The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains, Owen Wister [best e books to read txt] 📗

schottische almost immediately. “Oh, yes, she knows me,” the swarthy cow-puncher mused. “She has to take trouble not to see me. And what she's a-fussin' at is mighty interestin'. Hello!”

“Hello!” returned Lin McLean, sourly. He had just looked into the kitchen.

“Not dancin'?” the Southerner inquired.

“Don't know how.”

“Had scyarlet fever and forgot your past life?”

Lin grinned.

“Better persuade the schoolmarm to learn it. She's goin' to give me instruction.”

“Huh!” went Mr. McLean, and skulked out to the barrel.

“Why, they claimed you weren't drinkin' this month!” said his friend, following.

“Well, I am. Here's luck!” The two pledged in tin cups. “But I'm not waltzin' with her,” blurted Mr. McLean grievously. “She called me an exception.”

“Waltzin',” repeated the Virginian quickly, and hearing the fiddles he hastened away.

Few in the Bear Creek Country could waltz, and with these few it was mostly an unsteered and ponderous exhibition; therefore was the Southerner bent upon profiting by his skill. He entered the room, and his lady saw him come where she sat alone for the moment, and her thoughts grew a little hurried.

“Will you try a turn, ma'am?”

“I beg your pardon?” It was a remote, well-schooled eye that she lifted now upon him.

“If you like a waltz, ma'am, will you waltz with me?”

“You're from Virginia, I understand?” said Molly Wood, regarding him politely, but not rising. One gains authority immensely by keeping one's seat. All good teachers know this.

“Yes, ma'am, from Virginia.”

“I've heard that Southerners have such good manners.”

“That's correct.” The cow-puncher flushed, but he spoke in his unvaryingly gentle voice.

“For in New England, you know,” pursued Miss Molly, noting his scarf and clean-shaven chin, and then again steadily meeting his eye, “gentlemen ask to be presented to ladies before they ask them to waltz.”

He stood a moment before her, deeper and deeper scarlet; and the more she saw his handsome face, the keener rose her excitement. She waited for him to speak of the river; for then she was going to be surprised, and gradually to remember, and finally to be very nice to him. But he did not wait. “I ask your pardon, lady,” said he, and bowing, walked off, leaving her at once afraid that he might not come back. But she had altogether mistaken her man. Back he came serenely with Mr. Taylor, and was duly presented to her. Thus were the conventions vindicated.

It can never be known what the cow-puncher was going to say next; for Uncle Hughey stepped up with a glass of water which he had left Wood to bring, and asking for a turn, most graciously received it. She danced away from a situation where she began to feel herself getting the worst of it. One moment the Virginian stared at his lady as she lightly circulated, and then he went out to the barrel.

Leave him for Uncle Hershey! Jealousy is a deep and delicate thing, and works its spite in many ways. The Virginian had been ready to look at Lin McLean with a hostile eye; but finding him now beside the barrel, he felt a brotherhood between himself and Lin, and his hostility had taken a new and whimsical direction.

“Here's how!” said he to McLean. And they pledged each other in the tin cups.

“Been gettin' them instructions?” said Mr. McLean, grinning. “I thought I saw yu' learning your steps through the window.”

“Here's your good health,” said the Southerner. Once more they pledged each other handsomely.

“Did she call you an exception, or anything?” said Lin.

“Well, it would cipher out right close in that neighborhood.”

“Here's how, then!” cried the delighted Lin, over his cup.

“Jest because yu' happen to come from Vermont,” continued Mr. McLean, “is no cause for extra pride. Shoo! I was raised in Massachusetts myself, and big men have been raised there, too,—Daniel Webster and Israel Putnam: and a lot of them politicians.”

“Virginia is a good little old state,” observed the Southerner.

“Both of 'em's a sight ahead of Vermont. She told me I was the first exception she'd struck.”

“What rule were you provin' at the time, Lin?”

“Well yu' see, I started to kiss her.”

“Yu' didn't!”

“Shucks! I didn't mean nothin'.”

“I reckon yu' stopped mighty sudden?”

“Why, I'd been ridin' out with her—ridin' to school, ridin' from school, and a-comin' and a-goin', and she chattin' cheerful and askin' me a heap o' questions all about myself every day, and I not lyin' much neither. And so I figured she wouldn't mind. Lots of 'em like it. But she didn't, you bet!”

“No,” said the Virginian, deeply proud of his lady who had slighted him. He had pulled her out of the water once, and he had been her unrewarded knight even to-day, and he felt his grievance; but he spoke not of it to Lin; for he felt also, in memory, her arms clinging round him as he carried her ashore upon his horse. But he muttered, “Plumb ridiculous!” as her injustice struck him afresh, while the outraged McLean told his tale.

“Trample is what she has done on me to-night, and without notice. We was startin' to come here; Taylor and Mrs. were ahead in the buggy, and I was holdin' her horse, and helpin' her up in the saddle, like I done for days and days. Who was there to see us? And I figured she'd not mind, and she calls me an exception! Yu'd ought to've just heard her about Western men respectin' women. So that's the last word we've spoke. We come twenty-five miles then, she scootin' in front, and her horse kickin' the sand in my face. Mrs. Taylor, she guessed something was up, but she didn't tell.”

“Miss Wood did not tell?”

“Not she! She'll never open her head. She can take care of herself, you bet!” The fiddles sounded hilariously in the house, and the feet also. They had warmed up altogether, and their dancing figures crossed the windows back and forth. The two cow-punchers drew near to a window and looked in gloomily.

“There she goes,” said Lin.

“With Uncle Hughey again,” said the Virginian, sourly. “Yu' might suppose he didn't have a wife and twins, to see the way he goes gambollin' around.”

“Westfall is takin' a turn with her now,” said McLean.

“James!” exclaimed the Virginian. “He's another with a wife and fam'ly,