“Oh, William,” she said, “I am so happy getting to you! And I’m happier’n I expected to be, finding out how quiet and respectable Palomitas is––not a bit what your letters made me think it was––and such real good people living in it, and everything but the queer country and the queer mud 95 houses just like it is at home. Mr. Hill has been telling me all about it, coming over, and about this new church you’re building that you gave the lot for. To think you’ve never told me! Oh, William, I am so glad and so thankful that out here in this wild region you’ve kept serious-minded and are turning out such a good man!”
Hart looked so mixed up over the way his aunt was talking, and so sort of hopeless, that Hill cut in quick and give him a lift. “He’s not much at blowing about himself, your nephew ain’t, ma’am,” Hill said. “Why, he not only give the land for the church over there”––and Hill pointed at the freight-house, so Hart could ketch on––“but it was him got the Company to lay them temp’ry tracks, so the building stuff could be took right in. He’s going to give a melodeon, too.”
“Dear William!” Hart’s aunt said. “It rejoices my heart you’re doing all these good deeds––and all the others Mr. Hill’s been telling me about. I must kiss you again.”
“Oh, what I’ve done ain’t nothing,” Hart said, pulling himself together while she was kissing him. “Land’s cheap, cheap as it can be, out here; and I give the Company such a lot of freight they’re more’n willing to oblige me; and as to the melodeon––”
Hart sort of gagged when he got to the melodeon, and Santa Fé Charley––who’d come up while they all was talking away together––reached across the table and played his hand. “As to the melodeon, Mr. Hart,” Santa Fé put in, “you said that being in business you could get it at a discount off. But that does not appreciably lessen your generosity, Mr. Hart; and your aunt”––Santa Fé took off his hat and bowed handsome––“is justified in taking pride in your good deeds. I am glad to tell her that in her nephew our struggling church has its stanchest pillar and its strongest stay.”
“Yes, that’s the way it is about the melodeon, Aunt Maria,” Hart said, kind of weak and mournful. “Being in business, I get melodeons at such a discount off that giving ’em away ain’t nothing to me at all. 97 And now I guess we’d better be getting along home. It’s a mighty mean home to take you to, Aunt Maria; but there’s one comfort––as you’ll find out when I get the chance to talk to you––you won’t have to stay in it long.”
There was a lot of the boys standing round on the deepo platform watching the show, and they all took their hats off respectful––following the lead Santa Fé give ’em––as Hart started away up the track, to where his store was, with his aunt on his arm. The town looked like some place East keeping Sunday: the Committee having talked strong as to what they’d do if things wasn’t quiet, and having rounded up––and coralled in a back room Denver Jones lent the use of––the few who’d got drunk as usual because they had to, and so had to be took care of that way. It was a June evening, and the sun about setting; and somehow it all was so sort of peaceful and uncommon––with everybody in sight sober, and no fighting anywhere, and that little old lady going along, believing Palomitas was like that always, instead of 98 the hell on earth it was––some of us more’n half believed we’d gone to sleep and got stuck in a dream.
Things was made dreamier by the looks and doings of the Sage-Brush Hen. She was the only lady of the town, the Hen was, who took part in the ceremonies––and likely it was just about as well, for the sake of keeping clear of surprises, the rest of ’em laid low. As Hart and his aunt went off together up the track, the Hen showed up coming along down it; and she was dressed that pretty and quiet––in the plainest sort of a white frock, and wearing a white sun-bonnet––and was looking so demure, like she could when she’d a mind to, nobody knowed at first who she was.
“Being the minister’s wife, I’ve been taking the liberty, Mr. Hart,” she said, smiling pleasant, when the three of ’em come together on the track, “of looking around a little up at your place to see that everything has been fixed for your company the way it should be.” (She hadn’t been nowheres near Hart’s place, it turned out––but Gospel 99 truth wasn’t just what there was most of that day in Palomitas.) She went right on down the track without stopping, passing on Hart’s side, and saying to him: “My husband expects you as usual at the Friendly Aid meeting to-morrow evening, Mr. Hart. We never seem half to get along, you know, when you’re not there.”