was in the tablows,” said one, trying to conceal his curiosity under a
slight sneer. “She don't seem to be doin' any dancin'!”
“She never DID any dancin',” said Jack, with a smile.
“Never DID! Then what was all these yarns about her dancin' up at the
pass?”
“It was the Sacramento Pet who did all the dancin'; Polly only LENT
the goat. Ye see, the Pet kinder took a shine to Billy arter he bowled
Starbottle over thet day at the hotel, and she thought she might teach
him tricks. So she DID, doing all her teachin' and stage-rehearsin' up
there at the pass, so's to be outer sight, and keep this thing dark. She
bribed Polly to lend her the goat and keep her secret, and Polly never
let on a word to anybody but me.”
“Then it was the Pet that Yuba Bill saw dancin' from the coach?”
“Yes.”
“And that yer artist from New York painted as an 'Imp and Satire'?”
“Yes.”
“Then that's how Polly didn't show up in them tablows at Skinnerstown?
It was Withholder who kinder smelt a rat, eh? and found out it was only
a theayter gal all along that did the dancin'?”
“Well, you see,” said Jack, with affected hesitation, “thet's another
yarn. I don't know mebbe ez I oughter tell it. Et ain't got anything
to do with this advertisement o' the Pet, and might be rough on old man
Withholder! Ye mustn't ask me, boys.”
But there was that in his eye, and above all in this lazy
procrastination of the true humorist when he is approaching his climax,
which rendered the crowd clamorous and unappeasable. They WOULD have the
story!
Seeing which, Jack leaned back against a rock with great gravity, put
his hands in his pockets, looked discontentedly at the ground, and
began: “You see, boys, old Parson Withholder had heard all these yarns
about Polly and thet trick-goat, and he kinder reckoned that she might
do for some one of his tablows. So he axed her if she'd mind standin'
with the goat and a tambourine for Jephthah's Daughter, at about the
time when old Jeph comes home, sailin' in and vowin' he'll kill the
first thing he sees,--jest as it is in the Bible story. Well, Polly
didn't like to say it wasn't HER that performed with the goat, but the
Pet, for thet would give the Pet dead away; so Polly agrees to come thar
with the goat and rehearse the tablow. Well, Polly's thar, a little
shy; and Billy,--you bet HE'S all there, and ready for the fun; but the
darned fool who plays Jephthah ain't worth shucks, and when HE comes
in he does nothin' but grin at Polly and seem skeert at the goat. This
makes old Withholder jest wild, and at last he goes on the platform
hisself to show them how the thing oughter be done. So he comes bustlin'
and prancin' in, and ketches sight o' Polly dancin' in with the goat to
welcome him; and then he clasps his hands--so--and drops on his knees,
and hangs down his head--so--and sez, 'Me chyld! me vow! Oh,
heavens!' But jest then Billy--who's gettin' rather tired o' all this
foolishness--kinder slues round on his hind legs, and ketches sight o'
the parson!” Jack paused a moment, and thrusting his hands still deeper
in his pockets, said lazily, “I don't know if you fellers have noticed
how much old Withholder looks like Billy?”
There was a rapid and impatient chorus of “Yes! yes!” and “Go on!”
“Well,” continued Jack, “when Billy sees Withholder kneelin' thar
with his head down, he gives a kind o' joyous leap and claps his hoofs
together, ez much ez to say, 'I'm on in this scene,' drops his own head,
and jest lights out for the parson!”
“And butts him clean through the side scenes into the street,”
interrupted a delighted auditor.
But Jack's face never changed. “Ye think so?” he said gravely. “But
thet's jest whar ye slip up; and thet's jest whar Billy slipped up!” he
added slowly. “Mebbe ye've noticed, too, thet the parson's built kinder
solid about the head and shoulders. It mought hev be'n thet, or thet
Billy didn't get a fair start, but thet goat went down on his fore legs
like a shot, and the parson gave one heave, and jest scooted him off the
platform! Then the parson reckoned thet this yer 'tablow' had better
be left out, as thar didn't seem to be any other man who could play
Jephthah, and it wasn't dignified for HIM to take the part. But the
parson allowed thet it might be a great moral lesson to Billy!”
And it WAS, for from that moment Billy never attempted to butt again.
He performed with great docility later on in the Pet's engagement at
Skinnerstown; he played a distinguished role throughout the provinces;
he had had the advantages of Art from “the Pet,” and of Simplicity from
Polly, but only Rocky Canyon knew that his real education had come with
his first rehearsal with the Reverend Mr. Withholder.
DICK SPINDLER'S FAMILY CHRISTMAS
There was surprise and sometimes disappointment in Rough and Ready, when
it was known that Dick Spindler intended to give a “family” Christmas
party at his own house. That he should take an early opportunity to
celebrate his good fortune and show hospitality was only expected from
the man who had just made a handsome “strike” on his claim; but that it
should assume so conservative, old-fashioned, and respectable a form was
quite unlooked-for by Rough and Ready, and was thought by some a trifle
pretentious. There were not half-a-dozen families in Rough and Ready;
nobody ever knew before that Spindler had any relations, and this
“ringing in” of strangers to the settlement seemed to indicate at least
a lack of public spirit. “He might,” urged one of his critics, “hev
given the boys,--that had worked alongside o' him in the ditches by day,
and slung lies with him around the camp-fire by night,--he might hev
given them a square 'blow out,' and kep' the leavin's for his old
Spindler crew, just as other families do. Why, when old man Scudder had
his house-raisin' last year, his family lived for a week on what was
left over, arter the boys had waltzed through the house that night,--and
the Scudders warn't strangers, either.” It was also evident that there
was an uneasy feeling that Spindler's action indicated an unhallowed
leaning towards the minority of respectability and exclusiveness, and
a desertion--without the excuse of matrimony--of the convivial and
independent bachelor majority of Rough and Ready.
“Ef he was stuck after some gal and was kinder looking ahead, I'd hev
understood it,” argued another critic.
“Don't ye be too sure he ain't,” said Uncle Jim Starbuck gloomily.
“Ye'll find that some blamed woman is at the bottom of this yer 'family'
gathering. That and trouble ez almost all they're made for!”
There happened to be some truth in this dark prophecy, but none of the
kind that the misogynist supposed. In fact, Spindler had called a
few evenings before at the house of the Rev. Mr. Saltover, and Mrs.
Saltover, having one of her “Saleratus headaches,” had turned him over
to her widow sister, Mrs. Huldy Price, who obediently bestowed upon
him that practical and critical attention which she divided with the
stocking she was darning. She was a woman of thirty-five, of singular
nerve and practical wisdom, who had once smuggled her wounded husband
home from a border affray, calmly made coffee for his deceived pursuers
while he lay hidden in the loft, walked four miles for that medical
assistance which arrived too late to save him, buried him secretly in
his own “quarter section,” with only one other witness and mourner, and
so saved her position and property in that wild community, who believed
he had fled. There was very little of this experience to be traced in
her round, fresh-colored brunette cheek, her calm black eyes, set in
a prickly hedge of stiff lashes, her plump figure, or her frank,
courageous laugh. The latter appeared as a smile when she welcomed Mr.
Spindler. “She hadn't seen him for a coon's age,” but “reckoned he was
busy fixin' up his new house.”
“Well, yes,” said Spindler, with a slight hesitation, “ye see, I'm
reckonin' to hev a kinder Christmas gatherin' of my”--he was about to
say “folks,” but dismissed it for “relations,” and finally settled upon
“relatives” as being more correct in a preacher's house.
Mrs. Price thought it a very good idea. Christmas was the natural season
for the family to gather to “see who's here and who's there, who's
gettin' on and who isn't, and who's dead and buried. It was lucky
for them who were so placed that they could do so and be joyful.”
Her invincible philosophy probably carried her past any dangerous
recollections of the lonely grave in Kansas, and holding up the stocking
to the light, she glanced cheerfully along its level to Mr. Spindler's
embarrassed face by the fire.
“Well, I can't say much ez to that,” responded Spindler, still
awkwardly, “for you see I don't know much about it anyway.”
“How long since you've seen 'em?” asked Mrs. Price, apparently
addressing herself to the stocking.
Spindler gave a weak laugh. “Well, you see, ef it comes to that, I've
never seen 'em!”
Mrs. Price put the stocking in her lap and opened her direct eyes
on Spindler. “Never seen 'em?” she repeated. “Then, they're not near
relations?”
“There are three cousins,” said Spindler, checking them off on his
fingers, “a half-uncle, a kind of brother-in-law,--that is, the brother
of my sister-in-law's second husband,--and a niece. That's six.”
“But if you've not seen them, I suppose they've corresponded with you?”
said Mrs. Price.
“They've nearly all of 'em written to me for money, seeing my name
in the paper ez hevin' made a strike,” returned Spindler simply; “and
hevin' sent it, I jest know their addresses.”
“Oh!” said Mrs. Price, returning to the stocking.
Something in the tone of her ejaculation increased Spindler's
embarrassment, but it also made him desperate. “You see, Mrs. Price,”
he blurted out, “I oughter tell ye that I reckon they are the folks that
'hevn't got on,' don't you see, and so it seemed only the square thing
for me, ez had 'got on,' to give them a sort o' Christmas festival.
Suthin', don't ye know, like what your brother-in-law was sayin' last
Sunday in the pulpit about this yer peace and goodwill 'twixt man and
man.”
Mrs. Price looked again at the man before her. His sallow, perplexed
face exhibited some doubt, yet a certain determination, regarding
the prospect the quotation had opened to him. “A very good idea, Mr.
Spindler, and one that does you great credit,” she said gravely.
“I'm mighty glad to hear you say so, Mrs. Price,” he said, with an
accent of great relief, “for I reckoned to ask you a great favor! You
see,” he fell into his former hesitation, “that is--the fact is--that
this sort o' thing is rather suddent to me,--a little outer my line,
don't you see, and I was goin' to ask ye ef you'd mind takin' the hull
thing in hand and runnin it for me.”
“Running it for you,” said Mrs. Price, with a quick eye-shot from under
the edge of her lashes. “Man alive! What are you thinking of?”
“Bossin' the whole job for me,” hurried on Spindler, with nervous
desperation. “Gettin' together all the things and makin' ready for
'em,--orderin' in everythin' that's wanted, and fixin' up the rooms,--I
kin step out while you're doin' it,--and then helpin' me receivin' 'em,
and sittin' at the head o' the table, you know,--like ez ef you was the
mistress.”
“But,” said Mrs. Price, with her frank laugh, “that's the duty of one of
your relations,--your niece, for instance,--or cousin, if one of them is
a woman.”
“But,” persisted Spindler, “you see, they're strangers to me; I don't
know 'em, and I do you. You'd make it easy for 'em,--and for me,--don't
you see? Kinder introduce 'em,--don't you know? A woman of your gin'ral
experience would smooth down all them little difficulties,” continued
Spindler, with a vague recollection of the Kansas story, “and put
everybody on velvet. Don't say 'No,' Mrs. Price! I'm just kalkilatin' on
you.”
Sincerity and persistency in a man goes a great way with even the best
of women. Mrs. Price, who had at first received Spindler's request as an
amusing originality, now began to incline secretly towards it. And, of
course, began to suggest objections.
“I'm afraid it won't do,” she said thoughtfully, awakening to the fact
that it would do and could be done. “You see, I've promised to spend
Christmas at Sacramento with my nieces from Baltimore. And then there's
Mrs. Saltover and my sister to consult.”
But here Spindler's simple face showed such signs of distress that the
widow declared she would “think it over,”--a process which the sanguine
Spindler seemed to consider so nearly akin to talking it over that Mrs.
Price began to believe it herself, as he hopefully departed.
She “thought it over” sufficiently to go to Sacramento and excuse
herself to her nieces. But here she permitted herself to “talk it over,”
to the infinite delight of those Baltimore girls, who thought this
extravaganza of Spindler's “so Californian and eccentric!” So that it
was not strange that presently the news came back to Rough and Ready,
and his old associates learned for the first time that he had never seen
his relatives, and that they would be doubly strangers. This did not
increase his popularity; neither, I grieve to say, did the intelligence
that his relatives were probably poor, and that the Reverend Mr.
Saltover had approved of his course, and had likened it to the rich
man's feast, to which the halt and blind were invited. Indeed, the
allusion was supposed to add hypocrisy and a bid for popularity to
Spindler's defection, for it was argued that he might have feasted
“Wall-eyed Joe” or “Tangle-foot Billy,”--who had once been “chawed” by
a bear while prospecting,--if he had been sincere. Howbeit, Spindler's
faith was oblivious to these criticisms, in his joy at Mr. Saltover's
adhesion to his plans and the loan of Mrs. Price as a hostess. In
fact, he proposed to her that the invitation should also convey that
information in the expression, “by the kind permission of the Rev. Mr.
Saltover,” as a guarantee of good faith, but the widow would have none
of it. The invitations were duly written and dispatched.
“Suppose,” suggested Spindler, with a sudden lugubrious
apprehension,--“suppose they shouldn't come?”
“Have no fear of that,” said Mrs. Price, with a frank laugh.
“Or ef they was dead,” continued Spindler.
“They couldn't all be dead,” said the widow cheerfully.
“I've written to another cousin by marriage,” said Spindler dubiously,
“in case of accident; I didn't think of him before, because he was
rich.”
“And have you ever seen him either, Mr. Spindler?” asked the widow, with
a slight mischievousness.
“Lordy! No!” he responded, with unaffected concern.
Only one mistake was made by Mrs. Price in her arrangements for the
party. She had noticed what the simple-minded Spindler could never have
conceived,--the feeling towards him held by his old associates, and had
tactfully suggested that a general invitation should be extended to them
in the evening.
“You can have refreshments, you know, too, after the dinner, and games
and music.”
“But,” said the unsophisticated host, “won't the boys think I'm playing
it rather low down on them, so to speak, givin' 'em a kind o' second
table, as ef it was the tailings after a strike?”
“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Price, with decision. “It's quite fashionable in
San Francisco, and just the thing to do.”
To this decision Spindler, in his blind faith in the widow's management,
weakly yielded. An announcement in the “Weekly Banner” that, “On
Christmas evening Richard Spindler, Esq., proposed to entertain his
friends and fellow citizens at an 'at home,' in his own residence,”
not only widened the breach between him and the “boys,” but awakened an
active resentment that only waited for an outlet. It was understood that
they were all coming; but that they should have “some fun out of it”
which might not coincide with Spindler's nor his relatives' sense of
humor seemed a foregone conclusion.
Unfortunately, too, subsequent events lent themselves to this irony of
the situation.
He was so obviously sincere in his intent, and, above all, seemed to
place such a pathetic reliance on her judgment, that she hesitated to
let him know the shock his revelation had given her. And what might his
other relations prove to be? Good Lord! Yet, oddly enough, she was so
prepossessed by him, and so fascinated by his very Quixotism, that it
was perhaps for these complex reasons that she said a little stiffly:--
“One of these cousins, I see, is a lady, and then there is your niece.
Do you know anything about them, Mr. Spindler?”
His face grew serious. “No more than I know of the others,” he said
apologetically. After a moment's hesitation he went on: “Now you speak
of it, it seems to me I've heard that my niece was di-vorced. But,” he
added, brightening up, “I've heard that she was popular.”
Mrs. Price gave a short laugh, and was silent for a few minutes. Then
this sublime little woman looked up at him. What he might have seen in
her eyes was more than he expected, or, I fear, deserved. “Cheer up, Mr.
Spindler,” she said manfully. “I'll see you through this thing, don't
you mind! But don't you say anything about--about--this Vigilance
Committee business to anybody. Nor about your niece--it was your niece,
wasn't it?--being divorced. Charley (the late Mr. Price) had a queer
sort of sister, who--but that's neither here nor there! And your niece
mayn't come, you know; or if she does, you ain't bound to bring her out
to the general company.”
At parting, Spindler, in sheer gratefulness, pressed her hand, and
lingered so long over it that a little color sprang into the widow's
brown cheek. Perhaps a fresh courage sprang into her heart, too, for
she went to Sacramento the next day, previously enjoining Spindler on no
account to show any answers he might receive. At Sacramento her nieces
flew to her with confidences.
“We so wanted to see you, Aunt Huldy, for we've heard something so
delightful about your funny Christmas Party!” Mrs. Price's heart sank,
but her eyes snapped. “Only think of it! One of Mr. Spindler's long-lost
relatives--a Mr. Wragg--lives in this hotel, and papa knows him. He's
a sort of half-uncle, I believe, and he's just furious that Spindler
should have invited him. He showed papa the letter; said it was
the greatest piece of insolence in the world; that Spindler was an
ostentatious fool, who had made a little money and wanted to use him
to get into society; and the fun of the whole thing was that this
half-uncle and whole brute is himself a parvenu,--a vulgar, ostentatious
creature, who was only a”--
“Never mind what he was, Kate,” interrupted Mrs. Price hastily. “I call
his conduct a shame.”
“So do we,” said both girls eagerly. After a pause Kate clasped her
knees with her locked fingers, and rocking backwards and forwards, said,
“Milly and I have got an idea, and don't you say 'No' to it. We've had
it ever since that brute talked in that way. Now, through him, we know
more about this Mr. Spindler's family connections than you do; and we
know all the trouble you and he'll have in getting up this party. You
understand? Now, we first want to know what Spindler's like. Is he a
savage, bearded creature, like the miners we saw on the boat?”
Mrs. Price said that, on the contrary, he was very gentle, soft-spoken,
and rather good-looking.
“Young or old?”
“Young,--in fact, a mere boy, as you may judge from his actions,”
returned Mrs. Price, with a suggestive matronly air.
Kate here put up a long-handled eyeglass to her fine gray eyes, fitted
it ostentatiously over her aquiline nose, and then said, in a voice of
simulated horror, “Aunt Huldy,--this revelation is shocking!”
Mrs. Price laughed her usual frank laugh, albeit her brown cheek took
upon it a faint tint of Indian red. “If that's the wonderful idea you
girls have got, I don't see how it's going to help matters,” she said
dryly.
“No, that's not it? We really have an idea. Now look here.”
Mrs. Price “looked here.” This process seemed to the superficial
observer to be merely submitting her waist and shoulders to the arms of
her nieces, and her ears to their confidential and coaxing voices.
Twice she said “it couldn't be thought of,” and “it was impossible;”
once addressed Kate as “You limb!” and finally said that she “wouldn't
promise, but might write!”
*****
It was two days before Christmas. There was nothing in the air, sky,
or landscape of that Sierran slope to suggest the season to the Eastern
stranger. A soft rain had been dropping for a week on laurel, pine, and
buckeye, and the blades of springing grasses and shyly opening flowers.
Sedate and silent hillsides that had grown dumb and parched towards the
end of the dry season became gently articulate again; there were murmurs
in hushed and forgotten canyons, the leap and laugh of water among the
dry bones of dusty creeks, and the full song of the larger forks and
rivers. Southwest winds brought the warm odor of the pine sap swelling
in the forest, or the faint, far-off spice of wild mustard springing
in the lower valleys. But, as if by some irony of Nature, this gentle
invasion of spring in the wild wood brought only disturbance and
discomfort to the haunts and works of man. The ditches were overflowed,
the fords of the Fork impassable, the sluicing adrift, and the trails
and wagon roads to Rough and Ready knee-deep in mud. The stage-coach
from Sacramento, entering the settlement by the mountain highway, its
wheels and panels clogged and crusted with an unctuous pigment like mud
and blood, passed out of it through the overflowed and dangerous ford,
and emerged in spotless purity, leaving its stains behind with Rough
and Ready. A week of enforced idleness on the river “Bar” had driven
the miners to the more comfortable recreation of the saloon bar, its
mirrors, its florid paintings, its armchairs, and its stove. The steam
of their wet boots and the smoke of their pipes hung over the latter
like the sacrificial incense from an altar. But the attitude of the men
was more critical and censorious than contented, and showed little of
the gentleness of the weather or season.
“Did you hear if the stage brought down any more relations of
Spindler's?”
The barkeeper, to whom this question was addressed, shifted his lounging
position against the bar and said, “I reckon not, ez far ez I know.”
“And that old bloat of a second cousin--that crimson beak--what kem
down yesterday,--he ain't bin hangin' round here today for his reg'lar
pizon?”
“No,” said the barkeeper thoughtfully, “I reckon Spindler's got him
locked up, and is settin' on him to keep him sober till after Christmas,
and prevent you boys gettin' at him.”
“He'll have the jimjams before that,” returned the first speaker; “and
how about that dead beat of a half-nephew who borrowed twenty dollars of
Yuba Bill on the way down, and then wanted to get off at Shootersvilie,
but Bill wouldn't let him, and scooted him down to Spindler's and
collected the money from Spindler himself afore he'd give him up?”
“He's up thar with the rest of the menagerie,” said the barkeeper, “but
I reckon that Mrs. Price hez bin feedin' him up. And ye know the old
woman--that fifty-fifth cousin by marriage--whom Joe Chandler swears he
remembers ez an old cook for a Chinese restaurant in Stockton,--darn my
skin ef that Mrs. Price hasn't rigged her out in some fancy duds of her
own, and made her look quite decent.”
A deep groan here broke from Uncle Jim Starbuck.
“Didn't I tell ye?” he said, turning appealingly to the others. “It's
that darned widow that's at the bottom of it all! She first put Spindler
up to givin' the party, and now, darn my skin, ef she ain't goin to fix
up these ragamuffins and drill 'em so we can't get any fun outer 'em
after all! And it's bein' a woman that's bossin' the job, and not
Spindler, we've got to draw things mighty fine and not cut up too rough,
or some of the boys will kick.”
“You bet,” said a surly but decided voice in the crowd.
“And,” said another voice, “Mrs. Price didn't live in 'Bleeding Kansas'
for nothing.”
“Wot's the programme you've settled on, Uncle Jim?” said the barkeeper
lightly, to check what seemed to promise a dangerous discussion.