FullReads

The one guest-room at the Ferry that could be called private was given to Kitty and me; but we used it as a sitting-room till bedtime, there being nowhere else to go but into the common room where the teamsters congregate.

We stood and looked at each other, in our common disguise of dust, and tried to find our feet and other members that came awake gradually after the long stupor of the ride. There was a heap of sage-brush on the hearth laid ready for lighting. I touched a match to it, and Kitty dropped on her knees in front of its riotous warmth and glow. Suddenly she sprang up and stared about her, sniffing and catching her breath. I had noticed it too; it fairly took one by the throat, the gruesome odor.

“What is this beastly smell?” She spoke right out, as our beloved English do. Tom came in at that moment, and she turned upon him as though he were the author of our misery.

“What has happened in this horrid room? We can’t stay here, you know!” The proposition admitted of no argument. She refused to draw another breath except through her pocket-handkerchief.

By this time I had recognized the smell. “It’s nothing but sage-brush,” I cried; “the cleanest, sterilest thing that grows!”

“It may be clean,” said Kitty, “but it smells like the bottomless pit. I must have a breath of fresh air.” The only window in the room was a four-pane sash fixed solid in the top of the outside door. Tom said we should have the sweepings of the Snake River valley in there in one second if we opened that door. But we did, and the wind played havoc with our fire, and half the country blew in, as he had said, and with it came Cecil, his head bent low, his arms full of rugs and dust-cloaks.

“You angel!” I cried, “have you been shaking those things?”

“He’s given himself the hay-fever,” said Tom, heartlessly watching him while he sneezed and sneezed, and wept dust into his handkerchief.

“Doesn’t the man do those things?” Miss Kitty whispered.

“What, our next Populist governor? Not much!” Tom replied. Kitty of course did not understand; it was hopeless to begin upon that theme–of our labor aristocracy; so we sent the men away, and made ourselves as presentable as we could for supper.

I need not dwell upon it; it was the usual Walter’s Ferry supper. The little woman who cooked it–the third she had cooked that evening–served it as well, plodding back and forth from the kitchen stove to the dining-room table, a little white-headed toddler clinging to her skirts, and whining to be put to bed. Out of regard for her look of general discouragement we ate what we could of the food without yielding to the temptation to joke about it, which was a cross to Tom at least.

“Do you know how the farmers sow their seed in the Snake River valley?” he asked Miss Kitty. She raised eyes of confiding inquiry to his face.

“They prepare the land in the usual way; then they go about five miles to windward of the ploughed field and let fly their seed; the wind does the rest. It would be of no use, you see, to sow it on the spot where it’s meant to lie; they would have to go into the next county to look for their crop, top-soil and all.”

Now whenever Tom makes a statement Miss Kitty looks first at me to see how I am taking it.

* * * * *

It is a fair, pale morning, as still as a picture, after last night’s orgy of wind and dust. The maiden is making her first sketch on American soil–of the rope-ferry, with the boat on this side. She is seated in perfect unconsciousness on an inverted pine box–empty, I trust–which bears the startling announcement, in legible lettering on its side, that it holds “500 smokeless nitro-powder cartridges.” Now she looks up disgusted, to see the boat swing off and slowly warp over to the other side. The picturesque blocks and cables in the foreground have hopelessly changed position, and continue changing; but she consoles herself by making marginal notes of the passengers returning by the boat,–a six-horse freight-team from Silver City, and a band of horses driven by two realistic cow-boys from anywhere. The driver of the freight-team has a young wildcat aboard, half starved, haggard, and crazed with captivity. He stops, and pulls out his wretched pet. The cow-boys stop; everybody stops; they make a ring, while the dogs of the ferry-house are invited to step up and examine for themselves. The little cat spits and rages at the end of its blood-stained rope. It is not a pretty show, and I am provoked with our men for not turning their backs upon it.