The next day Melissa turned her gray eyes with a vague, kindling
interest toward the "volunteer barley-patch." Two or three points of
white gleamed upon it in the afternoon sun. She mused upon them
speculatively for awhile, and then consulted Lysander.
"I reckon it's the survey stakes, M'lissy," he said kindly. "Forrester's
dividin' it up, as he said. I wouldn't say nothin' 'bout it to yer maw,
'f I was you; it'll only rile her up."
Melissa looked at the field in a quiet, dispassionate way.
"The land's his'n, ain't it, Lysander?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, the land's his'n, an' a good part o' the canon, too,--all but
a little that b'longs to yer maw. But the hull thing used to be hern;
quite a spell back, though."
Lysander was hauling stones from a knoll near the house, and dumping
them on the edge of the canon,--a leisurely process, carried on by means
of a sled, of unmistakable home manufacture, drawn by one of the
dun-colored mules. Melissa was helping him in a desultory, intermittent
fashion. There was a very friendly understanding between these two
peace-loving members of the family.
The young girl carried two or three speckled granite boulders and
dropped them into the rude vehicle, and then sat down on the edge of it
meditatively. The dark rim of her hat made a background for her head
with its little billows of richly tinted hair. Exertion had brought a
faint transitory pink to her fair, freckled face.
"Did Colonel Forrester steal the land and water from mother, Lysander?"
she asked, with the calm, unreasoning candor of youth.
Lysander straightened his lank form, and then betook himself to a seat
on a neighboring boulder, evidently of the opinion that the judicial
nature of the question before him demanded a sitting posture.
"I dunno about that, M'lissy," he said, shutting one eye and squinting
across the valley sagaciously. "The _Soo_preme Court of the State of
Californy said he didn't, an' yer maw says he did,--with regards to the
canon, that is. The land,--well, she deeded him the land, but he sort o'
had the snap on her when she done it. You'll find, M'lissy," he added,
with a careful disavowal of prejudice, "that there's as much difference
of 'pinion about stealin' as there is about heaven."
There was a long, serene, comfortable silence. Even the mule seemed
dreamily retrospective. Bees reveled in the honeyed wealth of the
buckthorn, and chanted their content in drowsy monotony. The upland
lavished its spicy sweetness on the still, yellow air. A gopher peered
out of its freshly made burrow with quick, wary turns of its little
head, and dropped suddenly out of sight as Melissa spoke.
"How come mother to deed him the land, Sandy?"
The weight of decision being lifted from Lysander's shoulders, he got up
and resumed his work, evidently esteeming a mild form of activity
admissible in purely narrative discourse.
"Well, ye see, M'lissy, yer maw home-stidded the land and filed a claim
on the water in the canon eight or ten years back, when neither of 'em
was worth stealin'; an' she 'lowed she done the thing up in good shape,
and had everything solid an' reg'lar, till Colonel Forrester come and
bought the Santa Elena ranch and a lot o' dry land j'inin' it, and
commenced nosin' around the canon, an' hirin' men to overhaul the county
record; an' the fust thing you know, he filed a claim onto the water in
the canon. Then you can guess what kind of a racket there was on hand."
Lysander paused, and sat down on a pile of stones, shaking his head in
vague, reminiscent dismay. The young girl turned and looked at him, a
sudden gleam of recollection widening her eyes.
"I b'lieve I remember 'bout that, Sandy," she said, with a little thrill
of animation in her voice.
"Like enough. You was quite a chunk of a girl then. Minervy an' me was
bee-ranchin' over t' the Verdugo, that spring. The rains was late and
lodged yer maw's barley, so as 't she didn't have half a crop; an' you
know yer paw's kind o'--kind o'--easy,"--having chosen the adjective
after some hesitation, Lysander lingered over it approvingly,--"and
bein' as she was dead set on fightin' the Colonel, she mortgaged the
ranch to raise the money for the lawsuit."
Lysander stopped again. Memories of that stormy time appeared to crowd
upon him bewilderingly. He shook his head in slow but emphatic denial of
his ability to do them dramatic justice in recital.
There was another long silence. The noonday air seemed to pulsate, as if
the mountain were sleeping in the sun and breathing regularly. The
weeds, which the weight of the sled had crushed, gave out a fragrance of
honey and tar. A pair of humming-birds darted into the stillness in a
little tempest of shrill-voiced contention, and the mule, aroused from
dejected abstraction by the intruders, shook his tassel-like tail and
yawned humanly.
Melissa got up and wandered toward the edge of the canon, and Lysander,
aroused from the plentitude of his recollections by her absence,
completed his load and drove the dun-colored mule leisurely after her.
The stones fell over the precipice, breaking into the quiet of the
depths below with a long, resounding crash that finally rippled off into
silence, and the two sat down on the side of the empty sled and rode
back to the stone-pile.
"I've always thought," said Lysander, resuming his work and his
narrative with equal deliberation, "that there was a good deal missed by
yer maw bein' took down with inflammatory rheumatiz jest about the time
o' the trial o' that lawsuit. I dunno as it would 'a' made much
difference in the end, but it would 'a' made consider'ble as it went
along, and I think she'd 'a' rested easier if she'd 'a' had her say. Of
course they come up an' took down her testimony in writin'; but it was
shorthand, an' yer maw don't speak shorthand fer common. Well, of
course, the old Colonel got away with the jury, and then yer maw found
out that he'd bought the mortgage; an' about the time it was due he come
up here, as smooth as butter, an' offered to give her this little patch
o' boulders an' let her move the house onto it, an' give her share
'nough in the canon to irrigate it, if she'd deed him the rest o' the
land, an' save him the trouble o' foreclosin'. So she done it. But I
don't think he enj'yed his visit, all the same. She wasn't sparin' o'
her remarks to 'im, an' I think some o' 'em must 'a' hurt his feelin's,
fer he hain't been here sence." Lysander chuckled with reminiscent
relish.
Melissa had walked around the sled, and stood facing him, with her hands
behind her. Her slight figure in its limp blue cotton drapery had the
scarred mountain-side for a background.
"I don't see yet as he done anything so awful mean," she protested
leniently.
"Ner do I, M'lissy," acquiesced her brother-in-law. "But after the hull
thing was signed, sealed, and delivered,"--Lysander rested from his
labors again on the strength of these highly legal expressions,--"after
it was closed up, so to speak, it came to yer maw's ears, in some way,
that there was a mistake in the drawin' of that mortgage, an' this land
was left out of it, an' would 'a' been hern anyway; and somehow that
thing has stuck in her craw all these years, and sort o' soured her."
Melissa mused on the problem, wide-eyed and grave. The mule seemed to
await her verdict with humble resignation. Lysander sat on the side of
the sled and looked across the valley seaward, to where Catalina was
outlined against the horizon in soft, cloud-like gray.
"An' it was a mistake? she meant to put it in the mortgage?" queried the
girl.
"Yes, she meant to, so far as a person can be said to mean anything when
they're a-mortgagin' their homestead; usually they're out o' their
heads. But the law don't take no 'count o' that kind o' craziness. You
can do the foolest things, M'lissy, without the court seein' a crack in
your brain; but if you happen to get mad an' put a bullet through some
good-fer-nothin' loafer, then immedjitly yer insane. That's the law,
M'lissy."
Melissa received this exposition of her country's code with wondering,
luminous eyes. It had a wild, unreasonable sound which was a sufficient
guarantee of its correctness. The doings of authorities were liable to
be misty by reason of elevation. The fault lay in her limited vision.
"I s'pose the law's right. An' the law said the canon didn't belong to
mother. I think that ought to 'a' settled it. I don't see any good in it
all,--this talkin' so loud, an' scoldin', an' callin' people names. Do
you, Sandy?"
"I hain't seen much good come of it," confessed the man reluctantly;
"but it's human to talk,--it's human, M'lissy. Some folks find it
relievin', an' it don't do any harm."
The young girl did not assent. Deep down in her placid, peace-loving
nature was the obstinate conviction that it did a great deal of harm.
She sat down in the velvety burr-clover, clasping her hands about her
knees.
"Is Flutterwheel Spring more 'n mother's share o' the canon?" she
inquired.
"Yes, I think it is. Of course I never measured the water, an' I didn't
admit it when Forrester said so; but I'd 'a' resked sayin' it was, if
anybody else'd asked me."
"Why wouldn't you say so to him?"
Lysander laughed, and flipped a pebble toward a gray squirrel, who gave
a little rasping, insulted bark, and whisked into his hole in high
dudgeon.
"Well, because he ain't a-lackin' for information, an' I hain't got none
to spare, M'lissy."
The young girl rocked herself gently in the clover.
"I don't understand it," she said hopelessly. "It looks as if he was
tryin' to be fair, an' mother wouldn't let him. I should think she'd be
glad, even if he did used to be mean,--an' I can't see as he was any
meaner than the law 'lowed him to be. I s'pose the law's right. You went
to the war for the law, didn't you, Sandy?"
Her companion winced. There was one thing dearer to him than his
neutrality in the family feud.
"Mebbe I did, M'lissy,--mebbe I did," he answered, with a trifling
accession of dignity: "fer the law as I understood it. The law's all
right, but it ain't every judge nor every jury that knows what it is;
they think they do, but they're liable to be mistaken. Seems to me
they're derned liable to be mistaken!" he added, with some asperity.
And so the paths that to Melissa's straightforward consciousness seemed
so simple and direct ended, one and all, in hopeless confusion. Even
Lysander had failed her. The foundations of human knowledge were
certainly giving way when Lysander indulged in the mysterious.
Melissa turned and left him, walking absently up the little path that
led to the canon. She had not noticed a speck crawling like an
overburdened insect along the winding road in the valley. Visible and
invisible by turns, as the sage-brush was sparse or high, and emerging
at last into permanent view where the wild growth came to an end and
Mrs. Withrow's "patch" began, it resolved itself, to Lysander's intent
and curious gaze, into a diminutive gray donkey, bearing a confused
burden of blankets and cooking utensils, and followed by a figure more
dejected, if possible, than the donkey himself.
"I'll be hanged if the old man hain't showed up!" said Lysander,
dropping down on the sled, and throwing back into the pile two boulders
he held, as if to indicate a general cessation of all logical sequence
and a consequent embargo on industry.
Evidently the old man was conscious that he "showed up" to poor
advantage, for he began prodding the donkey with a conscientious
absorption that filled that small brute with amazement, and made him
amble from one side of the road to the other, in a vain endeavor to look
around his pack and discover the reason for this unexpected turn in the
administration of affairs.
Lysander watched their approach with an expression of amused contempt.
The traveler started, in a clumsy attempt at surprise, when he was
opposite his son-in-law, and, giving the donkey a parting whack that
sent him and his hardware onward at a literally rattling pace, turned
from the road, and sidled doggedly through the tarweed toward the
stone-pile.
Lysander folded his arms, and surveyed him in a cool, sidelong way that
was peculiarly withering.
"Well," he said, with a caustic downward inflection,--"well, it's you,
is it?"
The newcomer admitted the gravity of the charge by an appealing droop of
his whole person.
"Yes," he answered humbly, "it's me,--an' I didn't want to come. I vum I
didn't. But Forrester made me. He 'lowed you wouldn't hev no objections
to my comin'--on business."
He braced himself on the last two words, and made a feeble effort to
look his son-in-law in the face. What he saw there was not encouraging.
It became audible in a sniff of undisguised contempt.
"Where'd you see Forrester?"
"At the winery. Ye see I was a-goin' over to the Duarte, an' I stopped
at the winery"--
"What'd you stop at the winery fer?" interrupted the younger man
savagely.
"Why, I tole ye,--Forrester wanted to see me _on business_. I stopped to
see Forrester, Lysander. What else'd I stop fer? I was in a big hurry,
too, an' I vum I hated to stop, but I hed to. When a man like Forrester
wants to see you"--
"How'd you know he wanted to see you?" demanded Sproul.
The old man gave his questioner a look of maudlin surprise.
"Why, he tole me so hisself; how else'd I find it out? I was a-settin'
there in the winery on a kaig, an' he come an' tole me he wanted to see
me _on business_. 'Pears to me you're duller 'n common, Lysander." The
speaker began to gather courage from his own ready comprehension of
intricacies which evidently seemed to puzzle his son-in-law. "Why,
sho,--yes, Lysander, don't ye see?" he added encouragingly.
"Oh, yes, I see,--I see," repeated Lysander sarcastically. "It's as
clear as mud. Now, look here," he added, turning upon his visitor
sternly, "you let Forrester alone. You don't know any more about
business than a hog does about holidays, an' you know it, an' Forrester
knows it. You'll put your foot in it, that's what you'll do."
The old man looked pensively at one foot and then at the other, as if
speculating on the probable damage from such a catastrophe.
"I'm sure I dunno," he said plaintively. "Forrester 'peared to think I
ought to come; he tole me why, but I vum I've fergot." He took off his
hat and gazed into it searchingly, as if the idea that had mysteriously
escaped from his brain might have lodged in the crown.
Lysander fell to work with an energy born of disgust for another's
uselessness.
"Seein' I'm here, I reckon nobody'll objeck to my payin' my respecks to
the old woman," continued the newcomer, glancing from the crown of his
hat to Lysander's impassive face with covert inquiry.
"I guess if you c'n stand it, the rest of us'll have to," sneered his
son-in-law. "I've advised you over 'n' over again to steer clear of the
old woman; but there's no law agen a man courtin' his own wife, even if
she don't give 'im much encouragement."
The old man put on his hat, and shuffled uneasily toward the house.
Lysander stopped his work, and looked after him with a whimsical,
irreverent grimace.
"You're a nice old customer, you are; an' Forrester's 'nother. I wish to
the livin' gracious the old woman'd send you a-kitin'; but she won't;
she'll bark at you all day, but she won't bite. Women's queer."
Mrs. Withrow was engaged in what she called "workin' the bread into the
pans." She received her dejected spouse with a snort of disapproval.
"When the donkey come a-clatterin' up to the door, I knowed there was
another follerin'," she said acridly. "Come in an' set down. I s'pose
you're tired: you mostly are."
The old man sidled sheepishly into the room and seated himself, and his
wife turned her back upon him and fell to kneading vigorously a mass of
dough that lay puffing and writhing on the floured end of a pine table.
"I jess come on Forrester's 'count," he began haltingly: "that is, he
didn't want me to come, but I wasn't goin' to do what Forrester said. I
ain't a-carin' fer Forrester. I wasn't goin' to take a trip 'way up here
jess because he wanted me to, so I didn't. I"--
"Shut up!" said his wife savagely, without turning her head.
The visitor obeyed, evidently somewhat relieved to escape even thus
ignominiously from the bog into which his loquacity was leading him.
The old woman thumped and pounded the mass of dough until the small
tenement shook. Then, after much shaping and some crowding, she
consigned her six rather corpulent loaves to "the pans," and turned on
her nominal lord.
He had fallen asleep, with his head dropped forward on his breast: his
hat had fallen off, and lay in his lap in a receptive attitude, as if
expecting that the head would presently drop into it.
Mrs. Withrow gave him a withering glance.
"Forrester sent you, did 'e? You miser'ble old jelly-fish! You're a nice
match fer Forrester, you are!"
She pushed her loaves angrily under the stove, to the discomfiture of
the cat, who, being thus rudely disturbed, yawned and stretched, and
curved its back to the limit of spinal flexibility, as it rubbed against
the old woman's knees.