A Yankee from the West: A Novel

by Opie Percival Read

"Good!" cried the Professor. "Idiomatic, and divested of all shrewdness. Now, what shall we do first?"

"I'll hatch up a bite to eat, and then we'll feed the stock. You sit here."

He protested against a decree that might make a lazy guest of him, but he yielded, and sat down to hum a tune of contentment, pliant heart postponing trouble, procrastinator of annoyances. It did not take Milford long to prepare the meal, crisp strips of bacon, bread, and coffee boiled in a tin pail. The host said that it was but ranch fare. The guest rubbed his hands together, and declared that freedom was a pudding's sweetest sauce. He had read of many great feasts, in the days of the barons, when bulls were roasted whole, of the wild boar's head served upon the golden platter of the king, but to him there was one banquet mellower with sentiment than all the rest—General Marion and the British officer in the forest, with a pile of roasted sweet potatoes on a log. He sipped the dreggy coffee as if it were the mulled wine of a New Year's night. He talked loudly as if he enjoyed the resonant freedom of his own voice. He laughed in the present, and then was silent as a cool shadow of the future fell upon him. But he shifted from under the shadow, and went on with his talk, in florid congratulation of his host, his ease, his independence. There were no soft cushions, but there was rough repose, the undisturbed rest of honest weariness. Milford's judgment of men told him that this man had ever been a laughing-stock, afflicted as he was with a certain incompetent refinement of mind. But, in the varied society of life, how important is the office of such a failure! A shiftless man sometimes makes shiftless men more contented, softening enmities against life, and quieting clamors against discriminating nature. Here was a man who really was worth knowing, and the cowboy gratefully accepted him. He opened up his Noah's Ark of adventures, and entertained the man-child. He shoved back from the table, and sang a roaring song of a plainsman who died for love. He recited a poem by Antrobus, the herdsman's sneer of abandoned recklessness—"Like a Centaur, he speeds where the wild bull feeds." The Professor clapped his hands. He swore that no Eastcheap could afford a more delicious entertainment. Milford brought cider from the cellar, beading in a brown, earthen ewer, and the Professor snapped his eyes. "Where the wild bull feeds," he laughed, passing his cup for more. They shook hands, that they held in common so many old songs, lines familiar to our grandmothers—"Come, dearest, the daylight hath gone;" "The tiger's cub I'd bind with a chain." They sang till the daylight was gone, and then went forth laughingly to feed the stock. But the Professor left off his part of the singing before the work was completed. The shadow of the future had again fallen upon him, and he could not shift from under it.

"Look here," he said, "you must go home with me. Do you understand?"

"I think I do, and I'll go anywhere with you."

"Idiomatic, and accommodating. Put her there!" he cried, striking hands with Milford. "Ha! how is that for idiom? Stay by me, gentle keeper, my soul is heavy, and I fain would—would duck." He leaned against the barn door and shook. Milford clapped him on the shoulder, and shook with him.

Across a field, through a wood and along a grassy slope, they went, toward the Professor's home, passing a house which schoolboys said was haunted. The Professor talked philosophy. He had a religious theory, newly picked up on the way: If we die suddenly at night, dreaming a sweet dream, we continue the dream throughout eternity—heaven. If we die dreaming a troubled dream, we go on dreaming it after death—hell. Moral, then let us strive to live conducively to pleasant dreams. Milford agreed that, as a theory, it was good enough. Nearly anything was good enough for a theory. But wise men had summed up the future, and had died trusting in their creed. The Professor hung back at the word future. The future was now too near to be discussed as a speculation. He saw it shining through the window of his house. He heard it in the slamming of a door.

"Well, here we are," he said, unwinding a chain from about a post, and opening a gate. "Step in. We will sit on the veranda—cooler than in the house."

The door opened, and a large woman stepped out upon the veranda. Seeing who came, she uttered one of anger's unspellable words, a snort. She was a good woman, no doubt, but she was of the class who, in the old days, lent virtue to the ducking stool. In short, she was one who deemed herself the most abused of all earthly creatures, a scold. Pretending not to see her husband, she asked Milford what he wanted.

"Mrs. Dolihide," said the Professor, "this is my very dear friend, Mr. Milford, our neighbor, and a man who has lived over most of the ground between here and sunset."