The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-11-25

the lazy ungainlineSs of south western
architecture. A collection of temporary
make-shifts of boards, of logs, of canvas,
prematurely decayed, and in some in
starceS abandoned for a newer erection, or
degraded TO mere outhouses-t presented
with singular frankness the nomadic and
tentatlue disposition of its founder. 1t had
been repaired without being improved; its
additions had seemed only to extend its
primitive ugliness over larger space. Its
roofs were rougly shing ed or rudely
boarded and battened, and the rafters of
some of its ''lean-to's" were simply covered
With tarred canvas. As if to settle anv
doubt of the impossibilty of this
Heterogeneous mass ever taking upon itself
any picturesque combination, small
building OF corrugated iron. transported in
sections from some remoter locality, had
been set up in its center. The Mckinstry
ranch mad long been an eyesore to the mas
ter; even that morning he had been mutely
wondering from what convolution of that
hideous chrysalis the bright butterfly
Cressy had emerged, 1t was with a renewal
of this curiosity that he had just seen her
fiutter back to it again.
A yellow dog who had observed him hest
tating in doubt where he should enter, here
yawned, rose from the sunlight where he
had been blinking, approached the master
with languid politeneSs and then turned to-
the way. Mr.. Ford followed him cautiously,
painfully conscious that his hypocrtical
canine intrCducer was only awaiting himself
of an opportunity to gain ingress into the
house, and was leading him as a responsible
accomplice to probable exposure and dis
grace. His expectation was quickly real
lied lazly Querulous, feminine outcry,
with the words: "Yer's that darned hound
aginr' came fran an adjacent room, and
his exposed and abashed companion swiftly
retreated past him into the road again. Mr..
Ford found himself alone in a plainly
furnished sitting room confronting the open
door leading to another apartment at which
the figure of a woman, preceded hastily by
thrown dishcloth, had just appeared. 1t
was Mrs. McklnStry; her sleeves were
rolled up over her red but still shapely
arms, and as she stood there wiping them on
her apron, with her elbows advanced, and
her closed hands raised alternately in the air,
there was an odd pugilistic suggestion in
her attitude. 1t was not lessened on her
sudden discovery of the master by ner re-
treating backward with her hands up and
her elbows still well forward as if warily
retiring to an imaginary corner"
Mr.. Ford at once tactfully stepped back
from the doorway:
II beg your pardon" he said, delicately,
addressing the opposite wall "but | found
the door open and followed the dog"
That's just one of his pizenous tricks"
responded Mrs. McKinstry, dolefully, from
within. "On'y last week he let in a China
man, and in the nat'raI hustlin' that follered
he managed to help himself outer the pork
bar'l. There amt no shade o cussedness
that Urinary hound amt up to-"
Yet notwithstanding this ominouS com
pariSon she presently made her appearance
with her sleeves turned down, her black
woollen dress "tidied," and smile of ia
tigued but not unkindly welcome and pro-
lection on her face. busting a chair with
her apron and placing it before the master,
she continued materially:
NOW at you're here, set ye right down
and make yerself to home. My men folks
are all out o. door. but some of ems sure to
happen in soon for suthin'; the day amt
yet created that they don't come huntin' up
Nanny McKinstry every five minutes for
this thing or that"
The glow of certain hard pride burned
through the careworn languor of her brown
cheek What she had said was strangely
true. This raw-boned woman before him,
although scarcely middle aged, had for
years occupied a self-imposed maternal and
protecting relation, not only to her husband
and brothers, but to the three or four men,
who, as partners, or hired hands, lived at
the ranch. An inherited and trained SYM
pathy with what she called her "boys" and
her linen folk" and their needs had partly
unsexed her.
She was fair type of a class not uncom-
mon on the southwestern frontier; women
who were ruder helpmeets of their rude
husbands and brothers, who had shared
their privations and sufferings with surly,
masculine endurance, rather than feminine
patience; women who had sent their loved
ones to hopeless adventure, or terrible
vendetta as a matter of course, or with
partizau fury; who had devotedly nursed
the wounded to keep alive the feud, or had
received back their dead dry-eyed and re-
vengeful Small wonder that Cressy Nc
Kinstry had developed strangely under this
sexless relationship. Looking at the mother
albeit not without a certain respect-Mr.
Ford found himself contrasting her with
the daughters graceful femininity, and
wondering where in Cressy's youthful con-
tour, the possibility of the grim figure be-
fore him was even now hidden.
"Hiram allowed to go over to the school
house and see you this mornin'," said Mrs.
McKinstry, after pause; but reckon ez
how he had to look up stock On the river.
The cattle are that wild this time o. year,
huntin' water, and hangin' round the tules,
that my men are nigh Worried out O. their
butes with 'em. Hank and Jim amt been
off their mustangs since sun up, and Hiram,
what with patrollen' the west boundary all
night, watchin stakes whar them low down
Harrisons hev been trespassin'-hain't put
his feet to the ground in fourteen hours.
Mebbe you noticed Hiram ez YOU KEN
along? Eff so, ye didn't remember what
kind o. shootin' irons he had with hima l
see his rife over yon. Like ez not he's only
got his six-shooter, aud them Harrisons are
mean enough to lay for him at long range.
But" she added, returning to the less i'm
portant topic, II s'pose Cressy came all
right"
Eyes" said the master, hopelessly.
81 reckon she looked So, continued Mrs.
McKinstry, with tolerant abstraction. "She
allowed to do herself credit in one of them
new store gownds that she got at Sacra-
mento. AT least that's what some of our
men said Late years, l amt kept tech
with the fashions myself"
She passed her fingers explanatorily down
the folds of her own coarse gown, but with
out regret or apology.
'She seemed we'll prepared in her lessons"
said the master. abandoning for the mo-
ment that criticism of his pupils dress,
which he saw was utterly futile, "but am /
to understand that she is coming regularly
to school-that she is DOW perfectly free to
give her entire attention TO her studies
that-that - her - engagement is broken
off?n
"Why, didn't she tell yea" echoed Mrs
McKinstry, in languid surprise.
"She certainly did" said the master, with
slight embarrassment "but-"
''Ef she said so" interrupted Mrs. Nc
Kinstry, abstractedly, ''she oughter know.
and YOU kin tie to what she says"