Bushy a romance founded on fact
“Do them up? What for? Can’t I have them?” Bushy’s eyes opened wide in
fear. “I am sure the Padre will pay for them; he said so.”
“Oh, that’s not it. Don’t you want paper around them to carry them?”
“I am not going to take them off,” she persisted, and by the time the
shoeman understood what she was going to do she had laced both boots
and was struggling with the buttons.
“You are going to wear them?” he asked, bending to help her.
“Wear them! Why, what would I do with them if not wear them? What a
funny man you are! I must hurry and show the Padre,” she said; “I won’t
ever wear moccasins any more--no, what do I want of them? You can throw
them away.”
“I would rather you would do it,” said the shoeman, handing her the
neat bundle containing her leggings and moccasins which she had
discarded. She flung them down on the floor disdainfully.
“Oh, how light I feel; it seems as if I could fly,” she murmured as she
darted like a deer up the rough street--not knowing, of course, that
kid cannot stand knocks against sharp rocks.
The shoes made her oblivious to everything else. The people were
looking and wondering who in the world she was, but it did not take
them long to find out she was Bushy Sukolt. Many of them had heard
about her, and especially well known was the fact that she could shoot
and ride like few other little people in the world. They came out of
the stores and watched as she darted by.
“I wonder how they look going,” thought Bushy, and she lifted her skirt
high and stooped over to watch the boots as they ran along.
Bump she went, into a post--she lost her balance and fell over into a
deep ditch by the roadside.
“Are you hurt?” asked a man as he climbed down and helped pull her up.
“Oh, no, sir. I have just got a pair of new shoes, and I am going to
Padre.” On she went, this time looking back as she ran, to get the
effect of her boots.
“Take care!” screamed a man with a pick on his shoulder, but he spoke
too late--over she tumbled into the ditch on the other side before the
old miner could catch her.
“I’m not hurt, thank you!” she exclaimed, trying to rub the dirt off
the boots with her petticoat. “Do you know my Padre? I am going home to
show my shoes. Now, you stand there and see how quick I can get to the
tent.”
Bushy did not know what the word stranger meant; she had seen so many
miners--new ones almost every day--and the idea of introduction had
never entered her head. She never doubted that the miner would enjoy
hearing of her shoes when he learned they were new. “They go very well,
but I wish I could see just how they look. Do you like two rows of
buttons better than one? My foot looks awful little, doesn’t it? Padre
won’t know me; now watch!” and not waiting for a reply, she started
again up the hill on the keen jump. Her arms swayed from right to left,
and she would lean this way and then that, to get a glimpse of her
shoes when they were going. Forgetting all about the miner, who smiled
and went on his way, she bounded into the tent and found it empty.
“Padre has gone out. Hello, who are you?” she cried, as a little girl
came in.
“I am Bessie Gray, and I live up there on the hill. We are going to
play steal sticks and want you to go on our side. Can you run?”
“I just guess I can! See my new shoes! They are dirty now, but Tom can
clean them. What is ‘steal sticks?’ Are there a lot of children in
Central City?”
Just to the right and around the bend were eleven youngsters--six boys
and five girls.
Bushy made the twelfth, and they were delighted to have the full number
for “steal sticks.”
“We must stay on this side of the long line across the road and the
boys on the other, and ten feet from the line on each side we put six
sticks, and there is a circle on each side of the sticks, on each side,
called the jail. Now, what is your name?” asked the girl, turning to
Bushy. Bushy told her. Then Bessie went on explaining the game. “We
girls must try and steal all the sticks on the boys’ side, and the boys
will try to get ours. If we are touched on the other side of the line
we are put in jail, and must wait there till one of the girls can run
and touch us, but you can’t keep a stick unless you steal it, and get
across the line again without being touched by the boys. Everything
depends on how good a runner you are.”
“Oh, my!” said Bushy, “we’ll beat the boys. I’ll bet my new shoes on
it.”
“Huh,” said Mike Shaker, “we’ll see about that!”
The game began and the game ended, and Bushy had stolen five out of the
six sticks that the girls had added to their six in store.
“You beat us, did you?” cried Bushy, as she shook the whole bundle at
the boys. She stood bareheaded, with her blouse opened from her neck
to her belt; her cheeks were red as roses, and it was indeed a pretty
picture that met Mr. Sukolt’s eyes as he came around to find her.
“We beat the boys, Padre,” she cried, running to him, and the eleven
crowded about, to say she was the best runner they ever saw.
“Oh, I can run so fast in shoes--in shoes,” she stammered, catching
sight of her shoes for the first time since she began the game--they
were in rags! The tender kid was cut so that the sole clung to the tops
only by narrow strips.
“My shoes! my shoes! Oh, Padre, what has happened to them?” She dropped
her sticks and burst into tears. “They looked so grand coming up the
hill. Oh, Padre, they were such beauties. What will I do?”
“Better put on the moccasins and we will try again,” said Mr. Sukolt,
finding it difficult to suppress a smile in spite of his little girl’s
distress.
“I left them in the store and I’ll have to go barefooted,” she cried.
Mike slipped out and soon brought the missing bundle, and by invitation
of Mr. Sukolt the whole team of “steal sticks” went to the tent, where
the children remained an hour to console Bushy on the disaster that had
befallen her first pair of shoes.
“Never mind, Bushy,” said Mike, “you are the champion ‘steal sticks’
runner, and to-morrow we’ll give you a party for beating us so.”
“How much am I to pay for Bushy’s ‘steal sticks’ shoes?” asked Mr.
Sukolt of the shoeman that night, after Bushy had gone to sleep.
“I could not prevent her taking the boots,” he said; “she simply bossed
us here. I never enjoyed anything in my life like watching her efforts
to see how they looked while she was running. It is a marvel she did
not break her neck when she rolled into the ditch.”
“How much?” asked Mr. Sukolt, again.
“Just $4.50 they cost me, but not a cent will I take,” answered the
shoeman.
Mr. Sukolt then ordered a strong pair of calfskin shoes to take their
place.
Not so very long ago Bushy was in Denver, and met the shoeman, who is
now a great politician. Mr. Richards had been Congressman and a lot of
other things, but he had not forgotten Bushy’s first pair of shoes, and
asked her if she was still the champion “steal sticks” runner.
CHAPTER XXIX
“This is the school-house,” said Mr. Sukolt, as he and Bushy neared a
low, long building situated in the thickest part of Central City. “It
has been opened only a little while, but one of the smartest men in
the country is the teacher, and I would like you to attend and learn
something, like other little girls. We will see how you and school get
along.”
Mollie, Mike, and Jake, of the “steal sticks” team, came up, and
escorted Bushy into the school-house. There we will leave her and call
at Mr. Sukolt’s tent in the evening to hear Bushy talk to her father
and Tom and Shanks of her day’s experience. It is more interesting to
listen to Bushy telling it in her own way, than to follow her all day
long through the school-hours.
“Well, what have you learned?” asked Mr. Sukolt, as Bushy came bounding
into the tent at twenty minutes after four o’clock. She threw her
sombrero in one corner of the tent, her slate on the table, and before
her father could expect a reply she was turning somersault after
somersault from the door toward him, landing on her feet right under
his nose. Clasping her arms about him, she cried: “I can’t help it,
Padre, I am too full of joy; I had to find vent in a little exercise
different from what they gave in school--just for relief, you know.”
With a quick movement she unclasped her arms and reached for the guitar
and, playing it herself, danced at the same time a Spanish fandango,
until at last she dropped on the buffalo robe at her father’s feet and
laughed. The little birds stopped their singing on the trees outside
to listen. “There, I am run down enough now to talk!” she said. “But
crickets and grasshoppers! wasn’t I buzzing? Why, Padre, I have felt
the springs getting tighter and tighter every minute since you left
me. Oh, Rover, old fellow,” she continued, grabbing the dog by his
shaggy coat and dragging him down on the robe beside her, “you must go
to school and learn something; we are great greenies--you and Jip and
Bushy.”
“Well, I am glad you stop to take breath and give me a chance to ask
what it all means,” remarked Mr. Sukolt, while Bushy was hugging Rover.
“I must confess you are more giddy than ever; school has had a queer
effect on you.”
Tom came in with provisions for supper, and while he got the meal,
and Shanks mended the surcingle of his saddle, Mr. Sukolt put aside
his figuring, and they all listened to Bushy, who talked fast and
excitedly.
“I am not going any more,” was her astounding remark to begin with.
Tom stopped peeling potatoes, Shanks almost fell off his chair in
astonishment, and Mr. Sukolt looked seriously at his wild little girl.
“It’s all right, Padre; I have learned all I can manage for a year.”
She pinched Rover’s ears till he howled, and then she began and talked
so fast, Tom said it made him drunk.
“‘If you are a gentleman, you will remove your hat when you enter a
house,’ said a little man just as we got inside the door,” began Bushy.
“I thought my sombrero was the thing meant, and whipped it off my head.
Then a lot of boys and girls giggled and acted so funny. ‘Oh, it’s
a boy,’ said a skinny chap with a prairie-dog mouth and eyes like a
ground-squirrel.”
“I did not like him and I told him so. Then the teacher--the little
man--came from behind a table and said: ‘You must be Bushy Sukolt. This
is Bushy Sukolt, children.’”
“Everybody grinned at me, and they made me think of a lot of
little owls--you know the kind that live with the prairie-dogs and
rattlesnakes. They all nodded their heads just like the owls do when I
call ‘How-de-do.’”
“‘What a funny dress,’ said a mean little girl. ‘If you attend to your
own dress you will have quite enough to do,’ said the teacher, ‘and,
besides, I wish you to remember that personal remarks about anybody’s
dress or manners are forbidden in this school.’”
“I felt sorry for the little girl, and told her I didn’t mind one bit.
And when she began to cry I said I was the best shot around, and if she
would come over to the tent I would teach her to shoot with the bow and
arrow.”
“‘Bushy Sukolt, we do not allow loud talking in school,’ growled the
little teacher, ‘and it would be better for you if you would not boast
of your superior knowledge. If you are smart in anything your friends
will find it out without your blowing your own horn.’”
“Oh, Padre, I felt littler than a minute, and here is what the teacher
said. I have written it down on the slate as one of the things I am to
remember forever.”
Bushy got up and handed the slate to her father. It was covered with
writing beginning with lesson No. 1 and running along with things she
had jotted down, until both sides were completely covered.
“You see, Padre, when the tall boy in the corner squinted at me, and
told Jake that I was his ‘girl’ I heard it and forgot there was a