by B. M. Bower
By the time this checked-apron court of inquiry adjourned, Louise appeared and said she believed she was ready, and Miss Whitmore escaped from the house far in advance of the others—and such were Chip’s telepathic powers that he sprang down voluntarily and assisted her to the front seat without a word being said by either.
Followed a week of dullness at the ranch, with the Countess scrubbing and dusting and cleaning from morning till night. The Little Doctor, as the bunk house had christened her, was away attending the State Medical Examination at Helena.
“Gee-whiz!” sighed Cal on Sunday afternoon. “It seems mighty queer without the Little Doctor around here, sassing the Old Man and putting the hull bunch of us on the fence about once a day. If it wasn’t for Len Adams—”
“It wouldn’t do you any good to throw a nasty loop at the Little Doctor,” broke in Weary, “’cause she’s spoken for, by all signs and tokens. There’s some fellow back East got a long rope on her.”
“You got the papers for that?” jeered Cal. “The Little Doctor don’t act the way I’d want my girl t’ act, supposin’ I was some thousand or fifteen hundred miles off her range. She ain’t doing no pining, I tell yuh those.”
“She’s doing a lot of writing, though. I’ll bet money, if we called the roll right here, you’d see there’s been a letter a week hittin’ the trail to one Dr. Cecil Granthum, Gilroy, Ohio.”
“That’s what,” agreed Jack Bates. “I packed one last week, myself.”
“I done worse than that,” said Weary, blandly. “I up and fired a shot at her, after the second one she handed me. I says, as innocent: ‘I s’pose, if I lost this, there’d be a fellow out on the next train with blood in his eye and a six-gun in both hands, demanding explanations’— and she flashed them dimples on me and twinkled them big, gray eyes of hers, and says: ‘It’s up to you to carry it safe, then,’ or words to that effect. I took notice she didn’t deny but what he would.”
“Two doctors in one family—gee whiz!” mused Cal. “If I hadn’t got the only girl God ever made right, I’d give one Dr. Cecil Granthum, of Gilroy, Ohio, a run for his money, I tell yuh those. I’d impress it upon him that a man’s taking long chances when he stands and lets his best girl stampede out here among us cow-punchers for a change uh grass. That fellow needs looking after; he ain’t finished his education. Jacky, you ain’t got a female girl yanking your heart around, sail in and show us what yuh can do in that line.”
“Nit,” said Jack Bates, briefly. “My heart’s doing business at the old stand and doing it satisfactory and proper. I don’t want to set it to bucking—over a girl that wouldn’t have me at any price. Let Slim. The Little Doctor’s half stuck on him, anyhow.”
While the boys amused themselves in serious debate with Slim, Chip put away his magazine and went down to visit Silver in the box stall. He was glad they had not attempted to draw him into the banter—they had never once thought to do so, probably, though he had been thrown into the company of the Little Doctor more than any of the others, for several good reasons. He had broken the creams to harness, and always drove them, for the Old Man found them more than he cared to tackle. And there was Silver, with frequent discussions over his progress toward recovery and some argument over his treatment—for Chip had certain ideas of his own concerning horses, and was not backward about expressing them upon occasion.
That the Little Doctor should write frequent letters to a man in the East did not concern him—why should it? Still, a fellow without a home and without some woman who cares for him, cannot escape having his loneliness thrust upon him at times. He wondered why he should care. Surely, ten years of living his life alone ought to kill that latent homesickness which used to hold him awake at nights. Sometimes even of late years, when he stood guard over the cattle at night, and got to thinking—oh, it was hell to be all alone in the world!
There were Cal and Weary, they had girls who loved them—and they were sure welcome to them. And Jack Bates and Happy Jack had sisters and mothers—and even Slim had an old maid aunt who always knit him a red and green pair of wristlets for Christmas. Chip, smoothing mechanically the shimmery, white mane of his pet, thought he might be contented if he had even an old maid aunt—but he would see that she made his wristlets of some other color than those bestowed every year upon Slim.
As for the Little Doctor, it would be something strange if she had gone through life without having some fellow in love with her. Probably, if the truth was known, there had been more than Dr. Cecil Granthum—bah, what a sickening name! Cecil! It might as well be Adolphus or Regie or—what does a man want to pack around a name like that for? Probably he was the kind of man that the name sounded like; a dude with pink cheeks.
Chip knew just how he looked. Inspiration suddenly seizing upon him, he sat down upon the manger, drew his memorandum book out of his inner coat pocket, carefully sharpened a bit of lead pencil which he found in another pocket, tore a leaf from the book, and, with Silver looking over his shoulder, drew a graphic, ideal picture of Dr. Cecil Granthum.
CHAPTER V
In Silver’s Stall
“Oh, are you here? It’s a wonder you don’t have your bed brought down here, so you can sleep near Silver. How has he been doing since I left?”
Chip simply sat still upon the edge of the manger and stared. His gray hat was pushed far back upon his head and his dark hair waved and curled upon his forehead, very much as a girl’s might have done. He did not know that he was a very good-looking young man, but perhaps the Little Doctor did. She smiled and came up and patted Silver, who had forgotten that he ever had objected to her nearness. He nickered a soft welcome and laid his nose on her shoulder.
“You’ve been drawing a picture. Who’s the victim of your satirical pencil this time?” The Little Doctor, reaching out quickly, calmly appropriated the sketch before Chip had time to withdraw it, even if he had cared to do so. He was busy wondering how the Little Doctor came to be there at that particular time, and had forgotten the picture, which he had not quite finished labeling.
“Dr. Cecil—” Miss Whitmore turned red at first, then broke into laughter. “Oh—h, ha! ha! ha! Silver, you don’t know how funny this master of yours can be! Ha! ha!” She raised her head from Silver’s neck, where it had rested, and wiped her eyes.
“How did you know about Cecil?” she demanded of a very discomfited young man upon the manger.
“I didn’t know—and I didn’t want to know. I heard the boys talking and joshing about him, and I just drew—their own conclusions.” Chip grinned a little and whittled at his pencil, and wondered how much of the statement was a lie.
Miss Whitmore tamed red again, and ended by laughing even more heartily than at first.
“Their conclusions aren’t very complimentary,” she said. “I don’t believe Dr. Cecil would feel flattered at this. Why those bowed legs, may I ask, and wherefore that long, lean, dyspeptic visage? Dr. Cecil, let me inform you, has a digestion that quails not at deviled crabs and chafing-dish horrors at midnight, as I have abundant reason to know. I have seen Dr. Cecil prepare a welsh rabbit and—eat it, also, with much relish, apparently. Oh, no, their conclusions weren’t quite correct. There are other details I might mention—that cane, for instance—but let it pass. I shall keep this, I think, as a companion to ‘The old maid’s credential card.’”
“Are you in the habit of keeping other folk’s property?” inquired Chip, with some acerbity.
“Nothing but personal caricatures—and hearts, perhaps,” returned the Little Doctor, sweetly.
“I hardly think your collection of the last named article is very large,” retorted Chip.
“Still, I added to the collection today,” pursued Miss Whitmore, calmly. “I shared my seat in the train with J. G.’s silent partner (I did not find him silent, however), Mr. Duncan Whitaker. He hired a team in Dry Lake and we came out together, and I believe—please don’t mention Dr. Cecil Granthum to him, will you ?”
Chip
wished, quite savagely, that she wouldn’t let those dimples dodge into her cheeks, and the laugh dodge into her eyes, like that. It made a fellow uncomfortable. He was thoroughly disgusted with her—or he would be, if she would only stop looking like that. He was in that state of mind where his only salvation, seemingly, lay in quarreling with some one immediately.
“So old Dunk’s come back? If you’ve got his heart, you must have gone hunting it with a microscope, for it’s a mighty small one—almost as small as his soul. No one else even knew he had one. You ought to have it set in a ring, so you won’t lose it.”
“I don’t wear phony jewelry, thank you,” said Miss Whitmore, and Chip thought dimples weren’t so bad after all.
The Little Doctor was weaving Silver’s mane about her white fingers and meditating deeply. Chip wondered if she were thinking of Dr. Cecil.
“Where did you learn to draw like that?” she asked, suddenly, turning toward him. “You do much better than I, and I’ve always been learning from good teachers. Did you ever try painting?”
Chip blushed and looked away from her. This was treading close to his deep-hidden, inner self.
“I don’t know where I learned. I never took a lesson in my life, except from watching people and horses and the country, and remembering the lines they made, you know. I always made pictures, ever since I can remember—but I never tried colors very much. I never had a chance, working around cow-camps and on ranches.”
“I’d like to have you look over some of my sketches and things—and I’ve paints and canvas, if you ever care to try that. Come up to the house some evening and I’ll show you my daubs. They’re none of them as good as ‘The Old Maid.’”
“I wish you’d tear that thing up!” said Chip, vehemently.
“Why? The likeness is perfect. One would think you were designer for a fashion paper, the way you got the tucks in my sleeve and the braid on my collar—and you might have had the kindness to tell me my hat was on crooked, I think!”
There was a rustle in the loose straw, a distant slam of the stable door, and Chip sat alone with his horse, whittling abstractedly at his pencil till his knife blade grated upon the metal which held the eraser.
CHAPTER VI
The Hum of Preparation
Miss Whitmore ran down to the blacksmith shop, waving an official-looking paper in her hand.
“I’ve got it, J. G.!”
“Got what—smallpox?” J. G. did not even look up from the iron he was welding.
“No, my license. I’m a really, truly doctor now, and you needn’t laugh, either. You said you’d give a dance if I passed, and I did. Happy Jack brought it just now.”
“Brought the dance?” The Old Man gave the bellows a pull which sent a shower of sparks toward the really, truly doctor.
“Brought the license,” she explained, patiently. “You can see for yourself. They were awfully nice to me—they seemed to think a girl doctor is some kind of joke out here. They didn’t make it any easier, though; they acted as if they didn’t expect me to pass—but I did!”
The Old Man rubbed one smutty hand down his trousers leg and extended it for the precious document. “Let me have a look at it,” he said, trying to hide his pride in her.
“Well, but I’ll hold it. Your hands are dirty.” Dr. Whitmore eyed the hands disapprovingly.
The Old Man read it slowly through, growing prouder every line.
“You’re all right, Dell—I’ll be doggoned if you ain’t. Don’t you worry about the dance—I’ll see’t yuh get it. You go tell the Countess to bake up a lot of cake and truck, and I’ll send some uh the boys around t’ tell the neighbors. Better have it Friday night, I guess—I’m goin t’ start the round-up out early next week. Doggone it! I’ve gone and burned that weldin’. Go on and stop your botherin’ me!”
In two minutes the Little Doctor was back, breathless.
“What about the music, J. G.? We want good music.”
“Well, I’ll tend t’ that part. Say! You can rig up that room off the dining room for your office—I s’pose you’ll have to have one. You make out a list of what dope you want—and be sure yuh get a-plenty. I look for an unhealthy summer among the cow-punchers. If I ain’t mistook in the symptoms, Dunk’s got palpitation uh the heart right now—an’ got it serious.”
The Old Man chuckled to himself and went back to his welding.
“Oh, Louise!” The Little Doctor hurried to where the Countess was scrubbing the kitchen steps with soft soap and sand and considerable energy. “J. G. says I may have a dance next Friday night, so we must hurry and fix the house—only I don’t see much fixing to be done; everything is so clean.”
“Oh, there ain’t a room in the house fit fer comp’ny t’ walk into,” expostulated the Countess while she scrubbed. “I do like t’ see a house clean when folks is expected that only come t’ be critical an’ make remarks behind yer back the minit they git away. If folks got anything t’ say I’d a good deal ruther they said it t’ my face an’ be done with it. ‘Yuh can know a man’s face but yuh can’t know his heart,’ as the sayin’ is, an’ it’s the same way with women—anyway, it’s the same way with Mis’ Beckman. You can know her face a mile off, but yuh never know who she’s goin’ t’ rake over the coals next. As the sayin’ is: ‘The tongue of a woman, at last it biteth like a serpent an’ it stingeth like an addle,’ an’ I guess it’s so. Anyway, Mis’ Beckman’s does. I do b’lieve on my soul—what’s the matter, Dell? What yuh laughin’ at?”
The Little Doctor was past speech for the moment, and the Countess stood up and looked curiously around her. It never occurred to her that she might be the cause of that convulsive outburst.
“Oh—he—never mind—he’s gone, now.”
“Who’s gone?” persisted the Countess.
“What kinds of cake do you think we ought to have?” asked the Little Doctor, diplomatically.
The Countess sank to her knees and dipped a handful of amber, jelly-like soap from a tin butter can.
“Well, I don’t know. I s’pose folks will look for something fancy, seein’ you’re givin’ the dance. Mis’ Beckman sets herself up as a shinin’ example on cake, and she’ll come just t’ be critical an’ find fault, if she can. If I can’t bake all around her the best day she ever seen, I’ll give up cookin’ anything but spuds. She had the soggiest kind uh jelly roll t’ the su’prise on Mary last winter. I know it was hern, fer I seen her bring it in, an’ I went straight an’ ondone it. I guess it was kinda mean uh me, but I don’t care—as the sayin’ is: ‘What’s sass fer the goose is good enough sass fer anybody’—an’ she done the same trick by me, at the su’prise at Adamses last fall. But she couldn’t find no kick about my cake, an’ hers—yuh c’d of knocked a cow down with it left-handed! If that’s the best she c’n do on cake I’d advise ’er to keep the next batch t’ home where they’re used to it. They say’t ‘What’s one man’s meat’s pizen t’ the other feller,’ and I guess it’s so enough. Maybe Mame an’ the rest uh them Beckman kids can eat sech truck without comin’ down in a bunch with gastakutus, but I’d hate t’ tackle it myself.”
The Little Doctor gurgled. This was a malady which had not been mentioned at the medical college.
“Where shall we set the tables, if we dance in the dining room?” she asked, having heard enough of the Beckmans for the present.
“Why, we won’t set any tables. Folks always have a lap supper at ranch dances. At the su’prise on Mary—”
“What is a lap supper?”
“Well, my stars alive! Where under the shinin’ sun was you brought up if yuh never heard of a lap supper? A lap supper is where folks set around the walls—or any place they can find—and take the plates on their laps and yuh pass ’em stuff. The san’wiches—”
“You do make such beautiful bread!” interrupted the Little Doctor, very sincerely.
“Well, I ain’t had the best uh luck, lately, but I guess it does taste good after that bread yuh had when I co
me. Soggy was no name for—”
“Patsy made that bread,” interposed Miss Whitmore, hastily. “He had bad luck, and—”
“I guess he did!” sniffed the Countess, contemptuously. “As I told Mary when I come—”
“I wonder how many cakes we’ll need?” Miss Whitmore, you will observe, had learned to interrupt when she had anything to say. It was the only course to pursue with anyone from Denson coulee.
The Countess, having finished her scrubbing, rose jerkily and upset the soap can, which rolled over and over down the steps, leaving a yellow trail as it went.
“Well, there, if that wasn’t a bright trick uh mine? They say the more yuh hurry the less yuh’ll git along, an’ that’s a sample. We’d ought t’ have five kinds, an’ about four uh each kind. It wouldn’t do t’ run out, er Mis’ Beckman never would let anybody hear the last of it. Down t’ Mary’s—”
“Twenty cakes! Good gracious! I’ll have to order my stock of medicine, for I’ll surely have a houseful of patients if the guests eat twenty cakes.”
“Well, as the sayin’ is: ‘Patience an’ perseverance can git away with most anything,’” observed the Countess, naively.
The Little Doctor retired behind her handkerchief.
“My stars alive, I do b’lieve my bread’s beginnin’ t’ scorch!” cried the Countess, and ran to see. The Little Doctor followed her inside and sat down.
“We must make a list of the things we’ll need, Louise. You—”
“Dell! Oh-h. Dell!” The voice of the Old Man resounded from the parlor.
“I’m in the kitchen!” called she, remaining where she was. He tramped heavily through the house to her.
“I’ll send the rig in, t’morrow, if there’s anything yuh want,” he remarked. “And if you’ll make out a list uh dope, I’ll send the order in t’ the Falls. We’ve got plenty uh saws an’ cold chisels down in the blacksmith shop—you can pick out what yuh want.” He dodged and grinned. “Got any cake, Countess?”