It was not yet daylight when he awoke with an idea that brought him
hurriedly to his feet. Quickly dressing himself, he began to count the
money in his pocket. Apparently the total was not satisfactory, as he
endeavored to augment it by loose coins fished from the pockets of his
other garments, and from the corner of his washstand drawer. Then he
cautiously crept downstairs, seized his gun, and stole out of the still
sleeping house. The wind had gone down, the rain had ceased, a few stars
shone steadily in the north, and the shapeless bulk of the coach, its
lamps extinguished, loomed high and dry above the lessening water, in
the twilight. With a swinging tread Jeff strode up the hill and was soon
upon the highway and stage road. A half-hour's brisk walk brought him
to the summit, and the first rosy flashes of morning light. This enabled
him to knock over half-a-dozen early quail, lured by the proverb, who
were seeking their breakfast in the chaparral, and gave him courage to
continue on his mission, which his perplexed face and irresolute manner
had for the last few moments shown to be an embarrassing one. At last
the white fences and imposing outbuildings of the “Summit Hotel” rose
before him, and he uttered a deep sigh. There, basking in the first
rays of the morning sun, stood his successful rival! Jeff looked at the
well-built, comfortable structure, the commanding site, and the air of
serene independence that seemed to possess it, and no longer wondered
that the great world passed him by to linger and refresh itself there.
He was relieved to find the landlord was not present in person, and so
confided his business to the bar-keeper. At first it appeared that
that functionary declined interference, and with many head-shakings and
audible misgivings was inclined to await the coming of his principal,
but a nearer view of Jeff's perplexed face, and an examination of Jeff's
gun, and the few coins spread before him, finally induced him to produce
certain articles, which he packed in a basket and handed to Jeff,
taking the gun and coins in exchange. Thus relieved, Jeff set his face
homewards, and ran a race with the morning into the valley, reaching
the “Half-way House” as the sun laid waste its bare, bleak outlines, and
relentlessly pointed out its defects one by one. It was cruel to Jeff at
that moment, but he hugged his basket close and slipped to the back door
and the kitchen, where his aunt was already at work.
“I didn't know ye were up yet, aunty,” said Jeff submissively. “It isn't
more than six o'clock.”
“Thar's four more to feed at breakfast,” said his aunt severely, “and
yer's the top blown off the kitchen chimbly, and the fire only just got
to go.”
Jeff saw that he was in time. The ordinary breakfast of the “Half-way
House,” not yet prepared, consisted of codfish, ham, yellow-ochre
biscuit, made after a peculiar receipt of his aunt's, and potatoes.
“I got a few fancy fixin's up at the Summit this morning, aunty,” he
began apologetically, “seein' we had sick folks, you know--you and the
young lady--and thinkin' it might save you trouble. I've got 'em here,”
and he shyly produced the basket.
“If ye kin afford it, Jeff,” responded his aunt resignedly, “I'm
thankful.”
The reply was so unexpectedly mild for Aunt Sally, that Jeff put his
arms around her and kissed her hard cheek. “And I've got some quail,
aunty, knowin' you liked em.”
“I reckoned you was up to some such foolishness,” said Aunt Sally,
wiping her cheek with her apron, “when I missed yer gun from the hall.”
But the allusion was a dangerous one, and Jeff slipped away.
He breakfasted early with Yuba Bill that morning; the latter gentleman's
taciturnity being intensified at such moments through a long habit of
confining himself strictly to eating in the limited time allowed his
daily repasts, and it was not until they had taken the horses from the
stable and were harnessing them to the coach that Jeff extracted from
his companion some facts about his guests. They were Mr. and Mrs.
Mayfield, Eastern tourists, who had been to the Sandwich Islands for the
benefit of their daughter's health, and before returning to New York,
intended, under the advice of their physician, to further try the
effects of mountain air at the “Summit Hotel,” on the invalid. They were
apparently rich people, the coach had been engaged for them solely--even
the mail and express had been sent on by a separate conveyance, so that
they might be more independent. It is hardly necessary to say that
this fact was by no means palatable to Bill--debarring him not only the
social contact and attentions of the “Express Agent,” but the selection
of a box-seated passenger who always “acted like a man.”
“Ye kin kalkilate what kind of a pardner that 'ar yaller-livered
Mayfield would make up on that box, partik'ly ez I heard before we
started that he'd requested the kimpany's agent in Sacramento to select
a driver ez didn't cuss, smoke, or drink. He did, sir, by gum!”
“I reckon you were very careful, then, Bill,” said Jeff.
“In course,” returned Bill, with a perfectly diabolical wink. “In
course! You know that 'Blue Grass,'” pointing out a spirited leader;
“she's a fair horse ez horses go, but she's apt to feel her oats on a
down grade, and takes a pow'ful deal o' soothin' and explanation afore
she buckles down to her reg'lar work. Well, sir, I exhorted and labored
in a Christian-like way with that mare to that extent that I'm cussed if
that chap didn't want to get down afore we got to the level!”
“And the ladies?” asked Jeff, whose laugh--possibly from his morning's
experience--was not as ready as formerly.
“The ladies! Ef you mean that 'ar livin' skellington I packed up to yer
house,” said Bill promptly, “it's a pair of them in size and color,
and ready for any first-class undertaker's team in the kintry. Why, you
remember that curve on Break Neck hill, where the leaders allus look as
if they was alongside o' the coach and faced the other way? Well, that
woman sticks her skull outer the window, and sez she, confidential-like
to old yaller-belly, sez she, 'William Henry,' sez she, 'tell that man
his horses are running away!'”
“You didn't get to see the--the--daughter, Bill, did you?” asked Jeff,
whose laugh had become quite uneasy.
“No, I didn't,” said Bill, with sudden and inexplicable vehemence, “and
the less you see of her, Jefferson Briggs, the better for you.”
Too confounded and confused by Bill's manner to question further, Jeff
remained silent until they drew up at the door of the “Half-way
House.” But here another surprise awaited him. Mr. Mayfield, erect and
dignified, stood upon the front porch as the coach drove up.
“Driver!” began Mr. Mayfield.
There was no reply.
“Driver,” said Mr. Mayfield, slightly weakening under Bill's eye, “I
shall want you no longer. I have”--
“Is he speaking to me?” said Bill audibly to Jeff, “'cause they call me
'Yuba Bill' yer abouts.”
“He is,” said Jeff hastily.
“Mebbee he's drunk,” said Bill audibly; “a drop or two afore breakfast
sometimes upsets his kind.”
“I was saying, Bill,” said Mr. Mayfield, becoming utterly limp and weak
again under Bill's cold gray eyes, “that I've changed my mind, and shall
stop here awhile. My daughter seems already benefited by the change. You
can take my traps from the boot and leave them here.”
Bill laid down his lines resignedly, coolly surveyed Mr. Mayfield, the
house, and the half-pleased, half-frightened Jeff, and then proceeded
to remove the luggage from the boot, all the while whistling loud and
offensive incredulity. Then he climbed back to his box. Mr. Mayfield,
completely demoralized under this treatment, as a last resort essayed
patronage.
“You can say to the Sacramento agents, Bill, that I am entirely
satisfied, and”--
“Ye needn't fear but I'll give ye a good character,” interrupted Bill
coolly, gathering up his lines. The whip snapped, the six horses dashed
forward as one, the coach plunged down the road and was gone.
With its disappearance, Mr. Mayfield stiffened slightly again. “I have
just told your aunt, Mr. Briggs,” he said, turning upon Jeff, “that my
daughter has expressed a desire to remain here a few days; she has slept
well, seems to be invigorated by the air, and although we expected to
go on to the 'Summit,' Mrs. Mayfield and myself are willing to accede
to her wishes. Your house seems to be new and clean. Your table--judging
from the breakfast this morning--is quite satisfactory.”
Jeff, in the first flush of delight at this news, forgot what that
breakfast had cost him--forgot all his morning's experience, and, I
fear, when he did remember it, was too full of a vague, hopeful courage
to appreciate it. Conscious of showing too much pleasure, he affected
the necessity of an immediate interview with his aunt, in the kitchen.
But his short cut round the house was arrested by a voice and figure. It
was Miss Mayfield, wrapped in a shawl and seated in a chair, basking in
the sunlight at one of the bleakest and barest angles of the house. Jeff
stopped in a delicious tremor.
As we are dealing with facts, however, it would be well to look at the
cause of this tremor with our own eyes and not Jeff's. To be plain, my
dear madam, as she basked in that remorseless, matter-of-fact California
sunshine, she looked her full age-twenty-five, if a day! There were
wrinkles in the corners of her dark eyes, contracted and frowning
in that strong, merciless light; there was a nervous pallor in her
complexion; but being one of those “fast colored” brunettes, whose dyes
are a part of their temperament, no sickness nor wear could bleach it
out. The red of her small mouth was darker than yours, I wot, and there
were certain faint lines from the corners of her delicate nostrils
indicating alternate repression and excitement under certain
experiences, which are not found in the classic ideals. Now Jeff knew
nothing of the classic ideal--did not know that a thousand years ago
certain sensual idiots had, with brush and chisel, inflicted upon the
world the personification of the strongest and most delicate, most
controlling and most subtle passion that humanity is capable of, in
the likeness of a thick-waisted, idealess, expressionless, perfectly
contented female animal; and that thousands of idiots had since then
insisted upon perpetuating this model for the benefit of a world that
had gone on sighing for, pining for, fighting for, and occasionally
blowing its brains out over types far removed from that idiotic
standard.
Consequently Jeff saw only a face full of possibilities and
probabilities, framed in a small delicate oval, saw a slight woman's
form--more than usually small--and heard a low voice, to him full of
gentle pride, passion, pathos, and human weakness, and was helpless.
“I only said 'Good-morning,'” said Miss Mayfield, with that slight, arch
satisfaction in the observation of masculine bashfulness, which the best
of her sex cannot forego.
“Thank you, miss; good-morning. I've been wanting to say to you that I
hope you wasn't mad, you know,” stammered Jeff, desperately intent upon
getting off his apology.
“It is so lovely this morning--such a change!” continued Miss Mayfield.
“Yes, miss! You know I reckoned--at least what your father said, made me
kalkilate that you”--
Miss Mayfield, still smiling, knitted her brows and went on: “I slept
so well last night,” she said gratefully, “and feel so much better this
morning, that I ventured out. I seem to be drinking in health in this
clear sunlight.”
“Certainly miss. As I was sayin', your father says his daughter is in
the coach; and Bill says, says he to me, 'I'll pack--I'll carry the
old--I'll bring up Mrs. Mayfield, if you'll bring up the daughter;'
and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep--like in the corner, and
bein' small, why miss, you know how nat'ral it is, I”--
“Oh, Mr. Jeff! Mr. Briggs!” said Miss Mayfield plaintively, “don't,
please--don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year.
You thought I was a child, I know, and--well, you find,” she said
audaciously, suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a
rifle, “you find--well?”
What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible. Miss Mayfield saw
enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek. Thus
does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over.
The color faded. “It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless,
and to put everybody to such trouble, isn't it, Mr. Jeff? I beg your
pardon--your aunt calls you Jeff.”
“Please call me Jeff,” said Jeff, to his own surprise rapidly gaining
courage. “Everybody calls me that.”
Miss Mayfield smiled. “I suppose I must do what everybody does. So it
seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get
better or worse?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Therefore I won't detain you now. I only wanted to thank you for your
gentleness last night, and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give
me my death.”
She smiled and nodded her small head, and wrapped her shawl again
closely around her shoulders, and turned her eyes upon the mountains,
gestures which the now quick-minded Jeff interpreted as a gentle
dismissal, and flew to seek his aunt.
Here he grew practical. Ready money was needed; for the “Half-way House”
was such a public monument of ill-luck, that Jeff had no credit. He must
keep up the table to the level of that fortunate breakfast--to do which
he had $1.50 in the till, left by Bill, and $2.50 produced by his Aunt
Sally from her work-basket.
“Why not ask Mr. Mayfield to advance ye suthin?” said Aunt Sally.
The blood flew to Jeff's face. “Never! Don't say that again, aunty.”
The tone and manner were so unlike Jeff that the old lady sat down half
frightened, and taking the corners of her apron in her hands began to
whimper.
“Thar now, aunty! I didn't mean nothin',--only if you care to have me
about the place any longer, and I reckon it's little good I am any way,”
he added, with a new-found bitterness in his tone, “ye'll not ask me to
do that.”
“What's gone o' ye, Jeff?” said his aunt lugubriously; “ye ain't nat'ral
like.”
Jeff laughed. “See here, aunty; I'm goin' to take your advice. You know
Rabbit?”
“The mare?”
“Yes; I'm going to sell her. The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollars
for her last week.”
“Ef ye'd done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o'
keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off.”
Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to “improve the occasion,” but
preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the “improved.” “Well, I
hope he mayn't change his mind.”
Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fifty
miles of the “Half-way House.” Nevertheless he went briskly to the
stable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while,
and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which
Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red
flannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it was
displaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his arms
around Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in the
bosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment. Rabbit
becoming uneasy, Jeff's mood changed too, and having caparisoned himself
and charger in true vaquero style, not without a little Mexican dandyism
as to the set of his doeskin trousers, and the tie of his red sash, put
a sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle.
Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as a
natural instinct, and not as a purely artificial habit of horse and
rider, consequently he was not perched up, jockey fashion, with a
knee-grip for his body, and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast's
mouth, but rode with long, loose stirrups, his legs clasping the barrel
of his horse, his single rein lying loose upon her neck, leaving her
head free as the wind. After this fashion he had often emerged from a
cloud of dust on the red mountain road, striking admiration into the
hearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers, and leaving a trail
of pleasant incense in the dust behind him. It was therefore with
considerable confidence in himself, and a little human vanity, that he
dashed round the house, and threw his mare skilfully on her haunches
exactly a foot before Miss Mayfield--himself a resplendent vision of
flying riata, crimson scarf, fawn-colored trousers, and jingling silver
spurs.
“Kin I do anythin' for ye, miss, at the Forks?”
Miss Mayfield looked up quietly. “I think not,” she said indifferently,
as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence.
Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards, caught her up sharply,
swung her round on her off hind heel, permitted her to paw the air once
or twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet, and then, with another
dash forward, pulled her up again just before she apparently took Miss
Mayfield and her chair in a running leap.
“Are you sure, miss?” asked Jeff, with a flushed face and a rather
lugubrious voice.
“Quite so, thank you,” she said coldly, looking past this centaur to the
wooded mountain beyond.
Jeff, thoroughly crushed, was pacing meekly away when a childlike voice
stopped him.
“If you are going near a carpenter's shop you might get a new shutter
for my window; it blew away last night.”
“It did, miss?”
“Yes,” said the shrill voice of Aunt Sally, from the doorway, “in course
it did! Ye must be crazy, Jeff, for thar it stands in No. 8, whar ye
must have put it after ye picked it up outside.”
Jeff, conscious that Miss Mayfield's eyes were on his suffused face,
stammered “that he would attend to it,” and put spurs to the mare, eager
only to escape.
It was not his only discomfiture; for the blacksmith, seeing Jeff's
nervousness and anxiety, was suspicious of something wrong, as the world
is apt to be, and appeased his conscience after the worldly fashion,
by driving a hard bargain with the doubtful brother in affliction--the
morality of a horse trade residing always with the seller. Whereby
Master Jeff received only eighty dollars for horse and outfit--worth at
least two hundred--and was also mulcted of forty dollars, principal and
interest for past service of the blacksmith. Jeff walked home with
forty dollars in his pocket--capital to prosecute his honest calling
of innkeeper; the blacksmith retired to an adjoining tavern to discuss
Jeff's affairs, and further reduce his credit. Yet I doubt which was the
happier--the blacksmith estimating his possible gains, and doubtful
of some uncertain sequence in his luck, or Jeff, temporarily relieved,
boundlessly hopeful, and filled with the vague delights of a first
passion. The only discontented brute in the whole transaction was poor
Rabbit, who, missing certain attentions, became indignant, after the
manner of her sex, bit a piece out of her crib, kicked a hole in her
box, and receiving a bad character from the blacksmith, gave a worse one
to her late master.
Jeff's purchases were of a temporary and ornamental quality, but not
always judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark from
Miss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steel
fork, which was part of the table equipage of the “Half-way House,” he
purchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as “split
spoons,” and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not only
repaired the window-shutter, but tempered the glaring window itself
with a bit of curtain; he half carpeted Miss Mayfield's bed-room with
wild-cat skins and the now historical bear-skin, and felt himself
overpaid when that young lady, passing the soft tabbyskins across her
cheek, declared they were “lovely.” For Miss Mayfield, deprecating
slaughter in the abstract, accepted its results gratefully, like the
rest of her sex, and while willing to “let the hart ungalled play,”
nevertheless was able to console herself with its venison. The woods,
besides yielding aid and comfort of this kind to the distressed damsel,
were flamboyant with vivid spring blossoms, and Jeff lit up the cold,
white walls of her virgin cell with demonstrative color, and made--what
his aunt, a cleanly soul, whose ideas of that quality were based upon
the absence of any color whatever, called--“a litter.”
The result of which was to make Miss Mayfield, otherwise lanquid and
ennuye, welcome Jeff's presence with a smile; to make Jeff, otherwise
anxious, eager, and keenly attentive, mute and silent in her presence.
Two symptoms bad for Jeff.
Meantime Mr. Mayfield's small conventional spirit pined for fellowship,
only to be found in larger civilizations, and sought, under plea of
business, a visit to Sacramento, where a few of the Mayfield type, still
surviving, were to be found.
This was a relief to Jeff, who only through his regard for the daughter,
was kept from open quarrel with the father. He fancied Miss Mayfield
felt relieved too, although Jeff had noticed that Mayfield had deferred
to his daughter more often than his wife--over whom your conventional
small autocrat is always victorious. It takes the legal matrimonial
contract to properly develop the first-class tyrant, male or female.
On one of these days Jeff was returning through the woods from marketing
at the Forks, which, since the sale of Rabbit, had became a foot-sore
and tedious business. He had reached the edge of the forest, and through
the wider-spaced trees, the bleak sunlit plateau of his house was
beginning to open out, when he stopped instantly. I know not what Jeff
had been thinking of, as he trudged along, but here, all at once, he was
thrilled and possessed with the odor of some faint, foreign perfume. He
flushed a little at first, and then turned pale. Now the woods were as
full of as delicate, as subtle, as grateful, and, I wot, far healthier
and purer odors than this; but this represented to Jeff the physical
contiguity of Miss Mayfield, who had the knack--peculiar to some of her
sex--of selecting a perfume that ideally identified her. Jeff looked
around cautiously; at the foot of a tree hard by lay one of her wraps,
still redolent of her. Jeff put down the bag which, in lieu of a market
basket, he was carrying on his shoulder, and with a blushing face hid it
behind a tree. It contained her dinner!
He took a few steps forwards with an assumption of ease and
unconsciousness. Then he stopped, for not a hundred yards distant
sat--Miss Mayfield on a mossy boulder, her cloak hanging from her
shoulders, her hands clasped round her crossed knees, and one little
foot out--an exasperating combination of Evangeline and little Red
Riding Hood in everything, I fear, but credulousness and self-devotion.
She looked up as he walked towards her (non constat that the little
witch had not already seen him half a mile away!) and smiled sweetly
as she looked at him. So sweetly, indeed, that poor Jeff felt like the
hulking wolf of the old world fable, and hesitated--as that wolf did
not. The California faunae have possibly depreciated.
“Come here!” she cried, in a small head voice, not unlike a bird's
twitter.
Jeff lumbered on clumsily. His high boots had become suddenly very
heavy.
“I'm so glad to see you. I've just tired poor mother out--I'm always
tiring people out--and she's gone back to the house to write letters.
Sit down, Mr. Jeff, do, please!”
Jeff, feeling uncomfortably large in Miss Mayfield's presence, painfully
seated himself on the edge of a very low stone, which had the effect
of bringing his knees up on a level with his chin, and affected an ease
glaringly simulated.
“Or lie down, there, Mr. Jeff--it is so comfortable.”
Jeff, with a dreadful conviction that he was crashing down like a
falling pine-tree, managed at last to acquire a recumbent position at a
respectful distance from the little figure.
“There, isn't it nice?”
“Yes, Miss Mayfield.”
“But, perhaps,” said Miss Mayfield, now that she had him down, “perhaps
you too have got something to do. Dear me! I'm like that naughty boy in
the story-book, who went round to all the animals, in turn, asking them
to play with him. He could only find the butterfly who had nothing to
do. I don't wonder he was disgusted. I hate butterflies.”
Love clarifies the intellect! Jeff, astonished at himself, burst out,
“Why, look yer, Miss Mayfield, the butterfly only hez a day or two
to--to--to live and--be happy!”
Miss Mayfield crossed her knees again, and instantly, after the sublime
fashion of her sex, scattered his intellect by a swift transition from
the abstract to the concrete. “But you're not a butterfly, Mr. Jeff.
You're always doing something. You've been hunting.”
“No-o!” said Jeff, scarlet, as he thought of his gun in pawn at the
“Summit.”
“But you do hunt; I know it.”
“How?”
“You shot those quail for me the morning after I came. I heard you go
out--early--very early.”
“Why, you allowed you slept so well that night, Miss Mayfield.”
“Yes; but there's a kind of delicious half-sleep that sick people have
sometimes, when they know and are gratefully conscious that other people
are doing things for them, and it makes them rest all the sweeter.”
There was a dead silence. Jeff, thrilling all over, dared not say
anything to dispel his delicious dream. Miss Mayfield, alarmed at his
readiness with the butterfly illustration, stopped short. They both
looked at the prospect, at the distant “Summit Hotel”--a mere snow-drift
on the mountain--at the clear sunlight on the barren plateau, at the
bleak, uncompromising “Half-way House,” and said nothing.
“I ought to be very grateful,” at last began Miss Mayfield, in quite
another voice, and a suggestion that she was now approaching real and
profitable conversation, “that I'm so much better. This mountain air has
been like balm to me. I feel I am growing stronger day by day. I do not
wonder that you are so healthy and so strong as you are, Mr. Jeff.”
Jeff, who really did not know before that he was so healthy,
apologetically admitted the fact. At the same time, he was miserably
conscious that Miss Mayfield's condition, despite her ill health, was
very superior to his own.
“A month ago,” she continued reflectively, “my mother would never have
thought it possible to leave me here alone. Perhaps she may be getting
worried now.”
Miss Mayfield had calculated over much on Jeff's recumbent position. To
her surprise and slight mortification, he rose instantly to his feet,
and said anxiously,
“Ef you think so, miss, p'raps I'm keeping you here.”
“Not at all, Mr. Jeff. Your being here is a sufficient excuse for my
staying,” she replied, with the large dignity of a small body.
Jeff, mentally and physically crushed again, came down a little heavier
than before, and reclined humbly at her feet. Second knock-down blow for
Miss Mayfield.
“Come, Mr. Jeff,” said the triumphant goddess, in her first voice, “tell
me something about yourself. How do you live here--I mean; what do you
do? You ride, of course--and very well too, I can tell you! But you
know that. And of course that scarf and the silver spurs and the whole
dashing equipage are not intended entirely for yourself. No! Some young
woman is made happy by that exhibition, of course. Well, then, there's
the riding down to see her, and perhaps the riding out with her,
and--what else?”
“Miss Mayfield,” said Jeff, suddenly rising above his elbow and his
grammar, “thar isn't no young woman! Thar isn't another soul except
yourself that I've laid eyes on, or cared to see since I've been yer. Ef
my aunt hez been telling ye that--she's--she--she--she--she--lies.”
Absolute, undiluted truth, even of a complimentary nature, is
confounding to most women. Miss Mayfield was no exception to her sex.
She first laughed, as she felt she ought to, and properly might with any
other man than Jeff; then she got frightened, and said hurriedly, “No,
no! you misunderstand me. Your aunt has said nothing.” And then she
stopped with a pink spot on her cheek-bones. First blood for Jeff!
Now this would never do; it was worse than the butterflies! She rose to
her full height--four feet eleven and a half--and drew her cloak over
her shoulders. “I think I will return to the house,” she said quietly;
“I suppose I ought not to overtask my strength.”
“You'd better let me go with you, miss,” said Jeff submissively.
“I will, on one condition,” she said, recovering her archness, with a
little venom in it, I fear. “You were going home, too, when I called to
you. Now, I do not intend to let you leave that bag behind that tree,
and then have to come back for it, just because you feel obliged to
go with me. Bring it with you on one arm, and I'll take the other, or
else--I'll go alone. Don't be alarmed,” she added softly; “I'm stronger
than I was the first night I came, when you carried me and all my
worldly goods besides.”
She turned upon him her subtle magnetic eyes, and looked at him as she
had the first night they met. Jeff turned away bewildered, but presently
appeared again with the bag on his shoulder, and her wrap on his arm.
As she slipped her little hand over his sleeve, he began, apologetically
and nervously,
“When I said that about Aunt Sally, miss, I”--
The hand immediately became limp, the grasp conventional.
“I was mad, miss,” Jeff blundered on, “and I don't see how you believed
it--knowing everything ez you do.”
“How knowing everything as I do?” asked Miss Mayfield coldly.
“Why, about the quail, and about the bag!”
“Oh,” said Miss Mayfield.
Five minutes later, Yuba Bill nearly ditched his coach in his utter
amazement at an apparently simple spectacle--a tall, good-looking young
fellow, in a red shirt and high boots, carrying a bag on his back, and
beside him, hanging confidentially on his arm, a small, slight, pretty
girl in a red cloak. “Nothing mean about her, eh, Bill?” said as
admiring box-passenger. “Young couple, I reckon, just out from the
States.”
“No!” roared Bill.
“Oh, well, his sweetheart, I reckon?” suggested the box-passenger.
“Nary time!” growled Bill. “Look yer! I know 'em both, and they knows
me. Did ye notiss she never drops his arm when she sees the stage
comin', but kinder trapes along jist the same? Had they been courtin',
she'd hev dropped his arm like pizen, and walked on t'other side the
road.”
Nevertheless, for some occult reason, Bill was evidently out of humor;
and for the next few miles exhorted the impenitent Blue Grass horse with
considerable fervor.
Meanwhile this pair, outwardly the picture of pastoral conjugality,
slowly descended the hill. In that brief time, failing to get at any
further facts regarding Jeff's life, or perhaps reading the story quite
plainly, Miss Mayfield had twittered prettily about herself. She painted
her tropic life in the Sandwich Islands--her delicious “laziness,” as
she called it; “for, you know,” she added, “although I had the excuse of
being an invalid, and of living in the laziest climate in the world, and
of having money, I think, Mr. Jeff, that I'm naturally lazy. Perhaps if
I lived here long enough, and got well again, I might do something, but
I don't think I could ever be like your aunt. And there she is now,
Mr. Jeff, making signs for you to hasten. No, don't mind me, but run on
ahead; else I shall have her blaming me for demoralizing you too. Go; I
insist upon it! I can walk the rest of the way alone. Will you go? You
won't? Then I shall stop here and not stir another step forward until
you do.”
She stopped, half jestingly, half earnestly, in the middle of the road,
and emphasized her determination with a nod of her head--an action that,
however, shook her hat first rakishly over one eye, and then on the
ground. At which Jeff laughed, picked it up, presented it to her, and
then ran off to the house.