“Excuse me, but in spite of your fine clothes I reckoned you had a
serious look just now. A reader of Scripture, may be?”
“I know the Bible.”
“You remember when the angel with the flamin' sword appeared unto Saul
on the road to Damascus?”
“Yes.”
“It mout hev been suthin' in that style that stopped me,” he said slowly
and tentatively. “Though nat'rally I didn't SEE anything, and only had
the queer feelin'. It might hev been THAT shied my mare off the track.”
“But Saul was up to some wickedness, wasn't he?” said the lady
smilingly, “while YOU were simply going somewhere on business?”
“Yes,” said Hays thoughtfully, “but my BUSINESS might hev seemed like
persecution. I don't mind tellin' you what it was if you'd care to
listen. But mebbe you're tired. Mebbe you want to retire. You know,” he
went on with a sudden hospitable outburst, “you needn't be in any
hurry to go; we kin take care of you here to-night, and it'll cost you
nothin'. And I'll send you on with my sleigh in the mornin'. Per'aps
you'd like suthin' to eat--a cup of tea--or--I'll call Zuleika;” and he
rose with an expression of awkward courtesy.
But the lady, albeit with a self-satisfied sparkle in her dark
eyes, here carelessly assured him that Zuleika had already given her
refreshment, and, indeed, was at that moment preparing her own room for
her. She begged he would not interrupt his interesting story.
Hays looked relieved.
“Well, I reckon I won't call her, for what I was goin' to say ain't
exackly the sort o' thin' for an innocent, simple sort o' thing like her
to hear--I mean,” he interrupted himself hastily--“that folks of more
experience of the world like you and me don't mind speakin' of--I'm
sorter takin' it for granted that you're a married woman, ma'am.”
The lady, who had regarded him with a sudden rigidity, here relaxed her
expression and nodded.
“Well,” continued Hays, resuming his place by the fire, “you see this
yer man I was goin' to see lives about four miles beyond the summit on
a ranch that furnishes most of the hay for the stock that side of the
Divide. He's bin holdin' off his next year's contracts with me, hopin'
to make better terms from the prospects of a late spring and higher
prices. He held his head mighty high and talked big of waitin' his own
time. I happened to know he couldn't do it.”
He put his hands on his knees and stared at the fire, and then went
on:--
“Ye see this man had had crosses and family trials. He had a wife that
left him to jine a lot of bally dancers and painted women in the 'Frisco
playhouses when he was livin' in the southern country. You'll say that
was like MY own case,--and mebbe that was why it came to him to tell
me about it,--but the difference betwixt HIM and ME was that instead
of restin' unto the Lord and findin' Him, and pluckin' out the eye
that offended him 'cordin' to Scripter, as I did, HE followed after HER
tryin' to get her back, until, findin' that wasn't no use, he took a
big disgust and came up here to hide hisself, where there wasn't no
playhouse nor play-actors, and no wimmen but Injin squaws. He pre-empted
the land, and nat'rally, there bein' no one ez cared to live there but
himself, he had it all his own way, made it pay, and, as I was sayin'
before, held his head high for prices. Well--you ain't gettin' tired,
ma'am?”
“No,” said the lady, resting her cheek on her hand and gazing on the
fire, “it's all very interesting; and so odd that you two men, with
nearly the same experiences, should be neighbors.”
“Say buyer and seller, ma'am, not neighbors--at least Scriptoorily--nor
friends. Well,--now this is where the Speshal Providence comes in,--only
this afternoon Jim Briggs, hearin' me speak of Horseley's offishness”--
“WHOSE offishness?” asked the lady.
“Horseley's offishness,--Horseley's the name of the man I'm talkin'
about. Well, hearin' that, he says: 'You hold on, Hays, and he'll
climb down. That wife of his has left the stage--got sick of it--and is
driftin' round in 'Frisco with some fellow. When Horseley gets to hear
that, you can't keep him here,--he'll settle up, sell out, and realize
on everything he's got to go after her agin,--you bet.' That's what
Briggs said. Well, that's what sent me up to Horseley's to-night--to get
there, drop the news, and then pin him down to that contract.”
“It looked like a good stroke of business and a fair one,” said the lady
in an odd voice. It was so odd that Hays looked up. But she had somewhat
altered her position, and was gazing at the ceiling, and with her hand
to her face seemed to have just recovered from a slight yawn, at which
he hesitated with a new and timid sense of politeness.
“You're gettin' tired, ma'am?”
“Oh dear, no!” she said in the same voice, but clearing her throat with
a little cough. “And why didn't you see this Mr. Horseley after all? Oh,
I forgot!--you said you changed your mind from something you'd heard.”
He had turned his eyes to the fire again, but without noticing as he
did so that she slowly moved her face, still half hidden by her hand,
towards him and was watching him intently.
“No,” he said, slowly, “nothin' I heard, somethin' I felt. It mout hev
been that that set me off the track. It kem to me all of a sudden that
he might be sittin' thar calm and peaceful like ez I might be here,
hevin' forgot all about her and his trouble, and here was me goin' to
drop down upon him and start it all fresh agin. It looked a little like
persecution--yes, like persecution. I got rid of it, sayin' to myself
it was business. But I'd got off the road meantime, and had to find
it again, and whenever I got back to the track and was pointed for his
house, it all seemed to come back on me and set me off agin. When that
had happened three times, I turned round and started for home.”
“And do you mean to say,” said the lady, with a discordant laugh, “that
you believe, because YOU didn't go there and break the news, that nobody
else will? That he won't hear of it from the first man he meets?”
“He don't meet any one up where he lives, and only Briggs and myself
know it, and I'll see that Briggs don't tell. But it was mighty queer
this whole thing comin' upon me suddenly,--wasn't it?”
“Very queer,” replied the lady; “for”--with the same metallic
laugh--“you don't seem to be given to this kind of weakness with your
own family.”
If there was any doubt as to the sarcastic suggestion of her voice,
there certainly could be none in the wicked glitter of her eyes fixed
upon his face under her shading hand. But haply he seemed unconscious of
both, and even accepted her statement without an ulterior significance.
“Yes,” he said, communingly, to the glaring embers of the hearth, “it
must have been a special revelation.”
There was something so fatuous and one-idea'd in his attitude and
expression, so monstrously inconsistent and inadequate to what was going
on around him, and so hopelessly stupid--if a mere simulation--that the
angry suspicion that he was acting a part slowly faded from her eyes,
and a hysterical smile began to twitch her set lips. She still gazed
at him. The wind howled drearily in the chimney; all that was economic,
grim, and cheerless in the room seemed to gather as flitting shadows
around that central figure. Suddenly she arose with such a quick
rustling of her skirts that he lifted his eyes with a start; for she
was standing immediately before him, her hands behind her, her handsome,
audacious face bent smilingly forward, and her bold, brilliant eyes
within a foot of his own.
“Now, Mr. Hays, do you want to know what this warning or special
revelation of yours REALLY meant? Well, it had nothing whatever to do
with that man on the summit. No. The whole interest, gist, and meaning
of it was simply this, that you should turn round and come straight
back here and”--she drew back and made him an exaggerated theatrical
curtsey--“have the supreme pleasure of making MY acquaintance! That was
all. And now, as you've HAD IT, in five minutes I must be off. You've
offered me already your horse and sleigh to go to the summit. I accept
it and go! Good-by!”
He knew nothing of a woman's coquettish humor; he knew still less of
that mimic stage from which her present voice, gesture, and expression
were borrowed; he had no knowledge of the burlesque emotions which that
voice, gesture, and expression were supposed to portray, and finally and
fatally he was unable to detect the feminine hysteric jar and discord
that underlay it all. He thought it was strong, characteristic, and
real, and accepted it literally. He rose.
“Ef you allow you can't stay, why I'll go and get the horse. I reckon he
ain't bin put up yet.”
“Do, please.”
He grimly resumed his coat and hat and disappeared through the passage
into the kitchen, whence, a moment later, Zuleika came flying.
“Well, what has happened?” she said eagerly.
“It's all right,” said the woman quickly, “though he knows nothing yet.
But I've got things fixed generally, so that he'll be quite ready to
have it broken to him by this time to-morrow. But don't you say anything
till I've seen Jack and you hear from HIM. Remember.”
She spoke rapidly; her cheeks were quite glowing from some sudden
energy; so were Zuleika's with the excitement of curiosity. Presently
the sound of sleigh-bells again filled the room. It was Hays leading the
horse and sleigh to the door, beneath a sky now starlit and crisp
under a northeast wind. The fair stranger cast a significant glance at
Zuleika, and whispered hurriedly, “You know he must not come with me.
You must keep him here.”
She ran to the door muffled and hooded, leaped into the sleigh, and
gathered up the reins.
“But you cannot go alone,” said Hays, with awkward courtesy. “I was
kalkilatin'”--
“You're too tired to go out again, dad,” broke in Zuleika's voice
quickly. “You ain't fit; you're all gray and krinkly now, like as when
you had one of your last spells. She'll send the sleigh back to-morrow.”
“I can find my way,” said the lady briskly; “there's only one turn off,
I believe, and that”--
“Leads to the stage station three miles west. You needn't be afraid of
gettin' off on that, for you'll likely see the down stage crossin' your
road ez soon ez you get clear of the ranch.”
“Good-night,” said the lady. An arc of white spray sprang before the
forward runner, and the sleigh vanished in the road.
Father and daughter returned to the office.
“You didn't get to know her, dad, did ye?” queried Zuleika.
“No,” responded Hays gravely, “except to see she wasn't no backwoods or
mountaineering sort. Now, there's the kind of woman, Zuly, as knows her
own mind and yours too; that a man like your brother Jack oughter pick
out when he marries.”
Zuleika's face beamed behind her father. “You ain't goin' to sit up any
longer, dad?” she said, as she noticed him resume his seat by the fire.
“It's gettin' late, and you look mighty tuckered out with your night's
work.”
“Do you know what she said, Zuly?” returned her father, after a pause,
which turned out to have been a long, silent laugh.
“No.”
“She said,” he repeated slowly, “that she reckoned I came back here
to-night to have the pleasure of her acquaintance!” He brought his
two hands heavily down upon his knees, rubbing them down deliberately
towards his ankles, and leaning forward with his face to the fire and a
long-sustained smile of complete though tardy appreciation.
He was still in this attitude when Zuleika left him. The wind crooned
over him confidentially, but he still sat there, given up apparently to
some posthumous enjoyment of his visitor's departing witticism.
It was scarcely daylight when Zuleika, while dressing, heard a quick
tapping upon her shutter. She opened it to the scared and bewildered
face of her brother.
“What happened with her and father last night?” he said hoarsely.
“Nothing--why?”
“Read that. It was brought to me half an hour ago by a man in dad's
sleigh, from the stage station.”
He handed her a crumpled note with trembling fingers. She took it and
read:--
“The game's up and I'm out of it! Take my advice and clear out of it
too, until you can come back in better shape. Don't be such a fool as
to try and follow me. Your father isn't one, and that's where you've
slipped up.”
“He shall pay for it, whatever he's done,” said her brother with an
access of wild passion. “Where is he?”
“Why, Jack, you wouldn't dare to see him now?”
“Wouldn't I?” He turned and ran, convulsed with passion, before the
windows towards the front of the house. Zuleika slipped out of her
bedroom and ran to her father's room. He was not there. Already she
could hear her brother hammering frantically against the locked front
door.
The door of the office was partly open. Her father was still there.
Asleep? Yes, for he had apparently sunk forward before the cold hearth.
But the hands that he had always been trying to warm were colder than
the hearth or ashes, and he himself never again spoke nor stirred.
*****
It was deemed providential by the neighbors that his youngest and
favorite son, alarmed by news of his father's failing health, had
arrived from the Atlantic States just at the last moment. But it was
thought singular that after the division of the property he entirely
abandoned the Ranch, and that even pending the division his beautiful
but fastidious Eastern bride declined to visit it with her husband.
JOHNSON'S “OLD WOMAN.”
It was growing dark, and the Sonora trail was becoming more indistinct
before me at every step. The difficulty had increased over the grassy
slope, where the overflow from some smaller watercourse above had worn a
number of diverging gullies so like the trail as to be undistinguishable
from it. Unable to determine which was the right one, I threw the reins
over the mule's neck and resolved to trust to that superior animal's
sagacity, of which I had heard so much. But I had not taken into account
the equally well-known weaknesses of sex and species, and Chu Chu had
already shown uncontrollable signs of wanting her own way. Without a
moment's hesitation, feeling the relaxed bridle, she lay down and rolled
over.
In this perplexity the sound of horse's hoofs ringing out of the rocky
canyon beyond was a relief, even if momentarily embarrassing. An instant
afterwards a horse and rider appeared cantering round the hill on what
was evidently the lost trail, and pulled up as I succeeded in forcing
Chu Chu to her legs again.
“Is that the trail from Sonora?” I asked.
“Yes;” but with a critical glance at the mule, “I reckon you ain't going
thar tonight.”
“Why not?”
“It's a matter of eighteen miles, and most of it a blind trail through
the woods after you take the valley.”
“Is it worse than this?”
“What's the matter with this trail? Ye ain't expecting a racecourse or a
shell road over the foothills--are ye?”
“No. Is there any hotel where I can stop?”
“Nary.”
“Nor any house?”
“No.”
“Thank you. Good-night.”
He had already passed on, when he halted again and turned in his saddle.
“Look yer. Just a spell over yon canyon ye'll find a patch o' buckeyes;
turn to the right and ye'll see a trail. That'll take ye to a shanty.
You ask if it's Johnson's.”
“Who's Johnson?”
“I am. You ain't lookin' for Vanderbilt or God Almighty up here, are
you? Well, then, you hark to me, will you? You say to my old woman to
give you supper and a shakedown somewhar to-night. Say I sent you. So
long.”
He was gone before I could accept or decline. An extraordinary noise
proceeded from Chu Chu, not unlike a suppressed chuckle. I looked
sharply at her; she coughed affectedly, and, with her head and neck
stretched to their greatest length, appeared to contemplate her neat
little off fore shoe with admiring abstraction. But as soon as I had
mounted she set off abruptly, crossed the rocky canyon, apparently
sighted the patch of buckeyes of her own volition, and without the
slightest hesitation found the trail to the right, and in half an hour
stood before the shanty.
It was a log cabin with an additional “lean-to” of the same material,
roofed with bark, and on the other side a larger and more ambitious
“extension” built of rough, unplaned, and unpainted redwood boards,
lightly shingled. The “lean-to” was evidently used as a kitchen, and
the central cabin as a living-room. The barking of a dog as I approached
called four children of different sizes to the open door, where already
an enterprising baby was feebly essaying to crawl over a bar of wood
laid across the threshold to restrain it.
“Is this Johnson's house?”
My remark was really addressed to the eldest, a boy of apparently nine
or ten, but I felt that my attention was unduly fascinated by the baby,
who at that moment had toppled over the bar, and was calmly eyeing
me upside down, while silently and heroically suffocating in its
petticoats. The boy disappeared without replying, but presently returned
with a taller girl of fourteen or fifteen. I was struck with the way
that, as she reached the door, she passed her hands rapidly over the
heads of the others as if counting them, picked up the baby, reversed
it, shook out its clothes, and returned it to the inside, without even
looking at it. The act was evidently automatic and habitual.
I repeated my question timidly.
Yes, it WAS Johnson's, but he had just gone to King's Mills. I replied,
hurriedly, that I knew it,--that I had met him beyond the canyon. As I
had lost my way and couldn't get to Sonora to-night, he had been good
enough to say that I might stay there until morning. My voice was
slightly raised for the benefit of Mr. Johnson's “old woman,” who, I had
no doubt, was inspecting me furtively from some corner.
The girl drew the children away, except the boy. To him she said
simply, “Show the stranger whar to stake out his mule, 'Dolphus,” and
disappeared in the “extension” without another word. I followed my
little guide, who was perhaps more actively curious, but equally
unresponsive. To my various questions he simply returned a smile of
exasperating vacuity. But he never took his eager eyes from me, and I
was satisfied that not a detail of my appearance escaped him. Leading
the way behind the house to a little wood, whose only “clearing”
had been effected by decay or storm, he stood silently apart while
I picketed Chu Chu, neither offering to assist me nor opposing any
interruption to my survey of the locality. There was no trace of human
cultivation in the surroundings of the cabin; the wilderness still trod
sharply on the heels of the pioneer's fresh footprints, and even seemed
to obliterate them. For a few yards around the actual dwelling there
was an unsavory fringe of civilization in the shape of cast-off clothes,
empty bottles, and tin cans, and the adjacent thorn and elder bushes
blossomed unwholesomely with bits of torn white paper and bleaching
dish-cloths. This hideous circle never widened; Nature always appeared
to roll back the intruding debris; no bird nor beast carried it away; no
animal ever forced the uncleanly barrier; civilization remained grimly
trenched in its own exuvia. The old terrifying girdle of fire around the
hunter's camp was not more deterring to curious night prowlers than this
coarse and accidental outwork.
When I regained the cabin I found it empty, the doors of the lean-to and
extension closed, but there was a stool set before a rude table, upon
which smoked a tin cup of coffee, a tin dish of hot saleratus biscuit,
and a plate of fried beef. There was something odd and depressing in
this silent exclusion of my presence. Had Johnson's “old woman” from
some dark post of observation taken a dislike to my appearance, or was
this churlish withdrawal a peculiarity of Sierran hospitality? Or was
Mrs. Johnson young and pretty, and hidden under the restricting ban of
Johnson's jealousy, or was she a deformed cripple, or even a bedridden
crone? From the extension at times came a murmur of voices, but never
the accents of adult womanhood. The gathering darkness, relieved only by
a dull glow from the smouldering logs in the adobe chimney, added to my
loneliness. In the circumstances I knew I ought to have put aside the
repast and given myself up to gloomy and pessimistic reflection; but
Nature is often inconsistent, and in that keen mountain air, I grieve
to say, my physical and moral condition was not in that perfect accord
always indicated by romancers. I had an appetite and I gratified it;
dyspepsia and ethical reflections might come later. I ate the saleratus
biscuit cheerfully, and was meditatively finishing my coffee when a
gurgling sound from the rafters above attracted my attention. I looked
up; under the overhang of the bark roof three pairs of round eyes were
fixed upon me. They belonged to the children I had previously seen,
who, in the attitude of Raphael's cherubs, had evidently been deeply
interested spectators of my repast. As our eyes met an inarticulate
giggle escaped the lips of the youngest.
I never could understand why the shy amusement of children over their
elders is not accepted as philosophically by its object as when it
proceeds from an equal. We fondly believe that when Jones or Brown
laughs at us it is from malice, ignorance, or a desire to show his
superiority, but there is always a haunting suspicion in our minds that
these little critics REALLY see something in us to laugh at. I, however,
smiled affably in return, ignoring any possible grotesqueness in my
manner of eating in private.
“Come here, Johnny,” I said blandly.
The two elder ones, a girl and a boy, disappeared instantly, as if the
crowning joke of this remark was too much for them. From a scraping and
kicking against the log wall I judged that they had quickly dropped to
the ground outside. The younger one, the giggler, remained fascinated,
but ready to fly at a moment's warning.
“Come here, Johnny, boy,” I repeated gently. “I want you to go to your
mother, please, and tell her”--
But here the child, who had been working its face convulsively, suddenly
uttered a lugubrious howl and disappeared also. I ran to the front door
and looked out in time to see the tallest girl, who had received me,
walking away with it under her arm, pushing the boy ahead of her
and looking back over her shoulder, not unlike a youthful she-bear
conducting her cubs from danger. She disappeared at the end of the
extension, where there was evidently another door.
It was very extraordinary. It was not strange that I turned back to
the cabin with a chagrin and mortification which for a moment made me
entertain the wild idea of saddling Chu Chu, and shaking the dust of
that taciturn house from my feet. But the ridiculousness of such an act,
to say nothing of its ingratitude, as quickly presented itself to me.
Johnson had offered me only food and shelter; I could have claimed no
more from the inn I had asked him to direct me to. I did not re-enter
the house, but, lighting my last cigar, began to walk gloomily up and
down the trail. With the outcoming of the stars it had grown lighter;
through a wind opening in the trees I could see the heavy bulk of the
opposite mountain, and beyond it a superior crest defined by a red line
of forest fire, which, however, cast no reflection on the surrounding
earth or sky. Faint woodland currents of air, still warm from the
afternoon sun, stirred the leaves around me with long-drawn aromatic
breaths. But these in time gave way to the steady Sierran night wind
sweeping down from the higher summits, and rocking the tops of the
tallest pines, yet leaving the tranquillity of the dark lower aisles
unshaken. It was very quiet; there was no cry nor call of beast or bird
in the darkness; the long rustle of the tree-tops sounded as faint as
the far-off wash of distant seas. Nor did the resemblance cease there;
the close-set files of the pines and cedars, stretching in illimitable
ranks to the horizon, were filled with the immeasurable loneliness of
an ocean shore. In this vast silence I began to think I understood the
taciturnity of the dwellers in the solitary cabin.
When I returned, however, I was surprised to find the tallest girl
standing by the door. As I approached she retreated before me, and
pointing to the corner where a common cot bed had been evidently just
put up, said, “Ye can turn in thar, only ye'll have to rouse out early
when 'Dolphus does the chores,” and was turning towards the extension
again, when I stopped her almost appealingly.
“One moment, please. Can I see your mother?”
She stopped and looked at me with a singular expression. Then she said
sharply:--
“You know, fust rate, she's dead.”
She was turning away again, but I think she must have seen my concern
in my face, for she hesitated. “But,” I said quickly, “I certainly
understood your father, that is, Mr. Johnson,” I added, interrogatively,
“to say that--that I was to speak to”--I didn't like to repeat the exact
phrase--“his WIFE.”
“I don't know what he was playin' ye for,” she said shortly. “Mar has
been dead mor'n a year.”
“But,” I persisted, “is there no grown-up woman here?”
“No.”
“Then who takes care of you and the children?”
“I do.”
“Yourself and your father--eh?”
“Dad ain't here two days running, and then on'y to sleep.”
“And you take the entire charge of the house?”
“Yes, and the log tallies.”
“The log tallies?”
“Yes; keep count and measure the logs that go by the slide.”
It flashed upon me that I had passed the slide or declivity on the
hillside, where logs were slipped down into the valley, and I inferred
that Johnson's business was cutting timber for the mill.
“But you're rather young for all this work,” I suggested.
“I'm goin' on sixteen,” she said gravely.
Indeed, for the matter of that, she might have been any age. Her face,
on which sunburn took the place of complexion, was already hard and set.
But on a nearer view I was struck with the fact that her eyes, which
were not large, were almost indistinguishable from the presence of the
most singular eyelashes I had ever seen. Intensely black, intensely
thick, and even tangled in their profusion, they bristled rather than
fringed her eyelids, obliterating everything but the shining black
pupils beneath, which were like certain lustrous hairy mountain berries.
It was this woodland suggestion that seemed to uncannily connect her
with the locality. I went on playfully:--
“That's not VERY old--but tell me--does your father, or DID your father,
ever speak of you as his 'old woman?'”
She nodded. “Then you thought I was mar?” she said, smiling.
It was such a relief to see her worn face relax its expression of
pathetic gravity--although this operation quite buried her eyes in their
black thickest hedge again--that I continued cheerfully: “It wasn't much
of a mistake, considering all you do for the house and family.”
“Then you didn't tell Billy 'to go and be dead in the ground with mar,'
as he 'lows you did?” she said half suspiciously, yet trembling on the
edge of a smile.
No, I had not, but I admitted that my asking him to go to his mother
might have been open to this dismal construction by a sensitive infant
mind. She seemed mollified, and again turned to go.
“Good-night, Miss--you know your father didn't tell me your real name,”
I said.
“Karline!”
“Good-night, Miss Karline.”
I held out my hand.
She looked at it and then at me through her intricate eyelashes. Then
she struck it aside briskly, but not unkindly, said “Quit foolin', now,”
as she might have said to one of the children, and disappeared through
the inner door. Not knowing whether to be amused or indignant, I
remained silent a moment. Then I took a turn outside in the increasing
darkness, listened to the now hurrying wind over the tree-tops,
re-entered the cabin, closed the door, and went to bed.
But not to sleep. Perhaps the responsibility towards these solitary
children, which Johnson had so lightly shaken off, devolved upon me as
I lay there, for I found myself imagining a dozen emergencies of their
unprotected state, with which the elder girl could scarcely grapple.
There was little to fear from depredatory man or beast--desperadoes of
the mountain trail never stooped to ignoble burglary, bear or panther
seldom approached a cabin--but there was the chance of sudden illness,
fire, the accidents that beset childhood, to say nothing of the
narrowing moral and mental effect of their isolation at that tender age.
It was scandalous in Johnson to leave them alone.
In the silence I found I could hear quite distinctly the sound of their
voices in the extension, and it was evident that Caroline was putting
them to bed. Suddenly a voice was uplifted--her own! She began to sing
and the others to join her. It was the repetition of a single verse of
a well-known lugubrious negro melody. “All the world am sad and
dreary,” wailed Caroline, in a high head-note, “everywhere I roam.” “Oh,
darkieth,” lisped the younger girl in response, “how my heart growth
weary, far from the old folkth at h-o-o-me.” This was repeated two or
three times before the others seemed to get the full swing of it, and
then the lines rose and fell sadly and monotonously in the darkness. I
don't know why, but I at once got the impression that those motherless
little creatures were under a vague belief that their performance was
devotional, and was really filling the place of an evening hymn. A brief
and indistinct kind of recitation, followed by a dead silence, broken
only by the slow creaking of new timber, as if the house were stretching
itself to sleep too, confirmed my impression. Then all became quiet
again.
But I was more wide awake than before. Finally I rose, dressed myself,
and dragging my stool to the fire, took a book from my knapsack, and by
the light of a guttering candle, which I discovered in a bottle in the
corner of the hearth, began to read. Presently I fell into a doze.
How long I slept I could not tell, for it seemed to me that a dreamy
consciousness of a dog barking at last forced itself upon me so strongly
that I awoke. The barking appeared to come from behind the cabin in the
direction of the clearing where I had tethered Chu Chu. I opened the
door hurriedly, ran round the cabin towards the hollow, and was almost
at once met by the bulk of the frightened Chu Chu, plunging out of the
darkness towards me, kept only in check by her reata in the hand of a
blanketed shape slowly advancing with a gun over its shoulder out of the
hollow. Before I had time to recover from my astonishment I was thrown
into greater confusion by recognizing the shape as none other than
Caroline!
Without the least embarrassment or even self-consciousness of her
appearance, she tossed the end of the reata to me with the curtest
explanation as she passed by. Some prowling bear or catamount had
frightened the mule. I had better tether it before the cabin away from
the wind.
“But I thought wild beasts never came so near,” I said quickly.
“Mule meat's mighty temptin',” said the girl sententiously and passed
on. I wanted to thank her; I wanted to say how sorry I was that she
had been disturbed; I wanted to compliment her on her quiet midnight
courage, and yet warn her against recklessness; I wanted to know whether
she had been accustomed to such alarms; and if the gun she carried was
really a necessity. But I could only respect her reticence, and I was
turning away when I was struck by a more inexplicable spectacle. As she
neared the end of the extension I distinctly saw the tall figure of
a man, moving with a certain diffidence and hesitation that did not,
however, suggest any intention of concealment, among the trees; the girl
apparently saw him at the same moment and slightly slackened her pace.
Not more than a dozen feet separated them. He said something that was
inaudible to my ears,--but whether from his hesitation or the distance
I could not determine. There was no such uncertainty in her reply,
however, which was given in her usual curt fashion: “All right. You can
trapse along home now and turn in.”
She turned the corner of the extension and disappeared. The tall figure
of the man wavered hesitatingly for a moment, and then vanished also.
But I was too much excited by curiosity to accept this unsatisfactory
conclusion, and, hastily picketing Chu Chu a few rods from the front
door, I ran after him, with an instinctive feeling that he had not gone
far. I was right. A few paces distant he had halted in the same dubious,
lingering way. “Hallo!” I said.
He turned towards me in the like awkward fashion, but with neither
astonishment nor concern.
“Come up and take a drink with me before you go,” I said, “if you're not
in a hurry. I'm alone here, and since I HAVE turned out I don't see why
we mightn't have a smoke and a talk together.”
“I dursn't.”
I looked up at the six feet of strength before me and repeated
wonderingly, “Dare not?”
“SHE wouldn't like it.” He made a movement with his right shoulder
towards the extension.
“Who?”
“Miss Karline.”
“Nonsense!” I said. “She isn't in the cabin,--you won't see HER. Come
along.” He hesitated, although from what I could discern of his bearded
face it was weakly smiling.
“Come.”
He obeyed, following me not unlike Chu Chu, I fancied, with the same
sense of superior size and strength and a slight whitening of the eye,
as if ready to shy at any moment. At the door he “backed.” Then he
entered sideways. I noticed that he cleared the doorway at the top and
the sides only by a hair's breadth.
By the light of the fire I could see that, in spite of his full first
growth of beard, he was young,--even younger than myself,--and that he
was by no means bad-looking. As he still showed signs of retreating at
any moment, I took my flask and tobacco from my saddle-bags, handed them
to him, pointed to the stool, and sat down myself upon the bed.
“You live near here?”
“Yes,” he said a little abstractedly, as if listening for some
interruption, “at Ten Mile Crossing.”
“Why, that's two miles away.”
“I reckon.”
“Then you don't live here--on the clearing?”
“No. I b'long to the mill at 'Ten Mile.'”
“You were on your way home?”
“No,” he hesitated, looking at his pipe; “I kinder meander round here at
this time, when Johnson's away, to see if everything's goin' straight.”
“I see--you're a friend of the family.”
“'Deed no!” He stopped, laughed, looked confused, and added, apparently
to his pipe, “That is, a sorter friend. Not much. SHE”--he lowered his
voice as if that potential personality filled the whole cabin--“wouldn't
like it.”
“Then at night, when Johnson's away, you do sentry duty round the
house?”
“Yes, 'sentry dooty,' that's it,”--he seemed impressed with the
suggestion--“that's it! Sentry dooty. You've struck it, pardner.”
“And how often is Johnson away?”
“'Bout two or three times a week on an average.”
“But Miss Caroline appears to be able to take care of herself. She has
no fear.”
“Fear! Fear wasn't hangin' round when SHE was born!” He paused. “No,
sir. Did ye ever look into them eyes?”
I hadn't, on account of the lashes. But I didn't care to say this, and
only nodded.
“There ain't the created thing livin' or dead, that she can't stand
straight up to and look at.”
I wondered if he had fancied she experienced any difficulty in standing
up before that innocently good-humored face, but I could not resist
saying:--
“Then I don't see the use of your walking four miles to look after her.”
I was sorry for it the next minute, for he seemed to have awkwardly
broken his pipe, and had to bend down for a long time afterwards to
laboriously pick up the smallest fragments of it. At last he said,
cautiously:
“Ye noticed them bits o' flannin' round the chillern's throats?”
I remembered that I had, but was uncertain whether it was intended as a
preventive of cold or a child's idea of decoration. I nodded.
“That's their trouble. One night, when old Johnson had been off for
three days to Coulterville, I was prowling round here and I didn't git
to see no one, though there was a light burnin' in the shanty all night.
The next night I was here again,--the same light twinklin', but no one
about. I reckoned that was mighty queer, and I jess crep' up to the
house an' listened. I heard suthin' like a little cough oncet in a
while, and at times suthin' like a little moan. I didn't durst to sing
out for I knew SHE wouldn't like it, but whistled keerless like, to let
the chillern know I was there. But it didn't seem to take. I was jess
goin' off, when--darn my skin!--if I didn't come across the bucket of
water I'd fetched up from the spring THAT MORNIN', standin' there full,
and NEVER TAKEN IN! When I saw that I reckoned I'd jess wade in, anyhow,
and I knocked. Pooty soon the door was half opened, and I saw her eyes
blazin' at me like them coals. Then SHE 'lowed I'd better 'git up and
git,' and shet the door to! Then I 'lowed she might tell me what was
up--through the door. Then she said, through the door, as how the
chillern lay all sick with that hoss-distemper, diphthery. Then she
'lowed she'd use a doctor ef I'd fetch him. Then she 'lowed again I'd
better take the baby that hadn't ketched it yet along with me, and leave
it where it was safe. Then she passed out the baby through the door all
wrapped up in a blankit like a papoose, and you bet I made tracks with
it. I knowed thar wasn't no good going to the mill, so I let out for
White's, four miles beyond, whar there was White's old mother. I told
her how things were pointin', and she lent me a hoss, and I jess rounded
on Doctor Green at Mountain Jim's, and had him back here afore sun-up!
And then I heard she wilted,--regularly played out, you see,--for she
had it all along wuss than the lot, and never let on or whimpered!”
“It was well you persisted in seeing her that night,” I said, watching
the rapt expression of his face. He looked up quickly, became conscious
of my scrutiny, and dropped his eyes again, smiled feebly, and drawing a
circle in the ashes with the broken pipe-stem, said:--
“But SHE didn't like it, though.”
I suggested, a little warmly, that if she allowed her father to leave
her alone at night with delicate children, she had no right to choose
WHO should assist her in an emergency. It struck me afterwards that this
was not very complimentary to him, and I added hastily that I wondered
if she expected some young lady to be passing along the trail at
midnight! But this reminded me of Johnson's style of argument, and I
stopped.
“Yes,” he said meekly, “and ef she didn't keer enough for herself and
her brothers and sisters, she orter remember them Beazeley chillern.”
“Beazeley children?” I repeated wonderingly.
“Yes; them two little ones, the size of Mirandy; they're Beazeley's.”
“Who is Beazeley, and what are his children doing here?”
“Beazeley up and died at the mill, and she bedevilled her father to let
her take his two young 'uns here.”
“You don't mean to say that with her other work she's taking care of
other people's children too?”
“Yes, and eddicatin' them.”
“Educating them?”
“Yes; teachin' them to read and write and do sums. One of our loggers
ketched her at it when she was keepin' tally.”
We were both silent for some moments.
“I suppose you know Johnson?” I said finally.
“Not much.”
“But you call here at other times than when you're helping her?”
“Never been in the house before.”
He looked slowly around him as he spoke, raising his eyes to the bare
rafters above, and drawing a few long breaths, as if he were inhaling
the aura of some unseen presence. He appeared so perfectly gratified and
contented, and I was so impressed with this humble and silent absorption
of the sacred interior, that I felt vaguely conscious that any
interruption of it was a profanation, and I sat still, gazing at the
dying fire. Presently he arose, stretched out his hand, shook mine
warmly, said, “I reckon I'll meander along,” took another long breath,
this time secretly, as if conscious of my eyes, and then slouched
sideways out of the house into the darkness again, where he seemed
suddenly to attain his full height, and so looming, disappeared. I shut
the door, went to bed, and slept soundly.
So soundly that when I awoke the sun was streaming on my bed from the
open door. On the table before me my breakfast was already laid. When I
had dressed and eaten it, struck by the silence, I went to the door and
looked out. 'Dolphus was holding Chu Chu by the reata a few paces from
the cabin.
“Where's Caroline?” I asked.
He pointed to the woods and said: “Over yon: keeping tally.”
“Did she leave any message?”
“Said I was to git your mule for you.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes; said you was to go.”
I went, but not until I had scrawled a few words of thanks on a leaf of
my notebook, which I wrapped about my last Spanish dollar, addressed it
to “Miss Johnson,” and laid it upon the table.
*****
It was more than a year later that in the bar-room of the Mariposa Hotel
a hand was laid upon my sleeve. I looked up. It was Johnson.
He drew from his pocket a Spanish dollar. “I reckoned,” he said,
cheerfully, “I'd run again ye somewhar some time. My old woman told me
to give ye that when I did, and say that she 'didn't keep no hotel.'
But she allowed she'd keep the letter, and has spelled it out to the
chillern.”
Here was the opportunity I had longed for to touch Johnson's pride and
affection in the brave but unprotected girl. “I want to talk to you
about Miss Johnson,” I said, eagerly.
“I reckon so,” he said, with an exasperating smile. “Most fellers do.
But she ain't Miss Johnson no more. She's married.”
“Not to that big chap over from Ten Mile Mills?” I said breathlessly.
“What's the matter with HIM,” said Johnson. “Ye didn't expect her to
marry a nobleman, did ye?”
I said I didn't see why she shouldn't--and believed that she HAD.
THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL.
CHAPTER I.
The schoolmistress of Pine Clearing was taking a last look around her
schoolroom before leaving it for the day. She might have done so with
pride, for the schoolroom was considered a marvel of architectural
elegance by the citizens, and even to the ordinary observer was a
pretty, villa-like structure, with an open cupola and overhanging roof
of diamond-shaped shingles and a deep Elizabethan porch. But it was
the monument of a fierce struggle between a newer civilization and a
barbarism of the old days, which had resulted in the clearing away of
the pines--and a few other things as incongruous to the new life and far
less innocent, though no less sincere. It had cost the community fifteen
thousand dollars, and the lives of two of its citizens.
Happily there was no stain of this on the clean white walls, the
beautifully-written gilt texts, or the shining blackboard that had
offered no record which could not be daily wiped away. And, certainly,
the last person in the world to suggest any reminiscences of its
belligerent foundation was the person of the schoolmistress. Mature,
thin, precise,--not pretty enough to have excited Homeric feuds, nor yet
so plain as to preclude certain soothing graces,--she was the widow of
a poor Congregational minister, and had been expressly imported from
San Francisco to squarely mark the issue between the regenerate and
unregenerate life. Low-voiced, gentlewomanly, with the pallor of
ill-health perhaps unduly accented by her mourning, which was still cut
modishly enough to show off her spare but good figure, she was
supposed to represent the model of pious, scholastic refinement. The
Opposition--sullen in ditches and at the doors of saloons, or in the
fields truculent as their own cattle--nevertheless had lowered their
crests and buttoned their coats over their revolutionary red shirts when
SHE went by.
As she was stepping from the threshold, she was suddenly confronted by
a brisk business-looking man, who was about to enter. “Just in time to
catch you, Mrs. Martin,” he said hurriedly; then, quickly correcting his
manifest familiarity, he added: “I mean, I took the liberty of running
in here on my way to the stage office. That matter you spoke of is
all arranged. I talked it over with the other trustees, wrote to Sam
Barstow, and he's agreeable, and has sent somebody up, and,” he rapidly
consulted his watch, “he ought to be here now; and I'm on my way to meet
him with the other trustees.”
Mrs. Martin, who at once recognized her visitor as the Chairman of
the School Board, received the abrupt information with the slight
tremulousness, faint increase of color, and hurried breathing of a
nervous woman.
“But,” she said, “it was only a SUGGESTION of mine, Mr. Sperry; I really
have no right to ask--I had no idea”--
“It's all right, ma'am,--never you mind. We put the case square to
Barstow. We allowed that the school was getting too large for you to
tackle,--I mean, you know, to superintend single-handed; and that these
Pike County boys they're running in on us are a little too big and
sassy for a lady like you to lasso and throw down--I mean, to sorter
control--don't you see? But, bless you, Sam Barstow saw it all in a
minit! He just jumped at it. I've got his letter here--hold on”--he
hastily produced a letter from his pocket, glanced ever it, suddenly
closed it again with embarrassed quickness, yet not so quickly but that
the woman's quicker eyes were caught, and nervously fascinated by the
expression “I'm d----d” in a large business hand--and said in awkward
haste, “No matter about reading it now--keep you too long--but he's
agreed all right, you know. Must go now--they'll be waiting. Only I
thought I'd drop in a-passin', to keep you posted;” and, taking off his
hat, he began to back from the porch.
“Is--is--this gentleman who is to assist me--a--a mature professional
man--or a--graduate?” hesitated Mrs. Martin, with a faint smile.
“Don't really know--I reckon Sam--Mr. Barstow--fixed that all right.
Must really go now;” and, still holding his hat in his hand as a polite
compromise for his undignified haste, he fairly ran off.
Arrived at the stage office, he found the two other trustees awaiting
him, and the still more tardy stage-coach. One, a large, smooth-faced,
portly man, was the Presbyterian minister; the other, of thinner and
more serious aspect, was a large mill-owner.
“I presume,” said the Rev. Mr. Peaseley, slowly, “that as our good
brother Barstow, in the urgency of the occasion, has, to some
extent, anticipated OUR functions in engaging this assistant, he
is--a--a--satisfied with his capacity?”
“Sam knows what he's about,” said the mill-owner cheerfully, “and as
he's regularly buckled down to the work here, and will go his bottom
dollar on it, you can safely leave things to him.”
“He certainly has exhibited great zeal,” said the reverend gentleman
patronizingly.
“Zeal,” echoed Sperry enthusiastically, “zeal? Why, he runs Pine
Clearing as he runs his bank and his express company in Sacramento, and
he's as well posted as if he were here all the time. Why, look here;”
he nudged the mill-owner secretly, and, as the minister's back was
momentarily turned, pulled out the letter he had avoided reading to Mrs.
Martin, and pointed to a paragraph. “I'll be d----d,” said the writer,
“but I'll have peace and quietness at Pine Clearing, if I have to wipe
out or make over the whole Pike County gang. Draw on me for a piano if
you think Mrs. Martin can work it. But don't say anything to Peaseley
first, or he'll want it changed for a harmonium, and that lets us in
for psalm-singing till you can't rest. Mind! I don't object to Church
influence--it's a good hold!--but you must run IT with other things
equal, and not let it run YOU. I've got the schoolhouse insured for
thirty thousand dollars--special rates too.”
The mill-owner smiled. “Sam's head is level! But,” he added, “he don't
say much about the new assistant he's sending.”
“Only here,” he says, “I reckon the man I send will do all round; for
Pike County has its claims as well as Boston.”
“What does that mean?” asked the mill-owner.
“I reckon he means he don't want Pine Clearing to get too high-toned
any more than he wants it too low down. He's mighty square in his
averages--is Sam.”
Here speculation was stopped by the rapid oncoming of the stage-coach
in all the impotent fury of a belated arrival. “Had to go round by
Montezuma to let off Jack Hill,” curtly explained the driver, as he
swung himself from the box, and entered the hotel bar-room in company
with the new expressman, who had evidently taken Hill's place on the
box-seat. Autocratically indifferent to further inquiry, he called out
cheerfully: “Come along, boys, and hear this yer last new yarn about Sam
Barstow,--it's the biggest thing out.” And in another moment the waiting
crowd, with glasses in their hands, were eagerly listening to the
repetition of the “yarn” from the new expressman, to the apparent
exclusion of other matters, mundane and practical.
Thus debarred from information, the three trustees could only watch
the passengers as they descended, and try to identify their expected
stranger. But in vain: the bulk of the passengers they already knew, the
others were ordinary miners and laborers; there was no indication of the
new assistant among them. Pending further inquiry they were obliged
to wait the conclusion of the expressman's humorous recital. This was
evidently a performance of some artistic merit, depending upon a capital
imitation of an Irishman, a German Jew, and another voice, which was
universally recognized and applauded as being “Sam's style all over!”
But for the presence of the minister, Sperry and the mill-owner would
have joined the enthusiastic auditors, and inwardly regretted the
respectable obligations of their official position.
When the story-teller had concluded amidst a general call for more
drinks, Sperry approached the driver. The latter recognizing him, turned
to his companion carelessly, said, “Here's one of 'em,” and was going
away when Sperry stopped him.
“We were expecting a young man.”
“Yes,” said the driver, impatiently, “and there he is, I reckon.”
“We don't mean the new expressman,” said the minister, smiling blandly,
“but a young man who”--
“THAT ain't no new expressman,” returned the driver in scornful
deprecation of his interlocutor's ignorance. “He only took Hill's
place from Montezuma. He's the new kid reviver and polisher for that
University you're runnin' here. I say--you fellers oughter get him to
tell you that story of Sam Barstow and the Chinaman. It'd limber you
fellers up to hear it.”
“I fear there's some extraordinary mistake here,” said Mr. Peaseley,
with a chilling Christian smile.
“Not a bit of it. He's got a letter from Sam for one of ye. Yere,
Charley--what's your name! Com yere. Yere's all yer three bosses waiting
for ye.”
And the supposed expressman and late narrator of amusing stories came
forward and presented his credentials as the assistant teacher of Pine
Clearing.
CHAPTER II.
Even the practical Mr. Sperry was taken aback. The young man before him
was squarely built, with broad shoulders, and a certain air of muscular
activity. But his face, although good-humored, was remarkable for
offering not the slightest indication of studious preoccupation or
mental training. A large mouth, light blue eyes, a square jaw, the other
features being indistinctive--were immobile as a mask--except that,
unlike a mask, they seemed to actually reflect the vacuity of the mood
within, instead of concealing it. But as he saluted the trustees they
each had the same feeling that even this expression was imported and not
instinctive. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair cut so short as to
suggest that a wig of some kind was necessary to give it characteristic
or even ordinary human semblance. His manner, self-assured yet lacking
reality, and his dress of respectable cut and material, yet worn as if
it did not belong to him, completed a picture as unlike a student or
schoolmaster as could be possibly conceived.
Yet there was the letter in Mr. Peaseley's hands from Barstow,
introducing Mr. Charles Twing as the first assistant teacher in the Pine
Clearing Free Academy!
The three men looked hopelessly at each other. An air of fatigued
righteousness and a desire to be spiritually at rest from other trials
pervaded Mr. Peaseley. Whether or not the young man felt the evident
objection he had raised, he assumed a careless position, with his back
and elbows against the bar; but even the attitude was clearly not his
own.
“Are you personally known to Mr. Barstow?” asked Sperry, with a slight
business asperity.
“Yes.”
“That is--you are quite well acquainted with him?”
“If you'd heard me gag his style a minute ago, so that everybody here
knew who it was, you'd say so.”
Mr. Peaseley's eyes sought the ceiling, and rested on the hanging lamp,
as if nothing short of direct providential interference could meet the
occasion. Yet, as the eyes of his brother trustees were bent on him
expectantly, he nerved himself to say something.
“I suppose, Mr.--Mr. Twing, you have properly understood the great--I
may say, very grave, intellectual, and moral responsibilities of the
work you seek to undertake--and the necessity of supporting it by
EXAMPLE, by practice, by personal influence both in the school and OUT
OF IT. Sir, I presume, sir, you feel that you are fully competent to
undertake this?”
“I reckon HE does!”
“WHO does?”
“Sam Barstow, or he wouldn't have selected me. I presume” (with the
slightest possible and almost instinctive imitation of the reverend
gentleman's manner) “his head is considered level.”
Mr. Peaseley withdrew his eyes from the ceiling. “I have,” he said to
his companions, with a pained smile, “an important choir meeting to
attend this afternoon. I fear I must be excused.” As he moved towards
the door, the others formally following him, until out of the stranger's
hearing, he added: “I wash my hands of this. After so wanton and
unseemly an exhibition of utter incompetency, and even of understanding
of the trust imposed upon him--upon US--MY conscience forbids me to
interfere further. But the real arbiter in this matter will be--thank
Heaven!--the mistress herself. You have only to confront her at once
with this man. HER decision will be speedy and final. For even Mr.
Barstow will not dare to force so outrageous a character upon a
delicate, refined woman, in a familiar and confidential capacity.”
“That's so,” said Sperry eagerly; “she'll settle it. And, of course,”
added the mill-owner, “that will leave us out of any difficulty with
Sam.”
The two men returned to the hapless stranger, relieved, yet constrained
by the sacrifice to which they felt they were leading him. It would be
necessary, they said, to introduce him to his principal, Mrs. Martin,
at once. They might still find her at the schoolhouse, distant but a few
steps. They said little else, the stranger keeping up an ostentatious
whistling, and becoming more and more incongruous, they thought, as they
neared the pretty schoolhouse. Here they DID find Mrs. Martin, who had,
naturally, lingered after the interview with Sperry.
She came forward to meet them, with the nervous shyness and slightly
fastidious hesitation that was her nature. They saw, or fancied
they saw, the same surprise and disappointment they had themselves
experienced pass over her sensitive face, as she looked at him; they
felt that their vulgar charge appeared still more outrageous by contrast
with this delicate woman and her pretty, refined surroundings; but they
saw that HE enjoyed it, and was even--if such a word could be applied to
so self-conscious a man--more at ease in her presence!
“I reckon you and me will pull together very well, ma'am,” he said
confidently.
They looked to see her turn her back upon him; faint, or burst out
crying; but she did neither, and only gazed at him quietly.
“It's a mighty pretty place you've got here--and I like it, and if WE
can't run it, I don't know who can. Only just let me know WHAT you want,
ma'am, and you can count on me every time.”
To their profound consternation Mrs. Martin smiled faintly.
“It rests with YOU only, Mrs. Martin,” said Sperry quickly and
significantly. “It's YOUR say, you know; you're the only one to be
considered or consulted here.”
“Only just say what you want me to do,” continued Twing, apparently
ignoring the trustees; “pick out the style of job; give me a hint or
two how to work it, or what you'd think would be the proper gag to fetch
'em, and I'm there, ma'am. It may be new at first, but I'll get at the
business of it quick enough.”
Mrs. Martin smiled--this time quite perceptibly--with the least
little color in her cheeks and eyes. “Then you've had no experience in
teaching?” she said.
“Well no.”
“You are not a graduate of any college?”
“Not much.”
The two trustees looked at each other. Even Mr. Peaseley had not
conceived such a damning revelation.
“Well,” said Mrs. Martin slowly, “perhaps Mr. Twing had better COME
EARLY TOMORROW MORNING AND BEGIN.”
“Begin?” gasped Mr. Sperry in breathless astonishment.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Martin in timid explanation. “If he is new to the
work the sooner the better.”
Mr. Sperry could only gaze blankly at his brother official. Had they
heard aright? Was this the recklessness of nervous excitement in a woman
of delicate health, or had the impostor cast some glamour upon her? Or
was she frightened of Sam Barstow and afraid to reject his candidate?
The last thought was an inspiration. He drew her quickly aside. “One
moment, Mrs. Martin! You said to me an hour ago that you didn't intend
to have asked Mr. Barstow to send you an assistant. I hope that, merely
because he HAS done so, you don't feel obliged to accept this man
against your better judgment?”
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Martin quietly.
The case seemed hopeless. And Sperry had the miserable conviction that
by having insisted upon Mrs. Martin's judgment being final they had
estopped their own right to object. But how could they have foreseen her
extraordinary taste? He, however, roused himself for a last appeal.
“Mrs. Martin,” he said in a lower voice, “I ought to tell you that the
Reverend Mr. Peaseley strongly doubts the competency of that young man.”
“Didn't Mr. Barstow make a selection at your request?” asked Mrs.
Martin, with a faint little nervous cough.
“Yes--but”--
“Then his competency only concerns ME--and I don't see what Mr. Peaseley
has to say about it.”
Could he believe his senses? There was a decided flush in the woman's
pale face, and the first note of independence and asperity in her voice.
That night, in the privacy of his conjugal chamber, Mr. Sperry relieved
his mind to another of the enigmatical sex,--the stout Southwestern
partner of his joys and troubles. But the result was equally
unsatisfactory. “Well, Abner,” said the lady, “I never could see, for
all your men's praises of Mrs. Martin, what that feller can see in HER
to like!”
CHAPTER III.
Mrs. Martin was early at the schoolhouse the next morning, yet not so
early but that she discovered that the new assistant had been there
before her. This was shown in some rearrangement of the school seats and
benches. They were placed so as to form a horseshoe before her desk, and
at the further extremity of this semicircle was a chair evidently for
himself. She was a little nettled at his premature action, although
admitting the utility of the change, but she was still more annoyed
at his absence at such a moment. It was nearly the school hour when
he appeared, to her surprise, marshaling a file of some of the smaller
children whom he had evidently picked up en route, and who were, to her
greater surprise, apparently on the best of terms with him. “Thought
I'd better rake 'em in, introduce myself to 'em, and get 'em to know me
before school begins. Excuse me,” he went on hastily, “but I've a lot
more coming up, and I'd better make myself square with them OUTSIDE.”
But Mrs. Martin had apparently developed a certain degree of stiffness
since their evening's interview.
“It seems to me quite as important, Mr. Twing,” she said drily, “that
you should first learn some of your own duties, which I came here early
to teach you.”
“Not at all,” he said cheerfully. “Today I take my seat, as I've
arranged it, you see, over there with them, and watch 'em go through the
motions. One rehearsal's enough for ME. At the same time, I can chip in
if necessary.” And before she could reply he was out of the schoolhouse
again, hailing the new-comers. This was done with apparently such
delight to the children and with some evidently imported expression into
his smooth mask-like face, that Mrs. Martin had to content herself with
watching him with equal curiosity. She was turning away with a sudden
sense of forgotten dignity, when a shout of joyous, childish laughter
attracted her attention to the window. The new assistant, with half a
dozen small children on his square shoulders, walking with bent back and
every simulation of advanced senility, was evidently personating,
with the assistance of astonishingly distorted features, the ogre of a
Christmas pantomime. As his eye caught hers the expression vanished, the
mask-like face returned; he set the children down, and moved away. And
when school began, although he marshaled them triumphantly to the very
door,--with what contortion of face or simulation of character she was
unable to guess,--after he had entered the schoolroom and taken his seat
every vestige of his previous facial aberration was gone, and only his
usual stolidity remained. In vain, as Mrs. Martin expected, the hundred
delighted little eyes before her dwelt at first eagerly and hopefully
upon his face, but, as she HAD NOT expected, recognizing from the
blankness of his demeanor that the previous performance was intended for
them exclusively, the same eager eyes were presently dropped again upon
their books in simple imitation, as if he were one of themselves. Mrs.
Martin breathed freely, and lessons began.
Yet she was nervously conscious, meanwhile, of a more ill-omened
occurrence. This was the non-arrival of several of her oldest pupils,
notably, the refractory and incorrigible Pike County contingent to whom
Sperry had alluded. For the past few days they had hovered on the verge
of active insubordination, and had indulged in vague mutterings which
she had resolutely determined not to hear. It was, therefore, with some
inward trepidations, not entirely relieved by Twing's presence, that she
saw the three Mackinnons and the two Hardees slouch into the school
a full hour after the lessons had begun. They did not even excuse
themselves, but were proceeding with a surly and ostentatious defiance
to their seats, when Mrs. Martin was obliged to look up, and--as the
eldest Hardee filed before her--to demand an explanation. The culprit
addressed--a dull, heavy-looking youth of nineteen--hesitated with an
air of mingled doggedness and sheepishness, and then, without replying,
nudged his companion. It was evidently a preconcerted signal of
rebellion, for the boy nudged stopped, and, turning a more intelligent,
but equally dissatisfied, face upon the schoolmistress, began
determinedly:--
“Wot's our excuse for coming an hour late? Well, we ain't got none. WE
don't call it an hour late--WE don't. We call it the right time. We call
it the right time for OUR lessons, for we don't allow to come here to
sing hymns with babbies. We don't want to know 'where, oh where, are the
Hebrew children?' They ain't nothin' to us Americans. And we don't want
any more Daniels in the Lions' Den played off on us. We have enough of
'em in Sunday-school. We ain't hankerin' much for grammar and dictionary
hogwash, and we don't want no Boston parts o' speech rung in on us the
first thing in the mo'nin'. We ain't Boston--we're Pike County--WE are.
We reckon to do our sums, and our figgerin', and our sale and barter,
and our interest tables and weights and measures when the time comes,
and our geograffy when it's on, and our readin' and writin' and the
American Constitution in reg'lar hours, and then we calkilate to git
up and git afore the po'try and the Boston airs and graces come round.
That's our rights and what our fathers pay school taxes for, and we want
'em.”
He stopped, looking less towards the schoolmistress than to his
companions, for whom perhaps, after the schoolboy fashion, this attitude
was taken. Mrs. Martin sat, quite white and self-contained, with her
eyes fixed on the frayed rim of the rebel's straw hat which he still
kept on his head. Then she said quietly:--
“Take off your hat, sir.”
The boy did not move.
“He can't,” said a voice cheerfully.
It was the new assistant. The whole school faced rapidly towards him.
The rebel leader and his followers, who had not noticed him before,
stared at the interrupter, who did not, however, seem to exhibit any of
the authority of office, but rather the comment and criticism of one of
themselves. “Wot you mean?” asked the boy indignantly.
“I mean you can't take off your hat because you've got some things
stowed away in it you don't want seen,” said Twing, with an immovable
face.
“Wot things?” exclaimed the boy angrily. Then suddenly recollecting
himself, he added, “Go along! You can't fool me! Think you'll make me
take off my hat--don't you?”
“Well,” said Twing, advancing to the side of the rebel, “look here
then!” With a dexterous movement and a slight struggle from the boy, he
lifted the hat. A half-dozen apples, a bird's nest, two birds' eggs,
and a fluttering half-fledged bird fell from it. A wave of delight
and astonishment ran along the benches, a blank look of hopeless
bewilderment settled upon the boy's face, and the gravity of the
situation disappeared forever in the irrepressible burst of laughter,
in which even his brother rebels joined. The smallest child who had been
half-frightened, half-fascinated by the bold, bad, heroic attitude of
the mutineer, was quick to see the ridiculousness of that figure crowned
with cheap schoolboy plunder. The eloquent protest of his wrongs was
lost in the ludicrous appearance of the protester. Even Mrs. Martin felt
that nothing she could say at that moment could lift the rebellion into
seriousness again. But Twing was evidently not satisfied.
“Beg Mrs. Martin's pardon, and say you were foolin' with the boys,” he
said in a low voice.
The discomfited rebel hesitated.
“Say it, or I'll SHOW WHAT YOU'VE GOT IN YOUR POCKETS!” said Twing in a
terribly significant aside.
The boy mumbled an apology to Mrs. Martin, scrambled in a blank,
hopeless way to his seat, and the brief rebellion ignominiously ended.
But two things struck Mrs. Martin as peculiar. She overheard the culprit
say, with bated breath and evident sincerity, to his comrades: “Hadn't
nothing in my hat, anyway!” and one of the infant class was heard to
complain, in a deeply-injured way, that the bird's nest was HIS, and had
been “stoled” from his desk. And there still remained the fact for which
Twing's undoubted fascination over the children had somewhat prepared
her--that at recess the malcontents--one and all--seemed to have
forgiven the man who had overcome them, and gathered round him with
unmistakable interest. All this, however, did not blind her to the
serious intent of the rebellion, or of Twing's unaccountable assumption
of her prerogative. While he was still romping with the children she
called him in.
“I must remind you,” she said, with a slight nervous asperity, “that
this outrageous conduct of Tom Hardee was evidently deliberated and
prepared by the others, and cannot end in this way.”
He looked at her with a face so exasperatingly expressionless that
she could have slapped it as if it had belonged to one of the older
scholars, and said,--“But it HAS ended. It's a dead frost.”
“I don't know what you mean; and I must remind you also that in this
school we neither teach nor learn slang.”
His immobile face changed for an instant to a look of such decided
admiration that she felt her color rise; but he wiped his expression
away with his hand as if it had been some artificial make-up, and said
awkwardly, but earnestly:--
“Excuse me--won't you? But, look here, Mrs. Martin, I found out early
this morning, when I was squaring myself with the other children, that
there was this row hangin' on--in fact, that there was a sort of idea
that Pike County wasn't having a fair show--excuse me--in the running of
the school, and that Peaseley and Barstow were a little too much on in
every scene. In fact, you see, it was just what Tom said.”
“This is insufferable,” said Mrs. Martin, her eyes growing darker as
her cheeks grew red. “They shall go home to their parents, and tell them
from me”--
“That they're all mistaken--excuse me--but that's just what THEY'RE
GOIN' TO DO. I tell you, Mrs. Martin, their little game's busted--I beg
pardon--but it's all over. You'll have no more trouble with them.”
“And you think that just because you found Tom had something in his hat,
and exposed him?” said Mrs. Martin scornfully.
“Tom HADN'T anything in his hat,” said Twing, wiping his mouth slowly.
“Nothing?” repeated Mrs. Martin.
“No.”
“But I SAW you take the things out.”
“That was only a TRICK! He had nothing except what I had up my sleeve,
and forced on him. He knew it, and that frightened him, and made him
look like a fool, and so bursted up his conspiracy. There's nothin'
boys are more afraid of than ridicule, or the man or boy that make 'em
ridiculous.”
“I won't ask you if you call this FAIR to the boy, Mr. Twing?” said Mrs.
Martin hotly; “but is this your idea of discipline?”
“I call it fair, because Tom knew it was some kind of a trick, and
wasn't deceived. I call it discipline if it made him do what was right
afterwards, and makes him afraid or unwilling to do anything to offend
me or you again. He likes me none the worse for giving him a chance of
being laughed out of a thing instead of being DRIVEN out of it. And,” he
added, with awkward earnestness, “if you'll just leave all this to
ME, and only consider me here to take this sort of work which ain't
a lady's--off your hands, we'll just strike our own line between the
Peaseleys and Pike County--and run this school in spite of both.”
A little mollified, a good deal puzzled, and perhaps more influenced by
the man's manner than she had imagined, Mrs. Martin said nothing, but
let the day pass without dismissing the offenders. And on returning home
that evening she was considerably surprised to receive her landlady's
extravagant congratulations on the advent of her new assistant. “And
they do say, Mrs. Martin,” continued that lady enthusiastically, “that
your just setting your foot down square on that Peaseley and that
Barstow, BOTH OF 'EM--and choosing your own assistant yourself--a plain
young fellow with no frills and fancies, but one that you could set
about making all the changes you like, was just the biggest thing you
ever did for Pine Clearing.”
“And--they--consider him quite--competent?” said Mrs. Martin, with timid
color and hesitating audacity.
“Competent! You ask my Johnny.”
Nevertheless, Mrs. Martin was somewhat formally early at the schoolhouse
the next morning. “Perhaps,” she said, with an odd mixture of dignity
and timidity, “we'd better, before school commences, go over the lessons
for the day.”
“I HAVE,” he said quickly. “I told you ONE rehearsal was enough for me.”
“You mean you have looked over them?”
“Got 'em by heart. Letter perfect. Want to hear me? Listen.”
She did. He had actually committed to memory, and without a lapse, the
entire text of rules, questions, answers, and examples of the lessons
for the day.
CHAPTER IV.
Before a month had passed, Mr. Twing's success was secure and
established. So were a few of the changes he had quietly instituted.
The devotional singing and Scripture reading which had excited the
discontent of the Pike County children and their parents was not
discontinued, but half an hour before recess was given up to some
secular choruses, patriotic or topical, in which the little ones under
Twing's really wonderful practical tuition exhibited such quick and
pleasing proficiency, that a certain negro minstrel camp-meeting
song attained sufficient popularity to be lifted by general accord to
promotion to the devotional exercises, where it eventually ousted the
objectionable “Hebrew children” on the question of melody alone. Grammar
was still taught at Pine Clearing School in spite of the Hardees and
Mackinnons, but Twing had managed to import into the cognate exercises
of recitation a wonderful degree of enthusiasm and excellence.
Dialectical Pike County, that had refused to recognize the governing
powers of the nominative case, nevertheless came out strong in classical
elocution, and Tom Hardee, who had delivered his ungrammatical protest
on behalf of Pike County, was no less strong, if more elegant, in his
impeachment of Warren Hastings as Edmund Burke, with the equal sanction
of his parents. The trustees, Sperry and Jackson, had marveled, but
were glad enough to accept the popular verdict--only Mr. Peaseley still
retained an attitude of martyr-like forbearance and fatigued toleration
towards the new assistant and his changes. As to Mrs. Martin, she seemed
to accept the work of Mr. Twing after his own definition of it--as of a
masculine quality ill-suited to a lady's tastes and inclinations; but it
was noticeable that while she had at first repelled any criticism of him
whatever, she had lately been given to explaining his position to her
friends, and had spoken of him with somewhat labored and ostentatious
patronage. Yet when they were alone together she frankly found him very
amusing, and his presumption and vulgarity so clearly unintentional that
it no longer offended her. They were good friends without having any
confidences beyond the duties of the school; she had asked no further
explanation of the fact that he had been selected by Mr. Barstow
without reference to any special antecedent training. What his actual
antecedents were she had never cared to know, nor he apparently to
reveal; that he had been engaged in some other occupations of superior
or inferior quality would not have been remarkable in a community where
the principal lawyer had been a soldier, and the miller a doctor. The
fact that he admired her was plain enough to HER; that it pleased her,
but carried with it no ulterior thought or responsibility, might have
been equally clear to others. Perhaps it was so to HIM.