The Able McLaughlins

by Margaret Wilson

  They had reason to think so. Johnnie prepared for action. He pursed up his red lips. He looked around upon his admirers, complacently, happily. All eyes were upon him. He let them wait a moment. Then he manipulated his lips more earnestly. The great moment was at hand.

  “Pr-r-r-r-r!” he articulated proudly. “Pr-r-r!”

  Various aunties dived for him, rewarding him with laughter and huggings, enthusiastically. Was there ever so silly a baby, ever a bairn so lovable, they asked. It occurred to Wully casually that perhaps the secure son of Wully McLaughlin was a more fortunate being than the unfathered off-spring of Peter Keith would have been.

  CHAPTER XX

  THE corn was husked. The year’s work in the fields was over. Wully had sold from sixty of the acres for which his father had paid two hundred and ten dollars in sixty-four, wheat worth three thousand and sixty dollars. He had his house all paid for now. He owned three hundred acres of land, some of it a bit farther west, where a bushel of wheat still bought an acre of the faithful soil. His little pines had grown steadily, and his orchard, now that the grasses and weeds were frosted, was visible to the naked eye from the house, a lot of little switches ready to stand bravely against the gales. Everything prospered with him. Everything, except for that shadow of evil that clouded their lives hatefully. Every day Wully’s mind dwelt futilely upon the problem of Peter Keith’s fate. And Chirstie’s eyes, he observed, still shifted apprehensively under their tender lids.

  And what was he to do now, when he must go to the timber for his winter’s supply of wood? When he must leave early in the morning, and return at nightfall? He couldn’t leave her alone. He had remarked to one neighbor and another that he wanted some man to bring his wood home for hire. But he found no man willing to do his work. Chirstie would have to take the baby and go to her father’s or his mother’s. She didn’t want to do that. Either Wully would have to take her back and forth daily—and that was a difficult thing under the circumstances—or else she would have to stay away for days together, and then Wully would come home to a cold house and no food ready. They dreaded those days.

  He finished the corn on a Wednesday, and on Thursday they were to have a great lark. They were to go to town together for the first time. He had a wagonload of prairie chickens to sell, which ought to bring at least ten dollars—silly birds he had caught almost without effort as he husked his corn. Everything was ready. For one day they would put aside all their misgivings, and be happy together. They were enjoying what seemed to be a second Indian summer, bland days for riding across the country. And there was that spring-seat ready for Chirstie’s comfort. Moreover, she was to have a new coat. Wully had wanted to get her one the fall before, but she had said that there were so many things that they had to buy for their house that they really couldn’t afford the coat. She still protested that she really didn’t need it. But Wully was the more determined because he suspected she wore her mother’s old wrap for the principle of the thing. As if she needed to act humble! He wouldn’t have it!

  The store in which they found the right coat finally was narrow and dark and full of dull necessities, mittens and milk-crocks, grim boots, and grimmer tobacco. Wully hated the clerk the moment he saw him fix upon Chirstie eyes that narrowed expressively. Nevertheless, the odious man brought out from some dark recess behind the main room the very garment they were searching for.

  “Put this on,” he urged familiarly. She put it on. It was a green thing, so dark a green it was almost black, and rich-looking, short in front, and falling, mantle-wise, well down over her skirts behind. It had rich fringe on it, and intricate frogs for fastenings. Wully would have forestalled the clerk, and buttoned it for her, but his fingers were awkward and helpless in such a task. So the man did it, standing as near her as he dared. But when she stood forth arrayed, Wully’s annoyance was forgotten. He heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

  He saw again with surprise how garments change women. She was scarcely the same being who had walked in, in that faded old dingy wrap. This coat was made for her, beyond a doubt. She asked the price.

  “Sixteen dollars.”

  She sighed and began undoing it. She would look at some others, she said. The man left them.

  “Don’t you like it?” demanded Wully.

  “It’s too fine for me. Sixteen dollars!” she commented.

  “It’s not too fine. It’s becoming, Chirstie!”

  “But sixteen dollars!” she exclaimed, as if that settled the matter.

  “Ah, sixteen dollars isn’t going to break us up!” Wully urged, determinedly. “It’s a grand coat. It’s nobby.” He was at a loss to express his admiration for the garment. He only felt vaguely that it looked like Glasgow.

  “But sixteen dollars, Wully! The idea!”

  “You’ll have it, anyway.”

  “I will not!” She was indignant. “Why, Wully, your coat, your overcoat was only ten last winter!”

  “But I hadn’t any red dress to match. Nor any feather!”

  The man had come back.

  “If you want something cheap now, for your wife——”

  “I don’t want anything cheap!” said Wully, “We’ll take this.”

  Chirstie stood examining it inside and out. She was wondering what her father would say to such a coat.

  She wore the nobby coat away. Wully carried the old garment. He had been gay, almost hilarious all the morning, ever since selling the prairie chickens so well. And now as he looked at his stunning wife, walking demurely along in such grandeur, his spirits rose higher. He watched people look at her. He chuckled to see them.

  They walked down the busy little street. He left the old coat at the hotel. She saw a shawl she admired, and he wanted to buy it for her. But she was thinking how nice it would be for his mother, a little soft fine shawl like that. He wondered that he hadn’t thought of that himself. They bought the shawl, and went on down the street. They came to a place where tintypes were taken. It came over him like a flash.

  “We’ll go in and have our pictures taken!” he exclaimed.

  “Oh,” she said hesitating. “How much will it cost?”

  “Oh, nothing much!” he exclaimed. He made her go in with him. There was a picture, was there, he was thinking, that made Wee Johnnie look like the son of that snake? Well, there should soon be another that made him look like another man’s son. Chirstie had never had her likeness taken. But Wully had had his made in St. Louis, to be sent to his mother. He knew how to walk in and have the thing done grandly.

  He sat down in a chair, and put the baby on one knee, paternally. On the other knee he spread out a great hand. Chirstie took her place behind him, her hand on his shoulder, her feather curling down over her hat, her new sixteen-dollar coat, her wine-colored skirts showing bravely. And when that was done, he made her sit down with the baby on her knee, for a picture of just the mother and son. And then a further happy thought came to him. He sat down and took the baby, and cuddled his face right up against his own, and demanded a picture.

  “It ain’t usual,” the photographer protested. “I can’t take a picture like that! It ain’t usual!”

  “This ain’t no usual baby!” Wully replied chuckling. Who could have made a statement more paternal than that? “I want his face against mine!” And he got the picture taken that way, in the end.

  They sought the street again. Chirstie was rather overcome by her husband’s grandness. He had such a worldly air—commanding people about. He kept getting more imperious, more happy all the time though he was entirely sober. After a while, when it was growing dusk, he spied a friend on the street, just going into his office.

  “That’s Mr. Knight, Chirstie! You remember! The man that drove me home that time! I’ll take you to see him!” He wanted to show her to everybody.

  They went into an office having not only a kerosene lamp, but a lamp with a rich green shade, most luxurious, most metropolitan-looking. Chirstie was shy, and Mr. Knight puzzled for a moment.


  “I’m McLaughlin,” Wully explained. “The soldier you drove out to Harmony, two years ago. I was sick, you remember!”

  Mr. Knight’s face lighted up with recognition.

  “Come in, McLaughlin!” he said heartily. “I didn’t recognize you! Sit down!” Around a table at one end of the room, men were playing cards, well dressed men, who paused and looked up, and continued looking at the newcomers. A tall wide bookcase screened off one corner into something like a private office and to this Mr. Knight led them.

  “My wife!” Wully said proudly, as he seated them.

  “Your wife? Your baby? Why, it doesn’t seem possible! How the time gets away! And where did you find her?” he asked, so frankly pleased with her appearance that she blushed more deeply than she had at his first remark.

  “She’s from out there! From Harmony.”

  “She is,” he exclaimed. He continued looking at her. “Well, I always said that that was a remarkable country. A remarkable country,” he drawled.

  Wully was delighted. Knight was a man whose opinion was valuable, a prosperous man, a man dressed as men dress in cities, whose interest he felt was not merely assumed for political ends. “How’s your mother?” he went on. He asked about the children, and the crops, and the new town which was to be near them. Finally he said:

  “Well you certainly don’t look much like you did that morning. You were sick. Skin and bones. Do you remember?”

  “Do I remember!” exclaimed Wully. “Will I ever forget!” He turned to his wife. “Chirstie, I was sitting right down there by the elevator, where the sidewalk is built up high, you know. I wasn’t sitting, either, I was lying stretched out, to try to keep from throwing up! I thought I’d seen Jimmy Sproul out there, and I’d ride home with him, and when I hurried up to him, it wasn’t Jimmy at all! It just made me sick! And I was lying there when Mr. Knight came along, and began asking me what was the matter of me. He said he would take me home. ‘How far is it?’ you asked, and when I said twenty-six miles, you said, “Oh! Twenty-six miles! Naturally. That made some difference. My heart sank, as they say. Or maybe it was my breakfast trying to get out. Anyway, I had a pang of some kind. And you said, ‘You wait here!’ And pretty soon along you came with those grays! I tell you I felt better even then. I got better all the way home. Every step. It seemed that morning as if I couldn’t wait another minute to start home!”

  “Naturally!” remarked Mr. Knight, looking again with a smile, at Chirstie.

  “Oh, I didn’t know her then! If I had known her I’d have started home crawling! Have you got those grays yet?” asked Wully, suddenly curious.

  “No, I haven’t.” The man smiled reminiscently. “I wish I had, sometimes. A Chicago man came along and wanted them. He was determined to have them. I let them go for a half section of land in Lyons County. I wouldn’t have done it,” he added confidently, “only my son had a baby born a day or two before that. I thought the land would be a good thing to keep for the child. How old is this little fellow?” He snapped his fingers invitingly towards the child.

  “Oh, he’s—a year or two. Something like that, isn’t he?” he asked his wife.

  “Tut, tut, McLaughlin! You need experience! When they’re young like that the women count them in months. Don’t they, Mrs. McLaughlin?” he appealed.

  “How old is your grandchild?” Wully parried boldly.

  “Oh, mine’s several months. Mine’s—well, he’s got two teeth already!” And they laughed. Wully hastened to safer ground. If he wasn’t careful, someone might ask him when he was married.

  “I’ll tell you another thing I remember!” he began. “I got in on that night train, that time, you know, and I went to the hotel where we had always stayed. Sick, I was, you know! I told the man—he’d seen me a dozen times before—that I hadn’t the price of a room. He’d had too much. He never even looked to see who I was. Just saw my uniform and began swearing! Wasn’t going to be eaten out of house and home by a lot of begging soldiers, he said. It nearly knocked me over. I went out to the street. And I couldn’t get up face enough to go some place else and ask for a bed, at first. I just sat around. Then finally I went into the Great West—that’s where we all stay now when we come in. And Pierson there almost began swearing at me because I said I’d pay him later. He didn’t take soldiers’ last cent away from them, he said. He saw how I felt, and he went and got some milk toast made for me. And soft boiled eggs. And then, do you know what he did? He went to a room with me, and when he saw the pillows on the bed, he went and got me a pair of good pillows from some place. I hadn’t slept on a pillow for I don’t know how long! A man notices those things when he’s most dead, I tell you! Milk toast, and pillows, by Jiminy! And in the morning he sat and fed me such a lot of breakfast—no wonder I had trouble! I felt as if I’d never get enough to eat.”

  Mr. Knight made him go on talking. They sat there till the street was dark. And then Wully led his wife away, right up to the hotel. And then into the dining room. It seemed lordly to her that dining room—an amazing day—and Wully most lordly and amazing of all. It was like a fine wedding trip, almost, that day.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THEY had breakfasted together before daylight, and he had gone to load the lumber he was taking home for his father, so that they might have a very early start. In the noisy, untidy hotel office she sat watching in surprise the confusion and the stir. There were crowds of women waiting near her, women like herself waiting for wagons to take them on towards the west, women with bundles and babies, and quarreling, crying young children. Chirstie’s face showed how exciting the scene was to her. She looked from group to group. She considered a foreign woman with a handkerchief tied on her head, whose tiny baby coughed and wheezed distressingly. She longed to say something sympathetic to the stolid mother. But she was too shy. Between caring for her own vigorous son, and watching other women’s children, the hour hurried by. Presently she saw her husband drive up, and get out to tie his horses. But before he had started for the hotel door, a stranger accosted him, and with the stranger Wully turned and went down the street. So she waited on. Two sets of youngsters quarreling drew their mothers into the fray, and Chirstie shrank away from their roughness, thoroughly shocked.

  Then, before she had expected him, Wully was standing over her, reaching down for the baby. She scarcely knew him. His face was white. His eyes were shining strangely.

  “What ails you?” she cried. “You’re sick, Wully! What’s the matter?”

  “I’m all right!” he said sharply. His voice quivered with feeling. He couldn’t trust himself to speak. His mouth was set in a hard line.

  She rose and followed him, frightened. She got into the wagon, and he handed her the baby. He climbed up beside her, and they were off. She saw he couldn’t tell her what had happened just there. She could wait—a little.

  They were almost out of town now.

  “Wully, what’s the matter? Are you sick?”

  “I’m all right!”

  She was more anxious than ever. She waited till the baby was asleep in her arms, and then she laid him carefully down in the little box in which Isobel McLaughlin had taken her babies back and forth to town. Then she turned towards her husband with determination. And hesitated. He looked too stern—too fierce. She sat undecided, wretched, glancing quickly at him and then away. After a few perplexed moments, her face darkened with terror.

  “Oh, I know! You’re—you’ve seen him! You were like that on the Fourth!”

  He turned toward her, trying to speak.

  “Yes!” he broke forth. “I saw him dying.”

  “Oh, dying!” She tried to realize it. “Oh, if he’s dying, then we’ll be happy again!”

  He said nothing. His lips worked.

  “I won’t have to be afraid now!” She spoke like one overcome by a great fortune. He had never imagined she had been as unhappy as that cry of hers indicated by its relief.

  “Dying!” she repeated, tasting the sweetness o
f the word. Then, suddenly:

  “How do you know? Where did you see him?”

  She saw his face harden with hatred.

  “Wully, are you sure he’s dying? He isn’t dead yet?”

  “He’s dying all right!”

  After a moment she exclaimed:

  “But how did you find him?”

  “Somebody told me just as I was ready to start home.”

  “Oh, that man! I saw that man speaking to you. How did he know to tell you?”

  “They were looking for someone to take him out home.”

  “Oh, they were!” That seemed to have changed the situation for her.

  “You mean they asked you to bring him out?”

  He didn’t relish her questions.

  “Yes.”

  “And you wouldn’t do it, would you!” She approved. She clasped his arm with both hands. She rejoiced in her assurance.

  His anger flamed again.

  “Likely I’d bring him out with you!”

  “Oh, we’ll be happy now, Wully!”

  But after a minute she stirred uncomfortably. He felt her face grow grave.

  “Where was it you saw him, Wully?”

  “In a livery stable.”

  “In a livery stable!” she repeated. “Dying in such a place!” Dying seemed not so sweet a word now.

  “But why didn’t he send word home before? Think of Aunt Libby, Wully!”

  “He came in on the train last night.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed, enlightened. “He wanted to get home alive!”

  “What’s the matter of him?” she asked again.

  “Hemorrhage,” said Wully, as shortly as it was possible to speak. He wouldn’t tell her how he had seen that snake lying bloody, dirty, sunken helpless on a bed of straw. He urged his horses on.

  She looked at him. He turned away from her troubled eyes.

  After a while;

  “Look here, Wully!” she faltered.