One thought was uppermost, their bubble was punctured, they were worse than ruined, for their horses and outfit were mortgaged almost up to their value, and in addition, they had borrowed at the bank, counting on paying off all their indebtedness when the Park trip was finished.
"I s'pose I can git a job herdin' sheep--they's good money in it--but I'll be an old man before I can afford to git married, to say nothin' of the disgrace of it." Pinkey's voice sounded hopeless.
The plaint gave Wallie such a pang that he could not answer, but with a twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby to a person who seemed destined to failure in whatever he attempted.
He was another of the "four-flushers," he told himself, and the country was full of them, who just fell short of doing something and being somebody. Probably, in time, he would have no ambition beyond working for a "grub-stake" in summer so he could "shack up" in winter. He would let his hair grow, and go sockless, and buy new clothes rather than wash his old ones, and eat from soiled dishes, and read mail-order catalogues for entertainment, and dog-gone it! why couldn't he bring himself to think of marrying some respectable girl like the blacksmith's daughter there in Prouty, who had no chin and a fine complexion and cooked like an angel and never said a cross word to anybody?
Since Wallie was too uncommunicative to be interesting, Pinkey got up and left him to his reflections, remarking philosophically as he departed to join Miss Eyester:
"Well, I never heard of anybody bein' hanged for owin' money, so I guess there's no use in us goin' around with the double-breasted blues over it. We might as well whistle and say we like it."
Wallie looked after his partner almost angrily.
Oh, yes, it was well enough for him to talk about being cheerful and not worrying, but he guessed he would not be so chipper and so easily resigned to disappointment if he had nothing more to which to look forward than he had.
The lugubrious voice of Mr. Hicks declaiming reached him:
"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling! The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the bird is on the wing."