Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim Part 20

"Joe I is!" returned the old man, placidly, stretching his gnarled hands toward the blaze, and grinning delightedly; "I reckon you all begin fur to projec' 'Whar's Joe?' long 'bout dish yer time o' day, so I done p'inted my tracks in dish yer way."

"It must have been you that Guard was barking at," I said, stirring the fire into a brighter blaze.

"No; hit wa'nt me. I yeard his racketin' as I come up along. Hit war'

some udder varmint, I reckons. What fur he want ter bark at me?"

"True enough. Well, we're just awful glad you've come back, Joe,"

Jessie told him. "Leslie has been out all the afternoon and she hasn't had her supper. I waited for her before eating mine, so now I'll fix yours on this little table beside the fire and we can all eat at the same time."

Joe accepted the proposition thankfully, and, after seeing him comfortably established, we seated ourselves at the large table near the window. I was hungry after my long ride and fell to with a will, but I presently observed that Jessie ate nothing.

"Why don't you eat your supper, Jessie?"

"I can't," she replied, pus.h.i.+ng away her plate; "I'm so worried.

Leslie, have you thought that if the agent refuses to issue a deed to us we shall have no home? I feel just sure of it, for we haven't money enough to re-enter the claim, hire a surveyor, and all that."

"Must there be a new survey made?"

"So Mr. Wilson says; he says that it will be the same, in the eye of the law, as if no entry had ever been made."

"The eye of the law must be half blind, then!" I exclaimed, indignantly. "As if the survey already made and paid for, was not good enough, and when we know that a new one would only follow the same lines!"

"That's just what I said to Mr. Wilson. He said that surveyors had to have a chance to earn their living, and this way of doing business was one of the chances," Jessie replied, dropping her head dejectedly on her hand.

"Well; don't let's worry about it, Jessie dear, we must keep on hoping, as father used to say. He used to say, you know, that no one was ever really poor until he had ceased to hope. We will do our best and G.o.d will look out for the rest, I guess. I don't believe He intends to let our home be taken from us. He wouldn't have given us such good men for witnesses if He had."

"Yes, they are good. If we were only able to borrow a little more money now I should feel quite safe. If we could just borrow money enough to--"

"Woe unto him that goeth up an' down de lan' seeking fur t' borrow money! Borrowed money, hit stingeth like an adder; hit biteth like a surpunt! Hit weaves a chain what bin's. .h.i.t's victims han' an' foot!

Hit maketh a weight what breaks his heart, amen!"

In the interest of our conversation we had, for the nonce, forgotten Joe, who was quietly toasting his ragged shoes before the fire, until his voice thus solemnly proclaimed his presence.

"Dat's w'at ole Mas'r Gordon, yo' chillen's gran'fadder, used fur t'

say, an' hit's true. Hit's true! He knowed; Good Heaven, didn't he know!"

There was the tragedy of some remembered bitter suffering in the old man's voice, and, recalling father's stern determination to endure all things, to lose all things, if need be, rather than to become a borrower, I felt that the misery hinted at in old Joe's words had been something very real and poignant in the days of those Gordons, now beyond all suffering.

"Hit may be," continued the old man reflectively, "dat I ain' got all dem verses jess right, but dat was deir senses. W'at s'prises me, Miss Jessie, is dat yo' alls is talkin' ob wantin' fur to borrow money, too. W'at fur yo' wan' ter borry money, w'en de're's a plenty in de fambly? A plenty ob hit, yes. W'at yo' reckons I's been doin' all dese yer weeks, off an' on? T'inks I's a 'possum, an' doan know w'en hit's time ter come t' life? Ain' I been a knowin' 'bout dish yer lan'

business an' a gittin' ready fur hit, ebber sense long 'fore Mas'r Ralph was took. I didn't git drownded w'en he did--wish't I had, I does--an' long 'fore dat, I'se been sabin' up my wages agin' a time w'en Mas'r Ralph goin' need 'em wustest. I reckoned he goin' need 'em w'en hit comes to de provin' up on dish yer claim. Hit doan tek'

much ter keep a ole n.i.g.g.e.r like me, an' I ain' been crippled wid de rheumatiz so bad until 'long dis summah, an' so, chillen, I'se done got five hundred dollahs in de bank at Fa'hplay, fo' de credit ob Mas'r Ralph Gordon--dat's yo's now, Miss Jessie, honey, cause yo's ob age."

Joe had remembered that important fact, too, it seemed. We could only stare at him in speechless amazement, while he concluded, abruptly: "So doan let's heah no more fool talk 'bout borrowin' money. We's got a plenty, I tells yo'. I been a-keepin' hit in de bank at Arnold--whar' Mas'r Ralph an' me stopped fur quite a spell 'afore we done come yer--an' so, a few days ago, I done slipped ober to Arnold an' drawed de money out, an' put it in de bank at Fa'hplay, subject to de order ob Miss Jessie Gordon--dat's yo', honey," he added, as if fearful that Jessie might not recognize herself under this formal appellation. He was holding his coffee-cup suspended, half-way to his lips, while he looked at us exultantly, and then we both expressed our feelings in a characteristic manner. I ran to him, and threw my arms around his neck.

"Oh, Joe! Joe! you are an angel!" I sobbed, dropping my head on his shoulder.

"Maybe I is," the old man admitted, stiffly, edging away; "but if dere's airy angel, w'ite or black, w'at likes ter hab hot coffee spilled ober his laigs, I ain' nebber met up wid him!"

"I'll get you another cup, Joe," I said, laughing, as I brushed away my tears. While I was getting it, Jessie clung to his rough old hand.

"G.o.d bless you, Joe! Oh, you have lifted such a weight from my heart!

I don't know how to thank you; but Joe, we'll pay it all back to you!

We will, if it takes the place to do it!"

Joe, freeing his hand from her clasp, rose to his feet--not stiffly, this time, but with a certain grave dignity. Motioning aside the coffee that I was bringing, he picked his ragged old hat up from the floor beside his chair, put it on, pulled it down over his eyes, and started for the door.

"'Fore Heaben! I wouldn't 'a' beliebed dat one ob Mas'r Ralph Gordon's chillen gwine fur insult me like dis!" he muttered, huskily; "Talk ob payin' me! Me, like I was a stranger, an' didn' belong to de fambly!"

"Wait!" cried Jessie, springing forward, as the old man laid a trembling hand on the door k.n.o.b. "Wait, sit down, Joe, dear Joe, don't desert us when we need you most! As for the money, G.o.d bless you for making sure of our home, for, of course, it's your home, too, always, always! And I'll never pay a cent of the money back; not if I use it all!"

"Yo's gwine hab to use hit all, honey," Joe returned, with a beaming face, as he resumed his seat. "Dere's de fence buildin' an' breakin'

de new groun', and de seedin'."

"True enough! Oh, we shall come out all right, now, thanks to you, Joe."

And Jessie spoke with the happy little laugh that we had not heard for a long, long time.

CHAPTER XXII

AN OPEN WINDOW

It was, apart from the pecuniary relief that his coming had brought us, a great satisfaction to have old Joe again with us. Remembering his habit of not speaking until he was, as he sometimes expressed it, "plumb ready," we forbore to ask any more questions until he had finished his supper, and smoked his pipe afterward. Smoking is a bad habit, I know, but I am afraid that there are few good habits from which people derive more comfort than fell to Joe when he was puffing contentedly away at his old clay pipe. After a long interval of blissful enjoyment he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and then remarked, rather wistfully, apparently to the fire as much as to either of us: "I reckons he's fas' asleep, sh.o.r.e' nuff!" "He" meant Ralph, of course.

"Yes," Jessie said, "he's been asleep ever since a little while before dark."

"Yo' reckons. .h.i.t gwine fur 'sturb him, jess fur me ter tek' a look at him, honey?"

"Surely not, Joe." Accordingly I took up a lamp, and stepped with it into the next room--the sitting-room, in which Ralph's crib was stationed. The crib stood close to the window, which was open. I was surprised that Jessie had left it so, knowing, as she did, that Ralph caught cold with painful facility. Joe cast a disapproving look at the opening as we stood by the crib side, but, fearful of awakening the little sleeper, he said nothing. All children are lovely in their sleep, but as I held the lamp aloft, while we admiringly surveyed this one, I think the same idea occurred to us both--that never was there one more beautiful than our Ralph. Joe, cautiously advancing a h.o.r.n.y fore-finger, softly touched the moist, dimpled little hand that lay relaxed outside the coverlet. Then he drew the coverlet a little closer over the baby sleeper's shoulders, and, noiselessly closing the window, turned away with a sigh that belonged, I felt, not to Ralph, but to some one whom he seemed to the old man to resemble.

When we were again in the kitchen, he said decidedly: "I 'clar fo'

hit, Miss Jessie--fo' hit mus' 'a' been yo, w'at done hit; fo' yo'

said Miss Leslie done been gone--I'se 'sprised fur to see yo'

a-puttin' dat chile ter bed wid the winder beside him wide open, an'

the nights plumb cole an' varmints a wanderin' roun'--"

"Why, Joe, what are you talking about? I never left it open. I'd be afraid that that cat of Ralph's would jump in and wake him, if nothing else. When it's open at all I'm careful to open it from the top; but it's so cool to-night that I didn't open it."

"I jess reckons yo' furgot ter shet it, honey," Joe insisted.

"I'm quite sure it hasn't been opened," returned Jessie, who did not give up a point easily. I could see, though I had no doubt that Joe was right, that the matter really puzzled her.

"Ralph, he de libin' picter ob Mas'r Ralph, w'en he was a little feller, an' hit in' no ways likely dat I gwine ter set still an' see Mas'r Ralph's onliest son lose his 'heritance; not ef I can holp it,"

Joe remarked reflectively, after Jessie had again proclaimed that she did not leave the window open.

The words reminded me of the danger which still threatened us, in spite of the providential help that Joe's coming had brought us.