It was at a little mining-camp in the California Sierras that he first
dawned upon me in all his grotesque sweetness.
I had arrived early in the morning, but not in time to intercept the
friend who was the object of my visit. He had gone “prospecting,”--so
they told me on the river,--and would not probably return until late
in the afternoon. They could not say what direction he had taken; they
could not suggest that I would be likely to find him if I followed. But
it was the general opinion that I had better wait.
I looked around me. I was standing upon the bank of the river;
and apparently the only other human beings in the world were my
interlocutors, who were even then just disappearing from my horizon,
down the steep bank, toward the river's dry bed. I approached the edge
of the bank.
Where could I wait?
Oh! anywhere,--down with them on the river-bar, where they were working,
if I liked. Or I could make myself at home in any of those cabins that
I found lying round loose. Or perhaps it would be cooler and pleasanter
for me in my friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see those three large
sugar-pines, and, a little to the right, a canvas roof and chimney,
over the bushes? Well, that was my friend's,--that was Dick Sylvester's
cabin. I could stake my horse in that little hollow, and just hang round
there till he came. I would find some books in the shanty. I could amuse
myself with them or I could play with the baby.
Do what?
But they had already gone. I leaned over the bank, and called after
their vanishing figures,--“What did you say I could do?” The answer
floated slowly up on the hot, sluggish air,--
“Pla-a-y with the ba-by.”
The lazy echoes took it up, and tossed it languidly from hill to hill,
until Bald Mountain opposite made some incoherent remark about the baby;
and then all was still.
I must have been mistaken. My friend was not a man of family; there
was not a woman within forty miles of the river camp; he never was so
passionately devoted to children as to import a luxury so expensive. I
must have been mistaken.
I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As we slowly climbed the
narrow trail, the little settlement might have been some exhumed
Pompeiian suburb, so deserted and silent were its habitations. The open
doors plainly disclosed each rudely-furnished interior,--the rough pine
table, with the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing; the
wooden bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. A golden lizard,
the very genius of desolate stillness, had stopped breathless upon the
threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped impudently into the window
of another; a woodpecker, with the general flavor of undertaking
which distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer from the
coffin-lid of the roof on which he was professionally engaged, as
we passed. For a moment I half regretted that I had not accepted the
invitation to the river-bed; but, the next moment, a breeze swept up the
long, dark canyon, and the waiting files of the pines beyond bent toward
me in salutation. I think my horse understood, as well as myself,
that it was the cabins that made the solitude human, and therefore
unbearable; for he quickened his pace, and with a gentle trot brought
me to the edge of the wood, and the three pines that stood like vedettes
before the Sylvester outpost.
Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I unslung the long riata from
the saddle-bow, and, tethering him to a young sapling, turned toward the
cabin. But I had gone only a few steps, when I heard a quick trot behind
me; and poor Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with fear, was at my
heels. I looked hurriedly around. The breeze had died away; and only
an occasional breath from the deep-chested woods, more like a long sigh
than any articulate sound, or the dry singing of a cicala in the
heated canyon, were to be heard. I examined the ground carefully for
rattlesnakes, but in vain. Yet here was Pomposo shivering from his
arched neck to his sensitive haunches, his very flanks pulsating with
terror. I soothed him as well as I could, and then walked to the edge
of the wood, and peered into its dark recesses. The bright flash of a
bird's wing, or the quick dart of a squirrel, was all I saw. I confess
it was with something of superstitious expectation that I again turned
towards the cabin. A fairy-child, attended by Titania and her train,
lying in an expensive cradle, would not have surprised me: a Sleeping
Beauty, whose awakening would have repeopled these solitudes with life
and energy, I am afraid I began to confidently look for, and would have
kissed without hesitation.
But I found none of these. Here was the evidence of my friend's
taste and refinement, in the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the
picturesque arrangement of the fur-skins that covered the floor and
furniture, and the striped serape lying on the wooden couch. Here were
the walls fancifully papered with illustrations from “The London News;”
here was the woodcut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the chimney, quaintly
framed with blue-jays' wings; here were his few favorite books on the
swinging-shelf; and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy of
“Punch.” Dear Dick! The flour-sack was sometimes empty; but the gentle
satirist seldom missed his weekly visit.
I threw myself on the couch, and tried to read. But I soon exhausted my
interest in my friend's library, and lay there staring through the open
door on the green hillside beyond. The breeze again sprang up; and a
delicious coolness, mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole
through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of bumblebees outside the
canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, and
the fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the
serape over me, as a precaution against the freshening mountain breeze,
and in a few moments was asleep.
I do not remember how long I slept. I must have been conscious, however,
during my slumber, of my inability to keep myself covered by the serape;
for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a despairing hand as it was
disappearing over the foot of the couch. Then I became suddenly aroused
to the fact that my efforts to retain it were resisted by some equally
persistent force; and, letting it go, I was horrified at seeing it
swiftly drawn under the couch. At this point I sat up, completely awake;
for immediately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated muff began to
emerge from under the couch. Presently it appeared fully, dragging the
serape after it. There was no mistaking it now: it was a baby-bear,--a
mere suckling, it was true, a helpless roll of fat and fur, but
unmistakably a grizzly cub!
I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly ludicrous than its aspect
as it slowly raised its small, wondering eyes to mine. It was so
much taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its forelegs were so
disproportionately small, that, in walking, its hind-feet invariably
took precedence. It was perpetually pitching forward over its pointed,
inoffensive nose, and recovering itself always, after these involuntary
somersaults with the gravest astonishment. To add to its preposterous
appearance, one of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's,
into which it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. As this
somewhat impeded its first impulse to fly, it turned to me; and then,
possibly recognizing in the stranger the same species as its master, it
paused. Presently it slowly raised itself on its hind-legs, and vaguely
and deprecatingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little hooks of steel.
I took the paw, and shook it gravely. From that moment we were friends.
The little affair of the serape was forgotten.
Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement our friendship by an act
of delicate courtesy. Following the direction of his eyes, I had no
difficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge-pole the sugar-box and
the square lumps of white sugar that even the poorest miner is never
without. While he was eating them, I had time to examine him more
closely. His body was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated gray,
deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. His fur was excessively long,
thick, and soft as eider-down; the cushions of flesh beneath perfectly
infantine in their texture and contour. He was so very young, that the
palms of his half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. Except for
the bright blue, steely hooks, half sheathed in his little toes, there
was not a single harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He was as
free from angles as one of Leda's offspring. Your caressing hand
sank away in his fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long was an
intoxication of the senses; to pat him was a wild delirium; to embrace
him, an utter demoralization of the intellectual faculties.
When he had finished the sugar, he rolled out of the door with a
half-diffident, half-inviting look in his eyes as if he expected me
to follow. I did so; but the sniffing and snorting of the keen-scented
Pomposo in the hollow not only revealed the cause of his former terror,
but decided me to take another direction. After a moment's hesitation,
he concluded to go with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain
impish look in his eye, that he fully understood and rather enjoyed the
fright of Pomposo. As he rolled along at my side, with a gait not unlike
a drunken sailor, I discovered that his long hair concealed a leather
collar around his neck, which bore for its legend the single word
“Baby!” I recalled the mysterious suggestion of the two miners. This,
then, was the “baby” with whom I was to “play.”
How we “played;” how Baby allowed me to roll him down hill, crawling
and puffing up again each time with perfect good-humor; how he climbed
a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had “shied” into one of the
topmost branches; how, after getting it, he refused to descend until it
suited his pleasure; how, when he did come down, he persisted in walking
about on three legs, carrying my hat, a crushed and shapeless mass,
clasped to his breast with the remaining one; how I missed him at last,
and finally discovered him seated on a table in one of the tenantless
cabins, with a bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to
extract its contents,--these and other details of that eventful day I
shall not weary the reader with now. Enough that, when Dick Sylvester
returned, I was pretty well fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an
immense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep. Sylvester's first
words after our greeting were,--
“Isn't he delicious?”
“Perfectly. Where did you get him?”
“Lying under his dead mother, five miles from here,” said Dick, lighting
his pipe. “Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly clean shot; never
moved afterwards. Baby crawled out, scared, but unhurt. She must have
been carrying him in her mouth, and dropped him when she faced me; for
he wasn't more than three days old, and not steady on his pins. He takes
the only milk that comes to the settlement, brought up by Adams Express
at seven o'clock every morning. They say he looks like me. Do you
think so?” asked Dick with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-colored
mustachios, and evidently assuming his best expression.
I took leave of the baby early the next morning in Sylvester's
cabin, and, out of respect to Pomposo's feelings, rode by without any
postscript of expression. But the night before I had made Sylvester
solemnly swear, that, in the event of any separation between himself and
Baby, it should revert to me. “At the same time,” he had added, “it's
only fair to say that I don't think of dying just yet, old fellow; and I
don't know of any thing else that would part the cub and me.”
Two months after this conversation, as I was turning over the morning's
mail at my office in San Francisco, I noticed a letter bearing
Sylvester's familiar hand. But it was post-marked “Stockton,” and I
opened it with some anxiety at once. Its contents were as follows:--
“O FRANK!--Don't you remember what we agreed upon anent the baby? Well,
consider me as dead for the next six months, or gone where cubs can't
follow me,--East. I know you love the baby; but do you think, dear
boy,--now, really, do you think you COULD be a father to it? Consider
this well. You are young, thoughtless, well-meaning enough; but dare you
take upon yourself the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so
young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to this Telemachus? Think
of the temptations of a metropolis. Look at the question well, and
let me know speedily; for I've got him as far as this place, and he's
kicking up an awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like a
maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once.
“SYLVESTER.
“P.S.--Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take things always as
quietly as he did. He dropped rather heavily on two of Watson's 'purps'
last week, and snatched old Watson himself bald headed, for interfering.
You remember Watson? For an intelligent man, he knows very little of
California fauna. How are you fixed for bears on Montgomery Street, I
mean in regard to corrals and things? S.
“P.P.S.--He's got some new tricks. The boys have been teaching him to
put up his hands with them. He slings an ugly left. S.”
I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby overcame all other
considerations; and I telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester.
When I reached my lodgings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaiting
me with a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester,--
“All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father to him. S.”
It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a moment I was
staggered at my own precipitation. I had as yet made no preparations,
had said nothing to my landlady about her new guest. I expected to
arrange every thing in time; and now, through Sylvester's indecent
haste, that time had been shortened twelve hours.
Something, however, must be done at once. I turned to Mrs. Brown. I
had great reliance in her maternal instincts: I had that still greater
reliance common to our sex in the general tender-heartedness of pretty
women. But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a feeble smile, I tried
to introduce the subject with classical ease and lightness. I even said,
“If Shakspeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, believed that a lion among
ladies was a dreadful thing, what must”--But here I broke down; for
Mrs. Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once was
more occupied with my manner than my speech. So I tried a business
brusquerie, and, placing the telegram in her hand, said hurriedly, “We
must do something about this at once. It's perfectly absurd; but he will
be here at one to-night. Beg thousand pardons; but business prevented my
speaking before”--and paused out of breath and courage.
Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her pretty eyebrows, turned
the paper over, and looked on the other side, and then, in a remote and
chilling voice, asked me if she understood me to say that the mother was
coming also.
“Oh, dear no!” I exclaimed with considerable relief. “The mother is
dead, you know. Sylvester, that is my friend who sent this, shot her
when the baby was only three days old.” But the expression of Mrs.
Brown's face at this moment was so alarming, that I saw that nothing
but the fullest explanation would save me. Hastily, and I fear not very
coherently, I told her all.
She relaxed sweetly. She said I had frightened her with my talk about
lions. Indeed, I think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle highly
colored, touched her motherly heart. She was even a little vexed at what
she called Sylvester's “hard-heartedness.” Still I was not without some
apprehension. It was two months since I had seen him; and Sylvester's
vague allusion to his “slinging an ugly left” pained me. I looked at
sympathetic little Mrs. Brown; and the thought of Watson's pups covered
me with guilty confusion.
Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me until he arrived. One o'clock
came, but no Baby. Two o'clock, three o'clock, passed. It was almost
four when there was a wild clatter of horses' hoofs outside, and with
a jerk a wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I had opened it, and
confronted a stranger. Almost at the same moment, the horses attempted
to run away with the wagon.
The stranger's appearance was, to say the least, disconcerting. His
clothes were badly torn and frayed; his linen sack hung from his
shoulders like a herald's apron; one of his hands was bandaged; his face
scratched; and there was no hat on his dishevelled head. To add to the
general effect, he had evidently sought relief from his woes in drink;
and he swayed from side to side as he clung to the door-handle, and, in
a very thick voice, stated that he had “suthin” for me outside. When he
had finished, the horses made another plunge.
Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened at something.
“Frightened!” laughed the stranger with bitter irony. “Oh, no! Hossish
ain't frightened! On'y ran away four timesh comin' here. Oh, no!
Nobody's frightened. Every thin's all ri'. Ain't it, Bill?” he said,
addressing the driver. “On'y been overboard twish; knocked down a
hatchway once. Thash nothin'! On'y two men unner doctor's han's at
Stockton. Thash nothin'! Six hunner dollarsh cover all dammish.”
I was too much disheartened to reply, but moved toward the wagon. The
stranger eyed me with an astonishment that almost sobered him.
“Do you reckon to tackle that animile yourself?” he asked, as he
surveyed me from head to foot.
I did not speak, but, with an appearance of boldness I was far from
feeling, walked to the wagon, and called “Baby!”
“All ri'. Cash loose them straps, Bill, and stan' clear.”
The straps were cut loose; and Baby, the remorseless, the terrible,
quietly tumbled to the ground, and, rolling to my side, rubbed his
foolish head against me.
I think the astonishment of the two men was beyond any vocal expression.
Without a word, the drunken stranger got into the wagon, and drove away.
And Baby? He had grown, it is true, a trifle larger; but he was thin,
and bore the marks of evident ill usage. His beautiful coat was
matted and unkempt; and his claws, those bright steel hooks, had been
ruthlessly pared to the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless;
and the old expression of stupid good humor had changed to one of
intelligent distrust. His intercourse with mankind had evidently
quickened his intellect, without broadening his moral nature.
I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown from smothering him in
blankets, and ruining his digestion with the delicacies of her larder;
but I at last got him completely rolled up in the corner of my room, and
asleep. I lay awake some time later with plans for his future. I finally
determined to take him to Oakland--where I had built a little cottage,
and always spent my Sundays--the very next day. And in the midst of a
rosy picture of domestic felicity, I fell asleep.
When I awoke, it was broad day. My eyes at once sought the corner where
Baby had been lying; but he was gone. I sprang from the bed, looked
under it, searched the closet, but in vain. The door was still locked;
but there were the marks of his blunted claws upon the sill of the
window that I had forgotten to close. He had evidently escaped that way.
But where? The window opened upon a balcony, to which the only other
entrance was through the hall. He must be still in the house.
My hand was already upon the bell-rope; but I stayed it in time. If he
had not made himself known, why should I disturb the house? I dressed
myself hurriedly, and slipped into the hall. The first object that met
my eyes was a boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks of Baby's
teeth; and, as I looked along the hall, I saw too plainly that the usual
array of freshly-blackened boots and shoes before the lodgers' doors
was not there. As I ascended the stairs, I found another, but with the
blacking carefully licked off. On the third floor were two or three more
boots, slightly mouthed; but at this point Baby's taste for blacking had
evidently palled. A little farther on was a ladder, leading to an open
scuttle. I mounted the ladder, and reached the flat roof, that formed
a continuous level over the row of houses to the corner of the street.
Behind the chimney on the very last roof, something was lurking. It was
the fugitive Baby. He was covered with dust and dirt and fragments of
glass. But he was sitting on his hind-legs, and was eating an enormous
slab of peanut candy, with a look of mingled guilt and infinite
satisfaction. He even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach with his
disengaged fore-paw as I approached. He knew that I was looking for
him; and the expression of his eye said plainly, “The past, at least, is
secure.”
I hurried him, with the evidences of his guilt, back to the scuttle, and
descended on tiptoe to the floor beneath. Providence favored us: I met
no one on the stairs; and his own cushioned tread was inaudible. I think
he was conscious of the dangers of detection; for he even forebore
to breathe, or much less chew the last mouthful he had taken; and he
skulked at my side with the sirup dropping from his motionless jaws. I
think he would have silently choked to death just then, for my sake; and
it was not until I had reached my room again, and threw myself panting
on the sofa, that I saw how near strangulation he had been. He gulped
once or twice apologetically, and then walked to the corner of his
own accord, and rolled himself up like an immense sugarplum, sweating
remorse and treacle at every pore.
I locked him in when I went to breakfast, when I found Mrs. Brown's
lodgers in a state of intense excitement over certain mysterious events
of the night before, and the dreadful revelations of the morning. It
appeared that burglars had entered the block from the scuttles; that,
being suddenly alarmed, they had quitted our house without committing
any depredation, dropping even the boots they had collected in the
halls; but that a desperate attempt had been made to force the till in
the confectioner's shop on the corner, and that the glass show-cases had
been ruthlessly smashed. A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen a masked
burglar, on his hands and knees, attempting to enter their scuttle; but,
on her shouting, “Away wid yees!” he instantly fled.
I sat through this recital with cheeks that burned uncomfortably; nor
was I the less embarrassed, on raising my eyes, to meet Mrs. Brown's
fixed curiously and mischievously on mine. As soon as I could make my
escape from the table, I did so, and, running rapidly up stairs, sought
refuge from any possible inquiry in my own room. Baby was still asleep
in the corner. It would not be safe to remove him until the lodgers had
gone down town; and I was revolving in my mind the expediency of keeping
him until night veiled his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye,
when there came a cautious tap at my door. I opened it. Mrs. Brown
slipped in quietly, closed the door softly, stood with her back against
it, and her hand on the knob, and beckoned me mysteriously towards her.
Then she asked in a low voice,--
“Is hair-dye poisonous?”