The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains, Owen Wister [best e books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Owen Wister
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“Then I will tell yu' good-by,” said he. “But I am comin' again. And next time I'll have along a gentle hawss for yu'.”
“Next time! Next time! Well, perhaps I will go with you. Do you live far?”
“I live on Judge Henry's ranch, over yondeh.” He pointed across the mountains. “It's on Sunk Creek. A pretty rough trail; but I can come hyeh to see you in a day, I reckon. Well, I hope you'll cert'nly enjoy good health, ma'am.”
“Oh, there's one thing!” said Molly Wood, calling after him rather quickly. “I—I'm not at all afraid of horses. You needn't bring such a gentle one. I—was very tired that day, and—and I don't scream as a rule.”
He turned and looked at her so that she could not meet his glance. “Bless your heart!” said he. “Will yu' give me one o' those flowers?”
“Oh, certainly! I'm always so glad when people like them.”
“They're pretty near the color of your eyes.”
“Never mind my eyes.”
“Can't help it, ma'am. Not since South Fork.”
He put the flower in the leather band of his hat, and rode away on his Monte horse. Miss Wood lingered a moment, then made some steps toward her gate, from which he could still be seen; and then, with something like a toss of the head, she went in and shut her door.
Later in the day the Virginian met Mr. McLean, who looked at his hat and innocently quoted, “'My Looloo picked a daisy.'”
“Don't yu', Lin,” said the Southerner.
“Then I won't,” said Lin.
Thus, for this occasion, did the Virginian part from his lady—and nothing said one way or another about the handkerchief that had disappeared during the South Fork incident.
As we fall asleep at night, our thoughts will often ramble back and forth between the two worlds.
“What color were his eyes?” wondered Molly on her pillow. “His mustache is not bristly like so many of them. Sam never gave me such a look at Hoosic Junction. No.... You can't come with me.... Get off your horse.... The passengers are all staring....”
And while Molly was thus dreaming that the Virginian had ridden his horse into the railroad car, and sat down beside her, the fire in the great stone chimney of her cabin flickered quietly, its gleams now and again touching the miniature of Grandmother Stark upon the wall.
Camped on the Sunk Creek trail, the Virginian was telling himself in his blankets: “I ain't too old for education. Maybe she will lend me books. And I'll watch her ways and learn...stand still, Monte. I can learn a lot more than the kids on that. There's Monte...you pie-biter, stop.... He has ate up your book, ma'am, but I'll get yu'...”
And then the Virginian was fast asleep.
XII. QUALITY AND EQUALITY
To the circle at Bennington, a letter from Bear Creek was always a welcome summons to gather and hear of doings very strange to Vermont. And when the tale of the changed babies arrived duly by the post, it created a more than usual sensation, and was read to a large number of pleased and scandalized neighbors. “I hate her to be where such things can happen,” said Mrs. Wood.
“I wish I could have been there,” said her son-in-law, Andrew Bell.
“She does not mention who played the trick,” said Mrs. Andrew Bell.
“We shouldn't be any wiser if she did,” said Mrs. Wood.
“I'd like to meet the perpetrator,” said Andrew.
“Oh, no!” said Mrs. Wood. “They're all horrible.”
And she wrote at once, begging her daughter to take good care of herself, and to see as much of Mrs. Balaam as possible. “And of any other ladies that are near you. For you seem to me to be in a community of roughs. I wish you would give it all up. Did you expect me to laugh about the babies?”
Mrs. Flynt, when this story was repeated to her (she had not been invited in to hear the letter), remarked that she had always felt that Molly Wood must be a little vulgar, ever since she began to go about giving music lessons like any ordinary German.
But Mrs. Wood was considerably relieved when the next letter arrived. It contained nothing horrible about barbecues or babies. It mentioned the great beauty of the weather, and how well and strong the fine air was making the writer feel. And it asked that books might be sent, many books of all sorts, novels, poetry, all the good old books and any good new ones that could be spared. Cheap editions, of course.
“Indeed she shall have them!” said Mrs. Wood. “How her mind must be starving in that dreadful place!” The letter was not a long one, and, besides the books, spoke of little else except the fine weather and the chances for outdoor exercise that this gave. “You have no idea,” it said, “how delightful it is to ride, especially on a spirited horse, which I can do now quite well.”
“How nice that is!” said Mrs. Wood, putting down the letter. “I hope the horse is not too spirited.”
“Who does she go riding with?” asked Mrs. Bell.
“She doesn't say, Sarah. Why?”
“Nothing. She has a queer way of not mentioning things, now and then.”
“Sarah!” exclaimed Mrs. Wood, reproachfully. “Oh, well, mother, you know just as well as I do that she can be very independent and unconventional.”
“Yes; but not in that way. She wouldn't ride with poor Sam Bannett, and after all he is a suitable person.”
Nevertheless, in her next letter, Mrs. Wood cautioned her daughter about trusting herself with any one of whom Mrs. Balaam did not thoroughly approve. The good lady could never grasp that Mrs. Balaam lived a long day's journey from Bear Creek, and that Molly saw her about once every three months. “We have sent your books,” the mother wrote; “everybody has contributed from their store,—Shakespeare, Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow; and a number of novels by Scott, Thackeray, George Eliot, Hawthorne, and lesser writers; some volumes of Emerson; and Jane Austen complete, because you admire her so particularly.”
This consignment of literature reached Bear Creek about a week before Christmas time.
By New Year's Day, the Virginian had begun his education.
“Well, I have managed to get through 'em,” he said, as he entered Molly's cabin in February. And he laid two volumes upon her table.
“And what do you think of them?” she inquired.
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