Page:Owen Wister - The Virginian.djvu/121

Rh ready for the first native Wyoming crop. It symbolized the dawn of a neighborhood, and it brought a change into the wilderness air. The feel of it struck cold upon the free spirits of the cow-punchers, and they told each other that, what with women and children and wire fences, this country would not long be a country for men. They stopped for a meal at an old comrade's. They looked over his gate, and there he was pottering among garden furrows.

"Pickin' nosegays?" inquired the Virginian; and the old comrade asked if they could not recognize potatoes except in the dish. But he grinned sheepishly at them, too, because they knew that he had not always lived in a garden. Then he took them into his house, where they saw an object crawling on the floor with a handful of sulphur matches. He began to remove the matches, but stopped in alarm at the vociferous result; and his wife looked in from the kitchen to caution him about humoring little Christopher.

When she beheld the matches she was aghast; but when she saw her baby grow quiet in the arms of the Virginian, she smiled at that cow-puncher and returned to her kitchen.

Then the Virginian slowly spoke again:—

"How many little strangers have yu' got, James?"

"Only two."

"My! Ain't it most three years since yu' maried? Yu' mustn't let time creep ahaid o' yu', James."

The father once more grinned at his guests, who themselves turned sheepish and polite; for