XVI
OLD MAN BOBO'S MANDY
Old man Bobo was the sole survivor of a once famous trio. Two out ofthe three, Doc Dickson and Pap Spooner, had passed to the shades, andthe legend ran that when their disembodied spirits reached the banksof Styx, the ruling passion of their lives asserted itself for thelast time. They demurred loudly, impatiently, at the exorbitant fee,ten cents, demanded by Charon.
"We weigh light," said Pap Spooner, "awful light! Call it, mister,fifteen cents for the two!"
"Ten cents apiece," replied the ferryman, "or three for a quarter."
Thereupon the worthy couple seated themselves in Cimmerian darkness,and vowed their intention of awaiting old man Bobo.
"He'll soon be along," they remarked. "He must be awful lonesome."
But the old gentleman kept them out of Hades for full five years.
He lived alone with his grand-daughter and a stable helper in thetumble-down adobe just to the left of the San Lorenzo race track. Thegirl cooked, baked, and washed for him. Twice a week she peddled fruitand garden stuff in San Lorenzo. Of these sales her grandsire exactedthe most rigorous accounting, and occasionally, in recognition of herservices, would fling her a nickel. The old man himself rarely lefthome, and might be seen at all hours hobbling around his garden andcorrals, keenly interested in his own belongings, halter-breaking hiscolts, anxiously watching the growth of his lettuce, counting theoranges, and beguiling the fruitful hours with delightful calculation.
"It's all profit," he has often said to me. "We buy nothin' an' wesell every durned thing we raise."
Then he would chuckle and rub together his yellow, wrinkled hands.Ajax said that whenever Mr. Bobo laughed it behooved other folk tolook grave.
"Mandy's dress costs something," I observed.
"Considerable,--I'd misremembered that. Her rig-out las' fall cost methe vally o' three boxes o' apples--winter pearmains!"
"She will marry soon, Mr. Bobo."
"An' leave me?" he cried shrilly. "I'd like to see a man prowlin'around my Mandy--I'd stimilate him. Besides, mister, Mandy ain't themarryin' kind. She's homely as a mud fence, is Mandy. She ain't put upright for huggin' and kissin'."
"But she is your heiress, Mr. Bobo."
"Heiress," he repeated with a cunning leer. "I'm poor, mister, poor.The tax collector has eat me up--eat me up, I say, eat me up!"
He looked such an indigestible morsel, so obviously unfit for the mawof even a tax collector, that I laughed and took my leave. He wasworth, I had reason to know, at least fifty thousand dollars.
* * * * *
"Say, Mandy, I like ye awful well! D'ye know it?"
The speaker, Mr. Rinaldo Roberts, trainer and driver of horses, wassitting upon the top rail of the fence that divided the land of oldman Bobo from the property of the Race Track Association.
Mandy, freckled, long-legged, and tow-headed, balanced herself easilyupon one ill-shod foot and rubbed herself softly with the other. Theaction to those who knew her ways denoted mental perplexity andembarrassment. This assignation was bristling with peril as well ascharm. Her grandfather had the eyes of a turkey-buzzard, eyes whichshe contrasted involuntarily with the soft, kindly orbs now bent uponher. She decided instantly that blue was a prettier colour thanyellow. Rinaldo's skin, too, commended itself. She had never seen sowhite a forehead, such ruddy cheeks. David, she reflected, must havebeen such a man; but Rinaldo was a nicer name than David, ever so muchnicer.
"Shakespeare never repeats," observed Mr. Roberts, "but I'll tell yeagain, Mandy, that I like ye awful well."
"Pshaw!" she replied.
"Honest, Mandy, I ain't lyin'."
He smoothed his hair, well oiled by the barber an hour before, wipedhis hand upon his brown overalls, and laughed. The overalls were wornso as to expose four inches of black trouser.
"Ye think more of your sorrel than ye do of me, Nal."
"I do?"
"Yes, indeed, you do. You know you do."
"I know I don't! Say--I've gone an' christened the cuss."
"You have?" said Mandy, in a tone of intense interest. "Tell me itsname."
"It's a her, Mandy, an' me an' Pete fixed on _By-Jo_. That'sFrench, Mandy," he added triumphantly, "an' it means a gem, a_jool_, an' that's what she is--a regler ruby!"
"It don't sound like French," said Amanda doubtfully.
"That French feller," replied Nal, with the fine scorn of the Anglo-Saxon, "him as keeps the 'Last Chance' saloon, pronounces it By-Jew,but he's as ignorant as a fool, an' By-Jo seems to come kind o'nateral."
"Ye might ha' called the filly, Amandy, Nal."
The honest face of Rinaldo flushed scarlet. He squirmed--I use theword advisedly--and nearly fell off the fence.
"If there was a nickel-in-the-slot kickin' machine around SanLorenzy," he cried, "I'd take a dollar dose right now! Gosh! What aclam I am! I give ye my word, Mandy, that the notion o' callin' thefilly after you never entered my silly head. Never onst!_Jee_whillikins! this makes me feel awful bad."
He wiped his broad forehead with a large white silk pocket-handkerchief, horribly scented with patchouli. His distress was quitepainful to witness.
"Never mind," said Amanda softly. "I was only joking, Nal. It's allright."
Looking at her now, what son of Adam could call her homely? Herslender figure, the head well poised upon shapely shoulders, suddenlystraightened itself; her red lips parted, revealing a row of small,white teeth; her eyes were uplifted to meet the glance of her lover;her bosom rose and fell as Nal sprang from the fence and seized herhand.
A simple courtship truly! Love had written in plain characters upontheir radiant faces an artless tale. With fingers interlaced theygazed tranquilly at each other, eloquently silent.
Then the man bent his head and kissed her.
* * * * *
"Marry my Mandy!" cried old man Bobo, a few hours later. "Why, Nal, yemust be crazy! Ye're both children."
"I'm twenty-two," said Mr. Roberts, expanding his broad chest, andtowering six inches at least above his companion, "an' Mandy will beeighteen next December, and," he added with dignity, "I love Mandy an'Mandy loves me."
"Now, I ain't a goin' to git mad," said Mr. Bobo, stamping upon theground and gnashing his teeth, "but I'll give ye a pointer, NalRoberts; you go right home an' stay there! I need Mandy the worstkind, an' ye know it. I couldn't spare the girl nohow. An' there'sanother thing; I won't have no sparkin' aroun' this place. No huggin'an' kissin'. There's none for me an' there'll be none for you. Love,pah! I reckon that's all ye've got. Love! Ye make me sick to mystomach, Nal Roberts. Ye've bin readin' dime novels, that's what ailsye. Love! There ain't no dividen's in love."
"Naterally," observed Mr. Roberts, "ye know nothin' of love, MisterBobo, an' ye never will. I'm sorry for ye, too. Life without love islike eatin' bull-beef jerky without _salsa_!"
"I've raised Mandy," continued Mr. Bobo, ignoring this interruption,"very keerful. I give her good schoolin', victuals, an' a heap o'clothes. I've knocked some horse sense into the child. There ain't nononsense in Mandy, an' ye won't find her equal in the land forpeddlin' fruit an' sech. I've kep' her rustlin' from morn till night.When a woman idles, the ole Nick gits away with her mighty quick. I'vesalted that down many a long year. No, sir, Mandy is mine, an' Mandywill do jest as I say. She minds me well, does Mandy. She won't marrytill I give the word--an' I ain't agoin' to give the word."
He snapped his lantern jaws, and grinned in Nal's face. Theselfishness which rated its sordid interest paramount to anyconsideration for others appalled the young man. How could he stemthis tide of avarice, this torrent of egoism?
"So love don't go?" said Nal shortly.
"No, sonny, love don't go--leastways not with me."
"Mebbe you think I'm after the grease," remarked Nal withdeliberation, "but I ain't. Folks say ye're rich, Mr. Bobo, but Idon't keer for that. I'm after Mandy, an' I'll take her in herchimmy."
"I'll be
damned if ye will, Nal! Ye won't take Mandy at all, an'that's all there is about it."
"Say," said Mr. Roberts, his fine eyes aglow with inspiration, "say,I'll make ye a cold business proposition, fair an' square betwixt manan' man. I'll buy Mandy from ye, at the market price--there!"
From beneath his penthouse brows Mr. Bobo peered curiously at thissingular youth.
"Buy her!" he repeated scornfully. "With what? Ye've got nothin', NalRoberts--that is, nothin' but yer sorrel filly and a measly two, orthree mebbe, hundred dollars. I vally Mandy at twenty dollars a month.At one per cent.--I allus git one per cent. a month--that makes twothousand dollars. Have ye got the cold cash, Nal?"
Honest Nal hung his head.
"Not the half of it, but I earn a hundred a month at the track."
"Bring me two thousand dollars, gold coin o' the United States, nofoolin', an' I'll give ye Mandy."
"Ye mean that, Mr. Bobo?"
The old man hesitated.
"I was kind o' bluffin'," he admitted reluctantly, "but I'll stand bymy words. Bring me the cash, an' I'll give ye Mandy."
"I'll guess I'll go," said Mr. Roberts.
"Yes, Nal, ye'd better go, an' sonny, ye needn't to come back; I likeye first rate, but ye needn't to come back!"
Rinaldo walked home to the race track, and as he walked, cursed oldman Bobo, cursed him heartily, in copious Western vernacular, from thepeaky crown of his bald head to the tip of his ill-shaped, socklesstoe. When, however, he had fed the filly and bedded her down in cool,fresh straw, he felt easier in his mind. Running his hand down heriron forelegs, he reflected hopefully that a few hundred dollars wereeasily picked up on a race track. Bijou was a well-bred beast, with amarvellous turn of speed. For half-a-mile she was a wonder, a recordbreaker--so Nal thought. Presently he pulled a list of entries fromhis pocket and scanned it closely. Old man Bobo had a bay gelding intraining for the half-mile race, Comet, out of Shooting Star, byMeteor. Nal had taken the measure of the other horses and feared noneof them; but Comet, he admitted ruefully to be a dangerous colt. Hewas stabled at home, and the small boy that exercised him was bothdeaf and dumb.
"If I could hold my watch on him," said Nal to himself, "I'd give ahundred dollars."
A smile illumined his pleasant features as he remembered that Mr.Bobo, like himself, was sitting upon the anxious seat. That sameafternoon he had tried, in vain, to extract from Nal some informationabout the filly's speed. The old man's weakness, if he had one, wasbetting heavily upon a certainty.
"By Jimminy," mused Mr. Roberts, patting affectionately the satin neckof Bijou, "it would be a nice howdy-do to win a thousand off the oldson of a gun! Gosh, Mandy! how ye startled me."
Amanda, out of breath and scarlet of face, slipped quietly into theloose box and sat down in the straw.
"Hush," she said, panting, "grandfather would take a quirt to me if heknew I was here, but, Nal dear, I jest had to come. I've been talkin'with the old man, an' he won't let me leave him, but I'll be true toyou, Nal, true as steel, an' you'll be true to me, won't you?Grandfather won't last long, he's----"
"Tough," said Mr. Roberts, "tough as abalone, tough as the hondo of mylariat. I suspicioned he'd peter out when Pap Spooner died, but hefooled us the worst kind. No, Mandy, the old gentleman ain't a-goin',as he says, till he gits ready. He told me that to-day, an' he ain't aliar. He's close as a clam, is Mr. Bobo, but he ain't no liar. As forbein' true to you, Mandy--why--dern it--my heart's jest froze toyours, it don't belong to Nal Roberts no longer."
The girl blushed with pleasure and rose to her feet.
"You won't quarrel, Nal," she said anxiously, "you an' grandfather. Hegets awful hot at times, but your head is level. He's comin' down tothe track to-morrow morning at five to work out Comet, an' you mighthave words about me."
"To work out Comet?" said Nal, pricking up his ears.
"Mercy!--" cried Amanda, "I've given it away, an' it's a deathlysecret."
"It's safe enough with me," replied the young man carelessly. None theless his eyes brightened and he smiled beneath his blonde mustache."An', Mandy, don't worry, I wouldn't touch the old gentleman with apair o' tongs."
"Well, good night, Nal--no, you mustn't--somebody might see. Only onethen! Let me go, let me go!--Good night, Nal."
She ran swiftly away, holding high her skirts on account of thesticker grass. Nal watched her retreating figure admiringly.
"A good gait," he murmured critically, "no interferin' an' nothin'gummy about the pastern!"
He then squatted down, cowboy fashion, upon his hams, and smoothingcarefully a piece of level ground, began to--what he called "figger."He wrote with a pointed stick and presently broke into a loud laugh.
"A low down trick," he muttered, "to play upon a white man, but Mr.Bobo ain't a white man, an' mustn't be treated as sech."
He erased his hieroglyphics, and proceeded leisurely to prepare hissimple supper. He ate his bacon and beans with even more than usualrelish, laughing softly to himself repeatedly, and when he hadfinished and the dishes were washed and put away, he selected, stilllaughing, a spade and crowbar from a heap of tools in the corner ofhis shanty. These he shouldered and then strode out into the night.
* * * * *
The crowd at the race track upon the opening afternoon of the fair wasbeginning to assume colossal proportions--colossal, that is to say,for San Lorenzo. Beneath the grand stand, where the pools are alwayssold, the motley throng surged thickest. Jew and gentile, greaser anddude, tin-horn gamblers and tenderfeet, hayseeds and merchants,jostled each other good humouredly. In the pool box were two men. One--the auctioneer--a perfect specimen of the "sport"; a ponderousindividual, brazen of face and voice, who presented to the crowd anamazing front of mottled face, diamond stud, bulging shirt sleeves,and a bull-neck encircled by a soiled eighteen-and-a-half inch papercollar. The other gentleman, who handled the tickets, was unclean,unshorn, and cadaverous-looking, with a black cigar, unlighted, stuckaggressively into the corner of his mouth.
"Once more," yelled the pool-selling person, in raucous tones. "Oncemore, boys! I'm sellin' once more the half-mile dash! I've one hundreddollars for Comet; how much fer second choice? Be lively there. Sixtydollars!!! Go the five, five, five! Thank ye, sir, you're a dead gamesport. Bijou fer sixty-five dollars. How much am I bid fer the field?"
The field sold for fifty, and the auctioneer glanced at Mr. Bobo, whoshook his head and shuffled away. Ten consecutive times he had boughtpools. Ten consecutive times Mr. Rinaldo Roberts had paid, by proxy,sixty-five dollars for the privilege of naming By-Jo as second choiceto the son of Meteor.
"Fifteen hunderd," mumbled the old man to himself. "Five las' nightan' ten to-day. It's a sure shot, that's what it is, a sure shot. Iworked him out in fifty-one seconds. Oh, Lord, what a clip! in fifty-one," he repeated with his abominable chuckle, "an' Nal's filly hasnever done better than fifty-two. Nal didn't buy no pools. He knowsbetter."
By a queer coincidence Mr. Roberts was also indulging in pleasingintrospection.
"The old cuss," he mused, "is blooded. I'll allow he's blooded, but hethinks this a dead cert. Lemme see, fifty-one an' two make fifty-three. No clip at all. Gosh! what a game, what a game! Why, there'sMandy a-sittin' up with Mis' Root. I'll jest sashay acrost the trackan' give 'em my regards."
Mandy was atop a red-wheeled spring wagon. A sailor hat--price,trimmed, forty-five cents--overshadowed her smiling face, and a newdress cleverly fashioned out of white cheese cloth, embellished herperson. She had been watching her lover closely for upwards of anhour, but expressed superlative surprise at seeing him.
"Why, Nal," she said demurely "this ain't you? You are acquainted withMis' Root, I guess?"
Nal removed his cap with a flourish, and Mrs. Root, a large,lymphatic, prolific female, entreated him to ascend the wagon and sitdown.
"You have a horse runnin', Mister Roberts?"
"Yes, marm, By-Jo."
"By what?"
"By Diamond," repli
ed Rinaldo, glibly, "outer Cap Wilson's old Sally.She was by----"
"Mis' Root didn't catch the name right," interrupted Mandy. "It's By-Jo, Mis' Root--that's French."
"Mercy me, ain't that nice--quite toney. I hope he'll win if MisterBobo's horse don't."
"Nal," whispered Mandy, "you've not been betting against Comet, haveyou?"
"That's what I have, Mandy. I've got my hull stack o' chips on thisyere half-mile dash."
"But, Nal, Comet will win sure. Grandfather's crazy about the colt. Hesays he can't lose no-way."
"That's all right," said Nal. "I'm glad he feels so well about it. Sethis heart on winnin', eh? That's good. Say, I guess I'll sit righthere and see the race. It's handy to the judges' stand, and the horsesare all on the track."
In fact, for some time the runners had been walking backwards andforwards, and were now grouped together near the starter. Mr. Bobo wasin the timer's box, chuckling satanically. Fifteen hundred dollars,according to his own computation, were already added to a plethoricbank account.
"Yer feelin' well, Mister Bobo," said a bystander.
"I'm feelin' mighty well," he replied, "never was feelin' better,never. There's a heap o' fools in this yere world, but I ain'tresponsible for their mistakes--not much," and he cackled loudly.
After the usual annoying delay the horses were dismissed with anexcellent start. Bijou jumped immediately to the front, and Nal threwhis hat high into the air.
"Ain't she a cyclone?" he shouted, standing upon the wagon seat andwaving his stop-watch.
"Look at her, I say, look at her!"
The people in his vicinity stared, smiled, and finally cheered. Mostof them knew Nal and liked him well.
"Yer mare is winnin'," yelled a granger.
"You bet she is," retorted Mr. Roberts. "See her! Ain't she takin' thekinks out of her speed? Ain't that a clip? Sit still, ye fool," hecried lustily, apostrophising the boy who was riding; "if ye git amove on ye I'll kill ye. Oh, my lord! if she ain't a-goin' to distancethem! Yes, sir, she's a shuttin' 'em out. Damn it--I ain't a swearin',Mis' Root--damn it, I say, _she's a shuttin' 'em out!_ She's doneit!! The race is won!!!"
He jumped from the wagon and plunged into the crowd, whichrespectfully made way for him.
* * * * *
"I've somethin' to tell ye, Mandy," said Mr. Roberts, some ten monthslater. I feel kind o' mean, too. But I done it for you; for love o'you, Mandy."
"Yes, Nal; what is it?"
They had been married a fortnight.
"Ye remember when the old man had the fit in the timer's box? Well,that knocked me galley-west. I felt a reg'ler murderer. But when he'dbraced up, an began makin' himself hateful over our weddin', I feltglad that I'd done what I done."
"And what had you done, Nal, dear?"
"Hold on, Mandy, I'm tellin' this. Ye see, he promised to sell ye tome for two thousand dollars cash. But when I tendered him the coin, hewent back on me. He was the meanest, the ornariest----"
"Hush, Nal, he's dead now."
"You bet he is, or we wouldn't be sittin' here."
They were comfortably installed upon the porch of the old adobe. Asmell of paint tainted the air, and some shavings and odds and ends oflumber betrayed a recent visit from the carpenter. The house, inshort, had been placed in thorough repair. A young woman with fiftythousand dollars in her own right can afford to spend a little moneyupon her home.
"He wouldn't take the coin," continued Nal, "he said I'd robbed him ofit, an' so I had."
"Oh, Nal!"
"It was this way, Mandy. Ye remember the trial, an' how you give thesnap away. Well I studied over it, an' finally I concluded to jest digup the half-mile post, an' put it one hundred feet nearer home. I tookconsiderable chances but not a soul suspicioned the change. The nextnight I put it back again. The old man timed the colt an' so did I._Fifty-one seconds!_ I knew my filly could do the whole half-milein that. Comet's second dam was a bronco, an' that will tell! But Iwanted to make your grandfather bet his wad. He never could resist asure-shot bet, never. That's all."
Amanda looked deep into his laughing eyes.
"He was willing to sell me, his own flesh and blood," she murmureddreamily. "I think, Nal, you served him just about right, but I wish,don't get mad, Nal, I wish that--er--someone else had pulled up thepost!"
Bunch Grass: A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch Page 18