Little Lady of the Big House | Page 3

strode through the French windows to the bath,
already drawn by Oh My. A dozen minutes afterward, shaved as well,
he was back in bed, reading his frog book while Oh My, punctual to the
minute, massaged his legs.
They were the well-formed legs of a well-built, five-foot-ten man who
weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. Further, they told a tale of the
man. The left thigh was marred by a scar ten inches in length. Across
the left ankle, from instep to heel, were scattered half a dozen scars the
size of half-dollars. When Oh My prodded and pulled the left knee a
shade too severely, Forrest was guilty of a wince. The right shin was
colored with several dark scars, while a big scar, just under the knee,
was a positive dent in the bone. Midway between knee and groin was
the mark of an ancient three-inch gash, curiously dotted with the
minute scars of stitches.
A sudden, joyous nicker from without put the match between the pages
of the frog book, and, while Oh My proceeded partly to dress his
master in bed, including socks and shoes, the master, twisting partly on
his side, stared out in the direction of the nicker. Down the road,
through the swaying purple of the early lilacs, ridden by a picturesque
cowboy, paced a great horse, glinting ruddy in the morning sun-gold,
flinging free the snowy foam of his mighty fetlocks, his noble crest

tossing, his eyes roving afield, the trumpet of his love- call echoing
through the springing land.
Dick Forrest was smitten at the same instant with joy and anxiety--joy
in the glorious beast pacing down between the lilac hedges; anxiety in
that the stallion might have awakened the girl who laughed from the
round wooden frame on his wall. He glanced quickly across the two-
hundred-foot court to the long, shadowy jut of her wing of the house.
The shades of her sleeping-porch were down. They did not stir. Again
the stallion nickered, and all that moved was a flock of wild canaries,
upspringing from the flowers and shrubs of the court, rising like a
green-gold spray of light flung from the sunrise.
He watched the stallion out of sight through the lilacs, seeing visions of
fair Shire colts mighty of bone and frame and free from blemish, then
turned, as ever he turned to the immediate thing, and spoke to his body
servant.
"How's that last boy, Oh My? Showing up?"
"Him pretty good boy, I think," was the answer. "Him young boy.
Everything new. Pretty slow. All the same bime by him show up good."
"Why? What makes you think so?"
"I call him three, four morning now. Him sleep like baby. Him wake up
smiling just like you. That very good."
"Do I wake up smiling?" Forrest queried.
Oh My nodded his head violently.
"Many times, many years, I call you. Always your eyes open, your eyes
smile, your mouth smile, your face smile, you smile all over, just like
that, right away quick. That very good. A man wake up that way got
plenty good sense. I know. This new boy like that. Bime by, pretty
soon, he make fine boy. You see. His name Chow Gam. What name
you call him this place?"

Dick Forrest meditated.
"What names have we already?" he asked.
"Oh Joy, Ah Well, Ah Me, and me; I am Oh My," the Chinese rattled
off. "Oh Joy him say call new boy--"
He hesitated and stared at his master with a challenging glint of eye.
Forrest nodded.
"Oh Joy him say call new boy 'Oh Hell.'"
"Oh ho!" Forrest laughed in appreciation. "Oh Joy is a josher. A good
name, but it won't do. There is the Missus. We've got to think another
name."
"Oh Ho, that very good name."
Forrest's exclamation was still ringing in his consciousness so that he
recognized the source of Oh My's inspiration.
"Very well. The boy's name is Oh Ho."
Oh My lowered his head, ebbed swiftly through the French windows,
and as swiftly returned with the rest of Forrest's clothes-gear, helping
him into undershirt and shirt, tossing a tie around his neck for him to
knot, and, kneeling, putting on his leggings and spurs. A Baden Powell
hat and a quirt completed his appareling--the quirt, Indian- braided of
rawhide, with ten ounces of lead braided into the butt that hung from
his wrist on a loop of leather.
But Forrest was not yet free. Oh My handed him several letters, with
the explanation that they had come up from the station the previous
night after Forrest had gone to bed. He tore the right-hand ends across
and glanced at the contents of all but one with speed. The latter he
dwelt upon for a