They Of The High Trails Part 42

"'These kind I sell,' I says, 'are the kind that catch and store the electricity in a tank down cellar. Durin' a thunder-storm you can save up enough to rock the baby and run the churn for a week or two.'

"'I want 'o know,' he says. 'Well, we 'ain't got a baby and no churn--but mebbe it would run a cream-separator?'

"'Sure it would.'

"All the time we was a-joshin' this way he was a-studyin' me--and finally he said:

"'You can't fool me, Ed. How are ye?'

"And we shook hands. I always liked the old cuss. He was a great reader--always talkin' about Napoleon--he'd been a great man if he'd ever got off the farm and into something that required just his kind o'

brain-work.

"'Come in,' he says. 'Nance will want to see you.'

"The minute he said that I had a queer feelin' at the pit o' my stummick--I did, sure thing. 'It's a little early for a call,' I says, 'and I ain't in Sunday clothes.'

"'That don't matter,' he says; 'she'll be glad to see you any time.'

"You'd 'a' thought I'd been gone eleven weeks instead of eleven years.

"Nance wasn't a bit like her dad. She always looked shipshape, no matter what she was a-doin'. She was in the kitchen, busy as a gasoline-motor, when we busted through the door.

"'Nance!' the old man called out, 'here's Ed Hatch.'

"She didn't do any fancy stunts. She just straightened up and looked at me kind o' steady for a minute, and then came over to shake hands.

"'I'm glad to see you back, Ed,' she says."

The stress of this meeting was still over him, as I could see and hear, and I waited for him to go on.

"She hadn't changed as much as mother. She was older and sadder and kind o' subdued, and her hand felt calloused, but I'd 'a' known her anywhere. She was dressed in a blue calico dress, but she was sure handsome still, and I said to her:

"'You need a change of climate,' I says, 'and a different kind of boss.

Colorado's where you ought to be,' I went on.

"For half an hour I kept banterin' her like that, and though she got pink now and then, she didn't seem to understand--or if she did she didn't let on. She stuck to her work whilst the old man and me watched her. Seein' her going about that kitchen that way got me locoed. I always liked to watch mother in the kitchen--and Nance was a genuine housekeeper, I always knew that.

"Finally I says:

"'I hain't got any buggy, Nance--the old man wouldn't let me have one last Sunday--I mean eleven years ago--that's what threw me off the track--but I've got a forty-horse-power car out here. Suppose you put on your best ap.r.o.n and take a ride with me.'

"She made some words as women will, but she got ready, and she did look handsomer than ever as she came out. She was excited, I could see that, but she was all there! No jugglin' or fussin'.

"'Climb in the front seat, dad,' I says. 'It's me and Nance to the private box. Turn on the juice,' I says to the driver.

"Well, sir, we burned up all the grease in the box lookin' up the old neighbors and the places we used to visit with horse and buggy--and every time I spoke to the old man I called him 'Dad'--and finally we fetched up at the biggest hotel in the town and had dinner together.

"Then I says: 'Dad, you better lay down and snooze. Nance and me are goin' out for a walk.'

"The town had swelled up some, but one or two of the old stores was there, and as we walked past the windows I says: 'Remember the time we stood here and wished we could buy things?'

"She kind o' laughed. 'I don't believe I do.'

"'Yes, you do,' I says. 'Well, we can look now to some account, for I've got nineteen thousand dollars in the bank and a payin' lease on a mine.'"

Up to this minute he had been fairly free to express his real feelings--hypnotized by my absorbed gaze--but now, like most Anglo-Saxons, he began to shy. He began to tell of a fourteen-dollar suit of clothes (bought at this store) which turned green in the hot sun.

"Oh, come now!" I insisted, "I want to know about Nancy. All this interests me deeply. Did she agree to come back with you?"

He looked a little bit embarra.s.sed. "I asked her to--right there in front of that window. I said, 'I want you to let me buy you that white dress.'

"'Judas priest! I can't let you do that,' she says.

"'Why not?' I said. 'We're goin' to be married, anyhow.'

"'Is that so?' she asked. 'I hadn't heard of it.'

"Oh, she was no babe, I tell you. We went back to the hotel and woke up the old man, and I ordered up the best machine in the shop--a big seven-seated, shiny one, half as long as a Pullman parlor-car, with a top and bra.s.s housin's and extra tires strapped on, and a place for a trunk--an outfit that made me look like a street-railway magnate. It set me back a whole lot, but I wanted to stagger dad--and I did. As we rolled up to the door he came out with eyes you could hang your hat on.

"'What's all this?' he asked.

"I hopped out.

"'Miss McRae,' I says, 'this is my father. Dad, this is Mister McRae. I think you've met before.'"

He chuckled again, that silent interior laugh, and I was certainly grinning in sympathy as he went on.

"'Just help me with this trunk,' I says. 'The horses bein' tired, I just thought I'd have a dray to bring up my duds.'

"Well, sir, I had him flat down. He couldn't raise a grunt. He stood like a post while I laid off my trunk; but mother and sis came out and were both very nice to Nance. Mother asked her to get out, and she did, and I took 'em all for a ride later--all but dad. Couldn't get him inside the machine. Nance stayed for supper, and just as we were goin'

in dad said to me:

"'How much does that red machine cost you an hour?'

"'About two dollars.'

"'I reckon you better send it back to the shop,' he says. 'You can take Nance home in my buggy.'

"It was his surrender; but I didn't turn a hair.

"'I guess you're right,' I says. 'It is a little expensive to spark in--and a little too public, too.'"

The whistle of the engine announcing the station helped him out.

"Here's Victor, and my mine is up there on the north-west side. You can just see the chimney. I've got another year on it, and I'm goin' to raise dirt to beat h.e.l.l durin' all the time there is left, and then I'm goin' to Denver."

"And Nance?"

"Oh, she's comin' out next week," he said, as he rose to take down his valise. "I've bought a place at the Springs."