As most any story is not complete without some love and courtship in it, I am going to write my experience in that matter.
I was married to Claudia Toole in the year 1899. She was a daughter of Bruce Toole, who was a brother to Joseph K. Toole, Governor of Montana at that time. Now Bruce Toole was a very fine aristocratic Southern gentleman and knowing that a cowboy didn’t usually climb very high on the ladder of culture he didn’t think I was desirable company for his daughter. So, we had to carry on our courtship secretly from the old gent, and as about the only amusement of those days was country dancing and as we all went to them on horseback (which usually was 15 or 20 miles) we would ride to a dance. As I could not go to my girl’s home to get her, we would designate a certain rock or creek5 out on the range to meet at and would go from there to the dance. That is where I would leave her the next morning after the dance. Her father thought she went to those parties with her brother, who was in on our secret, so in all our courtship it was unknown to him and it was the shock of his life when we slipped away and got married.
My wife had a pinto horse of her own that her father had got from the Indians and given to her and he must have had some fine breeding back in his ancestry6 somewhere as he could run like a blue streak7. I usually rode the same horse every time we went out together and the two horses became very attached to each other. One time I had taken my wife to a dance and ventured a little closer to her home than usual. I unsaddled her horse and turned him loose in the pasture and rode away. Her horse ran along the fence and put up a terrible fuss about being separated from my horse. My wife’s father saw him acting8 up and wondered what in the world was the matter with him, but he hadn’t seen me. That was one time we nearly got caught in our secret courtship.
I was working for a large cattle company and we had a great many saddle horses. They used to stray away from the ranch9 quite often and I used to ride the range hunting them. There was an old German who had quite a large ranch about ten miles from us, and a good many cattle and horses. He used to try to keep in contact with me as much as possible to find out if I had seen any of his stock and to tell him where they were. So, he used to tell me whenever I was anywhere near his ranch to come there and eat and feed my horse.
About three miles from this old man’s ranch was an enormous big rock that one could hide a couple of horses behind very easily and my wife could get up on the top of the rock and see the whole surrounding country. That was one of our meeting places and we had a date one day to meet at this rock at a certain hour. I could always see her and her pinto horse coming for several miles, so I was at the rock this day waiting for my girl and the old German was out riding this day looking after his stock and saw me quite a distance away and came to where I was. He spoke10 very broken English and of course was glad to see me and inquire about his stock. He said, “Veil, Con—vot you look for?” I told him I had lost a horse and was hunting for him. He wanted a description of the horse, so if he found him he could hold him for me. Of course I had to give him an imaginary description and I wanted to get rid of him as I expected my girl along at any minute, but he insisted that I should go to his ranch with him and have dinner and feed my horse. I used every excuse I could think of—told him I was in a hurry to find the horse—thought he might be sick and would die if I didn’t find him right away—but he said, “Come on with me and have dinner and I vill go mit you and hunt the horse.” Of course, that was just what I didn’t want. I had a hard time, but finally got rid of him and went and found my girl.
Some months afterwards, my girl and I were at another rancher’s place and quite a crowd of people had gathered there that day. The old German came and in the general conversation he said, “Con, didth you findth that hos you vos looking fo’ and vos he sick?” I told him I had found the horse and he was fine. My girl was listening to the conversation and her face turned as red as a firecracker—of course I had told her about the meeting with the old man at the rock.
I think everybody has more or less trouble in their courting days, but it seemed to my wife and I that we had more than our share. As I said before, my wife’s parents didn’t know we were keeping company at all—in fact, didn’t hardly know me. There was a very noted11 dance coming off about 20 miles from her home that we had planned to attend, when, lo and behold12, a few days before the dance a very wealthy and refined gentleman (and an old friend of her father’s) with a fine team and top buggy (which was very rare in those days) came to her father’s ranch to ask her parents to take her to the dance. They at once gladly said yes and she in order not to tip her hand had to consent, and mind you, we were engaged to be married at this time. Of course, with me not knowing anything about this transaction it placed her in a very precarious13 position, and she had a terrible time getting in touch with me to explain to me what had happened. It didn’t set too well with me, but in order to keep everything under control we agreed that she would go to the dance with this man and I would go alone. I guess the fellow must have had some suspicion of the way things stood, as he told her the next day when he was taking her home that he noticed she and I seemed to feel very much better when we had our first dance together. He tried to question her about me and told her I didn’t even own a cabin. She acted very innocent and unconcerned about the matter, but he must have figured he was out of the race, because he never came to call on her again.
When we got married we had to steal away like we did when we were courting. I borrowed a team and spring wagon14 and we had to drive forty miles and the snow was about belly15 deep on the horses. Then we had to wait over in Shelby until the next day to go to Great Falls. The job of getting her away from the ranch was the hard part of it. My wife’s room was upstairs in her home and we agreed that she would throw her stuff out the window about eight o’clock at night and I would pick it up and carry it to the wagon I had parked about 100 yards from the house. I didn’t have any idea how much stuff she had until she began throwing it out—clothes, suitcases, shoes and everything else that a woman ever wore, and besides, she used to play the piano and she had great bales of sheet music and every time one of those bales of music hit that frozen ground it sounded like someone had shot a high powered rifle and the stuff fell right in front of a window down stairs and the window curtains were up. Her father sat reading about ten feet from where I was picking it up. I would take all I could carry on my back to the wagon and came back for another load, and as she was still throwing stuff out while I was gone there would be a bigger pile than ever when I got back. I believe she would have thrown the piano out too if the window had been big enough, and the worst part of it was her father had two bloodhounds and they bellowed16 and howled every time she threw out a fresh cargo17. It was a very cold night and I wore a big fur overcoat and every time I bent over to pick up a package they would howl louder than ever. They thought I was some kind of animal. I tried whispering to them to get out and keep still and that would bring a bigger howl than ever. I was watching her father pretty close through the window and every once in a while he would cock his head sideways to listen and acted like he was going to get up and come out, then would settle down and go to reading again. During those intervals18, my heart was sure pounding and I was all sweaty with fear. I have often heard of people being very nervous when they placed the bride’s ring on her finger, but I know that is nothing compared to the ordeal19 I went through. I forgot, and left a lot of things around where I loaded the wagon and it snowed a lot after that. Every time my wife missed something of hers, we would go to that spot and shovel20 snow. Neither one of us had any idea of what it took to set up housekeeping and it is amazing what we bought. One thing we both agreed on was a carpet, as we intended to move into an old cabin that had big cracks in the floor. When we got home and checked our Outfit21, it seemed to be mostly carpet. Then I think every friend we ever had gave us a lamp for a wedding present, so we had a whole wagonload of carpets and lamps. We had hanging lamps, floor lamps and lamps to throw away, but hardly anything else in the way of housekeeping. When we arrived back in Shelby there were about 25 cowboys in town that had come to celebrate Christmas (it being Christmas week we were married) and they were all at the train to meet us. Most of them had a good sized Xmas jag on and the different congratulations I got from that bunch would sure sound funny today if I could remember them all. They were all old time cowboys that I had worked with for years. We all went to a saloon to celebrate the event. Each one would take me aside to pour out his feelings and congratulations, and give me hell for stealing away to get married without telling them. Some of the names they called me wouldn’t look good in print but that was their way of showing their true friendship. One old bowlegged fellow that I had known from the time I was a kid had a little more joy juice aboard than the others. He didn’t have much to say, but stood at the end of the bar and drank regularly while the celebration was going on. He had one cock eye and kept watching me all the time until he got an opportunity to attract my attention. He nodded to me to come over to where he was. I went over to him and he looked at me silently for a moment and said, “Well, you’re married, are you?” I said yes, and he asked, “Did you marry a white woman?” I answered yes, and he said “You done damn well, but I feel sorry for the girl.” In the meantime, while we were away getting married, my wife’s father wrote her a letter to Shelby where we had our team and wagon and told her all was forgiven and to come home, which we did.
I went to work for him and as he owned plenty of cattle and horses I seemed to be just the kind of a son-in-law he needed, but we sure had a supply of carpet and lamps that we didn’t know what to do with.
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1
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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2
bucking
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| v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的现在分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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4
bucked
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| adj.快v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的过去式和过去分词 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃 | |
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creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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ancestry
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| n.祖先，家世 | |
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streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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8
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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11
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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12
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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16
bellowed
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的过去式和过去分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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outfit
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| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
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