Wednesday the Third
Humor is the salt of life. The older I grow the more I realize that truth. And I’m going to keep more of it, if I can, in the work-room of my soul. Last night, when Dinky-Dunk and I were so uppish with each other, one single clap of humor might have shaken the solemnity out of the situation and shown us up for the poseurs we really were. But Pride is the mother of all contention. If Dinky-Dunk, when I was so imperially dismissing him from his own home, had only up and said: “Look here, Lady-bird, this is as much my house as it is yours, you feather-headed little idiot, and I’ll put a June-bug down your neck if you don’t let me stay here!” If he’d only said that, and sat down and been the safety-valve to my emotions which all husbands ought to be to all wives, the igloo would have melted about my heart and left me nothing to do but crawl over to him and tell him that I missed him more than tongue could tell, and that getting Dinkie’s daddy back was almost as good as getting Dinkie himself back to me.
But we missed our chance. And I suppose Lady Allie sat up until all hours of the night, over at Casa Grande, consoling my Diddums and talking things over. It gives me a sort of bruised feeling, for I’ve nobody but Whinstane Sandy to unbosom my soul to....
Iroquois Annie has flown the coop. She has gone for good. I must have struck terror deeper into the heart of that Redskin than I imagined, for rather than face death and torture at my hands she left Slip-Along and the buckboard at the Teetzel Ranch and vamoosed off into the great unknown. I have done up her valuables in an old sugar-sack, and if they’re not sent for in a week’s time I’ll make a bonfire of the truck. Whinnie, by the way, is to help me with the house-work. He is much better at washing dishes than I ever thought he could be. And he announces he can make a fair brand of bannock, if we run out of bread.
Tuesday the Ninth
I’ve got a hired man. He dropped like manna, out of the skies, or, rather, he emerged like a tadpole out of the mud. But there’s something odd about him and I’ve a floaty idea he’s a refugee from justice and that some day one of the Mounties will come riding up to my shack-door and lead my farm-help away in handcuffs.
Whatever he is, I can’t quite make him out. But I have my suspicions, and I’m leaving everything in abeyance until they’re confirmed.
I was on Paddy the other morning, in my old shooting-jacket and Stetson, going like the wind for the Dixon Ranch, after hearing they had a Barnado boy they wanted to unload on anybody who’d undertake to keep him under control. The trail was heavy from the night rain that had swept the prairie like a new broom, but the sun was shining again and the air was like champagne. The ozone and the exercise and Paddy’s legato stride all tended to key up my spirits, and I went along humming:
| “Bake me a bannock, And cut me a callop, For I’ve stole me a grey mare And I’m off at a gallop!” |