The Sagebrusher | Page 6

more'n half the homesteaders in this state out here, leastways in the sagebrush country, that didn't get married just that way--it's the onliest way they can get married, ma'am, half the time.
"Once, up in Helleny, years ago, right after the old Alder Gulch placer mining days, there was eleven millionaires, each of 'em married to a Injun woman, and not one of them women could set on a chair without falling off. Now, there wasn't no papers then like this one here, or them millionaires might of done better."
She gasped, unable to speak, her lips rotund and pursed, and he went on with more assertiveness.
"They turn out just as good as any marriages there is," said he. "I've knowed plenty of 'em. There's three in this valley--although they don't say much about it now. I know how they got acquainted, all right."
"And you desire me to aid you in your endeavor to entr-r-r-ap some foolish woman?"
"They don't have to answer. They don't have to get married if they don't want to. You can't tell how things'll turn out."
"Indeed! Indeed!"
"Well, now, I was just hoping you would write the ad, that's all. Just you write me a ad like you was a sagebrusher out here in this country, and you was awful lonesome, and had a good ranch, and was kind-hearted--and not too good-looking--and that you'd be kind to a woman. Well, that's about as far as I can go. I was going to leave the rest to you."
Mrs. Davidson's lips still remained round, her forehead puckered. She leaned ponderously, fell forward into her weighty walk.
"I make no promise, sir-r-r!" said she, as she veered in passing.
But still, human psychology being what it is, and woman's curiosity what it also is, and Mrs. Davidson being after all woman, that evening when Wid Gardner passed out to his gate, he found pinned to the fastening stick an envelope which he opened curiously. He spelled out the words:
"Wanted: A Wife. A well-to-do and chivalrous rancher of abundant means and large holdings in a Western State wishes to correspond with a respectable young woman who will be willing to appreciate a good home and loving care. Object--matrimony."
Wid Gardner read this once, and he read it twice. "Good God A'mighty!" said he to himself. "Sim Gage!"
He turned back to his cabin, and managed to find a corroded pen and the part of a bottle of thickened ink. With much labor he signed to the text of his enclosure two initials, and added his own post office route box for forwarding of any possible replies. Then he addressed a dirty envelope to the street number of the eastern city which appeared on the page of his matrimonial journal. Even he managed to fish out a curled stamp from somewhere in the wall pocket. Then he sat down and looked out the door over the willow bushes shivering in the evening air.
"'Chivalerous!'" said he. "'Well-to-do! A good home--and loving care!' If that can be put acrosst with any woman in the whole wide world, I'll have faith again in prospectin'!"
CHAPTER III
FIFTY-FIFTY
It was late fall or early winter in the city of Cleveland. An icy wind, steel-tipped, came in from the frozen shores of Lake Erie, piercing the streets, dark with soot and fog commingled. It was evening, and the walks were covered with crowded and hurrying human beings seeking their own homes--men done with their office labors, young women from factories and shops. These bent against the bitter wind, some apathetically, some stoutly, some with the vigor of youth, yet others with the slow gait of approaching age.
Mary Warren and her room-mate, Annie Squires, met at a certain street corner, as was their daily wont; the former coming from her place in one of the great department stores, the other from her work in a factory six blocks up the street.
"'Lo, Mollie," said Annie; and her friend smiled, as she always did at their chill corner rendezvous. They found some sort of standing room together in a crowded car, swinging on the straps as it screeched its way around the curves, through the crowded portions of the city. It was long before they got seats, three-quarters of an hour, for they lived far out. Ten dollars a week does not give much in the way of quarters. It might have been guessed that these two were partners, room-mates.
"Gee! These cars is fierce," said Annie Squires, with a smile and a wide glance into the eyes of a young man against whom she had been flung, although she spoke to her companion.
Mary Warren made no complaint. Her face, calm and gentle, carried neither repining nor resignation, but a high and resolute courage. She shrank far as she might, like a gentlewoman, from personal contact with other human beings;