Hooper's Hollow and rig ourselves up Injun fashion, and then start for
Spindler's with pitch-pine torches, and have a 'torchlight dance' around
the house; them who does the dancin' and yellin' outside takin' their
turn at goin' in and hevin' refreshment. Jake Cooledge, of Boston, sez
if anybody objects to it, we've only got to say we're 'Mummers of the
Olden Times,' sabe? Then, later, we'll have 'Them Sabbath Evening Bells'
performed on prospectin' pans by the band. Then, at the finish, Jake
Cooledge is goin' to give one of his surkastic speeches,--kinder
welcomin' Spindler's family to the Free Openin' o' Spindler's Almshouse
and Reformatory.” He paused, possibly for that approbation which,
however, did not seem to come spontaneously. “It ain't much,” he added
apologetically, “for we're hampered by women; but we'll add to the
programme ez we see how things pan out. Ye see, from what we can hear,
all of Spindler's relations ain't on hand yet! We've got to wait, like
in elckshun times, for 'returns from the back counties.' Hello! What's
that?”
It was the swish and splutter of hoofs on the road before the door. The
Sacramento coach! In an instant every man was expectant, and Starbuck
darted outside on the platform. Then there was the usual greeting and
bustle, the hurried ingress of thirsty passengers into the saloon, and a
pause. Uncle Jim returned, excitedly and pantingly. “Look yer, boys! Ef
this ain't the richest thing out! They say there's two more relations o'
Spindler's on the coach, come down as express freight, consigned,--d'ye
hear?--consigned to Spindler!”
“Stiffs, in coffins?” suggested an eager voice.
“I didn't get to hear more. But here they are.”
There was the sudden irruption of a laughing, curious crowd into the
bar-room, led by Yuba Bill, the driver. Then the crowd parted, and
out of their midst stepped two children, a boy and a girl, the oldest
apparently of not more than six years, holding each other's hands. They
were coarsely yet cleanly dressed, and with a certain uniform precision
that suggested formal charity. But more remarkable than all, around the
neck of each was a little steel chain, from which depended the regular
check and label of the powerful Express Company, Wells; Fargo & Co., and
the words: “To Richard Spindler.” “Fragile.” “With great care.” “Collect
on delivery.” Occasionally their little hands went up automatically and
touched their labels, as if to show them. They surveyed the crowd, the
floor, the gilded bar, and Yuba Bill without fear and without wonder.
There was a pathetic suggestion that they were accustomed to this
observation.
“Now, Bobby,” said Yuba Bill, leaning back against the bar, with an air
half-paternal, half-managerial, “tell these gents how you came here.”
“By Wellth, Fargoth Expreth,” lisped Bobby.
“Whar from?”
“Wed Hill, Owegon.”
“Red Hill, Oregon? Why, it's a thousand miles from here,” said a
bystander.
“I reckon,” said Yuba Bill coolly, “they kem by stage to Portland, by
steamer to 'Frisco, steamer again to Stockton, and then by stage over
the whole line. Allers by Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express, from agent to
agent, and from messenger to messenger. Fact! They ain't bin tetched or
handled by any one but the Kempany's agents; they ain't had a line or
direction except them checks around their necks! And they've wanted for
nothin' else. Why, I've carried heaps o' treasure before, gentlemen,
and once a hundred thousand dollars in greenbacks, but I never carried
anythin' that was watched and guarded as them kids! Why, the division
inspector at Stockton wanted to go with 'em over the line; but Jim
Bracy, the messenger, said he'd call it a reflection on himself and
resign, ef they didn't give 'em to him with the other packages! Ye had a
pretty good time, Bobby, didn't ye? Plenty to eat and drink, eh?”
The two children laughed a little weak laugh, turned each other
bashfully around, and then looked up shyly at Yuba Bill and said,
“Yeth.”
“Do you know where you are goin'?” asked Starbuck, in a constrained
voice.
It was the little girl who answered quickly and eagerly:--
“Yes, to Krissmass and Sandy Claus.”
“To what?” asked Starbuck.
Here the boy interposed with a superior air:--
“Thee meanth Couthin Dick. He'th got Krithmath.”
“Where's your mother?”
“Dead.”
“And your father?”
“In orthpittal.”
There was a laugh somewhere on the outskirts of the crowd. Every one
faced angrily in that direction, but the laugher had disappeared. Yuba
Bill, however, sent his voice after him. “Yes, in hospital! Funny, ain't
it?--amoosin' place! Try it. Step over here, and in five minutes, by the
living Hoky, I'll qualify you for admission, and not charge you a cent!”
He stopped, gave a sweeping glance of dissatisfaction around him, and
then, leaning back against the bar, beckoned to some one near the door,
and said in a disgusted tone, “You tell these galoots how it happened,
Bracy. They make me sick!”
Thus appealed to, Bracy, the express messenger, stepped forward in Yuba
Bill's place.
“It's nothing particular, gentlemen,” he said, with a laugh, “only
it seems that some man called Spindler, who lives about here, sent an
invitation to the father of these children to bring his family to a
Christmas party. It wasn't a bad sort of thing for Spindler to do,
considering that they were his poor relations, though they didn't know
him from Adam,--was it?” He paused; several of the bystanders cleared
their throats, but said nothing. “At least,” resumed Bracy, “that's what
the boys up at Red Hill, Oregon, thought, when they heard of it. Well,
as the father was in hospital with a broken leg, and the mother only a
few weeks dead, the boys thought it mighty rough on these poor kids if
they were done out of their fun because they had no one to bring them.
The boys couldn't afford to go themselves, but they got a little money
together, and then got the idea of sendin' 'em by express. Our agent at
Red Hill tumbled to the idea at once; but he wouldn't take any money in
advance, and said he would send 'em 'C. O. D.' like any other package.
And he did, and here they are! That's all! And now, gentlemen, as I've
got to deliver them personally to this Spindler, and get his receipt and
take off their checks, I reckon we must toddle. Come, Bill, help take
'em up!”
“Hold on!” said a dozen voices. A dozen hands were thrust into a dozen
pockets; I grieve to say some were regretfully withdrawn empty, for it
was a hard season in Rough and Ready. But the expressman stepped before
them, with warning, uplifted hand.
“Not a cent, boys,--not a cent! Wells, Fargo's Express Company don't
undertake to carry bullion with those kids, at least on the same
contract!” He laughed, and then looking around him, said confidentially
in a lower voice, which, however, was quite audible to the children,
“There's as much as three bags of silver in quarter and half dollars in
my treasure box in the coach that has been poured, yes, just showered
upon them, ever since they started, and have been passed over from agent
to agent and messenger to messenger,--enough to pay their passage from
here to China! It's time to say quits now. But bet your life, they are
not going to that Christmas party poor!”
He caught up the boy, as Yuba Bill lifted the little girl to his
shoulder, and both passed out. Then one by one the loungers in the
bar-room silently and awkwardly followed, and when the barkeeper turned
back from putting away his decanters and glasses, to his astonishment
the room was empty.
*****
Spindler's house, or “Spindler's Splurge,” as Rough and Ready chose to
call it, stood above the settlement, on a deforested hillside, which,
however, revenged itself by producing not enough vegetation to cover
even the few stumps that were ineradicable. A large wooden structure
in the pseudo-classic style affected by Westerners, with an incongruous
cupola, it was oddly enough relieved by a still more incongruous veranda
extending around its four sides, upheld by wooden Doric columns, which
were already picturesquely covered with flowering vines and sun-loving
roses. Mr. Spindler had trusted the furnishing of its interior to the
same contractor who had upholstered the gilded bar-room of the Eureka
Saloon, and who had apparently bestowed the same design and material,
impartially, on each. There were gilded mirrors all over the house and
chilly marble-topped tables, gilt plaster Cupids in the corners, and
stuccoed lions “in the way” everywhere. The tactful hands of Mrs. Price
had screened some of these with seasonable laurels, fir boughs, and
berries, and had imparted a slight Christmas flavor to the house. But
the greater part of her time had been employed in trying to subdue the
eccentricities of Spindler's amazing relations; in tranquilizing Mrs.
“Aunt” Martha Spindler,--the elderly cook before alluded to,--who was
inclined to regard the gilded splendors of the house as indicative
of dangerous immorality; in restraining “Cousin” Morley Hewlett
from considering the dining-room buffet as a bar for “intermittent
refreshment;” and in keeping the weak-minded nephew, Phinney Spindler,
from shooting at bottles from the veranda, wearing his uncle's clothes,
or running up an account in his uncle's name for various articles at
the general stores. Yet the unlooked-for arrival of the two children had
been the one great compensation and diversion for her. She wrote at once
to her nieces a brief account of her miraculous deliverance. “I think
these poor children dropped from the skies here to make our Christmas
party possible, to say nothing of the sympathy they have created in
Rough and Ready for Spindler. He is going to keep them as long as
he can, and is writing to the father. Think of the poor little tots
traveling a thousand miles to 'Krissmass,' as they call it!--though they
were so well cared for by the messengers that their little bodies were
positively stuffed like quails. So, you see, dear, we will be able to
get along without airing your famous idea. I'm sorry, for I know you're
just dying to see it all.”
Whatever Kate's “idea” might have been, there certainly seemed now no
need of any extraneous aid to Mrs. Price's management. Christmas came at
last, and the dinner passed off without serious disaster. But the ordeal
of the reception of Rough and Ready was still to come. For Mrs. Price
well knew that although “the boys” were more subdued, and, indeed,
inclined to sympathize with their host's uncouth endeavor, there was
still much in the aspect of Spindler's relations to excite their sense
of the ludicrous.
But here Fortune again favored the house of Spindler with a dramatic
surprise, even greater than the advent of the children had been. In the
change that had come over Rough and Ready, “the boys” had decided, out
of deference to the women and children, to omit the first part of their
programme, and had approached and entered the house as soberly and
quietly as ordinary guests. But before they had shaken hands with the
host and hostess, and seen the relations, the clatter of wheels was
heard before the open door, and its lights flashed upon a carriage and
pair,--an actual private carriage,--the like of which had not been seen
since the governor of the State had come down to open the new ditch!
Then there was a pause, the flash of the carriage lamps upon white silk,
the light tread of a satin foot on the veranda and in the hall, and the
entrance of a vision of loveliness! Middle-aged men and old dwellers
of cities remembered their youth; younger men bethought themselves of
Cinderella and the Prince! There was a thrill and a hush as this last
guest--a beautiful girl, radiant with youth and adornment--put a dainty
glass to her sparkling eye and advanced familiarly, with outstretched
hand, to Dick Spindler. Mrs. Price gave a single gasp, and drew back
speechless.
“Uncle Dick,” said a laughing contralto voice, which, indeed, somewhat
recalled Mrs. Price's own, in its courageous frankness, “I am so
delighted to come, even if a little late, and so sorry that Mr. M'Kenna
could not come on account of business.”
Everybody listened eagerly, but none more eagerly and surprisingly than
the host himself. M'Kenna! The rich cousin who had never answered the
invitation! And Uncle Dick! This, then, was his divorced niece! Yet even
in his astonishment he remembered that of course no one but himself and
Mrs. Price knew it,--and that lady had glanced discreetly away.
“Yes,” continued the half-niece brightly. “I came from Sacramento with
some friends to Shootersville, and from thence I drove here; and though
I must return to-night, I could not forego the pleasure of coming, if
it was only for an hour or two, to answer the invitation of the uncle I
have not seen for years.” She paused, and, raising her glasses, turned a
politely questioning eye towards Mrs. Price. “One of our relations?” she
said smilingly to Spindler.
“No,” said Spindler, with some embarrassment, “a--a friend!”
The half-niece extended her hand. Mrs. Price took it.
But the fair stranger,--what she did and said were the only things
remembered in Rough and Ready on that festive occasion; no one thought
of the other relations; no one recalled them nor their eccentricities;
Spindler himself was forgotten. People only recollected how Spindler's
lovely niece lavished her smiles and courtesies on every one, and
brought to her feet particularly the misogynist Starbuck and the
sarcastic Cooledge, oblivious of his previous speech; how she sat at
the piano and sang like an angel, hushing the most hilarious and excited
into sentimental and even maudlin silence; how, graceful as a nymph, she
led with “Uncle Dick” a Virginia reel until the whole assembly joined,
eager for a passing touch of her dainty hand in its changes; how, when
two hours had passed,--all too swiftly for the guests,--they stood with
bared heads and glistening eyes on the veranda to see the fairy coach
whirl the fairy princess away! How--but this incident was never known to
Rough and Ready.
It happened in the sacred dressing-room, where Mrs. Price was cloaking
with her own hands the departing half-niece of Mr. Spindler. Taking that
opportunity to seize the lovely relative by the shoulders and shake her
violently, she said: “Oh, yes, and it's all very well for you, Kate, you
limb! For you're going away, and will never see Rough and Ready and poor
Spindler again. But what am I to do, miss? How am I to face it out?
For you know I've got to tell him at least that you're no half-niece of
his!”
“Have you?” said the young lady.
“Have I?” repeated the widow impatiently. “Have I? Of course I have!
What are you thinking of?”
“I was thinking, aunty,” said the girl audaciously, “that from what
I've seen and heard to-night, if I'm not his half-niece now, it's only a
question of time! So you'd better wait. Good-night, dear.”
And, really,--it turned out that she was right!
WHEN THE WATERS WERE UP AT “JULES'”
When the waters were up at “Jules'” there was little else up on that
monotonous level. For the few inhabitants who calmly and methodically
moved to higher ground, camping out in tents until the flood
had subsided, left no distracting wreckage behind them. A dozen
half-submerged log cabins dotted the tranquil surface of the waters,
without ripple or disturbance, looking in the moonlight more like the
ruins of centuries than of a few days. There was no current to sap their
slight foundations or sweep them away; nothing stirred that silent lake
but the occasional shot-like indentations of a passing raindrop, or,
still more rarely, a raft, made of a single log, propelled by some
citizen on a tour of inspection of his cabin roof-tree, where some of
his goods were still stored. There was no sense of terror in this bland
obliteration of the little settlement; the ruins of a single burnt-up
cabin would have been more impressive than this stupid and even
grotesquely placid effect of the rival destroying element. People took
it naturally; the water went as it had come,--slowly, impassively,
noiselessly; a few days of fervid Californian sunshine dried the cabins,
and in a week or two the red dust lay again as thickly before their
doors as the winter mud had lain. The waters of Rattlesnake Creek
dropped below its banks, the stage-coach from Marysville no longer made
a detour of the settlement. There was even a singular compensation to
this amicable invasion; the inhabitants sometimes found gold in those
breaches in the banks made by the overflow. To wait for the “old
Rattlesnake sluicing” was a vernal hope of the trusting miner.
The history of “Jules',” however, was once destined to offer a singular
interruption of this peaceful and methodical process. The winter of
1859-60 was an exceptional one. But little rain had fallen in the
valleys, although the snow lay deep in the high Sierras. Passes were
choked, ravines filled, and glaciers found on their slopes. And when the
tardy rains came with the withheld southwesterly “trades,” the regular
phenomenon recurred; Jules' Flat silently, noiselessly, and peacefully
went under water; the inhabitants moved to the higher ground, perhaps
a little more expeditiously from an impatience born of the delay. The
stagecoach from Marysville made its usual detour and stopped before the
temporary hotel, express offices, and general store of “Jules',” under
canvas, bark, and the limp leaves of a spreading alder. It deposited a
single passenger,--Miles Hemmingway, of San Francisco, but originally of
Boston,--the young secretary of a mining company, dispatched to report
upon the alleged auriferous value of “Jules'.” Of this he had been by
no means impressed as he looked down upon the submerged cabins from the
box-seat of the coach and listened to the driver's lazy recital of
the flood, and of the singularly patient acceptance of it by the
inhabitants.
It was the old story of the southwestern miner's indolence and
incompetency,--utterly distasteful to his northern habits of thought
and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild
caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others
strength and success; here was the old philosophy which accepted the
prairie fire and cyclone, and survived them without advancement,
yet without repining. Perhaps in different places and surroundings a
submission so stoic might have impressed him; in gentlemen who tucked
their dirty trousers in their muddy boots and lived only for the gold
they dug, it did not seem to him heroic. Nor was he mollified as
he stood beside the rude refreshment bar--a few planks laid on
trestles--and drank his coffee beneath the dripping canvas roof, with an
odd recollection of his boyhood and an inclement Sunday-school picnic.
Yet these men had been living in this shiftless fashion for three weeks!
It exasperated him still more to think that he might have to wait there
a few days longer for the water to subside sufficiently for him to make
his examination and report. As he took a proffered seat on a candle-box,
which tilted under him, and another survey of the feeble makeshifts
around him, his irascibility found vent.
“Why, in the name of God, didn't you, after you had been flooded out
ONCE, build your cabins PERMANENTLY on higher ground?”
Although the tone of his voice was more disturbing than his question, it
pleased one of the loungers to affect to take it literally.
“Well, ez you've put it that way,--'in the name of God!'”--returned the
man lazily, “it mout hev struck us that ez HE was bossin' the job, so
to speak, and handlin' things round here generally, we might leave it to
Him. It wasn't OUR flood to monkey with.”
“And as He didn't coven-ant, so to speak, to look arter this higher
ground 'speshally, and make an Ararat of it for us, ez far ez we
could see, we didn't see any reason for SETTLIN' yer,” put in a second
speaker, with equal laziness.
The secretary saw his mistake instantly, and had experience enough
of Western humor not to prolong the disadvantage of his unfortunate
adjuration. He colored slightly and said, with a smile, “You know what
I mean; you could have protected yourselves better. A levee on the bank
would have kept you clear of the highest watermark.”
“Hey you ever heard WHAT the highest watermark was?” said the first
speaker, turning to another of the loungers without looking at the
secretary.
“Never heard it,--didn't know there was a limit before,” responded the
man.
The first speaker turned back to the secretary. “Did you ever know what
happened at 'Bulger's,' on the North Fork? They had one o' them levees.”
“No. What happened?” asked the secretary impatiently.
“They was fixed suthin' like us,” returned the first speaker. “THEY
allowed they'd build a levee above THEIR highest watermark, and did. It
worked like a charm at first; but the water hed to go somewhere, and it
kinder collected at the first bend. Then it sorter raised itself on its
elbows one day, and looked over the levee down upon whar some of the
boys was washin' quite comf'ble. Then it paid no sorter attention to the
limit o' that high watermark, but went six inches better! Not slow and
quiet like ez it useter to, ez it does HERE, kinder fillin' up from
below, but went over with a rush and a current, hevin' of course the
whole height of the levee to fall on t'other side where the boys were
sluicing.” He paused, and amidst a profound silence added, “They say
that 'Bulger's' was scattered promiscuous-like all along the fort for
five miles. I only know that one of his mules and a section of sluicing
was picked up at Red Flat, eight miles away!”
Mr. Hemmingway felt that there WAS an answer to this, but, being wise,
also felt that it would be unavailing. He smiled politely and said
nothing, at which the first speaker turned to him:--
“Thar ain't anything to see to-day, but to-morrow, ez things go, the
water oughter be droppin'. Mebbe you'd like to wash up now and clean
yourself,” he added, with a glance at Hemmingway's small portmanteau.
“Ez we thought you'd likely be crowded here, we've rigged up a corner
for you at Stanton's shanty with the women.”
The young man's cheek flushed slightly at some possible irony in this,
and he protested with considerable stress that he was quite ready “to
rough it” where he was.
“I reckon it's already fixed,” returned the man decisively, “so you'd
better come and I'll show you the way.”
“One moment,” said Hemmingway, with a smile; “my credentials are
addressed to the manager of the Boone Ditch Company at 'Jules'.' Perhaps
I ought to see him first.”
“All right; he's Stanton.”
“And”--hesitated the secretary, “YOU, who appear to understand the
locality so well,--I trust I may have the pleasure”--
“Oh, I'm Jules.”
The secretary was a little startled and amused. So “Jules” was a person,
and not a place!
“Then you're a pioneer?” asked Hemmingway, a little less dictatorially,
as they passed out under the dripping trees.
“I struck this creek in the fall of '49, comin' over Livermore's
Pass with Stanton,” returned Jules, with great brevity of speech and
deliberate tardiness of delivery. “Sent for my wife and two children the
next year; wife died same winter, change bein' too sudden for her, and
contractin' chills and fever at Sweetwater. When I kem here first thar
wasn't six inches o' water in the creek; out there was a heap of it over
there where you see them yallowish-green patches and strips o' brush
and grass; all that war water then, and all that growth hez sprung up
since.”