University of Virginia Library

THE APPLES OF HESPERIDES, KANSAS

JOHN OSKISON

A COOL, racing wind brought to their ears the sound of the locomotive's whistle. It came to them across ten miles of level prairie, a thin, faint blast. It was the supper call to the graders and track-layers who were pushing the newest railroad across the short grass country of southwestern Kansas. Darkness was closing down over the wide plain.

Mrs. Marvin met her son at the gate of the feed-lot, held it open as he rode in, and followed him to the door of the tiny stable. Dick dismounted, hauled the saddle from his horse, rubbed the sweat marks from its back, and turned it loose to roll luxuriously in the dust.

"Well, mother," the young man smiled and put his arm across her shoulders, "I found out there's plenty of water left for the cattle in Plum Creek. There's one hole I don't think'll ever go dry."

"Whereabouts is it, Dick?"

"Just where the railroad's going to cross—I reckon maybe they're aiming to put in a water tank there." Dick went to feed his horse, and Mrs. Marvin returned to the cabin to fix the supper table.

Five years before, when the boy was a hollow-chested youth of eighteen, they had come from Chicago to the high plains—Richard's doctor had sent them. In that time, the flush had died out of the young man's cheeks and he had padded with solid flesh a consumptive's gaunt frame.

"Dick is getting well, praise the Lord!" It was Mrs. Marvin's daily prayer of thankfulness. Three years ago, she had first uttered it, exultantly—and then she had planned to go back to Chicago. But now the plan was vague, easy for her to put aside. The spell of the wide plain was upon her; she had become a pioneer mother. Dick's little herd of cattle and her own uncertain patch of garden had become important enterprises.

But as she grew more contented, Dick complained oftener of monotony. "No!" he denied, when his mother asked him if it was Chicago he pined for. "It ain't a city I want—maybe it's just people and stir. I'd like to know myself what makes me restless." It was manhood crowding youth in the lusty frame of twenty-three; Mrs. Marvin could have told Dick that, but it would have seemed vague to him.

Beside a window which let in the soft after-sunset light—a window which rattled all day under the assault of the steady wind— the two ate their supper. For a time, the wind died, and the peace of the prairies fell upon them.

From a tin pie-plate, Dick lifted a quarter of a fresh-baked pie made of dried apples. He held it in his two hands and measured with his eyes on the crisp, firm crust the boundaries of his first bite.

"Dick, won't you ever learn to eat pie like a white man?"

"Gee, mother, I never could insult one of your pies by introducing it to a little old three-tined fork!" They both laughed, and Dick's strong teeth closed upon the pie. He finished the quarter, and hesitated.

"One more piece, Dick!"

"Oh, sho! I'll see my grandmother if I do—I'll be dodging apples all night long. Say, mother, isn't this the time of year when they're picking them back yonder? Seems to me about now you can get 'em fresh and juicy from the stands in Chicago."

"October—yes. In New York State, they're lying in windrows between the trees."

"Smooth and juicy, eh, mother?"

"Yes—red and yellow, and you can smell 'em half a mile away!"

"And they feed 'em to the pigs, sometimes, don't they, mother?"

"They used to, when I was a girl—people didn't seem to care very much for apples."

"Gee!" Dick rose and went outside, whistling an unquiet little tune. Mrs. Marvin cleared away the dishes, washed them, and, with a shawl across her shoulders, came out to join

her son on the tiny south porch. A young moon was making luminous the west, and far away somewhere in its track a coyote barked. Dick smoked, and his mother sat very quietly with her hands folded in her lap.

"How's the grub holding out, mother?" Dick asked after a time.

"We're all right for ten days."

"Bacon, flour, rice, potatoes, sugar, coffee—and dried fruit?"

"Yes—oh, Dick, why did you bring it into my mind again! Seems to me I just must have a fresh apple to eat."

"Now that you mention it, mother, it sure does sound good. Say, I wonder if a fellow couldn't get some over at the railroad?"

"Can you get away, Dick? I believe I'd rather have a bushel of good juicy apples right now than anything else I can think of."

"I'll ride over to-morrow, mother . . . Come inside now, it's getting cold out here." The wind had risen again to a steady blast.

"Isn't it lovely, Dick!" Before she went in, Mrs. Marvin stood at the edge of the narrow porch to let the starshine and the faint moonlight beat upon her face.

"I wish there were trees out there," Dick answered irrelevantly.

Next day, Dick Marvin rode to the railroad, a grain bag tied around his saddle horn. He rode past the construction camp, and stopped for a time to watch men with stout plows farrow the raw prairie; he joked with other men who, with wheeled scrapers, were piling the dirt in ridges, and shouted greetings to the track-layers who were putting down on the packed earth-ridge black, creosoted cross-ties and spiking new rails; he rode close to the dingy work-train, where the locomotive's stack was sending up lazy puffs of smoke, and a thin blue ribbon from the cook car's stovepipe rose into the clear air. Whistling cheerfully, Dick rode on. A mile beyond the end of the line, the newest town rose out of the prairie—a switch, a station shack, a group of tents where the construction gang slept,

and a combined store and eating-house. This last was the biggest thing in town, its dashboard front standing up fifteen feet from the road and spreading twelve feet on either side of the wide doorway. Across the top of this façade was painted the sign:

"MARLOW'S GENERAL STORE AND GEM RESTAURANT."

Behind it stretched sixty feet of barn-like interior. Sagging and unpainted board shelves stretched down both sides for forty feet, then gave way, on one side, to a lunch counter. Back from the counter were two tables, each seating ten. The kitchen was a corner, boarded off from the big room by partitions which reached for but never quite attained the ceiling. Marbled oil-cloth covered the lunch counter, but on the two tables were fringed and red-and-white checkered cloths, with a glass jar of wooden toothpicks occupying the mathematical centre of each.

It was mid-morning when Dick Marvin dropped the reins of his horse's bridle in front of Marlow's and went inside.

A girl—buxom, yellow-haired, blue-eyed—had watched him from her post inside one of the big windows. She was Marlow's assistant, from Kansas City; he had brought her from a department store where she had grown weary of using her eyes on the pale young hunters of the streets. She was twenty-six, ripe and sophisticated; and she had no doubt whatever of her motive for coming. It was certainly not for the ten dollars a week which Marlow offered—and might be able to pay. For the first time, in the two weeks she had watched by Marlow's front window, she thrilled at the sight of a man riding; Dick sat his horse with joyous grace. She smoothed her skirt over her hips, put her hands up to be sure of the fluff in her hair, and turned to the shelves.

"Howdy!" greeted Dick. She turned suddenly from the work at which her fingers had been busy. Plainly, she was startled—in the planned moment of recovery, she could size him up at close range.

"He'll more than do!" was her verdict. She saw a strong, young, brown face, white, even teeth, and a powerful body which was carried with elastic ease.

"You ought to knock on a lady's door before you come in!"

"I'm after apples," announced Dick; her blonde beauty struck upon him with a pleasant shock.

"Pippins, or jest plain Ben Davises?" The girl laughed, showing her own strong, white teeth. She lifted her eyes to Dick's, and the rounded, creamy-white throat rising above a plain, collarless waist struck on his senses like a blow in the face from a man's hand. In the past five years, he had forgotten the girl's type. The women of the ranches were high-collared, long-sleeved, and self-effacing.

"Oh!" Dick recovered, "I'm open to argument. Which kind do you recommend?"

"Honest, stranger," she answered demurely, "there ain't an apple in town."

"Gee! I haven't tasted a fresh apple for so long I expect I wouldn't know how to bite into one." They both laughed.

"Marlow went in to Delos yesterday, and he's coming back to-day—maybe he'll have sense enough to bring back some apples."

"When does the train from Delos get in?"

"It ain't got any schedule—'most any time from one to five."

"You reckon if I rode on to Cyprus I could get any?"

"I'm sure I don't know." She turned her back and raised her half-bared arms to the shelves again. They were round and creamy-white, dimpled at the elbows.

"How far do you call it to Cyprus?" She finished her task of putting a row of canned goods in perfect alignment before she turned and answered:

"About half as far as it is to Athens. Would you like to ask me anything else?"

"Yes—two more questions. Where's that smile of yours gone? and who names the towns on this road?"

Question one was answered instantly, in a flood of color which rose to the girl's cheeks and a burst of laughter a little too loud.

"I sh'd say they've hired the man that names the Pullman cars." Dick moved aside a plug tobacco slicer to make room

for himself on the rough board counter. Seated comfortably, he went on:

"Now, take this town. Who in the world ever thought Hesperides was the proper name for it?" Dick accented the first syllable of the name, and divided it after the r.

"Well, why not, Mr. Man?"

"My name is Marvin—Richard Marvin, or Dick generally—if you ever want to use it."

"Thanks; I might. I'm Clara Cullom."

"What's the name of that town the other side of Athens?"

"Geronimo. Marlow told me it was named by an old Indian trader."

"Some sense in that name. But Hesperides—" Dick laughed.

"Most people call it Hesper and let it go at that."

Until twelve o'clock, Dick Marvin kept his seat on the counter. Three horsemen, and one rancher with his wife, in a rattling wagon, came to buy—staples for nailing up wire fences, canned goods, flour, blue overalls, dried peaches, sugar, bananas, cheese, crackers, molasses, and striped stick candy. Clara Cullom served them swiftly, courteously, with never a softening of the serene contour of her face. It was her acknowledgment to Dick Marvin that to-day was his. And to-morrow? The blood was racing through his veins, scattering his self-control as the wind outside drove the tumble-weed pell-mell across the plain.

At twelve a negro woman came out of the partitioned kitchen to ring a big hand-bell. From the steps of a side door, she shook the bell violently, then hurried back. In five minutes, one table was surrounded by hungry men; at the other, the ranchman and his wife were eating fried chicken and conversing stiffly with the station agent. A negro man, some half-grown boys, and a grader from the construction camp occupied the stools before the lunch counter.

Dick was about to slide from his seat on the counter and go to join the three at the table, when he felt the girl's hand on his arm. She leaned close and said:

"They'll all be finished eatin' and gone in half an hour, and then I'll have my dinner." Dick rose.

"I reckon I'll go out and see if I can't rustle some feed for my horse—be sure you save some of that fried chicken for me."

"Mammy Thomas'll look after us all right, Mr. Marvin. Half an hour—don't be any longer." Dazzling, and utterly confidential was the smile which ushered him out. To kill time, Dick rode to the construction camp, where the hungry crew sat in irregular groups about the cook car, and where the mules, released for an hour from the work of dragging the loaded scrapers up hill and outracing them as they came clattering down, empty, jerked feed-bags from side to side in rhythm with their round, well-sheared tails. Every mouth, of mules and men, was busy with food. A great, out-of-doors hunger was being satisfied. With a boiled potato, peeled and buttered, poised on his fork, the foreman invited Dick to dismount and eat.

"Git you a plate from the cook car and go to it, friend."

"It looks good, all right, but I got a date to eat up at the store at half past twelve," Dick refused. "You boys are sure pushing things along out here."

"Uh-huh," agreed the foreman thickly, as he swallowed the potato, "our boss gits paid by the mile."

"Are you aiming to put in a water tank at Plum Creek?"

"Well, we ain't aimin' to do the work, but I guess a tank will go up there just the same. I did hear some talk, though, about puttin' in a pumpin' plant at the creek an' forcin' the water back to Hesper'—that would save a stop, you see." The foreman took up a quarter of an apple pie and stopped the conversation. His mother's affectionate protest, "Will you never learn to eat pie like a white man!" came to Dick's mind as he watched the foreman shove the pie into his face until his thumbs and forefingers struck his teeth. "Well, so long!" He turned his horse and galloped back to Marlow's.

Mammy Thomas spread a fresh white tablecloth for the two; the fried chicken she served them was sizzling hot; the round, light biscuits were fresh from the oven; the baked potatoes broke mealy and turned to delicate gold at the touch of the fresh butter; fresh and fragrant was the coffee. After the chicken, an omelet—light as sea foam and deliciously flavored.

And with the second cup of coffee came the apple pie. Dick broke out enthusiastically at sight of it:

"Excuse me, Miss Cullom, but I simply can't—" An instinct made him stop, and, instead of repeating the familiar tribute beloved of his mother, he finished inadequately, "I sure can't help admiring such a cook as you've got here." He ate the pie with the help of the conventional fork, patiently. Clara Cullom ate joyously, with the appreciative discrimination of the clear-skinned, eupeptic human animal.

"I wish I could cook like Mammy," she said. "If you got a good appetite and ain't afraid of gettin' fat, I don't know many things that gives you more pleasure than eating. But I've et some fierce meals in my time. Never again, though, if I can help it; and if I was a good cook I'd come pretty close to guaranteeing good eating the rest of the way."

The first effect of this confession on Dick Marvin was depressing, but after pondering it a minute he laughed and recalled the ironical old rhyme:

"This one is, anyway," he reflected, smiling. Firm flesh, built of solid food, exercise and sound sleep—that's what this blonde girl was made of. It was a new thought to Dick, and one which held allurement. He could picture her meeting the physical strains which men habitually endure—the all-day rides on a round-up, the unbroken twenty-four hour labors of wrecking crews repairing a wash-out—and recovering normally after a good meal and twelve hours of sleep. The blood in her full lips and under the skin of her rounded cheeks ran rich and red.

Mammy Thomas, with many an "Excuse me, Honey," mumbled into the ears of both, cleared the table, put back the white and red checkered cloth, moved the jar of toothpicks conveniently near, and returned to the kitchen.

"Have a toothpick!" They both spoke at once, and their hands moved toward the jar at the same time. Neither hand

reached its destination; instead, with a swift, eager clutch, the firm white hand met the brown. After what seemed a lifetime of exquisite thrill, Dick heard the girl saying, a bit shakily, "A toothbrush suits me better." White hand and brown clung joyously —the girl spoke again.

"Don't tell me, Dick, you keep your teeth clean with chewin' tobacco!" He shook his head. "Seems to me," she went on, "every unmarried man in this county buys chewin' tobacco just for that purpose."

For a long time the two sat, their hands locked across the corner of the table. From talk, they dropped to whispers, and then to that most eloquent language of new lovers—the straight eye to eye messages which none of us have ever learned to put into words. In the boarded-off kitchen, Mammy's dish-washing clatter died out, and the insistent g-r-r-r! of the coffee-grinding machine began. Mammy Thomas, at any rate, knew that time was passing and that supper would have to be prepared and served.

Up from the construction camp, the work train came backing. At the station, it stopped, and the conductor walked hurriedly across to the store. The girl saw him before he entered, and, with a last pressure of Dick's hand and a swift brushing of his hair with her lips, went forward to wait upon him.

"Howdy, Miss Cullom," the conductor greeted her, then exclaimed, "My soul; you're lookin' fine!"

"It's because I'm happy—my grandfather's just died and left me a farm." He laughed.

"Gimme somethin' good to eat—we got to pull right out to Delos without waitin' fer supper."

"Taking the work train in?"

"No, only the engine and caboose—Joe and Henry are cuttin' off now on the switch."

"I got a notion to ride in with you," she offered, and glanced back toward Dick, who was still sitting at the table.

"Sure! Why not," urged the conductor. "Don't he want to go to Delos for anythin'?" The conductor grinned and jerked his thumb toward Dick.

"Yes; he wants some fresh apples." The girl laughed her full, rich laugh.

"Well, we'll be startin' in ten minutes—I'll be back for that canned stuff." As he went out, Dick came up to the front of the store, vaulted the counter, and put his hands on the girl's shoulders. There rose in her cheeks a crimson tide, and over her blue eyes dropped a misty veil of desire.

"Oh, Dick!" she breathed, standing quietly.

"Didn't that man say he was pulling out for Delos in ten minutes?" he demanded.

"Yes," her eyes dropped. "Dick, what do you mean?"

"Will he take us?" The question was whispered fiercely.

"Oh, what are you saying! Why, I don't know you, don't—"

"Good God! you know enough, girl—I want you!" He shook her savagely, and she put her hands timidly up to his face. "We're going on that train—do you want to take anything, pack anything?"

"No—yes, I must get a hat, and—but, Dick, what do you mean?"

"Mean? I can't mean more than one thing. You're going to marry me as soon after we get to Delos as we can rout a preacher out of bed. Now, you get what you need, and we'll hike for that caboose... Oh, girl!" his young boy's voice softened, "this is love—you have put a big fire into me, the kind I thought I'd never feel... When do you reckon we get to Delos?"

"I don't know, Dick," the girl answered quietly, and slid her hands under Dick's coat-collar and about his neck. She drew him close and kissed his sun-browned cheek.

"Dick, you're my kind,—big brown lover!" She whispered it fiercely.

Coming back for the food, the conductor gave ample warning with his loud whistling; he was met by a rebuke:

"Scotty, you didn't tell me what you wanted—now, you just collect whatever it is off the shelves, while I go pack a valise. I'm going with you; and, oh! this is Mr. Marvin; Mr. Marvin, shake hands with Mr. Scott. Say, Scotty, Mr. Marvin says

he's going to Delos, too, so you pick out enough for all of us." She went back to see Mammy Thomas, and as she came out of the kitchen the negro woman protested:

"Honey, that's a mighty nice man, and I sorter hates to see you make a fool out o' him."

"Mammy, here's God's truth," the girl cried passionately, "I'd marry that man if I could. But you know the trouble I'd get into if I did—Jake would sure find it out; damn him, why won't he ever get a divorce!"

Across the forty miles of level plain, as the sun slid down the clear blue of the West, turned it to grey, and, after sinking behind the even rim of the prairie, to a dancing, violent pink, the engine raced with its tender in front. The caboose was attached to the cowcatcher—the effect was like that of a terrier hauling frenziedly at a rabbit he had just dragged from its hole. Scott went to ride with Joe, the engineer, and Henry, the fireman, taking food for the three with him.

Under one of the little square windows of the rocking caboose, Dick Marvin sat on the rough-cushioned bench which ran the length of the car. Clara Cullom crowded close to him, and the two watched daytime turn to nighttime and all the light fade from the prairies. At Athens, they went on a switch, and the mixed train out from Delos passed them. Clara saw Marlow, dusty and occupied with the Sunday issue of a Denver newspaper, sitting on what had been the sunny side of the one passenger coach the train carried. "Stupid! Just like him," she muttered. There were two closed box-cars in the train—as they were flung past, an odor pungent and exquisite came into the caboose.

"There's your apples, Dick—want to get off and follow 'em back?" The girl laughed happily, and, twisting her head, offered her red lips for the man's kiss.

"Oh, apples," Dick babbled, "I believe you're right. But I'm holding right to the best pippin a man ever tasted."

"Holding tight is just what you're doing, Dick, lover; you're killing me, you bear—but I like it," she giggled.

An hour before the engine and caboose crept over the temporary wooden trestle-bridge across the wide, dry river and

stopped at the station, lights had appeared to draw the eye to the spots of denser black where the scattered ranch houses dotted the level plain. For Dick, that two hours' flight, holding in his arms the throbbing, responsive form of the girl, became a literal, deep intoxication. They got down from the caboose dazedly. Clara was carrying a roughly-tied parcel—their untouched share of the supper. She showed it to Dick and laughed.

"Ain't we the sillies!"

"Ain't we!" Dick rubbed his hand across his eyes. "Say, let's ask Scott about a preacher." But the conductor had disappeared, and the engine was clattering away to the yards. Before them stood the pretentious Harvard-brick hotel and eating house which had been built for the convenience of the great transcontinental road's patrons. In the centre of a tiny plaza, between the tracks and the hotel, a fountain played, and a patch of vivid green grass was bordered by flaming salvia.

"Ain't that lovely!" sighed Clara, pressing close to Dick. "Say, Dick, lover, I'm hungry!"

"Why, sure—so am I—you poor thing! Come on in and let's eat. I reckon we can get that preacher after supper."

At the door, a young Indian boy, in uniform, took the satchel from Dick and led the way to a desk.

"Yes, we'll want a room," the girl answered the clerk's query—"away from the tracks—my husband can't sleep on the noisy side."

Dick signed the register, breathing, "it will soon be true, anyway," when he wrote, "and wife."

They ate supper at a tiny table screened by palms, laid with smooth, rich linen and heavy silver, and lighted by a mellow, shaded electric candle. Noiseless and perfect service, excellent food, cooked to please the finicky palates of jaded transcontinental travellers, a feeling of long-established intimacy between them made the meal a dream-feast to Dick.

"Did you notice the little balcony off our room, Dick—we'll sit out there while you smoke. There's a lovely moon!"

"But—" Dick was finding it hard to remember the preacher.

"Let me pick out a cigar for you, big man. I'll bet I know

the kind you like." She chose three, with discrimination, and Dick paid half a dollar for them.

Out on the balcony, with the young moon shining on their faces, with the lights and noise of Delos pleasantly remote, and with the girl in his arms, the cobweb chains of enchantment held them motionless for a long time. Dick flipped his half-smoked cigar over the railing and buried his face in the girl's thick, yellow hair, orris-scented. After a while, a waitress, free for the evening, passed under the balcony on her way to the town—she sang as she went,

Dick heard, laughed, and set the girl down from his knee.

"Come on, girl—my goodness! I'd sure hate to wake a preacher out of sound sleep. Cover up that wonderful gold hair of yours with a hat and follow little Richard." He turned to go back into the room.

But Clara was at the door ahead of him, barring his way. To stop him, she put up her arms and locked them about his neck; Dick saw that she was weeping—her tears moistened his cheek while she whispered, vehemently, in his ear:

"Dick, we can't! Oh! I had ought to have told you—I'm sorry, now, I didn't. Don't leave me! Don't leave me!"

"Why, sure I won't leave you, Gold-Hair! What's your trouble?"

"We can't be married, Dick—I've got a man somewhere."

"You're married already!" Dick's hands dropped to his sides, but the girl clung close to him and wept, wetting his cheek with her tears. "Good God!" For a long time she clung, saying nothing, weeping hysterically. "Why—why" Dick spoke again with an effort—"stop crying, girl—it hurts me." His fingers came up to caress the thick, yellow hair. Clara released her grip, turned to put her white, plump forearms against the door-jamb as a cushion for her forehead, and began to speak brokenly, through her tears:

"Yes, go and leave me, Dick—it's best—Oh, my God—I was just a kid when I married Jake—I didn't know what I wanted, and he was a big brute—but you don't know—and I

thought—Oh! my God, I don't know what I thought— But, Dick, you made me crazy—I did want you; and I still want you—more than anything in Christ's world— Leave me, Dick!" The man did not stir, and Clara knew that she had won. She became quiet, a figure of sorrow in the pale moonlight. Dick came up and turned her to face him.

"Gold-Hair, you're mine! Don't you cry any more—I'm going to telephone that young Indian bell-hop to bring up some ice water." He crushed her in a fierce embrace, laughed, and went into the room.

Two hundred miles to the east, in a fat, drowsy town of eastern Kansas, Jake Thompson, competent mechanic, was at work in the railroad repair shops. A hustling, spectacled foreman came into the shops, stopping for a moment at this bench and that. He came and touched Jake's elbow.

"You get ready to go out with me to Delos on number four—we got a pumping plant to install on that branch road, and I need good, sober men. You can go all right, can't you? Got a wife and kids, eh?"

"Free as air," said Jake, and turned back to his work. That night, as the pump-erecting crew in the chair car were speeding to Delos, two of Jake's friends gossiped:

"Say," inquired one, "what you reckon Jake'll do when he sees Clara and that young ranger at Delos?" For more than a week, the man's friends had known that Jake's yellow-haired wife was living in Delos with a man from the short-grass country—it was common gossip among the train-men on the division, and it flowed into the repair shops as naturally as Hertzian waves agitate the antennæ of a wireless station.

"Huh! I bet you he knows already."

"Jake ain't no man fer a gun-play."

"Over that woman of his! You're sure right about that."

"She was in a store at Kay See when Jake got her—and back she went when Jake dropped her. Say, the store girls is sure the stuff! How many men you reckon she's throwed her spell over since Jake quit her?" The conversation trailed off

into a region of vague, murky surmises. Four seats ahead, Jake slept peacefully.

In ten days, Dick's bank account at Dodge had suffered—and Clara's wardrobe was richer by every bit of feminine gear which had taken her fancy. She was proud of her clothes, vain of her full-blown beauty. And Dick, uniformed for the streets from Delos's biggest store, was a man she could parade proudly. Early in the morning, just before number four, from the east, pulled in, they had acquired the habit of coming down to breakfast—Clara liked to show herself, fresh-bathed and spotless of dress, among the jaded women from the sleeping cars.

Jake Thompson had finished his lunch-counter breakfast of ham and eggs, wheat cakes, syrup, and coffee. He was sitting on the edge of the hotel porch, chewing a toothpick and waiting for the mixed train out to Hesperides. Clara led Dick plump into him before she knew anyone was sitting there.

"Hello, Clara!" Jake greeted her without embarrassment. She turned as if to go back, then stopped, flustered and uncertain. Dick had stopped, and was watching the man chew his toothpick unhurriedly.

"Who's—" Dick began pleasantly, and old habit conquered Clara.

"Jake," she stammered, "shake hands with Mr. Marvin. Mr. Marvin, Mr. Thompson."

"I don't reckon I'll shake hands with him, Clara," Jake observed quietly, "I'm kind of particular about who I touch." His words cut her, like a lash across the face.

"Say, you big boob!" Clara broke out, "don't you make any passes like that around here; Dick, here, is the kind of a man to whirl you round his head and beat your brains out against the door-jamb for talk like that. What the hell you doin' round here, anyway! I thought I'd seen the last of you." Clara was caught up in a whirlwind of reproaches, hysterical curses, and angry sobs. Passengers strolling back to the Pullman from the dining-room stopped to stare frankly. "Gee!" exclaimed one youth delightedly, "it's real old meelo-drammer, straight from Third Avenue."

A grin froze on Dick's face, then settled into faint grey

lines which spelled nothing suggesting humor. Something that tore and throbbed crept under his skin, rising from spine to scalp, damming the blood-currents and paralyzing thought and speech. Clara's curses, her frenzy of anger, the whole grotesquely coarse outburst seemed a sudden, horrible illusion. He drew his hand across his eyes to drive away the vision, but it persisted. After what seemed a long time, he was astonished to feel Clara's hand on his arm, to hear her angry voice close to his ear saying: "

Kill the —, Dick! He's laughing at me." Dick shook himself and turned his grey, set face to the girl.

"Didn't you hear Mr. Thompson say he was particular about people? Maybe he wouldn't like me to touch him—I couldn't blame him." The exquisite humor of Dick's speech, born out of a stiffening agony of self-reproach, was lost on Clara. She screamed an epithet at the two men, and ran into the hotel.

"Gee!" muttered the youth from the Pullman, "wouldn't that curl your hair!" He referred particularly to the word which Clara had flung into the faces of the two men.

After a little while, Dick addressed the man sitting on the edge of the porch, still chewing evenly at the toothpick:

"Maybe you and I'd better have a talk." He spoke mildly, courteously.

"Go ahead, I'm listenin'—only make it short, fer I got to catch a train out to Hesper' in a few minutes."

"Oh!" Dick took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "'Hesper'—you mean Hesperides?"

"Uh-huh," the man agreed.

"I—I came from out that way." It was as if he had been asleep a long time and the waking was difficult. The world he had left was coming back into being.

"That country any good?" queried the man perfunctorily.

"How's that?" Dick was recalling it better, now. "I live ten miles south-west of Hesperides, and I rode my horse in to get a sack of apples for my mother." He paused and searched his mind again. "Say, I'm going out on that train, too—you wait for me."

"They ain't no law agin it that I know of," was the man's stolid comment.

Clara came downstairs and out of the door, a bag in either hand. She put down the bags—shining new and bulging—and came up close to Dick. Her cheeks were aflame with anger, and she spoke rapidly, with brutal scorn, utterly unmindful of the curious passengers:

"Say, you good little boy! I'm through with you—and damn glad of it. You've made me tired, see! and I won't stand for it. A boob and a mammy's boy! Ain't there no men left in the world?"

Watch in hand, the conductor of number four began calling, "All aboard!" His hand was lifted as a signal to his engineer.

"Wait!" screamed Clara, and ran toward the train. A negro porter took her bags, and the last of her that Dick saw, as he stared dazedly, was the flutter of a violet silk petticoat as Clara flung herself up the steps of a Pullman.

The mixed train to Hesperides was coming to a stop, and Jake Thompson was tacking on a moral to the story of his courtship and marriage:

"Clara's wild an' full of life—maybe sober, steady-goin' men do make her tired, like she said. I reckon she don't belong in this slow, dog-trottin' age—anyway, such as you an' me can't hold her. Lord! I done got over rampin' an' prayin' on account o' her; maybe, some day, though, she'll git tired of whoopin' it up, an' want to come back an' say, 'Jake, I'm through.' Then I'll give her a home—damn me, if I don't!

"You ride straight home to that good mother o' yours, Dick Marvin, an' forget all about this last ten days. I'll be workin' over here—Plum Creek crossin', they tell me it is—for a month, maybe. Be glad to see you any day." They shook hands, and Dick went across to Marlow's.

As he entered the long store, a pungent, pleasant odor came to his nostrils. Marlow came forward, smiling.

"Going out to the ranch to-day, Mr. Marvin?"

"Yes."

"Your mother was in the day after you left, and I told her you were called to Kansas City suddenly . . . I been keeping your horse for you in my stable—he's kind of frisky by now."

"Say—" Dick sniffed, and smiled gratefully at the store-keeper— "sack me up a bushel of those apples, will you, Mr. Marlow."

"You spoke just in time—I never did see such a call for apples! Every ranch in three counties sent in for some of that two carloads I brought in. Surprised me—I thought I'd got enough in to last all winter."

"People get awful hungry for such things out here."

"I reckon that's so—they work up an awful, what you might call an unnatural, taste for something that's fresh and kind o' sweet and sour, too."

"That's right—you ought to make a good thing out of apples here, Mr. Marlow . . . Well, I'll be riding—you can hand up that sack when I come round."

Dick's horse bucked and plunged, thrilling its rider with the joy of violent motion. At the front door of the store, Marlow gingerly hoisted the apples to the saddle.

"For your mother, Mr. Marvin, with my compliments." Dick slackened the rein, and in three minutes he and his horse had become a bobbing speck to the short-sighted vision of the contemplative Marlow.