Part 46 (2/2)

”Miguel, he had had his mind made up for a fight, but started off telling the Boss about old Spanish days in the valley and the Boss, he sits nodding and smoking Miguel's rotten cigarettes and smiling at him sort of sad and friendly like until old Miguel he thinks the Boss is the only man he ever met that understood him. After two straight hours of this, the Boss he says he'll have to go, but he wishes old Miguel would come up and spend the day and dine with him. Says he's got some serious problems he'd like old Miguel's opinion on. And old Miguel, he follows us clear out to the main road, where we left the machine, and he tells the Boss his house is his and his wife and his daughters and sons are his and his horses and cattle are his and that he will be glad to come up and show him how to build the dam.”

”Mrs. Flynn says he's having some farmer up to supper nearly every night,” said Jane. ”Oscar, how comes it you always speak of Mr. Manning as the Boss, now? You never would call any other man that?”

Oscar squared his big shoulders. ”He's the only man I ever met I thought knew more than I do. You ought to hear the things he can tell you about dam building. And he's full of other ideas, too. A lot of what you folks put down as stuckupedness is just quietness on his part while he thinks.

I'm trying to pound that into these bullheaded ranchers round here. I tell 'em how to make sand-cement, for instance, and then ask 'em if a fellow didn't have to keep his mouth shut and saw wood while he thought a thing like that out. I'm willing to call him Boss, all right. He's got more in his head than sand cement, too. Last night, we was coming home just before supper. He's been on the job since four in the morning and I knew he had to get back and work half the night on office work.

And I says:

”'Boss, what will you get out of it to pay you for half killing yourself this way?'

”He didn't answer me for a long time, then he begun to tell me a story about how he and another fellow went through the Makon canyon and how that other fellow felt about it and how he was drowned and how he had some verses that that fellow taught him printed on his gravestone.

Thought I'd remember those lines. They made me feel more religious than anything I've heard at church. Something about Sons of Martha.”

Pen had been listening, her heart in her eyes, trying not to envy Oscar his long days with Jim. Now she leaned forward eagerly.

”Oh, I know what he quoted to you:

”'Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more or flat, Lo, it is black already with blood, some Son of Martha spilled for that.

Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed, But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.'”

The three sat silent for a moment, then Oscar nodded. ”That's them. He said he never got their full meaning till just lately and now he's trying to live up to 'em. I'm perfectly willing to call him Boss.”

Pen and Jane were not finding the farmers' wives easy to influence.

Their task was a double one. First they had to rouse interest in the coming election and then they had to persuade the women that their husbands were wrong. Moreover, after the first week or so, they found that Penelope's presence was a hindrance rather than a help. It was after their call on Mrs. Hunt that they reluctantly reached this conclusion.

Bill rattled them up to a bungalow on one of the new ranches. The Hunts were newcomers, having bad luck with their first attempts at irrigation.

Mrs. Hunt was a hearty looking woman of forty. Pen stated the object of the call.

”I never had any interest in politics,” said Mrs. Hunt. ”I was always too busy with my family to gallivant around.”

Jane and Pen plunged earnestly into explanations. When they had finished, Mrs. Hunt said:

”I can see why Mrs. Ames is so interested. But why should you be, Mrs.

Sardox? I heard your husband was backing Fleckenstein.”

”I don't agree with my husband's ideas,” said Pen. ”I am doing this because I think Fleckenstein's election will do the valley a deadly wrong.”

”Oh, you are one of those eastern women that thinks they know more than their husbands! I am not! I prefer to let my husband do my thinking in politics for me. Does Mr. Manning know you're doing this?”

”Oh, no!” cried Jane. ”You don't understand this, Mrs. Hunt.”

”I'm no fool,” returned Mrs. Hunt. ”And I tell you it don't look well for a good-looking young married woman to go round fighting against her husband for a handsome young bachelor like Manning. So there!”

Pen and Jane withdrew with as much dignity as they could muster. It was the sixth rebuff they had received that day. Pen was almost in tears.

”Jane, what are we to do?”

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