第7章 DEDICATION(7)

Lin found a job in twenty-five minutes,becoming assistant to the apothecary in Mesa.Established at the drug-store,he made up the simpler preions.He had studied practical pharmacy in Boston between the ages of thirteen and fifteen,and,besides this qualification,the apothecary had seen him when he first came into Mesa,and liked him.Lin made no mistakes that he or any one ever knew of;and,as the mild weather began,he materially increased the apothecary's business by persuading him to send East for a soda-water fountain.The ladies of the town clustered around this entertaining novelty,and while sipping vanilla and lemon bought knickknacks.And the gentlemen of the town discovered that whiskey with soda and strawberry syrup was delicious,and produced just as competent effects.A group of them were generally standing in the shop and shaking dice to decide who should pay for the next,while Lin administered to each glass the necessary ingredients.

Thus money began to come to him a little more steadily than had been its wont,and he divided with the penniless Honey.

But Honey found fortune quickly,too.Through excellent card-playing he won a pinto from a small Mexican horse-thief who came into town from the South,and who cried bitterly when he delivered up his pet pony to the new owner.The new owner,being a man of the world and agile on his feet,was only slightly stabbed that evening as he walked to the dance-hall at the edge of the town.The Mexican was buried on the next day but one.

The pony stood thirteen two,and was as long as a steamboat.He had white eyelashes,pink nostrils,and one eye was bright blue.If you spoke pleasantly to him,he rose instantly on his hind-legs and tried to beat your face.He did not look as if he could run,and that was what made him so valuable.Honey travelled through the country with him,and every gentleman who saw the pinto and heard Honey became anxious to get up a race.Lin always sent money for Wiggin to place,and he soon opened a bank account,while Honey,besides his racing-bridle,bought a silver-inlaid one,a pair of forty-dollar spurs,and a beautiful saddle richly stamped.Every day (when in Mesa)Honey would step into the drug-store and inquire,"Lin,wher're yu'goin'?"But Lin never answered any more.He merely came to the soda-water fountain with the whiskey.The passing of days brought a choked season of fine sand and hard blazing sky.Heat rose up from the ground and hung heavily over man and beast.Many insects sat out in the sun rattling with joy;the little tearing river grew clear from the swollen mud,and shrank to a succession of standing pools;and the fat,squatting cactus bloomed everywhere into butter-colored flowers big as tulips in the sand.There were artesian wells in Mesa,and the water did not taste very good;but if you drank from the standing pools where the river had been,you repaired to the drug-store almost immediately.A troop of wandering players came dotting along the railroad,and,reaching Mesa,played a brass-band up and down the street,and announced the powerful drama of "East Lynne."Then Mr.McLean thought of the Lynn marshes that lie between there and Chelsea,and of the sea that must look so cool.He forgot them while following the painful fortunes of the Lady Isabel;but,going to bed in the back part of the drug-store,he remembered how he used to beat everybody swimming in the salt water.

"I'm goin',"he said.Then he got up,and,striking the light,he inspected his bank account."I'm sure goin',"he repeated,blowing the light out,"and I can buy the fatted calf myself,you bet!"for he had often thought of the bishop's story."You bet!"he remarked once more in a muffled voice,and was asleep in a minute.The apothecary was sorry to have him go,and Honey was deeply grieved.

"I'd pull out with yer,"he said,"only I can do business round Yuma and westward with the pinto."For three farewell days Lin and Honey roved together in all sorts of places,where they were welcome,and once more Lin rode a horse and was in his native element.Then he travelled to Deming,and so through Denver to Omaha,where he was told that his trunk had been sold for some months.

Besides a suit of clothes for town wear,it had contained a buffalo coat for his brother--something scarce to see in these days.

"Frank'll have to get along without it,"he observed,philosophically,and took the next eastbound train.