Waifs and Strays, etc | Page 3

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Prepared for Project Gutenberg by Earle C. Beach
([email protected])

Waifs and Strays
by O Henry

PART I
TWELVE STORIES

CONTENTS
The Red Roses of Tonia Round The Circle The Rubber Plant's Story
Out of Nazareth Confessions of a Humorist The Sparrows in Madison
Square Hearts and Hands The Cactus The Detective Detector The Dog
and the Playlet A Little Talk About Mobs The Snow Man

THE RED ROSES OF TONIA
A trestle burned down on the International Railroad. The south- bound
from San Antonio was cut off for the next forty-eight hours. On that
train was Tonia Weaver's Easter hat.
Espirition, the Mexican, who had been sent forty miles in a buckboard
from the Espinosa Ranch to fetch it, returned with a shrugging shoulder
and hands empty except for a cigarette. At the small station, Nopal, he
had learned of the delayed train and, having no commands to wait,
turned his ponies toward the ranch again.
Now, if one supposes that Easter, the Goddess of Spring, cares any
more for the after-church parade on Fifth Avenue than she does for her
loyal outfit of subjects that assemble at the meeting-house at Cactus,
Tex., a mistake has been made. The wives and daughters of the
ranchmen of the Frio country put forth Easter blossoms of new hats and
gowns as faithfully as is done anywhere, and the Southwest is, for one
day, a mingling of prickly pear, Paris, and paradise. And now it was
Good Friday, and Tonia Weaver's Easter hat blushed unseen in the
desert air of an impotent express car, beyond the burned trestle. On

Saturday noon the Rogers girls, from the Shoestring Ranch, and Ella
Reeves, from the Anchor-O, and Mrs. Bennet and Ida, from Green
Valley, would convene at the Espinosa and pick up Tonia. With their
Easter hats and frocks carefully wrapped and bundled against the dust,
the fair aggregation would then merrily jog the ten miles to Cactus,
where on the morrow they would array themselves, subjugate man, do
homage to Easter, and cause jealous agitation among the lilies of the
field.
Tonia sat on the steps of the Espinosa ranch house flicking gloomily
with a quirt at a tuft of curly mesquite. She displayed a frown and a
contumelious lip, and endeavored to radiate an aura of disagreeableness
and tragedy.
"I hate railroads," she announced positively. "And men. Men pretend to
run them. Can you give any excuse why a trestle should burn? Ida
Bennet's hat is to be trimmed with violets. I shall not go one step
toward Cactus without a new hat. If I were a man I would get one."
Two men listened uneasily to this disparagement of their kind. One was
Wells Pearson, foreman of the Mucho Calor cattle ranch. The other was
Thompson Burrows, the prosperous sheepman from the Quintana
Valley. Both thought