The Claim Jumpers

Bennington did not know what to make of his invitation. At one moment

he told himself it must mean that Mary loved him, and that she wished

him to meet her parents on that account. At the next he tormented

himself with the conviction that she thus merely avoided the issue.

Between these moods he alternated, without being able to abide in

either. He forgot all about Old Mizzou.

Promptly at noon the following day he turned up the little right-hand

trail for the first time.

The Lawton house he found, first of all, to be scrupulously neat. It

stood on a knoll, as do most gulch cabins, in order that occasional

freshets might pass below, and the knoll looked as though it had been

clipped with a pair of scissors. Not a crooked little juniper bush was

allowed to intrude its plebeian sprawl among the dignified pines and

the gracefully infrequent bushes. In front of the cabin itself was a

"rockery" of pink quartz, on which were piled elk antlers. The building

was L-shaped, of two low stories, had a veranda with a railing, and

possessed various ornamental wood edgings, all of which were painted.

The whole affair was mathematically squared and correspondingly neat.

Some boxes and pots of flowers adorned the window ledges.

Bennington's knock was answered by an elderly woman, who introduced

herself at once as Mrs. Lawton. She commenced a voluble and slightly

embarrassed explanation of how "she" would be down in a moment or so,

at the same time leading the way into the parlour. While this

explanation was going forward, Bennington had a good chance to examine

his hostess and her surroundings.

Mrs. Lawton was of the fat but energetic variety. She fairly shone with

cleanliness and with an insistent determination to keep busy. You could

see that all the time her tongue was uttering polite platitudes

concerning the weather, her mind was hovering like a dragon fly over

this or that flower of domestic economy. She was one of the women who

carry their housekeeping to a perfection uncomfortable both to herself

and everybody else, and then delude themselves into the martyrlike

belief that she is doing it all entirely for others. As a consequence,

she exhibited much of the time an aggrieved air that comported but

ludicrously with her tendency to bustle. And it must be confessed that

in other ways Mrs. Lawton was ludicrous. Her dumpy little form was

dressed in the loudest of prints, the figures of which turned her into

a huge flower bed of brilliant cabbage-like blooms. Over this chaos of

colours peered her round little face with its snapping eyes. She

discoursed in sentences which began coherently, but frayed out soon

into nothingness under the stress of inner thought. "I don't see where

that husban' of mine is. I reckon you'll think we're just awful rude,

Mr. de Laney, and that gal, an' Maude. I declare it's jest enough to

try any one's patience, it surely is. You've no idea, Mr. de Laney,

what with the hens settin', and this mis'able dry spell that sends th'

dust all over everything and every one 'way behin' hand on

everythin'----" Her eye was becoming vacant as she wondered about

certain biscuits.