章节正文
which Jean knew very well, and which nearly always
amused her because she firmly believed it to be utterly
useless.
He said in the tone of an ultimatum: "If you're
bound to stay at the ranch, you've got to have somebody
with you. I'll ride in and get Hepsy Atwood in the
morning. You're getting thin. I don't believe you
take time to cook enough to eat. You can't work on
soda crackers and sardines. The old lady won't charge
much to come and stay with you. I'll come over after
I'm through work to-morrow and help her get things
looking a little more like living."
"You'll do nothing of the sort." Jean looked at
him mutinously. "I'm all right just as I am. I
won't have her, Lite. That's settled."
"Sure, it's settled," Lite agreed, with more than his
usual pertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon,
and a supply of real grub. How are you fixed for bedding?"
"I won't have her, I tell you. You're always trying
to make me do things I won't do. Don't be
silly."
"Sure not." Lite shifted in the saddle with the air
of a man who rides at perfect ease with himself and
with the world. "She'll likely have plenty of bedding
of her own," he meditated, after a brief silence.
"Lite, if you haul Hepsibah out here, I'll send her
back!"
"I'll haul her out," said Lite in a tone of finality,
"but you won't send her back." He paused. "She
ain't much protection, maybe," he remarked somewhat
enigmatically, "but it'll beat staying alone nights.
You--you can't tell who might come prowling around
the place."
"What do you mean? Do you know about--"
Jean caught herself on the verge of betrayal.
"You want to keep your gun handy. Just on general
principles," Lite remonstrated. "You can't tell;
it's away off from everywhere."
"I won't have Hepsy Atwood. Haven't I enough to
drive me mad, without her?"
"Is there anybody else that you'd rather have?"
Lite looked at her speculatively.
"No, there isn't. I won't have anybody. It would
be a nuisance having some old lady in the house gabbling
and gossiping. I'm not the least bit afraid, except,--
I'm not afraid, and I like to be alone. I won't
have her, Lite."
Lite said no more about it until they reached the
house, huddled lonesomely against the barren bluff, its
windows staring black into the dusk. Jean did not
seem to expect Lite to dismount, but he did not wait to
see what she expected him to do. In his most matter-
of-fact manner he dismounted and turned his horse,
still saddled, into the stable with Pard. He preceded
Jean up the path, and went into the kitchen ahead of
her; lighted a match and found the lamp, and set its
flame to brightening the dingy room.
Jean had not done much in the way of making that
part of the house more attractive. She used the
kitchen to cook in, because the stove was there, and the
dishes. She had spread an old braided rug over the
brown stain on the floor, and she ate in her own room
with the door shut.
Without being told, Lite seemed to know all about her
secret aversion to the kitchen. He took up the lamp
and went now on a tour of inspection through the house.
Jean followed him, wondering a little, and thinking
that this was the way that mysterious stranger came
and prowled at night, except that he must have used
matches to light the way, or a candle, since the lamp
seemed never to be disturbed. Lite went into all the
rooms and held the lamp so that its brightness searched
out all the corners. He looked into the small, stuffy
closets. He stood in the middle of her father's room
and seemed to meditate deeply, while Jean stood in the
doorway and watched him inquiringly. He came back
finally to the kitchen and looked into the cupboard, as
though he was taking an inventory of her supply of provisions.
"You might cook me some supper, Jean," he said,
when he had put the lamp on the table. "I see you've
got eggs and bacon. I'm pretty hungry,--for a man
that had his dinner six or seven hours ago."
Jean cooked supper, and they ate together in the
kitchen. It did not seem so gruesome with Lite there,
and she told him some funny things that had happened
in her work, and mimicked Robert Grant Burns with
an accuracy of manner and tone that would have astonished
that pompous person a good deal and flattered him
not at all. She almost recovered her spirits under the
stimulus of Lite's presence, and she quite forgot that he
had threatened her with Hepsibah Atwood.
But when he had wiped the dishes and had taken up
his hat to go, Lite proved how tenaciously his mind
could hold to an idea, and how even Jean could not
quite match him for stubbornness.
"That mattress in the little bedroom looks all right,"
he said. "I'll pack it outside before I go, so it will
have all day to-morrow out in the sun. I'll have Hepsy
bring her own bedding. Well--so long."
Jean would have sworn in perfect good faith that
Lite led his horse out of the stable, mounted it, and
rode away to the Bar Nothing. He did mount and ride
away as far as the mouth of the coulee. But that night
he spent in the loft over the shop, and he did not sleep
five minutes during the night. Most of the time he
spent leaning against his rolled bedding, smoking and
gazing at the silent house where Jean slept. You may
interpret that as you will.
Jean did not see or hear anything more of him, until
about four o'clock the next afternoon, when he drove
calmly up to the house and deposited Hepsibah Atwood
upon the kitchen steps. He did not wait for Jean to
order them away. He hurried the unloading, released
the wagon brake, and drove off. So Jean, coming from
the spring behind the house, really got her first sight
of him as he went rattling down to the gate.
Jean stood and looked after him, twitched her shoulders
in a mental yielding of the point for the time being,
and said "How-da-do" to the old lady.
She was not so old, as years go; fifty-five or
thereabouts. And she could have whispered into Lite's ear
without standing on her toes or asking him to bend his
head. Lite was a tall man, at that. She had gray
hair that was frizzy around her brows and at the back
of her neck, and she had an Irish disposition without
the brogue to go with it.
The first thing she did was to find an axe and chop a
lot of fence-posts into firewood, as easily as Lite
himself could have done it, and in other ways proceeded to
make herself very much at home. The next day she
dipped the spring almost dry, and used up all the soap
in the house; and for three days went around with her
skirts tucked up and her arms bare and the soles of her
shoes soggy from wet floors. Jean kept out of her way,
but she owned to herself that, after all, it was not
unpleasant to come home tired and not have to cook a
solitary supper and eat it in silent meditation.
The third night after Hepsy's arrival, Jean awoke to
hear a man's furtive footsteps in her father's room.
This was the fifth time that the prowler had come in
the night, and custom had dulled her fear a little. She
had not reached the point yet of getting up to see who
it was and what he wanted. It was much easier to lie
perfectly still with her six-shooter gripped in her hand
and wait for him to go. Beyond stealthilytrying her
door and finding it fastened on the inside, he had never
shown any disposition to invade her room
To-night was as all other nights when he came and
made that mysterious search, until he went into the little
bedroom where slept Hepsibah Atwood. Jean listened
to the faint creaking of old boards which told her
that he was approaching Hepsy's room, and she wondered
if Hepsy would hear him. Hepsy did hear him.
There was a squeak of the old bedstead that told how
a hundred and seventy-two pounds of indignant womanhood
was rising to do battle.
"Who's that? Git outa here, or I'll smash you!"
There was no fear but a great deal of determination in
Hepsy's voice, and there was the sound of her bare feet
spatting on the floor.
The man's footsteps retreated hurriedly. Jean
heard the kitchen door open and slam shut with a
shrill squeal of its rusty hinges, and the sound of a man
running down the path. She heard Hepsy muttering
threats while she followed to the door and looked out,
and she heard the muttering continue while Hepsy
returned to bed.
It was very comforting. Jean tucked her gun under
her pillow, laughed to herself for having shuddered under
the blankets at the sound of a man so easily put to
flight, and went to sleep feeling quite secure and for the
first time really glad that Hepsibah Atwood was in the
house.
She listened the next morning to Hepsy's colorful
account of the affair, but she did not tell Hepsy that the
man had been there before. She did not even tell her
that she had heard the disturbance, and was lying with
her gun in her hand ready to shoot if he came into her
room. For a girl as frank and outspoken as was Jean,
she had almost as great a talent as Lite for holding her
tongue.
CHAPTER XVII
"WHY DON'T YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING REAL?"
"Well, you don't seem crazy about it. What's
the matter?" Robert Grant Burns stood in
his favorite attitude with his hands on his hips and
his feet far apart, and looked down at Jean with a secret
anxiety in his eyes. Without realizing it in the least,
Jean's opinion had come to have a certain weight with
Robert Grant Burns. "What's wrong with that?"
Burns, having sat up until two o'clock to finish that
particular scenario to his liking, plainly resented the
expression on Jean's face while she read it.
"Oh, nothing, only I'm getting awfully sick of these
kidnap-and-rescue, and kiss-in-the-last-scene pictures,
and Wild West stuff without a real Western man in the
whole thing. I'd like to do something real for a
change."
Robert Grant Burns grunted and reached for his
slighted brain-child. "What you want? Mother on,
knitting. Girl washing dishes. Lover arrives; they sit
amused her because she firmly believed it to be utterly
useless.
He said in the tone of an ultimatum: "If you're
bound to stay at the ranch, you've got to have somebody
with you. I'll ride in and get Hepsy Atwood in the
morning. You're getting thin. I don't believe you
take time to cook enough to eat. You can't work on
soda crackers and sardines. The old lady won't charge
much to come and stay with you. I'll come over after
I'm through work to-morrow and help her get things
looking a little more like living."
"You'll do nothing of the sort." Jean looked at
him mutinously. "I'm all right just as I am. I
won't have her, Lite. That's settled."
"Sure, it's settled," Lite agreed, with more than his
usual pertinacity. "I'll have her out here by noon,
and a supply of real grub. How are you fixed for bedding?"
"I won't have her, I tell you. You're always trying
to make me do things I won't do. Don't be
silly."
"Sure not." Lite shifted in the saddle with the air
of a man who rides at perfect ease with himself and
with the world. "She'll likely have plenty of bedding
of her own," he meditated, after a brief silence.
"Lite, if you haul Hepsibah out here, I'll send her
back!"
"I'll haul her out," said Lite in a tone of finality,
"but you won't send her back." He paused. "She
ain't much protection, maybe," he remarked somewhat
enigmatically, "but it'll beat staying alone nights.
You--you can't tell who might come prowling around
the place."
"What do you mean? Do you know about--"
Jean caught herself on the verge of betrayal.
"You want to keep your gun handy. Just on general
principles," Lite remonstrated. "You can't tell;
it's away off from everywhere."
"I won't have Hepsy Atwood. Haven't I enough to
drive me mad, without her?"
"Is there anybody else that you'd rather have?"
Lite looked at her speculatively.
"No, there isn't. I won't have anybody. It would
be a nuisance having some old lady in the house gabbling
and gossiping. I'm not the least bit afraid, except,--
I'm not afraid, and I like to be alone. I won't
have her, Lite."
Lite said no more about it until they reached the
house, huddled lonesomely against the barren bluff, its
windows staring black into the dusk. Jean did not
seem to expect Lite to dismount, but he did not wait to
see what she expected him to do. In his most matter-
of-fact manner he dismounted and turned his horse,
still saddled, into the stable with Pard. He preceded
Jean up the path, and went into the kitchen ahead of
her; lighted a match and found the lamp, and set its
flame to brightening the dingy room.
Jean had not done much in the way of making that
part of the house more attractive. She used the
kitchen to cook in, because the stove was there, and the
dishes. She had spread an old braided rug over the
brown stain on the floor, and she ate in her own room
with the door shut.
Without being told, Lite seemed to know all about her
secret aversion to the kitchen. He took up the lamp
and went now on a tour of inspection through the house.
Jean followed him, wondering a little, and thinking
that this was the way that mysterious stranger came
and prowled at night, except that he must have used
matches to light the way, or a candle, since the lamp
seemed never to be disturbed. Lite went into all the
rooms and held the lamp so that its brightness searched
out all the corners. He looked into the small, stuffy
closets. He stood in the middle of her father's room
and seemed to meditate deeply, while Jean stood in the
doorway and watched him inquiringly. He came back
finally to the kitchen and looked into the cupboard, as
though he was taking an inventory of her supply of provisions.
"You might cook me some supper, Jean," he said,
when he had put the lamp on the table. "I see you've
got eggs and bacon. I'm pretty hungry,--for a man
that had his dinner six or seven hours ago."
Jean cooked supper, and they ate together in the
kitchen. It did not seem so gruesome with Lite there,
and she told him some funny things that had happened
in her work, and mimicked Robert Grant Burns with
an accuracy of manner and tone that would have astonished
that pompous person a good deal and flattered him
not at all. She almost recovered her spirits under the
stimulus of Lite's presence, and she quite forgot that he
had threatened her with Hepsibah Atwood.
But when he had wiped the dishes and had taken up
his hat to go, Lite proved how tenaciously his mind
could hold to an idea, and how even Jean could not
quite match him for stubbornness.
"That mattress in the little bedroom looks all right,"
he said. "I'll pack it outside before I go, so it will
have all day to-morrow out in the sun. I'll have Hepsy
bring her own bedding. Well--so long."
Jean would have sworn in perfect good faith that
Lite led his horse out of the stable, mounted it, and
rode away to the Bar Nothing. He did mount and ride
away as far as the mouth of the coulee. But that night
he spent in the loft over the shop, and he did not sleep
five minutes during the night. Most of the time he
spent leaning against his rolled bedding, smoking and
gazing at the silent house where Jean slept. You may
interpret that as you will.
Jean did not see or hear anything more of him, until
about four o'clock the next afternoon, when he drove
calmly up to the house and deposited Hepsibah Atwood
upon the kitchen steps. He did not wait for Jean to
order them away. He hurried the unloading, released
the wagon brake, and drove off. So Jean, coming from
the spring behind the house, really got her first sight
of him as he went rattling down to the gate.
Jean stood and looked after him, twitched her shoulders
in a mental yielding of the point for the time being,
and said "How-da-do" to the old lady.
She was not so old, as years go; fifty-five or
thereabouts. And she could have whispered into Lite's ear
without standing on her toes or asking him to bend his
head. Lite was a tall man, at that. She had gray
hair that was frizzy around her brows and at the back
of her neck, and she had an Irish disposition without
the brogue to go with it.
The first thing she did was to find an axe and chop a
lot of fence-posts into firewood, as easily as Lite
himself could have done it, and in other ways proceeded to
make herself very much at home. The next day she
dipped the spring almost dry, and used up all the soap
in the house; and for three days went around with her
skirts tucked up and her arms bare and the soles of her
shoes soggy from wet floors. Jean kept out of her way,
but she owned to herself that, after all, it was not
unpleasant to come home tired and not have to cook a
solitary supper and eat it in silent meditation.
The third night after Hepsy's arrival, Jean awoke to
hear a man's furtive footsteps in her father's room.
This was the fifth time that the prowler had come in
the night, and custom had dulled her fear a little. She
had not reached the point yet of getting up to see who
it was and what he wanted. It was much easier to lie
perfectly still with her six-shooter gripped in her hand
and wait for him to go. Beyond stealthilytrying her
door and finding it fastened on the inside, he had never
shown any disposition to invade her room
To-night was as all other nights when he came and
made that mysterious search, until he went into the little
bedroom where slept Hepsibah Atwood. Jean listened
to the faint creaking of old boards which told her
that he was approaching Hepsy's room, and she wondered
if Hepsy would hear him. Hepsy did hear him.
There was a squeak of the old bedstead that told how
a hundred and seventy-two pounds of indignant womanhood
was rising to do battle.
"Who's that? Git outa here, or I'll smash you!"
There was no fear but a great deal of determination in
Hepsy's voice, and there was the sound of her bare feet
spatting on the floor.
The man's footsteps retreated hurriedly. Jean
heard the kitchen door open and slam shut with a
shrill squeal of its rusty hinges, and the sound of a man
running down the path. She heard Hepsy muttering
threats while she followed to the door and looked out,
and she heard the muttering continue while Hepsy
returned to bed.
It was very comforting. Jean tucked her gun under
her pillow, laughed to herself for having shuddered under
the blankets at the sound of a man so easily put to
flight, and went to sleep feeling quite secure and for the
first time really glad that Hepsibah Atwood was in the
house.
She listened the next morning to Hepsy's colorful
account of the affair, but she did not tell Hepsy that the
man had been there before. She did not even tell her
that she had heard the disturbance, and was lying with
her gun in her hand ready to shoot if he came into her
room. For a girl as frank and outspoken as was Jean,
she had almost as great a talent as Lite for holding her
tongue.
CHAPTER XVII
"WHY DON'T YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING REAL?"
"Well, you don't seem crazy about it. What's
the matter?" Robert Grant Burns stood in
his favorite attitude with his hands on his hips and
his feet far apart, and looked down at Jean with a secret
anxiety in his eyes. Without realizing it in the least,
Jean's opinion had come to have a certain weight with
Robert Grant Burns. "What's wrong with that?"
Burns, having sat up until two o'clock to finish that
particular scenario to his liking, plainly resented the
expression on Jean's face while she read it.
"Oh, nothing, only I'm getting awfully sick of these
kidnap-and-rescue, and kiss-in-the-last-scene pictures,
and Wild West stuff without a real Western man in the
whole thing. I'd like to do something real for a
change."
Robert Grant Burns grunted and reached for his
slighted brain-child. "What you want? Mother on,
knitting. Girl washing dishes. Lover arrives; they sit
- firmly [´fə:mli]
ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词) - saddle [´sædl] n.鞍子 v.装鞍(于) (初中英语单词)
- protection [prə´tekʃən] n.警戒；护照；通行证 (初中英语单词)
- barren [´bærən] a.贫瘠的；不生育的 (初中英语单词)
- stable [´steibəl] n.马棚 a.稳固的 (初中英语单词)
- attractive [ə´træktiv] a.有吸引力；诱人的 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- mental [´mentl] a.精神的；心理的 (初中英语单词)
- standing [´stændiŋ] n.持续 a.直立的 (初中英语单词)
- disposition [,dispə´ziʃən] n.安排；性情；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- arrival [ə´raivəl] n.到达；到达的人(物) (初中英语单词)
- invade [in´veid] vt.侵入；打扰；充满 (初中英语单词)
- talent [´tælənt] n.天才；才干；天资 (初中英语单词)
- plainly [´pleinli] ad.平坦地；简单地 (初中英语单词)
- western [´westən] a.西的；西方的 (初中英语单词)
- nuisance [´nju:səns] n.损害；讨厌的人(事) (高中英语单词)
- dismount [dis´maunt] v.(使)下马(车) (高中英语单词)
- inspection [in´spekʃən] n.检查；视察；参观 (高中英语单词)
- brightness [´braitnis] n.光明；快乐 (高中英语单词)
- cupboard [´kʌbəd] n.碗柜，食橱 (高中英语单词)
- accuracy [´ækjurəsi] n.准确(性)；精密度 (高中英语单词)
- mattress [´mætris] n.床垫 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- finding [´faindiŋ] n.发现物；判断；结果 (高中英语单词)
- squeak [skwi:k] n.&vi.(发)尖叫(声) (高中英语单词)
- determination [di,tə:mi´neiʃən] n.决心；决定 (高中英语单词)
- disturbance [di´stə:bəns] n.扰乱，骚动 (高中英语单词)
- awfully [´ɔ:fuli] ad.令人畏惧地 (高中英语单词)
- meditate [´mediteit] v.考虑；策划；反省 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- hurriedly [´hʌridli] ad.仓促地，忙乱地 (英语四级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- bedding [´bediŋ] n.寝具；垫草；基础 (英语六级单词)
- firewood [´faiəwud] n.柴，薪 (英语六级单词)
- stealthily [´stelθili] ad.偷偷地，隐秘地 (英语六级单词)
- squeal [skwi:l] n.&v.长而尖的叫声 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- liking [´laikiŋ] n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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