“Why, I reckon I can, ma’am,” he told her. “But I ain’t never had a heap of experience—” His pause was eloquent, and he finished lamely “with boots—boots, that is, that was on swelled ankles.”
“Is it necessary to have experience?” she returned impatiently.
“Why, I reckon not, ma’am.” He knelt beside her and grasped the boot, giving it a gentle tug. She cried out with pain and he dropped the boot and made a grimace of sympathy. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, ma’am.”
“I know you didn’t”—peevishly. “Oh,” she added as he took the boot in hand again, this time giving it a slight twist; “men are such awkward creatures!”
“Why, I reckon they are, ma’am. That is, one, in particular. There’s times when I can’t get my own boots on.” He grinned, and she looked icily at him.
“Get hold of it just above the ankle, please,” she instructed evenly and drew the hem of her skirt tightly. “There!” she added as he seized the limb gingerly, “now pull!”
He did as he had been bidden. She shrieked in agony and jerked the foot away, and he stood up, his face reflecting some of the pain and misery that shone in hers.
“It’s awful, ma’am,” he sympathized. “Over at the Diamond H, one of the boys got his leg broke, last year, ridin’ an outlaw, or tryin’ to ride him, which ain’t quite the same thing—an’ we had to get his boot off before we could set the break. Why, ma’am; we had to set on his head to keep him from scarin’ all the cattle off the range, with his screechin’.”
She looked at him with eyes that told him plainly that no one was going to sit on her head—and that she would “screech” if she chose. And then she spoke to him with bitter sarcasm:
“Perhaps if you tried to do something, instead of standing there, telling me something that happened ages ago, I wouldn’t have to sit here and endure this awful m-m-misery!”