“Got more land’n I want now.”
“Boss,”–I helt out my hand–“here’s where you git a new son-in-law, and a foreman fer keeps on cow-punch pay. Shake!”
He give one hand to Mace, and he give me the other. “Not by a long shot, Cupid!” he says. “Here’s where I git a half-pardner.”
So here I am–settled down at the ole Bar Y. And it’d take a twenty-mule team t’ pull me offen it. Of a evenin’, like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin’; the boys ’re strung along the side of the bunk-house t’ rest and gass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite, leveler’n a floor; and–up over it all–the moon, white and smilin’.
Then, outen the door nigh where the sun-flowers ’re growin’, mebbe she’ll come–a slim, little figger in white. And, if it’s plenty warm, and not too late, why, she’ll be totin’ the smartest, cutest––
Listen! y’ hear that?
| “Sweet is the vale where the Mohawk gently glides On its fair, windin’ way to the sea––” |
That’s my little wife,–that’s Macie, now–a-singin’ to the kid!
THE END