Alamo Ranch Part 13

Following hard upon this departure came the general break-up of the Koshare circle. The Hemmenshaws, with the bridegroom elect, Roger Smith, were the next to depart. Miss Paulina, as may be inferred, turned her face Bostonward with her heart in her mouth, in view of that account of her chaperonage to be rendered to the father whose daughter she had, as it were, handed over to the grandson of a tanner.

And here the historian, asking leave to interrupt for a moment the routine of the narrative, informs the gentle reader that that august personage, Col. Algernon Hemmenshaw, was ultimately placated; and that if a tanner's descendant bearing the non-ill.u.s.trious name of Smith was not altogether a desirable graft for the Hemmenshaw ancestral tree, a fortune of more than a round million tipped the balance in his favor, and the permitted engagement came out in early May-time. Beacon Hill, at its announcement, threw up its hands in amazement and distaste. "To think," it exclaimed, "that Louise Hemmenshaw, who might have had her pick among our very oldest families, should take up with the grandson of a tanner!"

Out on the mesa it is early nightfall. The little day-time flutter and stir of moving things has, with the setting sun, given place to silence and rest.

A rounded moon looks serenely down upon the grey sage-brush, the mesquite-bushes, on the lonely stretch of sandy desert. The last gleam of day has faded from the Organ Mountains, leaving them to dominate, in sombre grandeur, the distant landscape. In the warm, haunted silence of this perfect night two lovers saunter slowly along the mesa.

These happy beings are not unknown to us. The lady is from Marblehead; the other has before-time been dubbed the Grumbler.

The name no longer fits the man. His defective lung has righted itself in this fine New Mexican atmosphere. No more is he at odds with fate; he has become sincerely in love with life, with the climate, and, most of all, with the sweet little teacher from Marblehead. They are to be married early in June.

The climate admirably suits the invalid sister, and it is hoped that in this fine dry air her well lung may remain intact, and so serve her for years to come. The Grumbler, having money enough to order his residence to his liking, has determined to settle permanently in New Mexico.

To that end he has, for the time, rented the Hilton place. Later, he intends to lay out "as a gift for his fair" the ranch of her dreams.

Here, in the beautiful Mesilla Valley, we may predict that the married pair, like the enchanting couples of fairyland, will "live happy ever after."

And now it but remains for the chronicler of the New Koshare to take leave of "the land of suns.h.i.+ne."

A backward glance at the half-deserted Alamo shows us a dreary handful of incurables still tilting their piazza-chairs against its adobe front, warming their depleted blood in the grateful suns.h.i.+ne, and each, as best he may, accepting the inevitable.

Long, long ago it was that the Pueblos made that traditional journey "from s.h.i.+papu to the centre of their world" with the heaven-provided Koshare, in particolored attire, and fantastic head-dress of withered corn-husks, jesting and dancing before them to lift and lighten the weary road. Yet since then, through all the centuries, the "Delight-Maker," in one shape or another, has been in requisition in every land beneath the sun.