CHAPTER XXVI
THE WAYS OF MR. GARDNER
Two figures stood regarding Doctor Barnes as his car turned into thewillow lane out-bound for the highway.
"Why didn't he say good-by, anyways, when he left?" commented Wid,turning to Annie Squires. "Went off like he'd forgot something."
"That's his way," replied Annie, rolling down her sleeves. They hadmet as she was passing from the barracks cabin. "He's a live wire,anyways. God knows this country needs them."
"Why, what's the matter with this country?" demanded Wid mildly."Ain't it all right?"
"No, it ain't. Till I come here it was inhabited exclusively withcorpses."
"Well, then?"
"And since then, if it wouldn't of been for the Doctor yonder, you andSim Gage would be setting down here yet and looking at the burnedplaces and saying, 'Well, I wonder how that happened?'"
"Well, if you didn't like this here country, now what made you comehere?" demanded Wid calmly and without resentment.
"You know why I come. That lamb in there was needing me. A fine sightyou'd be, to come a thousand miles to look at! You and him! Say,hanging would be too good for him, and drowning too expensive for you."
"Oh, come now--that's making it a little strong, now, Miss Annie, ain'tit? What have I done to you to make you feel that way? _I_ ain't everadvertised for no wife, have I? Comes to that, I can make just as goodbread as you kin."
"Huh! Is that so!"
"Yes, and cook apricots and bacon, and fry ham as good as you can ifthere was any to fry. Me, I'd be happy if they wasn't no women in thewhole wide world. They're a damn nuisance, anyways, ask me about it."
He was looking out of the corner of his eye at Annie, witnessing herwrath.
"The gall of you!" exclaimed Annie, red of face and with snapping eye."Oh, they're damn nuisances, are they? Well, then, I'll tell you. Ifixed your socks up last night for you. Holes? Gee! Me setting inthere by a bum lamp that you had to strike a match to see where it was.Never again! You can go plumb to, for all of me, henceforth andforever."
"I ain't never going to wear them socks again," said Wid calmly. "I'ma-going to keep them socks for soovenirs. Such darning I never havesaw in my born days. If I couldn't darn better'n that I'd go jump inthe creek. I didn't ask you to darn them socks noways. Spoiled aperfectly good pair of socks for me, that's what you done."
The war light grew strong in Annie's eyes. "You never did need but onepair anyways, all summer. Souvenirs! Why, one pair'd last you yourwhole life. I suppose you wrop things around your feet in the wintertime, like the Rooshians in the factory. Say, you're every way thegrandest little man that ever lived alone by hisself! Well, here'swhere you'll get your chance to be left alone again."
"You ain't gone yet," said Wid calmly.
"What's the reason I ain't, or won't be?"
"Well," said Wid Gardner, reaching down for a straw and moving slowlyover toward a saw horse that stood in the yard, "like enough I won'tlet you go."
"What's that you say?" demanded Annie scoffingly. None the less sheslowly drew over to the end of another saw horse and seated herself."I'll go when I get good and ready."
"Of course, you can't tell much about a woman first few weeks. Theyput on their best airs then. But anyways, I've sort of got reconciledto seeing you around here. I had a po'try book in my house. Like itsays, I first endured seeing you, and then felt sorry for you, andthen----"
"Cut out the poetry stuff," said Annie. "It ain't past noon yet."
"I ain't had time to build my own house over yet. Pianny and all gonenow, though."
"Gee, but you do lie easy," said Annie. "You're the smoothest runningliar I ever did see."
"And all my books and things, and pictures and dishes."
"All of your both two tin plates, huh?"
"And my other suits of clothes, and my bedstead, and my dewingport, andeverything--all, all gone, Miss Squires!"
"Is that so! Oh, sad! sad! You must of been reading some of them mailorder catalogues in your dreams."
"And my cook stove too. I've just been cooking out in the open airwhen I couldn't stand your cooking here no more--out of doors, like Iwas camping out."
"If any sheep herder was ever worse than you two, God help him! Youwasn't one of you fit for her to wipe a foot on,--that doctor least ofall, that got me out here under pretences that she was married happy.And I find her married to that! I wish to God she could see all this,and see you all, for just one minute. Just once, that's all!"
"Yes," said Wid Gardner, suddenly serious. "I know. There ain'tnothing I can do to square it. But all I've got or expect tohave--why, it's free for you to take along and do anything you can forher and your own self, Miss Annie, if you want to, even if you do goaway and leave us.
"But look at my land over there." He swept a long arm toward thewaving grasses of the valley. "I've got my land all clear. She'sworth fifty a acre as she lays, and'll be worth a hundred and fiftywhen I get water out of the creek on to her. I got three hundred andtwenty acres under fence. I been saving the money the Doc's paying mehere.
"Say," he added, presently, "what kind of a place is that Niagry placeI been reading about? Is it far from Cleveland?"
"Not so very," replied Annie to his sudden and irrelevant query.
"It's a great place for young married folks to go and visit, I reckon?I was reading about in a book onct, before my books was burned up.Seems like it was called 'A Chanct Acquaintance.' Ever since, Iallowed I'd go to Niagry on my wedding journey."
"Well," said Annie, judicially, "I been around some, what withfloor-walkers and foremen and men in the factory, but I'm going to saythat when it comes to chanct acquaintances, this here place has got 'emfaded for suddenness! Go on over home and rub your eyes and wake up,man! You're dopy."
"No, I ain't," said Wid. "I'm in a perfectly sane, sound and disposin'mind. You're getting awful sun-burned, but it only makes yougood-lookinger, Miss Annie.
"But now lemme tell you one thing," he went on, "I don't want to seeyou making no more eyes at that corporal in there. Plenty of men inthe Army has run away and left three, four wives at home."
"I don't care nothing about no man's past," said Annie. "They all lookalike to me."
"Well, I can't say that about you. Some ways you're a powerful homelygirl. Your hair's gettin' sunburned around the ends like KarenJensen's. And your eyes--turn around, won't you, so I kin rememberwhat color your eyes is. I sort of forgot, but they ain't much. Notthat I care about it. Women is nothing in my young life."
"Huh! you're eighty if you're a day."
"It's the way I got my hair combed."
Extending a strong right arm she pushed him off the end of the sawhorse. He rose, dusting his trousers calmly. "Oh, dear, I didn'tthink so much sinfulness could be packed in so young a life! But say,Annie, what's the use of fooling? I got to tell you the truth about itsometime. Like on my flour sack: 'Eventual, why not now?' And theplain, plumb truth is, you're the best as well as the pertiest girlthat ever set a foot on Montana dirt."
Annie's face was turned away now.
"Your hair and eyes and teeth, and your way of talking, and your way oftaking hold of things and making a home--haven't you been making a homefer all of us people here? I told you I'd have to tell the truth atlast. Besides, I said I was to blame for everything that's gone wronghere. I was. But I'll give you all I am and all I got to square it,anyways you like."
"Well, anyways," said Annie Squires, drawing a long breath, "I think ifyou took on something, you'd see it through; and you wouldn't pass thebuck if you fell down."
"That's me," said Wid.
"I get you," said Annie.
"You said that to me right out here in broad daylight, in presence ofwitnesses, four hens and a dog."
"I said I understood you. That was all."
Wid Gardner turned to her and looked her squarely, in the eyes. "Notappropry to nothi
ng, neither here nor there, ner bragging none, I'mable to put up as much hay in a day as any two Mormons in the Two ForksValley. In the hay fields of life, it's deeds and not words thatcounts. I read that in a book somewheres."
"Say," he went on, suddenly, "have you noticed how perty the moonlightis on the medders these nights? You reckon it shines that same wayover at Niagry?"
Annie did not answer at the instant. "Well," said she at last, "insome ways this country is a lot like Cleveland. Go on over to your ownhouse, if you've got one, and don't you never speak to me again, solong as you live."
"Well, anyways," said Wid, chuckling, "you didn't really call me asheep man. But listen--I've told you almost the truth abouteverything. Now I got to be going."
"I was _afraid_ you'd be making some break," said Annie Squires. "Iwas _expecting_ you'd do some fool thing or other. I almost _knew_you'd do it. But then----"
"Yes; and but then?"
"But then----" concluded Annie.
The Sagebrusher: A Story of the West Page 26