Stories of the Foot-hills Part 16

The girl refused to smile, but the blaze in her cheeks subsided a little.

"It's just as well fer him I didn't," she said, whetting her knife on the edge of a stone jar. "He mightn't be so pretty after I'd got done lookin' at 'im."

Parker laughed resoundingly, and the girl's face relaxed a little under his appreciative mirth. When her father stepped upon the platform at the kitchen door, she left the frying chicken to hiss and sputter in the skillet, and went to meet him.

"Now, pappy," she said, taking hold of him with vigorous tenderness, "I'll bet you've been workin' too hard. Here, let me fill that basin, and when you've washed, you come in an' let Mr. Lowe give ye a pointer on settin' 'round watchin' other folks work." She raised her voice for Parker's benefit. "He come out here fer his health, an' he's gettin' so fat an' sa.s.sy he has to live by 'imself."

Parker's appreciation of this brilliant sally seemed to threaten the underpinning of the kitchen.

Eben smiled up into his daughter's face as he lathered his hairy hands.

"I wouldn't make out much at livin' by myself, Idy," he said gently.

"You ain't goin' to get a chance," rejoined his daughter, rushing back to her sputtering skillet, and spearing the pieces of chicken energetically; "you ain't goin' to get red o' me, no matter how sa.s.sy you are; I'm here to stay."

"Hold on now," warned Parker; "mind what you're sayin'."

"I know what I'm sayin'," retorted the girl, tossing her head. "I'd just like to see the man that could coax me away from pappy."

"You'd like to see 'im, would ye?" roared Parker, slapping his knee.

"Come, now, that's pretty good. Mebbe if you'd look, ye might ketch a glimpse of 'im settin' 'round som'er's."

The girl lifted the skillet from the stove, and let the flame flare up to hide her blushes.

"He wouldn't be settin' 'round," she a.s.serted indignantly, jabbing the fire with her fork. "He'd be up an' comin', you c'n bet on that."

"What's Idy gettin' off now?" drawled Mrs. Starkweather from the other room.

"Gettin' off her base," answered Parker jocosely. Nevertheless, the wit of his inamorata rankled, and after dinner he went with Eben to the barn to "hitch up."

"Idy wants to go over to Elsmore this afternoon," said Eben, "an' I promised to go 'long; but I'd ought to stay with the grubbin'. If you was calc'latin' to lay off anyhow, mebbe you wouldn't mind the ride. The broncos hain't been used much sence I commenced on the greasewood, and I don't quite like to have 'er go alone."

"She hadn't ought to go alone," broke in Parker eagerly. "That pinto o'

yourn's goin' to kick some o' ye into the middle o' next week, one o'

these days. I was just thinkin' I'd foot it over to the store fer some bacon. Tell Idy to wait till I run up to the house an' get my gun."

Idy waited, rather impatiently, and rejected with contempt her escort's proposal to take the lines.

"When I'm scared o' this team, I'll let ye know," she informed him, giving the pinto a cut with the whip that sent his heels into the air.

"If ye don't like my drivin', ye c'n invite yerself to ride with somebody else. I'm a-doin' this."

The afternoon was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring.

Every crease and wrinkle in the velvet of the encircling hills was reflected in the blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed like bonfires on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the blossoming buckthorn tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in the wild buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the mustard, and now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark broke into the drowsy quiet--a swift little dagger of sound.

"The barley's headin' out fast." Parker raised his voice above the rattle of the wagon. "I wished now I'd 'a' put in that piece of Harrington's."

"Harvest's a poor time fer wishin'; it's more prof'table 'long about seedin'-time," said Idy, with a smile that threatened the meshes of her stylishly drawn veil.

Parker set one foot on the dashboard, and swung the other out of the wagon nervously.

"I do a good deal o' wishin' now that ain't very prof'table--time o'

year don't seem to make much difference," he said plaintively.

"Well, I guess if I wanted anything I wouldn't wish fer it a _great_ while--not if I could set to work an' get it."

The vim of this remark seemed to communicate itself to the pinto through the tightened rein, and sent him forward with accelerated speed.

Parker glanced at his companion from under the conical shapelessness of his old felt hat, but she kept her eyes on the team, and gave him her jaunty profile behind its tantalizing barrier of meshes and dots.

"Well, I'll bet if you wanted what I want you'd be 'most afraid to mention it," he said, reaching down into the tall barley, and jerking up a handful of the bearded heads.

"Well, now, I bet I wouldn't."

"S'posin' I wanted to get married?"

There was a silence so sudden that it had the effect of an explosion.

Then Miss Starkweather giggled nervously.

"That's just exactly what I do want," persisted Parker desperately, turning his toe inward, and kicking the wagon-box.

There was another disheartening silence. Then the girl's color flamed up under her rusty lace veil. She turned upon him witheringly.

"Well, what are ye goin' to do about it? Set 'round and wait till some girl asks ye?"

Her voice had a fine sarcastic sting in it.

Parker whipped his brown overalls with a green barley-head.

"No; I ain't such a bloomin' idiot as I look."

"I don't know 'bout that," answered the young woman coolly.

Parker faced about.

"Now, look here, Idy," he said; "you'd ought to quit foolin'. You know what I mean well enough; you're just purtendin'. You know I want to marry ye."

"Me!" The girl lifted her brows until they disappeared under the edge of her much-becurled bang. "Want to marry _me!_ Great Scott!"

"I don't see why it's great Scott or great anything else," said Parker doggedly.

Idy held the reins in her left hand, and smoothed her alpaca lap with the whip handle, in maiden meditation.

"Well, I don't know as 't is so very great after all," she said, rubbing the folds of her dress, and glancing at him in giggling confusion.

Parker made an experimental motion with his right arm toward the back of the seat. The girl repelled him dexterously with her elbow.

"You drop that, Parker Lowe!" she said, with dignity. "I ain't so far gone as all that. There's that Gonsallies felluh lookin' at us. You just straighten up, or I'll hit ye a cut with this whip!"

Her lover gave a short, embarra.s.sed laugh.