I.

It was a freshly furrowed field, so large that the eye at first

scarcely took in its magnitude. The irregular surface of upturned, oily,

wave-shaped clods took the appearance of a vast, black, chopping sea,

that reached from the actual shore of San Francisco Bay to the low hills

of the Coast Range. The sea-breeze that blew chilly over this bleak

expanse added to that fancy, and the line of straggling whitewashed farm

buildings, that half way across lifted themselves above it, seemed to

be placed on an island in its midst. Even the one or two huge, misshapen

agricultural machines, abandoned in the furrows, bore an odd resemblance

to hulks or barges adrift upon its waste.

This marine suggestion was equally noticeable from the door of one of

the farm buildings--a long, detached wooden shed--into which a number of

farm laborers were slowly filing, although one man was apparently enough

impressed by it to linger and gaze over that rigid sea. Except in their

rough dress and the labor-stains of soil on their hands and faces, they

represented no particular type or class. They were young and old,

robust and delicate, dull and intelligent; kept together only by some

philosophical, careless, or humorous acceptance of equally enforced

circumstance in their labors, as convicts might have been. For they had

been picked up on the streets and wharves of San Francisco,--discharged

sailors, broken-down miners, helpless newcomers, unemployed professional

men, and ruined traders,--to assist in ploughing and planting certain

broad leagues of rich alluvial soil for a speculative Joint Stock

Company, at a weekly wage that would have made an European peasant

independent for half a year. Yet there was no enthusiasm in their labor,

although it was seldom marked by absolute laziness or evasion, and was

more often hindered by ill-regulated “spurts” and excessive effort,

as if the laborer was anxious to get through with it; for in the few

confidences they exchanged there was little allusion to the present, and

they talked chiefly of what they were going to do when their work was

over. They were gregarious only at their meals in one of the sheds, or

when at night they sought their “bunks” or berths together in the larger

building.

The man who had lingered to look at the dreary prospect had a somewhat

gloomy, discontented face, whose sensitive lines indicated a certain

susceptibility to such impressions. He was further distinguished by

having also lingered longer with the washing of his hands and face

in the battered tin basin on a stool beside the door, and by the

circumstance that the operation revealed the fact that they were whiter

than those of his companions. Drying his fingers slowly on the long

roller-towel, he stood gazing with a kind of hard abstraction across the

darkening field, the strip of faded colorless shore, and the chill gray

sea, to the dividing point of land on the opposite coast, which in the

dying daylight was silhouetted against the cold horizon.

He knew that around that point and behind it lay the fierce, half-grown,

half-tamed city of yesterday that had worked his ruin.

It was scarcely a year ago that he had plunged into its wildest

excesses,--a reckless gambler among speculators, a hopeless speculator

among gamblers, until the little fortune he had brought thither had been

swept away.

From time to time he had kept up his failing spirit with the feverish

exaltation of dissipation, until, awakening from a drunkard's dream one

morning, he had found himself on board a steamboat crossing the bay, in

company with a gang of farm laborers with whom he was hired. A bitter

smile crossed his lips as his eyes hovered over the cold, rugged fields

before him. Yet he knew that they had saved him. The unaccustomed manual

labor in the open air, the regular hours, the silent, heavy, passionless

nights, the plain but wholesome food, were all slowly restoring his

youth and strength again. Temptation and passion had alike fled these

unlovely fields and grim employment. Yet he was not grateful. He nursed

his dreary convalescence as he had his previous dissipation, as part of

a wrong done him by one for whose sake, he was wont to believe, he had

sacrificed himself. That person was a woman.

Turning at last from the prospect and his bitter memories to join his

companions, he found that they had all passed in. The benches before the

long table on which supper was spread were already filled, and he stood

in hesitation, looking down the line of silent and hungrily preoccupied

men on either side. A young girl, who was standing near a smaller

serving-table, apparently assisting an older woman in directing the

operation of half a dozen Chinese waiters, moved forward and cleared a

place for him at a side-table, pushing before it the only chair in the

room,--the one she had lately vacated. As she placed some of the dishes

before him with a timid ostentation, and her large but well-shaped hands

came suddenly in contact with, and in direst contrast to his own whiter

and more delicate ones, she blushed faintly. He lifted his eyes to hers.

He had seen her half a dozen times before, for she was the daughter of

the ranch superintendent, and occasionally assisted her mother in

this culinary supervision--which did not, however, bring her into any

familiar association with the men. Even the younger ones, perhaps from

over-consciousness of their inferior position or the preoccupation of

their labor, never indulged in any gallantry toward her, and he himself,

in his revulsion of feeling against the whole sex, had scarcely noticed

that she was good-looking. But this naive exhibition of preference could

not be overlooked, either by his companions, who smiled cynically across

the table, or by himself, from whose morbid fancy it struck an ignoble

suggestion. Ah, well! the girl was pretty--the daughter of his employer,

who rumor said owned a controlling share in the company; why should

he not make this chance preference lead to something, if only to

ameliorate, in ways like this, his despicable position here. He knew

the value of his own good looks, his superior education, and a certain

recklessness which women liked; why should he not profit by them as well

as the one woman who had brought him to this? He owed her sex nothing;

if those among them who were not bad were only fools, there was no

reason why he should not deceive them as they had him. There was

all this small audacity and cynical purpose in his brown eyes as

he deliberately fixed them on hers. And I grieve to say that these

abominable sentiments seemed only to impart to them a certain attractive

brilliancy, and a determination which the undetermining sex is apt to

admire.

She blushed again, dropped her eyes, replied to his significant thanks

with a few indistinct words, and drew away from the table with a sudden

timidity that was half confession.

She did not approach him again during the meal, but seemed to have taken

a sudden interest in the efficiency of the waiters, generally, which she

had not shown before. I do not know whether this was merely an effort

at concealment, or an awakened recognition of her duty; but, after the

fashion of her sex,--and perhaps in contrast to his,--she was kinder

that evening to the average man on account of HIM. He did not, however,

notice it; nor did her absence interfere with his now healthy appetite;

he finished his meal, and only when he rose to take his hat from the

peg above him did he glance around the room. Their eyes met again. As

he passed out, although it was dark, he put on his hat a little more

smartly.

The air was clear and cold, but the outlines of the landscape had

vanished. His companions, with the instinct of tired animals, were

already making their way in knots of two or three, or in silent file,

across the intervening space between the building and their dormitory.

A few had already lit their pipes and were walking leisurely, but the

majority were hurrying from the chill sea-breeze to the warmth and

comfort of the long, well-lit room, lined with blanketed berths, and set

with plain wooden chairs and tables. The young man lingered for a moment

on the wooden platform outside the dining-shed,--partly to evade this

only social gathering of his fellows as they retired for the night, and

partly attracted by a strange fascination to the faint distant glow,

beyond the point of land, which indicated the lights of San Francisco.

There was a slight rustle behind him! It was the young girl who, with a

white woolen scarf thrown over her head and shoulders, had just left the

room. She started when she saw him, and for an instant hesitated.

“You are going home, Miss Woodridge?” he said pleasantly.

“Yes,” she returned, in a faint, embarrassed voice. “I thought I'd run

on ahead of ma!”

“Will you allow me to accompany you?”

“It's only a step,” she protested, indicating the light in the window of

the superintendent's house, the most remote of the group of buildings,

yet scarcely a quarter of a mile distant.

“But it's quite dark,” he persisted smilingly.

She stepped from the platform to the ground; he instantly followed and

ranged himself at a little distance from her side. She protested still

feebly against his “troubling himself,” but in another moment they were

walking on quietly together. Nevertheless, a few paces from the platform

they came upon the upheaved clods of the fresh furrows, and their

progress over them was slow and difficult.

“Shall I help you? Will you take my arm?” he said politely.

“No, thank you, Mr. Reddy.”

So! she knew his name! He tried to look into her eyes, but the woolen

scarf hid her head. After all, there was nothing strange in her

knowing him; she probably had the names of the men before her in the

dining-room, or on the books. After a pause he said:--

“You quite startled me. One becomes such a mere working machine here

that one quite forgets one's own name,--especially with the prefix of

'Mr.'”

“And if it don't happen to be one's real name either,” said the girl,

with an odd, timid audacity.

He looked up quickly--more attracted by her manner than her words; more

amused than angry.

“But Reddy happens to be my real name.”

“Oh!”

“What made you think it was not?”

The clods over which they were clambering were so uneven that sometimes

the young girl was mounting one at the same moment that Reddy was

descending from another. Her reply, half muffled in her shawl, was

delivered over his head. “Oh, because pa says most of the men here don't

give their real names--they don't care to be known afterward. Ashamed of

their work, I reckon.”

His face flushed a moment, even in the darkness. He WAS ashamed of his

work, and perhaps a little of the pitiful sport he was beginning. But

oddly enough, the aggressive criticism only whetted his purpose. The

girl was evidently quite able to take care of herself; why should he be

over-chivalrous?

“It isn't very pleasant to be doing the work of a horse, an ox, or a

machine, if you can do other things,” he said half seriously.

“But you never used to do anything at all, did you?” she asked.

He hesitated. Here was a chance to give her an affecting history of

his former exalted fortune and position, and perhaps even to stir her

evidently romantic nature with some suggestion of his sacrifices to one

of her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once

their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the

opportunity, but--for some reason, he knew not why--awkwardly and

clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion

that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. Suddenly the

girl stopped him.

“Yes, I know all THAT; pa told me. Told me you'd been given away by some

woman.”

His face again flushed--this time with anger. The utter failure of his

story to excite her interest, and her perfect possession of herself and

the situation,--so unlike her conduct a few moments before,--made him

savagely silent, and he clambered on sullenly at her side. Presently she

stopped, balancing herself with a dexterity he could not imitate on one

of the larger upheaved clods, and said:--

“I was thinking that, as you can't do much with those hands of yours,

digging and shoveling, and not much with your feet either, over ploughed

ground, you might do some inside work, that would pay you better, too.

You might help in the dining room, setting table and washing up, helping

ma and me--though I don't do much except overseeing. I could show you

what to do at first, and you'd learn quick enough. If you say 'yes,'

I'll speak to pa to-night. He'll do whatever I say.”

The rage and shame that filled his breast choked even the bitter laugh

that first rose to his lips. If he could have turned on his heel and

left her with marked indignation, he would have done so, but they were

scarcely half way across the field; his stumbling retreat would have

only appeared ridiculous, and he was by no means sure that she would not

have looked upon it as merely a confession of his inability to keep

up with her. And yet there was something peculiarly fascinating and

tantalizing in the situation. She did not see the sardonic glitter in

his eye as he said brutally:--

“Ha! and that would give me the exquisite pleasure of being near you.”

She seemed a little confused, even under her enwrappings, and in

stepping down her foot slipped. Reddy instantly scrambled up to her

and caught her as she was pitching forward into the furrow. Yet in the

struggle to keep his own foothold he was aware that she was assisting

him, and although he had passed his arm around her waist, as if for her

better security, it was only through HER firm grasp of his wrists that

he regained his own footing. The “cloud” had fallen back from her head

and shoulders, her heavy hair had brushed his cheek and left its

faint odor in his nostrils; the rounded outline of her figure had

been slightly drawn against his own. His mean resentment wavered; her

proposition, which at first seemed only insulting, now took a vague form

of satisfaction; his ironical suggestion seemed a natural expression.

“Well, I say 'yes' then,” he said, with an affected laugh. “That is, if

you think I can manage to do the work; it is not exactly in my line, you

know.” Yet he somehow felt that his laugh was feeble and unconvincing.

“Oh, it's easy enough,” said the girl quietly. “You've only got to be

clean--and that's in your line, I should say.”

“And if I thought it would please you,” he added, with another attempt

at gallantry.

She did not reply, but moved steadily on, he fancied a little more

rapidly. They were nearing the house; he felt he was losing time and

opportunity. The uneven nature of the ground kept him from walking

immediately beside her, unless he held her hand or arm. Yet an odd

timidity was overtaking him. Surely this was the same girl whose

consciousness and susceptibility were so apparent a moment ago; yet her

speech had been inconsistent, unsympathetic, and coldly practical. “It's

very kind of you,” he began again, scrambling up one side of the furrow

as she descended on the other, “to--to--take such an interest in--in a

stranger, and I wish you knew how” (she had mounted the ridge again, and

stood balancing herself as if waiting for him to finish his sentence)

“how--how deeply--I--I”--She dropped quickly down again with the same

movement of uneasy consciousness, and he left the sentence unfinished.

The house was now only a few yards away; he hurried forward, but she

reached the wooden platform and stoop upon it first. He, however, at the

same moment caught her hand.

“I want to thank you,” he said, “and say good-night.”

“Good-night.” Her voice was indistinct again, and she was trembling.

Emboldened and reckless, he sprang upon the platform, and encircling her

with one arm, with his other hand he unloosed the woolen cloud around

her head and bared her faintly flushed cheek and half-open, hurriedly

breathing lips. But the next moment she threw her head back with a

single powerful movement, and, as it seemed to him, with scarcely an

effort cast him off with both hands, and sent him toppling from the

platform to the ground. He scrambled quickly to his feet again, flushed,

angry, and--frightened! Perhaps she would call her father; he would be

insulted, or worse,--laughed at! He had lost even this pitiful chance of

bettering his condition. But he was as relieved as he was surprised

to see that she was standing quietly on the edge of the platform,

apparently waiting for him to rise. Her face was still uncovered, still

slightly flushed, but bearing no trace of either insult or anger. When

he stood erect again, she looked at him gravely and drew the woolen

cloud over her head, as she said calmly, “Then I'll tell pa you'll take

the place, and I reckon you'll begin to-morrow morning.”