AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
The Hortons’ place was some five miles below ours, if one followed the main road, but they were often passing the house on their way to and from the little country store and post-office. So it was not surprising that Mrs. Horton should reappear in a few days with a large bundle of sewing of her own for Jessie to do, and the intelligence that she had interviewed several of the neighbors, some of whom had said that they would gladly employ Jessie.
“You are so good, Mrs. Horton,” Jessie exclaimed gratefully. “It will be a real help to us if we are able to earn a little in this way.”
“Maybe you won’t feel so anxious to do it when you see what I’ve brought,” the good woman said, as she proceeded to untie her bulky bundle. “You see,” she explained, “Jake nearly tore the coat from his back when he went up to salt those cattle the other night. He seems, from what I can make out, to have had a regular circus with himself, and I’m so busy, what with the housework and being obliged to do all the trading—for Jake never will go to the store if he can get out of it—I’ve had no time to mend it. I put it right in here with the other things, hoping that you or Leslie wouldn’t mind mending it for me.”
My very spine seemed to stiffen at the idea of mending the clothing that had been torn while its wearer was making a futile attempt to burn our house, but Jessie, knowing nothing of all this, and naturally trustful, replied tranquilly:
“Certainly, we will, Mrs. Horton, if you think we can do it well enough.”
“Oh! anybody can do it well enough. If I had my way with it I’d put it into the stove and have done with it,” she announced frankly. “It’s seen its best days. But it appears to me that the longer Jake wears a thing the better he likes it. What a figure he would have made in the days of Methuselah, to be sure!”
She shook the coat out and laid it on the table. Jessie turned it over, examining some gaping rents, evidently of recent make. Finally,
“Here’s a button gone,” she said. I felt my face grow white, while Mrs. Horton explained placidly:
“Yes; and that’s a pity, for the buttons are worth more than the coat. They’re quite curious, if you’ll notice. I never saw any like them before he got that coat. I think myself that that little brass leaf stuck on to the front of them looks fussy on a man’s coat buttons, but Jake thinks they’re so tasty. He was wonderfully put out when he found that he’d lost one of them. The land sake, Leslie!” she broke off suddenly as her glance fell on me. “Are you sick, child? Why, you are as pale as a sheet! Isn’t she, Jessie?”
Jessie, glancing up from the tattered coat, in alarm, confirmed this statement, and they were both anxiously inquiring if I felt sick, and how long since the attack came on, and if I hadn’t better go right to bed, when a diversion was created by the entrance of Joe. Joe had the weekly county paper open in his hand; he could read a little in a halting and uncertain fashion, but did not often trouble himself to do it. “There must have been something of special interest to him in this issue,” I thought, and was not left long in doubt as to what it was.
“Heah we is!” he exclaimed, gleefully, extending the paper toward Jessie; “heah’s our third and las’ notice ob provin’ up!”
“Oh, is it there?” cried Jessie, seizing the paper, and running her eye quickly over the item indicated by Joe’s stubby black finger. Mrs. Horton, brushing her husband’s cherished coat from the chair where Jessie had dropped it to the floor, seated herself, leaning forward in anxious attention, and even Ralph, abandoning a furtive attempt to put the cat in the water-pail, came and leaned against her knees, while Jessie read aloud:
“Before the United States Land Office at Fairplay, Chico County, on August 30th, 18—, will appear, viz.: Ralph C. Gordon, who enters Homestead claim, No. 4571, for the W. 1-2, W. 1-4, Section 34, and S. 1-2 Section 33, Township 22 S., Range 68 W.
“Ralph C. Gordon names the following witnesses to prove his continuous residence upon, and cultivation of said land, viz.:
“W. H. Wright, S. H. Stearns, C. L. Wilson, all of Chico County.
“W. W. Bayard, Register.”
We all listened to the reading with breathless interest. When it was concluded Mrs. Horton observed: “Wright, Stearns, and Wilson, they’re your witnesses, are they?”
“Yes; father selected them, you know,” Jessie replied.
“They’re good men, all of them, but, I declare, I wish that your pa had thought to put Jake on, too! It would have given me a good excuse to go down with you when the day comes. Not but what I mean to go anyhow, for that matter. Well, now, your date is set. It wasn’t set before, was it?”
“No; the other notices read: ‘On a day to be hereinafter named, etc.’”
“August 30th,” Mrs. Horton repeated, musingly; “let’s see, this is the 15th. You’ve got two weeks and a day yet to wait. It don’t give a great amount of time to get money in, but it’s a relief to know when it’s coming off, isn’t it?”
Joe had been sitting in his corner, saying nothing, but, just at this point, I saw him roll his eyes scornfully at our neighbor, and wondered if it could be that the old man was jealous of her openly expressed interest in the little family to which he laid prior claim. “Yes,” Jessie said, replying to Mrs. Horton’s question: “It is a great relief, and, after all, we’ve done about all that we can to make ready for it.”
“I’m not doubting that, still, I wish, now that we’ve thought of it, that you did have time to earn a little more by sewing. How much are the witnesses’ fees?”
“Six dollars each; it will take eighteen dollars for that alone,” Jessie told her.
“Eighteen dollars! and I don’t suppose you can have much more than that on hand!” Mrs. Horton’s face lengthened. “I wish I had it to lend you,” she remarked, at last. “You could pay me in sewing; but Jake—”
We had heard of Mr. Horton’s views on the money question. He always ran bills at the store because, he said, a woman couldn’t be trusted with ready cash. “Give a woman her head and she’ll spend all a man has on knick-knacks!” was an observation with which even his chance acquaintances were unduly familiar. How often, then, must his poor wife have heard it.
Pitying her halting effort to give a good excuse for not having the sum needed—when they were so wealthy—and still loyally shield her tyrant, I said: “I’m sure the witnesses will not be at all hard on us; they will be willing to wait a little if necessary, don’t you think so, Jessie?”
But before Jessie could reply, Joe interposed: “Mr. Wilson, he done say he goin’ gib me a chance for to wuck for him w’en I wants to; mebbe I goin’ want ter wuck out dem witness fee; no tellin’.”
This was ambiguous, but we well understood that the old man did not like to talk of business matters before strangers—as he regarded every one outside the immediate family.
“Your first notice came out along in the spring, didn’t it?” Mrs. Horton inquired.
“In April,” Jessie replied, and was silent, a dreamy look in her eyes, while I vividly recalled the stormy day when father came back from a visit to the post-office with the paper containing the first notice in his hand. I heard the April rain beating against the window panes while father told us children—for Jessie and I were children then; it was so long ago, measured by heart-beats, oh! so long ago—that our notice was out and the witnesses named.
Joe broke a little silence by remarking: “Dere’s ten acres ob as fine w’eat as ebber growed out doahs, a waitin’ to be cut an’ threshed atwixt dat day an’ dis.”
“Ten acres!” Mrs. Horton echoed. “What a help that’ll be to you! I do hope you’ll get it taken care of all right.”
“I’se goin’ tek keer ob hit; yo’ needn’t fur to fret about dat. I’se goin’ at hit, hammer an’ tongs, day arter to-morry mornin’.”
“Why not to-morrow?” Jessie inquired eagerly; “Leslie and I can help you.”
“I reckons dere can’t nobody help me much w’en I’se done got a broken reaper to wuck with.”
“Oh, that’s too bad! How long will it take to get it fixed?” Jessie asked.
“I’se done get hit fixed to-morry, sure, den—we see.”
“Leslie and I will help you,” Jessie repeated. “The wheat is worth more than any sewing that we can do. If we can get it marketed it will pay up all our bills, nearly, won’t it, Joe?”
“I spec’ maybe hit will, honey,” Joe returned, grinning complacently. “Doan you chillen fret about nothin’,” he continued earnestly. “Dem bills all goin’ be paid up, clean to de handle.”
I confess that I felt far less sanguine than he appeared to be on that point.
“Isn’t it a mercy that our corn and wheat have been let to grow in peace this year?” I said, after Mrs. Horton had taken her leave. “It’s the first year since we have been here that such a thing has happened.”
“I hope it will be the last year that we will have to try raising a crop without a fence,” Jessie replied. For our fence building had stopped abruptly with the digging of some post holes on that day in April. Pumping the water out of the mine had been an expensive piece of work, and all the valley people who had lost relatives in the accident, many who had not, indeed, had come gallantly to the Gray Eagle’s aid when that task was undertaken. Because of the aid that we had furnished, our fence was still unbuilt.