The old gent––he wasn’t a fool clean through––asked her what was the matter with her Government transportation; she having a right to transportation, being an officer’s widow going home. Hill said he give her a nudge at that, as much as to 22 say the old gent had her. She didn’t faze a bit, though. It was her Government transportation she was waiting for, she cracked back to him smooth and natural; but such things had to go all the way to Washington to be settled, she said, and then come West again––Hill said he ’most snickered out at that––and she’d known cases when red-tape had got in the way and transportation hadn’t been allowed at all. Then she sighed terrible, and said it might be a long, long while before she could get home again to her little boy––who was all there was left her in the world. Her little Willy was being took care of by his grandmother, she said, and he was just his father’s own handsome self over again––and she got out her pocket-handkerchief and jammed it up to her eyes.
“HER LEFT HAND WAS LAYING IN HER LAP,
AND THE OLD GENT GOT A-HOLD OF IT”
Her left hand was laying in her lap, sort of casual, and the old gent got a-hold of it and said he didn’t know how to tell her how sorry he was for her. Talking from behind her pocket-handkerchief, she said such sympathy was precious; and then she went on, kind of pitiful, saying she s’posed her little Willy’d have forgot all about her before she’d get back to him––and she cried some more. Hill said she done it so well he was half took in himself for a minute, and felt so bad he went to licking and swearing at his mules.
After a while she took a brace––getting down her pocket-handkerchief, and calling in the hand the old gent was a-holding––and said she must be brave, like her dear Captain’d always been, so he’d see when he was a-looking at her from heaven she was doing the square thing. And as to having to wait around before she went East, she said, in one way it didn’t make any matter––seeing she’d be well cared for and comfortable at Palomitas staying in the house of the Baptist minister, who’d married her aunt.
Hill said when she went to talking about Baptist ministers and aunts in Palomitas he shook so laughing inside he most fell off the box. Except the Mexican padre who belonged there––the one I’ve spoke of that made a record, and Bishop Lamy had to bounce––and sometimes the French ones 24 from San Juan and the Cañada, who was straight as strings, there wasn’t a fire-escape ever showed himself in Palomitas; and as to the ladies of the town––well, the ladies wasn’t just what you’d call the aunt kind. It’s a cold fact that Palomitas, that year when the end of the track stuck there, was the cussedest town, same as I’ve said it was, in the whole Territory––and so it was no more’n natural Hill should pretty near bust himself trying to hold in his laughing when the Hen took to talking so off-hand about Palomitas and Baptist ministers and aunts. She felt how he was shaking, and jammed him hard with her elbow to keep him from letting his laugh out and giving her away.
Hill said they’d got along to Pojuaque by the time the Hen had finished telling about herself, and the fix she was in because she had to wait along with her aunt in Palomitas till her transportation come from Washington––and she just sick to get East and grab her little Willy in her arms. And the old gent 25 was that interested in it all, Hill said, it was a sight to see how he went on.