"Call it what you please," said the Post Mistress, "but it amounts to
the same thing. She got all the money the Wise Men paid for the claim,
and it went into the millions. Why, Seth's claim takes up the very
heart of the city. That girl's worth her weight in gold, that Cyclona,
and she deserves it, taking care of the baby first, then watching
after Seth. I believe she's in love with Seth. I believe she lives in
hopes that he'll come back again. I know. She is seen everywhere with
Hugh Walsingham, drivin' with him in her stylish little trap, a good
driver she is, too, after ridin' fiery bronchos, herdin' Seth's cattle
and livin' wild-like on the prairies. She's a splendid whip, afraid of
nothin'."
"But you can see in her big, stretchy faraway eyes that she ain't
thinkin' about Hugh Walsingham, that she's always thinkin' about Seth
and wishin' it was him a drivin' with her in that stylish little trap
of hers."
She stopped to read a postal card.
"Cyclona's a fine young woman," she resumed, "and a beautiful young
woman, if she is brown as a gypsy, but the wind has left a wheel in
her head. She has never been right since that storm that blew away the
topsy turvy house. Another shock and her mind will go entirely. I've
heard a doctor say so, a man who knows. She deserves all she's got and
a happy life with that handsome Englishman, but here she is with some
fool idea that the money, all these riches she's fallen heiress to,
that make her the belle of the Magic City, ain't hers. That they are
held in trust for Seth and Celia, that heartless Celia, who deserted
her husband and baby to go back to her home in the South.
"What right has that Celia got to any money that comes out of the West
she hated so, out of this wind-blown place she wouldn't live in? None
at all. No more right than I have. Leaving Seth out here on the plains
all by himself, grievin' for her, breakin' his heart for her, nearly
losin' his mind with grief about her.
"The money's Cyclona's. She worked for it, never thinkin' of the
reward. She took care of the child and looked after Seth. She deserves
all the good that can come to her, that girl does."
"She does," assented the Professor.
"Hugh Walsingham's in a good fix, too," continued the Post Mistress,
"sold his claim for a whole lot of money. Able now, he is, to help his
poor relations back there in England, who sent him to the plains to
get rid of him. Funny how things turn out sometimes."
"Cyclona coming out of Nowhere, and he packed off out of England, both
outcasts, both rich now and ready to live happy ever after, if Cyclona
would only get rid of this fool notion of hers that she's only holdin'
the riches in trust for Celia and Seth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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