Bushy

“Central City! Here we are,” cried Tom as the wagons reached a high point in the road, from which the travellers could look down on a small town; its little shanties scattered along the side of the mountains.

“It is beautiful,” exclaimed Bushy. “I never saw so many houses in my life. Oh, look! there is a little girl, and there goes a boy! Oh, what a lot of them! One, two, three—Padre, there are six, sure as I live. Hurry the horses, Shanks; let’s catch them before they get away.”

“You don’t think they are mountain sheep, do you, Puss?” said Shanks, with a wink. “I have an idea that they live down there the year round, and you can get a look at them any time.”

“That’s so,” said Bushy, with a laugh. “I forgot things didn’t run away in a great city. This is a great city, isn’t it, Padre?”

“The largest about here. Bill Shoemaker said there was to be a school opened, and that is why we came this way.”

“Perhaps school will disagree with me,” murmured Bushy. “Maybe I won’t take to children. Most likely Rover and Jip will be homesick, and you will send for me to come home again.”

“Home! You don’t know what the word means, child.”

“I don’t know just what you mean when you say home, but I know what I mean. I mean wherever the Padre is, that is what I call home.”

Bushy did not know how near her chatter came to bringing tears to her father’s eyes, and she kept right on, scarcely stopping for breath in her excitement over entering a real town.

It did not take the party long to unhitch the horses and pitch the tent on the outskirts of Central City.

“We must get Bushy some clothes,” said Shanks, who was more thoughtful about her looks than any of the others. “She looks funny even for a mining town. She must have shoes first.”

“Of course she must!” exclaimed her father. “I will go with her and pick them out.”

“Oh, Padre, let me do it. I never was in a big store in my life. I want to go alone, just for fun.”

“I don’t see any fun in buying shoes, but I don’t object. Go down to where you see the bend in the road. A Fourth of July flag still waves in front; do you see it?”

“Yes,” said Bushy breathlessly, as she fairly danced about in her anxiety to be off.

“Go into that store and say you are Mr. Sukolt’s daughter, and that he will pay for the shoes you select.”

“Yes, yes, I can do all that,” and off Bushy flew down the road.

“Please, sir,” said Bushy walking up to the counter—her head coming not so very far above it—“I want a pair of real shoes, like the folks about here wear.”

“What kind did you have last. Let me see and then I can get some idea of what kind you want.”

“I never had any last,” sighed Bushy, gazing down at her moccasins.

“Oh! you are Mr. Sukolt’s little girl, are you?” inquired Mr. Richards, the owner of the store, and he smiled and leaned over to shake her by the hand.

“Yes, sir; I am not so awfully little though,” she replied, half offended at the word.

“You shall have your pick of my stock just the same,” said the shoeman, and he set before her all kinds of foot-wear.

Bushy gazed upon them with a critical eye and shook her head. “Once I saw what was awfully pretty and I want something just like it.”

“Tell me about it, do,” said the shoeman. “I’ll have a pair made for you.”

“This girl was in a picture that hung in Shanks’s cabin until a fire came and burned it up. Her shoes came up awfully high and had buttons on the side, and a lot of pretty marks all around the edges.”

“What do you want such shoes for?” questioned Mr. Richards, and he laughed softly as if much amused.

“To wear to school; I am going to stay here and learn to study.”

“I have only one pair of button shoes and they have buttons on both sides, but, by jove! you shall have them if you want them. They are a sample pair that we could never sell here.”

He brought out a pair of delicate kid boots that laced up the front and had a beautiful embroidered piece that buttoned on one side and lapped over the lacing, and then buttoned down fast on the other, making an ornamental front that extended from the toe of the boot to the top.

Bushy’s eyes beamed with delight. Her moccasin was off in a jiffy and her plump right foot settled itself into the kid boot with a determined thud, meaning to stay there.

“It just fits, and I’ll take these,” she said, though the shoe was much too large. “Two rows of buttons are prettier than one, anyway; and won’t the Padre be proud when he sees me?”

“I think he will,” answered the shoeman; “for I am sure he did not expect you to buy kid boots to wear in the Rocky Mountains.”

“Oh, yes, he did. He said get just what I wanted,” insisted Bushy putting on the other boot.

“All right then; shall I do them up?”

“Do them up? What for? Can’t I have them?” Bushy’s eyes opened wide in fear. “I am sure the Padre will pay for them; he said so.”

“Oh, that’s not it. Don’t you want paper around them to carry them?”

“I am not going to take them off,” she persisted, and by the time the shoeman understood what she was going to do she had laced both boots and was struggling with the buttons.

“You are going to wear them?” he asked, bending to help her.

“Wear them! Why, what would I do with them if not wear them? What a funny man you are! I must hurry and show the Padre,” she said; “I won’t ever wear moccasins any more—no, what do I want of them? You can throw them away.”

“I would rather you would do it,” said the shoeman, handing her the neat bundle containing her leggings and moccasins which she had discarded. She flung them down on the floor disdainfully.

“Oh, how light I feel; it seems as if I could fly,” she murmured as she darted like a deer up the rough street—not knowing, of course, that kid cannot stand knocks against sharp rocks.

The shoes made her oblivious to everything else. The people were looking and wondering who in the world she was, but it did not take them long to find out she was Bushy Sukolt. Many of them had heard about her, and especially well known was the fact that she could shoot and ride like few other little people in the world. They came out of the stores and watched as she darted by.

“I wonder how they look going,” thought Bushy, and she lifted her skirt high and stooped over to watch the boots as they ran along.

Bump she went, into a post—she lost her balance and fell over into a deep ditch by the roadside.

“Are you hurt?” asked a man as he climbed down and helped pull her up.

“Oh, no, sir. I have just got a pair of new shoes, and I am going to Padre.” On she went, this time looking back as she ran, to get the effect of her boots.

“Take care!” screamed a man with a pick on his shoulder, but he spoke too late—over she tumbled into the ditch on the other side before the old miner could catch her.

“I’m not hurt, thank you!” she exclaimed, trying to rub the dirt off the boots with her petticoat. “Do you know my Padre? I am going home to show my shoes. Now, you stand there and see how quick I can get to the tent.”

Bushy did not know what the word stranger meant; she had seen so many miners—new ones almost every day—and the idea of introduction had never entered her head. She never doubted that the miner would enjoy hearing of her shoes when he learned they were new. “They go very well, but I wish I could see just how they look. Do you like two rows of buttons better than one? My foot looks awful little, doesn’t it? Padre won’t know me; now watch!” and not waiting for a reply, she started again up the hill on the keen jump. Her arms swayed from right to left, and she would lean this way and then that, to get a glimpse of her shoes when they were going. Forgetting all about the miner, who smiled and went on his way, she bounded into the tent and found it empty. “Padre has gone out. Hello, who are you?” she cried, as a little girl came in.

“I am Bessie Gray, and I live up there on the hill. We are going to play steal sticks and want you to go on our side. Can you run?”

“I just guess I can! See my new shoes! They are dirty now, but Tom can clean them. What is ‘steal sticks?’ Are there a lot of children in Central City?”

Just to the right and around the bend were eleven youngsters—six boys and five girls.

Bushy made the twelfth, and they were delighted to have the full number for “steal sticks.”

“We must stay on this side of the long line across the road and the boys on the other, and ten feet from the line on each side we put six sticks, and there is a circle on each side of the sticks, on each side, called the jail. Now, what is your name?” asked the girl, turning to Bushy. Bushy told her. Then Bessie went on explaining the game. “We girls must try and steal all the sticks on the boys’ side, and the boys will try to get ours. If we are touched on the other side of the line we are put in jail, and must wait there till one of the girls can run and touch us, but you can’t keep a stick unless you steal it, and get across the line again without being touched by the boys. Everything depends on how good a runner you are.”

“Oh, my!” said Bushy, “we’ll beat the boys. I’ll bet my new shoes on it.”

“Huh,” said Mike Shaker, “we’ll see about that!”

The game began and the game ended, and Bushy had stolen five out of the six sticks that the girls had added to their six in store.

“You beat us, did you?” cried Bushy, as she shook the whole bundle at the boys. She stood bareheaded, with her blouse opened from her neck to her belt; her cheeks were red as roses, and it was indeed a pretty picture that met Mr. Sukolt’s eyes as he came around to find her.

“We beat the boys, Padre,” she cried, running to him, and the eleven crowded about, to say she was the best runner they ever saw.

“Oh, I can run so fast in shoes—in shoes,” she stammered, catching sight of her shoes for the first time since she began the game—they were in rags! The tender kid was cut so that the sole clung to the tops only by narrow strips.

“My shoes! my shoes! Oh, Padre, what has happened to them?” She dropped her sticks and burst into tears. “They looked so grand coming up the hill. Oh, Padre, they were such beauties. What will I do?”

“Better put on the moccasins and we will try again,” said Mr. Sukolt, finding it difficult to suppress a smile in spite of his little girl’s distress.

“I left them in the store and I’ll have to go barefooted,” she cried. Mike slipped out and soon brought the missing bundle, and by invitation of Mr. Sukolt the whole team of “steal sticks” went to the tent, where the children remained an hour to console Bushy on the disaster that had befallen her first pair of shoes.

“Never mind, Bushy,” said Mike, “you are the champion ‘steal sticks’ runner, and to-morrow we’ll give you a party for beating us so.”

“How much am I to pay for Bushy’s ‘steal sticks’ shoes?” asked Mr. Sukolt of the shoeman that night, after Bushy had gone to sleep.

“I could not prevent her taking the boots,” he said; “she simply bossed us here. I never enjoyed anything in my life like watching her efforts to see how they looked while she was running. It is a marvel she did not break her neck when she rolled into the ditch.”

“How much?” asked Mr. Sukolt, again.

“Just $4.50 they cost me, but not a cent will I take,” answered the shoeman.

Mr. Sukolt then ordered a strong pair of calfskin shoes to take their place.

Not so very long ago Bushy was in Denver, and met the shoeman, who is now a great politician. Mr. Richards had been Congressman and a lot of other things, but he had not forgotten Bushy’s first pair of shoes, and asked her if she was still the champion “steal sticks” runner.