BRET HARTE'S 
 WRITINGS 
 
 TALES OF THE ARGONAUTS AND 
 OTHER SKETCHES 
 
 SPECIAL EDITION 
 
 MADE FOR "REVIEW OF REVIEWS'* 
 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 , Cambridge, 
 
rtv. Librory, Univ. Co.if, Sonto Cn* 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1875, By JAMES R. OSGOOD & Co. 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & Co* 
 
 [All Eights Reserved.} 
 
PS 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE . . , . . 1 
 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAK- 
 HURST . . * .41 
 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN . . . .79 
 How OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME . . 105 
 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS ... . . 134 
 
 BABY SYLVESTER 173 
 
 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN . . . .199 
 
 A JERSEY CENTENARIAN . . 274 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 TT was nearly two o'clock in the manning. 
 -*- The lights were out in Robinson s Hall, 
 where there had been dancing and revelry ; and 
 the moon, riding high, painted the black win- 
 dows with silver. The cavalcade, that an hour 
 ago had shocked the sedate pines with song and 
 laughter, were all dispersed. One enamoured 
 swain had ridden east, another west, another 
 north, another south ; and the object of their 
 adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal 
 Ridge, was calmly going to bed. 
 
 1 regret that I am not able to indicate the 
 exact stage of that process. Two chairs were 
 already filled with delicate inwrappings and 
 white confusion; and the young lady herself, 
 half-hidden in the silky threads of her yellow 
 hair, had at one time borne a faint resemblance 
 to a partly-husked ear of Indian corn. But she 
 was now clothed in that one long, formless gar- 
 ment that makes all women equal; and the 
 round shoulders and neat waist, that an hour 
 
2 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNTE. 
 
 ago had been so fatal to the peace of mind of 
 Four Forks, had utterly disappeared. The face 
 above it was very pretty : the foot below, albeit 
 shapely, was not small. " The flowers, as a 
 general thing, don't raise their heads much to 
 look after me," she had said with superb frank- 
 ness to one of her lovers. 
 
 The expression of the "Rose" to-nigtt was 
 contentedly placid. She walked slowly to the 
 window, and, making the smallest possible peep- 
 hole through the curtain, looked out. The 
 motionless figure of a horseman still lingered on 
 the road, with an excess of devotion that only a 
 coquette, or a woman very much in love, could 
 tolerate. The " Rose," at that moment, was 
 neither, and, after a reasonable pause, turned 
 away, saying quite audibly that it was "too 
 ridiculous for any thing." As she came back to 
 her dressing-table, it was noticeable that she 
 walked steadily and erect, without that slight 
 affectation of lameness common to people with 
 whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it 
 was only four years ago, that without shoes or 
 stockings, a long-limbed, colty girl, in a waist- 
 !ess calico gown, she had leaped from the tail- 
 board of her father's emigrant-wagon when it 
 tiist drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild 
 habits of che " Rose " had outlived transplant- 
 ing and cultivation. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 8 
 
 A knock at the door surprised her. In 
 another moment she had leaped into bed, and 
 with darkly-frowning eyes, from its secure 
 recesses demanded " Who's there ? " 
 
 An apologetic murmur on the other side of 
 the door was the response. 
 
 u Why, father ! is that you ? " 
 
 There were further murmurs, affirmative, 
 deprecatory, and persistent. 
 
 " Wait," said the " Rose." She got up, un- 
 locked the door, leaped nimbly into bed again, 
 and said, " Come." 
 
 The door opened timidly. The broad, stoop- 
 ing shoulders, aod grizzled head, of a man past 
 the middle age, appeared: after a moment's 
 hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod 
 with canvas slippers, concluded to follow. When 
 the apparition was complete, it closed the door 
 softly, and stood there, a very shy ghost in- 
 deed, with apparently more than the usual 
 spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. 
 The " Rose " resented this impatiently, though, 
 I fear, not altogether intelligibly. 
 
 " Do, father, I declare ! " 
 
 " You was abed, Jinny," said Mr. McClosky 
 slowly, glancing, with a singular mixture of 
 masculine awe and paternal pride, upon the two 
 ehairs and their contents, " you was abed and 
 wi dressed." 
 
4 THE ROSE OF TTJOLUMNE. 
 
 I was." 
 
 " Surely," said Mr. McClosky, seating liimseli 
 on the extreme edge of the bed, and i&infully 
 tucking his feet away under it, "surely." 
 After a pause, he rubbed a short, thick, stumpy 
 beard, that bore a general resemblance to a 
 badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palm of 
 his hand, and went on, " You had a good time, 
 Jinny?" 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 "They was all there?" 
 
 "Yes, Ranee and York and Ryder and 
 Jack." 
 
 " And Jack ! " Mr. McClosky endeavored to 
 throw an expression of arch inquiry into his 
 small, tremulous eyes ; but meeting the un- 
 abashed, widely-opened lid of his daughter, he 
 winked rapidly, and blushed to the roots of his 
 hair. 
 
 " Yes, Jack was there," said Jenny, without 
 change of color, or the least self-consciousness 
 in her great gray eyes ; " and he came home 
 with me." She paused a moment, locking her 
 two hands under her head, and assuming a more 
 comfortable position on the pillow. " He asked 
 me that same question again, father, and I said, 
 ' Yes.' It's to be soon. We're going to live 
 at Four Forks, in his own house ; and next 
 winter we're going to Sacramento. I suppose 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 5 
 
 K s all right, father, eh ? " She emphasized the 
 question with a slight kick through the bed- 
 clothes, as the parental McClosky had fallen 
 into an abstract revery. 
 
 44 Yes, surely," said Mr. McClosky, recovering 
 himself with some confusion. After a pause, 
 he looked down at the bed-clothes, and, patting 
 them tenderly, continued, " You couldn't have 
 done better, Jinny. They isn't a girl in Tuo- 
 iumne ez could strike it ez rich as you hev 
 even if they got the chance." He paused 
 again, and then said, " Jinny ? " 
 
 44 Yes, father." 
 
 44 You'se in bed, and ondressed ? " 
 
 44 Yes." 
 
 44 You couldn't," said Mr. McClosky, glancing 
 hopelessly at the two chairs, and slowly rubbing 
 his chin, " you couldn't dress yourself again 
 could yer ? " 
 
 "Why, father!" 
 
 44 Kinder get yourself into them things 
 again?" he added hastily. "Not all of 'em, 
 you know, but some of 'em. Not if I helped 
 you' sorter stood by, and lent a hand now 
 and then with a strap, or a buckle, or a necktie, 
 or a shoestring ? " he continued, still looking at 
 the chairs, and evidently trying to boldly famil- 
 iarize himself with their contents. 
 
 44 Are you crazy, father ? " demanded Jenny 
 
5 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 suddenly sitting up with a portentous switcli 
 of her yellow mane. Mr. McClosky rubbed 
 one side of his beard, which already had the 
 appearance of having been quite worn away by 
 that process, and faintly dodged the question. 
 
 " Jinny," he said, tenderly stroking the bed 
 clothes as he spoke, " this yer's what's the 
 matter. Thar is a stranger down stairs, * 
 stranger to you, lovey, but a man ez I've 
 knowed a long time. He's been here about an 
 hour; and he'll be here ontil fower o'clock, 
 when the up-stage passes. Now I wants ye, 
 Jinny dear, to get up and come down stairs, and 
 kinder help me pass the time with him. It's 
 no use, Jinny," he went on, gently raising his 
 hand to deprecate any interruption, " it's no 
 use ! He won't go to bed ; he won't play 
 keerds ; whiskey don't take no effect on him. 
 Ever since I knowed him, he was the most on- 
 satisfactory critter to hev round " 
 
 " What do you have him round for, then ? " 
 interrupted Miss Jinny sharply. 
 
 Mr. McClosky's eyes fell. " Ef he hedn't kem 
 out of his way to-night to do me a good turn, I 
 wouldn't ask ye, Jinny. I wouldn't, so help me ! 
 But I thought, ez I couldn't do any thing with 
 oim, you might come down, and sorter fetch 
 him, Jinny, as you did the others." 
 
 Miss Jenny shrugged her pretty shoulders. 
 
THE ROSE OF TTJOLTJMNE. 
 
 " Is he old, or young ? " 
 
 " He's young enough, Jinny ; but he knows a 
 power of things." 
 
 " What does he do ? " 
 
 " Not much, I reckon. He's got money in the 
 mill at Four Forks. He travels round a good 
 deal. I've heard, Jinny that he's a poet 
 writes them rhymes, you know." Mr. Me- 
 Closky here appealed submissively but directly 
 to his daughter, He remembered that she had 
 frequently been in receipt of printed elegaio 
 couplets known as "mottoes," containing enclos- 
 ures equally saccharine. 
 
 Miss Jenny slightly curled her pretty lip 
 She had that fine contempt for the illusions of 
 fancy which belongs to the perfectly healthy 
 young animal. 
 
 " Not," continued Mr. McClosky, rubbing his 
 head reflectively, " not ez I'd advise ye, Jinny, 
 to say any thing to him about poetry. It ain't 
 twenty minutes ago ez I did. I set the 
 whiskey afore him in the parlor. I wound up 
 the music-box, and set it goin'. Then I sez to 
 him, sociable-like and free, 'Jest consider your- 
 self in your own house, and repeat what you 
 allow to be your finest production,' and he 
 raged. That man, Jinny, jest raged! Thar's 
 no end of the names he called me. You see 
 Jinny," continued Mr. McClosky apologetically 
 * he's known me a long time." 
 
THE KOSB OF TUOLUMNB. 
 
 But his daughter had already dismissed the 
 question with her usual directness. "I'll be 
 down in a few moments, father," she said after 
 a pause, " but don't say any thing to him about 
 it don't say I was abed." 
 
 Mr. McClosky's face beamed. f< You was 
 allers a good girl, Jinny," he said, dropping on 
 one knee the better to imprint a respectful kiss 
 on her forehead. But Jenny caught him by 
 the wrists, and for a moment held him captive. 
 " Father," said she, trying to fix his shy eyes 
 with the clear, steady glance of her own, " all 
 the girls that were there to-night had some one 
 with them. Mame Robinson had her aunt ; 
 Lucy Ranee had her mother ; Kate Pierson had 
 her sister all, except me, had some other 
 woman. Father dear," her lip trembled just a 
 little, " I wish mother hadn't died when I was 
 so small. I wish there was some other woman 
 hi the family besides me. I ain't lonely with 
 you, father dear ; but if there was only some 
 one, you know, when the time comes for John 
 and me " 
 
 Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not 
 her brave eyes, that were still fixed earnestly 
 , pon his face. Mr. McClosky, apparently 
 tracing out a pattern on the bedquilt, essayed 
 Tords of comfort. 
 
 " Thar ain't one of them gals ez you v 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 9 
 
 named, Jinny, ez could do what you've done 
 with a whole Noah's ark of relations at their 
 backs ! Thar ain't one ez wouldn't sacrifice 
 her nearest relation to make the strike that 
 you hev. Ez to mothers, maybe, my dear 
 you're doin' better without one." He rose 
 suddenly, and walked toward the door. When 
 he reached it, he turned, and, in his old depre- 
 cating manner, said, " Don't be long, Jinny," 
 smiled, and vanished from the head downward, 
 his canvas slippers asserting themselves reso- 
 lutely to the last. 
 
 When Mr. McClosky reached his parlor 
 again, his troublesome guest was not there. 
 The decanter stood on the table untouched; 
 three or four books lay upon the floor; a 
 number of photographic views of the Sierras 
 were scattered over the sofa ; two sofa-pillows, 
 a newspaper, and a Mexican blanket, lay on the 
 carpet, as if the late occupant of the room had 
 tried to read in a recumbent position. A 
 French window opening upon a veranda, which 
 never before in the history of the house had 
 been unfastened, now betrayed by its waving 
 lace curtain the way that the fugitive had 
 escaped. Mr. McClosky heaved a sigh of 
 despair. He looked at the gorgeous carpet 
 purchased in Sacramento at a fabulous price, at 
 the crimson satin and rosewood furniture un 
 
10 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 paralleled in the history of Tuolumne, at the 
 massively-framed pictures on the walls, and 
 looked beyond it, through the open window, to 
 the reckless man, who, fleeing these sybaritic 
 allurements, was smoking a cigar upon the 
 moonlit road. This room, which had so often 
 awed the youth of Tuolumne into filial respect, 
 was evidently a failure. It remained to be seen 
 if the "Rose" herself had lost her fragrance. 
 " I reckon Jinny will fetch him yet," said Mr. 
 McClosky with parental faith. 
 
 He stepped from the window upon the 
 veranda ; but he had scarcely done this, before 
 his figure was detected by the stranger, who at 
 once crossed the road. When within a fe\f 
 feet of McClosky, he stopped. " You persistent 
 old plantigrade ! " he said in a low voice, audible 
 only to the person addressed, and a face full of 
 affected anxiety, " why don't you go to bed ? 
 Didn't I tell you to go and leave me here 
 alone ? In the name of all that's idiotic and 
 imbecile, why do you continue to shuffle about 
 here ? Or are you trying to drive me crazy 
 with your presence, as you have with that 
 wretched music-box that I've just dropped 
 under yonder tree ? It's an hour and a half yet 
 before the stage passes : do you think, do you 
 imagine for a single moment, that I can tolerate 
 you until then, eh? Why don't you speak? 
 
THE ROSE OF TTJOLUMNE. 11 
 
 Are you asleep? You don't mean to say that 
 you have the audacity to add somnambulism to 
 your other weaknesses ? you're not low enough 
 to repeat yourself under any such weak pretext 
 as that, eh ? " 
 
 A fit of nervous coughing ended this extraor- 
 dinary exordium ; and half sitting, half leaning 
 against the veranda, Mr. McClosky's guest 
 turned his face, and part of a slight elegant 
 figure, toward his host. The lower portion of 
 this upturned face wore an habitual expression 
 of fastidious discontent, with an occasional line 
 of physical suffering. But the brow above was 
 frank and critical ; and a pair of dark, mirthful 
 eyes, sat in playful judgment over the super- 
 sensitive mouth and its suggestion. 
 
 " I allowed to go to bed, Ridgeway," said Mr. 
 McClosky meekly; "but my girl Jinny's jist 
 got back from a little tear up at Robinson's, and 
 ain't inclined to turn in yet. You know what 
 girls is. So I thought we three would jist have 
 a social chat together to pass away the time." 
 
 "You mendacious old hypocrite! She got 
 Lack an hour ago," said Ridgeway, " as that sav- 
 age-looking escort of hers,, who has been haunt 
 ing the house ever since, can testify. My belief 
 is, that, like an enterprising idiot as you are, 
 you've dragged that girl out of her bed, that wt 
 might mutually bore each other." 
 
12 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 Mr. McClosky was too much stunned by thia 
 evidence of Ridgeway's apparently superhuman 
 penetration to reply. After enjoying his host's 
 confusion for a moment with his eyes, Ridge- 
 way's mouth asked grimly, 
 
 " And who is this girl, anyway ? " 
 
 " Nancy's." 
 
 " Your wife's ? " 
 
 " Yes. But look yar, Ridgeway," said 
 McClosky, laying one hand imploringly on 
 Ridgeway's sleeve, "not a word about her to 
 Jinny. She thinks her mother's dead died in 
 Missouri. Eh ! " 
 
 Ridgeway nearly rolled from the veranda in 
 an excess of rage. " Good God ! Do you 
 mean to say that you have been concealing 
 from her a fact that any day, any moment, may 
 come to her ears? That you've been letting 
 her grow up in ignorance of something that by 
 this tune she might have outgrown and for- 
 gotten ? That you have been, like a besotted 
 old ass, all these years slowly forging a thunder- 
 bolt that any one may crush her with ? That " 
 but here Ridgeway's cough took possession 
 of his voice, and even put a moisture into hia 
 dark eyes, as he looked at McClosky's aimless 
 hand feebly employed upon his beard. 
 
 " But," said McClosky, " look how she's 
 done I She's held her head as high as any of 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 18 
 
 em. She's to be married in a month to the 
 richest man in the county; and," he added 
 cunningly, " Jack Ashe ain't the kind o' man to 
 sit by and hear any thing said of his wife or 
 her relations, you bet ! But hush that's her 
 foot on the stairs. She's cummin'." 
 
 She came. I don't think the French window 
 ever held a finer view than when she put aside 
 the curtains, and stepped out. She had dressed 
 herself simply and hurriedly, but with a 
 woman's knowledge of her best points ; so that 
 you got the long curves of her shapely limbs, 
 the shorter curves of her round waist and 
 shoulders, the long sweep of her yellow braids, 
 the light of her gray eyes, and even the deli- 
 cate rose of her complexion, without knowing 
 how it was delivered to you. 
 
 The introduction by Mr. McClosky was brief. 
 When Ridgeway had got over the fact that it 
 was two o'clock in the morning, and that the 
 p.heek of this Tuolumne goddess nearest him 
 was as dewy and fresh as an infant's, that she 
 looked like Marguerite, without, probably, ever 
 having heard of Goethe's heroine, he talked, I 
 dare say, very sensibly. When Miss Jenny 
 who from her childhood had been brought up 
 among the sons of Anak, and who was accus- 
 tomed to have the supremacy of our noble sex 
 presented to her as a physical fact found her 
 
14 THE ROSE OF TCTOLUMNE. 
 
 self in the presence of a new and strange 
 power in the slight and elegant figure beside 
 her, she was at first frightened and cold. But 
 finding that this power, against which the 
 weapons of her own physical charms were of 
 no avail, was a kindly one, albeit general, she 
 fell to worshipping it, after the fashion of 
 woman, and casting before it the fetishes and 
 other idols of her youth. She even confessed 
 to it. So that, in half an hour, Ridgeway was 
 in possession of all the facts connected with 
 her life, and a great many, I fear, of her fancies 
 - except one. When Mr. McClosky found the 
 young people thus amicably disposed, he calmly 
 went to sleep. 
 
 It was a pleasant time to each. To Miss 
 Jenny it had the charm of novelty; and she 
 abandoned herself to it, for that reason, much 
 more freely and innocently than her companion, 
 who knew something more of the inevitable logic 
 of the position. I do not think, however, he had 
 any intention of love-making. I do not think 
 he was at all conscious of being in the attitude. 
 I am quite positive he would have shrunk from 
 the suggestion of disloyalty to the one woman 
 whom he admitted to himself he loved. But, 
 like most poets, he was much more true to an 
 idea than a fact, and having a very lofty concep- 
 tion of womanhood, with a very sanguine nature. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 15 
 
 he saw in each new face the possibilities of a 
 realization of his ideal. It was, perhaps, an 
 unfortunate thing for the women, particularly as 
 he brought to each trial a surprising freshness, 
 which was very deceptive, and quite distinct 
 from the blasS familiarity of the man of gallantry. 
 It was this perennial virginity of the affections 
 that most endeared him to the best women, 
 who were prone to exercise toward him a chiv- 
 alrous protection, as of one likely to go astray, 
 unless looked after, and indulged in the dan- 
 gerous combination of sentiment with the 
 highest maternal instincts. It was this quality 
 which caused Jenny to recognize in him a 
 certain boyishness that required her womanly 
 care, and even induced her to offer to accom- 
 pany him to the cross-roads when the time for 
 his departure arrived. With her superior 
 knowledge of woodcraft and the locality, she 
 would have kept him from being lost. I wot 
 not but that she would have protected him from 
 bears or wolves, but chiefly, I think, from the 
 feline fascinations of Mame Robinson and Lucy 
 Ranee, who might be lying in wait for this 
 tender young poet. Nor did she cease to be 
 thankful that Providence had, so to speak, 
 delivered him as a trust into her hands. 
 
 It was a lovely night. The moon swung low, 
 Mid languished softly on the snowy ridge 
 
16 THE ROSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 
 
 beyond. There were quaint odors in the still 
 air ; and a strange incense from the woods per- 
 fumed their young blood, and seemed to swoon 
 in their pulses. Small wonder that they lin- 
 gered on the white road, that their feet climbed, 
 unwillingly the little hill where they were to 
 part, and that, when they at last reached it, 
 even the saving grace of speech seemed to have 
 forsaken them. 
 
 For there they stood alone. There was no 
 sound nor motion in earth, or woods, or heaven. 
 They might have been the one man and woman 
 for whom this goodly earth that lay at their 
 feet, rimmed with the deepest azure, was 
 created. And, seeing this, they turned toward 
 each other with a sudden instinct, and their 
 hands met, and then their lips in one long kiss. 
 
 And then out of the mysterious distance 
 came the sound of voices, and the sharp clatter 
 of hoofs and wheels, and Jenny slid away a 
 white moonbeam from the hill. For a mo- 
 ment she glimmered through the trees, and 
 then, reaching the house, passed her sleeping 
 father on the veranda, and, darting into her 
 bedroom, locked the door, threw open the 
 window, and, falling on her knees beside it, 
 leaned her hot cheeks upon her hands, and 
 listened. In a few moments she was rewarded 
 by the sharp clatter of hoofs on the stony poad ; 
 
THE BOSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 17 
 
 but it was only a horseman, whose dark figure 
 was swiftly lost in the shadows of the lower 
 road. At another time she might have recog- 
 nized the man ; but her eyes and ears were now 
 all intent on something else. It came presently 
 with dancing lights, a musical rattle of harness, 
 a cadence of hoof-beats, that set her heart to 
 beating in unison and was gone. A sudden 
 sense of loneliness came over her; and tears 
 gathered in her sweet eyes. 
 
 She arose, and looked around her. There was 
 the little bed, the dressing-table, the roses that 
 she had worn last night, still fresh and bloom- 
 ing in the little vase. Every thing was there : 
 but every thing looked strange. The roses should 
 have been withered, for the party seemed so 
 long ago. She could hardly remember when she 
 had worn this dress that lay upon the chair. 
 So she came back to the window, and sank down 
 beside it, with her cheek a trifle paler, leaning 
 on her hand, and her long braids reaching to 
 the floor. The stars paled slowly, like her 
 cheek; yet with eyes that saw not, she still 
 looked from her window for the coming dawn. 
 
 It came, with violet deepening into purple, 
 with purple flushing into rose, with rose shining 
 into silver, and glowing into gold. The strag- 
 gling line of black picket-fence below, that had 
 Caded away with tha stars, came bark with the 
 
18 THE KOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 sun. What was that object moving by the 
 fence? Jenny raised her head, and looked 
 intently. It was a man endeavoring to climb 
 the pickets, and falling backward with each 
 attempt. Suddenly she started to her feet, as 
 if the rosy flushes of the dawn had crimsoned 
 her from forehead to shoulders ; then she stood, 
 white as the wall, with her hands clasped upon 
 her bosom; then, with a single bound, she 
 reached the door, and, with flying braids and 
 fluttering skirt, sprang down the stairs, and out 
 to the garden walk. When within a few feet 
 of the fence, she uttered a cry, the first she had 
 given, the cry of a mother over her stricken 
 babe, of a tigress over her mangled cub ; and in 
 another moment she had leaped the fence, and 
 knelt beside Ridgeway, with his fainting head 
 upon her breast. 
 
 " My boy, my poor, poor boy ! who has done 
 this?" 
 
 Who, indeed? His clothes were covered 
 with dust ; his waistcoat was torn open ; and 
 his handkerchief, wet with the blood it could 
 not stanch, fell from a cruel stab beneath his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Ridgeway, my poor boy ! tell me what has 
 happened." 
 
 Ridgeway slowly opened his heavy blue* 
 veined lids, and gazed upon her. Presently a 
 
THE HOSE OP TUOLUMNE. 19 
 
 gleam of mischief came into his dark eyes, a 
 smile stole over his lips as he whispered 
 slowly, 
 
 " It was your kiss did it, Jenny dear 
 I had forgotten how high-priced the article 
 wae here. Never mind, Jenny ! " he feebly 
 raised her hand to his white lips, " it was 
 worth it," and fainted away. 
 
 Jenny started to her feet, and looked wildly 
 around her. Then, with a sudden resolution, 
 she stooped over the insensible man, and with 
 one strong effort lifted him in her arms as if 
 he had been a child. When her father, a 
 moment later, rubbed his eyes, and awoke from 
 his sleep upon the veranda, it was to see a 
 goddess, erect and triumphant, striding toward 
 the house with the helpless body of a man 
 lying across that breast where man had never 
 lain before, a goddess, at whose imperious 
 mandate he arose, and cast open the doors be 
 fore her. And then, when she had laid her 
 unconscious burden on the sofa, the goddess 
 fled; and a woman, helpless and trembling, 
 stood before him, a woman that cried out that 
 she had " killed him," that she was " wicked, 
 wicked ! " and that, even saying so, staggered, 
 and fell beside her late burden. And all that 
 Mr. McClosky could do was to feebly rub hia 
 beard, and say to himself vaguely and incohe- 
 rently, that " Jinny had fetched him." 
 
80 THE BOSB OF TTJOLUMNE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BEFORE noon the next day, it was generally 
 believed throughout F)ur Forks that Ridgeway 
 Dent had been attacked and wounded at Chemi- 
 sal Ridge by a highwayman, who fled on the 
 approach of the Wingdam coach. It is to be 
 presumed that this statement met with Ridge* 
 way's approval, as he did not contradict it, nor 
 supplement it with any details. His wound 
 was severe, but not dangerous. After the first 
 excitement had subsided, there was, I think, a 
 prevailing impression common to the provincial 
 mind, that his misfortune was the result of the 
 defective moral quality of his being a stranger, 
 and was, in a vague sort of a way, a warning to 
 others, and a lesson to him. "Did you hear 
 how that San-Francisco feller was took down 
 the other night ? " was the average tone of intro- 
 ductory remark. Indeed, there was a general 
 suggestion that Ridgeway's presence was one 
 that no self-respecting, high-minded highway- 
 man, honorably conservative of the best inter- 
 ests of Tuolumne County, could for a moment 
 tolerate. 
 
 Except for the few words spoken on that 
 eventful morning, Ridgeway was reticent of 
 the past. When Jenny strove to gather 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 21 
 
 details of the affray that might offer a clew to 
 his unknown assailant, a subtle twinkle in his 
 brown eyes was the only response. When Mr. 
 McClosky attempted the same process, the 
 young gentleman threw abusive epithets, and, 
 eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lightei 
 articles within the reach of an invalid, at the 
 head of his questioner. " I think he's coming 
 round, Jinny," said Mr. McClosky: "he laid 
 for me this morning with a candlestick." 
 
 It was about this time that Miss Jenny, 
 having sworn her father to secrecy regarding 
 the manner in which Ridgeway had been 
 carried into the house, conceived the idea of 
 addressing the young man as " Mr. Dent," and 
 of apologizing for intruding whenever she 
 entered the room in the discharge of her house- 
 hold duties. It was about this time that she 
 became more rigidly conscientious to those 
 duties, and less general in her attentions. It 
 was at this time that the quality of the invalid's 
 diet improved, and that she consulted him less 
 frequently about it. It was about this time 
 that she began to see more company, that the 
 house was greatly frequented by her former 
 admirers, with whom she rode, walked, and 
 Danced. It was at about this time also, and 
 when Ridgeway was able to be brought out on 
 fcHe veranda in a chair, that, with great archness 
 
22 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 of manner, she introduced to him Miss Lucy 
 Ashe, the sister of her betrothed, a flashing 
 brunette, and terrible heart-breaker of Four 
 Forks. And, in the midst of this gayety, she 
 concluded that she would spend a week with 
 the Robinsons, to whom she owed a visit. She 
 enjoyed herself greatly there, so much, indeed, 
 that she became quite hollow-eyed, the result, 
 as she explained to her father, of a too frequent 
 indulgence in festivity. "You see, father, I 
 won't have many chances after John and I are 
 married : you know how queer he is, and I must 
 make the most of my time ; " and she laughed 
 an odd little laugh, which had lately become 
 habitual to her. "And how is Mr. Dent 
 getting on ? " Her father replied that he was 
 getting on very well indeed, so well, in fact, 
 that he was able to leave for San Francisco two 
 days ago. " He wanted to be remembered tc- 
 you, Jinny, ' remembered kindly,' yes, they 
 is the very words he used," said Mr. McClosky, 
 looking down, and consulting one of his large 
 shoes for corroboration. Miss Jenny was glad 
 to hear that he was so much better. Miss 
 Jenny could not imagine any thing that pleased 
 her more than to know that he was so strong as 
 to be able to rejoin his friends again, who must 
 'ove him so much, and be so anxious about him. 
 Her father thought she would be pleased, and> 
 
THE KOSE OP TUOTJJMNE. 23 
 
 now that he was gone, there was really no neces- 
 sity for her to hurry back. Miss Jenny, in a 
 high metallic voice, did not know that she had 
 expressed any desire to stay, still if her pres- 
 ence had become distasteful at home, if her 
 own father was desirous of getting rid of her 
 if, when she was so soon to leave his roof for 
 ever, he still begrudged her those few days re- 
 maining, if " My God, Jinny, so help me ! " 
 said Mr. McClosky, clutching despairingly at 
 his beard, " I didn't go for to say any thing of 
 the kind. I thought that you" "Never 
 mind, father," interrupted Jenny magnani- 
 mously, " you misunderstood me : of course 
 you did, you couldn't help it you're a MAN I " 
 Mr. McClosky, sorely crushed, would have 
 vaguely protested; but his daughter, having 
 relieved herself, after the manner of her sex, 
 with a mental personal application of an 
 abstract statement, forgave him with a kiss. 
 
 Nevertheless, for two or three days after her 
 return, Mr. McClosky followed his daughter 
 about the house with yearning eyes, and occa- 
 sionally with timid, diffident feet. Sometimes 
 he came upon her suddenly at her household 
 tasks, with an excuse so palpably fahe, and a 
 careless manner so outrageously studied, that 
 she was fain to be embarrassed for him. Later, 
 he took to rambling about the house at night, 
 
24 THE ROSE OF TUOLTTMNE, 
 
 and was often seen noiselessly passing and 
 repassing through the hall after she had retired. 
 On one occasion, he was surprised, first by sleep, 
 and then by the early-rising Jenny, as he lay on 
 the rug outside her chamber-door. "You 
 treat me like a child, father," said Jenny. " I 
 thought, Jinny," said the father apologetically, 
 " I thought I heard sounds as if you was takin* 
 on inside, and, listenin' I fell asleep." "You 
 dear, old simple-minded baby ! " said Jenny, look- 
 ing past her father's eyes, and lifting his griz- 
 zled locks one by one with meditative fingers : 
 "what should I be takin' on for? Look how 
 much taller I am than you ! " she said, suddenly 
 lifting herself up to the extreme of her superb 
 figure. Then rubbing his head rapidly with 
 both hands, as if she were anointing his hair 
 with some rare unguent, she patted him on the 
 back, and returned to her room. The result of 
 this and one or two other equally sympathetic 
 interviews was to produce a change in Mr. 
 McClosky's manner, which was, if possible^ 
 still more discomposing. He grew unjustifiably 
 hilarious, cracked jokes with the servants, and 
 repeated to Jenny humorous stories, with the 
 attitude of facetiousness carefully preserved 
 throughout the entire narration, and the point 
 utterly ignored and forgotten. Certain inci- 
 dents reminded him of funny things, which 
 
THE ROSE OP TUOLTJMNE. 25 
 
 invariably turned out to have not the slight 
 st relevancy or application. He occasionally 
 brought home with him practical humorists, 
 with a sanguine hope of setting them going, 
 like the music-box, for his daughter's edifica- 
 tion. He essayed the singing of melodies with 
 great freedom of style, and singular limitation 
 of note. He sang " Come haste to the Wed- 
 ding, Ye Lasses and Maidens," of which he 
 knew a single line, and that incorrectly, as 
 being peculiarly apt and appropriate. Yet 
 away from the house and his daughter's pres 
 ence, he was silent and distraught. His absence 
 of mind was particularly noted by his workmen 
 at the Empire Quartz Mill. "Ef the old 
 man don't look out and wake up," said his fore- 
 man, " he'll hev them feet of his yet under the 
 stamps. When he ain't givin' his mind to 'em, 
 they is altogether too promiskuss." 
 
 A few nights later, Miss Jenny recognized 
 her father's hand in a timid tap at the door. 
 She opened it, and he stood before her, with 
 a valise in his hand, equipped as for a journey. 
 " I takes the stage to-night, Jinny dear, from 
 Four Forks to 'Frisco. Maybe I may drop io 
 on Jack afore I go. I'll be back in a week. 
 Good-by." 
 
 " Good-by." He still held her hand. Pres- 
 tntiy he drew her back into the room, closing 
 
26 THE ROSE OF TTJOLUMNE. 
 
 the door carefully, and glancing around. There 
 was a look of profound cunning in his eye as 
 he said slowly, 
 
 " Bear up, and keep dark, Jinny dear, and 
 trust to the old man. Various men has various 
 ways. Thar is ways as is common, and ways as 
 is uncommon ; ways as is easy, and ways as is 
 oneasy. Bear up, and keep dark." With this 
 Delphic utterance he put his finger to his lips, 
 and vanished. 
 
 It was ten o'clock when he reached Four 
 Forks. A few minutes later, he stood on the 
 threshold of that dwelling described by the 
 Four Forks " Sentinel " as " the palatial resi- 
 dence of John Ashe," and known to the local 
 satirist as the " ash-box." " Hevin' to lay by 
 two hours, John," he said to his prospective 
 son-in-law, as he took his hand at the door, 
 ' a few words of social converse, not on busi- 
 ness, but strictly private, seems to be about as 
 nat'ral a thing as a man can do." This intro- 
 duction, evidently the result of some study, and 
 plainly committed to memory, seemed so satis- 
 factory to Mr. McClosky, that he repeated it 
 again, after John Ashe had led him into his 
 private office, where, depositing his valise in 
 the middle of the floor, and sitting down before 
 it, he began carefully to avoid the eye of his 
 host. John Ashe, a tall, dark, handsome Ken 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 27 
 
 cuckian, with whom even the trifles of life 
 were evidently full of serious import, waited 
 with a kind of chivalrous respect the further 
 Bpeech of his guest. Being utterly devoid of 
 any sense of the ridiculous, he always accepted 
 Mr. McClosky as a grave fact, singular only 
 from his own want of experience of the class. 
 
 " Ores is running light now," said Mr. Mc- 
 Closky with easy indifference. 
 
 John Ashe returned that he had noticed the 
 same fact in the receipts of the mill at Four 
 Forks. 
 
 Mr. McClosky rubbed his beard, and looked 
 at his valise, as if for sympathy and sugges- 
 tion. 
 
 "You don't reckon on having any trouble 
 with any of them chaps as you cut out with 
 Jinny?" 
 
 John Ashe, rather haughtily, had never 
 thought of that. " I saw Ranee hanging round 
 your house the other night, when I took your 
 daughter home ; but he gave me a wide berth," 
 he added carelessly. 
 
 " Su-ely," said Mr. McClosky, with a pecu- 
 liar winking of the eye. After a pause, he took 
 a fresh departure from his valise. 
 
 " A few words, J jhn, ez between man and 
 man, ez between my daughter's father and her 
 husband who expects to be, is about the thing, 
 
28 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 I take it, as is fair and square. I kem here U 
 say them. They're about Jinny, my gal." 
 
 Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. Mo 
 Closky's evident discomposure. 
 
 "Maybe I should have said about her 
 mother ; but, the same bein' a stranger to you, 
 I says naterally, ' Jinny.' " 
 
 Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. McClosky, 
 with his eyes on his valise, went on, 
 
 " It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. 
 McClosky in the State of Missouri. She let on, 
 at the time, to be a widder, a widder with one 
 child. When I say let on, I mean to imply 
 that I subsekently found out that she was not a 
 widder, nor a wife ; and the father of the child 
 was, so to speak, onbeknowst. Thet child was 
 Jinny my gal." 
 
 With his eyes on his valise, and quietly 
 ignoring the wholly-crimsoned face and swiftly 
 darkening brow of his host, he continued, 
 
 "Many little things sorter tended to make 
 our home in Missouri onpleasant. A disposi- 
 tion to smash furniture, and heave knives 
 around ; an inclination to howl when drunk, 
 and that frequent; a habitooal use of vulgar 
 language, and a tendency to cuss the casooaJ 
 visitor, seemed to pint," added Mr. Mc- 
 Closky with submissive hesitation "that she 
 , waa so to speak quite onsuited to the 
 marriage relation in its holiest aspeck." 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLTJMNE. 29 
 
 "Damnation! Why didn't" burst out 
 John Ashe, erect and furious. 
 
 "At the end of two year," continued Mr. 
 McClosky, still intent on the valise, " I allowed 
 I'd get a diworce. Et about thet time, how- 
 ever, Providence sends a circus into thet town, 
 and a feller ez rode three horses to onct. Hev- 
 in' allez a taste for athletic sports, she left town 
 with this feller, leavin' me and Jinny behind. 
 I sent word to her, thet, if she would give Jinny 
 to me, we'd call it quits. And she did." 
 
 " Tell me," gasped Ashe, " did you ask your 
 daughter to keep this from me ? or did she do it 
 of her own accord ? " 
 
 " She doesn't know it," said Mr. McClosky. 
 " She thinks I'm her father, and that her 
 mother's dead." 
 
 " Then, sir, this is your " 
 
 " I don't know," said Mr. McClosky slowly, 
 " ez I've asked any one to marry my Jinny. I 
 don't know ez I've persood that ez a biziness, or 
 even taken it up as a healthful recreation." 
 
 John Ashe paced the room furiously. Mr. 
 McClosky's eyes left the valise, and followed 
 him curiously. "Where is this woman?" de- 
 manded Ashe suddenly. McClosky's eyes 
 sought the valise again. 
 
 " She went to Kansas ; from Kansas she went 
 Into Texas : from Texas she eventooally came 
 
30 THE EOSE OP TUOLUMNE. 
 
 to Califomy. Being here, I've purvided hei 
 with money, when her business was slack, 
 through a friend." 
 
 John Ashe groaned. " She's gettin' rather 
 old and shaky for hosses, and now does the 
 tight-rope business and flying trapeze. Never 
 hevin' seen her perform," continued Mr. Mo- 
 Closky with conscientious caution, " I can't say 
 how she gets on. On the bills she looks well. 
 Thar is a poster, " said Mr. McClosky glan- 
 cing at Ashe, and opening his valise, " thar is 
 a poster givin' her performance at Marysville 
 next month." Mr. McClosky slowly unfolded 
 a large yellow-and-blue printed poster, pro- 
 fusely illustrated. " She calls herself ' Mam- 
 s'elle J. Miglawski, the great Russian Tra- 
 peziste.' " 
 
 John Ashe tore it from his hand. " Of 
 course," he said, suddenly facing Mr. McClosky, 
 " you don't expect me to go on with this ? " 
 
 Mr. McClosky took up the poster, carefully 
 refolded it, and returned it to his valise. 
 "When you break off with Jinny," he said 
 quietly, " I don't want any thing said 'bout 
 this. She doesn't know it. She's a woman, 
 and I reckon you're a white man." 
 
 " But what am I to say ? How am I to go 
 back of my word ? " 
 
 " Write her a note. Say something hez coma 
 
THE EOSB OF TUOLUMNB. 81 
 
 to your knowledge (don't say what) that makea 
 you break it off. You needn't be afeard Jinny'll 
 ever ask you what." 
 
 John Ashe hesitated. He felt he had been 
 cruelly wronged. No gentleman, no Ashe, 
 could go on further in this affair. It was pre- 
 posterous to think of it. But somehow he felt 
 at the moment very unlike a gentleman, or an 
 Ashe, and was quite sure he should break down 
 under Jenny's steady eyes. But then he 
 could write to her. 
 
 " So ores is about as light here as on the 
 Ridge. Well, I reckon they'll come up before 
 the rains. Good-night." Mr. McClosky took 
 the hand that his host mechanically extended, 
 shook it gravely, and was gone. 
 
 When Mr. McClosky, a week later, stepped 
 again upon his own veranda, he saw through 
 the French window the figure of a man in his 
 parlor. Under his hospitable roof, the sight was 
 not unusual ; but, for an instant, a subtle sense 
 of disappointment thrilled him. When he saw 
 it was not the face of Ashe turned toward him, 
 he was relieved ; but when he saw the tawny 
 beard, and quick, passionate eyes of Henry 
 Ranee, he felt a new sense of apprehension, so 
 that he fell to rubbing his beard almost upon 
 his very threshold. 
 
82 THE ROSE OP TUOLUMNE. 
 
 Jenny ran into the hall, and seized hei 
 father with a little cry of joy. " Father," said 
 Jenny in a hurried whisper, " don't mind him," 
 indicating Ranee with a toss of her yellow 
 braids : " he's going soon. And I think, father, 
 I've done him wrong. But it's all over with 
 John and me now. Read that note, and see 
 how he's insulted me." Her lip quivered ; but 
 she went on, " It's Ridgeway that he means, 
 father ; and I believe it was his hand struck 
 Ridgeway down, or that he knows who did. 
 But hush now ! not a word." 
 
 She gave him a feverish kiss, and glided back 
 into the parlor, leaving Mr. McClosky, perplexed 
 and irresolute, with the note in his hand. He 
 glanced at it hurriedly, and saw that it was 
 couched in almost the very words he had sug- 
 gested. But a sudden, apprehensive recollec- 
 tion came over him. He listened ; and, with an 
 exclamation of dismay, he seized his hat, and 
 ran out of the house, but too late. At the 
 ame moment a quick, nervous footstep was 
 heard upon the veranda ; the French window 
 flew open, and, with a light laugh of greeting, 
 Ridgeway stepped into the room. 
 
 Jenny's finer ear first caught the step. Jen- 
 ny's swifter feelings had sounded the depths of 
 hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the 
 oom. Jenny's pale face was the only one that 
 
THE BOSB OF TTJOLUMNB. 83 
 
 met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when he 
 Btood before them. An angry flush suffused 
 even the pink roots of Ranee's beard as he rose 
 to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridge- 
 way's eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn 
 passed over the lower part of his face, and left 
 the mouth and jaw immobile and rigid. 
 
 Yet he was the first to speak. " I owe you an 
 apology," he said to Jenny, with a suave scorn 
 that brought the indignant blood back to her 
 cheek, " for this intrusion ; but I ask no pardon 
 for withdrawing from the only spot where that 
 man dare confront me with safety." 
 
 With an exclamation of rage, Ranee sprang 
 toward him. But as quickly Jenny stood be- 
 tween them, erect and menacing. " There must 
 be no quarrel here," she said to Ranee. " While 
 I protect your right as my guest, don't oblige 
 me to remind you of mine as your hostess." 
 She turned with a half-deprecatory air to Ridge- 
 way; but he was gone. So was her father. 
 Only Ranee remained with a look of ill-con- 
 cealed triumph on his face. 
 
 Without looking at him, she passed toward 
 the door. When she reached it, she turned. 
 44 You asked me a question an hour ago. Come 
 to me in the garden, at nine o'clock to-night, 
 End I will answer you. But premise me, first, 
 to keep away from Mr. Dent. Give me your 
 
54 THE BOSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 word not to seek him to avoid him, if he 
 seeks you. Do you promise ? It is well." 
 
 He would have taken her hand; but she 
 waved him away. In another moment he heard 
 the swift rustle of her dress in the hall, the 
 sound of her feet upon the stair, the sharp 
 closing of her bedroom door, and all was quiet. 
 
 And even thus quietly the day wore away ; 
 and the night rose slowly from the valley, and 
 overshadowed the mountains with purple wings 
 that fanned the still air into a breeze, until the 
 moon followed it, and lulled every thing to rest 
 as with the laying-on of white and benedictory 
 hands. It was a lovely night ; but Henry Ranee, 
 waiting impatiently beneath a sycamore at the 
 foot of the garden, saw no beauty in earth or 
 air or sky. A thousand suspicions common to a 
 jealous nature, a vague superstition of the spot, 
 filled his mind with distrust and doubt. " If 
 this should be a trick to keep my hands off that 
 insolent pup ! " he muttered. But, even as the 
 thought passed his tongue, a white figure slid 
 from the shrubbery near the house, glided along 
 the line of picket-fence, and then stopped, mid- 
 way, motionless in the moonlight. 
 
 It was she. But he scarcely recognized her 
 in the white drapery that covered her head and 
 shoulders and breast. He approached her with 
 a hurried whisper. " Let us withdraw from the 
 moonlight. Everybody can see us here." 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMKE. 86 
 
 " We have nothing to say that cannot be said 
 in the moonlight, Henry Ranee," she replied, 
 coldly receding from his proffered hand. She 
 trembled for a moment, as if with a chill, and 
 then suddenly turned upon him. " Hold up 
 your head, and let me look at you ! I' ve known 
 only what men are : let me see what a traitcr 
 looks like ! " 
 
 He recoiled more from her wild face than her 
 words. He saw from the first that her hollow 
 cheeks and hollow eyes were blazing with fever. 
 He was no coward ; but he would have fled. 
 
 " You are ill, Jenny," he said : " you had best 
 return to the house. Another time " 
 
 " Stop ! " she cried hoarsely. " Move from 
 this spot, and I'll call for help ! Attempt to 
 leave me now, and I'll proclaim you the assas- 
 sin that you are ! " 
 
 " It was a fair fight," he said doggedly. 
 
 " Was it a fair fight to creep behind an un 
 armed and unsuspecting man ? Was it a fair 
 fight to try to throw suspicion on some one else ? 
 Was it a fair fight to deceive me ? Liar and 
 \ : ward that you are ! " 
 
 He made a stealthy step toward her with evil 
 eyes, and a wickeder hand that crept within his 
 breast. She saw the motion ; but it only stung 
 her to newer fury. 
 
 " Strike I " she said with blazing eyes, throw 
 
36 THE HOSE OP TUOLUMNE. 
 
 ing hei hands open before him. " Strike ! Are 
 you afraid of the woman who dares you ? Or 
 do you keep your knife for the backs of unsus- 
 pecting men ? Strike, I tell you ! No ? Look, 
 then ! " With a sudden movement, she tore 
 from her head and shoulders the thick lace 
 shawl that had concealed her figure, and stood 
 before him. " Look ! " she cried passionately, 
 pointing to the bosom and shoulders of her 
 white dress, darkly streaked with faded stains 
 and ominous discoloration, " look I This is 
 the dress I wore that morning when I found 
 him lying here, here, bleeding from your 
 cowardly knife. Look ! Do you see ? This is his 
 blood, my darling boy's blood ! one drop of 
 which, dead and faded as it is, is more precious 
 to me than the whole living pulse of any other 
 man. Look ! I come to you to-night, chris- 
 tened with his blood, and dare you to strike, 
 dare you to strike him again through me, and 
 mingle my blood with his. Strike, I implore 
 you ! Strike I if you have any pity on me, for 
 God's sake I Strike ! if you are a man ! Look ! 
 Here lay his head on my shoulder ; here I held 
 him to my breast, where never so help me my 
 God ! another man Ah I " 
 
 She reeled against the fence, and something 
 that had flashed in Ranee's hand dropped at her 
 feet; for another flash and report rolled him 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 87 
 
 ver in the dust : and across his writhing bod^ 
 two men strode, and caught her ere she fell. 
 
 44 She has only fainted," said Mr. McClosky 
 M Jinny dear, my girl, speak to me ! " 
 
 44 What is this on her dress ? " said Ridge way 
 kneeling beside her, and lifting his set and col 
 orless face. At the sound of his voice, the coloi 
 came faintly back to her cheek : she opened he* 
 eyes, and smiled. 
 
 44 It's only your blood, dear boy," she said. 
 44 but look a little deeper, and you'll find my 
 own." 
 
 She put up her two yearning hands, and drew 
 his face and lips down to her own. When 
 Ridgeway raised his head again, her eyes were 
 closed ; but her mouth still smiled as with the 
 memory of a kiss. 
 
 They bore her to the house, still breathing, 
 but unconscious. That night the road was filled 
 with clattering horsemen; and the summoned 
 skill of the countryside for leagues away 
 gathered at her couch. The wound, they 
 said, was not essentially dangerous; but they 
 had grave fears of the shock to a system that 
 already seemed suffering from some strange and 
 unaccountable nervous exhaustion. The best 
 medical skill of Tuslumne happened to be young 
 and observing, and waited patiently an oppor- 
 tunity to account for it. He was presently 
 rewarded. 
 
88 THE ROSE OF TTJOLUMNE. 
 
 For toward morning she rallied, and looked 
 feebly around. Then she beckoned her father 
 toward her, and whispered, " Where is he ? " 
 
 " They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart. 
 He won't trouble you agin." He stopped; for 
 Miss Jenny had raised herself on her elbow, and 
 was levelling her black brows at him. But two 
 kicks from the young surgeon, and a significant 
 motion towards the door, sent Mr. McClosky 
 away muttering. " How should I know that 
 'he' meant Ridge way?" he said apologetically, 
 as he went and returned with the young gentle 
 man. The surgeon, who was still holding her 
 pulse, smiled, and thought that with a little 
 care and attention the stimulants might 
 be diminished and he might leave 
 the patient for some hours with perfect safety. 
 He would give further directions to Mr. 
 McClosky down stairs. 
 
 It was with great archness of manner, that, 
 half an hour later, Mr. McClosky entered the 
 room with a preparatory cough ; and it was with 
 some disappointment that he found Ridgeway 
 standing quietly by the window, and his daugh- 
 ter apparently fallen into a light doze. He was 
 atill more concerned, when, after Ridgeway had 
 retired, noticing a pleasant smile playing about 
 ter lips, he said softly 
 
 " You was thinking of some one, Jinny? " 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 89 
 
 * Yes, father," the gray eyes met his steadi- 
 ly, " of poor John Ashe ! " 
 
 Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had 
 Beerned to stand jealously aloof from her in her 
 mental anguish, was kind to the physical hurt 
 of her favorite child. The suberb physique, 
 which had been her charm and her trial, now 
 stood her in good stead. The healing balsam of 
 the pine, the balm of resinous gums, and the 
 rare medicaments of Sierran altitudss, touched 
 her as it might have touched the wounded doe ; 
 so that in two weeks she was able to walk about. 
 And when, at the end of the month, Ridgeway 
 returned from a flying visit to San Francisco, 
 and jumped from the Wingdam coach at four 
 o'clock in the morning, the Rose of Tuolumne, 
 with the dewy petals of either cheek fresh as 
 when first unfolded to his kiss, confronted him 
 on the road. 
 
 With a common instinct, their young feet both 
 climbed the little hill now sacred to their 
 thought. When they reached its summit, they 
 Were both, I think, a little disappointed. 
 There is a fragrance in the unfolding of a pas- 
 sion, that escapes the perfect flower. Jenny 
 thought the night was not as beautiful; Ridge- 
 ^vay, that the long ride had blunted his percep- 
 tions. But they had the frankness to confess it 
 to each other, with the rare delight of such a 
 
40 THE ROSE OP TTJOLUMNE. 
 
 confession, and the comparison of details which 
 they thought each had forgotten. And with 
 this, and an occasional pitying reference to the 
 blank period when they had not known each 
 other, hand in hand they reached the house. 
 
 Mr. McClosky was awaiting them impatiently 
 upon the veranda. When Miss Jenny had 
 slipped up stairs to replace a collar that stood 
 somewhat suspiciously awry, Mr. McClosky 
 drew Ridgeway solemnly aside. He held a 
 large theatre poster in one hand, and an open 
 newspaper in the other. 
 
 " I allus said," he remarked slowly, with the 
 air of merely renewing a suspended conversation, 
 "I allus said that riding three horses to onct 
 wasn't exactly in her line. It would seem that 
 it ain't. From remarks in this yer paper, it 
 would appear that she tried it on at Marysville 
 last week, and broke her neck." 
 
A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. 
 JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 HE always thought it must have been fate. 
 Certainly nothing could have been more 
 inconsistent with his habits than to have been 
 in the Plaza at seven o'clock of that midsummer 
 morning. The sight of his colorless face in 
 Sacramento was rare at that season, and, indeed, 
 at any season, anywhere publicly, before two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. Looking back upon it 
 in after-years in the light of a chanceful life, he 
 determined, with the characteristic philosophy 
 of his profession, that it must have been fate. 
 
 Yet it is my duty, as a strict chronicler of 
 facts, to state that Mr. Oakhurst's presence 
 there that morning was due to a very simple 
 cause. At exactly half-past six, the bank being 
 then a winner to the amount of twenty thou- 
 sand dollars, he had risen from the faro-table, 
 relinquished his seat to an accomplished assist- 
 ant, and withdrawn quietly, without attracting 
 a glance from the silent, anxious faces bowed 
 aver the table. But when he entered his lux 
 
 41 
 
42 MB. JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 urious sleeping-room, across the passage-way, 
 he was a little shocked at finding the sun stream- 
 ing through an inadvertently opened window. 
 Something in the rare beauty of the morning, 
 perhaps something in the novelty of the idea, 
 struck him as he was about to close the blinds ; 
 and he hesitated. Then, taking his hat from 
 the table* he stepped down a private staircase 
 into the street. 
 
 The people who were abroad at that early 
 hour were of a class quite unknown to Mr. Oak- 
 hurst. There were milkmen and hucksters de- 
 livering their wares, small tradespeople opening 
 their shops, housemaids sweeping doorsteps, 
 and occasionally a child. These Mr. Oakhurst 
 regarded with a certain cold curiosity, perhaps 
 quite free from the cynical disfavor with which 
 he generally looked upon the more pretentious 
 of his race whom he was in the habit of meeting. 
 Indeed, I think he was not altogether displeased 
 with the admiring glances which these humble 
 women threw after his handsome face and figure, 
 conspicuous even in a country of fine-looking 
 men. While it is very probable that this 
 wicked vagabond, in the pride of his social iso- 
 lation, would have been coldly indifferent to the 
 advances of a fine lady, a little girl who ran ad- 
 miringly by his side in a ragged dress had the 
 power to call a faint flush into his colorlesf 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHTJKST. 43 
 
 cheek. He dismissed her at last, but not until 
 she had found out what, sooner or later, her 
 large-hearted and discriminating sex inevitably 
 did that he was exceedingly free and open- 
 handed with his money, and also what* 
 perhaps, none other of her sex ever did that 
 the bold black eyes of this fine gentleman were 
 in reality of a brownish and even tender gray. 
 
 There was a small garden before a white 
 cottage in a side-street, that attracted Mr. 
 Oakhurst's attention. It was filled with roses, 
 heliotrope, and verbena, flowers familiar 
 enough to him in the expensive and more por- 
 table form of bouquets, but, as it seemed to him 
 then, never before so notably lovely. Perhaps it 
 was because the dew was yet fresh upon them ; 
 perhaps it was because they were unplucked: 
 but Mr. Oakhurst admired them not as a 
 possible future tribute to the fascinating and 
 accomplished Miss Ethelinda, then performing 
 at the Varieties, for Mr. Oakhurst's especial ben- 
 efit, as she had often assured him ; nor yet as a 
 douceur to the inthralling Miss Montmorrissy, 
 with whom Mr. Oakhurst expected to sup that 
 evening ; but simply for himself, and, mayhap, 
 for the flowers' sake. Howbeit he passed on, 
 and so out into the open Plaza, where, finding a 
 bench under a cottonwood-tree, he first dusted 
 the seat with his handkerchief, and then sat 
 down. 
 
44 MR. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 
 
 It was a fine morning. The air was so still 
 and calm, that a sigh from the sycamores seemed 
 like the deep-drawn breath of the just awaken- 
 ing tree, and the faint rustle of its boughs aa 
 the outstretching of cramped and reviving limbs. 
 Far away the Sierras stood out against a sky 
 so remote as to be of no positive color, so re- 
 mote, that even the sun despaired of ever reach- 
 ing it, and so expended its strength recklessly 
 on the whole landscape, until it fairly glittered 
 in a white and vivid contrast. With a very 
 rare impulse, Mr. Oakhurst took off his hat, 
 and half reclined on the bench, with his face to 
 the sky. Certain birds who had taken a critical 
 attitude on a spray above him, apparently began 
 an animated discussion regarding his possible 
 malevolent intentions. One or two, emboldened 
 by the silence, hopped on the ground at his feet, 
 until the sound of wheels on the gravel-walk 
 frightened them away. 
 
 Looking up, he saw a man coming slowly 
 toward him, wheeling a nondescript vehicle, in 
 which a woman was partly sitting, partly reclin- 
 ing. Without knowing why, Mr. Oakhurst 
 instantly conceived that the carriage was the 
 invention and workmanship of the man, partly 
 from its oddity, partly from the strong, mechan- 
 ical hand that grasped it, and partly from a 
 certain pride and visible consciousness in the 
 
ME. JOHN OAKHUBST. 46 
 
 manner in which the man handled it. Then 
 Mr. Oakhurst saw something more: the man's 
 face was familiar. With that regal faculty of 
 not forgetting a face that had ever given him 
 professional audience, he instantly classified it 
 under the following mental formula: "At 
 'Frisco, Polka Saloon. Lost his week's wages. 
 I reckon seventy dollars on red. Never 
 came again." There was, however, no trace of 
 this in the calm eyes and unmoved face that 
 he turned upon the stranger, who, on the con- 
 trary, blushed, looked embarrassed, hesitated 
 and then stopped with an involuntary motion 
 that brought the carriage and its fair occupant 
 face to face with Mr. Oakhurst. 
 
 I should hardly do justice to the position she 
 will occupy in this veracious chronicle by de- 
 scribing the lady now, if, indeed, I am able to 
 do it at all. Certainly the popular estimate 
 was conflicting. The late Col. Starbottle to 
 whose large experience of a charming sex I have 
 oefore been indebted for many valuable sugges- 
 tions had, I regret to say, depreciated her fas- 
 cinations. "A yellow-faced cripple, by dash! 
 a sick woman, with mahogany eyes ; one of your 
 blanked spiritual creatures with no flesh on 
 her bones." Ou the other hand, however, she 
 enjoyed later much complimentary disparage- 
 ment from her own sex. Miss Celestina Howard, 
 
46 MB. JOH OAKHUBST. 
 
 second leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had, 
 with great alliterative directness, in after-years, 
 denominated her as an " aquiline asp." Mile. 
 Brimborion remembered that she had always 
 warned " Mr. Jack " that this woman would 
 "empoison" him. But Mr. Oakhurst, whose 
 impressions are perhaps the most important, 
 only saw a pale, thin, deep-eyed woman, raised 
 above the level of her companion by the refine- 
 ment of long suffering and isolation, and a 
 certain shy virginity of manner. There was a 
 suggestion of physical purity in the folds of her 
 fresh-looking robe, and a certain picturesque 
 tastefulness in the details, that, without know- 
 ing why, made him think that the robe was her 
 invention and handiwork, even as the carriage 
 she occupied was evidently the work of her 
 companion. Her own hand, a trifle too thin, 
 but well-shaped, subtle-fingered, and gentle- 
 womanly, rested on the side of the carriage, the 
 counterpart of the strong mechanical grasp of 
 her companion's. 
 
 There was some obstruction to the progress 
 af the vehicle; and Mr. Oakhurst stepped for- 
 ward to assist. While the wheel was being 
 lifted over the curbstone, it was necessary that 
 uhe should hold his arm ; and for a moment hei 
 thin hand rested there, light and cold as a snow- 
 flake, and then, as it seemed to him, like a 
 
MR. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 47 
 
 Bnow-flake melted away. Then there was a 
 pause, and then conversation, the lady joining 
 occasionally and shyly. 
 
 It appeared that they were man and wife; 
 that for the past two years she had been a great 
 invalid, and had lost the use of her lower limbs 
 from rheumatism; that until lately she had 
 been confined to her bed, until her husband 
 who was a master-carpenter had bethought 
 himself to make her this carriage. lie took her 
 out regularly for an airing before going to work, 
 because it was his only time, and they attracted 
 less attention. They had tried many doctors, 
 but without avail. They had been advised to 
 go to the Sulphur Springs ; but it was expensive. 
 Mr. Decker, the husband, had once saved eighty 
 dollars for that purpose, but while in San Fran- 
 cisco had his pocket picked Mr Decker was so 
 senseless ! (The intelligent reader need not be 
 told that it is the lady who is speaking.) They 
 had never been able to make up the sum again, 
 and they had given up the idea. It was a dread- 
 ful thing to have one's pocket picked. Did he 
 not think so ? 
 
 Her husband's face was crimson; but Mr. 
 OaLhurst's countenance was quite calm and 
 unmoved, as he gravely agreed with her, and 
 walked by her side until they passed the little 
 garden that he had admired. Here Mr. Oak- 
 
48 MB. JOHN OAKHTJKST. 
 
 hurst commanded a halt, and, going to the door, 
 astounded the proprietor by a preposterously 
 extravagant offer for a choice of the flowers. 
 Presently he returned to the carriage with his 
 arms full of roses, heliotrope, and verbena, and 
 cast them in the lap of the invalid. While she 
 was bending over them with childish delight, 
 Mr. Oakhurst took the opportunity of drawing 
 her husband aside. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said in a low voice, and a 
 manner quite free from any personal annoyance, 
 " perhaps it's just as well that you lied to her 
 as you did. You can say now that the pick- 
 pocket was arrested the other day, and you got 
 your money back." Mr. Oakhurst quietly 
 slipped four twenty-dollar gold-pieces into the 
 broad hand of the bewildered Mr. Decker. 
 "Say that or any thing you like but the 
 truth. Promise me you won't say that." 
 
 The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly 
 returned to the front of the little carriage. 
 The sick woman was still eagerly occupied with 
 the flowers, and, as she raised her eyes to his, 
 her faded cheek seemed to have caught some 
 color from the roses, and her eyes some of their 
 dewy freshness. But at that instant Mr. Oak 
 hurst lifted his hat, and before she could thank 
 him was gone. 
 
 I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHUEST. 49 
 
 broke his promise. That night, in the very 
 goodness of his heart and uxorious self-abnega- 
 tion, he, like all devoted husbands, not only 
 offered himself, but his friend and benefactor 
 as a sacrifice on the family-altar. It is only fair, 
 however, to add that he spoke with great fervor 
 of the generosity of Mr. Oakhurst, and dwelt 
 with an enthusiasm quite common with his 
 class on the mysterious fame and prodigal vices 
 of the gambler. 
 
 44 And now, Elsie dear, say that you'll forgive 
 me," said Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee 
 beside his wife's couch. 44 1 did it for the best. 
 It was for you, dearey, that I put that money 
 on them cards that night in 'Frisco. I thought 
 to win a heap enough to take you away, and 
 enough left to get you a new dress." 
 
 Mrs. Decker smiled, and pressed her hus- 
 band's hand. 44 I do forgive you, Joe dear," 
 she said, still smiling, with eyes abstractedly 
 fixed on the ceiling; "and you ought to be 
 whipped for deceiving me so, you bad boy ! and 
 making me make such a speech. There, say no 
 more about it. If you'll be very good hereafter 
 and will just now hand me that cluster of loses, 
 I'll forgive you." She took the branch in hei 
 fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and pre* 
 tntly said, behind their leaves, 
 
 "Joe!" 
 
60 MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 '* What is it, lovey ? " 
 
 " Do you think that this Mr. what do yo-3 
 call him? Jack Oakhurst would have given 
 that money back to you, if I hadn't made that 
 speech ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " If he hadn't seen me at all ? " 
 
 Mr. Decker looked up. His wife had man- 
 aged in some way to cover up her whole face 
 with the roses, except her eyes, which were 
 dangerously bright. 
 
 " No ! It was you, Elsie it was all along of 
 seeing you that made him do it." 
 
 " A poor sick woman like me ? " 
 
 " A sweet, little, lovely, pooty Elsie Joe's 
 own little wifey ! How could he help it ? " 
 
 Mrs. Decker fondly cast one arm around her 
 husband's neck, still keeping the roses to her 
 face with the other. From behind them she 
 began to murmur gently and idiotically, " Dear, 
 ole square Joey. Elsie's oney booful big bear." 
 But, really, I do not see that my duty as a 
 chronicler of facts compels me to continue this 
 little lady's speech any further; and, out of 
 respect to the unmarried reader, I stop. 
 
 Nevertheless, the next morning Mrs. Decker 
 betrayed some slight and apparently uncalled 
 for irritability on reaching the Plaza, and pres- 
 otly desired her husband to wheel her back 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHURST. 51 
 
 home. Moreover, she was very much aston- 
 ished at meeting Mr. Oakhurst just as they 
 were returning, and even doubted if it were he, 
 and questioned her husband as to his identity 
 with the stranger of yesterday as he approached. 
 Her manner to Mr. Oakhurst, also, was quite in 
 contrast with her husband's frank welcome. 
 Mr. Oakhurst instantly detected it. " Her hus- 
 band has told her all, and she dislikes me," he 
 said to himself, with that fatal appreciation of 
 the half-truths of a woman's motives that 
 causes the wisest masculine critic to stumble, 
 He lingered only long enough to take the busi- 
 ness address of the husband, and then lifting 
 his hat gravely, without looking at the lady, 
 went his way. It struck the honest master-car- 
 penter as one of the charming anomalies of his 
 wife's character, that, although the meeting was 
 evidently very much constrained and unpleas- 
 ant, instantly afterward his wife's spirits began 
 to rise. " You was hard on him, a leetle hard ; 
 wasn't you, Elsie?" said Mr. Decker dep- 
 recatingly. " I'm afraid he may think I've 
 broke my promise." " Ah, indeed ! " said the 
 lady indifferently. Mr. Decker instantly stepped 
 round to the front of che vehicle. " You look 
 like an A 1 first-class lady riding down Broad- 
 way in her own carriage, Elsie," said he. "I 
 never seed you lookin' so peart and sassy 
 befoie." 
 
52 MB. JOHN OAKHUBST. 
 
 A few days later, the proprietor of the San 
 Isabel Sulphur Springs received the following 
 note in Mr. Oakhurst's well-known, dainty 
 hand : 
 
 " DEAR STEVE, I've been thinking over your prop- 
 osition to buy Nichols's quarter-interest, and have con- 
 cluded to go in. But I don't see how the thing will pay 
 until you have more accommodation down there, and for 
 the best class, I mean my customers. What we want 
 is an extension to the main building, and two or three 
 cottages put up. I send down a builder to take hold of 
 the job at once. He takes his sick wife with him; and 
 you are to look after them as you would for one of us. 
 
 " I may run down there myself after the races, just 
 to look after things; but I sha'n't set up any game this 
 season. 
 
 " Yours always, 
 
 " JOHN OAKHUBST. " 
 
 It was only the last sentence of this letter 
 that provoked criticism. " I can understand," 
 said Mr. Hamlin, a professional brother, to whom 
 Mr. Oakhurst's letter was shown, "I can 
 understand why Jack goes in heavy and builds ; 
 for it's a sure spec, and is bound to be a mighty 
 soft thing in time, if he comes here regularly. 
 But why in blank he don't set up a bank thia 
 season, and take the chance of getting some of 
 the money back that he puts into circulation in 
 building, is what gets me. I wonder now," h 
 mused deeply, " what is his little game. ' 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHUBST. 58 
 
 The season had been a prosperous one to Mr, 
 Oakhurst, and proportionally disastrous to sev- 
 eral members of the legislature, judges, colo- 
 nels, and others who had enjoyed but briefly the 
 pleasure of Mr. Oakhurst's midnight society. 
 And yet Sacramento had become very dull to 
 him. He had lately formed a habit of early 
 morning walks, so unusual and startling to his 
 friends, both male and female, as to occasion 
 the intensest curiosity. Two or three of the 
 latter set spies upon his track ; but the inquisi- 
 tion resulted only in the discovery that Mr. 
 Oakhurst walked to the Plaza, sat down upon 
 one particular bench for a few moments, and 
 then returned without seeing anybody ; and the 
 theory that there was a woman in the case was 
 abandoned. A few superstitious gentlemen of 
 his own profession believed that he did it for 
 " luck." Some others, more practical, declared 
 that he went out to " study points." 
 
 After the races at Marysville, Mr. Oakhurst 
 went to San Francisco; from that place he 
 returned to Marysville, but a few days after was 
 seen at San Jose*, Santa Cruz, and Oakland. 
 Those who met him declared that his manner 
 was restless and feverish, and quite unlike his 
 ordinary calmness and phlegm. Col. Starbottle 
 pointed out the fact, that at San Francisco, at 
 the club, Jack had declined to deal. "Hand 
 
64 MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 shaky, sir; depend upon it. Don't stimulate 
 enough blank him ! " 
 
 From San Jos6 he started to go to Oregon by 
 land with a rather expensive outfit of horsea 
 and camp equipage ; but, on reaching Stockton, 
 he suddenly diverged, and four hours later 
 fDund him with a single horse entering the 
 caiion of the San Isabel Warm Sulphur Springs. 
 
 It was a pretty triangular valley lying at the 
 foot of three sloping mountains, dark with pines, 
 and fantastic with madrono and manzanita. 
 Nestling against the mountain-side, the strag- 
 gling buildings and long piazza of the hotel 
 glittered through the leaves, and here and there 
 shone a white toy-like cottage. Mr. Oakhurst 
 was not an admirer of Nature ; but he felt some- 
 hing of the same novel satisfaction in the view, 
 that he experienced in his first morning walk in 
 Sacramento. And now carriages began to pass 
 him on the road filled with gayly-dressed women ; 
 and the cold California outlines of the land- 
 scape began to take upon themselves somewhat 
 of a human warmth and color. And then the 
 long hotel piazza came in view, efflorescent 
 with the full-toiletted fair. Mr. Oakhurst, a 
 good rider after the California fashion, did not 
 check his speed as he approached his destina- 
 tion, but charged the hotel at a gallop, threw 
 his horse on his haunches within a foot of the 
 
MR. JOHN OAKHURST. fa 
 
 piazza, and then quietly emerged from the 
 cloud of dust that veiled his dismounting. 
 
 Whatever feverish excitement might have 
 raged within, all his habitual calm returned as 
 he stepped upon the piazza. With the instinct 
 of long habit, he turned and faced the battery 
 of eyes with the same cold indifference with 
 which he had for years encountered the half- 
 hidden sneers of men and the half-frightened 
 admiration of women. Only one person stepped 
 forward to welcome him. Oddly enough, it 
 vas Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one 
 present, who by birth, education, and posi- 
 tion, might have satisfied the most fastidious 
 Bocial critic. Happily for Mr. Oakhurst's rep- 
 utation, he was also a very rich banker and 
 social leader. "Do you know who that is 
 you spoke to ? " asked young Parker with 
 an alarmed expression. "Yes," replied Ham- 
 ilton with characteristic effrontery. " The 
 man you lost a thousand dollars to last week. 
 I only know him socially." " But isn't he a 
 gambler?" queried the youngest Miss Smith. 
 *' He is," replied Hamilton; "but I wish, nxy 
 dear young lady, that we all played as open and 
 honest a game as our friend yonder, and were 
 as willing as he is to abide by its fortunes." 
 
 But Mr. Oakhurst was happily out of hear- 
 frig of this colloquy, and was even then loan- 
 
56 ME. JOHN OAKHUBST. 
 
 ging listlessly yet watchfully along the uppei 
 hall. Suddenly he heard a light footstep 
 behind him, and then his name called in a fa- 
 miliar voice that drew the blood quickly to his 
 heart. He turned, and she stood before him. 
 
 But how transformed ! If I have hesitated 
 to describe the hollow-eyed cripple, the 
 quaintly-dressed artisan's wife, a few pages ago, 
 what shall I do with this graceful, shapely, 
 elegantly-attired gentlewoman into whom she 
 has been merged within these two months ? In 
 good faith she was very pretty. You and I, my 
 dear madam, would have been quick to see 
 that those charming dimples were misplaced for 
 true beauty, and too fixed in their quality for 
 honest mirthfulness ; that the delicate lines 
 around these aquiline nostrils were cruel and 
 selfish ; that the sweet virginal surprise of these 
 lovely eyes were as apt to be opened on her 
 plate as upon the gallant speeches of her dinner 
 partner ; that her sympathetic color came and 
 went more with her own spirits than yours. 
 But you and I are not in love with her, dear 
 madam, and Mr. Oakhurst is. And, even in the 
 folds of her Parisian gown, I am afraid this 
 poor fellow saw the same subtle strokes of 
 purity that he had seen in her homespun robe. 
 And then there was the delightful revelation 
 that she could walk, and that she had deaf 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHVKST. 57 
 
 little feet of her own in the tiniest slippers of 
 her French shoemaker, with such preposterous 
 blue bows, and Chappell's own stamp Rue de 
 something or other, Paris on the narrow sole. 
 
 He ran toward her with a heightened color 
 and outstretched hands. But she whipped her 
 own behind her, glanced rapidly up and down 
 the long hall, and stood looking at him with a 
 half-audacious, half-mischievous admiration, in 
 utter contrast to her old reserve. 
 
 " Fve a great mind not to shake hands with 
 you at all. You passed me just now on the 
 piazza without speaking ; and I ran after you, as 
 I suppose many another poor woman has done." 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so 
 changed. 
 
 " The more reason why you should know me. 
 Who changed me ? You. You have re-created 
 me. You found a helpless, crippled, sick, 
 poverty-stricken woman, with one dress to her 
 back, and that her own make, and you gave her 
 life, health, strength, and fortune. You did; 
 and you know it, sir. How do you like your 
 work?" She caught the side-seams of her 
 gown in either hand, and dropped him a playful 
 courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting 
 gesture, she gave him both her hands. 
 
 Outrageous as this speech was, and unfemi- 
 fcine as I trust every fair reader will deem it, 
 
58 MB. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 
 
 I fear it pleased Mr. Oakhurst. Not but thai 
 he was accustomed to a certain frank female 
 admiration ; but then it was of the coulisse, 
 and not of the cloister, with which he always 
 persisted in associating Mrs. Decker. To be 
 addressed in this way by an invalid Puritan, a 
 eick saint with the austerity of suffering still 
 clothing her, a woman who had a Bible on the 
 dressing-table, who went to church three times 
 a day, and was devoted to her husband, com 
 pletely bowled him over. He still held her 
 hands as she went on, 
 
 " Why didn't you come before ? What were 
 you doing in Marysville, in San Jose", in Oak- 
 land? You see I have followed you. I saw 
 jou as you came down the canon, and knew 
 you at once. I saw your letter to Joseph, and 
 knew you were coming. Why didn't you write 
 to me ? You will some time ! Good-evening, 
 Mr. Hamilton." 
 
 She had withdrawn her hands, but not until 
 Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly 
 abreast of them. He raised his hat to her 
 xdth well-bred composure, nodded familiarly to 
 Oakhurst, and passed on. When he had gone, 
 Mrs. Decker lifted her eyes to Mr. Oakhurst 
 "Some day I shall ask a great fa\or of you." 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now 
 * No, not until you know me better. Then, 
 some day, I shall want you to kil] that man!' 
 
ME. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 59 
 
 She laughed such a pleasant little ringing 
 laugh, such a display of dimples, albeit a little 
 fixed in the corners of her mouth, such an 
 innocent light in her brown eyes, and such a 
 lovely color in her cheeks, that Mr. Oakhurst 
 (who seldom laughed) was fain to laugh too. 
 It was as if a lamb had proposed to a fox a 
 foray into a neighboring sheepfold. 
 
 A few evenings after this, Mrs. Decker arose 
 from a charmed circle of her admirers on the 
 hotel piazza, excused herself for a few moments, 
 laughingly declined an escort, and ran over to 
 her little cottage one of her husband's crea- 
 tion across the road. Perhaps from the 
 sudden and unwonted exercise in her still con- 
 valescent state, she breathed hurriedly and 
 feverishly as she entered her boudoir, and once 
 or twice placed her hand upon her breast. She 
 was startled on turning up the light to find her 
 husband lying on the sofa. 
 
 " You look hot and excited, Elsie love," said 
 Mr. Decker. " You ain't took worse, are you?" 
 
 Mrs Decker's face had paled, but now flushed 
 again. u No," she said; "only a little pain 
 here," as she again placed her hand upon her 
 corsage. 
 
 "Can I do any thing for you?" said Mr. 
 Oesker, rising with affectionate concern. 
 
 " Run over to the hotel and get me some 
 brandy, quick 1 " 
 
60 ME. JOHN OAKHT7BST. 
 
 Mr. Decker ran. Mrs Decker closed and 
 bolted the door, and then, putting her hand to 
 ner bosom, drew out the pain. It was folded 
 foursquare, and was, I grieve to say, in Mr. 
 Oakhurst's handwriting. 
 
 She devoured it with burning eyes and 
 cheeks until there came a step upon the porch ; 
 then she hurriedly replaced it in her bosom, 
 and unbolted the door. Her husband entered. 
 She raised the spirits to her lips, and declared 
 herself better. 
 
 " Are you going over there again to-night ? " 
 asked Mr. Decker submissively. 
 
 " No," said Mrs. Decker, with her eyes fixed 
 dreamily on the floor. 
 
 " I wouldn't if I was you," said Mr. Decker 
 with a sigh of relief. After a pause, he took a 
 seat on the sofa, and, drawing his wife to his 
 side, said, " Do you know what I was thinking 
 of when you came in, Elsie ? " Mrs. Decker 
 ran her fingers through his stiff black hair, and 
 couldn't imagine. 
 
 " I was thinking of old times, Elsie : I was 
 thinking of the days when I built that kerridge 
 for you, Elsie, when I used to take you out to 
 ride, and was both hoss and driver. We was 
 poor then, and you was sick, Elsie ; but we was 
 happy. We've got money now, and a house , 
 tnd you're quite another woman. I may say> 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 61 
 
 dear, that you're a new woman. And that's 
 where the trouble comes in. I could build you 
 a kerridge, Elsie ; I could build you a house, 
 Elsie but there I stopped. I couldn't build 
 up you. You're strong and pretty, Elsie, and 
 fresh and new. But somehow, Elsie, you ain't 
 no work of mine ! " 
 
 He paused. With one hand laid gently on 
 his forehead, and the other pressed upon her 
 bosom, as if to feel certain of the presence of her 
 pain, she said sweetly and soothingly, 
 
 " But it was your work, dear." 
 
 Mr. Decker shook his head sorrowfully. " No, 
 Elsie, not mine. I had the chance to do it 
 once, and I let it go. It's done now but not 
 by me." 
 
 Mrs. Decker raised her surprised, innocent 
 eyes to his. He kissed her tenderly, and then 
 went on in a more cheerful voice, 
 
 " That ain't all I was thinking of, Elsie. I 
 was thinking that maybe you give too much of 
 your company to that Mr. Hamilton. Not that 
 there's any wrong in it, to you or him ; but it 
 might make people taik. You're the only one 
 here, Elsie," said the master-carpenter, looking 
 fondly at his wife, "who isn't talked about, 
 whose work ain't inspected or condemned." 
 
 Mrs. Decker was glad he had spoken about it* 
 She had thought so too. But she could not wall 
 
62 MB JOHN OAKHTTRST. 
 
 be uncivil to Mr. Hamilton, who was a fine gen 
 tleman, without making a powerful enemy, 
 "And he's always treated me as if I was a born 
 lady in his own circle," added the little woman, 
 with a certain pride that made her husband 
 fondly smile. " But I have thought of a plan, 
 He will not stay here if I should go away. If, 
 for instance, I went to San Francisco to visit 
 ma for a few days, he would be gone before I 
 should return." 
 
 Mr. Decker was delighted. " By all means,'* 
 he said, "go to-morrow. Jack Oakhurst is 
 going down ; and I'll put you in his charge." 
 
 Mrs. Decker did not think it was prudent. 
 " Mr. Oakhurst is our friend, Joseph ; but you 
 know his reputation." In fact, she did not 
 know that she ought to go now, knowing that 
 he was going the same day : but, with a kiss, Mr. 
 Decker overcame her scruples. She yielded 
 gracefully. Few women, in fact, knew how to 
 give up a point as charmingly as she. 
 
 She staid a week in San Francisco. When 
 she returned, she was a trifle thinner and paler 
 than she had been. This she explained as the 
 vesult of perhaps too active exercise and excite- 
 ment. " I was out of doors nearly all the time, 
 as ma will tell you," she said to her husband, 
 "and always alone. I am getting quite inde 
 pendent now, she added gayly. " I don't want 
 
MB JOHN OAKHURST. 63 
 
 iuj escort. I believe, Joey dear, I could get 
 along even without you, I'm so brave ! " 
 
 But her visit, apparently, had not been pro- 
 ductive of her impelling design. Mr. Hamilton 
 had not gone, but had remained, and called upon 
 them that very evening. "I've thought of a 
 plan, Joey dear," said Mrs. Decker, when he had 
 departed. " Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable 
 room at the hotel. Suppose you ask him, when 
 he returns from San Francisco, to stop with us. 
 He can have our spare-room. I don't think," 
 she added archly, " that Mr. Hamilton will call 
 often." Her husband laughed, intimated that 
 she was a little coquette, pinched her cheek, and 
 complied. " The queer thing about a woman," 
 he said afterward confidentially to Mr. Oak- 
 hurst, " is, that, without having any plan of her 
 own, she'll take anybody's, and build a house 
 on it entirely different to suit herself. And 
 dern my skin if you'll be able to say whether or 
 not you didn't give the scale and measurements 
 yourself ! That's what gets me ! " 
 
 The next week Mr. Oakhurst was installed in 
 the Deckers' cottage. The business relations of 
 her husband and himself were known to all, and 
 her own reputation was above suspicion. In- 
 deed, few women were more popular. She was 
 aomestic, she was prudent, she was pious. In a 
 tountry of great feminine freedom and latitude 
 
64 MB JOHN OAKHUKST. 
 
 ihe never rode or walked with anybody but het 
 husband. In an epoch of slang and ambiguous 
 expression, she was always precise and formal 
 in her speech. In the midst of a fashion of os- 
 tentatious decoration, she never wore a diamond, 
 nor a single valuable jewel. She never per- 
 mitted an indecorum in public. She never coun 
 tenanced the familiarities of California society. 
 She declaimed against the prevailing tone of 
 infidelity and scepticism in religion. Few peo- 
 ple who were present will ever forget the dig- 
 nified yet stately manner with which she 
 rebuked Mr. Hamilton in the public parlor for 
 entering upon the discussion of a work on ma- 
 terialism, lately published; and some among 
 them, also, will not forget the expression of 
 amused surprise on Mr. Hamilton's face, that 
 gradually changed to sardonic gravity, as he 
 courteously waived his point ; certainly not Mr. 
 Oakhurst, who, from that moment, began to be 
 uneasily impatient of his friend, and even if 
 euch a term could be applied to any moral quali- 
 ty in Mr. Oakhurst to fear him. 
 
 For during this time Mr. Oakhurst had begun 
 to show symptoms of a change in his usual 
 habits. He was seldom, if ever, seen in his old 
 Launts, in a bar-room, or with his old associates. 
 Pink and white notes, in distracted handwriting, 
 accumulated on the dressing-table in his room* 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHUBST. 66 
 
 at Sacramento. It was given out in San Fran- 
 cisco that he had some organic disease of the 
 heart, for which his physician had prescribed 
 perfect rest. He read more ; he took long walks ; 
 he sold his fast horses ; he went to church. 
 
 I have a very vivid recollection of his first 
 appearance there. He did not accompany the 
 Deckers, nor did he go into their pew, but came 
 in as the service commenced, and took a seat 
 quietly in one of the back-pews. By some mys- 
 terious instinct, his presence became presently 
 known to the congregation, some of whom so far 
 forgot themselves, in their curiosity, as to face 
 around, and apparently address their responses 
 to him. Before the service was over, it was 
 pretty well understood that " miserable sinners " 
 meant Mr. Oakhurst. Nor did this mysterious 
 influence fail to affect the officiating clergyman, 
 who introduced an allusion to Mr. Oakhurst's 
 calling and habits in a sermon on the architec- 
 ture of Solomon's temple, and in a manner so 
 pointed, and yet labored, as to cause the 
 youngest of us to flame with indignation. Hap- 
 pily, however, it was lost upon Jack : I do not 
 fchink he even heard it. His handsome, colorless 
 faoe, albeit a trifle worn and thoughtful, was 
 inscrutable. Only once, during the singing of a 
 hymn, at a certain note in the contralto's voice, 
 there crept into his dark eyes a look of wistful 
 
66 MR. JOHN OAKHUBS1. 
 
 tenderness, so yearning and yet so hopeless, tbni 
 those who were watching him felt their own 
 glisten. Yet I retain a very vivid remembrance 
 of his standing up to receive the benediction, 
 with the suggestion, in his manner and tightly- 
 buttoned coat, of taking the fire of his adver- 
 sary at ten paces. After church, he disappeared 
 as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately 
 escaped hearing the comments on his rash act 
 His appearance was generally considered as an 
 impertinence, attributable only to some wanton 
 fancy, or possibly a bet. One or two thought 
 that the sexton was exceedingly remiss in not 
 turning him out after discovering who he was ; 
 and a prominent pew-holder remarked, that if he 
 couldn't take his wife and daughters to that 
 church, without exposing them to such an influ- 
 ence, he would try to find some church where 
 he could. Another traced Mr. Oakhurst's pres- 
 ence to certain Broad Church radical tendencies, 
 which he regretted to say he had lately noted 
 in their pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose deli- 
 3ately-organized, sickly wife had already borne 
 nim eleven children, and died in an ambitious 
 attempt to complete the dozen, avowed that the 
 presence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst's various 
 and indiscriminate gallantries was an insult to 
 fche memory of the deceased, that, as a man, he 
 could not brook. 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 67 
 
 It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst* 
 sontrasting himself with a conventional world 
 In which he had hitherto rarely mingled, became 
 aware that' there was something in his face, 
 6gure, and carriage quite unlike other men, 
 bomething, that, if it did not betray his former 
 career, at least showed an individuality and 
 originality that was suspicious. In this belief, 
 he shaved off his long, silken mustache, and 
 religiously brushed out his clustering curls every 
 morning. He even went so far as to affect a 
 negligence of dress, and hid his small, slim, 
 arched feet in the largest and heaviest walking- 
 shoes. There is a story told that he went to his 
 tailor in Sacramento, and asked him to make 
 him a suit of clothes like everybody else. The 
 tailor, familiar with Mr. Oakhurst's fastidious- 
 ness, did not know what he meant. " I mean," 
 said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, " something respect- 
 able, something that doesn't exactly fit me, 
 you know." But, however Mr. Oakhurst might 
 hide his shapely limbs in homespun and home- 
 made garments, there was something in his car- 
 riage, something in the pose of his beautiful 
 head, something in the strong and fine manli 
 ness of liis presence, something in the perfec 
 and utter discipline and control of his muscles, 
 something in the high repose of his nature, a 
 repose not so much a matter of intellectual rul 
 
68 MB. JOHN OAKHTJBST. 
 
 ing as of his very nature, that, go where he 
 would, and with whom, he was always a notable 
 man in ten thousand. Perhaps this was never 
 so clearly intimated to Mr. Oakhurst, as when, 
 emboldened by Mr. Hamilton's advice and as- 
 sistance, and his own predilections, he became a 
 San-Francisco broker. Even before objection 
 was made to his presence in the Board, the ob- 
 jection, I remember, was urged very eloquently 
 by Watt Sanders, who was supposed to be the 
 inventor of the "freezing-out" system of dis- 
 posing of poor stockholders, and who also 
 enjoyed the reputation of having been the im- 
 pelling cause of Briggs of Tuolumne's ruin and 
 suicide, even before this formal protest of 
 respectability against lawlessness, the aquiline 
 suggestions of Mr. Oakhurst's mien and counte- 
 nance, not only prematurely fluttered the 
 pigeons, but absolutely occasioned much uneasi- 
 ness among the fish-hawks who circled below 
 him with their booty. " Dash me ! but he's as 
 likely to go after us as anybody," said Joe 
 Fielding. 
 
 It wanted but a few days before the close of 
 the brief summer season at San Isabel Warm 
 Springs. Already there had been some migra- 
 tion of the more fashionable ; and there was an 
 uncomfortable suggestion of dregs and lees in 
 
JO. JOHN OAKHUBST. 69 
 
 tho social life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst 
 was moody. It was hinted that even the secure 
 reputation of Mrs. Decker could no longer pro- 
 tect her from the gossip which his presence 
 excited. It is but fair to her to say, that, during 
 the last few weeks of this trying ordeal, she 
 looked like a sweet, pale martyr, and conducted 
 herself toward her traducers with the gentle, 
 forgiving manner of one who relied not upon 
 the idle homage of the crowd, but upon the 
 Becurity of a principle that was dearer than 
 popular favor. "They talk about myself and 
 Mr. Oakhurst, my dear," she said to a friend ; 
 " but heaven and my husband can best answer 
 their calumny. It never shall be said that my 
 husband ever turned his back upon a friend in 
 the moment of his adversity, because the posi- 
 tion was changed, because his friend was poor, 
 and he was rich." This was the first intimation 
 to the public that Jack had lost money, although 
 it was known generally that the Deckers had 
 lately bought some valuable property in San 
 Francisco. 
 
 A few evenings after this, an incident occurred 
 which seemed to unpleasantly discord with the 
 general social harmony that had always existed 
 at San Isabel. It was at dinner ; and Mr. Oak- 
 aurstand Mr. Hamilton, who sat together at a 
 leparate table, were observed to rise in some 
 
TO MB. JOHN OAKHTJRST. 
 
 agitation. When they reached the hall, by a 
 common instinct they stepped into a little 
 breakfast-room which was vacant, and closed 
 the door. Then Mr. Hamilton turned with a 
 half-amused, half-serious smile toward his friend, 
 and said, 
 
 "If we are to quarrel, Jack Oakhurst, you 
 and I, in the name of all that is ridiculous, 
 don't let it be about a " 
 
 I do not know what was the epithet intended. 
 It was either unspoken or lost ; for at that very 
 instant Mr. Oakhurst raised a wineglass, and 
 dashed its contents into Hamilton's face. 
 
 As they faced each other, the men seemed to 
 have changed natures. Mr. Oakhurst was 
 trembling with excitement, and the wineglass 
 that he returned to the table shivered between 
 his fingers. Mr. Hamilton stood there, grayish 
 white, erect, and dripping. After a pause, he 
 said coldly, 
 
 " So be it. But remember, our quarrel 
 commences here. If I fall by your hand, you 
 shall not use it to clear her character : if you 
 fall by mine, you shall not be called a martyr. 
 I am sorry it has come to this ; but amen, the 
 sooner now, the better." 
 
 He turned proudly, dropped his lids over nil 
 cold steel-blue eyes, as if sheathing a rapier 
 bowed, and passed coldly out 
 
MB. JOH.I OAKHURST. 71 
 
 They met, twelve hours later, in a little hol- 
 low two miles from the hotel, on the Stockton 
 road. As Mr. Oakhurst received his pistol 
 from Col. Starbottle's hands, he said to him in a 
 low voice, " Whatever turns up or down, I shall 
 not return to the hoteL You will find some 
 directions in my room. Go there " But 
 his voice suddenly faltered, and he turned his 
 glistening eyes away, to his second's intense as- 
 tonishment. " I've been out a dozen times with 
 Jack Oakhurst," said Col. Starbottle afterward, 
 " and I never saw him anyways cut before. 
 Blank me if I didn't think he was losing his 
 sand, till he walked to position." 
 
 The two reports were almost simultaneous. 
 Mr. Oakhurst's right arm dropped suddenly to 
 his side, and his pistol would have fallen from 
 his paralyzed fingers ; but the discipline of 
 trained nerve and muscle prevailed, and he kept 
 his grasp until he had shifted it to the other 
 hand, without changing his position. Then 
 there was a silence that seemed interminable, a 
 gathering of two or three dark figures where a 
 Bmoke-curl still lazily floated, and then the hur 
 ried, husky, panting voice of Col. Starbottle in 
 his ear, " He's hit hard through the lungs 
 you must run for it ! " 
 
 Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon 
 bis second, but did not seem to listen, rathei 
 
72 MR. JOHN OAKHUBST. 
 
 eeemed to hear some other voice, remoter in 
 the distance. He hesitated, and then made 
 a step forward in the direction of the distant 
 group. Then he paused again as the figures 
 separated, and the surgeon came hastily toward 
 him. 
 
 " He would like to speak with you a moment," 
 said the man. " You have little time to lose, I 
 know ; but," he added in a lower voice, " it is 
 my duty to tell you he has still less." 
 
 A look of despair, so hopeless in its intensity, 
 swept over Mr. Oakhurst's usually impassive 
 face, that the surgeon started. " You are hit," 
 he said, glancing at Jack's helpless arm. 
 
 " Nothing a mere scratch," said Jack has- 
 tily. Then he added with a bitter laugh, " I'm 
 not in luck to-day. But come : we'll see what 
 he wants." 
 
 His long, feverish stride outstripped the sur- 
 geon's ; and in another moment he stood where 
 the dying man lay, like most dying men, 
 the one calm, composed, central figure of an 
 anxious group. Mr. Oakhurst's face was less 
 calm as he dropped on one knee beside him, and 
 took his hand. " I want to speak with this 
 gentleman alone," said Hamilton, with some- 
 thing of his old imperious manner, as he turned 
 to those about him. When they drew back, ha 
 'ooked up in Oakhurst's face. 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHTJB8T. 78 
 
 * I've something to tell you, Jack." 
 
 His own face was white, but not so white as 
 that which Mr. Oakhurst bent over him, a face 
 50 ghastly, with haunting doubts, and a hopeless 
 presentiment of coming evil, a face so piteous 
 in its infinite weariness and envy of death, that 
 the dying man was touched, even in the languoi 
 of dissolution, with a pang of compassion ; and 
 the cynical smile faded from his lips. 
 
 " Forgive me, Jack," he whispered more 
 feebly, " for what I have to say. I don't say it 
 in anger, but only because it must be said. I 
 could not do my duty to you, I could not die 
 contented, until you knew it all. It's a miserable 
 business at best, all around. But it can't be 
 helped now. Only I ought to have fallen by 
 Decker's pistol, and not yours." 
 
 A flush like fire came into Jack's cheek, and 
 he would have risen ; but Hamilton held him 
 fast. 
 
 " Listen I In my pocket you will find two 
 letters. Take them there ! You will know 
 the handwriting. But promise you will not 
 read them until you are in a place of safety. 
 Promise me." 
 
 Jack did not speak, but held the letters be- 
 tween his fingers as if they had been burning 
 tx>als. 
 
 " Promise me/' said Hamilton faintly. 
 
T4 MB. JOHN OAKHUBST. 
 
 "Why?" asked Oakhurst, dropping hii 
 friend's hand coldly. 
 
 " Because," said the dying man with a bitter 
 smile, " because when you have read them 
 you will go back to capture and 
 death ! " 
 
 They were his last words. He pressed Jack's 
 hand faintly. Then his grasp relaxed, and he 
 Tell back a corpse. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Mrs. 
 Decker reclined languidly upon the sofa with a 
 aovel in her hand, while her husband discussed 
 the politics of the country in the bar-room of 
 the hotel. It was a warm night ; and the French 
 window looking out upon a little balcony was 
 partly open. Suddenly she heard a foot upon 
 the balcony, and she raised her eyes from the 
 book with a slight start. The next moment the 
 window was hurriedly thrust wide, and a man 
 entered. 
 
 Mrs. Decker rose to her feet with a little cry 
 of alarm. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, Jack, are you mad? 
 He has only gone for a little while he may 
 return at any moment. Come an hour later, 
 to-morrow, any time when I can get rid of 
 him but go, now, dear, at once." 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst walked toward the door, bolted 
 4;, and then faced her without a word. His face 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 75 
 
 was haggard ; his coat-sleeve hung loosely over 
 an arm that was bandaged and bloody. 
 
 Nevertheless her voice did not falter as she 
 turned again toward him. " What has hap- 
 pened, Jack. Why are you here ? " 
 
 He opened his coat, and threw two letters in 
 her lap. 
 
 " To return your lover's letters ; to TriH you 
 and then myself," he said in a voice so low 
 as to be almost inaudible. 
 
 Among the many virtues of this admirable 
 woman was invincible courage. She did not 
 faint; she did not cry out; she sat quietly 
 down again, folded her hands in her lap, and 
 said calmly, 
 
 " And why should you not ? " 
 
 Had she recoiled, had she shown any fear or 
 contrition, had she essayed an explanation or 
 apology, Mr. Oakhurst would have looked upon 
 it as an evidence of guilt. But there is no 
 quality that courage recognizes so quickly as 
 courage. There is no condition that despera- 
 tion bows before but desperation. And Mr. 
 Oakliurst's power of analysis was not so keen as 
 to prevent him from confounding her courage 
 with a moral quality. Even in his fury, he could 
 not help admiring this dauntless invalid. 
 
 "Why should you not?" she repeated with 
 A smile. * f ou gave me life, health, and happi- 
 
76 MB. JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 ness, Jack. You gave me your love. Why 
 should you not take what you have given ? Go 
 on. I am ready." 
 
 She held out her hands with that same infi- 
 nite grace of yielding with which she had taken 
 his own on the first day of their meeting at the 
 hotel. Jack raised his head, looked at her for 
 one wild moment, dropped upon his knees be- 
 side her, and raised the folds of her dress to his 
 feverish lips. But she was too clever not to 
 instantly see her victory: she was too much 
 of a woman, with all her cleverness, to refrain 
 from pressing that victory home. At the same 
 moment, as with the impulse of an outraged 
 and wounded woman, she rose, and, with an im- 
 perious gesture, pointed to the window. Mr. 
 Oakhurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon 
 her, and without another word passed out of 
 her presence forever. 
 
 When he had gone, she closed the window 
 ind bolted it, and, going to the chimney-piece, 
 placed the letters, one by one, in the flame of 
 the candle until they were consumed. I would 
 not have the reader think, that, during this 
 painful operation, she was unmoved. Her hand 
 trembled, and not being a brute for some 
 minutes (perhaps longer) she felt very badly, 
 and the corners of her sensitive mouth were 
 depressed. When her husband arrived, it wa 
 
MB. JOHN OAKHUEST. 77 
 
 with a genuine joy that she ran to him, and 
 nestled against his broad breast with a feeling 
 of security that thrilled the honest fellow to 
 the core. 
 
 44 But I've heard dreadful news to-night, 
 Elsie," said Mr. Decker, after a few endearments 
 were exchanged. 
 
 44 Don't tell me any thing dreadful, dear: I'm 
 not well to-night," she pleaded sweetly. 
 
 44 But it's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton." 
 
 44 Please ! " Mr. Decker could not resist the 
 petitionary grace of those white hands and that 
 sensitive mouth, and took her to his arms. 
 Suddenly he said, 44 What's that? " 
 
 He was pointing to the bosom of her whit* 
 dress. Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her, 
 there was a spot of blood. 
 
 It was nothing : she had slightly cut her hand 
 ir. closing the window ; it shut so hard ! If 
 Mr. Decker had remembered to close and bolt 
 the shutter before he went out, he might have 
 saved her this. There was such a genuine irri- 
 tability and force in this remark, that Mr. 
 Decker was quite overcome by remorse. But 
 Mrs. Decker forgave him with that graciousness 
 which I have before pointed out in these pages. 
 And with the halo of that forgiveness and mari- 
 tal confidence still lingering above the pair, with 
 the reader's permission we will leave them, and 
 return to Mr. Oakhurst. 
 
78 MR. JOHN OAKHTTRST. 
 
 But not for two weeks. At the end of that 
 time, he walked into his rooms in Sacramento, 
 and in his old manner took his seat at the faro 
 table. 
 
 " How's your arm, Jack ? " asked an incau 
 tious player. 
 
 There was a smile followed the question, 
 which, however, ceased as Jack looked up 
 quietly at the speaker. 
 
 "It bothers my dealing a little; but I can 
 shoot as well with my left." 
 
 The game was continued in that decorous 
 silence which usually distinguished the table at 
 which Mr. John Oakhurst presided. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 AS I opened Hop Sing's letter, there flut* 
 tered to the ground a square strip of yel- 
 low paper covered with hieroglyphics, which, at 
 first glance, I innocently took to be the label 
 from a pack of Chinese fire-crackers. But the 
 same envelope also contained a smaller strip of 
 rice-paper, with two Chinese characters traced 
 in India ink, that I at once knew to be Hop 
 Sing's visiting-card. The whole, as afterwards 
 L^erally translated, ran as follows: 
 
 "To the stranger the gates of my house are not 
 closed : the rice-jar is on the left, and the 
 sweetmeats on the right, as you enter. 
 
 Two sayings of the Master : 
 
 Hospitality is the virtue of the son and the 
 wisdom of the ancestor. 
 The Superior man is light hearted after the 
 crop-gathering : he makes a festival. 
 
 When the stranger is in your melon-patch, ob- 
 serve him not too closely : inattention is often 
 the highest form of civility. 
 
 Happiness. Peace, and Prosperity. 
 
 HOP SING." 
 
 79 
 
80 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and 
 proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom 
 was very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing, 
 who was that most sombre of all humorists, a 
 Chinese philosopher, I must confess, that, even 
 after a very free translation, I was at a loss to 
 make any immediate application of the message. 
 Luckily I discovered a third enclosure in the 
 shape of a little note in English, and Hop Sing's 
 own commercial hand. It ran thus : 
 
 " The pleasure of your company is requested at No. 
 Sacramento Street, on Friday evening at eight o'clock. 
 A cup of tea at nine, sharp. 
 
 "Hop SING." 
 
 This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop 
 Sing's warehouse, the opening and exhibition of 
 some rare Chinese novelties and curios, a chat 
 in the back office, a cup of tea of a perfection 
 unknown beyond these sacred precincts, cigars, 
 and a visit to the Chinese theatre or temple. 
 This was, in fact, the favorite programme of Hop 
 Sing when he exercised his functions of hospi- 
 tality as the chief factor or superintendent of 
 the Ning Foo Company. 
 
 At eight o'clock on Friday evening, I entered 
 the warehouse of Hop Sing. There was that 
 deliciously commingled mysterious foreign odor 
 that I had so often noticed ; there was the old 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 81 
 
 array of uncouth-looking objects, the long pro- 
 cession of jars and crockery, the same singular 
 blending of the grotesque and the mathemati- 
 cally neat and exact, the same endless sugges- 
 tions of frivolity and fragility, the same want 
 of harmony in colors, that were each, in them- 
 selves, beautiful and rare. Kites in the shape 
 of enormous dragons and gigantic butterflies; 
 kites so ingeniously arranged as to utter at inter- 
 vals, when facing the wind, the cry of a hawk ; 
 kites so large as to be beyond any boy's power 
 of restraint, so large that you understood why 
 kite-flying in China was an amusement for 
 adults ; gods of china and bronze so gratuitously 
 ugly as to be beyond any human interest or 
 sympathy from their very impossibility ; jars of 
 sweetmeats covered all over with moral senti- 
 ments from Confucius; hats that looked like 
 baskets, and baskets that looked like hats ; silks 
 so light that I hesitate to record the incredible 
 number of square yards that you might pass 
 through the ring on your little finger, these, 
 and a great many other indescribable objects, 
 were dll familiar to me. I pushed my way 
 through the dimly-lighted warehouse, until I 
 reached the back office, or parlor, where I found 
 Hop Sing waiting to receive me. 
 
 Before I describe him, I want the average 
 readei to discharge from his mind any idea of a 
 
82 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 Chinaman that he may have gathered from the 
 pantomime. He did not wear beautifully scal- 
 loped drawers fringed with little bells (J 
 never met a Chinaman who did) ; he did not 
 habitually carry his forefinger extended before 
 him at right angles with his body ; nor did I 
 ever hear him utter the mysterious sentence, 
 " Ching a ring a ring chaw ; " nor dance under 
 any provocation. He was, on the whole, a 
 rather grave, decorous, handsome gentleman. 
 His complexion, which extended all over his 
 head, except where his long pig-tail grew, was 
 like a very nice piece of glazed brown paper- 
 muslin. His eyes were black and bright, and 
 his eyelids set at an angle of fifteen degrees; 
 his nose straight, and delicately formed; his 
 mouth small; and his teeth white and clean. 
 He wore a dark blue silk blouse ; and in the 
 streets, on cold days, a short jacket of astrachan 
 fur. He wore, also, a pair of drawers of blue 
 brocade gathered tightly over his calves and 
 ankles, offering a general sort of suggestion, that 
 he had forgotten his trousers that morning, but 
 that, so gentlemanly were his manners, his 
 friends had forborne to mention the fact to him. 
 His manner was urbane, although quite serious. 
 He spoke French and English fluently. In 
 brief, I doubt if you could have found the equa] 
 of this Pagan shopkeeper among the Christian 
 traders of San Francisco. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 83 
 
 There were a few others present, a judge of 
 the Federal Court, an editor, a high government 
 official, and a prominent merchant. After we 
 had drunk our tea, and tasted a few sweetmeats 
 from a mysterious jar, that looked as if it might 
 contain a preserved mouse among its other non- 
 descript treasures, Hop Sing arose, and, gravely 
 beckoning us to follow him, began to descend 
 to the basement. When we got there, we were 
 amazed at finding it brilliantly lighted, and that 
 a number of chairs were arranged in a half- 
 circle on the asphalt pavement. When he had 
 courteously seated us, he said, 
 
 " I have invited you to witness a performance 
 which I can at least promise you no other for- 
 eigners but yourselves have ever seen. Wang, 
 the court-juggler, arrived here yesterday morn- 
 ing. He has never given a performance outside 
 of the palace before. I have asked him to enter- 
 tain my friends this evening. He requires no 
 theatre, stage accessories, or any confederate, 
 nothing more than you see here. Will you be 
 pleased to examine the ground yourselves, gen- 
 tlemen." 
 
 Of course we examined the premises. It was 
 the ordinary basement or cellar of the San- 
 Francisco storehouse, cemented to keep out the 
 damp. We poked our sticks into the pavement, 
 ana rapped on the walls, to satisfy our polite 
 
84 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 host but for no other purpose. We were quite 
 content to be the victims of any clever decep- 
 tion. For myself, I knew I was ready to be 
 deluded to any extent, and, if I had been offered 
 an explanation of what followed, I should have 
 probably declined it. 
 
 Although I am satisfied that Wang's general 
 performance was the first of that kind evei 
 given on American soil, it has, probably, since 
 become so familiar to many of my readers, that 
 I shall not bore them with it here. He began 
 by setting to flight, with the aid of his fan, the 
 usual number of butterflies, made before our 
 eyes of little bits of tissue-paper, and kept them 
 in the air during the remainder of the perform 
 ance. I have a vivid recollection of the judge 
 trying to catch one that had lit on his knee, and 
 of its evading him with the pertinacity of a liv- 
 ing insect. And, even at this time, Wang, still 
 plying his fan, was taking chickens out of hats, 
 making oranges disappear, pulling endless yards 
 of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling the 
 whole area of the basement with goods that 
 appeared mysteriously from the ground, from 
 his own sleeves, from nowhere ! He swallowed 
 knives to the ruin of his digestion for years to 
 tome ; he dislocated every limb of his body ; he 
 reclined in the air, apparently upon nothing, 
 But his crowning performance, which I have 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 85 
 
 aever yet seen repeated, was the most weird, 
 mysteiious, and astounding. It is my apology 
 for this long introduction, my sole excuse for 
 writing this article, and the genesis of this 
 reracious history. 
 
 He cleared the ground of its encumbering 
 articles for a space of about fifteen feet square, 
 and then invited us all to walk forward, and 
 again examine it. We did so gravely. There 
 was nothing but the cemented pavement below 
 to be seen or felt. He then asked for the loan 
 of a handkerchief; and, as I chanced to be near- 
 est him, I offered mine. He took it, and spread 
 it open upon the floor. Over this he spread a 
 large square of silk, and over this, again, a large 
 shawl nearly covering the space he had cleared. 
 He then took a position at one of the points of 
 this rectangle, and began a monotonous chant, 
 rocking his body to and fro in time with the 
 somewhat lugubrious air. 
 
 We sat still and waited. Above the chant 
 ^ could hear the striking of the city clocks, 
 and the occasional rattle of a cart in the street 
 overhead. The absolute watchfulness and ex- 
 pectation, the dim, mysterious half-light of the 
 cellar falling in a grewsome way upon the mis- 
 shapen bulk of a Chinese deity in the back 
 ground, a faint smell of opium-smoke mingling 
 with spice, and the dreadful uncertainty of what 
 
86 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 we were really waiting for, sent an uncomforta* 
 ble thrill down our backs, and made us look at 
 each other with a forced and unnatural smile. 
 This feeling was heightened when Hop Sing 
 slowly rose, and, without a word, pointed with 
 his finger to the centre of the shawl. 
 
 There was something beneath the shawl 
 Surely and something that was not there 
 before; at first a mere suggestion in relief, a 
 faint outline, but growing more and more dis- 
 tinct and visible every moment. The chant 
 still continued; the perspiration began to roll 
 from the singer's face; gradually the hidden 
 object took upon itself a shape and bulk that 
 raised the shawl in its centre some five or six 
 inches. It was now unmistakably the outline 
 of a small but perfect human figure, with 
 extended arms and legs. One or two of us 
 turned pale. There was a feeling of general 
 uneasiness, until the editor broke the silence by 
 a gibe, that, poor as it was, was received with 
 spontaneous enthusiasm. Then the chant sud- 
 denly ceased. Wang arose, and with a quick, 
 dexterous movement, stripped both shawl and 
 silk away, and discovered, sleeping peacefully 
 upon my handkerchief, a tiny Chinese baby. 
 
 The applause and uproar which followed this 
 revelation ought to have satisfied Wang, eves 
 if his audience was a small one: it was loud 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 87 
 
 enough to awaken the baby, a pretty little 
 boy abcut a year old, looking like a Cupid cut 
 out of sandal-wood. He was whisked away 
 almost as mysteriously as he appeared. When 
 Hop Sing returned my handkerchief to me with 
 a bow, I asked if the juggler was the father of 
 the baby. " No sabe ! " said the imperturbable 
 Hop Sing, taking refuge in that Spanish form 
 of non-committalism so common in California. 
 
 " But does he have a new baby for every per- 
 formance ? " I asked. " Perhaps : who knows ? " 
 "But what will become of this one?" 
 "Whatever you choose, gentlemen," replied 
 Hop Sing with a courteous inclination. " It was 
 born here : you are its godfathers." 
 
 There were two characteristic peculiarities of 
 any Californian assemblage in 1856, it was 
 quick to take a hint, and generous to the point 
 of prodigality in its response to any charitable 
 appeal. No matter how sordid or avaricious the 
 individual, he could not resist the infection of 
 sympathy. I doubled the points of my hand- 
 kerchief into a bag, dropped a coin into it, and, 
 without a word, passed it to the judge. He 
 quietly added a twenty-dollar gold-piece, and 
 passed it to the next. When it was returned to 
 Sie, it contained over a hundred dollars.. I 
 knotted the money hi the handkerchief, and 
 gave it to Hop Sing. 
 
88 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 " For the baby, from its godfathers." 
 
 " But what name ? " said the judge. Thwa 
 was a running fire of " Erebus," " Nox," " Plu- 
 tus," "Terra Cotta," "Antaeus," &c. Finally 
 the question was referred to our host. 
 
 "Why not keep his own name?" he said 
 quietly, " Wan Lee." And he did. 
 
 And thus was Wan Lee, on the night of 
 Friday, the 5th of March, 1856, born into this 
 veracious chronicle. 
 
 The last form of "The Northern Star" for 
 the 19th of July, 1865, the only daily paper 
 published in Klamath County, had just gone 
 to press ; and at three, A.M., I was putting aside 
 my proofs and manuscripts, preparatory to going 
 home, when I discovered a letter lying under 
 some sheets of paper, which I must have over- 
 looked. The envelope was considerably soiled : 
 it had no post-mark ; but I had no difficulty in 
 recognizing the hand of my friend Hop Sing. I 
 opened it hurriedly, and read as follows : 
 
 " MY DEAR SIR, I do not know whether the bearer 
 will suit you ; but, unless the office of * devil ' in your 
 newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all 
 the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and 
 intelligent; understands English better than he speaks 
 It; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observa- 
 lion and imitation. You have only to show him how tt 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 8P 
 
 io a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an 
 offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. 
 You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the 
 reputed son of Wang the conjurer, to whose perform- 
 ances I had the honor to introduce you? But perhaps 
 you have forgotten it. 
 
 " I shall send him with a gang of coolies to Stockton, 
 thence by express to your town. If you can use him 
 there, you will do me a favor, and probably save his life, 
 which is at present in great peril from the hands of the 
 younger members of your Christian and highly-civilized 
 race who attend the enlightened schools in San Francisco. 
 
 " He has acquired some singular habits and customs 
 from his experience of Wang's profession, which he fol- 
 lowed for some years, until he became too large to go 
 in a hat, or be produced from his father's sleeve. The 
 money you left with me has been expended on his educa- 
 tion. He has gone through the Tri-literal Classics, but, I 
 think, without much benefit. He knows but little of 
 Confucius, and absolutely nothing of Mencius. Owing 
 to the negligence of his father, he associated, perhaps, 
 too much with American children. 
 
 " I should have answered your letter before, by post; 
 but I thought that Wan Lee himself would be a better 
 messenger for this. 
 
 "Yours respectfully, 
 
 "Hop SING." 
 
 And this was the long-delayed answer to my 
 Better to Hop Sing. But where was " the bear- 
 er " ? How was the letter delivered ? I sum- 
 moned hastily the foreman, printers, and office- 
 toy, but without eliciting any thing. No one 
 
90 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 had seen the letter delivered, nor knew any 
 thing of the bearer. A few days later, I had 
 a visit from my laundry-man, Ah Ri. 
 
 "You wantee debbil? All lightee: me 
 catchee him." 
 
 He returned in a few moments with a bright- 
 looking Chinese boy, about ten years old, with 
 whose appearance and general intelligence I was 
 BO greatly impressed, that I engaged him on the 
 spot. When the business was concluded, I 
 asked his name. 
 
 " Wan Lee," said the boy. 
 
 " What ! Are you the boy sent out by Hop 
 Sing? What the devil do you mean by not 
 coming here before ? and how did you deliver 
 that letter?" 
 
 Wan Lee looked at me, and laughed. " Me 
 pitchee in top side window." 
 
 I did not understand. He looked for a mo- 
 ment perplexed, and then, snatching the letter 
 out of my handf ran down the stairs. After a 
 moment's pause, to my great astonishment, the 
 letter came flying in the window, circled twice 
 around the room, and then dropped gently, like 
 a bird upon my table. Before I had got over 
 my surprise, Wan Lee re-appeared, smiled, looked 
 at the letter and then at me, said, " So, John," 
 *nd then remained gravely silent. I said noth- 
 ing further ; but it was understood that this wai 
 his first official act. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 91 
 
 His next performance, I grieve to say, was not 
 attended with equal success. One of our regular 
 paper-carriers fell sick, and, at a pinch, Wan Lee 
 was ordered to fill his place. To prevent mis- 
 takes, he was shown over the route the previous 
 evening, and supplied at about daylight with 
 the usual number of subscribers' copies. He 
 returned, after an hour, in good spirits, and 
 without the papers. He had delivered them all, 
 he said. 
 
 Unfortunately for Wan Lee, at about eight 
 o'clock, indignant subscribers began to arrive at 
 the office. They had received their copies ; but 
 how ? In the form of hard-pressed cannon-balls, 
 delivered by a single shot, and a mere tour de 
 force, through the glass of bedroom-windows. 
 They had received them full in the face, like a 
 base ball, if they happened to be up and stir- 
 ring ; they had received them in quarter-sheets, 
 tucked in at separate windows ; they had found 
 them in the chimney, pinned against the door, 
 shot through attic-windows, delivered in long 
 slips through convenient keyholes, stuffed into 
 ventilators, and occupying the same can with 
 the morning's milk. One subscriber, who waited 
 for some tune at the office-door to have a per- 
 sonal interview with Wan Lee (then comforta- 
 bly locked in my bedroom), told me, with tears 
 f rage in his eyes, that he had been awakened 
 
92 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 at five o'clock by a most hideous yellinp ^ 
 his windows ; that, on rising in great a^l nation, 
 he was startled by the sudden appearance of 
 44 The Northern Star," rolled hard, and bent into 
 the form of a boomerang, or East-Indian club, 
 that sailed into the window, described a number 
 of fiendish circles in the room, knocked over the 
 light, slapped the baby's face, " took " him (the 
 subscriber) " in the jaw," and then returned out 
 of the window, and dropped helplessly in the 
 area. During the rest of the day, wads and strips 
 of soiled paper, purporting to be copies of 44 The 
 Northern Star" of that morning's issue, were 
 brought indignantly to the office. An admira- 
 ble editorial on " The Resources of Humboldt 
 County," which I had constructed the evening 
 before, and which, I had reason to believe, 
 might have changed the whole balance of trade 
 during the ensuing year, and left San Francisco 
 bankrupt at her wharves, was in this way lost to 
 the public. 
 
 It was deemed advisable for the next three 
 weeks to keep Wan Lee closely confined to the 
 printing-office, and the purely mechanical part 
 of the business. Here he developed a surprising 
 quickness and adaptability, winning even the 
 favor and good will of the printers and foreman, 
 who at first looked upon his introduction into 
 the secrets of their trade as fraught with the 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 93 
 
 gravest political significance. He learned to set 
 type readily and neatly, his wonderful skill in 
 manipulation aiding him in the mere mechanical 
 act, and his ignorance of the language confining 
 him simply to the mechanical effort, confirm- 
 ing the printer's axiom, that the printer who 
 considers or follows the ideas of his copy makes 
 a poor compositor. He would set up deliberate 
 ly long diatribes against himself, composed by 
 his fellow-printers, and hung on his hook as 
 copy, and even such short sentences as " Wan 
 Lee is the devil's own imp," "Wan Lee is a 
 Mongolian rascal," and bring the proof to me 
 with happiness beaming from every tooth, and 
 satisfaction shining in his huckleberry eyes. 
 
 It was not long, however, before he learned to 
 retaliate on his mischievous persecutors. I re- 
 member one instance hi which his reprisal came 
 very near involving me in a serious misunder- 
 standing. Our foreman's name was Webster ; 
 and Wan Lee presently learned to know and 
 recognize the individual and combined letters of 
 his name. It was during a political campaign ; 
 and the eloquent and fiery Col. Starbottle of 
 Siskyou had delivered an effective speech, 
 which was reported especially for " The North- 
 ern Star." In a very sublime peroration, Col. 
 Starbottle had said, "In the language of tho 
 godlike Webster, I repeat " and here followed 
 
94 WAN LEB, THE PAGAJ*. 
 
 the quotation, which I have forgotten. Now, it 
 chanced that Wan Lee, looking over the galley 
 after it had been revised, saw the name of his 
 chief persecutor, and, of course, imagined the 
 quotation his. After the form was locked up, 
 Wan Lee took advantage of Webster's absence 
 to remove the quotation, and substitute a thin 
 piece of lead, of the same size as the type, en- 
 graved with Chinese characters, making a sen- 
 tence, which, I had reason to believe, was an 
 utter and abject confession of the incapacity and 
 offensiveness of the Webster family generally, 
 and exceedingly eulogistic of Wan Lee himself 
 personally. 
 
 The Mext morning's paper contained Col. 
 Starbottie's speech in full, in which it appeared 
 that the " godlike " Webster had, on one occa- 
 sion, uttered his thoughts in excellent but per- 
 fectly enigmatical Chinese. The rage of Col. 
 Starbottle knew no bounds. I have a vivid 
 recollection of that admirable man walking into 
 my office, and demanding a retraction of the 
 statement. 
 
 " But my dear sir," I asked, " are you willing 
 to deny, over your own signature, that Webster 
 ever uttered such a sentence ? Dare you deny, 
 that, with Mr. Webster's well-known attain- 
 ments, a knowledge of Chinese might not have 
 been among the number ? Are you willing to 
 
95 
 
 ubmit a translation suitable to the capacity of 
 our readers, and deny, upon your honor as a 
 gentleman, that the late Mr. Webster ever 
 uttered such a sentiment ? If you are, sir, I am 
 "willing to publish your denial." 
 
 The colonel was not, and left, highly indig- 
 nant. 
 
 Webster, the foreman, took it more coolly. 
 Happily, he was unaware, that, for two days 
 after, Chinamen from the laundries, from the 
 gulches, from the kitchens, looked in the front 
 office-door, with faces beaming with sardonic 
 delight ; that three hundred extra copies of the 
 " Star " were ordered for the wash-houses on the 
 river. He only knew, that, during the day, Wan 
 Lee occasionally went off into convulsive spasms, 
 and that he was obliged to kick him into con- 
 sciousness again. A week after the occurrence, 
 I called Wan Lee into my office. 
 
 "Wan," I said gravely, "I should like you 
 to give me, for my own personal satisfaction, a 
 translation of that Chinese sentence which my 
 gifted countryman, the late godlike Webster, 
 uttered upon a public occasion." Wan Lee 
 looked at me intently, and ther the slightest 
 possible twinkle crept into his black eyes. Then 
 he replied with equal gravity, 
 
 " Mishtel Webstel, he say, ' China boy makee 
 me belly much foolee. China boy makee ma 
 
96 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 heap sick.' " Which I have reason to think waa 
 true. 
 
 But I fear I am giving but one side, and not 
 the best, of Wan Lee's character. As he im- 
 parted it to me, his had been a hard life. He 
 had known scarcely any childhood : he had no 
 recollection of a father or mother. The conjurer 
 Wang had brought him up. He had spent the 
 first seven years of his life in appearing from 
 baskets, in dropping out of hats, in climbing 
 ladders, in putting his little limbs out of joint in 
 posturing. He had lived in an atmosphere of 
 trickery and deception. He had learned to look 
 upon mankind as dupes of their senses : in fine, 
 if he had thought at all, he would have been a 
 sceptic ; if he had been a little older, he would 
 have been a cynic ; if he had been older still, he 
 would have been a philosopher. As it was, he 
 was a little imp. A good-natured imp it was, 
 too, an imp whose moral nature had never 
 been awakened, an imp up for a holiday, and 
 willing to try virtue as a diversion. I don't know 
 that he had any spiritual nature. He was very 
 superstitious. He carried about with him a 
 hideous little porcelain god, which he was in the 
 habit of alternately reviling and propitiating. 
 He was too intelligent for the commoner 
 Chinese vices of stealing or gratuitous lying. 
 Whatever discipline he practised was taught by 
 bis intellect. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 97 
 
 I am inclined to think that his feelings were 
 not altogether unimpressible, although it was 
 almost impossible to extract an expression from 
 him; and I conscientiously believe he became 
 attached to those that were good to him. 
 What he might have become under mor 
 favorable conditions than the bondsman of an 
 overworked, under-paid literary man, I don't 
 know: I only know that the scant, irregular t 
 impulsive kindnesses that I showed him were 
 gratefully received. He was very loyal and 
 patient, two qualities rare in the average 
 American servant. He was like Malvolio, "sad 
 and civil " with me. Only once, and then under 
 great provocation, do I remember of his exhib- 
 iting any impatience. It was my habit, after 
 leaving the office at night, to take him with me 
 to my rooms, as the bearer of any supplemental 
 or happy after-thought, in the editorial way, 
 that might occur to me before the paper went 
 to press. One night I had been scribbling away 
 past the usual hour of dismissing Wan Lee, 
 and had become quite oblivious of his presence 
 in a chair near my door, when suddenly I 
 became aware of a voice saying in plaintive 
 accents, something that sounded like "Chy 
 Lee." 
 
 I faced around sternly. 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
98 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 " Me say, ' Chy Lee.' " 
 
 " WeU ? " I said impatiently. 
 
 " You sabe, How do, John ? ' " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " You sabe, So long, John ' ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, ' Chy Lee ' allee same I " 
 
 I understood him quite plainly. It appealed 
 that " Chy Lee " was a form of " good-night,'' 
 and that Wan Lee was anxious to go home. 
 But an instinct of mischief, which, I fear, I 
 possessed in common with him, impelled me to 
 act as if oblivious of the hint. I muttered 
 something about not understanding him, and 
 again bent over my work. In a few minutes I 
 heard his wooden shoes pattering pathetically 
 over the floor. I looked up. He was standing 
 near the door. 
 
 " You no sabe, ' Chy Lee '? " 
 
 " No," I said sternly. 
 
 " You sabe muchee big foolee ! allee same I " 
 
 And, with this audacity upon his lips, he fled 
 The next morning, however, he was as meek 
 and patient as before, and I did not recall hia 
 offence. As a probable peace-offering, he 
 blacked all my boots, a duty never required 
 of hun, including a pair of buff deer-skin 
 slippers and an immense pair of horseman's 
 jack-boots, on which he indulged his remorse 
 tor two hours. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 99 
 
 I have spoken of his honesty as being a 
 quality of his intellect rather than his principle . 
 but I recall about this time two exceptions 
 to the rule. I was anxious to get some fresh 
 eggs as a change to the heavy diet of a mining- 
 town; and, knowing that Wan Lee's country- 
 men were great poultry-raisers, I applied to him. 
 He furnished me with them regularly every 
 morning, but refused to take any pay, saying 
 that the man did not sell them, a remarkable 
 instance of self-abnegation, as eggs were then 
 worth half a dollar apiece. One morning 
 my neighbor Forster dropped in upon me at 
 breakfast, and took occasion to bewail his own 
 ill fortune, as his hens had lately stopped 
 laying, or wandered off in the bush. Wan Lee, 
 who was present during our colloquy, preserved 
 his characteristic sad taciturnity. When my 
 neighbor had gone, he turned to me with a 
 slight chuckle : " Flostel's hens Wan Lee's 
 hens allee same ! " His other offence was 
 more serious and ambitious. It was a season 
 of great irregularities in the mails, and Wan 
 Lee had heard me deplore the delay in the 
 delivery of my letters and newspapers. On 
 arriving at my office one day, I was amazed 
 to find ray table covered with letters, evidently 
 just from the post-office, but, unfortunately, not 
 Due addressed to me. I turned to Wan Lee, 
 
100 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 who was surveying them with a calm satisfao 
 tion, and demanded an explanation. To my 
 horror he pointed to an empty mail-bag in the 
 corner, and said, " Postman he say, ' No lettee, 
 John; no lettee, John.' Postman plentee lie! 
 Postman no good. Me catchee lettee last 
 night allee same ! " Luckily it was still early : 
 the mails had not been distributed. I had a 
 hurried interview with the postmaster ; and 
 Wan Lee's bold attempt at robbing the United 
 States mail was finally condoned by the pur- 
 chase of a new mail-bag, and the whole affair 
 thus kept a secret. 
 
 If my liking for my little Pagan page had 
 not been sufficient, my duty to Hop Sing was 
 enough, to cause me to take Wan Lee with me 
 when I returned to San Francisco after my two 
 years' experience with " The Northern Star." 
 I do not think he contemplated the change 
 with pleasure. I attributed his feelings to a 
 nervous dread of crowded public streets (when 
 he had to go across town for me on an errand, 
 he always made a circuit of the outskirts), to 
 his dislike for the discipline of the Chinese and 
 English school to which I proposed to send 
 him, to his fondness for the free, vagrant life of 
 the mines, to sheer wilfulness. That it might 
 have been a superstitious premonition did not 
 occur to me until long after. 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 101 
 
 Nevertheless it really seemed as if the oppor- 
 tunity I had long looked for and confidently 
 expected had come, the opportunity of pla- 
 cing Wan Lee under gently restraining influ- 
 ences, of subjecting him to a life and experience 
 that would draw out of him what good my 
 superficial care and ill-regulated kindness could 
 not reach. Wan Lee was placed at the school 
 of a Chinese missionary, an intelligent and 
 kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great 
 interest in the boy, and who, better than all, 
 had a wonderful faith in him. A home was 
 found for him in the family of a widow, who 
 had a bright and interesting daughter about 
 two years younger than Wan Lee. It was this 
 bright, cheery, innocent, and artless child that 
 touched and reached a depth in the boy's 
 nature that hitherto had been unsuspected; 
 that awakened a moral susceptibility which had 
 lain for years insensible alike to the teachings 
 of society, or the ethics of the theologian. 
 
 These few brief months bright with a 
 promise that we never saw fulfilled must have 
 been happy ones to Wan Lee. He worshipped 
 his little friend with something of the same 
 superstition, but without any of the caprice 
 that he bestowed upon his porcelain Pagan god. 
 It was his delight to walk behind her to school, 
 carrying her books, a service always fraught 
 
102 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 with danger to him from the little hands of hia 
 Caucasian Christian brothers. He made her the 
 most marvellous toys; he would cut out of 
 carrots and turnips the most astonishing roses 
 and tulips; he made life-like chickens out of 
 melon-seeds ; he constructed fans and kites, and 
 was singularly proficient in the making of dolls' 
 paper dresses. On the other hand, she played 
 and sang to him, taught him a thousand little 
 prettinesses and refinements only known to girls, 
 gave him a yellow ribbon for his pig-tail, as best 
 suiting his complexion, read to him, showed him 
 wherein he was original and valuable, took him 
 to Sunday school with her, against the prece- 
 dents of the school, and, small-woman-like, 
 triumphed. I wish I could add here, that she 
 effected his conversion, and made him give up 
 his porcelain idol. But I am telling a true 
 story ; and this little girl was quite content to fill 
 him with her own Christian goodness, without 
 letting him know that he was changed. So 
 they got along very well together, this little 
 Christian girl with her shining cross hanging 
 around her plump, white little neck ; and this 
 dark little Pagan, with his hideous porcelain 
 god hidden away in his blouse. 
 
 There were two days of that eventful year 
 which will long be remembered in San Fran 
 cisco, two davs when a mob of her citizens 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 103 
 
 let upon and killed unarmed, defenceless for- 
 eigners because they were foreigners, and of 
 another race, religion, and color, and worked 
 for what wages they could get. There were 
 some public men so timid, that, seeing this, 
 they thought that the end of the world had 
 come. There were some eminent statesmen, 
 whose names I am ashamed to write here, 
 whc began to think that the passage in the 
 Constitution which guarantees civil and reli- 
 gious liberty to every citizen or foreigner was 
 a mistake. But there were, also, some men 
 who were not so easily frightened ; and in 
 twenty-four hours we had things so arranged, 
 that the timid men could wring their hands in 
 safety, and the eminent statesmen utter their 
 doubts without hurting any body or any thing. 
 And in the midst of this I got a note from Hop 
 Sing, asking me to come to him immediately. 
 
 I found his warehouse closed, and strongly 
 guarded by the police against any possible 
 attack of the rioters. Hop Sing admitted me 
 through a barred grating with his usual imper- 
 turbable calm, but, as it seemed to me, with 
 more than his usual seriousness. Without A 
 word, he took my hand, and led me to the rear 
 of the room, and thence down stairs into the 
 basement. It was dimly lighted ; but there was 
 lomething lying on the flooi covered by a shawl 
 
104 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 As I approached lie drew the shawl away with 
 a sudden gesture, and revealed Wan Lee, the 
 Pagan, lying there dead. 
 
 Dead, my reverend friends, dead, stoned to 
 death in the streets of San Francisco, in the 
 year of grace 1869, by a mob of half-grown 
 boys and Christian school-children ! 
 
 As I put my hand reverently upon his breast* 
 I felt something crumbling beneath his blouse. 
 I looked inquiringly at Hop Sing. He put his 
 hand between the folds of silk, and drew out 
 something with the first bitter smile I had ever 
 seen on the face of that Pagan gentleman. 
 
 It was Wan Lee's porcelain god, crushed by 
 a, stone from the hands of those Christian icono- 
 ctatel 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WEN1 
 HOME. 
 
 I THINK we all loved him. Even after he 
 mismanaged the affairs of the Amity Ditch 
 Company, we commiserated him, although most 
 of us were stockholders, and lost heavily. I 
 remember that the blacksmith went so far as 
 to say that " them chaps as put that responsi- 
 bility on the old man oughter be lynched." But 
 the blacksmith was not a stockholder ; and the 
 expression was looked upon as the excusable 
 extravagance of a large, sympathizing nature, 
 that, when combined with a powerful frame, 
 was unworthy of notice. At least, that was 
 the way they put it. Yet I think there was a 
 general feeling of regret that this misfortune 
 would interfere with the old man's long-cher- 
 ished plan of " going home." 
 
 Indeed, for the last ten years he had been 
 '* going home." He was going home after a six- 
 months' sojourn at Monte Flat ; he was going 
 borne after the first rains ; he was going home 
 
 105 
 
106 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 when the rains were over ; he was going home 
 when he had cut the timber on Buckeye Hill, 
 when there was pasture on Dow's Flat, when he 
 struck pay-dirt on Eureka Hill, when the Amity 
 Company paid its first dividend, when the elec- 
 tion was over, when he had received an answer 
 from his wife. And so the years rolled by, 
 the spring rains came and went, the woods of 
 Buckeye Hill were level with the ground, the 
 pasture on Dow's Flat grew sear and dry, Eureka 
 Hill yielded its pay-dirt and swamped its owner, 
 the first dividends of the Amity Company were 
 made from the assessments of stockholders, 
 there were new county officers at Monte Flat, 
 his wife's answer had changed into a persistent 
 question, and still old man Plunkett remained. 
 
 It is only fair to say that he had made several 
 distinct essays toward going. Five years before, 
 he had bidden good-by to Monte Hill with 
 much effusion and hand-shaking. But he never 
 got any farther than the next town. Here 
 he was induced to trade the sorrel colt he was 
 Aiding for a bay mare, a transaction that at 
 once opened to his lively fancy a vista of vast 
 and successful future speculation. A few days 
 after, Abner Dean of Angel's received a letter 
 from him, stating that he was going to Visalia to 
 buy horses. " I am satisfied," wrote Plunkett, 
 with that elevated rhetoric for which his corre 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WEN1 HOME. 107 
 
 Bpondence was remarkable, "I am satisfied 
 that we are at last developing the real resources 
 of California. The world will yet look to Dow's 
 Flat as the great stock-raising centre. In view 
 of the interests involved, I have deferred my 
 departure for a month." It was two before he 
 again returned to us penniless. Six months 
 later, he was again enabled to start for the East 
 ern States ; and this time he got as far as San 
 Francisco. I have before me a letter which I 
 received a few days after his arrival, from which 
 I venture to give an extract : " You know, my 
 dear boy, that I have always believed that gam 
 bling, as it is absurdly called, is still in its in 
 fancy in California. I have always maintained 
 that a perfect system might be invented, by 
 which the game of poker may be made to yield 
 a certain percentage to the intelligent player. 
 I am not at liberty at present to disclose the 
 system ; but before leaving this city I intend to 
 perfect it." He seems to have done so, and 
 returned to Monte Flat with two dollars and 
 thirty-seven cents, the absolute remainder of 
 his capital after such perfection. 
 
 It was not until 1868 that he appeared to 
 have finally succeeded in going home. He left 
 us by the overland route, a route which he 
 declared would give great opportunity for the 
 discovery of undeveloped resources. His last 
 
108 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 letter was dated Virginia City. He was absent 
 three years. At the close of a very hot day in 
 midsummer, he alighted from the Wingdam 
 stage, with hair and beard powdered with dust 
 and age. There was a certain shyness about his 
 greeting, quite different from his usual frank 
 volubility, that did not, however, impress us as 
 any accession of character. For some days he 
 was reserved regarding his recent visit, content- 
 ing himself with asserting, with more or less 
 aggressiveness, that he had " always said he was 
 going home, and now he had been there." Latei 
 he grew more communicative, and spoke freely 
 and critically of the manners and customs of 
 New York and Boston, commented on the social 
 changes in the years of his absence, and, I 
 remember, was very hard upon what he deemed 
 the follies incidental to a high state of civiliza- 
 tion. Still later he darkly alluded to the moral 
 laxity of the higher planes of Eastern society ; 
 but it was not long before he completely tore 
 away the veil, and revealed the naked wicked- 
 ness of New York social life in a way I even 
 now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxication, it 
 appeared, was a common habit of the first ladies 
 of the city. Immoralities which he scarcely 
 dared name were daily practised by the refined 
 of both sexes. Niggardliness and greed were the 
 common vices of the rich. "I have always 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 109 
 
 asserted," lie continued, " that corruption must 
 exist where luxury and riches are rampant, 
 and capital is not used to develop the natural 
 resources of the country. Thank you I will 
 take mine without sugar." It is possible that 
 some of these painful details crept into the local 
 journals. I remember an editorial in " The Monte 
 Flat Monitor," entitled " The Effete East" in 
 which the fatal decadence of New York and 
 New England was elaborately stated, and Cali- 
 fornia offered as a means of natural salvation. 
 "Perhaps," said "The Monitor," "we mighc 
 add that Calaveras County offers superior induce- 
 ments to the Eastern visitor with capital." 
 
 Later he spoke of his family. The daughter 
 he had left a child had grown into beautiful 
 ^vomanhood. The son was already taller and 
 larger than his father ; and, in a playful trial of 
 strength, " the young rascal," added Plnnkett, 
 with a voice broken with paternal pride and 
 humorous objurgation, had twice thrown his 
 doting parent to the ground. But it was of his 
 daughter he chiefly spoke. Perhaps emboldened 
 by the evident interest which masculine Monte 
 Flat held in feminine beauty, he expatiated at 
 some length on her various charms and accom- 
 plishments, and finally produced her photograph, 
 that of a very pretty girl, to their infinite 
 peril. But his account of his first meeting with 
 
110 HOW OLD MAN PLTJNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 her was so peculiar, that I must fain give it 
 after his own methods, which were, perhaps, 
 some shades less precise and elegant than his 
 written style. 
 
 " You see, boys, it's always been my opinion 
 that a man oughter be able to tell his own flesh 
 and blood by instinct. It's ten years since I'd 
 seen my Melindy ; and she was then only seven, 
 and about so high. So, when I went to New 
 York, what did I do ? Did I go straight to my 
 house, and ask for my wife and daughter, like 
 other folks ? No, sir ! I rigged myself up as a 
 peddler, as a peddler, sir ; and I rung the bell. 
 When the servant came to the door, I wanted 
 don't you see? to show the ladies some 
 trinkets. Then there was a voice over the ban- 
 ister says, ' Don't want any thing : send him 
 away.' ' Some nice laces, ma'am, smuggled,' I 
 says, looking up. ' Get out, you wretch ! ' says 
 she. I knew the voice, boys : it was my wife, 
 sure as a gun. Thar wasn't any instinct thar. 
 4 Maybe the young ladies want somethin',' I 
 said. ' Did you hear me ? ' says she ; and with 
 that she jumps forward, and I left. It's ten 
 years, boys, since I've seen the old woman ; but 
 somehow, when she fetched that leap, I naterally 
 left." 
 
 He had been standing beside the bar his 
 usual attitude when he made this speech ; but 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. Ill 
 
 at this point he half faced his auditors with a 
 look that was very effective. Indeed, a few 
 who had exhibited some signs of scepticism and 
 lack of interest, at once assumed an appearance 
 of intense gratification and curiosity as ha 
 went on, 
 
 " Well, by hangin round there for a day or 
 two, I found out at last it was to be Melindy's 
 birthday next week, and that she was goin' to 
 have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, it 
 weren't no slouch of a reception. The whole 
 house was bloomin' with flowers, and blazin' 
 with lights ; and there was no end of servants 
 and plate and refreshments and fixings " 
 
 " Uncle Joe." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Where did they get the money ? " 
 
 Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe 
 glance. " I always said," he replied slowly, 
 " that, when I went home, I'd send on ahead of 
 me a draft for ten thousand dollars. I always 
 said that, didn't I? Eh? And I said I was 
 goin' home and I've been home, haven't I f 
 Well?" 
 
 Either there was something irresistibly con 
 elusive in this logic, or else the desire to hear 
 the remainder of Plunkett's story was stronger 
 but there was no more interruption. His ready 
 good-humor quickly returned, and, with a slight 
 chuckle, he went on, 
 
112 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 *' I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town< 
 and I bought a pair of diamond ear-rings, and 
 put them in my pocket, and went to the house. 
 What name ? ' says the chap who opened the 
 door ; and he looked like a cross 'twixt a restau- 
 rant waiter and a parson. ' Skeesicks,' said I. 
 He takes me in ; and pretty soon my wife comes 
 sailin' into the parlor, and says, ' Excuse me ; 
 but I don't think I recognize the name.' She 
 was mighty polite ; for I had on a red wig and 
 side-whiskers. 'A friend of your husband's 
 from California, ma'am, with a present for your 
 daughter, Miss ,' and I made as I had for- 
 got the name. But all of a sudden a voice 
 said, ' That's too thin ; ' and in walked Melindy. 
 4 It's playin' it rather low down, father, to 
 pretend you don't know your daughter's name ; 
 ain't it, now ? How are you, old man ? ' And 
 with that she tears off my wig and whiskers, 
 and throws her arms around my neck instinct, 
 sir, pure instinct 1 " 
 
 Emboldened by the laughter which followed 
 his description of the filial utterances of Melin- 
 da, he again repeated her speech, with more or 
 less elaboration, joining in with, and indeed 
 often leading, the hilarity that accompanied it, 
 and returning to it, with more or less inco- 
 korency, several times during the evening. 
 
 And so, at various times and at variouf 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 113 
 
 places, but chiefly in bar-rooms, did this 
 Ulysses of Monte Flat recount the story of 
 his wanderings. There were several discrep- 
 ancies in his statement; there was sometimes 
 considerable prolixity of detail ; there was occa- 
 sional change of character and scenery ; there 
 was once or twice an absolute change in the 
 denodment: but always the fact of his having 
 visited his wife and children remained. Of 
 course, in a sceptical community like that of 
 Monte Flat, a community accustomed to great 
 expectation and small realization, a commu- 
 nity wherein, to use the local dialect, " they got 
 the color, and struck hardpan," more frequently 
 than any other mining-camp, in such a com- 
 munity, the fullest credence was not given to 
 old man Plunkett's facts. There was only one 
 exception to the general unbelief, Henry York 
 of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an 
 attentive listener; it was his scant purse that 
 had often furnished Plunkett with means to 
 pursue his unprofitable speculations ; it was to 
 him that the charms of Melinda were more fre- 
 quently rehearsed ; it was he that had borrowed 
 her photograph; and it was he that, sitting 
 alone in his little cabin one night, kissed that 
 photograph, until his honest, handsome face 
 glowed again in the firelight. 
 It was dusty in Monte Flat. The ruins of 
 
114 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 the long dry season were crumbling every 
 where: everywhere the dying summer had 
 Btrewn its red ashes a foot deep, or exhaled 
 its last breath in a red cloud above the troubled 
 highways. The alders and cotton woods, that 
 marked the line of the water-courses, were 
 grimy with dust, and looked as if they might 
 have taken root in the open air. The gleaming 
 stones of the parched water-courses themselves 
 were as dry bones in the valley of death. The 
 dusty sunset at times painted the flanks of the 
 distant hills a dull, coppery hue : on other days, 
 there was an odd, indefinable earthquake halo 
 on the volcanic cones of the farther coast-spurs. 
 Again an acrid, resinous smoke from the burning 
 wood on Heavytree Hill smarted the eyes, and 
 choked the free breath of Monte Flat; or a 
 fierce wind, driving every thing, including the 
 shrivelled summer, like a curled leaf before it, 
 swept down the flanks of the Sierras, and 
 chased the inhabitants to the doors of their 
 cabins, and shook its red fist in at their win- 
 dows. And on such a night as this, the dust 
 having in some way choked the wheels of ma- 
 terial progress in Monte Flat, most of the in- 
 habitants were gathered listlessly in the gilded 
 Oar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting 
 silently at the red-hot stove that tempered the 
 mountain winds to the shorn lambs of Monte 
 Flat, and waiting for the rain. 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 115 
 
 Every method known to the Flat of beguiling 
 the time until the advent of this long-looked- 
 for phenomenon had been tried. It is true, the 
 methods were not many, being limited chiefly 
 to that form of popular facetiae known as prac- 
 tical joking; and even this had assumed the 
 seriousness of a business-pursuit. Tommy Roy, 
 who had spent two hours in digging a ditch in 
 front of his own door, into which a few friends 
 casually dropped during the evening, looked 
 ennuye and dissatisfied. The four prominent 
 citizens, who, disguised as foot-pads, had 
 stopped the county treasurer on the Wingdam 
 road, were jaded from their playful efforts 
 next morning. The principal physician and 
 lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an 
 urhallowed conspiracy to compel the sheriff 
 of Calaveras and his posse to serve a writ of 
 ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly disguised 
 under the name of one "Major Ursus," who 
 haunted the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore 
 an expression of resigned weariness. Even the 
 editor of " The Monte Flat Monitor," who had 
 that morning written a glowing account of a 
 battle with the Wipneck Indians, for the bene- 
 fit of Eastern readers, even he looked grave 
 and worn. When, at last, Abner Dean of An- 
 gel's, who had been on a visit to San Francisco, 
 Iralked into the room, he was, of course, vio- 
 
116 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKBTT WENT HOME. 
 
 timized in the usual way by one or two appar* 
 ently honest questions, which ended in his 
 answering them, and then falling into the trap 
 of asking another, to his utter and complete 
 shame and mortification ; but that was all. No- 
 body laughed; and Abner, although a victim, 
 did not lose his good-humor. He turned quietly 
 on his tormentors, and said, 
 
 "I've got something better than that you 
 know old man Plunkett ? " 
 
 Everybody simultaneously spat at the stove, 
 and nodded his head. 
 
 " You know he went home three years ago ? " 
 Two or three changed the position of their legs 
 from the backs of different chairs ; and one man 
 said, " Yes." 
 
 " Had a good time, home ? " 
 
 Everybody looked cautiously at the man who 
 had said, " Yes ; " and he, accepting the respon- 
 sibility with a faint-hearted smile, said, " Yes," 
 again, and breathed hard. " Saw his wife and 
 child purty gal?" said Abner cautiously. 
 "Yes," answered the man doggedly. "Saw 
 her photograph, perhaps?" continued Abner 
 Dean quietly. 
 
 The man looked hopelessly around for sup- 
 port Two or three, who had been sitting near 
 him, and evidently encouraging him with a look 
 of interest, now shamelessly abandoned him 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 117 
 
 and looked another way. Henry York flushed 
 a little, and veiled his gray eyes. The man 
 hesitated, and then with a sickly smile, that 
 was intended to convey the fact that he was 
 perfectly aware of the object of this question- 
 ing, and was only humoring it from abstract 
 good feeling, returned, " Yes," again. 
 
 "Sent home let's see ten thousand dol- 
 lars, wasn't it ? " Abner Dean went on " Yes," 
 reiterated the man with the same smile. 
 
 "Well, I thought so," said Abner quietly. 
 " But the fact is, you see, that he never went 
 home at all nary time." 
 
 Everybody stared at Abner in genuine sur- 
 prise and interest, as, with provoking calmness 
 and a half-lazy manner, he went on, 
 
 " You see, thar was a man down in 'Frisco as 
 knowed him, and saw him in Sonora during the 
 whole of that three years. He was herding 
 sheep, or tending cattle, or spekilating all that 
 time, and hain't a red cent. Well it 'mounts 
 to this, that 'ar Plunkett ain't been east of 
 the Rocky Mountains since '49." 
 
 The laugh which Abner Dean had the right 
 to confidently expect came ; but it was bitter 
 and sardonic. I think indignation was appar- 
 ent in the minds of his hearers. It was felt, 
 for the first time, that there was a limit to prac- 
 tical joking. A deception carried on for a 
 
118 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 compromising the sagacity of Monte Flat, was 
 deserving the severest reprobation. Of course, 
 nobody had believed Plunkett; but then the 
 supposition that it might be believed in adja- 
 cent camps that they had believed him was gall 
 ana bitterness. The lawyer thought that an 
 indictment for obtaining money under false pre- 
 tences might be found. The physician had long 
 suspected him of insanity, and was not certain 
 but that he ought to be confined. The four 
 prominent merchants thought that the business- 
 interests of Monte Flat demanded that some- 
 thing should be done. In the midst of an 
 excited and angry discussion, the door slowly 
 opened, and old man Plunkett staggered into 
 the room. 
 
 He had changed pitifully in the last six 
 months. His hair was a dusty, yellowish gray, 
 like the chemisal on the flanks of Heavytree 
 Hill ; his face was waxen white, and blue and 
 puffy under the eyes; his clothes were soiled 
 and shabby, streaked in front with the stains 
 of hurriedly eaten luncheons, and fluffy behind 
 with the wool and hair of hurriedly-extem- 
 porized couches. In obedience to that odd 
 law, that, the more seedy and soiled a man's 
 garments become, the less does he seem inclined 
 to part with them, even during that portion 
 f the twenty-four hours when they are 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 119 
 
 deemed less essential, Plunkett's clothes had 
 gradually taken on the appearance of a kind 
 of a bark, or an outgrowth from within, for 
 which their possessor was not entirely responsi- 
 ble. Howbeit, as he entered the room, he 
 attempted to button his coat over a dirty 
 shirt, and passed his fingers, after the mannei 
 of some animal, over his cracker-strewn beard, 
 in recognition of a cleanly public sentiment. 
 But, even as he did so, the weak smile faded 
 from his lips ; and his hand, after fumbling aim- 
 lessly around a button, dropped helplessly at 
 his side. For as he leaned his back against the 
 bar, and faced the group, he, for the first time, 
 became aware that every eye but one was fixed 
 upon him. His quick, nervous apprehension at 
 once leaped to the truth. His miserable secret 
 was out, and abroad in the very air about him. 
 As a last resort, he glanced despairingly at 
 Henry York ; but his flushed face was turned 
 toward the windows. 
 
 No word was spoken. As the bar-keeper 
 silently swung a decanter and glass before him, 
 he took a cracker from a dish, and mumbled it 
 with affected unconcern. He lingered over his 
 liquor until its potency stiffened his relaxed 
 sinews, and dulled the nervous edge of his ap 
 prehension, and then he suddenly faced around. 
 " It dou't look as if we were goin' to hev any 
 
120 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKBTT WENT HOME. 
 
 tain much afore Christmas," he said with deft 
 ant ease. 
 
 No one made any reply. 
 
 " Just like this in '52, and again in '60. It'u 
 always been my opinion that these dry seasonu 
 come reg'lar. I've said it afore. I say it again. 
 It's jist as I said about going home, you know," 
 he added with desperate recklessness. 
 
 "Thar's a man," said Abner Dean lazily, 
 " ez sez you never went home. Thar's a man 
 ez sez you've been three years in Sonora. 
 Thar's a man ez sez you hain't seen your wife 
 and daughter since '49. Thar's a man ez sez 
 you've been playin' this camp for six months." 
 
 There was a dead silence. Then a voice said 
 quite as quietly, 
 
 " That man lies." 
 
 It was not the old man's voice. Everybody 
 turned as Henry York slowly rose, stretching 
 out his six feet of length, and, brushing away 
 the ashes that had fallen from his pipe upon 
 his breast, deliberately placed himself beside 
 Plunkett, and faced the others. 
 
 "That man ain't here," continued Abner 
 Dean, with listless indifference of voice, and a 
 gentle preoccupation of manner, as he care- 
 lessly allowed his right hand to rest on his hip 
 near his revolver. " That man ain't here ; but, 
 if I'm called upon to make good what he says, 
 why, I'm on hand." 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLTTNKETT WENT HOME. 121 
 
 All rose as the two men perhaps the leatt 
 externally agitated of them all approached 
 each other. The lawyer stepped in between 
 tiiem. 
 
 44 Perhaps there's some mistake here. York, 
 do you know that the old man has been home? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 44 How do you know it ? " 
 
 York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on 
 tis questioner, and without a tremor told the 
 only direct and unmitigated lie of his life. 
 44 Because I've seen him there." 
 
 The answer was conclusive. It was known 
 that York had been visiting the East during the 
 old man's absence. The colloquy had diverted 
 attention from Plunkett, who, pale and breath- 
 less, was staring at his unexpected deliverer. 
 As he turned again toward his tormentors, there 
 was something in the expression of his eye that 
 caused those that were nearest to him to fall 
 back, and sent a strange, indefinable thrill 
 through the boldest and most reckless. As 
 he made a step forward, the physician, almost 
 unconsciously, raised his hand with a warning 
 gesture ; and old man Plunkett, with his eyes 
 fixed upon the red-hot stove, and an odd smile 
 playing about his mouth, began, 
 
 "Yes of course you did. Who says you 
 4idn't? It ain't no lie. I said I was gouV 
 
122 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 home and I've been home. Haven't I ? My 
 God! I have. Who says I've been lyin'? 
 Who says I m dreamin' ? Is it true why 
 don't you speak ? It is true, after all. You say 
 you saw me there : why don't you speak again ? 
 Say, say ! is it true ? It's going now. O my 
 God ! it's going again. It's going now. Save 
 me ! " And with a fierce cry he fell forward in 
 a fit upon the floor. 
 
 When the old man regained his senses, he 
 found himself in York's cabin. A flickering 
 fire of pine-boughs lit up the rude rafters, and 
 fell upon a photograph tastefully framed with 
 fir-cones, and hung above the brush whereon he 
 lay. It was the portrait of a young girl. It 
 was the first object to meet the old man's gaze ; 
 and it brought with it a flush of such painful 
 consciousness, that he started, and glanced 
 quickly around. But his eyes only encountered 
 those of York, clear, gray, critical, and pa- 
 tient, and they fell again. 
 
 " Tell me, old man," said York not unkindly, 
 but with the same cold clear tone in his voice 
 that his eye betrayed a moment ago, " tell 
 me, is that a lie too ? " and he pointed to the 
 picture. 
 
 The old man closed his eyes, and did not 
 reply. Two hours before, the question would 
 have stung him into some evasion or bravado, 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLTJNKETT WENT HOME. 123 
 
 But the revelation contained in the question, as 
 well as the tone of York's voice, was to him now, 
 in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain, 
 even to his confused brain, that York had lied 
 when he had indorsed his story in the bar-room: 
 it was clear to him now that he had not been 
 home, that he was not, as he had begun to 
 fear, going mad. It was such a relief, that, with 
 characteristic weakness, his former recklessress 
 and extravagance returned. He began to 
 chuckle, finally to laugh uproariously. 
 
 York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man, 
 withdrew the hand with which he had taken 
 his. 
 
 " Didn't we fool 'em nicely ; eh, Yorky ! He, 
 he ! The biggest thing yet ever played in this 
 camp ! I always said I'd play 'em all some day, 
 and I have played 'em for six months. Ain't 
 it rich ? ain't it the richest thing you ever 
 seed ? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke 
 'bout that man as seed me in Sonora ? Warn't 
 it good as the minstrels ? Oh, it's too much ! " 
 and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand, 
 he almost threw himself from the bed in a 
 paroxysm of laughter, a paroxysm that, nev- 
 ertheless, appeared to be half real and half 
 affected. 
 
 "Is that photograph hers?" said York in a 
 ow voice, after a slight pause. 
 
124 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 44 Hers ? No ! It's one of the San Francisco 
 actresses. He, he ! Don't you see ? I bought 
 it for two bits in one of the bookstores. I 
 never thought they'd swaller that too ; but they 
 did ! Oh, but the old man played 'em this 
 time didn't he eh ? " and he peered curiously 
 in York's face. 
 
 "Yes, and he played me too," said York, 
 looking steadily in the old man's eye. 
 
 44 Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett hasti- 
 ly ; 44 but you know, Yorky, you got out of it 
 well! You've sold 'em too. We've both got 
 'em on a string now you and me got to 
 stick together now. You did it well, Yorky : 
 you did it well. Why, when you said you'd 
 seen me in York City, I'm d d if I didn't " 
 
 44 Didn't what?" said York gently; for the 
 old man had stopped with a pale face and wan- 
 dering eye. 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 44 You say when I said I had seen you in New 
 York you thought " 
 
 "You lie!" said the old man fiercely. "I 
 didn't say I thought any thing. What are you 
 trying to go back on me for, eh ? " His hands 
 were trembling as he rose muttering from the 
 bed, and made his way toward the hearth. 
 
 44 Gimme some whiskey," he said presently 
 *and dry up. You oughter treat anyway 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLTTNKETT WENT HOME. 125 
 
 Them fellows oughter treated last night. By 
 hookey, I'd made 'em only I fell sick." 
 
 York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the 
 table beside him, and, going to the door, turned 
 his back upon his guest, and looked out on the 
 night. Although it was clear moonlight, the 
 familiar prospect never to him seemed so drea 
 ry. The dead waste of the broad Wingdam 
 highway never seemed so monotonous, so like 
 the days that he had passed, and were to come 
 to him, so like the old man in its suggestion 
 of going sometime, and never getting there. 
 He turned, and going up to Plunkett put hi* 
 hand upon his shoulder, and said, 
 
 "I want you to answer one question fairly 
 and squarely." 
 
 The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid 
 blood in the old man's veins, and softened his 
 acerbity; for the face he turned up to York 
 was mellowed in its rugged outline, and more 
 thoughtful in expression, as he said, 
 
 ** Go on, my boy." 
 
 44 Have you a wife and daughter ? " . 
 
 44 Before God I have ! " 
 
 The two men were silent for a moment, both 
 gazing at the fire. Then Plunkett began rub- 
 bing his knees slowly. 
 
 w The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," 
 he began cautiously, "being a little on the 
 
126 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 shoulder, you know, and wantin', so to speak, 
 a liberal California education, which mates, you 
 know, a bad combination. It's always been my 
 opinion, that there ain't any worse. Why, she'a 
 as ready with her tongue as Abner Dean is with 
 his revolver, only with the difference that she 
 shoots from principle, as she calls it ; and the 
 consequence is, she's always layin' for you. 
 It's the effete East, my boy, that's ruinin' her. 
 It's them ideas she gets in New York and Bos- 
 ton that's made her and me what we are. I 
 don't mind her havin' 'em, if she didn't shoot. 
 But, havin' that propensity, them principles 
 oughtn't to be lying round loose no more'n fire- 
 arms." 
 
 " But your daughter ? " said York. 
 
 The old man's hands went up to his eyes 
 here, and then both hands and head dropped 
 forward on the table. "Don't say any thing 
 'bout her, my boy, don't ask me now." With 
 one hand concealing his eyes, he fumbled about 
 with the other in his pockets for his handker- 
 chief but vainly. Perhaps it was owing to 
 this fact, that he repressed his tears ; for, when 
 he removed his hand from his eyes, they were 
 ^uite dry. Then he found his voice. 
 
 " She's a beautiful girl, beautiful, though I 
 3ay it ; and you shall see her, my boy, you shall 
 see her sure. I've got things about fixed now 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. l27 
 
 I shall have my plan for reducin' ores perfected 
 m a day or two ; and I've got proposals from all 
 the smeltin' works here " (here he hastily pro- 
 duced a bundle of papers that fell upon the floor), 
 4 and I'm goin' to send for 'em. I've got the 
 papers here as will give me ten thousand dollars 
 clear in the next month," he added, as he strove 
 to collect the valuable documents again. " I'll 
 have 'em here by Christmas, if I live ; and you 
 shall eat your Christmas dinner with me, York, 
 my boy, you shall sure." 
 
 With his tongue now fairly loosened by 
 liquor and the suggestive vastness of his pros- 
 pects, he rambled on more or less incoherently, 
 elaborating and amplifying his plans, occa- 
 sionally even speaking of them as already ac- 
 complished, until the moon rode high in the 
 heavens, and York led him again to his couch. 
 Here he lay for some time muttering to himself, 
 until at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When 
 York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently 
 took down the picture and frame, and, going to 
 the hearth, tossed them on the dying embers, 
 and sat down to see them burn. 
 
 The fir-cones leaped instantly into flame; 
 then the features that had entranced San Fran- 
 cisco audiences nightly, flashed up and passed 
 rway (as such things are apt to pass) ; and 
 ven the cynical smile on York's lips faded too. 
 
128 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 And then there came a supplemental and un- 
 expected flash as the embers fell together, and 
 by its light York saw a paper upon the floor. 
 It was one that had fallen from the old man's 
 pocket. As he picked it up listlessly, a photo- 
 graph slipped from its folds. It was the portrait 
 of a young girl; and on its reverse was written 
 in a scrawling hand, "Melinda to father." 
 
 It was at best a cheap picture, but, ah me ! I 
 fear even the deft graciousness of the highest 
 art could not have softened the rigid angulari- 
 ties of that youthful figure, its self-complacent 
 vulgarity, its cheap finery, its expressionless ill- 
 favor. York did not look at it a second time. 
 He turned to the letter for relief. 
 
 It was misspelled: it was unpunctuated ; it 
 was almost illegible; it was fretful in tone, and 
 selfish in sentiment. It was not, I fear, even 
 original in the story of its woes. It was the 
 harsh recital of poverty, of suspicion, of mean 
 makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and 
 lower longings, of sorrows that were degrading, 
 of a grief that was pitiable. Yet it was sincere 
 in a certain kind of vague yearning for the 
 presence of the degraded man to whom it was 
 written, an affection that was more like a con- 
 fused instinct than a sentiment. 
 
 York folded it again carefully, and placed it 
 beneath the old man's pillow. Then he re- 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKBTT WENT HO1VTE. 129 
 
 turned to his seat by the fire. A smile that had 
 been playing upon his face, deepening the curves 
 behind his mustache, and gradually overrun 
 ning his clear gray eyes, presently faded away, 
 It was last to go from his eyes ; and it left there, 
 oddly enough to those who did not know him, 
 a tear. 
 
 He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, 
 his head upon his hands. The wind that had 
 been striving with the canvas roof all at once 
 lifted its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly 
 in, and lay for a moment like a shining blade 
 upon his shoulder ; and, knighted by its touch, 
 straightway plain Henry York arose, sustained, 
 high-purposed and self-reliant. 
 
 The rains had come at last. There was al- 
 ready a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavy- 
 tree Hill ; and the long, white track of the Wing- 
 dam road was lost in outlying pools and ponds 
 a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The spent 
 water-courses, whose white bones had been sin- 
 uously trailed over the flat, like the vertebrae of 
 some forgotten saurian, were full again; the 
 dry bones moved once more in the valley ; and 
 there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable 
 extravagance in the columns of " The Monte Flat 
 Monitor." " Never before in the history of the 
 tounty has the yield been so satisfactory. Oui 
 
130 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 contemporary of 'The Hillside Beacon,' whc 
 yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) 
 that our best citizens were leaving town in 
 ' dugouts,' on account of the flood, will be glad 
 to hear that our distinguished fellow-townsman, 
 Mr. Henry York, now on a visit to his relatives 
 in the East, lately took with him in his ' dug- 
 out ' the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars, 
 the result of one week's clean-up. We can 
 imagine," continued that sprightly journal, " that 
 no such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside 
 this season. And yet we believe 4 The Beacon ' 
 man wants a railroad." A few journals broke 
 out into poetry. The operator at Simpson's 
 Crossing telegraphed to " The Sacramento Uni- 
 verse" "All day the low clouds have shook 
 their garnered fulness down." A San-Fran- 
 cisco journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly 
 disguised as editorial prose : " Rejoice : the 
 gentle rain has come, the bright and pearly rain, 
 which scatters blessings on the hills, and sifts 
 them o' er the plain. Rejoice," &c. Indeed, 
 her j was only one to whom the rain had not 
 rought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In 
 ome mysterious and darksome way, it had in- 
 terfered with the perfection of his new method 
 nf reducing ores, and thrown the advent of 
 that invention back another season. It had 
 brought him down to an habitual seat in the 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 131 
 
 bar-room, where, to heedless and inattentive 
 ears, he sat and discoursed of the East and his 
 family. 
 
 No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was ru- 
 mored that some funds had been lodged with 
 the landlord, by a person or persons unknown, 
 whereby his few wants were provided for. His 
 mania for that was the charitable construc- 
 tion which Monte Flat put upon his conduct 
 was indulged, even to the extent of Monte Flat's 
 accepting his invitation to dine with his family 
 on Christmas Day, an invitation extended 
 frankly to every one with whom the old man 
 drank or talked. But one day, to everybody's 
 astonishment, he burst into the bar-room, hold- 
 ing an open letter in his hand. It read as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on 
 Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends 
 you choose. 
 
 HENRY YORK." 
 
 The letter was handed round in silence. The 
 old man, with a look alternating between hope 
 and fear, gazed in the faces of the group. The 
 iloctor looked up significantly, after a pause 
 ?4 It's a forgery evidently," he said in a IOTP 
 ^oice. "He's cunning enough to conceive it 
 (they always are) ; but you'll find he'll fail ID 
 
132 HOW OLD MAN PLTTNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 executing it. Watch his face ! Old man," he 
 said suddenly, in a loud peremptory tone, " this 
 is a trick, a forgery, and you know it. An- 
 swer me squarely, and look me in the eye. Isn't 
 it so?" 
 
 The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and 
 then dropped weakly. Then, with a feebler 
 smile, he said, " You're too many for me, boys. 
 The Doc's right. The little game's up. You 
 can take the old man's hat ; " and so, tottering, 
 trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into si- 
 lence and his accustomed seat. But the next 
 day he seemed to have forgotten this episode, 
 and talked as glibly as ever of the approaching 
 festivity. 
 
 And so the days and weeks passed until 
 Christmas a bright, clear day, warmed with 
 south winds, and joyous with the resurrection 
 of springing grasses broke upon Monte Flat. 
 And then there was a sudden commotion in the 
 hotel bar-room ; and Abner Dean stood beside 
 the old man's chair, and shook frim out of a 
 slumber to his feet. " Rouse up, old man. York 
 is here, with your wife and daughter, at the 
 cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. Here, 
 boys, give him a lift ; " and in another moment 
 a dozen strong and willing hands had raised the 
 old man, and bore him in triumph to the street, 
 up the steep grade of Heavytree Hill, and de 
 
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKBTT WENT HOME. 133 
 
 posited him, struggling and confused, in the 
 porch of a little cottage. At the same instant 
 two women rushed forward, but were restrained 
 by a gesture from Henry York. The old man 
 was struggling to his feet. With an effort at 
 last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye fixed, a 
 gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance 
 in his voice. 
 
 " It's all a trick, and a lie ! They ain't no 
 flesh and blood or kin o' mine. It ain't my 
 wife, nor child. My daughter's a beautiful girl 
 a beautiful girl, d'ye hear ? She's in New York 
 with her mother, and I'm going to fetch her here 
 I said I'd go home, and I've been home : d'ye 
 hear me ? ' I've been home ! It's a mean trick 
 you're playin' on the old man. Let me go : d'ye 
 hear ? Keep them women off me I Let me go I 
 I'm going I'm going home ! " 
 
 His hands were thrown up convulsively in 
 the air, and, half turning round, he fell sideways 
 on the porch, and so to the ground. They 
 picked him up hurriedly, but too late. He had 
 gone home. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 HE lived alone. I do not think tf <f 
 peculiarity arose from any wish to with- 
 draw his foolishness from the rest of the camp ; 
 nor was it probable that the combined wisdom 
 of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My 
 impression is, that he lived alone from choice, 
 a choice he made long before the camp indulged 
 in any criticism of his mental capacity. He 
 was much given to moody reticence, and, 
 although to outward appearances a strong man, 
 was always complaining of ill-health. Indeed, 
 one theory of his isolation was, that it afforded 
 him better opportunities for taking medicine, of 
 which he habitually consumed large quantities. 
 His folly first dawned upon Five Forks 
 through the post-office windows. He was, for 
 a long time, the only man who wrote home by 
 every mail ; his letters being always directed t<r 
 the same person, a woman. Now, it so hap 
 pened that the bulk of the Five Forks corre- 
 spondence was usually the other way. There 
 were many lettera received (the majority being 
 
 134 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 136 
 
 In the female hand), but very few answered. 
 The men received them indifferently, or as a 
 matter of course. A few opened and read them 
 on the spot, with a barely repressed smile of 
 self- conceit, or quite as frequently glanced over 
 them with undisguised impatience. Some of 
 the letters began with " My dear husband ; " and 
 some were never called for. But the fact that 
 the only regular correspondent of Five Forks 
 never received any reply became at last quite 
 notorious. Consequently, when an envelope was 
 received, bearing the stamp of the " dead letter 
 office," addressed to " The Fool,' 3 under the 
 more conventional title of " Cyrus Hawkins," 
 there was quite a fever of excitement. I do 
 not know how the secret leaked out ; but it was 
 eventually known to the camp, that the enve- 
 lope contained Hawkins's own letters returned. 
 This was the first evidence of his weakness. 
 Any man who repeatedly wrote to a woman who 
 did not reply must be a fool. I think Haw- 
 kins suspected that his folly was known to the 
 camp ; but he took refuge in symptoms of chills 
 and fever, which he at once developed, aod 
 effected a diversion with three bottles of Indian 
 cholagogue and two boxes of pills. At all 
 events, at the end of a week, he resumed a pen 
 stiffened by tonics, with all his old epistolatory 
 pertinacity. This time the letters had a neif 
 %ddress, 
 
136 THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 
 
 In those days a popular belief obtained IP 
 the mines, that luck particularly favored the 
 foolish and unscientific. Consequently, when 
 Hawkins struck a " pocket " in the hillside near 
 his solitary cabin, there was but little surprise. 
 " He will sink it all in the next hole " was the 
 prevailing belief, predicated upon the usual 
 manner in which the possessor of "nigger 
 luck " disposed of his fortune. To everybody's 
 astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about 
 eight thousand dollars, and exhausting the 
 pocket, did not prospect for another. The 
 camp then waited patiently to see what he 
 would do with his money. I think, however, that 
 it was with the greatest difficulty their indigna- 
 tion was kept from taking the form of a personal 
 assault when it became known that he had 
 purchased a draft for eight thousand dollars, in 
 favor of " that woman." More than this, it 
 was finally whispered that the draft was returned 
 to him as his letters had been, and that he was 
 ashamed to reclaim the money at the express- 
 office. " It wouldn't be a bad specilation to go 
 East, get some smart gal, for a hundred dollars, 
 to dress herself up and represent that ' Hag,' 
 and jest freeze onto that eight thousand," sug- 
 gested a far-seeing financier. I may state here, 
 that we always alluded to Hawkins's fair un- 
 known as the " Hag " without having, I am 
 
THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 137 
 
 confident, the least justification for that epi 
 thet. 
 
 That the " Fool " should gamble seemed emi 
 nently fifc and proper. That he should occasio?i 
 ally win a large stake, according to that popular 
 theory which I have recorded in the preceding 
 paragraph, appeared, also, a not improbable or 
 inconsistent fact. That he should, however, 
 break the faro bank which Mr. John Hamlin 
 had set up in Five Forks, and carry off a sum 
 variously estimated at from ten to twenty thou- 
 sand dollars, and not return the next day, and 
 lose the money at the same table, really 
 appeared incredible. Yet such was the fact. 
 A day or two passed without any known invest- 
 ment of Mr. Hawkins's recently-acquired cap- 
 ital. " Ef he allows to send it to that 4 Hag,' '* 
 said one prominent citizen, " suthin' ought to 
 be done. It's jest ruinin' the reputation of 
 this yer camp, this sloshin' around o' capital 
 on non-residents ez don't claim it!" "It's 
 Bettin' an example o' extravagance," said 
 another, " ez is little better nor a swindle. 
 Thais mor'n five men in this camp, thet, hearin' 
 thet Hawkins hed sent home eight thousand 
 dollars, must jest rise up and send home their 
 hard earnings too ! And then to think thet 
 thet eight thousand was only a bluff, after all, 
 and thet it's lyin' there on call in Adams <& 
 
138 THE POOL OF FIVE FOURS. 
 
 Co.'s bank ! Well, I say it's one o' them things 
 a vigilance committee oughter look into." 
 
 When there seemed no possibility of this 
 repetition of Hawkins's folly, the anxiety to 
 know what he had really done with his money 
 became intense. At last a self-appointed com- 
 mittee of four citizens dropped artfully, but to 
 outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his 
 seclusion. When some polite formalities had 
 been exchanged, and some easy vituperation 
 of a backward season offered by each of the 
 parties, Tom Wingate approached the subject. 
 
 " Sorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the 
 other night, didn't ye ? He allows you didn't 
 give him no show for revenge. I said you 
 wasn't no such d d fool; didn't I, Dick?" 
 continued the artful Wingate, appealing to a 
 confederate. 
 
 "Yes," said Dick promptly. "You said 
 twenty thousand dollars wasn't goin' to be 
 thrown around recklessly. You said Cyrus had 
 suthin' better to do with his capital," super- 
 added Dick with gratuitous mendacity. " I dis- 
 remember now what partickler investment you 
 said he was goin' to make with it," he con- 
 tinued, appealing with easy indifference to his 
 friend. 
 
 Of course Wingate did not reply, but looked 
 t the " Fool," who, with a troubled face, wan 
 
THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 139 
 
 rubbing his legs softly. After a pause, he 
 turned deprecatingly toward his visitors. 
 
 "Ye didn't enny of ye ever hev a sort of 
 tremblin' in your legs, a kind o' shakiness 
 from the knee down ? Suthin'," he continued, 
 slightly brightening with his topic, " suthin' 
 that begins like chills, and yet ain't chills ? A 
 kind o' sensation of goneness here, and a kind 
 o' feelin' as if you might die suddint ? when 
 Wright's Pills don't somehow reach the spot, 
 and quinine don't fetch you ? " 
 
 " No ! " said Wingate with a curt directness, 
 and the air of authoritatively responding for his 
 friends, "no, never had. You was speakin' 
 of this yer investment." 
 
 "And your bowels all the time irregular?" 
 continued Hawkins, blushing under Wingate 's 
 eye, and yet clinging despairingly to his theme, 
 like a shipwrecked mariner to his plank. 
 
 Wingate did not reply, but glanced signifi- 
 cantly at the rest. Hawkins evidently saw this 
 recognition of his mental deficiency, and said 
 apologetically, " You was saying suthin' about 
 my investment ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Wingate, so rapidly as to almost 
 take Hawkins's breath away, " the investment 
 fou made in " 
 
 " Rafferty's Ditch," said the " Fool " timidly. 
 
 For a moment, the visitors could only stare 
 
140 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 blankly at each other. " Rafferty's Ditch," the 
 one notorious failure of Five Forks ! Rafferty V 
 Ditch, the impracticable scheme of an utterly 
 unpractical man ! Rafferty's Ditch, a ridicu- 
 lous plan for taking water that could not be 
 got to a place where it wasn't wanted ! Raff- 
 erty's Ditch, that had buried the fortunes of 
 Rafferty and twenty wretched stockholders in 
 its muddy depths ! 
 
 " And thet's it, is it ? " said Wingate, after a 
 gloomy pause. " Thet's it ! I see it all now, 
 boys. That's how ragged Pat Rafferty went 
 down to San Francisco yesterday in store- 
 clothes, and his wife and four children went off 
 in a kerridge to Sacramento. Thet's why them 
 ten workmen of his, ez hadn't a cent to bless 
 themselves with, was playin' billiards last night, 
 and eatin' isters. Thet's whar that money kum 
 frum, one hundred dollars to pay for the 
 long advertisement of the new issue of ditch 
 stock in the " Times " yesterday. Thet's why 
 them six strangers were booked at the Magnolia 
 Hotel yesterday. Don't you see? It's thet 
 money and that ' Fool ' ! " 
 
 The "Fool" sat silent. The visitors rose 
 without a word. 
 
 *' You never took any of them Indian Vege- 
 table Pills?" asked Hawkins timidly of Witt 
 gate. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 141 
 
 " No ! " roared Wingate as he opened the 
 door. 
 
 " They tell me, that, took with the Panacea, 
 they was out o' the Panacea when I went to the 
 drug-store last week, they say, that, took with 
 the Panacea, they always effect a certin cure." 
 But by this time, Wingate and his disgusted 
 friends had retreated, slamming the door on 
 the " Fool " and his ailments. 
 
 Nevertheless, in six months the whole affair 
 was forgotten : the money had been spent ; the 
 " Ditch " had been purchased by a company of 
 Boston capitalists, fired by the glowing descrip- 
 tion of an Eastern tourist, who had spent one 
 drunken night at Five Forks; and I think 
 even the mental condition of Hawkins might 
 have remained undisturbed by criticism, but for 
 a singular incident. 
 
 It was during an exciting political campaign 
 when party-feeling ran high, that the irascible 
 Capt. McFadden of Sacramento visited Five 
 Forks. During a heated discussion in the 
 Prairie Rose Saloon, words passed between the 
 captain and the Hon. Calhoun Bungstarter, 
 ending in a challenge. The captain bore the in- 
 felicitous reputation of being a notorious duellist 
 and a dead-shot. The captain was unpopular. 
 The captain was believed to have been sent by 
 the opposition for a deadly purpose; and th 
 
142 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 captain was, moreover, a stranger. I am sorry 
 to say that with Five Forks this latter condi- 
 tion did not carry the quality of sanctity or 
 reverence that usually obtains among other 
 nomads. There was, consequently, some little 
 hesitation when the captain turned upon the 
 crowd, and asked for some one to act as his 
 friend. To everybody's astonishment, and to 
 the indignation of many, the " Fool " stepped 
 forward, and offered himself in that capacity. 
 I do not know whether Capt. McFadden would 
 have chosen him voluntarily ; but he was con- 
 strained, in the absence of a better man, to 
 accept his services. 
 
 The duel never took place. TLe prelimina- 
 ries were all arranged, the spot indicated ; the 
 men were present with their seconds ; there 
 was no interruption from without ; there was no 
 explanation or apology passed but the duel 
 did not take place. It may be readily imagined 
 that these facts, which were all known to Five 
 Forks, threw the whole community into a fever 
 of curiosity. The principals, the surgeon, and 
 one second left town the next day. Only the 
 44 Fool " remained. He resisted all questioning, 
 declaring himself held in honor not to divulge : 
 in short, conducted himself with consistent 
 but exasperating folly. It was not until six 
 months had passed, that Col. Starbottle, the 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 143 
 
 second of Calhoun Bungstarter, in a moment of 
 weakness, superinduced by the social glass, 
 condescended to explain. I snould not do 
 justice to the parties, if I did not give that 
 explanation in the colonel's own words. I may 
 remark, in passing, that the characteristic 
 dignity of Col. Starbottle always became inten- 
 sified by stimulants, and that, by the same 
 process, all sense of humor was utterly elimi- 
 nated. 
 
 " With the understanding that I am address- 
 ing myself confidentially to men of honor," 
 said the colonel, elevating his chest above the 
 bar-room counter of the Prairie Rose Saloon, 
 " I trust that it will not be necessary for me to 
 protect myself from levity, as I was forced to 
 do in Sacramento on the only other occasion 
 when I entered into an explanation of this 
 delicate affair by er er calling the indi- 
 vidual to a personal account er. I do not 
 believe," added the colonel, slightly waving his 
 glass of liquor in the air with a graceful gesture 
 of courteous deprecation, "knowing what I 
 do of the present company, that such a course 
 of action is required here. Certainly not, 
 sir, in the hom*3 of Mr. Hawkins er the 
 gentleman who represented Mr. Bungstarter, 
 whose conduct, ged, sir, is worthy of praise, 
 olaiik me 1 " 
 
144 THE POOL OF FiVE FORKS 
 
 Apparently satisfied with the gravity and 
 respectful attention of his listeners, Col. Star- 
 bottle smiled relentingly and sweetly, closed his 
 eyes half-dreamily, as if to recall his wandering 
 thoughts, and began, 
 
 " As the spot selected was nearest the tene- 
 ment of Mr. Hawkins, it was agreed that 
 the parties should meet there. They did so 
 promptly at half-past six. The morning being 
 chilly, Mr. Hawkins extended the hospitalities 
 of his house with a bottle of Bourbon whiskey, 
 of which all partook but myself. The reason 
 for that exception is, I believe, well known. It 
 is my invariable custom to take brandy a 
 wineglassful in a cup of strong coffee imme- 
 diately on rising. It stimulates the functions, 
 sir, without producing any blank derangement 
 of the nerves." 
 
 The barkeeper, to whom, as an expert, the 
 colonel had graciously imparted this informa- 
 tion, nodded approvingly ; and the colonel, amid 
 a breathless silence, went on. 
 
 " We were about twenty minutes in reaching 
 the spot. The ground was measured, the 
 weapons were loaded, when Mr. Bungstarter 
 confided to me the information that he was 
 on well, and in great pain. On consultation 
 with Mr. Hawkins, it appeared that his prin 
 cipal, in a distant part of the field, was also 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 145 
 
 luffering, and in great pain. The symptoms 
 were such as a medical man would pronounce 
 4 choleraic.' I say would have pronounced ; for, 
 on examination, the surgeon was also found to 
 be er in pain, and, I regret to say, express- 
 ing himself in language unbecoming the occa- 
 sion. His impression was, that some powerful 
 drug had been administered. On referring the 
 question to Mr. Hawkins, he remembered that 
 the bottle of whiskey partaken by them con- 
 tained a medicine which he had been in the 
 habit of taking, but which, having failed to 
 act upon him, he had concluded to be generally 
 ineffective, and had forgotten. His perfect 
 willingness to hold himself personally respon- 
 sible to each of the parties, his genuine concern 
 at the disastrous effect of the mistake, mingled 
 with his own alarm at the state of his system, 
 which er failed to er respond to the 
 peculiar qualities of the medicine, was most 
 becoming to him as a man of honor and a 
 gentleman. After an hour's delay, both prin- 
 cipals being completely exhausted, and aban- 
 doned by the surgeon, who was unreasonably 
 alarmed at his own condition, Mr. Hawkins and 
 I agreed to remove our men to Markleville. 
 There, after a further consultation with Mr. 
 Hawkins, an amicable adjustment of all difficul- 
 ties, honorable to both parties, and governed by 
 
146 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 profound secre^, was arranged. I believe," 
 added the colonel, looking around, and setting 
 down his glass, "no gentleman has yet ex- 
 pressed himself other than satisfied with the 
 result." 
 
 Perhaps it was the colonel's manner ; but, 
 whatever was the opinion of Five Forks regard- 
 ing the intellectual display of Mr. Hawkins in 
 this affair, there was very little outspoken 
 criticism at the moment. In a few weeks the 
 whole thing was forgotten, except as part of 
 the necessary record of Hawkins's blunders, 
 which was already a pretty full one. Again, 
 some later follies conspired to obliterate the 
 past, until, a year later, a valuable lead was 
 discovered in the " Blazing Star " tunnel, in the 
 hill where he lived; and a large sum was 
 offered him for a portion of his land on the hill- 
 top. Accustomed as Five Forks had become to 
 the exhibition of his folly, it was with astonish- 
 ment that they learned that he resolutely and 
 decidedly refused the offer. The reason that he 
 gave was still more astounding, he was about 
 to build. 
 
 To build a house upon property available for 
 mining-purposes was preposterous ; to build at 
 all, with a roof already covering him, was an 
 act of extravagance; to build a house of the 
 ityle he proposed was simply madness. 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 147 
 
 Yet here were facts. The plans were made, 
 and the lumber for the new building was 
 already on the ground, while the shaft of the 
 "Blazing Star" was being sunk below. The 
 site was, in reality, a very picturesque one, 
 the building itself of a style and quality 
 hitherto unknown in Five Forks. The citizens, 
 at first sceptical, during their moments of 
 recreation and idleness gathered doubtingly 
 about the locality. Day by day, in that climate 
 of rapid growths, the building, pleasantly 
 known in the slang of Five Forks as the " Idiot 
 Asylum," rose beside the green oaks and clus- 
 tering firs of Hawkins Hill, as if it were part 
 of the natural phenomena. At last it was 
 completed. Then Mr. Hawkins proceeded to 
 furnish it with an expensiveness and extrava- 
 gance of outlay quite in keeping with his 
 former idiocy. Carpets, sofas, mirrors, and 
 finally a piano, the only one known in the 
 county, and brought at great expense from 
 Sacramento, kept curiosity at a fever-heat. 
 More than that, there were articles and orna- 
 ments which a few married experts declared 
 only fit for women. When the furnishing of 
 the house was complete, it had occupied two 
 months of the speculative and curious attention 
 of the camp, Mr. Hawkins locked the front- 
 door, put the key in his pocket, and quietly 
 
148 TTTTC FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 
 
 retired to his more humble roof, lower on the 
 hillside. 
 
 I have not deemed it necessary to indicate to 
 the intelligent reader all of the theories which 
 obtained in Five Forks during the erection of 
 the building. Some of them may be readily 
 imagined. That the "Hag" had, by artful 
 coyness and systematic reticence, at last com- 
 pletely subjugated the " Fool," and that the new 
 house was intended for the nuptial bower of the 
 (predestined) unhappy pair, was, of course, the 
 prevailing opinion. But when, after a rea- 
 sonable time had elapsed, and the hcrojse still 
 remained untenanted, the more exasperating 
 conviction forced itself upon the general mind, 
 that the " Fool " had been for the third time im- 
 posed upon; when two months had elapsed, 
 and there seemed no prospect of a mistress for 
 the new house, I think public indignation be- 
 lame so strong, that, had the " Hag " arrived, 
 the marriage would have been publicly pre- 
 vented. But no one appeared that seemed to an- 
 swer to this idea of an available tenant ; and all 
 inquiry of Mr. Hawkins as to his intention in 
 building a house, and not renting it, or occu- 
 pying it, failed to elicit any further information. 
 The reasons that he gave were felt tc be vague, 
 evasive, and unsatisfactory. He was in no hurry 
 to move, he said. When he was ready, it surely 
 
THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 149 
 
 was not strange that he should like to have his 
 house all ready to receive him. He was often 
 seen upon the veranda, of a summer evening, 
 smoking a cigar. It is reported that one night 
 the house was observed to be brilliantly lighted 
 from garret to basement ; that a neighbor, observ- 
 ing this, crept toward the open parlor-window, 
 and, looking in, espied the "Fool" accurately 
 dressed in evening costume, lounging upon a sofa 
 in the drawing-room, with the easy air of socially 
 entertaining a large party. Notwithstanding 
 this, the house was unmistakably vacant that 
 evening, save for the presence of the owner, as 
 the witness afterward testified. When this 
 story was first related, a few practical men sug 
 gested the theory that Mr. Hawkins was simply 
 drilling himself in the elaborate duties of hos- 
 pitality against a probable event in his history. 
 A few ventured the belief that the house was 
 haunted. The imaginative editor of the Five 
 Forks "Record" evolved from the depths of 
 his professional consciousness a story that Haw 
 kins's sweetheart had died, and that he regu- 
 larly entertained her spirit in this beautifully 
 furnished mausoleum. The occasional spectacle 
 of Hawkins's tall figure pacing the veranda on 
 moonlight nights lent some credence to thia 
 thwory 5 until an unlooked-for incident diverted 
 nil ^peculation into another channel. 
 
150 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 It was about this time that a certain wild, 
 rude valley, in the neighborhood of Five Forks, 
 had become famous as a picturesque resort. 
 Travellers had visited it, and declared that there 
 were more cubic yards of rough stone cliff, and 
 a waterfall of greater height, than any they had 
 visited. Correspondents had written it up with 
 extravagant rhetoric and inordinate poetical 
 quotation. Men and women who had never 
 enjoyed a sunset, a tree, or a flower, who had 
 never appreciated the graciousness or meaning 
 of the yellow sunlight that flecked their homely 
 doorways, or the tenderness of a midsummer's 
 night, to whose moonlight they bared their 
 shirt-sleeves or their tulle dresses, came from 
 thousands of miles away to calculate the height 
 of this rock, to observe the depth of this chasm, 
 to remark upon the enormous size of this 
 unsightly tree, and to believe with ineffable 
 self-complacency that they really admired 
 Nature. And so it came to pass, that, in accord- 
 ance with the tastes or weaknesses of the indi 
 vidual, the more prominent and salient points 
 of the valley were christened ; and there was a 
 " Lace Handkerchief Fall," and the " Tears of 
 Sympathy Cataract,' 9 and one distinguished 
 orator's "Peak," and several "Mounts" of 
 various noted people, living or dead, and an 
 * Exclamation-Point," and a " Valley of Silent 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 151 
 
 Adoration." And, in course of time, empty 
 joda-water bottles were found at the base of the 
 cataract, and greasy newspapers, and fragments 
 of ham-sandwiches, lay at the dusty roots of 
 giant trees. With this, there were frequent 
 irruptions of closely-shaven and tightly-cravated 
 men, and delicate, flower-faced women, in the 
 one long street of Five Forks, and a scamper- 
 ing of mules, and an occasional procession of 
 dusty brown-linen cavalry. 
 
 A year after " Hawkins's Idiot Asylum " was 
 completed, one day there drifted into the valley 
 a riotous cavalcade of " school-marms," teachers 
 of the San-Francisco public schools, out for a 
 holiday. Not severely-spectacled Minervas, and 
 chastely armed and mailed Pallases, but, I fear, 
 for the security of Five Forks, very human, 
 charming, and mischievous young women. At 
 least, so the men thought, working in the 
 ditches, and tunnelling on the hillside ; and 
 when, in the interests of science, and the mental 
 advancement of juvenile posterity, it was finally 
 settled that they should stay in Five Forks two 
 or three days for the sake of visiting the various 
 mines, and particularly the "Blazing Star" 
 tunnel, there was some flutter of masculine 
 anxiety. There was a considerable inquiry for 
 " store-clothes^" a hopeless overhauling of old 
 and disused raiment, and a general demand foi 
 "boiled shirts" and the barber. 
 
152 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 Meanwhile, with that supreme audacity and 
 impudent hardihood of the sex when gregarious, 
 the school-marms rode through the town, admir- 
 ing openly the handsome faces and manly- 
 figures that looked up from the ditches, or rose 
 behind the cars of ore at the mouths of tunnels. 
 Indeed, it is alleged that Jenny Forester, backed 
 and supported by seven other equally shameless 
 young women, had openly and publicly waved 
 her handkerchief to the florid Hercules of Five 
 Forks, one Tom Flynn, formerly of Virginia, 
 leaving that good-natured but not over-bright 
 giant pulling his blonde mustaches in bashful 
 amazement. 
 
 It was a pleasant June afternoon that Miss 
 Milly Arnot, principal of the primary depart- 
 ment of one of the public schools of San Fran- 
 cisco, having evaded her companions, resolved 
 to put into operation a plan which had lately 
 sprung up in her courageous and mischief-loving 
 fancy. With that wonderful and mysterious 
 instinct of her sex, from whom no secrets of 
 the affections are hid, and to whom all hearts 
 are laid open, she had heard the story of Haw- 
 kins's folly, and the existence of the "Idiot 
 Asylum." Alone, on Hawkins Hill, she had 
 determined to penetrate its seclusion. Skirting 
 the underbrush at the foot of the hill, she 
 managed to keep the heaviest timber between 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 153 
 
 herself and the " Blazing Star " tunnel at its 
 base, as well as the cabin of Hawkins, half-way 
 up the ascent, until, by a circuitous route, 
 at last she reached, unobserved, the summit. 
 Before her rose, silent, darkened, and motion- 
 less, the object of her search. Here her 
 courage failed her, with all the characteristic 
 inconsequence of her sex. A sudden fear of 
 all the dangers she had safely passed bears, 
 tarantulas, drunken men, and lizards came 
 upon her. For a moment, as she afterward 
 expressed it, " she thought she should die." 
 With this belief, probably, she gathered three 
 large stones, which she could hardly lift, for the 
 purpose of throwing a great distance ; put two 
 hair-pins in her mouth ; and carefully re-adjusted 
 with both hands two stray braids of her lovely 
 blue-black mane, which had fallen in gathering 
 the stones. Then she felt in the pockets of her 
 linen duster for her card-case, handkerchief, 
 pocket-book, and smelling-bottle, and, finding 
 them intact, suddenly assumed an air of easy, 
 ladylike unconcern, went up the steps of the 
 veranda, and demurely pulled the front door- 
 bel], which she knew would not be answered. 
 Aftej a decent pause, she walked around the 
 encompassing veranda, examining the closed 
 shutters of the French windows until she found 
 wne that yblded to her touch. Here she paused 
 
154 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 again to adjust her coquettish hat by th 
 mirror-like surface of the long sash-window, 
 that reflected the full length of her pretty 
 figure. And then she opened the window, and 
 entered the room. 
 
 Although long closed, the house had a smell 
 of newness and of fresh paint, that was quite un- 
 like the mouldiness of the conventional haunted 
 house. The bright carpets, the cheerful walls, 
 the glistening oil-cloths, were quite inconsistent 
 with the idea of a ghost. With childish curios- 
 ity, she began to explore the silent house, at first 
 timidly, opening the doors with a violent push, 
 and then stepping back from the threshold to 
 make good a possible retreat, and then more 
 boldly, as she became convinced of her security 
 and absolute loneliness. In one of the cham- 
 bers the largest there were fresh flowers in 
 a vase, evidently gathered that morning ; and, 
 what seemed still more remarkable, the pitchers 
 and ewers were freshly filled with water. This 
 obliged Miss Milly to notice another singular 
 fact, namely, that the house was free from dust, 
 the one most obtrusive and penetrating visitor 
 of Five Forks. The floors and carpets had been 
 recently swept, the chairs and furniture carefully 
 wiped and dusted. If the house was haunted, 
 *t was possessed by a spirit who had none of the 
 usual indifference to decay and mould. And ye* 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 15 
 
 the beds had evidently never been slept in , the 
 very springs of the chair in which she sat 
 creaked stiffly at the novelty ; the closet-doors 
 opened with the rel ictance of fresh paint and 
 varnish ; and in spite of the warmth, cleanli- 
 ness, and cheerfulness of furniture and decora- 
 tion, there was none of the ease of tenancy and 
 occupation. As Miss Milly afterward confessed, 
 she longed to " tumble things around ;" and, when 
 she reached the parlor or drawing-room again, 
 she could hardly resist the desire. Particularly 
 was she tempted by a closed piano, that stood 
 mutely against the wall. She thought she would 
 open it just to see who was the maker. That 
 done, it would be no harm to try its tone. She 
 did so, with one little foot on the soft pedal. 
 But Miss Milly was too good a player, and too 
 enthusiastic a musician, to stop at half-measures. 
 She tried it again, this time so sincerely, that 
 the whole house seemed to spring into voice. 
 Then she stopped and listened. There was no 
 response : the empty rooms seemed to have re- 
 lapsed into their old stillness. She stepped out 
 on the veranda. A woodpecker recommenced his 
 tapping on an adjacent tree : the rattle of a cart 
 in ths rocky gulch below the hill came faintly 
 up. No one was to be seen far or near. Miss 
 Milly, re-assured, returned. She again ran hei 
 Angers over the keys, stopped, caught at a mel 
 
166 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 ody running in her mind, half played it, and 
 then threw away all caution. Before five min 
 utes had elapsed, she had entirely forgotten her- 
 self, and with her linen duster thrown aside 
 her straw hat flung on the piano, her white 
 hands bared, and a black loop of her braided 
 hair hanging upon her shoulder, was fairly 
 embarked upon a flowing sea of musical recol- 
 lection. 
 
 She had played, perhaps, half an hour, when 
 having just finished an elaborate symphony, and 
 resting her hands on the keys, she heard very 
 distinctly and unmistakably the sound of ap- 
 plause from without. In an instant the fires of 
 shame and indignation leaped into her cheeks; 
 and she rose from the instrument, and ran to the 
 window, only in time to catch sight of a dozen 
 figures in blue and red flannel shirts vanishing 
 hurriedly through the trees below. 
 
 Miss Milly's mind was instantly made up. I 
 think I have already intimated, that, under the 
 stimulus of excitement, she was not wanting in 
 courage ; and as she quietly resumed her gloves, 
 hat, and duster, she was not, perhaps, exactly 
 the young person that it would be entirely safe 
 for the timid, embarrassed, or inexperienced of 
 my sex to meet alone. She shut down the 
 piano ; and having carefully reclosed all the 
 windows and doors, and restored the house to 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 157 
 
 Its former desolate condition, she stepped from 
 the veranda, and proceeded directly to the cabin 
 of the uniritellectual Hawkins, that reared ita 
 adobe chimney above the umbrage a quarter of 
 a mile below. 
 
 The door opened instantly to her impulsive 
 knock, and the " Fool of Five Forks " stood before 
 her. Miss Milly had never before seen the man 
 designated by this infelicitous title; and as he 
 stepped backward, in half courtesy and half 
 astonishment, she was, for the moment, discon- 
 certed. He was tall, finely formed, and dark- 
 bearded. Above cheeks a little hollowed by 
 care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel eyes, 
 very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad 
 and mournful. This was certainly not the kind 
 of man Miss Milly had expected to see; yet, 
 after her first embarrassment had passed, the 
 very circumstance, oddly enough, added to her 
 indignation, and stung her wounded pride still 
 more deeply. Nevertheless, the arch hypocrite 
 instantly changed her tactics with the swift 
 intuition of her sex. 
 
 " I have come," she said with a dazzling smile, 
 Infinitely more dangerous than her former digni- 
 fied severity, "I have come to ask your pardon 
 for a great liberty I have just taken. I believe 
 the new house above us on the hill is yours. I 
 was so much pleased with its exterior, that I left 
 
158 THE FOOL OF FIVE FOEKS. 
 
 my friends for a moment below here," she con 
 tinned artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, 
 as if indicating a band of fearless Amazons with- 
 out, and waiting to avenge any possible insult 
 offered to one of their number, " and ventured 
 to enter it. Finding it unoccupied, as I had 
 been told, I am afraid I had the audacity to sit 
 down and amuse myself for a few moments at 
 the piano, while waiting for my friends." 
 
 Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers. He 
 saw a very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes 
 glistening with excitement, with two red, slight- 
 ly freckled cheeks glowing a little under his 
 eyes, with a short scarlet upper-lip turned back, 
 like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white teeth, 
 as she breathed somewhat hurriedly in her ner- 
 vous excitement. He saw all this calmly, quiet- 
 ly, and, save for the natural uneasiness of a shy, 
 reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his 
 pulse. 
 
 " I knowed it," he said simply. " I heerd ye 
 as I kem up." 
 
 Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his 
 dialect, his coolness, and, still more, at the sus* 
 picion that he was an active member of her in 
 visible daque. 
 
 "Ah ! " she said, still smiling. " Then I think 1 
 teard you " 
 
 " I reckon not," he interrupted gravely. " J 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKK8. 15ft 
 
 didn't stay long. I found the boys hanging 
 round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in 
 and kinder warn you ; but they promised to keep 
 still : and you looked so comfortable, and wrapped 
 up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to dis- 
 turb you, and kem away. I hope," he added 
 earnestly, "they didn't let on ez they heerd 
 you. They ain't a bad lot, them Blazin' Sta 
 boys though they're a little hard at times. 
 But they'd no more hurt ye then they would a 
 a a cat ! " continued Mr. Hawkins, blush- 
 ing with a faint apprehension of the inelegance 
 of his simile. 
 
 " No, no ! " said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly 
 very angry with herself, the "Fool," and the 
 entire male population of Five Forks. " No ! I 
 have behaved foolishly, I suppose and, if they 
 had, it would have served me right. But I 
 only wanted to apologize to you. You'll find 
 every thing as you left it. Good-day ! " 
 
 She turned to go. Mr. Hawkins began to feel 
 embarrassed. " I'd have asked ye to sit down," 
 he said finally, " if it hed been a place fit for a 
 ady. I oughter done so, enny way. I don't 
 know what kept me from it. But I ain't well, 
 miss. Times I get a sort o' dumb ager, it'a 
 the ditches, I think, miss, and I don't seem to 
 hev my wits about me." 
 
 Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy : hei 
 quick woman's heart was touched. 
 
160 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 " Can I can any thing be done ? " she asked 
 more timidly than she had before spoken. 
 
 " No not onless ye remember suthin' about 
 these pills." He exhibited a box containing 
 about half a dozen. " I forget the direction 
 I don't seem to remember much, any way, these 
 times. They're ' Jones's Vegetable Compound.' 
 If ye've ever took 'em, ye'll remember whether 
 the reg'lar dose is eight. They ain't but six 
 here. But perhaps ye never tuk any," he added 
 deprecatingly. 
 
 " No," said Miss Milly curtly. She had usu- 
 ally a keen sense of the ludicrous ; but somehow 
 Mr. Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her. 
 
 " Will you let me see you to the foot of the 
 hill?" he said again, after another embarrassing 
 pause. 
 
 Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act 
 would condone her trespass in the eyes of the 
 world. She might meet some of her invisible 
 admirers, or even her companions ; and, with all 
 her erratic impulses, she was, nevertheless, a 
 woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict 
 of conventionality. She smiled sweetly, and 
 assented ; and in another moment the two were 
 lost in the shadows of the wood. 
 
 Like many other apparently trivial acts in 
 too. uneventful life, it was decisive. As she 
 expected, she met two or three of her latf 
 
THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 161 
 
 applduders, whom, she fancied, looked sheepish 
 and embarrassed ; she met, also, her companions 
 looking for her in some alarm, who really 
 appeared astonished at her escort, and, she 
 fancied, a trifle envious of her evident success. 
 I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their 
 anxious inquiries, did not state entirely the 
 truth, but, without actual assertion, led them 
 to believe that she had, at a very early stage 
 of the proceeding, completely subjugated this 
 weak-minded giant, and had brought him tri- 
 umphantly to her feet. From telling this story 
 two or three times, she got finally to believing 
 that she had some foundation for it, then to a 
 vague sort of desire that it would eventually 
 prove to be true, and then to an equally vague 
 yearning to hasten that consummation. That 
 it would redound to any satisfaction of the 
 " Fool " she did not stop to doubt. That it would 
 cure him of his folly she was quite confident. 
 Indeed, there are very few of us, men or 
 women, who do not believe that even a hope 
 less love for ourselves is more conducive to 
 the salvation of the lover than a requited affec- 
 tion for another. 
 
 The criticism of Five Forks was, as the 
 reader may imagine, swift and conclusive. 
 When it was found out that Miss Arnot was 
 not the " Hag " masquerading as a yoimg and 
 
162 . THE FOOL OF FIVE FOEKS. 
 
 pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of Five 
 Forks in general, and the " Fool " in particular, 
 it was at once decided that nothing but the 
 speedy union of the "Fool" and the "pretty 
 school-marm " was consistent with ordinary 
 common sense. The singular good-fortune of 
 Hawkins was quite in accordance with the 
 theory of his luck as propounded by the camp. 
 That, after the "Hag" failed to make her 
 appearance, he should " strike a lead " in his 
 own house, without the trouble of " prospect- 
 in'," seemed to these casuists as a wonderful 
 but inevitable law. To add to these fateful 
 probabilities, Miss Arnot fell, and sprained her 
 ankle, in the ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was 
 confined for some weeks to the hotel after her 
 companions had departed. During this period, 
 Hawkins was civilly but grotesquely attentive. 
 When, after a reasonable time had elapsed, 
 there still appeared to be no immediate pros- 
 pect of the occupancy of the new house, public 
 opinion experienced a singular change in regard 
 o its theories of Mr. Hawkins's conduct. The 
 * Hag " was looked upon as a saint-like and long 
 suffering martyr to the weaknesses and incon- 
 sistency of the " Fool." That, after erecting 
 this new house at her request, he had suddenly 
 " gone back " on her ; that his celibacy was the 
 result of a long habit of weak proposal and 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 163 
 
 subsequent shameless rejection; and that he 
 was now trying his hand on the helpless school- 
 marm, was perfectly plain to Five Forks. That 
 he should be frustrated in his attempts at any 
 cost was equally plain. Miss Milly suddenly 
 found herself invested with a rude chivalry 
 that would have been amusing, had it not been 
 at times embarrassing; that would have been 
 impertinent, but for the almost superstitious 
 respect with which it was proffered. Every 
 day somebody from Five Forks rode out to 
 inquire the health of the fair patient. " Hez 
 Hawkins bin over yer to-day ? " queried Tom 
 Flynn, with artful ease and indifference, as he 
 leaned over Miss Milly's easy-chair on the 
 veranda. Miss Milly, with a faint pink flush 
 on her cheek, was constrained to answer, " No." 
 " Well, he sorter sprained his foot agin a rock 
 yesterday," continued Flynn with shameless 
 untruthfulness. " You mus'n't think any thing 
 o' that, Miss Arnot. He'll be over yer to-mor- 
 rer ; and meantime he told me to hand this yer 
 bookay with his re-gards, and this yer speci- 
 men." And Mr. Flynn laid down the flowers 
 he had picked en route against such an emer- 
 gency, and presented respectfully a piece of 
 quartz and gold, which he had taken that morn- 
 ng from his own sluice-box. " You mus'n't 
 <nmd Hawkins's ways, Miss Milly," said another 
 
164 THE POOL OP FIVE FORKS. 
 
 sympathizing miner. " There ain't a better 
 man in camp than that theer Cy Hawkins 
 but he don't understand the ways o' the world 
 with wimen. He hasn't mixed as much with 
 society as the rest of us," he added, with an 
 elaborate Chesterfieldian ease of manner ; " but 
 he means well." Meanwhile a few other sympa- 
 thetic tunnel-men were impressing upon Mr. 
 Hawkins the necessity of the greatest attention 
 to the invalid. " It won't do, Hawkins," they 
 explained, "to let that there gal go back to 
 San Francisco and say, that, when she was sick 
 and alone, the only man in Five Forks under 
 whose roof she had rested, and at whose table 
 she had sat " (this was considered a natural 
 but pardonable exaggeration of rhetoric) " ever 
 threw off on her ; and it sha'n't be done. It 
 ain't the square thing to Five Forks." And 
 then the " Fool " would rush away to the valley, 
 and be received by Miss Milly with a certain 
 reserve of manner that finally disappeared in a 
 flush of color, sjme increased vivacity, and a 
 pardonable coquetry. And so the days passed. 
 Miss Milly grew better in health, and more 
 troubled in mind; and Mr. Hawkins became 
 more and more embarrassed; and Five Forks 
 smiled, and rubbed its hands, and waited foi 
 the approaching denotiment. And then it came 
 but not, perhaps, in the manner that Fiv 
 Forks had imagined. 
 
THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 165 
 
 It was a lovely afternoon in July that a 
 pM-ty of Eastern tourists rode into Five Forks. 
 They had just "done" the Valley of Big 
 Things; and, there being one or two Eastern 
 capitalists among the party, it was deemed 
 advisable that a proper knowledge of the prac 
 tical mining-resources of California should be 
 added to their experience of the merely pictnr 
 esque in Nature. Thus far every thing had been 
 satisfactory ; the amount of water which passed 
 over the Fall was large, owing to a backward 
 season ; some snow still remained in the cations 
 near the highest peaks ; they had ridden round 
 one of the biggest trees, and through the pros- 
 trate trunk of another. To say that they were 
 delighted is to express feebly the enthusiasm 
 of these ladies and gentlemen, drunk with the 
 champagny hospitality of their entertainers, the 
 utter novelty of scene, and the dry, exhilarating 
 air of the valley. One or two had already 
 expressed themselves ready to live and die 
 there ; another had written a glowing account 
 to the Eastern press, depreciating all other 
 scenery in Europe and America; and, under 
 these circumstances, it was reasonably expected 
 that Five Forks would do its duty, and equally 
 impress the stranger after its own fashion. 
 
 Letters to this effect were sent from San 
 Francisco by prominent capitalists there ; and. 
 
166 THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 
 
 under the able superintendence of one of theii 
 agents, the visitors were taken in hand, shown 
 "what was to be seen," carefully restrained 
 from observing what ought not to be visible, 
 and so kept in a blissful and enthusiastic condi- 
 tion. And so the graveyard of Five Forks, in 
 which but two of the occupants had died natu- 
 ral deaths; the dreary, ragged cabins on the 
 hillsides, with their sad-eyed, cynical, broken- 
 spirited occupants, toiling on day by day for 
 a miserable pittance, and a fare that a self- 
 respecting Eastern mechanic would have scorn- 
 fully rejected, were not a part of the Eastern 
 visitors' recollection. But the hoisting works 
 and machinery of the "Blazing Star Tunnel 
 Company " was, the Blazing Star Tunnel Com- 
 pany, whose " gentlemanly superintendent " had 
 received private information from San Fran- 
 cisco to do the "proper thing" for the party. 
 Wherefore the valuable heaps of ore in the 
 company's works were shown ; the oblong bars 
 of gold, ready for shipment, were playfully 
 offered to the ladies who could lift and carry 
 them away unaided ; and even the tunnel itself, 
 gloomy, fateful, and peculiar, was shown as 
 part of the experience ; and, in the noble lan- 
 guage of one correspondent, " The wealth of 
 Five Forks, and the peculiar inducements that 
 it offered to Eastern capitalists," were estab 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 167 
 
 lished beyond a doubt. And then occurred a 
 little incident, which, as an unbiassed spectator, 
 I am free to say offered no inducements to 
 anybody whatever, but which, for its bearing 
 upon the central figure of this veracious chroni- 
 cle, 1 cannot pass over. 
 
 It had become apparent to one or two more 
 practical and sober-minded in the party, that 
 certain portions of the " Blazing Star " tunnel 
 (owing, perhaps, to the exigencies of a flat- 
 tering annual dividend) were economically and 
 imperfectly " shored " and supported, and were, 
 consequently, unsafe, insecure, and to be avoided 
 Nevertheless, at a time when champagne corks 
 were popping in dark corners, and enthusiastic 
 voices and happy laughter rang through the 
 half-lighted levels and galleries, there came a 
 sudden and mysterious silence. A few lights 
 dashed swiftly by in the direction of a distant 
 part of the gallery, and then there was a sud- 
 den sharp issuing of orders, and a dull, ominous 
 rumble. Some of the visitors turned pale : one 
 woman fainted. 
 
 Something had happened. What ? " Noth- 
 ing " (the speaker is fluent, but uneasy) " one 
 of the gentlemen, in trying to dislodge a k speci- 
 men ' from the wall, had knocked away a sup- 
 port. There had been a ' cave ' the gentleman 
 was caught, and buried below Ids shoulders. It 
 
168 THE FOOL OP FIVE FORKS. 
 
 was all light, they'd get him out in a moment 
 only it required great care to keep from ex- 
 tending the 'cave.' Didn't know his name. 
 It was that little man, the husband of that 
 lively lady with the black eyes. Eh ! Hullo, 
 there ! Stop her ! For God's sake I Not that 
 way! She'U fall from that shaft. She'll be 
 killed ! " 
 
 But the lively lady was already gone. With 
 staring black eyes, imploringly trying to pierce 
 the gloom, with hands and feet that sought to 
 batter and break down the thick darkness, with 
 incoherent cries and supplications following the 
 moving of ignis fatuus lights ahead, she ran, and 
 ran swiftly ! ran over treacherous foundations, 
 ran by yawning gulfs, ran past branching gal- 
 leries and arches, ran wildly, ran despairingly, 
 ran blindly, and at last ran into the arms of 
 the " Fool of Five Forks." 
 
 In an instant she caught at his hand. " Oh, 
 save him ! " she cried. " You belong here ; you 
 know this dreadful place : bring me to him. 
 Tell me where to go, and what to do, I implore 
 you ! Quick, he is dying ! Come ! " 
 
 He raised his eyes to hers, and then, with a 
 sudden cry, dropped the rope and crowbar he 
 iras carrying, and reeled against the wall. 
 
 " Annie ! " he gasped slowly. " Is it you ? " 
 
 She caught at both his hands, brought hei 
 
THE POOL OP FIVE POBKS. 169 
 
 face to his with staring eyes, murmured, " Good 
 God, Cyrus ! " and sank upon her knees before 
 him. 
 
 He tried to disengage the hand that she 
 wrung with passionate entreaty. 
 
 " No, no ! Cyrus, you will forgive me you 
 will forget the past ! God has sent you here 
 to-day. You will come with me. You will 
 you must save him I " 
 
 " Save who ? " cried Cyrus hoarsely. 
 
 " My husband I " 
 
 The blow was so direct, so strong and over- 
 whelming, that, even through her own stronger 
 and more selfish absorption, she saw it in the 
 face of the man, and pitied him. 
 
 " I thought you knew it, " she fa- 
 tered. 
 
 He did not speak, but looked at her with 
 fixed, dumb eyes. And then the sound of dis- 
 tant voices and hurrying feet started her again 
 into passionate life. She once more caught his 
 hand. 
 
 " O Cyrus, hear me ! If you have loved me 
 through all these years, you will not fail me 
 now. You must save him I You can ! You 
 we brave and strong you always were, Cyrus. 
 ou will save him, Cyrus, for my sake, for the 
 take of your love for me I You will I know 
 it. God bless you I " 
 
170 THE FOOL OF FIVE FOEKS. 
 
 She rose as if to follow him; but, at a get* 
 tore of command, she stood still. He picked 
 up the rope and crowbar slowly, and in a dazed, 
 blinded way, that, in her agony of impatieDce 
 and alarm, seemed protracted to cruel infinity. 
 Then he turned, and, raising her hand to his 
 lips, kissed it slowly, looked at her again, and 
 the next moment was gone. 
 
 He did not return; for at the end of the 
 next half-hour, when they laid before her the 
 half-conscious, breathing body of her husband, 
 safe and unharmed, but for exhaustion and some 
 slight bruises, she learned that the worst fears 
 of the workmen had been realized. In releasing 
 him, a second cave had taken place. They had 
 barely time to snatch away the helpless body 
 of her husband, before the strong frame of his 
 rescuer, Cyrus Hawkins, was struck and smitten 
 down in his place. 
 
 For two hours he lay there, crushed and 
 broken-limbed, with a heavy beam lying across 
 his breast, in sight of all, conscious and patient. 
 For two hours they had labored around him, 
 wildly, despairingly, hopefully, with the wills of 
 gods and the strength of giants ; and at the end 
 of that time they came to an upright timber, 
 which rested its base upon the beam. There 
 was a cry for axes, and one was already swing- 
 ing in the air, when the dying man called to 
 them feebly, 
 
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKS. 171 
 
 " Don't cut that upright ! " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " It will bring down the whole gallery with 
 it." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " It's one of the foundations of my house." 
 
 The axe fell from the workman's hand, and 
 with a blanched face he turned to his fellows. 
 It was too true. They were in the uppermost 
 gallery ; and the " cave " had taken place di- 
 rectly below the new house. After a pause, 
 the " Fool " spoke again more feebly. 
 
 " The lady quick ! " 
 
 They brought her, a wretched, fainting 
 creature, with pallid face and streaming eyes, 
 and fell back as she bent her face above him. 
 
 "It was built for you, Annie darling," he 
 said in a hurried whisper, " and has been wait- 
 ing up there for you and me all these long days. 
 It's deeded to you, Annie ; and you must live 
 there with him! He will not mind that I 
 shall be always near you ; for it stands above 
 my grave." 
 
 And he was right. In a few minutes later, 
 when he had passed away, they did not move 
 him, but sat by his body all night with a torch 
 at his feet and head. And the next day they 
 walled up the gallery as a vault ; but they put 
 no mark or any sign thereon, trusting, rather, tc 
 
172 THE FOOL OF FIVE FOKKS. 
 
 the monument, that, bright and cheerful, rose 
 above him in the sunlight of the hill. And 
 those who heard the story said, " This is not an 
 evidence of death and gloom and sorrow, as are 
 other monuments, but is a sign of life and 
 light and hope, wherefore shall all know that 
 he who lies under it is what men call "a fool " 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 IT was at a little mining-camp in the Cali- 
 fornia Sierras that he first dawned upon me 
 in all his grotesque sweetness. 
 
 I had arrived early in the morning, but not in 
 time to intercept the friend who was the object 
 of my visit. He had gone " prospecting," so 
 they told me on the river, and would not prob- 
 ably return until late in the afternoon. They 
 could not say what direction he had taken; 
 they could not suggest that I would be likely to 
 find him if I followed. But it was the general 
 opinion that I had better wait. 
 
 I looked around me. I was standing upon 
 the bank of the river ; and apparently the only 
 other human beings in the world were my inter- 
 locutors, who were even then just disappearing 
 from my horizon, down the steep bank, toward 
 the river's dry bed. I approached the edge of 
 the bank. 
 
 Where could 1 wait ? 
 
 Oh I anywhere, down with them on the river* 
 bar, where they were working, if I liked. Or I 
 
 173 
 
174 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 could make myself at home in any of those 
 cabins that I found lying round loose. Or per- 
 haps it would be cooler and pleasanter for me 
 in my friend's cabin on the hill. Did I see 
 those three large sugar-pines, and, a little to 
 the right, a canvas roof and chimney, over the 
 bushes? Well, that was my friend's, that 
 was Dick Sylvester's cabin. I could stake my 
 horse in that little hollow, and just hang round 
 there till he came. I would find some books in 
 the shanty. I could amuse myself with them ; 
 or I could play with the baby. 
 
 Do what ? 
 
 But they had already gone. I leaned over 
 the bank, and called after their vanishing 
 figures, 
 
 " What did you say I could do ? " 
 
 The answer floated slowly up on the hot, 
 sluggish air, 
 
 " Pla-a-y with the ba-by." 
 
 The lazy echoes took it up, and tossed it Ian 
 guidly from hill to hill, until Bald Mountain 
 opposite made some incoherent remark about 
 the baby ; and then all was still. 
 
 I must have been mistaken. My friend was 
 not a man of family ; there was not a woman 
 within forty miles of the river camp ; he never 
 was so passionately devoted to children as to 
 import a luxury so expensive. I must have 
 been mistaken. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 175 
 
 I turned my horse's head toward the hill, 
 A.S we slowly climbed the narrow trail, the little 
 settlement might have been some exhumed 
 Pompeiian suburb, so deserted and silent were 
 its habitations. The open doors plainly dis- 
 closed each rudely-furnished interior, the 
 rough pine table, with the scant equipage of 
 the morning meal still standing ; the wooden 
 bunk, with its tumbled and dishevelled blankets. 
 A golden lizard, the very genius of desolate 
 stillness, had stopped breathless upon the 
 threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped im- 
 pudently into the window of another ; a wood- 
 pecker, with the general flavor of undertaking 
 which distinguishes that bird, withheld his 
 sepulchral hammer from the coffin-lid of the 
 roof on which he was professionally engaged, 
 as we passed. For a moment I half regretted 
 that I had not accepted the invitation to the 
 river-bed ; but, the next moment, a breeze 
 swept up the long, dark canon, and the waiting 
 files of the pines beyond bent toward me in sal- 
 utation. I think my horse understood, as well 
 *s myself, that it was the cabins that made the 
 solitude human, and therefore unbearable ; for 
 he quickened his pace, and with a gentle trot 
 Drought me to the edge of the wood, and the 
 three pines that stood like vedettes before the 
 Sylvester outpost. 
 
176 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, 1 
 unslung the long riata from the saddle-bow, 
 and, tethering him to a young sapling, turned 
 toward the cabin. But I had gone only a few 
 steps, when I heard a quick trot behind me ; and 
 poor Pomposo, with every fibre tingling with 
 fear, was at my heels. I looked hurriedly 
 around. The breeze had died away ; and only 
 an occasional breath from the deep-chested 
 woods, more like a long sigh than any articulate 
 sound, or the dry singing of a cicala in the 
 heated canon, were to be heard. I examined 
 the ground carefully for rattlesnakes, but in 
 vain. Yet here was Pomposo shivering from 
 his arched neck to his sensitive haunches, his 
 very flanks pulsating with terror. I soothed 
 him as well as I could, and then walked to the 
 edge of the wood, and peered into its dark 
 recesses. The bright flash of a bird's wing, or 
 the quick dart of a squirrel, was all I saw. I 
 confess it was with something of superstitious 
 expectation that I again turned towards the 
 cabin. A fairy-child, attended by Titania and 
 her train, lying in an expensive cradle, would 
 not have surprised me : a Sleeping Beauty, 
 whose awakening would have repeopled these 
 solitudes with life and energy, I am afraid I 
 began to confidently look for, and would have 
 kissed without hesitation. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 177 
 
 But I found none of these. Here was the 
 evidence of my friend's taste and refinement, in 
 the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the pic- 
 turesque arrangement of the fur-skins that cov 
 ered the floor and furniture, and the striped 
 serdpe l lying on the wooden couch. Here were 
 the walls fancifully papered with illustrations 
 from " The London News ; " here was the wood- 
 cut portrait of Mr. Emerson over the chimney, 
 quaintly framed with blue-jays' wings ; here were 
 his few favorite books on the swinging-shelf; 
 and here, lying upon the couch, the latest copy 
 of " Punch." Dear Dick ! The flour-sack was 
 sometimes empty ; but the gentle satirist seldom 
 missed his weekly visit. 
 
 I threw myself on the couch, and tried to 
 read. But I soon exhausted my interest in my 
 friend's library, and lay there staring through 
 the open door on the green hillside beyond. The 
 breeze again sprang up ; and a delicious coolness, 
 mixed with the rare incense of the woods, stole 
 through the cabin. The slumbrous droning of 
 bumblebees outside the canvas roof, the faint 
 cawing of rooks on the opposite mountain, and 
 the fatigue of my morning ride, began to droop 
 my eyelids. I pulled the sefrdpe over me, as a 
 
 1 A fine Mexican blanket, used as an outer garment fof 
 tiding. 
 
178 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 precaution against the freshening mountain 
 breeze, and in a few moments was asleep. 
 
 I do not remember how long I slept. I must 
 have been conscious, however, during my slum- 
 ber, of my inability to keep myself covered by 
 the serdpe ; for I awoke once or twice, clutching 
 it with a despairing hand as it was disappearing 
 over the foot of the couch. Then I became 
 suddenly aroused to the fact that my efforts to 
 retain it were resisted by some equally persistent 
 force ; and, letting it go, I was horrified at see- 
 ing it swiftly drawn under the couch. At this 
 point I sat up, completely awake ; for immedi- 
 ately after, what seemed to be an exaggerated 
 muff began to emerge from under the couch. 
 Presently it appeared fully, dragging the serdpe 
 after it. There was no mistaking it now: it 
 was a baby-bear, a mere suckling, it was true, 
 a helpless roll of fat and fur, but unmistakably 
 a grizzly cub ! 
 
 I cannot recall any thing more irresistibly 
 ludicrous than its aspect as it slowly raised its 
 small, wondering eyes to mine. It was so much 
 taller on its haunches than its shoulders, its 
 forelegs were so disproportionately small, that, 
 in walking, its hind-feet invariably took prece- 
 dence. It was perpetually pitching forward over 
 ; ts pointed, inoffensive nose, and recovering it 
 always, after these involuntary somersaults 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. ITS 
 
 with the gravest astonishment. To add to its 
 preposterous appearance, one of its hind-feet 
 was adorned by a shoe of Sylvester's, into which 
 it had accidentally and inextricably stepped. 
 As this somewhat impeded its first impulse to 
 fly, it turned to me ; and then, possibly recog- 
 nizing in the stranger the same species as its 
 master, it paused. Presently it slowly raised 
 itself on its hind-legs, and vaguely and depre- 
 catingly waved a baby-paw, fringed with little 
 hooks of steel. I took the paw, and shook it 
 gravely. From that moment we were friends. 
 The little affair of the serdpe was forgotten. 
 
 Nevertheless, I was wise enough to cement 
 our friendship by an act of delicate courtesy. 
 Following the direction of his eyes, I had no 
 difficulty in finding on a shelf near the ridge- 
 pole the sugar-box and the square lumps of 
 white sugar that even the poorest miner is 
 never without. While he was eating them, I had 
 time to examine him more closely. His body 
 was a silky, dark, but exquisitely-modulated 
 gray, deepening to black in his paws and muzzle. 
 His fur was excessively long, thick, and soft as 
 eider-down ; the cushions of flesh beneath per- 
 fectly infantine in their texture and contour. 
 He was so very young, that the palms of his 
 half-human feet were still tender as a baby's. 
 Except for the bright blue, steely hooks, half 
 
180 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 sheatlked in his little toes, there was not a single 
 harsh outline or detail in his plump figure. He 
 was as free from angles as one of Leda's off- 
 spring. Your caressing hand sank away in his 
 fur with dreamy languor. To look at him long 
 was an intoxication of the senses ; to pat him 
 was a wild delirium ; to embrace him, an utter 
 demoralization of the intellectual faculties. 
 
 When he had finished the sugar, he rolled 
 out of the door with a half-diffident, half- 
 inviting look in his eyes as if he expected me 
 to follow. I did so ; but the sniffing and snort- 
 ing of the keen-scented Pomposo in the hollow 
 not only revealed the cause of his former terror, 
 but decided me to take another direction. 
 After a moment's hesitation, he concluded to go 
 with me, although I am satisfied, from a certain 
 impish look in his eye, that he fully understood 
 and rather enjoyed the fright of Pomposo. As 
 he rolled along at my side, with a gait not un- 
 like a drunken sailor, I discovered that his long 
 hair concealed a leather collar around his neck, 
 which bore for its legend the single word 
 " Baby ! " I recalled the mysterious suggestion 
 of the two miners. This, then, was the " baby " 
 with whom I was to " play." 
 
 How we " played ; " how Baby allowed me 
 to roll him down hill, crawling and puffing up 
 again each time with perfect good humor ; how 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 181 
 
 he climbed a young sapling after iny Panama 
 hat, which I had " shied " into one of the top- 
 most branches ; how, after getting it, he refused 
 to descend until it suited his pleasure; how, 
 wrhen he did come down, he persisted in 
 walking about on three legs, carrying my hat, a 
 crushed and shapeless mass, clasped to his breast 
 with the remaining one ; how I missed him at 
 last, and finally discovered him seated on a 
 table in one of the tenantless cabins, with a 
 bottle of sirup between his paws, vainly 
 endeavoring to extract its contents, these and 
 other details of that eventful day I shall not 
 weary the reader with now. Enough that, when 
 Dick Sylvester returned, I was pretty well 
 fagged out, and the baby was rolled up, an im- 
 mense bolster, at the foot of the couch, asleep. 
 Sylvester's first words after our greeting 
 were, 
 
 "Isn't he delicious?" 
 
 " Perfectly. Where did you get him ? " 
 
 "Lying under his dead mother, five miles 
 
 from here," said Dick, lighting his pipe. 
 
 * Knocked her over at fifty yards: perfectly 
 
 clean phot; never moved afterwards. Baby 
 
 crawled out, scared, but unhurt. She must 
 
 have been carrying him in her mouth, and 
 
 dropped him when she faced me ; for he wasn't 
 
 more than three days old, and not steady on hii 
 
182 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 pins. He takes the only milk that comes to the 
 settlement, brought up by Adams Express at 
 seven o'clock every morning. They say he 
 looks like me. Do you think so ? " asked Dick 
 with perfect gravity, stroking his hay-colored 
 omstachios, and evidently assuming his best 
 expression. 
 
 I took leave of the baby early the next morn- 
 ing in Sylvester's cabin, aud, out of respect to 
 Pomposo's feelings, rode by without any post- 
 script of expression. But the night before I 
 had made Sylvester solemnly swear, that, in the 
 event of any separation between himself and 
 Baby, it should revert to me. " At the same 
 time," he had added, " it's only fair to say that 
 I don't think of dying just yet, old fellow ; and 
 I don't know of any thing else that would part 
 the cub and me." 
 
 Two months after this conversation, as I was 
 turning over the morning's mail at my office in 
 San Francisco, I noticed a letter bearing Syl- 
 vester's familiar hand. But it was post-marked 
 4 Stockton," and I opened it with some anxiety 
 at once. Its contents were as follows : 
 
 "O FRANK! Don't you remember what we agreed 
 upon anent the baby? Well, consider me as dead for the 
 *ext six months, or gone where cubs can't follow me, 
 East. I know you love the baby ; but do you think, deal 
 ooy, now, really, do you think you could be a f atnei 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 183 
 
 to it? C3nsider this well. You are young, thoughtless, 
 well-meaning enough ; but dare you take upon yourself 
 the functions of guide, genius, or guardian to one so 
 young and guileless? Could you be the Mentor to thia 
 Telemachus? Think of the temptations of a metropolis. 
 Look at the question well, and let me know speedily ; for 
 I've got him as far as this place, and he's kicking up an 
 awful row in the hotel-yard, and rattling his chain like 
 maniac. Let me know by telegraph at once. 
 
 " SYLVESTEB. 
 
 " P.S. Of course he's grown a little, and doesn't take 
 things always as quietly as he did. He dropped rather 
 heavily on two of Watson's * purps ' last week, and 
 snatched old Watson himself bald headed, for interfer- 
 ing. You remember Watson ? For an intelligent man, he 
 knows very little of California fauna. How are you 
 fixed for bears on Montgomery Street, I mean in regard 
 to corrals and things ? S. 
 
 " P.P.S. He's got some new tricka. The boys have 
 been teaching him to put up his hands with them. He 
 slings an ugly left. S." 
 
 I am afraid that my desire to possess myself 
 of Baby overcame all other considerations ; and I 
 telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester. 
 When I reached my lodgings late that after- 
 noon, my landlady was awaiting me with a 
 telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester, 
 
 " All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a 
 fcther to him. S." 
 
 It was due, then, at one o'clock that night 
 
184 BABY SYLVESTEB. 
 
 For a moment I was staggered at my own pre 
 cipitation. I had as yet made no preparations, 
 had said nothing to my landlady about her new 
 guest. I expected to arrange every thing in 
 time ; and now, through Sylvester's indecent 
 haste, that time had been shortened twelve 
 hours. 
 
 Something, however, must be done at once. 
 I turned to Mrs. Brown. I had great reliance 
 in her maternal instincts: I had that still 
 greater reliance common to our sex in the 
 general tender-heartedness of pretty women. 
 But I confess I was alarmed. Yet, with a 
 feeble smile, I tried to introduce the subject 
 with classical ease and lightness. I even said, 
 " If Shakspeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, 
 believed that a lion among ladies was a dread- 
 ful thing, what must" But here I broke 
 down ; for Mrs. Brown, with the awful intuition 
 of her sex, I saw at once was more occupied 
 with my manner than my speech. So I tried a 
 business brusquerie^ and, placing the telegram 
 in her hand, said hurriedly, " We must do some- 
 thing about this at once. It's perfectly absurd ; 
 but he will be here at one to-night. Beg 
 thousand pardons ; but business prevented my 
 speaking before" and paused out of breath 
 Mid courage. 
 
 Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 18 
 
 her pretty eyebrows, turned the paper over, and 
 looked on the other side, and then, in a remote 
 and chilling voice, asked me if she understood 
 me to say that the mother was coming also. 
 
 " Oh, dear no ! " I exclaimed with considerable 
 relief. " The mother is dead, you know. Syl- 
 vester, that is my friend who sent this, shot 
 her when the baby was only three days old." 
 But the expression of Mrs. Brown's face at this 
 moment was so alarming, that I saw that noth- 
 ing but the fullest explanation would save me. 
 Hastily, and I fear not very coherently, I told 
 her all. 
 
 She relaxed sweetly. She said I had fright- 
 ened her with my talk about lions. Indeed, I 
 think my picture of poor Baby, albeit a trifle 
 highly colored, touched her motherly heart. 
 She was even a little vexed at what she called 
 Sylvester's " hardheartedness." Still I was not 
 without some apprehension. It was two months 
 since I had seen him; and Sylvester's vague 
 allusion to his " slinging an ugly left " pained 
 me. I looked at sympathetic little Mrs. Brown ; 
 and the thought of Watson's pups covered me 
 with guilty confusion. 
 
 Mrs. Brown had agreed to sit up with me 
 until he arrived. One o'clock came, but no 
 Baby. Two o'clock, three o'clock, passed. It 
 was almost four when there was a wild clatte/ 
 
186 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 of horses' hoofs outside, and with a jerk a 
 wagon stopped at the door. In an instant I 
 had opened it, and confronted a stranger. Al- 
 most at the same moment, the horses attempted 
 to run away with the wagon. 
 
 The stranger's appearance was, to say the 
 least, disconcerting. His clothes were badly 
 torn and frayed ; his linen sack hung from his 
 shoulders like a herald's apron; one of his 
 hands was bandaged ; his face scratched ; and 
 there was no hat on his dishevelled head. To 
 add to the general effect, he had evidently 
 sought relief from his woes in drink ; and he 
 swayed from side to side as he clung to the 
 door-handle, and, in a very thick voice, stated 
 that he had " suthin " for me outside. When 
 he had finished, the horses made another plunge. 
 
 Mrs. Brown thought they must be frightened 
 at something. 
 
 " Frightened ! " laughed the stranger with 
 bitter irony. " Oh, no ! Hossish ain't frightened ! 
 On'y ran away four timesh comin' here. Oh, 
 no ! Nobody's frightened. Every thin's all ri'. 
 Ain't it, Bill ? " he said, addressing the driver. 
 kt On'y been overboard twish ; knocked down a 
 hatchway once. Thash no thin' ! On'y two 
 men unner doctor's han's at Stockton. Thash 
 aothin' ! Six hunner dollarsh cover all dam 
 tnish." 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 181 
 
 I was too much disheartened to reply, but 
 moved toward the wagon. The stranger eyed 
 me with an astonishment that almost sobered 
 him. 
 
 44 Do you reckon to tackle that animile your- 
 self? " he asked, as he surveyed me from head 
 to foot. 
 
 I did not speak, but, with an appearance of 
 boldness I was far from feeling, walked to the 
 wagon, and called " Baby ! " 
 
 44 All ri'. Cash loose them straps, Bill, and 
 stan' clear." 
 
 The straps were cut loose ; and Baby, the re 
 morseless, the terrible, quietly tumbled to the 
 ground, and, rolling to my side, rubbed his 
 foolish head against me. 
 
 I think the astonishment of the two men was 
 beyond any vocal expression. Without a word, 
 the drunken stranger got into the wagon, and 
 drove away. 
 
 And Baby ? He had grown, it is true, a trifle 
 larger ; but he was thin, and bore the marks 
 of evident ill usage. His beautiful coat was 
 matted and unkempt; and his claws, those 
 bright steel hooks, had been ruthlessly pared to 
 the quick. His eyes were furtive and restless ; 
 and the old expression of stupid good humor 
 had changed to one of intelligent distrust. Hia 
 intercourse with mankind had evidently quick 
 
188 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 ened his intellect, without broadening his mora 
 nature. 
 
 I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown 
 from smothering him in blankets, and ruining 
 his digestion with the delicacies of her larder ; 
 but I at last got him completely rolled up in 
 the corner of my room, and asleep. I lay awake 
 some time later with plans for his future. I 
 finally determined to take him to Oakland 
 where I had built a little cottage, and always 
 spent my Sundays the very next day. And 
 in the midst of a rosy picture of domestic 
 felicity, I fell asleep. 
 
 When I awoke, it was broad day. My eyes 
 at once sought the corner where Baby had 
 been lying ; but he was gone. I sprang from 
 the bed, looked under it, searched the closet, 
 but in vain. The door was still locked; but 
 there were the marks of his blunted claws upon 
 the sill of the window that I had forgotten to 
 close. He had evidently escaped that way. 
 But where? The window opened upon a 
 balcony, to which the only other entrance was 
 through the hall. He must be still in the 
 house. 
 
 My hand was already upon the bell-rope ; but 
 I stayed it in time. If he had not made him 
 self known, why should I disturb the house ? I 
 dressed myself hurriedly, and slipped into the 
 
BABF SYLVESTER. 189 
 
 hall. The first object that met iny eyes was a 
 boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks 
 of Baby's teeth ; and, as I looked along the hall, 
 I saw too plainly that the usual array of freshly 
 blackened boots and shoes before the lodgers' 
 doors was not there. As I ascended the stairs, 
 I found another, but with the blacking care- 
 fully licked off. On the third floor were two 
 or three more boots, slightly mouthed ; but at 
 this point Baby's taste for blacking had evident- 
 ly palled. A little farther on was a ladder, 
 leading to an open scuttle. I mounted the 
 ladder, and reached the flat roof, that formed a 
 continuous level over the row of houses to the 
 corner of the street. Behind the chimney on 
 the very last roof, something was lurking. It 
 was the fugitive Baby. He was covered with 
 dust and dirt and fragments of glass. But he 
 was sitting on his hind-legs, and was eating an 
 enormous slab of peanut candy, with a look of 
 mingled guilt and infinite satisfaction. He 
 even, I fancied, slightly stroked his stomach 
 with his disengaged fore-paw as I approached 
 He knew that I was looking for him ; and the 
 expression of his eye said plainly, " The past, 
 at least, is secure." 
 
 I hurried him, with the evidences of hia 
 guilt, back to the scuttle, and descended on 
 tiptoe tc the floor beneath. Providence favored 
 
190 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 us : I met no one on the stairs ; and liis OWE 
 cushioned tread was inaudible. I think he wag 
 conscious of the dangers of detection ; for he 
 even forebore to breathe, or much less chew the 
 last mouthful he had taken ; and he skulked 
 at my side with the sirup dropping from his 
 motionless jaws. I think he would have silently 
 choked to death just then, for my sake ; and 
 it was not until I had reached my room again, 
 and threw myself panting on the sofa, that I 
 saw how near strangulation he had been. He 
 gulped once or twice apologetically, and then 
 walked to the corner of his own accord, and 
 rolled himself up like an immense sugarplum, 
 sweating remorse and treacle at every pore. 
 
 I locked him in when I went to breakfast, 
 when I found Mrs. Brown's lodgers in a state 
 of intense excitement over certain mysterious 
 events of the night before, and the dreadful 
 revelations of the morning. It appeared that 
 burglars had entered the block from the scut- 
 tles; that, being suddenly alarmed, they had 
 quitted our house without committing any 
 depredation, dropping even the boots they had 
 collected in the halls; but that a desperate 
 attempt had been made to force the till in the 
 confectioner's shop on the corner, and that the 
 glass show-cases had been ruthlessly smashed. 
 A. courageous servant in No. 4 had seen a 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 191 
 
 masked burglar, on his hands and knees, at- 
 tempting to enter their scuttle; but, on her 
 shouting, " Away wid yees ! " he instantly fled. 
 
 I sat through this recital with cheeks that 
 burned uncomfortably; nor was I the less 
 embarrassed, on raising my eyes, to meet Mrs. 
 Brown's fixed curiously and mischievously on 
 mine. As soon as I could make my escape 
 from the table, I did so, and, running rapidly 
 up stairs, sought refuge from any possible 
 inquiry in my own room. Baby was still 
 asleep in the corner. It would not be safe to 
 remove him until the lodgers had gone down 
 town; and I was revolving in my mind the 
 expediency of keeping him until night veiled 
 his obtrusive eccentricity from the public eye, 
 when there came a cautious tap at my door. 
 I opened it. Mrs. Brown slipped in quietly, 
 closed the door softly, stood with her back 
 against it, and her hand on the knob, and beck- 
 oned me mysteriously towards her. Then she 
 asked in a low voice, 
 
 " Is hair-dye poisonous ? " 
 
 I was too confounded to speak. 
 
 " Oh, do ! you know what I mean," she said 
 impatiently. " This stuff." She produced sud- 
 denly from behind her a bottle with a Greek 
 label so long as to run two or three times 
 ipirally around it from top to bottom. "He 
 
192 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 says it isn't a dye : it's a vegetable preparation, 
 for invigorating " 
 
 " Who says ? " I asked despairingly. 
 
 " Why, Mr. Parker, of course I " said Mrs. 
 Brown severely, with the air of having re- 
 peated the name a great many times, "the 
 old gentleman in the room above. The simple 
 question I want to ask," she continued with 
 the calm manner of one who has just convicted 
 another of gross ambiguity of language, "is 
 only this : If some of this stuff were put in a 
 saucer, and left carelessly on the table, and a 
 child, or a baby, or a cat, or any young animal, 
 should come in at the window, and drink it up, 
 a whole saucer full, because it had a sweet 
 taste, would it be likely to hurt them ? " 
 
 I cast an anxious glance at Baby, sleeping 
 peacefully in the corner, and a very grateful 
 one at Mrs. Brown, and said I didn't think it 
 would. 
 
 "Because," said Mrs. Brown loftily as she 
 opened the door, " I thought, if it was poison- 
 ous, remedies might be used in time. Because," 
 she added suddenly, abandoning her lofty man- 
 ner, and wildly rushing to the corner with a 
 frantic embrace of the unconscious Baby, 
 "because, if any nasty stuff should turn ita 
 booful hair a horrid green, or a naughty pink, it 
 would break its own muzzer's heart, it would 1 ' 
 
BAB? SYLVESTER. 193 
 
 But, before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the 
 Inefficiency of hair-dye as an internal applica- 
 tion, she had darted from the room. 
 
 That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, 
 Baby and I decamped from Mrs. Brown's. Dis- 
 trusting the too emotional nature of that noble 
 animal, the horse, I had recourse to a hand- 
 cart, drawn by a stout Irishman, to convey my 
 charge to the ferry. Even then, Baby refused 
 to go, unless I walked by the cart, and at times 
 rode in it. 
 
 " I wish," said Mrs. Brown, as she stood by 
 the door, wrapped in an immense shawl, and 
 saw us depart, " I wish it looked less solemn, 
 less like a pauper's funeral." 
 
 I must admit, that, as I walked by the cart 
 that night, I felt very much as if I were accom- 
 panying the remains of some humble friend to 
 his last resting-place ; and that, when I was 
 obliged to ride in it, I never could entirely con- 
 vince myself that I was not helplessly overcome 
 by liquor, or the victim of an accident, en route 
 to the hospital. But at last we reached the 
 ferry. On the boat, I think no one discovered 
 Baby, except a drunken man, who approached 
 me to ask for a light for his cigar, but wha 
 suddenly dropped it, and fled in dismay to the 
 gentlemen's cabin, where his incoherent ravings 
 ^ere luckily taken for the earlier i-idi nations of 
 lelirium tremens. 
 
194 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when I reached my 
 Jittle cottage on the outskirts of Oakland ; and 
 it was with a feeling of relief and security that 
 I entered, locked the door; and turned him 
 loose in the hall, satisfied that henceforward 
 his depredations would be limited to my own 
 property. He was very quiet that night ; and 
 after he had tried to mount the hat-rack, under 
 the mistaken impression that it was intended 
 for his own gymnastic exercise, and knocked 
 all the hats off, he went peaceably to sleep on 
 the rug. 
 
 In a week, with the exercise afforded him by 
 the run of a large, carefully-boarded enclosure, 
 he recovered his health, strength, spirits, and 
 much of his former beauty. His presence was 
 onknown to my neighbors, although it was 
 noticeable that horses invariably "shied" in 
 passing to the windward of my house, and that 
 the baker and milkman had great difficulty in 
 the delivery of their wares in the morning, and 
 indulged in unseemly and unnecessary profanity 
 in so doing. 
 
 At the end of the week, I determined to invite 
 a few friends to see the Baby, and to that pur- 
 pose wrote a number of formal invitations. 
 A-fter descanting, at some length, on the great 
 expense and danger attending his capture and 
 training, I offered a programme of the perforn* 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 195 
 
 Mice, of the "Infant Phenomenon of Sierran 
 Solitudes," drawn up into the highest profes- 
 sional profusion of alliteration and capital let- 
 ters. A few extracts will give the reader some 
 idea of his educational progress : 
 
 1. He will, rolled up in a Round Ball, roll down the 
 
 Wood- Shed Rapidly, illustrating His manner of 
 Escaping from His Enemy in His Native Wilds. 
 
 2. He will Ascend the Well-Pole, and remove from the 
 
 Very Top a Hat, and as much of the Crown and 
 Brim thereof, as May be Permitted. 
 
 3. He will perform in a pantomime, descriptive of the 
 
 Conduct of the Big Bear, The Middle- Sized Bear, 
 and The Little Bear of the Popular Nursery Legend. 
 
 4. He will shake his chain Rapidly, showing his Manner 
 
 of striking Dismay and Terror in the Breasts of 
 Wanderers in Ursine Wildernesses. 
 
 The morning of the exhibition came; but 
 an hour before the performance the wretched 
 Baby was missing. The Chinese cook could 
 not indicate his whereabouts. I searched the 
 premises thoroughly; and then, in despair, 
 toot my hat, and hurried out into the narrow 
 lane that led toward the open fields and the 
 woods beyond. But I found no trace nor track 
 vf Baby Sylvester. I returned, after an hour's 
 fruitless search, to find my guests already 
 assembled on the rear veranda. I briefly re 
 counted my disappointment, my proballe loss, 
 and begged their assistance. 
 
196 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 " Why," said a Spanish friend, who prided 
 himself on his accurate knowledge of English, 
 to Barker, who seemed to be trying vainly to 
 rise from his reclining position on the veranda, 
 " why do you not disengage yourself from the 
 veranda of our friend? And why, in the 
 name of Heaven, do you attach to yourself so 
 much of this thing, and make to yourself such 
 unnecessary contortion? Ah," he continued, 
 suddenly withdrawing one of his own feet from 
 the veranda with an evident effort, "I am 
 myself attached ! Surely it is something here ! " 
 
 It evidently was. My guests were all rising 
 with difficulty. The floor of the veranda was 
 covered with some glutinous substance. It 
 was sirup ! 
 
 I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn. 
 The keg of " golden sirup," purchased only the 
 day before, lay empty upon the floor. There 
 were sticky tracks all over the enclosure, but 
 Btill no Baby. 
 
 " There's something moving the ground over 
 frhere by that pile of dirt," said Barker. 
 
 He was right. The earth was shaking in one 
 corner of the enclosure like an earthquake. I 
 approached cautiously. I saw, what I had not 
 before noticed, that the ground was thrown 
 ap; and there, in the middle of an immense 
 grave-like cavity, crouched Baby Sylvester, stil 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 197 
 
 iigging, and slowly but surely sinking from 
 sight in a mass of dust and clay. 
 
 What were his intentions ? Whether he was 
 stung by remorse, and wished to hide himself 
 from my reproachful eyes, or whether he was 
 simply trying to dry his sirup-besmeared coat, 
 I never shall know ; for that day, alas I was his 
 last with me. 
 
 He was pumped upon for two hours, at the 
 end of which tune he still yielded a thin 
 treacle. He was then taken, and carefully 
 inwrapped in blankets, and locked up in the 
 Btore-room. The next morning he was gone I 
 The lower portion of the window sash and pane 
 were gone too. His successful experiments on 
 the fragile texture of glass at the confectioner's, 
 on the first day of his entrance to civilization, 
 had not been lost upon him. His first essay at 
 combining cause and effect ended in his escape. 
 
 Where he went, where he hid, who captured 
 him, if he did not succeed in reaching the foot- 
 bills beyond Oakland, even the offer of a large 
 reward, backed by the efforts of an intelligent 
 police, could not discover. I never saw him 
 again from that day until 
 
 Did I see him? I was in a horse-car on 
 Sixth Avenue, a few days ago, when the horses 
 suddenly became unmanageable, and left the 
 track for the sidewalk, amid the oaths and exe- 
 
198 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 erationB of the driver. Immediately in front 
 of the car a crowd had gathered around two 
 performing bears and a showman. One of the 
 animals, thin, emaciated, and the mere wreck 
 of his native strength, attracted my attention. 
 I endeavored to attract his. He turned a pair 
 of bleared, sightless eyes in my direction ; but 
 there was no sign of recognition. I leaned 
 from the car-window, and called softly, " Baby ! " 
 But he did not heed. I closed the window. 
 The car was just moving on, when he suddenly 
 turned, and, either by accident or design, thrust 
 a callous paw through the glass. 
 
 " It's worth a dollar and half to put in a new 
 pane," said the conductor, "if folks will play 
 with bears!" 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 IN 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very 
 pretty woman. She had a quantity of light 
 chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complex- 
 ion, and a certain languid grace which passed 
 easily for gentlewomanliness. She always dressed 
 becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted 
 as the latest fashion. She had only two blem- 
 ishes : one of her velvety eyes, when examined 
 closely, had a slight cast ; and her left cheek 
 bore a small scar left by a single drop of vitriol 
 happily the only drop of an entire phial 
 thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex, 
 that reached the pretty face it was intended to 
 mar. But, when the observer had studied the 
 eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was 
 generally incapacitated for criticism ; and even 
 the scar on her cheek was thought by some to 
 add piquancy to her smile. The youthful edit- 
 or of " The Fiddletown Avalanche " had said 
 orivately that it was " an exaggerated dimple." 
 Col. Starbottle was instantly " reminded of the 
 Beautifying patches of the days of Queen Anne, 
 
200 AN EPISODE OP FEDDLETOWN. 
 
 but more particularly, sir, of the blankest beau- 
 tiful women, that, blank you, you ever laid your 
 two blank eyes upon, a Creole woman, sir, in 
 New Orleans. And this woman had a scar, a 
 line extending, blank me, from her eye to her 
 blank chin. And this woman, sir, thrilled you, 
 sir; maddened you, sir; absolutely sent your 
 blank soul to perdition with her blank fascina- 
 tion ! And one day I said to her, ' Celeste, how 
 in blank did you come by that beautiful scar, 
 blank you ? ' And she said to me, ' Star, there 
 isn't another white man that I'd confide in but 
 you ; but I made that scar myself, purposely, I 
 did, blank me.' These were her very words, 
 sir, and perhaps you think it a blank lie, sir ; 
 but I'll put up any blank sum you can name 
 and prove it, blank me." 
 
 Indeed, most of the male population of Fid- 
 dletown were or had been in love with her. Of 
 this number, about one-half believed that their 
 love was returned, with the exception, possibly, 
 of her own husband. He alone had been known 
 to express scepticism. 
 
 The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this 
 infelicitous distinction was Tretherick. He had 
 been divorced from an excellent wife to marry 
 this Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been 
 divorced; but it was hinted that some previous 
 xperienoes of hers in that legal formality had 
 
AN EPISODE OP FTDDLETOWN. 201 
 
 made it perhaps less novel, and probably less 
 sacrificial. I would not have it inferred irom 
 this that she was deficient in sentiment, or 
 devoid of its highest moral expression. Her 
 intimate friend had written (on the occasion of 
 her second divorce), " The cold world does not 
 understand Clara yet ; " and Col. Starbottle had 
 remarked blankly, that with the exception of 
 a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she 
 had more soul than the whole caboodle of 
 them put together. Few indeed could read 
 those lines entitled " Infelissimus," commencing, 
 44 Why waves no cypress o'er this brow ? " origi 
 nally published in " The Avalanche, " over the 
 signature of " The Lady Clare," without feeling 
 the tear of sensibility tremble on his eyelids, or 
 the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his 
 cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity 
 of " The Dutch Flat Intelligencer," which the 
 next week had suggested the exotic character 
 of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fid- 
 dletown, as a reasonable answer to the query. 
 
 Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her 
 feelings in a metrical manner, and deliver them 
 to the cold world through the medium of the 
 newspapers, that first attracted the attention of 
 Tretherick. Several poems descriptive of the 
 effects of California scenery upon a too sensitive 
 oul, and of the vague yearnings for the infinite, 
 
202 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 which an enforced study of the heartlessness of 
 California society produced in the poetic breast, 
 impressed Mr. Tretherick, who was then driving 
 a six-mule freight-wagon between Knight's 
 Ferry and Stockton, to seek out the unknown 
 poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly 
 conscious of a certain hidden sentiment in his 
 own nature ; and it is possible that some reflec- 
 tions on the vanity of his pursuit, he supplied 
 several mining-camps with whiskey and tobacco, 
 in conjunction with the dreariness of the 
 dusty plain on which he habitually drove, may 
 have touched some chord in sympathy with this 
 sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief court- 
 ship, as brief as was consistent with some 
 previous legal formalities, they were married ; 
 and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing bride 
 to Fiddletown, or " Fideletown," as Mrs. Treth- 
 erick preferred to call it in her poems. 
 
 The union was not a felicitous one. It was 
 not long before Mr. Tretherick discovered that 
 the sentiment he had fostered while freighting 
 between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was dif- 
 ferent from that which his wife had evolved from 
 the contemplation of California scenery and 
 her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, 
 this caused him to beat her; and she, being 
 equally faulty in ded "action, was impelled to a 
 certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 203 
 
 premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to drink, 
 and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly to 
 the columns of " The Avalanche." It was at 
 this time that Col. Starbottle discovered a simi- 
 larity in Mrs. Tretherick's verse to the genius 
 of Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of 
 Fiddletown in a two-columned criticism, signed 
 " A. S.," also published in " The Avalanche," 
 and supported by extensive quotation. As 
 " The Avalanche " did not possess a font of 
 Greek type, the editor was obliged to reproduce 
 the Leucadian numbers in the ordinary Roman 
 letter, to the intense disgust of Col. Starbottle, 
 and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit 
 to accept the text as an excellent imitation of 
 Choctaw, a language with which the colonel, 
 as a whilom resident of the Indian Territories, 
 was supposed to be familiar. Indeed, the next 
 week's " Intelligencer " contained some vile 
 doggerel, supposed to be an answer to Mrs. 
 Tretherick's poem, ostensibly written by the 
 wife of a Digger Indian chief, accompanied by 
 a glowing eulogium, signed " A. S. S." 
 
 The result of this jocularity was briefly given 
 in a later copy of " The Avalanche." " An un- 
 fortunate rencounter took place on Monday last, 
 between the Hon. Jackson Flash of " The Dutch 
 Flat Intelligencer " and the well-known Col. 
 Btarbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka 
 
204 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 Saloon. Two shots were fired by the parties 
 without injury to either, although it is said that 
 a passing Chinaman received fifteen buckshot in 
 the calves of his legs from the colonel's double- 
 barrelled shot-gun, which were not intended 
 for him. John will learn to keep out of the 
 way of Melican man's fire-arms hereafter. The 
 cause of the affray is not known, although it is 
 hinted that there is a lady in the case. The 
 rumor that points to a well-known and beautiful 
 poetess whose lucubrations have often graced 
 our columns seems to gain credence from those 
 that are posted." 
 
 Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Treth 
 erick under these trying circumstances was 
 fully appreciated in the gulches. "The old 
 man's head is level," said one long-booted phi- 
 losopher. " Ef the colonel kills Flash, Mrs. 
 Tretherick is avenged : if Flash drops the colo- 
 nel, Tretherick is all right. Either way, he's 
 got a sure thing." During this delicate condi- 
 tion of affairs, Mrs. Tretherick one day left her 
 husband's home, and took refuge at the Fiddle- 
 town Hotel, with only the clothes she had on 
 her back. Here she staid for several weeks, 
 during which period it is only justice to say 
 that she bore herself with the strictest pro- 
 priety. 
 
 It waft a clear morning in early spring that 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick, unattended, left the hotel, and 
 walked down the narrow street toward the 
 fringe of dark pines which indicated the extreme 
 limits of Fiddletown. The few loungers at 
 that early hour were preoccupied with the 
 departure of the Wingdown coach at the other 
 extremity of the street; and Mrs. Tretherick 
 reached the suburbs of the settlement without 
 discomposing observation. Here she took a 
 cross street or road, running at right angles with 
 the main thoroughfare of Fiddletown, and pass- 
 ing through a belt of woodland. It was evi- 
 dently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of 
 the town. The dwellings were few, ambitious, 
 and uninterrupted by shops. And here she was 
 joined by Col. Starbottle. 
 
 The gallant colonel, notwithstanding that he 
 bore the swelling port which usually distin- 
 guished him, that his coat was tightly buttoned, 
 and his boots tightly fitting, and that his cane, 
 hooked over his arm, swung jauntily, was not 
 entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however, 
 vouchsafed him a gracious smile and a glance 
 of her dangerous eyes ; and the colonel, with an 
 embarrassed cough and a slight strut, took his 
 place at her side. 
 
 44 The coast is clear," said the colonel, " and 
 Tretherick is over at Dutch Flat on a spreft, 
 There is no one in the house but a Chinaman : 
 
206 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN , 
 
 and you need fear no trouble from him. J," he 
 continued, with a slight inflation of the chest 
 that imperilled the security of his button, " I 
 will see that you are protected in the removal 
 of your property." 
 
 " I'm sure it's very kind of you, and so dis- 
 interested ! " simpered the lady as they walked 
 along. " It's so pleasant to meet some one who 
 has soul, some one to sympathize with in a 
 community so hardened and heartless as this." 
 And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but 
 not until they wrought their perfect and ac- 
 cepted work upon her companion. 
 
 " Yes, certainly, of course," said the colonel, 
 glancing nervously up and down the street, 
 "yes, certainly." Perceiving, however, that 
 there was no one in sight or hearing, he pro- 
 ceeded at once to inform Mrs. Tretherick that 
 the great trouble of his life, in fact, had been 
 the possession of too much soul. That many 
 women as a gentleman she would excuse 
 him, of course, from mentioning names but 
 many beautiful women had often sought hia 
 society, but being deficient, madam, absolutely 
 deficient, in this quality, he could not recipro- 
 cate. But when two natures thoroughly in 
 sympathy, despising alike the sordid trammels 
 of a low and vulgar community, and the con 
 rentional restraints of a hypocritical society, 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 207 
 
 when two souls in perfect accord met and 
 mingled in poetical union, then but here the 
 colonel's speech, which had been remarkable for a 
 certain whiskey-and-watery fluency, grew husky, 
 almost inaudible, and decidedly incoherent. 
 Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have heard some- 
 thing like it before, and was enabled to fill the 
 hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on 
 the side of the colonel was quite virginal and 
 bashfully conscious until they reached their 
 destination. 
 
 It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and 
 warm with paint, very pleasantly relieved 
 against a platoon of pines, some of whose fore* 
 most files had been displaced to give freedom 
 to the fenced enclosure in which it sat. In the 
 vivid sunlight and perfect silence, it had a new, 
 uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and 
 painters had just left it. At the farther end of 
 the lot, a Chinaman was stolidly digging ; but 
 there was no other sign of occupancy. " The 
 coast," as the colonel had said, was indeed 
 " clear." Mrs. Tretherick paused at the gate. 
 The colonel would have entered with her, but 
 was stopped by a gesture. " Come for me in a 
 couple of hours, and I shall have every thing 
 packed," she said, as she smiled, and extended 
 her hand. The colonel seized and pressed it 
 with great fervor. Perhaps the pressure was 
 
208 AN EPISODE OF PIDDLETOWN. 
 
 slightly returned ; for the gallant colonel was 
 impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as 
 smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boot? 
 would permit. When he had gone, Mrs. Treth 
 erick opened the door, listened a moment in 
 the deserted hall, and then ran quickly up stairs 
 to what had been her bedroom. 
 
 Every thing there was unchanged as on the 
 night she left it. On the dressing-table stood 
 ber bandbox, as she remembered to have left it 
 when she took out her bonnet. On the mantle 
 lay the other glove she had forgotten in her 
 flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau 
 were half open (she had forgotten to shut them) ; 
 and on its marble top lay her shawl-pin and a 
 soiled cuff. What other recollections came upon 
 her I know not ; but she suddenly grew quite 
 white, shivered, and listened with a beating 
 heart, and her hand upon the door. Then she 
 stepped to the mirror, and half fearfully, half 
 curiously, parted with her fingers the braids of 
 her blonde hair above her little pink ear, until 
 she came upon an ugly, half-healed scar. She 
 gazed at this, moving her pretty head up and 
 down to get a better light upon it, until the 
 sligH cast in her velvety eyes became very 
 strongly marked indeed. Then she turned 
 away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and 
 ran to the closet where hung her precious 
 
AN EPISODE OF FEDDLETOWN. 209 
 
 iresses. These she inspected nervously, and 
 missing suddenly a favorite black silk from its 
 accustomed peg, for a moment, thought she 
 should have fainted. But discovering it the 
 next instant lying upon a trunk where she had 
 thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness to a supe- 
 rior Being who protects the friendless, for the 
 first time sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit 
 she was hurried for time, she could not resist 
 trying the effect of a certain lavender neck- 
 ribbon upon the dress she was then wearing, 
 before the mirror. And then suddenly she 
 became aware of a child's voice close beside her, 
 and she stopped. And then the child's voice 
 repeated, " Is it mamma ? " 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Stand- 
 ing in the doorway was a little girl of six or 
 seven. Her dress had been originally fine, but 
 was torn and dirty ; and her hair, which was a 
 very violent red, was tumbled serio-comically 
 about her forehead. Fo" ail 6his, she was a 
 picturesque little thing, even through whose 
 childish timidity there was a certain self-sus- 
 tained air which is apt to come upon children 
 who are left much to themselves. She was 
 holding under her arm a rag doll, apparently of 
 her own workmanship, and nearly as large aa 
 herself, a doll with a cylindrical head, and 
 features roughly indicated with charcoal. A 
 
210 AN EPISODE OP PIDDLETOWN. 
 
 long shawl, evidently belonging to a grown 
 person, dropped from her shoulders, and swept 
 the floor. 
 
 The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Trether 
 ick's delight. Perhaps she had but a small 
 sense of humor. Certainly, when the child, 
 still standing in the doorway, again asked, " Is 
 it mamma?" she answered sharply, "No, it 
 isn't," and turned a severe look upon the in- 
 truder. 
 
 The child retreated a step, and then, gaining 
 courage with the distance, said in deliciously 
 imperfect speech, 
 
 " Dow 'way then ! why don't you dow away ? " 
 
 But Mrs. Tretherick was eying the shawl. 
 Suddenly she whipped it off the child's shoul- 
 ders, and said angrily, 
 
 "How dared you take my things, you bad 
 child?" 
 
 "Is it yours? Then you are my mamma; 
 ain't you? You are mamma! "she continued 
 gleefully ; and, before Mrs. Tretherick could 
 void her, she had dropped her doll, and, catch- 
 ng the woman's skirts with both hands, was 
 dancing up and down before her. 
 
 " What's your name, child ? " said Mrs. Treth- 
 erick coldly, removing the small and not very 
 nrhite hands from her garments. 
 
 " Tarry." 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 211 
 
 Tarry?" 
 
 " Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline." 
 
 " Caroline ? " 
 
 " Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick." 
 
 "Whose child are you?" demanded Mrs. 
 Tretherick still more coldly, to keep down A 
 rising fear. 
 
 " Why, yours," said the little creature with a 
 laugh. "I'm your little durl. You're my 
 mamma, my new mamma. Don't you know my 
 ole mamma's dorn away, never to turn back 
 any more? I don't live wid my ol' mamma 
 now. I live wid you and papa." 
 
 " How long have you been here ? " asked Mrs. 
 Tretherick snappishly. 
 
 " I fink it's free days," said Carry reflectively. 
 
 " You think ! Don't you know ? " sneered 
 Mrs. Tretherick. " Then, where did you come 
 from?" 
 
 Carry's lip began to work under this sharp 
 cross-examination. With a great effort and a 
 email gulp, she got the better of it, and an- 
 Bwered, 
 
 " Papa, papa fetched me, from Miss Sim 
 mons from Sacramento, last week." 
 
 " Last week ! You said three days just now,' 
 returned Mrs Tretherick with severe delibera- 
 tion. 
 
 "I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly 
 fcdrift in sheer helplessness and confusion. 
 
12 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 " Do you know what you are talking about ? n 
 demanded Mrs. Tretherick shrilly, restraining 
 an impulse to shake the little figure before her, 
 and precipitate the truth by specific gravity. 
 
 But the flaming red head here suddenly 
 disappeared in the folds of Mrs. Tretherick's 
 dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself 
 forever. 
 
 " There now stop thac sniffling," said Mrs. 
 Tretherick, extricating her dress from the moist 
 embraces of the child, and feeling exceedingly 
 uncomfortable. " Wipe your face now, and run 
 away, and don't bother. Stop," she continued, 
 as Carry moved away. " Where's your papa ? " 
 
 " He's dorn away too. He's sick. He's been 
 dorn " she hesitated " two, free, days." 
 
 " Who takes care of you, child ? " said Mrs. 
 Tretherick, eying her curiously. 
 
 "John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth. 
 John tooks and makes the beds." 
 
 " Well, now, run away and behave yourself, 
 and don't bother me any more," said Mrs. 
 Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit. 
 " Stop where are you going ? ' she added, as 
 the child began to ascend the stairs, dragging 
 ihe long doll after her by one helpless leg. 
 
 " Doin up stairs to play and be dood, and no 
 bother mamma." 
 
 "I ain't your mamma," shouted Mis. Trether- 
 
AN EPISODE OF F1DDLETOWN. 213 
 
 Ick, and then she swiftly re-entered her bed- 
 room, and slammed the door. 
 
 Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk 
 from the closet, and set to work with querulous 
 and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe. She 
 tore her best dress in taking it from the hook 
 on which it hung : she scratched her soft hands 
 twice with an ambushed pin. All the while, 
 she kept up an indignant commentary on the 
 events of the past few moments. She said to 
 herself she saw it all. Tretherick had sent for 
 this child of his first wife this child of whose 
 existence he had never seemed to care just to 
 insult her, to fill her place. Doubtless the first 
 wife herself would follow soon, or perhaps 
 there would be a third. Red hair, not auburn, 
 but red, of course the child, this Caroline, 
 looked like its mother, and, if so, she was any 
 thing but pretty. Or the whole thing had 
 been prepared : this red-haired child, the image 
 of its mother, had been kept at a convenient 
 distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for 
 when needed. She remembered his occasional 
 visits there on business, as he said. Perhaps 
 the mother already was there ; but no, she had 
 ^ore East. Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in 
 her then state of mind, preferred to dwell upon 
 the fact that she might be there. She was 
 dimly conscious, also, of a certain satisfactioo 
 
214 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 iii exaggerating her feelings. Surely no woman 
 had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy, 
 ehe sketched a picture of herself sitting alone 
 and deserted, at sunset, among the fallen 
 columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy 
 yet graceful attitude, while her husband drove 
 rapidly away in a luxurious coach-and-four, 
 with a red-haired woman at his side. Sitting 
 upon the trunk she had just packed, she partly 
 composed a lugubrious poem, describing her 
 sufferings, as, wandering alone, and poorly clad, 
 she came upon her husband and " another " 
 flaunting in silks and diamonds. She pictured 
 herself dying of consumption, brought on by 
 sorrow, a beautiful wreck, yet still fascinating, 
 gazed upon adoringly by the editor of " The 
 Avalanche," and Col. Starbottle. And where 
 was Col. Starbottle all this while ? Why didn't 
 he come? He, at least, understood her. He 
 she laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few 
 moments before; and then her face suddenly 
 grew grave, as it had not a few moments before. 
 What was that little red-haired imp doing all 
 this time? Why was she so quiet? She 
 opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She 
 c ancied that she heard, above the multitudinous 
 Email noises and creakings and warpings of 
 cne vacant house, a smaller voice singing on 1 the 
 floor above This, as she remembered, wai 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 215 
 
 01 dy an open attic that had been used as a store- 
 room. With a half-guilty consciousness, she 
 crept softly up stairs, and, pushing the door 
 partly open, looked within. 
 
 Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant 
 sunbeam from a single small window lay, filled 
 with dancing motes, and only half illuminating 
 the barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of 
 this sunbeam she saw the child's glowing hair, 
 as if crowned by a red aureola, as she sat upon 
 the floor with her exaggerated doll between her 
 knees. She appeared to be talking to it ; and it 
 was not long before Mrs. Tretherick observed 
 that she was rehearsing the interview of a half 
 hour before. She catechised the doll severely, 
 cross-examining it in regard to the duration of 
 its stay there, and generally on the measure 
 of time. The imitation of Mrs. Tretherick's 
 manner was exceedingly successful, and the 
 conversation almost a literal reproduction, 
 with a single exception. After she had in- 
 formed the doll that she was not her mother 
 at the close of the interview she added patheti 
 cally, "that if she was dood, very dood, she 
 might be her mamma, and love her very much." 
 
 I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick 
 was deficient in a sense of humor. Perhaps 
 't was for this reason that this whole scene 
 Affected her most unpleasantly; and the ccin- 
 
216 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 elusion sent the blood tingling to her cheek 
 There was something, too, inconceivably lonely 
 in the situation. The unfurnished vacant 
 room, the half-lights, the monstrous doll, whose 
 very size seemed to give a pathetic significance 
 to its speechlessness, the smallness of the one 
 animate, self-centred figure, all these touched 
 more or less deeply the half-poetic sensibilities 
 of the woman. She could not help utilizing 
 the impression as she stood there, and thought 
 what a fine poem might be constructed from 
 this material, if the room were a little darker, 
 the child lonelier, say, sitting beside a dead 
 mother's bier, and the wind wailing in the 
 turrets. And then she suddenly heard foot- 
 steps at the door below, and recognized the 
 tread of the colonel's cane. 
 
 She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encoun- 
 tered the colonel in the hall. Here she poured 
 into his astonished ear a voluble and exag- 
 gerated statement of her discovery, and indig- 
 nant recital of her wrongs. " Don't tell me th<3 
 whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand ; for 1 
 know it was ! " she almost screamed. " And 
 think," she added, " of the heartlessness of the 
 wretch, leaving his own child alone here in that 
 way." 
 
 u It's a blank shame ! " stammered the colonel 
 without the least idea of what he was talking 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 217 
 
 about. In fact, utterly unable as he was to 
 comprehend a reason for the woman's excite- 
 ment with his estimate of her character, I fear 
 he showed it more plainly than he intended. 
 He stammered, expanded his chest, looked 
 stern, gallant, tender, but all unintelligently. 
 Mi.. Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a 
 sickening doubt of the existence of natures in 
 perfect affinity. 
 
 " It's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with 
 sudden vehemence, in answer to some inaudible 
 remark of the colonel's, and withdrawing her 
 hand from the fervent grasp of that ardent and 
 sympathetic man. " It's of no use : my mind 
 is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon 
 as you like ; but I shall stay here, and confront 
 that man with the proof of his vileness. I will 
 put him face to face with his infamy." 
 
 I do not know whether Col. Starbottle 
 thoroughly appreciated the convincing proof 
 of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity 
 afforded by the damning evidence of the exist 
 ence of Tretherick's own child in his own 
 house. He was dimly aware, however, of some 
 unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expression 
 of the infinite longing of his own sentimental 
 nature. But, before he could say any thing. 
 Carry appeared on the landing above them, 
 looking timidly, and yet half-critically at the 
 pair. 
 
218 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 u That's her," said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly, 
 In her deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, 
 she rose above a consideration of grammatical 
 construction. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the colonel, with a sudden 
 assumption of parental affection and jocularity 
 that was glaringly unreal and affected. " Ah ! 
 pretty little girl, pretty little girl ! How do you 
 do ? How are you ? You find yourself pretty 
 well, do you, pretty little girl ? " The colonel's 
 impulse also was to expand his chest, and swing 
 his cane, until it occurred to him that this action 
 might be ineffective with a child of six or seven. 
 Carry, however, took no immediate notice of this 
 advance, but further discomposed the chivalrous 
 colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick, 
 and hiding herself, as if for protection, in the 
 folds of her gown. Nevertheless, the colonel 
 was not vanquished. Falling back into an atti- 
 tude of respectful admiration, he pointed out a 
 marvellous resemblance to the " Madonna and 
 Child." Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but did not 
 dislodge Carry as before. There was an awk- 
 ward pause for a moment ; and then Mrs. Treth- 
 erick, motioning significantly to the child, said 
 in a whisper, " Go now. Don't come here 
 again, but meet me to-night at the hotel." She 
 extended her hand: the colonel bent over it 
 gallantly, and, raising his hat, the noxt moment 
 was gone. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 219 
 
 " Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick with 
 in embarrassed voice and a prodigious blush, 
 looking down, and addressing the fiery curls just 
 visible in the folds of her dress, "do you 
 think you will be 'dood,' if I let you stay in 
 here and sit with me ? " 
 
 "And let me tall you mamma?" queried 
 Carry, looking up. 
 
 "And let you call me mammal" assented 
 Mrs. Tretherick with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 " Yeth," said Carry promptly. 
 
 They entered the bedroom together. Carry's 
 eye instantly caught sight of the trunk. 
 
 " Are you dowin away adain, mamma ? " she 
 said with a quick nervous look, and a clutch at 
 the woman's dress. 
 
 " No-o," said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out 
 of the window. 
 
 " Only playing your dowin away," suggested 
 Carry with a laugh. " Let me play too." 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick assented. Carry flew into 
 the next room, and presently re-appeared, drag- 
 ging a small trunk, into which she gravely p~o- 
 ceeded to pack her clothes. Mrs. Tretherick 
 noticed that they were not many. A question 
 or two regarding them brought out some further 
 replies from the child ; and, before many minutes 
 had elapsed, Mrs. Tretherick was in possession 
 of all her earlier history. But, to do this, Mrs 
 
220 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 Tretherick had been obliged to take Carry 
 upon her lap, pending the most confidential 
 disclosures. They sat thus a long time after 
 Mrs. Tretherick had apparently ceased to be 
 interested in Carry's disclosures ; and, when lost 
 in thought, she allowed the child to rattle on 
 unheeded, and ran her fingers through the 
 scarlet curls. 
 
 " You don't hold me right, mamma," said 
 Carry at last, after one or two uneasy shiftings 
 of position. 
 
 " How should I hold you? " asked Mrs. Treth- 
 erick with a half-amused, half-embarrassed 
 laugh. 
 
 " Dis way," said Carry, curling up into posi- 
 tion, with one arm around Mrs. Tretherick's 
 neck, and her cheek resting on her bosom, 
 " dis way, dere." After a little preparatory 
 nestling, not unlike some small animal, she 
 closed her eyes, and went to sleep. 
 
 For a few moments the woman sat silent, 
 scarcely daring to breathe in that artificial atti- 
 tude. And then, whether from some occult 
 sympathy in the touch, or God best knows 
 what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her. She 
 began by remembering an old pain that she 
 had forgotten, an old horror that she had reso- 
 lutely put away all these years. She recalled 
 days of sickness and distrust, days of an 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIUDLETOWN. 221 
 
 overshadowing fear, days of preparation for 
 /something that was to be prevented, that was 
 prevented, with mortal agony and fear. She 
 thought of a life that might have been, she 
 dared not say had been, and wondered. It 
 was six years ago : if it had lived, it would have 
 been as old as Carry. The arms which were 
 folded loosely around the sleeping child began 
 to tremble, and tighten their clasp. And then 
 the deep potential impulse came, and with a 
 half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out, and 
 drew the body of the sleeping child down, 
 down, into her breast, down again and again as 
 if she would hide it in the grave dug there 
 years before. And the gust that shook her 
 passed, and then, ah me ! the rain. 
 
 A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, 
 and she moved uneasily in her sleep. But the 
 woman soothed her again, it was so easy to do 
 it now, and they sat there quiet and undis- 
 turbed, so quiet that they might have seemed 
 incorporate of the lonely silent house, the 
 slowly-declining sunbeams, and the general air 
 of desertion and abandonment, yet a desertion 
 thai had in it nothing of age, decay, or despair. 
 
 Col. Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown 
 Hotel all that night in vain. And the next morn- 
 tog, when Mr. Tretherick returned to his husks, 
 
222 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWH. 
 
 he foui.d the house vacant and antenanted, 
 except by motes and sunbeams. 
 
 When it was fairly known that Mrs. Trether- 
 ick had run away, taking Mr. Tretherick's own 
 child with her, there was some excitement, and 
 much diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown. " The 
 Dutch Flat Intelligencer" openly alluded to 
 the " forcible abduction " of the child with the 
 same freedom, and it is to be feared the same 
 prejudice, with which it had criticised the 
 abductor's poetry. All of Mrs. Tretherick's 
 own sex, and perhaps a few of the opposite sex, 
 whose distinctive quality was not, however, 
 very strongly indicated, fully coincided in the 
 views of "The Intelligencer." The majority, 
 however, evaded the moral issue: that Mrs. 
 Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddle- 
 town from her dainty slippers was enough for 
 them to know. They mourned the loss of the 
 fair abductor more than her offence. They 
 promptly rejected Tretherick as an injured hus- 
 band and disconsolate father, and even went 
 so far as to openly cast discredit on the sincerity 
 of his grief. They reserved an ironical con- 
 dolence for Col. Starbottle, overbearing that 
 excellent man with untimely and demonstra- 
 tive sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons, and other 
 localities not generally deemed favorable to 
 the display of sentiment. "She was alliz 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 223 
 
 skittish thing, kernel," said one sympathizer, 
 with a fine affectation of gloomy concern, and 
 great readiness of illustration ; " and it's kinder 
 nat'ril thet she'd get away some day, and stam- 
 pede that theer colt : but thet she should shake 
 you, kernel, thet she should just shake you is 
 what gits me. And they do say thet you jis* 
 hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled 
 them corriders, and histed yourself up and down 
 them stairs, and meandered in and out o* thet 
 piazzy, and all for nothing ? " It was another 
 generous and tenderly commiserating spirit that 
 poured additional oil and wine on the colonel's 
 wounds. " The boys yer let on thet Mrs. Treth- 
 erick prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a 
 baby over from the houss to the stage-offis, and 
 that the chap ez did go off with her thanked 
 you, and offered you two short bits, and sed ez 
 how he liked your looks, and ud employ you 
 agin and now you say it ain't so ? Well, I'll 
 tell the boys it aint so, and I'm glad I met you, 
 for stories do get round." 
 
 Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation, 
 however, the Chinaman in Tretherick's employ- 
 ment, who was the only eye-witness of her 
 flight, stated that she was unaccompanied, ex- 
 cept by the child. He further deposed, that, 
 obeying her orders, he had stopped the Sacra- 
 ttiento coach, and secured a passage for herself 
 
224 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 and child to San Francisco. It was true that 
 Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value. But 
 nobody doubted it. Even those who were scep- 
 tical of the Pagan's ability to recognize the 
 sacredness of the truth admitted his passion- 
 less, unprejudiced unconcern. But it would 
 appear, from a hitherto unrecorded passage of 
 this veracious chronicle, that herein they were 
 mistaken. 
 
 It was about six months after the disappear- 
 ance of Mrs. Tretherick, that Ah Fe, while 
 working in Tretherick's lot, was hailed by two 
 passing Chinamen. They were the ordinary 
 mining coolies, equipped with long poles and 
 baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An ani- 
 mated conversation at once ensued between Ah 
 Fe and his brother Mongolians, a conversa- 
 tion characterized by that usual shrill volubility 
 and apparent animosity which was at once the 
 delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian 
 who did not understand a word of it. Such, 
 at least, was the feeling with which Mr. Treth- 
 erick on his veranda, and Col. Starbottle who 
 was passing, regarded their heathenish jargon. 
 The gallant colonel simply kicked them out 
 of his way : the irate Tretherick, with an oath, 
 th;*ew a stone at the group, and dispersed them, 
 but not before one or two slips of yellow rice 
 paper, marked with hieroglyphics, were ex 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 225 
 
 changed, and a small parcel put into Ah Fe'a 
 hands. When Ah Fe opened this in the dim 
 solitude of his kitchen, he found a little girl's 
 apron, freshly washed, ironed, and folded. On 
 the corner of the hem were the initials " C. T." 
 Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, 
 and proceeded to wash his dishes in the sink 
 with a smile of guileless satisfaction. 
 
 Two days after this, Ah Fe confronted his mas- 
 ter. " Me no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick. 
 Me go now." Mr. Tretherick violently sug- 
 gested a profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him 
 placidly, and withdrew. 
 
 Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he acci- 
 dentally met Col. Starbottle, and dropped a few 
 incoherent phrases which apparently interested 
 that gentleman. When he concluded, the colo- 
 nel handed him a letter and a twenty-dollar 
 gold-piece. "If you bring me an answer, I'll 
 double that Sabe, John?" Ah Fe nodded. 
 An interview equally accidental, with precisely 
 the same result, took place between Ah Fe and 
 another gentleman, whom I suspect to have 
 been the youthful editor of "The Avalanche." 
 Yet I regret to state, that, after proceeding some 
 distaoce on his journey, Ah Fe calmly broke 
 the seals of both letters, and, after trying to 
 read them upside down and sideways, finally 
 divided them into accurate squares, and in this 
 
AN EPISODE OF FLDDLETOWN. 
 
 condition disposed of them to a brother Celes- 
 tial whom he met on the road, for a trifling 
 gratuity. The agony of Col. Starbottle on 
 finding his wash-bill made out on the unwritten 
 side of one of these squares, and delivered tc 
 him with his weekly clean clothes, and the sub- 
 sequent discovery that the remaining portions 
 of his letter were circulated by the same method 
 from the Chinese laundry of one Fung Ti of 
 Fiddletown, has been described to me as pecu- 
 liarly affecting. Yet I am satisfied that a higher 
 nature, rising above the levity induced by the 
 mere contemplation of the insignificant details 
 of this breach of trust, would find ample retrib- 
 utive justice in the difficulties that subsequently 
 attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage. 
 
 On the road to Sacramento he was twice play- 
 fully thrown from the top of the stage-coach by 
 an intelligent but deeply-intoxicated Caucasian, 
 whose moral nature was shocked at riding with 
 one addicted to opium-smoking. At Hangtown 
 he was beaten by a passing stranger, purely 
 an act of Christian supererogation. At Dutch 
 Flat he was robbed by well-known hands from 
 unknown motives. At Sacramento he was ar- 
 rested on suspicion of being something or other, 
 and discharged with a severe reprimand pos- 
 sibly for not being it, and so delaying the course 
 of justice, At San Francisco he was freely 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 227 
 
 atoned by children of the public schools ; but, by 
 carefully avoiding these monuments of enlight- 
 ened progress, he at last reached, in comparative 
 safety, the Chinese quarters, where his abuse waa 
 confined to the police, and limited by the strong 
 ,'inn of the law. 
 
 The next day he entered the wash-house of 
 Chy Fook as an assistant, and on the following 
 Friday was sent with a basket of clean clothes 
 to Chy Fook's several clients. 
 
 It was the usual foggy afternoon as he 
 climbed the long wind-swept hill of California 
 Street, one of those bleak, gray intervals that 
 made the summer a misnomer to any but the 
 liveliest San-Franciscan fancy. There was no 
 warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor 
 shade within or without, only one monotonous, 
 universal neutral tint over every thing. There 
 was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets : 
 there was a dreary vacant quiet in the gray 
 houses. When Ah Fe reached the top of the 
 hill, the Mission Ridge was already hidden; 
 and the chill sea-breeze made him shiver. As he 
 put down his basket to rest himself, it is possible, 
 that, to his defective intelligence and heathen 
 experience, this " God's own climate," as it was 
 called, seemed to possess but scant tenderness, 
 softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah 
 Fe illogically confounded this season with his 
 
228 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 old persecutors, the school-children, who, being 
 released from studious confinement, at this houi 
 were generally most aggressive. So he hastened 
 on, and, turning a corner, at last stopped before 
 a small house. 
 
 It was the usual San-Franciscan urban cot' 
 tage. There was the little strip of cold green 
 shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare veranda, 
 and above this, again, the grim balcony, on which 
 no one sat. Ah Fe rang the bell. A servant 
 appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly 
 admitted him, as if he were some necessary 
 domestic animal. Ah Fe silently mounted the 
 stairs, and, entering the open door of the front- 
 chamber, put down the basket, and stood pas- 
 cively on the threshold. 
 
 A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray 
 light of the window, with a child in her lap, 
 rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe 
 instantly recognized Mrs. Tretherick ; but not a 
 muscle of his immobile face changed, nor did 
 his slant eyes lighten as he met her own pla- 
 cidly. She evidently did not recognize him as 
 she began to count the clothes. But the child, 
 curiously examining him, suddenly uttered a 
 short, glad ory. 
 
 "Why, it's John, mamma! It's our old 
 John what we had in Fiddle town." 
 
 For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electri- 
 
AN EPISODE OP FEDDLETOW*. 229 
 
 tally lightened. The child clapped her hands, 
 and caught at his blouse. Then he said shortly, 
 "Me John Ah Fe allee same. Me know 
 you. How do ? " 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes ner- 
 vously, and looked hard at Ah Fe. Wanting 
 the quick-witted instinct of affection that sharp- 
 ened Carry's perception, she even then could 
 not distinguish him above his fellows. With a 
 recollection of past pain, and an obscure suspi- 
 cion of impending danger, she asked him when 
 he had left Fiddletown. 
 
 " Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee 
 Tlevelick. Likee San Flisco. Likee waehee. 
 Likee Tally." 
 
 Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick, 
 She did not stop to consider how much an 
 imperfect knowledge of English added to his 
 curt directness and sincerity. But she said, 
 "Don't tell anybody you have seen me," and 
 took out her pocket-book. 
 
 Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was 
 nearly empty. Ah Fe, without examining the 
 apartment, saw that it was scantily furnished. 
 Ah Fe, without removing his eyes from blank 
 vacancy, saw that both Mrs. Tretherick and 
 Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty 
 to state that Ah Fe's long fingers closed 
 promptly and firmly over the half-dollar which 
 Mrs. Tretherick extended to him. 
 
230 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a 
 series of extraordinary contortions. After a few 
 moments, he extracted from apparently no par 
 ticular place a child's apron, which he laid upon 
 the basket with the remark, 
 
 " One piecee washman flagittee." 
 
 Then he began anew his fumblings and con- 
 tortions. At last his efforts were rewarded by 
 his producing, apparently from his right ear, a 
 many-folded piece of tissue-paper. Unwrapping 
 this carefully, he at last disclosed two twenty- 
 dollar gold-pieces, which he handed to Mrs. 
 Tretherick. 
 
 " You leavee money top-side of blulow, Fid- 
 dletown. Me findee money. Me fetchee money 
 to you. All lightee." 
 
 "But I left no money on the top of the 
 bureau, John," said Mrs. Tretherick earnestly. 
 " There must be some mistake. It belongs to 
 some other person. Take it back, John." 
 
 Ah Fe's brow darkened. He drew away 
 from Mrs. Tretherick's extended hand, and be- 
 gan hastily to gather up his basket. 
 
 "Me no takee it back. No, no! Bimeby 
 pleesman he catchee me. He say, 4 God damn 
 thief I catchee flowty dollar : come to jailee.' 
 Me no takee back. You leavee money top-side 
 blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you, 
 Me no takee back." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 231 
 
 Mrs. Trertherick hesitated. In the confusion 
 of her flight, she might have left the money in 
 the manner he had said. In any event, she had 
 no right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman's 
 safety by refusing it. So she said, " Very well 
 John, I will keep it. But you must come again 
 and see me " here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated 
 with a new and sudden revelation of the fact 
 that any man could wish to see any other than 
 herself " and, and Carry." 
 
 Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a 
 short ventriloquistic laugh without moving his 
 mouth. Then shouldering his basket, he shut 
 the door carefully, and slid quietly down stairs. 
 In the lower hall he, however, found an unex- 
 pected difficulty in opening the front-door, and, 
 after fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, 
 looked around for some help or instruction. 
 But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was 
 contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did 
 not appear. 
 
 There occurred a mysterious and painful in- 
 cident, which I shall simply record without 
 attempting to explain. On the hall-table a 
 scarf, evidently the property of the servant 
 before alluded to, was lying. As Ah Fe tried 
 the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly 
 on the table. Suddenly, and apparently of ita 
 nwn volition, the sca^f began to creep slowly 
 
232 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 towards Ah Fe's hand ; from Ah Fe's hand it 
 began to creep up his sleeve slowly, and with 
 an insinuating, snake-like motion; and then 
 disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his 
 blouse. Without betraying the least interest 
 or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still 
 repeated his experiments upon the lock. A 
 moment later the tablecloth of red damask, 
 moved by apparently the same mysterious im- 
 pulse, slowly gathered itself under Ah Fe's 
 fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same 
 hidden channel. What further mystery might 
 have followed, I cannot say ; for at this moment 
 Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and 
 was enabled to open the door coincident with the 
 Bound of footsteps upon the kitchen-stairs. Ah 
 Fe did not hasten his movements, but, patiently 
 shouldering his basket, closed the door careful- 
 ly behind him again, and stepped forth into the 
 thick encompassing fog that now shrouded 
 earth and sky. 
 
 From her high casement-window, Mrs. 
 Fretherick watched Ah Fe's figure until it dis- 
 appeared in the gray cloud. In her present 
 loneliness, she felt a keen sense of gratitude 
 toward him, and may have ascribed to the 
 higher emotions and the consciousness of a 
 good deed, that certain expansiveness of the 
 chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 233 
 
 iue to the hidden presence of the scarf and 
 tablecloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Trether* 
 ick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray 
 fog deepened into night, she drew Carry closer 
 towards her, and, above the prattle of the child, 
 pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic 
 recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The 
 sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her again 
 with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the 
 dreary interval between, she was now wander- 
 ing, a journey so piteous, wilful, thorny, and 
 useless, that it was no wonder that at last 
 Carry stopped suddenly in the midst of her 
 voluble confidences to throw her small arms 
 around the woman's neck, and bid her not to 
 cry. 
 
 Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that 
 should be ever dedicated to an exposition o. c 
 unalterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs. 
 Tretherick's own theory of this interval and 
 episode, with its feeble palliations, its illogical 
 deductions, its fond excuses, and weak apologies. 
 It would seem, however, that her experience 
 had been hard. Her slender stock of money 
 fvas soon exhausted. At Sacramento she found 
 that the composition of verse, although appeal- 
 ing to the highest emotions of the human heart, 
 and compelling the editorial breast to the noblest 
 commendation in the editorial pages, was sing* 
 
234 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 larly inadequate to defray the expenses of her- 
 self and Carry. Then she tried the stage, but 
 failed signally. Possibly her conception of the 
 passions was different from that which obtained 
 with a Sacramento audience ; but it was certain 
 that her charming presence, so effective at short 
 range, was not sufficiently pronounced for the 
 footlights. She had admirers enough in the 
 green-room, but awakened no abiding affection 
 among the audience. In this strait, it occurred 
 to her that she had a voice, a contralto of no 
 very great compass or cultivation, but singular- 
 ly sweet and touching ; and she finally obtained 
 position in a church-choir. She held it for 
 three months, greatly to her pecuniary advan- 
 tage, and, it is said, much to the satisfaction of 
 the gentlemen in the back-pews, who faced 
 toward her during the singing of the last 
 hymn. 
 
 I remember her quite distinctly at this tune, 
 The light that slanted through the oriel of St. 
 Dives choir was wont to fall very tenderly on 
 her beautiful head with its stacked masses of 
 deerskin-colored hair, on the low black arches 
 of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes 
 that shaded her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very 
 pleasant it was to watch the opening and shut- 
 ting of that small straight mouth, with its quick 
 revelation of little white teeth, and to see tha 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 235 
 
 foolish blood faintly deepen her satin cheek as 
 you watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very 
 sweetly conscious of admiration, and, like most 
 pretty women, gathered herself under your eye 
 like a racer under the spur. 
 
 And then, of course, there came trouble. I 
 have it from the soprano, a little lady who 
 possessed even more than the usual unprejudiced 
 judgment of her sex, that Mrs. Tretherick's 
 conduct was simply shameful ; that her conceit 
 was unbearable ; that, if she considered the rest 
 of the choir as slaves, she (the soprano) would 
 like to know it ; that her conduct on Easter 
 Sunday with the basso had attracted the atten- 
 tion of the whole congregation ; and that she 
 herself had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up 
 during the service; that her (the soprano's) 
 friends had objected to her singing in the choir 
 with a person who had been on the stage, but 
 she had waived this. Yet she had it from the 
 best authority that Mrs. Tretherick had run 
 away from her husband, and that this red-haired 
 child who sometimes came in the choir was 
 not her own. The tenor confided to me behind 
 the organ, that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of 
 sustaining a note at the end of a line in order 
 that her voice might linger longer with the con- 
 gregation, an act that could be attributed 
 inly to a defective moral nature ; that as a man 
 
236 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWE-. 
 
 (he was a very popular dry-goods clerk on 
 week-days, and sang a good deal from apparent- 
 ly behind his eyebrows on the sabbath) that 
 as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer. 
 The basso alone a short German with a heavy 
 voice, for which he seemed reluctantly responsi- 
 ble, and rather grieved at its possession stood 
 up for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they 
 were jealous of her because she was " brettv-' 
 The climax was at last reached in an open quar- 
 rel, wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue 
 with such precision of statement and epithet, 
 that the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and 
 had to be supported from the choir by her hus- 
 band and the tenor. This act was marked 
 intentionally to the congregation by the omis- 
 sion of the usual soprano solo. Mrs. Trether- 
 ick went home flushed with triumph, but on 
 reaching her room frantically told Carry that 
 they were beggars henceforward ; that she her 
 mother had just taken the very bread out of 
 her darling's mouth, and ended by bursting into 
 a flood of penitent tears. They did not come 
 so quickly as in her old poetical days ; but when 
 they came they stung deeply. She was roused 
 by a formal visit from a vestryman, one of the 
 music committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her 
 *ong lashes, put on a new neck-ribbon, and 
 vent down to the parlor. She staid there twc 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 237 
 
 hours, a fact that might have occasioned some 
 remark, but that the vestryman was married, and 
 had a family of grown-up daughters. When 
 Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang 
 to herself in the glass and scolded Carry but 
 she retained her place in the choir. 
 
 It was not long, however. In due course 
 of time, her enemies received a powerful addi 
 tion to their forces in the committee-man's wife. 
 That lady called upon several of the church- 
 members and on Dr. Cope's family. The result 
 was, that, at a later meeting of the music com- 
 mittee, Mrs. Tretherick's voice was declared in- 
 adequate to the size of the building and she was 
 invited to resign. She did so. She had been 
 out of a situation for two months, and her scant 
 means were almost exhausted, when Ah Fe's 
 unexpected treasure was tossed into her lap. 
 
 The gray fog deepened into night, and the 
 street-lamps started into shivering life, as, ab- 
 sorbed in these unprofitable memories, Mrs. 
 Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. 
 Even Carry had slipped away unnoticed ; and 
 her abrupt entrance with the damp evening 
 paper in her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and 
 brought her back to an active realization of the 
 present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan 
 the advertisements in the faint hope of finding 
 gome avenue of employment she knew not 
 
238 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN 
 
 what open to her needs ; and Carry had noted 
 this habit. 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shut- 
 ters, lit the lights, and opened the paper. Her 
 eye fell instinctively on the following paragraph 
 In the telegraphic column : 
 
 " FroDLETOWN, 7th. Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident 
 of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Treth- 
 erick was addicted to intemperate habits, said to have been 
 induced by domestic trouble." 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly 
 turned over another page of the paper, and 
 glanced at Carry. The child was absorbed in a 
 book. Mrs. Tretherick uttered no word, but, 
 during the remainder of the evening, was un- 
 usually silent and cold. When Carry was un- 
 dressed and in bed, Mrs. Tretherick suddenly 
 dropped on her knees beside the bed, and, tak- 
 ing Carry's flaming head between her hands, 
 said, 
 
 " Should you like to have another papa, 
 Carry darling ? " 
 
 " No," said Carry, after a moment's thought. 
 
 " But a papa to help mamma take care of 
 you, to love you, to give you nice clothes, to 
 make a lady of you when you grow up ? " 
 
 Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward th* 
 questioner. " Should ycu^ mamma ? " 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 239 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots 
 f her hair. " Go to sleep," she said sharply, 
 and turned away. 
 
 But at midnight the child felt two white 
 arms close tightly around her, and was drawn 
 down into a bosom that heaved, fluttered, and 
 at last was broken up by sobs. 
 
 " Don't ky, mamma," whispered Carry, with 
 * vague retrospect of their recent conversation. 
 " Don't ky. I fink I should like a new papa, if 
 he loved you very much very, very much ! " 
 
 A month afterward, to everybody's astonish- 
 ment, Mrs. Tretherick was married. The happy 
 bridegroom was one Col. Starbottle, recently 
 elected to represent Calaveras County in the 
 legislative councils of the State. As I cannot 
 record the event in finer language than that 
 used by the correspondent of " The Sacramento 
 Globe," I venture to quote some of his graceful 
 periods. " The relentless shafts of the sly god 
 have been lately busy among our gallant Solons. 
 We quote ' one more unfortunate.' The latest 
 victim is the Hon. C. Starbottle of Calaveras. 
 The fair enchantress in the case is a beautiful 
 widow, a former votary of Thespis, and lately 
 a fascinating St. Cecilia of one of the most 
 fashionable churches of San Francisco, where 
 he commanded a nigh salary." 
 
 "The Dutch Flat Intelligencer" saw fit, 
 
240 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 however, to comment upon the fact with tha t 
 humorous freedom characteristic of an unfet- 
 tered press. " The new Democratic war-horse 
 from Calaveras has lately advented in the legis- 
 lature with a little bill to change the name of 
 Tretherick to Starbottle. They call it a mar- 
 riage-certificate down there. Mr. Tretherick 
 has been dead just one month ; but we presume 
 the gallant colonel is not afraid of ghosts." It 
 is but just to Mrs. Tretherick to state that the 
 colonel's victory was by no means an easy one. 
 To a natural degree of coyness on the part of 
 the lady was added the impediment of a rival, 
 a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, who 
 had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the 
 theatre and church; his professional habits 
 debarring him from ordinary social intercourse, 
 and indeed any other than the most formal 
 public contact with the sex. As this gentleman 
 had made a snug fortune during the felicitous 
 prevalence of a severe epidemic, the colonel 
 regarded him as a dangerous rival. Fortu- 
 nately, however, the undertaker was called in 
 professionally to lay out a brother-senator, who 
 had unhappily fallen by the colonel's pistol in 
 an affair of honor ; and either deterred by 
 physical consideration from rivalry, or wisely 
 concluding that the colonel was professionally 
 raluable, he withdrew from the field. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 241 
 
 The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a 
 lose by an untoward incident. During theii 
 bridal-trip, Carry had been placed in the charge 
 of Col. Starbottle's sister. On their return to 
 the city, immediately on reaching their lodg- 
 ings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention 
 of at once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to 
 bring the child home. Col. Starbottle, who 
 had been exhibiting for some time a certain 
 uneasiness which he had endeavored to over- 
 come by repeated stimulation, finally buttoned 
 his coat tightly across his breast, and, after 
 walking unsteadily once or twice up and down 
 the room, suddenly faced his wife with his most 
 imposing manner. 
 
 " I have deferred," said the colonel with an 
 exaggeration of port that increased with his 
 inward fear, and a growing thickness of speech. 
 "I have deferr I may say poshponed state- 
 ment o' fack thash my duty ter dishclose ter 
 ye. I did no wish to mar sushine mushal 
 happ'ness, to bligh bud o' promise, to darken 
 conjuglar sky by unpleasht revelashun. Musht 
 be done by G d, m'm, musht do it now. 
 The chile is gone ! " 
 
 " Gone ! " echoed Mrs. Starbottle. 
 
 There was something in the tone of her voice, 
 in the sudden drawing-together of the pupils 
 of her eyes, that for a moment nearly sobered 
 the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest 
 
242 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 "I'll splain all in a minit," he said with a 
 deprecating wave of the hand. "Every thing 
 shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event 
 wish preshipitate our happ'ness the myster'us 
 prov'nice wish releash you releash chile ! hum- 
 erstan ? releash chile. The mom't Tretherick 
 die all claim you have in chile through him 
 die too. Thash law. Whose chile blong 
 to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead. Chile 
 can't b'long dead man. Damn nonshense b'long 
 dead man. I'sh your chile ? no ! who's chile 
 then ? Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Unnerstan ? " 
 
 " Where is she ? " said Mrs. Starbottle with 
 a very white face and a very low voice. 
 
 " I'll splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother. 
 Thash law. I'm lawyer, leshlator, and Ameri- 
 can sis'n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator, 
 and 'merikan sis'n to reshtore chile to suffrin 
 mother at any coss any coss." 
 
 "Where is she?" repeated Mrs. Starbottle 
 with her eyes still fixed on the colonel's face. 
 
 " Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer, 
 yesserday. Waffed by fav'rin gales to sufFrin 
 p'rent. Thash so!" 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The colonel 
 felt his chest slowly collapsing, but steadied 
 himself against a chair, and endeavored to beam 
 with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with 
 fliagisterial firmness upon her as sfce sat. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 243 
 
 " Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex, but 
 eonshider situashtm. Conshider m'or's feelings 
 conshider my feelin's." The colonel paused, 
 and, flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it 
 negligently in his breast, and then smiled ten- 
 derly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on the 
 woman before him. " Why should dark shed 
 der cass bligh on two sholes with single beat ? 
 Chile's fine chile, good chile, but summonelse 
 chile ! Chile's gone, Clar' ; but all ish'n't gone, 
 Clar'. Conshider dearesht, you all's have me ! " 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. " You!" 
 she cried, bringing out a chest note that made 
 the chandeliers ring, " YOU that I married to 
 give my darling food and clothes, you! a dog 
 that I whistled to my side to keep the men off 
 me, you!" 
 
 She choked up, and then dashed past him 
 into the inner room, which had been Carry's; 
 then she swept by him again into her own bed- 
 room, and then suddenly re-appeared before him, 
 erect, menacing, with a burning fire over her 
 cheek-bones, a quick straightening of her 
 arched brows and mouth, a squaring of jaw, and 
 ophidian flattening of the head. 
 
 " Listen ! " she said in a hoarse, half-grown 
 boy's voice. " Hear me ! If you ever expect 
 to set eyes on me again, you must find the child. 
 Jf you ever expect to speak to me agpin, to 
 
244 AN EPISODE OF FJDDLETOWN. 
 
 touch me, you must bring her back. Fol 
 where she goes, I go : you hear me ! Where 
 she has gone, look for me. " 
 
 She struck out past him again with a quick 
 feminine throwing-out of her arms from the 
 elbows down, as if freeing herself from some 
 imaginary bonds, and, dashing into her chamber, 
 slammed and locked the door. Col. Star- 
 bottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious 
 fear of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she 
 swept by, lost his unsteady foothold, and rolled 
 helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two 
 unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he 
 remained, uttering from time to time profane 
 but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests, 
 Tntil at last he succumbed to the exhausting 
 quality of his emotions, and the narcotic quan- 
 tity of his potations. 
 
 Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excit- 
 edly gathering her valuables, and packing her 
 trunk, even as she had done once before in the 
 course of this remarkable history. Perhaps 
 some recollection of this was in her mind ; for 
 she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon 
 her hand, as if she saw again the figure of the 
 child standing in the doorway, and heard once 
 more a childish voice asking, " Is it mamma ? '* 
 But the epithet now stung her to the quick 
 tnd with a quick, passionate gesture she dashed 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 245 
 
 It away with a tear that had gathered in hei 
 eye. And then it chanced, that, in turning 
 over some clothes, she came upon the child's 
 slipper with a broken sandal-string. She uttered 
 a great cry here, the first she had uttered, 
 and caught it to her breast, kissing it pas- 
 sionately again and again, and rocking from 
 side to side with a motion peculiar to her sex. 
 And then she took it to the window, the bettei 
 to see it through her now streaming eyes. Here 
 she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing 
 that she could not stifle with the handkerchief 
 she put to her feverish lips. And then she 
 suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed 
 to recede before her, the floor to sink beneath 
 her feet; and, staggering to the bed, she fell 
 prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief 
 pressed to her breast. Her face was quite pale, 
 the orbit of her eyes dark ; and there was a spot 
 upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, 
 and still another on the white counterpane of 
 the bed. 
 
 The wind had risen, rattling the window 
 Wishes, and swaying the white curtains in a 
 ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly 
 pver the roofs, soothing the wind-roughened 
 surfaces, and inwrapping all things in an un- 
 certain light and a measureless peace. She lay 
 $here very quiet for all her troubles, still a 
 
246 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 very pretty bride. And on the other side of 
 the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from 
 his temporary couch, snored peacefully. 
 
 A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the 
 little town of Genoa, in the State of New York, 
 exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any 
 other time, the bitter irony of its founders and 
 sponsors. A driving snow-storm, that had whit- 
 ened every windward hedge, bush, wall, and 
 telegraph-pole, played around this soft Italian 
 Capitol, whirled in and out of the great staring 
 wooden Doric columns of its post-office and 
 hotel, beat upon the cold green shutters of its 
 best houses, and powdered the angular, stiff, 
 dark figures in its streets. From the level of 
 the street, the four principal churches of the 
 town stood out starkly, even while their mis- 
 shapen spires were kindly hidden in the low, 
 driving storm. Near the railroad-station, the 
 new Methodist chapel, whose resemblance to an 
 enormous locomotive was further heightened by 
 the addition of a pyramidal row of front-steps, 
 like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for a few 
 more houses to be hitched on to proceed to a 
 pleasanter location. But the pride of Genoa 
 the great Crammer Institute for Young Ladies 
 stretched its bare brick length, and reared itg 
 cupola, plainly from the bleak Parnassian Mb 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 247 
 
 above the principal avenue. There was no eva- 
 sion in the Crammer Institute of the fact that 
 it was a public institution. A visitor upon its 
 doorsteps, a pretty face at its window, were 
 clearly visible all over the township. 
 
 The shriek of the engine of the four-o'clock 
 Northern express brought but few of the usua 
 loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger 
 alighted, and was driven away in the solitary 
 waiting sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And 
 then the train sped away again, with that pas- 
 sionless indifference to human sympathies or 
 curiosity peculiar to express-trains; the one 
 baggage-truck was wheeled into the station 
 again ; the station-door was locked ; and the sta- 
 tion-master went home. 
 
 The locomotive-whistle, however, awakened 
 the guilty consciousness of three young ladies 
 of the Crammer Institute, who were even 
 then surreptitiously regaling themselves in the 
 bake-shop and confectionery-saloon of Mistress 
 Phillips in a by-lane. For even the admirable 
 regulations of the Institute failed to entirely 
 develop the physical and moral natures of its 
 pupils. They conformed to the excellent dietary 
 rules in public, and in private drew upon the 
 luxurious rations of their village caterer. They 
 attended church with exemplary formality, and 
 flirted informally during service with the village 
 
248 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 oeaux. They received the best and most 
 judicious instruction during school-hours, and 
 devoured the trashiest novels during recess. 
 Th3 result of which was an aggregation of quite 
 healthy, quite human, and very charming young 
 creatures, that reflected infinite credit on the 
 Institute. Even Mistress Phillips, to whom 
 they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exu- 
 berant spirits and youthful freshness of her 
 guests, declared that the sight of " them young 
 things " did her good ; and had even been known 
 to shield them by shameless equivocation. 
 
 44 Four o'clock, girls ! and, if we're not back to 
 prayers by five, we'll be missed," said the tallest 
 of these foolish virgins, with an aquiline nose, 
 and certain quiet elan that bespoke the leader, 
 as she rose from her seat. "Have you got 
 the books, Addy ? " Addy displayed three 
 dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof. 
 4 And the provisions, Carry?" Carry showed 
 a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her 
 sack. 4t All right, then. Come girls, trudge. 
 Charge it," she added, nodding to her host as 
 they passed toward the door. "I'll pay you 
 when my quarter's allowance comes." 
 
 44 No, Kate," interposed Carry, producing her 
 purse, u let me pay : it's my turn." 
 
 44 Never ! " said Kate, arching her black brows 
 cvftily, 44 even if you do have rich relatives, and 
 
AN EPISODE OF F3DDLETOWN. 249 
 
 regulai remittances from California. Never ! 
 Come, girls, forward, march ! " 
 
 As they opened the door, a gust of wind 
 nearly took them off their feet. Kind-hearted 
 Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. " Sakes alive, galls ! 
 ye mussn't go out in sich weather. Better let 
 me send word to the Institoot, and make ye up 
 a nice bed to-night in my parlor." But the last 
 sentence was lost in a chorus of half-suppressed 
 shrieks, as the girls, hand in hand, ran down the 
 steps into the storm, and were at once whirled 
 away. 
 
 The short December day, unlit by any sunset 
 glow, was failing fast. It was quite dark 
 already; and the air was thick with driving 
 snow. For some distance their high spirits, 
 youth, and even inexperience, kept them bravely 
 up ; but, in ambitiously attempting a short-cut 
 from the high-road across an open field, their 
 strength gave out, the laugh grew less frequent, 
 and tears began to stand in Carry's brown eyes. 
 When they reached the road again, they were 
 utterly exhausted. "Let us go back," said 
 Carry. 
 
 " We'd never get across that field again," said 
 Addy. 
 
 "Let's stop at the first house, then," said 
 Carry. 
 
 " The first house," said Addy, peering througi 
 
250 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 the gathering darkness, " is Squire Robinson's.' 
 She darted a mischievous glance at Carry, that, 
 even in her discomfort and fear, brought the 
 quick blood to her cheek. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! " said Kate with gloomy irony, " cer- 
 tainly ; stop at the squire's by all means, and be 
 invited to tea, and be driven home after tea by 
 your dear friend Mr. Harry, with a formal apol- 
 ogy from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the 
 young ladies may be excused this time. No ! " 
 continued Kate with sudden energy. " That 
 may suit you ; but I'm going back as I came, 
 by the window, or not at all." Then she 
 pounced suddenly, like a hawk, on Carry, who 
 was betraying a tendency to sit down on a 
 snowbank, and whimper, and shook her briskly, 
 " You'll be going to sleep next. Stay, hold your 
 tongues, all of you, what's that ? " 
 
 It was the sound of sleigh-bells. Coming 
 down toward them out of the darkness was a 
 sleigh with a single occupant. "Hold down 
 your heads, girls: if it's anybody that knows 
 us, we're lost." But it was not; for a voice 
 strange to their ears, but withal very kindly 
 and pleasant, asked if its owner could be of any 
 help to them. As they turned toward him, 
 they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome 
 sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap ; his face, 
 oalf concealed by a muffler of the same material, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 251 
 
 disclosing only a pair of long mustaches, and 
 two keen dark eyes. " It's a son of old Santa 
 Glaus I" whispered Addy. The girls tittered 
 audibly as they tumbled into the sleigh : they 
 had regained their former spirits. "Where 
 shall I take you?" said the stranger quietly. 
 There was a hurried whispering ; and then Kate 
 said boldly, "To the Institute." They drove 
 silently up the hill, until the long, ascetic 
 building loomed up before them. The stranger 
 reined up suddenly. " You know the way bet- 
 ter than I," he said. " Where do you go in ? " 
 " Through the back-window," said Kate with 
 sudden and appalling frankness. " I see ! " 
 responded their strange driver quietly, and, 
 alighting quickly, removed the bells from the 
 horses. " We can drive as near as you please 
 now," he added by way of explanation. " Pie 
 certainly is a son of Santa Glaus," whispered 
 Addy. " Hadn't we better ask after his father ? " 
 " Hush ! " said Kate decidedly. " He is an 
 angel, I dare say." She added with a delicious 
 irrelevance, which was, however, perfectly 
 understood by her feminine auditors, " We are 
 looking like three frights." 
 
 Cautiously skirting the fences, they at last 
 pulled up a few feet from a dark wall. The 
 stranger proceeded to assist them to alight. 
 There was still some light from the reflected 
 
252 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 snow; and, as he handed his fair companions tc 
 the ground, each was conscious of undergoing 
 an intense though respectful scrutiny. He 
 assisted them gravely to open the window, and 
 then discreetly retired to the sleigh until the 
 difficult and somewhat discomposing ingress 
 was made. He then walked to the window, 
 " Thank you and good-night ! " whispered three 
 voices. A single figure still lingered. The 
 stranger leaned over the window-sill. "Will 
 you permit me to light my cigar here ? it might 
 attract attention if I struck a match outside." 
 By the upspringing light he saw the figure of 
 Kate very charmingly framed in by the window. 
 The match burnt slowly out in his fingers. Kate 
 smiled mischievously. The astute young wo- 
 man had detected the pitiable subterfuge. For 
 what else did she stand at the head of her class, 
 and had doting parents paid three years' tuition ? 
 The storm had passed, and the sun was shin- 
 ing quite cheerily in the eastern recitation-room 
 the next morning, when Miss Kate, whose seat 
 was nearest the window, placing her hand pa- 
 thetically upon her heart, affected to fall in 
 bashful and extreme agitation upon the shoulder 
 of Carry her neighbor. " He has come,'* she 
 ga&ped in a thrilling whisper. " Who ? " asked 
 Carry sympathetically, who never clearly under 
 itood when Kate was in earnest. "Who? 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 253 
 
 why, the man who rescued us last night ! I 
 him drive to the door this moment. Don't 
 speak : I shall be better in a moment there ! " 
 she said ; and the shameless hypocrite passed 
 her hand pathetically across her forehead with 
 a tragic air. 
 
 " What can he want ? " asked Carry, whose 
 curiosity was excited. 
 
 " I don't know," said Kate, suddenly relaps- 
 ing into gloomy cynicism. " Possibly to put his 
 five daughters to school ; perhaps to finish his 
 young wife, and warn her against us." 
 
 " He didn't look old, and he didn't seem like 
 a married man," rejoined Addy thoughtfully. 
 
 " That was his art, you poor creature !" re- 
 turned Kate scornfully. " You can never tell 
 any thing of these men, they are so deceitful 
 Besides, it's just my fate I " 
 
 " Why, Kate," began Carry, in serious con- 
 cern. 
 
 u Hush ! Miss Walker is saying something," 
 said Kate, laughing. 
 
 " The young ladies will please give attention," 
 gaid a slow, perfunctory voice. " Miss Carry 
 Tretherick is wanted in the parlor." 
 
 Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given 
 on the card, and various letters and credentials 
 submitted to the Rev. Mr. Crammer, paced the 
 tomewhat severe apartment known publicly as 
 
254 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 the "reception parlor," and privately to the 
 pupils as " purgatory." His keen eyes had 
 taken in the various rigid details, from the flat 
 steam " radiacor," like an enormous japanned 
 soda-cracker, that heated one end of the room, 
 to the monumental bust of Dr. Crammer, that 
 hopelessly chilled the other ; from the Lord's 
 Prayer, executed by a former writing-master in 
 such gratuitous variety of elegant calligraphic 
 trifling as to considerably abate the serious value 
 of the composition, to three views of Genoa 
 from the Institute, which nobody ever recognized, 
 taken on the spot by the drawing-teacher ; from 
 two illuminated texts of Scripture in an English 
 letter, so gratuitously and hideously remote as 
 to chill all human interest, to a large photo- 
 graph of the senior class, in which the prettiest 
 girls were Ethiopian in complexion, and sat, 
 apparently, on each other's heads and shoulders. 
 His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of 
 school-catalogues, the " Sermons " of Dr. Cram- 
 mer, the " Poems " of Henry Kirke White, the 
 " Lays of the Sanctuary " and " Lives of Cele- 
 brated Women." His fancy, and it was a ner- 
 vously active one, had gone over the partings and 
 greetings that must have taken place here, and 
 wondered why the apartment had yet caught so 
 little of the flavor of humanity ; indeed, I am 
 afraid he had almost forgotten the object of hia 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 265 
 
 visit, when the door opened, and Carry Troth- 
 crick stood before him. 
 
 It was one of those faces he had seen the night 
 before, prettier even than it had seemed then ; 
 and yet I think he was conscious of some disap- 
 pointment, without knowing exactly why. Her 
 abundant waving hair was of a guinea-golden 
 tint, her complexion of a peculiar flower-like 
 delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed 
 in deep water. It certainly was not her beauty 
 that disappointed him. 
 
 Without possessing his sensitiveness to im- 
 pression, Carry was, on her part, quite as vaguely 
 ill at ease. She saw before her one of those 
 men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as 
 " nice," that is to say, correct in all the super- 
 ficial appointments of style, dress, manners and 
 feature. Yet there was a decidedly unconven- 
 tional quality about him : he was totally unlike 
 any thing or anybody that she could remember ; 
 and, as the attributes of originality are often as 
 apt to alarm as to attract people, she was not 
 entirely prepossessed in his favor. 
 
 "I can hardly hope," he began pleasantly, 
 "that you remember me. It is eleven years 
 -go, and you were a very little girl. I am 
 afraid I cannot even claim to have enjoyed that 
 familiarity that might exist beween a child of 
 lix and a young man of twenty-one. I don't 
 
56 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 think I was fond of children. But I knew you* 
 mother very well. I was editor of ' The Ava- 
 lanche ' in Fiddletown, when she took you to 
 San Francisco." 
 
 " You mean my stepmother : she wasn't my 
 mother, you know," interposed Carry hastily. 
 
 Mr. Prince looked at her curiously. " I mean 
 your stepmother," he said gravely. "I never 
 had the pleasure of meeting your mother." 
 
 " No : mother hasn't been in California these 
 twelve years." 
 
 There was an intentional emphasizing of the 
 title and of its distinction, that began to coldly 
 interest Prince after his first astonishment was 
 past. 
 
 " As I come from your stepmother now," he 
 went on with a slight laugh, " I must ask you 
 to go back for a few moments to that point, 
 After your father's death, your mother I 
 mean your stepmother recognized the fact 
 that your mother, the first Mrs. Tretherick, 
 was legally and morally your guardian, and, 
 although much against her inclination and 
 affections, placed you again in her charge." 
 
 " My stepmother married again within a month 
 after father died, and sent me home," said Carry 
 with great directness, and the faintest toss of 
 her head. 
 
 Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 257 
 
 BO sympathetically, that Carry began to like 
 him. With no other notice of the interruption 
 he went on, "After your stepmother had per- 
 formed this act of simple justice, she entered 
 into an agreement with your mother to defray 
 the expenses of your education until your 
 eighteenth year, when you were to elect and 
 choose which of the two should thereafter be 
 your guardian, and with whom you would make 
 your home. This agreement, I think, you are 
 already aware of, and, I believe, knew at the 
 time." 
 
 " I was a mere child then," said Carry. 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Prince, with the same 
 smile. " Still the conditions, I think, have never 
 been oppressive to you nor your mother; and 
 the only time they are likely to give you the 
 least uneasiness will be when you come to 
 make up your mind in the choice of your 
 guardian. That will be on your eighteenth 
 birthday, the 20th, I think, of the present 
 month." 
 
 Carry was silent. 
 
 " Pray do not think that I am here to receive 
 your decision, even if it be already made. I 
 only came to inform you that your stepmother, 
 Mrs. Starbottle, will be in town to-morrow, and 
 will pass a few days at the hotel. If it is your 
 Irish to see her before you make up your mind. 
 
258 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 she will be glad to meet you. She does not, 
 however, wish to do any thing to influence your 
 judgment." 
 
 "Does mother know she is coming?" said 
 Carry hastily. 
 
 " I do not know," said Prince gravely. " I 
 only know, that, if you conclude to see Mrs. 
 Starbottle, it will be with your mother's per- 
 mission. Mrs. Starbottle will keep sacredly this 
 part of the agreement, made ten years ago. 
 But her health is very poor; and the change 
 and country quiet of a few days may benefit 
 her." Mr. Prince bent his keen, bright eyes 
 upon the young girl, and almost held his breath 
 until she spoke again. 
 
 " Mother's coming up to-day or to-morrow," 
 she said, looking up. 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Prince with a sweet and 
 languid smile. 
 
 "Is Col. Starbottle here too?" asked Carry, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Col. Starbottle is dead. Your stepmother 
 8 again a widow." 
 
 " Dead ! " repeated Carry. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Prince. "Your step- 
 taother has been singularly unfortunate in sur- 
 viving her affections." 
 
 Carry did not know what he meant, and 
 looked so. Mr. Prince smiled re-assuringiy. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 25$ 
 
 Presently Carry began to whimper. 
 
 Mr. Prince softly stepped beside her chair. 
 
 '* I am afraid," he said with a very peculiar 
 light in his eye, and a singular dropping of the 
 corners of his mustache, "I am afraid you are 
 taking this too deeply. It will be some days 
 oefore you are called upon to make a decision. 
 Let us talk of something else. I hope you 
 caught no cold last evening." 
 
 Carry's face shone out again in dimples. 
 
 "You must have thought us so queer I It 
 was too bad to give you so much trouble." 
 
 " None, whatever, I assure you. My sense of 
 propriety," he added demurely, " which might 
 have been outraged, had I been called upon to 
 help three young ladies out of a schoolroom 
 window at night, was deeply gratified at being 
 able to assist them in again." The door-bell 
 rang loudly, and Mr. Prince rose. " Take your 
 own time, and think well before you make your 
 decision." But Carry's ear and attention were 
 given to the sound of voices in the hall. At 
 the same moment, the door was thrown open, 
 and a servant announced, "Mrs. Tretherick 
 and Mr. Robinson." 
 
 The afternoon train had just shrieked out its 
 usual indignant protest at stopping at Genoa at 
 fill, as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of 
 the town, and drove towards his hotel. He wat 
 
260 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 wearied and cynical. A drive of a dozen milea 
 through unpicturesque outlying villages, past 
 small economic farmhouses, and hideous villas 
 that violated his fastidious taste, had, I fear, 
 eft that gentleman in a captious state of mind. 
 He would have even avoided his taciturn land- 
 lord as he drove up to the door ; but that func- 
 tionary waylaid him on the steps. " There's a 
 lady in the sittin'-room, waitin' for ye." Mr. 
 Prince hurried up stairs, and entered the room 
 as Mrs. Starbottle flew towards him. 
 
 She had changed sadly in the last ten years. 
 Her figure was wasted to half its size. The 
 beautiful curves of her bust and shoulders were 
 broken or inverted. The once full, rounded 
 arm was shrunken in its sleeve ; and the golden 
 hoops that encircled her wan wrists almost 
 slipped from her hands as her long, scant 
 fingers closed convulsively around Jack's. Hei 
 cheek-bones were painted that afternoon with 
 the hectic of fever : somewhere in the hollows 
 of those cheeks were buried the dimples of long 
 ago ; but their graves were forgotten. Her 
 lustrous eyes were still beautiful, though the 
 orbits were deeper than before. Her mouth was 
 still sweet, although the lips parted more easily 
 over the little teeth, and even in breathing, 
 and showed more of them than she was wont 
 to do before. The glory of her blonde hail 
 
AN EPISODE OP FEDDLETOWN. 261 
 
 was still left: it was finer, more silken and 
 ethereal, yet it failed even in its plenitude to 
 cover the hollows of the blue-veined temples. 
 
 " Clara ! " said Jack reproachfully. 
 
 44 Oh, forgive me, Jack ! " she said, falling 
 into a chair, but still clinging to his hand, 
 44 forgive me, dear ; but I could not wait longer. 
 I should have died, Jack, died before another 
 night. Bear with me a little longer (it will 
 not be long), but let me stay. I may not see 
 her, I know ; I shall not speak to her : but it's 
 BO sweet to feel that I am at last near her, that 
 I breathe the same air with my darling. I am 
 better already, Jack, I am indeed. And you 
 have seen her to-day? How did she look? 
 What did she say ? Tell me all, every thing, 
 Jack. Was she beautiful ? They say she is. 
 Has she grown ? Would you have known her 
 again? Will she come, Jack? Perhaps she 
 has been here already ; perhaps," she had risen 
 with tremulous excitement, and was glancing at 
 the door, "perhaps she is here now. Why 
 don't you speak, Jack ? Tell me all." 
 
 The keen eyes that looked down into hers 
 were glistening with an infinite tenderness that 
 none, perhaps, but she would have deemed 
 them capable of. " Clara," he said gently and 
 cheerily, " try and compose yourself. You ar6 
 trembling now with the fatigue and excitement 
 
262 AN EPISODE OF FIDIJLETOWN. 
 
 of your journey. I have seen Carry: she if 
 well and beautiful. Let that suffice you now." 
 
 His gentle firmness composed and calmed hen 
 now, as it had often done before. Stroking hei 
 thin hand, he said, after a pause, " Did Carry 
 ever write to you ? " 
 
 " Twice, thanking ine for some presents. 
 They were only school-girl letters," she added, 
 nervously answering the interrogation of his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Did she ever know of your own troubles ? 
 of your poverty, of the sacrifices you made to 
 pay her bills, of your pawning your clothes 
 and jewels, of your " 
 
 " No, no ! " interrupted the woman quickly : 
 " no ! How could she ? I have no enemy cruel 
 enough to tell her that." 
 
 " But if she or if Mrs. Tretherick had 
 heard of it ? If Carry thought you were poor, 
 and unable to support her properly, it might 
 influence her decision. Young girls are fond of 
 the position that wealth can give. She may 
 have rich friends, maybe a lover." 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle winced at the last sentence, 
 u But," she said eagerly, grasping Jack's hand, 
 " when you found me sick and helpless at Sacra- 
 mento, when you God bless you for it, Jack I 
 offered to help me to the East, you said you 
 knew of something, you had some plan, that 
 would make me and Carry independent." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLHTTOWN. 26 & 
 
 44 Yes," said Jack hastily ; " but I want you 
 to get strong <tnd well first. And, now that 
 you are calmer, you shall listen to my visit to 
 the school." 
 
 It was then that Mr. Jack Prince proceeded 
 to describe the interview already recorded, with 
 a singular felicity and discretion that shames 
 my own account of that proceeding. Without 
 suppressing a single fact, without omitting a 
 word or detail, he yet managed to throw a 
 poetic veil over that prosaic episode, to invest 
 the heroine with a romantic roseate atmosphere, 
 which, though not perhaps entirely imaginary, 
 still, I fear, exhibited that genius which ten 
 years ago had made ths columns nf " The 
 Fiddletown Avalanche " at once fascinating 
 and instructive. It was not until he *aw the 
 heightening color, and heard the quick breath- 
 ing, of his eager listener, that he felt a pang of 
 self-reproach. " God help her and forgive me ! *' 
 he muttered between his clinched teeth ; " but 
 uow can I tell her all now ! " 
 
 That night, when Mrs. Starbottle laid her 
 weary head upon her pillow, she tried to picture 
 to herself Carry at the same moment sleeping 
 peacefully in the great schoolhouse on the hill ; 
 And it was a rare comfort to this yearning, 
 foolish woman to know that she was so near, 
 But at this moment Carry was sitting ou the 
 
264 AN EPISODE OF F1DDLETOWN, 
 
 edge of her bed, half undressed, pouting her 
 pretty lips, and twisting her long, leonine locks 
 between her fingers, as Miss Kate Van Corlear 
 dramatically wrapped in a long white coun- 
 terpane, her black eyes sparkling, and her thor- 
 ough-bred nose thrown high in air, stood over 
 her like a wrathful and indignant ghost; for 
 Carry had that evening imparted her woes and 
 her history to Miss Kate, and that young lady 
 had " proved herself no friend " by falling into 
 a state of fiery indignation over Carry's " ingrati- 
 tude," and openly and shamelessly espousing 
 the claims of Mrs. Starbottle. " Why, if the 
 half you tell me is true, your mother and those 
 Robinsons are making of you not only a little 
 coward, but a little snob, miss. Respectability, 
 forsooth ! Look you, my family are centuries 
 before the Trethericks ; but if my family had 
 ever treated me in this way, and then asked me 
 to turn my back on my best friend, I'd whistle 
 them down the wind ; " and here Kate snapped 
 her fingers, bent her black brows, and glared 
 around the room as if in search of a recreant 
 Van Corlear. 
 
 " You just talk this way, because you have 
 taken a fancy to that Mr. Prince," said Carry. 
 
 In the debasing slang of the period, that had 
 even found its way into the virgin cloisters of 
 the Crammer Institute, Miss Kate, as she after 
 wards expressed it, instantly " went for her." 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 265 
 
 First, with a shake of her head, she threat 
 her long black hair over one shoulder, then, 
 dropping one end of the counterpane from the 
 other like a vestal tunic, she stepped before 
 Cany with a purposely-exaggerated classic stride. 
 " And what if I have, miss ! What if I happen 
 to know a gentleman when I see him ! What 
 if I happen to know, that among a thousand 
 such traditional, conventional, feeble editions of 
 their grandfathers as Mr. Harry Robinson, you 
 cannot find one original, independent, individu- 
 alized gentleman like your Prince ! Go to bed, 
 miss, and pray to Heaven that he may be 
 your Prince indeed. Ask to have a contrite 
 and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in par- 
 ticular for having sent you such a friend as 
 Kate Van Corlear." Yet, after an imposing 
 dramatic exit, she re-appeared the next moment 
 as a straight white flash, kissed Carry between 
 the brows, and was gone. 
 
 The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. 
 He was convinced in his mind that Carry 
 would not come ; yet to keep this consciousness 
 from Mrs. Starbottle, to meet her simple hope- 
 fulness with an equal degree of apparent faith, 
 was a hard and difficult task. He would have 
 tried to divert her mind by taking her on a 
 tong drive; but she was fearful that Carry 
 might come during her absence; and hei 
 
266 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 strength, he was obliged to admit, had failed 
 greatly. As he looked into her large and awe- 
 inspiring clear eyes, a something he tried to 
 keep from his mind to put off day by day 
 from contemplation kept asserting itself di- 
 rectly to his inner consciousness. He began to 
 doubt the expediency and wisdom of his man- 
 agement. He recalled every incident of his 
 interview with Carry, and half believed that its 
 failure was due to himself. Yet Mrs. Starbottle 
 was very patient and confident : her very con- 
 fidence shook his faith in his own judgment. 
 When her strength was equal to the exertion, 
 she was propped up in her chair by the window, 
 where she could see the school and the entrance 
 to the hotel. In the intervals she would elabo- 
 rate pleasant plans for the future, and would 
 sketch a country home. She had taken a 
 strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the 
 present location; but it was notable that the 
 future, always thus outlined, was one of quiet 
 and repose. She believed she would get well 
 soon : in fact, she thought she was now much 
 better than she had been ; but it might be long 
 before she should be quite strong again. She 
 would whisper on in this way until Jack would 
 dash madly down into the bar-room, order 
 liquors that he did not drink, light ciga.s that 
 he did not smoke, talk with men that he did not 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 267 
 
 listen to, and behave generally as our stronger 
 sex is apt to do in periods of delicate trials and 
 perplexity. 
 
 The day closed with a clouded sky and a 
 bitter, searching wind. With the night fell a 
 few wandering flakes of snow. She was still 
 content and hopeful ; and, as Jack wheeled her 
 from* the window to the fire, she explained to 
 him, how, that, as the school-term was drawing 
 near its close, Carry was probably kept closely 
 at her lessons during the day, and could only 
 leave the school at night. So she sat up the 
 greater part of the evening, and combed her 
 silken hair, and, as far as her strength would 
 allow, made an undress toilet to receive her 
 guest. " We must not frighten the child, Jack," 
 she said apologetically, and with something of 
 her old coquetry. 
 
 It was with a feeling of relief, that, at ten 
 o'clock, Jack received a message from the land- 
 lord, saying that the doctor would like to see 
 him for a moment down stairs. As Jack en- 
 tered the grim, dimly-lighted parlor, he observed 
 the hooded figure of a woman near the fire. He 
 was about to withdraw again, when a voice that 
 he remembered very pleasantly said, 
 
 " Oh, it's all right ! I'm the doctor." 
 
 The hood was thrown back ; and Prince saw 
 the shining black hair, and black, audacioui 
 yes, of Kate Van Corlear. 
 
68 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 " Don't ask any questions. I'm the doctor 
 and there's my prescription," and she pointed to 
 the half-frightened, half-sobbing Carry in the 
 corner " to be taken at once." 
 
 " Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her pe* 
 mission ? " 
 
 " Not much, if I know the sentiments of that 
 lady," replied Kate saucily. 
 
 "Then how did you get away?" asked 
 Prince gravely. 
 
 "BY THE WINDOW." 
 
 When Mr. Prince had left Carry in the arms 
 of her stepmother, he returned to the parlor. 
 
 "Well?" demanded Kate. 
 
 "She will stay you will, I hope, also to- 
 night." 
 
 "As I shall not be eighteen, and my own 
 mistress on the 20th, and as I haven't a sick 
 stepmother, I won't." 
 
 " Then you will give me the pleasure of see- 
 ing you safely through the window again ? " 
 
 When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he 
 found Carry sitting on a low stool at Mrs. Star- 
 bottle's feet. Her head was in her stepmother's 
 lap ; and she had sobbed herself to sleep. Mrs. 
 Starbottle put her finger to her lip. "I told 
 you she would come. God bless you, Jack! 
 and good-night." 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Tretherick, indig 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 269 
 
 nant, the Rev. Asa Crammer, principal, injured, 
 and Mr. Joel Robinson, sen., complacently re- 
 spectable, called upon Mr. Prince. There was 
 a stormy meeting, ending in a demand for 
 Carry. "We certainly cannot admit of this 
 interference," said Mrs. Tretherick, a fashiona- 
 bly dressed, indistinctive looking woman. " It is 
 several days before the expiration of our agree- 
 ment ; and we do not feel, under the circum- 
 stances, justified in releasing Mrs. Staibottle 
 from its conditions." " Until the expiration of 
 the school-term, we must consider Miss Treth- 
 erick as complying entirely with its rules and 
 discipline," imposed Dr. Crammer. "The 
 whole proceeding is calculated to injure the 
 prospects, and compromise the position, of Miss 
 Tretherick in society," suggested Mr. Robin- 
 son. 
 
 In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condi- 
 tion of Mrs. Starbottle, her absolute freedom 
 from complicity with Carry's flight, the pardon- 
 able and natural instincts of the girl, and his 
 own assurance that they were willing to abide 
 by her decision. And then with a rising color 
 in his cheek, a dangerous look in his eye, but a 
 singular calmness in his speech, he added, 
 
 "One word more. It becomes my duty to 
 inform you of a circumstance which would cer- 
 tainly justify me, as an executor of the late 
 
270 AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 Mr. Tretherick, in fully resisting your demands. 
 A few months after Mr. Tretherick's death, 
 through the agency of a Chinaman in his em- 
 ployment, it was discovered that he had made a 
 will, which was subsequently found among his 
 papers The insignificant value of his bequest 
 mostly land, then quite valueless prevent- 
 ed his executors from carrying out his wishes, 
 or from even proving the will, or making it 
 otherwise publicly known, until within the last 
 two or three years, when the property had 
 enormously increased in value. The provisions 
 of that bequest are simple, but unmistakable. 
 The property is divided between Carry and her 
 stepmother, with the explicit condition that 
 Mrs. Starbottle shall become her legal guardian, 
 provide for her education, and in all details 
 stand to her in loco parentis" 
 
 " What is the value of this bequest ? " asked 
 Mr. Robinson. " I cannot tell exactly, but not 
 far from half a million, I should say," returned 
 Prince. " Certainly, with this knowledge, as a 
 friend of Miss Tretherick, I must say that her 
 conduct is as judicious as it is honorable to 
 her," responded Mr. Robinson. "I shall not 
 presume to question the wishes, or throw any 
 obstacles in the way of carrying out the inten- 
 tions, of my dead husband," added Mrs. Treth 
 erick ; and the interview was closed. 
 
AN EPISODE OP FIDDLETOWN. 271 
 
 When its result was made known to Mrs. 
 Starbottle, she raised Jack's hand to her fever- 
 ish lips. " It cannot add to my happiness now, 
 Jack; but tell me, why did you keep it from 
 her ? " Jack smiled, but did not reply. 
 
 Within the next week the necessary legal 
 formalities were concluded; and Carry was 
 restored to her stepmother. At Mrs. Star- 
 bottle's request, a small house in the outskirts 
 of the town was procured; and thither they 
 removed to wait the spring, and Mrs. Starbottle's 
 convalescence. Both came tardily that year. 
 
 Yet she was happy and patient. She was fond 
 of watching the budding of the trees beyond 
 her window, a novel sight to her Californian 
 experience, and of asking Carry their names 
 and seasons. Even at this time she projected 
 for that summer, which seemed to her so mys- 
 teriously withheld, long walks with Carry 
 through the leafy woods, whose gray, misty 
 ranks she could see along the hilltop. She 
 even thought she could write poetry about 
 them, and recalled the fact as evidence of her 
 gaining strength; and there is, I believe, still 
 treasured by one of the members of this little 
 household a little carol so joyous, so simple, and 
 BO innocent, that it might have been an echo 
 af the robin that called to her from the window, 
 V s1 perhaps it was. 
 
272 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 And then, without warning, there dropped 
 from Heaven a day so tender, so mystically soft, 
 so dreamily beautiful, so throbbing, and alive 
 with the fluttering of invisible wings, so replete 
 and bounteously overflowing with an awaken- 
 ing and joyous resurrection not taught by man 
 or limited by creed, that they thought it fit 
 to bring her out, and lay her in that glorious 
 sunshine that sprinkled like the droppings of a 
 bridal torch the happy lintels and doers. And 
 there she lay beatified and calm. 
 
 Wearied by watching, Carry had fallen 
 asleep by her side ; and Mrs. Starbottle's thin 
 fingers lay like a benediction on her head. Pres- 
 ently she called Jack to her side. 
 
 " Who was that," she whispered, " who just 
 came in ? " 
 
 "Miss Van Corlear," said Jack, answering 
 the look in her great hollow eyes. 
 
 "Jack," she said, after a moment's silence, 
 " sit by me a moment, dear Jack : I've some- 
 thing I must say. If I ever seemed hard, or 
 cold, or coquettish to you in the old days, it was 
 because I loved you, Jack, too well to mar your 
 future by linking it with my own. I always 
 loved you, dear Jack, even when I seemed 
 least worthy of you. That is gone now. But I 
 had a dream lately, Jack, a foolish woman's 
 tfream, that you might find what I lacked IB 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 273 
 
 her" and she glanced lovingly at the sleeping 
 girl at her side ; " that you might love her as 
 you have loved me. But even that is not to be. 
 Jack, is it ? " and she glanced wistfully in his 
 face. Jack pressed her hand, but did not speak. 
 After a few moments' silence, she again said, 
 " Perhaps you are right in your choice. She is 
 a good-hearted girl, Jack but a little bold." 
 
 And with this last flicker of foolish, weak 
 humanity in her struggling spirit, she spoke no 
 more. When they came to her a moment later, 
 a tiny bird that had lit upon her breast fle^r 
 away; and the hand that they lifted from Car 
 ry's head fell lifeless at her side. 
 
A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 
 
 I HAVE seen her at last. She is a hundred 
 and seven years old, and remembers George 
 Washington quite distinctly. It is somewhat 
 confusing, however, that she also remembers a 
 contemporaneous Josiah W. Perkins of Bask- 
 ing Ridge, N.J., and, I think, has the impres- 
 sion that Perkins was the better man. Perkins, 
 at the close of the last century, paid her some 
 little attention. There are a few things that a 
 really noble woman of a hundred and seven 
 never forgets. 
 
 It was Perkins, who said to her in 1795, in 
 the streets of Philadelphia, " Shall I show thee 
 Gen. Washington?" Then she said careless- 
 like (for you know, child, at that time it wasn't 
 what it is now to see Gen. Washington), she 
 said, " So do, Josiah, so do ! " Then he pointed 
 to a tall man who got out of a carriage, and 
 went into a large house. He was larger than 
 you be. He wore his own hair not powdered ; 
 Had a flowered chintz vest, with yellow breeches 
 and blue stockings, and a broad-brimmed hat 
 
A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 275 
 
 In summer he wore a white straw hat, and at 
 his farm at Basking Ridge he always wore it. 
 At this point, it became too evident that she 
 was describing the clothes of the all-fascinating 
 Perkins: so I gently but firmly led her lack 
 to Washington. Then it appeared that she did 
 not remember exactly what he wore. To assist 
 her, I sketched the general historic dress of 
 that period. She said she thought he was 
 dressed like that. Emboldened by my success, 
 I added a hat of Charles II., and pointed shoes 
 of the eleventh century. She indorsed these 
 with such cheerful alacrity, that I dropped the 
 subject. 
 
 The house upon which I had stumbled, or, 
 rather, to which my horse a Jersey hack, 
 accustomed to historic research had brought 
 me, was low and quaint. Like most old houses, 
 it had the appearance of being encroached upon 
 by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already 
 half in the grave, with a sod or two, in the 
 shape of moss thrown on it, like ashes on ashes, 
 and dust on dust. A wooden house, instead of 
 acquiring dignity with age, is apt to lose its 
 youth and respectability together. A porch, 
 with scant, sloping seats, from which even the 
 winter's snow must have slid uncomfortably, 
 projected from a doorway that opened most un- 
 justifiably into a small sitting-room. There waa 
 
276 A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 
 
 ao vestibule, or locus poenitentice, for the embar- 
 rassed or bashful visitor: he passed at once 
 from the security of the public road into 
 Bhameful privacy. And here, in the mellow 
 autumnal sunlight, that, streaming through the 
 maples and sumach on the opposite bank, flick- 
 ered and danced upon the floor, she sat and 
 discoursed of George Washington, and thought 
 of Perkins. She was quite in keeping with the 
 house and the season, albeit a little in advance 
 of both ; her skin being of a faded russet, and 
 her hands so like dead November leaves, that I 
 fancied they even rustled when she moved 
 them. 
 
 For all that, she was quite bright and cheery ; 
 her faculties still quite vigorous, although per- 
 forming irregularly and spasmodically. It was 
 Bomewhat discomposing, I confess, to observe, 
 that at times her lower jaw would drop, leav- 
 ing her speechless, until one of the family 
 would notice it, and raise it smartly into place 
 with a slight snap, an operation always per- 
 formed in such an habitual, perfunctory man- 
 ner, generally in passing to and fro in their 
 household duties, that it was very trying tc 
 the spectator. It was still more embarrassing 
 to observe that the dear old lady had evidently 
 no knowledge of this, but believed she was still 
 talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal 
 
A JERSEY CENTENARIAN 271 
 
 utterance, she was often abrupt and incoherent^ 
 beginning always in the middle of a sentence, 
 and often in the middle of a word. " Sometimes," 
 said her daughter, a giddy, thoughtless young 
 thing of eighty-five, " sometimes just moving 
 her head sort of unhitches her jaw ; and, if we 
 don't happen to see it, she'll go on talking for 
 hours without ever making a sound." Although 
 I was convinced, after this, that during my inter- 
 view I had lost several important revelations 
 regarding George Washington through these 
 peculiar lapses, I could not help reflecting how 
 beneficent were these provisions of the Creator, 
 
 how, if properly studied and applied, they 
 might be fraught with happiness to mankind, 
 
 how a slight jostle or jar at a dinner-party 
 might make the post-prandial eloquence of 
 garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harm- 
 less to others, how a more intimate knowledge 
 of anatomy, introduced into the domestic circle, 
 might make a home tolerable at least, if not 
 happy, how a long-suffering husband, under 
 the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so 
 unhook his wife's condyloid process as to allow 
 the flow of expostulation, criticism, or denun- 
 ciation, to go on with gratification to her, and 
 perfect immunity to himself. 
 
 But this was not getting back to George 
 Washington and the early struggles of the 
 
278 A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 
 
 Republic. So I returned to the commander 
 in-chief, but found, after one or two leading 
 questions, that she was rather inclined to re- 
 sent his re-appearance on the stage. Her rem- 
 iniscences here were chiefly social and local, 
 and more or less flavored with Perkins. We 
 got back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, or, 
 rather, her impressions of that epoch, when it 
 was still fresh in the public mind. And here 
 I came upon an incident, purely personal and 
 local, but, withal, so novel, weird, and uncanny, 
 that for a while I fear it quite displaced 
 George Washington in my mind, and tinged the 
 autumnal fields beyond with a red that was not 
 of the sumach. I do not remember to have 
 read of it in the books. I do not know that it 
 is entirely authentic. It was attested to me by 
 mother and daughter, as an uncontradicted tra- 
 dition. 
 
 In the little field beyond, where the plough still 
 turns up musket-balls and cartridge-boxes, took 
 place one of those irregular skirmishes between 
 the militiamen and Knyphausen's stragglers, 
 that made the retreat historical. A Hessian 
 soldier, wounded in both legs and utterly help- 
 less, dragged himself to the cover of a hazel- 
 copse, and lay there hidden for two days. On 
 the third day, maddened by thirst, he managed 
 to creep to the rail-fence of an adjoining farm 
 
A JERSEY CENTENABTAN. 279 
 
 House, but found himself unable to mount it or 
 pass through. There was no one in the house 
 but a little girl of six or seven years. He called 
 to her, and in a faint voice asked for water. 
 She returned to the house, as if to comply with 
 his request, but, mounting a chair, took from 
 the chimney a heavily-loaded Queen Anne 
 musket, and, going to the door, took deliberate 
 aim at the helpless intruder, and fired. The 
 man fell back dead, without a groan. She re- 
 placed the musket, and, returning to the fence, 
 covered the body with boughs and leaves, until 
 it was hidden. Two or three days after, she 
 related the occurrence in a careless, casual way, 
 and leading the way to the fence, with a piece 
 of bread and butter in her guileless little fin- 
 gers, pointed out the result of her simple, unso- 
 phisticated effort. The Hessian was decently 
 buried, but I could not find out what became 
 of the little girl. Nobody seemed to remember. 
 I trust, that, in after-years, she was happily 
 married; that no Jersey Lovelace attempted 
 to trifle with a heart whose impulses were so 
 prompt, and whose purposes were so sincere. 
 They did not seem to know if she had married 
 or not. Yet it does not seem probable that 
 such simplicity of conception, frankness of ex- 
 pression, and deftness of execution, were lost 
 to posterity, or that they failed, in their time 
 
280 A JEBSBY CBNTENAEIAN. 
 
 and season, to give flavor to the domestic felicitj 
 of the period. Beyond tliis, the story perhaps 
 has little value, except as an offset to the usual 
 anecdotes of Hessian atrocity. 
 
 They had their financial panics even hi Jer- 
 sey, in the old days. She remembered when 
 Dr. White married your cousin Mary or was 
 it Susan? yes, it was Susan. She remembers 
 that your Uncle Harry brought in an armful 
 of bank-notes, paper money, you know, and 
 threw them in the corner, saying they were no 
 good to anybody. She remembered playing 
 with them, and giving them to your Aunt 
 Anna no, child, it was your own mother, 
 bless your heart ! Some of them was marked 
 as high as a hundred dollars. Everybody kept 
 gold and silver in a stocking, or in a " chaney " 
 vase, like that. You never used money to buy 
 any thing. When Josiah went to Springfield 
 to buy any thing, he took a cartload of things 
 with him to exchange That yaller picture- 
 frame was paid for in greenings. But then 
 people knew jest what they had. They didn't 
 fritter their substance away in unchristian 
 trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn't 
 know that there is a God who will smite him 
 hip and thigh ; for vengeance is mine, and those 
 that believe in me. But here, singularly enough, 
 the inferior maxillaries gave out, and her j 
 
A JEESEY CENTENARIAN. 281 
 
 dropped. (I noticed that her giddy daughtei 
 of eighty-five was sitting near her; but I do 
 not pretend to connect this fact with the 
 arrested flow of personal disclosure.) How- 
 beit, when she recovered her speech again, 
 it appeared that she was complaining of the 
 weather, 
 
 The seasons had changed very much since 
 your father went to sea. The winters used to 
 be terrible in those days. When she went over 
 to Springfield, in June, she saw the snow still 
 on Watson's Ridge. There were whole days 
 when you couldn't git over to William Henry's, 
 their next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away. 
 It was that drefful winter that the Spanish 
 sailor was found. You don't remember the 
 Spanish sailor, Eliza Jane it was before your 
 time. There was a little personal skirmishing 
 here, which I feared, at first, might end in a 
 suspension of maxillary functions, and the loss 
 of the story ; but here it is. Ah, me ! it is a 
 pure white winter idyl : how shall I sing it this 
 bright, gay autumnal day ? 
 
 It was a terrible night, that winter's night, 
 when she and the century were young together. 
 The sun was lost at three o'clock : the snowy 
 aight came down like a white sheet, that flapped 
 Around the house, beat at the windows with 
 its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close 
 
282 A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 
 
 embrace. In the middle of the right, they 
 thought they heard above the wind a voice 
 crying, " Christus, Christus ! " in a foreign 
 tongue. They opened the door, no easy task 
 in the north wind that pressed its strong 
 shoulders against it, but nothing was to be 
 seen but the drifting snow. The next morning 
 dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape 
 changed and obliterated with drift. During 
 the day, they again heard the cry of " Chris- 
 tus ! " this time faint and hidden, like a child's 
 voice. They searched in vain : the drifted snow 
 hid its secret. On the third day they broke a 
 path to the fence, and then they heard the cry 
 distinctly. Digging down, they found the body 
 of a man, a Spanish sailor, dark and bearded, 
 with ear-rings in his ears. As they stood gaz- 
 ing down at his cold and pulseless figure, the 
 cry of " Christus I " again rose upon the wintry 
 air ; and they turned and fled in superstitious 
 terror to the house. And then one of the chil- 
 dren, bolder than the rest, knelt down, and 
 opened the dead man's rough pea-jacket, and 
 found what think you? a little blue-and- 
 green parrot, nestling against his breast. It 
 was the bird that had echoed mechanically the 
 last despairing cry of the life that was given to 
 save it. It was the bird, ttat ever after, amid 
 outlandish oaths and wilder sailor-songs, that I 
 
A JEKSEY CENTENARIAN. 283 
 
 fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle 
 mistress, and brought scandal into the Jerseys, 
 still retained that one weird and mournful cry. 
 
 The sun meanwhile was sinking behind the 
 steadfast range beyond, and I could not help 
 feeling that I must depart with my wants un- 
 satisfied. I had brought away no historic frag- 
 ment : I absolutely knew little or nothing new 
 regarding George Washington. I had been 
 addressed variously by the names of different 
 members of the family who were dead and for- 
 gotten ; I had stood for an hour in the past : 
 yet I had not added to my historical knowledge, 
 nor the practical benefit of your readers. I 
 spoke once more of Washington, and she re- 
 plied with a reminiscence of Perkins. 
 
 Stand forth, O Josiah W. Perkins of Basking 
 Ridge, N.J. Thou wast of little account in 
 thy life, I warrant; thou didst not even feel 
 the greatness of thy day and time ; thou didst 
 criticise thy superiors ; thou wast small and 
 narrow in thy ways ; thy very name and grave 
 are unknown and uncared for : but thou wast 
 once kind to a woman who survived thee, and, 
 10 ! thy name is again spoken of men, and for a 
 moment lifted up above thy betters. 
 
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA CRUZ 
 
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 5 ot 
 
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PS1828.A1 1903 
 
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