The Ranch at the Wolverine

ke several chapters which you certainly would skip-unless you like to hear the tale of how the wilderness was tamed and can thrill at the stern hist

rough prairie and the scanty sage. I might tell you a great deal about Marthy, who plodded stolidly across the desert and the lo

s between huge lava-rock ledges to join the larger stream. Jase would have stopped there and called home the sheltered little green spot

nd feasted upon its rich grasses. It was Marthy who went after them and who recognized the little, hidden Eden as the place of her dreams-supposing she ever had dreams. So Marthy and Jase and the four oxen took possession, and with much labor and many hard years for the woman, and with the same number of yea

; a girl-child when she should have been a boy to meet her father's need and great desire; a girl-child whose very name was a compromise between the parents. For they called her Billy for sa

Meet her with her pink sunbonnet hanging down the back of her neck and her big eyes taking in the squalidness of Marthy's crude kitchen in the Cove, and her terrible directness of speech hitting squarely the things sh

op. I'll put two on top of one and bring it over for you, Marthy. And-" Billy Louise was terribly outspoken at times-"I'll put four raisings on another one for Jase, 'cause he don't have any nice times with you. Don't you ever make cookies with raisings on 'em, Marthy? I'm hun

mebbe she wouldn't work her butter so awful much, either. I dunn

y says so. I guess I won't put but one raising on Jase's co

ot suller. You want some bread and some nice, new honey, Billy Louise? I jest took it outa

put it on thick, so I can't taste the bread, I

back on the slim, wide-eyed gi

t ten Billy Louise was keenly sensitive to tones and glances and th

hy was clumsy with words, and she was always coming to the barrier between her powers of

ou had tears inside, and they couldn't get out your eyes

n a box beside the rough kitchen table and looked at B

e sounds when she says something

urt folks on purpose-I've learnt that much about yuh." Marthy half rose from the box, and with her dingy, patched apron shooed an investigative hen out of the doorway. She knew that

ver m

. And I seen so much misery amongst the women-folks-you can't understand that, but mebby you will when you grow up. Anyway, when little Minervy kep' growin' purtyer and sweeter, I couldn't stand it to think of her growin' up and bein' a Mormon's wife. I seen so many purty girls... So I made up my mind we'd move away off s

er next them three buttes little Minervy took sick. We tried to git outa the desert-we headed over this way. But before we got to Snake river she-died, and I had to leave 'er buried back there. We come on. I hated the church worse than ever, and I wanted to git clear away from 'em. Why, Billy Louise, we camped

ays you remind me of her, only she was quieter and didn't take so much notice of things a young one ain't s'posed to notice. Now I don't want you askin' no more questions about her, 'cause I ain'

le. She wanted to go and put her arms around Marthy's neck and kiss her; only Marthy's neck had a hairy mole, and there was no part of her face which looked in the least degree kissable. Still, Billy Louise felt herself all hot inside w

tar of sympathy. When that failed to stop the slow procession of tears that was traveling down the furrows o

honey she had not yet licked off the bread. Marthy held her close pressed to her big, flabby bosom and wept into her hair in a queer, whimpering way that somehow made Billy Louise think

athed person. She was astonished at the outburst from phlegmatic Marthy Meilke, and her pity was now alloyed with her promise to wash all those dirty dishes. Billy Louise felt that she had been a trifle hasty i

to work at 'em," she said aloud, as was her habit-being a c

for a forward step if the fates seemed kind-and was regarding Billy Louise fixedly with one yellow eye. "Take it and go!" cried the donor, impatient of the

to catch a baby trout in her cupped palms. Never had Billy Louise succeeded in catching a baby trout in her hands; therefore she never tired of trying. Now, however, that rash promise nagged at her and would not let her enjoy the game as completely as usual. She took the wooden pail, and squatting on her heels in t

l she tired of watching them, or they died because she forgot to change the water often enough. She could not get even a languid enjoyment out of them now, because she could not for a minute

y Louise meditatively stirred up the baby trout with a forefinger. "We'd go up the canyon and have the caves for our play-houses. Minervy could have the secret cave away up the hill, and I'd have the other one across from it; and we'd have flags and wigwag messages like daddy tells about in the war. And we'd play the rabbits are Injuns, and the coyotes are big-Injun-chiefs sneaking down t

branch of bloom-laden lilac. "She could wash the dishes and I'd wipe 'em-and I s'pose th

somewhat meager supply there seemed not one clean dish in the house. The sympathy of Billy Louise therefore waned rapidly; rather, it turned in upon itself. So that by the time she felt morally free to spend th

ordered path. "If she had, I guess she wouldn't have died. I'll bet she never gave her a speck of sage tea, lik

e upon a forbidden subject. Jase had been Minervy's father, and therefore knew of her existence, so that mentioning Minervy to him could not in any sense be b

the weather. Jase must be gone. She was turning away when she heard him clear his throat with that peculiar little hacking, rasping noise which sounded exac

tically into the sudden flood of sweet, spring air and sunshine.

illy Louise faced him puzzled. "

icked up a shriveling potato with long, sickly sprouts proclaiming life's persistence in perpetuating itself under adve

nded, watching Jase reach lan

some of ketchin' a mess of fish before I went to sproutin' p'ta

e glanced toward the wider stream, wher

ase moved slowly at his task. Billy Louise, watching him, wondered why he did not hurry a little and finish sooner. Still, she

re bait, and then we'l

ed aimlessly over the potato pile. "I go

se craftily. "And you work fast; and then I'll let you out, and

t what it'd serve Marthy right. She ain't got no call to lock the door on me. She hates like sin t' see me with a fish-pole in m' hand-but she's

complaining. But the cellar door closed upon him with a slam. Billy Louise was not interest

"But I know she was mean to Minervy. She's awful mean to Jase-locking him up in the root cellar just 'cause he wanted to go fishing. If I was Jase I wouldn't sprout a

with her over every hard tug-even though that companion was only Jase-enticed her to stay on and on, until a whi

bed the bank. "You come and lock the door agin, Billy Louise, and Marthy won't know I ain't been there

houlder-blades, stared at him with wide eyes that held disillusionment and with it a con

bout it. Daddy says so. I don't care if Marthy is mad 'cause I let you out, and I don't care if she knows we went fishing. I thought you wanted M

ad," Jase wavered, his eyes shifting f

e boy of me that belongs to dad ain't a sneak, Jase Meilke. And," she added loftily, "the girl of me t

ched short skirts up the path and he

o the cellar and fell to sprouting potatoe

ed" that afternoon. There was other work to be done in the Cove, and there were but two pairs of hands to do it; that one pair was slow and s

en he felt unusually energetic, he liked to dangle an impaled worm over a trout pool. Theoretically he also wanted to get ahead and to have a fine ranch and lots of cattle and a comfortable home. He would plan these things sometimes in an expansive mood, whereupon Marthy wo

nd when one listens to vague mutterings for many hard laboring years, one grows accustomed to the comp

beauty, even if she could not realize her dream of prosperity. Wherever was space in the house-yard for a flower or a fruit tree or a berry bush, Marthy planted one or the other. You could not see the cabin from April until the leaves fell in late October, except in a fragmentary way as you walked around it. You went in at a gate of pickets which Marthy h

something. She tried to talk it over with Marthy, but Marthy could not seem to think beyond the Cove, except that now and then Billy Louise would suspect that her mind did travel to the desert and M

r with a loaf of bread she had baked all by

book of it with pictures. But I do love to make bread-and people

r attention briefly to the question, a

get notions. Your maw ain't healthy, and your paw likes good

ely. She had just read all about Walter Scott in a magazine which a passing

ee our debts paid off with po'try. It'd have to

piles of 'em. He bought some cattle and now he talks to mommie all the time about debts. Mommie wants me to go to Bo

a man that was any good on earth, I could put up more hay. But I can't git nothing outa Jase but

w how she finished the sentence mentall

Marthy went on aggressively. "Debts er no debts, he'd

ke Jase. He says he wishes he could, but h

in' to take?" ask

e importance of the subject. "Fifty dollars, I guess. I've got

fifty dollars?" Marthy's t

est," said Billy

She carried fifty dollars in her pocket-and that was practically all the money Marthy possessed, and had been saved for the debts that harassed her. She gave the money to Billy Louise's mother and said that it was a present for

k the money, and she promised secrecy-with a feeling of relief that Marthy wished it. She was astonished to find that Marthy had any feelin

e never mentioned the matter to anyone. The next year it was the same; when, in August, she questioned Billy Louise clumsily upon the subject of finances, and learned that "daddy" st

Billy Louise grew older and prettier and more accustomed to the ways of town, she needed more money, and the August gift grew proportionately larger. The mother was thankful beyond the point of questionin

hen her father died tragically beneath an overturned load of poles from the mountain at the head of the canyon, Billy Louise came home. The Billy of her tried to take his place, and t