“I retain a few private ideas that way myself,” remarked the Virginian, innocently; and Scipio’s sparkle gathered light.
“As to my geography,” he pursued, “that’s away out loose in the brush. Is Bennington the capital of Vermont? And how d’ yu’ spell bridegroom?”
“Last point!” shouted the Virginian, letting a book fly after him: “don’t let badness and goodness worry yu’, for yu’ll never be a judge of them.”
But Scipio had dodged the book, and was gone. As he went his way, he said to himself, “All the same, it must pay to fall regular in love.” At the bunk house that afternoon it was observed that he was unusually silent. His exit from the foreman’s cabin had let in a breath of winter so chill that the Virginian went to see his thermometer, a Christmas present from Mrs. Henry. It registered twenty below zero. After reviving the fire to a white blaze, the foreman sat thinking over the story of Shorty: what its useless, feeble past had been; what would be its useless, feeble future. He shook his head over the sombre question, Was there any way out for Shorty? “It may be,” he reflected, “that them whose pleasure brings yu’ into this world owes yu’ a living. But that don’t make the world responsible. The world did not beget you. I reckon man helps them that help themselves. As for the universe, it looks like it did too wholesale a business to turn out an article up to standard every clip. Yes, it is sorrowful. For Shorty is kind to his hawss.”
In the evening the Virginian brought Shorty into his room. He usually knew what he had to say, usually found it easy to arrange his thoughts; and after such arranging the words came of themselves. But as he looked at Shorty, this did not happen to him. There was not a line of badness in the face; yet also there was not a line of strength; no promise in eye, or nose, or chin; the whole thing melted to a stubby, featureless mediocrity. It was a countenance like thousands; and hopelessness filled the Virginian as he looked at this lost dog, and his dull, wistful eyes.
But some beginning must be made.
“I wonder what the thermometer has got to be,” he said. “Yu’ can see it, if yu’ll hold the lamp to that right side of the window.”
Shorty held the lamp. “I never used any,” he said, looking out at the instrument, nevertheless.
The Virginian had forgotten that Shorty could not read. So he looked out of the window himself, and found that it was twenty-two below zero. “This is pretty good tobacco,” he remarked; and Shorty helped himself, and filled his pipe.
“I had to rub my left ear with snow today,” said he. “I was just in time.”
“I thought it looked pretty freezy out where yu’ was riding,” said the foreman.
The lost dog’s eyes showed plain astonishment. “We didn’t see you out there,” said he.
“Well,” said the foreman, “it’ll soon not be freezing any more; and then we’ll all be warm enough with work. Everybody will be working all over the range. And I wish I knew somebody that had a lot of stable work to be attended to. I cert’nly do for your sake.”
“Why?” said Shorty.
“Because it’s the right kind of a job for you.”
“I can make more—” began Shorty, and stopped.
“There is a time coming,” said the Virginian, “when I’ll want somebody that knows how to get the friendship of hawsses. I’ll want him to handle some special hawsses the Judge has plans about. Judge Henry would pay fifty a month for that.”
“I can make more,” said Shorty, this time with stubbornness.
“Well, yes. Sometimes a man can—when he’s not worth it, I mean. But it don’t generally last.”
Shorty was silent. “I used to make more myself,” said the Virginian.
“You’re making a lot more now,” said Shorty.
“Oh, yes. But I mean when I was fooling around the earth, jumping from job to job, and helling all over town between whiles. I was not worth fifty a month then, nor twenty-five. But there was nights I made a heap more at cyards.”
Shorty’s eyes grew large.
“And then, bang! it was gone with treatin’ the men and the girls.”
“I don’t always—” said Shorty, and stopped again.
The Virginian knew that he was thinking about the money he sent East. “After a while,” he continued, “I noticed a right strange fact. The money I made easy that I wasn’t worth, it went like it came. I strained myself none gettin’ or spendin’ it. But the money I made hard that I was worth, why I began to feel right careful about that. And now I have got savings stowed away. If once yu’ could know how good that feels—”
“So I would know,” said Shorty, “with your luck.”
“What’s my luck?” said the Virginian, sternly.
“Well, if I had took up land along a creek that never goes dry and proved upon it like you have, and if I had saw that land raise its value on me with me lifting no finger—”
“Why did you lift no finger?” cut in the Virginian. “Who stopped yu’ taking up land? Did it not stretch in front of yu’, behind yu’, all around yu’, the biggest, baldest opportunity in sight? That was the time I lifted my finger; but yu’ didn’t.”
Shorty stood stubborn.
“But never mind that,” said the Virginian. “Take my land away tomorrow, and I’d still have my savings in bank. Because, you see, I had to work right hard gathering them in. I found out what I could do, and I settled down and did it. Now you can do that too. The only tough part is the finding out what you’re good for. And for you, that is found. If you’ll just decide to work at this thing you can do, and gentle those
