The Wrong Woman

by Stewart, Charles D

  The cottages which faced this place on the side toward town were confined to "lots" along an unpaved street. Across on Claxton Road town lots grew to the size of country estates and looked more commanding. But the shack house, with its twenty acres of elbow room, rather commanded them all, especially as its central position marked the common as its own grounds. Being tall and upright and spare, like a Texan, it had an attitude toward them like that of a pioneer drill-master; it seemed to be standing out on the drill-grounds with the other houses all marshaled up before it and toeing the social line.

  The place was given shape and form entirely by the other property, all of which was fenced on its own side of the highway, the owner of the twenty acres never having shut it off from the roads which passed along two sides of it. This hospitable openness was a fortunate thing for the traveling public, affording as it did a short cut to town. Quite a little of the traffic that came down Williston Road turned out and followed the trail which led diagonally across it past the door of the house. And usually the traveler, whether horseman or driver, would speak in passing; or, more likely, stop to have a talk with Jonas Hicks, who, if he were at home, might be engaged in plaiting a whip or mixing batter for pancakes or taking a stitch in his clothes, the iron seat of a "prairie-busting" plow being particularly hard on the seat of a man's trousers. It was to this place that the plowman was bending his homeward way.

  Eventually, as oxen always do, they arrived. Having navigated them up to the kitchen door and brought them to a stop with a stentorian Wo, he unhooked the wheelers, dropped the chain from each yoke, and turned them loose to graze or lie down as each pair might decide; then he went around the corner of the house and set to work making a fire in the stove. It was an outdoor stove of the locomotive variety, having two large iron wheels upon which it had traveled thousands of miles in the service of the J. W. Cattle Company. Mr. Hicks had fastened its tongue or handle to a staple in the chimney of the house, for which chimney it had no use, having a smoke-stack of its own.

  When the stove was belching forth smoke he turned his attention to the inside of the house. Presently he came out with a pan of flour and various kitchen utensils which he placed on a bench beside the door; then he drew a bucket of water and proceeded to mix pancake batter. He had not accomplished much when he was interrupted. Just when the batter was mixed to the right consistency, and the first spoonful was ready to go on, a little girl appeared. She had a pie which she bore before her with a look of great responsibility.

  "Ma says maybe you would like to have a pie."

  "Why, how do, Susie. How 's Susie getting along these days?"

  "Real well," replied Susan, holding the pie up higher.

  Mr. Hicks bent his tall Texas form in the middle and took it from her. The pie had the outlines of a star in its centre by way of a vent-hole; the edges were nicely crimped.

  "It's a mighty good-looking pie. What does that stand for, Susie?" he asked, holding the pie up so that she could view its face and placing his finger upon its centre.

  "That stands for Texas," answered Susan promptly.

  Mr. Hicks put the pie on the bench and sat down beside it with his elbows on his knees.

  Something like a smile betrayed itself in the lean muscles of his jaw and showed somehow around his large aggressive chin.

  "How does it come that you did n't go to school to-day, Susie?" He pointed to the white frame school-house which occupied a corner of his place.

  "'Cause," answered Susan, by way of complete explanation.

  "That's a mighty good reason. If I had an excuse like that I would n't go to school myself. How's your ma? Is she well?"

  "Yes, sir. Only she had a kinda headache this morning, and I wiped the dishes."

  "You did? How did you know so quick that I was back? Were you watching for me so that you could bring over the pie?"

  "Oh!" exclaimed Susan, "we heard you coming. We could hear you saying bad words when you was 'way up the road."

  A change suddenly came over the spirit of Mr. Hicks's physiognomy. He sat stroking his wide-spreading moustache. Jonas Hicks had a self-made moustache which seemed to have borrowed its style from the horns of a Texas steer. It might be said that, for the moment, he looked serious; but you could never tell from his face exactly what his emotions were. It was against his principles to be caught laughing, and yet his solemnity was somewhat radiant despite him.

  Suddenly he rose and went into the house. In a little while he reappeared carrying a milk-pan filled with comb-honey. It was white honey which the bees had deposited in his useless chimney; the sirup filled the pan almost to its edge, while the middle was piled high with oozing chunks of comb. He placed it on the bench beside him. The eyes of Susan opened wide as she saw this sight. He talked about one thing and another and asked her many inconsequential questions. After much tantalizing talk on Mr. Hicks's part, she learned that the honey was for her and that she was to take it all home with her.

  Susan was for starting home at once.

  "What' s your hurry, Susie? Won't you stay a while and have a piece of pie?"

  "I 'd rather I 'd have a pancake," said Susan, looking furtively at the smoking griddle.

  He rose at once and put on a large spoonful of batter. When the cake was ready to turn, he caused it to turn a somersault with a quick toss of the griddle; then he spread it evenly with honey and rolled it into the form of a cylinder with the honey inside.

  "There, now, Susie. That's what I call a joof-lickum tamale. It's pancake de la verandah. Watch out that you don't burn your fingers."

  He set the griddle temporarily aside and sat down again. While Susan ate, she leaned across his tall knee and looked up at him admiringly.

  "I like your pancakes," she volunteered. "Your pancakes has got fringe on them."

  Mr. Hicks's countenance took on more of an expression around the eyes; he regarded her with deep interest.

  "All the boys at school like your pancakes, too," she continued. "They are coming over some other recess when you are home, and you can make them all a pancake again. Will you put honey on their pancakes?"

  "For boys!" exclaimed Susan's heroine in great surprise. "No honey for boys. Honey is only for girls."

  "And mas too," added Susan. "Ain't honey for mas too?"

  "Does n't your ma make them with fringe on?" inquired Jonas, in hope of making a new start.

  Susan vouchsafed no reply. The subject stood in abeyance while she feasted and took thought. Presently her attention rested upon the griddle. On it there was a diminutive pancake which had made itself from the drippings of an overgenerous spoonful.

  "I like little pancakes too," she hinted.

  Jonas took it off and presented it to her.

  "There, Susie. When you go home you can give that to your dollie."

  Susan's eyes seemed to expand as she turned them up to Mr. Hicks, the source of supernal illumination. If the pancake had seemed desirable, this wonderful idea was ten times as much of a present. Her bliss grew visibly deeper as she looked first at the pancake and then at the resourceful Mr. Hicks. She was so completely won that she consented to sit on his knee. There she resumed her tamale in the intervals of conversation.

  "Mr. Hicks. How did the bees come to go down your chimbly?"

  "'Cause," replied Mr. Hicks.

  "Oh, Mister Hickstell me why the bees went down your chimbly. I want to know why."

  "I guess they thought it was an old hollow tree."

  "Do you think maybe they would think our chimbly was an old hollow tree? Oh, I wish they would come down our chimbly."

  "Oh, they would n't come down your chimney. That would n't do at all."

  "Why would n't they, Mr. Hicks?"

  "'Cause," answered Jonas, still pretending to be taciturn and mysterious.

  "Oh, Mister Hicks. Please don't talk that way. Tell me why."

  "Because," explained Mr. Hicks, "bees would know better than that. If they came and stopped your chimney all up with
honey, how would Santa Claus ever get down? Who gave you the dolly?"

  "Santa Claus."

  "Well, don't you see if the chimney was all full of honey he would get it all over his clothes? And all over her clothes? And besides, he would get his whiskers all chock-full of honey. How would you like to have your curls all full of molasses?"

  As he made this remark he lifted a curl and contemplated it, the truth being that he was not nearly so much interested in the honey as in her hair. He made these remarks simply by way of sticking to the subject. Susan, conscious of her curls, gave her head a toss which sent them flying about her face, one side and then the other; then she took another bite and returned to her speculations.

  "Did the bees know that you haven't got any little girl?"

  Mr. Hicks was inclined to sanction the idea that the bees had this view of the uselessness of his chimney. The subject of his girllessness leading on to another case of "why," he fell back promptly upon the hollow tree theory pure and simple; the which he took pains to establish by stories of trees filled with honey and of terrible big bears that lived in the trees and ate the honey. He was going on to consider the advantages of living in a hollow treewith a good strong door to itwhen a new game offered itself.

  Leaning forward and turning his head to see how the stove was doing, the end of his long moustache stroked Susan under the chin and drew a fine trail of titillation across her throat. To the surprise of the owner of the "whiskers," she clapped her chin to her shoulder and shrank from the excruciating touch. Before long Mr. Hicks had occasion to turn his head to the other side. This time it tickled even more and Susan had to giggle. After that a surprising number of things, of all imaginable sorts, demanded his attention on one side or the other, and every time the moustache acted in the same manner, much to the surprise of the innocent Mr. Hicks. As soon as that beard developed its full powers of tickling, it took effect wherever it touched, and Susan had to protect herself by grabbing the moustache and pushing Mr. Hicks's face, which face seemed able to stand any amount of rough usage. When finally his every move produced such paroxysms of laughter that she could stand it no longer, Susan squirmed out of his arms. Then, with sudden seriousness, she picked up the doll's pancake which had fallen from her hand. Their visit thus brought to an end, Jonas did not try to renew it; he was growing hungry. He gave her the pan of honey and placed her hands so that she would hold it level.

  "There, now, Susan. Be careful that you don't fall down and get any of it in your mouth."

  Susan, who was nobody's fool, knew that Mr. Hicks sometimes made remarks which were purposely foolish. This one engaged her mind for a moment as if she hoped to make head and tail of it, but as it seemed to be unanswerable she gave him an amused look and started for home.

  As Susan neared her front gate another visitor was approachingthis time from the direction of Claxton Road. It was Mrs. Norton; she had in mind to get the rockery returned. Jonas, watching Susan to see whether she got home with the honey unspilt, was oblivious to the half of the world that was behind his back; but when he turned about and took up the dish of batter, intending to pour out a griddleful of pancakes, he saw her coming. Immediately he seized the pie and hurried it into the house. By the time he came out she had arrived.

  "Good-morning, Mrs. Norton."

  "Good-morning, Mr. Hicks. Have you got all through with your work?"

  "All except sewing on a few buttons. Ploughing is all done for the present, I guess."

  "Mr. Hicks, we have been wondering whether you could do us a little favor. The ladies of the Chautauqua Circle have been studying geology,the earth, you know,and we needed some stones for specimenssamples. And of course stones are not very plentiful around here"

  "Why don't you go and take some out of Steve Brown's rockery? Help yourself, as God says."

  "Why, that's just what we did do. We were passing there, and we each took onewithout particularly thinking. They are lying behind Colonel Chase's big gate. We got them up there, but found they were rather heavy. Could we get you to haul them back for us?"

  "I bet you could, Mrs. Norton. The next time I pass there with the wagon I 'll put them on. I don't suppose those stones are in any particular hurry, are they?"

  "Well," said Mrs. Norton, taking thought, "I have been thinking that perhaps it would be just as well to get them back before he comes home. He is out at the Thompson ranch tending to those sheep again, you know."

  "Did you hear whether any one went with him?"

  "Well, noeryes. That is, I don't really know whether there is or not. I heard there was somebody out there."

  Her answer, or the manner of it, struck Jonas as peculiar.

  "Extra herder or two?" he suggested.

  "One of the boys who was out at the ranch told somebody in town that there was somebody out there. The regular herder was up at the county-seat and had n't got back."

  Mrs. Norton, now that she had boggled, by surprise, into the acknowledgment that she knew anything whatever about the matter, felt herself in a problematical position. She did not know whether his question had been accidental or not; it sounded as if he knew; possibly he had put it as a feeler to discover whether she knew. In which case the subject became rather difficult; she did not know whether to dissemble, nor how much to dissemble, nor how to do it.

  Jonas, his curiosity aroused, persevered with more inquiries. Mrs. Norton, after answering with a few vague references to Tuck Reedy's report, suddenly made a bald evasion of the subject; she went back without ceremony to the subject of rocks. Jonas had a new feeling that there was something peculiar about the matter.

  "And so I was thinking," continued Mrs. Norton, "that we had better return them pretty soon. It was really an improper thing for us to dothough we did not particularly think of it at the time. If he came home and found the rockery gone he might not like it."

  "Steve is rather peculiar, some ways," remarked Jonas.

  "Is he? In what way?"

  This remark of his had seemed to bear upon the hidden subject. She had hope of receiving moral enlightenment from the masculine standpoint.

  "Mostly about rocks. Did you ever hear about the time I hauled that tombstone for him?"

  "I knew you did, of course. What did he do?"

  "Well, he did n't do anything much. He expected me to drive oxen without using any strong language. Just took a sudden notion he did n't want it. I had got that stone loaded onto a strong truck that I had rigged up apurpose; then I started up and got the cattle headed up Main Street in fine shape. Steve was coming along on the sidewalk. All of a sudden he stepped out into the road and spoke to me. He said he did n't like the sound of it and he wished I 'd leave out the swearing. He said it rather cool and solemn, like Pastor Gates does when he says to omit the second stanza. For a minute I did n't know what to think. I was doing a plain job of ox-driving and I told him so. 'That's all right; I understand that,' he says. 'But you don't expect to go cussing into that cemetery, do you?' 'Wellno,' I says. 'Not since you mention it.' For a minute he had me where I could n't go ahead nor back up. A man has got to use language to oxen, and what is he going to say? I am so used to it that I don't even hear myself, unless I stop to listen; and so it does n't mean any more than the oxen understand by it. And that is n't much. 'No,' I says, 'not since you mention it.' 'Well, then,' he says, 'you might as well quit now. Afterwards you can drive them any way you please and say anything you want. But it does n't sound right to me now, and I don't want any swearing on this job.' He said it in such a way that I could see just about how he felt about it. I saw that any more of it would n't do. I guess I ought to 'a' thought of it myself."

  "And did you succeed in doing as he wished?" asked Mrs. Norton.

  "Well, I managed to get them there somehowconsidering I hadn't had any time to practice. It made me wonder, though, what a deaf and dumb man would think if he got a job driving oxen."

  "And that is what you mean by his being peculiar?"

  "That's sort
of it. But maybe that one does n't quite cover the point. What I mean is that he 's got all sorts of notions of what's right and wrong; and he tells it to you all of a sudden. He 's quicker 'n pig-tail lightning."

  "Do you suppose he might think it wrong for us to meddle with his property?"

  "Oh, no. He is n't that way. You know how he is about such things. And besides he would n't be likely to say anything. I only mentioned that tombstone business because his mother set so much store by the rockery. He looks at that as a sort of a monument."

  A look of deep seriousness came over Mrs. Norton's countenance. It deepened as she thought.

  "Of course, Mr. Hicks, we intended to tell him about itand thank him for the use of the stones. But possibly it would be more considerate not to say anything about it."

  "Not tell him at all," repeated Jonas reflectively.

  "But I suppose that no matter how we put them back he would notice that it had been changed."

  "Yes. I guess he knows it by heart. He had those blue-flower vines started on it."

  "It was really very thoughtless of us," mused Mrs. Norton.

  "Oh, well; it is n't anything serious," remarked Jonas. "If he seems serious about it you can blame me. Tell him I told you to. I 'm really part owner anyway; I discovered a lot of those stones and put them there. He 'll understand how it was. And if he says anything to me I 'll tell him I did n't think. If you want me to I 'll make it all right when I go out there this afternoon."

  "Are you going out there?" she asked, looking up with sudden interest.

  "I 've been thinking I would. I want to drop out those three middle yoke and let them run on grass a while. While I 'm out there, I guess I 'll make Steve a call and stop overnight. It 'll be late when I get there."