A DOUBTFUL LOSS
When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was impossible;
for not only was all the lower part of the frame hillocked up like a
sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky plaits, but even in the
middle, where some outlook was, it led to very little. All the air
seemed choked with snow, and the ground coming up in piles to meet it;
all sounds were deadened in the thick gray hush, and nothing had its own
proportion. Never having seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and
longed to know more of it.
Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined, when
I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open through the
winter.
“It can be done--I am sure it can,” I exclaimed, with vigorous
ignorance. “May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance. If you
keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it. Don't you
see, Uncle Sam?”
“To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan, fetch a
double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget while you
be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at night or when
missy is at dinner.”
“You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to try it.
I must try to keep my path to--somewhere.”
“What a fool I am, to be sure!” said Mr. Gundry, softly. “There, now, I
beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it. Firm and I
will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it. Why, the snow is
two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places. I wonder whether that
rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch last night? No fault of
mine if he never did, for go he would in spite of me.”
I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
name until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my father's
grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could not bear the
idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody coming to care for him.
Kind hands had borne him down the mountains (while I lay between life
and death) and buried him in the soft peach orchard, in the soothing
sound of the mill-wheel. Here had been planted above his head a cross
of white un-painted wood, bearing only his initials, and a small “Amen”
below them.
With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished no
better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of pomp.
There was no “consecrated ground” within miles and miles of traveling;
but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears to hallow it.
For often and often, even now, I could not help giving way and sobbing,
when I thought how sad it was that a strong, commanding, mighty man, of
great will and large experience, should drop in a corner of the world
and die, and finally be thought lucky--when he could think for himself
no longer--to obtain a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his
initials, and have a water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set
me crying, and made me long to lie down with him, until I thought of
earth-worms.
All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let me
have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But even with a
steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way unstopped, such solid
masses of the mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I
been so humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the
trouble great men took to please me.
“Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm,” said the Sawyer, coming in one day,
with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. “Not that I care a cent for the
fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might
have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it.
However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They
Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home,
they tell me?”
“The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse
and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out
in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights.”
“How many times did I tell him,” the Sawyer replied, without much
discontent, “that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night
as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he
could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon
time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of things. They
take every body else for a liar.”
“Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?” I cried. “Is it that dreadful--that poor man
who wanted to carry me away from you?”
“Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth,” Mr. Gundry answered,
more roughly than usual. “Leave you all such points to the Lord. They
are not for young ladies to talk about.”
“Grandfather, don't you be too hard,” said Firm, as he saw me hurrying
away. “Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her
own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will.”
“Very well, then, so be it,” the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to
his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. “Turn the log
up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all
day, but an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God
for sending him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth
up in the snow, that much can be proved to my account.”
Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could
not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not at the
death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going
from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said
concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a
whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
“Find him, Firm, find him,” he said, in his deep sad voice, as he sat
down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily. “And when
he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we gave him his
bellyful.”
Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of the
neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot, that he
might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing, and without a
word went forth to seek.
“Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler,” the old man shouted after him,
and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to show that
he heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and the afternoon was
waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush of the mighty tail of
the great dog Jowler.
“Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!” I cried, in dismay at the great
white waste. “And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead. Do call him
back, or let me run.”
Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
butter-beans.
“Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way from
the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground, and he was
hard at work with the loppings?”
“Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody else
could have noticed such a thing at such a distance.”
“Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down, although
it was a burning hot May morn?”
“Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do! It
was weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have seen him do
it all.”
The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal of
rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an argument went
to his liking. He said nothing more for the present, but had his dinner,
and enjoyed it.
“Supposing now that he did all that,” he resumed, about an hour
afterward, “is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his own
self in a snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is worth all
three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out forty feet of snow
ere now. If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad, has had the luck to cheat
the hangman, and the honor to die in a Californy snow-drift, you may
take my experience for it, missy, Firm and Jowler will find him, and
clear Uncle Sam's reputation.”