“Your remarks shore remind me of a sayin’ that ‘the discomfort of havin’ to swallow other folks’ dust causes a heap of anxiety over their reckless driving.’”
Mrs. Yellett flicked her riding-boot with her whip. Her voice dropped a couple of tones, her accent became one of honeyed sweetness.
“Your consumin’ anxiety regardin’ my gov’ment and my children shore reminds me of a narrative appertainin’ to two dawgs. Them dawgs was neighbors, livin’ in adj’inin’ yards separated by a fence, and one day one of them got a good meaty bone and settled hisself down to the enj’yment thereof. And his intimate friend and neighbor on the other side of the fence, who had no bone to engage his faculties, he began to fret hisself ’bout the business of his friend. S’pose he was to choke hisself over that bone. S’pose the meat disagreed with him. And he begins to bark warnin’s, but the dawg with the bone he keeps right on. But the other dawg he dashes hisself again the fence and he scratches with his claws. He whines pitiful, he’s that anxious about his friend. But the dawg with the bone he went right on till he gnawed it down to the last morsel, and, goin’ to the hole in the fence whar his friend had kep’ that anxious vigil, he says: ‘Friend, the only thing that consoled me while having to endure the anguish of eatin’ that bone was the thought of your watchful sympathy!’ Which bein’ the case, I’d thank you to tell me whar I can find my gov’ment.”
“Ai-yi!” said old Sally. “I ain’t seein’ no bone this deal. Just a lettle green gourd ’s all I see with my strongest specs.”
Mary Carmichael, in one of the inner rooms, was writing a home letter, which was chiefly remarkable for what it failed to relate. It gave long accounts of the scenery, it waxed didactic over the future of the country; but the adventures of the trip, with her incidental acquaintance with the Daxes and Chugg, were not recorded. Eudora announced the arrival of Mrs. Yellett, and Mary, at the news, dropped the contents of her portfolio and started up with much the feeling a marooned sailor might have on hearing a sail has been sighted. At this particular stage of her career Miss Carmichael had not developed the philosophy that later in life was destined to become her most valuable asset. Her sense of humor no longer responded to the vagaries of pioneer life. The comedy element was coming a little too thick and fast. She was getting a bit heart-sick for a glimpse of her own kind, a word with some one who spoke her language. And here, at last, was the woman who had written such a charming letter, who had so graciously intimated that there was room for her at the hearth-stone. Mary was, indeed, eager to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Yellett.
To the end of her life she never forgot that first meeting—the perfect confidence with which she followed Eudora to the open room, the ensuing blank amazement, the utter inability to reconcile the Mrs. Yellett of the letter with the Mrs. Yellett of fact. The lamp on the table, burning feebly, seemed to burst into a thousand shooting-stars as the girl struggled with her tears. Home was so far, and Mrs. Yellett was so different from what she had expected! And yet, as she felt her fingers crush in the grip of that hard but not unkindly hand, there was in the woman’s rugged personality a sustaining quality; and, thinking again of Archie’s prospects, Mary was not altogether sorry that she had come.
“You be a right smart young maverick not to get lost none on this long trail, and no one to p’int you right if you strayed,” commented Mary’s patroness, affably. “But we won’t roominate here no longer than we can help. It’s too hard on old Ma’am Rodney. She’s just ’bout the color of withered cabbage now, ’long of me havin’ you.”
While she talked, Mrs. Yellett picked up Mary’s trunk and bags and stowed them in the back of the buckboard with the ease with which another woman might handle pasteboard boxes. One or two of the male Rodneys offered to help, but she waved them aside and lashed the luggage to the buckboard, handling the ropes with the skill of an old sailor. The entire Rodney family and the suitors of Eudora assembled to witness the departure. “It’s a heap friendly of you to fret so,” was the parting stab of Sarah Yellett to Sally Rodney; and she swung the backboard about, cleared the cactus stumps in the Rodney door-yard, and gained the mountain-road.
“Ai-yi!” said old Sally. “What’s this country comin’ to?”
“A few more women, thank God!” remarked Ira. Eudora had just snubbed him, and he put a wealth of meaning into his look after the vanishing buckboard.