第9章 Jim Lancy's Waterloo(2)

"I am going to make up my mind not to be lonesome,"she declared;"but,all the same,I shall want to see some women."Annie had got safe on the high seat of the wagon,and was balancing her little feet on the inclined foot-rest,when a woman came running across the street,calling aloud,--"Mr.Lancy!Mr.Lancy!You're not going to drive away without introducing me to your wife!"She was a thin little woman,with move-ments as nervous and as graceless as those of a grasshopper.Her dun-colored garments seemed to have all the hue bleached out of them with wind and weather.Her face was brown and wrinkled,and her bright eyes flashed restlessly,deep in their sockets.Two front teeth were conspicuously missing;and her faded hair was blown in wisps about her face.Jim performed the introduction,and Annie held out her hand.It was a pretty hand,delicately gloved in dove color.

The woman took it in her own,and after she had shaken it,held it for a silent mo-ment,looking at it.Then she almost threw it from her.The eyes which she lifted to scan the bright young face above her had something like agony in them.Annie blushed under this fierce scrutiny,and the woman,suddenly conscious of her demeanor,forced a smile to her lips.

"I'll come out an'see yeh,"she said,in cordial tones."May be,as a new house-keeper,you'll like a little advice.You've a nice place,an'I wish yeh luck.""Thank you.I'm sure I'll need advice,"cried Annie,as they drove off.Then she said to Jim,"Who is that old woman?""Old woman?Why,she ain't a day over thirty,Mis'Dundy ain't."Annie looked at her husband blankly.

But he was already talking of something else,and she asked no more about the woman,though all the way along the road the face seemed to follow her.It might have been this that caused the tightening about her heart.For some way her vivacity had gone;and the rest of the ride she asked no questions,but sat looking straight before her at the northward stretching road,with eyes that felt rather than saw the brown,bare undulations,rising every now and then clean to the sky;at the side,little famished-looking houses,unacquainted with paint,disorderly yards,and endless reaches of furrowed ground,where in summer the corn had waved.

The horses needed no indication of the line to make them turn up a smooth bit of road that curved away neatly 'mid the ragged grasses.At the end of it,in a clump of puny scrub oaks,stood a square little house,in uncorniced simplicity,with blank,uncur-tained windows staring out at Annie,and for a moment her eyes,blurred with the cold,seemed to see in one of them the despairing face of the woman with the wisps of faded hair blowing about her face.

"Well,what do you think of it?"Jim cried,heartily,swinging her down from her high seat,and kissing her as he did so.

"This is your home,my girl,and you are as welcome to it as you would be to a palace,if I could give it to you."Annie put up her hands to hide the trem-bling of her lips;and she let Jim see there were tears in her eyes as an apology for not replying.The young man with the red hair took away the horses,and Jim,with his arm around his wife's waist,ran toward the house and threw open the door for her to enter.

The intense heat of two great stoves struck in their faces;and Annie saw the big burner,erected in all its black hideousness in the middle of the front room,like a sort of household hoodoo,to be constantly propi-tiated,like the gods of Greece;and in the kitchen,the new range,with a distracted tea-kettle leaping on it,as if it would like to loose its fetters and race away over the prairie after its cousin,the locomotive.

It was a house of four rooms,and a glance revealed the fact that it had been provided with the necessaries.

"I think we can be very comfortable here,"said Jim,rather doubtfully.

Annie saw she must make some response.

"I am sure we can be more than comfortable,Jim,"she replied."We can be happy.

Show me,if you please,where my room is.I must hang my cloak up in the right place so that I shall feel as if I were getting settled."It was enough.Jim had no longer any doubts.He felt sure they were going to be happy ever afterward.

It was Annie who got the first meal;she insisted on it,though both the men wanted her to rest.And Jim hadn't the heart to tell her that,as a general thing,it would not do to put two eggs in the corn-cake,and that the beefsteak was a great luxury.

When he saw her about to break an egg for the coffee,however,he interfered.

"The shells of the ones you used for the cake will settle the coffee just as well,"he said."You see we have to be very careful of eggs out here at this season.""Oh!Will the shells really settle it?

This is what you must call prairie lore.

I suppose out here we find out what the real relations of invention and necessity are --eh?"Jim laughed disproportionately.He thought her wonderfully witty.And he and the help ate so much that Annie opened her eyes.She had thought there would be enough left for supper.But there was nothing left.

For the next two weeks Jim was able to be much with her;and they amused themselves by decorating the house with the bright curtainings that Annie had brought,and putting up shelves for a few pieces of china.

She had two or three pictures,also,which had come from her room in her old home,and some of those useless dainty things with which some women like to litter the room.

"Most folks,"Jim explained,"have to be content with one fire,and sit in the kitchen;but I thought,as this was our honeymoon,we would put on some lugs."Annie said nothing then;but a day or two after she ventured,--"Perhaps it would be as well now,dear,if we kept in the kitchen.I'll keep it as bright and pleasant as I can.And,any-way,you can be more about with me when I'm working then.We'll lay a fire in the front-room stove,so that we can light it if anybody comes.We can just as well save that much."Jim looked up brightly."All right,"he said."You're a sensible little woman.

You see,every cent makes a difference.