The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains, Owen Wister [best e books to read txt] 📗
- Author: Owen Wister
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As we reached the stables, he had become the serene bird he promised, and was sentimentally continuing:
“'De sun is made of mud from de bottom of de river; De moon is made o' fox-fire, as you might disciver; De stars like de ladies' eyes, All round de world dey flies, To give a little light when de moon don't rise.'”If words were meant to conceal our thoughts, melody is perhaps a still thicker veil for them. Whatever temper he had lost, he had certainly found again; but this all the more fitted him to deal with Trampas, when the dealing should begin. I had half a mind to speak to the Judge, only it seemed beyond a mere visitor's business. Our missionary was at this moment himself speaking to Judge Henry at the door of the home ranch.
“I reckon he's explaining he has been a-waiting.” The Virginian was throwing his saddle off as I loosened the cinches of mine. “And the Judge don't look like he was hopelessly distressed.”
I now surveyed the distant parley, and the Judge, from the wagonful of guests whom he had evidently been driving upon a day's excursion, waved me a welcome, which I waved back. “He's got Miss Molly Wood there!” I exclaimed.
“Yes.” The Virginian was brief about this fact. “I'll look afteh your saddle. You go and get acquainted with the company.”
This favor I accepted; it was the means he chose for saying he hoped, after our recent boiling over, that all was now more than right between us. So for the while I left him to his horses, and his corrals, and his Trampas, and his foreman, and his imminent problem.
XIX. DR. MACBRIDE BEGS PARDON
Judge and Mrs. Henry, Molly Wood, and two strangers, a lady and a gentleman, were the party which had been driving in the large three-seated wagon. They had seemed a merry party. But as I came within hearing of their talk, it was a fragment of the minister's sonority which reached me first: “—more opportunity for them to have the benefit of hearing frequent sermons,” was the sentence I heard him bring to completion.
“Yes, to be sure, sir.” Judge Henry gave me (it almost seemed) additional warmth of welcome for arriving to break up the present discourse. “Let me introduce you to the Rev. Dr. Alexander MacBride. Doctor, another guest we have been hoping for about this time,” was my host's cordial explanation to him of me. There remained the gentleman with his wife from New York, and to these I made my final bows. But I had not broken up the discourse.
“We may be said to have met already.” Dr. MacBride had fixed upon me his full, mastering eye; and it occurred to me that if they had policemen in heaven, he would be at least a centurion in the force. But he did not mean to be unpleasant; it was only that in a mind full of matters less worldly, pleasure was left out. “I observed your friend was a skilful horseman,” he continued. “I was saying to Judge Henry that I could wish such skilful horsemen might ride to a church upon the Sabbath. A church, that is, of right doctrine, where they would have opportunity to hear frequent sermons.”
“Yes,” said Judge Henry, “yes. It would be a good thing.”
Mrs. Henry, with some murmur about the kitchen, here went into the house.
“I was informed,” Dr. MacBride held the rest of us, “before undertaking my journey that I should find a desolate and mainly godless country. But nobody gave me to understand that from Medicine Bow I was to drive three hundred miles and pass no church of any faith.”
The Judge explained that there had been a few a long way to the right and left of him. “Still,” he conceded, “you are quite right. But don't forget that this is the newest part of a new world.”
“Judge,” said his wife, coming to the door, “how can you keep them standing in the dust with your talking?”
This most efficiently did break up the discourse. As our little party, with the smiles and the polite holdings back of new acquaintanceship, moved into the house, the Judge detained me behind all of them long enough to whisper dolorously, “He's going to stay a whole week.”
I had hopes that he would not stay a whole week when I presently learned of the crowded arrangements which our hosts, with many hospitable apologies, disclosed to us. They were delighted to have us, but they hadn't foreseen that we should all be simultaneous. The foreman's house had been prepared for two of us, and did we mind? The two of us were Dr. MacBride and myself; and I expected him to mind. But I wronged him grossly. It would be much better, he assured Mrs. Henry, than straw in a stable, which he had tried several times, and was quite ready for. So I saw that though he kept his vigorous body clean when he could, he cared nothing for it in the face of his mission. How the foreman and his wife relished being turned out during a week for a missionary and myself was not my concern, although while he and I made ready for supper over there, it struck me as hard on them. The room with its two cots and furniture was as nice as possible; and we closed the door upon the adjoining room, which, however, seemed also untenanted.
Mrs. Henry gave us a meal so good that I have remembered it, and her husband the Judge strove his best that we should eat it in merriment. He poured out his anecdotes like wine, and we should have quickly warmed to them; but Dr. MacBride sat among us, giving occasional heavy ha-ha's, which produced, as Miss Molly Wood whispered to me, a “dreadfully cavernous effect.” Was it his sermon, we wondered, that he was thinking over? I told her of the copious sheaf of them I had seen him pull from his wallet over at the foreman's. “Goodness!” said she. “Then are we to hear one every evening?” This I doubted; he had probably been picking one out suitable for the occasion. “Putting his best foot foremost,” was her comment; “I suppose they have best feet, like the rest of us.” Then she grew delightfully sharp. “Do you know, when I first heard him I thought his voice was hearty. But if you listen, you'll find it's merely militant. He never really meets you with it. He's off on his hill watching the battle-field the whole time.”
“He will find a hardened pagan here.”
“Judge Henry?”
“Oh, no! The wild man you're taming
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