Part 5 (1/2)

”Mrs. Lenair said, 'I have had a pleasant time lying here, though I did not sleep any.'

”'Why,' I said, 'I could not lie that way. If I was not sleeping I would be nervous, and want to be sitting up or moving about.'

”Then I said to her: 'I should think you must get terribly lonesome up at your place, your son having been away so much, and you all alone with no one to talk to.'

”She said: 'I haven't known what it was to be lonesome since I have lived on the place.'

”'Why,' I said, 'I would not live like you do for ten dollars a day.'

She smiled, and said, 'You could not.'

”'I don't see how you can stand it,' I said, 'for it is all I can do to keep from being lonesome here with Dan, and a team to take me anywhere.

I have more callers in a week than you have in a year. I am fond of company and so is Dan.'

”Mrs. Lenair said: 'All you have just said, Mrs. Cullom, shows your life, your world; we all have different worlds,' she added.

”I could hardly understand just what she meant, so I changed the subject and thought I would talk to her about Penloe.

”'Is he home now,' I asked.

”She said, 'Yes,' he had got through his work and would be at home most of the time.

”I said: 'Did he ever do any of the kind of work he has been doing at the different places he worked at before he came to Orangeville? For he don't look to me,' I said, 'as if he had worked on a ranch or done road work much.'

”She said, 'He never had done hard work till we came to Orangeville, having only returned to this country from India about a month before coming here, and when we were in India, Penloe went to the University of Calcutta as soon as he was ready to enter as a student. I lived in that city nineteen years.'

”'Why, have you lived in India,' I said.

”Yes,' she answered. 'I left New York a year after I was married. My husband represented a New York company in India. He died six years ago, but we continued to reside there until Penloe finished his University course.'

”I was clean taken back by what she said. I said, 'It's none of my business, Mrs. Lenair, but I don't see why a fine looking young man like Penloe, with the education you say he has had, don't get light, pleasant work, if he has to work out, instead of working at such hard places with the toughest crowds of men.'

”All she said was: 'That is his work.'

”Why, Mrs. Herne, do you know that he worked on the streets of the city of Chicago, and for three months with a gang of a thousand men on the Coast Railroad between Los Angeles and San Francisco! Then he was at the Oakdale cattle ranch, cowboying it, with that fast gang of boys that they keep there. Then he worked for awhile at the Simmons ranch, which is four miles from Roseland, and Simmons always keeps the hardest crew of men on his place. They go to Roseland every other night or so and dance at those low dancing-houses with bad women. They get drunk, fight, and swear all the time. Simmons' ranch has got the name of being the toughest place to work anywhere round here.

”One day when Dan was in Roseland, he saw a man he knew from the Simmons ranch, so he thought he would hear what the fellow had to say about Penloe, as we both are curious to find out all we can about that singular young man.

”Dan said: 'Is Penloe working on the Simmons ranch?'

”The man said: 'Yes.'

”Dan said: 'How does he get along?'

”'Get along!' the man said. 'All I have to say is I wish I could get along as well.'

”Dan said: 'What kind of a chap is he, anyway? I kind of want to know, as he is a neighbor of mine.'

”'Well,' the man said, 'I will tell you, and then you can judge for yourself. I never heard him swear or knew of his telling a lie; he don't drink or tell s.m.u.tty yarns, or have anything to do with bad women. The boss says he works well, and when he is not at work he never joins the boys in their foolish talk. He is by himself a great deal, praying, I reckon, but he is very sociable if any one will talk sense. Let me tell you what he did which will show you what kind of a man he is. One cold, chilly night in December, when we were all sleeping in the barn, each man having his own blankets, the boys had just turned in when a tramp came in and asked if he could sleep in the barn. One of the boys said, 'Yes.' The fellow lay down on the hay without any blankets, and as soon as he was laid down his teeth began to chatter and he shook all over, for he had a chill. Penloe instantly got up and lit a lantern, took his blankets over to the tramp and said: 'Here, brother, you have got a chill. Take my blankets and roll yourself up in them; you will be better in the morning.' From where I lay I could just see the tramp's face, for Penloe was holding the lantern so the light went on his face. The fellow looked up at Penloe thunderstruck. I guess he never had a man speak to him that way before. He said: 'Well, stranger, you are mighty kind.' So Penloe helped him to roll the blankets round him, and then he went and lay down on the hay himself without any covering. The boys did a heap of thinking that night, but said nothing. The next morning Penloe asked the tramp how he was, and he said he slept pretty well, but he looked real miserable, as though he had not had a good square meal for a month and was weak from chills. Penloe said to the tramp: 'You stay here till I come back,' and he went to see the boss and told him there was a sick tramp in the barn, and would he let him stay there and eat at the same table with us till he got well and strong, and that the boss should take the tramp's board out of his wages. The boss asked a few questions, studied awhile, then said, all right, he didn't care. Penloe went back to the tramp and told him he had seen the boss and he could stay there till he got well and strong, and to eat his meals with them and it would not cost him a cent. Tears came in the tramp's eyes, and he tried to say, 'Thank you, stranger.'

”During the day one of the men told the boss what Penloe had done last night; about giving his blankets up to a tramp and laying all night himself without any covering. After supper the boss called Penloe and told him there was a bed for him in the house, and he wanted him to sleep in it as long as the tramp was here, and as for the tramp, he would let the fellow stay here and board till he got a job in the neighborhood. He would not charge a cent for his board to Penloe. He himself had no work for the tramp.