by O. Henry
"Those Hammersmiths," went on Octavia, in her sweetest society prattle, after subduing an intense desire to yank a handful of sunburnt, sandy hair from the head lying back contentedly against the canvas of the steamer chair, "had too much money. Mines, wasn't it? It was something that paid something to the ton. You couldn't get a glass of plain water in their house. Everything at that ball was dreadfully overdone."
"It was," said Teddy.
"Such a crowd there was!" Octavia continued, con- scious that she was talking the rapid drivel of a school- girl describing her first dance. "The balconies were as warm as the rooms. I -- lost -- something at that ball." The last sentence was uttered in a tone calculated to remove the barbs from miles of wire.
"So did I," confessed Teddy, in a lower voice.
"A glove," said Octavia, falling back as the enemy approached her ditches.
"Caste," said Teddy, halting his firing line without loss. "I hobnobbed, half the evening with one of Hammersmith's miners, a fellow who kept his hands in his pockets, and talked like an archangel about reduction plants and drifts and levels and sluice-boxes."
"A pearl-gray glove, nearly new," sighed Octavia, mournfully.
"A bang-up chap, that McArdle," maintained Teddy approvingly. " A man who hated olives and elevators; a man who handled mountains as croquettes, and built tunnels in the air; a man who never uttered a word of silly nonsense in his life. Did you sign those lease- renewal applications yet, madama? They've got to be on file in the land office by the thirty-first."
Teddy turned his head lazily. Octavia's chair was vacant.
A certain centipede, crawling along the lines marked out by fate, expounded the situation. It was early one morning while Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre were trim- ming the honeysuckle on the west gallery. Teddy had risen and departed hastily before daylight in response to word that a flock of ewes had been scattered from their bedding ground during the night by a thunder-storm.
The centipede, driven by destiny, showed himself on the floor of the gallery, and then, the screeches of the two women giving him his cue, he scuttled with all his yellow legs through the open door into the furthermost west room, which was Teddy's. Arming themselves with domestic utensils selected with regard to their length, Octavia and Mrs. Maclntyre, with much clutching of skirts and skirmishing for the position of rear guard in the attacking force, followed.
Once outside, the centipede seemed to have disappeared, and his prospective murderers began a thorough but cautious search for their victim.
Even in the midst of such a dangerous and absorbing adventure Octavia was conscious of an awed curiosity on finding herself in Teddy's sanctum. In that room he sat alone, silently communing with those secret thoughts that he now shared with no one, dreamed there whatever dreams he now called on no one to interpret.
It was the room of a Spartan or a soldier. In one corner stood a wide, canvas-covered cot; in another, a small bookcase; in another, a grim stand of Winchesters and shotguns. An immense table, strewn with letters, papers and documents and surmounted by a set of pigeon- holes, occupied one side.
The centipede showed genius in concealing himself in such bare quarters. Mrs. Maclntyre was poking a broom-handle behind the bookcase. Octavia approached Teddy's cot. The room was just as the manager had left it in his hurry. The Mexican maid had not yet given it her attention. There was his big pillow with the imprint of his head still in the centre. She thought the horrid beast might have climbed the cot and hidden itself to bite Teddy. Centipedes were thus cruel and vindictive toward managers.
She cautiously overturned the pillow, and then parted her lips to give the signal for reinforcements at sight of a long, slender, dark object lying there. But, repressing it in time, she caught up a glove, a pearl-gray glove, flattened -- it might be conceived -- by many, many months of nightly pressure beneath the pillow of the man who had forgotten the Hammersmiths' ball. Teddy must have left so hurriedly that morning that he had, for once, forgotten to transfer it to its resting-place by day. Even managers, who are notoriously wily and cunning, are sometimes caught up with.
Octavia slid the gray glove into the bosom of her sum- mery morning gown. It was hers. Men who put them- selves within a strong barbed-wire fence, and remember Hammersmith balls only by the talk of miners about sluice- boxes, should not be allowed to possess such articles.
After all, what a paradise this prairie country was! How it blossomed like the rose when you found things that were thought to be lost! How delicious was that morning breeze coming in the windows, fresh and sweet with the breath of the yellow ratama blooms! Might one not stand, for a minute, with shining, far-gazing eyes, and dream that mistakes might be corrected?
Why was Mrs. Maclntyre poking about so absurdly with a broom?
"I've found it," said Mrs. MacIntyre, banging the door. "Here it is."
"Did you lose something? asked Octavia, with sweetly polite non-interest.
"The little devil!" said Mrs. Maclntyre, driven to violence. "Ye've no forgotten him alretty?"
Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he rewarded for his agency toward the recovery of things lost at the Hammersmiths' ball.
It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the glove, and when he returned to the house at sunset made a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until evening, upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was upon the hand that he had thought lost to him forever, and so he was moved to repeat certain nonsense that he had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy's fences were down.
This time there was no ambition to stand in the way, and the wooing was as natural and successful as should be between ardent shepherd and gentle shepherdess.
The prairies changed to a garden. The Rancho de las Sombras became the Ranch of Light.
A few days later Octavia received a letter from Mr. Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of the letter ran as follows:
"I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take up your residence upon it, it was discovered that Colonel Beaupree's title was worthless. A deed came to light showing that he disposed of the property before his death. The matter was reported to your manager, Mr. Westlake, who at once repurchad the property. It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg you that will at once confer with that gentleman, who will, at least, corroborate my statement."
Octavia sought Teddy, with battle in her eye.
"What are you working on this ranch for?" she asked once more.
"One hundred -- " he began to repeat, but saw in her face that she knew. She held Mr. Bannister's letter in her hand. He knew that the game was up.
"It's my ranch," said Teddy, like a schoolboy detected in evil. "It's a mighty poor manager that isn't able to absorb the boss's business if you give him time."
"Why were you working down here?" pursued Octavia still struggling after the key to the riddle of Teddy.
"To tell the truth, 'Tave," said Teddy, with quiet candour, "it wasn't for the salary. That about kept me in cigars and sunburn lotions. I was sent south by my doctor. 'Twas that right lung that was going to the bad on account of over-exercise and strain at polo and gym- nastics. I needed climate and ozone and rest and things of that sort."
In an instant Octavia was close against the vicinity of the affected organ. Mr. Bannister's letter fluttered to the floor.
"It's -- it's well now, isn't it, Teddy?"
"Sound as a mesquite chunk. I deceived you in one thing. I paid fifty thousand for your ranch as soon as I found you had no title. I had just about that much income accumulated at my banker's while I've been herding sheep down here, so it was almost like picking the thing up on a bargain-counter for a penny. There's another little surplus of unearned increment piling up there, 'Tave. I've been thinking of a wedding trip in a yacht with white ribbons tied to the ma
st, through the Mediterranean, and then up among the Hebrides and down Norway to the Zuyder Zee."
"And I was thinking," said Octavia, softly, "of a wedding gallop with my manager among the flocks of sheep and back to a wedding breakfast with Mrs. Mae- Intyre on the gallery, with, maybe, a sprig of orange blossom fastened to the red jar above the table."
Teddy laughed, and began to chant:
"Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, And doesn't know where to find 'em. Let 'em alone, and they'll come home, And -- "
Octavia drew his head down, and whispered in his ear, But that is one of the tales they brought behind them.
THE END
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