OWEN WISTER Ultimate Collection: Western Classics, Adventure & Historical Novels (Including Non-Fiction Historical Works). Owen Wister
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Newton. "Faneuil's next," he said aloud in the car, as the long-forgotten home-knowledge shone forth in his recollection. The traveller seated near said, "Beg pardon?" but, turning, wondered at the all-unconscious Lin, with his forehead pressed against the glass. The blue water flashed into sight, and soon after they were running in the darkness between high walls; but the cow-puncher never moved, though nothing could be seen. When the porter announced "Boston," he started up and followed like a sheep in the general exodus. Down on the platform he moved along with the slow crowd till some one touched him, and, wheeling round, he seized both his brother's hands and swore a good oath of joy.
There they stood—the long, brown fellow with the silk handkerchief knotted over his flannel shirt, greeting tremendously the spruce civilian, who had a rope-colored mustache and bore a fainthearted resemblance to him. The story was plain on its face to the passers-by; and one of the ladies who had come in the car with Lin turned twice, and smiled gently to herself.
But Frank McLean's heart did not warm. He felt that what he had been afraid of was true; and he saw he was being made conspicuous. He saw men and women stare in the station, and he saw them staring as he and his Western brother went through the streets. Lin strode along, sniffing the air of Boston, looking at all things, and making it a stretch for his sleek companion to keep step with him. Frank thought of the refined friends he should have to introduce his brother to; for he had risen with his salary, and now belonged to a small club where the paying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk at the Parker House was president. Perhaps he should not have to reveal the cow-puncher to these shining ones. Perhaps the cow-puncher would not stay very long. Of course he was glad to see him again, and he would take him to dine at some obscure place this first evening. But this was not Lin's plan. Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House. Frank demurred, saying it was he that should be host.
"And," he added, "they charge up high for wines at Parker's." Then for the twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother's clothes.
"You're goin' to take your grub with me," said Lin. "That's all right, I guess. And there ain't any 'no' about it. Things is not the same like as if father was livin'—(his voice softened)—and here to see me come home. Now I'm good for several dinners with wines charged up high, I expect, nor it ain't nobody in this world, barrin' just Lin McLean, that I've any need to ask for anything. 'Mr. McLean,' says I to Lin, 'can yu' spare me some cash?' 'Why, to be sure, you bet!' And we'll start off with steamed Duxbury clams." The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, where the coin made a muffled chinking. Then he said, gruffly, "I suppose Swampscott's there yet?"
"Yes," said Frank. "It's a dead little town, is Swampscott."
"I guess I'll take a look at the old house tomorrow," Lin pursued.
"Oh, that's been pulled down since—I forget the year they improved that block."
Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of the first and last home they had ever had.
"Seventy-nine is when it was," continued Frank. "So you can save the trouble of travelling away down to Swampscott."
"I guess I'll go to the graveyard, anyway," said the cow-puncher in his offish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him.
They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasily surveyed the younger's appearance.
But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin. "After to-morrow," said he, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder, "yu' can start any lead yu' please, and I guess I can stay with yu' pretty close, Frank."
Frank said nothing. He saw one of the members of his club on the other side of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught diverted amazement on the member's face. Lin's hand weighed on his shoulder, and the stress became too great. "Lin," said he, "while you're running with our crowd, you don't want to wear that style of hat, you know."
It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, but not in the way that these were said. The frozen fact was irrevocably revealed in the tone of Frank's voice.
The cow-puncher stopped dead short, and his hand slid off his brother's shoulder. "You've made it plain," he said, evenly, slanting his steady eyes down into Frank's. "You've explained yourself fairly well. Run along with your crowd, and I'll not bother yu' more with comin' round and causin' yu' to feel ashamed. It's a heap better to understand these things at once, and save making a fool of yourself any longer 'n yu' need to. I guess there ain't no more to be said, only one thing. If yu' see me around on the street, don't yu' try any talk, for I'd be liable to close your jaw up, and maybe yu'd have more of a job explainin' that to your crowd than you've had makin' me see what kind of a man I've got for a brother."
Frank found himself standing alone before any reply to these sentences had occurred to him. He walked slowly to his club, where a friend joked him on his glumness.
Lin made a sore failure of amusing himself that night; and in the bright, hot morning he got into the train for Swampscott. At the graveyard he saw a woman lay a bunch of flowers on a mound and kneel, weeping.
"There ain't nobody to do that for this one," thought the cow-puncher, and looked down at the grave he had come to see, then absently gazed at the woman.
She had stolen away from her daily life to come here where her grief was shrined, and now her heart found it hard to bid the lonely place goodbye. So she lingered long, her thoughts sunk deep in the motionless past. When she at last looked up, she saw the tall, strange man re-enter from the street among the tombs, and deposit on one of them an ungainly lump of flowers. They were what Lin had been able hastily to buy in Swampscott. He spread them gently as he had noticed the woman do, but her act of kneeling he did not imitate. He went away quickly. For some hours he hung about the little town, aimlessly loitering, watching the salt water where he used to swim.
"Yu' don't belong any more, Lin," he miserably said at length, and took his way to Boston.
The next morning, determined to see the sights, he was in New York, and drifted about to all places night and day, till his money was mostly gone, and nothing to show for it but a somewhat pleasure-beaten face and a deep hatred of the crowded, scrambling East. So he suddenly bought a ticket for Green River, Wyoming, and escaped from the city that seemed to numb his good humor.
When, after three days, the Missouri lay behind him and his holiday, he stretched his legs and took heart to see out of the window the signs of approaching desolation. And when on the fourth day civilization was utterly emptied out of the world, he saw a bunch of cattle, and, galloping among them, his spurred and booted kindred. And his manner took on that alertness a horse shows on turning into the home road. As the stage took him toward Washakie, old friends turned up every fifty miles or so, shambling out of a cabin or a stable, and saying, in casual tones, "Hello, Lin, where've you been at?"
At Lander, there got into the stage another old acquaintance, the Bishop of Wyoming. He knew Lin at once, and held out his hand, and his greeting was hearty.
"It took a week for my robes to catch up with me," he said, laughing. Then, in a little while, "How was the East?"
"First-rate," said Lin, not looking at him. He was shy of the conversation's taking a moral turn. But the bishop had no intention of reverting—at any rate, just now—to their last talk at Green River, and the advice he had then given.
"I trust your friends were all well?" he said.
"I guess they was healthy enough," said Lin.
"I suppose you found Boston much changed? It's a beautiful city."
"Good enough town for them that likes it, I expect," Lin replied.
The bishop was forming a notion of what the matter must be, but he had no notion whatever of what now revealed itself.
"Mr. Bishop," the cow-puncher said, "how was that about that fellow you told about that's in the Bible somewheres?—he come home to his folks, and they—well there was his father saw him comin'"—He stopped, embarrassed.
Then the bishop remembered the wide-open eyes, and how he had noticed