Hearts Desire | Page 4

services
every mornin' before breakfast. More services'n breakfast sometimes.
Tom, he says old Whiskers--that's our next postmaster--he sings
a-plenty, lifts up his voice exceeding. Say," said Curly, turning on me
again fiercely, "that's one reason I'd marry the girl if for nothing else. It
takes more'n a bass voice and a copy of the Holy Scriptures to make a
Merry Christmas. Why, man, say, when I think of what a time we all
are going to have,--you, and me, and Mac, and Tom Osby, and Dan
Anderson, with all them things of our'n, and all these here things on the
side--champagne and all that,--it looks like this world ain't run on the
square, don't it?"
I assured Curly that this had long been one of my own conclusions.
Assuredly I had not the bad manners to thank him for his invitation to

join him in this banquet at Heart's Desire, knowing as I did Curly's
acquaintance with the fact that young attorneys had not always
abundance during their first year in a quasi-mining camp that was
two-thirds cow town; such being among the possibilities of that land. I
returned to the cake.
"Where'd we git it?" said Curly. "Why, where'd you s'pose we got it?
Do you think Dan Anderson has took to pastry along with the statoots
made and pervided? As for Dan, he ain't been here so very long, but
he's come to stay. We're goin' to send him to Congress if we ever get
time to organize our town, or find out what county we're in. How'd our
Delergate look spreadin' jelly cake? Nope, he didn't make it. And does
it look any like Mac has studied bakery doin's out on the Carrizoso
ranch? You know Tom Osby couldn't. As for me, if hard luck has ever
driv me to cookin' in the past, I ain't referrin' to it now. I'm a straight-up
cow puncher and nothin' else. That cake? Why, it come from the
Kansas outfit.
"Don't know which one of 'em done it, but it's a honey," he went on.
"Say, she's a foot high, with white stuff a inch high all over. She's soft
around the aidge some, for I stuck my finger intoe it just a little. We
just got it recent and we're night-herdin' it where it's cool. Cost a even
ten dollars. The old lady said she'd make the price all right, but Mac
and me, we sort of sized up things and allowed we'd drop about a ten in
their recep_ti_cle when we come to pay for that cake. This family, you
see, moved intoe the cabin Hank Fogarty and Jim Bond left when they
went away,--it's right acrost the 'royo from Dan Anderson's office,
where we're goin' to eat to-morrer.
"Now, how that woman could make a cake like this here in one of them
narrer, upside-down Mexican ovens--no stove at all--no nothing--say,
that's some like adoptin' yourself to circumstances, ain't it? Why, man,
I'd marry intoe that fam'ly if I didn't do nothing else long as I lived.
They ain't no Mexican money wrong side of the river. No counterfeit
there regardin' a happy home--cuttin' out the bass voice and givin' 'em a
leetle better line of grass and water, eh? Well, I reckon not. Watch me
fly to it."

The idiom of Curly's speech was at times a trifle obscure to the
uneducated ear. I gathered that he believed these newcomers to be of
proper social rank, and that he was also of the opinion that a certain
mending in their material matters might add to the happiness of the
family.
"But say," he began again shortly, "I ain't told you half about our
dinner."
"That is to say--" said I.
"We're goin' to have oysters!" he replied.
"Oh, Curly!" objected I, petulantly, "what's the use lying? I'll agree that
you may perhaps marry the girl--I don't care anything about that. But as
to oysters, you know there never was an oyster in Heart's Desire, and
never will be, world without end."
"Huh!" said Curly. "Huh!" And presently, "Is that _so_?"
"You know it's so," said I.
"Is that so?" reiterated he once more. "Nice way to act, ain't it, when
you're ast out to dinner in the best society of the place? Tell a feller he's
shy on facts, when all he's handin' out is just the plain, unfreckled truth,
for onct at least. We got oysters, four cans of 'em, and done had 'em for
a month. They're up there." He jerked a thumb toward the top of old
Carrizo Mountain. I looked at the snow, and in a flash comprehended.
There, indeed, was cold storage, the only cold storage possible in
Heart's Desire!
"Tom Osby brought 'em down from Vegas the last time he come
down,"