Santa Fe's Partner Part 5

"It is not easy getting along, madam," Santa Fe said. "But we have managed to supply ourselves with a layout--I--that is--I mean we have provided ourselves with some of the simpler articles of most importance; and with these, for the time being, we keep our little pupils' hands and minds not unprofitably employed. For instance, the ivory disks of various colors--which you see arranged upon the table as the pupils have left them--serve very successfully to elucidate the arithmetical processes of numeration, addition, and subtraction; and the more intelligent children are taught to observe that the disks of varying colors are varyingly numbered--white, 1; red, 5, and blue, 10--and so are encouraged to identify a concrete arbitrary figure with an abstract thought."

"That's something new in kindergartening, Mr. Charles," said Hart's aunt; "and it's as good as it can be. I mean to put it right into use in our kindergarten at home. Do you get the disks at the places where they sell kindergarten supplies?"

"Really, madam, I cannot tell you," Santa Fe said. "You see, we ordered what would be needed through an agent East, and these came along. I must warn you, however, that they are expensive," Hart said, remembering what them chips had cost him, one time and another, he allowed to himself Charley was right and they was about as expensive as they could be!

"Our other little appliances, madam," Santa Fe went on, "are just our own makeshift imitations of what you are familiar with--building-blocks, and alphabet-blocks, and dissected pictures, and that sort of thing.

Our local carpenter made the blocks for us, and we put on the lettering ourselves--as, indeed, its poor quality shows. The dissected pictures I am rather proud of, because Mrs. Charles may be said to have invented them." (It really was the Hen who'd made 'em, it turned out.) "The method is simple enough when you have thought of it, of course--and no doubt I value my wife's work unduly because I take so much pride in all that she does. You see, she just pasted pictures from the ill.u.s.trated papers on boards; and then Mr. Williams--our carpenter, you know--sawed the boards into little pieces. And there you are!"

"Now that _was_ bright of her!" said Hart's aunt. "If you don't mind, I'll put one of the pictures together myself right now. I want to see how it looks, made that home-fashioned way."

"I fear that our time is getting a little short, madam," said Santa Fe, in a hurry. "I've got my sermon to finish this afternoon, and I must be going in a few minutes now." The fact of the matter was he had to call her off quick. It seems the Hen hadn't had anything but _Police Gazettes_ to work on--and while the bits looked all right jumbled up, being put together they wouldn't have suited nohow at all.

"Of course I mustn't keep you," said Hart's aunt. "You've been more than kind, Mr. Charles, to give me so much of your valuable time as it is. I'm just like a child myself, wanting to play with dissected pictures that way! But I must say that her making them is a thing for your wife to be proud of--and I hope you'll tell her so for me."

"I guess we'd better be going now, Aunt Maria," Hart said. "Mr.

Charles has his sermon to write, you know, and I want you to have time to eat your supper comfortable before we start down to the train."

"I do suppose we must go," said Hart's aunt. "But I hate to, William, and that's a fact! Just because it's so make-shifty, this is the most interesting kindergarten I've ever been in. When I get home I shall really and truly enjoy telling the folks about it. And I know how pleased they'll be, the same as I am, by finding what earnest-working men and women can do--out here in this rough country--with so little to go on but their wits and their own good hearts!"

And then she faced round sudden on Santa Fe and said: "I see you have your table covered with green, Mr. Charles. What's that for? You've so many good notions about kindergartens that I'd like to know."

"Well, you see, madam, that green cover is a--it's a sort of--"

Charley went slow for a minute, and then got a-hold of the card he wanted and put it down as smooth as you please. "That is an invention, madam," he said, "of my good wife's, too. Out here, where the sun is so violent, she said we must have a green cover on the table or the glare would be ruining all our dear little innocent children's eyes.

And it has worked, madam, to a charm! Some of the children who had bad eyes to start with actually have got well!"

"Well, I do declare!" said Hart's aunt.

"That wife of yours thinks so sensible she just beats all!"

Santa Fe give Hart a look as much as to say he'd got to get his aunt away somehow--seeing she was liable to break out a'most anywheres, and he'd stood about all he could stand. Hart allowed what Charley wanted was reasonable, and he just grabbed her by the arm and begun to lug her to the door. But she managed to give Santa Fe one more jolt, and a bad one, before she was gone.

"I haven't seen what this is," she said; and she broke off from Hart and went to where the wheel was standing covered up in the corner. "I s'pose I may look at it, Mr. Charles?" she said--and before either of 'em could get a-hold of her to stop her she had off the cloth. "For the land's sake!" she said. "Whatever part of a kindergarten have you got here?"

Hart said afterwards his heart went down into his boots, being sure they'd got to a give-away of the worst sort. Santa Fe said he felt that way for a minute himself; then he said he ciphered on it that Hart's aunt likely wouldn't know what she'd struck--and he braced up and went ahead on that chance.

"Ah," he said--speaking just as cool as if he was calling the deal right among friends at his own table--"that is one of the new German kindergarten appliances that even you, madam, may not have seen. We received it as a present from a rich German merchant in Pueblo, who was grieved by our pitiable plight and wanted to do what he could to help us after the fire."

"But what in the name of common-sense," said Hart's aunt, "do you do with it--with all those numbers around in circles, and that little ball?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'ONE OF THE NEW GERMAN KINDERGARTEN APPLIANCES'"]

Charley had himself in good shape by that time, and he put down his words as sure as if they was aces--with more, if needed, up his sleeve. "It is used by our most advanced cla.s.s in arithmetic, madam,"

he said. "The mechanism, you will observe, is arranged to revolve"--he set it a-going--"in such a way that the small sphere also is put in motion. And as the motion ceases"--it was slowing down to a stop--"the sphere comes to rest on one of the numbers painted legibly on either a black or a red ground. The children, seated around the table, are provided with the numerating disks to which I have already called your attention; and--with a varying rapidity, regulated by their individual intelligence--they severally, as promptly as possible, arrange their disks in piles corresponding with the number indicated by the purely fortuitous resting-place of the sphere. The purpose of this ingenious contrivance, as I scarcely need to point out to you, is to combine the amus.e.m.e.nt of a species of game with the mental stimulus that the rapid computation of figures imparts. I may add that we arouse a desirable spirit of emulation among our little ones by providing that the child who first correctly arranges his disks to represent the indicated figure is given--until the game is concluded--the disks of the children whose calculation has been slow, or at fault."

"Well, of all things in the world, Mr. Charles," said Hart's aunt, "to think of my finding such a good thing as this out here in New Mexico--when I've time and again been over the best kindergarten-supply places in Boston, and have been reading all I could lay my hands on about kindergartens for twenty years!"

"Oh, we do try not to be too primitive out here, madam," said Santa Fe, taking a long breath over having got through all right; "and I am even vain enough to think that perhaps we manage to keep pretty well up with the times. But I must say that it is a pleasant surprise to me to find that I have been able to give more than one point to a lady like you, who knows every card--I should say, to whom kindergarten processes are so exceptionally well known.

"And now I really must beg your permission to leave you, that I may return to my sermon. I give much time to my sermons; and I am cheered by the conviction--you must not think me boastful--that it is time well employed. When I look around me and perceive the lawless, and even outrageous, conditions which obtain in so many other towns in the Territory, and contrast them with the orderly rect.i.tude of Palomitas, I rejoice that my humble toil in the vineyard has brought so rich a reward. I deeply regret, madam, that your present stay with us must be so short; and with an equal earnestness I hope that it may be my privilege soon again to welcome you to our happy little town."

Hart's aunt--she was just pleased all over--was beginning to make a speech back to him; but Santa Fe looked so wore out Hart didn't give her the chance to go on. He just grabbed her, and got her away in a hurry--and Charley went to fussing with the cover of the wheel, putting it on again, so she couldn't get at him to shake hands for good-bye. He said afterwards he felt that weak, when he fairly was shut of her, all he could do was to flop down into a chair anyway and sing out to Blister Mike to come and get the sheets off the bar quick and give him his own bottle of Bourbon and a tumbler. And he said he never took so many drinks, one right on top of another, since he was born!

There was more'n the usual crowd down at the deepo that night when the Denver train pulled out--with Hart's aunt in the Pullman, and Hart standing on the Pullman platform telling the boys up to the last minute how much he was obliged.

Things went that same Sunday-school way right on to the end of the game; and Hart said his aunt told him--as they was coming along down to the deepo--she never would a-believed there could be such a town as Palomitas was, out in that wild frontier country, if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes. As to the ladies of the town, he said she told him they certainly was the most domestic she'd ever known!

Hart was so grateful--and he had a right to be--he left a hunderd dollars with Tenderfoot Sal and told her to blow off the town for him that night by running a free bar. Sal done it, right enough--and that turned out to be about the hottest night Palomitas ever had. Most of the trouble was in the dance-hall, where it was apt to be, and had its start, as it did generally, right around the Sage-Brush Hen: who kept on being dressed up in her white frock and wearing her white sun-bonnet, and looked as demure as a cotton-tail rabbit, and cut up so reckless I reckon she about made a record for carryings on! Santa Fe had to fix one feller because of her--shooting him like he was used to, through his pants-pocket--and more'n a dozen got hurt in the ordinary way.

Some of the shooting didn't seem quite as if it was needed; but it was allowed afterwards--even if there hadn't been no free bar--there was excuse for it: seeing the town was all strung up and had to work itself off. Santa Fe, of course, had more excuse than anybody, being most strung-upest. Bluffing his way through that kindergarten game, he said, was the biggest strain he'd ever had. But he didn't mind what trouble he'd took, he said, seeing he'd got Hart out of his hole by taking it; and he looked real pleased when Hill spoke up--just about voicing what all the rest of us was thinking--saying he was ready, after the way he'd played his kindergarten hand, to put his pile on Santa Fe Charley to make iced drinks in h.e.l.l!

Of course Hill oughtn't to have spoke like that. But allowances was to be made for Hill--owing to the ways he'd got into driving mules.

V

BOSTON'S LION-HUNT

As I've said, folks in Palomitas mostly got for names what happened to come handiest and fitted. Likely that dude's cuffs was marked with something he was knowed by; but as most of us wasn't particular what his cuffs was marked, or him either, we just called him Boston--after the town he made out he belonged to--and let it go at that. Big game was what he said he was looking for: and Santa Fe Charley, with Shorty Smith and others helping, saw to it he got all he wanted and some over--but I reckon the exercises would a-been less spirited if the Sage-Brush Hen hadn't chipped in and played a full hand.

He was one of the sporting kind, Boston was, that turned up frequent in the Territory in them days. Most of 'em was friends of officers at some of the posts, with a sprinkling throwed in of sons and nephews of directors of the road. Big game was what they all made out they come for; and they was apt to have about as much use for big game--when they happened to find any--as a cat has for two tails. But they seemed to enjoy letting off ca'tridges--and used to buy what skins was in the market to take home.

Boston turned out to be a nephew--nephews was apt to be worse'n sons for stuck-upness--and he come in one morning in a private car hitched onto the Denver train. He had a colored man along to cook and clean his guns for him--he had more things to shoot with, and of more shapes and sizes, than you ever seen in one place outside of a gun-store--and he was dressed that nice in green corduroys, with new-fangled knives and hunting fixings hanging all over him like he was a Christmas-tree, he might have hired out for a show. He wasn't a bad set-up young feller; but with them green clothes on, and being clean shaved and wearing eye-gla.s.ses, he did look just about what he truly was.

Wood had a wire a director's nephew was coming--he was the agent, Wood was--and orders to side-track his car and see he was took care of; and of course Wood pa.s.sed the word along to the rest of us what sort of a game was on. But he begged so hard, Wood did, the town would hold itself in--saying if rigs was put up on a director's nephew he was dead sure to lose his job--we all allowed we'd give the young feller a day or two to turn round in, anyway; and we promised Wood--who was liked--we'd let the critter get through his hunting picnic without putting up no rigs on him if he made any sort of a show of knowing how to behave. Howsomedever, he didn't--and things started up, and n.o.body but Boston himself to blame for it, that very first night over in the bar-room at the Forest Queen.

He had Wood in to supper with him in his car, Boston did, the darky cooking it; and Wood said--except it begun with their having pickled green plums, and some sort of messed-up stuff that tasted like spoilt salt fish and made him feel sickish--it was the best supper he ever eat. Each of 'em had a bottle of iced wine, he said; and he said they topped off with coffee that only wanted milk to make it a real wonder, and a drink like rock-and-rye, but chalks better, and such seegars as he'd never smoked in his born days.

All the time they was hashing--and Wood said he reckoned they was at it a'most a full hour--Boston kept a-telling what a h.e.l.l of a one (that was the sort of careless way Wood put it) he was at big-game hunting; but Wood judged--taking all his talk together--the only thing he'd ever really shot bigger'n a duck or a pa'tridge was a deer the dogs had chased into a pond for him so it hadn't no chance. But it wasn't none of Wood's business to stop a director's nephew from blowing if he felt like it, and so he just let him fan away. Bears wasn't bad sport, he said, and he didn't mind filling in time with 'em if he couldn't get nothing better; but what he'd come to Palomitas for 'special, he said, was mountain-lions--he seemed to have it in his head he'd find 'em walking all over the place, same as cats--and he wanted to know if any'd lately been seen.

Wood told him them animals wasn't met with frequent in them parts (and they wasn't, for a fact, and hadn't been for about a hunderd years, likely) and maybe he'd do better to set his mind on jack-rabbits--which there was enough of out in the sage-brush, Wood told him, to load his car. And then he looked so real down disappointed, seeming to think jack-rabbits wasn't anyways satisfactory, Wood said he told him there was chances some of the boys over at the Forest Queen--they being all the time out in the mountains looking for prospects--might put him on to finding a bear, anyway; and it wouldn't do no harm to go across to the Queen and ask. And so over the both of 'em come.

It was Wood's mistake bringing that green-corduroyed pill right in among the boys without giving notice, and Wood owned up it was later--allowing he'd a-been more careful if the rock-and-rye stuff on top of the wine, not being used to either of 'em, hadn't loaded him more'n he knowed about at the time. Boston didn't seem to be much loaded, likely having the habit of taking such drinks and so being able to carry 'em; but he was that high-horsey--putting on his eye-gla.s.ses and staring 'round the place same as if he'd struck a menagerie and the boys was beasts in cages--all hands was set spiteful to him right off.

Things was running about as usual at the Queen: most of the boys setting around the table and Santa Fe dealing; a few of 'em standing back of the others looking on; two or three getting drinks at the bar and talking to Blister; and the girls kicking their heels on the benches, waiting till it come time to start up dancing in the other room. The only touch out of the common was the way the Sage-Brush Hen had fixed herself--she being rigged up in the same white duds she'd wore when Hart's aunt come to town, and looking so real cute and pretty in 'em, and acting demure to suit, n.o.body'd ever a-sized her for the gay old licketty-split Hen she was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "STARING 'ROUND THE PLACE SAME AS IF HE'D STRUCK A MENAGERIE"]

It was between deals when Wood and Boston come in, and Santa Fe got up from the table and crossed over to 'em--Charley always was that polite you'd a-thought he was a fish-hook with pants on--and told Boston he hoped he seen him well, and was glad he'd come along. Then Wood told how he was after mountain-lions, and wasn't likely to get none; and Charley owned up they was few, and what there was of 'em was so sort of scattered the chances for finding 'em was poor.

Boston didn't say much of nothing at first, seeming to be took up with trying to make out where Santa Fe belonged to--hitching on his eye-gla.s.ses and looking him over careful, but only getting puzzleder the more he stared. You see, Charley--in them black clothes and a white tie on--looked for certain sure like he was a minister; and there he was getting up red-hot from dealing faro, and having on each side of where he set at the table a forty-five gun. It was more of a mix-up than Boston could manage, and you could see he didn't know where he was at. Howsomedever, Wood had told him he'd better make out to be friendly, and take just what happened to come along without asking no questions; and I reckon the shoat really meant, as well as he knowed how to, to do what he was told. So he give up trying to size Santa Fe, and said back to him he was obliged and was feeling hearty; and then he took to grinning, like as if he wanted to make things pleasant, and says: "Really, I am very much interested in my surroundings. This place has quite the air of being a barbarian Monte Carlo. It really has, you know."

That was a non-plusser for Charley--and Santa Fe wasn't non-pl.u.s.tered often, and didn't like it when he was--but he pulled himself together and put down what cards he had: telling Boston monte was a game he sometimes played with friends for amus.e.m.e.nt--which was the everlasting truth, only the friends mostly was less amused than he was--and he'd had a dog named Carlo, he said, when he was a boy.

Boston seemed to think that was funny, and took to snickering sort of superior. He was about a full dose for uppishness, that young feller was: going on as if he'd bought the Territory, and as if the folks in it was the peones he'd took over--Mexican fashion--along with the land. Then he said he guessed Santa Fe did not ketch his meaning, and Monte Carlo was the biggest gambling h.e.l.l there was.