“GO West?” sighed Kate. “Why, yes! I'd like to go West.”
She looked at the babies, who were playing on the floor with their
father, and sighed again.
“You've got to go somewhere, you know, Kate. It might as well be west as
in any other direction. And this is such a chance! We can't have mamma
lying around on sofas without any roses in her cheeks, can we?” He put
this last to the children, who, being yet at the age when they talked
in “Early English,” as their father called it, made a clamorous but
inarticulate reply.
Major Shelly, the grandfather of these very young persons, stroked his
mustache and looked indulgent.
“Show almost human intelligence, don't they?” said their father, as he
lay flat on his back and permitted the babies to climb over him.
“Ya-as,” drawled the major. “They do. Don't see how you account for it,
Jack.”
Jack roared, and the lips of the babies trembled with fear.
Their mother said nothing. She was on the sofa, her hands lying
inert, her eyes fixed on her rosy babies with an expression which her
father-in-law and her husband tried hard not to notice.
It was not easy to tell why Kate was ailing. Of course, the babies were
young, but there were other reasons.
“I believe you're too happy,” Jack sometimes said to her. “Try not to
be quite so happy, Kate. At least, try not to take your happiness so
seriously. Please don't adore me so; I'm only a commonplace fellow. And
the babies--they're not going to blow away.”
But Kate continued to look with intense eyes at her little world, and
to draw into it with loving and generous hands all who were willing to
come.
“Kate is just like a kite,” Jack explained to his father, the major;
“she can't keep afloat without just so many bobs.”
Kate's “bobs” were the unfortunates she collected around her. These
absorbed her strength. She felt their misery with sympathies that were
abnormal. The very laborer in the streets felt his toil less keenly than
she, as she watched the drops gather on his brow.
“Is life worth keeping at the cost of a lot like that?” she would ask.
She felt ashamed of her own ease. She apologized for her own serene and
perfect happiness. She even felt sorry for those mothers who had not
children as radiantly beautiful as her own.
“Kate must have a change,” the major had given out. He was going West on
business and insisted on taking her with him. Jack looked doubtful.
He wasn't sure how he would get along without Kate to look after
everything. Secretly, he had an idea that servants were a kind of wild
animal that had to be fed by an experienced keeper. But when the time
came, he kissed her good-by in as jocular a manner as he could summon,
and refused to see the tears that gathered in her eyes.
Until Chicago was reached, there was nothing very different from that
which Kate had been in the habit of seeing. After that, she set herself
to watch for Western characteristics. She felt that she would know them
as soon as she saw them.
“I expected to be stirred up and shocked,” she explained to the major.
But somehow, the Western type did not appear. Commonplace women with
worn faces--browned and seamed, though not aged--were at the stations,
waiting for something or some one. Men with a hurried, nervous air were
everywhere. Kate looked in vain for the gayety and heartiness which she
had always associated with the West.
After they got beyond the timber country and rode hour after hour on a
tract smooth as a becalmed ocean, she gave herself up to the feeling of
immeasurable vastness which took possession of her. The sun rolled
out of the sky into oblivion with a frantic, headlong haste. Nothing
softened the aspect of its wrath. Near, red, familiar, it seemed to
visibly bowl along the heavens. In the morning it rose as baldly as it
had set. And back and forth over the awful plain blew the winds,--blew
from east to west and back again, strong as if fresh from the chambers
of their birth, full of elemental scents and of mighty murmurings.
“This is the West!” Kate cried, again and again.
The major listened to her unsmilingly. It always seemed to him a waste
of muscular energy to smile. He did not talk much. Conversation had
never appealed to him in the light of an art. He spoke when there was a
direction or a command to be given, or an inquiry to be made. The major,
if the truth must be known, was material. Things that he could taste,
touch, see, appealed to him. He had been a volunteer in the civil
war,--a volunteer with a good record,--which he never mentioned; and,
having acquitted himself decently, let the matter go without asking
reprisal or payment for what he had freely given. He went into business
and sold cereal foods.
“I believe in useful things,” the major expressed himself. “Oatmeal,
wheat,-men have to have them. God intended they should. There's Jack--my
son-Jack Shelly--lawyer. What's the use of litigation? God didn't design
litigation. It doesn't do anybody any good. It isn't justice you get.
It's something entirely different,--a verdict according to law. They say
Jack's clever. But I'm mighty glad I sell wheat.”
He didn't sell it as a speculator, however. That wasn't his way.
“I earn what I make,” he often said; and he had grown rich in the
selling of his wholesome foods.
. . . . . . .
Helena lies among round, brown hills. Above it is a sky of deep and
illimitable blue. In the streets are crumbs of gold, but it no longer
pays to mine for these; because, as real estate, the property is more
valuable. It is a place of fictitious values. There is excitement in the
air. Men have the faces of speculators. Every laborer is patient at
his task because he cherishes a hope that some day he will be a
millionnaire. There is hospitality, and cordiality and good fellowship,
and an undeniable democracy. There is wealth and luxurious living. There
is even culture,--but it is obtruded as a sort of novelty; it is not
accepted as a matter of course.
Kate and the major were driven over two or three miles of dusty, hard
road to a distant hotel, which stands in the midst of greenness,--in
an oasis. Immediately above the green sward that surrounds it the brown
hills rise, the grass scorched by the sun.
Kate yielded herself to the almost absurd luxury of the place with ease
and complacency. She took kindly to the great verandas. She adapted
herself to the elaborate and ill-assorted meals. She bathed in the
marvellous pool, warm with the heat of eternal fires in mid-earth. This
pool was covered with a picturesque Moorish structure, and at one end
a cascade tumbled, over which the sun, coming through colored windows,
made a mimic prism in the white spray. The life was not unendurable. The
major was seldom with her, being obliged to go about his business;
and Kate amused herself by driving over the hills, by watching the
inhabitants, by wondering about the lives in the great, pretentious,
unhomelike houses with their treeless yards and their closed shutters.
The sunlight, white as the glare on Arabian sands, penetrated
everywhere. It seemed to fairly scorch the eye-balls.
“Oh, we're West, now,” Kate said, exultantly. “I've seen a thousand
types. But yet--not quite THE type--not the impersonation of simplicity
and daring that I was looking for.”
The major didn't know quite what she was talking about. But he
acquiesced. All he cared about was to see her grow stronger; and that
she was doing every day. She was growing amazingly lovely, too,-at least
the major thought so. Every one looked at her; but that was, perhaps,
because she was such a sylph of a woman. Beside the stalwart major, she
looked like a fairy princess.
One day she suddenly realized the fact that she had had a companion on
the veranda for several mornings. Of course, there were a great many
persons--invalids, largely--sitting about, but one of them had been
obtruding himself persistently into her consciousness. It was not that
he was rude; it was only that he was thinking about her. A person with
a temperament like Kate's could not long be oblivious to a thing like
that; and she furtively observed the offender with that genius for
psychological perception which was at once her greatest danger and her
charm.
The man was dressed with a childish attempt at display. His shirt-front
was decorated with a diamond, and his cuff-buttons were of onyx with
diamond settings. His clothes were expensive and perceptibly new, and
he often changed his costumes, but with a noticeable disregard for
propriety. He was very conscious of his silk hat, and frequently wiped
it with a handkerchief on which his monogram was worked in blue.
When the 'busses brought up their loads, he was always on hand to watch
the newcomers. He took a long time at his dinners, and appeared to
order a great deal and eat very little. There were card-rooms and a
billiard-hall, not to mention a bowling-alley and a tennis-court, where
the other guests of the hotel spent much time. But this man never
visited them. He sat often with one of the late reviews in his hand,
looking as if he intended giving his attention to it at any moment.
But after he had scrupulously cut the leaves with a little carved ivory
paper-cutter, he sat staring straight before him with the book open, but
unread, in his hand.
Kate took more interest in this melancholy, middle-aged man than she
would have done if she had not been on the outlook for her Western
type,--the man who was to combine all the qualities of chivalry, daring,
bombast, and generosity, seasoned with piquant grammar, which she firmly
believed to be the real thing. But notwithstanding this kindly and
somewhat curious interest, she might never have made his acquaintance if
it had not been for a rather unpleasant adventure.
The major was “closing up a deal” and had hurried away after breakfast,
and Kate, in the luxury of convalescence, half-reclined in a great chair
on the veranda and watched the dusky blue mist twining itself around the
brown hills. She was not thinking of the babies; she was not worrying
about home; she was not longing for anything, or even indulging in
a dream. That vacuous content which engrosses the body after long
indisposition, held her imperatively. Suddenly she was aroused from this
happy condition of nothingness by the spectacle of an enormous bull-dog
approaching her with threatening teeth. She had noticed the monster
often in his kennel near the stables, and it was well understood that he
was never to be permitted his freedom. Now he walked toward her with a
solid step and an alarming deliberateness. Kate sat still and tried to
assure herself that he meant no mischief, but by the time the great body
had made itself felt on the skirt of her gown she could restrain her
fear no longer, and gave a nervous cry of alarm. The brute answered with
a growl. If he had lacked provocation before, he considered that he had
it now. He showed his teeth and flung his detestable body upon her;
and Kate felt herself growing dizzy with fear. But just then an arm was
interposed and the dog was flung back. There was a momentary struggle.
Some gentlemen came hurrying out of the office; and as they beat the
dog back to its retreat, Kate summoned words from her parched throat to
thank her benefactor.
It was the melancholy man with the new clothes. This morning he
was dressed in a suit of the lightest gray, with a white marseilles
waistcoat, over which his glittering chain shone ostentatiously. White
tennis-shoes, a white rose in his buttonhole, and a white straw hat
in his hand completed a toilet over which much time had evidently been
spent. Kate noted these details as she held out her hand.
“I may have been alarmed without cause,” she said; “but I was horribly
frightened. Thank you so much for coming to my rescue. And I think, if
you would add to your kindness by getting me a glass of water--”
When he came back, his hand was trembling a little; and as Kate looked
up to learn the cause, she saw that his face was flushed. He was
embarrassed. She decided that he was not accustomed to the society of
ladies. “Brutes like that dog ain't no place in th' world--that's my
opinion. There are some bad things we can't help havin' aroun'; but a
bull-dog ain't one of 'em.”
“I quite agree with you,” Kate acquiesced, as she drank the water. “But
as this is the first unpleasant experience of any kind that I have had
since I came here, I don't feel that I have any right to complain.”
“You're here fur yur health?”
“Yes. And I am getting it. You're not an invalid, I imagine?”
“No--no-op. I'm here be--well, I've thought fur a long time I'd like t'
stay at this here hotel.”
“Indeed!”
“Yes. I've been up th' gulch these fifteen years. Bin livin' on a shelf
of black rock. Th' sun got 'round 'bout ten. Couldn't make a thing
grow.” The man was looking off toward the hills, with an expression of
deep sadness in his eyes. “Didn't never live in a place where nothin'
'd grow, did you? I took geraniums up thar time an' time agin. Red
ones. Made me think of mother; she's in Germany. Watered 'em mornin' an'
night. Th' damned things died.”
The oath slipped out with an artless unconsciousness, and there was
a little moisture in his eyes. Kate felt she ought to bring the
conversation to a close. She wondered what Jack would say if he saw her
talking with a perfect stranger who used oaths! She would have gone into
the house but for something that caught her eye. It was the hand of the
man; that hand was a bludgeon. All grace and flexibility had gone out
of it, and it had become a mere instrument of toil. It was seamed and
misshapen; yet it had been carefully manicured, and the pointed nails
looked fantastic and animal-like. A great seal-ring bore an elaborate
monogram, while the little finger displayed a collection of diamonds and
emeralds truly dazzling to behold. An impulse of humanity and a sort
of artistic curiosity, much stronger than her discretion, urged Kate to
continue her conversation.
“What were you doing up the gulch?” she said.
The man leaned back in his chair and regarded her a moment before
answering. He realized the significance of her question. He took it as
a sign that she was willing to be friendly. A look of gratitude,
almost tender, sprang into his eyes,--dull gray eyes, they were, with a
kindliness for their only recommendation.
“Makin' my pile,” he replied. “I've been in these parts twenty years.
When I come here, I thought I was goin' to make a fortune right off. I
had all th' money that mother could give me, and I lost everything I had
in three months. I went up th' gulch.” He paused, and wiped his forehead
with his handkerchief.
There was something in his remark and the intonation which made Kate say
softly:
“I suppose you've had a hard time of it.”
“Thar you were!” he cried. “Thar was th' rock--risin', risin', black! At
th' bottom wus th' creek, howlin' day an' night! Lonesome! Gee! No one
t' talk to. Of course, th' men. Had some with me always. They didn't
talk. It's too-too quiet t' talk much. They played cards. Curious, but I
never played cards. Don't think I'd find it amusin'. No, I worked. Came
down here once in six months or three months. Had t' come--grub-staked
th' men, you know. Did you ever eat salt pork?” He turned to Kate
suddenly with this question.
“Why, yes; a few times. Did you have it?”
“Nothin' else, much. I used t' think of th' things mother cooked. Mother
understood cookin', if ever a woman did. I'll never forget th' dinner
she gave me th' day I came away. A woman ought t' cook. I hear American
women don't go in much for cookin'.”
“Oh, I think that's a mistake,” Kate hastened to interrupt. “All that I
know understand how to serve excellent dinners. Of course, they may not
cook them themselves, but I think they could if it were necessary.”
“Hum!” He picked up a long glove that had fallen from Kate's lap and
fingered it before returning it.
“I s'pose you cook?”
“I make a specialty of salads and sorbets,” smiled Kate. “I guess
I could roast meat and make bread; but circumstances have not yet
compelled me to do it. But I've a theory that an American woman can do
anything she puts her mind to.”
The man laughed out loud,--a laugh quite out of proportion to the mild
good humor of the remark; but it was evident that he could no longer
conceal his delight at this companionship.
“How about raisin' flowers?” he asked. “Are you strong on that?”
“I've only to look at a plant to make it grow,” Kate cried, with
enthusiasm. “When my friends are in despair over a plant, they bring it
to me, and I just pet it a little, and it brightens up. I've the most
wonderful fernery you ever saw. It's green, summer and winter. Hundreds
of people stop and look up at it, it is so green and enticing, there
above the city streets.”
“What city?”
“Philadelphia.”
“Mother's jest that way. She has a garden of roses. And the
mignonette--”
But he broke off suddenly, and sat once more staring before him.
“But not a damned thing,” he added, with poetic pensiveness, “would grow
in that gulch.”
“Why did you stay there so long?” asked Kate, after a little pause in
which she managed to regain her waning courage.
“Bad luck. You never see a place with so many false leads. To-day you'd
get a streak that looked big. To-morrow you'd find it a pocket. One
night I'd go t' bed with my heart goin' like a race-horse. Next night
it would be ploddin' along like a winded burro. Don't know what made
me stick t' it. It was hot there, too! And cold! Always roastin' ur
freezin'. It'd been different if I'd had any one t' help me stand it.
But th' men were always findin' fault. They blamed me fur everythin'.
I used t' lie awake at night an' hear 'em talkin' me over. It made me
lonesome, I tell you! Thar wasn't no one! Mother used t' write. But
I never told her th' truth. She ain't a suspicion of what I've been
a-goin' through.”
Kate sat and looked at him in silence. His face was seamed, though
far from old. His body was awkward, but impressed her with a sense of
magnificent strength.
“I couldn't ask no woman t' share my hard times,” he resumed after a
time. “I always said when I got a woman, it was goin' t' be t' make her
happy. It wer'n't t' be t' ask her t' drudge.”
There was another silence. This man out of the solitude seemed to
be elated past expression at his new companionship. He looked with
appreciation at the little pointed toes of Kate's slippers, as they
glanced from below the skirt of her dainty organdie. He noted the band
of pearls on her finger. His eyes rested long on the daisies at her
waist. The wind tossed up little curls of her warm brown hair. Her eyes
suffused with interest, her tender mouth seemed ready to lend itself to
any emotion, and withal she was so small, so compact, so exquisite. The
man wiped his forehead again, in mere exuberance.
“Here's my card,” he said, very solemnly, as he drew an engraved bit of
pasteboard from its leather case. Kate bowed and took it.
“Mr. Peter Roeder,” she read. “I've no card,” she said. “My name is
Shelly. I'm here for my health, as I told you.” She rose at this point,
and held out her hand. “I must thank you once more for your kindness,”
she said.
His eyes fastened on hers with an appeal for a less formal word. There
was something almost terrible in their silent eloquence.
“I hope we may meet again,” she said.
Mr. Peter Roeder made a very low and awkward bow, and opened the door
into the corridor for her.
That evening the major announced that he was obliged to go to Seattle.
The journey was not an inviting one; Kate was well placed where she was,
and he decided to leave her.
She was well enough now to take longer drives; and she found strange,
lonely canyons, wild and beautiful, where yellow waters burst through
rocky barriers with roar and fury,--tortuous, terrible places, such as
she had never dreamed of. Coming back from one of these drives, two
days after her conversation on the piazza with Peter Roeder, she met
him riding a massive roan. He sat the animal with that air of perfect
unconsciousness which is the attribute of the Western man, and his
attire, even to his English stock, was faultless,--faultily faultless.
“I hope you won't object to havin' me ride beside you,” he said,
wheeling his horse. To tell the truth, Kate did not object. She was a
little dull, and had been conscious all the morning of that peculiar
physical depression which marks the beginning of a fit of homesickness.
“The wind gits a fine sweep,” said Roeder, after having obtained
the permission he desired. “Now in the gulch we either had a dead
stagnation, or else the wind was tearin' up and down like a wild beast.”
Kate did not reply, and they went on together, facing the riotous wind.
“You can't guess how queer it seems t' be here,” he said,
confidentially. “It seems t' me as if I had come from some other planet.
Thar don't rightly seem t' be no place fur me. I tell you what it's
like. It's as if I'd come down t' enlist in th' ranks, an' found 'em
full,--every man marchin' along in his place, an' no place left fur me.”
Kate could not find a reply.
“I ain't a friend,--not a friend! I ain't complainin'. It ain't th'
fault of any one--but myself. You don' know what a durned fool I've
bin. Someway, up thar in th' gulch I got t' seemin' so sort of important
t' myself, and my makin' my stake seemed such a big thing, that I
thought I had only t' come down here t' Helena t' have folks want t'
know me. I didn't particular want th' money because it wus money. But
out here you work fur it, jest as you work fur other things in other
places,--jest because every one is workin' fur it, and it's the man who
gets th' most that beats. It ain't that they are any more greedy than
men anywhere else. My pile's a pretty good-sized one. An' it's likely to
be bigger; but no one else seems t' care. Th' paper printed some pieces
about it. Some of th' men came round t' see me; but I saw their game. I
said I guessed I'd look further fur my acquaintances. I ain't spoken to
a lady,--not a real lady, you know,--t' talk with, friendly like, but
you, fur--years.”
His face flushed in that sudden way again. They were passing some of
those pretentious houses which rise in the midst of Helena's ragged
streets with such an extraneous air, and Kate leaned forward to look at
them. The driver, seeing her interest, drew up the horses for a moment.
“Fine, fine!” ejaculated Roeder. “But they ain't got no garden. A house
don't seem anythin' t' me without a garden. Do you know what I think
would be th' most beautiful thing in th' world? A baby in a rose-garden!
Do you know, I ain't had a baby in my hands, excep' Ned Ramsey's little
kid, once, for ten year!”
Kate's face shone with sympathy.
“How dreadful!” she cried. “I couldn't live without a baby about.”
“Like babies, do you? Well, well. Boys? Like boys?”
“Not a bit better than girls,” said Kate, stoutly.
“I like boys,” responded Roeder, with conviction. “My mother liked boys.
She had three girls, but she liked me a damned sight the best.”
Kate laughed outright.
“Why do you swear?” she said. “I never heard a man swear before,--at
least, not one with whom I was talking. That's one of your gulch habits.
You must get over it.”
Roeder's blond face turned scarlet.
“You must excuse me,” he pleaded. “I'll cure myself of it! Jest give me
a chance.”
This was a little more personal than Kate approved of, and she raised
her parasol to conceal her annoyance. It was a brilliant little fluff
of a thing which looked as if it were made of butterflies' wings. Roeder
touched it with awe.
“You have sech beautiful things,” he said. “I didn't know women wore
sech nice things. Now that dress--it's like--I don't know what it's
like.” It was a simple little taffeta, with warp and woof of azure and
of cream, and gay knots of ribbon about it.
“We have the advantage of men,” she said. “I often think one of the
greatest drawbacks to being a man would be the sombre clothes. I like to
wear the prettiest things that can be found.”
“Lace?” queried Roeder. “Do you like lace?”
“I should say so! Did you ever see a woman who didn't?”
“Hu--um! These women I've known don't know lace,--these wives of th' men
out here. They're th' only kind I've seen this long time.”
“Oh, of course, but I mean--”
“I know what you mean. My mother has a chest full of linen an' lace. She
showed it t' me th' day I left. 'Peter,' she said, 'some day you bring a
wife home with you, an' I'll give you that lace an' that linen.' An' I'm
goin' t' do it, too,” he said quietly.
“I hope so,” said Kate, with her eyes moist. “I hope you will, and that
your mother will be very happy.”
. . . . . . .
There was a hop at the hotel that night, and it was almost a matter of
courtesy for Kate to go. Ladies were in demand, for there were not very
many of them at the hotel. Every one was expected to do his best to make
it a success; and Kate, not at all averse to a waltz or two, dressed
herself for the occasion with her habitual striving after artistic
effect. She was one of those women who make a picture of themselves as
naturally as a bird sings. She had an opal necklace which Jack had given
her because, he said, she had as many moods as an opal had colors; and
she wore this with a crepe gown, the tint of the green lights in
her necklace. A box of flowers came for her as she was dressing; they
were Puritan roses, and Peter Roeder's card was in the midst of
them. She was used to having flowers given her. It would have seemed
remarkable if some one had not sent her a bouquet when she was going to
a ball.
“I shall dance but twice,” she said to those who sought her for a
partner. “Neither more nor less.”
“Ain't you goin' t' dance with me at all?” Roeder managed to say to her
in the midst of her laughing altercation with the gentlemen.
“Dance with you!” cried Kate. “How do men learn to dance when they are
up a gulch?”
“I ken dance,” he said stubbornly. He was mortified at her chaffing.
“Then you may have the second waltz,” she said, in quick contrition.
“Now you other gentlemen have been dancing any number of times these
last fifteen years. But Mr. Roeder is just back from a hard campaign,--a
campaign against fate. My second waltz is his. And I shall dance my
best.”
It happened to be just the right sort of speech. The women tried
good-naturedly to make Roeder's evening a pleasant one. They were filled
with compassion for a man who had not enjoyed the society of their sex
for fifteen years. They found much amusement in leading him through the
square dances, the forms of which were utterly unknown to him. But he
waltzed with a sort of serious alertness that was not so bad as it might
have been.
Kate danced well. Her slight body seemed as full of the spirit of the
waltz as a thrush's body is of song. Peter Roeder moved along with
her in a maze, only half-answering her questions, his gray eyes full of
mystery.
Once they stopped for a moment, and he looked down at her, as with
flushed face she stood smiling and waving her gossamer fan, each motion
stirring the frail leaves of the roses he had sent her.
“It's cur'ous,” he said softly, “but I keep thinkin' about that black
gulch.”
“Forget it,” she said. “Why do you think of a gulch when--” She stopped
with a sudden recollection that he was not used to persiflage. But he
anticipated what she was about to say.
“Why think of the gulch when you are here?” he said. “Why, because it
is only th' gulch that seems real. All this,--these pleasant, polite
people, this beautiful room, th' flowers everywhere, and you, and me as
I am, seem as if I was dreamin'. Thar ain't anything in it all that is
like what I thought it would be.”
“Not as you thought it would be?”
“No. Different. I thought it would be--well, I thought th' people would
not be quite so high-toned. I hope you don't mind that word.”
“Not in the least,” she said. “It's a musical term. It applies very well
to people.”
They took up the dance again and waltzed breathlessly till the close.
Kate was tired; the exertion had been a little more than she had
bargained for. She sat very still on the veranda under the white glare
of an electric ball, and let Roeder do the talking. Her thoughts,
in spite of the entertainment she was deriving from her present
experiences, would go back to the babies. She saw them tucked well in
bed, each in a little iron crib, with the muslin curtains shielding
their rosy faces from the light. She wondered if Jack were reading alone
in the library or was at the club, or perhaps at the summer concert,
with the swell of the violins in his ears. Jack did so love music.
As she thought how delicate his perceptions were, how he responded to
everything most subtle in nature and in art, of how life itself was a
fine art with him, and joy a thing to be cultivated, she turned with a
sense of deep compassion to the simple man by her side. His rough face
looked a little more unattractive than usual. His evening clothes were
almost grotesque. His face wore a look of solitude, of hunger.
“What were you saying?” she said, dreamily. “I beg your pardon.”
“I was sayin' how I used t' dream of sittin' on the steps of a hotel
like this, and not havin' a thing t' do. When I used t' come down here
out of the gulch, and see men who had had good dinners, an' good baths,
sittin' around smokin', with money t' go over there t' th' bookstan' an'
get anythin' they'd want, it used t' seem t' me about all a single man
could wish fur.”
“Well, you've got it all now.”
“But I didn't any of th' time suppose that would satisfy a man long.
Only I was so darned tired I couldn't help wantin' t' rest. But I'm not
so selfish ur s' narrow as to be satisfied with THAT. No, I'm not goin'
t' spend m' pile that way--quite!”
He laughed out loud, and then sat in silence watching Kate as she lay
back wearily in her chair.
“I've got t' have that there garden,” he said, laughingly. “Got t' get
them roses. An' I'll have a big bath-house,--plenty of springs in this
country. You ken have a bath here that won't freeze summer NOR winter.
An' a baby! I've got t' have a baby. He'll go with th' roses an' th'
bath.” He laughed again heartily.
“It's a queer joke, isn't it?” Roeder asked. “Talkin' about my baby, an'
I haven't even a wife.” His face flushed and he turned his eyes away.
“Have I shown you the pictures of my babies?” Kate inquired. “You'd like
my boy, I know. And my girl is just like me,--in miniature.”
There was a silence. She looked up after a moment. Roeder appeared to be
examining the monogram on his ring as if he had never seen it before.
“I didn't understand that you were married,” he said gently.
“Didn't you? I don't think you ever called me by any name at all, or I
should have noticed your mistake and set you right. Yes, I'm married. I
came out here to get strong for the babies.”
“Got a boy an' a girl, eh?”
“Yes.”
“How old's th' boy?”
“Five.”
“An' th' girl?”
“She'll soon be four.”
“An' yer husband--he's livin'?”
“I should say so! I'm a very happy woman, Mr. Roeder. If only I were
stronger!”
“Yer lookin' much better,” he said, gravely, “than when you come. You'll
be all right.”
The moon began to come up scarlet beyond the eastern hills. The two
watched it in silence. Kate had a feeling of guilt, as if she had been
hurting some helpless thing.
“I was in hopes,” he said, suddenly, in a voice that seemed abrupt and
shrill, “thet you'd see fit t' stay here.”
“Here in Helena? Oh, no!”
“I was thinkin' I'd offer you that two hundred thousand dollars, if
you'd stay.”
“Mr. Roeder! You don't mean-surely--”
“Why, yes. Why not?” He spoke rather doggedly. “I'll never see no other
woman like you. You're different from others. How good you've been t'
me!”
“Good! I'm afraid I've been very bad--at least, very stupid.”
“I say, now--your husband's good t' you, ain't he?”
“He is the kindest man that ever lived.”
“Oh, well, I didn't know.”
A rather awkward pause followed which was broken by Roeder.
“I don't see jest what I'm goin' t' do with that thar two hundred
thousand dollars,” he said, mournfully.
“Do with it? Why, live with it! Send some to your mother.”
“Oh, I've done that. Five thousand dollars. It don't seem much here; but
it'll seem a lot t' her. I'd send her more, only it would've bothered
her.”
“Then there is your house,--the house with the bath-room. But I suppose
you'll have other rooms?”
Peter laughed a little in spite of himself.
“I guess I won't have a house,” he said. “An' I couldn't make a garden
alone.”
“Hire a man to help you.” Kate was trembling, but she kept talking
gayly. She was praying that nothing very serious would happen. There was
an undercurrent of sombreness in the man's manner that frightened her.
“I guess I'll jest have t' keep on dreamin' of that boy playin' with th'
roses.”
“No, no,” cried Kate; “he will come true some day! I know he'll come
true.”
Peter got up and stood by her chair.
“You don't know nothin' about it,” he said. “You don't know, an' you
can't know what it's bin t' me t' talk with you. Here I come out of a
place where there ain't no sound but the water and the pines. Years come
an' go. Still no sound. Only thinkin', thinkin', thinkin'! Missin' all
th' things men care fur! Dreamin' of a time when I sh'd strike th' pile.
Then I seed home, wife, a boy, flowers, everythin'. You're so beautiful,
an' you're so good. You've a way of pickin' a man's heart right out of
him. First time I set my eyes on you I thought you were th' nicest
thing I ever see! And how little you are! That hand of yours,--look at
it,--it's like a leaf! An' how easy you smile. Up th' gulch we didn't
smile; we laughed, but gen'ly because some one got in a fix. Then your
voice! Ah, I've thought fur years that some day I might hear a voice
like that! Don't you go! Sit still! I'm not blamin' you fur anythin';
but I may never, 's long's I live, find any one who will understand
things th' way you understand 'em. Here! I tell you about that gulch
an' you see that gulch. You know how th' rain sounded thar, an' how th'
shack looked, an' th' life I led, an' all th' thoughts I had, an' th'
long nights, an' th' times when--but never mind. I know you know it all.
I saw it in yer eyes. I tell you of mother, an' you see 'er. You know
'er old German face, an' 'er proud ways, an' her pride in me, an' how
she would think I wuz awfully rich. An' you see how she would give out
them linens, all marked fur my wife, an' how I would sit an' watch her
doin' it, an'--you see everything. I know you do. I could feel you doin'
it. Then I say to myself: 'Here is th' one woman in th' world made fur
me. Whatever I have, she shall have. I'll spend my life waitin' on her.
She'll tell me all th' things I ought t' know, an' hev missed knowin';
she'll read t' me; she'll be patient when she finds how dull I've grown.
And thar'll be th' boy--'”
He seized her hand and wrung it, and was gone. Kate saw him no more that
night.
The next morning the major returned. Kate threw her arms around his neck
and wept.
“I want the babies,” she explained when the major showed his
consternation. “Don't mind my crying. You ought to be used to seeing me
cry by this time. I must get home, that's all. I must see Jack.”
So that night they started.
At the door of the carriage stood Peter Roeder, waiting.
“I'm going t' ride down with you,” he said. The major looked nonplussed.
Kate got in and the major followed.
“Come,” she said to Roeder. He sat opposite and looked at her as if he
would fasten her image on his mind.
“You remember,” he said after a time, “that I told you I used t' dream
of sittin' on the veranda of th' hotel and havin' nothin' t' do?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don't think I care fur it. I've had a month of it. I'm goin'
back up th' gulch.”
“No!” cried Kate, instinctively reaching out her hands toward him.
“Why not? I guess you don't know me. I knew that somewhere I'd find a
friend. I found that friend; an' now I'm alone again. It's pretty quiet
up thar in the gulch; but I'll try it.”
“No, no. Go to Europe; go to see your mother.”
“I thought about that a good deal, a while ago. But I don't seem t' have
no heart fur it now. I feel as if I'd be safer in th' gulch.”
“Safer?”
“The world looks pretty big. It's safe and close in th' gulch.”
At the station the major went to look after the trunks, and Roeder put
Kate in her seat.
“I wanted t' give you something,” he said, seating himself beside her,
“but I didn't dare.”
“Oh, my dear friend,” she cried, laying her little gloved hand on his
red and knotted one, “don't go back into the shadow. Do not return to
that terrible silence. Wait. Have patience. Fate has brought you wealth.
It will bring you love.”
“I've somethin' to ask,” he said, paying no attention to her appeal.
“You must answer it. If we 'a' met long ago, an' you hadn't a husband
or--anythin'--do you think you'd've loved me then?”
She felt herself turning white.
“No,” she said softly. “I could never have loved you, my dear friend. We
are not the same. Believe me, there is a woman somewhere who will love
you; but I am not that woman--nor could I have ever been.”
The train was starting. The major came bustling in.
“Well, good-by,” said Roeder, holding out his hand to Kate.
“Good-by,” she cried. “Don't go back up the gulch.”
“Oh,” he said, reassuringly, “don't you worry about me, my--don't worry.
The gulch is a nice, quiet place. An' you know what I told you about th'
ranks all bein' full. Good-by.” The train was well under way. He sprang
off, and stood on the platform waving his handkerchief.
“Well, Kate,” said the major, seating himself down comfortably and
adjusting his travelling cap, “did you find the Western type?”
“I don't quite know,” said she, slowly. “But I have made the discovery
that a human soul is much the same wherever you meet it.”
“Dear me! You haven't been meeting a soul, have you?” the major said,
facetiously, unbuckling his travelling-bag. “I'll tell Jack.”
“No, I'll tell Jack. And he'll feel quite as badly as I do to think that
I could do nothing for its proper adjustment.”
The major's face took on a look of comprehension.
“Was that the soul,” he asked, “that just came down in the carriage with
us?”
“That was it,” assented Kate. “It was born; it has had its mortal day;
and it has gone back up the gulch.”