酷兔英语

章节正文

fenced garden. Slow smoke rose from the cabin's chimney into the air, in

which were no sounds but the running water and the afternoon chirp of
birds. Amid this framework of a home the cow-puncher sat, lonely,

inattentive, polishing the treasured weapon as if it were not already
long clean. His target stood some twenty steps in front of him--a small

cottonwood-tree, its trunk chipped and honeycombed with bullets which he
had fired into it each day for memory's sake. Presently he lifted the

pistol and looked at its name--the word "Neighbor" engraved upon it.
"I wonder," said he, aloud, "if she keeps the rust off mine?" Then he

lifted it slowly to his lips and kissed the word "Neighbor."
The clank of wheels sounded on the road, and he put the pistol quickly

down. Dreaminess vanished from his face. He looked around alertly, but no
one had seen him. The clanking was still among the trees a little

distance up Box Elder. It approached deliberately, while he watched for
the vehicle to emerge upon the open where his cabin stood; and then they

came, a man and a woman. At sight of her Mr. McLean half rose, but sat
down again. Neither of them had noticed him, sitting as they were in

silence and the drowsiness of a long drive. The man was weak-faced, with
good looks sallowed by dissipation, and a vanquished glance of the eye.

As the woman had stood on the platform at Separ, so she sat now, upright,
bold, and massive. The brag of past beauty was a habit settled upon her

stolid features. Both sat inattentive to each other and to everything
around them. The wheels turned slowly and with a dry, dead noise, the

reins bellied loosely to the shafts, the horse's head hung low. So they
drew close. Then the man saw McLean, and color came into his face and

went away.
"Good-evening," said he, clearing his throat. "We heard you was in

cow-camp."
The cow-puncher noted how he tried to smile, and a freakish change

crossed his own countenance. He nodded slightly, and stretched his legs
out as he sat.

"You look natural," said the woman, familiarly.
"Seem to be fixed nice here," continued the man. "Hadn't heard of it.

Well, we'll be going along. Glad to have seen you."
"Your wheel wants greasing," said McLean, briefly, his eye upon the man.

"Can't stop. I expect she'll last to Drybone. Good-evening."
"Stay to supper," said McLean, always seated on his chair.

"Can't stop, thank you. I expect we can last to Drybone." He twitched the
reins.

McLean levelled a pistol at a chicken, and knocked off its head. "Better
stay to supper," he suggested, very distinctly.

"It's business, I tell you. I've got to catch Governor Barker before he--"
The pistolcracked, and a second chicken shuffled in the dust. "Better

stay to supper," drawled McLean.
The man looked up at his wife.

"So yus need me!" she broke out. "Ain't got heart enough in yer
played-out body to stand up to a man. We'll eat here. Get down."

The husband stepped to the ground. "I didn't suppose you'd want--"
"Ho! want? What's Lin, or you, or anything to me? Help me out."

Both men came forward. She descended, leaning heavily upon each, her blue
staring eyes fixed upon the cow-puncher.

"No, yus ain't changed," she said. "Same in your looks and same in your
actions. Was you expecting you could scare me, you, Lin McLean?"

"I just wanted chickens for supper," said he.
Mrs. Lusk gave a hard high laugh. "I'll eat 'em. It's not I that cares.

As for--" She stopped. Her eye had fallen upon the pistol and the name
"Neighbor." "As for you," she continued to Mr. Lusk, "don't you be

standing dumb same as the horse."
"Better take him to the stable, Lusk," said McLean.

He picked the chickens up, showed the woman to the best chair in his
room, and went into his kitchen to cook supper for three. He gave his

guests no further attention, nor did either of them come in where he was,
nor did the husband rejoin the wife. He walked slowly up and down in the

air, and she sat by herself in the room. Lin's steps as he made ready
round the stove and table, and Lusk's slow tread out in the setting

sunlight, were the only sounds about the cabin. When the host looked into
the door of the next room to announce that his meal was served, the woman

sat in her chair no longer, but stood with her back to him by a shelf.
She gave a slight start at his summons, and replaced something. He saw

that she had been examining "Neighbor," and his face hardened suddenly to
fierceness as he looked at her; but he repeated quietly that she had

better come in. Thus did the three sit down to their meal. Occasionally a
word about handing some dish fell from one or other of them, but nothing

more, until Lusk took out his watch and mentioned the hour.
"Yu've not ate especially hearty," said Lin, resting his arms upon the

table.
"I'm going," asserted Lusk. "Governor Barker may start out. I've got my

interests to look after."
"Why, sure," said Lin. "I can't hope you'll waste all your time on just

me."
Lusk rose and looked at his wife. "It'll be ten now before we get to

Drybone," said he. And he went down to the stable.
The woman sat still, pressing the crumbs of her bread. "I know you seen

me," she said, without looking at him.
"Saw you when?"

"I knowed it. And I seen how you looked at me." She sat twisting and
pressing the crumb. Sometimes it was round, sometimes it was a cube, now

and then she flattened it to a disk. Mr. McLean seemed to have nothing
that he wished to reply.

"If you claim that pistol is yourn," she said next, "I'll tell you I know
better. If you ask me whose should it be if not yourn, I would not have

to guess the name. She has talked to me, and me to her."
She was still looking away from him at the bread-crumb, or she could have

seen that McLean's hand was trembling as he watched her leaning on his
arms.

"Oh yes, she was willing to talk to me!" The woman uttered another sudden
laugh. "I knowed about her--all. Things get heard of in this world. Did

not all about you and me come to her knowledge in its own good time, and
it done and gone how many years? My, my, my!" Her voice grew slow and

absent. She stopped for a moment, and then more rapidly resumed: "It had
travelled around about you and her like it always will travel. It was

known how you had asked her, and how she had told you she would have you,
and then told you she would not when she learned about you and me. Folks

that knowed yus and folks that never seen yus in their lives had to have
their word about her facing you down you had another wife, though she

knowed the truth about me being married to Lusk and him livin' the day
you married me, and ten and twenty marriages could not have tied you and

me up, no matter how honest you swore to no hinderance. Folks said it was
plain she did not want yus. It give me a queer feelin' to see that girl.

It give me a wish to tell her to her face that she did not love yus and
did not know love. Wait--wait, Lin! Yu' never hit me yet."

"No," said the cow-puncher. "Nor now. I'm not Lusk."
"Yu' looked so--so bad, Lin. I never seen yu' look so bad in old days.

Wait, now, and I must tell it. I wished to laugh in her face and say,
'What do you know about love?' So I walked in. Lin, she does love yus!"

"Yes," breathed McLean.
"She was sittin' back in her room at Separ. Not the ticket-office, but--"

"I know," the cow-puncher said. His eyes were burning.
"It's snug, the way she has it. 'Good-afternoon,' I says. 'Is this Miss

Jessamine Buckner?'"
At his sweetheart's name the glow in Lin's eyes seemed to quiver to a

flash.
"And she spoke pleasant to me--pleasant and gay-like. But a woman can

tell sorrow in a woman's eyes. And she asked me would I rest in her room
there, and what was my name. 'They tell me you claim to know it better

than I do,' I says. 'They tell me you say it is Mrs. McLean.' She put her
hand on her breast, and she keeps lookin' at me without never speaking.

'Maybe I am not so welcome now,' I says. 'One minute,' says she. 'Let me
get used to it.' And she sat down.

"Lin, she is a square-lookin' girl. I'll say that for her.
"I never thought to sit down onced myself; I don't know why, but I kep'

a-standing, and I took in that room of hers. She had flowers and things
around there, and I seen your picture standing on the table, and I seen

your six-shooter right by it--and, oh, Lin, hadn't I knowed your face
before ever she did, and that gun you used to let me shoot on Bear Creek?

It took me that sudden! Why, it rushed over me so I spoke right out
different from what I'd meant and what I had ready fixed up to say.

"'Why did you do it?' I says to her, while she was a-sitting. 'How could
you act so, and you a woman?' She just sat, and her sad eyes made me

madder at the idea of her. 'You have had real sorrow,' says I, 'if they
report correct. You have knowed your share of death, and misery, and hard

work, and all. Great God! ain't there things enough that come to yus
uncalled for and natural, but you must run around huntin' up more that

was leavin' yus alone and givin' yus a chance? I knowed him onced. I
knowed your Lin McLean. And when that was over, I knowed for the first

time how men can be different.' I'm started, Lin, I'm started. Leave me
go on, and when I'm through I'll quit. 'Some of 'em, anyway,' I says to

her, 'has hearts and self-respect, and ain't hogs clean through.'
"'I know," she says, thoughtful-like.

"And at her whispering that way I gets madder.
"'You know!' I says then. 'What is it that you know? Do you know that you

have hurt a good man's heart? For onced I hurt it myself, though
different. And hurts in them kind of hearts stays. Some hearts is that

luscious and pasty you can stab 'em and it closes up so yu'd never
suspicion the place--but Lin McLean! Nor yet don't yus believe his is the

kind that breaks--if any kind does that. You may sit till the gray
hairs, and you may wall up your womanhood, but if a man has got manhood

like him, he will never sit till the gray hairs. Grief over losin' the
best will not stop him from searchin' for a second best after a while. He

wants a home, and he has got a right to one,' says I to Miss Jessamine.
'You have not walled up Lin McLean,' I says to her. Wait, Lin, wait. Yus

needn't to tell me that's a lie. I know a man thinks he's walled up for a
while."

"She could have told you it was a lie," said the cow-puncher.
"She did not. 'Let him get a home,' says she. 'I want him to be happy.'

'That flash in your eyes talks different,' says I. 'Sure enough yus wants
him to be happy. Sure enough. But not happy along with Miss Second Best.'

"Lin, she looked at me that piercin'!
"And I goes on, for I was wound away up. 'And he will be happy, too,' I

says. 'Miss Second Best will have a talk with him about your picture and
little "Neighbor," which he'll not send back to yus, because the hurt in

his heart is there. And he will keep 'em out of sight somewheres after
his talk with Miss Second Best.' Lin, Lin, I laughed at them words of

mine, but I was that wound up I was strange to myself. And she watchin'
me that way! And I says to her: 'Miss Second Best will not be the crazy

thing to think I am any wife of his standing in her way. He will tell her
about me. He will tell how onced he thought he was solid married to me

till Lusk came back; and she will drop me out of sight along with the
rest that went nameless. They was not uncomprehensible to you, was they?

You have learned something by livin', I guess! And Lin--your Lin, not
mine, nor never mine in heart for a day so deep as he's yourn right now--

he has been gay--gay as any I've knowed. Why, look at that face of his!
Could a boy with a face like that help bein' gay? But that don't touch

what's the true Lin deep down. Nor will his deep-down love for you hinder
him like it will hinder you. Don't you know men and us is different when

it comes to passion? We're all one thing then, but they ain't simple.
They keep along with lots of other things. I can't make yus know, and I

guess it takes a woman like I have been to learn their nature. But you
did know he loved you, and you sent him away, and you'll be homeless in

yer house when he has done the right thing by himself and found another
girl.'

"Lin, all the while I was talkin' all I knowed to her, without knowin'
what I'd be sayin' next, for it come that unexpected, she was lookin' at

me with them steady eyes. And all she says when I quit was, 'If I saw him
I would tell him to find a home.'"

"Didn't she tell yu' she'd made me promise to keep away from seeing her?"
asked the cow-puncher

Mrs. Lusk laughed. "Oh, you innocent!" said she.
"She said if I came she would leave Separ," muttered McLean, brooding.

Again the large woman laughed out, but more harshly.
"I have kept my promise," Lin continued.



文章标签:名著  

章节正文