CHAPTER IX
CIVILIZATION AT HEART'S DESIRE
_How the Men of Heart's Desire surrendered to the Softening Seductionsof Croquet and other Pastimes_
"Go on, Curly, it's your next shot. Hurry up," said McKinney, who wasnervous.
"Now you just hold on, Mac," replied the former. "This here croquet isa new style of shootin', and with two dollars on the game I ain't goin'to be hurried none."
"It ain't a half-decent outfit, either," complained Doc Tomlinson."Hay wire ain't any good for croquet arches; and as for these hereballs and mallets you bought sight-unseen by mail, they're a disgraceto civilization."
"_Pronto_! _Pronto_! Hurry up!" called Dan Anderson from his perchon the fence of Whiteman's corral, from which he was observing what wasprobably the first game of croquet ever played between the Pecos andRio Grande rivers. There were certain features of the contest inquestion which were perhaps not usual. Indeed, I do not recall ever tohave seen any other game of croquet in which two of the highcontracting parties wore "chaps" and spurs and the other two overallsand blue shirts. But in spite of all admonition Curly stood perplexed,with his hat pushed back on his forehead and his mallet held gingerlybetween the fingers of one hand, while a cigarette graced those of theother.
"The court rules," resumed Dan Anderson, "that this game can't wait forarguments of counsel. Curly, you are a disgrace. You and McKinneyought to skin Doc and the Learned Counsel easy if you had a bit ofsavvy. Can't you hit that stake?"
"I could if you'd let me take a six-shooter or a rope," said Curly. "Iain't fixed for this here tenderfoot game you-all have sprung on me.If it wasn't for that there spur, I'd have sent Doc's ball plumb overCarrizy Mountain that last carrom. You watch me when onct I get thehang of this thing."
"You can't get the hang of nothing," said McKinney. "A cow puncherain't got no sense except to ride mean horses and eat canned tomatoes."
"Maybe you don't like your pardner," said Curly. "Now you changearound next game, and I'll bet me and the lawyer can skin Doc and youto a finish. Bet you three _pesos_. Of course, I can't play thisthing first jump like a borned tenderfoot. I wonder what my mammy'dsay to me if she caught me foolin' around here with this here littlewooden tack hammer."
"It all comes of Mac's believin' everything he saw in anadvertisement," said Dan Anderson.
"Well, you put me up to it," retorted McKinney, flushing.
"Now, there you go!" exclaimed Dan Anderson. "I didn't figure on whatit might do to our mortality tables. You fellows can't play the gamewearin' spurs, and I'm afraid to see you try any further with your gunson. Here, all of you, come over here. The umpire decides that you'vegot to check your guns during the game. I don't mind bein' umpire inthe ancient and honorable game of croquet, but I ain't goin' to assumeno unpaid obligations as coroner."
"'The umpire decides that you've got to check your gunsduring the game.'"]
With some protests all those engaged handed their belts to DanAnderson, who casually flung them over a projecting cedar limb of thefence. "For shame! Curly," said he. "Talk about tenderfeet! Hereyou are, wearin' a pearl handle on your gun, just like a cheap Nebraskasheepherder with social ambitions. I thought you was a real cowman.The court fines you--"
"It ain't my fault," said Curly, blushing. "The girl--the littlewoman--that's my wife--she done that last Christmas. She allowed itwas fine--and it goes."
"Yes, and put enough money into this handle to buy a whole new croquetset for the family. Ain't that awful! All this comes of takin' adaily newspaper once a month and readin' the advertisin' columns.We're going to be plumb effete, if we ain't mighty careful, down inhere."
"That's so," said McKinney, scratching his head. "Times is changin'.That reminds me, I ordered a new suit of clothes by mail fromPhiladelphy, and they ought to be just about due when Tom Osby comesdown; and that ought to be to-day."
"That's so," assented Doc Tomlinson. "He's got a little bill of goodsfor me, too."
"Oh, why, oh, why this profligacy, Doc?" said Dan Anderson. "Didn'tyou order two pounds of alum the last trip Tom made? What do you wantof so many drugs, anyhow?"
"Hush, fellers," said Curly. "Listen a minute!"
Curly's ears had detected the rattle of distant wagon wheels. "That'sTom comin' now," said he. "He's a heap more regular than the Socorrostage. That's him, because I can hear him singin'."
"Tom, he's stuck on music," said McKinney.
Afar, but approaching steadily, might be heard the jolting vehiclecoming down the canon; and presently there was borne to our ears thesound of Tom Osby's voice in his favorite melody:--
"I never _lo-o-oved_ a fo-o-o-o-nd ga-a-a-z-elle!"
He proclaimed this loudly.
We knew that Tom would drive up to Whiteman's store, hence we waitedfor him near the corral fence. As he approached and observed ouroccupation he arrested his salutations and gazed for a moment in silentmeditation.
"Prithee, sweet sirs," said he, at length, "what in blazes you doin'?"
"These gentlemen," said Dan Anderson from the fence, "are engaged inshowin' the endurin' quality of the Anglo-Saxon temperament. Whereverthe Saxon goes he sets up his own peculiar institutions. What! ShallNew Mexico be behind New York, or New England? This croquet set costeighteen dollars to get here from Chicago. Get down, Tom, you're in onthe game."
But Tom picked up his reins and clucked to his team. "Excuse _me_,fellers," said he. "That there looks too frisky for me. I got tothink of my business reputation." He passed on up the street.
"What's the matter with Tom?" asked Curly. "Seems like he wasn'tfeelin' right cheerful, some way." Dan Anderson gazed after theteamster pensively.
"Methinks you are concealing something from us, Tom," said he. "Let'sgo find out what it is, fellows." He disengaged the respectivesix-shooters from their place on the fence, and thus again properlyclad, we wandered over toward Whiteman's commercial emporium, where TomOsby was now proceeding to discharge the cargo of his freight wagon.This done, he did not pause for a pipe and a parley, but, climbing upto the high front seat, picked up the reins and drove off; not, as washis wont, to the corral, or to Uncle Jim Brothers's restaurant, but tohis own adobe down the _arroyo_. We looked at each other in silence.
"Something on his mind," said Dan Anderson.
"He didn't bring my clothes," said McKinney.
"Nor my drugs," said Doc Tomlinson.
"And yet," said Curly, who was observant, "he kep' one box in thewagon. Couldn't see the brand, but she's there all right."
"Curly," said Dan Anderson, "you are appointed a committee of one tofollow the accused down to his house and find out what all this means."
Curly deployed as a skirmisher, and finally arrived in front of TomOsby's adobe. The tired horses stood in the sun still hitched to thewagon, and Curly, out of pity, made it his first business to hunt underthe wagon seat for the picket ropes and halters. He then began tosearch for the oats bag, but while so engaged his attention wasattracted by something whose nature we, at a distance, could notdetermine. With a swift glance into the back of the wagon, and anotherat the door of the cabin, Curly dropped his Good Samaritan work for TomOsby's team and came up the street at as fast a gait as any cow punchercan command on foot. When he reached us his freckled brow was wrinkledin a frown.
"Fellers," said he. "I didn't think it of him! This here ain't right.Tom Osby's got a baby in there, and he's squeezin' the life out of it.Listen! Come on now. Do you hear that? How's that? Why, I tellyou--why, dang _me_ if it ain't _singin'_!"
There came to our ears, as we approached, a certain wailing melody,thin, quavering, distant, weird. As it rose upon the hot afternoon airit seemed absolutely strange, unimaginable, impossible. The spine ofeach man crawled.
Dan Anderson, of the entire party, seemed to be the only one whomaintained his self-possession. He smiled gently. "Now," said he, "wecertainly are fixed; Heart's Desire ain't benighted any after thi
s."
"What's the matter with you?" Curly questioned.
"Poor cow puncher," replied Dan Anderson, "I have to do the thinkin'for you, and I ain't paid for it. Who, if not the Learned Counsel onmy right and myself, organized the social and legal system of thiscommunity? Who paved these broad boulevards of our beauteous city?Who put up the electric lightin' and heatin' plant, and installed theforty-eight miles of continuous trolley track all under one transfersystem? Who built the courthouse and the red brick schoolhouse, withnine school-teachers fresh from Connecticut? Who planned the newdepot? Who got a new leather lounge for the managin' editor of ourdaily newspaper? Who built the three new smelters? Who filled ourbusy streets each evenin' with throngs of happy-faced laborers pacin'home at night after four hours' pleasant work each day in our elegantlyupholstered quartz mines? Was it you, Curly, who made these differentand several _pasears_ in progress? Was it you, Doc, you benightedstray from the short-grass Kansas plains, where they can't raise Kafircorn? Was it you, McKinney, you sour-dispositioned consumer of cannedpeas? Nay, nay. It was myself and my learned brother. You ought tosend us both to Congress."
We gazed up the long, silent street of Heart's Desire, asleep in theall-satisfying sun, and it almost seemed to us that we could indeed seeall these things that he had named. The spell was broken by a renewalof the thin, high voice of this mysterious Thing in Tom Osby's house.
"And now," resumed Dan Anderson, "as I remarked, havin' turned ourhands to the stable things of life, and havin' builded well thestructure of an endurin', permanent society, there remained for us noneed save for the softenin' and refinin' touch of a higher culture. Welacked nothing but Art. Now, here she is!
"What you're listenin' to, my countrymen, is music. It ain't a baby,Curly. Music, heavenly maid, is young in Heart's Desire, but it ain'tany baby that you're listenin' to. I told Tom Osby myself to look intothe phonograph business some time if he got a chance. Gentlemen, I nowbid you follow me, to greet Art upon its arrival in our midst. I mustconfess that Tom Osby is actin' like a blamed swine over this thing,tryin' to keep it all to himself."
The phonograph inside the adobe switched from one tune to another."Don't that sound like the Plaza Major in old Chihuahua by moonlight?"cried McKinney, as a swinging band march came squealing out through thedoor. "That's a piece by a Mexican band. Can't you hear thechoo-choo, and the wee-wee, and the bum-bum? They're all there, sure'syou're born!"
"If she plays 'La Paloma,' or that 'Golondrina' thing, I'm goin' toshoot," threatened Curly. "I've done danced to them things at more'n athousand _bailes_ here and in Texas, and if this is Art, she's got todo different."
"Gentlemen," Dan Anderson suggested, "let us go in and watch Tom Osbygettin' his savage breast soothed."
Tom Osby started as he saw shadows on the floor; but it was too late.He was discovered sitting on the bed, in rapt attention to the machineindustriously grinding away upon the table. Dan Anderson, with greatgravity, took up a collection of four pins from each of the newcomersand handed them to Tom. "No bent ones," said he. "It's a good show;but, tell us, what are you doin'? This is worse than croquet. And weasked you in on our game, too. Ain't you playin' it just a little bitlonesome this way?"
Tom frowned in perturbation. "Well, I was goin' to spring her on youabout to-night, up at the Lone Star," said he; "but I couldn't wait.Ain't she a yaller flower? Say, I played her every night from Vegasdown for five nights--Pecos Crossin', Salt Wells, Maxwell's, HocradleCanon, Jack's Peak--all the way. After I'd get my horses hobbled outand get my bed made down, I'd set her up on the front seat and turn herloose. Coyotes--you'd ought to heard 'em! When you wind her up plumbtight and turn the horn the right direction, you can hear her about amile."
"That," said Dan Anderson, "must have been a gladsome journey."
"For sure," said Tom Osby. "Look at the reecords--whole box of 'em.Some of the stylishest singers in the business are in here. Some of'em's Dago, I reckon. Here's one, 'Ah, no Ginger.'"
"That, probably," said Dan Anderson, "is 'Ah, non Giunge.' Yes, it'sDago, but not bad for a lady with a four-story voice."
"Here's another," said Tom; "'Down Mobile.'"
"I know that one," said Curly.
"Let me see it," said the impresario in charge. "Ah, as I thought;it's 'La Donna e Mobile.' This, bein' translated, means that any ladycan change her mind occasionally, whether she comes from Mobile or not."
"That's no dream," said Curly. "Onct on the Brazos--"
"Never mind, Curly. Just feed that 'Donna' into the machine, Tom, andlet's hear how it sounds once more."
And so Tom Osby, proud in his new possession, played for his audience,there in the adobe by the _arroyo_; played all his records, or nearlyall; played them over and over again. It was nearly night when we leftthe place.
"Excuse me," said Dan Anderson to me, with a motion as though adjustinga cravat upon my neck, "but your white tie is slipping around underyour ear again." And as we walked, I was sure that I saw an opera hatunder his arm, though sober reason convinced me that we both werewearing overalls, and not evening clothes.
"But did you notice," said Curly, after a while, "Tom, he's holdin' outon us. That there music, it's all tangled up in my hair." He removedhis hat and ran a questioning hand through the matted tangle on hiscurly front. "But," he resumed, "there was one piece he didn't play.I seen him slip it under the blankets on the bed."
"How could he!" said Dan Anderson. But memories sufficient cametrooping upon him to cause him to forget. He fell to whistling "LaDonna e Mobile" dreamily.
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