“There’s another’n over at Claude,” yawned the chauffeur. “I think I remember hauling them people over in the car.”
“Over to Claude?”
“Yes—I fergit. I never pay much attention to the folks I haul,” he remarked casually, eying me in a bored way.
Then we drove on.
A day later I arrived in Amarillo from Claude, glad, for it was my trip’s end. I started walking uptown from the station to stretch my legs, besides—well, there across the street, on a vacant lot, was the Oakley bill-board, and the picture. The late afternoon sunlight fell full across it.
I looked at the woman in the picture, whom I had come to know for the real little wife, the artist, painting from her heart. She stood smiling, but behind the smile I read doubt and dread realized, and hope—almost—dying hard. For the smile was but a poor attempt, and the joyous expectancy I saw shining in her eyes months before at Quanah was not there now. There was a subtle air of unmistakable despair about her. Her very frailty and dependency and loyal effort to keep her smile wrung from me a quick sympathy.
I turned back to the drab routine of life sadly, and picking up my grips, saw the Pessimist standing on the sidewalk with his detestable knowing look. There behind him came the Wiseacre. It was one of those little coincidences of a drummer’s life which so often find the same parties together again.
“I was just looking at another one of the pictures—the last one, I guess,” I said suddenly, feeling unashamed of my concern and sadness.
“Last one!” exclaimed the Wiseacre, full of ready information. “Why, man! That’s their first one. Here’s where they began last year. I saw them in St. Paul three weeks ago, happy as wrens.”