The Wrong Woman (15 page)

"How perfectly funny!" exclaimed Janet.

"That's the way they do. They run races and play 'stump-the-leader' and
'hi-spy' and 'ring-around-the-rosy.' Why, Miss Janet, if you were out here a
little later on, you would think it was
recess
all the time."

"I wish I might be," said Janet.

"A lamb likes to be on the go," he continued. "Sheep really ain't lively
enough for a lamb, so he has to go off and have his own fun. He 'll gallop
around with a troop of other lambs and won't stop except long enough to go home
for dinner."

"I don't see," said Janet, "how a lamb can go away like that and ever find
his mother again, in such a crowd. They all look alike."

"That's easy enough. Every sheep's voice is keyed up to a different pitch;
they all sound different some way or another. And every lamb has a little voice
of his own."

"Yes, I've noticed that. But I did n't know there was any object in it. Or
that they knew each other's voices."

"Oh, certainly they do. When a lamb gets hungry he whisks right around and
runs into the flock and starts up his tune. She'll hear it and she'll start up
too; and that way they'll keep signaling to each other. A lamb will run into a
crowd of a thousand sheep and go right to his mother. When he has arrived, maybe
she will smell him to make sure; and if he is all right, whythen it is all
right."

"Then they don't ever go by looks, even when they're acquainted."

"Oh, no. They are different from people. They are not like you that know all
the children by sight and don't have to call the roll. When a lamb wants to find
a sheep, he just calls and she answers 'Present.'"

Steve Brown did not seem to lose sight of the fact that he was addressing his
remarks to a school-teacher. While something of humor passed over his
countenance at times, his attitude toward her was mainly sober and earnest.
Janet, all absorbed in the subject of lambs, was in quite as serious a mood. She
waited for him to continue; but he was not one to keep on indefinitely without
questioning, not presuming, evidently, to know how much further she might be
interested.

"She answers 'Present,'" repeated Janet. "Well, then; while they are
answering each other, does she go to the lamb or does the lamb go to her?"

"Most likely they'll go to each other, and meet halfway. You see, that's the
quickest way, When a lamb is hungry he wants his dinner right off."

"Then they are not any trouble in that way at all, are they!"

"Wellit's all easy enough after they have learned each other's voices. But
at first they don't know that, and it takes them a little time to get it into
their minds. That's when a herder has got trouble to keep things from getting
mixed up. And if she has twins she has got to learn them both by heart."

"That's soshe would, would n't she!"

"Oh, yes. And twins learn to know each other, too. That's so they can go home
to dinner together. For of course if she let one of them come alone it would n't
be fair."

"Then sheep know that much!"

"I don't know that they do. I guess it's nature that tends to that, too. But
there's a lot that nature is too busy to tend to. Then it's all up to the
herder."

"Lambs are really quite dependent upon human care, then, are n't they?"

"Oh, yes. That is, if you want to try and save them alllike that one." He
pointed to the occupant of her lap. "A lamb has got to get a meal right away,
and a little sleep, and not get too chilled, or wet. Then if his mother and him
stick together till they know each other by voice and smell, his chances are all
right. After that you could n't lose him."

"How long will it be, Mr. Brown, before everything is running that way?"

"It will start in just a few days. Just as soon as we get the lamb band
going."

"The lamb band?" she queried.

"We have some lambs there in the corral now. Well, all that come to-morrow
will go in with them, and in a day or two all that are strong and active will go
out with their mothers and be the lamb band. All the others that have n't
dropped lambs yet are called the drop band; they travel too much for lambs.
Sheep with lambs ought to go out together and be handled separate. Well,
whenever a lamb is born in the drop band, he is brought home to the corral; then
when he knows things and is a little stronger he goes out with the lamb band;
that way we keep advancing them right along, same as in school. First in the
First Reader, then in the Second Reader, and so on."

"Oh, I see," said Janet, growing more deeply interested.

"And it is n't very long, of course, till they have all gone through and are
in one band again. The lambs are all having a high old time and managing for
themselves; and then one man can handle them again. The worst of the trouble is
over, and there are not so many things to do all at once."

This seemed to exhaust the subject.

"What are you going to do to-morrow?" she inquired.

"Well, if I was sure that the herder was coming, I would just take them out
and let the lambs drop behind, the same as to-day. Then if he brings the wagon
along, as I told him to, he could get them inthat is, if there are a great many
of them. There might not be many lambs come; but the trouble is that you can't
tell. If I thought there were going to be a great many lambs, and he was n't
coming right away, I would keep the whole bunch here and not take them out at
allthat is, I would if I had feed. But I could hardly feed twelve hundred sheep
on a mere chance if I had it to spare. But then, I don't think he will stay away
any longer. I 'll just take them out."

"Really, it is quite a problem, is n't it?"

"That's just what I was beginning to think," he replied.

"How many lambs might there be in the next day or two, if they really started
coming?"

"Maybe two or three hundred."

"Two or!"

The words died out as Janet looked down in her lap and considered the one. He
was resting comfortably.

"Twoorthreehundred," she repeated vacantly.

G'lang there, yeoo-oo-oo,
Rip
. Yeoo-oo-oo,
Squat
. Yeoo-oo-oo
Buff.

Bang
.

As it is difficult to make a noise in print, it might be well to explain
that, of the above words, the last is supposed to sound like a revolver-shot. It
is as near as we can come to the disturbance made by a Texas "prairie buster" as
he came down Claxton road.

Ahead of him were ten oxenfive yoke. His far-reaching bull-whip exploded
just beside Rip's left ear. The next shot took Squat exactly as aimed. There was
a momentary scuffling of hoofs, an awful threat in the ox-driving language; then
everything went on peacefully as before. The ox-driver caught the returning
cracker deftly in two fingers of his right hand and settled down on his iron
seat with his elbow on his knee while he took a chew of tobacco. The big tongue
of his "busting" plow knocked in the ring of the wheelers' yoke; the chain
clanked idly against it; a little cloud of debrishair and dust which the
cracker had bit out of the tuft between Squat's hornsfloated away on the
breeze.

All this was not done with any expectation of making them go faster. For an
ox to alter his gait, except slightly to run away, would be unnatural. It was
merely to convey to certain ones that they were not out to enjoy the roadside
grass. And to remind the string in general that the seat of authority was still
being occupied.

For several days his voracious plowshare had been turning over the prairie in
long ribbons of swath like the pages of a book. Texas in those days was turning
over a new leaf; and such outfits as this did the turning. His last job had been
to put an addition on a farm for an Ohio man about six miles out of town; he had
turned forty more acres of tough prairie sod black side upwards and left behind
him a dry dusky square in the horizon-girt green of the range. Being now
homeward bound, he bent his sharp gray eyes upon the road ahead. The Claxton
Road community, a moneyed streak in the population, was only half a mile away.

In the distance appeared a black man riding a broncho mule. It was Colonel
Chase's man, Uncle Israel; he was coming along at an unsatisfactory pace, using
his quirt regularly and remonstrating with the mule. As he drew near the head of
the ox procession, the driver roared out a
Wo-o-o-o
in a tone which was
intended to be understood as a general command; the powerful wheelers held back
obediently and drew the chain tight in their efforts to stop; the rest of the
string, after pulling them a short distance, also obeyed.

"Hello, Uncle."

"Good-mawnin', Mistah Hicks."

"How's things doing down home? Anything new?"

"Wellno, sah. Ev'ything jes' 'bout de same."

"Is the Colonel home?"

"No, sah. He's done gone to San Antone."

"Has he shipped yet?"

"Yes, sah."

"Who went up to Chicago with them?"

"Mistah Sattlee an' John Dick an' some mo'."

"Is Steve Brown at home?"

"No, sah. He 's gone somewha's. An' he ain' come back. Mos' all de men folks
is gone away."

"Has Miss Alice got back yet?"

"No, sah. She's off to de school-house in Boston yet. An' it ain't leff out.
She 's gwine be back dis spring."

"What's cattle bringing now?"

"Dunno, sah. I heah dey 's done riz."

"Has little Johnnie Martin got his curls cut yet?"

"No, sah. Ah seed 'em on him."

"What's doing in town? Anything new there?"

"No, sah. Jes' 'bout de same as usual."

Uncle Israel, feeling that his information had not been very abundant,
scratched his head and stirred his mind up thoroughly for news. He met the
demand with two pieces of information.

"De railroad's done built a new loadin'-pen. An' dat high-tone bull took sick
wif acclimatin'. But we 's got him restin' easy now."

"The railroad's getting real extravagant, ain't it?" commented Jonas, turning
his attention to the oxen again.

Having said a few words appropriate to the occasion of starting up, he flung
out his bullwhip in a flourish of aerial penmanship and drove home the aforesaid
remarks with a startling report. Again the bovine procession got under way.

In the course of time he came to where Claxton road ends and Claxton Road
begins. It will be recalled that Claxton road, hemmed in by barb wire, leads
interminably past vacant stretches of prairie with occasionally a farm and
farmhouse. Nearing town its scene and atmosphere suddenly change. On the left
are the ranchmen's home estates, with the stables and windmills and short
avenues of china-berry trees leading up to comfortable porches; to the right, or
facing these, is a large square of green with no roadside houses and no longer
any confining fence. To any one who had come a long distance between the barb
wires, this emergence upon the free, open common was very much as if he had been
following a stream which, after long confinement to its course, opens out
suddenly into a lake. This piece of land was not different from the prairie it
had always been, except that the houses which faced it on all sides, as if it
were a lake of the summer-resort variety, gave it an importance which was not
its own. It was no more nor less than a square of primeval prairie whose owner,
being satisfied with it, let it be as it was. Surrounded on all sides by real
estate and other improvements, it held its own as immovably as if Texas had here
taken her last stand, in hollow square, against the encroachments of
civilization. It belonged to Jonas Hicks. In the exact middle of it was the
paintless frame house which we have already mentioned.

This structure is easily described. It consisted of a house with one room
downstairs and one room upstairs. Its boarding was of the kind that runs up and
down with battening strips at the cracks. Any one familiar with prairie
architecture would see at once that the owner, having a house to build, had gone
straightway to work and erected a herder's shack on a residential scale and put
some windows in it. Because of its porchlessness it seemed rather tall, as if it
had grown after it was built or had stretched itself up to get a better view;
and the single window in the end of the upper story gave it a watchful
appearance. This watchful window, which might be said to mark its front, looked
toward the residences along Williston Road.

The cottages which faced this place on the side toward town were confined to
"lots" along an unpaved street. Across on Claxton Road town lots grew to the
size of country estates and looked more commanding. But the shack house, with
its twenty acres of elbow room, rather commanded them all, especially as its
central position marked the common as its own grounds. Being tall and upright
and spare, like a Texan, it had an attitude toward them like that of a pioneer
drill-master; it seemed to be standing out on the drill-grounds with the other
houses all marshaled up before it and toeing the social line.

The place was given shape and form entirely by the other property, all of
which was fenced on its own side of the highway, the owner of the twenty acres
never having shut it off from the roads which passed along two sides of it. This
hospitable openness was a fortunate thing for the traveling public, affording as
it did a short cut to town. Quite a little of the traffic that came down
Williston Road turned out and followed the trail which led diagonally across it
past the door of the house. And usually the traveler, whether horseman or
driver, would speak in passing; or, more likely, stop to have a talk with Jonas
Hicks, who, if he were at home, might be engaged in plaiting a whip or mixing
batter for pancakes or taking a stitch in his clothes, the iron seat of a
"prairie-busting" plow being particularly hard on the seat of a man's trousers.
It was to this place that the plowman was bending his homeward way.