Three of the goods-animals were now unladen, their burden of provisions being piled beside the door while Cousin Egbert chatted gayly with the cow-persons and the Indian Tuttle, after which these three took their leave, being madly bent, it appeared, upon penetrating still farther into the wilderness to another cattle farm. Then, left alone with Cousin Egbert, I was not long in discovering that, strictly speaking, he had no establishment. Not only were there no servants, but there were no drains, no water-taps, no ice-machine, no scullery, no central heating, no electric wiring. His hut consisted of but a single room, and this without a floor other than the packed earth, while the appointments were such as in any civilized country would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction, over which the owner now hovered in certain feats of cookery.
Thanks to my famished state I was in no mood to criticise his efforts, which he presently set forth upon the rough deal table in a hearty but quite inelegant manner. The meal, I am bound to say, was more than welcome to my now indiscriminating palate, though at a less urgent moment I should doubtless have found the bread soggy and the beans a pernicious mass. There was a stew of venison, however, which only the most skilful hands could have bettered, though how the man had obtained a deer was beyond me, since it was evident he possessed no shooting or deer-stalking costume. As to the tea, I made bold to speak my mind and succeeded in brewing some for myself.
Throughout the repast Cousin Egbert was constantly attentive to my needs and was more cheerful of demeanour than I had ever seen him. The hunted look about his eyes, which had heretofore always distinguished him, was now gone, and he bore himself like a free man.
“Yes, sir,” he said, as we smoked over the remains of the meal, “you stay with me and I’ll give you one swell little time. I’ll do the cooking, and between whiles we can sit right here and play cribbage day in and day out. You can get a taste of real life without moving.”
I saw then, if never before, that his deeper nature would not be aroused. Doubtless my passing success with him in Paris had marked the very highest stage of his spiritual development. I did not need to be told now that he had left off sock-suspenders forever, nor did I waste words in trying to recall him to his better self. Indeed for the moment I was too overwhelmed by fatigue even to remonstrate about his wretched lounge-suit, and I early fell asleep on one of the beds while he was still engaged in washing the metal dishes upon which we had eaten, singing the while the doleful ballad of “Rosalie, the Prairie Flower.”
It seemed but a moment later that I awoke, for Cousin Egbert was again busy among the dishes, but I saw that another day had come and his song had changed to one equally sad but quite different. “In the hazel dell my Nellie’s sleeping,” he sang, though in a low voice and quite cheerfully. Indeed his entire repertoire of ballads was confined to the saddest themes, chiefly of desirable maidens taken off untimely either by disease or accident. Besides “Rosalie, the Prairie Flower,” there was “Lovely Annie Lisle,” over whom the willows waved and earthly music could not waken; another named “Sweet Alice Ben Bolt” lying in the churchyard, and still another, “Lily Dale,” who was pictured “‘neath the trees in the flowery vale,” with the wild rose blossoming o’er the little green grave.
His face was indeed sad as he rendered these woful ballads and yet his voice and manner were of the cheeriest, and I dare say he sang without reference to their real tragedy. It was a school of American balladry quite at variance with the cheerful optimism of those I had heard from the Belknap-Jackson phonograph, where the persons are not dead at all but are gayly calling upon one another to come on and do a folkdance, or hear a band or crawl under—things of that sort. As Cousin Egbert bent over a frying pan in which ham was cooking he crooned softly:
“In the hazel dell my Nellie’s sleeping,
Nellie loved so long,
While my lonely, lonely watch I’m keeping,
Nellie lost and gone.”
I could attribute his choice only to that natural perversity which prompted him always to do the wrong thing, for surely this affecting verse was not meant to be sung at such a moment.
Attempting to arise, I became aware that the two days’ journey had left me sadly lame and wayworn, also that my face was burned from the sun and that I had been awakened too soon. Fortunately I had with me a shilling jar of Ridley’s Society Complexion Food, “the all-weather wonder,” which I applied to my face with cooling results, and I then felt able to partake of a bit of the breakfast which Cousin Egbert now brought to my bedside. The ham was of course not cooked correctly and the tea was again a mere corrosive, but so anxious was my host to please me that I refrained from any criticism, though at another time I should have told him straight what I thought of such cookery.