The little house on the desert

Front matter

Books by Forrestine C. Hooker

THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE DESERT WHEN GERONIMO RODE STAR: The Story of an Indian Pony PRINCE JAN THE LONG DIM TRAIL

The engineer always whistled an answer.

CHAPTER i

H OOO-EEE-OOO. Hooo-eee

-ooo.

The whistle screamed shrilly as the train rushed across the glaring sand toward a little house that stood some distance from the shining steel tracks.

It was a very small house built of wooden slabs. The dingy yellow paint had peeled in many places as though freckled from the hot Arizona sun. But the tiny front porch was shaded by thickly growing morning-glory vines rooted in beds where sweet alyssum mingled with four-o’clocks and feathery stalks of cosmos. Not many flowers were able to live in the alkali soil where the burning mid-day sun beat down upon the edge of the desert. Only loving care and many buckets of water hauled by means of a windlass from the deep well kept the plants from withering. For the windmill which had once supplied the house and troughs with water was broken, and Grandfather Ruth had been unable to fix it.

Back of the vines sat Grandfather Ruth, his silver head bowed and his eyes closed peacefully.

No neighbor lived within a day’s hard drive over the faint road that threaded across the treeless country and seemed to vanish into the distant sky.

Hooo - eee - ooo. IIooo - eee - ooo .

The old man stirred and lifted his head. An expectant look dawned on his gentle counte¬ nance.

Someone moved within the house, and a child’s face pressed against the mosquito netting that was tacked across an open window. Soft, fair hair framed her face and her violet-blue eyes lit with happiness as the train came nearer and nearer.

“It’s an extra! It’s an extra!” Mavis cried in joyous excitement.

Her grandmother hurried to the window. Adjusting her gold-rimmed spectacles she peered over the child’s head.

“Yes. It is a special,” the old lady agreed. “Someone very important must be on it. I wonder-”

She was interrupted by a little cry of distress. “Oh, Granny, where is my handkerchief? I can’t find it!”

Mavis was groping among the pillows of her chair, but her eyes were not turned from the approaching train. Then she found the lost handkerchief and waved it frantically close to the netting.

“Oh, it must be a new engineer. He won’t know! ” The voice quivered and the happy face sobered.

“Maybe he will, dearie,” encouraged the old lady.

Again the handkerchief was waved. Mavis leaned nearer the window, leaned as far as the helpless little limbs would permit. The train was almost in front of the tiny house. Soon, like an immense, wriggling snake with one great eye, it would scurry from the sight of the child’s wistful gaze. Her lips were trembling now, her blue eyes misty with tears, but the thin white hand waved the handkerchief faster and faster.

Hooo - eee - ooo. Hooo - eee —— ooo.

Ho — ho — ho!

“Oh, he did know, he did know!” she cried in a burst of joy as the train, with three short toots.

dashed on its way. “That was my whistle, Granny. And it was an extra!”

Grandmother Ruth’s eyes were full of tears as her wrinkled hand smoothed the soft, waving hair. “Yes, dearie, it was your whistle. You know that they never forget.”

“But this was an extra!” Almost incredu¬ lous delight was in the child’s voice as she lifted her shining eyes to the face that now was smiling down upon her. “A special train! And, oh, did you see that the windows were different from other cars? I wonder if any little boys and girls were on it. Granny,” she turned anxiously, “do you think they saw me waving to them?”

“I am sure they did. If the train had not been going so fast maybe you would have seen them waving back to you. It was a beautiful train, wasn’t it, honey-bunch?”

“Oh—” there was a quivering little sigh of delight—“so fast and so beautiful—but it didn’t forget me, after all!”

“They never forget!” Grandma Ruth was standing back of Mavis so that the child could not see tears gathering behind the gold-rimmed spectacles. “Now”—the old lady’s voice was brisk and cheerful—“will you be comfortable while I help Grandpa with the chores?”

Mavis nodded brightly and, when she was alone, settled back in the pillowed chair and watched the light of the setting sun flicker upon the distant railroad tracks.

Ever since she could remember, she had watched the trains, passenger-laden or carrying heavy freight and sometimes cattle, rush like snorting dragons from strange places and dash on to unknown cities far beyond the unsettled country. At first they had frightened her. They were so strong, and she was so weak that she could not even stand upon her feet. But after a time she had come to look upon them as kindly beasts, not dragons, and she believed that they were carrying people to wonderful coun¬ tries where there were streams of rippling water, a great blue ocean, beautiful flowers, trees, and many happy children.

How she longed to see them all the old grand¬ parents never dreamed as they told her of these places which were so different from the gray sand that stretched for endless miles about their own little home. But most of all was the longing to see another child.

Mavis had been born in the little home on the desert, and had never been away from it during the eight years of her life. Though once in a great while a neighbor would stop and leave parcels for the family, no child had ever accom¬ panied the visitor.

So she pictured the ‘‘little men and little women” traveling on the passing trains as she waved her message of good will from her place beside the window. And then, one day, she had begged her grandmother that a light might be left burning at night, so that those who passed the little house would know that she had not forgotten her unknown friends while it was dark.

Day after day, night after night, the trains dashed past the solitary little house on the desert, but never once did the friendly signal fail to greet them.

Then one wonderful day, as Mavis watched a train approach, there had been a whistle. A long-drawn-out whistle followed by three short, sharp toots. Never before had a whistle sounded at that point, for there was no need to signal on a lonely desert where the engineer’s eyes could see for many miles.

Breathlessly the child had waited for the com¬ ing of the next train after that, hoping, yet not daring to hope, that it, too, would give its call in answer to her signals. The old grandparents

The Little House on the DeseH 7

waited as anxiously as Mavis, and their joy was as great as hers when the following train also sent its greeting to the unknown friend who lived in the little home.

Hooo - eee - ooo. Hooo - eee - ooo.

Ho — ho — ho!

It rushed on its way while Mavis sat with her little hands clasped in ecstatic joy. For now she knew beyond question that the whistle had been an answer.

On many nights after that when she lay unable to sleep because of the pain in her back and the weight of her tired limbs, she listened for the friendly message to quiver across the silent desert. When it came she would lift herself upon her elbow and watch the gleaming eye blinking at her until it had passed, followed by myriads of lights twinkling like gigantic fireflies. Then with another and fainter whistle the train was swallowed up in darkness.

Mavis’s lips which had been pressed tightly together to keep back the least whimper of pain would relax into a beautiful smile as she lay back upon her pillow.

“They did not forget!” she would whisper softly, and peace would come with the thought. Peace and sleep*

Chapter II

I T HAD been a beautiful spring day and the sun was just touching the distant edge of the desert, like a huge golden cup on a silvergray saucer.

Mavis, on the front porch where the old folks had carried her chair, could see a long distance in three directions. At the side of the house toward the back her grandparents were busy feed¬ ing the chickens and caring for the cow and calf.

A few years before, her father, William McKinley Ruth, had kept the little home in fine shape. There had been a nice bunch of milch cows, turkeys, and a great many chickens. He had also made a vegetable garden. Mavis could remember it all, and how tall and strong he had been when he carried her in his arms. And always he had been whistling or singing. Then he had gone away and had never come back to them.

Since that time the cows had been sold, one by one, and the turkeys and chickens had steads ily decreased in numbers. But the old couple worked cheerfully together about the little home. If they were ever sad Mavis did not see it.

As she watched them now. Grandfather Ruth was throwing wheat to the chickens. They crowded about his feet, some of them jumping up at his hands. A young rooster with a single tail-feather and a few feathers on his long, thin neck, stood aside from the other chickens, twisting nervously. Mavis saw him and her eyes began to twinkle. She leaned forward, waiting.

Cautiously the scrawny rooster stretched to his utmost height. He flapped his ragged wings, curved back his neck, and his flat breast swelled. Then he opened his beak.

“Who’s afraid of who?”

Mavis knew perfectly well what would fol¬ low that squawky attempt to crow. At the first broken note a handsome, pompous rooster with gorgeous red comb and magnificent tail-feathers started indignantly and looked about until he discovered the culprit.

The hens surrounding the handsome rooster scuttled out of his way, as with angry red eyes he dashed across the yard, his gold and bronze tail-feathers streaming like a banner of war.

The half-finished crow ended hastily and the scrawny rooster ducked and ran, followed by the red rooster. Around and around they went, until they finally stopped and faced each other, ready for battle. The hens were darting about the yard, cackling loudly.

Grandfather Ruth was on the other side of the corral, so a high fence intervened between him¬ self and the combatants. The old lady was milking the cow.

“ Granny—Granny, ” Mavis called loudly from the porch, “ General Pershing and Happy Hooli¬ gan are fighting again!”

At the warning Grandmother Ruth set down the milk pail and started toward the fighters, General Pershing saw her, and believing that discretion might be better than valor, ducked and ran. But Hooligan, evidently thinking that Pershing was running from him, followed closely behind the gorgeous streaming tail-feathers. This was too much for Pershing, and as soon as sufficient space separated him from Grandma Ruth, the doughty general turned and faced his pursuer, and the combat went merrily on. Hop—kick — peck—advance and retreat. Right wing forward — left wing deploy — cha—a — a - arge! All the other chickens, including a couple of roosters who never disputed General Pershing’s authority, were calling loudly and bumping into each other.

But at last Grandma Ruth cornered the two of them and, reaching down quickly, captured both. Holding them tightly in spite of their wild squawks and struggles to escape, she carried them across the corral to where the old man now stood.

“I have them!” She puffed for breath as she spoke. “It is downright scandalous, the way they fight. If they keep it up they will have all the others fighting. They simply have got to stop it. I’m a pacifist when it comes to a chickenyard! Pershing never gives Hooligan a chance to finish a single crow. He ought to be ashamed of himself!”

“Now, Ma,” protested the old man, “Hooli¬ gan is a bluffer, and Pershing knows it. That crow isn’t a crow—it’s a challenge, and Hooligan is ready to run when he starts crowing. It wouldn’t be natural for General Pershing to let it go by. I’d change his name if he didn’t fight.”

“Well, I’m going to duck both of them in a bucket of water as I do setting hens, and maybe that’ll put an end to their scrapping.”

“Not Pershing, Ma?”

“ Yes, Pershing, too. If that don’t work-”

she paused and looked down at the gasping roosters clutched tightly in her arms, “well, I’m afraid we’ll have to kill one of them, even if we can’t eat ’em afterward. Pershing’s too tough and Hooligan’s too thin.”

There was a crash back of them and as the old folks turned, Grandmother Ruth dropped the two roosters. The calf, grubbing away at the box of bran, had caught a thin, trailing rope about the bucket of fresh milk, most of which was already trickling over the sand. The old lady rescued what was left in the bucket while her husband seized the rope end.

But the gate was open and the cow dashed out, and the calf, which was big and strong, started after her. Grandfather Ruth clung to the rope, and his wife, seeing that he was unable to hold the calf, hastened to shut the gate. The cow bellowed outside and the calf bawled inside the corral. Grandfather wiped his moist brow, and the two old folks exchanged smiles.

“You saved the day, Ma, that calf was too husky for me!”

“Oh, dear!” she cried hopelessly. “Those roosters are at it again. There is nothing else to do but kill one of them.”

“All right, Ma,” the old man said in a matter-of-fact voice, “which one shall I kill—General Pershing or Happy Hooligan?”

Grandmother wavered. “I guess we’d better wait awhile,” she spoke hesitatingly. “Maybe they will be more friendly.”

“You’d better let ’em fight it out to a finish,” advised her husband as he carried the almost empty milk pail to the kitchen.

Grandmother Ruth, leading the way, did not see her husband’s broad smile. Each time the roosters fought, Grandmother Ruth was positive that one must be killed for the sake of peace, but each time the old man asked which one should be slaughtered, she always made the same reply. He knew that those two roosters would live to die of old age, even though they battled perpetually. Only a stray coyote would be able to settle a feud that had begun as soon as the two roosters had emerged from their shells— brothers, but sworn enemies.

However, the sun had set and there would be no more crowing until sunrise the next morn¬ ing, for it was the dark of the moon. The battle of the barnyard had ceased until the next day.

Grandfather Ruth went through the little kitchen and then from a small dining room he passed into a cheerful sitting room.

The carpets of the house were all made by hand from many colored materials Grandmother had cut into strips and sewed together, and later woven into different designs. Below the coal-oil lamp which hung from the ceiling of the sitting room dangled many little squares of perforated cardboard, each one worked with bright red worsted designs, and to each of the unattached corners of these squares hung a tiny tassel.

Grandmother Ruth called this an “air castle,” and as it swayed back and forth in the slightest breeze, Mavis thought it very beautiful. But to her the most beautiful things in the house—the most beautiful things in the whole world—were three pictures that hung on the sitting-room wall side by side.

One was a picture of President McKinley, and on it, in the handwriting of the President him¬ self, was written: “For Chub with best wishes from his captain.” Over this picture hung a small silk flag.

Next to it was the picture of a young soldier in dark blue uniform—the uniform that had been worn by a private in the days of 1861. Grand¬ father Ruth had then been young and strong and his blue eyes clear and bright as he had marched behind Captain McKinley.

Mavis was not the grandchild, but the great¬ grandchild of the old couple. Her own father had been their grandson. He had been very delicate when his parents had left him an orphan. So the grandfather and grandmother had brought him West with them, and had raised him to manhood in Arizona, where he had grown strong and well.

The third picture hanging on the wall of the Ruth home was that of a smiling, boyish soldier wearing the same kind of uniform that all other American boys had worn in France. It was the picture of William McKinley Ruth, the father of Mavis and the grandson of the old people.

For a long time after he had gone overseas, the family received brave, cheerful letters. Then they heard nothing more from him, and one day old William Ruth hung a flag above the picture. The flag had a single gold star which told that the father of little Mavis had given his life for his country.

There was never a tear on the cheek of Mavis’s mother when she stood so often and looked at the pictures of the three soldiers who had each done his best to serve his flag.

After that the family managed to get along fairly well, for there was a small income from the Government in recognition of the service rendered by Grandfather Ruth, and later by his grandson. When the old man drove to town for supplies, the two women took care of the ranch and of Mavis. The nearest town was sixty miles distant, and it took two days’ driving to reach it, but none of them felt it a hardship, for they were happy together.

Out on the desert they had joined in the prayer of thanksgiving that went up from all over the world when the terrible struggle in Europe ended. Glad that other soldier boys were going to return home to those who loved them. Proud that William McKinley Ruth had served with honor.

And then one day a year later Mavis’s mother did not rise at dawn. At sunset that day she went to sleep quietly with a beautiful smile on her lips, and little Mavis was left to the care of the old grandparents.

The nearest neighbors, who lived thirty miles away, came to the family in the hour of sorrow. Down in the corner where only one dwarfed apple tree struggled to live, they made a grave for Mavis’s mother and built a picket fence about it.

So the light that gleamed in the window of the little house on the desert shone not only for the strangers on the passing trains, but also fell across the little mound that marked the resting place of Mavis’s mother.

Her father’s grave, Mavis felt, was where many people visited and honored it, for her grandmother had told her that each nation had made a grave for an Unknown Soldier who had died on the battlefield, and that she must always remember that her own father was an unknown soldier. So it might be he who slept in the hon¬ ored place which America had dedicated to the Unknown Soldier—an unidentified soldier whose body had been brought back with highest honors to the country for which he had given his young life. In Mavis’s room hung a pic¬ ture of the beautiful monument in Washington.

Her little heart was full of pride when she looked at it. For to her the tomb of the Un¬ known Soldier, honored by all America, was really the tomb of her own father—William McKinley Ruth.

Chapter III

M AVIS, looking across the flat country, saw a tiny black speck that moved. She knew that it was not a train, for it was moving too slowly.

“Granny, something is coming, but it is too far away for me to see what it is. I think it must be someone on horseback.”

“Must be from Brown’s ranch,” the old lady answered. She went to the porch and lifted her hand to shade her eyes against the brilliant glare of the midday sun while she squinted across the flat. Tiny little wrinkles about the eyes of those who live on the desert form what is often called the “desert squint,” and these wrinkles showed even through her spectacles.

“Probably someone is bringing our mail,” Grandfather suggested as he filled his pipe and then rocked gently back and forth in his pet chair on the porch.

So the three of them waited while the speck grew more distinct, and finally they saw that it was a man riding a horse and leading a pack 18 horse. On the back of the second animal was a huge roll of canvas, roped securely. The rider reached the gate and lifted a large cowboy hat as he halted and dismounted.

Grandma smiled a welcome as though she had known the man all her life and had been expect¬ ing him as a guest. But that was the custom of the lonely places of the West. Grandfather Ruth, who had deserted his chair, stood beside the open gate holding out his hand in friendly greeting.

“Good evening,” the stranger spoke in a pleasant voice. “May I camp here for to¬ night?”

“You are welcome to stay as long as you please,” Grandpa Ruth answered cordially. “I’ll show you the stable so you can put up your horses.”

Together they walked to the little corral. Grandfather chatted while the younger man took the saddle from his horse and unloaded the pack animal, and then Grandmother joined them.

“I just came out to say that we have an extra room in the house, so you won’t need to pitch your tent for to-night.”

She was studying the stranger’s kindly brown eyes and thin, pale face. Even the desert sun had not been strong enough to hide the pallor, and Grandmother’s eyes held a pitying look when she noticed the man’s little cough.

“That is good of you.” The newcomer smiled. “But you see, I am sleeping in a tent because the doctors back East told me to come out to Arizona. They said I would get well here if I stayed outdoors all the time.”

The old lady nodded. “Well, that won’t keep you from eating a home meal inside our house, anyway. So when you get the dust washed off I’ll have dinner on the table. I was just about to serve it when Mavis saw you com¬ ing, so we waited for you to get here.”

“Nothing ever stirs but Mavis sees it,” the old man said as the three of them walked toward the house, leaving the two horses to cool off be¬ fore being watered and fed.

A short time later the stranger, who had washed and brushed himself in the little spare room, entered the front room where Mavis had already been carried by the old folks. She looked up with a shy little smile when the young man was seated opposite her at the dining table. Then her head bowed as Grandpa Ruth gave thanks for the food and the mercies God had bestowed upon them.

Grace over, Grandma began helping them to the plain but appetizing meal, while the stranger, after glancing from one to the other, said in a pleasant, quiet voice, “ You did not ask my name. It is Royal Kent. I have been very ill— pneumonia—and my doctor told me he could do nothing more for me, but that there was a fighting chance if I went to Arizona and lived on the desert where it was high and dry, and slept outdoors. So I got my outfit together and am following his advice.”

“You are welcome to stay here as long as you want,” the old lady spoke warmly. “Your doctor was right. When we first moved here our little grandson was in mighty bad shape, and his cough was dreadful. But in a year he was as well and strong as any boy could be. So we took up our homestead claim and stayed right here, even after he was married and Mavis had been born.”

“That gives me real faith,” Kent smiled, and though he wondered about Mavis’s father, he did not ask any questions. The old folks had taken him on faith and had welcomed him into their home without hesitation. He knew that was the custom of isolated places of the West, and that the law of hospitality commanded that no human being should be turned away from food or shelter. For where houses were miles and miles apart, death followed every traveler’s trail very closely. It was so easy to lose a trail in a sand storm, to find no water, or to wander around in a circle until the heat and thirst brought insanity and death. So hospitality was the first law of the unsettled sections and was not refused even to an enemy or an outlaw.

Mavis listened quietly as the visitor spoke of places and things about which she had heard her grandparents sometimes talk, but there were many things he mentioned that were new to them all.

Sometimes they laughed together, and even Mavis joined in the mirth, for Kent had seen funny things in his journeyings. The meal fin¬ ished, the old lady rose and gathered the dishes, but Kent followed her to the kitchen, and when she started to pour steaming water into her dishpan, he said:

“Please let me help with the dishes. I’m used to it, you know, and I won’t break them.”

“No,” was the decided reply. “You go back and talk with Pa. You might help him carry Mavis into the front room, if you want.”

So Kent lifted the chair very carefully and

Mavis smiled up at him as he set it down beside her grandfather’s. The old man patted her hand gently before he settled down for his after-supper pipe, and while he talked to the visitor, Kent, who did not smoke, was studying the face of the child, and noting also the crude chair that had been roughly constructed to permit its being moved from room to room.

Grandmother Ruth, with a fresh white apron tied about her waist, joined them at last. In her hands she carried a hank of worsted. Mavis held out her own hands so that the skein might be slipped over them, and the old lady rolled the long thread into a large ball. That finished, Mavis opened a little bag which hung at the side of her chair, and from it she took a half-finished baby sock on which she began knitting swiftly.

Grandma Ruth and Mavis, in their spare mo¬ ments, knit many sacks and baby socks which were sent off to a store in a big city and sold. This provided a little extra money, but the great thing was that it gave Mavis occupation for her long, long days. v

Now as she knit and listened to Royal Kent talking, at times her hands would fall idly into her lap and her eyes had a far-away look in them.

He talked about places he had seen in distant countries, of things in big cities of the world, and though such stories would have been nothing un¬ usual to another child, they were like wonderful fairy tales to the little crippled girl who had never seen anything except the gray, treeless country and the shining steel tracks on which the trains dashed past the house.

When Kent finished talking and rose to say good-night, he did not notice the wistful look in Mavis’s eyes. She was wishing, oh, so much, that he would not go away the next day. But she did not say the things she was thinking.

Grandma laid her hand on Kent’s arm. “You have had a hard day riding, and it won’t hurt you to sleep in a house for one night,” she urged. “I have fixed up the room for you. It hasn’t been used for some time,” her voice trembled a little, then went on cheerfully, “but it has been aired and is all ready.”

Kent hesitated, fearing he was causing trouble, but when he suggested that, the old folks in¬ sisted so warmly that he finally thanked them and accepted the offer of the room.

“Time for bed, Mavis dearie,” Grandma Ruth turned to the child.

But Kent went quickly to the side of the chair. “Let me carry you/’ he said, and before either of the old folks could speak he had lifted Mavis and the chair and crossed halfway to the bedroom toward which she nodded. The door was open.

“By the window, please?” Mavis asked hesi¬ tatingly.

Kent set the chair down in its accustomed place. “Is that right?”

“Just where it always is. You see,” the child smiled up at him, “I always have my chair by this window so I can watch the trains go past. They couldn’t see me signal from any other win¬ dow, and I don’t like to miss one of them.”

It was very dark on the desert now, and as Kent turned to leave the room Grandmother Ruth brought a lighted lamp and set it on a small table beside the window. Kent looked at the pathway of light that shone from the lamp.

Far across the distance quivered a tiny yellow speck, as though in answer to the light in the window. Larger and larger, nearer and nearer, the speck slowly changed to a huge glowing eye as the train thundered over the sand, puffing like the heavy breathing of a powerful animal. And the little house shook and trembled as though in sudden fear.