A Girl of the Plains Country

								

five years younger than himself, and therefore near Hilda’s own age.
Yet his contempt of Maybelle was nothing worse than the male
intolerance of the foolish female, while Hilda learned from him,
coldly, insultingly, that she was a tenderfoot. She was not only a
child, and a girl at that—she was a tenderfoot. Did she know what
chaparajos were?—tapaderos?—latigos?—a cinch, even? She did not.
Maybelle was not expected to deal much in these terms on account of
her deficiencies as a girl; but Hilda didn’t even know what such
things were for! She was a tenderfoot—that’s what she was!
The day was clouded by the murk of Fayte’s sneers. He condescended
to rope the girls as they ran screaming; but being rated as dumb
driven cattle, even by so mighty a person, wasn’t much of a
consolation. Finally he scalped his sister’s dolls by the simple
process of pulling their wigs off. Maybelle went whimpering to Mrs.
Capadine, who indignantly told the boy that he would not be allowed
to go on the return visit to the Three Sorrows which Miss Valeria
was already proposing. Fayte said sullenly that he didn’t want to.
He said that the Three Sorrows was his ranch, anyhow—by rights—and
far’s he was concerned he didn’t care to go and see other people
living on it.
His ranch! What could Fayte Marchbanks mean by that? The next day
Hilda took the question to her father, but he only laughed. It was
Uncle Hank—Uncle Hank, who always talked to one the same as to
grown-ups—who finally explained the matter to her, allowing
tolerantly, “Oh, just a kid’s bragging. Fayte Marchbanks says things
like that, I expect, because his Spanish grandpa, old man Romero,
was the first owner of this ranch, and did give the place its
name—the Rancho of the Three Sorrows.”
“What do you suppose made him call it such a sad name, Uncle Hank?”
Hilda wanted to know. “Do you suppose he had them—three sorrows?”
“He did so, Pettie—in his three daughters. Michaela, his oldest, she
took smallpox from a family of Arkansas movers that came driftin’
through these pastures two weeks before she was to have been
married. Her looks was ruined. She went into a convent up in Santy
Fe. Lola, the next one, was killed in a train wreck. And Guadeloupe,
the third, his baby, and the prettiest of the bunch, ran away with
Lee Marchbanks, which is Fayte’s and Maybelle’s pa. He said neither
of them should ever step foot on his land while he lived. Old
Romero’s wife was dead, and he never had no sons. He took the
trouble about his daughters hard. He drank up all his property—”
Hilda had a moment of wondering how he could do that—“and then drank
himself to death.”
“Maybelle says her mother is dead, too,” said Hilda. “They had the
sorrow, didn’t they, Uncle Hank? Maybelle and Fayte, I mean.”
“Um—well—it’s all in the past, honey. And Lee Marchbanks—Colonel