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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1901)
THE COURIER. ' CHUG. KATUABINE MELICK. (For The Courier.) stood ever since Jonas Marvin died, leav ing his new house unfinished. It had been a long time since a Marvin had shown signs of discontent. i uon i seem naterel for him to He aint got nothin' go to The farmer's wife gathered her apron corners together as she stepped wearily ff that 'a way over the low, broad fence into the wood pile. "1 wonder if Oavid'll ever get that gale cut through," she thought, looking under her sun-bonnet rim oft" toward the whaat-field. The big red thresher stood motionlees, with dust clouds settling around it. The men were leading the homes toward the lung, u',n bim, when he's made up his mind reached the top of the slope. la the in the straw. Then he climbed back stretch of low-land at the foot of the through the window, unhitched the hill, a man was riding a barrow over the horses, and led them to the watering- trough. He loosened the rope from the windlass, and let the bucket whizz down the well. "Just hear that, Jane," said David Woods to his wife. ' lie's busted two corn-stalk. The barrow bad a kitchen chair nailed to the frame. A man sat in the chair, holdincr the lines straight complain of. It jest seems as though out before him, with gloved hands, we icaint suit him." Chug sent the ears faster and faster in- David Woods shifted his boote uneasi- to the wagon. As it turned, at the end ly. "I reckon he'll go back, after I've of the row, he saw the low, black houeo had a talk with him." with its rasped walla. A tall sir! with Mrs. Marvin shook her head heluless- bare feet and arms waa carrvinir two to have some nn about him 'nhn nrmornr I'. Ao. Taint no kind o' USD to nrirv wooden nails toward thn trnuirh tint fur ad nnmnarhnt nhnrnlv. and hnr huahaml 0rf 1 .. D v- .. -. v v...p .. MW. MWUWMMl. from the door. He could Bee the little watched her clamber over tho fence, in wall-buckets a' ready, an' this un leaks." "Jane" went on tilling her apron with sticks of wood. "Taint bo bad for a man energetically into the stove, and the fire blazed up with a Hare that sent little puffs of smoke starting from the cracks around the stove lids. Her eyes ached, as she stirred the great kettlo of steamy potatoes, and low Stable. r Jep 'd go EOm'er's else" the ivnnla white nice runnimr from thn barn a fiilance. ITn nrnllrnri alnorlv in tSn tahtA She clambered quickly over the fence died into unmeaning syllables. It waa a queer barn with boarded windows and a stopping once to wonder whethor "Jau- again, hurried to the kitchen, and let waJ' of speaking, peculiar to the MarvinB roof sunken like a "sway-backed" horse, ey" might have wanted him to carry the sticks fall with a thud into the big hesitating, uncertain lapse, that oft- It had been the first home of the Mar- the wood for her. Then he looked in at wood-box, keeping a hand-full in the ea stopped a sentence before it was well vine. Chug pulled up his blackened the barn-window, and forgot the wood, corner of her apron TheBe she poked begun. felt brim, and his mouth twitched as he "Chug!" he shouted. "Well. Why doesn't Jefferson go turned his back to the girl and the pigs, Chug slouched from the cow-"shed. somewhere else?" and labored up the slope. When the with bis hands in his pockets. Mrs. Marvin Iooked'in a hurt way at end of the long row was reached, be "What's the matter with the colt?" her green shawl fringe. "He alius said Btopped the team and tied tbem to a "Got 'is bead through that ere hole" no one Telt fer him but me a poor post. He swung over the fence, through motherlads boy with that malary never the corner of pasture, to the low, red ladled out smoking gravy and steaming out n his blood. It's come a year nex barn with its mow running over with joints. The men, fresh from the bread, Aprile sence the Texas herd went new hay. He whistled as he looked in dusty sunshine, hurried quickly through through, an' he aint never ben free from through the square window, and saw a the stifling kitchen, almost catching 'D sence the day he come to the kitchen little black colt lying on the fresh straw. their breath as they went. Filing past, door an asked me fer a bit o' Bomethin' Ab he moved away again, a long, black strengthemn . noeo was thrust from the window, and David pulled a leaf from the morning- the mare's head dropping between two come in, bis head waa through the par glory vine which swung against his hat- small ears laid back, shook viciously at tition." brim as he stood before the door. the big felt bat. Chug laughed. David Woods put his hand on the "Ue's a well meanin critter. Gits When he came again to the top of the dead colt's side. "I'd ought to looked along the best kind with the girls. But BloDe. the harrow wbb Btandintr still in af ter myself," he said, with the short. with their forkB heap great piles of meat nuK. ne seems to nave a pick at him. the field below. The girl Btood beside naren w"18 r a BIW nant seldom angry, and potato on their knife-blades. I caint see" the words fell off it, and the man in the chair was holding '"A Marvin couldn't be expected to look "I wonder if that Marvin boy ever uga'Q- a jug to his lips. The girl's black hair ater notbin'. Supper's ready." eat a square meal before?" she thought Tne farmer took down the milk-pails hung in lank locks that blew in tho Chug's mouth twitched violently, and wearily. "He don't look over-fed. Them which stood on a table under the vines, wind. Chue's Hdb ierked smsmodicallv be did not move, for a minute. Then a .. i. .: :-.I, rnun.n .li . His visitnr rnsf nnd ua oho nfrwnrl nn hn. i n. i i n i tirod unino nallnd "Snnnari" aietjvoB w a tugui, audio gucs mai rug j ,...... up, uu aa uu BiuiKeu uruuuu lurtio long rows, .-.--...-, .-t.t... into his tomatoes." sn5 turneu to cut JUUO uu" Ul IUIU- U,UUK aair ieu in a and went aeain to the window of the i""cu. a fresh plate of bread. stringy twist down over her green shawl, red barn. At night when she sat rocking the ba- ybe did not notice it. She walked Blow- The little colt was trying to stand on by to sleep, on the little porch, her hus- iy ana sumy away, Baying nair to her- its ungainly legs. It fell, and bruised band tramped heavily up the walk, and self, "It don't seem naterel." its knees on a long, splintered board -uavia: came trom tne Kitchen door, that the black horse had kicked loose ine rarmer stopped, witn one band on from the stall. Chue slid back the barn rolling down their shirt-sleeves as they came in one by one from the basin by the door, they tilled the room with a breath of machine-oil and perspiration, that made the woman feel faint. ' She stood in the door, and watched them Chug stopped with a queer numbness in his arms, where the neck and the eoft white hoofs had Iain. "I thought I told you to look in evory hour or so" "I did' the face under the felt hat reddened. "He was all right about half- paat-nve, a tryin to stand up When I here had sat down on the stone steps. "That straw was awful duBty," be re marked, taking off his wide straw hat. His wife rocked back and forth. ''The Marvin boy wants to stav 'n Bleep in the hay-mow tonight." "What fur?" "Ab near's I kin make out, he's some fallin' out at home." "Well, is there any use keeping up the fuss?" There was a rising inflection in the voice, that made itself felt, the creek of the rocking-chair. "I don't know, Janey," the farmer al ways said "Janey" when he recognized that tone, "but Chug be looked so down in the mouth." "I never see one of them Marvins that didn't look down in the mouth." There was silence for a moment. The farmer uprooted with his boot a small bind-weed growing by the scraper. "He said the bay looked so clean in the hay mow." The baby stirred, and began to su'jk its fists violently. The farmer's wife looked across she clover pasture at the field where two huge straw-stacks and one smaller pile stood, gigantic cones in the shadows. "I spose you told him he could stay?'' "Yes.' But tho rext morninn the farmer stood on the porch, and. surveyed his dusty boots in new perplexity from the He ate (his supper) in silence,dropping his head over his plate, as on the first evening he bad come from home. He buttered his corn-bread twice, and gulped down his coffee without cream or sugar, l ben he got up, stumbling over him?" "I'm blessed if I know what she come after." A child's cry within, made the door close suddenly. Mrs. Woods wont about the barn. All the way out to the "bone-patch." he did not look at the thing dragging by the end of hia halter rope. He could hear from the red barn Joe and Mary Woods, playing "Ante-over." At the the fence, the other holding the two tin- doors, reached through the slit that the the baby's tin horse, and shuflled out to Pa"8- broken piece had left in the partition, uia mat Doys motner come after and pulled out the board. It seemed somehow drearily natural to him when the black horse let her heels fly at him as he stepped back. When he came to the top of the hill. the man still eat in his chair, and the end ot tbe Pasture he Btopped and star- ber hot kitchen, with a frown coming girl stood beside him, balancing on one ed a ,onK time down at th8 black, ragged above and 'DK between her two tired eyes. bare foot on the top of one of the blue bouse, where two girls, with long, brown "fiow can I help it," she said to the bars of the harrow-frame. It had been armB were carrying slop to the pigs. muffins, wnen she pulled them out of Jefferson's notion to paint the old har the oven, "if he's been brought up like a row blue. Chug had not thought the dog?" paint much of an improvement. It had She watched him across the table, as never looked quite bo ugly to him be he bent his head over his plate, his din- fore. He looked at the sun. Eeven gy, brown hair drooping over his fore- twelve of the long rows before dark. Six boiled dry. set them aside, took the cry head, and took every thing that was times to come to the foot of the slope, ing child in one arm, and started for the handed to him without raiting his eyes. "Git up Whoa," he growled. well. She must have Borne water; if the He had a queer, nervous twitching But at thn next row the harrow bad men were to have any dinner. Sbo around bis mouth. His ragged sleeves disappeared. The girl had the horses pumped the bucket full with unsteady seemed a reproach to her, when she at the well, and another girl with black jerks, and started up the path' to the hair was drawing a pail of water. house. The sun shone hot on her "Work's a wearin' 'im out," said Chug shoulders, thin shoulders, bent and nar- to the side-board. F'ed stayed 'th them cow-punchers there wouldn't ben a grease spot of 'im by now." He did not look at the black colt again until the sun went down. The The baby was crying. Mary was at school. The farmer's wife petted, and coaxed, and rocked the little, wailing mite, and at last, when her potatoes had looked at Joe's trim wrist-bands. After breakfast, she saw him slouch away to the clover pasture, with a ham mer and a can of staples. "He looks as if he'd do well to use some of 'em on his clothes," she said to herself. Next morning, the new hand woke to find his soiled shirt neatly patched, pointed ears and the white star in the hanging on the chair by his window. He fotehead, the promise in the long legs Baid nothing when he came into the and the tiny soft hoofs, were dimmed by row. The bonnet fell over her face 60 that she could not see. She threw back her head, and the bonnet fell down, hanging by the strings. The sun shone on her head and seemed to scorch her hair. She stopped, and put down the pail. Someone picked it up. "I was jest kitchen at breakfast time, but he stood a haze cf blue harrow, and twisted with comin' to the house," said Chug, apolo- You kin take your boy, Mrs. Marvin," long nt the glass trying to make a part long horns of Texas cattle. As he drove getically, swinging the bucket up from ha said, looking at his morning caller, ,D D,s uu,r- past tne barn, ne looued in at tne win- who eat on the door-stops. "I aint dow. The colt seemed half standing, wanting a hand." The wagon creaked slowly over the half lying against the side of the stall. "Taint that," eaid Mrs. Marvin, in a stalkB of corn that bent and broke un- He stopped, and Bprang down over the e'ow, dragging voice, looking helplessly der the neck-yoke. "Whoa!" said Chug, front wheel into the Btall. The colt had at her hands, which were twisted and flingingaredearof.com over the high put its head through the hole in the bent with rheumatism, "taint that. Ef "eide-bjard." He tore open the dry broken board. It was hanging limp he didn't come here, he'd go soai'er's hueka with quick jerks, snapped them else. He'e that discontented." off, and sent the ears flying into the em- The farmer looked over the road, pty wagon-box. "Git up there! Whoa!" actoBs bis second-bottom pasture, to the He scowled at a email nubbin he had Marvin house. It stood, in its warped just extracted from a huge, stiff husk, siding, with thick, black paper tacked and tried not to look under bis flapping on and hanging in shreds, as it had hat-brim into the field below. He ha i aod btill, with its fuzzy mane stiff along i.s stretched neck, and .its knees bent under. The black horse started, but did not strike or kick. She stood still, whinnying. Chug lifted the colt, slid its neck along to the large end of the opening, and laid tho little heap down her stiff fingers, with a splash that - wet her apron. The farmer's wife changed the baby to the other arm and walked on, too tired to say more than "Thank you." She knew that thn boy had prob ably never done as much for his moth er or sisters. She watched him, with a kind ot wonder, eit down on the steps, and make queer noises to the baby noises like afrog croaking, which at first made it cry harder, and afterward made it open its round eyes in astonishment. Chug was in a queor state of elation. She would have wordered more, if shj 1 1 i ili : 1 gJ