BUSTER TAKES A CITY TRAIL.
No life could have been in greater contrast to that of Sobrante than
this upon which the young Californian now entered. Her own first letter
home may best describe it, written soon after her arrival in Washington
Square, and while her impressions were still vivid.
“MY DARLINGEST, DEAREST MOTHER:
“We got here all safe and sound, after a nice journey. I was so
homesick at first I thought I should die. Then Mr. Hale sent me to
do something for a dear old Irish lady in the two sections ahead
of ours. It was my section, too, afterwards when the sick mother
and the Baby came. I found them in the tourist car--tourists can be
real nice sometimes, mother dear--we’d made mistakes thinking they
couldn’t be, there at home. But Mr. Hale says the world is full of
all sorts of people and rude tourists and polite tourists are two
of those sorts. Besides, our Cousin Margaret Dalrymple thinks it’s
not being a tourist makes the difference. It’s ‘born in folks to be
refined or coarse, and one can’t help nature.’ She thinks it’s ‘born
in me,’ to be quite nice, but that’s no credit to me; she says I had
the advantage to be a Waldron. Being a Waldron is, I guess, being
everything ‘correct.’ I’m very glad we’re all Waldrons together, you
and Cousin Margaret, and darling Ned, and I. It seems to be a great
help in doing just what one ought to do.
“Wasn’t it dear and sweet and just perfectly lovely of ‘Forty-niner’
to steal away and come to take care of me? Mr. Hale said he was
afraid you Sobrante people would be worried about him, so he
telegraphed right back to tell you where he was. I hope you got that
message sooner than we used to those which came by way of Marion;
but, of course, you did--since now we have a little station of our
very own right at ‘the Sobrante.’ Queer. My Cousin Margaret and some
people who have come to this house seem to think it’s a wonderful
thing, that having a copper mine in the family. I don’t! I think it’s
horrid. If it hadn’t been for that old stuff being dug out of the
earth I’d never have had to come away here to be educated. Am I not
getting educated fast? Yet I’ve learned to write thus much better
just from you and Mr. Ninian teaching me at home. I am taking the
greatest pains to do all you want me to.
“This is the queerest, quaintest old house in the city, some of the
visitors say. That our Cousin Margaret has been offered an enormous
price for it but won’t sell it, even though she would get all that
money and ‘the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.’ Even she says
that, and complains most bitterly about the ‘parvenusers’ that have
crept into it. There are stores and artists’ studios and apartment
places and--all sorts of things that a Waldron doesn’t like in the
Square, nowadays. But Cousin Margaret says that once only the ‘inner
circle of society’ dwelt in these old houses.
“Speaking of old: that is one word you must never apply to our
Cousin Margaret. I thought I’d best tell you in case you didn’t know.
I shouldn’t have known, not right at first, if Barnes hadn’t told
me. Barnes says that the older and more worn-out the things are the
better pleased Mrs. Dalrymple is. She is so proud of everything in
the ‘mansion’ being just the same as it was in her own grandfather’s
time, that she won’t even buy new chairs for the kitchen nor have new
plumbing put in, even though the health officers have been trying
to make her do that. That’s why she can never keep cooks and people
like that, of the ‘lower classes,’ you know. Barnes says there have
been four new cooks this very last week that ever was, and I guess
each one is stupider than the other. I know Wun Lung would have
been ashamed to put such stuff on our table at home as we had here
that first luncheon. (We spell lunch with an ‘eon’ at our Cousin
Margaret’s.) As for dear Aunt Sally, I believe she would have got up
and tossed the whole mess out into the garden for the chickens to
eat. Only there aren’t any chickens and Aunt Sally wasn’t here.
“Dear Ephraim was; and that is the best thing has happened this dozen
years, Tipkins says. You used to know Tipkins, so, of course, you
know too that he ‘wouldn’t demean himself to cook anything’ unless
his Madam was really starving, and then he’d make Barnes do it. He is
the only one can make Barnes do things she doesn’t like. My Cousin
Margaret can’t. It’s Barnes makes Cousin Margaret. But Barnes said
she was a lady’s-maid and she wouldn’t demean, either. Ephraim thinks
there’s a ‘touch of sentiment in Barnes’s heart for Tipkins’ and
that’s why she minds him--_sometimes_! Ephraim wishes she would get
the same sort of ‘touch’ for him, then she wouldn’t order him to do
things he really doesn’t like. Mr. Hale thought Cousin Margaret would
be angry with ‘Forty-niner’ for coming and send him away, but she
wasn’t at all. She thinks it is perfectly ‘correct and Waldron-y’ to
have a man belonging to you. She was a little vexed that you didn’t
send a ‘maid’ with me, too, till I told her you hadn’t any maid to
send. Our maids were both Chinese ‘boys’ and had never combed a
girl’s hair in their lives nor buttoned a frock.
“But the best part about Ephraim is that now he is the cook. Seems
that when he was offered that first luncheon he looked it over and
turned up his nose about it. Said he reckoned he was in a city where
they could buy victuals ready cooked if a body was such a fool he
couldn’t cook them himself. And would he go out and get something
fit to eat? And Tipkins asked, had he any money? Then Ephraim had to
own that he hadn’t. It had taken his very last cent to pay his own
fare here from home and to pay Buster’s fare, too. Think of that?
The darling old ‘boy’ had hired Buster brought on by express, in a
car all by himself, because there weren’t any cattle cars on our
train, and it had cost--Oh! dear! I don’t yet know how much. Ephy
won’t tell. Anyway, he’d struck his bottom dollar when he reached
Washington Square--had just enough to hire the hackman to bring
Buster to the house for him. So he’s here, in the stable behind,
with our Cousin Margaret’s black span, who are as old, seems if, as
everything else.
“Asking him if he had money for the food made Ephraim mad. So he
said that if he hadn’t he had sense enough to cook it, if there was
any to cook. Then Tipkins hurried off and bought a great basket full
of everything nice, and that night we had such a dinner as would have
done even Aunt Sally credit. There was quite a tilt between those two
funny old men! Tipkins, he said _he_ was the butler, and as long as
there was a woman under the roof it wasn’t a man’s place to handle a
gridiron, and so he wouldn’t demean to cook. Ephraim said _he’d_ been
everything under the sun a man could be--except a nasty, high-flown
English butler! He’d worn the United States’ military uniform, and
he’d dug gold out of California mountains, and taught the nicest
girl in the universe to sharpshoot to beat the militia--That was me!
Wasn’t it nice of him to say that?--and he guessed rather than let
that girl what had done him so proud go and starve for want of decent
food he’d tackle the first frying-pan came his way.
“So there he is, installed in the great, dreary kitchen downstairs,
where it’s so dark I wonder he can see at all, and just as proud now
of the fine things he fixes as he used to be of me when I hit the
bull’s-eye. And our Cousin Margaret is perfectly delighted with him.
She isn’t a bit ashamed to say that her stomach has a good deal to do
with her temper, and that if the first is satisfied the last is sure
to be. That’s a good thing about Cousin Margaret. She isn’t a bit
afraid to say anything she thinks about--about all that _is_, except
her own age. I don’t mean, course, that she would tell a wrong story
about that, even, if anybody would dare to ask, but I can’t fancy
anybody daring. She is such a beautiful old lady--gentlewoman, I
should say. She’s like you in that, she thinks that is the correctest
word. She wears clothes that even I, who don’t know much about such
matters, know are perfectly beautiful. Shining, shimmery silks--like
the sunlight on the arroyo when there’s water in it; made long
and draggy like our peacocks’ own tails and her hair--Why, mother
dearest! Even your beautiful hair isn’t half so much as hers. It’s
piled on top of her head in what she calls a ‘pompydoor,’ and dips
down behind all in little crinkles, like mine after it’s been washed;
and her skin is so white, I don’t believe she ever went out into the
sunshine without her veil to keep it off. Her eyes are black and
snappy and she never wears glasses, like the ‘boys’ do, except in
what Barnes calls the ‘privacy of her bedchamber.’ I’ve never seen
that privacy and I should be afraid to sleep in her bedchamber. It’s
the front room upstairs, with three great windows and an ‘alcove.’
In the ‘alcove’ is a big, big bed, all stuffy curtains and things
around it and so high there’s a little ladder to climb up. There
are looking-glasses all about and so many chairs and wardrobes and
things I shouldn’t think she could hardly move about. I have seen it
all from the hall, going to my own room at the back, but I’ve never
been invited in and I wouldn’t dare to go without being asked. That’s
the one thing about our Cousin Margaret. I guess it’s what you call
‘stately.’ She keeps people from daring, all except Barnes. Even the
persons who call and stay in the drawing-room act afraid of Madam.
Her reception days are like a queen’s, Tipkins says. There is to
be one, to-morrow; the ‘last of the season.’ She sent Barnes down
somewhere to buy me a white frock, with blue ribbons and white shoes
and stockings. I am to wear it at the reception and be presented,
for a few minutes, because I am ‘Gabriella’s child.’ Then I am to be
sent away again. That seems silly to me: to spend money for a frock
to wear only a few minutes, but I wouldn’t dare say so to Madame
Dalrymple.
“My room is the one you used to have. I wonder how you could sleep
in it without being afraid. I can’t. So Ephy comes upstairs and
sleeps on a cot outside the door. _I_ was never afraid in all my life
before, but I am here. Everything is so big and dark and heavy. I
feel as if I were carrying mountains on my chest, and I’d give--Oh!
what wouldn’t I give to jump on Buster’s bare back and scamper up the
canyon as fast as he could go! Cousin Margaret was nice about Buster,
too. She says it is quite a distinction to have a real Californian
with her _caballero_ and broncho to ride alongside her carriage when
she goes out driving in the Park. We are going this afternoon. But I
don’t feel as glad as I ought, because I must wear the funniest kind
of a habit, with a long flapping skirt, and Ephraim must put on some
stiff-looking things she calls suitable for a groom. Cousin Margaret
has bought these clothes for us, too, all ready-made, and Ephraim
says he is plumb disgusted, and that he will feel like a fool. I hope
he won’t. I can’t imagine darling ‘Forty-niner’ feeling like anybody
except his own sensible self.
“Now, dearest mother, I must stop. I promised Cousin Margaret I would
have my new riding things on at precisely four o’clock. When she
says four o’clock she doesn’t mean a minute before that time nor
a minute after. The first lesson she is trying to teach me is--is
‘punctuerality’ or something like that. She says that to be exact is
another mark of a gentlewoman, and dear me! It seems that being a
gentlewoman here in New York, with Madam to watch me, is lots harder
than being one at dear Sobrante, with only your sweet smile to guide
me.
“P.S. I have written you a long, long letter. I have felt as if
I were talking to you and I have talked right out. The reason it
is done so well is that Cousin Margaret has read it all over and
corrected it and made me copy it. She said she would have liked to
strike out some of my sentences; that they ‘suggested a coarseness
which must have come from the Trent side of my nature,’ and that no
girl, purely Waldron, would have put them in. However, it was her own
dignity as a Waldron which kept her from the striking out. She was
willing to correct the spelling and writing, though she left some
mistakes for you to see, so that you might know how much I need that
education I have got to take. Oh! dear! It sounds like a dose of
castor oil, or Aunt Sally’s picra! Or even like a great big club _I_
must be cudgelled with. Never mind. I’ll ‘tackle’ that old education
with everything that is in me, so that I can get it over and done
with and travel home to you again. The last part of this letter I
have not had to have corrected; and the next one I write I’ll try
to make so perfect she’ll not wish to read any more. If our Cousin
Margaret would only love me a little tiny bit! or let me love her. I
so long to hear somebody say ‘darling’ or ‘precious,’ or anything
else that would make me know they cared. Only Ephraim does now and
then, but has to say it on ‘the sly’ as he calls it. When Cousin
Margaret doesn’t hear. It would be beneath a Waldron’s dignity to
be familiar with a servant--and she considers darling ‘Forty-niner’
such. He only laughs about it; though, all the same, I believe he’s
met what Marty calls his ‘come-uppance’ in our Cousin Margaret. She
likes him, treats him well enough, but keeps him at arms’ length as
if he were some sort of a ‘creature’ and he is more afraid of her
than even Tipkins. He says that’s because if he offended she would
send him away and he won’t be sent.
“Good-by, good-by, good-by! O my mother! If I had your arms about me
just this minute! After all I have left a blank page. That is for you
to fill up with kisses and love, love, love--to you, and Ned, and
every single body on that dear Sobrante ranch. Oh! why did old Pedro
ever show us that copper mine? If he hadn’t I wouldn’t have been one
of ‘the richest girls’ nor have had an education! I should have just
stayed happily at home and been only a loving
DAUGHTER JESSICA.”
There was a tap at the door and the girl carefully folded and
sealed the envelope, while a small colored girl, one of the various
“emergencies” as Ephraim called the shifting “extra help” summoned
almost daily, announced:
“The Madam she done want you-all to come right along downstairs and
go a-ridin’ with her. She says you-all must ha’ heerd the big clock
strike an’ should ha’ paid your own attention, miss.”
Jessica sprang up, tripped in the skirt of her riding habit, and fell
on the floor, while the messenger first stared then burst into a loud
guffaw. That was a sort of noise not permitted in that old mansion
and both she and Jessica were frightened as if they had committed
some misdemeanor, as the latter got upon her feet again and held the
offending skirt high out of the way.
She looked curiously upon the little maid, with whom she would far
rather have stayed and played than to have ridden in solemn state
beside the great carriage of her cousin. Girls were the greatest
novelty of all these many new things which had come into her life; and
the one redeeming feature about that forthcoming “education” was that
it would be prosecuted in company with many other “girls.” However, she
dared not tarry, and in a few moments was in her saddle, with Ephraim
riding a hired hack at the prescribed distance behind her, and Buster
vainly trying to accommodate his paces to her will and those of the
sedate blacks drawing the old barouche.
For a little time all went well. Jessica was an experienced mistress of
this exercise and felt her spirits rise as they had not before since
reaching the great city. Mrs. Dalrymple watched her with pride, which
had at first been anxiety, but soon saw that she had no need to fear
for any awkwardness on her young cousin’s part.
“Why, my dear, you do well. You might have been trained in our best
riding academy,” commended the Madam, with satisfaction. “It is the
characteristic of a gentlewoman to be an accomplished equestrienne.”
Jessica smiled and cast a meaning glance backward into Ephraim’s face,
which he was trying to compose into that impassive stolidity of Mrs.
Dalrymple’s own coachman and footman. But he failed and the most he
could accomplish was an ignominious wink. Tipkins had duly instructed
him as to the “correct” behavior on this his appearance as “groom,” but
that teacher would have been shocked through all his English soul had
he seen that contorted wink.
Then they found their way into Fifth Avenue, and this seemed to
Jessica the prettiest part of the town that she had seen, with its
aristocratic, comparative quiet; and here Mrs. Dalrymple explained:
“That brown-stone house on the corner, the right side of the street, is
Madam Mearsom’s school, where I shall place you at the beginning of the
fall term. It is the most fashionable and exclusive of all our private
schools and it is where your mother was trained. I shall take you to
call upon her soon, and have already entered your name upon her list.
Commonly, a pupil has to be enrolled at least two years before there is
a vacancy in her limited classes; but Madam has made an exception in
your favor because, as she admitted, she has always had the honor of
educating the Waldrons. I hope you will appreciate the concession and
never forget the high ideals you must maintain.”
“I will try, Cousin Margaret,” dutifully replied “little Captain,”
though feeling that the “Waldrons and their ideals” were a burden too
heavy for her to bear.
“Now we must turn aside, into a cross street, to see my dressmaker. I
don’t know why such persons always _will_ live on cross streets! It’s
most annoying, they are so much narrower and confusing. Notice, child,
how our New York is laid out. As simple as a checker-board--from First
Street up, all the cross streets go by count, and all the Avenues in
the same order, until you come to that far-away East Side where they
are lettered. But neither you nor I will ever have more to do with
Avenues A, B, or C, than to know they do exist and are marked on the
city map.”
The coachman drew up before a house which seemed to be familiar both to
him and the blacks, which settled down into a sleepy attitude, quite
unfitting such aristocratic beasts but that indicated their prescience
of a long wait. The Madam was helped from the carriage and had to
pause a moment, as always when she made any physical exertion, before
ascending the steps. Then she passed up them with the ease of a much
younger woman and was promptly admitted.
It was there that disaster fell. Buster had been growing more and
more restive. Jessica’s unfamiliar skirt fretted his delicate skin;
the saddle was not his old one fitting comfortably to his back; this
enforced pacing, pacing, was intolerable to a broncho of spirit; this
standing quiet was more annoying even than the pacing had been; and
when a honking automobile came dashing around the corner of the block,
almost into his very face, he cast one terrified, reproachful glance
into his rider’s eyes and took the bit in his teeth.
Oh! but he traveled then! Ephraim pursuing and using most
objectionable language to the hack he bestrode.
“Oh! you vile beast! Call yourself a horse, do you? well, you don’t
know what a horse is, I tell you! Get up! Get on! _Vamos!_ Speed!
Even old Stiffleg, that deserted me on the streets of Los Angeles,
had more fire in him than you, poor old worn-out New Yorker! _Vamos!_
_V-A-M-O-S!_”
In vain. Jessica had vanished. The broncho, unused to city sights and
sounds, would not be checked nor swerved from the mad course he had
elected to follow. The most she could do was to keep her seat upon his
back and this she managed, even though hampered by that detestable
skirt and that slippery new saddle. Barebacked, without this handicap,
how she would have reveled in that mad ride! even now, knowing that her
Cousin Margaret’s dire displeasure awaited her return, she did revel
in it. Almost she could fancy herself tearing across the plain, where
no obstruction offered and the soft sod was a cushioned pathway for
Buster’s hoofs, and for a moment closing her eyes, she let her fancy
carry her back to Paraiso d’Oro; and Buster--whither he would.
But she opened them again in terror, as a wild scream came from beneath
those hoofs and the broncho was so suddenly checked that he almost
threw her off backward.
The inevitable had happened on that crowded thoroughfare into which he
had now turned. She and he had been ignorantly reckless of consequences
and most untoward consequences had resulted.