VIII
I could pick stars like apples. Here's me with my pipe and dog in my home, and my dear wife content. The Dook of London has no more, except frills. I hardly know whar to begin, 'cept whar I left off without mentioning how they run away. The illustrious didn't have the nerve, so it was my lady who stole over to stable in the dead of night, and harnessed the team so silent I never woke. She drove off with her trunks, the puppy piano, and her swine, on a bitter night with eighty mile ahead before she'd get any help if things went wrong. She has the pure grit, my great thoroughbred lady, and it makes me feel real good to think of the way she followed her conscience along that unholy trail through the black pines.
By dawn she put up for breakfast at O'Flynn's. The widow had broke her leg reproaching a cow, and sent off her son to the carpenter at Hundred and Fifty Mile House to get the same repaired. Her bed was beside the stove, with cord-wood, water, and grub all within reach. It was real awkward though that the stove had petered out, and the water bucket froze solid while she slept, so she was expecting to be wafted before her son got home, when Kate arrived in time to save her from Heaven. The signor volunteers to make fire and cook grub while Kate fed and watered the team, so my wife has the pleasure of chopping out a five-foot well at Bent Creek, while this unselfish cavalierio stayed in the house and got warm. Naturally he didn't know enough to light the stove, until the widow threw things, and he got the coal-oil. Then he disremembered how to soak the kindlings before he struck a match, so he lit the fuel first, then stood over pouring oil from the five-gallon can. When the fire lep' up into the can, of course he had to let go, and when he seen the cabin all in flames, he galloped off to the woods, leaving the Widow O'Flynn to burn comfy all by herself.
By the time Kate reaches the cabin, the open door is all flames; but, having the ice ax, she runs to the gable end, and hacks in through the window. The bed's burning quite brisk by then, but the widow has quit out, climbed to the window and gone to sleep with the smoke, so that Kate climbs in and alights on top of her sudden. The fire catches hold of my wife, but she swings the widow through the window, climbs out, lights on top of her again, then takes a roll in the snow.
When the illustrious comes out of the woods to explain, d'ye think she'd listen? I can just see him explaining with dago English, paws, shoulders, and eyes. She leaves him explaining in front of the burning cabin. Three days from now young O'Flynn will ride home with his mother's limb tied to the saddle strings, and if the swine's alive then, he'll begin explaining again, though Billy's quick and fretful with his gun.
My wife humped this widow to the barn, and got warm clothes from her trunks for both of them. She fired out her baggage and the puppy piano, bedded down the widow in clean hay, hitched up the team, and hit the trail for home.
She hadn't a mile to go before she met me, and what with the smoke from O'Flynn's, the widow in the rig, and the complete absence of the swine, I'd added up before she reined her team. She would want to cry in my arms.
So she's in bed here, her burns dressed with oil from a bear who held me up once on the Sky-line trail. It's good oil. The widow's asleep in my cabin, and I'm right to home with this letter wrote to you, Mother. I guess you know, Mummy, why me and my pipe and my dog are welcome now, which you've lived in your time and loved.
So hoping you're in Heaven, as this leaves me at present.