A GOOD SAMARITAN
Yesler, still moving slowly with a walking stick by reason of his green
wound, left the street-car and made his way up Forest Road to the house
which bore the number 792. In the remote past there had been some
spasmodic attempt to cultivate grass and raise some shade-trees along
the sidewalks, but this had long since been given up as abortive. An
air of decay hung over the street, the unmistakable suggestion of
better days. This was writ large over the house in front of which
Yesler stopped. The gate hung on one hinge, boards were missing from
the walk, and a dilapidated shutter, which had once been green, swayed
in the breeze.
A woman of about thirty, dark and pretty but poorly dressed, came to
the door in answer to his ring. Two little children, a boy and a girl,
with their mother’s shy long-lashed Southern eyes of brown, clung to
her skirts and gazed at the stranger.
“This is where Mr. Pelton lives, is it not?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Is he at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“May I see him?”
“He’s sick.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. Too sick to be seen? If not, I should like very
much to see him. I have business with him.”
The young woman looked at him a little defiantly and a little
suspiciously. “Are you a reporter?”
Sam smiled. “No, ma’am.”
“Does he owe you money?” He could see the underlying blood dye her
dusky cheeks when she asked the question desperately, as it seemed to
him with a kind of brazen shame to which custom had inured her. She had
somehow the air of some gentle little creature of the forests defending
her young.
“Not a cent, ma’am. I don’t want to do him any harm.”
“I didn’t hear your name.”
“I haven’t mentioned it,” he admitted, with the sunny smile that was a
letter of recommendation in itself. “Fact is I’d rather not tell it
till he sees me.”
From an adjoining room a querulous voice broke into their conversation.
“Who is it, Norma?”
“A gentleman to see you, Tom.”
“Who is it?” more sharply.
“It is I, Mr. Pelton. I came to have a talk with you.” Yesler pushed
forward into the dingy sitting-room with the pertinacity of a
bookagent. “I heard you were not well, and I came to find out if I can
do anything for you.”
The stout man lying on the lounge grew pale before the blood reacted in
a purple flush. His very bulk emphasized the shabbiness of the stained
and almost buttonless Prince Albert coat he wore, the dinginess of the
little room he seemed to dwarf.
“Leave my house, seh. You have ruined this family, and you come to
gloat on your handiwork. Take a good look, and then go, Mr. Yesler. You
see my wife in cotton rags doing her own work. Is it enough, seh?”
The slim little woman stepped across the room and took her place beside
her husband. Her eyes flashed fire at the man she held responsible for
the fall of her husband. Yesler’s generous heart applauded the loyalty
which was proof against both disgrace and poverty. For in the past
month both of these had fallen heavily upon her. Tom Pelton had always
lived well, and during the past few years he had speculated in ventures
far beyond his means. Losses had pursued him, and he had looked to the
senatorship to recoup himself and to stand off the creditors pressing
hard for payment. Instead he had been exposed, disgraced, and finally
disbarred for attempted bribery. Like a horde of hungry rats his
creditors had pounced upon the discredited man and wrested from him the
remnants of his mortgaged property. He had been forced to move into a
mere cottage and was a man without a future. For the only profession at
which he had skill enough to make a living was the one from which he
had been cast as unfit to practise it. The ready sympathy of the
cattleman had gone out to the politician who was down and out. He had
heard the situation discussed enough to guess pretty close to the
facts, and he could not let himself rest until he had made some effort
to help the man whom his exposure had ruined, or, rather, had hastened
to ruin, for that result had been for years approaching.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Pelton. If I’ve injured you I want to make it right.”
“Make it right!” The former congressman got up with an oath. “Make it
right! Can you give me back my reputation, my future? Can you take away
the shame that has come upon my wife, and that my children will have to
bear in the years to come? Can you give us back our home, our comfort,
our peace of mind?”
“No, I can’t do this, but I can help you to do it all,” the cattleman
made answer quietly.
He offered no defense, though he knew perfectly well none was needed.
He had no responsibility in the calamity that had befallen this family.
Pelton’s wrong-doing had come home to those he loved, and he could
rightly blame nobody but himself. However much he might arraign those
who had been the agents of his fall, he knew in his heart that the
fault had been his own.
Norma Pelton, tensely self-repressed, spoke now. “How can you do this,
sir?”
“I can’t do it so long as you hold me for an enemy, ma’am. I’m ready to
cry quits with your husband and try a new deal. If I injured him he
tried to even things up. Well, let’s say things are squared and start
fresh. I’ve got a business proposition to make if you’re willing to
listen to it.”
“What sort of a proposition?”
“I’m running about twenty-five thousand sheep up in the hills. I’ve
just bought a ranch with a comfortable ranch-house on it for a kind of
central point. My winter feeding will all be done from it as a chief
place of distribution. Same with the shearing and shipping. I want a
good man to put in charge of my sheep as head manager, and I would be
willing to pay a proper salary. There ain’t any reason why this
shouldn’t work into a partnership if he makes good. With wool jumping,
as it’s going to do in the next four years, the right kind of man can
make himself independent for life. My idea is to increase my holdings
right along, and let my manager in as a partner as soon as he shows he
is worth it. Now that ranch-house is a decent place. There’s a pretty
good school, ma’am, for the children. The folks round that neighborhood
may not have any frills, but—”
“Are you offering Tom the place as manager?” she demanded, in
amazement.
“That was my idea, ma’am. It’s not what you been used to, o’ course,
but if you’re looking for a change I thought I’d speak of it,” he said
diffidently.
She looked at him in a dumb surprise. She, too, in her heart knew that
this man was blameless. He had done his duty, and had nearly lost his
life for it at the hands of her husband. Now, he had come to lift them
out of the hideous nightmare into which they had fallen. He had come to
offer them peace and quiet and plenty in exchange for the future of
poverty and shame and despair which menaced them. They were to escape
into God’s great hills, away from the averted looks and whispering
tongues and the temptations to drown his trouble that so constantly
beset the father of her children. Despite his faults she still loved
Tom Pelton; he was a kind and loving husband and father. Out on the
range there still waited a future for him. When she thought of it a
lump rose in her throat for very happiness. She, who had been like a
rock beside him in his trouble, broke down now and buried her head in
her husband’s coat.
“Don’t you, honey—now, don’t you cry.” The big man had lost all his
pomposity, and was comforting his sweetheart as simply as a boy. “It’s
all been my fault. I’ve been doing wrong for years—trying to pull
myself out of the mire by my bootstraps. By Gad, you’re a man, Sam
Yesler, that’s what you are. If I don’t turn ovah a new leaf I’d ought
to be shot. We’ll make a fresh start, sweetheart. Dash me, I’m nothing
but a dashed baby.” And with that the overwrought man broke down, too.
Yesler, moved a good deal himself, maintained the burden of the
conversation cheerfully.
“That’s all settled, then. Tell you I’m right glad to get a competent
man to put in charge. Things have been running at loose ends, because I
haven’t the time to look after them. This takes a big load off my mind.
You better arrange to go up there with me as soon as you have time,
Pelton, and look the ground over. You’ll want to make some changes if
you mean to take your family up there. Better to spend a few hundreds
and have things the way you want them for Mrs. Pelton than to move in
with things not up to the mark. Of course, I’ll put the house in the
shape you want it. But we can talk of that after we look it over.”
In his embarrassment he looked so much the boy, so much the culprit
caught stealing apples and up for sentence, that Norma Pelton’s
gratitude took courage. She came across to him and held out both hands,
the shimmer of tears still in the soft brown eyes.
“You’ve given us more than life, Mr. Yesler. You can’t ever know what
you have done for us. Some things are worse than death to some people.
I don’t mean poverty, but—other things. We can begin again far away
from this tainted air that has poisoned us. I know it isn’t good form
to be saying this. One shouldn’t have feelings in public. But I don’t
care. I think of the children—and Tom. I didn’t expect ever to be happy
again, but we shall. I feel it.”
She broke down again and dabbed at her eyes with her kerchief. Sam,
very much embarrassed but not at all displeased at this display of
feeling, patted her dark hair and encouraged her to composure.
“There. It’s all right, now, ma’am. Sure you’ll be happy. Any mother
that’s got kids like these—”
He caught up the little girl in his arms by way of diverting attention
from himself.
This gave a new notion to the impulsive little woman.
“I want you to kiss them both. Come here, Kennie. This is Mr. Yesler,
and he is the best man you’ve ever seen. I want you to remember that he
has been our best friend.”
“Yes, mama.”
“Oh, sho, ma’am!” protested the overwhelmed cattleman, kissing both the
children, nevertheless.
Pelton laughed. He felt a trifle hysterical himself. “If she thinks it
she’ll say it when she feels that way. I’m right surprised she don’t
kiss you, too.”
“I will,” announced Norma promptly, with a pretty little tide of color.
She turned toward him, and Yesler, laughing, met the red lips of the
new friend he had made.
“Now, you’ve got just grounds for shooting me,” he said gaily, and
instantly regretted his infelicitous remark.
For both husband and wife fell grave at his words. It was Pelton that
answered them.
“I’ve been taught a lesson, Mr. Yesler. I’m never going to pack a gun
again as long as I live, unless I’m hunting or something of that sort,
and I’m never going to drink another drop of liquor. It’s all right for
some men, but it isn’t right for me.”
“Glad to hear it. I never did believe in the hip-pocket habit. I’ve
lived here twenty years, and I never found it necessary except on
special occasions. When it comes to whisky, I reckon we’d all be better
without it.”
Yesler made his escape at the earliest opportunity and left them alone
together. He lunched at the club, attended to some correspondence he
had, and about 3:30 drifted down the street toward the post-office. He
had expectations of meeting a young woman who often passed about that
time on her way home from school duties.
It was, however, another young woman whose bow he met in front of
Mesa’s largest department store.
“Good afternoon, Miss Balfour.”
She nodded greeting and cast eyes of derision on him.
“I’ve been hearing about you. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am. What for in particular? There are so many things.”
“You’re a fine Christian, aren’t you?” she scoffed.
“I ain’t much of a one. That’s a fact,” he admitted. “What is it this
time—poker?”
“No, it isn’t poker. Worse than that. You’ve been setting a deplorable
example to the young.”
“To young ladies—like Miss Virginia?” he wanted to know.
“No, to young Christians. I don’t know what our good deacons will say
about it.” She illuminated her severity with a flashing smile. “Don’t
you know that the sins of the fathers are to descend upon their
children even to the third and fourth generation? Don’t you know that
when a man does wrong he must die punished, and his children and his
wife, of course, and that the proper thing to do is to stand back and
thank Heaven we haven’t been vile sinners?”
“Now, don’t you begin on that, Miss Virginia,” he warned.
“And after the man had disgraced himself and shot you, after all
respectable people had given him an extra kick to let him know he must
stay down and had then turned their backs upon him. I’m not surprised
that you’re ashamed.”
“Where did you get hold of this fairy-tale?” he plucked up courage to
demand.
“From Norma Pelton. She told me everything, the whole story from
beginning to end.”
“It’s right funny you should be calling on her, and you a respectable
young lady—unless you went to deliver that extra kick you was
mentioning,” he grinned.
She dropped her raillery. “It was splendid. I meant to ask Mr. Ridgway
to do something for them, but this is so much better. It takes them
away from the place of his disgrace and away from temptation. Oh, I
don’t wonder Norma kissed you.”
“She told you that, too, did she?”
“Yes. I should have done it, too, in her place.”
He glanced round placidly. “It’s a right public place here, but—”
“Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to.” And before she disappeared within
the portals of the department store she gave him one last thrust. “It’s
not so public up in the library. Perhaps if you happen to be going that
way?”
She left her communication a fragment, but he thought it worth acting
upon. Among the library shelves he found Laska deep in a new volume on
domestic science.
“This ain’t any kind of day to be fooling away your time on cook-books.
Come out into the sun and live,” he invited.
They walked past the gallows-frames and the slag-dumps and the
shaft-houses into the brown hills beyond the point where green copper
streaks showed and spurred the greed of man. It was a day of spring
sunshine, the good old earth astir with her annual recreation. The
roadside was busy with this serious affair of living. Ants and crawling
things moved to and fro about their business. Squirrels raced across
the road and stood up at a safe distance to gaze at these intruders.
Birds flashed back and forth, hurried little carpenters busy with the
specifications for their new nests. Eager palpitating life was the
key-note of the universe.
“Virginia told me about the Peltons,” Laska said, after a pause.
“It’s spreading almost as fast as if it were a secret,” he smiled. “I’m
expecting to find it in the paper when we get back.”
“I’m so glad you did it.”
“Well, you’re to blame.”
“I!” She looked at him in surprise.
“Partly. You told me how things were going with them. That seemed to
put it up to me to give Pelton a chance.”
“I certainly didn’t mean it that way. I had no right to ask you to do
anything about it.”
“Mebbe it was the facts put it up to me. Anyhow, I felt responsible.”
“Mr. Roper once told me that you always feel responsible when you hear
anybody is in trouble,” the young woman answered.
“Roper’s a goat. Nobody ever pays any attention to him.”
Presently they diverged from the road and sat down on a great flat rock
which dropped out from the hillside like a park seat. For he was still
far from strong and needed frequent rests. Their talk was desultory,
for they had reached that stage of friendship at which it is not
necessary to bridge silence with idle small talk. Here, by some whim of
fate, the word was spoken. He knew he loved her, but he had not meant
to say it yet.
But when her steady gray eyes came back to his after a long stillness,
the meeting brought him a strange feeling that forced his hand.
“I love you, Laska. Will you be my wife?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, Sam,” she answered directly. That was all. It was settled with a
word. There in the sunshine he kissed her and sealed the compact, and
afterward, when the sun was low among the hill spurs, they went back
happily to take up again the work that awaited them.