There was no rush nor hurry, no bickering nor envying, no crowding nor thieving there. Heart's Desire! It was well named, indeed; fit capital for the malcontents who sought oblivion, dreaming, long as they might, that Life can be left aside when one grows weary of it; dreaming—ah! deep, foolish, golden dream—that somewhere there is on earth an Eden with no Eve and without a flaming sword!
The town all lay along one deliberate, crooked street, because the arroyo along which it straggled was crooked. Its buildings were mostly of adobe, with earthen roofs, so low that when one saw a rainstorm coming in the rainy season (when it rained invariably once a day), he went forth with a shovel and shingled his roof anew, standing on the ground as he did so. There were a few cabins built of logs, but very few. Only one or two stores had the high board front common in Western villages. Lumber was very scarce and carpenters still scarcer. How the family from Kansas had happened to drift into Heart's Desire—how a man of McKinney's intelligence had come to settle there—how Dan Anderson, a very good lawyer, happened to have tarried there—how indeed any of us happened to be there, are questions which may best be solved by those who have studied the West-bound, the dream-bound, the malcontents. At any rate, here we were, and it was Christmas-time. The very next morning would be that of Christmas Day.
CHAPTER II
THE DINNER AT HEART'S DESIRE
This continuing the Relation of Curly, the Can of Oysters, and the Girl from Kansas; and Introducing Others
There were no stockings hung up in Heart's Desire that Christmas Eve, for all the population was adult, male, and stern of habit. The great moon flooded the street with splendor. Afar there came voices of rioting. There were some adherents to the traditions of the South in regard to firecrackers at Yuletide, albeit the six-shooter furnished the only firecracker obtainable. Yet upon that night the very shots seemed cheerful, not ominous, as was usually the case upon that long and crooked street, which had seen duels, affairs, affrays,—even riots of mounted men in the days when the desperadoes of the range came riding into town now and again for love of danger, or for lack of aguardiente. It was so very white and solemn and content,—this street of Heart's Desire on Christmas Eve. Far across the arroyo, as Curly had said, there gleamed red the double windows of the cabin which had been preempted by the man from Leavenworth. To-night the man from Leavenworth sat with bowed head and beard upon his bosom.
Christmas Day dawned, brilliant, glorious. There was not a Christmas tree in all Heart's Desire. There was not a child within two hundred miles who had ever seen a Christmas tree. There was not a woman in all Heart's Desire saving those three newcomers in the cabin across the arroyo. Yet these new-comers were acquainted with the etiquette of the land. There was occasion for public announcement in such matters.
At eleven o'clock in the morning the man from Leavenworth and the Littlest Girl from Kansas came out upon the street. They were ostensibly bound to get the mail, although there had been no mail stage for three days, and could be none for four days more, even had the man from Leavenworth entertained the slightest thought of getting any mail at this purely accidental residence into which the fate of a tired team had thrown him. Yet there must be the proper notification that he and his family had concluded to abide in Heart's Desire; that he was now a citizen; that he was now entitled by the length of his beard to be called "'Squire," and to be accepted into all the councils of the town. This walk along the street was notice to the pure democracy of that land that all might now leave cards at the cabin across the arroyo. One need hardly doubt that the populace of Heart's Desire was lined up along the street to say good morning and to receive befittingly this tacit pledge of its newest citizen. Moreover, as to the Littlest Girl, all Heart's Desire puffed out its chest. Once more, indeed, the camp was entitled to hold up its head. There were Women in the town! Ergo Home; ergo Civilization; ergo Society; and ergo all the rest. Heretofore Heart's Desire had wilfully been but an unorganized section of savagery; but your Anglo Saxon, craving ever savagery, has no sooner found it than he seeks to civilize it; there being for him in his aeon of the world no real content or peace.
"I reckon the old man is goin' to take a look at the post-office to see how he likes the place," said Curly, reflectively, as he gazed after the gentleman whom he had frankly elected as his father-in-law. "He'll get it, all right. Never saw a man from Leavenworth who wasn't a good shot at a postoffice. But say, about that Littlest Girl—well, I wonder!"