Part 16 (1/2)
”The habit of bathing,” she commented, ”is sh.o.r.e like religion: them that observes it wonders how them that neglects it gets along.” She beckoned Mary to follow, and led the way to a bunch of willows that grew about a stone's-throw from the camp. ”Here be a whole creek full of water, if you don't lack the fort.i.tood. It's cold enough to sell for ten cents a gla.s.s down to Texas.”
Somewhat dismayed, Mary stepped gingerly into the creek. Its intense cold numbed her at first, but a second later awoke all her young l.u.s.tiness, and she returned to camp in a fine glow of courage to encounter whatever else there might be of novelty. Mrs. Yellett was preparing breakfast at a sheet-iron stove, a.s.sisted by Cacta and Clematis.
”Your hankering after a bath like this”-she added another handful of flour to the biscuit dough-”do sh.o.r.e remind me of an Englishman who come to visit near Laramie in the days of plenty, when steers had jumped to forty-five. This yere Britisher was exhibit stock, sh.o.r.e enough, being what's called a peer of the realm, which means, in his own country, that he is just nacherally ent.i.tled from the start to h'ist his nose high.
”The outfit he was goin' to visit wasn't in the habit of havin' peers drop in on them casual, but they aimed to make him feel that he wasn't the first of the herd that headed that way by a quart”-she cut four biscuits with a tin cup, and resumed-”to which end they rounded up every specimen of canned food that's ever come across the Rockies.
”'Let him ask for ”salmon esplinade,” let him ask for ”chicken marine-go,”
let him ask for plum-pudding, let him ask for hair-oil or throat lozengers, this yere outfit calls his bluff,' says Billy Ames, who owns the 'twin star' outfit and is antic.i.p.atin' this peer as a guest.
”Well, just as everything is ready, the can-opener, sharp as a razor, waitin' to open up such effete luxuries as the peer may demand, Bill Ames gets called to California by the sickness of his wife. He feels mean about abandonin' the peer, but he don't seem to have no choice, his wife bein'
one of them women who shares her bad health pretty impartially round the family. So Billy he departs. But before he goes he expounds to Joplin Joe, his foreman, the nature of a peer and how his wants is apt to be a heap fas.h.i.+onable, and that when he asks for anything to grasp the can-opener and run to the store-house-Cacta, you put on the coffee!
”That peer arrives in the afternoon, and he never makes a request any more than a corpse. Beyond a marked disposition to herd by himself and to maintain the greatest possible distance between his own person and a six-shooter, he don't vary none from the bulk of tenderfeet. At night, when all parties retires, and Joplin Joe ponders on them untouched, effete luxuries in the store-room, and how the can-opener 'ain't once been dimmed in the cause of hospitality, it frets him considerable, and he feels he ain't doin' his duty to the absent Billy Ames.
”At sunrise he can stand it no longer. He thunders on the Britisher's door with the b.u.t.t of his six-shooter, calling out:
”'Peer, peer, be you awake?'
”The peer allowed he was, though his teeth was rattling like broken crockery.
”'Peer, would you relish some ”salmon esplinade”?'
”The peer allowed he wouldn't.
”'Peer, would you relish some ”chicken marine-go”?'
”The peer allowed he sh.o.r.e wouldn't, and the crockery rattled harder than ever. Joplin Joe then tried him on the hair-oil and the throat lozengers, the peer declining each with thanks.
”'Peer,' said Joplin Joe, fair busting with hospitality, 'is there anything in this Gawd's world that you do want?'
”The crockery rattled an interlood, then Joplin Joe made out:
”'Thanks, very much. I should like a ba-ath'-Clematis, you see if them biscuits is brownin'.
”Joe he ran to the store-room, and his eye encountered a barrel of corned-beef. He calls to a couple of cow-punchers, and the first thing you know that late corned steer is piled onto the prairie and them cow-punchers is hustling the empty barrel in to the peer. Next they detaches the steps from the kitchen door, ropes 'em to the barrel and introduces the peer to his bath. He's good people all right, and when he sees they calls his bluff he steps in all right and lets 'em soak him a couple of buckets. This here move restores all parties to a mutual understanding, and the peer he bathes in the corned-beef barrel regular durin' his stay-you see the habit had cinched him.”
Ned had shot an antelope a day or two previous, and antelope steak, broiled over a glowing bed of wood coals, with black coffee, stewed dried apples, and soda biscuit made up what Mary found to be an unexpectedly palatable breakfast. As camp did not include a cow, no milk or b.u.t.ter was served with meals. Nevertheless, the hungry tenderfoot was quite content, and missed none of the appurtenances she had been brought up to believe essential to a civilized meal, not even the little silver jug that Aunt Martha always insisted came over with William the Conqueror-Aunt Martha scorned the _May-flower_ contingent as parvenus.
The family sat on the gra.s.s, tailor fas.h.i.+on, and every one helped himself to what appet.i.te prompted, in a fas.h.i.+on that suggested brilliant gymnastic powers. To pa.s.s a dish to any one, the governess discovered, was construed as an evidence of mental weakness and eccentricity. The family satisfied its appet.i.te without a.s.sistance or amenities, but with the skill of a troupe of jugglers.
Breakfast was half over when Mrs. Yellett laid down her knife, which she had handled throughout the meal with masterly efficiency. Mary watched her in hopeless embarra.s.sment, and wondered if her own timid use of a tin fork could be construed as an unfriendly comment upon the Yelletts' more simple and direct code of table etiquette.
”Land's sakes! I just felt, all the time we've been eating, we was forgettin' something. You children ought to remember, I got so much on my mind.”
All eyes turned anxiously to the cooking-stove, while an expression of frank regret began to settle over the different faces. The backbone of their appet.i.tes had been broken, and there was something else, perhaps something even more appetizing, to come.
Interpreting the trend of their glance and expression, up flared Mrs.
Yellett, with as great a show of indignation as if some one had set a match to her petticoats.