HE stumbled over the threshold and found himself in an amazing room. He
was to observe, later on, that two partitions had been knocked out to
make three cubby-holes into a living room of pleasant dimensions, that
the floor sagged and that the walls slanted, that the raftered ceiling
was rough: at the moment he was aware only of a leaping, crackling fire
on the hearth, of a Chinese wicker tea table drawn up before it with a
wicker armchair on each side, and--beyond these joyful things--shelves
of books, books, books, running along one entire end of the place; the
gleam of good brass in the firelight; good prints on the walls.
“You are Mr. Wolcott, of course,” the woman said. “And I am Margaret
Golinda--but you know that! We have been hoping you would come to see
us. Sit down, and pull your chair closer to the fire--you must be
fog-chilled to your marrow! Tea is _just_ ready and piping hot--I just
lifted the kettle off as you knocked! You see, I always pull up another
chair for tea, on the hope that Mateo may come in and join me--and he
does, once in a blue moon!” Fine little lines of mirth framed her eyes
again. “He does like it, when he can spare the half hour, but I dare
say it’s a slothful habit for ranchers!”
“It’s a heavenly habit,” said Dean Wolcott, fervently. He leaned toward
the fire, holding his stiff fingers in the stinging, scorching heat. “I
must ask your pardon, Mrs. Golinda, for what must have seemed my clumsy
facetiousness, just now. I will tell you how I came to say--”
“Ah, but you mustn’t tell me anything until you’ve had your first cup,”
she said quickly, giving him a keen glance. She handed him his tea
in pale green china, with a thin old silver spoon, and watched him,
smiling. “You are an easterner, I have heard, and you haven’t realized
what our summers can be in Monterey County! Many mooded, they are. One
can shiver--and perspire--in two hours!” She talked on in her very low,
very clear voice, and there was no chance for him to speak until he had
drained his cup. “Now--the second cup, and toast, this time, with it,
and some of our wild sage honey--we brag about our honey, Mr. Wolcott.”
She filled his cup again, and this time she gave him an oblong wicker
tray to hold on his knees, with a pale green plate of toast and a small
fat pot of amber honey, and she kept on talking. He knew that she was
talking so that he would not have to talk.
“You must have another cup--all really sincere tea drinkers take
three!” He took it docilely. “I can see that you’re rather surprised
at my little house; tea tables and brass and prints amaze you--here?
And everything came here on the back of a mule, over that trail, for
there is no road beyond the Gomez ranch, as you know. There were eighty
loads!” She shook her sleek head, sighing a little at the memory. “But
I lost only two cups and one saucer! Now, I wonder if you’ll pardon my
leaving you for a few moments? There’s something rather urgent in the
oven!” She went swiftly out of the room and closed the door behind her,
and for a moment or two he heard sounds of activity in the kitchen--an
oven door opened and closed again, a faucet turned on and off. Then
he stopped listening and settled limply and luxuriously down into his
armchair. There was a cushion on the back which fitted into his neck
as if it had been measured for him, and he yielded body and brain to
a delicious drowsiness; he would hear her step, and rouse himself
before she opened the door. An old banjo clock on the wall stated that
it was twenty minutes past five ... she would doubtless be back in
five minutes and then he would chat a few moments, and be on his way
again....
He heard her step, just as he had known he would, and roused himself,
and looked at the clock to see if it had been more than five minutes,
but he could not see the clock very clearly.... He must be half blind
with sleep.... He got up out of his chair and went close to it, and saw
that it was twenty minutes before seven, and the room was soft with
dusk.
“I’ve been gone a fearful time,” said Mrs. Golinda, regretfully. “My
wicked little horse elected not to be caught and put in the barn, and
we’ve been holding a sort of field day all over the home ranch!” She
stirred the fire to brightness and threw on fresh wood. “I hope you
helped yourself to tea and toast and found something to read--or did
you just rest and get warmed through again?”
“I just rested and basked,” said Dean Wolcott, gratefully, “but I must
be off now, for I won’t make Post’s before nine o’clock and--” he
stopped aghast--“good heavens, my horse! I’ve left him standing in the
fog, when he was--”
“Oh, but I put him up, directly I went out,” said his hostess, easily.
“Of course you’re going to stop the night with us. What do you suppose
Mateo--with his traditions of Spanish hospitality--would say to me if
I confessed to having you here and letting you go? We can put you up
quite nicely, and you can fancy what it means to us to have a house
guest! Should you like to go to your room, now?”
She did not wait for him to answer but stepped briskly toward another
door. “This way--and a step down! My funny little house is on four
different levels, but I like it. Some day, when our ship comes in, we
mean to have sleeping porches--but it takes a long time for a ship to
come in, on this foggy coast--and to come ashore as high as this!” She
laughed with entire contentment. “Hot water in the pitcher, and towels
there, do you see? Perhaps I’d better light your candle--these tiny
windows let in very little light after the sun sets.” She lighted a
candle in a satiny brass candlestick and went away, and left him to the
comfort of hot water and rough, clean towels, and presently he heard a
hail from without and her glad answer, and then exchange of rippling
Spanish.
Mateo Golinda was a rather small, middle-aged Spaniard with piercing
eyes and a fine aquiline nose, and his welcome was as picturesque and
colorful as if it had been given in his father’s native _Valencia_.
Dean Wolcott remembered now, the things the doctor had told him of
this household, and he drank the wine of astonishment. Margaret Burton
had come into the Big Sur country on a sketching trip; she had left it
only long enough to go home and tell her aghast and staggered family
that she was to marry a Spanish rancher who spoke almost no English, to
live with him on his difficult ranch, fifteen high and winding miles
from a telephone. The young man had seen a generous portion of the
world considering his years, and he came to regard this as the most
remarkable marriage he had ever known; it could not, he felt, have
succeeded so signally if either Margaret Burton or Mateo Golinda had
brought less to it. They worked out-of-doors like peasants, both of
them, like pioneers, but when they came into the silver-gray house they
left the toil behind them; they came into a gentle world of candlelight
and firelight, of shining brass and thin, old silver spoons, of
limber-covered ancient Spanish books; probably nothing else would so
have completed the picture for Dean Wolcott as to find the current
number of the _Atlantic Monthly_ in one of the Chinese chairs.
The supper was excellent and a beautiful and dignified dog sat a little
withdrawn, watching his master worshipfully.
“Mateo,” said Mrs. Golinda, after Dean had noticed and commented upon
him, “let us show Mr. Wolcott how seriously he takes his position. You
see, Mr. Wolcott, Mateo had Lobo before he had me and Lobo wishes that
point to be very clear. He likes me--he is even fond of me--but he
considers me simply another of his master’s possessions, and a later
and less important one.”
“_Dame tu mano_,” said the Spaniard, softly, reaching his brown and
work-hardened hand across the table to his wife, who laid her own
within it. Instantly the dog arose, the pupils of his golden eyes
contracting, and went close to Margaret Golinda, growling. When she
drew her hand away he ceased growling and wagged his plumy tail,
slowly, approvingly, and after an instant, to make sure the incident
would not be repeated, he returned to his place. “You see?” said his
mistress, laughing. “Lobo likes women as many persons like dogs--‘in
their place!’”
Dean Wolcott felt his throat tighten, suddenly, but it was not because
of Lobo’s jealous fealty; it was because these people who had worked
unceasingly for years to win a livelihood from their steep and stubborn
acres, who had sometimes seen only each other for weeks on end, whose
existence was narrow and circumscribed, according to the ordinary
standard, had kept the gleam alight; still said--“Give me your hand.”
And--good heavens--how they _had_ given each other a hand, late and
early, in good weather and bad weather, in rich seasons and barren
seasons; it was sign and symbol. Now the ranch was almost clear; now
Mateo Golinda spoke a careful and correct English and his wife a
fluent Spanish; now, year by year, something of comfort was added,
something of hardship was conquered. It was a thing to have seen; a
thing to remember.
They set him on his way in the pearly morning, and not by look or word
did Margaret Golinda betray her knowledge of his condition on arriving
the day before. When he had tried the second time to explain she had
stopped him again. “It was odd that you’d been thinking of that old
thing--I expect you learned it in the grammar grades as I did?--for
it had come into my mind just a few days ago, when I was watching the
sheep for Mateo. One remembers the old things, in places like this!”
And when he rode away they called after him to come soon again, to
make them a regular port of call. There was no need to urge him; the
weathered gray house on the high hill above the sea would always spell
sanctuary to him; it would always be what he would have called, twenty
years earlier, “King’s X!”
That afternoon he wrote to an old Harvard friend who lived in San
Francisco and was ardently interested in a troop of Boy Scouts in one
of the poorer portions of the city; he had stopped over with him for
two days on his way to Monterey.
I want you to send me one of your boys for the rest of the summer [he
wrote], for I find that the solitude I so earnestly wanted is being
served to me in rather too large portions. I see that I want and need
companionship, of a sort. But, please, don’t send me your prize lad,
your huskiest and handiest Scout! I want instead the unlikeliest one
in your troop. I want the most utter little gutter snipe you can
lay hands on, and the most ignorant of the woods and wilds. What I
need--which you have already guessed and I may as well confess--is
a young person to whom I can exhibit my new-found wisdom; I want a
trusting child who will look up to me and regard me as a brilliant
and dashing admixture of Daniel Boone and Dan Beard and Bill Hart.
Kindly ship same to me charges paid and I will at once remit!
His friend replied at once and told him, rather doubtfully, that in
Elmer Bunty he had a youth who fulfilled all his specifications and
more, but if, after a week or so, he found him more than he could
stomach he might return him; the boy would be told that he was going
for a fortnight only. He was an orphan and made his home, so-called,
with a vinegar-visaged aunt and a mean and hectoring girl cousin; a
really determined daddy longlegs could put him to flight. He--the
friend of Dean Wolcott--had had something of a chore to make the aunt
consent to the outing for Elmer; she had planned for him to spend his
summer vacation in some gainful occupation, and he had only succeeded
by painting a dark picture of the boy’s physical unfitness and the
benefits which would unfailingly accrue to him. Not that the lady was
unduly moved at that, but she had had, she asserted, more than her
share of doctor’s bills for Elmer before--and she just taking him in
and doing for him like he was her own, and precious little thanks for
it, too! Dean Wolcott got a very sharp pen picture of Elmer’s aunt and
he answered his friend immediately and told him to send the boy, and to
tell his relative that he should receive a salary of ten dollars a week
for such services as he might prove able to render, and that he would
see that he sent the lion’s share home to her.
* * * * *
The boy arrived at Pfeiffer’s by stage a few days later. He was,
he stated, thirteen, but it seemed improbable. He was thin to
emaciation--pipe-stem arms and legs which dangled from his lean little
torso as if they hardly belonged to it but had been carelessly hooked
on--a hollow chest, huge, flanging ears which looked ready to fly away
with his pinched small face and quite capable of doing it, friendly and
frightened eyes, and gopher teeth, all of which he was never able to
keep in his mouth at the same time.
He sat beside the good-natured driver, huddled in the corner of the
seat and clinging desperately to the iron rod which supported the top
of the stage, and the man told Dean that he didn’t believe the poor
young one had shifted his position once since they had left Monterey.
“Hello, old top!” said Dean, robustly, swinging him to the ground.
“Come along and meet Snort and Rusty, and your pony!” (He had succeeded
in renting a small and amiable old horse for him from one of the
ranchers.)
The boy went with him, setting his cramped legs stiffly to walk again.
He kept the Ranger’s hand and shrank back against him when they came
nearer the animals. “Does he bite?” he whispered when the Airedale
rose languidly and approached him, sniffing indifferently. “Do--do they
kick?” he wanted fearfully to know when he found himself within range
of the horses’ heels.
“Never!” said the Ranger, cheerily. He tied Elmer’s bundle to his own
saddle and lifted him on to the small horse. “Let’s see about these
stirrups--must always have your stirrups right, Scout.” He adjusted
them swiftly and capably. “Now, then, all set?”
“I g-guess so,” said Elmer Bunty, palely.
“We’re just going to walk our horses, this time--and lots of times till
you get used to it. Then we’ll ‘Ride ’em, Cowboy!’ like they do in the
movies, won’t we?”
“I g-guess so,” said the Scout again.
Dean sprang into his saddle and spoke to the two horses, and they set
off at a brisk walk, and instantly the boy leaned forward and clutched
the pommel of his small saddle desperately with both thin hands.
“Oh, come, Scout, that will never do--hanging on that way! That’s what
we call (‘we,’ he grinned to himself) ‘pulling leather,’ and any
regular cow-puncher would rather break his neck than be caught doing
it! It simply isn’t done in these circles, old top. Just try letting
go, and holding your reins, and keeping the balls of your feet in the
stirrups, and sitting _easy_--like this, see? You can’t fall off, and
even if you could, I’m right here to catch you!”
The Scout reluctantly unclasped his small claws and sat erect. He was
the color of thriftily skimmed milk, his eyes rolled with terror, and
he kept swallowing hard.
Snort, impatient at the snail’s pace, pranced and curvetted, but the
boy’s mount went sedately, and Dean kept up a running fire of casual
talk, and at the end of ten minutes he could see that his lad was
breathing more easily.
“That’s right,” he said, cordially. “Now you’re letting yourself go!
Isn’t it fine? Isn’t it fun?”
“Yes, sir,” said the Scout. After an instant, nodding toward the
drooping head of his steed, he inquired, “What’s his name?”
“His name is Mabel,” answered Dean, gravely.
“Oh...” said Elmer, pondering. “Is he--” he hesitated delicately, “is
he a lady horse?”
“He is a lady horse. Almost, I should say, by the gentleness of this
present performance, a perfect lady.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. Then, “Mabel is a nice, pretty
name,” said the child, thoughtfully. “I think it’s a nicer name than
Edna ... Edna,” he added, after an instant of burdened silence, “is my
cousin’s name....”
“I see,” said the Ranger. “Now, do you think you would care to have
Mabel walk just a trifle faster?”
“Would he--stop again if I--if I didn’t care for it?”
“Instantly, when you pull on the reins and say ‘whoa,’ firmly and
decisively. It’s just like putting on a brake, you know. All set?” He
chirruped to Mabel who changed from a walk to a languid trot.
At once, involuntarily, the Scout clung to his pommel as to the Rock of
Ages, but after a shamed moment he let go of it and sat up again.
“Snappy work!” said the Ranger, cordially, once more.
“I g-guess,” said Elmer Bunty, a faint and furtive pink coming into his
small face, speaking jerkily with the motion of the clumsy old horse,
“I g-guess Edna c-couldn’t c-call me ’Fraid-Cat if she s-saw me _now_!”
There was the most astonishing amount of satisfaction, Dean Wolcott was
to discover, to be derived from the presence of an admittedly inferior
and worshipful companion. Never before had he been looked up to in
this fashion. He had been quite frank in writing to his San Francisco
friend, but he had not known, then, how much he wanted the qualities
he was ordering. A Wolcott among Wolcotts, he had been treated as one
of them, of course; a Wolcott had also been treated like a Wolcott
at Dos Pozos but in a very different sense indeed; to Elmer Bunty he
was the final word in horsemanship, in marksmanship, in woodcraft, in
courage and wide wisdom. The young man, holding himself up to his own
hearty mirth, nevertheless enjoyed it shamelessly. One thing he had not
counted upon, however, was his immediate fondness for the boy; it was
odd that so unbeautiful and unpromising a youth should seem to dive
headlong into his affections, but this was exactly what he had done.
It was a positive pleasure to feed him until his pallid skin grew
visibly more taut, to tuck him up at night with an extra blanket pulled
high about his meager neck, to guide and guard him in his timid steps
forward into a red-blooded world.
Rusty, the Airedale, adopted him at once. Elmer had never had a dog;
his aunt disliked and disapproved of them on sound, economic principles
and held, quite reasonably, that they made extra work and “dirtied
up a house,” and he had not known how to go about the business of
conciliating Rusty, but he had not needed to know; Rusty had known for
both of them. He still treated the new Ranger with a grudging civility,
but the Scout was taken into his heart on the second day. He taught him
to play; he unlocked starved chambers in his flat little chest, and in
the short evenings when Dean Wolcott read aloud from stout and hearty
boy-books he charged contentedly beside the lad, his chin on the small
sharp knee.