the Whispering Firs in a sheet of mist when Joseph Ranger sought Jean in
her little schoolroom for a private conversation.
The flickering light of a single kerosene lamp emitted a characteristic
odor. A rough table supported the lamp; and on a three-legged stool sat
the schoolma’am, trying to bring order out of the chaos of a score or
more of papers left by the children.
“Ah!” she said, arising. “Come in, Uncle Joe. You won’t find our crude
beginnings very inviting, but we mustn’t despise the day of small things.”
“You’re making a good beginning, Jean. But I have not come to talk about
your school. I have brought you some tidings from Mr. Ashleigh.”
Jean turned pale and would have fallen if her uncle had not caught her in
his arms.
“Here is a note which he gave me just as I was leaving for the West.”
Jean retained her composure by a supreme effort of the will.
“You were my dream,” the letter began; “I trusted and loved you as I can
never trust and love another. And the end is to be your marriage with
a fellow you call Happy Jack! Oh, Jean, my bonnie Jean! Why have you
been so fickle and so rash? I sent you a letter and a ring. It was my
great-great-grandmother’s ring, and a hereditary talisman. The messenger
was one Harry Hankins, a borderer and scout, who was going to Oregon
City. No, Jean; I did not marry Le-Le, but I did secure her ransom, and
I should before now have been on my way to you, but was awaiting your
letter. Good-bye, and may God guard and keep you! Think of me as your
heartbroken friend and lover.”
“I never received one single word from him,” said Jean; “and I never saw
or heard of Harry Hankins.”
“Oh, yes, you did, Jean. He is none other than your father’s partner.”
“How can I reach Mr. Ashleigh with a letter? It must be sent at once.”
“That will be impossible, Jean; there will be no courier going out for a
month yet. But we will take a letter to Portland, and leave it in care of
Wahnetta. She will see that it is forwarded at the first opportunity.”
* * * * *
Busily the work went forward. But Happy Jack was nowhere to be seen, and
the brothers were compelled to take their departure without making the
business settlement with him which they so much desired.
“Never mind! We’ll freeze him out, or scare him out, if he shows up
here again,” said the Captain, as he and his brother turned their faces
Portland-ward.
XXXVIII
_THE BROTHERS JOURNEY HOMEWARD TOGETHER_
The steamer in which the Ranger brothers embarked for San Francisco was
an ancient and somewhat decrepit tub, as much unlike the floating palaces
that plough the Pacific Ocean to-day as the long railway trains with
their Pullman coaches, cushioned seats, and electric bells are unlike
the prairie schooners which belabored oxen hauled across deserts and
mountains when the oldest pioneer of to-day was young, and Captain Ranger
was in his prime.
“We’re at the jumping-off place,” said the elder brother, when the
vessel stopped at Astoria. “There will never be a chance for the restive
American citizen to get any farther west than the eastern edge of the
Pacific Ocean. And yet who knows?” he added, after a pause. “Burns has
a theory in which, after all, there may be some logic. He says that the
entire planet will some day be under the management of an affiliated
government formed by a few great powers, who will organize an alliance to
control, and maybe protect, the weaker nationalities from one another.
Jean is enthusiastic over the theme.”
“You seem to set great store by Jean.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She’s about raking up a new engagement with that Green
River chap. If she does, she’ll marry soon, and get immersed in the cares
of a family, like all the rest of the girls. If so, she’ll never amount
to much.”
“No great general can do as much for the world, no matter how many
nations he conquers, as the mother who rears a family of noble men
and women, John. I would rather be in some mothers’ shoes than in the
President’s.”
“And so would I. But it is hard, when a man has raised a daughter of
great mental promise, to see her talents buried under the selfish
domination of some prig of a husband who has all the power though he
hasn’t half her sense.”
* * * * *
“Wait long enough,” said John, as they passed Tillamook Head and pursued
their undulating way southward; “wait long enough, and the genius of
American liberty and enterprise will settle yonder shores with a million
or more inhabitants. Railroads by the dozen will cross the continent in
time, sending out lateral branches in all directions, till the whole
country is gridironed with paths for the iron horse.”
“But the mountains are in the way, John.”
“They will be tunnelled or looped, Joe. New feats of engineering are
being developed constantly; and I should not be surprised to hear of the
discovery of some new force, or rather of the discovery of the utility
of some always existing force, which will revolutionize transportation
on the land and the sea. There are islands to the west of us, lots of
them. And who knows but they will become a part of the possessions of the
United States before the close of the century? I’d like to have Burns and
Jean and the Little Doctor here to help me talk it out.”
“I can’t let my mind get away from me, as you do,” laughed Joseph, and
they changed the subject.
* * * * *
Days passed, and the timber lines of southern Oregon and northern
California gave way to the extensive treeless regions that border the
central and southern edges of the Golden State. Immense stretches of
barren, sandy wastes rose high in the arid heavens, revealing a region
of desolation that seemed good for nothing but range for savage beasts
and poisonous serpents.
“It is now my turn to prophesy and philosophize,” said Joseph. “My
experience and observation in Utah, where irrigation has relieved the
barren soil of its drouth, has taught me that irrigation will develop
the latent power of the desert to sustain and perpetuate the race long
after the Mississippi basin has ceased to respond to the demands of the
husbandman and the vernal lands of the Willamette valley are worn out.”
“But the Willamette valley and the entire northwest coast will always
beat the world with the fruits and cereals that thrive in the temperate
zone.”
“‘Always’ is a good while, John. It is a pity that we can’t live always.”
“Jean declares that we do.”
“How came she to know so much?”
“I cannot tell; but she has evolved a theory from her studies and
conclusions that seems plausible. At any rate, we cannot disprove it; and
as it comforts her and hurts nobody, I am glad she can enjoy it. But the
gong has sounded for dinner, and I am as hungry as a bear.”
* * * * *
“It is a glorious thing to be alive,” exclaimed the Captain, when they
spied the lights of the Farallones to the leeward, while on their left
rose Mare Island; and they knew that they were nearing the Golden Gate.
Four days of happy, languorous idleness on a glassy sea had been theirs
to enjoy. But each decided that he had had enough of leisure, and was
glad when Telegraph Hill, the towering head of the city of San Francisco,
was seen among its myriads of sand-dunes and rioting patches of native
weeds.
“It is indeed a glorious thing to be alive!” said Joseph, as they were
being jostled in the streets of the city, where a babel of tongues kept
up a continuous clatter, as bewildering as it was unintelligible.
The hotel in which the brothers found lodgings was a little superior
to the Portland hostelry, being larger; but the food was far from
satisfactory, and they found the sand-fleas and Benicia Bay mosquitoes
more voracious than welcome. The sights of the truly cosmopolitan
city were new and alluring; and once, but for the intervention of the
police, the verdant pair would have been fleeced by a smooth-tongued
swindler. They were directed by a big policeman to an immense hardware
establishment, where they found a complete up-to-date outfit for their
plant. They then continued their journey toward the Isthmus with a
feeling of anticipation to which their frequent conversations concerning
the legendary lore of the peculiar country for which they were bound
possessed a fascinating interest.
“I have read of a lost continent, which is said to have existed in
a prehistoric age,” said the younger brother. “The Indians of the
Mandan district have many legends in regard to it. They say the Great
Spirit submerged the dry land in a fit of anger, thus separating the
so-called Old World from the so-called New, and driving the remnant of
the surviving inhabitants to the north as far as the Great Lakes, where
they speedily relapsed into the barbarism that ensues from isolation,
hardships, and necessity, until at last they perished from the face of
the earth.”
“But what of the origin of the Indian race?” asked John.
“Their legends tell us that their ancestors came originally from Russia,
by the way of Behring Strait, which in winter was closed by ice; that at
one time the ice gorges were suddenly broken up by a tremendous gale and
were never closed again. There were natives of the great Northland who
were caught on the south side of the gorge, and, being unable to return,
remained in what is now Alaska, whence they migrated, multiplied, and
spread till they covered what is now the United States of America.”
“When we return to Oregon, you must not fail to start Burns on some of
these legends, Joe. The Widow McAlpin, whom he means to marry as soon as
she will consent, is as deeply interested in the origin of the Indians as
he is.”
“But if we knew all about the immediate origin of the Indians, that
wouldn’t settle the question, John. Where did the Russians get their
start; and how did every island of the great oceans become inhabited?”
“You are carrying me away beyond my depth, Joe. Burns has a theory that
different races of people are indigenous to all countries. He calls the
story of Adam and Eve a myth, or a sort of cabalistic tale. That reminds
me that Jean once completely nonplussed the Reverend Thomas Rogers by
asking who were the daughters of men whom the sons of God took as wives.
‘And where,’ she asked, ‘did Cain get his wife?’”
“These speculations, which are by no means new, are as fruitless as they
are perplexing, John. We know no more about them than these donkeys do
that are floundering, with us on their backs, across this God-forsaken
Isthmus. Will there ever be a canal cut across it, I wonder?”
“Guess we’d better talk about spring. That is something we can
understand.”
“No, John. We can no more clearly comprehend the springtime, with its
many wondrous revelations, than we can comprehend anything else that is
unknowable. We know that sunshine, air, and moisture are necessary for
the sustenance of organic life; but we don’t know what life itself is. It
is as invisible to us, in all its wonderful activities, as God himself.
No; we know no more about the life that animates spring than we know
about the Atlantans. But we do know that travel is a great eye-opener;
and by showing us how little we know, or can learn, it helps to take away
much of our overweening self-conceit.”
There being no delay at Acapulco, and but little at New Orleans, our
voyagers were soon aboard one of the palatial steamers that ploughed the
waters of the Mississippi in the days when steamboating on the river was
in the height of its glory. Floating palaces, with hearts of fire and
arteries of steam, were equipped in the most sumptuous style. The cuisine
of their tables was never excelled in any land. Trained servants were on
duty at every hand in all departments, and such river races as the pen of
Mark Twain has made immortal infused an alluring element of danger into
the daily life of the adventurous traveller.
St. Louis was passed, and Cairo; and the voyage up the Illinois to Peoria
was speedily consummated.
The brothers struck out afoot for the old home, which they came into
sight of at sundown. A light snow covered the ground, and a bitter wind
was blowing hard.
* * * * *
“Down, Rover, down! Don’t you know your master?” exclaimed the returned
wanderer, as the great mastiff sprang at him with a low, savage growl,
which changed at once to vehement proclamations of welcome as the
faithful creature recognized his friend.
“Bless the dog! But be quiet! We want to surprise the old folks.”
In the cosey sitting-room of the little cottage sat a prematurely aged
woman, plying her needle and softly crooning a plaintive lullaby. A
couple of tallow candles burned dimly on a little table, and a much-worn
work-basket sat at her left. In the opposite corner an old man sat, his
head bowed, as if sleeping. An open Bible had fallen from his hand.
“There’s but one pair of stockings to mend to-night,” sighed the woman,
as she folded her finished work, her thoughts reverting to scenes long
vanished.
The white-bearded man aroused himself at her words and spoke.
“John is forty-three to-night,” he said huskily, his finger pointing to
the family record.
“God be with him till we meet again!” was the sighing response as the
mother struggled to thread her needle by the flickering light.
“Mary is a year younger than John; and Joseph came to us two years
later than Mary,” said the patriarch, his finger still pointing to the
cherished page.
“Oh, father!” cried the wife, “do you think I shall ever hold my Joseph
in my arms again?”
“God knows best,” was the sad reply.
A cat purred contentedly at the woman’s feet, and crickets sang upon the
hearth. Outside, the wind sighed dolefully.
“Wonder what’s the matter with Rover?” said the old man, rising to his
feet, after repeated efforts, and hobbling toward the door. “He’s acting
strangely to-night.”
“Don’t open the door, father,” pleaded the wife. “The whole country is
infested with tramps and robbers. We’d better be cautious. I’m sure I saw
faces at the window a while ago.”
“Rover knows what he’s about, wife. He never speaks like that to an
enemy. I will open the door.”
It seemed to the men outside that the door was long in opening. “My
fingers are all thumbs!” they heard the old man exclaim, after a
fruitless effort to withdraw the bolt.
“Good-evening!” exclaimed Joseph, in a husky voice. “We are a pair of
belated travellers, and seek a night’s lodging. Can we be accommodated?”
“We’re not used to keeping travellers,” said the patriarch, “but it is
late, and another storm is brewing. Come right in. Wife can fix you a
shake-down somewhere, I reckon; and we always have a bite on hand to eat.”
“We have two sons of our own out in the world somewhere, father,” said
the wife. “I will trust the Lord to do by them as we will do by these
strangers.”
John Ranger threw back his heavy coat and hat and stood before the pair
erect and motionless.
“Mother!” he exclaimed, after a moment’s waiting, as he caught her in his
arms, “don’t you know your boy?”
“Why, bless my soul, it’s our John,—my firstborn baby boy!” faltered the
mother, as she resigned herself to his realistic “bear hug.” “I thought
you was in Oregon.”
“So I was a few weeks ago; but I am here now! How are you, mother dear?
And you, father? I am so glad to see you again! How goes the world with
both of you?”
“All right, son, considering. That is, it’s all right now you are here.
We can bear poverty and hardship now. Eh, wife?”
“Yes, father. If the Lord sees fit to afflict us, we can now bear it
without complaining. Blessed be His holy name! But how did it happen,
John dear? I was thinking about you to-night as being far away on this,
your forty-third birthday.”
“We do things in a hurry on the Pacific coast, mother mine. This is an
unexpected visit. But you are neglecting somebody.”
“That is so,” exclaimed the old man. “What might your name be, stranger?”
The tall man in the shadow took a faltering step forward and removed his
hat.
“Don’t you know me, father?”
“Good God! Can it be possible that this is Joseph?”
“Don’t let him deceive us, John!” pleaded the mother. “I couldn’t live
and bear it!”
“Yes, mother dear, it is indeed your Joseph,—your long-lost son,” cried
the prodigal. “Don’t you recognize me now?”
John, who had released his mother, stood by in silence; while Joseph,
secure in his welcome, gathered his mother in his arms and exclaimed,
“It is now my turn to give you a bear hug. Take this, and this!” and he
clasped her with half-savage tenderness again and again.
“Yes, mother!” cried the father, who, overcome by his emotions, dropped
feebly into his chair. Then, controlling his feelings by a strong effort
of the will, he added with a laugh, “Hadn’t we better kill the prodigal,
seeing the calf has come home?”
At a late hour a frugal meal was spread, to which the weary home-comers
did enforced justice, the mother on one side of the table weeping and
laughing by turns, and the father on the other side endeavoring with
indifferent success to be dignified and calm.
The brothers eyed each other askance as the supper proceeded, especially
noticing the absence of the many little luxuries for which the Ranger
tables had formerly been noted throughout the township.
“Father and I don’t have much appetite, so we don’t lay in many extras
nowadays,” said the mother.
“We’ve been having a hard time of it since you left us, John,” broke in
the father. “The fellow that bought the sawmill didn’t understand the
business, and he soon swamped it. So Lije had to take it off his hands,
and it left us mighty hard up. Lije has a big family, and the gals want
clothes and schoolin’, and Mary is poorly and needs medicines; so mother
and I do without lots of things we need. It was lucky for all hands,
though, that Annie sent back that deed to the Robinson old folks. They’re
independent now, in a small way. They have their own garden and cow and
fruit and poultry, and they made enough off of their truck-patch last
summer to pay their taxes and buy groceries. They don’t need many new
clothes. They have bought a sleigh and a horse, so they can go to meetin’
Sundays; and next summer, Daddie Robinson says, he’ll be able to buy a
buggy.”
“I meant to let you have that little place, father,” said John, trying in
vain to eat his food. “But Annie claimed it as her own; and Mary and Jean
insisted that she had a right to deed it to her own parents. If you had
such a little home now, could you be contented?”
“Oh, John,” cried his mother, “if we only had a place as good! I never
covet what is my neighbor’s, but I do want to be independent.”
“Can’t you pack your little effects and go with us to Oregon?” asked
Joseph, a great lump rising in his throat.
The old man looked anxiously at his wife. The wife looked inquiringly at
her husband.
“It will be just as father says,” said the wife, submissively.
“An old man is like an old tree,” began the father, bowing his head upon
the table. “You can transplant a man or a tree, but you can’t make ’em
take root to do much good in new soil after they get old. With the young
it’s different. It’s out o’ sight, out o’ mind, with them. They can take
root anywhere if the conditions are favorable and they want to change.”
“That’s right, father,” echoed the wife. “We’re too old to make a new
start in a new country. Besides, the expense of transplanting us to so
great a distance would go a long way toward taking care of us nearer
home. I’d like it mighty well if we could live near all our children
in our old days; but if it is better for them,—and I reckon it is,—the
sacrifices we must make to bear the separation mustn’t count. We ought to
be used to privation and poverty by this time.”
“We have all heard of the Irishman’s way of feeding, or not feeding, his
horse!” exclaimed Joseph. “The plan seemed successful for a few days,
but just when the animal was supposed to be used to the treatment, the
ungrateful creature died.”
“I could keep the wolf from the door a few years longer if it wasn’t for
my rheumatism,” said the father. “The after-clap of old hardships gets
the better of me now and then. I’m only able, much of the time, to potter
round the place and help your mother at odd jobs. I reckon she would miss
me if I should be called away, however.”
“God grant that we may be called away together when we are wanted in
the land o’ the leal,” said the good wife, fervently; and her husband
responded with a hearty “Amen.”
“You are not to be allowed to worry any more!” exclaimed Joseph, rising
to his feet and straightening himself to his full height. “I am not rich,
but I am amply able to place you above want; and, so help me God, I’ll
do it. I’ve been the stray sheep. I’ve wandered far from the fold, and
I’ve been a long time coming to my senses. But I have put the past behind
me, and, come what will, my dear father and mother shall be provided for
during the remainder of their lives.”
“But you have a family, my son. Don’t make any promises that will
interfere with your obligations to your wife and children.”
“I have some gold mines in Utah, mother dear, and an interest in several
trading-posts on the frontier. I will never neglect you again.”
“Jean went away under a promise to assist us as soon as she could earn
some money of her own,” said the father; “but we can look for no help
from that quarter for some time to come. It isn’t right to expect it of
her, either. Oh, boys, if you could only know how it has stung us to be
treated as mendicants, after we have worn ourselves out in the service of
our children, you would appreciate our joy over this cheering news!”
“Who is treating you as mendicants, mother, I should like to know?”
exclaimed the elder son. “Didn’t I leave you provided for when I started
for Oregon?”
“You did your best to make provision for our needs, my son. We are
blaming nobody. Don’t allow yourself to feel unhappy. We are not
complaining of anything but Fate.”
“But you ought to blame me,” cried Joseph. “It was I who brought all
these calamities upon my nearest and dearest. But God knows I do repent
in sackcloth and ashes.”
“Oh, father, we can never be unhappy now! Our boy that was lost is found.
He that we mourned as dead is with us, alive and well. There is no
blood-guiltiness upon his head, and no shadow of murder or hatred in his
heart. The Lord be praised for all His tender mercies to the children of
men!”
“Yes, yes, the Lord be praised!” echoed the father, fervently. “Surely,
after all the blessings that have been showered upon us this night, we
can take all the balance on trust.”
“We have the promise, father: ‘Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily
thou shalt be fed.’”
* * * * *
“I’d give the world, if I had it, for the simple, child-like faith of our
father and mother,” said John, as soon as the brothers were alone.
“And I’d give the world, if I had it, for a chance to live my life over,
that I might have an opportunity to atone for the suffering I have caused
you all.”
“Dear Joe, you have suffered too.”
He turned his face to the wall and relapsed into silence. And as he
secretly invoked the presence of his beloved dead, he saw himself in an
emigrant’s camp far away in the Black Hills. Again the tethered Flossie
lowed plaintively at the wagon-wheel, bemoaning the death of her calf;
again the still, white-robed form of his Annie appeared before his mental
vision. And the sorrowing husband fell asleep.
XXXIX
_THE OLD HOMESTEAD_
The gray dawn of a bleak December morning found the Ranger brothers
alternately stamping the snow from their feet on the front veranda of
the old homestead, and listening for the first sounds of awakening
within. The same denuded locust-boughs swept the lattice as of yore; and
it seemed but yesterday to John Ranger as he recalled the time he had
caught his gentle Annie in his arms on that momentous and well-remembered
evening, and made the startling announcement, “It’s all settled, mother.
Brother Lije has bought the farm, and we’ll be off in less than a month
for Oregon.”
He turned to his brother, whose face was like marble as he stood in the
shadow of the wall, as silent as the Sphinx.
“Who in thunder is coming here to rout a fellow out o’ bed at this time
of a Sunday morning?” growled Lije Robinson, as he opened the door an
inch or so and peeped out into the biting air.
“It is I and another,” cried John Ranger, pushing the door wide open. For
a moment the brothers-in-law faced each other in silence. One was dumb
with many conflicting emotions, the other with simple wonder.