Chapter 13

"They had enough other things to worry about, anyway. They had to buckle down to the hard life that waits for any young couple without capital in a new country. They had years of hard sledding; but they must of had a good time somehow, because they never have any but pleasant things to tell of it. Whatever that notary public was, he seemed to of pulled off a marriage that took as well or better than a great many that may be more legal. So that's all there is to it--only, here about a year ago they was persuaded to have it done proper at last by a real preacher who makes Kulanche two Sundays a month. That's why the late date's on that certificate. The old lady is right kittenish about that; shows it to everyone, in spite of the fact that it makes her out of been leading an obliquitous life, or something, for about thirty-eight years.

"But then, she's a sentimental old mush-head, anyhow. Guess what she told me out in the kitchen! She's been reading what the Germans did to women and children in Belgium, and she says: 'Of course I hate Germans; and yet it don't seem as if I could ever hate 'em enough to want to kill a lot of German babies!' Wasn't that the confession of a weakling? I guess that's all you'd want to know about that woman. My sakes! Will you look at that mess of clouds? I bet it's falling weather over in Surprise Valley. A good moisting wouldn't hurt us any either."

That seemed to be about all. Yet I was loath to leave the topic. I still had a warm glow in my heart for the aged couple, and I could hear Uncle Henry's bottle of adolescent peach brandy laughing to itself from where it was lashed to the back of my saddle. I struck in the only weak spot in the wall.

"You say they were persuaded into this marriage. Well, who persuaded them? Isn't there something interesting about that?"

It had, indeed, been a shrewd stroke. Ma Pettengill's eyes lighted.

"Say, didn't I ever tell you about Mrs. Julia Wood Atkins, the well-known lady reformer?"

"You did not. We have eight miles yet."

"Oh, very well!"

So for eight miles of a road that led between green fields on our right and a rolling expanse of sagebrush on our left, I heard something like this:

"Well, this prominent club lady had been out on the Coast for some time heading movements and telling people how to do things, and she had got run down. She's a friend of Mrs. W.B. Hemingway, the well-known social leader and club president of Yonkers, who is an old friend of mine; and Mrs. W.B. writes that dear Julia is giving her life to the cause--I forget what cause it was right then--and how would it be for me to have her up here on the ranch for a vacation, where she could recover her spirits and be once more fitted to enter the arena. I say I'm only too glad to oblige, and the lady comes along.

"She seemed right human at first--kind of haggard and overtrained, but with plenty of fights left in her; a lady from forty-eight to fifty-four, with a fine hearty manner that must go well on a platform, and a kind of accusing face. That's the only word I can think of for it. She'd be pretty busy a good part of the day with pamphlets and papers that she or someone else had wrote, but I finally managed to get her out on a gentle old horse--that one you're riding--so she could liven up some; and we got along quite well together.

"The only thing that kind of went against me was, she's one of them that thinks a kind word and a pleasant smile will get 'em anywhere, and she worked both on me a little too much like it was something professional.

"Still, I put it by and listened to her tell about the awful state the world is in, and how a few earnest women could set it right in a week if it wasn't for the police.

"Prison reform, for instance. That was the first topic on which she delivered addresses to me. I couldn't make much out of it, except that we don't rely enough on our convicts' rugged honour. It was only a side line with her; still, she didn't slight it. She could talk at length about the innate sterling goodness of the misunderstood burglar. I got tired of it. I told her one day that, if you come right down to it, I'd bet the men inside penitentiaries didn't average up one bit higher morally than the men outside. She said, with her pleasantest smile, that I didn't understand; so I never tried to after that.

"The lady had a prowling mind. Mebbe that ain't the right word, but it come to me soon after she got here. I think it was the day she begun about our drinking water. She wanted to know what the analysis showed it to contain. She was scared out of her pleasant smile for a minute when she found I'd never had the water analyzed. I thought, first, the poor thing had been reading these beer advertisements; you know--the kind they print asking if you are certain about the purity of your drinking water, telling of the fatal germs that will probably be swimming there, and intimating that probably the only dead-safe bet when you are thirsty is a pint of their pure, wholesome beer, which never yet gave typhoid fever to any one. But, no; Julia just thought all water ought to be analyzed on general principles, and wouldn't I have a sample of ours sent off at once? She'd filled a bottle with some and suggested it with her pleasantest platform smile.

"'Yes,' I says; 'and suppose the report comes back that this water is fatal to man and beast? And it's the only water round here. What then? I'd be in a hell of a fix--wouldn't I?'

"I don't deny I used to fall back on words now and then when her smile got to me. And we went right on using water that might or might not make spicy reading in a chemist's report; I only been here thirty years and it's too soon to tell. Anyway, it was then I see she was gifted with a prowling mind, which is all I can think of to call it. It went with her accusing face. She didn't think anything in this world was as near right as it could be made by some good woman.

"Of course she had other things besides the water to worry about. She was a writer, too. She would write about how friction in the home life may be avoided by one of the parties giving in to the other and letting the wife say how the money shall be spent, and pieces about what the young girl should do next, and what the young wife should do if necessary, and so on. For some reason she was paid money for these pieces.

"However, she was taking longer rides and getting her pep back, which was what she had come here for. And having failed to reform anything on the Arrowhead, she looked abroad for more plastic corruption as you might say. She rode in one night and said she was amazed that this here community didn't do something about Dave Pickens. That's the place we stopped this morning. She said his children were neglected and starving, his wife worked to the bone, and Dave doing nothing but play on a cheap fiddle! How did they get their bread from day to day?

"I told her no one in the wide world had ever been able to answer this puzzle. There was Dave and his wife and five children, all healthy, and eating somehow, and Dave never doing a stroke of work he could side-step. I told her it was such a familiar puzzle we'd quit being puzzled by it.

"She said someone ought to smash his fiddle and make him work. She said she would do something about it. I applauded. I said we needed new blood up here and she seemed to of fetched it.

"She come back the next day with a flush of triumph on her severely simple face. And guess the first thing she asked me to do! She asked me to take chances in a raffle for Dave's fiddle. Yes, sir; with her kind words and pleasant smile she had got Dave to consent to raffle off his fiddle, and she was going to sell twenty-four chances at fifty cents a chance, which would bring twelve dollars cash to the squalid home. I had to respect the woman at that moment.

"'There they are, penniless,' says she, 'and in want for the barest necessities; and this man fiddling his time away! I had a struggle persuading him to give up his wretched toy; but I've handled harder cases. You should of seen the light in the mother's wan face when he consented! The twelve dollars won't be much, though it will do something for her and those starving children; and then he will no longer have the instrument to tempt him.'

"I handed over a dollar for two chances right quick, and Julia went out to the bunk-house and wormed two dollars out of the boys there. And next day she was out selling off the other chances. She didn't dislike the work. It give her a chance to enter our homes and see if they needed reforming, and if the children was subjected to refining influences, and so on. The first day she scared parties into taking fifteen tickets, and the second day she got rid of the rest; and the next Sunday she held the drawing over at Dave's house. The fiddle was won by a nester from over in Surprise Valley, who had always believed he could play one if he only had a fair chance.

"So this good deed was now completed, there being no music, and twelve dollars in the Pickens home that night. And Mrs. Julia now felt that she was ready for the next big feat of uplift, which was a lot more important because it involved the very sanctity of the marriage tie. Yes, sir; she'd come back from her prowling one night and told me in a hushed voice, behind a closed door, about a couple that had been for years living in a state of open immorality.

"I didn't get her, at first, not thinking of Uncle Henry and Aunt Mollie. But she meant just them two. I give her a good hearty laugh, at first; but it pained her so much I let her talk. It seems she'd gone there to sell raffle tickets, and they'd taken four, and cooked food for her, and give her some cherry cordial, which she took on account of being far from a strong woman; and then Aunt Mollie had told all her past life, with this horrid scandal about the notary public sticking innocently out of it.

"Mrs. Julia hadn't been able to see anything but the scandal, she being an expert in that line. So she had started in to persuade Aunt Mollie that it was her sacred duty to be married decently to her companion in crime for forty years. And Aunt Mollie had been right taken with the idea; in fact, she had entered into it with a social enthusiasm that didn't seem to Mrs. Julia to have quite enough womanly shame for her dark past in it. Still, anything to get the guilty couple lawful wedded; and before she left it was all fixed. Uncle Henry was to make an honest woman of Aunt Mollie as soon as she could get her trousseau ready.

"Me? I didn't know whether to laugh or get mad. I said the original marriage had satisfied the peace and dignity of the state of Washington; and it had done more--it had even satisfied the neighbours. So why not let it rest? But, no, indeedy! It had never been a marriage in the sight of God and couldn't be one now. Facts was facts! And she talked some more about Aunt Mollie not taking her false position in the proper way.

"It had been Mrs. Julia's idea to have the preacher come up and commit this ceremony quite furtively, with mebbe a couple of legal witnesses, keeping everything quiet, so as not to have a public scandal. But nothing like that for the guilty woman! She was going to have a trousseau and a wedding, with guests and gayety. She wasn't taking it the right way at all. It seemed like she wanted all the scandal there was going.

"'Really, I can't understand the creature,' says Mrs. Julia. 'She even speaks of a wedding breakfast! Can you imagine her wishing to flaunt such a thing?'

"It was then I decided to laugh instead of telling this lady a few things she couldn't of put in an article. I said Aunt Mollie's taking it this way showed how depraved people could get after forty years of it; and we must try to humour the old trollop, the main thing being to get her and her debased old Don Juan into a legal married state, even if they did insist on going in with a brass band. Julia said she was glad I took it this way.

"She came back to my room again that night, after her hair was down. The only really human thing this lady ever did, so far as I could discover, was to put some of this magic remedy on her hair that restores the natural colour if the natural colour happened to be what this remedy restores it to. Any way, she now wanted to know if I thought it was right for Aunt Mollie to continue to reside there in that house between now and the time when they would be lawful man and wife. I said no; I didn't think it was right. I thought it was a monstrous infamy and an affront to public morals; but mebbe we better resolve to ignore it and plow a straight furrow, without stopping to pull weeds. She sadly said she supposed I was right.

"So Uncle Henry hitched up his fat white horse to the buggy, and him and Aunt Mollie drove round the country for three days, inviting folks to their wedding. Aunt Mollie had the time of her life. It seemed as if there wasn't no way whatever to get a sense of shame into that brazen old hussy. And when this job was done she got busy with her trousseau, which consisted of a bridge gown in blue organdie, and a pair of high white shoes. She didn't know what a bridge gown was for, but she liked the looks of one in a pattern book and sent down to Red Gap for Miss Gunslaugh to bring up the stuff and make it. And she'd always had this secret yearning for a pair of high white shoes; so they come up, too.

"Furthermore, Aunt Mollie had read the city paper for years and knew about wedding breakfasts; so she was bound to have one of those. It looked like a good time was going to be had by all present except the lady who started it. Mrs. Julia was more malignantly scandalized by these festal preparations than she had been by the original crime; but she had to go through with it now.

"The date had been set and we was within three days of it when Aunt Mollie postponed it three days more because Dave Pickens couldn't be there until this later day. Mrs. Julia made a violent protest, because she had made her plans to leave for larger fields of crime; but Aunt Mollie was stubborn. She said Dave Pickens was one of the oldest neighbours and she wouldn't have a wedding he couldn't attend; and besides, marriage was a serious step and she wasn't going to be hurried into it.

"So Mrs. Julia went to a lot of trouble about her ticket and reservations, and stayed over. She was game enough not to run out before Uncle Henry had made Aunt Mollie a lady. I was a good deal puzzled about this postponement. Dave Pickens was nothing to postpone anything for. There never was any date that he couldn't be anywhere--at least, unless he had gone to work after losing his fiddle, which was highly ridiculous.

"The date held this time. We get word the wedding is to be held in the evening and that everyone must stay there overnight. This was surprising, but simple after Aunt Mollie explained it. The guests, of course, had to stay over for the wedding breakfast. Aunt Mollie had figured it all out. A breakfast is something you eat in the morning, about six-thirty or seven; so a wedding breakfast must be held the morning after the wedding. You couldn't fool Aunt Mollie on social niceties.

"Anyway, there we all was at the wedding; Uncle Henry in his black suit and his shiny new teeth, and Aunt Mollie in her bridge gown and white shoes, and this young minister that wore a puzzled look from start to finish. I guess he never did know what kind of a game he was helping out in. But he got through with the ceremony. There proved to be not a soul present knowing any reason why this pair shouldn't be joined together in holy wedlock, though Mrs. Julia looked more severe than usual at this part of the ceremony. Uncle Henry and Aunt Mollie was firm in their responses and promised to cling to each other till death did them part. They really sounded as if they meant it.

"Mrs. Julia looked highly noble and sweet when all was over, like she had rescued an erring sister from the depths. You could see she felt that the world would indeed be a better place if she could only give a little more time to it.

"We stood round and talked some after the ceremony; but not for long. Aunt Mollie wound the clock and set the mouse-trap, and hustled us all off to bed so we could be up bright and early for the wedding breakfast. You'd think she'd been handling these affairs in metropolitan society for years. The women slept on beds and sofas, and different places, and the men slept out in the barn and in a tent Uncle Henry had put up or took their blanket rolls and bunked under a tree.

"Then ho! for the merry wedding breakfast at six-thirty A.M.! The wedding breakfast consisted of ham and eggs and champagne. Yes, sir; don't think Aunt Mollie had overlooked the fashionable drink. Hadn't she been reading all her life about champagne being served at wedding breakfasts? So there it was in a new wash boiler, buried in cracked ice. And while the women was serving the ham and eggs and hot biscuits at the long table built out in the side yard, Uncle Henry exploded several bottles of this wine and passed it to one and all, and a toast was drunk to the legal bride and groom; after which eating was indulged in heartily.

"It was a merry feast, even without the lobster salad, which Aunt Mollie apologized for not having. She said she knew lobster salad went with a wedding breakfast, the same as champagne; but the canned lobster she had ordered hadn't come, so we'd have to make out with the home-cured ham and some pork sausage that now come along. Nobody seemed downhearted about the missing lobster salad. Uncle Henry passed up and down the table filling cups and glasses, and Aunt Mollie, in her wedding finery, kept the food coming with some buckwheat cakes at the finish.

"It was a very satisfactory wedding breakfast, if any one should ever make inquiries of you. By the time Uncle Henry had the ends out of half the champagne bottles I guess everyone there was glad he had decided to drag Aunt Mollie back from the primrose path.

"It all passed off beautifully, except for one tragedy. Oh, yes; there's always something to mar these affairs. But this hellish incident didn't come till the very last. After the guests had pretty well et themselves to a standstill, Dave Pickens got up and come back with a fiddle, and stood at the end of the grape arbour and played a piece.

"'Someone must have supplied that wretch with another fiddle!' says Mrs. Julia, who was kind of cross, anyway, having been bedded down on a short sofa and not liking champagne for breakfast--and, therefore, not liking to see others drink it.

"'Oh, he's probably borrowed one for your celebration,' I says.

"Dave played a couple more lively pieces; and pretty soon, when we got up from the table, he come over to Mrs. Julia and me.

"'It's a peach of a fiddle,' says Dave. 'It says in the catalogue it's a genuine Cremonika--looks like a Cremona and plays just as good. I bet it's the best fiddle in the world to be had for twelve dollars!'

"'What's that?' says Mrs. Julia, erecting herself like an alarmed rattlesnake.

"'Sure! It's a genuine twelve-dollar one,' says Dave proudly. 'My old one, that you so kindly raffled off, cost only five. I always wanted a better one, but I never had the money to spare till you come along. It's awful hard to save up money round here.'

"'Do you mean to tell me--' says Mrs. Julia. She was so mad she couldn't get any farther. Dave thought she was merely enthusiastic about his new fiddle.

"'Sure! Only twelve dollars for this beauty,' he says, fondling the instrument. 'We got down the mail-order catalogue the minute you left that money with us, and had a postal order on the way to Chicago that very night. I must say, lady, you brought a great pleasure into our life.'

"'What about your poor wife?' snaps Mrs. Julia.

"His poor wife comes up just then and looks affectionately at Dave and the new fiddle.

"'He spent that money for another fiddle!' says Mrs. Julia to her in low tones of horror.

"'Sure! What did you think he was going to do with it?' says Mrs. Dave. 'I must say we had two mighty dull weeks while Dave was waiting for this new one. He just mopes round the house when he ain't got anything to play on. But this is a lot better than the old fiddle; it was worth waiting for. Did you thank the lady, Dave?'

"Mrs. Julia was now plumb speechless and kind of weak. And on top of these blows up comes Aunt Mollie the new-wed, and beams fondly on her.

"'There!' says she. 'Ain't that a fine new fiddle that Dave bought with his twelve dollars? And wasn't it worth postponing my wedding for, so we could have some music?'

"'What's that?' says Mrs. Julia again. 'Why did you postpone it?'

"'Because the fiddle didn't get here till last night,' says Aunt Mollie, 'and I wasn't going to have a wedding without music. It wouldn't seem right. And don't you think, yourself, it's a lot better fiddle than Dave's old one?'

"So this poor Mrs. Julia woman was now stricken for fair, thinking of all the trouble she'd been to about her tickets, and all to see this new fiddle.

"She went weakly into the house and lay down, with a headache, till I was ready to leave the gay throng. And the next day she left us to our fate. Still, she'd done us good. Dave has a new fiddle and Aunt Mollie has her high white shoes. So now you know all about it."

We neared the Arrowhead gate. Presently its bell would peal a sweet message to those who laboured. Ma Pettengill turned in her saddle to scan the western horizon.

"A red sun has water in his eye," said she. "Well, a good soak won't hurt us."

And a moment later:

"Curious thing about reformers: They don't seem to get a lot of pleasure out of their labours unless the ones they reform resist and suffer, and show a proper sense of their degradation. I bet a lot of reformers would quit to-morrow if they knew their work wasn't going to bother people any."

VI

THE PORCH WREN

So it befell, in a shining and memorable interlude that there was talk of the oldest living boy scout, who was said to have rats in his wainscoting; of the oldest living débutante, who was also a porch wren; and of the body snatcher. Little of the talk was mine; a query now and again. It was Ma Pettengill's talk, and I put it here for what it may be worth, hoping I may close-knit and harmonize its themes, so diverse as that of the wardrobe trunk, the age of the earth, what every woman thinks she knows, and the Upper Silurian trilobites.

It might be well to start with the concrete, and baby's picture seems to be an acceptable springboard from which to dive into the recital. It came in the evening's mail and was extended to me by Mrs. Lysander John Pettengill, with poorly suppressed emotion. The thing excited no emotion in me that I could not easily suppress. It was the most banal of all snapshots--a young woman bending Madonna-wise above something carefully swathed, flanked by a youngish man who revealed a self-conscious smirk through his carefully pointed beard. The light did harshly by the bent faces of the couple and the disclosed fragment of the swathed thing was a weakish white blob.

I need not say that there must be millions of these pathetic revealments burdening our mails day by day. I myself must have looked coldly upon over a thousand.

"Well, what of it?" I demanded shortly.

"I bet you can't guess what's in that bundle!" said my hostess in a large playful manner.

I said what I could see of it looked like a half portion of plain boiled cauliflower, but that in all probability the object was an infant, a human infant--or, to use a common expression, a baby. Whereupon the lady drew herself up and remarked in the clipped accent of a parrot:

"No, sir; it's a carboniferous trilobite of the Upper Silurian."