The Sagebrusher | Page 5

and sailing his craft upon a wide and uncharted sea. In lands of the first pick or the first plow, these half-illicit pages find their way for their own reasons; and men and women both sometimes have read them.
Wid Gardner finished his own brief work about the corral, came in, washed his hands, and began to cook for himself his simple supper. Then he washed his dishes, threw the towel above them as before, and went to bed, since he had little else to do.
Early the next morning Wid had finished his breakfast, and was at the edge of the main valley road, which passed near to his own front gate. He lighted a pipe and sat down to smoke, now and again glancing down the road at a slowly approaching figure.
It was the schoolma'am, Mrs. Davidson, who daily presided at the little log schoolhouse a mile further on up the road, where some twenty children found their way over varying distances from the surrounding ranches. This lady was of much dignity and of much avoirdupois as well. Her ruddy face was wrinkled up somewhat like an apple in the late fall. She walked slowly and ponderously, and her gait being somewhat restricted, it was needful that she make an early start each day to her place of labor, since the only possible boarding place lay almost a mile below Sim Gage's ranch. She had been the only applicant for this school, and perhaps was the only living being who could have contented herself in that capacity in this valley. Wid Gardner pulled at the edge of his broken hat as he stepped down the narrow road to meet her.
"'Morning, Mis' Davidson," said he.
"Good morning, Mr. Gar-r-r-dner," boomed out the great voice of Mrs. Davidson. "It is apparently promising us fair weather, sir-r-r."
Mrs. Davidson spoke with a certain singular rotund exactness, and hence was held much in awe in all these parts.
"Yes, ma'am," said Wid, "it looks like it would rain, but it won't."
"Your hay in that case would not flourish so well, Mr. Gar-r-r-dner?" said she.
"Without rain, not worth a damn, ma'am, so to speak. But I'll get by if any one can. This is one of the best locations in the valley. Me and Sim Gage; and Sim, he says----"
"Sim Gage!" The lady snorted her contempt of the very name. "That man! Altogether impossible!"
"He shore is. He certainly is," assented Wid Gardner. "He seems to be getting impossible-er almost every year, now, don't he?"
"I do not care to discuss Mr. Gage," replied the apostle of learning. "I was in his abode once. I should never care to go there again."
Already she was leaning partially forward, ponderously, as about to resume her journey toward the school house.
"Well, now, Sim Gage," began Wid, raising a restraining hand, "he ain't so bad as you might think, ma'am. He's just kind of fell into this way of living."
"Mr. Gar-r-r-dner," said the lady positively, "I doubt if he has made a bed or washed a dish in twenty years. His place is worse than an Indian camp. I have taught schools among the savages myself, in Government service, and therefore I may speak with authority."
"Well, now, ma'am, I reckon that's all true. But you see, if more women come out in here, now, things'd be different. I been thinking of Sim Gage, ma'am. I wanted you to do something fer me, or him, ma'am."
"Indeed?" demanded she. "And what may that be?"
"I don't mean nothing in the world that ain't perfectly all right," began Wid, hesitatingly. "I only wanted you to write something fer me. I'm this kind of a man, that when he wants anything to be fixed up, he wants it to be fixed up right. I kind of got out of practice writing. I want you to write a ad fer me."
"A what?" she demanded. "Oh, I see--you have something to sell?"
"No, ma'am, I ain't got nothing to sell--not unlessen--well, I'll tell you. I want to advertise fer a woman--fer a wife--that is to say, really fer him, Sim Gage--a feller's got to have something to sort of occupy his mind, hain't he?"
Mrs. Davidson was too much astonished to speak, and he blundered on.
"Folks has done such things," said he.
"You offer me a somewhat difficult problem," rejoined the other, "since I do not in the least understand what you desire to do."
"Well, it's this away, ma'am. There's papers that prints these ads--sometimes big dailies does, they tell me--where folks advertises for acquaintances just fer to get acquainted, you know--'acquaintance with a view to matrimony' is the way they usually say it--and that may be a tip fer you--I mean about this here ad I want you to write. Why, folks has got married that way, plenty of 'em--I'll bet there ain't