Produced by Geetu Melwani, Annie McGuire, Stephen Hope and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
+------------------------------------------+
| Transcriber's Note |
|Spelling, punctuation and inconsistencies |
|in the original book have been retained. |
+------------------------------------------+
[Illustration: Book Cover]
THE WIZARD'S DAUGHTER AND OTHER STORIES
Margaret Collier Graham
By Margaret Collier Graham
THE WIZARD'S DAUGHTER AND OTHER STORIES. 12mo, $1.25
STORIES OF THE FOOT-HILLS. 16mo, $1.25
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
The Wizard's Daughter
And Other Stories
By
Margaret Collier Graham
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1905
COPYRIGHT 1905
BY MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
_Published September 1905_
CONTENTS
PAGE
The Wizard's Daughter 1
Marg'et Ann 67
At the Foot of the Trail 133
Lib 169
For Value Received 181
The Face of the Poor 205
The Wizard's Daughter
There had been a norther during the day, and at sunset the valley, seen
from Dysart's cabin on the mesa, was a soft blur of golden haze. The
wind had hurled the yellow leaves from the vineyard, exposing the
gnarled deformity of the vines, and the trailing branches of the
pepper-trees had swept their fallen berries into coral reefs on the
southerly side.
A young man with a delicate, discontented face sat on the porch of the
Dysart claim cabin, looking out over the valley. A last gust of lukewarm
air strewed the floor with scythe-shaped eucalyptus-leaves, and Mrs.
Dysart came out with her broom to sweep them away.
She was a large woman, with a crease at her waist that buried her
apron-strings, and the little piazza creaked ominously as she walked
about. The invalid got up with a man's instinctive distrust of a broom,
and began to move away.
"Don't disturb yourself, Mr. Palmerston," she said, waving him back into
his chair with one hand, and speaking in a large, level voice, as if she
were quelling a mob,--"don't disturb yourself; I won't raise any dust.
Does the north wind choke you up much?"
"Oh, no," answered the young fellow, carelessly; "it was a rather more
rapid change of air than I bargained for, but I guess it's over now."
"Sick folks generally think the north wind makes them nervous. Some of
them say it's the electricity; but I think it's because most of 'em's
men-folks, and being away from their families, they naturally blame
things on the weather."
Mrs. Dysart turned her ample back toward her hearer, and swept a
leaf-laden cobweb from the corner of the window.
The young man's face relaxed.
"I don't think it made me nervous," he said. "But then, I'm not very
ill. I'm out here for my mother's health. She threatened to go into a
decline if I didn't come."
"Well, you've got a consumptive build," said Mrs. Dysart, striking her
broom on the edge of the porch, "and you're light-complected; that's
likely to mean scrofula. You'd ought to be careful. California's a good
deal of a hospital, but it don't do to depend too much on the climate.
It ain't right; it's got to be blessed to your use."
Palmerston smiled, and leaned his head against the redwood wall of the
cabin. Mrs. Dysart creaked virtuously to and fro behind her broom.
"Isn't that Mr. Dysart's team?" asked the young man, presently, looking
down the valley.
His companion walked to the edge of the porch and pushed back her
sunbonnet to look.
"Yes," she announced, "that's Jawn; he's early."
She piled her cushiony hands on the end of the broom-handle, and stood
still, gazing absently at the approaching team.
"I hope your mother's a Christian woman," she resumed, with a sort of
corpulent severity.
The young man's face clouded, and then cleared again whimsically.
"I really never inquired," he said lightly; "but I am inclined to think
she is. She is certainly not a pagan."
"You spoke as if she was a good deal wrapped up in you," continued his
hostess, addressing herself unctuously to the landscape. "I was thinkin'
she'd need something to sustain her if you was to be taken away. There's
nothing but religion that can prepare us for whatever comes. I wonder
who that Jawn's a-bringin' now," she broke off suddenly, holding one of
her fat hands above her eyes and leaning forward with a start. "He does
pick up the queerest lot. I just held my breath the other day when I saw
him fetchin' you. I'd been wantin' a boarder all summer, and kind of
lookin' for one, but I wasn't no more ready for you than if you'd been
measles. It does seem sometimes as if men-folks take a satisfaction in
seein' how they can put a woman to."
Mrs. Dysart wabbled heavily indoors, where she creaked about
unresignedly, putting things to rights. Palmerston closed his eyes and
struggled with a smile that kept breaking into a noiseless laugh. He had
a fair, high-bred face, and his smile emphasized its boyishness.
When the wagon rattled into the acacias west of the vineyard, he got up
and sauntered toward the barn. John Dysart saw him coming, and took two
or three steps toward him with his hand at the side of his mouth.
"He's deaf," he whispered with a violent facial enunciation which must
have assailed the stranger's remaining senses like a yell. "I think
you'll like him; he's a wonderful talker."
The newcomer was a large, seedy-looking man, with the resigned,
unexpectant manner of the deaf. Dysart went around the wagon, and the
visitor put up his trumpet.
"Professor Brownell," John called into it. "I want to make you
acquainted with Mr. Palmerston. Mr. Palmerston is a young man from the
East, a student at Cambridge--no, Oxford"--
"Ann Arbor," interrupted the young man, eagerly.
Dysart ignored the interruption. "He's out here for his health."
The stranger nodded toward the young man approvingly, and dropped the
trumpet as if he had heard enough.
"How do you do, Mr. Palmerston?" he said, reaching down to clasp the
young fellow's slim white hand. "I'm glad to meet a scholar in these
wilds."
Palmerston blushed a helpless pink, and murmured politely. The stranger
dismounted from the wagon with the awkwardness of age and avoirdupois.
John Dysart stood just behind his guest, describing him as if he were a
panorama:--
"I never saw his beat. He talks just like a book. He's filled me
chuck-full of science on the way up. He knows all about the inside of
the earth from the top crust to China. Ask him something about his
machine, and get him started."
Palmerston glanced inquiringly toward the trumpet. The stranger raised
it to his ear and leaned graciously toward him.
"Mr. Dysart is mistaken," called Palmerston, in the high, lifeless voice
with which we all strive to reconcile the deaf to their affliction; "I
am a Western man, from Ann Arbor."
"Better still, better still," interrupted the newcomer, grasping his
hand again; "you'll be broader, more progressive--'the heir of all the
ages,' and so forth. I was denied such privileges in my youth. But
nature is an open book, 'sermons in stones.'" He turned toward the wagon
and took out a small leather valise, handling it with evident care.
Dysart winked at the young man, and pointed toward the satchel.
"Jawn," called Mrs. Dysart seethingly, from the kitchen door, "what's
the trouble?"
John's facial contortions stopped abruptly, as if the mainspring had
snapped. He took off his hat and scratched his head gingerly with the
tip of his little finger. He had a round, bald head, with a fringe of
smooth, red-brown hair below the baldness that made it look like a
filbert.
"I'm coming, Emeline," he called, glancing hurriedly from the two men to
the vicinity of his wife's voice, as if anxious to bisect himself
mentally and leave his hospitality with his guest.
"I'll look after Professor Brownell," said Palmerston; "he can step into
my tent and brush up."
Dysart's countenance cleared.
"Good," he said eagerly, starting on a quick run toward the kitchen
door. When he was half-way there he turned and put up his hand again.
"Draw him out!" he called in a stentorian whisper. "You'd ought to hear
him talk; it's great. Get him started about his machine."
Palmerston smiled at the unnecessary admonition. The stranger had been
talking all the time in a placid, brook-like manner while he felt under
the wagon-seat for a second and much smaller traveling-bag. The young
man possessed himself of this after having been refused the first by a
gentle motion of the owner's hand. The visitor accepted his signal of
invitation, and followed him toward the tent.
"Our universities and colleges are useful in their way; they no doubt
teach many things that are valuable: but they are not practical; they
all fail in the application of knowledge to useful ends. I am not an
educated man myself, but I have known many who are, and they are all
alike--shallow, superficial, visionary. They need to put away their
books and sit down among the everlasting hills and think. You have done
well to come out here, young man. This is good; you will grow."
He stopped at the door of the tent and took off his rusty hat. The
breeze blew his long linen duster about his legs.
"Have you looked much into electrical phenomena?" he asked, putting up
his trumpet.
Palmerston moved a step back, and said: "No; not at all." Then he raised
his hand to possess himself of the ear-piece, and colored as he
remembered that it was not a telephone. His companion seemed equally
oblivious of his confusion and of his reply.
"I have made some discoveries," he went on; "I shall be pleased to talk
them over with you. They will revolutionize this country." He waved his
hand toward the mesa. "Every foot of this land will sometime blossom as
the rose; greasewood and sage-brush will give place to the orange and
the vine. Water is king in California, and there are rivers of water
locked in these mountains. We must find it; yes, yes, my young friend,
we must find it, and we _can_ find it. I have solved that. The solution
is here." He stooped and patted his satchel affectionately. "This little
instrument is California's best friend. There is a future for all these
valleys, wilder than our wildest dreams."
Palmerston nodded with a guilty feeling of having approved statements of
which he intended merely to acknowledge the receipt, and motioned his
guest into the white twilight of the tent.
"Make yourself comfortable, professor," he called. "I want to find
Dysart and get my mail."
As he neared the kitchen door Mrs. Dysart's voice came to him enveloped
in the sizzle of frying meat.
"Well, I don't know, Jawn; he mayn't be just the old-fashioned
water-witch, but it ain't right; it's tamperin' with the secrets of the
Most High, that's what I think."
"Well, now, Emeline, you hadn't ought to be hasty. He don't lay claim to
anything more'n natural; he says it's all based on scientific
principles. He says he can tell me just where to tunnel--Now, here's
Mr. Palmerston; he's educated. I'm going to rely on him."
"Well, I'm goin' to rely on my heavenly Fawther," said Mrs. Dysart
solemnly, from the quaking pantry.
Palmerston stood in the doorway, smiling. John jumped up and clapped his
hand vigorously on his breast pockets.
"Well, now, there! I left your mail in the wagon in my other coat," he
said, hooking his arm through the young man's and drawing him toward
the barn. "Did you get him turned on?" he asked eagerly, when they were
out of his wife's hearing. "How does he strike you, anyway? Doesn't he
talk like a book? He wants me to help him find a claim--show him the
corners, you know. He's got a daughter down at Los Angeles; she'll come
up and keep house for him. He says he'll locate water on shares if I'll
help him find a claim and do the tunneling. Emeline she's afraid I'll
get left, but I think she'll come round. Isn't it a caution the way he
talks science?"
Palmerston acknowledged that it was.
"The chances are that he is a fraud, Dysart," he said kindly; "most of
those people are. I'd be very cautious about committing myself."
"Oh, I'm cautious," protested John; "that's one of my peculiarities.
Emeline thinks because I look into things I'm not to be trusted. She's
so quick herself she can't understand anybody that's slow and careful.
Here's your letters--quite a batch of 'em. Would you mind our putting up
a cot in your tent for the professor?"
"Not at all," said the young fellow good-naturedly. "It's excellent
discipline to have a deaf man about; you realize how little you have to
say that's worth saying."
"That's a fact, that's a fact," said Dysart, rather too cheerfully
acquiescent. "A man that can talk like that makes you ashamed to open
your head."
Palmerston fell asleep that night to the placid monotone of the
newcomer's voice, and awoke at daybreak to hear the same conversational
flow just outside the tent. Perhaps it was Dysart's explosive
"Good-morning, professor!" which seemed to have missed the trumpet and
hurled itself against the canvas wall of the tent close to the sleeper's
ear, that awoke him. He sat up in bed and tried to shake off the
conviction that his guest had been talking all night. Dysart's greeting
made no break in the cheerful optimism that filtered through the canvas.
"Last night I was an old man and dreamed dreams; this morning I am a
young man and see visions. I see this thirsty plain fed by
irrigating-ditches and covered with bearing orchards. I am impatient to
be off on our tramp. This is an ideal spot. With five acres of
orange-trees here, producing a thousand dollars per acre, one might give
his entire time to scientific investigation."
"He'd want to look after the gophers some," yelled Dysart.
"I am astonished that this country is so little appreciated," continued
Brownell, blindly unheeding. "It is no doubt due to the reckless
statements of enthusiasts. It is a wonderful country--wonderful,
wonderful, wonderful!"
There was a diminuendo in the repeated adjective that told Palmerston
the speaker was moving toward the house; and it was from that direction
that he heard Mrs. Dysart, a little later, assuring her visitor, in a
high, depressed voice, that she hadn't found the country yet that would
support anybody without elbow-grease, and she didn't expect to till it
was Gawd's will to take her to her heavenly home.
John Dysart and his visitor returned from their trip in the mountains,
that evening, tired, dusty, and exultant. The professor's linen duster
had acquired several of those triangular rents which have the merit of
being beyond masculine repair, and may therefore be conscientiously
endured. He sat on the camp-chair at Palmerston's tent door, his
finger-tips together and his head thrown back in an ecstasy of content.
"This is certainly the promised land," he said gravely, "a land flowing
with milk and honey. Nature has done her share lavishly: soil, climate,
scenery--everything but water; yes, and water, too, waiting for the
brain, the hand of man, the magic touch of science--the one thing left
to be conquered to give the sense of mastery, of possession. This
country is ours by right of conquest." He waved his hands majestically
toward the valley. "In three months we shall have a stream flowing from
these mountains that will transform every foot of ground before you.
These people seem worthy, though somewhat narrow. It will be a pleasure
to share prosperity with them as freely as they share their poverty with
me."
Palmerston glanced conversationally toward the trumpet, and his
companion raised it to his ear.
"Dysart is a poor man," shouted Palmerston, "but he is the best fellow
in the world. I should hate to see him risk anything on an uncertainty."
Brownell had been nodding his head backward and forward with dreamy
emphasis; he now shook it horizontally, closing his eyes. "There is no
uncertainty," he said, lowering his trumpet; "that is the advantage of
science: you can count upon it with absolute certainty. I am glad the
man is poor--very glad; it heightens the pleasure of helping him."
The young man turned away a trifle impatiently.
"A reservoir will entail some expense," the professor rambled on; "but
the money will come. 'To him that hath shall be given.'"
Palmerston's face completed the quotation, but the speaker went on
without opening his eyes: "When the water is once flowing out of the
tunnel, capital will flow into it."
"A good deal of capital will flow into the tunnel before any water flows
out of it," growled Palmerston, taking advantage of his companion's
physical defect to relieve his mind.
Later in the evening Dysart drew the young man into the family
conference, relying upon the sympathy of sex in the effort to allay his
wife's misgivings.
"The tunnel won't cost over two dollars a foot, with what I can do
myself," maintained the little man, "and the professor says we'll strike
water that'll drown us out before we've gone a hundred feet. Emeline
here she's afraid of it because it sounds like a meracle, but I tell her
it's pure science. It isn't any more wonderful than a needle traveling
toward a magnet: the machine tells where the water is, and how far off
it is, something like a compass--I don't understand it, but I can see
that it ain't any more meraculous than a telegraph. It's science."
"Oh, yes, I know," mourned Mrs. Dysart, who overflowed a small
rocking-chair on the piazza; "there's folks that think the creation of
the world in six days is nothin' but science, but they're not people for
Christians to be goin' pardners with. If Gawd has put a hundred feet of
dirt on top of that water, I tell Jawn he had his reasons, and I can't
think it's right for anybody whose treasure ought to be laid up in
heaven to go pryin' into the bowels of the earth huntin' for things that
our heavenly Fawther's hid."
"But there's gold, Emeline."
"Oh, yes; I know there's gold, and I know 'the love of money is the root
of all evil.' I don't say that the Lord don't reign over the inside of
the earth, but I do say that people that get their minds fixed on things
that's underground are liable to forget the things that are above."
"Well, now, I'm sure they hadn't ought," protested Dysart. "I'm sure
'the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof,' Emeline."
Mrs. Dysart sank slowly back in her chair at this unexpected thrust from
her own weapon, and then rallied with a long, corpulent sigh.
"Well, I don't know. You recollect that old man was up here last winter,
hammerin' around among the rocks as if the earth was a big nut that he
was tryin' to crack? I talked with him long enough to find out what he
was; he was an _atheist_."
Mrs. Dysart leaned forward and whispered the last word in an awe-struck
tone, with her fat eyes fixed reproachfully upon her husband.
"Oh, I guess not, Emeline," pleaded John.
Mrs. Dysart shut her lips and her eyes very tight, and nodded slowly and
affirmatively. "Yes, he was. He set right in that identical spot where
Mr. Palmerston is a-settin', and talked about the seven theological
periods of creation, and the fables of Jonah and the whale and Noah's
ark, till I was all of a tremble. Mebbe that's science, Jawn, but _I_
call it blasphemin'."
Dysart rested his elbows on his knees and looked over the edge of the
porch as if he were gazing into the bottomless pit.
"Oh, come, now, Mrs. Dysart," Palmerston broke in cheerfully; "I'm not
at all afraid of Mr. Dysart losing his faith, but I'm very much afraid
of his losing his money. I wish he had as good a grip on his purse as he
has on his religion."
Mrs. Dysart glanced at the young man with a look of relief to find him
agreeing with her in spite of his irreverent commingling of the temporal
and the spiritual.
"Well, I'm sure we've lost enough already, when it comes to that," she
continued, folding her hands resignedly in her convex lap. "There was
that artesian well down at San Pasqual"--
"Well, now, Emeline," her husband broke in eagerly, "that well would
have been all right if the tools hadn't stuck. I think yet we'd have got
water if we'd gone on."
"We'd 'a' got water if it had 'a' been our heavenly Fawther's will,"
announced Mrs. Dysart, with solemnity, rising slowly from her chair,
which gave a little squeak of relief. "I've got to set the sponge," she
went on in the same tone, as if it were some sacred religious rite. "I
wish you'd talk it over with Mr. Palmerston, Jawn, and tell him the
offer you've had from this perfessor--I'm sure I don't know what he's
perfessor of. He ain't a perfessor of religion--I know that."
She sent her last arrow over her wide shoulder as she passed the two men
and creaked into the house. Her husband looked after her gravely.
"Now that's the way with Emeline," he said; "she's all faith, and then,
again, she has no faith. Now, I'm just the other way." He rubbed his
bald head in a vain attempt to formulate the obverse of his wife's
character. "Well, anyway," he resumed, accepting his failure cheerfully,
"the professor he wants to find a claim, as I was telling you, but he
wants one that's handy to the place he's selected for the tunnel. Of
course he won't say just where that is till we get the papers made out,
but he gave me a kind of a general idea of it, and the land around
there's all mine. He'd have to go 'way over east to find a government
section that hasn't been filed on, and of course there'd be a big
expense for pipe; so he offers to locate the tunnel for half the water
if we get ten inches or over, and I'm to make the tunnel, and deed him
twenty acres of land."
"Suppose you get less than ten inches--what then?"
"Then it's all to be mine; but I'm to deed him the land all the same."
"How many inches of water have you from your spring now?"
"About ten, as near as I can guess."
"Well, suppose he locates the tunnel so it will drain your spring; are
you to have the expense of the work and the privilege of giving him half
the water and twenty acres of land--is that it?"
John rubbed the back of his neck and reflected.
"The professor laughs at the idea of ten inches of water. He says we'll
get at least a hundred, maybe more. You see, if we were to get that
much, I'd have a lot of water to sell to the settlers below. It 'u'd be
a big thing."
"So it would; but there's a big 'if' in there, Dysart. Do you know
anything about this man's record?"
"I asked about him down in Los Angeles. Some folks believe in him, and
some don't. They say he struck a big stream for them over at San Luis. I
don't go much on what people say, anyway; I size a man up, and depend on
that. I like the way the professor talks. I don't understand all of it,
but he seems to have things pretty pat. Don't you think he has?"
"Yes; he has things pat enough. Most swindlers have. It's their
business. Not that I think him a deliberate swindler, Dysart. Possibly
he believes in himself. But I hope you'll be cautious."
"Oh, I'm cautious," asserted John. "I'd be a good deal richer man to-day
if I hadn't been so cautious. I've spent a lot of time and money looking
into things. I'll get there, if caution'll do it. Now, Emeline she's
impulsive; she has to be held back; she never examines into anything:
but I'm just the other way."
In spite of Palmerston's warning and Mrs. Dysart's fears, temporal and
spiritual, negotiations between Dysart and Brownell made rapid progress.
The newcomer's tent was pitched upon the twenty acres selected, and
gleamed white against the mountain-side, suggesting to Palmerston's idle
vision a sail becalmed upon a sage-green sea. "Dysart's ship, which will
probably never come in," he said to himself, looking at it with visible
indignation, one morning, as he sat at his tent door in that state of
fuming indolence which the male American calls taking a rest.
"Practically there is little difference between a knave and a fool," he
fretted; "it's the difference between the gun that is loaded and the one
that is not: in the long run the unloaded gun does the more mischief. A
self-absorbed fool is a knave. After all, dishonesty is only abnormal
selfishness; it's a question of degree. Hello, Dysart!" he said aloud,
as his host appeared around the tent. "How goes it?"
"Slow," said John emphatically, "slow. I'm feeling my way like a cat,
and the professor he's just about as cautious as I am. We're a good
team. He's been over the cañon six times, and every time that machine of
his'n gives him a new idea. He's getting it down to a fine point. He
wanted to go up again to-day, but I guess he can't."
"What's up?" inquired Palmerston indifferently.
"Well, his daughter wrote him she was coming this afternoon, and
somebody'll have to meet her down at Malaga when the train comes in.
I've just been oiling up the top-buggy, and I thought maybe if you"--
"Why, certainly," interrupted Palmerston, responding amiably to the
suggestion of John's manner; "if you think the young lady will not
object, I shall be delighted. What time is the train due?"
"Now, that's just what I told Emeline," said John triumphantly. "He'd
liever go than not, says I; if he wouldn't then young folks has changed
since I can remember. The train gets there about two o'clock. If you jog
along kind of comfortable you'll be home before supper. If the girl's as
smart as her father, you'll have a real nice visit."
Mrs. Dysart viewed the matter with a pessimism which was scarcely to be
distinguished from conventionality.
"I think it's a kind of an imposition, Mr. Palmerston," she said, as her
boarder was about to start, "sendin' you away down there for a total
stranger. It's a good thing you're not bashful. Some young men would be
terribly put out. I'm sure Jawn would 'a' been at your age. But my
father wouldn't have sent a strange young man after one of his
daughters--he knowed us too well. My, oh! just to think of it! I'd have
fell all in a heap."
Palmerston ventured a hope that the young lady would not be completely
unnerved.
"Oh, I'm not frettin' about _her_," said his hostess. "I don't doubt
she can take care of _her_self. If she's like some of her folks, she'll
talk you blind."
Palmerston drove away to hide the smile that teased the corners of his
mouth.
"The good woman has the instincts of a chaperon, without the
traditions," he reflected, letting his smile break into a laugh. "Her
sympathy is with the weaker sex when it comes to a personal encounter.
We may need her services yet, who knows?"
Malaga was a flag-station, and the shed which was supposed to shelter
its occasional passengers from the heat of summer and the rain of winter
was flooded with afternoon sunshine. Palmerston drove into the square
shadow of the shed roof, and set his feet comfortably upon the dashboard
while he waited. He was not aware of any very lively curiosity
concerning the young woman for whom he was waiting. That he had formed
some nebulous hypothesis of vulgarity was evidenced by his whimsical
hope that her prevailing atmosphere would not be musk; aggressive
perfumery of some sort seemed inevitable. He found himself wondering
what trait in her father had led him to this deduction, and drifted idly
about in the haze of heredity until the whistle of the locomotive warned
him to withdraw his feet from their elevation and betake himself to the
platform. Half a minute later the engine panted onward and the young man
found himself, with uplifted hat, confronting a slender figure clad very
much as he was, save for the skirt that fell in straight, dark folds to
the ground.
"Miss Brownell?" inquired Palmerston smiling.
The young woman looked at him with evident surprise.
"Where is my father?" she asked abruptly.
"He was unable to come. He regretted it very much. I was so fortunate as
to take his place. Allow me"--He stooped toward her satchel.
"Unable to come--is he ill?" pursued the girl, without moving.
"Oh, no," explained Palmerston hastily; "he is quite well. It was
something else--some matter of business."
"Business!" repeated the young woman, with ineffable scorn.
She turned and walked rapidly toward the buggy. Palmerston followed with
her satchel. She gave him a preoccupied "Thank you" as he assisted her
to a seat and shielded her dress with the shabby robe.
"Do you know anything about this business of my father's?" she asked as
they drove away.
"Very little; it is between him and Mr. Dysart, with whom I am boarding.
Mr. Dysart has mentioned it to me." The young man spoke with evident
reluctance. His companion turned her clear, untrammeled gaze upon him.
"You needn't be afraid to say what you think. Of course it is all
nonsense," she said bitterly.
Palmerston colored under her intent gaze, and smiled faintly.
"I have said what I think to Mr. Dysart. Don't you really mean that I
need not be afraid to say what _you_ think?"
She was still looking at him, or rather at the place where he was. She
turned a little more when he spoke, and regarded him as if he had
suddenly materialized.
"I think it is all nonsense," she said gravely, as if she were answering
a question. Then she turned away again and knitted her brows. Palmerston
glanced covertly now and then at her profile, unwillingly aware of its
beauty. She was handsome, strikingly, distinguishedly handsome, he said
to himself; but there was something lacking. It must be femininity,
since he felt the lack and was masculine. He smiled to think how much
alike they must appear--he and this very gentlemanly young woman beside
him. He thought of her soft felt hat and the cut of her dark-blue coat,
and there arose in him a rigidly subdued impulse to offer her a cigar,
to ask her if she had a daily paper about her, to--She turned upon him
suddenly, her eyes full of tears.
"I am crying!" she exclaimed angrily. "How unspeakably silly!"
Palmerston's heart stopped with that nameless terror which the actual
man always experiences when confronted by this phase of the ideal woman.
He had been so serene, so comfortable, under the unexpected that there
flashed into his mind a vague sense of injury that she should surprise
him in this way with the expected. It was inconsiderate, inexcusable;
then, with an inconsistency worthy of a better sex, he groped after an
excuse for the inexcusable.
"You are very nervous--your journey has tired you--you are not strong,"
he pleaded.
"I am _not_ nervous," insisted the young woman indignantly. "I have no
nerves--I detest them. And I am quite as strong as you are." The young
fellow winced. "It is not that. It is only because I cannot have my own
way. I cannot make people do as I wish." She spoke with a heat that
seemed to dry her tears.
Palmerston sank back and let the case go by default. "If you like that
view of it better"--
"I like the truth," the girl broke in vehemently. "I am so tired of
talk! Why must we always cover up the facts with a lot of platitudes?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Palmerston lightly. "I suppose there ought to
be a skeleton of truth under all we say, but one doesn't need to rattle
his bones to prove that he has them."
The girl laughed. Palmerston caught a glimpse of something reassuring in
her laugh.
"It might not be cheerful," she admitted, "but it would be honest, and
we might learn to like it. Besides, the truth is not always
disagreeable."
"Wouldn't the monotony of candor appall us?" urged Palmerston. "Isn't it
possible that our deceptions are all the individuality we have?"
"Heaven forbid!" said his companion curtly.
They drove on without speaking. The young man was obstinately averse to
breaking the silence, which, nevertheless, annoyed him. He had a theory
that feminine chatter was disagreeable. Just why he should feel
aggrieved that this particular young woman did not talk to him he could
not say. No doubt he would have resented with high disdain the
suggestion that his vanity had been covertly feeding for years upon the
anxiety of young women to make talk for his diversion.
"Do you think my father has closed his agreement with this man of whom
you were speaking--this Mr. Dysart?" asked Miss Brownell, returning to
the subject as if they had never left it.
"I am very certain he has not; at least, he had not this morning,"
rejoined Palmerston.
"I wish it might be prevented," she said earnestly, with a note of
appeal.
"I have talked with Dysart, but my arguments fail to impress him;
perhaps you may be more successful."
Palmerston was aware of responding to her tone rather than to her
words. The girl shook her head.
"I can do nothing. People who have only common sense are at a terrible
disadvantage when it comes to argument. I know it is all nonsense; but a
great many people seem to prefer nonsense. I believe my father would die
if he were reduced to bare facts."
"There is something in that," laughed Palmerston. "A theory makes a very
comfortable mental garment, if it is roomy enough."
The young woman turned and glanced at him curiously, as if she could not
divine what he was laughing at.
"They are like children--such people. My father is like a child. He does
not live in the world; he cannot defend himself."
Palmerston's skepticism rushed into his face. The girl looked at him,
and the color mounted to her forehead.
"You do not believe in him!" she broke out. "It cannot be--you cannot
think--you do not know him!"
"I know very little of your father's theories, Miss Brownell,"
protested Palmerston. "You cannot blame me if I question them; you seem
to question them yourself."
"His theories--I loathe them!" She spoke with angry emphasis. "It is not
that; it is himself. I cannot bear to think that you--that any one"--
"Pardon me," interrupted Palmerston; "we were speaking of his theories.
I have no desire to discuss your father."
He knew his tone was resentful. He found himself wondering whether it
was an excess of egotism or of humility that made her ignore his
personality.
"Why should we not discuss him?" she asked, turning her straightforward
eyes upon him.
"Because"--Palmerston broke into an impatient laugh--"because we are not
disembodied spirits; at least, I am not."
The girl gave him a look of puzzled incomprehension, and turned back to
her own thoughts. That they were troubled thoughts her face gave
abundant evidence. Palmerston waited curiously eager for some
manifestation of social grace, some comment on the scenery which should
lead by the winding path of young-ladyism to the Mecca of her personal
tastes and preferences; should unveil that sacred estimate of herself
which she so gladly shared with others, but which others too often
failed to share with her.
"I wish you would tell me all you know about it," she said presently,
"this proposition my father has made. He writes me very indefinitely,
and sometimes it is hard for me to learn, even when I am with him, just
what he is doing. He forgets that he has not told me."
The young man hesitated, weighing the difficulties that would beset him
if he should attempt to explain his hesitation, seeing also the more
tangible difficulties of evasion if she should turn her clear eyes upon
him. It would be better for Dysart if she knew, he said to himself. They
had made no secret of the transaction, and sooner or later she must hear
of it from others, if not from her father. He yielded to the infection
of her candor, and told her what she asked. She listened with knitted
brows and an introspective glance.
"Mr. Dysart might lose his work," she commented tentatively.
Palmerston was silent.
The girl turned abruptly. "Could he lose anything else?" The color swept
across her face, and her voice had a half-pathetic menace in it.
"Every business arrangement is uncertain, contains a possibility of
loss."
Palmerston was defiantly aware that he had not answered her question. He
emphasized his defiance by jerking the reins.
"Don't!" said the girl reproachfully. "I think his mouth is tender."
"You like horses?" inquired the young man, with a sensation of relief.
She shook her head. "No; I think not. I never notice them except when
they seem uncomfortable."
"But if you didn't like them you wouldn't care."
"Oh, yes, I should. I don't like to see anything uncomfortable."
Palmerston laughed. "You have made me very uncomfortable, and you do not
seem to mind. I must conclude that you have not noticed it, and that
conclusion hurts my vanity."
The young woman did not turn her head.
"I try to be candid," she said, "and I am always being misunderstood. I
think I must be very stupid."
Her companion began to breathe more freely. She was going to talk of
herself, after all. He was perfectly at home when it came to that.
"Not at all," he said graciously; "you only make the rest of us appear
stupid. We are at a disadvantage when we get what we do not expect, and
none of us expect candor."
"But if we tell the truth ourselves, I don't see why we shouldn't expect
it from others."
"Oh, yes, if we ourselves tell the truth."
"I think you have been telling me the truth," she said, turning her
steadfast eyes upon him.
"Thank you," said Palmerston lightly. "I hope my evident desire for
approval doesn't suggest a sense of novelty in my position."
Miss Brownell smiled indulgently, and then knitted her brows. "I am glad
you have told me," she said; "I may not be able to help it, but it is
better for me to know."
They were nearing the Dysart house, and Palmerston remembered that he
had no definite instruction concerning the newcomer's destination.
"I think I will take her directly to her father's tent," he reflected,
"and let Mrs. Dysart plan her own attack upon the social situation."
When he had done this and returned to his boarding-place, there was a
warmth in the greeting of his worthy hostess which suggested a sense of
his recent escape from personal danger.
"I'm real glad to see you safe home, Mr. Palmerston," she said amply. "I
don't wonder you look fagged; the ride through the dust was hard enough
without having all sorts of other things to hatchel you. I do hope you
won't have that same kind of a phthisicky ketch in your breath that you
had the other night after you overdone. I think it was mostly
nervousness, and, dear knows, you've had enough to make you nervous
to-day. I told Jawn after you was gone that I'd hate to be answerable
for the consequences."
Two days later John Dysart came into Palmerston's tent, and drew a
camp-stool close to the young man's side.
"I'm in a kind of a fix," he said, seating himself and fastening his
eyes on the floor with an air of profound self-commiseration. "You see,
this girl of Brownell's she came up where I was mending the flume
yesterday, and we got right well acquainted. She seems friendly. She
took off her coat and laid it on a boulder, and we set down there in our
shirt-sleeves and had quite a talk. I think she means all right, but
she's visionary. I can't understand it, living with a practical man like
the professor. But you can't always tell. Now, there's Emeline. Emeline
means well, but she lets her prejudices run away with her judgment. I
guess women generally do. But, someway, this girl rather surprised me.
When I first saw her I thought she looked kind of reasonable; maybe it
was her cravat--I don't know."
John shook his head in a baffled way. He had taken off his hat, and the
handkerchief which he had spread over his bald crown to protect it from
the flies drooped pathetically about his honest face.
"What did Miss Brownell say?" asked Palmerston, flushing a little.
John looked at him absently from under his highly colored awning. "The
girl? Oh, she don't understand. She wanted me to be careful. I told her
I'd been careful all my life, and I wasn't likely to rush into anything
now. She thinks her father's 'most too sanguine about the water, but she
doesn't understand the machine--I could see that. She said she was
afraid I'd lose something, and she wants me to back out right now. I'm
sure I don't know what to do. I want to treat everybody right."
"Including yourself, I hope," suggested Palmerston.
"Yes, of course. I don't feel quite able to give up all my prospects
just for a notion; and yet I want to do the square thing by Emeline.
It's queer about women--especially Emeline. I've often thought if there
was only men it would be easier to make up your mind; but still, I
suppose we'd oughtn't to feel that way. They don't mean any harm."
John drew the protecting drapery from his head, and lashed his bald
crown with it softly, as if in punishment for his seeming disloyalty.
"You could withdraw from the contract now without any great loss to Mr.
Brownell," suggested Palmerston.
John looked at him blankly. "Why, of course he wouldn't lose anything;
I'd be the loser. But I haven't any notion of doing that. I'm only
wondering whether I ought to tell Emeline about the girl. You see,
Emeline's kind of impulsive, and she's took a dead set against the girl
because, you see, she thinks,"--John leaned forward confidentially and
shut one eye, as if he were squinting along his recital to see that it
was in line with the facts,--"you see, she thinks--well, I don't know as
I'd ought to take it on myself to say just what Emeline thinks, but I
think she thinks--well, I don't know as I'd ought to say what I think
she thinks, either; but you'd understand if you'd been married."
"Oh, I can understand," asserted the young man. "Mrs. Dysart's position
is very natural. But I think you should tell her what Miss Brownell
advises. There is no other woman near, and it will prove very
uncomfortable for the young lady if your wife remains unfriendly toward
her. You certainly don't want to be unjust, Dysart."
John shook his head dolorously over this extension of his moral
obligations.
"No," he declared valiantly; "I want to be square with everybody; but I
don't want to prejudice Emeline against the professor, and I'm afraid
this would. You see, Emeline's this way--well, I don't know as I'd
ought to say just how Emeline is, but you know she's an _awful good
woman_!"
John leaned forward and gave the last three words a slow funereal
emphasis which threatened his companion's gravity.
"Oh, I know," Palmerston broke out quickly; "Mrs. Dysart's a good woman,
and she's a very smart woman, too; she has good ideas."
"Yes, yes; Emeline's smart," John made haste to acquiesce; "she's smart
as far as she knows, but when she don't quite understand, then she's
prejudiced. I guess women are generally prejudiced about machinery; they
can't be expected to see into it: but still, if you think I'd ought to
tell her what this Brownell girl says, why, I'm a-going to do it."
John got up with the air of a man harassed but determined, and went out
of the tent.
The next afternoon Mrs. Dysart put on her beaded dolman and her best
bonnet and panted through the tar-weed to call upon her new neighbor.
Palmerston watched the good woman's departure, and awaited her return,
taunting himself remorselessly meanwhile for the curiosity which
prompted him to place a decoy-chair near his tent door, and exulting
shamefacedly at the success of his ruse when she sank into it with the
interrogative glance with which fat people always commit themselves to
furniture.
"Well, I've been to see her, and I must say, for a girl that's never
found grace, she's about the straightforwardest person I ever came
across. I know I was prejudiced." Mrs. Dysart took off her bonnet, a
sacred edifice constructed of cotton velvet, frowzy feathers, and red
glass currants, and gazed at it penitentially. "That father of hers is
enough to prejudice a saint. But the girl ain't to blame. I think she
must have had a prayin' mother, though she says she doesn't remember
anything about her exceptin' her clothes, which does sound worldly."
Mrs. Dysart straightened out the varnished muslin leaves of her
horticultural headgear, and held the structure at arm's length with a
sigh of gratified sense and troubled spirit.
"I invited her to come to the mothers' meetin' down at Mrs. Stearns's
in the wash with me next Thursday afternoon, and I'm goin' to have her
over to dinner some day when the old perfessor's off on a tramp. I try
to have Christian grace, but I can't quite go him, though I would like
to see the girl brought into the fold."
Palmerston remembered the steadfast eyes of the wanderer, and wondered
how they had met all this. His companion replaced the bonnet on her
head, where it lurched a little, by reason of insufficient skewering, as
she got up.
"Then you were pleased with Miss Brownell?" the young man broke out,
rather senselessly, he knew--aware, all at once, of a desire to hear
more.
Mrs. Dysart did not sit down.
"Yes," she said judicially; "for a girl without any bringin' up, and
with no religious inflooences, and no mother and no father to speak of,
I think she's full as good as some that's had more chances. I've got to
go and start a fire now," she went on, with an air of willingness but
inability to continue the subject. "There's Jawn comin' after the
milk-pail; I do wish he could be brought to listen to reason."
Palmerston watched the good woman as she labored down the path, her
dusty skirts drawn close about her substantial ankles, and the beaded
dolman glittering unfeelingly in the sun.
"I hope she has a sense of humor," he said to himself. Then he got up
hastily, went into the tent, and brought out a letter, which he read
carefully from the beginning to the signature scribbled in the upper
corner of the first page--"Your own Bess." After that he sat quite
still, letting his glance play with the mists of the valley, until Mrs.
Dysart rang the supper-bell.
"If she has a sense of humor, how much she must enjoy her!" he said to
himself, with the confusion of pronouns we all allow ourselves and view
with such scorn in others.
* * * * *
When a man first awakes to the fact that he is thinking of the wrong
woman, it is always with a comfortable sense of certainty that he can
change his attitude of mind by a slight effort of the will. If he does
not make the effort, it is only because he is long past the necessity of
demonstrating himself to himself, and not from any fickleness of fancy
on his own part. It was in this comfortable state of certainty that
Sidney Palmerston betook himself, a few days later, to the Brownell
tent, armed with a photograph which might have been marked "Exhibit A"
in the case which he was trying with himself before his own conscience.
If there was in his determination to place himself right with Miss
Brownell any trace of solicitude for the young woman, to the credit of
his modesty be it said, he had not formulated it. Perhaps there was. A
belief in the general overripeness of feminine affection, and a discreet
avoidance of shaking the tree upon which it grows, have in some way
become a part of masculine morals, and Sidney Palmerston was still young
enough to take himself seriously.
Miss Brownell had moved a table outside the tent, and was bending over a
map fastened to it by thumb-tacks.
"I am trying to find out what my father is doing," she said, looking
straight into Palmerston's eyes without a word of greeting. "I suppose
you know they are about to begin work on the tunnel."
The young man was beginning to be a trifle tired of the tunnel. "Dysart
mentioned it yesterday," he said. "May I sit down, Miss Brownell?"
She gave a little start, and went into the tent for another chair. When
she reappeared, Palmerston met her at the tent door and took the
camp-chair from her hand.
"I want to sit here," he said willfully, turning his back toward the
table. "I don't want to talk about the tunnel; I want to turn the
conversation upon agreeable things--myself, for instance."
She frowned upon him smilingly, and put her hand to her cheek with a
puzzled gesture.
"Have I talked too much about the tunnel?" she asked. "I thought
something might be done to stop it."
Palmerston shook his head. "You have done everything in your power.
Dysart has been fairly warned. Besides, who knows?" he added rather
flippantly. "They may strike a hundred inches of water, as your father
predicts."
"I have not been objecting merely to rid myself of responsibility; I
have never felt any. I only wanted--I hoped"--She stopped, aware of the
unresponsive chill that always came at mention of her father. "I _know_
he is honest."
"Of course," protested Palmerston, with artificial warmth; "and, really,
I think the place for the work is well selected. I am not much of an
engineer, but I went up the other day and looked about, and there are
certainly indications of water. I"--he stopped suddenly, aware of his
mistake.