POOR LITTLE BODIL
Old Mr. Harvey was dozing in a tilted armchair close to his stove. He sat
up with a start when his discordant-toned bell rang, and blinked into the
half-darkness near the door. The smoked chimney on his hanging kerosene
lamp in the middle of the room and near the ceiling did little to
illumine the place. When he saw who his visitors were, he gave his queer
cackling laugh, “Wall, I’ll be dinged ef I wa’n’t a dreamin’ I was back
in holdup days and that some of them thar bandits was bustin’ in to clean
out my stock.” Then, as he rose, almost creakingly, he said,
disparagingly, as he glanced about at the dust and cobweb-covered
shelves, “Not as how they’d find onythin’ _now_ worth the totin’ away.”
Having, by that time, gone around back of his long counter, he peered
through misty spectacles at Mary. “Is thar suthin’ I could be gettin’ fer
yo’, Little Miss?” he asked.
Jerry stepped forward and placed a half dollar on the counter. “Stamps,
please, Mr. Harvey,” he said. “I reckon that’s all we’re wanting tonight,
thanks.”
The cowboy put the stamps in his pocket, dropped his mother’s letter in a
slot, and turned, as though he were about to leave, but Mary detained him
with:
“Oh, Jerry, you don’t have to hurry away, do you? I thought,” her sweet
appealing smile turned toward the old man, “that perhaps Mr. Harvey might
be willing to tell us a story if we stayed awhile.”
“Sho’ as shootin’!” the unkempt old man seemed pleased indeed to walk
into Mary’s trap. “Yo’ set here, Little Miss.” It was his own chair by
the stove he was offering.
“No, indeed!” Mary protested. “That one just fits you. Jerry and Dick are
bringing some in from the porch.”
The boys sat on the counter. The girls, trying to hide triumphant smiles,
drew their chairs close to the stove. Old Mr. Harvey put in another
stick. Then, chewing on an end of gray whisker, he peered over his
glasses at Mary a moment, before asking, “Was thar anythin’ special yo’
wanted to hear tell about?”
Mary leaned forward, her pretty face animated: “Oh, yes, Mr. Harvey. This
afternoon Dora and I saw that small stone house that’s built so it’s
almost hidden on a cliff of the mountains. Can you tell us anything about
the man who built it; _why_ he did it and what became of him?”
The old man’s shaggy brows drew together thoughtfully. He seemed to
hesitate. Mary glanced at Dora, who said with eager interest, “Oh, _that
would_ be a thrilling story, I’m sure. I’d just love to hear it.”
Wisely the boys, who were not in the line of the old man’s vision, said
nothing. In fact, he seemed to have forgotten their presence.
The storekeeper was silent for so long, staring straight ahead of him at
the stove, that the girls thought they, also, had been forgotten. Then
suddenly he looked up and smiled toothlessly at Mary, nodding his grizzly
head many times before he spoke.
“Wall,” he said at last, almost as though he were speaking to an unseen
presence, “I reckon Sven Pedersen wouldn’t want to hold me to secrecy no
longer—thirty year back ’tis, sence he—” suddenly he paused and held up a
bony, shaky hand. “You didn’t hear no gun shot, did you?”
The girls had heard nothing. They glanced almost fearfully up at the
boys. Jerry shook his head and put a finger to his lips.
The girls understood that he thought it wise that the old man continue to
forget their presence.
“Wall, I reckon the wind’s risin’ an’ suthin’ loose banged. Thar’s plenty
loose, that’s sartin.” Then, turning rather blankly toward Mary, he asked
in a child-like manner, “What was we talkin’ about?”
Mary drew her chair closer and smiled confidingly at him. “You were going
to tell us, Mr. Harvey, _why_ Mr. Pedersen built that rock house and—”
“Sho’! Sho’! So I was. It was forty year last Christmas he come to
Gleeson. A tall, skinny fellar he was, not so very old nor so young
neither. It was an awful blizzardy night an’ thar wa’n’t nobody at all
out in the streets. I was jest reckonin’ as how I’d turn in, when the
door bust open an’ the wind tore things offen the shelves. I had to help
get it shet. Then I looked at what had blown in. He looked like a fellar
that was most starved an’ more’n half crazy. His palish blue eyes was
wild. I sot him down in this here chair by the fire an’ staked him to
some hot grub. I’d seen half-starved critters eat. He snapped at the grub
jest that-a-way. When he’d et till I reckoned as how he’d bust, he sank
down in that chair an’ dod blast it, ef he didn’t start snorin’, an’ he
hadn’t sed nothin’, nohow. Wall, I seen as how he wa’n’t goin’ to wake,
so I lay down on my bunk wi’ my clothes on, sort o’ sleepin’ wi’ one eye
open, not knowin’ what sort of a loon I was givin’ shelter to.
“The blizzard kep’ on all the next day an’ the next. Not a gol-darned
soul come to the store, so me’n’ and him had plenty o’ time to get to
knowin’ each other.
“Arter he’d drunk some hot coffee, he unloosed his tongue, though what he
sed was so half-forrin, I wa’n’t quick to cotch onto his meanin’s.
“The heft o’ his yarn was like this. He an’ his little sister, Bodil, he
named her, had come from Denmark to New York. Thar he’d picked up some o’
Ameriky’s way o’ talking, an’ enuf money to git West. Some Danish fellar
had tol’ him about these here rich-quick mines, so he’d took a stage an’
fetched Bodil.”
The old man paused, and Mary, leaning forward, put her hand on his arm.
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, tell us about that little girl. How old was she and what
happened to her?”
The old man’s head shook sadly. “Bad enuf things happened to her, I
reckon. She must o’ been a purty little critter. Chiny blue eyes, Sven
Pedersen sed she had, an’ hair like yellar cornsilk when it fust comes
out. She was the apple o’ his eye. The only livin’ thing he keered for. I
sho’ was plumb sorry fer him.”
“But _do_ tell us what happened to her?” Mary urged, fearing that the old
man’s thought was wandering.
“Wall, ’pears like the stage was held up on a mount’in road nigh here;
the wust road in the country hereabouts. Thar wa’n’t no passengers but
Sven Pedersen an’ Little Bodil; the long journey bein’ about to an end.
That thar blizzard was a threatenin’ an’ the stage driver was hurryin’
his hosses, hopin’ to get over the mountain afore it struck, when up rode
three men. One of ’em shot the driver, another of ’em dragged out a bag
of gold ore; then they fired over the hosses’ heads. Skeered and rarin’,
them hosses plunged over the cliff, an’ down that stage crashed into the
wust gulch thar is in these here parts.
“Sven saw his little sister throwed out into the road. Then, as the stage
keeled over, he jumped an’ cotched onto some scrub tree growin’ out o’
the cliff. It tuk him a long spell to climb back to the road. He was
loony wild wi’ worryin’ about Little Bodil. He ran to whar he’d seen her
throwed out. _She wa’n’t thar._ He hunted an’ called, but thar wa’n’t no
answer. Then he reckoned as how that thar third bandit had whirled back
an’ carried her off.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, how terrible!” There were tears in Mary’s eyes. “Wasn’t
she _ever_ found?”
The old man shook his head sadly. “Sven Pedersen follered them bandits
afoot all night an’ nex’ day but they was a horseback an’ he couldn’t
even get sight o’ them. Then the blizzard struck an’ he staggered in
here, bein’ as he saw my light. Arter that he went prospectin’ all around
these here mount’ins an’ he struck it rich. That cliff, whar he built him
a rock house, was one of his claims.”
“I suppose he never stopped hunting for poor Little Bodil.” Mary’s voice
was tender with sympathy.
“Yo’ reckon right, little gal. Whenever Sven Pedersen heerd tell of a
holdup anywhar in the state, he’d join the posse that was huntin’ ’em but
it warn’t no use, nohow. Bodil was plumb gone. Sven Pedersen never made
no friend but me. His palish blue eyes allays kept that wild look, an’,
as time went on an’ he piled up gold an’ turquoise, he got to be dubbed
‘Lucky Loon.’”
The old man paused and started to nod his shaggy gray head so many times
that Dora, fearing he would nod himself to sleep, asked, “Mr. Harvey,
_what_ was his Evil Eye Turquoise?”
“Hey?” The old man glanced up suspiciously. “So yo’d heerd tell about
_that_.” Then he cackled his queer, cracked laugh. “I heerd about it, but
I’d allays reckoned thar wa’n’t no sech thing. I cal’lated Sven Pedersen
made up that thar yarn to keep folks from climbin’ up ter his rock house
an’ stealin’ his gold an’ turquoise, if be that’s whar he kept it. I
reckon as how that’s the heft o’ _that_ yarn an’ yet, I dunno, I dunno.
Mabbe thar was suthin’ to it. Mabbe thar was.”
“Oh, Mr. Harvey, we’d like awfully well to hear the story whether it’s
true or not, unless,” Mary said solicitously, “unless you’re too sleepy
to tell it.”
The old man sat up and opened his eyes wide. “Sleepy, _me_ sleepy? Never
was waked up more! Wall, this here is the heft of that tale.”