PART I
Children have many special endowments,and of these the chiefest is to ask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade.Married people and aunts and uncles commonly discover this,but mere instinct does not guide one to it.A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divine it.
Now except in one unhappy hour of stress and surprise,Miss Jessamine Buckner had been more than equal to life thus far.But never yet had she been shut up a whole day in one room with a boy of nine.Had this experience been hers,perhaps she would not have written to Mr.McLean the friendly and singular letter in which she hoped he was well,and said that she was very well,and how was dear little Billy?She was glad Mr.
McLean had stayed away.That was just like his honorable nature,and what she expected of him.And she was perfectly happy at Separ,and "yours sincerely and always,'Neighbor.'"Postscript.Talking of Billy Lusk--if Lin was busy with gathering the cattle,why not send Billy down to stop quietly with her.She would make him a bed in the ticket-office,and there she would be to see after him all the time.She knew Lin did not like his adopted child to be too much in cow-camp with the men.She would adopt him,too,for just as long as convenient to Lin--until the school opened on Bear Creek,if Lin so wished.Jessamine wrote a good deal about how much better care any woman can take of a boy of Billy's age than any man knows.The stage-coach brought the answer to this remarkably soon--young Billy with a trunk and a letter of twelve pages in pencil and ink--the only writing of this length ever done by Mr.McLean.
"I can write a lot quicker than Lin,"said Billy,upon arriving."He was fussing at that away late by the fire in camp,an'waked me up crawling in our bed.An'then he had to finish it next night when he went over to the cabin for my clothes.""You don't say!"said Jessamine.And Billy suffered her to kiss him again.
When not otherwise occupied Jessamine took the letter out of its locked box and read it,or looked at it.Thus the first days had gone finely at Separ,the weather being beautiful and Billy much out-of-doors.But sometimes the weather changes in Wyoming;and now it was that Miss Jessamine learned the talents of childhood.
Soon after breakfast this stormy morning Billy observed the twelve pages being taken out of their box,and spoke from his sudden brain."Honey Wiggin says Lin's losing his grip about girls,"he remarked."He says you couldn't 'a'downed him onced.You'd 'a'had to marry him.Honey says Lin ain't worked it like he done in old times.""Now I shouldn't wonder if he was right,"said Jessamine,buoyantly."And that being the case,I'm going to set to work at your things till it clears,and then we'll go for our ride.""Yes,"said Billy.When does a man get too old to marry?""I'm only a girl,you see.I don't know."
"Yes.Honey said he wouldn't 'a'thought Lin was that old.But I guess he must be thirty.""Old!"exclaimed Jessamine.And she looked at a photograph upon her table.
"But Lin ain't been married very much,"pursued Billy."Mother's the only one they speak of.You don't have to stay married always,do you?""It's better to,"said Jessamine.
"Ah,I don't think so,"said Billy,with disparagement."You ought to see mother and father.I wish you would leave Lin marry you,though,"said the boy,coming to her with an impulse of affection."Why won't you if he don't mind?"She continued to parry him,but this was not a very smooth start for eight in the morning.Moments of lull there were,when the telegraph called her to the front room,and Billy's young mind shifted to inquiries about the cipher alphabet.And she gained at least an hour teaching him to read various words by the sound.At dinner,too,he was refreshingly silent.But such silences are unsafe,and the weather was still bad.Four o'clock found them much where they had been at eight.
"Please tell me why you won't leave Lin marry you."He was at the window,kicking the wall.
"That's nine times since dinner,"she replied,with tireless good humor.
"Now if you ask me twelve--"
"You'll tell?"said the boy,swiftly.
She broke into a laugh."No.I'll go riding and you'll stay at home.When I was little and would ask things beyond me,they only gave me three times.""I've got two more,anyway.Ha-ha!"
"Better save 'em up,though."
"What did they do to you?Ah,I don't want to go a-riding.It's nasty all over."He stared out at the day against which Separ's doors had been tight closed since morning.Eight hours of furious wind had raised the dust like a sea."I wish the old train would come,"observed Billy,continuing to kick the wall."I wish I was going somewheres."Smoky,level,and hot,the south wind leapt into Separ across five hundred unbroken miles.The plain was blanketed in a tawny eclipse.Each minute the near buildings became invisible in a turbulent herd of clouds.Above this travelling blur of the soil the top of the water-tank alone rose bulging into the clear sun.The sand spirals would lick like flames along the bulk of the lofty tub,and soar skyward.It was not shipping season.
The freight-cars stood idle in a long line.No cattle huddled in the corrals.No strangers moved in town.No cow-ponies dozed in front of the saloon.Their riders were distant in ranch and camp.Human noise was extinct in Separ.Beneath the thunder of the sultry blasts the place lay dead in its flapping shroud of dust."Why won't you tell me?"droned Billy.For some time he had been returning,like a mosquito brushed away.
"That's ten times,"said Jessamine,promptly.
"Oh,goodness!Pretty soon I'll not be glad I came.I'm about twiced as less glad now.""Well,"said Jessamine,"there's a man coming to-day to mend the government telegraph-line between Drybone and McKinney.Maybe he would take you back as far as Box Elder,if you want to go very much.Shall Iask him?"
