Sam Rice's Romance [pp. 372-381]

SALAD RICE'S ROMfA NCE.
mer was drawing to a close. Two or
three times she had gone down to Pineywoods Station and back, on Sam's coach,
and always sat on the box, and drove a
part of the way, but never where her
driving would excite remark. It is superfluous to state, that on these occasions there was a happy heart beneath
Sam's linen-duster, o that the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were
borne with smiling equanimity, not to
say pride; for Sam was well aware that
Mrs. Dolly Page's brunette beaut;y, and
his blonde-bearded style, together furnished a not unpleasing tableau of personal charms. Besides, Sam's motto
was, "Let those laugh who win;" and
he seemed to himself to be on the road
to heights of happiness beyond the ken
of ordinary mortals-especially ordinary
stage-drivers.
"I don't calkelate to drive stage more
than a year or two longer," Sam said to
Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return
from their last trip together to Pineywoods Station. "I've got a little place
dawn in Amador, and an interest in the
Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few
hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage with
vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the flowers in the front-garden."
As if Sam's heightened color and
shining eyes had not sufficiently pointed
this confession of his desires, it chanced
that at this moment the eyes of both
were attracted to a way-side picture: a
cottage, a flower-bordered walk, a fair
young woman standing at the gate, with
a crowing babe in her arms lifting its
little white hands to the sun-browned
face of a stalwart young farmer who was
smiling proudly on the two. At this sudden apparition of his inmost thoughts
Sam's heart gave a great bound, and
there was a simultaneous ringing in his
ears. His first instinctive act was to
crack his whip so fiercely as to set the
leaders off prancing; and when, by this
diversion, he had partly recovered selfpossession, to glance at the face of his
companion. A new embarrassment seized him when he discovered two little
rivers of tears running over the crimsoned cheeks. But a coach-box is not
a convenient place for sentiment to display itself; and, though the temptation
was great to inquire into the cause of the
tears, with a view of offering consolation, Sam prudently looked the other
way, and maintained silence. The reader, however, knows that those tears sank
into the beholder's soul, and caused to
germinate countless tender thoughts and
emotions, which were, on some future
occasion, to be laid upon the altar of his
devotion to Mrs. Dolly Page. And none
the less, that, in a few minutes, the eyes
which shed them resumed their roguish
brightness, and the lady was totally unconscious of having heard, seen, or felt
any embarrassment. Sentiment between
them was successfully tabooed, so far as
utterance was concerned, for that time.
And so Sam found, somewhat to his
disappointment, it continued to fall out,
,that, whenever he got upon delicate
ground, the lady was off like a humming-bird, darting hither and yon, so
that it was impossible to put a finger
upon her, or get so much as a look at
her brilliant and restless wings. But
nobody ever tired of trying to find a
humming-bird at rest; and so Sam never
gave up looking for the opportune moment of speaking his mind.
Meanwhile, Lucky-dog Camp was having a fresh sensation. An organized
band of gamblers, robbers, and "roadagents" had made a swoop upon its property, of various kinds, and had succeeded in making off with it. The very night
after the ride just mentioned, the best
horses in Sam Rice's team were stolen,
making it necessary to substitute what
Sam called "a pa'r of ornery cayuses."
To put the climax to his misfortunes, the
376
[APRIL,