The "Wild West" Collection. William MacLeod Raine
Читать онлайн книгу.
that could possibly be towed up the river," he said. "But it is all right, my boy. I would never have thought of half that stuff, but I've no doubt they will all be of use, and 'Tana will thank you."
"How soon do you expect she will be able to walk, or be moved?" asked Mr. Haydon of the doctor.
"Oh, in two or three weeks, if nothing interferes with her promised recovery. She is a pretty sick girl; but I think her good constitution will help her on her feet by that time."
"And by that time I will be back here," said Haydon, addressing Lyster.
He took a sealed envelope from an inner pocket and gave it to the young fellow.
"When she gets well enough to read that, give it to her, Max," he said, in a low tone. "It's something that may surprise her a little, so I trust your discretion as to when she is to see it. From what I hear of her, she must be a rather level-headed, independent little girl. And as I have something to tell her worth her knowing, I have decided to leave the letter. Now, don't look so puzzled. When I come back she will likely tell you what it means, but you may be sure it is no bad news I send her. Will you attend to it?"
"Certainly. But I don't understand--"
"And there is no need for you to understand--just yet. Take good care of her, and help Overton in all possible ways to look after our interests here. There will be a great deal to see to until Seldon or I can get back."
"Oh, Dan is a host in himself," said Lyster. "He won't want me in his way when it comes to managing his men. But I can help Flap-Jacks carry water, or help old Akkomi smoke, for he comes here each day for just that purpose--that and his dinner--so never fear but that I will make myself useful."
Miss Slocum from the cabin doorway--the door was a blanket--watched the canoe skim down the little stream, and sighed dolefully when it disappeared entirely.
"Now, Lavina," remonstrated Mrs. Huzzard, "I do hope that you ain't counting on making part of the next load that leaves here; for now that you have got here, I'd hate the worst kind to lose you. Gold mines are fine things to live alongside of, I dare say; but I crave some human beings within hail--yes, indeed."
"Exactly my own feelings, Cousin Lorena," admitted Miss Slocum, "and I regret the departure of any member of our circle--all except the Indians. I really do not think that any amount of living among them would teach me to feel lonely at their absence. And that dreadful Akkomi!"
"Yes, isn't he a trial? Not that he ever does any harm; but he just keeps a body in mortal dread, for fear he might take a notion to."
"Yet Mr. Overton seems to think him entirely friendly."
"Humph! yes. But if 'Tana should pet a rattlesnake, Mr. Overton would trust it. That's just how constant he is to his friends."
"Well, now," said Miss Lavina, with mild surprise in her tone, "I really have seen nothing in his manner that would indicate any extreme liking for the girl, though she is his ward. Now, that bright young gentleman, Mr. Lyster--"
"Tut, tut, Lavina! Max Lyster is all eyes and hands for her just now. He will fan her and laugh with her; but it will be Dan who digs for her and takes the weight of her care on his shoulders, even if he never says a word about it. That is just Dan Overton's way."
"And a very fine way it is, Lorena," said Miss Slocum, while her eyes wandered out to where he stood talking to Lyster. "I've met many men of fine manners in my time, but I never was more impressed at first sight by any person than by him when he conducted me personally to you on my arrival. The man had never heard my name before, yet he received me as if this camp had been arranged on purpose for my visit, and that he himself had been expecting me. If that did not contain the very essence of fine manners, I never saw any, Lorena Jane."
"I--I s'pose it does, Lavina," agreed Mrs. Huzzard; "though I never heard any one go on much about his manners before. And as for me--well," and she looked a bit embarrassed, "I ain't the best judge myself. I've had such a terrible hard tussle to make a living since my man died, that I hain't had time to study fine manners. I'll have time enough before long, I suppose, for Dan Overton surely has offered me liberal living wages. But, Lavina, even if I did want to learn now, I wouldn't know where to commence."
"Well, Lorena, since you mention it, there is lots of room for improvement in your general manner. You've been with careless people, I suppose, and bad habits are gathered that way. Now I never was much of a genius--couldn't trim a bonnet like you to save my life; but I did have a most particular mother; and she held that good manners was a recommendation in any land. So, even if her children had no fortune left them, they were taught to show they had careful bringing up. One of my ideas in coming out here was that I might teach deportment in some Indian school, but not much of that notion is left me. Could I ever teach Flap-Jacks to quit scratching her head in the presence of ladies and gentlemen? No."
"I don't think," said Mrs. Huzzard, in a meditative way, "that I mind the scratching so much as I do the dratted habit she has of carrying the dish-cloth under her arm when she don't happen to be using it. That just wears on my nerves, it does. But I tell you what it is, Lavina--if you are kind of disappointed on account of not getting Indian scholars that suit just yet, I'm more than half willing you should teach me the deportment, if you'd be satisfied with one big white scholar instead of a lot of little red ones."
"Yes, indeed, and glad to do it," said Miss Slocum, frankly. "Your heart is all right, Lorena Jane; but a warm heart will not make people forget that you lean your elbow on the table and put your food into your mouth with your knife. Such things jar on other people just as Flap-Jacks and the dish-cloth jar on you. Don't you understand? But your desire to improve shows that you are a very remarkable woman, Lorena, for very few people are willing to learn new habits after having followed careless ones for forty years."
"Thirty-nine," corrected Lorena Jane, showing that, however peculiar and remarkable her wisdom might be in some directions, it did not prevent a natural womanly feeling regarding the number of years she had lived.
"You see," she continued, after a little, as Miss Lavina kept a discreet silence, "this here gold fever is catching; and if any one gets started on the right track, there is no telling what day he may stumble over a fortune. One might come my way--or yours, Lavina. And, just as you say, fine manners is a heap of help in sassiety. And thinking of it that way makes me feel I'd like to be prepared to enjoy, in first-class style, any amount of money I might get a chance at up here. For I tell you what it is, Lavina, this Western land is a woman's country. Her chances in most things are always as good, and mostly better than a man's."
"Yes, if she does not die from fright at the creepy looks of the friendly Indians," said Miss Slocum, with a shivering breath. "I have not slept sound for a single minute since I saw that old smoking wretch who never seems a rod from this cabin. Now down there at Sinna Ferry I thought it might be kind of nice, though we stopped only a little while, and I was not up in the street. Any real genteel people there?"
"Well--yes, there is," answered Lorena Jane, after a slight hesitation as to just how much it would be wise to say of the genteel gentleman who resided in Sinna Ferry, and was in her eyes a model of culture and disdainful superiority. Indeed, that disdain of his had been a first cause in her desire to reach the state of polish he himself enjoyed--to rise above the vulgar level of manners that had of old seemed good enough to her. "Yes, there is some high-toned folks there; the doctor's wife and family, for one; and then there is a very genteel man there--Captain Leek. He is an ex-officer in the late war, you know; a real military gentleman, with a wound in his leg. Limps some, but not enough to make him awkward. He keeps the postoffice. But if this Government looked after its heroes as it ought to, he'd be getting a good pension--that's just what he would. I'm too sound a Union woman not to feel riled at times when I see the defenders of the Constitution go unrewarded."
"Don't say 'riled,' Lorena," corrected Miss Slocum. "You must drop that and 'dratted' and 'I'll swan'; for I don't think you could tell what any of them mean. I couldn't, I'm sure. But I used to know a family of Leeks back in Ohio. They were Democrats, though, and their boys joined the Confederate Army, though I heard they wasn't much good to the cause. But of course it is not likely to be one of them."
"I