Heart's Desire by Emerson Hough (comprehension books .TXT) 📕

"That may all be. Question is, how's she a-feelin' toward him these days?"

"Curly," after a little silence, "I'm going to put on my bonnet and go over there and see that girl. She's all alone. I'll take her a pie. I always did think she was nice."

"Well, all right. There's Bill Godfrey drivin' the stage out of his barn now. I'll go over to the post-office and help the old man with the mail. May ride out as far as the ranch with Bill and see if Mac has anything special to do. There was talk of that Nogal sheep outfit gettin' in on the lower end of our range. If they do, something'll pop for sure. You go on over to the hotel if you want to. Ma'll take care of the twins."

The departure of the stage for Socorro occurred once a week or so, if all went well, and the event was always one of importance. Even Mr. Ellsworth and Constance found themselves joining the groups which wandered now toward the post-office, next door to Whiteman's store, in front of which Bill Godfrey regularly made his first stop preparatory to leaving town. As they two passed up the street from the hotel, they missed the Littlest Girl, who crossed the arroyo above them by a quarter of a mile; Heart's Desire being, in view of its population, a city of magnificent distances. The man from Leavenworth, postmaster, had nearly finished the solemn performance of locking up the emaciated mail-bag for Socorro, and Bill Godfrey was looking intently at his watch—which had not gone for six months—when all at once the assemblage in and around the post-office was startled by shrieks, screams, and calls of the most alarming nature. These rapidly approached from the direction of the arroyo, beyond which lay the residence portion of Heart's Desire. Presently there was to be distinguished the voice of a woman, raised in terrified lamentations, accompanied with the broken screams of a child in evident distress. There appeared, hastening toward the group in front of the store, Curly's mother-in-law, wife of the postmaster of Heart's Desire, and guardian as well of the twins of Heart's Desire. It was one of these twins, Arabella, whom she now hurried along with her, at such speed that the child's feet scarce touched the ground. When this latter did happen, Arabella seemed synchronously to catch her breath, becoming thus able to emit one more spasmodic wail. There was pain and fright in the cries, and the whole attitude of the woman from Kansas was such that all knew some tragedy had occurred or was impending.

"Good Lord!" cried Curly, "I'll bet a thousand dollars the kid's got my strychnine bottle this time! I left it in the window. There was enough to poison a thousand coyotes!"

He sprang forward to catch the other arm of the sobbing child. The man from Kansas, postmaster of Heart's Desire, hastened to join his wife in the street, wagging his gray beard in wild queries. In half a moment all the population was massed in front of Whiteman's store, incoherent, frightened, utterly helpless.

"She's dyin'!" cried the woman from Kansas. "Poison! Oh, Willyam, what shall we do?" But the postmaster was unable to offer any aid or counsel.

"I just left it there in the window," explained Curly, excitedly; "I was goin' to put out some baits around a water hole, about to-morrow."

"Oh, it's awful!" sobbed the woman from Kansas. "What shall we do? What shall we do?"

"Doc," said Curly to Doc Tomlinson, "you run the drug store—ain't you got no anecdote for this?" Doc Tomlinson could only shake his head mournfully. A ring of bearded, beweaponed men gathered about the little sufferer, hopeless, at their wits' end.

Constance and her father, hurrying to learn the cause of the commotion, received but incoherent answers to their questions. "Good Lord! girl, that child's hurt!" cried Ellsworth, helpless as the others. "What'll we do?"

Constance did not even reply to him. Without his assistance, indeed without looking to right or left, she made straight through the circle of men, who gave way to admit her.

"What's the trouble here? What's wrong?" she demanded sharply, catching the weeping woman by the arm, even as she reached out a hand toward the suffering Arabella.

"Poison!" wailed the woman from Kansas again. "She's goin' to die! There ain't no way to help it."

"What poison—what has the child taken?" asked Constance.

"It was strychnine, ma'am, like enough," ventured Curly. "There was some—"

"Nonsense! It's not strychnine," cried the girl. In an instant her eye had caught what every other individual present had overlooked, although it was certainly the most obvious object in all the landscape,—the half-empty can which still remained tightly clutched in Arabella's free hand.

"Why, here it is!" she exclaimed. "The child has eaten concentrated lye. Quick! Get her in somewhere. What are you standing around here for—get out of the way, you men!"

They scattered, and Constance glanced about her. "Where's some grease—some lard? Quick!" she called out to Whiteman, who was looking on.

"In here, lady—dis vay," he answered eagerly; but she outfooted him to the rear of the store, carrying Arabella in her arms. Spying a lard tin, she thrust off the cover, and plunged in a hand. Immediately the sobs of Arabella changed to sputterings, for the physician in charge had covered her face, lips, and a goodly portion of the interior of her mouth and throat with the ameliorating unguent! At this act of first aid, the wails of the woman from Kansas ceased also, and a vast sigh of relief arose from the confederated helplessness of Heart's Desire.

"Is she going to die?" gasped the woman from Kansas.

"No," said Constance, scornfully. "I've seen much worse burns. The lye has perhaps lost a little of its strength, too. The burns are all well in the front of the mouth and tongue, and I don't think she swallowed any of it. Lard is as good as anything to stop the burn. Why didn't you think of it?"

"I don't know, ma'am," confessed the woman from Kansas.

A sudden loquacity now seized upon all those recently perturbed and silent.

"Now," said Curly, "it's this-a-way; the women they must have left that can of lye settin' around. It's mighty careless of 'em. I needed my strychnine, but there ain't no sense in leavin' lye settin' around. Them twins was due to eat it, shore. Why, they was broke to eat anything that comes in tin cans!"

Constance gathered Arabella in her arms. The tailored gown was ruined now. One hand remained gloved, but both were grease-laden to the wrists. She was unconscious of all this. Her gaze, frowning, solicitous, maternal, bent itself upon the face of her patient. The men of Heart's Desire looked on, silent, relieved, adoring. A few began to edge toward the open air.

"You ain't no kind of a drug-store man," said the postmaster, scornfully, to Tomlinson.

"Why ain't I?" retorted the latter, hotly. "What chance does a merchant get in this town? What do I get for carrying a full line of drugs here for years? Now, lard ain't drugs. It ain't in the pharmacopy."

"I don't know but it's a good thing for that kid," said Curly. "She ought to be plumb soft-spoken all her life, after all that lard in her frontispiece. But it won't do 'em no good,—they'll eat my strychnine next. This here stage-coach—with her along," jerking his thumb towards the physician in charge, "won't be any more'n out of sight before that twin corporation will be fryin' dynamite on the kitchen stove. I shore thought that set of twins was busted this time for keeps. Unless there's two of 'em, twins ain't no good!"

"Ma'am, your dress is just ruined," said the woman from Kansas; "you are lard clean from head to foot!"

"I know it," cried Constance, gayly, the color coming to her cheeks; "but never mind, the baby's all right now."

"Well, you've got to come over to our house and get fixed up. Was you goin' out on the stage? You stay here for a day or so and watch that child; we'd like it mighty well if you would."

It was a flag of truce from Heart's Desire. Nevertheless, Constance seemed to hesitate. Ah! wily Constance. A great many things might happen which had not yet happened, but which ought to happen. And in all that group Dan Anderson was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps after a time he might come!

Constance hesitated just long enough. The dignity of Bill Godfrey had to be sustained. His stagecoach had not started on the appointed and stipulated time any day these many months; yet for that stage, ready equipped for its journey, to stand waiting idly upon the convenience of any mortal after the "mails" had been brought out from the post-office and placed safely in the boot, was mortal affront to any stage-driver's reputation. Bill Godfrey again looked solemnly at his watch and gathered up the reins. "All aboard!" he cried. "Git up!" and so swung a wide circle and headed down the street to the hotel. Presently he departed. He carried a solitary passenger. Constance and her father were still prisoners, or guests, in Heart's Desire for an indefinite time! And in an indefinite time many things may occur.

In his house across the arroyo Dan Anderson endured the silence and loneliness as long as he could, turning over and over again in his mind the old questions to which he had found no answer. Most of all, one question was insistent. Had he been just to her, to Constance, in allowing himself to accept her alleged conduct as a motive for his own actual conduct? He had taken for granted much—all—and upon what manner of testimony? The babblings of a half-witted herder! He had asked the men of Heart's Desire to hear both sides of his own case. The men of Heart's Desire had heard both sides of the railroad's case. But he had condemned without trial the woman whom he loved—her—Constance! It was impossible, unbelievable of any man.

When the horror of this thought broke upon him fully, Dan Anderson sprang up, caught his hat, and started fast as he might for the hotel. He crossed the arroyo below the post-office, and so did not know, at the time, of the peril and rescue of Arabella. Nor did he know that all of Heart's Desire was penitent regarding her and her father; nor that both were to remain for yet a little time.

Dan Anderson approached the stone hotel in time to watch the stage depart, himself unobserved. Then he stepped farther toward the hotel door. He met the Littlest Girl just emerging from the building, whither she had gone upon the same errand as his own.

"She ain't here, Mr. Anderson," explained the Littlest Girl; "her and her pa has just went to the post-office."

He looked at her silently. "Oh, I know who you come to see," asserted the Littlest Girl, "and I don't blame you. It's time you did, too."

Without a word he turned and walked with her up the street, there to miss Constance by three moments, which, potentially, might have been a life-time.

"Dad, you've been drinking!" burst out Constance as her father met her at the door of Curly's house. She had heard footsteps, and hastened to meet the visitor. Perhaps it was disappointment, perhaps indignation with herself that she had listened, that she had waited, which caused her to greet her parent with such asperity.

"You wrong me, daughter!" protested Mr. Ellsworth, solemnly; "only took one or two little ones, to celebrate the saving of the twin. You've made a great hit with those people over there. They'd all celebrate, if there was anything to drink. I had to stock the Lone Star myself out of my valise. They won't