Heart's Desire, Emerson Hough [first color ebook reader TXT] 📗

anywhere but on the free range.

"We've had three squares a day," said McKinney. "This country's just as good as the States."

"States!" cried Dan Anderson. "We've got a state of our own, or did have, right here, the Free State of Heart's Desire. But it ain't good enough for us. We want to hitch our little wagon to the star of progress. I reckon we oughtn't to holler if the star travels some fast. It was ours, the Free State of Heart's Desire! And we—well—"

"Well," said Curly, ruminatingly, "I don't see as ole Carrizo is frettin' any about these here things." He glanced up at the big mountain whose shadow lay athwart the valley. Dan Anderson gazed thither as well. McKinney sat looking quietly up the street.

"No use frettin' about it, anyhow," said he, in his matter-of-fact way. "And as to Tom Osby, fellers, I'll bet a plug of tobacco that's him pullin' in at the head of town right now."

"Just like I said," exclaimed Doc Tomlinson. "He's good enough railroad for any one, and he's safe! I wonder what did he bring this time."

What Tom Osby brought this time, besides sundry merchandise for Whiteman the Jew, was a parrot and a pair of twins. Neither of these specialties had ever before been seen in Heart's Desire.

"Twins!" exclaimed Dan Anderson, when the facts were divulged, "and a parrot!"

Tom Osby, after making known the full nature of his cargo, discharged divers boxes, bales, and other packages at the store of Whiteman the Jew. The parrot was not disposed to wait for the close of these formalities. From under the white cover of the wagon there came sounds of profane speech. Tom Osby paused and filled his pipe. "Him?" said he, jerking his head toward the cover, as he scratched a match on the side of the wagon seat. "He's a shore peach. Talked to me all the way from Vegas down."

"Quork!" said the parrot. "Look out! Look out! Brrrrrrrr—awk—awk! Quork!"

"I told you so," said Tom.

"Oh, dang it, I'm tired!" continued the bird.

"This," remarked Dan Anderson, "seems to be a cultivated gentleman. But how about the twins? Where are they? And might we—er—ask whose are they?"

"Them?" said Tom. "Why, they're for Curly. They're asleep down under the seat here. Now, between the parrot and them twins, my trip down ain't been any lonesome to speak of."

All eyes were turned on Curly, the newly wedded cow puncher, who blushed a bright brick red to the roots of his hair. "Wh—where did they come from?" stammered he.

"I presume, Curly," said Dan Anderson, gravely, "like enough they came from somewhere over on the Brazos, your earlier home. Why didn't you tell us you were a married man?"

"I ain't—I never was!" cried Curly, hotly. "I never did have no twins nowhere. Where'd you git 'em, Tom?"

The freighter threw his leg across the seat. "Oh, they're yours all right, I reckon, Curly," said he. "Mother's dead. No relations. They come from Kansas, where all the twins comes from. I found 'em waitin' up there in Vegas, billed through to you. Both dead broke, both plumb happy, and airy one of 'em worth its weight in gold. Its name is Susabella and Aryann, or somethin' like that. Shall I wake it up? It's both alike."

"Now, why, my woman's folks," began Curly, "up there in Kansas—I reckon maybe that's how it happened! She had a sister done married a Baptis' preacher, onct. Say, now, I bet a horse that's right how this here happened. Say, they was so pore they didn't have enough to eat."

"Letter come with 'em," said Tom, taking out a handful of tobacco from his pocket with the missive. "I reckon, that explains it, I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for 'em if they was mine. Here, you kids, get out of there and come and see the nice gentlemen. Here they are, fellers."

He haled forth from beneath the wagon cover two solemn-eyed and sleepy little girls, perhaps five years of age, and of so close a personal resemblance to each other as impressed all as uncanny. The four men stepped to the wagon side, and in silence gazed at the curly-headed pair, who looked back, equally silent, upon the strange group confronting them. At length the twins buried their faces in Tom Osby's overalls.

"Look here, friend," said Tom Osby to Curly, with asperity, "if you don't want these here twins, why, I'll take 'em off your hands mighty damn quick. They're corral broke and right well gentled now, half good stock anyway, and is due to be right free steppers. If you don't want 'em, they're mine for the board bill."

But Curly stepped up and laid an awkward hand on the head of each of the twins. "Fellers," said he, "I ain't got a whole lot of experience in this here twin game, but this goes. These here twins is mine. This is some sudden, but I expect it'll tickle the little woman about half to death. I reckon I can get enough for 'em all to eat, somehow."

McKinney looked at him with anger in his gaze. "I told you, Curly," he reminded the cow puncher with undue emphasis, "that you was drawin' ten extry from day before yestiday. I reckon the stockholders can stand that."

"That'll make it about break even," Curly answered simply.

"Now," said Doc Tomlinson, "if either of them twins should need any drugs—"

"Drugs!" snorted Dan Anderson. "What would they want with drugs? After they've run around in here for two weeks, you couldn't kill 'em with an axe. If the coyotes don't catch 'em, there's nothing else can happen to 'em."

"I'll give you about eight dollars for the green canary, Tom," said Doc Tomlinson. "I want to hang him in my store."

"But I want to hang him in my wagon," objected Tom Osby. "He's company. You fellers plumb rob me every time I come to town." His voice was plaintive.

"The court rules," observed Dan Anderson, judicially, "that the parrot goes with the twins." And it was finally so decided by the referendum. Whereupon Tom Osby, grumbling and bewailing his hard lot as common carrier, drove off with Curly across the arroyo in search of a new mother for the twins.

The Littlest Girl, Curly's wife, read the letter which Tom offered. Tears sprang to her eyes; and then, as might have been expected of the Littlest Girl, she reached up her arms to the homeless waifs, who stood at the wagon front, each clasping a stubby forefinger of Tom Osby's hand.

"Babies!" cried she. "You poor little babies! Oh!" And so she gathered them to her breast and bore them away, even though a curly head over each shoulder gazed back longingly at the gnarled freighter on his wagon seat. Tom Osby picked up his reins and drove back across the arroyo. Thus, without unbecoming ostentation, Heart's Desire became possessed of certain features never before known in its history.

Within a few weeks the parrot and the twins had so firmly established themselves in the social system of the place as to become matters of regular conversation. Curly never appeared at the forum of Whiteman's corral without finding himself the recipient of many queries.

"Why, them twins," he replied one day, "they're in full charge of the rodeo. They've got me and the woman hobbled, hitched, and side-lined for keeps. Dead heat between them and Bill, the parrot. They're in on all the plays together. Wherever they go, he's right after 'em, and he night-and-day-herds 'em closer'n a Mexican shepherd dog does a bunch of sheep. Now, I blew in last night, intoe their room, and there was old Bill, settin' on the foot of the bed, watchin' of 'em, them fast asleep. 'Too late now,' says he to me. 'Too late. All over now!' I didn't know what he meant till I looked under the bedclothes; and there was a pan full of ginger cakes the woman had made for the fam'ly. You needn't tell me a parrot can't think."

"It would seem," said Dan Anderson, meditatively, "that we may report progress in civilization."

"But say, fellers," remarked Curly, taking off his hat and scratching his head perplexedly, "sometimes I wish Bill was a chicken hawk instead of a talker. There is rats, or mice, or something, got into this valley at last."

"Do you want any drugs?" asked Doc Tomlinson, suddenly.

"No, not yet," Curly shook his head. "Never did see airy rat or mouse round here, but still, things is happenin' that looks right strange.

"It's this-a-way, fellers," he continued, "—set down here and let me tell you." So they all sat down and leaned back against the fence of Whiteman's corral.

"Last Christmas," Curly began at the beginning, "why, you see, my girl, she got a Christmas present from some of her folks back in Kansas, in the States. It was a pair of candy legs."

"What's that, Curly?" said Dan Anderson, half sitting up.

"Legs," said Curly, "made out of candy, about so long, or maybe a little longer. Red, and white, and blue—all made out of candy, you know. Shoes on the feet, buckles on the shoes, and heels. Sort of frill around on top. The feller that made them things could shore do candy a-plenty. They was too pretty to eat up, so the little woman, she done put 'em in the parlor,—on the table like, in the middle of the floor; tied 'em together with a blue ribbon and left 'em there. Now, you all know right well that's the only pair of candy legs in Heart's Desire."

"That's legitimate distinction, Curly," Dan Anderson decided. "It entitles your family to social prominence."

"Oh, we wasn't stuck up none over that," laughed Curly, modestly, "but we always felt kind of comfortable, thinkin' them there legs was right there on the parlor table in the other room. You can't help feelin' good to have some little ornyment like that around the place, you know, special if there's women around. But now, fellers, what I was goin' to say is, there's mice, or rats, got in on this range some how, and they—"

"Why didn't you put 'em in a box?" asked McKinney, severely. "You ain't got sense enough to know the difference between a hair rope and a can of California apricots."

"Put 'em in a box?" cried Curly. "Why? Them was ornyments! Now you ain't got a ornyment on your whole place, except a horned toad and four tarantulas in a teacup. Now a real ornyment is somethin' you put on the parlor table, man, and show it free and open. It's sort of sacred like."

"Not for rats," said McKinney.

"You'd better keep your eye on that parrot," warned Doc Tomlinson. "About to-morrow, you tell us what you find out."

But on the morrow the mystery remained unsolved. "One heel's plumb gone," said Curly, sighing. "And they've begun on the toe of the other foot."

Bill, the parrot, remained under increasing suspicion. "He's got a wall eye," said McKinney, "and I never seen a wall eye in a man, woman, or mustang, that it didn't mean bad. This here bird ain't no Hereford, nor yet a short-horn. He's a dogy that ain't bred right, and he ain't due to act right." All Curly could do was to shake his head, unpersuaded.

Meantime, there went on in the little cabin across the arroyo, a reproduction of an old, old drama. Should we, after all, criticise these two descendants of the first sweet human woman of the world? Consider; to their young and inexperienced eyes appealed all the fascinations of this august but tempting object, new, strange, appealing. For a time their hearts were strong, upon their souls rested the ancient mandate of denial. They gazed, short breathed, in awe, upon this radiantly bestriped, unspeakably fascinating, wholly and resplendently pulchritudinous creation. They must have known that it was a part of the family pride, a part of the parlor—a part, indeed, of the intermingled fabric of the civilization of Heart's Desire! And yet—alas!

One morning the twins foregathered in