tom would drive up to Whiteman's store, hence we waited
for him near the corral fence. As he approached and observed our
occupation he arrested his salutations and gazed for a moment in silent
meditation.
"Prithee, sweet sirs," said he, at length, "what in blazes you doin'?"
"These gentlemen," said Dan Anderson from the fence, "are engaged in
showin' the endurin' quality of the Anglo-Saxon temperament. Wherever
the Saxon goes he sets up his own peculiar institutions. What! Shall
New Mexico be behind New York, or New England? This croquet set cost
eighteen dollars to get here from Chicago. Get down, Tom, you're in on
the game."
But Tom picked up his reins and clucked to his team. "Excuse _me_,
fellers," said he. "That there looks too frisky for me. I got to
think of my business reputation." He passed on up the street.
"What's the matter with Tom?" asked Curly. "Seems like he wasn't
feelin' right cheerful, some way." Dan Anderson gazed after the
teamster pensively.
"Methinks you are concealing something from us, Tom," said he. "Let's
go find out what it is, fellows." He disengaged the respective
six-shooters from their place on the fence, and thus again properly
clad, we wandered over toward Whiteman's commercial emporium, where Tom
Osby was now proceeding to discharge the cargo of his freight wagon.
This done, he did not pause for a pipe and a parley, but, climbing up
to the high front seat, picked up the reins and drove off; not, as was
his wont, to the corral, or to Uncle Jim Brothers's restaurant, but to
his own adobe down the _arroyo_. We looked at each other in silence.
"Something on his mind," said Dan Anderson.
"He didn't bring my clothes," said McKinney.
"Nor my drugs," said Doc Tomlinson.
"And yet," said Curly, who was observant, "he kep' one box in the
wagon. Couldn't see the brand, but she's there all right."
"Curly," said Dan Anderson, "you are appointed a committee of one to
follow the accused down to his house and find out what all this means."
Curly deployed as a skirmisher, and finally arrived in front of Tom
Osby's adobe. The tired horses stood in the sun still hitched to the
wagon, and Curly, out of pity, made it his first business to hunt under
the wagon seat for the picket ropes and halters. He then began to
search for the oats bag, but while so engaged his attention was
attracted by something whose nature we, at a distance, could not
determine. With a swift glance into the back of the wagon, and another
at the door of the cabin, Curly dropped his Good Samaritan work for Tom
Osby's team and came up the street at as fast a gait as any cow puncher
can command on foot. When he reached us his freckled brow was wrinkled
in a frown.
"Fellers," said he. "I didn't think it of him! This here ain't right.
Tom Osby's got a baby in there, and he's squeezin' the life out of it.
Listen! Come on now. Do you hear that? How's that? Why, I tell
you--why, dang _me_ if it ain't _singin'_!"
There came to our ears, as we approached, a certain wailing melody,
thin, quavering, distant, weird. As it rose upon the hot afternoon air
it seemed absolutely strange, unimaginable, impossible. The spine of
each man crawled.
Dan Anderson, of the entire party, seemed to be the only one who
maintained his self-possession. He smiled gently. "Now," said he, "we
certainly are fixed; Heart's Desire ain't benighted any after this."
"What's the matter with you?" Curly questioned.
"Poor cow puncher," replied Dan Anderson, "I have to do the thinkin'
for you, and I ain't paid for it. Who, if not the Learned Counsel on
my right and myself, organized the social and legal system of this
community? Who paved these broad boulevards of our beauteous city?
Who put up the electric lightin' and heatin' plant, and installed the
forty-eight miles of continuous trolley track all under one transfer
system? Who built the courthouse and the red brick schoolhouse, with
nine school-teachers fresh from Connecticut? Who planned the new
depot? Who got a new leather lounge for the managin' editor of our
daily newspaper? Who built the three new smelters? Who filled our
busy streets each evenin' with throngs of happy-faced laborers pacin'
home at night after four hours' pleasant work each day in our elegantly
upholstered quartz mines? Was it you, Curly, who made these different
and several _pasears_ in progress? Was it you, Doc, you benighted
stray from the short-grass Kansas plains, where they can't raise Kafir
corn? Was it you, McKinney, you sour-dispositioned consumer of canned
peas? Nay, nay. It was myself and my learned brother. You ought to
send us both to Congress."
We gazed up the long, silent street of Heart's Desire, asleep in the
all-satisfying sun, and it almost seemed to us that we could indeed see
all these things that he had named. The spell was broken by a renewal
of the thin, high voice of this mysterious Thing in Tom Osby's house.
"And now," resumed Dan Anderson, "as I remarked, havin' turned our
hands to the stable things of life, and havin' builded well the
structure of an endurin', permanent society, there remained for us no
need save for the softenin' and refinin' touch of a higher culture. We
lacked nothing but Art. Now, here she is!
"What you're listenin' to, my countrymen, is music. It ain't a baby,
Curly. Music, heavenly maid, is young in Heart's Desire, but it ain't
any baby that you're listenin' to. I told Tom Osby myself to look into
the phonograph business some time if he got a chance. Gentlemen, I now
bid you follow me, to greet Art upon its arrival in our midst. I must
confess that Tom Osby is actin' like a blamed swine over this thing,
tryin' to keep it all to himself."
The phonograph inside the adobe switched from one tune to another.
"Don't that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?"
cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through the
door. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear the
choo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're all there, sure's
you're born!"
"If she plays 'La Paloma,' or that 'Golondrina' thing, I'm goin' to
shoot," threatened Curly. "I've done danced to them things at more'n a
thousand _bailes_ here and in Texas, and if this is Art, she's got to
do different."
"Gentlemen," Dan Anderson suggested, "let us go in and watch Tom Osby
gettin' his savage breast soothed."
Tom Osby started as he saw shadows on the floor; but it was too late.
He was discovered sitting on the bed, in rapt attention to the machine
industriously grinding away upon the table. Dan Anderson, with great
gravity, took up a collection of four pins from each of the newcomers
and handed them to Tom. "No bent ones," said he. "It's a good show;
but, tell us, what are you doin'? This is worse than croquet. And we
asked you in on our game, too. Ain't you playin' it just a little bit
lonesome this way?"
Tom frowned in perturbation. "Well, I was goin' to spring her on you
about to-night, up at the Lone Star," said he; "but I couldn't wait.
Ain't she a yaller flower? Say, I played her every night from Vegas
down for five nights--Pecos Crossin', Salt Wells, Maxwell's, Hocradle
Cañon, Jack's Peak--all the way. After I'd get my horses hobbled out
and get my bed made down, I'd set her up on the front seat and turn her
loose. Coyotes--you'd ought to heard 'em! When you wind her up plumb
tight and turn the horn the right direction, you can hear her about a
mile."
"That," said Dan Anderson, "must have been a gladsome journey."
"For sure," said Tom Osby. "Look at the reecords--whole box of 'em.
Some of the stylishest singers in the business are in here. Some of
'em's Dago, I reckon. Here's one, 'Ah, no Ginger.'"
"That, probably," said Dan Anderson, "is 'Ah, non Giunge.' Yes, it's
Dago, but not bad for a lady with a four-story voice."
"Here's another," said Tom; "'Down Mobile.'"
"I know that one," said Curly.
"Let me see it," said the impresario in charge. "Ah, as I thought;
it's 'La Donna e Mobile.' This, bein' translated, means that any lady
can change her mind occasionally, whether she comes from Mobile or not."
"That's no dream," said Curly. "Onct on the Brazos--"
"Never mind, Curly. Just feed that 'Donna' into the machine, Tom, and
let's hear how it sounds once more."
And so Tom Osby, proud in his new possession, played for his audience,
there in the adobe by the _arroyo_; played all his records, or nearly
all; played them over and over again. It was nearly night when we left
the place.
"Excuse me," said Dan Anderson to me, with a motion as though adjusting
a cravat upon my neck, "but your white tie is slipping around under
your ear again." And as we walked, I was sure that I saw an opera hat
under his arm, though sober reason convinced me that we both were
wearing overalls, and not evening clothes.
"But did you notice," said Curly, after a while, "Tom, he's holdin' out
on us. That there music, it's all tangled up in my hair." He removed
his hat and ran a questioning hand through the matted tangle on his
curly front. "But," he resumed, "there was one piece he didn't play.
I seen him slip it under the blankets on the bed."
"How could he!" said Dan Anderson. But memories sufficient came
trooping upon him to cause him to forget. He fell to whistling "La
Donna e Mobile" dreamily.