Henry Wallace Phillips

“ Poor lady! The size of an occasion is so many standards, whether the standard be inches or feet, or miles. Miss Mattie's events had been measured in hundredths of an inch, and it took a good many of them to cover so small an action as a successful picnic on a beautiful night. Her eyes were humid; her mouth smiled and drooped at the corners alternately. Red felt her happiness with a keen sympathy, and as he looked at her, suddenly she changed in his eyes. ”

“ You often said you'd like to do something for me, Mattie; suppose you take the job?"
How much of glancing at a thing in one's mind as a beautiful improbability will ever make such a cold fact less astonishing? Miss Mattie eyed him with eyes that saw not; speech was stricken from her.
Red caught fright. He sprang forward and took her hand. "Couldn't you do it, Mattie?" said he. There was a world of pleading in the tone. Miss Mattie looked up, her own honest self; all the little feminine shrinkings left her immediately.
"Ah, but I could, Will!" she said. Lettis came up on the stoop unheard. ”

“ Miss Mattie glanced around and finding Red's eye on her, replied, "No sir—Mr. Demilt's house is about a mile further up the road."
"Dear me!" said the young man ruefully. He was a spic-and-span, intelligent looking man, with less of the dandy about him than the air of a man who had never worn anything but clothes of the proper trim, and become quite used to it. Nevertheless the sweat stood out in drops on his forehead, for Fairfield's front "street" savoured of a less moral region than it really was, on a broiling summer day. ”

“ Thus abruptly recalled to Fairfield, Miss
Mattie started up.
"Well, Will, it does seem as if that was a dangerous country to live in," said she.
"Oh, not so awful!" said Red. "Just as many people die here as they do there—this world's a dangerous place to live in, wherever you strike it, Mattie." ”

“ She revolted against the convention, that, in her own mind, as well as the rest of Fairfield, forbade the use of her house for the purpose. Long habit of thought had made these niceties constitutional. It was almost as difficult for Miss Mattie to say "I'll fix up your bed right there on the sofa" as it would have been for Red to pick a man's pocket, yet, when she thought of his instant and open generosity and what a dismal return therefor it would be to thrust him out for reasons which she divined would have no meaning for him, she heroically resolved to throw custom to the winds, and speak. ”

“ Red's hat flew in no time; he was yelling like a maniac, and the crowd was yelling like more maniacs. Now and then a glimpse of the rider's face could be caught, transported with joy of the struggle; then the dust would roll up and hide everything. No one was more pleased at the spectacle than the blacksmith. He was capering in the middle of the road, waving a hand-hammer and shouting "Hold him down! Hold him DOWN! Why do you let him jump up like that? ”

“ Smotheration! I think she likes me, all right, but when it comes to more'n that—oh, blast it, I'll just have to wait for a real good chance; now come, old man, get four feet on the ground and don't roll your eyes, take it easy till the chance comes."
Little he knew the chance was coming up the street at that moment. He only saw Miss Mattie step out into the bed of flowers, her face looking unusually pretty and youthful under the big straw hat, and start to reduce the weeds to order. She glanced around as though in search of some one, and Red felt intuitively that the one was himself. ”

“ A man would say "I'm busted" without any more feeling than he would say "I have a cold." Now, in Fairfield, that is not likely lonesome in that respect, one of the principal objects in life was to conceal the poverty which would persist in sticking its gaunt elbows through the cloth of words spread over it. Red asked straight-forward questions—shrewd ones, too—seeing that the other was one of his own kind and would not resent it.
Lettis wanted nothing better than a chance to expand on the subject. ”

“ Red Saunders' first-glance liking of the stranger deepened as he told of his business. The cowman did not blame people who took devious ways and dealt in ambiguities, for his experience in the world, which was pretty fairly complete, had told him that craft was a necessity for weak natures; nevertheless he cared not for those who used it.
In his part of the West, a man would no more think of giving a false impression of his financial standing to alter his position in one's regard, than he would wear corsets. ”

“ It was a very successful picnic. They spent the afternoon in wandering around in the usual picnic fashion, developing appetites, until it occurred to Red to liven the performance by showing them the art of roping, as practiced upon an old cow found in the woods. As a spectacle it was a failure. The combined efforts of all the hooting small boys could not make that cow run; she even stretched her neck toward Red, as though saying, "Hurry up with your foolishness. I have a cud to chew and can't stand here idle all day." ”

“ The boys had behaved themselves as if there was nothing out of the common happening while they were with Red, being held up by a sense of pride, but naturally, the splendid physique of the cowman, his picturesque attire, his abandoned way of scattering money around and the air of a frolic he had managed to impart to a day's hard work, all had effect on imagination, and the boys were very much excited.
"I'd like to know how many Injuns that feller's killed!" piped up the youngest. "My! he could grab hold of a man and wring his neck like a chicken." ”

“ What ails me? Why should I be scart of the nicest woman God ever built? Now by all the Mormon Gods! I'll post right into the house and say my little say as soon as these cuts stop bleeding!"
Cob-webs stopped the cuts, and other cob-webs stopped Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seechee ranch; two hundred and fifty pounds of the very finest bone and muscle. And the cob-webs held him, foaming and boiling with rage and disgust, calling himself all the yaller pups he could think of, but staying strictly within the safe limits of the barn. It was a revelation to the big man, and not a pleasant one. ”

“ Lettis laughed. "If it wasn't you, Red, I'd say you were in love," he said.
It was well the barn was dark; or he would have seen a change wonderful to behold come over the ex-puncher's face. "The lad has hit it," he said to himself in astonishment; aloud he grunted "hunh" scornfully, and aroused himself for an unnecessary joke or two.
Miss Mattie had noticed the "attack of stillness" and immediately tried to fasten the blame upon herself. What had she done? She couldn't recall anything. ”

“ The man that does me a trick has a chance for bad luck, and you can bet on that."
"Lord! I believe you!" replied Lettis, taking in the dimensions of his new friend. "Well, good-bye for the present, Mr. Saunders—thank you for the dinner and still more for the heart you have put into me."
At six o'clock the fence was not quite finished.
"If you'll stay with me until the thing's done, I'll stand another dollar all around," said Red. "I don't want it to stare me in the face to-morrow."
The eldest spoke up. "We'll stay with you, Mr. Saunders, but we don't want any money for it, do we, fellers?" ”

“ You are the most ridiculous person I ever did see!" said Miss Mattie, and she laughed till she cried in sheer light-heartedness. "But there's a chair you can trust—come on now."
"Well, if you'll take your solemn oath that this one has no moustache to deceive me," said Red doubtfully. "It looks husky—well, I'll try it—Hooray! She didn't give an inch. This kind of reminds me of the time Jimmy Hendricks came back from town and walked off the edge of the bluff in the dark. It just happened that Old Scotty Ferguson's cabin was underneath him. Jim took most of the roof off with him as he went in. ”

“ It would make you believe in fairy stories again just to look at her. She was all the things a man ever wanted in this world rolled up in a prize package. Tall, round and soople, limber and springy in her action as a thoroughbred, and with something modest yet kind of daring in her face that would remind you of a good, honest boy. Red, white, and black were the colours she flew. Hair and eyes black, cheeks and lips red, and the rest of her white. Now, there's a pile of difference in them colours; when you say 'red,' for instance, you ain't cleaned up the subject by a sight. ”

“ During the drive back to the house he spoke in monosyllables; he went straight to the barn with Lettis afterward, and made no attempt to take the usual frank and hearty good-night kiss.
"You're as glum as an oyster!" said Lettis, when they reached their quarters. "What's the matter, old man?" ”

“ You could hear one man telling the folks for their own good that he was the Old Missouri River, and when he felt like swelling his banks, it was time for parties who couldn't swim to hunt the high ground; whilst the gentleman on the next corner let us know that he was a locomotive carrying three hundred pounds of steam with the gauge still climbing and the blower on. When he whistled three times, he said, any intelligent man would know that there was danger around. ”

“ Nobody'd think you were a day over fifteen."
"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and," catching her chin in his hand and turning her face up toward him—"Nobody'd put your score much higher than that neither, if they trusted to their eyes this morning."
The compliment hit so tender a place that Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded much less like a compliment than a plain statement of fact. She bent hastily over the fire. "I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.
"So'm I!" he assented heartily. "What's the sense in being old, anyhow? ”

“ Red discovered another thing that afternoon, which was that the more nervous you are the more nervous you get. He groaned in perfect misery: "Ohoho! That I should have seen the day when I was afraid to ask anybody anything. What's come over me anyhow? It's this darn country, I believe—'tain't me," then he stopped short. "What you saying, Red?" he queried. "Why don't you own up like a man!" ”

“ There's some women, and men, too, for that matter, who go through life like a cat through a back alley, not caring a cuss for either end or the middle. They would have been content to wait. Not so Loys. She wanted her Kyle, her poor Kyle, and she wanted him quick. That's the kind of people for me! Your cautious folk are all the time falling down wells because their eyes are up in the air, keeping tabs so that they can dodge shooting stars. ”