Lin McLean - Owen Wister (read after TXT) 📗

and liked him. Lin made no mistakes that he or any one ever knew of; and, as the mild weather began, he materially increased the apothecary’s business by persuading him to send East for a soda-water fountain. The ladies of the town clustered around this entertaining novelty, and while sipping vanilla and lemon bought knickknacks. And the gentlemen of the town discovered that whiskey with soda and strawberry syrup was delicious, and produced just as competent effects. A group of them were generally standing in the shop and shaking dice to decide who should pay for the next, while Lin administered to each glass the necessary ingredients. Thus money began to come to him a little more steadily than had been its wont, and he divided with the penniless Honey.

But Honey found fortune quickly, too. Through excellent card-playing he won a pinto from a small Mexican horse-thief who came into town from the South, and who cried bitterly when he delivered up his pet pony to the new owner. The new owner, being a man of the world and agile on his feet, was only slightly stabbed that evening as he walked to the dance-hall at the edge of the town. The Mexican was buried on the next day but one.

The pony stood thirteen two, and was as long as a steamboat. He had white eyelashes, pink nostrils, and one eye was bright blue. If you spoke pleasantly to him, he rose instantly on his hind-legs and tried to beat your face. He did not look as if he could run, and that was what made him so valuable. Honey travelled through the country with him, and every gentleman who saw the pinto and heard Honey became anxious to get up a race. Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place, and he soon opened a bank account, while Honey, besides his racing-bridle, bought a silver-inlaid one, a pair of forty-dollar spurs, and a beautiful saddle richly stamped. Every day (when in Mesa) Honey would step into the drug-store and inquire, “Lin, wher’re yu’ goin’?”

But Lin never answered any more. He merely came to the soda-water fountain with the whiskey. The passing of days brought a choked season of fine sand and hard blazing sky. Heat rose up from the ground and hung heavily over man and beast. Many insects sat out in the sun rattling with joy; the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud, and shrank to a succession of standing pools; and the fat, squatting cactus bloomed everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in the sand. There were artesian wells in Mesa, and the water did not taste very good; but if you drank from the standing pools where the river had been, you repaired to the drug-store almost immediately. A troop of wandering players came dotting along the railroad, and, reaching Mesa, played a brass-band up and down the street, and announced the powerful drama of “East Lynne.” Then Mr. McLean thought of the Lynn marshes that lie between there and Chelsea, and of the sea that must look so cool. He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel; but, going to bed in the back part of the drug-store, he remembered how he used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water.

“I’m goin’,” he said. Then he got up, and, striking the light, he inspected his bank account. “I’m sure goin’,” he repeated, blowing the light out, “and I can buy the fatted calf myself, you bet!” for he had often thought of the bishop’s story. “You bet!” he remarked once more in a muffled voice, and was asleep in a minute. The apothecary was sorry to have him go, and Honey was deeply grieved.

“I’d pull out with yer,” he said, “only I can do business round Yuma and westward with the pinto.”

For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts of places, where they were welcome, and once more Lin rode a horse and was in his native element. Then he travelled to Deming, and so through Denver to Omaha, where he was told that his trunk had been sold for some months. Besides a suit of clothes for town wear, it had contained a buffalo coat for his brother—something scarce to see in these days.

“Frank’ll have to get along without it,” he observed, philosophically, and took the next eastbound train.

If you journey in a Pullman from Mesa to Omaha without a waistcoat, and with a silk handkerchief knotted over the collar of your flannel shirt instead of a tie, wearing, besides, tall, high-heeled boots, a soft, gray hat with a splendid brim, a few people will notice you, but not the majority. New Mexico and Colorado are used to these things. As Iowa, with its immense rolling grain, encompasses you, people will stare a little more, for you’re getting near the East, where cow-punchers are not understood. But in those days the line of cleavage came sharp-drawn at Chicago. West of there was still tolerably west, but east of there was east indeed, and the Atlantic Ocean was the next important stopping-place. In Lin’s new train, good gloves, patent-leathers, and silence prevailed throughout the sleeping-car, which was for Boston without change. Had not home memories begun impetuously to flood his mind, he would have felt himself conspicuous. Town clothes and conventions had their due value with him. But just now the boy’s single-hearted thoughts were far from any surroundings, and he was murmuring to himself, “Tomorrow! tomorrow night!”

There were ladies in that blue plush car for Boston who looked at Lin for thirty miles at a stretch; and by the time Albany was reached the next day one or two of them commented that he was the most attractive-looking man they had ever seen! Whereas, beyond his tallness, and wide-open, jocular eyes, eyes that seemed those of a not highly conscientious wild animal, there was nothing remarkable about young Lin except stage effect. The conductor had been annoyed to have such a passenger; but the cow-puncher troubled no one, and was extremely silent. So evidently was he a piece of the true frontier that curious and hopeful fellow-passengers, after watching him with diversion, more than once took a seat next to him. He met their chatty inquiries with monosyllables so few and so unprofitable in their quiet politeness that the passengers soon gave him up. At Springfield he sent a telegram to his brother at the great dry-goods establishment that employed him.

The train began its homestretch after Worcester, and whirled and swung by hills and ponds he began to watch for, and through stations with old wayside names. These flashed on Lin’s eye as he sat with his hat off and his forehead against the window, looking: Wellesley. Then, not long after, Riverside. That was the Charles River, and did the picnic woods used to be above the bridge or below? West Newton; Newtonville; Newton. “Faneuil’s next,” he said aloud in the car, as the long-forgotten home-knowledge shone forth in his recollection. The traveller seated near said, “Beg pardon?” but, turning, wondered at the all-unconscious Lin, with his forehead pressed against the glass. The blue water flashed into sight, and soon after they were running in the darkness between high walls; but the cow-puncher never moved, though nothing could be seen. When the porter announced “Boston,” he started up and followed like a sheep in the general exodus. Down on the platform he moved along with the slow crowd till some one touched him, and, wheeling round, he seized both his brother’s hands and swore a good oath of joy.

There they stood—the long, brown fellow with the silk handkerchief knotted over his flannel shirt, greeting tremendously the spruce civilian, who had a rope-colored mustache and bore a fainthearted resemblance to him. The story was plain on its face to the passers-by; and one of the ladies who had come in the car with Lin turned twice, and smiled gently to herself.

But Frank McLean’s heart did not warm. He felt that what he had been afraid of was true; and he saw he was being made conspicuous. He saw men and women stare in the station, and he saw them staring as he and his Western brother went through the streets. Lin strode along, sniffing the air of Boston, looking at all things, and making it a stretch for his sleek companion to keep step with him. Frank thought of the refined friends he should have to introduce his brother to; for he had risen with his salary, and now belonged to a small club where the paying-tellers of banks played cards every night, and the head clerk at the Parker House was president. Perhaps he should not have to reveal the cow-puncher to these shining ones. Perhaps the cow-puncher would not stay very long. Of course he was glad to see him again, and he would take him to dine at some obscure place this first evening. But this was not Lin’s plan. Frank must dine with him, at the Parker House. Frank demurred, saying it was he that should be host.

“And,” he added, “they charge up high for wines at Parker’s.” Then for the twentieth time he shifted a sidelong eye over his brother’s clothes.

“You’re goin’ to take your grub with me,” said Lin. “That’s all right, I guess. And there ain’t any ‘no’ about it. Things is not the same like as if father was livin’—(his voice softened)—and here to see me come home. Now I’m good for several dinners with wines charged up high, I expect, nor it ain’t nobody in this world, barrin’ just Lin McLean, that I’ve any need to ask for anything. ‘Mr. McLean,’ says I to Lin, ‘can yu’ spare me some cash?’ ‘Why, to be sure, you bet!’ And we’ll start off with steamed Duxbury clams.” The cow-puncher slapped his pocket, where the coin made a muffled chinking. Then he said, gruffly, “I suppose Swampscott’s there yet?”

“Yes,” said Frank. “It’s a dead little town, is Swampscott.”

“I guess I’ll take a look at the old house tomorrow,” Lin pursued.

“Oh, that’s been pulled down since— I forget the year they improved that block.”

Lin regarded in silence his brother, who was speaking so jauntily of the first and last home they had ever had.

“Seventy-nine is when it was,” continued Frank. “So you can save the trouble of travelling away down to Swampscott.”

“I guess I’ll go to the graveyard, anyway,” said the cow-puncher in his offish voice, and looking fixedly in front of him.

They came into Washington Street, and again the elder McLean uneasily surveyed the younger’s appearance.

But the momentary chill had melted from the heart of the genial Lin. “After tomorrow,” said he, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “yu’ can start any lead yu’ please, and I guess I can stay with yu’ pretty close, Frank.”

Frank said nothing. He saw one of the members of his club on the other side of the way, and the member saw him, and Frank caught diverted amazement on the member’s face. Lin’s hand weighed on his shoulder, and the stress became too great. “Lin,” said he, “while you’re running with our crowd, you don’t want to wear that style of hat, you know.”

It may be that such words can in some way be spoken at such a time, but not in the way that these were said. The frozen fact was irrevocably revealed in the tone of Frank’s voice.

The cow-puncher stopped dead short, and his hand slid off his brother’s shoulder. “You’ve made it plain,” he said, evenly, slanting his steady eyes down into Frank’s. “You’ve explained yourself fairly well. Run along with your crowd, and I’ll not bother yu’ more with comin’ round and causin’ yu’ to feel ashamed. It’s a heap better