Lin McLean by Owen Wister (motivational books to read txt) đ
- Author: Owen Wister
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But all the while I was speaking this, Jessamineâs eyes were fixed on Lin, and her face remained white.
I left the girl and the man and the little boy together, and crossed to the hotel. But its air was foul, and I got my roll of camp blankets to sleep in the clean night, if sleeping-time should come; meanwhile I walked about in the silence To have taken a wife once in good faith, ignorant she was anotherâs, left no stain, raised no barrier. I could have told Jessamine the same old story myselfâor almost; but what had it to do with her at all? Why need she know? Reasoning thus, yet with something left uncleared by reason that I could not state, I watched the moon edge into sight, heavy and rich-hued, a melon-slice of glow, seemingly near, like a great lantern tilted over the plain. The smell of the sagebrush flavored the air; the hush of Wyoming folded distant and near things, and all Separ but those three inside the lighted window were in bed. Dark windows were everywhere else, and looming above rose the water-tank, a dull mass in the night, and forever somehow to me a Sphinx emblem, the vision I instantly see when I think of Separ. Soon I heard a door creaking. It was Billy, coming alone, and on seeing me he walked up and spoke in a half-awed voice.
âSheâs a-crying,â said he.
I withheld from questions, and as he kept along by my side he said: âIâm sorry. Do you think sheâs mad with Lin for what heâs told her? She just sat, and when she started crying he made me go away.â
âI donât believe sheâs mad,â I told Billy; and I sat down on my blanket, he beside me, talking while the moon grew small as it rose over the plain, and the light steadily shone in Jessamineâs window. Soon young Billy fell asleep, and I looked at him, thinking how in a way it was he who had brought this trouble on the man who had saved him and loved him. But that man had no such untender thoughts. Once more the door opened, and it was he who came this time, alone also. She did not follow him and stand to watch him from the threshold, though he forgot to close the door, and, coming over to me, stood looking down.
âWhat?â I said at length.
I donât know that he heard me. He stooped over Billy and shook him gently. âWake, son,â said he. âYou and I must get to our camp now.â
âNow?â said Billy. âCanât we wait till morning?â
âNo, son. We canât wait here any more. Go and get the horses and put the saddles on.â As Billy obeyed, Lin looked at the lighted window. âShe is in there,â he said. âSheâs in there. So near.â He looked, and turned to the hotel, from which he brought his chaps and spurs and put them on. âI understand her words,â he continued. âHer words, the meaning of them. But not what she means, I guess. It will take studyinâ over. Why, she donât blame me!â he suddenly said, speaking to me instead of to himself.
âLin,â I answered, âshe has only just heard this, you see. Wait awhile.â
âThatâs not the trouble. She knows what kind of man I have been, and she forgives that just the way she did her brother. And she knows how I didnât intentionally conceal anything. Billy hasnât been around, and she never realized about his mother and me. Weâve talked awful open, but that was not pleasant to speak of, and the whole country knew it so longâand I never thought! She donât blame me. She says she understands; but she says I have a wife livinâ.â
âThat is nonsense,â I declared.
âYuâ mustnât say that,â said he. âShe donât claim sheâs a wife, either. She just shakes her head when I asked her why she feels so. It must be different to you and me from the way it seems to her. I donât see her view; maybe I never can see it; but sheâs made me feel she has it, and that sheâs honest, and loves me trueââ His voice broke for a moment. âShe said sheâd wait.â
âYou canât have a marriage broken that was never tied,â I said. âBut perhaps Governor Barker or Judge Henryââ
âNo,â said the cow-puncher. âLaw couldnât fool her. Sheâs thinking of something back of law. She said sheâd waitâalways. And when I took it in that this was all over and done, and when I thought of my ranch and the chickensâwell, I couldnât think of things at all, and I came and waked Billy to clear out and quit.â
âWhat did you tell her?â I asked.
âTell her? Nothinâ, I guess. I donât remember getting out of the room. Why, hereâs actually her pistol, and sheâs got mine!â
âMan, man!â said I, âgo back and tell her to keep it, and that youâll wait tooâalways!â
âWould yuâ?â
âLook!â I pointed to Jessamine standing in the door.
I saw his face as he turned to her, and I walked toward Billy and the horses. Presently I heard steps on the wooden station, and from its black, brief shadow the two came walking, Lin and his sweetheart, into the moonlight. They were not speaking, but merely walked together in the clear radiance, hand in hand, like two children. I saw that she was weeping, and that beneath the tyranny of her resolution her whole loving, ample nature was wrung. But the strange, narrow fibre in her would not yield! I saw them go to the horses, and Jessamine stood while Billy and Lin mounted. Then quickly the cow-puncher sprang down again and folded her in his arms.
âLin, dear Lin! dear neighbor!â she sobbed. She could not withhold this last goodbye.
I do not think he spoke. In a moment thehorses started and were gone, flying, rushing away into the great plain, until sight and sound of them were lost, and only the sagebrush was there, bathed in the high, bright moon. The last thing I remember as I lay in my blankets was Jessamineâs window still lighted, and the water-tank, clear-lined and black, standing over Separ.
DESTINY AT DRYBONE
Children have many special endowments, and of these the chiefest is to ask questions that their elders must skirmish to evade. Married people and aunts and uncles commonly discover this, but mere instinct does not guide one to it. A maiden of twenty-three will not necessarily divine it. Now except in one unhappy hour of stress and surprise, Miss Jessamine Buckner had been more than equal to life thus far. But never yet had she been shut up a whole day in one room with a boy of nine. Had this experience been hers, perhaps she would not have written to Mr. McLean the friendly and singular letter in which she hoped he was well, and said that she was very well, and how was dear little Billy? She was glad Mr. McLean had stayed away. That was just like his honorable nature, and what she expected of him. And she was perfectly happy at Separ, and âyours sincerely and always, âNeighbor.â âPostscript. Talking of Billy Luskâif Lin was busy with gathering the cattle, why not send Billy down to stop quietly with her. She would make him a bed in the ticket-office, and there she would be to see after him all the time. She knew Lin did not like his adopted child to be too much in cow-camp with the men. She would adopt him, too, for just as long as convenient to Linâuntil the school opened on Bear Creek, if Lin so wished. Jessamine wrote a good deal about how much better care any woman can take of a boy of Billyâs age than any man knows. The stage-coach brought the answer to this remarkably soonâ young Billy with a trunk and a letter of twelve pages in pencil and inkâ the only writing of this length ever done by Mr. McLean.
âI can write a lot quicker than Lin,â said Billy, upon arriving. âHe was fussing at that away late by the fire in camp, anâ waked me up crawling in our bed. Anâ then he had to finish it next night when he went over to the cabin for my clothes.â
âYou donât say!â said Jessamine. And Billy suffered her to kiss him again.
When not otherwise occupied Jessamine took the letter out of its locked box and read it, or looked at it. Thus the first days had gone finely at Separ, the weather being beautiful and Billy much out-of-doors. But sometimes the weather changes in Wyoming; and now it was that Miss Jessamine learned the talents of childhood.
Soon after breakfast this stormy morning Billy observed the twelve pages being taken out of their box, and spoke from his sudden brain. âHoney Wiggin says Linâs losing his grip about girls,â he remarked. âHe says you couldnât âaâ downed him onced. Youâd âaâ had to marry him. Honey says Lin ainât worked it like he done in old times.â
âNow I shouldnât wonder if he was right,â said Jessamine, buoyantly. âAnd that being the case, Iâm going to set to work at your things till it clears, and then weâll go for our ride.â
âYes,â said Billy. When does a man get too old to marry?â
âIâm only a girl, you see. I donât know.â
âYes. Honey said he wouldnât âaâ thought Lin was that old. But I guess he must be thirty.â
âOld!â exclaimed Jessamine. And she looked at a photograph upon her table.
âBut Lin ainât been married very much,â pursued Billy. âMotherâs the only one they speak of. You donât have to stay married always, do you?â
âItâs better to,â said Jessamine.
âAh, I donât think so,â said Billy, with disparagement. âYou ought to see mother and father. I wish you would leave Lin marry you, though,â said the boy, coming to her with an impulse of affection. âWhy wonât you if he donât mind?â
She continued to parry him, but this was not a very smooth start for eight in the morning. Moments of lull there were, when the telegraph called her to the front room, and Billyâs young mind shifted to inquiries about the cipher alphabet. And she gained at least an hour teaching him to read various words by the sound. At dinner, too, he was refreshingly silent. But such silences are unsafe, and the weather was still bad. Four oâclock found them much where they had been at eight.
âPlease tell me why you wonât leave Lin marry you.â He was at the window, kicking the wall.
âThatâs nine times since dinner,â she replied, with tireless good humor. âNow if you ask me twelveââ
âYouâll tell?â said the boy, swiftly.
She broke into a laugh. âNo. Iâll go riding and youâll stay at home. When I was little and would ask things beyond me, they only gave me three times.â
âIâve got two more, anyway. Ha-ha!â
âBetter save âem up, though.â
âWhat did they do to you? Ah, I donât want to go a-riding. Itâs nasty all over.â He stared out at the day against which Separâs doors had been tight closed since morning. Eight hours of furious wind had raised the dust like a sea. âI wish the old train would come,â observed Billy, continuing to kick the wall. âI wish I was going somewheres.â Smoky, level, and hot, the south wind leapt into Separ across five hundred unbroken
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