Santa Fé's Partner: Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end TownJanvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
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Santa Fé's Partner: Being Some Memorials of Events in a New-Mexican Track-end Town
Janvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
New Mexico -- Fiction; Short stories
"And now I really must beg your permission to leave you, that I may
return to my sermon. I give much time to my sermons; and I am cheered
by the conviction--you must not think me boastful--that it is time
well employed. When I look around me and perceive the lawless, and
even outrageous, conditions which obtain in so many other towns in the
Territory, and contrast them with the orderly rectitude of Palomitas,
I rejoice that my humble toil in the vineyard has brought so rich a
reward. I deeply regret, madam, that your present stay with us must be
so short; and with an equal earnestness I hope that it may be my
privilege soon again to welcome you to our happy little town."
Hart's aunt--she was just pleased all over--was beginning to make a
speech back to him; but Santa Fé looked so wore out Hart didn't give
her the chance to go on. He just grabbed her, and got her away in a
hurry--and Charley went to fussing with the cover of the wheel,
putting it on again, so she couldn't get at him to shake hands for
good-bye. He said afterwards he felt that weak, when he fairly was
shut of her, all he could do was to flop down into a chair anyway and
sing out to Blister Mike to come and get the sheets off the bar quick
and give him his own bottle of Bourbon and a tumbler. And he said he
never took so many drinks, one right on top of another, since he was
born!
There was more'n the usual crowd down at the deepo that night when the
Denver train pulled out--with Hart's aunt in the Pullman, and Hart
standing on the Pullman platform telling the boys up to the last
minute how much he was obliged.
Things went that same Sunday-school way right on to the end of the
game; and Hart said his aunt told him--as they was coming along down
to the deepo--she never would a-believed there could be such a town as
Palomitas was, out in that wild frontier country, if she hadn't seen
it with her own eyes. As to the ladies of the town, he said she told
him they certainly was the most domestic she'd ever known!
Hart was so grateful--and he had a right to be--he left a hunderd
dollars with Tenderfoot Sal and told her to blow off the town for him
that night by running a free bar. Sal done it, right enough--and that
turned out to be about the hottest night Palomitas ever had. Most of
the trouble was in the dance-hall, where it was apt to be, and had its
start, as it did generally, right around the Sage-Brush Hen: who kept
on being dressed up in her white frock and wearing her white
sun-bonnet, and looked as demure as a cotton-tail rabbit, and cut up
so reckless I reckon she about made a record for carryings on! Santa
Fé had to fix one feller because of her--shooting him like he was used
to, through his pants-pocket--and more'n a dozen got hurt in the
ordinary way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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