always unswallowing its meals with no effort whatever! It's horrible!
And the mother, with no strength of character--feeble-minded, I
reckon--coddles 'em! She never did cuss 'em out proper or act human
toward 'em. Kids like them, what they need--upside down and three quick
hard ones. I know!"
I was fool enough to argue with him a bit, trying to see if he didn't
have a lick of sense. I told him to look how happy Bert was; and how
his family had made a man of him, him getting more money and saving more
than ever in his past life. Homer said what good would all that money do
him? He'd only fool it away on his wife and children.
"He regrets it, all right," says Homer. "I says to myself the other day:
'I bet a cookie he'd like to be carefree and happy like me!'"
Homer was a piker, even when he made bets with himself. And the short of
it was I sent a man that didn't hate children over to Bert's and kept
Homer on the place here.
He stayed three months and said it was heaven, account of not having them
unnecessary evils on the place that would squirm round a man's legs and
feel of his hair and hide round corners and peek at him and whisper about
him. Then I changed foremen and Scott Humphrey, the new one, brought
three towheads with him of an age to cause Homer the anguish of the
damned, which they done on the first day they got here by playing that he
was a horse and other wild animals, and trying to pull the rest of his
hair out.
He come in and cut himself out of my life the day after, shaking his head
and saying he couldn't think what the world was coming to. As near as I
could make him, his idea was that the world was going to be swamped with
young ones if something wasn't done about it, like using squirrel poison
or gopher traps.
I felt like I wanted to cuff him up to a peak and knock the peak off; but
I merely joked and said it was too bad his own folks hadn't come to think
that way while he could still be handled easy. I also warned him it was
going to be hard to find a job without more or less children on the
outskirts, because ours was a growing state. He said there must be a few
sane people left in the world. And, sure enough, he gets a job over to
the Mortimers'--Uncle Henry and Aunt Mollie being past seventy and having
nothing to distress Homer.
Of course the secret of this scoundrel's get-away from Idaho had got
round the valley, making him a marked man. It was seen that he was a born
flirt, but one who retained his native caution even at the most trying
moments. Here and there in the valley was a hard-working widow that the
right man could of consoled, and a few singles that would of listened to
reason if properly approached; and by them it was said that Homer was a
fiend for caution. He would act like one of them that simply won't take
no for an answer--up to a certain point. He would seem to be going fur
in merry banter, but never to words that the law could put any expensive
construction on. He would ride round to different ranches and mingle at
dances and picnics, and giggle and conduct himself like one doomed from
the cradle to be woman's prey--but that was all.
Funny how he'd escaped through the years, him having apparently the weak
and pliant nature that makes the ideal husband, and having reached the
time of life when he was putting sheep dip on his hair where the lining
shone through on top. But so it was. And his views on children had also
become widely known. Mothers used to grab up their youngest ones when
he'd go into the post office down at Kulanch or meet one on the road.
He made no hit at all with such views among them that had learned better.
Still there was hopeful ones that thought he might be made to take a joke
sooner or later, and the fact that he was known to save his wages and had
a nice little stake laid by didn't work against him any with such parties
as might have a chance to be swept off their feet by him in a mad moment.
Then over at the Mortimers' place he meets Mrs. Judson Tolliver, a
plausible widow lady who come into the valley every once in a while to
do sewing round at different ranches. She was a good-built, impressive
person, with a persuading manner; one of these competent ones that can
take charge of affairs and conduct them unassisted, and will do so if
not stopped. Uncle Henry Mortimer brought her to the house in his light
wagon one morning, with her sewing machine in the back. And Homer was
there to help her out and help out with the machine and see it was placed
right in the sitting room; and then help out with her satchel and ask in
a gentlemanly manner if everything was all right--and everything was:
Thank you so much, Mr. Gale!
This party was no simpering schoolgirl. She was thirty-five or so and
square-jawed, and did her hair plain, and had a managing voice that
would go good at club meetings. She read library books and was a good
conversationalist. And what did she do the first evening, when Homer was
mending one of his shirts by the kitchen lamp, but wrench it away from
him roguishly and do the job herself, while she entertained him with
conversation. It was bound to be entertaining, for she started in about
what trials children was to their tormented parents and how the world
would be brighter and better if it consisted entirely of adults.
Any one might of thought she'd been hearing gossip about Homer's likes
and dislikes. I know that's what I thought afterward, when he opened his
soul to me. She said what a mercy it was that half a dozen yelling demons
wasn't in this house at that moment to make life an evil thing for all.
And Homer sunned right up and took the talk away from her. While she done
his mending he spoke heatedly of little children in his well-known happy
vein, relating many incidents in his blasted career that had brought him
to these views. The lady listened with deep attention, saying "Ah, yes,
Mr. Gale!" from time to time, and letting on there must be a strong bond
of sympathy between them because he expressed in choice words what she
had so often felt.
Homer must of been kind of swept off his feet at that very moment,
and the rapids just below him. I guess he'd already been made mushy
sentimental by seeing the ideal romantic marriage between Uncle Henry and
his wife--forty years or so together and still able to set down in peace
and quiet without having something squirm over you to see what you had in
your pockets or ask what made your hair come out that funny way, till you
wished a couple she-bears would rush out and devour forty-two of 'em.
It was the first of quite many evenings when Homer and the lady would
set with a dish of apples and fried cakes between 'em and denounce
the world's posterity. The lady was even suffering grave doubts about
marriage. She said having to make her own way after she lost her husband
had made her relish her independence too much to think of ever giving it
up again lightly. Of course she wouldn't say that possibly at some time
in the dim future a congenial mate that thought as she did on vital
topics--and so forth--just enough to give Homer a feeling of security
that was wholly unwarranted. Wasn't he the heedless Hugo?
He was quite wordy about the lady to me when he come over on an errand
one day. He told me all about these delightful talks of theirs, and what
an attractive person she was, sound as a nut, and companionable and
good-looking without being one of these painted dolls. He said, to see
her above her sewing, she was a lovely view that he never tired of gazing
at, and to hear her loathe children was music to the ear. He said she
was a rare woman. I said she must be and asked him if he had committed
himself.
"Well, I don't say I have and I don't say I haven't," he says; "but here
I be, standing with reluctant feet at the parting of the ways. And who
knows what might happen? I know I've had some darned close shaves from
doing a whole lot worse in my time."
So I wished him the best of luck with this lady child hater; not that I
thought he'd really get what was coming to him. He was so crafty. He was
one of them that love not well but too wisely, as the saying is. Still,
there was a chance. He was scared to death of fire and yet he would keep
on playing with it. Some day the merry old flames might lick him up. I
hoped for the best.
A few days after that I went down to the foreman's house late in the
afternoon to see him about a shipment we had to make. Scott was off
somewhere, but his sister was in; so I set talking with her, and
waiting. This here Minna Humphrey was a hectic, blighted girl of thirty,
sandy-haired, green-eyed, and little--no bigger than a bar of soap after
a day's washing. What had blighted the poor thing was having to teach
public school for a dozen years. She'd been teaching down to Kulanche
that year and had just closed up. We set out in front of the house and
Minna told me she was all in; and how she'd ever got through the season
she didn't know.
She went on to speak of little children. Fire in her voice? Murder!
According to Minna, children had ought to be put in cages soon as they
can walk and kept there till they are grown; fed through the bars and
shot down if they break out. That's what twelve years' enforced contact
with 'em had done to Minna's finer instincts. She said absolutely nothing
in the world could be so repugnant to her as a roomful of the little
animals writing on slates with squeaky pencils. She said other things
about 'em that done her no credit.
And while I listened painfully who should be riding up but Homer Gale!
"Here," I says to Minna; "here's a man you'll be a joyous treat to; just
let him come in and listen to your song a while. Begin at the beginning
and say it all slow, and let Homer have some happy moments."
So I introduced the two, and after a few formalities was got over I had
Minna telling in a heartfelt manner what teaching a public school was
like, and what a tortured life she led among creatures that should never
be treated as human. Homer listened with glistening eyes that got quite
moist at the last. Minna went on to say that children's mothers was
almost as bad, raging in to pick a fuss with her every time a child had
been disciplined for some piece of deviltry. She said mothers give her
pretty near as much trouble as the kids themselves.
It was a joyous and painful narrative to Homer. He said why didn't Minna
take up something else? And Minna said she was going to. She'd been
working two summers in Judge Ballard's office, down to Red Gap, and was
going to again this summer, soon as she regained a little vitality; and
she hoped now she'd have a steady job there and never have to go back to
the old life of degradation. Homer sympathized warmly; his heart had
really been touched. He hoped she'd rise out of the depths to something
tolerable; and then he told her about Bert's five horrible children that
drove him out into the brush--and so forth.
I listened in a while; and then I says to Homer ain't it nice for him to
meet someone else that thinks as he does on this great vital topic, Minna
seeming to find young ones as repulsive as Mrs. Judson Tolliver? And how
about that lady anyway? And how is his affair coming on? I never dreamed
of starting anything. I was being friendly.
Homer gets vivacious and smirks something horrible, and says, well, he
don't see why people make a secret of such things; and the fact is that
that lady and him have about decided that Fate has flung 'em together
for a lofty purpose. Of course nothing was settled definite yet--no dates
nor anything; but probably before long there'd be a nice little home
adorning a certain place he'd kept his eye on, and someone there keeping
a light in the window for him--and so on. It sounded almost too good to
be true that this old shellback had been harpooned at last.
Then Minna spoke up, when Homer had babbled to a finish, and smirked and
looked highly offensive. She says brightly:
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Judson Tolliver. I know her well; and I'm sure, Mr. Gale,
I wish you all the happiness in the world with the woman of your choice.
She's a very sterling character indeed--and such a good mother!"
"How's that?" says Homer. "I didn't hear you just right. Such a good
what?"
"I said she's such a good mother," Minna answers him.
Homer's smirk kind of froze on his face.
"Mother to what?" he says in a low, passionate tone, like an actor.
"Mother to her three little ones," says Minna. Then she says again quick:
"Why, what's the matter, Mr. Gale?" For Homer seemed to have been took
bad.
"Great Godfrey!" he says, hardly able to get his voice.
"And, of course, you won't mind my saying it," Minna goes on, "because
you seem so broad-minded about children, but when I taught primary in Red
Gap last year those three little boys of hers gave me more trouble than
any other two dozen of the pests in the whole room."
Homer couldn't say anything this time. He looked like a doctor was
knifing him without anesthetics.
"And to make it worse," says Minna, "the mother is so crazy about them,
and so sensitive about any little thing done to them in the way of
discipline--really, she has very little control of her language where
those children are concerned. Still, of course, that's how any good
mother will act, to be sure; and especially when they have no father.
"I'm glad indeed the poor woman is to have someone like you that will
take the responsibility off her shoulders, because those boys are now at
an age where discipline counts. Of course she'll expect you to be gentle
with them, even though firm. Oswald--he's eleven now, I believe--will
soon be old enough to send to reform school; but the younger ones, seven
and nine--My! such spirits as they have! They'll really need someone
with strength."
Homer was looking as if this bright chatter would add twenty years to his
age. He'd slumped down on the stoop, where he'd been setting, like he'd
had a stroke.
"So she's that kind, is she?" he kind of mutters. "A good thing I found
it out on her!"
"The children live with their grandmother in Red Gap while their mother
is away," says Minna. "They really need a strong hand."
"Not mine!" says Homer. Then he got slowly up and staggered down a few
steps toward the gate. "It's a good thing I found out this scandal on her
in time," says he. "Talk about underhandedness! Talk about a woman hiding
her guilty secret! Talk about infamy! I'll expose her, all right. I'm
going straight to her and tell her I know all. I'll make her cower in
shame!" He's out on his horse with his reckless threat.
"Now you've sunk the ship," I says to Minna. "I knew the woman was
leading a double life as fur as Homer was concerned, but I wasn't going
to let on to the poor zany. It's time he was speared, and this would of
been a judgment on him that his best friends would of relished keenly.
Lots of us was looking forward to the tragedy with great pleasure. You
spoiled a lot of fun for the valley."
"But it would not have been right," says Minna. "It would truly have been
the blackest of tragedies to a man of Mr. Gale's sensitive fibres. You
can't enter into his feelings because you never taught primary. Also, I
think he is very far from being a poor zany, as you have chosen to call
him." The poor thing was warm and valiant when she finished this, looking
like Joan of Arc or someone just before the battle.
And Homer never went back and made the lady cower like he said he meant
to. Mebbe it occurred to him on the way that she was not one of them that
cower easy. Mebbe he felt he was dealing with a desperate adventuress, as
cunning as she was false-hearted. Anyway, he weakened like so many folks
that start off brave to tell someone so-and-so right to their faces. He
didn't go back at all till the middle of the night, when he pussyfooted
in and got his things out, and disappeared like he had stumbled down a
well.
Uncle Henry had to feed his own stock next morning, while Mrs. Tolliver
took on in great alarm and wanted a posse formed to rescue Homer from
wherever he was. Her first idea was that he had been kidnapped and was
being held for ransom; but someway she couldn't get any one else very
hearty about this notion. So then she said he had been murdered, or was
lying off in the brush somewhere with a broken leg.
It was pointed out to her that Homer wouldn't be likely to come and
collect all his things in the night in order to keep a date with an
assassin, or even to have his leg broke. About the third day she guessed
pretty close to the awful truth and spoke a few calm words about putting
her case in the hands of some good lawyer.
The valley was interested. It looked like a chance for the laugh of the
year. It looked like the lightnings of a just heaven had struck where
they was long overdue. Then it was discovered that Homer was hiding out
over in the hills with a man after coyotes with traps and poison. His job
must of appealed to Homer's cynical nature at that moment--anything with
traps and poison in it.
Dave Pickens was the man that found him, he not having much else to do.
And he let Homer know the worst he could think of without mincing words.
He said the deserted fiancée was going to bring suit against Homer for
one hundred thousand dollars--that being the biggest sum Dave could think
of--for breach of promise, and Homer might as well come out and face the
music.
Homer did come out, bold as brass. He'd been afraid the lady might
gun him or act violent with something; but if she wasn't threatening
anything but legal violence he didn't care. He just couldn't conceive
that a lady with three children could make a suit like that stick against
any man--especially three children that was known to be hellions. He
didn't even believe the lady would start a suit--not with the facts of
her shame known far and wide. He was jaunty and defiant about this, and
come right out of hiding and agreed to work for me again, Scott Humphrey
having sent his wife and children on a visit to Grandma Humphrey.
But, lands. He didn't earn his salt. Friends and well-wishers took the
jauntiness all out of him in no time. Parties rode from far and near to
put him wise. Ranchers from ten miles up and down the creek would drop
important work just to ride over and tell him harsh facts about the law,
and how, as man to man, it looked dark indeed for him. These parties told
him that the possession of three children by a lawful widow was not
regarded as criminal by our best courts. It wasn't even considered
shameful. And it was further pointed out by many of the same comforters
that the children would really be a help to the lady in her suit,
cinching the sympathy of a jury.
Also, they didn't neglect to tell him that probably half the jury would
be women--wives and mothers. And what chance would he have with women
when they was told how he regarded children? He spent a good half of the
time I paid him for in listening to these friendly words. They give Homer
an entirely new slant on our boasted civilization and lowered it a whole
lot in his esteem.
About the only person in the whole valley that wasn't laughing at him and
giving him false sympathy with a sting in its tail was Minna Humphrey.
Homer told her all about the foul conspiracy against his fortune, and how
his life would be blasted by marrying into a family with three outcasts
like he'd been told these was. And what was our courts coming to if their
records could be stained by blackmailers.
And Minna give him the honest sympathy of a woman who had taught school
twelve years, loathed the sight of any human under twenty, and even
considered that the institution of marriage had been greatly overpraised.
Certainly she felt it was not for her; and she could understand Homer's
wanting to escape. She and him would set out and discuss his chances long
after he had ought to of been in bed if he was going to earn his pay.
Minna admitted that things looked dark for him on account of the insane
prejudice that would be against him for his views on children. She said
he couldn't expect anything like a fair trial where these was known even
with a jury of his peers; and it was quite true that probably only five
or six of the jury would be his peers, the rest being women.
Homer told me about these talks--out of working hours, you can bet! How
Minna was the only person round that would stand by anyone in trouble;
how she loathed kids, and even loathed the thought of human marriage.
"Minna is a nice girl," I told him; "but I should think you'd learn not
to pay attention to a woman that talks about children that way. Remember
this other lady talked the same way about 'em before the scandal come
out."
But he was indignant that any one could suspect Minna's child hating
wasn't honest.
"That little girl is pure as a prism!" he says. "When she says she hates
'em, she hates 'em. The other depraved creature was only working on my
better nature."
"Well," I says, "the case does look black; but mebbe you could settle for
a mere five thousand dollars."
"It wouldn't be a mere five thousand dollars," says Homer; "it would be
the savings of a lifetime of honest toil and watching the pennies. That's
all I got."
"Serves you right, then," I says, "for not having got married years ago
and having little ones of your own about your knee!"
Homer shuddered painfully when I said this. He started to answer
something back, but just choked up and couldn't.
The adventuress had, of course, sent letters and messages to Homer. The
early ones had been pleading, but the last one wasn't. It was more in the
nature of a base threat if closely analyzed. Then she finished up her
sewing at the Mortimers' and departed for Red Gap, leaving a final
announcement to anybody it concerned that she would now find out if there
was any law in the land to protect a defenseless woman in her sacred
right to motherhood.
Homer shivered when he heard it and begun to think of making another
get-away, like he had done from Idaho. He thought more about it when
someone come back from town and said she was really consulting a
lawyer.
He'd of gone, I guess, if Minna hadn't kept cheering him up with sympathy
and hating children with him. Homer was one desperate man, but still he
couldn't tear himself away from Minna.
Then one morning he gets a letter from the Red Gap lawyer. It says his
client, Mrs. Judson Tolliver, has directed him to bring suit against
Homer for five thousand dollars; and would Homer mebbe like to save the
additional cost--which would be heavy, of course--by settling the matter
out of court and avoiding pain for all?
Homer was in a state where he almost fell for this offer. It was that or
facing a jury that would have it in for him, anyway, or disappearing like
he had done in Idaho; only this lady was highly determined, and reports
had already come to him that he would be watched and nailed if he tried
to leave. It would mean being hounded from pillar to post, even if he did
get away. He went down and put it up to Minna, as I heard later.
"I'm a desperate man," he says, "being hounded by this here catamount;
and mebbe it's best to give in."
"It's outrageous!" says Minna. "Of course you don't care about the money;
but it's the principle of the thing."
"Well, yes and no," says Homer. "You might say I care some about the
money. That's plain nature, and I never denied I was human."
So they went on to discuss it back and forth warmly, when a
misunderstanding arose that I was very careful to get the rights
of a couple of weeks later.
Minna went over the old ground that Homer could never get a fair trial;
then she brightened up all at once and says:
"Don't you pay it. Don't you do it; because you won't have to if you do
what I say."
Homer gets excited and says:
"Yes, yes; go on!"
And Minna goes on.
"When people can't get fair trials in a place," she says, "they always
take change of venues."
"Change of venues?" says Homer, kind of uneasy, it seemed.
"Certainly," says Minna: "they take change of venues. I've worked in
Judge Ballard's office long enough to know that much. Why didn't I think
of it before? It's your one chance to escape this creature's snare."
"Change of venues?" says Homer again, kind of aghast.
"It's your only way out," says Minna; "and I'll do everything I can--"
"You will?" says Homer.
"Why, of course!" says Minna. "Any thing--"
"All right, then," says Homer. "You get your things on, and I'll saddle
your horse and bring him round."
"What for?" demands Minna.
"I'm a desperate man!" says Homer. "You say it's the only way out, and
you know the law; so come along to Kulanche with me." And he beat if off
to the barn.