Take first train Chicago. Call for letter Smith & Jones Commission merchants Union Stock Yards. Elkins.
This was sure an affliction on me, f'r I had fixed up a deal to go with Miss Ainsley an' her friends on a campin' trip, lastin' up to the day of the issue. She'd been readin' one of Hamlin Garland's books about a puncher who'd scooted through the British aristocracy, hittin' only the high places in a social way, on the strength of a gold prospect an' the diamond hitch to a mule-pack. She wanted to see the diamond hitch of all things. There orto be a law ag'inst novel-writin'. I got Reddy to learn me the diamond hitch so I could make good with Gladys, an' here was this mysterious caff expedition to the last place in the world, Chicago, a-yankin' me off by the night train.
I went over to tell her about it. First, I thought I'd put on the clo'es I expected to wear to Chicago, a dandy fifteen dollar suit I got in town. An' then I saw how foolish this would be, an' brushed up my range clo'es, tied a new silk scarf in my soft roll collar, an' went. Here's my diagram of the hook-up: Any o' them mortar-board-hat, black-nightie fellers she had pitchers of, could probably afford fifteen dollar clay-worsteds; but it was a good gamblin' proposition that none of 'em could come in at the gate like a personally-conducted cyclone, bring up a-stannin' from a dead run to a dead stop's if they'd struck a stone wall, go clear from the bronk as he fetched up an' light like a centaur before her, with their sombrero in their hand. Don't light, you say? Wal, I mean as a centaur would light if he took a notion. You'd better take a hike down to see how the steed's gettin' along, Bill, 'r else subside about this Greek myth biz. It helps on with this story—not!
The p'int is, that gals and fellers both like variety. To me, the "y" in her name, the floss in her hair, the kind of quivery lowness in her voice, the rustle of her dresses as she walked, the way she looked like the pitchers in the magazines an' talked like the stories in 'em, all corroborated to throw the hooks into me. An' I s'pose the nater's-nobleman gag went likewise with her. Subsekent happenin's—but I must hold that back.
We sot in the hammock that night—the only time Aconite Driscoll ever was right up against the real thing in ladies' goods—an' she read me a piece about a Count Gibson a-shooting his lady-love's slanderers so full o' holes at a turnament that they wouldn't hold hazel-brush. They was one verse she hesitated over, an' skipped.
I ast her if she thought she—as a supposed case—could live out in this dried-up-an'-blowed-away country; an' she said the matter had really never been placed before her in any such a way as to call for a decision on her part. Purty smooth, that! Then she read another piece that wound up with "Love is best!" from the same book, an' forgot to take her hand away when I sneaked up on it, an'—Gosh! talk about happiness: we never git anything o' quite that kind out here! I never knowed how I got to the train, 'r anything else ontil we was a-crossin' the Mississippi at North McGregor. Here the caff question ag'in unveiled its heejus front, to be mulled over till I reached the cowman's harbor in Chicago, the Exchange Building at the Yards, an' found Jim Elkins' instructions awaitin' me. They read:
"Dear Aconite:
"The Chicago stockyards are the nation's doorstep for bovine foundlings. New-born calves are a drug on the market there, owing to abuses in the shipping business which we won't just now take time to discuss, to say nothing about curing 'em. What is done with 'em is a mystery which may be solved some day; but that they perish in some miserable way is certain. Two carloads of them must perish on the Rosebud instead of in Packingtown—in the Sioux soup kettles, instead of the rendering tanks, if you can keep them alive to reach Chamberlain—and I have great confidence in your ability to perform this task imposed upon you by the carelessness of Senator Whaley's men either at Washington or at the range. I have heard that one or two raw eggs per day per calf will preserve them, and it looks reasonable. Smith and Jones will have them ready loaded for you for the next fast freight west. I hope you'll enjoy your trip!"
Well, you may have listened to the plaintive beller of a single caff at weanin' time, 'r perhaps to the symferny that emanates from the pen of three 'r four. Furder'n this the experience of most don't go. Hence, I don't hope to give yeh any idee of the sound that eckered over northern Illinois from them two cars o' motherless waifs. The cry of the orphan smote the air in a kind of endless chain o' noise that at two blocks off sounded like a chorus of steam calliopes practicin' holts at about middle C. Nothin' like it had ever been heared of or done in Chicago, an' stockmen, an' reporters, an' sight-seers swarmed around wantin' to know what I was a-goin' to do with the foundlin's—an' I wa'nt in any position to be interviewed, with the Chicago papers due in Chamberlain before I was. I'd 'ave had a dozen scraps if it hadn't been f'r the fear of bein' arrested. But with the beef issue comin' on a-pacin', I had to pass up luxuries involvin' delay. I sot in the caboose, an object of the prurient curiosity of the train-crew ontil we got to Elgin 'r som'eres out there, where I contracted eight cases of eggs an' one of nervous prostration.
Here it was I begun ministering to the wants of my travelin' orphan asylum. They was from four hours to as many days old when the accident of birth put 'em under my fosterin' care. I knowed that it was all poppy-cock givin' dairy 'r breedin' herds to them Injuns, an' that these would do as well f'r their uses, 'sif they had real mothers instid o' one as false as I felt. But to look upon 'em as they appeared in the cars, would 'ave give that consciencious but onsophisticated inspector the jimjams. Part of 'em was layin' down, an' the rest trampin' over 'em, an' every one swellin' the chorus o' blats that told o' hunger an' unhappiness. I took a basket of eggs an' went in among 'em, feelin' like a animal trainer in a circus parade as the Reubens gethered around the train, an' business houses closed f'r the show. I waited till the train pulled out, an' begun my career as nurse-maid-in-gineral.
"How cruel!" said the Bride.