VII
SCOTTY’S FIRST ROMANCE
The home that was to be the abode of the Ranger family during the journey was an over-jutting wagon-box,—Harry called it a “hurricane deck,”—made to fit over the running gear of a substantial wagon, in which a dozen or more persons might be stowed away at night in crosswise fashion. It was named “the saloon” by the teamsters, in jocose recognition of its owner’s well-known teetotal habits, and was assigned to the women and children as their especial domicile.
“It will be your duty to keep a daily record of our journey, Jean.”
This was the first official order issued by Captain Ranger after he had been formally elected as commander of the expedition, and was given under the thickly falling snow, amid the bustle and confusion of making the first camp.
“What sort of a record?”
“A daily write-up of current events. Here is a brand-new blank-book I have bought for the purpose. And here’s a portable inkstand, with some lead pencils, a pocket knife, and a box of pens. I’ve selected you as scribe because you won the prize in that competitive contest over the doings of Bismarck.”
“But that was a different proposition, daddie.”
“It’s all in the same line, Jean. You have a record to preserve now. You must keep your credit good. Look to your laurels, and don’t forget!”
And Jean, partly from innate ambition, but chiefly because she was under orders from which she knew there could be no appeal, kept, through all the tedious journey, a diary, from which the chronicler of these pages proposes to cull such fragments as may fit into the narrative, without strict regard to chronology, though with due regard to facts.
“We made camp last night in the discomfort of a driving snowstorm,” wrote the scribe under date of April 2. “But in spite of our sorrow over our departure from home and loved ones, the most of us were jolly, and we made the best we could of the situation. To-night, after a day’s disagreeable wheeling through mud that freezes at night and thaws by day, making travel nasty, sticky, and tedious, we stopped for camp near an isolated farmhouse, where the goodwife is disheartened and sick, and the children are ragged, dirty, and frightened.
“The storm has abated, and the sky is clear. Our teamsters are kneeling on the ground around our mess-boxes, which are used for tables at mealtime, and stored in the ends of the wagons when we are moving ahead.”
“There, I can’t think of another word to write.” She closed the book with a bang.
For many minutes after gathering around the tables, all were too busy with the supper to make any attempt at conversation.
Beans and bacon, coffee and crackers, and great heaps of stewed fruits, were reinforced by mountains of steaming flapjacks, which Mary and Marjorie took turns at baking, their eyes watery from the smoke of the open fire, and their cheeks reddened by the wind.
“Wonder what’s become o’ Scotty,” said Captain Ranger, as he knelt in the absent teamster’s place at table and helped himself bountifully.
“He filled our water-buckets and was off like a shot,” said Hal. “He ought to show up at mealtime. Ah, there he comes.”
“Where’ve you been, Scotty?” asked the Captain. “Here’s plenty of room. Kneel, and give an account of yourself.”
“So you’re in love, eh, Scotty? and with that pretty widow in the next camp?”
The questioner was a tall, lanky teamster, answering to the appellation of Shorty.
“Never in love before,” said Scotty, as he swallowed his coffee with a gulp.
An uproarious laugh ran around the table.
“Her hair is like the flower o’ Scotia’s broom in springtime, and the sheen o’ her eyes is like Loch Achray!” exclaimed Scotty, as he passed his plate for a fresh relay of flapjacks.
“A love affair doesn’t spoil his appetite,” laughed Marjorie.
“I want you all to understand that no falling in love’ll be allowed on this journey,” said the Captain, dryly. “There’ll be time enough for that kind o’ nonsense after you get to Oregon and get settled.”
“Love, like death, has all seasons for its own, sir,” retorted Scotty, with a deferential bow.
“Women and war don’t go together,” replied his employer. “And you’ll find this journey is a good deal like war before you’re done with it.”
“Everything is fair in both love and war, sir.”
“Excuse me,” said a woman in black, with a low, mellow voice and blond complexion, who might have heard herself discussed if she had listened. The clatter around the table stopped instantly.
“We’re in a quandary, mamma and I,” she said, blushing. “Our matches are damp and won’t burn. I thought perhaps—”
A half-dozen men were on their feet in an instant, and half-a-dozen hands went suddenly into half-a-dozen pockets, while half-a-dozen blocks of matches were forthcoming in less than half a minute.
“Here are more than I need, gentlemen, and I thank you ever so much,” she said, taking the offer from Scotty; and, with a bow and a smile to all, she was gone.
“The red of her lips is like rubies, the white of her teeth is like pearls, and her voice is a symphony,” said Scotty, looking after her as she ran.
“Scotty’s attack is as sudden as it is serious,” laughed Lengthy, a short, stocky teamster, whose nickname was a ludicrous misfit.
“What freak o’ fate do you s’pose it was that brought that beauty out here on a journey like this?” asked Yank, a Southern-born teamster, whose accepted nickname was another palpable misnomer, and who dropped his r’s, like a negro preacher.
“I know!” cried Bobbie, his fingers dripping with molasses. “She came to meet Scotty.”
The laugh that followed disconcerted the child, who ran, abashed, to his mother in the family wagon.
“I thought,” exclaimed Sambo,—a gaunt Vermonter, who dropped his g’s as frequently as Yank dropped his r’s,—“I thought there’d be several ladies comin’ along, to keep us company.”
“Can you tell us why Mrs. O’Dowd didn’t join us?” asked Yank, turning deferentially to the Captain. “I thought we were to have the pleasure of one woman’s company,—I mean in addition to the ladies present, of course.”
Jean exchanged furtive glances with her father, who averted his face, and said: “That’s a conundrum, Yank. Ask me something easy.”
The next noticeable entry in Jean’s diary was made on the fifth of April, and was as follows:—
“The snow this morning is four inches deep. We camped last night in the mud and slush, in a narrow lane, after a hard day’s wheeling through the miry roads. Mother, dear woman, is weary and weak, but daddie got her a warm room in the farmhouse near us, where we children are allowed to go sometimes to thaw our marrow-bones by a pleasant fire.
“April 6. Cloudy to-day, with a threat of rain. But mother urges a forward movement, so Mary and Marjorie are packing the mess-boxes, and daddie says I must write up this horrid diary. There is nothing to write about. The country through which we are struggling is swampy, monotonous, muddy, and level. Cheap, rickety farmhouses are seen at intervals; the bridges are gone from most of the swollen streams; our way goes through narrow, muddy lanes, with crooked, tumble-down fences; and we see, every now and then, a discouraged-looking woman and a lot of half-clad children peeping through open doors, from the midst of a crowd of half-starved dogs. Daddie says these frontier people (and dogs) are the forerunners of all civilization; but I think they’re the embodiment of desolation and discouragement.
“April 7. The ague has broken out among our teamsters. We stopped to-night at a farmhouse, where suspicious women treated us like so many thieves. The whole family were barefoot, and lacked everything but numbers. Mother says that starvation has aroused their cupidity, and we mustn’t mind their suspicious airs. They had no feed for sale for the stock, and no supplies to sell for our table; but there were plenty of guns and dogs,—the latter a thieving lot,—from which we shall be glad to escape when we again see morning. Weather and roads no better.
“April 8. Mother quite ill again; but the skies are clear, and she insists on moving forward.
“April 11. No food for man or beast to be had for love or money. We must move onward, sick or well.
“April 12. A better-settled region. The scenery is often fine. Pussy-willows peep at us from marshy edges, and birds are singing in the budding treetops. Sick folks no better. Bought a liberal supply of corn for the stock, and a lot of butter, eggs, and chickens for the rest of us, so we have a feast in prospect. Camped on the edge of a pretty little village, on a nice green grass-plat. Daddie took us girls to a prayer-meeting. The good people eyed us askance. Evidently they thought us freaks. Certainly our slat sunbonnets and soiled linsey-woolsey dresses were not reassuring.”
The next day, at nightfall, the party reached Quincy, on the Mississippi, and camped on a flat bit of upland outside of the city’s limits, where many other wayfarers, like themselves, had halted and encamped.
“Did you notice Scotty?” asked Marjorie, approaching Jean, who sat on a wagon-tongue, trying to think of something out of the ordinary to jot in her journal.
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s been preening his feathers like a turkey-gobbler for the last half-hour. Guess our pretty widow and her aristocratic mamma have caught up with our train. Just watch him! See how the ex-scientist, ex-statesman, ex-orator, and now ex-almost-anything is making a fool of himself!”
“All people, of both sexes, get a spell of the simples, sooner or later,” laughed Jean. “Daddie says that when the system is in the right condition to catch it, one gets it bad.”
“Guess I’ll ride out and look over the town a little, Annie,” said the Captain to his wife after the family had retired for the night. “I want to look out a little for our Scotty. He seems to need a guardian.”
Scotty, though a characteristic specimen of the educated Scotchman, was a loyal adherent of the institutions of his adopted country. He had been a member of the constitutional conventions of two border States, and was known as a writer and orator of no mean ability. But, like many another brilliant man, he had passed his fortieth year without acquiring a home, a family, or a competence. He was well versed in the “Rise and Fall of Republics,” and had travelled much in foreign lands,—themes of which he never tired. But he could never reduce ox-driving to a science.
Captain Ranger rode to the top of the bluffs, where he leisurely contemplated the scene. Lights reflected from town and river danced and gleamed, but barely made the darkness visible in the muddy streets. Church bells rang, steamers whistled, and longshoremen tugged at heavy loads. Powerful horses propelled great, clumsy freight-wagons through the unpaved streets. Foot passengers picked their way through slop and mud.
“Railroads will come here some day,” said the Captain to himself. “They will compete with the river traffic and cripple it. Other towns, like Chicago, will divert the trade, and there is no telling what the end will be. What a busy, bustling world it is, anyhow!”
“Halloa, Captain!”
“Well, I’m blanked if it isn’t Scotty!”
“I’ve been to call upon the widows we met in the beginning of our journey, sir, and I’ve been thinking it would be a handsome thing for you to do if you’d take them into our company, Captain Ranger.”
“We’ll see about it, Scotty; but I’m afraid you won’t earn your salt if I let them join us. I s’pose I’ll have to risk it, though.”