"Yes, I know what you mean," said Mrs. Lee. "I guess I do! Think of living out here for thirty years, Mr. Bowles, and having them still hold aloof. With Dixie, now, it is different. She was born here, and in a way she speaks their language. I have done my best, to be sure, to keep her diction pure—and Henry even has given up all his old, careless ways of speaking in order to do his part; but, somehow, she has learned the vernacular from these cowboys, and in spite of all I can say she will persist in using it. It was only yesterday that I overheard her say to Hardy: 'Yes, I can ride ary hawse in the pen!' And she says 'You-all' like a regular Texan. Of course, that is Southern too—and I have known some very cultivated Texans—but, oh, it makes me feel so bad that my daughter should fall into these careless ways! I have been in Arizona nearly thirty years now, and it has meant the loss of a great deal to me in many ways; but there was one thing I would not give up, Mr. Bowles—I would not give up my educated speech!"
She ended with some emotion, and Bowles glanced at her curiously, but he made no carping comments. When a lady has sacrificed so much to preserve the language of her fathers, it would be a poor return indeed to give her aught but praise—and yet he could sense it dimly that she had paid a fearful price. Personally, he was beginning to admire the direct speech of Dixie May, even to the extent of dropping some of his more obvious Eastern variants; but to the mother he hid the leanings of his heart.
"Your accent is certainly very pure," he said. "Really, I have never heard more perfect English—except, perhaps, from some highly educated foreigner. Our tendency to lapse into the vernacular lays us all open to criticism, of course. But don't you find, Mrs. Lee, that your Eastern speech is a bar, in a way, to the closest relations with your neighbors? I know with me it has been that way, and I am already trying to adopt the Western idiom as far as possible. Why, really, when I first came, they ridiculed me so for saying 'Beg pardon' that I doubt if I shall ever use the expression again. And I am having such a struggle to say 'calves'—not 'cahves,' you know, but 'calves'! It is all right to say 'brahnding cahves' back in New York, but out here it is so frightfully conspicuous! And besides——"
"Oh, now, Mr. Bowles," protested Mrs. Lee, laying a restraining hand on his arm, "I hope you will not shatter all my hopes by falling into this dreadful vernacular. If you only knew how much I enjoy your manner of speaking, if you knew what memories of New York and the old life your words bring up, you would hesitate, I am sure, to cast aside your heritage. Really, if Henry would have let me, I should have invited you up to the house the very evening you came; but you—well, you had some disagreement with him at the start, and it's rather prejudiced him against you. And, besides, he has his ideas of discipline, you know, and against making exceptions of one man over another; and so—well, I did hope you would be able to drive, because now I want to have a good long talk.
"I'm not proud, or 'stuck up,' as they say out here, Mr. Bowles," she went on, as if eager to begin her holiday; "and really I do everything in my power to be friendly, but the class of people who come here—these poor, ignorant nesters, and rough, hard-swearing cowboys—they seem actually to resent my manner of speaking. Of course, I was a school-teacher for a few years—before I married Henry—and I suppose that has made a difference; but I do get so lonely sometimes, with Dixie out riding around somewhere and Henry off on the round-up—and yet I just can't bring myself to speak this awful, vulgar Texas-talk. Now Dixie, she rides around anywhere, speaks to all the women, says 'Howdy' to all the men, and, I declare, when I hear her talking with these cowboys I wonder if she's my own daughter! They have such common ways of expressing themselves, although I must say they are always polite enough—but what I really object to is their familiar attitude toward Dixie. No matter what their class or station, they always seem to take it for granted that they are perfectly eligible, and that she is sure to marry one of them, and that even the commonest has a kind of gambler's chance to win her hand."
She paused, overcome apparently by memories of past courtships, and Bowles shuffled his feet uneasily.
"Of course," he said at length, "your daughter is very attractive——"
"Oh, do you think so?" exclaimed Mrs. Lee, making no concealment of her pleasure in the fact. "I thought, from the way you spoke to her—when I introduced you, you know——"
"Oh, that was just my manner!" interrupted Bowles hastily. "A little embarrassed, perhaps."
"But I thought," persisted Mrs. Lee, "I thought from the way you both acted that you had met before. In New York, perhaps—you know, she has been there all winter—or some time before that evening. You know, Dixie is generally so free with the new cowboys, but she spoke up at you so sharply, and you——"