Hearts Desire | Page 6

town now and again for love of danger, or for lack of
aguardiente. It was so very white and solemn and content,--this street
of Heart's Desire on Christmas Eve. Far across the arroyo, as Curly had
said, there gleamed red the double windows of the cabin which had
been preempted by the man from Leavenworth. To-night the man from
Leavenworth sat with bowed head and beard upon his bosom.
Christmas Day dawned, brilliant, glorious. There was not a Christmas
tree in all Heart's Desire. There was not a child within two hundred
miles who had ever seen a Christmas tree. There was not a woman in
all Heart's Desire saving those three newcomers in the cabin across the
arroyo. Yet these new-comers were acquainted with the etiquette of the
land. There was occasion for public announcement in such matters.
At eleven o'clock in the morning the man from Leavenworth and the
Littlest Girl from Kansas came out upon the street. They were
ostensibly bound to get the mail, although there had been no mail stage
for three days, and could be none for four days more, even had the man
from Leavenworth entertained the slightest thought of getting any mail
at this purely accidental residence into which the fate of a tired team
had thrown him. Yet there must be the proper notification that he and
his family had concluded to abide in Heart's Desire; that he was now a
citizen; that he was now entitled by the length of his beard to be called
"'Squire," and to be accepted into all the councils of the town. This
walk along the street was notice to the pure democracy of that land that
all might now leave cards at the cabin across the arroyo. One need
hardly doubt that the populace of Heart's Desire was lined up along the
street to say good morning and to receive befittingly this tacit pledge of
its newest citizen. Moreover, as to the Littlest Girl, all Heart's Desire
puffed out its chest. Once more, indeed, the camp was entitled to hold
up its head. There were Women in the town! Ergo Home; ergo
Civilization; ergo Society; and ergo all the rest. Heretofore Heart's
Desire had wilfully been but an unorganized section of savagery; but
your Anglo Saxon, craving ever savagery, has no sooner found it than
he seeks to civilize it; there being for him in his aeon of the world no

real content or peace.
"I reckon the old man is goin' to take a look at the post-office to see
how he likes the place," said Curly, reflectively, as he gazed after the
gentleman whom he had frankly elected as his father-in-law. "He'll get
it, all right. Never saw a man from Leavenworth who wasn't a good
shot at a postoffice. But say, about that Littlest Girl--well, I wonder!"
Curly was very restless until dinner-time, which, for one reason or
another, was postponed until about four of the afternoon. We met at
Dan Anderson's law office, which was also his residence, a room about
a dozen feet by twenty in size. The bunks were cleaned up, the blankets
put out of the way, and the centre of the room given over to a table,
small and home-made, but very full of good cheer for that time and
place. At the fireplace, McKinney, flushed and red, was broiling some
really good loin steaks. McKinney also allowed his imagination to soar
to the height of biscuits. Coffee was there assuredly, as one might tell
by the welcome odor now ascending. Upon the table there was
something masked under an ancient copy of a newspaper. Outside the
door of the adobe, in the deepest shade obtainable, sat two soap boxes
full of snow, or at least partly full, for Tom Osby had done his best. In
one of these boxes appeared the proof of Curly's truthfulness--three
cans of oysters, delicacies hitherto unheard of in that land! In the other
box was an object almost as unfamiliar as an oyster can,--an oblong,
smooth, and now partially frost-covered object with tinfoil about its
upper end. A certain tense excitement obtained.
"I wonder if she'll get frappe enough," said Dan Anderson. He was a
Princeton man once upon a time.
"It don't make no difference about the frappy part," said Curly, "just so
she gets cold enough. I reckon I savvy wine some. I never was up the
trail, not none! No, I reckon not! Huh?"
We agreed on Curly's worldliness cheerfully; indeed, agreed cheerfully
that all the world was a good place and all its inhabitants were
everything that could be asked. Life was young and fresh and strong.
The spell of Heart's Desire was upon us all that Christmas Day.

"Now," said Curly, dropping easily into the somewhat vague