by O. Henry
It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was seized by the inspiration that suggested the name of Mother Goose’s heroine, and he at once bestowed it upon Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him as a peculiarly happy one, and he never tired of using it. The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the name, adding another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity for the final “p,” gravely referring to her as “La Madama Bo-Peepy.” Eventually it spread, and “Madame Bo-Peep’s ranch” was as often mentioned as the “Rancho de las Sombras.”
Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce on the ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater’s dream. Books, hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed interest in her old water-colour box and easel — these disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the wind-swept leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling night-hawk and the startled owl. Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars and sing the weirdest of heart-breaking songs. There were long, cosy chats on the breezy gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and Mrs. MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she was lacking.
And the nights came, one after another, and were filed away by weeks and months — nights soft and languorous and fragrant, that should have driven Strephon to Chloe over wires however barbed, that might have drawn Cupid himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous pastures — but Teddy kept his fences up.
One July night Madame Bo-Peep and her ranch manager were sitting on the east gallery. Teddy had been exhausting the science of prognostication as to the probabilities of a price of twenty-four cents for the autumn clip, and had then subsided into an anesthetic cloud of Havana smoke. Only as incompetent a judge as a woman would have failed to note long ago that at least a third of his salary must have gone up in the fumes of those imported Regalias.
“Teddy,” said Octavia, suddenly, and rather sharply, “what are you working down here on a ranch for?”
“One hundred per,” said Teddy, glibly, “and found.”
“I’ve a good mind to discharge you.”
“Can’t do it,” said Teddy, with a grin.
“Why not?” demanded Octavia, with argumentative heat.
“Under contract. Terms of sale respect all unexpired contracts. Mine runs until 12 P. M., December thirty-first. You might get up at midnight on that date and fire me. If you try it sooner I’ll be in a position to bring legal proceedings.”
Octavia seemed to be considering the prospects of litigation.
“But,” continued Teddy cheerfully, “I’ve been thinking of resigning anyway.”
Octavia’s rocking-chair ceased its motion. There were centipedes in this country, she felt sure; and Indians, and vast, lonely, desolate, empty wastes; all within strong barbed-wire fence. There was a Van Dresser pride, but there was also a Van Dresser heart. She must know for certain whether or not he had forgotten.
“Ah, well, Teddy,” she said, with a fine assumption of polite interest, “it’s lonely down here; you’re longing to get back to the old life — to polo and lobsters and theatres and balls.”
“Never cared much for balls,” said Teddy virtuously.
“You’re getting old, Teddy. Your memory is failing. Nobody ever knew you to miss a dance, unless it occurred on the same night with another one which you attended. And you showed such shocking bad taste, too, in dancing too often with the same partner. Let me see, what was that Forbes girl’s name — the one with wall eyes — Mabel, wasn’t it?”
“No; Adéle. Mabel was the one with the bony elbows. That wasn’t wall in Adéle’s eyes. It was soul. We used to talk sonnets together, and Verlaine. Just then I was trying to run a pipe from the Pierian spring.”
“You were on the floor with her,” said Octavia, undeflected, “five times at the Hammersmiths’.”
“Hammersmiths’ what?” questioned Teddy, vacuously.
“Ball — ball,” said Octavia, viciously. “What were we talking of?”
“Eyes, I thought,” said Teddy, after some reflection; “and elbows.”
“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, conscious 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 trimming 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, an
d 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 summery morning gown. It was hers. Men who put themselves 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 repurchased the property. It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg that 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 gymnastics. 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 mast, 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. MacIntyre 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 TWO WOMEN
This small book was published in 1910 and contains two short stories.
CONTENTS
THE ONE: A FOG IN SANTONE
THE OTHER: A MEDLEY OF MOODS
THE ONE: A FOG IN SANTONE
The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed by the high-turned overcoat collar.
“I would rather not supply you,” he said doubtfully. “I sold you a dozen morphine tablets less than an hour ago.”
The customer smiles wanly. “The fault is in your crooked streets. I didn’t intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I got tangled up. Excuse me.”
He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops under an electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly with three or four little pasteboard boxes. “Thirty-six,” he announces to himself. “More than plenty.” For a gray mist had swept upon Santone that night, an opaque terror that laid a hand to the throat of each of the city’s guests. It was computed that three thousand invalids were hibernating in the town. They had come from far and wide, for here, among these contracted river-sliced streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to linger.
Purest atmosphere, sir, on earth! You might think from the river winding through our town that we are malarial, but, no, sir! Repeated experiments made both by the Government and local experts show that our air contains nothing deleterious — nothing but ozone, sir, pure ozone. Litmus paper tests made all along the river show — but you can read it all in the prospectuses; or the Santonian will recite it for you, word by word.
We may achieve climate, but weather is thrust upon us. Santone, then, cannot be blamed for this cold gray fog that came and kissed the lips of the three thousand, and then delivered them to the cross. That night the tubercles, whose ravages hope holds in check, multiplied. The writhing fingers of the pale mist did not go thence bloodless. Many of the wooers of ozone capitulated with the enemy that night, turning their faces to the wall in that dumb, isolated apathy that so terrifies their watchers. On the red stream of Hemorrhagia a few souls drifted away, leaving behind pathetic heaps, white and chill as the fog itself. Two or three came to view this atmospheric wraith as the ghost of impossible joys, sent to whisper to them of the egregious folly it is to inhale breath into the lungs, only to exhale it again, and these used whatever came handy to their relief, pistols, gas or the beneficent muriate.
The purchaser of the morphia wanders into the fog, and at length, finds himself upon a little iron bridge, one of the score or more in the heart of the city, under which the small tortuous river flows. He leans on the rail and gasps, for here the mist has concentrated, lying like a foot-pad to garrote such of the Three Thousand as creep that way. The iron bridge guys rattle to the strain of his cough, a mocking phthisical rattle, seeming to say to him: “Clickety-clack! ju
st a little rusty cold, sir — but not from our river. Litmus paper all along the banks and nothing but ozone. Clacket-y-clack!”
The Memphis man at last recovers sufficiently to be aware of another overcoated man ten feet away, leaning on the rail, and just coming out of a paroxysm. There is a freemasonry among the Three Thousand that does away with formalities and introductions. A cough is your card; a hemorrhage a letter of credit. The Memphis man, being nearer recovered, speaks first.
“Goodall. Memphis — pulmonary tuberculosis — guess last stages.” The Three Thousand economize on words. Words are breath and they need breath to write checks for the doctors.
“Hurd,” gasps the other. “Hurd; of T’leder. T’leder, Ah-hia. Catarrhal bronkeetis. Name’s Dennis, too — doctor says. Says I’ll live four weeks if I — take care of myself. Got your walking papers yet?”
“My doctor,” says Goodall of Memphis, a little boastingly, “gives me three months.”
“Oh,” remarks the man from Toledo, filling up great gaps in his conversation with wheezes, “damn the difference. What’s months! Expect to — cut mine down to one week — and die in a hack — a four wheeler, not a cough. Be considerable moanin’ of the bars when I put out to sea. I’ve patronized ‘em pretty freely since I struck my — present gait. Say, Goodall of Memphis — if your doctor has set your pegs so close — why don’t you — get on a big spree and go — to the devil quick and easy — like I’m doing?”
“A spree,” says Goodall, as one who entertains a new idea, “I never did such a thing. I was thinking of another way, but— “