Being that way, he made the only break that gave trouble afterwards. She asked him if there was a school in Palomitas, and he told her there wasn’t, because all the folks in town was so young––except the natives, who hadn’t no use for schools––they hadn’t any children big enough to go to one. And then she said sudden, and as it seemed to him changing the subject: “Isn’t there a kindergarten?” Hill said he’d never heard tell of such a concern; but he sized it up to be some sort of a fancy German garden––like the one Becker’d fixed up for himself over to Santa Cruz––and he said he allowed, from the way she asked about it, it was what Palomitas ought to have. So he told her there was, and it was the best one in the Territory––and let it go at that. He said she said she was glad to hear it, as she took a special interest in kindergartens, and she’d go and see it the first thing.
Hill said he knowed he’d put his foot in it somehow; but as he didn’t know how he’d 91 put his foot in it, he just switched her off by telling her about the Dorcas Society. He had the cards for that, he said, because his mother’d helped run a Dorcas Society back East and he knowed what he was talking about. The Palomitas one met Thursdays, he told her, at the Forest Queen. That was the principal hotel, he told her, and was kept by Mrs. Major Rogers, who was an officer’s widow and had started the society to make clothes for some of the Mexican poor folks––and he said it was a first-rate charity and worked well. It tickled him so, he said, thinking of any such doings at the Forest Queen––with old Tenderfoot Sal, of all people, bossing the job!––he had to work off the laugh he had inside of him by taking to licking his mules.
But it went all right with the little old lady; and she was that interested he had to strain himself, he said, making up more stories about it––till by good luck she took to telling him about the Dorcas Society she belonged to herself, back home in Vermont; and was so full of it she kept things going 92 easy for him till they’d crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande and was coming up the slope into the town at a walk.
Up at the top of the slope Santa Fé Charley stood a-waiting for ’em––looking, of course, in them black clothes and a white tie on, like he was a sure-enough preacher––and as the coach come along he sung out, pleasant and friendly: “Good-afternoon, Brother Hill. I missed you at the Bible Class last evening. No doubt you were detained unavoidably, and it’s all right. But be sure to come next Friday. We don’t get along well without you, Brother Hill.” And Santa Fé took his hat off stylish and made the old lady the best sort of a bow.
Hill caught on quick and played right up to Santa Fé’s lead. “That’s our minister, Mr. Charles, ma’am. The one I’ve been telling you about,” he said. “He’s just friendly and sociable like that all the time. He looks after the folks in this town closer’n any preacher I ever knowed.” A part of that, Hill said, was dead certain truth––seeing as Santa Fé had his eyes out straight 93 along for everybody about the place who’d a dollar in his pocket, and wasn’t satisfied till he’d scooped in that dollar over his table at the Forest Queen.
“There’s the new church we’re building,” Hill went on, as they got to the top of the slope and headed for the deepo. “It ain’t much to look at yet, the spire not being put on; and it won’t show up well, even when it gets its spire on it, with churches East. But we’re going to be satisfied with it, seeing it’s the best we can do. You’ll be interested to know, ma’am, your nephew give the land.”
“William hasn’t let on anything about it,” Hart’s aunt said, looking pleased all over. “But what in the world is a church doing with a railroad track running into it, Mr. Hill?”
Hill said he’d forgot about the track when he settled to use the new freight-house for church purposes; but he said he pulled himself together quick and told her the track was temp’ry––put in so building material could unload right on the ground. And then he took to talking about how obliging the 94 railroad folks had been helping ’em––and kept a-talking that way till he got the coach to the deepo, and didn’t need to hustle making things up any more. He said he never was so thankful in his life as he was when his stunt was done. He was just tired out, he said, lying straight ahead all day over thirty miles of bad road and not being able once to speak natural to his mules.
Hart was waiting at the deepo, on the chance his aunt would come in on the coach; and when she saw him she give a little squeal, she was so pleased, and hopped down in no time off the box––she was as brisk as a bee in her doings––and took to hugging him and half crying over him just like he was a little boy.