BILLIE PIPER AND DEBOON.
It is more than possible that we, in America, did once have a real
Bourbon amongst us. If a Bonaparte could come and wed with us, and cast
his fortune with us, why certainly a very heir to the crown of France
might come and spend his life with us, live and die unknown. I don't
know that we ever had any kings, or sons of kings, or daughters of
kings, or any thing of the kind with us in the little Eden of the
Sierras, but I do know that we had some odd men there, and some great
men too, men that deserved to be kings, whatever they may have been.
And what they were, what they had been, no man ever knew. There was a
truce to investigation. The family tree stood in the form of a sombre
pine at each man's cabin door. That was enough. You could not go outside
of the camp for inquiry. The eternal girdle of snow lifted its front in
everlasting protest. How then shall I tell you who this silent widow
that refused to go away, that refused to surrender, that refused to
open her lips--how shall I tell you who she was, why she remained, or
from whence she came?
As for Billie Piper, the majority of the camp of course had long settled
down to the unalterable conviction that he remained for the love of the
Widow. And the camp hated him for it. He was shunned, despised, for he
did not look the man; he did not even act the man. When he was insulted
he did not resent it. He only held his head at such times, gave the road
to all, avoided all for weeks together, went on with his work in a
feeble way, for he was very feeble now, and never made answer to any
one.
About this time he fell ill; or at least the report ran that he was ill.
Sandy was absent on business in the valley below.
One evening the Widow was seen to enter his cabin. The camp was
indignant. There were now many women in the place, and her actions did
not pass unobserved.
The next day the woman, the leader of society in the little mountain
metropolis, cut the Widow in the street, or rather on the hill-side, for
the mining town had passed away, and there was no street now.
Two sun-bonnets, made of paste-board and calico, that reached far out
over the faces of the wearers, like the cover of a pedler's wagon, met
that afternoon on the hill-side.
"It's awful!"
"It's just awful!"
The two covered wagons were poked up close against each other.
"She staid all night!"
"She staid with him till daylight!"
"I will cut her."
"I have cut her."
The two covered wagons parted and passed on.
You remember Deboon? Well, let us see how the California gold mines
treated some of the bold fellows who once courted fortune nearly a
quarter of a century ago in the Sierras. These mines were great mills.
They ground men, soul and body, to powder. Time, like a great river,
turned the stones, and this man, like thousands and thousands of others,
was ground down to nothing.
Twenty years had now passed. Twenty terrible years, in which this brave
and resolute man had dared more than Caesar, had endured more than Ney;
and he now found that the entire end of his father's name had been,
somewhere in the Sierras, worn or torn away, and hid or covered up for
ever in the tailings. He was now nothing but "Bab." While
ground-sluicing one night, and possibly wondering what other deduction
could be made and not leave him nameless, he was caught in a cave,
sluiced out, and carried head-first through the flume.
This last venture wore him down to about the condition of an old
quarter-coin, where neither date, name, nor nationality can be
deciphered. His jaws were crushed, and limbs broken, till they lay in
every direction, like the claws of a sea-crab.
They took him to the County Hospital, and there they called him "Old
Bab." It was a year before he got about; and then he came leaning on a
staff, with a frightful face. He had lost all spirit. He sat moodily
about the hospital, and sometimes said bitter things.
One day he said of Grasshopper Jim, who was a great talker, "That man
must necessarily lie. There is not truth enough in the United States to
keep his tongue going for ever as it does."
One evening a young candidate told him he was going to make a speech,
and very patronizingly asked him to come out and hear him. Old Bab
looked straight at the wall, as if counting the stripes on the paper,
then said, half to himself, "The fact of Balaam's ass making a speech
has had a more demoralizing influence than any other event told in the
Holy Bible; for ever since that time every lineal descendant seems
determined to follow his example."
His face was never relieved by a smile, and his chin stuck out
fearfully: so that one day, when Snapping Andy, who was licensed by the
miners to be the champion growler of the camp, called him "Old Baboon,"
it was as complete as a baptismal ceremony, and he was known by no other
name.
Some women visited him one evening; fallen angels--women with the trail
of the serpent all over them. They gave him a pipe and money, and, above
all, words of encouragement and kindness.
He moodily filled the meerschaum they had brought him, and after driving
a volume of smoke through his nose, looked quietly up and said: "Society
is wrong. These women are not bad women. For my part, I begin to find so
much that is evil in that which the world calls good, and so much that
is good in what the world calls evil, that I refuse to draw a
distinction where God has not."
Then he fired a double-barrelled volley at society through his nose, and
throwing out volume after volume of smoke as a sort of redoubt between
himself and the world he hated, drifted silently into a tropical, golden
land of dreams.