The Desert and the Sown Part 23

"Why not? The stuff ain't mine."

"Who _is_ she? How long since anybody live here?"

"I don't know,--good while, I guess."

"Well, sar! Look here! I open that bag. I count two hondre' thirteen dolla'--make it twelve for luck, an' call it you' divvee! You strike her first. What you say: we go snac'?"

"I haven't got any use for that money. You needn't talk to me about it."

"Got no h'use!--are you a reech man? Got you' private car waitin' for you out in d' sagebrush? Sol' a mine lately?"

"I don't know why it strikes you so funny. It's no concern of mine if a man puts his money in the ground and goes off and leaves it."

"Goes off and die! There was one man live here by himself--he die, they say, 'with his boots on.' He, I think, mus' be that man belong to this money. What an old stiff want with two hondre' thirteen dolla'? That money goin' into a live man's clothes." Bonny slapped his chappereros, and the dust flew.

"I've no objection to its going into _your_ clothes," said the old man.

"You thing I ain' particular, me? Well, eef the party underground was my frien', and I knew his fam'ly, and was sure the money was belong to him--I'd do differend--perhaps. Mais,--it is going--going--gone! You won' go snac'?"

The old man smiled and looked steadily away.

"Blas' me to h--l! but you aire the firs' man ever I strike that jib at the sight of col' coin. She don' frighten me!"

Bonny always swore when he felt embarra.s.sed.

"Well, sar! Look here! You fin' you'self so blame indifferend--s'pose you _so_ indifferend not to say nothing 'bout this, when my swamper fellah git in. I don' wish to go snac' wis him. I don' feel oblige'.

See?"

"What you want to pester me about this money for!" The old man was weary. "I didn't come here, lookin' for money, and I don't expect to take none away with me. So I'll say good-night to ye."

"Hol' on, hol' on! Don' git mad. What time you goin' off in the morning?"

"Before you do, I shouldn't wonder."

"But hol'! One fine idea--blazin' good idea--just hit me now in the head! Wan' to come on to Chicago wis me? I drop this fellah at Felton.

He take the team back, and I get some one to help me on the treep. Why not you? Ever tek' care of stock?"

"Some consid'able years ago I used to look after stock. Guess I'd know an ox from a heifer."

"Ever handle 'em on cattle-car?"

"Never."

"Well, all there is, you feed 'em, and water 'em, and keep 'em on their feets. If one fall down, all the others they have too much play. They rock"--Bonny exhibited--"and fall over and pile up in heap. I like to do one turn for you. We goin' the same way--you bring me the good luck, like a bird in the han'. This is my clean-up, you understand. You bring me the beautiful luck. You turn me up right bower first slap. Now it's goin' be my deal. I like to do by you!"

The packer turned over and looked up at the cool sky, p.r.i.c.ked through with early stars. He was silent a long time. His pale old face was like a fine bit of carving in the dusk.

"What you think?" asked Moppin, almost tenderly. "I thing you better come wis me. You too hold a man to go like so--alone."

"I'll have to think about it first;--let you know in the morning."

XXI

INJURIOUS REPORTS CONCERNING AN OLD HOUSE

A Rush of wheels and a spatter of hoofs coming up the drive sent Mrs. Dunlop to the sitting-room window. She tried to see out through streaming showers that darkened the panes.

"Isn't that Mrs. Bogardus? Why, it is! Put on your shoes, Chauncey, quick! Help her in 'n' take her horse to the shed. Take an umbrella with you." Chauncey the younger, meekly drying his shoes by the kitchen fire, put them on, not stopping to lace them, and slumped down the porch steps, pursued by his mother's orders. She watched him a moment struggling with a cranky umbrella, and then turned her attention to herself and the room.

Mrs. Bogardus made her calls in the morning, and always plainly on business. She had not seen the inside of Cerissa's parlor for ten years.

This was a grievance which Cerissa referred to spasmodically, being seized with it when she was otherwise low in her mind.

"My sakes! Can't I remember my mother telling how _her_ mother used to drive over and spend the afternoon, and bring her sewing and the baby--whichever one was the baby. They called each other Chrissy and Angevine, and now she don't even speak of her own children to us by their first names. It's 'Mrs. Bowen' and 'Mr. Paul;' just as if she was talking to her servants."

"What's that to us? We've got a good home here for as long as we want to stay. She's easy to work for, if you do what she says."

Chauncey respected Mrs. Bogardus's judgment and her straightforward business habits. Other matters he left alone. But Cerissa was ambitious and emotional, and she stayed indoors, doing little things and thinking small thoughts. She resented her commanding neighbor's casual manners.

There was something puzzling and difficult to meet in her plainness of speech, which excluded the personal relation. It was like the cut and finish of her clothes--mysterious in their simplicity, and not to be imitated cheaply.

When the two met, Cerissa was immediately reduced to a state of flimsy apology which she made up for by being particularly hot and self-a.s.sertive in speaking of the lady afterward.

"There is the parlor, in perfect order," she fretted, as she stood waiting to open the front door; "but of course she wouldn't let me take her in there--that would be too much like visiting."

The next moment she had corrected her facial expression, and was offering smiling condolences to Mrs. Bogardus on the state of her attire.

"It is only my jacket. You might put that somewhere to dry," said the lady curtly. Raindrops sparkled on the wave of thick iron-gray hair that lifted itself, with a slight turn to one side, from her square low brow.

Her eyes shone dark against the fresh wind color in her cheeks. She had the straight, hard, ophidian line concealing the eyelid, which gives such a peculiar strength to the direct gaze of a pair of dark eyes. If one suspects the least touch of tenderness, possibly of pain, behind that iron fold, it lends a fascination equal to the strength. There was some excitement in Mrs. Bogardus's manner, but Cerissa did not know her well enough to perceive it. She merely thought her looking handsomer, and, if possible, more formidable than usual.

She sat by the fire, folding her skirts across her knees, and showing the edges of the most discouragingly beautiful petticoats,--a taste perhaps inherited from her wide-hipped Dutch progenitresses. Mrs.

Bogardus reveled in costly petticoats, and had an unnecessary number of them.

"How nice it is in here!" she said, looking about her. Cerissa, with the usual apologies, had taken her into the kitchen to dry her skirts.

There was a slight taint of steaming shoe leather, left by Chauncey when driven forth. Otherwise the kitchen was perfection,--the family room of an old Dutch farmhouse, built when stone and hardwood lumber were cheap,--thick walls; deep, low window-seats; beams showing on the ceiling; a modern cooking-stove, where Emily Bogardus could remember the wrought bra.s.s andirons and iron backlog, for this room had been her father's dining-room. The brick tiled hearth remained, and the color of those century and a half old bricks made a pitiful thing of Cerissa's new oil-cloth. The woodwork had been painted--by Mrs. Bogardus's orders, and much to Cerissa's disgust--a dark kitchen green,--not that she liked the color herself, but it was the artistic demand of the moment,--and the place was filled with a green golden light from the cherry-trees close to the window, which a break in the clouds had suddenly illumined.

"You keep it beautifully," said Mrs. Bogardus, her eyes shedding compliments as she looked around. "I should not dare go in my own kitchen at this time of day. There are no women nowadays who know how to work in the way ladies used to work. If I could have such a housekeeper as you, Cerissa."

Cerissa flushed and bridled. "What would Chauncey do!"

"I don't expect you to be my housekeeper," Mrs. Bogardus smiled. "But I envy Chauncey."

"She has come to ask a favor," thought Cerissa. "I never knew her so pleasant, for nothing. She wants me to do up her fruit, I guess."

Cerissa was mistaken. Mrs. Bogardus simply was happy--or almost happy--and deeply stirred over a piece of news which had come to her in that morning's mail.

"I have telephoned Bradley not to send his men over on Monday. My son is bringing his wife home. They may be here all summer. The place belongs to them now. Did Chauncey tell you? Mr. Paul writes that he has some building plans of his own, and he wishes everything left as it is for the present, especially this house. He wants his wife to see it first just as it is."