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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18875-8.txt b/18875-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2caaedb --- /dev/null +++ b/18875-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6144 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prairie Wife, by Arthur Stringer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Prairie Wife + +Author: Arthur Stringer + +Illustrator: H. T. Dunn + +Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Illustration: I stooped over the trap-door and lifted it up. "Get down +there quick!" Page 109--The Prairie Wife.] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +By ARTHUR STRINGER + +With Frontispiece in Color by +H. T. DUNN + +A. L. BURT COMPANY +PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOBBS, MERRILL COMPANY +COPYRIGHT 1915 +THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT 1915 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TO VAN +WHO KNOWS AND LOVES +THE WEST +AS WE LOVE HIM! + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +Thursday the Nineteenth 1 +Saturday the Twenty-first 16 +Monday the Twenty-third 33 +Wednesday the Twenty-fifth 41 +Thursday the Twenty-sixth 48 +Saturday the Twenty-eighth 57 +Wednesday the First 61 +Thursday the Second 64 +Friday the Third 67 +Saturday the Fourth 68 +Monday the Sixth 73 +Wednesday the Eighth 80 +Saturday the Tenth 88 +Sunday the Eleventh 91 +Monday the Twelfth 93 +Sunday the Eighteenth 101 +Monday the Nineteenth 103 +Tuesday the Twentieth 105 +Thursday the Twenty-second 115 +Saturday the Twenty-fourth 119 +Tuesday the Twenty-seventh 128 +Thursday the Twenty-ninth 133 +Friday the Fifth 136 +Sunday the Seventh 137 +Tuesday the Ninth 138 +Saturday the Twenty-first 142 +Sunday the Twenty-ninth 150 +Monday the Seventh 152 +Friday the Eleventh 153 +Sunday the Thirteenth 155 +Wednesday the Sixteenth 156 +Sunday the Twentieth 157 +Sunday the Twenty-seventh 158 +Wednesday the Thirtieth 159 +Thursday the Thirty-first 160 +Sunday the Third 167 +Thursday the Seventh 171 +Saturday the Ninth 172 +Monday the Eleventh 175 +Tuesday the Nineteenth 182 +Sunday the Thirty-first 186 +Tuesday the Ninth 188 +Wednesday the Seventeenth 189 +Thursday the Twenty-fifth 190 +Tuesday the Second 191 +Thursday the Fourth 193 +Wednesday the Seventeenth 194 +Saturday the Twenty-seventh 195 +Tuesday the Sixth 198 +Monday the Twelfth 199 +Tuesday the Twentieth 202 +Monday the Twenty-sixth 205 +Wednesday the Twenty-eighth 207 +Monday the Second 209 +Thursday the Fifth 210 +Tuesday the Tenth 214 +Monday the Sixteenth 217 +Tuesday the Twenty-fourth 220 +Friday the Third 222 +Thursday the Ninth 224 +Wednesday the Fifteenth 228 +Friday the Seventeenth 230 +Saturday the Nineteenth 231 +Friday the Twenty-eighth 233 +Saturday the Twenty-ninth 234 +Sunday the Thirtieth 236 +Tuesday the First 237 +Monday the Seventh 243 +Sunday the Thirteenth 247 +Monday the Twenty-eighth 249 +Saturday the Second 251 +Wednesday the Sixth 252 +Tuesday the Twelfth 254 +Thursday the Fourteenth 255 +Wednesday the Fifth 256 +Sunday the Ninth 260 +Monday the Tenth 262 +Tuesday the Eleventh 264 +Wednesday the Thirteenth 265 +Thursday the Fourteenth 267 +Friday the Fifteenth 269 +Saturday the Sixteenth 272 +Monday the Seventeenth 275 +Wednesday the Nineteenth 276 +Friday the Twenty-first 277 +Monday the Twelfth 290 +Wednesday the Fourteenth 292 +Thursday the Fifteenth 295 +Friday the Sixteenth 298 +Sunday the Eighteenth 307 +Sunday the Twenty-fifth 308 +Tuesday the Twenty-seventh 309 +Wednesday the Twenty-eighth 310 +Friday the Thirtieth 313 +Sunday the First 314 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +_Thursday the Nineteenth_ + + +Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the +pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda +Anne, Matilda Anne, I've _got_ to talk to you! You may be six thousand +miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and +explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so lonesome out +here I could go and commune with the gophers. This isn't a twenty-part +letter, my dear, and it isn't a diary. It's the coral ring I'm cutting +my teeth of desolation on. For, every so long, I've simply got to sit +down and talk to some one, or I'd go mad, clean, stark, staring mad, and +bite the tops off the sweet-grass! It may even happen this will never be +sent to you. But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by +page, when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has +me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell. For you +were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and +when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the +calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And I think +you will understand. + +But there's so much to talk about I scarcely know where to begin. The +funny part of it all is, I've gone and married the _Other Man_. And you +won't understand that a bit, unless I start at the beginning. But when I +look back, there doesn't seem to be any beginning, for it's only in +books that things really begin and end in a single lifetime. + +Howsomever, as Chinkie used to say, when I left you and Scheming Jack in +that funny little stone house of yours in Corfu, and got to Palermo, I +found Lady Agatha and Chinkie there at the Hotel des Palmes and the +yacht being coaled from a tramp steamer's bunkers in the harbor. So I +went on with them to Monte Carlo. We had a terrible trip all the way up +to the Riviera, and I was terribly sea-sick, and those lady novelists +who love to get their heroines off on a private yacht never dream that +in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the +meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I +got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had +wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last +little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found +myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel +home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away +the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery by +shooting himself. Then I remembered my letter of credit, and firmly but +sorrowfully paid off poor Hortense, who through her tears proclaimed +that she'd go with me anywhere, and without any thought of wages +(imagine being hooked up by a maid to whom you were under such +democratizing obligations!) But I was firm, for I knew the situation, +might just as well be faced first as last. + +So I counted up my letter of credit and found I had exactly six hundred +and seventy-one dollars, American money, between me and beggary. Then I +sent a cable to Theobald Gustav (so condensed that he thought it was +code) and later on found that he'd been sending flowers and chocolates +all the while to the Hotel de L'Athénée, the long boxes duly piled up in +tiers, like coffins at the morgue. Then Theobald's aunt, the baroness, +called on me, in state. She came in that funny, old-fashioned, shallow +landau of hers, where she looked for all the world like an +oyster-on-the-half-shell, and spoke so pointedly of the danger of +international marriages that I felt sure she was trying to shoo me away +from my handsome and kingly Theobald Gustav--which made me quite calmly +and solemnly tell her that I intended to take Theobald out of +under-secretaryships, which really belonged to Oppenheim romances, and +put him in the shoe business in some nice New England town! + +From Monte Carlo I scooted right up to Paris. Two days later, as I +intended to write you but didn't, I caught the boat-train for Cherbourg. +And there at the rail as I stepped on the _Baltic_ was the Other Man, to +wit, Duncan Argyll McKail, in a most awful-looking yellow plaid English +mackintosh. His face went a little blank as he clapped eyes on me, for +he'd dropped up to Banff last October when Chinkie and Lady Agatha and I +were there for a week. He'd been very nice, that week at Banff, and I +liked him a lot. But when Chinkie saw him "going it a bit too strong," +as he put it, and quietly tipped Duncan Argyll off as to Theobald +Gustav, the aforesaid D. A. bolted back to his ranch without as much as +saying good-by to me. For Duncan Argyll McKail isn't an Irishman, as you +might in time gather from that name of his. He's a Scotch-Canadian, and +he's nothing but a broken-down civil engineer who's taken up farming in +the Northwest. But I could see right away that he was a gentleman (I +_hate_ that word, but where'll you get another one to take its place?) +and had known nice people, even before I found out he'd taught the +Duchess of S. to shoot big-horn. He'd run over to England to finance a +cooperative wheat-growing scheme, but had failed, because everything is +so unsettled in England just now. + +But you're a woman, and before I go any further you'll want to know what +Duncan looks like. + +Well, he's not a bit like his name. The West has shaken a good deal of +the Covenanter out of him. He's tall and gaunt and wide-shouldered, and +has brown eyes with hazel specks in them, and a mouth exactly like +Holbein's "Astronomer's," and a skin that is almost as disgracefully +brown as an Indian's. On the whole, if a Lina Cavalieri had happened to +marry a Lord Kitchener, and had happened to have a thirty-year-old son, +I feel quite sure he'd have been the dead spit, as the Irish say, of my +own Duncan Argyll. And Duncan Argyll, _alias_ Dinky-Dunk, is rather +reserved and quiet and, I'm afraid, rather masterful, but not as +Theobald Gustav might have been, for with all his force the modern +German, it seems to me, is like the bagpipes in being somewhat lacking +in suavity. + +And all the way over Dinky-Dunk was so nice that he almost took my +breath away. He was also rather audacious, gritting his teeth in the +face of the German peril, and I got to like him so much I secretly +decided we'd always be good friends, old-fashioned, above-board, +Platonic good friends. But the trouble with Platonic love is that it's +always turning out too nice to be Platonic, or too Platonic to be nice. +So I had to look straight at the bosom of that awful yellow-plaid +English mackintosh and tell Dinky-Dunk the truth. And Dinky-Dunk +listened, with his astronomer mouth set rather grim, and otherwise not +in the least put out. His sense of confidence worried me. It was like +the quietness of the man who is holding back his trump. And it wasn't +until the impossible little wife of an impossible big lumberman from +Saginaw, Michigan, showed me the Paris _Herald_ with the cable in it +about that spidery Russian stage-dancer, L----, getting so nearly killed +in Theobald's car down at Long Beach, that I realized there _was_ a +trump card and that Dinky-Dunk had been too manly to play it. + +I had a lot of thinking to do, the next three days. + +When Theobald came on from Washington and met the steamer my conscience +troubled me and I should still have been kindness itself to him, if it +hadn't been for his proprietary manner (which, by the way, had never +annoyed me before), coupled with what I already knew. We had luncheon in +the Della Robbia room at the Vanderbilt and I was digging the marrons +out of a Nesselrode when, presto, it suddenly came over me that the +baroness was right and that _I could never marry a foreigner_. It came +like a thunderclap. But somewhere in that senate of instinct which +debates over such things down deep in the secret chambers of our souls, +I suppose, the whole problem had been talked over and fought out and put +to the vote. And in the face of the fact that Theobald Gustav had always +seemed more nearly akin to one of Ouida's demigods than any man I had +ever known, the vote had gone against him. My hero was no longer a +hero. I knew there had been times, of course, when that hero, being a +German, had rather regarded this universe of ours as a department-store +and this earth as the particular section over which the August Master +had appointed him floor-walker. I had thought of him as my +_Eisenfresser_ and my big blond _Saebierassler_. But my eyes opened with +my last marron and I suddenly sat back and stared at Theobald's handsome +pink face with its Krupp-steel blue eyes and its haughtily upturned +mustache-ends. He must have seen that look of appraisal on my own face, +for, with all his iron-and-blood Prussianism, he clouded up like a hurt +child. But he was too much of a diplomat to show his feelings. He merely +became so unctuously polite that I felt like poking him in his +steel-blue eye with my mint straw. + +Remember, Matilda Anne, not a word was said, not one syllable about what +was there in both our souls. Yet it was one of life's biggest moments, +the Great Divide of a whole career--and I went on eating Nesselrode and +Theobald went on pleasantly smoking his cigarette and approvingly +inspecting his well-manicured nails. + +It was funny, but it made me feel blue and unattached and terribly alone +in the world. Now, I can see things more clearly. I know that mood of +mine was not the mere child of caprice. Looking back, I can see how +Theobald had been more critical, more silently combative, from the +moment I stepped off the _Baltic_. I realized, all at once, _that he had +secretly been putting me to a strain_. I won't say it was because my +_dot_ had gone with The Nitrate Mines, or that he had discovered that +Duncan had crossed on the same steamer with me, or that he knew I'd soon +hear of the L---- episode. But these prophetic bones of mine told me +there was trouble ahead. And I felt so forsaken and desolate in spirit +that when Duncan whirled me out to Westbury, in a hired motor-car, to +see the Great Neck First defeated by the Meadow Brook Hunters, I went +with the happy-go-lucky glee of a truant who doesn't give a hang what +happens. Dinky-Dunk was interested in polo ponies, which, he explained +to me, are not a particular breed but just come along by accident--for +he'd bred and sold mounts to the Coronado and San Mateo Clubs and the +Philadelphia City Cavalry boys. And he loved the game. He was so genuine +and sincere and _human_, as we sat there side by side, that I wasn't a +bit afraid of him and knew we could be chums and didn't mind his lapses +into silence or his extension-sole English shoes and crazy London +cravat. + +And I was happy, until the school-bell rang--which took the form of +Theobald's telephone message to the Ritz reminding me of our dinner +engagement. It was an awful dinner, for intuitively I knew what was +coming, and quite as intuitively he knew what was coming, and even the +waiter knew when it came,--for I flung Theobald's ring right against his +stately German chest. There'd be no good in telling you, Matilda Anne, +what led up to that most unlady-like action. I don't intend to burn +incense in front of myself. It may have looked wrong. But I know you'll +take my word when I say he deserved it. The one thing that hurts is +that he had the triumph of being the first to sever diplomatic +relations. In the language of Shorty McCabe and my fellow countrymen, +_he threw me down!_ Twenty minutes later, after composing my soul and +powdering my nose, I was telephoning all over the city trying to find +Duncan. I got him at last, and he came to the Ritz on the run. Then we +picked up a residuary old horse-hansom on Fifth Avenue and went rattling +off through Central Park. There I--who once boasted of seven proposals +and three times that number of nibbles--promptly and shamelessly +proposed to my Dinky-Dunk, though he is too much of a gentleman not to +swear it's a horrid lie and that he'd have fought through an acre of +Greek fire to get me! + +But whatever happened, Count Theobald Gustav Von Guntner threw me down, +and Dinky-Dunk caught me on the bounce, and now instead of going to +embassy balls and talking world-politics like a Mrs. Humphry Ward +heroine I've married a shack-owner who grows wheat up in the Canadian +Northwest. And instead of wearing a tiara in the Grand Tier at the +Metropolitan I'm up here a dot on the prairie and wearing an apron made +of butcher's linen! _Sursum corda!_ For I'm still in the ring. And it's +no easy thing to fall in love and land on your feet. But I've gone and +done it. I've taken the high jump. I've made my bed, as Uncle Carlton +had the nerve to tell me, and now I've got to lie in it. But _assez +d'Etrangers_! + +That wedding-day of mine I'll always remember as a day of smells, the +smell of the pew-cushions in the empty church, the smell of the +lilies-of-the-valley, that dear, sweet, scatter-brained +Fanny-Rain-In-The-Face (she rushed to town an hour after getting my +wire) insisted on carrying, the smell of the leather in the damp taxi, +the tobaccoy smell of Dinky-Dunk's quite impossible best man, who'd been +picked up at the hotel, on the fly, to act as a witness, and the smell +of Dinky-Dunk's brand new gloves as he lifted my chin and kissed me in +that slow, tender, tragic, end-of-the-world way big and bashful men +sometimes have with women. It's all a jumble of smells. + +Then Dinky-Dunk got the wire saying he might lose his chance on the +Stuart Ranch, if he didn't close before the Calgary interests got hold +of it. And Dinky-Dunk wanted that ranch. So we talked it over and in +five minutes had given up the idea of going down to Aiken and were +telephoning for the stateroom on the Montreal Express. I had just four +hours for shopping, scurrying about after cook-books and golf-boots and +table-linen and a chafing dish, and a lot of other absurd things I +thought we'd need on the ranch. And then off we flew for the West, +before poor, extravagant, ecstatic Dinky-Dunk's thirty-six wedding +orchids' from Thorley's had faded and before I'd a chance to show Fanny +my nighties! + +Am I crazy? Is it all wrong? Do I love my Dinky-Dunk? _Do_ I? The Good +Lord only knows, Matilda Anne! O God, O God, if it _should_ turn out +that I don't, that I can't? But I'm going to! I know I'm going to! And +there's one other thing that I know, and when I remember it, it sends a +comfy warm wave through all my body: Dinky-Dunk loves me. He's as mad as +a hatter about me. He deserves to be loved back. And I'm going to love +him back. That is a vow I herewith duly register. _I'm going to love my +Dinky-Dunk._ But, oh, isn't it wonderful to wake love in a man, in a +strong man? To be able to sweep him off, that way, on a tidal wave that +leaves him rather white and shaky in the voice and trembly in the +fingers, and seems to light a little luminous fire at the back of his +eyeballs so that you can see the pupils glow, the same as an animal's +when your motor head-lights hit them! It's like taking a little match +and starting a prairie-fire and watching the flames creep and spread +until the heavens are roaring! I wonder if I'm selfish? I wonder? But I +can't answer that now, for it's supper time, and your Tabby has the grub +to rustle! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-first_ + + +I'm alone in the shack to-night, and I'm determined not to think about +my troubles. So I'm going to write you a ream, Matilda Anne, whether you +like it or not. And I must begin by telling you about the shack itself, +and how I got here. All the way out from Montreal Dinky-Dunk, in his +kindly way, kept doing his best to key me down and make me not expect +too much. But I'd hold his hand, under the magazine I was pretending to +read, and whistle _Home, Sweet Home_! He kept saying it would be hard, +for the first year or two, and there would be a terrible number of +things I'd be sure to miss. _Love Me and The World Is Mine!_ I hummed, +as I leaned over against his big wide shoulder. And I lay there smiling +and happy, blind to everything that was before me, and I only laughed +when Dinky-Dunk asked me if I'd still say that when I found there +wasn't a nutmeg-grater within seven miles of my kitchen. + +"Do you love me?" I demanded, hanging on to him right in front of the +car-porter. + +"I love you better than anything else in all this wide world!" was his +slow and solemn answer. + +When we left Winnipeg, too, he tried to tell me what a plain little +shack we'd have to put up with for a year or two, and how it wouldn't be +much better than camping out, and how he knew I was clear grit and would +help him win that first year's battle. There was nothing depressing to +me in the thought of life in a prairie-shack. I never knew, of course, +just what it would be like, and had no way of knowing. I remembered +Chinkie's little love of a farm in Sussex, and I'd been a week at the +Westbury's place out on Long Island, with its terraced lawns and gardens +and greenhouses and macadamized roads. And, on the whole, I expected a +cross between a shooting-box and a Swiss chalet, a little nest of a home +that was so small it was sure to be lovable, with a rambler-rose draping +the front and a crystal spring bubbling at the back door, a little +flowery island on the prairie where we could play Swiss-Family-Robinson +and sally forth to shoot prairie-chicken and ruffed grouse to our +hearts' content. + +Well, that shack wasn't quite what I expected! But I mustn't run ahead +of my story, Matilda Anne, so I'll go back to where Dinky-Dunk and I got +off the side-line "accommodation" at Buckhorn, with our traps and trunks +and hand-bags and suitcases. And these had scarcely been piled on the +wooden platform before the station-agent came running up to Duncan with +a yellow sheet in his hand. And Duncan looked worried as he read it, and +stopped talking to his man called Olie, who was there beside the +platform, in a big, sweat-stained Stetson hat, with a big team hitched +to a big wagon with straw in the bottom of the box. + +Olie, I at once told myself, was a Swede. He was one of the ugliest men +I ever clapped eyes on, but I found out afterward that his face had been +frozen in a blizzard, years before, and his nose had split. This had +disfigured him--and the job had been done for life. His eyes were big +and pale blue, and his hair and eyebrows were a pale yellow. He was the +most silent man I ever saw. But Dinky-Dunk had already told me he was a +great worker, and a fine fellow at heart. And when Dinky-Dunk says he'd +trust a man, through thick and thin, there must be something good in +that man, no matter how bulbous his nose is or how scared-looking he +gets when a woman speaks to him. Olie looked more scared than ever when +Dinky-Dunk suddenly ran to where the train-conductor was standing beside +his car-steps, asked him to hold that "accommodation" for half a minute, +pulled his suit-case from under my pile of traps, and grabbed little me +in his arms. + +"Quick," he said, "good-by! I've got to go on to Calgary. There's +trouble about my registrations." + +I hung on to him for dear life. "You're not going to leave me here, +Dinky-Dunk, in the middle of this wilderness?" I cried out, while the +conductor and brakeman and station-agent all called and holloed and +clamored for Duncan to hurry. + +"Olie will take you home, beloved," Dinky-Dunk tried to assure me. +"You'll be there by midnight, and I'll be back by Saturday evening!" + +I began to bawl. "Don't go! Don't leave me!" I begged him. But the +conductor simply tore him out of my arms and pushed him aboard the +tail-end of the last car. I made a face at a fat man who was looking out +a window at me. I stood there, as the train started to move, feeling +that it was dragging my heart with it. + +Then Dinky-Dunk called out to Olie, from the back platform: "Did you get +my message and paint that shack?" And Olie, with my steamer-rug in his +hand, only looked blank and called back "No." But I don't believe +Dinky-Dunk even heard him, for he was busy throwing kisses at me. I +stood there, at the edge of the platform, watching that lonely last +car-end fade down into the lonely sky-line. Then I mopped my eyes, took +one long quavery breath, and said out loud, as Birdalone Pebbley said +Shiner did when he was lying wounded on the field of Magersfontein: +"_Squealer, squealer, who's a squealer?_" + +I found the big wagon-box filled with our things and Olie sitting there +waiting, viewing me with wordless yet respectful awe. Olie, in fact, has +never yet got used to me. He's a fine chap, in his rough and +inarticulate way, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for me. But I'm a +novelty to him. His pale blue eyes look frightened and he blushes when I +speak to him. And he studies me secretly, as though I were a dromedary, +or an archangel, or a mechanical toy whose inner mechanism perplexed +him. But yesterday I found out through Dinky-Dunk what the probable +secret of Olie's mystification was. It was my hat. "It ban so dam' +foolish!" he fervently confessed. + +That wagon-ride from Buckhorn out to the ranch seemed endless. I thought +we were trekking clear up to the North Pole. At first there was what you +might call a road, straight and worn deep, between parallel lines of +barb-wire fencing. But this road soon melted into nothing more than a +trail, a never-ending gently curving trail that ribboned out across the +prairie-floor as far as the eye could see. It was a glorious afternoon, +one of those opaline, blue-arched autumn days when it should have been a +joy merely to be alive. But I was in an antagonistic mood, and the +little cabin-like farmhouses that every now and then stood up against +the sky-line made me feel lonesome, and the jolting of the heavy wagon +made me tired, and by six o'clock I was so hungry that my ribs ached. We +had been on the trail then almost five hours, and Olie calmly informed +me it was only a few hours more. It got quite cool as the sun went down, +and I had to undo my steamer-rug and get wrapped up in it. And still we +went on. It seemed like being at sea, with a light now and then, miles +and miles away. Something howled dismally in the distance, and gave me +the creeps. Olie told me it was only a coyote. But we kept on, and my +ribs ached worse than ever. + +Then I gave a shout that nearly frightened Olie off the seat, for I +remembered the box of chocolates we'd had on the train. We stopped and +found my hand-bag, and lighted matches and looked through it. Then I +gave a second and more dismal shout, for I remembered Dinky-Dunk had +crammed it into his suit-case at the last moment. Then we went on again, +with me a squaw-woman all wrapped in her blanket. I must have fallen +asleep, for I woke with a start. Olie had stopped at a slough to water +his team, and said we'd make home in another hour or two. How he found +his way across that prairie Heaven only knows. I no longer worried. I +was too tired to think. The open air and the swaying and jolting had +chloroformed me into insensibility. Olie could have driven over the edge +of a canyon and I should never have stopped him. + +Instead of falling into a canyon, however, at exactly ten minutes to +twelve we pulled up beside the shack door, which had been left unlocked, +and Olie went in and lighted a lamp and touched a match to the fire +already laid in the stove. I don't remember getting down from the wagon +seat and I don't remember going into the shack. But when Olie came from +putting in his team I was fast asleep on a luxurious divan made of a +rather smelly steer-hide stretched across two slim cedar-trees on four +little cedar legs, with a bag full of pine needles at the head. I lay +there watching Olie, in a sort of torpor. It surprised me how quickly +his big ungainly body could move, and how adept those big sunburned +hands of his could be. + +Then sharp as an arrow through a velvet curtain came the smell of bacon +through my drowsiness. And it was a heavenly odor. I didn't even wash. I +ate bacon and eggs and toasted biscuits and orange marmalade and coffee, +the latter with condensed milk, which I hate. I don't know how I got to +my bed, or got my clothes off, or where the worthy Olie slept, or who +put out the light, or if the door had been left open or shut. I never +knew that the bed was hard, or that the coyotes were howling. I only +know that I slept for ten solid hours, without turning over, and that +when I opened my eyes I saw a big square of golden sunlight dancing on +the unpainted pine boards of the shack wall. And the funny part of it +all was, Matilda Anne, I didn't have the splitting headache I'd so +dolorously prophesied for myself. Instead of that I felt buoyant. I +started to sing as I pulled on my stockings. And I suddenly remembered +that I was terribly hungry again. + +I swung open the window beside me, for it was on hinges, and poked my +head out. I could see a corral, and a long low building which I took to +be the ranch stables, and another and newer-looking building with a +metal roof, and several stacks of hay surrounded by a fence, and a row +of portable granaries. And beyond these stretched the open prairie, +limitless and beautiful in the clear morning sunshine. Above it arched a +sky of robin-egg blue, melting into opal and pale gold down toward the +rim of the world. I breathed in lungfuls of clear, dry, ozonic air, and +I really believe it made me a little light-headed, it was so +exhilarating, so champagnized with the invisible bubbles of life. + +I needed that etheric eye-opener, Matilda Anne, before I calmly and +critically looked about our shack. Oh, that shack, that shack! What a +comedown it was for your heart-sore Chaddie! In the first place, it +seemed no bigger than a ship's cabin, and not one-half so orderly. It is +made of lumber, and not of logs, and is about twelve feet wide and +eighteen feet long. It has three windows, on hinges, and only one door. +The floor is rather rough, and has a trap door leading into a small +cellar, where vegetables can be stored for winter use. The end of the +shack is shut off by a "tarp"--which I have just found out is short for +tarpaulin. In other words, the privacy of my bedroom is assured by +nothing more substantial than a canvas drop-curtain, shutting off my +boudoir, where I could never very successfully _bouder_, from the larger +living-room. + +This living-room is also the kitchen, the laundry, the sewing-room, the +reception-room and the library. It has a good big cookstove, which burns +either wood or coal, a built-in cupboard with an array of unspeakably +ugly crockery dishes, a row of shelves for holding canned goods, books +and magazines, cooking utensils, gun-cartridges, tobacco-jars, +carpenter's tools and a coal-oil lamp. There is also a plain pine table, +a few chairs, one rocking-chair which has plainly been made by hand, and +a flour-barrel. Outside the door is a wide wooden bench on which stands +a big tin wash-basin and a cake of soap in a sardine can that has been +punched full of holes along the bottom. Above it hung a roller towel +which looked a little the worse for wear. And that was to be my home, my +one and only habitation, for years and years to come! That little +cat-eyed cubby-hole of a place! + +I sat down on an overturned wash-tub about twenty paces from the shack, +and studied it with calm and thoughtful eyes. It looked infinitely worse +from the outside. The reason for this was that the board siding had +first been covered with tar-paper, for the sake of warmth, and over this +had been nailed pieces of tin, tin of every color and size and +description. Some of it was flattened out stove-pipe, and some was +obviously the sides of tomato-cans. Even tin tobacco-boxes and Dundee +marmalade holders and the bottoms of old bake-pans and the sides of an +old wash-boiler had been pieced together and patiently tacked over those +shack-sides. It must have taken weeks and weeks to do. And it suddenly +impressed me as something poignant, as something with the Vergilian +touch of tears in it. It seemed so full of history, so vocal of the +tragic expedients to which men on the prairie must turn. It seemed +pathetic. It brought a lump into my throat. Yet that Joseph's Coat of +metal was a neatly done bit of work. All it needed was a coat of paint +or two, and it would look less like a crazy-quilt solidified into a +homestead. And I suddenly remembered Dinky-Dunk's question called out to +Olie from the car-end--and I knew he'd hurried off a message to have +that telltale tinning-job painted over before I happened to clap eyes on +it. + +As Olie had disappeared from the scene and was nowhere to be found, I +went in and got my own breakfast. It was supper over again, only I +scrambled my eggs instead of frying them. And all the while I was eating +that meal I studied those shack-walls and made mental note of what +should be changed and what should be done. There was so much, that it +rather overwhelmed me. I sat at the table, littered with its dirty +dishes, wondering where to begin. And then the endless vista of it all +suddenly opened up before me. I became nervously conscious of the +unbroken silence about me, and I realized how different this new life +must be from the old. It seemed like death itself, and it got a strangle +hold on my nerves, and I knew I was going to make a fool of myself the +very first morning in my new home, in my home and Dinky-Dunk's. But I +refused to give in. I did something which startled me a little, +something which I had not done for years. I got down on my knees beside +that plain wooden chair and prayed to God. I asked Him to give me +strength to keep me from being a piker and make me a wife worthy of the +man who loved me, and lead me into the way of bringing happiness to the +home that was to be ours. Then I rolled up my sleeves, tied a face towel +over my head and went to work. + +It was a royal cleaning-out, I can tell you. In the afternoon I had Olie +down on all fours scrubbing the floor. When he had washed the windows I +had him get a garden rake and clear away the rubbish that littered the +dooryard. I draped chintz curtains over the windows, and had Olie nail +two shelves in a packing-box and then carry it into my boudoir behind +the drop-curtain. Over this box I tacked fresh chintz (for the shack did +not possess so feminine a thing as a dresser) and on it put my +folding-mirror and my Tiffany traveling-clock and all my foolish +shimmery silver toilet articles. Then I tacked up photographs and +magazine-prints about the bare wooden walls--and decided that before the +winter came those walls would be painted and papered, or I'd know the +reason why. Then I aired the bedding and mattress, and unpacked my +brand-new linen sheets and the ridiculous hemstitched pillow-slips that +I'd scurried so frenziedly about the city to get, and stowed my things +away on the box-shelves, and had Olie pound the life out of the +well-sunned pillows, and carefully remade the bed. + +And then I went at the living-room. And it was no easy task, +reorganizing those awful shelves and making sure I wasn't throwing away +things Dinky-Dunk might want later on. But the carnage was great, and +all afternoon the smoke went heavenward from my fires of destruction. +And when it was over I told Olie to go out for a good long walk, for I +intended to take a bath. Which I did in the wash-tub, with much joy and +my last cake of Roger-and-Gallet soap. And I had to shout to poor +ambulating Olie for half-an-hour before I could persuade him to come in +to supper. And even then he came tardily, with countless hesitations and +pauses, as though a lady temerarious enough to take a scrub were for all +time taboo to the race of man. And when he finally ventured in through +the door, round-eyed and blushing a deep russet, he gaped at my white +middy and my little white apron with that silent but eloquent admiration +which couldn't fail to warm the cockles of the most unimpressionable +housewife's heart. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-third_ + + +My Dinky-Dunk is back--and oh, the difference to me! I kept telling +myself that I was too busy to miss him. He came Saturday night as I was +getting ready for bed. I'd been watching the trail every now and then, +all day long, and by nine o'clock had given him up. When I heard him +shouting for Olie, I made a rush for him, with only half my clothes on, +and nearly shocked Olie and some unknown man, who'd driven Dinky-Dunk +home, to death. How I hugged my husband! My husband--I love to write +that word. And when I got him inside we had it all over again. He was +just like a big overgrown boy. And he put the table between us, so he'd +have a chance to talk. But even that didn't work. He smothered my +laughing in kisses, and held me up close to him and said I was +wonderful. Then we'd try to get down to earth again, and talk sensibly, +and then there'd be another death-clinch. Dinky-Dunk says I'm worse +than he is. "Of course it's all up with a man," he confessed, "when he +sees you coming for him with that Australian crawl-stroke of yours!" + +For which I did my best to break in his floating ribs. Heaven only knows +how late we talked that night. And Dinky-Dunk had a bundle of surprises +for me. The first was a bronze reading-lamp. The second was a soft +little rug for the bedroom--only an Axminster, but very acceptable. The +third was a pair of Juliets, lined with fur, and oceans too big for me. +And Dinky-Dunk says by Tuesday we'll have two milk-cows, part-Jersey, at +the ranch, and inside of a week a crate of hens will be ours. Thereupon +I couldn't help leading Duncan to the inventory I had made of what we +had, and the list, on the opposite side, of what we had to have. The +second thing under the heading of "Needs" was "lamp," the fifth was +"bedroom rug," the thirteenth was "hens," and the next was "cow." I +think he was rather amazed at the length of that list of "needs," but he +says I shall have everything in reason. And when he kind of settled +down, and noticed the changes in the living-room and then went in and +inspected the bedroom he grew very solemn, of a sudden. It worried me. + +"Lady Bird," he said, taking me in his arms, "this is a pretty hard life +I've trapped you into. It will _have_ to be hard for a year or two, but +we'll win out, in the end, and I guess it'll be worth the fight!" + +Dinky-Dunk is such a dear. I told him of course we'd win out, but I +wouldn't be much use to him at first. I'd have to get broken in and made +bridle-wise. + +"But, oh, Dinky-Dunk, whatever happens, you must always love me!"--and I +imagine I swam for him with my Australian crawl-stroke again. All I +remember is that we went to sleep in each other's arms. And as I started +to say and forgot to finish, I'd been missing my Dinky-Dunk more than I +imagined, those last few days. After that night it was no longer just a +shack. It was "Home." Home--it's such a beautiful word! It must mean so +much to every woman. And I fell asleep telling myself it was the +loveliest word in the English language. + +In the morning I slipped out of bed before Dinky-Dunk was awake, for +breakfast was to be our first home meal, and I wanted it to be a +respectable one. _Der Mensch ist was er isst_--so I must feed my lord +and master on the best in the land. Accordingly I put an extra +tablespoonful of cream in the scrambled eggs, and two whole eggs in the +coffee, to make dead sure it was crystal-clear. Then, feeling like Van +Roon when Berlin declared war on France, I rooted out Dinky-Dunk, made +him wash, and sat him down in his pajamas and his ragged old +dressing-gown. + +"I suppose," I said as I saw his eyes wander about the table, "that you +feel exactly like an oyster-man who's just chipped his Blue-Point and +got his knife-edge in under the shell! And the next wrench is going to +tell you exactly what sort of an oyster you've got!" + +Dinky-Dunk grinned up at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the +range. "Well, Lady Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika, +anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor +and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked +a queen--only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our poor old +Swedish Olie! + +As that was Sunday we spent the morning "pi-rooting" about the place. +Dinky-Dunk took me out and showed me the stables and the hay-stacks and +the granaries--which he'd just waterproofed so there'd be no more spoilt +grain on that farm--and the "cool-hole" he used to use before the cellar +was built, and the ruins of the sod-hut where the first homesteader that +owned that land had lived. Then he showed me the new bunk-house for the +men, which Olie is finishing in his spare time. It looks much better +than our own shack, being of planed lumber. But Dinky-Dunk is loyal to +the shack, and says it's really better built, and the warmest shack in +the West--as I'll find before winter is over. + +Then we stopped at the pump, and Dinky-Dunk made a confession. When he +first bought that ranch there was no water at the shack, except what he +could catch from the roof. Water had to be hauled for miles, and it was +muddy and salty, at that. They used to call it "Gopher soup." This lack +of water always worried him, he said, for women always want water, and +oodles of it. It was the year before, after he had left me at Banff, +that he was determined to get water. It was hard work, putting down that +well, and up to almost the last moment it promised to be a dry hole. But +when they struck that water, Dinky-Dunk says, he decided in his soul +that he was going to have me, if I was to be had. It was water fit for a +queen. And he wanted his queen. But of course even queens have to be +well laved and well laundered. He said he didn't sleep all night, after +they found the water was there. He was too happy; he just went +meandering about the prairie, singing to himself. + +"So you were pretty sure of me, Kitten-Cats, even then?" I demanded. + +He looked at me with his solemn Scotch-Canadian eyes. "I'm not sure of +you, even now," was his answer. But I made him take it back. + +It's rather odd how Dinky-Dunk got this ranch, which used to be called +the Cochrane Ranch, for even behind this peaceful little home of ours +there is a touch of tragedy. Hugh Cochrane was one of Dinky-Dunk's +surveyors when he first took up railroad work in British Columbia. Hugh +had a younger brother Andrew, who was rather wild and had been brought +out here and planted on the prairie to keep him out of mischief. One +winter night he rode nearly thirty miles to a dance (they do that +apparently out here, and think nothing of it) and instead of riding home +at five o'clock in the morning, with the others, he visited a +whisky-runner who was operating a "blind pig." There he acquired much +more whisky than was good for him and got lost on the trail. That meant +he was badly frozen and probably out of his mind before he got back to +the shack. He wasn't able to keep up a fire, of course, or do anything +for himself--and I suppose the poor boy simply froze to death. He was +alone there, and it was weeks and weeks before his body was found. But +the most gruesome part of it all is that his horses had been stabled, +tied up in their stalls without feed. They were all found dead, poor +brutes. They'd even eaten the wooden boards the mangers were built of. +Hugh Cochrane couldn't get over it, and was going to sell the ranch for +fourteen hundred dollars when Dinky-Dunk heard of it and stepped in and +bought the whole half-section. Then he bought the McKinnon place, a +half-section to the north of this, after McKinnon had lost all his +buildings because he was too shiftless to make a fire-guard. And when +the railway work was finished Dinky-Dunk took up wheat-growing. He is a +great believer in wheat. He says wheat spells wealth, in this country. +Some people call him a "land-miner," he says, but when he's given the +chance to do the thing as he wants to, he'll show them who's right. + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk and I have been making plans. He's promised to build an annex +to the shack, a wing on the north side, so I can have a store-room and a +clothes-closet at one end and a guest-chamber at the other. And I'm to +have a sewing-machine and a bread-mixer, and the smelly steer-hide divan +is going to be banished to the bunk-house. And Dinky-Dunk says I must +have a pinto, a riding-horse, as soon as he can lay hands on the right +animal. Later on he says I must have help, but out here in the West +women are hard to get, and harder to keep. They are snatched up by +lonely bachelors like Dinky-Dunk. They can't even keep the +school-teachers (mostly girls from Ontario) from marrying off. But I +don't want a woman about, not for a few months yet. I want Dinky-Dunk +all to myself. And the freedom of isolation like this is such a luxury! +To be just one's self, in civilization, is a luxury, is the greatest +luxury in the world,--and also the most expensive, I've found to my +sorrow. + +Out here, there's no object in being anything but one's self. Life is so +simple and honest, so back to first principles! There's joy in the +thought of getting rid of all the sublimated junk of city life. I'm just +a woman; and Dinky-Dunk is just a man. We've got a roof and a bed and a +fire. That's all. And what is there, really, after that? We have to eat, +of course, but we really live well. There's all the game we want, +especially wild duck and prairie chicken, to say nothing of jack-rabbit. +Dinky-Dunk sallies out and pots them as we need them. We get our veal +and beef by the quarter, but it will not keep well until the weather +gets cooler, so I put what we don't need in brine and use it for +boiling-meat. We have no fresh fruit, but even evaporated peaches can be +stewed so that they're appetizing. And as I had the good sense to bring +out with me no less than three cook-books, from Brentano's, I am able to +attempt more and more elaborate dishes. + +Olie has a wire-fenced square where he grew beets and carrots and onions +and turnips, and the biggest potatoes I ever saw. These will be pitted +before the heavy frosts come. We get our butter and lard by the pail, +and our flour by the sack, but getting things in quantities sometimes +has its drawbacks. When I examined the oatmeal box I found it had +weavels in it, and promptly threw all that meal away. Dinky-Dunk, coming +in from the corral, viewed the pile with round-eyed amazement. "It's got +_worms_ in it!" I cried out to him. He took up a handful of it, and +stared at it with tragic sorrow. "Why, I ate weavels all last winter," +he reprovingly remarked. Dinky-Dunk, with his Scotch strain, loves his +porridge. So we'll have to get a hundred-weight, guaranteed strictly +uninhabited, when we team into Buckhorn. + +Men are funny! A woman never quite knows a man until she has lived with +him and day by day unearthed his little idiosyncrasies. She may seem +close to him, in those earlier days of romance, but she never really +knows him, any more than a sparrow on a telegraph wire knows the Morse +Code thrilling along under its toes! Men have so many little kinks and +turns, even the best of them. I tacked oil-cloth on a shoe-box and +draped chintz around it, and fixed a place for Dinky-Dunk to wash, in +the bedroom, when he comes in at noon. At night I knew it would be +impossible, for he's built a little wash-house with old binder-carrier +canvas nailed to four posts, and out there Olie and he strip every +evening and splash each other with horse-pails full of well-water. +Dinky-Dunk is clean, whatever he may be, but I thought it would look +more civilized if he'd perform his limited noonday ablutions in the +bedroom. He did it for one day, in pensive silence, and then sneaked the +wash-things back to the rickety old bench outside the door. He said it +saved time. + +Among other vital things, I've found that Dinky-Dunk hates burnt toast. +Yesterday morning, Matilda Anne, I got thinking about Corfu and Ragusa +and you, and it _did_ burn a little around the edges, I suppose. So I +kissed his ear and told him carbon would make his teeth white. But he +got up and went out with a sort of "In-this-way-madness-lies" +expression, and I felt wretched all day. So this morning I was more +careful. I did that toast just to a turn. "Feast, O Kaikobád, on the +blondest of toast!" I said as I salaamed and handed him the plate. He +wrinkled up his forehead a little, at the sting in that speech, but he +could not keep from grinning. Then, too, Dinky-Dunk always soaps the +back of his hand, to wash his back, and reach high up. So do I. And on +cold mornings-he says "One, two, three, the bumble bee!" before he hops +out of bed--and I imagined I was the only grownup in all the wide world +who still made use of that foolish rhyme. And the other day when he was +hot and tired I found him drinking a dipperful of cold water fresh from +the well. So I said: + + "Many a man has gone to his sarcophagus + Thro' pouring cold water down a warm esophagus!" + +When I recited that rhyme to him he swung about as though he'd been +shot. "Where did you ever hear that?" he asked. I told him that was +what Lady Agatha always said to me when she caught me drinking +ice-water. "I thought I was the only man in the world who knew that +crazy old couplet," he confessed, and he chased me around the shack with +the rest of the dipperful, to keep from chilling his tummy, he +explained. Then Dinky-Dunk and I both like to give pet-names to things. +He calls me "Lady Bird" and "Gee-Gee" and sometimes "Honey," and +sometimes "Boca Chica" and "Tabby." And I call him Dinky-Dunk and The +Dour Maun, and Kitten-Cats, though for some reason or other he hates +that last name. I think he feels it's an affront to his dignity. And no +man likes a trace of mockery in a woman. But Dinky-Dunk's names are born +of affection, and I love him for them. + +Even the ranch horses have all been tagged with names. There's +"Slip-Along" and "Water Light" and "Bronk" and "Patsy Crocker" and "Pick +and Shovel" and "Tumble Weed," and others that I can't remember at the +moment. And I find I'm picking up certain of Dinky-Dunk's little +habits, and dropping into the trick of looking at things from his +standpoint. I wonder if husbands and wives really _do_ get to be alike? +There are times when Dinky-Dunk seems to know just what I'm thinking, +for when he speaks he says exactly the thing I was going to ask him. And +he's inexorable in his belief that one's right shoe should always be put +on first. So am I! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-sixth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk is rather pinched for ready money. He is what they call "land +poor" out here. He has big plans, but not much cash. So we shall have to +be frugal. I had decided on vast and sudden changes in this household, +but I'll have to draw in my horns a little. Luckily I have nearly two +hundred dollars of my own money left--and have never mentioned it to +Dinky-Dunk. So almost every night I study the magazine advertisements, +and the catalog of the mail-order house in Winnipeg. Each night I add to +my list of "Needs," and then go back and cross out some of the earlier +ones, as being too extravagant, for the length of my list almost gives +me heart-failure. And as I sit there thinking of what I have to do +without, I envy the women I've known in other days, the women with all +their white linen and their cut glass and silverware and their +prayer-rugs and period rooms and their white-tiled baths and their +machinery for making life so comfortable and so easy. I envy them. I put +away my list, and go to bed envying them. But, oh, I sleep so soundly, +and I wake up so buoyant in heart, so eager to get at the next day's +work, so glad to see I'm slowly getting things more ship-shape. It +doesn't leave room for regret. And there is always the future, the +happier to-morrow to which our thoughts go out. I get to thinking of the +city again, of the hundreds of women I know going like hundreds of crazy +squirrels on their crazy treadmill of amusements, and of the thousands +and thousands of women who are toiling without hope, going on in the +same old rut from day to day, cooped up in little flats and back rooms, +with bad air and bad food and bad circulation, while I have all God's +outdoors to wander about in, and can feel the singing rivers of health +in my veins. And here I side-step my Song-of-Solomon voluntary, for they +have one thing I _do_ miss, and that is music. I wish I had a +cottage-piano or a Baby Grand or a _Welte Mignon_! I wish I had any +kind of an old piano! I wish I had an accordion, or a German +Sweet-Potato, or even a Jew's-Harp! + +But what's the use of wishing for luxuries, when we haven't even a +can-opener--Dinky-Dunk says he's used a hatchet for over a year! And our +only toaster is a kitchen-fork wired to the end of a lath. I even saw +Dinky-Dunk spend half an hour straightening out old nails taken from one +of our shipping-boxes. And the only colander we have was made out of a +leaky milk-pan with holes punched in its bottom. And we haven't a +double-boiler or a mixing-bowl or a doughnut-cutter. When I told +Dinky-Dunk yesterday that we were running out of soap, he said he'd +build a leach of wood-ashes and get beef-tallow and make soft soap. I +asked him how long he'd want to kiss a downy cheek that had been washed +in soft soap. He said he'd keep on kissing me if I was a mummy pickled +in bitumen. But I prefer not risking too much of the pickling process. + +Which reminds me of the fact that I find my hair a terrible nuisance, +with no Hortense to struggle with it every morning. As you know, it's as +thick as a rope and as long as my arm. I begrudge the time it takes to +look after it, and such a thing as a good shampoo is an event to be +approached with trepidation and prepared for with zeal. "Coises on me +beauty!" I think I'll cut that wool off. But on each occasion when I +have my mind about made up I experience one of "Mr. Polly's" l'il dog +moments. The thing that makes me hesitate is the thought that Dinky-Dunk +might hate me for the rest of his days. And now that our +department-store aristocracy seems to have a corner in Counts and I seem +destined to worry along with merely an American husband, I don't intend +to throw away the spoons with the dish-water! But having to fuss so with +that hair is a nuisance, especially at night, when I am so tired that my +pillow seems to bark like a dog for me to come and pat it. + +And speaking of that reminds me that I have to order arch-supports for +my feet. I'm on them so much that by bedtime my ankles feel like a +_chocolat mousse_ that's been left out in the sun. Yet this isn't a +whimper, Matilda Anne, for when I turn in I sleep like a child. No more +counting and going to the medicine-chest for coal-tar pills. I abjure +them. I, who used to have so many tricks to bring the starry-eyed +goddess bending over my pillow, hereby announce myself as the noblest +sleeper north of the Line! I no longer need to count the sheep as they +come over the wall, or patiently try to imagine the sound of surf-waves, +or laboriously re-design that perennial dinner-gown which I've kept +tucked away in the cedar-chest of the imagination as long as I can +remember, elaborating it over and over again down to the minutest +details through the longest hour of my whitest white night until it +began to merge into the velvety robes of slumber itself! Nowadays an +ogre called Ten-O'Clock steals up behind my chair with a club in his +hand and stuns me into insensibility. Two or three times, in fact, my +dear old clumsy-fingered Dinky-Dunk has helped me get my clothes off. +But he says that the nicest sound he knows is to lie in bed and hear the +tinkle of my hair-pins as I toss them into the little Coalport pin-tray +on my dresser--which reminds me what Chinkie once said about his idea of +Heaven being eating my divinity-fudge to the sound of trumpets! + +I brag about being busy, but I'm not the only busy person about this +wickyup. Olie and Dinky-Dunk talk about summer-fallowing and +double-discing and drag-harrowing and fire-guarding, and I'm beginning +to understand what it all means. They are out with their teams all day +long, working like Trojans. We have mid-day dinner, which Olie bolts in +silence and with the rapidity of chain-lightning. He is the most expert +of sword-swallowers, with a table-knife, and Dinky-Dunk says it keeps +reminding him how Burbank could make a fortune inventing a square pea +that would stay on a knife-blade. But Dinky-Dunk stopped me calling him +"The Sword Swallower" and has privately tipped Olie off as to the +functions of the table fork. How the males of this old earth stick +together! The world of men is a secret order, and every man is a member! + +Having bolted his dinner Olie always makes for outdoors. Then Dinky-Dunk +comes to my side of the table. We sit side by side, with our arms around +each other. Sometimes I fill his pipe for him and light it. Then we talk +lazily, happily, contentedly and sometimes shockingly. Then he looks at +our nickel-alarm clock, up on the book shelves which I made out of old +biscuit-boxes, and invariably says: "This isn't the spirit that built +Rome," and kisses me three times, once on each eyelid, tight, and once +on the mouth. I don't even mind the taste of the pipe. Then he's off, +and I'm alone for the afternoon. + +But I'm getting things organized now so that I have a little spare time. +And with time on my hands I find myself turning very restless. Yesterday +I wandered off on the prairie and nearly got lost. Dinky-Dunk says I +must be more careful, until I get to know the country better. He put me +up on his shoulder and made me promise. Then he let me down. It made me +wonder if I hadn't married a masterful man. Above all things I've always +wanted freedom. + +"I'm a wild woman, Duncan. You'll never tame me," I confessed to him. + +He laughed a little. + +"So you think you will?" I demanded. + +"No, _I_ won't, Gee-Gee, but life will!" + +And again I felt some ghostly spirit of revolt stirring in me, away down +deep. I think he saw some shadow of it, caught some echo of it, for his +manner changed and he pushed back the hair from my forehead and kissed +me, almost pityingly. + +"There's one thing must _not_ happen!" I told him as he held me in his +arms. + +He did not let his eyes meet mine. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"I'm afraid--out here!" I confessed as I clung to him and felt the need +of having him close to me. He was very quiet and thoughtful all +evening. Before I fell asleep he told me that on Monday the two of us +would team in to Buckhorn and get a wagon-load of supplies. + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +I have got my cayuse. Dinky-Dunk meant him for a surprise, but the +shyest and reddest-headed cowboy that ever sat in a saddle came +cantering along the trail, and I saw him first. He was leading the +shaggiest, piebaldest, pottest-tummied, craziest-looking little cayuse +that ever wore a bridle. I gave one look at his tawny-colored forelock, +which stood pompadour-style about his ears, and shouted out +"Paderewski!" Dinky-Dunk came and stood beside me and laughed. He said +that cayuse _did_ look like Paderewski, but the youth of the fiery locks +blushingly explained that his present name was "Jail-Bird," which some +fool Scandinavian had used instead of "Grey-Bird," his authentic and +original appellative. But I stuck to my name, though we have shortened +it into "Paddy." And Paddy must indeed have been a jail-bird, or +deserved to be one, for he is marked and scarred from end to end. But +he is good-tempered, tough as hickory and obligingly omnivorous. Every +one in the West, men and women alike, rides astride, and I have been +practising on Paddy. It seems a very comfortable and sensible way to +ride, but I shall have to toughen up a bit before I hit the trail for +any length of time. + +I've been wondering, Matilda Anne, if this all sounds pagan and foolish +to you, uncultured, as Theobald Gustav would put it? I've also been +wondering, since I wrote that last sentence, if people really need +culture, or what we used to call culture, and if it means as much to +life as so many imagine. Here we are out here without any of the +refinements of civilization, and we're as much at peace with our own +souls as are the birds of the air--when there _are_ birds in the air, +which isn't in our country! Culture, it seems to me as I look back on +things, tends to make people more and more mere spectators of life, +detaching them from it and lifting them above it. Or can it be that the +mere spectators demand culture, to take the place of what they miss by +not being actual builders and workers? + +We are farmers, just rubes and hicks, as they say in my country. But +we're tilling the soil and growing wheat. We're making a great new +country out of what was once a wilderness. To me, that seems almost +enough. We're laboring to feed the world, since the world must have +bread, and there's something satisfying and uplifting in the mere +thought that we can answer to God, in the end, for our lives, no matter +how raw and rude they may have been. And there are mornings when I am +Browning's "Saul" in the flesh. The great wash of air from sky-line to +sky-line puts something into my blood or brain that leaves me almost +dizzy. I sizzle! It makes me pulse and tingle and cry out that life is +good--_good_! I suppose it is nothing more than altitude and ozone. But +in the matter of intoxicants it stands on a par with anything that was +ever poured out of bottles at Martin's or Bustanoby's. And at sunrise, +when the prairie is thinly silvered with dew, when the tiny hammocks of +the spider-webs swing a million sparkling webs strung with diamonds, +when every blade of grass is a singing string of pearls, hymning to God +on High for the birth of a golden day, I can feel my heart swell, and +I'm so abundantly, so inexpressibly alive, alive to every finger-tip! +Such space, such light, such distances! And being Saul is so much better +than reading about him! + + + + +_Wednesday the First_ + + +I was too tired to write any last night, though there seemed so much to +talk about. We teamed into Buckhorn for our supplies, two leisurely, +lovely, lazy days on the trail, which we turned into a sort of +gipsy-holiday. We took blankets and grub and feed for the horses and a +frying-pan, and camped out on the prairie. The night was pretty cool, +but we made a good fire, and had hot coffee. Dinky-Dunk smoked and I +sang. Then we rolled up in our blankets and as I lay there watching the +stars I got thinking of the lights of the Great White Way. Then I nudged +my husband and asked him if he knew what my greatest ambition in life +used to be. And of course he didn't. "Well, Dinky-Dunk," I told him, "it +was to be the boy who opens the door at _Malliard's_! For two whole +years I ate my heart out with envy of that boy, who always lived in the +odor of such heavenly hot chocolate and wore two rows of shining +buttons down his braided coat and was never without white gloves and +morning, noon and night paraded about in the duckiest little skull-cap +cocked very much to one side like a Grenadier's!" And Dinky-Dunk told me +to go to sleep or he'd smother me with a horse-blanket. So I squirmed +back into my blanket and got "nested" and watched the fire die away +while far, far off somewhere a coyote howled. That made me lonesome, so +I got Dinky-Dunk's hand, and fell asleep holding it in mine. + +I woke up early. Dinky-Dunk had forgotten about my hand, and it was +cold. In the East there was a low bar of ethereally pale silver, which +turned to amber, and then to ashes of roses, and then to gold. I saw one +sublime white star go out, in the West, and then behind the bars of gold +the sky grew rosy with morning until it was one Burgundian riot of +bewildering color. I sat up and watched it. Then I reached over and +shook Dinky-Dunk. It was too glorious a daybreak to miss. He looked at +me with one eye open, like a sleepy hound. + +"You must see it, Dinky-Dunk! It's so resplendent it's positively +vulgar!" + +He sat up, stared at the pageantry of color for one moment, and then +wriggled down into his blanket again. I tickled his nose with a blade of +sweet-grass. Then I washed my face in the dew, the same as we did in +Christ-Church Meadow that glorious May-Day in Oxford. By the time +Dinky-Dunk woke up I had the coffee boiling and the bacon sizzling in +the pan. It was the most celestial smell that ever assailed human +nostrils, and I blush with shame at the thought of how much I ate at +that breakfast, sitting flat on an empty oat-sack and leaning against a +wagon-wheel. By eight o'clock we were in the metropolis of Buckhorn and +busy gathering up our things there. And they made a very respectable +wagon-load. + + + + +_Thursday the Second_ + + +I have been practising like mad learning to play the mouth-organ. I +bought it in Buckhorn, without letting Dinky-Dunk know, and all day +long, when I knew it was safe, I've been at it. So to-night, when I had +my supper-table all ready, I got the ladder that leaned against one of +the granaries and mounted the nearest hay-stack. There, quite out of +sight, I waited until Dinky-Dunk came in with his team. I saw him go +into the shack and then step outside again, staring about in a brown +study. Then I struck up _Traumerei_. + +You should have seen that boy's face! He looked up at the sky, as though +my poor little harmonica were the aërial outpourings of archangels. He +stood stock-still, drinking it in. Then he bolted for the stables, +thinking it came from there. It took him some time to corner me up on my +stack-top. Then I slid down into his arms. And I believe he loves that +mouth-organ music. After supper he made me go out and sit on the oat-box +and play my repertory. He says it's wonderful, from a distance. But that +mouth-organ's rather brassy, and it makes my lips sore. Then, too, my +mouth isn't big enough for me to "tongue" it properly. When I told +Dinky-Dunk this he said: + +"Of course it isn't! What d'you suppose I've been calling you Boca Chica +for?" + +And I've just discovered "Boca Chica" is Spanish for "Little Mouth"--and +me with a trap, Matilda Anne, that you used to call the Cave of the +Winds! Now Dinky-Dunk vows he'll have a Victrola before the winter is +over! Ye gods and little fishes, what a luxury! There was a time, not so +long ago, when I was rather inclined to sniff at the Westbury's electric +player-piano and its cabinet of neatly canned classics! How life humbles +us! And how blind all women are in their ideals and their search for +happiness! The sea-stones that lie so bright on the shores of youth can +dry so dull in the hand of experience! And yet, as Birdalone's Nannie +once announced, "If you thuck 'em they thay boo-ful!" And I guess it +must be a good deal the same with marriage. You can't even afford to lay +down on your job of loving. The more we ask, the more we must give. I've +just been thinking of those days of my fiercely careless childhood when +my soul used to float out to placid happiness on one piece of +plum-cake--only even then, alas, it floated out like a polar bear on its +iceberg, for as that plum-cake vanished my peace of mind went with it, +madly as I clung to the last crumb. But now that I'm an old married +woman I don't intend to be a Hamlet in petticoats. A good man loves me, +and I love him back. And I intend to keep that love alive. + + + + +_Friday the Third_ + + +I have just issued an ultimatum as to pigs. There shall be no more loose +porkers wandering about my dooryard. It's an advertisement of bad +management. And what's more, when I was hanging out my washing this +morning a shote rooted through my basket of white clothes with his dirty +nose, and while I made after him his big brother actually tried to eat +one of my wet table-napkins. And that meant another hour's hard work +before the damage was repaired. + + + + +_Saturday the Fourth_ + + +Olie is painting the shack, inside and out, and now you'd never know our +poor little Joseph-coat home. I told Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever put a +chameleon on that shack-wall he'd have died of brain-fag trying to make +good on the color-schemes. So Dinky-Dunk made Olie take a day off and +ply the brush. But the smell of paint made me think of Channel passages, +so off I went with Dinky-Dunk, _a la_ team and buckboard, to the Dixon +Ranch to see about some horses, nearly seventy miles there and back. It +was a glorious autumn day, and a glorious ride, with "Bronk" and +"Tumble-Weed" loping along the double-trail and the air like crystal. + +Dinky-Dunk and I sang most of the way. The gophers must have thought we +were mad. My lord and master is incontinently proud of his voice, +especially the chest-tones, but he rather tails behind me on the tune, +plainly not always being sure of himself. We had dinner with the Dixons, +and about three million flies. They gave me the blues, that family, and +especially Mrs. Dixon. She seemed to make prairie-life so ugly and empty +and hardening. Poor, dried-up, sad-eyed soul, she looked like a woman of +sixty, and yet her husband said she was just thirty-seven. Their water +is strong with alkali, and this and the prairie wind (combined with a +something deep down in her own make-up) have made her like a vulture, +lean and scrawny and dry. I stared at that hard line of jaw and +cheekbone and wondered how long ago the soft curves were there, and if +those overworked hands had ever been pretty, and if that flat back had +ever been rounded and dimpled. Her hair was untidy. Her apron was +unspeakably dirty, and she used it as both a handkerchief and a +hand-towel. Her voice was as hard as nails, and her cooking was +wretched. Not a door or window was screened, and, as I said before, we +were nearly smothered with flies. + +Dinky-Dunk did not dare to look at me, all dinner time. And on the way +home Mrs. Dixon's eyes kept haunting me, they seemed so tired and vacant +and accusing, as though they were secretly holding God Himself to +account for cheating her out of her woman's heritage of joy. I asked +Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever get like that. He said, "Not on your life!" and +quoted the Latin phrase about mind controlling matter. The Dixons, he +went on to explain, were of the "slum" type, only they didn't happen to +live in a city. But tired and sleepy as I was that night, I got up to +cold-cream my face and arms. And I'm going to write for almond-meal and +glycerin from the mail-order house to-morrow. _And_ a brassiere--for I +saw what looked like the suspicion of a smile on Dinky-Dunk's unshaven +lips as he watched me struggling into my corsets this morning. It took +some writhing, and even then I could hardly make it. I threw my wet +sponge after him when he turned back in the doorway with the mildly +impersonal question: "Who's your fat friend?" Then he scooted for the +corral, and I went back and studied my chin in the dresser-mirror, to +make sure it wasn't getting terraced into a dew-lap like Uncle +Carlton's. + +But I can't help thinking of the Dixons, and feeling foolishly and +helplessly sorry for them. It was dusk when we got back from that long +drive to their ranch, and the stars were coming out. I could see our +shack from miles off, a little lonely dot of black against the sky-line. +I made Dinky-Dunk stop the team, and we sat and looked at it. It seemed +so tiny there, so lonely, so strange, in the middle of such miles and +miles of emptiness, with a little rift of smoke going up from its +desolate little pipe-end. Then I said, out loud, "Home! My home!" And +out of a clear sky, for no earthly reason, I began to cry like a baby. +Women are such fools, sometimes! I told Dinky-Dunk we must get books, +good books, and spend the long winter evenings reading together, to keep +from going to seed. + +He said, "All right, Gee-Gee," and patted my knee. Then we loped on +along the trail toward the lonely little black dot ahead of us. But I +hung on to Dinky-Dunk's arm, all the rest of the way, until we pulled up +beside the shack, and poor old Olie, with a frying-pan in his hand, +stood silhouetted against the light of the open door. + + + + +_Monday the Sixth_ + + +The last few days I've been nothing but a two-footed retriever, +scurrying off and carrying things back home with me. There have been +rains, but the weather is still glorious. And I've discovered such heaps +and heaps of mushrooms over at the old Titchborne Ranch. They're thick +all around the corral and in the pasture there. I am now what your +English lord and master would call "a perfect seat" on Paddy, and every +morning I ride over after my basketful of _Agaricus Campestris_--that +ought to be in the plural, but I've forgotten how! We have them creamed +on toast; we have them fried in butter; and we have them in soup--and +such beauties! I'm going to try and can some for winter and spring use. +But the finest part of the mushroom is the finding it. To ride into a +little white city that has come up overnight and looks like an +encampment of fairy soldiers, to see the milky white domes against the +vivid green of the prairie-grass, to catch sight of another clump of +them, suddenly, like stars against an emerald sky, a hundred yards away, +to inhale the clean morning air, and feel your blood tingle, and hear +the prairie-chickens whir and the wild-duck scolding along the +coulee-edges--I tell you, Matilda Anne, it's worth losing a little of +your beauty sleep to go through it! I'm awake even before Dinky-Dunk, +and I brought him out of his dreams this morning by poking his teeth +with my little finger and saying: + + "Twelve white horses + On a red hill--" + +and I asked him if he knew what it was, and he gave the right answer, +and said he hadn't heard that conundrum since he was a boy. + +All afternoon I've been helping Dinky-Dunk put up a barb-wire fence. +Barb-wire is nearly as hard as a woman to handle. Dinky-Dunk is fencing +in some of the range, for a sort of cattle-run for our two milk-cows. He +says it's only a small field, but there seemed to be miles and miles of +that fencing. We had no stretcher, so Dinky-Dunk made shift with me and +a claw-hammer. He'd catch the wire, lever his hammer about a post, and +I'd drive in the staple, with a hammer of my own. I got so I could hit +the staple almost every whack, though one staple went off like shrapnel +and hit Diddum's ear. So I'm some use, you see, even if I am a chekako! +But a wire slipped, and tore through my skirt and stocking, scratched my +leg and made the blood run. It was only the tiniest cut, really, but I +made the most of it, Dinky-Dunk was so adorably nice about doctoring me +up. We came home tired and happy, singing together, and Olie, as usual, +must have thought we'd both gone mad. + +This husband of mine is so elementary. He secretly imagines that he's +one of the most complex of men. But in a good many things he's as simple +as a child. And I love him for it, although I believe I _do_ like to +bedevil him a little. He is dignified, and hates flippancy. So when I +greet him with "Morning, old boy!" I can see that nameless little +shadow sweep over his face. Then I say, "Oh, I beg its little pardon!" +He generally grins, in the end, and I think I'm slowly shaking that +monitorial air out of him, though once or twice I've had to remind him +about La Rochefoucauld saying gravity was a stratagem invented to +conceal the poverty of the mind! But Dinky-Dunk still objects to me +putting my finger on his Adam's apple when he's talking. He wears a +flannel shirt, when working outside, and his neck is bare. Yesterday I +buried my face down in the corner next to his shoulder-blade and made +him wriggle. As he shaves only on Sunday mornings now, that is about the +only soft spot, for his face is prickly, and makes my chin sore, the +bearded brute! Then I bit him; not hard--but Satan said bite, and I just +had to do it. He turned quite pale, swung me round so that I lay limp in +his arms, and closed his mouth over mine. I got away, and he chased me. +We upset things. Then I got outside the shack, ran around the +horse-corral, and then around the hay-stacks, with Dinky-Dunk right +after me, giving me goose-flesh at every turn. I felt like a +cave-woman. He grabbed me like a stone-age man and caught me up and +carried me over his shoulder to a pile of prairie sweet-grass that had +been left there for Olie's mattress. My hair was down. I was screaming, +half sobbing and half laughing. He dropped me in the hay, like a bag of +wheat. I started to fight him again. But I couldn't beat him off. Then +all my strength seemed to go. He was laughing himself, but it frightened +me a little to see his pupils so big that his eyes looked black. I felt +like a lamb in a lion's jaw, Dinky-Dunk is so much stronger than I am. I +lay there quite still, with my eyes closed. I went flop. I knew I was +conquered. + +Then I came back to life. I suddenly realized that it was mid-day, in +the open air between the bald prairie-floor and God's own blue sky, +where Olie could stumble on us at any moment--and possibly die with his +boots on! Dinky-Dunk was kissing my left eyelid. It was a cup his lips +just seemed to fit into. I tried to move. But he held me there. He held +me so firmly that it hurt. Yet I couldn't help hugging him. Poor, big, +foolish, baby-hearted Dinky-Dunk! And poor, weak, crazy, storm-tossed +me! But, oh, God, it's glorious, in some mysterious way, to stir the +blood of a strong big man! It's heaven--and I don't quite know why. But +I love to see Dinky-Dunk's eyes grow black. Yet it makes me a little +afraid of him. I can hear his heart pound, sometimes, quite distinctly. +And sometimes there seems something so pathetic about it all--we are +such puny little mites of emotion played on by nature for her own +immitigable ends! But every woman wants to be loved. Dinky-Dunk asked me +why I shut my eyes when he kisses me. I wonder why? Sometimes, too, he +says my kisses are wicked, and that he likes 'em wicked. He's a funny +mixture. He's got the soul of a Scotch Calvinist tangled up in him +somewhere, and after the storm he's very apt to grow pious and a bit +preachy. But he has feelings, only he's ashamed of them. I think I'm +taking a little of the ice-crust off his emotions. He's a stiff clay +that needs to be well stirred up and turned over before it can mellow. +And I must be a sandy loam that wastes all its strength in one short +harvest. That sounds as though I were getting to be a real farmer's wife +with a vast knowledge of soils, doesn't it? At any rate my husband, out +of his vast knowledge of me, says I have the swamp-cedar trick of +flaring up into sudden and explosive attractiveness. Then, he says, I +shower sparks. As I've already told him, I'm a wild woman, and will be +hard to tame, for as Victor Hugo somewhere says, we women are only +perfected devils! + + + + +_Wednesday the Eighth_ + + +I've cut off my hair, right bang off. When I got up yesterday morning +with so much work ahead of me, with so much to do and so little time to +do it in, I started doing my hair. I also started thinking about that +Frenchman who committed suicide after counting up the number of buttons +he had to button and unbutton every morning and evening of every day of +every year of his life. I tried to figure up the time I was wasting on +that mop of mine. Then the Great Idea occurred to me. + +I got the scissors, and in six snips had it off, a big tangled pile of +brownish gold, rather bleached out by the sun at the ends. And the +moment I saw it there on my dresser, and saw my head in the mirror, I +was sorry. I looked like a plucked crow. I could have ditched a +freight-train. And I felt positively light-headed. But it was too late +for tears. I trimmed off the ragged edges as well as I could, and what +didn't get in my eyes got down my neck and itched so terribly that I had +to change my clothes. Then I got a nail-punch out of Dinky-Dunk's +tool-kit, and heated it over the lamp and gave a little more wave to +that two-inch shock of stubble. It didn't look so bad then, and when I +tried on Dinky-Dunk's coat in front of the glass I saw that I wouldn't +make such a bad-looking boy. + +But I waited until noon with my heart in my mouth, to see what +Dinky-Dunk would say. What he really _did_ say I can't write here, for +there was a wicked swear-word mixed up in his ejaculation of startled +wonder. Then he saw the tears in my eyes, I suppose, for he came running +toward me with his arms out, and hugged me tight, and said I looked +cute, and all he'd have to do would be to get used to it. But all dinner +time he kept looking at me as though I were a strange woman, and later I +saw him standing in front of the dresser, stooping over that tragic pile +of tangled yellow-brown snakes. It reminded me of a man stooping over a +grave. I slipped away without letting him see me. But this morning I +woke him up early and asked him if he still loved his wife. And when he +vowed he did, I tried to make him tell me how much. But that stumped +him. He compromised by saying he couldn't cheapen his love by defining +it in words; it was limitless. I followed him out after breakfast, with +a hunger in my heart which bacon and eggs hadn't helped a bit, and told +him that if he really loved me he could tell me how much. + +He looked right in my eyes, a little pityingly, it seemed to me, and +laughed, and grew solemn again. Then he stooped down and picked up a +little blade of prairie-grass, and held it up in front of me. + +"Have you any idea of how far it is from the Rockies across to the +Hudson Bay and from the Line up to the Peace River Valley?" + +Of course I hadn't. + +"And have you any idea of how many millions of acres of land that is, +and how many millions of blades of grass like this there are in each +acre?" he soberly demanded. + +And again of course I hadn't. + +"Well, this one blade of grass is the amount of love I am able to +express for you, and all those other blades in all those millions of +acres is what love itself is!" + +I thought it over, just as solemnly as he had said it. I think I was +satisfied. For when my Dinky-Dunk was away off on the prairie, working +like a nailer, and I was alone in the shack, I went to his old coat +hanging there--the old coat that had some subtle aroma of +Dinky-Dunkiness itself about every inch of it--and kissed it on the +sleeve. + +This afternoon as Paddy and I started for home with a pail of mushrooms +I rode face to face with my first coyote. We stood staring at each +other. My heart bounced right up into my throat, and for a moment I +wondered if I was going to be eaten by a starving timber-wolf, with +Dinky-Dunk finding my bones picked as clean as those animal-carcasses +we see in an occasional buffalo-wallow. I kept up my end of the stare, +wondering whether to advance or retreat, and it wasn't until that coyote +turned tail and scooted that my courage came back. Then Paddy and I went +after him, like the wind. But we had to give up. And at supper +Dinky-Dunk told me coyotes were too cowardly to come near a person, and +were quite harmless. He said that even when they showed their teeth, the +rest of their face was apologizing for the threat. And before supper was +over that coyote, at least I suppose it was the same coyote, was howling +at the rising full moon. I went out with Dinky-Dunk's gun, but couldn't +get near the brute. Then I came back. + +"Sing, you son-of-a-gun, sing!" I called out to him from the shack door. +And that shocked my lord and master so much that he scolded me, for the +first time in his life. And when I poked his Adam's apple with my finger +he got on his dignity. He was tired, poor boy, and I should have +remembered it. And when I requested him not to stand there and stare at +me in the hieratic rigidity of an Egyptian idol I could see a little +flush of anger go over his face. He didn't say anything. But he took one +of the lamps and a three-year-old _Pall-Mall Magazine_ and shut himself +up in the bunk-house. + +Then I was sorry. + +I tiptoed over to the door, and found it was locked. Then I went and +got my mouth-organ and sat meekly down on the doorstep and began to +play the _Don't Be Cross_ waltz. I dragged it out plaintively, with a +_vox humana tremolo_ on the coaxing little refrain. Finally I heard a +smothered snort, and the door suddenly opened and Dinky-Dunk picked me +up, mouth-organ and all. He shook me and said I was a little devil, and +I called him a big British brute. But he was laughing and a wee bit +ashamed of his temper and was very nice to me all the rest of the +evening. + +I'm getting, I find, to depend a great deal on Dinky-Dunk, and it makes +me afraid, sometimes, for the future. He seems able to slip a hand +under my heart and lift it up, exactly as though it were the chin of a +wayward child. Yet I resent his power, and keep elbowing for more +breathing-space, like a rush-hour passenger in the subway crowd. +Sometimes, too, I resent the over-solemn streak in his mental make-up. +He abominates ragtime, and I have rather a weakness for it. So once or +twice in his dour days I've found an almost Satanic delight in singing +_The Humming Coon_. And the knowledge that he'd like to forbid me +singing rag seems to give a zest to it. So I go about flashing my saber +of independence: + + "Ol' Ephr'm Johnson was a deacon of de church in Tennessee, + An' of course it was ag'inst de rules t' sing ragtime melodée!" + +But I am the one, I notice, who always makes up first. To-night as I was +making cocoa before we went to bed I tried to tell my Diddums there was +something positively doglike in my devotion to him. He nickered like a +pony and said he was the dog in this deal. Then he pulled me over on +his knee and said that men get short-tempered when they were tuckered +out with worry and hard work, and that probably it would be hard for +even two of the seraphim always to get along together in a two-by-four +shack, where you couldn't even have, a deadline for the sake of +dignity. It was mostly his fault, he knew, but he was going to try to +fight against it. And I experienced the unreasonable joy of an +unreasonable woman who has succeeded in putting the man she loves with +all her heart and soul in the wrong. So I could afford to be humble +myself, and make a foolish lot of fuss over him. But I shall always +fight for my elbow-room. For there are times when my Dinky-Dunk, for all +his bigness and strength, has to be taken sedately in tow, the same as a +racing automobile has to be hauled through the city streets by a dinky +little low-power hack-car! + + + + +_Saturday the Tenth_ + + +We've had a cold spell, with heavy frosts at night, but the days are +still glorious. The overcast days are so few in the West that I've been +wondering if the optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the +sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every +pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a _Tarentella Sincera_ +of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. +It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn +yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and +galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough +ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen +slips--I love a big pillow--and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers +for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda +Anne; and if pillows will do it I'm going to make this house look like a +harem! Can you imagine a household with only three pillow-slips, which +had to be jerked off in the morning, washed, dried and ironed and put +back on their three lonely little pillows before bedtime? Well, there +will be no more of that in this shack. + +But the important news is that I've got a duck-gun, the duckiest +duck-gun you ever saw, and waders, and a coon-skin coat and cap and a +big leather school-bag for wearing over my shoulder on Paddy. The coat +and cap are like the ones we used to laugh at when we went up to +Montreal for the tobogganing, in the days when I was young and foolish +and willing to sacrifice comfort on the altar of outward appearances. +The coon-skins make me look like a Laplander, but they'll be mighty +comfy when the cold weather comes, for Dinky-Dunk says it drops to forty +and fifty below, sometimes. + +I also got a lot of small stuff I'd written for from the mail-order +house, little feminine things a woman simply _has_ to have. But the big +thing was the duck-gun. + +I no longer get heart failure when I hear the whir of a +prairie-chicken, but drop my bird before it's out of range. Poor, plump, +wounded, warm-bodied little feathery things! Some of them keep on flying +after they've been shot clean through the body, going straight on for a +couple of hundred feet, or even more, and then dropping like a stone. +How hard-hearted we soon get! It used to worry me. Now I gather 'em up +as though they were so many chips and toss them into the wagon-box; or +into my school-bag, if it's a private expedition of only Paddy and me. +And that's the way life treats us, too. + +I've been practising on the gophers with my new gun, and with +Dinky-Dunk's .22 rifle. A gopher is only a little bigger than a +chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, +so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a +sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher +is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply +homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to poison them +off. + + + + +_Sunday the Eleventh_ + + +I've made my first butter, be it recorded--but in doing so I managed to +splash the ceiling and the walls and my own woolly head, for I didn't +have sense enough to tie a wet cloth about the handle of the +churn-dasher until the damage had been done. I was too intent on getting +my butter to pay attention to details, though it took a disheartening +long time and my arms were tired out before I had finished. And when I +saw myself spattered from head to foot it reminded me of what you once +said about me and my reading, that I had the habit of coming out of a +book like a spaniel out of water, scattering ideas as I came. But there +are not many new books in my life these days. It is mostly hard work, +although I reminded Dinky-Dunk last night that while Omar intimated that +love and bread and wine were enough for any wilderness, we mustn't +forget that he also included a book of verses underneath the bough! My +lord says that by next year we can line our walls with books. But I'm +like Moses on Mount Nebo--I can see my promised land, but it seems a +terribly long way off. But this, as Dinky-Dunk would say, is not the +spirit that built Rome, and has carried me away from my butter, the +making of which cold-creamed my face until I looked as though I had snow +on my headlight. Yet there is real joy in finding those lovely yellow +granules in the bottom of your churn and then working it over and over +with a saucer in a cooking-bowl until it is one golden mass. Several +times before I'd shaken up sour cream in a sealer, but this was my first +real butter-making. I have just discovered, however, that I didn't +"wash" it enough, so that all the buttermilk wasn't worked out of my +first dairy-product. Dinky-Dunk, like the scholar and gentleman that he +is, swore that it was worth its weight in Klondike gold. And next time +I'll do better. + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +Golden weather again, with a clear sky and soft and balmy air! Just +before our mid-day meal Olie arrived with mail for us. We've had letters +from home! Instead of cheering me up they made me blue, for they seemed +to bring word from another world, a world so far, far away! + +I decided to have a half-day in the open, so I strapped on my duck-gun +and off I went on Paddy, as soon as dinner was over and the men had +gone. We went like the wind, until both Paddy and I were tired of it. +Then I found a "soft-water" pond hidden behind a fringe of scrub-willow +and poplar. The mid-day sun had warmed it to a tempting temperature. So +I hobbled Paddy, peeled off and had a most glorious bath. I had just +soaped down with bank-mud (which is an astonishingly good solvent) and +had taken a header and was swimming about on my back, blinking up at +the blue sky, as happy as a mud-turtle in a mill-pond, when I heard +Paddy nicker. That disturbed me a little, but I felt sure there could be +nobody within miles of me. However, I swam back to where my clothes +were, sunned myself dry, and was just standing up to shake out the ends +of this short-cropped hair of mine when I saw a man's head Across the +pond, staring through the bushes at me. I don't know how or why it is, +but I suddenly saw red. I don't remember picking up the duck-gun, and I +don't remember aiming it. + +But I banged away, with both barrels, straight at that leering head--or +at least it ought to have been a leering head, whatever that may mean! +The howl that went up out of the wilderness, the next moment, could have +been heard for a mile! + +It was Dinky-Dunk, and he said I might have put his eyes out with +bird-shot, if he hadn't made the quickest drop of his life. And he also +said that he'd seen me, a distinct splash of white against the green of +the prairie, three good miles away, and wasn't I ashamed of myself, and +what would I have done if he'd been Olie or old man Dixon? But he +kissed my shoulder where the gun-stock had bruised it, and helped me +dress. + +Then we rode off together, four or five miles north, where Dinky-Dunk +was sure we could get a bag of duck. Which we did, thirteen altogether, +and started for home as the sun got low and the evening air grew chilly. +It was a heavenly ride. In the west a little army of thin blue clouds +was edged with blazing gold, and up between them spread great fan-like +shafts of amber light. Then came a riot of orange yellow and ashes of +roses and the palest of gold with little islands of azure in it. Then +while the dying radiance seemed to hold everything in a luminous wash of +air, the stars came out, one by one, and a soft cool wind swept across +the prairie, and the light darkened--and I was glad to have Dinky-Dunk +there at my side, or I should have had a little cry, for the twilight +prairie always makes me lonesome in a way that could never be put into +words. + +I tried to explain the feeling to Dinky-Dunk. He said he understood. +"I'm a Sour-Dough, Gee-Gee, but it still gets me that way," he solemnly +confessed. He said that when he listened to beautiful music he felt the +same. And that got me thinking of grand opera, and of that _Romeo and +Juliet_ night at La Scala, in Milan, when I first met Theobald Gustav. +Then I stopped to tell Dinky-Dunk that I'd been hopelessly in love with +a tenor at thirteen and had written in my journal: "I shall die and turn +to dust still adoring him." Then I told him about my first opera, +_Rigoletto_, and hummed "_La Donna E Mobile_," which of course he +remembered himself. It took me back to Florence, and to a box at the +Pagliano, and me all in dimity and cork-screw curls, weeping deliciously +at a lady in white, whose troubles I could not quite understand. Then I +got thinking of New York and the Metropolitan, and poor old Morris's +lines: + + And still with listening soul I hear + Strains hushed for many a noisy year: + The passionate chords which wake the tear, + The low-voiced love-tales dear.... + + Scarce changed, the same musicians play + The selfsame themes to-day; + The silvery swift sonatas ring, + The soaring voices sing! + +And I could picture the old Metropolitan on a Caruso night. I could see +the Golden Horse-Shoe and the geranium-red trimmings and the satiny +white backs of the women, and smell that luxurious heavy smell of warm +air and hothouse flowers and Paris perfumery and happy human bodies and +hear the whisper of silk along the crimson stairways. I could see the +lights go down, in a sort of sigh, before the overture began, and the +scared-looking blotches of white on the musicians' scores and the other +blotches made by their dress-shirt fronts, and the violins going up and +down, up and down, as though they were one piece of machinery, and then +the heavy curtain stealing up, and the thrill as that new heaven opened +up to me, a gawky girl in her first low-cut dinner gown! + +I told Dinky-Dunk I'd sat in every corner of that old house, up in the +sky-parlor with the Italian barbers, in press-seats in the second +gallery with dear old Fanny-Rain-in-the-Face, and in the Westbury's box +with the First Lady of the Land and a Spanish Princess with extremely +dirty nails. It seemed so far away, another life and another world! And +for three hours of "Manon" I'd be willing to hang like a chimpanzee from +the Metropolitan's center chandelier. I suddenly realized how much I +missed it. I could have sung to the City as poor Charpentier's "Louise" +sang to her Paris. And a coyote howled up near the trail, and the +prairie got dark, with a pale green rind of light along the northwest, +and I knew there would be a heavy frost before morning. + +To-night after supper my soul and I sat down and did a bit of +bookkeeping. Dinky-Dunk, who'd been watching me out of the corner of his +eye, went to the window and said it looked like a storm. And I knew he +meant that I was the Medicine Hat it was to come from, for before he'd +got up from the table he'd explained to me that matrimony was like +motoring because it was really traveling by means of a series of +explosions. Then he tried to explain that in a few weeks the fall rush +would be over and we'd have more time for getting what we deserved out +of life. But I turned on him with sudden fierceness and declared I +wasn't going to be merely an animal. I intended to keep my soul alive, +that it was every one's duty, no matter where they were, to ennoble +their spirit by keeping in touch with the best that has ever been felt +and thought. + +When I grimly got out my mouth-organ and played the _Pilgrim's Chorus_, +as well as I could remember it, Dinky-Dunk sat listening in silent +wonder. He kept up the fire, and waited until I got through. Then he +reached for the dish-pan and said, quite casually, "I'm going to help you +wash up to-night, Gee-Gee!" And so I put away the mouth-organ and washed +up. But before I went to bed I got out my little vellum edition of +Browning's _The Ring and the Book_, and read at it industriously, +doggedly, determinedly, for a solid hour. What it's all about I don't +know. Instead of ennobling my spirit it only tired my brain and ended +up in making me so mad I flung the book into the wood-box.... Dinky-Dunk +has just pinned a piece of paper on my door; it is a sentence from +Epictetus. And it says: "Better it is that great souls should live in +small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great +houses!" + + + + +_Sunday the Eighteenth_ + + +I spent an hour to-day trying to shoot a hen-hawk that's been hovering +about the shack all afternoon. He's after my chickens, and as new-laid +eggs are worth more than Browning to a homesteader, I got out my +duck-gun. It gave me a feeling of impending evil, having that huge bird +hanging about. It reminded me there was wrong and rapine in the world. I +hated the brute. But I hid under one of the wagon-boxes and got him, in +the end. I brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's +fall from Heaven. When I ran out to possess myself of his Satanic body +he was only wounded, however, and was ready to show fight. Then I saw +red again. I clubbed him with the gun-butt, going at him like fury. I +was moist with perspiration when I got through with him. He was a +monster. I nailed him with his wings out, on the bunk-house wall, and +Olie shouted and called Dinky-Dunk when they came back from rounding up +the horses, which had got away on the range. Dinky-Dunk solemnly warned +me not to run risks, as he might have taken an eye out, or torn my face +with his claws. He said he could have stuffed and mounted my hawk, if I +hadn't clubbed the poor thing almost to pieces. There's a devil in me +somewhere, I told Dinky-Dunk. But he only laughed. + + + + +_Monday the Nineteenth_ + + +To-night Dinky-Dunk and I spent a solid hour trying to decide on a name +for the shack. I wanted to call it "Crucknacoola," which is Gaelic for +"A Little Hill of Sleep," but Dinky-Dunk brought forward the objection +that there was no hill. Then I suggested "Barnavista," since about all +we can see from the door are the stables. Then I said "The Builtmore," +in a spirit of mockery, and then Dinky-Dunk in a spirit of irony +suggested "Casa Grande." And in the end we united on "Casa Grande." It +is marvelous how my hair grows. Olie now watches me studiously as I eat. +I can see that he is patiently patterning his table deportment after +mine. There's nothing that silent rough-mannered man wouldn't do for me. +I've got so I never notice his nose, any more than I used to notice +Uncle Carlton's receding chin. But I don't think Olie is getting enough +to eat. All his mind seems taken up with trying to remember not to drink +out of his saucer, as history sayeth George Washington himself once +did! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twentieth_ + + +I knew that old hen-hawk meant trouble for me--and the trouble came, all +right. I'm afraid I can't tell about it very coherently, but this is how +it began: I was alone yesterday afternoon, busy in the shack, when a +Mounted Policeman rode up to the door, and, for a moment, nearly +frightened the life out of me. I just stood and stared at him, for he +was the first really, truly live man, outside Olie and my husband, I'd +seen for so long. And he looked very dashing in his scarlet jacket and +yellow facings. But I didn't have long to meditate on his color scheme, +for he calmly announced that a ranchman named McMein had been murdered +by a drunken cowboy in a wage dispute, and the murderer had been seen +heading for the Cochrane Ranch. He (the M. P.) inquired if I would +object to his searching the buildings. + +Would I object? I most assuredly did not, for little chills began to +play up and down my spinal column, and I wasn't exactly in love with the +idea of having an escaped murderer crawling out of a hay-stack at +midnight and cutting my throat. The ranchman McMein had been killed on +Saturday, and the cowboy had been kept on the run for two days. As I was +being told this I tried to remember where Dinky-Dunk had stowed away his +revolver-holster and his hammerless ejector and his Colt repeater. But I +made that handsome young man in the scarlet coat come right into the +shack and begin his search by looking under the bed, and then going down +the cellar. + +I stood holding the trap-door and warned him not to break my +pickle-jars. Then he came up and stood squinting thoughtfully out +through the doorway. + +"Have you got a gun?" he suddenly asked me. + +I showed him my duck-gun with its silver mountings, and he smiled a +little. + +"Haven't you a rifle?" he demanded. + +I explained that my husband had, and he still stood squinting out +through the doorway as I poked about the shack-corners and found +Dinky-Dunk's repeater. He was a very authoritative and self-assured +young man. He took the rifle from me, examined the magazine and made +sure it was loaded. Then he handed it back. + +"I've got to search those buildings and stacks," he told me. "And I can +only be in one place at once. If you see a man break from under cover +anywhere, when I'm inside, _be so good as to shoot him_!" + +He started off without another word, with his big army revolver in his +hand. My teeth began to do a little fox-trot all by themselves. + +"Wait! Stop!" I shouted after him. "Don't go away!" + +He stopped and asked me what was wrong. "I--I don't want to shoot a man! +I don't want to shoot _any_ man!" I tried to explain to him. + +"You probably won't have to," was his cool response. "But it's better to +do that than have him shoot _you_, isn't it?" + +Whereupon Mr. Red-Coat made straight for the hay-stacks, and I stood in +the doorway, with Dinky-Dunk's rifle in my hands and my knees shaking a +little. + +I watched him as he beat about the hay-stacks. Then I got tired of +holding the heavy weapon and leaned it against the shack-wall. I watched +the red coat go in through the stable door, and felt vaguely dismayed at +the thought that its wearer was now quite out of sight. + +Then my heart stopped beating. For out of a pile of straw which Olie had +dumped not a hundred feet away from the house, to line a pit for our +winter vegetables, a man suddenly erupted. He seemed to come up out of +the very earth, like a mushroom. + +He was the most repulsive-looking man I ever had the pleasure of casting +eyes on. His clothes were ragged and torn and stained with mud. His face +was covered with stubble and his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was +just about the color of a new saddle. + +I could see the whites of his eyes as he ran for the shack, looking over +his shoulder toward the stable door as he came. He had a revolver in his +hand. I noticed that, but it didn't seem to trouble me much. I suppose +I'd already been frightened as much as mortal flesh could be frightened. +In fact, I was thinking quite clearly what to do, and didn't hesitate +for a moment. + +"Put that silly thing down," I told him, as he ran up to me with his +head lowered and that indescribably desperate look in his big frightened +eyes. "If you're not a fool I can get you hidden," I told him. It +reassured me to see that his knees were shaking much more than mine, as +he stood there in the center of the shack! I stooped over the trap-door +and lifted it up. "Get down there quick! He's searched that cellar and +won't go through it again. Stay there until I say he's gone!" + +He slipped over to the trap-door and went slowly down the steps, with +his eyes narrowed and his revolver held up in front of him, as though he +still half expected to find some one there to confront him with a +blunderbuss. Then I promptly shut the trap-door. But there was no way of +locking it. + +I had my murderer there, trapped, but the question was to keep him +there. Your little Chaddie didn't give up many precious moments to +reverie. I tiptoed into the bedroom and lifted the mattress, bedding and +all, off the bedstead. I tugged it out and put it silently down over the +trap-door. Then, without making a sound, I turned the table over on it. +But he could still lift that table, I knew, even with me sitting on top +of it. So I started to pile things on the overturned table, until it +looked like a moving-van ready for a May-Day migration. Then I sat on +top of that pile of household goods, reached for Dinky-Dunk's repeater, +and deliberately fired a shot up through the open door. + +I sat there, studying my pile, feeling sure a revolver bullet couldn't +possibly come up through all that stuff. But before I had much time to +think about this my corporal of the R. N. W. M. P. (which means, +Matilda Anne, the Royal North-West Mounted Police) came through the door +on the run. He looked relieved when he saw me triumphantly astride that +overturned table loaded up with about all my household junk. + +"I've got him for you," I calmly announced. + +"You've got what?" he said, apparently thinking I'd gone mad. + +"I've got your man for you," I repeated. "He's down there in my cellar." +And in one minute I'd explained just what had happened. There was no +parley, no deliberation, no hesitation. + +"Hadn't you better go outside," he suggested as he started piling the +things off the trap-door. + +"You're not going down there?" I demanded. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +"But he's got a revolver," I cried out, "and he's sure to shoot!" + +"That's why I think it might be better for you to step outside for a +moment or two," was my soldier boy's casual answer. + +I walked over and got Dinky-Dunk's repeater. Then I crossed to the far +side of the shack, with the rifle in my hands. + +"I'm going to stay," I announced. + +"All right," was the officer's unconcerned answer as he tossed the +mattress to one side and with one quick pull threw up the trap-door. + +A shot rang out, from below, as the door swung back against the wall. +But it was not repeated, for the man in the red coat jumped bodily, +heels first, into that black hole. He didn't seem to count on the risk, +or on what might be ahead of him. He just jumped, spurs down, on that +other man with the revolver in his hand. I could hear little grunts, and +wheezes, and a thud or two against the cellar steps. Then there was +silence, except for one double "click-click" which I couldn't +understand. + +Oh, Matilda Anne, how I watched that cellar opening! And I saw a back +with a red coat on it slowly rise out of the hole. He, the man who owned +the back of course, was dragging the other man bodily up the narrow +little stairs. There was a pair of handcuffs already on his wrists and +he seemed dazed and helpless, for that slim-looking soldier boy had +pummeled him unmercifully, knocking out his two front teeth, one of +which I found on the doorstep when I was sweeping up. + +"I'm sorry, but I'll have to take one of your horses for a day or two," +was all my R. N. W. M. P. hero condescended to say to me as he poked an +arm through his prisoner's and helped him out through the door. + +"What--what will they do with him?" I called out after the corporal. + +"Hang him, of course," was the curt answer. + +Then I sat down to think things over, and, like an old maid with the +vapors, decided I wouldn't be any the worse for a cup of good strong +tea. And by the time I'd had my tea, and straightened things up, and +incidentally discovered that no less than five of my cans of mushrooms +had been broken to bits below-stairs, I heard the rumble of the wagon +and knew that Olie and Dinky-Dunk were back. And I drew a long breath of +relief, for with all their drawbacks, men are not a bad thing to have +about, now and then! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-second_ + + +It was early Tuesday morning that Dinky-Dunk firmly announced that he +and I were going off on a three-day shooting-trip. I hadn't slept well, +the night before, for my nerves were still rather upset, and Dinky-Dunk +said I needed a picnic. So we got guns and cartridges and blankets and +slickers and cooking things, and stowed them away in the wagon-box. Then +we made a list of the provisions we'd need, and while Dinky-Dunk bagged +up some oats for the team I was busy packing the grub-box. And I packed +it cram full, and took along the old tin bread-box, as well, with +pancake flour and dried fruit and an extra piece of bacon--and _bacon_ +it is now called in this shack, for I have positively forbidden +Dinky-Dunk ever to speak of it as "sowbelly" or even as a "slice of +grunt" again. + +Then off we started across the prairie, after duly instructing Olie as +to feeding the chickens and taking care of the cream and finishing up +the pit for the winter vegetables. Still once again Olie thought we were +both a little mad, I believe, for we had no more idea where we were +going than the man in the moon. + +But there was something glorious in the thought of gipsying across the +autumn prairie like that, without a thought or worry as to where we must +stop or what trail we must take. It made every day's movement a great +adventure. And the weather was divine. + +We slept at night under the wagon-box, with a tarpaulin along one side +to keep out the wind, and a fire flickering in our faces on the other +side, and the horses tethered out, and the stars wheeling overhead, and +the peace of God in our hearts. How good every meal tasted! And how that +keen sharp air made snuggling down under a couple of Hudson Bay +five-point blankets a luxury to be spoken of only in the most reverent +of whispers! And there was a time, as you already know, when I used to +take bromide and sometimes even sulphonal to make me sleep! But here it +is so different! To get leg-weary in the open air, tramping about the +sedgy slough-sides after mallard and canvas-back, to smell coffee and +bacon and frying grouse in the cool of the evening, across a thin veil +of camp-fire smoke, to see the tired world turn over on its shoulder and +go to sleep--it's all a sort of monumental lullaby. + +The prairie wind seems to seek you out, and make a bet with the Great +Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the +spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to +rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny, +good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres +as clearly as you ever heard _Funiculi-Funicula_ on that little Naples +steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from +under that old wagon-box, like a gopher out of his hole, in the first +delicate rosiness of dawn, I'd feel unutterably grateful to be alive, to +hear the cantatas of health singing deep in my soul, to know that +whatever life may do to me, I'd snatched my share of happiness from the +pantry of the gods! And the endless change of color, from the tawny +fox-glove on the lighter land, the pale yellow of a lion's skin in the +slanting autumn sun, to the quavering, shimmering glories of the +Northern Lights that dance in the north, that fling out their banners of +ruby and gold and green, and tremble and merge and pulse until I feel +that I can hear the clash of invisible cymbals. I wonder if you can +understand my feeling when I pulled the hat-pin out of my old gray +Stetson yesterday, uncovered my head, and looked straight up into the +blue firmament above me. Then I said, "Thank you, God, for such a +beautiful day!" + +Dinky-Dunk promptly said that I was blasphemous--he's so strict and +solemn! But as I stared up into the depths of that intense opaline +light, so clear, so pure, I realized how air, just air and nothing else, +could leave a scatter-brained lady like me half-seas over. Only it's a +champagne that never leaves you with a headache the next day! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-fourth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk, who seems intent on keeping my mind occupied, brought me +home a bundle of old magazines last night. They were so frayed and +thumbed-over that some of the pages reminded me of well-worn bank-notes. +I've been reading some of the stories, and they all seem silly. +Everybody appears to be in love with somebody else's wife. Then the +people are all divided so strictly into two classes, the good and the +bad! As for the other man's wife, prairie-life would soon knock that +nonsense out of people. There isn't much room for the Triangle in a +two-by-four shack. Life's so normal and natural and big out here that a +Pierre Loti would be kicked into a sheep-dip before he could use up his +first box of face-rouge! You want your own wife, and want her so bad +you're satisfied. Not that Dinky-Dunk and I are so goody-goody! We're +just healthy and human, that's all, and we'd never do for fiction. +After meals we push away the dishes and sit side by side, with our arms +across each other's shoulders, full of the joy of life, satisfied, +happy, healthy-minded, now and then a little Rabelaisian in our talk, +meandering innocent-eyed through those earthier intimacies which most +married people seem to face without shame, so long as the facing is done +in secret. We don't seem ashamed of that terribly human streak in us. +And neither of us is bad, at heart. But I know we're not like those +magazine characters, who all seem to have Florida-water instead of red +blood in their veins, and are so far, far away from life. + +Yet even that dip into politely erotic fiction seemed to canalize my +poor little grass-grown mind into activity, and Diddums and I sat up +until the wee sma' hours discoursing on life and letters. He started me +off by somewhat pensively remarking that all women seem to want to be +intellectual and have a _salon_. + +"No, Dinky-Dunk, I don't want a _salon_," I promptly announced. "I never +did want one, for I don't believe they were as exciting as we imagine. +And I hate literary people almost as much as I hate actors. I always +felt they were like stage-scenery, not made for close inspection. For +after five winters in New York and a couple in London you can't help +bumping into the Bohemian type, not to mention an occasional collision +with 'em up and down the Continent. When they're female they always seem +to wear the wrong kind of corsets. And when they're male they watch +themselves in the mirrors, or talk so much about themselves that you +haven't a chance to talk about _yourself_--which is really the +completest definition of a bore, isn't it? I'd much rather know them +through their books than through those awful Sunday evening _soirees_ +where poor old leonine M---- used to perspire reading those Socialist +poems of his to the adoring ladies, and Sanguinary John used to wear the +same flannel shirt that shielded him from the Polar blasts up in +Alaska--open at the throat, and all that sort of thing, just like a +movie-actor cowboy, only John had grown a little stout and he kept +spoiling the Strong-Man picture by so everlastingly posing at one end +of the grand-piano! You know the way they do it, one pensive elbow on +the piano-end and the delicately drooping palm holding up the weary +brains, the same as you prop up a King-orange bough when it gets too +heavy with fruit! And then he had a lovely bang and a voice like a +maiden-lady from Maine. And take it from me, O lord and master, that man +devoured all his raw beef and blood on his typewriter-ribbon. I dubbed +him the King of the Eye-Socket school, and instead of getting angry he +actually thanked me for it. That was the sort of advertising he was +after." + +Dinky-Dunk grinned a little as I rattled on. Then he grew serious again. +"Why is it," he asked, "a writer in Westminster Abbey is always a +genius, but a writer in the next room is rather a joke?" + +I tried to explain it for him. "Because writers are like Indians. The +only good ones are the dead ones. And it's the same with those siren +affinities of history. Annie Laurie lived to be eighty, though the +ballad doesn't say so. And Lady Hamilton died poor and ugly and went +around with red herrings in her pocket. And Cleopatra was really a +redheaded old political schemer, and Paris got tired of Helen of Troy. +Which means that history, like literature, is only _Le mensonge +convenu_!" + +This made Dinky-Dunk sit up and stare at me. "Look here, Gee-Gee, I +don't mind a bit of book-learning, but I hate to see you tear the whole +tree of knowledge up by the roots and knock me down with it! And it was +_salons_ we were talking about, and not the wicked ladies of the past!" + +"Well, the only _salon_ I ever saw in America had the commercial air of +a millinery opening where tea happened to be served," I promptly +declared. "And the only American woman I ever knew who wanted to have a +_salon_ was a girl we used to call Asafetida Anne. And if I explained +why you'd make a much worse face than that, my Diddums. But she had a +weakness for black furs and never used to wash her neck. So the Plimpton +Mark was always there!" + +"Don't get bitter, Gee-Gee," announced Dinky-Dunk as he proceeded to +light his pipe. And I could afford to laugh at his solemnity. + +"I'm not bitter, Honey Chile; I'm only glad I got away from all that +Bohemian rubbish. You may call me a rattle-box, and accuse me of being +temperamental now and then--which I'm not--but the one thing in life +which I love is _sanity_. And that, Dinky-Dunk, is why I love you, even +though you are only a big sunburnt farmer fighting and planning and +grinding away for a home for an empty-headed wife who's going to fail at +everything but making you love her!" + +Then followed a few moments when I wasn't able to talk, + + ... The sequel's scarce essential-- + Nay, more than this, I hold it still + Profoundly confidential! + +Then as we sat there side by side I got thinking of the past and of the +Bohemians before whom I had once burned incense. And remembering a +certain visit to Box Hill with Lady Agatha's mother, years and years +ago, I had to revise my verdict on authors, for one of the warmest +memories in all my life is that of dear old Meredith in his wheelchair, +with his bearded face still flooded with its kindly inner light and his +spirit still mellow with its unquenchable love of life. And once as a +child, I went on to tell Dinky-Dunk, I had met Stevenson. It was at +Mentone, and I can still remember him leaning over and taking my hand. +His own hand was cold and lean, like a claw, and with the quick instinct +of childhood I realized, too, that he was _condescending_ as he spoke to +me, for all the laugh that showed the white teeth under his drooping +black mustache. Wrong as it seemed, I didn't like him any more than I +afterward liked the Sargent portrait of him, which was really an echo of +my own first impression, though often and often I've tried to blot out +that first unfair estimate of a real man of genius. There's so much in +the _Child's Garden of Verse_ that I love; there's so much in the man's +life that demands admiration, that it seems wrong not to capitulate to +his charm. But when one's own family are one's biographers it's hard to +be kept human. "Yet there's one thing, Dinky-Dunk, that I do respect him +for," I went on. "He had seen the loveliest parts of this world, and, +when he had to, he could light-heartedly give it all up and rough it in +this American West of ours, even as you and I!" Whereupon Dinky-Dunk +argued that we ought to forgive an invalid his stridulous preaching +about bravery and manliness and his over-emphasis of fortitude, since it +was plainly based on an effort to react against a constitutional +weakness for which he himself couldn't be blamed. + +And I confessed that I could forgive him more easily than I could +Sanguinary John with his literary Diabolism and that ostentatious +stone-age blugginess with which he loved to give the ladies goose-flesh, +pretending he was a bull in a china-shop when he's really only a white +mouse in an ink-pot! And after Dinky-Dunk had knocked out his pipe and +wound up his watch he looked over at me with his slow Scotch-Canadian +smile. "For a couple of hay-seeds who have been harpooning the _salon_ +idea," he solemnly announced, "I call this quite a literary evening!" +But what's the use of having an idea or two in your head if you can't +air 'em now and then? + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +To-day I stumbled on the surprise of my life! It was A Man! I took Paddy +and cantered over to the old Titchborne Ranch and was prowling around +the corral, hoping I might find a few belated mushrooms. But nary a one +was there. So I whistled on my four fingers for Paddy (I've been +teaching him to come at that call) and happened to glance in the +direction of the abandoned shack. Then I saw the door open, and _out +walked a man_. + +He was a young man, in puttees and knickers and Norfolk jacket, and he +was smoking a cigarette. He stared at me as though I were the Missing +Link. Then he said "Hello!" rather inadequately, it seemed to me. + +I answered back "Hello," and wondered whether to take to my heels or +not. But my courage got its second wind, and I stayed. Then we shook +hands, very formally, and explained who we were. And I discovered that +his name was Percival Benson Woodhouse (and the Lord forgive me if they +ever call him Percy for short!) and that his aunt is the Countess of +D---- and that he knows a number of people you and Lady Agatha have +often spoken of. He's got a Japanese servant called Kino, or perhaps +it's spelt Keeno, I don't know which, who's housekeeper, laundress, +_valet_, gardener, groom and _chef_, all in one,--so, at least Percival +Benson confessed to me. He also confessed that he'd bought the +Titchborne Ranch, from photographs, from "one of those land chaps" in +London. He wanted to rough it a bit, and they told him there would be +jolly good game shooting. So he even brought along an elephant-gun, which +his cousin had used in India. The photographs which the "land chap" had +showed him turned out to be pictures of the Selkirks. And, taking it all +in all, he fancied that he'd been jolly well bunked. But Percival seemed +to accept it with the stoicism of the well-born Britisher. He'd have a +try at the place, although there was no game. + +"But there _is_ game," I told him, "slathers of it, oodles of it!" + +He mildly inquired where and what? I told him: Wild duck, +prairie-chicken, wild geese, jack-rabbits, now and then a fox, and loads +of coyotes. He explained, then, that he meant big game--and how grandly +those two words, "big game," do roll off the English tongue! He has a +sister in the Bahamas, who may join him next summer if he should decide +to stick it out. He considered that it would be a bit rough for a girl, +during the winter season up here. + +Yet before I go any further I must describe Percival Benson Woodhouse to +you, for he's not only "our sort," but a type as well. + +In the first place, he's a Magdalen College man, the sort we've seen +going up and down the High many and many a time. He's rather gaunt and +rather tall, and he stoops a little. "At home" they call it the "Oxford +stoop," if I'm not greatly mistaken. His hands are thin and long and +bony. His eyes are nice, and he looks very good form. I mean he's the +sort of man you'd never take for the "outsider" or "rotter." He's the +sort who seem to have the royal privilege of doing even doubtfully +polite things and yet doing them in such a way as to make them seem +quite proper. I don't know whether I make that clear or not, but one +thing is clear, and this is that our Percival Benson is an aristocrat. +You see it in his over-sensitive, over-refined, almost womanishly +delicate face, with those idealizing and quite unpractical eyes of his. +You see it in the thin, high-arched, bony nose (almost as fine a beak as +the one belonging to His Grace, the Duke of M----!) and you see it in +the sad and somewhat elongated face, as though he had pored over big +books too much, a sort of air of pathos and aloofness from things. His +mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is +quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides +that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which +would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry +James's earlier novels of about the time of the _Portrait of a Lady_. +And I like him. I knew that at once. He's _effete_ and old-worldish and +probably useless, out here, but he stands for something I've been +missing, and I'll be greatly mistaken if Percival Benson and Chaddie +McKail are not pretty good friends before the winter's over! He's asked +if he might be permitted to call, and he's coming for dinner to-morrow +night, and I do hope Dinky-Dunk is nice to him--if we're to be +neighbors. But Dinky-Dunk says Westerners don't ask to be permitted to +call. They just stick their cayuse into the corral and walk in, the same +as an Indian does. And Dinky-Dunk says that if he comes in evening dress +he'll shoot him, sure pop! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +Percy (how I hate that name!) was here for dinner last night, and all +things considered, we didn't fare so badly. We had tomato bisque and +scalloped potatoes and prairie-chicken (they need to be well basted) and +hot biscuits and stewed dried peaches with cream. Then we had coffee and +the men smoked their pipes. We talked until a quarter to one in the +morning, and my poor Dinky-Dunk, who has been working so hard and seeing +nobody, really enjoyed that visit and really likes Percival Benson. + +Percy got talking about Oxford, and you could see that he loved the old +town and that he felt more at home on the Isis than on the prairie. He +said he once heard Freeman tell a story about Goldwin Smith, who used to +be Regius Professor of History at the University. G. S. seemed +astonished that F. couldn't tell him, at some _viva voce_ exam, +whatever that may mean, the cause of King John's death. Then G. S. +explained that poor John died of too much peaches and fresh ale, "which +would give a man considerable belly-ache," the Regius Professor of +History solemnly announced to Freeman. + +Percy said his lungs rather troubled him in England, and he has spent +over a year in Florence and Rome and can talk pictures like a Grant +Allen guide-book. And he's sat through many an opera at La Scala, but +considered the Canadian coyote a much better vocalist than most of the +minor Italian tenors. And he knows Capri and Taormina and says he'd like +to grow old and die in Sicily. He got pneumonia at Messina, and nearly +died young there and after five months in Switzerland a specialist told +him to try Canada. + +I've noticed that one of the delusions of Americans is that an +Englishman is silent. Now, my personal conviction is that Englishmen are +the greatest talkers in the world, and I have Percy to back me up in it. +In fact, we sat about talking so long that Percy asked if he couldn't +stay all night, as he was a poor rider and wasn't sure of the trails as +yet. So we made a shake-down for him in the living-room. And when +Dinky-Dunk came to bed he confided to me that Percy was calmly reading +and smoking himself to sleep, out of my sadly scorned copy of _The Ring +and the Book_, with the lamp on the floor, on one side of him, and a +saucer on the other, for an ash-tray. But he was up and out this +morning, before either of us was stirring, coming back to Casa Grande, +however, when he saw the smoke at the chimney-top. His thin cheeks were +quite pink and he apologetically explained that he'd been trying for an +hour and a half to catch his cayuse. Olie had come to his rescue. But +our thin-shouldered Oxford exile said that he had never seen such a +glorious sunrise, and that the ozone had made him a bit tipsy. Speaking +of thin-shouldered specimens, Matilda Anne, I was once a thirty-six; +_now I am a perfect forty-two_. + + + + +_Friday the Fifth_ + + +The weather has been bad all this week, but I've had a great deal of +sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up +the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my +lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, +through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he +brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that +we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed until noon the next day, this +time sleeping in the annex, which Dinky-Dunk and I have papered, so that +it looks quite presentable. But as yet there is no way of heating it. +Our new neighbor, I imagine, is very lonesome. + + + + +_Sunday the Seventh_ + + +The weather has cleared: there's a chinook arch in the sky, and a sort +of St. Martin's-Summer haze on all the prairie. But there's news to-day. +Kino, our new neighbor's Jap, has decamped with a good deal of money and +about all of Percival Benson's valuables. The poor boy is almost +helpless, but he's not a quitter. He said he chopped his first kindling +to-day, though he had to stand in a wash-tub, while he did it, to keep +from cutting his feet. Dinky-Dunk's birthday is only three weeks off, +and I'm making plans for a celebration. + + + + +_Tuesday the Ninth_ + + +The days slip by, and scarcely leave me time to write. Dinky-Dunk is a +sort of pendulum, swinging out to work, back to eat, and then out, and +then back again. Olie is teaming in lumber and galvanized iron for a new +building of some sort. My lord, in the evenings, sits with paper and +pencil, figuring out measurements and making plans. I sit on the other +side of the table, as a rule, sewing. Sometimes I go around to his side +of the table, and make him put his plans away for a few minutes. We are +very happy. But where the days fly to I scarcely know. We are always +looking toward the future, talking about the future, "conceiting" for +the future, as the Irish say. Next summer is to be our banner year. +Dinky-Dunk is going to risk everything on wheat. He's like a general +plotting out a future plan of campaign--for when the work comes, he +says, it will come in a rush. Help will be hard to get, so he'll sell +his British Columbia timber rights and buy a forty-horse-power gasoline +tractor. He will at least if gasoline gets cheaper, for with "gas" still +at twenty-six cents a gallon horse-power is cheapest. But during the +breaking season in April and May, one of these engines can haul eight +gang-plows behind it. In twenty-four hours it will be able to turn over +thirty-five acres of prairie soil--and the ordinary man and team counts +two acres of plowing a decent day's work. + +To-night I asked Dinky-Dunk why he risked everything on wheat and warned +him that we might have to revise the old Kansas trekker's slogan to-- + + "In wheat we trusted, + In wheat we busted!" + +Dinky-Dunk explained that to keep on raising only wheat would be bad for +the land, and even now meant taking a chance, but situated as he was it +brought in the quickest money. And he wanted money in a hurry, for he +had a nest to feather for a lady wild-bird that he'd captured--which +meant me. Later on he intends to go in for flax--for fiber and not for +seed--and as our land should produce two tons of the finest flax-straw +to the acre and as the Belgian and Irish product is now worth over four +hundred dollars a ton, he told me to sit down and figure out what four +hundred acres would produce, with even a two-third crop. + +The Canadian farmer of the West, he went on to explain, mostly grew flax +for the seed alone, burning up over a million tons of straw every year, +just to get it out of the way, the same as he does with his wheat-straw. +But all that will soon be changed. Only last week Dinky-Dunk wrote to +the Department of Agriculture for information about _courtai_ +fiber--that's the kind used for point-lace and is worth a dollar a +pound--for my lord feels convinced his soil and climatic conditions are +especially suited for certain of the finer varieties. He even admitted +that flax would be better on his land at the present time, as it would +release certain of the natural fertilizers which sometimes leave the +virgin soil too rich for wheat. But what most impressed me about +Dinky-Dunk's talk was his absolute and unshaken faith in this West of +ours, once it wakes up to its opportunities. It's a stored-up granary of +wealth, he declares, and all we've done so far is to nibble along the +leaks in the floor-cracks! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-first_ + + +To-day is Dinky-Dunk's birthday. He's always thought, of course, that +I'm a pauper, and never dreamed of my poor little residuary nest-egg. +I'd ordered a box of Okanagan Valley apples, and a gramophone and a +dozen opera records, and a brier-wood pipe and two pounds of English +"Honey-Dew," and a smoking-jacket, and some new ties and socks and +shirts, and a brand new Stetson, for Dinky-Dunk's old hat is almost a +rag-bag. And I ordered half a dozen of the newer novels and a set of +Herbert Spencer which I heard him say he wanted, and a sepia print of +the _Mona Lisa_ (which my lord says I look like when I'm planning +trouble) and a felt mattress and a set of bed-springs (so good-by, old +sway-backed friend whose humps have bruised me in body and spirit this +many a night!) and a dozen big oranges and three dozen little candles +for the birthday cake. And then I was cleaned out--every blessed cent +gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name) +ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was +a pretty formidable array. + +I, accordingly, had Olie secretly team this array all the way from +Buckhorn to Percy's house, where it was duly ambushed and entrenched, to +await the fatal day. As luck would have it, or seemed to have it, +Dinky-Dunk had to hit the trail for overnight, to see about the +registration of his transfers for his new half-section, at the town of +H----. So as soon as Dinky-Dunk was out of sight I hurried through my +work and had Tumble-Weed and Bronk headed for the old Titchborne Ranch. + +There I arrived about mid-afternoon, and what a time we had, getting +those things unpacked, and looking them over, and planning and talking! +But the whole thing was spoilt. + +We forgot to tie the horses. So while we were having tea Bronk and +Tumble-Weed hit the trail, on their own hook. They made for home, +harness and all, but of course I never knew this at the time. We looked +and looked, came back for supper, and then started out again. We +searched until it got dark. My feet were like lead, and I couldn't have +walked another mile. I was so stiff and tired I simply had to give up. +Percy worried, of course, for we had no way of sending word to +Dinky-Dunk. Then we sat down and talked over possibilities, like a +couple of castaways on a Robinson Crusoe island. Percy offered to bunk +in the stable, and let me have the shack. But I wouldn't hear of that. +In the first place, I felt pretty sure Percy was what they call a +"lunger" out here, and I didn't relish the idea of sleeping in a +tuberculous bed. I asked for a blanket and told him that I was going to +sleep out under the wagon, as I'd often done with Dinky-Dunk. Percy +finally consented, but this worried him too. He even brought out his +"big-game" gun, so I'd have protection, and felt the grass to see if it +was damp, and declared he couldn't sleep on a mattress when he knew I +was out on the hard ground. I told him that I loved it, and to go to +bed, for I wanted to get out of some of my armor-plate. He went, +reluctantly. + +It was a beautiful night, and not so cold, with scarcely a breath of +wind stirring. I lay looking out through the wheel-spokes at the Milky +Way, and was just dropping off when Percy came out still again. He was +in a quilted dressing-gown and had a blanket over his shoulders. It made +him look for all the world like Father Time. He wanted to know if I was +all right, and had brought me out a pillow--which I didn't use. Then he +sat down on the prairie-floor, near the wagon, and smoked and talked. He +pointed out some of the constellations to me, and said the only time +he'd ever seen the stars bigger was one still night on the Indian Ocean, +when he was on his way back from Singapore. He would never forget that +night, he said, the stars were so wonderful, so big, so close, so soft +and luminous. But the northern stars were different. They were without +the orange tone that belongs to the South. They seemed remoter and more +awe-inspiring, and there was always a green tone to their whiteness. + +Then we got talking about "furrin parts" and Percy asked me if I'd ever +seen Naples at night from San Martino, and I asked him if he'd ever seen +Broadway at night from the top of the Times Building. Then he asked me +if I'd ever watched Paris from Montmartre, or seen the Temple of Neptune +at Pæstum bathed in Lucanian moonlight--which I very promptly told him I +had, for it was on the ride home from Pæstum that a certain person had +proposed to me. We talked about temples and Greek Gods and the age of +the world and Indian legends until I got downright sleepy. Then Percy +threw away his last cigarette and got up. He said "Good night;" I said +"Good night;" and he went into the shack. He said he'd leave the door +open, in case I called. There were just the two of us, between earth and +sky, that night, and not another soul within a radius of seven miles of +any side of us. He was very glad to have some one to talk to. He's +probably a year or two older than I am, but I am quite motherly with +him. And he is shockingly incompetent, as a homesteader, from the look +of his shack. But he's a gentleman, almost too "Gentle," I sometimes +feel, a Laodicean, mentally over-refined until it leaves him unable to +cope with real life. He's one of those men made for being a "spectator," +and not an actor, in life. And there's something so absurd about his +being where he is that I feel sorry for him. + +I slept like a log. Once I fell asleep, I forgot about the hard ground, +and the smell of the horse-blankets, and the fact that I'd lost my poor +Dinky-Dunk's team. When I woke up it was the first gray of dawn. Two men +were standing side by side, looking at me under the wagon. One was +Percy, and the other was Dinky-Dunk himself. + +He'd got home by three o'clock in the morning, by hurrying, for he was +nervous about me being alone. But he found the house empty, the team +standing beside the corral, and me missing. Naturally, it wasn't a very +happy situation. Poor Dinky-Dunk hit the trail at once, and had been +riding all night looking for his lost wife. Then he made for Percy's, +woke him up, and discovered her placidly snoring under a wagon-box. He +didn't even smile at this. He was very tired and very silent. I thought, +for a moment, that I saw distrust on Dinky-Dunk's face, for the first +time. But he has said nothing. I hated to see him go out to work, when +we got home, but he refused to take a nap at noon, as I wanted him to. +So to-night, when he came in for his supper, I had the birthday cake +duly decked and the presents all out. + +But his enthusiasm was forced, and all during the meal he showed a +tendency to be absent-minded. I had no explanations to make, so I made +none. But I noticed that he put on his old slippers. I thought he had +done it deliberately. + +"You don't seem to mellow with age," I announced, with my eyebrows up. +He flushed at that, quite plainly. Then he reached over and took hold of +my hand. But he did it only with an effort, and after some tremendous +inward struggle which was not altogether flattering to me. + +"Please take your hand away so I can reach the dish-towel," I told him. +And the hand went away like a shot. After I'd finished my work I got out +my George Meredith and read _Modern Love_. Dinky-Dunk did not come to +bed until late. I was awake when he came, but I didn't let him know it. + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +I haven't felt much like writing this last week. I scarcely know why. I +think it's because Dinky-Dunk is on his dignity. He's getting thin, by +the way. His cheek-bones show and his Adam's apple sticks out. He's +worried about his land payments, and I tell him he'd be happier with a +half-section. But Dinky-Dunk wants wealth. And I can't help him much. +I'm afraid I'm an encumbrance. And the stars make me lonely, and the +prairie wind sometimes gives me the willies! And winter is coming. + +I'm afraid I'm out of my setting, as badly out of it as Percival Benson +is. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I'd never seen such lovely +corners of the world, before coming out here to be a dot on the +wilderness. If I'd never had that heavenly summer at Fiesole, and those +months with you at Corfu, and that winter in Rome with poor dear dead +Katrinka! Sometimes I think of the nights we used to look out over +Paris, from the roof above 'Tite Daneau's studio. And sometimes I think +of the Pincio, with the band playing, and the carriages flashing, and +the officers in uniform, and the milky white statues among the trees, +and the golden mists of the late afternoon over the Immortal City. And I +tell myself that it was all a dream. And then I feel that _I_ am all a +dream, and the prairie is a dream, and Paddy and Olie and Dinky-Dunk and +all this new life is nothing more than a dream. Oh, Matilda Anne, I've +been homesick this week, so unhappy and homesick for something--for +something, and I don't even know what it is! + + + + +_Monday the Seventh_ + + +Glory be! Winter's here with a double-edged saber wind out of the north +and snow on the ground. It gives a zip to things. It makes our snug +little shack seem as cozy as a ship's cabin. And I've got a +jumper-sleigh, and with my coon-skin coat and gauntlets and wedge-cap I +can be as warm as toast in any wind. And there's so much to do. And I'm +not going to be a piker. This is the land where folks make good or go +loco. You've only got yourself to depend on, and yourself to blame, if +things go wrong. And I'm going to make them go right. There's no use +wailing out here in the West. A line or two of Laurence Hope's has been +running all day through my head: + + "These are my people, and this my land; + I hear the pulse of her secret soul. + This is the life that I understand, + Savage and simple, and sane and whole." + + + + +_Friday the Eleventh_ + + +Dinky-dunk came home with an Indian girl to-day, a young half-breed about +sixteen years old. She's to be both companion and parlor-maid, for +Dinky-Dunk has to hurry off to British Columbia, to try to sell his +timber-rights there to meet his land payments. He's off to-morrow. It +makes me feel wretched, but I'm consuming my own smoke, for I don't want +him to think me an encumbrance. My Indian girl speaks a little English. +She also eats sugar by the handful, whenever she can steal it. I asked +her what her name was and she told me "Queenie MacKenzie." That name +almost took my breath away. How that untutored Northwest aborigine ever +took unto herself this Broadway chorus-girl name, Heaven only knows! But +I have my suspicions of Queenie. She has certain exploratory movements +which convince me she is verminous. She sleeps in the annex, I'm happy +to say. + +At dinner to-night when I was teaching Dinky-Dunk how to make a rabbit +out of his table-napkin and a sea-sick passenger out of the last of his +oranges, he explained that he might not get back in time for Christmas, +and asked if I'd mind. I knew his trip was important, so I kept a stiff +upper lip and said of course I wouldn't mind. But the thought of a +Christmas alone chilled my heart. I tried to be jolly, and gave my +repertory on the mouth-organ, which promptly stopped all activities on +the part of the round-eyed Queenie MacKenzie. But all that foolery was +as forced as the frivolity of the French Revolution Conciergerie where +the merry diners couldn't quite forget they were going to lose their +heads in the morning! + + + + +_Sunday the Thirteenth_ + + +Not only is Duncan gone, but Queenie has also quite unceremoniously +taken her departure. It arose from the fact that I requested her to take +a bath. The only disappointed member of the family is poor old Olie, who +was actually making sheep's eyes at that verminous little baggage. +Imagination falters at what he might have done with a dollar's worth of +brown sugar. When Queenie went, I find, my mouth-organ went with her. +I'd like to ling chih that Indian girl! + + + + +_Wednesday the Sixteenth_ + + +It was a sparkling clear day to-day, with no wind, so I rode over to the +old Titchborne Ranch with my little jumper-sleigh. There I found +Percival Benson in a most pitiable condition. He had been laid up with +the grip. His place was untidy, his dishes were unwashed, and his fuel +was running short. His appearance, in fact, rather frightened me. So I +bundled him up and got him in the jumper and brought him straight home +with me. He had a chill on the way, so as soon as we got to Casa Grande +I sent him to bed, gave him hot whisky, and put my hot water bottle at +his feet. He tried to accept the whole thing as a joke, and vowed I was +jolly well cooking him. But to-night he has a high fever and I'm afraid +he's in for a serious siege of illness. I intend to send Olie over to +get some of his things and have his live stock brought over with ours. + + + + +_Sunday the Twentieth_ + + +Percy has had three very bad nights, but seems a little better to-day. +His lung is congested, and it may be pneumonia, but I think my +mustard-plaster saved the day. He tries so hard to be cheerful, and is +so grateful for every little thing. But I wish Dinky-Dunk was here to +tell me what to do. + +I could never have survived this last week without Olie. He is as +watchful and ready as a farm-collie. But I want my Dinky-Dunk! I may +have spoiled my Dinky-Dunk a little, but it's only once every century or +two that God makes a man like him. I want to be a good wife. I want to +do my share, and keep a shoulder to the wheel, if the going's got to be +heavy for the next year or two. I won't be the Dixon type. I won't--I +won't! My Duncan will need me during this next year, and it will be a +joy to help him. For I love that man, Matilda Anne,--I love him so much +that it hurts! + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +Christmas has come and gone. It was very lonely at Casa Grande. I prefer +not writing about it. Percy is improving, but is still rather weak. I +think he had a narrow squeak. + + + + +_Wednesday the Thirtieth_ + + +My patient is up and about, looking like a different man. He shows the +effects of my forced feeding, though he declares I'm trying to make him +into a Strasburg goose, for the sake of the _pâté de foies gras_ when I +cut him up. But he's decided to go to Santa Barbara for the winter: and +I think he's wise. So this afternoon I togged out in my furs, took the +jumper, and went kiting over to the Titchborne Ranch. Oh, what a shack! +What disorder, what untidiness, what spirit-numbing desolation! I don't +blame poor Percival Benson for clearing out for California. I got what +things he needed, however, and went kiting home again. + + + + +_Thursday the Thirty-first_ + + +I hardly know how to begin. But it must be written or I'll suddenly go +mad and start to bite the shack walls. Last night, after Percy had +helped me turn the bread-mixer (for, whatever happens, we've at least +got to eat) I helped him pack. Among other things, he found a copy of +Housman's _Shropshire Lad_ and after running through it announced that +he'd like to read me two or three little things out of it. So I squatted +down in front of the fire, idly poking at the red coals, and he sat +beside the stove with his book, in slippers and dressing gown. And there +he was solemnly reading out loud when the door opened and in walked +Dinky-Dunk. + +I say he walked in, but that isn't quite right. He stood in the open +door, staring at us, with an expression that would have done credit to +the Tragic Muse. I imagine Enoch Arden wore much the same look when he +piped the home circle after that prolonged absence of his. Then +Dinky-Dunk did a most unpardonable thing. Instead of saying "Howdy!" +like a scholar and a gentleman, he backed out of the shack and slammed +the door. When I'd caught my breath I went out through that door after +him. It was a bitterly cold night, but I did not stop to put anything +on. I was too amazed, too indignant, too swept off my feet by the +absurdity of it all. I could see Dinky-Dunk in the clear starlight, +taking the blankets off his team. He'd hurried to the shack, without +even unharnessing the horses. I could hear the wheel-tires whine on the +crisp snow, for the poor beasts were tired and restless. I went straight +to the buckboard into which Dinky-Dunk was climbing. He looked like a +cinnamon-bear in his big shaggy coat. And I couldn't see his face. But I +remembered how it had looked in the doorway. It was the color of a tan +shoe. It was too weather-beaten and burnt with the wind and sun-glare +ever to turn white, or, I suppose, it would have been the color of +paper. + +"Haven't you," I demanded, "haven't you any explanation for acting like +this?" He sat in the buckboard seat, with the reins in his hands. + +"I guess I've got the first right to that question," he finally said in +a stifled voice. + +"Then why don't you ask it?" was my answer to him. Again he waited a +moment before speaking, as though he felt the need of weighing his +words. + +"I don't need to--now!" he said, as he tightened the reins. + +"Wait," I called out to him. "There are certain things I want you to +know!" + +I was not going to make explanations. I would not dignify his brute-man +stupidity by such things. I scarcely know what I intended to do. As I +looked up at him there in his rough fur coat, for a moment, he seemed +millions and millions of miles away from me. I stared at him, trying to +comprehend his utter lack of comprehension. I seemed to view him across +the same gulf which separates a meditative zoo visitor from some +abysmally hirsute animal that eons and eons ago must have been its +cave-fellow and hearth-mate. But now we seemed to have nothing in +common, not even a language with which to link up those lost ages. Yet +from all that mixture of feelings only one survived: I didn't want my +husband to go. + +It was the team, as far as I can remember, that really decided the +thing. They had been restive, backing and jerking and pawing and +nickering for their feed-box. And suddenly they jumped forward. But this +time they kept going. Whether Dinky-Dunk tried to hold them back or not +I can't say. But I came back to the shack, shivering. Percy, thank +Heaven, was in his room. + +"I think I'll turn in!" he called out, quite casually, through the +partition. + +I said "All right," and sat down in front of the fire, trying to +straighten things out. My Dinky-Dunk was gone! He had glared at me, with +hate in his eyes, as he sat in that buckboard. It's all over. He has no +faith in me, his own wife! + +I went to bed and tried to sleep. But sleep was out of the question. The +whole thing seemed so absurd, so unreasonable, so unjust. I could feel +waves of anger sweep through my body at the mere thought of it. Then a +wave of something else, of something between anxiety and terror, would +take the place of anger. My husband was gone, and he'd never come back. +I'd put all my eggs in one basket, and the basket had gone over, and +made a saffron-tinted omelet of all my life. + +And that's the way I watched the New Year in, I couldn't even afford the +luxury of a little bawl, for I was afraid Percy would hear me. It must +have been almost morning when I fell asleep. + +When I woke up Percival Benson was gone, bag and baggage. At first I +resented the thought of his going off that way, without a word, but on +thinking it over I decided he'd done the right thing. There's nothing +like the hard cold light of a winter morning to bring you back to hard +cold facts. Olie had driven Percy in to the station. So I was alone in +the shack all day. I did a heap of thinking during those long hours of +solitude. And out of all that straw of self-examination I threshed just +one little grain of truth. _I could never live on the prairie alone._ +And whatever I did, or wherever I went, I could never be happy without +my Dinky-Dunk.... + +I had just finished supper to-night, as blue as indigo and as spiritless +as a wet hen, when I heard the sound of voices. It took me only ten +seconds to make sure whose they were. Dinky-Dunk had come back with +Olie! I made a high dive for a book from the nearest shelf, swung the +armchair about with a jerk, and sank luxuriously into it, with my feet +up on the warm damper and my eyes leisurely and contentedly perusing +George Moore's _Confessions of a Young Man_ (although I _hate_ the +libidinous stuff like poison!) Then Dinky-Dunk came in. I could see him +stare at me a little awkwardly and contritely (what woman can't read a +book and study a man at the same time?) and I, could see that he was +waiting for an opening. But I gave him none. Naturally, Olie had +explained everything to him. But I had been humiliated, my pride had +been walked over, from end to end. My spirit had been stamped on--and I +had decided on my plan of action. I simply ignored Duncan. + +I read for a while, then I took a lamp, went to my room, and +deliberately locked the door. My one regret was that I couldn't see +Dinky-Dunk's face when that key turned. And now I must stop writing, and +go to bed, for I am dog-tired. I know I'll sleep better to-night. It's +nice to remember there's a man near, if he happens to be the man you +care a trifle about, even though you _have_ calmly turned the door-key +on him. + + + + +_Sunday the Third_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has at least the sensibilities to respect my privacy of life. +He knows where the deadline is, and doesn't disregard it. But it's +terribly hard to be tragic in a two-by-four shack. You miss the +dignifying touches. And you haven't much leeway for the bulky swings of +grandeur. + +For one whole day I didn't speak to Dinky-Dunk, didn't even so much as +recognize his existence. I ate by myself, and did my work--when the +monster was around--with all the preoccupation of a sleep-walker. But +something happened, and I forgot myself. Before I knew it I was asking +him a question. He answered it, quite soberly, quite casually. If he had +grinned, or shown one jot of triumph, I would have walked out of the +shack and never spoken to him again. I think he knew he was on terribly +perilous ground. He picked his way with care. He asked me a question +back, quite offhandedly, and for the time being let the matter rest +there. But the breach was in my walls, Matilda Anne, and I was quite +defenseless. We were both very impersonal and very polite, when he came +in at supper time, though I think I turned a visible pink when I sat +down at the table, for our eyes met there, just a moment and no more. I +knew he was watching me, covertly, all the time. And I knew I was making +him pretty miserable. But I wasn't the least bit ashamed of it. + +After supper he indifferently announced that he had nothing to do and +might as well help me wash up. I went to hand him a dish-towel. Instead +of taking the towel he took my hand, with the very profane ejaculation, +as he did so, of "Oh, hell, Gee-Gee, what's the use?" + +Then before I knew it, he had me in his arms (our butter-dish was broken +in the collision) and I was weak enough to feel sorry for him and his +poor tragic pleading eyes. Then I gave up. If I was silly enough to have +a little cry on his shoulder, I had the satisfaction of feeling him +give a gulp or two himself. + +"You're the most wonderful woman in the world!" he solemnly told me, and +then in a much less solemn way he began kissing me again. But the +barriers were down. And how we talked that night! And how different +everything seemed! And how nice it was to feel his arm over my shoulder +and his quiet breathing on the nape of my neck as I fell asleep. It +seemed as though Love were fanning me with its softest wings. I'm happy +again. But I've been wondering if it's environment that makes character, +or character that makes environment. Sometimes I think it's one way, and +sometimes I feel it's the other. But I can't be sure of my answer--yet! +It's hard for a spoiled woman to remember that her life has to be merged +into somebody else's life. I've been wondering if marriage isn't like a +two-panel screen, which won't stand up if both its panels are too much +in line. Heaven knows, I want harmony! But a woman likes to feel that +instead of being out of step with her whole regiment of life it's the +regiment that's out of step with her. To-night I unlaced Dinky-Dunk's +shoes, and put on his slippers, and sat on the floor between his knees +with my head against the steady _tick-tock_ of his watch-pocket. +"Dinky-Dunk," I solemnly announced, "that gink called Pope was a poor +guesser. The proper study of man should have been _woman_!" + + + + +_Thursday the Seventh_ + + +Everything at Casa Grande has settled back into the usual groove. There +is a great deal to do about the shack. The grimmest bug-bear of domestic +work is dish-washing. A pile of greasy plates is the one thing that gets +on my nerves. And it is a little Waterloo that must be faced three times +every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. And I was never +properly "broke" for domesticity and the dish-pan! Why can't some genius +invent a self-washing fry-pan? My hair is growing so long that I can now +do it up in a sort of half-hearted French roll. It has been quite cold, +with a wonderful fall of snow. The sleighing could not be better. + + + + +_Saturday the Ninth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk's Christmas present came to-day, over two weeks late. He had +never mentioned it, and I had not only held my peace, but had given up +all thought of getting a really-truly gift from my lord and master. + +They brought it out from Buckhorn, in the bobsleigh, all wrapped up in +old buffalo-robes and blankets and tarpaulins. _It's a baby-grand +piano_, and a beauty, and it came all the way from Winnipeg. But either +the shipping or the knocking about or the extreme cold has put it +terribly out of tune, and it can't be used until the piano-tuner travels +a couple of hundred miles out here to put it in shape. And it's far too +big for the shack, even when pushed right up into the corner. But +Dinky-Dunk says that before next winter there'll be a different sort of +house on this spot where Casa Grande now stands. + +"And that's to keep your soul alive, in the meantime," he announced. I +scolded him for being so extravagant, when he needed every dollar he +could lay his hands on. But he wouldn't listen to me. In fact, it only +started an outburst. + +"My God, Gee-Gee," he cried, "haven't you given up enough for me? +Haven't you sacrificed enough in coming out here to the end of nowhere +and leaving behind everything that made life decent?" + +"Why, Honey Chile, didn't I get _you_?" I demanded. But even that didn't +stop him. + +"Don't you suppose I ever think what it's meant to you, to a woman like +you? There are certain things we can't have, but there are some things +we're going to have. This next ten or twelve months will be hard, but +after that there's going to be a change--if the Lord's with me, and I +have a white man's luck!" + +"And supposing we have bad luck?" I asked him. He was silent for a +moment or two. + +"We can always give up, and go back to the city," he finally said. + +"Give up!" I said with a whoop. "Give up? Not on your life, Mister Dour +Man! We're not going to be Dixonites! We're going to win out!" And we +were together in a death-clinch, hugging the breath out of each other, +when Olie came in to ask if he hadn't better get the stock stabled, as +there was bad weather coming. + + + + +_Monday the Eleventh_ + + +We are having the first real blizzard of the winter. It began yesterday, +as Olie intimated, and for all the tail-end of the day my Dinky-Dunk was +on the go, in the bitter cold, looking after fuel and feed and getting +things ship-shape, for all the world like a skipper who's read his +barometer and seen a hurricane coming. There had been no wind for a +couple of days, only dull and heavy skies with a disturbing sense of +quietness. Even when I heard Olie and Dinky-Dunk shouting outside, and +shoring up the shack-walls with poles, I could not quite make out what +it meant. + +Then the blizzard came. It came down out of the northwest, like a +cloudburst. It hummed and sang, and then it whined, and then it +screamed, screamed in a high falsetto that made you think poor old +Mother Earth was in her last throes! The snow was fine and hard, really +minute particles of ice, and not snow at all, as we know it in the +East, little sharp-angled diamond-points that stung the skin like fire. +It came in almost horizontal lines, driving flat across the unbroken +prairie and defying anything made of God or man to stop it. Nothing did +stop it. Our shack and the bunk-house and stables and hay-stacks tore a +few pin-feathers off its breast, though; and those few feathers are +drifts higher than my head, heaped up against each and all of the +buildings. + +I scratched the frost off a window-pane, where feathery little drifts +were seeping in through the sill-cracks, when it first began. But the +wind blew harder and harder and the shack rocked and shook with the +tension. Oh, such a wind! It made a whining and wailing noise, with each +note higher, and when you felt that it couldn't possibly increase, that +it simply _must_ ease off, or the whole world would go smash, why, that +whining note merely grew tenser and the wind grew stronger. How it +lashed things! How it shook and flailed and trampled this poor old earth +of ours! Just before supper Olie announced that he'd look after my +chicks for me. I told him, quite casually, that I'd attend to them +myself. I usually strew a mixture of wheat and oats on the litter in the +hen-house overnight. This had two advantages, one was that it didn't +take me out quite so early in the morning, and the other was that the +chicks themselves started scratching around first thing in the morning +and so got exercise and kept themselves warmer-bodied and in better +health. + +It was not essential that I should go to the hen-house myself, but I was +possessed with a sudden desire to face that singing white tornado. So I +put on my things, while Dinky-Dunk was at work in the stables. I put on +furs and leggings and gauntlets and all, as though I were starting for a +ninety-mile drive, and slipped out. Dinky-Dunk had tunneled through the +drift in front of the door, but that tunnel was already beginning to +fill again. I plowed through it, and tried to look about me. Everything +was a sort of streaked misty gray, an all-enveloping muffing leaden +maelstrom that hurt your skin when you lifted your head and tried to +look it in the face. Once, in a lull of the wind when the snow was not +so thick, I caught sight of the hay-stacks. That gave me a line on the +hen-house. So I made for it, on the run, holding my head low as I went. + +It was glorious, at first, it made my lungs pump and my blood race and +my legs tingle. Then the storm-devils howled in my eyes and the +ice-lashes snapped in my face. Then the wind went off on a rampage +again, and I couldn't see. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't even +breathe. Then I got frightened. + +I leaned there against the wind calling for Dinky-Dunk and Olie, +whenever I could gasp breath enough to make a sound. But I might as well +have been a baby crying in mid-ocean to a Kensington Gardens nurse. + +Then I knew I was lost. No one could ever hear me in that roar. And +there was nothing to be seen, just a driving, blinding, stinging gray +pall of flying fury that nettled the naked skin like electric-massage +and took the breath out of your buffeted body. There was no land-mark, +no glimpse of any building, nothing whatever to go by. And I felt so +helpless in the face of that wind! It seemed to take the power of +locomotion from my legs. I was not altogether amazed at the thought that +I might die there, within a hundred yards of my own home, so near those +narrow walls within which were warmth, and shelter, and quietness. I +imagined how they'd find my body, deep under the snow, some morning; how +Dinky-Dunk would search, perhaps for days. I felt so sorry for him I +decided not to give up, that I wouldn't be lost, that I wouldn't die +there like a fly on a sheet of tanglefoot! + +I had fallen down on my knees, with my back to the wind, and already the +snow had drifted around me. I also found my eye-lashes frozen together, +and I lost several winkers in getting rid of those solidified tears. But +I got to my feet and battled on, calling when I could. I kept on, going +round and round in a circle, I suppose, as people always do when +they're lost in a storm. Then the wind grew worse again. I couldn't make +any headway against it. I had to give up. I simply _had_ to! I wasn't +afraid. I wasn't terrified at the thought of what was happening to me. I +was only sorry, with a misty sort of sorrow I can't explain. And I don't +remember that I felt particularly uncomfortable, except for the fact I +found it rather hard to breathe. + +It was Olie who found me. He came staggering through the snow with extra +fuel for the bunk-house, and nearly walked over me. As we found out +afterward, I wasn't more than thirty steps away from that bunk-house +door. Olie pulled me up out of the snow the same as you'd pull a skein +of darning-silk out of a work-basket. He half carried me to the +bunk-house, got his bearings, and then steered me for the shack. It was +a fight, but we made it. And Dinky-Dunk was still out looking after his +stock and doesn't know how nearly he lost his Lady Bird. I've made Olie +promise not to say a word about it. But the top of my nose is red and +swollen. I think it must have got a trifle frost-nipped, in the +encounter. The weather has cleared now, and the wind has gone down. But +it is very cold, and Dinky-Dunk has just reported that it's already +forty-eight below zero. + + + + +_Tuesday the Nineteenth_ + + +The days slip away and I scarcely know where they go. The weather is +wonderful. Clear and cold, with such heaps of sunshine you'd never dream +it was zero weather. But you have to be careful, and always wear furs +when you're driving, or out for any length of time. Three hours in this +open air is as good as a pint of Chinkie's best champagne. It makes me +tingle. We are living high, with several barrels of frozen game--geese, +duck and prairie-chicken--and also an old tin trunk stuffed full of +beef-roasts, cut the right size. I bring them in and thaw them out +overnight, as I need them. The freezing makes them very tender. But they +must be completely thawed before they go into the oven, or the outside +will be overdone and the inside still raw. I learned that by experience. +My appetite is disgraceful, and I'm still gaining. Chinkie could never +again say I reminded him of one of the lean kine in Pharaoh's dream. + +I have been asking Dinky-Dunk if it isn't downright cruelty to leave +horses and cattle out on the range in weather like this. My husband says +not, so long as they have a wind-break in time of storms. The animals +paw through the snow for grass to eat, and when they get thirsty they +can eat the snow itself, which, Dinky-Dunk solemnly assures me, almost +never gives them sore throat! But the open prairie, just at this season, +is a most inhospitable looking pasturage, and the unbroken glare of +white makes my eyes ache.... There's one big indoor task I finally have +accomplished, and that is tuning my piano. It made my heart heavy, +standing there useless, a gloomy monument of ironic grandeur. + +As a girl I used to watch Katrinka's long-haired Alsatian putting her +concert grand to rights, and I knew that my ear was dependable enough. +So the second day after my baby grand's arrival I went at it with a +monkey-wrench. But that was a failure. Then I made a drawing of a +tuning-hammer and had Olie secretly convey it to the Buckhorn +blacksmith, who in turn concocted a great steel hollow-headed +monstrosity which actually fits over the pins to which the piano wires +are strung, even though the aforesaid monstrosity is heavy enough to +stun an ox with. But it did the work, although it took about two +half-days, and now every note is true. So now I have music! And +Dinky-Dunk does enjoy my playing, these long winter evenings. Some +nights we let Olie come in and listen to the concert. He sits rapt, +especially when I play ragtime, which seems the one thing that touches +his holy of holies. Poor Olie! I surely have a good friend in that +silent, faithful, uncouth Swede! + +Dinky-Dunk himself is so thin that it worries me. But he eats well and +doesn't anathematize my cooking. He's getting a few gray hairs, at the +temples. I think they make him look rather _distingue_. But they worry +my poor Dinky-Dunk. "Hully Gee," he said yesterday, studying himself +for the third time in his shaving-glass, "I'm getting old!" He laughed +when I started to whistle "Believe me if all those endearing young +charms, which I gaze on so fondly to-day," but at heart he was really +disturbed by the discovery of those few white hairs. I've been telling +him that the ladies won't love him any more, and that his cut-up days +are over. He says I'll have to make up for the others. So I started for +him with my Australian crawl-stroke. It took me an hour to get the taste +of shaving soap out of my mouth. Dinky-Dunk says I'm so full of life +that I _sparkle_. All I know is that I'm happy, supremely and +ridiculously happy! + + + + +_Sunday the Thirty-first_ + + +The inevitable has happened. I don't know how to write about it! I +_can't_ write about it! My heart goes down like a freight elevator, +slowly, sickeningly, even when I think about it. Dinky-Dunk came in and +saw me studying a little row of dates written on the wall-paper beside +the bedroom window. I pretended to be draping the curtain. "What's the +matter, Lady Bird?" he demanded when he saw my face. I calmly told him +that nothing was the matter. But he wouldn't let me go. I wanted to be +alone, to think things out. But he kept holding me there, with my face +to the light. I suppose I must have been all eyes, and probably shaking +a little. And I didn't want him to suspect. + +"Excuse me if I find you unspeakably annoying!" I said in a voice that +was so desperately cold that it even surprised my own ears. He dropped +me as though I had been a hot potato. I could see that I'd hurt him, and +hurt him a lot. My first impulse was to run to him with a shower of +repentant kisses, as one usually does, the same as one sprinkles salt on +claret stains. But in him I beheld the original and entire cause--and I +just couldn't do it. He called me a high-spirited devil with a +hair-trigger temper. But he left me alone to think things out. + + + + +_Tuesday the Ninth_ + + +I've started to say my prayers again. It rather frightened Dinky-Dunk, +who sat up in bed and asked me if I wasn't feeling well. I promptly +assured him that I was in the best of health. He not only agreed with +me, but said I was as plump as a partridge. When I am alone, though, I +get frightened and fidgety. So I kneel down every night and morning now +and ask God for help and guidance. I want to be a good woman and a +better wife. But I shall never let Duncan know--never! + + + + +_Wednesday the Seventeenth_ + + +Do you remember Aunt Harriet who always wept when she read _The Isles of +Greece_? She didn't even know where they were, and had never been east +of Salem. But all the Woodberrys were like that. Dinky-Dunk came in and +found me crying to-day, for the second time in one week. He made such +valiantly ponderous efforts to cheer me up, poor boy, and shook his head +and said I'd soon be an improvement on the Snider System, which is a +system of irrigation by spraying overnight from pipes! My nerves don't +seem so good as they were. The winter's so long. I'm already counting +the days to spring. + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has concluded that I'm too much alone; he's been worrying +over it. I can tell that. I try not to be moody, but sometimes I simply +can't help it. Yesterday afternoon he drove up to Casa Grande, proud as +Punch, with a little black and white kitten in the crook of his arm. +He'd covered twenty-eight miles of trail for that kitten! It's to be my +companion. But the kitten's as lonesome as I am, and has been crying, +and nearly driving me crazy. + + + + +_Tuesday the Second_ + + +The weather has been bad, but winter is slipping away. Dinky-Dunk has +been staying in from his work, these mornings, helping me about the +house. He is clumsy and slow, and has broken two or three of the dishes. +But I hate to say anything; his eyes get so tragic. He declares that as +soon as the trails are passable he's going to have a woman to help me, +that this sort of thing can't go on any longer. He imagines it's merely +the monotony of housework that is making my nerves so bad. + +Yesterday morning I was drying the dishes and Dinky-Dunk was washing. I +found the second spoon with egg on it. I don't know why it was, but that +trivial streak of yellow along the edge of a spoon suddenly seemed to +enrage me. It became monumental, an emblem of vague incapabilities which +I would have to face until the end of my days. I flung that spoon back +in the dish-pan. Then I turned on my husband and called out to him, in a +voice that didn't quite seem like my own, "O God, can't you wash 'em +_clean_? Can't you wash 'em clean?" I even think I ran up and down the +room and pretty well made what Percival Benson would call "a bally ass" +of myself. Dinky-Dunk didn't even answer me. But he dried his hands and +got his things and went outdoors, to the stables, I suppose. His face +was as colorless as it could possibly get. I felt sorry; but it was too +late. And my sniffling didn't do any good. And it startled me, as I sat +thinking things over, to realize that I'd lost my sense of humor. + + + + +_Thursday the Fourth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk thinks I'm mad. I'm quite sure he does. He came in at noon +to-day and found me on the floor with the kitten. I'd tied a piece of fur +to the end of a string. Oh, how that kitten scrambled after that fur, +round and round in a circle until he'd tumble over on his own ears! I +was squeaking and weak with laughing when Dinky-Dunk stood in the door. +Poor boy, he takes things so solemnly! But I know he thinks I'm quite +mad. Perhaps I am. I cried myself to sleep last night. And for several +days now I've had a longing for _caviare_. + + + + +_Wednesday the Seventeenth_ + + +Spring is surely coming. It promises to be an early one. I feel better +at the thought of it, and of getting out again. But the roads are quite +impassable. Such mud! Such oceans of glue-pot dirt! They have a saying +out here that soil is as rich as it is sticky. If this is true +Dinky-Dunk has a second Garden of Eden. This mud sticks to everything, +to feet, to clothes, to wagon-wheels. But there's getting to be real +warmth in the sun that shines through my window. + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +A warm Chinook has licked up the last of the snow. Even Dinky-Dunk +admits that spring is coming. For three solid hours an awakened +blue-bottle has been buzzing against the pane of my bedroom window. I +wonder if most of us aren't like that fly, mystified by the illusion of +light that fails to lead to liberty? This morning I caught sight of +Dinky-Dunk in his fur coat, climbing into the buckboard. I shall always +hate to see him in that rig. It makes me think of a certain night. And +we hate to have memory put a finger on our mental scars. When I was a +girl Aunt Charlotte's second fiend of a husband locked me up in that +lonely Derby house of theirs because I threw pebbles at the swans. Then +off they drove to dinner somewhere and left me a prisoner there, where I +sat listening to the bells of All Saints as the house gradually grew +dark. And ever since then bells at evening have made me feel lonely and +left me unhappy. + +But the renaissance of the buckboard means that spring is here again. +And for my Dinky-Dunk that means harder work. He's what they call a +"rustler" out here. He believes in speed. He doesn't even wait until the +frost is out of the ground before he starts to seed--just puts a drill +over a two-inch batter of thawed-out mud, he's so mad about getting +early on the land. He says he wants early wheat or no wheat. But he has +to have help, and men are almost impossible to get. He had hoped for a +gasoline tractor, but it can't be financed this spring, he has confessed +to me. And I know, in my secret heart of hearts, that the tractor would +have been here if it hadn't been for my piano! + +There are still hundreds and hundreds of acres of prairie sod to "break" +for spring wheat. Dinky-Dunk declares that he's going to risk everything +on wheat this year. He says that by working two outfits of horses he +himself can sow forty acres a day, but that means keeping the horses on +the trot part of the time. He is thinking so much about his crop that I +accused him of neglecting me. + +"Is the varnish starting to wear off?" I inquired with a secret gulp of +womanish self-pity. He saved the day by declaring I was just as crazy +and just as adorable as I ever was. Then he asked me, rather sadly, if I +was bored. "Bored?" I said, "how could I be bored with all these +discomforts? No one is ever bored until they are comfortable!" But the +moment after I'd said it I was sorry. + + + + +_Tuesday the Sixth_ + + +Spring is here, with a warm Chinook creeping in from the Rockies and a +sky of robin-egg blue. The gophers have come out of their winter +quarters and are chattering and racing about. We saw a phalanx of wild +geese going northward, and Dinky-Dunk says he's seen any number of +ducks. They go in drifting V's, and I love to watch them melt in the +sky-line. The prairie floor is turning to the loveliest of greens, and +it is a joy just to be alive. I have been out all afternoon. The gophers +aren't going to get ahead of me! + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +What would you say if you saw Brunhild drive up to your back door? What +would you do if you discovered a Norse goddess placidly surveying you +from a green wagon-seat? How would you act if you beheld a big blonde +Valkyr suddenly introducing herself into your little earthly affairs? + +Well, can you wonder that I stared, all eyes, when Dinky-Dunk brought +home a figure like this, in the shape of a Finn girl named Olga +Sarristo? Olga is to work in the fields, and to help me when she has +time. But I'll never get used to having a Norse Legend standing at my +elbow, for Olga is the most wonderful creature I have ever clapped eyes +on. I say that without doubt, and without exaggeration. And what made +the picture complete, she came driving a yoke of oxen--for Dinky-Dunk +will have need of every horse and hauling animal he can lay his hands +on. I simply held my breath as I stared up at her, high on her +wagon-seat, blocked out in silhouette against the pale sky-line, a +Brunhild with cowhide boots on. She wore a pale blue petticoat and a +Swedish looking black shawl with bright-colored flowers worked along the +hem. She had no hat. But she had two great ropes of pale gold hair, +almost as thick as my arm, and hanging almost as low as her knees. She +looked colossal up on the wagon-seat, but when she got down on the +ground she was not so immense. She is, however, a strapping big woman, +and I don't think I ever saw such shoulders! She is Olympian, Titanic! +She makes me think of the Venus de Milo; there's such a largeness and +calmness and smoothness of surface about her. I suppose a Saint-Gaudens +might say that her mouth was too big and a Gibson might add that her +nose hadn't the narrow rectitude of a Greek statue's, but she's a +beautiful, a beautiful--"woman" was the word I was going to write, but +the word "animal" just bunts and shoves itself in, like a stabled cow +insisting on its own stall. But if you regard her as only animal, you +must at least accept her as a perfect one. Her mouth is large, but I +never saw such red lips, full and red and dewy. Her forehead is low and +square, but milky smooth, and I know she could crack a chicken-bone +between those white teeth of hers. Even her tongue, I noticed, is a +watermelon red. She must be healthy. Dinky-Dunk says she's a find, that +she can drive a double-seeder as well as any man in the West, and that +by taking her for the season he gets the use of the ox-team as well. He +warned me not to ask her about her family, as only a few weeks ago her +father and younger brother were burned to death in their shack, a +hundred miles or so north of us. + + + + +_Tuesday the Twentieth_ + + +Olga has been with us a week, and she still fascinates me. She is +installed in the annex, and seems calmly satisfied with her +surroundings. She brought everything she owns tied up in an oat-sack. I +have given her a few of my things, for which she seems dumbly grateful. +She seldom talks, and never laughs. But I am teaching her to say "yes" +instead of "yaw." She studies me with her limpid blue eyes, and if she +is silent she is never sullen. She hasn't the heavy forehead and jaw of +the Galician women and she hasn't the Asiatic cast of face that belongs +to the Russian peasant. And she has the finest mouthful of teeth I ever +saw in a human head--and she never used a toothbrush in her life! She is +only nineteen, but such a bosom, such limbs, such strength! + +This is a great deal of talk about Olga, I'm afraid, but you must +remember that Olga is an event. I expected Olie would be keeled over by +her arrival, but they seem to regard each other with silent contempt. I +suppose that is because racially and physically they are of the same +type. I'm anxious to see what Percival Benson thinks of Olga when he +gets back--they would be such opposites. Olga is working with her +ox-team on the land. Two days ago I rode out on Paddy and watched her. +There was something Homeric about it, something Sorolla would have +jumped at. She seemed so like her oxen. She moved like them, and her +eyes were like theirs. She has the same strength and solemnity when she +walks. She's so primitive and natural and instinctive in her actions. +Yesterday, after dinner, she curled up on a pile of hay at one end of +the corral and fell asleep for a few minutes, flat in the strong noonday +light. I saw Dinky-Dunk stop on his way to the stable and stand and look +down at her. I slipped out beside him. "God, what a woman!" he said +under his breath. A vague stab of jealousy went through me as I heard +him say that. Then I looked at her hand, large, relaxed, roughened with +all kinds of weather and calloused with heavy work. And this time it was +an equally vague stab of pity that went through me. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-sixth_ + + +The rush is on, and Dinky-Dunk is always out before six. If it's true, +as some one once said, that the pleasures of life depended on its +anxieties, then we ought to be a hilarious household. Every one is busy, +and I do what I can to help. I don't know why it is, but I find an odd +comfort in the thought of having another woman near me, even Olga. She +also helps me a great deal with the housework. Those huge hands of hers +have a dexterity you'd never dream of. She thinks the piano a sort of +miracle, and me a second miracle for being able to play it. In the +evening she sits back in a corner, the darkest corner she can find, and +listens. She never speaks, never moves, never expresses one iota of +emotion. But in the gloom I can often catch the animal-like glow of her +eyes. They seem almost phosphorescent. Dinky-Dunk had a long letter from +Percival Benson to-day. It was interesting and offhandedly jolly and +just the right sort. And Percy says he'll be back on the Titchborne +place in a few weeks. + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +Olga went through the boards of her wagon-box and got a bad scrape on +her leg. She showed me the extent of her injuries, without the slightest +hesitation, and I gave her first-aid treatment with my carbolated +vaseline. And still again I had to think of the Venus de Milo, for it +was a knee like a statue's, milky white and round and smooth, with a +skin like a baby's, and so different to her sunburnt forearms. It was +Olympian more than Fifth-Avenuey. It was a leg that made me think, not +of Rubens, but of Titian, and my thoughts at once went out to the +right-hand lady of the "Sacred and Profane Love," in the Borghese, there +was such softness and roundness combined with its strength. And +Dinky-Dunk walked in and stood staring at it, himself, with never so +much as a word of apology. Olga looked up at him without a flicker of +her ox-like eyes. It wasn't until I made an angry motion for her to +drop her skirt that she realized any necessity for covering the Titian +knee. But again I felt that odd pang of jealousy needle through me as I +saw his face. At least I suppose it was jealousy, the jealousy of an +artful little Mona-Lisa minx who didn't even class in with the +demigods. When Olga was gone, however, I said to Dinky-Dunk: "Isn't +that a limb for your life?" + +He merely said: "We don't grow limbs up here, Tabby. They're legs, just +plain legs!" + +"Anything but _plain_!" I corrected him. Then he acknowledged that he'd +seen those knees before. He'd stumbled on Olga and her brother knee-deep +in mud and cow manure, treading a mixture to plaster their shack with, +the same as the Doukhobors do. It left me less envious of those +Junoesque knees. + + + + +_Monday the Second_ + + +Keeping chickens is a much more complicated thing than the outsider +imagines. For example, several of my best hens, quite untouched by the +modern spirit of feminine unrest, have been developing "broodiness" and +I have been trying to "break them up," as the poulterers put it. But +they are determined to set. This mothering instinct is a fine enough +thing in its way, but it's been spoiling too many good eggs. So I've +been trying to emancipate these ruffled females. I lift them off the +nest by the tail feathers, ten times a day. I fling cold water in their +solemn maternal faces. I put little rings of barb-wire under their +sentimental old bosoms. But still they set. And one, having pecked me on +the wrist until the blood came, got her ears promptly boxed--in face of +the fact that all poultry keepers acknowledge that kindness to a hen +improves her laying qualities. + + + + +_Thursday the Fifth_ + + +Casa Grande is a beehive of industry. Every one has a part to play. I am +no longer expected to sit by the fire and purr. At nights I sew. +Dinky-Dunk is so hard on his clothes! When it's not putting on patches +it's sewing on buttons. Then we go to bed at half-past nine. At +half-past nine, think of it! Little me, who more than once went humming +up Fifth Avenue when morning was showing gray over the East River, and +often left Sherry's (oh, those dear old dancing days!) when the milk +wagons were rumbling through Forty-fourth Street, and once triumphantly +announced, on coming out of Dorlon's and studying the old Oyster-Letter +clock, that I'd stuck it out to Y minutes past O! But it's no hardship +to get up at five, these glorious mornings. The days get longer, and the +weather is perfect. And the prairie looks as though a vacuum cleaner +had been at work on it overnight. Positively, there's a charwoman who +does this old world over, while we sleep! By morning it's as bright as a +new pin. And out here every one is thinking of the day ahead; +Dinky-Dunk, of his crop; Olga, of the pair of sky-blue corsets I've +written to the Winnipeg mail-order house for; Olie, of the final +waterproofing of the granaries so the wheat won't get spoilt any more; +Gee-Gee, herself, of--of something which she's almost afraid to think +about. + +Dinky-Dunk, in his deviling moods, says I'm an old married woman now, +that I'm settled, that I've eaten my pie! Perhaps I have. I'm not +imaginative, so I must depend on others for my joy of living. I know now +that I can never create, never really express myself in any way worth +while, either on paper or canvas or keyboard. And people without +imagination, I suppose, simply have to drop back to racial +simplicities--which means I'll have to have a family, and feed hungry +mouths, and keep a home going. And I'll have to get all my art at +second-hand, from magazines and gramophone records and plaster-of-Paris +casts. Just a housewife! And I so wanted to be something more, once! Yet +I wonder if, after all, the one is so much better than the other? I +wonder? And here comes my Dinky-Dunk, and in three minutes he'll be +kissing me on the tip of the chin and asking me what there's going to be +good for supper! And that is better than fame! For all afternoon those +twelve little lines of Dobson's have been running through my head: + + Fame is a food that dead men eat-- + I have no stomach for such meat. + In little light and narrow rooms, + They eat it in the silent tombs, + With no kind voice of comrade near + To bid the banquet be of cheer. + + But Friendship is a noble thing-- + Of Friendship it is good to sing, + For truly when a man shall end, + He lives in memory of his friend + Who doth his better part recall + And of his faults make funeral! + +But when you put the word "love" there instead of "friendship" you make +it even better.... Olga, by the way, is not so stupid as you might +imagine. She's discovered something which I didn't intend her to find +out.... And Olie, also by the way, has solved the problem of "breaking +up" my setting hens. He has made a swinging coop with a wire netting +bottom, for all the world like the hanging gardens of Babylon, and into +this all the ruffled mothers-to-be have been thrust and the coop hung up +on the hen-house wall. Open wire is a very uncomfortable thing to set +on, and these hens have at last discovered that fact. I have been out +looking at them. I never saw such a parliament of solemn indignation. +But their pride has been broken, and they are beginning to show a +healthier interest in their meals. + + + + +_Tuesday the Tenth_ + + +I've been wondering if Dinky-Dunk is going to fall in love with Olga. +Yesterday I saw him staring at her neck. She's the type of woman that +would really make the right sort of wilderness wife. She seems an +integral part of the prairie, broad-bosomed, fecund, opulent. And she's +so placid and large and soft-spoken and easy to live with. She has none +of my moods and tantrums. + +Her corsets came to-day, and I showed her how to put them on. She is +incontinently proud of them, but in my judgment they only make her +ridiculous. It's as foolish as putting a French _toque_ on one of her +oxen. The skin of Olga's great shoulders is as smooth and creamy as a +baby's. I have been watching her eyes. They are not a dark blue, but in +a strong side-light they seem deep wells of light, layer on layer of +azure. And she is mysterious to me, calmly and magnificently +inscrutable. And I once thought her an uncouth animal. But she is a +great help. She has planted rows and rows of sweet peas all about Casa +Grande and is starting to make a kitchen garden, which she's going to +fence off and look after with her own hands. It will be twice the size +of Olie's. But I do hope she doesn't ever grow into something mysterious +to my Dinky-Dunk. This morning she said I ought to work in the garden, +that the more I kept on my feet the better it would be for me later on. + +As for Dinky-Dunk, the poor boy is working himself gaunt. Yet tired as +he is, he tries to read a few pages of something worth while every +night. Sometimes we take turns in reading. Last night he handed me over +his volume of Spencer with a pencil mark along one passage. This passage +said: "Intellectual activity in women is liable to be diminished after +marriage by that antagonism between individuation and reproduction +everywhere operative throughout the organic world." I don't know why, +but that passage made me as hot as a hornet. In the background of my +brain I carried some vague memory of George Eliot once catching this +same philosophizing Spencer fishing with a composite fly, and, remarking +on his passion for generalizations, declaring that he even fished with a +generalization. So I could afford to laugh. "Spencer's idea of a +tragedy," I told Dinky-Dunk, "is a deduction killed by a fact!" And +again I smiled my Mona-Lisa smile. "And I'm going to be one of the +facts!" I proudly proclaimed. + +Dinky-Dunk, after thinking this over, broke into a laugh. "You know, +Gee-Gee," he solemnly announced, "there are times when you seem almost +clever!" But I wasn't clever in this case, for it was hours later before +I saw the trap which Dinky-Dunk had laid for me! + + + + +_Monday the Sixteenth_ + + +All day Saturday Olga and Dinky-Dunk were off in the chuck-wagon, +working too far away to come home for dinner. The thought of them being +out there, side by side, hung over me like a cloud. I remembered how he +had absently stared at the white column of her neck. And I pictured him +stopping in his work and studying her faded blue cotton waist pulled +tight across the line of that opulent bust. What man wouldn't be +impressed by such bodily magnificence, such lavish and undulating youth +and strength? And there's something so soft and diffused about those +ox-like eyes of hers! You do not think, then, of her eyes being such a +pale blue, any more than you could stop to accuse summer moonlight of +not being ruddy. And those unruffled blue eyes never seem to see you; +they rather seem to bathe you in a gaze as soft and impersonal as +moonlight itself. + +I simply couldn't stand it any more. I got on Paddy and galloped out for +my Dinky-Dunk, as though it were my sudden and solemn duty to save him +from some imminent and awful catastrophe. + +I stopped on the way, to watch a couple of prairie-chickens minuetting +through the turns of their vernal courtships. The pompous little beggars +with puffed-out wattles and neck ruffs were positively doing cancans and +two-steps along the prairie floor. Love was in the air, that perfect +spring afternoon, even for the animal world. So instead of riding openly +and honestly up to Dinky-Dunk and Olga, I kept under cover as much as I +could and stalked them, as though I had been a timber wolf. + +Then I felt thoroughly and unspeakably ashamed of myself, for I caught +sight of Olga high on her wagon, like a Valkyr on a cloud, and +Dinky-Dunk hard at work a good two miles away. + +He was a little startled to see me come cantering up on Paddy. I don't +know whether it was silly or not, but I told him straight out what had +brought me. He hugged me like a bear and then sat down on the prairie +and laughed. "With that cow?" he cried. And I'm sure no man could ever +call the woman he loves a cow.... I believe Dinky-Dunk suspects +something. He's just asked me to be more careful about riding Paddy. And +he's been more solemnly kind, lately. But I'll never tell +him--never--never! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-fourth_ + + +Percy will be back to-morrow. It will be a different looking country to +what it was when he left. I've been staring up at a cobalt sky, and +begin to understand why people used to think Heaven was somewhere up in +the midst of such celestial blue. And on the prairie the sky is your +first and last friend. Wasn't it Emerson who somewhere said that the +firmament was the daily bread for one's eyes? And oh, the lovely, +greening floor of the wheat country now! Such a soft yellow-green glory +stretching so far in every direction, growing so much deeper day by day! +And the sun and space and clear light on the sky-line and the pillars of +smoke miles away and the wonderful, mysterious promise that is hanging +over this teeming, steaming, shimmering, abundant broad bosom of earth! +It thrills me in a way I can't explain. By night and day, before +breakfast and after supper, the talk is of wheat, wheat, wheat, until I +nearly go crazy. I complained to Dinky-Dunk that he was dreaming wheat, +living wheat, breathing wheat, that he and all the rest of the world +seemed mad about wheat. + +"And there's just one other thing you must remember, Lady Bird," was his +answer. "All the rest of the world is _eating_ wheat. It can't live +without wheat. And I'd rather be growing the bread that feeds the hungry +than getting rich making cordite and Krupp guns!" So he's risking +everything on this crop of his, and is eternally figuring and planning +and getting ready for the _grande débâcle_. He says it will be like a +battle. And no general goes into a battle without being prepared for it. +But when we read about the doings of the outside world, it seems like +reading of happenings that have taken place on the planet Mars. We're +our own little world just now, self-contained, rounded-out, complete. + + + + +_Friday the Third_ + + +Two things of vast importance have happened. Dinky-Dunk has packed up +and made off to Edmonton to interview some railway officials, and Percy +is back. Dinky-Dunk is so mysteriously silent as to the matter of his +trip that I'm afraid he is worried about money matters. And he asked me +if I'd mind keeping the household expenses down as low as I could, +without actual hardship, for the next few months. + +As for Percy, he seemed a little constrained, but looked ever so much +better. He is quite sunburned, likes California and says we ought to +have a winter bungalow there (and Dinky-Dunk just warning me to save on +the pantry pennies!) He's brought a fastidious little old English woman +back with him as a housekeeper, a Mrs. Watson, and she looks both +capable and practical. Notwithstanding the fact that she seems to have +stepped right out of Dickens, and carries a huge Manx cat about with +her, Percy said he thought they'd muddle along in some way. Thoughtful +boy that he was, he brought me a portmanteau packed full of the newer +novels and magazines, and a two-pound jar of smoking tobacco for +Dinky-Dunk. + + + + +_Thursday the Ninth_ + + +A Belasco couldn't have more carefully stage-managed the first meeting +between Percy and Olga. I felt that she was my discovery, and I wanted +to spring her on him, at the right moment, and in the right way. I +wanted to get the Valkyr on a cloud effect. So I kept Percy in the house +on the pretext of giving him a cup of tea, until I should hear the +rumble of the wagon and know that Olga was swinging home with her team. +It so happened, when I heard the first faint far thunder of that homing +wagon, that Percy was sitting in my easy chair, with a cup of my +thinnest china in one hand and a copy of Walter Pater's _Marius the +Epicurean_ in the other. We had been speaking of climate, and he wanted +to look up the passage where Pater said, "one always dies of the +cold"--which I consider a slur on the Northwest! + +I couldn't help realizing, as I sat staring at Percy, at the thin, +over-sensitive face, and the high-arched, over-refined nose, and the +narrow, stooping, over-delicate shoulders, what a direct opposite he was +to Olga, in every way. Instead of thin china and Pater in her hand at +that very moment, I remembered she'd probably have a four-tined fork or +a mud-stained fence stretcher. + +I went to the door and looked out. At the proper moment I called Percy. +Olga was standing up in the wagon-box, swinging about one corner of the +corral. She stood with her shoulders well back, for her weight was +already on the lines, to pull the team up. Her loose blue skirt edge was +fluttering in the wind, but at the front was held tight against her +legs, like the drapery of the Peace figure in the Sherman statue in the +Plaza. Across that Artemis-like bosom her thin waist was stretched +tight. She had no hat on, and her pale gold hair, which had been braided +and twisted up into a heavy crown, had the sheen of metal on it, in the +later afternoon sun. And in that clear glow of light, which so often +plays mirage-like tricks with vision, she loomed up like a demi-god, or +a she-Mercury who ought to have had little bicycle wheels attached to +her heels. + +Percy is never demonstrative. But I could see that he was more than +impressed. He was amazed. + +"My word!" he said very quietly. + +"What does she make you think of?" I demanded. + +Percy put down his teacup. + +"Don't go away," I commanded, "but tell me what she makes you think of." +He still stood staring at her with puckered up eyes. + +"She's like band-music going by!" he proclaimed. "No, she's more than +that; she's Wagner on wheels," he finally said. "No, not that! A Norse +myth in dimity!" + +I told him it wasn't dimity, but he was too interested in Olga to listen +to me. + +Half an hour later, when she met him, she was very shy. She turned an +adorable pink, and then calmly rebuttoned the two top buttons of her +waist, which had been hanging loose. And I noticed that Percy did +precisely what I saw Dinky-Dunk once doing. He sat staring absently yet +studiously at the milky white column of Olga's neck! And I had to speak +to him twice, before he even woke up to the fact that he was being +addressed by his hostess. + + + + +_Wednesday the Fifteenth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk is back, and very busy again. During the day I scarcely get a +glimpse of him, except at meal-times. I have a steadily growing sense of +being neglected, but I know how a worried man hates petulance. The +really important thing is that Percy is giving Olga lessons in reading +and writing. For, although a Finn, she is a Canadian Finn from almost +the shadow of the sub-Arctics, and has had little chance for education. +But her mind is not obtuse. + +Yesterday I asked Olga what she thought of Percival Benson. "Ah lak +heem," she calmly admitted in her majestic, monosyllabic way. "He is a +fonny leetle man." And the "fonny leetle man" who isn't really little, +seems to like Olga, odd as it may sound. They are such opposites, such +contradictions! Percy says she's Homeric. He says he never saw eyes that +were so limpid, or such pools of peace and calm. He insists on the fact +that she's essentially maternal, as maternal as the soil over which she +walks, as Percy put it. I told him what Dinky-Dunk had once told me, +about Olga killing a bull. The bull was a vicious brute that had +attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen +man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for +that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a +pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines +eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him +back to the house. And I won't even kill my own hens, but have always +appointed Olie as the executioner. + + + + +_Friday the Seventeenth_ + + +It is funny to see Percy teaching Olga. She watches him as though he +were a miracle man. Her dewy red lips form the words slowly, and the +full white throat utters them largely, laboriously, instruments on them, +and in some perhaps uncouth way makes them lovely. I sit with my sewing, +listening. Sometimes I open the piano and play. But I feel out of it. I +seem to be on the fringe of things that are momentous only to other +people. Last night, when Percy said he thought he'd sell his ranch, +Dinky-Dunk looked up from his paper-littered desk and told him to hang +on to that land like a leech. But he didn't explain why. + + + + +_Saturday the Nineteenth_ + + +I can't even remember the date. But I know that midsummer is here, that +the men folks are so busy I have to shift for myself, and that the talk +is still of wheat, and how it's heading, and how the dry weather of the +last few weeks will affect the length of the straw. Dinky-Dunk is making +desperate efforts to get men to cut wild-hay. He's bought the hay rights +of a large stretch between some sloughs about seven miles east of our +place. He says men are scarcer than hen's teeth, but has the promise of +a couple of cutthroats who were thrown off a freight-train near +Buckhorn. Percy volunteered to help, and was convinced of the fact that +he could drive a mower. Olie, who nurses a vast contempt for Percy, and, +I secretly believe, rather resents his attentions to Olga, put the new +team of colts on the mower. They promptly ran away with Percy, who came +within an ace of being thrown in front of the mower-knife, which would +have chopped him up into very unscholarly mincemeat. Olga got on a +horse, bareback, and rounded up the colts. Then she cooed about poor +bruised Percy and tried to coax him to come to the house. But Percy said +he was going to drive that team, even if he had to be strapped to the +mower-seat. And, oddly enough, he did "gat them beat," as Olga expressed +it, but it tired him out and wilted his collar and the sweat was running +down his face when he came in at noon. Olga is very proud of him. But +she announced that she'd drive that mower herself, and sailed into Olie +for giving a tenderfoot a team like that to drive. It was her first +outburst. I couldn't understand a word she said, but I know that she was +magnificent. She looked like a statue of Justice that had suddenly +jumped off its pedestal and was doing its best to put a Daniel Webster +out of business! + + + + +_Friday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +The weather is still very dry. But Dinky-Dunk feels sure it will not +affect his crop. He says the filaments of a wheat-plant will go almost +two feet deep in search for moisture. Yesterday Percy appeared in a +flannel shirt, and without his glasses. I think he is secretly +practising calisthenics. He said he was going to cut out this afternoon +tea, because it doesn't seem to fit in with prairie life. I fancy I see +the re-barbarianizing influence of Olga at work on Percival Benson +Woodhouse. Either Dinky-Dunk or Olie, I find, has hidden my saddle! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +To-day has been one of the hottest days of the year. It may be good for +the wheat, but I can't say that it seems good for me. All day long I've +been fretting for far-away things, for foolish and impossible things. I +tried reading Keats, but that only made me worse than ever. I've been +longing for a glimpse of the Luxembourg Gardens in spring, with all the +horse-chestnuts in bloom. I've been wondering how lovely it would be to +drift into the Blue Grotto at Capri and see the azure sea-water drip +from the trailing boat-oars. I've been burning with a hunger to see a +New England orchard in the slanting afternoon sunlight of an early June +afternoon. The hot white light of this open country makes my eyes ache +and seems to dry my soul up. I can't help thinking of cool green +shadows, and musky little valleys of gloom with a brook purling over +mossy stones. I long for the solemn greenery of great elms, aisles and +aisles of cathedral-like gloom and leaf-filtered sunlight. I'd love to +hear an English cuckoo again, and feel the soft mild sea-air that blows +up through Louis's dear little Devonshire garden. But what's the use! + +I went to the piano and pounded out _Kennst Du Das Land_ with all my +soul, and I imagine it did me good. It at least bombarded the silence +out of Casa Grande. The noise of life is so far away from you on the +prairie! It is not utterly silent, just that dreamy and disembodied sigh +of wind and grass against which a human call targets like a leaden +bullet against metal. It is almost worse than silence. + + + + +_Sunday the Thirtieth_ + + +My mood is over. Early, early this morning I slipped out of bed and +watched day break. I saw the first faint orange rim along the limitless +sky-line, and then the pearly pink above it, and all the sweet dimness +and softness and mystery of God's hand pulling the curtains of morning +apart. And then the rioting orchestras of color struck up, and I leaned +out of the window bathed in glory as the golden disk of the sun showed +over the dewy prairie-edge. Oh, the grandeur of it! And oh, the +God-given freshness of that pellucid air! I love my land! I love it! + + + + +_Tuesday the First_ + + +I have married a _man_! My Dinky-Dunk is not a softy. I had that proved +to me yesterday, when I put Paddy in the buckboard and drove out to +where the men were working in the hay. I was taking their dinner out to +them, neatly packed in the chuck-box. One of the new men, who'd been +hired for the rush, had been overworking his team. The brute had been +prodding them with a pitchfork, instead of using a whip. Dinky-Dunk saw +the marks, and noticed one of the horses bleeding. But he didn't +interfere until he caught the man in the act of jabbing the tines into +Maid Marian's flank. Then he jumped for him, just as I drove up. He +cursed that man, cursed and damned him most dreadfully and pulled him +down off the hay-rack. Then they fought. + +They fought like two wildcats. Dinky-Dunk's nose bled and his lip was +cut. But he knocked the other man flat, and when he tried to get up he +knocked him again. It seemed cruel; it was revolting. But something in +me rejoiced and exulted as I saw that hulk of an animal thresh and +stagger about the hay-stubble. I tried to wipe the blood away from +Dinky-Dunk's nose. But he pushed me back and said this was no place for +a woman. I had no place in his universe, at that particular time. But +Dinky-Dunk can fight, if he has to. He's sa magerful a mon! He's afraid +of nothing. + +But that was nearly a costly victory. Both the new men of course threw +up their jobs, then and there. Dinky-Dunk paid them off, on the spot, +and they started off across the open prairie, without even waiting for +their meal. Dinky-Dunk, as we sat down on the dry grass and ate +together, said it was a good riddance, and he was just saying I could +only have the left-hand side of his mouth to kiss for the next week when +he suddenly dropped his piece of custard-pie, stood up and stared toward +the east. I did the same, wondering what had happened. + +I could see a long thin slanting column of smoke driving across the hot +noonday air. Then my heart stopped beating. _It was the prairie on +fire._ + +I had heard a great deal about fire-guards and fire-guarding, three rows +about crops and ten about buildings; and I knew that Olie hadn't yet +finished turning all those essential furrows. And if that column of +smoke, which was swinging up through the silvery haze where the indigo +vault of heaven melted into the dusty whiteness of the parched +grasslands, had come from the mouth of a siege-gun which was cannonading +us where we stood, it couldn't have more completely chilled my blood. +For I knew that east wind would carry the line of fire crackling across +the prairie floor to Dinky-Dunk's wheat, to the stables and +out-buildings, to Casa Grande itself, and all our scheming and planning +and toiling and moiling would go up in one yellow puff of smoke. And +once under way, nothing could stop that widening river of flame. + +It was Dinky-Dunk who jumped to life as though he had indeed been +cannonaded. In one bound he was at the buckboard and was snatching out +the horse-blanket that lay folded up under the seat. Then he unsnapped +the reins from Paddy's bridle, snapping them on the blanket, one to the +buckle and the other to the strap-end. In another minute he had the +hobble off Paddy and had swung me up on that astonished pinto's back. +The next minute he himself was on Maid Marian, poking one end of the +long rein into my hand and telling me to keep up with him. + +We rode like mad. I scarcely understood what it meant, at the time, but +I at least kept up with him. We went floundering through one end of a +slough until the blanket was wet and heavy and I could hardly hold it. +But I hung on for dear life. Then we swung off across the dry grass +toward that advancing semicircle of fire, as far apart as the taut reins +would let us ride. Dinky-Dunk took the windward side. Then on we rushed, +along that wavering frontier of flame, neck to neck, dragging the wet +blanket along its orange-tinted crest, flattening it down and wiping it +out as we went. We made the full circle, panting; saw where the flames +had broken out again, and swung back with our dragging blanket. But when +one side was conquered another side would revive, and off we'd have to +go again, until my arm felt as though it were going to be pulled out of +its socket. + +But we won that fight, in the end. I slipped down off Paddy's back and +lay full length on the sod, weak, shaking, wondering why the solid +ground was rocking slowly from side to side like a boat. But Dinky-Dunk +didn't even observe me. He was fighting out the last patch of fire, on +foot. + +When he came over to where I was waiting for him he was as sooty and +black as a boiler-maker. He dropped down beside me, breathing hard. We +sat there holding each other's hand, for several minutes, in utter +silence. Then he said, rather thickly: "Are you all right?" And I told +him that of course I was all right. Then he said, without looking at me, +"I forgot!" Then he got Paddy and patched up the harness and took me +home in the buckboard. + +But all the rest of the day he hung about the shack, as solemn as an +owl. And once in the night he got up and lighted the lamp and came over +and studied my face. I blinked up at him sleepily, for I was dog-tired +and had been dreaming that we were back in Paris at the Bal des Quatz +Arts and were about to finish up with an early breakfast at the Madrid. +He looked so funny with his rumpled up hair and his faded pajamas that I +couldn't help laughing a little as he blew out the light and got back +into bed. + +"Dinky-Dunk," I said, as I turned over my pillow and got comfy again, +"wouldn't it have been hell if all our wheat had been burned up?" I +forget what Duncan said, for in two minutes I was asleep again. + + + + +_Monday the Seventh_ + + +The dry spell has been broken, and broken with a vengeance. One gets +pretty well used to high winds, in the West. There used to be days at a +time when that unending high wind would make me think something was +going to happen, filling me with a vague sense of impending calamity and +making me imagine a big storm was going to blow up and wipe Casa Grande +and its little coterie off the map. But we've had a real wind-storm, +this time, with rain and hail. Dinky-Dunk's wheat looks sadly draggled +out and beaten down, but he says there wasn't enough hail to hurt +anything; that the straw will straighten up again, and that this +downpour was just what he wanted. Early in the afternoon, on looking out +the shack door, I saw a tangle of clouds on the sky-line. They seemed +twisted up like a skein of wool a kitten had been playing with. Then +they seemed to marshal themselves into one solid line and sweep up over +the sky, getting blacker and blacker as they came. Olga ran in with her +yellow hair flying, slamming and bolting the stable-doors, locking the +chicken-coop, and calling out for me to get my clothes off the line or +they'd be blown to pieces. Even then I could feel the wind. It whipped +my own hair loose, and flattened my skirt against my body, and I had to +lean forward to make any advance against it. + +By this time the black army of the heavens had rolled up overhead and a +few big frog-like drops of rain began to fall, throwing up little clouds +of dust, as a rifle bullet might. I trundled out a couple of tubs, in +the hope of catching a little soft water. It wasn't until later that I +realized the meaning of Olga's mild stare of reproof. For the next +moment the downpour came, and with it the wind. And such wind! There had +been nothing to stop its sweep, of course, for hundreds and hundreds of +miles, and it hit us the same as a hurricane at sea hits a liner. The +shack shook with the force of it. My two wash-tubs went bounding and +careening off across the landscape, the chicken-coop went over like a +nine-pin, and the air was filled with bits of flying timber. Olga's +wagon, with the hay-rack on top of it, moved solemnly and ponderously +across the barnyard and crashed into the corral, propelled by no power +but that of the wind. My sweet-pea hedges were torn from their wires, +and an armful of hay came smack against the shack-window and was held +there by the wind, darkening the room more than ever. + +Then the storm blew itself out, though it poured for two or three hours +afterward. And all the while, although I exulted in that play of +elemental force, I was worrying about my Dinky-Dunk, who was away for +the day, doing what he could to arrange for some harvest hands, when the +time for cutting came. For the wheat, it seems, ripens all at once, and +then the grand rush begins. If it isn't cut the moment it's ripe, the +grain shells out, and that means loss. Olga has been saying that the +wheat on the Cummins section will easily run forty bushels to the acre +and over. It will also grade high, whatever that means. There are six +hundred and forty acres of it in that section, and I've just figured out +that this means a little over twenty-five thousand bushels of grain. Our +other piece on the home ranch is a larger tract, but a little lighter in +crop. That wheat is just beginning to turn from green to the palest of +yellow. And it has a good show, Olga says, if frost will only keep off +and no hail comes. Our one occupation, for the next few weeks, will be +watching the weather. + + + + +_Sunday the Thirteenth_ + + +Percy and Mrs. Watson drove over to see how we'd all weathered the +storm. They found the chicken-coop once more right side up, and +everything ship-shape. Percy promptly asked where Olga was. I pointed +her out to him, breast-high in the growing wheat. She looked like Ceres, +in her big, new, loose-fitting blue waist, with the noonday sun on her +yellow-gold head and her mild ruminative eyes with their misted sky-line +effect. She always seems to fit into the landscape here. I suppose it's +because she's a born daughter of the soil. And a sea of wheat makes a +perfect frame for that massive, benignant figure of hers. + +I looked at Percy, at thin-nosed, unpractical Percy, with all his +finicky sensibilities, with his high fastidious reticences, with his +effete, inbred meagerness of bone and sinew, with his distinguished +pride of distinguished race rather running to seed. And I stood +marveling at the wisdom of old Mother Nature, who was so plainly +propelling him toward this revitalizing, revivifying, reanimalizing, +redeeming type which his pale austerities of spirit could never quite +neutralize. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed what is taking place. He saw +them standing side by side in the grain. When he came in he pointed them +out to me, and merely said, "_Hermann und Dorothea_!" But I remembered +my Goethe well enough to understand. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +I woke Dinky-Dunk up last night crying beside him in bed. I just got to +thinking about things again, how far away we were from everything, how +hard it would be to get help if we needed it, and how much I'd give if I +only had you, Matilda Anne, for the next few weeks.... I got up and went +to the window and looked out. The moon was big and yellow, like a +cheese. And the midnight prairie itself seemed so big and wide and +lonely, and I seemed such a tiny speck on its face, so far away from +every one, from God himself, that the courage went out of my body like +the air out of a tire. Dinky-Dunk was right; it is life that is taming +me. + +I stood at the window praying, and then I slipped back into bed. +Dinky-Dunk works so hard and gets so tired that it would take a Chinese +devil-gong to waken him, once he's asleep. He did not stir when I crept +back into bed. And that, as I lay there wide awake, made me feel that +even my own husband had betrayed me. And I _bawled_. I must have shaken +the bed, for Dinky-Dunk finally did wake up. I couldn't tell him what +was the matter. I blubbered out that I only wanted him to hold me. He +took me in his arms and kissed my wet eyelids, hugging me up close to +him, until I got quieter. Then I fell asleep. But poor Dinky-Dunk was +awake when I opened my eyes about four, and had been that way for hours. +He was afraid of disturbing me by taking his arm from under my head. +To-day he looks tired and dark around the eyes. But he was up and off +early. There is so much to be done these days! He is putting up a +grub-tent and a rough sleeping-shack for the harvest "hands," so that I +won't be bothered with a lot of rough men about the house here. I'm +afraid I'm an encumbrance, when I should be helping. But they seem to be +taking everything out of my hands. + + + + +_Saturday the Second_ + + +I love to watch the wheat, now that it's really turning. It waves like a +sea and stretches off into the distance as far as the eye can follow it. +It's as high as my waist, and sometimes it moves up and down like a +slowly breathing breast. When the sun is low it turns a pure Roman gold, +and makes my eyes ache. But I love it. It strikes me as being glorious, +and at the same time pathetic--I scarcely know why. I can't analyze my +feelings. But the prairie brings a great peace to my soul. It is so +rich, so maternal, so generous. It seems to brood under a passion to +give, to yield up, to surrender all that is asked of it. And it is so +tranquil. It seems like a bosom breathed on by the breath of God. + + + + +_Wednesday the Sixth_ + + +It is nearly a year, now, since I first came to Casa Grande. I can +scarcely believe it. The nights are getting very cool again and any time +now there might be a heavy frost. If it should freeze this next week or +two I think my Dinky-Dunk would just curl up and die. Poor boy, he's +working so hard! I pray for that crop every night. I worry about it. +Last night I dreamt it was burnt up in a prairie-fire and woke up +screaming for wet blankets. Dinky-Dunk had to hold me until I got quiet +again. I asked him if he loved me, now that I was getting old and ugly. +He said I was the most beautiful thing God ever made and that he loved +me in a deeper and nobler way than he did a year ago. Then I asked him +if he'd ever get married again, if I should die. He called me silly and +said I was going to live to be eighty, and that a gasoline-tractor +couldn't kill me. But he promised I'd be the only one, whatever +happened. And I believe him. I know Dinky-Dunk would go in black for a +solid year, if I _should_ die, and he'd never, never marry again, for +he's the sort of Old Sobersides who can only love one woman in one +lifetime. And I'm the woman, glory be! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twelfth_ + + +Harvest time is here. The stage is cleared, and the last and great act +of the drama now begins. It's a drama with a stage a thousand miles +wide. I can hear through the open windows the rattle of the +self-binders. Olga is driving one, like a tawny Boadicea up on her +chariot. She said she never saw such heads of wheat. This is the first +day's cutting, but those flapping canvas belts and those tireless arms +of wood and iron won't have one-tenth of Dinky-Dunk's crop tied up by +midnight. It is very cold, and Olie has lugubriously announced that it's +sure going to freeze. So three times I've gone out to look at the +thermometer and three times I've said my solemn little prayer: "Dear +God, please don't freeze poor Dinky-Dunk's wheat!" And the Lord heard +that prayer, for a Chinook came about two o'clock in the morning and the +mercury slowly but steadily rose. + + + + +_Thursday the Fourteenth_ + + +I had a great deal to talk about to-day. But I can't write much.... I'm +afraid. I dread being alone. I wish I'd been a better wife to my poor +old gold-bricked Dinky-Dunk! But we are what we are, character-kinks and +all. So when he understands, perhaps he'll forgive me. I'm like a +cottontail in the middle of a wheat-patch with the binders going round +and round and every swathe cutting away a little more of my covering. +And there can't be much more hiding away with my secret. But I shall +never openly speak of it. The binder can cut off my feet first, the same +as Olie's did with that mother-rabbit which stood trembling over her +nest of young. Why must life sometimes be so ruthlessly tragic? And why, +oh, why, are women sometimes so absurd? And why should I be afraid of +what every woman who would justify her womanhood must face? Still, I'm +afraid! + + + + +_Wednesday the Fifth_ + + +Three long weeks since those last words were written. And what shall I +say, or how shall I begin? + +In the first place, everything seemed gray. The bed was gray, my own +arms were gray, the walls looked gray, the window-glass was gray, and +even Dinky-Dunk's face was gray. I didn't want to move, for a long time. +Then I got the strength to tell Mrs. Watson that I wanted to speak to my +husband. She was wrapping something up in soft flannel and purring over +it quite proudly and calling it a blessed little lamb. When poor +pale-faced Dinky-Dunk bent over the bed I asked him if it had a receding +chin, or if it had a nose like Olie's. And he said it had neither, that +it was a king of a boy and could holler like a good one. + +Then I told Dinky-Dunk what had been in my secret soul, for so many +months. Uncle Carlton had a receding chin, a boneless, dew-lappy sort +of chin I'd always hated, and I'd been afraid it might kind of +skip-and-carry one and fasten itself on my innocent offspring. Then, +later on, I'd been afraid of Olie's frozen nose, with the split down the +center. And all the while I kept remembering what the Morleys' old +colored nurse had said to me when I was a schoolgirl, a girl of only +seventeen, spending that first vacation of mine in Virginia: "Lawdy, +chile, yuh ain't no bigger'n a minit! Don't yuh nebber hab no baby, +chile!" + +Isn't it funny how those foolish old things stick in a woman's memory? +For I've had my baby and I'm still alive, and although I sometimes +wanted a girl, Dinky-Dunk is so ridiculously proud and happy seeing it's +a boy that I don't much care. But I'm going to get well and strong in a +few more days, and here against my breast I'm holding the God-love-itest +little lump of pulsing manhood, the darlingest, solemnest, placidest, +pinkest hope of the white race that ever made life full and perfect for +a foolish mother. + +The doctor who finally got here--when both Olga and Mrs. Dixon agreed +that he couldn't possibly do a bit of good--announced that I had come +through it all like the true Prairie Woman that I was. Then he somewhat +pompously and redundantly explained that I was a highly organized +individual, "a bit high-strung," as Mrs. Dixon put it. I smiled into the +pillow when he turned to my anxious-eyed Dinky-Dunk and condoningly +enlarged on the fact that there was nothing abnormal about a woman like +me being--well, rather abnormal as to temper and nerves during the last +few months. But Dinky-Dunk cut him short. + +"On the contrary, sir; she's been wonderful, simply wonderful!" +Dinky-Dunk stoutly declared. Then he reached for my hand under the +coverlet. "She's been an angel!" + +I squeezed the hand that held mine. Then I looked at the doctor, who had +turned away to give some orders to Olga. + +"Doctor," I quite as stoutly declared, "I've been a perfect devil, and +this dear old liar knows it!" But our doctor was too busy to pay much +attention to what I was saying. He merely murmured that it was all +normal, quite normal, under the circumstances. So, after all, I'm just +an ordinary, everyday woman! But the man of medicine has ordered me to +stay in bed for twelve days--which Olga regards as unspeakably +preposterous, since one day, she proudly announced, was all her mother +ever asked for. Which shows the disadvantages of being too civilized! + + + + +_Sunday the Ninth_ + + +I'm day by day getting stronger, though I'm a lady of luxury and lie in +bed until ten every morning. To-day when I was sitting up to eat +breakfast, with my hair braided in two tails and a pink and white +hug-me-tight over my nightie, Dinky-Dunk came in and sat by the bed. He +tried to soft-soap me by saying he'd be mighty glad when I was running +things again so he could get something fit to eat. Olga, he admitted, +was all right, but she hadn't the touch of his Gee-Gee. He confessed +that for nearly a month now the house had been a damned gynocracy and he +was getting tired of being bossed around by a couple of women. _Mio +piccino_ no longer looks like a littered whelp of the animal world, as +he did at first. His wrinkled little face and his close-shut eyes used +to make me think of a little old man, with all the wisdom of the ages +shut up in his tiny body. And it is such a knowing little body, with +all its stored-up instincts and guardian appetites! My little _tenor +robusto_, how he can sing when he's hungry! Last night I sat up in bed, +listening for my son's--Dinky-Dink's--breathing. At first I thought he +might be dead, he was so quiet. Then I heard his lips move in the +rhapsodic deglutition of babyland dreams. "Dinky-Dunk," I demanded, +"what would we do if Babe should die?" And I shook him to make him +answer. He stared up at me with a sleepy eye. "That whale?" he commented +as he blinked contentedly down at his offspring and then turned over and +went to sleep. But I slipped a hand in under little Dinky-Dink's body, +and found it as warm as a nesting bird. + + + + +_Monday the Tenth_ + + +I noticed that Dinky-Dunk had not been smoking lately, so I asked him +what had become of the rest of his cigars. He admitted that he had given +them to Olie. "When?" I asked. And Dinky-Dunk colored up as he answered, +rather casually, "Oh, the day Buddy Boy was born!" How men merge down +into the conventional in their more epochal moments! + +The second day after my baby's birth Olga rather took my breath away by +carrying in as neat a little wooden cradle as any prince of the royal +blood would care to lie in. _Olie had made it_. He had worked on it +during his spare hours in the evening, and even Dinky-Dunk hadn't known. +I made Olga hold it up at the foot of the bed so I could see it better. +It had been scroll-sawed and sand-papered and polished like any +factory-made baby-bed, and my faithful old Olie had even attempted some +hand-carving along the rockers and the head-board. But as I looked at it +I realized that it must have taken weeks and weeks to make. And that +gave me an odd little earthquaky feeling in the neighborhood of the +midriff, for I knew then that my secret had been no secret at all. +Dinky-Dunk, by the way, has just announced that we're to have a +touring-car. He says I've earned it! + + + + +_Tuesday the Eleventh_ + + +Yesterday was so warm that I sat out in the sun and took an ozone-bath. +I sat there, staring down at my boy, realizing that I was a mother. My +boy--bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! It's so hard to believe! And +now I am one of the mystic chain, and no longer the idle link. I am a +mother. And I'd give an arm if you and Chinkie and Scheming-Jack could +see my boy, at this moment. He's like a rose-leaf and he's got six +dimples, not counting his hands and feet--for I've found and kissed 'em +all--on different parts of his blessed little body. Dinky-Dunk came back +from Buckhorn yesterday with a lot of the foolishest things you ever +clapped eyes on--a big cloth elephant that grunts when you pull its +tail, a musical spinning-top, a high-chair, and a projecting lantern. +They're for Dinky-Dink, of course. But it will be a week or two before +he can manipulate the lantern! + + + + +_Wednesday the Thirteenth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has taken Mrs. Dixon home and come back with a brand-new +"hand," which, of course, is prairie-land synecdoche for a new hired +man. His name is Terry Dillon, and as the name might lead you to +imagine, he's about as Irish as Paddy's pig. He is blessed with a +potato-lip, a buttermilk brogue, and a nose which, if he follows it +faithfully, will some day lead him straight to Heaven. But Terry, +Dinky-Dunk tells me, is a steady worker and a good man with horses, and +that of course rounds him out as a paragon in the eyes of my +slave-driving lord and master. I asked where Terry came from. +Dinky-Dunk, with rather a grim smile, acknowledged that he'd been +working for Percy. + +Terry, it seems, has no particular love for an Englishman. And Percy had +affronted his haughty Irish spirit with certain ideas of caste which +can't be imported into the Canadian West, where the hired man is every +whit as good as his master--as that master will tragically soon find out +if he tries to make his help eat at second table! At any rate, Percy and +potato-lipped Terry developed friction which ended up in every promise +of a fight, only Dinky-Dunk arrived in the nick of time and took Terry +off his harassed neighbor's hands. I told him he had rather the habit of +catching people on the bounce. But I am reserving my opinion of Terry +Dillon. We are a happy family here, and I want no trouble-makers in my +neighborhood. + +I have been studying some of the New York magazines, going rather +hungrily through their advertisements where such lovely layettes are +described. My poor little Dinky-Dink's things are so plain and rough and +meager. I envy those city mothers with all those beautiful linens and +laces. But my little Spartan man-child has never known a single day's +sickness. And some day he'll show 'em! + + + + +_Thursday the Fourteenth_ + + +When Olie came in after dinner yesterday I asked him where my husband +was. Olie, after some hesitation, admitted that he was out in the +stable. I asked just what Dinky-Dunk was doing there, for I'd noticed +that after each meal he slipped silently away. Again Olie hesitated. +Then he finally admitted that he thought maybe my lord was out there +smoking. So I went out, and there I found my poor old Dinky-Dunk sitting +on a grain-box puffing gloomily away at his old pipe. For a minute or +two he didn't see me, so I went right over to him. "What does this +mean?" I demanded. + +"Why?" he rather guiltily equivocated. + +"Why are you smoking out here?" + +"I--er--I rather thought you might think it wouldn't be good for the +Boy!" He looked pathetic as he said that, I don't know why, though I +loved him for it. He made me think of a king who'd been dethroned, an +outsider, a man without a home. It brought a lump into my throat. + +I wormed my way up close to him on the grain-box, so that he had to hold +me to keep from falling off the end. "Listen to me," I commanded. "You +are my True Love and my Kaikobád and my Man-God and my Soul-Mate! And no +baby is ever going to come between me and you!" + +"You shouldn't say those awful things," he declared, but he did it only +half-heartedly. + +"But I want you to sit and smoke with me, beloved, the same as you +always did," I told him. "We can leave the windows open a little and it +won't hurt Dinky-Dink, for that boy gets more ozone than any city child +that was ever wheeled out in the Mall! It can't possibly hurt him. What +hurts me is being away from you so much. And now give me a hug, a tight +one, and tell me that you still love your Lady Bird!" He gave me two, +and then two more, until Tumble-Weed turned round in his stall and +whinnied for us to behave. + + + + +_Friday the Fifteenth_ + + +I've been keeping Terry under my eye, and I don't believe he's a +trouble-maker. His first move was to lift Babe out of the cradle, hold +him up and publicly announce that he was a darlin'. Then he pointed out +to me what a wonderful head the child had, feeling his frontal bone and +declaring he was sure to make a great scholar in his time. Dinky-Dunk, +grinning at the sober way in which I was swallowing this, pointedly +inquired of Terry whether it was Milton or Archimedes that Babe most +resembled as to skull formation. But it isn't Terry's blarney that has +made me capitulate; it's the fact that he has proved so companionable +and has slipped so quietly into his place in our little lonely circle of +lives on this ragged edge of nowhere. + +And he's as clean as a cat, shaving every blessed morning with a little +old broken-handled razor which he strops on a strip of oiled bootleg. +He declares that razor to be the finest bit of steel in all the +Americas, and showed off before Olie and Olga yesterday morning by +shaving without a looking-glass, which trick he said he learned in the +army. He also gave Olie a hair-cut, which was badly needed, and on +Sunday has promised to rig up a soldering-iron and mend all my pans for +me. He looks little over twenty, but is really thirty and more, and has +been in India and Mexico and Alaska. + +I caught him neatly darning his own woolen socks. Instead of betraying +shame at being detected in that effeminate pastime he proudly explained +that he'd learned to do a bit of stitching in the army. He hasn't many +possessions, but he's very neat in his arrangement of them. A good +soldier, he solemnly told me, always had to be a bit of an old maid. +"And you were a grand soldier, Terry, I know," I frankly told him. "I've +done a bit av killing in me time!" he proudly acknowledged. But as he +sat there darning his sock-heel he looked as though he couldn't kill a +field mouse. And in his idle hours he reads _Nick Carter_, a series of +paper-bound detective stories, almost worn to tatters, which he is going +through for the second or third time. These adventures, I find, he later +recounts to Olie, who is slowly but surely succumbing to the poison of +the penny-dreadful and the virus of the shilling-shocker! I even caught +Dinky-Dunk sitting up over one of these blood-curdling romances the +other night, though he laughed a little as I dragged him off to bed, at +the absurdity of the situations. Terry's eyes lighted up when he saw my +books and magazines. When I told him he could take anything he wanted, +he beamed and said it would sure be a glorious winter he'd be having, +with all that book-reading when the long nights came. But before those +long nights are over I'm going to try to pilot Terry into the channels +of respectable literature. + + + + +_Saturday the Sixteenth_ + + +I love the milky smell of my Dinky-Dink better than the perfume of any +flower that ever grew. He's so strong now that he can almost lift +himself up by his two little hands. At least he can really and actually +give a little _pull_. Two days ago our touring-car arrived. It is a +beauty. It skims over these smooth prairie trails like a yacht. From now +on we can run into Buckhorn, do our shopping, and run out again inside +of two or three hours. We can also reach the larger towns without +trouble and it will be so much easier to gather up what we need for Casa +Grande. Dinky-Dink seems to love the car. Ten minutes after we have +started out he is always fast asleep. Olga, who holds him in the back +seat when I get tired, sits in rapt and silent bliss as we rock along at +thirty miles an hour. And no wonder, for it's the next best thing to +sailing out on the briny deep! + +I can't help thinking of Terry's attitude toward Olga. He doesn't +actively dislike her, but he quietly ignores her, even more so than Olie +does. I've been wondering why neither of them has succumbed to such +physical grandeur. Perhaps it's because they're physical themselves. And +then I think her largeness oppresses Terry, for no man, whether he's +been a soldier or not, likes to be overtopped by a woman. + +The one exception, of course, is Percy. But Percy is a man of +imagination. He can realize that Olga is more than a mere type. He +agrees with me that she's a sort of miracle. To Terry she's only a mute +and muscular Finnish servant-girl with an arm like a grenadier's. To +Percy she is a goddess made manifest, a superhuman body of superhuman +vigor and beauty and at the same time a body crowned with majesty and +robed in mystery. And I still incline to Percy's opinion. Olga is always +wonderful to me. Her lips are such a soft and melting red, the red of +perfect animal health. The very milkiness of her skin is an +advertisement of that queenly and all-conquering vitality which lifts +her so above the ordinary ruck of humanity. And her great ruminative +eyes are as clear and limpid as any woodland pool. + +She blushes rose color sometimes when Percy comes in. I think he finds a +secret joy in sensing that reaction in anything so colossal. But he +defends himself behind that mask of cool impersonality which is the last +attribute of the mental aristocrat, no matter what his feelings may be. +His attitude toward Terry, by the way, is a remarkably companionable one +in view of the fact of their earlier contentions. They can let by-gones +be by-gones and talk and smoke and laugh together. It is Terry, if any +one, who is just a wee bit condescending. And I imagine that it is the +aura of Olga which has brought about this oddly democratizing condition +of affairs. She seems to give a new relationship to things, softening a +point here and illuminating a point there as quietly as moonlight itself +can do. + + + + +_Monday the Seventeenth_ + + +Yesterday Olga carried home a whole pailful of mushrooms, for an Indian +summer seems to have brought on a second crop of them. They were lovely. +But she refused to eat any. I asked her why. She heaved her huge +shoulders and said she didn't know. But she does, I feel sure, and I've +been wondering why she's afraid of anything that can taste so good, once +they are creamed and heaped on a square of toast. As for me + + I love 'em, I love 'em, and who shall dare + To chide me for loving that mushroom fare? + + + + +_Wednesday the Nineteenth_ + + +I found myself singing for all I was worth as I did my work this +morning. Dinky-Dunk came and stood in the door and said it sounded like +old times. I feel strong again and have ventured to ask my lord and +master if I couldn't have the weentiest gallop on Paddy once more. But +he's made me promise to wait for a week or two. The last two or three +nights have been quite cold, and away off, miles and miles across the +prairie, we can see the glow of fires where different ranchers are +burning their straw, after the wind-stackers have blown it from the +threshing machines. Sometimes it burns all night long. + + + + +_Friday the Twenty-first_ + + +I have this morning found out why Olga won't eat mushrooms. It was very +cold again last night, for this time of year. Percy came over, and we +had a ripping fire and popped Ontario pop-corn with Ontario maple sirup +poured over it. Olga and Olie and Terry all came in and sat about the +stove. And being absolutely happy and contented and satisfied with life +in general, we promptly fell to talking horrors, the same as a cook +stirs lemon juice into her pudding-sauce, I suppose, to keep its +sweetness from being too cloying. That revel in the by-paths of the +Poesque began with Dinky-Dunk's casual reference to the McKinnon ranch +and Percy's inquiry as to why its earlier owner had given it up. So +Dinky-Dunk recounted the story of Andrew Cochrane's death. And it was +noticeable that poor old Olie betrayed visible signs of distress at this +tale of a young ranchman being frozen to death alone in his shack in +mid-winter. So Dinky-Dunk, apparently with malice prepense, enlarged on +his theme, describing how all young Cochrane's stock had starved in +their stalls and how his collie dog which had been chained to a +kennel-box outside the shack had first drawn attention to the tragedy. A +government inspector, in riding past, had noticed the shut-up shack, had +pounded on the door, and had promptly discovered the skeleton of the dog +with a chain and collar still attached to the clean-picked neckbones. +And inside the shack he had found the dead man himself, as life-like, +because of the intense cold, as though he had fallen asleep the night +before. + +It was not a pleasant story, and my efforts to picture the scene gave me +rather a bristly feeling along the pin-feather area of my anatomy. And +again undoubted signs of distress were manifest in poor Olie. The face +of that simple-souled Swede took on such a look of wondering trouble +that Dinky-Dunk deliberately and at great detail told of a ghost that +had been repeatedly seen in an abandoned wickyup a little farther west +in the province. + +And that, of course, fired the Celtic soul of Terry, who told of the +sister of his Ould Counthry master who had once been taken to a +hospital. And just at dusk on the third day after that his young master +was walking down the dark hall. As he passed his sister's door, there +she stood all in white, quietly brushing her hair, as plain as day to +his eyes. And with that the master rushed down-stairs to his mother +asking how Sheila had got back from the hospital. And his old mother, +being slow of movement, started for Sheila's room. But before she so +much as reached the foot of the stairs a neighbor woman came running in, +wiping her eyes with her shawl-end and saying, "Poor Sheila died this +minute over t' the hospital!" I can't tell it as Terry told it, and I +don't know whether he himself believed in it or not, but the huge bulk +of Olie Larson sat there bathed in a fine sweat, with his eyes fixed on +the stove front. He was by no means happy, and yet he seemed unable to +tear himself away, just as Gimlets and I used to sit chained to the spot +while Grandfather Heppelwhite continued to intone the dolorous history +of the "Babes in the Woods" until our ultimate and inevitable collapse +into tears! + +So Percy, who is not without his spirit of ragging, told several +whoppers, which he later confessed came from the Society of Psychical +Research records. And I huskily recounted Uncle Carlton's story of the +neurasthenic lady patient who went into a doctor's office and there +beheld a skull standing on his polished rosewood desk. Then, as she sat +staring at it, this skull started to move slowly toward her. It later +turned out to be only a plaster-of-Paris paper weight, and a mouse had +got inside it and found a piece of cracker there--and a cracker, I had +to explain to Percy, was the name under which a biscuit usually +masqueraded in America. That mouse, in its efforts to get the last of +that cracker, had, of course, shifted the skull along the polished wood. + +This reminded Dinky-Dunk of the three medical students who had tried to +frighten their landlady's daughter by smuggling an arm from the +dissecting room and hiding it under the girl's pillow. Dinky-Dunk even +solemnly avowed that the three men were college chums of his. They +waited to hear the girl's scream, but as there was nothing but silence +they finally stole into the room. And there they saw the girl sitting on +the floor, holding the arm in her hands. As she sat there she was +mumbling to herself and eating one end of it! Of course the poor thing +had gone stark staring mad. + +Olie groaned audibly at this and wiped his forehead with his +coat-sleeve. But before he could get away Terry started to tell of the +four-bottle Irish sea captain who was sober only when at sea and one +night in port stumbled up to bed three sheets in the wind. When he had +navigated into what he thought was his own room he was astounded to find +a man already in bed there, and even drunker than he was himself, too +drunk, in fact, to move. And even the candles had been left burning. +But the old captain climbed over next to the wall, clothes and all, and +would have been fast asleep in two minutes if two stout old ladies +hadn't come in and started to cry and say a prayer or two at the side of +the bed. Thereupon the old captain, muddled as he was, quietly but +inquisitively reached over and touched the man beside him. _And that man +was cold as ice!_ The captain gave one howl and made for the door. But +the old ladies went first, and they all rolled down the stairs one after +the other and the three of them up and ran like the wind. "And niver +wanst did they stop," declared the brogue-mouthing Terry, "till they +lept flat against the sea-wall!" + +Olie, who had moved away to the far end of the table, got up at this +point and went to the door and looked out. He sighed lugubriously as he +stared into the darkness of the night. The outer gloom, apparently, was +too much for him, as he came slowly and reluctantly back to his chair at +the far end of the table and it was plain to see that he was as +frightened as a five-year-old child. The men, I suppose, would have +badgered him until midnight, for Terry had begun a story of a negro +who'd been sent to rob a grave and found the dead man not quite dead. +But I declared that we'd had enough of horrors and declined to hear +anything more about either ghosts or deaders. I was, in fact, getting +just a wee bit creepy along the nerve-ends myself. And Babe whimpered a +little in his cradle and brought us all suddenly back from the Wendigo +Age to the time of the kerosene lamp. "Fra' witches and warlocks," I +solemnly intoned, "fra' wurricoos and evil speerits, and fra' a' ferly +things that wheep and gang bump in the nicht, Guid Lord deliver us!" And +that incantation, I feel sure, cleared the air for both my own +sprite-threatened offspring and for the simple-minded Olie himself, +although Dinky-Dunk explained that my Scotch was rather worse than the +stories. + +But it was this morning after breakfast that I learned from Olga why she +never cared to eat mushrooms. And all day long her story has been +hanging between me and the sun, like a cloud. Not that there is +anything so wonderful about the story itself, outside of its naked +tragedy. But I think it was more the way that huge placid-eyed girl told +it, with her broken English and her occasional pauses to grope after the +right word. Or perhaps it was because it came as such a grim reality +after the trifling grotesqueries of the night before. At any rate, as I +heard it this morning it seemed as terrible as anything in Tolstoi's +_Heart of Darkness_, and more than once sent my thoughts back to the +sorrows of the house of OEdipus. It startled me a little, too, for I +never thought to catch an echo of Greek tragedy out of the full soft +lips of a Finnish girl who was helping me wash my breakfast dishes. + +It began as I was deciding on my dinner menu, and looked to see if all +our mushrooms had been used up. That prompted me to ask the girl why she +never ate them. I could see a barricaded look come into her eyes but she +merely shrugged and said that sometimes they were poison and killed +people. I told her that this was absurd and that any one with ordinary +intelligence soon got to know a meadow mushroom when he saw one. But +sometimes, Olga insisted, they were death cups. If you ate a death cup +you died, and nothing could save you. I tried to convince her that this +was just a peasant superstition, but she announced that she had seen +death cups, many of them, and had seen people who had been killed by +them. And then brokenly, and with many heavy gestures of hesitation, she +told me the story. + +Nearly seventy miles northwest of us, up near her old home, so she said, +a Pole named Andrei Przenikowski and his wife used to live. They had one +son, whose name was Jozef. They were poor, always poor, and could never +succeed. So when Jozef was fifteen years old he went to the coast to +make his fortune. And the old father and mother had a hard time of it, +for old Andrei found it no easy thing to get about, having had his feet +frozen years before. He stumped around like a hen with frost-bitten +claws, Olga said, and his wife, old as she was, had to help him in the +fields. One whole winter, he told Olga's father, they had lived on +turnips. But season after season dragged on, and still they existed, God +knows how. Of Jozef they never heard again. But with Jozef himself it +was a different story. The boy went up to Alaska, before the days of the +Klondike strike. There he worked in the fisheries, and in the lumber +camps, and still later he joined a mining outfit. Then he went in to the +Yukon. + +That was twelve years after he had first left home. He was a strong man +by this time and spoke English very well. And the next year he struck +luck, and washed up a great deal of gold, thousands of dollars' worth of +gold. But he saved it all, for he had never forgotten the old folks on +their little farm. So he gathered up his money and went down to Seattle, +and then crossed to Vancouver. From there he made his way back to his +old home, dressed like a man of the world and wearing a big gold watch +and chain and a gold ring. And when he walked in on the old folks they +failed to recognize him--and that Jozef thought the finest of jokes. He +filled the little sod-covered shack with his laughter, for he was happy. +He knew that for the rest of their days their troubles had all ended. So +he walked about and made plans, but still he did not tell them who he +was. It was so good a joke that he intended to make the most of it. But +he said that he had news of their Jozef, who was not so badly off for a +ne'er-do-well. Before he left the next day, he promised, they should be +told about their boy. And he laughed again and slapped his pocketful of +gold and the two old folks sat blinking at him in awe, until he +announced that he was hungry and confided to them that his friend Jozef +had once told him there were wonderful mushrooms round-about at that +season of the year. + +Andrei and his wife talked together in the cow-shed, before the old man +hobbled out to gather the mushrooms. Poverty and suffering had made them +hard and the sight of this stranger with so much gold was too much for +them. So it was a plate full of death cups which Andrei's wife cooked +for the brown-faced stranger with the loud laugh. And they stood about +and watched him eat them. Then he died, as Andrei knew he must die. But +the old woman hid in the cow-shed until it was over, for it took some +time. Together then the old couple searched the dead man's bags and his +pockets. They found papers and certain marks on his body. They knew then +that they had murdered their own son. The old man hobbled all the way to +the nearest village, where he sent a letter to Olga's father and bought +a clothes-line to take home. The journey took him an entire day. With +that clothes-line Andrei Przenikowski and his wife hanged themselves, +from one of the rafters in the cow-shed. + +Olga said that she was only five years old then, but she remembered +driving over with the others, after the letter had come to her father's +place. She can still remember seeing the two old bodies hanging side by +side and twisting slowly about in the wind. And she saw what was left of +the mushrooms. She says she can never forget it and dreams of it quite +often. And Olga is not what you would call emotional. She told me, as +she dried her hands and hung up the dish-pan, that she can still see her +people staring down at what was left of that plate of poisoned death +cups, which had turned quite black, almost as black as the dead man she +saw them lift up on the dirty bed. + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +Yesterday was Sunday and Olga in her best bib and tucker sat out in the +sun with Dinky-Dink. She seemed perfectly happy merely to hold him. I +looked out, to make sure he was all right, for a few days before Olga +had nearly given me heart failure by balancing my boy on one huge hand, +as though he were a mutton-chop, so that the adoring Olie might see him +kick. As I stood watching Olga crooning above Buddy Boy, Percy rode up. +Then he came over and joined Olga, who carefully lifted up the veil +covering Dinky-Dink's face, and showed him off to the somewhat +intimidated Percy. Percy poked a finger at him, and made absurd noises, +and felt his legs as Olga directed and then sat down in front of Olga. + +They talked there for a long time, quite oblivious of everything about +them. At least Percy talked, for Olga's replies seemed mostly +monosyllabic. But she kept bathing him in that mystic moonlight stare +of hers and sometimes she showed her teeth in a slow and wistful sort of +smile. Percy clattered on, quite unconscious that I was standing in the +doorway staring at him. They seemed to be great pals. And I've been +wondering what they talked about. + + + + +_Wednesday the Fourteenth_ + + +To-day after dinner Dinky-Dunk took the Boy and held him up on Paddy's +back, where he looked like a bump on a log. And that started me thinking +that it wouldn't be so long before my little Snoozerette had a pony of +his own and would be cantering off across the prairie like a monkey on a +circus horse. For I want my boy to ride, and ride well. And then a +little later he would be cantering off to school. And then it wouldn't +be such a great while before he'd be hitting the trail side by side with +some clear-eyed prairie girl on a dappled pinto, and I'd be a +silvery-haired old lady wondering if that clear-eyed girl was good +enough for my son! And there I was, as usual, dreaming of the future! + +All day long the fact that Dinky-Dunk is getting extravagant has been +hitting me just under the fifth rib. So I asked him if we could really +afford a six-cylinder car with tan slip-covers and electric lights. +"Afford it?" he echoed, "of course we can afford it. We can afford +anything. Hang it all, our lean days are over and we haven't had the +imagination to wake up to the fact. And d'you know what I'm going to do +if certain things come my way? I'm going to send you and the Babe down +to New York for the winter!" + +"And where will you be?" I promptly inquired. The look of mingled pride +and determination went out of his face. + +"Oh, I'll have to hang around the Polar regions up here to look after +things. But you and the Boy have got to have your chance. And I'll come +down for two weeks at Easter and bring you home with me!" + +"And will you be enjoying it up here?" I inquired. + +"Of course I won't," acknowledged Dinky-Dunk. "But think what it will +mean to you, Gee-Gee, to have a few months in the city again! And think +what you've been missing!" + +"Goosey-goosey-gander!" I said as I got his foolish old head in +Chancery. "I want you to listen to me. There's nothing I've been +missing. And you are plum locoed, Honey Chile, if you think I could ever +be happy away from you, in New York or any other city. And I wouldn't go +there for the winter if you gave me the Plaza and all the Park for a +back yard!" + +That declaration of mine seemed to puzzle him. "But think what it would +mean to the Boy!" he contended. + +"Well, what?" I demanded. + +"Oh, good--er--good pictures and music and all that sort of thing!" he +vaguely explained. I couldn't help laughing at him. + +"But, Dinky-Dunk, don't you think Babe's a month or so too young to take +up Debussy and the Post-Impressionists, you big, foolish, adorable old +muddle-headed captor of helpless ladies' hearts!" And I firmly announced +that he could never, never get rid of me. + + + + +_Thursday the Fifteenth_ + + +Now that Olga is working altogether inside with me she is losing quite a +little of her sunburn. Her skin is softer and she has acquired a little +more of the Leonardo di Vinci look. She almost seems to be getting +spiritualized--but it may be simply because she's lengthened her skirts. +She loves Babe, and, I'm afraid, is rather spoiling him. I find her a +better and better companion, not only because she talks more, but +because she seems in some way to be climbing up to a newer level. +Between whiles, I'm teaching her to cook. She learns readily, and is +proud of her progress. But the thing of which she is proudest is her +corsets. And they _do_ make a difference. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed +this. Yesterday he stood and stared after her. + +"By gum," he sagely remarked, "that girl is getting a figure!" Men are +so absurd. When this same Olga was going about half uncovered he never +even noticed her. Now that she's mystified her nether limbs with a +little drapery he stands staring after her as though she were a Venus de +Milo come to life. And Olga is slowly but surely losing a little of her +Arcadian simplicity. Yesterday I caught her burning up her cowhide +boots. She is ashamed of them. And she is spending most of her money on +clothes, asking me many strange questions as to apparel and carrying off +my fashion magazines to her bedroom for secret perusal. For the first +time in her life she is using cold cream. And the end seems to justify +the means, for her skin is now like apple blossoms. Rodin, I feel sure, +would have carried that woman across America on his back, once to have +got her into his atelier! + +Last week I persuaded Terry to take a try at Meredith and lent him my +green cloth copy of _Harry Richmond_. Three days ago I found the seventh +page turned down at the corner, and suspecting that this marked the +final frontier of his advance, I tied a strand of green silk thread +about the volume. It was still there this morning, though Terry daily +and stoutly maintains that he's getting on grand with that fine green +book of mine! But at noon to-day when Dinky-Dunk got back from Buckhorn +he handed Terry a parcel, and I noticed the latter glanced rather +uneasily about as he unwrapped it. This afternoon I discovered that it +held two new books in paper covers. One was _The Hidden Hand_ and the +other was called _The Terror of Tamaraska Gulch_. Terry, of late, has +been doing his reading in his own room. And Nick Carter, apparently, is +not to be so easily displaced. But a man who can make you read his books +for the third time must be a genius. If I were an author, that's the +sort of man I'd envy. And I think I'll try Percival Benson with _The +Terror of Tamaraska Gulch_ when Terry is through with it! + + + + +_Friday the Sixteenth_ + + +We were just finishing dinner to-day, and an uncommonly good one it +seemed to me, and I was looking contentedly about my little family +circle, wondering what more life could hold for a big healthy hulk of a +woman like me, when the drone and purr of an approaching motor-car broke +through the sound of our talk. Dinky-Dunk, in fact, was laying down the +law about the farmer of the West, maintaining that he was a +broader-spirited and bigger-minded man than his brother of the East, and +pointing out that the westerner's wife was a queen who if she had little +ease at least had great honor. And I was just thinking that one glorious +thing about this same queen was that she at least escaped from all the +twentieth-century strain and dislocation in the relationship between +city men and women, when the hum of that car brought me back to earth +and reminded me that I might have a tableful of guests to feed. The car +itself drew up, with a flutter of its engine, half-way between the shack +and the corral, and at that sound I imagine we all rather felt like +Robinson Crusoes listening to the rattle of an anchor cable in Juan +Fernandez's quietest bay. And through the open window I could make out a +huge touring-car pretty well powdered with dust and with no less than +six men in it. + +Terry, all eyes, dove for the window, and Olie, all mouth, for the door. +Olga leaned half-way across the table to look out, and I did a little +staring myself. The only person who remained quiet was Dinky-Dunk. He +knocked out his pipe, stuck it in his pocket, put on his hat and caught +up a package of papers from his work table. Then he stalked out, with +his gray fighting look about the eyes. He went out just as one of the +bigger men was about to step down from the car, so that the bigger man +changed his mind and climbed back in his seat, like a king reascending +his throne. And they all sat there so sedate and non-committal and +dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette, +that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take +my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop! + +I could see my lord walk right up to the running-board, with curt little +nods to his visitors, and I knew by the trim of his shoulders that there +was trouble ahead. Yet they started talking quietly enough. But inside +of two minutes my Dinky-Dunk was shaking his fist in the face of one of +the younger and bigger men and calling him a liar and somewhat +tautologically accusing him of knowing that he was a liar and that he +always had been one. This altogether ungentlemanly language naturally +brought forth language quite as ungentlemanly from the accused, who +stood up in the car and took his turn at dancing about and shaking his +own fist. And then the others seemed to take sides, and voices rose to a +shout, and I saw that there was going to be another fight at Casa +Grande--and I promptly decided to be in it. So off went my apron and +out I went. + +It was funny. For, oddly enough, the effect of my entrance on the scene +was like that on a noisy class-room at the teacher's return. The tumult +stopped, rather sheepishly, and that earful of men instinctively slipped +on their armor plate of over-obsequious sex gallantry. They knew I +wasn't a low-brow. I went right up to them, though something about their +funereal discomfiture made me smile. So Dinky-Dunk, mad as a wet hen +though he was, had to introduce every man-jack of them to me! One was a +member of Parliament, and another belonged to some kind of railway +committee, and another was a road construction official, and another was +a mere capitalist who owned two or three newspapers. The man Dinky-Dunk +had been calling a liar was a civil engineer, although it seemed to me +that he had been acting decidedly uncivil. They ventured a platitude +about the beautiful Indian summer weather and labored out a ponderous +joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking +wife--for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my +intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left +everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or +other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's +way. So I decided to retire with outward dignity even if with inward +embarrassment. But I resented their uncouth commercial gallantry almost +as much as I abominated their trying to bully my True Love. And I gave +them one Parthian shot as I turned away. + +"The last prize-fight I saw was in a sort of _souteneur's_ cabaret in +the Avenue des Tilleuls," I sweetly explained to them. "But that was +nearly three years ago. So if there is going to be a bout in my back +yard, I trust you gentlemen will be so good as to call me!" + +And smiling up into their somewhat puzzled faces, I turned on my heel +and went into the house. One of the men laughed loud and deep, at this +speech of mine, and a couple of the others seemed to sit puzzling over +it. Yet two minutes after I was inside the shack that most uncivil civil +engineer and Dinky-Dunk were at it again. Their language was more than I +should care to repeat. The end of it was, however, that the six dusty +pallbearers all stepped stiffly down out of their car and Dinky-Dunk +shouted for Olie and Terry. At first I thought it was to be a duel, only +I couldn't make out how it could be fought with a post-hole augur and a +few lengths of jointed gaspipe, for this was what the men carried away +with them. + +Away across the prairie I could see them apparently engaged in the silly +and quite profitless occupation of putting down a post-hole where it +wasn't in the least needed, and then clustering about this hole like a +bunch of professorial bigwigs about a new specimen on a microscope +slide. Then they moved on and made another hole, and still another, +until I got tired of watching them. It was two hours later before they +came back. Their voices now seemed more facetious and there was more +laughing and joking, Dinky-Dunk and the uncivil civil engineer being the +only quiet ones. And then the car engine purred and hummed and they +climbed heavily in and lighted cigars and waved hands and were off in a +cloud of dust. + +But Dinky-Dunk, when he came back to the shack with his papers, was in +no mood for talking. And I knew better than to try to pump him. To-night +he came in early for supper and announced that he'd have to leave for +Winnipeg right away and might even have to go on to Ottawa. So I cooked +his supper and packed his bag and held Babe up for him to kiss good-by. +But still I didn't bother him with questions, for I was afraid of bad +news. And he knew that I knew I could trust him. + +He kissed me good-by in a tragically tender, or rather a tenderly tragic +sort of way, which made me wonder for a moment if he was possibly never +coming back again. So I made 'em all wait while I took one extra, for +good measure, in case I should be a grass widow for the rest of my +days. + +To-night, however, I sat Terry down at the end of the table and third +degreed him to the queen's taste. The fight, as far as I can learn from +this circuitous young Irishman, is all about a right of way through our +part of the province. Dinky-Dunk, it seems, has been working for it for +over a year. And the man he called wicked names had been sent out by the +officials to report on the territory. My husband claims he was bribed by +the opposition party and turned in a report saying our district was +without water. He also proclaimed that our land--_our_ land, mark +you!--was unvaryingly poor and inferior soil! No wonder my Dinky-Dunk +had stormed! Then Terry rather disquieted me by chortlingly announcing +that they had put one over on the whole bunch. For, three days before, +he'd quietly put down twenty soil and water-test holes and carefully +filled them in again. But he'd found what he was after. And that little +army of paid knockers, he acknowledged, had been steered into the +neighborhood where the soil was deepest and the water was nearest. And +that soon showed who the liar was, for of course everything came out as +Dinky-Dunk wanted it to come out! + +But this phase of it I didn't discuss with Terry, for I had no desire to +air my husband's moral obliquities before his hired man. Yet I am still +disturbed by what I have heard. Oh, Dinky-Dunk, I never imagined you +were one bit sly, even in business! + + + + +_Sunday the Eighteenth_ + + +Olie and Terry seem convinced of the fact that Dinky-Dunk's farming has +been a success. We have saved all our wheat crop, and it's a whopper. +Terry, with his crazy Celtic enthusiasms, says that by next year they'll +be calling Dinky-Dunk the Wheat King of the West. Olga and Percy went +buggy riding this afternoon. I wish I had some sort of scales to weight +my Snoozerette. I know he's doubled in the last three weeks. + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +My Dinky-Dunk is home again. He looks a little tired and hollow-eyed, +but when the Boy crowed and smiled up at him his poor tired face +softened so wonderfully that it brought the tears to my eyes. I finally +persuaded him to stop petting Babe and pay a little attention to me. +After supper he opened up his extra hand-bag and hauled out the heaps of +things he'd brought Babe and me. Then I sat on his knee and held his +ears and made him blow away the smoke, every shred of it, so I could +kiss him in my own particular places. + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has sailed off to Buckhorn to do some telegraphing he should +have done Saturday night. My suspicions about his slyness, by the way, +were quite unfounded. It was the guileless-eyed Terry who led those +railway officials out to the spot where he'd already secretly tested for +water and found signs of it. And Terry can't even understand why +Dinky-Dunk is so toweringly angry about it all! + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +When Dinky-Dunk came in last night, after his drive out from Buckhorn, +there was a look on his face that rather frightened me. I backed him up +against the door, after he'd had a peep at the Boy, and said, "Let me +smell your breath, sir!" For with that strange light in his eyes I +surely thought he'd been drinking. "Lips that touch liquor," I sang, +"shall never touch mine!" + +But I was mistaken. And Dinky-Dunk only laughed in a quiet inward +rumbling sort of way that was new to him. "I believe I am drunk, Boca +Chica," he solemnly confessed, "drunk as a lord!" Then he took both my +hands in his. + +"D'you know what's going to happen?" he demanded. And of course I +didn't. Then he hurled it point-blank at me. + +"_The railway's going to come!_" + +"Come where?" I gasped. + +"Come here, right across our land! It's settled. And there's no mistake +about it this time. Inside of ten months there'll be choo-choo cars +steaming past Casa Grande!" + +"Skookum!" I shouted. + +"And there'll be a station within a mile of where you stand! And inside +of two years this seventeen or eighteen hundred acres of land will be +worth forty dollars an acre, easily, and perhaps even fifty. And what +that means you can figure out for yourself!" + +"Whoopee!" I gasped, trying in vain to figure out how much forty times +seventeen hundred was. + +But that was not all. It would do away with the road haul to the +elevator, which might have taken most of the profit out of his grain +growing. To team wheat into Buckhorn would have been a terrible +discount, no matter what luck he might have with his crops. So he'd been +moving heaven and earth to get the steel to come his way. He'd pulled +wires and interviewed members and guaranteed a water-tank supply and +promised a right of way and made use of his old engineering +friends--until his battle was won. And his last fight had been against +the liar who'd sent in false reports about his district. But that was +over now, and Casa Grande will no longer be the jumping-off place of +civilization, the dot on the wilderness. It will be on the time-tables +and the mail-routes, and I know my Dinky-Dunk will be the first mayor of +the new city, if there ever is a city to be mayor of! + + + + +_Friday the Thirtieth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk came in at noon to-day, tiptoed over to the crib to see if +the Boy was all right, and then came and put his hands on my shoulders, +looking me solemnly in the eye: "What do you suppose has happened?" he +demanded. + +"Another railroad," I ventured. + +He shook his head. Of course it was useless for me to try to guess. I +pushed my finger against Dinky-Dunk's Adam's apple and asked him what +the news was. + +"Percival Benson Woodhouse has just calmly announced to me that, next +week, _he's going to marry Olga_," was my husband's answer. + +And he wondered why I smiled. + + + + +_Sunday the First_ + + +Little Dinky-Dink is fast asleep in his hand-carved Scandinavian cradle. +The night is cool, so we have a fire going. Big Dinky-Dunk, who has been +smoking his pipe, is sitting on one side of the table, and I am sitting +on the other. Between us lies the bundle of house-plans which have just +been mailed up to us from Philadelphia. This is the second night we've +pored over them. And we've decided what we're to do at Casa Grande. +We're to have a telephone, as soon as the railway gets through, and a +wind-mill and running water, and a new barn with a big soft-water tank +at one end, and a hot-water furnace in the new house and sleeping +porches and a butler's pantry and a laundry chute--and next winter in +California, if we want it. And Dinky-Dunk blames himself for never +having had brains enough to plant an avenue or two of poplars or +Manitoba maples about Casa Grande, for now we'll have to wait a few +years for foliage and shade. And he intends to have a playground for +little Dinky-Dink, for he agrees with me that our boy must be strong and +manly and muscular, and must not use tobacco in any form until he is +twenty at least. And Dinky-Dunk has also agreed that I shall do all the +punishing--if any punishing is ever necessary! His father, by the way, +has just announced that he wants Babe to go to McGill and then to +Oxford. But I have been insisting on Harvard, and I shall be firm about +this. + +That promised to bring us to a dead-lock, so we went back to our +house-plans again, and Dinky-Dunk pointed out that the new living-room +would be bigger than all our present shack and the annex put together. +And that caused me to stare about our poor little cat-eyed cubby-hole of +a wickyup and for the first time realize that our first home was to be +wiped off the map. And nothing would ever be the same again, and even +the prairie over which I had stared in my joy and my sorrow would +always be different! A lump came in my throat. And when Olga came in and +I handed Dinky-Dink to her she could see that my lashes were wet. But +she couldn't understand. + +So I slipped over to the piano and began to play. Very quietly I sang +through Herman Lohr's Irish song that begins: + + In the dead av the night, acushla, + When the new big house is still ... + +But before I got to the last two verses I'm afraid my voice was rather +shaky. + + In the dead av the year, acushla, + When me wide new fields are brown, + I think av a wee ould house, + At the edge av an ould gray town! + + I think av the rush-lit faces, + Where the room and loaf was small: + _But the new years seem the lean years, + And the ould years, best av all!_ + +Dinky-Dunk came and stood close beside me. "Has my Gee-Gee a big sadness +in her little prairie heart?" he asked as he slipped his arms about me. +But I was sniffling and couldn't answer him. And the cling of his +blessed big arms about me only seemed to make everything worse. So I was +bawling openly when he held up my face and helped himself to what must +have been a terribly briny kiss. But I slipped away into my bedroom, for +I'm not one of those apple-blossom women who can weep and still look +pretty. And for two blessed hours I've been sitting here, Matilda Anne, +wondering if our new life will be as happy as our old life was.... Those +old days are over and gone, and the page must be turned. And on that +last page I was about to write "_Tamám shud_." But kinglike and +imperative through the quietness of Casa Grande I hear the call of my +beloved little _tenor robusto_--and if it is the voice of hunger it is +also the voice of hope! + +THE END + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. +After House, The. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +Ailsa Paige. By Robert W. Chambers. +Alton of Somasco. By Harold Bindloss. +Amateur Gentleman, The. By Jeffery Farnol. +Anna, the Adventuress. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Anne's House of Dreams. By L. M. Montgomery. +Around Old Chester. By Margaret Deland. +Athalie. By Robert W. Chambers. +At the Mercy of Tiberius. By Augusta Evans Wilson. +Auction Block, The. By Rex Beach. +Aunt Jane of Kentucky. By Eliza C. Hall. +Awakening of Helena Richie. By Margaret Deland. +Bab: a Sub-Deb. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +Barrier, The. By Rex Beach. +Barbarians. By Robert W. Chambers. +Bargain True, The. By Nalbro Bartley. +Bar 20. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Bar 20 Days. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Bars of Iron, The. By Ethel M. Dell. +Beasts of Tarzan, The. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. +Beloved Traitor, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Beltane the Smith. By Jeffery Farnol. +Betrayal, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Beyond the Frontier. By Randall Parrish. +Big Timber. By Bertrand W. Sinclair. +Black Is White. By George Barr McCutcheon. +Blind Man's Eyes, The. By Wm. MacHarg and Edw. Balmer. +Bob, Son of Battle. By Alfred Ollivant. +Boston Blackie. By Jack Boyle. +Boy with Wings, The. By Berta Ruck. +Brandon of the Engineers. By Harold Bindloss. +Broad Highway, The. By Jeffery Farnol. +Brown Study, The. By Grace S. Richmond. +Bruce of the Circle A. By Harold Titus. +Buck Peters, Ranchman. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Business of Life, The. By Robert W. Chambers. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Cabbages and Kings. By O. Henry. +Cabin Fever. By B. M. Bower. +Calling of Dan Matthews, The. By Harold Bell Wright. +Cape Cod Stories. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper. By James A. Cooper. +Cap'n Dan's Daughter. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Cap'n Eri. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Cap'n Jonah's Fortune. By James A. Cooper. +Cap'n Warren's Wards. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Chain of Evidence, A. By Carolyn Wells. +Chief Legatee, The. By Anna Katharine Green. +Cinderella Jane. By Marjorie B. Cooke. +Cinema Murder, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +City of Masks, The. By George Barr McCutcheon. +Cleek of Scotland Yard. By T. W. Hanshew. +Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces. By Thomas W. Hanshew. +Cleek's Government Cases. By Thomas W. Hanshew. +Clipped Wings. By Rupert Hughes. +Clue, The. By Carolyn Wells. +Clutch of Circumstance, The. By Marjorie Benton Cooke. +Coast of Adventure, The. By Harold Bindloss. +Coming of Cassidy, The. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Coming of the Law, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer. +Conquest of Canaan, The. By Booth Tarkington. +Conspirators, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Court of Inquiry, A. By Grace S. Richmond. +Cow Puncher, The. By Robert J. C. Stead. +Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure. By Rex Beach. +Cross Currents. By Author of "Pollyanna." +Cry in the Wilderness, A. By Mary E. Waller. +Danger, And Other Stories. By A. Conan Doyle. +Dark Hollow, The. By Anna Katharine Green. +Dark Star, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Daughter Pays, The. By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. +Day of Days, The. By Louis Joseph Vance. +Depot Master, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Desired Woman, The. By Will N. Harben. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Destroying Angel, The. By Louis Jos. Vance. +Devil's Own, The. By Randall Parrish. +Double Traitor, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Empty Pockets. By Rupert Hughes. +Eyes of the Blind, The. By Arthur Somers Roche. +Eye of Dread, The. By Payne Erskine. +Eyes of the World, The. By Harold Bell Wright. +Extricating Obadiah. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Felix O'Day. By F. Hopkinson Smith. +54-40 or Fight. By Emerson Hough. +Fighting Chance, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Fighting Shepherdess, The. By Caroline Lockhart. +Financier, The. By Theodore Dreiser. +Flame, The. By Olive Wadsley. +Flamsted Quarries. By Mary E. Wallar. +Forfeit, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Four Million, The. By O. Henry. +Fruitful Vine, The. By Robert Hichens. +Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Girl of the Blue Ridge, A. By Payne Erskine. +Girl from Keller's, The. By Harold Bindloss. +Girl Philippa, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Girls at His Billet, The. By Berta Ruck. +God's Country and the Woman. By James Oliver Curwood. +Going Some. By Rex Beach. +Golden Slipper, The. By Anna Katharine Green. +Golden Woman, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Greater Love Hath No Man. By Frank L. Packard. +Greyfriars Bobby. By Eleanor Atkinson. +Gun Brand, The. By James B. Hendryx. +Halcyone. By Elinor Glyn. +Hand of Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer. +Havoc. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Heart of the Desert, The. By Honoré Willsie. +Heart of the Hills, The. By John Fox, Jr. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Heart of the Sunset. By Rex Beach. +Heart of Thunder Mountain, The. By Edfrid A. Bingham. +Her Weight in Gold. By Geo. B. McCutcheon. +Hidden Children, The, By Robert W. Chambers. +Hidden Spring, The. By Clarence B. Kelland. +Hillman, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Hills of Refuge, The. By Will N. Harben. +His Official Fiancee. By Berta Ruck. +Honor of the Big Snows. By James Oliver Curwood. +Hopalong Cassidy. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Hound from the North, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +House of the Whispering Pines, The. By Anna Katharine Green. +Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. +I Conquered. By Harold Titus. +Illustrious Prince, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +In Another Girl's Shoes. By Berta Ruck. +Indifference of Juliet, The. By Grace S. Richmond. +Infelice. By Augusta Evans Wilson. +Initials Only. By Anna Katharine Green. +Inner Law, The. By Will N. Harben. +Innocent By Marie Corelli. +Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer. +In the Brooding Wild. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Intriguers, The. By Harold Bindloss. +Iron Trail, The. By Rex Beach. +Iron Woman, The. By Margaret Deland. +I Spy. By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. +Japonette. By Robert W. Chambers. +Jean of the Lazy A. By B. M. Bower. +Jeanne of the Marshes. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Jennie Gerhardt. By Theodore Dreiser. +Judgment House, The. By Gilbert Parker. +Keeper of the Door, The. By Ethel M. Dell. +Keith of the Border. By Randall Parrish. +Kent Knowles: Ouahaug. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Kingdom of the Blind, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +King Spruce. By Holman Day. +King's Widow, The. By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. +Knave of Diamonds, The. By Ethel M. Dell. +Ladder of Swords. By Gilbert Parker. +Lady Betty Across the Water. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. +Land-Girl's Love Story, A. By Berta Ruck. +Landloper, The. By Holman Day. +Land of Long Ago, The. By Eliza Calvert Hall. +Land of Strong Men, The. By A. M. Chisholm. +Last Trail, The. By Zane Grey. +Laugh and Live. By Douglas Fairbanks. +Laughing Bill Hyde. By Rex Beach. +Laughing Girl, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Law Breakers, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Lifted Veil, The. By Basil King. +Lighted Way, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Lin McLean. By Owen Wister. +Lonesome Land. By B. M. Bower. +Lone Wolf, The. By Louis Joseph Vance. +Long Ever Ago. By Rupert Hughes. +Lonely Stronghold, The. By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. +Long Live the King. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +Long Roll, The. By Mary Johnston. +Lord Tony's Wife. By Baroness Orczy. +Lost Ambassador. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Lost Prince, The. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. +Lydia of the Pines. By Honoré Willsie. +Maid of the Forest, The. By Randall Parrish. +Maid of the Whispering Hills, The. By Vingie E. Roe. +Maids of Paradise, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Major, The. By Ralph Connor. +Maker of History, A. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Malefactor, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Man from Bar 20, The. By Clarence E. Mulford. +Man in Grey, The, By Baroness Orczy. +Man Trail, The. By Henry Oyen. +Man Who Couldn't Sleep, The. By Arthur Stringer. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Man with the Club Foot, The. By Valentine Williams. +Mary-'Gusta. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Mary Moreland. By Marie Van Vorst. +Mary Regan. By Leroy Scott. +Master Mummer, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. +Men Who Wrought, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Mischief Maker, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Missioner, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Miss Million's Maid. By Berta Ruck. +Molly McDonald. By Randall Parrish. +Money Master, The. By Gilbert Parker. +Money Moon, The. By Jeffery Farnol. +Mountain Girl, The. By Payne Erskine. +Moving Finger, The. By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. +Mr. Bingle. By George Barr McCutcheon. +Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Mr. Pratt. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Mr. Pratt's Patients. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Mrs. Belfame. By Gertrude Atherton. +Mrs. Red Pepper. By Grace S. Richmond +My Lady Caprice. By Jeffrey Farnol. +My Lady of the North. By Randall Parrish. +My Lady of the South. By Randall Parrish. +Mystery of the Hasty Arrow, The. By Anna K. Green. +Nameless Man, The. By Nataile Sumner Lincoln. +Ne'er-Do-Well, The. By Rex Beach. +Nest Builders, The. By Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale. +Net, The. By Rex Beach. +New Clarion. By Will N. Harben. +Night Operator, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Night Riders, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Nobody. By Louis Joseph Vance. +Okewood of the Secret Service. By the Author of "The Man with the Club +Foot." +One Way Trail, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Open Sesame. By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds. +Otherwise Phyllis. By Meredith Nicholson. +Outlaw, The. By Jackson Gregory. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Paradise Auction. By Nalbro Bartley. +Pardners. By Rex Beach. +Parrot & Co. By Harold MacGrath. +Partners of the Night. By Leroy Scott. +Partners of the Tide. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Passionate Friends, The. By H. G. Wells. +Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The. By Ralph Connor. +Paul Anthony, Christian. By Hiram W. Hays. +Pawns Count, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +People's Man, A. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Perch of the Devil. By Gertrude Atherton. +Peter Ruff and the Double Four. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Pidgin Island. By Harold MacGrath. +Place of Honeymoon, The. By Harold MacGrath. +Pool of Flame, The. By Louis Joseph Vance. +Postmaster, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Prairie Wife, The. By Arthur Stringer. +Price of the Prairie, The. By Margaret Hill McCarter. +Prince of Sinners, A. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Promise, The. By J. B. Hendryx. +Proof of the Pudding, The. By Meredith Nicholson. +Rainbow's End, The. By Rex Beach. +Ranch at the Wolverine, The. By B. M. Bower. +Ranching for Sylvia. By Harold Bindloss. +Ransom. By Arthur Somers Roche. +Reason Why, The. By Elinor Glyn. +Reclaimers, The. By Margaret Hill McCarter. +Red Mist, The. By Randall Parrish. +Red Pepper Burns. By Grace S. Richmond. +Red Pepper's Patients. By Grace S. Richmond. +Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The. By Anne Warner. +Restless Sex, The. By Robert W. Chambers. +Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer. +Return of Tarzan, The. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. +Riddle of Night, The. By Thomas W. Hanshew. +Rim of the Desert, The. By Ada Woodruff Anderson. +Rise of Roscoe Paine, The. By J. C. Lincoln. +Rising Tide, The. By Margaret Deland. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Rocks of Valpré, The. By Ethel M. Dell. +Rogue by Compulsion, A. By Victor Bridges. +Room Number 3. By Anna Katharine Green. +Rose in the Ring, The. By George Barr McCutcheon. +Rose of Old Harpeth, The. By Maria Thompson Daviess. +Round the Corner in Gay Street. By Grace S. Richmond. +Second Choice. By Will N. Harben. +Second Violin, The. By Grace S. Richmond. +Secret History. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. +Secret of the Reef, The. By Harold Bindloss. +Seven Darlings, The. By Gouverneur Morris. +Shavings. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Shepherd of the Hills, The. By Harold Bell Wright. +Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Sherry. By George Barr McCutcheon. +Side of the Angels, The. By Basil King. +Silver Horde, The. By Rex Beach. +Sin That Was His, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Sixty-first Second, The. By Owen Johnson. +Soldier of the Legion, A. By C. N. & A. M. Williamson. +Son of His Father, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Son of Tarzan, The. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. +Source, The. By Clarence Buddington Kelland. +Speckled Bird, A. By Augusta Evans Wilson. +Spirit in Prison, A. By Robert Hichens. +Spirit of the Border, The. (New Edition.) By Zane Grey. +Spoilers, The. By Rex Beach. +Steele of the Royal Mounted. By James Oliver Curwood. +Still Jim. By Honoré Willsie. +Story of Foss River Ranch, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Story of Marco, The. By Eleanor H. Porter. +Strange Case of Cavendish, The. By Randall Parrish. +Strawberry Acres. By Grace S. Richmond. +Sudden Jim. By Clarence B. Kelland. +Tales of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. +Tarzan of the Apes. By Edgar R. Burroughs. +Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Tempting of Tavernake, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Tess of the D'Urbervilles. By Thos. Hardy. +Thankful's Inheritance. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +That Affair Next Door. By Anna Katharine Green. +That Printer of Udell's. By Harold Bell Wright. +Their Yesterdays. By Harold Bell Wright. +Thirteenth Commandment, The. By Rupert Hughes. +Three of Hearts, The. By Berta Ruck. +Three Strings, The. By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. +Threshold, The. By Marjorie Benton Cooke. +Throwback, The. By Alfred Henry Lewis. +Tish. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed. Anon. +Trail of the Axe, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Trail to Yesterday, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer. +Treasure of Heaven, The. By Marie Corelli. +Triumph, The. By Will N. Harben. +T. Tembarom. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. +Turn of the Tide. By Author of "Pollyanna.". +Twenty-fourth of June, The. By Grace S. Richmond. +Twins of Suffering Creek, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Two-Gun Man, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer. +Uncle William. By Jeannette Lee. +Under Handicap. By Jackson Gregory. +Under the Country Sky. By Grace S. Richmond. +Unforgiving Offender, The. By John Reed Scott. +Unknown Mr. Kent, The. By Roy Norton. +Unpardonable Sin, The. By Major Rupert Hughes. +Up From Slavery. By Booker T. Washington. +Valiants of Virginia, The. By Hallie Ermine Rives. +Valley of Fear, The. By Sir A. Conan Doyle. +Vanished Messenger, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Vanguards of the Plains. By Margaret Hill McCarter. +Vashti. By Augusta Evans Wilson. +Virtuous Wives. By Owen Johnson. +Visioning, The. By Susan Glaspell. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Waif-o'-the-Sea. By Cyrus Townsend Brady. +Wall of Men, A. By Margaret H. McCarter. +Watchers of the Plans, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Way Home, The. By Basil King. +Way of an Eagle, The. By E. M. Dell. +Way of the Strong, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Way of These Women, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +We Can't Have Everything. By Major Rupert Hughes. +Weavers, The. By Gilbert Parker. +When a Man's a Man. By Harold Bell Wright. +When Wilderness Was King. By Randall Parrish. +Where the Trail Divides. By Will Lillibridge. +Where There's a Will. By Mary R. Rinehart. +White Sister, The. By Marion Crawford. +Who Goes There? By Robert W. Chambers. +Why Not. By Margaret Widdemer. +Window at the White Cat, The. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +Winds of Chance, The. By Rex Beach. +Wings of Youth, The. By Elizabeth Jordan. +Winning of Barbara Worth, The. By Harold Bell Wright. +Wire Devils, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Winning the Wilderness. By Margaret Hill McCarter. +Wishing Ring Man, The. By Margaret Widdemer. +With Juliet in England. By Grace S. Richmond. +Wolves of the Sea. By Randall Parrish. +Woman Gives, The. By Owen Johnson. +Woman Haters, The. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +Woman in Question, The. By John Reed Scott. +Woman Thou Gavest Me, The. By Hall Caine. +Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The. By Mary E. Waller. +Wooing of Rosamond Fayre, The. By Berta Ruck. +World for Sale, The. By Gilbert-Parker. +Years for Rachel, The. By Berta Ruck. +Yellow Claw, The. By Sax Rohmer. +You Never Know Your Luck. By Gilbert Parker. +Zeppelin's Passenger, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards. +2. Added Table of Contents not in original edition. +3. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Prairie Wife + +Author: Arthur Stringer + +Illustrator: H. T. Dunn + +Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' /><br /> +</div> + +<h1>The Prairie Wife</h1> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<div class='figcenter' style='width: 300px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<img src='images/fpiece.jpg' alt='' /><br /> +<p class='caption'>I stooped over the trap-door and lifted it up. "Get down +there quick!" — Page 109, The Prairie Wife.</p> +</div> + +<hr class='major' /> + + +<table width="420" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="1"> + <col style="width:100%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <table width="90%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="" border="0"> + <col style="width:100%;" /> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span style="font-size: 220%;"><br />THE PRAIRIE WIFE</span><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 150%;">By ARTHUR STRINGER</span><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <div class='figcenter' style='width: 150px; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> + <img src='images/illus-emb.png' alt='' /><br /> + </div> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> + <span style="font-size: 80%;"><br />With Frontispiece in Color by<br /> + <span style='font-size: 110%; letter-spacing: 3px'>H. T. DUNN</span></span><br /><br /><br /> + <span style="font-size: 130%;">A. L. BURT COMPANY</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 100%;">PUBLISHERS – – NEW YORK</span><br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%;font-variant: small-caps">Published by Arrangement with The Bobbs, Merrill Company</span><br /><br /> + </td> + </tr> + </table> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; font-variant: small-caps'> +Copyright 1915<br />The Curtis Publishing Company<br /></p> +<hr class='minor' /> +<p style='text-align:center; font-variant: small-caps'> +Copyright 1915<br />The Bobbs-Merrill Company<br /></p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='text-align:center;'> +TO VAN<br /> +WHO KNOWS AND LOVES<br /> +THE WEST<br /> +AS WE LOVE HIM! +</p> + +<hr class='major' /> + +<h2><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>Contents</h2> +<div class="smcap"> +<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<col style="width:85%;" /> +<col style="width:15%;" /> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Nineteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Nineteenth">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-first</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-First">16</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twenty-third</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twenty-third">33</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Twenty-fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Twenty-fifth">41</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Twenty-sixth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Twenty-sixth">48</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-eighth">57</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the First</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_First">61</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Second</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Second">64</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Third</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Third">67</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Fourth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Fourth">68</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Sixth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Sixth">73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Eighth">80</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Tenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Tenth">88</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Eleventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Eleventh">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twelfth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twelfth_1">93</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Eighteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Eighteenth">101</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Nineteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Nineteenth">103</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twentieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twentieth">105</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Twenty-second</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Twenty-second">115</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-fourth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-fourth">119</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twenty-seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Twenty-ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Twenty-ninth">133</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Fifth">136</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Seventh">137</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Ninth_1">138</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-first</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-First_1">142</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Twenty-ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Twenty-ninth">150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Seventh">152</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Eleventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Eleventh">153</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Thirteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Thirteenth">155</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Sixteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Sixteenth">156</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Twentieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Twentieth">157</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Twenty-seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Twenty-seventh">158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Thirtieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Thirtieth">159</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Thirty-first</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Thirty-first">160</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Third</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Third">167</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Seventh">171</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Ninth">172</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Eleventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Eleventh">175</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Nineteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Nineteenth">182</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Thirty-first</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Thirty-first">186</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Ninth">188</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Seventeenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Seventeenth_1">189</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Twenty-fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Twenty-fifth">190</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Second</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Second">191</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Fourth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Fourth">193</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Seventeenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Seventeenth">194</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-seventh">195</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Sixth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Sixth">198</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twelfth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twelfth_2">199</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twentieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twentieth_1">202</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twenty-sixth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twenty-sixth">205</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Twenty-eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth">207</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Second</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Second">209</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Fifth">210</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Tenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Tenth">214</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Sixteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Sixteenth">217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twenty-fourth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twenty-fourth">220</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Third</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Third_1">222</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Ninth">224</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Fifteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Fifteenth">228</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Seventeenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Seventeenth">230</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Nineteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Nineteenth">231</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Twenty-eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Twenty-eighth">233</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Twenty-ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Twenty-ninth">234</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Thirtieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Thirtieth">236</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the First</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_First">237</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Seventh_1">243</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Thirteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Thirteenth_1">247</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twenty-eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twenty-eighth">249</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Second</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Second">251</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Sixth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Sixth">252</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twelfth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twelfth">254</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Fourteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Fourteenth">255</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Fifth">256</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Ninth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Ninth">260</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Tenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Tenth">262</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Eleventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Eleventh">264</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Thirteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Thirteenth">265</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Fourteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Fourteenth_1">267</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Fifteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Fifteenth">269</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Saturday the Sixteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Saturday_the_Sixteenth">272</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Seventeenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Seventeenth">275</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Nineteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Nineteenth">276</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Twenty-first</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Twenty-first">277</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Monday the Twelfth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Monday_the_Twelfth_3">290</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Fourteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Fourteenth">292</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Thursday the Fifteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Thursday_the_Fifteenth">295</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Sixteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Sixteenth">298</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Eighteenth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Eighteenth-1">307</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the Twenty-fifth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_Twenty-fifth">308</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Tuesday the Twenty-seventh</td><td align="right"><a href="#Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh_1">309</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Wednesday the Twenty-eighth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth_1">310</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Friday the Thirtieth</td><td align="right"><a href="#Friday_the_Thirtieth">313</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Sunday the First</td><td align="right"><a href="#Sunday_the_First">314</a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>THE PRAIRIE WIFE</h1> + +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Nineteenth" id="Thursday_the_Nineteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Nineteenth</h2> +</div> + +<p>Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the +pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda +Anne, Matilda Anne, I've <i>got</i> to talk to you! You may be six thousand +miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and +explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so lonesome out +here I could go and commune with the gophers. This isn't a twenty-part +letter, my dear, and it isn't a diary. It's the coral ring I'm cutting +my teeth of desolation on. For, every so long, I've simply got to sit +down and talk to some one, or I'd go mad, clean, stark, staring mad, and +bite the tops off the sweet-grass! It may even happen this will never be +sent to you. But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by +page,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has +me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell. For you +were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and +when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the +calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And I think +you will understand.</p> + +<p>But there's so much to talk about I scarcely know where to begin. The +funny part of it all is, I've gone and married the <i>Other Man</i>. And you +won't understand that a bit, unless I start at the beginning. But when I +look back, there doesn't seem to be any beginning, for it's only in +books that things really begin and end in a single lifetime.</p> + +<p>Howsomever, as Chinkie used to say, when I left you and Scheming Jack in +that funny little stone house of yours in Corfu, and got to Palermo, I +found Lady Agatha and Chinkie there at the Hotel des Palmes and the +yacht being coaled from a tramp steamer's bunkers in the harbor. So I +went on with them to Monte Carlo. We had a terrible trip<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> all the way up +to the Riviera, and I was terribly sea-sick, and those lady novelists +who love to get their heroines off on a private yacht never dream that +in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the +meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I +got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had +wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last +little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found +myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel +home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away +the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery by +shooting himself. Then I remembered my letter of credit, and firmly but +sorrowfully paid off poor Hortense, who through her tears proclaimed +that she'd go with me anywhere, and without any thought of wages +(imagine being hooked up by a maid to whom you were under such +democratizing obligations!) But I was firm, for I knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> the situation, +might just as well be faced first as last.</p> + +<p>So I counted up my letter of credit and found I had exactly six hundred +and seventy-one dollars, American money, between me and beggary. Then I +sent a cable to Theobald Gustav (so condensed that he thought it was +code) and later on found that he'd been sending flowers and chocolates +all the while to the Hotel de L'Athénée, the long boxes duly piled up in +tiers, like coffins at the morgue. Then Theobald's aunt, the baroness, +called on me, in state. She came in that funny, old-fashioned, shallow +landau of hers, where she looked for all the world like an +oyster-on-the-half-shell, and spoke so pointedly of the danger of +international marriages that I felt sure she was trying to shoo me away +from my handsome and kingly Theobald Gustav—which made me quite calmly +and solemnly tell her that I intended to take Theobald out of +under-secretaryships, which really belonged to Oppenheim romances, and +put him in the shoe business in some nice New England town!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> + +<p>From Monte Carlo I scooted right up to Paris. Two days later, as I +intended to write you but didn't, I caught the boat-train for Cherbourg. +And there at the rail as I stepped on the <i>Baltic</i> was the Other Man, to +wit, Duncan Argyll McKail, in a most awful-looking yellow plaid English +mackintosh. His face went a little blank as he clapped eyes on me, for +he'd dropped up to Banff last October when Chinkie and Lady Agatha and I +were there for a week. He'd been very nice, that week at Banff, and I +liked him a lot. But when Chinkie saw him "going it a bit too strong," +as he put it, and quietly tipped Duncan Argyll off as to Theobald +Gustav, the aforesaid D. A. bolted back to his ranch without as much as +saying good-by to me. For Duncan Argyll McKail isn't an Irishman, as you +might in time gather from that name of his. He's a Scotch-Canadian, and +he's nothing but a broken-down civil engineer who's taken up farming in +the Northwest. But I could see right away that he was a gentleman (I +<i>hate</i> that word, but where'll you get another one to take its place?)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +and had known nice people, even before I found out he'd taught the +Duchess of S. to shoot big-horn. He'd run over to England to finance a +cooperative wheat-growing scheme, but had failed, because everything is +so unsettled in England just now.</p> + +<p>But you're a woman, and before I go any further you'll want to know what +Duncan looks like.</p> + +<p>Well, he's not a bit like his name. The West has shaken a good deal of +the Covenanter out of him. He's tall and gaunt and wide-shouldered, and +has brown eyes with hazel specks in them, and a mouth exactly like +Holbein's "Astronomer's," and a skin that is almost as disgracefully +brown as an Indian's. On the whole, if a Lina Cavalieri had happened to +marry a Lord Kitchener, and had happened to have a thirty-year-old son, +I feel quite sure he'd have been the dead spit, as the Irish say, of my +own Duncan Argyll. And Duncan Argyll, <i>alias</i> Dinky-Dunk, is rather +reserved and quiet and, I'm afraid, rather masterful, but not as +Theobald Gustav might have been, for with all his force the modern +German, it seems to me, is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> like the bagpipes in being somewhat lacking +in suavity.</p> + +<p>And all the way over Dinky-Dunk was so nice that he almost took my +breath away. He was also rather audacious, gritting his teeth in the +face of the German peril, and I got to like him so much I secretly +decided we'd always be good friends, old-fashioned, above-board, +Platonic good friends. But the trouble with Platonic love is that it's +always turning out too nice to be Platonic, or too Platonic to be nice. +So I had to look straight at the bosom of that awful yellow-plaid +English mackintosh and tell Dinky-Dunk the truth. And Dinky-Dunk +listened, with his astronomer mouth set rather grim, and otherwise not +in the least put out. His sense of confidence worried me. It was like +the quietness of the man who is holding back his trump. And it wasn't +until the impossible little wife of an impossible big lumberman from +Saginaw, Michigan, showed me the Paris <i>Herald</i> with the cable in it +about that spidery Russian stage-dancer, L——, getting so nearly killed +in Theobald's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> car down at Long Beach, that I realized there <i>was</i> a +trump card and that Dinky-Dunk had been too manly to play it.</p> + +<p>I had a lot of thinking to do, the next three days.</p> + +<p>When Theobald came on from Washington and met the steamer my conscience +troubled me and I should still have been kindness itself to him, if it +hadn't been for his proprietary manner (which, by the way, had never +annoyed me before), coupled with what I already knew. We had luncheon in +the Della Robbia room at the Vanderbilt and I was digging the marrons +out of a Nesselrode when, presto, it suddenly came over me that the +baroness was right and that <i>I could never marry a foreigner</i>. It came +like a thunderclap. But somewhere in that senate of instinct which +debates over such things down deep in the secret chambers of our souls, +I suppose, the whole problem had been talked over and fought out and put +to the vote. And in the face of the fact that Theobald Gustav had always +seemed more nearly akin to one of Ouida's demigods than any man I had +ever known, the vote had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> gone against him. My hero was no longer a +hero. I knew there had been times, of course, when that hero, being a +German, had rather regarded this universe of ours as a department-store +and this earth as the particular section over which the August Master +had appointed him floor-walker. I had thought of him as my +<i>Eisenfresser</i> and my big blond <i>Saebierassler</i>. But my eyes opened with +my last marron and I suddenly sat back and stared at Theobald's handsome +pink face with its Krupp-steel blue eyes and its haughtily upturned +mustache-ends. He must have seen that look of appraisal on my own face, +for, with all his iron-and-blood Prussianism, he clouded up like a hurt +child. But he was too much of a diplomat to show his feelings. He merely +became so unctuously polite that I felt like poking him in his +steel-blue eye with my mint straw.</p> + +<p>Remember, Matilda Anne, not a word was said, not one syllable about what +was there in both our souls. Yet it was one of life's biggest moments, +the Great Divide of a whole career—and I went on eating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Nesselrode and +Theobald went on pleasantly smoking his cigarette and approvingly +inspecting his well-manicured nails.</p> + +<p>It was funny, but it made me feel blue and unattached and terribly alone +in the world. Now, I can see things more clearly. I know that mood of +mine was not the mere child of caprice. Looking back, I can see how +Theobald had been more critical, more silently combative, from the +moment I stepped off the <i>Baltic</i>. I realized, all at once, <i>that he had +secretly been putting me to a strain</i>. I won't say it was because my +<i>dot</i> had gone with The Nitrate Mines, or that he had discovered that +Duncan had crossed on the same steamer with me, or that he knew I'd soon +hear of the L—— episode. But these prophetic bones of mine told me +there was trouble ahead. And I felt so forsaken and desolate in spirit +that when Duncan whirled me out to Westbury, in a hired motor-car, to +see the Great Neck First defeated by the Meadow Brook Hunters, I went +with the happy-go-lucky glee of a truant who doesn't give a hang what +happens. Dinky-Dunk was interested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> in polo ponies, which, he explained +to me, are not a particular breed but just come along by accident—for +he'd bred and sold mounts to the Coronado and San Mateo Clubs and the +Philadelphia City Cavalry boys. And he loved the game. He was so genuine +and sincere and <i>human</i>, as we sat there side by side, that I wasn't a +bit afraid of him and knew we could be chums and didn't mind his lapses +into silence or his extension-sole English shoes and crazy London +cravat.</p> + +<p>And I was happy, until the school-bell rang—which took the form of +Theobald's telephone message to the Ritz reminding me of our dinner +engagement. It was an awful dinner, for intuitively I knew what was +coming, and quite as intuitively he knew what was coming, and even the +waiter knew when it came,—for I flung Theobald's ring right against his +stately German chest. There'd be no good in telling you, Matilda Anne, +what led up to that most unlady-like action. I don't intend to burn +incense in front of myself. It may have looked wrong. But I know you'll +take my word when I say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> he deserved it. The one thing that hurts is +that he had the triumph of being the first to sever diplomatic +relations. In the language of Shorty McCabe and my fellow countrymen, +<i>he threw me down!</i> Twenty minutes later, after composing my soul and +powdering my nose, I was telephoning all over the city trying to find +Duncan. I got him at last, and he came to the Ritz on the run. Then we +picked up a residuary old horse-hansom on Fifth Avenue and went rattling +off through Central Park. There I—who once boasted of seven proposals +and three times that number of nibbles—promptly and shamelessly +proposed to my Dinky-Dunk, though he is too much of a gentleman not to +swear it's a horrid lie and that he'd have fought through an acre of +Greek fire to get me!</p> + +<p>But whatever happened, Count Theobald Gustav Von Guntner threw me down, +and Dinky-Dunk caught me on the bounce, and now instead of going to +embassy balls and talking world-politics like a Mrs. Humphry Ward +heroine I've married a shack-owner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> who grows wheat up in the Canadian +Northwest. And instead of wearing a tiara in the Grand Tier at the +Metropolitan I'm up here a dot on the prairie and wearing an apron made +of butcher's linen! <i>Sursum corda!</i> For I'm still in the ring. And it's +no easy thing to fall in love and land on your feet. But I've gone and +done it. I've taken the high jump. I've made my bed, as Uncle Carlton +had the nerve to tell me, and now I've got to lie in it. But <i>assez +d'Etrangers</i>!</p> + +<p>That wedding-day of mine I'll always remember as a day of smells, the +smell of the pew-cushions in the empty church, the smell of the +lilies-of-the-valley, that dear, sweet, scatter-brained +Fanny-Rain-In-The-Face (she rushed to town an hour after getting my +wire) insisted on carrying, the smell of the leather in the damp taxi, +the tobaccoy smell of Dinky-Dunk's quite impossible best man, who'd been +picked up at the hotel, on the fly, to act as a witness, and the smell +of Dinky-Dunk's brand new gloves as he lifted my chin and kissed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> me in +that slow, tender, tragic, end-of-the-world way big and bashful men +sometimes have with women. It's all a jumble of smells.</p> + +<p>Then Dinky-Dunk got the wire saying he might lose his chance on the +Stuart Ranch, if he didn't close before the Calgary interests got hold +of it. And Dinky-Dunk wanted that ranch. So we talked it over and in +five minutes had given up the idea of going down to Aiken and were +telephoning for the stateroom on the Montreal Express. I had just four +hours for shopping, scurrying about after cook-books and golf-boots and +table-linen and a chafing dish, and a lot of other absurd things I +thought we'd need on the ranch. And then off we flew for the West, +before poor, extravagant, ecstatic Dinky-Dunk's thirty-six wedding +orchids' from Thorley's had faded and before I'd a chance to show Fanny +my nighties!</p> + +<p>Am I crazy? Is it all wrong? Do I love my Dinky-Dunk? <i>Do</i> I? The Good +Lord only knows, Matilda Anne! O God, O God, if it <i>should</i> turn out +that I don't, that I can't? But I'm going to!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> I know I'm going to! And +there's one other thing that I know, and when I remember it, it sends a +comfy warm wave through all my body: Dinky-Dunk loves me. He's as mad as +a hatter about me. He deserves to be loved back. And I'm going to love +him back. That is a vow I herewith duly register. <i>I'm going to love my +Dinky-Dunk.</i> But, oh, isn't it wonderful to wake love in a man, in a +strong man? To be able to sweep him off, that way, on a tidal wave that +leaves him rather white and shaky in the voice and trembly in the +fingers, and seems to light a little luminous fire at the back of his +eyeballs so that you can see the pupils glow, the same as an animal's +when your motor head-lights hit them! It's like taking a little match +and starting a prairie-fire and watching the flames creep and spread +until the heavens are roaring! I wonder if I'm selfish? I wonder? But I +can't answer that now, for it's supper time, and your Tabby has the grub +to rustle!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-First" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-First"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-first</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I'm alone in the shack to-night, and I'm determined not to think about +my troubles. So I'm going to write you a ream, Matilda Anne, whether you +like it or not. And I must begin by telling you about the shack itself, +and how I got here. All the way out from Montreal Dinky-Dunk, in his +kindly way, kept doing his best to key me down and make me not expect +too much. But I'd hold his hand, under the magazine I was pretending to +read, and whistle <i>Home, Sweet Home</i>! He kept saying it would be hard, +for the first year or two, and there would be a terrible number of +things I'd be sure to miss. <i>Love Me and The World Is Mine!</i> I hummed, +as I leaned over against his big wide shoulder. And I lay there smiling +and happy, blind to everything that was before me, and I only laughed +when Dinky-Dunk asked me if I'd still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> say that when I found there +wasn't a nutmeg-grater within seven miles of my kitchen.</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?" I demanded, hanging on to him right in front of the +car-porter.</p> + +<p>"I love you better than anything else in all this wide world!" was his +slow and solemn answer.</p> + +<p>When we left Winnipeg, too, he tried to tell me what a plain little +shack we'd have to put up with for a year or two, and how it wouldn't be +much better than camping out, and how he knew I was clear grit and would +help him win that first year's battle. There was nothing depressing to +me in the thought of life in a prairie-shack. I never knew, of course, +just what it would be like, and had no way of knowing. I remembered +Chinkie's little love of a farm in Sussex, and I'd been a week at the +Westbury's place out on Long Island, with its terraced lawns and gardens +and greenhouses and macadamized roads. And, on the whole, I expected a +cross between a shooting-box and a Swiss chalet, a little nest of a home +that was so small it was sure to be lovable, with a rambler-rose draping +the front and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> a crystal spring bubbling at the back door, a little +flowery island on the prairie where we could play Swiss-Family-Robinson +and sally forth to shoot prairie-chicken and ruffed grouse to our +hearts' content.</p> + +<p>Well, that shack wasn't quite what I expected! But I mustn't run ahead +of my story, Matilda Anne, so I'll go back to where Dinky-Dunk and I got +off the side-line "accommodation" at Buckhorn, with our traps and trunks +and hand-bags and suitcases. And these had scarcely been piled on the +wooden platform before the station-agent came running up to Duncan with +a yellow sheet in his hand. And Duncan looked worried as he read it, and +stopped talking to his man called Olie, who was there beside the +platform, in a big, sweat-stained Stetson hat, with a big team hitched +to a big wagon with straw in the bottom of the box.</p> + +<p>Olie, I at once told myself, was a Swede. He was one of the ugliest men +I ever clapped eyes on, but I found out afterward that his face had been +frozen in a blizzard, years before, and his nose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> had split. This had +disfigured him—and the job had been done for life. His eyes were big +and pale blue, and his hair and eyebrows were a pale yellow. He was the +most silent man I ever saw. But Dinky-Dunk had already told me he was a +great worker, and a fine fellow at heart. And when Dinky-Dunk says he'd +trust a man, through thick and thin, there must be something good in +that man, no matter how bulbous his nose is or how scared-looking he +gets when a woman speaks to him. Olie looked more scared than ever when +Dinky-Dunk suddenly ran to where the train-conductor was standing beside +his car-steps, asked him to hold that "accommodation" for half a minute, +pulled his suit-case from under my pile of traps, and grabbed little me +in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Quick," he said, "good-by! I've got to go on to Calgary. There's +trouble about my registrations."</p> + +<p>I hung on to him for dear life. "You're not going to leave me here, +Dinky-Dunk, in the middle of this wilderness?" I cried out, while the +conductor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> and brakeman and station-agent all called and holloed and +clamored for Duncan to hurry.</p> + +<p>"Olie will take you home, beloved," Dinky-Dunk tried to assure me. +"You'll be there by midnight, and I'll be back by Saturday evening!"</p> + +<p>I began to bawl. "Don't go! Don't leave me!" I begged him. But the +conductor simply tore him out of my arms and pushed him aboard the +tail-end of the last car. I made a face at a fat man who was looking out +a window at me. I stood there, as the train started to move, feeling +that it was dragging my heart with it.</p> + +<p>Then Dinky-Dunk called out to Olie, from the back platform: "Did you get +my message and paint that shack?" And Olie, with my steamer-rug in his +hand, only looked blank and called back "No." But I don't believe +Dinky-Dunk even heard him, for he was busy throwing kisses at me. I +stood there, at the edge of the platform, watching that lonely last +car-end fade down into the lonely sky-line. Then I mopped my eyes, took +one long quavery breath, and said out loud, as Birdalone Pebbley said +Shiner did<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> when he was lying wounded on the field of Magersfontein: +"<i>Squealer, squealer, who's a squealer?</i>"</p> + +<p>I found the big wagon-box filled with our things and Olie sitting there +waiting, viewing me with wordless yet respectful awe. Olie, in fact, has +never yet got used to me. He's a fine chap, in his rough and +inarticulate way, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for me. But I'm a +novelty to him. His pale blue eyes look frightened and he blushes when I +speak to him. And he studies me secretly, as though I were a dromedary, +or an archangel, or a mechanical toy whose inner mechanism perplexed +him. But yesterday I found out through Dinky-Dunk what the probable +secret of Olie's mystification was. It was my hat. "It ban so dam' +foolish!" he fervently confessed.</p> + +<p>That wagon-ride from Buckhorn out to the ranch seemed endless. I thought +we were trekking clear up to the North Pole. At first there was what you +might call a road, straight and worn deep, between parallel lines of +barb-wire fencing. But this road soon melted into nothing more than a +trail,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> a never-ending gently curving trail that ribboned out across the +prairie-floor as far as the eye could see. It was a glorious afternoon, +one of those opaline, blue-arched autumn days when it should have been a +joy merely to be alive. But I was in an antagonistic mood, and the +little cabin-like farmhouses that every now and then stood up against +the sky-line made me feel lonesome, and the jolting of the heavy wagon +made me tired, and by six o'clock I was so hungry that my ribs ached. We +had been on the trail then almost five hours, and Olie calmly informed +me it was only a few hours more. It got quite cool as the sun went down, +and I had to undo my steamer-rug and get wrapped up in it. And still we +went on. It seemed like being at sea, with a light now and then, miles +and miles away. Something howled dismally in the distance, and gave me +the creeps. Olie told me it was only a coyote. But we kept on, and my +ribs ached worse than ever.</p> + +<p>Then I gave a shout that nearly frightened Olie off the seat, for I +remembered the box of chocolates<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> we'd had on the train. We stopped and +found my hand-bag, and lighted matches and looked through it. Then I +gave a second and more dismal shout, for I remembered Dinky-Dunk had +crammed it into his suit-case at the last moment. Then we went on again, +with me a squaw-woman all wrapped in her blanket. I must have fallen +asleep, for I woke with a start. Olie had stopped at a slough to water +his team, and said we'd make home in another hour or two. How he found +his way across that prairie Heaven only knows. I no longer worried. I +was too tired to think. The open air and the swaying and jolting had +chloroformed me into insensibility. Olie could have driven over the edge +of a canyon and I should never have stopped him.</p> + +<p>Instead of falling into a canyon, however, at exactly ten minutes to +twelve we pulled up beside the shack door, which had been left unlocked, +and Olie went in and lighted a lamp and touched a match to the fire +already laid in the stove. I don't remember getting down from the wagon +seat and I don't remember going into the shack. But when Olie came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> from +putting in his team I was fast asleep on a luxurious divan made of a +rather smelly steer-hide stretched across two slim cedar-trees on four +little cedar legs, with a bag full of pine needles at the head. I lay +there watching Olie, in a sort of torpor. It surprised me how quickly +his big ungainly body could move, and how adept those big sunburned +hands of his could be.</p> + +<p>Then sharp as an arrow through a velvet curtain came the smell of bacon +through my drowsiness. And it was a heavenly odor. I didn't even wash. I +ate bacon and eggs and toasted biscuits and orange marmalade and coffee, +the latter with condensed milk, which I hate. I don't know how I got to +my bed, or got my clothes off, or where the worthy Olie slept, or who +put out the light, or if the door had been left open or shut. I never +knew that the bed was hard, or that the coyotes were howling. I only +know that I slept for ten solid hours, without turning over, and that +when I opened my eyes I saw a big square of golden sunlight dancing on +the unpainted pine boards of the shack wall. And the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> funny part of it +all was, Matilda Anne, I didn't have the splitting headache I'd so +dolorously prophesied for myself. Instead of that I felt buoyant. I +started to sing as I pulled on my stockings. And I suddenly remembered +that I was terribly hungry again.</p> + +<p>I swung open the window beside me, for it was on hinges, and poked my +head out. I could see a corral, and a long low building which I took to +be the ranch stables, and another and newer-looking building with a +metal roof, and several stacks of hay surrounded by a fence, and a row +of portable granaries. And beyond these stretched the open prairie, +limitless and beautiful in the clear morning sunshine. Above it arched a +sky of robin-egg blue, melting into opal and pale gold down toward the +rim of the world. I breathed in lungfuls of clear, dry, ozonic air, and +I really believe it made me a little light-headed, it was so +exhilarating, so champagnized with the invisible bubbles of life.</p> + +<p>I needed that etheric eye-opener, Matilda Anne, before I calmly and +critically looked about our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> shack. Oh, that shack, that shack! What a +comedown it was for your heart-sore Chaddie! In the first place, it +seemed no bigger than a ship's cabin, and not one-half so orderly. It is +made of lumber, and not of logs, and is about twelve feet wide and +eighteen feet long. It has three windows, on hinges, and only one door. +The floor is rather rough, and has a trap door leading into a small +cellar, where vegetables can be stored for winter use. The end of the +shack is shut off by a "tarp"—which I have just found out is short for +tarpaulin. In other words, the privacy of my bedroom is assured by +nothing more substantial than a canvas drop-curtain, shutting off my +boudoir, where I could never very successfully <i>bouder</i>, from the larger +living-room.</p> + +<p>This living-room is also the kitchen, the laundry, the sewing-room, the +reception-room and the library. It has a good big cookstove, which burns +either wood or coal, a built-in cupboard with an array of unspeakably +ugly crockery dishes, a row<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> of shelves for holding canned goods, books +and magazines, cooking utensils, gun-cartridges, tobacco-jars, +carpenter's tools and a coal-oil lamp. There is also a plain pine table, +a few chairs, one rocking-chair which has plainly been made by hand, and +a flour-barrel. Outside the door is a wide wooden bench on which stands +a big tin wash-basin and a cake of soap in a sardine can that has been +punched full of holes along the bottom. Above it hung a roller towel +which looked a little the worse for wear. And that was to be my home, my +one and only habitation, for years and years to come! That little +cat-eyed cubby-hole of a place!</p> + +<p>I sat down on an overturned wash-tub about twenty paces from the shack, +and studied it with calm and thoughtful eyes. It looked infinitely worse +from the outside. The reason for this was that the board siding had +first been covered with tar-paper, for the sake of warmth, and over this +had been nailed pieces of tin, tin of every color and size and +description. Some of it was flattened out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> stove-pipe, and some was +obviously the sides of tomato-cans. Even tin tobacco-boxes and Dundee +marmalade holders and the bottoms of old bake-pans and the sides of an +old wash-boiler had been pieced together and patiently tacked over those +shack-sides. It must have taken weeks and weeks to do. And it suddenly +impressed me as something poignant, as something with the Vergilian +touch of tears in it. It seemed so full of history, so vocal of the +tragic expedients to which men on the prairie must turn. It seemed +pathetic. It brought a lump into my throat. Yet that Joseph's Coat of +metal was a neatly done bit of work. All it needed was a coat of paint +or two, and it would look less like a crazy-quilt solidified into a +homestead. And I suddenly remembered Dinky-Dunk's question called out to +Olie from the car-end—and I knew he'd hurried off a message to have +that telltale tinning-job painted over before I happened to clap eyes on +it.</p> + +<p>As Olie had disappeared from the scene and was nowhere to be found, I +went in and got my own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> breakfast. It was supper over again, only I +scrambled my eggs instead of frying them. And all the while I was eating +that meal I studied those shack-walls and made mental note of what +should be changed and what should be done. There was so much, that it +rather overwhelmed me. I sat at the table, littered with its dirty +dishes, wondering where to begin. And then the endless vista of it all +suddenly opened up before me. I became nervously conscious of the +unbroken silence about me, and I realized how different this new life +must be from the old. It seemed like death itself, and it got a strangle +hold on my nerves, and I knew I was going to make a fool of myself the +very first morning in my new home, in my home and Dinky-Dunk's. But I +refused to give in. I did something which startled me a little, +something which I had not done for years. I got down on my knees beside +that plain wooden chair and prayed to God. I asked Him to give me +strength to keep me from being a piker and make me a wife worthy of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +man who loved me, and lead me into the way of bringing happiness to the +home that was to be ours. Then I rolled up my sleeves, tied a face towel +over my head and went to work.</p> + +<p>It was a royal cleaning-out, I can tell you. In the afternoon I had Olie +down on all fours scrubbing the floor. When he had washed the windows I +had him get a garden rake and clear away the rubbish that littered the +dooryard. I draped chintz curtains over the windows, and had Olie nail +two shelves in a packing-box and then carry it into my boudoir behind +the drop-curtain. Over this box I tacked fresh chintz (for the shack did +not possess so feminine a thing as a dresser) and on it put my +folding-mirror and my Tiffany traveling-clock and all my foolish +shimmery silver toilet articles. Then I tacked up photographs and +magazine-prints about the bare wooden walls—and decided that before the +winter came those walls would be painted and papered, or I'd know the +reason why. Then I aired the bedding and mattress, and unpacked my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +brand-new linen sheets and the ridiculous hemstitched pillow-slips that +I'd scurried so frenziedly about the city to get, and stowed my things +away on the box-shelves, and had Olie pound the life out of the +well-sunned pillows, and carefully remade the bed.</p> + +<p>And then I went at the living-room. And it was no easy task, +reorganizing those awful shelves and making sure I wasn't throwing away +things Dinky-Dunk might want later on. But the carnage was great, and +all afternoon the smoke went heavenward from my fires of destruction. +And when it was over I told Olie to go out for a good long walk, for I +intended to take a bath. Which I did in the wash-tub, with much joy and +my last cake of Roger-and-Gallet soap. And I had to shout to poor +ambulating Olie for half-an-hour before I could persuade him to come in +to supper. And even then he came tardily, with countless hesitations and +pauses, as though a lady temerarious enough to take a scrub were for all +time taboo to the race of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> man. And when he finally ventured in through +the door, round-eyed and blushing a deep russet, he gaped at my white +middy and my little white apron with that silent but eloquent admiration +which couldn't fail to warm the cockles of the most unimpressionable +housewife's heart.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twenty-third" id="Monday_the_Twenty-third"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twenty-third</h2> +</div> + + +<p>My Dinky-Dunk is back—and oh, the difference to me! I kept telling +myself that I was too busy to miss him. He came Saturday night as I was +getting ready for bed. I'd been watching the trail every now and then, +all day long, and by nine o'clock had given him up. When I heard him +shouting for Olie, I made a rush for him, with only half my clothes on, +and nearly shocked Olie and some unknown man, who'd driven Dinky-Dunk +home, to death. How I hugged my husband! My husband—I love to write +that word. And when I got him inside we had it all over again. He was +just like a big overgrown boy. And he put the table between us, so he'd +have a chance to talk. But even that didn't work. He smothered my +laughing in kisses, and held me up close to him and said I was +wonderful. Then we'd try to get down to earth again, and talk sensibly, +and then there'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> be another death-clinch. Dinky-Dunk says I'm worse +than he is. "Of course it's all up with a man," he confessed, "when he +sees you coming for him with that Australian crawl-stroke of yours!"</p> + +<p>For which I did my best to break in his floating ribs. Heaven only knows +how late we talked that night. And Dinky-Dunk had a bundle of surprises +for me. The first was a bronze reading-lamp. The second was a soft +little rug for the bedroom—only an Axminster, but very acceptable. The +third was a pair of Juliets, lined with fur, and oceans too big for me. +And Dinky-Dunk says by Tuesday we'll have two milk-cows, part-Jersey, at +the ranch, and inside of a week a crate of hens will be ours. Thereupon +I couldn't help leading Duncan to the inventory I had made of what we +had, and the list, on the opposite side, of what we had to have. The +second thing under the heading of "Needs" was "lamp," the fifth was +"bedroom rug," the thirteenth was "hens," and the next was "cow." I +think he was rather amazed at the length of that list of "needs," but he +says I shall have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> everything in reason. And when he kind of settled +down, and noticed the changes in the living-room and then went in and +inspected the bedroom he grew very solemn, of a sudden. It worried me.</p> + +<p>"Lady Bird," he said, taking me in his arms, "this is a pretty hard life +I've trapped you into. It will <i>have</i> to be hard for a year or two, but +we'll win out, in the end, and I guess it'll be worth the fight!"</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk is such a dear. I told him of course we'd win out, but I +wouldn't be much use to him at first. I'd have to get broken in and made +bridle-wise.</p> + +<p>"But, oh, Dinky-Dunk, whatever happens, you must always love me!"—and I +imagine I swam for him with my Australian crawl-stroke again. All I +remember is that we went to sleep in each other's arms. And as I started +to say and forgot to finish, I'd been missing my Dinky-Dunk more than I +imagined, those last few days. After that night it was no longer just a +shack. It was "Home." Home—it's such a beautiful word! It must mean so +much to every woman. And I fell asleep telling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> myself it was the +loveliest word in the English language.</p> + +<p>In the morning I slipped out of bed before Dinky-Dunk was awake, for +breakfast was to be our first home meal, and I wanted it to be a +respectable one. <i>Der Mensch ist was er isst</i>—so I must feed my lord +and master on the best in the land. Accordingly I put an extra +tablespoonful of cream in the scrambled eggs, and two whole eggs in the +coffee, to make dead sure it was crystal-clear. Then, feeling like Van +Roon when Berlin declared war on France, I rooted out Dinky-Dunk, made +him wash, and sat him down in his pajamas and his ragged old +dressing-gown.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," I said as I saw his eyes wander about the table, "that you +feel exactly like an oyster-man who's just chipped his Blue-Point and +got his knife-edge in under the shell! And the next wrench is going to +tell you exactly what sort of an oyster you've got!"</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk grinned up at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the +range. "Well, Lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika, +anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor +and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked +a queen—only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our poor old +Swedish Olie!</p> + +<p>As that was Sunday we spent the morning "pi-rooting" about the place. +Dinky-Dunk took me out and showed me the stables and the hay-stacks and +the granaries—which he'd just waterproofed so there'd be no more spoilt +grain on that farm—and the "cool-hole" he used to use before the cellar +was built, and the ruins of the sod-hut where the first homesteader that +owned that land had lived. Then he showed me the new bunk-house for the +men, which Olie is finishing in his spare time. It looks much better +than our own shack, being of planed lumber. But Dinky-Dunk is loyal to +the shack, and says it's really better built, and the warmest shack in +the West—as I'll find before winter is over.</p> + +<p>Then we stopped at the pump, and Dinky-Dunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> made a confession. When he +first bought that ranch there was no water at the shack, except what he +could catch from the roof. Water had to be hauled for miles, and it was +muddy and salty, at that. They used to call it "Gopher soup." This lack +of water always worried him, he said, for women always want water, and +oodles of it. It was the year before, after he had left me at Banff, +that he was determined to get water. It was hard work, putting down that +well, and up to almost the last moment it promised to be a dry hole. But +when they struck that water, Dinky-Dunk says, he decided in his soul +that he was going to have me, if I was to be had. It was water fit for a +queen. And he wanted his queen. But of course even queens have to be +well laved and well laundered. He said he didn't sleep all night, after +they found the water was there. He was too happy; he just went +meandering about the prairie, singing to himself.</p> + +<p>"So you were pretty sure of me, Kitten-Cats, even then?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>He looked at me with his solemn Scotch-Canadian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> eyes. "I'm not sure of +you, even now," was his answer. But I made him take it back.</p> + +<p>It's rather odd how Dinky-Dunk got this ranch, which used to be called +the Cochrane Ranch, for even behind this peaceful little home of ours +there is a touch of tragedy. Hugh Cochrane was one of Dinky-Dunk's +surveyors when he first took up railroad work in British Columbia. Hugh +had a younger brother Andrew, who was rather wild and had been brought +out here and planted on the prairie to keep him out of mischief. One +winter night he rode nearly thirty miles to a dance (they do that +apparently out here, and think nothing of it) and instead of riding home +at five o'clock in the morning, with the others, he visited a +whisky-runner who was operating a "blind pig." There he acquired much +more whisky than was good for him and got lost on the trail. That meant +he was badly frozen and probably out of his mind before he got back to +the shack. He wasn't able to keep up a fire, of course, or do anything +for himself—and I suppose the poor boy simply froze to death.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> He was +alone there, and it was weeks and weeks before his body was found. But +the most gruesome part of it all is that his horses had been stabled, +tied up in their stalls without feed. They were all found dead, poor +brutes. They'd even eaten the wooden boards the mangers were built of. +Hugh Cochrane couldn't get over it, and was going to sell the ranch for +fourteen hundred dollars when Dinky-Dunk heard of it and stepped in and +bought the whole half-section. Then he bought the McKinnon place, a +half-section to the north of this, after McKinnon had lost all his +buildings because he was too shiftless to make a fire-guard. And when +the railway work was finished Dinky-Dunk took up wheat-growing. He is a +great believer in wheat. He says wheat spells wealth, in this country. +Some people call him a "land-miner," he says, but when he's given the +chance to do the thing as he wants to, he'll show them who's right.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Twenty-fifth" id="Wednesday_the_Twenty-fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Twenty-fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk and I have been making plans. He's promised to build an annex +to the shack, a wing on the north side, so I can have a store-room and a +clothes-closet at one end and a guest-chamber at the other. And I'm to +have a sewing-machine and a bread-mixer, and the smelly steer-hide divan +is going to be banished to the bunk-house. And Dinky-Dunk says I must +have a pinto, a riding-horse, as soon as he can lay hands on the right +animal. Later on he says I must have help, but out here in the West +women are hard to get, and harder to keep. They are snatched up by +lonely bachelors like Dinky-Dunk. They can't even keep the +school-teachers (mostly girls from Ontario) from marrying off. But I +don't want a woman about, not for a few months yet. I want Dinky-Dunk +all to myself. And the freedom of isolation like this is such a luxury! +To be just one's self, in civilization, is a luxury, is the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> greatest +luxury in the world,—and also the most expensive, I've found to my +sorrow.</p> + +<p>Out here, there's no object in being anything but one's self. Life is so +simple and honest, so back to first principles! There's joy in the +thought of getting rid of all the sublimated junk of city life. I'm just +a woman; and Dinky-Dunk is just a man. We've got a roof and a bed and a +fire. That's all. And what is there, really, after that? We have to eat, +of course, but we really live well. There's all the game we want, +especially wild duck and prairie chicken, to say nothing of jack-rabbit. +Dinky-Dunk sallies out and pots them as we need them. We get our veal +and beef by the quarter, but it will not keep well until the weather +gets cooler, so I put what we don't need in brine and use it for +boiling-meat. We have no fresh fruit, but even evaporated peaches can be +stewed so that they're appetizing. And as I had the good sense to bring +out with me no less than three cook-books, from Brentano's, I am able to +attempt more and more elaborate dishes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + +<p>Olie has a wire-fenced square where he grew beets and carrots and onions +and turnips, and the biggest potatoes I ever saw. These will be pitted +before the heavy frosts come. We get our butter and lard by the pail, +and our flour by the sack, but getting things in quantities sometimes +has its drawbacks. When I examined the oatmeal box I found it had +weavels in it, and promptly threw all that meal away. Dinky-Dunk, coming +in from the corral, viewed the pile with round-eyed amazement. "It's got +<i>worms</i> in it!" I cried out to him. He took up a handful of it, and +stared at it with tragic sorrow. "Why, I ate weavels all last winter," +he reprovingly remarked. Dinky-Dunk, with his Scotch strain, loves his +porridge. So we'll have to get a hundred-weight, guaranteed strictly +uninhabited, when we team into Buckhorn.</p> + +<p>Men are funny! A woman never quite knows a man until she has lived with +him and day by day unearthed his little idiosyncrasies. She may seem +close to him, in those earlier days of romance, but she never really +knows him, any more than a sparrow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> on a telegraph wire knows the Morse +Code thrilling along under its toes! Men have so many little kinks and +turns, even the best of them. I tacked oil-cloth on a shoe-box and +draped chintz around it, and fixed a place for Dinky-Dunk to wash, in +the bedroom, when he comes in at noon. At night I knew it would be +impossible, for he's built a little wash-house with old binder-carrier +canvas nailed to four posts, and out there Olie and he strip every +evening and splash each other with horse-pails full of well-water. +Dinky-Dunk is clean, whatever he may be, but I thought it would look +more civilized if he'd perform his limited noonday ablutions in the +bedroom. He did it for one day, in pensive silence, and then sneaked the +wash-things back to the rickety old bench outside the door. He said it +saved time.</p> + +<p>Among other vital things, I've found that Dinky-Dunk hates burnt toast. +Yesterday morning, Matilda Anne, I got thinking about Corfu and Ragusa +and you, and it <i>did</i> burn a little around the edges, I suppose. So I +kissed his ear and told him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> carbon would make his teeth white. But he +got up and went out with a sort of "In-this-way-madness-lies" +expression, and I felt wretched all day. So this morning I was more +careful. I did that toast just to a turn. "Feast, O Kaikobád, on the +blondest of toast!" I said as I salaamed and handed him the plate. He +wrinkled up his forehead a little, at the sting in that speech, but he +could not keep from grinning. Then, too, Dinky-Dunk always soaps the +back of his hand, to wash his back, and reach high up. So do I. And on +cold mornings-he says "One, two, three, the bumble bee!" before he hops +out of bed—and I imagined I was the only grownup in all the wide world +who still made use of that foolish rhyme. And the other day when he was +hot and tired I found him drinking a dipperful of cold water fresh from +the well. So I said:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>"Many a man has gone to his sarcophagus</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Thro' pouring cold water down a warm esophagus!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>When I recited that rhyme to him he swung about as though he'd been +shot. "Where did you ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> hear that?" he asked. I told him that was +what Lady Agatha always said to me when she caught me drinking +ice-water. "I thought I was the only man in the world who knew that +crazy old couplet," he confessed, and he chased me around the shack with +the rest of the dipperful, to keep from chilling his tummy, he +explained. Then Dinky-Dunk and I both like to give pet-names to things. +He calls me "Lady Bird" and "Gee-Gee" and sometimes "Honey," and +sometimes "Boca Chica" and "Tabby." And I call him Dinky-Dunk and The +Dour Maun, and Kitten-Cats, though for some reason or other he hates +that last name. I think he feels it's an affront to his dignity. And no +man likes a trace of mockery in a woman. But Dinky-Dunk's names are born +of affection, and I love him for them.</p> + +<p>Even the ranch horses have all been tagged with names. There's +"Slip-Along" and "Water Light" and "Bronk" and "Patsy Crocker" and "Pick +and Shovel" and "Tumble Weed," and others that I can't remember at the +moment. And I find I'm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> picking up certain of Dinky-Dunk's little +habits, and dropping into the trick of looking at things from his +standpoint. I wonder if husbands and wives really <i>do</i> get to be alike? +There are times when Dinky-Dunk seems to know just what I'm thinking, +for when he speaks he says exactly the thing I was going to ask him. And +he's inexorable in his belief that one's right shoe should always be put +on first. So am I!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Twenty-sixth" id="Thursday_the_Twenty-sixth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Twenty-sixth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk is rather pinched for ready money. He is what they call "land +poor" out here. He has big plans, but not much cash. So we shall have to +be frugal. I had decided on vast and sudden changes in this household, +but I'll have to draw in my horns a little. Luckily I have nearly two +hundred dollars of my own money left—and have never mentioned it to +Dinky-Dunk. So almost every night I study the magazine advertisements, +and the catalog of the mail-order house in Winnipeg. Each night I add to +my list of "Needs," and then go back and cross out some of the earlier +ones, as being too extravagant, for the length of my list almost gives +me heart-failure. And as I sit there thinking of what I have to do +without, I envy the women I've known in other days, the women with all +their white linen and their cut glass and silverware and their +prayer-rugs and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> period rooms and their white-tiled baths and their +machinery for making life so comfortable and so easy. I envy them. I put +away my list, and go to bed envying them. But, oh, I sleep so soundly, +and I wake up so buoyant in heart, so eager to get at the next day's +work, so glad to see I'm slowly getting things more ship-shape. It +doesn't leave room for regret. And there is always the future, the +happier to-morrow to which our thoughts go out. I get to thinking of the +city again, of the hundreds of women I know going like hundreds of crazy +squirrels on their crazy treadmill of amusements, and of the thousands +and thousands of women who are toiling without hope, going on in the +same old rut from day to day, cooped up in little flats and back rooms, +with bad air and bad food and bad circulation, while I have all God's +outdoors to wander about in, and can feel the singing rivers of health +in my veins. And here I side-step my Song-of-Solomon voluntary, for they +have one thing I <i>do</i> miss, and that is music. I wish I had a +cottage-piano or a Baby Grand or a <i>Welte<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> Mignon</i>! I wish I had any +kind of an old piano! I wish I had an accordion, or a German +Sweet-Potato, or even a Jew's-Harp!</p> + +<p>But what's the use of wishing for luxuries, when we haven't even a +can-opener—Dinky-Dunk says he's used a hatchet for over a year! And our +only toaster is a kitchen-fork wired to the end of a lath. I even saw +Dinky-Dunk spend half an hour straightening out old nails taken from one +of our shipping-boxes. And the only colander we have was made out of a +leaky milk-pan with holes punched in its bottom. And we haven't a +double-boiler or a mixing-bowl or a doughnut-cutter. When I told +Dinky-Dunk yesterday that we were running out of soap, he said he'd +build a leach of wood-ashes and get beef-tallow and make soft soap. I +asked him how long he'd want to kiss a downy cheek that had been washed +in soft soap. He said he'd keep on kissing me if I was a mummy pickled +in bitumen. But I prefer not risking too much of the pickling process.</p> + +<p>Which reminds me of the fact that I find my hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> a terrible nuisance, +with no Hortense to struggle with it every morning. As you know, it's as +thick as a rope and as long as my arm. I begrudge the time it takes to +look after it, and such a thing as a good shampoo is an event to be +approached with trepidation and prepared for with zeal. "Coises on me +beauty!" I think I'll cut that wool off. But on each occasion when I +have my mind about made up I experience one of "Mr. Polly's" l'il dog +moments. The thing that makes me hesitate is the thought that Dinky-Dunk +might hate me for the rest of his days. And now that our +department-store aristocracy seems to have a corner in Counts and I seem +destined to worry along with merely an American husband, I don't intend +to throw away the spoons with the dish-water! But having to fuss so with +that hair is a nuisance, especially at night, when I am so tired that my +pillow seems to bark like a dog for me to come and pat it.</p> + +<p>And speaking of that reminds me that I have to order arch-supports for +my feet. I'm on them so much that by bedtime my ankles feel like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> +<i>chocolat mousse</i> that's been left out in the sun. Yet this isn't a +whimper, Matilda Anne, for when I turn in I sleep like a child. No more +counting and going to the medicine-chest for coal-tar pills. I abjure +them. I, who used to have so many tricks to bring the starry-eyed +goddess bending over my pillow, hereby announce myself as the noblest +sleeper north of the Line! I no longer need to count the sheep as they +come over the wall, or patiently try to imagine the sound of surf-waves, +or laboriously re-design that perennial dinner-gown which I've kept +tucked away in the cedar-chest of the imagination as long as I can +remember, elaborating it over and over again down to the minutest +details through the longest hour of my whitest white night until it +began to merge into the velvety robes of slumber itself! Nowadays an +ogre called Ten-O'Clock steals up behind my chair with a club in his +hand and stuns me into insensibility. Two or three times, in fact, my +dear old clumsy-fingered Dinky-Dunk has helped me get my clothes off.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> +But he says that the nicest sound he knows is to lie in bed and hear the +tinkle of my hair-pins as I toss them into the little Coalport pin-tray +on my dresser—which reminds me what Chinkie once said about his idea of +Heaven being eating my divinity-fudge to the sound of trumpets!</p> + +<p>I brag about being busy, but I'm not the only busy person about this +wickyup. Olie and Dinky-Dunk talk about summer-fallowing and +double-discing and drag-harrowing and fire-guarding, and I'm beginning +to understand what it all means. They are out with their teams all day +long, working like Trojans. We have mid-day dinner, which Olie bolts in +silence and with the rapidity of chain-lightning. He is the most expert +of sword-swallowers, with a table-knife, and Dinky-Dunk says it keeps +reminding him how Burbank could make a fortune inventing a square pea +that would stay on a knife-blade. But Dinky-Dunk stopped me calling him +"The Sword Swallower" and has privately tipped Olie off as to the +functions of the table fork.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> How the males of this old earth stick +together! The world of men is a secret order, and every man is a member!</p> + +<p>Having bolted his dinner Olie always makes for outdoors. Then Dinky-Dunk +comes to my side of the table. We sit side by side, with our arms around +each other. Sometimes I fill his pipe for him and light it. Then we talk +lazily, happily, contentedly and sometimes shockingly. Then he looks at +our nickel-alarm clock, up on the book shelves which I made out of old +biscuit-boxes, and invariably says: "This isn't the spirit that built +Rome," and kisses me three times, once on each eyelid, tight, and once +on the mouth. I don't even mind the taste of the pipe. Then he's off, +and I'm alone for the afternoon.</p> + +<p>But I'm getting things organized now so that I have a little spare time. +And with time on my hands I find myself turning very restless. Yesterday +I wandered off on the prairie and nearly got lost. Dinky-Dunk says I +must be more careful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> until I get to know the country better. He put me +up on his shoulder and made me promise. Then he let me down. It made me +wonder if I hadn't married a masterful man. Above all things I've always +wanted freedom.</p> + +<p>"I'm a wild woman, Duncan. You'll never tame me," I confessed to him.</p> + +<p>He laughed a little.</p> + +<p>"So you think you will?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"No, <i>I</i> won't, Gee-Gee, but life will!"</p> + +<p>And again I felt some ghostly spirit of revolt stirring in me, away down +deep. I think he saw some shadow of it, caught some echo of it, for his +manner changed and he pushed back the hair from my forehead and kissed +me, almost pityingly.</p> + +<p>"There's one thing must <i>not</i> happen!" I told him as he held me in his +arms.</p> + +<p>He did not let his eyes meet mine.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid—out here!" I confessed as I clung to him and felt the need +of having him close to me. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> was very quiet and thoughtful all +evening. Before I fell asleep he told me that on Monday the two of us +would team in to Buckhorn and get a wagon-load of supplies.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-eighth" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-eighth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-eighth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I have got my cayuse. Dinky-Dunk meant him for a surprise, but the +shyest and reddest-headed cowboy that ever sat in a saddle came +cantering along the trail, and I saw him first. He was leading the +shaggiest, piebaldest, pottest-tummied, craziest-looking little cayuse +that ever wore a bridle. I gave one look at his tawny-colored forelock, +which stood pompadour-style about his ears, and shouted out +"Paderewski!" Dinky-Dunk came and stood beside me and laughed. He said +that cayuse <i>did</i> look like Paderewski, but the youth of the fiery locks +blushingly explained that his present name was "Jail-Bird," which some +fool Scandinavian had used instead of "Grey-Bird," his authentic and +original appellative. But I stuck to my name, though we have shortened +it into "Paddy." And Paddy must indeed have been a jail-bird, or +deserved to be one, for he is marked and scarred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> from end to end. But +he is good-tempered, tough as hickory and obligingly omnivorous. Every +one in the West, men and women alike, rides astride, and I have been +practising on Paddy. It seems a very comfortable and sensible way to +ride, but I shall have to toughen up a bit before I hit the trail for +any length of time.</p> + +<p>I've been wondering, Matilda Anne, if this all sounds pagan and foolish +to you, uncultured, as Theobald Gustav would put it? I've also been +wondering, since I wrote that last sentence, if people really need +culture, or what we used to call culture, and if it means as much to +life as so many imagine. Here we are out here without any of the +refinements of civilization, and we're as much at peace with our own +souls as are the birds of the air—when there <i>are</i> birds in the air, +which isn't in our country! Culture, it seems to me as I look back on +things, tends to make people more and more mere spectators of life, +detaching them from it and lifting them above it. Or can it be that the +mere spectators demand culture, to take the place of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> what they miss by +not being actual builders and workers?</p> + +<p>We are farmers, just rubes and hicks, as they say in my country. But +we're tilling the soil and growing wheat. We're making a great new +country out of what was once a wilderness. To me, that seems almost +enough. We're laboring to feed the world, since the world must have +bread, and there's something satisfying and uplifting in the mere +thought that we can answer to God, in the end, for our lives, no matter +how raw and rude they may have been. And there are mornings when I am +Browning's "Saul" in the flesh. The great wash of air from sky-line to +sky-line puts something into my blood or brain that leaves me almost +dizzy. I sizzle! It makes me pulse and tingle and cry out that life is +good—<i>good</i>! I suppose it is nothing more than altitude and ozone. But +in the matter of intoxicants it stands on a par with anything that was +ever poured out of bottles at Martin's or Bustanoby's. And at sunrise, +when the prairie is thinly silvered with dew, when the tiny hammocks of +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> spider-webs swing a million sparkling webs strung with diamonds, +when every blade of grass is a singing string of pearls, hymning to God +on High for the birth of a golden day, I can feel my heart swell, and +I'm so abundantly, so inexpressibly alive, alive to every finger-tip! +Such space, such light, such distances! And being Saul is so much better +than reading about him!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_First" id="Wednesday_the_First"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the First</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I was too tired to write any last night, though there seemed so much to +talk about. We teamed into Buckhorn for our supplies, two leisurely, +lovely, lazy days on the trail, which we turned into a sort of +gipsy-holiday. We took blankets and grub and feed for the horses and a +frying-pan, and camped out on the prairie. The night was pretty cool, +but we made a good fire, and had hot coffee. Dinky-Dunk smoked and I +sang. Then we rolled up in our blankets and as I lay there watching the +stars I got thinking of the lights of the Great White Way. Then I nudged +my husband and asked him if he knew what my greatest ambition in life +used to be. And of course he didn't. "Well, Dinky-Dunk," I told him, "it +was to be the boy who opens the door at <i>Malliard's</i>! For two whole +years I ate my heart out with envy of that boy, who always lived in the +odor of such heavenly hot chocolate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> and wore two rows of shining +buttons down his braided coat and was never without white gloves and +morning, noon and night paraded about in the duckiest little skull-cap +cocked very much to one side like a Grenadier's!" And Dinky-Dunk told me +to go to sleep or he'd smother me with a horse-blanket. So I squirmed +back into my blanket and got "nested" and watched the fire die away +while far, far off somewhere a coyote howled. That made me lonesome, so +I got Dinky-Dunk's hand, and fell asleep holding it in mine.</p> + +<p>I woke up early. Dinky-Dunk had forgotten about my hand, and it was +cold. In the East there was a low bar of ethereally pale silver, which +turned to amber, and then to ashes of roses, and then to gold. I saw one +sublime white star go out, in the West, and then behind the bars of gold +the sky grew rosy with morning until it was one Burgundian riot of +bewildering color. I sat up and watched it. Then I reached over and +shook Dinky-Dunk. It was too glorious a daybreak to miss. He looked at +me with one eye open, like a sleepy hound.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You must see it, Dinky-Dunk! It's so resplendent it's positively +vulgar!"</p> + +<p>He sat up, stared at the pageantry of color for one moment, and then +wriggled down into his blanket again. I tickled his nose with a blade of +sweet-grass. Then I washed my face in the dew, the same as we did in +Christ-Church Meadow that glorious May-Day in Oxford. By the time +Dinky-Dunk woke up I had the coffee boiling and the bacon sizzling in +the pan. It was the most celestial smell that ever assailed human +nostrils, and I blush with shame at the thought of how much I ate at +that breakfast, sitting flat on an empty oat-sack and leaning against a +wagon-wheel. By eight o'clock we were in the metropolis of Buckhorn and +busy gathering up our things there. And they made a very respectable +wagon-load.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Second" id="Thursday_the_Second"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Second</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I have been practising like mad learning to play the mouth-organ. I +bought it in Buckhorn, without letting Dinky-Dunk know, and all day +long, when I knew it was safe, I've been at it. So to-night, when I had +my supper-table all ready, I got the ladder that leaned against one of +the granaries and mounted the nearest hay-stack. There, quite out of +sight, I waited until Dinky-Dunk came in with his team. I saw him go +into the shack and then step outside again, staring about in a brown +study. Then I struck up <i>Traumerei</i>.</p> + +<p>You should have seen that boy's face! He looked up at the sky, as though +my poor little harmonica were the aërial outpourings of archangels. He +stood stock-still, drinking it in. Then he bolted for the stables, +thinking it came from there. It took him some time to corner me up on my +stack-top. Then I slid down into his arms. And I believe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> he loves that +mouth-organ music. After supper he made me go out and sit on the oat-box +and play my repertory. He says it's wonderful, from a distance. But that +mouth-organ's rather brassy, and it makes my lips sore. Then, too, my +mouth isn't big enough for me to "tongue" it properly. When I told +Dinky-Dunk this he said:</p> + +<p>"Of course it isn't! What d'you suppose I've been calling you Boca Chica +for?"</p> + +<p>And I've just discovered "Boca Chica" is Spanish for "Little Mouth"—and +me with a trap, Matilda Anne, that you used to call the Cave of the +Winds! Now Dinky-Dunk vows he'll have a Victrola before the winter is +over! Ye gods and little fishes, what a luxury! There was a time, not so +long ago, when I was rather inclined to sniff at the Westbury's electric +player-piano and its cabinet of neatly canned classics! How life humbles +us! And how blind all women are in their ideals and their search for +happiness! The sea-stones that lie so bright on the shores of youth can +dry so dull in the hand of experience! And yet, as Birdalone's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> Nannie +once announced, "If you thuck 'em they thay boo-ful!" And I guess it +must be a good deal the same with marriage. You can't even afford to lay +down on your job of loving. The more we ask, the more we must give. I've +just been thinking of those days of my fiercely careless childhood when +my soul used to float out to placid happiness on one piece of +plum-cake—only even then, alas, it floated out like a polar bear on its +iceberg, for as that plum-cake vanished my peace of mind went with it, +madly as I clung to the last crumb. But now that I'm an old married +woman I don't intend to be a Hamlet in petticoats. A good man loves me, +and I love him back. And I intend to keep that love alive.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Third" id="Friday_the_Third"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Third</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I have just issued an ultimatum as to pigs. There shall be no more loose +porkers wandering about my dooryard. It's an advertisement of bad +management. And what's more, when I was hanging out my washing this +morning a shote rooted through my basket of white clothes with his dirty +nose, and while I made after him his big brother actually tried to eat +one of my wet table-napkins. And that meant another hour's hard work +before the damage was repaired.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Fourth" id="Saturday_the_Fourth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Fourth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Olie is painting the shack, inside and out, and now you'd never know our +poor little Joseph-coat home. I told Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever put a +chameleon on that shack-wall he'd have died of brain-fag trying to make +good on the color-schemes. So Dinky-Dunk made Olie take a day off and +ply the brush. But the smell of paint made me think of Channel passages, +so off I went with Dinky-Dunk, <i>a la</i> team and buckboard, to the Dixon +Ranch to see about some horses, nearly seventy miles there and back. It +was a glorious autumn day, and a glorious ride, with "Bronk" and +"Tumble-Weed" loping along the double-trail and the air like crystal.</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk and I sang most of the way. The gophers must have thought we +were mad. My lord and master is incontinently proud of his voice, +especially the chest-tones, but he rather tails behind<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> me on the tune, +plainly not always being sure of himself. We had dinner with the Dixons, +and about three million flies. They gave me the blues, that family, and +especially Mrs. Dixon. She seemed to make prairie-life so ugly and empty +and hardening. Poor, dried-up, sad-eyed soul, she looked like a woman of +sixty, and yet her husband said she was just thirty-seven. Their water +is strong with alkali, and this and the prairie wind (combined with a +something deep down in her own make-up) have made her like a vulture, +lean and scrawny and dry. I stared at that hard line of jaw and +cheekbone and wondered how long ago the soft curves were there, and if +those overworked hands had ever been pretty, and if that flat back had +ever been rounded and dimpled. Her hair was untidy. Her apron was +unspeakably dirty, and she used it as both a handkerchief and a +hand-towel. Her voice was as hard as nails, and her cooking was +wretched. Not a door or window was screened, and, as I said before, we +were nearly smothered with flies.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk did not dare to look at me, all dinner time. And on the way +home Mrs. Dixon's eyes kept haunting me, they seemed so tired and vacant +and accusing, as though they were secretly holding God Himself to +account for cheating her out of her woman's heritage of joy. I asked +Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever get like that. He said, "Not on your life!" and +quoted the Latin phrase about mind controlling matter. The Dixons, he +went on to explain, were of the "slum" type, only they didn't happen to +live in a city. But tired and sleepy as I was that night, I got up to +cold-cream my face and arms. And I'm going to write for almond-meal and +glycerin from the mail-order house to-morrow. <i>And</i> a brassiere—for I +saw what looked like the suspicion of a smile on Dinky-Dunk's unshaven +lips as he watched me struggling into my corsets this morning. It took +some writhing, and even then I could hardly make it. I threw my wet +sponge after him when he turned back in the doorway with the mildly +impersonal question: "Who's your fat friend?" Then he scooted for the +corral,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> and I went back and studied my chin in the dresser-mirror, to +make sure it wasn't getting terraced into a dew-lap like Uncle +Carlton's.</p> + +<p>But I can't help thinking of the Dixons, and feeling foolishly and +helplessly sorry for them. It was dusk when we got back from that long +drive to their ranch, and the stars were coming out. I could see our +shack from miles off, a little lonely dot of black against the sky-line. +I made Dinky-Dunk stop the team, and we sat and looked at it. It seemed +so tiny there, so lonely, so strange, in the middle of such miles and +miles of emptiness, with a little rift of smoke going up from its +desolate little pipe-end. Then I said, out loud, "Home! My home!" And +out of a clear sky, for no earthly reason, I began to cry like a baby. +Women are such fools, sometimes! I told Dinky-Dunk we must get books, +good books, and spend the long winter evenings reading together, to keep +from going to seed.</p> + +<p>He said, "All right, Gee-Gee," and patted my knee. Then we loped on +along the trail toward<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> the lonely little black dot ahead of us. But I +hung on to Dinky-Dunk's arm, all the rest of the way, until we pulled up +beside the shack, and poor old Olie, with a frying-pan in his hand, +stood silhouetted against the light of the open door.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Sixth" id="Monday_the_Sixth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Sixth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The last few days I've been nothing but a two-footed retriever, +scurrying off and carrying things back home with me. There have been +rains, but the weather is still glorious. And I've discovered such heaps +and heaps of mushrooms over at the old Titchborne Ranch. They're thick +all around the corral and in the pasture there. I am now what your +English lord and master would call "a perfect seat" on Paddy, and every +morning I ride over after my basketful of <i>Agaricus Campestris</i>—that +ought to be in the plural, but I've forgotten how! We have them creamed +on toast; we have them fried in butter; and we have them in soup—and +such beauties! I'm going to try and can some for winter and spring use. +But the finest part of the mushroom is the finding it. To ride into a +little white city that has come up overnight and looks like an +encampment of fairy soldiers, to see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> the milky white domes against the +vivid green of the prairie-grass, to catch sight of another clump of +them, suddenly, like stars against an emerald sky, a hundred yards away, +to inhale the clean morning air, and feel your blood tingle, and hear +the prairie-chickens whir and the wild-duck scolding along the +coulee-edges—I tell you, Matilda Anne, it's worth losing a little of +your beauty sleep to go through it! I'm awake even before Dinky-Dunk, +and I brought him out of his dreams this morning by poking his teeth +with my little finger and saying:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>"Twelve white horses</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>On a red hill—"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>and I asked him if he knew what it was, and he gave the right answer, +and said he hadn't heard that conundrum since he was a boy.</p> + +<p>All afternoon I've been helping Dinky-Dunk put up a barb-wire fence. +Barb-wire is nearly as hard as a woman to handle. Dinky-Dunk is fencing +in some of the range, for a sort of cattle-run for our two milk-cows. He +says it's only a small field,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> but there seemed to be miles and miles of +that fencing. We had no stretcher, so Dinky-Dunk made shift with me and +a claw-hammer. He'd catch the wire, lever his hammer about a post, and +I'd drive in the staple, with a hammer of my own. I got so I could hit +the staple almost every whack, though one staple went off like shrapnel +and hit Diddum's ear. So I'm some use, you see, even if I am a chekako! +But a wire slipped, and tore through my skirt and stocking, scratched my +leg and made the blood run. It was only the tiniest cut, really, but I +made the most of it, Dinky-Dunk was so adorably nice about doctoring me +up. We came home tired and happy, singing together, and Olie, as usual, +must have thought we'd both gone mad.</p> + +<p>This husband of mine is so elementary. He secretly imagines that he's +one of the most complex of men. But in a good many things he's as simple +as a child. And I love him for it, although I believe I <i>do</i> like to +bedevil him a little. He is dignified, and hates flippancy. So when I +greet him with "Morning, old boy!" I can see that nameless<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> little +shadow sweep over his face. Then I say, "Oh, I beg its little pardon!" +He generally grins, in the end, and I think I'm slowly shaking that +monitorial air out of him, though once or twice I've had to remind him +about La Rochefoucauld saying gravity was a stratagem invented to +conceal the poverty of the mind! But Dinky-Dunk still objects to me +putting my finger on his Adam's apple when he's talking. He wears a +flannel shirt, when working outside, and his neck is bare. Yesterday I +buried my face down in the corner next to his shoulder-blade and made +him wriggle. As he shaves only on Sunday mornings now, that is about the +only soft spot, for his face is prickly, and makes my chin sore, the +bearded brute! Then I bit him; not hard—but Satan said bite, and I just +had to do it. He turned quite pale, swung me round so that I lay limp in +his arms, and closed his mouth over mine. I got away, and he chased me. +We upset things. Then I got outside the shack, ran around the +horse-corral, and then around the hay-stacks, with Dinky-Dunk right +after me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> giving me goose-flesh at every turn. I felt like a +cave-woman. He grabbed me like a stone-age man and caught me up and +carried me over his shoulder to a pile of prairie sweet-grass that had +been left there for Olie's mattress. My hair was down. I was screaming, +half sobbing and half laughing. He dropped me in the hay, like a bag of +wheat. I started to fight him again. But I couldn't beat him off. Then +all my strength seemed to go. He was laughing himself, but it frightened +me a little to see his pupils so big that his eyes looked black. I felt +like a lamb in a lion's jaw, Dinky-Dunk is so much stronger than I am. I +lay there quite still, with my eyes closed. I went flop. I knew I was +conquered.</p> + +<p>Then I came back to life. I suddenly realized that it was mid-day, in +the open air between the bald prairie-floor and God's own blue sky, +where Olie could stumble on us at any moment—and possibly die with his +boots on! Dinky-Dunk was kissing my left eyelid. It was a cup his lips +just seemed to fit into. I tried to move. But he held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> me there. He held +me so firmly that it hurt. Yet I couldn't help hugging him. Poor, big, +foolish, baby-hearted Dinky-Dunk! And poor, weak, crazy, storm-tossed +me! But, oh, God, it's glorious, in some mysterious way, to stir the +blood of a strong big man! It's heaven—and I don't quite know why. But +I love to see Dinky-Dunk's eyes grow black. Yet it makes me a little +afraid of him. I can hear his heart pound, sometimes, quite distinctly. +And sometimes there seems something so pathetic about it all—we are +such puny little mites of emotion played on by nature for her own +immitigable ends! But every woman wants to be loved. Dinky-Dunk asked me +why I shut my eyes when he kisses me. I wonder why? Sometimes, too, he +says my kisses are wicked, and that he likes 'em wicked. He's a funny +mixture. He's got the soul of a Scotch Calvinist tangled up in him +somewhere, and after the storm he's very apt to grow pious and a bit +preachy. But he has feelings, only he's ashamed of them. I think I'm +taking a little of the ice-crust off his emotions. He's a stiff clay +that needs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> to be well stirred up and turned over before it can mellow. +And I must be a sandy loam that wastes all its strength in one short +harvest. That sounds as though I were getting to be a real farmer's wife +with a vast knowledge of soils, doesn't it? At any rate my husband, out +of his vast knowledge of me, says I have the swamp-cedar trick of +flaring up into sudden and explosive attractiveness. Then, he says, I +shower sparks. As I've already told him, I'm a wild woman, and will be +hard to tame, for as Victor Hugo somewhere says, we women are only +perfected devils!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Eighth" id="Wednesday_the_Eighth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Eighth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I've cut off my hair, right bang off. When I got up yesterday morning +with so much work ahead of me, with so much to do and so little time to +do it in, I started doing my hair. I also started thinking about that +Frenchman who committed suicide after counting up the number of buttons +he had to button and unbutton every morning and evening of every day of +every year of his life. I tried to figure up the time I was wasting on +that mop of mine. Then the Great Idea occurred to me.</p> + +<p>I got the scissors, and in six snips had it off, a big tangled pile of +brownish gold, rather bleached out by the sun at the ends. And the +moment I saw it there on my dresser, and saw my head in the mirror, I +was sorry. I looked like a plucked crow. I could have ditched a +freight-train. And I felt positively light-headed. But it was too late +for tears. I trimmed off the ragged edges as well as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> I could, and what +didn't get in my eyes got down my neck and itched so terribly that I had +to change my clothes. Then I got a nail-punch out of Dinky-Dunk's +tool-kit, and heated it over the lamp and gave a little more wave to +that two-inch shock of stubble. It didn't look so bad then, and when I +tried on Dinky-Dunk's coat in front of the glass I saw that I wouldn't +make such a bad-looking boy.</p> + +<p>But I waited until noon with my heart in my mouth, to see what +Dinky-Dunk would say. What he really <i>did</i> say I can't write here, for +there was a wicked swear-word mixed up in his ejaculation of startled +wonder. Then he saw the tears in my eyes, I suppose, for he came running +toward me with his arms out, and hugged me tight, and said I looked +cute, and all he'd have to do would be to get used to it. But all dinner +time he kept looking at me as though I were a strange woman, and later I +saw him standing in front of the dresser, stooping over that tragic pile +of tangled yellow-brown snakes. It reminded me of a man stooping over a +grave. I slipped away without letting him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> see me. But this morning I +woke him up early and asked him if he still loved his wife. And when he +vowed he did, I tried to make him tell me how much. But that stumped +him. He compromised by saying he couldn't cheapen his love by defining +it in words; it was limitless. I followed him out after breakfast, with +a hunger in my heart which bacon and eggs hadn't helped a bit, and told +him that if he really loved me he could tell me how much.</p> + +<p>He looked right in my eyes, a little pityingly, it seemed to me, and +laughed, and grew solemn again. Then he stooped down and picked up a +little blade of prairie-grass, and held it up in front of me.</p> + +<p>"Have you any idea of how far it is from the Rockies across to the +Hudson Bay and from the Line up to the Peace River Valley?"</p> + +<p>Of course I hadn't.</p> + +<p>"And have you any idea of how many millions of acres of land that is, +and how many millions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> of blades of grass like this there are in each +acre?" he soberly demanded.</p> + +<p>And again of course I hadn't.</p> + +<p>"Well, this one blade of grass is the amount of love I am able to +express for you, and all those other blades in all those millions of +acres is what love itself is!"</p> + +<p>I thought it over, just as solemnly as he had said it. I think I was +satisfied. For when my Dinky-Dunk was away off on the prairie, working +like a nailer, and I was alone in the shack, I went to his old coat +hanging there—the old coat that had some subtle aroma of +Dinky-Dunkiness itself about every inch of it—and kissed it on the +sleeve.</p> + +<p>This afternoon as Paddy and I started for home with a pail of mushrooms +I rode face to face with my first coyote. We stood staring at each +other. My heart bounced right up into my throat, and for a moment I +wondered if I was going to be eaten by a starving timber-wolf, with +Dinky-Dunk finding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> my bones picked as clean as those animal-carcasses +we see in an occasional buffalo-wallow. I kept up my end of the stare, +wondering whether to advance or retreat, and it wasn't until that coyote +turned tail and scooted that my courage came back. Then Paddy and I went +after him, like the wind. But we had to give up. And at supper +Dinky-Dunk told me coyotes were too cowardly to come near a person, and +were quite harmless. He said that even when they showed their teeth, the +rest of their face was apologizing for the threat. And before supper was +over that coyote, at least I suppose it was the same coyote, was howling +at the rising full moon. I went out with Dinky-Dunk's gun, but couldn't +get near the brute. Then I came back.</p> + +<p>"Sing, you son-of-a-gun, sing!" I called out to him from the shack door. +And that shocked my lord and master so much that he scolded me, for the +first time in his life. And when I poked his Adam's apple with my finger +he got on his dignity. He was tired, poor boy, and I should have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> +remembered it. And when I requested him not to stand there and stare at +me in the hieratic rigidity of an Egyptian idol I could see a little +flush of anger go over his face. He didn't say anything. But he took one +of the lamps and a three-year-old <i>Pall-Mall Magazine</i> and shut himself +up in the bunk-house.</p> + +<p>Then I was sorry.</p> + +<p>I tiptoed over to the door, and found it was locked. Then I went and +got my mouth-organ and sat meekly down on the doorstep and began to +play the <i>Don't Be Cross</i> waltz. I dragged it out plaintively, with a +<i>vox humana tremolo</i> on the coaxing little refrain. Finally I heard a +smothered snort, and the door suddenly opened and Dinky-Dunk picked me +up, mouth-organ and all. He shook me and said I was a little devil, and +I called him a big British brute. But he was laughing and a wee bit +ashamed of his temper and was very nice to me all the rest of the +evening.</p> + +<p>I'm getting, I find, to depend a great deal on Dinky-Dunk, and it makes +me afraid, sometimes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> for the future. He seems able to slip a hand +under my heart and lift it up, exactly as though it were the chin of a +wayward child. Yet I resent his power, and keep elbowing for more +breathing-space, like a rush-hour passenger in the subway crowd. +Sometimes, too, I resent the over-solemn streak in his mental make-up. +He abominates ragtime, and I have rather a weakness for it. So once or +twice in his dour days I've found an almost Satanic delight in singing +<i>The Humming Coon</i>. And the knowledge that he'd like to forbid me +singing rag seems to give a zest to it. So I go about flashing my saber +of independence:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>"Ol' Ephr'm Johnson was a deacon of de church in Tennessee,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>An' of course it was ag'inst de rules t' sing ragtime melodée!"</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>But I am the one, I notice, who always makes up first. To-night as I was +making cocoa before we went to bed I tried to tell my Diddums there was +something positively doglike in my devotion to him. He nickered like a +pony and said he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the dog in this deal. Then he pulled me over on +his knee and said that men get short-tempered when they were tuckered +out with worry and hard work, and that probably it would be hard for +even two of the seraphim always to get along together in a two-by-four +shack, where you couldn't even have, a deadline for the sake of +dignity. It was mostly his fault, he knew, but he was going to try to +fight against it. And I experienced the unreasonable joy of an +unreasonable woman who has succeeded in putting the man she loves with +all her heart and soul in the wrong. So I could afford to be humble +myself, and make a foolish lot of fuss over him. But I shall always +fight for my elbow-room. For there are times when my Dinky-Dunk, for all +his bigness and strength, has to be taken sedately in tow, the same as a +racing automobile has to be hauled through the city streets by a dinky +little low-power hack-car!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Tenth" id="Saturday_the_Tenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Tenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>We've had a cold spell, with heavy frosts at night, but the days are +still glorious. The overcast days are so few in the West that I've been +wondering if the optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the +sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every +pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a <i>Tarentella Sincera</i> +of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. +It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn +yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and +galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough +ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen +slips—I love a big pillow—and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers +for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda +Anne; and if pillows will do it I'm going to make this house look like a +harem! Can you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> imagine a household with only three pillow-slips, which +had to be jerked off in the morning, washed, dried and ironed and put +back on their three lonely little pillows before bedtime? Well, there +will be no more of that in this shack.</p> + +<p>But the important news is that I've got a duck-gun, the duckiest +duck-gun you ever saw, and waders, and a coon-skin coat and cap and a +big leather school-bag for wearing over my shoulder on Paddy. The coat +and cap are like the ones we used to laugh at when we went up to +Montreal for the tobogganing, in the days when I was young and foolish +and willing to sacrifice comfort on the altar of outward appearances. +The coon-skins make me look like a Laplander, but they'll be mighty +comfy when the cold weather comes, for Dinky-Dunk says it drops to forty +and fifty below, sometimes.</p> + +<p>I also got a lot of small stuff I'd written for from the mail-order +house, little feminine things a woman simply <i>has</i> to have. But the big +thing was the duck-gun.</p> + +<p>I no longer get heart failure when I hear the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> whir of a +prairie-chicken, but drop my bird before it's out of range. Poor, plump, +wounded, warm-bodied little feathery things! Some of them keep on flying +after they've been shot clean through the body, going straight on for a +couple of hundred feet, or even more, and then dropping like a stone. +How hard-hearted we soon get! It used to worry me. Now I gather 'em up +as though they were so many chips and toss them into the wagon-box; or +into my school-bag, if it's a private expedition of only Paddy and me. +And that's the way life treats us, too.</p> + +<p>I've been practising on the gophers with my new gun, and with +Dinky-Dunk's .22 rifle. A gopher is only a little bigger than a +chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, +so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a +sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher +is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply +homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to poison them +off.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Eleventh" id="Sunday_the_Eleventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Eleventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I've made my first butter, be it recorded—but in doing so I managed to +splash the ceiling and the walls and my own woolly head, for I didn't +have sense enough to tie a wet cloth about the handle of the +churn-dasher until the damage had been done. I was too intent on getting +my butter to pay attention to details, though it took a disheartening +long time and my arms were tired out before I had finished. And when I +saw myself spattered from head to foot it reminded me of what you once +said about me and my reading, that I had the habit of coming out of a +book like a spaniel out of water, scattering ideas as I came. But there +are not many new books in my life these days. It is mostly hard work, +although I reminded Dinky-Dunk last night that while Omar intimated that +love and bread and wine were enough for any wilderness, we mustn't +forget that he also included<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> a book of verses underneath the bough! My +lord says that by next year we can line our walls with books. But I'm +like Moses on Mount Nebo—I can see my promised land, but it seems a +terribly long way off. But this, as Dinky-Dunk would say, is not the +spirit that built Rome, and has carried me away from my butter, the +making of which cold-creamed my face until I looked as though I had snow +on my headlight. Yet there is real joy in finding those lovely yellow +granules in the bottom of your churn and then working it over and over +with a saucer in a cooking-bowl until it is one golden mass. Several +times before I'd shaken up sour cream in a sealer, but this was my first +real butter-making. I have just discovered, however, that I didn't +"wash" it enough, so that all the buttermilk wasn't worked out of my +first dairy-product. Dinky-Dunk, like the scholar and gentleman that he +is, swore that it was worth its weight in Klondike gold. And next time +I'll do better.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twelfth_1" id="Monday_the_Twelfth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twelfth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Golden weather again, with a clear sky and soft and balmy air! Just +before our mid-day meal Olie arrived with mail for us. We've had letters +from home! Instead of cheering me up they made me blue, for they seemed +to bring word from another world, a world so far, far away!</p> + +<p>I decided to have a half-day in the open, so I strapped on my duck-gun +and off I went on Paddy, as soon as dinner was over and the men had +gone. We went like the wind, until both Paddy and I were tired of it. +Then I found a "soft-water" pond hidden behind a fringe of scrub-willow +and poplar. The mid-day sun had warmed it to a tempting temperature. So +I hobbled Paddy, peeled off and had a most glorious bath. I had just +soaped down with bank-mud (which is an astonishingly good solvent) and +had taken a header and was swimming about on my back, blinking up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> +the blue sky, as happy as a mud-turtle in a mill-pond, when I heard +Paddy nicker. That disturbed me a little, but I felt sure there could be +nobody within miles of me. However, I swam back to where my clothes +were, sunned myself dry, and was just standing up to shake out the ends +of this short-cropped hair of mine when I saw a man's head Across the +pond, staring through the bushes at me. I don't know how or why it is, +but I suddenly saw red. I don't remember picking up the duck-gun, and I +don't remember aiming it.</p> + +<p>But I banged away, with both barrels, straight at that leering head—or +at least it ought to have been a leering head, whatever that may mean! +The howl that went up out of the wilderness, the next moment, could have +been heard for a mile!</p> + +<p>It was Dinky-Dunk, and he said I might have put his eyes out with +bird-shot, if he hadn't made the quickest drop of his life. And he also +said that he'd seen me, a distinct splash of white against the green of +the prairie, three good miles away, and wasn't I ashamed of myself, and +what would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> I have done if he'd been Olie or old man Dixon? But he +kissed my shoulder where the gun-stock had bruised it, and helped me +dress.</p> + +<p>Then we rode off together, four or five miles north, where Dinky-Dunk +was sure we could get a bag of duck. Which we did, thirteen altogether, +and started for home as the sun got low and the evening air grew chilly. +It was a heavenly ride. In the west a little army of thin blue clouds +was edged with blazing gold, and up between them spread great fan-like +shafts of amber light. Then came a riot of orange yellow and ashes of +roses and the palest of gold with little islands of azure in it. Then +while the dying radiance seemed to hold everything in a luminous wash of +air, the stars came out, one by one, and a soft cool wind swept across +the prairie, and the light darkened—and I was glad to have Dinky-Dunk +there at my side, or I should have had a little cry, for the twilight +prairie always makes me lonesome in a way that could never be put into +words.</p> + +<p>I tried to explain the feeling to Dinky-Dunk.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> He said he understood. +"I'm a Sour-Dough, Gee-Gee, but it still gets me that way," he solemnly +confessed. He said that when he listened to beautiful music he felt the +same. And that got me thinking of grand opera, and of that <i>Romeo and +Juliet</i> night at La Scala, in Milan, when I first met Theobald Gustav. +Then I stopped to tell Dinky-Dunk that I'd been hopelessly in love with +a tenor at thirteen and had written in my journal: "I shall die and turn +to dust still adoring him." Then I told him about my first opera, +<i>Rigoletto</i>, and hummed "<i>La Donna E Mobile</i>," which of course he +remembered himself. It took me back to Florence, and to a box at the +Pagliano, and me all in dimity and cork-screw curls, weeping deliciously +at a lady in white, whose troubles I could not quite understand. Then I +got thinking of New York and the Metropolitan, and poor old Morris's +lines:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span></p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>And still with listening soul I hear</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Strains hushed for many a noisy year:</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>The passionate chords which wake the tear,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>The low-voiced love-tales dear....</span><br /> +<span class='br'> </span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Scarce changed, the same musicians play</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>The selfsame themes to-day;</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>The silvery swift sonatas ring,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>The soaring voices sing!</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>And I could picture the old Metropolitan on a Caruso night. I could see +the Golden Horse-Shoe and the geranium-red trimmings and the satiny +white backs of the women, and smell that luxurious heavy smell of warm +air and hothouse flowers and Paris perfumery and happy human bodies and +hear the whisper of silk along the crimson stairways. I could see the +lights go down, in a sort of sigh, before the overture began, and the +scared-looking blotches of white on the musicians' scores and the other +blotches made by their dress-shirt fronts, and the violins going up and +down, up and down, as though they were one piece of machinery, and then +the heavy curtain stealing up, and the thrill as that new heaven opened +up to me, a gawky girl in her first low-cut dinner gown!</p> + +<p>I told Dinky-Dunk I'd sat in every corner of that old house, up in the +sky-parlor with the Italian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> barbers, in press-seats in the second +gallery with dear old Fanny-Rain-in-the-Face, and in the Westbury's box +with the First Lady of the Land and a Spanish Princess with extremely +dirty nails. It seemed so far away, another life and another world! And +for three hours of "Manon" I'd be willing to hang like a chimpanzee from +the Metropolitan's center chandelier. I suddenly realized how much I +missed it. I could have sung to the City as poor Charpentier's "Louise" +sang to her Paris. And a coyote howled up near the trail, and the +prairie got dark, with a pale green rind of light along the northwest, +and I knew there would be a heavy frost before morning.</p> + +<p>To-night after supper my soul and I sat down and did a bit of +bookkeeping. Dinky-Dunk, who'd been watching me out of the corner of his +eye, went to the window and said it looked like a storm. And I knew he +meant that I was the Medicine Hat it was to come from, for before he'd +got up from the table he'd explained to me that matrimony was like +motoring because it was really traveling by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> means of a series of +explosions. Then he tried to explain that in a few weeks the fall rush +would be over and we'd have more time for getting what we deserved out +of life. But I turned on him with sudden fierceness and declared I +wasn't going to be merely an animal. I intended to keep my soul alive, +that it was every one's duty, no matter where they were, to ennoble +their spirit by keeping in touch with the best that has ever been felt +and thought.</p> + +<p>When I grimly got out my mouth-organ and played the <i>Pilgrim's Chorus</i>, +as well as I could remember it, Dinky-Dunk sat listening in silent +wonder. He kept up the fire, and waited until I got through. Then he +reached for the dish-pan and said, quite casually, "I'm going to help you +wash up to-night, Gee-Gee!" And so I put away the mouth-organ and washed +up. But before I went to bed I got out my little vellum edition of +Browning's <i>The Ring and the Book</i>, and read at it industriously, +doggedly, determinedly, for a solid hour. What it's all about I don't +know. Instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> of ennobling my spirit it only tired my brain and ended +up in making me so mad I flung the book into the wood-box.... Dinky-Dunk +has just pinned a piece of paper on my door; it is a sentence from +Epictetus. And it says: "Better it is that great souls should live in +small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great +houses!"</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Eighteenth" id="Sunday_the_Eighteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Eighteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I spent an hour to-day trying to shoot a hen-hawk that's been hovering +about the shack all afternoon. He's after my chickens, and as new-laid +eggs are worth more than Browning to a homesteader, I got out my +duck-gun. It gave me a feeling of impending evil, having that huge bird +hanging about. It reminded me there was wrong and rapine in the world. I +hated the brute. But I hid under one of the wagon-boxes and got him, in +the end. I brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's +fall from Heaven. When I ran out to possess myself of his Satanic body +he was only wounded, however, and was ready to show fight. Then I saw +red again. I clubbed him with the gun-butt, going at him like fury. I +was moist with perspiration when I got through with him. He was a +monster. I nailed him with his wings out, on the bunk-house wall, and +Olie shouted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> and called Dinky-Dunk when they came back from rounding up +the horses, which had got away on the range. Dinky-Dunk solemnly warned +me not to run risks, as he might have taken an eye out, or torn my face +with his claws. He said he could have stuffed and mounted my hawk, if I +hadn't clubbed the poor thing almost to pieces. There's a devil in me +somewhere, I told Dinky-Dunk. But he only laughed.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Nineteenth" id="Monday_the_Nineteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Nineteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>To-night Dinky-Dunk and I spent a solid hour trying to decide on a name +for the shack. I wanted to call it "Crucknacoola," which is Gaelic for +"A Little Hill of Sleep," but Dinky-Dunk brought forward the objection +that there was no hill. Then I suggested "Barnavista," since about all +we can see from the door are the stables. Then I said "The Builtmore," +in a spirit of mockery, and then Dinky-Dunk in a spirit of irony +suggested "Casa Grande." And in the end we united on "Casa Grande." It +is marvelous how my hair grows. Olie now watches me studiously as I eat. +I can see that he is patiently patterning his table deportment after +mine. There's nothing that silent rough-mannered man wouldn't do for me. +I've got so I never notice his nose, any more than I used to notice +Uncle Carlton's receding chin. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> I don't think Olie is getting enough +to eat. All his mind seems taken up with trying to remember not to drink +out of his saucer, as history sayeth George Washington himself once +did!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twentieth" id="Tuesday_the_Twentieth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twentieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I knew that old hen-hawk meant trouble for me—and the trouble came, all +right. I'm afraid I can't tell about it very coherently, but this is how +it began: I was alone yesterday afternoon, busy in the shack, when a +Mounted Policeman rode up to the door, and, for a moment, nearly +frightened the life out of me. I just stood and stared at him, for he +was the first really, truly live man, outside Olie and my husband, I'd +seen for so long. And he looked very dashing in his scarlet jacket and +yellow facings. But I didn't have long to meditate on his color scheme, +for he calmly announced that a ranchman named McMein had been murdered +by a drunken cowboy in a wage dispute, and the murderer had been seen +heading for the Cochrane Ranch. He (the M. P.) inquired if I would +object to his searching the buildings.</p> + +<p>Would I object? I most assuredly did not, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> little chills began to +play up and down my spinal column, and I wasn't exactly in love with the +idea of having an escaped murderer crawling out of a hay-stack at +midnight and cutting my throat. The ranchman McMein had been killed on +Saturday, and the cowboy had been kept on the run for two days. As I was +being told this I tried to remember where Dinky-Dunk had stowed away his +revolver-holster and his hammerless ejector and his Colt repeater. But I +made that handsome young man in the scarlet coat come right into the +shack and begin his search by looking under the bed, and then going down +the cellar.</p> + +<p>I stood holding the trap-door and warned him not to break my +pickle-jars. Then he came up and stood squinting thoughtfully out +through the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Have you got a gun?" he suddenly asked me.</p> + +<p>I showed him my duck-gun with its silver mountings, and he smiled a +little.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you a rifle?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>I explained that my husband had, and he still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> stood squinting out +through the doorway as I poked about the shack-corners and found +Dinky-Dunk's repeater. He was a very authoritative and self-assured +young man. He took the rifle from me, examined the magazine and made +sure it was loaded. Then he handed it back.</p> + +<p>"I've got to search those buildings and stacks," he told me. "And I can +only be in one place at once. If you see a man break from under cover +anywhere, when I'm inside, <i>be so good as to shoot him</i>!"</p> + +<p>He started off without another word, with his big army revolver in his +hand. My teeth began to do a little fox-trot all by themselves.</p> + +<p>"Wait! Stop!" I shouted after him. "Don't go away!"</p> + +<p>He stopped and asked me what was wrong. "I—I don't want to shoot a man! +I don't want to shoot <i>any</i> man!" I tried to explain to him.</p> + +<p>"You probably won't have to," was his cool response. "But it's better to +do that than have him shoot <i>you</i>, isn't it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + +<p>Whereupon Mr. Red-Coat made straight for the hay-stacks, and I stood in +the doorway, with Dinky-Dunk's rifle in my hands and my knees shaking a +little.</p> + +<p>I watched him as he beat about the hay-stacks. Then I got tired of +holding the heavy weapon and leaned it against the shack-wall. I watched +the red coat go in through the stable door, and felt vaguely dismayed at +the thought that its wearer was now quite out of sight.</p> + +<p>Then my heart stopped beating. For out of a pile of straw which Olie had +dumped not a hundred feet away from the house, to line a pit for our +winter vegetables, a man suddenly erupted. He seemed to come up out of +the very earth, like a mushroom.</p> + +<p>He was the most repulsive-looking man I ever had the pleasure of casting +eyes on. His clothes were ragged and torn and stained with mud. His face +was covered with stubble and his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was +just about the color of a new saddle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p> + +<p>I could see the whites of his eyes as he ran for the shack, looking over +his shoulder toward the stable door as he came. He had a revolver in his +hand. I noticed that, but it didn't seem to trouble me much. I suppose +I'd already been frightened as much as mortal flesh could be frightened. +In fact, I was thinking quite clearly what to do, and didn't hesitate +for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Put that silly thing down," I told him, as he ran up to me with his +head lowered and that indescribably desperate look in his big frightened +eyes. "If you're not a fool I can get you hidden," I told him. It +reassured me to see that his knees were shaking much more than mine, as +he stood there in the center of the shack! I stooped over the trap-door +and lifted it up. "Get down there quick! He's searched that cellar and +won't go through it again. Stay there until I say he's gone!"</p> + +<p>He slipped over to the trap-door and went slowly down the steps, with +his eyes narrowed and his revolver held up in front of him, as though he +still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> half expected to find some one there to confront him with a +blunderbuss. Then I promptly shut the trap-door. But there was no way of +locking it.</p> + +<p>I had my murderer there, trapped, but the question was to keep him +there. Your little Chaddie didn't give up many precious moments to +reverie. I tiptoed into the bedroom and lifted the mattress, bedding and +all, off the bedstead. I tugged it out and put it silently down over the +trap-door. Then, without making a sound, I turned the table over on it. +But he could still lift that table, I knew, even with me sitting on top +of it. So I started to pile things on the overturned table, until it +looked like a moving-van ready for a May-Day migration. Then I sat on +top of that pile of household goods, reached for Dinky-Dunk's repeater, +and deliberately fired a shot up through the open door.</p> + +<p>I sat there, studying my pile, feeling sure a revolver bullet couldn't +possibly come up through all that stuff. But before I had much time to +think about this my corporal of the R. N. W. M. P.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> (which means, +Matilda Anne, the Royal North-West Mounted Police) came through the door +on the run. He looked relieved when he saw me triumphantly astride that +overturned table loaded up with about all my household junk.</p> + +<p>"I've got him for you," I calmly announced.</p> + +<p>"You've got what?" he said, apparently thinking I'd gone mad.</p> + +<p>"I've got your man for you," I repeated. "He's down there in my cellar." +And in one minute I'd explained just what had happened. There was no +parley, no deliberation, no hesitation.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you better go outside," he suggested as he started piling the +things off the trap-door.</p> + +<p>"You're not going down there?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"But he's got a revolver," I cried out, "and he's sure to shoot!"</p> + +<p>"That's why I think it might be better for you to step outside for a +moment or two," was my soldier boy's casual answer.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> + +<p>I walked over and got Dinky-Dunk's repeater. Then I crossed to the far +side of the shack, with the rifle in my hands.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to stay," I announced.</p> + +<p>"All right," was the officer's unconcerned answer as he tossed the +mattress to one side and with one quick pull threw up the trap-door.</p> + +<p>A shot rang out, from below, as the door swung back against the wall. +But it was not repeated, for the man in the red coat jumped bodily, +heels first, into that black hole. He didn't seem to count on the risk, +or on what might be ahead of him. He just jumped, spurs down, on that +other man with the revolver in his hand. I could hear little grunts, and +wheezes, and a thud or two against the cellar steps. Then there was +silence, except for one double "click-click" which I couldn't +understand.</p> + +<p>Oh, Matilda Anne, how I watched that cellar opening! And I saw a back +with a red coat on it slowly rise out of the hole. He, the man who owned +the back of course, was dragging the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> man bodily up the narrow +little stairs. There was a pair of handcuffs already on his wrists and +he seemed dazed and helpless, for that slim-looking soldier boy had +pummeled him unmercifully, knocking out his two front teeth, one of +which I found on the doorstep when I was sweeping up.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, but I'll have to take one of your horses for a day or two," +was all my R. N. W. M. P. hero condescended to say to me as he poked an +arm through his prisoner's and helped him out through the door.</p> + +<p>"What—what will they do with him?" I called out after the corporal.</p> + +<p>"Hang him, of course," was the curt answer.</p> + +<p>Then I sat down to think things over, and, like an old maid with the +vapors, decided I wouldn't be any the worse for a cup of good strong +tea. And by the time I'd had my tea, and straightened things up, and +incidentally discovered that no less than five of my cans of mushrooms +had been broken to bits below-stairs, I heard the rumble of the wagon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> +and knew that Olie and Dinky-Dunk were back. And I drew a long breath of +relief, for with all their drawbacks, men are not a bad thing to have +about, now and then!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Twenty-second" id="Thursday_the_Twenty-second"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Twenty-second</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was early Tuesday morning that Dinky-Dunk firmly announced that he +and I were going off on a three-day shooting-trip. I hadn't slept well, +the night before, for my nerves were still rather upset, and Dinky-Dunk +said I needed a picnic. So we got guns and cartridges and blankets and +slickers and cooking things, and stowed them away in the wagon-box. Then +we made a list of the provisions we'd need, and while Dinky-Dunk bagged +up some oats for the team I was busy packing the grub-box. And I packed +it cram full, and took along the old tin bread-box, as well, with +pancake flour and dried fruit and an extra piece of bacon—and <i>bacon</i> +it is now called in this shack, for I have positively forbidden +Dinky-Dunk ever to speak of it as "sowbelly" or even as a "slice of +grunt" again.</p> + +<p>Then off we started across the prairie, after duly instructing Olie as +to feeding the chickens and taking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> care of the cream and finishing up +the pit for the winter vegetables. Still once again Olie thought we were +both a little mad, I believe, for we had no more idea where we were +going than the man in the moon.</p> + +<p>But there was something glorious in the thought of gipsying across the +autumn prairie like that, without a thought or worry as to where we must +stop or what trail we must take. It made every day's movement a great +adventure. And the weather was divine.</p> + +<p>We slept at night under the wagon-box, with a tarpaulin along one side +to keep out the wind, and a fire flickering in our faces on the other +side, and the horses tethered out, and the stars wheeling overhead, and +the peace of God in our hearts. How good every meal tasted! And how that +keen sharp air made snuggling down under a couple of Hudson Bay +five-point blankets a luxury to be spoken of only in the most reverent +of whispers! And there was a time, as you already know, when I used to +take bromide and sometimes even sulphonal to make<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> me sleep! But here it +is so different! To get leg-weary in the open air, tramping about the +sedgy slough-sides after mallard and canvas-back, to smell coffee and +bacon and frying grouse in the cool of the evening, across a thin veil +of camp-fire smoke, to see the tired world turn over on its shoulder and +go to sleep—it's all a sort of monumental lullaby.</p> + +<p>The prairie wind seems to seek you out, and make a bet with the Great +Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the +spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to +rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny, +good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres +as clearly as you ever heard <i>Funiculi-Funicula</i> on that little Naples +steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from +under that old wagon-box, like a gopher out of his hole, in the first +delicate rosiness of dawn, I'd feel unutterably grateful to be alive, to +hear the cantatas of health singing deep in my soul, to know that +whatever life may do to me, I'd snatched my share of happiness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> from the +pantry of the gods! And the endless change of color, from the tawny +fox-glove on the lighter land, the pale yellow of a lion's skin in the +slanting autumn sun, to the quavering, shimmering glories of the +Northern Lights that dance in the north, that fling out their banners of +ruby and gold and green, and tremble and merge and pulse until I feel +that I can hear the clash of invisible cymbals. I wonder if you can +understand my feeling when I pulled the hat-pin out of my old gray +Stetson yesterday, uncovered my head, and looked straight up into the +blue firmament above me. Then I said, "Thank you, God, for such a +beautiful day!"</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk promptly said that I was blasphemous—he's so strict and +solemn! But as I stared up into the depths of that intense opaline +light, so clear, so pure, I realized how air, just air and nothing else, +could leave a scatter-brained lady like me half-seas over. Only it's a +champagne that never leaves you with a headache the next day!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-fourth" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-fourth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-fourth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk, who seems intent on keeping my mind occupied, brought me +home a bundle of old magazines last night. They were so frayed and +thumbed-over that some of the pages reminded me of well-worn bank-notes. +I've been reading some of the stories, and they all seem silly. +Everybody appears to be in love with somebody else's wife. Then the +people are all divided so strictly into two classes, the good and the +bad! As for the other man's wife, prairie-life would soon knock that +nonsense out of people. There isn't much room for the Triangle in a +two-by-four shack. Life's so normal and natural and big out here that a +Pierre Loti would be kicked into a sheep-dip before he could use up his +first box of face-rouge! You want your own wife, and want her so bad +you're satisfied. Not that Dinky-Dunk and I are so goody-goody! We're +just healthy and human, that's all, and we'd never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> do for fiction. +After meals we push away the dishes and sit side by side, with our arms +across each other's shoulders, full of the joy of life, satisfied, +happy, healthy-minded, now and then a little Rabelaisian in our talk, +meandering innocent-eyed through those earthier intimacies which most +married people seem to face without shame, so long as the facing is done +in secret. We don't seem ashamed of that terribly human streak in us. +And neither of us is bad, at heart. But I know we're not like those +magazine characters, who all seem to have Florida-water instead of red +blood in their veins, and are so far, far away from life.</p> + +<p>Yet even that dip into politely erotic fiction seemed to canalize my +poor little grass-grown mind into activity, and Diddums and I sat up +until the wee sma' hours discoursing on life and letters. He started me +off by somewhat pensively remarking that all women seem to want to be +intellectual and have a <i>salon</i>.</p> + +<p>"No, Dinky-Dunk, I don't want a <i>salon</i>," I promptly announced. "I never +did want one, for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> I don't believe they were as exciting as we imagine. +And I hate literary people almost as much as I hate actors. I always +felt they were like stage-scenery, not made for close inspection. For +after five winters in New York and a couple in London you can't help +bumping into the Bohemian type, not to mention an occasional collision +with 'em up and down the Continent. When they're female they always seem +to wear the wrong kind of corsets. And when they're male they watch +themselves in the mirrors, or talk so much about themselves that you +haven't a chance to talk about <i>yourself</i>—which is really the +completest definition of a bore, isn't it? I'd much rather know them +through their books than through those awful Sunday evening <i>soirees</i> +where poor old leonine M—— used to perspire reading those Socialist +poems of his to the adoring ladies, and Sanguinary John used to wear the +same flannel shirt that shielded him from the Polar blasts up in +Alaska—open at the throat, and all that sort of thing, just like a +movie-actor cowboy, only John had grown a little stout and he kept +spoiling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> Strong-Man picture by so everlastingly posing at one end +of the grand-piano! You know the way they do it, one pensive elbow on +the piano-end and the delicately drooping palm holding up the weary +brains, the same as you prop up a King-orange bough when it gets too +heavy with fruit! And then he had a lovely bang and a voice like a +maiden-lady from Maine. And take it from me, O lord and master, that man +devoured all his raw beef and blood on his typewriter-ribbon. I dubbed +him the King of the Eye-Socket school, and instead of getting angry he +actually thanked me for it. That was the sort of advertising he was +after."</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk grinned a little as I rattled on. Then he grew serious again. +"Why is it," he asked, "a writer in Westminster Abbey is always a +genius, but a writer in the next room is rather a joke?"</p> + +<p>I tried to explain it for him. "Because writers are like Indians. The +only good ones are the dead ones. And it's the same with those siren +affinities of history. Annie Laurie lived to be eighty, though the +ballad doesn't say so. And Lady Hamilton died<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> poor and ugly and went +around with red herrings in her pocket. And Cleopatra was really a +redheaded old political schemer, and Paris got tired of Helen of Troy. +Which means that history, like literature, is only <i>Le mensonge +convenu</i>!"</p> + +<p>This made Dinky-Dunk sit up and stare at me. "Look here, Gee-Gee, I +don't mind a bit of book-learning, but I hate to see you tear the whole +tree of knowledge up by the roots and knock me down with it! And it was +<i>salons</i> we were talking about, and not the wicked ladies of the past!"</p> + +<p>"Well, the only <i>salon</i> I ever saw in America had the commercial air of +a millinery opening where tea happened to be served," I promptly +declared. "And the only American woman I ever knew who wanted to have a +<i>salon</i> was a girl we used to call Asafetida Anne. And if I explained +why you'd make a much worse face than that, my Diddums. But she had a +weakness for black furs and never used to wash her neck. So the Plimpton +Mark was always there!"</p> + +<p>"Don't get bitter, Gee-Gee," announced Dinky-Dunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> as he proceeded to +light his pipe. And I could afford to laugh at his solemnity.</p> + +<p>"I'm not bitter, Honey Chile; I'm only glad I got away from all that +Bohemian rubbish. You may call me a rattle-box, and accuse me of being +temperamental now and then—which I'm not—but the one thing in life +which I love is <i>sanity</i>. And that, Dinky-Dunk, is why I love you, even +though you are only a big sunburnt farmer fighting and planning and +grinding away for a home for an empty-headed wife who's going to fail at +everything but making you love her!"</p> + +<p>Then followed a few moments when I wasn't able to talk,</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>... The sequel's scarce essential—</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Nay, more than this, I hold it still</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Profoundly confidential!</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Then as we sat there side by side I got thinking of the past and of the +Bohemians before whom I had once burned incense. And remembering a +certain visit to Box Hill with Lady Agatha's mother,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> years and years +ago, I had to revise my verdict on authors, for one of the warmest +memories in all my life is that of dear old Meredith in his wheelchair, +with his bearded face still flooded with its kindly inner light and his +spirit still mellow with its unquenchable love of life. And once as a +child, I went on to tell Dinky-Dunk, I had met Stevenson. It was at +Mentone, and I can still remember him leaning over and taking my hand. +His own hand was cold and lean, like a claw, and with the quick instinct +of childhood I realized, too, that he was <i>condescending</i> as he spoke to +me, for all the laugh that showed the white teeth under his drooping +black mustache. Wrong as it seemed, I didn't like him any more than I +afterward liked the Sargent portrait of him, which was really an echo of +my own first impression, though often and often I've tried to blot out +that first unfair estimate of a real man of genius. There's so much in +the <i>Child's Garden of Verse</i> that I love; there's so much in the man's +life that demands admiration, that it seems<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> wrong not to capitulate to +his charm. But when one's own family are one's biographers it's hard to +be kept human. "Yet there's one thing, Dinky-Dunk, that I do respect him +for," I went on. "He had seen the loveliest parts of this world, and, +when he had to, he could light-heartedly give it all up and rough it in +this American West of ours, even as you and I!" Whereupon Dinky-Dunk +argued that we ought to forgive an invalid his stridulous preaching +about bravery and manliness and his over-emphasis of fortitude, since it +was plainly based on an effort to react against a constitutional +weakness for which he himself couldn't be blamed.</p> + +<p>And I confessed that I could forgive him more easily than I could +Sanguinary John with his literary Diabolism and that ostentatious +stone-age blugginess with which he loved to give the ladies goose-flesh, +pretending he was a bull in a china-shop when he's really only a white +mouse in an ink-pot! And after Dinky-Dunk had knocked out his pipe and +wound up his watch he looked over at me with his slow Scotch-Canadian +smile. "For a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> couple of hay-seeds who have been harpooning the <i>salon</i> +idea," he solemnly announced, "I call this quite a literary evening!" +But what's the use of having an idea or two in your head if you can't +air 'em now and then?</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh" id="Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twenty-seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>To-day I stumbled on the surprise of my life! It was A Man! I took Paddy +and cantered over to the old Titchborne Ranch and was prowling around +the corral, hoping I might find a few belated mushrooms. But nary a one +was there. So I whistled on my four fingers for Paddy (I've been +teaching him to come at that call) and happened to glance in the +direction of the abandoned shack. Then I saw the door open, and <i>out +walked a man</i>.</p> + +<p>He was a young man, in puttees and knickers and Norfolk jacket, and he +was smoking a cigarette. He stared at me as though I were the Missing +Link. Then he said "Hello!" rather inadequately, it seemed to me.</p> + +<p>I answered back "Hello," and wondered whether to take to my heels or +not. But my courage got its second wind, and I stayed. Then we shook +hands, very formally, and explained who we were. And I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> discovered that +his name was Percival Benson Woodhouse (and the Lord forgive me if they +ever call him Percy for short!) and that his aunt is the Countess of +D—— and that he knows a number of people you and Lady Agatha have +often spoken of. He's got a Japanese servant called Kino, or perhaps +it's spelt Keeno, I don't know which, who's housekeeper, laundress, +<i>valet</i>, gardener, groom and <i>chef</i>, all in one,—so, at least Percival +Benson confessed to me. He also confessed that he'd bought the +Titchborne Ranch, from photographs, from "one of those land chaps" in +London. He wanted to rough it a bit, and they told him there would be +jolly good game shooting. So he even brought along an elephant-gun, which +his cousin had used in India. The photographs which the "land chap" had +showed him turned out to be pictures of the Selkirks. And, taking it all +in all, he fancied that he'd been jolly well bunked. But Percival seemed +to accept it with the stoicism of the well-born Britisher. He'd have a +try at the place, although there was no game.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But there <i>is</i> game," I told him, "slathers of it, oodles of it!"</p> + +<p>He mildly inquired where and what? I told him: Wild duck, +prairie-chicken, wild geese, jack-rabbits, now and then a fox, and loads +of coyotes. He explained, then, that he meant big game—and how grandly +those two words, "big game," do roll off the English tongue! He has a +sister in the Bahamas, who may join him next summer if he should decide +to stick it out. He considered that it would be a bit rough for a girl, +during the winter season up here.</p> + +<p>Yet before I go any further I must describe Percival Benson Woodhouse to +you, for he's not only "our sort," but a type as well.</p> + +<p>In the first place, he's a Magdalen College man, the sort we've seen +going up and down the High many and many a time. He's rather gaunt and +rather tall, and he stoops a little. "At home" they call it the "Oxford +stoop," if I'm not greatly mistaken. His hands are thin and long and +bony. His eyes are nice, and he looks very good form.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> I mean he's the +sort of man you'd never take for the "outsider" or "rotter." He's the +sort who seem to have the royal privilege of doing even doubtfully +polite things and yet doing them in such a way as to make them seem +quite proper. I don't know whether I make that clear or not, but one +thing is clear, and this is that our Percival Benson is an aristocrat. +You see it in his over-sensitive, over-refined, almost womanishly +delicate face, with those idealizing and quite unpractical eyes of his. +You see it in the thin, high-arched, bony nose (almost as fine a beak as +the one belonging to His Grace, the Duke of M——!) and you see it in +the sad and somewhat elongated face, as though he had pored over big +books too much, a sort of air of pathos and aloofness from things. His +mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is +quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides +that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which +would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry +James's earlier novels of about the time of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> the <i>Portrait of a Lady</i>. +And I like him. I knew that at once. He's <i>effete</i> and old-worldish and +probably useless, out here, but he stands for something I've been +missing, and I'll be greatly mistaken if Percival Benson and Chaddie +McKail are not pretty good friends before the winter's over! He's asked +if he might be permitted to call, and he's coming for dinner to-morrow +night, and I do hope Dinky-Dunk is nice to him—if we're to be +neighbors. But Dinky-Dunk says Westerners don't ask to be permitted to +call. They just stick their cayuse into the corral and walk in, the same +as an Indian does. And Dinky-Dunk says that if he comes in evening dress +he'll shoot him, sure pop!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Twenty-ninth" id="Thursday_the_Twenty-ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Twenty-ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Percy (how I hate that name!) was here for dinner last night, and all +things considered, we didn't fare so badly. We had tomato bisque and +scalloped potatoes and prairie-chicken (they need to be well basted) and +hot biscuits and stewed dried peaches with cream. Then we had coffee and +the men smoked their pipes. We talked until a quarter to one in the +morning, and my poor Dinky-Dunk, who has been working so hard and seeing +nobody, really enjoyed that visit and really likes Percival Benson.</p> + +<p>Percy got talking about Oxford, and you could see that he loved the old +town and that he felt more at home on the Isis than on the prairie. He +said he once heard Freeman tell a story about Goldwin Smith, who used to +be Regius Professor of History at the University. G. S. seemed +astonished that F. couldn't tell him, at some <i>viva voce</i> exam, +whatever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> that may mean, the cause of King John's death. Then G. S. +explained that poor John died of too much peaches and fresh ale, "which +would give a man considerable belly-ache," the Regius Professor of +History solemnly announced to Freeman.</p> + +<p>Percy said his lungs rather troubled him in England, and he has spent +over a year in Florence and Rome and can talk pictures like a Grant +Allen guide-book. And he's sat through many an opera at La Scala, but +considered the Canadian coyote a much better vocalist than most of the +minor Italian tenors. And he knows Capri and Taormina and says he'd like +to grow old and die in Sicily. He got pneumonia at Messina, and nearly +died young there and after five months in Switzerland a specialist told +him to try Canada.</p> + +<p>I've noticed that one of the delusions of Americans is that an +Englishman is silent. Now, my personal conviction is that Englishmen are +the greatest talkers in the world, and I have Percy to back me up in it. +In fact, we sat about talking so long that Percy asked if he couldn't +stay all night,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> as he was a poor rider and wasn't sure of the trails as +yet. So we made a shake-down for him in the living-room. And when +Dinky-Dunk came to bed he confided to me that Percy was calmly reading +and smoking himself to sleep, out of my sadly scorned copy of <i>The Ring +and the Book</i>, with the lamp on the floor, on one side of him, and a +saucer on the other, for an ash-tray. But he was up and out this +morning, before either of us was stirring, coming back to Casa Grande, +however, when he saw the smoke at the chimney-top. His thin cheeks were +quite pink and he apologetically explained that he'd been trying for an +hour and a half to catch his cayuse. Olie had come to his rescue. But +our thin-shouldered Oxford exile said that he had never seen such a +glorious sunrise, and that the ozone had made him a bit tipsy. Speaking +of thin-shouldered specimens, Matilda Anne, I was once a thirty-six; +<i>now I am a perfect forty-two</i>.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Fifth" id="Friday_the_Fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The weather has been bad all this week, but I've had a great deal of +sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up +the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my +lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, +through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he +brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that +we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed until noon the next day, this +time sleeping in the annex, which Dinky-Dunk and I have papered, so that +it looks quite presentable. But as yet there is no way of heating it. +Our new neighbor, I imagine, is very lonesome.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Seventh" id="Sunday_the_Seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The weather has cleared: there's a chinook arch in the sky, and a sort +of St. Martin's-Summer haze on all the prairie. But there's news to-day. +Kino, our new neighbor's Jap, has decamped with a good deal of money and +about all of Percival Benson's valuables. The poor boy is almost +helpless, but he's not a quitter. He said he chopped his first kindling +to-day, though he had to stand in a wash-tub, while he did it, to keep +from cutting his feet. Dinky-Dunk's birthday is only three weeks off, +and I'm making plans for a celebration.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Ninth_1" id="Tuesday_the_Ninth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The days slip by, and scarcely leave me time to write. Dinky-Dunk is a +sort of pendulum, swinging out to work, back to eat, and then out, and +then back again. Olie is teaming in lumber and galvanized iron for a new +building of some sort. My lord, in the evenings, sits with paper and +pencil, figuring out measurements and making plans. I sit on the other +side of the table, as a rule, sewing. Sometimes I go around to his side +of the table, and make him put his plans away for a few minutes. We are +very happy. But where the days fly to I scarcely know. We are always +looking toward the future, talking about the future, "conceiting" for +the future, as the Irish say. Next summer is to be our banner year. +Dinky-Dunk is going to risk everything on wheat. He's like a general +plotting out a future plan of campaign—for when the work comes, he +says, it will come in a rush. Help will be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> hard to get, so he'll sell +his British Columbia timber rights and buy a forty-horse-power gasoline +tractor. He will at least if gasoline gets cheaper, for with "gas" still +at twenty-six cents a gallon horse-power is cheapest. But during the +breaking season in April and May, one of these engines can haul eight +gang-plows behind it. In twenty-four hours it will be able to turn over +thirty-five acres of prairie soil—and the ordinary man and team counts +two acres of plowing a decent day's work.</p> + +<p>To-night I asked Dinky-Dunk why he risked everything on wheat and warned +him that we might have to revise the old Kansas trekker's slogan to—</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>"In wheat we trusted,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>In wheat we busted!</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk explained that to keep on raising only wheat would be bad for +the land, and even now meant taking a chance, but situated as he was it +brought in the quickest money. And he wanted money in a hurry, for he +had a nest to feather for a lady wild-bird that he'd captured—which +meant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> me. Later on he intends to go in for flax—for fiber and not for +seed—and as our land should produce two tons of the finest flax-straw +to the acre and as the Belgian and Irish product is now worth over four +hundred dollars a ton, he told me to sit down and figure out what four +hundred acres would produce, with even a two-third crop.</p> + +<p>The Canadian farmer of the West, he went on to explain, mostly grew flax +for the seed alone, burning up over a million tons of straw every year, +just to get it out of the way, the same as he does with his wheat-straw. +But all that will soon be changed. Only last week Dinky-Dunk wrote to +the Department of Agriculture for information about <i>courtai</i> +fiber—that's the kind used for point-lace and is worth a dollar a +pound—for my lord feels convinced his soil and climatic conditions are +especially suited for certain of the finer varieties. He even admitted +that flax would be better on his land at the present time, as it would +release certain of the natural fertilizers which sometimes leave the +virgin soil too rich for wheat. But what most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> impressed me about +Dinky-Dunk's talk was his absolute and unshaken faith in this West of +ours, once it wakes up to its opportunities. It's a stored-up granary of +wealth, he declares, and all we've done so far is to nibble along the +leaks in the floor-cracks!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-First_1" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-First_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-first</h2> +</div> + + +<p>To-day is Dinky-Dunk's birthday. He's always thought, of course, that +I'm a pauper, and never dreamed of my poor little residuary nest-egg. +I'd ordered a box of Okanagan Valley apples, and a gramophone and a +dozen opera records, and a brier-wood pipe and two pounds of English +"Honey-Dew," and a smoking-jacket, and some new ties and socks and +shirts, and a brand new Stetson, for Dinky-Dunk's old hat is almost a +rag-bag. And I ordered half a dozen of the newer novels and a set of +Herbert Spencer which I heard him say he wanted, and a sepia print of +the <i>Mona Lisa</i> (which my lord says I look like when I'm planning +trouble) and a felt mattress and a set of bed-springs (so good-by, old +sway-backed friend whose humps have bruised me in body and spirit this +many a night!) and a dozen big oranges and three dozen little candles +for the birthday cake. And then I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> was cleaned out—every blessed cent +gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name) +ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was +a pretty formidable array.</p> + +<p>I, accordingly, had Olie secretly team this array all the way from +Buckhorn to Percy's house, where it was duly ambushed and entrenched, to +await the fatal day. As luck would have it, or seemed to have it, +Dinky-Dunk had to hit the trail for overnight, to see about the +registration of his transfers for his new half-section, at the town of +H——. So as soon as Dinky-Dunk was out of sight I hurried through my +work and had Tumble-Weed and Bronk headed for the old Titchborne Ranch.</p> + +<p>There I arrived about mid-afternoon, and what a time we had, getting +those things unpacked, and looking them over, and planning and talking! +But the whole thing was spoilt.</p> + +<p>We forgot to tie the horses. So while we were having tea Bronk and +Tumble-Weed hit the trail, on their own hook. They made for home, +harness and all, but of course I never knew this at the time.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> We looked +and looked, came back for supper, and then started out again. We +searched until it got dark. My feet were like lead, and I couldn't have +walked another mile. I was so stiff and tired I simply had to give up. +Percy worried, of course, for we had no way of sending word to +Dinky-Dunk. Then we sat down and talked over possibilities, like a +couple of castaways on a Robinson Crusoe island. Percy offered to bunk +in the stable, and let me have the shack. But I wouldn't hear of that. +In the first place, I felt pretty sure Percy was what they call a +"lunger" out here, and I didn't relish the idea of sleeping in a +tuberculous bed. I asked for a blanket and told him that I was going to +sleep out under the wagon, as I'd often done with Dinky-Dunk. Percy +finally consented, but this worried him too. He even brought out his +"big-game" gun, so I'd have protection, and felt the grass to see if it +was damp, and declared he couldn't sleep on a mattress when he knew I +was out on the hard ground. I told him that I loved it, and to go to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +bed, for I wanted to get out of some of my armor-plate. He went, +reluctantly.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful night, and not so cold, with scarcely a breath of +wind stirring. I lay looking out through the wheel-spokes at the Milky +Way, and was just dropping off when Percy came out still again. He was +in a quilted dressing-gown and had a blanket over his shoulders. It made +him look for all the world like Father Time. He wanted to know if I was +all right, and had brought me out a pillow—which I didn't use. Then he +sat down on the prairie-floor, near the wagon, and smoked and talked. He +pointed out some of the constellations to me, and said the only time +he'd ever seen the stars bigger was one still night on the Indian Ocean, +when he was on his way back from Singapore. He would never forget that +night, he said, the stars were so wonderful, so big, so close, so soft +and luminous. But the northern stars were different. They were without +the orange tone that belongs to the South. They seemed remoter and more +awe-inspiring,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> and there was always a green tone to their whiteness.</p> + +<p>Then we got talking about "furrin parts" and Percy asked me if I'd ever +seen Naples at night from San Martino, and I asked him if he'd ever seen +Broadway at night from the top of the Times Building. Then he asked me +if I'd ever watched Paris from Montmartre, or seen the Temple of Neptune +at Pæstum bathed in Lucanian moonlight—which I very promptly told him I +had, for it was on the ride home from Pæstum that a certain person had +proposed to me. We talked about temples and Greek Gods and the age of +the world and Indian legends until I got downright sleepy. Then Percy +threw away his last cigarette and got up. He said "Good night;" I said +"Good night;" and he went into the shack. He said he'd leave the door +open, in case I called. There were just the two of us, between earth and +sky, that night, and not another soul within a radius of seven miles of +any side of us. He was very glad to have some one to talk to. He's +probably a year or two older than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> I am, but I am quite motherly with +him. And he is shockingly incompetent, as a homesteader, from the look +of his shack. But he's a gentleman, almost too "Gentle," I sometimes +feel, a Laodicean, mentally over-refined until it leaves him unable to +cope with real life. He's one of those men made for being a "spectator," +and not an actor, in life. And there's something so absurd about his +being where he is that I feel sorry for him.</p> + +<p>I slept like a log. Once I fell asleep, I forgot about the hard ground, +and the smell of the horse-blankets, and the fact that I'd lost my poor +Dinky-Dunk's team. When I woke up it was the first gray of dawn. Two men +were standing side by side, looking at me under the wagon. One was +Percy, and the other was Dinky-Dunk himself.</p> + +<p>He'd got home by three o'clock in the morning, by hurrying, for he was +nervous about me being alone. But he found the house empty, the team +standing beside the corral, and me missing. Naturally, it wasn't a very +happy situation. Poor Dinky-Dunk hit the trail at once, and had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> +riding all night looking for his lost wife. Then he made for Percy's, +woke him up, and discovered her placidly snoring under a wagon-box. He +didn't even smile at this. He was very tired and very silent. I thought, +for a moment, that I saw distrust on Dinky-Dunk's face, for the first +time. But he has said nothing. I hated to see him go out to work, when +we got home, but he refused to take a nap at noon, as I wanted him to. +So to-night, when he came in for his supper, I had the birthday cake +duly decked and the presents all out.</p> + +<p>But his enthusiasm was forced, and all during the meal he showed a +tendency to be absent-minded. I had no explanations to make, so I made +none. But I noticed that he put on his old slippers. I thought he had +done it deliberately.</p> + +<p>"You don't seem to mellow with age," I announced, with my eyebrows up. +He flushed at that, quite plainly. Then he reached over and took hold of +my hand. But he did it only with an effort, and after some tremendous +inward struggle which was not altogether flattering to me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Please take your hand away so I can reach the dish-towel," I told him. +And the hand went away like a shot. After I'd finished my work I got out +my George Meredith and read <i>Modern Love</i>. Dinky-Dunk did not come to +bed until late. I was awake when he came, but I didn't let him know it.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Twenty-ninth" id="Sunday_the_Twenty-ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Twenty-ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I haven't felt much like writing this last week. I scarcely know why. I +think it's because Dinky-Dunk is on his dignity. He's getting thin, by +the way. His cheek-bones show and his Adam's apple sticks out. He's +worried about his land payments, and I tell him he'd be happier with a +half-section. But Dinky-Dunk wants wealth. And I can't help him much. +I'm afraid I'm an encumbrance. And the stars make me lonely, and the +prairie wind sometimes gives me the willies! And winter is coming.</p> + +<p>I'm afraid I'm out of my setting, as badly out of it as Percival Benson +is. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I'd never seen such lovely +corners of the world, before coming out here to be a dot on the +wilderness. If I'd never had that heavenly summer at Fiesole, and those +months with you at Corfu, and that winter in Rome with poor dear dead +Katrinka! Sometimes I think of the nights we used to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> look out over +Paris, from the roof above 'Tite Daneau's studio. And sometimes I think +of the Pincio, with the band playing, and the carriages flashing, and +the officers in uniform, and the milky white statues among the trees, +and the golden mists of the late afternoon over the Immortal City. And I +tell myself that it was all a dream. And then I feel that <i>I</i> am all a +dream, and the prairie is a dream, and Paddy and Olie and Dinky-Dunk and +all this new life is nothing more than a dream. Oh, Matilda Anne, I've +been homesick this week, so unhappy and homesick for something—for +something, and I don't even know what it is!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Seventh" id="Monday_the_Seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Glory be! Winter's here with a double-edged saber wind out of the north +and snow on the ground. It gives a zip to things. It makes our snug +little shack seem as cozy as a ship's cabin. And I've got a +jumper-sleigh, and with my coon-skin coat and gauntlets and wedge-cap I +can be as warm as toast in any wind. And there's so much to do. And I'm +not going to be a piker. This is the land where folks make good or go +loco. You've only got yourself to depend on, and yourself to blame, if +things go wrong. And I'm going to make them go right. There's no use +wailing out here in the West. A line or two of Laurence Hope's has been +running all day through my head: +</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>"These are my people, and this my land;</span><br /> +<span class='i2'>I hear the pulse of her secret soul.</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>This is the life that I understand,</span><br /> +<span class='i2'>Savage and simple, and sane and whole."</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Eleventh" id="Friday_the_Eleventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Eleventh</h2> +</div> + +<p>Dinky-dunk came home with an Indian girl to-day, a young half-breed about +sixteen years old. She's to be both companion and parlor-maid, for +Dinky-Dunk has to hurry off to British Columbia, to try to sell his +timber-rights there to meet his land payments. He's off to-morrow. It +makes me feel wretched, but I'm consuming my own smoke, for I don't want +him to think me an encumbrance. My Indian girl speaks a little English. +She also eats sugar by the handful, whenever she can steal it. I asked +her what her name was and she told me "Queenie MacKenzie." That name +almost took my breath away. How that untutored Northwest aborigine ever +took unto herself this Broadway chorus-girl name, Heaven only knows! But +I have my suspicions of Queenie. She has certain exploratory movements +which convince me she is verminous. She sleeps in the annex, I'm happy +to say.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> + +<p>At dinner to-night when I was teaching Dinky-Dunk how to make a rabbit +out of his table-napkin and a sea-sick passenger out of the last of his +oranges, he explained that he might not get back in time for Christmas, +and asked if I'd mind. I knew his trip was important, so I kept a stiff +upper lip and said of course I wouldn't mind. But the thought of a +Christmas alone chilled my heart. I tried to be jolly, and gave my +repertory on the mouth-organ, which promptly stopped all activities on +the part of the round-eyed Queenie MacKenzie. But all that foolery was +as forced as the frivolity of the French Revolution Conciergerie where +the merry diners couldn't quite forget they were going to lose their +heads in the morning!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Thirteenth" id="Sunday_the_Thirteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Thirteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Not only is Duncan gone, but Queenie has also quite unceremoniously +taken her departure. It arose from the fact that I requested her to take +a bath. The only disappointed member of the family is poor old Olie, who +was actually making sheep's eyes at that verminous little baggage. +Imagination falters at what he might have done with a dollar's worth of +brown sugar. When Queenie went, I find, my mouth-organ went with her. +I'd like to ling chih that Indian girl!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Sixteenth" id="Wednesday_the_Sixteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Sixteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was a sparkling clear day to-day, with no wind, so I rode over to the +old Titchborne Ranch with my little jumper-sleigh. There I found +Percival Benson in a most pitiable condition. He had been laid up with +the grip. His place was untidy, his dishes were unwashed, and his fuel +was running short. His appearance, in fact, rather frightened me. So I +bundled him up and got him in the jumper and brought him straight home +with me. He had a chill on the way, so as soon as we got to Casa Grande +I sent him to bed, gave him hot whisky, and put my hot water bottle at +his feet. He tried to accept the whole thing as a joke, and vowed I was +jolly well cooking him. But to-night he has a high fever and I'm afraid +he's in for a serious siege of illness. I intend to send Olie over to +get some of his things and have his live stock brought over with ours.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Twentieth" id="Sunday_the_Twentieth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Twentieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Percy has had three very bad nights, but seems a little better to-day. +His lung is congested, and it may be pneumonia, but I think my +mustard-plaster saved the day. He tries so hard to be cheerful, and is +so grateful for every little thing. But I wish Dinky-Dunk was here to +tell me what to do.</p> + +<p>I could never have survived this last week without Olie. He is as +watchful and ready as a farm-collie. But I want my Dinky-Dunk! I may +have spoiled my Dinky-Dunk a little, but it's only once every century or +two that God makes a man like him. I want to be a good wife. I want to +do my share, and keep a shoulder to the wheel, if the going's got to be +heavy for the next year or two. I won't be the Dixon type. I won't—I +won't! My Duncan will need me during this next year, and it will be a +joy to help him. For I love that man, Matilda Anne,—I love him so much +that it hurts!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Twenty-seventh" id="Sunday_the_Twenty-seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Twenty-seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Christmas has come and gone. It was very lonely at Casa Grande. I prefer +not writing about it. Percy is improving, but is still rather weak. I +think he had a narrow squeak.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Thirtieth" id="Wednesday_the_Thirtieth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Thirtieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>My patient is up and about, looking like a different man. He shows the +effects of my forced feeding, though he declares I'm trying to make him +into a Strasburg goose, for the sake of the <i>pâté de foies gras</i> when I +cut him up. But he's decided to go to Santa Barbara for the winter: and +I think he's wise. So this afternoon I togged out in my furs, took the +jumper, and went kiting over to the Titchborne Ranch. Oh, what a shack! +What disorder, what untidiness, what spirit-numbing desolation! I don't +blame poor Percival Benson for clearing out for California. I got what +things he needed, however, and went kiting home again.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Thirty-first" id="Thursday_the_Thirty-first"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Thirty-first</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I hardly know how to begin. But it must be written or I'll suddenly go +mad and start to bite the shack walls. Last night, after Percy had +helped me turn the bread-mixer (for, whatever happens, we've at least +got to eat) I helped him pack. Among other things, he found a copy of +Housman's <i>Shropshire Lad</i> and after running through it announced that +he'd like to read me two or three little things out of it. So I squatted +down in front of the fire, idly poking at the red coals, and he sat +beside the stove with his book, in slippers and dressing gown. And there +he was solemnly reading out loud when the door opened and in walked +Dinky-Dunk.</p> + +<p>I say he walked in, but that isn't quite right. He stood in the open +door, staring at us, with an expression that would have done credit to +the Tragic Muse. I imagine Enoch Arden wore much the same look when he +piped the home circle after that prolonged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> absence of his. Then +Dinky-Dunk did a most unpardonable thing. Instead of saying "Howdy!" +like a scholar and a gentleman, he backed out of the shack and slammed +the door. When I'd caught my breath I went out through that door after +him. It was a bitterly cold night, but I did not stop to put anything +on. I was too amazed, too indignant, too swept off my feet by the +absurdity of it all. I could see Dinky-Dunk in the clear starlight, +taking the blankets off his team. He'd hurried to the shack, without +even unharnessing the horses. I could hear the wheel-tires whine on the +crisp snow, for the poor beasts were tired and restless. I went straight +to the buckboard into which Dinky-Dunk was climbing. He looked like a +cinnamon-bear in his big shaggy coat. And I couldn't see his face. But I +remembered how it had looked in the doorway. It was the color of a tan +shoe. It was too weather-beaten and burnt with the wind and sun-glare +ever to turn white, or, I suppose, it would have been the color of +paper.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you," I demanded, "haven't you any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> explanation for acting like +this?" He sat in the buckboard seat, with the reins in his hands.</p> + +<p>"I guess I've got the first right to that question," he finally said in +a stifled voice.</p> + +<p>"Then why don't you ask it?" was my answer to him. Again he waited a +moment before speaking, as though he felt the need of weighing his +words.</p> + +<p>"I don't need to—now!" he said, as he tightened the reins.</p> + +<p>"Wait," I called out to him. "There are certain things I want you to +know!"</p> + +<p>I was not going to make explanations. I would not dignify his brute-man +stupidity by such things. I scarcely know what I intended to do. As I +looked up at him there in his rough fur coat, for a moment, he seemed +millions and millions of miles away from me. I stared at him, trying to +comprehend his utter lack of comprehension. I seemed to view him across +the same gulf which separates a meditative zoo visitor from some +abysmally hirsute animal that eons and eons ago must have been its +cave-fellow and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> hearth-mate. But now we seemed to have nothing in +common, not even a language with which to link up those lost ages. Yet +from all that mixture of feelings only one survived: I didn't want my +husband to go.</p> + +<p>It was the team, as far as I can remember, that really decided the +thing. They had been restive, backing and jerking and pawing and +nickering for their feed-box. And suddenly they jumped forward. But this +time they kept going. Whether Dinky-Dunk tried to hold them back or not +I can't say. But I came back to the shack, shivering. Percy, thank +Heaven, was in his room.</p> + +<p>"I think I'll turn in!" he called out, quite casually, through the +partition.</p> + +<p>I said "All right," and sat down in front of the fire, trying to +straighten things out. My Dinky-Dunk was gone! He had glared at me, with +hate in his eyes, as he sat in that buckboard. It's all over. He has no +faith in me, his own wife!</p> + +<p>I went to bed and tried to sleep. But sleep was out of the question. The +whole thing seemed so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> absurd, so unreasonable, so unjust. I could feel +waves of anger sweep through my body at the mere thought of it. Then a +wave of something else, of something between anxiety and terror, would +take the place of anger. My husband was gone, and he'd never come back. +I'd put all my eggs in one basket, and the basket had gone over, and +made a saffron-tinted omelet of all my life.</p> + +<p>And that's the way I watched the New Year in, I couldn't even afford the +luxury of a little bawl, for I was afraid Percy would hear me. It must +have been almost morning when I fell asleep.</p> + +<p>When I woke up Percival Benson was gone, bag and baggage. At first I +resented the thought of his going off that way, without a word, but on +thinking it over I decided he'd done the right thing. There's nothing +like the hard cold light of a winter morning to bring you back to hard +cold facts. Olie had driven Percy in to the station. So I was alone in +the shack all day. I did a heap of thinking during those long hours of +solitude. And out of all that straw of self-examination I threshed just +one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> little grain of truth. <i>I could never live on the prairie alone.</i> +And whatever I did, or wherever I went, I could never be happy without +my Dinky-Dunk....</p> + +<p>I had just finished supper to-night, as blue as indigo and as spiritless +as a wet hen, when I heard the sound of voices. It took me only ten +seconds to make sure whose they were. Dinky-Dunk had come back with +Olie! I made a high dive for a book from the nearest shelf, swung the +armchair about with a jerk, and sank luxuriously into it, with my feet +up on the warm damper and my eyes leisurely and contentedly perusing +George Moore's <i>Confessions of a Young Man</i> (although I <i>hate</i> the +libidinous stuff like poison!) Then Dinky-Dunk came in. I could see him +stare at me a little awkwardly and contritely (what woman can't read a +book and study a man at the same time?) and I, could see that he was +waiting for an opening. But I gave him none. Naturally, Olie had +explained everything to him. But I had been humiliated, my pride had +been walked over, from end to end. My<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> spirit had been stamped on—and I +had decided on my plan of action. I simply ignored Duncan.</p> + +<p>I read for a while, then I took a lamp, went to my room, and +deliberately locked the door. My one regret was that I couldn't see +Dinky-Dunk's face when that key turned. And now I must stop writing, and +go to bed, for I am dog-tired. I know I'll sleep better to-night. It's +nice to remember there's a man near, if he happens to be the man you +care a trifle about, even though you <i>have</i> calmly turned the door-key +on him.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Third" id="Sunday_the_Third"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Third</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk has at least the sensibilities to respect my privacy of life. +He knows where the deadline is, and doesn't disregard it. But it's +terribly hard to be tragic in a two-by-four shack. You miss the +dignifying touches. And you haven't much leeway for the bulky swings of +grandeur.</p> + +<p>For one whole day I didn't speak to Dinky-Dunk, didn't even so much as +recognize his existence. I ate by myself, and did my work—when the +monster was around—with all the preoccupation of a sleep-walker. But +something happened, and I forgot myself. Before I knew it I was asking +him a question. He answered it, quite soberly, quite casually. If he had +grinned, or shown one jot of triumph, I would have walked out of the +shack and never spoken to him again. I think he knew he was on terribly +perilous ground. He picked his way with care. He asked me a question +back, quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> offhandedly, and for the time being let the matter rest +there. But the breach was in my walls, Matilda Anne, and I was quite +defenseless. We were both very impersonal and very polite, when he came +in at supper time, though I think I turned a visible pink when I sat +down at the table, for our eyes met there, just a moment and no more. I +knew he was watching me, covertly, all the time. And I knew I was making +him pretty miserable. But I wasn't the least bit ashamed of it.</p> + +<p>After supper he indifferently announced that he had nothing to do and +might as well help me wash up. I went to hand him a dish-towel. Instead +of taking the towel he took my hand, with the very profane ejaculation, +as he did so, of "Oh, hell, Gee-Gee, what's the use?"</p> + +<p>Then before I knew it, he had me in his arms (our butter-dish was broken +in the collision) and I was weak enough to feel sorry for him and his +poor tragic pleading eyes. Then I gave up. If I was silly enough to have +a little cry on his shoulder, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> had the satisfaction of feeling him +give a gulp or two himself.</p> + +<p>"You're the most wonderful woman in the world!" he solemnly told me, and +then in a much less solemn way he began kissing me again. But the +barriers were down. And how we talked that night! And how different +everything seemed! And how nice it was to feel his arm over my shoulder +and his quiet breathing on the nape of my neck as I fell asleep. It +seemed as though Love were fanning me with its softest wings. I'm happy +again. But I've been wondering if it's environment that makes character, +or character that makes environment. Sometimes I think it's one way, and +sometimes I feel it's the other. But I can't be sure of my answer—yet! +It's hard for a spoiled woman to remember that her life has to be merged +into somebody else's life. I've been wondering if marriage isn't like a +two-panel screen, which won't stand up if both its panels are too much +in line. Heaven knows, I want harmony! But a woman likes to feel that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +instead of being out of step with her whole regiment of life it's the +regiment that's out of step with her. To-night I unlaced Dinky-Dunk's +shoes, and put on his slippers, and sat on the floor between his knees +with my head against the steady <i>tick-tock</i> of his watch-pocket. +"Dinky-Dunk," I solemnly announced, "that gink called Pope was a poor +guesser. The proper study of man should have been <i>woman</i>!"</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Seventh" id="Thursday_the_Seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Everything at Casa Grande has settled back into the usual groove. There +is a great deal to do about the shack. The grimmest bug-bear of domestic +work is dish-washing. A pile of greasy plates is the one thing that gets +on my nerves. And it is a little Waterloo that must be faced three times +every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. And I was never +properly "broke" for domesticity and the dish-pan! Why can't some genius +invent a self-washing fry-pan? My hair is growing so long that I can now +do it up in a sort of half-hearted French roll. It has been quite cold, +with a wonderful fall of snow. The sleighing could not be better.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Ninth" id="Saturday_the_Ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Ninth</h2> +</div> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk's Christmas present came to-day, over two weeks late. He had +never mentioned it, and I had not only held my peace, but had given up +all thought of getting a really-truly gift from my lord and master.</p> + +<p>They brought it out from Buckhorn, in the bobsleigh, all wrapped up in +old buffalo-robes and blankets and tarpaulins. <i>It's a baby-grand +piano</i>, and a beauty, and it came all the way from Winnipeg. But either +the shipping or the knocking about or the extreme cold has put it +terribly out of tune, and it can't be used until the piano-tuner travels +a couple of hundred miles out here to put it in shape. And it's far too +big for the shack, even when pushed right up into the corner. But +Dinky-Dunk says that before next winter there'll be a different sort of +house on this spot where Casa Grande now stands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And that's to keep your soul alive, in the meantime," he announced. I +scolded him for being so extravagant, when he needed every dollar he +could lay his hands on. But he wouldn't listen to me. In fact, it only +started an outburst.</p> + +<p>"My God, Gee-Gee," he cried, "haven't you given up enough for me? +Haven't you sacrificed enough in coming out here to the end of nowhere +and leaving behind everything that made life decent?"</p> + +<p>"Why, Honey Chile, didn't I get <i>you</i>?" I demanded. But even that didn't +stop him.</p> + +<p>"Don't you suppose I ever think what it's meant to you, to a woman like +you? There are certain things we can't have, but there are some things +we're going to have. This next ten or twelve months will be hard, but +after that there's going to be a change—if the Lord's with me, and I +have a white man's luck!"</p> + +<p>"And supposing we have bad luck?" I asked him. He was silent for a +moment or two.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + +<p>"We can always give up, and go back to the city," he finally said.</p> + +<p>"Give up!" I said with a whoop. "Give up? Not on your life, Mister Dour +Man! We're not going to be Dixonites! We're going to win out!" And we +were together in a death-clinch, hugging the breath out of each other, +when Olie came in to ask if he hadn't better get the stock stabled, as +there was bad weather coming.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Eleventh" id="Monday_the_Eleventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Eleventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>We are having the first real blizzard of the winter. It began yesterday, +as Olie intimated, and for all the tail-end of the day my Dinky-Dunk was +on the go, in the bitter cold, looking after fuel and feed and getting +things ship-shape, for all the world like a skipper who's read his +barometer and seen a hurricane coming. There had been no wind for a +couple of days, only dull and heavy skies with a disturbing sense of +quietness. Even when I heard Olie and Dinky-Dunk shouting outside, and +shoring up the shack-walls with poles, I could not quite make out what +it meant.</p> + +<p>Then the blizzard came. It came down out of the northwest, like a +cloudburst. It hummed and sang, and then it whined, and then it +screamed, screamed in a high falsetto that made you think poor old +Mother Earth was in her last throes! The snow was fine and hard, really +minute particles of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> ice, and not snow at all, as we know it in the +East, little sharp-angled diamond-points that stung the skin like fire. +It came in almost horizontal lines, driving flat across the unbroken +prairie and defying anything made of God or man to stop it. Nothing did +stop it. Our shack and the bunk-house and stables and hay-stacks tore a +few pin-feathers off its breast, though; and those few feathers are +drifts higher than my head, heaped up against each and all of the +buildings.</p> + +<p>I scratched the frost off a window-pane, where feathery little drifts +were seeping in through the sill-cracks, when it first began. But the +wind blew harder and harder and the shack rocked and shook with the +tension. Oh, such a wind! It made a whining and wailing noise, with each +note higher, and when you felt that it couldn't possibly increase, that +it simply <i>must</i> ease off, or the whole world would go smash, why, that +whining note merely grew tenser and the wind grew stronger. How it +lashed things! How it shook and flailed and trampled this poor old earth +of ours! Just before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> supper Olie announced that he'd look after my +chicks for me. I told him, quite casually, that I'd attend to them +myself. I usually strew a mixture of wheat and oats on the litter in the +hen-house overnight. This had two advantages, one was that it didn't +take me out quite so early in the morning, and the other was that the +chicks themselves started scratching around first thing in the morning +and so got exercise and kept themselves warmer-bodied and in better +health.</p> + +<p>It was not essential that I should go to the hen-house myself, but I was +possessed with a sudden desire to face that singing white tornado. So I +put on my things, while Dinky-Dunk was at work in the stables. I put on +furs and leggings and gauntlets and all, as though I were starting for a +ninety-mile drive, and slipped out. Dinky-Dunk had tunneled through the +drift in front of the door, but that tunnel was already beginning to +fill again. I plowed through it, and tried to look about me. Everything +was a sort of streaked misty gray, an all-enveloping muffing leaden +maelstrom that hurt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> your skin when you lifted your head and tried to +look it in the face. Once, in a lull of the wind when the snow was not +so thick, I caught sight of the hay-stacks. That gave me a line on the +hen-house. So I made for it, on the run, holding my head low as I went.</p> + +<p>It was glorious, at first, it made my lungs pump and my blood race and +my legs tingle. Then the storm-devils howled in my eyes and the +ice-lashes snapped in my face. Then the wind went off on a rampage +again, and I couldn't see. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't even +breathe. Then I got frightened.</p> + +<p>I leaned there against the wind calling for Dinky-Dunk and Olie, +whenever I could gasp breath enough to make a sound. But I might as well +have been a baby crying in mid-ocean to a Kensington Gardens nurse.</p> + +<p>Then I knew I was lost. No one could ever hear me in that roar. And +there was nothing to be seen, just a driving, blinding, stinging gray +pall of flying fury that nettled the naked skin like electric-massage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> +and took the breath out of your buffeted body. There was no land-mark, +no glimpse of any building, nothing whatever to go by. And I felt so +helpless in the face of that wind! It seemed to take the power of +locomotion from my legs. I was not altogether amazed at the thought that +I might die there, within a hundred yards of my own home, so near those +narrow walls within which were warmth, and shelter, and quietness. I +imagined how they'd find my body, deep under the snow, some morning; how +Dinky-Dunk would search, perhaps for days. I felt so sorry for him I +decided not to give up, that I wouldn't be lost, that I wouldn't die +there like a fly on a sheet of tanglefoot!</p> + +<p>I had fallen down on my knees, with my back to the wind, and already the +snow had drifted around me. I also found my eye-lashes frozen together, +and I lost several winkers in getting rid of those solidified tears. But +I got to my feet and battled on, calling when I could. I kept on, going +round and round in a circle, I suppose, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> people always do when +they're lost in a storm. Then the wind grew worse again. I couldn't make +any headway against it. I had to give up. I simply <i>had</i> to! I wasn't +afraid. I wasn't terrified at the thought of what was happening to me. I +was only sorry, with a misty sort of sorrow I can't explain. And I don't +remember that I felt particularly uncomfortable, except for the fact I +found it rather hard to breathe.</p> + +<p>It was Olie who found me. He came staggering through the snow with extra +fuel for the bunk-house, and nearly walked over me. As we found out +afterward, I wasn't more than thirty steps away from that bunk-house +door. Olie pulled me up out of the snow the same as you'd pull a skein +of darning-silk out of a work-basket. He half carried me to the +bunk-house, got his bearings, and then steered me for the shack. It was +a fight, but we made it. And Dinky-Dunk was still out looking after his +stock and doesn't know how nearly he lost his Lady Bird. I've made Olie +promise not to say a word about it. But the top of my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> nose is red and +swollen. I think it must have got a trifle frost-nipped, in the +encounter. The weather has cleared now, and the wind has gone down. But +it is very cold, and Dinky-Dunk has just reported that it's already +forty-eight below zero.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Nineteenth" id="Tuesday_the_Nineteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Nineteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The days slip away and I scarcely know where they go. The weather is +wonderful. Clear and cold, with such heaps of sunshine you'd never dream +it was zero weather. But you have to be careful, and always wear furs +when you're driving, or out for any length of time. Three hours in this +open air is as good as a pint of Chinkie's best champagne. It makes me +tingle. We are living high, with several barrels of frozen game—geese, +duck and prairie-chicken—and also an old tin trunk stuffed full of +beef-roasts, cut the right size. I bring them in and thaw them out +overnight, as I need them. The freezing makes them very tender. But they +must be completely thawed before they go into the oven, or the outside +will be overdone and the inside still raw. I learned that by experience. +My appetite is disgraceful, and I'm still gaining. Chinkie could never +again say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> I reminded him of one of the lean kine in Pharaoh's dream.</p> + +<p>I have been asking Dinky-Dunk if it isn't downright cruelty to leave +horses and cattle out on the range in weather like this. My husband says +not, so long as they have a wind-break in time of storms. The animals +paw through the snow for grass to eat, and when they get thirsty they +can eat the snow itself, which, Dinky-Dunk solemnly assures me, almost +never gives them sore throat! But the open prairie, just at this season, +is a most inhospitable looking pasturage, and the unbroken glare of +white makes my eyes ache.... There's one big indoor task I finally have +accomplished, and that is tuning my piano. It made my heart heavy, +standing there useless, a gloomy monument of ironic grandeur.</p> + +<p>As a girl I used to watch Katrinka's long-haired Alsatian putting her +concert grand to rights, and I knew that my ear was dependable enough. +So the second day after my baby grand's arrival I went at it with a +monkey-wrench. But that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> a failure. Then I made a drawing of a +tuning-hammer and had Olie secretly convey it to the Buckhorn +blacksmith, who in turn concocted a great steel hollow-headed +monstrosity which actually fits over the pins to which the piano wires +are strung, even though the aforesaid monstrosity is heavy enough to +stun an ox with. But it did the work, although it took about two +half-days, and now every note is true. So now I have music! And +Dinky-Dunk does enjoy my playing, these long winter evenings. Some +nights we let Olie come in and listen to the concert. He sits rapt, +especially when I play ragtime, which seems the one thing that touches +his holy of holies. Poor Olie! I surely have a good friend in that +silent, faithful, uncouth Swede!</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk himself is so thin that it worries me. But he eats well and +doesn't anathematize my cooking. He's getting a few gray hairs, at the +temples. I think they make him look rather <i>distingue</i>. But they worry +my poor Dinky-Dunk. "Hully Gee," he said yesterday, studying himself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +for the third time in his shaving-glass, "I'm getting old!" He laughed +when I started to whistle "Believe me if all those endearing young +charms, which I gaze on so fondly to-day," but at heart he was really +disturbed by the discovery of those few white hairs. I've been telling +him that the ladies won't love him any more, and that his cut-up days +are over. He says I'll have to make up for the others. So I started for +him with my Australian crawl-stroke. It took me an hour to get the taste +of shaving soap out of my mouth. Dinky-Dunk says I'm so full of life +that I <i>sparkle</i>. All I know is that I'm happy, supremely and +ridiculously happy!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Thirty-first" id="Sunday_the_Thirty-first"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Thirty-first</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The inevitable has happened. I don't know how to write about it! I +<i>can't</i> write about it! My heart goes down like a freight elevator, +slowly, sickeningly, even when I think about it. Dinky-Dunk came in and +saw me studying a little row of dates written on the wall-paper beside +the bedroom window. I pretended to be draping the curtain. "What's the +matter, Lady Bird?" he demanded when he saw my face. I calmly told him +that nothing was the matter. But he wouldn't let me go. I wanted to be +alone, to think things out. But he kept holding me there, with my face +to the light. I suppose I must have been all eyes, and probably shaking +a little. And I didn't want him to suspect.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me if I find you unspeakably annoying!" I said in a voice that +was so desperately cold that it even surprised my own ears. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> dropped +me as though I had been a hot potato. I could see that I'd hurt him, and +hurt him a lot. My first impulse was to run to him with a shower of +repentant kisses, as one usually does, the same as one sprinkles salt on +claret stains. But in him I beheld the original and entire cause—and I +just couldn't do it. He called me a high-spirited devil with a +hair-trigger temper. But he left me alone to think things out.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Ninth" id="Tuesday_the_Ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I've started to say my prayers again. It rather frightened Dinky-Dunk, +who sat up in bed and asked me if I wasn't feeling well. I promptly +assured him that I was in the best of health. He not only agreed with +me, but said I was as plump as a partridge. When I am alone, though, I +get frightened and fidgety. So I kneel down every night and morning now +and ask God for help and guidance. I want to be a good woman and a +better wife. But I shall never let Duncan know—never!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Seventeenth_1" id="Wednesday_the_Seventeenth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Seventeenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Do you remember Aunt Harriet who always wept when she read <i>The Isles of +Greece</i>? She didn't even know where they were, and had never been east +of Salem. But all the Woodberrys were like that. Dinky-Dunk came in and +found me crying to-day, for the second time in one week. He made such +valiantly ponderous efforts to cheer me up, poor boy, and shook his head +and said I'd soon be an improvement on the Snider System, which is a +system of irrigation by spraying overnight from pipes! My nerves don't +seem so good as they were. The winter's so long. I'm already counting +the days to spring.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Twenty-fifth" id="Thursday_the_Twenty-fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Twenty-fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk has concluded that I'm too much alone; he's been worrying +over it. I can tell that. I try not to be moody, but sometimes I simply +can't help it. Yesterday afternoon he drove up to Casa Grande, proud as +Punch, with a little black and white kitten in the crook of his arm. +He'd covered twenty-eight miles of trail for that kitten! It's to be my +companion. But the kitten's as lonesome as I am, and has been crying, +and nearly driving me crazy.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Second" id="Tuesday_the_Second"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Second</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The weather has been bad, but winter is slipping away. Dinky-Dunk has +been staying in from his work, these mornings, helping me about the +house. He is clumsy and slow, and has broken two or three of the dishes. +But I hate to say anything; his eyes get so tragic. He declares that as +soon as the trails are passable he's going to have a woman to help me, +that this sort of thing can't go on any longer. He imagines it's merely +the monotony of housework that is making my nerves so bad.</p> + +<p>Yesterday morning I was drying the dishes and Dinky-Dunk was washing. I +found the second spoon with egg on it. I don't know why it was, but that +trivial streak of yellow along the edge of a spoon suddenly seemed to +enrage me. It became monumental, an emblem of vague incapabilities which +I would have to face until the end of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> my days. I flung that spoon back +in the dish-pan. Then I turned on my husband and called out to him, in a +voice that didn't quite seem like my own, "O God, can't you wash 'em +<i>clean</i>? Can't you wash 'em clean?" I even think I ran up and down the +room and pretty well made what Percival Benson would call "a bally ass" +of myself. Dinky-Dunk didn't even answer me. But he dried his hands and +got his things and went outdoors, to the stables, I suppose. His face +was as colorless as it could possibly get. I felt sorry; but it was too +late. And my sniffling didn't do any good. And it startled me, as I sat +thinking things over, to realize that I'd lost my sense of humor.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Fourth" id="Thursday_the_Fourth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Fourth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk thinks I'm mad. I'm quite sure he does. He came in at noon +to-day and found me on the floor with the kitten. I'd tied a piece of fur +to the end of a string. Oh, how that kitten scrambled after that fur, +round and round in a circle until he'd tumble over on his own ears! I +was squeaking and weak with laughing when Dinky-Dunk stood in the door. +Poor boy, he takes things so solemnly! But I know he thinks I'm quite +mad. Perhaps I am. I cried myself to sleep last night. And for several +days now I've had a longing for <i>caviare</i>.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Seventeenth" id="Wednesday_the_Seventeenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Seventeenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Spring is surely coming. It promises to be an early one. I feel better +at the thought of it, and of getting out again. But the roads are quite +impassable. Such mud! Such oceans of glue-pot dirt! They have a saying +out here that soil is as rich as it is sticky. If this is true +Dinky-Dunk has a second Garden of Eden. This mud sticks to everything, +to feet, to clothes, to wagon-wheels. But there's getting to be real +warmth in the sun that shines through my window.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-seventh" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-seventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>A warm Chinook has licked up the last of the snow. Even Dinky-Dunk +admits that spring is coming. For three solid hours an awakened +blue-bottle has been buzzing against the pane of my bedroom window. I +wonder if most of us aren't like that fly, mystified by the illusion of +light that fails to lead to liberty? This morning I caught sight of +Dinky-Dunk in his fur coat, climbing into the buckboard. I shall always +hate to see him in that rig. It makes me think of a certain night. And +we hate to have memory put a finger on our mental scars. When I was a +girl Aunt Charlotte's second fiend of a husband locked me up in that +lonely Derby house of theirs because I threw pebbles at the swans. Then +off they drove to dinner somewhere and left me a prisoner there, where I +sat listening to the bells of All Saints as the house gradually grew +dark. And ever since then bells<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> at evening have made me feel lonely and +left me unhappy.</p> + +<p>But the renaissance of the buckboard means that spring is here again. +And for my Dinky-Dunk that means harder work. He's what they call a +"rustler" out here. He believes in speed. He doesn't even wait until the +frost is out of the ground before he starts to seed—just puts a drill +over a two-inch batter of thawed-out mud, he's so mad about getting +early on the land. He says he wants early wheat or no wheat. But he has +to have help, and men are almost impossible to get. He had hoped for a +gasoline tractor, but it can't be financed this spring, he has confessed +to me. And I know, in my secret heart of hearts, that the tractor would +have been here if it hadn't been for my piano!</p> + +<p>There are still hundreds and hundreds of acres of prairie sod to "break" +for spring wheat. Dinky-Dunk declares that he's going to risk everything +on wheat this year. He says that by working two outfits of horses he +himself can sow forty acres<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> a day, but that means keeping the horses on +the trot part of the time. He is thinking so much about his crop that I +accused him of neglecting me.</p> + +<p>"Is the varnish starting to wear off?" I inquired with a secret gulp of +womanish self-pity. He saved the day by declaring I was just as crazy +and just as adorable as I ever was. Then he asked me, rather sadly, if I +was bored. "Bored?" I said, "how could I be bored with all these +discomforts? No one is ever bored until they are comfortable!" But the +moment after I'd said it I was sorry.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Sixth" id="Tuesday_the_Sixth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Sixth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Spring is here, with a warm Chinook creeping in from the Rockies and a +sky of robin-egg blue. The gophers have come out of their winter +quarters and are chattering and racing about. We saw a phalanx of wild +geese going northward, and Dinky-Dunk says he's seen any number of +ducks. They go in drifting V's, and I love to watch them melt in the +sky-line. The prairie floor is turning to the loveliest of greens, and +it is a joy just to be alive. I have been out all afternoon. The gophers +aren't going to get ahead of me!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twelfth_2" id="Monday_the_Twelfth_2"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twelfth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>What would you say if you saw Brunhild drive up to your back door? What +would you do if you discovered a Norse goddess placidly surveying you +from a green wagon-seat? How would you act if you beheld a big blonde +Valkyr suddenly introducing herself into your little earthly affairs?</p> + +<p>Well, can you wonder that I stared, all eyes, when Dinky-Dunk brought +home a figure like this, in the shape of a Finn girl named Olga +Sarristo? Olga is to work in the fields, and to help me when she has +time. But I'll never get used to having a Norse Legend standing at my +elbow, for Olga is the most wonderful creature I have ever clapped eyes +on. I say that without doubt, and without exaggeration. And what made +the picture complete, she came driving a yoke of oxen—for Dinky-Dunk +will have need of every horse and hauling animal he can lay his hands +on. I simply held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> my breath as I stared up at her, high on her +wagon-seat, blocked out in silhouette against the pale sky-line, a +Brunhild with cowhide boots on. She wore a pale blue petticoat and a +Swedish looking black shawl with bright-colored flowers worked along the +hem. She had no hat. But she had two great ropes of pale gold hair, +almost as thick as my arm, and hanging almost as low as her knees. She +looked colossal up on the wagon-seat, but when she got down on the +ground she was not so immense. She is, however, a strapping big woman, +and I don't think I ever saw such shoulders! She is Olympian, Titanic! +She makes me think of the Venus de Milo; there's such a largeness and +calmness and smoothness of surface about her. I suppose a Saint-Gaudens +might say that her mouth was too big and a Gibson might add that her +nose hadn't the narrow rectitude of a Greek statue's, but she's a +beautiful, a beautiful—"woman" was the word I was going to write, but +the word "animal" just bunts and shoves itself in, like a stabled cow +insisting on its own stall. But if you regard<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> her as only animal, you +must at least accept her as a perfect one. Her mouth is large, but I +never saw such red lips, full and red and dewy. Her forehead is low and +square, but milky smooth, and I know she could crack a chicken-bone +between those white teeth of hers. Even her tongue, I noticed, is a +watermelon red. She must be healthy. Dinky-Dunk says she's a find, that +she can drive a double-seeder as well as any man in the West, and that +by taking her for the season he gets the use of the ox-team as well. He +warned me not to ask her about her family, as only a few weeks ago her +father and younger brother were burned to death in their shack, a +hundred miles or so north of us.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twentieth_1" id="Tuesday_the_Twentieth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twentieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Olga has been with us a week, and she still fascinates me. She is +installed in the annex, and seems calmly satisfied with her +surroundings. She brought everything she owns tied up in an oat-sack. I +have given her a few of my things, for which she seems dumbly grateful. +She seldom talks, and never laughs. But I am teaching her to say "yes" +instead of "yaw." She studies me with her limpid blue eyes, and if she +is silent she is never sullen. She hasn't the heavy forehead and jaw of +the Galician women and she hasn't the Asiatic cast of face that belongs +to the Russian peasant. And she has the finest mouthful of teeth I ever +saw in a human head—and she never used a toothbrush in her life! She is +only nineteen, but such a bosom, such limbs, such strength!</p> + +<p>This is a great deal of talk about Olga, I'm afraid, but you must +remember that Olga is an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> event. I expected Olie would be keeled over by +her arrival, but they seem to regard each other with silent contempt. I +suppose that is because racially and physically they are of the same +type. I'm anxious to see what Percival Benson thinks of Olga when he +gets back—they would be such opposites. Olga is working with her +ox-team on the land. Two days ago I rode out on Paddy and watched her. +There was something Homeric about it, something Sorolla would have +jumped at. She seemed so like her oxen. She moved like them, and her +eyes were like theirs. She has the same strength and solemnity when she +walks. She's so primitive and natural and instinctive in her actions. +Yesterday, after dinner, she curled up on a pile of hay at one end of +the corral and fell asleep for a few minutes, flat in the strong noonday +light. I saw Dinky-Dunk stop on his way to the stable and stand and look +down at her. I slipped out beside him. "God, what a woman!" he said +under his breath. A vague stab of jealousy went through me as I heard +him say that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> Then I looked at her hand, large, relaxed, roughened with +all kinds of weather and calloused with heavy work. And this time it was +an equally vague stab of pity that went through me.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twenty-sixth" id="Monday_the_Twenty-sixth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twenty-sixth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The rush is on, and Dinky-Dunk is always out before six. If it's true, +as some one once said, that the pleasures of life depended on its +anxieties, then we ought to be a hilarious household. Every one is busy, +and I do what I can to help. I don't know why it is, but I find an odd +comfort in the thought of having another woman near me, even Olga. She +also helps me a great deal with the housework. Those huge hands of hers +have a dexterity you'd never dream of. She thinks the piano a sort of +miracle, and me a second miracle for being able to play it. In the +evening she sits back in a corner, the darkest corner she can find, and +listens. She never speaks, never moves, never expresses one iota of +emotion. But in the gloom I can often catch the animal-like glow of her +eyes. They seem almost phosphorescent. Dinky-Dunk had a long letter from +Percival Benson to-day. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> was interesting and offhandedly jolly and +just the right sort. And Percy says he'll be back on the Titchborne +place in a few weeks.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth" id="Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Twenty-eighth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Olga went through the boards of her wagon-box and got a bad scrape on +her leg. She showed me the extent of her injuries, without the slightest +hesitation, and I gave her first-aid treatment with my carbolated +vaseline. And still again I had to think of the Venus de Milo, for it +was a knee like a statue's, milky white and round and smooth, with a +skin like a baby's, and so different to her sunburnt forearms. It was +Olympian more than Fifth-Avenuey. It was a leg that made me think, not +of Rubens, but of Titian, and my thoughts at once went out to the +right-hand lady of the "Sacred and Profane Love," in the Borghese, there +was such softness and roundness combined with its strength. And +Dinky-Dunk walked in and stood staring at it, himself, with never so +much as a word of apology. Olga looked up at him without a flicker of +her ox-like eyes. It wasn't until I made an angry<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> motion for her to +drop her skirt that she realized any necessity for covering the Titian +knee. But again I felt that odd pang of jealousy needle through me as I +saw his face. At least I suppose it was jealousy, the jealousy of an +artful little Mona-Lisa minx who didn't even class in with the +demigods. When Olga was gone, however, I said to Dinky-Dunk: "Isn't +that a limb for your life?"</p> + +<p>He merely said: "We don't grow limbs up here, Tabby. They're legs, just +plain legs!"</p> + +<p>"Anything but <i>plain</i>!" I corrected him. Then he acknowledged that he'd +seen those knees before. He'd stumbled on Olga and her brother knee-deep +in mud and cow manure, treading a mixture to plaster their shack with, +the same as the Doukhobors do. It left me less envious of those +Junoesque knees.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Second" id="Monday_the_Second"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Second</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Keeping chickens is a much more complicated thing than the outsider +imagines. For example, several of my best hens, quite untouched by the +modern spirit of feminine unrest, have been developing "broodiness" and +I have been trying to "break them up," as the poulterers put it. But +they are determined to set. This mothering instinct is a fine enough +thing in its way, but it's been spoiling too many good eggs. So I've +been trying to emancipate these ruffled females. I lift them off the +nest by the tail feathers, ten times a day. I fling cold water in their +solemn maternal faces. I put little rings of barb-wire under their +sentimental old bosoms. But still they set. And one, having pecked me on +the wrist until the blood came, got her ears promptly boxed—in face of +the fact that all poultry keepers acknowledge that kindness to a hen +improves her laying qualities.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Fifth" id="Thursday_the_Fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Casa Grande is a beehive of industry. Every one has a part to play. I am +no longer expected to sit by the fire and purr. At nights I sew. +Dinky-Dunk is so hard on his clothes! When it's not putting on patches +it's sewing on buttons. Then we go to bed at half-past nine. At +half-past nine, think of it! Little me, who more than once went humming +up Fifth Avenue when morning was showing gray over the East River, and +often left Sherry's (oh, those dear old dancing days!) when the milk +wagons were rumbling through Forty-fourth Street, and once triumphantly +announced, on coming out of Dorlon's and studying the old Oyster-Letter +clock, that I'd stuck it out to Y minutes past O! But it's no hardship +to get up at five, these glorious mornings. The days get longer, and the +weather is perfect. And the prairie looks as though a vacuum cleaner +had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> been at work on it overnight. Positively, there's a charwoman who +does this old world over, while we sleep! By morning it's as bright as a +new pin. And out here every one is thinking of the day ahead; +Dinky-Dunk, of his crop; Olga, of the pair of sky-blue corsets I've +written to the Winnipeg mail-order house for; Olie, of the final +waterproofing of the granaries so the wheat won't get spoilt any more; +Gee-Gee, herself, of—of something which she's almost afraid to think +about.</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk, in his deviling moods, says I'm an old married woman now, +that I'm settled, that I've eaten my pie! Perhaps I have. I'm not +imaginative, so I must depend on others for my joy of living. I know now +that I can never create, never really express myself in any way worth +while, either on paper or canvas or keyboard. And people without +imagination, I suppose, simply have to drop back to racial +simplicities—which means I'll have to have a family, and feed hungry +mouths, and keep a home going. And I'll have to get all my art at +second-hand, from magazines and gramophone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> records and plaster-of-Paris +casts. Just a housewife! And I so wanted to be something more, once! Yet +I wonder if, after all, the one is so much better than the other? I +wonder? And here comes my Dinky-Dunk, and in three minutes he'll be +kissing me on the tip of the chin and asking me what there's going to be +good for supper! And that is better than fame! For all afternoon those +twelve little lines of Dobson's have been running through my head:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>Fame is a food that dead men eat—</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>I have no stomach for such meat.</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>In little light and narrow rooms,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>They eat it in the silent tombs,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>With no kind voice of comrade near</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>To bid the banquet be of cheer.</span> +</p> + +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>But Friendship is a noble thing—</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Of Friendship it is good to sing,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>For truly when a man shall end,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>He lives in memory of his friend</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Who doth his better part recall</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>And of his faults make funeral!</span> +</p> +</div> + + +<p>But when you put the word "love" there instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> of "friendship" you make +it even better.... Olga, by the way, is not so stupid as you might +imagine. She's discovered something which I didn't intend her to find +out.... And Olie, also by the way, has solved the problem of "breaking +up" my setting hens. He has made a swinging coop with a wire netting +bottom, for all the world like the hanging gardens of Babylon, and into +this all the ruffled mothers-to-be have been thrust and the coop hung up +on the hen-house wall. Open wire is a very uncomfortable thing to set +on, and these hens have at last discovered that fact. I have been out +looking at them. I never saw such a parliament of solemn indignation. +But their pride has been broken, and they are beginning to show a +healthier interest in their meals.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Tenth" id="Tuesday_the_Tenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Tenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I've been wondering if Dinky-Dunk is going to fall in love with Olga. +Yesterday I saw him staring at her neck. She's the type of woman that +would really make the right sort of wilderness wife. She seems an +integral part of the prairie, broad-bosomed, fecund, opulent. And she's +so placid and large and soft-spoken and easy to live with. She has none +of my moods and tantrums.</p> + +<p>Her corsets came to-day, and I showed her how to put them on. She is +incontinently proud of them, but in my judgment they only make her +ridiculous. It's as foolish as putting a French <i>toque</i> on one of her +oxen. The skin of Olga's great shoulders is as smooth and creamy as a +baby's. I have been watching her eyes. They are not a dark blue, but in +a strong side-light they seem deep wells of light, layer on layer of +azure. And she is mysterious to me, calmly and magnificently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> +inscrutable. And I once thought her an uncouth animal. But she is a +great help. She has planted rows and rows of sweet peas all about Casa +Grande and is starting to make a kitchen garden, which she's going to +fence off and look after with her own hands. It will be twice the size +of Olie's. But I do hope she doesn't ever grow into something mysterious +to my Dinky-Dunk. This morning she said I ought to work in the garden, +that the more I kept on my feet the better it would be for me later on.</p> + +<p>As for Dinky-Dunk, the poor boy is working himself gaunt. Yet tired as +he is, he tries to read a few pages of something worth while every +night. Sometimes we take turns in reading. Last night he handed me over +his volume of Spencer with a pencil mark along one passage. This passage +said: "Intellectual activity in women is liable to be diminished after +marriage by that antagonism between individuation and reproduction +everywhere operative throughout the organic world." I don't know why, +but that passage made me as hot as a hornet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> In the background of my +brain I carried some vague memory of George Eliot once catching this +same philosophizing Spencer fishing with a composite fly, and, remarking +on his passion for generalizations, declaring that he even fished with a +generalization. So I could afford to laugh. "Spencer's idea of a +tragedy," I told Dinky-Dunk, "is a deduction killed by a fact!" And +again I smiled my Mona-Lisa smile. "And I'm going to be one of the +facts!" I proudly proclaimed.</p> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk, after thinking this over, broke into a laugh. "You know, +Gee-Gee," he solemnly announced, "there are times when you seem almost +clever!" But I wasn't clever in this case, for it was hours later before +I saw the trap which Dinky-Dunk had laid for me!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Sixteenth" id="Monday_the_Sixteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Sixteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>All day Saturday Olga and Dinky-Dunk were off in the chuck-wagon, +working too far away to come home for dinner. The thought of them being +out there, side by side, hung over me like a cloud. I remembered how he +had absently stared at the white column of her neck. And I pictured him +stopping in his work and studying her faded blue cotton waist pulled +tight across the line of that opulent bust. What man wouldn't be +impressed by such bodily magnificence, such lavish and undulating youth +and strength? And there's something so soft and diffused about those +ox-like eyes of hers! You do not think, then, of her eyes being such a +pale blue, any more than you could stop to accuse summer moonlight of +not being ruddy. And those unruffled blue eyes never seem to see you; +they rather seem to bathe you in a gaze as soft and impersonal as +moonlight itself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>I simply couldn't stand it any more. I got on Paddy and galloped out for +my Dinky-Dunk, as though it were my sudden and solemn duty to save him +from some imminent and awful catastrophe.</p> + +<p>I stopped on the way, to watch a couple of prairie-chickens minuetting +through the turns of their vernal courtships. The pompous little beggars +with puffed-out wattles and neck ruffs were positively doing cancans and +two-steps along the prairie floor. Love was in the air, that perfect +spring afternoon, even for the animal world. So instead of riding openly +and honestly up to Dinky-Dunk and Olga, I kept under cover as much as I +could and stalked them, as though I had been a timber wolf.</p> + +<p>Then I felt thoroughly and unspeakably ashamed of myself, for I caught +sight of Olga high on her wagon, like a Valkyr on a cloud, and +Dinky-Dunk hard at work a good two miles away.</p> + +<p>He was a little startled to see me come cantering up on Paddy. I don't +know whether it was silly or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> not, but I told him straight out what had +brought me. He hugged me like a bear and then sat down on the prairie +and laughed. "With that cow?" he cried. And I'm sure no man could ever +call the woman he loves a cow.... I believe Dinky-Dunk suspects +something. He's just asked me to be more careful about riding Paddy. And +he's been more solemnly kind, lately. But I'll never tell +him—never—never!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twenty-fourth" id="Tuesday_the_Twenty-fourth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twenty-fourth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Percy will be back to-morrow. It will be a different looking country to +what it was when he left. I've been staring up at a cobalt sky, and +begin to understand why people used to think Heaven was somewhere up in +the midst of such celestial blue. And on the prairie the sky is your +first and last friend. Wasn't it Emerson who somewhere said that the +firmament was the daily bread for one's eyes? And oh, the lovely, +greening floor of the wheat country now! Such a soft yellow-green glory +stretching so far in every direction, growing so much deeper day by day! +And the sun and space and clear light on the sky-line and the pillars of +smoke miles away and the wonderful, mysterious promise that is hanging +over this teeming, steaming, shimmering, abundant broad bosom of earth! +It thrills me in a way I can't explain. By night and day, before +breakfast and after supper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> the talk is of wheat, wheat, wheat, until I +nearly go crazy. I complained to Dinky-Dunk that he was dreaming wheat, +living wheat, breathing wheat, that he and all the rest of the world +seemed mad about wheat.</p> + +<p>"And there's just one other thing you must remember, Lady Bird," was his +answer. "All the rest of the world is <i>eating</i> wheat. It can't live +without wheat. And I'd rather be growing the bread that feeds the hungry +than getting rich making cordite and Krupp guns!" So he's risking +everything on this crop of his, and is eternally figuring and planning +and getting ready for the <i>grande débâcle</i>. He says it will be like a +battle. And no general goes into a battle without being prepared for it. +But when we read about the doings of the outside world, it seems like +reading of happenings that have taken place on the planet Mars. We're +our own little world just now, self-contained, rounded-out, complete.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Third_1" id="Friday_the_Third_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Third</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Two things of vast importance have happened. Dinky-Dunk has packed up +and made off to Edmonton to interview some railway officials, and Percy +is back. Dinky-Dunk is so mysteriously silent as to the matter of his +trip that I'm afraid he is worried about money matters. And he asked me +if I'd mind keeping the household expenses down as low as I could, +without actual hardship, for the next few months.</p> + +<p>As for Percy, he seemed a little constrained, but looked ever so much +better. He is quite sunburned, likes California and says we ought to +have a winter bungalow there (and Dinky-Dunk just warning me to save on +the pantry pennies!) He's brought a fastidious little old English woman +back with him as a housekeeper, a Mrs. Watson, and she looks both +capable and practical. Notwithstanding the fact that she seems to have +stepped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> right out of Dickens, and carries a huge Manx cat about with +her, Percy said he thought they'd muddle along in some way. Thoughtful +boy that he was, he brought me a portmanteau packed full of the newer +novels and magazines, and a two-pound jar of smoking tobacco for +Dinky-Dunk.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Ninth" id="Thursday_the_Ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>A Belasco couldn't have more carefully stage-managed the first meeting +between Percy and Olga. I felt that she was my discovery, and I wanted +to spring her on him, at the right moment, and in the right way. I +wanted to get the Valkyr on a cloud effect. So I kept Percy in the house +on the pretext of giving him a cup of tea, until I should hear the +rumble of the wagon and know that Olga was swinging home with her team. +It so happened, when I heard the first faint far thunder of that homing +wagon, that Percy was sitting in my easy chair, with a cup of my +thinnest china in one hand and a copy of Walter Pater's <i>Marius the +Epicurean</i> in the other. We had been speaking of climate, and he wanted +to look up the passage where Pater said, "one always dies of the +cold"—which I consider a slur on the Northwest!</p> + +<p>I couldn't help realizing, as I sat staring at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> Percy, at the thin, +over-sensitive face, and the high-arched, over-refined nose, and the +narrow, stooping, over-delicate shoulders, what a direct opposite he was +to Olga, in every way. Instead of thin china and Pater in her hand at +that very moment, I remembered she'd probably have a four-tined fork or +a mud-stained fence stretcher.</p> + +<p>I went to the door and looked out. At the proper moment I called Percy. +Olga was standing up in the wagon-box, swinging about one corner of the +corral. She stood with her shoulders well back, for her weight was +already on the lines, to pull the team up. Her loose blue skirt edge was +fluttering in the wind, but at the front was held tight against her +legs, like the drapery of the Peace figure in the Sherman statue in the +Plaza. Across that Artemis-like bosom her thin waist was stretched +tight. She had no hat on, and her pale gold hair, which had been braided +and twisted up into a heavy crown, had the sheen of metal on it, in the +later afternoon sun. And in that clear glow of light, which so often +plays mirage-like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> tricks with vision, she loomed up like a demi-god, or +a she-Mercury who ought to have had little bicycle wheels attached to +her heels.</p> + +<p>Percy is never demonstrative. But I could see that he was more than +impressed. He was amazed.</p> + +<p>"My word!" he said very quietly.</p> + +<p>"What does she make you think of?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>Percy put down his teacup.</p> + +<p>"Don't go away," I commanded, "but tell me what she makes you think of." +He still stood staring at her with puckered up eyes.</p> + +<p>"She's like band-music going by!" he proclaimed. "No, she's more than +that; she's Wagner on wheels," he finally said. "No, not that! A Norse +myth in dimity!"</p> + +<p>I told him it wasn't dimity, but he was too interested in Olga to listen +to me.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later, when she met him, she was very shy. She turned an +adorable pink, and then calmly rebuttoned the two top buttons of her +waist, which had been hanging loose. And I noticed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> Percy did +precisely what I saw Dinky-Dunk once doing. He sat staring absently yet +studiously at the milky white column of Olga's neck! And I had to speak +to him twice, before he even woke up to the fact that he was being +addressed by his hostess.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Fifteenth" id="Wednesday_the_Fifteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Fifteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk is back, and very busy again. During the day I scarcely get a +glimpse of him, except at meal-times. I have a steadily growing sense of +being neglected, but I know how a worried man hates petulance. The +really important thing is that Percy is giving Olga lessons in reading +and writing. For, although a Finn, she is a Canadian Finn from almost +the shadow of the sub-Arctics, and has had little chance for education. +But her mind is not obtuse.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I asked Olga what she thought of Percival Benson. "Ah lak +heem," she calmly admitted in her majestic, monosyllabic way. "He is a +fonny leetle man." And the "fonny leetle man" who isn't really little, +seems to like Olga, odd as it may sound. They are such opposites, such +contradictions! Percy says she's Homeric. He says he never saw eyes that +were so limpid, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> such pools of peace and calm. He insists on the fact +that she's essentially maternal, as maternal as the soil over which she +walks, as Percy put it. I told him what Dinky-Dunk had once told me, +about Olga killing a bull. The bull was a vicious brute that had +attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen +man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for +that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a +pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines +eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him +back to the house. And I won't even kill my own hens, but have always +appointed Olie as the executioner.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Seventeenth" id="Friday_the_Seventeenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Seventeenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It is funny to see Percy teaching Olga. She watches him as though he +were a miracle man. Her dewy red lips form the words slowly, and the +full white throat utters them largely, laboriously, instruments on them, +and in some perhaps uncouth way makes them lovely. I sit with my sewing, +listening. Sometimes I open the piano and play. But I feel out of it. I +seem to be on the fringe of things that are momentous only to other +people. Last night, when Percy said he thought he'd sell his ranch, +Dinky-Dunk looked up from his paper-littered desk and told him to hang +on to that land like a leech. But he didn't explain why.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Nineteenth" id="Saturday_the_Nineteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Nineteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I can't even remember the date. But I know that midsummer is here, that +the men folks are so busy I have to shift for myself, and that the talk +is still of wheat, and how it's heading, and how the dry weather of the +last few weeks will affect the length of the straw. Dinky-Dunk is making +desperate efforts to get men to cut wild-hay. He's bought the hay rights +of a large stretch between some sloughs about seven miles east of our +place. He says men are scarcer than hen's teeth, but has the promise of +a couple of cutthroats who were thrown off a freight-train near +Buckhorn. Percy volunteered to help, and was convinced of the fact that +he could drive a mower. Olie, who nurses a vast contempt for Percy, and, +I secretly believe, rather resents his attentions to Olga, put the new +team of colts on the mower. They promptly ran away with Percy, who came +within an ace of being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> thrown in front of the mower-knife, which would +have chopped him up into very unscholarly mincemeat. Olga got on a +horse, bareback, and rounded up the colts. Then she cooed about poor +bruised Percy and tried to coax him to come to the house. But Percy said +he was going to drive that team, even if he had to be strapped to the +mower-seat. And, oddly enough, he did "gat them beat," as Olga expressed +it, but it tired him out and wilted his collar and the sweat was running +down his face when he came in at noon. Olga is very proud of him. But +she announced that she'd drive that mower herself, and sailed into Olie +for giving a tenderfoot a team like that to drive. It was her first +outburst. I couldn't understand a word she said, but I know that she was +magnificent. She looked like a statue of Justice that had suddenly +jumped off its pedestal and was doing its best to put a Daniel Webster +out of business!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Twenty-eighth" id="Friday_the_Twenty-eighth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Twenty-eighth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The weather is still very dry. But Dinky-Dunk feels sure it will not +affect his crop. He says the filaments of a wheat-plant will go almost +two feet deep in search for moisture. Yesterday Percy appeared in a +flannel shirt, and without his glasses. I think he is secretly +practising calisthenics. He said he was going to cut out this afternoon +tea, because it doesn't seem to fit in with prairie life. I fancy I see +the re-barbarianizing influence of Olga at work on Percival Benson +Woodhouse. Either Dinky-Dunk or Olie, I find, has hidden my saddle!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Twenty-ninth" id="Saturday_the_Twenty-ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Twenty-ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>To-day has been one of the hottest days of the year. It may be good for +the wheat, but I can't say that it seems good for me. All day long I've +been fretting for far-away things, for foolish and impossible things. I +tried reading Keats, but that only made me worse than ever. I've been +longing for a glimpse of the Luxembourg Gardens in spring, with all the +horse-chestnuts in bloom. I've been wondering how lovely it would be to +drift into the Blue Grotto at Capri and see the azure sea-water drip +from the trailing boat-oars. I've been burning with a hunger to see a +New England orchard in the slanting afternoon sunlight of an early June +afternoon. The hot white light of this open country makes my eyes ache +and seems to dry my soul up. I can't help thinking of cool green +shadows, and musky little valleys of gloom with a brook purling over +mossy stones. I long for the solemn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> greenery of great elms, aisles and +aisles of cathedral-like gloom and leaf-filtered sunlight. I'd love to +hear an English cuckoo again, and feel the soft mild sea-air that blows +up through Louis's dear little Devonshire garden. But what's the use!</p> + +<p>I went to the piano and pounded out <i>Kennst Du Das Land</i> with all my +soul, and I imagine it did me good. It at least bombarded the silence +out of Casa Grande. The noise of life is so far away from you on the +prairie! It is not utterly silent, just that dreamy and disembodied sigh +of wind and grass against which a human call targets like a leaden +bullet against metal. It is almost worse than silence.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Thirtieth" id="Sunday_the_Thirtieth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Thirtieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>My mood is over. Early, early this morning I slipped out of bed and +watched day break. I saw the first faint orange rim along the limitless +sky-line, and then the pearly pink above it, and all the sweet dimness +and softness and mystery of God's hand pulling the curtains of morning +apart. And then the rioting orchestras of color struck up, and I leaned +out of the window bathed in glory as the golden disk of the sun showed +over the dewy prairie-edge. Oh, the grandeur of it! And oh, the +God-given freshness of that pellucid air! I love my land! I love it!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_First" id="Tuesday_the_First"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the First</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I have married a <i>man</i>! My Dinky-Dunk is not a softy. I had that proved +to me yesterday, when I put Paddy in the buckboard and drove out to +where the men were working in the hay. I was taking their dinner out to +them, neatly packed in the chuck-box. One of the new men, who'd been +hired for the rush, had been overworking his team. The brute had been +prodding them with a pitchfork, instead of using a whip. Dinky-Dunk saw +the marks, and noticed one of the horses bleeding. But he didn't +interfere until he caught the man in the act of jabbing the tines into +Maid Marian's flank. Then he jumped for him, just as I drove up. He +cursed that man, cursed and damned him most dreadfully and pulled him +down off the hay-rack. Then they fought.</p> + +<p>They fought like two wildcats. Dinky-Dunk's nose bled and his lip was +cut. But he knocked the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> other man flat, and when he tried to get up he +knocked him again. It seemed cruel; it was revolting. But something in +me rejoiced and exulted as I saw that hulk of an animal thresh and +stagger about the hay-stubble. I tried to wipe the blood away from +Dinky-Dunk's nose. But he pushed me back and said this was no place for +a woman. I had no place in his universe, at that particular time. But +Dinky-Dunk can fight, if he has to. He's sa magerful a mon! He's afraid +of nothing.</p> + +<p>But that was nearly a costly victory. Both the new men of course threw +up their jobs, then and there. Dinky-Dunk paid them off, on the spot, +and they started off across the open prairie, without even waiting for +their meal. Dinky-Dunk, as we sat down on the dry grass and ate +together, said it was a good riddance, and he was just saying I could +only have the left-hand side of his mouth to kiss for the next week when +he suddenly dropped his piece of custard-pie, stood up and stared toward +the east. I did the same, wondering what had happened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<p>I could see a long thin slanting column of smoke driving across the hot +noonday air. Then my heart stopped beating. <i>It was the prairie on +fire.</i></p> + +<p>I had heard a great deal about fire-guards and fire-guarding, three rows +about crops and ten about buildings; and I knew that Olie hadn't yet +finished turning all those essential furrows. And if that column of +smoke, which was swinging up through the silvery haze where the indigo +vault of heaven melted into the dusty whiteness of the parched +grasslands, had come from the mouth of a siege-gun which was cannonading +us where we stood, it couldn't have more completely chilled my blood. +For I knew that east wind would carry the line of fire crackling across +the prairie floor to Dinky-Dunk's wheat, to the stables and +out-buildings, to Casa Grande itself, and all our scheming and planning +and toiling and moiling would go up in one yellow puff of smoke. And +once under way, nothing could stop that widening river of flame.</p> + +<p>It was Dinky-Dunk who jumped to life as though he had indeed been +cannonaded. In one bound he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> was at the buckboard and was snatching out +the horse-blanket that lay folded up under the seat. Then he unsnapped +the reins from Paddy's bridle, snapping them on the blanket, one to the +buckle and the other to the strap-end. In another minute he had the +hobble off Paddy and had swung me up on that astonished pinto's back. +The next minute he himself was on Maid Marian, poking one end of the +long rein into my hand and telling me to keep up with him.</p> + +<p>We rode like mad. I scarcely understood what it meant, at the time, but +I at least kept up with him. We went floundering through one end of a +slough until the blanket was wet and heavy and I could hardly hold it. +But I hung on for dear life. Then we swung off across the dry grass +toward that advancing semicircle of fire, as far apart as the taut reins +would let us ride. Dinky-Dunk took the windward side. Then on we rushed, +along that wavering frontier of flame, neck to neck, dragging the wet +blanket along its orange-tinted crest, flattening it down and wiping it +out as we went. We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> made the full circle, panting; saw where the flames +had broken out again, and swung back with our dragging blanket. But when +one side was conquered another side would revive, and off we'd have to +go again, until my arm felt as though it were going to be pulled out of +its socket.</p> + +<p>But we won that fight, in the end. I slipped down off Paddy's back and +lay full length on the sod, weak, shaking, wondering why the solid +ground was rocking slowly from side to side like a boat. But Dinky-Dunk +didn't even observe me. He was fighting out the last patch of fire, on +foot.</p> + +<p>When he came over to where I was waiting for him he was as sooty and +black as a boiler-maker. He dropped down beside me, breathing hard. We +sat there holding each other's hand, for several minutes, in utter +silence. Then he said, rather thickly: "Are you all right?" And I told +him that of course I was all right. Then he said, without looking at me, +"I forgot!" Then he got Paddy and patched up the harness and took me +home in the buckboard.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + +<p>But all the rest of the day he hung about the shack, as solemn as an +owl. And once in the night he got up and lighted the lamp and came over +and studied my face. I blinked up at him sleepily, for I was dog-tired +and had been dreaming that we were back in Paris at the Bal des Quatz +Arts and were about to finish up with an early breakfast at the Madrid. +He looked so funny with his rumpled up hair and his faded pajamas that I +couldn't help laughing a little as he blew out the light and got back +into bed.</p> + +<p>"Dinky-Dunk," I said, as I turned over my pillow and got comfy again, +"wouldn't it have been hell if all our wheat had been burned up?" I +forget what Duncan said, for in two minutes I was asleep again.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Seventh_1" id="Monday_the_Seventh_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The dry spell has been broken, and broken with a vengeance. One gets +pretty well used to high winds, in the West. There used to be days at a +time when that unending high wind would make me think something was +going to happen, filling me with a vague sense of impending calamity and +making me imagine a big storm was going to blow up and wipe Casa Grande +and its little coterie off the map. But we've had a real wind-storm, +this time, with rain and hail. Dinky-Dunk's wheat looks sadly draggled +out and beaten down, but he says there wasn't enough hail to hurt +anything; that the straw will straighten up again, and that this +downpour was just what he wanted. Early in the afternoon, on looking out +the shack door, I saw a tangle of clouds on the sky-line. They seemed +twisted up like a skein of wool a kitten had been playing with. Then +they seemed to marshal themselves into one solid<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> line and sweep up over +the sky, getting blacker and blacker as they came. Olga ran in with her +yellow hair flying, slamming and bolting the stable-doors, locking the +chicken-coop, and calling out for me to get my clothes off the line or +they'd be blown to pieces. Even then I could feel the wind. It whipped +my own hair loose, and flattened my skirt against my body, and I had to +lean forward to make any advance against it.</p> + +<p>By this time the black army of the heavens had rolled up overhead and a +few big frog-like drops of rain began to fall, throwing up little clouds +of dust, as a rifle bullet might. I trundled out a couple of tubs, in +the hope of catching a little soft water. It wasn't until later that I +realized the meaning of Olga's mild stare of reproof. For the next +moment the downpour came, and with it the wind. And such wind! There had +been nothing to stop its sweep, of course, for hundreds and hundreds of +miles, and it hit us the same as a hurricane at sea hits a liner. The +shack shook with the force of it. My two wash-tubs went bounding and +careening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> off across the landscape, the chicken-coop went over like a +nine-pin, and the air was filled with bits of flying timber. Olga's +wagon, with the hay-rack on top of it, moved solemnly and ponderously +across the barnyard and crashed into the corral, propelled by no power +but that of the wind. My sweet-pea hedges were torn from their wires, +and an armful of hay came smack against the shack-window and was held +there by the wind, darkening the room more than ever.</p> + +<p>Then the storm blew itself out, though it poured for two or three hours +afterward. And all the while, although I exulted in that play of +elemental force, I was worrying about my Dinky-Dunk, who was away for +the day, doing what he could to arrange for some harvest hands, when the +time for cutting came. For the wheat, it seems, ripens all at once, and +then the grand rush begins. If it isn't cut the moment it's ripe, the +grain shells out, and that means loss. Olga has been saying that the +wheat on the Cummins section will easily run forty bushels to the acre +and over. It will also grade<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> high, whatever that means. There are six +hundred and forty acres of it in that section, and I've just figured out +that this means a little over twenty-five thousand bushels of grain. Our +other piece on the home ranch is a larger tract, but a little lighter in +crop. That wheat is just beginning to turn from green to the palest of +yellow. And it has a good show, Olga says, if frost will only keep off +and no hail comes. Our one occupation, for the next few weeks, will be +watching the weather.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Thirteenth_1" id="Sunday_the_Thirteenth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Thirteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Percy and Mrs. Watson drove over to see how we'd all weathered the +storm. They found the chicken-coop once more right side up, and +everything ship-shape. Percy promptly asked where Olga was. I pointed +her out to him, breast-high in the growing wheat. She looked like Ceres, +in her big, new, loose-fitting blue waist, with the noonday sun on her +yellow-gold head and her mild ruminative eyes with their misted sky-line +effect. She always seems to fit into the landscape here. I suppose it's +because she's a born daughter of the soil. And a sea of wheat makes a +perfect frame for that massive, benignant figure of hers.</p> + +<p>I looked at Percy, at thin-nosed, unpractical Percy, with all his +finicky sensibilities, with his high fastidious reticences, with his +effete, inbred meagerness of bone and sinew, with his distinguished +pride of distinguished race rather running to seed. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> I stood +marveling at the wisdom of old Mother Nature, who was so plainly +propelling him toward this revitalizing, revivifying, reanimalizing, +redeeming type which his pale austerities of spirit could never quite +neutralize. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed what is taking place. He saw +them standing side by side in the grain. When he came in he pointed them +out to me, and merely said, "<i>Hermann und Dorothea</i>!" But I remembered +my Goethe well enough to understand.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twenty-eighth" id="Monday_the_Twenty-eighth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twenty-eighth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I woke Dinky-Dunk up last night crying beside him in bed. I just got to +thinking about things again, how far away we were from everything, how +hard it would be to get help if we needed it, and how much I'd give if I +only had you, Matilda Anne, for the next few weeks.... I got up and went +to the window and looked out. The moon was big and yellow, like a +cheese. And the midnight prairie itself seemed so big and wide and +lonely, and I seemed such a tiny speck on its face, so far away from +every one, from God himself, that the courage went out of my body like +the air out of a tire. Dinky-Dunk was right; it is life that is taming +me.</p> + +<p>I stood at the window praying, and then I slipped back into bed. +Dinky-Dunk works so hard and gets so tired that it would take a Chinese +devil-gong to waken him, once he's asleep. He did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> stir when I crept +back into bed. And that, as I lay there wide awake, made me feel that +even my own husband had betrayed me. And I <i>bawled</i>. I must have shaken +the bed, for Dinky-Dunk finally did wake up. I couldn't tell him what +was the matter. I blubbered out that I only wanted him to hold me. He +took me in his arms and kissed my wet eyelids, hugging me up close to +him, until I got quieter. Then I fell asleep. But poor Dinky-Dunk was +awake when I opened my eyes about four, and had been that way for hours. +He was afraid of disturbing me by taking his arm from under my head. +To-day he looks tired and dark around the eyes. But he was up and off +early. There is so much to be done these days! He is putting up a +grub-tent and a rough sleeping-shack for the harvest "hands," so that I +won't be bothered with a lot of rough men about the house here. I'm +afraid I'm an encumbrance, when I should be helping. But they seem to be +taking everything out of my hands.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Second" id="Saturday_the_Second"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Second</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I love to watch the wheat, now that it's really turning. It waves like a +sea and stretches off into the distance as far as the eye can follow it. +It's as high as my waist, and sometimes it moves up and down like a +slowly breathing breast. When the sun is low it turns a pure Roman gold, +and makes my eyes ache. But I love it. It strikes me as being glorious, +and at the same time pathetic—I scarcely know why. I can't analyze my +feelings. But the prairie brings a great peace to my soul. It is so +rich, so maternal, so generous. It seems to brood under a passion to +give, to yield up, to surrender all that is asked of it. And it is so +tranquil. It seems like a bosom breathed on by the breath of God.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Sixth" id="Wednesday_the_Sixth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Sixth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It is nearly a year, now, since I first came to Casa Grande. I can +scarcely believe it. The nights are getting very cool again and any time +now there might be a heavy frost. If it should freeze this next week or +two I think my Dinky-Dunk would just curl up and die. Poor boy, he's +working so hard! I pray for that crop every night. I worry about it. +Last night I dreamt it was burnt up in a prairie-fire and woke up +screaming for wet blankets. Dinky-Dunk had to hold me until I got quiet +again. I asked him if he loved me, now that I was getting old and ugly. +He said I was the most beautiful thing God ever made and that he loved +me in a deeper and nobler way than he did a year ago. Then I asked him +if he'd ever get married again, if I should die. He called me silly and +said I was going to live to be eighty, and that a gasoline-tractor +couldn't kill me. But he promised I'd be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> only one, whatever +happened. And I believe him. I know Dinky-Dunk would go in black for a +solid year, if I <i>should</i> die, and he'd never, never marry again, for +he's the sort of Old Sobersides who can only love one woman in one +lifetime. And I'm the woman, glory be!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twelfth" id="Tuesday_the_Twelfth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twelfth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Harvest time is here. The stage is cleared, and the last and great act +of the drama now begins. It's a drama with a stage a thousand miles +wide. I can hear through the open windows the rattle of the +self-binders. Olga is driving one, like a tawny Boadicea up on her +chariot. She said she never saw such heads of wheat. This is the first +day's cutting, but those flapping canvas belts and those tireless arms +of wood and iron won't have one-tenth of Dinky-Dunk's crop tied up by +midnight. It is very cold, and Olie has lugubriously announced that it's +sure going to freeze. So three times I've gone out to look at the +thermometer and three times I've said my solemn little prayer: "Dear +God, please don't freeze poor Dinky-Dunk's wheat!" And the Lord heard +that prayer, for a Chinook came about two o'clock in the morning and the +mercury slowly but steadily rose.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Fourteenth" id="Thursday_the_Fourteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Fourteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I had a great deal to talk about to-day. But I can't write much.... I'm +afraid. I dread being alone. I wish I'd been a better wife to my poor +old gold-bricked Dinky-Dunk! But we are what we are, character-kinks and +all. So when he understands, perhaps he'll forgive me. I'm like a +cottontail in the middle of a wheat-patch with the binders going round +and round and every swathe cutting away a little more of my covering. +And there can't be much more hiding away with my secret. But I shall +never openly speak of it. The binder can cut off my feet first, the same +as Olie's did with that mother-rabbit which stood trembling over her +nest of young. Why must life sometimes be so ruthlessly tragic? And why, +oh, why, are women sometimes so absurd? And why should I be afraid of +what every woman who would justify her womanhood must face? Still, I'm +afraid!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Fifth" id="Wednesday_the_Fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Three long weeks since those last words were written. And what shall I +say, or how shall I begin?</p> + +<p>In the first place, everything seemed gray. The bed was gray, my own +arms were gray, the walls looked gray, the window-glass was gray, and +even Dinky-Dunk's face was gray. I didn't want to move, for a long time. +Then I got the strength to tell Mrs. Watson that I wanted to speak to my +husband. She was wrapping something up in soft flannel and purring over +it quite proudly and calling it a blessed little lamb. When poor +pale-faced Dinky-Dunk bent over the bed I asked him if it had a receding +chin, or if it had a nose like Olie's. And he said it had neither, that +it was a king of a boy and could holler like a good one.</p> + +<p>Then I told Dinky-Dunk what had been in my secret soul, for so many +months. Uncle Carlton had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> a receding chin, a boneless, dew-lappy sort +of chin I'd always hated, and I'd been afraid it might kind of +skip-and-carry one and fasten itself on my innocent offspring. Then, +later on, I'd been afraid of Olie's frozen nose, with the split down the +center. And all the while I kept remembering what the Morleys' old +colored nurse had said to me when I was a schoolgirl, a girl of only +seventeen, spending that first vacation of mine in Virginia: "Lawdy, +chile, yuh ain't no bigger'n a minit! Don't yuh nebber hab no baby, +chile!"</p> + +<p>Isn't it funny how those foolish old things stick in a woman's memory? +For I've had my baby and I'm still alive, and although I sometimes +wanted a girl, Dinky-Dunk is so ridiculously proud and happy seeing it's +a boy that I don't much care. But I'm going to get well and strong in a +few more days, and here against my breast I'm holding the God-love-itest +little lump of pulsing manhood, the darlingest, solemnest, placidest, +pinkest hope of the white race that ever made life full and perfect for +a foolish mother.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p> + +<p>The doctor who finally got here—when both Olga and Mrs. Dixon agreed +that he couldn't possibly do a bit of good—announced that I had come +through it all like the true Prairie Woman that I was. Then he somewhat +pompously and redundantly explained that I was a highly organized +individual, "a bit high-strung," as Mrs. Dixon put it. I smiled into the +pillow when he turned to my anxious-eyed Dinky-Dunk and condoningly +enlarged on the fact that there was nothing abnormal about a woman like +me being—well, rather abnormal as to temper and nerves during the last +few months. But Dinky-Dunk cut him short.</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, sir; she's been wonderful, simply wonderful!" +Dinky-Dunk stoutly declared. Then he reached for my hand under the +coverlet. "She's been an angel!"</p> + +<p>I squeezed the hand that held mine. Then I looked at the doctor, who had +turned away to give some orders to Olga.</p> + +<p>"Doctor," I quite as stoutly declared, "I've been a perfect devil, and +this dear old liar knows it!" But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> our doctor was too busy to pay much +attention to what I was saying. He merely murmured that it was all +normal, quite normal, under the circumstances. So, after all, I'm just +an ordinary, everyday woman! But the man of medicine has ordered me to +stay in bed for twelve days—which Olga regards as unspeakably +preposterous, since one day, she proudly announced, was all her mother +ever asked for. Which shows the disadvantages of being too civilized!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Ninth" id="Sunday_the_Ninth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Ninth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I'm day by day getting stronger, though I'm a lady of luxury and lie in +bed until ten every morning. To-day when I was sitting up to eat +breakfast, with my hair braided in two tails and a pink and white +hug-me-tight over my nightie, Dinky-Dunk came in and sat by the bed. He +tried to soft-soap me by saying he'd be mighty glad when I was running +things again so he could get something fit to eat. Olga, he admitted, +was all right, but she hadn't the touch of his Gee-Gee. He confessed +that for nearly a month now the house had been a damned gynocracy and he +was getting tired of being bossed around by a couple of women. <i>Mio +piccino</i> no longer looks like a littered whelp of the animal world, as +he did at first. His wrinkled little face and his close-shut eyes used +to make me think of a little old man, with all the wisdom of the ages +shut up in his tiny body. And it is such a knowing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> little body, with +all its stored-up instincts and guardian appetites! My little <i>tenor +robusto</i>, how he can sing when he's hungry! Last night I sat up in bed, +listening for my son's—Dinky-Dink's—breathing. At first I thought he +might be dead, he was so quiet. Then I heard his lips move in the +rhapsodic deglutition of babyland dreams. "Dinky-Dunk," I demanded, +"what would we do if Babe should die?" And I shook him to make him +answer. He stared up at me with a sleepy eye. "That whale?" he commented +as he blinked contentedly down at his offspring and then turned over and +went to sleep. But I slipped a hand in under little Dinky-Dink's body, +and found it as warm as a nesting bird.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Tenth" id="Monday_the_Tenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Tenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I noticed that Dinky-Dunk had not been smoking lately, so I asked him +what had become of the rest of his cigars. He admitted that he had given +them to Olie. "When?" I asked. And Dinky-Dunk colored up as he answered, +rather casually, "Oh, the day Buddy Boy was born!" How men merge down +into the conventional in their more epochal moments!</p> + +<p>The second day after my baby's birth Olga rather took my breath away by +carrying in as neat a little wooden cradle as any prince of the royal +blood would care to lie in. <i>Olie had made it</i>. He had worked on it +during his spare hours in the evening, and even Dinky-Dunk hadn't known. +I made Olga hold it up at the foot of the bed so I could see it better. +It had been scroll-sawed and sand-papered and polished like any +factory-made baby-bed, and my faithful old Olie had even attempted some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> +hand-carving along the rockers and the head-board. But as I looked at it +I realized that it must have taken weeks and weeks to make. And that +gave me an odd little earthquaky feeling in the neighborhood of the +midriff, for I knew then that my secret had been no secret at all. +Dinky-Dunk, by the way, has just announced that we're to have a +touring-car. He says I've earned it!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Eleventh" id="Tuesday_the_Eleventh"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Eleventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Yesterday was so warm that I sat out in the sun and took an ozone-bath. +I sat there, staring down at my boy, realizing that I was a mother. My +boy—bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! It's so hard to believe! And +now I am one of the mystic chain, and no longer the idle link. I am a +mother. And I'd give an arm if you and Chinkie and Scheming-Jack could +see my boy, at this moment. He's like a rose-leaf and he's got six +dimples, not counting his hands and feet—for I've found and kissed 'em +all—on different parts of his blessed little body. Dinky-Dunk came back +from Buckhorn yesterday with a lot of the foolishest things you ever +clapped eyes on—a big cloth elephant that grunts when you pull its +tail, a musical spinning-top, a high-chair, and a projecting lantern. +They're for Dinky-Dink, of course. But it will be a week or two before +he can manipulate the lantern!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Thirteenth" id="Wednesday_the_Thirteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Thirteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk has taken Mrs. Dixon home and come back with a brand-new +"hand," which, of course, is prairie-land synecdoche for a new hired +man. His name is Terry Dillon, and as the name might lead you to +imagine, he's about as Irish as Paddy's pig. He is blessed with a +potato-lip, a buttermilk brogue, and a nose which, if he follows it +faithfully, will some day lead him straight to Heaven. But Terry, +Dinky-Dunk tells me, is a steady worker and a good man with horses, and +that of course rounds him out as a paragon in the eyes of my +slave-driving lord and master. I asked where Terry came from. +Dinky-Dunk, with rather a grim smile, acknowledged that he'd been +working for Percy.</p> + +<p>Terry, it seems, has no particular love for an Englishman. And Percy had +affronted his haughty Irish spirit with certain ideas of caste which +can't<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> be imported into the Canadian West, where the hired man is every +whit as good as his master—as that master will tragically soon find out +if he tries to make his help eat at second table! At any rate, Percy and +potato-lipped Terry developed friction which ended up in every promise +of a fight, only Dinky-Dunk arrived in the nick of time and took Terry +off his harassed neighbor's hands. I told him he had rather the habit of +catching people on the bounce. But I am reserving my opinion of Terry +Dillon. We are a happy family here, and I want no trouble-makers in my +neighborhood.</p> + +<p>I have been studying some of the New York magazines, going rather +hungrily through their advertisements where such lovely layettes are +described. My poor little Dinky-Dink's things are so plain and rough and +meager. I envy those city mothers with all those beautiful linens and +laces. But my little Spartan man-child has never known a single day's +sickness. And some day he'll show 'em!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Fourteenth_1" id="Thursday_the_Fourteenth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Fourteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When Olie came in after dinner yesterday I asked him where my husband +was. Olie, after some hesitation, admitted that he was out in the +stable. I asked just what Dinky-Dunk was doing there, for I'd noticed +that after each meal he slipped silently away. Again Olie hesitated. +Then he finally admitted that he thought maybe my lord was out there +smoking. So I went out, and there I found my poor old Dinky-Dunk sitting +on a grain-box puffing gloomily away at his old pipe. For a minute or +two he didn't see me, so I went right over to him. "What does this +mean?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he rather guiltily equivocated.</p> + +<p>"Why are you smoking out here?"</p> + +<p>"I—er—I rather thought you might think it wouldn't be good for the +Boy!" He looked pathetic as he said that, I don't know why, though I +loved him for it. He made me think of a king<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> who'd been dethroned, an +outsider, a man without a home. It brought a lump into my throat.</p> + +<p>I wormed my way up close to him on the grain-box, so that he had to hold +me to keep from falling off the end. "Listen to me," I commanded. "You +are my True Love and my Kaikobád and my Man-God and my Soul-Mate! And no +baby is ever going to come between me and you!"</p> + +<p>"You shouldn't say those awful things," he declared, but he did it only +half-heartedly.</p> + +<p>"But I want you to sit and smoke with me, beloved, the same as you +always did," I told him. "We can leave the windows open a little and it +won't hurt Dinky-Dink, for that boy gets more ozone than any city child +that was ever wheeled out in the Mall! It can't possibly hurt him. What +hurts me is being away from you so much. And now give me a hug, a tight +one, and tell me that you still love your Lady Bird!" He gave me two, +and then two more, until Tumble-Weed turned round in his stall and +whinnied for us to behave.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Fifteenth" id="Friday_the_Fifteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Fifteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I've been keeping Terry under my eye, and I don't believe he's a +trouble-maker. His first move was to lift Babe out of the cradle, hold +him up and publicly announce that he was a darlin'. Then he pointed out +to me what a wonderful head the child had, feeling his frontal bone and +declaring he was sure to make a great scholar in his time. Dinky-Dunk, +grinning at the sober way in which I was swallowing this, pointedly +inquired of Terry whether it was Milton or Archimedes that Babe most +resembled as to skull formation. But it isn't Terry's blarney that has +made me capitulate; it's the fact that he has proved so companionable +and has slipped so quietly into his place in our little lonely circle of +lives on this ragged edge of nowhere.</p> + +<p>And he's as clean as a cat, shaving every blessed morning with a little +old broken-handled razor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> which he strops on a strip of oiled bootleg. +He declares that razor to be the finest bit of steel in all the +Americas, and showed off before Olie and Olga yesterday morning by +shaving without a looking-glass, which trick he said he learned in the +army. He also gave Olie a hair-cut, which was badly needed, and on +Sunday has promised to rig up a soldering-iron and mend all my pans for +me. He looks little over twenty, but is really thirty and more, and has +been in India and Mexico and Alaska.</p> + +<p>I caught him neatly darning his own woolen socks. Instead of betraying +shame at being detected in that effeminate pastime he proudly explained +that he'd learned to do a bit of stitching in the army. He hasn't many +possessions, but he's very neat in his arrangement of them. A good +soldier, he solemnly told me, always had to be a bit of an old maid. +"And you were a grand soldier, Terry, I know," I frankly told him. "I've +done a bit av killing in me time!" he proudly acknowledged. But as he +sat there darning his sock-heel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> he looked as though he couldn't kill a +field mouse. And in his idle hours he reads <i>Nick Carter</i>, a series of +paper-bound detective stories, almost worn to tatters, which he is going +through for the second or third time. These adventures, I find, he later +recounts to Olie, who is slowly but surely succumbing to the poison of +the penny-dreadful and the virus of the shilling-shocker! I even caught +Dinky-Dunk sitting up over one of these blood-curdling romances the +other night, though he laughed a little as I dragged him off to bed, at +the absurdity of the situations. Terry's eyes lighted up when he saw my +books and magazines. When I told him he could take anything he wanted, +he beamed and said it would sure be a glorious winter he'd be having, +with all that book-reading when the long nights came. But before those +long nights are over I'm going to try to pilot Terry into the channels +of respectable literature.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Saturday_the_Sixteenth" id="Saturday_the_Sixteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +<h2>Saturday the Sixteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I love the milky smell of my Dinky-Dink better than the perfume of any +flower that ever grew. He's so strong now that he can almost lift +himself up by his two little hands. At least he can really and actually +give a little <i>pull</i>. Two days ago our touring-car arrived. It is a +beauty. It skims over these smooth prairie trails like a yacht. From now +on we can run into Buckhorn, do our shopping, and run out again inside +of two or three hours. We can also reach the larger towns without +trouble and it will be so much easier to gather up what we need for Casa +Grande. Dinky-Dink seems to love the car. Ten minutes after we have +started out he is always fast asleep. Olga, who holds him in the back +seat when I get tired, sits in rapt and silent bliss as we rock along at +thirty miles an hour. And no wonder, for it's the next best thing to +sailing out on the briny deep!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<p>I can't help thinking of Terry's attitude toward Olga. He doesn't +actively dislike her, but he quietly ignores her, even more so than Olie +does. I've been wondering why neither of them has succumbed to such +physical grandeur. Perhaps it's because they're physical themselves. And +then I think her largeness oppresses Terry, for no man, whether he's +been a soldier or not, likes to be overtopped by a woman.</p> + +<p>The one exception, of course, is Percy. But Percy is a man of +imagination. He can realize that Olga is more than a mere type. He +agrees with me that she's a sort of miracle. To Terry she's only a mute +and muscular Finnish servant-girl with an arm like a grenadier's. To +Percy she is a goddess made manifest, a superhuman body of superhuman +vigor and beauty and at the same time a body crowned with majesty and +robed in mystery. And I still incline to Percy's opinion. Olga is always +wonderful to me. Her lips are such a soft and melting red, the red of +perfect animal health. The very milkiness of her skin is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> an +advertisement of that queenly and all-conquering vitality which lifts +her so above the ordinary ruck of humanity. And her great ruminative +eyes are as clear and limpid as any woodland pool.</p> + +<p>She blushes rose color sometimes when Percy comes in. I think he finds a +secret joy in sensing that reaction in anything so colossal. But he +defends himself behind that mask of cool impersonality which is the last +attribute of the mental aristocrat, no matter what his feelings may be. +His attitude toward Terry, by the way, is a remarkably companionable one +in view of the fact of their earlier contentions. They can let by-gones +be by-gones and talk and smoke and laugh together. It is Terry, if any +one, who is just a wee bit condescending. And I imagine that it is the +aura of Olga which has brought about this oddly democratizing condition +of affairs. She seems to give a new relationship to things, softening a +point here and illuminating a point there as quietly as moonlight itself +can do.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Seventeenth" id="Monday_the_Seventeenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Seventeenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Yesterday Olga carried home a whole pailful of mushrooms, for an Indian +summer seems to have brought on a second crop of them. They were lovely. +But she refused to eat any. I asked her why. She heaved her huge +shoulders and said she didn't know. But she does, I feel sure, and I've +been wondering why she's afraid of anything that can taste so good, once +they are creamed and heaped on a square of toast. As for me</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>I love 'em, I love 'em, and who shall dare</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>To chide me for loving that mushroom fare?</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Nineteenth" id="Wednesday_the_Nineteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Nineteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I found myself singing for all I was worth as I did my work this +morning. Dinky-Dunk came and stood in the door and said it sounded like +old times. I feel strong again and have ventured to ask my lord and +master if I couldn't have the weentiest gallop on Paddy once more. But +he's made me promise to wait for a week or two. The last two or three +nights have been quite cold, and away off, miles and miles across the +prairie, we can see the glow of fires where different ranchers are +burning their straw, after the wind-stackers have blown it from the +threshing machines. Sometimes it burns all night long.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Twenty-first" id="Friday_the_Twenty-first"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Twenty-first</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I have this morning found out why Olga won't eat mushrooms. It was very +cold again last night, for this time of year. Percy came over, and we +had a ripping fire and popped Ontario pop-corn with Ontario maple sirup +poured over it. Olga and Olie and Terry all came in and sat about the +stove. And being absolutely happy and contented and satisfied with life +in general, we promptly fell to talking horrors, the same as a cook +stirs lemon juice into her pudding-sauce, I suppose, to keep its +sweetness from being too cloying. That revel in the by-paths of the +Poesque began with Dinky-Dunk's casual reference to the McKinnon ranch +and Percy's inquiry as to why its earlier owner had given it up. So +Dinky-Dunk recounted the story of Andrew Cochrane's death. And it was +noticeable that poor old Olie betrayed visible signs of distress at this +tale of a young ranchman being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> frozen to death alone in his shack in +mid-winter. So Dinky-Dunk, apparently with malice prepense, enlarged on +his theme, describing how all young Cochrane's stock had starved in +their stalls and how his collie dog which had been chained to a +kennel-box outside the shack had first drawn attention to the tragedy. A +government inspector, in riding past, had noticed the shut-up shack, had +pounded on the door, and had promptly discovered the skeleton of the dog +with a chain and collar still attached to the clean-picked neckbones. +And inside the shack he had found the dead man himself, as life-like, +because of the intense cold, as though he had fallen asleep the night +before.</p> + +<p>It was not a pleasant story, and my efforts to picture the scene gave me +rather a bristly feeling along the pin-feather area of my anatomy. And +again undoubted signs of distress were manifest in poor Olie. The face +of that simple-souled Swede took on such a look of wondering trouble +that Dinky-Dunk deliberately and at great detail told of a ghost that +had been repeatedly seen in an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> abandoned wickyup a little farther west +in the province.</p> + +<p>And that, of course, fired the Celtic soul of Terry, who told of the +sister of his Ould Counthry master who had once been taken to a +hospital. And just at dusk on the third day after that his young master +was walking down the dark hall. As he passed his sister's door, there +she stood all in white, quietly brushing her hair, as plain as day to +his eyes. And with that the master rushed down-stairs to his mother +asking how Sheila had got back from the hospital. And his old mother, +being slow of movement, started for Sheila's room. But before she so +much as reached the foot of the stairs a neighbor woman came running in, +wiping her eyes with her shawl-end and saying, "Poor Sheila died this +minute over t' the hospital!" I can't tell it as Terry told it, and I +don't know whether he himself believed in it or not, but the huge bulk +of Olie Larson sat there bathed in a fine sweat, with his eyes fixed on +the stove front. He was by no means happy, and yet he seemed unable to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> +tear himself away, just as Gimlets and I used to sit chained to the spot +while Grandfather Heppelwhite continued to intone the dolorous history +of the "Babes in the Woods" until our ultimate and inevitable collapse +into tears!</p> + +<p>So Percy, who is not without his spirit of ragging, told several +whoppers, which he later confessed came from the Society of Psychical +Research records. And I huskily recounted Uncle Carlton's story of the +neurasthenic lady patient who went into a doctor's office and there +beheld a skull standing on his polished rosewood desk. Then, as she sat +staring at it, this skull started to move slowly toward her. It later +turned out to be only a plaster-of-Paris paper weight, and a mouse had +got inside it and found a piece of cracker there—and a cracker, I had +to explain to Percy, was the name under which a biscuit usually +masqueraded in America. That mouse, in its efforts to get the last of +that cracker, had, of course, shifted the skull along the polished wood.</p> + +<p>This reminded Dinky-Dunk of the three medical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> students who had tried to +frighten their landlady's daughter by smuggling an arm from the +dissecting room and hiding it under the girl's pillow. Dinky-Dunk even +solemnly avowed that the three men were college chums of his. They +waited to hear the girl's scream, but as there was nothing but silence +they finally stole into the room. And there they saw the girl sitting on +the floor, holding the arm in her hands. As she sat there she was +mumbling to herself and eating one end of it! Of course the poor thing +had gone stark staring mad.</p> + +<p>Olie groaned audibly at this and wiped his forehead with his +coat-sleeve. But before he could get away Terry started to tell of the +four-bottle Irish sea captain who was sober only when at sea and one +night in port stumbled up to bed three sheets in the wind. When he had +navigated into what he thought was his own room he was astounded to find +a man already in bed there, and even drunker than he was himself, too +drunk, in fact, to move. And even the candles had been left<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> burning. +But the old captain climbed over next to the wall, clothes and all, and +would have been fast asleep in two minutes if two stout old ladies +hadn't come in and started to cry and say a prayer or two at the side of +the bed. Thereupon the old captain, muddled as he was, quietly but +inquisitively reached over and touched the man beside him. <i>And that man +was cold as ice!</i> The captain gave one howl and made for the door. But +the old ladies went first, and they all rolled down the stairs one after +the other and the three of them up and ran like the wind. "And niver +wanst did they stop," declared the brogue-mouthing Terry, "till they +lept flat against the sea-wall!"</p> + +<p>Olie, who had moved away to the far end of the table, got up at this +point and went to the door and looked out. He sighed lugubriously as he +stared into the darkness of the night. The outer gloom, apparently, was +too much for him, as he came slowly and reluctantly back to his chair at +the far end of the table and it was plain to see that he was as +frightened as a five-year-old child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> The men, I suppose, would have +badgered him until midnight, for Terry had begun a story of a negro +who'd been sent to rob a grave and found the dead man not quite dead. +But I declared that we'd had enough of horrors and declined to hear +anything more about either ghosts or deaders. I was, in fact, getting +just a wee bit creepy along the nerve-ends myself. And Babe whimpered a +little in his cradle and brought us all suddenly back from the Wendigo +Age to the time of the kerosene lamp. "Fra' witches and warlocks," I +solemnly intoned, "fra' wurricoos and evil speerits, and fra' a' ferly +things that wheep and gang bump in the nicht, Guid Lord deliver us!" And +that incantation, I feel sure, cleared the air for both my own +sprite-threatened offspring and for the simple-minded Olie himself, +although Dinky-Dunk explained that my Scotch was rather worse than the +stories.</p> + +<p>But it was this morning after breakfast that I learned from Olga why she +never cared to eat mushrooms. And all day long her story has been +hanging<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> between me and the sun, like a cloud. Not that there is +anything so wonderful about the story itself, outside of its naked +tragedy. But I think it was more the way that huge placid-eyed girl told +it, with her broken English and her occasional pauses to grope after the +right word. Or perhaps it was because it came as such a grim reality +after the trifling grotesqueries of the night before. At any rate, as I +heard it this morning it seemed as terrible as anything in Tolstoi's +<i>Heart of Darkness</i>, and more than once sent my thoughts back to the +sorrows of the house of Œdipus. It startled me a little, too, for I +never thought to catch an echo of Greek tragedy out of the full soft +lips of a Finnish girl who was helping me wash my breakfast dishes.</p> + +<p>It began as I was deciding on my dinner menu, and looked to see if all +our mushrooms had been used up. That prompted me to ask the girl why she +never ate them. I could see a barricaded look come into her eyes but she +merely shrugged and said that sometimes they were poison and killed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> +people. I told her that this was absurd and that any one with ordinary +intelligence soon got to know a meadow mushroom when he saw one. But +sometimes, Olga insisted, they were death cups. If you ate a death cup +you died, and nothing could save you. I tried to convince her that this +was just a peasant superstition, but she announced that she had seen +death cups, many of them, and had seen people who had been killed by +them. And then brokenly, and with many heavy gestures of hesitation, she +told me the story.</p> + +<p>Nearly seventy miles northwest of us, up near her old home, so she said, +a Pole named Andrei Przenikowski and his wife used to live. They had one +son, whose name was Jozef. They were poor, always poor, and could never +succeed. So when Jozef was fifteen years old he went to the coast to +make his fortune. And the old father and mother had a hard time of it, +for old Andrei found it no easy thing to get about, having had his feet +frozen years before. He stumped around like a hen with frost-bitten +claws, Olga said, and his wife, old as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> she was, had to help him in the +fields. One whole winter, he told Olga's father, they had lived on +turnips. But season after season dragged on, and still they existed, God +knows how. Of Jozef they never heard again. But with Jozef himself it +was a different story. The boy went up to Alaska, before the days of the +Klondike strike. There he worked in the fisheries, and in the lumber +camps, and still later he joined a mining outfit. Then he went in to the +Yukon.</p> + +<p>That was twelve years after he had first left home. He was a strong man +by this time and spoke English very well. And the next year he struck +luck, and washed up a great deal of gold, thousands of dollars' worth of +gold. But he saved it all, for he had never forgotten the old folks on +their little farm. So he gathered up his money and went down to Seattle, +and then crossed to Vancouver. From there he made his way back to his +old home, dressed like a man of the world and wearing a big gold watch +and chain and a gold ring. And when he walked in on the old folks they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +failed to recognize him—and that Jozef thought the finest of jokes. He +filled the little sod-covered shack with his laughter, for he was happy. +He knew that for the rest of their days their troubles had all ended. So +he walked about and made plans, but still he did not tell them who he +was. It was so good a joke that he intended to make the most of it. But +he said that he had news of their Jozef, who was not so badly off for a +ne'er-do-well. Before he left the next day, he promised, they should be +told about their boy. And he laughed again and slapped his pocketful of +gold and the two old folks sat blinking at him in awe, until he +announced that he was hungry and confided to them that his friend Jozef +had once told him there were wonderful mushrooms round-about at that +season of the year.</p> + +<p>Andrei and his wife talked together in the cow-shed, before the old man +hobbled out to gather the mushrooms. Poverty and suffering had made them +hard and the sight of this stranger with so much gold was too much for +them. So it was a plate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> full of death cups which Andrei's wife cooked +for the brown-faced stranger with the loud laugh. And they stood about +and watched him eat them. Then he died, as Andrei knew he must die. But +the old woman hid in the cow-shed until it was over, for it took some +time. Together then the old couple searched the dead man's bags and his +pockets. They found papers and certain marks on his body. They knew then +that they had murdered their own son. The old man hobbled all the way to +the nearest village, where he sent a letter to Olga's father and bought +a clothes-line to take home. The journey took him an entire day. With +that clothes-line Andrei Przenikowski and his wife hanged themselves, +from one of the rafters in the cow-shed.</p> + +<p>Olga said that she was only five years old then, but she remembered +driving over with the others, after the letter had come to her father's +place. She can still remember seeing the two old bodies hanging side by +side and twisting slowly about in the wind. And she saw what was left of +the mushrooms. She says she can never forget it and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> dreams of it quite +often. And Olga is not what you would call emotional. She told me, as +she dried her hands and hung up the dish-pan, that she can still see her +people staring down at what was left of that plate of poisoned death +cups, which had turned quite black, almost as black as the dead man she +saw them lift up on the dirty bed.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Monday_the_Twelfth_3" id="Monday_the_Twelfth_3"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> +<h2>Monday the Twelfth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Yesterday was Sunday and Olga in her best bib and tucker sat out in the +sun with Dinky-Dink. She seemed perfectly happy merely to hold him. I +looked out, to make sure he was all right, for a few days before Olga +had nearly given me heart failure by balancing my boy on one huge hand, +as though he were a mutton-chop, so that the adoring Olie might see him +kick. As I stood watching Olga crooning above Buddy Boy, Percy rode up. +Then he came over and joined Olga, who carefully lifted up the veil +covering Dinky-Dink's face, and showed him off to the somewhat +intimidated Percy. Percy poked a finger at him, and made absurd noises, +and felt his legs as Olga directed and then sat down in front of Olga.</p> + +<p>They talked there for a long time, quite oblivious of everything about +them. At least Percy talked, for Olga's replies seemed mostly +monosyllabic. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> she kept bathing him in that mystic moonlight stare +of hers and sometimes she showed her teeth in a slow and wistful sort of +smile. Percy clattered on, quite unconscious that I was standing in the +doorway staring at him. They seemed to be great pals. And I've been +wondering what they talked about.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Fourteenth" id="Wednesday_the_Fourteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Fourteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>To-day after dinner Dinky-Dunk took the Boy and held him up on Paddy's +back, where he looked like a bump on a log. And that started me thinking +that it wouldn't be so long before my little Snoozerette had a pony of +his own and would be cantering off across the prairie like a monkey on a +circus horse. For I want my boy to ride, and ride well. And then a +little later he would be cantering off to school. And then it wouldn't +be such a great while before he'd be hitting the trail side by side with +some clear-eyed prairie girl on a dappled pinto, and I'd be a +silvery-haired old lady wondering if that clear-eyed girl was good +enough for my son! And there I was, as usual, dreaming of the future!</p> + +<p>All day long the fact that Dinky-Dunk is getting extravagant has been +hitting me just under the fifth rib. So I asked him if we could really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> +afford a six-cylinder car with tan slip-covers and electric lights. +"Afford it?" he echoed, "of course we can afford it. We can afford +anything. Hang it all, our lean days are over and we haven't had the +imagination to wake up to the fact. And d'you know what I'm going to do +if certain things come my way? I'm going to send you and the Babe down +to New York for the winter!"</p> + +<p>"And where will you be?" I promptly inquired. The look of mingled pride +and determination went out of his face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll have to hang around the Polar regions up here to look after +things. But you and the Boy have got to have your chance. And I'll come +down for two weeks at Easter and bring you home with me!"</p> + +<p>"And will you be enjoying it up here?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"Of course I won't," acknowledged Dinky-Dunk. "But think what it will +mean to you, Gee-Gee, to have a few months in the city again! And think +what you've been missing!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Goosey-goosey-gander!" I said as I got his foolish old head in +Chancery. "I want you to listen to me. There's nothing I've been +missing. And you are plum locoed, Honey Chile, if you think I could ever +be happy away from you, in New York or any other city. And I wouldn't go +there for the winter if you gave me the Plaza and all the Park for a +back yard!"</p> + +<p>That declaration of mine seemed to puzzle him. "But think what it would +mean to the Boy!" he contended.</p> + +<p>"Well, what?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good—er—good pictures and music and all that sort of thing!" he +vaguely explained. I couldn't help laughing at him.</p> + +<p>"But, Dinky-Dunk, don't you think Babe's a month or so too young to take +up Debussy and the Post-Impressionists, you big, foolish, adorable old +muddle-headed captor of helpless ladies' hearts!" And I firmly announced +that he could never, never get rid of me.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Thursday_the_Fifteenth" id="Thursday_the_Fifteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> +<h2>Thursday the Fifteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Now that Olga is working altogether inside with me she is losing quite a +little of her sunburn. Her skin is softer and she has acquired a little +more of the Leonardo di Vinci look. She almost seems to be getting +spiritualized—but it may be simply because she's lengthened her skirts. +She loves Babe, and, I'm afraid, is rather spoiling him. I find her a +better and better companion, not only because she talks more, but +because she seems in some way to be climbing up to a newer level. +Between whiles, I'm teaching her to cook. She learns readily, and is +proud of her progress. But the thing of which she is proudest is her +corsets. And they <i>do</i> make a difference. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed +this. Yesterday he stood and stared after her.</p> + +<p>"By gum," he sagely remarked, "that girl is getting a figure!" Men are +so absurd. When this same Olga was going about half uncovered he never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> +even noticed her. Now that she's mystified her nether limbs with a +little drapery he stands staring after her as though she were a Venus de +Milo come to life. And Olga is slowly but surely losing a little of her +Arcadian simplicity. Yesterday I caught her burning up her cowhide +boots. She is ashamed of them. And she is spending most of her money on +clothes, asking me many strange questions as to apparel and carrying off +my fashion magazines to her bedroom for secret perusal. For the first +time in her life she is using cold cream. And the end seems to justify +the means, for her skin is now like apple blossoms. Rodin, I feel sure, +would have carried that woman across America on his back, once to have +got her into his atelier!</p> + +<p>Last week I persuaded Terry to take a try at Meredith and lent him my +green cloth copy of <i>Harry Richmond</i>. Three days ago I found the seventh +page turned down at the corner, and suspecting that this marked the +final frontier of his advance, I tied a strand of green silk thread +about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> the volume. It was still there this morning, though Terry daily +and stoutly maintains that he's getting on grand with that fine green +book of mine! But at noon to-day when Dinky-Dunk got back from Buckhorn +he handed Terry a parcel, and I noticed the latter glanced rather +uneasily about as he unwrapped it. This afternoon I discovered that it +held two new books in paper covers. One was <i>The Hidden Hand</i> and the +other was called <i>The Terror of Tamaraska Gulch</i>. Terry, of late, has +been doing his reading in his own room. And Nick Carter, apparently, is +not to be so easily displaced. But a man who can make you read his books +for the third time must be a genius. If I were an author, that's the +sort of man I'd envy. And I think I'll try Percival Benson with <i>The +Terror of Tamaraska Gulch</i> when Terry is through with it!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Sixteenth" id="Friday_the_Sixteenth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Sixteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>We were just finishing dinner to-day, and an uncommonly good one it +seemed to me, and I was looking contentedly about my little family +circle, wondering what more life could hold for a big healthy hulk of a +woman like me, when the drone and purr of an approaching motor-car broke +through the sound of our talk. Dinky-Dunk, in fact, was laying down the +law about the farmer of the West, maintaining that he was a +broader-spirited and bigger-minded man than his brother of the East, and +pointing out that the westerner's wife was a queen who if she had little +ease at least had great honor. And I was just thinking that one glorious +thing about this same queen was that she at least escaped from all the +twentieth-century strain and dislocation in the relationship between +city men and women, when the hum of that car brought me back to earth +and reminded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> me that I might have a tableful of guests to feed. The car +itself drew up, with a flutter of its engine, half-way between the shack +and the corral, and at that sound I imagine we all rather felt like +Robinson Crusoes listening to the rattle of an anchor cable in Juan +Fernandez's quietest bay. And through the open window I could make out a +huge touring-car pretty well powdered with dust and with no less than +six men in it.</p> + +<p>Terry, all eyes, dove for the window, and Olie, all mouth, for the door. +Olga leaned half-way across the table to look out, and I did a little +staring myself. The only person who remained quiet was Dinky-Dunk. He +knocked out his pipe, stuck it in his pocket, put on his hat and caught +up a package of papers from his work table. Then he stalked out, with +his gray fighting look about the eyes. He went out just as one of the +bigger men was about to step down from the car, so that the bigger man +changed his mind and climbed back in his seat, like a king reascending +his throne. And they all sat there so sedate and non-committal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> and +dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette, +that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take +my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop!</p> + +<p>I could see my lord walk right up to the running-board, with curt little +nods to his visitors, and I knew by the trim of his shoulders that there +was trouble ahead. Yet they started talking quietly enough. But inside +of two minutes my Dinky-Dunk was shaking his fist in the face of one of +the younger and bigger men and calling him a liar and somewhat +tautologically accusing him of knowing that he was a liar and that he +always had been one. This altogether ungentlemanly language naturally +brought forth language quite as ungentlemanly from the accused, who +stood up in the car and took his turn at dancing about and shaking his +own fist. And then the others seemed to take sides, and voices rose to a +shout, and I saw that there was going to be another fight at Casa +Grande—and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> I promptly decided to be in it. So off went my apron and +out I went.</p> + +<p>It was funny. For, oddly enough, the effect of my entrance on the scene +was like that on a noisy class-room at the teacher's return. The tumult +stopped, rather sheepishly, and that earful of men instinctively slipped +on their armor plate of over-obsequious sex gallantry. They knew I +wasn't a low-brow. I went right up to them, though something about their +funereal discomfiture made me smile. So Dinky-Dunk, mad as a wet hen +though he was, had to introduce every man-jack of them to me! One was a +member of Parliament, and another belonged to some kind of railway +committee, and another was a road construction official, and another was +a mere capitalist who owned two or three newspapers. The man Dinky-Dunk +had been calling a liar was a civil engineer, although it seemed to me +that he had been acting decidedly uncivil. They ventured a platitude +about the beautiful Indian summer weather and labored out a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> ponderous +joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking +wife—for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my +intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left +everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or +other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's +way. So I decided to retire with outward dignity even if with inward +embarrassment. But I resented their uncouth commercial gallantry almost +as much as I abominated their trying to bully my True Love. And I gave +them one Parthian shot as I turned away.</p> + +<p>"The last prize-fight I saw was in a sort of <i>souteneur's</i> cabaret in +the Avenue des Tilleuls," I sweetly explained to them. "But that was +nearly three years ago. So if there is going to be a bout in my back +yard, I trust you gentlemen will be so good as to call me!"</p> + +<p>And smiling up into their somewhat puzzled faces, I turned on my heel +and went into the house. One of the men laughed loud and deep, at this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> +speech of mine, and a couple of the others seemed to sit puzzling over +it. Yet two minutes after I was inside the shack that most uncivil civil +engineer and Dinky-Dunk were at it again. Their language was more than I +should care to repeat. The end of it was, however, that the six dusty +pallbearers all stepped stiffly down out of their car and Dinky-Dunk +shouted for Olie and Terry. At first I thought it was to be a duel, only +I couldn't make out how it could be fought with a post-hole augur and a +few lengths of jointed gaspipe, for this was what the men carried away +with them.</p> + +<p>Away across the prairie I could see them apparently engaged in the silly +and quite profitless occupation of putting down a post-hole where it +wasn't in the least needed, and then clustering about this hole like a +bunch of professorial bigwigs about a new specimen on a microscope +slide. Then they moved on and made another hole, and still another, +until I got tired of watching them. It was two hours later before they +came back. Their voices now seemed more facetious and there was more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +laughing and joking, Dinky-Dunk and the uncivil civil engineer being the +only quiet ones. And then the car engine purred and hummed and they +climbed heavily in and lighted cigars and waved hands and were off in a +cloud of dust.</p> + +<p>But Dinky-Dunk, when he came back to the shack with his papers, was in +no mood for talking. And I knew better than to try to pump him. To-night +he came in early for supper and announced that he'd have to leave for +Winnipeg right away and might even have to go on to Ottawa. So I cooked +his supper and packed his bag and held Babe up for him to kiss good-by. +But still I didn't bother him with questions, for I was afraid of bad +news. And he knew that I knew I could trust him.</p> + +<p>He kissed me good-by in a tragically tender, or rather a tenderly tragic +sort of way, which made me wonder for a moment if he was possibly never +coming back again. So I made 'em all wait while I took one extra, for +good measure, in case I should be a grass widow for the rest of my +days.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span></p> + +<p>To-night, however, I sat Terry down at the end of the table and third +degreed him to the queen's taste. The fight, as far as I can learn from +this circuitous young Irishman, is all about a right of way through our +part of the province. Dinky-Dunk, it seems, has been working for it for +over a year. And the man he called wicked names had been sent out by the +officials to report on the territory. My husband claims he was bribed by +the opposition party and turned in a report saying our district was +without water. He also proclaimed that our land—<i>our</i> land, mark +you!—was unvaryingly poor and inferior soil! No wonder my Dinky-Dunk +had stormed! Then Terry rather disquieted me by chortlingly announcing +that they had put one over on the whole bunch. For, three days before, +he'd quietly put down twenty soil and water-test holes and carefully +filled them in again. But he'd found what he was after. And that little +army of paid knockers, he acknowledged, had been steered into the +neighborhood where the soil was deepest and the water was nearest. And +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> soon showed who the liar was, for of course everything came out as +Dinky-Dunk wanted it to come out!</p> + +<p>But this phase of it I didn't discuss with Terry, for I had no desire to +air my husband's moral obliquities before his hired man. Yet I am still +disturbed by what I have heard. Oh, Dinky-Dunk, I never imagined you +were one bit sly, even in business!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Eighteenth-1" id="Sunday_the_Eighteenth-1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Eighteenth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Olie and Terry seem convinced of the fact that Dinky-Dunk's farming has +been a success. We have saved all our wheat crop, and it's a whopper. +Terry, with his crazy Celtic enthusiasms, says that by next year they'll +be calling Dinky-Dunk the Wheat King of the West. Olga and Percy went +buggy riding this afternoon. I wish I had some sort of scales to weight +my Snoozerette. I know he's doubled in the last three weeks.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_Twenty-fifth" id="Sunday_the_Twenty-fifth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the Twenty-fifth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>My Dinky-Dunk is home again. He looks a little tired and hollow-eyed, +but when the Boy crowed and smiled up at him his poor tired face +softened so wonderfully that it brought the tears to my eyes. I finally +persuaded him to stop petting Babe and pay a little attention to me. +After supper he opened up his extra hand-bag and hauled out the heaps of +things he'd brought Babe and me. Then I sat on his knee and held his +ears and made him blow away the smoke, every shred of it, so I could +kiss him in my own particular places.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh_1" id="Tuesday_the_Twenty-seventh_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> +<h2>Tuesday the Twenty-seventh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk has sailed off to Buckhorn to do some telegraphing he should +have done Saturday night. My suspicions about his slyness, by the way, +were quite unfounded. It was the guileless-eyed Terry who led those +railway officials out to the spot where he'd already secretly tested for +water and found signs of it. And Terry can't even understand why +Dinky-Dunk is so toweringly angry about it all!</p> + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth_1" id="Wednesday_the_Twenty-eighth_1"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +<h2>Wednesday the Twenty-eighth</h2> +</div> + +<p>When Dinky-Dunk came in last night, after his drive out from Buckhorn, +there was a look on his face that rather frightened me. I backed him up +against the door, after he'd had a peep at the Boy, and said, "Let me +smell your breath, sir!" For with that strange light in his eyes I +surely thought he'd been drinking. "Lips that touch liquor," I sang, +"shall never touch mine!"</p> + +<p>But I was mistaken. And Dinky-Dunk only laughed in a quiet inward +rumbling sort of way that was new to him. "I believe I am drunk, Boca +Chica," he solemnly confessed, "drunk as a lord!" Then he took both my +hands in his.</p> + +<p>"D'you know what's going to happen?" he demanded. And of course I +didn't. Then he hurled it point-blank at me.</p> + +<p>"<i>The railway's going to come!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Come where?" I gasped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Come here, right across our land! It's settled. And there's no mistake +about it this time. Inside of ten months there'll be choo-choo cars +steaming past Casa Grande!"</p> + +<p>"Skookum!" I shouted.</p> + +<p>"And there'll be a station within a mile of where you stand! And inside +of two years this seventeen or eighteen hundred acres of land will be +worth forty dollars an acre, easily, and perhaps even fifty. And what +that means you can figure out for yourself!"</p> + +<p>"Whoopee!" I gasped, trying in vain to figure out how much forty times +seventeen hundred was.</p> + +<p>But that was not all. It would do away with the road haul to the +elevator, which might have taken most of the profit out of his grain +growing. To team wheat into Buckhorn would have been a terrible +discount, no matter what luck he might have with his crops. So he'd been +moving heaven and earth to get the steel to come his way. He'd pulled +wires and interviewed members and guaranteed a water-tank supply and +promised a right of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> way and made use of his old engineering +friends—until his battle was won. And his last fight had been against +the liar who'd sent in false reports about his district. But that was +over now, and Casa Grande will no longer be the jumping-off place of +civilization, the dot on the wilderness. It will be on the time-tables +and the mail-routes, and I know my Dinky-Dunk will be the first mayor of +the new city, if there ever is a city to be mayor of!</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Friday_the_Thirtieth" id="Friday_the_Thirtieth"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> +<h2>Friday the Thirtieth</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Dinky-Dunk came in at noon to-day, tiptoed over to the crib to see if +the Boy was all right, and then came and put his hands on my shoulders, +looking me solemnly in the eye: "What do you suppose has happened?" he +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Another railroad," I ventured.</p> + +<p>He shook his head. Of course it was useless for me to try to guess. I +pushed my finger against Dinky-Dunk's Adam's apple and asked him what +the news was.</p> + +<p>"Percival Benson Woodhouse has just calmly announced to me that, next +week, <i>he's going to marry Olga</i>," was my husband's answer.</p> + +<p>And he wondered why I smiled.</p> + + + + +<hr class="major" /> +<div style='margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em;'> +<a name="Sunday_the_First" id="Sunday_the_First"></a> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> +<h2>Sunday the First</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Little Dinky-Dink is fast asleep in his hand-carved Scandinavian cradle. +The night is cool, so we have a fire going. Big Dinky-Dunk, who has been +smoking his pipe, is sitting on one side of the table, and I am sitting +on the other. Between us lies the bundle of house-plans which have just +been mailed up to us from Philadelphia. This is the second night we've +pored over them. And we've decided what we're to do at Casa Grande. +We're to have a telephone, as soon as the railway gets through, and a +wind-mill and running water, and a new barn with a big soft-water tank +at one end, and a hot-water furnace in the new house and sleeping +porches and a butler's pantry and a laundry chute—and next winter in +California, if we want it. And Dinky-Dunk blames himself for never +having had brains enough to plant an avenue or two of poplars or +Manitoba maples about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> Casa Grande, for now we'll have to wait a few +years for foliage and shade. And he intends to have a playground for +little Dinky-Dink, for he agrees with me that our boy must be strong and +manly and muscular, and must not use tobacco in any form until he is +twenty at least. And Dinky-Dunk has also agreed that I shall do all the +punishing—if any punishing is ever necessary! His father, by the way, +has just announced that he wants Babe to go to McGill and then to +Oxford. But I have been insisting on Harvard, and I shall be firm about +this.</p> + +<p>That promised to bring us to a dead-lock, so we went back to our +house-plans again, and Dinky-Dunk pointed out that the new living-room +would be bigger than all our present shack and the annex put together. +And that caused me to stare about our poor little cat-eyed cubby-hole of +a wickyup and for the first time realize that our first home was to be +wiped off the map. And nothing would ever be the same again, and even +the prairie over which I had stared in my joy and my sorrow would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> +always be different! A lump came in my throat. And when Olga came in and +I handed Dinky-Dink to her she could see that my lashes were wet. But +she couldn't understand.</p> + +<p>So I slipped over to the piano and began to play. Very quietly I sang +through Herman Lohr's Irish song that begins:</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>In the dead av the night, acushla,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>When the new big house is still ...</span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>But before I got to the last two verses I'm afraid my voice was rather +shaky.</p> + +<div class='poem'> +<p class='stanza'> +<span class='i0'>In the dead av the year, acushla,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>When me wide new fields are brown,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>I think av a wee ould house,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>At the edge av an ould gray town!</span><br /> +<span class='br'> </span><br /> +<span class='i0'>I think av the rush-lit faces,</span><br /> +<span class='i0'>Where the room and loaf was small:</span><br /> +<span class='i0'><i>But the new years seem the lean years,</i></span><br /> +<span class='i0'><i>And the ould years, best av all!</i></span><br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Dinky-Dunk came and stood close beside me. "Has my Gee-Gee a big sadness +in her little prairie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> heart?" he asked as he slipped his arms about me. +But I was sniffling and couldn't answer him. And the cling of his +blessed big arms about me only seemed to make everything worse. So I was +bawling openly when he held up my face and helped himself to what must +have been a terribly briny kiss. But I slipped away into my bedroom, for +I'm not one of those apple-blossom women who can weep and still look +pretty. And for two blessed hours I've been sitting here, Matilda Anne, +wondering if our new life will be as happy as our old life was.... Those +old days are over and gone, and the page must be turned. And on that +last page I was about to write "<i>Tamám shud</i>." But kinglike and +imperative through the quietness of Casa Grande I hear the call of my +beloved little <i>tenor robusto</i>—and if it is the voice of hunger it is +also the voice of hope!</p> + +<p style='text-align:center'>THE END</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'> +<b>Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<b>After House, The.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br /> +<b>Ailsa Paige.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Alton of Somasco.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Amateur Gentleman, The.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br /> +<b>Anna, the Adventuress.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Anne's House of Dreams.</b> By L. M. Montgomery.<br /> +<b>Around Old Chester.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br /> +<b>Athalie.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>At the Mercy of Tiberius.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<b>Auction Block, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Aunt Jane of Kentucky.</b> By Eliza C. Hall.<br /> +<b>Awakening of Helena Richie.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br /> +<b>Bab: a Sub-Deb.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br /> +<b>Barrier, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Barbarians.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Bargain True, The.</b> By Nalbro Bartley.<br /> +<b>Bar 20.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Bar 20 Days.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Bars of Iron, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br /> +<b>Beasts of Tarzan, The.</b> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.<br /> +<b>Beloved Traitor, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Beltane the Smith.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br /> +<b>Betrayal, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Beyond the Frontier.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Big Timber.</b> By Bertrand W. Sinclair.<br /> +<b>Black Is White.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Blind Man's Eyes, The.</b> By Wm. MacHarg and Edw. Balmer.<br /> +<b>Bob, Son of Battle.</b> By Alfred Ollivant.<br /> +<b>Boston Blackie.</b> By Jack Boyle.<br /> +<b>Boy with Wings, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Brandon of the Engineers.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Broad Highway, The.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br /> +<b>Brown Study, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Bruce of the Circle A.</b> By Harold Titus.<br /> +<b>Buck Peters, Ranchman.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Business of Life, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Cabbages and Kings.</b> By O. Henry.<br /> +<b>Cabin Fever.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br /> +<b>Calling of Dan Matthews, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Cape Cod Stories.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper.</b> By James A. Cooper.<br /> +<b>Cap'n Dan's Daughter.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Cap'n Eri.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Cap'n Jonah's Fortune.</b> By James A. Cooper.<br /> +<b>Cap'n Warren's Wards.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Chain of Evidence, A.</b> By Carolyn Wells.<br /> +<b>Chief Legatee, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Cinderella Jane.</b> By Marjorie B. Cooke.<br /> +<b>Cinema Murder, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>City of Masks, The.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Cleek of Scotland Yard.</b> By T. W. Hanshew.<br /> +<b>Cleek, The Man of Forty Faces.</b> By Thomas W. Hanshew.<br /> +<b>Cleek's Government Cases.</b> By Thomas W. Hanshew.<br /> +<b>Clipped Wings.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Clue, The.</b> By Carolyn Wells.<br /> +<b>Clutch of Circumstance, The.</b> By Marjorie Benton Cooke.<br /> +<b>Coast of Adventure, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Coming of Cassidy, The.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Coming of the Law, The.</b> By Chas. A. Seltzer.<br /> +<b>Conquest of Canaan, The.</b> By Booth Tarkington.<br /> +<b>Conspirators, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Court of Inquiry, A.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Cow Puncher, The.</b> By Robert J. C. Stead.<br /> +<b>Crimson Gardenia, The, and Other Tales of Adventure.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Cross Currents.</b> By Author of "Pollyanna."<br /> +<b>Cry in the Wilderness, A.</b> By Mary E. Waller.<br /> +<b>Danger, And Other Stories.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<b>Dark Hollow, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Dark Star, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Daughter Pays, The.</b> By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.<br /> +<b>Day of Days, The.</b> By Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<b>Depot Master, The.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Desired Woman, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Destroying Angel, The.</b> By Louis Jos. Vance.<br /> +<b>Devil's Own, The.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Double Traitor, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Empty Pockets.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Eyes of the Blind, The.</b> By Arthur Somers Roche.<br /> +<b>Eye of Dread, The.</b> By Payne Erskine.<br /> +<b>Eyes of the World, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Extricating Obadiah.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Felix O'Day.</b> By F. Hopkinson Smith.<br /> +<b>54-40 or Fight.</b> By Emerson Hough.<br /> +<b>Fighting Chance, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Fighting Shepherdess, The.</b> By Caroline Lockhart.<br /> +<b>Financier, The.</b> By Theodore Dreiser.<br /> +<b>Flame, The.</b> By Olive Wadsley.<br /> +<b>Flamsted Quarries.</b> By Mary E. Wallar.<br /> +<b>Forfeit, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Four Million, The.</b> By O. Henry.<br /> +<b>Fruitful Vine, The.</b> By Robert Hichens.<br /> +<b>Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Girl of the Blue Ridge, A.</b> By Payne Erskine.<br /> +<b>Girl from Keller's, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Girl Philippa, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Girls at His Billet, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>God's Country and the Woman.</b> By James Oliver Curwood.<br /> +<b>Going Some.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Golden Slipper, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Golden Woman, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Greater Love Hath No Man.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Greyfriars Bobby.</b> By Eleanor Atkinson.<br /> +<b>Gun Brand, The.</b> By James B. Hendryx.<br /> +<b>Halcyone.</b> By Elinor Glyn.<br /> +<b>Hand of Fu-Manchu, The.</b> By Sax Rohmer.<br /> +<b>Havoc.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Heart of the Desert, The.</b> By Honoré Willsie.<br /> +<b>Heart of the Hills, The.</b> By John Fox, Jr.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Heart of the Sunset.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Heart of Thunder Mountain, The.</b> By Edfrid A. Bingham.<br /> +<b>Her Weight in Gold.</b> By Geo. B. McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Hidden Children, The, By Robert W.</b> Chambers.<br /> +<b>Hidden Spring, The.</b> By Clarence B. Kelland.<br /> +<b>Hillman, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Hills of Refuge, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /> +<b>His Official Fiancee.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Honor of the Big Snows.</b> By James Oliver Curwood.<br /> +<b>Hopalong Cassidy.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Hound from the North, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>House of the Whispering Pines, The.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker.</b> By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.<br /> +<b>I Conquered.</b> By Harold Titus.<br /> +<b>Illustrious Prince, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>In Another Girl's Shoes.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Indifference of Juliet, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Infelice.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<b>Initials Only.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Inner Law, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /> +<b>Innocent By Marie Corelli.</b><br /> +<b>Insidious Dr.</b> Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer.<br /> +<b>In the Brooding Wild.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Intriguers, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Iron Trail, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Iron Woman, The.</b> By Margaret Deland.<br /> +<b>I Spy.</b> By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Japonette.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Jean of the Lazy A.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br /> +<b>Jeanne of the Marshes.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Jennie Gerhardt.</b> By Theodore Dreiser.<br /> +<b>Judgment House, The.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<b>Keeper of the Door, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br /> +<b>Keith of the Border.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Kent Knowles: Ouahaug.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Kingdom of the Blind, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>King Spruce.</b> By Holman Day.<br /> +<b>King's Widow, The.</b> By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.<br /> +<b>Knave of Diamonds, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br /> +<b>Ladder of Swords.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<b>Lady Betty Across the Water.</b> By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.<br /> +<b>Land-Girl's Love Story, A.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Landloper, The.</b> By Holman Day.<br /> +<b>Land of Long Ago, The.</b> By Eliza Calvert Hall.<br /> +<b>Land of Strong Men, The.</b> By A. M. Chisholm.<br /> +<b>Last Trail, The.</b> By Zane Grey.<br /> +<b>Laugh and Live.</b> By Douglas Fairbanks.<br /> +<b>Laughing Bill Hyde.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Laughing Girl, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Law Breakers, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Lifted Veil, The.</b> By Basil King.<br /> +<b>Lighted Way, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Lin McLean.</b> By Owen Wister.<br /> +<b>Lonesome Land.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br /> +<b>Lone Wolf, The.</b> By Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<b>Long Ever Ago.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Lonely Stronghold, The.</b> By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.<br /> +<b>Long Live the King.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br /> +<b>Long Roll, The.</b> By Mary Johnston.<br /> +<b>Lord Tony's Wife.</b> By Baroness Orczy.<br /> +<b>Lost Ambassador.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Lost Prince, The.</b> By Frances Hodgson Burnett.<br /> +<b>Lydia of the Pines.</b> By Honoré Willsie.<br /> +<b>Maid of the Forest, The.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Maid of the Whispering Hills, The.</b> By Vingie E. Roe.<br /> +<b>Maids of Paradise, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Major, The.</b> By Ralph Connor.<br /> +<b>Maker of History, A.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Malefactor, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Man from Bar 20, The.</b> By Clarence E. Mulford.<br /> +<b>Man in Grey, The, By Baroness Orczy.</b><br /> +<b>Man Trail, The.</b> By Henry Oyen.<br /> +<b>Man Who Couldn't Sleep, The.</b> By Arthur Stringer.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Man with the Club Foot, The.</b> By Valentine Williams.<br /> +<b>Mary-'Gusta.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Mary Moreland.</b> By Marie Van Vorst.<br /> +<b>Mary Regan.</b> By Leroy Scott.<br /> +<b>Master Mummer, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<b>Men Who Wrought, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Mischief Maker, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Missioner, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Miss Million's Maid.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Molly McDonald.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Money Master, The.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<b>Money Moon, The.</b> By Jeffery Farnol.<br /> +<b>Mountain Girl, The.</b> By Payne Erskine.<br /> +<b>Moving Finger, The.</b> By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Mr. Bingle.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Mr. Pratt.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Mr. Pratt's Patients.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Mrs. Belfame.</b> By Gertrude Atherton.<br /> +<b>Mrs. Red Pepper.</b> By Grace S. Richmond<br /> +<b>My Lady Caprice.</b> By Jeffrey Farnol.<br /> +<b>My Lady of the North.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>My Lady of the South.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Mystery of the Hasty Arrow, The.</b> By Anna K. Green.<br /> +<b>Nameless Man, The.</b> By Nataile Sumner Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Ne'er-Do-Well, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Nest Builders, The.</b> By Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale.<br /> +<b>Net, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>New Clarion.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /> +<b>Night Operator, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Night Riders, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Nobody.</b> By Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<b>Okewood of the Secret Service.</b> By the Author of "The Man with the Club Foot."<br /> +<b>One Way Trail, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Open Sesame.</b> By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds.<br /> +<b>Otherwise Phyllis.</b> By Meredith Nicholson.<br /> +<b>Outlaw, The.</b> By Jackson Gregory.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Paradise Auction.</b> By Nalbro Bartley.<br /> +<b>Pardners.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Parrot & Co.</b> By Harold MacGrath.<br /> +<b>Partners of the Night.</b> By Leroy Scott.<br /> +<b>Partners of the Tide.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Passionate Friends, The.</b> By H. G. Wells.<br /> +<b>Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail, The.</b> By Ralph Connor.<br /> +<b>Paul Anthony, Christian.</b> By Hiram W. Hays.<br /> +<b>Pawns Count, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>People's Man, A.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Perch of the Devil.</b> By Gertrude Atherton.<br /> +<b>Peter Ruff and the Double Four.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Pidgin Island.</b> By Harold MacGrath.<br /> +<b>Place of Honeymoon, The.</b> By Harold MacGrath.<br /> +<b>Pool of Flame, The.</b> By Louis Joseph Vance.<br /> +<b>Postmaster, The.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Prairie Wife, The.</b> By Arthur Stringer.<br /> +<b>Price of the Prairie, The.</b> By Margaret Hill McCarter.<br /> +<b>Prince of Sinners, A.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Promise, The.</b> By J. B. Hendryx.<br /> +<b>Proof of the Pudding, The.</b> By Meredith Nicholson.<br /> +<b>Rainbow's End, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Ranch at the Wolverine, The.</b> By B. M. Bower.<br /> +<b>Ranching for Sylvia.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Ransom.</b> By Arthur Somers Roche.<br /> +<b>Reason Why, The.</b> By Elinor Glyn.<br /> +<b>Reclaimers, The.</b> By Margaret Hill McCarter.<br /> +<b>Red Mist, The.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Red Pepper Burns.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Red Pepper's Patients.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The.</b> By Anne Warner.<br /> +<b>Restless Sex, The.</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Return of Dr.</b> Fu-Manchu, The. By Sax Rohmer.<br /> +<b>Return of Tarzan, The.</b> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.<br /> +<b>Riddle of Night, The.</b> By Thomas W. Hanshew.<br /> +<b>Rim of the Desert, The.</b> By Ada Woodruff Anderson.<br /> +<b>Rise of Roscoe Paine, The.</b> By J. C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Rising Tide, The.</b> By Margaret Deland.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Rocks of Valpré, The.</b> By Ethel M. Dell.<br /> +<b>Rogue by Compulsion, A.</b> By Victor Bridges.<br /> +<b>Room Number 3.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>Rose in the Ring, The.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Rose of Old Harpeth, The.</b> By Maria Thompson Daviess.<br /> +<b>Round the Corner in Gay Street.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Second Choice.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /> +<b>Second Violin, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Secret History.</b> By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.<br /> +<b>Secret of the Reef, The.</b> By Harold Bindloss.<br /> +<b>Seven Darlings, The.</b> By Gouverneur Morris.<br /> +<b>Shavings.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Shepherd of the Hills, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Sherry.</b> By George Barr McCutcheon.<br /> +<b>Side of the Angels, The.</b> By Basil King.<br /> +<b>Silver Horde, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Sin That Was His, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Sixty-first Second, The.</b> By Owen Johnson.<br /> +<b>Soldier of the Legion, A.</b> By C. N. & A. M. Williamson.<br /> +<b>Son of His Father, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Son of Tarzan, The.</b> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.<br /> +<b>Source, The.</b> By Clarence Buddington Kelland.<br /> +<b>Speckled Bird, A.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<b>Spirit in Prison, A.</b> By Robert Hichens.<br /> +<b>Spirit of the Border, The. (New Edition.)</b> By Zane Grey.<br /> +<b>Spoilers, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Steele of the Royal Mounted.</b> By James Oliver Curwood.<br /> +<b>Still Jim.</b> By Honoré Willsie.<br /> +<b>Story of Foss River Ranch, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Story of Marco, The.</b> By Eleanor H. Porter.<br /> +<b>Strange Case of Cavendish, The.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Strawberry Acres.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Sudden Jim.</b> By Clarence B. Kelland.<br /> +<b>Tales of Sherlock Holmes.</b> By A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<b>Tarzan of the Apes.</b> By Edgar R. Burroughs.<br /> +<b>Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar.</b> By Edgar Rice Burroughs.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Tempting of Tavernake, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Tess of the D'Urbervilles.</b> By Thos. Hardy.<br /> +<b>Thankful's Inheritance.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>That Affair Next Door.</b> By Anna Katharine Green.<br /> +<b>That Printer of Udell's.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Their Yesterdays.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Thirteenth Commandment, The.</b> By Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Three of Hearts, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Three Strings, The.</b> By Natalie Sumner Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Threshold, The.</b> By Marjorie Benton Cooke.<br /> +<b>Throwback, The.</b> By Alfred Henry Lewis.<br /> +<b>Tish.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br /> +<b>To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed.</b> Anon.<br /> +<b>Trail of the Axe, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Trail to Yesterday, The.</b> By Chas. A. Seltzer.<br /> +<b>Treasure of Heaven, The.</b> By Marie Corelli.<br /> +<b>Triumph, The.</b> By Will N. Harben.<br /> +<b>T. Tembarom.</b> By Frances Hodgson Burnett.<br /> +<b>Turn of the Tide.</b> By Author of "Pollyanna.".<br /> +<b>Twenty-fourth of June, The.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Twins of Suffering Creek, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Two-Gun Man, The.</b> By Chas. A. Seltzer.<br /> +<b>Uncle William.</b> By Jeannette Lee.<br /> +<b>Under Handicap.</b> By Jackson Gregory.<br /> +<b>Under the Country Sky.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Unforgiving Offender, The.</b> By John Reed Scott.<br /> +<b>Unknown Mr.</b> Kent, The. By Roy Norton.<br /> +<b>Unpardonable Sin, The.</b> By Major Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Up From Slavery.</b> By Booker T. Washington.<br /> +<b>Valiants of Virginia, The.</b> By Hallie Ermine Rives.<br /> +<b>Valley of Fear, The.</b> By Sir A. Conan Doyle.<br /> +<b>Vanished Messenger, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>Vanguards of the Plains.</b> By Margaret Hill McCarter.<br /> +<b>Vashti.</b> By Augusta Evans Wilson.<br /> +<b>Virtuous Wives.</b> By Owen Johnson.<br /> +<b>Visioning, The.</b> By Susan Glaspell.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<p style='text-align:center; padding-bottom:10px'> +<span style='font-size: 150%'>Popular Copyright Novels</span><br /> +<i>AT MODERATE PRICES</i><br /> +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of<br /> +A. L. Burt Company's Popular Copyright Fiction</p> +<hr class='major' /> + +<p style='margin-left: 20%'><b>Waif-o'-the-Sea.</b> By Cyrus Townsend Brady.<br /> +<b>Wall of Men, A.</b> By Margaret H. McCarter.<br /> +<b>Watchers of the Plans, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Way Home, The.</b> By Basil King.<br /> +<b>Way of an Eagle, The.</b> By E. M. Dell.<br /> +<b>Way of the Strong, The.</b> By Ridgwell Cullum.<br /> +<b>Way of These Women, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.<br /> +<b>We Can't Have Everything.</b> By Major Rupert Hughes.<br /> +<b>Weavers, The.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<b>When a Man's a Man.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>When Wilderness Was King.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Where the Trail Divides.</b> By Will Lillibridge.<br /> +<b>Where There's a Will.</b> By Mary R. Rinehart.<br /> +<b>White Sister, The.</b> By Marion Crawford.<br /> +<b>Who Goes There?</b> By Robert W. Chambers.<br /> +<b>Why Not.</b> By Margaret Widdemer.<br /> +<b>Window at the White Cat, The.</b> By Mary Roberts Rinehart.<br /> +<b>Winds of Chance, The.</b> By Rex Beach.<br /> +<b>Wings of Youth, The.</b> By Elizabeth Jordan.<br /> +<b>Winning of Barbara Worth, The.</b> By Harold Bell Wright.<br /> +<b>Wire Devils, The.</b> By Frank L. Packard.<br /> +<b>Winning the Wilderness.</b> By Margaret Hill McCarter.<br /> +<b>Wishing Ring Man, The.</b> By Margaret Widdemer.<br /> +<b>With Juliet in England.</b> By Grace S. Richmond.<br /> +<b>Wolves of the Sea.</b> By Randall Parrish.<br /> +<b>Woman Gives, The.</b> By Owen Johnson.<br /> +<b>Woman Haters, The.</b> By Joseph C. Lincoln.<br /> +<b>Woman in Question, The.</b> By John Reed Scott.<br /> +<b>Woman Thou Gavest Me, The.</b> By Hall Caine.<br /> +<b>Woodcarver of 'Lympus, The.</b> By Mary E. Waller.<br /> +<b>Wooing of Rosamond Fayre, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>World for Sale, The.</b> By Gilbert-Parker.<br /> +<b>Years for Rachel, The.</b> By Berta Ruck.<br /> +<b>Yellow Claw, The.</b> By Sax Rohmer.<br /> +<b>You Never Know Your Luck.</b> By Gilbert Parker.<br /> +<b>Zeppelin's Passenger, The.</b> By E. Phillips Oppenheim.</p> + +<hr class='full' /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes</h3> +<p>1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards.</p> +<p>2. Added Table of Contents not present in original text.</p> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prairie Wife, by Arthur Stringer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE WIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 18875-h.htm or 18875-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/7/18875/ + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Prairie Wife + +Author: Arthur Stringer + +Illustrator: H. T. Dunn + +Release Date: July 19, 2006 [EBook #18875] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRAIRIE WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Illustration: I stooped over the trap-door and lifted it up. "Get down +there quick!" Page 109--The Prairie Wife.] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +By ARTHUR STRINGER + +With Frontispiece in Color by +H. T. DUNN + +A. L. BURT COMPANY +PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH THE BOBBS, MERRILL COMPANY +COPYRIGHT 1915 +THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY + +COPYRIGHT 1915 +THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TO VAN +WHO KNOWS AND LOVES +THE WEST +AS WE LOVE HIM! + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + +Thursday the Nineteenth 1 +Saturday the Twenty-first 16 +Monday the Twenty-third 33 +Wednesday the Twenty-fifth 41 +Thursday the Twenty-sixth 48 +Saturday the Twenty-eighth 57 +Wednesday the First 61 +Thursday the Second 64 +Friday the Third 67 +Saturday the Fourth 68 +Monday the Sixth 73 +Wednesday the Eighth 80 +Saturday the Tenth 88 +Sunday the Eleventh 91 +Monday the Twelfth 93 +Sunday the Eighteenth 101 +Monday the Nineteenth 103 +Tuesday the Twentieth 105 +Thursday the Twenty-second 115 +Saturday the Twenty-fourth 119 +Tuesday the Twenty-seventh 128 +Thursday the Twenty-ninth 133 +Friday the Fifth 136 +Sunday the Seventh 137 +Tuesday the Ninth 138 +Saturday the Twenty-first 142 +Sunday the Twenty-ninth 150 +Monday the Seventh 152 +Friday the Eleventh 153 +Sunday the Thirteenth 155 +Wednesday the Sixteenth 156 +Sunday the Twentieth 157 +Sunday the Twenty-seventh 158 +Wednesday the Thirtieth 159 +Thursday the Thirty-first 160 +Sunday the Third 167 +Thursday the Seventh 171 +Saturday the Ninth 172 +Monday the Eleventh 175 +Tuesday the Nineteenth 182 +Sunday the Thirty-first 186 +Tuesday the Ninth 188 +Wednesday the Seventeenth 189 +Thursday the Twenty-fifth 190 +Tuesday the Second 191 +Thursday the Fourth 193 +Wednesday the Seventeenth 194 +Saturday the Twenty-seventh 195 +Tuesday the Sixth 198 +Monday the Twelfth 199 +Tuesday the Twentieth 202 +Monday the Twenty-sixth 205 +Wednesday the Twenty-eighth 207 +Monday the Second 209 +Thursday the Fifth 210 +Tuesday the Tenth 214 +Monday the Sixteenth 217 +Tuesday the Twenty-fourth 220 +Friday the Third 222 +Thursday the Ninth 224 +Wednesday the Fifteenth 228 +Friday the Seventeenth 230 +Saturday the Nineteenth 231 +Friday the Twenty-eighth 233 +Saturday the Twenty-ninth 234 +Sunday the Thirtieth 236 +Tuesday the First 237 +Monday the Seventh 243 +Sunday the Thirteenth 247 +Monday the Twenty-eighth 249 +Saturday the Second 251 +Wednesday the Sixth 252 +Tuesday the Twelfth 254 +Thursday the Fourteenth 255 +Wednesday the Fifth 256 +Sunday the Ninth 260 +Monday the Tenth 262 +Tuesday the Eleventh 264 +Wednesday the Thirteenth 265 +Thursday the Fourteenth 267 +Friday the Fifteenth 269 +Saturday the Sixteenth 272 +Monday the Seventeenth 275 +Wednesday the Nineteenth 276 +Friday the Twenty-first 277 +Monday the Twelfth 290 +Wednesday the Fourteenth 292 +Thursday the Fifteenth 295 +Friday the Sixteenth 298 +Sunday the Eighteenth 307 +Sunday the Twenty-fifth 308 +Tuesday the Twenty-seventh 309 +Wednesday the Twenty-eighth 310 +Friday the Thirtieth 313 +Sunday the First 314 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + +THE PRAIRIE WIFE + +_Thursday the Nineteenth_ + + +Splash!... That's me, Matilda Anne! That's me falling plump into the +pool of matrimony before I've had time to fall in love! And oh, Matilda +Anne, Matilda Anne, I've _got_ to talk to you! You may be six thousand +miles away, but still you've got to be my safety-valve. I'd blow up and +explode if I didn't express myself to some one. For it's so lonesome out +here I could go and commune with the gophers. This isn't a twenty-part +letter, my dear, and it isn't a diary. It's the coral ring I'm cutting +my teeth of desolation on. For, every so long, I've simply got to sit +down and talk to some one, or I'd go mad, clean, stark, staring mad, and +bite the tops off the sweet-grass! It may even happen this will never be +sent to you. But I like to think of you reading it, some day, page by +page, when I'm fat and forty, or, what's more likely, when Duncan has +me chained to a corral-post or finally shut up in a padded cell. For you +were the one who was closest to me in the old days, Matilda Anne, and +when I was in trouble you were always the staff on which I leaned, the +calm-eyed Tillie-on-the-spot who never seemed to fail me! And I think +you will understand. + +But there's so much to talk about I scarcely know where to begin. The +funny part of it all is, I've gone and married the _Other Man_. And you +won't understand that a bit, unless I start at the beginning. But when I +look back, there doesn't seem to be any beginning, for it's only in +books that things really begin and end in a single lifetime. + +Howsomever, as Chinkie used to say, when I left you and Scheming Jack in +that funny little stone house of yours in Corfu, and got to Palermo, I +found Lady Agatha and Chinkie there at the Hotel des Palmes and the +yacht being coaled from a tramp steamer's bunkers in the harbor. So I +went on with them to Monte Carlo. We had a terrible trip all the way up +to the Riviera, and I was terribly sea-sick, and those lady novelists +who love to get their heroines off on a private yacht never dream that +in anything but duckpond weather the ordinary yacht at sea is about the +meanest habitation between Heaven and earth. But it was at Monte Carlo I +got the cable from Uncle Carlton telling me the Chilean revolution had +wiped out our nitrate mine concessions and that your poor Tabby's last +little nest-egg had been smashed. In other words, I woke up and found +myself a beggar, and for a few hours I even thought I'd have to travel +home on that Monte Carlo Viaticum fund which so discreetly ships away +the stranded adventurer before he musses up the Mediterranean scenery by +shooting himself. Then I remembered my letter of credit, and firmly but +sorrowfully paid off poor Hortense, who through her tears proclaimed +that she'd go with me anywhere, and without any thought of wages +(imagine being hooked up by a maid to whom you were under such +democratizing obligations!) But I was firm, for I knew the situation, +might just as well be faced first as last. + +So I counted up my letter of credit and found I had exactly six hundred +and seventy-one dollars, American money, between me and beggary. Then I +sent a cable to Theobald Gustav (so condensed that he thought it was +code) and later on found that he'd been sending flowers and chocolates +all the while to the Hotel de L'Athenee, the long boxes duly piled up in +tiers, like coffins at the morgue. Then Theobald's aunt, the baroness, +called on me, in state. She came in that funny, old-fashioned, shallow +landau of hers, where she looked for all the world like an +oyster-on-the-half-shell, and spoke so pointedly of the danger of +international marriages that I felt sure she was trying to shoo me away +from my handsome and kingly Theobald Gustav--which made me quite calmly +and solemnly tell her that I intended to take Theobald out of +under-secretaryships, which really belonged to Oppenheim romances, and +put him in the shoe business in some nice New England town! + +From Monte Carlo I scooted right up to Paris. Two days later, as I +intended to write you but didn't, I caught the boat-train for Cherbourg. +And there at the rail as I stepped on the _Baltic_ was the Other Man, to +wit, Duncan Argyll McKail, in a most awful-looking yellow plaid English +mackintosh. His face went a little blank as he clapped eyes on me, for +he'd dropped up to Banff last October when Chinkie and Lady Agatha and I +were there for a week. He'd been very nice, that week at Banff, and I +liked him a lot. But when Chinkie saw him "going it a bit too strong," +as he put it, and quietly tipped Duncan Argyll off as to Theobald +Gustav, the aforesaid D. A. bolted back to his ranch without as much as +saying good-by to me. For Duncan Argyll McKail isn't an Irishman, as you +might in time gather from that name of his. He's a Scotch-Canadian, and +he's nothing but a broken-down civil engineer who's taken up farming in +the Northwest. But I could see right away that he was a gentleman (I +_hate_ that word, but where'll you get another one to take its place?) +and had known nice people, even before I found out he'd taught the +Duchess of S. to shoot big-horn. He'd run over to England to finance a +cooperative wheat-growing scheme, but had failed, because everything is +so unsettled in England just now. + +But you're a woman, and before I go any further you'll want to know what +Duncan looks like. + +Well, he's not a bit like his name. The West has shaken a good deal of +the Covenanter out of him. He's tall and gaunt and wide-shouldered, and +has brown eyes with hazel specks in them, and a mouth exactly like +Holbein's "Astronomer's," and a skin that is almost as disgracefully +brown as an Indian's. On the whole, if a Lina Cavalieri had happened to +marry a Lord Kitchener, and had happened to have a thirty-year-old son, +I feel quite sure he'd have been the dead spit, as the Irish say, of my +own Duncan Argyll. And Duncan Argyll, _alias_ Dinky-Dunk, is rather +reserved and quiet and, I'm afraid, rather masterful, but not as +Theobald Gustav might have been, for with all his force the modern +German, it seems to me, is like the bagpipes in being somewhat lacking +in suavity. + +And all the way over Dinky-Dunk was so nice that he almost took my +breath away. He was also rather audacious, gritting his teeth in the +face of the German peril, and I got to like him so much I secretly +decided we'd always be good friends, old-fashioned, above-board, +Platonic good friends. But the trouble with Platonic love is that it's +always turning out too nice to be Platonic, or too Platonic to be nice. +So I had to look straight at the bosom of that awful yellow-plaid +English mackintosh and tell Dinky-Dunk the truth. And Dinky-Dunk +listened, with his astronomer mouth set rather grim, and otherwise not +in the least put out. His sense of confidence worried me. It was like +the quietness of the man who is holding back his trump. And it wasn't +until the impossible little wife of an impossible big lumberman from +Saginaw, Michigan, showed me the Paris _Herald_ with the cable in it +about that spidery Russian stage-dancer, L----, getting so nearly killed +in Theobald's car down at Long Beach, that I realized there _was_ a +trump card and that Dinky-Dunk had been too manly to play it. + +I had a lot of thinking to do, the next three days. + +When Theobald came on from Washington and met the steamer my conscience +troubled me and I should still have been kindness itself to him, if it +hadn't been for his proprietary manner (which, by the way, had never +annoyed me before), coupled with what I already knew. We had luncheon in +the Della Robbia room at the Vanderbilt and I was digging the marrons +out of a Nesselrode when, presto, it suddenly came over me that the +baroness was right and that _I could never marry a foreigner_. It came +like a thunderclap. But somewhere in that senate of instinct which +debates over such things down deep in the secret chambers of our souls, +I suppose, the whole problem had been talked over and fought out and put +to the vote. And in the face of the fact that Theobald Gustav had always +seemed more nearly akin to one of Ouida's demigods than any man I had +ever known, the vote had gone against him. My hero was no longer a +hero. I knew there had been times, of course, when that hero, being a +German, had rather regarded this universe of ours as a department-store +and this earth as the particular section over which the August Master +had appointed him floor-walker. I had thought of him as my +_Eisenfresser_ and my big blond _Saebierassler_. But my eyes opened with +my last marron and I suddenly sat back and stared at Theobald's handsome +pink face with its Krupp-steel blue eyes and its haughtily upturned +mustache-ends. He must have seen that look of appraisal on my own face, +for, with all his iron-and-blood Prussianism, he clouded up like a hurt +child. But he was too much of a diplomat to show his feelings. He merely +became so unctuously polite that I felt like poking him in his +steel-blue eye with my mint straw. + +Remember, Matilda Anne, not a word was said, not one syllable about what +was there in both our souls. Yet it was one of life's biggest moments, +the Great Divide of a whole career--and I went on eating Nesselrode and +Theobald went on pleasantly smoking his cigarette and approvingly +inspecting his well-manicured nails. + +It was funny, but it made me feel blue and unattached and terribly alone +in the world. Now, I can see things more clearly. I know that mood of +mine was not the mere child of caprice. Looking back, I can see how +Theobald had been more critical, more silently combative, from the +moment I stepped off the _Baltic_. I realized, all at once, _that he had +secretly been putting me to a strain_. I won't say it was because my +_dot_ had gone with The Nitrate Mines, or that he had discovered that +Duncan had crossed on the same steamer with me, or that he knew I'd soon +hear of the L---- episode. But these prophetic bones of mine told me +there was trouble ahead. And I felt so forsaken and desolate in spirit +that when Duncan whirled me out to Westbury, in a hired motor-car, to +see the Great Neck First defeated by the Meadow Brook Hunters, I went +with the happy-go-lucky glee of a truant who doesn't give a hang what +happens. Dinky-Dunk was interested in polo ponies, which, he explained +to me, are not a particular breed but just come along by accident--for +he'd bred and sold mounts to the Coronado and San Mateo Clubs and the +Philadelphia City Cavalry boys. And he loved the game. He was so genuine +and sincere and _human_, as we sat there side by side, that I wasn't a +bit afraid of him and knew we could be chums and didn't mind his lapses +into silence or his extension-sole English shoes and crazy London +cravat. + +And I was happy, until the school-bell rang--which took the form of +Theobald's telephone message to the Ritz reminding me of our dinner +engagement. It was an awful dinner, for intuitively I knew what was +coming, and quite as intuitively he knew what was coming, and even the +waiter knew when it came,--for I flung Theobald's ring right against his +stately German chest. There'd be no good in telling you, Matilda Anne, +what led up to that most unlady-like action. I don't intend to burn +incense in front of myself. It may have looked wrong. But I know you'll +take my word when I say he deserved it. The one thing that hurts is +that he had the triumph of being the first to sever diplomatic +relations. In the language of Shorty McCabe and my fellow countrymen, +_he threw me down!_ Twenty minutes later, after composing my soul and +powdering my nose, I was telephoning all over the city trying to find +Duncan. I got him at last, and he came to the Ritz on the run. Then we +picked up a residuary old horse-hansom on Fifth Avenue and went rattling +off through Central Park. There I--who once boasted of seven proposals +and three times that number of nibbles--promptly and shamelessly +proposed to my Dinky-Dunk, though he is too much of a gentleman not to +swear it's a horrid lie and that he'd have fought through an acre of +Greek fire to get me! + +But whatever happened, Count Theobald Gustav Von Guntner threw me down, +and Dinky-Dunk caught me on the bounce, and now instead of going to +embassy balls and talking world-politics like a Mrs. Humphry Ward +heroine I've married a shack-owner who grows wheat up in the Canadian +Northwest. And instead of wearing a tiara in the Grand Tier at the +Metropolitan I'm up here a dot on the prairie and wearing an apron made +of butcher's linen! _Sursum corda!_ For I'm still in the ring. And it's +no easy thing to fall in love and land on your feet. But I've gone and +done it. I've taken the high jump. I've made my bed, as Uncle Carlton +had the nerve to tell me, and now I've got to lie in it. But _assez +d'Etrangers_! + +That wedding-day of mine I'll always remember as a day of smells, the +smell of the pew-cushions in the empty church, the smell of the +lilies-of-the-valley, that dear, sweet, scatter-brained +Fanny-Rain-In-The-Face (she rushed to town an hour after getting my +wire) insisted on carrying, the smell of the leather in the damp taxi, +the tobaccoy smell of Dinky-Dunk's quite impossible best man, who'd been +picked up at the hotel, on the fly, to act as a witness, and the smell +of Dinky-Dunk's brand new gloves as he lifted my chin and kissed me in +that slow, tender, tragic, end-of-the-world way big and bashful men +sometimes have with women. It's all a jumble of smells. + +Then Dinky-Dunk got the wire saying he might lose his chance on the +Stuart Ranch, if he didn't close before the Calgary interests got hold +of it. And Dinky-Dunk wanted that ranch. So we talked it over and in +five minutes had given up the idea of going down to Aiken and were +telephoning for the stateroom on the Montreal Express. I had just four +hours for shopping, scurrying about after cook-books and golf-boots and +table-linen and a chafing dish, and a lot of other absurd things I +thought we'd need on the ranch. And then off we flew for the West, +before poor, extravagant, ecstatic Dinky-Dunk's thirty-six wedding +orchids' from Thorley's had faded and before I'd a chance to show Fanny +my nighties! + +Am I crazy? Is it all wrong? Do I love my Dinky-Dunk? _Do_ I? The Good +Lord only knows, Matilda Anne! O God, O God, if it _should_ turn out +that I don't, that I can't? But I'm going to! I know I'm going to! And +there's one other thing that I know, and when I remember it, it sends a +comfy warm wave through all my body: Dinky-Dunk loves me. He's as mad as +a hatter about me. He deserves to be loved back. And I'm going to love +him back. That is a vow I herewith duly register. _I'm going to love my +Dinky-Dunk._ But, oh, isn't it wonderful to wake love in a man, in a +strong man? To be able to sweep him off, that way, on a tidal wave that +leaves him rather white and shaky in the voice and trembly in the +fingers, and seems to light a little luminous fire at the back of his +eyeballs so that you can see the pupils glow, the same as an animal's +when your motor head-lights hit them! It's like taking a little match +and starting a prairie-fire and watching the flames creep and spread +until the heavens are roaring! I wonder if I'm selfish? I wonder? But I +can't answer that now, for it's supper time, and your Tabby has the grub +to rustle! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-first_ + + +I'm alone in the shack to-night, and I'm determined not to think about +my troubles. So I'm going to write you a ream, Matilda Anne, whether you +like it or not. And I must begin by telling you about the shack itself, +and how I got here. All the way out from Montreal Dinky-Dunk, in his +kindly way, kept doing his best to key me down and make me not expect +too much. But I'd hold his hand, under the magazine I was pretending to +read, and whistle _Home, Sweet Home_! He kept saying it would be hard, +for the first year or two, and there would be a terrible number of +things I'd be sure to miss. _Love Me and The World Is Mine!_ I hummed, +as I leaned over against his big wide shoulder. And I lay there smiling +and happy, blind to everything that was before me, and I only laughed +when Dinky-Dunk asked me if I'd still say that when I found there +wasn't a nutmeg-grater within seven miles of my kitchen. + +"Do you love me?" I demanded, hanging on to him right in front of the +car-porter. + +"I love you better than anything else in all this wide world!" was his +slow and solemn answer. + +When we left Winnipeg, too, he tried to tell me what a plain little +shack we'd have to put up with for a year or two, and how it wouldn't be +much better than camping out, and how he knew I was clear grit and would +help him win that first year's battle. There was nothing depressing to +me in the thought of life in a prairie-shack. I never knew, of course, +just what it would be like, and had no way of knowing. I remembered +Chinkie's little love of a farm in Sussex, and I'd been a week at the +Westbury's place out on Long Island, with its terraced lawns and gardens +and greenhouses and macadamized roads. And, on the whole, I expected a +cross between a shooting-box and a Swiss chalet, a little nest of a home +that was so small it was sure to be lovable, with a rambler-rose draping +the front and a crystal spring bubbling at the back door, a little +flowery island on the prairie where we could play Swiss-Family-Robinson +and sally forth to shoot prairie-chicken and ruffed grouse to our +hearts' content. + +Well, that shack wasn't quite what I expected! But I mustn't run ahead +of my story, Matilda Anne, so I'll go back to where Dinky-Dunk and I got +off the side-line "accommodation" at Buckhorn, with our traps and trunks +and hand-bags and suitcases. And these had scarcely been piled on the +wooden platform before the station-agent came running up to Duncan with +a yellow sheet in his hand. And Duncan looked worried as he read it, and +stopped talking to his man called Olie, who was there beside the +platform, in a big, sweat-stained Stetson hat, with a big team hitched +to a big wagon with straw in the bottom of the box. + +Olie, I at once told myself, was a Swede. He was one of the ugliest men +I ever clapped eyes on, but I found out afterward that his face had been +frozen in a blizzard, years before, and his nose had split. This had +disfigured him--and the job had been done for life. His eyes were big +and pale blue, and his hair and eyebrows were a pale yellow. He was the +most silent man I ever saw. But Dinky-Dunk had already told me he was a +great worker, and a fine fellow at heart. And when Dinky-Dunk says he'd +trust a man, through thick and thin, there must be something good in +that man, no matter how bulbous his nose is or how scared-looking he +gets when a woman speaks to him. Olie looked more scared than ever when +Dinky-Dunk suddenly ran to where the train-conductor was standing beside +his car-steps, asked him to hold that "accommodation" for half a minute, +pulled his suit-case from under my pile of traps, and grabbed little me +in his arms. + +"Quick," he said, "good-by! I've got to go on to Calgary. There's +trouble about my registrations." + +I hung on to him for dear life. "You're not going to leave me here, +Dinky-Dunk, in the middle of this wilderness?" I cried out, while the +conductor and brakeman and station-agent all called and holloed and +clamored for Duncan to hurry. + +"Olie will take you home, beloved," Dinky-Dunk tried to assure me. +"You'll be there by midnight, and I'll be back by Saturday evening!" + +I began to bawl. "Don't go! Don't leave me!" I begged him. But the +conductor simply tore him out of my arms and pushed him aboard the +tail-end of the last car. I made a face at a fat man who was looking out +a window at me. I stood there, as the train started to move, feeling +that it was dragging my heart with it. + +Then Dinky-Dunk called out to Olie, from the back platform: "Did you get +my message and paint that shack?" And Olie, with my steamer-rug in his +hand, only looked blank and called back "No." But I don't believe +Dinky-Dunk even heard him, for he was busy throwing kisses at me. I +stood there, at the edge of the platform, watching that lonely last +car-end fade down into the lonely sky-line. Then I mopped my eyes, took +one long quavery breath, and said out loud, as Birdalone Pebbley said +Shiner did when he was lying wounded on the field of Magersfontein: +"_Squealer, squealer, who's a squealer?_" + +I found the big wagon-box filled with our things and Olie sitting there +waiting, viewing me with wordless yet respectful awe. Olie, in fact, has +never yet got used to me. He's a fine chap, in his rough and +inarticulate way, and there's nothing he wouldn't do for me. But I'm a +novelty to him. His pale blue eyes look frightened and he blushes when I +speak to him. And he studies me secretly, as though I were a dromedary, +or an archangel, or a mechanical toy whose inner mechanism perplexed +him. But yesterday I found out through Dinky-Dunk what the probable +secret of Olie's mystification was. It was my hat. "It ban so dam' +foolish!" he fervently confessed. + +That wagon-ride from Buckhorn out to the ranch seemed endless. I thought +we were trekking clear up to the North Pole. At first there was what you +might call a road, straight and worn deep, between parallel lines of +barb-wire fencing. But this road soon melted into nothing more than a +trail, a never-ending gently curving trail that ribboned out across the +prairie-floor as far as the eye could see. It was a glorious afternoon, +one of those opaline, blue-arched autumn days when it should have been a +joy merely to be alive. But I was in an antagonistic mood, and the +little cabin-like farmhouses that every now and then stood up against +the sky-line made me feel lonesome, and the jolting of the heavy wagon +made me tired, and by six o'clock I was so hungry that my ribs ached. We +had been on the trail then almost five hours, and Olie calmly informed +me it was only a few hours more. It got quite cool as the sun went down, +and I had to undo my steamer-rug and get wrapped up in it. And still we +went on. It seemed like being at sea, with a light now and then, miles +and miles away. Something howled dismally in the distance, and gave me +the creeps. Olie told me it was only a coyote. But we kept on, and my +ribs ached worse than ever. + +Then I gave a shout that nearly frightened Olie off the seat, for I +remembered the box of chocolates we'd had on the train. We stopped and +found my hand-bag, and lighted matches and looked through it. Then I +gave a second and more dismal shout, for I remembered Dinky-Dunk had +crammed it into his suit-case at the last moment. Then we went on again, +with me a squaw-woman all wrapped in her blanket. I must have fallen +asleep, for I woke with a start. Olie had stopped at a slough to water +his team, and said we'd make home in another hour or two. How he found +his way across that prairie Heaven only knows. I no longer worried. I +was too tired to think. The open air and the swaying and jolting had +chloroformed me into insensibility. Olie could have driven over the edge +of a canyon and I should never have stopped him. + +Instead of falling into a canyon, however, at exactly ten minutes to +twelve we pulled up beside the shack door, which had been left unlocked, +and Olie went in and lighted a lamp and touched a match to the fire +already laid in the stove. I don't remember getting down from the wagon +seat and I don't remember going into the shack. But when Olie came from +putting in his team I was fast asleep on a luxurious divan made of a +rather smelly steer-hide stretched across two slim cedar-trees on four +little cedar legs, with a bag full of pine needles at the head. I lay +there watching Olie, in a sort of torpor. It surprised me how quickly +his big ungainly body could move, and how adept those big sunburned +hands of his could be. + +Then sharp as an arrow through a velvet curtain came the smell of bacon +through my drowsiness. And it was a heavenly odor. I didn't even wash. I +ate bacon and eggs and toasted biscuits and orange marmalade and coffee, +the latter with condensed milk, which I hate. I don't know how I got to +my bed, or got my clothes off, or where the worthy Olie slept, or who +put out the light, or if the door had been left open or shut. I never +knew that the bed was hard, or that the coyotes were howling. I only +know that I slept for ten solid hours, without turning over, and that +when I opened my eyes I saw a big square of golden sunlight dancing on +the unpainted pine boards of the shack wall. And the funny part of it +all was, Matilda Anne, I didn't have the splitting headache I'd so +dolorously prophesied for myself. Instead of that I felt buoyant. I +started to sing as I pulled on my stockings. And I suddenly remembered +that I was terribly hungry again. + +I swung open the window beside me, for it was on hinges, and poked my +head out. I could see a corral, and a long low building which I took to +be the ranch stables, and another and newer-looking building with a +metal roof, and several stacks of hay surrounded by a fence, and a row +of portable granaries. And beyond these stretched the open prairie, +limitless and beautiful in the clear morning sunshine. Above it arched a +sky of robin-egg blue, melting into opal and pale gold down toward the +rim of the world. I breathed in lungfuls of clear, dry, ozonic air, and +I really believe it made me a little light-headed, it was so +exhilarating, so champagnized with the invisible bubbles of life. + +I needed that etheric eye-opener, Matilda Anne, before I calmly and +critically looked about our shack. Oh, that shack, that shack! What a +comedown it was for your heart-sore Chaddie! In the first place, it +seemed no bigger than a ship's cabin, and not one-half so orderly. It is +made of lumber, and not of logs, and is about twelve feet wide and +eighteen feet long. It has three windows, on hinges, and only one door. +The floor is rather rough, and has a trap door leading into a small +cellar, where vegetables can be stored for winter use. The end of the +shack is shut off by a "tarp"--which I have just found out is short for +tarpaulin. In other words, the privacy of my bedroom is assured by +nothing more substantial than a canvas drop-curtain, shutting off my +boudoir, where I could never very successfully _bouder_, from the larger +living-room. + +This living-room is also the kitchen, the laundry, the sewing-room, the +reception-room and the library. It has a good big cookstove, which burns +either wood or coal, a built-in cupboard with an array of unspeakably +ugly crockery dishes, a row of shelves for holding canned goods, books +and magazines, cooking utensils, gun-cartridges, tobacco-jars, +carpenter's tools and a coal-oil lamp. There is also a plain pine table, +a few chairs, one rocking-chair which has plainly been made by hand, and +a flour-barrel. Outside the door is a wide wooden bench on which stands +a big tin wash-basin and a cake of soap in a sardine can that has been +punched full of holes along the bottom. Above it hung a roller towel +which looked a little the worse for wear. And that was to be my home, my +one and only habitation, for years and years to come! That little +cat-eyed cubby-hole of a place! + +I sat down on an overturned wash-tub about twenty paces from the shack, +and studied it with calm and thoughtful eyes. It looked infinitely worse +from the outside. The reason for this was that the board siding had +first been covered with tar-paper, for the sake of warmth, and over this +had been nailed pieces of tin, tin of every color and size and +description. Some of it was flattened out stove-pipe, and some was +obviously the sides of tomato-cans. Even tin tobacco-boxes and Dundee +marmalade holders and the bottoms of old bake-pans and the sides of an +old wash-boiler had been pieced together and patiently tacked over those +shack-sides. It must have taken weeks and weeks to do. And it suddenly +impressed me as something poignant, as something with the Vergilian +touch of tears in it. It seemed so full of history, so vocal of the +tragic expedients to which men on the prairie must turn. It seemed +pathetic. It brought a lump into my throat. Yet that Joseph's Coat of +metal was a neatly done bit of work. All it needed was a coat of paint +or two, and it would look less like a crazy-quilt solidified into a +homestead. And I suddenly remembered Dinky-Dunk's question called out to +Olie from the car-end--and I knew he'd hurried off a message to have +that telltale tinning-job painted over before I happened to clap eyes on +it. + +As Olie had disappeared from the scene and was nowhere to be found, I +went in and got my own breakfast. It was supper over again, only I +scrambled my eggs instead of frying them. And all the while I was eating +that meal I studied those shack-walls and made mental note of what +should be changed and what should be done. There was so much, that it +rather overwhelmed me. I sat at the table, littered with its dirty +dishes, wondering where to begin. And then the endless vista of it all +suddenly opened up before me. I became nervously conscious of the +unbroken silence about me, and I realized how different this new life +must be from the old. It seemed like death itself, and it got a strangle +hold on my nerves, and I knew I was going to make a fool of myself the +very first morning in my new home, in my home and Dinky-Dunk's. But I +refused to give in. I did something which startled me a little, +something which I had not done for years. I got down on my knees beside +that plain wooden chair and prayed to God. I asked Him to give me +strength to keep me from being a piker and make me a wife worthy of the +man who loved me, and lead me into the way of bringing happiness to the +home that was to be ours. Then I rolled up my sleeves, tied a face towel +over my head and went to work. + +It was a royal cleaning-out, I can tell you. In the afternoon I had Olie +down on all fours scrubbing the floor. When he had washed the windows I +had him get a garden rake and clear away the rubbish that littered the +dooryard. I draped chintz curtains over the windows, and had Olie nail +two shelves in a packing-box and then carry it into my boudoir behind +the drop-curtain. Over this box I tacked fresh chintz (for the shack did +not possess so feminine a thing as a dresser) and on it put my +folding-mirror and my Tiffany traveling-clock and all my foolish +shimmery silver toilet articles. Then I tacked up photographs and +magazine-prints about the bare wooden walls--and decided that before the +winter came those walls would be painted and papered, or I'd know the +reason why. Then I aired the bedding and mattress, and unpacked my +brand-new linen sheets and the ridiculous hemstitched pillow-slips that +I'd scurried so frenziedly about the city to get, and stowed my things +away on the box-shelves, and had Olie pound the life out of the +well-sunned pillows, and carefully remade the bed. + +And then I went at the living-room. And it was no easy task, +reorganizing those awful shelves and making sure I wasn't throwing away +things Dinky-Dunk might want later on. But the carnage was great, and +all afternoon the smoke went heavenward from my fires of destruction. +And when it was over I told Olie to go out for a good long walk, for I +intended to take a bath. Which I did in the wash-tub, with much joy and +my last cake of Roger-and-Gallet soap. And I had to shout to poor +ambulating Olie for half-an-hour before I could persuade him to come in +to supper. And even then he came tardily, with countless hesitations and +pauses, as though a lady temerarious enough to take a scrub were for all +time taboo to the race of man. And when he finally ventured in through +the door, round-eyed and blushing a deep russet, he gaped at my white +middy and my little white apron with that silent but eloquent admiration +which couldn't fail to warm the cockles of the most unimpressionable +housewife's heart. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-third_ + + +My Dinky-Dunk is back--and oh, the difference to me! I kept telling +myself that I was too busy to miss him. He came Saturday night as I was +getting ready for bed. I'd been watching the trail every now and then, +all day long, and by nine o'clock had given him up. When I heard him +shouting for Olie, I made a rush for him, with only half my clothes on, +and nearly shocked Olie and some unknown man, who'd driven Dinky-Dunk +home, to death. How I hugged my husband! My husband--I love to write +that word. And when I got him inside we had it all over again. He was +just like a big overgrown boy. And he put the table between us, so he'd +have a chance to talk. But even that didn't work. He smothered my +laughing in kisses, and held me up close to him and said I was +wonderful. Then we'd try to get down to earth again, and talk sensibly, +and then there'd be another death-clinch. Dinky-Dunk says I'm worse +than he is. "Of course it's all up with a man," he confessed, "when he +sees you coming for him with that Australian crawl-stroke of yours!" + +For which I did my best to break in his floating ribs. Heaven only knows +how late we talked that night. And Dinky-Dunk had a bundle of surprises +for me. The first was a bronze reading-lamp. The second was a soft +little rug for the bedroom--only an Axminster, but very acceptable. The +third was a pair of Juliets, lined with fur, and oceans too big for me. +And Dinky-Dunk says by Tuesday we'll have two milk-cows, part-Jersey, at +the ranch, and inside of a week a crate of hens will be ours. Thereupon +I couldn't help leading Duncan to the inventory I had made of what we +had, and the list, on the opposite side, of what we had to have. The +second thing under the heading of "Needs" was "lamp," the fifth was +"bedroom rug," the thirteenth was "hens," and the next was "cow." I +think he was rather amazed at the length of that list of "needs," but he +says I shall have everything in reason. And when he kind of settled +down, and noticed the changes in the living-room and then went in and +inspected the bedroom he grew very solemn, of a sudden. It worried me. + +"Lady Bird," he said, taking me in his arms, "this is a pretty hard life +I've trapped you into. It will _have_ to be hard for a year or two, but +we'll win out, in the end, and I guess it'll be worth the fight!" + +Dinky-Dunk is such a dear. I told him of course we'd win out, but I +wouldn't be much use to him at first. I'd have to get broken in and made +bridle-wise. + +"But, oh, Dinky-Dunk, whatever happens, you must always love me!"--and I +imagine I swam for him with my Australian crawl-stroke again. All I +remember is that we went to sleep in each other's arms. And as I started +to say and forgot to finish, I'd been missing my Dinky-Dunk more than I +imagined, those last few days. After that night it was no longer just a +shack. It was "Home." Home--it's such a beautiful word! It must mean so +much to every woman. And I fell asleep telling myself it was the +loveliest word in the English language. + +In the morning I slipped out of bed before Dinky-Dunk was awake, for +breakfast was to be our first home meal, and I wanted it to be a +respectable one. _Der Mensch ist was er isst_--so I must feed my lord +and master on the best in the land. Accordingly I put an extra +tablespoonful of cream in the scrambled eggs, and two whole eggs in the +coffee, to make dead sure it was crystal-clear. Then, feeling like Van +Roon when Berlin declared war on France, I rooted out Dinky-Dunk, made +him wash, and sat him down in his pajamas and his ragged old +dressing-gown. + +"I suppose," I said as I saw his eyes wander about the table, "that you +feel exactly like an oyster-man who's just chipped his Blue-Point and +got his knife-edge in under the shell! And the next wrench is going to +tell you exactly what sort of an oyster you've got!" + +Dinky-Dunk grinned up at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the +range. "Well, Lady Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika, +anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor +and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked +a queen--only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our poor old +Swedish Olie! + +As that was Sunday we spent the morning "pi-rooting" about the place. +Dinky-Dunk took me out and showed me the stables and the hay-stacks and +the granaries--which he'd just waterproofed so there'd be no more spoilt +grain on that farm--and the "cool-hole" he used to use before the cellar +was built, and the ruins of the sod-hut where the first homesteader that +owned that land had lived. Then he showed me the new bunk-house for the +men, which Olie is finishing in his spare time. It looks much better +than our own shack, being of planed lumber. But Dinky-Dunk is loyal to +the shack, and says it's really better built, and the warmest shack in +the West--as I'll find before winter is over. + +Then we stopped at the pump, and Dinky-Dunk made a confession. When he +first bought that ranch there was no water at the shack, except what he +could catch from the roof. Water had to be hauled for miles, and it was +muddy and salty, at that. They used to call it "Gopher soup." This lack +of water always worried him, he said, for women always want water, and +oodles of it. It was the year before, after he had left me at Banff, +that he was determined to get water. It was hard work, putting down that +well, and up to almost the last moment it promised to be a dry hole. But +when they struck that water, Dinky-Dunk says, he decided in his soul +that he was going to have me, if I was to be had. It was water fit for a +queen. And he wanted his queen. But of course even queens have to be +well laved and well laundered. He said he didn't sleep all night, after +they found the water was there. He was too happy; he just went +meandering about the prairie, singing to himself. + +"So you were pretty sure of me, Kitten-Cats, even then?" I demanded. + +He looked at me with his solemn Scotch-Canadian eyes. "I'm not sure of +you, even now," was his answer. But I made him take it back. + +It's rather odd how Dinky-Dunk got this ranch, which used to be called +the Cochrane Ranch, for even behind this peaceful little home of ours +there is a touch of tragedy. Hugh Cochrane was one of Dinky-Dunk's +surveyors when he first took up railroad work in British Columbia. Hugh +had a younger brother Andrew, who was rather wild and had been brought +out here and planted on the prairie to keep him out of mischief. One +winter night he rode nearly thirty miles to a dance (they do that +apparently out here, and think nothing of it) and instead of riding home +at five o'clock in the morning, with the others, he visited a +whisky-runner who was operating a "blind pig." There he acquired much +more whisky than was good for him and got lost on the trail. That meant +he was badly frozen and probably out of his mind before he got back to +the shack. He wasn't able to keep up a fire, of course, or do anything +for himself--and I suppose the poor boy simply froze to death. He was +alone there, and it was weeks and weeks before his body was found. But +the most gruesome part of it all is that his horses had been stabled, +tied up in their stalls without feed. They were all found dead, poor +brutes. They'd even eaten the wooden boards the mangers were built of. +Hugh Cochrane couldn't get over it, and was going to sell the ranch for +fourteen hundred dollars when Dinky-Dunk heard of it and stepped in and +bought the whole half-section. Then he bought the McKinnon place, a +half-section to the north of this, after McKinnon had lost all his +buildings because he was too shiftless to make a fire-guard. And when +the railway work was finished Dinky-Dunk took up wheat-growing. He is a +great believer in wheat. He says wheat spells wealth, in this country. +Some people call him a "land-miner," he says, but when he's given the +chance to do the thing as he wants to, he'll show them who's right. + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk and I have been making plans. He's promised to build an annex +to the shack, a wing on the north side, so I can have a store-room and a +clothes-closet at one end and a guest-chamber at the other. And I'm to +have a sewing-machine and a bread-mixer, and the smelly steer-hide divan +is going to be banished to the bunk-house. And Dinky-Dunk says I must +have a pinto, a riding-horse, as soon as he can lay hands on the right +animal. Later on he says I must have help, but out here in the West +women are hard to get, and harder to keep. They are snatched up by +lonely bachelors like Dinky-Dunk. They can't even keep the +school-teachers (mostly girls from Ontario) from marrying off. But I +don't want a woman about, not for a few months yet. I want Dinky-Dunk +all to myself. And the freedom of isolation like this is such a luxury! +To be just one's self, in civilization, is a luxury, is the greatest +luxury in the world,--and also the most expensive, I've found to my +sorrow. + +Out here, there's no object in being anything but one's self. Life is so +simple and honest, so back to first principles! There's joy in the +thought of getting rid of all the sublimated junk of city life. I'm just +a woman; and Dinky-Dunk is just a man. We've got a roof and a bed and a +fire. That's all. And what is there, really, after that? We have to eat, +of course, but we really live well. There's all the game we want, +especially wild duck and prairie chicken, to say nothing of jack-rabbit. +Dinky-Dunk sallies out and pots them as we need them. We get our veal +and beef by the quarter, but it will not keep well until the weather +gets cooler, so I put what we don't need in brine and use it for +boiling-meat. We have no fresh fruit, but even evaporated peaches can be +stewed so that they're appetizing. And as I had the good sense to bring +out with me no less than three cook-books, from Brentano's, I am able to +attempt more and more elaborate dishes. + +Olie has a wire-fenced square where he grew beets and carrots and onions +and turnips, and the biggest potatoes I ever saw. These will be pitted +before the heavy frosts come. We get our butter and lard by the pail, +and our flour by the sack, but getting things in quantities sometimes +has its drawbacks. When I examined the oatmeal box I found it had +weavels in it, and promptly threw all that meal away. Dinky-Dunk, coming +in from the corral, viewed the pile with round-eyed amazement. "It's got +_worms_ in it!" I cried out to him. He took up a handful of it, and +stared at it with tragic sorrow. "Why, I ate weavels all last winter," +he reprovingly remarked. Dinky-Dunk, with his Scotch strain, loves his +porridge. So we'll have to get a hundred-weight, guaranteed strictly +uninhabited, when we team into Buckhorn. + +Men are funny! A woman never quite knows a man until she has lived with +him and day by day unearthed his little idiosyncrasies. She may seem +close to him, in those earlier days of romance, but she never really +knows him, any more than a sparrow on a telegraph wire knows the Morse +Code thrilling along under its toes! Men have so many little kinks and +turns, even the best of them. I tacked oil-cloth on a shoe-box and +draped chintz around it, and fixed a place for Dinky-Dunk to wash, in +the bedroom, when he comes in at noon. At night I knew it would be +impossible, for he's built a little wash-house with old binder-carrier +canvas nailed to four posts, and out there Olie and he strip every +evening and splash each other with horse-pails full of well-water. +Dinky-Dunk is clean, whatever he may be, but I thought it would look +more civilized if he'd perform his limited noonday ablutions in the +bedroom. He did it for one day, in pensive silence, and then sneaked the +wash-things back to the rickety old bench outside the door. He said it +saved time. + +Among other vital things, I've found that Dinky-Dunk hates burnt toast. +Yesterday morning, Matilda Anne, I got thinking about Corfu and Ragusa +and you, and it _did_ burn a little around the edges, I suppose. So I +kissed his ear and told him carbon would make his teeth white. But he +got up and went out with a sort of "In-this-way-madness-lies" +expression, and I felt wretched all day. So this morning I was more +careful. I did that toast just to a turn. "Feast, O Kaikobad, on the +blondest of toast!" I said as I salaamed and handed him the plate. He +wrinkled up his forehead a little, at the sting in that speech, but he +could not keep from grinning. Then, too, Dinky-Dunk always soaps the +back of his hand, to wash his back, and reach high up. So do I. And on +cold mornings-he says "One, two, three, the bumble bee!" before he hops +out of bed--and I imagined I was the only grownup in all the wide world +who still made use of that foolish rhyme. And the other day when he was +hot and tired I found him drinking a dipperful of cold water fresh from +the well. So I said: + + "Many a man has gone to his sarcophagus + Thro' pouring cold water down a warm esophagus!" + +When I recited that rhyme to him he swung about as though he'd been +shot. "Where did you ever hear that?" he asked. I told him that was +what Lady Agatha always said to me when she caught me drinking +ice-water. "I thought I was the only man in the world who knew that +crazy old couplet," he confessed, and he chased me around the shack with +the rest of the dipperful, to keep from chilling his tummy, he +explained. Then Dinky-Dunk and I both like to give pet-names to things. +He calls me "Lady Bird" and "Gee-Gee" and sometimes "Honey," and +sometimes "Boca Chica" and "Tabby." And I call him Dinky-Dunk and The +Dour Maun, and Kitten-Cats, though for some reason or other he hates +that last name. I think he feels it's an affront to his dignity. And no +man likes a trace of mockery in a woman. But Dinky-Dunk's names are born +of affection, and I love him for them. + +Even the ranch horses have all been tagged with names. There's +"Slip-Along" and "Water Light" and "Bronk" and "Patsy Crocker" and "Pick +and Shovel" and "Tumble Weed," and others that I can't remember at the +moment. And I find I'm picking up certain of Dinky-Dunk's little +habits, and dropping into the trick of looking at things from his +standpoint. I wonder if husbands and wives really _do_ get to be alike? +There are times when Dinky-Dunk seems to know just what I'm thinking, +for when he speaks he says exactly the thing I was going to ask him. And +he's inexorable in his belief that one's right shoe should always be put +on first. So am I! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-sixth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk is rather pinched for ready money. He is what they call "land +poor" out here. He has big plans, but not much cash. So we shall have to +be frugal. I had decided on vast and sudden changes in this household, +but I'll have to draw in my horns a little. Luckily I have nearly two +hundred dollars of my own money left--and have never mentioned it to +Dinky-Dunk. So almost every night I study the magazine advertisements, +and the catalog of the mail-order house in Winnipeg. Each night I add to +my list of "Needs," and then go back and cross out some of the earlier +ones, as being too extravagant, for the length of my list almost gives +me heart-failure. And as I sit there thinking of what I have to do +without, I envy the women I've known in other days, the women with all +their white linen and their cut glass and silverware and their +prayer-rugs and period rooms and their white-tiled baths and their +machinery for making life so comfortable and so easy. I envy them. I put +away my list, and go to bed envying them. But, oh, I sleep so soundly, +and I wake up so buoyant in heart, so eager to get at the next day's +work, so glad to see I'm slowly getting things more ship-shape. It +doesn't leave room for regret. And there is always the future, the +happier to-morrow to which our thoughts go out. I get to thinking of the +city again, of the hundreds of women I know going like hundreds of crazy +squirrels on their crazy treadmill of amusements, and of the thousands +and thousands of women who are toiling without hope, going on in the +same old rut from day to day, cooped up in little flats and back rooms, +with bad air and bad food and bad circulation, while I have all God's +outdoors to wander about in, and can feel the singing rivers of health +in my veins. And here I side-step my Song-of-Solomon voluntary, for they +have one thing I _do_ miss, and that is music. I wish I had a +cottage-piano or a Baby Grand or a _Welte Mignon_! I wish I had any +kind of an old piano! I wish I had an accordion, or a German +Sweet-Potato, or even a Jew's-Harp! + +But what's the use of wishing for luxuries, when we haven't even a +can-opener--Dinky-Dunk says he's used a hatchet for over a year! And our +only toaster is a kitchen-fork wired to the end of a lath. I even saw +Dinky-Dunk spend half an hour straightening out old nails taken from one +of our shipping-boxes. And the only colander we have was made out of a +leaky milk-pan with holes punched in its bottom. And we haven't a +double-boiler or a mixing-bowl or a doughnut-cutter. When I told +Dinky-Dunk yesterday that we were running out of soap, he said he'd +build a leach of wood-ashes and get beef-tallow and make soft soap. I +asked him how long he'd want to kiss a downy cheek that had been washed +in soft soap. He said he'd keep on kissing me if I was a mummy pickled +in bitumen. But I prefer not risking too much of the pickling process. + +Which reminds me of the fact that I find my hair a terrible nuisance, +with no Hortense to struggle with it every morning. As you know, it's as +thick as a rope and as long as my arm. I begrudge the time it takes to +look after it, and such a thing as a good shampoo is an event to be +approached with trepidation and prepared for with zeal. "Coises on me +beauty!" I think I'll cut that wool off. But on each occasion when I +have my mind about made up I experience one of "Mr. Polly's" l'il dog +moments. The thing that makes me hesitate is the thought that Dinky-Dunk +might hate me for the rest of his days. And now that our +department-store aristocracy seems to have a corner in Counts and I seem +destined to worry along with merely an American husband, I don't intend +to throw away the spoons with the dish-water! But having to fuss so with +that hair is a nuisance, especially at night, when I am so tired that my +pillow seems to bark like a dog for me to come and pat it. + +And speaking of that reminds me that I have to order arch-supports for +my feet. I'm on them so much that by bedtime my ankles feel like a +_chocolat mousse_ that's been left out in the sun. Yet this isn't a +whimper, Matilda Anne, for when I turn in I sleep like a child. No more +counting and going to the medicine-chest for coal-tar pills. I abjure +them. I, who used to have so many tricks to bring the starry-eyed +goddess bending over my pillow, hereby announce myself as the noblest +sleeper north of the Line! I no longer need to count the sheep as they +come over the wall, or patiently try to imagine the sound of surf-waves, +or laboriously re-design that perennial dinner-gown which I've kept +tucked away in the cedar-chest of the imagination as long as I can +remember, elaborating it over and over again down to the minutest +details through the longest hour of my whitest white night until it +began to merge into the velvety robes of slumber itself! Nowadays an +ogre called Ten-O'Clock steals up behind my chair with a club in his +hand and stuns me into insensibility. Two or three times, in fact, my +dear old clumsy-fingered Dinky-Dunk has helped me get my clothes off. +But he says that the nicest sound he knows is to lie in bed and hear the +tinkle of my hair-pins as I toss them into the little Coalport pin-tray +on my dresser--which reminds me what Chinkie once said about his idea of +Heaven being eating my divinity-fudge to the sound of trumpets! + +I brag about being busy, but I'm not the only busy person about this +wickyup. Olie and Dinky-Dunk talk about summer-fallowing and +double-discing and drag-harrowing and fire-guarding, and I'm beginning +to understand what it all means. They are out with their teams all day +long, working like Trojans. We have mid-day dinner, which Olie bolts in +silence and with the rapidity of chain-lightning. He is the most expert +of sword-swallowers, with a table-knife, and Dinky-Dunk says it keeps +reminding him how Burbank could make a fortune inventing a square pea +that would stay on a knife-blade. But Dinky-Dunk stopped me calling him +"The Sword Swallower" and has privately tipped Olie off as to the +functions of the table fork. How the males of this old earth stick +together! The world of men is a secret order, and every man is a member! + +Having bolted his dinner Olie always makes for outdoors. Then Dinky-Dunk +comes to my side of the table. We sit side by side, with our arms around +each other. Sometimes I fill his pipe for him and light it. Then we talk +lazily, happily, contentedly and sometimes shockingly. Then he looks at +our nickel-alarm clock, up on the book shelves which I made out of old +biscuit-boxes, and invariably says: "This isn't the spirit that built +Rome," and kisses me three times, once on each eyelid, tight, and once +on the mouth. I don't even mind the taste of the pipe. Then he's off, +and I'm alone for the afternoon. + +But I'm getting things organized now so that I have a little spare time. +And with time on my hands I find myself turning very restless. Yesterday +I wandered off on the prairie and nearly got lost. Dinky-Dunk says I +must be more careful, until I get to know the country better. He put me +up on his shoulder and made me promise. Then he let me down. It made me +wonder if I hadn't married a masterful man. Above all things I've always +wanted freedom. + +"I'm a wild woman, Duncan. You'll never tame me," I confessed to him. + +He laughed a little. + +"So you think you will?" I demanded. + +"No, _I_ won't, Gee-Gee, but life will!" + +And again I felt some ghostly spirit of revolt stirring in me, away down +deep. I think he saw some shadow of it, caught some echo of it, for his +manner changed and he pushed back the hair from my forehead and kissed +me, almost pityingly. + +"There's one thing must _not_ happen!" I told him as he held me in his +arms. + +He did not let his eyes meet mine. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"I'm afraid--out here!" I confessed as I clung to him and felt the need +of having him close to me. He was very quiet and thoughtful all +evening. Before I fell asleep he told me that on Monday the two of us +would team in to Buckhorn and get a wagon-load of supplies. + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +I have got my cayuse. Dinky-Dunk meant him for a surprise, but the +shyest and reddest-headed cowboy that ever sat in a saddle came +cantering along the trail, and I saw him first. He was leading the +shaggiest, piebaldest, pottest-tummied, craziest-looking little cayuse +that ever wore a bridle. I gave one look at his tawny-colored forelock, +which stood pompadour-style about his ears, and shouted out +"Paderewski!" Dinky-Dunk came and stood beside me and laughed. He said +that cayuse _did_ look like Paderewski, but the youth of the fiery locks +blushingly explained that his present name was "Jail-Bird," which some +fool Scandinavian had used instead of "Grey-Bird," his authentic and +original appellative. But I stuck to my name, though we have shortened +it into "Paddy." And Paddy must indeed have been a jail-bird, or +deserved to be one, for he is marked and scarred from end to end. But +he is good-tempered, tough as hickory and obligingly omnivorous. Every +one in the West, men and women alike, rides astride, and I have been +practising on Paddy. It seems a very comfortable and sensible way to +ride, but I shall have to toughen up a bit before I hit the trail for +any length of time. + +I've been wondering, Matilda Anne, if this all sounds pagan and foolish +to you, uncultured, as Theobald Gustav would put it? I've also been +wondering, since I wrote that last sentence, if people really need +culture, or what we used to call culture, and if it means as much to +life as so many imagine. Here we are out here without any of the +refinements of civilization, and we're as much at peace with our own +souls as are the birds of the air--when there _are_ birds in the air, +which isn't in our country! Culture, it seems to me as I look back on +things, tends to make people more and more mere spectators of life, +detaching them from it and lifting them above it. Or can it be that the +mere spectators demand culture, to take the place of what they miss by +not being actual builders and workers? + +We are farmers, just rubes and hicks, as they say in my country. But +we're tilling the soil and growing wheat. We're making a great new +country out of what was once a wilderness. To me, that seems almost +enough. We're laboring to feed the world, since the world must have +bread, and there's something satisfying and uplifting in the mere +thought that we can answer to God, in the end, for our lives, no matter +how raw and rude they may have been. And there are mornings when I am +Browning's "Saul" in the flesh. The great wash of air from sky-line to +sky-line puts something into my blood or brain that leaves me almost +dizzy. I sizzle! It makes me pulse and tingle and cry out that life is +good--_good_! I suppose it is nothing more than altitude and ozone. But +in the matter of intoxicants it stands on a par with anything that was +ever poured out of bottles at Martin's or Bustanoby's. And at sunrise, +when the prairie is thinly silvered with dew, when the tiny hammocks of +the spider-webs swing a million sparkling webs strung with diamonds, +when every blade of grass is a singing string of pearls, hymning to God +on High for the birth of a golden day, I can feel my heart swell, and +I'm so abundantly, so inexpressibly alive, alive to every finger-tip! +Such space, such light, such distances! And being Saul is so much better +than reading about him! + + + + +_Wednesday the First_ + + +I was too tired to write any last night, though there seemed so much to +talk about. We teamed into Buckhorn for our supplies, two leisurely, +lovely, lazy days on the trail, which we turned into a sort of +gipsy-holiday. We took blankets and grub and feed for the horses and a +frying-pan, and camped out on the prairie. The night was pretty cool, +but we made a good fire, and had hot coffee. Dinky-Dunk smoked and I +sang. Then we rolled up in our blankets and as I lay there watching the +stars I got thinking of the lights of the Great White Way. Then I nudged +my husband and asked him if he knew what my greatest ambition in life +used to be. And of course he didn't. "Well, Dinky-Dunk," I told him, "it +was to be the boy who opens the door at _Malliard's_! For two whole +years I ate my heart out with envy of that boy, who always lived in the +odor of such heavenly hot chocolate and wore two rows of shining +buttons down his braided coat and was never without white gloves and +morning, noon and night paraded about in the duckiest little skull-cap +cocked very much to one side like a Grenadier's!" And Dinky-Dunk told me +to go to sleep or he'd smother me with a horse-blanket. So I squirmed +back into my blanket and got "nested" and watched the fire die away +while far, far off somewhere a coyote howled. That made me lonesome, so +I got Dinky-Dunk's hand, and fell asleep holding it in mine. + +I woke up early. Dinky-Dunk had forgotten about my hand, and it was +cold. In the East there was a low bar of ethereally pale silver, which +turned to amber, and then to ashes of roses, and then to gold. I saw one +sublime white star go out, in the West, and then behind the bars of gold +the sky grew rosy with morning until it was one Burgundian riot of +bewildering color. I sat up and watched it. Then I reached over and +shook Dinky-Dunk. It was too glorious a daybreak to miss. He looked at +me with one eye open, like a sleepy hound. + +"You must see it, Dinky-Dunk! It's so resplendent it's positively +vulgar!" + +He sat up, stared at the pageantry of color for one moment, and then +wriggled down into his blanket again. I tickled his nose with a blade of +sweet-grass. Then I washed my face in the dew, the same as we did in +Christ-Church Meadow that glorious May-Day in Oxford. By the time +Dinky-Dunk woke up I had the coffee boiling and the bacon sizzling in +the pan. It was the most celestial smell that ever assailed human +nostrils, and I blush with shame at the thought of how much I ate at +that breakfast, sitting flat on an empty oat-sack and leaning against a +wagon-wheel. By eight o'clock we were in the metropolis of Buckhorn and +busy gathering up our things there. And they made a very respectable +wagon-load. + + + + +_Thursday the Second_ + + +I have been practising like mad learning to play the mouth-organ. I +bought it in Buckhorn, without letting Dinky-Dunk know, and all day +long, when I knew it was safe, I've been at it. So to-night, when I had +my supper-table all ready, I got the ladder that leaned against one of +the granaries and mounted the nearest hay-stack. There, quite out of +sight, I waited until Dinky-Dunk came in with his team. I saw him go +into the shack and then step outside again, staring about in a brown +study. Then I struck up _Traumerei_. + +You should have seen that boy's face! He looked up at the sky, as though +my poor little harmonica were the aerial outpourings of archangels. He +stood stock-still, drinking it in. Then he bolted for the stables, +thinking it came from there. It took him some time to corner me up on my +stack-top. Then I slid down into his arms. And I believe he loves that +mouth-organ music. After supper he made me go out and sit on the oat-box +and play my repertory. He says it's wonderful, from a distance. But that +mouth-organ's rather brassy, and it makes my lips sore. Then, too, my +mouth isn't big enough for me to "tongue" it properly. When I told +Dinky-Dunk this he said: + +"Of course it isn't! What d'you suppose I've been calling you Boca Chica +for?" + +And I've just discovered "Boca Chica" is Spanish for "Little Mouth"--and +me with a trap, Matilda Anne, that you used to call the Cave of the +Winds! Now Dinky-Dunk vows he'll have a Victrola before the winter is +over! Ye gods and little fishes, what a luxury! There was a time, not so +long ago, when I was rather inclined to sniff at the Westbury's electric +player-piano and its cabinet of neatly canned classics! How life humbles +us! And how blind all women are in their ideals and their search for +happiness! The sea-stones that lie so bright on the shores of youth can +dry so dull in the hand of experience! And yet, as Birdalone's Nannie +once announced, "If you thuck 'em they thay boo-ful!" And I guess it +must be a good deal the same with marriage. You can't even afford to lay +down on your job of loving. The more we ask, the more we must give. I've +just been thinking of those days of my fiercely careless childhood when +my soul used to float out to placid happiness on one piece of +plum-cake--only even then, alas, it floated out like a polar bear on its +iceberg, for as that plum-cake vanished my peace of mind went with it, +madly as I clung to the last crumb. But now that I'm an old married +woman I don't intend to be a Hamlet in petticoats. A good man loves me, +and I love him back. And I intend to keep that love alive. + + + + +_Friday the Third_ + + +I have just issued an ultimatum as to pigs. There shall be no more loose +porkers wandering about my dooryard. It's an advertisement of bad +management. And what's more, when I was hanging out my washing this +morning a shote rooted through my basket of white clothes with his dirty +nose, and while I made after him his big brother actually tried to eat +one of my wet table-napkins. And that meant another hour's hard work +before the damage was repaired. + + + + +_Saturday the Fourth_ + + +Olie is painting the shack, inside and out, and now you'd never know our +poor little Joseph-coat home. I told Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever put a +chameleon on that shack-wall he'd have died of brain-fag trying to make +good on the color-schemes. So Dinky-Dunk made Olie take a day off and +ply the brush. But the smell of paint made me think of Channel passages, +so off I went with Dinky-Dunk, _a la_ team and buckboard, to the Dixon +Ranch to see about some horses, nearly seventy miles there and back. It +was a glorious autumn day, and a glorious ride, with "Bronk" and +"Tumble-Weed" loping along the double-trail and the air like crystal. + +Dinky-Dunk and I sang most of the way. The gophers must have thought we +were mad. My lord and master is incontinently proud of his voice, +especially the chest-tones, but he rather tails behind me on the tune, +plainly not always being sure of himself. We had dinner with the Dixons, +and about three million flies. They gave me the blues, that family, and +especially Mrs. Dixon. She seemed to make prairie-life so ugly and empty +and hardening. Poor, dried-up, sad-eyed soul, she looked like a woman of +sixty, and yet her husband said she was just thirty-seven. Their water +is strong with alkali, and this and the prairie wind (combined with a +something deep down in her own make-up) have made her like a vulture, +lean and scrawny and dry. I stared at that hard line of jaw and +cheekbone and wondered how long ago the soft curves were there, and if +those overworked hands had ever been pretty, and if that flat back had +ever been rounded and dimpled. Her hair was untidy. Her apron was +unspeakably dirty, and she used it as both a handkerchief and a +hand-towel. Her voice was as hard as nails, and her cooking was +wretched. Not a door or window was screened, and, as I said before, we +were nearly smothered with flies. + +Dinky-Dunk did not dare to look at me, all dinner time. And on the way +home Mrs. Dixon's eyes kept haunting me, they seemed so tired and vacant +and accusing, as though they were secretly holding God Himself to +account for cheating her out of her woman's heritage of joy. I asked +Dinky-Dunk if we'd ever get like that. He said, "Not on your life!" and +quoted the Latin phrase about mind controlling matter. The Dixons, he +went on to explain, were of the "slum" type, only they didn't happen to +live in a city. But tired and sleepy as I was that night, I got up to +cold-cream my face and arms. And I'm going to write for almond-meal and +glycerin from the mail-order house to-morrow. _And_ a brassiere--for I +saw what looked like the suspicion of a smile on Dinky-Dunk's unshaven +lips as he watched me struggling into my corsets this morning. It took +some writhing, and even then I could hardly make it. I threw my wet +sponge after him when he turned back in the doorway with the mildly +impersonal question: "Who's your fat friend?" Then he scooted for the +corral, and I went back and studied my chin in the dresser-mirror, to +make sure it wasn't getting terraced into a dew-lap like Uncle +Carlton's. + +But I can't help thinking of the Dixons, and feeling foolishly and +helplessly sorry for them. It was dusk when we got back from that long +drive to their ranch, and the stars were coming out. I could see our +shack from miles off, a little lonely dot of black against the sky-line. +I made Dinky-Dunk stop the team, and we sat and looked at it. It seemed +so tiny there, so lonely, so strange, in the middle of such miles and +miles of emptiness, with a little rift of smoke going up from its +desolate little pipe-end. Then I said, out loud, "Home! My home!" And +out of a clear sky, for no earthly reason, I began to cry like a baby. +Women are such fools, sometimes! I told Dinky-Dunk we must get books, +good books, and spend the long winter evenings reading together, to keep +from going to seed. + +He said, "All right, Gee-Gee," and patted my knee. Then we loped on +along the trail toward the lonely little black dot ahead of us. But I +hung on to Dinky-Dunk's arm, all the rest of the way, until we pulled up +beside the shack, and poor old Olie, with a frying-pan in his hand, +stood silhouetted against the light of the open door. + + + + +_Monday the Sixth_ + + +The last few days I've been nothing but a two-footed retriever, +scurrying off and carrying things back home with me. There have been +rains, but the weather is still glorious. And I've discovered such heaps +and heaps of mushrooms over at the old Titchborne Ranch. They're thick +all around the corral and in the pasture there. I am now what your +English lord and master would call "a perfect seat" on Paddy, and every +morning I ride over after my basketful of _Agaricus Campestris_--that +ought to be in the plural, but I've forgotten how! We have them creamed +on toast; we have them fried in butter; and we have them in soup--and +such beauties! I'm going to try and can some for winter and spring use. +But the finest part of the mushroom is the finding it. To ride into a +little white city that has come up overnight and looks like an +encampment of fairy soldiers, to see the milky white domes against the +vivid green of the prairie-grass, to catch sight of another clump of +them, suddenly, like stars against an emerald sky, a hundred yards away, +to inhale the clean morning air, and feel your blood tingle, and hear +the prairie-chickens whir and the wild-duck scolding along the +coulee-edges--I tell you, Matilda Anne, it's worth losing a little of +your beauty sleep to go through it! I'm awake even before Dinky-Dunk, +and I brought him out of his dreams this morning by poking his teeth +with my little finger and saying: + + "Twelve white horses + On a red hill--" + +and I asked him if he knew what it was, and he gave the right answer, +and said he hadn't heard that conundrum since he was a boy. + +All afternoon I've been helping Dinky-Dunk put up a barb-wire fence. +Barb-wire is nearly as hard as a woman to handle. Dinky-Dunk is fencing +in some of the range, for a sort of cattle-run for our two milk-cows. He +says it's only a small field, but there seemed to be miles and miles of +that fencing. We had no stretcher, so Dinky-Dunk made shift with me and +a claw-hammer. He'd catch the wire, lever his hammer about a post, and +I'd drive in the staple, with a hammer of my own. I got so I could hit +the staple almost every whack, though one staple went off like shrapnel +and hit Diddum's ear. So I'm some use, you see, even if I am a chekako! +But a wire slipped, and tore through my skirt and stocking, scratched my +leg and made the blood run. It was only the tiniest cut, really, but I +made the most of it, Dinky-Dunk was so adorably nice about doctoring me +up. We came home tired and happy, singing together, and Olie, as usual, +must have thought we'd both gone mad. + +This husband of mine is so elementary. He secretly imagines that he's +one of the most complex of men. But in a good many things he's as simple +as a child. And I love him for it, although I believe I _do_ like to +bedevil him a little. He is dignified, and hates flippancy. So when I +greet him with "Morning, old boy!" I can see that nameless little +shadow sweep over his face. Then I say, "Oh, I beg its little pardon!" +He generally grins, in the end, and I think I'm slowly shaking that +monitorial air out of him, though once or twice I've had to remind him +about La Rochefoucauld saying gravity was a stratagem invented to +conceal the poverty of the mind! But Dinky-Dunk still objects to me +putting my finger on his Adam's apple when he's talking. He wears a +flannel shirt, when working outside, and his neck is bare. Yesterday I +buried my face down in the corner next to his shoulder-blade and made +him wriggle. As he shaves only on Sunday mornings now, that is about the +only soft spot, for his face is prickly, and makes my chin sore, the +bearded brute! Then I bit him; not hard--but Satan said bite, and I just +had to do it. He turned quite pale, swung me round so that I lay limp in +his arms, and closed his mouth over mine. I got away, and he chased me. +We upset things. Then I got outside the shack, ran around the +horse-corral, and then around the hay-stacks, with Dinky-Dunk right +after me, giving me goose-flesh at every turn. I felt like a +cave-woman. He grabbed me like a stone-age man and caught me up and +carried me over his shoulder to a pile of prairie sweet-grass that had +been left there for Olie's mattress. My hair was down. I was screaming, +half sobbing and half laughing. He dropped me in the hay, like a bag of +wheat. I started to fight him again. But I couldn't beat him off. Then +all my strength seemed to go. He was laughing himself, but it frightened +me a little to see his pupils so big that his eyes looked black. I felt +like a lamb in a lion's jaw, Dinky-Dunk is so much stronger than I am. I +lay there quite still, with my eyes closed. I went flop. I knew I was +conquered. + +Then I came back to life. I suddenly realized that it was mid-day, in +the open air between the bald prairie-floor and God's own blue sky, +where Olie could stumble on us at any moment--and possibly die with his +boots on! Dinky-Dunk was kissing my left eyelid. It was a cup his lips +just seemed to fit into. I tried to move. But he held me there. He held +me so firmly that it hurt. Yet I couldn't help hugging him. Poor, big, +foolish, baby-hearted Dinky-Dunk! And poor, weak, crazy, storm-tossed +me! But, oh, God, it's glorious, in some mysterious way, to stir the +blood of a strong big man! It's heaven--and I don't quite know why. But +I love to see Dinky-Dunk's eyes grow black. Yet it makes me a little +afraid of him. I can hear his heart pound, sometimes, quite distinctly. +And sometimes there seems something so pathetic about it all--we are +such puny little mites of emotion played on by nature for her own +immitigable ends! But every woman wants to be loved. Dinky-Dunk asked me +why I shut my eyes when he kisses me. I wonder why? Sometimes, too, he +says my kisses are wicked, and that he likes 'em wicked. He's a funny +mixture. He's got the soul of a Scotch Calvinist tangled up in him +somewhere, and after the storm he's very apt to grow pious and a bit +preachy. But he has feelings, only he's ashamed of them. I think I'm +taking a little of the ice-crust off his emotions. He's a stiff clay +that needs to be well stirred up and turned over before it can mellow. +And I must be a sandy loam that wastes all its strength in one short +harvest. That sounds as though I were getting to be a real farmer's wife +with a vast knowledge of soils, doesn't it? At any rate my husband, out +of his vast knowledge of me, says I have the swamp-cedar trick of +flaring up into sudden and explosive attractiveness. Then, he says, I +shower sparks. As I've already told him, I'm a wild woman, and will be +hard to tame, for as Victor Hugo somewhere says, we women are only +perfected devils! + + + + +_Wednesday the Eighth_ + + +I've cut off my hair, right bang off. When I got up yesterday morning +with so much work ahead of me, with so much to do and so little time to +do it in, I started doing my hair. I also started thinking about that +Frenchman who committed suicide after counting up the number of buttons +he had to button and unbutton every morning and evening of every day of +every year of his life. I tried to figure up the time I was wasting on +that mop of mine. Then the Great Idea occurred to me. + +I got the scissors, and in six snips had it off, a big tangled pile of +brownish gold, rather bleached out by the sun at the ends. And the +moment I saw it there on my dresser, and saw my head in the mirror, I +was sorry. I looked like a plucked crow. I could have ditched a +freight-train. And I felt positively light-headed. But it was too late +for tears. I trimmed off the ragged edges as well as I could, and what +didn't get in my eyes got down my neck and itched so terribly that I had +to change my clothes. Then I got a nail-punch out of Dinky-Dunk's +tool-kit, and heated it over the lamp and gave a little more wave to +that two-inch shock of stubble. It didn't look so bad then, and when I +tried on Dinky-Dunk's coat in front of the glass I saw that I wouldn't +make such a bad-looking boy. + +But I waited until noon with my heart in my mouth, to see what +Dinky-Dunk would say. What he really _did_ say I can't write here, for +there was a wicked swear-word mixed up in his ejaculation of startled +wonder. Then he saw the tears in my eyes, I suppose, for he came running +toward me with his arms out, and hugged me tight, and said I looked +cute, and all he'd have to do would be to get used to it. But all dinner +time he kept looking at me as though I were a strange woman, and later I +saw him standing in front of the dresser, stooping over that tragic pile +of tangled yellow-brown snakes. It reminded me of a man stooping over a +grave. I slipped away without letting him see me. But this morning I +woke him up early and asked him if he still loved his wife. And when he +vowed he did, I tried to make him tell me how much. But that stumped +him. He compromised by saying he couldn't cheapen his love by defining +it in words; it was limitless. I followed him out after breakfast, with +a hunger in my heart which bacon and eggs hadn't helped a bit, and told +him that if he really loved me he could tell me how much. + +He looked right in my eyes, a little pityingly, it seemed to me, and +laughed, and grew solemn again. Then he stooped down and picked up a +little blade of prairie-grass, and held it up in front of me. + +"Have you any idea of how far it is from the Rockies across to the +Hudson Bay and from the Line up to the Peace River Valley?" + +Of course I hadn't. + +"And have you any idea of how many millions of acres of land that is, +and how many millions of blades of grass like this there are in each +acre?" he soberly demanded. + +And again of course I hadn't. + +"Well, this one blade of grass is the amount of love I am able to +express for you, and all those other blades in all those millions of +acres is what love itself is!" + +I thought it over, just as solemnly as he had said it. I think I was +satisfied. For when my Dinky-Dunk was away off on the prairie, working +like a nailer, and I was alone in the shack, I went to his old coat +hanging there--the old coat that had some subtle aroma of +Dinky-Dunkiness itself about every inch of it--and kissed it on the +sleeve. + +This afternoon as Paddy and I started for home with a pail of mushrooms +I rode face to face with my first coyote. We stood staring at each +other. My heart bounced right up into my throat, and for a moment I +wondered if I was going to be eaten by a starving timber-wolf, with +Dinky-Dunk finding my bones picked as clean as those animal-carcasses +we see in an occasional buffalo-wallow. I kept up my end of the stare, +wondering whether to advance or retreat, and it wasn't until that coyote +turned tail and scooted that my courage came back. Then Paddy and I went +after him, like the wind. But we had to give up. And at supper +Dinky-Dunk told me coyotes were too cowardly to come near a person, and +were quite harmless. He said that even when they showed their teeth, the +rest of their face was apologizing for the threat. And before supper was +over that coyote, at least I suppose it was the same coyote, was howling +at the rising full moon. I went out with Dinky-Dunk's gun, but couldn't +get near the brute. Then I came back. + +"Sing, you son-of-a-gun, sing!" I called out to him from the shack door. +And that shocked my lord and master so much that he scolded me, for the +first time in his life. And when I poked his Adam's apple with my finger +he got on his dignity. He was tired, poor boy, and I should have +remembered it. And when I requested him not to stand there and stare at +me in the hieratic rigidity of an Egyptian idol I could see a little +flush of anger go over his face. He didn't say anything. But he took one +of the lamps and a three-year-old _Pall-Mall Magazine_ and shut himself +up in the bunk-house. + +Then I was sorry. + +I tiptoed over to the door, and found it was locked. Then I went and +got my mouth-organ and sat meekly down on the doorstep and began to +play the _Don't Be Cross_ waltz. I dragged it out plaintively, with a +_vox humana tremolo_ on the coaxing little refrain. Finally I heard a +smothered snort, and the door suddenly opened and Dinky-Dunk picked me +up, mouth-organ and all. He shook me and said I was a little devil, and +I called him a big British brute. But he was laughing and a wee bit +ashamed of his temper and was very nice to me all the rest of the +evening. + +I'm getting, I find, to depend a great deal on Dinky-Dunk, and it makes +me afraid, sometimes, for the future. He seems able to slip a hand +under my heart and lift it up, exactly as though it were the chin of a +wayward child. Yet I resent his power, and keep elbowing for more +breathing-space, like a rush-hour passenger in the subway crowd. +Sometimes, too, I resent the over-solemn streak in his mental make-up. +He abominates ragtime, and I have rather a weakness for it. So once or +twice in his dour days I've found an almost Satanic delight in singing +_The Humming Coon_. And the knowledge that he'd like to forbid me +singing rag seems to give a zest to it. So I go about flashing my saber +of independence: + + "Ol' Ephr'm Johnson was a deacon of de church in Tennessee, + An' of course it was ag'inst de rules t' sing ragtime melodee!" + +But I am the one, I notice, who always makes up first. To-night as I was +making cocoa before we went to bed I tried to tell my Diddums there was +something positively doglike in my devotion to him. He nickered like a +pony and said he was the dog in this deal. Then he pulled me over on +his knee and said that men get short-tempered when they were tuckered +out with worry and hard work, and that probably it would be hard for +even two of the seraphim always to get along together in a two-by-four +shack, where you couldn't even have, a deadline for the sake of +dignity. It was mostly his fault, he knew, but he was going to try to +fight against it. And I experienced the unreasonable joy of an +unreasonable woman who has succeeded in putting the man she loves with +all her heart and soul in the wrong. So I could afford to be humble +myself, and make a foolish lot of fuss over him. But I shall always +fight for my elbow-room. For there are times when my Dinky-Dunk, for all +his bigness and strength, has to be taken sedately in tow, the same as a +racing automobile has to be hauled through the city streets by a dinky +little low-power hack-car! + + + + +_Saturday the Tenth_ + + +We've had a cold spell, with heavy frosts at night, but the days are +still glorious. The overcast days are so few in the West that I've been +wondering if the optimism of the Westerners isn't really due to the +sunshine they get. Who could be gloomy under such golden skies? Every +pore of my body has a throat and is shouting out a _Tarentella Sincera_ +of its own! But it isn't the weather that has keyed me up this time. +It's another wagon-load of supplies which Olie teamed out from Buckhorn +yesterday. I've got wall-paper and a new iron bed for the annex, and +galvanized wash-tubs and a crock-churn and storm-boots and enough +ticking to make ten big pillows, and unbleached linen for two dozen +slips--I love a big pillow--and I've been saving up wild-duck feathers +for weeks, the downiest feathers you ever sank your ear into, Matilda +Anne; and if pillows will do it I'm going to make this house look like a +harem! Can you imagine a household with only three pillow-slips, which +had to be jerked off in the morning, washed, dried and ironed and put +back on their three lonely little pillows before bedtime? Well, there +will be no more of that in this shack. + +But the important news is that I've got a duck-gun, the duckiest +duck-gun you ever saw, and waders, and a coon-skin coat and cap and a +big leather school-bag for wearing over my shoulder on Paddy. The coat +and cap are like the ones we used to laugh at when we went up to +Montreal for the tobogganing, in the days when I was young and foolish +and willing to sacrifice comfort on the altar of outward appearances. +The coon-skins make me look like a Laplander, but they'll be mighty +comfy when the cold weather comes, for Dinky-Dunk says it drops to forty +and fifty below, sometimes. + +I also got a lot of small stuff I'd written for from the mail-order +house, little feminine things a woman simply _has_ to have. But the big +thing was the duck-gun. + +I no longer get heart failure when I hear the whir of a +prairie-chicken, but drop my bird before it's out of range. Poor, plump, +wounded, warm-bodied little feathery things! Some of them keep on flying +after they've been shot clean through the body, going straight on for a +couple of hundred feet, or even more, and then dropping like a stone. +How hard-hearted we soon get! It used to worry me. Now I gather 'em up +as though they were so many chips and toss them into the wagon-box; or +into my school-bag, if it's a private expedition of only Paddy and me. +And that's the way life treats us, too. + +I've been practising on the gophers with my new gun, and with +Dinky-Dunk's .22 rifle. A gopher is only a little bigger than a +chipmunk, and usually pokes nothing more than his head out of his hole, +so when I got thirteen out of fifteen shots I began to feel that I was a +sharp-shooter. But don't regard this as wanton cruelty, for the gopher +is worse than a rat, and in this country the government agents supply +homesteaders with an annual allowance of free strychnine to poison them +off. + + + + +_Sunday the Eleventh_ + + +I've made my first butter, be it recorded--but in doing so I managed to +splash the ceiling and the walls and my own woolly head, for I didn't +have sense enough to tie a wet cloth about the handle of the +churn-dasher until the damage had been done. I was too intent on getting +my butter to pay attention to details, though it took a disheartening +long time and my arms were tired out before I had finished. And when I +saw myself spattered from head to foot it reminded me of what you once +said about me and my reading, that I had the habit of coming out of a +book like a spaniel out of water, scattering ideas as I came. But there +are not many new books in my life these days. It is mostly hard work, +although I reminded Dinky-Dunk last night that while Omar intimated that +love and bread and wine were enough for any wilderness, we mustn't +forget that he also included a book of verses underneath the bough! My +lord says that by next year we can line our walls with books. But I'm +like Moses on Mount Nebo--I can see my promised land, but it seems a +terribly long way off. But this, as Dinky-Dunk would say, is not the +spirit that built Rome, and has carried me away from my butter, the +making of which cold-creamed my face until I looked as though I had snow +on my headlight. Yet there is real joy in finding those lovely yellow +granules in the bottom of your churn and then working it over and over +with a saucer in a cooking-bowl until it is one golden mass. Several +times before I'd shaken up sour cream in a sealer, but this was my first +real butter-making. I have just discovered, however, that I didn't +"wash" it enough, so that all the buttermilk wasn't worked out of my +first dairy-product. Dinky-Dunk, like the scholar and gentleman that he +is, swore that it was worth its weight in Klondike gold. And next time +I'll do better. + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +Golden weather again, with a clear sky and soft and balmy air! Just +before our mid-day meal Olie arrived with mail for us. We've had letters +from home! Instead of cheering me up they made me blue, for they seemed +to bring word from another world, a world so far, far away! + +I decided to have a half-day in the open, so I strapped on my duck-gun +and off I went on Paddy, as soon as dinner was over and the men had +gone. We went like the wind, until both Paddy and I were tired of it. +Then I found a "soft-water" pond hidden behind a fringe of scrub-willow +and poplar. The mid-day sun had warmed it to a tempting temperature. So +I hobbled Paddy, peeled off and had a most glorious bath. I had just +soaped down with bank-mud (which is an astonishingly good solvent) and +had taken a header and was swimming about on my back, blinking up at +the blue sky, as happy as a mud-turtle in a mill-pond, when I heard +Paddy nicker. That disturbed me a little, but I felt sure there could be +nobody within miles of me. However, I swam back to where my clothes +were, sunned myself dry, and was just standing up to shake out the ends +of this short-cropped hair of mine when I saw a man's head Across the +pond, staring through the bushes at me. I don't know how or why it is, +but I suddenly saw red. I don't remember picking up the duck-gun, and I +don't remember aiming it. + +But I banged away, with both barrels, straight at that leering head--or +at least it ought to have been a leering head, whatever that may mean! +The howl that went up out of the wilderness, the next moment, could have +been heard for a mile! + +It was Dinky-Dunk, and he said I might have put his eyes out with +bird-shot, if he hadn't made the quickest drop of his life. And he also +said that he'd seen me, a distinct splash of white against the green of +the prairie, three good miles away, and wasn't I ashamed of myself, and +what would I have done if he'd been Olie or old man Dixon? But he +kissed my shoulder where the gun-stock had bruised it, and helped me +dress. + +Then we rode off together, four or five miles north, where Dinky-Dunk +was sure we could get a bag of duck. Which we did, thirteen altogether, +and started for home as the sun got low and the evening air grew chilly. +It was a heavenly ride. In the west a little army of thin blue clouds +was edged with blazing gold, and up between them spread great fan-like +shafts of amber light. Then came a riot of orange yellow and ashes of +roses and the palest of gold with little islands of azure in it. Then +while the dying radiance seemed to hold everything in a luminous wash of +air, the stars came out, one by one, and a soft cool wind swept across +the prairie, and the light darkened--and I was glad to have Dinky-Dunk +there at my side, or I should have had a little cry, for the twilight +prairie always makes me lonesome in a way that could never be put into +words. + +I tried to explain the feeling to Dinky-Dunk. He said he understood. +"I'm a Sour-Dough, Gee-Gee, but it still gets me that way," he solemnly +confessed. He said that when he listened to beautiful music he felt the +same. And that got me thinking of grand opera, and of that _Romeo and +Juliet_ night at La Scala, in Milan, when I first met Theobald Gustav. +Then I stopped to tell Dinky-Dunk that I'd been hopelessly in love with +a tenor at thirteen and had written in my journal: "I shall die and turn +to dust still adoring him." Then I told him about my first opera, +_Rigoletto_, and hummed "_La Donna E Mobile_," which of course he +remembered himself. It took me back to Florence, and to a box at the +Pagliano, and me all in dimity and cork-screw curls, weeping deliciously +at a lady in white, whose troubles I could not quite understand. Then I +got thinking of New York and the Metropolitan, and poor old Morris's +lines: + + And still with listening soul I hear + Strains hushed for many a noisy year: + The passionate chords which wake the tear, + The low-voiced love-tales dear.... + + Scarce changed, the same musicians play + The selfsame themes to-day; + The silvery swift sonatas ring, + The soaring voices sing! + +And I could picture the old Metropolitan on a Caruso night. I could see +the Golden Horse-Shoe and the geranium-red trimmings and the satiny +white backs of the women, and smell that luxurious heavy smell of warm +air and hothouse flowers and Paris perfumery and happy human bodies and +hear the whisper of silk along the crimson stairways. I could see the +lights go down, in a sort of sigh, before the overture began, and the +scared-looking blotches of white on the musicians' scores and the other +blotches made by their dress-shirt fronts, and the violins going up and +down, up and down, as though they were one piece of machinery, and then +the heavy curtain stealing up, and the thrill as that new heaven opened +up to me, a gawky girl in her first low-cut dinner gown! + +I told Dinky-Dunk I'd sat in every corner of that old house, up in the +sky-parlor with the Italian barbers, in press-seats in the second +gallery with dear old Fanny-Rain-in-the-Face, and in the Westbury's box +with the First Lady of the Land and a Spanish Princess with extremely +dirty nails. It seemed so far away, another life and another world! And +for three hours of "Manon" I'd be willing to hang like a chimpanzee from +the Metropolitan's center chandelier. I suddenly realized how much I +missed it. I could have sung to the City as poor Charpentier's "Louise" +sang to her Paris. And a coyote howled up near the trail, and the +prairie got dark, with a pale green rind of light along the northwest, +and I knew there would be a heavy frost before morning. + +To-night after supper my soul and I sat down and did a bit of +bookkeeping. Dinky-Dunk, who'd been watching me out of the corner of his +eye, went to the window and said it looked like a storm. And I knew he +meant that I was the Medicine Hat it was to come from, for before he'd +got up from the table he'd explained to me that matrimony was like +motoring because it was really traveling by means of a series of +explosions. Then he tried to explain that in a few weeks the fall rush +would be over and we'd have more time for getting what we deserved out +of life. But I turned on him with sudden fierceness and declared I +wasn't going to be merely an animal. I intended to keep my soul alive, +that it was every one's duty, no matter where they were, to ennoble +their spirit by keeping in touch with the best that has ever been felt +and thought. + +When I grimly got out my mouth-organ and played the _Pilgrim's Chorus_, +as well as I could remember it, Dinky-Dunk sat listening in silent +wonder. He kept up the fire, and waited until I got through. Then he +reached for the dish-pan and said, quite casually, "I'm going to help you +wash up to-night, Gee-Gee!" And so I put away the mouth-organ and washed +up. But before I went to bed I got out my little vellum edition of +Browning's _The Ring and the Book_, and read at it industriously, +doggedly, determinedly, for a solid hour. What it's all about I don't +know. Instead of ennobling my spirit it only tired my brain and ended +up in making me so mad I flung the book into the wood-box.... Dinky-Dunk +has just pinned a piece of paper on my door; it is a sentence from +Epictetus. And it says: "Better it is that great souls should live in +small habitations than that abject slaves should burrow in great +houses!" + + + + +_Sunday the Eighteenth_ + + +I spent an hour to-day trying to shoot a hen-hawk that's been hovering +about the shack all afternoon. He's after my chickens, and as new-laid +eggs are worth more than Browning to a homesteader, I got out my +duck-gun. It gave me a feeling of impending evil, having that huge bird +hanging about. It reminded me there was wrong and rapine in the world. I +hated the brute. But I hid under one of the wagon-boxes and got him, in +the end. I brought him down, a tumbling flurry of wings, like Satan's +fall from Heaven. When I ran out to possess myself of his Satanic body +he was only wounded, however, and was ready to show fight. Then I saw +red again. I clubbed him with the gun-butt, going at him like fury. I +was moist with perspiration when I got through with him. He was a +monster. I nailed him with his wings out, on the bunk-house wall, and +Olie shouted and called Dinky-Dunk when they came back from rounding up +the horses, which had got away on the range. Dinky-Dunk solemnly warned +me not to run risks, as he might have taken an eye out, or torn my face +with his claws. He said he could have stuffed and mounted my hawk, if I +hadn't clubbed the poor thing almost to pieces. There's a devil in me +somewhere, I told Dinky-Dunk. But he only laughed. + + + + +_Monday the Nineteenth_ + + +To-night Dinky-Dunk and I spent a solid hour trying to decide on a name +for the shack. I wanted to call it "Crucknacoola," which is Gaelic for +"A Little Hill of Sleep," but Dinky-Dunk brought forward the objection +that there was no hill. Then I suggested "Barnavista," since about all +we can see from the door are the stables. Then I said "The Builtmore," +in a spirit of mockery, and then Dinky-Dunk in a spirit of irony +suggested "Casa Grande." And in the end we united on "Casa Grande." It +is marvelous how my hair grows. Olie now watches me studiously as I eat. +I can see that he is patiently patterning his table deportment after +mine. There's nothing that silent rough-mannered man wouldn't do for me. +I've got so I never notice his nose, any more than I used to notice +Uncle Carlton's receding chin. But I don't think Olie is getting enough +to eat. All his mind seems taken up with trying to remember not to drink +out of his saucer, as history sayeth George Washington himself once +did! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twentieth_ + + +I knew that old hen-hawk meant trouble for me--and the trouble came, all +right. I'm afraid I can't tell about it very coherently, but this is how +it began: I was alone yesterday afternoon, busy in the shack, when a +Mounted Policeman rode up to the door, and, for a moment, nearly +frightened the life out of me. I just stood and stared at him, for he +was the first really, truly live man, outside Olie and my husband, I'd +seen for so long. And he looked very dashing in his scarlet jacket and +yellow facings. But I didn't have long to meditate on his color scheme, +for he calmly announced that a ranchman named McMein had been murdered +by a drunken cowboy in a wage dispute, and the murderer had been seen +heading for the Cochrane Ranch. He (the M. P.) inquired if I would +object to his searching the buildings. + +Would I object? I most assuredly did not, for little chills began to +play up and down my spinal column, and I wasn't exactly in love with the +idea of having an escaped murderer crawling out of a hay-stack at +midnight and cutting my throat. The ranchman McMein had been killed on +Saturday, and the cowboy had been kept on the run for two days. As I was +being told this I tried to remember where Dinky-Dunk had stowed away his +revolver-holster and his hammerless ejector and his Colt repeater. But I +made that handsome young man in the scarlet coat come right into the +shack and begin his search by looking under the bed, and then going down +the cellar. + +I stood holding the trap-door and warned him not to break my +pickle-jars. Then he came up and stood squinting thoughtfully out +through the doorway. + +"Have you got a gun?" he suddenly asked me. + +I showed him my duck-gun with its silver mountings, and he smiled a +little. + +"Haven't you a rifle?" he demanded. + +I explained that my husband had, and he still stood squinting out +through the doorway as I poked about the shack-corners and found +Dinky-Dunk's repeater. He was a very authoritative and self-assured +young man. He took the rifle from me, examined the magazine and made +sure it was loaded. Then he handed it back. + +"I've got to search those buildings and stacks," he told me. "And I can +only be in one place at once. If you see a man break from under cover +anywhere, when I'm inside, _be so good as to shoot him_!" + +He started off without another word, with his big army revolver in his +hand. My teeth began to do a little fox-trot all by themselves. + +"Wait! Stop!" I shouted after him. "Don't go away!" + +He stopped and asked me what was wrong. "I--I don't want to shoot a man! +I don't want to shoot _any_ man!" I tried to explain to him. + +"You probably won't have to," was his cool response. "But it's better to +do that than have him shoot _you_, isn't it?" + +Whereupon Mr. Red-Coat made straight for the hay-stacks, and I stood in +the doorway, with Dinky-Dunk's rifle in my hands and my knees shaking a +little. + +I watched him as he beat about the hay-stacks. Then I got tired of +holding the heavy weapon and leaned it against the shack-wall. I watched +the red coat go in through the stable door, and felt vaguely dismayed at +the thought that its wearer was now quite out of sight. + +Then my heart stopped beating. For out of a pile of straw which Olie had +dumped not a hundred feet away from the house, to line a pit for our +winter vegetables, a man suddenly erupted. He seemed to come up out of +the very earth, like a mushroom. + +He was the most repulsive-looking man I ever had the pleasure of casting +eyes on. His clothes were ragged and torn and stained with mud. His face +was covered with stubble and his cheeks were hollow, and his skin was +just about the color of a new saddle. + +I could see the whites of his eyes as he ran for the shack, looking over +his shoulder toward the stable door as he came. He had a revolver in his +hand. I noticed that, but it didn't seem to trouble me much. I suppose +I'd already been frightened as much as mortal flesh could be frightened. +In fact, I was thinking quite clearly what to do, and didn't hesitate +for a moment. + +"Put that silly thing down," I told him, as he ran up to me with his +head lowered and that indescribably desperate look in his big frightened +eyes. "If you're not a fool I can get you hidden," I told him. It +reassured me to see that his knees were shaking much more than mine, as +he stood there in the center of the shack! I stooped over the trap-door +and lifted it up. "Get down there quick! He's searched that cellar and +won't go through it again. Stay there until I say he's gone!" + +He slipped over to the trap-door and went slowly down the steps, with +his eyes narrowed and his revolver held up in front of him, as though he +still half expected to find some one there to confront him with a +blunderbuss. Then I promptly shut the trap-door. But there was no way of +locking it. + +I had my murderer there, trapped, but the question was to keep him +there. Your little Chaddie didn't give up many precious moments to +reverie. I tiptoed into the bedroom and lifted the mattress, bedding and +all, off the bedstead. I tugged it out and put it silently down over the +trap-door. Then, without making a sound, I turned the table over on it. +But he could still lift that table, I knew, even with me sitting on top +of it. So I started to pile things on the overturned table, until it +looked like a moving-van ready for a May-Day migration. Then I sat on +top of that pile of household goods, reached for Dinky-Dunk's repeater, +and deliberately fired a shot up through the open door. + +I sat there, studying my pile, feeling sure a revolver bullet couldn't +possibly come up through all that stuff. But before I had much time to +think about this my corporal of the R. N. W. M. P. (which means, +Matilda Anne, the Royal North-West Mounted Police) came through the door +on the run. He looked relieved when he saw me triumphantly astride that +overturned table loaded up with about all my household junk. + +"I've got him for you," I calmly announced. + +"You've got what?" he said, apparently thinking I'd gone mad. + +"I've got your man for you," I repeated. "He's down there in my cellar." +And in one minute I'd explained just what had happened. There was no +parley, no deliberation, no hesitation. + +"Hadn't you better go outside," he suggested as he started piling the +things off the trap-door. + +"You're not going down there?" I demanded. + +"Why not?" he asked. + +"But he's got a revolver," I cried out, "and he's sure to shoot!" + +"That's why I think it might be better for you to step outside for a +moment or two," was my soldier boy's casual answer. + +I walked over and got Dinky-Dunk's repeater. Then I crossed to the far +side of the shack, with the rifle in my hands. + +"I'm going to stay," I announced. + +"All right," was the officer's unconcerned answer as he tossed the +mattress to one side and with one quick pull threw up the trap-door. + +A shot rang out, from below, as the door swung back against the wall. +But it was not repeated, for the man in the red coat jumped bodily, +heels first, into that black hole. He didn't seem to count on the risk, +or on what might be ahead of him. He just jumped, spurs down, on that +other man with the revolver in his hand. I could hear little grunts, and +wheezes, and a thud or two against the cellar steps. Then there was +silence, except for one double "click-click" which I couldn't +understand. + +Oh, Matilda Anne, how I watched that cellar opening! And I saw a back +with a red coat on it slowly rise out of the hole. He, the man who owned +the back of course, was dragging the other man bodily up the narrow +little stairs. There was a pair of handcuffs already on his wrists and +he seemed dazed and helpless, for that slim-looking soldier boy had +pummeled him unmercifully, knocking out his two front teeth, one of +which I found on the doorstep when I was sweeping up. + +"I'm sorry, but I'll have to take one of your horses for a day or two," +was all my R. N. W. M. P. hero condescended to say to me as he poked an +arm through his prisoner's and helped him out through the door. + +"What--what will they do with him?" I called out after the corporal. + +"Hang him, of course," was the curt answer. + +Then I sat down to think things over, and, like an old maid with the +vapors, decided I wouldn't be any the worse for a cup of good strong +tea. And by the time I'd had my tea, and straightened things up, and +incidentally discovered that no less than five of my cans of mushrooms +had been broken to bits below-stairs, I heard the rumble of the wagon +and knew that Olie and Dinky-Dunk were back. And I drew a long breath of +relief, for with all their drawbacks, men are not a bad thing to have +about, now and then! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-second_ + + +It was early Tuesday morning that Dinky-Dunk firmly announced that he +and I were going off on a three-day shooting-trip. I hadn't slept well, +the night before, for my nerves were still rather upset, and Dinky-Dunk +said I needed a picnic. So we got guns and cartridges and blankets and +slickers and cooking things, and stowed them away in the wagon-box. Then +we made a list of the provisions we'd need, and while Dinky-Dunk bagged +up some oats for the team I was busy packing the grub-box. And I packed +it cram full, and took along the old tin bread-box, as well, with +pancake flour and dried fruit and an extra piece of bacon--and _bacon_ +it is now called in this shack, for I have positively forbidden +Dinky-Dunk ever to speak of it as "sowbelly" or even as a "slice of +grunt" again. + +Then off we started across the prairie, after duly instructing Olie as +to feeding the chickens and taking care of the cream and finishing up +the pit for the winter vegetables. Still once again Olie thought we were +both a little mad, I believe, for we had no more idea where we were +going than the man in the moon. + +But there was something glorious in the thought of gipsying across the +autumn prairie like that, without a thought or worry as to where we must +stop or what trail we must take. It made every day's movement a great +adventure. And the weather was divine. + +We slept at night under the wagon-box, with a tarpaulin along one side +to keep out the wind, and a fire flickering in our faces on the other +side, and the horses tethered out, and the stars wheeling overhead, and +the peace of God in our hearts. How good every meal tasted! And how that +keen sharp air made snuggling down under a couple of Hudson Bay +five-point blankets a luxury to be spoken of only in the most reverent +of whispers! And there was a time, as you already know, when I used to +take bromide and sometimes even sulphonal to make me sleep! But here it +is so different! To get leg-weary in the open air, tramping about the +sedgy slough-sides after mallard and canvas-back, to smell coffee and +bacon and frying grouse in the cool of the evening, across a thin veil +of camp-fire smoke, to see the tired world turn over on its shoulder and +go to sleep--it's all a sort of monumental lullaby. + +The prairie wind seems to seek you out, and make a bet with the Great +Dipper that he'll have you off in forty winks, and the orchestra of the +spheres whispers through its million strings and sings your soul to +rest. For I tell you here and now, Matilda Anne, I, poor, puny, +good-for-nothing, insignificant I, have heard that music of the spheres +as clearly as you ever heard _Funiculi-Funicula_ on that little Naples +steamer that used to take you to Capri. And when I'd crawl out from +under that old wagon-box, like a gopher out of his hole, in the first +delicate rosiness of dawn, I'd feel unutterably grateful to be alive, to +hear the cantatas of health singing deep in my soul, to know that +whatever life may do to me, I'd snatched my share of happiness from the +pantry of the gods! And the endless change of color, from the tawny +fox-glove on the lighter land, the pale yellow of a lion's skin in the +slanting autumn sun, to the quavering, shimmering glories of the +Northern Lights that dance in the north, that fling out their banners of +ruby and gold and green, and tremble and merge and pulse until I feel +that I can hear the clash of invisible cymbals. I wonder if you can +understand my feeling when I pulled the hat-pin out of my old gray +Stetson yesterday, uncovered my head, and looked straight up into the +blue firmament above me. Then I said, "Thank you, God, for such a +beautiful day!" + +Dinky-Dunk promptly said that I was blasphemous--he's so strict and +solemn! But as I stared up into the depths of that intense opaline +light, so clear, so pure, I realized how air, just air and nothing else, +could leave a scatter-brained lady like me half-seas over. Only it's a +champagne that never leaves you with a headache the next day! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-fourth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk, who seems intent on keeping my mind occupied, brought me +home a bundle of old magazines last night. They were so frayed and +thumbed-over that some of the pages reminded me of well-worn bank-notes. +I've been reading some of the stories, and they all seem silly. +Everybody appears to be in love with somebody else's wife. Then the +people are all divided so strictly into two classes, the good and the +bad! As for the other man's wife, prairie-life would soon knock that +nonsense out of people. There isn't much room for the Triangle in a +two-by-four shack. Life's so normal and natural and big out here that a +Pierre Loti would be kicked into a sheep-dip before he could use up his +first box of face-rouge! You want your own wife, and want her so bad +you're satisfied. Not that Dinky-Dunk and I are so goody-goody! We're +just healthy and human, that's all, and we'd never do for fiction. +After meals we push away the dishes and sit side by side, with our arms +across each other's shoulders, full of the joy of life, satisfied, +happy, healthy-minded, now and then a little Rabelaisian in our talk, +meandering innocent-eyed through those earthier intimacies which most +married people seem to face without shame, so long as the facing is done +in secret. We don't seem ashamed of that terribly human streak in us. +And neither of us is bad, at heart. But I know we're not like those +magazine characters, who all seem to have Florida-water instead of red +blood in their veins, and are so far, far away from life. + +Yet even that dip into politely erotic fiction seemed to canalize my +poor little grass-grown mind into activity, and Diddums and I sat up +until the wee sma' hours discoursing on life and letters. He started me +off by somewhat pensively remarking that all women seem to want to be +intellectual and have a _salon_. + +"No, Dinky-Dunk, I don't want a _salon_," I promptly announced. "I never +did want one, for I don't believe they were as exciting as we imagine. +And I hate literary people almost as much as I hate actors. I always +felt they were like stage-scenery, not made for close inspection. For +after five winters in New York and a couple in London you can't help +bumping into the Bohemian type, not to mention an occasional collision +with 'em up and down the Continent. When they're female they always seem +to wear the wrong kind of corsets. And when they're male they watch +themselves in the mirrors, or talk so much about themselves that you +haven't a chance to talk about _yourself_--which is really the +completest definition of a bore, isn't it? I'd much rather know them +through their books than through those awful Sunday evening _soirees_ +where poor old leonine M---- used to perspire reading those Socialist +poems of his to the adoring ladies, and Sanguinary John used to wear the +same flannel shirt that shielded him from the Polar blasts up in +Alaska--open at the throat, and all that sort of thing, just like a +movie-actor cowboy, only John had grown a little stout and he kept +spoiling the Strong-Man picture by so everlastingly posing at one end +of the grand-piano! You know the way they do it, one pensive elbow on +the piano-end and the delicately drooping palm holding up the weary +brains, the same as you prop up a King-orange bough when it gets too +heavy with fruit! And then he had a lovely bang and a voice like a +maiden-lady from Maine. And take it from me, O lord and master, that man +devoured all his raw beef and blood on his typewriter-ribbon. I dubbed +him the King of the Eye-Socket school, and instead of getting angry he +actually thanked me for it. That was the sort of advertising he was +after." + +Dinky-Dunk grinned a little as I rattled on. Then he grew serious again. +"Why is it," he asked, "a writer in Westminster Abbey is always a +genius, but a writer in the next room is rather a joke?" + +I tried to explain it for him. "Because writers are like Indians. The +only good ones are the dead ones. And it's the same with those siren +affinities of history. Annie Laurie lived to be eighty, though the +ballad doesn't say so. And Lady Hamilton died poor and ugly and went +around with red herrings in her pocket. And Cleopatra was really a +redheaded old political schemer, and Paris got tired of Helen of Troy. +Which means that history, like literature, is only _Le mensonge +convenu_!" + +This made Dinky-Dunk sit up and stare at me. "Look here, Gee-Gee, I +don't mind a bit of book-learning, but I hate to see you tear the whole +tree of knowledge up by the roots and knock me down with it! And it was +_salons_ we were talking about, and not the wicked ladies of the past!" + +"Well, the only _salon_ I ever saw in America had the commercial air of +a millinery opening where tea happened to be served," I promptly +declared. "And the only American woman I ever knew who wanted to have a +_salon_ was a girl we used to call Asafetida Anne. And if I explained +why you'd make a much worse face than that, my Diddums. But she had a +weakness for black furs and never used to wash her neck. So the Plimpton +Mark was always there!" + +"Don't get bitter, Gee-Gee," announced Dinky-Dunk as he proceeded to +light his pipe. And I could afford to laugh at his solemnity. + +"I'm not bitter, Honey Chile; I'm only glad I got away from all that +Bohemian rubbish. You may call me a rattle-box, and accuse me of being +temperamental now and then--which I'm not--but the one thing in life +which I love is _sanity_. And that, Dinky-Dunk, is why I love you, even +though you are only a big sunburnt farmer fighting and planning and +grinding away for a home for an empty-headed wife who's going to fail at +everything but making you love her!" + +Then followed a few moments when I wasn't able to talk, + + ... The sequel's scarce essential-- + Nay, more than this, I hold it still + Profoundly confidential! + +Then as we sat there side by side I got thinking of the past and of the +Bohemians before whom I had once burned incense. And remembering a +certain visit to Box Hill with Lady Agatha's mother, years and years +ago, I had to revise my verdict on authors, for one of the warmest +memories in all my life is that of dear old Meredith in his wheelchair, +with his bearded face still flooded with its kindly inner light and his +spirit still mellow with its unquenchable love of life. And once as a +child, I went on to tell Dinky-Dunk, I had met Stevenson. It was at +Mentone, and I can still remember him leaning over and taking my hand. +His own hand was cold and lean, like a claw, and with the quick instinct +of childhood I realized, too, that he was _condescending_ as he spoke to +me, for all the laugh that showed the white teeth under his drooping +black mustache. Wrong as it seemed, I didn't like him any more than I +afterward liked the Sargent portrait of him, which was really an echo of +my own first impression, though often and often I've tried to blot out +that first unfair estimate of a real man of genius. There's so much in +the _Child's Garden of Verse_ that I love; there's so much in the man's +life that demands admiration, that it seems wrong not to capitulate to +his charm. But when one's own family are one's biographers it's hard to +be kept human. "Yet there's one thing, Dinky-Dunk, that I do respect him +for," I went on. "He had seen the loveliest parts of this world, and, +when he had to, he could light-heartedly give it all up and rough it in +this American West of ours, even as you and I!" Whereupon Dinky-Dunk +argued that we ought to forgive an invalid his stridulous preaching +about bravery and manliness and his over-emphasis of fortitude, since it +was plainly based on an effort to react against a constitutional +weakness for which he himself couldn't be blamed. + +And I confessed that I could forgive him more easily than I could +Sanguinary John with his literary Diabolism and that ostentatious +stone-age blugginess with which he loved to give the ladies goose-flesh, +pretending he was a bull in a china-shop when he's really only a white +mouse in an ink-pot! And after Dinky-Dunk had knocked out his pipe and +wound up his watch he looked over at me with his slow Scotch-Canadian +smile. "For a couple of hay-seeds who have been harpooning the _salon_ +idea," he solemnly announced, "I call this quite a literary evening!" +But what's the use of having an idea or two in your head if you can't +air 'em now and then? + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +To-day I stumbled on the surprise of my life! It was A Man! I took Paddy +and cantered over to the old Titchborne Ranch and was prowling around +the corral, hoping I might find a few belated mushrooms. But nary a one +was there. So I whistled on my four fingers for Paddy (I've been +teaching him to come at that call) and happened to glance in the +direction of the abandoned shack. Then I saw the door open, and _out +walked a man_. + +He was a young man, in puttees and knickers and Norfolk jacket, and he +was smoking a cigarette. He stared at me as though I were the Missing +Link. Then he said "Hello!" rather inadequately, it seemed to me. + +I answered back "Hello," and wondered whether to take to my heels or +not. But my courage got its second wind, and I stayed. Then we shook +hands, very formally, and explained who we were. And I discovered that +his name was Percival Benson Woodhouse (and the Lord forgive me if they +ever call him Percy for short!) and that his aunt is the Countess of +D---- and that he knows a number of people you and Lady Agatha have +often spoken of. He's got a Japanese servant called Kino, or perhaps +it's spelt Keeno, I don't know which, who's housekeeper, laundress, +_valet_, gardener, groom and _chef_, all in one,--so, at least Percival +Benson confessed to me. He also confessed that he'd bought the +Titchborne Ranch, from photographs, from "one of those land chaps" in +London. He wanted to rough it a bit, and they told him there would be +jolly good game shooting. So he even brought along an elephant-gun, which +his cousin had used in India. The photographs which the "land chap" had +showed him turned out to be pictures of the Selkirks. And, taking it all +in all, he fancied that he'd been jolly well bunked. But Percival seemed +to accept it with the stoicism of the well-born Britisher. He'd have a +try at the place, although there was no game. + +"But there _is_ game," I told him, "slathers of it, oodles of it!" + +He mildly inquired where and what? I told him: Wild duck, +prairie-chicken, wild geese, jack-rabbits, now and then a fox, and loads +of coyotes. He explained, then, that he meant big game--and how grandly +those two words, "big game," do roll off the English tongue! He has a +sister in the Bahamas, who may join him next summer if he should decide +to stick it out. He considered that it would be a bit rough for a girl, +during the winter season up here. + +Yet before I go any further I must describe Percival Benson Woodhouse to +you, for he's not only "our sort," but a type as well. + +In the first place, he's a Magdalen College man, the sort we've seen +going up and down the High many and many a time. He's rather gaunt and +rather tall, and he stoops a little. "At home" they call it the "Oxford +stoop," if I'm not greatly mistaken. His hands are thin and long and +bony. His eyes are nice, and he looks very good form. I mean he's the +sort of man you'd never take for the "outsider" or "rotter." He's the +sort who seem to have the royal privilege of doing even doubtfully +polite things and yet doing them in such a way as to make them seem +quite proper. I don't know whether I make that clear or not, but one +thing is clear, and this is that our Percival Benson is an aristocrat. +You see it in his over-sensitive, over-refined, almost womanishly +delicate face, with those idealizing and quite unpractical eyes of his. +You see it in the thin, high-arched, bony nose (almost as fine a beak as +the one belonging to His Grace, the Duke of M----!) and you see it in +the sad and somewhat elongated face, as though he had pored over big +books too much, a sort of air of pathos and aloofness from things. His +mouth strikes you as being rather meager, until he smiles, which is +quite often, for, glory be, he has a good sense of humor. But besides +that he has a neatness, a coolness, an impersonal sort of ease, which +would make you think that he might have stepped out of one of Henry +James's earlier novels of about the time of the _Portrait of a Lady_. +And I like him. I knew that at once. He's _effete_ and old-worldish and +probably useless, out here, but he stands for something I've been +missing, and I'll be greatly mistaken if Percival Benson and Chaddie +McKail are not pretty good friends before the winter's over! He's asked +if he might be permitted to call, and he's coming for dinner to-morrow +night, and I do hope Dinky-Dunk is nice to him--if we're to be +neighbors. But Dinky-Dunk says Westerners don't ask to be permitted to +call. They just stick their cayuse into the corral and walk in, the same +as an Indian does. And Dinky-Dunk says that if he comes in evening dress +he'll shoot him, sure pop! + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +Percy (how I hate that name!) was here for dinner last night, and all +things considered, we didn't fare so badly. We had tomato bisque and +scalloped potatoes and prairie-chicken (they need to be well basted) and +hot biscuits and stewed dried peaches with cream. Then we had coffee and +the men smoked their pipes. We talked until a quarter to one in the +morning, and my poor Dinky-Dunk, who has been working so hard and seeing +nobody, really enjoyed that visit and really likes Percival Benson. + +Percy got talking about Oxford, and you could see that he loved the old +town and that he felt more at home on the Isis than on the prairie. He +said he once heard Freeman tell a story about Goldwin Smith, who used to +be Regius Professor of History at the University. G. S. seemed +astonished that F. couldn't tell him, at some _viva voce_ exam, +whatever that may mean, the cause of King John's death. Then G. S. +explained that poor John died of too much peaches and fresh ale, "which +would give a man considerable belly-ache," the Regius Professor of +History solemnly announced to Freeman. + +Percy said his lungs rather troubled him in England, and he has spent +over a year in Florence and Rome and can talk pictures like a Grant +Allen guide-book. And he's sat through many an opera at La Scala, but +considered the Canadian coyote a much better vocalist than most of the +minor Italian tenors. And he knows Capri and Taormina and says he'd like +to grow old and die in Sicily. He got pneumonia at Messina, and nearly +died young there and after five months in Switzerland a specialist told +him to try Canada. + +I've noticed that one of the delusions of Americans is that an +Englishman is silent. Now, my personal conviction is that Englishmen are +the greatest talkers in the world, and I have Percy to back me up in it. +In fact, we sat about talking so long that Percy asked if he couldn't +stay all night, as he was a poor rider and wasn't sure of the trails as +yet. So we made a shake-down for him in the living-room. And when +Dinky-Dunk came to bed he confided to me that Percy was calmly reading +and smoking himself to sleep, out of my sadly scorned copy of _The Ring +and the Book_, with the lamp on the floor, on one side of him, and a +saucer on the other, for an ash-tray. But he was up and out this +morning, before either of us was stirring, coming back to Casa Grande, +however, when he saw the smoke at the chimney-top. His thin cheeks were +quite pink and he apologetically explained that he'd been trying for an +hour and a half to catch his cayuse. Olie had come to his rescue. But +our thin-shouldered Oxford exile said that he had never seen such a +glorious sunrise, and that the ozone had made him a bit tipsy. Speaking +of thin-shouldered specimens, Matilda Anne, I was once a thirty-six; +_now I am a perfect forty-two_. + + + + +_Friday the Fifth_ + + +The weather has been bad all this week, but I've had a great deal of +sewing to do, and for two days Dinky-Dunk stayed in and helped me fix up +the shack. I made more book-shelves out of more old biscuit-boxes and my +lord made a gun-rack for our fire-arms. Percival Benson rode over once, +through the storm, and it took us half an hour to thaw him out. But he +brought some books, and says he has four cases, altogether, and that +we're welcome to all we wish. He stayed until noon the next day, this +time sleeping in the annex, which Dinky-Dunk and I have papered, so that +it looks quite presentable. But as yet there is no way of heating it. +Our new neighbor, I imagine, is very lonesome. + + + + +_Sunday the Seventh_ + + +The weather has cleared: there's a chinook arch in the sky, and a sort +of St. Martin's-Summer haze on all the prairie. But there's news to-day. +Kino, our new neighbor's Jap, has decamped with a good deal of money and +about all of Percival Benson's valuables. The poor boy is almost +helpless, but he's not a quitter. He said he chopped his first kindling +to-day, though he had to stand in a wash-tub, while he did it, to keep +from cutting his feet. Dinky-Dunk's birthday is only three weeks off, +and I'm making plans for a celebration. + + + + +_Tuesday the Ninth_ + + +The days slip by, and scarcely leave me time to write. Dinky-Dunk is a +sort of pendulum, swinging out to work, back to eat, and then out, and +then back again. Olie is teaming in lumber and galvanized iron for a new +building of some sort. My lord, in the evenings, sits with paper and +pencil, figuring out measurements and making plans. I sit on the other +side of the table, as a rule, sewing. Sometimes I go around to his side +of the table, and make him put his plans away for a few minutes. We are +very happy. But where the days fly to I scarcely know. We are always +looking toward the future, talking about the future, "conceiting" for +the future, as the Irish say. Next summer is to be our banner year. +Dinky-Dunk is going to risk everything on wheat. He's like a general +plotting out a future plan of campaign--for when the work comes, he +says, it will come in a rush. Help will be hard to get, so he'll sell +his British Columbia timber rights and buy a forty-horse-power gasoline +tractor. He will at least if gasoline gets cheaper, for with "gas" still +at twenty-six cents a gallon horse-power is cheapest. But during the +breaking season in April and May, one of these engines can haul eight +gang-plows behind it. In twenty-four hours it will be able to turn over +thirty-five acres of prairie soil--and the ordinary man and team counts +two acres of plowing a decent day's work. + +To-night I asked Dinky-Dunk why he risked everything on wheat and warned +him that we might have to revise the old Kansas trekker's slogan to-- + + "In wheat we trusted, + In wheat we busted!" + +Dinky-Dunk explained that to keep on raising only wheat would be bad for +the land, and even now meant taking a chance, but situated as he was it +brought in the quickest money. And he wanted money in a hurry, for he +had a nest to feather for a lady wild-bird that he'd captured--which +meant me. Later on he intends to go in for flax--for fiber and not for +seed--and as our land should produce two tons of the finest flax-straw +to the acre and as the Belgian and Irish product is now worth over four +hundred dollars a ton, he told me to sit down and figure out what four +hundred acres would produce, with even a two-third crop. + +The Canadian farmer of the West, he went on to explain, mostly grew flax +for the seed alone, burning up over a million tons of straw every year, +just to get it out of the way, the same as he does with his wheat-straw. +But all that will soon be changed. Only last week Dinky-Dunk wrote to +the Department of Agriculture for information about _courtai_ +fiber--that's the kind used for point-lace and is worth a dollar a +pound--for my lord feels convinced his soil and climatic conditions are +especially suited for certain of the finer varieties. He even admitted +that flax would be better on his land at the present time, as it would +release certain of the natural fertilizers which sometimes leave the +virgin soil too rich for wheat. But what most impressed me about +Dinky-Dunk's talk was his absolute and unshaken faith in this West of +ours, once it wakes up to its opportunities. It's a stored-up granary of +wealth, he declares, and all we've done so far is to nibble along the +leaks in the floor-cracks! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-first_ + + +To-day is Dinky-Dunk's birthday. He's always thought, of course, that +I'm a pauper, and never dreamed of my poor little residuary nest-egg. +I'd ordered a box of Okanagan Valley apples, and a gramophone and a +dozen opera records, and a brier-wood pipe and two pounds of English +"Honey-Dew," and a smoking-jacket, and some new ties and socks and +shirts, and a brand new Stetson, for Dinky-Dunk's old hat is almost a +rag-bag. And I ordered half a dozen of the newer novels and a set of +Herbert Spencer which I heard him say he wanted, and a sepia print of +the _Mona Lisa_ (which my lord says I look like when I'm planning +trouble) and a felt mattress and a set of bed-springs (so good-by, old +sway-backed friend whose humps have bruised me in body and spirit this +many a night!) and a dozen big oranges and three dozen little candles +for the birthday cake. And then I was cleaned out--every blessed cent +gone! But Percy (we have, you see, been unable to escape that name) +ordered a box of cigars and a pair of quilted house-slippers, so it was +a pretty formidable array. + +I, accordingly, had Olie secretly team this array all the way from +Buckhorn to Percy's house, where it was duly ambushed and entrenched, to +await the fatal day. As luck would have it, or seemed to have it, +Dinky-Dunk had to hit the trail for overnight, to see about the +registration of his transfers for his new half-section, at the town of +H----. So as soon as Dinky-Dunk was out of sight I hurried through my +work and had Tumble-Weed and Bronk headed for the old Titchborne Ranch. + +There I arrived about mid-afternoon, and what a time we had, getting +those things unpacked, and looking them over, and planning and talking! +But the whole thing was spoilt. + +We forgot to tie the horses. So while we were having tea Bronk and +Tumble-Weed hit the trail, on their own hook. They made for home, +harness and all, but of course I never knew this at the time. We looked +and looked, came back for supper, and then started out again. We +searched until it got dark. My feet were like lead, and I couldn't have +walked another mile. I was so stiff and tired I simply had to give up. +Percy worried, of course, for we had no way of sending word to +Dinky-Dunk. Then we sat down and talked over possibilities, like a +couple of castaways on a Robinson Crusoe island. Percy offered to bunk +in the stable, and let me have the shack. But I wouldn't hear of that. +In the first place, I felt pretty sure Percy was what they call a +"lunger" out here, and I didn't relish the idea of sleeping in a +tuberculous bed. I asked for a blanket and told him that I was going to +sleep out under the wagon, as I'd often done with Dinky-Dunk. Percy +finally consented, but this worried him too. He even brought out his +"big-game" gun, so I'd have protection, and felt the grass to see if it +was damp, and declared he couldn't sleep on a mattress when he knew I +was out on the hard ground. I told him that I loved it, and to go to +bed, for I wanted to get out of some of my armor-plate. He went, +reluctantly. + +It was a beautiful night, and not so cold, with scarcely a breath of +wind stirring. I lay looking out through the wheel-spokes at the Milky +Way, and was just dropping off when Percy came out still again. He was +in a quilted dressing-gown and had a blanket over his shoulders. It made +him look for all the world like Father Time. He wanted to know if I was +all right, and had brought me out a pillow--which I didn't use. Then he +sat down on the prairie-floor, near the wagon, and smoked and talked. He +pointed out some of the constellations to me, and said the only time +he'd ever seen the stars bigger was one still night on the Indian Ocean, +when he was on his way back from Singapore. He would never forget that +night, he said, the stars were so wonderful, so big, so close, so soft +and luminous. But the northern stars were different. They were without +the orange tone that belongs to the South. They seemed remoter and more +awe-inspiring, and there was always a green tone to their whiteness. + +Then we got talking about "furrin parts" and Percy asked me if I'd ever +seen Naples at night from San Martino, and I asked him if he'd ever seen +Broadway at night from the top of the Times Building. Then he asked me +if I'd ever watched Paris from Montmartre, or seen the Temple of Neptune +at Paestum bathed in Lucanian moonlight--which I very promptly told him I +had, for it was on the ride home from Paestum that a certain person had +proposed to me. We talked about temples and Greek Gods and the age of +the world and Indian legends until I got downright sleepy. Then Percy +threw away his last cigarette and got up. He said "Good night;" I said +"Good night;" and he went into the shack. He said he'd leave the door +open, in case I called. There were just the two of us, between earth and +sky, that night, and not another soul within a radius of seven miles of +any side of us. He was very glad to have some one to talk to. He's +probably a year or two older than I am, but I am quite motherly with +him. And he is shockingly incompetent, as a homesteader, from the look +of his shack. But he's a gentleman, almost too "Gentle," I sometimes +feel, a Laodicean, mentally over-refined until it leaves him unable to +cope with real life. He's one of those men made for being a "spectator," +and not an actor, in life. And there's something so absurd about his +being where he is that I feel sorry for him. + +I slept like a log. Once I fell asleep, I forgot about the hard ground, +and the smell of the horse-blankets, and the fact that I'd lost my poor +Dinky-Dunk's team. When I woke up it was the first gray of dawn. Two men +were standing side by side, looking at me under the wagon. One was +Percy, and the other was Dinky-Dunk himself. + +He'd got home by three o'clock in the morning, by hurrying, for he was +nervous about me being alone. But he found the house empty, the team +standing beside the corral, and me missing. Naturally, it wasn't a very +happy situation. Poor Dinky-Dunk hit the trail at once, and had been +riding all night looking for his lost wife. Then he made for Percy's, +woke him up, and discovered her placidly snoring under a wagon-box. He +didn't even smile at this. He was very tired and very silent. I thought, +for a moment, that I saw distrust on Dinky-Dunk's face, for the first +time. But he has said nothing. I hated to see him go out to work, when +we got home, but he refused to take a nap at noon, as I wanted him to. +So to-night, when he came in for his supper, I had the birthday cake +duly decked and the presents all out. + +But his enthusiasm was forced, and all during the meal he showed a +tendency to be absent-minded. I had no explanations to make, so I made +none. But I noticed that he put on his old slippers. I thought he had +done it deliberately. + +"You don't seem to mellow with age," I announced, with my eyebrows up. +He flushed at that, quite plainly. Then he reached over and took hold of +my hand. But he did it only with an effort, and after some tremendous +inward struggle which was not altogether flattering to me. + +"Please take your hand away so I can reach the dish-towel," I told him. +And the hand went away like a shot. After I'd finished my work I got out +my George Meredith and read _Modern Love_. Dinky-Dunk did not come to +bed until late. I was awake when he came, but I didn't let him know it. + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +I haven't felt much like writing this last week. I scarcely know why. I +think it's because Dinky-Dunk is on his dignity. He's getting thin, by +the way. His cheek-bones show and his Adam's apple sticks out. He's +worried about his land payments, and I tell him he'd be happier with a +half-section. But Dinky-Dunk wants wealth. And I can't help him much. +I'm afraid I'm an encumbrance. And the stars make me lonely, and the +prairie wind sometimes gives me the willies! And winter is coming. + +I'm afraid I'm out of my setting, as badly out of it as Percival Benson +is. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, if I'd never seen such lovely +corners of the world, before coming out here to be a dot on the +wilderness. If I'd never had that heavenly summer at Fiesole, and those +months with you at Corfu, and that winter in Rome with poor dear dead +Katrinka! Sometimes I think of the nights we used to look out over +Paris, from the roof above 'Tite Daneau's studio. And sometimes I think +of the Pincio, with the band playing, and the carriages flashing, and +the officers in uniform, and the milky white statues among the trees, +and the golden mists of the late afternoon over the Immortal City. And I +tell myself that it was all a dream. And then I feel that _I_ am all a +dream, and the prairie is a dream, and Paddy and Olie and Dinky-Dunk and +all this new life is nothing more than a dream. Oh, Matilda Anne, I've +been homesick this week, so unhappy and homesick for something--for +something, and I don't even know what it is! + + + + +_Monday the Seventh_ + + +Glory be! Winter's here with a double-edged saber wind out of the north +and snow on the ground. It gives a zip to things. It makes our snug +little shack seem as cozy as a ship's cabin. And I've got a +jumper-sleigh, and with my coon-skin coat and gauntlets and wedge-cap I +can be as warm as toast in any wind. And there's so much to do. And I'm +not going to be a piker. This is the land where folks make good or go +loco. You've only got yourself to depend on, and yourself to blame, if +things go wrong. And I'm going to make them go right. There's no use +wailing out here in the West. A line or two of Laurence Hope's has been +running all day through my head: + + "These are my people, and this my land; + I hear the pulse of her secret soul. + This is the life that I understand, + Savage and simple, and sane and whole." + + + + +_Friday the Eleventh_ + + +Dinky-dunk came home with an Indian girl to-day, a young half-breed about +sixteen years old. She's to be both companion and parlor-maid, for +Dinky-Dunk has to hurry off to British Columbia, to try to sell his +timber-rights there to meet his land payments. He's off to-morrow. It +makes me feel wretched, but I'm consuming my own smoke, for I don't want +him to think me an encumbrance. My Indian girl speaks a little English. +She also eats sugar by the handful, whenever she can steal it. I asked +her what her name was and she told me "Queenie MacKenzie." That name +almost took my breath away. How that untutored Northwest aborigine ever +took unto herself this Broadway chorus-girl name, Heaven only knows! But +I have my suspicions of Queenie. She has certain exploratory movements +which convince me she is verminous. She sleeps in the annex, I'm happy +to say. + +At dinner to-night when I was teaching Dinky-Dunk how to make a rabbit +out of his table-napkin and a sea-sick passenger out of the last of his +oranges, he explained that he might not get back in time for Christmas, +and asked if I'd mind. I knew his trip was important, so I kept a stiff +upper lip and said of course I wouldn't mind. But the thought of a +Christmas alone chilled my heart. I tried to be jolly, and gave my +repertory on the mouth-organ, which promptly stopped all activities on +the part of the round-eyed Queenie MacKenzie. But all that foolery was +as forced as the frivolity of the French Revolution Conciergerie where +the merry diners couldn't quite forget they were going to lose their +heads in the morning! + + + + +_Sunday the Thirteenth_ + + +Not only is Duncan gone, but Queenie has also quite unceremoniously +taken her departure. It arose from the fact that I requested her to take +a bath. The only disappointed member of the family is poor old Olie, who +was actually making sheep's eyes at that verminous little baggage. +Imagination falters at what he might have done with a dollar's worth of +brown sugar. When Queenie went, I find, my mouth-organ went with her. +I'd like to ling chih that Indian girl! + + + + +_Wednesday the Sixteenth_ + + +It was a sparkling clear day to-day, with no wind, so I rode over to the +old Titchborne Ranch with my little jumper-sleigh. There I found +Percival Benson in a most pitiable condition. He had been laid up with +the grip. His place was untidy, his dishes were unwashed, and his fuel +was running short. His appearance, in fact, rather frightened me. So I +bundled him up and got him in the jumper and brought him straight home +with me. He had a chill on the way, so as soon as we got to Casa Grande +I sent him to bed, gave him hot whisky, and put my hot water bottle at +his feet. He tried to accept the whole thing as a joke, and vowed I was +jolly well cooking him. But to-night he has a high fever and I'm afraid +he's in for a serious siege of illness. I intend to send Olie over to +get some of his things and have his live stock brought over with ours. + + + + +_Sunday the Twentieth_ + + +Percy has had three very bad nights, but seems a little better to-day. +His lung is congested, and it may be pneumonia, but I think my +mustard-plaster saved the day. He tries so hard to be cheerful, and is +so grateful for every little thing. But I wish Dinky-Dunk was here to +tell me what to do. + +I could never have survived this last week without Olie. He is as +watchful and ready as a farm-collie. But I want my Dinky-Dunk! I may +have spoiled my Dinky-Dunk a little, but it's only once every century or +two that God makes a man like him. I want to be a good wife. I want to +do my share, and keep a shoulder to the wheel, if the going's got to be +heavy for the next year or two. I won't be the Dixon type. I won't--I +won't! My Duncan will need me during this next year, and it will be a +joy to help him. For I love that man, Matilda Anne,--I love him so much +that it hurts! + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +Christmas has come and gone. It was very lonely at Casa Grande. I prefer +not writing about it. Percy is improving, but is still rather weak. I +think he had a narrow squeak. + + + + +_Wednesday the Thirtieth_ + + +My patient is up and about, looking like a different man. He shows the +effects of my forced feeding, though he declares I'm trying to make him +into a Strasburg goose, for the sake of the _pate de foies gras_ when I +cut him up. But he's decided to go to Santa Barbara for the winter: and +I think he's wise. So this afternoon I togged out in my furs, took the +jumper, and went kiting over to the Titchborne Ranch. Oh, what a shack! +What disorder, what untidiness, what spirit-numbing desolation! I don't +blame poor Percival Benson for clearing out for California. I got what +things he needed, however, and went kiting home again. + + + + +_Thursday the Thirty-first_ + + +I hardly know how to begin. But it must be written or I'll suddenly go +mad and start to bite the shack walls. Last night, after Percy had +helped me turn the bread-mixer (for, whatever happens, we've at least +got to eat) I helped him pack. Among other things, he found a copy of +Housman's _Shropshire Lad_ and after running through it announced that +he'd like to read me two or three little things out of it. So I squatted +down in front of the fire, idly poking at the red coals, and he sat +beside the stove with his book, in slippers and dressing gown. And there +he was solemnly reading out loud when the door opened and in walked +Dinky-Dunk. + +I say he walked in, but that isn't quite right. He stood in the open +door, staring at us, with an expression that would have done credit to +the Tragic Muse. I imagine Enoch Arden wore much the same look when he +piped the home circle after that prolonged absence of his. Then +Dinky-Dunk did a most unpardonable thing. Instead of saying "Howdy!" +like a scholar and a gentleman, he backed out of the shack and slammed +the door. When I'd caught my breath I went out through that door after +him. It was a bitterly cold night, but I did not stop to put anything +on. I was too amazed, too indignant, too swept off my feet by the +absurdity of it all. I could see Dinky-Dunk in the clear starlight, +taking the blankets off his team. He'd hurried to the shack, without +even unharnessing the horses. I could hear the wheel-tires whine on the +crisp snow, for the poor beasts were tired and restless. I went straight +to the buckboard into which Dinky-Dunk was climbing. He looked like a +cinnamon-bear in his big shaggy coat. And I couldn't see his face. But I +remembered how it had looked in the doorway. It was the color of a tan +shoe. It was too weather-beaten and burnt with the wind and sun-glare +ever to turn white, or, I suppose, it would have been the color of +paper. + +"Haven't you," I demanded, "haven't you any explanation for acting like +this?" He sat in the buckboard seat, with the reins in his hands. + +"I guess I've got the first right to that question," he finally said in +a stifled voice. + +"Then why don't you ask it?" was my answer to him. Again he waited a +moment before speaking, as though he felt the need of weighing his +words. + +"I don't need to--now!" he said, as he tightened the reins. + +"Wait," I called out to him. "There are certain things I want you to +know!" + +I was not going to make explanations. I would not dignify his brute-man +stupidity by such things. I scarcely know what I intended to do. As I +looked up at him there in his rough fur coat, for a moment, he seemed +millions and millions of miles away from me. I stared at him, trying to +comprehend his utter lack of comprehension. I seemed to view him across +the same gulf which separates a meditative zoo visitor from some +abysmally hirsute animal that eons and eons ago must have been its +cave-fellow and hearth-mate. But now we seemed to have nothing in +common, not even a language with which to link up those lost ages. Yet +from all that mixture of feelings only one survived: I didn't want my +husband to go. + +It was the team, as far as I can remember, that really decided the +thing. They had been restive, backing and jerking and pawing and +nickering for their feed-box. And suddenly they jumped forward. But this +time they kept going. Whether Dinky-Dunk tried to hold them back or not +I can't say. But I came back to the shack, shivering. Percy, thank +Heaven, was in his room. + +"I think I'll turn in!" he called out, quite casually, through the +partition. + +I said "All right," and sat down in front of the fire, trying to +straighten things out. My Dinky-Dunk was gone! He had glared at me, with +hate in his eyes, as he sat in that buckboard. It's all over. He has no +faith in me, his own wife! + +I went to bed and tried to sleep. But sleep was out of the question. The +whole thing seemed so absurd, so unreasonable, so unjust. I could feel +waves of anger sweep through my body at the mere thought of it. Then a +wave of something else, of something between anxiety and terror, would +take the place of anger. My husband was gone, and he'd never come back. +I'd put all my eggs in one basket, and the basket had gone over, and +made a saffron-tinted omelet of all my life. + +And that's the way I watched the New Year in, I couldn't even afford the +luxury of a little bawl, for I was afraid Percy would hear me. It must +have been almost morning when I fell asleep. + +When I woke up Percival Benson was gone, bag and baggage. At first I +resented the thought of his going off that way, without a word, but on +thinking it over I decided he'd done the right thing. There's nothing +like the hard cold light of a winter morning to bring you back to hard +cold facts. Olie had driven Percy in to the station. So I was alone in +the shack all day. I did a heap of thinking during those long hours of +solitude. And out of all that straw of self-examination I threshed just +one little grain of truth. _I could never live on the prairie alone._ +And whatever I did, or wherever I went, I could never be happy without +my Dinky-Dunk.... + +I had just finished supper to-night, as blue as indigo and as spiritless +as a wet hen, when I heard the sound of voices. It took me only ten +seconds to make sure whose they were. Dinky-Dunk had come back with +Olie! I made a high dive for a book from the nearest shelf, swung the +armchair about with a jerk, and sank luxuriously into it, with my feet +up on the warm damper and my eyes leisurely and contentedly perusing +George Moore's _Confessions of a Young Man_ (although I _hate_ the +libidinous stuff like poison!) Then Dinky-Dunk came in. I could see him +stare at me a little awkwardly and contritely (what woman can't read a +book and study a man at the same time?) and I, could see that he was +waiting for an opening. But I gave him none. Naturally, Olie had +explained everything to him. But I had been humiliated, my pride had +been walked over, from end to end. My spirit had been stamped on--and I +had decided on my plan of action. I simply ignored Duncan. + +I read for a while, then I took a lamp, went to my room, and +deliberately locked the door. My one regret was that I couldn't see +Dinky-Dunk's face when that key turned. And now I must stop writing, and +go to bed, for I am dog-tired. I know I'll sleep better to-night. It's +nice to remember there's a man near, if he happens to be the man you +care a trifle about, even though you _have_ calmly turned the door-key +on him. + + + + +_Sunday the Third_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has at least the sensibilities to respect my privacy of life. +He knows where the deadline is, and doesn't disregard it. But it's +terribly hard to be tragic in a two-by-four shack. You miss the +dignifying touches. And you haven't much leeway for the bulky swings of +grandeur. + +For one whole day I didn't speak to Dinky-Dunk, didn't even so much as +recognize his existence. I ate by myself, and did my work--when the +monster was around--with all the preoccupation of a sleep-walker. But +something happened, and I forgot myself. Before I knew it I was asking +him a question. He answered it, quite soberly, quite casually. If he had +grinned, or shown one jot of triumph, I would have walked out of the +shack and never spoken to him again. I think he knew he was on terribly +perilous ground. He picked his way with care. He asked me a question +back, quite offhandedly, and for the time being let the matter rest +there. But the breach was in my walls, Matilda Anne, and I was quite +defenseless. We were both very impersonal and very polite, when he came +in at supper time, though I think I turned a visible pink when I sat +down at the table, for our eyes met there, just a moment and no more. I +knew he was watching me, covertly, all the time. And I knew I was making +him pretty miserable. But I wasn't the least bit ashamed of it. + +After supper he indifferently announced that he had nothing to do and +might as well help me wash up. I went to hand him a dish-towel. Instead +of taking the towel he took my hand, with the very profane ejaculation, +as he did so, of "Oh, hell, Gee-Gee, what's the use?" + +Then before I knew it, he had me in his arms (our butter-dish was broken +in the collision) and I was weak enough to feel sorry for him and his +poor tragic pleading eyes. Then I gave up. If I was silly enough to have +a little cry on his shoulder, I had the satisfaction of feeling him +give a gulp or two himself. + +"You're the most wonderful woman in the world!" he solemnly told me, and +then in a much less solemn way he began kissing me again. But the +barriers were down. And how we talked that night! And how different +everything seemed! And how nice it was to feel his arm over my shoulder +and his quiet breathing on the nape of my neck as I fell asleep. It +seemed as though Love were fanning me with its softest wings. I'm happy +again. But I've been wondering if it's environment that makes character, +or character that makes environment. Sometimes I think it's one way, and +sometimes I feel it's the other. But I can't be sure of my answer--yet! +It's hard for a spoiled woman to remember that her life has to be merged +into somebody else's life. I've been wondering if marriage isn't like a +two-panel screen, which won't stand up if both its panels are too much +in line. Heaven knows, I want harmony! But a woman likes to feel that +instead of being out of step with her whole regiment of life it's the +regiment that's out of step with her. To-night I unlaced Dinky-Dunk's +shoes, and put on his slippers, and sat on the floor between his knees +with my head against the steady _tick-tock_ of his watch-pocket. +"Dinky-Dunk," I solemnly announced, "that gink called Pope was a poor +guesser. The proper study of man should have been _woman_!" + + + + +_Thursday the Seventh_ + + +Everything at Casa Grande has settled back into the usual groove. There +is a great deal to do about the shack. The grimmest bug-bear of domestic +work is dish-washing. A pile of greasy plates is the one thing that gets +on my nerves. And it is a little Waterloo that must be faced three times +every day, of every week, of every month, of every year. And I was never +properly "broke" for domesticity and the dish-pan! Why can't some genius +invent a self-washing fry-pan? My hair is growing so long that I can now +do it up in a sort of half-hearted French roll. It has been quite cold, +with a wonderful fall of snow. The sleighing could not be better. + + + + +_Saturday the Ninth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk's Christmas present came to-day, over two weeks late. He had +never mentioned it, and I had not only held my peace, but had given up +all thought of getting a really-truly gift from my lord and master. + +They brought it out from Buckhorn, in the bobsleigh, all wrapped up in +old buffalo-robes and blankets and tarpaulins. _It's a baby-grand +piano_, and a beauty, and it came all the way from Winnipeg. But either +the shipping or the knocking about or the extreme cold has put it +terribly out of tune, and it can't be used until the piano-tuner travels +a couple of hundred miles out here to put it in shape. And it's far too +big for the shack, even when pushed right up into the corner. But +Dinky-Dunk says that before next winter there'll be a different sort of +house on this spot where Casa Grande now stands. + +"And that's to keep your soul alive, in the meantime," he announced. I +scolded him for being so extravagant, when he needed every dollar he +could lay his hands on. But he wouldn't listen to me. In fact, it only +started an outburst. + +"My God, Gee-Gee," he cried, "haven't you given up enough for me? +Haven't you sacrificed enough in coming out here to the end of nowhere +and leaving behind everything that made life decent?" + +"Why, Honey Chile, didn't I get _you_?" I demanded. But even that didn't +stop him. + +"Don't you suppose I ever think what it's meant to you, to a woman like +you? There are certain things we can't have, but there are some things +we're going to have. This next ten or twelve months will be hard, but +after that there's going to be a change--if the Lord's with me, and I +have a white man's luck!" + +"And supposing we have bad luck?" I asked him. He was silent for a +moment or two. + +"We can always give up, and go back to the city," he finally said. + +"Give up!" I said with a whoop. "Give up? Not on your life, Mister Dour +Man! We're not going to be Dixonites! We're going to win out!" And we +were together in a death-clinch, hugging the breath out of each other, +when Olie came in to ask if he hadn't better get the stock stabled, as +there was bad weather coming. + + + + +_Monday the Eleventh_ + + +We are having the first real blizzard of the winter. It began yesterday, +as Olie intimated, and for all the tail-end of the day my Dinky-Dunk was +on the go, in the bitter cold, looking after fuel and feed and getting +things ship-shape, for all the world like a skipper who's read his +barometer and seen a hurricane coming. There had been no wind for a +couple of days, only dull and heavy skies with a disturbing sense of +quietness. Even when I heard Olie and Dinky-Dunk shouting outside, and +shoring up the shack-walls with poles, I could not quite make out what +it meant. + +Then the blizzard came. It came down out of the northwest, like a +cloudburst. It hummed and sang, and then it whined, and then it +screamed, screamed in a high falsetto that made you think poor old +Mother Earth was in her last throes! The snow was fine and hard, really +minute particles of ice, and not snow at all, as we know it in the +East, little sharp-angled diamond-points that stung the skin like fire. +It came in almost horizontal lines, driving flat across the unbroken +prairie and defying anything made of God or man to stop it. Nothing did +stop it. Our shack and the bunk-house and stables and hay-stacks tore a +few pin-feathers off its breast, though; and those few feathers are +drifts higher than my head, heaped up against each and all of the +buildings. + +I scratched the frost off a window-pane, where feathery little drifts +were seeping in through the sill-cracks, when it first began. But the +wind blew harder and harder and the shack rocked and shook with the +tension. Oh, such a wind! It made a whining and wailing noise, with each +note higher, and when you felt that it couldn't possibly increase, that +it simply _must_ ease off, or the whole world would go smash, why, that +whining note merely grew tenser and the wind grew stronger. How it +lashed things! How it shook and flailed and trampled this poor old earth +of ours! Just before supper Olie announced that he'd look after my +chicks for me. I told him, quite casually, that I'd attend to them +myself. I usually strew a mixture of wheat and oats on the litter in the +hen-house overnight. This had two advantages, one was that it didn't +take me out quite so early in the morning, and the other was that the +chicks themselves started scratching around first thing in the morning +and so got exercise and kept themselves warmer-bodied and in better +health. + +It was not essential that I should go to the hen-house myself, but I was +possessed with a sudden desire to face that singing white tornado. So I +put on my things, while Dinky-Dunk was at work in the stables. I put on +furs and leggings and gauntlets and all, as though I were starting for a +ninety-mile drive, and slipped out. Dinky-Dunk had tunneled through the +drift in front of the door, but that tunnel was already beginning to +fill again. I plowed through it, and tried to look about me. Everything +was a sort of streaked misty gray, an all-enveloping muffing leaden +maelstrom that hurt your skin when you lifted your head and tried to +look it in the face. Once, in a lull of the wind when the snow was not +so thick, I caught sight of the hay-stacks. That gave me a line on the +hen-house. So I made for it, on the run, holding my head low as I went. + +It was glorious, at first, it made my lungs pump and my blood race and +my legs tingle. Then the storm-devils howled in my eyes and the +ice-lashes snapped in my face. Then the wind went off on a rampage +again, and I couldn't see. I couldn't move forward. I couldn't even +breathe. Then I got frightened. + +I leaned there against the wind calling for Dinky-Dunk and Olie, +whenever I could gasp breath enough to make a sound. But I might as well +have been a baby crying in mid-ocean to a Kensington Gardens nurse. + +Then I knew I was lost. No one could ever hear me in that roar. And +there was nothing to be seen, just a driving, blinding, stinging gray +pall of flying fury that nettled the naked skin like electric-massage +and took the breath out of your buffeted body. There was no land-mark, +no glimpse of any building, nothing whatever to go by. And I felt so +helpless in the face of that wind! It seemed to take the power of +locomotion from my legs. I was not altogether amazed at the thought that +I might die there, within a hundred yards of my own home, so near those +narrow walls within which were warmth, and shelter, and quietness. I +imagined how they'd find my body, deep under the snow, some morning; how +Dinky-Dunk would search, perhaps for days. I felt so sorry for him I +decided not to give up, that I wouldn't be lost, that I wouldn't die +there like a fly on a sheet of tanglefoot! + +I had fallen down on my knees, with my back to the wind, and already the +snow had drifted around me. I also found my eye-lashes frozen together, +and I lost several winkers in getting rid of those solidified tears. But +I got to my feet and battled on, calling when I could. I kept on, going +round and round in a circle, I suppose, as people always do when +they're lost in a storm. Then the wind grew worse again. I couldn't make +any headway against it. I had to give up. I simply _had_ to! I wasn't +afraid. I wasn't terrified at the thought of what was happening to me. I +was only sorry, with a misty sort of sorrow I can't explain. And I don't +remember that I felt particularly uncomfortable, except for the fact I +found it rather hard to breathe. + +It was Olie who found me. He came staggering through the snow with extra +fuel for the bunk-house, and nearly walked over me. As we found out +afterward, I wasn't more than thirty steps away from that bunk-house +door. Olie pulled me up out of the snow the same as you'd pull a skein +of darning-silk out of a work-basket. He half carried me to the +bunk-house, got his bearings, and then steered me for the shack. It was +a fight, but we made it. And Dinky-Dunk was still out looking after his +stock and doesn't know how nearly he lost his Lady Bird. I've made Olie +promise not to say a word about it. But the top of my nose is red and +swollen. I think it must have got a trifle frost-nipped, in the +encounter. The weather has cleared now, and the wind has gone down. But +it is very cold, and Dinky-Dunk has just reported that it's already +forty-eight below zero. + + + + +_Tuesday the Nineteenth_ + + +The days slip away and I scarcely know where they go. The weather is +wonderful. Clear and cold, with such heaps of sunshine you'd never dream +it was zero weather. But you have to be careful, and always wear furs +when you're driving, or out for any length of time. Three hours in this +open air is as good as a pint of Chinkie's best champagne. It makes me +tingle. We are living high, with several barrels of frozen game--geese, +duck and prairie-chicken--and also an old tin trunk stuffed full of +beef-roasts, cut the right size. I bring them in and thaw them out +overnight, as I need them. The freezing makes them very tender. But they +must be completely thawed before they go into the oven, or the outside +will be overdone and the inside still raw. I learned that by experience. +My appetite is disgraceful, and I'm still gaining. Chinkie could never +again say I reminded him of one of the lean kine in Pharaoh's dream. + +I have been asking Dinky-Dunk if it isn't downright cruelty to leave +horses and cattle out on the range in weather like this. My husband says +not, so long as they have a wind-break in time of storms. The animals +paw through the snow for grass to eat, and when they get thirsty they +can eat the snow itself, which, Dinky-Dunk solemnly assures me, almost +never gives them sore throat! But the open prairie, just at this season, +is a most inhospitable looking pasturage, and the unbroken glare of +white makes my eyes ache.... There's one big indoor task I finally have +accomplished, and that is tuning my piano. It made my heart heavy, +standing there useless, a gloomy monument of ironic grandeur. + +As a girl I used to watch Katrinka's long-haired Alsatian putting her +concert grand to rights, and I knew that my ear was dependable enough. +So the second day after my baby grand's arrival I went at it with a +monkey-wrench. But that was a failure. Then I made a drawing of a +tuning-hammer and had Olie secretly convey it to the Buckhorn +blacksmith, who in turn concocted a great steel hollow-headed +monstrosity which actually fits over the pins to which the piano wires +are strung, even though the aforesaid monstrosity is heavy enough to +stun an ox with. But it did the work, although it took about two +half-days, and now every note is true. So now I have music! And +Dinky-Dunk does enjoy my playing, these long winter evenings. Some +nights we let Olie come in and listen to the concert. He sits rapt, +especially when I play ragtime, which seems the one thing that touches +his holy of holies. Poor Olie! I surely have a good friend in that +silent, faithful, uncouth Swede! + +Dinky-Dunk himself is so thin that it worries me. But he eats well and +doesn't anathematize my cooking. He's getting a few gray hairs, at the +temples. I think they make him look rather _distingue_. But they worry +my poor Dinky-Dunk. "Hully Gee," he said yesterday, studying himself +for the third time in his shaving-glass, "I'm getting old!" He laughed +when I started to whistle "Believe me if all those endearing young +charms, which I gaze on so fondly to-day," but at heart he was really +disturbed by the discovery of those few white hairs. I've been telling +him that the ladies won't love him any more, and that his cut-up days +are over. He says I'll have to make up for the others. So I started for +him with my Australian crawl-stroke. It took me an hour to get the taste +of shaving soap out of my mouth. Dinky-Dunk says I'm so full of life +that I _sparkle_. All I know is that I'm happy, supremely and +ridiculously happy! + + + + +_Sunday the Thirty-first_ + + +The inevitable has happened. I don't know how to write about it! I +_can't_ write about it! My heart goes down like a freight elevator, +slowly, sickeningly, even when I think about it. Dinky-Dunk came in and +saw me studying a little row of dates written on the wall-paper beside +the bedroom window. I pretended to be draping the curtain. "What's the +matter, Lady Bird?" he demanded when he saw my face. I calmly told him +that nothing was the matter. But he wouldn't let me go. I wanted to be +alone, to think things out. But he kept holding me there, with my face +to the light. I suppose I must have been all eyes, and probably shaking +a little. And I didn't want him to suspect. + +"Excuse me if I find you unspeakably annoying!" I said in a voice that +was so desperately cold that it even surprised my own ears. He dropped +me as though I had been a hot potato. I could see that I'd hurt him, and +hurt him a lot. My first impulse was to run to him with a shower of +repentant kisses, as one usually does, the same as one sprinkles salt on +claret stains. But in him I beheld the original and entire cause--and I +just couldn't do it. He called me a high-spirited devil with a +hair-trigger temper. But he left me alone to think things out. + + + + +_Tuesday the Ninth_ + + +I've started to say my prayers again. It rather frightened Dinky-Dunk, +who sat up in bed and asked me if I wasn't feeling well. I promptly +assured him that I was in the best of health. He not only agreed with +me, but said I was as plump as a partridge. When I am alone, though, I +get frightened and fidgety. So I kneel down every night and morning now +and ask God for help and guidance. I want to be a good woman and a +better wife. But I shall never let Duncan know--never! + + + + +_Wednesday the Seventeenth_ + + +Do you remember Aunt Harriet who always wept when she read _The Isles of +Greece_? She didn't even know where they were, and had never been east +of Salem. But all the Woodberrys were like that. Dinky-Dunk came in and +found me crying to-day, for the second time in one week. He made such +valiantly ponderous efforts to cheer me up, poor boy, and shook his head +and said I'd soon be an improvement on the Snider System, which is a +system of irrigation by spraying overnight from pipes! My nerves don't +seem so good as they were. The winter's so long. I'm already counting +the days to spring. + + + + +_Thursday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has concluded that I'm too much alone; he's been worrying +over it. I can tell that. I try not to be moody, but sometimes I simply +can't help it. Yesterday afternoon he drove up to Casa Grande, proud as +Punch, with a little black and white kitten in the crook of his arm. +He'd covered twenty-eight miles of trail for that kitten! It's to be my +companion. But the kitten's as lonesome as I am, and has been crying, +and nearly driving me crazy. + + + + +_Tuesday the Second_ + + +The weather has been bad, but winter is slipping away. Dinky-Dunk has +been staying in from his work, these mornings, helping me about the +house. He is clumsy and slow, and has broken two or three of the dishes. +But I hate to say anything; his eyes get so tragic. He declares that as +soon as the trails are passable he's going to have a woman to help me, +that this sort of thing can't go on any longer. He imagines it's merely +the monotony of housework that is making my nerves so bad. + +Yesterday morning I was drying the dishes and Dinky-Dunk was washing. I +found the second spoon with egg on it. I don't know why it was, but that +trivial streak of yellow along the edge of a spoon suddenly seemed to +enrage me. It became monumental, an emblem of vague incapabilities which +I would have to face until the end of my days. I flung that spoon back +in the dish-pan. Then I turned on my husband and called out to him, in a +voice that didn't quite seem like my own, "O God, can't you wash 'em +_clean_? Can't you wash 'em clean?" I even think I ran up and down the +room and pretty well made what Percival Benson would call "a bally ass" +of myself. Dinky-Dunk didn't even answer me. But he dried his hands and +got his things and went outdoors, to the stables, I suppose. His face +was as colorless as it could possibly get. I felt sorry; but it was too +late. And my sniffling didn't do any good. And it startled me, as I sat +thinking things over, to realize that I'd lost my sense of humor. + + + + +_Thursday the Fourth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk thinks I'm mad. I'm quite sure he does. He came in at noon +to-day and found me on the floor with the kitten. I'd tied a piece of fur +to the end of a string. Oh, how that kitten scrambled after that fur, +round and round in a circle until he'd tumble over on his own ears! I +was squeaking and weak with laughing when Dinky-Dunk stood in the door. +Poor boy, he takes things so solemnly! But I know he thinks I'm quite +mad. Perhaps I am. I cried myself to sleep last night. And for several +days now I've had a longing for _caviare_. + + + + +_Wednesday the Seventeenth_ + + +Spring is surely coming. It promises to be an early one. I feel better +at the thought of it, and of getting out again. But the roads are quite +impassable. Such mud! Such oceans of glue-pot dirt! They have a saying +out here that soil is as rich as it is sticky. If this is true +Dinky-Dunk has a second Garden of Eden. This mud sticks to everything, +to feet, to clothes, to wagon-wheels. But there's getting to be real +warmth in the sun that shines through my window. + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +A warm Chinook has licked up the last of the snow. Even Dinky-Dunk +admits that spring is coming. For three solid hours an awakened +blue-bottle has been buzzing against the pane of my bedroom window. I +wonder if most of us aren't like that fly, mystified by the illusion of +light that fails to lead to liberty? This morning I caught sight of +Dinky-Dunk in his fur coat, climbing into the buckboard. I shall always +hate to see him in that rig. It makes me think of a certain night. And +we hate to have memory put a finger on our mental scars. When I was a +girl Aunt Charlotte's second fiend of a husband locked me up in that +lonely Derby house of theirs because I threw pebbles at the swans. Then +off they drove to dinner somewhere and left me a prisoner there, where I +sat listening to the bells of All Saints as the house gradually grew +dark. And ever since then bells at evening have made me feel lonely and +left me unhappy. + +But the renaissance of the buckboard means that spring is here again. +And for my Dinky-Dunk that means harder work. He's what they call a +"rustler" out here. He believes in speed. He doesn't even wait until the +frost is out of the ground before he starts to seed--just puts a drill +over a two-inch batter of thawed-out mud, he's so mad about getting +early on the land. He says he wants early wheat or no wheat. But he has +to have help, and men are almost impossible to get. He had hoped for a +gasoline tractor, but it can't be financed this spring, he has confessed +to me. And I know, in my secret heart of hearts, that the tractor would +have been here if it hadn't been for my piano! + +There are still hundreds and hundreds of acres of prairie sod to "break" +for spring wheat. Dinky-Dunk declares that he's going to risk everything +on wheat this year. He says that by working two outfits of horses he +himself can sow forty acres a day, but that means keeping the horses on +the trot part of the time. He is thinking so much about his crop that I +accused him of neglecting me. + +"Is the varnish starting to wear off?" I inquired with a secret gulp of +womanish self-pity. He saved the day by declaring I was just as crazy +and just as adorable as I ever was. Then he asked me, rather sadly, if I +was bored. "Bored?" I said, "how could I be bored with all these +discomforts? No one is ever bored until they are comfortable!" But the +moment after I'd said it I was sorry. + + + + +_Tuesday the Sixth_ + + +Spring is here, with a warm Chinook creeping in from the Rockies and a +sky of robin-egg blue. The gophers have come out of their winter +quarters and are chattering and racing about. We saw a phalanx of wild +geese going northward, and Dinky-Dunk says he's seen any number of +ducks. They go in drifting V's, and I love to watch them melt in the +sky-line. The prairie floor is turning to the loveliest of greens, and +it is a joy just to be alive. I have been out all afternoon. The gophers +aren't going to get ahead of me! + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +What would you say if you saw Brunhild drive up to your back door? What +would you do if you discovered a Norse goddess placidly surveying you +from a green wagon-seat? How would you act if you beheld a big blonde +Valkyr suddenly introducing herself into your little earthly affairs? + +Well, can you wonder that I stared, all eyes, when Dinky-Dunk brought +home a figure like this, in the shape of a Finn girl named Olga +Sarristo? Olga is to work in the fields, and to help me when she has +time. But I'll never get used to having a Norse Legend standing at my +elbow, for Olga is the most wonderful creature I have ever clapped eyes +on. I say that without doubt, and without exaggeration. And what made +the picture complete, she came driving a yoke of oxen--for Dinky-Dunk +will have need of every horse and hauling animal he can lay his hands +on. I simply held my breath as I stared up at her, high on her +wagon-seat, blocked out in silhouette against the pale sky-line, a +Brunhild with cowhide boots on. She wore a pale blue petticoat and a +Swedish looking black shawl with bright-colored flowers worked along the +hem. She had no hat. But she had two great ropes of pale gold hair, +almost as thick as my arm, and hanging almost as low as her knees. She +looked colossal up on the wagon-seat, but when she got down on the +ground she was not so immense. She is, however, a strapping big woman, +and I don't think I ever saw such shoulders! She is Olympian, Titanic! +She makes me think of the Venus de Milo; there's such a largeness and +calmness and smoothness of surface about her. I suppose a Saint-Gaudens +might say that her mouth was too big and a Gibson might add that her +nose hadn't the narrow rectitude of a Greek statue's, but she's a +beautiful, a beautiful--"woman" was the word I was going to write, but +the word "animal" just bunts and shoves itself in, like a stabled cow +insisting on its own stall. But if you regard her as only animal, you +must at least accept her as a perfect one. Her mouth is large, but I +never saw such red lips, full and red and dewy. Her forehead is low and +square, but milky smooth, and I know she could crack a chicken-bone +between those white teeth of hers. Even her tongue, I noticed, is a +watermelon red. She must be healthy. Dinky-Dunk says she's a find, that +she can drive a double-seeder as well as any man in the West, and that +by taking her for the season he gets the use of the ox-team as well. He +warned me not to ask her about her family, as only a few weeks ago her +father and younger brother were burned to death in their shack, a +hundred miles or so north of us. + + + + +_Tuesday the Twentieth_ + + +Olga has been with us a week, and she still fascinates me. She is +installed in the annex, and seems calmly satisfied with her +surroundings. She brought everything she owns tied up in an oat-sack. I +have given her a few of my things, for which she seems dumbly grateful. +She seldom talks, and never laughs. But I am teaching her to say "yes" +instead of "yaw." She studies me with her limpid blue eyes, and if she +is silent she is never sullen. She hasn't the heavy forehead and jaw of +the Galician women and she hasn't the Asiatic cast of face that belongs +to the Russian peasant. And she has the finest mouthful of teeth I ever +saw in a human head--and she never used a toothbrush in her life! She is +only nineteen, but such a bosom, such limbs, such strength! + +This is a great deal of talk about Olga, I'm afraid, but you must +remember that Olga is an event. I expected Olie would be keeled over by +her arrival, but they seem to regard each other with silent contempt. I +suppose that is because racially and physically they are of the same +type. I'm anxious to see what Percival Benson thinks of Olga when he +gets back--they would be such opposites. Olga is working with her +ox-team on the land. Two days ago I rode out on Paddy and watched her. +There was something Homeric about it, something Sorolla would have +jumped at. She seemed so like her oxen. She moved like them, and her +eyes were like theirs. She has the same strength and solemnity when she +walks. She's so primitive and natural and instinctive in her actions. +Yesterday, after dinner, she curled up on a pile of hay at one end of +the corral and fell asleep for a few minutes, flat in the strong noonday +light. I saw Dinky-Dunk stop on his way to the stable and stand and look +down at her. I slipped out beside him. "God, what a woman!" he said +under his breath. A vague stab of jealousy went through me as I heard +him say that. Then I looked at her hand, large, relaxed, roughened with +all kinds of weather and calloused with heavy work. And this time it was +an equally vague stab of pity that went through me. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-sixth_ + + +The rush is on, and Dinky-Dunk is always out before six. If it's true, +as some one once said, that the pleasures of life depended on its +anxieties, then we ought to be a hilarious household. Every one is busy, +and I do what I can to help. I don't know why it is, but I find an odd +comfort in the thought of having another woman near me, even Olga. She +also helps me a great deal with the housework. Those huge hands of hers +have a dexterity you'd never dream of. She thinks the piano a sort of +miracle, and me a second miracle for being able to play it. In the +evening she sits back in a corner, the darkest corner she can find, and +listens. She never speaks, never moves, never expresses one iota of +emotion. But in the gloom I can often catch the animal-like glow of her +eyes. They seem almost phosphorescent. Dinky-Dunk had a long letter from +Percival Benson to-day. It was interesting and offhandedly jolly and +just the right sort. And Percy says he'll be back on the Titchborne +place in a few weeks. + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +Olga went through the boards of her wagon-box and got a bad scrape on +her leg. She showed me the extent of her injuries, without the slightest +hesitation, and I gave her first-aid treatment with my carbolated +vaseline. And still again I had to think of the Venus de Milo, for it +was a knee like a statue's, milky white and round and smooth, with a +skin like a baby's, and so different to her sunburnt forearms. It was +Olympian more than Fifth-Avenuey. It was a leg that made me think, not +of Rubens, but of Titian, and my thoughts at once went out to the +right-hand lady of the "Sacred and Profane Love," in the Borghese, there +was such softness and roundness combined with its strength. And +Dinky-Dunk walked in and stood staring at it, himself, with never so +much as a word of apology. Olga looked up at him without a flicker of +her ox-like eyes. It wasn't until I made an angry motion for her to +drop her skirt that she realized any necessity for covering the Titian +knee. But again I felt that odd pang of jealousy needle through me as I +saw his face. At least I suppose it was jealousy, the jealousy of an +artful little Mona-Lisa minx who didn't even class in with the +demigods. When Olga was gone, however, I said to Dinky-Dunk: "Isn't +that a limb for your life?" + +He merely said: "We don't grow limbs up here, Tabby. They're legs, just +plain legs!" + +"Anything but _plain_!" I corrected him. Then he acknowledged that he'd +seen those knees before. He'd stumbled on Olga and her brother knee-deep +in mud and cow manure, treading a mixture to plaster their shack with, +the same as the Doukhobors do. It left me less envious of those +Junoesque knees. + + + + +_Monday the Second_ + + +Keeping chickens is a much more complicated thing than the outsider +imagines. For example, several of my best hens, quite untouched by the +modern spirit of feminine unrest, have been developing "broodiness" and +I have been trying to "break them up," as the poulterers put it. But +they are determined to set. This mothering instinct is a fine enough +thing in its way, but it's been spoiling too many good eggs. So I've +been trying to emancipate these ruffled females. I lift them off the +nest by the tail feathers, ten times a day. I fling cold water in their +solemn maternal faces. I put little rings of barb-wire under their +sentimental old bosoms. But still they set. And one, having pecked me on +the wrist until the blood came, got her ears promptly boxed--in face of +the fact that all poultry keepers acknowledge that kindness to a hen +improves her laying qualities. + + + + +_Thursday the Fifth_ + + +Casa Grande is a beehive of industry. Every one has a part to play. I am +no longer expected to sit by the fire and purr. At nights I sew. +Dinky-Dunk is so hard on his clothes! When it's not putting on patches +it's sewing on buttons. Then we go to bed at half-past nine. At +half-past nine, think of it! Little me, who more than once went humming +up Fifth Avenue when morning was showing gray over the East River, and +often left Sherry's (oh, those dear old dancing days!) when the milk +wagons were rumbling through Forty-fourth Street, and once triumphantly +announced, on coming out of Dorlon's and studying the old Oyster-Letter +clock, that I'd stuck it out to Y minutes past O! But it's no hardship +to get up at five, these glorious mornings. The days get longer, and the +weather is perfect. And the prairie looks as though a vacuum cleaner +had been at work on it overnight. Positively, there's a charwoman who +does this old world over, while we sleep! By morning it's as bright as a +new pin. And out here every one is thinking of the day ahead; +Dinky-Dunk, of his crop; Olga, of the pair of sky-blue corsets I've +written to the Winnipeg mail-order house for; Olie, of the final +waterproofing of the granaries so the wheat won't get spoilt any more; +Gee-Gee, herself, of--of something which she's almost afraid to think +about. + +Dinky-Dunk, in his deviling moods, says I'm an old married woman now, +that I'm settled, that I've eaten my pie! Perhaps I have. I'm not +imaginative, so I must depend on others for my joy of living. I know now +that I can never create, never really express myself in any way worth +while, either on paper or canvas or keyboard. And people without +imagination, I suppose, simply have to drop back to racial +simplicities--which means I'll have to have a family, and feed hungry +mouths, and keep a home going. And I'll have to get all my art at +second-hand, from magazines and gramophone records and plaster-of-Paris +casts. Just a housewife! And I so wanted to be something more, once! Yet +I wonder if, after all, the one is so much better than the other? I +wonder? And here comes my Dinky-Dunk, and in three minutes he'll be +kissing me on the tip of the chin and asking me what there's going to be +good for supper! And that is better than fame! For all afternoon those +twelve little lines of Dobson's have been running through my head: + + Fame is a food that dead men eat-- + I have no stomach for such meat. + In little light and narrow rooms, + They eat it in the silent tombs, + With no kind voice of comrade near + To bid the banquet be of cheer. + + But Friendship is a noble thing-- + Of Friendship it is good to sing, + For truly when a man shall end, + He lives in memory of his friend + Who doth his better part recall + And of his faults make funeral! + +But when you put the word "love" there instead of "friendship" you make +it even better.... Olga, by the way, is not so stupid as you might +imagine. She's discovered something which I didn't intend her to find +out.... And Olie, also by the way, has solved the problem of "breaking +up" my setting hens. He has made a swinging coop with a wire netting +bottom, for all the world like the hanging gardens of Babylon, and into +this all the ruffled mothers-to-be have been thrust and the coop hung up +on the hen-house wall. Open wire is a very uncomfortable thing to set +on, and these hens have at last discovered that fact. I have been out +looking at them. I never saw such a parliament of solemn indignation. +But their pride has been broken, and they are beginning to show a +healthier interest in their meals. + + + + +_Tuesday the Tenth_ + + +I've been wondering if Dinky-Dunk is going to fall in love with Olga. +Yesterday I saw him staring at her neck. She's the type of woman that +would really make the right sort of wilderness wife. She seems an +integral part of the prairie, broad-bosomed, fecund, opulent. And she's +so placid and large and soft-spoken and easy to live with. She has none +of my moods and tantrums. + +Her corsets came to-day, and I showed her how to put them on. She is +incontinently proud of them, but in my judgment they only make her +ridiculous. It's as foolish as putting a French _toque_ on one of her +oxen. The skin of Olga's great shoulders is as smooth and creamy as a +baby's. I have been watching her eyes. They are not a dark blue, but in +a strong side-light they seem deep wells of light, layer on layer of +azure. And she is mysterious to me, calmly and magnificently +inscrutable. And I once thought her an uncouth animal. But she is a +great help. She has planted rows and rows of sweet peas all about Casa +Grande and is starting to make a kitchen garden, which she's going to +fence off and look after with her own hands. It will be twice the size +of Olie's. But I do hope she doesn't ever grow into something mysterious +to my Dinky-Dunk. This morning she said I ought to work in the garden, +that the more I kept on my feet the better it would be for me later on. + +As for Dinky-Dunk, the poor boy is working himself gaunt. Yet tired as +he is, he tries to read a few pages of something worth while every +night. Sometimes we take turns in reading. Last night he handed me over +his volume of Spencer with a pencil mark along one passage. This passage +said: "Intellectual activity in women is liable to be diminished after +marriage by that antagonism between individuation and reproduction +everywhere operative throughout the organic world." I don't know why, +but that passage made me as hot as a hornet. In the background of my +brain I carried some vague memory of George Eliot once catching this +same philosophizing Spencer fishing with a composite fly, and, remarking +on his passion for generalizations, declaring that he even fished with a +generalization. So I could afford to laugh. "Spencer's idea of a +tragedy," I told Dinky-Dunk, "is a deduction killed by a fact!" And +again I smiled my Mona-Lisa smile. "And I'm going to be one of the +facts!" I proudly proclaimed. + +Dinky-Dunk, after thinking this over, broke into a laugh. "You know, +Gee-Gee," he solemnly announced, "there are times when you seem almost +clever!" But I wasn't clever in this case, for it was hours later before +I saw the trap which Dinky-Dunk had laid for me! + + + + +_Monday the Sixteenth_ + + +All day Saturday Olga and Dinky-Dunk were off in the chuck-wagon, +working too far away to come home for dinner. The thought of them being +out there, side by side, hung over me like a cloud. I remembered how he +had absently stared at the white column of her neck. And I pictured him +stopping in his work and studying her faded blue cotton waist pulled +tight across the line of that opulent bust. What man wouldn't be +impressed by such bodily magnificence, such lavish and undulating youth +and strength? And there's something so soft and diffused about those +ox-like eyes of hers! You do not think, then, of her eyes being such a +pale blue, any more than you could stop to accuse summer moonlight of +not being ruddy. And those unruffled blue eyes never seem to see you; +they rather seem to bathe you in a gaze as soft and impersonal as +moonlight itself. + +I simply couldn't stand it any more. I got on Paddy and galloped out for +my Dinky-Dunk, as though it were my sudden and solemn duty to save him +from some imminent and awful catastrophe. + +I stopped on the way, to watch a couple of prairie-chickens minuetting +through the turns of their vernal courtships. The pompous little beggars +with puffed-out wattles and neck ruffs were positively doing cancans and +two-steps along the prairie floor. Love was in the air, that perfect +spring afternoon, even for the animal world. So instead of riding openly +and honestly up to Dinky-Dunk and Olga, I kept under cover as much as I +could and stalked them, as though I had been a timber wolf. + +Then I felt thoroughly and unspeakably ashamed of myself, for I caught +sight of Olga high on her wagon, like a Valkyr on a cloud, and +Dinky-Dunk hard at work a good two miles away. + +He was a little startled to see me come cantering up on Paddy. I don't +know whether it was silly or not, but I told him straight out what had +brought me. He hugged me like a bear and then sat down on the prairie +and laughed. "With that cow?" he cried. And I'm sure no man could ever +call the woman he loves a cow.... I believe Dinky-Dunk suspects +something. He's just asked me to be more careful about riding Paddy. And +he's been more solemnly kind, lately. But I'll never tell +him--never--never! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-fourth_ + + +Percy will be back to-morrow. It will be a different looking country to +what it was when he left. I've been staring up at a cobalt sky, and +begin to understand why people used to think Heaven was somewhere up in +the midst of such celestial blue. And on the prairie the sky is your +first and last friend. Wasn't it Emerson who somewhere said that the +firmament was the daily bread for one's eyes? And oh, the lovely, +greening floor of the wheat country now! Such a soft yellow-green glory +stretching so far in every direction, growing so much deeper day by day! +And the sun and space and clear light on the sky-line and the pillars of +smoke miles away and the wonderful, mysterious promise that is hanging +over this teeming, steaming, shimmering, abundant broad bosom of earth! +It thrills me in a way I can't explain. By night and day, before +breakfast and after supper, the talk is of wheat, wheat, wheat, until I +nearly go crazy. I complained to Dinky-Dunk that he was dreaming wheat, +living wheat, breathing wheat, that he and all the rest of the world +seemed mad about wheat. + +"And there's just one other thing you must remember, Lady Bird," was his +answer. "All the rest of the world is _eating_ wheat. It can't live +without wheat. And I'd rather be growing the bread that feeds the hungry +than getting rich making cordite and Krupp guns!" So he's risking +everything on this crop of his, and is eternally figuring and planning +and getting ready for the _grande debacle_. He says it will be like a +battle. And no general goes into a battle without being prepared for it. +But when we read about the doings of the outside world, it seems like +reading of happenings that have taken place on the planet Mars. We're +our own little world just now, self-contained, rounded-out, complete. + + + + +_Friday the Third_ + + +Two things of vast importance have happened. Dinky-Dunk has packed up +and made off to Edmonton to interview some railway officials, and Percy +is back. Dinky-Dunk is so mysteriously silent as to the matter of his +trip that I'm afraid he is worried about money matters. And he asked me +if I'd mind keeping the household expenses down as low as I could, +without actual hardship, for the next few months. + +As for Percy, he seemed a little constrained, but looked ever so much +better. He is quite sunburned, likes California and says we ought to +have a winter bungalow there (and Dinky-Dunk just warning me to save on +the pantry pennies!) He's brought a fastidious little old English woman +back with him as a housekeeper, a Mrs. Watson, and she looks both +capable and practical. Notwithstanding the fact that she seems to have +stepped right out of Dickens, and carries a huge Manx cat about with +her, Percy said he thought they'd muddle along in some way. Thoughtful +boy that he was, he brought me a portmanteau packed full of the newer +novels and magazines, and a two-pound jar of smoking tobacco for +Dinky-Dunk. + + + + +_Thursday the Ninth_ + + +A Belasco couldn't have more carefully stage-managed the first meeting +between Percy and Olga. I felt that she was my discovery, and I wanted +to spring her on him, at the right moment, and in the right way. I +wanted to get the Valkyr on a cloud effect. So I kept Percy in the house +on the pretext of giving him a cup of tea, until I should hear the +rumble of the wagon and know that Olga was swinging home with her team. +It so happened, when I heard the first faint far thunder of that homing +wagon, that Percy was sitting in my easy chair, with a cup of my +thinnest china in one hand and a copy of Walter Pater's _Marius the +Epicurean_ in the other. We had been speaking of climate, and he wanted +to look up the passage where Pater said, "one always dies of the +cold"--which I consider a slur on the Northwest! + +I couldn't help realizing, as I sat staring at Percy, at the thin, +over-sensitive face, and the high-arched, over-refined nose, and the +narrow, stooping, over-delicate shoulders, what a direct opposite he was +to Olga, in every way. Instead of thin china and Pater in her hand at +that very moment, I remembered she'd probably have a four-tined fork or +a mud-stained fence stretcher. + +I went to the door and looked out. At the proper moment I called Percy. +Olga was standing up in the wagon-box, swinging about one corner of the +corral. She stood with her shoulders well back, for her weight was +already on the lines, to pull the team up. Her loose blue skirt edge was +fluttering in the wind, but at the front was held tight against her +legs, like the drapery of the Peace figure in the Sherman statue in the +Plaza. Across that Artemis-like bosom her thin waist was stretched +tight. She had no hat on, and her pale gold hair, which had been braided +and twisted up into a heavy crown, had the sheen of metal on it, in the +later afternoon sun. And in that clear glow of light, which so often +plays mirage-like tricks with vision, she loomed up like a demi-god, or +a she-Mercury who ought to have had little bicycle wheels attached to +her heels. + +Percy is never demonstrative. But I could see that he was more than +impressed. He was amazed. + +"My word!" he said very quietly. + +"What does she make you think of?" I demanded. + +Percy put down his teacup. + +"Don't go away," I commanded, "but tell me what she makes you think of." +He still stood staring at her with puckered up eyes. + +"She's like band-music going by!" he proclaimed. "No, she's more than +that; she's Wagner on wheels," he finally said. "No, not that! A Norse +myth in dimity!" + +I told him it wasn't dimity, but he was too interested in Olga to listen +to me. + +Half an hour later, when she met him, she was very shy. She turned an +adorable pink, and then calmly rebuttoned the two top buttons of her +waist, which had been hanging loose. And I noticed that Percy did +precisely what I saw Dinky-Dunk once doing. He sat staring absently yet +studiously at the milky white column of Olga's neck! And I had to speak +to him twice, before he even woke up to the fact that he was being +addressed by his hostess. + + + + +_Wednesday the Fifteenth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk is back, and very busy again. During the day I scarcely get a +glimpse of him, except at meal-times. I have a steadily growing sense of +being neglected, but I know how a worried man hates petulance. The +really important thing is that Percy is giving Olga lessons in reading +and writing. For, although a Finn, she is a Canadian Finn from almost +the shadow of the sub-Arctics, and has had little chance for education. +But her mind is not obtuse. + +Yesterday I asked Olga what she thought of Percival Benson. "Ah lak +heem," she calmly admitted in her majestic, monosyllabic way. "He is a +fonny leetle man." And the "fonny leetle man" who isn't really little, +seems to like Olga, odd as it may sound. They are such opposites, such +contradictions! Percy says she's Homeric. He says he never saw eyes that +were so limpid, or such pools of peace and calm. He insists on the fact +that she's essentially maternal, as maternal as the soil over which she +walks, as Percy put it. I told him what Dinky-Dunk had once told me, +about Olga killing a bull. The bull was a vicious brute that had +attacked her father and knocked him down. He was striking at the fallen +man with his fore-paws when Olga heard his cries. She promptly came for +that bull with a pitchfork. And speaking of Homer, it must have been a +pretty epical battle, for she killed the bull and left the fork-tines +eight inches in his body while she picked up her father and carried him +back to the house. And I won't even kill my own hens, but have always +appointed Olie as the executioner. + + + + +_Friday the Seventeenth_ + + +It is funny to see Percy teaching Olga. She watches him as though he +were a miracle man. Her dewy red lips form the words slowly, and the +full white throat utters them largely, laboriously, instruments on them, +and in some perhaps uncouth way makes them lovely. I sit with my sewing, +listening. Sometimes I open the piano and play. But I feel out of it. I +seem to be on the fringe of things that are momentous only to other +people. Last night, when Percy said he thought he'd sell his ranch, +Dinky-Dunk looked up from his paper-littered desk and told him to hang +on to that land like a leech. But he didn't explain why. + + + + +_Saturday the Nineteenth_ + + +I can't even remember the date. But I know that midsummer is here, that +the men folks are so busy I have to shift for myself, and that the talk +is still of wheat, and how it's heading, and how the dry weather of the +last few weeks will affect the length of the straw. Dinky-Dunk is making +desperate efforts to get men to cut wild-hay. He's bought the hay rights +of a large stretch between some sloughs about seven miles east of our +place. He says men are scarcer than hen's teeth, but has the promise of +a couple of cutthroats who were thrown off a freight-train near +Buckhorn. Percy volunteered to help, and was convinced of the fact that +he could drive a mower. Olie, who nurses a vast contempt for Percy, and, +I secretly believe, rather resents his attentions to Olga, put the new +team of colts on the mower. They promptly ran away with Percy, who came +within an ace of being thrown in front of the mower-knife, which would +have chopped him up into very unscholarly mincemeat. Olga got on a +horse, bareback, and rounded up the colts. Then she cooed about poor +bruised Percy and tried to coax him to come to the house. But Percy said +he was going to drive that team, even if he had to be strapped to the +mower-seat. And, oddly enough, he did "gat them beat," as Olga expressed +it, but it tired him out and wilted his collar and the sweat was running +down his face when he came in at noon. Olga is very proud of him. But +she announced that she'd drive that mower herself, and sailed into Olie +for giving a tenderfoot a team like that to drive. It was her first +outburst. I couldn't understand a word she said, but I know that she was +magnificent. She looked like a statue of Justice that had suddenly +jumped off its pedestal and was doing its best to put a Daniel Webster +out of business! + + + + +_Friday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +The weather is still very dry. But Dinky-Dunk feels sure it will not +affect his crop. He says the filaments of a wheat-plant will go almost +two feet deep in search for moisture. Yesterday Percy appeared in a +flannel shirt, and without his glasses. I think he is secretly +practising calisthenics. He said he was going to cut out this afternoon +tea, because it doesn't seem to fit in with prairie life. I fancy I see +the re-barbarianizing influence of Olga at work on Percival Benson +Woodhouse. Either Dinky-Dunk or Olie, I find, has hidden my saddle! + + + + +_Saturday the Twenty-ninth_ + + +To-day has been one of the hottest days of the year. It may be good for +the wheat, but I can't say that it seems good for me. All day long I've +been fretting for far-away things, for foolish and impossible things. I +tried reading Keats, but that only made me worse than ever. I've been +longing for a glimpse of the Luxembourg Gardens in spring, with all the +horse-chestnuts in bloom. I've been wondering how lovely it would be to +drift into the Blue Grotto at Capri and see the azure sea-water drip +from the trailing boat-oars. I've been burning with a hunger to see a +New England orchard in the slanting afternoon sunlight of an early June +afternoon. The hot white light of this open country makes my eyes ache +and seems to dry my soul up. I can't help thinking of cool green +shadows, and musky little valleys of gloom with a brook purling over +mossy stones. I long for the solemn greenery of great elms, aisles and +aisles of cathedral-like gloom and leaf-filtered sunlight. I'd love to +hear an English cuckoo again, and feel the soft mild sea-air that blows +up through Louis's dear little Devonshire garden. But what's the use! + +I went to the piano and pounded out _Kennst Du Das Land_ with all my +soul, and I imagine it did me good. It at least bombarded the silence +out of Casa Grande. The noise of life is so far away from you on the +prairie! It is not utterly silent, just that dreamy and disembodied sigh +of wind and grass against which a human call targets like a leaden +bullet against metal. It is almost worse than silence. + + + + +_Sunday the Thirtieth_ + + +My mood is over. Early, early this morning I slipped out of bed and +watched day break. I saw the first faint orange rim along the limitless +sky-line, and then the pearly pink above it, and all the sweet dimness +and softness and mystery of God's hand pulling the curtains of morning +apart. And then the rioting orchestras of color struck up, and I leaned +out of the window bathed in glory as the golden disk of the sun showed +over the dewy prairie-edge. Oh, the grandeur of it! And oh, the +God-given freshness of that pellucid air! I love my land! I love it! + + + + +_Tuesday the First_ + + +I have married a _man_! My Dinky-Dunk is not a softy. I had that proved +to me yesterday, when I put Paddy in the buckboard and drove out to +where the men were working in the hay. I was taking their dinner out to +them, neatly packed in the chuck-box. One of the new men, who'd been +hired for the rush, had been overworking his team. The brute had been +prodding them with a pitchfork, instead of using a whip. Dinky-Dunk saw +the marks, and noticed one of the horses bleeding. But he didn't +interfere until he caught the man in the act of jabbing the tines into +Maid Marian's flank. Then he jumped for him, just as I drove up. He +cursed that man, cursed and damned him most dreadfully and pulled him +down off the hay-rack. Then they fought. + +They fought like two wildcats. Dinky-Dunk's nose bled and his lip was +cut. But he knocked the other man flat, and when he tried to get up he +knocked him again. It seemed cruel; it was revolting. But something in +me rejoiced and exulted as I saw that hulk of an animal thresh and +stagger about the hay-stubble. I tried to wipe the blood away from +Dinky-Dunk's nose. But he pushed me back and said this was no place for +a woman. I had no place in his universe, at that particular time. But +Dinky-Dunk can fight, if he has to. He's sa magerful a mon! He's afraid +of nothing. + +But that was nearly a costly victory. Both the new men of course threw +up their jobs, then and there. Dinky-Dunk paid them off, on the spot, +and they started off across the open prairie, without even waiting for +their meal. Dinky-Dunk, as we sat down on the dry grass and ate +together, said it was a good riddance, and he was just saying I could +only have the left-hand side of his mouth to kiss for the next week when +he suddenly dropped his piece of custard-pie, stood up and stared toward +the east. I did the same, wondering what had happened. + +I could see a long thin slanting column of smoke driving across the hot +noonday air. Then my heart stopped beating. _It was the prairie on +fire._ + +I had heard a great deal about fire-guards and fire-guarding, three rows +about crops and ten about buildings; and I knew that Olie hadn't yet +finished turning all those essential furrows. And if that column of +smoke, which was swinging up through the silvery haze where the indigo +vault of heaven melted into the dusty whiteness of the parched +grasslands, had come from the mouth of a siege-gun which was cannonading +us where we stood, it couldn't have more completely chilled my blood. +For I knew that east wind would carry the line of fire crackling across +the prairie floor to Dinky-Dunk's wheat, to the stables and +out-buildings, to Casa Grande itself, and all our scheming and planning +and toiling and moiling would go up in one yellow puff of smoke. And +once under way, nothing could stop that widening river of flame. + +It was Dinky-Dunk who jumped to life as though he had indeed been +cannonaded. In one bound he was at the buckboard and was snatching out +the horse-blanket that lay folded up under the seat. Then he unsnapped +the reins from Paddy's bridle, snapping them on the blanket, one to the +buckle and the other to the strap-end. In another minute he had the +hobble off Paddy and had swung me up on that astonished pinto's back. +The next minute he himself was on Maid Marian, poking one end of the +long rein into my hand and telling me to keep up with him. + +We rode like mad. I scarcely understood what it meant, at the time, but +I at least kept up with him. We went floundering through one end of a +slough until the blanket was wet and heavy and I could hardly hold it. +But I hung on for dear life. Then we swung off across the dry grass +toward that advancing semicircle of fire, as far apart as the taut reins +would let us ride. Dinky-Dunk took the windward side. Then on we rushed, +along that wavering frontier of flame, neck to neck, dragging the wet +blanket along its orange-tinted crest, flattening it down and wiping it +out as we went. We made the full circle, panting; saw where the flames +had broken out again, and swung back with our dragging blanket. But when +one side was conquered another side would revive, and off we'd have to +go again, until my arm felt as though it were going to be pulled out of +its socket. + +But we won that fight, in the end. I slipped down off Paddy's back and +lay full length on the sod, weak, shaking, wondering why the solid +ground was rocking slowly from side to side like a boat. But Dinky-Dunk +didn't even observe me. He was fighting out the last patch of fire, on +foot. + +When he came over to where I was waiting for him he was as sooty and +black as a boiler-maker. He dropped down beside me, breathing hard. We +sat there holding each other's hand, for several minutes, in utter +silence. Then he said, rather thickly: "Are you all right?" And I told +him that of course I was all right. Then he said, without looking at me, +"I forgot!" Then he got Paddy and patched up the harness and took me +home in the buckboard. + +But all the rest of the day he hung about the shack, as solemn as an +owl. And once in the night he got up and lighted the lamp and came over +and studied my face. I blinked up at him sleepily, for I was dog-tired +and had been dreaming that we were back in Paris at the Bal des Quatz +Arts and were about to finish up with an early breakfast at the Madrid. +He looked so funny with his rumpled up hair and his faded pajamas that I +couldn't help laughing a little as he blew out the light and got back +into bed. + +"Dinky-Dunk," I said, as I turned over my pillow and got comfy again, +"wouldn't it have been hell if all our wheat had been burned up?" I +forget what Duncan said, for in two minutes I was asleep again. + + + + +_Monday the Seventh_ + + +The dry spell has been broken, and broken with a vengeance. One gets +pretty well used to high winds, in the West. There used to be days at a +time when that unending high wind would make me think something was +going to happen, filling me with a vague sense of impending calamity and +making me imagine a big storm was going to blow up and wipe Casa Grande +and its little coterie off the map. But we've had a real wind-storm, +this time, with rain and hail. Dinky-Dunk's wheat looks sadly draggled +out and beaten down, but he says there wasn't enough hail to hurt +anything; that the straw will straighten up again, and that this +downpour was just what he wanted. Early in the afternoon, on looking out +the shack door, I saw a tangle of clouds on the sky-line. They seemed +twisted up like a skein of wool a kitten had been playing with. Then +they seemed to marshal themselves into one solid line and sweep up over +the sky, getting blacker and blacker as they came. Olga ran in with her +yellow hair flying, slamming and bolting the stable-doors, locking the +chicken-coop, and calling out for me to get my clothes off the line or +they'd be blown to pieces. Even then I could feel the wind. It whipped +my own hair loose, and flattened my skirt against my body, and I had to +lean forward to make any advance against it. + +By this time the black army of the heavens had rolled up overhead and a +few big frog-like drops of rain began to fall, throwing up little clouds +of dust, as a rifle bullet might. I trundled out a couple of tubs, in +the hope of catching a little soft water. It wasn't until later that I +realized the meaning of Olga's mild stare of reproof. For the next +moment the downpour came, and with it the wind. And such wind! There had +been nothing to stop its sweep, of course, for hundreds and hundreds of +miles, and it hit us the same as a hurricane at sea hits a liner. The +shack shook with the force of it. My two wash-tubs went bounding and +careening off across the landscape, the chicken-coop went over like a +nine-pin, and the air was filled with bits of flying timber. Olga's +wagon, with the hay-rack on top of it, moved solemnly and ponderously +across the barnyard and crashed into the corral, propelled by no power +but that of the wind. My sweet-pea hedges were torn from their wires, +and an armful of hay came smack against the shack-window and was held +there by the wind, darkening the room more than ever. + +Then the storm blew itself out, though it poured for two or three hours +afterward. And all the while, although I exulted in that play of +elemental force, I was worrying about my Dinky-Dunk, who was away for +the day, doing what he could to arrange for some harvest hands, when the +time for cutting came. For the wheat, it seems, ripens all at once, and +then the grand rush begins. If it isn't cut the moment it's ripe, the +grain shells out, and that means loss. Olga has been saying that the +wheat on the Cummins section will easily run forty bushels to the acre +and over. It will also grade high, whatever that means. There are six +hundred and forty acres of it in that section, and I've just figured out +that this means a little over twenty-five thousand bushels of grain. Our +other piece on the home ranch is a larger tract, but a little lighter in +crop. That wheat is just beginning to turn from green to the palest of +yellow. And it has a good show, Olga says, if frost will only keep off +and no hail comes. Our one occupation, for the next few weeks, will be +watching the weather. + + + + +_Sunday the Thirteenth_ + + +Percy and Mrs. Watson drove over to see how we'd all weathered the +storm. They found the chicken-coop once more right side up, and +everything ship-shape. Percy promptly asked where Olga was. I pointed +her out to him, breast-high in the growing wheat. She looked like Ceres, +in her big, new, loose-fitting blue waist, with the noonday sun on her +yellow-gold head and her mild ruminative eyes with their misted sky-line +effect. She always seems to fit into the landscape here. I suppose it's +because she's a born daughter of the soil. And a sea of wheat makes a +perfect frame for that massive, benignant figure of hers. + +I looked at Percy, at thin-nosed, unpractical Percy, with all his +finicky sensibilities, with his high fastidious reticences, with his +effete, inbred meagerness of bone and sinew, with his distinguished +pride of distinguished race rather running to seed. And I stood +marveling at the wisdom of old Mother Nature, who was so plainly +propelling him toward this revitalizing, revivifying, reanimalizing, +redeeming type which his pale austerities of spirit could never quite +neutralize. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed what is taking place. He saw +them standing side by side in the grain. When he came in he pointed them +out to me, and merely said, "_Hermann und Dorothea_!" But I remembered +my Goethe well enough to understand. + + + + +_Monday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +I woke Dinky-Dunk up last night crying beside him in bed. I just got to +thinking about things again, how far away we were from everything, how +hard it would be to get help if we needed it, and how much I'd give if I +only had you, Matilda Anne, for the next few weeks.... I got up and went +to the window and looked out. The moon was big and yellow, like a +cheese. And the midnight prairie itself seemed so big and wide and +lonely, and I seemed such a tiny speck on its face, so far away from +every one, from God himself, that the courage went out of my body like +the air out of a tire. Dinky-Dunk was right; it is life that is taming +me. + +I stood at the window praying, and then I slipped back into bed. +Dinky-Dunk works so hard and gets so tired that it would take a Chinese +devil-gong to waken him, once he's asleep. He did not stir when I crept +back into bed. And that, as I lay there wide awake, made me feel that +even my own husband had betrayed me. And I _bawled_. I must have shaken +the bed, for Dinky-Dunk finally did wake up. I couldn't tell him what +was the matter. I blubbered out that I only wanted him to hold me. He +took me in his arms and kissed my wet eyelids, hugging me up close to +him, until I got quieter. Then I fell asleep. But poor Dinky-Dunk was +awake when I opened my eyes about four, and had been that way for hours. +He was afraid of disturbing me by taking his arm from under my head. +To-day he looks tired and dark around the eyes. But he was up and off +early. There is so much to be done these days! He is putting up a +grub-tent and a rough sleeping-shack for the harvest "hands," so that I +won't be bothered with a lot of rough men about the house here. I'm +afraid I'm an encumbrance, when I should be helping. But they seem to be +taking everything out of my hands. + + + + +_Saturday the Second_ + + +I love to watch the wheat, now that it's really turning. It waves like a +sea and stretches off into the distance as far as the eye can follow it. +It's as high as my waist, and sometimes it moves up and down like a +slowly breathing breast. When the sun is low it turns a pure Roman gold, +and makes my eyes ache. But I love it. It strikes me as being glorious, +and at the same time pathetic--I scarcely know why. I can't analyze my +feelings. But the prairie brings a great peace to my soul. It is so +rich, so maternal, so generous. It seems to brood under a passion to +give, to yield up, to surrender all that is asked of it. And it is so +tranquil. It seems like a bosom breathed on by the breath of God. + + + + +_Wednesday the Sixth_ + + +It is nearly a year, now, since I first came to Casa Grande. I can +scarcely believe it. The nights are getting very cool again and any time +now there might be a heavy frost. If it should freeze this next week or +two I think my Dinky-Dunk would just curl up and die. Poor boy, he's +working so hard! I pray for that crop every night. I worry about it. +Last night I dreamt it was burnt up in a prairie-fire and woke up +screaming for wet blankets. Dinky-Dunk had to hold me until I got quiet +again. I asked him if he loved me, now that I was getting old and ugly. +He said I was the most beautiful thing God ever made and that he loved +me in a deeper and nobler way than he did a year ago. Then I asked him +if he'd ever get married again, if I should die. He called me silly and +said I was going to live to be eighty, and that a gasoline-tractor +couldn't kill me. But he promised I'd be the only one, whatever +happened. And I believe him. I know Dinky-Dunk would go in black for a +solid year, if I _should_ die, and he'd never, never marry again, for +he's the sort of Old Sobersides who can only love one woman in one +lifetime. And I'm the woman, glory be! + + + + +_Tuesday the Twelfth_ + + +Harvest time is here. The stage is cleared, and the last and great act +of the drama now begins. It's a drama with a stage a thousand miles +wide. I can hear through the open windows the rattle of the +self-binders. Olga is driving one, like a tawny Boadicea up on her +chariot. She said she never saw such heads of wheat. This is the first +day's cutting, but those flapping canvas belts and those tireless arms +of wood and iron won't have one-tenth of Dinky-Dunk's crop tied up by +midnight. It is very cold, and Olie has lugubriously announced that it's +sure going to freeze. So three times I've gone out to look at the +thermometer and three times I've said my solemn little prayer: "Dear +God, please don't freeze poor Dinky-Dunk's wheat!" And the Lord heard +that prayer, for a Chinook came about two o'clock in the morning and the +mercury slowly but steadily rose. + + + + +_Thursday the Fourteenth_ + + +I had a great deal to talk about to-day. But I can't write much.... I'm +afraid. I dread being alone. I wish I'd been a better wife to my poor +old gold-bricked Dinky-Dunk! But we are what we are, character-kinks and +all. So when he understands, perhaps he'll forgive me. I'm like a +cottontail in the middle of a wheat-patch with the binders going round +and round and every swathe cutting away a little more of my covering. +And there can't be much more hiding away with my secret. But I shall +never openly speak of it. The binder can cut off my feet first, the same +as Olie's did with that mother-rabbit which stood trembling over her +nest of young. Why must life sometimes be so ruthlessly tragic? And why, +oh, why, are women sometimes so absurd? And why should I be afraid of +what every woman who would justify her womanhood must face? Still, I'm +afraid! + + + + +_Wednesday the Fifth_ + + +Three long weeks since those last words were written. And what shall I +say, or how shall I begin? + +In the first place, everything seemed gray. The bed was gray, my own +arms were gray, the walls looked gray, the window-glass was gray, and +even Dinky-Dunk's face was gray. I didn't want to move, for a long time. +Then I got the strength to tell Mrs. Watson that I wanted to speak to my +husband. She was wrapping something up in soft flannel and purring over +it quite proudly and calling it a blessed little lamb. When poor +pale-faced Dinky-Dunk bent over the bed I asked him if it had a receding +chin, or if it had a nose like Olie's. And he said it had neither, that +it was a king of a boy and could holler like a good one. + +Then I told Dinky-Dunk what had been in my secret soul, for so many +months. Uncle Carlton had a receding chin, a boneless, dew-lappy sort +of chin I'd always hated, and I'd been afraid it might kind of +skip-and-carry one and fasten itself on my innocent offspring. Then, +later on, I'd been afraid of Olie's frozen nose, with the split down the +center. And all the while I kept remembering what the Morleys' old +colored nurse had said to me when I was a schoolgirl, a girl of only +seventeen, spending that first vacation of mine in Virginia: "Lawdy, +chile, yuh ain't no bigger'n a minit! Don't yuh nebber hab no baby, +chile!" + +Isn't it funny how those foolish old things stick in a woman's memory? +For I've had my baby and I'm still alive, and although I sometimes +wanted a girl, Dinky-Dunk is so ridiculously proud and happy seeing it's +a boy that I don't much care. But I'm going to get well and strong in a +few more days, and here against my breast I'm holding the God-love-itest +little lump of pulsing manhood, the darlingest, solemnest, placidest, +pinkest hope of the white race that ever made life full and perfect for +a foolish mother. + +The doctor who finally got here--when both Olga and Mrs. Dixon agreed +that he couldn't possibly do a bit of good--announced that I had come +through it all like the true Prairie Woman that I was. Then he somewhat +pompously and redundantly explained that I was a highly organized +individual, "a bit high-strung," as Mrs. Dixon put it. I smiled into the +pillow when he turned to my anxious-eyed Dinky-Dunk and condoningly +enlarged on the fact that there was nothing abnormal about a woman like +me being--well, rather abnormal as to temper and nerves during the last +few months. But Dinky-Dunk cut him short. + +"On the contrary, sir; she's been wonderful, simply wonderful!" +Dinky-Dunk stoutly declared. Then he reached for my hand under the +coverlet. "She's been an angel!" + +I squeezed the hand that held mine. Then I looked at the doctor, who had +turned away to give some orders to Olga. + +"Doctor," I quite as stoutly declared, "I've been a perfect devil, and +this dear old liar knows it!" But our doctor was too busy to pay much +attention to what I was saying. He merely murmured that it was all +normal, quite normal, under the circumstances. So, after all, I'm just +an ordinary, everyday woman! But the man of medicine has ordered me to +stay in bed for twelve days--which Olga regards as unspeakably +preposterous, since one day, she proudly announced, was all her mother +ever asked for. Which shows the disadvantages of being too civilized! + + + + +_Sunday the Ninth_ + + +I'm day by day getting stronger, though I'm a lady of luxury and lie in +bed until ten every morning. To-day when I was sitting up to eat +breakfast, with my hair braided in two tails and a pink and white +hug-me-tight over my nightie, Dinky-Dunk came in and sat by the bed. He +tried to soft-soap me by saying he'd be mighty glad when I was running +things again so he could get something fit to eat. Olga, he admitted, +was all right, but she hadn't the touch of his Gee-Gee. He confessed +that for nearly a month now the house had been a damned gynocracy and he +was getting tired of being bossed around by a couple of women. _Mio +piccino_ no longer looks like a littered whelp of the animal world, as +he did at first. His wrinkled little face and his close-shut eyes used +to make me think of a little old man, with all the wisdom of the ages +shut up in his tiny body. And it is such a knowing little body, with +all its stored-up instincts and guardian appetites! My little _tenor +robusto_, how he can sing when he's hungry! Last night I sat up in bed, +listening for my son's--Dinky-Dink's--breathing. At first I thought he +might be dead, he was so quiet. Then I heard his lips move in the +rhapsodic deglutition of babyland dreams. "Dinky-Dunk," I demanded, +"what would we do if Babe should die?" And I shook him to make him +answer. He stared up at me with a sleepy eye. "That whale?" he commented +as he blinked contentedly down at his offspring and then turned over and +went to sleep. But I slipped a hand in under little Dinky-Dink's body, +and found it as warm as a nesting bird. + + + + +_Monday the Tenth_ + + +I noticed that Dinky-Dunk had not been smoking lately, so I asked him +what had become of the rest of his cigars. He admitted that he had given +them to Olie. "When?" I asked. And Dinky-Dunk colored up as he answered, +rather casually, "Oh, the day Buddy Boy was born!" How men merge down +into the conventional in their more epochal moments! + +The second day after my baby's birth Olga rather took my breath away by +carrying in as neat a little wooden cradle as any prince of the royal +blood would care to lie in. _Olie had made it_. He had worked on it +during his spare hours in the evening, and even Dinky-Dunk hadn't known. +I made Olga hold it up at the foot of the bed so I could see it better. +It had been scroll-sawed and sand-papered and polished like any +factory-made baby-bed, and my faithful old Olie had even attempted some +hand-carving along the rockers and the head-board. But as I looked at it +I realized that it must have taken weeks and weeks to make. And that +gave me an odd little earthquaky feeling in the neighborhood of the +midriff, for I knew then that my secret had been no secret at all. +Dinky-Dunk, by the way, has just announced that we're to have a +touring-car. He says I've earned it! + + + + +_Tuesday the Eleventh_ + + +Yesterday was so warm that I sat out in the sun and took an ozone-bath. +I sat there, staring down at my boy, realizing that I was a mother. My +boy--bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh! It's so hard to believe! And +now I am one of the mystic chain, and no longer the idle link. I am a +mother. And I'd give an arm if you and Chinkie and Scheming-Jack could +see my boy, at this moment. He's like a rose-leaf and he's got six +dimples, not counting his hands and feet--for I've found and kissed 'em +all--on different parts of his blessed little body. Dinky-Dunk came back +from Buckhorn yesterday with a lot of the foolishest things you ever +clapped eyes on--a big cloth elephant that grunts when you pull its +tail, a musical spinning-top, a high-chair, and a projecting lantern. +They're for Dinky-Dink, of course. But it will be a week or two before +he can manipulate the lantern! + + + + +_Wednesday the Thirteenth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has taken Mrs. Dixon home and come back with a brand-new +"hand," which, of course, is prairie-land synecdoche for a new hired +man. His name is Terry Dillon, and as the name might lead you to +imagine, he's about as Irish as Paddy's pig. He is blessed with a +potato-lip, a buttermilk brogue, and a nose which, if he follows it +faithfully, will some day lead him straight to Heaven. But Terry, +Dinky-Dunk tells me, is a steady worker and a good man with horses, and +that of course rounds him out as a paragon in the eyes of my +slave-driving lord and master. I asked where Terry came from. +Dinky-Dunk, with rather a grim smile, acknowledged that he'd been +working for Percy. + +Terry, it seems, has no particular love for an Englishman. And Percy had +affronted his haughty Irish spirit with certain ideas of caste which +can't be imported into the Canadian West, where the hired man is every +whit as good as his master--as that master will tragically soon find out +if he tries to make his help eat at second table! At any rate, Percy and +potato-lipped Terry developed friction which ended up in every promise +of a fight, only Dinky-Dunk arrived in the nick of time and took Terry +off his harassed neighbor's hands. I told him he had rather the habit of +catching people on the bounce. But I am reserving my opinion of Terry +Dillon. We are a happy family here, and I want no trouble-makers in my +neighborhood. + +I have been studying some of the New York magazines, going rather +hungrily through their advertisements where such lovely layettes are +described. My poor little Dinky-Dink's things are so plain and rough and +meager. I envy those city mothers with all those beautiful linens and +laces. But my little Spartan man-child has never known a single day's +sickness. And some day he'll show 'em! + + + + +_Thursday the Fourteenth_ + + +When Olie came in after dinner yesterday I asked him where my husband +was. Olie, after some hesitation, admitted that he was out in the +stable. I asked just what Dinky-Dunk was doing there, for I'd noticed +that after each meal he slipped silently away. Again Olie hesitated. +Then he finally admitted that he thought maybe my lord was out there +smoking. So I went out, and there I found my poor old Dinky-Dunk sitting +on a grain-box puffing gloomily away at his old pipe. For a minute or +two he didn't see me, so I went right over to him. "What does this +mean?" I demanded. + +"Why?" he rather guiltily equivocated. + +"Why are you smoking out here?" + +"I--er--I rather thought you might think it wouldn't be good for the +Boy!" He looked pathetic as he said that, I don't know why, though I +loved him for it. He made me think of a king who'd been dethroned, an +outsider, a man without a home. It brought a lump into my throat. + +I wormed my way up close to him on the grain-box, so that he had to hold +me to keep from falling off the end. "Listen to me," I commanded. "You +are my True Love and my Kaikobad and my Man-God and my Soul-Mate! And no +baby is ever going to come between me and you!" + +"You shouldn't say those awful things," he declared, but he did it only +half-heartedly. + +"But I want you to sit and smoke with me, beloved, the same as you +always did," I told him. "We can leave the windows open a little and it +won't hurt Dinky-Dink, for that boy gets more ozone than any city child +that was ever wheeled out in the Mall! It can't possibly hurt him. What +hurts me is being away from you so much. And now give me a hug, a tight +one, and tell me that you still love your Lady Bird!" He gave me two, +and then two more, until Tumble-Weed turned round in his stall and +whinnied for us to behave. + + + + +_Friday the Fifteenth_ + + +I've been keeping Terry under my eye, and I don't believe he's a +trouble-maker. His first move was to lift Babe out of the cradle, hold +him up and publicly announce that he was a darlin'. Then he pointed out +to me what a wonderful head the child had, feeling his frontal bone and +declaring he was sure to make a great scholar in his time. Dinky-Dunk, +grinning at the sober way in which I was swallowing this, pointedly +inquired of Terry whether it was Milton or Archimedes that Babe most +resembled as to skull formation. But it isn't Terry's blarney that has +made me capitulate; it's the fact that he has proved so companionable +and has slipped so quietly into his place in our little lonely circle of +lives on this ragged edge of nowhere. + +And he's as clean as a cat, shaving every blessed morning with a little +old broken-handled razor which he strops on a strip of oiled bootleg. +He declares that razor to be the finest bit of steel in all the +Americas, and showed off before Olie and Olga yesterday morning by +shaving without a looking-glass, which trick he said he learned in the +army. He also gave Olie a hair-cut, which was badly needed, and on +Sunday has promised to rig up a soldering-iron and mend all my pans for +me. He looks little over twenty, but is really thirty and more, and has +been in India and Mexico and Alaska. + +I caught him neatly darning his own woolen socks. Instead of betraying +shame at being detected in that effeminate pastime he proudly explained +that he'd learned to do a bit of stitching in the army. He hasn't many +possessions, but he's very neat in his arrangement of them. A good +soldier, he solemnly told me, always had to be a bit of an old maid. +"And you were a grand soldier, Terry, I know," I frankly told him. "I've +done a bit av killing in me time!" he proudly acknowledged. But as he +sat there darning his sock-heel he looked as though he couldn't kill a +field mouse. And in his idle hours he reads _Nick Carter_, a series of +paper-bound detective stories, almost worn to tatters, which he is going +through for the second or third time. These adventures, I find, he later +recounts to Olie, who is slowly but surely succumbing to the poison of +the penny-dreadful and the virus of the shilling-shocker! I even caught +Dinky-Dunk sitting up over one of these blood-curdling romances the +other night, though he laughed a little as I dragged him off to bed, at +the absurdity of the situations. Terry's eyes lighted up when he saw my +books and magazines. When I told him he could take anything he wanted, +he beamed and said it would sure be a glorious winter he'd be having, +with all that book-reading when the long nights came. But before those +long nights are over I'm going to try to pilot Terry into the channels +of respectable literature. + + + + +_Saturday the Sixteenth_ + + +I love the milky smell of my Dinky-Dink better than the perfume of any +flower that ever grew. He's so strong now that he can almost lift +himself up by his two little hands. At least he can really and actually +give a little _pull_. Two days ago our touring-car arrived. It is a +beauty. It skims over these smooth prairie trails like a yacht. From now +on we can run into Buckhorn, do our shopping, and run out again inside +of two or three hours. We can also reach the larger towns without +trouble and it will be so much easier to gather up what we need for Casa +Grande. Dinky-Dink seems to love the car. Ten minutes after we have +started out he is always fast asleep. Olga, who holds him in the back +seat when I get tired, sits in rapt and silent bliss as we rock along at +thirty miles an hour. And no wonder, for it's the next best thing to +sailing out on the briny deep! + +I can't help thinking of Terry's attitude toward Olga. He doesn't +actively dislike her, but he quietly ignores her, even more so than Olie +does. I've been wondering why neither of them has succumbed to such +physical grandeur. Perhaps it's because they're physical themselves. And +then I think her largeness oppresses Terry, for no man, whether he's +been a soldier or not, likes to be overtopped by a woman. + +The one exception, of course, is Percy. But Percy is a man of +imagination. He can realize that Olga is more than a mere type. He +agrees with me that she's a sort of miracle. To Terry she's only a mute +and muscular Finnish servant-girl with an arm like a grenadier's. To +Percy she is a goddess made manifest, a superhuman body of superhuman +vigor and beauty and at the same time a body crowned with majesty and +robed in mystery. And I still incline to Percy's opinion. Olga is always +wonderful to me. Her lips are such a soft and melting red, the red of +perfect animal health. The very milkiness of her skin is an +advertisement of that queenly and all-conquering vitality which lifts +her so above the ordinary ruck of humanity. And her great ruminative +eyes are as clear and limpid as any woodland pool. + +She blushes rose color sometimes when Percy comes in. I think he finds a +secret joy in sensing that reaction in anything so colossal. But he +defends himself behind that mask of cool impersonality which is the last +attribute of the mental aristocrat, no matter what his feelings may be. +His attitude toward Terry, by the way, is a remarkably companionable one +in view of the fact of their earlier contentions. They can let by-gones +be by-gones and talk and smoke and laugh together. It is Terry, if any +one, who is just a wee bit condescending. And I imagine that it is the +aura of Olga which has brought about this oddly democratizing condition +of affairs. She seems to give a new relationship to things, softening a +point here and illuminating a point there as quietly as moonlight itself +can do. + + + + +_Monday the Seventeenth_ + + +Yesterday Olga carried home a whole pailful of mushrooms, for an Indian +summer seems to have brought on a second crop of them. They were lovely. +But she refused to eat any. I asked her why. She heaved her huge +shoulders and said she didn't know. But she does, I feel sure, and I've +been wondering why she's afraid of anything that can taste so good, once +they are creamed and heaped on a square of toast. As for me + + I love 'em, I love 'em, and who shall dare + To chide me for loving that mushroom fare? + + + + +_Wednesday the Nineteenth_ + + +I found myself singing for all I was worth as I did my work this +morning. Dinky-Dunk came and stood in the door and said it sounded like +old times. I feel strong again and have ventured to ask my lord and +master if I couldn't have the weentiest gallop on Paddy once more. But +he's made me promise to wait for a week or two. The last two or three +nights have been quite cold, and away off, miles and miles across the +prairie, we can see the glow of fires where different ranchers are +burning their straw, after the wind-stackers have blown it from the +threshing machines. Sometimes it burns all night long. + + + + +_Friday the Twenty-first_ + + +I have this morning found out why Olga won't eat mushrooms. It was very +cold again last night, for this time of year. Percy came over, and we +had a ripping fire and popped Ontario pop-corn with Ontario maple sirup +poured over it. Olga and Olie and Terry all came in and sat about the +stove. And being absolutely happy and contented and satisfied with life +in general, we promptly fell to talking horrors, the same as a cook +stirs lemon juice into her pudding-sauce, I suppose, to keep its +sweetness from being too cloying. That revel in the by-paths of the +Poesque began with Dinky-Dunk's casual reference to the McKinnon ranch +and Percy's inquiry as to why its earlier owner had given it up. So +Dinky-Dunk recounted the story of Andrew Cochrane's death. And it was +noticeable that poor old Olie betrayed visible signs of distress at this +tale of a young ranchman being frozen to death alone in his shack in +mid-winter. So Dinky-Dunk, apparently with malice prepense, enlarged on +his theme, describing how all young Cochrane's stock had starved in +their stalls and how his collie dog which had been chained to a +kennel-box outside the shack had first drawn attention to the tragedy. A +government inspector, in riding past, had noticed the shut-up shack, had +pounded on the door, and had promptly discovered the skeleton of the dog +with a chain and collar still attached to the clean-picked neckbones. +And inside the shack he had found the dead man himself, as life-like, +because of the intense cold, as though he had fallen asleep the night +before. + +It was not a pleasant story, and my efforts to picture the scene gave me +rather a bristly feeling along the pin-feather area of my anatomy. And +again undoubted signs of distress were manifest in poor Olie. The face +of that simple-souled Swede took on such a look of wondering trouble +that Dinky-Dunk deliberately and at great detail told of a ghost that +had been repeatedly seen in an abandoned wickyup a little farther west +in the province. + +And that, of course, fired the Celtic soul of Terry, who told of the +sister of his Ould Counthry master who had once been taken to a +hospital. And just at dusk on the third day after that his young master +was walking down the dark hall. As he passed his sister's door, there +she stood all in white, quietly brushing her hair, as plain as day to +his eyes. And with that the master rushed down-stairs to his mother +asking how Sheila had got back from the hospital. And his old mother, +being slow of movement, started for Sheila's room. But before she so +much as reached the foot of the stairs a neighbor woman came running in, +wiping her eyes with her shawl-end and saying, "Poor Sheila died this +minute over t' the hospital!" I can't tell it as Terry told it, and I +don't know whether he himself believed in it or not, but the huge bulk +of Olie Larson sat there bathed in a fine sweat, with his eyes fixed on +the stove front. He was by no means happy, and yet he seemed unable to +tear himself away, just as Gimlets and I used to sit chained to the spot +while Grandfather Heppelwhite continued to intone the dolorous history +of the "Babes in the Woods" until our ultimate and inevitable collapse +into tears! + +So Percy, who is not without his spirit of ragging, told several +whoppers, which he later confessed came from the Society of Psychical +Research records. And I huskily recounted Uncle Carlton's story of the +neurasthenic lady patient who went into a doctor's office and there +beheld a skull standing on his polished rosewood desk. Then, as she sat +staring at it, this skull started to move slowly toward her. It later +turned out to be only a plaster-of-Paris paper weight, and a mouse had +got inside it and found a piece of cracker there--and a cracker, I had +to explain to Percy, was the name under which a biscuit usually +masqueraded in America. That mouse, in its efforts to get the last of +that cracker, had, of course, shifted the skull along the polished wood. + +This reminded Dinky-Dunk of the three medical students who had tried to +frighten their landlady's daughter by smuggling an arm from the +dissecting room and hiding it under the girl's pillow. Dinky-Dunk even +solemnly avowed that the three men were college chums of his. They +waited to hear the girl's scream, but as there was nothing but silence +they finally stole into the room. And there they saw the girl sitting on +the floor, holding the arm in her hands. As she sat there she was +mumbling to herself and eating one end of it! Of course the poor thing +had gone stark staring mad. + +Olie groaned audibly at this and wiped his forehead with his +coat-sleeve. But before he could get away Terry started to tell of the +four-bottle Irish sea captain who was sober only when at sea and one +night in port stumbled up to bed three sheets in the wind. When he had +navigated into what he thought was his own room he was astounded to find +a man already in bed there, and even drunker than he was himself, too +drunk, in fact, to move. And even the candles had been left burning. +But the old captain climbed over next to the wall, clothes and all, and +would have been fast asleep in two minutes if two stout old ladies +hadn't come in and started to cry and say a prayer or two at the side of +the bed. Thereupon the old captain, muddled as he was, quietly but +inquisitively reached over and touched the man beside him. _And that man +was cold as ice!_ The captain gave one howl and made for the door. But +the old ladies went first, and they all rolled down the stairs one after +the other and the three of them up and ran like the wind. "And niver +wanst did they stop," declared the brogue-mouthing Terry, "till they +lept flat against the sea-wall!" + +Olie, who had moved away to the far end of the table, got up at this +point and went to the door and looked out. He sighed lugubriously as he +stared into the darkness of the night. The outer gloom, apparently, was +too much for him, as he came slowly and reluctantly back to his chair at +the far end of the table and it was plain to see that he was as +frightened as a five-year-old child. The men, I suppose, would have +badgered him until midnight, for Terry had begun a story of a negro +who'd been sent to rob a grave and found the dead man not quite dead. +But I declared that we'd had enough of horrors and declined to hear +anything more about either ghosts or deaders. I was, in fact, getting +just a wee bit creepy along the nerve-ends myself. And Babe whimpered a +little in his cradle and brought us all suddenly back from the Wendigo +Age to the time of the kerosene lamp. "Fra' witches and warlocks," I +solemnly intoned, "fra' wurricoos and evil speerits, and fra' a' ferly +things that wheep and gang bump in the nicht, Guid Lord deliver us!" And +that incantation, I feel sure, cleared the air for both my own +sprite-threatened offspring and for the simple-minded Olie himself, +although Dinky-Dunk explained that my Scotch was rather worse than the +stories. + +But it was this morning after breakfast that I learned from Olga why she +never cared to eat mushrooms. And all day long her story has been +hanging between me and the sun, like a cloud. Not that there is +anything so wonderful about the story itself, outside of its naked +tragedy. But I think it was more the way that huge placid-eyed girl told +it, with her broken English and her occasional pauses to grope after the +right word. Or perhaps it was because it came as such a grim reality +after the trifling grotesqueries of the night before. At any rate, as I +heard it this morning it seemed as terrible as anything in Tolstoi's +_Heart of Darkness_, and more than once sent my thoughts back to the +sorrows of the house of OEdipus. It startled me a little, too, for I +never thought to catch an echo of Greek tragedy out of the full soft +lips of a Finnish girl who was helping me wash my breakfast dishes. + +It began as I was deciding on my dinner menu, and looked to see if all +our mushrooms had been used up. That prompted me to ask the girl why she +never ate them. I could see a barricaded look come into her eyes but she +merely shrugged and said that sometimes they were poison and killed +people. I told her that this was absurd and that any one with ordinary +intelligence soon got to know a meadow mushroom when he saw one. But +sometimes, Olga insisted, they were death cups. If you ate a death cup +you died, and nothing could save you. I tried to convince her that this +was just a peasant superstition, but she announced that she had seen +death cups, many of them, and had seen people who had been killed by +them. And then brokenly, and with many heavy gestures of hesitation, she +told me the story. + +Nearly seventy miles northwest of us, up near her old home, so she said, +a Pole named Andrei Przenikowski and his wife used to live. They had one +son, whose name was Jozef. They were poor, always poor, and could never +succeed. So when Jozef was fifteen years old he went to the coast to +make his fortune. And the old father and mother had a hard time of it, +for old Andrei found it no easy thing to get about, having had his feet +frozen years before. He stumped around like a hen with frost-bitten +claws, Olga said, and his wife, old as she was, had to help him in the +fields. One whole winter, he told Olga's father, they had lived on +turnips. But season after season dragged on, and still they existed, God +knows how. Of Jozef they never heard again. But with Jozef himself it +was a different story. The boy went up to Alaska, before the days of the +Klondike strike. There he worked in the fisheries, and in the lumber +camps, and still later he joined a mining outfit. Then he went in to the +Yukon. + +That was twelve years after he had first left home. He was a strong man +by this time and spoke English very well. And the next year he struck +luck, and washed up a great deal of gold, thousands of dollars' worth of +gold. But he saved it all, for he had never forgotten the old folks on +their little farm. So he gathered up his money and went down to Seattle, +and then crossed to Vancouver. From there he made his way back to his +old home, dressed like a man of the world and wearing a big gold watch +and chain and a gold ring. And when he walked in on the old folks they +failed to recognize him--and that Jozef thought the finest of jokes. He +filled the little sod-covered shack with his laughter, for he was happy. +He knew that for the rest of their days their troubles had all ended. So +he walked about and made plans, but still he did not tell them who he +was. It was so good a joke that he intended to make the most of it. But +he said that he had news of their Jozef, who was not so badly off for a +ne'er-do-well. Before he left the next day, he promised, they should be +told about their boy. And he laughed again and slapped his pocketful of +gold and the two old folks sat blinking at him in awe, until he +announced that he was hungry and confided to them that his friend Jozef +had once told him there were wonderful mushrooms round-about at that +season of the year. + +Andrei and his wife talked together in the cow-shed, before the old man +hobbled out to gather the mushrooms. Poverty and suffering had made them +hard and the sight of this stranger with so much gold was too much for +them. So it was a plate full of death cups which Andrei's wife cooked +for the brown-faced stranger with the loud laugh. And they stood about +and watched him eat them. Then he died, as Andrei knew he must die. But +the old woman hid in the cow-shed until it was over, for it took some +time. Together then the old couple searched the dead man's bags and his +pockets. They found papers and certain marks on his body. They knew then +that they had murdered their own son. The old man hobbled all the way to +the nearest village, where he sent a letter to Olga's father and bought +a clothes-line to take home. The journey took him an entire day. With +that clothes-line Andrei Przenikowski and his wife hanged themselves, +from one of the rafters in the cow-shed. + +Olga said that she was only five years old then, but she remembered +driving over with the others, after the letter had come to her father's +place. She can still remember seeing the two old bodies hanging side by +side and twisting slowly about in the wind. And she saw what was left of +the mushrooms. She says she can never forget it and dreams of it quite +often. And Olga is not what you would call emotional. She told me, as +she dried her hands and hung up the dish-pan, that she can still see her +people staring down at what was left of that plate of poisoned death +cups, which had turned quite black, almost as black as the dead man she +saw them lift up on the dirty bed. + + + + +_Monday the Twelfth_ + + +Yesterday was Sunday and Olga in her best bib and tucker sat out in the +sun with Dinky-Dink. She seemed perfectly happy merely to hold him. I +looked out, to make sure he was all right, for a few days before Olga +had nearly given me heart failure by balancing my boy on one huge hand, +as though he were a mutton-chop, so that the adoring Olie might see him +kick. As I stood watching Olga crooning above Buddy Boy, Percy rode up. +Then he came over and joined Olga, who carefully lifted up the veil +covering Dinky-Dink's face, and showed him off to the somewhat +intimidated Percy. Percy poked a finger at him, and made absurd noises, +and felt his legs as Olga directed and then sat down in front of Olga. + +They talked there for a long time, quite oblivious of everything about +them. At least Percy talked, for Olga's replies seemed mostly +monosyllabic. But she kept bathing him in that mystic moonlight stare +of hers and sometimes she showed her teeth in a slow and wistful sort of +smile. Percy clattered on, quite unconscious that I was standing in the +doorway staring at him. They seemed to be great pals. And I've been +wondering what they talked about. + + + + +_Wednesday the Fourteenth_ + + +To-day after dinner Dinky-Dunk took the Boy and held him up on Paddy's +back, where he looked like a bump on a log. And that started me thinking +that it wouldn't be so long before my little Snoozerette had a pony of +his own and would be cantering off across the prairie like a monkey on a +circus horse. For I want my boy to ride, and ride well. And then a +little later he would be cantering off to school. And then it wouldn't +be such a great while before he'd be hitting the trail side by side with +some clear-eyed prairie girl on a dappled pinto, and I'd be a +silvery-haired old lady wondering if that clear-eyed girl was good +enough for my son! And there I was, as usual, dreaming of the future! + +All day long the fact that Dinky-Dunk is getting extravagant has been +hitting me just under the fifth rib. So I asked him if we could really +afford a six-cylinder car with tan slip-covers and electric lights. +"Afford it?" he echoed, "of course we can afford it. We can afford +anything. Hang it all, our lean days are over and we haven't had the +imagination to wake up to the fact. And d'you know what I'm going to do +if certain things come my way? I'm going to send you and the Babe down +to New York for the winter!" + +"And where will you be?" I promptly inquired. The look of mingled pride +and determination went out of his face. + +"Oh, I'll have to hang around the Polar regions up here to look after +things. But you and the Boy have got to have your chance. And I'll come +down for two weeks at Easter and bring you home with me!" + +"And will you be enjoying it up here?" I inquired. + +"Of course I won't," acknowledged Dinky-Dunk. "But think what it will +mean to you, Gee-Gee, to have a few months in the city again! And think +what you've been missing!" + +"Goosey-goosey-gander!" I said as I got his foolish old head in +Chancery. "I want you to listen to me. There's nothing I've been +missing. And you are plum locoed, Honey Chile, if you think I could ever +be happy away from you, in New York or any other city. And I wouldn't go +there for the winter if you gave me the Plaza and all the Park for a +back yard!" + +That declaration of mine seemed to puzzle him. "But think what it would +mean to the Boy!" he contended. + +"Well, what?" I demanded. + +"Oh, good--er--good pictures and music and all that sort of thing!" he +vaguely explained. I couldn't help laughing at him. + +"But, Dinky-Dunk, don't you think Babe's a month or so too young to take +up Debussy and the Post-Impressionists, you big, foolish, adorable old +muddle-headed captor of helpless ladies' hearts!" And I firmly announced +that he could never, never get rid of me. + + + + +_Thursday the Fifteenth_ + + +Now that Olga is working altogether inside with me she is losing quite a +little of her sunburn. Her skin is softer and she has acquired a little +more of the Leonardo di Vinci look. She almost seems to be getting +spiritualized--but it may be simply because she's lengthened her skirts. +She loves Babe, and, I'm afraid, is rather spoiling him. I find her a +better and better companion, not only because she talks more, but +because she seems in some way to be climbing up to a newer level. +Between whiles, I'm teaching her to cook. She learns readily, and is +proud of her progress. But the thing of which she is proudest is her +corsets. And they _do_ make a difference. Even Dinky-Dunk has noticed +this. Yesterday he stood and stared after her. + +"By gum," he sagely remarked, "that girl is getting a figure!" Men are +so absurd. When this same Olga was going about half uncovered he never +even noticed her. Now that she's mystified her nether limbs with a +little drapery he stands staring after her as though she were a Venus de +Milo come to life. And Olga is slowly but surely losing a little of her +Arcadian simplicity. Yesterday I caught her burning up her cowhide +boots. She is ashamed of them. And she is spending most of her money on +clothes, asking me many strange questions as to apparel and carrying off +my fashion magazines to her bedroom for secret perusal. For the first +time in her life she is using cold cream. And the end seems to justify +the means, for her skin is now like apple blossoms. Rodin, I feel sure, +would have carried that woman across America on his back, once to have +got her into his atelier! + +Last week I persuaded Terry to take a try at Meredith and lent him my +green cloth copy of _Harry Richmond_. Three days ago I found the seventh +page turned down at the corner, and suspecting that this marked the +final frontier of his advance, I tied a strand of green silk thread +about the volume. It was still there this morning, though Terry daily +and stoutly maintains that he's getting on grand with that fine green +book of mine! But at noon to-day when Dinky-Dunk got back from Buckhorn +he handed Terry a parcel, and I noticed the latter glanced rather +uneasily about as he unwrapped it. This afternoon I discovered that it +held two new books in paper covers. One was _The Hidden Hand_ and the +other was called _The Terror of Tamaraska Gulch_. Terry, of late, has +been doing his reading in his own room. And Nick Carter, apparently, is +not to be so easily displaced. But a man who can make you read his books +for the third time must be a genius. If I were an author, that's the +sort of man I'd envy. And I think I'll try Percival Benson with _The +Terror of Tamaraska Gulch_ when Terry is through with it! + + + + +_Friday the Sixteenth_ + + +We were just finishing dinner to-day, and an uncommonly good one it +seemed to me, and I was looking contentedly about my little family +circle, wondering what more life could hold for a big healthy hulk of a +woman like me, when the drone and purr of an approaching motor-car broke +through the sound of our talk. Dinky-Dunk, in fact, was laying down the +law about the farmer of the West, maintaining that he was a +broader-spirited and bigger-minded man than his brother of the East, and +pointing out that the westerner's wife was a queen who if she had little +ease at least had great honor. And I was just thinking that one glorious +thing about this same queen was that she at least escaped from all the +twentieth-century strain and dislocation in the relationship between +city men and women, when the hum of that car brought me back to earth +and reminded me that I might have a tableful of guests to feed. The car +itself drew up, with a flutter of its engine, half-way between the shack +and the corral, and at that sound I imagine we all rather felt like +Robinson Crusoes listening to the rattle of an anchor cable in Juan +Fernandez's quietest bay. And through the open window I could make out a +huge touring-car pretty well powdered with dust and with no less than +six men in it. + +Terry, all eyes, dove for the window, and Olie, all mouth, for the door. +Olga leaned half-way across the table to look out, and I did a little +staring myself. The only person who remained quiet was Dinky-Dunk. He +knocked out his pipe, stuck it in his pocket, put on his hat and caught +up a package of papers from his work table. Then he stalked out, with +his gray fighting look about the eyes. He went out just as one of the +bigger men was about to step down from the car, so that the bigger man +changed his mind and climbed back in his seat, like a king reascending +his throne. And they all sat there so sedate and non-committal and +dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette, +that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take +my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop! + +I could see my lord walk right up to the running-board, with curt little +nods to his visitors, and I knew by the trim of his shoulders that there +was trouble ahead. Yet they started talking quietly enough. But inside +of two minutes my Dinky-Dunk was shaking his fist in the face of one of +the younger and bigger men and calling him a liar and somewhat +tautologically accusing him of knowing that he was a liar and that he +always had been one. This altogether ungentlemanly language naturally +brought forth language quite as ungentlemanly from the accused, who +stood up in the car and took his turn at dancing about and shaking his +own fist. And then the others seemed to take sides, and voices rose to a +shout, and I saw that there was going to be another fight at Casa +Grande--and I promptly decided to be in it. So off went my apron and +out I went. + +It was funny. For, oddly enough, the effect of my entrance on the scene +was like that on a noisy class-room at the teacher's return. The tumult +stopped, rather sheepishly, and that earful of men instinctively slipped +on their armor plate of over-obsequious sex gallantry. They knew I +wasn't a low-brow. I went right up to them, though something about their +funereal discomfiture made me smile. So Dinky-Dunk, mad as a wet hen +though he was, had to introduce every man-jack of them to me! One was a +member of Parliament, and another belonged to some kind of railway +committee, and another was a road construction official, and another was +a mere capitalist who owned two or three newspapers. The man Dinky-Dunk +had been calling a liar was a civil engineer, although it seemed to me +that he had been acting decidedly uncivil. They ventured a platitude +about the beautiful Indian summer weather and labored out a ponderous +joke or two about such a bad-tempered man having such a good-looking +wife--for which I despised them all. But I could see that even if my +intrusion had put the soft pedal on their talk it had also left +everything uncomfortably tentative and non-committal. For some reason or +other this was a man's fight, one which had to be settled in a man's +way. So I decided to retire with outward dignity even if with inward +embarrassment. But I resented their uncouth commercial gallantry almost +as much as I abominated their trying to bully my True Love. And I gave +them one Parthian shot as I turned away. + +"The last prize-fight I saw was in a sort of _souteneur's_ cabaret in +the Avenue des Tilleuls," I sweetly explained to them. "But that was +nearly three years ago. So if there is going to be a bout in my back +yard, I trust you gentlemen will be so good as to call me!" + +And smiling up into their somewhat puzzled faces, I turned on my heel +and went into the house. One of the men laughed loud and deep, at this +speech of mine, and a couple of the others seemed to sit puzzling over +it. Yet two minutes after I was inside the shack that most uncivil civil +engineer and Dinky-Dunk were at it again. Their language was more than I +should care to repeat. The end of it was, however, that the six dusty +pallbearers all stepped stiffly down out of their car and Dinky-Dunk +shouted for Olie and Terry. At first I thought it was to be a duel, only +I couldn't make out how it could be fought with a post-hole augur and a +few lengths of jointed gaspipe, for this was what the men carried away +with them. + +Away across the prairie I could see them apparently engaged in the silly +and quite profitless occupation of putting down a post-hole where it +wasn't in the least needed, and then clustering about this hole like a +bunch of professorial bigwigs about a new specimen on a microscope +slide. Then they moved on and made another hole, and still another, +until I got tired of watching them. It was two hours later before they +came back. Their voices now seemed more facetious and there was more +laughing and joking, Dinky-Dunk and the uncivil civil engineer being the +only quiet ones. And then the car engine purred and hummed and they +climbed heavily in and lighted cigars and waved hands and were off in a +cloud of dust. + +But Dinky-Dunk, when he came back to the shack with his papers, was in +no mood for talking. And I knew better than to try to pump him. To-night +he came in early for supper and announced that he'd have to leave for +Winnipeg right away and might even have to go on to Ottawa. So I cooked +his supper and packed his bag and held Babe up for him to kiss good-by. +But still I didn't bother him with questions, for I was afraid of bad +news. And he knew that I knew I could trust him. + +He kissed me good-by in a tragically tender, or rather a tenderly tragic +sort of way, which made me wonder for a moment if he was possibly never +coming back again. So I made 'em all wait while I took one extra, for +good measure, in case I should be a grass widow for the rest of my +days. + +To-night, however, I sat Terry down at the end of the table and third +degreed him to the queen's taste. The fight, as far as I can learn from +this circuitous young Irishman, is all about a right of way through our +part of the province. Dinky-Dunk, it seems, has been working for it for +over a year. And the man he called wicked names had been sent out by the +officials to report on the territory. My husband claims he was bribed by +the opposition party and turned in a report saying our district was +without water. He also proclaimed that our land--_our_ land, mark +you!--was unvaryingly poor and inferior soil! No wonder my Dinky-Dunk +had stormed! Then Terry rather disquieted me by chortlingly announcing +that they had put one over on the whole bunch. For, three days before, +he'd quietly put down twenty soil and water-test holes and carefully +filled them in again. But he'd found what he was after. And that little +army of paid knockers, he acknowledged, had been steered into the +neighborhood where the soil was deepest and the water was nearest. And +that soon showed who the liar was, for of course everything came out as +Dinky-Dunk wanted it to come out! + +But this phase of it I didn't discuss with Terry, for I had no desire to +air my husband's moral obliquities before his hired man. Yet I am still +disturbed by what I have heard. Oh, Dinky-Dunk, I never imagined you +were one bit sly, even in business! + + + + +_Sunday the Eighteenth_ + + +Olie and Terry seem convinced of the fact that Dinky-Dunk's farming has +been a success. We have saved all our wheat crop, and it's a whopper. +Terry, with his crazy Celtic enthusiasms, says that by next year they'll +be calling Dinky-Dunk the Wheat King of the West. Olga and Percy went +buggy riding this afternoon. I wish I had some sort of scales to weight +my Snoozerette. I know he's doubled in the last three weeks. + + + + +_Sunday the Twenty-fifth_ + + +My Dinky-Dunk is home again. He looks a little tired and hollow-eyed, +but when the Boy crowed and smiled up at him his poor tired face +softened so wonderfully that it brought the tears to my eyes. I finally +persuaded him to stop petting Babe and pay a little attention to me. +After supper he opened up his extra hand-bag and hauled out the heaps of +things he'd brought Babe and me. Then I sat on his knee and held his +ears and made him blow away the smoke, every shred of it, so I could +kiss him in my own particular places. + + + + +_Tuesday the Twenty-seventh_ + + +Dinky-Dunk has sailed off to Buckhorn to do some telegraphing he should +have done Saturday night. My suspicions about his slyness, by the way, +were quite unfounded. It was the guileless-eyed Terry who led those +railway officials out to the spot where he'd already secretly tested for +water and found signs of it. And Terry can't even understand why +Dinky-Dunk is so toweringly angry about it all! + + + + +_Wednesday the Twenty-eighth_ + + +When Dinky-Dunk came in last night, after his drive out from Buckhorn, +there was a look on his face that rather frightened me. I backed him up +against the door, after he'd had a peep at the Boy, and said, "Let me +smell your breath, sir!" For with that strange light in his eyes I +surely thought he'd been drinking. "Lips that touch liquor," I sang, +"shall never touch mine!" + +But I was mistaken. And Dinky-Dunk only laughed in a quiet inward +rumbling sort of way that was new to him. "I believe I am drunk, Boca +Chica," he solemnly confessed, "drunk as a lord!" Then he took both my +hands in his. + +"D'you know what's going to happen?" he demanded. And of course I +didn't. Then he hurled it point-blank at me. + +"_The railway's going to come!_" + +"Come where?" I gasped. + +"Come here, right across our land! It's settled. And there's no mistake +about it this time. Inside of ten months there'll be choo-choo cars +steaming past Casa Grande!" + +"Skookum!" I shouted. + +"And there'll be a station within a mile of where you stand! And inside +of two years this seventeen or eighteen hundred acres of land will be +worth forty dollars an acre, easily, and perhaps even fifty. And what +that means you can figure out for yourself!" + +"Whoopee!" I gasped, trying in vain to figure out how much forty times +seventeen hundred was. + +But that was not all. It would do away with the road haul to the +elevator, which might have taken most of the profit out of his grain +growing. To team wheat into Buckhorn would have been a terrible +discount, no matter what luck he might have with his crops. So he'd been +moving heaven and earth to get the steel to come his way. He'd pulled +wires and interviewed members and guaranteed a water-tank supply and +promised a right of way and made use of his old engineering +friends--until his battle was won. And his last fight had been against +the liar who'd sent in false reports about his district. But that was +over now, and Casa Grande will no longer be the jumping-off place of +civilization, the dot on the wilderness. It will be on the time-tables +and the mail-routes, and I know my Dinky-Dunk will be the first mayor of +the new city, if there ever is a city to be mayor of! + + + + +_Friday the Thirtieth_ + + +Dinky-Dunk came in at noon to-day, tiptoed over to the crib to see if +the Boy was all right, and then came and put his hands on my shoulders, +looking me solemnly in the eye: "What do you suppose has happened?" he +demanded. + +"Another railroad," I ventured. + +He shook his head. Of course it was useless for me to try to guess. I +pushed my finger against Dinky-Dunk's Adam's apple and asked him what +the news was. + +"Percival Benson Woodhouse has just calmly announced to me that, next +week, _he's going to marry Olga_," was my husband's answer. + +And he wondered why I smiled. + + + + +_Sunday the First_ + + +Little Dinky-Dink is fast asleep in his hand-carved Scandinavian cradle. +The night is cool, so we have a fire going. Big Dinky-Dunk, who has been +smoking his pipe, is sitting on one side of the table, and I am sitting +on the other. Between us lies the bundle of house-plans which have just +been mailed up to us from Philadelphia. This is the second night we've +pored over them. And we've decided what we're to do at Casa Grande. +We're to have a telephone, as soon as the railway gets through, and a +wind-mill and running water, and a new barn with a big soft-water tank +at one end, and a hot-water furnace in the new house and sleeping +porches and a butler's pantry and a laundry chute--and next winter in +California, if we want it. And Dinky-Dunk blames himself for never +having had brains enough to plant an avenue or two of poplars or +Manitoba maples about Casa Grande, for now we'll have to wait a few +years for foliage and shade. And he intends to have a playground for +little Dinky-Dink, for he agrees with me that our boy must be strong and +manly and muscular, and must not use tobacco in any form until he is +twenty at least. And Dinky-Dunk has also agreed that I shall do all the +punishing--if any punishing is ever necessary! His father, by the way, +has just announced that he wants Babe to go to McGill and then to +Oxford. But I have been insisting on Harvard, and I shall be firm about +this. + +That promised to bring us to a dead-lock, so we went back to our +house-plans again, and Dinky-Dunk pointed out that the new living-room +would be bigger than all our present shack and the annex put together. +And that caused me to stare about our poor little cat-eyed cubby-hole of +a wickyup and for the first time realize that our first home was to be +wiped off the map. And nothing would ever be the same again, and even +the prairie over which I had stared in my joy and my sorrow would +always be different! A lump came in my throat. And when Olga came in and +I handed Dinky-Dink to her she could see that my lashes were wet. But +she couldn't understand. + +So I slipped over to the piano and began to play. Very quietly I sang +through Herman Lohr's Irish song that begins: + + In the dead av the night, acushla, + When the new big house is still ... + +But before I got to the last two verses I'm afraid my voice was rather +shaky. + + In the dead av the year, acushla, + When me wide new fields are brown, + I think av a wee ould house, + At the edge av an ould gray town! + + I think av the rush-lit faces, + Where the room and loaf was small: + _But the new years seem the lean years, + And the ould years, best av all!_ + +Dinky-Dunk came and stood close beside me. "Has my Gee-Gee a big sadness +in her little prairie heart?" he asked as he slipped his arms about me. +But I was sniffling and couldn't answer him. And the cling of his +blessed big arms about me only seemed to make everything worse. So I was +bawling openly when he held up my face and helped himself to what must +have been a terribly briny kiss. But I slipped away into my bedroom, for +I'm not one of those apple-blossom women who can weep and still look +pretty. And for two blessed hours I've been sitting here, Matilda Anne, +wondering if our new life will be as happy as our old life was.... Those +old days are over and gone, and the page must be turned. And on that +last page I was about to write "_Tamam shud_." But kinglike and +imperative through the quietness of Casa Grande I hear the call of my +beloved little _tenor robusto_--and if it is the voice of hunger it is +also the voice of hope! + +THE END + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Adventures of Jimmie Dale, The. By Frank L. Packard. +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. +After House, The. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +Ailsa Paige. By Robert W. Chambers. +Alton of Somasco. 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By Randall Parrish. +Strawberry Acres. By Grace S. Richmond. +Sudden Jim. By Clarence B. Kelland. +Tales of Sherlock Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle. +Tarzan of the Apes. By Edgar R. Burroughs. +Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. By Edgar Rice Burroughs. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Popular Copyright Novels +_AT MODERATE PRICES_ + +Ask Your Dealer for a Complete List of A. L. Burt Company's Popular +Copyright Fiction + +Tempting of Tavernake, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Tess of the D'Urbervilles. By Thos. Hardy. +Thankful's Inheritance. By Joseph C. Lincoln. +That Affair Next Door. By Anna Katharine Green. +That Printer of Udell's. By Harold Bell Wright. +Their Yesterdays. By Harold Bell Wright. +Thirteenth Commandment, The. By Rupert Hughes. +Three of Hearts, The. By Berta Ruck. +Three Strings, The. By Natalie Sumner Lincoln. +Threshold, The. By Marjorie Benton Cooke. +Throwback, The. By Alfred Henry Lewis. +Tish. By Mary Roberts Rinehart. +To M. L. G.; or, He Who Passed. Anon. +Trail of the Axe, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Trail to Yesterday, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer. +Treasure of Heaven, The. By Marie Corelli. +Triumph, The. By Will N. Harben. +T. Tembarom. By Frances Hodgson Burnett. +Turn of the Tide. By Author of "Pollyanna.". +Twenty-fourth of June, The. By Grace S. Richmond. +Twins of Suffering Creek, The. By Ridgwell Cullum. +Two-Gun Man, The. By Chas. A. Seltzer. +Uncle William. By Jeannette Lee. +Under Handicap. By Jackson Gregory. +Under the Country Sky. By Grace S. Richmond. +Unforgiving Offender, The. By John Reed Scott. +Unknown Mr. Kent, The. By Roy Norton. +Unpardonable Sin, The. By Major Rupert Hughes. +Up From Slavery. By Booker T. Washington. +Valiants of Virginia, The. By Hallie Ermine Rives. +Valley of Fear, The. By Sir A. Conan Doyle. +Vanished Messenger, The. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. +Vanguards of the Plains. By Margaret Hill McCarter. +Vashti. 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Phillips Oppenheim. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +1. Punctuation has been normalized to contemporary standards. +2. Added Table of Contents not in original edition. +3. 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