Sally of Missouri | Page 2

New Yorkers. Then Carington's voice saying, "Bruce? Bruce, m' son?
Why don't you try Missouri?" Saying it with that in his voice to
indicate that there was nothing else left to try. Then the long thoughtful
talk, Carington and he still by the window, while he showed Carington
how little chance he had even in Missouri; then Carington's
strong-hearted insistence that, in view of the agitation over the ore
discoveries at Joplin, he go on "out there" and prospect; and then
Carington's foolishly irrelevant heel-piece, "Miss Gossamer sails for
Europe Saturday!" and the sudden appeal of the notion to go "out
there," its sharp striking-in.... Carington and he taking counsel with
some of the other fellows in his rooms later on, all the deep voices
roaring at once, all the boys insulting him at once, belittling his cigars,
saying sharp things about his pictures, that being their way of showing
him that they were badly broken up over his leaving them; all their eyes
shining interest in him and hope for him and even envy of him, as the
young man who was "going out West," while the great soft fluff of
smoke in the room made the past a dream and the present an illusion
and the future a phantasm.... Then the long journey overland, the little
impetus toward the new life flickering drearily, while he gripped up his
heart for any fate, growing quieter and quieter, but more and more
determined to take Missouri as she came.... Then Missouri herself, the

stop at St. Louis, the dip into the State southwestward, toward the lead
and zinc country and his own debatable land; good-bye to the railroad;
by team, in company with other prospectors, through the sang hills, up
and down stony ridges, along vast cattle ranges.... And now here, quite
alone, twenty miles from the railroad, Missouri on all sides of him,
close-timbered, rock-ribbed, gulch-broken, mortally lonely, billowing
around him, over him, possessing him.
That sense of being possessed by Missouri, committed to her, had
grown upon him intolerably all day. All day he had been fighting it and
resenting it. At various points along the rocky ridge road he had come
upon hill cabins and hill people, and, facing them, his fight and his
resentment had been momentarily vicious.
"Gudday, stranger!" the people had called from the porches of the hill
cabins, "Hikin' over the Ridge?"
"Yes, friend," Steering had called back, and had then projected his
unfailing, anxious question: "Can you tell me how far it is to Poetical?"
At that the people from the porches had got up and come across the
baked weeds of the cabin yard. Assembled at the stile-block in front of
him, the people invariably lined up as a long, gaunt farmer, a thin,
flat-chested woman, a troop of dusty children, and a yellow dog.
"Yass, I cand tell you. It's six sights and a right smart chanst f'm here to
Poetical, stranger," the long, gaunt farmer had invariably drawled, with
more accommodation than information.
"Six sights--six sights and a right what what?"
"W'y," the Missourian had explained forbearingly, blinking toward the
sun, and waving his loosely jointed arms westward, "it's
this-a-way--you'll git sight of Poetical f'm six hills, an' whend you git to
the bottom of the sixt' hill they's a right smart chanst you won't be to
Poetical evum yit awhile. You cand see far in this air. It's some mild
f'm here to Poetical, an' sharp ridin' at that."

Each time that Steering had heard that, little varied in phraseology,
save for the number of "sights," according to his progress, he had felt
so dismal and looked so dismal that, each time, the native before him
had added quickly, "Better git off an' spin' the night with us. Aint got
much, but what we got's yourn."
Each time the house beyond the stile-block had looked miserably
uninviting,--a plough on the front porch, harness on the porch posts; all
around the house the yard litter of cheap farm life, a broken-down
harrow, broken-backed furniture, straw, corn-shucks, ghosts of past
winters and past summers on the farm, that had shuffled out there and
died there; each time the cleared patches beyond the house had looked
lean; each time the native had been sallow and toil-worn; but each time
that welcome word had been a finely perfect thing, good to hear.
Steering had noticed that in declining each invitation he had suddenly
stopped short in his inner fight and resentment and assumed his best
manner, as though his finest and highest courtesy had responded
instinctively to something in kind.
Idling on for a more expansive moment at each cabin door, the
conversation had usually shaped itself like this:
"Two has already rid over the Ridge to-day--Old Bernique and the
tramp-boy. Old Bernique he's