Part 5 (1/2)
”Two-forty-five. And say”--he slapped his knee at the sudden thought-- ”that's your chance, sure. I have orders to hold them for the eastbound silk train, and they'll let you ride in the caboose up to Kitt.i.tas. That's the stop this side of Ellensburg, and there's a livery there, with a cross-road to strike the Ellensburg-Wenatchee. But, say! If you do drop off at Kitt.i.tas, ask Lighter to show you the colts. They are the star team in three counties. Took the prize at North Yakima last year for three-year-olds. They're too fly for livery work, but if you can drive, and Lighter likes your looks”--the station master gave Tisdale a careful scrutiny--”and you have his price, I shouldn't wonder if you could hire Nip and Tuck.”
Tisdale laughed. ”I see. If I can't hire them, I may be allowed the privilege to buy them. But,” and he looked at his watch, ”there's time to try that ranch.”
He started down the platform then stopped to look back at the girl who had followed a few steps from the threshold. Her eyes held their expression of uncertainty whether to sparkle or to cloud, and he read the arrested question on her lips. ”If there are any saddle-horses,” he answered, ”I will have them here before that two-forty-five freight arrives, but,” and he smiled, ”I am not so sure I can supply the proper riding-suit. And the most I hope for in saddles is just a small Mexican.”
”A Mexican is easy riding,” she said, ”on a mountain road.” But she stood watching him, with the uncertainty still clouding her face, while he moved down the draw.
He wore the suit of gray corduroy it was his habit to wear in open country, with leggings of russet leather, and he traveled very swiftly, with a long, easy stride, though never rapidly enough to wholly escape the dust he disturbed. Once he stopped and bent to fasten a loose strap, and then he took off his coat, which he folded to carry. The pall of dust enveloped him. In it his actions gathered mystery, and his big frame loomed indistinctly like the figure of a genii in a column of smoke. The fancy must have occurred to the watcher on the platform, for it was then the sparkles broke in her eyes, and she said aloud, softly clapping her hands: ”I wish--I wish it to be Nip and Tuck.”
”So do I.” She started and turned, and the station master smiled. ”They're beauties, you can take my word. It would be the drive of your life.”
He carried his office chair around the corner of the building to place for her in the shade. Then his instrument called him, and for an interval she was left alone. The desert stretched before her, limitless, in the glare of the afternoon sun. If the Columbia flowed in that neighborhood, it was hidden by sand dunes and decomposing cliffs of granite. There was no glimpse of water anywhere, not a green blade; even the bunch gra.s.s, that grew spa.r.s.ely between the sage-brush through the draw, was dry and gray.
For a while no sound but the click of the telegraph disturbed the great silence, then a hot wind came wailing out of the solitudes and pa.s.sed into a fastness of the mountains.
Finally the station master returned. ”Well,” he said genially, ”how are you making it? Lonesome, I guess.”
”Oh,” she exclaimed, ”how can you, how could any human being, live in this dead, worn-out world?”
”It is desolate now,” he admitted, sending a thoughtful glance over the arid waste; ”it must seem like the Great Sahara to you, coming into it for the first time and directly from the Puget Sound country. I remember how I felt when I struck the Hesperides. Why, it looked like the front door of Hades to me; I said so, and I called myself all kinds of a fool. But I had sunk an even thousand dollars in a twenty-acre tract; bought it off a real estate map over in Seattle, without seeing the ground.” He laughed, half in embarra.s.sment at the confession, and moved to take a more comfortable position against the wall. ”I was in a railroad office in Chicago,” he explained, ”and my father expected me to work up to the responsible position he held with the company and take it when he was through. But the western fever caught me; I wanted to come to Was.h.i.+ngton and grow with the country. He couldn't talk me out of it; so he gave me that thousand dollars and told me to go and to stay till I made good.”
”Oh,” she cried, ”how hard! How miserable! And you?”
”Why, I stayed. There wasn't anything else to do. And after I looked around the valley a little and saw the Peshastin ditch and what it could do, I got busy. I found work; did anything that turned up and saved like a miser, until I was able to have the land cleared of sagebrush. It has mean roots, you know, sprawling in all directions like the branches. Then I saved to make connections with the ditch and to buy trees. I set the whole twenty acres to apples--I always did like a good apple, and I had sized up the few home orchards around Wenatchee--then I put in alfalfa for a filler, and that eased things, and I settled down to office work, small pay, lots of time to plan, and waited for my trees to grow. That was four years ago, five since I struck the Wenatchee valley, and this season they came into bearing. Now, at the end of this month, I am giving up my position with the Milwaukee, cutting railroading for good, to go over and superintend the harvesting. And say”--he stood erect, the inner glow illumined his face--”I've had an offer for my crop; three hundred and fifty dollars an acre for the fruit on the trees. Three hundred and fifty dollars for a four-year-old orchard! Think of that! Seven thousand clear for re-investment.”
”How splendid!” she said, and in that instant her face seemed to catch and reflect his enthusiasm. ”To have waited, fought like that in the face of defeat, and to have made good.”
”And it's only the beginning,” his voice caught a little; ”an apple orchard has bigger results every year after maturity. There's a man over there on the Wenatchee who is going to make a thousand dollar profit on each acre of his twelve-year orchard. You ought to see those trees, all braced up with scaffolding, only fourteen acres of them, but every branch loaded. But that orchard is an exception; they had to lift water from the river with buckets and a wheel, and most of the pioneers put in grain.
Their eyes are just beginning to open. But think of Hesperides Vale in another five years. And think what that High Line ditch means. Just imagine it! Water, all you can use and running to waste; water spilling over in this sage-brush desert. Doesn't it spell oasis? Think of it! Gra.s.s and flowers and shade in place of this sunbaked sand and alkali.”
”It sounds like a fairy tale,” she said. ”I can hardly believe it.”
”I'll show you.” He hurried around to the office door and came back directly with a basket of fruit. ”Here are a few samples from my trees.
Did you ever see pink like that in a bellflower? Isn't it pretty enough for a girl's cheek? And say,” he held up an exceedingly large apple, nearer the size of a small pumpkin, ”how's this for a Rome Beauty? An agent who is selling acreage for a company down the Yakima offered me five dollars for that apple yesterday. He wanted it for a window display over at his Seattle office. But look at these Jonathans.” His sensitive fingers touched the fruit lingeringly with a sort of caress, and the glow deepened in his face. ”They represent the main crop. And talk about color! Did you ever see wine and scarlet and gold blend and shade nicer than this?”
She shook her head. ”Unless it was in a Puget Sound cloud effect at sunset. That is what it reminds me of; a handful of Puget Sound sunset.”
The station master laughed softly. ”That's about it, sure. Now taste one and tell me what the flavor of a Wenatchee Jonathan is like. No, that's not quite ripe; try this.”
She set her small white teeth in the crimson cheek and tested the flavor deliberately, with the gravity of an epicure, while the boy watched her, his whole nervous frame keyed by her responsiveness to high pitch. ”It's like nothing else in the world,” she said finally. ”No, wait, yes, it is.
It's like condensed wine; a blend of the best; golden Angelica, red port, amber champagne, with just enough of old-fas.h.i.+oned cider to remind you it is an apple.”
The station master laughed again. ”Say, but you've got it all in, fine.”
He set the basket at her feet and stood looking down at her an uncertain moment. ”I would like awfully well to send you a box,” he added, and the flush of his bellflower was reflected in his cheek.
She gave him a swift upward glance and turned her face to the desert.
”Thank you, but when one is traveling, it is hard to give a certain address.” In the pause that followed, she glanced again and smiled. ”I would like one or two of these samples, though, if you can spare them,”
she compromised; ”I shall be thirsty on that mountain road.”
”I can spare all you'll take.”