THE NEXT MORNING
When Carlos awoke he saw Jack standing in the middle of the small room
where they had slept, trying to put on his own kid jacket and this
absurd attempt of an overgrown youth to squeeze himself into a garment
several sizes too small was so absurd that the watcher giggled.
“Hello, you! Laughing at me, are you? I’d like to know why?”
“You can’t get into that. Besides, I want it myself.”
“Can’t have it. It’s become the property of Burnham and Co.”
“Is it time to get up?”
“Past time. Too late for breakfast.”
Jack said this so gravely that Carlos was disturbed, though he lingered
to stretch himself thoroughly and to look curiously around the
chamber. Save the shack at which he had been dropped on the evening
before it was the barest place he had ever seen. Even a sheep-herder’s
hut had more of convenience about it, but he had gone to bed in the
dark without observing this. After the manner of lads, the pair had
long lain awake exchanging confidences, until Mr. Burnham’s voice from
somewhere had warned them that there must be silence.
“Oh! dear! I wish morning hadn’t come so soon!”
“Mid-day, you mean. Near dinner-time. Where’d you get this jacket,
anyway? I’d like to shoot a red man and steal one for myself.”
“Why don’t you, then?”
Jack ceased struggling with the garment and whistled.
“Humph! You’re ‘sassy,’ too. But come on. Get up. Here. The mother has
been in and says you are to put on these.”
Carlos sat up and stared at the outfit which the facetious Jack held
toward him. It consisted of a blue-jean costume, similar to that worn
by the trainmen, save that this was clean, if faded, and was one Jack
had outgrown.
“Nonsense!”
“Her name is Letitia, if it’s Mrs. Burnham you’re mentioning.”
Carlos sprang up and put on his stockings and moccasins, but failed to
find his leggins.
“I want to dress. What have you done with my clothes?”
“I told you the truth. My mother has them. Wait. She shall speak for
herself. Mother!”
“Yes, Jack!”
“Isn’t this boy to put on my old clothes? He says he won’t.”
“Dear lady! I never!” he cried, indignantly, to the person without, who
answered, promptly:
“For the present, Carlos, it will be better if you wear the things I
left for you. After breakfast I will explain. I’m going to cook it now,
so please don’t delay,” returned the voice from without.
“There, Jack Burnham! You’re an untruthful boy!” said Carlos,
indignantly.
“Hold on! That’s serious!”
“Breakfast isn’t over.”
“It is. Dennis and Mike had theirs two hours ago. I saw them go by
the window. They stopped to look in and shake their fists at you,
‘friendly like.’ They’re good wrestlers, the pair of them. Between us
we’ll give you plenty of exercise. Hello! Who’s that wants to come in?
Why?”
“To see my new bruvver.”
“Who is that?” asked Carlos.
“That--is the future Governor of New Mexico. Or President of the United
States. Teddy Burnham--here you are!”
With that he admitted a dark-headed little four-year-old, very short
and fat, and whose brown eyes were the sharpest possible to a childish
face. This youngster planted himself firmly just within the room and
ordered:
“Boy, come here, Teddy wants to see you.”
The stranger laughingly obeyed.
“So you are Jack’s brother, eh?”
“Yep. I like the girl to you.”
“That’s good. Most people do. She’s much nicer than I am.”
“Yep,” agreed the child, unflatteringly. “Now talk Injun.”
“I don’t know how. Say Jack, I cannot wear these things!” holding up
the overalls and making a funny grimace that sent Teddy into a paroxysm
of laughter. The effect of his remark was so unexpected that Carlos,
also, laughed, and not to be outdone, Jack joined in the mirth.
“Isn’t you d’eadful!” shrieked the baby “Governor,” and then they all
laughed again.
This served the purpose of putting everybody on good terms; for,
despite their confidences of the night, daylight had found the lads
secretly shy of one another. Now they coolly faced and scrutinized each
other. What Jack saw, we already know; save that Carlos, clad in the
rough clothing of a workman, had lost something of his refinement of
appearance, while he had gained in manliness. What Carlos saw was an
overgrown lad of fifteen, shock-headed, freckled, with arms and legs
two sizes too large for his width of chest. A face that was brimful of
fun and good nature, honest, gray eyes, and a mouth wide and upturned
at the corners over strong white teeth.
Yet, although he instantly liked him, Carlos had a feeling that one
could place little dependence upon Jack. As he afterwards expressed
it to Carlota: “A fellow anybody could make to do anything that was
pleasant but nothing that wasn’t.”
When they were dressed, Jack opened the door and pointed out the bench
beside the wall, where a tin basin and one coarse towel served the
needs of the entire family’s toilet.
“I see. Thank you. But isn’t there any stream near?”
“Stream? No. Not by a long shot. What you want a stream for?”
“Why, for my bath.”
“Are you so dirty? Anything the matter with you that you must wash
yourself?”
His face dripping from its plunge in the small basin, the guest looked
up, surprised.
“Nothing the matter, except that I haven’t dipped--all over--since I
left home and I’ve ridden miles and miles. Of course, I’m dirty. How
could I help being?”
Jack whistled.
“Whew! Is that the kind of a fellow you are? Well, then, the sooner you
get over such namby-pamby notions the better. This isn’t any place for
a ‘tenderfoot.’”
“I’m not a ‘tenderfoot’. I’m a born Westerner. But it’s neither decent
nor healthy not to keep your body clean,” retorted Carlos.
“It’ll be healthy for you not to put on any ‘frills’ here, my
Young-Fuss-and-Feathers! And there’s Ma calling us to breakfast. High
time, too. I’m hungry enough to eat hay.”
Carlos, also, was hungry; and anxious about Carlota, who had been so
tired on the previous night; so he hurried into the house. This had
but three rooms. The larger was the living room of the family and the
waiting place of what few passengers ever entered it. A small desk,
where Mr. Burnham kept his accounts, was in one corner, and a table,
covered by an oilcloth square, was in the middle.
A girl ran forward from behind this table and clasped Carlos in her
closest embrace. For a moment, he did not recognize her. The golden
curls which had always been simply brushed, then left to nature’s will,
were now put back in a rigid little braid that completely altered the
child’s appearance. Her picturesque garments had been replaced by a
blue print frock, ugly in shape and color; while the clumsy skirt which
draped her limbs gave them an awkwardness of movement most unlike the
hitherto graceful Carlota.
But it was she; and with her soft clinging arms about his neck and her
sunshiny smile greeting him, the lad realized that the world was not
yet empty of all he had held dear and familiar.
Jack looked on, amazed by this rapturous embrace between the twins. In
that household expressions of sentiment were rare, save on the mother’s
part toward little Teddy. She idolized him, and it was he--sleeping
rosy and tumbled in his “trundle,” whom she had shown to Carlota, at
bedtime, as “the prettiest sight in the world.”
But--kiss a girl? A boy--a sister? “Whe-e-ew!” said master Jack, and
whistled so loudly that the twins loosed their arms and looked at him
in surprise that was tinged with alarm. Their experience of yesterday
had left them both apprehensive of what might happen next.
“What’s the matter?” asked Carlos. Then, since no answer came, he
crossed to where Mrs. Burnham was dipping mush from a kettle and
gravely bowed over the hand she kindly extended.
“Good morning, Madam. I hope you have rested well.”
In her surprise, the poor lady nearly dropped the dish of hot
“suppawn.” She had already been touched and gladdened by the earlier
civilities of Carlota. They reminded her of a past that was widely
different from the present, and of a time when she, too, had had time
for the small amenities of life. But to have the lad, also, remember to
be courteous sent a faint flush to her cheek and a grateful warmth to
her heart.
“Thank you, yes. Fairly well. And you?”
Jack could no longer whistle. He had to sit down in order to properly
recognize this “airish” gentlewoman who had stepped into his mother’s
shoes, and he sat thus, staring, when Carlota discovered him. She went
directly to him and offered her hand in greeting, saying:
“Good morning, Jack. Teddy has told me all about you and what a
splendid brother you are. I’m sorry I called you a bad boy, last night,
but I thought you were going to--to kill my brother.”
“Gophers! I guess he ain’t easy killed. I--” He hesitated and uneasily
glanced toward his mother. He had never felt so big and clumsy.
He thought the little girl wasn’t half as pretty in his sister’s
clothes--My! but the mother must have liked her to let her wear
them!--as she had been in that queer, Indian attire of her own. Wow!
Wouldn’t that plaguey breakfast ever be ready? In his most boyish
manner he demanded this and with so much more disrespect than usual
that Mrs. Burnham stared, then smiled to herself, as she quietly
answered:
“It is ready for those who, also, are ready. But you haven’t finished
your preparations, my son.”
“I’d like to know what you mean?”
She touched her head significantly and he understood. The family comb
had done faithful duty on Carlos’s curls, but Jack, wishing to impress
the “tenderfoot” by his own manly independence had, for once, omitted
that part of his toilet which Mrs. Burnham had, hitherto, compelled.
Affecting a rude disdain, he now slouched forward to the table, but
chanced to look at Carlota.
She still retained that wide, innocent outlook which commonly
belongs to earlier childhood, and her blue eyes regarded him with
open astonishment. He was a curiosity to her. She had never seen
anybody like him. He was on a par with the hand-car, the railway, the
Apaches--any and all of the novelties which confronted her in this
land of the strangers. All her life she had been accustomed to the
exaggerated courtesy of the Spanish dependents at Refugio and to the
exact politeness of her gentleman father, who believed in example
rather than precept. These little civilities were as natural as the
breath in her nostrils and, above all that, the name of “mother”
suggested a personality higher than mortal.
She exclaimed, in a low tone:
“He is saying that--to his--mother!”
“Yes. But, for his own sake and in justice, I will explain that he is
exhibiting himself in a new character,” observed that lady.
“Why?”
“Ah! why? Probably, my dear, because he is a--boy! A being whose
nature, as yet, is all at sixes and sevens; but who will arrive at a
true manhood, by and by, please God.”
As she spoke she smiled at her son and yet she sighed; and it was due
to Carlota that as he hastily left the room he returned an answering
smile. When, after a brief delay, he came back his head had been
deluged with soapsuds, which still trickled over his blue jumper, and
his shock of hair was plastered as smooth as if it had been glued into
place.
Then, while Mrs. Burnham bowed her head in the “silent grace” that was
a remnant of her former life, the sun stole through the window of the
cabin and touched their reverent forms with a glory all his own. Even
so the busy housemistress felt her heart brightened by the presence of
these young strangers and silently wondered:
“Are they ‘angels unawares’? I have a feeling that they will prove
such.”