ART AT HEART'S DESIRE
_How Tom Osby, Common Carrier, caused Trouble with a Portable Annie
Laurie_
The shadows of night had fallen when at length Tom Osby crept
stealthily to his door and looked around. The street seemed deserted
and silent, as usual. Tom Osby stepped to the side of the bed and
withdrew from under the blankets the bit of gutta-percha which Curly
had noticed him conceal. He adjusted the record in the machine and
sprung the catch. Then he sat and listened, intent, absorbed,
hearkening to the wonderful voice of one of the world's great
contraltos. It was an old, old melody she sang,--the song of "Annie
Laurie."
Tom Osby played it over again. He sat and listened, as he had, night
after night, in the moonlight on the long trail from Las Vegas down.
The face of a strong and self-repressed man is difficult to read. It
does not change lightly under any passing emotion. Tom Osby's face
perhaps looked even harder than usual, as he sat there listening, his
unlit pipe clenched hard between his hands. Truant to his trusts,
forgetful of the box of candy which regularly he brought down from
Vegas to the Littlest Girl, Curly's wife; forgetful of many messages,
commercial and social,--forgetful even of us, his sworn cronies,--Tom
Osby sat and listened to a voice which sang of a Face that was the
Fairest, and of a Dark blue Eye.
[Illustration: "A voice which sang of a Face that was the Fairest, and
of a Dark blue Eye."]
The voice sang and sang again, until finally four conspirators once
more approached Tom Osby's cabin. He had forgotten his supper. Dinner
was done, in Heart's Desire, soon after noon. Dan Anderson stood
thoughtful for a time.
"Let him alone, fellows," said he. "I savvy. That fellow's in love!
He's in love with a Voice! Ain't it awful?"
Silence met this remark. Dan Anderson seated himself on a stone, and
we others followed his example, going into a committee of the whole,
there in the night-time, on the bank of the _arroyo_.
"Did you notice, Curly," asked Dan Anderson--"did you get a chance to
see the name on the record of the singer who--who perpetrated this?"
"No," said Curly. "I couldn't get a clean look at the brand, owin' to
Tom's cuttin' out the thing so sudden from the bunch. It was somethin'
like Doughnuts--"
"Exactly--Madame Donatelli! I thought I rather recognized that voice
my own self."
"Dago!" said McKinney with scorn.
"By trainin', though not by birth," admitted Dan Anderson. "Georgia
girl originally, they tell me, and Dagoized proper, subsequent. All
Yankee girls have to be Dagoized before they can learn to sing right
good and strong, you know. They frequent learn a heap of things
besides 'Annie Laurie'--and besides singin'. Oh, I can see the Yankee
Dago lady right now. Fancy works installed in the roof of her mouth,
adjacent and adjoinin' to her tongue, teeth, and other vocal outfit.
"Now, this here Georgia girl, accordin' to all stories, has sung
herself into about a quarter of a million dollars and four or five
different husbands with that voice of hers; and that same 'Annie
Laurie' song was largely responsible. Now, why, _why_, couldn't she
have taken a fellow of her size, and not gone and made trouble for Tom
Osby? It wasn't fair play.
"Now, Tom, he sits humped over in there, a-lookin' in that horn. What
does he see? Madame Donatelli? Does he see her show her teeth and bat
her eyes when she's fetchin' one of them hand-curled trills of hers?
Nay, nay. What he sees is a girl just like the one he used to know--"
"Whoa! Hold on there; that'll about do," said McKinney. "This
country's just as good as--"
"No, let him go on," said Curly to McKinney. "Onct over on the
Brazos--"
"Sometimes I think you fellows are inclined to be provincial," said Dan
Anderson, calmly. "Now, I'm not goin' to talk if you don't leave me
alone. Listen. What does Tom Osby see in that horn that he's lookin'
into? I'll tell you. He sees a plumb angel in white clothes and a
blue sash. She's got gray eyes and brown hair, and she's just a little
bit shorter than will go right under my arm here when I stretch it out
level."
"That's about right!" said McKinney.
"She's got on white," resumed Dan Anderson, casting a glance about him
in the dusk of the evening. "The girl's got to have on white. There
ain't no man can hold out when they come in white and have on a blue
sash--it's no use tryin' then.
"Now, there she is, a-settin' at the piano in there in the front
parlor; daddy's gone out into the country after a load of wood, like
enough; old lady's gone to bed, after a hard day's labor. Honeysuckles
bloomin' all around, because in New Jersey--"
"It wasn't in New Jersey," said Learned Counsel, hastily, before he
thought.
"No, it was in New York," said McKinney, boldly.
"You're all liars," said Curly, calmly; "it was onct on the Brazos."
"Gentlemen," said Dan Anderson, "you are right. It was once on the
Brazos, and in Iowa, and in New York, and in New Jersey, and in
Georgia. Thank God, it was there, once upon a time, in all those
places. . . . And, as I was sayin', the birds was just twitterin' in
the evergreen trees along the front walk, some sleepy, because it was
just gettin' right dark. Vines, you know, hangin' over the edge of the
front porch, like. Few chairs settin' around on the porch. Just a
little band of moonlight layin' there on the front steps, leadin' up
like a heavenly walk, like a white path to Paradise--which was there in
the front parlor, with the best angel there at home.
"The high angel of this here Heaven, like I told you, she's a settin'
there in white," he went on; "and with a blue sash--it was blue, now,
wasn't it, fellows? And she's lettin' her fingers, God bless 'em, just
tra-la-loo-loo, loo-loo-la-la, up and down the keys of the piano her
dad gave her when she graduated. And now she's sort of singin' to
herself--half whisperin', soft and deep--I hate a thin-voiced woman, or
a bad-tempered one, same as you do--she's just singin' about as loud as
you can hear easy down as far as the front gate. And--why, she's a
singin' that same tune there, of 'Annie Laurie'! . . . And in your
heart you know it's true, every word of it, all the time, and at any
station!" said Dan Anderson.
"At any station!" said Curly.
"At any station!" said McKinney,
"At any station!" said Learned Counsel.
There were no hats on at that moment. To be sure, the evening air was
a trifle warm.
"And now," said Dan Anderson, after a while, "it's got Tom. Now, why
couldn't it have been a man-Dago to sing that air into the tuneful horn
of the mechanical heavenly maid yonder? No reason, only it's got to be
a woman to sing that man's song of 'Annie Laurie.' A man couldn't any
more sing 'Annie Laurie' than you could make cocktails without bitters.
The only way we can get either one of them here is in bulk, which we
have done. It's canned Art, that's all. Owin' to our present
transportation facilities, everything has to come here in cans."
Dan Anderson arose and stretched out his arm. "Gentlemen," said he, "I
present to you Art!" He raised before him an imaginary glass, which we
all saw plainly. "I present to you the cool, pink, and well-flavored
combination of life and longing with a cherry at the bottom of it.
Thanks to Tom Osby, we have Art! We are not quite provincial. Listen
at Madame Donatelli tearin' it off in there! . . . Shoot him up,
boys!" he cried suddenly. "I'm damned if I'm going to look all my days
on the picture of a girl in a blue sash! The chief end of man is to
witness an ecru coyote and a few absolute human failures like you and
me. Down with the heavenly maid! Shoot him up! He's a destroyer of
the peace!"
So we shot up Tom's adobe for a time, joyously peppering the thick
walls, until at length that worthy came out annoyed, a phonograph
record in one hand and a gun in the other.
"Don't, fellers," said he. "You might break something."
"Come out," said Dan Anderson. "Not even grand opera lasts all night.
Besides, the price of the box seats is exorbitant. Come on. Get ready
to play croquet to-morrow. It's safer."
And so Tom Osby's entertainment came to an end for that evening. Our
little party straggled on up the long, deserted street of Heart's
Desire. Dan Anderson turned in at the post-office to see if the daily
paper from El Paso had come in that month.
It was something that Dan Anderson saw in the daily paper that caused
him on the following day to lead Tom Osby aside. "Did you know, Tom,"
said he, "that that opera singer you've got in your box, the 'Annie
Laurie' artist, is goin' to be down in this part of the world before
long?"
"I never _loved_ a fo-o-o-nd ga-aze-ll-lle!" began Tom Osby,
defensively.
"Well, it's true."
"What are you tellin' me?" said Tom, scornfully. "Comin' down here?
Why, don't it say that them things is all sung by _artists_?"
"So they are."
"Well, now, a artist," said Tom Osby argumentatively, "ain't never
comin' within a thousand miles of this here country. Besides, a
_artist_ is somebody that's _dead_."
"There's something in that," admitted Dan Anderson. "You've got to be
dead to make a really well-preserved, highly embalmed success in art,
of course. It's true that in a hundred years from now that song will
be just what it is to-day. That's Art. But I'm tellin' you the truth,
Tom. The woman who sang into that machine is alive to-day. She
belongs to a grand opera troupe under the management of a gent by the
name of Blauring, who is in hot water with these stars all his life,
but makes so much money out of them that he can't bear to be anything
but boiled continuous.
"Now, these people are bound for California, for an early season. They
are goin' six hundred miles at a jump, and they stop at El Paso for a
moment, to catch a little of their financial breath. The Southern
Pacific raineth on the just and the unjust in the matter of railroad
fares. Now, as they are still goin' to be too early for the season on
the coast, Monsieur Blauring has conceived in his fertile brain the
idea that it will be an interestin' and inexpensive thing for him to
sidetrack his whole _rodeo_ for a few weeks up in the Sacramentos, at
the Sky Top hotel,--that new railroad health resort some Yankees have
just built, for lungers and other folks that have money and no pleasure
in livin'."
"How do you know _she'll_ be there?" asked Tom.
"Well, this El Paso daily has got about four pages about it. They
think it's news, and Blauring thinks it's advertising so they're both
happy. And this very lady who sang into your tin horn, yonder, will be
down there at Sky Top just about ten days from now."
Tom Osby was silent. The Sacramentos, as all men knew, lay but a
hundred miles or so distant by wagon trail. "It ain't so," said Tom,
at length. "A singin' artist would choke to death in El Paso. The
dust's a fright."
"Oh, I reckon it's so," said Dan Anderson. "Now, the bull-ring over at
Juarez would be a fine place for grand opera--especially for
'Carmen'--which, I may inform you, Tom, is all about a bull-fight,
anyway. Yes," he went on softly, "I hope they'll sing 'Carmen' over
there. I hope, also, they won't see the name on the Guggenheim
smelters and undertake to give Wagner under a misapprehension. If
Blauring has any judgment at all, he'll stick to 'Carmen' at El Paso.
He'd have to hire a freight train to get away with the money.
"But now," resumed he, "after they get done at El Paso, whatever they
sing, the grub wagon will be located in the Sacramentos, while old
Blauring, he goes on in advance and rides a little sign out near
'Frisco and other places, where Art is patronized copious. Yes,
friend, 'Annie Laurie,' she'll be up in Sacramentos; and from all I can
figure, there'll be trouble in that particular health resort."
"Sometimes I think you're _loco_," said Tom Osby, slowly; "then again I
think you ain't, quite. The man who allows he's any better than this
country don't belong here; but I didn't think you ever did."
"No!" cried Dan Anderson. "Don't ever say that of me."
"Of course, I know folks is different," went on Tom Osby, presently.
"They come from different places, and have lived different ways. Me, I
come from Georgy. I never did have much chanct for edication, along of
the war breakin' out. My folks was in the fightin' some; and so I
drifted here,"
"You came from Georgia?" asked Dan Anderson. "I was born farther
north. I had a little schooling, but the only schooling I ever had in
all my life that was worth while, I got right here in Heart's Desire.
The only real friends I ever had are here.
"Now," he went on, "it's because I feel that way, and because you're
going to punch your freight team more than a hundred miles south next
week to see if you can get a look at that 'Annie Laurie' woman--it's
because of those things that I want to help you if I can. And that's
the truth--or something resemblin' it, maybe.
"Now listen, Tom. Madame Donatelli is no Dago, and she's not dead.
She was a Georgia girl herself--Alice Strowbridge was her name, and she
had naturally a wonderful voice. She went to Paris and Italy to study
long before I came out West. She first sang in Milan, and her
appearance was a big success. She's made thousands and thousands of
dollars."
"About how old is she?" asked Tom Osby.
"I should think about thirty-five," said Dan Anderson. "That is,
countin' years, and not experience."
"I'm just about forty-five," said Tom, "countin' both."
"Well, she came from Georgia--"
"And so did I," observed Tom Osby, casually.
Dan Anderson was troubled. His horizon was wider than Tom Osby's.
"It's far, Tom," said he; "it's very far."
"I everidge about twenty mile a day," said Tom, not wholly
understanding. "I can make it in less'n a week."
"Tom," cried Dan Anderson, "don't!"
But Tom Osby only trod half a pace closer, in that vague, never
formulated, never admitted friendship of one man for another in a
country which held real men.
"Do you know, Dan," said he, "if I could just onct in my life hear that
there song right out--herself singin', words and all--fiddles, like
enough; maybe a pianny, too--if I could just hear that! If I _could_
just hear--_that_!"
"Tom!"
They wandered on a way silently before the freighter spoke. "There is
some folks," said he, "that has to do things for keeps, for the rest of
the folks that can't do things for keeps. Some fellers has to just
drive teams, or run a ore bucket, or play the cards, or something else
common and useful--world's sort of fixed up that way, I reckon. But
folks that can do things for _keeps_--I reckon they're right proud,
like."
"Not if they really do the things that keep. That sort ain't proud,"
said Dan Anderson.
"Now, I can just see her a-settin' there," went on the freighter. "It
sounded like there was fiddles, and horns, and piannys all around."
"She was maybe standin' up."
"She was a-settin' there," said Tom Osby, frowning; "right there at the
pianny herself. Can't you see her? Don't you ever sort of imagine
things yourself, man?"
"God forbid!" said Dan Anderson. "No, I can't imagine things. That's
fatal--I try to forget things."
"Well," said Tom Osby, "I reckon I've been imaginin' things. Now,
there she's settin', right at the pianny, and sort of lettin' her
fingers run up and down--"
"Tra-la-loo-loo, loo-loo-la-la?" said Dan Anderson.
"Sure. That's just it. Tra-la-la-loo, loo-la-la-la, up and down the
whole shootin' match. And she sings! Now what does she sing? That
song about Gingerbread? That Mobile song? No, not none. It's 'Annie
Laurie' she sings, man, it's 'Annie Laurie'! Now, I freighted to El
Paso before the railroad, and I know them boys. They'll tear up the
house."
"She'll be wearin' black lace and diamonds," said Dan Anderson,
irrelevantly; "and when she breathes she'll swell up like a toy
balloon. She'll bat her eyes. They got to do those things."
"Man," said Tom Osby, "there's times when I don't like you."
"Well, then, cut out the lace. I'll even leave off the diamonds."
"She's settin' right there," said Tom Osby, wagging his forefinger,
"and she's dressed in white--"
"With a blue sash--"
"Sure! And she sings! And it's 'Annie Laurie'! And because I want my
own share of things that's for keeps, though I ain't one of the sort
that can do things for keeps, why, I want--why, you see--"
"Yes, Tom," said Dan Anderson, gently, "I see. Now, as you said, it's
only a few days' drive, after all. I'm goin' along with you. There's
watermelons near there--"
"You _are loco_!"
"Not yet," said his friend. "I only meant to point out that the best
melons these embalmed Greasers raise in their little tablecloth farmin'
operations is right down there in the valley at the foot of the
Sacramentos. Now, you may have noticed that sometimes a fellow ought
to cover up his tracks. What's to hinder you and me just takin' a
little _pasear_ down in toward the Sacramentos, on the southeast side,
after a load of melons? They're better than cactus for the boys here.
That's straight merchandisin', and, besides, it's Art. And--well, I
think that's the best way.
"We don't all of us always get our share, Tom," resumed Dan Anderson;
"we don't always get our share of the things that are for keeps; but
it's the right of every man to try. Every once in a while, by just
tryin' and pluggin' along on the dead square, a fellow gets something
which turns out in the clean-up to be the sort that was for keeps,
after all, even if it wasn't just what he thought he wanted."
"Then you'll go along?"
"_Si, amigo_! Yes, I'll go along."
They parted, Dan Anderson to seek his own lonely adobe. There he
closed the door, as though he feared intrusion. The old restlessness
coming over him, he paced up and down the narrow, cagelike room.
Presently he approached a tiny mirror that hung upon the wall, and
stood looking into it intently. "Fool!" he muttered. "Liar, and fool,
and coward--you, you! You'll take care of Tom, will you? But who'll
take care of _you_?"
He seated himself on the blanketed bed, and picked up the newspaper
which he had brought home with him. He gazed long and steadily at it
before he tore it across and flung it on the floor. It held more news
than he had given to Tom Osby. In brief, there was a paragraph which
announced the arrival in town of Mr. John Ellsworth, President of the
new A. P. and S. E. Railway, his legal counsel, Mr. Porter Barkley,
also of New York, and Miss Constance Ellsworth. This party was bound
for Sky Top, where business of importance would in all likelihood be
transacted, as Mr. Ellsworth expected to meet there the engineers on
the location of the road.
"I ought not to go," said Dan Anderson to himself, over and over again.
"I _must_ not go . . . But I'm going!"