Bill recovered first, and on the whole he was pleased with himself. He had gotten the hang of it by sheer accident, and he sat and made terrible sounds while Luella paced up and down her perch with her tail spread, cursing and imploring by turns.
She wronged Bill if she thought that Bill enjoyed his spasmodic blattings and squeakings. He did not. He winced at every squawk, even while he persisted doggedly in the uproar. Through discord only might he hope to become a master of the melody he craved, wherefore he endured the discord, thankful that no human being was near. It took him all the next day to round up the burros, however, and Sister Mitchell went into retirement in her shell and remained there stubbornly.
Thereafter, the stars looked down upon a pathetic little desert comedy enacted every night: The pathetic comedy of Bill Dale tying up his burros and his dog and anchoring a gray desert turtle to a rock before he sat down, with a dull-green instruction book before him on the ground, its corners weighted with small rocks, and practiced dolefully and indefatigably upon a silver-plated saxophone. As long as he could see he would sit cross-legged, humped over his notes,—of which he possessed a rudimentary knowledge learned in school. When darkness blurred the staff, Bill would tootle up and down the scale to the accompaniment of vituperous remarks from Luella and an occasional howl from Hez.
Down deep in his heart there was a reason, which he would not divulge to any one, much less Luella. Twenty miles away, in a vine-covered ranch house that looked out upon the desert from under the branches of cool, green cottonwoods, a certain Doris Hunter sang sweet old songs sometimes in the twilight, and played a sketchy, pleasant little accompaniment upon the piano. Bill knew no ecstasy sweeter than sitting in the gloaming, staring dreamily up through the cottonwood branches at the evening star, while Doris sang "Love's Old Sweet Song."
The pathetic note in the little comedy, the note which his outraged menagerie missed altogether, was the fact that Bill would sit for hours, there under the stars, and try to play "Love's Old Sweet Song." And while he tried patiently to make the notes come true, his heart was away over the ridge and down in that little, vine-covered ranch house, worshiping Doris Hunter while she sang.
A dream came to him every night while he played and watched the stars. He dreamed of some day going down to the Hunter ranch, with some perfectly convincing excuse for a visit. He would have the saxophone tied on Wise One, who was more dependable in his habits than Angelface, who was a devil. He would wait until after supper, when Doris would finally settle down on the piano stool. Then he would remember his saxophone and suggest nonchalantly that they try a few little things together. Doris would round her eyes at him, and the dimple would show in her left cheek when she begged him to bring it in.
Then,—Bill's lips would smile in spite of the correct position of the mouth, when he reached that point in his dream—then, after a little talk, and the whole family gathering around to exclaim over the beautiful instrument (which really was beautiful, in cold reality), why, then Bill would suggest something, and Doris would strike a preliminary chord or two, and Bill would follow her voice softly with his music while she sang:
"Just a song at twi-light,
When the lights ar-re low,
A-and the flick'ring sha-adows,
Sof-ftly come and go-o—"
Bill's lips would soften, his eyes would grow luminous and very, very tender. He would forget to play and would stare up into the gemmed purple, and wonder, and dream, and hope.
After a long while, when Luella had tucked her head under her wing, Bill would lay the saxophone carefully in its velvet nest and begin absently to unlace his boots. Doris Hunter—the gold mine he meant to find—had indeed almost found—"Love's Old Sweet Song"—the skill to play while Doris sang; these things mingled indissolubly in his soul while he slept and dreamed, shuttled through his waking mind while he worked.