VI. EM'LY
My personage was a hen, and she lived at the Sunk Creek Ranch.
Judge Henry's ranch was notable for several luxuries. He had milk, forexample. In those days his brother ranchmen had thousands of cattle veryoften, but not a drop of milk, save the condensed variety. Thereforethey had no butter. The Judge had plenty. Next rarest to butter and milkin the cattle country were eggs. But my host had chickens. Whether thiswas because he had followed cock-fighting in his early days, or whetherit was due to Mrs. Henry, I cannot say. I only know that when I took ameal elsewhere, I was likely to find nothing but the eternal "sowbelly,"beans, and coffee; while at Sunk Creek the omelet and the custard werefrequent. The passing traveller was glad to tie his horse to the fencehere, and sit down to the Judge's table. For its fame was as wide asWyoming. It was an oasis in the Territory's desolate bill-of-fare.
The long fences of Judge Henry's home ranch began upon Sunk Creek soonafter that stream emerged from its canyon through the Bow Leg. It wasa place always well cared for by the owner, even in the days of hisbachelorhood. The placid regiments of cattle lay in the cool of thecottonwoods by the water, or slowly moved among the sage-brush, feedingupon the grass that in those forever departed years was plentiful andtall. The steers came fat off his unenclosed range and fattened stillmore in his large pasture; while his small pasture, a field some eightmiles square, was for several seasons given to the Judge's horses, andover this ample space there played and prospered the good colts whichhe raised from Paladin, his imported stallion. After he married, I havebeen assured that his wife's influence became visible in and about thehouse at once. Shade trees were planted, flowers attempted, and to thechickens was added the much more troublesome turkey. I, the visitor, waspressed into service when I arrived, green from the East. I took hold ofthe farmyard and began building a better chicken house, while the Judgewas off creating meadow land in his gray and yellow wilderness. Whenany cow-boy was unoccupied, he would lounge over to my neighborhood, andsilently regard my carpentering.
Those cow-punchers bore names of various denominations. There was HoneyWiggin; there was Nebrasky, and Dollar Bill, and Chalkeye. And they camefrom farms and cities, from Maine and from California. But the romanceof American adventure had drawn them all alike to this great playgroundof young men, and in their courage, their generosity, and theiramusement at me they bore a close resemblance to each other. Each onewould silently observe my achievements with the hammer and the chisel.Then he would retire to the bunk-house, and presently I would overhearlaughter. But this was only in the morning. In the afternoon on manydays of the summer which I spent at the Sunk Creek Ranch I would goshooting, or ride up toward the entrance of the canyon and watch the menworking on the irrigation ditches. Pleasant systems of water runningin channels were being led through the soil, and there was a sound ofrippling here and there among the yellow grain; the green thick alfalfagrass waved almost, it seemed, of its own accord, for the wind neverblew; and when at evening the sun lay against the plain, the rift of thecanyon was filled with a violet light, and the Bow Leg Mountains becametransfigured with hues of floating and unimaginable color. The sun shonein a sky where never a cloud came, and noon was not too warm nor thedark too cool. And so for two months I went through these pleasantuneventful days, improving the chickens, an object of mirth, living inthe open air, and basking in the perfection of content.
I was justly styled a tenderfoot. Mrs. Henry had in the beginningendeavored to shield me from this humiliation; but when she found that Iwas inveterate in laying my inexperience of Western matters bare to allthe world, begging to be enlightened upon rattlesnakes, prairie-dogs,owls, blue and willow grouse, sage-hens, how to rope a horse or tightenthe front cinch of my saddle, and that my spirit soared into enthusiasmat the mere sight of so ordinary an animal as a white-tailed deer, shelet me rush about with my firearms and made no further effort to staveoff the ridicule that my blunders perpetually earned from the ranchhands, her own humorous husband, and any chance visitor who stopped fora meal or stayed the night.
I was not called by my name after the first feeble etiquette due to astranger in his first few hours had died away. I was known simply as"the tenderfoot." I was introduced to the neighborhood (a circleof eighty miles) as "the tenderfoot." It was thus that Balaam, themaltreater of horses, learned to address me when he came a twodays' journey to pay a visit. And it was this name and my notorioushelplessness that bid fair to end what relations I had with theVirginian. For when Judge Henry ascertained that nothing could preventme from losing myself, that it was not uncommon for me to saunter outafter breakfast with a gun and in thirty minutes cease to know northfrom south, he arranged for my protection. He detailed an escort for me;and the escort was once more the trustworthy man! The poor Virginian wastaken from his work and his comrades and set to playing nurse for me.And for a while this humiliation ate into his untamed soul. It was hislugubrious lot to accompany me in my rambles, preside over my blunders,and save me from calamitously passing into the next world. He bore it incourteous silence, except when speaking was necessary. He would show methe lower ford, which I could never find for myself, generally mistakinga quicksand for it. He would tie my horse properly. He would recommendme not to shoot my rifle at a white-tailed deer in the particular momentthat the outfit wagon was passing behind the animal on the further sideof the brush. There was seldom a day that he was not obliged to hastenand save me from sudden death or from ridicule, which is worse. Yetnever once did he lose his patience and his gentle, slow voice, andapparently lazy manner remained the same, whether we were sitting atlunch together, or up in the mountain during a hunt, or whether hewas bringing me back my horse, which had run away because I had againforgotten to throw the reins over his head and let them trail.
"He'll always stand if yu' do that," the Virginian would say. "See howmy hawss stays right quiet yondeh."
After such admonition he would say no more to me. But this tamenursery business was assuredly gall to him. For though utterly a manin countenance and in his self-possession and incapacity to be put ata loss, he was still boyishly proud of his wild calling, and wore hisleather straps and jingled his spurs with obvious pleasure. His tigerlimberness and his beauty were rich with unabated youth; and that forcewhich lurked beneath his surface must often have curbed his intoleranceof me. In spite of what I knew must be his opinion of me, thetenderfoot, my liking for him grew, and I found his silent company moreand more agreeable. That he had spells of talking, I had already learnedat Medicine Bow. But his present taciturnity might almost have effacedthis impression, had I not happened to pass by the bunk-house oneevening after dark, when Honey Wiggin and the rest of the cow-boys weregathered inside it.
That afternoon the Virginian and I had gone duck shooting. We hadfound several in a beaver dam, and I had killed two as they sat closetogether; but they floated against the breastwork of sticks out in thewater some four feet deep, where the escaping current might carry themdown the stream. The Judge's red setter had not accompanied us, becauseshe was expecting a family.
"We don't want her along anyways," the cow-puncher had explained to me."She runs around mighty irresponsible, and she'll stand a prairie-dog'bout as often as she'll stand a bird. She's a triflin' animal."
My anxiety to own the ducks caused me to pitch into the water withall my clothes on, and subsequently crawl out a slippery, triumphant,weltering heap. The Virginian's serious eyes had rested upon thisspectacle of mud; but he expressed nothing, as usual.
"They ain't overly good eatin'," he observed, tying the birds to hissaddle. "They're divers."
"Divers!" I exclaimed. "Why didn't they dive?"
"I reckon they was young ones and hadn't experience."
"Well," I said, crestfallen, but attempting to be humorous, "I did thediving myself."
But the Virginian made no comment. He handed me my double-barrelledEnglish gun, which I was about to leave deserted on the groundbehind me, and we rode home in our usual silence, the mea
n littlewhite-breasted, sharp-billed divers dangling from his saddle.
It was in the bunk-house that he took his revenge. As I passed I heardhis gentle voice silently achieving some narrative to an attentiveaudience, and just as I came by the open window where he sat on his bedin shirt and drawers, his back to me, I heard his concluding words,"And the hat on his haid was the one mark showed yu' he weren't asnappin'-turtle."
The anecdote met with instantaneous success, and I hurried away into thedark. The next morning I was occupied with the chickens. Two hens werefighting to sit on some eggs that a third was daily laying, and whichI did not want hatched, and for the third time I had kicked Em'ly offseven potatoes she had rolled together and was determined to raise Iknow not what sort of family from. She was shrieking about the hen-houseas the Virginian came in to observe (I suspect) what I might be doingnow that could be useful for him to mention in the bunk-house.
He stood awhile, and at length said, "We lost our best rooster when Mrs.Henry came to live hyeh."
I paid no attention.
"He was a right elegant Dominicker," he continued.
I felt a little riled about the snapping-turtle, and showed no interestin what he was saying, but continued my functions among the hens. Thisunusual silence of mine seemed to elicit unusual speech from him.
"Yu' see, that rooster he'd always lived round hyeh when the Judge wasa bachelor, and he never seen no ladies or any persons wearing femalegyarments. You ain't got rheumatism, seh?"
"Me? No."
"I reckoned maybe them little odd divers yu' got damp goin' afteh--" Hepaused.
"Oh, no, not in the least, thank you."
"Yu' seemed sort o' grave this mawnin', and I'm cert'nly glad it ain'tthem divers."
"Well, the rooster?" I inquired finally.
"Oh, him! He weren't raised where he could see petticoats. Mrs. Henryshe come hyeh from the railroad with the Judge afteh dark. Next mawnin'early she walked out to view her new home, and the rooster was a-feedin'by the door, and he seen her. Well, seh, he screeched that awful I runout of the bunk-house; and he jus' went over the fence and took downSunk Creek shoutin' fire, right along. He has never come back."
"There's a hen over there now that has no judgment," I said, indicatingEm'ly. She had got herself outside the house, and was on the bars of acorral, her vociferations reduced to an occasional squawk. I told himabout the potatoes.
"I never knowed her name before," said he. "That runaway rooster, hehated her. And she hated him same as she hates 'em all."
"I named her myself," said I, "after I came to notice her particularly.There's an old maid at home who's charitable, and belongs to the Crueltyto Animals, and she never knows whether she had better cross in frontof a street car or wait. I named the hen after her. Does she ever layeggs?"
The Virginian had not "troubled his haid" over the poultry.
"Well, I don't believe she knows how. I think she came near being arooster."
"She's sure manly-lookin'," said the Virginian. We had walked toward thecorral, and he was now scrutinizing Em'ly with interest.
She was an egregious fowl. She was huge and gaunt, with great yellowbeak, and she stood straight and alert in the manner of responsiblepeople. There was something wrong with her tail. It slanted far toone side, one feather in it twice as long as the rest. Feathers on herbreast there were none. These had been worn entirely off by her habit ofsitting upon potatoes and other rough abnormal objects. And this lentto her appearance an air of being decollete, singularly at variancewith her otherwise prudish ensemble. Her eye was remarkably bright, butsomehow it had an outraged expression. It was as if she went about theworld perpetually scandalized over the doings that fell beneath hernotice. Her legs were blue, long, and remarkably stout.
"She'd ought to wear knickerbockers," murmured the Virginian. "She'dlook a heap better 'n some o' them college students. And she'll set onpotatoes, yu' say?"
"She thinks she can hatch out anything. I've found her with onions, andlast Tuesday I caught her on two balls of soap."
In the afternoon the tall cow-puncher and I rode out to get an antelope.
After an hour, during which he was completely taciturn, he said: "Ireckon maybe this hyeh lonesome country ain't been healthy for Em'ly tolive in. It ain't for some humans. Them old trappers in the mountainsgets skewed in the haid mighty often, an' talks out loud when nobody'snigher 'n a hundred miles."
"Em'ly has not been solitary," I replied. "There are forty chickenshere."
"That's so," said he. "It don't explain her."
He fell silent again, riding beside me, easy and indolent in the saddle.His long figure looked so loose and inert that the swift, light springhe made to the ground seemed an impossible feat. He had seen an antelopewhere I saw none.
"Take a shot yourself," I urged him, as he motioned me to be quick. "Younever shoot when I'm with you."
"I ain't hyeh for that," he answered. "Now you've let him get away onyu'!"
The antelope had in truth departed.
"Why," he said to my protest, "I can hit them things any day. What'syour notion as to Em'ly?"
"I can't account for her," I replied.
"Well," he said musingly, and then his mind took one of those particularturns that made me love him, "Taylor ought to see her. She'd be just theschoolmarm for Bear Creek!"
"She's not much like the eating-house lady at Medicine Bow," I said.
He gave a hilarious chuckle. "No, Em'ly knows nothing o' them joys. Soyu' have no notion about her? Well, I've got one. I reckon maybe she washatched after a big thunderstorm."
"In a big thunderstorm!" I exclaimed.
"Yes. Don't yu' know about them, and what they'll do to aiggs? Abig case o' lightnin' and thunder will addle aiggs and keep 'em fromhatchin'. And I expect one came along, and all the other aiggs ofEm'ly's set didn't hatch out, but got plumb addled, and she happened notto get addled that far, and so she just managed to make it through. Butshe cert'nly ain't got a strong haid."
"I fear she has not," said I.
"Mighty hon'ble intentions," he observed. "If she can't make out to layanything, she wants to hatch somethin', and be a mother anyways."
"I wonder what relation the law considers that a hen is to the chickenshe hatched but did not lay?" I inquired.
The Virginian made no reply to this frivolous suggestion. He was gazingover the wide landscape gravely and with apparent inattention. Heinvariably saw game before I did, and was off his horse and crouchedamong the sage while I was still getting my left foot clear of thestirrup. I succeeded in killing an antelope, and we rode home with thehead and hind quarters.
"No," said he. "It's sure the thunder, and not the lonesomeness. How doyu' like the lonesomeness yourself?"
I told him that I liked it.
"I could not live without it now," he said. "This has got into mysystem." He swept his hand out at the vast space of world. "I went backhome to see my folks onced. Mother was dyin' slow, and she wanted me.I stayed a year. But them Virginia mountains could please me no more.Afteh she was gone, I told my brothers and sisters good-by. We like eachother well enough, but I reckon I'll not go back."
We found Em'ly seated upon a collection of green California peaches,which the Judge had brought from the railroad.
"I don't mind her any more," I said; "I'm sorry for her."
"I've been sorry for her right along," said the Virginian. "She doeshate the roosters so." And he said that he was making a collection ofevery class of object which he found her treating as eggs.
But Em'ly's egg-industry was terminated abruptly one morning, and herunquestioned energies diverted to a new channel. A turkey which had beensitting in the root-house appeared with twelve children, and a family ofbantams occurred almost simultaneously. Em'ly was importantly scratchingthe soil inside Paladin's corral when the bantam tribe of newly borncame by down the lane, and she caught sight of them through the bars.She crossed the corral at a run, and intercepted two of the chicks thatwer
e trailing somewhat behind their real mamma. These she undertookto appropriate, and assumed a high tone with the bantam, who was thesmaller, and hence obliged to retreat with her still numerous family.I interfered, and put matters straight; but the adjustment was onlytemporary. In an hour I saw Em'ly immensely busy with two more bantams,leading them about and taking a care of them which I must admit seemedperfectly efficient.
And now came the first incident that made me suspect her to be demented.
She had proceeded with her changelings behind the kitchen, where one ofthe irrigation ditches ran under the fence from the hay-field to supplythe house with water. Some distance along this ditch inside the fieldwere the twelve turkeys in the short, recently cut stubble. Again Em'lyset off instantly like a deer. She left the dismayed bantams behind her.She crossed the ditch with one jump of her stout blue legs, flew overthe grass, and was at once among the turkeys, where, with an instinctof maternity as undiscriminating as it was reckless, she attempted tohuddle some of them away. But this other mamma was not a bantam, and ina few moments Em'ly was entirely routed in her attempt to acquire a newvariety of family.
This spectacle was witnessed by the Virginian and myself, and itovercame him. He went speechless across to the bunk-house, by himself,and sat on his bed, while I took the abandoned bantams back to their owncircle.
I have often wondered what the other fowls thought of all this. Someimpression it certainly did make upon them. The notion may seem out ofreason to those who have never closely attended to other animals thanman; but I am convinced that any community which shares some of ourinstincts will share some of the resulting feelings, and that birds andbeasts have conventions, the breach of which startles them. If there beanything in evolution, this would seem inevitable. At all events,the chicken-house was upset during the following several days. Em'lydisturbed now the bantams and now the turkeys, and several of theselatter had died, though I will not go so far as to say that this wasthe result of her misplaced attentions. Nevertheless, I was seriouslythinking of locking her up till the broods should be a little older,when another event happened, and all was suddenly at peace.
The Judge's setter came in one morning, wagging her tail. She had hadher puppies, and she now took us to where they were housed, in betweenthe floor of a building and the hollow ground. Em'ly was seated on thewhole litter.
"No," I said to the Judge, "I am not surprised. She is capable ofanything."
In her new choice of offspring, this hen had at length encountered anunworthy parent. The setter was bored by her own puppies. She found thehole under the house an obscure and monotonous residence compared withthe dining room, and our company more stimulating and sympathetic thanthat of her children. A much-petted contact with our superior race haddeveloped her dog intelligence above its natural level, and turned herinto an unnatural, neglectful mother, who was constantly forgetting hernursery for worldly pleasures.
At certain periods of the day she repaired to the puppies and fed them,but came away when this perfunctory ceremony was accomplished; and shewas glad enough to have a governess bring them up. She made no quarrelwith Em'ly, and the two understood each other perfectly. I have neverseen among animals any arrangement so civilized and so perverted.It made Em'ly perfectly happy. To see her sitting all day jealouslyspreading her wings over some blind puppies was sufficiently curious;but when they became large enough to come out from under the house andtoddle about in the proud hen's wake, I longed for some distinguishednaturalist. I felt that our ignorance made us inappropriate spectatorsof such a phenomenon. Em'ly scratched and clucked, and the puppies ranto her, pawed her with their fat limp little legs, and retreated beneathher feathers in their games of hide and seek. Conceive, if you can, whatconfusion must have reigned in their infant minds as to who the setterwas!
"I reckon they think she's the wet-nurse," said the Virginian.
When the puppies grew to be boisterous, I perceived that Em'ly'smission was approaching its end. They were too heavy for her, and theirincreasing scope of playfulness was not in her line. Once or twice theyknocked her over, upon which she arose and pecked them severely, andthey retired to a safe distance, and sitting in a circle, yapped ather. I think they began to suspect that she was only a hen after all.So Em'ly resigned with an indifference which surprised me, until Iremembered that if it had been chickens, she would have ceased to lookafter them by this time.
But here she was again "out of a job," as the Virginian said.
"She's raised them puppies for that triflin' setter, and now she'llbe huntin' around for something else useful to do that ain't in herbusiness."
Now there were other broods of chickens to arrive in the hen-house, andI did not desire any more bantam and turkey performances. So, to avoidconfusion, I played a trick upon Em'ly. I went down to Sunk Creek andfetched some smooth, oval stones. She was quite satisfied with these,and passed a quiet day with them in a box. This was not fair, theVirginian asserted.
"You ain't going to jus' leave her fooled that a-way?"
I did not see why not.
"Why, she raised them puppies all right. Ain't she showed she knows howto be a mother anyways? Em'ly ain't going to get her time took up fornothing while I'm round hyeh," said the cow-puncher.
He laid a gentle hold of Em'ly and tossed her to the ground. She, ofcourse, rushed out among the corrals in a great state of nerves.
"I don't see what good you do meddling," I protested.
To this he deigned no reply, but removed the unresponsive stones fromthe straw.
"Why, if they ain't right warm!" he exclaimed plaintively. "The poor,deluded son-of-a-gun!" And with this unusual description of a lady, hesent the stones sailing like a line of birds. "I'm regular getting stuckon Em'ly," continued the Virginian. "Yu' needn't to laugh. Don't yu' seeshe's got sort o' human feelin's and desires? I always knowed hawsseswas like people, and my collie, of course. It is kind of foolish, Iexpect, but that hen's goin' to have a real aigg di-rectly, right now,to set on." With this he removed one from beneath another hen. "We'llhave Em'ly raise this hyeh," said he, "so she can put in her timeprofitable."
It was not accomplished at once; for Em'ly, singularly enough, wouldnot consent to stay in the box whence she had been routed. At length wefound another retreat for her, and in these new surroundings, with anew piece of work for her to do, Em'ly sat on the one egg which theVirginian had so carefully provided for her.
Thus, as in all genuine tragedies, was the stroke of Fate wrought bychance and the best intentions.
Em'ly began sitting on Friday afternoon near sundown. Early next morningmy sleep was gradually dispersed by a sound unearthly and continuous.Now it dwindled, receding to a distance; again it came near, took aturn, drifted to the other side of the house; then, evidently, whateverit was, passed my door close, and I jumped upright in my bed. The high,tense strain of vibration, nearly, but not quite, a musical note, waslike the threatening scream of machinery, though weaker, and I boundedout of the house in my pajamas.
There was Em'ly, dishevelled, walking wildly about, her one eggmiraculously hatched within ten hours. The little lonely yellow ball ofdown went cheeping along behind, following its mother as best it could.What, then, had happened to the established period of incubation? Foran instant the thing was like a portent, and I was near joining Em'ly inher horrid surprise, when I saw how it all was. The Virginian had takenan egg from a hen which had already been sitting for three weeks.
I dressed in haste, hearing Em'ly's distracted outcry. It steadilysounded, without perceptible pause for breath, and marked her erraticjourney back and forth through stables, lanes, and corrals. The shrilldisturbance brought all of us out to see her, and in the hen-house Idiscovered the new brood making its appearance punctually.
But this natural explanation could not be made to the crazed hen. Shecontinued to scour the premises, her slant tail and its one preposterousfeather waving as she aimlessly went, her stout legs stepping high withan unnatural motion, her head lifted nea
rly off her neck, and inher brilliant yellow eye an expression of more than outrage atthis overturning of a natural law. Behind her, entirely ignored andneglected, trailed the little progeny. She never looked at it. We wentabout our various affairs, and all through the clear, sunny day thatunending metallic scream pervaded the premises. The Virginian put outfood and water for her, but she tasted nothing. I am glad to say thatthe little chicken did. I do not think that the hen's eyes could see,except in the way that sleep-walkers' do.
The heat went out of the air, and in the canyon the violet light beganto show. Many hours had gone, but Em'ly never ceased. Now she suddenlyflew up in a tree and sat there with her noise still going; but it hadrisen lately several notes into a slim, acute level of terror, and wasnot like machinery any more, nor like any sound I ever heard before orsince. Below the tree stood the bewildered little chicken, cheeping, andmaking tiny jumps to reach its mother.
"Yes," said the Virginian, "it's comical. Even her aigg acted differentfrom anybody else's." He paused, and looked across the wide, mellowingplain with the expression of easy-going gravity so common with him. Thenhe looked at Em'ly in the tree and the yellow chicken.
"It ain't so damned funny," said he.
We went in to supper, and I came out to find the hen lying on theground, dead. I took the chicken to the family in the hen-house.
No, it was not altogether funny any more. And I did not think less ofthe Virginian when I came upon him surreptitiously digging a little holein the field for her.
"I have buried some citizens here and there," said he, "that I haverespected less."
And when the time came for me to leave Sunk Creek, my last word to theVirginian was, "Don't forget Em'ly."
"I ain't likely to," responded the cow-puncher. "She is just one o' themparables."
Save when he fell into his native idioms (which, they told me, hiswanderings had well-nigh obliterated until that year's visit to his homeagain revived them in his speech), he had now for a long while droppedthe "seh," and all other barriers between us. We were thorough friends,and had exchanged many confidences both of the flesh and of the spirit.He even went the length of saying that he would write me the Sunk Creeknews if I would send him a line now and then. I have many letters fromhim now. Their spelling came to be faultless, and in the beginning waslittle worse than George Washington's.
The Judge himself drove me to the railroad by another way--across theBow Leg Mountains, and south through Balaam's Ranch and Drybone to RockCreek.
"I'll be very homesick," I told him.
"Come and pull the latch-string whenever you please," he bade me. Iwished that I might! No lotus land ever cast its spell upon man's heartmore than Wyoming had enchanted mine.