American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American; West (U.S.) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
“I have to announce, Miss Garland,” said he, “the enforced suspension
of our journey. The driver asserts that the risk in travelling the
mountain road by night is too great even to consider. It will be
necessary to remain in the shelter of this house until morning. I beg
that you will feel that there is nothing to fear beyond a temporary
inconvenience. I have personally inspected the house, and find that
there are means to provide against the rigour of the weather, at least.
You shall be made as comfortable as possible. Permit me to assist you
to alight.”
To the Judge’s side came the passenger whose pursuit in life was the
placing of the Little Goliath windmill. His name was Dunwoody; but that
matters not much. In travelling merely from Paradise to Sunrise City
one needs little or no name. Still, one who would seek to divide
honours with Judge Madison L. Menefee deserves a cognomenal peg upon
which Fame may hang a wreath. Thus spake, loudly and buoyantly, the
aerial miller:
“Guess you’ll have to climb out of the ark, Mrs. McFarland. This wigwam
isn’t exactly the Palmer House, but it turns snow, and they won’t
search your grip for souvenir spoons when you leave. _We’ve_ got a fire
going; and _we’ll_ fix you up with dry Tilbys and keep the mice away,
anyhow, all right, all right.”
One of the two passengers who were struggling in a _melée_ of horses,
harness, snow, and the sarcastic injunctions of Bildad Rose, called
loudly from the whirl of his volunteer duties: “Say! some of you
fellows get Miss Solomon into the house, will you? Whoa, there! you
confounded brute!”
Again must it be gently urged that in travelling from Paradise to
Sunrise City an accurate name is prodigality. When Judge Menefee—
sanctioned to the act by his grey hair and widespread repute—had
introduced himself to the lady passenger, she had, herself, sweetly
breathed a name, in response, that the hearing of the male passengers
had variously interpreted. In the not unjealous spirit of rivalry that
eventuated, each clung stubbornly to his own theory. For the lady
passenger to have reasseverated or corrected would have seemed didactic
if not unduly solicitous of a specific acquaintance. Therefore the lady
passenger permitted herself to be Garlanded and McFarlanded and
Solomoned with equal and discreet complacency. It is thirty-five miles
from Paradise to Sunrise City. _Compagnon de voyage_ is name enough, by
the gripsack of the Wandering Jew! for so brief a journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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