JOHNNIE SAYS HE IS MUCH OBLIGED
Beatrice, just back from riding with Bromfield, stood on the steps in
front of the grilled door and stripped the gloves from her hands.
"I'm on fire with impatience, Bee," he told her. "I can hardly wait
for that three weeks to pass. The days drag when I'm not with you."
He was standing a step or two below her, a graceful, well-groomed
figure of ease, an altogether desirable catch in the matrimonial
market. His dark hair, parted in the middle, was beginning to thin,
and tiny crow's-feet radiated from the eyes, but he retained the light,
slim figure of youth. It ought not to be hard to love Clarendon
Bromfield, his fiancee reflected. Yet he disappointingly failed to
stir her pulses.
She smiled with friendly derision. "Poor Clary! You don't look like a
Vesuvius ready to erupt. You have such remarkable self-control."
His smile met hers. "I can't go up and down the street ringing a bell
like a town crier and shouting it out to everybody I meet."
Round the corner of the house a voice was lifted in tuneless song.
"Oh, I'm goin' home
Bull-whackin' for to spurn;
I ain't got a nickel,
And I don't give a dern.
'T is when I meet a pretty girl,
You bet I will or try,
I'll make her my little wife,
Root hog or die."
"You see Johnnie isn't ashamed to shout out his good intentions," she
said.
"Johnnie isn't engaged to the loveliest creature under heaven. He
doesn't have to lie awake nights for fear the skies will fall and blot
him out before his day of bliss."
Beatrice dropped a little curtsy. She held out her hand in dismissal.
"Till to-morrow, Clary."
As Bromfield turned away, Johnnie came round a corner of the house
dragging a garden hose. He was attacking another stanza of the song:
"There's hard times on old Bitter Creek
That never can be beat.
It was root hog or die
Under every wagon sheet.
We cleared up all the Indians,
Drank . . ."
The puncher stopped abruptly at sight of his mistress.
"What did you drink that has made you so happy this morning, Johnnie?"
she asked lightly.
The cowpuncher's secret burst from him. "I done got married, Miss
Beatrice."
"You--what?"
"I up and got married day before yesterday," he beamed.
"And who's the happy girl?"
"Kitty Mason. We jes' walked to the church round the corner. Clay he
stood up with us and give the bride away. It's me 'n' her for Arizona
_poco pronto_."
Beatrice felt a queer joyous lift inside her as of some weight that had
gone. In a single breath Johnnie had blown away the mists of
misunderstanding that for weeks had clouded her vision. Her heart went
out to Clay with a rush of warm emotion. The friend she had distrusted
was all she had ever believed him. He was more--a man too stanch to
desert under pressure any one who had even a slight claim on him.
"I want to meet her. Will you bring her to see me this afternoon,
Johnnie?" she asked.
His face was one glad grin. "I sure will. Y'betcha, by jollies."
He did.
To Beatrice, busy writing a letter, came Jenkins some hours later.
"A young--person--to see you, Miss Whitford."
He said it with a manner so apologetic that it stressed his opinion of
the social status of the visitor.
"What kind of a person?"
"A young woman, Miss. From the country, I tyke it."
"She didn't give you a card?"
"No, Miss. She came with the person Mr. Whitford took on to 'elp with
the work houtside."
"Oh! Show them both up. And have tea sent in, Jenkins."
Kitty's shy eyes lifted apprehensively to those of this slim young
patrician so beautifully and simply gowned. Instantly her fears fled.
Beatrice moved swiftly to her with both hands outstretched.
"I'm so glad to meet you."
She kissed the young wife with unaccustomed tenderness. For the
Colorado girl had about her a certain modesty that was disarming, an
appeal of helplessness Beatrice could not resist.
Kitty, in the arms of her hostess, wept a few tears. She had been
under a strain in anticipating the ordeal of meeting Johnnie's
mistress, and she had discovered her to be a very sweet, warm-hearted
girl.
As for Johnnie, he had a miserably happy half-hour. He had brought his
hat in with him and he did not know how to dispose of it. What he did
do was to keep it revolving in his hands. This had to be abandoned
when Miss Whitford handed him a quite unnecessary cup of tea and a
superfluous plate of toasted English muffins. He wished his hands had
not been so big and red and freckled. Also he had an uncomfortable
suspicion that his tow hair was tousled and uncombed in spite of his
attempts at home to plaster it down.
He declined sugar and cream because for some reason it seemed easier to
say "No'm" than "Yes," though he always took both with tea. And he
disgraced himself by scalding his tongue and failing to suppress the
pain. Finally the plate, with his muffin, carefully balanced on his
knee, from some devilish caprice plunged over the precipice to the
carpet and the bit of china broke.
Whereupon Kitty gently reproved him, as was her wifely duty.
"I ain't no society fellow," the distressed puncher explained to his
hostess, tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead.
Beatrice had already guessed as much, but she did not admit it to
Johnnie. She and Kitty smiled at each other in that common superiority
which their sex gives them to any mere man upon such an occasion. For
Mrs. John Green, though afternoon tea was to her too an alien custom,
took to it as a duck does to water.
Miss Whitford handed Johnnie an envelope. "Would it be too much
trouble for you to take a letter to Mr. Lindsay?" she asked very
casually as they rose to go.
The bridegroom said he was much obliged and he would be plumb tickled
to take a message to Clay.
When Clay read the note his blood glowed. It was a characteristic
two-line apology:
I've been a horrid little prig, Clay [so the letter ran]. Won't you
come over to-morrow and go riding with me?
BEATRICE