Sally of Missouri | Page 8

come, Piney, you know I've been thinking everything beautiful
about Miss Sally since I found out--something----"
"Aw! Tisn't no such thing. She jes likes to hear me sing. You're crazy!"
The tramp-boy's young voice had its fashion of breaking and shrilling
into a high soprano, like a girl's, for emphasis; he was as red as a beet,
and he put his foot back in the stirrup, thrust out his under jaw and
looked at the stirrup as though he had to determine how much wood
had gone into its making. Again Bruce was conscious of a little ache
for the boy. "But you go on over tha'," insisted Piney.
"No! Thank you for trying to look out for me, son, but I shouldn't like

to do that. Oh, I can stand this all right," cried Bruce, with a flare of big
bravery and, turning to face the hotel, was seized by his loneliness so
violently that he shuddered again. "Here Piney!" he cried on a sudden
inspiration, "why won't you come in and stay with me? Huh? How
would that suit you? We can talk and smoke."
"Naw," Piney extended his hand and shook his head, as though to push
the hotel out of the range of possibilities for him, "I couldn't. Much
oblige'. But I cayn't sleep in haouses. Got to git back to the shack in the
woods. Wisht you'd go on over to Madeira's."
"No. I'll buck it out here alone," lamented Bruce. He hated to lose
Piney and take up the gloomy, rainy evening alone on this little, high,
remote place in the Missouri hills.
"See you again some day, then," Piney promised in final farewell. "I'm
up an' daown the Ridge rat frequent, I'll run 'crosst you."
"Well now, I should hope so," cried Bruce cordially. "Don't you ever
come to Canaan?"
"Nope. Hate a taown! But me an' Unc' Bernique will strike you
sometime, somewheres along the trail. S'long!"
"So long, Piney, so long!"
The boy turned his pony to the hills. The man on the porch came on out
to take charge of Bruce and Bruce's horse. Black night settled down.
Through the darkness cut the sound of the squawking geese, the
tinkling cow-bells, the grunting hogs. Lonely, lonely Missouri! Bruce
went inside, to sit in a little room upstairs, with his chin in his hand, his
eyes staring through the window, his thoughts roaming after Carington,
the office on Nassau Street, a girl who was a dainty fluff of lace and
silk. In his ears rang the sound of Carington's voice: "Why don't you try
Missouri,--Miss Gossamer sails,--Why don't you try Missouri,--Miss
Gossamer sails--" a faint, recedent measure, and intermingling with it
the sound of a boy's voice singing gaily on the misty hills:

"A tater's good 'ith 'lasses."
Steering leaned far out of the window, eager for the lad's music. It was
so sweet.

Chapter Three
THE PROMISED LAND
From the remotest beginning of things for the Southwest, Canaan had
been a "gre't taown." From the beginning she had been the county seat,
and from the beginning there had poured through her one long street,
with its two or three short tributaries, the whole volume of business of
Tigmore County; the strawberries, the chickens, the ginseng. Almost
from the beginning, too, she had had the newspaper and the hotel and
some talk about a bank. Canaanites held their heads high. So high that
when it began to be rumoured that the railroad was showing a
disposition to curve down toward Tigmore County, the Canaanites,
unable to see past their noses, appointed a committee to go up to
Jefferson City to protest to the Legislature against the proposed
innovation. The committee contended to the Legislature that the
railroad would cut off trade by starting up rival towns. It also
contended that ox-teams had been used for many years and were
reliable, rain or shine, whereas in wet weather the railroad tracks would
get slick and be impracticable. Moreover, and moreunder, there was no
danger of an ox-team blowin' up and bustin' and killin' somebody.
The railroad was melted to acquiescence by the appeal, and went its
way some ten miles west of Canaan. Towns sprang into being along the
line of the serpent's coil. Canaan said all right, but wait till the spring
rains come. The rains came, the trains went by over the slick tracks
gracefully. Canaan said all right, but wait till something busts. Time
passed, nothing busted. The County was careening westward. There
was no stopping it. Canaan kept her head high, but her heart grew as
cold as ice. Then the paper up at the new railroad station of Shaleville
crudely referred to Canaan as "that benighted hamlet." It was too much.

When Crittenton Madeira reached Canaan from St. Louis,