Bushy

“That’s so. How could you,” replied the father, his face beaming with love. “I had forgotten that you never do things by halves, even to loving the Padre; eh, little girl?”

“I don’t know about that,” she laughed. “I’m afraid you are not so awfully good in arithmetic, Padre;” then she turned her attention to the soup again. “Golly, but it’s hot! Just try some, won’t you?” she cried, extending the spoon toward him.

“No, thank you, I will take your word for it; only tell me how much there is left when you get through sampling,” replied the father.

Bushy and her father had been more than once without anything to eat, and at this time of the year, way down where they were, so far from anybody, they had again found themselves almost out of everything in the line of food.

“Oh, I guess there will be enough, but perhaps I had better put in a little more water,” remarked Bushy, and with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes she darted for the water-can.

“Don’t you dare do that!” exclaimed her father, jumping up from the roll of buffalo skins on which he had been sitting writing. With a little chasing and some lively scuffling, he pinioned her arms behind her and in the midst of her hearty laughter said:

“If you don’t mind, Miss Cook, I prefer my drinks not mixed; I will take first the soup and then the water.”

“But do you think you can tell one from the other?” inquired Bushy, saucily.

They both took a peep into the kettle, Bushy ready to enjoy the surprise she had in store for her father.

“By my faith, but it does look like soup and smells accordingly! Why, what do you call it and how did you make such a raise?”

They both laughed merrily, Bushy filled the two tin cups with soup and took out fresh crackers from the provision box, while her father put away his books and papers in a very much worn carpet-bag. Then he stretched out a buffalo skin for Bushy to sit on and made two of the others into a roll to serve as a seat for himself. He took a cup of soup, seated himself, and said:

“Now for the lesson; what is it to-day, Bushy?”

“It commences with the word ‘There.’ The sentence is, ‘There are many Spaniards in America;’ but how do you like the soup; it’s good, isn’t it?”

“Excellent!” murmured Mr. Sukolt. “A New York chef couldn’t have treated me better than you have this morning.” He held the cup in hand, opened the well-fingered grammar, put it beside him on the skins, and then, before taking another swallow of soup, said:

“All right now, go ahead with your grammar.”

“There are many [she swallowed soup] Spaniards [more soup] in America, and I suppose there are many Americans in Spain, too. Let me see,” again she stopped for soup, “where did you tell me Spain is?” She raised her bright face to her father.

“In Europe,” he replied.

“I wish I had a geography, Padre; I am so hungry for one that I just guess I’ll kill the first person I find with one; that is if he don’t want to give it to me,” said Bushy, much to her father’s astonishment.

“Bushy, you are an odd child, but you are happy, are you not?” Mr. Sukolt waited rather anxiously for her reply.

“Guess so,” she said, musingly; “but sometimes I think my feelings don’t depend so much on what you think is the best thing for me, as they depend on what I think is the best thing for me.

“Now, I’d be awfully happy if you would give me a geography that tells about the fairylands where you and my mother used to live, instead of giving me meat for supper,” added Bushy, thoughtfully.

“You will note one thing as you grow older, my little girl; that when you get the geography it will call for an atlas, and the atlas for a trip round the world, and so on, your desires always being just as strong as they are now for something you haven’t got.”

“You don’t know me, Padre. I’ll outwit your philosophy by never wishing for what I can’t get. Who wants to go around the world? Why I’m twelve years old and mistress of this establishment. What do I want more! Hurrah!” With another peal of laughter she waved high the tin of soup, as if pledging the beauties of the tumble-down shanty.

“This won’t do!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt, jumping up and running his fingers through Bushy’s tangled hair, “you’ve got out of a lesson again, you little witch! We must start right off or we will not catch Tom with the wagon at Cross Roads.”

While packing up the camp articles Bushy kept up a constant chatter.

“Padre,” she cried, as a new thought came to her, “you told me that on this trip I would see some children. Where are the children?”

She threw herself down on the bundle of robes that Mr. Sukolt was trying to tie up, and her laughing eyes peeped up at him through her fluffy hair which had fallen so as to almost cover her face.

“Show me the children or I will strike for higher wages. Think of it, Padre! I cannot remember ever seeing any children. Yes, I’ll strike for higher wages or for Great Pine Mine; so there.” And again the shanty was filled with her ringing laugh.

“Get up, you little rascal, and help me with these bundles. Now, what would you do if we should run against a little boy, say to-day, at Cross Roads?”

“Kiss him, and if he is very, very sweet, eat him up. Do you think we can buy a geography there, Padre?” she asked wistfully. “I don’t know which I want to see the most, a geography or a baby—a real live baby.”

“Well, we will soon find out what is there,” said Mr. Sukolt, firmly tying all the bundles on to the pack-horse and mounting his own. “Are you ready to start?”

“Almost,” she answered, coiling the lariat so as to attach it to the saddle; then with it still in her hand she sprang on Ned’s back and called to Rover, who was gnawing at the squirrel’s head.

Hearing a noise they both looked up. Coming down the path, about a quarter of a mile away, was a horseman, and it was obvious to Bushy and her father that the rider had lost all control of the animal he rode.

“He sits badly for a Mexican!” exclaimed Mr. Sukolt, “yet I think he will come out all right.”

“He isn’t a Mexican; he’s a soldier,” cried Bushy. Then, frightened by a second thought, she screamed:

“The ravine! the ravine! This path leads straight over the precipice! Oh, Padre, his horse can never stop after he turns the bend!”

They both started toward the soldier, neither knowing just what they were going to do.

Mr. Sukolt spied the lariat which Bushy still held in her hand.

“Lariat him! lariat him!” he commanded in a stern, hard voice, checking his pony at the same time.

“But can I?” came from her pale lips.

“Try it, child! try it! There is no time for me to take the lariat now!”

Again the queer old look settled on her face. There was only time to swing the lariat three times over her head and let go when the horse dashed past her. Ned stubbornly planted his feet and awaited the accustomed pull—it came, and with it headlong into the snowy path fell the soldier. The horse, lightened of his load, went at yet madder speed around the rocks out of sight to its death.

The man lay perfectly still. Bushy sprang from Ned and ran to him. Mr. Sukolt was already cutting the rope that had settled over the soldier’s head and wound around his body, pinioning both his arms tight to his sides.

“I have killed him!” murmured Bushy, opening his shirt and feeling for his heart.

“No, I think he is only stunned. The snow was deep and saved him,” replied her father.

As the blood commenced to ooze from the wounds where the rope had cut into the flesh, the soldier opened his eyes and attempted to raise himself, but with an ejaculation of pain, fell back again. He gazed at Mr. Sukolt and then at Bushy, and in a bewildered manner exclaimed:

“What has happened to me now?”

Bushy was so delighted to hear him speak that she burst into tears and cried:

“I didn’t kill him; I didn’t kill him!”

“You were going fast to your death, young man,” said Mr. Sukolt, as he raised the man to a sitting position. “You are alive now simply because the lariat checked you. Try to stand up and see if you are very much hurt.”

Assisted by Bushy and her father, the soldier struggled to his feet, shook himself, then pointed significantly to his left sleeve.

“Oh, Padre, his arm is broken,” cried Bushy; “but that is not so bad as a leg, is it?” She looked up wistfully in the soldier’s face; and he laughed, quietly saying, “Quite right, little girl; quite right.”

“No, nor a neck,” replied Mr. Sukolt, smiling.

Once more the sun seemed to shine, and Bushy, withdrawing her support, stepped a little to one side, threw up her cap, and gave three wild hurrahs to express her joy over having saved the soldier from the ravine.

They all three went then to the edge of the precipice and looked down. There was the poor horse mangled to death on the sharp rocks below. When they returned to the shanty Bushy helped to bind up the broken arm, and the soldier rode behind the child on Ned to Cross Roads.

He was an officer in the Government Army and insisted that Bushy should have a grand Christmas dinner in the camp with the rest of the officers. So Tom drove them all in the wagon over to the camp, where Bushy was made the heroine of the day. The captain learned how she longed for a geography, so he sent to New York, and said that a geography should be included in the next wagon-load of freight sent to them. It was, and Bushy has that book to this very day. She thinks it the finest Christmas present she ever got, and that dinner with the soldiers the grandest dinner she ever ate.