Having paced away some of her restlessness, Betty stopped by the cabin window and pushed aside one of the short, calico curtains. She looked out on the court. A tall woman had just pulled up a bucket of water from the well and had emptied it into a pitcher. She finished, let the bucket drop with a whirr and a clash, and raised her head. For a second she and Jasper Morena’s wife looked at each other. Betty nodded, smiled, and drew the curtain close.
CHAPTER III
JANE
After that night, there began a sort of persecution, skillfully conducted by Jasper and Betty, against the ferocity of Jane. It was a persecution impossible to imagine in any other setting, even the social simplicity of Lazy-Y found itself a trifle amused. For Jasper, the stately Jewish figure, would carry pails of water for Jane from the well to the kitchen, would help her in the vegetable garden, and to straighten out her recalcitrant stove-pipe; Betty would put on an apron a mile too large, to wash dishes and shell peas. She would sit on the kitchen table swinging her long, childlike legs and chatter amiably. Jasper talked, too, to the virago, talked delightfully, about horses and dogs,—he had a charming gift of humorous observation,—talked about hunting and big-game shooting, about trapping, about travel, and, at last, about plays. Undoubtedly Jane listened. Sometimes she laughed. Once in a while she ejaculated, musically, “Well!” Occasionally she swore.
One afternoon he met her riding home from an errand to a neighboring ranch, and, turning his horse, rode with her. In worn corduroy skirt, flannel shirt, and gray sombrero, she looked like a handsome, haggard boy, and, that afternoon, there was a certain unusual wistfulness in her eyes, and her mouth had relaxed a little from its bitterness. Perhaps it was the beauty of a clear, keen summer day; without doubt, also, she was touched by the courteous pleasure of his greeting and by his giving up his ride in order to accompany her. She even unbent from her silence and, for the first time, really talked to him. And she spoke, too, in a new manner, using her beautiful voice with beautiful carefulness. It was like a master-musician who, after a long illness, takes up his beloved instrument and tentatively tests his shaken powers. Jasper had much ado to keep his surprise to himself, for the rough ranch girl could speak pure enough English if she would.
“You and your wife are leaving soon?” she asked him, and, when he nodded, she gave a sigh. “I’ll be missing you,” she said, throwing away her brusquerie like a rag with which she was done. “You’ve been company for me. You’ve made use of lots of patience and courage, but I have really liked it. I’ve not got the ways of being sociable and I don’t know that I want ever to get them. I am not seeking for friends. There isn’t another person on the ranch that would dare talk to me as you and Mrs. Morena have talked. They don’t know anything about me here and I don’t mean that they should know.” She paused, then gave way to an impulse of confidence. “One of the boys asked me to marry him. He came and shouted it through the window and I caught him with a pan of water.” She sighed. “I don’t know rightly if he meant it for a joke or not, but the laugh wasn’t on me.”
Jasper controlled his laughter, then saw the dry humor of her eyes and lips and let out his mirth.
“Why, sir,” said Jane, “you’d be surprised at the foolishness of men. Sometimes it seems that, just for pure contrariness, they want to marry her that least wants them about. The day I came tramping into this valley, I stopped for food at the ranch of an old bachelor down yonder at the ford. And he invited me to be his wife while I was drinking a glass of water from his well. He told me how much money he had and said he’d start my stove for me winter mornings. There’s a good husband! And he was sure kind to me even when I told him ‘no.’ ’T was that same evening that the boy from Lazy-Y rode in and claimed me for a cook. Mr. Yarnall is a trusting man. He took me and didn’t ask any questions. I told him I was ‘Jane’ and that I wasn’t planning to let him know more. He hasn’t asked me another question since. He’s a gentleman, I figure it, and he’s kind of quiet himself about what he was before he came to this country. He’s a man of fifty and he has lots back of him only he’s taken a fresh start.” She sighed, “Folks like you and Betty seem awfully open-hearted. It’s living in cities, I suppose, where every one knows every one else so well.”