IVTurkey and Responsibility
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On their way to turkey, the host and his guests exchanged but few remarks. He was full of good-will, and threw off a comment or two that would have led to conversation under almost any circumstances save these; but the minds of the guests were too distracted by this whole state of things for them to be capable of more than keeping after Mr. McLean in silence, at a wary interval, and with their mouths, during most of the journey, open. The badge, the pistol, their patron’s talk, and the unusual dollars wakened wide their bent for the unexpected, their street affinity for the spur of the moment; they believed slimly in the turkey part of it, but what this man might do next, to be there when he did it, and not to be trapped, kept their wits jumping deliciously; so when they saw him stop they stopped instantly, too, ten feet out of reach. This was Denver’s most civilized restaurant—that one which Mr. McLean had remembered, with foreign dishes and private rooms, where he had promised himself, among other things, champagne. Mr. McLean had never been inside it, but heard a tale from a friend; and now he caught a sudden sight of people among geraniums, with plumes and white shirtfronts, very elegant. It must have been several minutes that he stood contemplating the entrance and the luxurious couples who went in.
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“Plumb French!” he observed, at length; and then, “Shucks!” in a key less confident, while his guests ten feet away watched him narrowly. “They’re eatin’ patty de parley-voo in there,” he muttered, and the three bootblacks came beside him. “Say, fellows,” said Lin, confidingly, “I wasn’t raised good enough for them dude dishes. What do yu’ say! I’m after a place where yu’ can mention oyster stoo without givin’ anybody a fit. What do yu’ say, boys?”
That lighted the divine spark of brotherhood!
“Lin walked in their charge, they leading the way”
“Lin walked in their charge, they leading the way”
“Lin walked in their charge, they leading the way”
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“Ah, you come along with us—we’ll take yer! You don’t want to go in there. We’ll show yer the boss place in Market Street. We won’t lose yer.” So, shouting together in their shrill little city trebles, they clustered about him, and one pulled at his coat to start him. He started obediently, and walked in their charge, they leading the way.
“Christmas is comin’ now, sure,” said Lin, grinning to himself. “It ain’t exactly what I figured on.” It was the first time he had laughed since Cheyenne, and he brushed a hand over his eyes, that were dim with the new warmth in his heart.
Believing at length in him and his turkey, the alert street faces, so suspicious of the unknown, looked at him with ready intimacy as they went along; and soon, in the friendly desire to make him acquainted with Denver, the three were patronizing him. Only Billy, perhaps, now and then stole at him a doubtful look.
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The large Country Mouse listened solemnly to his three Town Mice, who presently introduced him to the place in Market Street. It was not boss, precisely, and Denver knows better neighborhoods; but the turkey and the oyster-stew were there, with catsup and vegetables in season, and several choices of pie. Here the Country Mouse became again efficient; and to witness his liberal mastery of ordering and imagine his pocket and its wealth, which they had heard and partly seen, renewed in the guests a transient awe. As they dined, however, and found the host as frankly ravenous as themselves, this reticence evaporated, and they all grew fluent with oaths and opinions. At one or two words, indeed, Mr. McLean stared and had a slight sense of blushing.
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“Have a cigarette?” said the leader, over his pie.
“Thank yu’,” said Lin. “I won’t smoke, if you’ll excuse me.” He had devised a wholesome meal with water to drink.
“Chewin’s no good at meals,” continued the boy. “Don’t you use tobacker?”
“Onced in a while.”
The leader spat brightly. “He ’ain’t learned yet,” said he, slanting his elbows at Billy and sliding a match over his rump. “But beer, now—I never seen anything in it.” He and Towhead soon left Billy and his callow profanities behind, and engaged in a town conversation that silenced him, and set him listening with all his admiring young might. Nor did Mr. McLean join in the talk, but sat embarrassed by this knowledge, which seemed about as much as he knew himself.
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“I’ll be goshed,” he thought, “if I’d caught on to half that when I was streakin’ around in short pants! Maybe they grow up quicker now.” But now the Country Mouse perceived Billy’s eager and attentive apprenticeship. “Hello, boys!” he said, “that theatre’s got a big start on us.”
They had all forgotten he had said anything about theatre; and other topics left their impatient minds while the Country Mouse paid the bill and asked to be guided to the Opera-house. “This man here will look out for your blackin’ and truck, and let yu’ have it in the morning.”
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They were very late. The spectacle had advanced far into passages of the highest thrill, and Denver’s eyes were riveted upon a ship and some icebergs. The party found its seats during several beautiful lime-light effects, and that remarkable fly-buzzing of violins which is pronounced so helpful in times of peril and sentiment. The children of Captain Grant had been tracking their father all over the equator and other scenic spots, and now the north pole was about to impale them. The Captain’s youngest child, perceiving a hummock rushing at them with a sudden motion, loudly shouted, “Sister, the ice is closing in!” and Sister replied, chastely, “Then let us pray.” It was a superb tableau: the ice split, and the sun rose and joggled at once to the zenith. The act-drop fell, and male Denver, wrung to its religious deeps, went out to the rum-shop.
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Of course Mr. McLean and his party did not do this. The party had applauded exceedingly the defeat of the elements, and the leader, with Towhead, discussed the probable chances of the ship’s getting farther south in the next act. Until lately Billy’s doubt of the cow-puncher had lingered; but during this intermission whatever had been holding out in him seemed won, and in his eyes, that he turned stealthily upon his unconscious, quiet neighbor, shone the beginnings of hero-worship.
“Don’t you think this is splendid?” said he.
“Splendid,” Lin replied, a trifle remotely.
“Don’t you like it when they all get balled up and get out that way?”
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“Humming,” said Lin.
“Don’t you guess it’s just girls, though, that do that?”
“What, young fellow?”
“Why, all that prayer-saying an’ stuff.”
“I guess it must be.”
“She said to do it when the ice scared her, an’ of course a man had to do what she wanted him.”
“Sure.”
“Well, do you believe they’d ’a’ done it if she hadn’t been on that boat, an’ clung around an’ cried an’ everything, an’ made her friends feel bad?”
“I hardly expect they would,” replied the honest Lin, and then, suddenly mindful of Billy, “except there wasn’t nothin’ else they could think of,” he added, wishing to speak favorably of the custom.
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“Why, that chunk of ice weren’t so awful big, anyhow. I’d ’a’ shoved her off with a pole. Wouldn’t you?”
“Butted her like a ram,” exclaimed Mr. McLean.
“Well, I don’t say my prayers any more. I told Mr. Perkins I wasn’t a-going to, an’ he—I think he’s a flubdub, anyway.”
“I’ll bet he is!” said Lin, sympathetically. He was scarcely a prudent guardian.
“I told him straight, an’ he looked at me, an’ down he flops on his knees. An’ he made ’em all flop, but I told him I didn’t care for them putting up any camp-meeting over me; an’ he says, ‘I’ll lick you,’ an’ I says, ‘Dare you to!’ I told him mother kep’ a-licking me for nothing, an’ I’d not pray for her, not in Sunday-school or anywheres else. Do you pray much?”
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“No,” replied Lin, uneasily.
“There! I told him a man didn’t, an’ he said then a man went to hell. ‘You lie; father ain’t going to hell,’ I says, and you’d ought to heard the first class laugh right out loud, girls an’ boys. An’ he was that mad! But I didn’t care. I came here with fifty cents.”
“Yu’ must have felt like a millionaire.”
“Ah, I felt all right! I bought papers an’ sold ’em, an’ got more an’ saved, an’ got my box an’ blacking outfit. I weren’t going to be licked by her just because she felt like it, an’ she feeling like it most any time. Lemme see your pistol.”
“You wait,” said Lin. “After this show is through I’ll put it on you.”
“Will you, honest? Belt an’ everything? Did you ever shoot a bear?”
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“Lord! lots.”
“Honest? Silver-tips?”
“Silver-tips, cinnamon, black; and I roped a cab onced.”
“O-h! I never shot a bear.”
“You’d ought to try it.”
“I’m a-going to. I’m a-going to camp out in the mountains. I’d like to see you when you camp. I’d like to camp with you. Mightn’t I some time?” Billy had drawn nearer to Lin, and was looking up at him adoringly.
“You bet!” said Lin; and though he did not, perhaps, entirely mean this, it was with a curiously softened face that he began to look at Billy. As with dogs and his horse, so always he played with what children he met—the few in his sage-brush world; but this was ceasing to be quite play for him, and his hand went to the boy’s shoulder.
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“Father took me camping with him once, the time mother was off. Father gets awful drunk, too. I’ve quit Laramie for good.”
Lin sat up, and his hand gripped the boy. “Laramie!” said he, almost shouting it. “Yu’—yu’—is your name Lusk?”
But the boy had shrunk from him instantly. “You’re not going to take me home?” he piteously wailed.
“Heavens and heavens!” murmured Lin McLean. “So yu’re her kid!”
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He relaxed again, down in his chair, his legs stretched their straight length below the chair in front. He was waked from his bewilderment by a brushing under him, and there was young Billy diving for escape to the aisle, like the cornered City Mouse that he was. Lin nipped that poor little attempt and had the limp Billy seated inside again before the two in discussion beyond had seen anything. He had said not a word to the boy, and now watched his unhappy eyes seizing upon the various exits and dispositions of the theatre; nor could he imagine anything to tell him that should restore the perished confidence. “Why did yu’ head him off?” he asked himself, unexpectedly, and found that he did not seem to know; but as he watched the restless and estranged runaway he grew more and more sorrowful. “I just hate him to think that of me,” he reflected. The curtain rose, and he saw Billy make up his mind to wait until they should all be going out in the crowd. While the children of Captain Grant grew hotter and hotter upon their father’s geographic trail, Lin sat saying to himself a number of contradictions. “He’s nothin’ to me. What’s any of them to me?” Driven to bay by his bewilderment, he restated the facts of the past. “Why, she’d deserted him and Lusk before she’d ever laid eyes on me. I needn’t to bother myself. He wasn’t never even my step-kid.” The past, however, brought no guidance. “Lord, what’s the thing to do about this? If I had any home— This is a stinkin’ world in some respects,” said Mr. McLean, aloud, unknowingly. The lady in the chair beneath which the cow-puncher had his legs nudged her husband. They took it for emotion over the sad fortunes of Captain Grant, and their backs shook. Presently each turned, and saw the singular man with untamed, wide-open eyes glowing at the stage, and both backs shook again.
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Once more his hand was laid on Billy. “Say!”
The boy glanced at him, and quickly away.
“Look at me, and listen.”
Billy swervingly obeyed.
“I ain’t after yu’, and never was. This here’s your business, not mine. Are yu’ listenin’ good?”
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The boy made a nod, and Lin proceeded, whispering: “You’ve got no call to believe what I say to yu’—yu’ve been lied to, I guess, pretty often. So I’ll not stop yu’ runnin’ and hidin’, and I’ll never give it away I saw yu’, but yu’ keep doin’ what yu’ please. I’ll just go now. I’ve saw all I want, but you and your friends stay with it till it quits. If yu’ happen to wish to speak to me about that pistol or bears, yu’ come around to Smith’s Palace—that’s the boss hotel here, ain’t it?—and if yu’ don’t come too late I’ll not be gone to bed. By this time of night I’m liable to get sleepy. Tell your friends good-bye for me, and be good to yourself. I’ve appreciated your company.”
Mr. McLean entered Smith’s Palace, and, engaging a room with two beds in it, did a little delicate lying by means of the truth. “It’s a lost boy—a runaway,” he told the clerk. “He’ll not be extra clean, I expect, if he does come. Maybe he’ll give me the slip, and I’ll have a job cut out to-morrow. I’ll thank yu’ to put my money in your safe.”
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The clerk placed himself at the disposal of the secret service, and Lin walked up and down, looking at the railroad photographs for some ten minutes, when Master Billy peered in from the street.
“Hello!” said Mr. McLean, casually, and returned to a fine picture of Pike’s Peak.
Billy observed him for a space, and, receiving no further attention, came stepping along. “I’m not a-going back to Laramie,” he stated, warningly.
“I wouldn’t,” said Lin. “It ain’t half the town Denver is. Well, good-night. Sorry yu’ couldn’t call sooner—I’m dead sleepy.”
“O-h!” Billy stood blank. “I wish I’d shook the darned old show. Say, lemme black your boots in the morning?”
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“Not sure my train don’t go too early.”
“I’m up! I’m up! I get around to all of ’em.”
“Where do yu’ sleep?”
“Sleeping with the engine-man now. Why can’t you put that on me to-night?”
“Goin’ up-stairs. This gentleman wouldn’t let yu’ go up-stairs.”
But the earnestly petitioned clerk consented, and Billy was the first to hasten into the room. He stood rapturous while Lin buckled the belt round his scanty stomach, and ingeniously buttoned the suspenders outside the accoutrement to retard its immediate descent to earth.
“Did it ever kill a man?” asked Billy, touching the six-shooter.
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“No. It ’ain’t never had to do that, but I expect maybe it’s stopped some killin’ me.”
“Oh, leave me wear it just a minute! Do you collect arrow-heads? I think they’re bully. There’s the finest one you ever seen.” He brought out the relic, tightly wrapped in paper, several pieces. “I foun’ it myself, camping with father. It was sticking in a crack right on top of a rock, but nobody’d seen it till I came along. Ain’t it fine?”
Mr. McLean pronounced it a gem.
“Father an’ me found a lot, an’ they made mother mad lying around, an’ she throwed ’em out. She takes stuff from Kelley’s.”
“Who’s Kelley?”
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“He keeps the drug-store at Laramie. Mother gets awful funny. That’s how she was when I came home. For I told Mr. Perkins he lied, an’ I ran then. An’ I knowed well enough she’d lick me when she got through her spell—an’ father can’t stop her, an’ I—ah, I was sick of it! She’s lamed me up twice beating me—an’ Perkins wanting me to say ‘God bless my mother!’ a-getting up and a-going to bed—he’s a flubdub! An’ so I cleared out. But I’d just as leaves said for God to bless father—an’ you. I’ll do it now if you say it’s any sense.”
Mr. McLean sat down in a chair. “Don’t yu’ do it now,” said he.
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“You wouldn’t like mother,” Billy continued. “You can keep that.” He came to Lin and placed the arrow-head in his hands, standing beside him. “Do you like birds’ eggs? I collect them. I got twenty-five kinds—sage-hen, an’ blue grouse, an’ willow-grouse, an’ lots more kinds harder—but I couldn’t bring all them from Laramie. I brought the magpie’s, though. D’you care to see a magpie egg? Well, you stay to-morrow an’ I’ll show you that an’ some other things I got the engine-man lets me keep there, for there’s boys that would steal an egg. An’ I could take you where we could fire that pistol. Bet you don’t know what that is!”
He brought out a small tin box shaped like a thimble, in which were things that rattled.
Mr. McLean gave it up.
“That’s kinni-kinnic seed. You can have that, for I got some more with the engine-man.”
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Lin received this second token also, and thanked the giver for it. His first feeling had been to prevent the boy’s parting with his treasures, but something that came not from the polish of manners and experience made him know that he should take them. Billy talked away, laying bare his little soul; the street boy that was not quite come made place for the child that was not quite gone, and unimportant words and confidences dropped from him disjointed as he climbed to the knee of Mr. McLean, and inadvertently took that cow-puncher for some sort of parent he had not hitherto met. It lasted but a short while, however, for he went to sleep in the middle of a sentence, with his head upon Lin’s breast. The man held him perfectly still, because he had not the faintest notion that Billy would be impossible to disturb. At length he spoke to him, suggesting that bed might prove more comfortable; and, finding how it was, rose and undressed the boy and laid him between the sheets. The arms and legs seemed aware of the moves required of them, and stirred conveniently; and directly the head was upon the pillow the whole small frame burrowed down, without the opening of an eye or a change in the breathing. Lin stood some time by the bedside, with his eyes on the long, curling lashes and the curly hair. Then he glanced craftily at the door of the room, and at himself in the looking-glass. He stooped and kissed Billy on the forehead, and, rising from that, gave himself a hangdog stare in the mirror, and soon in his own bed was sleeping the sound sleep of health.