CHAPTER VIII
Preparing for the Ball
Nan was quickly made to feel that she had done no small thing in offending the mothers of Las Rubertas. They took it as a personal affront that she had made it possible for Rosario Richards to so eclipse their own progeny upon the one important occasion of the school year.
Her borrowing neighbors ceased their demands and cast dark looks at her end of the Montejo dobe as they passed in the street.
The little Montejos no longer played in her dooryard, and Señor Epiphanio forgot to say "muchas gracias, senorita," when he returned the rope which he took each day to choke his pig, that it might not become too spirited and jump out of its pen.
Then one day Maria Torres cried "Gringo" as she passed the door, and spat contemptuously.
The Mexican who brought her firewood stole it again at night, and when Nan's saddle-horse was found grazing in Pedro Fuentes's alfalfa field, although the corral gate had been securely tied, Señor Fuentes appeared with suspicious alacrity to collect damages.
The last straw was the request of Señora Luiza Montejo for five cents in payment for a cup of chili-sauce which she had sent Nan as a gift some days before.
"I opine that our popularity is on the wane," said Nan dryly as she laid the coin in that lady's outstretched hand. "In fact, if straws show which way the wind blows, I predict that a storm is coming."
Mrs. Gallagher, on her sheepskin with her knees drawn to her chin, made no reply.
It was a small matter, it seemed to Nan, to have caused such feeling, but at that time and in that village it required but a small matter to arouse in the Mexicans the always smoldering hatred of the Americanos.
Therefore, in view of the prevailing unfriendliness, Nan was surprised to see Doña Marianna Apedaca whip her spindling leg over the bars which served as a gate before Nan's end of the dobe, and to note that although the thermometer registered a trifle short of one hundred in the shade, Doña Marianna's solemn countenance was framed in her best blanket-shawl, which fact at once proclaimed it a visit of import.
When she had settled herself on her heels, with her back braced comfortably against the wall, in preference to the chair which Nan offered her, she introduced the topics which were always discussed as a matter of form before the real object of a visit was disclosed.
"Muy viento," said the Doña Marianna profoundly as she produced a tobacco sack from the capacious pocket of her vivid green skirt.
"Yes, much wind," Nan agreed with equal profundity.
"Muy caliente." Doña Marianna twisted a cigarette with immense gravity.
"Very hot," Nan assented.
"Muchas moscas." The caller wagged her head.
"Many flies," Nan assented to the deplorable fact.
The demands of local etiquette having been satisfied, the visitor paused impressively and then demanded ingenuonsly, Mrs. Gallagher translating:
"The señorita will attend a baile, yes? How much money will the señorita donate toward the dance music? Twenty dollars, maybe?"
Nan could not suppress a smile. The neat little plan to have a dance at her expense was rather transparent, since the entire cost of the gifted schoolmaster's orchestra for an evening was but ten dollars, as she happened to know. Nan considered. If the injured feelings of Las Rubertas could be assuaged for this modest sum she was disposed to give it. Also it might buy immunity from their thieving.
"It is a pleasure," she said with an unction truly Spanish, "to be permitted to contribute toward the enjoyment of my many good friends in Las Rubertas."
The reply lost nothing of its irony when interpreted by Mrs. Gallagher.
Doña Marianna blinked her solemn eyes, but took the money which Nan produced and departed with a haste which, to phrase it mildly, was unceremonious.
Immediately the news that the baile was assured spread throughout the village and reached the most remote family within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles.
It was the one topic of conversation in dobes which nestled in lonely bosques, and tumble-down huts huddling in sun-baked arroyos, while it is no exaggeration to say that the whole of Las Rubertas was aquiver.
They chortled at the thought that a gringo was paying for their pleasure; for, like other inferior races, the low-caste Mexicans invariably mistake generosity for weakness, and Nan, in thinking to buy immunity from their thieving, was reckoning upon persons who as a class are devoid of gratitude.
Nan watched the preparations with interest, though she had no thought of going, nor did she believe she was expected. There was now the washing of heads, lathered with soap-root in the front yards, the scurrying to and fro between houses and across the street, while dreadful sounds issued from the schoolmaster's dobe where the orchestra practised each night.
Also, Nan observed that the hostile attitude of her erstwhile friends had become merely contemptuous amusement. She saw now that she was laughed at for her gift.
Nan had no thought that the coming dance would interest Ben, who looked down superciliously upon all things Mexican; but in this she was mistaken.
Pleasures were few and fifty miles was only a scamper when there were music and a dance at the end.
The date of the baile had hardly been set before, in some mysterious fashion, every cowboy in the L.X. outfit knew it, though he carefully refrained from mentioning it until negotiations for certain needed articles of wearing apparel were entered into and the deal consummated. The first to act was Joe Brindell, who took more than a passing pride in his personal appearance upon occasions of the kind. On the whole he considered himself rather a "dressy" person when the function warranted it.
Sauntering up to Kansas Ed he inquired with elaborate carelessness:
"Have you ever thought of sellin' that pink shirt of yourn, Kansas?"
"Well, no," returned the owner of the coveted shirt with equal innocence, "can't say that I had. Why?"
"I was just wonderin' what for a cash value you'd put on a shirt like that."
Kansas considered.
"I couldn't rightly say off-hand just what I would hold that shirt at."
Mr. Brindell, speculatively:
"I b'leeve I'd look good in pink. Maybe I'll write off and git me one."
"No use doin' that—they ain't another shirt like that in the world—not exactly that same color, so they told me up in Coffeeville where I bought it."
"I suppose they took the gent what made that shirt and shovelled his brains out so he couldn't never make another," said Mr. Brindell dryly.
"It's a rare color all right; I've wore it considerable and I never see one like it. People kind a pick me out to look at when I got it on."
"Robin's-aig blue is a nice color for a shirt," observed Brindell reminiscently. "I mind how good I looked in one that was stole off me by a son-of-a-gun from Roswell. I follered him twenty mile."
"It's hard to keep anything fit to wear in a cow-camp," agreed Kansas, "where half the outfit is nothin' but petty thieves. I mind how bad I felt when I lost three good silk handkerchiefs that same way. I took 'em off a dude's neck while he was asleep and then some skunk robbed me."
"If you don't set no great store by that shirt, Kansas, I wouldn't mind givin' you five beans for it." Carelessly, "I kinda took a fancy to it."
The prairie Shylock shook his head.
"Fact is, Joe, I been holdin' that shirt back to be buried in. The way things happen sudden out here it's a good scheme to have one good suit by you."
"Of course,' replied Mr. Brindell haughtily, realizing that he was playing the mouse to Kansas Ed's cat, "of course t'aint my aim to jew a feller out of his shroud, but as far as that goes," he scrutinized Kansas Ed's unprepossessing visage critically, "you'd be jest as good-lookin' a corp' and more natural, with your coat-collar turned up."
"I might think it over if you'd throw in that nawyho saddle-blanket," reflected Kansas.
Joe Brindell hesitated, then, shortly:
"All right; gimme the shirt."
"And," with a look of cunning, "agree to do a warshin' for me the next time you do yours."
"Shan't I jest make over my wages to you and bind myself to saddle your horse and take it off your hands when you rides in? Between times I could darn your socks and keep your clothes mended up. Say," ominously, "I ain't no pauper jest because I don't happen to have a shirt. When I starts to take in warshin' t 'wont be for a Kansan! Ketch that?"
"No offence meant," protested Kansas hastily. "'Twere jest a thought I had. Come over to the bunk-house and git the shirt whenever you want it."
"Looks like you got your head pecked that time, Joe," observed the cook, who had been an interested listener. "That blanket's worth eight dollars. I see you aims to attend the baile."
"Don't you?"
"I'd like to," the cook answered wistfully, "if I could dig me up a pair of socks sommeres."
"Ben Evanses warsh came home day 'fore yestiday," said Mr. Brindell significantly.
"Aw, he watches it too clost." The cook's tone was despondent. "Besides, he'd take them socks off'n me at the dance if he happened to see 'em."
"Do you know, Joe," he went on pensively, "we all has our ambitions. In every human heart they is an ambition if you can jest find it. Some is to kick up a gold mine, some is to waller in a sea of aigs—fraish aigs—some is to hold up a train and git away with it, some is to go to the Legislator, but mine is for socks!
"A barrel of socks—a barrel of socks with toes and heels in 'em! If I could jest wake up in the mornin' and lie there on my piller sayin' to myself: 'Well, what will it be to-day, Clarence? Them pea-green beauties with the vines up the side, er the purple boys with the red stripes!' Say, wouldn't that be heaven, Joe?" The cook rolled his eyes in ecstasy.
"You're ravin', Clarence. You never come honest by six pairs of socks in all your life."
"I knows it," agreed the cook, humbly, "but I can wish, can't I?"
He added mysteriously: "Wishes come true sometimes."
"Yours won't. You been throwin' out them hints ever since I've knowed you—years now—and nothin' out of the ordinary ever happened to you unless might be that kittle of hot grease you pulled over on you."
"All the same," declared the cook plaintively, "maybe it'll pay you to be kind to me."
"I'll allus be kind to you, Clarence, so long as you let me have hot water and shave in the kitchen. By the way," carelessly, "have you heard Ben say whether he's goin' to the baile?"
"He hasn't took me into his confidence so far as that. Ben cuts quite a figger when he's dressed up."
Mr. Brindell looked gloomy. "Takin' ways with women is better nor gold nor silver."
The cook agreed with dark ambiguity:
"Right you are, and moth nor rust dothn't corrupt."