ONE OF THE DIFFICULTIES OF CORRESPONDENCE ENLARGED ON--COMING EVENTS,
ETCETERA.
About six weeks after the events narrated in the last chapter, I seated
myself before a desk in a charming attic-room in the cottage--no need to
say what cottage--and began to pen a letter.
I was in an exceedingly happy frame of mind. The weather was agreeable;
neither too hot nor too cold; circumstances around me were conducive to
quiet contemplation, and my brain was quite clear, nevertheless I
experienced unusual difficulty in the composition of that letter. I
began it at least half-a-dozen times, and as many times threw my pen
down, tore it up and began another. At last I received a summons to
dinner, and had then got only half-way through my letter.
Our dinner-party consisted of old Mrs Liston, her comely niece, Mrs
Temple, who by the way was a widow, Eve Liston, and myself. Big Otter,
unable to endure the restraints of civilisation, had gone on a hunting
expedition for a few days, by way of relief!
"You is very stupid, surely, to take three hours to write one letter,"
remarked Eve, with that peculiar smile to which I have before referred.
"Eve," said I, somewhat sternly, "you will never learn English properly
if you do not attend to my instructions. _You_ is plural, though _I_ am
singular, and if you address me thus you must say you _are_ not you
_is_."
"You _are_ right in saying you are singular," interposed Aunt Temple,
who was rather sharp witted, and had intensely black eyes. Eve had
called her "aunt" by mistake at first, and now stuck to it.
"I don't think there is another man in the district," continued the
matron, "who would take so long to write a short letter. You said it
was going to be short didn't you?"
"Yes--short and sweet; though I doubt if the dear old man will think it
so at first. But he'll change his mind when he gets here."
"No doubt we will convert him," said Aunt Temple.
"Eve will, at all events," said I.
There was not much more said at that dinner which calls for record. I
will therefore return to the attic-room and the letter.
After at least another hour of effort, I succeeded in finishing my task,
though not entirely to my satisfaction. As the letter was of
considerable importance and interest--at least to those concerned--I now
lay it before the reader. It ran thus:--
"My Dear Father,
"I scarcely know how to tell you--or how to begin, for I fear that you
will not only be very much surprised, but perhaps, displeased by what I
have to write. But let me assure you, dear father, that I cannot help
it! It almost seems as if the thing had been arranged for me, and as if
I had had no say in the matter. The fact is that I have left the
service of the Fur-Traders, and am engaged to be married to a dear
beautiful half-caste girl (quite a lady, however, I assure you), and
have made up my mind to become a farmer in one of the wildest parts of
Colorado! There--I've made a clean breast of it, and if that does not
take away your breath, nothing will! But I write in all humility,
dearest father. Do not fancy that, having taken the bit in my teeth, I
tell you all this defiantly. Very far from it. Had it been possible,
nothing would have gratified me more than to have consulted you, and
asked your approval and blessing, but with three thousand miles of
ocean, and I know not how many hundred miles of land between us, that
you know, was out of the question; besides, it could not have altered
matters, for the thing is fixed.
"My Eve's mother was an Indian. A very superior woman, indeed, let me
hasten to say, and an exceptionally amiable one. Her father was an
English gentleman named William Liston--son of a clergyman, and a highly
educated man. He was wild and wilful in his youth, and married an
Indian, but afterwards became a really good man, and, being naturally
refined and with amiable feelings, spent his life in doing good to the
people with whom he had cast his lot, and perished in saving the life of
his wife. Eve evidently takes after him.
"As to my Eve herself--"
I will spare the reader what I said about Eve herself! Suffice it to
say that after an enthusiastic account of her mental and physical
qualities, in which, however, I carefully refrained from exaggeration,
and giving a brief outline of my recent experiences, I wound up
with,--"And now, dear father, forgive me if I have done wrong in all
this, and make up your mind to come out here and live with us, or take a
farm of your own near to us. You know there is nothing to tie you to
the old country; you were always fond of the idea of emigrating to the
backwoods; your small income will go twice as far here as there, if
properly laid out, and you'll live twice as long. Come, dear dad, if
you love me. I can't get married till you come. Ever believe me, your
affectionate son--George Maxby."
Reader, shall we visit the dear old man in his dingy little house in old
England while he peruses the foregoing letter? Yes, let us go. It is
worth while travelling between four and five thousand miles to see him
read it. Perhaps, if you are a critical reader, you may ask, "But how
came _you_ to know how the old gentleman received the letter?" Well,
although the question is impertinent, I will answer it.
I have a small cousin of about ten years of age. She dwells with my
father, and is an exceedingly sharp and precocious little girl. She
chanced to be in the parlour waiting for my father--who was rather given
to being late for breakfast--when my letter arrived. The familiar
domestic cat was also waiting for him. It had mounted the table and sat
glaring at the butter and cream, but, being aware that stealing was
wrong, or that the presence of Cousin Maggie was prohibitive, it
practised self-denial. Finding a story-book, my cousin sat down on the
window seat behind the curtain and became absorbed--so much absorbed
that she failed to notice the entrance of my father; failed to hear
his--"Ha! a letter from Punch at last!"--and was only roused to outward
events by the crash which ensued when my father smote the table with his
fist and exclaimed, "im-possible!" The cups and saucers almost sprang
into the air. The cat did so completely, and retired in horror to the
furthest corner of the room. Recovering itself, however, it soon
returned to its familiar post of observation on the table. Not so
Cousin Maggie, who, observing that she was unperceived, and feeling
somewhat shocked as well as curious, sat quite still, with her mouth,
eyes, and especially her ears, wide-open.
From Maggie then--long afterwards--I learned the details.
My father sat down after smiting the table, gasped once or twice; pulled
off and wiped his spectacles; put them on again, and, laying strong
constraint on himself, read the whole through, aloud, and without a
word of comment till he reached the end, when he
ejaculated--"in-con-ceivable!" laid the letter down, and, looking up,
glared at the cat. As that creature took no notice of him he
incontinently flung his napkin at it, and swept it off the table. Then
he gave vent to a prolonged "wh-sh!" burst into a fiendish laugh, and
gave a slap to his thigh that shattered the cat's peace of mind for the
remainder of that morning, after which he re-opened the letter, spread
it carefully out on the table, and, in the most intensely cynical tones,
began a disjointed commentary on it as follows:--
"Your `dear father,' indeed! That's the first piece of humbug in your
precious letter. Very `dear' I am to you, no doubt. And _you_--you--a
chit--a mere boy (he forgot that several years had elapsed since I left
him). Oh! no--I'm neither surprised nor displeased--not at all. The
state of my mind is not to be expressed by such phraseology--by no
means! And you were always such a smooth-faced, quiet little beggar
that--well--no matter. `Couldn't help it!' indeed. H'm. `Quite a
lady!' Oh! of _course_. Necessarily so, when you condescended to fall
in love with her! `Humility!' well! `Given up the service,' too!
`Colorado!' `One of the wildest parts'--as if a tame part wouldn't have
done just as well! A `farmer!' Much _you_ know about farming! You
don't tell all this `defiantly.' Oh! no, certainly not, but if you
don't _do_ it defiantly, I have misunderstood the meaning of the word
self-will till I am bald. Why didn't you `consult' me, then? Much
_you_ care for my blessing--and `the thing is fixed!'"
Exasperation was too much developed at this point to permit of blowing
off steam in the form of sarcastic remark. My poor father hit the table
with such force that the cream spurted out of its pot over the cloth--
and my father didn't care! The cat cared, however, when, at a later
period, it had the cleaning up of that little matter all to itself!
This last explosion caused so much noise--my cousin told me--as to
attract the attention of my father's only domestic, who bounced into the
room and asked, "did 'e ring." To which my father returned such a
thundering "No!" that the domestic fled precipitately, followed by the
cat--rampant.
"_Your_ `Eve!' indeed," said my father, resuming the sarcastic vein.
"`Mother an Indian'--a Hottentot, I suppose, or something of that sort--
short skirt of peacock feathers; no upper part worth mentioning, flat
nose and lips, and smeared all over with fat, I dare say. Charming
mother-in-law. Calculated to create some impression on English society.
No wonder you've chosen the _wilds_ of Colorado! Ah, now, as to `my
Eve herself'--just let us have it strong, my boy--h'm, `sweet'--yes,
yes--`amiable,' exactly, `fair hair and blue eyes'--ha, you expect me to
swallow _that_! oh, `graceful,' ha! `perfection,' undoubtedly.
`Forgive' you! No--boy, I'll _never_ forgive you. You're the most
arrant ass--idiot--but this caps all--`come out here and live with us!'
They'll give me one quarter of the wigwam, I suppose--curtained off with
birch-bark, _perhaps_, or deerskin. `Your affectionate'--dolt! wh-why--
what do you glare like _that_ for?"
This last question was put to my small cousin, who, in the horror of her
belief that my father had gone mad, had agitated the window-curtain and
revealed herself!
My poor dear father! I can imagine the scene well, and would not have
detailed it so minutely here if--but enough. I must not forecast.
The afternoon on which this letter was despatched Big Otter returned to
Sunny Creek cottage with a haunch of fat venison on his lusty shoulders.
He found us all grouped round the rustic table in front of the door,
enjoying a cup of fragrant tea, and admiring the view. Eve was sitting
on a low stool at the feet of Mrs Liston, engaged in ornamenting a
bright blue fire-bag with bead and quill work of the most gorgeous
colouring and elegant design. The design, of course, was her own. Mrs
Liston was knitting small squares of open cotton-work, of a stitch so
large that wooden needles about the size of a goose-quill were
necessary. It was the only work that the poor old lady's weak eyesight
and trembling hands could accomplish, and the simple stitch required
little exercise of mind or muscle. When Mrs Liston completed a square
she rolled it away. When sixteen squares were finished, she sewed them
together and formed a strip about eight feet long and six inches broad.
When sixteen such strips were completed, she sewed them all together and
thus produced a bed-quilt. Quilts of this sort she presented
periodically, with much ceremony and demonstration of regard, to her
most intimate friends. In that region the old lady had not many
intimate friends, but then it luckily took much time to produce a quilt.
The quilt then in hand--at that time near its completion--was for Eve.
"Thank you _so_ much for your venison," said Mrs Liston, as the hunter,
with an air of native dignity, laid the haunch at her feet. "Take it to
the kitchen, dear," she added to Mrs Temple, who was pouring out the
tea.
"It has just come in time," said Mrs Temple, with a pleasant nod to Big
Otter; "we had quite run out of fresh meat, and your friend Muxbee is
such a lazy boy that he never touches a gun. In fact I don't know how
to get him out of the house even for an hour."
As this was said in English, Big Otter did not understand it, but when
he saw the speaker stoop to pick up the venison, he stepped quickly
forward and anticipated her. "Thank you, carry it this way," said Aunt
Temple (as I had begun to style her), leading the Indian to the pantry
in rear of the cottage.
"Well, Big Otter," said I, when they returned, "now do you find the
country round here in regard to game?"
"There is much game," he answered.
"Then you'll make up your mind to pitch your wigwam here, I hope, and
make it your home."
"No, Big Otter's heart is in his own land in the far north. He will go
back to it."
"What! and forsake Waboose?" said Eve, looking up from her work with an
expression of real concern.