THE JOURNEY
‘Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs,
To the silent wilderness.’
WHATEVER the distance was in reality, the steamer had consumed more time
than usual, and it was quite two o’clock, instead of half-past twelve, as
they had expected, before they were landed on the old and almost
forgotten pier, and saw the smoke of the Orizaba as she steamed away.
After counting over their bags and packages to see if anything had been
forgotten, they looked about them.
[Picture: Coach of people being drawn by horses]
There was a dirty little settlement, a mile or two to the south,
consisting of a collection of tumble-down adobe houses which looked like
a blotch on the brown hillside; a few cattle were browsing near by, and
the locality seemed to be well supplied with lizards, which darted over
the dusty ground in all directions. But the startling point of the
landscape was that it showed no sign of human life, and Pancho’s orders
had been to have Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega and his
wood-cart on hand promptly at half-past twelve.
‘Can Pancho have forgotten?’
‘Can he have lost his way and never arrived here at all?’
‘Can Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega have grown tired of waiting
and gone off?’
‘Has Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega been drinking too much
aguardiente and so forgotten to come?’
‘Has Pancho been murdered by highway robbers, and served up into stew for
their evening meal?’
‘With Hop Yet for dessert! Oh, horrible!’ These were some of the
questions and exclamations that greeted the ears of the lizards, and
caused them to fly over the ground in a more excited fashion than ever.
‘One thing is certain. If Pancho has been stupid enough to lose his way
coming fifty miles down the coast, I’ll discharge him,’ said Dr. Winship,
with decision.
‘When you find him,’ added Aunt Truth, prudently.
‘Of course. But really, mamma, this looks discouraging; I am afraid we
can’t get into camp this evening. Shall we go up to the nearest ranch
house for the night, and see what can be done to-morrow?’
‘Never!’ exclaimed the young people, with one deafening shout.
‘Never,’ echoed Philip separately. ‘I have vowed that a bed shall not
know me for three months, and I’ll keep my vow.’
‘What do you say to this, Uncle Doc?’ said Geoffrey. ‘Suppose you go up
to the storehouse and office,—it’s about a mile,—and see if the goods are
there all right, and whether the men saw Pancho on his way up to the
cañon. Meanwhile, Phil and I will ride over here somewhere to get a
team, or look up Señor Don Manuel Felipe Hilario Noriega. Jack can stay
with Aunt Truth and the girls, to watch developments.’
‘But, papa, can’t we pitch the camp to-night, somehow?’ asked Bell,
piteously.
‘I don’t see how. We are behindhand already; and if we get started
within an hour we can’t reach the ground I selected before dark and we
can’t choose any nearer one, because if Pancho is anywhere in creation he
is on the identical spot I sent him to.’
‘But, Dr. Paul, I’ll tell you what we could do,’ suggested Jack. ‘If we
get any kind of a start, we can’t fail to reach camp by seven or eight
o’clock at latest. Now it’s bright moonlight, and if we find Pancho,
he’ll have the baggage unloaded, and Hop Yet will have a fire lighted.
What’s to prevent our swinging the hammocks for the ladies? And we’ll
just roll up in our blankets by the fire, for to-night. Then we’ll get
to housekeeping in the morning.’
This plan received a most enthusiastic reception.
‘Very well,’ replied the Doctor. ‘If you are all agreed, I suppose we
may as well begin roughing it now as at any time.’
You may have noticed sometimes, after having fortified yourself against a
terrible misfortune which seemed in store for you, that it didn’t come,
after all. Well, it was so in this case; for just as Dr. Winship and the
boys started out over the hillside at a brisk pace, an immense cloud of
dust, some distance up the road, attracted their attention, and they came
to a sudden standstill.
The girls held their breath in anxious expectation, and at length gave an
irrepressible shout of joy and relief when there issued from the dense
grey cloud the familiar four-horse team, with Daisy, Tule Molly,
Villikins, and Dinah, looking as fresh as if they had not been driven a
mile, tough little mustangs that they were.
A long conversation in Spanish ensued, which, being translated by Dr.
Winship, furnished all necessary information concerning the delay.
S. D. M. F. H. N. stated that Pancho was neither faithless nor stupid,
but was waiting for them on the camping-ground, and that as the goods
were already packed in his wood-cart he would follow them immediately.
So the whole party started without more delay; Dr. and Mrs. Winship,
Master Paul, Jack Howard, and the three girls riding in the wagon, while
Geoffrey and Philip galloped ahead on horseback.
It was a long, dusty, tiresome ride; and Dicky, who had been as good all
day as any saint ever carved in marble and set in a niche, grew rather
warm, cross, and hungry, although he had been consuming ginger-snaps and
apricots since early morning. After asking plaintively for the fiftieth
time how long it would be before dinner, he finally succumbed to his
weariness, and dropping his yellow head, that was like a cowslip ball, in
his mother’s lap, he fell asleep.
But the young people, whose eyes were not blinded by hunger and sleep,
found more than enough to interest them on this dusty California road,
winding as it did through grand old growths of trees, acres and acres of
waving grain, and endless stretches of gorgeous yellow mustard, the
stalks of which were five or six feet high, almost hiding from view the
boys who dashed into the golden forest from time to time.
At the foot of the hill they passed an old adobe hut, with a crowd of
pretty, swarthy, frowzy Mexican children playing in the sunshine, while
their mother, black-haired and ample of figure, occupied herself in
hanging great quantities of jerked beef on a sort of clothes-line running
between the eucalyptus-trees.
The father, a wild-looking individual in a red shirt and enormous hat,
came from behind the hut, unhitched the stout little broncho tied to the
fence, gave the poor animal a desperately tight ‘cinch,’ threw himself
into the saddle without touching his foot to the lumbering wooden
stirrups, and, digging his spurs well into the horse’s sides, was out of
sight in an instant, leaving only a huge cloud of dust to cover his
disappearance.
‘How those fellows do ride!’ exclaimed Dr. Winship, savagely. ‘I wish
they were all obliged to walk until they knew how to treat a horse.’
‘Then they’d walk straight into the millennium,’ said Jack, sagely, ‘for
their cruelty seems to be an instinct.’
‘But how beautifully they ride, too!’ said Polly. ‘Mamma and I were
sitting on the hotel piazza the other day, watching two young Spaniards
who were performing feats of horsemanship. They dropped four-bit pieces
on the dusty road, and riding up to them at full speed clutched them from
the ground in some mysterious way that was perfectly wonderful. Then
Nick Gutierrez mounted a bucking horse, and actually rolled and lighted a
cigarette while the animal bucked with all his might.’
‘See that cunning, cunning _muchachita_, mamma!’ cried Bell; for, as they
stopped at the top of the hill to let the horses breathe, one of the
little Mexican children ran after them, holding out a handful of glowing
yellow poppies.
She was distractingly pretty, with a beauty that is short-lived with the
people of her race. The afternoon sun shone down fiercely on her waving
coal-black locks, and brought a rich colour to her nut-brown cheek; she
had one little flimsy, ragged garment, neither long, broad, nor thick,
which hung about her picturesquely; and, with her soft, dark, sleepy
eyes, the rows of little white teeth behind her laughing red mouth, and
the vivid yellow blossoms in her tiny outstretched hand, she was a very
charming vision.
‘_Como te llamas_, _muchachita_?’ (What is your name, little one?) asked
Bell, airing her Spanish, which was rather good.
‘Teresita,’ she answered, with a pretty accent, as she scratched a set of
five grimy little toes to and fro in the dusty ground.
‘Throw her a bit, papa,’ whispered Bell; and, as he did so, Teresita
caught the piece of silver very deftly, and ran excitedly back to the
centre of the chattering group in front of the house.
‘How intense everything is in California! Do you know what I mean,
mamma?’ said Bell. ‘The fruit is so immense, the cañons so deep, the
trees so big, the hills so high, the rain so wet, and the drought so
dry.’
‘The fleas so many, the fleas so spry,’ chanted Jack, who had perceived
that Bell was talking in rhyme without knowing it. ‘California is just
the place for you, Bell; it gives you a chance for innumerable adjectives
heaped one on the other.’
‘I don’t always heap up adjectives,’ replied Bell, with dignity. ‘When I
wish to describe you, for instance, I simply say “that hateful boy,” and
let it go at that.’
Jack retired to private life for a season.
‘I’d like to paint a picture of Teresita,’ said Margery, who had a pretty
talent for sketching, ‘and call it The Summer Child, or some such thing.
I should think the famous old colour artists might have loved to paint
this gorgeous flame-tinted poppy.’
‘Not poppy,—eschscholtzia,’ corrected Jack, coming rapidly to the surface
again, after Bell’s rebuke, and delivering himself of the
tongue-confusing word with a terrible grimace.
‘I’m not writing a botany,’ retorted Margery; ‘and I can never remember
that word, much less spell it. I don’t see how it grows under such an
abominable Russian name. It’s worse than ichthyosaurus. Do you remember
that funny nonsense verse?—
“I is for ichthyosaurus,
Who lived when the world was all porous;
But he fainted with shame
When he first heard his name,
And departed a long while before us.”’
‘The Spaniards are more poetic,’ said Aunt Truth, ‘for they call it _la
copa de oro_, the golden cup. Oh, see them yonder! It is like the Field
of the Cloth of Gold.’
The sight would have driven a royal florist mad with joy: a hillside that
was a swaying mass of radiant bloom, a joyous carnival of vivid colour,
in which the thousand golden goblets, turned upward to the sun, were
dancing, and glowing, and shaming out of countenance the purple and blue
and pink masses which surrounded them on every side.
‘You know Professor Pinnie told us that every well-informed young girl
should know at least the flora of her own State,’ said Jack, after the
excitement had subsided.
‘Well, one thing is certain: Professor Pinnie never knew the _state_ of
his own _flora_, or at least he kept his wife sorting and arranging his
specimens all the time; and I think he’s a regular old frump,’ said
Polly, irreverently, but meeting Aunt Truth’s reproving glance, which
brought a blush and a whispered ‘Excuse me,’ she went on, ‘Well, what I
mean is, he doesn’t know any more than other people, after all; for he
cares for nothing but bushes and herbs and seeds and shrubs and roots and
stamens and pistils; and he can’t tell whether a flower is lovely or not,
he is so crazy to find out where it belongs and tie a tag round it.’
‘I must agree with Polly,’ laughed Jack. ‘Why, I went to ride with him
one day in the Cathedral Oaks, and he made me get off my horse every five
minutes to dig up roots and tie them to the pommel of his old saddle, so
that we came into town looking like moving herbariums. The stable-man
lifted him on to his horse when he started, I suppose, and he would have
been there yet if he hadn’t been helped off. Bah!’ For Jack had a
supreme contempt for any man who was less than a centaur.
By this time they had turned off the main thoroughfare, and were
travelling over a bit of old stage road which was anything but easy
riding. There they met some men who were driving an enormous band of
sheep to a distant ranch for pasture, which gave saucy Polly the chance
to ask Dr. Winship, innocently, why white sheep ate so much more than
black ones.
He fell into the trap at once, and answered unsuspectingly, in a
surprised tone, ‘Why, do they?’ giving her the longed-for opportunity to
respond, ‘Yes, of course, because there are so many more of ’em; don’t
you see?’
‘You are behind the times, Dr. Paul,’ said Jack. ‘That’s an ancient
joke. Just look at those sheep, sir. How many are there? Eight
hundred, say?’
‘Even more, I should think,—a thousand, certainly; and rather thin they
look, too.’
‘I should imagine they might,’ said Bell, sympathetically. ‘When I first
came to California I never could see how the poor creatures found
anything to eat on these bare, brown hillsides, until the farmers showed
me the prickly little burr clover balls that cover the ground. But see,
mamma! there are some tiny lambs, poor, tired, weak-legged little things;
I wonder if they will live through the journey.’
‘Which reminds me,’ said Jack, giving Villikins a touch of the whip,
‘that nothing is so calculated to disturb your faith in and love for
lambs as life on a sheep ranch. Innocent! Good gracious! I never saw
such—such—’
‘Gasping, staggering, stuttering, stammering tom-fools,’ interposed Bell.
‘That’s what Carlyle called _one_ Lamb,—dear Mr. “Roast Pig” Charles; and
a mean old thing he was, too, for doing it.’
‘Well, it is just strong enough to apply to the actual lamb; not the lamb
of romance, but the lamb of reality. You can’t get him anywhere; he
doesn’t know enough. He won’t drive, he can’t follow; he’s too stupid.
Why, I went out for a couple of ’em once, that were lost in the cañon. I
found them,—that was comparatively easy; but when I tried to get them
home, I couldn’t. At last, after infinite trouble, I managed to drive
them up on to the trail, which was so narrow there was but one thing for
a rational creature to do, and that was to go ahead. Then, if you’ll
believe me, those idiots kept bleating and getting under the horse’s
fore-feet; finally, one of them, the champion simpleton, tumbled over
into the cañon, and I tied the legs of the other one together, and
carried him home on the front of my saddle.’
‘They are innocent, any way,’ insisted Margery. ‘I won’t believe they’re
not. I can’t bear these people who interfere with all your cherished
ideas, and say that Columbus didn’t discover America, and Shakespeare
wasn’t Shakespeare, and William Tell didn’t shoot the apple.’
‘Nevertheless, I claim that the lamb is not half so much an emblem of
innocence as he is of utter and profound stupidity. There is that
charming old lyric about Mary’s little lamb; I can explain that. After
he came to school (which was an error of judgment at the very beginning),
he made the rumpus, you know—
“And then the teacher turned him out,
But still he lingered nee-ar,
And waited patiently about
Till Mary did appee-ar.”
Of course he did. He didn’t know enough to go home alone.
“And then he ran to her and laid
His head upon her arr-um,
As if to say, ‘I’m not afraid;
You’ll keep me from all harr-um.’”
As if a lamb could be capable of that amount of reasoning! And then
“‘What makes the lamb love Mary so?
The eager children cry;
‘Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know,’
The teacher did reply.”
And might have added that as Mary fed the lamb three times a day and
twice on Sundays, he probably not only knew on which side his daily bread
was buttered, but also who buttered it.’
‘Dreadful boy!’ laughed Bell. ‘Polly, pray lower the umbrella; we are
going to meet some respectable people, and we actually are too dirty to
be seen. I have really been eating dust.’
‘They must be equally dusty,’ said Polly, sagely. ‘Why, it is the
Burtons, from Tacitas ranch!’
The Burton ranch wagon was drawn up, as its driver recognised Dr.
Winship, and he proceeded to cheer the spirits of the party by telling
them that he had passed Pancho two hours before, and that he was busily
clearing rubbish from the camping-ground. This was six o’clock, and by a
little after eight the weary, happy party were seated on saddle-blankets
and carriage-cushions round a cheery camp-fire, eating a frugal meal,
which tasted sweeter than nectar and ambrosia to their keen appetites.
The boys expressed their intention of spending the night in unpacking
their baggage and getting to rights generally, but Dr. Winship placed a
prompt and decisive veto on this proposition, and they submitted
cheerfully to his better judgment.
Getting to bed was an exciting occupation for everybody. Dicky was first
tucked up in a warm nest of rugs and blankets, under a tree, and sank
into a profound slumber at once, with the happy unconsciousness of
childhood. His father completed the preparations for his comfort by
opening a huge umbrella and arranging it firmly over his head, so that no
falling leaf might frighten him and no sudden gust of air blow upon his
face.
Bell stood before her hammock, and meditated. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘going
to bed is a simple matter after all, when you have shorn it of all
useless formalities. Let me see: I generally walk to and fro in the
room, eating a bunch of grapes or an orange, look out of the window five
or ten minutes, brush my hair, read my chapter in the Bible, take my book
and study Spanish five minutes, on the principle of that abnormal woman
who learned ninety-six languages while she was waiting for the kettle to
boil in the morning—’
‘Must have been a slow boiler,’ interrupted Polly, wickedly. ‘Seems to
me it would have been economy to sell it and buy a new one.’
‘Oh, Polly! you are so wilfully stupid! The kettle isn’t the point—but
the languages. Besides, she didn’t learn all the ninety-six while the
kettle was boiling once, you know.’
‘Oh, didn’t she? That alters the case. Thank you,’ said Polly,
sarcastically.
‘Now observe me,’ said Bell. ‘I have made the getting into a hammock a
study. I first open it very wide at the top with both hands; then,
holding it in that position, I gracefully revolve my body from left to
right as upon an imaginary swivel; meantime I raise my right foot
considerably from mother earth, with a view to passing it over the
hammock’s edge. Every move is calculated, you perceive, and produces its
own share of the perfect result; the method is the same that Rachel used
in rehearsing her wonderful tragic poses. I am now seated in the
hammock, you observe, with both hands extending the net from side to side
and the right foot well in position; I now raise the left foot with a
swift but admirably steady movement, and I am—Help! Help!! Murder!!!’
‘In short, you are not in, but out,’ cried Polly, in a burst of laughter;
for Bell had leaned too far to the right, and on bringing the other foot
in, with its ‘swift but admirably steady’ motion, she gave a sudden
lurch, pulled the hammock entirely over herself and fell out head first
on the other side, leaving her feet tangled in its meshes. ‘Shall we
help her out, Meg? She doesn’t deserve it, after that pompous oration
and attempt to show off her superior abilities. Nevertheless, she always
accepts mercy more gracefully than justice. Heave ahoy, my hearties!’
Bell was extricated, and looked sufficiently ashamed.
‘We are much obliged for the lesson,’ said Margery, ‘but the method is
open to criticism; so I think we’ll manage in our ordinary savage way.
We may not be graceful or scientific, but we get in, which is the main
point.’
The hammocks did not prove the easiest of nests, as the girls had
imagined. In fact, to be perfectly candid about the matter, the wicked
flea of California, which man pursueth but seldom catcheth, is apt, on
many a summer night, to interfere shamelessly with slumber. On this
particular night he was fairly rampant, perhaps because sweet humanity on
which to feed was very scarce in that cañon.
‘Good-night, girls!’ called Jack, when matters seemed to be finally
settled for sleep. ‘Bell, you must keep one eye open, for the coyotes
will be stealing down the mountain in a jiffy, and yours is the first
hammock in the path.’
‘Of course,’ moaned Bell,—‘that’s why the girls gave me this one; they
knew very well that one victim always slakes the animals’ thirst for
blood. Well, let them come on. I shiver with terror, but my only hope
is that I may be eaten in my sleep, if at all.’
‘There was a young party named Bell,
Who slept out of doors for a spell;
When asked how she fared,
She said she was scared,
But otherwise doing quite well.
‘How’s that?’ asked Jack. ‘I shall be able to drive Bell off her own
field, with a little practice.’
‘Go to sleep!’ roared Dr. Paul. ‘In your present condition of mind and
body you are not fit for poetry!’
‘That’s just the point, sir,’ retorted Jack, slyly, ‘for, you remember,
poets are not _fit_, but _nascitur_,—don’t you know?’ and he retired
under his blanket for protection.
But quiet seemed to be impossible: there were all sorts of strange
sounds; and the moon, too, was so splendid that they almost felt as if
they were lying beneath the radiance of a calcium light; while in the
dark places, midst the branches of thick foliage, the owls hooted
gloomily. If you had happened to be an owl in that vicinity, you might
have heard not only the feverish tossing to and fro of the girls in the
hammocks, but many dismal sighs and groans from Dr. Winship and the boys;
for the bare ground is, after all, more rheumatic than romantic, and they
too tumbled from side to side, seeking comfort.
But at midnight quiet slumber had descended upon them, and they presented
a funny spectacle enough to one open-eyed watcher. A long slender
sycamore log was extended before the fire, and constituted their pillow;
on this their heads reposed, each decorated with a tightly fitting silk
handkerchief; then came a compact, papoose-like roll of grey blanket,
terminated by a pair of erect feet, whose generous proportions soared to
different heights. There was a little snoring, too; perhaps the log was
hollow.
At midnight you might have seen a quaintly despondent little figure,
whose curly head issued from a hooded cloak, staggering hopelessly from a
hammock, and seating herself on a mossy stump. From the limpness of her
attitude and the pathetic expression of her eyes, I fear Polly was
reviewing former happy nights spent on spring-beds; and at this
particular moment the realities of camping-out hardly equalled her
anticipations. Whatever may have been her feelings, however, they were
promptly stifled when a certain insolent head reared itself from its
blanket-roll, and a hoarse voice cackled, ‘Pretty Polly! Polly want a
cañon?’ At this insult Miss Oliver wrapped her drapery about her and
strode to her hammock with the air of a tragedy queen.