Part 27 (2/2)
”No. I have a plan. There's enough for one man to do here finis.h.i.+ng the jobs I have laid out, but one of us can very well be spared, and as you have wakened me from my long sleep, and stirred my old bones to life, and as I know best how to travel in this region, I'll take the mule along, and go myself. I have a fancy for traveling by rail again.
You ladies make out a list of all you need, and I'll fill the order, in so far as the stations have the articles. If I can't find the right things at one station, I may at another, even if I go back East for them.”
”Ah, but, Sir Kildene, it is that we have no money. If but we could get from the wagon the great box, there have we enough of things to give us labor for all the winter. It is the lovely lace I make. A little of the thread I have here, but not sufficient for long. So, too, there is my father's violin. It made me much heart pain to leave it--for me, I play a little,--and there is also of cloth such as men wear--not of great quant.i.ty--but enough that I can make for you--something--a little--maybe, Mr. 'Arry he like well some good s.h.i.+rt of wool--as we make for our peasant--Is not?” Harry looked down on his worn gray s.h.i.+rt sleeves, then into her eyes, and on the instant his own fell. She took it for simple embarra.s.sment, and spoke on.
”Yes. To go with us and help us so long and terrible a way, it has made very torn your apparel.”
”It makes that we improve him, could we obtain the box,” said the mother, speaking for the first time that day. Her voice was so deep and full that it was almost masculine, but her modulations were refined and most agreeable.
Amalia laughed for very gladness that her mother at last showed enough interest in what was being said to speak.
”Ah, mamma, to improve--it is to make better the mind--the heart--but of this has Mr. 'Arry no need. Is not, Sir Kildene? I call you always Sir as t.i.tle to n.o.bleness of character. We have, in our country, to inherit t.i.tle, but here to make it of such character. It is well, I think so.”
Poor Larry Kildene had his own moment of embarra.s.sment, but with her swift appreciation of their moods she talked rapidly on, leaving the compliment to fall as it would, and turning their thoughts to the subject in hand. ”But the box, mamma, it is heavy, and it is far down on the terrible plain. If that you should try to obtain it, Sir Kildene: Ah, I cannot!--Even to think of the peril is a hurt in my heart. It must even lie there.”
”And the men 'rouge'--”
”Yes. Of the red men--those Indian--of them I have great fear.”
”The danger from them is past, now. If the road is beyond Cheyenne, it must have reached Laramie or nearly so, and they would hang around the stations, picking up what they can, but the government has them in hand as never before. They would not dare interfere with white men anywhere near the road. I've dreamed of a railroad to connect the two oceans, but never expected to see it in my lifetime. I've taken a notion to go and see it--just to look at it,--to try to be reconciled to it.”
”Reconciled? It is to like it, you mean--Sir Kildene? Is it not _won-n-derful_--the achievement?”
”Oh, yes, the achievement, as you say. But other things will follow, and the plains will no longer keep men at bay. The money grabbers will pour in, and all the sc.u.m of creation will flock toward the setting sun. Then, too, I shall hate to see the wild animals that have their own rights killed in unsportsmanlike manner, and annihilated, as they are wherever men can easily reach them. Men are wasteful and bad. I've seen things in the wild places of the earth--and in the places where men flock together in h.o.a.rds--and where they think they are most civilized, and the result has been what you see here,--a man living alone with a horse for companions.h.i.+p, and the voice of the winds and the falling water to fill his soul. Go to. Go to.”
Larry Kildene rose and stood a moment in the cabin door, then sauntered out in the sun, and off toward the fall. He had need to think a while alone. His companions knew this necessity was on him, and said nothing--only looked at each other, and took up the question of their needs for the winter.
”Mr. 'Arry, is it possible to reach with safety a station? I mean is time yet to go and return before the snows? Here are no deadly wolves as in my own country--but is much else to make dangerous the way.”
”There must be time or he would not propose it. I don't know about the snows here.”
”I have seen that Sir Kildene drinks with most pleasure the coffee, but is little left--or not enough for all--to drink it. My mother and I we drink with more pleasure the tea, and of tea we ourselves have a little. It is possible also I make of things more palatable if I have the sugar, but is very little here. I have searched well, the foods placed here. Is it that Sir Kildene has other places where are such articles?”
”All he has is in the bins against the wall yonder.”
”Here is the key he gave me, and I have look well, but is not enough to last but for one through all the months of winter. Ah, poor man! We have come and eat his food like the wolves of the wild country at home, is not? I have make each day of the coffee for him, yes, a good drink, and for you not so good--forgive,--but for me and my mother, only to pretend, that it might last for him. It is right so. We have gone without more than to have no coffee, and this is not privation.
To have too much is bad for the soul.”
Amalia's mother seemed to have withdrawn herself from them and sat gazing into the smoking logs, apparently not hearing their conversation. Harry King for the second time that day looked in Amalia's eyes. It was a moment of forgetfulness. He had forbidden himself this privilege except when courtesy demanded.
”You forgive--that I put--little coffee in your drink?”
”Forgive? Forgive?”
He murmured questioningly as if he hardly comprehended her meaning, as indeed he did not. His mind was going over the days since first he saw her, toiling to gather enough sagebrush to cook a drop of tea for her father, and striving to conceal from him that she, herself, was taking none, and barely tasting her hard biscuit that there might be enough to keep life in her parents. As she sat before him now, in her worn, mended, dark dress with the wonderful lace at the throat, and her thin hands lying on the crimson-bordered kerchief in her lap,--her fingers playing with the fringe, he still looked in her eyes and murmured, ”Forgive?”
”Ah, Mr. 'Arry, your mind is sleeping and has gone to dream. Listen to me. If one goes to the plain, quickly he must go. I make with haste this naming of things to eat. It is sad we must always eat--eat. In heaven maybe is not so.” She wandered a moment about the cabin, then laughed for the second time. ”Is no paper on which to write.”
”There is no need of paper; he'll remember. Just mention them over.
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