The Desert and the Sown Part 21

He had started out one winter morning from Bisuka, a virtuous man. His team had breakfasted, but not he. A Ralstonite does not load up his stomach at dawn after the manner of cattle, and such pious subst.i.tutes for a cup of coffee as are permitted the faithful cannot always be had for a price. At Indian Creek he hauled up to water his team, and to make for himself a cinnamon-colored decoction by boiling in hot water a preparation of parched grains which he carried with him. This he accomplished in an angle of the old corral fence out of the wind. There is no comfort nor even virtue in eating cold dust with one's sandwiches.

Leander sunk his great white tushes through the thick slices of whole-wheat bread and tasted the paste of peanut meal with which they were spread. He ate standing and slapped his leg to warm his driving hand.

A flutter of something colored, as a garment, caught his eye, directing it to the shape of a man, rolled in an old blue blanket, lying motionless in a corner of the tumble-down wall. "Drunk, drunk as a hog!"

p.r.o.nounced Leander. For no man in command of himself would lie down to sleep in such a place. As if to refute this accusation, the wind turned a corner of the blanket quietly off a white face with closed eyelids,--an old, worn, gentle face, appealing in its homeliness, though stamped now with the dignity of death. Leander knelt and handled the body tenderly. It was long before he satisfied himself that life was still there. Another case for Polly and the Springs. A man worth saving, if Leander knew a man; one of the trustful, trustworthy sort. His heart went out to him on the instant as to a friend from home.

It was closing in for dusk when he reached the Ferry. Jimmy was away, and Han, in high dudgeon, brought the boat over in answer to Leander's hail. He had grouse to dress for supper, inconsiderately flung in upon him at the last moment by the stage, four hours late.

"Huh! Why you no come one hour ago? All time 'Hullo, hullo'! Je' Cli'!

me no dam felly-man--me dam cook! Too much man say 'Hullo'!"

The prospect was not good for help at the Ferry inn, so, putting his trust in Polly and the Springs, Leander pushed on up the valley.

When Aunt Polly's patients were of the right sort, they stayed on after their recovery and helped Leander with the ranch work. But for the most part they "hit the trail" again as soon as their ills were healed, not forgetting to advertise the Springs to other patients of their own cla.s.s. The only limit to this unenviable popularity was the size of the house. Leander saw no present advantage in building.

But in case they ever did build--and the time was surely coming!--here was the very person they had been looking for. Cast your bread upon the waters. The winter's bread and care and shelter so ungrudgingly bestowed had returned to them many-fold in the comfortable sense of dependence and unity they felt in this last beneficiary, the old man of Indian Creek whom they called "Uncle John."

"The kindest old creetur' ever lived! Some forgitful, but everybody's liable to forgit. Only tell him one thing at once, and don't confuse him, and he'll git through an amazin' sight of ch.o.r.es in a day."

"Just the very one we'll want to wait on the men patients," Aunt Polly chimed in. "He can carry up meals and keep the bathrooms clean, and wash out the towels, and he's the best hand with poultry. He takes such good care of the old hens they're re'lly ashamed not to lay!"

It was spring again; old hopes were putting forth new leaves. Leander had heard of a capitalist in the valley; a young one, too, more p.r.o.ne to enthusiasm if shown the right thing.

"I'm going down to Jimmy's to fetch them up here!" Leander announced.

"Are there two of them?"

"He has brought his wife out with him. They are a young couple. He's the only son of a rich widow in New York, and Jimmy says they've got money to burn. Jimmy don't take much stock in this 'ere 'wounded guide'

story--thinks it's more or less of a blind. He's feeling around for a good investment--desert land or mining claims. Jimmy thinks he represents big interests back East."

Aunt Polly considered, and the corners of her mouth moistened as she thought of the dinner she would s.n.a.t.c.h from the jaws of the system on the day these young strangers should visit the ranch.

"By Gum!" Leander shouted. "I wonder if Uncle John wouldn't know something about the party they're advertising for. That'd be the way to find out if they're really on the scent. I'll take him down with me--that's what I'll _do_--and let him have a talk with the young man himself. It'll make a good opening. Are you listening, Polly?" She was not. "I wish you'd git him to fix himself up a little. Layout one o'

my clean shirts for him, and I'll take him down with me day after to-morrow."

"I'll have a fresh churning to-morrow," Aunt Polly mused. "You can take a little pat of it with you. I won't put no salt in it, and I'll send along a gla.s.s or two of my wild strawberry jam. It takes an awful time to pick the berries, but I guess it'll be appreciated after the table Jimmy sets. I don't believe Jimmy'll be offended?"

"Bogardus is their name," continued Leander. "Mr. and Mrs. Bogardus, from New York. Jimmy's got it down in his hotel book and he's showing it to everybody. Jimmy's reel childish about it. I tell him one swallow don't make a summer."

Uncle John had come into the room and sat listening, while a yellow pallor crept over his forehead and cheeks. He moved to get up once, and then sat down again weakly.

"What's the matter, Uncle?" Aunt Polly eyed him sharply. "You been out there chopping wood too long in this hot sun. What did I tell you?"

She cleared the decks for action. Paler and paler the old man grew. He was not able to withstand her vigorous sympathies. She had him tucked up on the calico lounge and his shoes off and a hot iron at his feet; but while she was hurrying up the kettle to make him a drink of something hot, he rose and slipped up the outside stairs to his bedroom in the attic. There he seated himself on the side of his neat bed which he always made himself camp fashion,--the blankets folded lengthwise with just room for one quiet sleeper to crawl inside; and there he sat, opening and clinching his hands, a deep perplexity upon his features.

Aunt Polly called to him and began to read the riot act, but Leander said: "Let him be! He gits tired o' being fussed over. You're at him about something or other the whole blessed time."

"Well, I have to! My gracious! He'd forgit to come in to his meals if I didn't keep him on my mind."

"It just strikes me--what am I going to call him when I introduce him to those folks? Did he ever tell you what his last name is?"

"I wouldn't be surprised," Aunt Polly lowered her voice, "if he couldn't remember it himself! I've heard of such cases. Whenever I try to draw him out to talk about himself and what happened to him before you found him, it breaks him all up; seemingly gives him a back-set every time.

He sort of slinks into himself in that queer, lost way--just like he was when he first come to."

"He's had a powerful jar to his const.i.tution, and his mind is taking a rest." Leander was fond of a diagnosis. "There wasn't enough life left in him to keep his faculties and his bod'ly organs all a-going at once.

The upper story's to let."

"I wish you'd go upstairs, and see what he is doing up there."

"Aw, no! Let him be. He likes to go off by himself and do his thinking.

I notice it rattles him to be talked to much. He sets out there on the choppin'-block, looking at the bluffs--ever notice? He looks and don't see nothin', and his lips keep moving like he was learning a spellin'-lesson. If I speak to him sharp, he hauls himself together and smiles uneasy, but he don't know what I said. I tell you he's waking up; coming to his memories, and trying to sort 'em out."

"That's just what _I_ say," Aunt Polly retorted, "but he's got to eat his meals. He can't live on memories."

Uncle John was restless that evening, and appeared to be excited. He waited upon Aunt Polly after supper with a feverish eagerness to be of use. When all was in order for bedtime, and Leander rose to wind the clock, he spoke. It was getting about time to roll up his blankets and pull out, he said. Leander felt for the ledge where the clock-key belonged, and made no answer.

"I was saying--I guess it's about time for me to be moving on. The gra.s.s is starting"--

"Are you cal'latin' to live on gra.s.s?" Leander drawled with cutting irony. "Gettin' tired of the old woman's cooking? Well, she ain't much of a cook!"

Uncle John remained silent, working at his hands. His mouth, trembled under his thin straggling beard. "I never was better treated in my life, and you know it. It ain't handsome of you, Lewis, to talk that way!"

"He don't mean nothing, Uncle John! What makes you so foolish, Looander!

He just wants you to know there's no begrudgers around here. You're welcome, and more than welcome, to settle down and camp right along with us."

"Winter and summer!" Leander put in, "if you're satisfied. There's n.o.body in a hurry to see the last of ye."

Uncle John's mild but determined resistance was a keen disappointment to his friends. Leander thought himself offended. "What fly's stung you, anyhow! Heard from any of your folks lately?"

The old man smiled.

"Got any money salted down that needs turning?"

"Looander! Quit teasing of him!"

"Let him have his fun, ma'am. It's all he's likely to get out of me. I have got a little money," he pursued. "'T would be an insult to name it in the same breath with what you've done for me. I'd like to leave it here, though. You could pa.s.s it on. You'll have chances enough. 'T ain't likely I'll be the last one you'll take in and do for, and never git nothing out of it in return."

There was a mild sensation, as the speaker, fumbling in his loose trousers, appeared to be seeking for that money. Aunt Polly's eyes flamed indignation behind her tears. She was a foolish, warm-hearted creature, and her eyes watered on the least excuse.

"Looander, you shouldn't have taunted him," she admonished her husband, who felt he had been a little rough.

"Look here, Uncle John, d'you ever know anybody who wasn't by way of needing help some time in their lives? We don't ask any one who comes here"--

"He didn't come!" Aunt Polly corrected.

"Well, who was brought, then! We don't ask for their character, nor their private history, nor their bank account. I don't know but you're the first one for years I've ever took a real personal shine to, and we've h'isted a good many up them stairs that wasn't able to walk much further. I'd like you to stay as a favor to us, dang it!"

Leander delivered this invitation as if it were a threat. His straight-cut mustache stiffened and projected itself by the pressure of his big lips; his dark red throat showed as many obstinate creases as an old snapping-turtle's.