Peak and Prairie. Fuller Anna

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СКАЧАТЬ the world. To make a clean breast of it, the two fell frankly in love with each other upon the spot, and before the stranger had departed, he had persuaded her to visit his ranch with him the very next Sunday.

      "But I don't know what to call you," she said, after having agreed upon this wild escapade.

      "That's so," said he. "I go by the name of Wat Warren out here, but they used to call me Walter at home. I wish you would call me Walter."

      "It's a pretty name," she said. "I thought some of calling my boy Walter at first."

      Warren was on the point of departure, and a sudden embarrassment seemed to seize him. He had his hand in his trousers' pocket. "I 'most forgot the money for the license," he stammered, as he pulled out a couple of silver dollars.

      Nobody knows what came over Mrs. Nancy, but she suddenly found she could not take the money.

      "Oh, that's of no consequence," she said, quite as though she had had at her command the whole treasury surplus of a few years ago. "I should like to make David a present of the license;" and as her two visitors departed at full gallop, she sat down in a flutter of pleasurable excitement.

      How surprising it all was! She looked back upon the last hour quite incredulous. She felt as though she had known this strange young man all her life. Not that he had told her much about his own concerns. On the contrary, after complimenting her on the subject of David's collar and David's bath, he had got her talking about herself; and she had told him about Willie, and about Atchison, and about her desire to go home to New England.

      "My sakes!" said she to herself; "what a chatterbox I'm getting to be in my old age! What must he have thought of me?" But in her heart she knew he had not thought any harm of her confidence. There had been no mistaking the sympathy in that sunburnt face, and if there had been any doubt remaining, the hearty grip of the rough hand, which she still felt upon her palm, would have set her mind quite at rest.

      But if Mrs. Nancy wondered at herself on Tuesday, she had fairly lost all track of her own identity when, on Sunday, she found herself seated beside her broad-shouldered friend in a light wagon, bowling over the prairies behind a pair of frisky four-year-olds, while David bounded beside them or scampered about in the vain pursuit of prairie-dogs.

      "Do you feel afraid?" asked her host, looking protectingly down upon the tiny figure at his side.

      "Not a mite," she declared. "I never was one of the scary kind."

      They had left the mountains behind them and were speeding to the eastward. It seemed to her that a few hours of this rapid progress would bring them to the very shores of the Atlantic. On and on they went over the undulating yellow plains. As they neared the top of each rise of ground Mrs. Nancy's heart stood still in a strange fantastic suspense. Would there be trees over beyond, or lakes, or rivers, or perhaps a green New England meadow?

      "Isn't it like sailing?" said her companion as they bowled along.

      "I never went sailing," Mrs. Nancy replied. "I've only been out in a boat on the pond, and I think this is pleasanter."

      They did little talking on that drive. Mrs. Nancy was too entirely absorbed in her new experience to have much to say. But when at last they reached the ranch, lying like an oasis in the vast barren, with young corn sprouting in the wide fields, and a handful of cottonwood trees clustered about the house, the tears fairly started to the little woman's eyes, so much did this bit of rural landscape remind her of her own far-away New England. And when the master of the house led the way into a neat little room, with a south window looking across the plains, it came his turn for confidences.

      "This room was built on for my mother," he said.

      "Did she live here with you?"

      "No; she died before she could get here."

      "Oh dear!" said his little visitor.

      The two small words were eloquent with sympathy.

      That was a red-letter day for Mrs. Nancy Tarbell. She felt as though she were getting a glimpse of the great West for the first time in all these years. When her host casually informed her that he owned about seven square miles of land and two hundred head of cattle, she gave a little gasp of amazement.

"A HANDFUL OF COTTONWOOD TREES CLUSTERED ABOUT THE HOUSE."

      "I always wanted to see a cattle ranch," she said.

      "Oh, this is no cattle ranch. It's only a dairy." And he took her about through the many sheds and barns, which were hidden in a hollow a few rods away. Here he showed her his ice-houses, his huge churns, and his mammoth "separator" that went whirling around, dividing the cream from hundreds of gallons of milk in the time it would have taken her to skim a couple of three-pint pans.

      "Sakes alive!" she exclaimed again and again, as these wonders were explained to her—"sakes alive! what would our folks say to that?"

      "You'll have a great deal to tell them when you go back," said Warren, studying her animated face.

      "If I ever go," she said, with a little sigh.

      This was after dinner, which had been a savory meal served by a man cook.

      "Do you want very much to go?"

      "Oh yes! I shall go just as soon as ever Atchison begins to pay again. I hope I haven't any false pride," she added, deprecatingly, "but I can live cheaper here than I should be willing to there, where I've seen better days."

      Brave little Mrs. Nancy! It was not indeed false pride that deterred her, but the fear of being a burden to others.

      They were sitting in the big living-room, which on this great occasion had been made as neat as her own little parlor. Antlers and other strange trophies ornamented the walls, where also guns and spurs and lassos hung. The little woman did not seem in the least out of place among these warlike objects. She sat in an old leathern chair, her feet on a coyote-skin, looking about her with quick bright motions that made the big fellow think of the shy field creatures that sometimes strayed over his threshold—ground squirrels, rabbits, and the like. David lay curled up close beside her, and half a dozen less-favored dogs looked wistfully in from time to time. Warren was wondering whether she could possibly fit in naturally to the stiff, scant New England life which he had fled away from when a boy. Presently he said:

      "Have you any idea how much your house and land are worth?"

      "Oh yes! We paid ten hundred and fifty dollars for it when the house was new, but it's a good deal out of repair now."

      "But you know real estate is pretty high here just now."

      Struck by the peculiar emphasis with which he spoke, Mrs. Nancy gave him a startled look. "Why—why—what do you mean?"

      "Well, I was talking with a real-estate man about the value of land the other day, and he said you could realize six thousand dollars on your place any day."

      "Six—thousand—dollars?"

      "Yes, six thousand dollars."

      "Why, that's just what we had in Atchison!"

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