Two Wyoming Girls and Their Homestead Claim Part 7

"That's right, my little man; I didn't. I made a statement, and you seem to be sharp enough already to see the difference."

He had been carrying a covered tin pail in his hand. He now set it on the floor beside his chair, while Jessie, who had it much at heart that her little brother must be properly trained, remarked:

"Ralph has been very naughty."

"He'll come out all right; don't you go to worrying about him, Miss Jessie," Mr. Wilson admonished her, cheerfully. "He's nothing but a baby, anyway," he continued, "but what even a baby can want of all those little green k.n.o.bs of cantaloupes is more'n I can tell, but seeing 'em calls to my mind a fruit speculation of mine, last summer."

"I thought you were a cattleman?" I interrupted, involuntarily.

Mr. Wilson glanced down at the pail beside his chair. "Well, I am, Leslie, but a cattleman doesn't have to be sensible all the time. I had a kind of spell last summer when I wasn't sensible, and while it was at its height I got hold of a pile of young tomato plants and set 'em out. You see, as everybody else, pretty nigh, is in the cattle business, too, there ain't much fruit raised around here, and so I 'lowed I'd be able to dispose of my tomato crop to good advantage.

Along in August the crop was ready to market, and it was a hummer, no mistake. The construction gang and the engineers were working on the big storage reservoirs out beyond Turtle Sh.e.l.l b.u.t.tes then, just as they are now. There's a lot of men employed there and I knew that there was the place to go with my tomatoes."

"What, away out on the plains, beyond the valley? That must be twenty miles away," Jessie remarked, as Mr. Wilson paused to chuckle over some amusing reminiscence.

"It's all of that; maybe more. But you must remember that driving over the plains is like driving over a level floor. Distance doesn't count for much when the roads are always smooth and even. Well; one afternoon Tom and I filled the bottom of the wagon-box with a soft bed of fresh alfalfa hay and then we piled tomatoes in on top of it till they came clean up to the edge of the top bed. Of course if the roads had been rough it ain't likely that even a cattleman would 'a' thought of taking such a load in that way; as it was, I reckon there wasn't a tomato smashed in transit. I didn't get quite as early a start as I'd 'lowed to, so it was just noon when I reached the camp."

"I should have thought that you would lose the way," I said. My mind had conjured up a vivid picture of the far stretches of unfenced plains that lay between our mountain-walled valley and the great water storage system where a single lake already sparkled like a white jewel on the gray waste of plains. "There are wolves, too," I added, suddenly.

"Yes; there are wolves, but they don't eat tomatoes. And, as for losing the road, all that I had to do was to follow it; it stretches out, plain as a white ribbon on a black dress. As I said, it was noon when I reached camp. All hands had struck work and gone to dinner, so I thought I'd wait till they got through before I sprung the subject of tomatoes on them.

"There ain't a tree nor a shrub bigger than a soap weed within a mile of the reservoirs, and as I didn't want to set and hold the horses all the time, I unhitched 'em and tied 'em to the wagon-box; one on each side. I knew that they wouldn't eat the tomatoes, and, as there was plenty of horse feed in camp, I 'lowed to buy their dinner when I run on to some one to buy it of. It turned out, though, that the horses didn't understand about that; they had a scheme of their own, and they worked it to good advantage.

"I strolled off, and pretty soon I got mighty interested in lookin' at the works; it's a big enterprise, I tell you! I was gone from the wagon a good deal longer than I'd laid out to be, and I don't know as I'd 'a' woke up for an hour or two, but I heard a fellow laughin' over that way and so I went over to see what was goin' on. Well, I found out." Mr. Wilson paused impressively and glanced around at us. Joe was listening with such absorbed attention that his work had slipped unheeded from his hands and Ralph had again secured the harness needle and was awkwardly re-stringing his imitation sleigh bells. "What was it?" I asked.

"Why, you see, I'd plumb forgot about the alfalfa hay, but the horses had remembered, and they nosed through the fruit until they come to it, and they hadn't lost a minute's time, either. When the hay'd given out in one place they'd worked through at another until they struck bed rock again. The whole load was just a ma.s.s of tomato jam; the juice was running out of the box in a stream, and the horses were red with it from hoof to forelock. There wasn't a bushel of whole fruit left. I jerked out the tailboard and dumped the mess on the ground, while about forty men stood around just yellin' and hootin' with delight. They got more pleasure out of it than they could possibly 'a'

got from eatin' the tomatoes. The cook came out of his little tent alongside the big dining tent, to see what the racket was about, and when he got his eyes on the fruit he was powerful mad. He said he'd 'a' given a dollar and a half a bushel for the load. He wanted me to promise to come with another load the next day, but I'd had enough of fruit raisin'--'specially when the horses did the heft of the raisin'--I wouldn't 'a' faced that yellin' crowd again for a hundred dollars. No, sir! I come right straight home, and I sent word 'round among the neighbors to come and help themselves to all the tomatoes they could lug home; what they didn't take the frost did, and that was the end of my experiment in fruit raising."

"It was just too bad!" I exclaimed, feeling that I ought to say something sympathetic.

"Oh, I don't know," returned our neighbor, in his comfortable way. "It was all my fault. A man's got to keep his wits about him, no matter what he undertakes to do, and I left mine at home that day. My wife'll think I'm lost, wits and all, if I stay much longer, that's a fact."

He rose to his feet, and, after bidding us a cordial farewell, started for the door. Then the pail on the floor caught his eye to remind him that his intractable wits had again strayed. "Well, I declare for it!

I come nigh forgetting what I stopped for. Seems like a good way to come for milk, doesn't it? We had company come unexpected, and nothing would do Sarah but I must ride over here and ask you for some milk.

Condensed milk is good enough for us, but Sarah says it ain't good enough for company."

Jessie had already taken the pail and started for the pantry; when she re-appeared with it filled, she said, demurely:

"I thought that you said you were a cattleman, Mr. Wilson."

"Oh, bless you! Don't you know the old saying about a shoemaker's wife? Lots of folks that can count their cattle by the thousand head would be glad if they could be sure of as much nice milk and b.u.t.ter as you girls get off your two cows, Miss Jessie. It's management, you see."

"You mean want of management, don't you?" returned Jessie, smiling.

Mr. Wilson's jolly laugh floated back to us as he went down the walk toward the horse that was waiting for him at the gate, and then I roused myself to observe that Joe was again hunting for his tools. He presently rescued them from Ralph's destructive little hands, and set to work, only pausing the while to remark:

"I reckons dat ar watah sto'age camp gwine be a 'mighty good place fur to sell we all's melon c.r.a.p at."

CHAPTER IX

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

The Hortons' place was some five miles below ours, if one followed the main road, but they were often pa.s.sing the house on their way to and from the little country store and post-office. So it was not surprising that Mrs. Horton should reappear in a few days with a large bundle of sewing of her own for Jessie to do, and the intelligence that she had interviewed several of the neighbors, some of whom had said that they would gladly employ Jessie.

"You are so good, Mrs. Horton," Jessie exclaimed gratefully. "It will be a real help to us if we are able to earn a little in this way."

"Maybe you won't feel so anxious to do it when you see what I've brought," the good woman said, as she proceeded to untie her bulky bundle. "You see," she explained, "Jake nearly tore the coat from his back when he went up to salt those cattle the other night. He seems, from what I can make out, to have had a regular circus with himself, and I'm so busy, what with the housework and being obliged to do all the trading--for Jake never will go to the store if he can get out of it--I've had no time to mend it. I put it right in here with the other things, hoping that you or Leslie wouldn't mind mending it for me."

My very spine seemed to stiffen at the idea of mending the clothing that had been torn while its wearer was making a futile attempt to burn our house, but Jessie, knowing nothing of all this, and naturally trustful, replied tranquilly:

"Certainly, we will, Mrs. Horton, if you think we can do it well enough."

"Oh! anybody can do it well enough. If I had my way with it I'd put it into the stove and have done with it," she announced frankly. "It's seen its best days. But it appears to me that the longer Jake wears a thing the better he likes it. What a figure he would have made in the days of Methuselah, to be sure!"

She shook the coat out and laid it on the table. Jessie turned it over, examining some gaping rents, evidently of recent make. Finally,

"Here's a b.u.t.ton gone," she said. I felt my face grow white, while Mrs. Horton explained placidly:

"Yes; and that's a pity, for the b.u.t.tons are worth more than the coat.

They're quite curious, if you'll notice. I never saw any like them before he got that coat. I think myself that that little bra.s.s leaf stuck on to the front of them looks fussy on a man's coat b.u.t.tons, but Jake thinks they're so tasty. He was wonderfully put out when he found that he'd lost one of them. The land sake, Leslie!" she broke off suddenly as her glance fell on me. "Are you sick, child? Why, you are as pale as a sheet! Isn't she, Jessie?"

Jessie, glancing up from the tattered coat, in alarm, confirmed this statement, and they were both anxiously inquiring if I felt sick, and how long since the attack came on, and if I hadn't better go right to bed, when a diversion was created by the entrance of Joe. Joe had the weekly county paper open in his hand; he could read a little in a halting and uncertain fas.h.i.+on, but did not often trouble himself to do it. "There must have been something of special interest to him in this issue," I thought, and was not left long in doubt as to what it was.

"Heah we is!" he exclaimed, gleefully, extending the paper toward Jessie; "heah's our third and las' notice ob provin' up!"

"Oh, is it there?" cried Jessie, seizing the paper, and running her eye quickly over the item indicated by Joe's stubby black finger. Mrs.

Horton, brus.h.i.+ng her husband's cherished coat from the chair where Jessie had dropped it to the floor, seated herself, leaning forward in anxious attention, and even Ralph, abandoning a furtive attempt to put the cat in the water-pail, came and leaned against her knees, while Jessie read aloud:

"Before the United States Land Office at Fairplay, Chico County, on August 30th, 18--, will appear, viz.: Ralph C.

Gordon, who enters Homestead claim, No. 4571, for the W. 1-2, W. 1-4, Section 34, and S. 1-2 Section 33, Towns.h.i.+p 22 S., Range 68 W.

"Ralph C. Gordon names the following witnesses to prove his continuous residence upon, and cultivation of said land, viz.:

"W. H. Wright, S. H. Stearns, C. L. Wilson, all of Chico County.

"W. W. BAYARD, Register."

We all listened to the reading with breathless interest. When it was concluded Mrs. Horton observed: "Wright, Stearns, and Wilson, they're your witnesses, are they?"

"Yes; father selected them, you know," Jessie replied.

"They're good men, all of them, but, I declare, I wish that your pa had thought to put Jake on, too! It would have given me a good excuse to go down with you when the day comes. Not but what I mean to go anyhow, for that matter. Well, now, your date is set. It wasn't set before, was it?"

"No; the other notices read: 'On a day to be hereinafter named, etc.'"

"August 30th," Mrs. Horton repeated, musingly; "let's see, this is the 15th. You've got two weeks and a day yet to wait. It don't give a great amount of time to get money in, but it's a relief to know when it's coming off, isn't it?"