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COLLECTION 
 
 OF 
 
 BRITISH AUTHORS 
 
 TAUCHNITZ EDITION. 
 
 VOL. 1450. 
 IDYLS OF THE FOOTHILLS BY BRET HAETE. 
 
 IN ONE VOLUME. 
 
TATJCHNITZ EDITION. 
 
 By the same Author, 
 PROSE AND POETRY 2 vols. 
 
 8JIG1 
 
IDYLS 
 OF THE FOOTHILLS. 
 
 IN PROSE AND VERSE. 
 
 " 
 
 
 BY 
 
 BRET HARTE. 
 
 AUTHORIZED EDITION. 
 
 LEIPZIG 
 
 w BERN HARD TAUCHNITZ 
 1874. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PROSE. 
 
 Page 
 Bret Harte, a Sketch . . . . . . . ....'" 9 
 
 Author's Preface (to Continental Edition) 17 
 
 A Passage in the Life of Mr. John Oakhurst 21 
 
 The Rose of Tuolumne . . ..... . . 53 
 
 An Episode of Fiddletown 88 
 
 A Monte Flat Pastoral . . . . . . " * . . . 152 
 
 Baby Sylvester ..- * . . . . 177 
 
 Wan Lee, the Pagan . . . . . "... . . . 199 
 
 IN VERSE. 
 
 Luke . . . . > 225 
 
 " The Babes in the Woods " ........ 231 
 
 Guild's Signal 235 
 
 Truthful James to the Editor . . ... . . . 238 
 
 Don Diego of the South 241 
 
 "For the King" , . , 246 
 
 Friar Pedro's Ride 255 
 
 Miss Blanche Says 262 
 
 Dolly Varden . . V * r 267 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 r 
 
 Page 
 
 270 
 
 a we o p 
 
 273 
 
 
 277 
 
 
 . . . 278 
 
 
 
PROSE. 
 
BRET HARTE. 
 
 SOME ten years ago, Thomas Starr King, then 
 unknowingly near the end of his short but noble and 
 glowing life, was guiding an acquaintance through 
 the dingy, gold-strewn recesses of the Government 
 Mint building in San Francisco. Pausing before 
 entering the secretary's little office, he said: "Now 
 I want you to meet a young man who will be heard 
 of far and wide some of these days." The visitor 
 went in and was introduced to Francis Bret Harte, 
 then secretary of the Branch Mint. We all know 
 how the later career of the young writer has more 
 than justified the affectionate prediction of Starr 
 King; for, since that day, Bret Harte's fame has, to 
 borrow the language of his admiring German trans 
 lator, "extended from the coasts of the Pacific 
 Ocean to the English coast of the North Sea." 
 "His works have drawn hearts to him wherever 
 the language of Shakespeare, of Milton, and Byron 
 is spoken." 
 
 A man who has so many readers must needs 
 inspire a kindly curiosity to know something of the 
 antecedents in a life which has given such generous 
 promise of nobler works to come. Mr. Harte was 
 
10 BRET HARTE. 
 
 born at Albany, New York, in 1839. He was 
 christened Francis Bret Harte; but the second name, 
 an old family one, was that by which he was 
 familiarly known among home friends and acquaint 
 ances. Later in life, the initial of his Christian 
 name was dropped altogether, and the world learned 
 to know and love him by the somewhat crisp title 
 of "Bret Harte." 
 
 Young Harte grew up surrounded by refining 
 influences; his father was a teacher of girls, and a 
 ripe and cultured student withal. Left fatherless, 
 Harte wandered off to California in 1854, dazzled 
 with the golden visions which then transfigured that 
 distant land; and, won by the fantastic romance 
 with which stories of the early Spanish occupation, 
 sudden wealth, surprising adventure, and novel life 
 and scenery invested the country, he cast himself 
 into the changeful stream of humanity which ebbed 
 and flowed among the young cities by the sea, the 
 pine-clad ridges of the Sierra, and the rude camps 
 of the gold-hunters which were then breaking the 
 stillness of long unvexed solitudes. No age . nor 
 condition, no quality of manhood, nor grade of 
 moral or mental culture was unrepresented in that 
 motley tide of migration. The dreamy young 
 student, the future poet of the Argonauts of 1849, 
 drifted on with the rest. 
 
 For two or three years, he, like all the restless 
 wanderers of those days, pursued a various calling 
 and had no fixed abode. An unsatisfied desire for 
 change, a half- confessed impatience with long tarry 
 ing in any spot, seemed to possess every soul. 
 
BRET HARTE. 1 1 
 
 Mining camps and even thrifty towns were depopu 
 lated in a single day, the unnoted casualties of 
 their rough life emptying a few places, the rest 
 being eagerly left behind by men who drifted far 
 and wide; their lately coveted "claims" were quickly 
 occupied by other rovers from other fields. Harte 
 mined a little, taught school a little, tried his hand 
 at type-setting and frontier journalism, climbed 
 mountains and threaded ravines as the mounted 
 messenger of an express company, or acted as agent 
 for that company in some of the mountain towns 
 which we have learned to know so well as Sandy 
 Bar, Poker Flat, and Wingdam. But all the while 
 the lithe, agile, and alert young artist was ab 
 sorbing impressions of the picturesque life, scenery, 
 manners, and talk which surrounded him as an at 
 mosphere. 
 
 In 1857, or thereabouts, he drifted back to San 
 Francisco "The Bay," as the pleasant city by the 
 sea was fondly called by the wandering sons of ad 
 venture. The Bay was the little heaven where were 
 cool sea-winds, good cheer, and glimpses of that 
 sensuous life which was then thought of as a far- 
 off, faintly-remembered good found only in "the 
 States." Here Harte speedily developed into a 
 clever young litterateur. Working in the compos 
 ing-room of a weekly literary journal, he put into 
 type some of his own graceful little sketches by 
 way of experiment. These were noticed and ap 
 preciated by the editor, and he was translated from 
 "the case" to the editorial room of The Golden 
 Era, where some of the pleasant papers which find 
 
12 BRET HARTE. 
 
 place in his later published works were written. 
 These were chiefly local sketches, like "A Boy's 
 Dog," "Sidewalkings" and "From a Balcony." 
 Meantime marriage and the cares of a growing 
 household had changed the vagrant fancy of the 
 young writer, and he roved no more. He wrote a 
 great deal which has not been gathered up, and in 
 the columns of daily papers, as well as in The 
 Calif ornian , a literary weekly which he some time 
 edited, appeared innumerable papers which enriched 
 the current literature of those times, and swelled 
 the volume of that higher quality of California 
 journalism which seems now to have passed quite 
 away. 
 
 In 1864 he was appointed Secretary of the 
 United States Branch Mint in San Francisco, a 
 position which, during the six years he held it, gave 
 him time and opportunity for more careful work 
 than any which he had heretofore accomplished. 
 During this time some of the most famous of his 
 poems and sketches were written. "John Burns of 
 Gettysburg," "The Pliocene Skull," "The Society 
 upon the Stanislow," "How are you, Sanitary?" and 
 other little unique gems of verse were written about 
 this time and first appeared (for the most part) 
 anonymously in the San Francisco newspapers. In 
 July, 1868, the publication of The Overland Monthly 
 was begun, with Bret Harte as its organizer and 
 editor. The success of the magazine was immediate 
 and decided. We cannot tell how much of its 
 renown was owing to the series of remarkable stories 
 which immediately began to flow from the pen of 
 
BRET HARTE. 13 
 
 its accomplished editor, nor how much to the rare 
 talent which he seems to have had in awaking the 
 dormant energies of those who constituted his loyal 
 staff of contributors. The Overland became at once 
 a unique, piquant and highly-desired element in the 
 current literature of the Republic; and it found a 
 multitude of readers on both sides of the Atlantic. 
 In its pages, August, 1868, appeared "The Luck of 
 Roaring Camp," a story which, whatever may be 
 the merits of those which have succeeded it, gave 
 Harte the first of his great fame as a prose-writer. 
 But it was not until January of the next year that 
 the stimulated appetite of the impatient public was 
 appeased by the production of "The Outcasts of 
 Poker Flat," a dramatic tale which probably con 
 tains more firmly-drawn and distinct characters than 
 have appeared in any one of Harte's stories or 
 sketches. "Miggles" came next, and, marshaled in 
 their long array, the inimitable personages who 
 figure in still later stories emerged from their 
 shadowy realm and passed into the language and 
 familiar acquaintance of the English-speaking world. 
 Col. Starbottle, John Oakhurst, Stumpy, Tennes 
 see's Partner and Higgles with laughter and with 
 tears we remember them all; we shall know them 
 as long as we know Sam Weller, Micawber, Little 
 Nell and the goodly company called into being by 
 that other magician who has, at last, laid down his 
 wand forever. 
 
 Harte's poems are more thickly scattered through 
 his later work in California than elsewhere. Some 
 of the best-known were written between 1865 and 
 
1.4 BRET HARTE, 
 
 1870; "Plain Language from Truthful James," 
 popularly quoted as the "Heathen Chinee," ap 
 peared in The Overland of September, 1870. A 
 more ambitious work, "The Lost Galleon," was an 
 earlier production, and gave title to a thin volume 
 of fugitive bits of verse published in San Francisco 
 a year or two before. Harte's first book was the 
 Condensed Novels, a collection of wonderful imita 
 tions, too real to be called parodies, first printed in 
 The Calif ornian, published in a poorly executed 
 volume in New York, called in and republished and 
 reinforced in 1871. Four new volumes have issued 
 from the pen of the poet-storyteller, and a great 
 constituency hungrily waits for more. 
 
 In the Spring of 1871, Harte, resigning the 
 editorial position which he held, as well as the Pro 
 fessorship of Recent Literature in the University of 
 California, to which he had lately been called, re 
 turned to his native State with the ripened powers 
 and generous fame which he had gathered during 
 his seventeen years of absence. When his life shall 
 have been adjusted to the new conditions which 
 meet here any long-absent wanderer, we shall, no 
 doubt, see the somewhat wavering panorama of 
 his genius move on more steadily, glowing with 
 more vivid colors and crowded with more life-like 
 shapes than any which his magical touch has yet 
 placed on canvas. 
 
 What Harte's repute and standing are in his 
 own land need not now be told. Few writers of 
 modern times have been more discussed; it were 
 better if his critics had always been generous as 
 
BRET HARTE. *5 
 
 well as just. But it would not be fair to close this 
 little sketch without noting the fact that most of his 
 works have found eager readers in other lands. 
 English editions of his stories are popular and 
 widely circulated. In Germany, the genial old poet, 
 Ferdinand Freiligrath, has translated a volume of 
 Harte's prose tales, to which is prefixed a charming 
 preface by the translator. We cannot forbear mak 
 ing this extract, so full of the simple-hearted Freilig- 
 rath's goodness: 
 
 "Nevertheless he remains what he is the Cali- 
 fornian and the gold-digger. But the gold for 
 which he has dug, and which he found, is not the 
 gold in the bed of rivers, not the gold in the 
 veins of mountains; it is the gold of love, of good 
 ness, of fidelity, of humanity, which even in rude 
 and wild hearts, even under the rubbish of vices 
 and sins, remains forever uneradicated from the 
 human heart. That he there searched for this gold, 
 that he found it there and triumphantly ex 
 hibited it to the world, that is his greatness and 
 his merit. That it is which drew hearts to him 
 wherever the language of Shakespeare, of Milton 
 and Byron is spoken. And that it is which has 
 made me, the old German poet, the translator of 
 the young American colleague; and which has led 
 me to-day to reach to him warmly and cordially my 
 hand across the sea. Good luck, Bret Harte! Good 
 luck, my gold-digger!" 
 
 Th. Dentzon has charmingly introduced some 
 of Harte's California sketches to the French world 
 of readers, and, in an article in the Revue des Deux 
 
1 6 BRET HARTE. 
 
 Maudes^ he has given at great length a critical 
 analysis of the powers and genius of our favorite 
 story-teller. Our French and German friends alike 
 wrestle with the difficulties of the untranslatable; 
 but, malgre their failure to master the dialect of 
 the gold-digger, they reproduce admirably the deli 
 cate finish and felicitous manipulation of the author. 
 Thus his genius has found expression in many 
 languages, and the gentle, loving spirit which 
 animates his works lives and walks in other lands 
 beyond the sea. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 A PREFACE to these little stories, of which the 
 present edition, published by Baron Tauchnitz, is the 
 only authorized one on the Continent of Europe, 
 may seem somewhat gratuitous to that English 
 reading audience who have good humoredly ac 
 cepted my previous performances without special 
 introduction from their author. But as I am partly 
 responsible for this present publication on the Con 
 tinent, I am emboldened to address myself more 
 confidently to those English readers with whom I 
 am thus brought into closer relation. 
 
 Otherwise there would be little to add to the few 
 words with which "The Luck of Roaring Camp" 
 was first introduced to the American public. Since 
 the publication of that work California has become 
 better known and more accessible. The completion 
 of the Pacific Railway, and the increased facilities 
 for speedy transit have placed that hitherto isolated 
 community within easy reach of the ordinary tourist. 
 The Sierra Nevada that Chinese wall of California 
 exclusiveness has been pierced to let in the 
 foreigner. Already there are ominously shaven 
 faces and Poolers coats to be seen on Montgomery 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 2 
 
1 8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 Street, tweed suits on railways, and the obvious 
 print of an English walking shoe in the red dust 
 of the mountains. 
 
 It may be well imagined that these conditions 
 are disastrous to the writer of dramatic romance, 
 who would fain keep his little stage from the in 
 vasion of the critic in the stalls, or the enthusiast 
 in the boxes. It is very possible that this scenery, 
 so effective from the gallery, is mean in detail; 
 these flats, so striking at a little distance, viewed 
 closely are but broad splatches of color. Even the 
 performers may suffer. This hero, lounging at the 
 wings, is unmistakably loud and unpleasant, this 
 little lady, whose Magdalen virtues made us weep 
 only a moment ago, is certainly no better than she 
 should be. 
 
 To this hypothetical criticism I fear I must add 
 the more practical view of a patriotic local press, 
 namely, that no idea consistent with material pro 
 gress, conducive to immigration or appreciative of 
 real estate, is to be gathered from these pages, and 
 that the "Luck of Roaring Camp" is not to be 
 accepted by the casual visitor with the same profit 
 and security that obtains with recent works upon 
 the resources of California. Let me briefly add for 
 the benefit of those who have a pecuniary or busi 
 ness interest in that country, that the characters 
 and elements herein described belong to an era 
 long past, and now no longer found except in 
 localities remote from the populous centres; that 
 life and property are, in the larger cities, as safe as 
 they are in Broadway or the Strand; that Vigilance 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. jg 
 
 Committees no longer patrol the streets; and that 
 the tourist of to-day will meet nothing more danger 
 ous than the native wine, or more aggressive than 
 the native .hospitality. 
 
 An explanation of this change a change that 
 leaves behind it so little of the past even in debris 
 or ruin may -be necessary to those who are more 
 familiar with the results than the peculiar processes 
 of American civilization. The real pioneer or ad 
 venturer, like his prototype, the Indian, retires be 
 fore improvement and progress, and seldom remains 
 to be civilized or merged into the commonalty. He 
 lives to form the nucleus of another settlement, 
 perhaps one or two more, with precisely the same 
 result. The conditions of San Francisco life in 
 1849, were repeated in Sacramento in '50, in the 
 Southern Mines in '54, in Virginia City in '60, and 
 in every one of the later discovered mining dictricts 
 'by the same actors. The dramatis personcE were 
 the same; the incidents were monotonously alike. 
 The climaxes were identical. Judge Lynch rode a 
 circuit in California. But it was most remarkable 
 that the actors left no trace nor impress on the 
 after civilization. Their footprints vanished utterly 
 and were swallowed up. They left no memorial 
 even in the shape of a ruin; their very vices were 
 not the vices of to-day. It is to be even feared 
 that they did not >meet that fate which was the 
 logical conclusion of their lives and deeds; that, 
 pointing no moral 'whatever, they flourished and 
 still flourish in remoter regions in abiding and 
 efflorescent impropriety, without reform and without 
 
 2* 
 
2O AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 punishment. A very small proportion only have 
 been elected to legislative functions, or appointed 
 to office. 
 
 I like to think, however, that there may be some 
 kindlier readers who, even at the risk of being 
 thought sentimental, will still love to linger with me 
 over those scenes that suffering, weakness, and sin 
 have made human. 
 
 I believe that it will not be necessary for them 
 to draw any moral that shall be inconsistent with 
 their experience or knowledge of a higher plane of 
 life than it has been my lot to study and transcribe. 
 It is only three years ago that I stood upon that 
 spot of which my readers have learned something 
 in its fictitious title of " Roaring Camp." The sun 
 shone as vividly, the hillsides looked as green, and 
 the outlying pines as sedate and reticent as on the 
 first day I saw it. But a new and thriving settle 
 ment stood upon the river bank, and of the settlers 
 but one remembered the past history of the camp. 
 At the head of the gulch a few children were play 
 ing under a large pine tree. I knew that at its 
 roots lay the dust of one who had walked these 
 pages under another name than that which had been 
 obliterated from the bark of the tree, and was now 
 forgotten. It was the name of a man of desperate 
 deeds, of many sins, and baleful example. But 
 looking at the children I could only tell them, in 
 reply to their artless questioning, how long ago he 
 had been singularly kind to a truant school-boy. 
 
 BRET HARTE. 
 
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. Look 
 ing 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 thousand dollars, ;he had 
 risen from the faro table, relinquished his seat to 
 an accomplished assistant, and withdrawn quietly, 
 without attracting a glance from the silent, anxious 
 faces bowed over the table. But when he entered 
 his luxurious sleeping-room, across the passage-way, 
 he was a little shocked at finding the sun streaming 
 
22 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 through an inadvertently-opened window. Some 
 thing 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. Oakhurst. 
 There were milkmen and hucksters delivering their 
 wares, small trades-people opening their shops, 
 house-maids sweeping door- steps, 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 alto 
 gether 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 isolation, 
 would have been coldly indifferent to the advances 
 of a fine lady, a little girl who ran admiringly by> 
 his side in a nagged dress had the power to call a 
 faint flush into his colorless cheek. He dismissed 
 her at last r 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. 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 23 
 
 There was a small garden before a white cottage 
 in a side street that attracted Mr. Oakhurst's atten 
 tion. It was filled with roses, heliotrope and 
 verbena flowers familiar enough to him in the ex 
 pensive and more portable 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 ac 
 complished Miss Ethelinda, then performing at the 
 Varieties, for Mr. Oakhurst's especial benefit as she 
 had often assured him nor yet as a douceur to the 
 enthralling Miss Montmorrissy, with whom Mr. Oak- 
 hurst 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 cotton-wood tree, he first 
 dusted the seat with his handkerchief, and then sat 
 down. 
 
 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 awakening tree, 
 and th,e faint rustle of its boughs as the outstretch 
 ing of cramped and reviving limbs. Far away the 
 Sierras stood out against a sky so remote as to be 
 of no positive color; so remote that even the sun 
 despaired of ever reaching 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 
 
24 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 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 reclining. With 
 out knowing why, Mr. Oakhurst instantly conceived 
 that the carriage was the invention and workman 
 ship of the man, partly from its oddity, partly from 
 the strong, mechanical hand that grasped it, and 
 partly from a certain pride and visible conscious 
 ness in the 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 pro 
 fessional 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 un 
 moved face that he turned upon the stranger, who, 
 on the contrary, 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 describ 
 ing the lady now if, indeed, I am able to do it at 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 25 
 
 all. Certainly, the popular estimate was conflicting. 
 The late Col. Starbottle to whose large experience 
 of a charming sex I have before been indebted for 
 many valuable suggestions had, I regret to say, 
 depreciated her fascinations. "A yellow-faced cripple, 
 by dash a sick woman, with mahogany eyes. One 
 of your blanked spiritual creatures with no flesh 
 on her bones." On the other hand, however, she 
 enjoyed later much complimentary disparagement 
 from her own sex. Miss Celestina Howard, second 
 leader in the ballet at the Varieties, had, with great 
 alliterative directness, in after years, denominated 
 her as an "aquiline asp." Mile. Brimborion remem 
 bered 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 
 refinement of long suffering and isolation, and a 
 certain shy virginity of manner. There was a sug 
 gestion of physical purity in the folds of her fresh- 
 looking robe, and a certain picturesque tastefulness 
 in the details, that, without knowing why, made him 
 think that the robe was her invention and handi 
 work, 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 of 
 the vehicle, and Mr. Oakhurst stepped forward to 
 
26 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 assist. While the wheel was being lifted over the 
 curbstone, it was necessary that she should hold his 
 arm, and for a moment her thin hand rested there, 
 light and cold as a snow-flake, and then as it 
 seemed to him like a snow-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 rheu 
 matism. 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. He 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 Francisco 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 dreadful 
 thing to have one's pocket picked. Did he did not 
 think so? 
 
 Her husband's face was crimson, but Mr. Oak- 
 hurst'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. Oakhurst commanded a halt, 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 27 
 
 and, goimg 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 hus 
 band 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 pickpocket 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 anything you like but the 
 truth. Promise me you won't say that!" 
 
 The man promised. Mr. Oakhurst quietly re 
 turned 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. Oakhurst lifted his hat, and before 
 she could thank him was gone. 
 
 I grieve to say that Mr. Decker shamelessly 
 broke his promise. That night, in the very good 
 ness of his heart and uxorious self-abnegation* 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. 
 
28 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 Oakhurst, and dealt with an enthusiasm quite com 
 mon with his class on the mysterious fame and 
 prodigal vices of the gambler. 
 
 "And now, Elsie dear, say that you'll forgive 
 me," said Mr. Decker, dropping on one knee beside 
 his wife's couch; "I 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 husband's 
 hand. "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 
 roses, I'll forgive you." She took the branch in her 
 fingers, lifted the roses to her face, and presently 
 said, behind their leaves: 
 
 "Joe!" 
 
 "What is it, lovey?" 
 
 "Do you think that this Mr. what do you 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 managed 
 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." 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 29 
 
 "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 presently 
 desired her husband to wheel her back home. 
 Moreover, she was very much astonished 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 
 husband 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 business address of 
 the husband and then lifting his hat gravely, with 
 out looking at the lady, went his way. It struck 
 the honest master carpenter as one of the charming 
 anomalies of his wife's character, that, although the 
 
30 -A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 meeting was evidently very much constrained and 
 unpleasant, instantly afterward his wife's spirits began 
 to rise. "You was hard on him a leetle hard, 
 wasn't you, Elsie?" said Mr. Decker deprecatingly 
 "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 the 
 vehicle. "You look like an Ai first-class lady riding 
 down Broadway in her own carriage, Elsie," said 
 he; "I never seed you lookin' so peart and sassy 
 before." . 
 
 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 proposition to 
 buy Nichols' quarter interest, and have concluded to go in. But 
 I don't see how the thing will pay until you have more accom 
 modation down there, and for the best class I mean my cus 
 tomers. 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 upon any game this season. 
 Yours always, 
 
 JOHN OAKHURST. 
 
 It was only the last sentence of this letter that 
 provoked criticism: "I can understand," said Mr. 
 -Hamlin, a professional brother, to whom Mr. Oak- 
 -hurst's letter was shown, "I can understand why 
 Jack c goes in heavy and builds, for ;itfs ia ? sure spec, 
 and is botmd to be -a mighty soft thing in 'time, if 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. ^1 
 
 he comes here regularly. But why in blank he 
 don't set up a bank this season and take the chance 
 of getting some of the money back that he |>uts 
 into circulation in building, is what gets me. I 
 wonder now," he mused deeply, "what is his little 
 game." 
 
 The season had been a prosperous one to Mr. 
 Oakhurst, and proportionally disastrous to several 
 members of the Legislature, Judges, Colonels, and 
 others who had enjoyed but briefly the pleasure of 
 Mr. Oakhurst's midnight society. And yet Sacra 
 mento 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 inquisition 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.' 7 
 
 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 
 
33 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 at San Francisco at the club , Jack had declined to 
 deal. "Hand shaky, Sir; depend upon it; don't 
 stimulate enough blank him!" 
 
 From San Jos he started to go to Oregon by 
 land with a rather expensive outfit of horses and 
 camp equipage, but on reaching Stockton he suddenly 
 diverged, and four hours later found him with a 
 single horse entering the canon 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 straggling 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 something of the same novel satisfaction 
 m 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 
 landscape began to take upon themselves some 
 what 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 destination, but charged the 
 hotel at a gallop, threw his horse on his haunches 
 within a foot of the 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 
 
$F MR. JOHN OAKHURSt. 3^ 
 
 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 was Dick Hamilton, perhaps the only one 
 present who, by birth, education, and position might 
 have satisfied the most fastidious social critic. 
 Happily for Mr. Oakhurst's reputation, 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 
 Hamilton, with characteristic effrontery, "the man 
 you lost a thousand dollars to last week. / only 
 know him socially" "But isn't he a gambler?" 
 queried the youngest Miss Smith. "He is," replied 
 Hamilton, "but I wish, my 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 hearing 
 of this colloquy, and was even then lounging list 
 lessly, yet watchfully, along the upper hall. Suddenly 
 he heard a light footstep behind him, and then his 
 name called in a familiar voice that drew the blood 
 quickly to his heart. He turned and she stood be 
 fore 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 gentle- 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 3 
 
34 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 woman into whom she has been merged within 
 these two months? In good faith she was very 
 pretty. You and I, my dear madame, 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 madame, 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 
 dear 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 be 
 hind her, glanced rapidly up and down the long 
 hall, and stood looking at him with a half auda 
 cious, half mischievous admiration in utter contrast 
 to her old reserve. 
 
 "I've 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." 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 35^, 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst stammered that she was so changed. 
 
 "The more reason why you should know me. 
 Who changed me? You. You have recreated 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 play 
 ful courtesy. Then, with a sudden, relenting gesture, 
 she gave him both her hands. 
 
 Outrageous as this speech was, and unfeminine, 
 as I trust every fair reader will deem it, I fear it 
 pleased Mr. Oakhurst. Not but that he was accus 
 tomed to a certain frank female admiration; but 
 then it was of the coulisses 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 sick 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, completely 
 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 Oakland? You 
 see I have followed you. I saw you 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 
 
 3* 
 
36, A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 Hamilton, ascending the staircase, was nearly abreast 
 of them. He raised his hat to her with 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 favor of you!" 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst begged that it should be now. 
 "N6, not until you know me better. Then, some 
 day, I shall want you to kill that man!" 
 * 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 sheep- 
 fold. 
 
 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, laugh 
 ingly declined an escort, and ran over to her little 
 cottage one of her husband's creation across the 
 road. Perhaps from the sudden and unwonted 
 exercise in her still convalescent 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 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 37 
 
 again. "No," she said, "only a little pain here," 
 as she again placed her hand upon her corsage. 
 
 "Can I do anything for you," said Mr. Decker, 
 rising with affectionate concern. 
 
 "Run over to the hotel and get me some brandy, 
 quick!" 
 
 Mr. Decker ran. Mrs. Decker closed and bolted 
 the door, and then putting her hand to her bosom, 
 drew out the pain. It was folded four square, 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. TJien 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 eye 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 think 
 ing 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, and you're quite another 
 woman. I may say, dear, that you're a new woman. 
 
3.8 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 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 may be 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 talk. 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 well be 
 uncivil to Mr. Hamilton, who was a fine gentleman, 
 without making a powerful enemy. "And he's al 
 ways 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 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. ( ty 
 
 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/ 7 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 stayed a week in San Francisco. When 
 she returned she was a trifle thinner and paler 
 than she had been. This she explained as the re 
 sult of perhaps too active exercise and excitement. 
 "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 independent now," she 
 added, gayly, "I don't want any 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 de 
 parted. "Poor Mr. Oakhurst has a miserable room 
 at the hotel suppose you ask him when he returns 
 
40 ' A PASSAGE IN THE LIFB 
 
 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 confi 
 dentially to Mr. Oakhurst, "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. Indeed, 
 few women were more popular. She was domestic, 
 she was prudent, she was pious. In a country of 
 great feminine freedom and latitude, she never rode 
 or walked with anybody but her 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 ostentatious decoration she 
 never wore a diamond, nor a single valuable jewel. 
 She never permitted an indecorum in public; she 
 never countenanced the familiarities of California 
 society. She declaimed against the prevailing tone 
 of infidelity and skepticism in religion. Few people, 
 who were present, will ever forget the dignified yet 
 stately manner with which she rebuked Mr. Hamil 
 ton in the public parlor for entering upon the dis 
 cussion of a work on materialism , lately published, 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 41 
 
 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 un 
 easily impatient of his friend, and even if such a 
 term could be applied to any moral quality 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 haunts, in 
 a bar-room, or with his old associates. Pink &nd 
 white notes, in distracted handwriting, accumulated 
 on the dressing-table in his rooms at Sacramento. 
 It was given out in San Francisco that he had some 
 organic disease of the heart for which his physician 
 had prescribed perfect rest. He read more, be 
 took long walks, he sold his fast horses, he went $o 
 -church. 
 
 I have a very vivid recollection ofc 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 offi 
 ciating clergyman, who introduced an allusion to 
 
4/2 -A PASSAGE IN TJKE LIFE 
 
 Mr. Oakhurst's calling and habits in a sermon on 
 the architecture of Solomon's Temple, and in a 
 manner so pointed and yet labored as to cause the 
 youngest of us to flame with indignation. Happily, 
 however, it was lost upon Jack I do not think he 
 even heard it. His handsome, colorless face 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 tenderness, so yearning 
 and yet so hopeless that 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 ad 
 versary at ten paces. After church he disappeared 
 as quietly as he had entered, and fortunately escaped 
 hearing the comments on his rash act. His ap 
 pearance was generally considered as an imper 
 tinence 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 influence, he would try to find 
 some church where he could. Another traced Mr. 
 Oakhurst's presence to certain Broad Church radical 
 tendencies, which he regretted to say he had lately 
 noted in their Pastor. Deacon Sawyer, whose de 
 licately organized, sickly wife had already borne 
 him eleven children and died in an ambitious at- 
 
pF MR, JOHN OAKHURST. 43 
 
 .tempt to complete the dozen, avowed that the pre 
 sence of a person of Mr. Oakhurst's various and 
 indiscriminate gallantries, was an insult to the me 
 mory of the deceased, that, as a man, he could not 
 brook. 
 
 It was about this time that Mr. Oakhurst, con 
 trasting himself with a conventional world in which 
 he had hitherto rarely mingled, became aware that 
 there was something in his face, figure, and car 
 riage, quite unlike other men something that if it 
 did not betray his former career, at least showed 
 an individuality and originality that was suspicious. 
 Jn this belief he shaved off his long, silken mus 
 tache, 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 Sacra 
 mento, and asked him to make him a suit of clothes 
 like everybody else. The tailor, familiar with Mr. Oak- 
 hurst's fastidiousness, did not know what he meant. 
 '"I mean," said Mr. Oakhurst savagely, "something 
 respectable something that doesn't exactly fit me 
 you know." But however Mr. Oakhurst might hide 
 .his shapely limbs in homespun and home-made gar 
 ments, there was something in his carriage, some 
 thing in the pose of his beautiful head, something 
 in the strong and fine manliness of his presence, 
 something in the perfect 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 ruling as of his very nature that go 
 
44 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 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 assistance 
 and his own predilections, he became a San Fran 
 cisco broker. Even before objection was made to 
 his presence in the Board the objection, I remem 
 ber, was urged very eloquently by Watt Sanders, 
 who was supposed to be the inventor of the "freez 
 ing out" system of disposing of poor stock-holders, 
 and who also enjoyed the reputation of having been 
 the impelling cause of Briggs of Tuolumne's ruin 
 and suicide even before this formal protest of re 
 spectability against lawlessness, the aquiline sugges 
 tions of Mr. Oakhurst's mien and countenance, not 
 only prematurely fluttered the pigeons, but abso 
 lutely occasioned much uneasiness 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 migration 
 of the more fashionable, and there was an uncom 
 fortable suggestion of dregs and lees in the social 
 life that remained. Mr. Oakhurst was moody it 
 was hinted that even the secure reputation of Mrs. 
 Decker could no longer protect 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 
 
OF MR, JOHN OAKHURST. 45 
 
 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 se 
 curity 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 be 
 cause the position was changed, because his friend 
 was poor and he was rich." This was the first in 
 timation 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. Oakhurst and 
 Mr. Hamilton, who sat together at a separate table, 
 were observed to rise in some 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, to 
 ward 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 
 
46 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 instant Mr. Oakhurst raised a wine-glass 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 wine-glass that he returned 
 to the table shivered between his fingers. Mr. 
 Hamilton stood there, grayish white, erect, and drip 
 ping. After a pause he said, coldly: 
 
 "So be it. But remember! our quarrel com 
 mences 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 his 
 cold steel-blue eyes as if sheathing a rapier, bowed, 
 and passed coldly out. 
 
 They met twelve hours later in a little hollow 
 two miles from the hotel, on the Stockton road. 
 As Mr. Oakhurst received his pistol from Col. Star- 
 bottle'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 astonishment. "I've been out a 
 dozen times with Jack Oakhurst," said Col. Star- 
 bottle 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, 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 47 
 
 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 smoke curl still lazily floated, and 
 then the hurried, husky, panting voice of Col. Star- 
 bottle in his ear: "He's hit hard through the lungs 
 you must run for it!" 
 
 Jack turned his dark, questioning eyes upon his 
 second, but did not seem to listen rather seemed 
 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 hastily. 
 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. 
 
4 A PASSAGE IN THE 
 
 Mf. 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 something of his old imperious 
 manner, as he turned to those about him. When 
 they drew back, he looked up in Oakhurst's face. 
 
 "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 so 
 ghastly, with haunting doubts and a hopeless pre 
 sentiment of coming evil a face so piteous in its 
 infinite weariness and envy of death that the dying 
 man was touched, even in the languor of dissolu 
 tion, 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! in my pocket you will find two letters. 
 Take them there! You will know the handwrit 
 ing. 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 between 
 his fingers as if they had been burning coals. 
 
 "Promise me," said Hamilton, faintly. 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST, 49 
 
 "Why?" asked Oakhurst, dropping his 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 fell 
 back a corpse. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and Mrs. 
 Decker reclined languidly upon the sofa with a 
 novel 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 look 
 ing 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 it, 
 and then faced her without a word. His face 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 happened, 
 Jack, Why are you here?" 
 
 Idyls of Hie Foothills. 4 
 
5O .A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE 
 
 He opened his coat, and threw two letters in 
 her lap. 
 
 "To return your lover's letters to kill you 
 an<j 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 apo 
 logy, 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 desperation bows before but des 
 peration; and Mr. Oakhurst'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 in 
 valid. 
 
 "Why should you not," she repeated with a 
 smile. "You gave me life, health, and happiness, 
 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 infinite 
 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 beside her and raised the 
 folds of her dress to his feverish lips. But she was 
 
OF MR. JOHN OAKHURST. 51 
 
 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. Oak- 
 hurst rose in his turn, cast one glance upon her, 
 and without another word passed out of her pre 
 sence forever. 
 
 When he had gone, she closed the window and 
 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 was 
 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. 
 
 "But I've heard dreadful news to night, Elsie," 
 said Mr. Decker, after a few endearments were ex 
 changed. 
 
 "Don't tell me anything dreadful, dear, I'm not 
 well to-night," she pleaded sweetly. 
 
 "But it's about Mr. Oakhurst and Hamilton." 
 
 "Please!" Mr. Decker could not resist the peti 
 tionary grace of those white hands and that sen- 
 sitive mouth, and took her to his arms. Suddenly 
 he said, "What's that?" 
 
 He was pointing to the bosom of her white 
 
 4* i 
 
52 A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN OAKHURSt. 
 
 dress. Where Mr. Oakhurst had touched her there 
 was a spot of blood. 
 
 It was nothing; she had slightly cut her hand in 
 closing the window; it shut so hard! If Mr. Decker 
 had remembered to close and bolt the shutter be 
 fore he went out, he might have saved her this. 
 There was such a genuine irritability 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 marital confidence still lingering above the pair, 
 with the reader's permission we will leave them and 
 return to Mr. Oakhurst. 
 
 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 incautious 
 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. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IT was nearly two o'clock in the morning. The 
 lights were out in Robinson's Hall, where there had 
 been dancing and revelry, and the moon, riding 
 high, painted the black windows with silver. The 
 cavalcade that an hour ago had shocked the sedate 
 pines with song and laughter, were all dispersed; 
 one enamored 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. 
 
 I regret that I am not able to indicate the exact 
 stage of that process. Two chairs were already 
 filled with delicate enwrappings and white confu 
 sion, 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 garment that makes all women equal, 
 and the round shoulders and neat waist that an 
 hour ago had been so fatal to the peace of mind 
 of Four Forks had utterly disappeared. The face 
 
54 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 abo\^e 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 frankness to one of 
 her lovers. 
 
 The expression of "The Rose" to-night was 
 contentedly placid. She walked slowly to the 
 window, and, making the smallest possible peep 
 hole through the curtain, looked out. The motion 
 less 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 anything." 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 waistless 
 calico gown, she had leaped from the tail-board 
 of her father's emigrant wagon when it first 
 drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild habits 
 of the Rose had outlived transplanting and cultiva 
 tion. 
 
 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. 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE* 55 
 
 "Why father is that you?" 
 
 There were further murmurs, affirmative, depre 
 catory, and persistent. 
 
 "Wait," said the Rose. She got up, unlocked 
 the door, leaped nimbly into bed again, and said, 
 "Come." 
 
 The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping 
 shoulders and 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 appari 
 tion was complete it closed the door softly, and 
 stood there a very shy ghost indeed > with ap 
 parently more than the usual spiritual indisposi*- 
 tion to begin a conversation. The Rose resented 
 this impatiently, though I fear not altogether in 
 telligibly: 
 
 "Do, father, I declare!" 
 
 "You was abed, Jinny," said Mr. McClosky, 
 slowly, glancing with a singular mixture of mas* 
 culine awe and paternal pride upon the two 
 chairs and their contents. "You was abed and 
 ondressed." 
 
 "I was." 
 
 " Surely," said Mr. McClosky, seating himself on 
 the extreme edge of the bed, and painfully tucking 
 his feet away under it, "Surely." After a pause he 
 rubbed a short, thick stumpy beard, that bore a k 
 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." E j& 
 
5& THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 "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 unabashed, 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 sup 
 pose it'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 
 reverie. 
 
 "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 Tuolumne ez 
 could strike it ez rich ez you hev even if they got 
 the chance." He paused again and then said, 
 "Jinny?" 
 
 "Yes, father." 
 
 "You'se in bed and ondressed?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You couldn't," said Mr. McClosky, glancing 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE, 57 
 
 hopelessly at the two chairs and slowly rubbing his 
 chin, "you couldn't dress yourself again could 
 yer " 
 
 "Why, father!" 
 
 " 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 neck-tie, or a shoe-string," he con 
 tinued, still looking at the chairs, and evidently 
 trying to boldly familiarize himself with their con 
 tents. 
 
 "Are you crazy, father?" demanded Jenny, sud 
 denly sitting up with a portentous switch 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. 
 
 "Jenny," he said, tenderly stroking the bed 
 clothes as he spoke, "this yer's what's the matter. 
 Thar is a stranger down stairs a 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; whisky 
 don't take no effect on him. Ever since I knowed 
 him he was the most onsatisfactory critter to hev 
 round " 
 
5& THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 "What do you have him round for then?" in^ 
 terrupted Miss Jinny, sharply. 
 
 Mr. McClosky's eyes fell. "Ef he hedn't kern 
 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 anything with him, 
 you might come down and sorter fetch him, Jinny, 
 as you did the others." 
 
 Miss Jenny shrugged her pretty shoulders. 
 
 "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. McClosky here appealed 
 submissively, but directly, to his daughter. He re 
 membered that she had frequently been in receipt 
 of printed elegiac couplets known as "mottoes," 
 containing inclosures 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 ani 
 mal. 
 
 "Not," continued Mr. McClosky, rubbing his 
 head reflectively, "not ez I'd advise ye, Jinny, to 
 say anything to him about poetry. It ain't twenty 
 minutes ago ez / did. I set the whisky 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 yourself in your own house and re- 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE 5Q 
 
 peat 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." 
 
 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 anything to him about it don't say 
 I was abed." 
 
 Mr. McClosky's face beamed. "You was allers 
 a good girl, Jinny," he said, dropping on one knee 
 the better to imprint a respectful kiss on her fore 
 head. But Jenny caught him by the wrists and for 
 a moment held him captive. "Father," said she r ^ 
 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 Robin 
 son 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 in 
 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 upon his 
 face. Mr. McClosky, apparently tracing out a pat 
 tern on the bed-quilt, essayed words of comfort: 
 
 "There ain't one of them gals ez you've named, 
 Jinny, ez could do what you've done with a whole 
 
60 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE, 
 
 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, may be, 
 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 deprecating 
 manner, said: "Don't be long, Jinny," smiled, and 
 vanished from the head downward, his canvas 
 slippers asserting themselves resolutely 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 cur 
 tain the way that the fugitive had escaped. Mr. Mc 
 Closky heaved a sigh of despair; he looked at the 
 gorgeous carpet purchased in Sacramento at a fa 
 bulous price, at the crimson satin and rosewood 
 furniture unparalleled 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 allure 
 ments, 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 fail 
 ure. It remained to be seen if the Rose herself 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 6 1 
 
 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 few feet of McClosky he 
 stopped. "You persistent old plantigrade,' 7 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? Are you asleep? You don't mean to 
 say that you have the audacity to add somnam 
 bulism 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 extraordi 
 nary 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 
 
62 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 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 in 
 clined 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 back 
 an hour ago," said Ridgeway, "as that savage-look 
 ing escort of hers, who has been haunting 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 we might mutually bore 
 each other." 
 
 Mr. McClosky was too much stunned by this 
 evidence of Ridgeway's apparently superhuman 
 penetration to reply. After enjoying his host's con 
 fusion for a moment with his eyes, Ridgeway'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 
 
,THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 63 
 
 something that by this time she might have out 
 grown and forgotten? That you have been, like a 
 besotted old ass, all these years slowly forging a 
 thunderbolt that any one may crush her with? 
 That" but here Ridgeway's cough took posses 
 sion of his voice, and even put a moisture into his 
 dark eyes, as he looked at McClosky's aimless hand 
 feebly employed upon his beard. 
 
 "But," said McClosky, "look how she's done. 
 She's held her head as high as any of '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 anything 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 |be 
 curtains and stepped out. She had dressed herself 
 simply and hurriedly, but with a woman's know 
 ledge of her best points, so that you get 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 delicate rose of her complexion, without 
 knowing how it was delivered to you. 
 
 The introduction by Mr. McClosky was tjrirf. 
 When Ridgeway had got over the fact that it was 
 two o'clock in the morning, and that the cheek 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 
 
64 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMN. 
 
 Miss Jenny, who from her childhood had been 
 brought up among the sons of Anak, and who was 
 accustomed to have the supremacy of our noble sex 
 presented to her as a physical fact, found herself 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 worshiping it, after the fashion 
 of woman, and casting before it the fetiches 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 some 
 thing 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 
 conception of womanhood, with a very sanguine 
 nature, he saw in each new face the possibilities of 
 a realization of his ideal. It was, perhaps, an un* 
 
THE ROSE OF TtfOLUMNE, 65 
 
 fortunate thing for the women, particularly as he 
 brought to each trial a surprising freshness which 
 was very deceptive, and quite distinct from the 
 blase 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 chivalrous protection as 
 of one likely to go astray unless looked after and 
 indulged in the dangerous 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 accompany him 
 to the cross-roads when the time of his departure 
 arrived. With her superior knowledge of woodcraft 
 and the locality, she would have kept him from be 
 ing lost. I wot not but that she would have pro 
 tected him from bears or wolves, but chiefly, I 
 think, from the feline fascinations of Mame Robin 
 son 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, deli 
 vered him as a trust into her hands. 
 
 It was a lovely night. The moon swung low 
 and languished softly on the snowy ridge beyond. 
 There were quaint odors in the still air, and a 
 strange incense from the woods perfumed their 
 young blood and seemed to swoon in their pulses. 
 Small wonder that they lingered on the white road, 
 that their feet climbed unwillingly the little hill 
 where they were to part, and that when they at last 
 
 Idyls of die Foothills. 5 
 
$6 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 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 moment she glimmered 
 through the trees, and then, reaching the house, 
 passed her sleeping father on the veranda, and, dart 
 ing 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 road, 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 recognized 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 ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 67 
 
 the little bed, the dressing-table, the roses that she 
 had worn last night, still fresh and blooming in 
 the little vase. Everything 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 straggling line 
 of black picket-fence below, that had faded away 
 with the stars, came back with the sun. What was 
 that object moving by the fence? Jenny raised her 
 head, and looked intently. It was a man endeavor 
 ing 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 in 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 
 
 5* 
 
68 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 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 hand 
 kerchief, 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 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 was 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 before her. And 
 then when she had laid her unconscious burden on 
 the sofa, the goddess fled, and a woman, helpless 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 69 
 
 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 his beard, 
 and say to himself, vaguely and incoherently, that 
 "Jinny had fetched him." 
 
70 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BEFORE noon the next day it was generally be 
 lieved throughout Four Forks that Ridgeway Dent 
 had been attacked and wounded at Chemisal Ridge 
 by a highwayman, who fled on the approach of the 
 Wingdam coach. It is to be presumed that this 
 statement met with Ridgeway'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 de 
 fective 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 introductory remark. In 
 deed, there was a general suggestion that Ridgeway's 
 presence was one that no self-respecting, high- 
 minded highwayman, honorably conservative of the 
 best interests 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 some details of the affray 
 that might offer a clue to his unknown assailant, a 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. Jl 
 
 subtle twinkle in his brown eyes was the only re 
 sponse. When Mr. McClosky attempted the same 
 process the young gentleman threw abusive epithets, 
 and eventually slippers, teaspoons, and other lighter 
 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 when 
 ever she entered the room in the discharge of her 
 household 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 the 
 veranda in a chair, that, with great archness 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, 
 
73 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE, 
 
 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 in 
 deed, so well, in fact, that he was able to leave for 
 San Francisco two days ago. "He wanted to be 
 remembered to 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 anything that pleased her more 
 than to know that he was so strong as to be able 
 to rejoin his friends again, who must love him so 
 much and be so anxious about him. Her father 
 thought she would be pleased, and now that he was 
 gone there was really no necessity 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 presence had become distasteful at home 
 if her own father was desirous of getting rid of 
 her df, when she was so soon to leave his roof 
 forever, 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 anything of the kind. I 
 thought that you " "Never mind, father," inter 
 rupted Jenny, magnanimously, "you misunderstood 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 73 
 
 me; of course you did, you couldn't help it you're 
 a MAN!" 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, for 
 gave 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 occasionally with 
 timid, diffident feet. Sometimes he came upon her 
 suddenly at her household tasks with an excuse so 
 palpably false, 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, 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, looking past her father's eyes, and lifting his 
 grizzled 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 her 
 self 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 
 
74 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 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 face- 
 tiousness carefully preserved throughout the entire 
 narration, and the point utterly ignored and forgotten. 
 Certain incidents reminded him of funny things, 
 which invariably turned out to have not the slightest 
 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 edification. He essayed the singing 
 of melodies with great freedom of style and singular 
 limitation of note. He sang "Come, Haste to the 
 Wedding, 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 presence 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 foreman, "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 in on Jack afore I go. 
 I'll be back in a week. Good-by." 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 75 
 
 "Good-by." He still held her hand 4Presently 
 he drew her back into the room, closing 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 uncom 
 mon, 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 residence 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 business, but 
 strictly private, seems to be about as nat'ral a thing 
 as a man can do." This introduction, evidently 
 the result of some study and plainly committed to 
 memory, seemed so satisfactory 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- 
 tuckian with whom even the trifles of life were 
 evidently full of serious import waited with a kind 
 of chivalrous respect the further speech of his guest. 
 Being utterly devoid of any sense of the ridiculous, 
 he always accepted Mr. McClosky as a grave fact, 
 
2 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 singular only from his own want of experience of 
 the class. 
 
 "Ores is running light now," said Mr. McClosky, 
 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 suggestion. 
 
 "You don't reckon on having any trouble with 
 any of them chaps ez 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. 
 
 "Surely," said Mr. McClosky, with a peculiar 
 winking of the eye. After a pause, he took a fresh 
 departure from his valise. 
 
 "A few words, John, ez between man and man, 
 ez. between my daughter's father and her husband 
 who expects to be, is about the thing, I take it, as 
 is fair and square. I kern here to say them. 
 They're about Jinny, my gal." 
 
 Ashe's grave face brightened, to Mr. McClosky's 
 evident discomposure. 
 
 "Maybe I should have said, about her mother; 
 but the same bein' a stranger to you, I says, nater- 
 ally, ' Jinny.'" 
 
 Ashe nodded courteously. Mr. McClosky, with 
 bis eyes on his valise, went on: 
 
 "It is sixteen year ago as I married Mrs. Mc 
 Closky in the State of Missouri. She let on, at the 
 time, to be a widder a widder with one child. 
 
ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 77 
 
 When I say let on, I mean to imply that I sub- 
 sekently 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 disposition to 
 smash furniture and heave knives around, an in 
 clination to howl when drunk, and that frequent; a 
 habitooal use of vulgar language, and a tendency 
 to cuss the casooal visitor, seemed to pint," added 
 Mr. McClosky with submissive hesitation "thet 
 she was so to speak quite onsuited to the mar 
 riage relation in its holiest aspeck." 
 
 "Damnation! Why didn't" burst out John 
 Ashe, erect and furious. 
 
 "At the end of two year," continued Mr. Mc 
 Closky, still intent on the valise, "I allowed I'd get 
 a diworce. Et about thet time, however, Providence 
 sends a circus into thet town and a feller ez rode 
 three bosses to onct. Hevin' allez a taste for ath 
 letic 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." 
 
78 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 "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. Mc- 
 Closky's eyes left the valise and followed him curi 
 ously. "Where is this woman?" demanded Ashe, 
 suddenly. McClosky's eyes sought the valise again. 
 .*ftt "She went to Kansas; from Kansas she went 
 into Texas. From Texas she eventooally came to 
 Californy. Being here, I've purvided her 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. McClosky, with conscien 
 tious caution, "I can't say how she gets on. On 
 the bills she looks well. Thar is a poster" said 
 Mr. McClosky glancing at Ashe, and opening his 
 valise, "thar is a poster givin' her performance at 
 Marysville next month." Mr. McClosky slowly un 
 folded a large yellow and blue printed poster, pro 
 fusely illustrated. "She calls herself 'Mam'selle J. 
 Miglawski the great Russian Trapeziste.'" 
 
 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 picked up the poster, carefully 
 refolded it and returned it to his valise. "When 
 you break off with Jenny," he said quietly, I don't 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 79 
 
 want anything 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 come to 
 your knowledge don't say what that makes 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 preposterous 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 apprehen- 
 
8O THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 sion, so that he fell to rubbing his beard almost 
 upon his very threshold. 
 
 Jenny ran into the hall, and seized her father 
 with a little cry of joy. "Father," said Jenny, in a 
 hurried whisper, "don't mind him 91 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 Ridge- 
 way 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 al 
 most the very words he had suggested. But a 
 sudden apprehensive recollection 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 same moment a quick, nervous footstep 
 was heard upon the veranda, the French window 
 flew open, and with a light laugh of greeting Ridge- 
 way stepped into the room. 
 
 Jenny's finer ear first caught the step, Jenny's 
 swifter feelings had sounded the depths of hope, of 
 joy, of despair, before he entered the room. Jenny's 
 pale face was the only one that met his, self-pos 
 sessed and self-reliant, when he stood before them. 
 An angry flush suffused even the pink roots of 
 Ranee's beard as he rose to his feet; an ominous 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 8 1 
 
 fire sprang into Ridgeway'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 with 
 drawing from the only spot where that man dare 
 confront me with safety." 
 
 With an exclamation of rage, Ranee sprang to 
 ward him. But as quickly Jenny stood between 
 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 Ridgeway, but he was igone. 
 So was her father. Only Ranee remained, with a 
 look of ill-concealed triumph on his face. 
 
 Without looking at him she passed toward the 
 door. When she reached it she turned. "You asked 
 me a question an hour ago. Come to me in the 
 garden at nine o'clock to-night and I will answer 
 you. But promise me first to keep away from Mr. 
 Dent; give me your 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. 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 6 
 
82 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 And even thus quietly the day wore away, and 
 the night rose slowly from the valley and over 
 shadowed the mountains with purple wings that 
 fanned the still air into a breeze, until the moon 
 followed it and lulled everything to rest as with 
 the laying on of white and benedictory hands. It 
 was a lovely night, but Henry Ranee, waiting im 
 patiently 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, midway, motionless in the moonlight. 
 
 It was she. But he scarcely recognized her in 
 the white drapery that covered her head, and shoul 
 ders, and breast. He approached her with a hurried 
 whisper. "Let us withdraw from the moonlight. 
 Everybody can see us here." 
 
 "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 traitor looks like!" 
 
 He recoiled more from her wild face than her 
 words. He saw for the first that her hollow cheeks 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 3 
 
 and hollow eyes were blazing with fever. He was 
 no coward, but he would have fled. 
 
 "You are ill, Jenny/ 7 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 assassin that you 
 are!' 7 
 
 "It was a fair fight, 77 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 coward that 
 you are! 7 ' 
 
 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!' 7 she said, with blazing eyes, throwing 
 her hands open before him. "Strike? Are you 
 afraid of the woman who dares you? or do you 
 keep your knife for the backs of unsuspecting men? 
 Strike! I tell you! No? Look, then! 77 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 omi 
 nous discoloration. "Look! 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! 
 
 6* 
 
84 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 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 christened 
 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! if you have 
 any pity on me for God's sake! 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! 
 
 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 over 
 in the dust, and across his writhing body two men 
 strode and caught her ere she fell. 
 
 "She has only fainted," said Mr. McClosky. 
 "Jinny dear, my girl, speak to me!" 
 
 "What is this on her dress?" said Ridgeway, 
 kneeling beside her, and lifting his set and colorless 
 face. At the sound of his voice the color came 
 faintly back to her cheek; she opened her eyes and 
 smiled. 
 
 "It's only your blood, dear boy," she said, "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 Ridge- 
 way 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 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 85 
 
 country side for leagues away gathered at her couch. 
 The wound, they said, was not essentially danger 
 ous, 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 Tuolumne happened to be 
 young and observing, and waited patiently an op 
 portunity to account for it. He was presently re 
 warded. 
 
 For toward morning she rallied and looked 
 feebly around. Then she beckoned her father to 
 ward her, and whispered, "Where is he?" 
 
 "They took him away, Jinny dear, in a cart. He 
 wont trouble you agin.' 7 He stopped, for Miss Jenny 
 had raised herself on her elbow, and was leveling 
 her black brows at him. But two kicks from the 
 young surgeon, and a significant motion toward the 
 door, sent Mr. McClosky away muttering, "How 
 should I know that 'he' meant Ridgeway," he said 
 apologetically, as he went and returned with the 
 young gentleman. The surgeon, who was still hold 
 ing her pulse, smiled, and thought that with a 
 little care and attention the stimulants might 
 be diminished and he might leave the pa 
 tient 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 disap 
 pointment that he found Ridgeway standing quietly 
 by the window, and his daughter apparently fallen 
 
&6 THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 
 
 into a light doze. He was still more concerned 
 when, after Ridgeway had retired, noticing a plea 
 sant smile playing about her lips, he said softly: 
 
 "You was thinking of some one, Jinny?" 
 
 "Yes, father" the gray eyes met his steadily 
 "of poor John Ashe!" 
 
 Her recovery was swift. Nature, that had seemed 
 to stand jealously aloof from her in her mental 
 anguish, was kind to the physical hurt of her favorite 
 child. The superb physique which had been her 
 charm and her trial, now stood her in good stead. 
 The healing balsam of the pine, the balm of resin 
 ous gums and the rare medicaments of Sierran 
 altitudes 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 Fran 
 cisco 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 passion that escapes the perfect 
 flower. Jenny thought the night was not as beauti 
 ful; Ridgeway, that the long ride had blunted his 
 perceptions. But they had the frankness to confess 
 it to each other, with the rare delight of such a 
 confession and the comparison of details which they 
 thought each had forgotten. And with this and an 
 
THE ROSE OF TUOLUMNE. 87 
 
 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." 
 
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 complexion, and a 
 certain languid grace which passed easily for gentle- 
 womanliness. She always dressed becomingly, and 
 in what Fiddletown accepted as the latest fashion. 
 She had only two blemishes: 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 editor of the Fiddletown 
 Avalanche had said privately that is was "an ex 
 aggerated dimple." Colonel Starbottle was instantly 
 "reminded of the beautifying patches of the days 
 of Queen Anne, but more particularly, sir, of the 
 blankest beautiful women, that, blank you, you ever 
 laid your two blank eyes upon. A Creole woman, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 89 
 
 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 fascination. 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 Fiddle- 
 town 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 
 skepticism. 
 
 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 experiences 
 of hers in that legal formality had made it perhaps 
 less novel and probably less sacrificial. I would 
 not have it inferred from this that she was deficient 
 in sentiment or devoid of its highest moral expres 
 sion. Her intimate friend had written (on the oc 
 casion of her second divorce), "The cold world 
 does not understand Clara yet," and Col. Starbottle 
 had remarked, blankly, that with the exception of 
 
QO AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 a single woman in Opelousas Parish, Louisiana, 
 she had more soul than the whole caboodle of them 
 put together. Few indeed could read those lines 
 entitled "Infelissimus," commencing. "Why waves 
 no cypress o'er this brow," originally 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 Fiddletown 
 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 news 
 papers that first attracted the attention of Tretherick. 
 Several poems descriptive of the effects of California 
 scenery upon a too sensitive soul, and of the vague 
 yearnings for the infinite 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 un 
 known poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly 
 conscious of a certain hidden sentiment in his own 
 nature, and it is possible that some reflections on 
 the vanity of his pursuit he supplied several min 
 ing camps with whisky and tobacco in conjunc 
 tion with the dreariness of the dusty plain on which 
 he habitually drove, may have touched some chord 
 in sympathy with this sensitive woman. Howbeit, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN,. QI 
 
 after a brief courtship 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. T. 
 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 different 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 deduction, was 
 impelled to a certain degree of unfaithfulness on 
 the same premise. Then Mr. Tretherick began to 
 drink, and Mrs. T. to contribute regularly to the 
 columns of the Avalanche. It was at this time that 
 Col. Starbottle discovered a similarity in Mrs. T.'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 Leu- 
 cadian 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. 
 
T/s poem, ostensibly written by the wife of a Dig 
 ger 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 unfortunate 
 rencontre took place on Monday last between the 
 Hon. Jackson Flash, of the Dutch Flat Intelligencer, 
 and the well-known Col. Starbottle of this place, 
 in front of the Eureka Saloon. Two shots were 
 fired by the parties without injury to either, although 
 is is said that a passing Chinaman received fifteen 
 buck-shot in the calves of his legs from the Colonel's 
 double-barreled 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 lucu 
 brations have often graced our columns, seems to 
 gain credence from those that are posted." 
 
 Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Trethe- 
 rick under these trying circumstances was fully ap 
 preciated in the gulches. "The old man's head is 
 level," said one long-booted philosopher. "Ef the 
 Colonel kills Flash, Mrs. Tretherick is avenged; if 
 Flash drops the Colonel, Tretherick is all right. 
 Either way he's got a sure thing." During this 
 delicate condition of affairs Mrs. Tretherick one day 
 left her husband's home and took refuge at the 
 Fiddletown Hotel, with only the clothes she had on 
 her back. Here she stayed for several weeks, during 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 93 
 
 which period it is only justice to say that she bore 
 herself with the strictest propriety. 
 
 It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs. 
 Tretherick, unattended, left the hotel and walked 
 down the narrow street toward the fringe of dark 
 pines which indicated the extreme limits of Fiddle- 
 town. 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 passing 
 through a belt of woodland. It was evidently the 
 exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the town; the 
 dwellings were few, ambitious, and uninterrupted 
 by shops. And here she was joined by Col. Star- 
 bottle. 
 
 The gallant Colonel, notwithstanding that he 
 bore the swelling port which usually distinguished 
 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. 
 
 "The coast is clear," said the Colonel, "and 
 Tretherick is over at Dutch Flat on a spree; there 
 is no one in the house but a Chinaman, and you 
 need fear no trouble from him. /," he continued, 
 with a slight inflation of the chest* that imperiled 
 
94 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 disinter 
 ested," 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. Trethe- 
 rick cast down her eyes, but not until they had 
 wrought their perfect and accepted 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 proceeded at once to in 
 form 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 
 his society, but, being deficient, madam, absolutely 
 deficient in this quality, he could not reciprocate. 
 But when two natures thoroughly in sympathy 
 despising alike the sordid trammels of a low and 
 vulgar community and the conventional restraints 
 of a hypocritical society when two souls in perfect 
 accord met and mingled in poetical union, then 
 but here the Colonel's speech, which had been re 
 markable for a certain whisky- and-watery fluency, 
 grew husky, almost inaudible, and decidedly in 
 coherent. Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have heard 
 something like it before, and was enabled to fill the 
 hiatus. Nevertheless, the cheek that was on the 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN, 95 
 
 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 foremost files had 
 been displaced to give freedom to the fenced in- 
 closure 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 further 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 stop 
 ped by a gesture. "Come for me in a couple of 
 hours, and I shall have everything packed,' 7 she said, 
 as she smiled and extended her hand. The Colonel 
 seized and pressed it with great fervor. Perhaps 
 the pressure was slightly returned, for the gallant 
 Colonel was impelled to inflate his chest and trip 
 away as smartly as his stubby-toed high-heeled boots 
 would permit. When he had gone, Mrs. Tretherick 
 opened the door, listened a moment in the deserted 
 hall, and then ran quickly up-stairs to what had 
 been her bed-room. 
 
 Everything there was unchanged as on the night 
 she left it. On the dressing-table stood her band 
 box, as she remembered to have left it when she 
 took out her bonnet. On the mantel 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 
 
96 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 slight 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 pre 
 cious dresses. These she inspected nervously, and 
 missing suddenly a favourite black silk from its ac 
 customed 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 feel 
 ing of thankfulness to a Superior Being who pro 
 tects 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 re 
 peated, "Is it mamma?" 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing 
 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 fore- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. Q7 
 
 head. For all this she was a picturesque little thing, 
 even through whose childish timidity there was a 
 certain self-sustained 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 as herself a 
 doll with a cylindrical head and features roughly 
 indicated with charcoal. A long shawl, evidently 
 belonging to a grown person, dropped from her 
 shoulders and swept the- floor. 
 
 The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick'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 an 
 swered sharply, "No, it isn't," and turned a severe 
 look upon the intruder. 
 
 The child retreated a step, and then, gaining 
 courage with the distance, said, in deliciously im 
 perfect speech 
 
 "Dow 'way then why don't you dow away?" 
 
 But Mrs. Tretherick was eyeing the shawl. Sud 
 denly she whipped it off the child's shoulders 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 avoid her, she 
 had dropped her doll, and, catching the woman's 
 skirts with both hands, was dancing up and down 
 before her. 
 
 "What's your name, child?" said Mrs. Trethe- 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 7 
 
98 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 rick, coldly, removing the small and not very white 
 hands from her garments. 
 
 "Tarry." 
 
 "Tarry?" 
 
 "Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline." 
 
 "Caroline?" 
 
 "Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick." 
 
 "Whose child are you?" demanded Mrs. Trethe 
 rick still more coldly, to keep down a rising fear. 
 
 "Why, yours," said the little creature with a 
 laugh. "Fm your little durl. You're my mamma 
 my new mamma don't you know my ole mam 
 ma'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 small gulp 
 she got the better of it and answered: 
 
 "Papa papa fetched me from Miss Simmons 
 from Sacramento, last week." 
 
 "Last week! you said three days just now," 
 returned Mrs. Tretherick with severe deliberation. 
 
 "I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift 
 in sheer helplessness and confusion. 
 
 "Do you know what you are talking about?" 
 demanded Mrs. T. shrilly, restraining an impulse 
 
.AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 99 
 
 to shake the little figure before her and precipitate 
 the truth by specific gravity. 
 
 But the flaming red head here suddenly dis 
 appeared in the folds of Mrs. Tretherick's dress, as 
 if it were trying to extinguish itself for ever. 
 
 " There now stop that sniffling ," said Mrs. 
 Tretherick, extricating her dress from the moist 
 embraces of the child, and feeling exceedingly un 
 comfortable. "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. T., 
 eyeing 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 the long doll after her 
 by one helpless leg. 
 
 "Doin up stairs to play and be dood, and not 
 bother mamma." 
 
 "I ain't your mamma," shouted Mrs. Tretherick, 
 and then she swiftly re-entered her bedroom 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 
 
 r 
 
1OO AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 hung; she scratched her soft hands twice with an 
 ambushed pin. All the while she kept up an in 
 dignant 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 fol 
 low 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 anything 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 gone East. Never* 
 theless 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 
 satisfaction in exaggerating her feelings. Surely no 
 woman had ever been so shamefully abused. In 
 fancy she 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 
 
AN EPISODE OF FJDDLETOWN. IOI 
 
 "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 Colonel Star- 
 bottle all this while, why didn't he come? He at 
 least understood her. He she laughed the reck 
 less, 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 fancied that 
 she heard, above the multitudinous small noises, 
 and creakings, and warpings of the vacant house, a 
 smaller voice singing on the floor above. This, as 
 she remembered, was only an open attic that had 
 been used as a store-room. With a half-guilty con 
 sciousness, she crept softly upstairs, 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 sun 
 beam she saw the child's glowing hair, as if crowned 
 by a red aureole, as she sat upon the floor with 
 her exaggerated doll between her knees. She ap 
 peared to be talking to it, and it was not long be 
 fore Mrs. Tretherick observed that she was re 
 hearsing the interview of a half-hour before. She 
 catechized the doll severely cross-examining it in 
 regard to the duration of its stay there, and gene- 
 
102 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 rally on the measure of time. The imitation of 
 Mrs. TVs manner was exceedingly successful, and 
 the conversation almost a literal reproduction, with 
 a single exception. After she had informed the 
 doll that she was not her mother, at the close of 
 the interview she added pathetically "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 it was for 
 this reason that this whole scene affected her most 
 unpleasantly, and the conclusion sent the blood 
 tingling to her cheek. There was something, too, 
 inconceivably lonely in the situation; the unfur 
 nished vacant room, the half light, the monstrous 
 doll, whose very size seemed to give a pathetic 
 significance to its speechlessness, the smallness of 
 the one animate self-centered figure, all these 
 touched more or less deeply the half-poetic sensi 
 bilities of the woman. She could not help uti 
 lizing 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 mo 
 ther's bier and the wind wailing in the turrets. 
 And then she suddenly heard footsteps at the door 
 below, and recognized the tread of the Colonel's 
 cane. 
 
 She flew swiftly down the stairs and encountered 
 the Colonel in the hall. Here she poured into his 
 astonished ear a voluble and exaggerated state 
 ment of her discovery and indignant recital of her 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 1 03 
 
 wrongs. "Don't tell me the whole thing wasn't 
 arranged beforehand for I 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." 
 
 "It's a blank shame!" stammered the Colonel, 
 without the least idea of what he was talking about. 
 In fact, utterly unable as he was to comprehend a 
 reason for the woman's excitement 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 unin- 
 telligently. Mrs. Tretherick for an instant ex 
 perienced a sickening doubt of the existence of 
 natures in perfect affinity. 
 
 "It's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with sud 
 den 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 / 
 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 un 
 faithfulness and malignity afforded by the damning 
 evidence of the existence of Tretherick's own child 
 in his own house. He was dimly aware, however, 
 of some unforeseen obstacle to the perfect expres 
 sion of the infinite longing of his own sentimental 
 nature. But before he could say anything, Carrie 
 
104 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 appeared on the landing above them, looking timidly 
 and yet half-critically at the pair. 
 
 "That's her,' 7 said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly. 
 In her deepest emotions, either in verse or prose, 
 she rose above a consideration of grammatical con 
 struction. 
 
 "Ah!" said the Colonel, with a sudden assump 
 tion 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 oc 
 curred to him that this action might be ineffective 
 with a child of six or seven. Carrie, 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. Never 
 theless, the Colonel was not vanquished. Falling 
 back into an attitude of respectful admiration, he 
 pointed out a marvelous resemblance to the "Ma 
 donna and Child." Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but 
 did not dislodge Carrie as before. There was an 
 awkward pause for a moment, and then Mrs. 
 Tretherick, 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 next moment was gone. 
 
 "Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick, with an 
 embarrassed voice and a prodigious blush, looking 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 1 05 
 
 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 call you mamma?" queried Carry, 
 looking up. 
 
 "And let you call me mamma!" assented Mrs. 
 Tretherick with an embarrassed laugh. 
 
 "Yeth," said Carry promptly. 
 
 They entered the bed-room 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. T. assented. Carry flew into the next 
 room, and presently reappeared, dragging a small 
 trunk, into which she gravely proceeded to pack 
 her clothes. Mrs. T. 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. Tretherick had been obliged to take Carry 
 upon her lap, pending the most confidential disclo 
 sures. 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. 
 
IO6 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 "You don't hold me right, mamma," said Carry 
 at last, after one or two uneasy shiftings of posi 
 tion. 
 
 "How should I hold you?" asked Mrs. Trethe- 
 rick, with a half-amused, half-embarrassed laugh. 
 
 "This way," said Carry, curling up into position 
 with one arm around Mrs. Tretherick's neck and 
 her cheek resting on her bosom; "this way there." 
 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 attitude. 
 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 resolutely put away all these years. 
 She recalled days of sickness and distrust, days 
 of an 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 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 1 07 
 
 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 undisturbed 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 that had in it nothing of age, 
 decay, or despair. 
 
 Col. Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown Hotel 
 all that night in vain. And the next morning, 
 when Mr. Tretherick returned to his husks, he found 
 the house vacant and untenanted except by motes 
 and sunbeams. 
 
 When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick 
 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' 7 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, how 
 ever, evaded the moral issue; that Mrs. Tretherick 
 had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown from her 
 dainty slippers was enough for them to know. They 
 
108 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 mourned the loss of the fair abductor more than 
 her offence. They promptly rejected Tretherick as 
 an injured husband and disconsolate father, and 
 even went so far as to openly cast discredit in the 
 sincerity of his grief. They reserved an ironical 
 condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that 
 excellent man with untimely and demonstrative 
 sympathy in bar-rooms, saloons and other localities 
 not generally deemed favorable to the display of 
 sentiment. "She was alliz a 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 stampede that theer colt, but she should 
 shake you, Kernel, thet she should just shake you 
 is what gits me. And they do say thet you jist 
 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. Trethe 
 rick prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a baby 
 over from the house to the stage offis, and that the 
 chap ez did go off with her thanked you and of 
 fered you two short bits and sed ez how he liked 
 your looks and ud employ you agin and now you 
 say it aint 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, how 
 ever, the Chinaman in Tretherick's employment, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. IOQ 
 
 who was the only eye-witness of her flight, stated 
 that she was unaccompanied except by the child. 
 He further deposed that obeying her orders he had 
 stopped the Sacramento coach and secured a pas 
 sage for herself 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 skeptical of the Pagan's ability to recognize 
 the sacredness of the truth admitted his passion 
 less, unprejudiced unconcern. But it would ap 
 pear from an hitherto unrecorded passage of this 
 veracious chronicle that herein they were mistaken. 
 
 It was about six months after the disappearance 
 of Mrs. Tretherick that Ah Fe, while working in 
 Tretherick' s lot, was hailed by two passing China 
 men. They were the ordinary mining coolies, 
 equipped with long poles and baskets for their usual 
 pilgrimages. An animated conversation at once 
 ensued between Ah Fe and his brother Mongolians 
 a conversation characterized by that usual shrill 
 volubility and apparent animosity which was at 
 once the delight and scorn of the intelligent Cau 
 casian who did not understand a word of it Such 
 at least was the feeling with which Mr. Tretherick 
 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 threw a stone at the 
 group and dispersed them. But not before one or 
 two slips of yellow rice paper marked with hiero 
 glyphics were exchanged, and a small parcel put 
 into Ah Fe's hands. When Ah Fe opened this, in 
 
IIO AN EPISODE OF FJDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 
 master. "Me no likee Fiddletown. Me belly sick. 
 Me go now." Mr. Tretherick violently suggested a 
 profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him placidly and 
 withdrew. 
 
 Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he acciden 
 tally met Col. Starbottle and dropped a few in 
 coherent phrases which apparently interested that 
 gentleman. When he concluded, the Col. handed 
 him a letter and a twenty-dollar gold piece. "If 
 you bring me an answer Fll double that Sabe, 
 John?" Ah Fe nodded. An interview equally ac 
 cidental, 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 proceed 
 ing some distance 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 condition 
 disposed of them to a brother Celestial 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 to him with his weekly clean clothes, and 
 i the subsequent discovery that the remaining portions 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 1 1 I 
 
 of his letter were circulated by the same method 
 from the Chinese laundry of one Fung Ti of Fiddle- 
 town, has been described to me as peculiarly affect 
 ing. 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 retributive justice in the difficul 
 ties 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 ad 
 dicted 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 arrested on suspicion of 
 being something or other, and discharged with a 
 severe reprimand possibly for not being it, and 
 so delaying the course of justice. At San Francisco 
 he was freely stoned by children of the public 
 schools, but by carefully avoiding these monuments 
 of enlightened progress he at last reached in com 
 parative safety the Chinese quarters, where his abuse 
 was confined to the police and limited by the strong 
 arm 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 
 
112 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 everything. 
 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 old persecutors, the school chil 
 dren, who, being released from studious confine 
 ment, at this hour 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 cottage. 
 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 
 passively on the threshold. 
 
 A woman who was sitting in the cold gray light 
 of the window, with a child in her lap, rose list- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FlDDLETOWN. 113 
 
 lessly 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 placidly. She evidently did not 
 recognize him as she began to count the clothes. 
 But the child, curiously examining him, suddenly 
 uttered a short glad cry, 
 
 "Why it's John! Mamma it's our old John 
 what we had in Fiddletown." 
 
 For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electri 
 cally 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 nervously 
 and looked hard at Ah Fe. Wanting the quick 
 witted instinct of affection that sharpened Carrie's 
 perception, she even then could not distinguish him 
 above his fellows. With a recollection of past pain 
 and an obscure suspicion of impending danger, she 
 asked him when he had left Fiddletown. 
 
 "Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee 
 Tlevelick. Likee San Flisco. Like washee. 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 apart 
 ment, saw that it was scantily furnished. Ah Fe, 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills 8 
 
114 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN* 
 
 without removing his eyes from blank vacancy, saw 
 that both Mrs. Tretherick and Carrie 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. 
 
 Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a 
 series of extraordinary contortions. After a few 
 moments he extracted from apparently no particular 
 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 contor 
 tions. At last his efforts were rewarded by his 
 producing, apparently from his right ear, a many- 
 folded piece of tissue paper. Unwrapping this care 
 fully, he at last disclosed two twenty-dollar gold 
 pieces, which he handed to Mrs. Tretherick. 
 
 "You leavee money top side of blulow, Fiddle- 
 town, 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 brows darkened. He drew away from 
 Mrs. Tretherick's extended hand and began hastily 
 to gather up his basket. 
 
 - "Me no takee back. No, no. Bimeby plees- 
 man he catchee me! He say, 'God damn thief 
 catchee flowty dollar come to jailee.' Me no 
 takee back. You leavee money top side blulow, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 115, 
 
 Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you. Me no takee 
 back." 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick 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 re 
 fusing it. So she said, "Very well, John, I will 
 keep it. But you must come again and see me" 
 here Mrs. T. 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 care 
 fully and slid quietly down stairs. In the lower 
 hall he however found an unexpected 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 attempt 
 ing 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 its own volition, the scarf began to 
 creep slowly 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 
 
 8* 
 
Il6 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his blouse. 
 Without betraying the least interest or concern in 
 this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated his experi 
 ments upon the lock. A moment later the table 
 cloth of red damask, moved by apparently the same 
 mysterious impulse, 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 sound of foot 
 steps upon the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten 
 his movements, but patiently shouldering his basket, 
 closed the door carefully behind him again, and 
 stepped forth into the thick encompassing fog that 
 now shrouded earth and sky. 
 
 From her high casement window Mrs. Tretherick 
 watched Ah Fe's figure until it disappeared 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 conscious 
 ness of a good deed that certain expansiveness of 
 the chest and swelling of the bosom that was really 
 due to the hidden presence of the scarf and table 
 cloth under his blouse. For Mrs. Tretherick was still 
 poetically sensitive. As the gray fog deepened into 
 night she drew Carrie closer towards her, and above 
 the prattle of the child pursued a vein of sentimental 
 and egotistic recollection at once bitter and danger 
 ous. The sudden apparition of Ah Fe linked her 
 again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the 
 dreary interval between she was now wandering a 
 
, AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. I lj 
 
 journey so piteous, wilful, thorny and useless, that 
 
 it was no wonder that at last Carrie stopped sud- 
 
 , denly 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 of un 
 alterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs. Tre- 
 therick'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 was soon exhausted. 
 At Sacramento she found that the composition of 
 verse, although appealing to the highest emotion of 
 the human heart, and compelling the editorial breast 
 to the noblest commendation in the editorial pages, 
 was singularly inadequate to defray the expenses of 
 herself and Carrie. Then she tried the stage, but 
 failed signally. Possibly her conception of the pas 
 sions 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 awa 
 kened 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 cultiva 
 tion, but singularly sweet and touching, and she 
 finally obtained position in a church choir. She 
 held it for three months, greatly to her pecuniary 
 advantage, and, it is said, much to the satisfaction 
 
1 r8 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN, 
 
 of the gentlemen in the back pews who faced to 
 ward her during the singing of the last hymn. 
 
 I remember her quite distinctly at this time. 
 The light that slanted through the oriel of St. Dives 
 choir was wont to fall tenderly on her beautiful 
 1 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 shutting of that small straight mouth, 
 with its quick revelation of little white teeth, and to 
 'see the 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 con 
 duct on Easter Sunday with the basso had attracted 
 the attention of the whole congregation, and that 
 she herself had noticed Doctor 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 hus 
 band, and that this red-haired child who sometimes 
 
.AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 came in the choir was not her own. The tenor 
 confided to me, behind the organ, that Mrs. Tre- 
 iherick had a way of sustaining a note at the end 
 of a line, in order that her voice might linger longer 
 with the congregation an act that could be at 
 tributed only to a defective moral nature; that as a 
 man he was a very popular dry-goods clerk on 
 week-days, and sang a good deal from apparently 
 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 responsible, and rather grieved 
 at its possession stood up for Mrs. Tretherick and 
 averred that they were jealous of her because she 
 was "bretty." The climax was at last reached in 
 an open quarrel, 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 husband and 
 the tenor. This act was marked intentionally to 
 the congregation by the omission of the usual so 
 prano solo. Mrs. Tretherick went home flushed with 
 triumph, but on reaching her room frantically told 
 Carrie 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 long lashes, 
 put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the 
 
I 2O AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 parlor. She stayed there two 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 Carrie. But she retained her place in the 
 choir. 
 
 It was not long, however. In due course of 
 time her enemies received a powerful addition to 
 their forces in the committeeman'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 Committee Mrs. 
 Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate 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, absorbed in 
 these unprofitable memories, Mrs. Tretherick still 
 sat drearily at her window. Even Carrie 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 some avenue of employment she knew 
 not what open to her needs, and Carrie had noted 
 this habit. 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 121 
 
 lit the lights and opened the paper. Her eye fell 
 instinctively on the following paragraph in the 
 telegraphic column: 
 
 "Fiddletown, 7th. Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident 
 of this place, died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Tretherick 
 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 
 Carrie. The child was absorbed in a book. Mrs. 
 Tretherick uttered no word, but during the remain 
 der of the evening was unusually silent and cold. 
 When Carrie was undressed and in bed, Mrs. 
 Tretherick suddenly dropped on her knees beside 
 the bed, and taking Carrie's flaming head between 
 her hands, said, 
 
 "Should you like to have another papa, Carrie, 
 darling?" 
 
 "No," said Carrie, 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?" 
 
 Carrie turned her sleepy eyes toward the ques 
 tioner. " Should you, mamma?" 
 
 Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots of 
 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. 
 
.122 AN EPISODE OF FlDDLETOWN. 
 
 "Don't ky, mamma/ 7 whispered Carrie, with a 
 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 astonishment, 
 Mrs. Tretherick was married. The happy bride 
 groom was one Col. Starbottle, recently elected to 
 represent Calaveras County in the legislative coun 
 cils 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. A. 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 fashion 
 able churches of San Francisco, where she com 
 manded a high salary." 
 
 The Dutch Flat Intelligencer saw fit, however, 
 to comment upon the fact with that humorous 
 freedom characteristic of an unfettered press. "The 
 new Democratic war-horse from Calaveras has lately 
 advented in the Legislature with a little bill to 
 change the name of Tretherick to Starbottle. They 
 call it a marriage certificate down there. Mr. 
 Tretherick has been dead just one month, but we 
 presume the gallant Col. 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. 
 
.AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. (12$ 
 
 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 epi 
 demic, the Colonel regarded him as a dangerous 
 rival. Fortunately, 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 valuable, he 
 withdrew from the field. 
 
 The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a 
 close by an untoward incident. During their bridal 
 trip Carrie had been placed in the charge of Col. 
 Starbottle's sister. On their return to the city, im 
 mediately on reaching their lodgings, 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 
 overcome 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 
 
124 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 exaggeration of port that increased with his inward 
 fear, and a growing thickness of speech, "I have 
 deferr I may say poshponed statement 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. 
 
 "I'll splain all in a minit," he said with a 
 deprecating wave of the hand, "everything shall 
 be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event wish 
 preshipitate our happ'ness the myster'us prov'nice 
 wish releash you releash chile! hunerstan? re- 
 leash chile. The mom't Tretherick die all claim 
 you have in chile through him die too. Thash 
 law. Whose chile b'long to? Tretherick? Tretherick 
 dead. Chile can't b'long dead man. Damn non- 
 shense 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 American 
 sis'n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator, and 
 'merikan sis'n to reshtore chile to suffrin mother 
 at any coss any coss." 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIUDLETOWN. 125 
 
 "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 suifrin p'rent. 
 Thash so!" 
 
 Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The Colonel 
 felt his chest slowly collapsing but steadied him 
 self against a chair, and endeavored to beam with 
 chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with magisterial 
 firmness upon her as she sat. 
 
 "Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex, but 
 conshider situashun. Conshider m'ors feelings 
 conshider my feelin's." The Colonel paused, and 
 flourishing a white handkerchief placed it negligently 
 in his breast, and then smiled tenderly above it, as 
 over laces and ruffles, on the woman before him. 
 "Why should dark shedder 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. "JW" 
 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! 
 Your 
 
 She choked up, and then dashed past him into 
 the inner room which had been Carrie's; then she 
 swept by him again into her own bed-room, and 
 then suddenly reappeared before him erect, menac 
 ing, with a burning fire over her cheek-bones, a 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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. If you ever 
 expect to speak to me again to touch me you 
 must bring her back. For 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. Colonel Starbottle, although no 
 coward, stood in superstitious fear of an angry 
 woman, and recoiling as she swept by, lost his un 
 steady foothold and rolled helplessly on the sofa. 
 Here, after one or two unsuccessful attempts to re 
 gain his foothold, he remained, uttering from time 
 to time profane but not entirely coherent or intel 
 ligible protests, until at last he succumbed to the 
 exhausting quality of his emotions, and the narcotic 
 quantity of his potations. 
 
 Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly 
 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?' 7 But the epithet now stung her to the 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 12 7 
 
 quick, and with a quick, passionate gesture she 
 dashed it away with a tear that had gathered in her 
 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 passionately 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 better to see it through her now stream 
 ing eyes. Here she was taken with a sudden fit of 
 coughing that she could not stifle with the hand 
 kerchief 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, an 
 other on her handkerchief and still another on the 
 white counterpane of the bed. 
 
 The wind had risen, rattling the window sashes, 
 and swaying the white curtains in a ghostly way. 
 Later, a gray fog stole softly over the roofs, sooth 
 ing the wind-roughened surfaces, and enwrapping 
 all things in an uncertain light and a measureless 
 peace. She lay there very quiet, for all her 
 troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on the 
 other side of the bolted door the gallant bride 
 groom, from his temporary couch, snored peace 
 fully. 
 
128 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 driv 
 ing snow-storm that had whitened every windward 
 hedge, bush, wall and telegraph pole, played around 
 this soft Italian capital, 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 misshapen 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 pro 
 ceed to a pleasanter location. But the pride of 
 Genoa the great Crammer Institute for Young 
 Ladies stretched its bare brick length and reared 
 its cupola plainly from the bleak Parnassian hill 
 above the principal avenue. There was no evasion 
 in the Crammer Institute of the fact that it was a 
 public institution. A visitor upon its doorstep, a 
 pretty face at its window, were clearly visible all 
 over the township. 
 
 The shriek of the engine of the 4 o'clock 
 Northern express brought but few of the usual 
 loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger 
 alighted and was driven away in the solitary wait- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN . I2Q 
 
 ing sleigh toward the Genoa Hotel. And then the 
 train sped away again with that passionate indif 
 ference 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 station master went home. 
 
 The locomotive whistle however awakened the 
 guilty consciousness of three young ladies of the 
 Crammer Institute who were even then surrepti 
 tiously 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 for 
 mality and flirted informally during service with 
 the village beaux; they received the best and most 
 judicious instruction during school hours, and de 
 voured the trashiest novels during recess. The re 
 sult 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, ex 
 hilarated by the exuberant 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 equivoca 
 tion. 
 
 "Four o'clock! girls, and if we're not back to 
 prayers by five we'll be missed," said the tallest of 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 9 
 
I3O N EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 these foolish virgins, with an aquiline nose and cer 
 tain 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. "And the provisions, Carrie?" 
 Carrie showed a suspicious parcel filling the pocket 
 of her sack. "All right, then. Come girls, trudge. 
 Charge it/ 7 she added, nodding to her host, as they 
 passed toward the door. "I'll pay you when my 
 quarter's allowance comes.' 7 
 
 "No, Kate,' 7 interposed Carrie, producing her 
 purse, "let me pay it's my turn." 
 
 "Never," said Kate, arching her black brows 
 loftily "even if you do have rich relatives and 
 regular 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 inex 
 perience 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 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 13! 
 
 grew less frequent, and tears began to stand in 
 Carrie's brown eyes. When they reached the road 
 again they were utterly exhausted. "Let us go 
 back," said Carrie. 
 
 "We'd never get across that field again/' said 
 Addy. 
 
 "Let's stop at the first house, then," said Carrie. 
 
 "The first house," said Addy, peering through 
 the gathering darkness, "is Squire Robinson's." 
 She darted a mischievous glance at Carrie that 
 even in her discomfort and fear brought the quick 
 blood to her cheek. 
 
 . "O 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 apology 
 from Mrs. Robinson, and hopes that the young 
 ladies may be excused this time. No," continued 
 Kate, with sudden energy, "that may suitj/ou but 
 I'm going back as I came by the window or not 
 at all." Then she pounced suddenly, like a hawk, 
 on Carrie, who was betraying a tendency to sit 
 down on a snow-bank 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 
 
 9* 
 
1J2 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 him they saw it was a man wrapped in a handsome 
 sealskin cloak, wearing a sealskin cap his face, 
 half concealed by a muffler of the same material, 
 disclosing only a pair of long moustaches and two 
 keen dark eyes. "It's a son of old Santa Glaus," 
 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 better 
 than I," he said; "where do you go in?" "Through 
 the back window," said Kate, with sudden and ap 
 palling 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. 
 "He certainly is a son of Santa Claus," 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 pro 
 ceeded to assist them to alight. There was still 
 some light from the reflected snow, and as he handed 
 his fair companions to the ground each was con 
 scious of undergoing an intense though respectful 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 133 
 
 scrutiny. He assisted them gravely to open the 
 window, and then discreetly retired to the sleigh 
 until the difficult and somewhat discomposing in 
 gress 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 woman 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 shining 
 quite cheerily in the eastern recitation-room the next 
 morning, when Miss Kate, whose seat was nearest 
 the window, placing her hand pathetically upon her 
 heart, affected to fall in bashful and extreme agita 
 tion upon the shoulder of Carrie her neighbor. "He 
 has come," she gasped in a thrilling whisper. "Who?" 
 asked Carrie sympathetically, who never clearly un 
 derstood when Kate was in earnest. "Who? why 
 the man who rescued us last night! I saw him drive 
 to the door this moment. Don't speak I shall be 
 better in a moment, there!" she said, and the shame 
 less hypocrite passed her hand pathetically across 
 her forehead with a tragic air. 
 
 "What can he want?" asked Carrie, whose cu 
 riosity was excited. 
 
 "I don't know," said Kate, suddenly relapsing 
 
134 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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!" returned 
 Kate scornfully; "you can never tell anything of 
 these men they are so deceitful. Besides, it's just 
 my fate!" 
 
 "Why Kate," began Carrie, in serious concern. 
 
 "Hush, Miss Walker is saying something," said 
 Kate laughing. 
 
 "The young ladies will please give attention," 
 said a slow perfunctory voice. "Miss Carrie Tre- 
 therick is wanted in the parlor." 
 
 Meantime Mr. Jack Prince, the name given on 
 the card and various letters and credentials sub 
 mitted to the Rev. Mr. Crammer, paced the some 
 what severe apartment known publicly as the "Re 
 ception Parlor," and privately to the pupils as 
 "Purgatory." His keen eyes had taken in the 
 various rigid details, from the flat steam "Radiator" 
 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 calli 
 graphic 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, 
 
'AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 135 
 
 so gratuitously and hideously remote as to chill all 
 human interest, to a large photograph 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 list 
 lessly the leaves of school catalogues, the sermons 
 of Dr. Crammer, the poems of Henry Kirke White, 
 the Lays of the Sanctuary and Lives of Celebrated 
 Women; his fancy, and it was a nervously 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 for 
 gotten the object of his visit when the door opened 
 and Carrie Tretherick 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 disappoint 
 ment, without knowing exactly why. Her abundant 
 waving hair was of a guinea-golden tint, her com 
 plexion of a peculiar flower-like delicacy, her brown 
 eyes of the color of sea-weed in deep water. It 
 certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him. 
 
 Without possessing his sensitiveness to impres 
 sion, Carrie 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 superficial appointments of 
 style, dress, manners and feature. Yet there was a 
 decidedly unconventional quality about him he 
 was totally unlike anything or anybody that she 
 could remember, and, as the attributes of originality 
 
136 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 ago, and you 
 were a very little girl. I am afraid I cannot even 
 claim to have enjoyed that familiarity that might 
 exist between a child of six and a young man of 
 twenty-one. I don't think I was fond of children. 
 But I knew your mother very well. I was editor of 
 the Avalanche in Fiddletown when she took you to 
 San Francisco." 
 
 "You mean my stepmother she wasn't my 
 mother, you know," interposed Carrie 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 in 
 terest 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 step 
 mother 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 Carrie 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 137 
 
 with great directness, and the faintest toss of her 
 head. 
 
 Mr. Prince smiled so sweetly, and apparently so 
 sympathetically, that Carrie began to like him. With 
 no other notice of the interruption he went on: 
 "After your stepmother had performed this act of 
 simple justice, she entered into an agreement with 
 your mother to defray the expenses of your educa 
 tion 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 al 
 ready aware of, and I believe knew at the time." 
 
 "I was a mere child, then," said Carrie. 
 
 "Certainly," said Mr. Prince with the same smile; 
 "still the conditions, I think, have never been op 
 pressive 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 2Oth, I think, of the pre 
 sent month." 
 
 Carrie 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 wish to see 
 her before you make up your mind, she will be 
 glad to meet you. She does not, however, wish to 
 do anything to influence your judgment." 
 
138 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 "Does mother know she is coming?" said Carrie 
 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 permission. Mrs. Star- 
 bottle 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 Carrie, after 
 a pause. 
 
 "Col. Starbottle is dead your stepmother is 
 again a widow." 
 
 "Dead," repeated Carrie. 
 
 "Yes," replied Mr. Prince, "your stepmother 
 has been singularly unfortunate in surviving her af 
 fections." 
 
 Carrie did not know what he meant, and looked 
 so. Mr. Prince smiled reassuringly. 
 
 Presently Carrie 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 moustache, "I am afraid you are tak 
 ing this too deeply. It will be some days before 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 139 
 
 you are called upon to make a decision. Let us 
 talk of something else. I hope you caught no cold 
 last evening." 
 
 Carrie's face shone out again in dimples. 
 
 "You must have thought us so queer! 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 Carrie'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 all, 
 as Mr. Jack Prince entered the outskirts of the town 
 and drove towards his hotel. He was wearied and 
 cynical; a drive of a dozen miles through un- 
 picturesque outlying villages, past small economic 
 farmhouses and hideous villas that violated his 
 fastidious taste, had, I fear, left that gentleman in a 
 captious state of mind. He would have even avoided 
 his taciturn landlord as he drove up to the door, 
 but that functionary 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. 
 
140 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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. Her cheek-bones were painted that after 
 noon 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 hair was still left; it was finer, more 
 silken and ethereal, yet it failed even in its pleni 
 tude to cover the hollows of the blue -veined 
 temples. 
 
 "Clara," said Jack reproachfully. 
 
 "Oh, forgive me, Jack," she said, falling into a 
 chair but still clinging to his hand, "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 so sweet to feel that I am at last 
 near her that I breathe the same air with my dar 
 ling 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 everything, Jack. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 14! 
 
 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 al 
 ready perhaps ' she had risen with tremulous 
 excitement, and was glancing at the door. "Per 
 haps 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 per 
 haps but she would have deemed them capable of. 
 " Clara," he said, gently and cheerily, "try and 
 compose yourself. You are trembling now with the 
 fatigue and excitement of your journey. I have 
 seen Carrie she is well and beautiful! Let that 
 suffice you now." 
 
 His gentle firmness composed and calmed her 
 now as it had often done before. Stroking her 
 thin hand, he said after a pause, "Did Carrie ever 
 write to you?" 
 
 "Twice thanking me 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 Carrie thought you were poor and unable 
 to support her properly it might influence her de- 
 
142 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 cision. 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, "But," 
 she said eagerly, grasping Jack's hand, "when you 
 found me sick and helpless at Sacramento when 
 you God bless you for it, Jack! offered to help 
 me to the East, you said you knew of something 
 you had some plan that would make me and 
 Carrie independent." 
 
 "Yes," said Jack, hastily, "but I want you to get 
 strong and 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 en 
 tirely imaginary, still I fear exhibited that genius 
 which ten years ago had made the columns of the 
 Fiddletown Avalanche at once fascinating and in 
 structive. It was not until he saw the heightening 
 color and heard the quick breathing of his eager 
 listener that he felt a pang of self-reproach. "God 
 help her and forgive me," he muttered between his 
 clenched teeth, "but how can I tell her all now!" 
 
 That night when Mrs. Starbottle laid her weary 
 head upon her pillow she tried to picture to herself 
 Carrie at the same moment sleeping peacefully in 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 143 
 
 the great school-house 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 Carrie 
 was sitting on the 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 
 counterpane, her black eyes sparkling, and her 
 thorough-bred nose thrown high in air, stood over 
 her like a wrathful and indignant ghost. For Carrie 
 had that evening imparted her woes and her history 
 to Miss Kate, and that young lady had "proved 
 herself no friend,' 7 by falling into a state of fiery 
 indignation over Carrie's "ingratitude," and openly 
 and shamelessly espousing the claims of Mrs. Star- 
 bottle. "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. Re 
 spectability forsooth! look you! my family are cen 
 turies 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 Carrie. 
 
 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 afterwards ex 
 pressed it, instantly "went for her." 
 
 First with a shake of her head she threw her 
 
144 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 long black hair over one shoulder, then dropping 
 one end of the counterpane from the other like a 
 vestal tunic, she stepped before Carrie with a pur 
 posely exaggerated classic stride. "And what if I 
 have, Miss? What if I happen to know a gentle 
 man when I see him? What if I happen to know 
 that among a thousand such traditional, conven 
 tional, feeble editions of their grandfathers as Mr. 
 Harry Robinson, you cannot find one original, in 
 dependent, individualized gentleman like your 
 Prince! Go to bed, Miss! and pray to Heaven that 
 he may be your Prince indeed ! Ask to have a con 
 trite and grateful heart, and thank the Lord in 
 particular for having sent you such a friend as Kate 
 Van Corlear." Yet after an imposing dramatic 
 exit, she reappeared the next moment as a straight 
 white flash, kissed Carrie between the brows, and 
 was gone. 
 
 The next day was a weary one to Jack Prince. 
 He was convinced in his mind that Carrie would 
 not come, yet to keep this consciousness from Mrs. 
 Starbottle, to meet her simple hopefulness with an 
 equal degree of apparent faith, was a hard and dif 
 ficult task. He would have tried to divert her 
 mind by taking her on a long drive, but she was 
 fearful that Carrie might come during her absence, 
 and her 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 directly to his 
 inner consciousness. He began to doubt the ex- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 145 
 
 pediency and wisdom of his management; he re 
 called every incident of his interview with Carrie, 
 and half believed that its failure was due to him 
 self. Yet Mrs. Starbottle was very patient and 
 confident; her very confidence 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 elaborate pleasant plans for the future, and 
 would sketch a country home. She had taken a 
 strange fancy, as it seemed to Prince, to the pre 
 sent location, but it was notable that the future al 
 ways 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 
 cigars that he did not smoke, talk with men that he 
 did not 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 wander 
 ing flakes of snow. She was still content and hope 
 ful, 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, Carrie was 
 probably kept closely at her lessons during the 
 day, and could only leave the school at night. So 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. IO 
 
146 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 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 toilette 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 landlord, saying 
 that the doctor would like to see him for a moment 
 down stairs. As Jack entered 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 plea 
 santly said: 
 
 "Oh, it's all right. I'm the doctor." 
 
 The hood was thrown back, and Prince saw the 
 shining black hair and black audacious eyes of 
 Kate Van Corlear. 
 
 "Don't ask any questions. I'm the doctor, and 
 there's my prescription," and she pointed to the 
 half- frightened, half-sobbing Carrie in the corner; 
 "to be taken at once!" 
 
 "Then Mrs. Tretherick has given her permis 
 sion?" 
 
 "Not much, if I know the sentiments of that 
 lady," replied Kate, saucily. 
 
 "Then how did you get away?" asked Prince 
 gravely. 
 
 "Bv THE WINDOW." 
 
 When Mr. Prince had left Carrie in the arms of 
 her stepmother, he returned to the parlor. 
 
 "Well?" demanded Kate. 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 147 
 
 "She will stay -you will, I hope, also, to 
 night." 
 
 "As I shall not be eighteen and my own mis 
 tress on the 2Oth, and as I haven't a sick step 
 mother, I won't." 
 
 "Then you will give me the pleasure of seeing 
 you safely through the window again?" 
 
 When Mr. Prince returned an hour later, he 
 found Carrie 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 indignant, 
 the Rev. Asa Crammer, Principal, injured, and Mr. 
 Joel Robinson, Senior, complacently respectable, 
 called upon Mr. Prince. There was a stormy meet 
 ing, ending in a demand for Carrie. "We certainly 
 cannot admit of this interference," said Mrs. Tre 
 therick, a fashionably-dressed, indistinctive-looking 
 woman; "it is several days before the expiration of 
 our agreement, and we do not feel, imder the cir 
 cumstances, justified in releasing Mrs. Starbottle 
 from its conditions." "Until the expiration of the 
 school term, we must consider Miss Tretherick 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," sug 
 gested Mr. Robinson. 
 
 In vain Mr. Prince urged the failing condition 
 
 10* 
 
148 AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 of Mrs. Starbottle, her absolute freedom from com 
 plicity with Carrie's flight, the pardonable and na 
 tural 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 danger 
 ous look in his eye, but a singular calmness in his 
 speech, he added: 
 
 "One word more. It becomes my duty to in 
 form you of a circumstance which would certainly 
 justify me, as an executor of the late Mr. Trethe- 
 rick, in fully resisting your demands. A few months 
 after Mr. Tretherick's death, through the agency of 
 a Chinaman in his employment, 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 
 prevented 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 Carrie and her stepmother, with 
 the explicit condition that Mrs. Starbottle shall 
 become her legal guardian, provide for her edu 
 cation, 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 judi- 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 149 
 
 cious 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 car 
 rying out the intentions of my dead husband," 
 added Mrs. Tretherick, and the interview was 
 closed. 
 
 When its result was made known to Mrs. Star- 
 bottle, she raised Jack's hand to her feverish 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 forma 
 lities were concluded, and Carrie was restored to 
 her stepmother. At Mrs. Starbottle's request a 
 small house in the outskirts of the town was pro 
 cured, and thither they removed to wait the spring 
 and Mrs. Starbottle's convalescence. Both came tar 
 dily 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 experi 
 ence and of asking Carrie their names and seasons. 
 Even at this time she projected for that summer, 
 which seemed to her so mysteriously withheld, long 
 walks with Carrie through the leafy woods whose 
 gray, misty ranks she could see along the hill-top. 
 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 trea 
 sured by one of the members of this little house 
 hold, a little carol so joyous, so simple and so 
 innocent, that it might have been an echo of the 
 
I5O AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 
 
 robin that called to her from the window, as per 
 haps it was. 
 
 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 boun 
 teously overflowing with an awakening 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 
 doors. And there she lay, beatified and calm. 
 
 Wearied by watching, Carrie had fallen asleep 
 by her side, and Mrs. Starbottle's thin fingers lay 
 like a benediction on her head. Presently 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 something 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 
 dream, that you might find what I lacked in 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 
 
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN. 151 
 
 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 human 
 ity 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 flew away, and the 
 hand that they lifted from Carrie's head fell lifeless 
 at her side. 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT HOME. 
 
 I THINK we all loved him. Even after he mis 
 managed 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 responsibility on the old man oughter 
 be lynched.' 7 But the blacksmith was not a stock 
 holder, and the expression was looked upon as the 
 excusable extravagance of a large sympathizing na 
 ture, 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 re 
 gret that this misfortune would interfere with the 
 old man's long cherished 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 home after 
 the first rains. He was going home when the rains 
 were over. He was going home when he had cut 
 the timber on Buckeye Hill, when there was pasture 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 153 
 
 on Dow's Flat, when he struck pay-dirt on Eureka 
 Hill, when the Amity Company paid its first divi 
 dend, when the election 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 sere 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 towards going. Five years before he 
 had bidden good - bye to Monte Hill with much 
 effusion and hand-shaking. But he never got any 
 further than the next town. Here he was induced 
 to trade the sorrel colt he was riding for a bay 
 mare a transaction that at once opened to his lively 
 fancy a vista of vast and successful future specula 
 tion. A few days after, Abner Dean of Angel's re 
 ceived 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 
 correspondence was remarkable, "I am satisfied that 
 we are at last developing the real resources of Cali 
 fornia. 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 
 
154 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 the Eastern 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 gambling, as 
 it is absurdly called, is still in its infancy in Cali 
 fornia. 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 un 
 developed resources. His last letter was dated Vir 
 ginia 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 aggres 
 siveness 4 , that he had "always said he was going 
 home and now he had been there." Later he grew 
 more communicative, and spoke freely and critically 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 155 
 
 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 civilization. Still later he darkly 
 alluded to the moral laxity of the higher planes of 
 Eastern society, but it was not long before he com 
 pletely tore away the veil and revealed the naked 
 wickedness of New York social life in a way I even 
 now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxication, it ap 
 peared, was a common habit of the first ladies of 
 the city; immoralities which he scarcely dared name 
 were daily practiced by the refined of both sexes; 
 niggardliness and greed were the common vices of 
 the rich. "I have always asserted,' 7 he 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 California offered as a 
 means of natural salvation. "Perhaps," said the 
 Monitor, "we might add that Calaveras county offers 
 superior inducements to the Eastern visitor with 
 capital." 
 
 Later he spoke of his family. The daughter he 
 had left a child had grown into beautiful woman 
 hood; the son was already taller and larger than his 
 father, and in a playful trial of strength, "the young 
 
156 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 rascal," added Plunkett, 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 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 
 banister, says, "Don't want anything 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. "May be 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 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 157 
 
 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 at this 
 point he half-faced his auditors with a look that 
 was very effective. Indeed a few who had exhibited 
 some signs of skepticism and lack of interest at 
 once assumed an appearance of intense gratification 
 and curiosity as he 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 
 fixin's " 
 
 "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? Well?" 
 
 Either there was something irresistibly conclu 
 sive in this logic or else the desire to hear the re 
 mainder 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. 
 
158 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 "I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town, and 
 I bought a pair of diamond earrings 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 restaurant waiter and a parson. 
 'Skeesicks,' said I. He takes me in and pretty soon 
 my wife comes sailin' into the parlor and says: 
 1 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 forgot the name. 
 
 But all of a sudden a voice said, ' That's too thin,', 
 and in walked Melindy. '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!" 
 
 Emboldened by the laughter which followed his 
 description of the filial utterances of Melinda, he 
 again repeated her speech, with more or less elabora 
 tion, joining in with, and indeed often leading, the 
 hilarity that accompanied it, and returning to it 
 with more or less incoherency, several times during 
 the evening. 
 
 And so at various times, and at various places, 
 but chiefly in bar-rooms, did this Ulysses of 
 Monte Flat recount the story of his wanderings. 
 There were several discrepancies in his statement, 
 there was sometimes considerable prolixity of detail, 
 there was occasional change of character and scenery, 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 1 59 
 
 there was once or twice an absolute change in the 
 denouement, but always the fact of his having visited 
 his wife and children remained. Of course in a 
 skeptical community like that of Monte Flat a 
 community accustomed to great expectation and 
 small realization, a community wherein, to use the 
 local dialect, "they got the color and struck hardpan," 
 more frequently than any other mining camp in 
 such a community 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 un 
 profitable speculations; it was to him that the charms 
 of Melinda were more frequently 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 the 
 long, dry season were crumbling everywhere; every 
 where the dying summer had strewn 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, in- 
 
l6o A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 definable earthquake halo on the volcanic cones of 
 the further 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 everything 
 including the shriveled 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 windows. And on 
 such a night as this, the dust having, in some way, 
 choked the wheels of material progress in Monte 
 Flat, most of the inhabitants were gathered list 
 lessly in the gilded bar-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. 
 
 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 practical 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 footpads, 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 unhallowed 
 conspiracy to compel the Sheriff of Calaveras and 
 
A MOMTE FLAT PASTORAL, l6t 
 
 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 benefit of Eastern 
 readers even he looked grave and worn. When, 
 at last, Abner Dean of Angel's, who had been on a 
 visit to San Francisco, walked into the room, he 
 was, of course, victimized in the usual way by one 
 or two apparently 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. Nobody 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 responsibility 
 with a faint-hearted smile, said "yes," again, and 
 breathed hard. "Saw his wife and child, purty 
 gal?" said Abner, cautiously. "Yes," answered the 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 1 1 
 
1 62 A MOtfTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 man, doggedly. "Saw her photograph, perhaps?" 
 continued Abner Dean, quietly. 
 
 The man looked hopelessly around for support. 
 Two or three who had been sitting near him and 
 evidently encouraging him with a look of interest, 
 now shamelessly abandoned him and looked another 
 way. Henry York flushed a little and veiled his 
 brown 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 
 questioning, and was only humoring it from abstract 
 good feeling, returned "yes," again. 
 
 "Sent home let's see, ten thousand dollars, 
 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 surprise 
 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 Sonoja during the 
 whole of that three years. He was herding sheep 
 or tending cattle, or spekilating all that time, and 
 hadn't a red cent. Well it 'mounts to this that r 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 apparent in the 
 minds of his hearers. It was felt, for the first time, 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL, j6j 
 
 that there was a limit to practical joking. A decep 
 tion carried on for a year, compromising the sagacity 
 of Monte Flat was deserving the severest reproba 
 tion. Of course nobody had believed Plunkett 
 but then the supposition that it might be believed 
 in adjacent camps that they had believed him was 
 gall and bitterness. The lawyer thought that an 
 indictment for obtaining money under false pretences 
 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 something 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 chimisal 
 on the flanks of Heavy tree 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 hurried luncheons eaten standing, and 
 fluffy behind with the wool and hair of hurriedly 
 extemporized 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 of the twenty-four 
 hours when they are deemed least essential, Plun 
 kett' s clothes had gradually taken on the appearance 
 of a kind of bark or an out-growth from within for 
 which their possessor was not entirely responsible. 
 Howbeit as he entered the room he attempted to 
 
 n* 
 
164 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL* 
 
 button his coat over a dirty shirt and passed his 
 fingers, after the manner 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 aimlessly around a button, dropped help 
 lessly 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 apprehension, and then he 
 suddenly faced around. "It don't look as if we 
 were goin' to hev any rain much afore Christmas," 
 he said with defiant ease. 
 
 No one made any reply. 
 
 "Just like this in '52 and again in '60. It's 
 always been my opinion that these dry seasons 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 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 165 
 
 ez sez you haint 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, de 
 liberately placed himself beside Plunkett, and faced 
 the others. 
 
 "That man ain't here," continued Abner Dean, 
 with listless indifference of voice and a gentle pre 
 occupation of manner as he carelessly 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." 
 
 All rose as the two men, perhaps the least 
 externally agitated of them all, approached each 
 other. The lawyer stepped in between them. 
 
 "Perhaps there's some mistake here. York, do 
 you know that the old man has been home?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "How do you know it?" 
 
 York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on his 
 questioner and without a tremor told the only direct 
 and unmitigated lie of his life. "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 atten- 
 
I 66 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 .i - i '> > ' 
 
 tion from Plunkett, who, pale and breathless, 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 reck 
 less. 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 
 didn't? It ain't no lie; I said I was goin' 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 pho 
 tograph 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 en 
 countered those of York clear, gray, critical and 
 patient, and they fell again. 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL* 167 
 
 "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,' 7 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. But the revela 
 tion 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 con 
 fused brain that York had lied when he had 
 endorsed 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 recklessness 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? 
 O 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 
 nevertheless appeared to be half real and half 
 affected. 
 
l68 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 "Is that photograph hers," said York in a low 
 voice, after a slight pause. 
 
 "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, look 
 ing steadily in the old man's eye. 
 
 "Yes, of course," interposed Plunkett, hastily, 
 "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 
 
 "Didn't what?" said York, gently, for the old 
 man had stopped with a pale face and wandering 
 eye. 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "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 anything. 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. 
 
 "Gimme some whisky," he said presently, "and 
 dry up. You oughter treat anyway. Them fellows 
 oughter treated last night. By hookey I'd made 
 'em only I fell sick." 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 169 
 
 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 dreary. 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 
 his 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 
 mellbwed in its rugged outline and more thought 
 ful in expression, as he said: 
 
 "Go on, my boy." 
 
 "Have you a wife and daughter?" 
 
 "Before God I have!" 
 
 The two men were silent for a moment; both 
 gazing at the fire. Then Plunkett began rubbing 
 his knees slowly. 
 
 "The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much," he 
 began cautiously, "being a little on the shoulder, 
 you know, and wantin', so to speak, a liberal Cali 
 fornia education which makes, you know, a bad 
 combination. It's always been my opinion that 
 there ain't any worse. Why, she's as ready with 
 her tongue as Abner Dean is with his revolver, only 
 with the difference that she shoots from principle, 
 
J7O A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 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 Boston 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 firearms." 
 
 "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 anything '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 handkerchief 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 
 quite dry. Then he found his voice. 
 
 "She's a beautiful girl, beautiful though I say 
 it, and you shall see her, my boy, you shall see 
 her, sure. I've got things about fixed now. I shall 
 have my plan for reducin' ores perfected in a day 
 or two, and I've got proposals from all the smeltin' 
 works here;" here he hastily produced a bundle of 
 papers that felFupon the floor, "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 prospects, he 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 17 I 
 
 rambled on more or less incoherently, elaborating 
 and amplifying his plans occasionally even speak 
 ing of them as already accomplished, 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 Francisco 
 audiences nightly flashed up and passed away, as 
 such things are apt to pass, and even the cynical 
 smile on York's lips faded too. And then there 
 came a supplemental and unexpected 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 photograph slipped from its folds. It 
 was the portrait of a young girl, and on its reverse 
 was written, in a scrawling hand, "Melinda to Fa 
 ther." 
 
 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 angularities of 
 that youthful figure, its self-complacent vulgarity, 
 its cheap finery, its expressionless ill-favor. York 
 did not look at it the 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 
 
172 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 
 
 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 com 
 promises, of low pains and lower longings, of sor 
 rows that were degrading, of a grief that was piti 
 able. 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 confused instinct than a sentiment. 
 
 York folded it again carefully and placed it 
 beneath the old man's pillow. Then he returned 
 to his seat by the fire. A smile that had been play 
 ing upon his face, deepening the curves behind his 
 moustache and gradually overrunning his clear 
 brown 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 already 
 a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavytree Hill, 
 and the long, white track of the Wingdam road 
 was lost in outlying pools and ponds a hundred 
 rods from Monte Flat. The spent water-courses, 
 whose white bones had been sinuously trailed over 
 
A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL. 1 73 
 
 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 county has the yield been so satisfactory. 
 Our contemporary of the Hillside Beacon, who 
 yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) that our 
 best citizens were leaving town, in * dug-outs/ 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 over 
 take Hillside this season. And yet we believe the 
 Beacon man wants a railroad." A few journals 
 broke out into poetry. The operator at Simpson's 
 Crossing telegraphed to the Sacramento Universe: 
 "All day the low clouds have shook their garnered 
 fullness down." A San Francisco 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, etc." In 
 deed, there was only one to whom the rain had not 
 'brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In some 
 mysterious and darksome way, it had interfered 
 with the perfection of his new method of reducing 
 ores, and thrown the advent of that invention back 
 another season. It had brought him down to an 
 
I 74 A MONTE FLAT PASTORAL; 
 
 habitual seat in the 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 rumored 
 that some funds had been lodged with the land 
 lord, by a person or persons unknown, whereby his 
 few wants were provided for. His mania, for that 
 was the charitable construction 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 invita 
 tion extended frankly to every one with whom the 
 old man drank or talked. But one day, to every 
 body's astonishment, he burst into the bar-room, 
 holding an open letter in his hand. It read as fol 
 lows : 
 
 "Be ready to meet your family at the new cot 
 tage 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 Doctor 
 looked up significantly, after a pause. "It's a for 
 gery, evidently," he said, in a low voice; "he's 
 cunning enough to conceive it they always are 
 but you'll find he'll fail in executing it. Watch his 
 face! Old man," he said suddenly, in a loud, per* 
 emptory tone, "this is a trick a forgery and you 
 know it. Answer me squarely, and look me in the 
 eye. Isn't it so?" 
 
 
 
A "MONTE FLAT PASTORAI^. 175 
 
 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 silence and his ac 
 customed 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 Christ 
 mas, 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 him 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 
 deposited 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 
 
176 A MONTE FLAT 
 
 girl d'ye hear? She's in New York, with her mo 
 ther, 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! Let me go! 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. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 IT was at a little mining camp in the California 
 Sierras that he first dawned upon me in all his gro 
 tesque 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 probably re 
 turn 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 fol 
 lowed. 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 interlocutors, 
 who were even then just disappearing from my ho 
 rizon down the steep bank toward the river's dry 
 bed. I approached the edge of the bank. 
 
 Where could I wait? 
 
 O, anywhere; down with them on the river-bar, 
 where they were working, if I liked! Or I could 
 make myself at home in any of those cabins that I 
 found lying round loose. Or, perhaps it would be 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 12 
 
I 78 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 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, slug 
 gish air: 
 
 "Pla-a-y with the ba-by." 
 
 The lazy echoes took it up and tossed it lan 
 guidly from hill to hill, until Bald Mountain oppo 
 site 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 pas 
 sionately devoted to children as to import a luxury 
 so expensive. I must have been mistaken. 
 
 I turned my horse's head toward the hill. As 
 we slowly climbed the narrow trail, the little settle 
 ment might have been some exhumed Pompeian 
 suburb, so deserted and silent were its habitations. 
 The open doors plainly disclosed each rudely-fur 
 nished interior, the rough pine table, with the scant 
 equipage of the morning meal still standing; the 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 179 
 
 wooden bunk, with its tumbled and disheveled 
 blankets. A golden lizard the very genius of de 
 solate stillness had stopped breathless upon the 
 threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped impu 
 dently into the window of another; a woodpecker, 
 with the general flavor of undertaking which dis 
 tinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer 
 from the coffin-lid of the roof on which he was 
 professionally engaged, as we passed. For a mo 
 ment, 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 
 salutation. I think my horse understood as well as 
 myself that it was the cabins that made the solitude 
 human, and therefore unbearable, for he quickened 
 his pace, and with a gentle trot brought me to the 
 edge of the wood and the three pines that stood 
 like videttes before the Sylvester outpost. 
 
 Unsaddling my horse in the little hollow, I un- 
 slung 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 arti 
 culate 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 
 
 12* 
 
l8o BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 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 ex 
 pectation that I again turned toward 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. 
 
 But I found none of these. Here was the evi 
 dence of my friend's taste and refinement in the 
 hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the picturesque 
 arrangement of the fur skins that covered the floor 
 and furniture, and the striped serdpe* lying on the 
 wooden couch. Here were the walls fancifully pa 
 pered 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 
 
 * A fine Mexican blanket, used as an outer garment for 
 riding. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 1 8 1 
 
 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 bumble-bees outside the 
 canvas roof, the faint cawing of rooks on the oppo 
 site mountain, and the fatigue of my morning ride, 
 began to droop my eyelids. I pulled the serdpe 
 over me, as a 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 slumber, 
 of my inability to keep myself covered by the serdpe, 
 for I awoke once or twice, clutching it with a de 
 spairing 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 seeing it swiftly drawn under the 
 couch. At this point I sat up completely awake; 
 for immediately after, what seemed to be an exag 
 gerated 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 anything more irresistibly ludi 
 crous 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 fore-legs were 
 so disproportionately small, that in walking, its 
 
l%2 BABY SYLVESTER, 
 
 hind-feet invariably took precedence. It was per 
 petually pitching forward over its pointed, inoffen 
 sive nose, and recovering itself always, after these 
 involuntary somersaults, with the gravest astonish 
 ment. To add to its preposterous appearance, one 
 of its hind-feet was adorned by a shoe of Sylves 
 ter's, into which it had accidentally and inextricably 
 stepped. As this somewhat impeded its first im 
 pulse to fly, it turned to me; and then, possibly re 
 cognizing in the stranger the same species as its 
 master, it paused. Presently, it slowly raised itself 
 on its hind-legs, and vaguely and deprecatingly 
 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. Follow 
 ing 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 grey, deepening to black in his paws 
 and muzzle. His fur was excessively long, thick, and 
 soft as eider down; the cushions of flesh beneath, 
 perfectly 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-sheathed in his little 
 toes, there was not a single harsh outline or detail 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 183 
 
 in his plump figure. He was as free from angles 
 as one of Leda's offspring. 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 eye, as if he expected me to follow. I did 
 so, but the sniffing and snorting 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 cer 
 tain 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 unlike a 
 drunken sailor, I discovered that his long hair con 
 cealed 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 he climbed 
 a young sapling after my Panama hat, which I had 
 "shied" into one of the topmost branches; how 
 after getting it he refused to descend until it suited 
 his pleasure; how when he did come down he per 
 sisted 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 
 
184 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 at last, and finally discovered him seated on a table 
 in one of the tenantless cabins, with a bottle of sy 
 rup between his paws, vainly endeavoring to extract 
 its contents these and other details of that event 
 ful 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 immense 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 shot 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 his 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 per 
 fect gravity, stroking his hay-colored moustachios, 
 and evidently assuming his best expression. 
 
 I took leave of the baby early the next morning 
 in Sylvester's cabin, and out of respect to Pom- 
 poso's feelings, rode by without any postscript of 
 expression. But the night before I had made Syl 
 vester 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, 
 
SYLVESTER, 185 
 
 yet, old fellow, and I don't know of anything 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 Sylvester's 
 familiar hand. But it was post-marked "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 next six 
 months, or gone where cubs can't follow me East. I know 
 you love the baby; but do you think, dear boy, now, really, 
 do you think you could be a father to it ? Consider 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 this 
 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 a maniac. Let me know 
 by telegraph at once. SYLVESTER. 
 
 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 him 
 self, bald-headed, for interfering. 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 tricks. 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 tele- 
 
1 86 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 graphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester. When 
 I reached my lodgings late that afternoon, my land 
 lady was awaiting me with a telegram. It was two 
 lines from Sylvester: 
 
 All right. Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father 
 to him. S. 
 
 It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For 
 a moment I was staggered at my own precipitation. 
 I had as yet made no preparations, had said no 
 thing to my landlady about her new guest. I ex 
 pected to arrange everything 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-hearted 
 ness 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 Shakespeare's Athenian clown, Mrs. Brown, 
 believed that a lion among ladies was a dreadful 
 
 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 hur 
 riedly, "We must do something about this at once. 
 It's perfectly absurd, but he will be here at one to 
 night. Beg thousand pardons, but business prevented 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 187 
 
 my speaking before " and paused, out of breath 
 and courage. 
 
 Mrs. Brown read the telegram gravely, lifted her 
 pretty eyebrows, turned the paper over and looked 
 on the other side, and then, in a remote and chill 
 ing voice, asked me if she understood me to say 
 that the mother was coming also. 
 
 "O dear no," I exclaimed, with considerable re 
 lief; "the mother is dead, you know. Sylvester 
 that is my friend, who sent this shot her when the 
 Baby was only three days old " But the ex 
 pression of Mrs. Brown's face at this moment was 
 so alarming, that I saw that nothing 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 frightened 
 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 "hard- 
 heartedness." Still, I was not without some appre 
 hension. 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 clatter of horses' hoofs out 
 side, and with a jerk a wagon stopped at the door. 
 In an instant I had opened it and confronted a 
 
1 88 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 stranger. Almost 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 di 
 sheveled 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 aint frightened! On'y 
 ran away four timesh comin' here. Oh no! No 
 body's frightened. Everythin's all ri'. Aint it, Bill?" 
 he said, addressing the driver. "On'y been over 
 board twish; knocked down a hatchway once. 
 Thash nothin'! On'y two men unner doctor's han's 
 at Stockton. Thash nothin'! Six hunner dollarsh 
 cover all dammish." 
 
 I was too much disheartened to reply, but moved 
 toward the wagon. The stranger eyed me with an 
 astonishment that almost sobered him. 
 
 "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 bold- 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 ness I was far from feeling, walked to the wagon 
 and called "Baby!" 
 
 "All ri'. Cash loose them straps, Bill, and statf 
 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 ex 
 pression of stupid good humor had changed to one 
 of intelligent distrust. His intercourse with man 
 kind had evidently quickened his intellect without 
 broadening his moral 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 cot 
 tage and always spent my Sundays, the very next 
 day. And in the midst of a rosy picture of domestic 
 felicity, I fell asleep. 
 
IQO BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 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 himself 
 known, why should I disturb the house? I dressed 
 myself hurriedly, and slipped into the hall. The 
 first object that met my 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 carefully licked off. On the third floor 
 were two or three more boots, slightly mouthed; 
 but at this point Baby's taste for blacking had 
 evidently palled. A little further 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 pea-nut candy, 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. IQI 
 
 with a look of mingled guilt and infinite satisfac 
 tion. He even, I fancied, slightly stroked his 
 stomach with his disengaged fore-paw, as I ap 
 proached. 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 his guilt, 
 back to the scuttle, and descended on tip-toe to 
 the floor beneath. Providence favored us; I met 
 no one on the stairs, and his own cushioned tread 
 was inaudible. I think he was 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 syrup 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 sugar-plum, 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 scuttles; that being suddenly 
 alarmed, they had quitted our house without com 
 mitting any depredation, dropping even the boots 
 they had collected in the halls; but that a desperate 
 
ig2 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 attempt had been made to force the till in the con 
 fectioner's shop on the corner, and that the glass 
 show-cases had been ruthlessly smashed. A cou 
 rageous servant in No. 4 had seen a masked burglar, 
 on his hands and knees, attempting 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 curi 
 ously 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 obstrusive eccen 
 tricity 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 
 beckoned me mysteriously towards her. Then she 
 asked, in a low voice: 
 
 -"Is hair-dye poisonous?" 
 
 I was too confounded to speak. 
 
 "O do! you know what I mean," she said, im 
 patiently. "This stuff." She produced suddenly 
 from behind her a bottle with a Greek label so 
 long as to run two or three times spirally around it 
 from top to bottom. "He says it isn't a dys; it's 
 a vegetable preparation, for invigorating " 
 
BABY- SYLVESTER. 1 93 
 
 "Who says?" I asked, despairingly. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Parker, of course,'' said Mrs. Brown, 
 severely, with the air of having repeated 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 peace 
 fully 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 poisonous, 
 remedies might be used in time. Because," she 
 added suddenly, abandoning her lofty manner and 
 wildly rushing to the corner, with a frantic embrace 
 of the unconscious Baby, "because if any nasty 
 stuff should turn its boofull hair a horrid green or 
 a naughty pink, it would break its own muzzer's 
 heart, it would!" 
 
 But before I could assure Mrs. Brown of the in 
 efficiency of hair-dye as an internal application, she 
 had darted from the room. 
 
 That night, with the secrecy of defaulters, Baby 
 and I decamped from Mrs. Brown's. Distrusting 
 the too emotional nature of that noble animal, the 
 horse, I had recourse to a hand-cart, drawn by a 
 
 Idyls of tfie Foothills. 1 3 
 
IQ4 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 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 accompanying 
 the remains of some humble friend to his last rest 
 ing-place; and that, when I was obliged to ride in 
 it, I never could entirely convince 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 ap 
 proached me to ask for a light for his cigar, but 
 who suddenly dropped it and fled in dismay to the 
 gentlemen's cabin, where his incoherent ravings 
 were luckily taken for the earlier indications of 
 delirium tremens. 
 
 It was nearly midnight when I reached my little 
 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. 
 
BABY SYLVESTER. 1 95 
 
 In a week, with the exercise afforded him by the 
 run of a large, carefully-boarded enclosure, he re 
 covered his health, strength, spirits, and much of 
 his former beauty. His presence was unknown 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 purpose 
 wrote a number of formal invitations. After des 
 canting, at some length, on the great expense and 
 danger attending his capture and training, I offered 
 a programme of the performances of the "Infant 
 Phenomenon of Sierran Solitudes/' drawn up into, 
 the highest professional profusion of alliteration and 
 capital letters. 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. 
 
 '3* 
 
196 BABY SYLVESTER* 
 
 The morning of the exhibition came, but an 
 hour before the performance the wretched Baby 
 was missing. -The Chinese cook could not indi 
 cate his whereabouts. I searched the premises 
 thoroughly, and then, in despair, took 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 of Baby Sylvester. I returned, 
 after an hour's fruitless search, to find my guests 
 already assembled on the rear verandah. I briefly 
 recounted my disappointment, my probable loss, 
 and begged their assistance. 
 
 "Why/' said a Spanish friend, who prided him 
 self on his accurate knowledge of English, to Barker, 
 who seemed to be trying vainly to rise from 
 his reclining position on the verandah, "Why do 
 you not disengage yourself from the verandah 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 verandah with an evident 
 effort, "I am myself attached! Surely it is some 
 thing here!" 
 
 It evidently was. My guests were all rising with 
 difficulty, the floor of the verandah was covered 
 with some glutinous substance. It was syrup! 
 
 I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn; the 
 keg of "golden syrup," purchased only the day 
 before, lay empty upon the floor. There were 
 sticky tracks all over the enclosure, but still no 
 Baby. 
 
ABY SYLVESTER. 197 
 
 "There's something moving the ground over 
 there by that pile of dirt," said Barker. 
 
 He was right; the earth was shaking in one cor 
 ner of the enclosure like an earthquake. I ap 
 proached cautiously. I saw, what I had not before 
 noticed, that the ground was thrown up; and there, 
 in the middle of an immense grave-like cavity, 
 crouched Baby Sylvester, still digging, 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 try 
 ing to dry his syrup-besmeared coat, I never shall 
 know, for that day, alas! was his last with me. 
 
 He was pumped upon for two hours, at the end 
 of which time he still yielded a thin treacle. He 
 was then taken and carefully enwrapped in blankets 
 and locked up in the store-room. The next morn 
 ing he was gone! The lower portion of the win 
 dow 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-hills 
 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 
 
198 BABY SYLVESTER. 
 
 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 execrations 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 at 
 tracted 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 win 
 dow. The car was just moving on, when he sudden 
 ly 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! " 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 As I opened Hop Sing's letter, there fluttered to 
 the ground a square strip of yellow 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 literally 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 observe him not 
 
 too closely; inattention is often the highest form of civility. 
 Happiness, Peace and Prosperity. 
 
 HOP SING. 
 
 Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and 
 proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom was 
 
2OO WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing who was 
 that most somber of all humorists, a Chinese philo 
 sopher, 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 St. on Friday Evening at 8 o'clock. 
 A cup of tea at 9 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 Theater or Temple. This was in fact 
 the favorite programme of Hop Sing when he exer 
 cised his functions of hospitality 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 de- 
 liciously commingled mysterious foreign odor that I 
 had so often noticed; there was the old array of 
 uncouth looking objects, the long procession of 
 jars and crockery, the same singular blending of the 
 grotesque and the mathematically neat and exact, 
 the same endless suggestions of frivolity and fra 
 gility, the same want of harmony in colors that were 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 2OI 
 
 each, in themselves, beautiful and rare. Kites in 
 the shape of enormous dragons and gigantic butter 
 flies; kites so ingeniously arranged as to utter at 
 intervals, 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 sentiments 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 
 all 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 reader 
 to discharge from his mind any idea of a Chinaman 
 that he may have gathered from the pantomime. 
 He did not wear beautifully scalloped drawers 
 fringed with little bells I 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 sen 
 tence "Ching a ring a ring chaw," nor dance under 
 any provocation. He was on the whole, a rather 
 grave, decorous, handsome gentleman. His com 
 plexion, which extended all over his head except 
 
2O2 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 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 eye-lids set at an angle of 
 15; 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 astrakhan 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 equal 
 of this Pagan shop-keeper among the Christian 
 traders of San Francisco. 
 
 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 nondescript 
 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- 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 2 03 
 
 eigners but yourselves have ever seen. Wang, the 
 court juggler, arrived here yesterday morning. He 
 has never given a performance outside of the palace 
 before. I have asked him to entertain my friends 
 this evening. He requires no theater, stage acces 
 sories, or any confederate nothing more than you 
 see here. Will you be pleased to examine the 
 ground yourselves, gentlemen." 
 
 Of course we examined the premises. It was 
 the ordinary basement or cellar of the San Francisco 
 store-house, cemented to keep out the damp. We 
 poked our sticks into the pavement and rapped on 
 the walls to satisfy our polite host, but for no other 
 purpose. We were quite content to be the victims 
 of any clever deception. 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 ever 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 performance. I have a vivid re 
 collection of the Judge trying to catch one that had 
 lit on his knee, and of its evading him with the 
 pertinacity of a living insect. And even at this 
 time Wang, still plying his fan, was taking chickens 
 
204 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 out of hats, making oranges disappear, pulling end 
 less yards of silk from his sleeve, apparently filling 
 the whole area of the basement with goods that ap 
 peared mysteriously from the ground, from his own 
 sleeves, from nowhere! He swallowed knives to the 
 ruin of his digestion for years to come, he dis 
 located every limb of his body, he reclined in the 
 air, apparently upon nothing. But his crowning 
 performance, which I have never yet seen repeated, 
 was the most weird, mysterious and astounding. It 
 is my apology for this long introduction, my sole 
 excuse for writing this article, the genesis of this 
 veracious 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 nearest 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 monoton 
 ous chant, rocking his body to and fro in time with 
 the somewhat lugubrious air. 
 
 We sat still and waited. Above the chant we 
 could hear the striking of the city clocks, and the 
 occasional rattle of a cart in the street overhead. 
 The absolute watchfulness and expectation, the dim 
 
-WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 2 05 
 
 mysterious half-light of the cellar falling in a grew- 
 some way upon the misshapen bulk of a Chinese 
 deity in the background, a faint smell of opium 
 smoke mingling with spice, and the dreadful un 
 certainty of what we were really waiting for, sent 
 an uncomfortable 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 distinct and visible every 
 moment. The chant still continued, the perspira- 
 'tion 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 suddenly 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, even if his 
 audience was a small one; it was loud enough to 
 
206 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 awaken the baby a pretty little boy about 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 hand 
 kerchief 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 courte 
 ous inclination, "it was born here, you are its god 
 fathers." 
 
 There were two characteristic peculiarities of 
 any Californian assemblage in 1856; it was quick 
 to take a hint, and generous to the point of pro 
 digality 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 handkerchief 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 me it contained over a hundred dollars. 
 I knotted the money in the kandkerchief, and gave 
 it to Hop Sing. 
 
 "For the baby, from its godfathers." 
 "But what name," said the Judge. There was 
 a running fire of "Erebus," "Nox," "Plutus," "Terra 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 2C>7 
 
 Cotta," "Antaeus," etc., etc. 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 forme of "The Northern Star" for the 
 igth 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 manu 
 scripts, preparatory to going home, when I dis 
 covered a letter lying under some sheets of paper 
 which I must have overlooked. 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 observation and imitation. You have 
 only to show him how to do 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 god-fathers, for is he not Wan Lee, the re- 
 
2O8 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 puted son of Wang the Conjurer, to whose per 
 formances 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 froni 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 followed 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 education; 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 
 letter to Hop Sing. But where was "the bearer?' 7 
 How was the letter delivered? I summoned hastily 
 the foreman, printers and office-boy, but without 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 2OQ 
 
 eliciting anything; no one had seen the letter de 
 livered, nor knew anything 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 so 
 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 com 
 ing 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 moment 
 perplexed, and then snatching the letter out of my 
 hand, 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 reap 
 peared, smiled, looked at the letter and then at 
 me, said, "So, John," and then remained gravely 
 silent. I said nothing further, but it was under 
 stood that this was his first official act. 
 
 His next performance, I grieve to say, was not 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 14 
 
2IO WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 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 mistakes 
 he was shown over the route the previous evening, 
 and supplied at about daylight with the usual num 
 ber of subscribers' copies. He returned after ah 
 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 bed-room windows. They had received 
 them full in the face, like a base ball, if they hap 
 pened to be up and stirring; they had received 
 them in quarter sheets, tucked in at separate win 
 dows; they had found them in the chimney, pinned 
 against the door, shot through attic windows, de 
 livered 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 time at the office door, to have a 
 personal interview with Wan Lee (then comfortably 
 .locked in my bed-room), told me, with tears of rage 
 -in his eyes, that he had been awakened at five 
 o'clock by a most hideous yelling below his win 
 dows; that on rising, in great agitation, he was 
 -startled by the sudden appearance of "The North 
 ern 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 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 211 
 
 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 "The Northern Star" of that morn 
 ing's issue, were brought indignantly to the office. 
 An admirable editorial on "The Resources of Hum- 
 boldt County" which I had constructed the evening 
 before, and which, I have 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 quick 
 ness 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 gravest political sig 
 nificance. 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 confirming the printer's axiom that the 
 printer who considers or follows the ideas of his 
 copy makes a poor compositor. He would set np 
 deliberately 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 
 
212 -WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 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 remem 
 ber one instance in which his reprisal came very 
 near involving me in a serious misunderstanding. 
 Our foreman's name was Webster, and Wan Lee 
 presently learned to know and recognize the indivi 
 dual 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 Northern Star/' In a very sublime peroration 
 Col. Starbottle had said: "In the language of the 
 god-like Webster, I repeat," and here followed 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 quo 
 tation his. After the forme was locked up, Wan 
 Lee took advantage of Webster's absence to re 
 move the quotation, and substitute a thin piece 
 of lead, of the same size as the type, engraved with 
 Chinese characters, making a sentence which, I had 
 reason to believe, was an utter and abject confes 
 sion of the incapacity and offensiveness of the Web 
 ster family generally, and exceedingly eulogistic of 
 Wan Lee himself personally. 
 
 The next morning's paper contained Col. Star- 
 bottle's speech in full, in which it appeared that 
 the "god-like" Webster had on one occasion ut- 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN, 213 
 
 tered his thoughts in excellent but perfectly enig 
 matical Chinese. The rage of Col. Starbottle knew 
 no bounds. I have a vivid recollection of that ad 
 mirable 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 attainments, a knowledge 
 of Chinese might not have been among the num 
 ber? Are you willing to submit a translation suit- 
 able to the capacity of our readers, and deny, upon 
 your honor as a gentleman, that the late Mr. Web 
 ster ever uttered such a sentiment? If you are, sir, 
 I am willing to publish your denial." 
 
 The Col. was not, and left, highly indignant. 
 
 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 
 consciousness 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 trans 
 lation of that Chinese sentence which my gifted 
 countryman, the late god-like Webster, uttered 
 upon a public occasion." Wan Lee looked at me 
 
214 WAN LEE > THE PAGAN, 
 
 intently, and then 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 rne heap 
 sick.'" Which I have reason to think was true. 
 
 But I fear I am giving but one side, and not 
 the best, of Wan Lee's character. As he imparted 
 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 at 
 mosphere 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 skeptic, 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 \ip for a holiday, and willing to try virtue 
 as a diversion. I don't know that he had any spi 
 ritual 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 his intellect, 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN.. 215 
 
 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 be 
 come under more favorable conditions than the 
 bondsman of an over- worked, under-paid, literary 
 man, I don't know; I only know that the scant, irregu 
 lar, impulsive kindnesses that I showed him were 
 gratefully received. He was very loyal and patient 
 two qualities rare in the average American ser 
 vant. He was like Malvolio, "sad and civil" with 
 me; only once, and then under great provocation, 
 do I remember of his exhibiting 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?' 7 
 
 "Me say <Chy Lee/" 
 
 "Well?" I said impatiently. 
 
 "You sabe 'How do, John?'" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You sabe 'So long, John?"' 
 
 "Yes," 
 
2l6 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 "Well, <Chy Lee 7 allee same!" 
 
 I understood him quite plainly. It appeared 
 that "Chy Lee" was a form of "good night," and 
 that Wan Lee was anxious to go home. But an in 
 stinct of mischief which I fear I possessed in com 
 mon with him, impelled me to act as if oblivious 
 of the hint. I muttered something about not under 
 standing 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!" 
 
 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 his offence. 
 As a probable peace-offering, he blacked all my 
 boots, a duty never required of him, including a 
 pair of buff deer-skin slippers and an immense pair 
 of horseman's jack-boots, on which he indulged 
 his remorse for two hours. 
 
 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 countrymen were great poultry raisers, I ap 
 plied 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 in 
 stance of self-abnegation, as eggs were then worth 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 217 
 
 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 col 
 loquy, 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 irregulari 
 ties in the mails, and Wan Lee had heard me de 
 plore the delay in the delivery of my letters and 
 newspapers. On arriving at my office one day, I 
 was amazed to find my table covered with letters, 
 evidently just from the post-office, but unfortunately 
 not one addressed to me. I turned to Wan Lee, 
 who was surveying them with a calm satisfaction, 
 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 U. S. Mail 
 was finally condoned, by the purchase 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 re 
 turned to San Francisco, after my two years' ex 
 perience with "The Northern Star." I do not think 
 
2l8 WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 he contemplated the change with pleasure. I attri 
 buted 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 long 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. 
 
 Nevertheless it really seemed as if the oppor 
 tunity I had long looked for and confidently ex 
 pected had come the opportunity of placing Wan 
 Lee under gently restraining influences, of subject 
 ing 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 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN, 2IQ 
 
 ones to Wan Lee. He worshiped his little friend 
 with something of the same superstition, but with 
 out 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 with danger to him from the little 
 hands of his Caucasian Christian brothers. He 
 made her the most marvelous toys, he would cut 
 out of carrots and turnips the most astonishing 
 roses and tulips, he made lifelike 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 precedents of the school, and, small- 
 womanlike, 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 hide 
 ous porcelain god hidden away in his blouse. 
 
 There were two days of that eventful year which 
 will long be remembered in San Francisco two 
 days when a mob of her citizens set upon and 
 
22O WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 
 
 killed unarmed, defenceless foreigners , 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, who began to 
 think that the passage in the Constitution which 
 guarantees civil and religious 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 anybody or anything. 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 imperturbable 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 something lying on the floor covered by 
 a shawl. As I approached he 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, eighteen hundred and sixty-nine, by a 
 
WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. 221 
 
 mob of half-grown boys and Christian school chil 
 dren! 
 
 As I put my hand reverently upon his breast, I 
 felt something crumbling beneath his blouse. I 
 looked enquiringly 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 
 clasts ! 
 
IN VERSE. 
 
LUKE. 
 
 (IN THE COLORADO PARK, 1873.) 
 
 WOT'S that you're readin'? a novel? A novel 
 
 well darn my skin! 
 You a man grown and bearded and histin' such 
 
 stuff ez that in 
 Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder 
 
 you're thin ez a knife. 
 Look at me! clar two hundred and never read 
 
 one in my life! 
 
 That's my opinion o' novels. And ez to their lyin' 
 
 round here, 
 They belonged to the Jedge's daughter the Jedge 
 
 who came up last year 
 On account of his lungs and the mountains and 
 
 the balsam o' pine and fir; 
 And his daughter well, she read novels, and that's 
 
 what's the matter with her. 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 1 5 
 
226 LUKE. 
 
 Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him 
 
 day and night, 
 Alone in the cabin up yer till she grew like a 
 
 ghost, all white. 
 She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up 
 
 and away 
 Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she 
 
 wasn't my kind no way! 
 
 Speakin' o' gals, d'ye mind that house ez you rise 
 
 the hill, 
 A mile and a half from White's, and jist above 
 
 Mattingly's mill? 
 You do? Well now thar's a gal! What, you saw 
 
 her? O, come now, thar, quit! 
 She was only bedevlin' you boys, for to me she 
 
 don't cotton one bit. 
 
 Now she's what I call a gal ez pretty and plump 
 
 ez a quail; 
 Teeth ez white ez a hound's and they'd go through 
 
 a tenpenny nail; 
 Eyes that kin snap like a cap. So she asked to 
 
 know "whar I was hid." 
 She did! O, it's jist like her sass, for she's peart 
 
 ez a Katy-did. 
 
 But what was I talking of? O! the Jedge and his 
 
 daughter she read 
 Novels the whole day long, and I reckon she read 
 
 them abed, 
 
LUKE. 227 
 
 And sometimes she read them out loud to the 
 Jedge on the porch where he sat, 
 
 And 'twas how "Lord Augustus" said this, and how 
 "Lady Blanche" she said that. 
 
 But the sickest of all that I heerd , was a yarn thet 
 
 they read 'bout a chap, 
 "Leather-stocking" by natfie and a hunter chock 
 
 full o' the greenest o' sap; 
 And they asked me to hear, but I says, "Miss 
 
 Mabel, not any for me; 
 When I likes I kin sling my own lies, and thet chap 
 
 and I shouldn't agree." 
 
 Yet somehow-or-other she was always sayin' I 
 
 brought her to mind 
 Of folks about whom she had read, or s-uthin belike 
 
 of thet kind, 
 And thar warn't no end o' the names that she give 
 
 me thet summer up here, 
 "Robin Hood," "Leather-stocking," "Rob Roy," 
 
 O, I tell you, the critter was queer. 
 
 And yet ef she hadn't been spiled, she was harmless 
 
 enough in her way, 
 She could jabber in French to her dad, and they 
 
 said that she knew how to play, 
 And she worked me that shot-pouch up thar which 
 
 the man doesn't live ez kin use, 
 And slipipers you see 'em down yer ez would 
 
 cradle an Injin's pappoose. 
 
228 >LUKE. 
 
 Yet along o' them novels, you see, she was wastin' 
 
 and mopin' away, 
 And then she got shy with her tongue, and at last 
 
 had nothin' to say; 
 And whenever I happened around, her face it was 
 
 hid by a book, 
 And it warn't until she left that she give me ez 
 
 much ez a look. 
 
 And this was the way it was. It was night when I 
 
 kem up here 
 To say to 'em all "good-bye," for I reckoned to go 
 
 for deer 
 At "sun up" the day they left. So I shook 'em all 
 
 round by the hand, 
 'Cept Mabel, and she was sick, ez they give me to 
 
 understand. 
 
 But jist ez I passed the house next morning at 
 
 dawn, some one, 
 Like a little waver o' mist, got up on the hill with 
 
 the sun; 
 Miss Mabel it was, alone all wrapped in a mantle 
 
 o' lace 
 And she stood there straight in the road, with a 
 
 touch o' the sun in her face. 
 
 And she looked me right in the eye I'd seen 
 
 suthin like it before 
 When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the 
 
 Clear Lake shore, 
 
LUKE. 229 
 
 And I had my knee on its neck, and jist was raisin* 
 
 my knife 
 When it give me a look like that, and well, it got 
 
 off with its life. 
 
 "We are going to-day," she said, "and I thought I 
 
 would say good-bye 
 To you in your own house, Luke these woods, 
 
 and the bright blue sky! 
 You've always been kind to us, Luke, and papa has 
 
 found you still 
 As good as the air he breathes, and wholesome as 
 
 Laurel Tree Hill. 
 
 "And we'll always think of you, Luke, as the thing 
 
 we could not take away; 
 The balsam that dwells in the woods, the rainbow 
 
 that lives in the spray. 
 And you'll sometimes think of me, Luke, as you 
 
 know you once used to say, 
 A rifle smoke blown through the woods, a moment, 
 
 but never to stay." 
 
 And then we shook hands. She turned, but a-sud- 
 
 dent she tottered and fell, 
 And I caught her sharp by the waist, and held her 
 
 a minit well, 
 It was only a minit, you know, that ez cold and ez 
 
 white she lay 
 Ez a snow-flake here on my breast, and then well, 
 
 she melted away 
 
230 . LUKE. 
 
 And was gone * * * And thar are her books; but I 
 
 says not any for me, 
 Good enough may be for some, but them and I 
 
 mightn't agree. 
 They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some 
 
 ehap a wife, 
 And look at me! clar two hundred and never 
 
 read one in my life! 
 
'THE BABES IN THE WOODS." 
 (BIG PINE FLAT, 1871.) 
 
 "SOMETHING characteristic," eh? 
 
 Humph! I reckon you mean by that, 
 Something that happened in our way, 
 
 Here at the crossin ; of Big Pine Flat. 
 Times aren't now as they used to be, 
 
 When gold was flush and the boys were frisky, 
 And a man would pull out his battery 
 
 For anything maybe the price of whisky. 
 
 Nothing of that sort, eh? That's strange. 
 
 Why, I thought you might be diverted, 
 Hearing how Jones, of Red Rock Range, 
 
 Drawed his "Hint to the Unconverted," 
 And saying, "Whar will you have it?" shot 
 
 Cherokee Bob at the last Debating! 
 What was the question? I forgot 
 
 But Jones didn't like Bob's way of stating 
 
232 "THE BABES IN THE WOODS. 
 
 Nothing of that kind, eh? You mean 
 
 Something milder? Let's see Oh, Joe! 
 Tell to the stranger that little scene 
 
 Out of the "Babes in the Woods." You know, 
 "Babes" was the name that we gave 'em, sir, 
 
 Two lean lads in their teens, and greener 
 Than even the belt of spruce and fir 
 
 Where they built their nest, and each day grew 
 leaner. 
 
 No one knew where they came from. None 
 
 Cared to ask if they had a mother. 
 Runaway schoolboys, maybe. One 
 
 Tall and dark as a spruce; the other 
 Blue and gold in the eyes and hair, 
 
 Soft and low in his speech, but rarely 
 Talking with us; and we didn't care 
 
 To get at their secret at all unfairly. 
 
 For they were so quiet, so sad and shy, 
 
 Content to trust each other solely, 
 That somehow we'd always shut one eye, 
 
 And never seem to observe them wholly, 
 As they passed to their work. 'Twas a wornout 
 claim, 
 
 And it paid them grub. They could live with 
 out it, 
 For the boys had a way of leaving game 
 
 In their tent, and forgetting all about it. 
 
"THE BABES IN THE WOODS." 233 
 
 Yet no one asked for their secret. Dumb 
 
 It lay in their big eyes' heavy hollows. 
 It was understood that no one should come 
 
 To their tent unawares, save the bees and swal 
 lows. 
 So they lived alone. Until one warm night 
 
 I was sitting here at the tent-door, so, sir, 
 When out of the sunset's rosy light 
 
 Up rose the sheriff of Mariposa. 
 
 I knew at once there was something wrong, 
 
 For his hand and his voice shook just a little, 
 And there isn't much you can fetch along 
 
 To make the sinews of Jack Hill brittle. 
 "Go warn the Babes!" he whispered, hoarse; 
 
 "Tell I'm coming to get and scurry, 
 For I've got a story that's bad, and worse, 
 
 I've got a warrant: G d d n it, hurry." 
 
 Too late! they had seen him cross the hill; 
 
 I ran to their tent and found them lying 
 Dead in each other's arms, and still 
 
 Clasping the drug they had taken flying. 
 And there lay their secret cold and bare, 
 
 Their life, their trial the old, old story! 
 For the sweet blue eyes, and the golden hair, 
 
 Was a woman's shame and a woman's glory. 
 
 "Who were they?" Ask no more, or ask 
 The sun that visits their grave so lightly; 
 
234 "THE BABES IN THE WOODS." 
 
 Ask of the whispering reeds, or task 
 
 The mourning crickets that chirrup nightly. 
 All of their life but its Love forgot, 
 - Everything tender and soft and mystic, 
 These are our Babes in the Woods, you've got, 
 Well Human Nature that's characteristic. 
 
GUILD'S SIGNAL. 
 
 WILLIAM GUILD was engineer of the train which 
 on the i gth of April plunged into Meadow Brook, 
 on the line of the Stonington and Providence Rail 
 road. It was his custom, as often as he passed his 
 home, to whistle an "all's well" to his wife. He 
 was found, after the disaster, dead, with his hand 
 on the throttle- valve of his engine. 
 
 Two low whistles, quaint and clear, 
 That was the signal the engineer 
 
 That was the signal that Guild, 'tis said 
 Gave to his wife at Providence, 
 As through the sleeping town,, and thence, 
 Out in the night, 
 On to the light, 
 Down past the farms, lying white, he sped! 
 
 As a husband's greeting, scant, no doubt, 
 Yet to the woman looking out, 
 
236 GUILD'S SIGNAL. 
 
 Watching and waiting, no serenade, 
 Love song or midnight roundelay 
 Said what that whistle seemed to say: 
 "To my trust true, 
 So love to you! 
 Working or waiting, good night!" it said. 
 
 Brisk young bagmen, tourists fine, 
 Old commuters along the line, 
 
 Brakemen and porters glanced ahead, 
 Smiled as the signal, sharp, intense, 
 Pierced through the shadows of Providence 
 "Nothing amiss 
 Nothing! it is 
 Only Guild calling his wife/' they said. 
 
 Summer and Winter, the old refrain 
 Rang o'er the billows of ripening grain, 
 
 Pierced through the budding boughs o'erhead, 
 Flew down the track when the red leaves burned 
 Like living coals from the engine spurned; 
 Sang as it flew: 
 "To 'our trust true, 
 First of all, duty. Good night!" it said. 
 
 And then, one night, it was heard no more 
 From Stonington over Rhode Island shore, 
 And the folk in Providence smiled and said, 
 
GUILD'S SIGNAL. 237 
 
 As they turned in their beds, "The engineer 
 Has once forgotten his midnight cheer." 
 One only knew, 
 To his trust true, 
 Guild lay under his engine, dead. 
 
TRUTHFUL JAMES TO THE EDITOR. 
 (YREKA, 1873.) 
 
 WHICH it is not my style 
 
 To produce needless pain 
 By statements that rile, 
 
 Or that go 'gin the grain, 
 
 But here's Captain Jack still a living and Nye has 
 no skelp on his brain! 
 
 On that Caucasian head 
 
 There is no crown of hair. 
 It has gone, it has fled! 
 
 And Echo sez "where?" 
 
 And I asks, "Is this. Nation a White Man's, and is 
 generally things on the square?" 
 
 She was known in the camp 
 
 As "Nye's other squaw," 
 And folks of that stamp 
 
 Hez no rights in the Law, 
 
 But is treacherous, sinful and slimly, as Nye might 
 hev' well known before. 
 
TRUTHFUL JAMES TO THE EDITOR. 239 
 
 But she said that she knew 
 Where the Injins was hid, 
 And the statement was true, 
 
 For it seemed that she did; 
 
 Since she led William where he was covered by 
 seventeen Modocs, and slid! 
 
 Then they reached for his hair; 
 
 But Nye sez, "By the Law 
 Of Nations, forbear! 
 
 I surrenders no more: 
 
 And I looks to be treated, you hear me? as a 
 prisoner, a pris'ner of war!" 
 
 But Captain Jack rose 
 
 And he sez "It's too thin. 
 Such statements as those 
 
 It's too late to begin. 
 
 There's a Modoc indictment agin you, O Paleface, 
 and you're goin' in! 
 
 X 
 
 "You stole Schonchin's squaw 
 
 In the year 'sixty- two; 
 It was in 'sixty-four 
 
 That Long Jack you went through, 
 And you burned Nasty Jim's rancheria and his wives 
 and his pappooses too. 
 
 "This gun in my hand 
 Was sold me by you 
 
-240 TRUTHFUL JAMES TO TH EDITOR. 
 
 'Gainst the law of the land, 
 And I grieves it is true!" 
 
 And he buried his face in his blanket and wept as 
 he hid it from view. 
 
 "But you're tried and condemned 
 
 And skelping's your doom," 
 And he paused and he hemmed 
 
 But why this resume? 
 
 He was skelped 'gainst the custom of Nations, and 
 cut off like a rose in its bloom. 
 
 So I asks without guile, 
 
 And I trusts not in vain, 
 If this is the style 
 
 That is going to obtain 
 
 If here's Captain Jack still a-livin', and Nye with 
 no skelp on his brain? 
 
DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 (REFECTORY MISSION SAN GABRIEL, 1869.) 
 
 "Good," said the Padre, "believe me still, 
 f Don Giovanni' or what you will 
 The type's eternal! We knew him here 
 As Don Diego del Sud. I fear 
 The story's no new one! Will you hear?" 
 
 One of those spirits you can't tell why 
 
 God has permitted. Therein I 
 
 Have the advantage, for / hold 
 
 That wolves are sent to the purest fold, 
 
 And we'd save the wolf if we'd get the lamb. 
 
 You're no believer? Good. I am. 
 
 Well, for some purpose, I grant you dim, 
 The Don loved women, and they loved him. 
 Each thought herself his last love ! Worst, 
 Many believed that they were, his first! 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills, 1 6 
 
242 DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 And, such are these creatures, since the Fall, 
 The very doubt had a charm for all! 
 
 You laugh! You are young but / Indeed 
 I have no patience. * * * * To proceed 
 
 You saw, as you passed through the upper town 
 The Eucinal where the road goes down 
 To San Felipe. There, one morn 
 They found Diego. His mouth torn, 
 And as many holes through his doublet's band 
 As there were wronged husbands you under 
 stand! 
 
 "Dying," so said the gossips. "Dead"- 
 Was what the friars who found him said, 
 May be. Quien sabe? Who else should know- 
 It was a hundred years ago, 
 There was a funeral. Small indeed 
 Private. What would you? To proceed: 
 
 Scarcely the year had flown. One night 
 The Commandante awoke in fright, 
 Hearing below his casement's bar 
 The well known twang of the Don's guitar; 
 And rushed to the window, just to see 
 His wife a-swoon on the balcony. 
 
DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH. 243 
 
 One week later, Don Juan Ramirez 
 Found his own daughter, the Dona Inez, 
 Pale as a ghost leaning out to hear 
 The song of that phantom Cavalier. 
 Even Alcalde Pedro Bias 
 Saw, it was said, through his niece's glass 
 The shade of Diego twice repass. 
 
 What these gentlemen each confessed 
 Heaven and the Church only knows. At best 
 The case was a bad one. How to deal 
 With Sin as a Ghost, they couldn't but feel 
 Was an awful thing. 'Till a certain Fray 
 Humbly offered to shew the way. 
 
 And the way was this Did I say before 
 That the Fray was a stranger? No, Seiior? 
 Strange! very strange, I should have said 
 That the very week that the Don lay dead 
 He came among us. Bread he broke 
 Silent; nor ever to one he spoke. 
 So he had vowed it! Below his brows 
 His face was hidden. There are such vows! 
 
 Strange! are they not? You do not use 
 Snuff? A bad habit! 
 
 Well, the views 
 
 16* 
 
244 kO N DIEGO OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Of the Fray was this: That the penance done 
 
 By the caballeros was right; but one 
 
 Was due from the cause, and that, in brief, 
 
 Was Donna Dolores Gomez, chief, 
 
 And Inez, Sanchicha, Concepcion 
 
 And Carmen Well, half the girls in town, 
 
 On his tablets, the Friar had written down. 
 
 These were to come on a certain day 
 And ask at the hands of the pious Fray 
 For absolution. That done, small fear 
 But the shade of Diego would disappear. 
 
 They came; each knelt in her turn and place 
 To the pious Fray with his hidden face 
 And voiceless lips, and each again 
 Took back her soul freed from spot or stain, 
 'Till the Dona Inez with eyes downcast 
 And a tear on their fringes knelt her last. 
 
 And then perhaps that her voice was low 
 From fear or from shame the monks said so- 
 But the Fray leaned forward, when, presto! all 
 Were thrilled by a scream, and saw her fall 
 Fainting beside the confessional. 
 
 And so was the ghost of Diego laid 
 
 As the Fray had said. Never more his shade 
 
DON DIEGO OF THE SOUTH. 245 
 
 Was seen at San Gabriel's mission. Eh? 
 The girl interests you, I dare say? 
 "Nothing," said she when they brought her to 
 "Only a faintness!" They spake more true 
 Who said 'twas a stubborn soul. But then 
 Women are women, and men are men! 
 
 So to return. As I said before 
 
 Having got the wolf, by the same high law 
 
 We saved the lambs in the wolf's own jaw. 
 
 And that's my moral. The tale I fear 
 
 But poorly told? Yet it strikes me, here 
 
 Is stuff for a moral! What's your view? 
 
 You smile, Don Pancho, Ah! that's like you! 
 
"FOR THE KING." 
 (NORTHERN MEXICO, 1640.) 
 
 As you look from the plaza at Leon, west 
 You can see her house, but the view is best 
 From the porch of the church where she lies at rest. 
 
 Where much of her past still lives, I think, 
 In the scowling brows and sidelong blink 
 Of the worshiping throng that rise or sink 
 
 To the waxen saints that, yellow and lank, 
 Lean out from their niches, rank on rank, 
 With a bloodless Saviour on either flank; 
 
 In the gouty pillars, whose cracks begin 
 
 To show the adobe core within, 
 
 A soul of earth in a whitewashed skin. 
 
 And I think that the moral of all, you'll say, 
 Is the sculptured legend that molds away 
 On a tomb in the choir: "For el Key." 
 
"FOR THE KING." 247 
 
 "For el Rey." Well, the king is gone, 
 Ages ago, and the Hapsburg one 
 Shot but the rock of the church lives on. 
 
 "For el Rey." What matters, indeed, 
 If king or president succeed 
 To a country haggard with sloth and greed, 
 
 As long as one granary is fat, 
 
 And yonder priest, in a shovel hat, 
 
 Peeps out from the bin like a sleek, brown rat! 
 
 What matters? Naught, if it serves to bring 
 The legend nearer, no other thing, 
 We'll spare the moral, "Live the King!" 
 
 Two hundred years ago, they say, 
 The viceroy, Marquis of Monte-Rey, 
 Rode, with his retinue, that way. 
 
 Grave as befitted Spain's grandee, 
 Grave as the substitute should be 
 Of His Most Catholic Majesty, 
 
 Yet from his black plume's curving grace 
 To his slim, black gauntlet's smaller space, 
 Exquisite as a piece of lace! 
 
248 ".FOR THE KING/' 
 
 Two hundred years ago e'en so 
 
 The marquis stopped where the lime-trees blow, 
 
 While Leon's seneschal bent him low 
 
 And begged that the marquis would that night tak^e 
 
 His humble roof for the royal sake, 
 
 And then, as the custom demanded, spake 
 
 The usual wish that his guest would hold 
 
 The house, and all that it might infold, 
 
 As his with the bride scarce three days old. 
 
 Be sure that the marquis, in his place, 
 Replied to all with the measured grace 
 Of chosen speech and unmoved face, 
 
 Nor raised his head till his black plume swept 
 The hem of the lady's robe, who kept 
 Her place, as her husband backward stept. 
 
 And then (I know not how nor why) 
 A subtle flame in the lady's eye 
 Unseen by the courtiers standing by- 
 
 Burned through his lace and titled wreath, 
 Burned through his body's jeweled sheath, 
 Till it touched the steel of the man beneath! 
 
"FOR THE KING." 249 
 
 (And yet, mayhap, no more was meant 
 Than to point a well-worn compliment, 
 And the lady's beauty, her worst intent.) 
 
 Howbeit, the marquis bowed again: 
 "Who rules with awe well serveth Spain, 
 But best whose law is love made plain." 
 
 Be sure that night no pillow pressed 
 The seneschal, but with the rest 
 Watched, as was due a royal guest, 
 
 Watched from the wall till he saw the square 
 Fill with the moonlight, white and bare, 
 Watched till he saw two shadows fare. 
 
 Out from his garden, where the shade 
 That the old church tower and belfry made, 
 Like a benedictory hand was laid. 
 
 Few words spoke the seneschal as he turned 
 
 To his nearest sentry: "These monks have learned 
 
 That stolen fruit is sweetly earned. 
 
 "Myself shall punish yon acolyte 
 Who gathers my garden grapes by night; 
 Meanwhile, wait thou till the morning light." 
 
25O U FOR THE KING." 
 
 Yet not till the sun was riding high 
 
 Did the sentry meet his commander's eye, 
 
 Nor then till the viceroy stood by. 
 
 To the lovers of grave formalities 
 
 No greeting was ever so fine, I wis, 
 
 As this host's and guest's high courtesies! 
 
 The seneschal feared, as the wind was west, 
 A blast from Morena had chilled his rest? 
 The viceroy languidly confessed 
 
 That cares of state, and he dared to say 
 Some fears that the king could not repay 
 The thoughtful zeal of his host, some way 
 
 Had marred his rest. Yet he trusted much 
 None shared his wakefulness! Though such 
 Indeed might be! If he dared to touch 
 
 A theme so fine the bride, perchance, 
 
 Still slept? At least, they missed her glance 
 
 To give this greeting countenance. 
 
 Be sure that the seneschal, in turn, 
 
 Was deeply bowed with the grave concern 
 
 Of the painful news his guest should learn: 
 
"FOR THE KING." 251 
 
 "Last night, to her father's dying bed 
 By a priest was the lady summoned; 
 Nor know we yet how well she sped, 
 
 "But hope for the best." i i-The grave viceroy 
 (Though grieved his visit had such alloy) ( 
 Must still wish the seneschal great joy 
 
 Of a bride so true to her filial trust! 
 Yet now as the day waxed on, they must 
 To horse, if they'd 'scape the noonday dust. 
 
 "Nay," said the seneschal, "at least, 
 To mend the news of this funeral priest, 
 Myself shall ride as your escort, east." 
 
 The viceroy bowed. Then turned aside 
 To his nearest follower: "With me ride 
 You and Felipe on either side. 
 
 "And list! Should anything me befall, 
 Mischance of ambush or musket-ball, 
 Cleave to his saddle yon seneschal! 
 
 'No more." Then gravely in accents clear 
 Took formal leave of his late good cheer: 
 Whiles the seneschal whispered a musketeer, 
 
252 "FOR THE KING." 
 
 Carelessly stroking his pommel top, 
 "If from the saddle ye see me drop, 
 Riddle me quickly you solemn fop!" 
 
 So these, with many a compliment, 
 Each on his one dark thought intent, 
 With grave politeness onward went, 
 
 Riding high, and in sight of all, 
 Viceroy, escort, and seneschal, 
 Under the shade of the Almandral. 
 
 Holding their secret, hard and fast, 
 Silent and grave, they ride at last 
 Into the dusty traveled Past; 
 
 Even like this they passed away 
 Two hundred years ago to-day. 
 What of the lady? Who shall say? 
 
 Do the souls of the dying ever yearn 
 
 To some favored spot for the dust's return- 
 
 For the homely peace of the family urn? 
 
 I know not. Yet did the seneschal, 
 Chancing in after years to fall 
 Pierced by a Flemish musket-ball, 
 
"FOR THE KING." 253 
 
 Call to his side a trusty friar 
 
 And bid him swear, as his last desire, 
 
 To bear his corse to San Pedro's choir 
 
 At Leon, where ; neath a shield azure 
 Should his mortal frame find sepulture; 
 This much, for the pains Christ did endure. 
 
 Be sure that the friar loyally 
 Fulfilled his trust by land and sea, 
 'Till the spires of Leon silently 
 
 Rose through the green of the Almandral, 
 
 As if to beckon the seneschal 
 
 To his kindred dust 'neath the choir wall. 
 
 I wot that the saints on either side 
 
 Leaned from their niches open-eyed, 
 
 To see the doors of the church swing wide 
 
 That the wounds of the Saviour on either flank 
 Bled fresh, as the mourners, rank by rank, 
 Went by with the coffin, clank on clank, 
 
 For why? When they raised the marble door 
 Of the tomb untouched for years before, 
 The friar swooned on the choir floor; 
 
254 "FOR THE KING." 
 
 For there, in her laces and festal dress, 
 Lay the dead man's wife, her loveliness 
 Scarcely changed by her long duress; 
 
 As on the night she had passed away 
 Only that near her a dagger lay, 
 With the written legend, "For el Rey." 
 
 What was their greeting the groom and bride, 
 They whom that steel and the years divide? 
 I know not. Here they lie side by side. 
 
 Side by side. Though the king has his way, 
 Even the dead at last have their day. 
 Make you the moral. "For el Rey. 57 
 
FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE. 
 
 IT was the morning season of the year; 
 
 It was the morning era of the land; 
 The water-courses rang full loud and clear; 
 
 Portala's cross stood where Portala's hand 
 Had planted it when Faith was taught by Fear; 
 
 When Monks and Missions held the sole com 
 mand 
 
 Of all that shore beside the peaceful sea 
 Where spring-tides beat their long-drawn reveille. 
 
 Out of the Mission of San Luis Rey, 
 
 All in that brisk, tumultuous spring weather, 
 
 Rode Friar Pedro, in a pious way, 
 
 With six dragoons in cuirasses of leather, 
 
 Each armed alike for either prayer or fray, 
 
 Handcuffs and missals they had slung together; 
 
 And as an aid the gospel truth to scatter 
 
 Each swung a lasso alias a "riata." 
 
 In sooth, that year the harvest had been slack, 
 The crop of converts scarce worth computation; 
 
256 FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE. 
 
 Some souls were lost, whose owners had turned 
 
 back 
 
 To save their bodies frequent flagellation, 
 And some preferred the songs of birds, alack, 
 To Latin matins and their soul's salvation, 
 And thought their own wild whoopings were less 
 
 dreary 
 Than Father Pedro's droning miserere. 
 
 To bring them back to matins and to prime, 
 To pious works and secular submission, 
 
 To prove to them that liberty was crime, 
 
 This was in fact the Padre's present mission; 
 
 To get new souls perchance at the same time 
 And bring them to a "sense of their condi 
 tion"- 
 
 That easy phrase which in the past and present 
 
 Means making that condition most unpleasant. 
 
 He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow; 
 
 Ha saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill; 
 He saw the gopher working in his burrow; 
 
 He saw the squirrel scampering at his will; 
 He saw all this and felt no doubt a thorough 
 
 And deep conviction of God's goodness; still 
 He failed to see that in His glory He 
 Yet left the humblest of His creatures free. 
 
 He saw the flapping crow, whose frequent note 
 Voiced the monotony of land and sky, 
 
FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE. 257 
 
 Mocking with graceless wing and rusty coat 
 His priestly presence as he trotted by. 
 
 He would have cursed the bird by bell and rote, 
 But other game just then was in his eye 
 
 A savage camp, whose occupants preferred 
 
 Their heathen darkness to the living Word. 
 
 He rang his bell, and at the martial sound 
 
 Twelve silver spurs their jingling rowels clashed; 
 
 Six horses sprang across the level ground 
 As six dragoons in open order dashed; 
 
 Above their heads the lassos circled round; 
 In every eye a pious fervor flashed; 
 
 They charged the camp, and in one moment more 
 
 They lassoed six and reconverted four. 
 
 The Friar saw the conflict from a knoll, 
 
 And sang Laus Deo, and cheered on his men: 
 
 "Well thrown, Bautista that's another soul! 
 After him, Gomez try it once again; 
 
 This way, Felipe! there the heathen stole; 
 
 Bones of St. Francis! surely that makes ten; 
 
 Te deum laudamus but they're very wild; 
 
 Non nobis dominus all right, my child." 
 
 When at that moment as the story goes 
 A certain squaw, who had her foes eluded, 
 
 Ran past the Friar just before his nose. 
 
 He stared a moment, and in silence brooded, 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills 1 7 
 
258 FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE. 
 
 Then in his breast a pious frenzy rose 
 
 And every other prudent thought excluded; 
 He caught a lasso, and dashed in a canter 
 After that Occidental Atalanta. 
 
 High o'er his head he swirled the dreadful noose, 
 But as the practice was quite unfamiliar, 
 
 His first cast tore Felipe's captive loose, 
 And almost choked Tiburcio Camilla, 
 
 And might have interfered with that brave youth's 
 Ability to gorge the tough tortilla; 
 
 But all things come by practice, and at last 
 
 His flying slip-knot caught the maiden fast. 
 
 Then rose above the plain a mingled yell 
 Of rage and triumph a demoniac whoop; 
 
 The Padre heard it like a passing knell, 
 
 And would have loosened his unchristian loop; 
 
 But the tough raw-hide held the captive well, 
 And held, alas, too well the captor-dupe; 
 
 For with one bound the savage fled amain, 
 
 Dragging horse, friar, down the lonely plain. 
 
 Down the arroyo, out across the mead, 
 
 By heath and hollow, sped the flying maid, 
 
 Dragging behind her still the panting steed, 
 And helpless friar, who in vain essayed 
 
 To cut the lasso or to check his speed. 
 He felt himself beyond all human aid, 
 
FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE, 259 
 
 And trusted to the saints and for that matter 
 To some weak spot in Felipe's riata. 
 
 Alas! the lasso had been duly blessed, 
 And, like baptism, held the flying wretch. 
 
 A doctrine that the priest had oft expressed 
 Which, like the lasso, might be made to stretch 
 
 But would not break so neither could divest 
 Themselves of it, but like some awful fetch, 
 
 The holy friar had to recognize 
 
 The image of his fate in heathen guise. 
 
 He saw the glebe land guiltless of a furrow; 
 
 He saw the wild oats wrestle on the hill; 
 He saw the gopher standing in his burrow; 
 
 He saw the squirrel scampering at his will; 
 He saw all this, and felt no doubt how thorough 
 
 The contrast was to his condition; still 
 The squaw kept onward to the sea, till night" 
 And the cold sea fog hid them both from sight. 
 
 The morning came above the serried coast, 
 Lighting the snow-peaks with its beacon fires, 
 
 Driving before it all the fleet-winged host 
 Of chattering birds above the Mission spires, 
 
 Filling the land with light and joy but most 
 The savage woods with all their leafy lyres; 
 
 In pearly tints, and opal flame and fire 
 
 The morning came but not the holy Friar. 
 
 17* 
 
260 FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE, 
 
 Weeks passed away. In vain the Fathers sought 
 Some trace or token that might tell his story. 
 
 Some thought him dead, or like Elijah caught 
 Up to the heavens in a blaze of glory. 
 
 In this surmise, some miracles were wrought 
 On his account, and souls in purgatory 
 
 Were thought to profit from his intercession 
 
 In brief, his absence made a "deep impression." 
 
 A twelvemonth passed; the welcome spring once 
 
 more 
 Made green the hills beside the white-faced 
 
 Mission, 
 Spread her bright dais by the western shore, 
 
 And sat enthroned a most resplendent vision. 
 The heathen converts thronged the chapel-door 
 
 At morning mass; when, says the old tradition, 
 A frightfnl whoop throughout the church re 
 sounded, 
 And to their feet the congregation bounded. 
 
 A tramp of hoofs upon the beaten course 
 
 Then came a sight that made the bravest quail: 
 A phantom friar, on a spectre horse, 
 
 Dragged by a creature decked with horns ,and 
 
 tail. 
 By the lone Mission, with the whirlwind's force, 
 
 They madly swept, and left a sulphurous trail 
 And that was all enough to tell the story 
 
 And leave unblessed those souls in purgatory. 
 
FRIAR PEDRO'S RIDE. 261 
 
 And ever after, on that fatal day 
 
 That Friar Pedro rode abroad lassoing, 
 
 A ghostly couple came and went away 
 
 With savage whoop and heathenish hallooing, 
 
 Which brought discredit on San Luis Rey, 
 And proved the Mission's ruin and undoing; 
 
 For ere ten years had passed, the squaw arid Friar 
 
 Performed to empty walls and fallen spire. 
 
 The Mission is no more; upon its walls 
 
 The golden lizards slip, or breathless pause 
 
 Still as the sunshine brokenly that falls 
 
 Through crannied roof and spider-webs of gauze; 
 
 No more the bell its solemn warning calls 
 A holier silence thrills and overawes; 
 
 And the sharp lights and shadows of To-Day 
 
 Outline the Mission of San Luis Rey. 
 
MISS BLANCHE SAYS. 
 
 AND you are the poet, and so, you want 
 
 Something what is it? a theme, a fancy? 
 Something or other the muse won't grant 
 
 In your old poetical necromancy; 
 
 Why one half your poets you can't deny 
 Don't know the muse when you chance to meet her, 
 
 But sit in your attics and mope and sigh 
 For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky, 
 
 When flesh and blood may be standing by 
 Quite at your service, should you but greet her. 
 
 What if I told you my own romance ? 
 
 Women are poets, if you so take them, 
 One-third poet the rest what chance 
 
 Of man and marriage may choose to make them. 
 Give me ten minutes before you go, 
 
 Here at the window we'll sit together, 
 Watching the currents that ebb and flow; 
 
 Watching the world as it drifts below 
 
MISS BLANCHE SAYS. 263 
 
 
 
 Up to the hot avenue's dusty glow: 
 
 Isn't it pleasant this bright June weather? 
 
 Well it was after the war broke out, 
 
 And I was a school girl fresh from Paris; 
 
 Papa had contracts, and roamed about 
 
 And I did nothing for I was an heiress. 
 
 Picked some lint, now I think; perhaps 
 Knitted some stocking a dozen nearly; 
 Havelocks made for the soldiers' caps; 
 Stood at fair tables and peddled traps 
 Quite at a profit. The shoulder straps 
 
 Thought I was pretty. Ah, thank you, really. 
 
 Still, it was stupid. Ratatat-tat! 
 
 Those were the sounds of that battle summer 
 Till the earth seemed a parchment round and flat. 
 
 And every footfall the tap of a drummer; 
 And, day by day, down the avenue went 
 
 Cavalry, Infantry, all together, 
 Till my pitying angel one day sent 
 
 My fate in the shape of a regiment 
 That halted, just as the day was spent, 
 Here at our door in the bright June weather. 
 
 None of your dandy warriors they: 
 
 Men from the west, but where I know not; 
 
 Haggard and travel-stained, worn and gray 
 With never a ribbon or lace or bow-knot: 
 
264 MISS BLANCHE SAYS. 
 
 And I opened the window, and leaning there, 
 I felt in their presence the free winds blowing; 
 
 My neck and shoulders and arms were bare 
 I did not dream that they might think me fair, 
 
 But I had some flowers that night in my hair, 
 
 And here, on my bosom, a red rose glowing. 
 
 And I looked from the window along the line, 
 
 Dusty and dirty and grim and solemn, 
 'Till an eye like a bayonet flash met mine 
 
 And a dark face grew from the darkening 
 
 column, 
 
 And a quick flame leaped to my eyes and hair 
 Till cheeks and shoulders burned all together, 
 And the next I found myself standing there 
 With my eyelids wet and my cheeks less fair, 
 And the rose from my bosom tossed high in air 
 Like a blood-drop falling on plume and feather. 
 
 Then I drew back quickly: there came a cheer, 
 
 A rush of figures, a noise and tussle, 
 And then it was over, and high and clear, 
 
 My red rose bloomed on his gun's black muzzle. 
 Then far in the darkness a sharp voice cried, 
 And slowly, and steadily all together, 
 Shoulder to shoulder, and side to side, 
 Rising and falling, and swaying wide, 
 But bearing above them the rose, my pride, 
 They marched away in the twilight weather. 
 
MISS BLANCHE SAYS. 265 
 
 And I leaned from my window and watched my 
 
 rose 
 
 Tossed on the waves of the surging column, 
 Warmed from above in the sunset glows, 
 
 Borne from below by an impulse solemn. 
 Then I shut the window. I heard no more 
 Of my soldier friend, my flower neither, 
 But lived my life as I did before; 
 I did not go as a nurse to the war 
 Sick folks to me are a dreadful bore 
 So I didn't go to the hospital, either. 
 
 You smile, O poet, and what do you? 
 
 You lean from your window, and watch life's 
 
 column 
 Trampling and struggling through dust and dew, 
 
 Filled with its purposes grave and solemn; 
 An act, a gesture, a face who knows? 
 
 Touches your fancy to thrill and haunt you, 
 And you pluck from your bosom the verse that 
 grows, 
 
 And down it flies like my red, red rose, 
 And you sit and dream as away it goes, 
 
 And think that your duty is done now don't you? 
 
 I know your answer. I'm not yet through. 
 
 Look at this photograph "In the Trenches:" 
 That dead man in the coat of blue 
 
 Holds a withered rose in his hand. That clenches 
 Nothing! Except that the sun paints true, 
 
266 MISS BLANCHE SAYS. 
 
 And a woman is sometimes prophetic-minded. 
 And that's my romance. And, poet, you 
 Take it and mould it to suit your view; 
 And who knows but you may find it too 
 
 Come to your heart once more as mine did. 
 
DOLLY VARDEN. 
 
 DEAR DOLLY! who does not recall 
 The trilling page that pictured all 
 Those charms that held our sense in thrall 
 
 Just as the artist caught her 
 As down that English lane she tripped, 
 In bowered chintz, hat sideways tipped, 
 Trim-bodiced, bright-eyed, roguish-lipped 
 
 The locksmith's pretty daughter? 
 
 Sweet fragment of the Master's art! 
 O simple faith! O rustic heart! 
 O maid that hath no counterpart 
 
 In life's dry, dog-eared pages! 
 Where shall we find thy like? Ah, stay! 
 Methinks I saw her yesterday 
 In chintz that flowered, as one might say, 
 
 Perennial for ages. 
 
 Her father's modest cot was stone, 
 Five stories high. In style and tone 
 Composite, and, I frankly own, 
 Within its walls revealing 
 
268 DOLLY VARDEN. 
 
 Some certain novel, strange ideas: 
 A Gothic door with Roman piers, 
 And floors removed some thousand years 
 From their Pompeiian ceiling. 
 
 The small salon where she received 
 Was Louis Quatorze, and relieved 
 By Chinese cabinets, conceived 
 
 Grotesquely by the heathen; 
 The sofas were a classic sight 
 The Roman bench (sedilia hight); 
 The chairs were French, in gold and white, 
 
 And one Elizabethan. 
 
 And she, the goddess of that shrine, 
 Two ringed fingers placed in mine 
 The stones were many carats fine, 
 
 And of the purest water 
 Then dropped a courtesy, far enough 
 To fairly fill her cretonne puff 
 And show the petticoat's rich stuff 
 
 That her fond parent bought her. 
 
 Her speech was simple as her dress 
 Not French the more, but English less, 
 She loved; yet sometimes, I confess, 
 
 I scarce could comprehend her. 
 Her manners were quite far from shy: 
 There was a quiet in her eye 
 
DOLLY VARDEN, 269 
 
 Appalling to the Hugh who'd try 
 With rudeness to offend her. 
 
 "But whence," I cried, "this masquerade? 
 Some figure for to-night's charade 
 A Watteau shepherdess or maid?" 
 
 She smiled, and begged my pardon: 
 "Why, surely you must know the name 
 That woman who was Shakspeare's flame. 
 Or Byron's well, it's all the same: 
 
 Why, Lord! I'm Dolly Varden!" 
 
CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 (NEW JERSEY, 1780.) 
 
 HERE'S the spot. Look around you. Above on the 
 
 height 
 Lay the Hessians encamped. By that church on the 
 
 right 
 Stood the gaunt Jersey farmers. And here ran a 
 
 wall 
 
 You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball. 
 Nothing more. Grasses spring, waters run, flowers 
 
 blow, 
 Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 
 
 Nothing more did I say? Stay one moment; you've 
 
 heard 
 Of Caldwell, the parson, who once preached the 
 
 word 
 Down at Springfield? What, No? Come that's 
 
 bad, why he had 
 All the Jerseys aflame! And they gave him the 
 
 name 
 
CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD. 271 
 
 Of the "rebel high priest." He stuck in their 
 
 gorge, 
 For he loved the Lord God and he hated King 
 
 George! 
 
 He had cause, you might say! When the Hessians 
 
 that day 
 Marched up with Knyphausen they stopped on their 
 
 way 
 At the "farms," where his wife, with a child in her 
 
 arms, 
 Sat alone in the house. How it happened none 
 
 knew 
 
 But God and that one of the hireling crew 
 Who fired the shot! Enough! there she lay 
 And Caldwell, the chaplain, her husband, away! 
 
 Did he preach did he pray? Think of him, as you 
 stand 
 
 By the old church to-day; think of him and that 
 band 
 
 Of militant ploughboys! See the smoke and the 
 heat 
 
 Of that reckless advance of that straggling re 
 treat! 
 
 Keep the ghost of that wife, foully slain in your 
 view 
 
 And what could you, what should you, what would 
 you do? 
 
272 CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 Why, just what he did! They were left in the 
 
 lurch 
 For the want of more wadding. He ran to the 
 
 church, 
 Broke the door, stripped the pews, and dashed out 
 
 in the road 
 With his arms full of hymn-books, and threw down 
 
 his load 
 At their feet! Then above all the shouting and 
 
 shots, 
 Rang his voice "Put Watts into 'em Boys, give 
 
 'em Watts!" 
 
 And they did. That is all. Grasses spring, flowers 
 
 blow 
 
 Pretty much as they did ninety-three years ago. 
 You may dig anywhere and you'll turn up a ball 
 But not always a hero like this and that's all. 
 
POEM 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF CALI 
 FORNIA'S ADMISSION INTO THE UNION. 
 
 September gtk, 1864. 
 
 WE meet in Peace, though from our native East 
 The sun that sparkles on our birthday feast 
 Glanced as he rose in fields whose dews were red 
 With darker tints than those Aurora spread; 
 Though shorn his rays his welcome disc concealed 
 In the dim smoke that veiled each battle-field, 
 Still striving upward, in meridian pride, 
 He climbed the walls that East and West divide 
 Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand, 
 And sapphire seas that lave the Western land. 
 
 Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose 
 From his high vantage o'er eternal snows; 
 There War's alarm the brazen trumpet rings 
 Here his love song the mailed cicala sings; 
 
 Idyls of the Foothills. 1 8 
 
274 POEM. 
 
 There bayonets glitter through the forest glades- 
 Here yellow corn-fields stack their peaceful blades; 
 There the deep trench where Valor finds a grave 
 Here the long ditch that curbs the peaceful wave; 
 There the bold sapper with his lighted train 
 Here the dark tunnel and its stores of gain, 
 Here the full harvest and the wain's advance 
 There the Grim Reaper and the ambulance. 
 
 With scenes so adverse,, what mysterious bond 
 Links our fair fortunes to the shores beyond? 
 Why come we here last of a scattered fold 
 To pour new metal in the broken mould? 
 To yield our tribute, stamped with Caesar's face, 
 To Caesar, stricken in the market place? 
 
 Ah, Love of Country is the secret tie 
 
 That joins these contrasts ; neath one arching sky; 
 
 Though brighter paths our peaceful steps explore 
 
 We meet together at the Nation's door. 
 
 War winds her horn, and giant cliffs go down 
 
 Like the high walls that girt the sacred town, 
 
 And bares the pathway to her throbbing heart, 
 
 From clustered village and from crowded mart. 
 
 Part of God's providence it was to found 
 A nation's bulwark on this chosen ground 
 Not Jesuit's zeal nor Pioneer's unrest 
 Planted these pickets in the distant West; 
 
.POEM. 275 
 
 But He who first the nation's fate forecast 
 Placed here His fountains sealed for ages past, 
 Rock-ribbed and guarded till the coming time 
 Should fit the people for their work sublime; 
 When a new Moses with his rod of steel 
 Smote the tall cliffs with one wide-ringing peal, 
 And the old miracle in record told 
 To the new nation was revealed in Gold. 
 
 Judge not too idly that our toils are mean, 
 Though no new levies marshal on our green; 
 Nor deem too rashly that our gains are small, 
 Weighed with the prizes for which heroes fall. 
 See, where thick vapor wreathes the battle line; 
 There Mercy follows with her oil and wine; 
 Or when brown Labor with its peaceful charm 
 Stiffens the sinews of the Nation's arm. 
 What nerves its hands to strike a deadlier blow, 
 And hurl its legions on the rebel foe? 
 Lo! for each town new rising o'er our State 
 See the foe's hamlet waste and desolate, 
 While each new factory lifts its chimney tall, 
 Like a fresh mortar trained on Richmond's wall. 
 
 For this, oh! brothers, swings the fruitful vine, 
 Spread our broad pastures with their countless kine; 
 For this o'erhead the arching vault springs clear, 
 Sunlit and cloudless for one half the year; 
 For this no snow-flake, e'er so lightly pressed, 
 Chills the warm impulse of our mother's breast. 
 
 18* 
 
276 POEM. 
 
 Quick to reply, from meadows brown and sere, 
 She thrills responsive to Spring's earliest tear; 
 Breaks into blossom, flings her loveliest rose 
 Ere the white crocus mounts Atlantic shows; 
 And the example of her liberal creed 
 Teaches the lesson that to-day we need. 
 
 Thus ours the lot with peaceful, generous hand 
 To spread our bounty o'er the suffering land; 
 As the deep cleft in Mariposa's wall 
 Hurls a vast river splintering in its fall 
 Though the rapt soul who stands in awe below, 
 Sees but the arching of the promised bow 
 Lo! the far streamlet drinks its dews unseen, 
 And the whole valley makes a brighter green. 
 
AT THE HACIENDA. 
 
 KNOW I not whom thou mayst be 
 Carved upon this olive tree 
 
 "Manuela of La Torre," 
 For, around on broken walls 
 Summer sun and Spring rain falls, 
 And in vain the low wind calls 
 
 "Manuela of La Torre." 
 
 Of that song no words remain 
 But the musical refrain: 
 
 "Manuela of La Torre." 
 Yet at night, when winds are still, 
 Tinkles on the distant hill, 
 A guitar, and words that thrill 
 
 Tell to me the old, old story 
 Old when first thy charms were sung, 
 Old when these old walls were young, 
 
 "Manuela of La Torre." 
 
WHAT THE CHIMNEY SANG. 
 
 OVER the chimney the night wind sang 
 
 And chanted a melody no one knew; 
 
 And the Woman stopped, as her babe she tossed, 
 
 And thought of the one she had long since lost, 
 
 And said, as her tear drops back she forced, 
 
 "I hate the wind in the chimney." 
 
 Over the chimney the night wind sang 
 
 And chanted a melody no one knew; 
 
 And the Children said as they closer drew, 
 
 "'Tis some witch cleaving the black night through, - 
 
 'Tis a fairy trumpet that just then blew, 
 
 And we fear the wind in the chimney." 
 
 Over the chimney the night wind sang 
 And chanted a melody no one knew; 
 And the Man as he sat on his hearth below, 
 Said to himself "It will surely snow, 
 And fuel is dear, and wages low, 
 And I'll stop the leak in the chimney." 
 
WHAT THE CHIMNEY SANG. 2/Q 
 
 Over the chimney the night wind sang 
 And chanted a melody no one knew; 
 But the Poet listened and smiled, for he 
 Was man and woman and child all three, 
 And said "It is God's own harmony 
 This wind we hear in the chimney." 
 
 THE END. 
 
PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER. 
 
WMM, 
 
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