We all bowed at each other beneath the florid expanse of these recommendations,and I was proceeding to murmur something about its being a long journey and a fine day when Miss Peck cut me short,gaily: "Well,"she exclaimed to Tommy,"I guess I'm pretty near ready for them eggs you've spoke so much about."I have not often seen Mr.McLean lose his presence of mind.He needed merely to exclaim,"Why,Tommy,you told me your hens had not been laying since Christmas!"and we could have sat quiet and let Tommy try to find all the eggs that he could.But the new girl was a sore embarrassment to the cow-puncher's wits.Poor Lin stood by the wheels of the wagon.He looked up at Miss Peck,he looked over at Tommy,his features assumed a rueful expression,and he wretchedly blurted,"Why,Tommy,I've been and eat 'em.""Well,if that ain't!"cried Miss Peck.She stared with interest at Lin as he now assisted her to descend.
"All?"faltered Tommy."Not the four nests?"
"I've had three meals,yu'know,"Lin reminded him,deprecatingly.
"I helped him,"said I."Ten innocent,fresh eggs.But we have left some ham.Forgive us,please.""I declare!"said Miss Peck,abruptly,and rolled her sluggish,inviting eyes upon me."You're a case,too,I expect."But she took only brief note of me,although it was from head to foot.In her stare the dull shine of familiarity grew vacant,and she turned back to Lin McLean."You carry that,"said she,and gave the pleased cow-puncher a hand valise.
"I'll look after your things,Miss Peck,"called Tommy,now springing down from his horse.The egg tragedy had momentarily stunned him.
"You'll attend to the mail first,Mr.Postmaster!"said the lady,but favoring him with a look from her large eyes."There's plenty of gentlemen here."With that her glance favored Lin.She went into the cabin,he following her close,with the Taylors and myself in the rear.
"Well,I guess I'm about collapsed!"said she,vigorously,and sank upon one of Tommy's chairs.
The fragile article fell into sticks beneath her,and Lin leaped to her assistance.He placed her upon a firmer foundation.Mrs.Taylor brought a basin and towel to bathe the dust from her face,Mr.Taylor produced whiskey,and I found sugar and hot water.Tommy would doubtless have done something in the way of assistance or restoratives,but he was gone to the stable with the horses.
"Shall I get your medicine from the valise,deary?"inquired Mrs.Taylor.
"Not now,"her visitor answered;and I wondered why she should take such a quick look at me.
"We'll soon have yu'independent of medicine,"said Lin,gallantly."Our climate and scenery here has frequently raised the dead.""You're a case,anyway!"exclaimed the sick lady with rich conviction.
The cow-puncher now sat himself on the edge of Tommy's bed,and,throwing one leg across the other,began to raise her spirits with cheerful talk.
She steadily watched him--his face sometimes,sometimes his lounging,masculine figure.While he thus devoted his attentions to her,Taylor departed to help Tommy at the stable,and good Mrs.Taylor,busy with supper for all of us in the kitchen,expressed her joy at having her old friend of childhood for a visit after so many years.
"Sickness has changed poor Katie some,"said she."But I'm hoping she'll get back her looks on Bear Creek.""She seems less feeble than I had understood,"I remarked.
"Yes,indeed!I do believe she's feeling stronger.She was that tired and down yesterday with the long stage-ride,and it is so lonesome!But Taylor and I heartened her up,and Tommy came with the mail,and to-day she's real spruced-up like,feeling she's among friends.""How long will she stay?"I inquired.
"Just as long as ever she wants!Me and Katie hasn't met since we was young girls in Dubuque,for I left home when I married Taylor,and he brought me to this country right soon;and it ain't been like Dubuque much,though if I had it to do over again I'd do just the same,as Taylor knows.Katie and me hasn't wrote even,not till this February,for you always mean to and you don't.Well,it'll be like old times.Katie'll be most thirty-four,I expect.Yes.I was seventeen and she was sixteen the very month I was married.Poor thing!She ought to have got some good man for a husband,but I expect she didn't have any chance,for there was a big fam'ly o'them girls,and old Peck used to act real scandalous,getting drunk so folks didn't visit there evenings scarcely at all.And so she quit home,it seems,and got a position in the railroad eating-house at Sidney,and now she has poor health with feeding them big trains day and night.""A biscuit-shooter!"said I.
Loyal Mrs.Taylor stirred some batter in silence."Well,"said she then,"I'm told that's what the yard-hands of the railroad call them poor waiter-girls.You might hear it around the switches at them division stations."I had heard it in higher places also,but meekly accepted the reproof.
If you have made your trans-Missouri journeys only since the new era of dining-cars,there is a quantity of things you have come too late for,and will never know.Three times a day in the brave days of old you sprang from your scarce-halted car at the summons of a gong.You discerned by instinct the right direction,and,passing steadily through doorways,had taken,before you knew it,one of some sixty chairs in a room of tables and catsup bottles.Behind the chairs,standing attention,a platoon of Amazons,thick-wristed,pink-and-blue,began immediately a swift chant.It hymned the total bill-of-fare at a blow.In this inexpressible ceremony the name of every dish went hurtling into the next,telescoped to shapelessness.Moreover,if you stopped your Amazon in the middle,it dislocated her,and she merely went back and took a fresh start.The chant was always the same,but you never learned it.As soon as it began,your mind snapped shut like the upper berth in a Pullman.You must have uttered appropriate words--even a parrot will--for next you were eating things--pie,ham,hot cakes--as fast as you could.
