IN THE MINER'S CABIN
"Forgive me, mother! I oughtn't to have told it that way. But what does
it mean? Why should you want him to go?"
"Did you not hear me say I would not have dismissed him? No, dear.
There is something in this I don't understand. How do we know but that
all the other 'boys' who left so suddenly have been deceived in just
this way? As long as there was food enough to eat and a roof to shelter
them the men whom your father befriended and who, in turn have befriended
us, were as welcome to Sobrante as my own children. I must think this
over. We must then find Ephraim and bring him back. We must. There!
We'll not discuss it any more at present. You are keeping Mr. Hale
waiting and that is rudeness. Go, now, and explain all your father's
plans to him, as you ride."
"I'd so much rather stay with you. I don't like to leave you now."
"I shall be busy and you'll be back for dinner."
"I'd like to look for that paper--the title."
"When you come back."
"Good-by, then, and don't do any hard work. I'll send the children up
to stay around the house. That will be one worry off your mind."
When she had again sprung into her saddle, Lady Jess apologized for
keeping Mr. Hale so long, and suggested:
"Suppose we ride first to the mines, while it is coolest. Then come
around by the olive and orange orchards. We can rest at the lemon house
awhile. It's interesting to see how they are cared for, or so most
strangers think."
"Anything and anywhere suits me, for I'm full of curiosity about
Sobrante. How did your father happen to take up so many different lines
of industry?"
"Oh, they were all his 'experiments.' You see he wanted to do good
to some sorts of people that nobody else seemed much interested in.
Men that were getting old and were not rich or well. He was born in
California, and he always thought it the land where everybody could
find a place if he only had a chance. He went to New York and lived a
long time, and he and mother were married there. He'd once ridden over
this valley, on a horseback trip--just like yours, maybe--and after that
he always meant to buy it if he could. So, when he began to lose his
own health he came right away. He hadn't much money himself, but he
worked and mother helped, and he'd paid for it all before he died. It
was the title deed which proved it, that he had just brought home and
I could not find last night. Though, of course, I shall find it yet,"
she added confidently.
"I hope so, my child. I devotedly hope so. Yet if it was duly recorded
the matter should easily be set right."
Jessica's face fell.
"I don't believe it was. He said something about that, I didn't
understand it quite, but I know he said 'recorded' and that he meant to
have it done the next time he went to Los Angeles. But--he didn't
ever go."
The lawyer's face grew still more serious. Something of the love with
which she inspired everybody was already in his heart for this little
maid, and thoughts of his own young daughters, threatened with the
misfortune which menaced her, stirred him to fresh regret for the mission
he had undertaken.
They had now turned their horses' heads toward the foothills on the
north and he asked:
"What are these 'mines' of which you speak?"
"For coal. It was an old man from Pennsylvania first thought there
might be such stuff in the mountains near, and it's worth so much here.
Father had found him in one of the towns, with his wife and sick son.
They'd spent all they had, to come West to try to cure the son, and
were very poor. So, of course, father brought them to Sobrante, and the
boy got better at once. They didn't understand any sort of work except
mining, and old Wolfgang couldn't rest without trying to do something
back for father. So he and Otto dug and picked around till they found a
'vein' and then they put up a little cabin near and there they live.
Their name is Winkler, and Elsa, the mother, is the quaintest little
Dutchwoman. Of course, there's never been money enough to work the
mine right. All they can do is to get out enough coal for us to use.
That's why we always have such lovely grate fires in the winter time,
that make the house so cosy. You'll like the Winklers, and you'll
like Elsa's coffee. Go there what time of day you will she always
makes you drink some, sweetened with the wild honey she gets in the hills
and with her goat's milk in it."
Mr. Hale made a wry face.
"Oh! you're sure to like it. It is delicious, drank with a slice of
her hard, sweetened bread. And their little cabin is as clean as can
be. Elsa is a great knitter. She has knitted covers for everything, her
beds, chairs, table, everything. All the furniture is made out of wood
they found in the hills, and when they're not mining Otto carves it
beautifully."
"Are all the people who work for you unfortunate? I mean, was some
misfortune that which made your father engage them?"
"Yes, just that. They are his 'experiments.' He said this valley was
made for every sort of work there was to be done. All men can't be the
same thing, and every man was happiest at his own trade. Young men can
get work anywhere, but dear Sobrante is a Home with a capital H, for
anybody who needs one. My father said the more he trusted people the less
they ever disappointed him. He'd proved his plan was right on his own
single ranch and he was trying to make others do the same on theirs.
Paraiso d'Oro--oh! you're from that same New York. Do you know a--a
Mr. Syndicate, I think he was, who owns Paraiso. Of course, I know in
such a big city you might not, though maybe----"
The listener started, then looked keenly into the innocent face bending
toward him from the broncho's back.
"Suppose I do know a syndicate--a company--not an individual, which is
interested in Paraiso? Can you tell me anything about such a place? Until
last night I had no idea that I had come anywhere near to it, and then
by accident, hearing Antonio Bernal mention it as his. Is it hereabouts?"
Jessica turned her horse about in a circle, rapidly swinging her pointing
arm to indicate every direction of the compass.
"Know it? It is there, and there, and there--everywhere. The very
richest tract of land in all the country, my father believed. Sobrante
is the heart of it, he said, but the rest of the valley is even better
than Sobrante. It is so big one can hardly believe. He said there was
room in it, and a little ranch apiece, for every poor down-trodden
man--not bad men, but poor gentlemen, like worn-out lawyers and doctors
and--and nice folks--and make a new home in which to live at peace.
He said there were plenty of people always ready to help the very poor
and ignorant, but nobody so willing to help gentlefolks without money.
That's why he asked a lot of rich people he used to know in New York
to buy Paraiso. He gave it its name, himself, and he believed that
there might be really gold somewhere in it. There's everything else,
you see. But it was a name of 'syndicate' he talked about most and
was most grieved by because the money to buy it had not been sent as it
had been promised."
"Poor child!"
"Beg pardon?"
"It was nothing. I was thinking. So this 'Mr. Syndicate' never sent
the money your father hoped for?"
"No. It was a great disappointment. Antonio had charge of all the
letters, only he; so there could have been nobody careless enough to
lose them had any come. Father left all the writing to Antonio, for he
was nearly blind, you know. That's how he came to get hurt. He could
not see and his horse stepped over the ledge and somebody brought him
home that way. Poor mother!"
"Poor mother, indeed!" echoed Mr. Hale, with something like a groan.
"Thank you for caring about it," said Jessica, quickly touched by
his ready sympathy. "But she says her life now must be to carry on all
father's work, and I shall help her. In that way it will be always as if
he were still with us. Oh! see! That's Stiffleg's track! Ephraim Marsh
has passed this way! Maybe I shall find him at the Winklers' cabin!
Would you mind hurrying, just a little bit?"
"I'll do my best, little lady. But I'm a wretched horseman, I fear."
"Oh! you'll learn. If you would only let yourself be easy and
comfortable. But, beg pardon, you do it this way--so stiff, with
your hands all clinched. Your horse feels that something's wrong, and
that's why he fidgets so. You should get Samson to show you how.
He's a magnificent rider. I'll coax him to do some tricks for you,
to-night, when we get through supper. I'm off. Just drop all care and
let the horse do the work and--catch me if you can."
As they approached the foothills they had dropped into a little hollow
where the sandy ground was moist and retained an impression distinctly,
and it was thus that Jessica's keen eyes discovered the peculiar
footprints of "Forty-niner's" halting steed. But she quickly forgot
these in the interest of the race she had started and was now bent
upon nothing save beating Mr. Hale at the goal, the miner's cabin.
"He has by far the better horse. He ought to win, but he shall not--he
can't. He mustn't! Go, Buster! A taste of Elsa's honey if you get
there first!"
Bending forward the girl rested her cheek against the broncho's neck
and, as if the touch fired him with new ambition, he shot forward so
swiftly that the question of winning was soon settled. However, Mr.
Hale's own pride was touched, and he put to the test the advice just
given him, and with such good results that he, too, soon came in sight
of a small house at the end of the trail, a dark hole in the mountain
side, and a group of people eagerly surrounding his little guide.
Indeed, Elsa had already drawn the child upon her capacious lap, and was
tenderly smoothing the tumbled curls with her hard hand, while she asked
endless questions, yet waited for no answers.
Till, suddenly remembering, Lady Jess demanded:
"But have you seen our Ephraim? Is he here? Has he been here?"
Elsa's fat form grew quite rigid and her hand ceased its caressing
stroke. Not for her to betray the confidence of one who had taken refuge
with her.
"Why ask that? What if he has and is? Is he not the old man, already?
Even here there is no room for the old. When one is fifty one should die.
That would be wisdom."
"Elsa Winkler, nonsense! That's not polite for me to say, but it's
true. You're fifty, yourself, I guess, and you don't want to die, do
you?"
Elsa shivered slightly. "When the right time comes and the usefulness
is past. As the Lord wills."
Jessica laughed and kissed the woman's cheek, then sprang to the ground,
demanding:
"Where is he? For he's mine, you know. He belongs to Sobrante just
as much the sunshine does. If he'd loved us as we love him he'd not
have ridden away in the night time just because of one little bit o'
note. Wherever you've hidden him you must find him for me, and he's to
go straight away back with me. With us, I mean, for here comes a--a
friend of ours; I guess he is. Any way he's a guest and you must make
him a cup of your very best coffee, and Otto must show him his carved
clock that he is making. He's a pleasant gentleman, and so interested
in everything, it's fun to tell him things. In that New York, where
he came from, they don't have much of anything nice. No ostriches,
nor mines, nor orange groves. Fancy! and he doesn't know--he's only
just learning to ride a horse!"
As Mr. Hale now approached, this description ceased and Jessica presented
him to her mountain friends:
"This is dear Elsa Winkler, and 'her man,' Wolfgang. And
Otto--where's Otto gone? He needn't be shy. Mr. Hale would like to
see the carvings and the knittings, and maybe, go down the shaft.
But first of all, he'd like the coffee, Elsa, dear."
The portly Dutchwoman, whose needles could click as fast as her tongue,
now thrust the stocking, at which she had resumed working the moment
Jessica left her lap, into her apron pocket and waddled inside the cabin.
Already she was beaming with hospitality and calling in harsh chiding to
the invisible Otto:
"You bad little boy, where are you at already? Come by, soon's-ever,
and lay the dishes. Here's company come to the house and nobody but the
old mother got a grain of sense left to mind them. Wolfgang! Wolfgang!
Hunt the child and set him drawing a tether o' milk from Gretchen, the
goat. Ach! but it shames my good heart when my folks act so foolish, and
the Lady Jess just giving the orders so sweet."
Wolfgang heard his wife's commands and obeyed them after his own manner,
by lifting his mighty voice and shouting in his native _patois_--"Little
heart! Son of my love! Come, come hither."
But he did not, for all that, cease from his respectful attention to the
stranger, for whom he had promptly brought out the best chair he owned,
and whose horse he had taken to a shaded spot and carefully rubbed down
with a handful of dried grass.
Presently, the "child" appeared, and the Easterner flashed a smile
toward Jessica, whose own face was dimpled with mirth; for the "child,"
Otto, proved to be a gaunt six-footer, lean as he was long, and with a
manly beard upon his pink and white face. He shambled forward on his
great feet and shyly extended his mighty hands.
Mr. Hale grasped them heartily, eager to put the awkward youth at ease;
and, nodding toward the chair from which he had risen, exclaimed:
"So, you are he who does that beautiful carving! I congratulate you on
your skill, and I hope you will have some trifle of your work to sell a
traveler. I've never seen finer."
Otto flushed with pleasure and was about to reply, but again Elsa
commanded:
"Milk the goat, little one. After the guest feeds let the household
talk."
As if he had been the "child," the "little heart," his parents called
him he obediently entered the cabin, tied an apron before his lank body
and spread a tablecloth. Then, as deftly as if he had been a girl, he
arranged it with the three cups and plates the family possessed, took his
mother's cherished spoons from her chest, and, taking a small pail,
sought the goat, Gretchen.
"Now, I'm in for it," thought Mr. Hale, regretfully. "My poor
dyspepsia! Coffee, honey, and goat's milk! A combination to kill.
But even if it is, one must respond to such whole-souled hospitality as
this."
Jessica had no such qualms; and, indeed, the refreshment which her
visitor forced himself to accept was far more palatable than he had dared
expect; and, besides, he now brought to it that astonishing appetite
which had come to him on this eventful trip. When the luncheon was
disposed of, Dame Elsa held an exhibition of her wonderful knitting and
it seemed to the unappreciative stranger that a small fortune must have
been expended in yarns, and that even in this wilderness one might be
extravagant and wasteful.
"My wife would know more about such things than I do, but I should think
you might easily stock a whole shop with your tidies and things."
"Man alive, do I not? Didst think it was for the pleasure of one's
self the fingers are always at toil? Ach! Yet, of course, how could a
poor man from a far city understand! It is Elsa's knitting, and Elsa's
only, will all the tourists have who come to Sobrante; and in that Los
Angeles, so distant, where the master went but once every year already,
there is a merchant buys all. Ay. See here. I show you!"
"I--I don't really care--I mean--ought we not to be going, Jessica?"
cried Mr. Hale, hopelessly, foreseeing another exhibition of "trash,"
as he considered it.
But Elsa could not conceive that everybody should not be interested in
all that concerned everybody else; and, besides, this was quite another
matter. One for pride, indeed, beyond the accomplishment of the most
difficult "lacework" or "overshot" stitch.
From the same chest in which her precious half-dozen plated spoons had
reposed she now drew forth a buckskin sack; and, from this, with radiant
eyes fixed on Mr. Hale's own, another bag, knitted, of course, and
seemingly heavy. Sitting before him she spread her own apron over her
guest's knees and poured therein a goodly pile of gold and silver coins.
With a little catching of his own breath the lawyer realized that among
these were many eagles and double eagles.
"Why, this is wealth. This is _money_. I can see now, after our paper
bills and 'checks' how real this seems. You are a fortunate woman, Dame
Elsa. Now, I begin to respect your 'tidies' and notions as things of
moment. Did you earn it all?"
"Ach! wait. There is more already. This but begins; and it is for the
child. Some day, when there is enough, he shall this mine buy and the
machinery hire, and the workmen. Then he will repay to the mistress of
Sobrante, and our Lady Jess, all that their dead man spent for us. More.
He will make the great money--this but leads the way. Wait."
Trustful and eager of appreciation, which came so rarely into her
isolated life, the woman thrust her hand again into the buckskin sack,
her shining eyes still fixed upon the stranger's face, and her fingers
fumbling nervously in the depths of the narrow bag. Her excitement
and delight communicated itself to him, and he found himself watching
her broad, beaming face with intense curiosity.
But--the face was changing. The light was dying out of the sparkling
eyes, an ashy color succeeding the ruddy hue of the fat cheeks.
Bewilderment, then anxiety, then terror.
"Why, good Elsa, what is it?"
"Gone--gone--but I am robbed, I am ruined! Mein Gott, man! Little
one--lost, lost, lost!"
With a shriek the poor creature sprang up, and in so doing scattered far
and wide the coins she had already poured into her apron, but heeded
nothing of this as she rushed frantically out of doors.