The Ramblin' Kid Part 37

CHAPTER XVIII

A SHAME TO WASTE IT

In Old Heck's eyes was a set, determined look when he came out of the court-house and stepped up to the Clagstone "Six" in which he had left Ophelia a few moments before. The end of a long yellow envelope protruded from the side pocket of his coat. His face was flushed and his hand trembled slightly as he opened the door of the car and climbed into the front seat beside the widow. He pressed his foot on the "starter,"

threw the clutch into gear and turning the car about drove slowly toward the home of Reverend Hector R. Patterson, Eagle b.u.t.te's only resident clergyman.

He did not speak until the car stopped at the gate of the little unpainted parsonage beside the white, weather-boarded church.

"Wait a minute," he said as Ophelia started to get out of the Clagstone "Six," "maybe I'll go in with you!"

"Splendid," the widow replied, settling again against the cushions. "I'd be delighted to have you come along and I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Patterson would be glad to see you!"

"Well, it--it"--Old Heck stammered, not knowing how to begin what he wanted to say--"it--it all depends on you! Here"--he said abruptly as a bright thought came to him--"read that and--and--tell me what you think about it!" at the same time pulling the yellow envelope from his pocket and handing it to Ophelia.

With a questioning lift of her eyebrows the widow drew the folded, official-looking doc.u.ment from the envelope.

"Why, it's a--it's a--" she started to say and stopped confused, her cheeks blazing crimson.

"It's a marriage license--" Old Heck said, coming to her rescue, "--made out for you and me. I--I--didn't know what to tell the clerk when he asked me how old you was--so I just guessed at it!"

The widow looked shyly down at the names written on the doc.u.ment.

The license granted "Ophelia Cobb, age _twenty-three_, of Hartville, Connecticut, and Josiah Alonzo Heck, age forty-eight, of Kiowa County, Texas," the right to marry.

Ophelia's actual years were thirty-nine!

From under drooping lashes she glanced up suspiciously into the earnest gray eyes beside her. She saw that Old Heck had been sincere in his "guess."

"But--but--"

"I know it's kind of unexpected," Old Heck interrupted nervously, "--perhaps I had ought to have said something about it first, but, well, I figured I'd go on and get the license and show that my intentions was good and--and--sort of risk the whole thing on one throw! It always seemed like there was something missing at the Quarter Circle KT," he went on, his voice grown softer and trembling a bit, "and--and when you came I--I--found out what it was--"

Ophelia sat silently with downcast eyes, her pulse racing, the license unfolded on her lap, while she bit uncertainly at the tip of the finger of her glove.

"I--I--know I ain't very good-looking or--or--anything," Old Heck continued, "but I thought maybe you--you--liked me a little--enough anyhow to get married--that is if you--. Oh-h--thunder, Ophelia!" he exclaimed in despair, feeling that he was hopelessly floundering, "I--I--love you! Please let's use that license! Let's use it right away --to-day--and get it over with!" he urged as the widow still hesitated.

"But--I--I'm not suitably dressed--" she stammered.

"I think that dress you've got on is the prettiest goods I ever saw in my life," he interrupted, looking adoringly at the clinging summer fabric caressing Ophelia's shapely form, "I always did think it would be awful appropriate for us to--to--get married in!" he finished pleadingly.

"But--Carolyn June and--and--Parker--" Ophelia murmured.

At the mention of Parker, Old Heck started while a look of anguish came into his eyes. So she loved Parker! That was why she was so backward, he thought. Well, the Quarter Circle KT foreman was a little better-looking, maybe, and some younger! He couldn't blame her.

His head dropped. For a moment Old Heck was silent, a dull, sickening hurt gripping his heart. A deep sigh escaped from his lips. He reached over and picked up the license.

"I--I--guess I made a mistake," he said numbly. "We'll just--just--tear this thing up and forget about it!"

Ophelia looked demurely up at him, her mouth twitching. One small gloved hand slipped over and rested on the strong brown fingers that held the license. Roses flamed over the full round throat and spread their blush to her cheeks. Her eyes were like pools of liquid blue:

"Don't tear it--it--up!" she whispered with a little laugh--a laugh that sent the blood leaping, like fire, through Old Heck's veins, "it--it would be a shame to waste it!"

For an instant Old Heck was dazed. He looked at her as if he could not believe he had heard aright. Suddenly a wave of undiluted happiness swept over him.

"Ophelia!" he cried huskily. "Oh, Ophelia!" and the minister's three small sons, pausing in their play in the gra.s.sless yard at the side of the house, while they watched the beautiful car standing in front of the parsonage gate, saw the owner of the Quarter Circle KT, in broad daylight, on the princ.i.p.al residence street of Eagle b.u.t.te, before the eyes of the whole world--if the whole world cared to look--throw his arms around the plump lady sitting beside him and press one long, rapturous kiss on her moist, unresisting lips!

A moment later Ophelia and Old Heck, both much embarra.s.sed but tremulously happy, stepped inside the door of the parsonage.

They were driving away from the minister's house--going to the Occidental Hotel for a little all-by-their-ownselves "wedding luncheon"--before either thought of the matter concerning which Ophelia had desired to see the clergyman's wife.

"Gee whiz!" Old Heck exclaimed, "you forgot that consultation or whatever it was with Mrs. Patterson to start your woman's suffrage 'movement'--"

"To start my what?"

"Your 'woman's rights,' 'female voter's organization'--or whatever it is!" Old Heck explained, a new-born tolerance in his voice. "I didn't mean to interfere with your political activities--"

Ophelia threw back! her head, while a ripple of laughter trilled out above the purr of the Clagstone "Six."

"Why, my dear--dear--Old Boy!" she cried, "I am not engaged in 'political activities,' or 'suffragette movements!' Of course," she continued archly, "I believe women ought to be allowed to vote--if they haven't intelligence enough for that they haven't brains enough to be good 'pardners' with their husbands--"

"By gosh, you're right!" Old Heck agreed, "I never thought of it that way before!"

"And," she continued, "naturally I shall vote whenever the opportunity comes, but I'm not an 'Organizer' for anything of that kind. Mrs.

Patterson and I are going to organize the wives, sisters and sweethearts, in Eagle b.u.t.te, into a club for the study of 'Scientific and Efficient Management of the Home!' We think we should be as proficient in those arts--and which we believe are peculiarly womanly functions--as the men are in the direction of the more strenuous business affairs in which they themselves are engaged."

"So that's what you're an 'Organizer' for?" Old Heck queried while a radiant contentment spread over his face.

"That is it," Ophelia said simply, adding with a most becoming heightening of color, "it is so we will be--will be--better wives!"

"My Gawd!" Old Heck breathed fervently. "My Gawd! The Lord has been good to me to-day!"

While Old Heck and Ophelia were in Eagle b.u.t.te getting married, Skinny and Carolyn June had been riding line on the upland pasture fence. They had just returned to the Quarter Circle KT, unsaddled their horses, turned them into the pasture, gone to the house and stopped a moment on the front porch to watch the glow in the west--the sun was dipping into a thundercap over the Costejo Mountains--when the Clagstone "Six" rolled down the grade and up to the string of poplars before the house.

"Gee, we thought you two had eloped!" Carolyn June laughed as the couple climbed out of the car and came, rather bashfully, in at the gate. Old Heck and Ophelia looked at each other guiltily.

"We did come darn near it!" Old Heck chuckled, plunging at once into the task of breaking the news. "We got married--I reckon you'd call that the next thing to eloping!"

"Got married?" Skinny and Carolyn June cried together.

"Who--who--got married?" Skinny repeated incredulously.

"Ophelia and me," Old Heck answered with a sheepish grin but proudly.

"Who else did you think we meant? We just thought," he continued by way of explanation, "we'd go ahead and do it kind of private and save a lot of excitement and everything!"

Carolyn June threw her arms around Ophelia and kissed her.