United States or Tajikistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was a silence, and then: "Me don't know," observed Jackrabbit thoughtfully. A moment later, however, he added: "Me marry you how much me get give fatha huh?" Wowkle raised her narrowing eyes to his and told him with absolute indifference: "Huh me don't know." Jackrabbit's face darkened. He pondered for a long time. "Me don't know " suddenly he began and then stopped.
Nevertheless, as before, the calm look which he saw on the Girl's face reassured him. Advancing once more towards her, he stretched out his arms as if to gather her in them. "Look out, you'll muss my roses!" she cried, waving him back and dodging Wowkle who, having cleared the table, was now making her last trip to the cupboard.
"Oh, Lord, here he is!" she cried, panic-stricken, and began to drag herself hurriedly across the room with the intention of concealing herself behind the curtain at the foot of the bed; while Wowkle, with unusual celerity, made for the fire-place, where she stood with her back to the door, gazing into the fire.
Immediately Wowkle edged up close to him and together they continued in chorus: "Or as um faded flo'r, Um wintry winds sweep o'er um plain, We pe'ish in um ho'r." "But Gar," said the man when the song was ended, at the same time taking his pipe away from her, "to-morrow we go missionary sing like hell get whisky." But as Wowkle made no answer, once more a silence fell upon them.
"Ugh!" snarled Wowkle, resentfully, her eyes full of fire. Now at any other time, The Sidney Duck would have been made to pay dearly for his words, but either the Girl did not hear him, or if she did she was too engrossed to heed them; at any rate, the remark passed unnoticed. "I got it on!" presently exclaimed the Girl in great joy.
He was on the point of putting his finger through the centre of one of them when Wowkle the Indian woman-of-all-work of the cabin, who sat upon the floor before the fire singing a lullaby to the papoose strapped to its cradle on her back turning suddenly her gaze in his direction, was just in time to prevent him. "Charlotte rusk Palmetto rest'rant not take," were her warning words.
"Land of the Pilgrim's pride, From every mountain side Let freedom ring." All the while the Indians were singing the last lines of the hymn the Girl's face was a study in reminiscent dreams, but when they had finished and were leaving the room, she came back to earth, as it were, and clapped her hands, an appreciation which brought forth from Wowkle a grateful "Huh!"
P'r'aps they ain't so much in the saloon business for a woman after all, and you don't know what livin' really is until " She stopped abruptly and threw upon the floor the slipper that refused to give to her foot. "Oh, Wowkle," she went on, taking up the other slipper, "it's nice to have someone you can talk to, someone you can turn your heart inside out to."
"He's comin' now, now; he's comin'!" the Girl was saying, when suddenly her eyes were attracted to a pair of stockings hanging upon the wall; quickly she released her hold on the woman and with a hop, skip and a jump they were down and hid away in her bureau drawer. "My roses what did you do with them, Wowkle?" she asked a trifle impatiently as she fumbled in the drawer.
"Ugh!" grunted Wowkle, and pointed to a corner of the bureau top. "Good!" cried the Girl, delightedly, as she spied them. The next instant she was busily engaged in arranging them in her hair, pausing only to take a pistol out of her pocket, which she laid on the edge of the bureau.
Word Of The Day