California -- Fiction; Western stories; Women pioneers -- Fiction
“We pe’ish in um ho’r,” suddenly repeated Jackrabbit, half-singing,
half-speaking the words, and rising quickly started for the door. At the
table, however, he halted and inquired: “All right--go missionary
to-morrow--get marry--huh?”
Wowkle hesitated, then rose, and finally started slowly towards him.
Half-way over she stopped and reminded him in a most apathetic manner:
“P’haps me not stay marry to you for long.”
“Huh--seven monse?” queried Jackrabbit in the same tone.
“Six monse,” came laconically from the woman.
In nowise disconcerted by her answer, the Indian now asked:
“You come soon?”
Wowkle thought a moment; then suddenly edging up close to him she
promised to come to him after the Girl had had her supper.
“Huh!” fairly roared the Indian, his coal-black eyes glowing as he
looked at her.
It was at this juncture that the Girl, after hanging up her lantern on a
peg on the outer door, broke in unexpectedly upon the strange pair of
lovers.
Dumbfounded, the woman and the man stood gaping at her. Wowkle was the
first to regain her composure, and bending over the table she turned up
the light.
“Hello, Billy Jackrabbit!” greeted the Girl, breezily. “Fixed it?”
“Me fix,” he grunted.
“That’s good! Now git!” ordered the Girl in the same happy tone that had
characterised her greeting.
Slowly, stealthily, Jackrabbit left the cabin, the two women, though for
different reasons, watching him go until the door had closed behind him.
“Now, Wowkle,” said the Girl, turning to her with a smile, “it’s for two
to-night.”
Wowkle’s eyelashes twinkled up inquisitorially.
“Huh?”
“Yep.”
Wowkle’s eyes narrowed to pin-points.
“Come anotha? Never before come anotha,” was her significant comment.
“Never you mind.” The Girl voiced the reprimand without the twitching of
an eyelid; and then as she hung up her cape upon the wardrobe, she
added: “Pick up the room, Wowkle!”
The big-hipped, full-bosomed woman did not move but stood in all her
stolidness gazing at her mistress like one in a dream; whereupon the
Girl, exasperated beyond measure at the other’s placidity, rushed over
to her and shook her so violently that she finally awakened to the
importance of her mistress’ request.
“He’s comin’ now, now; he’s comin’!” the Girl was saying, when suddenly
her eyes were attracted to a pair of stockings hanging upon the wall;
quickly she released her hold on the woman and with a hop, skip and a
jump they were down and hid away in her bureau drawer.
“My roses--what did you do with them, Wowkle?” she asked a trifle
impatiently as she fumbled in the drawer.
“Ugh!” grunted Wowkle, and pointed to a corner of the bureau top.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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