Sally of Missouri Part 2

"Well, now," he said, playing with the little joy of being understood, "haven't they the court-house at Canaan? And the railroad? And haven't they Miss Betsy,--or Miss--Miss----"

"Sally."

"Ah, yes, Sally! Know Sally, son?"

"Ev'body in the Tigmores knows her."

"I am beginning to want to know Sally myself." Bruce let his eyes go drowsing toward the pale river up which the slow rain was beating, and talked foolishness idly: "Red-cheeked Sally! Freckled Sally! Roly-poly Sally! What's a Missouri girl like anyway, Piney?"

"Wy, people think she's purty," protested the boy with a quick palpitant shyness, "an' most people l----," he stopped trying to talk, laughing brusquely and flus.h.i.+ng with a very young man's self-consciousness.

"All of which goes to prove me an a.s.s," cried Bruce, "for talking about a lady whom I have never seen." Looking repentantly at Piney, he felt a sudden ache for him. He was not very familiar with conditions in Canaan, but it occurred to him suddenly that even in Canaan there might be social gradations, and that the tramp-boy, rare little chap though he seemed to be, was probably miles away from the daughter of the promoter, Mr. Crittenton Madeira. "I retract, Piney," he added gravely.

"Aw!--not as I keer whut you say abaout her,--or whut anybody says."

Piney slashed at some brilliant sumach by the wayside and his mobile lips jerked and quivered.

"I should have supposed that she was older--well, than you," said Bruce, trying to set himself right.

"May be in what she knows,--aint in what she feels,--not as I keer----"

The boy was so deliciously new to his own emotions that they flashed away beyond his control, minute by minute. His eyes looked misty, with a little spark of high light cutting bravely through. He would not finish his sentence. "Did Unc' Bernique say whend he's comin' back to Canaan?" he asked moodily.

"No, he didn't, though I urged him to. That's a fine old man, Piney."

Piney's eyes softened beautifully. "Takes mighty good keer of me," he said.

"Is he kin to you?"

"I d'n know abaout that. He's took my side always. Y'see, I aint got no people an' I just ride araoun'. Y'see,"--Piney quivered with boyish fire,--"I just _got_ to ride araoun'. I cayn't stay on no farm an' in no haouse. Kills me. I got to git to the woods an' the hills. An' Unc'

Bernique he stands by me, an' keeps me in his shack whend they's any trouble abaout it. Y'see, some people think I oughter--oughter work!"

Piney laughed from the gay, melodious depths of his vagabond heart and Bruce laughed with him. "An' Unc' Bernique has he'ped me abaout that,"

explained the tramp-boy. He let his dancing eyes dart off to the west where the hills were shouldering into a thickening drift of grey. "Hi, look yonder!" he cried. "We got to cut and run to git to Poetical before that rain."

So they cut and ran, the boy setting the pace and singing l.u.s.tily, with that high melody of voice, as of temperament, of his, as they dashed down the road in the first cool scattering pelt of the rain. "Want to go to the _ho_tel, don't you?" he called over his shoulder, and Bruce called yes. It was grey, rainy twilight now, and through the gloom five or six houses sprawled out across the little plateau toward which the road twisted. Some geese flew up under the feet of the horses, squawking wildly, some "razor-back" hogs grunted from the dust-wallows, some cow-bells tinkled, some small yellow spheres of light shone through windows.

"How far from Poetical, Piney?" shouted Steering.

"'Baout a foot," answered Piney. He made his lightning-like pony go more slowly so that Bruce's horse might come alongside, and he shook his head, his ready sympathy again on his face. "Say, it's goin' to be kinder tough on you to stay here to-night, aint it? This is ev' spittin'

bit there is tew Poetical. Here's the _ho_tel."

They drew rein before a rickety two-story frame building and Bruce lifted his shoulders shudderingly. A man came out on the hotel porch, said "Howdy," and waited.

"Say,"--Piney in a lower tone, voiced a notion that evidently drifted in to him on the high tide of his sympathy,--"why don't you ride over to Mist' Crit Madeira's? Taint so far. I'll show you the way. They cand take care of you over tha'. They'd be glad to have you. You cand caount on that. It's that-a-way in Mizzourah." The boy's conscientious earnestness was sweet. He was in good spirits again and he whisked one roughly-booted foot out of its stirrup and laid it across his saddle-horn, while he regarded Bruce. "You cand git ter see Miss Sally ef you do that," he added, pursing up his lips, a subtle sense of humour on his face. "You cand see what Mizzourah girls are like."

"Now come, Piney, you know I've been thinking everything beautiful about Miss Sally since I found out--something----"

"Aw! Tisn't no such thing. She jes likes to hear me sing. _You're crazy!_" The tramp-boy's young voice had its fas.h.i.+on of breaking and shrilling into a high soprano, like a girl's, for emphasis; he was as red as a beet, and he put his foot back in the stirrup, thrust out his under jaw and looked at the stirrup as though he had to determine how much wood had gone into its making. Again Bruce was conscious of a little ache for the boy. "But you go on over tha'," insisted Piney.

"No! Thank you for trying to look out for me, son, but I shouldn't like to do that. Oh, I can stand this all right," cried Bruce, with a flare of big bravery and, turning to face the hotel, was seized by his loneliness so violently that he shuddered again. "Here Piney!" he cried on a sudden inspiration, "why won't you come in and stay with me? Huh?

How would that suit you? We can talk and smoke."

"Naw," Piney extended his hand and shook his head, as though to push the hotel out of the range of possibilities for him, "I couldn't. Much oblige'. But I cayn't sleep in haouses. Got to git back to the shack in the woods. Wisht you'd go on over to Madeira's."

"No. I'll buck it out here alone," lamented Bruce. He hated to lose Piney and take up the gloomy, rainy evening alone on this little, high, remote place in the Missouri hills.

"See you again some day, then," Piney promised in final farewell. "I'm up an' daown the Ridge rat frequent, I'll run 'crosst you."

"Well now, I should hope so," cried Bruce cordially. "Don't you ever come to Canaan?"

"Nope. Hate a taown! But me an' Unc' Bernique will strike you sometime, somewheres along the trail. S'long!"

"So long, Piney, so long!"

The boy turned his pony to the hills. The man on the porch came on out to take charge of Bruce and Bruce's horse. Black night settled down.

Through the darkness cut the sound of the squawking geese, the tinkling cow-bells, the grunting hogs. Lonely, lonely Missouri! Bruce went inside, to sit in a little room upstairs, with his chin in his hand, his eyes staring through the window, his thoughts roaming after Carington, the office on Na.s.sau Street, a girl who was a dainty fluff of lace and silk. In his ears rang the sound of Carington's voice: "Why don't you try Missouri,--Miss Gossamer sails,--Why don't you try Missouri,--Miss Gossamer sails--" a faint, recedent measure, and intermingling with it the sound of a boy's voice singing gaily on the misty hills:

"_A tater's good 'ith 'la.s.ses._"

Steering leaned far out of the window, eager for the lad's music. It was so sweet.

_Chapter Three_

THE PROMISED LAND

From the remotest beginning of things for the Southwest, Canaan had been a "gre't taown." From the beginning she had been the county seat, and from the beginning there had poured through her one long street, with its two or three short tributaries, the whole volume of business of Tigmore County; the strawberries, the chickens, the ginseng. Almost from the beginning, too, she had had the newspaper and the hotel and some talk about a bank. Canaanites held their heads high. So high that when it began to be rumoured that the railroad was showing a disposition to curve down toward Tigmore County, the Canaanites, unable to see past their noses, appointed a committee to go up to Jefferson City to protest to the Legislature against the proposed innovation. The committee contended to the Legislature that the railroad would cut off trade by starting up rival towns. It also contended that ox-teams had been used for many years and were reliable, rain or s.h.i.+ne, whereas in wet weather the railroad tracks would get slick and be impracticable. Moreover, and moreunder, there was no danger of an ox-team blowin' up and bustin' and killin' somebody.

The railroad was melted to acquiescence by the appeal, and went its way some ten miles west of Canaan. Towns sprang into being along the line of the serpent's coil. Canaan said all right, but wait till the spring rains come. The rains came, the trains went by over the slick tracks gracefully. Canaan said all right, but wait till something busts. Time pa.s.sed, nothing busted. The County was careening westward. There was no stopping it. Canaan kept her head high, but her heart grew as cold as ice. Then the paper up at the new railroad station of Shaleville crudely referred to Canaan as "that benighted hamlet." It was too much. When Crittenton Madeira reached Canaan from St. Louis, the first thing that he proposed for the city of his adoption was the Canaan Short Line, and, coming at the opportune moment, the consummation of that proposition placed Madeira at the head of Canaan's munic.i.p.al life for the rest of his days. In a very short time after he came to Canaan, Canaan not only had a railroad, but her own railroad. Rea.s.sured, bland, she caught step with progress, by and by saw that she was progress, and settled back into her old superiority. Her trade prospered anew, the cotton came to her depot, she got accustomed to the noise of her two trains daily, and had lived through many contented years when the twentieth of September of 1899 opened up like a rose, fair, fragrance-laden, warm, around her.

Out on the face of the day there was nothing to suggest change or crisis, nothing to be afraid of, nothing to be hopeful for, a day like yesterday, like to-morrow, a golden link in a golden monotony. At Court House Square, a few farm-teams, strapping mules and big Studebakers, stood at the hitching rail. A few people came and went up and down and across the Square. Occasionally a mean-natured man said "huh-y!" to a cow or "soo-y!" to a hog in the middle of Main Street. Some coatless clerks, with great elbow-deep sleeve protectors on their arms and large lumps of cravats at their throats, lounged in store doors. The most conspicuous, as the most inst.i.tutional, feature of the landscape was the group idling on boxes in front of the old Grange store--just as they had idled on boxes before the war. They were the same men, it was the same store, and it was not inconceivable that they were the same boxes. As the men idled they spat, somewhat to the menace of the pa.s.sers-by, though in defence of this avocation it may be argued that any truly agile person, by watching carefully and seizing opportunity unhesitatingly, could get by undefiled. Sometimes a vehicle rolled into the street toward the Square, and when this happened it was amus.e.m.e.nt to the men to say whose vehicle without looking up--jack-knives, watch-fobs, and other valuables occasionally changing hands on an erring guess between the slow, solemn trot of Mr. Azariah's Pringle's Bess and the duck-like waddling of Mrs. Molly Jenkins' Tom, or between the swinging canter of Miss Sally Madeira's Kentucky blacks and the running walk of the small-hoofed Texas ponies from We-all Prairie. Once a great waggon, piled high with cotton, creaked by; once a burnt-skinned boy, hard as a nut, shrieking with an irrepressible sense of being alive, loped past on a mustang. Once a small, old man, in mean clothes and with a fine bearing, crossed the Square, cracking his whip nervously, his spur clicking on his boot as he walked. Once a large florid man and a tall girl came down the street and entered the door of a two-story brick building next the Grange. The man had an expansive, bl.u.s.tering way. The girl looked as though she were accustomed to admire the man and to badger him; her face was turned up to his adoringly, while her fun-hunting eyes, just sheathed under her lids, gleamed gaily. The building had a plate-gla.s.s window across the front of it, and on the window, in gold letters bordered in black, two legends were flung to the public:

BANK OF CANAAN

CRITTENTON MADEIRA

When the man and the girl had gone into the Bank of Canaan, the group at the Grange stopped gambling on the incoming teams and talked less drowsily.

"Looks like that girl gets purdier and purdier."

"Mighty pleasant ways she keeps. Never gone back on her raisin'. Never got too good for Mizzourah."

"As far as I go, I like her ways better'n her pappy's ways."

"Crit _is_ a little toploftical."