CHAPTER XIV
A WIRE TO JULIA
"I wanted you to tell me something about yourself, Hiram," saidJerkline Jo. "That's why I called you. What a giant of a man you are!Tell me about Wild-cat Hill and the big woods of Mendocino. I've neverbeen so far north in California."
She seated herself on the stool, and Hiram sat cross-legged on thefloor of the freight rack. Ahead the many silvery bells, hung on steelbows over the hames of each of Jo's white beauties, jingled merrily asthe wagon rolled on into the illimitable desert.
Hiram began to talk, and gradually he grew eloquent, for at soul he wasa poet. He told of the grandeur of the big, solemn redwoods, of theice-cold creeks that plunged riotously through the mysteriousfastnesses of great forests. He told of his dead father and mother,asleep forever between the big bull pines on Wild-cat Hill. He told ofhis cramped, starved life, of his hopes and vague ambitions and hisdreams.
She listened silently, deeply interested, her dark eyes glowing uponhim, her chin cupped by a strong brown hand. His simplicity was newand refreshing. Soon she realized that no ordinary mind lay dormantback of the well-formed forehead of this tender-hearted backwoodsman.His talk showed that he had read a great deal and had somehow graspedthe significance of it all. Several times her eyes filled with tearsas she listened; often she smiled understandingly at his quaintconfessions. Presently she asked:
"Hiram, have you any ambition for an education?"
"Yes," he told her. "I've always wanted that, I guess. That's why Iread so much, I s'pose. But there wasn't much chance up there. Ilearned all they could teach me at school--learned it easy. But therewasn't any chance to go farther."
"You've that chance now," she told him softly.
"Do you mean----" He stopped, his lips parted as he gazed into hereyes.
"Just that," she said. "I'll help you. We'll study together. Righthere in my wagon. Your blacks will jog along without you over manystretches in the road from Julia to the camps. Through the mountains,of course, we shall have to be at the jerklines constantly. We'll befour days traveling between Julia and the camps, loaded, and betweentwo and three days returning empty. Only one day of the trip goingwill be over a mountain road. The rest of the time you may ride withme and fight for your education. I'll help you."
"Miss Jo----" There was a lump in Hiram's throat.
"Just Jo, please. No one ever troubles to call me miss, and I don'twant them to."
"I'll do it, then, Jo," said Hiram huskily. "I never dreamed I'd everhave such a chance. And I'll work, too--I'll study night and day. Butwhy--why are you doin' this for me?"
Slowly the rich color mounted to the cheeks Jerkline Jo. "I--I knowhow it is," she said. "I was raised in a gypo camp, and had no chanceuntil late in my teens. Knew nothing but mules and horses until I waseighteen or over--cared for nothing else. And I love them still; butI've grown ambitious to get all that I can from life. I like you,Hiram Hooker. You're a big, clean-minded, simple-souled man. I'llhelp you all I can."
Hiram's experience with Lucy Dalles, and now with this splendid girlcalled Jerkline Jo, might have turned the head of a more sophisticatedmale. But the big woods of the North teach a man his insignificance inthe scheme of life, teach him honesty and simplicity of heart andsincerity. So now Hiram Hooker's ego was not inflamed. He had no ideaof his appeal to the other sex. Few women could help admiring such ahandsome young giant as was Hiram, strong as a bull, symmetrical assome sturdy plant; and his drawling, soft voice was a caress thatbespoke the kindly heart of a child and the tenderness of a woman.Withal he had a poet's soul, and all women love poetry in a man.
"Tell me about Twitter-or-Tweet, and so forth," she begged finally. "Ican't understand that man. Is he a pure fake?"
"I don't know," Hiram replied. "He was mighty good to me in a way.He's been about a heap."
"Hiram, if you'll pardon me, we'll begin your lesson right now. Iwouldn't say a 'heap.' You must try to overcome such colloquialisms."
"I'll try never to say it again," Hiram promised unblushingly.
"But listen," she added. "Don't take me to task if you hear me sayingthings in the vernacular of the railroad grade. I have to. As GypoJo, I know thousands of the old-timers, and they expect certain thingsof me for old times' sake. As Jerkline Jo, the situation will be muchthe same. I am obliged to be a mixer. Men whose friendship I couldnot afford to dispense with even if I wished to--which, I assure you, Ido not--won't stand for a high-and-mighty attitude in me. I am of therailroad grade, and proud of it, and I must continue to be a part ofthe rough-and-ready frontier life. Hiram, I suppose your ideas ofwomanhood are very hallowed. Will you be greatly shocked when you seeme go into a tent saloon and drink a glass of beer with the rabble ofthe big camps?"
"Do you do that?"
"I simply have to, Hiram. Ever since I was knee-high to you, until avery few years ago, I lived with one or more tent saloons within astone's throw of our camp. Morals are, after all, a local conception,Hiram. What is thought to be wrong in one country will be the acceptedpractice just over the border line. It's all in the viewpoint. I notonly go into saloons with men friends of mine, but sometimes I playpoker or roulette or faro just to please them. And listen: Never inall my rough-and-ready life in railroad camps have I been insulted byregular stiffs, as the laborers are called. Certain outsiders havemisunderstood my freedom from conventionality on several occasions, butalways to their sorrow. Understand, I don't care the snap of my fingerfor beer, or to gamble; but these things will be expected of me now asin the old days when I knew no better, and I dare not assume a superiorattitude toward people who have known me since I was found, a merebaby, half buried by the desert sands."
She told Hiram about her childhood then, and that she knew nothing ofher parents, not even her own true name. Hiram gave ear eagerly to herstory, and thought he understood her situation.
"I couldn't think anything wrong of you, ma'am,' he told her gently asshe finished.
"And don't call me 'ma'am,' please," she corrected with a friendlysmile. "And that reminds me that I made us wander from the subject ofTwitter-or-Tweet. You were telling me about him when I interrupted.What is he? He's not a common tramp--a stiff."
"He says he's a promoter and capitalist," Hiram repeated.
"Of course he's talking nonsense."
Hiram then told of Mr. Tweet's card, which promulgated his operationsas a salesman of banana lands, and of the stock he claimed to own inthe new ditch digger.
"I thought perhaps he was some sort of a book agent," said the girl,laughing.
"I don't know much about people," Hiram confessed with naivesimplicity. "I can't judge folks very well--some folks, anyway."
"I'm afraid he's a wind bag," decided Jo. "Well, we'll befriend him tothe grade, anyway, and I guess that then he'll be obliged to shift forhimself. If freight were moving freely, and every day, I might manageto use him--but that won't be the case at first. So we'll have to bidhim good-by at the camps. I have an idea he can take care of himself."
Jerkline Jo glanced at her leather-protected wrist watch.
"It's eight minutes of twelve, Hiram," she announced. "I'll roll outmy biscuit dough. Can you yell? If so, shout ahead to Blink Keddieand call a halt for noon."
Hiram rose to his six feet one and cupped his great hands about hismouth. The mellow call that he sent out had rung through miles ofMendocino forest, and now caused every skinner in the line to turn andlook back. A wave of Jo's hand and they understood the noon had come.
When they were in camp, and the teams had been fed and watered from thegreat tank wagon, and Jerkline Jo, with the able help ofTwitter-or-Tweet, had made ready the steaming meal, there arose loudpraise of the girl's idea concerning the fireless cooker.
"By golly, Jo, this here's grub!" applauded Jim McAllen. "Some scheme,ol'-timer!"
"I thought it was a kind of a nutty idea when you sprung it, Jo,"confessed Tom Gulick, "but I'm st
rong for the cooker now. Long may shewave! Pass the gravy, Blink."
Jerkline Jo glowed with pleasure over her success.
Mr. Tweet made himself very useful by acting as waiter, and hoppedabout with pots and pans, leading the steaming food on the skinners'plates. Jo watched him with interest, but still was unable to considerhim anything but an imaginative failure--a man who perhaps had seenbetter days.
When they had finished eating, he collected the dishes, and, as waterwas heating on the oil stove, had everything washed up and in its placebefore the resumption of their travel.
"He's clean and neat and thoughtful," Jerkline Jo reflected. "PerhapsI'll be able to use him after all. We could use an extra man asroustabout, if business gets good. I'll see. He seems so fond ofHiram, and, really, if it weren't for him, I'd never heard of Hiram."
She grew thoughtful then, and a trace of red showed under her brownskin. Why had she become so interested in this big countryman from thevery start, she wondered.
It was a long, tiresome trip, and days before they reached theirtemporary destination Hiram Hooker was riding in Jo's wagon, deep inhistory and algebra and grammar, for Jo had with her all of herschoolbooks.
The days seemed short to both of them. As the magnificent whitesplodded steadily on, there was added to the music of the nickeled bellsthe rapid clicking of Jo at the portable typewriter, or the slower,hesitating peck of Hiram Hooker. They were a silent pair, for theywere deep in their studies.
Strange indeed was the picture they presented as they were moved slowlyalong under the hot desert sky. But for Hiram, at least, this was thebeginning of everything. Some magic touch had set him on the road thatfor years he had longed to travel--the road to knowledge and a betterlife. Beside him rode the adventure girl who had been beckoning himout of the woods of doubt and ignorance, the girl who had colored hisdreams up on lonely Wild-cat Hill.
Hiram quickly became a favorite with Jo's skinners, too; for anybody oranything that the girl approved of was sure to make an appeal to theloyal little crew who swore by Jerkline Jo. Besides, Hiram wasirresistible in his quaint geniality and his musical drawl. Theycalled him "Wild Cat" at first, but when they considered his hugenessand uniform good nature the name seemed a misnomer; so they amended itand called him "The Gentle Wild Cat." This moniker clung to HiramHooker through all of his subsequent life in the desert.
The seventh day after their start, at evening, they rolled into Juliaand set the populace agog with speculation.
As the whites passed the depot the station master came out.
"Does a fella named Jerkline Jo belong to this outfit?" he asked,walking along beside Jo's wagon.
"I'm Jerkline Jo," she told him.
"You! Huh! Well, there's a wire for you. I'll run and get it."
Jo called to her ten whites to halt, and the wagon came to a rest. Aminute later the yellow paper was in her hands. She read:
Twenty tons awaiting you at Mulligan Supply Company, Julia. Get it over the mountains at once to Breece Brothers, Hunter & Stevenson, and Washburn-Stokes. Drummond's trucks are coming. You are in for a stiff fight. Good luck. DEMAREST.
The She Boss: A Western Story Page 14