ne ^ ^ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Bequest of Koxv^ard J^. Judy / y/f Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/chroniclesofmanuOOwynerich ■ijUpuiiiinjiiwBi III I III' ii;"iiir 'Ml ^f^^^f^,^^ _^'-»- ^•; ^^■f^''^r:^i~ ROCKY POINT. Chronicles of Manuel Alanus A True Story of Old San Francisco BY L. ERNEST WYNEKEN New York COCHRANE PUBLISHING CO. 1908 Copyright, 1908, By L. ERNEST WYNEKEN. Add' I GIFT CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Pardoned out! How bewildering the city ! I have taken a room in a lodginghouse near the ferrv landing, a nice room and with a clean bed, and a bay- window looking out on the wide place in front of the big Ferry Station. But it is too expensive for me. Three dollars a week I I took it for one week; then I shall move. What crowds of people there are always coming and going on the ferry-boats I And the street-cars, how they come and shift and go again like clock-work! And they and the ferr}'boats moving on time make, or seem to make, the people move mechanically the same way. I ate my lunch at a cheap restaurant, a short distance up the street from this place. After that I took a stroll along the water front. Some of it is changed altogether, some of it is pretty much as it was when I knew it last. The lumber-yards, which formerly extended to the water, are all gone. There is a wide quay with houses fronting on it and wharves opposite running out into the bay, with big and little vessels lying at them, facing the houses. All contain stores and shops. T bought this writing-book and some ink and pens at a stationer's and came back to my room to write. In prison I got accustomed to write, till it has become a con- firmed habit. I feel strange, yet not so very strange. It almost seems as if I in reality, had never left the city, had never been away shut up all these many long years in prison. A boy when I entered the prison, and what but a I7OV now I 048 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS How could it be otherwise? Much as I have seen and heard and thought and in myself have lived through, and read and written out, to a great extent I must have remained standing still, standing where I stood, the boy I was. The evening- fogs are closing in, the same, same, sum- mer-fogs. It is this mostly, I believe, that makes me feel as if there were no changes: the sharp wind and the cold, dismal fogs all day, all days, all seasons. Would that they would close in upon me now forever ! Vain regrets! ''To have no vain regrets!" That was what the Prison Director said when he dismissed me. I have only the money he gave me, the five dollars, which, together with a new suit of clothes the government gives to every convict upon his discharge, and the fifty dollars, a present, he said, from friendly people. It came mostly, I have no doubt, out of his own pocket. He spoke very kindly; too kindly . His words will not leave my ears. "To have no vain regrets, to begin right off a new life," calling me a young man! And yes, so I am! "Not to proclaim myself a convict, but if necessary boldly acknowledge it and refer those who would reproach me to my prison-record and to him." Though of what good that? "Above all," he said, and that was good advice, "to go to work right away without delay and keep on work- ing; not to think of the prison at all, to put it out of my mind entirely. This would not be easy, because I had been so long in prison, entering it at a very early age. On account of my extreme youth I had received excep- tional treatment, not only at that time but continually right along unchanged. Some people would perhaps think that I was indeed spoilt and unfit to live outside the walls of a penitentiary any more. "He however thought differently," he said, "and not only that I had 4 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS been wrongly imprisoned and should be set free, but that I should soon show people that I was able to take care of myself." ^ i j j "He had long since become convinced, he concluded, "that I had killed the man I did, in self-defence. If everything were known, it would be so found, and for that reason he had exerted himself to obtain my pardon." If everything were known ! If everything were known, it would be seen it was much more than self-defense. He wanted me to take a place he had bespoke for me as gardener at a gentleman's country-seat in the valley next beyond the hills west of the penitentiary. I told him I could not yet bear the idea of going where I should be known from the start as a prison-bird. Now I almost wish I had accepted the place so kindly pro- vided for me, there, beyond the low, bare hills that have for years walled in my longings, my hopes, my sorrows, all my thoughts, my very being, till it is to me almost as if they were part of me, as if it v/ere home. I recall them now as I saw them then every evenmg in rounded masses, dust-colored under the yellow sky, divided into squares by the black bars of the grated window. Homesick? Homesick? Yes, homesick for the prison! Perhaps it would have been better if I had never been pardoned out. Then I could wish and long and hope for everything. How often when in prison did I thmk Mr. Tem Oldock would come to me, or Mahon, and with them mv little brother ! What can I think now? What can I do? Where shall I look for them? Dare I go look for them? If they had thought me worth looking after, would they not have come long ago? They could easily have found out, if they did not know where to look for me. But they knew. They must have known. Why did they 5 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS never come, never send, never give a sign? Are they all dead? Oh, no ! I know it all very well. Had Mr. Tern Oldock been here at that time, the time of my trial, he would have stood by me, I am sure. But what was there ever with him, outside of his many business-affairs, that was not out of mind when out of sight; except his son, his only child, his Mahon Mark? Should I meet him tomorrow he would remember me, know me, be my friend as he was every time he ran across me when I was a child. But if he never sees me, never hears of me again, he may never think of me any more, not a single time. The same with l^lahon! Yet not so! Mahon, so open, so free-hearted, so generous! Naturally unselfish and by his father spoilt to selfishness! Made careless, heedless; and thoughtlessly inconsiderate! Forgetful! I cannot but believe that he still thinks of me sometimes, I thought so much of him. But what of that? I have often tried to feel sure that Mahon would remember me, think of me spontaneously, even though he would take no steps to enter into communication with me unless brought to it by accident or some outside means. It would be like his father. But in truth I doubt if he has had any thought of me. He was much to me, but what was I to him? And who, or what would have kept him in memory of me? Or indeed, what vv'as there to remember ? When I knew him first I was too little to be much no- ticed and known by any big boy like him. He was half as old again as I. Kind he was to me and often my protec- tor, but no more than to others, if I did feel it more. He filled me with admiration and afir'ection. And when for more than four years we were parted, I kept my heart as full of love for him as ever it had been. But when 6 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS we met again, did he know me? He not only did not know who I was, but he had no recollection of there ever having been such a one as I, no memory whatever of former times. Then after being reunited and going to that college together he was as friendly to me and kind as ever and became my patron. And I loved him and admired him as I always had done. But after all we were far divided, for our grades were different. ^lany days I did not see him except for a moment at a time. And when he left with his father for Europe, a young man of seven- teen years of age. what connection was there in reality between us, other than what lay in my imagination, of which he knew nothing, my affection for him, which he felt no longer than we were together ? But the weeks we were at my father's country-place, the last weeks we Vv-ere together, that time he should remember. And my brother ! My little brother ! Harry I Harry ! Where are you? Do you ever think of me? I killed him to save you from him. He would have destroyed you as he tried to destroy me. He did all he could to de- stroy our father. He helped to bring my mother to her grave and made your mother his slave. How can Harry think of me all these succeeding years ! Six years old he v.-as. To me lie always is the little boy I held in my arms as he clung to me when they parted us in the courtroom, his kisses and tears on my face, his sobs in my ears. How can he think of me? What can he know of me? Long ago the recollection of me must have faded, even the bare knov.dedge of my existence been forgotten. For who would ever tell him of me? Who could? Not his mother, silly, heartless thing ! Heartless ! Headless ! What was she ever but the dumb tool in the hands of that man, our common enemy, a tool with which to CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS wound our father and wear out his life? I doubt if she ever had any understanding of what she was doing, or what the man was that controlled her. And how had my father come to marry her ? But Cora, the daughter of her and that man, palmed off on my father as his child, Cora, she was well able to tell Harry of me. She knew all, better than 1, better than even the man that was her father, w^hose every thought of evil to us she shared. This evil directed most of all to my father who loved her dearly, believing her to be his ovm child. Yes! Cora could have talked to Harry of me but I am sure she never did. She knew that to most surely divide us all our lives Harry must forget me, and that would soonest be done if he never heard me men- tioned. If only she did him no harm, such harm as might be his destruction! But if she had I surely would have heard of it. If he were dead her hate would certainly have found some w*ay to let me know, for if I am for- gotten by everyone else, by her, I know, I am remem- bered perfectly. The evening is growing into night. I ought to rest, and yet I cannot. I have touched once again the spring that opens the entrance to the dark space through which, when once I have started I must go on. I was the same with my father through life. My father! Yes, my father! How often have I made the round, gone fore and back, feeling from point to point, combining what my father told me himself and what some papers contained, which he handed me before he died, with what came to my knowledge from outward sources, what I knew within myself and the confused accounts of Thomson: combin- ing, framiiig, piecing together, reasoning, construing and always only groping in the dark! How often have I tried to write it out, to make it plainer to myself, the 8 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS story of my father's life! And yet every time the rela- tion of the many parts are no better understood. A family, by name Alanus, of the upper mercantile class of one of the Atlantic seaboard-cities of the United States, well to do, the man of German parentage, the wife of mixed descent, their only child a boy, born in Florence, Italy, while they are traveling and making quite a lengthened stay in Tuscany. Some eight, nine years later, when revisiting the birthplace of their son, they adopt another boy whom Mr. Alanus somehow runs across in his rambles in the neighborhood of Florence at some peasant's place, and who first attracts his attention by a strange likeness to his own son. Upon closer observation and investigation he seems chosen, marked and by a, most designing providence placed in their very way for adoption. Besides resembling their son in features he was hardly less like him in build and stature and most astonishingly like him in some special particulars, sucfi as a peculiar cluster of five little, dark birthmark-spots, on the right hip. Moreover he was an orphan, nameless, friendless. He, also again like their son, was half German, though further his parentage was unknown. He was of withni less than nine months the same age as their son. Thus he seemed in every respect a fitting foster brother which the parents were seeking for their son. It was a thmg that had been recommended and urged by their family- physician, consulted on that point before this time by Mr. Alanus. Their child, whose peculiarities of disposition must even at this early age have given rise to apprehen- sions for his future conduct, needed a suitable companion, and they were doubly glad for his sake to have met with one so unassuming, and satisfied to never claim more than a second place, and yet so like as to fully appear the brother of their child as he was to be. As the two boys grew up, their resemblance was less 9 ClIROXICLES or MAXUBL ALAKUS marked. Their eyes and voice and their manner never Iiad been ahkc. Later again, under foreign skies the one retained his hghter skin, hair and eyes, while the adopted son, the one who was my father, grew much darker. Still likeness in features and figure, walk and carriage always remained. Though how there ever could be any resemblance at all between the two, their natures being so utterly unlike, who can understand? The family returned again to their home in the United States with the poir adopted waif whom they called Henry for ]\Ir. Alanus. It came to pass, and I must think very soon, that the parents grow to love him more than their own child. For who that is not insensible to all that is lovable in human kind but must have loved him ; bright, brave and true, modest and manly, sweet-tempered, gen- tle; affectionate, of good sense and parts, and of good spirits too. But at bottom he was of a nervous tempera- ment, much tinged with melancholy, and very bashful. I can picture him to myself, the little boy,, happy in his loving heart to be loved, but unhappy already in his generous, self-denying way for Richard's sake, the real son, wdio might feel himself robbed of his birthright by him, the intruder ; and already in his over-conscientious- ness trying to make amends, reparation for this intrusion by subordinating his wishes and desires to those of Rich- ard's ; already, in self-conscious sense of duty and obliga- tion, taking all the tricks and misdeeds of the other's malignity as something to be borne and forgiven, forgot- ten untold, unthought of, atoned for, as it were, by his, my father's, own suft'erings. All his life it continued, through early boyhood, school- days, and first years of business-life on and on within steady increase the run of time ! When barely of age and but just through their young- est clerkship, Richard developed such evil traits of char- acter that Mr. Alanus, the father, became convinced that 10 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAXUS the only way of saving Richard, as well as of savmg hnn- self from Richard, was to send him away out of his house and business, out of his town and country, to give him the chance, if it was in him, to redeem himself, to make a fresh start in an entirely new world. And my father, his foster brother of his own volition w-ent vvith him. Situations were procured for them in Buenos Aires, and they left home never to return. Mr. Alanus opposed my father's going most strenuously and parted from him at last in great agony. And why did he go, leave home, the parents, the place so dear to him that while he lived never was he again altogether free from homesickness? He could not have believed that he could do anything to change Richard's nature or that he had influence to check and turn Richard's w-ay of life. He may have considered himself able to straighten some of Richard's crookedness, to prevent or counteract some of his plots. Young and of everyone more thoughtful than of himself, the consideration how Richard's every action must reflect on himself, the risk he ran of ruining his own life by linking it to Richard's, formed no part of his calculation, if calculate he did. It was simply his duty to go and he w^ent. But no! No duty nor calculation! It w^as to him a wrong his uprightness w^ould not let him bear : that he, Henry, the outsider, the merely adopted one should stay at home, be everything, have everything, while the real son w^ent into exile. It was that w^hich made him take upon himself to share Richard's banishment. I doubt if my father ever fully understood Richard Alanus, and not alone because of their total unlikeness but perhaps as much because he never tried to know him as he w^as. He never wanted to fully lift the veil he him- self had spun and woven since the first beginning and ever held over and around Richard to shield him from other's eyes and hide all there was in him of abomination. II CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS In his fairness and tenderness my father always, I be- lieve, saw in Richard the wronged child, the ousted son, wronged and ousted by himself, or if not by him in strict truth, at least in a manner through him, for himself. He thought Richard unhappy, miserable because unloved, as he himself would be and through misery driven to wild exploits for relief. Later he may have thought to him- self that Richard's bitterness turned him to dissipation, vice and viciousness. But finally my father must have known his utter depravity and his enmity to him. Yet to the last there was that in my father which would not let him condemn Richard without some reserve, some allow- ance for his wrong doing. But Richard was not unhappy, except may be through failure of some plan of wickedness, casually and momen- tarily till he could turn to some other scheme. He did not grieve nor eat his heart in bitterness. He was of a lively, sanguine disposition, and of a loud and scurrilous humor. And impudent ! Loving all the low pleasures of life, there was no enjoyment to him equal to plotting, practising all sorts of deceits and tricks. He would gain the following of young people mostly and lead them on to debauchery and corruption when he had gained power over them. He would maltreat them further with insults, taunts, jeers, abuse of any kind, especially before strang- ers. He was as cowardly, mean and cruel as he was brazen. He loved to embroil his acquaintances in quar- rels, trick and trap them into what might bring them open disgrace if not utter ruin ! Years went by in Buenos Aires ! The more unfettered forms of social life in the new country made Richard's evil ways at first less observable, while affording him more opportunities. His only obstacle in reality was my father, who first counseled, tried to prevent and at the end always stepped in and helped out ! And he, too, of course, was but a young man of warm blood, wanting his fun. needing 12 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US it! How many things may have slipped him? How many times may he have come dangerously near being im- plicated in the tricks he aimed at defeating? How many traps must have been set for him? And he the better hated for every failure to be entrapped ! Richard was always in need of money, although by no means altogether without m.oney-sense, as is the true spendthrift, but without care of it, except for his de- baucheries! And my father was always the one to have to furnish it, if not before then afterwards to cancel and make good obligations incurred, or worse! And again my father was always the more hated for every loyal, helpful act! Hate? Well, perhaps not so much hate! For at bottom I do not take Richard Alanus to have been man enough to really, soundly hate anybody. He did not hate the people he ill-used. I think he mostly was quite im- personal about it. He did it for the pleasure it gave him : a sort of gratification of a depraved taste ; a satisfaction too, of his vanity, to think that he could treat people thus ! Envious he was and vain. Jealousy was most powerful in him — jealousy of everybody and everything, and par- ticularly of what is most admirable. There was in him a certain love to destroy, childish almost, cruelty: the de- light in inflicting pain, the lust to torture! There was nothing, absolutely nothing in him to be worked on, no sense of honor, or duty, no principle, no feeling, no com- mon humanity, no shame, not even self-interest, except as concerned his personal safety, nothing but the fear of the coward ! I saw it, a child whom he had carried off from the old wharf to be done away with, so that my father, then on my track, might with new anguish learn too late that the boy he had so often met and had come to like and love, had been the son he had thought dead. I saw it as I read his whole mind. So plain ! Could not others see it? So 13 Ch'ROXICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS plain, so naked ! Could not my father have seen it long since ? But, may be, the very plainness and nakedness was the very reason for his baseness not being taken at its full value; that and the gradual progress. For if he plotted to corrupt and debauch and ruin young men and women, nearly always young people, the beginnings must naturally always have been in the way of ordinary dissipation, such as any young fellow can allow himself without attracting attention. If he practised vices as much to lead on others as for his own gratification and if it told on him, the effect would not be observable at once. And when he committed forgeries, they were now no more of his father's but of my father's signature and not brought to light. Not till later did he have to desist from raising money that way. To my father it must have been such an old story that it had almost lost its meaning. While these two foster brothers were in Buenos Aires their parents died. The inheritance went to my fatlier, the will stating that Richard had already cost his father by far the greater part of his fortune. But, of course, all the money went into Richard's hands as soon as my father obtained it, except a certain reserve-fund. Later they left Buenos Aires and went to the city of Mexico, where my father accepted a very lucrative position in a German-French banking house. Here Rich- ard lived without occupation, till, as in the first place it had become imperative that he should leave his father's house and his town and country, and as undoubtedly it had been equally imperative that he had to leave Buenos Aires, so now again disclosures of scandalous doings necessitated his leaving Mexico City. And my father of course went with him. It w^as the last chance, it was the only possible way of saving Richard, to give him this one more opportunity to redeem himself, to let him take an entirely new start in a new country. They determined 14 CHROXICLES Ub' MAXi'EL ALAXUS to go to California, where, to be sure, the tirst golden days were long since past and gone, but where develop- ment of the whole country seemed to insure long years of prosperity. They were to be the representatives in San Francisco of the German-French house my father had been the manager of in the city of ^lexico. That my father should handcuff himself to that, his worst enemy, is not strange, but who can explain why he, the soul of honor and integrity and a man of great busi- ness ability, should take Richard Alanus in partnership, or engage him at all in this business, which was an affair of others' as well as his own, belonging in part to that German French concern? By this time he must have known, if not of all his depravedness, his more than ir- responsibility and utter lack of principle. How could he sustain and countenance Richard? Only that what money my father put in the venture was the remainder of the inheritance from the parents, of which in his eyes Richard was the rightful owner. The money made Richard the real partner, and my father's boss in fact. To place him in the position of principal partner and boss was the very last chance, the main agency vs-hich was to work Richard's cure and salvation ! ^ly father was merely partner in name, the man to do all the work, assume all the responsibility and be a guarantee, a sort of bond for Richard, given to the other partners. At bottom it was still my father's feeling of duty and obliga- tion to the parents which he would discharge by sacri- ficing himself to the son. Most certainly, too, Richard never entirely showed himself such as he was to my father. My father could not have known him as I knew him. Although I must say it has always seemed to me that Richard was a man very easily seen through. There was so much of the fool in him that with all his deceitfulness he did not really de- 15 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ceive or convince. In all he said and undertook, in all he did he always made some show of being insincere, some pretence of playing pranks, as if he did not know the difference between fun and crime. And in truth, he wanted people to think this or something like this of him. But the make-belief, the bluff was very plainly observable. At the same time a reality was in the trick. It was not all a make-belief, not all pretence. The fool in him was too real, the lack of sense too great. He could not help doing most things foolishly and always doing foolish things. He never knew when to stop. He appeared never to be able to look ahead any distance and to see consequences. He constantly gave himself away and would without understanding and judgment abuse the servicefulness even of such of the shady set of characters as were his helpers, such as are always gathering round a man like Richard in any large city, or anywhere. His boldness it was that carried him through in every- thing, his brazenness, his front of doubly chilled steel ; that was the thing. And also a certain brutality in treating them, gave him power over women which he undoubtedly possessed. Outwardly he was of fair appearance as he was of fair address, and fair abilities. Not brilliant by any means, perhaps not even bright (although I have heard his social talents extolled) and without any special gift, yet he had an adroitness or aptitude for scheming. This talent or mind for mere, shallow trickery I can not take as anything great, nor think that he was anything but an ordinary, worthless evil-doer, who was mainly success- ful because my father's consideration and kindhearted- ness disarmed him, his principal victim, as much as his fairness and very fearlessness made him vulnerable. But yet what a scoundrel ! To defraud, cheat and rob his own parents! To scheme against my father from childhood! To attempt my mother's destruction and i6 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS mine ! To seduce the silly beauty my father married, and afterwards make her leave my father, keeping her as an everlasting threat, an impending possibility of robbing my father of his children, at least of Cora, whom he wrongly believed to be his child. At last the fulfillment of the threat, Cora's leaving my father, broke his heart and killed him! Am I pleading my own case? Yes, I shot him dead ! Years of my life in prison, have I paid for it. Put me back in time, let it all happen again, I should have to do it again. Had my father but lived ! Had my father but lived! Oh, father, father, father ! I should have killed him sooner to save your life. That has often been the bitterest thought of all. But you had to die that I could kill him. Not in revenge, no ! But it was your death that wrought me up to do the deed. And now I must set down the story of my mother, which forms but a short episode, as mine does a little longer one, in that of my father's life. Some of it is only explainable by remembering the then primitive state of the whole West Coast, as good as uninhabited, without modern means of intercommunication and hardly more than the first beginnings of civilized public life. To go to San Francisco my father and Richard Alanus left the city of Mexico for the West Coast, to meet at a certain harbor the mail-steamer which touched at diflfer- ent ports on her trip from Panama to San Francisco. My mother was to follow later. She was a young Mexican. My father had made her acquaintance not long before departing. She was just entering upon womanhood. She had been to him as his wife since the time they first met. He loved her dearly 17 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and intended to marry her as soon as they were all set- tled in San Francisco, where there would be no obstacle through prejudice of class or creed or race. He knew that she was bearing him a child that would be his first- born. He would not, he never could desert any one de- pendent on him. He left her with ample means of sup- port till he should send for her. But despair seized her on his departure, and, in company with a brother and an old aunt, her only near relatives, shortly afterwards she set out to follow him, hoping blindly to reach the coast before my father had met a steamer. She failed to find my father or any trace of him. Probably, in her want of knowledge, she went wide of the place to which he had gone. She had come to the sea- board at a village where no steamer ever stopped. In a small sailing-craft, scarcely more than an open boat, she took passage with her companions, trying to reach a sea- port more in touch with the world. Disastrous trip! The boat was blown out to sea. The brother and the two boatmen were washed overboard and drowned. My mother and the aunt in the half-swamped craft were picked up by a schooner trading along the Mexican coast from port to port. It was going northward till it should make steamer-connection with San Francisco at Mazat- lan. But strange enough before they reached Mazatlan, at some harbor-town, may be Manzanillo, there came on board Richard Alanus. He had embarked and gone with my father as far as Mazatlan on board the mail-steamer. At that place, during the few hours' stay there, he had secretly gone ashore, letting the steamer depart without him. A mere mistake or misunderstanding he claimed afterwards it had been, hut it most certainly was another one of his often so very silly schemes to annoy and distress my father. He was forced to proceed on his way in all the ]ierturl.ation and anxiety the discovery of Richard's i8 CHROXICLES OF MAXL'LL ALANUS absence after the departure of the vessel occasioned him. Nor did Richard follow in the next steamer. He afterwards gave out that he had been persuaded to a trip into the interior to look at some mining property and on account of fever breaking out at Mazatlan had returned to the coast at another place, where, going on board a schooner just arrived to see about securing passage in her to some place in Upper California if not to San Fran- cisco itself, he met my mother. To her he pretended that he had been left behind by my father, who, somehow informed of her coming, had com- missioned him to look for her and bring her on to San Francisco. Afraid of his life to stay on the fever-infested coast, news of the fever spreading down the coast having been received, he arranged to charter the schooner to leave im- mediately, and which was to take them direct to San Francisco. My mother had no acquaintance with Richard Alanus any more than knowing who he was. She, of course, was overjoyed at his appearance, more yet at his com- munications and representations, and she was only too willing to let him have the main part of the money in her possession to perfect his arrangements for the voyage with the master of the schooner. She now felt herself lifted out of her despair and placed securely under the pro- tection of one who would safely bring her to my father and with fair prospects of reaching him before the birth of the child. But new sufferings were in store for her, nothing but sufferings. The old aunt, never having recovered from the terrible hours of exposure in the open boat, died when they were barely out of sight of her native land. Not lonsf after Richard began to show himself in his true colors. Soon my mother had to defend herself at night with the weapon she always carried, against his brutal 19 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS advances. Then came storm and shipwreck. Somewhere on the bare stretch of sunburnt coast, north of San Diego, they were cast away. The vessel went to pieces in the breakers. All perished but my mother and Richard Alanus. They gained the beach alive. And on that desert strand after robbing her of the few trinkets and pieces of jewelry and the little remaining money she had on her person, he left her exhausted nearly to insen- sibility. And in case of her recovering, he tried to inflict a foul hurt to make death probable to two lives. Thus he left my mother and ultimately he reached San Fran- cisco safe and sound with the account of the shipwreck and the lie of my mother's death, delivering to my father as proofs, the small, gold crucifix worn by my mother on her breast and the ring of troth, given her by my father, neither of which, he was persuaded, she would have parted with while she lived. My mother was found by some natives who had been attracted to the place by the wreckage. They started to conduct her to their camp, a little distance inland on a creek, which emptied into the sea round the nearest bluff. But she soon, in premature labor, sank to the ground. And there in the hot sand, near the lapping edge of the tumbling sea, some of the squaws assisting, I was born. My mother and I were afterwards brought to the camp where we remained till I was about two years old. I grew up with the native children, like them, I suppose, digging for shellfish in the mud-banks of the shallow creek, wading in the surf, hanging onto the ponies, run- ning with the dogs and catching grasshoppers on the mesa. When Richard Alanus poured that drug down my throat and it first took effect, bringing on that hellish dream that for years after was to be the bane of my sleep, there appeared to me in the fire of the dream, like a picture, a stretch of sea-coast which was, I always believe, the spot near the native camp where I was born — a sandy 20 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS beach along the dazzHng surf, bending in a gentle sweep to a rocky point at either end. A bank of yellow, clayish rock facing the sea, rose from the beach to a slightly curving and much broken top, the edge of the mesa. It was a wavy plain of dry grass and brush, dotted with clumps of live oaks, dark and round-topped, extending back to a range of bare, drab-colored hills, hardly standing out from the m.ore distant mountains which were all faint and pale in misty haze and thickenings of fog here and there. . Perhaps something happened there some time m those first years of my life : a grass-fire along the edge of the mesa, a fire of driftwood on the beach, a burning ship near the shore or, rarest of all a thunderstorm, somethmg that lent its form and color to the working of the drug. But I remember no such occurrence. Still I have a recollection of the camp: a few hutlike windbreaks of driftwood, dry brush and grass on an easy slope of ground behind the swelling bluff. It was set with scattered bushes and trees. There was a break in the clay-bank, opening toward the ocean, where the waters of a little creek during the rainy season came winding round and spreading thinly over the sand of the beach and ran into the sea. . :^Iy mother was verv ill after ni)- birth and remained lame and at times more than half blind, although her eyes showed no sign of disease. The only, only part of her my memory retains is her mild, brown eyes! One day a white man with his pack on his back came to the camp. He was a miner who had been prospecting for gold far south, back of San Diego, an Englishman named Thomson. He was without much means, but he took my mother and me from the natives and brought us first to one place, then another, an old Califor- nian ^Mission where I was baptized. From place to place, 21 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS remaining longer and shorter here and there, finally we reached San Francisco. He wanted to fully espouse our cause, find my father and make him right my mother and me. It was not pity he took on us, it was not kindness of heart he felt, nor was it mercenary speculation. It was the conceit of doing something very laudable, very right, very chivalric. He was always doing what was right. He always knew what was right. He was a man of preconceived ideas, or rather of first ideas, first impressions. As he first saw a thing so he understood it to be and brought to his reasoning, not knowledge, but remembrance of something he had once read or learned or heard, and nothing could change his opinions once formed. He knew just enough Spanish to misunderstand three fourths of our story. It was conventional enough to suit his mind which never could grasp anything else, and he never come to understand the story differently. Richard Alanus was to him my father. He had misun- derstood it to be so at first and Richard remained to him my father to his last hour. He found me, I sup- pose, a silent little brat with questioning eyes and quiet, self-contained ways, and put me down as secretive, crafty, false, and such to him I always was. Of course, without him I might never have been anything but a Californian half-breed, living and dying a hanger-on to somebody at some place in the Southern part of the State. But on the other hand, when he took me away from the Mexican children's troupe, he did what makes us even. In San Francisco it was easy enough for him to find Richard Alanus but beyond that he never advanced. My mother was now steadily confined to her bed, her eyes altogether sightless, though never losing their mild beauty. Thomson did all the housework for us. He 22 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS was constantly in straitened circumstances, in fact without any money at all except what he received in well calculated insufficiency from Richard. My father was at the time about to marry, and to Richard the whole affair was the most delightful game he ever played. Nothing was easier for him than to fool Thompson and keep that blockhead from ever com- municating with other persons. And if my mother would only live a little while longer, till after the wedding, what an opportunity he would then have to enjoy the trouble, torment, pain and unhappiness he could have created for my father. But while he was giving all his attention to my father's marriage and had gone for some weeks to my father's countryplace in the upper Santa Clara valley, where the nuptials were to take place, my mother died. When he returned to town he found her buried. Thomson, dead broke, had gone to some new gold- diggings. The child, who was then perhaps three years old, was not to be found, in all probability he thought had been taken along by Thomson. My father's wife! She was little Harry's, my brother's, mother and when I meet him I will tear all this out of my brain and think of her only as his mother. But was she not Cora's mother as well? What deceits were practised to bring about this mar- riage I cannot at all think. Still my father must have been in love with her too. She was a young woman of great prettiness of face and figure, of good birth and very poor. She was not without a certain ladylike manner, or perhaps, it should rather be called a natural gracefulness of motion, ges- tures, posture. She had very little heart. To me it is often difficult to believe such a state possible. When she came where my father lay dying in my arms, his head on my shoulder, his hand to my cheek to touch the face his breaking eye could no longer see, all she did 23 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS was to smile and say: '*Does he not die hard!" When Harry, Httle mite of a thing, only just able to walk, had his foot crushed and thereby lost his leg, while he was trying to rise, being such a brave little fellow, struggling, bleeding, her own baby, she laughed, because it looked so funny. Yet she was not cruel. That time, in the room where Richard Alanus had me captive, in the house where the guilty pair used to have their secret meetings, she would not take the cane to beat me when he urged her to do so. Cora did. Cora was cruel. But she was not cruel. She was a silly, babyish person, ignorant of almost everything and without understanding and judgment or even ordinary or moral sense. But she was not immod- est. And she had talent for music. She did not know a note but she sung by ear sweetly and correctly and accom- panied herself tastefully on various instruments without ever having received any instruction. In speaking, how- ever, her voice sounded harsh and screechy. Her beauty and her shapeliness! Her graceful way! Her pretty singing! What more? She was poor. She had a dismal home. Her stepfather was a lawyer of the dissolute type of this country ; her stepmother, his third of fourth wife was a vulgar, jealous woman who treated her most meanly. I think the first step toward falHng in love with her was the pity my father felt for her. Richard Alanus had boasted of receiving her favor be- fore her marriage and she gave birth to a daughter not six months after she had wedded my father. But not even then did my father suspect her, and fond as he was of children, especially girls, what joy to him was this baby- girl, Cora. She had the silkiest of blond hair, the frank- est of pale, gray eyes and the loveliest of pouting mouths. Any illusion he had about his wife soon vanished and he saw that he had been blind, had blindly deceived himself, that the woman he was married to could not make him 24 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US happy in any possible way. Yet not Ijlaming her, not blaming any other one, true to his nature he took all the blame upon himself, trying not to let her suffer for his mistake, trying to give her at least what comfort and pleasure of life he could provide, indulging her, trusting her and caring for her now, on Cora's account perhaps more than ever before. When he had been married several years a rumor came to him, vague and untraceable, that my mother had not perished in the shipwreck, but that she had died at one of the old Mission-places on the coast giving birth to a boy and that the child was living somewhere near his birthplace. Upon hearing this he immediately proceed- ed on a trip of inquiry down the coast. At almost the first place he visited, he found with the name of the mother, Manuela Eguren and his own name as that of the father, the record of the date of the birth and the baptism of a boy named for father and mother : Manuel Enrique Egueren y Alanus, my name, his son's. Further inquiry among the native population of the neighborhood brought forth but little additional informa- tion. My mother has stayed quite a w^hile there. She has been very ill, but her death has not taken place there. Her little son had been known to have five, little, brown birthmark-spots in a peculiar cluster on the right hip. She had come to the place under the protection of a man with a big, red beard and an ugly, scarred eyebrow, an Englishman, and they have all gone away to the city, to San Francisco, years ago. As soon as he returned to San Francisco, my father began searching for his wife and child. But according to his nature he could confide his secret to but few. At best it was an awkward matter which might lead to family discord and his losing Cora. But try to find us, he must and take care of us and see to his child's future, that was his duty. 25 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS He did not make Richard his confidant. Never had he been that to him. But as this first rumor must have been started by Richard, so as on every occasion v^hen he could do anything to give pain to the tenderest heart he did so now. If only indirectly he still misled, gave false clews, started wrong reports, raised hopes one day to destroy them the next; and it was undoubtedly he who made my father discover what seemed to be on the best of evidence that I had died a miserable death from want and neglect among the rag-pickers on the dumps. At that time Richard had prepared to strike his last, great blow : the embezzlements of large sums of money belonging to the firm, which he knew my father would take upon himself to make good. And he farther planned to elope with my father's wife, carrying off Cora with her. It was all to descend on my father at once. But the plan failed. And although no case in law could be, or at least ever was made out against Richard, and he con- tinued to live in the city established in some business of his own, the breach with my father and the disrup- tion of the former business-relations were complete. My father became sole head of the reorganized business. Cora and her mother remained with him, and Richard was for once worsted. It was a collection-business that Richard went into, and many times have I been told that he made a very good collector and would have done well as such, only that he never could keep straight, always must be crooked in all his dealings. Never quite free from a homesick melancholy, unhappy in his married life, afflicted by the last, irremediable break with his halfbrother and mourning in bitter grief and self-reproach my and my mother's death, my father now would have days when even his blind love and devotion to Cora could not lift the pall of sorrow from his soul. Outside of business and business-hours he would seclude himself, keep awav from home and friends and by him- 26 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US self stroll the lowlier streets of the older parts of the town, as if to lose himself among the commoner people there, mostly foreign-born, where nobody would know him, and where his fondness for children could be given plenty of play among the shoals of little ones, where he could make friends with some who pleased him most. But he was always soon moving on, shy of observation. If there was any lingering hope in him that I was alive and that he might yet come across me, he was un- conscious of it. And when he did meet me, there was nothing within him or without, no recognition of the little though not striking likeness to my mother, no asso- ciation of my, if slight, still evident olive tint of tropical blood, of my age, my name, my language, characteristics that he knew were his son's, to suggest to him who I was. To be sure I was small for my age. It was only in prison that I grew to middle height. I was thin. At this time I passed for from one to two years younger than I was and often was wondered at for my strength and endurance. And when asked who my father was, I always named Jim, the bricklayer, whom all we children in the house called father, although I knew very well that he was not my real father. And of my name I knew but Manuel. Still the very fact of my knowing no other name of mine but that, might have led to its being no- ticed and given rise to a combination of ideas. But if my father did not make the discovery himself it would have been disclosed to him in time. And even if it had not been made at all, he would have taken me to him, his affection for me increasing on seeing my child-attachment to him growing so strong. He had al- ready selected a place for me to have as a home where I could grow up under better conditions of life, when that destroyer of both our lives stepped in again between us. To go back a little with my story, I had been given by Thomson upon his departure into the charge of a Mexican 27 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS woman, Adelita, with whom he had a passing acquaint- ance. From whose rooms, baclv of the old jail, upon her dying suddenly, almost immediately afterwards, i was taken by her sister, the Dark Woman, to her home with Jim, the bricklayer in the wooden hovel on the nar- row alley, somewhere off Pacific street, above Stockton or Powell street. She already had her three, or perhaps four sets of children, by different former husbands and all we children were employed all the time in foraging for firewood and kitchen-supplies, chiefly amongst the Italian vegetable-gardeners and fishermen who seemed to be old-time acquaintances of the Dark Woman. W^hen Jim, the bricklayer, had deserted her and us children, I was taken, together with the eldest girl, the oldest one of all the children, by her father, Antonio, an Italian vegetable-man to his gardens or fields somewhere outside the city, where there were many windmills, and where I had to work so hard and learned so much of gardening work, even small as I was, that I afterwards found it easy to acquire good skill in the handicraft. From Antonio I came, I never remembered how, but 1 believe by simple transfer, to Nick and Nello, the two Spanish boatmen and fishermen on the old, long wharf reaching far out over the waters of the bay, with a branch extending still farther. Fishermen and boatmen they were in name only. They never went out in them but kept a few boats for rent by the hour or day. Neither did they ever do any fishing, but merely kept fishing tackle for hire and sold bait to people who came, principally on Sundays, to angle for perch and smelt. They also kept hoop-nets with meat tied in them, to let to those who wanted to fish for crabs. I was made to fish for crabs for them to sell, and I always cooked some of our meals as well. Nick might sometimes give a look if I had at- tended to the nets and was keeping them well mended, but 28 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US Nello did not even do that. He was lazy. They were both lazy and shiftless. And on the old wharf, work-boy for those two men, my father came upon me. Later when he told it, years later in the happy, happy days that were to end so soon, when he had me with him when he could revel in the recollection of that sweet, short time, he felt certain he could fix the very day he first saw me and would indulge hmiself m the remembrance of every detail of it: One of the beautiful days so plentiful in most parts of Califorma, so rare in San Francisco, when everything seems to stand rapt m the crystal stillness of the air and the silent, thronging sun- shine; a Sunday after the heavy, later rains of the sea- son when every one is out of doors, he had come strolling as far as the old, long wharf where he found many people fishing, some looking on, others watching parties in the boats on the quietlv gliding water, or at distant ships at anchor, others whollv idle, lounging in the sun. ihere were so many he could be sure of being able to mmgle with them unobserved. He immediately became inter- ested in the doings of a small boy whose services seemed to be in great demand by all the crowd which was densest in a neighborhood of a little shanty built on the wharf where a side-wharf branched off at an angle. Calls came- "Boy! Boy! Manuel!" from all quarters without intermission, demanding fishing rods to let with tackle and bait. He would fix the bait, receive the money, run with it to a man who seemed to be the master and was sitting on a short bench alongside the open door of the shanty, smoking a clay pipe, get the change from him and run with it to the customers, change the rods, fix the returned-ones afresh, run at the call of an angler to take a landed fish off the hook and bait the hook anew for him, haul up the hoopnets to take out the crabs ; let down the nets again and run with the crabs in a basket to another 29 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS man who also seemed to be master and sat inside the shanty on a chair with his feet up on the cook-stove smoking a wooden pipe! Behind the shanty there was a space with an open shed, like a yard, only not fenced in, extending to the end of the wharf. There were boatsteps quite at the end and davits. And here was more work for the boy : climbing down the steps to receive an incoming boat, tie the painter, wipe the thwarts, collect the fare in advance from the next boating party, fetch the change, push her off, then to come up the steps and go right away down again, to go sculling in a boat to pick up a hat fallen overboard ; to change the oars in another boat and put cushions on the seats for a large boating party of ladies and children as well as men ; carry down their heavy lunchbasket and very carefully a little baby-girl with all her frocks and capes nearly as big as herself ; up and down the steps scores of times, till my father thought the short legs, though looking firmly enough built, must give out. His heart took pity on the boy, of course, at once, more since the boy seemed to be really willing and in his silent way obliging, answering promptly every call, trying conscientiously to satisfy everybody and doing patiently all that the people wanted sometimes over and over again, and not with halfhearted- ness, nor with obtrusion, but with a sort of modebt eager- ness, in spite of his sullen looks ! Even with the bigger young fellows, of whom there were a good many, hanging chiefly round the boatsteps, wrangling and fooling and apparently always on the point of a serious quarrel, the small boy managed to get along, he minding them but little. Only once there was a little disturbance. A big boy had grabbed the little fellow's hat and thrown it from him till it came near going over- board, when another boy, not quite so big as the first one and younger looking but quite large, finely grown, 30 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS broad-shouldered and very handsome, all pink and white came forward shouting to the first one: "Pick up that hat! Hand it back now! Now, if you don't want your damned head punched, you leave that kid alone!" The other one had handed back the hat, saying some- thing of having been only funning. And then it was all over. In the middle of the afternoon this brisk business slackened. The people began to leave. First several, then more and more till but a few stragglers remained. But before sundown all had gone except my father, who standing, half hiding by a spile-head of the side-wharf, still watched the boy in whose work there was even yet no let-up. He now had to go down into the boats, scrub and wash tliem out and bring them up to the davits, clear and hook the tackles and help to hoist them up, pulling, hang- ing to the tackle-falls with his small weight, coming up in the boats from the water. The two men, after the hoist- ing, went back into the shanty, their share of the day's work being done, leaving the boy to draw, the plugs, let the water out of the boats, bring in the oars and coil up the gear. After that he had to carry all the fishing rods from their outside stands into the shed, haul up and clean and hang up the nets, tidy up and sweep the yard and the place in front of the shanty. And when all this was done and he had washed himself in a tin basin on a shelf just inside the shed, and nothing more seemed possibly neces- sary for him to do, he hitched himself to a little wagon with a sort of harness over his shoulders and under his arms and went the whole length of the wharf to fetch two buckets full of drinking-water from a liverystable near the foot of the wharf. H:e went on a half-run, but came back at a slow pace, so as not to spill the water. One bucket he handed in to the men in the shanty, the other he took into the open shed. 31 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS He then put up his wagon in the shed and came and sat himself down quietly on the bench by the closed door of the shanty in the darkening of the evening. He sat there so long, so still, gradually fading into a mere blotch of shadow, my father thought sometimes he must have slipped away unseen by him, or gone to sleep, only that once in a long while he saw his head move a little against the yellow line of light gleaming through the chink of the door. And night had fallen quite clear and calm. Stars glit- tered in the sky down to the black hills all around, and joined the many lights in the city across the dark and faintly glistening water. My father was wondering what the boy might be think- ing of, and whether he had noticed him and was specu- lating about the men as he was about the boy; and if the boy was not unhappy sometimes, and if something could not be done to make him happy, if he was unhappy; and if one of the men in the shanty was his father, which he thought very improbable, or who and where his father might be ; or if he had no father and mother, like himself. And his thoughts went back to the time when he had been a boy like this one on the small peasant farm in Tus- cany, and a man had come to see him several times and had been very kind to him, and at last had taken him away with him to be his father. And in the loneliness of his soul he felt again as he had done from time to time almost all his life and lately, oftener than ever, that it might have been better had he been left with the poor peasant-people and grown up to be a poor hard-working peasant himself. At last the door of the shanty opened, letting out a great burst of light, and one of the men handed the boy a tin-pan, the light shining on it, saying, **Here ! That is all there is left!" And the door had closed again, leav- ing it so dark my father could not see the boy at all 32 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS for a little time till he caught sight of him moving, going to the rear of the shanty. And he had an attack of bold- ness to follow him as far as the yard-place. There he heard him in the shed hanging up a tin dipper or some vessel like that, as if he had been drinking some water. Presently he came into the open again and saw my father standing there, close by. He did not seem in the least afraid or to think it strange that somebody should be there but stood indiffer- ent, looking up a moment at the Evening Star, then at its brightest, and at its blurred reflection on the eddying water below, and then at the stars above, and around, as if comparing it to some of them. Then my father plucked up more boldness and spoke to him, saying that he must be tired. But being nervous at his own boldness, he spoke indistinctly, and the boy merely turned his head a little as if not understanding or not sure of having been spoken to and did not answer. This so abashed my father it took him some seconds to recover till he could very meekly ask, "Are you hungry ?" And the boy very simply answered, "Yes!" Just at that moment the boy was called by the men to wash the supper-dishes, which he started to do right away in a large tin pan on the bench in the light of the open door of the shanty, while my father, anger in his heart with the men and filled with sore pity for the boy, hurried off ashore to buy at the nearest places he found open some fruit and bread and two hard-boiled eggs, all he could get, and some slices of boiled ham, and went back to give it to the boy. But hurry as he would, it took so long to get it and the distance was so great, that when he came out again to the shanty, all within and without was silence and darkness. He laid the package on the bench where the boy might find it the first thing in the morning, feeling sure that he would be the first one up and out. But it came to 33 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS him that if he put the things in the wagon it would be more clear that they were to be the boy's. So he went to the yard and into the shed, feeling cautiously with his feet for the wagon. He came against some boat-sails lying stowed away in one corner, and stretching out his arm to keep from falling, laid his open hand right on the boy's head. For this was the boy's sleeping place Such a sensation of joyous satisfaction came to my father, he almost sat down squarely on the boy and only just managed to clear him by a little. But the boy was as before not in the least startled, though awakened and sitting up immediately, onlv asked, very simply again, "What is it?" My father told him that he was the man who had spoken to him a little while ago and that he had brought him something to eat as he had said that he was hungry. And he felt for the boy's arms and put the paperbag with the things in his hands. "Is this mine?" asked the boy. "Yes!" "Mine, alone?" "Yes, yours alone! Nobody's but yours. I bought it with my money and brought it to you because you are hungry. I give it to you to eat. Now eat!" And the boy commenced to eat without another word. My father grew quite bold in the utter darkness with the bov alone, and putting his hand on his head, stroked his hair and neck. And thus feeling how greedily the child was eating, he told him not to eat so fast, that it was not eood to do so, but to take his time and chew his food well ; nobody should take the things away from him. The boy at the word slackened speed at once and ate slowly but never stopped till the last morsel was eaten. My father, now perfectly brazen, kept his hand to the boy's head all the time. He ran his fingers through his hair, felt of his little ear, rubbed them against his cheek 34 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS and chin and held the back of them to his warm, soft throat, to feel the light, quick beating of his blood, the little fellow not minding it at all. But whenever my father stopped still he stopped still too for a little while as if waiting and then moved his face just the least bit against his hand, almost like nudging him to go on, because he liked it. ''Are you still hungry?" asked my father, when there was no more to eat. "N-no !" ''Could you eat more if you had it?" "It will do!" This, to be sure, made my father feel very miserable. "I am sorry I did not get more," he said most penitently. "But I can go for more. Some place will be open." And he moved to rise. But the boy said, "No! It was plenty enough!" adding with something queer of softness, "Much obliged!" lay- ing back his head then. "Now are you going to sleep ?" "Yes." "Won't you shake hands and say good night?" "Good night !" But it was like a shock when my father's hand had come to the little hand in the dark, to feel the palm so horny hard. He never forgot it. The next time my father came to the old wharf, the next Sunday, it made him smile at himself in his humor- ous self-observation, how he felt as if the boy, when he saw him, must know him, and quite snubbed and set back when he found himself a blank to him. And from what he observed, watching pretty closely, he was not able to conclude that the boy was at all starved or badly treated, or anything but well and contented. Certainly he was sparing of speech and otherwise too, in a way noiseless that was not like most boys, but this clearly came by no 35 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS means from dejection, nor was there, as far as my father could see, any trace of ill-humor about him, rather some- thing of self-restraint that might be the result of some previous training. And though small, he was yet appar- ently as strong as he showed himself to be nimble, and well able to do his work. He was quick to see what was wanted, in fact understanding well how to do it ; and if at times hard-run, at others he had at least fifteen minutes duration to rest himself if he wanted to. He must feel little need of it for he would at such times still busy him- self in many ways or among the boys do some tumbling tricks after the fashion of boys when a circus has been in town. At this he seemed by general consent, to be re- garded as being one of the best. And these things he would scarcely have done had he been worked to utter weariness. For all of which reasons the small chap, I am afraid, proved rather a disappointment to my dear father that day, prepared as he had come to pity him. The brisk business of the somewhat raw day was over early and the boy before dark in full sight of him re- ceived an ample supper. My dear father must have felt disappointed at not being able to please himself with ex- pending his sympathy on the boy and I am almost certain he had already in his pocket some food to give him. He was predisposed in favor of the child and trying very hard to keep him in his good graces, managed to find enough pleasure to outbalance all his 'lisappointment and to restore himself to most of his own good opniion. One thing was sure, if tlie boy was of silent ways he was very alert and especially quick, my father thought with all his seriousness, to notice anything that was humorous, comical, ridiculous, things happening among so many people constantly. Another thing was, if he had many what must be classed as soft spots, if he showed that he was conscientious, if he appeared modest, thought- ful of others and considerate, at least he was not bashful, 36 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS not shy of people and diffident. And that, with my father, made up for almost any shortcomings. More than once during the afternoon my father had tried to get nearer to the boy to observe him closer, even if he did not wish to speak to him before so many people. Now, toward evening after his early supper, he came to where my father was sitting on the stringer of the sidewharf, and there, watching the last boat out with a load of boys fooling who were all but capisizing the boat in trying to pick up a spilled oar, he stood quite a long time so close by, my father could follow the moving of his body with his breathing. And my fatlier took notice that he was straight-grown and clean-looking, even though he was meanly dressed, wearing nothing but an old gray, very washed-out, flannel shirt, unbuttoned round the throat, without neckerchief. His trowsers were grayish blue, turned up at the ankles and lashed, dago-fashion, round the waist with an old faded-out, red, silk sash, the ends hanging down on the sides. A shapeless, soft, brown hat was pushed back on his head, and shoes worn through showing the naked feet. His complexion was a very clear, light olive without any color except the very red lips. And now my father could see also that his looks were not at all sullen as they had appeared to him at a dis- tance but only just earnest with a shade of anxiousness that my father could understand only too well, showing that the boy took things to heart and felt responsibilities. And whether it was this or some other expression, some resemblance, the reflexion unconsciously seen of his own self or whatever it was, still my father was so struck v/ith the boy's whole appearance, bearing, looks that the image of him as he stood there, gazing steadfastly at the far-off boat, not minding nor regarding the man observing him so intently never afterwards left his mind. Presently that large, handsome, pink and white boy, Mahon, came along and sung out in his fine, ringing 37 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS voice: "Halloh, you little wharfrat ! who has been bully- ing you now ? Just say it now ! I am just spoiling for a fight now. You little wharfrat! Wharfrat! I would not be a wharfrat. I would rather be a waterrat. Wharf - rats can't swim. You can't swim. You think you can but you can't. Can you?" And at the first sound the little one had turned and stood like one transfixed, his cheeks flushing, his eyes sparkling, smiling at the big fellow, and as if all trembling with gladness at seeing him, and with afifection, till my father's heart, that had been drawn to him from the first, seeing now the feeling he unawares shov\ed, went out to him en.tirely. Coming after this to the old wharf every Sunday, and still finding no opportunity to get into any intercourse or acquaintance with the boy my father thought of trying what a weekday would do. He left his business at noon one day and going to the place in a roundabout way over a stretch of clear beach of the bay-shore, and walking along the water's edge to get to the foot of the wharfs he suddenly, around a sandy knoll, came face to face with the small chap, harnessed to his wagon, going to pick up driftwood to take home and saw up for firewood. If the meeting had not been so unexpected and sudden, perhaps it would have passed without consequence, but my father thus surprised into stopping and speaking, and without knowing why he did so, addressed him in Spanish. Upon this the boy scrutinized him most serious- Iv and searchingly, perhaps trying at the same time to recognize the voice, or detect something familiar in my father's accosting that made him think he must know him. But he answered straightforward enough, speaking Span- ish quite as his mother-tongue, but as if he did not know the man and that the man would presently discover that he had been mistaken in him. My father told him that he would help him gather wood and would draw his wagon for him, which to the 38 CHRONICLES OF MAAWEL ALAKUS boy seemed a funny proposition, or meant to be funny, for the smallest little smile flickered for a moment round his lips. But upon my father's proceeding to unharness him he grew serious again at once and that grave look came back into his face. Gazing earnestly into my father's eyes as if to find out what the man wanted to do, the man was at great pains to explain that he meant no harm but just what he said. He told him that he had some lunch too, in his pockets, some sandwiches and oranges which he should have to eat as soon as they came to a good place to sit down beyond the point ahead. The men- tioning of the lunch did not altogether have the expected effect, the boy continuing grave for some time longer, simply answering the questions my father asked and eying him, not as if afraid or suspicious but very open- ly, frankly trying to understand what was meant by this unusual treatment. My father kept on drawing the wagon and picked up every stick of wood they came to and took those the boy picked up and stowed them all snugly, which businesslike proceeding reassured the boy somewhat. And when they came behind the point where nobody could see them. my father bade the boy sit down in the warm, dry sand and he sat down beside him and gave him the promised oranges and sandwiches. And then, to be sure, the little fellow was ready enough to eat. And my father noticed with a peculiar kind of pleased feeling that he ate as slowly as that night in the shed after he had told him not to eat too fast. While he ate my father started to talk, knowing, it would seem, just what the boy liked to hear: all about animals, seagulls, porpoises and so forth. Then he told a funny story about a dog wanting to catch a crab and using his tail for a line, which brought a broad smile into the sober little face, seeing which, my father, to follow up his success, worked hard with another funny 39 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS story and did not rest till he had brought out another, broader smile and finally yet another so bright he could not wish for any brighter, making the child look very different. He began to show such simple lighthearted- ness that my father hated to do anything to make him serious again but still he could not help asking him some questions about himself. His name was ]\Ianuel, a thing my father kne\v already. He had no other name. He was born in Mexico, the boy told him, but he was not a Mexican. He was a German. His father was Jim. Jim was also from Mexico. He did not know where Jim was now. Yes ! he liked Mahon. Mahon was very strong. Mahon lived with his father, his real father. He was a brewery-man. That there was the chimney of his brewery. His name was Mr. Tern Oldock. He liked him too. He had given him wood. Not now, but when he was with Jim, a long, long time ago. Now he had no wood to give ; he was a brewery- man now. He did not know how old he was. And his mother was dead ; his real mother. In speaking Spanish the boy would once in a while use an Italian word. On my father's giving the right Spanish word, he would after that employ it and not forget it again, which gave my father that same complacent feeling as before when he noticed his eating slowly. He was sorry though to find that the boy did not know Italian, only those few words. He understood it pretty well when my father spoke it. But he would not even attempt to speak it : and Spanish seemed by far the language he knew best, his English being quite faulty. It thus ap- peared that he had at present to speak more English than Spanish. All this dry business-talk over, my father began some little tricks to make life a merrier affair again. He twisted his hands and fingers together to produce all sorts of shadow pictures in the white sunshine on the 40 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS sand, heads of animals that moved and that the boy quickly recognized. He whistled and laughed at the same time. That was real fun. The boy could not do it at all. The more he tried the more it made him laugh. How the man loved to hear the boy laugh. And at the wind-up, it turned out that deep down at the bottom of one of the pockets of the man's coat there was a harmonica that was to the boy's. Indeed, I am pretty sure, this was not the first present for the boy that his pocket had held, if it was the first one given. I doubt not but that every Sunday after the first one some little present was brought to be carried back ungiven. But the Sunday before, m.y father had noticed the boy listening very longingly, he thouglit, to one of the bigger boys hanging around the boatsteps playing such an in- strument. And, now, here was one larger, finer, better every way. But the little fellow seemed almost incapable of realizing that it was to be his. Perhaps he had received fev/ presents before this time, and never before such a fine one, and he did not altogether know how to take it. He blew in it, very softly, just once and put it inside the bosom of his shirt as if to hide it. but soon he took it out again, seemingly to hand it back, blushing as if he had done something mean. He stood with it in his hand, watching my father's every feature to catch each little sign of confirmation of the truth of the thing, not trust- ing his ears apparently as my dear father made one procla- mation after the other that this instrument was to be his. truly his, absolutely his, till at last persuaded to try and play. When once playing, he forgot everything, the giver of the gift, the gift in the enjoyment, first breathing into the instrument all round and then starting ofif plaving, he held it as that boy did the last Sunday, between his half- closed hands, and played a tune that boy had played, but infinitely, my father thought prettier : after that he played other tunes! street-songs of the day, pieces my father 41 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS whistled or hummed, anything so readily my father felt sure he must often have played such an instrument before. But the boy shook his head without stopping his tune. All the way back he made music. And when they parted at the foot of the wharf, my father stood and listened to the strains growing fainter as the child went toiling on his way with his wagon out the long wharf. Two, three times a week the boy had to go to pick up wood on the beach of the bay. Other days were un- certain, but Friday was the day he always went. And the next Friday when my father came to the place there was the small chap with a big smile and the harmonica. And they did their work together quickly, and the boy got his lunch and they had some more tricks and little games and stories and talk and music, the boy playing without roughness or noisiness but with a gentleness which was entirely to my father's taste. And the Friday after, the little fellow had evidently been expecting him, for being first on the ground, as soon as my father hove in sight, he started as if to run to him. But he checked himself, dropped to sitting on his feet on his bent knees, stuck his hands well into the sand, to keep them down. His face was as glowing as any that ever greeted Mahon, as he lifted it up to my father to be taken between his hands. One day my father bought him a pair of boots. He had artfully drawn out of him his secret longing to have a pair of boots. So he took him to the nearest shoe store, and there they found the very boots he had wished for ; tall, up to the knees almost, plain, without any fancy stitching, copper-toed and low-heeled with heel- plates. They fitted to perfection. It was wonderful ; everything just as if they had been specially ordered. And when he had them on and my father had turned up the trousers, double treble to near the top, was it not fine? He walked by my father's side looking down at the boots 42 CHROXJCLBS OF MAXUEL ALAKUS and then smiling np in the man's face, and down again at the boots and up again smiling in my father's eyes, crowding closer to him little by little till he could touch his cheek to the man's sleeve. There came a day when m)' father made the acquaint- ance of Mahon. They liked each other very much. That day he had given the little one a knife, a very splendid knife with I don't know how many blades, and he now told him to give that knife to Mahon, and he, my father, would give him another knife just like this one the next time they met. The boy did as he was told, but I suspect not without a pang. For the knife certainly was a beauty, and the chances of there being two such knives in this world must surely have seemed to the boy to be small. He grew quite red handing it to ]\Iahon. who hesitated a moment before taking it, under- standing, I am convinced, the whole case and knowing better than my father what a self-denial he was demanding of the child. But the knife was too splendid. Mahon could not resist taking it. When my father did come the next time, the next day on a special trip, and he held out his closed hand with the knife in it, the boy blushed so hard and looked so guilty, my father had to smile at him and said: "You thought I should not keep my word, did you not?" The boy gave a self-confessing nod, and there was about him so much part forbearance-asking and part relief wnth such a glow of childish, glad expec- tancy, affection, happiness and some archness, as if he had well known all along that he could trustfully leave everything to the man, his friend, and it would all come out all right, it so moved my father, he could hardly speak. He began accusing himself of wrong-doing in first giving a thing and then taking it away. He excused himself to the boy by stating he had not known if he 43 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS should see Malion again soon, and all but begging the boy's forgiveness as he handed him the knife. Once my father did not come for two Fridays. Some- thing prevented him. Nor did he come the Sunday be- tween. But when he did come the third Friday, the boy was as if beside himself. He must have thought he had lost his friend and would never see him any more. The outbreak of his joy was so great it overcame all his self-restraint. They met beyond the sandy point. The boy was standing with his wagon, looking towards the hill where in the distance a man was walking across some empty building lots. Surely he was thinking of his friend when he heard the light crunching of some one coming, stepping through the sand. And when he turned, there stood my father holding out to him his hands, speechless with happiness to see the boy again. How the boy tore off his harness and made a rush, throwing himself down at the man's feet, clasping his legs, pressmg his face to his knees, hugging and rocking, almost upsetting the man and overcoming him as much as he \\'as overcome him- self. On rare, clear, moonlight nights, my father would go out to the end of the wharf and finding the little chap awake and about, as was usually the case, and hav- ing him there alone all to himself in the stillness and magic half-light of the night, he would give way to all the tenderness pent up in his heart, and the child for the first time in his life came to learn what it was to be treated fondly, the sweetness of which to him was such that the longing for it never left his breast after. Of all this, what I remem.ber, it is natural, is inter- woven with what my father told me so as to make each undistinguishable from the other. Yet my remembrance of many points is quite distinct. At Five Oaks in the weeks and months of homesickness, the old wharf with its surroundings was ever in my mind, and there 44 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US were not many nights when before falHng asleep I would not abandon myself to the sweet anguish of calling up the lost past that came crowding in upon me. Before every thought was that of that man, my friend, whose loving eyes were looking at me from every point, whose voice was in my ears resaying all his kind words, thus fixing in my memory what otherwise must have been forgotten by one so very young. I remember all about the knife and most distinctly our first meeting on the sandy stretch of the bay-shore. I knew that I knew him, if I could only put him rightly in my mind. He was to me what nobody ever had been before, and yet it seemed that he was what I had always longed for somebody to be. I remember his giving me the beautiful, silver-mounted harmonica. Never could I forget that. I had not known before how much I craved an instrument like that to make music. And the pleasure it gave me was everlasting. Of our first meeting on the w^harf at night and in the shed, I have no recollection, but of the last moon- light night so little is forgotten that every similar night brings it all back to me. I see the level top and the black, square shadows of some bales of hay that had been left discharged on the wharf. I feel my father's hands as he lifted me up to lie on the hay and drew my head back, down on his shoulder. And I see full in our faces the round moon, low yet over the Contra Costa hills and her long, broad lightway on tlie slowly moving water, and the red light of the Oakland mole a little above. In be- tween were thin layers of haze and smoke in long, level streaks here and there. I yet seem to feel the very air, without movement but with now and then a little cool, and to hear in the quietude the distant, muffled bark- ing of a dog ashore, and the dull, far-of¥ rumble of the ferry-boats. I know I longed to have my arms round my father as his were round me w^hen he took my 45 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS hands and put them to his face and drew me to his breast. And I feel again the gentle straining of his embrace, the caressing of his hand, the tender, linger- ing touch of lips, as he kissed me, the kiss I knew him by again after years of separation. Motherless children, I know, are said to regard their father, if he be any way qualified with something the same kind of feeling that children under normal conditions have for their mother. It seems but natural. Yet who can tell? But what of children that, like me, never knew a mother? I can recall how I felt, as a son, towards my father, not yet knowing him to be such. And what he was to me from the first day, I have no word to give but the one to me sweetest and dearest of all words : Father First of all he was my friend to whom I could always turn, and even when I was wrong he would still be my friend, v>'ho would do all for the best and never fail me. I even had a feeling as if he were constantly near by. And when Richard Alanus had me by the throat, I know I felt if I could only cry out, my father would hear and come, and I should be saved. With this there was the ever returning pleasure of his company, tfie sweetness of his temper with not a grain of moroseness nor ill-humor, the charm of his gentle, playful manner, his delightful spirits with few signs of the sorrow hidden below ; and in me the grateful feeling for his ever thoughtful kind- ness of heart. But beyond all this I felt towards him as some one I belonged to ; yet more as some one that belonged to me, and by natural right. When he spoke to m.e the first word in Spanish there rose in me that, I remember, which seemed as if it were something I had known since I could think, and had been expecting all along. As he seemed always to be anticipating my wishes and desires, so I seemed always to know beforehand when he would come, 46 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS what he would do, how he would look, what he would say, understanding all he thought and felt, almost as if I were able to make him do whatever I wanted by just thinking it. He was mine, and I loved him because he was mine. On the other hand I liked to be told by him what to do. and to do it. Certainly I had to obey. Some- thing in me made me do it, I being not untractable at my worst, for him I loved especially to do what he told me to do, as I knew that he loved me. What I did not understand in him at all was his shyness. I felt our friendship was to be a secret between us. That was all right. That, perhaps, only made it truer and sweeter. Further, I could not com- prehend his bashful ways, why he should always seem- ingly be averse to being seen, observed, afraid of being in people's way. But his melancholy I understood, as I am not with- out a touch of this Gothic spectre myself. And I felt it most in him when he w^as showing me most how dear I was to him. awakening in me a vague compas- sion, as if I somehow must take care of him and be as gentle and loving to him as he was to me. I watched him with silent concern, till he would notice it and in his playful manner with kindly joking drive all that away. How different was all this with Mahon ! Mahon was to me a hero. I had no claim on him. He w^as a biq- boy, far above me. who condescended to notice me and' goodnaturedly tease me. He repaid my devoted oltachment with taking my part against some of the ugly, big fellows around our wliarf, lighting them and making me fight too; teaching me to box. Of Mahon I could think out stories, how he would come when I was being abused by some big bully of a boy, throw off his coat and pitch into my persecutor, and I returned the obligation by saving him from drowning. This last I have been 47 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US told, but it has altogether gone out of my memory. Of my father I could not think out stories like that. As near as I can determine, my father's first visit to our wharf and his first seeing me must have oc- curred six, seven months before my abduction by Richard Alanus. Much as my father from the very first had been inclined to take me away from the place, to make my life his care, he had found it no easy matter to come to a conclusion about the plan to follow. Had he seen me in any way ill-treated or in the least unhappy he would have bought the consent of my masters, or without it, have taken me from them and found a suit- able place for me afterwards. But as it was, any one having my welfare truly at heart might well have hesi- tated. My future alone was the moving consideration. For as far as the present was concerned, what could he give for what he must take away? Could he have taken me to his own house, it would have been different. But to bring me to his home, such as it was, would be prepar- ing but a sorry lot for me. Now that his desire to have nie for his own had with his feeling for me grown so strong he must give way to it and my attachment to him discovered more and more at our every meeting, made his wish to him a duty, it was still necessary to act with care and consideration. Even if he had known that Richard had become apprized of the increasing frequency of his strolls to the old wharf, and was having him watched, he could not have presumed that that meant the loss of and mortal danger to me. He wanted to find me a home. To put me in some boarding-school, or some instiution, tliat was not his idea of showing his affection and return- ing mine. He knew but too well how under the best con- ditions in any change I would miss the freedom of my present life. He was looking for a home for me, such as he himself would have liked to have, to take me to, and he had succeeded in finding a family willing to take 48 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALAXUS charge of me, where there were two sons, one a little older and the other a little younger than I. The family of a physician, a Dr. Sullivan living near Gilroy, not far from my father's country-pFace, seemed to answer all re- quirements. He had just returned from the trip to Dr. Sullivan's to close the negotiations when there come to him, suddenly, proof unimpeachable of his son's existence, his identity and abode : a living witness, Jim, the brick- layer. Some time not very long before this, Thoiuson had returned to town for a short stay and had traced me to Adelita's sister, the Dark Woman, who Avas Jim's wife. She, however, had since died. And although Thomson had come to find some of this woman's children and to make some inquiries of them about me, he had not had time to do more and had gone back to his minin.g claim leaving the clew obtained, as far as it went, in the good hands of the suppositious father, Richard Alanus. Jim, having kept up off and on. a sort of intercourse with his late Avife's children, had heard of inquiries being- made, and being more familiar with the de- ceased woman's aftairs than her children were, had quickly enough traced me to Antonio, the Italian gardener, and through him to my present living-place on the old wharf, where he had gone the very day after my father's last visit, on the last full-moon night. He had seen me, recognized me, been recognized by me, had conversed with me and knew, could swear that I was the child that his wife at that time, had brought home from the deathbed of her sister Adelita, and the same child which had lived with them two years or more : a male child, very small, very quiet with five, little, brown birthmark-spots in a peculiar cluster on the right hip, and with an astonishing ap- petite and the reputation of being the love-child of a 49 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Mexican-Indian girl and a German banker and mining man. After locating the child, Jim had turned to the dis- covery of the father whose name had been transmitted to him by the children with enough corrections for him to pick out my father as one of several who might possibly be he. And to my father he came and told his story. It was not the first story my father had heard, will- ing to listen, fearful to give way to hope, till he learned which boy it was that was to be his son. With the instant recognition of the truth all wonderment, all speculation, all thought, everything was lost in the flood of joy that broke in upon him. That boy his boy, his son, his child! Unbearable happiness ! And when they came to the old wharf, he was told that his boy was lost. It seemed so impossible, it sounded like a stupid joke, a trick. But I was surely missing. This was the third day now that nothing had been seen or heard of me. I must have fallen overboard and been drowned. Latterly my father had come oftener to our wharf, sometimes evening after evening, at the close of business 1 ours. Both Nick and Nello had seen him, maybe every time and had noticed, as they could not very well help doing, that he had taken a fancy to me, as they called it. And they now told him that they had suspected him of being at the bottom of my disappearance. But since he knew nothing about it what explanation could be given, other than that I had fallen overboard and been carried away by the tide and drowned. Nello said that I always had been up to foolish tricks, walking on my hands, turning summersaults, throwing hand-springs. And lately I had taken to 50 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS prowling round nights too. He had heard me. And he added in his peevish way that it was just their hick, no sooner had they gotten me so far trained as to be of some little use to them than I must go and drown myself- Nick, always more fair and candid, said I had always been of great use to them ; and if I had got up nights it was probably because I felt cold. It was cold in the open shed. He had even been thinking about getting me a blanket. ]\Iaybe. I got up to exercise, to warm myself and walked overboard in the fog. It was foggy, fearfully fogg}', day and night, ever since the night of tlie full of the moon : especially the first night had been bad, and though I could swim very well, the water would soon have chilled me. And in the dark and the fog, I should not have been able to lell where I was. At times the current was very swift right there, so that they had about concluded to give up the boat-letting altogether, as it was really dangerous to go boating at this point. But the worst of all for me was, lie said, that I never would cry out, or make a noise, or call for help. I never did. Neither one of them had any clear recollection when he had last seen me. They had had supper quite early. I had not been there then. They had left my supper for me on the bench outside and had closed up and turned in because it had been so chilly and damp. In the morning my supper had been eaten, but may be by the rats. Nello had noticed Jim talking to me in the after- noon of the day I was last seen, the day after the full- moon night, and he now seemed disposed to look on Jim with some suspicion, till Jim repeated his whole conversation with me, telling, pointing out where he first saw me the afternoon three days gone, where he spoke to me, where he stood and where I stood, what he said and what I said, assuring my father with tears in CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS his eyes that he had come to him just as soon as he possi- bly could. In the torture of his despair my father came to Mr. Oldock's place to see Mahon, the only one he could think of to go to, his lost boy's many times champion, defender and heart's idol. And Mahon when he saw my father's face knew him at once and exclaimed against the probability of my having gone overboard and been drowned, taking my part as it were, as any manly boy would of another boy, saying I always knew what I was doing and where I was going, and that I should not be throwing hand-springs in the dead of the night anyhow ; but that if I did go overboard I could swim like a fish and should know by the trend of the tide which v.-ay to strike out, having learned all that from the Indians I had been amongst in Mexico, where I came from. But what had become of me? Mr. Tem Oldock thought I had run away, he said. And in his way he launched into telling my father all he knew of me, recounting most circumstantially how he had known me long ago, before he had started his brewery, when he had been a contractor and builder, and I had come with other children round his build- ings to pick up chips and cuttings of wood ; how he somehow had noticed me and taken a liking to me, perhaps because I had been so small and so quiet, hardly as big as my wood-sack, and silent as if dumb ; but always strangely moved by any kindness. He re- counted how he had sometimes taken me and my sack on his wagon as far as the street-corner of the alley I lived in, and had once taken me to his own house to show me to his wife, Mahon's mother, who had liked me as much as be had and had made liim bring me again. And if she had not died, they might have taken me to live with them. He had not seen me any more till a year or so ago, may- 52 CIIROXICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS be two years, when happening one day to go out to the end of the old wharf, where I had been working for the two Spanish boatmen, I had been awfully gla dto see him. It was funny to think that I could remember him and be so glad to see him. But he had not seen much of me as I had not come round the brewery often, maybe being timid. Hearing all this only increased my father's agony, bringing me nearer and putting me farther away. Mr. Tem Oldock told all this after his fashion, going over the points he liked two, three times, not sensible at all to the strangeness that my father with whom he was slightly acquainted and whose position in life he knew, should show such feeling for a missing street- child. For such things he never had the least thought or suspicion, always taking it for granted that people he knew must know each other as well an.d must take the same interest in and view of things that he did. But the urgency of the case he well saw, even if he did not un- derstand the case, nor understand there be a reason at all, and as soon as the details of his narration would al- low, he went to the point, denied louder than }dahon the possibility that I, T that had saved Mahon, his son ]\[ahon, Mark Tem Oldock out of the water, should be drowned. "It could not be. It was an absurdity to think i*. He had told ]\Iahon so the moment he had brought him the news, two days ago. that Manuel, the little half- breed Mexican on the old wharf was missing and supposed to be drowned. It was nonsense. That was all right. I had become disgusted with the way my two masters had treated me and had left the place; that was all. He had told Mahon before this, those two fellows ought to be run out of town the way they worked me. Two overgrown loafers to let themselves be supported by a child ! Even their washing they had made me do. That day when he had seen me, I had been down on 53 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US my marrow bones scrubbing their dirty overalls. I had tired of the work and had left. That was all. Or I had gone off with some other boys. But I would soon come back. He knew how that was. That was all right." And he would have gone on in this way i{ Mahon had not interfered. Mahon felt a right and spoke to undo most of his father's saying. Mahon said, "he was sure I had not run away. And my men never overworked or illtreated me. And I was not afraid of them. I was not afraid of anybody or anything. Some of the big fellows would some- times try to bully me about the boats, and try to get me to let them have my best pair of sculls without extra charge, and of course I could not fight those big fellows. But I could fight all right, and would fight too, if I had to, though I was only a kid. And I had nothing to do with other boys at all, but just him. I just minded my own business. I had no time to loaf. That was the reason I never came hanging round the brewery and not because I was afraid. I was not afraid. And I was very strong and anybody's match of my size, if I did not just like fighting for hurting anybody. Perhaps I had not always gotten enough to eat. That he was not sure of. I never asked for any- thing; but the boys said sometimes I had to go hungry. He thought that generally I got plenty to eat, only sometimes I had to go without. But I could stand that for quite a little spell. I bad learned that too from the Indians in Mexico where I came from. Some boys called me an Indian. Anybody could see I was no Indian. He had not even believed that I had lived among Indians, till he had asked me and I had told him I had. But I would not run away for being hungry once, or I should have run away long ago." And facing the question, "what then had become of me?" he gave it in boyish hightening of a sensational S4- CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US event, as his opinion "that I had been stolen," hitting the truth. At the time he was speaking I was being driven by Richard Alanus with his team on the road from the steam- boat-landing, away down in the big valley to the foothills of the mountains. 1 had passed the night on a steamboat plying from the city up the bay and river. I was disguised as a Chinese boy and was in the company of a crowd of Chinamen, who were going to do fruit-picking, or some such work on farms or ranches in the great valley, along the river. That afternoon late, not long before Mahon could have heard the sunset gun of one of the forts of the bay, on tlie mountain height Richard made an attempt to kill me. And that night which my father passed in sleepless agony, I made my escape from the log hut of the Black, whom Richard had left me with. In the woods I lay the night through at the bottom of the canyon on the boulders close by the cliff, with the water trickling and the moon shining from the clear sky on the glistening rocks, as in the city through fitful rifts of flying fog it shone on my father's wet face, as he looked at her, thinking of the last clear night when he had held me in his arms at the old wharf. I, too, felt a sudden pang, before falling asleep, the old wharf coming to my mind and the thought of him. When my father found the record of my baptism Richard's lies about my mother's fate vs^ere of course disclosed to him. Plowever much Richard must have managed to lie himself clear of any intentional wrong- doing, and however much my father, even after still further experience of his half-brother's treachery, may have been disinclined to believe in all his baseness, it was I'ot possible, since the idea of my being enticed away, stolen, had once been entertained, not to consider Richard 55 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS IIjc possible instigator of the crime, if not the active felon. The best detectives to be had in the place were employed by my father without success, and all search for me prov- ing unavailing, my death by drowning again seemed not doubtful, and what little interest the case had excited, soon died out. Who was there to take any interest? Not many families lived along the shore near the wharf, and among them I was known only by the children, i belonged to no one. I was nobody's child, only a name- less, homeless street boy, picked up by my masters to work for them. They missed me, I am sure of that. I had been a faithful little slave to them. But they would get an- other, now that I was gone. And what had become of me, who cared? Nobody but he alone, whose hair in a few weeks showed streaks of gray. Oh, father ! My father ! My father ! And not the sorrow alone, but the bitter self-accusa- tion ! The remorse ! He ought to have known! Ought to have seen, recog- nized! And if not he should have taken me away any- how ! But to have known me for months, to have gone week after week, seeing me in the bondage of my drudg- ery, becoming, one might say, an accessory to my two masters in enslaving me, as told by ]\Ir. Tem Oldock, to have had the cruelty of being kind to me, kindling regard in me, affection, child-love for him, seeing and enjoying his success with how great a gratification, and yet to have let me at last, paying me oft', as it were, with a few paltry presents, a pair of boots, a knife! What though I had seemed, no, not seemed, been, so contented, leading such, \i hard, a free and useful life, that nobody could lightly think of breaking it up! Now life itself was gone! And thus to have lost his own child ! 56 CHROXICLES OF MAXUEL AEAXUS A year passed and another. A boy was born to my father whom it made his heart sadder to look at, thinking h.e saw a resemblance to the lost one. Sometime after the birth of the little brother, one day in some business-transaction, my father met Mr. Tern Oldock, of whom he had not seen anything for a long time. When the business had been despatched, :\Ir. Tem Oldock remembered and told him "he had queer news for him. Did my father remember a little half-caste boy, called Manuel, who used to live on an old wharf near his old brewery, who one day had left the place and was not seen any more, and everybody had said he had fallen overboard and been drowned, everybody except Mv. Tem Oldock, who had insisted it could not be? Well, that boy he had seen in the mountains, four, five and more months ago, may be nine or ten months. In fact that boy had saved his life: the same as he had also, one time hauled his son Mahon, Alahon ]^Iark Tem Oldock, out of the water at the old wharf, years ago. Yes 1 Yes. but for that boy he would not be sitting there now." "He had been under a cloud since quite a while," Mr. Tem Oldock said. "The brewery-business had been given up, though the property still belonged to him. ^It had been mostly family-trouble with his second wife, Mahon's step-mother and her children by a form.er husband. It had been other trouble, too. But it was all right now. He was rid of them all. It had cost him a good bit of money, but not more than it was worth. And he had plenty now. And Mahon was his only child and would have plenty too. A couple of years hence, he would send him to Europe and make a gentleman of him. That was all right." "Well ! He had had to leave the city a year ago, or a year and a half, or more, on account of his troubles and had been in the mountains building roads, bridges, flumes, mills. He had made a good deal of money. 57 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS He had got hold of a good deal of good mining-prop- erty too. He supposed he was going to be a very rich man some day. But it would have been all up with him but for that boy. He must always think how his wife, that was Mahon's mother that was dead, had liked that little boy very much. He was small. And now he had saved his life. He was not very big now, not much taller than he was at the wharf." **He had met him twice. It was at a place called Purple Gulch. Some called it Purple Creek. Some good mines were there, and some people had made money there. But it was nothing to what it first was cracked up to be. And the excitement about his had all died out." "Well, he had been building a road to the place, and it had been just completed. And right where the old road and the new road came together, at the end of the town, one morning as he had been crossing the road, the old road, in front of what was then a hotel, called the Mountain House, early, before sunrise he had come upon the boy unawares under some pines. The boy seemed to have been camping with some horses and was then looking for some water in the creek, to water them. They had met right in the middle of the road, the old road. And the boy had been so glad to see him that he had bitten his hand. There ! That was the scar ! It was funny to think the boy could be so glad to see him. He had been so glad that he had been like mad. He had thrown himself on his knees in the foot-deep dust of the road and clutched him round the legs and cried and pulled till he had almost made him fall. And when he had put out his hand the boy had caught it to kiss it and in his ex- citement had bitten it. There was the scar ! But when he had told him he must not carry on so, and he must appear not to know him, not come near him nor mention his name, because there were parties after 58 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS him with attachments and garnishees on account of his trouble in the city, the boy had understood right off and stopped immediately. And when a man had stepped out of the hotel and called the boy, the boy had run to him and acted as though there were no Mr. Tem Oldock in existence." 'Then he had not seen him again till many months after, and then he had only seen him, had not spoken to him. And that had been on the last day he was in Purple Gulch, about five or six months ago, maybe less !" "He had intended going away before, but did not. He had gotten through with all his business ; his money had all been sent down to the city. There had been something, some trouble about something, well, about a woman ; and a man had attacked him, and he had shot the man in self-defence. Then a party of roughs had gone out to lynch him if the ycould find him. He had been hiding in pretty secure quarters, and handy too, but with no chance to get away unless he got a horse which no friends could procure for him, being spotted. And on that day that boy, Manuel, had been at Purple Gulch again, and how, he could not tell, but the boy must have found out the fix he was in. Anyhow the boy again had some horses with him and had ridden by the place where he was hiding several times with the horses, so that he would notice him. He had tied them conven- iently and gone a bit in the bushes and them come back and ridden away, leaving one of the horses be- hind, tied where Mr. Tem Oldock could get at it. He had got it and ridden away on it, a fine gelding that car- ried him all the way to Sacramento. There he sold it for fifty dollars." Then in his way Mr. Tem Oldock went all over his story again, beginning at the end and telling it a second time and perhaps a third time, with repetitions and explanations, how he had since stood trial and been 59 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS acquitted. He had no perception whatever of my father's emotions, remembering only the mere fact that he had shown some such interest, and to say "now had he not been right in declaring it was nonsense to think I had been drowned? I was not the boy to fall overboard and drown. He would bet on my turning up all right every time. He only wished he had me there with him now." If they had but known it, while they were thus talking, I must have been within a dozen blocks distance from them, somewhere on the city-waterfront. After my escape from the cabin of the Black came my flight into the woods, the three days scramble down the rocky canyon following the nearly dry bed of the creek through the interminable mountain-forest, my ar- rival in the open valley and my being picked up in the brush of the foot-hills by the two farming men. Old France and young Hants, had taken me to their place. Five Oaks, on the hill. I had remained there on the farm v\-ith them, working for them as I had worked for Nick and Nello on the old wharf, or before that for Antonio in his vegetable fields, yes, and before that for the Dark Wom.an. Only I had now to work much harder and ir- addition to my other work take my lessons with Old France, who gave me most thoroughly all the school teaching he could. For this and many other things I owe the old German schoolmaster that he was, more gratitude than I can, in truth say I feel. For what should I be without them? He did not teach me enough English, pre- ferring to make Spanish the language of my instruction, since he was fairly master of it and accidentally in posses- sion of some Spanish school books, but more than that and for the principal reason, I suppose, that Spanish was the language I knew best. AVhen, about twelve months after I had come to them. Young Hants broke with Old France, gave up farming to go back to mining and left us to seek his 60 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS fortune in the new gold-diggings at Purple Gulch, he borrowed me for the trip, to go there on my horse with him, to bring back the pack-horse which carried Jiis things. It was then that I met Mr. Tem Oldock at Pur- ple Creek where I had arrived with Young Hants late at night and slept with the horses under the pines while Young Hants had spent the night at the hotel close by. I had early got up to go across the road to the creek to find a suitable place for watering the horses. Young Hants started me back to Five Oaks that morning, hav- ing made up his mind to keep the pack-horse, which was a good work-horse and saddle-horse too, and I thereby lost every chance to be met by Mr. Tem Oldock again at that time. Of course I have no intimate knowledge of the busi- ness relations of the two men I was with at the ranch. But I can be reasonably sure that they worked the farm on share for the owner, the Boss we called him, who lived at his beautiful place, Fountain Head, in the upper foot-hills. All that section of the country belonged to him, the large Fountain Head Ranch. Five Oaks was only a very small corner of the estate. With the Boss, Young Hants, before he went away, must have come to some understanding about their affairs, for with his leav- ing, our farming was practically at an end. Outside the housework and some gardenwork Old France was good for very little. And he grew more and more forgetful. He and I continued to live together in our little house on the hill. I slept in the outside, open room as before. Young Hants's bunk, inside, was kept unoccupied, as though he might come back any day, which I am sure Old France expected at first confidently. If as time went on less and less did he look forward to it still he never lost all hope and at last clung to the idea with a kind of dull despair. We cultivated our garden as before, v/e had cur poultry as before, our cov/s. some hogs and horses. 6i CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS We had plenty of feed for all : oats and corn, beans and carrots, wheat-hay and barley-hay in stacks, enough to last till the rains would come and the new grass grow. But with all this, we lived on our place as if on suffrage. For any work that went beyond my little strength the Boss had to send someone from Fountain Head. If Old France had the use of Five Oaks and its products, as far as he could make use of them, he had nothing to offer in return and the Boss nothing to receive as his share, except my work at Fountain Head, my labor in the gar- den and grounds there, which the Boss now often called for. At my first visit to Fountain Head, some months after my coming to Five Oaks, when Hants one Sun- day had taken me to see the Boss and his fine place, the Boss had learned that I was handy at garden-work and conscientious in doing what I was told to do. He had even since wanted my services. His great hobby was the changing, enlarging and improving the grounds around the dwelling house, all growing into a beautiful park. He had some Chinamen constantly at work on it. Hants had never entertained the proposition of giv- ing me up to the Boss for any time or any work, want- ing me badly enough to work himself, and for my own sake, too, in kindly consideration for me. On that first visit to the Boss I had shown a great reluctance to meeting him and afterwards a strong disinclination to going there again. However, since Hants had gone away there was no more opposing the wishes of the Boss, and my trips from Five Oaks to Fountain Head for one or two days at a time or even longer to work, soon became frequent. At one of these visits, some seven or eight months after my going to Purple Gulch with Young Hants and my meeting Mr. Tem Oldock there, the Boss gave me a letter which had come for Hants. Instead of taking it home to Five Oaks and giving it to Old France for 62 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS safe-keeping or further forwarding, as I was meant to do, I put it in my hat, and on my own account, not saying anything to anybody, rode oft" with it to Purple Gulch, to bring it to Hants myself, llie real motive in my heart was the irresistible desire to see Mr. Tem Oldock again. How I learned Mr. Tem Oldock's predicament at that time, I do not at all recall now. I remember being with Hants and other men on the street in Purple Creek and hearing them speak about his case. They seemed all friendly to Mr. Tem Oldock but unable to help him. I can dimly recall somebody mentioning to me the place where Mr. Tem Oldock was hiding, or the vicinity, and saying, he might get away if he had a horse, but having no horse, he was sure to fall finally into the hands of the roughs and be killed. At this I was seized with such fear for him that I went to ask Young Hants most boldly to let me take home the extra horse he had kept since he first came to Purple Gulch, speaking so that he should think I had been sent with the letter for the particular pur- pose of fetching that horse. And he took it that way and told me with more temper than I had ever yet seen him display, "to take the horse and go to hell." It was a fine halfblood gelding. Aly horse was perhaps as speedy and had just as much bottom, but was not fresh and it was a little light for a man of Mr. Tem Old- ock's weight to go a long distance on. I left the horse near Mr. Tem Oldock's hiding place and I think I never doubted but what he now would make his escape. Yet I never knew if he did until long after. When Hants came some months afterwards to Five Oaks on his short farewell visit, before going away for good, back East, I remember how glad I was he did not speak about the horse, and yet I was most anxious to hear him say something about Mr. Tem Oldock. I felt that he must suspect what I had done. With Old 63 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS France I certainly never needed to be the least bit careful. He never understood. When I had this time come back from Purple Gulch, long after the middle of the moonlight night, and made my appearance before him early in the morning, he never knew but what I had come direct from Fountain Head after a stay there of a day longer. He was glad I had come back to do the work of the place and to have my school-lessons with him, that was all. The only thing he now cared for and used up all his energy on, was this teaching me, in which he very systematically proceeded and continued. And I can say of myself that I was as eager to learn as be was to teach. However T must admit that I most loved my music, singing the old man's songs, hymns and chorals and longer pieces, now alone, now with him, taking the second to his thin treble, or the first to his second ; play- ing his old, repaired guitar, and a cheap mandolin Hants had brought me one day from somewhere, perhaps from. the Boss. This had been an unknown instrument to Old France before. I learned to play the mandolin very quickly ; and so did he. He was as musical as I, or more so, and loved music as much as I did, and was well sat- isfied to let me give up every idle moment to my music. Only it was not to interfere with my other general lessons as did my trips to Fountain Head for which reason Old France heartily detested them. But he did not know how to prevent them any more than I did. Later, every Saturday morning I had to go to Foun- tain Head and remain there till Sunday evening, w^ork- ing in the grounds all the time it was daylight under th€ personal supervision of the Boss. Sometimes though, if there was some special work at Five Oaks, I would quit work at Fountain Head on Saturday evening and ride home, or, maybe, would not go up to Fountain Head at all that week. Or on the other hand tlie Boss might 64 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US keep me one day longer, or two days, if he had some new idea to carry out. I never did care much for ornamental garden work, although, most assuredly I always have liked work of all kind. As for working on Sundays, it seems to me I never had a Sunday when a child, never knew Sunday but as a day for harder w^ork. Yet I knew it seemed good to have a day of rest. And as all hands at Foun- tain Head kept Sunday, even the Chinamen, it did not seem quite fair that I alone must work. It felt lone- some and I did not like to have the Boss round me so contsantly, and not that he was ever rough with me. He never gave me an unkind word, but I was not used to being watched at my work. It was not necessary. And the Boss knew that himself, only he was too fussy to leave me alone. Or perhaps, being very good at that kind of work himself he liked the instructing and teach- ing of it to me, the same as Old France liked to instruct in his line. And so he stayed with me at my work for the gratification of this liking. His way of wanting to be making fun all the time I had soon come not to mind, though it was tiresome. But all this was nothing compared with that other feeling, that ever-present dread of meeting at Fountain Head some time that strange man who had brought me away from our old wharf, for did I not know that he must be an acquaintance of the Boss? Had I not seen them together? That morning when I had found myself out of the canyon, clear of the mountain-woods in the great open valley, at the foot of the hills where the road came down, not half an hour before Hants picked me up, had not he, that strange man, as I lay hid- ing in the thicket, passed by me in his buggy, the same buggy and the same horses with which he had taken me into the mountains. There was another gentleman by his side, talking in a high-pitched voice and laughing in a 65 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS peculiar way. And the first time I had come to Fountain Head with Hants, had I not recognized in the Boss that other gentleman, the same one with the high-pitched voice and the peculiar laugh? Therefore must not the two be acquainted? Must not that strange man at that time have been visiting the Boss at Fountain Head, in all reason going there directly after leaving me with the Black at the log-hut on the mountain- side? And if he had been visiting at Fountain Head then, might he not come visiting there again an}'^ day as did other acciuaintances of the Boss? If I never w^as without the thought of meeting my fate, never felt safe, always feeling myself to be under a ban, always in the dread of seeing that man appear, it was worse at Fountain Head, where any day round any corner, from behind any bush, any tree, from any arriving liorse or wagon he might come upon me. And my fears ^vere a prophecy, for he did one Saturday night at Foun- tain head step down in front of me. That night, when three, four gentlemen, friends and acquaintances of the Boss, coming from the city to stay with him at his place for a few days' outing, arrived late in the dark of the night, being fetched by the Boss himself from the river-landing in his four-horse carry- all, I recognized among them, by the light of the lantern 1 held myself, that man, my fate. It now had come what I always had known, must happen some day and I fled the place. Riding all night on my horse on the road down the hills and through the great valley, I reached at daybreak the steamboat-landing, boarded the next down-boat and w^as landed that same day in the big bay city. Here for a time I gained my livelihood on the water- front, principally by dishwashing and bootblacking, till Captain Smidkins of the schooner Good Fellow took me on board his vessel as ship's bov and cook's mate, to go 66 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS to the Southern coast. And when Air. Tern Olclock was telHng his story to my father it must have been but shortly after I had come to the city, passing my time on the water- front, working by day and crying myself to sleep every night with homesickness for the farm, for every animal, every tree, the fields, the mountains, all the country, all that I had had to leave and must now never go back to again. It was a foregone conclusion that any search for the boy at Purple Gulch would be a failure. Some claims there had paid well but were now worked out. Some distance from the place, there were a few good mines, among w^hicli, I believe was the claim of Hants, which had passed into the hands of San Francisco capitalists and were bemg w-orked to good advantage. But as to the camp itself, it was dying ofif faster than it had sprung into existence, like so many mining-towns in California. Everybody was leaving or trying to get away. Nobody had time to try to remember a boy of whom nothing could be said except that he had been twice in the place with some horses and that he looked some- what the mixed breed he was. All search proved vain, leaving in its fruitlessness my father in greater sorrow than before. Before this, the boy had to him been dead. He had from the first really never doubted but that he had fallen overboard and been drowned ; and though always mourned, alwavs remembered with tendcrest sorrow, vet it was as for something dead and gone forever and al- ready become only a memory. Now to learn hat he was alive, but unattainable, what new anguish ! Even if it was at the first moment a stroke of life-giving joy to hear he was not dead, to think that he should be living, may be close by and yet not to be reached, that he might be in want, sufifering in distress and yet not be helped, what new grief! It grew from dav to day after the first flush of ioy and hope died awav 67 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS as it became in sober consciousness clear how small the odds were, that he would be found ! One main cause of the failure was, I am sure, that Thomson was believed at that time to be responsible for the boy's disappearance from the old wharf, and his presence afterwards in the mining camp of Purple Gulch. It must have seemed quite a clear case since Thomson had tried to find the boy in the city, about the time the boy had disappeared. Thomson was mining somev/here in the foot-hills of the Sierra; the boy had been seen at some new diggings in the foot-hills, just such a place as would attract an old miner like Thomson. So all ener- gies were concentrated to get on the tracks of Thomson and instead of looking in the nearer neighborhood, search was made in distant districts, where Thomson was sup- posed to have mined in bygone times. But this does not explain, and I cannot understand why my faher did not go to Fountain Head. He was with his detective in Purple Gulch. The road to that place passed within not a great many miles of Fountain Head. He knew it. Formerly he had not seldom been at Fountain Head. He was well acquainted with the Boss, better in fact than his brother was. Why then did he not go there when on his way to and from Purple Gulch when he was within a few miles of it. If he had done so he must surely have heard some talk of the recent flight of a half-breed boy and have discovered that boy's identity. But then, if he had gone there while I was at Five Oaks, or even at the very time of his coming at Fountain Head itself, I doubt if he would ever have gotten the chance to speak to me, to tell me who he was and to let himself to recognized by me. The poison of the drug in my veins, the horrors it had bred in me, the treatment at the hands of Richard Alanus, the Black, and the dog, my flight at night in the woods ; 68 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the clatter of the horse of the Black in pursuit in my ears, after me, at my back, the three days in the wilds, and the seeing again of Richard, it was all in me like a delirium. The fire in my brain seemed always there. Night after night in my dreams that distorted face would appear to me as I had seen it over me, close to mine, or the face of the Black with its horrible scars, or the mis- shapen dog. I was ever on the watch. Every outcrop- ping rock, every stump of a tree might hide one or the other of my enemies. The rustling of birds or squirrels under the dry brush might be them. Hants had rigged me up a sort of bunk in the open room at one end of the little house at Five Oaks, but at first I never stayed there, and later only when I could get the dogs to stay there with me, or in the wet season when it rained at night. When I was sent to bed after my evening-reading and our talk about the same, which I would spin out as long as I could, asking innumerable questions, I would go to my bunk, of course, and then as soon as I saw the light in the house put out, I would get up again and go and climb an old madrone tree, standing at the head of the gully, where the road from the Bottom came up. The long, twisting branches gave me a good seat for a sleeping-place from which I could drop into the underbrush at either side of the gulch to escape. For the dizzzy spasms that came with my dream, I had a piece of hayrope to tie myself with so I should not fall out of my sleeping-seat. But sometimes when the dream came, I would think I could not untie myself. They were- on my track and I would pull and tear and could not get myself loose. And waking up, wet with sweat, my heart beating in my throat, I would imagine I heard them, they were coming: the strange man, the Black with his knife, and the dog. And I would listen, the cold terrors shaking my skin, till I was sure I really 69 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS did hear something coming, creeping, crawHng, nearer, nearer. When I had learned to be at home on horseback, I became quieted a Httle. I then slept in the haystack by the corral, where I could always get one of the horses. Hut the Sunday trip with Hants to Fountain Head where in the Boss, 1 recognized the man I had seen in the buggy witli Richard Alanus, threw me back again into my former state of terror for a long time, till the heavy rains had come, w hen the gullies all ran with w^ater, the creeks were full, the roads were streams of sticky mire, when the drab ground turned first brown, then purplish black and then broke into the gi'een of the new grass and the thousand kinds of new plants, when the distant hills came out of the haze, the wooded heights above the hills showed themselves nearer and the far-away crest of the mountains shone white and sharp against the sky and sent down a chilly air, and all seemed not what it had been and nobody in it stirred abroad, I then felt more as- sured of being safe. But even then, I ever was on the watch. Only by surprise and suddenly, so that I should have no time to act, could I have been caught and taken alive by any stranger. Yes, had my father brought Mahon along or his father, then he would have succeeded in getting hold of me! And he might have hit on that expedient. Still what difference would it all have made, since I was no longer there? I could not have been traced any more than I could be found as it was. It would only have been so much more harrowing to my father, for whom another blow was preparing. I did not arise in that narrow-mindedness which is the good ground wherein suspicion flourishes, he had never mistrusted his wife. She had for years been a good deal away from him, staying in resorts of the seasons, with oc- casional trips of travel interspersed. Cora often went 70 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS with the mother, who cared for her at such times as lor a pretty doll. While my father was most occupied with the search for me, my father's wife was away on a more extended tour through the Southern part of the United States, met and stayed with at certain places by Richard. It was shortly after their return that little Harry's foot was cut and mangled in the knives of a mower in the hay-field near the dwelling-house on my father's ranch. And as a fearful thing it may be to say. never can I put the thought out of my head that it was Cora wh ) pushed the child into the machine. The foot had to be taken oft, and Marry was yet hovering near death, when the mother left him/left all and openly went to live with Richard Alanus. This was under Richard's direction for she did nothing of herself. She cared not one way or the other. She would stay with my father or leave him just as Richard directed. I don't think she cared for my father less, or for Richard more than anybody else. Richard had been the first to seduce and direct her and had kept on doing so, and by that had made her his dependent. In any case she would have become the dependent of anybody that took upon himself to seduce and direct her; the rest being brought about and the details shaped by opportunity and circumstances. Richard never cared for her except as he could use her against my father. Here was something by which to dishonor him, wrong him and hurt him, who had all but given his life, to keep wrong and hurt from that devil. As long as she remained with my father she commanded his wealth. It was my father's money coming to Richard through my father's wife, that paid for most of the lux- uries Richard enjoyed, after their last breach, which never could be mended. Why did she leave my father 71 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS now? Or why did not Richard forbid her to take that step? I think the reason was the discovery of her infidehty, such a thing being final. And perhaps, being so, there was nothing left for her to do better than to go to her paramour; nor, being taken unawares, could he prevent her. She tried to take Cora with her, but was foiled. Yet 1 do not think she tried very hard. Nor do I think that Richard at bottom cared more for his daughter than for her mother. And Cora in my father's house was something to fight about, to harass my father with, to wring his heart with the fear of losing. For wlio that knows the latitude given women's claims in law-courts here could doubt the more than probability of the courts, upon suit being brought at any time by the mother, giving her possession of the daughter. So my father was left in possession of Cora for the present. The separation should have brought my father relief, like the regaining of one's freedom! And I suppose it did to a degree after a while at least. Only my father's life had been so entirely one of self-sacrifice that without it life seemed aimless. As we all, after every tear and rent set ourselves to work to try and patch up our life again and again, till the last day and the last hour to suit the wants and cravings of our nature, so did my father now put Cora in the place her mother had occupied be- fore. At least she came into the place and he let it be so. And, of course, it was all quite different from what it had been. Cora he loved as the object of his fondness. Her great power over him lay in her suffering him to do so with just enough show of returning his fond affec- tion, never too little, not too much, and like a trained wanton, never quite denying him, never altogether satis- fying him, nor making her caresses cheap, always keeping something back with which she could, if need be, over- 72 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS whelm and subjugate him. And with all she was always hating him ! The other Cora was the child-woman, now in her mother's place, indulged by her father as her mother had been, and answering it not alone with indifference as her mother had done, but with show of temper. Her mother had not had that and her contemptuous airs her mother was too simple a fool to know how to practise. And even herein she knew her limit with perfect understand- ing. If she was to be dressed stylishly and carry herself proudly, travel on the train with her father on Monday mornings from his country-place to town, to her school in the city, and back on Friday niglits, be talked to on the train by gentlemen and ladies, and talk back smartly, be admired and receive all favor, all attention, it v.'as her design for him to be proud of his little lady child That he was not given to making a show of anything was his fault. She was at a boarding-school in the city. He lived at his house on the ranch in the upper part of Santa Clara Valley, coming to town to business on the train every morning and returning in the afternoon. Sometimes, but not often, he stayed in town over night at his city-resi- dence near South Park, or at a hotel where he had rooms. Every Friday afternoon he would call for Cora at her school and take her to the ranch to stay till Monday morning, when she would go back to town with him. Decidedly there was a comfort in this way of life that he had not known before. He had Cora now all to him- self. She was not the silly thing her mother was. How pleasant it was to make these trips with her ! How pretty she looked ! How engagingly and yet not affectedly she would talk to the gentlemen on the train, going to and from their country-seats the same as he ! Besides this he would call at her school every few days to see her and once a week, may be, he would come with 73 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS bis carriage and take her for a ride through the park. The trips on the train with all the more or less well ac- quainted set of people that paid her so much attention, she fully enjoyed. For the drives with my father, she cared little ; and still less did she care for the Saturdays and Sundays at the ranch, unless there were visitors or visitings. Only, to be sure, there was always the pleasure of persecuting and illtreating the gentle, little cripple, Harry, doing things to him that yet make me set my teeth. Harry at the time of the accident had been about six- teen months old. His leg had been cut off below the knee. Contrary to all expectation he had recovered. He wore a capping on his leg, into which was screwed a hard- wood stick that was replaced by a new one whenever it was worn down, or outgrown. He had been a very small baby and his accident still further retarded his growth. Afterwards he grew faster till he was of nor- mal height. When he should have been grown he would, of course, have better provision for his walking. But it was astonishing how quick and nimble he was. He could walk as straight and even and he could run as fast as if had no wooden stick for a leg, and he never stumbled. At this time there came over my father again the mood that would seize him from time to time, as it had done probably all his life and certainly since he had left home, the mood that had preceded his first meeting witli me, when he had for weeks given himself up to the silent workings of his melancholy, secluding himself outside of business, from people he knew, frequently by himself the poorer streets of the town, shyly observant of people and his little friends, the children. For three, four days he would not go out to his ranch, not fetch Cora, but would stay in town over Sunday, loitering about, oftenest along the water front, as if something were telling him to watch the shipping ; and day after day out to the old, long wharf 74 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS which was beginning to go to pieces. Piles and timbers were rotting away in the ground where it was being filled in with rocks and dirt that were steadily gain- ing on the water. The planking was sprung and warped, half-broken ends sticking up and hanging down, part- twisted, only passable with carefully picked steps. And it all deserted ! The shanty burnt down ! Every vestige of it gone, nothing but the charred, square space of the old wharf-planking marking the place where it had stood! But part of the open shed was still standing, with some boards broken away right in the corner where the old boat-sails had lain stow^ed up, on which his boy used to sleep, where he found him that first night, when he brought him wherewith to still his hunger. What an empty thing life now seemed to him, standing there stretching out his hand, as he had done that night and laid it on his boy's head as if blessing him! Always thinking of him, the lost one ! Forever in dead despair ! Not daring to hope, only thinking in grief and longing, yearning, craving, not knowing that now, over the sea his boy was coming to him, coming, sailing on the water his eyes looked over, he standing as his boy had stood that dav, looking steadfastly out far off! I had gone many trips in the Good Fellow down the coast and back. She generally carried lumber to South- ern ports from the North. Finally, having gone on an ex- ploring and prospecting voyage, she had been cast away on an uninhabited island off the coast of Lower Cali- fornia. She had been chartered by a party of seekers for precious metals, mostly old CaHfornian miners, among them unknown and unknowdng Thomson, who had started from San Diego late in the season. No lives were lost in the shipwreck. After having been on the island nearly a month, all provisions being gone and no precious metals found, we had been rescued bv a South-bound coaster and carried / 3 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS nearly as far as Cape San Lucas, where we had met and been transferred to the mail steamer Colima that took us to San Francisco. On board the Colima was the troupe of Mexican chil- dren forming an operatic company under the directorship and management of the formerly quite celebrated Mexi- can songstress, Clara Unda y Mozon, whose own children, Carmen, Lopeto, Guadalupe, Ramon and Benito formed the nucleus of the company. Carmen and Lopeto were in every way the unapproached stars and leaders of the whole. And among them I was on the second day of our meeting on board the Colima enrolled, having attached myself to the children from the first moment I had seen them in such a spontaneous, irresistible manner that I be- came completely, willingly, helplessly absorbed in them. Naturally it had first been ascertained upon trial that I was very musical, very good of voice, perfect of ear, while in reading and understanding music and knowing how to sing, I was, thanks to the teachings of Old France, more than the equal of the other children, always except- ing Carmen and Lopeto. Thus, dressed in a cast-off suit of Lopeto, I came ashore in San Francisco a member of the Mexican Infantile Opera Company, feeling among so many almost secure from detection by anybody, and being too happy in my surroundings, too occupied with my new life to feel more than a passing pain at parting from Captain Smidkins of the lost schooner. Without any legal hold on me, but wishing me to stay with him very much, he counseled me not to leave him, promising to pay me wages; saying he would make a man of me if I would sail with him again; and there was another schooner ready for him. He was always good at promising. But my die was cast. To give up the children's com- pany would have been to give up life almost. Always fond of children and always hungering for their compan- 76 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ionship, how little had I known of any intercourse with any children, in free equality. Sometimes for months, for years not seeing a child, children's pla;^ was unknown to me. Now it all had come to me, my mates all children like me, our work all play. Though certainly the ban was still on me. A week or thereabouts after our arrival, at our first appearance in the old music-hall on Montgomery street, my father saw me. He had come solely to see the children. He had come alone. Cora he would bring another time. And he had been charmed, as always all people were, by the marvelous talent, as singers and actors, of Lopeto and Carmen and their natural beauty, grace and sweetness, so that at first he had hardly had senses for anybody or anything else, till toward the end of the first act his eyes suddenly beheld his boy. He did not move. His eyes encountered the boy's. He saw him start. In a moment he was hidden behind the other children. At once it came to my father like a revelation : Richard ! Their likeness ! It was the resemblance to his half-brother that the boy had seen in him. And all doubts and sus- picions ever held, became realities. Richard had been the one to get the boy away from the wharf. How had he done it, what treatment had he subjected the child to? It must have been cruel or it could not have been Richard. And the boy, seeing the likeness, shrank from him in (iread. It was the proof that it was the boy. Not that he reeded any proof. He had known him at the first glance. He knew him every part : his figure, his walk, his gestures, sll were the same, all as natural as ever. Actor he was none, and he wore like all the children no paint. The same clean look was about him. The eyes, his mother's eyes! He did not even seem much grown, but in every- thiig just like the little boy he had left on the old wharf 77 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS m the moonlight night for a few days, the days now- grown to years. 1 think I can follow my dear father in my mind, bat- tling with his emotion, not to let it overcome the consid- eration dne the boy, who must always remain the first object of tenderest thought fulness, schooling himself not to let his joy get the best of him, and to take care not to come too suddenly and brusquely upon him, not to give him more fright than could possibly he helped. Nor should he expect Ihat the boy would recognize him lit first, nor feel sore if he did not remember him at all, nor show it, if it did hurt, as it might. Naturally after the years of separation and the probably numerous, rough experiences gone through, the boy at best could remember him but indistinctly ; how much less then with trie likeness of Richard obliterating and supplanting in him the original. He must let the boy see him a few times, without his apparently seeing or noticing the boy, so as to let him perceive the difference and find out by himself that my father was not the man he resembled. The voice might tell and the gray hair. Though the gray hair might be more cause for not recognizing him. Or if all care would not avail to quickly free him from alarm and apprehension, Mahon must be called in and Mr. Tem Oldock! All this in the few seconds till the curtain had fallen and he had gone out into the lobby, where before, on enter- ing, he had noticed in and about the ticket-office some people that looked as if they might belong to the manage- ment of the company. Among them he now saw Don Lope, the husband of our directress, the father of Lopeto and the others, who must be one of the principal mana- gers, he was sure. Hesitate, of course he must as he always did, or pause, at least to look about him, take his bearings, note who was the likeliest man to address. Then he accosted Don Lope, intn^lucing himself, offering his 78 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS services, if such be needed and mentioning his former resi- dence in Mexico, where he had as he but just remembered, often been dehghted by the singing of a lady, at that time one of the principal ornaments of the Mexican stage and by the name that stood at the head of this children's opera- company. It was also borne by several of the children themselves, two of whom were the most wonderful per- formers for their age, he had ever met. There was a question of an exchange or draft wherein such services as my father offered were very acceptable ; but even without that, access behind the scenes with us was so easily obtained, it could be had by such as my father at all times for the asking. Before he had rightly prepared himself, he was ushered onto the stage and in- troduced to our lady Una y Mozon, who received him with all her graciousness and kept him near her, talking to him while directing everything. The children were all around him in the dim light, often touching him as they moved. They were grouping them- selves on the stage. They seemed to be extremely well drilled. Still, all was confusion to him. The second act was about to begin, or the third. It had begun. The chil- dren were all singing. Then, as the play went, the greater part of them came in a rush to where he was standing in the wings, the first one being crowded along by the others. As one came with a rush against him, he held out his hand to stop it, so he should not fall. And when lie looked it was his boy. For his life he could not help pressing him to his breast just one moment, crying in a w^hisper: "Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid !" But he did not hold him. He opened his arms immediately to let him go. He did not even let Ins eyes follow him. He had seen the first fright in the face and then the change. How the lips grew red again ! How the eyes turned to his with an expression of bound- less gratitude, a smile of unspeakable relief gradually 79 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US lighting up the whole face! How well he remembered the first smiling of the solemn little face ! But yet he had seen no recognition. After some time he saw him again. And with a feeling of perhaps as great relief and thankfulness as before he had seen into the boy's eyes, he now noticed that the fright was all gone. At least it seemed to have left him, but he could not surely tell, in the turmoil of the perform- ance. But he would not do anything to approach the boy. When the play was over he received an invitation to sup with the troupe at their hotel. That he accepted. After supper lie was made specially acquainted with some of the principal performers among the children. Carmen and Lopeto naturally being the first. He also managed to learn how his boy had been picked up and had become a member of the company. After that, seeing his boy and Lopeto march off to bed together with the others, he took his leave, to pass the night till dawn in walking the streets round the block in which stood the building, where in some one of the rooms his boy was sleeping. Lopeto had shown quite a liking for his boy. It pleased him to think of it. Yet something was in it that pained him. But he liked Lopeto for it. And he plainly saw the chance, how, without showing his real object, to get near and grow familiar with his boy by occupying himself with Lopeto, which could in no way seem strange, Lopeto being courted by all. And there was in my father much planning and nervous considering, what and how best to do, with no result but the conception that Lopeto might be made a companion to his boy, for a time. If my father had not gone to any performance by our troupe, it would have been Jim, the bricklayer, again to bring him news of his boy. Jim had gone to see the chil- dren at their second or third appearance and thinking he saw a resemblance in the boy, had waited for him the next morning at the stage entrance after rehearsal, when 80 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS lie fully recognized him. Jim spoke to him and quite surprised him into telling how he came to be amongst these ^.lexican children, and then hurried to inform my father of his discovery, only to find him already possessed of the facts, and in accord with the open hospitality and graceful ease of Mexican custom, already on intimate tooting with all the members of the troupe. That is, of course, as intimate as my father's natural disposition would allow him to be. One point was through Jim's visit brought to my father's mind, the birthmark. Jim spoke of it, and this occasioned my father to make an opportunity to see it. The boy wearing old clothes of Lopeto's too large for him and rather worn, while the other boys were all dressed alike and in new suits, plain, but with just a little pecu- liarity of cut and touch of color to make them look somewhat like uniforms, gave my father the chance of offering to take him to his tailor and have a new suit uniform like the rest made for him, doing, I am sure, at the same time what he well knew made his boy's heart jump with delight. He took Lopeto and a couple more of the boys along to serve as patterns, and to take away any feeling of distrust and insecurity the boy might have in going alone with him, considering what might have been his experiences with Richard. After being through with the tailor he took them all to ch'iterent stores, where he bought some little present for each. And for his bov. ?t a furnisher's, he bought some underwear the bov badly needed, which to try on, superfluously to be sure, he made liim strip in the dressing room of the establishment, when he saw the birthmark. And al- though before he had thought little of it, as if perhaps it might not be there an_d it made no difference if it were not, mark or no mark, the boy was his, yet when he did see it, he became possessed of quite a strong feeling on that point, as if he had a right now to the boy he had not 8i CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS had before, and as though he must show his own birth- mark. Had he but done it ! The case lay similarly to what it had that time at the old wharf. Yet, no! It was altogether different. The only similarity was ,that he was as strange to the boy now as he had been on that Sunday he first saw him, and lie had to find his way into the boy's life again, step by step as before. And even this task as well as every- thing else was not what it had been then. At that time the boy had been contented in his sur- roundings, but it had been the contentment of ignorance, inexperience. His life had been, yes! independent and useful through work faithfully performed that lay well within his ability. But it had been work to lead to nothing but the lowest level of unskilled labor. Now he was not only contented but joyfully happy, standing on the first rung of a ladder, up which by his talent, he might climb to the sunniest heights of life. The dift'erent wants of the child had shown themselves in those earlier days soon enough and as plain as at this later period to be noted and cared for. His musical talent had taken clear shape at the first touch of a simple, unfamiliar instrument, pointing out the way he should go, the profession that should be his life's work. His whole soul had responded to the father's in every vibration from their first meeting. Had the father at that time been independent in his home-life, he could, without the knowledge of the bond of nature between them, to insure the child's future happiness have taken him to be his own. Now the desertion by his wife had given him that independence in his home, now he knew, besides, that the boy was his own child, and now he must not take him, must let him be. He had suspected some- thing like it the very first night : he saw it clearer every new day with pain tightening on his breast. At the old wharf he had almost from the first hour 82 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS of their acquaintance become the boy's very centre of life. He had felt it to be so, he had known it. Now the boy was happy in a manifold happiness in which he had no part, no share : happy in the execution of his beloved music, the daily practicitig of it. learning more of it. happy in the instruction by his teachers, their kindly praise; happy and happier every day in the close fellow- ship of all the dear sand-colored little ones, the affection of Lopeto, the daintily acted motherliness of sweet little Carmen. If he took him away from all this now, might he not destroy his whole life? And if the boy was really as musical as everybody proclaimed him, as he himself believed him to be, was it not then his plain duty to aid him on his way? However to do that he need not let him go. And how could he let him go? He must take him to himself to be his son. He arrived at a plan that in reality was but old dreams, old wishes, old, old castles of air. He would take Cora to Europe, where any attempt of the mother to get posses- sion of her would stand much less chance of being success- ful than in the United States. He would go to Italy with Cora and Harry ; to Tuscany, his old home, to live there. And he would take the boy there. And Lopeto was to be taken along. They were all to live there together. The musical education of the boy was to be one principal object of the undertaking : and Lopeto was for some years to be the close, brotherly companion to his boy, to thus bridge over the separation from the beloved little troupe. And he would try the genuine qualifications of his boy for a musical career. His boy should have all that fondest father's love could give. He should know too a father's love. He would tell him all and would fully acknowledge him. But not right off. He wished to gain his love first, as he had won the little fellow's heart years ago. At least he wished to try. The parents of Lopeto and Carmen desired most earn- 83 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS estly to give them a thorough musical education. The ob- ject of all this Infantile Opera business had been but to make money enough to defray the expenses of such an education. It soon became evident that the profits of the undertaking v/ould be much less than they had cal- culated, and it only made the parents more anxious about it. so that my father's hinting at an offer to take the education of Lopeto on himself was met with willingness enough. But nothing was more than hinted at ; nor did my father express more than a sort of idea that it might be well to have some other one of the boys come with Lopeto for a companion, perhaps me, since we seemed to be such good friends. The two of us were to be educated together. It was to be definitely arranged in Boston, where the troupe were going from San P'^rancisco. Meanwhile my father gave himself up to the advance- ment of the interest and comfort of the whole troupe and especially to the enjoyment of the society of all the chil- dren and the constant intercourse with them, without sing- ling out his boy more than he could help, or appearing more solicitous about him than about any of the others. When the first season of several weeks' duration in San Francisco was over, the troupe on his invitation went to San Jose for a week, where they performed. One night they visited his ranch and had what might be called a vacation of his arranging. After that they returned to San Francisco for anotlier shorter season where my father left them and started with Cora and Harry for Boston, four, five days ahead of the troupe. Delays on the road kept the troupe from reaching Bos- ton till several weeks after the time appointed with my father. When at last they did arrive, he saw that his boy was not amongst them and learned like one stunned that the last night in San Francisco, during the performance, v/hich was a sort of concert, some one in the audience had come forward, climbed on to the stage, taken hold 84 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US of the boy. claiming him as his own and had carried him off, the boy not making the least resistance. Letters and telegrams had passed between my father and the manager of the troupe while he was waiting for them, but no mention had ever been made of this busi- ness because, I suppose, nobody kne^^• or thought that my father took any special interest in this boy, who after all had been but an outsider among them. And, as it happened no newspaper's notice had been taken of this incident, or if it had, none had come to my father's eyes. What could it mean? Richard was away on some scheming, mining business in Central America, not to re- turn for months or even years, or my father would not have risked to leave the boy. Jim, the bricklayer, as far as my father knew, was the only one knowing about the boy. There came, as must come in connection with me, the thought of :\Ir. Tem Oldock. To him my father telegraphed and wrote. Cora fell ill, an.d it must have been her protracted illness which kept my father from going back to San Francisco. In a few weeks he re- ceived the news that the boy had been found and was safe in Mr. Tem Oldock's house. The first sight of my father had acted on me just about as he reasoned. The resemblance to Richard "had started the old terrors in my mind, only that I had an almost instant doubt of his being the person. If that had not been I should have set about making my escape without delay. Xew uncertainty came when, at the be- ginning of the next act, I saw that he had left his seat and was now^here to be seen. And real fright seized me when I found myself in his arms. But as soon as I came to really feel his embrace, even before I heard his voice, I knew it was a different man, only resembling the other. Still the resemblance was enough to hold me captive so that I could not disconnect my father with the memory of 85 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Richard. I am certain 1 should have come to it, in spite of the obscuring recollection of the other one, if only my father had more occupied himself with me, and if at his country-seat on his ranch I had not seen Cora. We were being famously entertained there, and al- though at that time I was altogether too fully taken up with my happy state to notice much that was not music or Mexican children, still the trees and hills and air were to me like greetings from the country I loved, too. I was, soon after our arrival at the ranch, busily engaged leading some of the children round the place, to show, tell and explain all I knew of country-life, when we came to a spot behind some shrubbery where we found sitting on the ground in the road, a child, certainly not three years old, that was crippled. It was awfully shy too. When Carmen in her little-girl's motherliness went to caress it, the little thing looked so pitiable that she stopped and told me to go to it and speak to it in English. But no kindly talking or coaxing could elicit a word or make it raise its bowed-down head. It had only one whole leg. The other leg was off just below the knee. We could not understand how it could walk at all as it had no crutch. Then one of our boys discovered in the branches of a pepper-tree close by, a stick with a brass ferrule which he shook down and which proved to fit into the capping of the little child's leg-stump. Somebody must have unscrewed it and thrown it up into the tree. I had just screwed it into its place and was backing away from the little thing, not to embarrass it any more, when, raising my eyes, before me in the walk, slowly approaching round the shrubbery, I saw Cora. She was much changed, yet I instantly knew her. And she recognized me, I saw, as well as that she saw, I had recognized her. Into her pale eyes came that look of hate and cruelty, I had seen in them, that time in the 86 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS room where that man whom she called papa had brought me. The terrors were within arm's length of me again. As at Fountain Head, I had now the feeling as though that man must be lurking nearby, anywhere, everywhere ready to seize and destroy me. This, his girl would tell him of my being here, and he would come. That last night in San Jose my fire-dream visited me again the first time in a long while. The night after in San Francisco it came again. When a couple of days later my father bade us good-by to go to Boston ahead of us, bringing Cora to say good-by too, and making her shake hands with me amongst the others, I seemed to feel in the touch of her fingers her promise of hate to inform him, that strange man, her papa of my whereabouts. And when on our last night in San Francisco toward the end of the per- formance there was some disturbance in the audience, and a man came climbing onto the stage, caught me up, jumped dow^n again and walked up the aisle and out of the hall, carrying me all the way into the street, up to a close carriage, into which he thrust me, coming in after me, and rode off with me, I could not say one word nor do one thing. This was the fulfilment. I was in the clutches of my destroyer. I was lost. I had had to siag that night for the first time a part alone, a small song' of not more than three verses with a chorus, receiving great applause at each verse and having to repeat the last verse twice, when near the last ending I was interrupted. I did not know what it was, but it made my heart sink. A noise of some one calling! And then it came. Long since the whole has become like a picture to me : the hot, crowded, not very well lighted house, our whole company on the stage in everyday uniform dress (for it was only a kind of concert we gave, as we were gomg to leave the next morning by the earliest train) ; then the 87 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS man coming in the flare of the footHghts up over the edge of the stage, straight toward me, lifting me up and carrying me off ; the strange-looking faces of all the little company, the grown-np people running out from the wings, all looking astonished, scared, the flushed faces of the audience, eager, some laughing, many rising, pressing forward! But not to help! None to interfere! Not one to save me I Thomson had been one of the prospecting miners on board the Good Fellow. He had been cast away with us on the island and had come back with us to San Francisco. But all this time nothing had ever occurred to make him suspect my identity, while I of course knew nothing whatever of him. We had been a good deal in close company too, as I slept in the same tent with him for a week or two on the island. However into closer acquaintance we had not been brought. And he was not a man to care for children, nor at all to take to boys. Arrived in San Francisco he had in his desultory w.'iv taken u]) his periodical inquiries about me, and had at last come across Jim, from whom he had learned, to his dead amazement, that the ship's boy on the schooner on which he had sailed and been wrecked, was the boy for whom he had been in search so long. He would hardly believe it at all, for he was the kind of man to think that we must have recognized each other. And I don't know but what in his heart he put it down as something showing again my inborn perverseness and falseness, that I had not made myself known to him. And now I belonged to a theatrical company! That would be my ruin. As Richard was not there, he must himself do what was right and save me. What Jim told him about my father he simply disregarded after his manner of mental action. Richard had always been my father, how could anybody else be my father? Thomson went to see us perform, but failed to recog- 88 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALAXUS nize me in niy stage-dress. He watched for me on the street near the stage-door the next time we went in to rehearsal. Then he recognized me enough to know me again for the boy aboard the Good Fellow. By that time he was ready to act. He had no time to spare, for the day of our last performance had come. He had raised some money and rented a partly furnished, isolated, little cottage on Russian hill. And he hired a cab. Then he went to the music-hall, took a con- venient seat as soon as the doors were open and waited till near the end of our performance, till I had finished my song and the called-for repetition within a few words, when rising he called out something to the eflfect that that was the boy he had lost years ago, and came and carried me ofif. I had not recognized him in the least. He had shaved off his beard, or done something like that. It would i-ave made no difference if I had. I was waiting in deadly suspence for the appearance of the other man. I could not speak. I thought of everything and at the same time all thoughts ran into the one : where was the other man? h^or this one, of course, was o.ily sent to fetch me. Where was tlie other? The strange man? When we came to the cab, I thought lie must be in there. When Vv-e had driven, away, quickly at first, slower uphill till at last we stopped, and the cab door was opened, I felt sure of his standing there, ready to receive me. The worst was goin.g into the cottage, where now certainly he must be, and where I passed a night of terrors in the dark, at every little noise imagining that he was coming, imagining liim to be in the room with me. hearing his stealthy step, his subdued breathing, his groping his way along the walls to me. Not till the day after, did I recognize Thomson as one of the miners who had sailed as passanger on the Good Fellovv. and then it made the case but more mys- 8g CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US terious. Only gradually during the following week could I come to a sort of understanding of his confused, end- lessly rambling talk. The man he spoke of as my father and whom, one moment, he called a fiend, recounting how he had treated my mother, and the next moment professed it his inten- tion, his duty to deliver me up to as soon as he was returned from somewhere, that was that strange man who had stolen me from our old wharf. Of that I was reasonably sure. It could be no other. But he was not here at present. Thomson was not even in communica- tion with him. Thomson had no authority to interfere, to act at all, even if that man was my father, which in my innermost thoughts I fully believed to be the truth. An indescribable fury took possession of me, as little by little it became clear to me that I had fooled myself and been fooled. Fooled by a fool! Robbed by a jackass of my happiness! If I had but resisted! If I had but fought back! I might have fought myself clear and our managers might then have stood by me and saved me. For Thomson could not have made good any claim, could not have proved any title so to speak. Perhaps our managers would have given me up to him without any demur, to avoid any trouble, and I being but an outsider, who had come to them like a stray dog. But they might not. If I only had broken away from him and run, I might have hidden and disguised myself and gotten away with the rest. Perhaps I should not have succeeded, but I miffht. There had been the chances. Now it was too late. Even if I escaped now, how could I make it pos- sible to rejoin our company? Still escape I must. And 1 should easily enough have got away from Thomson, had not the illness laid me low, w^iich ended with attack- ing my throat and destroying my voice so that I have never been able to sing since. 90 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS At the worst of the illness Mr. Tern Oldock found me. He came with Mahon and Jim. My father had directed him to Jim, and through Jim my spiriting away was speedily brought home to Thomson, who was located without much trouble by Mr. Tem Oldock. They came to my bed-side, and oh ! the change of feeling at hear- ing their voices! New hope! New life! Oh, the bless- ings of joy! As Mr. Tem Oldock bent over me he held out his hand to me, pointing at the scar, the mark of my teeth, telling me not to cry, that he had come to take care of me, that I had good friends who would do every- thing for me, and by and by I should go to Europe with ]\Iahon. Jim was very downcast at seeing me so low, for which he greatly blamed himself. But he did not speak about nor mention my father any more than Mr. Tem Oldock did. Mahon, I think, I should have known anywhere, big- grown as he was and with moustache sprouting. But he did not remember me in the least. Yet when I was a little better, he would come into my room in his father's house, being home during school-vacation, and tease me, exactly the way of old, when T was with Xello and Nick at the wharf. He was at a boarding school, a sort of private college in the city, and when the new term began, I was sent to the same college. And yet another year or nearly so of separation from me my father had to endure ; sep- aration certainly no longer in ignorance of my being and doing, but no less m pain of secret longing. What all the reasons were why he did not have me sent on as soon as I was well enough to travel, or later, or why he did not return to California sooner, if he found his residing abroad did not answer the purposes of his life, or why he did not, at least, enter into some sort of communication with me, all this I shall never know. 91 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Cora's illness must have been one reason. It had de- veloped into something requiring, according to the opinion and advice of well known physicians, the speedy consultation of noted, European specialists. As soon as my father had received the news of my being safely housed at Mr. Teni Oldock's, he sailed with Cora and Harry for Europe. The project about Lopeto had with the other plans been abandoned. The Mexican children's company had utterly failed in Boston and other places and had been disbanded, most of the people returning home by aid of my father. Lopeto, alone of all, obtained an engagement to sing at some theatre somewhere. My father had re- peated or more explicitly formulated his offer to take the gifted boy to Europe for his general and musical educa- tion, and I am sure he must at that time yet have had it in his mind that I should follow him. But Lopeto's present earnings were, I dare say, of too great a neces- sity to the parents for them to entertain the proposal. Mr. Tem Oldock's plan of sending Mahon abroad to finish his education had revived about this time, probably under the influence of some plan of my father's regarding me, communicated to Mr. Tem Oldock, though never car- ried out. Mr. Tem Oldock now proposed to take Mahon to Europe himself, and I was to go along. At least he spoke of taking me with Mahon to Europe. But business considerations made him postpone the trip from time to time, till my father, Cora presumably being cured, was on his way, without further delays now, back to California, where he arrived at the time Mr. Tem Oldock was at last about fully ready to leave. My father immediately came to our college with Mr. Tem Oldock, ostensibly brought by that gentleman, to witness, as an old friend of the family, Mahon's graduation, and as though by chance to meet me, Mr. Tem Oldock's and Mahon's young protegee, and casually invite Mahon, and 92 CHROXICLES OF MAXUEL AEAXUS me as his familiar, to pay him a visit at his country seat for the time of a week and more, remaining till Mahon should leave with his father on their European travels. Thus he veiled his real object to bring me unknowing into his house, there to keep me even if not yet proclaiming himself mv father, for me to grow gradually, naturally into my place of son. So the day had dawned for my father to receive his first-born into his house, to take him to his heart, not to part from him till death should close his eyes. One last, short year of happiness of all his life! To have his own! And the surpassingly sweet ex- perience of witnessing, while he was winning anew the young heart, himself becoming gradually recognized, re- discovered, as it were, as the one to whom that heart had already, years ago, belonged! What delight to find the boy every day more what he liked and wanted. The boy, still not knowing that it was his father, every hour to learn to love him more and more un.til never did child love father more fondly! I think my father came to our school fully prepared to be recognized by me as the gentleman-friend of our opera company, the friend of Lopeto, as we used to call him. And if he did so, which I think most likely, and that he pleased himself with many fond notions of this recognition, on the other hand I am quite sure, when he found he was not recognized, he immediately, after his modest fashion, had plenty excuses ready for me and explanations why he was not remembered, blaming him.- self for having been so unreasonable as to expect it. He probably told himself how much more gray he had grown, white in fact and old-looking. Did he not w^ear clothes of a new cut and style that made him appear a differ- ent person ? And the principal reason, had he not treated me before with the greatest reserve? Had he not failed t'^ ?ive me the cpp'~>rtunitv to become familiar with his 93 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS voice, his manner, his appearance and I, too, had been preoccupied with my music and acting. And in such a crowd! Was he not in fact treating me now again with the same reserve ? Did he not stand there shaking ahnost and blushing, unable to speak, having to leave all the talk- ing, even to the giving of his own invitations to Mr. Tern Oldock! That was the curse of his nature, his bashful, ner- vously shy, self -observing, self-seeing nature, his honestly self-distrustful conscientiousness, which made him, while at the same time his heart cried for it in a way afraid of being recognized, and feel relieved to have the recog- nition postponed. Something regretful my father found about me affected him like a reproof. But there was not so much grieving in me as he supposed. I had suffered as a boy of my disposition, of strong sensibility if of happy spirits, must suffer. Perhaps I should not have sustained the affliction so well had I not been in a manner charmed. Feeling myself as I always did in the hands of an incomprehen- sible, hostile power, under whose sway and ban there was left to me no real freedom of action, to do or to plan, this unknown doom overhanging and darkening my whole life, made me less susceptible to other pains. There was no disappointment so cruel but it was easy to endure compared to that my destiny, no wound so smarting but it was as nothing by the side of that blow ready to fall on me at any moment ! But is not this untrue ? Do I not know that every dis- appointment, grief and sorrow has been made tenfold more keen, sore and sad by this, my consciousness of my fate; like the torturing of one dying-ill. Yet so much is true, it made me fight back hard. The very sharpness of the pains drove me to struggle fiercely to overcome them, to wrestle myself clear of whatever torments beset me, else how could I have lived? Thus I 94 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS had beaten off what vicious pangs would assail me, and the wounds of my heart had begun to heal as soon as I had seen Mahon and Mr. Tern Oldock at my sick bed. And they had continued to heal with change, new occupa- tion, study, new companionship, though of boys rather too old for me, till not even my hatred for Thomson was any more so very deadly. And whatever wounds were still left unhealed, closed of themselves when in the em- brace of my father I knew^ him again, as the friend of friends. I was really at this time almost altogether taken up with ^lahon's departure and the new sorrow it brought me, and not with those former grievances, if they did have the same first cause and last purpose. I had always known Mahon was going away, and his departure in itself was not the deepest of my regrets. It was the disappoint- ment that I was not to go with him. I always took things as they came. I had no claim on Mr. Tem Oldock, I never felt as if I had, or on any- body. Besides, I knew very well that Mr. Tem Oldock must never be taken at his word too literally and seriously, but in this instance I was sure he had meant what he had said. A [any times he had told me that he would take me with Mahon to Europe. Only lately he had silently dropped the matter, speaking now a little mysteriously about our all shortly meeting again on his and Mahon 's return. They were supposed to come back soon. I believed myself they would. I knew Mahon did not care for this trip. And Mr. Tem Oldock I considered as no more than in a way self-persuaded against his better judg- ment to take this trip. They would return that I myself felt sure of, and that was my consolation. The dis- appointment I had to take and overcome, fight down, though it meant the destruction of all the air castles built up by me on Mr. Tem Oldock's say-so. 95 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS What childish hopes! Dreaming of rejoining that troupe of Mexican children! How I might find them, and become one of them again and bring back to me the happiness I had lost! I believed them to have gone to Europe. I suppose I had heard that talked about when I was with them. I believe I thought I need but go to Europe to fall in witli them. I had planned to learn to play some instru- ment to become a musician for their orchestra, if it was found that I was truly unable to sing. Or I could do or be a thousand somethings. Let me but once more be with them and I should find my happiness among them as before! I had been informed that morning that arrangements had been made for me to stay and board at the college the whole of the vacation, since I had nowhere to go when Mr. Tem Oldock closed his house. Not very much later I was told Mr. Tem Oldock had that instant ar- rived and was with Mahon in the reception-room, where they wanted to see me. It was one minute of excited suspense. Could it be possible that after all I was to go with Mahon? How could 1 help thinking it? Tiie next minute I was in their presence, and everything was settled. Mahon had been invited by somebody to pay him a visit at his place, some- where in the country, as there would be over a week's time before Mahon would start with his father on their travels, and I was included in this invitation to come and stay at this place with Mahon till Mahon would have to leave. Or, I might stay longer if I liked, stay out the whole vacation, Mr. Tem Oldock said, who did all the talking. Soon after this the exercises had begun and were over. The graduation had taken place, and a late luncheon had been partaken of. Mr. Tem Oldock had bidden me farewell, and so kindly, it was all I could do to bear it. 96 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAND'S After that I remember being on a railway-train with Mahon, going to the place we had been invited to by somebody, whom neither :\Iahon nor I knew. Mahon after a linle thinking recollected that it was a Mr. Aliens, and that he was his father's banker. But his father would soon, now. be his own banker, Mahon said, as he was going to establish a bank of his own. And as soon as I was through with the college, I should be given a place in that bank, and grow up to be manager of it, his father had told him, he said. When we reached the railway station where we had to leave the train it was night. A man was waiting for us with a team to take us to the dwelling-house on the ranch. I recollect the ride seeming very long to me, and that Mahon was the whole time in conversation with our driver about the farming of the ranch. Then we arrived ; and now, when our Mr. Aliens stood before me, blinking and breathing hard, some peculiar feeling did come to me. I thought that I had seen him before, or that he looked like somebody I had known. Naturally he should bestow more attention on Mahon. his principal guest, than on me, though he did it to all but total avoidance of me. He hesitated to take my offered hand, and when he did take it, I felt his hand tremble. He did not look me in the face. His voice was uncertain— harsh. Yet an inexpressibly sweet air of all that is kind hung about him. And in every one of these things there was something familiar to me. Could I have pursued the thoughts my impressions called forth as they unclearly moved in me, it might have led to my recog- nizing him even before our supper was over. But just then my mind was fully occupied with the parting from Mr. Tem Oldock. whose unexpected tenderness at the last moment had made the parting with him all the harder to me. Could I never remain for good with any one ? Must I 97 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS always leave every where as soon as I was happy there? Parting! Forever parting! Going to bed I found that Mahon and I were to oc- cupy separate bed-rooms that did not even connect. Mine was adjoining Mr. Allens's bed-room, connected with it through the bath-room. Mahon's room was quite across the hall. And as a last impression I remember that I did not like this arangement. In the morning, I found that Mahon had got up long before me and gone with the foreman to the harvesting in the fields and that I was expected to go on horse- back with our Mr. Aliens to visit a Mrs. Sullivan. I myself should have chosen to go harvesting with Mahon, I am sure, and I can fancy how well my father compre- hended that, how pained he was that T should not have my wish, how ready, had I but expressed it, to renounce his own desires, undo his own plan. For he most as- suredly had planned this trip for him and me together. But if I could not go harvesting with Mahon, it was my disposition to make the most of whatever other ar- rangement was made and willing and glad to go horseback with our host. I saw in his face that he was pleased. Mrs. Sullivan's place was a little high valley in the upper hills above Gilroy with a winding canyon outlet into the bigger valley below. The house and barn stood at one side at the foot of a tree-grown knoll. Mrs. Sul- livan was sitting on the little porch under climbing plants, as though expecting us. Just another such bright-faced, merry, tender and whole-hearted Irish girl as Mrs. Sullivan must have been, T always imagine, Mahon's mother was not so quiet per- haps as Mrs. Sullivan, made quiet by her sorrows. Her children were all dead and her husband turned to dissi- pation, had gone to start life anew at a distant place, where she was to join him as soon as the sale of her place was accomplished. I remember how from greeting mv 98 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS father she turned to me, holding out hoth her hands, say- ing: "And this is the boy." She drew me to her as though she would kiss me, then let my hands go, turmng away to hide her tears. On the way home, my father told me that her two sons had died some years ago, both from the same disease within a week's time. He supposed, he said, I had recalled them to her mind, they having been near my age I felt sorry for her. I liked her very much. How it was, I could not tell, but she brought into my head that lady I had once met at Fountain Head. I thmk it was her motherliness that did it; something that awakened in me to mv conscious perception the void I often felt of the mother's love that I had never known. Other things called up memories of Fountain Head and Five Oaks. All day long I was full of thoughts and remembrances of both places. To be sure it was the con'^equence of being in the country, on the hills in the sunshine, the round-top live oaks crouching over their shadows, the cringing scrub-brush and chaparral chng- mcr like moss to the rounding ground in the hollows, the dry soil everywhere full of cracks between the withered grass, the cattle, the haystacks, the hazy dis- tance. I almost craved to talk and tell about it and all other things belonging to the country that I knew and saw, as we were riding about after having stayed at Mrs. Sullivan's till after luncheon, onh" I never could, nor indeed ever tried to bring myself to speak of it and let anybody know that I had been living there, any more than I ever mentioned the old wharf. But as we rode along, almost aimlessly it appeared, a strange sort of feeling or idea came to me, as though this Mr. Aliens understood in a way my interest in country life and other things, me, myself altogether. Perhaps it was conveved in some words of his. Yet we spoke but little. Or it was the feeling in myself. 99 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS For it was not only quick and ready memory, it was actual feeling in me. I felt as if I was going with Young Hants over the hills and the air was coming up the warm valley. It was between three and four years now since I had left Five Oaks and still I had the same feel- ing I used to have when, the evening coming on, I rode with Hants home to the little house on the hill from the fields or pastures. Home ! Home ! In spite of all that could threaten me, the coming home had always made me happy. And something was making me happy now. Mahon had returned from the fields on the other side of the valley a little before we came back. He was sun- burned and tired but vaunting his pleasure and satisfac- tion in the day's work and protesting that nothing should keep him from employing in the same way all his time till the day came for his departure. I suppose I was as tired as Mahon, with the unusual exercise of being in the saddle so many hours, although I had not seldom, in town, gone with Mahon on hired saddle-horses for rides through the park and along the beach. We went to bed early that night. Generally I had a premonition when I was to have my night-mare, and it would come as soon as I had fallen asleep. This night I had no warning and slept soundly for hours before it came. I felt somebody was holding me down and knew I was in my dream. I tried to wake up but I could not. I had to go on. I was on the big, bald mountain near the Black's hut, with Salvador on his horse. He had me lassoed and fas- tened and was dragging me toward one of the old mining shafts, where that strange man and the Black were stand- ing, to throw me down the shaft. I tried to slip my fastenings and almost had got free when the strange man fell on me and rolled me over till my head overhung the opening of the shaft and I could see deep down at the 100 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS bottom a horrible, fiery snake-worm. I fought hard to get free, and then turning a little I saw over me, close, the distorted face I so well knew, of the strange man. Suddenly it w^as nu longer he, but our Mr. Aliens. Then at once I heard some one calling to me not to be afraid. And that was the friend of Lopeto. He was trying to drag that strange man from off me. I was struggling to get from under, and when I awoke, soaking wet and hot and gasping with exhaustion, I was in the arms of our Mr. Aliens, who was calling me by name, asking me in breathless distress, speaking Spanish, if 1 did not know him. I said: "You are the friend of Lopeto." I knew him now perfectly well. In all the tumult of my mind and the stupor, too, my dream generally left me in, it was fully clear to me, and I felt an infinite glad- ness of it. Yet I had a momentary perception of my an- swer not being entirely satisfactory. I could not think what was wrong with it. For there could be no doubt but that the man who was holding me in his arms was the friend of Lopeto. I was sure of it. He was speak- ing to me, telling me how, having left the bathroom-door open, he had heard my moaning and had come to rouse me up out of my night-mare. He had raised me up to sitting, he was bathing my face, calming me with kindest words. And he was our Mr. Aliens. But where was Lopeto? I think at first I must have believed him to be near by. I don't know but what I thought they were all come back, the whole troupe, till my father, conceiving my impatient desire to hear all he could have to say, forthwith began to give his information. And for all that had to be told and listened to and asked again, re- told and explained the night was not long enough. I learned the fate of the little company, the fact of lOI CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS their breaking up and dissolution, and knew there could be no more rejoining them. With what fatherly concern did he set to work to inquire into the conditions of my thoughts and feelings, to obtain an insight into all that lived within me, draw- ing from me with so gentle and untiring perseverance every conceit, not only to gain knowledge of my true wants as every good father would but also to make me un- derstand myself as far as that was possible at my age, and no less to let me know that I was in the hands of a friend for life. With this it was characteristic of my father that no mention was made of my staying or going. But I felt myself at liberty to take it as self -understood that I was to remain living with my Mr. Aliens. My recognition of him as the other, the older and dearer friend took place soon after this, as soon as Mahon's departure left us alone together. Mahon went away after being two weeks on the ranch, to be now for certain taken to Europe and made a gentleman of, as his father would have it. How sorry he was to go, increasing again my sorrow to part from him. I had never seen him like that. But he had been quite different from his usual self during the whole time of his stay on the ranch. Ordinarily he had an indif- ference of manner, and would seem to be bored by his pursuits and never seriously interested in them. Now he had been taking part in the work of the big ranch every day from daw^n to dusk, making himself familiar v/ith the different cultures, and with an ease, challeng- ing everybody's admiration. He was full of interest at every point and all full of general activity, life, talk, fun and happiness, not differing so much perhaps with my state, if I must believe that my happiness at that time was greater than anybody's and equaled only by that of my father's. 102 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US For this was the time, of all the times of my life, 1 think the most wonderful. Never can 1 lose the impres- sion When :Mahon left, my father went with him to town, as if he must personally return and deliver him to Mr. Tem Oldock, while I, for the few days my father would be absent, was to stay with Mrs. SulUvan. I should have liked to have gone along with my father and Mahon very much. And I did not see why I should not do so, nor why 1 could not remain on the ranch if I was to stay behind. But it was so arranged, and accord- inglv I rode over to Mrs. Sullivan's. It was doubtless one of my father's plannings. Per- haps he aimed at making the parting from Mahon less grievous to me. And I well conceive his owai feelings at seeing my sorrow ; as though he alone were respon- sible for it. Or he may have wanted Mrs. Sullivan's aid in preparing me for what I now^ must come to know. I had been to :Mrs. Sullivan's several times during these weeks with my father and once alone, and she had more than once as good as told me, only that I could not take her meaning, that he was my father. I had certainly come to like her very much, but no liking could do away with the homesickness that invariably befel me when I'had to leave an accustomed place, be it for but a short time which now found more nourishment in my feelings at :\Iahon's leaving. It was but a few days till my father returned. He had telegraphed on leaving town for me to come home that night. Tlie telegram was forwarded to Mrs. Sul- livan's from Gilroy, and the messenger arrived just as I was on the way to my room to make ready for supper. 1 remember Mrs. Sullivan coming, running after me. with the telegram in her hand, calling out : "Here ! Here is a prescription for a homesick boy!" And she did not insist on my eating supper first, but 103 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS herself urged me on to hurry, as I rode oft* in the darkea- ing night. Home ! Home ! Going home ! The stars were faint. Ahead on the shadowy hills hung full the reddish moon, as in the nights of long ago I thought not of them, but their influence was over me. I was under the oaks in the valley. I was in the orchard. I rode to the farm-yard to leave the horse in the corral, and ran to the house. Now I saw the lights of the house under the black trees and their beams came like liquid something rushing into my heart, filling it all v/ith glowing joy. And then I saw my father standing on the veranda, half-biding behind a post, as I had so often seen him at the old wharf, standing, half-hiding behind a pile-head. I ran to him as I had always run to him as soon as I saw him there waiting for me. He 1 Next morning I saw little Harry. He had been stay- ing in tov/n with his nursery-girl since their leturn from abroad. My father had brought him with him from town, telling me nothing about it. When in the morn- ing, by my father's arranging I met him alone, I did not remember him right aw^ay, in spite of his crippled leg, till going up to him in my pleasure at seeing a little child and my attempt at making friends, I noticed him trembling with bashful apprehension, standing with down- turned face, not daring to meet my eyes, and at once recollected the shy little cripple I had seen at this place when I had been here with the Mexican children. My father told us how Mahon when he heard about little Harry had exclaimed: "That is right. That will fit exactly, Manuel will be perfectly happy now. Just let him have a little child to play with all day and he will want nothing more." And Harry seemed naturally to fall to my charge. He could do without his nursery- girl anyhow very well by this time. 104 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS At first, I was very careful not to force myself on him but to advance only little by little in the familiarities and intimacies of brotherly fellowship. But with my self -unconscious openness and freedom, I could not but directly show my affection for him, and that was what won his heart. In this respect, as in so many others he was the exact counterpart of our father. The mo- ment any one showed him real attachment and fondness, he melted right away, while he was at the same time most shy. It took me much longer to get him to feel easy or al- most easy in my presence and to allow the touch of my hands without more than an involuntary drawing back, than it took me to gain his heart. Some little tricks, too, I employed, pretending at times to have hurt myself, un- scrupulously working on his tenderness, making him tie up my hand, hold a wet towel to my head or neck, rub my arm. all of which he did at my doleful bidding with gentle compassion, overcoming his shyness. My father had procured a pony for him. With the stirrup fixed to suit his leg he sat the horse very well, and to my delight and pride as his instructor in horse- manship, he showed himself very clever and perfectly fearless. His trust in me was such, he would unhesi- tatingly undertake anything I told him to try. He went with our father and me on all our trips over the whole ranch, with the workings of which my father had be- fore this begun to make me familiar. I think my father at bottom wished that I should eventually come to make the farming of the ranch the pursuit of my life in preference not only to music, but to any other profession. I certainly showed great liking for life in the country, and I surely had had enough prac- tical experience in farming to know the hard work and drawbacks of it. He had bought the ranch, which was an old Spanish Grant, at a very low price in a period 105 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US of financial depression during the first year after his arrival in California. He had farmed parts of it from the day he took possession of it, step by step bringing more of it under cultivation, being as a rule successful. He was not only a man of sense and judgment but some- thing of a natural-born farmer and certainly a good busi- ness-man, in spite of his bash fulness and other weak points. He often had wanted to retire from city business and give himself up completely to the ranch. I believe he now meant me to decide ; that if I showed continued liking and aptitude to be a farmer, he would with so much great- er contentment retire from active business in the city to more active life in the country with his children round him. But I was not to be urged or persuaded or merely influenced into adopting farming for my life's work and profession. I was to be shown business life in the city as well, and to be put in a fair way of seeing and judg- ing for myself what suited me best, if a boy of my age can judge and tell what occupation or trade or profes- sion or business suits him best. It might seem proof of a certain natural aptness in me that I, only a rather small boy should know farm work as I did. I might know much more and yet be never anything of a farmer. Or 1 might learn to be a good farmer, yet never in all my life be fit to run a big ranch, which means to be a boss, to be able to boss others and a good many, and which is rather a natural gift. And yet again I might, be made to ac- quire something of the fitness for a boss, if I had some gift that way and was duly trained, be a farmer and a boss and still never be able to make the farming of the big ranch pay, if I was not as well a business man. Tlie same, of course, would hold good for a city busi- ness. And after all it might be easiest to predict a future for me as a musician, since certainly my talent io6 CHROXICLES OF MAXUEL ALAXUS lay in that direction. If only, my voice being gone, I could hit on tlie intsrument most suited to my talents. It had been strange to me that with the remembering of little Harry, the morning I had seen him for the first time again, there had come to me the instant I recol- lected him, an unpleasant sensation, as though he were connected with some disagreeable experience of mine. It did not stay with me long. It was but momentary. I quickly forgot it. Days passed, when without warn- ing, with no apparent occasion, cause or reason came like a black shadow the recollection of Cora She had been at this place at that time when we Mexican chil- dren had been here. She had been^ near the little crippled boy when we had come across him. I had not forgotten her, but I had not thought of her. Where was she now? And who was she anyhow? If she were the daughter of our Mr. Aliens, the friend of Lopeto, my :\Ir. Aliens, how had she come to call tliat other man, that strange man papa, as I only too well remembered her doing not once but a dozen times in that room where he brought her and that lady to see me ? And that man, who was he? What was he? Thomson had told me of a man he said was my father, who had tried to kill my mother and me before I was born, and had left her for dead on the desert ocean- beach. From all he said that should be the man who had taken me away from the old wharf and wanted to kill me. I had speculated on it more when I first had heard Thomson's story, because I had to try hard to put it in shape to make it understandable to myself. I can not say that I thought much about it now, for was I not in the hands now of him to whom I belonged, who would shield me from any foe and never give me up? But if I believed and felt sure of this, just as surely did I believe that strange man to be the man Thomson had said was my father. It must be so, it 107 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS seemed to me. The only explanation of his acts, his doings to me, was in my mind that he was my father. Even at this time, when it occurred to me as soon as I had begun to think of Cora, that his being my father would make her my sister, at least some sort of half- sister. It appeared to fit perfectly in the general com- bination of circumstances giving evidence in proof of his being my father. Naturally I was not so conscious of all this as I ex- press it. At best I could but vaguely distinguish. Much remained mysterious. Mysterious was Cora's staying away from us. She was absent all this time. She never came to the ranch. I never saw her again till we moved into town. Why did she not come as had been cus- tomary with her to do before she went abroad? My father surely would have wanted her to come and see me as he had brought her to see me when I belonged to the Mexican children, as he afterwards brought her to visit us at our place in town. Perhaps she chose to avoid me. But for what? I thought of her with appre- hension, that is true enough, when once she had been re- called to my mind. For a number of days I expected almost hourly to see her appear. When she never came, I never saw her, never heard her mentioned, she was less and less in my mind. Another greater mystery was the connection between my Mr. Aliens and that strange man. That there was some connection between them became very soon quite evident to me, and I should have spoken about it to my father, but I could not. One main cause lay, I dare say, in my feeling in a manner under my ban forbidden to tell ; but principally and more than all other reasons com- bined, I was kept from speaking out of consideration for my father. Eager as he was to hear my story, to learn every particular of my experiences, when I came to the first io8 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS blow Richard Alanus dealt me, it hurt my father in a way that made it impossible for me to go on. There was such misery in him, such indignation, injury, hatred, I could not go on. I gave my story from the time I fell into Richard's hands, till I was left with the Black on the mountain but in merest outline. He knew that man, that I could tell. But he never mentioned him, and I remained at that time without knowledge who Richard Alanus was. The name I had heard Thomson speak, but with such peculiar pronuncia- tion, following my mother's Spanish, I suppose, that I could have no idea of its being the same which Mahon had given me as our host's name, and which was the one commonly used by everybody. I can not say that in all this time I saw any resem- blance between my father and Richard Alanus. To be sure Richard's picture must by this time have been faded away a good deal in me. It was when I saw him at my father's funeral, after all the years I had not seen him, that I noted not the likeness but the difference to him. It then seemed impossible that I could ever have been much impressed by their resemblance. When the rainy season was well advanced, some time before Christmas, we left the ranch and came to town to live in the top-story of my father's large business- building, his offices being in the story below, and below that again warerooms and porters* rooms. The general entrance was on the first floor, level with the street. People would sometimes wonder why my father would continue to live with us in those big rooms on the third floor of that old building that was nothing but an old warehouse made over, especially as he had another town- house near South Park, which was quite a comfortable dwellin.^ with handsome rooms. It was unoccupied too, unoccupied till a few days before my father's death, when his wife moved in by Richard's direction or his lawyer's, 109 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS to be in possession when my father should die. She brought Cora from her concealment, and had little Harry carried there the hour my father died. I never was inside this house. I never was at the place but that one time, the day of my father's funeral, when I went there after the obsequies to find my little brother. At the barred gate I learned from Cora of Harry's inhuman treatment by Richard, and set out that evening for the mountains, for Fountain Head, where Richard had gone straight from the crematory, when he had seen me. But the other place, the rooms where we lived over the business-offices, the office itself, my father's office, all parts of the old, plain, cemented, brick building with the discolored, iron shutters ; my mind has often turned to them. I was office-boy now in my father's business, a sort of office-boy, junior clerk and messenger. He had made me such to have me with him as much as possible. It was the reason, no less, of his living with us in those rooms over his offices, to have me constantly near him. I had my music lessons and other lessons upstairs. The rest of the day I was in business. I believe my father was in a way proud of my aptness. He was very careful about my initiation in all the duties of a new beginner in the business of what was now principally a banking house. He taught me bookkeeping himself. During the time I was busy with my lessons, early in the morning and after that in business, little Harry was in charge of a day-governess, who stayed till lunch. But after lunch he came with us into my father's private office and sat there with his playthings and books till T had to go on messenger duty, and he went with me. T know my father felt every moment of my absence as a loss, yet he would send me out, afternoon on afternoon, sometimes even making up messages to take me a good no CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS distance, that J might not suffer from confinement. Harr)' always accompanied me. Afterwards then we had to report all we had noticed. Perhaps we did not come iiome till dark, making my father not seldom a little anxious, and being a little late for dimier. But that made it only the more enjoyable. Later we had music, games, books and talk, till I had to carry Harry to bed. Then came the time for my father to take sole possession of me till our own bed-time arrived. We did not often go out in the evening, except, to be sure, to every concert of any account and to hear musicians of note. Occasionally he would take me to the theatre, of which I was more fond than he knew, I believe, and then we had a little supper afterwards at some one of the many famous restaurants of our town. Not so seldom he would go with me to an athletic club, of which he was a life-member and he had made me join the boy's class, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing me excell in sports and games and in all sorts of gym- nastics, which I then reproduced at home with little Harry, to our mutual delight. He would also have a game of billiards with me there, chuckling heartily at being defeated by me. One very beautiful day, a holiday. Washington's Birth- day I think, he rode with little Harry and me to the beach below Ingleside, where, putting up the team at a public stable, we spent the whode day, going on foot more than half way to Mussel Rock. The tide was out very low, so that little Harry could walk finely on the hard, wet sand. I remember our seeing many schools of sea lions, floundering and rolling over and over in the green, curving water of the outer breakers. Only once, on a Sunday, the only partly clear Sun- day, I think, of the whole season, we all, Cora with us, went up to the ranch to see how everything was going on and to figure out in how many weeks we might return III CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US there to live. My father had been planning some few alterations to the old dwelling-house. We found them well under way, and I can not forget how pleased he was with the new arrangement and still more pleased that I liked it ; and how Cora said nothing at all. I do not know if my father had found anything in me at all indicating that I might be one to become a man for the world of city-business, but from the fulness of his content at this time, I concluded that his observations of me had led him to see more of a future for me in growing up to farming the ranch than to doing business in the city. Life on the ranch then it was to be. His banking-business he consolidated with another, similar business to a joint affair, of which he held the controlling stock. As soon as the alterations of the house were finished, we would move there to live for good on the big ranch. I did not love the city as 1 did the country, still I did not dislike our town life. And very peculiarly it struck me my bashful little brother showed great fondness for town-life, may be by reason of the greater solitude he found in the crowds. I cannot say that my father seemed less happy in town than at the ranch. Certainly we may all have been happy because we had the return to the ranch before us. But had there been no ranch at all. had we been like Nick and Nello on the wharf or like Hants and France on the hill-farm, or still poorer, we still should have been happy, because we were happy in ourselves, in each other. Cora alone was outside of us, against us all, always ! And so she should be, for she was not of us. She was at the time about twelve years old, well grown and with promise of great beauty in figure, form, coun- tenance and every feature. She was yet in school, the same boarding-school she had been at before. It was not a regular school. It was a family where three, four 112 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS girls, all similarly circumstanced as Cora, had been put ; two grown up, very accomplished daughters of the family acting as teachers. Once or twice a week she came to our place, almost invariably timing her visits so as to miss meeting me. She was not afraid of me, I knew. She was not afraid of anybody. But evidently she avoided me. It gave me an unpleasant feeling. When she did come to dine with us and stay over night, it was always on condition that my father should take her to the theatre, of which she was as fond as I. He always wanted me to come with them, but I never Vv-ent v/it'h them. She would after the play come home with my father to our place where she had a room ad- joining our large, general living room, a very pretty room and very prettily furnished to her directions. In the morning after an early breakfast, my father would go with her, to see her safe to her boarding-school. She never came thus to stay at our place but what there v/as a violent outbreak of temper and onslaught on the little cripple, and wrath and venom for his watch- ful defender, the black bastard, as she designated me. How could my father be so blind to what she really was? But he was. Not till the end came did his eyes open. Was it his fondness that blinded him? And what could he be fond of in her who so hated him ? Or was it his own fondness that he was fond of. He really thought, as it was his heart's desire that she and I should become friends, dearest friends, that we were merely a little jealous of each other now, and that we soon would come to love each other like brother and sister, what he believed us to be, as his children, both of his body and blood. One time he told us to so love one another, and made her kiss me. Her kiss was strangely tender ; very like his. I can feel it now. Could he not see that I mistrusted her, detested her, abominated 113 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US her as much as she hated me, even if he did not know of the shadowy form of Richard Alanus always, for me, darkening her presence! For I never told him of my iiret meeting with her. His presence made some difference in her behavior, that is true, especially after he had told her that I was his son. For he did tell her and I can distinctly mark the time, if not the day, right after the kissing, when she became much more guarded and much more hating. But I have long since become firmly convinced that she always knew what all our relationship was, always knew Harry to be my father's child and my true half- brother, knew all about who and what I was, and al- ways knew Richard Alanus to be her father, knew it long before in my presence she called him papa, which she never called my father. I noted it well. Never did she call my father papa or father. Had only my father told me instead of her that I was his son ! It would have made everything clear to me. At least it would have cleared up some of the mystery al- ways yet surrounding Richard Alanus for me; although from talk in the office I had now come to know who he was and some particulars of his life. But to what good could my father have spoken ? What single occurrence could his speaking have prevented? Not Cora's going away to her mother ! Not my father's death! Not the taking away of little Harry by his mother, as soon as my father had died and the making over of him by her to Richard Alanus for the execu- tion of his inhuman practices, the gratification of his lust of cruelty! And not my killing that devil! It was against my father's nature to tell. Not till the last blow came, the shock of Cora's going away, that laid him on his death-bed, not till then could he speak, and then but hesitatingly, as if confessing a sin, asking my forgiveness, telling me what had remained un- 114 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS told, that I was his son. his own, the child of his body, his mind, his heart. After that he lay broken, never rallying. Certainly the thought of Cora's being taken away from him by her mother had never been absent from his mind, and it might look as if he ought to have been prepared for it. But such constant, ever present consideration of possible evil to come, seems to me not to strengthen the heart for the blow when it is dealt but to weaken it. Even more cause for anxiety had there been of late. Richard had been away continuously. Cora's mother, whom my father had never legally divorced, had not gone with him, but had, as was her custom when she was not with Richard, whiled her Hfe away in the pur- suit of the shallow entertainments of now one resort, now another, on the monthly stipend granted her by my father. Suddenly they both reappeared in San Fran- cisco, living together as before, but with a certain show of secrecy that might be thought alarming. Then policemen in plain clothes and private detectives were hired by my father to watch over Cora and guard her. As if she were not fully able to take care of her- self, as if a dozen such as the mother and the father could take her away from anywhere to anywhere, unless she wanted to go herself. Then she was gone. With her young schoolmates and the lady-teachers of the house she had gone down-town, shopping. In front of a large drygoods-store she had turned in the crowd on the sidewalk and stepped into a carriage waiting at the curb with the door open, her mother being seated in the carnage, which had then leisurely gone away. Now she was in hiding. But soon all hiding was superfluous. My father sinking ! Sinking hour by hour ! Helpless, often unconscious, not even recognizing his wife, when 115 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANIJS she came, sent by Richard ! Nothing now remaining but wandering thoughts of me ! TelHng me of the little boy, who had loved him so, and whom he had left on the old wharf to drown ! Tlie last morning early, I had brought little Harry to him. It was but a moment. His eyes cleared. He looked into mine as if to pour all his love into them. He laid my hand with his on little Harry's, as if giving him into my keeping. He made a movement for easier resting, still keeping my hand in his, and turning his face to mine with a shy little smile, such as he may when a baby have given his peasant foster mother on awakening in the morning, and then closed his eyes for- ever. It will always be to me one of the strangest things that my father, who knew not what it is to be afraid, should have been so bashful, blushing, unable to com- municate to others anything that made up his inner life, incapable almost of addressing a stranger shy of his best friends, his own children, while Richard Alanus, who in the language of slang had no end of gall, was bare of all regard, consideration, respect and common decency. And Richard was a coward. Not alone from what I learned of him from others, I myself saw and knew the coward in him all the time. In his room, tied down, beaten and beaten, half strangled and half unconscious yet as I was from his drug, I saw it. On the mountain, trying to shoot, the coward showed so plain in him, in all consciousness of my danger a great contempt for him arose in me. At my father's funeral where we met again, how his lips grew white and he slunk away and fled the town ! And again, the last time, a couple of days after, on the old North road winding up the defile above Fountain Head, where I had followed him, after I had learned from Cora what he had done to little Harry, she threaten- ii6 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ing me with like treatment if ever I came in his power, speaking the truth as well she knew, where I had fol- lowed him and met him, not so far from the place where he had wanted to kill me. Coming round the sharp corner of the bare cliff with the lone tree near the top, he jumped behind the rocks and shot at me! And when I fell, pretending to be hit, and lay as if dead amongst the loose rocks and tall weeds and brush at the side below the road, and he had fired at me again and again and when I did not move, and he had loaded his gun anew, and came crouching, double-bent to crawl away behind the rocks by me, with shaking gun pointed, the eyes turned to look, and he saw me. There was abject fear in his face, and a death-start wlicn his eyes met mine, that one instant before T fired I If I had not killed him? To my father no further harm could come. But my little brother ! Not alone the inhuman treatment already begun, tor- turing the little defenceless crippled child be continued, but every vice, every vileness would by Richard Alanus be taught, instilled. Cora herself was not safe from him as an object for practicing corruption. Only being his offspring, as cruel, mean, malevolent, but far more crattv and utterly fearless, she would always be more than his equal. And I? He had tried to kill me, had he not ? More than once ! If too much afraid to try again himself, he could hire others to do it as he did before. It was not in my intentions, but when I jumped up from amongst the rock and dry weeds and brush, and saw him dead at my feet I felt the ban of evil over my life was broken. And oh, the bounding of the heart! Freed! De- livered ! 117 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US August. This morning I walked along the waterfront, north and south. The most of it is new, but much of it still looks familiar to me. Plenty of small buildings are left on the streets. The lower stories are occupied chiefly by cheap eating houses and drinking houses, with bright- painted fronts and gilding and cut glass. The upper stories, if there are any, are quite a few unoccupied. I did not go up any of the side-streets, but kept mainly along the waterfront. The warehouses, I fancied, looked much like the old ones. The wharves are called piers now, and they are, almost all of them enclosed and roofed over, and the spaces in between are fenced in with high board fences, so that one can hardly get even a glimpse of the bay and harbor anywhere, at least from the water- front street. Pretty well up on the nearest hill I saw one house which I remember to have seen in former days. All the rest looked entirely strange to me, and it felt almost like coming home to get back to the Ferry Station. Bootblack-boys there are far less than formerly, I see. The very many stationary bootblack-stands must spoil the business for the wandering bootblack boys, of whom in fact I saw but two. Italians, I took them to be. They were in front of a low-class beer-saloon, coaxing a couple of drunken sailors to have their shoes shined. It made me think of the first nickel I earned by blacking the shoes of a drunken sailor in the doorway of, for all I know, this very saloon. I spoke to a man working at a very stylish bootblack- stand on the next street-corner, telling him I was think- ing of buying such a stand or fitting one up, and asking him about the business. T could not at all make out his replies. T believe he tried to speak English. I think it must be a good business, or there would not be so many in it. But some employments must be overdone, for ii8 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS instance the fruit business. Fruitsellers are very numer- ous. Besides the regular fruit stores, every hundred yards or so, wagons loaded with fruit stand on every street. And fruit stands round the Ferries are impro- vised at all points. A good many of these fruitsellers are apparently Italians. But they are of all nationalities, I suppose. Some have a little push-cart with a top for the display. Others have but a board on two wooden horses for a stand ; or their goods are merely spread out on the wharf-stringer or on the bottom of an upturned, empty barrel. One little Italian woman I spoke to. I had noticed her being all the time very busy and fussy about her little cart with boxes and papers and piles of fruits and nuts, rearranging and building them up into different pyramids continually. As long as she thought I meant to buy something she spoke very pleasantly and very good English. Business was not very good, she said; the profits were rather large, but the fruits were such a trouble, they spoilt so quickly, and the competition was too great. When she came to see that I did not mean to buy anything her tone and manner changed, and even lier English, for the worse. When she went out, she said, she would always put some money in her pocket for spending, be it ever so little. That was the way to do ! And then she would buy and be done and not keep people from tending to their business. Some people talked too much with their mouth. And truly, I had not spoken ten words, she had done all the talking. However, I gave her a nickel for a paper of peaches and went away to where I had seen a little newsboy who had but one leg. The other was off below the knee, and he had a wooden stick for the leg, just like little Harry. He saw me looking at him and came stilting over to where I stood. I asked him would he give me a newspaper for the fruit. I don't really know why I did it. 119 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS I did not want the paper. He hesitated and then handed nie a paper and took the peaches, when another, bigger newsboy came rushing up and shouted, kicked and struck at the httle fellow, cursing him with the foulest names so that I interfered. It seemed the smaller one was selling newspapers for the bigger boy on commission, or whatever the arrangement was between them. I be- lieve they vv ere brothers. I handed back the newspaper im- mediately, saying I had never meant to keep it. The little one reminded me of Harry very much, but he had a crutch. Many men were selling newspapers. And one u'oman, I saw. Some of the men are armless or legless, or with one arm off, or blind, or otherwise maimed, till, to draw it strongly, it seems as though half the cripples of the town were selling newspapers at the Ferry Station. And it is perhaps more painful to see so many able-bodied men selling newspapers for a living. One I had noticed yesterday as being very active, lugging an immense arm- ful of newspapers, hustling, going long distances in all directions to wait on people; and always touching his h.at to anybody that bought a newspaper from him. Formerly one would not have seen any woman or any grown-up, able-bodied man here selling newspapers that way ; and one would never have seen anybody here touch the hat to anybody for buying something from him. I spoke to the man. He was an Irishman. I told him 1 had come to town from the country and had some thought of trying to make a living by selling newspapers. And I asked his opinion of the project, which he gave most openly and friendly. He said it was a good busi- ness. The competition, of course was great; the boys being more nimble caught the customers before a man could rccich them ; on the fly so to say. And really very few boys, and girls too, were selling newspapers from necessity as a man or a woman would be. But, after I20 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS all a ])oy had as good a right to sell a newspaper as a man. He was so talkative and grew so communicative, en- tering into his own personal affairs that he quite neglected his business in telling how it should be carried on, till some, probably daily customers signaled to him from afar, and he went to serve them, calling to me that he would see me again some time. August. I walked all around the city-waterfront to-day from one end to the other. I came to where the old wharf used to be. I stood and looked and looked and tried to locate it, but I could not. Every sign of it is gone. Where once it stood in the water of the bay, now is solid ground. There are streets, blocks of buildings, rail- way-tracks with freight-cars standing on them, grain- sheds, oil tanks, manufacturing plants, more railway- tracks and sheds. Where the old wharf must have been, everything is totally changed. Even the farther hills of the city with streets cut through, lots graded down and houses built, have lost their shape. I walked the streets in all directions, not a single mark of the old place could I find. Yes, one! The old brewery! Mr. Tem Oldock's old brewery! It seems to be some sort of storage-place now. This being Sunday, it was closed. Alongside are a few small dwellings, a box-factory, oil-works and a vinegar-still. During those last months before my father died I u.-.ed to have little Harry go with me on my afternoon tramps, and one time also my father came to look at the old place, and the shoreline of the bay was yet to be traced. Now all that has been extinguished by the filling- iu round-about where extended the water. The beach where tlie boys used to go in swimming, the sandy -tretch with the knoll at the point where my father used to meet me, the road at the water's edge where the stable 121 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS stood, where every day I went for fresh water, it is as though all those things never had been. To see the old brewery made me call up Mahon's picture. The big, handsome, whole-souled boy with the round, red cheeks and shining white teeth and the bright, blue eyes with the long, black lashs ! The earlier picture of him in my mind shows a more laughing face, laughing even at his own mishaps. The later picture, somewhat obscures the first one. But the face is always bright, and the big fellow is always the little boys' friend; never to hit or haze one smaller than himself, always ready to do any kindness asked. But you had to ask. He must be thirty years old now or thirty-one if he is living. I cannot think that he is dead. I walked over to the edge of the sea-wall where the filling forms a quay, and then I walked out the several wharves that are as yet unenclosed. The longest one of them runs, I fancied, somewhat in the same direction that our old wharf did, only farther out. And as I stood at the end of it there came to me a feeling as though after all nothing was changed. The raw day, the sharp air, the cold wind, damp with fog, the tide below rushing by, and the shipping, the big ferry-boats, and beyond the water the bare, dull hills, it all was the same as in years past. And least changed of all I myself, the same that I always was. I spoke to a man sitting by himself on the wharf- stringer at one side, a line in his hand, idly fishing. There (lid not seem to be much fishing going on, I told him, in former years there been more, I thought. So there had, he answered, so there had, but it had been spoiled; some people would still go out on the wharves to fish when there was a little run, but nothing like the crowds there used to be. The fish had been driven away by the filling in. The fishermen now went outside the Heads to fish: for crabs along the shore just 122 CHROXICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS outside the breakers, for fish farther out and in steam- craft. Finding him posted and wilHng to talk, if in a grum- bHng way, I asked him if there had not been somewhere thereabout in former years a long spile-bridge, or wharf. Oh, yes, he said, but it was all gone now; the place had been all filled in. Some years ago, at very low tide some of the old piling of the old wharf had yet shown above the rock and dirt of the filling; after that it had all been covered; the last remnant of the old wharf, the outermost end of it had been located about where now a railway-shed, he indicated, terminated. It had stood there in the water for years with part of an old shed on it, slowly rotting away, all abandoned and quite cut oflF from shore. One stormy night a good many seasons ago it had broken loose and been washed away and carried out to sea by the tide. The man as he spoke seemed to look at me in a pecu- liar vv-ay as if lie were trying to remember me. I began myself to think T had met him before. Could he have seen me in prison ? Imagination ! Once before, the first day here, I fancied that a woman was looking at me as if she had seen me in prison and was recognizing me. Away with such delusions ! Oh! I do struggle and battle, but every day new, darkening thoughts come trying to drag me to despair. The old shed on the wreck of the old wharf drifting out to sea with the rushing tide in the black of the night ! Image of my life! Why live? For what? Is not my life past? Make an end ! Drift with the tide into the ocean of eternity ! My only hope my brother ! Evening. I went out again, went to see the house, my father's house, the old warehouse where we lived. I could not help it, I had to go. I found the place easily enough. 1^3 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS The street in a manner looks as it did. The houses are new and different, nearly all of them, but the description of business carried on there is pretty much unchanged. I was prepared for our house looking very different, since some time ago I read in prison, coming accidentally upon an item about it in an old newspaper, that the old building was to be raised by hydraulic machinery and built-under and otherwise altered. It is now five stories high and all occupied by professional people. Many fancy trimmings have been put on the front. But in spite of that and the absence of iron shutters, the windows of the two upper stories wore a well-known look. Above in the top story there were the four win- dows of our large, living room with the two windows of Cora's room adjoining; in the story below this the four windows of the bank and the two windows of my father's private office, where I always found him awaiting our re- turn, when with little Harry I came back from our after- noon's roaming, that last season. I seem to remember each day of that season. It was quite wet, or rather, damp. There were no more than one or two regvilar, heavy rain-storms, nor any continu- ously heavy rains but weeks of cloudy skies with some very few fine days in between and great many of fog; not the driving sea-fog of the dry season but the still fogs from the inland valleys, turning, may be into a drizzle nights. But if constantly damp and moist, it was never wet enough to keep us from going out. And where did we not go? To the nearer hill tops where we could look down on the flat roofs of the low^er town and on the bay with the ferry-boats and the other craft moving on the pale surface. Sometimes we w^ent through the Chinese streets ; sometimes along the water- front to see the shipping and talk of my shipboy life; out to where the old w^harf was now breaking up, where 124 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US I showed Harry the shed I had slept in when his father found me. And when it now grew dusk, and we returned home- ward through the murky streets, I for an excuse to my- self as much as to him, protesting that the little one leg must be tired, and taking him up carried him, sitting on my arms in front of me, his face to mine, his arms clasp- ing my neck, his wooden leg-stick and his foot sticking out behind. Round the last corner we v.'ould come in sight of our house, grimly dark in the gathering gloom of the night, and would see the lighted-up windows of my father's room, and knew there he was waiting for us, sitting at his desk or in the arm cliair by the fireplace waiting for me— the thrust of joy in my heart! The gratefulness ! The exquisite delight of all the sensations awakened by the thought of him ! My happiness ! And the sweet comfort of the place in the shaded light of the lamps and the quiet glow of the fire in the hearth! And he turning to me ! His smile ! The love in his eyes ! He would call me son, as in playfulness And he could not hide from me the tender satisfaction he felt, though I knew not why, in but calling me so as if in play. And the struggle not to give way too much to his fond- ness of heart ! August. I am like one adrift. It is that that gives me such a longing to be back in prison where everything was shaped to order, where every hour had its certain work, where I had no need to plan and plot, nor care how to provide for the next day, had only to do every day my allotted work, my duty ? And were not my ways well smoothed for me, es- pcciallv after the new Director came into office? Was 125 CHRONJCLES Of MANUEL ALANUS I not well treated, favored beyond example, given in- struments, encouraged to practise, brought to play the organ in chapel, given books to read, detailed for library work, persuaded to wiite, put to do garden-work and granted every privilege, often permitted great freedom of intercourse with Ullard, my instructor, in all kinds of gardening up to the day of his death! To Ullard more yet than to the Director do I owe my salvation. What contrast ! He, not only a criminal, but master of all the vices of men, as he styled himself ! And to me a saviour ! And why to me? Because I was so young, one might say, a child? No! He had not that special fondness for children that some men have, criminals as well as others. He rather had an aversion to them, claiming they were too much like him, for him to Uke ; asserting that it was as unnatural for children to be fond of children as for animals to be fond of other animals ; even insisting that no healthy, well to do child would be fond of anybody, not excepting its ovv^i mother; but that where some child really loved some one, something was wrong with it, either it was ill, consumptive, starved, or unhappy, mal- treated, or of an abnormally developed sexual instinct. What all have I not heard him say against children? He called them criminals, savages, beasts of prey, per- petrators of every kind of cruelty, addicted to every vice ! And ridiculing the saying that of such is the king- dom of Heaven, he turned it into: of such is the empire of hell! No! His was not an affectionate nature at all. He did not want to save me because he was fond of me and wanted me to be fond of him. It was, I conclude, prin- cipally the interest he took in this, his own work, the whole of it, like a game he was playing and while play- ing observing its effects on me, on himself, on all con- 126 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ceriied. It was that that made him take me in charsre ; to let me make clear to myself the gemiine stupidity and misery of a life of crime ; to explain and bring to my con- sciousness the actual state of the prison-world we lived in, so as to make me understand my surroundings, that I should be able to withstand their deadly influence ; con- vince me of its possibility as of its utmost necessity, and teach me, swear me to total abnegation and renunciation ! No, indeed ! He was not tenderly fond of me, nor anything like it. But in a way he liked me, I believe. He liked me as one he was doing right by, bringing out'to his own perception and appreciation, his own feel- ing what was left in him of manliness, helpfulness and good. And if lie did not want me to be fond of him, he did let me like liim. let me think, even if it was not true, and go on thinking, that he cared for my attachment. And this was to me the greatest good that he con- ferred. This together with the hope of being pardoned some time which he never allowed me to lose, was really my salvation. For I had to like and believe in some one, and to hope for something. If he had not suffered me to attach myself to him, if he had destroyed my faith in him and all hope of deliverance from imprisonment, as he took away my belief in pretty nearly everything else, all his teaching and telling, all his other treatment of me would have been vain. Another factor in him was, no doubt, his vanity, the human vanity common to us all, that most potent agency within us, of which he himself claimed for his own people of his own American country the possession of the largest share of any. It flattered him as it, I dare say, would flatter anybody, to be made out such a superior being, seeing how I clung to him, believed in him and took most if not all of his words as the essence of all that is true and wise. For if at times I could not help suspect- ing that we felt different on many and very important T27 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS points, observing the many inconsistencies of his pro- fessed opinions, this too was only part of his plan to make me independent in my reasoning. I never contra- dicted him and thus oftener made him contradict himself, which he would unfailingly do if left alone, going on arguing with himself till he had gone clean half round the compass and at last asserted what he had started in to disprove. For these occasions, in fact for any occas-on, he had the saying that everything that is true is at the same time not true, which then I thought a wonderfully deep ex- pression but afterwards came to take for but another way of saying that circumstances alter cases. Of such sayings of his the majority were only com- monplace-ones, worded to sound paradoxical and daz- zle me, which they certainly did and helped to increase his influence over me. But that influnce he never used but for my good. I know now that I overrated him, that I gave him credit for much that others prepared the soil for in me and sowed the seeds of, everyone who taught me morals and manners, gave me principles and taught me to work and to think. Perhaps I underrate him now as much as I overrated him before. I see him sitting before me, the long Yankee figure bent, leaning back, one foot lifted up against the bunk, his long, thin legs thrown one over the other and twisted round till they looked as if nothing could ever again untwist them ; his bony arms hugging his knees, his cold, grayish eyes watching me, his ever open mouth drawn down sideways in constant readiness to run over with arguments, experiences, philosophizings, lecturings, all shaped in phrases, which just as often he had somewhere heard or read as by himself constructed. I suppose the tiresomeness of it all would now about overwhelm me. Yet some of his coimsel seex-ns to be al- ways with me. Mv very giving way these past days to 128 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL A LAN US recollections, recalls the time I told Ullard I was at the Director's suggestion noting down some happenings of my early life, and he advised me not to give way to such reminiscences too much but to strive to control a certain emotional tendency within myself. His death I like to think of. Had I ever had any shrinking from the consideration of death, puch shrink- ing must by his death have been taken away from me. No man after his full day's work was done, can lay him- self down to peaceful rest and to sleep with more con- tent and ease than he laid himself down to die. And he left me able to care for myself. I have an aim and I live to accomplish it. I want to rind my brother. He may be near here. He may be anywhere. Most likely he is in England. His mother wanted to live in England, I always understood. She was partly of English descent. She was about to start for England with Cora and Harry at the time I went to prison, that is all I know. There must be some way of finding out where she and the children are. If I had plenty of money, I sup- pose I should have to do nothing but apply to some detective agency. But all that is out of the question; no less than the use of any public newspaper. However, the property my father left when he died must have been large and valuable. I know his will, the only will he ever made, the old will he had made the day he married, gave everything to his wife. But it must have been settled in some court of law. At least I think so; and there must be some record of such proceedings some- where, records that somebody should be able to get at. Only I don't know just how; I know so little of such matters. And I am not acquainted and can not move freely. I must have time and opportunity. There must be people here, too, who knew my father and were enough interested in him and his to follow 129 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the movements of his widow and children. Though I don't know about that. His circle of personal acquaint- ances was small and he was nowise a member of what is called Society. Nor was his wife after she had left him recognized by that same Society. Mrs. Sullivan would know ; but where is she ? Or Smith would know, our head clerk. Perhaps I could find out where he is. But again, I must have a little time, if only to obtain a directory and look up names. In the very first place, I must find something to do to make my living, to save a little money too, at the same time. And I also must make myself acquainted again with the city and its people and life. Thus there is the first question: What to do for a living. That was talked over with the Director. Only 1 could never tell him how much my hope of finding my brother was to me, and everything else as of no con- sequence except as bearing on that, misleading him to a great extent. I should like best to teach music, give lessons on any of the instruments I play. I am well satisfied that I should soon qualify myself for that, and it might early bring me in contact with people from whom I could hear of Harry. But how can I risk going into that? I should have to hire suitable rooms, rent an expensive piano, buy some fine clothes. And then, what? Evening. Funny that it should have cost me an exertion to leave the waterfront, to go away from the water up the streets into the town! But I did actually have to force myself to it. Which means, to be sure, no more than that 1 boarded a street-car and rode out into the unknown to the end of the line, where I walked round a little and changing my seat to the other side of the car, rode back again to the Ferry Station, where I boarded a car of 130 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALANUS another line and repeated the action. And so on all day. Almost the whole town passes in review that way. What a lot of houses I From the crown of the hills to look down on all the lionses gave me a peculiar feeling. Who lives in all these houses? What are all these dwellers? What do they do? How do they live? Why are they so crowded to- gether?" It put me in mind of the prison. It is like a prison. Down town are many magnificent buildings. Every where all seem new. And again, but I can not say why, the new look like the old. Of the dwelling-houses far- ther out, the very newest built look somehow as though they were nothing but old, well-known dwellings, made over with new fronts. The main business streets are full of life, and if they do not appear to me any livelier than formerly, it is. I judge, because I was so much smaller. One half of the life and much more than one half of all the noise of the streets is made by the street-cars. They all converge at the Ferry Depot. There is the starting point or end- ing point of all of them, direct or indirect, indicating at once how very much as if on an island this town is built. And the other ending of niost of the car lines is at the Park. I brought up at the Park, too. It was noon-time and I went into a small cooking shop, where I got what the man of the place called a regular dinner for fifteen cents. There was only this one man in the place, acting as cook and waiter, and being, I took it, the proprietor. And I w^as the only customer. When I entered the man was poring over a book, which looked like a ledger lying on a little desk at the end of the counter, and to which he returned as soon as he had served my meal, and kept on poring over it, till I had finished eating and stepped up to the counter to pay. 13^ CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS As he looked quite disturbed, perspiring indeed, I asked him what was wrong. He replied with an oath that the accounts would not balance, and though it sounded rather queer for such an insignificant business, I found that he kept a full set of double-entry books. I told him if I could assist him, I should be glad to do so, being ac- quainted with bookkeeping. I suppose the man's vanity to show his books had more to do with his accepting my offer than any wish to be hel]>ed out of his difficulty. He took me behind his counter to his ledger, where I immediately detected an ordinary and very conspicuous addition error. But when I showed it to him, I saw he did not like it. So to soothe his feelings, I said this was just one of those mistakes which the best bookkeepers make. hx\(\ I went on to tell him of some absurd mis- takes I knew or had heard of being made by expert book- keepers, when he interrupted me, sneering; he supposed I considered myself an expert! That was not at all the error ! And he finished by ordering me from behind the counter, where I had no business, and out of his place. At the moment I felt only surprised, but presently I began to feel vexed. Turning into the Park, I took the first path leading into denser groves, there in reclusion to compose myself and to find out what was the matter with me. It could not be the surliness of the man that hurt me. It must be my defenceless position, that is, my conscious- ness of it. Suppose, I had retorted as one might say I oueht to have done, a row would have followed, which the aggressiveness of the man made quite probable, and T .«ihould have had to pocket worse humiliation or risked being arrested. And then the jailbird would have stood discovered. After awhile, however, I found that this was not so much the true cause of my mortification as that I felt vexed at myself. What business had I to offer my assistance to the man when even at the time I com- 132 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS prehended that he must be a sort of crank with his double entry for such a business. I am always ready to do those things : trying to do people favors which are not wanted. And the abuse I got was no more than I deserved. After that I soon saw the occurrence in its true comic light and could laugh at myself. That is what I prize most I think, that I can see and enjoy what is absurd even in myself. Perhaps I ought to prize still more what Ullard used to call my capacity for happiness, the gladness of life; only, that such capacity to me seems to include the reverse: that such people who feel greater joy also feel greater grief and unhappiness. I believe that naturally I incline to be light-hearted and cheerful, that ^ do possess the faculty, or ability or power to be happy with the joy life brings. My spells or turns of melancholy, which never last long, seem to me not part of my nature at all, but entirely foreign to me, only accidentally planted in me or evolved by the experiences of my life. At other times, I must admit, melancholy, sadness, however short its stay with me, however little able to subdue for any length of time my happiness, still appears to be the true essence of my life, of all life, and the joy thereof only passing by upboilings of animal spirits. I reckon finally it all belongs together. One thing is sure, that I have happy spirits as I have health. The shrubs and trees in the large park are nearly all evergreens. The flowers are very beautiful. I walked as far as the children's play-ground, where a good many women and children were congregated in spite of the chilliness of the day, now at little more than the height of the dry season, with the fog driven in first-hand by the trade-winds from the sea. As I came to where the goats and donkeys for the children are for hire, a little girl stepped out of a donkey- CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS cart right in front of me. She looked so smihng and happy that 1 could not help asking her if she had en- joyed her ride. She answered pleasantly: "Yes, sir!" And being rather crowded and pushed by other children and the goats and donkeys, she put out her hand for me to take in mine, asking, ''Won't you take me to mother ?" pointing to some women sitting on a bench, a short dis- tance away. I can not say how much this simple little act of con- fidence of the little thmg pleased me. I took her up, lifting her over the fence of the goat-drive and brought her through the crowd to near where the woman was sitting, when she left me to run to the mother, nodding and calling out, "That man brought me back," so funnily proud, everybody smiled. Such a trifle to gladden one's heart! At one of the nearest side-entrances to the Park, I took a street-car to go out to the beach, keeping on the south side of the Park all the way out. I then left the car and walked south along the beach a short way. Had the day been fine, I doubt not but that I should have given myself up to recollections of that beautiful day my father took me and Harry here, or a little farther south. But the wind set me cowering in the tall reedy grass of the sand-dunes, edging the beach. A gentleman was doing the same near me, and we fell into such a con- versation as I suppose is commonly carried on in such a case. We told each other that the wind was not ao high out there as in town, nor the fog so heavy, only half veiling the horizon above the white of the breakers and leaving the rocks of Point San Pedro fairly visible, re- sembling some lumpy turret-battleship in the changeful haze, but that it was windy and cold and foggy enough, such as it always was, the trouble with the weather in California being that the air Vv-as always cold from the cold sea, be the sunshine clear and burning. We re- 134 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS liuirked tliat the tide being high, tlie walking in the loose sand at the npper edge of the beach was very tiring. We pointed out to each other where the Farallones Is- lands would be visible if it were clear and we counted the number of sailing craft, big and small, with tugs amongst them and steam-coasters hovering near the har- bor's entrance, partly discernible in the mist, also the gasoline fishing-boats, keeping just outside the breakers, and a large steamship, heading north, informing each otlier, too, that we should not like to be one of the men in any one of the small fishing-boats. We also commented on the long stretch of sandy beach and found fault with its beins", although fine, so verv bare, without any seaweed, pebbles, shells, or any such decorative articles. And we deplored in unison tl;at even for bathing, for which it would be all the more adapted, it was practically unfit, as was well known, from the icy coldness of the water, the boisterousness of the surf and the irresistibility of the back-tow. Then, all visible objects of conversation being exhausted, we smilingly parted and I, completely chilled through started on a brisk walk back through the Park the whole lensfth to the main entrance, from where I rode to tlie Ferry Station in a street -car of a line on the north side of the city, where are most of the best class of private residences of the town to-day. They are to my taste a lit- tle too shov/y and pretentious, and the grounds likewise. "Xot enough grouping!" Ullard Vvould say. There is a commendable tendency however of reducing the grounds. That is, the newer places have less and plainer grounds tlian the older ones. And the increase in the value of the building lots has. I believe, less to do with it than the in- crease of good taste. For assuredly a city-residence ought not to have a park surrounding it like a country- manor, nor a garden like a village-dwelling, nor even shrubbery, which may be permitted at a suburban place. The flowers are magnificently beautiful everywhere. 135 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS 1 am still thinking of that little girl. How confidingly she put her hand into mine! Her eyes reminded me of Harry's: a little deep-set and of the same pure blue. August. I should like to stay here in this house. My room just suits me. It is sunny and lively with the life outside from an hour before sunrise till after midnight. I seem to like the noise and somehow it feels natural for me to be near the waterfront. But I mu.st live in a cheaper way. I must look for other lodgings. Undecided ! Restless ! Unsettled ! Sometimes I think I shall henceforth be that all my life. Every day toward nightfall comes to me the longing to be back in prison. There are times when I feel as if really now my mind was made up to go back and apply for the situation of prison-gardener. Again at times I have a perfect craving to get away from the city and all these people in it, into the country, into the solitude of the mountains; to be once more in the great forest, clambering down the ravine under the towering pines through the bush and brush in the sun's hot breath striking back from the bare rocks, or to be at Five Oaks on my horse, going over the hills after the cattle. Oh, the hills after the rains in their glory of wild flowers! Or to be at my father's place, making the rounds of the orchards and vineyards, fields and pastures through the hidden canyons with their close growth of buckeye, oak and laurel, opening from between the swell- ing foot-hills into the level valleys, with the cattle in the shade of the low-spreading oaks ! One oak tree stood there, its branches outstretched as if in welcome. I often put my arms on it. I should know it yet, and think it knew me. Or to be at sea, going down the coast with a fair wind, leaning, half lying over with arms spread on the deck-load of lumber, the idle summer Sunday hours ; 136 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS not listening to the swish of the water, nor conscious of the sway of the vessel, watching the slowly opening or shutting chains of bare hills and bleak mountains of the coast, a whale spouting close in shore, to windward the drawn-out, thin smoke-pendant of some steamer passing below the horizon, the sea In the distance like a sheet of polished silver under the light of the sun, hidden by the high fog from where the vessel is driving, the flight of a solitary flying fish darting away to leeward I And agarn the hills and mountains shifting, their crest lost in the fog hanging down halfway over them ! I think these things, wandering about the streets, and at times I am like one unconscious and walk on blindly, not noticing what I see and hear. At other times I am all on fire with the hope of find- ing my brother. I watch the crowds that come and go by^the ferries and I hurry through them as if he must be amcrxgst them, and as if I should know him when I saw him. Once I actually felt sure I saw Mr. Tem Oldock. And once I walked six blocks after a large, stout boy that, I thought, looked like Mahon. As if Mahon be not a man of over thirty years of age now. In the restaurant where I take my meals, I study in the daily papers the Society-news, to come across the names of Tem Oldock and Alanus. But I never do. It will pass away, all, I know. I have had such spells before. Everybody has such spells, I think. August. This lodging house is run by two men; brothers they seem to be. They occupy the smallest kind of room or closet in the house, near the landing of the stairs, where they sleep alternately, keeping a sort of watch and watch like aboard ship, and where they cook their meals on a gas-stove. I had been in that room the day I came, it being in a way the office of the house. Since then I had not seen either one of the two men till this morning 137 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS when 1 went to look for one of them in that room, to ask if 1 could not get my room-rent reduced if I took the room by the month. In the office I noticed a City Directory lying on a shelf behind the door, and while the man whom I found in the room went to consult about my question with his partner, who was making beds upstairs, I took the Directory and turned over the leaves. No Alanus was in the book. I turned to the name of Tem Oldock and found it. Both Mahon's name and his father's were there: Mr. Tem Oldock residing in Boston, Massachusetts and Mahon residing in Paris, France. Further a Tem Oldock Block was mentioned and a Tem Oldock Com- pany with the location given as Mexico and the business- office here, in the Tem Oldock Block. I was so excited I hardly minded the man coming back from upstairs, telling me that they could make no reduction in the rent, in fact did not care at all to let their rooms by the month, but being a little slack of roomers would let me keep mine at the present low rent. I found on looking that the Directory was three years old. I asked the man if he had no later one. He grunted, ''No!" adding I could get one to look at in the nearest drug-store. So I went to the nearest drug-store, where I found chained to the counter an up to date City Directory, which I was permitted to consult. I found the names the same as in the first one ; but besides the Tem Oldock Company there was a firm, named John Tem Oldock and Son, with offices in the Tem Oldock Block. To look up the Tem Oldock Block, I had net far to go. It is a large corner building, constructed almost entirely of iron and steel, six stories high. On the corner of the first story is a large banking business. The rest of the building seems occupied by all kinds of brokers, commis- CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS sion-merchants, agents and such people. The name Tern Oldock Block is over the main entrance, next to the bank, in large gilt letters. I went up in the doorway and looked ever all the signboards. For the moment I could not see what I was looking for. But they were right before me, two signs. One read : John Tern Oldock and Son ; the other : Tem Oldock Company. A number of people were going in and out. Tlie elevator was constantly going up and down, back of the entrance. Immediately behind the elevator, was the stairs. I went up the stairs. In the second story I found the names again on the ground-glass panels of the doors of the corner offices, on each panel under the names of the firms that of J. J. Towell. And then I turned and walked away, back here to my room. Why should I go in ? What should I say ? What could I find out that I do not already know ? It is plain enough. Mahon and his father are partners. They are capitalists. Their affairs have been put in such shape that others manage it here while they both live abroad. ^,lv. Tem Oldock lives in Boston ; that is his native place, I think. He may have married again ; I think it very likely. Mahon lives in Paris, France. He, I am sure is married, has been married for years. I suppose their affairs have been organized under different heads, like other large con- cerns, I have heard and read of. Their interests in Mexico are, I dare say, mines and railroads. One thing is not clear to me: How can Mr. Tem Oldock keep away from business? His business? His property? That Mahon can be contented to lead the life of a gentleman of leisure I can understand, brought up to it, one might say, as he has been. Although I need but think of those few weeks he was on my father's ranch, the pleasure he then found in working, doing actual work, the quickness with which he picked up what there was to 139 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS learn about the work, his Intense satisfaction in it, to see that after all he was well fitted for work and business; farm work and business at least. That he only needed to be put to it to make a success of it. Still I can understand that he, brought up to idleness, can live away from work and business. Perhaps he has resided in Europe con- tinuously since he went there that time with his father. But that Mr. Tem Oldock, whose whole life was busi- ness and the work of business should live away from It and leave the management of liis affairs to others, I can not get it Into my head. Yet, what do I know? May be his interrjsts in Bos- ton, in other parts of the country, in other countries for that matter, are superior to his interests here, and he is doing there just what 1 am blaming him for neglecting to do here. Anyway he is not here, and it is a blow to me. I must have been convinced in spite of all my self-talk that I should find him or Mahon here. I must secretly and ^vithout at all knowing it have calculated on their being here as something absolutely sure, or I could not possibly be now so bitterly disappointed. It is to me as if I had lost them now for good and all. And if they were here, I should perhaps no more make myself known to them than I could bring myself to give Mr. Tem Oldock's name to the Prison Director to use for obtaining my pardon, nor tell him anything about knowing such a man. Afternoon. I went again to the Tem Oldock Block. I thought per- liaps after all they might be here on a visit, or I might find out something about their coming. And I think I did. I planned I would go to the office to ask for work of any kind at their possessions in Mexico. In the hallway of the second story to the rear I saw an old colored man who proved to be the janitor of the 140 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS building. 1 asked him if either one of the Messrs. Tern Oldock was in their offices. He seemed very dull or hard of hearing or loath to show his ignorance, but it finally came out that he knew neither Mahon nor his father, that although he had been janitor of the building for years, almost since it had been built, he had never seen either one or the other. I then asked him if he knew if they were engaging any workmen for Mexico in the Tem Oldock offices, as I was wanting to get work there. This moment a young man with a wallet in his hands, full of papers which looked like rent-bills, came out of one of the Tem Oldock offices and seeing the janitor, walked past the elevator, up to him, to tell him something I suppose, when the colored man, pointing to him, said to me, "Ask him!" He was quite a ycung man with a clean-scraped, pimply face and a good deal of gold in his teeth, and an air of importance such as a very young employee in any business might have. ''Are you engaging any men now. Sir! for work in the lower country?" I asked him as he turned to me. "The company?" he asked in return, "on the island? on the ranch? at the wells? or the mines?" He certainly spoke boastingly, but off-hand, openly enough. I said I should like to get work at either one of those places, but if I had to give any preference it would be to the ranch, I thought. "Well," he replied, "we are not engaging any men now at the ranch. What work can you do? Can you cook?" I could do plain cooking, I told him. "I thought you looked like you could cook." said he. "Well, we don't need any cook now. We engaged a cook last month for one of the mines. Fifty dollars! 141 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS And found, of course! We paid the passage, too. We always do. He had only one eye." I waited a second or two for something more to fol- low and was about to speak again, when he resumed: ''What more can you do? Can you drive a team of horses?" I answered, yes, I could take care of horses and do any kind of work with them. ''I thought you might," he said. "Well all our teaming there is done with mules." I ventured to give it as my opinion, that that would hardly make any difference. ''Oh, yes, it would," he cried. "A mule is a very peculiar animal. We could not trust our mules with a man, unless he were a regular muleteer. Is there noth- ing at all else you can do?" I said I could do gardening of any kind. And I should be able and willing to do any kind of work I could get to do, from ordinary clerking and shoveling coal to dish- washing. "Well," he answered, "we are not hiring any gardeners at this moment, nor clerks, nor colliers, nor dishwashers. In fact we are not hiring any help just now." As he paused for a moment, I with a great effort brought myself to ask: "Is Mr. Tern Oldock at the ranch now, or is he at the mines?" "Who? The old gentleman? The old gentleman is not at the ranch, and he is not at the mines, and he is not on the Pacific Cosst, and he has not been on the Pacific Coast for many years." He spoke as if defying me. "The young gentleman ?" I hinted. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "He has never yet been on the Coast at all." He was beginning to eye me suspiciously, I thought, but yet I went on speaking, saying that I had heard 142 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the young gentleman was living in Europe ainl going to continue to live there. ''You have?" he cried in his shrillest voice. "Well, you have heard wrong then. He is going to do no such thing. He has quitted Europe. He is in Boston if you want to know. They are both at Boston at present, and nobody knows when they are going to show up here." And then as though becoming confusedly conscious of having been drawn out, he rushed off, down-stairs, not even waiting for the elevator. August. I have found anothei place to stop. I have rented a room for one dollar a week, and I have moved. I spoke to that Irishman, Began or Dugan is his name, who sells newspapers at the Ferry Depot, whom I once spoke to about going into the newspaper-selling business. I asked him if he did not know of a room for rent. "I do," he said. "The very place." I told him I should have to be satisfied with almost anything as long as it was clean. "I know just what you want," he professed. "But," I conditioned, "if possible not on a narrow back- street or alley." "Just the thing, the very same!" Missis, she is wife to the cousin of the grocery man in the middle of the block beyond, by the mother's side, O'Brien was her name; the mother : she lived till last Christmas before she died on Tehama street. "But is not that a narrow street?" "It is not on the street at all. It is in the rear. You go in through the cellar. No back alley ! A nice, small, little, rear yard with a high board-fence around so no- body can look in on you! You just give her my name! Or if you will wait half an hour, I will gc with you. But you just give her my name and you will see what she will do for you." 143 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US He proceeded to give me the number which I took, thanking him, and walked away in another direction up to near the top of Russian hill where the other day I had noticed a sign of rooms for rent in a house, the appearance and whole situation of which had seemed to me very suitable. Having come to the place, I found to my disappoint- ment that the room in question was in a rear house and of rather poor access. Yet the view at once decided me to take it. The lot falls steeply from the front to the rear. A rude sort of flower-garden extends on the east side of the front house from the street to the rear line. Through this garden a narrow walk, illy paved with bricks and at the most unexpected places interrupted by steps of loose bricks, leads down to the rear house and the upper floor is reached by a flight of outside steps from the brick-walk to the second story veranda. It is an ok], frame house with a wide two-story veranda round the front and the one side of the house. There is a sep- arate glass door from the veranda into the room I rented. From my window I have the full view over the neighbor- ing houses onto the lower parts of the town, the fringe of shipping, the bay and the opposite ranges of hills, all unobstructed. I went at once and brought my things away from the lodging house at the Ferry Depot although I had yet an- other night's lodging to my credit there. My new land- lady had wanted to wait and see her husband, who was out working, before she let me have the roc»m. But I had over-ruled her hesitation. And when I came with my things and she saw my musical instruments, she seemed perfectly satisfied and much pleased. Her husband was musical, she said. She seems to be a very good kind of person, some- what innocent, rather precise and a little nervous. She told me she was her husband's second wife, his first wife 144 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS by whom he had two grown-up children, a son and a (laughter, having died about two years before. But they had behaved very unfriendly to her and never came to sec her; though they were not bad, not wild nor any thing like that. The aaughter v/as staying with friends and did dressmaking for a living; the young man was driving an express-wagon. Somehow it pleased me to have her tell me all this ; and it interested me too. The husband's name she said was Carpenter, and he w^as a carpenter. That seems to be a standing joke with them. When her husband afterw^ards came home and she brought him into my room for my introduction, he repeated it, saying: "Yes, I am Mr. Carpenter. My name is Car- penter and I am a carpenter." He has a hccirty way of speaking and appears easy going and careless. Never- theless I thought I saw him eyeing my small box rather doubtfully and heard him ask his wife, as they left the room, if I had paid the rent, and look relieved when she said I had. So perhaps-' his outward manner is no more than just an outward manner. Shortly after they were gone Mrs. Carpenter came back with a lamp for me ready lighted, which almost blew out before I had opened the door at her knocking. I had a candle burning I had bought the first evening some candles, when I was writing all night She said something about my not needing to furnish my own light. I told her I often had writing to do, calculating, figuring and the like far into the night and could not expect her to furnish me the light for that. She answered quite kindly, well, no ! of course she did not expect me to burn the lamp all night, but if I burnt candles, I might find it cheaper to pay her a little extra for light; I should have to pay for the candles anyhow. I told her she was right and when I had found out how many candles I 145 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US used after, say, ten o clock, we could come to an under- standing. She next started to talk about the neighbors in a v/omanly gossipy way, ^.nd yet not altogether gossipy nor at all unkindly, but as if she felt it her duty to make me acquainted with particularities of our neighbors, since they were the neighbors that we had to try to be on good footing with. When she was gone and I had just got through putting my few things to rights, Mr. Carpenter knocked and came in, ostensibly to ask if I wanted anything he could do for iny comfort, but in reality to hear me play the banjo. T had to play and play, to play more and yet more, he tapping time with his feet and telling me in every pause how much he liked music and how sorry he was he could not play any instrument. He also offered to have my guitar repaired by a friend of his who could do such things and would do it free of charge. And he has taken the instrument with him. He certainly is fond of music. And his ear is good. He might have kept me playing till now, had not bis wife interrupted us, knocking at the door and opening it, asking was he going to tire me out at once for good and all. I think I have fallen into very good hands. The woman is certainly cleanly and if nervous, sensible and kind- hearted. And as for Mr. Carpenter, I am very glad he likes music. I shall be able to play without giving offence. Moreover, it will prevent conversation until I have got to be an old story with them, after which they will not ask any questions any more. Mrs. Carpenter, coming in to ask if I was not being tired out, did not know how eager I was to play till her husband would go away, so as to keep him from coming to the asking cf the very natural question, who and what I was, and where I came from. I am just the least bit suspicious that he is a trifle inquisitive in a good-natured way. She had before asked 146 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS me my occupation, and I had told her I was a gardener. I had spoken almost before thinking. But my speaking has settled the business. I am a gardener. And for my name I have taken my mother's. A buoyant feeling is in me. I like my dwelling and the people. But it is not that. I am glad I moved. It seems to put the prison farther away. But it is not that. I am not thinking of the prison. My heart is light. Some- thing possesses me so that I should like to dance and sing. August. I have a good deal to write down here. And it comes to me naturally to do it ! Friday was a good day. That joyousness of spirits in me from the moment I awoke, I felt it as if it had stayed with me in my sleep, I went out early and took a bite for breakfast in the little coffee saloon round the corner of the second street from here. From there I walked along that street farther west, and at the first house I came to where somebody was working in the front garden-yard, I asked for work. A dull-look- ing man in dressing gown and slippers, and smoking a short pipe, was tying up some creepers round the front bay window of a two-story house. I opened the gate of the front picket fence and stepped up to the man. "No tramps here!" he said. "No?" I asked. "Amply provided?" He looked at me very stupidly and cried, "What do you mean? What do you want?" "I want work," I said. "Give me a quarter and I will trim up this place for you. That is, if you have any tools. I am a gardener, but I have not got even a knife." He stood in a sort of helpless way, while I took the twine, with which he was tying the creeper, out of his hands and proceeded with the fastening of the plant that had come loose. 147 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "Now, where are the tools?" I demanded. "In the back yard?" "In the shed," he answered. "I will get them for you." It rather looked as though he was afraid to let me go into the back yard and shed, lest 1 might steal some- thing or find out the lay of things there, to come back another time for that purpose. But that did not worry me. He brought me some tools. I worked away and in little more than half an hour had everything trimmed up, looking well, the man standing by watching me the whole time, never speaking a word. When he paid me he said : "This is the first time I have ever seen a Greaser work like a white man." I retorted, "I would back the worst Greaser against you for work," on which he cried as before: "What do you mean?" "I mean," I said, "that I will keep this place in trim for you like this, come, if you want me to, say, once every other week, and charge you fifty cents every time. But you will have to find me the tools. And for extra work you will have to pay extra." "Well, go ahead," he mumbled, in his kind of helpless way, and I said good-morning and came away, A few blocks farther, where the lines of houses were already getting thinner, I accosted an old woman who was snipping awav at a rose bush in front of a plain, shin- gled cottage. She wore a Quaker bonnet ai.-d gauntlet gloves and blue spectacles, and was using common, heavy scissors, with which she evidently found it hard work trimming the bush. "Would you give a fellow a job, madam?" I asked very politely. "I am a gardener and I want work badly. I will trim up this place for twenty-five cents." "You are a Dago," she told me. "No, madam," 1 said, "I am a Greaser." 148 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "Well," she replied, after considering a bit, ''are they not the same?" "Oh, no, madam," I lejoined, as though I was making a communication of some importance. "A Dago origin- ally meant a Spaniard, but the meaning of the name has gradually been expanded to comprise all peoples of the South of Europe, except, perhaps, the Turks. A Greaser is a native of the Pacific American coast, of Indian descent." "Well," she answered, considering again a bit as before, as if not sure that I was not quizzing her, "yon don't look like an Indian, you look like Italian mixed." "You have a discerning eye, madam," I exclaimed. "My father was of Italian and German parentage. My mother was a Mexican, and I was born here on the coast. So, you see, I am a Californian n.ixture. In mind and spirit I have always considered myself more German than anydiing else. Yet, I dare say, I am really most part Mexican-Indian. You are Anglo-Saxon, are you not?" "Indeed, I am, and from the North. How much did you say you wanted for fixing the yard?" "A quarter of a dollar." "Well, times are hard, but I will give you the job." She had no spade nor hoe, only a bricklayer's trowel she was accustomed to use for digging up the ground. Nor had she any other tools besides the scissors in her hand, except a pretty handy knife and a rake with half the tines broken out. So I could not work very fast nor do my work half ways neatly. Yet working with a will I was through in less than an hour, had watered everything vv^ell from an old watering pot, drawing the water from a faucet on the east side of the cottage, where the garden, or front yard was divided off by a lattice fence from the rear, which was planked with rough boards and fenced around with a board fence all the way back. 149 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS The old lady bad gene into the house. I called her. She came out of the rear kitchen door up to the side gate in the lattice fence, and expressed herself as being satis- fied so far, but wanted to know why I did not go on and fix the balance of the yard. "What yard ?" 1 inquired. ''Why, this yard! all yard!" she cried. "Did you not say you would fix the yard for a quarter of a dollar, and don't you expect to get your money ? Is not this here back place as much yard as that little front patch ? I declare ! Do you suppose I would pay twenty-five cents for just watering that front garden? Why, you have been not more than twenty mniutes at it. Why, at a quarter of a dollar, that would be seventy-five cents an hour, seven dollars and a half for a day's work of ten hours. You would Hke that, I guess" It vexed me a little to be tricked this way, but least said, soonest mended. I asked for a broom and with that and the trowel went to work cleaning up the back yard, which certainly needed it very much. When I had every- thing in broom-clean and orderly condition I called the old lady again from out the kitchen where she was frying out fat. She pretended to be mightily indignant yet. "I have a great mind not to pay you at all," she grunted, "for trying to cheat." Nor would she till I had piled up some wood in the shed and after that nailed up some shelves in the rough laundry under the house and after that changed some pulleys for the clothes lines from one fence post to another. And then I thought she only made ready to pay me, because she was expecting some one to come whom she did not want to hear of my smart treatment by her. It was getting on towards noon. She had the table set for luncheon. Some of her folks would be home soon. At least she appeared all at once very eager for me to be gone. She went through a pocket in 150 CHRONICLES OP MANUEL ALANUS her dress and produced fifteen cents, which she offered me, saying it was all the money she had. When I claimed that that was not the agreement, she cried : 'The agreement ! The agreement ! You broke the agreement right ofiF.'" It was such a small matter and I felt utterly ashamed of all this disputing and haggling, and with a woman, too, but I could not let the woman's falsehood pass uncontra- dicted. "I did not," I called back, "and you know it. But I will not waste another word on that matter. I have now done much more than you could possibly have misun- derstood me to agree to do when we made the bargain, and now I want my money. Ten cents more !" It became more and more evident that she wanted me to be gone. After another hurried going through her pocket and searching a satchel lying on a shelf over the kitchen sink, she handed me a nickel, protesting it was all the money she had in the house. But in the very act she dropped another nickel out of her hand on the floor right before my feet. I could not help smiling. "Take the money," she called out, "and don't you ever show your grinning face round here again." I had begun to feel hungry and was looking for a place to buy something to eat, when I came to a short street running through the middle of the block, all built up with cottages, lately finished I could see, each one with a neat little front yard. I walked down this street. The cottages were all alike, except one in the center of the row, which had a high basement or cellar and was a little wider than the rest and more plain. In the front of it a lady was setting out some flower plants in the newly prepared ground. After passing the place, I turned back and spoke to the lady. "If you wish for any help, madam," I said, tipping my hat, "I am a gardener and in want of a job; and I should CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS work for very small wages." I saw she was bright and fair, with a beautiful complexion ; rather young, not more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old certainly, of good figure, but looking as though she might grow stout in coming years. She made a face half way between a smile and a pout as she answered : "If I wish for any help? Well, I should think I rather wish I had some help. 1 did not bargain for this job at all. J told my husband I would fix this garden if he would get everything ready. But, law me ! I never felt so in all my life. Why, my back is that sore and my face is just burn- ing." And she lifted a large straw hat from her head to show me a face I had already noticed to be very pleasant and fair to look at, but nowise burning. ''But I don't know," she continued, "if I can set you to work before my husband comes home. And he will not be home till after five o'clock this evening. How much would you charge to fix this ?" •'It will take me till dark, I judge," I said. "Perhaps 1 should not get through altogether and have to finish it to-morrow morning. But I would do it all for a dollar, if that is not too much for you." "Oh," she cried, "if it is not to be more than a dollar, I will risk it without waiting for my husband. You go right to work. Come in," opening the gate for me, "come ill. And, oh, yes, try to get through before five o'clock. It needs not to be done so extra fine, you know- And then, vou know, I shall pretend I did it. Won't that be fun ! He said, you know, I never could do it. And he never will know the difference in all his life." I asked her how she wanted the flowers placed. "Oh, any way," she exclaimed. "Just make it look as neat as you can and so that you get through by five to- night." And she went away by a passage, a driveway it was, on the side of the cottage to the rear, and left mc alone to do the best I could with the flowers in the pots ic;2 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and the gardening tools and the two plots of ground, one each side of the central walk. I had no time to lose, yet after the fashion of my nature, I first had to consider how to proceed. But it was only a simple proposition. I concluded to group the principal flowers on both sides of the front steps, stringing them out around to the front line, leaving the test to be sown in grass, so as to obtain on each side of the central walk a small lawn with a background of flowers. I had made quite a little headway when the lady ap- peared at the front door and called to me, "Had you not better have some lunch first? Oh, my I Why, my life! You are doing fine. We don't eat anything but fish to- day, but I have some cold, boiled ham that is awfully nice. And I can boil you an tgg. I am sure you have not had your lunch yet. I had mine some time ago." I told him she was very kind and thoughtful ; if she could give me a bite of something to eat, it would make me work better, as I had had but a slim breakfast; only she must not go to any trouble about it ; a piece of bread would do me. But that would not do her. She asked me to come in, and when I pointed to my shoes all moist and dirty with loam, she said that it did not matter, but yet gave in that I should go round by the side driveway to the rear kitchen door, where we had another little dispute about my coming into the kitchen. She was so insisting. yet so pleasant, speaking with such a sweet-sounding voice, pretending to be provoked at my refusal to enter, yet so smiling, I could not help smiling back at her and speaking to her somewhat in her own manner, while I persisted in remaining standing outside the kitchen door and taking out of her hand a big ham sandwich and a hard boiled egg and a cup of tea, for which she had boiled the water on a little gas stove, and then sitting down on the kitchen doorstep to eat and drink. The kitchen door was open, but there was a wire screen door to it, kept closed ^S2> CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS by a spring. She was inside talking to me, standing with her cheek almost touching the wire screen. "I think you are just too awful for anythhig," she was saying. "I am too awfully dirty for your clean kitchen, that I know," I spoke back. "The idea of your sitting out there and eating! My life ! And there is that skinny old woman looking at you." "That is the reason I wanted to sit here and eat, so that she saw me. It might give her an appetite. And she can- not see you." "I don't care if she sees more or not," she pouted. At the same time, however, she stepped back from the screen door and up to her gas stove to turn off the gas she had left burning all this time. I had called her Mrs. De Lang, and she asked how I came to know her name. Over the gate of the driveway was a long signboard with the name: Thomas E. De Lang, Builder and Contractor. "So you think from my appearance," I said, "that I cannot read." "I think you are awfully smart," came her words from the other side of tlie kitchen. "You don't talk like a work- man at all." "I shall have to be smart to get through with my job to-day," I rejoined as I stood up and knocked at the side of the screen door, so that the old lady next door but one, who was watching us from her window, could see it and see me hand back my plate and cup to Mrs. De Lang and most profoundly bow to her, at which she broke into a smile and laughed. Such a delicious laugh! It made my ears tingle for some time after I had gone back to work. Mrs. De Lang did not show herself again till nearly four o'clock, when she came out at the front door, dressed to go out. She expressed herself highly pleased with 154 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US all i had done, found it all too pretty for anything, said she had never seen anything like it in all her Hfe, and told me she had to go out, but would be back before five o'clock. She looked almost too charming for imy man to think much of anything but that, still I could not help feeling in a way displeased with her for going away so late, when, according to my notions, she ought to be get- ting dinner ready or supper and preparing for her hus- band's coming home. And I half wondered where she could be going so late, as I looked after her briskly walk- ing down the quiet street, the black ostrich plumes on her large hat nodding at every step. I had from the first doubted my ability to quite finish my job that day, and soon clearly saw that I could not do it unless I worked till after six o'clock. I now made up my mind to go away earlier and come in the morning to do what remained to be done, so as not to be caught this evening by ]Mr. De Lang, which might be awkward, besides spoiling Mrs. De Lang's intended sur- prise, who, I felt almost certain, would not be back before five o'clock, or at five, or even later. I did not consider if it might not be unsafe to go away. It came to me later on, but I did not think of it at that time. I was in the very act of collecting the tools to put them in their closet under the front steps, when I saw a horse and buggy coming along the street, and immediately concluded that the man sitting in the buggy, leisurely driving the bay mare, was Mr. De Lang. As he turned on to the sidewalk up to the gate of the driveway, I being on that side, jumped over the low fence and opened the gate for him and shut it after him again. And I did the same with the second inner gate. He did not speak, only glanced at me carelessly. But he Uked my attentiveness,'l could see. He did but just drive through the inner gate. When he was inside and right opposite 155 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS me, he pulled up his horse and asked, speaking quite slowly: ''Whom are you working for here?" ''Mrs. De Lang," I replied, and, after a short pause of politeness, went on: "Mrs. De Lang went out half an hour ago. She said she would be back at five o'clock. She did not expect you home so early. That is, I suppose you are Mr. De Lang." "Did she tell you where she put the key? Never mind. I can manage to get in anyhow. Can you put up the horse for me in the stable back there? Never mind. I think I won't unharness her. I shall have to go down town to get something to cat. Yes !" All this he brought forth in a slow, expressionless way, taking apparently his wife's absence, the lock-up of his house, the prospect of no home dinner as coolly as my presence. I felt i iclined to be sorry for him. I repeated thjit Mrs. De Lang had certainly not expected him so soon, that she probably had not minded how late it was, when she went away, that I ought to have reminded her of it. And I told him of the surprise she had intended for him, all of which explanations he took kindly, which again readily made me take a liking to him. "Never mind," he said, getting out of his buggy, "it is fish day, anyhow." Then, after a minute, during which we stood gazing at each other in a most imbecile way, he commented, always , speaking as if deliberating, "She could never have made me believe that she fixed the garden. I told her so. I am glad she employed you to do it. She couM not have done it. She bet me she could." He was hunting round under the door mat, under the steps, behind the basement door for the key of the kitchen door, while I w'as stabling the horse. "Maybe Mrs. De Lang left the door unlocked," I sug- gested. Sure enough, the kitchen door proved to be not locked, 156 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS with the key sticking inside in the lock, when Mr. De Lang tried it. '^ should hardly have given her credit for so much sense," he muttered. "She thought." I took occasion to say, "that I should not go away till she would be back, or you had come home." I thought I fully understood his humor when he re- marked in his slow way, "Lucky for you I camic home." He now went into the house while I returned to my work. Since the surprise was a lost thing, I might as well work one hour longer and finish the job, which I did without Mr. De Lang making his reappearance. But when I was putting away the tools, I heard him calling, and found him in the basement. He had fed his horse, had cleaned and put up his harness and buggy, and was now washing himself at a washtub in the laundry. "My wife had no right to go away and kave you here by yourself," he observed over his towel, as T came near enough to be spoken to, every word seeming a fathom long. "Suppose she should have mislaid something, or lost something, she might think you took it." "She could not think that," I protested, but I suppose rather consciously. "She had given me work, she had given me to eat and to drink. She would not think that badly of me." "Well," he conceded, after a little more toweling, "no, she would not think that, and I don't think any right- minded person would think that of you after knowing you ten minutes, but all the same, if something was miss- ing, nothing on earth would clear you with people in gen- eral, of the suspicion of having taken it. She often loses things. She had no right to leave you here alone, with doors open. Did she pay you ?" "No, but that is all right." 157 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "I don't see how that is all right. What is your charge ?" "One dollar." ''How long did yon work?" "Half a day ; a little over." "Well, I am in the contracting business myself and have to try to get things done as cheap as I can. You would have to do the same. But I never like to have men work below wages. What are gardeners' wages ?" I did not want to let him know that I knew nothing about that, so I answered that the bargain had been made for one dollar and no more. Besides, his wife had given me lunch. "Well," he drawled, "are you not going to charge extra for that? I don't know what the damage may be, but if you let my wife work off some of her stale bread and pie on you, why you certainly ought to be paid extra for that." I gave a half laugh to show that I entered into his humor. He handed me a dollar. I took it, thanking him, and turned to put on my coat, when he asked me my name, and after a few )nore questions as to where I lived, and if I boarded where I roomed, invited me to dine with him at some restaurant down town, where he should have to go anyhow to get something to eat, as his wife would certainly not come home that night, he knew, he said. I glanced down at my clothes, but he said to never mind my clothes, because it was one of the good points of our city that everybody could go very much everywhere with- out being dressed up. I did not like to refuse. In fact, I felt as if I could not but accept. Indeed, pretty soon after the first surprise in my mood of the day, I was so gladdened by his kindness and felt so thankful that I scarcely found words to speak my proper acceptance. So, washed and cleaned as hur- riedly as possible, I walked away with him. 158 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS We spoke, each of us, but his deHberation of speech was such it could not be called conversation. As we turned into the next street where the blustering fog- laden wind had full sway, I remarked that the evening was more than usually raw, and it was not till we had come to the end of that block and turned again the corner of the next street that he replied, "Yes, very raw !" On this street was a car-line, and we boarde-l a car just stopping at the crossing which brought us to near the place where Mr. De Lang wanted to go. It was by this vime night. The wind and fog seemed worse than ever. When Mr. De Lang led me down some stone steps into a restaurant in the basement of a large building, a fair sized place, well lighted, warm, clean and comfortable looking, the change was most agreeable. He seemed to be known there. An impressive v/aiter spoke to him and conducted us to an unoccupied table, which he prepared for us with some show, bringing warm, French bread and sweet butter and other things, and finally the bill of fare, standing then with clasped hands and watch- ing Mr. De Lang's face during his perusal of it with rapt attention as if to read his innermost thoughts and opinions of the dishes, and nervously eager to anticipate his orders, all of which Mr. De Lang disliked very much, I could tell. I expected Mr. De Lang to order fish, since he had said something about its being fish day. However, he did not. A very good dinner came, and with it a bottle of claret that I was to help to drink. But as soon as I as- sured Mr. De Lang that I was sworn to total abstinence, he desisted from asking me to drink. A smaller bottle was substituted foi the big one, and Mr. De Lang fin- ished it alone. I noticed its eflfect on him, too, as well as his enjoyment of it. He had something of that reserve, which Ullard maintained, characterizes the true aristo- crat. But a few glasses of wine seem to do away with it, 159 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS at least to a certain extent. He did not speak quicker, but in a ruder manner. Our waiter, hovering constantly about our table, never moved away without excusing himself. The next time he repeated his: * "Excuse me a moment," Mr. De Lang emphatically replied: "With pleasure, with felicity," breaking out into a loud guffaw. The man took it very meekly, even smiled a little, but felt hurt, I could see. And he had waited on us very properly only rather too at- tentively. We had by this time come to the end of our dinner and Mr. De Lang was smoking and sipping his coffee. He insisted on my taking a cigar, to smoke at some other time, if I did not want to smoke it now. "But I do not smoke at all." "Well, take it anyhow ! Give it to a poor man ! Ha ! Ha!" So I took it and afterwards gave it to the waiter. Mr. De Lang was smoking and sipping his coffee, some- times glancing at the waiter as if half inclined to a further attack on him, who was still hovering about, though at a safer distance, sometimes looking at me till I felt not oversure but what he might turn to whet his humor on me. I tried to think vhat to say to draw his attention and start some conversation, but at last found nothing better than to ask him if he knew of any work for me. He cried, "No!" Presently, however, seeing me si- lenced, and the wine he had drunk not having been enough, I fancy, to affect him for any length of time, he seemed to come to and corrected himself, saying, "I don't know but what I do. I am building a private residence for a Mr. Mauresse, an English Jew, where there will be some gardening to be done. It might be something for you. I tell you, you come to my house to-morrow morn- insr at seven o'clock, and I will take vou over to the 1 60 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS building and introduce you to Mr. Mauresse. He is al- vvays there at that time. It might get you the job." He had finished liis coffee, paid the waiter, and we rose, went out into the street and boarded a street car, which he hailed and wh'ch took us to the northern part of the town. Mr. De Lang again paying both our fares. At some point we were transferred to another car line up to a certain crossing, where we separated, never during all this time exchanging a single word, except at parting bid- ding each other good-by and I thanking him for all his kindness and promising to be at his house early in the morning, he holding up his finger and saying, ''Seven." At home I found Mr. Carpenter still up and waiting for some music, which I was glad enough to furnish him before we went to bed. He knows Mr. De Lang, he says, by reputation as a very good man. This morning I took care to be at Mr. De Lang's a little before the aopointed hour. I found Mr. De Lang in his shirt sleeves going to put his mare in harness, which I asked him to let ine do for him, while he finished dress- ing, and it was not long before I was sitting in the bugg}^ by his side, being rapidly driven in the direction of the big park. T asked Mr. De Lang if his wife was back when he returned after our dinner. He said no, and she was not home yet ; he supposed she had stayed at her sister's all night ; he would go round by and by and see. Before I spoke, I felt as though I must inquire. Now I felt as if I ought not to have done it. There is certainly something about Mr. De Lang that forbids one's taking liberties with him. He did not speak again till we had reached Mr. Mau- resse's new residence, a very fine building nearly com- pleted, in a very fine location on the corner of two main streets, and on a lot large enough to leave a broad margin i6i CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS on both streets. This margin, I judge, to be designed for the grounds, jr flower garden. I told Mr. De Lang so and he nodded, and before getting out of the buggy proceeded to give me a few points as to my task. "This Mr. Mauresse," he said, ''is very rich and about as close as he is rich. You must stick up for your price or he will beat you down to nothing. But outside of that he is all right, and once he has agreed to a price, it is as good as cash paid. He had from some gardener some kind of plan for this place with an estimate of cost. But he does not like the plan, or most likely he does not like the cost. Now, I am going to tell him that you want to give him a bid on his gardening." ''But, excuse me, Mr. De Lang," I interrupted him, "if he already has engaged a gardener, I should hate to interfere." "Well," he drawled, "how are you going to do? Do you suppose you can make any some sort of living without interfering with somebody? And who said engaged? It is all fair competition. You need not see the other man's plan. Make your own plan! I suppose you can." "Oh, yes !" I answered. "I am not so very much of a draughtsman ; in fact, that is my weak point. But I can get up a plan of grounds and a perspective sketch. I have some sketches at my place and some designs by the man I used to work with, who was an excellent landscape gar- dener. But I have no drawing instruments but a couple of pens, no drawing boards, no paper, nothing in truth to work with." He did not speak for quite a little while, getting out of the buggy and tying his mare to a hitching post at the curb. It looked indeed as if I had effectually silenced him. But when he had taken a blanket from the buggy and put it on the horse and made everything about the horse and buggy snug, he turned to me and, speaking more slowly than ever, said: 162 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "In my house is a room, my office I call it, where I do my figuring and such drawing as it is. You can work there. Everything is there : drawing boards, paper, water- colors, brushes, pens and dividers. You can work there if that is all. You can work there if that is all, he re- peated as I hesitated to speak, because, truly, I did not know what to say. As we were thus standing another buggy came driving up with two gentlemen in it, both calling Mr. De Lang by name and bidding him the time of day. He returned the salutation, saying to me : 'There he is now, with the architect." Waiting quietly till the two had come to us, he ad- dressed the shorter one : "Mr. :^Iauresse, this is ^Ir. Eguren, a landscape gar- dener, who would like to give you a bid on the laying out of these grounds on a plan of his own," he explained. "A gardener?" cried Mr. Mauresse, '*a bid? Well, perhaps ! But I have a pretty good plan already. I don't know. What is the use of another damned plan. What is it going to cost?" I glanced appealingl) at Mr. De Lang, and he came to mv assistance. '"To make any kind of plan," he said, turning to me, "could you do it for twenty-five dollars?" "Yes," I answererl rather quickly, "I think I could do it for that." "I tell you what." broke in Mr. :Mauresse, "T am a Jew, I give you half." "Well," returned Mr De Lang sharply, "I am not " then he seemed to bethink himself, and, turning again to me, asked: "Could you do it for fifteen dollars, Mr. Eguren? Of course,'' he went on, "Mr. Mauresse would not expect more than a sketch for that amount ; something to convey an idea of what is intended and enough to make an estimate on." 163 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS 'Ten dollars cash on delivery," called out Mr. Mau- resse. Nobody spoke. Tt was quite laughable. Mr. Mauresse was eying me, looking as eager for an acceptance of his offer as I was eager to accept. But I was at the same time wanting not to act contrary to Mr. De Lang's idea of what I ought to do; and he had such an expression of disgust in his face that I felt sure he wanted me to say something sharp, which came not into my head. The architect stood by looking unfathomably wise. At last Mr. De Lang spoke again to me, ignoring Mr. Mauresse. "Could you do it to-day?" he queried. ''Could you finish the sketch bv five o'clock, and could you do it for fifteen dollars?" ''I tell you what," coaxed Mr. Mauresse, "you do it and bring it to my office this afternoon by three o'clock, no later, and I will pay you ten dollars ! You bring it to my office and get your money. Cash! Three o'clock! No later ! Not a second ! A nice sketch ! Make me a nice sketch! Afterwards you can bid on it. But, mind you, the plan belongs to me." Mr. De Lang made another effort. "It would not be fair," he resumed, "to give the ideas of one man to an- other man. It is the idea that is valuable. Here is a fine residence, one of the handsomest dwellings in town on a most prominent corner, passed by everybody going to or coming from the park. It is a fine, large lot. The right idea for the plotti-ig of the grounds will make the whole beautiful. The wrong idea will spoil all. You make your sketch for fifteen dollars and let Mr. Mauresse take it and show it to his v/ife. If they adopt the idea and have it carried out and do not give you the job, then he should pay you another fifteen dollars." "No!" shouted Mr. Mauresse, "I will give fifteen dol- lars by three o'clock, and not a cent more. And the plan 164 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL PLANUS belongs to me. That is all. If it was not for that other fellow wanting to cheat me I would not give a nickel for the finest plan I could get, so help me God!" I said, "All right, Mr. Mauresse," and the matter was settled. Mr. De Lang went with the architect into the building while Mr. Mauresse walked over the grounds with me, on purpose it would seem to privately assure me that his wife's brother, his father's cousin, and another blood relation, were all going to build next spring fine dwellings on large lots, where there would be fine large grounds, and that he would do his best to get me that work if I did right by him and in the first place made him a nice sketch. After that he passed into the house, and I went over the grounds again, took some notes and was just going to borrow a pocket rule from one of the journeymen carpenters working on the back fence, to make some measurements when Mr. De Lang reappeared, asked what I was about, and told me to get into the buggy and go to his hou'^e with him, where I should find copies of all the drawings for the house, and sizes and surveys of the lot, complete, so that I need not stop to take any measurements. As we drove off T asked him to drive round by my room that I might get some sketches of garden plots out of my box. This he did, and then took me to his house, where we found his wife had come home. I did not see them meet, as he brought me directly into his workroom or office, and showed me in a closet some drawing boards with paper ready stretched, and the copies of Mr. Mau- resse's house's plans and the instruments, and saw me fairly started before he left me to go to the rear of the house, where his wife could be heard singing. He did not come back to me. I saw him drive away some time afterwards. I surmised he had told his wife not to disturb me, as she did not come near me, though I vva^ somewhat curious to see her. 165 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS At my work I followed Ullard's advice: Take right hold! Go for the main object! Ideas come as the work goes on. If utterly at loss where to begin, begin some- where, anywhere ! And I got along strangely well. Some drawings in Mr. De Lang's case assisted me wonderfully. For the markings of the flower beds and all the coloring and shading I followed the prettiest ones of Ullard's old sketches and designs all through. Some time, near two o'clock, just as I had finished my job, a knock came on my door and Mrs. De Lang asked : "May I come in?" She really has a musical voice. I jumped off my stool and opened the door, and she stood before me, lovely. She held a tray in her hand with some eatables. "I brought you some lunch," said she. ''Mr. De Lang told me I must leave you alone, but, my life! you cannot do without eating. Is that your garden plot? Why, it is beautiful. I never! I did never see anything so awfully pretty in all my life. It is far prettier than the other gar- den plan Mr. De Lang showed me that Mr. Moses paid fifty dollars for, rver so much prettier. It is perfectly lovely." "I suppose Mr. De Lang told you to encourage me if you spoke to me at all," I said. She laughed and told me to eat my lunch, which I started to do, she remaining in the room, standing with the half-open door between her open hands, her cheek lightly pressed against the edge of it where her hands held it. Between eating and drinking, I remarked, "You did not come home last night." "Oh!" she replied, "I went to sister's just to see how the baby was, you know. And, don't you know, I was taken that sick, the sickest I ever was in all my life. I had a pain right here. Frank thought I had pneumonia 1 66 CHRONICLES OF MASUEL ALANUS z\v\ sent a messenger boy with a message to my husband. But, you know, the boy clid not find my husband home and left tlie message lext door but one with the skinny old woman, and she never dehvered it till this morning w'hen my husband had gone and I had come home ""O^self . Now, did you hear of anything so mean in all your life ?" All this she spoke with a pitiful expression in her dimp- ling countenance that made me smile. "But you are feeling all right now?" I inquired. She answered yes, but it was a very doubtful yes. "If you are not," I rejoined, "your illness is very becoming, I must say, whatever it is." She laughed again and seemed ready for more conver- sation ; but I had to go. I rolled up my drawing and my sketches, gave her my thanks, walked over to my room, where I left my sketches, and took my drawing to Mr. Mauresse's place of business, which I found according to description, not far from the Stock Exchange. I arrived there five minutes ahead of the appointed time, but Mr. :\Iauresse had been already somewhat nervously awaiting mv coming. I handed him the drawing. He unrolled it and I saw immediately that 't pleased him, although he uttered not one word of comment. Several young gentlemen, clerks they seemed to be, that were in the place, collected around him to look at the drawing, some others came out of an inner ofiice, some by the elevator from stories above, and some more from somewhere else, all crowding up to ^Ar. Mauresse most familiarly, talking German, French, Eng- lish. They all looked like relatives with very pronounced TTcbrew features. Some stared at me rather disdainfully and one made a remark in French : I did not altogether understand it, but enough to know that he expressed a doubt that T had made the sketch myself, and that T was a gardener at all. Though why this should be, and what there was in my appearance to raise any such opposition, 167 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US I do not kiiow. Except that some people ma> belittle the eilorts of others and make a show of discrediting their abilities and mistrusting their character from just pure crossness, and perhaps to give themselves an air of su- periority. And now Mr. Mauresse began to ask me a good many (jiiestions about my design, about the plants, the soil and other particulars, may be to get as much information as ])ossible out of m'), or to convince himself that I knew something about gardening, or to give me the chance of proving myself something of a gardener, since he had noticed, I think, that I had caught the sense of the ex- pressed doubt. H'j had not proceeded very far in this examination, however, when he told one of the young people who seemed to be the cashier, to pay me fifteen dol- lars gold coin, for which I had to sign a receipt giving the absolute use of my design to Mr. Mauresse. "You see," exclaimed that gentleman, "I pay on the nail. Others would make you wait, run, come a dozen times. With me you never have to wait one second. You get your money right away. Were you ever in Paris ?" "In Paris, France? No, sir." "Well, I thought ! But you understand French ?" "Only just what little I learned in school, that I have not forgotten.'' "Well, I thought I had seen something like your design in Paris. Not far from where we lived was a house with grounds ; you never saw it ?" "No, sir," I said, and I could not help asking: "Did you live in Paris?" "I, that is, my family, lived there three years. I was there half of the lime. My family came back from there only four months ago." It v/as rising in me to ask, had he seen, did he know, had be heard of Mahon? But I could not force myself to it at the moment, and the next I was dismissed. i68 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "I make no promises/' proclaimed Mr. Mauresse, ''but vou may hear from me soon." ' I walked down to the foot of Market street to look for Mr Dugan at the Ferry Station, and buy some papers from him out of my wealth. He was not there. At lea'^t, I did not see him. Thence I walked all the way back to Mr. De Lang's house, only to find the doors locked, nobody at home, nor the horse m the stable, itie rubber garden hose was lying at the cellar door as if it had hurriedly been thrown down there. I took it up and, after giving the garden a thorough wetting, put it away in its place with a pencil note stuck in its nozzle telling Mr. De Lang that I had got my money from Mr. Mau- resse It was by this time quite late and I was rather hungry. I thought I would go to the same restaurant where I had been the evening before with Mr. De Lang, and that I would Pgain have z. fine dinner there, I felt ^o rich. 1 even had a lurking idea I might meet Mr. and Mrs. De Lang there and would then invite them to have dinner with me. But I did nothing of this. I walked through the streets down hill till I came to an Italia- restaurant that took my fancy, where I went in, and where they aave me a good dinner, plain and clean, for twenty cents tncluding a tumbler of claret, for which they substituted an extra dish of salad when I told them I drank no wme. Coming home to my room from there, I found Mr. Carpenter awaiting me, not to have me play for him, but to propose and urge my acceptance of a programme for to-morrow. He and his wife were going across the bay to visit some friends living somewhere in the hills beyond Fruitvale, back of Oakland, and he invited me to come with them, bring my banjo, my mandolin and my guitar which he had brought home ready mended by his friend as he had promised, and to spend the day with them. A 169 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS birthday party it w as to be, and my playing would ever so much help to make the party a success, he assured me. I found it very hard to get clear of accept-ng the invi- tation, especially since I felt myself under obligation to him for the repairing, free of charge, of my guitar. And I knew he was sincere, too, in professing to wish me to come. But I am as yet too near the jail. He was extremely persistent, and for a time would not take no for an answer. I shall have to leave the house very early to-morrow morning, or I may be subject to another attack by him. , I must say, though, there was something agreeable in being thus pressed to make one of the party. Certainly I must like it, because it shows that I am regarded as an equal. And even if the object was not just my personal company, comfort, pleasure, but rather the music I was to furnish, it still was kindly meant, and, yes ! for my pleasure and company as well as theirs, being part of the general amusement the general entertainment. I under- stand that very well. And I do no less hate the refusing of such a request. I never like to deny anybody any- thing of that kind I can grant, which I know to be truly desired and wished for. Not that I wanted to go. I did not want to go. I cannot go. I first must be more humanized. But I certainly liked being importuned to go. And it all joins on to the flow of spirits that is in me since a few mornings. I remember Ullard saying once: "Sometimes something sets in like a current in our mind or soul and ^hen everything seems to feed it." It is so with me now. A current has set in in my thoughts and feelings, a hopefulness, a certainty of hap- piness to come and every experience helps to swell it and boom it along, even to my succeeding so well in making a little water-color sketch and receiving v.diat must appear to me an exorbitant price for it, and my landlord wanting me to go with him to a birthday part3\ I/O CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Is it not strange^ Only a few days have gone by and it is as if I had entered on a new Ufe. And have I not? I have not wanted to think about it, but I have known the reason of it all, the true reason of my exuberant spirits ri-ht along. It is because of what that young fellow of a clerk of the Tern Oldock Company told me of Mahon s no longer living in Europe, but in Boston with Mr. Tern Oldock, from where they may come here any time Of course, I know there may be a hundred and one reasons why Mahon should be paying his father and this country only a flying visit and go back to Europe without taking a run out to the Pacific coast, but however much afraid of being misled by my wishes I may mistrust my iudgment I cannot make it appear to me otherwise than moft reasonable that he will take this run out here now. He never having been back here, his father not having been here for a long time, their interests here being so lar-e IMahon having left Europe and come to this coun- try" it all points one way: Mahon has gone to Boston to come on here with his father. Who knows but what they are on their way now. Indeed, the way that young clerk spoke, I take it as a fact that Mahon has given up living in foreign parts altogether and come to this coun- try to live, and that it is only a question of time before he appears here. vi ^ . Why not go to Boston? I feel so rich to-day with my fifteen dollars in my inside pocket, as if I could make that much every day now. How far should I get with what 1 have^ Or whv not write? But I could not write. And I could not meet them that way. I might miss them, too. I know just what Mr. Tem Oldock would say if he saw me He would call out, ''Halloh ! Manuel !" And he would hold out his hand to me and point to the mark of my teeth. I don't know what Mahon would say and do. The night is far advanced and very dark. From my window I see few lights in the fog. But my room looks CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS pleasant in the lamplight. It is cleanly kept, if poor and scant of furniture: the oilcloth on the floor patched in many places ; in one corner a washed-out, striped, muslin curtain like a long, wide apron hung round a large, quar- ter-round shelf with screwed-in hooks to serve for a clothes closet or wardrobe; and lace curtains, rather full of holes, like shorter aprons, over the glass in the door and window sash; in the other corner of the room the bed leaning from the wall like in a stress of bad weather; across the third corner the combination bureau and wash- stand, the drawers of which at one time stick in a vicious way not to be overcome by force or strategy, and the next come tumbling out all three of them if one is but slightly touched ; a nervous table that moved uneasily as one walks the floor, and two chairs of which one tall and ele- gant in a faded way, looks down most patronizingly on the other, meek and weak little thing with a lame back in the fourth corner behind the door. August. Mr. Carpenter did make another attempt this morning to persuade me into joining him and his wife in their expedition to Oakland. However, as they had to start early and had been rather late in getting up, he had to cut his endeavors short. I left the house :is soon as they were out of sight and first went to Mr. De Lang's place, where everything gave evidence that nobody was home, as on the evening before, nor in all probabili!-y would be home all this day. At the little restaurant round the corner of my street, where I now every morning eat my bowl of oatmeal, I came in a daily paper across an item stating that there had been during the last few days some good fishing off the wharves and it gave me the idea to go down to the wharves to see what was going on there, and perhaps to do a little fishing myself. I bought a large loaf of French bread for a nickel, and for another nickel some olives and dates to 172 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS have for lunch, and started for the nearest \\harf. But I had not gone fa- before I found the weather so dis- agreeable that I turned back and took my lunch home, to my room. The wind jars the old house. I feel its chill even m- side. Dust and fog and smoke sweep by in wild sheets, blurring the aspect of even the nearer houses, f. rift some- times disclosing a portion of the lower town-parts in a white dead glare of sunshine, and a lead-colored streak of bay with the hills of the opposite shore in their bare- ness, ashy-drab, half veiled to the base and rising into fogg>' nothingness. A typical San Francisco summer day ! It brings back to me that day, the last day on the old wharf, only that day was worse. A vision of the past has come over me. We had had a couple of calm, hot days, and as is always then the case, when the sea trades did set in again they came with double force. The morning was fine but, after- wards all was bluster and dampness. In those days, too, there was more flv^ing sand and dust and dirt from un- paved streets and empty lots. It was after dinner. I had been down the boat steps to pick up the stump of a large, broken oar that had drifted against them from somewhere. I remember no- ticing as perhaps many times before, how funny it looked ; the fog driving low over the water, not at all as if the fog was moving, but as if the water was rushing back- ward under it. They were both going the same way, the tide was coming in fast, but the fog was going much the faster. I had dragged the oar stump up the steps to the yard by the shed to saw it up for firewood, when all at once there stood Jim, the bricklayer, before me. I knew him right away. It was no different than if I had seen him the week before. I was glad to see him. 173 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS He had always been good to us children. And with me, I have a recollection, he had been even more easy and friendly than with all the rest. I was very glad to see him ; it made me feel quite warm. I showed him my boots that were new yet, and he showed me his trousers and said they were new. And as he did so, it came to my mind that he had always been a little touched on trousers and had liked us children to admire them wdien he had gotten himself a new pair. So I said they looked fine, which they did. Then he talked about the other children, asking me if I still knew their names, which I found I did. And other things he asked me : What I remembered of the dark woman, his wife, and the times I lived with her and him, and about Antonio, the vegetable man, whom I had not had a single thought of for a very long time. As we children, all of us had been accustomed to call him father, I had done that now, when he said somewhat short: *'I am not your father." I knew that very well. I had always known that he was not my real father, only he spoke in such a curious way, it made me ask. "Well, who is then?" "Well," he replied, ''that w^e shall have time to find out." And he proceeded to tell me, how his wife, the Dark Woman, one day had brought me home from her dying sister Adelita. But I was not her child. I had been left with her by a man with a red beard and a scar on the cheek. But I was not his child. He had only found me among some native Calif ornians, down the coast. But I did not belong to them, I had only been cast away in a shipwreck near tlunr ranchery with my mother. And she was dead. As he spoke there had come to me dim recollections of a woman with beautiful, blind eyes, of a man with big, bushy, red whiskeis, and an ugly cut eyebrow from a horse's kick. I knew it was from a horse'r kick. And 174 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS other recollections were there, still dimmer of dark- skinned men and women and children, whom I had al- ways known that T had been amongst, as I had always known that my mother was dead. And then Jim was gone and nothing remained of all thought of him and his words but some notion of the queerness and strangeness of things. Tt was evening. It was growing dark fast with the thickness of the fog, but it would be lighter after the moon had risen. I was at the foot of our wharf. I don't know what had brought me there, what I was there for, but I believe 1 was on the watch for the man, my friend. I was never allowed inside the shanty by my two masters, except for some housework, and of late I had often felt lonesonLe evenings and restless with wanting my friend, always longing for him to come. I seem to remember that I felt as though I had something special to tell him this night. Suddenly his figure loomed up through the fog close 1)y. 1 ran to him. He caught my outstretched hands in his. And the moment he touched me. it was not he. It was another man, a strange man, somebody I did not know at all. "Manuel ?" he cLiUed. I told him "Yes!" "By God, this is lucky." I remember this, the way he uttered it, the voice, my own wondering, wiiat was lucky and why. But now all grows confused. I always have had the impression that I understood I was to go with this strange man to see my friend, who had sent him to fetch me, he himself being laid up, hav- ing broken his leg and wanting to see me very much. I judge I must have been told this then or how could I have the impression ? But I do not remember it. What I remember is being drawn along by the strange T75 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS man in the darkness ; the wind on my face and the fog with the taste of dust in it ; the sound of the surf of the bay in my ears, strangely loud and near, and my thinking that it must be getting on to low water now, the surf always sounding louder then ; the ground under foot rough with rocks of some filling-in, gradually getting more even and smooth with crushed stone and gravel, where to my knowing lately a new street had been graded and macadamized and the blocks of ground to each side di- vided off in builchng lots, all fenced in, but with no houses built as yet ; in the thick fog a few dim, hazy lights : and all this vime the strange man never loosening his hold on my wrist, dragging me along, urging me on to hurry, till we come to a horse and buggy, where we stop. The strange man has a flask he has taken out of the buggy. He wantb me to drink out of it. He has un- corked it with his teeth and holds it to my lips. I don't want to drink and draw back and commence to struggle to get my wrist out of his grasp, when immediately I am struck down on my back, he kneeling on my arms, sitting on me. His hand is gripping my throat, the nails cutting the skin, the flask is pushed into my mouth, the drink pouring down, burning a little, tasting nasty, and burning more, seeming to burn still more with the weight of him on me keeping me down, his finger closing sometimes on my throat as if to ;>trangle me. At last he is ofl^ me. T am on my feet to run and fall ; up again and down again on my knees. I hear him laugh. I am up again, but I cannot keep on my feet. A horrible dizziness is on me. The street rises to my head. The ground turns under me and flings me round. The stones I clutch slip and slide with me and come reeling after me. And now I feel the burning of the drink in me all the way down, hotter and hotter like fire, with pains shoot- ing all through me. I see flashes in my eyes and sparks 176 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS inside my head. The dim, hazy Hghts come bulging out of the fog and are sucked back and swell near again, drawn into hideous, flaming, whirling shapes, filling all the air, writhing up to me, twisting round my throat, crawliiig up into my head till m}- brain is struck as if by a blinding flash and all is fire and racking pain. And in all the glare, as if suddenly lit up by it, I see for a moment the image of a place I do not know that I have ever seen, but that I have since come to believe to be the seacoast near the place where T was born. When I came to myself I was in a strange room of up and down boarding, painted light gray, and with many windows. But wliere my recollections begin, it was not strange any more. It was as though I had seen the room several times before in a half blind way and as if some- thing hateful had happened to me in it. Only I could not clearly remember this. It w^as a long, narrow room, and the one long side of it was all wdndows. But the glass was of a kind one could not see through. On the opposite side were a door and a window. The farther door and window were open, and I knew that tiiere was a kitchen. x\nd a Chinese cook was m there, a Chinaman I had met before, I did not know just v.-here. Over me, diagonally across the room, was slung a hammock which had some connection with what hateful thing had happened to me before I fully came to myself. The hammock was hooked over the wdndows at one end arid at the other end triced up to an eyebolt in the ceiling of the room with a long rawdiide rope, which came down and Vvdth a round turn through an_other eyebolt in the floor of the room, where it held my foot tight up to the bolt with a double and treble lashing over ankle and under heel, the end of ^l-e rawhide rope going up again and made fast to a heavy iron hook in the wall, out of my reach. I had tugg^^d and torn at that rawhide. I had 1/7 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tried to gnaw it. I was holding onto it now with both hands, sitting on the tioor, all naked. I was covered wlrh bruises and welts and cuts, hurt sore and skinned raw in many places. The hammock moved. A head rose above the edge. My heart gave a gieat jump, just one; it looked like my friend. But it was the other man, the strange man. As his eyes met mine, he skinned his teeth and put out his arm. He could easily reach me with his hand. He called mc "poor bov," and said I had been sick and asked me to put out my tongue for him to see if I was still sick. And wlien T opene 1 my mouth he struck me a wild blow with the fist under the chin to make me bite my tongue. But I was too quick for him. I had not opened my mouth but a little and clo:.ed it again sharp, set my teeth and ducked my head, so that the blow hardly grazed my cheek. He skinned his teeth again and tumbled out of the ham- mock right on top of me, grabbing my hair with his one hand and clutching my throat with the other, holding my arms down with his knees, bending over, his face close to mine, his teeth clacking as if to bite me, his eyes squinting most hideously. I had seen the face that way before. He had lain on me just that way before. I was thinking of that, when suddenly his lips turned all white and he let go of me and sat startled, listeni*ig. I listened too. I heard nothing. He got up, went to the door of the kitchen, and spoke with the Chinaman in there. Quite a while I heard them talking, but could not understand what was spoken. They both went farther /ito the house. I heard them moving round. Some doors were being opened and shut, then all was still. T don't know if for the moment I felt anything like hope of deliverance, but I know when the strange man presently returned bv the nearer one of the doors, T saw 178 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS that now all hope was gone. What had frightened him had been nothing. He was coming for me again. He was going to do something to me again. I was watching. I felt. I suppose, like some small animal about to be fed to a big beast of prey in the cage, to be torn to pieces and devoured. He was coming closer. He had a knife in his hand. My knife ! He opened one of the smaller blades and set- ting his thumb on it with the nail some distance back from the point, showing it to me, grinning, asking me if that was about right, jabbed it into me ten times, showing his teeth and the white of his eyes at every stab, till awkwardly he let the knife slip and drop on the floor within my reach, whereupon he jumped and run crying and calling on the Chinaman m the kitchen for help. The Chinaman looked round tlie door jamb. I knew him now at once. I had often seen him. For the last two or three weeks he had been round our wharf almost every day, sometimes he had been line fishing, but oftener he had been acting as though he was trying to sell un- stamped Chinese cigars to the big, young fellows round the place. He had never, that I could tell, taken any notice of me. But I had noticed him well, and also no- ticed that if he was very irregular in his comings, when my father had been there, he had always left our wharf shortly after my father had gone away. He came running with a kettle of boiling wjter to pour on me if I did not instantly give up the knife. I had grabbed it and tried to cut the rawhide with it. I might as well have tried to cut a steel cable. I threw it down. The man picked it up, but the Chinaman took it away from him, calling him a damned fool, pointing to me who was by this time all streaked with blood. He brought some water and a sponge and started to wash the blood ofif my body, while the man fetched a lemon cut in two. 1/9 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS which he squeeze 1 and rubbed into my cuts and raw sores. The pain this gave me was so terrible, I had to grit my teeth almost to breaking them and clinch my finger nails into my hands to keep from crying out. I could not help writhing on tl:e floor. But it did seem to stop the bleeding. A dozen times the Chinaman called him a damned fool, he grinning, saying nothing except : "Alright Lum ! Al- right ! No more i ow ! Nice, little boy! Nice, clean, stout boy! No more! No, Lum, no more now!" But no sooner was the Chinaman gone into the kitchen than he commenced somo new atrocities, when a bell over the near door sharply rang three times and he hurried away. I heard some talking; a woman's voice, and he came back with a lady and a I'ttle giri, showing me to them, saying, "That is he," pointing out my birthmark spots to them. Tlie lady was |-he most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And she had the sweetest smile. She would do nothing to hurt me. The man took a cane from his ham- mock. When I saw it I remembered it. He had beaten me several times with it awfully. It was not a regular cane, it was like the steel stem of a small umbrella with some sharp, rough points and jagged edges that had cut right through my skm and that he had sometimes worked in my flesh like a saw, before I had fairly recovered my senses. He held it out to the lady, to take it and strike me with it, "so that 1 should not forget her," he said ; with some other foolish talk, telling her that I liked to be whipped and never cried at i? ; and I should anyhow soon be taken from them, so they must make the most of me while they had me with them. The lady smiled more sweetly, but said nothing and pushed his hand with the cane away, whereupon lie gave it to the little girl who took it with brightening eyes and quickly struck me with it across i8o CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tlie face, at which he lauglied and the lady smiled more sweetly yet. He and the lady then went away together by the first door, leaving the little girl behind with me. She was a very pretty girl, not so very little, not at all a baby, only she looked somewhat babyish. She was near my height. She was dressed a good deal like the lady, and I think 1 could yet, now, describe her cloth- ing, piece by piece. She looked like the lady, too, but more on account of their being dressed so much alike. Otherwise she looked much more like the man. To me his every feature, his pale, gray eyes, and their glancings, his movements, his walk, everything was traceable in her, heightened in her. She kept striking at me with the cane, but her blows did not hurt me at all. Her tight-fitting gloves prevented her holding the cane, but just loosely. She seemed to under- stand that she did not hurt me, and it made her angry. She stepped quite < lose up to me, as I was sitting on my feet doubled under '^oe, and spat at me. But she only spat on herself. I suppose my face showed something. I don't know Avhat. I believe I half smiled, there came into her eyes such a look of hate it appalled me. She would destroy. If she only had the strength or the knowledge of means, she would do all t:> crush, to kill. And like the man she so much looked like, she would love to give pain, to tor- ture. But I'ulike him she was not foolish nor afraid. T reckon she comprehended that I should hardly dare to hurt her. But she must also know that I might have to do it in self-defense if she went too far. Yet she dared me. She grasped my hair and tore at it to bring my head down, that she could kick me in the face, and she did not budge when I raised my hand to ward her off. One blow^ she struck grazed my eye and made it water. That made her glow with triumph, and she now directed all her efforts to that eye, to drive the ferrule of the cane i8i CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS into it. I caught the cane in my hand. She tugged and tugged. I suddenly let go. She tumbled over, setting up a great bawl. "Papa! Papa!" She was not hurt, nor crying with pain, or fright, or fear, only howling mad with being thrown and defeated, and screeching to bring on punishment for me, while I sat bracing myself for what was sure to come. But it was nothing. Lum, the Chinaman came running, picked up the little girl and told her to shut up, calling her a damned fool like the man, her papa. He, the strange man came half dressed out of the near doorway; she told him I had thrown her down, calling him papa every time she spoke. He led her away. For some time I sat expecting him back, waiting for him to come and do something to me. It seemed so im- possible that he would let this opportunity pass. And I do not know but what I almost felt like having a beating to my credit with him, which to make us even I had to receive at his hands any time he chose to let me have it. But instead of him, Lum came back and brought me something to eat on a plate, a large plate with slices of meat and bread and potatoes, holding the dish for me to take the things ofif with my fingers, which I did fast enough. I had had no idea how hungry I was. I had felt no hunger at all till I saw the eatables. And Lum encouraged me to eat plenty. He brought a second plate- ful of different things and a third, till I could eat no more. After that I began feeling very heavy and drowsy. I saw everything as if in smoke and at moments again quite distinctly, as though I was suddenly awakened. But I did not know that I had slept. I seemed to be awake all the time. And all the time Lum was there with me. He was cutting my hair, clipping it quite short, leaving only a little top-knot in the centre, to which he tied a 182 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US queue of some hair and silk, like a Chinese boy's. 1 had been untied, but I could barely move. Then I found I had some clothes on. a new, striped soft shirt with a red silk handkerchief tied under the collar for a neck tie, a new% very stout pair of brown over- all, of the kind which come up in front and back and are fastened over the shoulders; over this another pair of overalls, dirty and worn, and over everything a nasty smelling, greasy, filthy old Chinese blouse that fitted tight round my throat and had sleeves much too long and sewed up at the ends, so I could not get my hands out- The last thing Lum had to put on me was a pair of shoes, but there was something wrong with them. Lum became quite angry and cursed in English. At last he took me into the kitchen where my own boots were stand- ing and put them on my feet over the first overalls. Finally he tied up my face and head with some Chinese silk handkerchiefs, as if I had some pain or illness in my head, and fastened so that I could not open my mouth. Over the handkerchiefs I w^ore a new, soft, black hat, just an ordinary white man's hat, such as Chinese mostly wear when they do not wear their skull caps. I saw myself in a mirror. We had left the room. We had gone down a long stairway. Lum was carry- ing me. We were in a street. It was fogg>'. It was evening and there were many lights. But nothing was clear. Somewhere we passed a large mirror and I saw myself reflected in it. I could not know myself except that I knew Lum and knew that he was carrying me, and that my head was tied up ; it looked as though it was a China boy he was carrying. In the street were many kind of wagons. Many people were going both ways. Some bells were ringing. We were going along with more Chinamen, that had joined us. Once Lum put me down to walk but I was so dizzy I kept stumbling all the time. Another Chinaman took me up to carry me 183 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS for Luni. I heard whistles Hke of steamers en the bay. Still more Chinamen had joined us. We went together under a shed-roof. It was night. We were aboard a vessel on the water. A steamboat ! 1 could hear the noise and feel the motion. It was very dark. After a while it was not quite so dark. I was clearer in my head than I had been but still not all right. I could see well enough and hear but I did not seem to be able to speak or to move. 1 was lying on some boxes, on which Lum was sitting in a crowd of Chinamen. On both sides of us were piled up some sort of freight. Farther back were some horses. Some of the Chinamen spoke to me. They seemed to know^ that I did not belong to them and yet to think that I could understand their talk. And somehow I did at times fancy I knew what they were saying and that they were speaking about me. Several were eating sweets and some pieces were offered me to eat. But I could not eat. One who was very good natured-looking gave me a whole, big, candied citron and when he saw I did not care to eat it, cut it in two and feeling under my blouse for the pockets in my shirt-front put the sweetmeat into them, motioning for me to eat it afterwards. It was the Chinaman who had carried me for Lum. It was growing much lighter. We were en the for- ward, lower deck of a bay-steamer, a stern-wheeler. We were still under wa}- but not in the bay, in a narrow w-aterw^ay. There was no fog and no wind and it was not cold. 1 saw the paling moon pretty well down in the West. Land was each side of us, very near, low land thickly grown with tall, dark, reedy grass, bordered along the water's edge with fat mud. Small water arms came from out the grass with the same mud-borders. Some stretches, all of mud wound in back from the water be- tween the grass, resembling roads, all sun-baked and cracked. 184 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Some bushes we passed and trees, some of such as I had seen when I w^as with Antonio. It made me think of Antonio for a moment. On his right hand, part of his middle finger was off, and I remembered it then as if the hand was before my eyes. Behind tlie tall, dark grass, the land looked dry. Some hills to one side had exactly the appearance of the hills round the city and across the bay as seen from our wharf, bare and sunburnt, tawny-drab. Some cattle I saw and some horses. Pretty soon we came to fields and vegetable-plantations greatly like those round An- tonio's place, an.d trees in fruit, planted in rows as far as one could follow them, all well kept and clean. Ahead shone white what seemed to be some houses. We were apparently going there. But just then the steamer's bell clanged, we slowed up and turned to land at a little wharf built over some yards of tide land in.to the river. I felt a sudden pang, remembering our wharf. On the little wharf, to one side near the edge was a lot of large split-wood piled up, and the deck-hands of the boat had started in to take firewood from the pile. Lum had taken me up and was carrying me ashore in the midst of the Chinamen, who were all leaving the steamboat in a jam. And at that very moment the to]) of the sun came bursting up, flashing and blinding over the far-away rim of the level land. There were two wagon-roads starting from the land- ing-wharf, one along the water down to some huts of a Chinese camp, the other straight inland, skirting the fields. Lum first went a short distance down the river- road with the crowd of jabbering Chinese, but then turned away from them into the next vegetable field, walking with me quickly across it along a close-grown hedge to the other end of it, where a gate in a fence opened into the other wagon-road. 185 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS A little sag or hollow was in the ground where we struck the road, hiding the river. I could see nothing but the dusty road coming down one way and going up the other with the accompanying fences, and a short piece of the smoking funnel of the steamer and behind it the crests of the bald, adobe-colored hills on the other side of the river. The noisy gabbling of the Chinamen had grown faint. From the steamer came the shriek of the whistle and I heard her going off. A dust arose in the road where it came over the swell of ground, and in it were the heads of two horses, one white and one gray, a team, a strong buggy with a brake, a man driving, muffled up against the dust with linen dust-coat and buggy-robe and goggles and thick veil all round the head under the straw hat, handkerchiefs tied round his neck and wrists overcoat-collar and sleeves, and long gloves on ! T knew who he was. Lum had already taken off my Chinese blouse and the old overalls and pulled the handkerchiefs off my head together with the pig-tail. He had even cut off the little centre top-knot of hair he had left on my head when he clipped it. I was glad the blouse was off. It had chafed my throat and neck. Before the team had fairly stopped in front of us, Lum had handed me in and was making off with the old clothes, when the man excitedly called him back, to come and fasten me. My hands were linked together with handcuffs behind me, my left ankle was secured with a shackle and dog-chain to the rod at the bottom of the dashboard. The chain was plenty long so that I could sit on the seat by the man. The road ran right on between the fences. The dust was so deep in it and so fine and rose so high, it came to the horses' backs like some dirty whitish-yellow sub- stance which they seemed to be swimming in, or drift- ing with the wagon, onlv that the jolts would tell of the i86 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS solid ground below. It rose above my head, but not so thick, and the little air moving going with us kept us right in it. At times it would drift off a little to one side and let me see over the land ; all level and flat like the bay only bigger, much wider, farther than for anyone to see, dust-colored under the burning sun, with nothing growing, yet in places with stubbles of grain-straw and away off may be a line of fence like that on each side of the road, and a few trees and some cattle ; ahead high land in the glary haze. Then the dust would close in again till I could hardly breathe. My e3^es and ears and mouth and nose were all choked and smarting. My cuts and bruises hurt me more than ever before. Most of all the fastenings of my wrists gave me pains as though my shoulders were split- ting. The road was rough. The rolling and pitching of the wagon not seldom threw^ me half off the seat. The back- board of the seat was quite high and had an iron rod a little distance below^ it- I clung to that rod with both hands together or I think I must have gone overboard several times. I could not steady myself with my feet at all. I w^as too short. To hold on to that rod that way behind me at first lessened the pains in my arms and shoulders, but afterwards the strain grew much worse. I let go and slid down in the bottom of the buggy. A box or valise, something was under the seat. Against that I could brace my back. My feet I gradually worked over to the outside till my legs were stretched out straight. The dust was worse on me that way, but I was much eased in my shoulders and steadied against the jolts of the wagon. I dozed, but not long. Some bushes came to meet us. A water-course was on my side below the wagon-road. It was lev,' tide ; very little water was in it. On the banks of it the bushes grew. 187 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS 1 was dozing again when I heard noises. I could not see what it was for the buggy robe had been thrown over me- I managed to turn my head till I could look out from under it. I caught glimpses of a big wagon loaded with split-wood, such as I had seen lying piled up on the little wharf of the steamboat-landing. At least a dozen oxen were yoked to the wagon, going down the road we were going up. I saw no men. And the wagon was already past us. We were going faster. We were no longer on level ground. The water-course on my side with its bushes was still there, but the road was higher above it. Ahead a hill went rounding up from a low bluff. At the bluff our road split in two. One, the one that seemed to be the main road wound to the right around the hill, easy- graded. The other which was narrower and much ne- glected and less used, rose more steeply on the left side. We headed up this old road. But just past the forking point we stopped. Some big, round-top trees were stand- ing there on the bluff' close together, their tops like one, their shade spreading over both roads. Under them was a spring. The bluff" had been dug out for the roads, form- ing a bank. Out of the bank came the water. A wooden spout had been stuck into the bank and led the water into a barrel set in the ground under it. Out of the barrel it overflowed again on the ground and tried to get across the road in a narrow streak of damp, mak- ing its way through the dust to reach the edge. All round the dark wet was grass, soft and green with a few little flowers between, like eyes to watch and see. The man set the buggy brake and got out. Tie took off his veil and goggles and gloves and shook his dust-coat and stretched and eased himself. He took out of one of the many pockets of his coat a cup which he rinsed out and let run full again and drank the water, making a great t88 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANVS sliow how re f resiling it was. Then lie came to me witli the cup full of water, held it out to just but touch my lips, then drew it back and poured it on the ground. He re- peated the perfc-rmance several times, telling me to drink, sayino- J did n.ot know hov/ fine the water was. I had known he would not give me any water. He waited another minute or two before he watered the horses from a pail floating in the barrel. As soon as they were satisfied and he had put on his gloves and veil, but not his goggles, he got in the bugg}' again and we Avent on briskly up the road. The water-course with its bushes still kept on my side, but it was very much deeper down now. Hills were rising all round. Many parts were densely covered with short, scrubby brush of such even top that it looked far off like solid ground grown, may be. with green moss. In other places were bare ground with dead grass and with some bushes, giving glimpses between of the large level land we had come through from the river- I was sitting on the seat again, as I had done at first. The road was very much less dusty. It looked very much abandoned. In the middle of it some low shrubs had sprung up between deep, old ruts. But there were some new tracks of wagon wlieels. Some old fences I saw but nowhere any cattle, nor any other animals which I knew. Some I did see that looked a little like rats, with long, bushy tails. They would race across the road in front of the team into some holes in the ground at the roadside. Once a very fine, large, blue and black bird flew from out the bushes with great screeching and scolding as we came near him. The road kept winding in and out, up along the hill- sides. The hills were always the same and always dif- ferent at every turn. At times it looked as though they would shut us in altogether. But just when it seemed impossible that we could go anv farther, thev would oper. 189' CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS out, or the road would double back, and we would go on from hill to hill, higher and higher and higher to where the hills sloped together in one broad-backed, big, bald mountain, and we came to where we could look over on the other side. It was wooded in the lower parts and in many places set with rocks and tall, dark trees with pointed tops. At my side to the left, the big, bald mountain was bare all the way down to a narrow valley, and on the other side of this valley was a rocky range with a jagged crest. Over it the sun was declining. At the bottom of the narrow valley, near the centre, already in shadow of the rocky range was a dark greenish streak that must be the water-course with the bushes which we had gone alongside of from far in the great flatland which I could not see anything of at all- The horses went along slowly. The road was steep in stretches. The big, bald mountain lay there among others like the humpy back of some immense animal. Over the narrow valley, not much higher than we, a big bird was floating in the still air, slowly soaring around and around. Once he came nearer, as if to look at us. Then he wheeled and drifted away. Above the mountain-swell in front and along towards both sides, peaks came in view, farther away and higher, cutting into the pale, clear sky. The man pulled oflf his veil, and directly I caught his eye, I saw something there that meant me harm. I had seen the same thing before. Every time he had wanted to do evil to me I had seen it in his eyes. He was going to do something to me now. He put on the brake and pulled up the horses. We were below the crown of the bald mountain-hump. Before us was a gap like a cut or split. An irregular sort of bridge of large and small logs led over and through it. From the depth at the right the bush ex- 190 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tended np, filling the gap to near the bridge, and some young, pointed trees on that side stood at the bridge's butts, straight and tall, all golden in the sunbeams- On my side the gap was but a rocky cleft in the stony moun- tain-side, extending far down toward the water-course in the bottom of the long, narrow valley. He got out and tied the horses to tlie nearest tree at the bridge- He loosed my chain from the rod at the dashboard. He was excited now. He dragged me out and pushed me to the edge of the bridge over the cleft. I thought he meant to push me over. I turned to face him. He had a pistol in his hand. He stepped back a couple of steps to the length of the chain and raised his arm and leveled his gun at me. The peaks and the pale clear sky. the woods below, every tall timber, the bushes and trees climbing up towards the log-bridge in the golden sunshine, every branch and leaf, every withered grass-blade on the crusty ground by me in the flooding light, everything J saw ; and the sun behind me, as I had seen it the moment before over the jagged ridge of the rocky range on the other side of the narrow valley, the sharp, deep shadow of the crest more than halfway up on the bare, yellow mountainside, behind, below me. And the whole time I was looking in the eye, as if I held him fast that way, so fixed and strained it gave me a pain right between the eyes, down deep and so keen, I had to fight it with all my power to keep it from going deeper and striking my brain to confusion. For all along I was trying to keep myself under control against all distress and not to give up ; as if I knew that I was lost if I got unnerved through any pain, or anything. He could not shoot. He was afraid. I saw it. He could not shoot as long as I held his eye that way- He was afraid. His lips were as white as that time, how long ago ! T9T CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS But now ! He closed his eyes. The gun flew up with the flash and the crack. I heard the bullet whistle ovcr me and sing in the distance. The horses started and shook. A big bird flew screaming from out the bush be- low. And from around came the echo, once and again and fainter again. He had dropped the revolver, thrown it from him, I think. When the echo came he put up his hands as if to put them over his ears. He was grinning now. And I too! I did not want to, but I could not hold my face. I had to smile. But I turned my head dov/n a little. I stopped looking at him. He picked up his gun and stuck it in his pocket. He led me back to the wagon, put me in and fastened me again, untied the horses, got in. and we went on as before, following the rough, old road, now nearly level, but .slowly declining wnth the slope of the mountain. The woods below to the right were stretching away, filling all defiles and covering many of the lower hills, some taller peaks standing in the green like promontories. One was quite close or looked to be so; a single high, rocky cliflf, rising sheer up from amongst tall, dark, sharp- pointed trees. On it were some greenish streaks and patches," perhaps brush and bushes. Quite near the top and overtopping it stood a solitary stem of a tree which might be big if it appeared small, all dead and bare with but one green branch, sideways out, close to its top, like a rag of a flag. I looked up at it because the man did. And then he and I looked down to the edge of the timber below us. Some trees there seemed to have been burnt and a good many cut away, leaving the stumps standing in the scrubby underbrush, all between boulders and rocks. Some long stacks of splitwood, piled up between the stumps, looked very bright against the dark of the dense 192 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS undergrowth. A road too, became very plainly visible there near the wood-piles, leading into the timber. The sun was down now to the crags of the range on the other side of the narrow valley, and the air was^ all full of shining yellow. As we rode on, the highest points of the range already covered him. In the gaps he re- appeared, first almost full, in the next scarcely half, then but a shapeless, quivering margin; then no more. The yellow shine left the air. The glow faded from off the high cliff and the other peaks. All things took on a tint of Ufeless cold, and a great stillness seemed to fall on everything. There had been but few sounds before, but there were noises now, things making a shrilling, chirp- ing everywhere, all around, so many, it sounded like one tone Some birds, too, were calling; yet quietness seemed to have come now that such sounds could be heard. And I know I heard the sound of the wagon moving and the horses stepping. We were on different soil ; hard, adobe ground. Our road had gone down along the side of the big mountain towards the timber. But before we came to it we turned into another road which to all appearances was the timber road I had just before seen from above, and which took us higher up again on a pretty even grade in long zigzag stretches to where our big, humpy moun- tain went sloping over into other mountains with irregular peaks. A black hole I saw in the mountain-side above us. Below it was a large heap of rocks and dirt, as if it had been dumped there. Then I saw another such hole and yet another and to one side of them a few huts. No signs of Hfe were there about them. They looked entirely deserted and half gone to pieces. The road, too, we were on, hard as it was, looked as unused as the road we had come on over the mountains. In a straight line we were not so far from the huts, 193 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS although it took the road several, long, zig zag stretches to reach them, turning at sharp angles, following the rounding of the mountain. But at the first angle-turn of the road we came to another hut of which I had seen nothing for the rounding of the mountain-shoulder till we were almost upon it. It was built of logs, looking very much like a big pile of cord-wood with a double slanting roof. A chimney stack of rocks with a barrel on it for a top was built on the outside of the hut. And out of the barrel smoke was coming, curling- The cabin was standing not far away from the road, down-hill, in a large, square lot, or field, fenced in on ail sides with a split-rail fence. A gate was at the upper front corner with a trail leading from the road to the gate, which continued by it, farther on along the upper side- fence to the rear corner, where it forked into three trails running round the shoulder of the mountain at ^vhere. What I really thought was that he was going away after that strange man, about the money, and was looking for a rope to bind me w^ith. Besides that, I thought he might 197 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US only be wanting to make himself mad and madder, till mad enough to turn on me and undo me. He was standing still now, looking at me. His hand was on his knife. The scars on his cheek shone horribly in the firelight. But he turned from me, run to the door, called in the dog, spoke to him, pointing at me and rushed out of the door closing it after him. I heard him open the gate, mount the pony and go awa}- at a gallop. The dog lay at the door with his long head on his clumsy paws- I pretended not to notice him. I was be- hind the stove near the wood-heajx I stood quite still. 1 knew without a weapon I was no match for him. I began to move about a little. I wanted to know what he would do. The stovedoor was open. There was some light from the fire. No light came from the outside any more. I picked out some sticks of wood, the longest there were, and shoved them into the fire through the open stovedoor. They made more smoke but also more light, after a while a good deal of light and fire. But the fire did not reach the ends of the long sticks project- ing outside the stove door. I tasted the stew with the wooden spoon lying on the saucepan-lid. It was good and I ate some of it. The dog did not interfere. I took a piece of the stewed meat and put it on a stick and held it out to him, when instantly his head was up, snarling, all his fangs glisten- ing till I had gone behind the stove again. I wanted a drink of water now very badly. But there was only the water boiling in the tin pot on the stove. I started to move about again. Indififerently I took a step here and there. I opened the cupboard door. A box with crackers stood there open, half empty. I took some crackers and put them in my hind pockets. I think I really w^as looking for a knife. The dog was watching me ; everywhere his flat eyes with the red light of the fire shining in them were following me. I moved a few steps 198 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS over to the little table, and his head was up again im- mediately, growling, as if ordering me back behind the stove. I had put more wood on the fire again. I believe I was planning now to fight the dog with the long, burn- ing sticks of brushwood that 1 could hold by their burned ends. Tlien it all had happened in one minute. There was a noise outside. Some sound ! I had started. The dog was up and at me. I snatched the pot from the stove and as he came at me I poured the boiling water into his mouth, down his throat, as he fell, into his ears and eyes and nose- I tore the burning sticks from the fire and pitched them into the bunk on the broken straw mattress and the bed clothes. I was at the door: it was fastened on the outside. I dragged the table to the window and the stool and was on the table and kicked out the sashbars where the glass panes were out. One of the panes broke with the bars a^d made a loud noise. I was outside on the ground I How dark it was ! Stars were flaming ! How near they looked ! There was no noise. Xot a sound! I was over the gate. The Black had left it shut. I was running on the trail to get to the road we had come on in the buggy. 1 was thinking how the dog had fallen over and struck his head on the floor with a strangled gasp and lain like dead. T had not heard it, but now I did. A noise! Ahead! The clatter of a running horse coming toward me, up the road ! The Black coming back ! And it was then the terrors first came upon me. I had turned and was running on the trail by the gate along the upper fence of the field the cabin stood in, to the rear corner where the trail branched into three. 199 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS The running horse seemed to be right behind me. I heard it snorting. I thought I felt its hot breath. Some- thing was coming rushing on to seize me. In running by I had seen in the cabin window the flare of the fire in the bunk Hcking up the brush under the roof. And the fire now seemed to keep with me and make me visible to what was coming after me. I was on the lowest of the three trails. I could dis- tinguish one side of it. It showed a darker margin. Some black spots were in the trail. I thought they were large holes in the ground and jumped over them. They were low stones stuck fast in the ground. I stumbled over them and went falling off the trail, rolling, sliding and tumbling down the steep, pitching over, trying to stop and stand, and then diving on down and down, where the ground turned and I got among bushes; after me always the clatter of the running horse on the hard adobe road, nearer, closer. I knew it could not be, it was not, it was but in me. Yet it would come nearer till I would rush into the brush and stand stuck-fast, and listen. Blacliness and utter silence all around my heart knocking in my ears, till a twig snapped and sent me jumping back into the open and on, slipping and fall- ing dow^n-hill amongst bushes in open spaces. Between black tree-tops above, I saw the stars. Below all was black. Once the ground gave way and let me down slid- ing with it. It was loose like coarse gravel. I hated the noise it made as I went with it in long strides in a slant- ing way down the height, fast and easy. Then the ground grew hard again. It changed all the time. Sometimes it became quite level and again so steep I could only crawl and slide or go down by hand from bush to bush. Suddenly a broad flame was before me, quite near. No! It was far away. It was the moon coming up out of the black mountains ahead. 200 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Now I thought I knew exactly where 1 was, or at least could tell just where our wharf was and our bay ; and if I could only get on top of the wooded hills opposite me where the moon had risen, I would be able to go in the direction toward it ; a little to one side under the moon ! The ground was running to gravel again with rocks in it, big rocks. I was slipping dowm between them and had to hold on by the bushes. I seemed to be in a sort of cleft in a cliff. The rocks were bare and wet. I had caught hold of the branch of a tree pressing up in the rocky cleft from below. I could not see the moon now, but her light was on the rocks above and behind me and all around. I was in the top of a tall tree with many branches with whitish bark, rising out of the blackness below, and I went sliding dow-n till I landed in a field of big, smooth rocks, beside and under and on top of each other with trees and bushes between. I lieard some trickling and felt a dampness. Between some stones at my hand was water I could reach to drink ; and it was as though I must have died had I not found it. I crawled over one stoneblock and down the next and the next, and dragged myself up another, a big, smooth boulder among bushes under trees- I could go no farther. I could go on no more. I was dead beat. I lay with my face on the stone. Above me the moon shining on the wet cliff like a vision. A soft noise came to me like that of the surf of the bay, and a sharp pain cut into my heart from the thought of our wharf. And then it all left me. A bird was calling in the tree above my head, a pretty bird of gray and white. Another one came flying by. The first one darted after. The branch shook and a 201 CHRONICLES OP MANUEL ALANUS dry leaf came jiggling down and fell with a faint swish by my cheek on the stone. The blue of the sky and the sunlight shone everywhere through between the leaves, and from some moving water somewhere below, the sunbeams came reflecte 1 and went in shining light-lines up the trunk, along the coughs and branches and out under the leaves of the tree ever me. It was a large tree with many vv^hitish blotches on the bark, the stout trunk leaning quite close over the big, smooth stone on which I lay, and then going up straight to a great height with large, strong branches. Another tree close to it was all different with twisted trunk and branches, light-brown and smooth, naked-like, and with dark green leaves that glistened as though freshly painted. Beside it stood several trees together that were the biggest ones of all, and they were of the kinds with the pointed tops, all straight, with deep-wrinkled bark. Bushes came in a tangle from all sides, growing over and around fallen tree-trunks, which lay with their dead branches fallen about under the other trees and over the big stone-blocks and over and under each other. Far in the distance something was cooing. And the trickling of the water was going on all the time so gently even, I did not know I heard it and did not think of water- Away, up above, something was hammering. A bird of white and black and scarlet came sweeping like a flash down and on to the biggest tree. And it was this that did the hammering. I had thought it was a bird. He stood upright on the rough bark of the tree and hammered with liis bill. It sounded loud through all the w^ood till the bird flew away, and I heard him hammer- ing again, up above, far away. A broad, sunlight spot had come on the stone right above my eyes, near my hand, and in the sunbeam above it wee, tiny, flying, little things were dancing up and down and dashing round 202 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL J LAN US each other, darting away and back and round again as in play and standing still in the air, almost as if tied to threads too fine to see, and worked by them. And now an- other light-spot came and another and more yet, and in them a little animal. And I knew it. It was a lizard; though I could not think where I had ever seen one be- fore. It had the friendliest, twinkling eyes. I thought it looked into my eyes. It thought it knew me, I thought. I winked. It did not stir. I moved my finger, and it was gone, and I was sorry. I wanted to try if I could see where it had scampered off to, but when I went to move my head, I found I was so sore and stiff and full of pains, I could hardly stir- But all at once I felt no more soreness. It was like a shock. I lay stark still. My heart beat as if the boulder under me were quaking. I thought I heard the voices of men. It was nothing. I knew it right away. It was a bird that called something sounding like : "Look out now I Look out!" Afterwards I saw it. A beautiful bird, grayish blue with darker wings and black and white markings, and with a proud, little feather on his head. I moved a little and gradually pushed and slid and worked myself down from my big boulder and over others. They lay so tumbled together, in some places I could hardly make my way : till there was a widening, and I came to a water-hole. At one end a little rill of water ran into it, falling over the stones, clucking to itself. At the other end it ran out the same way- A small gravelly sandbank divided the running water from the other part, the still pool, which went in under the root of a big tree. Along both sides lay stones, large and small, and farther back, high up over the trees shone the bare, wet cliff where all the water-run seemed to start from, out of a slit near the top, trickling down the rock-face. 203 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS When I knelt down on the gravelly sand-spit that curved round the pool up to the big tree just like a little low beach, and leaned over the water to drink, I saw I was black and grimy with dust and dirt, dried blood and other stains, that it was not myself at all that I looked like. Even the white of my eyes was blackish. And my shirt was torn to tatters. I drank, and the water seemed to give me life all through me. It was very cold. And it was so clear, I could see in the pool every little stone and small piece of waterlogged wood and pit of gravel and speck of any- thing on the brownish bottom. There was reflected the stones and the big tree-root twisted out over the water, and the grasses, every plant around the root, and part of the rough trunk, the green-leaved bushes, branches, the bare, wet cliff among the high trees, and higher still rocks, crags, peaks holding up the sky, and in the middle of it all myself; all like a picture. I drank more water. It was the finest I ever had tasted. When I had drunk I began to wash my face a little. I remembered I had left my liat in the log hut of the Black. I took off the red silk handkerchief from my neck. It was all spoiled with dirt and sweat. I felt sorry about it. I felt sorry, too, that I had left my hat behind- But I was glad I had not taken it along and lost it. I thought it was burnt now. I washed the handkerchief in the running water as well as I could and spread it on a smooth stone block in the sun to dry. My shirt had been very much torn to pieces only my overalls coming up so high on my breast and back had saved it somewhat. The overalls of such stout stuff", fitting snug and being stuck in the boots, were but little torn, only chafed and scratched pretty badly. And my boots were no more than scratched from the rocks and a little muddy and wet from the water. I took everything off. My boots I wiped with some 204 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US leaves and put them in the sun. In the hind-pocket of my overalls I found the crackers I had taken from the box in the log cabin. They were all smashed to crumbs. I turned them very carefully out on to a large, flat, smooth stone, moistened them with a little water and ate them. I washed the overalls and spread them out on the hottest, smooth rock. In the breastpockets of my shirt I found the sweatmeat the Chinaman aboard the steam- boat had given me. It was quite a job to get it out of the pockets it had been so squeezed and flattened out. It had got wet, too. I laid it down by the handkerchief. 1 did not want to eat it then. My shirt I washed most carefully, not to tear it more, and spread it on another stone in the sun to dry, while I got in the water to wash my whole head and body. The pool was not deep. The water was not above my navel when I stood on the deepest spot. There was no room to swim, but I could float there well and turn about. 1 had first washed my face again and scrubbed my head, using sand for soap. A long time I lay on my back on the rocks where the water was shallowest, to let it run over my open eyes as it came jumping off the stones above on to my head. I stayed in the water so long, I was chilled clear through when I came out. I sat on the hot stones in the sun to get warm, but as I got warmer my hurts and wounds began to pain me a good deal, though not so much after I had turned a little warmer. As soon as my clothes were dry I put them on. I put the two pieces of sweetmeat back into the shirt pockets. I ate a little off them to make them fit easier. It tasted good. But I could do without eating yet. The handkerchief I tied round my head. My boots I put on as before, over my overalls. I had picked up a straight stiff stick, as long as a fishing-rod. It was deadwood but very tough and not heavy at all. I had tried several sticks before I 205 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS liacl found this one which was smooth and just fitting my hand, to steady myself with as I went chmbing my way amongst the rocks, following the water. It was like a stream of stones through the wild woods, between the steep heights that rose on both sides. In the middle the stones were more smooth. Toward the sides lay more rough blocks and boulders, and piles of rocks and whole pieces of hills, as if it had all slidden down from the heights. Trees and bushes were everywhere. Shrubs and soft plants with young shoots grew between the smooth stones and spread themselves out over them, and trees crowded in from both sides and pieces of dead wood lay about, big branches, whole logs, all weathered-out. Often it was hard to get through. But it w^as always easiest to get along where the smooth stone blocks were lying along the centre. Away from them, the trees stood closer, the brush was denser; and then above came the rocky heights to the rii;ht and left, where the tall trees with the pointed tops grew up to the edge, peering over and in between bright fields of chap- arral. From the tall trees came a sound like the surf. I could hear it. but 1 could not see the trees move. I felt no wind. There was no fog. It was warm. The air was pure and sweet. And everything was oh ! so clear and bright and beautiful in the sunshine everywhere. The big, smooth stone blocks were in all places packed with smaller ones, and between the stones was water, often forming puddles. The water was always quite cold, though the stones in the sun were so warm. The water, everywhere was very low and running out a little more all the time. But at times it must have been much higher. For in places there were short benches of arlobe with sand on top, and I could see where the sand and clay liad been v.ashed away from the roots- 206- CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS of the bushes growing there. And grass which now was all dry and dead. Small drift-wood had been carried against the bushes and held there, all of which must have been done by water when it was higher in the creek, like tides in the bay. At certain places, I fancied I \vas deeper down in the canyon than at others, the creek-botton changing to a narrow, bare bed of rock with no loose stones round and with more precipitous sides. And down the sides were runs or trails in the bush straight to the bottom. Some of these trails were dry water-ways, I could tell ; others I could not think what had made them. In some of them I tried to go up, because I always felt like climbing to the top somewhere, to see where I was. But 1 never could get up far before the ground would turn too steep and rough, with rocky gravel-top. Or the run would die out rio;ht in the chaparral under some clifif. And through the chaparral 1 never could make my way, I had soon found out. It was too dense and tough, like a matting of twisted twigs ; you could not tear it. nor l.Tcak it. Everything covering the ground was the same: woody-tough. Fresh grass and soft plants grew only where moii^ture was in the ground. Such moist spots in the shade would look bright and green as though the sun was shining on them. There was gr.-^ss in bloom, big-leaved plants, and so many beautiful dowsers of many kinds, some so small, T had not thought before there could be any so tiny. When I was at the top-end of such a run, I always thought I must be up quite high, but I was not, and T never could see anything more than could be seen be- low. I constantly heard a rustling under the brush, but nothing ever came out. One little bird I saw where at the edge of the chaparral a tree had fallen and struck down others and made a h\^ cleara^e in the 207 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS brush. It was a small, gray bird with black head and neck and throat, like a hood, so black I could barely distinguish his black eyes and bill. He was searching among the sparse, dead leaves right at my feet, step- ping about, turning every little while his head to look at me, not afraid, but as if amused at my watching him catching moths. And all my life since, I have not forgotten that little bird. Two animals came jumping on the fallen tree and when they saw me, made a great ado, scolding, calling: "Chick! Chick!" They looked a good deal like the dusty animals with bushy tails I had seen the day be- fore running across the road in front of the team. They were smaller though and much prettier, striped black and gray and brown. Their tails were much smaller and not bushy. They kept whisking them all the time, making a noise. I liked them. But just as soon as I moved they raced away. Little, black insects were everywhere traveling along the dead-wood, on the ground, over the rocks, up the trees and down. I knew them, they were ants, but some were bigger than any I had ever seen. I knew many things. Among the stones, wherever there was water, a pale, green plant was growing with a broad, whitish, small-flowering, flat top, which was a bad plant to eat, although it looked very much like a garden plant that was good to eat. And a bush grow- ing all about with leaves turning red was very bad to touch. The large, big trees with the pointed tops, high above the others how wonderful they were! Straight and lofty, taller than the tallest mast of any ship ! Some w^ere mast-high before they gave off any limbs. Many of them were scorched, others had been badly burnt but had green tops. Others yet were rotted to the top and still had some green branches. On the trunks of 208 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS many was yellow moss : on the branches, too, all on the same side. , , When I came back from the trails to the creek. 1 would sometimes try to see where I had been how far up on the trails. But I never could tell, except that I had not gone very far. Very seldom could I dis- tinguish from below any trees that I had taken notice of above Thev looked so different from diMerent points. The rocks, too, sticking out everywhere were confusing. It was all confusion. As I journeyed on I always felt the heat more where the rocks were bare and the tall timber ceased In one place it was stifling hot. The green had nearly all disappeared. I was in a gorge of solid rock Ihe sides were walls that hung over down to the bottom of the canvon. There was no shade. The sun was high. The gorge narrowed in to where there was a ledge across from side to side like a rude dam, as high as my head^ There was no water. It might be drained off through cracks in the rocky bottom. It must have been high enough to go over the dam some time or other, l" could tell by the marks. I climbed to the top of the dam and looked over. It was a good deal deeper down than the bottom above. I could not jump it. but I could work my wav along the top of the dam to one side of the gorge where rocks had fallen from above m a heap, to which I could lower myseslf over the dam. hanging w^ith mv hands to the edge. Where the gorge ended was a small dry, rocky, sandv plain with a great number of dead trees, streach- h,^ out their white, naked branches as though for help As I was looking at them I saw far away the cliff with the lone tree near the top with the one green branch, like a rag of a flag, I had seen the evenmg be- fore from the broad-backed mountain. I slipped behind the nearest big rock. I telt as 209 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS though I could be seen from up there. Yet it looked so far and so high up, it seemed impossible that 1 had come so far and down from such a height. And I wanted to think it was not the tree I knew it to be. I kept moving on behind big stones, till I could see it no more. The wooded heights on both sides were changed. The one was a mountain-side with many trees, the other a rising bank with a large field of chaparral, slop- ing up, back ; and in the chaparral I saw an opening, as if a road came down there, to the top of the bank. I hid behind a boulder to watch. I saw very soon it was no road. It bore no tracks of wagons, or horses, and it came dead onto the o-dgt of the bank over the stony creek. In the middle of it was a rocky gutter. It was a dry water-course, I was certain. It had a thin edging of withered grass and small weeds. On each side was a space like a walk, up the slope through the chaparral, as if be- tween dense hedges. The scarp of the bank was steep, but by the roots of the cliaparral I could easily climb up to the top of the bank from where the course went up at a very easy grade, always about the same width. The walking v/as bad. The ground was hard and covered with little crumbs of rock, all the time turning under foot and slipping. And the chaparral was just too high for me to look over and see anything before me, save the sky. Every few minutes I stood still to listen. I only heard the distant mournful cooing, the faint sound of the air in the tree-tops on the other side of the creek and the rustling under the brush. Several times I wanted to turn back. But I kept on walking till I should come to the end of the course, or to where I could see some- thing. Another moment and I was at the end. It was an open, bare, irregularly round place in the chaparrnl field, of such as I had already seen many. In 2IO CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the middle of it was a big heap of rocks. Not rocks like the ones in the creek, smooth and clean, but dirty and old-looking, as though broken out of the ground* long ago and then split and fallen together again, weather-worn, covered with decay and much overgrown with creepers and shrubs ! In front of the rock-pile the water-gutter started. But the water was not now enough to run. The ground was but just damp. I walked round the whole clear space. It was completely closed in, with no other outlet but the course I had come up. When I turned to the rocks I found the ones in back covered with creep- ers full of berries that I knew. They were blackberries and I ate them every one. I clambered up the rocks to look for more, but I found none. From the rocks I could look over the chaparral and see everything around. Before me was the slope down to my creek and the mountain opposite, so steep it looked to be hard for the big trees there to stand erect and hold on with their roots and keep from slipping down. Behind me trees and rocks rose from the great field of chaparral to dense woods and cliffs and peaks, and to the other side all the hills and woods fell away together to a distant V-shaped cut. And in the cut, away as far as the eye could see, dim in the shiny, whitish haze was a pale, gray flat-land, such as I had come through in the buggy with that strange man, the day before. A large butterfly, orange with black and cobalt mark- ings, lit on a large yellow flower growing on the rocks below my head, spreading his wings to the sun, as if breathing, flying away again immediately, staggering as though with the heat. It was so warm, I felt it like some substance, pouring over my skin. From every stick of dead-wood, from every bare rock, the air went trembling up. AH else 211 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS was motionless and still, as if being kept down by the weight of the sunbeams! The big trees in the dis- tance on silent guard, waiting, watching, lookii>g- over each other's heads ! The faint sighing of the tree-tops ! The unchanging cooing, mournfully sounding from afar! And dowm toward the cut in the mountain- ranges, slowly soared a large bird! Maybe the bird I saw hanging over the narrow valley the afternoon before ! Then came startlingly near the noise of the hammer- ing bird. Another sound came upon my ear. In the air close to my face stood a very small bird with a long, thin bill and a beautiful, flashing-green throat. His wings moved so quickly I could see them but as a shadow. They made the noise of the purring of a cat. He moved nearer to my ear. I guessed he wanted to catch at my red handkerchief. But it really looked as if he wanted to tell me something. He shot away so quickly I could not see where he went. I had climbed up on the rocky mound a little higher when I heard the bird again. I thought I did. It sounded like his noise, and quite near. As I turned I saw lying on a shelf of rock at my elbow, coiled in a sort of double loop, a horrible, long, scaly snake, thicker than my arm, waving his three-cornered head and run- ning out his black, slitted tongue at me and shaking his tail, which made the whirring sound I jumped right back sideways clear of the rocks, almost tumbling over. Then I stood ready with my stick for him to come. But he did not come. Right after that I had a terrible scare. I thought I saw the Black. It was the stump of an old burnt tree in the chaparral. I had seen it before, too, but from the other side. From this side it looked a little like the form of a man, standing bent over. I felt weak in my 212 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS knees after the fright all the way down, running back to my stony creek. I wanted some water to drink very much and when finally I came where there was some again in the creek I could not get enough for a long time, till water be- came more plentiful again. In some pools I saw some minnows. But there never was water enough for larger fish. Funny, thin, little flies or spiders I noticed standing on the water on their feet and moving round, pushing their feet about. And the shadow on the bottom looked as though they had on some kind of big, square shoes. No real, full shade had ever been in the creek and when the sunshine suddenly ceased I looked to see what could be the matter. The sun had gone behind the heights. Very soon it grew cooler, a little air was coming up the creek, the sounding of the surf was louder, some birds were calling, the mosquitoes were buzzing, and the shade deepened. I had just finished eating my sweetmeat, standing at a bend of the creek where there was some water, when ahead of me an animal came out of the brush into the creek and commenced to drink. It looked like a dog hut it was not. It stood higher in the legs than a dog. It had come very softly on one of those down- hill trails, making hardly any noise. Only that I was standing quite still and just looking in that direction so as to see it, I should not have known of its coming and being there. I did not move and made no noise, but pretty soon it swiftly turned its head to me and when it saw me, started as if it had been struck. I held out my hand to it and snapped my fingers. It lifted its lip at me and slunk away into the bush. When I had finished my sweetmeat I started on again always keeping on down the canyon. It was now good walking. The bigger stones lay farther apart CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and the cobbles made an evener bottom. The water was sunk away again till it was barely wet between the cobbles. It was getting dusk. For a little while I had heard a rustling and crackling in the bush and had thought here must come a big animal, but this time it was only a little fellow, not bigger than a small kit- ten, that came into the creek. He was long-haired and black, with a long, bushy tail and two white stripes from the forehead down the back and tail. He went unconcernedly nosing and pawing about over the cob- bles. And now he must have seen me. He came straight towards me where I was standing. He was only a young fellow. He might not be of a kind to grow much bigger but I could tell he was only a young animal. Like a little child I wanted to stroke him if I could be sure it would not scare him. He rubbed himself round my legs, ran ahead a little, came back and kept at my feet, making a little, chattering noise as if telling me of something he wanted me to do. I walked ahead slowly, careful not to step on him. He did not care how much he stepped on my toes, chat- tering away, telling me a long story, till I bent over and held down my hand. As if that were what he had wanted me to do he came right up to it. ran his mouth over it, but not to bite, put his little forepaws in it, with the sharp, small nails, and tried to snuggle into it. It was the warmth of it he liked, I thought, for his belly hair was wet and his feet were cold. But my hand was too small. He kept slipping out, though he tried hard to hold on. And then he stood and stamped his forefeet and chattered exactly as if scolding me. So I put my stick under my arm to put down both hands to lift him to my breast. At that moment I saw a light, a small moving light, then another and another. I had for a second not known what it meant. They 214 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS were small, little things flying about, which were like sparks of light, such as I had often seen moving m the water of the bay at our wharf. It had startled me to Tee the things, and when I turned again to the young fellow, he w^as gone. I could not thmk how he could have left me so all at once. I felt so sorry I d d not know what to do. I made a chattering noise with my mouth to call him, but I got no answer 1 could not hear him move, though a dozen times I thought I saw him Every black spot I took to be him. It was get- ting dark so fast now, it was hard to distinguish any_ thing. I walked back a little way to where I had passed a large smooth stone. I climbed upon it. I sat and waited if he would not come to me In my sleep 1 vet felt sorrv he had left me, and I dreamed of him, hat I felt his fur. And once in the night I half awoke from something breathing in my face and jumping away from me in the darkness. In the morning it was cool and a light fog bung in the woods. But as soon as the sun was risen, it became al clear and hot. I was thinking again of that little aiumal and looked for it in the bushes as I went along. I looked for blackberries, too, but found none. Some other little berries I did find that I could eat. They grew on low thorny shrubs and were sort of hairy. They were not bad, but there were not many. I drank water, whenever I could find it, for my hunger. It was growing scarcer all the time and at last there was no more at all. Ihe creek was all dry ; just dry, bare, blistering hot rocks A wide, stony ledge was in the creek-bottom, going up the face of the canyon-walls on both sides and beyond this ledge all was black from fire Bushes brush and trees were burned and charred, the rocks black- ened, white ashes covering the ground. .\11 the green was gone but the tops of the tall trees where the fire had not reached. On the black brush hung scorched 215 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS leaves red as if yet on fire. Many trees had fallen ; big, broken branches hung about, and the creek was full of half burnt wood. A large tree had fallen across the gulch, clear from one steep side to the other, high above the creek- bottom. 1 tried to get up to it. I climbed up to the tree roots that were torn out of the ground and I got through the root-work to the top of the big log and walked over to the other side. The timber was quite sound, only broken in two, three lengths, lying, fol- lowing the shape of the hill-side. It was slow work getting up to the top end of the fallen tree . And then there was nothing to see, nothing but the opposite height burnt over the same as the side I was on : white ashes and charred wood all round, stumps and butts, and logs, all black. The sun was down and night was coming on again. T sat in the top of the fallen tree where it lay on the ground. The green of it was not all burnt. Some of it was yet alive. I chewed some of it. It tasted sour- ish. I could not eat it, but it drew my mouth and mv insides, and then I did not feel so hungry, and I fell asleep. In the night I aw^oke shuddering. A cold wind was blowing, rushing through the dead forest, rustling the scorched leaves on the bushes, knocking down branches and sticks from the charred trees. The moon was up shining ghastly white on all the black shapes. I could not help watching them till they seemed to move, to start up to come toward me, as I looked fixedly at them. When it was daylight I walked back on the fallen log over the creek. Near the other side I slipped and fell. I managed to catch one of the long, tough roots of the tree and save myself, but I came near having a bad fall. It was foolish to walk back on the steeply-lying log. It 216 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS was foolish to go up across on the log m the first place All thb climbing, looking round, loitering, were .mpruden things to do. I knew it. I must not do it any more 1 musf pull myself together, keep moving forward along * Thrburnt woods had come to an end. E^'^^-^'^'li"^ was green again. Water was commg down a Utt e Tavinftnto the creek, and I could drink every httle while. The creek did not go dry any more. I walked on steadily. I could go but slowly. There were more bushes growmg nght on the banks of the creek. I could not see the sun for them^ The banks were different. The whole creek -s different . Rocks and cliffs had not been m n for a long "m • the stoneblocks had become ^'"^f ^h .ohh le had there were no more of them at all. The cobble, had turned to pebbles. The hill-sides no longer rose straight out of the creek from the bottom up banks of adobe and black loam were on each side, on which the bushes grew, tall and close, leanmj; together ox er ;: creek. m\ku,g a leafy shade. .And the bed o th creek was of sand and silt, wule and level_, the water in a shallow little stream winding its ^^ay trom s.de to .ide so slowh-, it was sometimes hard to tell winch wa> it ran : form'ing little islands ann. I had not been, I reckon, three months on the farm when I remember to have at times felt as if I had always lived there, always had had ni}" lessons with (^Id France, always gone to the field and worked with Young Hants. Both men at such times would be to me not at all those men that had found me in the bush, but different beings altogether, which I had difficulty in finding a commencement of in my memory, as the dogs, too. the other animals, the trees and hills difl'er- CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ent, the very air not the same, everything, all my new world emerging with me out of what was like the dis- tant dimness beyond our life's first recollections. Ex- cept that underlying all this there was in me always present the consciousness of my fated state : that that strange man, or some one sent by him was looking for me and sure to sometime locate me. Feeling, I fancy, like some hunted animal. The first few days, however, at Five Oaks stand apart in my memory, clear and distinct as if they be- longed to the days gone before and not to the new life beginning. To be sure some special happenings mark those days apart from the later ones. Or rather, being the first days of a new life, nearly all their happenings and experiences must have seemed special ones. And the violence of my homesick grief and despair, together with the terrors of my dreams, both of which now for the first time made themselves fully felt, must certainl;,' have given them a peculiar coloring. I was wide awake enough the moment I saw the little house and knew that I was at some place where people lived. A dog came up to us, a fine, large shepherd dog that was very glad to see us, and friendly disposed to me, if in a somewhat surprised way. I saw no people. Beyond the house was a corral with some horses; but no gray horse and no white horse! Adjoining this were some more corrals. Some other animals were mov- ing about, pigs and ducks and chickens. Some open sheds, I noticed, one for wood and another for what looked like a little blacksmith-shop with anvil and small bellows. Near it stood a farm wagon and a cart. But no men were to be seen anywhere and no buggy. Past the house, near the first corral was a trough. The old man rode up to it, let me down by the hand from the horse to the ground and told me to get into the trough and wash myself. He had spoken to me 228 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS before and every time I had thought I soniehow under- stood some of his talk, or that I ought to understand it ; that I knew some of the words he spoke. And yet I could not follow him. This time his meaning was plain enough. Still I waited a little and stood holding myself up by the top of the trough, and looking him very hard in the face, if I could not make him comprehend how very hungry I was and how much I wished he would give me a little something to eat, if he had it. But I saw it was no use. I must clean myself first. And I took oil my boots and my overalls and climbed into the trough. It was dug out of a log, about half the length, the ends being left solid, a little flattened on top to put things on. A tin wash-basin was lying there upside down and a tin mug with a piece of white soap, a yellow horn comb drawn quite out of shape by the sun, and a piece of thick glass wdiich was the half of an old, small, half blind mirror fastened alongside a roller- towel to the side of the house, close by. The trough looked like a tray for washing. A division- board was in it, too, which had been taken out. Other, similar troughs were in the corrals, and yet another larger trough stood by itself farther up the hill. A gutter or small flume fed water to all these troughs from a heap of rocks, above where the trees stood, and where there was a live spring. And at each trough was a spout with a sort of gate to shut off the water and turn it on, the flume leading to other places besides and to behind the house, where there was a garden. The trough was half full of water, and it was quite warm from the sun. When I laid me down in it, it felt wonderfully good- It seemed to ease me all through and make me wish I could just lie still and go to sleep. But it was not long before the old man came back from put- ting his horse in the corral, and he turned the gutter-gate 229 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and let the cold water rush on me, making me nearly lose my breath. Then he handed me the soap and I fell to soaping and washing myself while he walked away into the house. The water was very clear. I drank from the spout a good deal for my hunger. I also cleaned out the trough while I was in it. In the corners was a good deal of soap scinn, which I scraped off with the piece of glass. A hole and plug, just like those in a boat, were at the lower end in the bottom of the trough over a wooden drain going toward the rear. I drew the plug and let all the scum run out with the dirty water and rinsed it all out well. After that I came to think that I had had no business to do this unbidden and waste so much fresh water. And I was glad the trough was half full of water again by the time the old man came back. He did not say anything. He did not seem to notice what I had done. Tie brought me half of a clean-washed flour sack for a towel, but I already was dry sitting in the sun on the wash tray. He also had a shirt for me, not of flannel, but some other soft, white stuff looking as though it had been very much worn a very long time ago, patched and mended and patched again and washed a good many times. It was not of a man's size, yet very much too large for me, going half way to my ankles- He had a piece of hay rope, which he tied the garment with round my waist, bringing the shirt tails up to the knees. Then he turned up the sleeves, tied the tape ends of the neck band below my chin, and showed great satisfaction in seeing me thus rigged out. He went back into the house and returned with a tin dish with some fried oatmeal mush and some pieces of cornbread, a large ship biscuit, what sailors call hard tack, a slice of raw bacon and a tin cup full of milk. T could hardly keep my hands back till he held the things out to me. And when he had given them to me, he would not let me eat undisturbed. Every little while he 230 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS took the dish away from me and I had to stop eating some seconds before I got it back. And the milk I must not drink, but eat with a Httle spoon. But I had drunk water he fore. The house had at one end, nearest the wash tray, an open space. By the looks of it the house was to have had a room there, but it had not been finished. The roof went over the space and the floor, the back and front walls extended as far, only the outside end was open. A great many things stood there put out of the way and in shelter. Against the rear wall was stand- ing a rough carpenter's bench. On it the old man had spread a doubled-up cotton quilt. He carried me over there and laid me down on the quilt, stuck a piece of wood under one end of it for a pillow, and turned the other end over my feet and legs. I had been cleaned and fed and now I was to sleep- I was willing enough that the old man should have his way, because he certainly was boss as far as I was con- cerned, and he had been good to me and I expected to get something more to eat from him, by and by. And I was sleepy, too, but I was in a way unwilling to go to sleep and uneasy, as if something was about to happen, which I must keep awake to be ready to encounter. And while dropping off, overcome by drowsiness, I know, I yet strove against it and to the last tried to fix my mind on where I was and that I was safe, while already the drug was beginning its work again, and already its furies were upon me. It commenced the very same way as the first time. I was seized with a horrible dizziness, as though I was being flung into empty space. Things like sparks were striking my eyes, fiery shapes came jutting towards me, and back and forward again, nearer and nearer, hideous shapes, close upon me, winding themselves round my throat, chok- ing me, strangling me, to force me to open mv mouth to 231 CHKOXICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS let them crawl into my head, till all was one sheet of liame. And now, curiously, I knew something was going to show itself on the sheet of flame, something to add to the terror, and though in deadly dread of it, I was anxious to know what, when the fiery sheet was torn apart, and I saw the canyon I had come down. I did not see myself, but I was there. It was at the point where the canyon had narrowed to a rocky gorge, the walls overhanging, a ledge extending across from side to side like a dam. Somewhere opposite I was standing, not down below in the bed of the creek, but up higher, facing the dam, look- ing at the gorge. I don't know that I had looked at it that way at all, but I must, or how else could I have been able to see it in my dream as I did. And so plain and clear, every cleft and crack and seam distinct, every block and crag, even the peaks above the canyon walls, which I had not been able to see from the bottom of the gorge at all. Something was moving. A round, black thing was coming up over the dam, making my blood feel like ice. It was the head of the Black ! He was looking round. His eyes shone and his large, yellow teeth. The scars on his cheek stood out as gleam- ing streaks. He did not see me yet and in a sort of pri- mary consciousness I was telling myself in my sleep that he could not see me, that I was not there at all. He hauled himself along by the edge of the dam the way I had done. A Manzanita bush was growing right out of the rocks on the ledge. He stopped at it, looking, bending down to something on the lowest twig, picking it off, holding it between his fingers so that I could see it. It was a tatter of my shirt, a little shred no bigger than a joint of my little finger, torn out and held fast by the little shrub. And I knew not that such a thing had hap- pened, nor that I remembered it, nor that ever before this 232 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS time 1 thought that such a thing might have occurred. Still perhaps it had- He climbed over the dam and down like I had done. He was turning to me, when everything vanished and I came out of my senselessness, the old man .^landing by my sleeping place, calling and shaking me, speaking to me. And now I knew, I understood: it was Spanish he was speaking to me, had been speaking to me before. He spoke it with a false accent so that it did not sound like Spanish. But since I now knew it was Spanish, I could make him out very well. He was telling me he had some- thing more for me to eat, but he was afraid I had al- ready eaten too much. I had had a fit and should have fallen off the bench if he had not come to hold me. He had an enameled soup plate full of fresh-made oatmeal mush with sugar and milk and after some hesitation gave it to me on condition that I should eat it very slowly, and he stood by to see me do it. I did not speak at all, nor show that I understood more than what I might guess. I saw the old man go to work washing some clothes at the wash tray. I pretended to be asleep. V'ery soon I did sleep. When I awoke I judged by the sun that it was late in the afternoon. My overalls, dripping wet, were hanging on a wash line with some more clothes. My boots stood at my sleeping place. I put them on and ventured forth. When I cautiously looked in at the open door of the little house, I saw the old man busy at the cook stove, cooking, and I noticed that a box for firewood standing near the stove was all but empty. So I went to where a lot of split-up firewood was lying round a chopping block, and picked up an armful and carried it to the door. I was not sure about being permitted to go in, but the old man, hearing my step, turned his head, and, seeing me, told me to put the wood in the box. I brought another armful and yet another to fill the box. And then, looking 233 CHRONICLES OF MJXUEL ALANUS around, I saw that the water pail on a low shelf in the corner had but little water left in it. I took it, cleaned it, and brought it back full from the spout. After that 1 thought I would split some more wood with the nice, new, sharp hatchet on the block. But I did not know but what J might be overdoing the thing, and rather went back to the door, to be there if I should be wanted for something, or anyhow to be ready at the place when the eating was to be done. Very nice it looked inside of the little house. It was all one room, with a close-board ceiling; and all whitened. It was quite wide, but more shallow from front to rear. The door was in the middle of the front, with a window each side of the door and with two windows in the rear wall, opposite the front windows. At the left hand end, across from front to rear, were two sleeping bunks, end to end, as aboard ship, with a centre partition and w^ith calico curtains. At the right hand end stood the cooking stove in a recess formed by a pan closet at one corner and a store room at the other. Some shelves were there with kitchenware, and a wardrobe and some rawhide-bottom chairs. Two small chests of drawers were placed back to back at the centre division of the bunks. At the windows were hung little calico curtains like to the bunks, and under the one rear window farthest from the stove stood a table covered with white marbled oilcloth. Everything looked clean and orderly, and, what most made it look pretty and bright, was that outside of all the clean-polished windows were shelves, immediately below the window sills, with wooden earth-boxes, in which grew flowers and green plants- The old man was overhauling a box filled with books, \\hich he had pulled out from under one of the bunks. He called me in when I again appeared at the door. He held a slate and an open book in his hand, pointing at something on the leaves, uttering some sounds. I made 234 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS as stupid a face as I could. He became more insisting. I wished for something to boil over so as to make him turn to his cooking. But presently I forgot everything for a noise I heard outside. I saw through the window it was the old man's com- panion of the morning, the younger man, come home with his horse and dog and gun and a string of dead birds. No one was with him. But I had started to break away for the open door at the first sound. I was trembling all over. I was glad now though to see him. Hants the old man called him. And he called the old man France. He laughed at my rig when he came to look at me, after he had unsaddled his horse. He motioned for me to take his horse to the corral, pointing to it- Old France pointed to it, too, and repeated the word horse, in Spanish, and the dog went with me as if to show me the way, or perhaps to keep an eye on me, not approving altogether of my appearance. He was not as easy of approach as the shepherd dog, but not bad na- tured, only reserved. The four horses in the corral all came to take a look at me, and they all let me pet them a little, holding down their necks to let me pat them. One was a pony. Coming back from the corral I found Hants picking and cleaning the birds, and as I always had to clean and pick the birds for Nick and Nello when they had chickens or ducks or sometimes wild fowls for their meals, I started in now to help him do that. He watched me silently till he had satisfied himself that T knew what I was doing and did this work perhaps quicker and neater than he, when he took the few birds he had cleaned into the house, leaving me to finish the rest. Before I was quite through with the birds, three cows suddenly appeared on the other side of the fence leading to another corral, halting, gazing, staring at me as if dumbfounded with astonishment at my presence. They 235 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS were the cows I had seen in the morning in the hollow near the thicket, and they had come up from there. And now there was a great deal of work to be done. Hants was busy everywhere. The cows had to be milked and fed. The horses also had to be fed, and the chickens and other fowl and the pigs. Two or three dozen pigs were coming from somewhere below by a separate, fenced-off way to a separate corral and were clamoring at the corral-gate. When Hants had put their food in the trough and opened the gate for them, they came in in such a rush, I thought I had never heard the like. Hants was not a bit backward in putting me to work to help him, and I kept pretty close at his heels all the time, that being certainly the safest place for me at pres- ent in this new, unknown world I had come iiito. And I liked being so employed. The more jobs Hants gave me, the better I liked it The birds all cleaned and dressed I had brought to France. I went back to Hants where he was milking one of the cows, and he showed me where to get some feed and give it to the chickens, to throw it round, scattering it in their separate yard and to close the gate. Some of them had already gone to roost in the hen house adjoin- ing their yard. They all came out again and z couple of roosters made a great fuss over their hens feeding ; some were outside the yard and would not go in, and I had to chase them in before I could close the gate. Afterwards when they had all gone to roost I should have to go and shut the door of the hen house, said Hants. He spoke to me all the time now. He saw that I under- stood him, though I did not speak myself. Could I milk ? he asked. It was so very long since I had done any milk- ing and I had been so very little then, if I had not that morning dreamed and thought about Antonio's cow, I should not have known that I ever knew anything about milking. So I did not stir. Then he bade me try, and 236 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS as soon as I went to sitting on my feet under the second cow with a tin pail between my knees and commenced, I found I could milk as well as anybody. But first I had had to wash my hands and also the cow's udder, as Hants had done. The third cow had gone dry, but she would soon calve. The milk had to be strained ; some little was put aside for house use ; the rest was put in a machine which I had to turn, when the cream ran out of a spout into a can and the skim milk out of another spout into another can. This I had to carry off and pour into the feeding trough for the little, young pigs, while Hants turned to and washed all the tin milk things in boiling water. After that the horses and cows had to be given hay. The horses I had to water- The cows had a small watering trough in their corral. They got some salt on a board to lick, which seemed a very strange thing to me. Now Hants washed himself again at the wash tray, soaping his neck and face and arms, wetting all the roller towel in drying himself, combing his hair with the old, bent, horn comb before the piece of blind mirror, where he could hardly see anything more. And I washed my- self the same way and followed him, quite damp, to the door, where I stopped short outside. It was turning dark. The stars were beginning to twin- kle. The soft little breeze that had been blowing all day had died out with sundown. The animals had quieted down with their feeding. Night was coming on. The little house room looked so homelike; I can feel it at this moment as I felt it then. A lighted lamp with whitish globe and red and green shade stood on the table, which was set with the steaming dishes for the supper. From the stove came the hissing and puffing of the tea kettle. France was taking the last supper dish out of the stove oven. Hants was already sitting at the table, knife and fork in hand, saying something like ''having thought 237 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tliere would be no supper at all that night," jokingly, and then turning round and seeing that I had not followed him into the house, called me, motioning, telling me to come in, drawing a chair for me up to the table, even fetching a coat out of his bunk, a sort of sailor's monkey jacket, to put rolled up and folded on my chair for me to sit on, to have a better reach of the table top, and then helping me after himself, not once but again and yet more, most liberally, which things altogether made me feel ashamed or strange, not being used to such attentions. I wanted very much to thank him, but could not get to it, not just being able to make up my mind, should I speak or not, as I was not sure of the consequences. Though principally I could not speak because of his kindness. So I only bobbed my head. "That is all right," he said ; "you are welcome- Eat away. I expect you must be hungry." And after a short pause he added: "You earned it." I was hungry. More than I had thought and known. And the things tasted so good. France had cut up the birds and stewed them with a thin gravy and tMiions and other things. Nick never could make such a stew, nor Nello. With the stew we had cornmeal mush. That was well known to me. I had eaten that my whole life long: as far as I could think back. But it never had tasted so good as this time with this stew. Besides, we had balced potatoes and bread and sweet butter and a pudding. And I was g'ven a cup of fresh milk with a little water, while the two men drank tea with milk. And did not Hants seem to enjoy seeing nie make a hearty meal. He watched me all the time, half smiling, encouraging me to eat more, telling me I had not eaten anything as yet- He was a great eater himself, and T could not help noticing that, liberal as he was, he always helped liimself first and to the best pieces. France. T remember, had a good deal to sav. And he 238 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS showed nie liovv to sit at table, how to hold my arms, how to properly use my knife and fork. I was very careful and ate very slowly. Sometimes I thought all these in- structions were intended less for me than for Hants, who was very careless of his eating. I reckoned he took it that way himself. He was quietly chuckling to himself. After the meal came the dishwashing, and I could see it took Hants bv surprise that I was so ready to go right I - A,>rk at tlu.t and knew all about it. I could almost fancy I understood him telling France that I must have been accustomed to such housework ; although they spoke a language I did not know. France seemed not to have observed anything remarkable. But, after all, a good deal relative to this work was un- familiar to me, and for quite a time it remained very strange that I could not throw things overboard as I had been used to doing on the wharf. There it had been no trick at all to keep things clean and in good order. Every- thing not wanted, all dirt, all waste and rubbish, simply was hove overboard. Here everything had to be taken care of. This day I had already got an inkling of it. Nothing went to waste, not even potato peelings. The most of the things left over from the meals, not good to be served up again, went to the pigs and were kept out- side the house in close covered buckets of galvanized iron, which were at feeding time carried to their corral and emptied into their trough- The dogs were fed separately. I had to do that. It felt strange, too, that the fresh water was used so lavishly ; wasteful, it seemed. And the wood. As though it cost no trouble and hard work to get firewood. Hants took no part in the cleaning up after supper. He sat in front of his bunk, looking on, smoking his pipe, and occasionallv disputing, or what sounded like disputing, with the old man, who had a great deal more to say now. I felt sure they were speaking about me. France was 239 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS also talking about the books in the box I had seen before, 1 could guess, because he pulled that box from under his bunk, where he had pushed it when Hants came home. More I could not make out. Nor did I pay much atten- tion. I seemed dull now in my head, since I was no more hungry. And I did not know what I was thinking. Only that there appeared to be something in me trying to make me feel bad, miserable in my mind. Shortly, after some speech, as though to close some ar- gument, Hants got up, lit a lantern, and took me to my sleeping place, which he fixed up a little more with a rolled-up small quilt for my head-rest and a clean, unused blanket to cover me. He lingered quite a bit, wanting to talk to me, I thought, or waiting for me to speak. Then he left me, taking my overalls from the line and into the house "to hang behind the stove to dry," he gave out. I lay quite still The night was mild and quiet. After a while I put back the blanket. It was too warm. I could not sleep. I saw the shine of the light square of one of the windows on the trunk of one of the trees and on the ground. I heard incessantly the murmuring of the voices of the two men talking in the house. It made me feel lonely. I could not tell what it was, but something was making me feel unhappy. And a pain was in my breast. I dozed. When I was awake again there was no more light in the house and no more murmuring. And now it made me feel twice as lonely that there was not. And that pain in my breast was like a cramp. I could not lie still. I got up. As soon as I moved, the dogs came to me. After smelling my legs they curled themselves up again near me. How awful still it was. Dead still and dark. Not a sound to be heard ; not a light to be seen on aH the black earth all round! But the stars shaking and trembling and shooting long, stinging rays into my eyes ! I v/as sitting on the step of the house door. A little 240 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS change had come in the light of the stars, a brightening in one place, low down over the hills. Only a misshapen half moon, but, oh! the moon of my old wharf. Oh, my old wharf ! My old wharf ! I felt such anguish in my breast, I did not know what to do. It was like being bound with iron. Sobs came, I could not hold them down. I was afraid they would waken the men in the house, and so I got up and came away and lay on the ground by the corrals, clutching the hard earth with my outstretched hands, pressing my heart to it to ease my pain. The shepherd dog came and stood with his head over me and sat down in pity to touch me, upright with his head held back, to show me how to do and keep a stout heart. He did not know, no one knew, no one could think how I loved all I had been taken away from. The night sped on. The moon hung high above the treetops. A cool air came, without stirring the leaves. The roosters crowed. It was not quite so dark. The horses moved. The roosters crowed again. A paleness had come into the sky- A field bird gave a call. The day broke. I went to wash my face. I wondered could I let the chickens out. They wanted badly to get out, I fancied, but I did not know if I should be doing right to open their door. It had become quite light. Nobody stirred in the house. The animals were all awake and moving. The pigs were grunting impatiently. The horses and cows were feeding. One cow I had noticed the night before to be most gentle. She was the one I had milked. She was white with large, black continents and islands of all kinds of shapes all over her. And she looked at me as if she wondered why I did not milk her. So I thought I would milk her and fetched the tin pails from their rack near the house door, without making any noise, and milked both her and the other cow. But when I was carrying 241 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the pails with the milk to the little box of a house where tlie milk machine was standing, I saw the three cows marchiag off. The gate of their corral to the outside was open, as it had been all night, and they were going off in their field as they had come the last night, by themselves. I did not know but that I had done a very foolish thing, not to shut that gate- And I put down the milk and ran and climbed the yard fence to intercept the cows and turn them back, when at that moment Hants stepped out of the house door and taking in the whole situation at a glance, called me back, saying something to the effect "that the cows knew what they were doing, that now after being milked, they should go down to their pasture at the bot- tom lands." Also "that as a rule I must never run after cattle or I might get hooked and gored ; that I must take a horse to go after them, or send the shepherd dog." After that he said, in a somewhat curious way, "I seemed to have been crowding things a little," and looking strangely at me, pointed at a willow switch lying at my feet and motioned for me to bring it to him. He did not appear angry, yet it almost looked as if I was going to be punished for doing things unbidden. It did not look alto- gether reasonable, and I did not really believe it. But if he was, what could I do? So I picked up the stick and handed it to him, when with a great laugh he snapped it in two and threw it away, crying "he knew I was not afraid of him." France had wanted to make him believe I was afraid of him and had told him how I bad jumped and tried to run away when he came home the evening before. But he knew damned well I was not afraid of him. For what should I be afraid of him for? And had he not told me that he would not hurt me ? Only the old man never knew what he saw, and then he always wanted to make remarks. All the work was again to be done now, the same as last evening. Almost all. The hogs were not specially fed 242 CI-IROXICLIIS 01- M.iNUhL AL.LXUS in the morning any more than the cows. They had to go right down to their pasture at the bottom lands. They were only fed in the evening when they came home. That is what made them come home by themselves. But the horses were fed and watered and cleaned. And the chick- ens were given some feed in the morning. Hants let them out the first thing. Behind the house was the garden, slopmg gently down the hill planted with many different vegetables. A large potato patch was in the next field. The water flume car- ried through across the garden at the highest level, a little below the house, had outlets with water gates towards the vegetable beds. Finally the surplus water found its way to the head of the little gulch and on down for further use below, all this being very well arranged, as I could understand, the whole credit for which I gave to Hants. Below the garden was an orchard and below that again, facing the south and west, a vineyard. Hants took me everywhere. It was Uke being intro- chool-day with France, I had not one idle minute the whole day, I never lost the sense of uneasiness. And in the evening, when I came to understand that France did not expect Hants back that night, that he might even stay away a second night, I could hardly think it pos- sible that we could endure that. I had taken great pains with my lessons, learning my letters and indeed a great deal more, so that France was well pleased with me and more yet with himself, his own teaching power. I had meant, no doubt to show off before Hants, when he came home. Learning to write the letters, I had managed to learn those for his name and get them together and with his name, as I spelled it. And now, there was this disappointment of his not coming back that night- I sat late over my book and slate and kept France at it too ; as though by sitting up and waiting for Hants to come I could bring about his return that night, or make it 250 CHRONICLES 01' MANUEL ALANUS a little more possible. But at last I had to go out to my shed The dogs France took into the house ; he thought, being restless they might bark if left outside and break °"ks'soon as his light was out I got up and went to sit on the step of the house door. But I heard the dog sniffing at me under the door and went away for fear o the dogs making a noise, I wandered round about the farm-fard. I climbed over the fence n,to he cow- field which extended both ways, uphill and down. 1 walked uphill to above the heap of rocks our spnng-water came out of. The ground was very steep. But it did noTlook so. It was strange how all the hills looked low, and flattened-out in the dark. I was sitting on the ground, listening to some sound 1 thought I heard. But it was only in my ears I had an idea it might be the old cart. I saw three stars m a row I had often seen them from our wharf when it was clear They were almost all alike and they stood Tlmost straight up and down in a line, the last one just coming up over the low, black hills in the sky. No sign of life in all the land ! The pain in my breast was no longer so bad. But 1 felt more desolate than ever before. It was as if now for the first time I had come to fully and clearly compre- hend that I should never get back to the old wharf neve^ see Nick and Nello again, never Mahon nor Mr. lem ntdock Nor him. dearest of all! I vvandered round again, to the horses-farther, to the pigs that were sleeping, lying in short rows close-packed side bv side on the ground. Later I was lymg near the hay-stack by the cow-corral. I had not wanted to sleep. ; dreaded Ly dream. But at last I slept. And my dream came. It was night, but there were no stars. ? waTon a mountainside above the Black's hut. The sky was a little lighter than the ground and above, I saw two -D CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US black figures of men. They could not see me against the black ground but they were coming towards me. They were the Black and the strange man. They were search- ing for me- I tried to roll over, down the slope, but I could not move. Something was holding me down, some- thing flabby, a horrible, suffocating weight on my chest and legs and arms. And now, I knew it to be the dog by its foul smell ; and it was trying to get at my throat with its fangs. Then it all changed and suddenly I seemed to be awake and to know that I had been but dreaming. Every- thing was so plain and so light, I must be awake. It was a beautiful day. Hants had come back. We were work- ing in the garden. He wanted a hoe he had left in the hop-shed and sent me to fetch it. I ran till I was wet with sweat. But when 1 came in sight of the hop-shed I felt a strange dread to go near it. Something was in there. Something had just gone in at the door. I had seen nothing and heard nothing, but something had gone in. In the door was cut a square hole for light, about the size of a man's head. I could just reach it with my hands ; and as I lifted myself and looked, there appeared suddenly in the black opening that horribly distorted face, as I had seen it, so close it must have touched mine had I not fallen back- I lay in a stupor, soaked with sweat. Little by little I became conscious that it was daylight and that the pigs were making an unusual noise. It was late; they ought to have been let out before this. I ran to their yard and found three hogs were in the garden, rooting up things. They had broken through the fence. The others were fighting to get in. That was the noise I heard. I opened the gate to their corral and they went off down the hill, and two of the three in the garden went along, out through the break in the fence, without having to be 252 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS chased. The third one, I had great trouble to drive out, and the garden afterwards looked half destroyed. I can never forget how very bad I felt about this. Had not Hants told me to look out for the pigs? The dogs had barked at my chasing the pig; I ought to have let the dogs out to help, at least the shepherd dog. But I had thought the dogs would make more havoc and ruination ; or I had not known enough. I should have let the pigs out earlier. I should not have wandered about half the night trying not to sleep and knowing very well my dream would come anyhow. Old France was not up yet. I had all the feeding and milking and creaming done before he appeared- Sitting up late the night before had made him sleep late. He wanted to know what I had made so much noise for and set the dogs abarking. I told him about the pigs. He went to look at the garden. At first he had nothing to say. but later, when we had gone to work after breakfast to repair the damage, and it took us till noontime before we got through and we had the garden in shape again and the fence mended, he had a good many remarks to make. What seemed to fret him most was that we had to skip school that forenoon, for working. And no pains- taking on my part at the afternoon's lessons, nor quicker progress, could make good this loss. France was pretty good at gardening although slow, and quite particular. When we had finished our work the garden looked better than it had done before the pigs broke in and the actual damage was trifling. We were sitting at supper that evening when the dogs barked and Hants came driving into the yard in his wobbling cart. I was so glad he was back, I ran out to him. I wanted to tell him about the pigs, too. because for certain I could not be easy till that was told. But I found no chance to speak to him now. He had a big package which he carried into the house, leaving me to 253 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US unhitch the horse and put it in the corral Then he put up the cart and went to wash himself. As he was towel- Hng his face, I told him my story of the pigs. He only laughed, and said it was nothing. And this easy and good-humored way of taking my neglect, my carelessness, seemed to sting me more than all of France's remarks. I felt like wanting Hants to get mad and do something to punish me, at least scold me, to make us even. Then, after supper, when the table was clear and clean, he opened the big package, and it was all things for me : a pair of boots and a pair of shoes and two overalls like the ones I had, and three gray flannel shirts and a pair of cotton drawers, a sweater and an undershirt to wear with it, a pair of knee-breeches and a jacket or coat such as city-boys wear, a neckerchief and a belt and a straw hat and a soft gray hat. It was so much, I had never had so many things to- together at one time in all my life, and I felt so ashamed to get all these things, and after that pig-business, too, I did not know what to say or to do. Yet to be sure I was glad. And as I began to realize what a lot of fine things I was becoming the owner of T became more glad. The sweater, how beautiful ! And the russet belt with the nickel buckle! And the gray hat with the black silk ribband. I always had regretted that new hat which I had left in the log-cabin on the mountain to burn up. Now, this hat was much finer. Hants was watching me with his broadest smiles ; and knowing, I can fancy, that I just wanted him to do that, he held out his hand to me, so I could grab it and wring it with both of mine, trying to say something. And to bear up against his undeserved leniency in that matter of the pigs I was secretly making a sort of vow to myself, that never, never should such rarelessnes of mine happen again. 254 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS I thanked France too, though it felt not a Uttle like making rather free. ^ a Hants had the receipted bill for the things ready and made France settle with him right away for his share of the costs, the money received for the butter and eggs not being sufftcient to square the account. And he was making all kind of signs to me, shutting one eye, crook- ing his mouth, showing a coin, all to give me to under- stand that he was cheating France, making him pay more than his share, which I nowise properly comprehended or perhaps thought a joke and that he afterwards would make it all right again- But I think now he really meant to cheat France and really did, thinking it more than a very good joke. .• i^ . After that I had to trv on every one of the article., and this tryin-on of the new c'othes is the last of what i remember of my first days at F.ve Oaks. I can see, now, this moment, Hants helping me to button up turning me round and round, making me >tep back, holding up the lamp for a better view of me, taking his private hand- mirror out of his bunk to let me look at myseh, appealing once in a while to France, who was seated at the other side of the table with his spectacles over a book, preparing for next day's teachings, and turning, when called upon. rather stiff-necked to look at me, as at a distant land- The next event which I remember, if not too clearly, is the hop-picking and bean-pickmg at our place. I know the hops were a little late, while the beans were very early and were picked right after the hops ; for which a num- ber of Chinese laborers had been sent by the Boss from Fountain Head, our hop-yard being not large but our bean-field was extensive, taking in the greater part of the bottom lands. I did not -ee very much of this work, for the reason that Hants bossing it left so much more for me to do 255 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS round the house so as to take up all of my time. And for another leason that somehow the hop-shed had come into some connection with the haunting frights of my dreams, so that I did not, if T could help it, go near it. And for yet another reason, that I thought, some of the Chinamen might be of those wHh whom I had that time come from the city with Lum, although I ought to have known enough to know that they never in the world could recognize me. But more than three months must have elapsed since my coming to Five Oaks before the bean-crop was har- vested, and in that time I can imagine me well grown into my new life, in the empty country, alone with my two men, with constantly inci easing liking for it all: the place, the men, the things, my schooling, my work, in the ever beautiful weather, till with the moderating of my homesickness the days had again become days of lighter heart, contentment, enjoyment of the hour, fun. If only that black weight could have been lifted oflf my soul : the terror of my imagined pursuit, of my impending doom. I could not speak of it. Not without being brought to it, questioned, led on, urged. I never was afraid or shy of speaking to anybody. But if it is hard for a child under the most favorable circumstances to tell a story of only plain facts, how was I, even fully trusting my men as I did, to tell this, except under examination and cross- examination? How had it all come about? What had it all meant? What had I done to bring this on, to be stolen, drugged, beaten and beaten and strangled, shot at ? Who was that strange man to want me dead? It was all stupefaction. Who could understand it? Who would believe it? It had been like some act of nature, a hurricane or flood, when, if it caught one, nothing could be done only to watch to escape and lie low in as safe a place as could 256 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS be got to, till it was over. Oiny this somehow was not over. How much the drug given me had to do with it I do not know. It made me look upon my whole adventure as something I must hide from everybody, from myself, not think of it, deny it to myself, or bring about discovery and instant seizure by the evil power that was aiming at my worse than death. As I can follow it in the workings of my mind, I cime to regard, to feel the enmity of this evil being, his dt-signs on me, my fancied pursuit, the certainty of my capture as something form- ing part of my existence, something I could never get escape from, my doom, my fate, which I must silently bear till such a time when my again falling into the hands of the strange evil-one for everlasting torturing would take place. If only I had been made to talk about it ! If only I had told somebody the secret of my dreams ! Hants had once been very near making me tell. And I am very sure he would have penetrated to the bottom of my mystery and have cleared it up. If only he had not given up his questioning but had persisted. I could not have kept my story from lom. My truthfulness must have made me answer truthfully. And if I could not have made anything but a very riddlesome tale of it, he would have understood to make it intelligible to himself. But he contented himself with leaving things alone, partly or mostly from carelessness, or, I will say, good- natured consideration for me. His aim was not to harass me and increase my evident nervous distress by urging or tricking me into telling what I was plainly most anxious to conceal, and what would be soonest remedied, it might be, by my forgetting, if I were left to myself; but on the contrary to ease my mind by promising me protection, take me to them, proposing to make me comfortable with them, and then let me be. Satisfied, too, I have no doubt, he was with acquiring in me at a cheap rate, a willing and 257 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS with all my smallness a helpful worker, greatly needed by them indeed, a welcome addition, at the same time to their society on the retired farm, to France a most desired object for practising school-teaching and education on, and to Hants himself a companion, certainly an attentive listener to his talk in the solitude of the fields; and for occasions a kind of plaything. Such an occasion, which I have never forgotten, was the coming to our place of a man with a boy, his son or nephew, between whom and myself Hants was presently trying to get up a fight or boxing-match to entertain the grown people for an idle hour, the day being Sun- day. They belonged to a couple of families, who were on their way from the Southern part of the big, inland California valley up North into the Shasta country where they had bought land and were going to settle. They had made camp the night before somewhere at the foot of our hills. The man had gone out to find some place where he could buy some potatoes they were short of, and had accidentally struck the road to Five Oaks- The boy had come along. 1 well remember how excited I became at the first sight of them, as they suddenly appeared at our yard-gate, the first white strangers I had seen since I had come to Five Oaks, and especially at seeing the boy, in the manner, I suppose, of one animal seeing another of the same kind. The sight delighted me. I could have hugged him. I don't know that he was particularly good-looking, nor did he later prove to be anything but an ordinary and perhaps somewhat more than ordinarily foolish boy. But he looked handsome to me and full of good qualities. He reminded me of all the children I had ever known and liked. He had come, I could fancy, from a world I had once dwelt in myself, a beautiful world, full of beautiful all-things, now vanished forever. Hants, mistaking, I suppose, my excitement, called me 258 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS to him and bade me stay with him and be easy, till, after finding out who the man was and what he wanted. He then sent me into the garden to dig up some potatoes, the boy making me quite happy by going along, stand- ing by, looking on, telling me in how well known boyish bragging all sorts of stories : how many thousand horses his "father owned and how h- had with his father's re- volver last night shot and killevi a big grizzly, hittmg him right in the eye. But pretty soon he wanted to fire some potatoes at the horses and chickens, and when 1 stopped him doing that he picked up lumps of earth to do it with. I had to catch his hands. He grew quite rough. He started m to pull up vegetable-plants and T had to hustle him out of the garden, back to where the man was standing, talk- ing To Hants, where the resp visibility for his misdeeds would not rest on me. It was on seeing us struggling that Hants proposed that we boys should fight, or spar, urging: "They ought to fight anyhow. It does them good. And we ought to have some fun out of them. They can not hurt each other-" The man said the boy's mother would not like him to fight. But later it came to a fight anyhow. The boy had taken the hatchet out of the woodshed and had chopped with it at almost everything; the fences, trees, sheds, troughs. The hatchet was a very nice hatchet, new, dean and sharp, really inviting one to take it and chop away with it, and I suppose the boy could not resist. He seemed, any way, to be one of the kind that have their own way pretty much all the time. And he had been alone I had been with France, cleaning up. Hants and the man had been looking at the vineyard. When they came back and Hants saw the cutting done he became angry Outspoken as he always was, he scolded the boy roundly, making the man, too, for shame's sake, scold the boy, asking what business he had to touch what was not 259 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS his, when the boy said, "I had given him the hatchet and told him to do all the cutting he wanted." Thereupon, of course, Hants called me to hear what I had to say to that, and I very truly made answer ''that the boy lied, though I felt very much ashamed for him to have to say it." The man and the boy, too, were, as it appeared, quite willing to let it go at that. I dare say it was no news to them. But Hants, who now saw his opportunity, did not rest till we were arrayed for a fight, not to the man's satisfaction altogether, perhaps, because of the boy's mother. Still he felt rather sure, I fancied, of the boy's being more than my match, bigger as he was, and was agreeable to see me beaten. The boy was not so insensible as not to feel himself in the wrong. He did not want to fight very much, I could see, but I think he had the same opinion about it as the man- I never was a fighter, but I liad had to learn to defend myself, and if I knew more about it than other boys, it was what Mahon had taught me. Small boys I could never strike, and I never wanted to fight anyone that did not want to fight, or cried. But this boy knew something about boxing. And he was a far better hitter than I had taken him to be. He could not get me off my feet, I always was very firm in my legs. He punished me badly enough, though. All the time, however, I felt sure, if I held out, I should win. And I also felt that in order to clear myself of this imputed wrongdoing, fasten the lie on the boy, and set myself right with my men, at least Hants, I must win. And I did. The next time the boy struck, I let myself down and was up again and had landed twice on his jaw before he knew what was hap- pening. And then I sent him down flat. He howled and cried and crawled away tc the man, who said something about its being enough. "Well," shouted Hants, *iet him confess, then, tKat he lied." 260 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS The man told him to speak up and tell if he took the hatchet himself. He could not give a straight answer even ^ ^^l only wanted to cut a little twig for a whip," he whined. ^ i j ^ u ^ I was sorry for him to cry, but still I was glad to have won, but nothing to what Hants was, who kept saying: "I knew you would win, I knew you would wm, addmg when we were alone : "I reckon you hit pretty hard Your hand is pretty heavy and hard knit from hard work. You hurt him pretty badly. ^^ But no worse than he deserved. for he was a dirty liar." France that evening read me a long lectuie on prin- ciples of hospitality, good manners and gentlemanly be- havior, Hants sitting by in silence, smoking his pipe, mak- ing faces, giving me looks and grimaces and wmks, to let me into the secret of his enjoying these remarks as being intended for him. But I think I listened very seriously to what the old man was saying, and formed a sort oi resolution to act differently next time, I could not tell exactly how, but differently. My reading had to be cut short that evenmg, as niy eyes were nearly closed ; next morning Hants was laugh- ing at me for their discolored swelling. But it soon all went away. The following week when Hants went to Fairlies he brought back from there some boxing gloves for him and me, and a punching bag, and at suitable times gave me lessons in boxing, wherein he was quite an expert- Shortly after this it must have been that the native cow- boy, Salvador, came to our place, who taught me a 1 kmds of horsemansip and the use of the lariat. I had learned to ride horseback and how to manage a horse pretty well before this. I had been on a horse often enough. We had a strong, little, pinto pony that I could always take to eo after the cows or pigs, or to go anywheres of any dis- tance. I do not remember the first time I was put on a 261 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS horse. I presume Hants did it. I know I first had to go bareback with nothing but a piece of hay rope hitched up for a bridle. After a while Hants fixed me up an old Mexican saddle tree with pommel, stirrups and cinch, but no skirts or covering, and with an old, soft gunny sack for a blanket. And an old, plain bit that I found I fixed to my bridle myself. All these things I had to do right along, until now I got a regular bridle. I think Salvador had first come to Five Oaks with the Chinese hop pickers and bean pickers, and had lived with them at their camp, and I had seen him there, but had forgotten him. When he came again, I remembered hav- ing seen him before. I have never been able to make clear to myself what he came back to our place for. At times I have thought he was one of a gang of horse thieves that operated far away South, taking horses over the Sierra into the State of Nevada, that he was in hiding now, and that Hants was not without some knowledge of this and had some former acquaintance with him. Certainly Hants was not altogether satisfied to have him around, nor to have me go out with him. He hesitated considerably to give his consent when I told him that Salvador had offered to teach me some cowboy's horseman tricks. -\nd gener- ally he was always ready with his consent, never denying me anything I asked leave to do unless he had good reasons. Salvador spoke exceedingly good English, although there was apparently not a drop of any but Californian- Indian blood in him, and that of the very darkest kind. When I shut my eyes, I see him yet, tall, spare and lank, stiff, upright on his horse, but moving as easy with the horse as if the two were one. His horse was a beautiful half-breed mare that he could do almost anything with, and she was as attached to him as I have never known any other animal to be to any man. When he was drunk, the mare took care of him like a 2b2 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS human being. One such time I recollect when he had slid out of the saddle and lay on the ground unable to rise and in that stage of drunkenness that he would not let me help him. The mare with her teeth took hold oi the collar of his coat at the neck, lifted him up, stood him up agamst the fence, and then came to his side, stooping sideways to lower the saddle to near the ground, for him to mount And when he fell in the attempt, lifting him up again and again, always stepping and moving with the greatest care not to step on him or hurt him, turning at last to me as if in despair, nudging me with her nose as if to tell me to help her. When finally he was m the saddle, the mare went off balancing him with the most painstaking, eager exertion, meeting the swaying and lurching of his body at every step ; she sweating, wet all over and treni- bling in every muscle with nervous fear lest he vhoiild fall. If he was too drunk to move, she would stay with him till he came to or till assistance came. If he had fallen to lie in a road or trail, or any place of danger, she would draw him aside out of harm's way, and then stand guard over him. Once, when he had fallen and badly Inirt him- self and lav insensible, she had gone for help to a ranch, distant several hours' fast travel. I often wished her to be mine But she did not care for me nor anyone but her master ; and he was not so very fond of her, not at least to show it. Certainly he never abused her, as he was. all in all. rather good-natured. Only in liquor he a ways was a little uglv. .\nd he was often in liquor He always carried a flask of some kind or other of liquor in his pocket, wherever he got it. And he turned more ugly e^-erv time at my refusal to drink, as though it were an insult But I had such a horror of liquor, probably from my drugging. 1 could not have forced myself to taste it- The smell alone sickened me. The first time Salvador took me up to higher points on the ranges, back north of Five Oaks, how strange it was 263 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS to see the shape of the country changing at every step! How flat tiie lower hills came to look, branching and twist- ing every way. Five Oaks was nothing but a low knoll, detached from the other hill-land, and pushed forward to the south, out all by itself into the big valley, and the bottom-land going round it like a dried-up lagoon. Below us, winding in and out among the hills was a road. We had crossed it where it skirted our bottom- land and I had suspected it to be the road leading by the thicket where Hants had found me. Now, from above I could plainly make it out. It was the same road and no other, where that strange man had come down with his companion in the buggy and had gone by the place where I lay hiding in the wooded patch. I could not see where the road came from, nor where it led to. It lost itself in the swell of the hills. It had no connec- tion with Five Oaks, only at the thicket where I had lain hiding. It ran along our bottom-land for a distance, and there was in our side-fence an accommodation-gate to a trail leading along our bean-field over to where our road to Fairlies came down the hill. West of Five Oaks the road curved round the next spur of hill and where a group of live-oaks stood crown- ing a bluif. Beyond that it was not visible, but Salvador told me that right there under that bluff it connected with the road to the river-landing, and he pointed out to me the directions in which Sacramento lay and San Francisco, the big, rich city. We never went on any roads, we just went over the hills, rising higher and higher to the north. They were pretty much all alike, swelling and sloping to all sides, mostly bare but with bush-overgrown, rocky outcrop- pings in many places and with little gulches, notches, sinkholes filled with scrubby copses and larger woods, the drab-colored ground hard and dry and full of count- less little cracks, covered with sun-dried grass of a 264 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS brownish tinge all of a dirty lifelessness. The hills gradually changed to bolder heights with sharper ridges, where farther away tall timbers stood in patches, more and more crowding together into the broad forest-belt, sweeping round to the East, with the peaks of the high mountain-chain overtopping it. These hills were the cattle-ranges of the Boss at Foun- tain Head. I think here Salvador had his camp, where he slept and got his meals- But I never saw^ the place. Perhaps he had something to do with these cattle. He acted sometimes as if he might. Once in a while he would throw a young steer to show me how it was done and how to use the lariat for that purpose. I came to know how to throw the lariat pretty well. Another thing he taught me was to play monte and poker. We would play on horseback, the horses stand- ing head by side, the lariats coiled round pommel and pommel, and he holding his broad-brimmed hat to play the cards on. Playing that way in the shade of some tree he would stay all day if he could, hanging and lying on the horse, one leg drawn up and half thrown over ; the other slipped down. Yet another thing he taught me was to smoke cigar- ettes. But when France came to find that out which he did very soon, because, of course, no secret was made of it by me, he made such a fuss that he broke me of it and for good. And he took the opportunity of abridging my time for horseback exercises, which began to inter- fere with my lessons, too. I always liked my horse- back trips very much, but not indeed for being away from home. I always liked being home and at work, too. And the best part of the trips was perhaps always the coming back home. Now Salvador could not get me to go very far with him any more. He tried to sev- eral times and when I turned back sneered at me for 265 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS minding, calling me *'a coward and a slave." I told him "that nothing he could call me and nothing at all would make me do different from what my men told me to do, and that I was not afraid of him." Once he told me there was a man far down South, a rich man, owning many thousand head of cattle, who wanted just such a boy as I. Another time he told me if we were in San Francisco he could get me a place at the race-courses as jockey, riding races, where I could make lots of money and wear beautiful clothes, all silk and satin, showing me a colored print of a boy dressed in shiny, pink knee-breeches, green blouse with pink sleeves and green cap, looking very pretty on a lean horse- After that I do not remember him any more. August. Yesterday I earned very fair wages and had entertain- ment in the bargain. I went again to that colony of small dwellings where the day before I had worked. The two places next to that one were unoccupied, the following one I wanted to pass by because there were signs of disorder about it which I did not like, but I changed my mind, went up to the door and rang the bell. A very young and pretty but most slovenly dressed — I should say half- dressed woman or girl came to the door and I asked her if the folks wanted somebody to put the little front- yard in shape. She laughed, showing very fine, white and even teeth and called, "Joe! Joe! Here is a man who wants to know if the folks want the garden fixed. You must be the folks, so you better show up." Someone from some rear room called back, "What is 266 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS it dearie?" A door was opened and a very young man, not much older than the girl, appeared and stumbling and falling over some unpacked drawers and boxes and different other things covering the whole floor of the entrance-hallway, plunged into my arms, whereat the girl set up a peal of laughter and cried, ''Everybody stumbles over those drawers. Last week papa nearly broke his neck. I laughed till I was not able to stir. Did you get hurt, dearie?" "No, darling," answered the young man, "but if this man had not caught me, I might have got hurt badly. Are you the man ? What did you want ? Fix the garden ? Can you do nothing but gardening?" "Why, yes, I can do almost everything I am paid for." "Oh! Well, I think you are the man w^e have been waiting for. We want somebody to help us fix up the house. You won't charge more than a couple of dollars, will you ?" I looked round, rather dubiously I think, because he raised his offer himself, a dollar and another dollar, before I spoke. The carpets were laid and the kitchen- stove had been put up and the hot-water boiler and water- back connected, but everything else was in a state of con- fusion and disorder not to be imagined. "You may do what you like," here spoke up the young woman in a complaining w^ay, as if somebody had been trying to injure her, "but I am going to have my break- fast before everything is upset- Joe! I don't care." "All right dearest," answered Mr. Joe. "I did not have mine yet late as it is, two hours since I got up. Have you had your breakfast?" he asked, turning to me. I told him I had. "Well," he continued, "have a cup of coft'ee. My wife makes very good coffee. We will all go in the kitchen and have some breakfast, then we can work better. That will do for lunch. Come in Mister." 267 CHRONICLES OP MANUEL ALANUS ''Come in," added Mrs. Joe. ''Come right in. Look out for those things. It makes me laugh every time I think of papa, how he stumbled and shot by me into the kitchen and just missed hitting the stove with his head. How do you like the place? I think it is real nice. That is the parlor. You see the rosewood piano? Do you play the piano? Oh, just go in and try it- Look out! There are some flowerpots under that blanket. Play something! Please! Oh, do! Just anything! Well, you can play something afterwards. Oh, Joe! What are vou doing? What did you let the fire go out for?" "I did not let the fire go out, it went out of itself," returned Mr. Joe. "I think I will light the gas. Shall I light the gas sweetie?" "All right," exclaimed Mrs. Joe and went on talking to me while he put the water on to boil in a saucepan over a gas cooking-arrangement on one side of the stove." Sit down Mister. What is your name? Oh I like that name. I always have liked that name. Just take those things off that chair. Tliey are the parlor-windows' cur- tains on their poles. We did not take them off the poles. We only moved in three weeks ago. Oh, dear ! I tore my dress this morning. Look what a gash ! Well, I was to get a new wrapper anyhow. Oh, put those things anywhere. Open that door! Yes, that is the pantry- Put them in there. Is that water boiling yet, Joe ? Dear me! there is baby awake. Don't bother Mr. Manuel! Well, she is right there, right in that heap of things. Be careful ! You might fall. There she is behind those pillows and pots. We just put her down there. Her crib is not put up yet. It is in the cellar. We only moved in three weeks ago. Don't take her up Mr. Manuel ! She is all wet. I can't put her dry now. This afternoon she has to be dressed anyhow. She is going out with my mother. 268 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS The baby was the prettiest, most good-natured little thing, not more than half a year old. It laughed at me and reached out the hands to me and did not cry when I, heeding the mother's advice, did not take it up but went away to begin at some point with putting things to rights, as soon as breakfast, or lunch had been par- taken of- If it had not been so amusing it would have been aggravating. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Joe had any idea how the things should be placed, how they wanted them placed, at which room or point to commence with plac- ing them. Nor did they care in the very least. And he was otherwise rational and circumspect enough, what- ever she was. He had taken this day off to work at getting the furniture put in place. I found he held quite a responsible position as manager of a large Office Fur- niture Company. They would both sit and talk about anything and everything, any outside question, arguing, fooling, telling stories, gossip, talk to the baby and make not one move to get out of what was to me, a perfectly un- endurable, chaotic state. Some things were almost ludicrous enough to have been invented. The only door to the dining room opened out of the kitchen. A lot of furniture having been put into this dining room, carelessly piled piece on piece, something had slipped, falling against the door on the inside, shutting it and keeping it closed, so that nobody could get into that room. And they had lived that way since they had occupied the house, cooking and eating with pans and dishes, plates, knives, forks, spoons bor- rowed from neighbors, their own dining room ware and kitchen utensils being shut in with the other things in the self -closed dining room. "But why do you not get in?" I asked. ''You can not," answered both. "From the outside," I suggested. 269 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "The sashes are locked." "How do you know?" "Well, we have no ladder/' said Mr- Joe, as if ad- mitting something he would rather have kept dark, but which settled the question. "It is no use trying to open the door because the lounge has fallen dead against it," he resumed. "The sideboard, lovie," interposed Mrs. Joe. "No, sweetness, the lounge." "Dearie, I know it is the sideboard." "My darling, I put my hand round the edge of the door, and I felt the plush of the lounge." "Let us try to move it," I interrupted them. "If you could get your hand round the door that far, maybe we can get the door back more yet and get in." And I made the attempt, but found that indeed the lounge, or the sideboard or something held the door so securely that ] did not dare to force it, till 1 had tried to get into the room by way of the window. For this I had to go and borrow a ladder from the neigbhbors across the street, whose whole family turned out to watch my proceed- ings. Mr. and Mrs. Joe likewise came out into the street in front of their house to watch my trying to get in at the side window, other neighbors came to their windows, a milk-wagon and a grocery's delivery-team drew up; passers-by stopped, everyone was gasping and Mr. and Mrs. Joe had to give their explanation of the origin of the trouble to everybody. Luckily the sash of one of the two dining room windows was not locked, and after seeing me raise the sash and enter the room, the crowd dispersed. I did not open the door of the room right away, but locked it, the key being in the lock, and set myself to work to put the furniture in place, even the dishes and table-linen and the crockery into the closet and sideboard before I let Mr- and Mrs. Joe come into the room. 270 CHRONICLES OF MAXUEL ALAXUS Next I went to work in the kitchen and pantry, urging Mrs. Joe to wash the borrowed things and put them to one side for deHvery. When ^Ir. Joe saw me getting on to putting up the beds, he made up his mind to go down to his business for the rest of the day, but it took more than one hour before he got out of the house. Talking, arguing, all to no purpose, fooling, loitering. He offered to pay me before leaving, but 1 told him I should cer- tainly not have finished before he would be back, when he immediately insisted on my promising that I would under no consideration go away before he came back, but would stay and have dinner with them. After he was gone, I got on with my work much better. Mrs. Joe w'as not so much of a hindrance. And be- sides she had the telephone to entertain her. Half the time, fully. J should say, she was at the telephone in the kitchen, talking to friends, to her husband too, or listening to other people's talk on the line. The rest of the time she would follow- me about, stand in the door- ways of the rooms I was working in. sometimes talk- ing, sometimes merely looking on, the baby on her arm with its wondering eyes fixed on me. smiling back when- ever I smiled at it. She had been married two years, she told me and her wedding-day had been her eighteenth birthday. She would ask questions and go on talking like a child. And indeed w^hat was she but a child I "Do you know Amelia Whitcome? I thought you might. Her mother keeps a notion-store on Hayes Street. She used to go to school with me. Why no! Not the mother! She is a very nice girl- Last Saturday we went to the matinee together. I took baby over to mama and left her there till afterwards. We had a fine time. Oh, we had such fun. T laughed. One of the ushers, the long-haired one had a feather sticking in his hair, a white feather. Hee ! Hee ! Somebody had stuck it in and he 271 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS did not know it at all. No! We laughed! Amelia just shrieked. Do you like the ushers at the Grand better or at the Central ? I think they are too fresh altogether." Every now and then she would drop into her queru- lous way of talking : "Oh, dear ! I ought to dress. Mama will be mad if I am not dressed when she comes. But who can dress with all this work adoing. And this child is so heavy, too." I was at the last bedroom when the mother came, a neat and comfortable looking, bustling little body. "Oh, you have a man working," she exclaimed. "But is not that expensive? No?" "Now, mama," complained Mrs. Joe, "all the time you have been scolding us about our not getting fixed up, and now you scold because we are." "I am not at all scolding," contradicted the mother, raising her voice- "I am only thinking. The expense! What do you pay him now? Hm! Not! No!" "I don't know, mama. Joe has settled it with the man. You can ask him. I won't." "Ask him? When Joe has settled it with him, how would it look to ask him?" "Well I don't care. He is all right. Here is baby all dressed. I wish I could go along." "But you could not go along. I don't care if the man is all right, somebody must stay in the house to watch." She had taken off her gloves as soon as she had en- tered the house, and while she was talking she was going round the kitchen, picking up and putting away the clothes Mrs. Joe had taken off the baby for the wash- ing and redressing of it and had dropped and left lying on the floor all about. And seeing this I could rightly form the idea that the very tidiness of the mother was greatly to blame for the slatterliness of the daughter. Not the tidiness in itself of course, but the lack of judgment in the practising of it: doing herself what she ought to let 272 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS the daughter do, make her do, what indeed long since she ought to have taught the daughter to do, increasing instead of lessening the evil, as if in removing the evi- dence of slovenliness she did away with the slovenliness itself. Good nature might have much to do with it. She seemed good-natured. And she evidently was fond of her daughter and the baby. She was yisibly glad when she received the little one in her arms- "Oh, the dear little girl," she cried, "will she go with grandma now, and is she going to stay with grandma all night? I do not think Joe should pay more than two dollars at the most. Well, all right! Perhaps! Not! No!" All her speeches were made loud enough for me to hear, especially her parting injunction to Mrs. Joe to keep an eye on me. But Mrs. Joe paid no attention to that. As soon as the mother was gone, she said she was going to the neighbors to return the borrowed things. I asked her to stay in the house to see that I arranged everything to suit her. With more sensibility than I should ever have given her credit for she said, blushing as she spoke, "Oh, Mr. Manuel you must not mind any- thing mama says. She is only contrary. Now if I should but just have said anything, putting on you know. that I did not trust you, she would have flown right up in my face, taking your part. And then she is a little deaf, vvhich makes her speak louder than she knov/s." I told her I was much obliged to her for her regard for my feelings, but if it was not too disagreeable to her, I should be still more obliged to her if she would stay in the house and for my own protection. For if after- wards anything should be missing, would she not be liable to think I took it. She gave a laugh, saying: "If we should be blaming every missing article of ours on 273 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS someone coming into our house, there would not be people enough, that we know, to go round." She remained in the house however. After a while she went into her bedroom "to fix up," as she expressed herself. When she appeared again, she looked clean, her hair was neatly made, she had on a new gown, and there was about her an air of consciousness of improve- ment that pleased while it amused, like a dressed up little girl- She set herself to work to begin preparations for dinner. And I noticed again that she was very clean in her cooking, although maybe very wasteful, and very careless as to the cleaning up afterwards. Since I had begun to like her, I liked her more, I suppose it was a sort of fraternal feeling gaining ground in me. But no! My brotherly feelings all belong to Harry. And yet it is, no doubt, the working of the fraternal instinct, if there is such a thing. I was through with my w^ork. I had gone through all the rooms again and halls and closets for a last glance. I had set the table in the dining room and had carried away the ste]^l adder and the other borrowed articles to the different neighbors, fetching back from one of them some green stuff" and three very fine roses on a long branch. Of the roses Mrs. Joe took one: the other two on the branch with the other green I put in a long glass on the dining table. I had overhauled all the gas-fixtures, cleaned, put on and changed the globes to suit and lit the gas. "It looked like Christmas," said Mrs. Joe, as she put the rose in her hair. Mr. Joe came just little enough late to be and feel doubly welcome, and with all the expression of wonder and satisfaction at the transformation of his house that I could wish for and his wife could try to second, and with more satisfaction than I had expected at the changed appearance of his wife, with which I fancied him dis- posed to credit me as well. With equal satisfaction, 274 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS seemingly, he paid me and we sat down to dinner which proved Mrs. Joe to be a very good cook, and after dinner then, I had to play for them on the piano. I had tried to make the cleaning up and washing up after dinner a joint-stock affair, claiming I wanted to leave the house in an orderly condition, every part. But I had failed. The dining table as it stood, remained set with all the remnants of the dinner in all the dishes, plates, cups and glasses. And it probably is in that con- dition yet. After playing a few popular airs and dances I ex- cused myself. In fact I was so tired, I can not remember any time that I was more so. But I had to return to the piano three, four times before I could make my escape. This morning I again visited that colony and met with another mother and daughter. It was rather late. I had gone by Mr. DeLang's place and seeing the ground look rather dry had given the garden a watering. Some- body will steal that water-hose there some day, lying as it does openly by the steps all the time. It ought to be put away. And then I must be given a key to what- ever place it is put in, to be able to get at it when I want to vise it, or it will not be very long before my agreement with Mr. DeLang for watering the garden is broken, if Mrs. DeLang is going to be so constantly absent from home- She seems not to have been back since Satur- day. I wonder how Mr. DeLang can put up with that. I think, sweet and fascinating as she is, I should prefer even childish Mrs. Joe for a wife. What are to him house and home, domestic habits, well earned means of comfortable living, all? I presume though the last, or rather the first cause is the want of children. At the colony I walked up the cross-street to the last row of houses, where in front of the first one of them a rather smiling lady, no longer very young, was sprink- 275 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ling the little front yard with a small, rubber hose and sprinkler, and I asked if she would not let me do that job for her. She proved to be very talkative; so much so that in less than ten minutes I had become possessed of all the salient points of her life's history; and it was funny as well as slightly embarrassing to have her tell me things as though she were only speaking of what I already well knew. First of all, however, she offered to give me twenty cents to water that garden for her, and when I gladly accepted the offer, told me to take the hose, quick, or her arm would break the next second, from holding it. Then, when I was sprinkling the newly sprouting grass, she remained by my side, talking fast and un- ceasingly, making me think that I had principally been paid to listen, feeling at least like an engaged listener. ''Her name is Mrs. Woodelin. She is a divorced wom- an, deserted by her hsuband from whom she has since been divorced, left with three children, one boy and two girls, supporting them and herself by giving music les- sons, vocal and instrumental, doing very well indeed, boarding with her stepmother. She is likewise her aunt, having been married to her father's brother after her father's death, and who is also a divorced woman as well as a widow, twice divorced and once widowed. She owns that house they live in, but she was not at home then, having gone down-town to fetch some photographs taken of Mrs. Woodelin's children, the week before. She might return soon, and she might engage me to fix the rear garden." At this instant Mrs. Woodelin cried, "Why, here she is. Billie! Bill! Ella! William! Here is grandma," and she ran to the rear of the house, after the children, I supposed, leaving me to face a stout, somewhat under- sized and considerably overdressed lady with bright red hair, who came marching up to the house from the front 376 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS gate at the street-corner, stopping when near me as if for an explanation, which I gave, I am afraid, quite humbly, not feehng altogether sure of my lady's temper- My humility was effective. She became gracious and almost as talkative as her stepdaughter. She took me to the back part of the lot to show me the rear garden, which had been manured and partly planted with flowers and shrubs, and for the completion of which work she bar- gained with me for some time. Or, I can not call it bargaining, since I had nothing to say about it, and hardly could tell what it was all about, till I understood from her, that I had agreed to finish the rear garden for ten dollars and charge nothing for what I had done so far. I had not yet received all my instructions, when Mrs. Woodelin joined us with two children, a small frail and pale looking boy with a narrow head and a long neck and a still smaller and paler girl. An older girl was spoken of as being at school. The talk of the two ladies now became a sort of race, till they both at once recollected the photographs which the grandmother produced out of her handbag. It amused me that the little girl should know her picture to be hers immediately and without any prompting, where- as the boy, although certainly two years older than she, had not the least idea whom his photograph, that really was a good likeness, meant to represent. He looked at it long and suspiciously, and at last turning to his mother, said sternly, as if she certainly should know about this : "Mama, that boy has got my clothes on," frowning still more at my laughing loud. Upon the ladies now going indoors, I started my work, but was soon called in by the older lady, whose name is Mrs. Jackson, to join them at their lunch. A gentleman of half clerical looks was one of the party. I was not introduced to him. I fancied him to be a 277 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS preacher of some small congregation at a neighboring chapel of some religious denomination, probably a roomer in the house and possibly an admirer of Mrs. Woodelin, although at times he was as attentive to the other lady as to her. And indeed I thought the other as favorably disposed to marry again as the first- And for some rea- sons she might be preferable. She appears to be pos- sessed of more property than that house. She, too, viras the one to do the work and prepare the lunch, while Mrs. Woodelin was entertaining the clerical gentleman in the parlor and I was trying to get the children to talk to me in the second or dining parlor, where the table was set. The rolling doors between the two parlors were open. The clerical gentleman was reading to Mrs. Woodelin, something out of a book he had picked up from the center table. He was saying: ''Now this is very fine. 'Moonlight in the Mountains.' " And he read it with taste and expression. It described the awakening of the poet, Ic'te at night, or early in the morning and looking out on the wet, white roofs of the village between the dark trees and glistening rocks, with the full moon down, low in the west, reversing all the lights and shadows of the early night, making all the familiar things strange. "How very true!" commented the gentleman. "You have no doubt observed the like yourself ; or you can imagine it, if you have not noticed it on any clear morn- ing of the full moon." Mrs. Woodelin did not know that she had ever per- ceived anything of the kind, as she had never been in the mountains. "The moon in the west," explained he. "You know the full moon rises in the east. When she is in the west the lights and shadows of the early night, the even- ing you know, are reversed, and that makes everything appear unfamiliar." Mrs. Woodelin remarked ''that sometimes the moon 2y^ CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS was clear and sometimes not clear. But it might not be so in the mountains." The gentleman closed his eyes as though visions of brightness were dazzling him ; but he made another effort. "Have you never awakened, anywhere where you lived," he asked, 'Very early in the morning, before dawn, of course, when the full moon turns down westerly, and noticed how different everything looks compared to how it looked in the moonlight of the evening before? turned round like? because the light comes now from the other side; and unfamiliar, because we are so much more accustomed to the evening moonlight from this side." "No," replied the lady, "I always sleep very sound towards morning. And, you know, we used to live on the other side of the street." The gentleman had nothing more to say on this point, and I was rather astonished that he did not abstain from all further reading of poetry. He made a second trial, he read another few verses, giving a most excellent de- scription of rain in the country, or rather, a sudden summer shower in a village. And he read this better yet if anything than the first piece, making every point tell. "Is it not admirably given?" he asked. "Only that we have, of course no rain in summer in California," he added quickly, afraid, I suppose that Mrs. Woodelin would raise this objection. And he repeated the read- ing and wanted her to say that it was exquisitely done; but she hesitated, till she finally rejoined: "Well, you know I don't like rainy weather." But the great surprise of the day and many days was, after the petty lunch was over, what Mrs. Jackson called "our meal," the singing of Mrs. Woodelin. The clerical gentleman had asked her to sing. We remained seated 279 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS at the taBle while she went to the open piano in the front parlor. At the first note I forgot myself and all surroundings. A woman, not bright, not charming, in no way impres- sionable, without sensibility to a degree, with a poor presence, an awkwardness of manner, no trace of emotion! All this I would let pass, but that her voice should in speaking be, if not coarse, what is worse : ordinary, flat, expressionless, without any indication of any feeling wdiatever, and that yet she should have the power, as she sang one bar to move me so deeply! The sympathetic quality of her voice, her singing voice ; that is it. August. I worked the whole day at Mrs. Jackson's and finished my job this night. She expressed herself as more than pleased with my work and invited me to call. Were I more conceited I might think that even I as a suitor should not be unwelcome. All day long Mrs. Woodelin's singing has been in my ears, in my heart. Perhaps it was well she was out giv- ing lessons and 1 did not hear her sing again to increase the spell. And yet 1 wished for it all day- Certainly I have not heard singing of any appreciable kind for so long, this may well affect me. But I know of other times when such quality of voice aft'ected me the same way. That lady at Fountain Head, the boss's lady ! How many days w^as I not under the spell of her voice when I had heard her sing that day of my trip to Fountahi Head with Hants to visit the boss, my first visit! I think I can recall the impression to this day, this hour. The whole day. Something unreal clings to it, as there is about those days, occurring, I reckon, in every child's life and remem- bered as having been spent in something like fairyland. It w^as between the time of Salvador's leaving and the first rains. I know it had not rained any yet at the time 280 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS of that trip, although it was very late in the season. The first rain of the season must have fallen very shortly after- wards. It was on a Sunday. I had known that Hants was going to see the Boss. He had lately been going to see him quite regularly Sundays. But it was only on the day before, while clipping my hair, that France told me that I was to go along. It was a terrible strain to have to sit still after this till the hair clipping was done and I could get away and jump with the gladness in me and run to where Hants was mending and tiring some wheels at the forge shed. "Well, brother Dick," he called, "what is tickling you so wonderfully this evening?" "I am going to Fountain Head with you to-morrow." "You are?" And who says so?" "Mr. France told me" "He did ? And what does he know about it ?" "You told him." "I did. How do you know ?" "Mr. France said so." "Oh, it is all Mr. France, is it? He told and he said. Suppose now I say no?" That was his way of fooling. I shook my head. He was smiling to himself. "And is that what makes you glad to dance ?" he exclaimed. "I am glad to go with you," I answered, which was very true. But I could not tell him, for I do not think I knew enough myself to but suspect all the reasons of the glad anticipations of this trip alive in my mind. Not alone the outing on horseback with him who was always such good company, bright, good-humored and merry, but also the seeing of strange parts. And our Boss! Our great man of all that part of the country, and his beautiful place, I always heard my men talk so much about. Per- haps the best of all, the wearing of my knee breeches and 281 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS sweater, which so far I had only put on and admired my- self in, a few times in secret ! I was up next morning long before the sun, and done with all the morning's work. I believe I had slept but little that night. It was a warm, dewless morning, and it would be a warm day- When the smell of the laurels came up the gulch so strong, the day was sure to be warm. I had the horses cleaned and saddled much earlier than necessary, and when I had bathed and washed and dressed myself and appeared before France for inspection at the breakfast table, I was duly reprimanded for my impati- ence and vanity. I had myself almost blushed to think I looked so fine. The sweater was in broad, even bands of gray and red-brown, just suiting the peculiar gray of the knee breeches and the gray of the hat with its black, silk ribband. To be sure, I had to wear my boots, as I had no stockings, although it was the proper thing to wear high shoes and long stockings with knee breeches, like boys in the city. And all the clothes fitted a little tight for a fact. And the breeches were not only tight but short as well, exposing my knees and leaving between the hem of the breeches and the tops of the boots quite a width of bare skin visible. France, indeed, for a minute or two, consid- ered if it would not be better for me to wear overalls, and the suspense while it lasted was nearly unbearable. To wear overalls, when even the best ones were washed out and discolored, never mind how much I scrubbed them, would, I felt, take away half my pleasure. But I was allowed to go dressed as I was, with no alteration, except the turning down of the neckband of my sweater, and with only a double amount of admonitions as to re- spectful behavior, proper manners, attention and obedi- ence. "The old woman is mighty particular this morning," said Hants as soon as we were out of earshot. "Now, I will tell you what I think you should do. But don't you 282 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS do it if you don't want to. For you have as good a right to suit yourself as anybody. Take off your jersey and ride in your undershirt. When we get to Fountain Head take off your undershirt and put on your jersey or sweater, as you call it. Then you won't be so warm and you won't get so wet and dirty. For you may think a sweater very pretty, but it is a beast of a thing to catch dust and hold it- Wait till I help you. Now, wrap the sweater well in the cantle leather. Tie it well." He was in great spirits. He had dressed with a good deal more care than he usually did. He generally did when he went to Fountain Head. He looked very well, in spite of the red of the sunburn on his face and neck. He plucked a sprig of green from a bush and stuck it in his hatband and gave me one to do the same, and he set out to sing, which he would constantly attempt with no voice and no ear for music at all, always ending in calling on me to sing for him. So now he told me to sing a little Ger- man country song, which France had sort of translated and made up in Spanish to suit the tune, and had made me learn the words and the air of only a few days ago, a beautiful little melody. That was what Hants liked. For he was fond of music, if without any sense of it. He would try to sing along with me, gently swaying his head and uttering uncertain sounds till they went beyond him altogether, and he laughed and gave it up, and commenced again. "Was not the morning beautiful," he said. "The trouble was in California the weather was too fine, fine all the time." And how plainly do I remember the sensation of that morning! The gentle westerly breeze of summer, tliat would spring up daily in the forenoon and last till sundown, had ceased to blow for weeks now, everything was standing motionless under the hazy sky, silently awaiting the rain. And this day a softer touch was in the 283 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS air and the mountains looked clearer and nearer : '*a sure sign that it was going to rain," Hants said. We had gone on the road down the hill alongside our gulch where the road went on to Fairlies. I had always had the idea that to get to Fountain Head we should have to keep to this road to Fairlies at least part of the way, if not all, and turn up into the farther hills. But at the hop-yard Hants had taken the trail leading past the bean-field to the narrow accommodation gate in the fence not far from the thicket, where I had been lying hiding when Hants picked me up- And when we had got through this gate we had turned up the road where I had that time seen the buggy come down with that strange man in it and his companion, and go by me. It was always most remarkable how quick Hants was of perception and discernment. I was not in the least con- scious that I hesitated, hung back, or gave any sign of uneasiness, trepidation, or that there was any change whatever in my deportment, only in my thoughts and feeling. Yet it must have been, for as soon as we were through the gate and turning to the right he called : "What is wrong?" I said I had never gone up this road before. "Well," he returned, "who said you had? What is wrong with it ?" "I had not known that this road was the road to Foun- tain Head," I answered. He deliberated quite a few minutes, eyeing me as he would eye people when he wanted to find out something of them. Then he started in to tell me with a great deal of minuteness that "this road was a new road, built some years ago by the Boss from Fountain Head down to the big valley, to connect with the road coming up from the river, from the steamboat landing in the river. Before this new road had been built, the way to get from Foun- tain Head to the river had been a very roundabout one, 284 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS going from Fountain Head first northerly through the heavy woods and canyons of the upper foothills, then by some old, now deserted mining ground over a big broad- backed mountain, called the Elephant's Rump, or short, the Rump, turning southerly, going along the hillsides down to the point v/here the road from the river landing struck the hills. And that point was the same point where the new road, the road we were on, went down to and met the river road." "Don't you know that point?" questioned he. "Did you never go round that way with Salvador ?" I told him "No, but Salvador had told me where the road turned off, going to the river through the big val- ley ; there was a bluff there with some oaks." "That is the spot," he exclaimed. "That is the place where the three roads meet. There is a spring there and a place to water horses. The old mountain road is no more in use now, except for cordwood teaming. Some Qiinese and Japanese woodchoppers' camps are in the woods near the abandoned mines below the Rump. And from there the wood is hauled to the river landing for the steamers. But the old North road is not in bad condition at all- And, if you like, some Sunday when we have more time, I will take you over that road. We can go right round from where we are, down to the watering spring, up on the hills, over the Rump, by the old mines and the woodchoppers' camps, through the woods to Fountain Head and to this, the point of beginning, clean round. That would be a nice, long ride. And we can stop at one of the woodchopper's camps, so that you can see what that is like. You might have to work in the timber one of these days. But I forgot, you don't like Chinese and Japanese, do you? You did not go near those that were picking our beans and hops, did you? You don't like them, do you?" He gave his head a wag and laughed, keeping his eyes 28s CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS fixed on mine. He laughed again and again, till, being on that fateful road and knowing him to be suspecting some- thing of what was going on in me, he had me feeling pretty uncomfortable; that being just what he wanted, I knew very well. The way then to do was not to let on. So by not avoid- ing the subject and feigning indifference, asking casually about timber, cordwood and other things, I soon had put other ideas in his head. Not that you always could tell, if you had succeeded. For he might be talking and jok- ing and drawing you out all the time without your know- ing it. Only when you had got him to talk of himself you could be rather sure that you had turned his observa- tion and mind from you. He liked it so much that gener- ally it was easy to get him started, and after he was well started it was not necessary to do anything but listen. Very soon now I had him talking of his life's adven- tures, many of which I certainly had heard him tell before, but which I always with no feigned interest heard him tell again. For he told them very well. I could just see him in my mind, exactly as he was, in all his undertakings and experiences. He told stories too and adventures of others very well. And he could give advice, if he wanted to, good advice, practical : how to do and how not to do to get in with people, get work, make a living, get on, lay by and employ money. He had his grievances, too. And this day was the first occasion he took to relate to me in detail the abusive treat- ment from an older brother and sister, he had when a boy been subjected to. And with such bitterness did he re- count it, he seemed almost transformed for me into an- other man for the moment. He felt that himself, I fan- cied, for he charged me to stop him when he would speak of this. ''Stop me," he cried. "Tell me I must stop. It only hurts myself. It does not hurt them. It is the injustice 286 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS that galls ; it turns all my blood to bile when I think of it. If I kept on talking and thinking of it all the time it would kill me. And I won't die. Not yet ! I am going to get even with them first, some day. They ill-treated me till they had all feeling knocked out of me ; and when they found they could not make me any unhappier, they shipped me off to sea with a captain they knew to be a brutal beast of a tyrant, for him to do it. Only he could not- Unhappy! Was it not happiness to be away from them r I felt very sorry for him : but he certainly was not unhappy. He might have been, I think, in spite of his great, good spirits, if his nature had not been lacking in tenderness. When I think of him now and try to make him out, with a feeling for him, almost as warm as the one with which I regard Mahon I can not recollect one single in- stance of his showing anything that could be called tenderness or fondness. He wanted to see all animals well treated, yet he had no real feeling for them. It was a sort of principle with him. So, too, I certainly had to work hard, and my willingness made me liable to be overworked. He always watched and looked out that I was not taxed beyond my strength and ability ; and so he would see me well fed, sufficiently clothed, given all possible freedom and in no way imposed upon. But I never felt myself personally liked by him, v/ith the sole exception of the instance of this day of this trip. I did not believe, if I should, say, die or be lost that he would be sorry, real sorry, any more than he ever showed compassion when anybody hurt himself. Sympathy, I take it, was the right word of what he was deficient in. Everything seemed with him to be a matter of understanding only, not of feeling. And as to me it appears that in order to understand a feeling we must feel it, I should say that while he declared that 287 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANVS all feeling had been knocked out of him, when a boy, it was the other way; all feeling he possessed had been knocked into him, and whatever considerations for other? he now showed was the result of the treatment he had experienced in boyhood after his father's death. His mother had been French-Canadian, his father a Pennsylvanian, of German descent, what is commonly called a Pennsylvanian Dutchman, a rancher or farmer, a man of education and standing, but not of great means. Hants had obtained a good education and had lived a happy homelife up to the time his father and mother had died in quick succession. Then his twice as old half- brother and half-sister had soon made life at home un- bearable to him and finally had driven him to go to sea. On his first voyage from Philadelphia to Liverpool, he had been cast away on the Irish coats and badly hurt in the wreck, but taken care of and nursed back to health in a poor Irish family. And that always made him praise the Irish people. Indeed he had in that time acquired some of their way of talking as well as of their manner, so that he was often taken for an Irishman, which never failed to please him. On his recovery he had shipped and gone to Australia in an English ship as ordinary seaman, getting good wages. But he had never liked the sea, and so he had left the vessel in Australia, staying ashore there for all of two years, working at anything he could get to do along shore, at squatter stations, in mines, too. He always regretted he had not remained in Australia, which he called "the country of freehandedness and sport." Once he had got in with sporting people altogether and had taken up professional boxing. But after that he had come to California where he had remained ever since and where he had tried almost everything he could lay his hands to, to get ahead, mostly farming and mining. Somewhere he had fallen in with France, an old Ger- 288 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS man school master of finished training as of good breed- ing, honesty and purity of mind, who had for some rea- son left his native country and come his way to these parts of the world. They had worked together and been partners in mining claims, till having no luck and no luck, they had made up their minds to give up min- ing for good and try farming for themselves, on shares. And they were now so trying it. He did not know what would come of it. "He always had the conviction," Hants concluded, ''that he was going to become rich yet; one way or an- other. Then he would go home." The sister sometimes wrote to him; once or twice a year. I think she wrote for money. And I believe he sent her some money whenever she wrote for it. The brother was not a good manager. The family place or farm, somewhere in Southern Pennsylvania was so heavily mortgaged they would have to give it up before long, leaving them penniless. "Yes!" cried Hants, "I shall go back with money, plenty of money. And I shall buy the mortgages. That will take but a small part of my money. And when all is mine, I shall invite my brother and sister to come and stay there. And I shall tell them, 'When I was a young boy you ill-treated me : you took away my rights, you took away every better feeling, all faith, all sense of justice, everything; and then you cast me out; now I give you this place of mine to be yours, free of all encumbrance, for you to live here to enjoy yourselves at your ease and comfort all your lives in return for what you did to me. Not because I love you, but because I hate you and despise you, and of knowing that if you were not the things you are, you would starve rather than receive sustenance at my hands ! And when I have told them that I shall go away, never to see them again. For if I stay there it will only be of ill consequence to 289 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS myself. I like to be a little mean, just mean enough, but not enough to make it react on myself and spoil what I am." We had gone, keeping the horses at a walk, slowly all the while up-hill, taking some trails by the side of the wagon-road, that were not dusty. We had come to a higher, narrow ridge, along which the road ran straight and nearly level. From the ridge-road the hill-side fell to the outside abruptly down to where in the depth was the green of a creek. The opposite hills were low and flattish ; over them the valley spread out, extend- ing to the mountains, the farthest peaks showing above the level as above the horizon of the ocean. At the ending of the level ridge the road turned round a stony butte into a sort of pass, where we could see behind us our open country of the rounding hills, with beyond the great inland valley of California, and ahead of us at once another country of deep defiles and gulches, divided by ridges with rocky breaks and spurs and cliffs gradually rising to greater heights, all grown with trees and bushes and fields of bright, green chaparral ; above the crowding pines, the peaks and crests of mountains. Some of the peaks I thought I had seen before. But I could not tell. I hardly knew what I saw. It was all different. But yet I knew this was the country I had seen from the other, the upper end, from the top of the broad-backed mountain I had been on in the buggy. Somewhere below here between all these ridges and rocky hill-chains before us must be the canyon I had come down. We were riding fast now to keep ahead of the dust of the road which was dug off the hillside to a good width and an easy grade, gently rising, winding in and out along the slope, meeting all the little dry ravines and gulches and stony twistings of the ground. At one place where it almost doubled on itself a spring came down the ravine and there all was rank vegetation under 290 CHRONICLES OP MAXUEL ALANUS the crowded trees. I smelled tlie pines in the heat. And suddenly I heard the hammering of the woodpecker and the cooing of the dove and for the first time again the noise of the surf in the tops of the pines. We passed many more springs. Hants explained to me that it was on account of the many springs that the place was called Fountain Head. This whole section of the slope, he said, was full of live springs, and the Boss was using many of them for irrigating. "Now we ought to be able to see Fountain Head," he- exclaimed. ''Yes, there it is," pointing to a thick clump of green under a knob on the mountainside, grown with tall timber in a bunch. It was rather farther away than I had expected. But much farther away, above it, bulg- ing out over the distant trees, sharply visible against the sky lay the broad-backed mountain I knew so well. "Yes! That is the Rump." cried Hants. "You are looking right at it. And those two yellow streaks this side are stretches of the old North road. It is not very far." Presently we came to clearings changing again totally the looks of the country. There were orchards, vine- yards, fields, plantations, all well kept. The roads were lined with young walnut and chestnut trees. Fenced off yards began to show themselves and buildings : barns. Chinese huts, sheds and stables. No people were mov- ing about, it being Sunday : I suppose they were all in their rooms. A lot of dogs came rushing at us as we entered the large, general farm-yard, but they gave over their bark- ing and became quite social when a man came from the upper end of the yard and spoke to them. He addressed Hants, as we were getting ofiF our horses and looked rather hard at me. He was one of the foremen of the place I afterwards learned. T had felt sure that he coulcl not be the Boss. He went away again shortly. 291 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS In the farm-yard stood a few trees. Some of the smaller trees had been sawed off and the stumps left standing to serve for hitching posts or some such pur- pose. Different out-buildings stood on both sides of the yard. At the upper end was a long, one-story, frame house with windows and battened doors, which I took to be the dining and sleeping place of the white help. I saw some people there. It looked as if they were at dinner. Back of this building rose the hillside with the round knob we had seen from the road. Two little streams of water came from there and dropped into a little stone pond in front of the house at the upper end. The lower end of the yard, where we were, was closed across by a high, smooth-clipped, dense hedge of cedar and cypress with two solid gates in it, like doors. Be- hind this hedge was the big garden or park with the dwelling house where the Boss lived, Hants told me. He had helped me to change my clothes and pull my sweater on. He told me to unsaddle the horses, put them in the corral and follow him. He was going in to the Boss. Opposite the big gate by which we had entered the yard from the road was another big gate and close to it a corral, where I put the horses. I hung around there a little to take a look at things, outside this other gate. It opened on a road and I judged that that was the old North road which Hants had spoken of. It did not look so very unused. Quite the contrary! A large orange orchard bordered one side of it. A branch-road led through other plantations downhill, turning to the right. I could follow it where in the lower parts it formed the border of what seemed to me must be the bottom of the park or garden of the Boss. Fine trees stood there. Behind them I saw the branch-road again, turning more to the right on rising ground. And I thought it must form a regular bight or loop round the 292 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS park and connect back with the Five Oaks road we had come on; so that one could get away that way. We had passed when we came, several gates and side roads ; one of them might be this branch-road. I went to follow Hants through the gate in the hedge, he had gone in at, when as I opened it from the outside, he opened it from the inside, coming for me. "What keeps you?" he called. And at that moment I heard a voice that I had heard before; a peculiar high-pitched voice and a squealy, squeaky laugh, the voice and the laugh of the man that rode in the buggy with the strange man when they passed me where I lay in the bush by the road-side. 'What is the matter?" asked Hants, stepping out to me, shutting the door after him. "What ails you?" I don't know that I did anything but just stand still. He took my hand and held it close in his, clasping my wrist with the other. He claimed he could, not always, but very often tell what were a person's thoughts, if he had hold of a person's hand that way. "Now, by God," he said, "I can not make this out. But I tell you, you are mistaken. The Boss is. not the man. He can not be the man. And he does not know you at all. I have told him nothing about you. Yes, I told him, time ago, that I had gotten you at a ranchery in the mountains from your folks. I did not want to tell him the truth. By God, if I had known this. I should have never brought you here to this fix. But it is too late now. He wanted to see you, and I told him I had brought you. He knows you are here. He wants ^o see you. You will have to brace up and face it. Face it, God damn it, face it whatever it is! It can not be so bad. Nobody is there but the Boss and his lady. They would not let anybody hurt you any more than I would. And you are wrong, I tell you, dead wrong about him. Hold on now! I won't urge 293 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS you by another word. Make your fight your own way and I will help you all I can ! Do what you want to do ! I will stand by you. If you have got reasons why you don't want to go in here, don't do it! I don't know what you have done. If you want to go home, get on your horse and go! I will make it all right. I will make it straight. And I won't give you away neither. Nobody shall suspect anything, or think any the less of you, too. But if you can, if you can do it, if you can, face it now ! Then it will be over ; and, do you mind ? You will have to face it some time." I knew only too well that I should have to face it some time. He let go my hand. He opened the door. T walked ahead. I heard the door shut behind me. The light of day turned sickish yellow ; a sort of humming was in my ears. I felt the pain between my eyes I had felt that time on the mountain-bridge, when the man leveled his gun at me. I was standing at the foot of a broad flight of steps, leading up to a large veranda. At the top, on the ve- randa stood a man talking. He was certainly the man T had seen riding with that strange man in the buggy ; black- bearded, square-shouldered, talking in a high-pitched voice, laughing with a squeal ; only I should have thought, he must be larger, taller. He was quite short. He was the Boss. I could not say what it was, I suppose it was that the climax had been reached and passed, but as soon as I actually saw and stood before the man, I felt an almost instantaneous relief. The light grew whiter, I smelled the odors of many flowers, I heard the splashing of water ; flowering shrubs stood all around ; creepers with beautiful blossoms were growing all over the veranda and covering the whole front of the house. Hants was standing to one side on the steps, half-wav 294 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS up between the Boss and me. He was steadily looking at me. The Boss wanted to know my name. Hants said they w-ere calling me Dickie. "Oh," squeaked the Boss, 'that is a bird's name. I have a canary called Dickie." And he called ''Dickie! Dickie!" standing on one foot holding up his hands flat and flapping them, making a noise with his lips and tongue, half whispering, half whistling. Then he wanted to know, why I did not come up the steps; was I afraid? "No," answered Hants; "afraid I was not, but perhaps I did not come up on the veranda because I had not been asked to." On this the Boss seemed to be a little struck and for a moment silenced, when he quickly called to me about half a dozen times to come up, and ran down the steps to take my hand and lead me up to the veranda, as if I had been a little child. Hants repeated, that I was not afraid ; he would say it to my face ; I was spunky enough ; only at times I was nervous. "Nonsense," crowed the Boss, "who had ever heard of a boy like me being nervous." And he ran his finger in my side to tickle me, crying "where was I nervous, here, or there, or there?" then acting as though he had burnt his finger, shaking it and blowing on it, and again poking it in my side, squeaking to see me twitch and screeching "Afraid! Afraid!" I had more than once heard Hants in speaking about the Boss say that he always wanted to act the clown. I had not understood that before, but now I thought I did. I looked at Hants, who lifted his left shoulder at me for an answer and winked his eye. "Yes!" reiterated Hants to the Boss, "I was nervous. He would not know what else to call it. And also I would see ghosts sometimes nights, in my sleep." 295 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS This, now, was one of those instances of covert ob- servation with which Hants not seldom, casually, greatly surprised me. At that moment it did not so much affect me, nor perhaps strike me as so very strange, occupied as I was with the present. But how came he to know this? He must have been watching me in my sleep. The Boss inquired what other bad points there were about me, and Hants told him that one very bad point about me was that I never would cry out when I was being hurt, or in danger, or any fix. In that way I was a regular Indian, The Boss immediately gave a war-whoop and stamped his feet to imitate an Indian war-dance. "What more," he demanded. Well, went on Hants, I could do some tricks, throw handsprings, walk on my hands and for a small kid could use my fists pretty well, which he, too, was teach- ing me himself a little, now and then, having put up a bag for me to punch. And he told me to put up my hands ; and as the Boss in his meant-to-be funny manner squared off against me, bending down, hopping from one foot to the other. Hants made signs for me to give the Boss a good punch on the nose. But that of course I would not do, nor anything like it. The next thing I had to do was to go through my gymnastics. Being out of practice I did not succeed very well in that, till I recollected a trick I used to know, which the boys on the old wharf used to call making a crab, or walking like a crab. It was to lay yourself down flat on the back, with arms extended up, straight like the legs, and then to raise the body off the ground on hands and feet, arching over fully and walk- ing that way, sideways or fore and aft, jumping up with throwing a somersault onto your feet. I had to pull off my boots to do this, but I did it all 296 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS right and I was glad I did on account of Hants. It was like regaining my reputation. Getting up and turning round, I found a lady standing behind me. She must be the lady Hants had mentioned. She was darker than I. The darkness of the skin on her arms and breast showed through the thin stuff of her gown of pale blue. Her hair, black and glossy, was parted in the center quite plainly and hung down her back in two long, thick braids with bows of pale, blue satin at the ends. At her wrists she had small rosettes of the same pale, blue satin, and a large rosette of the stuff of her gown was fastened under her left ear to a pale, blue, satin ribband round her throat, and in the middle of the rosette stuck a dark, red rose. The pallor which the pale blue of her dress gave her was very be- coming to her, and the dark red rose just finished every- thing. As she stood against the dusky background of the matted, creeping plants enclosing the veranda, she was a picture which in me has never been effaced, al- though I can not say that I remember her features or countenance, only her mouth. It was rather large, with fine teeth and full lips. They were all speaking Spanish now, which I found Hants spoke tolerably well. At Five Oaks, in opposition I dare say to old France, he spoke only English. That is once in a while he and France conversed in Ger- man, when they had something to say to each other they did not want me to understand. I knew Hants could speak French too, and I had thought that he must know some Spanish. The lady appeared very glad to see him. I noticed a great many glances and smiles pass between them. The Boss had taken her by the elbows behind, and turned her towards me. He wanted to romp with her. He said he would teach her to walk like a crab, push- ing her round, making believe he wanted her to lay her- 297 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS self down on her back, telling her how to do it. And he threw himself down, as though he had fallen in throw- ing a handspring. She was a little vexed at this silly business, I could see. The Boss had torn her sleeve, too. To me she was very kind. When Hants and the Boss wanted to have me go through my gymnastics again, she forbade it, saying I was heated enough, putting the palms of her cool hands to the sides of my face, lightly pressing my cheeks, which I liked very much. The Boss had gone to dress for dinner. Hants had told me to go and sit on the veranda steps and look at the pictures in a picture book he had fetched out from a room opening on the veranda. He and the lady had gone away together along the veranda round the corner of the house. I looked at the pictures, but a little foun- tain, playing in a little, round pond right in front of the veranda steps drew more of my attention. It was very pretty. It made such a pretty, splashing sound. I had never seen anything like it. I knew though that water out of a pipe would squirt up quite high. In the pond were little fishes with golden-reddish scales. I had heard of such fishes. How natural it was to see fishes. But these were not for fishing. The sun was very warm. There was no breeze. Bees were humming everywhere ; flies were buzzing and butterflies were tacking about ; many hummingbirds went whirring by ; dragonflies and moths came drifting over the plants. The ground was close-set with flowers and shrubs were standing so crowded, I could not tell them apart : and so high, I could look over only the nearest ones. To one side it was a little more open, where a walk came up from lower parts. After a long time the Boss came back, and he was so nicely dressed I could not take my eyes off him. He had on yellow shoes and pale blue socks with brown dots. And so was his shirt pale blue with brown dots. His 298 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS pants and coat were of white flannel with a yellow scarf. He too, wore a dark red rose and him, too, it became very well, stuck in the buttonhole of his coat. As I was looking him all over Hants came on the veranda round the house-corner. He laughed out loud and shouted : "Tliat is right. Stand still and let the boy take you all in. Now he is happy. That is what he likes. Fine clothes." And till he had spoken I never knew that that was very true. A Chinaman, all in white, came and told us that dinner was ready. I had hurriedly to go with Hants to wash my hands and fix up, in the bathroom, which was a very fine room with lots of polished things in it. And ad- joining it was a bedroom which was finer still with a beautiful large bed and windows with red curtains down to the floor, opening on to the veranda w^here it came round the corner of the house. But there were so many fine things in the house I could not begin to see them all. In the dining room we sat at a round table, and the Chinaman was handing round the things. I remember how the Boss put his fork in his soup, telling me to do the same, because that was the proper way to eat soup. After dinner a good deal more took place. I had to read out of some books, Spanish and English, which latter, Hants interposed, he had made me pick up. He wanted to show off with me, I knew. I took great pains to make no mistakes, and when I was done the Boss said I should keep the one book, which was the picture-book T had looked at before. I thought he meant for me to keep the book to look at the pictures till we went away, and I liked it because the pictures were very beautiful, and some were funny. But presently the Boss called me to let the book be and come with him through the grounds. Hants had told him. I suppose, that T knew something of gardening. Probably Hants had before 299 CHROXICLES OF MAMUIiL ALAXUS this talked and told about me, even if nothing more than that. The situation of the place was very fine. The ground went in slopes and terraces to the bottom, where the narrow road I had seen branching off the north road came turning back through orchards and formed the border of the park, rising again to the south along a hedgerow. At the bottom the Boss had staked out work enough to occupy several men several years. And here he very soon had me working, working a long time while he was standing over me, acting quite rational and sen- sible now, dropping back only now and then into his way of wanting to be funny. We were yet at it when Hants appeared, walking along the branch-road from the south, where he had been looking for us in the fields for over an hour, he asserted. In his blunt v/ay he exclaimed : "Well Dick, you are having a fine holiday to-day, are you not? Nothing but pleasure and amusement all day." It made the Boss turn, red and stop my work, adding he would like to have me work for him every day, if my men would let me come. "No," cried Hants, "that will never do. You will work him too hard, he is too willing for }'ou to boss. But he can speak for himself. Dick! Do you want to change ?" It made me smile. I did not say anything because I thought the Boss really felt a little bad about Hants' implied reproofs. He kept making excuses for having set me to work. So to make him feel a little different I asked him to let me have two or three young rose- plants, which had been discarded as of too poor a quality. France, one day not long ago, had said he wished we had some roses for our flower-boxes. For we had none. But I did not tell the Boss this. He was so awfully 300 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS pleased at my request, he did not know, it seemed, what at all to do. He insisted the discarded plants were too poor. He took me to the plant-house where he put some fine roses in pots up for me in a bundle to secure behind my saddle. I liked him very much now. It appeared to have gone out of my head for the time that he was that companion, in that buggy, of that other man. And now going back to the house, I heard music. At first I could hardly think what it was, it enchanted me so. Only some chords on a guitar. The lady of the Boss was sitting on the veranda, the guitar in her arms. And now she sang. It sounded in me, I did not know what moved me. I had no thought. It gave a pain and was so sweet. Her voice was not altogether clear, but that made it sound the more of sorrow ; like telling of some void in the heart. Forever! Afterwards the lady called me to her. Hants had told her of the song France had taught me, and I had to sing it to her accompaniment. When I was through, they all applauded. She wanted to show me how to accompany myself. She was sitting on a large chair. I stood in front of her. She turned me round, put the guitar in my arms and her arms round mine from be- hind, placing my hands and fingers, first showing me how to press and pick the strings to the chords, and then letting me try my hand alone, keeping her arms so that I felt them around me, and the touch of her warm bosom. She said she thought I must have played the guitar be- fore. On Hants mentioning that France, who was very musical and could play several different instruments had a guitar, perfectly sound, but no strings, she instantly sent the Boss in to the house to fetch some strings she had to spare and gave them to me to give to France for his guitar, charging me to tell him that he must teach me all the music he knew. 301 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Presently the Boss had gotten hold of the guitar and was giving us a great performance, thrumming and hitting the instrument so hard I thought he would surely break it; striking nothing but discords, doing all kinds of skippings, striking attitudes, bowings and scrapings, squeaking and screeching. I was glad when the China- man came and said supper was ready and the Boss had to stop. Hants was for leaving without supper, as we had a long ride before us, with the day all but done. But that would not satisfy the Boss. We had to come in and sit down to supper. And then he claimed to be very dis- contented at our eating no more than we did, especially I. Though I am sure I ate a great deal, considering that we had dined so late, I being in a way always ready to eat. At the end then he urged me to say if there was anything I should like to take along of the eatables on the table, and I asked to be allowed to take some cookies and pieces of candy I had left on my plate, when the Boss immediately wanted to give me all there was of that in the house. I had quite a package as it was, including the picture book, which I now found was to be mine altogether, all well fastened behind my saddle. To France's instructions I thanked the Boss and his lady for their kind entertainment and the presents. I think I should have done that in any case of my own self. They were most kind and told me I must come again soon. I did come to Fountain Head again, but not soon, not for a year. And I never saw the lady again. So it was now good-day and good-by. Soon we were past the farm-yards and orchards and clearings. The wooded mountain-side was growing dusky. Insects were making a noise. A couple of bats kept ahead of us, flap- ping fore and back. Tree frogs were singing. Near the springs the mosquitoes were swarming. In the sky, 302 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS opposite to where the sun had gone down, a pinkish flush was dying out, and in it shone the first faint sparkle of a star. At first we had spoken a little. Hants had asked: "Those things you got, you are going to give to the old man?" I had not intended before to give the picture- book to France, but since Hants seemed to presume that I should, I supposed it was no more than right for me to do so and I said, yes. ''Yes, he has a sweet tooth," Hants continued, "but how did you find that out?" "You told me." "I? Never! When?" "Just now." "Oh, you are getting smart," he cried. "That is what she said. She said you were smart and I must look out for you. But she liked you. She told me she liked you." "She likes you," I exclaimed with emphasis. He laughed, quite tickled. But when he asked, how did I know, I did not want to tell how I had observed her looking at him, and what more I had noticed, and was silent. He asked once again, how did I know, but then he said : "No, that is right, keep your mouth shut. I mean It," he repeated after a moment's consideration, lapsing into silence himself. And it was a silent ride nearly all the rest of the way back. Certainly I do not suppose I meditated on the occur- rences of the day, nor speculated on their effects. But so young was I and so little, so ignorant or not under- standing and inexperienced, however vague at best and always unconsciously borne, there must have been thought, consideration, calculation even, stirred up by the day's events to occupy my mind. I now knew the Boss to be an acquaintance, a friend 303 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS of that strange man. I knew him enough to know that he would never wittingly do anything to harm me ; but I also knew now that the odds of my meeting that strange man were much greater, the danger of my falling into his hands much more imminent, our range much closer than I had estimated, and that I must more than ever be on my guard and keep my wits about me. Night soon had fully come, the stars glowing big and small as seen near and far in the purplish hollow, and all things were hushed. At one point the light of Five Oaks came in sight, the one single light in all the country round; so sud- denly, and then so quickly gone again. It made me sing out: "There!" Hants had seen it, or saw it at the same moment. "Yes," he said, "there it is. Home again! And are you glad to get back?" I was glad. How friendly that little light had shone! And I had those few things for old France and knew he would like to get them. And I would see the animals again. I could hear the dogs now barking. And I was glad of other things I could not have told about. This day had shown me that I had a friend in Hants. He never had been unfriendly to me, as he was always good- spirited and good-humored. Only I always at bottom felt that he cared no more for me than for anybody. He liked to make me feel badly as much as he liked to mor- tify everybody. If he in general took my part at home, he did it more to oppose old France and aggravate the wounding of his feelings. Now to-day he had made me feel as if he did truly have some heart for me, and it made me feel grateful, so that I could even transfer to him some of my al- legiance to Mahon who hereafter for many months in my thinking-out of stories not seldom changed places with him. As I indeed have often thought, there was 304 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS some similarity in their manner of conduct, especially sometimes in their way of speaking. And I was no less glad I had come to know the Boss. I was very glad I had ''faced it," as Hants had told me to do. And how right had he been! It was over now, and I was posted. I liked the Boss. He was a good man. The lady I liked as w^ell ; but it was different. I could fancy I could feel her hands on my cheeks yet, smooth and soft, and the swelling warmth of her bosom. And her voice! Something of it seemed to be in the night that was so beautiful, around me, strange, drawing me away, un- known, over to the sea, to a place where I was all alone. The surf sounded. From out the gloom on the water something came to look at me. Two beautiful, sad, blind eyes ! I had long since learned that I could keep off my nightmare by giving myself up to my homesick long- ings, calling up my father's tenderest embrace and all that was most dear to me in memory to shield me. As though I could give my fond craving such complete pos- session of my breast that nothing else could gain a hold. Generally too, I could tell beforehand if my nightmare would be coming of a night. And often have I fought it, and conquered, too. But this night I fought in vain. The dizziness, the fire, the horrible shapes, the pursuit! It w^ent on the whole night. France the next day complained of my dulness and blamed it on my having too good a time the day before. August. So far as getting work goes and pay, this has been the worst day I have experienced. I have earned only one-quarter of a dollar for watering and trimming a large lawn of a large private residence early this morning. At the place was a regular gardner. but he was too lazy or too grand to do it himself. The stable-boy whose 305 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS business apparently it was, having left or been sent away, the gardener gave me the job when I appHed to him for work. I took him to be the owner of the property as I saw him at the front gate in the bronze fence, he looked such an exquisite, wearing the most stylish clothes. The owner, a Mr. Stillborn, who shortly after I had come, left the house to go to his business, was a reserved little man, indifferently dressed, who when the gardener told him he had set me to work and I was to receive twenty- five cents, listened almost deferentially, put his hand in his pocket and handed me from his purse a dime and three nickles, bidding me, ''Good morning, Sir!" as he walked away. Later the lady of the house came out into the grounds. She must be older than her husband, whom she somewhat resembles. But only outwardly. She spoke and acted with great bossiness. She is quite rude and without know^- ing it. 1 meaa she is naturally that way, unconsciously, not intentionally. She don't want to insult, to hurt any- body's feelings, but she has no judgment. When she heard that her husband had paid me, she called him a "ninny." When I laid down the garden hose with the sprinkler for a moment to root out some weed in the grass, .she cried: "That is right, leave your work ! Throw down the hose, let everything go, you have got your money in your pocket." And when I was through with my work and started to take the hose to a little hose cart standing near the rear gate of the yard, to coil it up, she shouted: "Where are you going? There is nothing for you to get there. And," she added, as I moved to go away and tipped my hat to her, "you need not come back, thinking you are going to be an institution here. W'e have got all the loafers we want about the place." Tliere was that about her that one could look at her roughness, so to call it, as merely her way. But I must have looked rather conscious, I believe, for I had been 306 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS thinking I might come back and try and work myself into a pretty good job. After that I walked and walked. I must have asked for work at five or six dozen places. What hard work to hunt for work, hardest of all work. If it was not for that exuberance of spirits which carried me through the first days, and for my falling in with Mr. and Mrs. De Lang, I don't know what I should have done, or be doing now. Ullard had a saying: If it were not for sickness and old age, those people would be best off who would earn each day no more than what would support each day. There would be no residue of money to hoard, no property to worry over and to pay taxes on, to feed the army of tax eaters, and I used to think this wondrously wise. Now, I think it is just one of those double-eyed sayings that he made use of so many. Best off? I could imagine such best-off people only as people in the quite later days of life, when the desires are all cooled and the springs of the heart dried up ; when habit has taken the place of all impulses and hope has turned to what? Indifference? Insenation ? and nothing remains but the daily run of routine work to fill out the vacuum of life. If I at this time, now, had to give up hoping, wishing for something, could I live? And how could I ever find my brother, except by merest accident, unless I had saved money, some money? At least to get the first little sum, with which to make a beginning at some trading or busi- ness or something to make more, enough to start search- ing for him ! August. Yesterday morning, passing by Mrs. Joe's place, the door being open, I looked in and was called in by her and told "to go ahead and fix up the little front yard," her husband having told her to give me the job should she see me. 307 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "You will have to do two dollars' worth of work and no more," she said. ''Joe left only two dollars for you." I replied I supposed it would do. ''x\ll right," she rejoined, "I will give you the money now. Mama is coming this forenoon. I am going to the theatre, the mat- inee. If she asks what your charge is, just say that it was in the agreement; the other day, you know. The grass seed and the other things are in the cellar." She wore that dirty and torn wrapper, more dirty and worse torn than before. And the interior of the house already bore many traces of going back to original dis- order. While v.'e were yet talking, the mother came. Al- most before she was in the house she had taken off her hat and cape. Then, putting on a large apron, she imme- diately went to work, washing up the breakfast things, cleaning the stove, making the beds, sweeping, dusting; scolding indeed at the same time continually, but doing smartly all the work she was scolding about not having been done already, before this, by Mrs. Joe; even pre- venting her when she made a move to do some of the work herself. And thus I saw and heard her all day, Mrs. Joe fol- lowing her about, trailing her dirty clothes over every- thing, doing nothing but talk back in her peevish way, till she finally had to get ready to go to the theatre, after we first had lunch together. I was invited to stay for dinner, too, to which the father of Mrs. Joe was expected, the ar- rangement having been especially made, so as to give Mrs. Joe the chance to go to the theatre in the afternoon. But I declined the invitation and went away when my work was done, not to the entire satisfaction of the mother, who seemed to think that I should keep on doing something till it was quite dark, to fulfill my agreement. After a plentiful dinner at my Italian restaurant I was undecided w^hether I should walk the streets and make observations, or go home. It seemed natural to turn up 308 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS my hill, and I arrived at our gate togetlier with Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter, who were returning from a short shop- ping expedition. For the first time T accepted Mrs. Car- penter's invitation to enter their dwelling, in which Mr. Carpenter joined in his hearty, if not altogether, sincere way, calling out : "Yes, get your mandolin and come in ! Wife w^ill make us a glass of hot lemonade. Probably you would like something a little stronger, but she does not allow anything stronger drunk in the house. Nice, hot lemonade, good for rheumatism ! Ha, ha !" We had our lemonade and music and conversation. They were this morning going to visit their friends in Oakland. They did not invite me to accompany them this time. I think Mr. Carpenter wanted to, but his wife kept him from broaching the subject. It was quite a comfortable evening. How soon one is drawn into some fellowship-inter- course with some one ! ''Man is a social animal," Ullard used to say, as many before him, I reckon. This morning I went to the Ferry Station where I met Mr. Dugan. He said, business was extremely good ; and when I asked for a morning newspaper, he gave me one and would take no pay. I told him of my having done more than fairly well in the garden business and of the possibility of my getting a good job of work from a Mr. Mauresse. He said he was glad of my success, which, in his single-hearted way, he seemed to take upon himself the credit of being in a way the cause of, if it did not clearly appear that -vvay. ''He is a very rich man,'' I told him, "you may have heard of him." "Tall man!" he exclaimed. "No, not tall, rather short, thick-set:" "I know him. Blue eyes!" "No, reddish-brown." 309 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US "Know him well. Gray whiskers !" ''No, no whiskers ; dark mustache." "Same man," he cried, "Morrissy ; know him well." "Not Morrissy, Mauresse." "That is him. Lives out in the Mission !" "No, he lives at some hotel now. He is going to live near the park." "That is what I mean. The very same man." "I hardly think," I put in hesitatingly, "that we are talking about the same man. The man I mean is an Englishman, a Cockney Jew, called Mauresse, though the name I suppose originally was Morris." "Oh, Joe Morris! why of course! Old Joe Morris! Why, man alive, I know him as well as I know you. T used to know him in Sacramento. You just give him my name and you will see what he will do. That will be all right." I shook hands with Mr. Dugan and went to walk along the waterfront, among the many people shifting about. Quite a number of street fakirs were out. Sev- eral sold remedies for catarrh, which seems to be the favorite ailing in this town. I stopped here and there to listen to some of the jokes. The crowds were very good-humored, as a rule. When a detachment of the Salvation Army with their big drum drew near, the fakirs had to quit for a time, or move off to a distance. I think it was a very shrewd move for the Salvation Army to adopt the big drum for their principal musical instrument, whomever the idea originated with. For the big drum certainly silenced almost everything else and will always have the last word. Time seems to make no change in the talk of the street preachers, though to me it does appear strange that individuality does not more assert itself. They all, women as well as men, express themselves alike and with almost the same identical words, I have always heard 3^0 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS them use, molded into the same stereotype phrases, spoken in the same tone, repeated over and over again. There was one exception, a woman. Not that the drift of her remarks was different, nor her choice of words, but a something was in her voice that made a strange impression. And not on me alone. As soon as she began to speak, three, four men, who probably had heard her before, left the ground. Others followed. One rather serious, good-natured and somewhat simple-look- ing fellow in front of me becoming visibly more and more uneasy, at last broke out into cursing the woman most frightfully, and putting his hands over his ears rushed away. I went away myself, unable to stand it any longer. And it was nothing more or less than a hysterical quality of sound, or a "ring" in the woman's voice. But it was something hideous ; a horrible wailing, like of some- one calling in direst agony of torture for help one can- not render. I joined another crowd where several young men were preaching alternately, relieving each other. The one just then talking, dealing out hell-fire pretty freely, shook his hand right in the face of a tall, stout fellow. Of course it was an accident, but the fellow took umbrage at it and shouted : "Don't you point your finger at me !" The preacher apologized humbly and retired, not finishing his discourse, his associates covering his retreat with singing a hymn. Here a bystander started an argument with me, or tried to. From his looks I took him to be a hanger-on to the associated, young preachers. Probably he was and mingled with the crowd to start such arguments. At first I gave evasive answers, but when he persisted I gave him Ullard's creed: "It is utterly and absolutely impossible for me to believe in creation, and consequently it is just as absolutely impossible for me to believe in a 311 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS creator." He stood with his mouth open, pronoLincing the word creation in an uncertain way and moved away. Another one of the young preachers was by this time ready to speak. He commenced quite plaintively: "I was born in the city of New York without a dollar in my pocket." A young woman behind me poked me in the back, and when I turned and smiled, became perfectly convulsed with laughter and ran aw^ay. I followed her for a short distance, till she stopped to speak to some young fellows I did not like the looks of ; then I wheeled about and walked farther down the waterfront. On the next corner a drunken man hove in sight com- ing across the street, and it looked for all the world as though he was trying to cross over in the face of a very high wind. I could not help stopping to watch him. He would appear to be blown about, fighting to hold his ow^i, turned half round and held fast in that position for some seconds, till struck in another direction by a gust with full power and driven back, struggling inch by inch, then suddenly let go to stumble forward in a lull, and again brought up by a wild blast, to turn and struggle. As he was about to fall, I went to his assistance and caught his arm. He clung to me like a drowning man, but he was not at all so far gone as not to be fully sensible. "I am here yet," he said. He was not so very old, though old enough to make one feel like taking care of him in his state. I asked him if I could take him anywhere. "Yes, take me to Jim's saloon, next block, if you will." Should I not rather take him home, I suggested. **Ha!" he cried angrily, "Home! A man that has no wife has no home." '*Oh, but you surely have some place where you live," I urged, "some friends." 312 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS He cried again, more angry. "Friends? A man that has no money has no friends. Take me to Jim's." At the entrance to Jim's saloon which was only a few doors astern, a man was standing near the door, quite a decent-looking man. watching the movements of the drunken party, who had left my arm and recommenced his struggle with the wind, that now seemed to blow a perfect gale straight out of Jim's doorway. As he lurched he fell against the man, in whose face he looked with the greatest surprise, changing to new anger, and roaring to the man, who had not spoken a word but per- haps looked at him expressively, ''You are a damned liar," he tumbled into the saloon. I sauntered still farther down the waterfront to where a wide and very long wharf, or pier has lately been built, and so far left without roof, and unenclosed. Several dozen people were fishing there. The most of them used bamboo rods. They did not catch many fish. Still they caught a few. I was amused at a boy that was waiting on two big, young fellows who were fishing. He did not seem to belonsf to them or to be in anv wav connected with them, but he had to do everything for them, and they ordered him about as though they owned him. If a fish were landed he had to jump to take it ofi; the hook, and string it. bait the hook, go for more bait, beg or steal it. He had to go and beg cigarettes for them from boys or men. and get matches the same way. If anything went wrong, if the lines became tangled, if the fish got ofif the hook ])efore it was landed, if the hooks caught anywhere, if the light of the cigarettes went out he was cursed and abused. But if either one of the young men tired of holding his rod, then the boy was allowed to hold it for him. That and the last, little butt of a cigarette given to him to smoke when it had grown so short that it could not be smoked with comfort any more, was the reward CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS for his services. He seemed so to regard it himself, and even to be proud of it, proud of being in the big fellows' company, imitating their swagger. When catching his eye I gave him a look of comprehension and a smile in recognition of the humorous side of the situation ; he re- sented it and said, not loud but distinctly enough for me to hear: "What are you grinning at, you damned fool?" Well, no doubt, I often deserve that appellation, I had to think of my former self, my life on the wharf. But I was much younger than this boy when I was with Nick and Nello. And if I had to wait on our customers, and did perhaps more work and waiting than I should have done, my men would have forbidden me to do such waiting on such young loafers as this boy did. I went to dinner early and came home early. I feel to-night as though this day, to-day, had been an unprofitable day. I might have gone to Mr. De Lang's and worked at trimming up the place a little, only that it really needs no trimming up yet. I wonder if they are home to-night. I sometimes think home is the place where Mrs. De Lang can least endure to be. Old France has been a good deal in my mind all day. Maybe on that account I have this feeling of the un- profitableness of this day, because when I was alone with him after Hants was gone, I had this same feeling on odd days. When Hants and France had gone to farming to- gether, the arrangement had been the very thing to suit France. When I had come to them his satisfaction had been complete. The only thing he desired was that there be no change, that everything remain as it was, to last the years of life left to him. And then how sud- denly the change did come ! One Sunday Hantz had gone to Fairlies. Tlie same day, when we had not expected him for perhaps a week, he came back in a state of suppressed excitement that 314 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US impressed me very much. For several hours that evening he and France sat in close conference. So much I could guess that he wanted France to do something the old man did not want to do. Afterwards I learned what it was about. Hants had met at Fairlies a former acquaint- ance from the mines who had told him of a new find of gold near the old well-known diggings of Purple Gulch. There was a chance of getting in and taking up some good claims. But it must be done immediately. Hants, I am sure had tried very hard to persuade France to join him in another trial at mining which he was resolved at all hazards to make. But France would not make the venture. Before nine o'clock that night Hants was gone away again. In three days he returned. And he was a changed man to me then. He told me he had now got what would make him a rich man. He could sell out this day for a big, round sum ; but he was in no hurry. He would sell all right when it was time., France could have done the same as he did if he had only had sense; he had done all he could and knew how to get France to pull up stakes and go with him to the new diggings, but with no success. The old man was a fool. There was nothing to be made at farming. They might make a liv- ing, he said, like they had been doing, but they never could make more all their life, and he was not going to put in all his life at that ; the chance to win the fortune he had wished for ever since he had known what a for- tune meant had come to him now at last, and he had taken that chance. He had never seen a better outlook, but even if it turned out poor, he could always go back to be a farm-hand. The old man, he went on, did all the time keep harping on the point that when they had given up mining and gone to farming they had agreed and promised each other to work and stay together. Now 315 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS would they not work and stay together at the mining camp Hke at the farm? The truth was, the old man wanted to stay just where he was and keep on doing just as he was doing, pother round, fuss, give les- sons, read, make music, do a little housework and cook- ing and let other people do all other work. That was all right; he had always been willing to do more than his share of work, and that I should get all the teaching I could. But he had other aims besides, he was not done yet with life and with some people in this world, whom he was wanting to teach a lesson himself. Finally he told me that he was going away the next day, that old France would stay at Five Oaks and wanted me to stay there with him, and that I should do that, he supposed, though it was none of his business. I could do as I pleased. He had nothing more to do with me, and I had nothing more to do w^ith him. Only I should have to go with him to Purple Gulch the next day, as he was going to take along an extra horse to pack his things, one of our horses, vv^hich I was to bring back. Later when he had made his fortune he might pay us a visit before he went away for good, back to the old Pennsylvania home. I had been feeling badly enough about his going to leave us and his saying that he had nothing more to do with me, and when he wound up with giving me praise, purposely to make me feel worse, I am sure, saying I had always been a good boy and he had always liked me, he very soon had me crying most bitterly. All that day while he was gone to Fountain Head to settle some things with the Boss, I wandered round the place thinking of him, missing him at every corner, going into the fields, petting the cows and horses, to tell them in whispers that he was going away; the only bright spot in all the gloom being the told-of ride with him to Purple Gulch. And then how the meeting Mr. Tem Oldock at that 316 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS place changed everything again, all my thinking, all my feeling, everything! The indescribable, boundless joy at seeing him. Sometimes I fancy I feel the effects of it to this day. Mr. Tern Oldock had told me I must not let on to anybody that I knew him in the least; someone was after him. Perhaps I connected this someone with my mys- terious enemy. I cannot tell. It was enough, however, to silence my joyous outburst and make me go back to Five Oaks without the murmur of a hesitation. But I carried Mr. Tern Oldock with me in my heart and never lost the feeling of the possession of him till v>'e met again. And shall we not meet again now ? I never learned what passed between Hants and France when after about a year's absence Hants returned from Purple Gulch for his last, short visit to Five Oaks, a rich man. From some remarks made afterwards by France, and hints, I think Hants made him the ofifer to take him along to Pennsylvania, which oflFer France re- jected. I believe he felt the offer to have been made in pure boastfulness. I don't think he was right. Hants would have stood by the offer if he made it. And if he took him away from Five Oaks and along to Pennsyl- vania, that meant that he would take care of him further. Yet he may have been very glad when old France did not accept the proposition. And France may have been convinced that he was using the better sense and judg- ment of the two, not to go into an arrangement which might make a dependent of him and work a burdensome engagement on Hants, though it was not from sense or judgment, I am sure, that he refused to accept the offer, but from pride. For France was at bottom of much haughtiness and no little conceit, which, I believe, is often joined to pure obstinacy. He had lost his chance, missed it. He had not wanted CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS to take it when Hants took it. He did not envy Hants, at least not to more than such envy or grudge we all, I suppose, feel when our former partner, after forcing the dissolution of the partnership meets with great suc- cess. But he must have felt that if he had not given up trying, had not resigned himself to a retired life of poverty and had not in stubbornness clung to this condi- tion, but had kept up his striving, not considering himself a so much better judge than Hants he would now be able to live the life he liked in independence and abundancy. To me Hants had given two five dollar gold pieces, telling me to take good care of them, sew them in my shirt and keep them for a rainy day. He had stayed not half an hour. Then he was gone for good. I sometimes faintly wonder if he carried out his plans of retribution in regard to his half-brother and sister, buying in the family farm and giving it to them. T don't believe he did. I think when it came to the point, he found a less expensive form of retaliation answering better. August. I started out very early this morning to hunt np work, walking briskly against the chilly wind and fog through parts of the fine residence-quarter of the north side of the town. That is one advantage of our disagreeable climate, it will never let us get lazy; we have to keep moving and lively at that. I did not expect to find much work where I was going, since it is all either steadily contracted for, or seen to, at the larger places by men employed there. I did not get a single chance to ofifer my services to anyone till I was past the Presidio entrance, where I found a man hoeing away in the small front yard of a small but pre- tentiously cheap-gorgeous dwelling house. He was rather young, yet of an oldish air. I did not like his looks, not only his appearance but something more about him 318 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS which was disagreeable, without being able to tell right away what it was. He was thin, of a long body on short legs with long feet, long arms and sloping, or rather down-hanging shoulders, long neck and sharp face. I .spoke to him and asked for w^ork. He was a lawyer. I found him very accessible. Some questions I put to him he answered most willingly. But that was not till evening. He had set me to work in the morning immediately. In fact my happening along there seemed most oppor- tune. He made no bargain with me as to my charges and went away greatly in a hurry to go down-town to his business. I worked there all day, first in the little front yard, afterwards in the back yard and finally about the lower part of the house, where I had to do sundry jobs of nailing up shelves, screwing in hooks, putting in screens, all to the wife's directions, w^ho proved a quiet, not unpleasant, but somewhat indifferent or dull person. She gave all her orders in a most uncertain way, always want- ing to know what I thought about it and always letting me do everything my way. Two stupid-looking, four and five year old little boys of short legs, long thin bodies, long arms and no shoulders to speak of, showed them- selves often on the rear porch, observing me at my work, but never venturing near. Occasionally a young girl came out of the kitchen onto the porch to look after them and speak to me. She told me she had been hired from an orphanage and was the only help in the house. She appeared a little weak-minded. At the upper rear win- dows I saw at times two old ladies, who from their thin, sharp faces, long necks and drooping shoulders I took to be relatives. When I was called into the kitchen at noon to lunch, I saw the two ladies seated at the dining room table. They wore a great deal of jewelry, and from the attention they received from the lady of the house, I 319 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALA \ US thought they must have money. Altogether I was in the story-weaving mood, such as I used to think out to my- self, when a boy. In the evening toward six o'clock the lawyer, Mr. Snivers, came back from business and offered to pay me half a dollar for my day's work. I did not take the money right away. '*I have not done very well to-day," he said. "Fifty cents is all I can give you. I think you had your lunch here too, did you not ? That is worth another fifty cents." Yes, I answered, I had my lunch here, and I was sorry for the lady to be at so much more work and trouble, having enough people to wait on and work for, all day. But," I abruptly changed the subject, *'I should like to ask you a question. If anyone dies, is not his property put through the courts ?" He was immediately on the alert. ''Why yes," he cried. "How? That depends. What do you mean?" ''I know so little about these tihngs," I replied, ''that what I say and how I say it may sound very stupid. I mean if anyone dies, possessed of property, is not the heirship regulated by law. And are not records of the proceedings kept in court?" "Why yes to be sure," he exclaimed. "If there is no will all inheritance is regulated in the Probate court ac- cording to law. If there is a will the property goes to the heirs according to the will through the same court. Was there a will?" "Yes." "Then the will had to go to probate, and of course the Probate court proceedings will be on proper record or file. What is the case?" But I did not like to tell him the case. In fact I had begun to fear I had done wrong in speaking to him at all about this matter. "If you want to find out anything," he proceeded, "I 320 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS can do it for you better than any other man. And T should do it very reasonably. I have a great deal of Probate court practice. And if you have any claim, I have a good pull with the judge. There are not many members of the bar that have more influence than I have. Just give me your case. I will put it through in shape. Why, I see you have put the whole garden in trim ; and you fixed up the back yard too and saw^ed a lot of wood. You must have worked pretty hard, I guess you did more than tw^o dollars' worth of work. Here, take this, two dollars and a half. And you had better go in the kitchen and get your supper. That front yard looks pretty. Don't it look pretty, now ! I guess I shall have you come once a week to take care of it. And as to your case, I think you cannot do better than to let me look into it. Of course I can't tell you anything till I know more myself. Any contest? How long since the party died ? Over ten years ? H'm ! Well, sometimes the longer the better. Any minor heirs?" The more he talked the less I liked to give him any particulars. He now^ seemed to me to be a man who would do anything to get a case. And I grew- more hes- itating as he grew more pressing, offering to take my case on a contingency; if I had a case and the claim was valu- able; if the claim brought, say, ten thousand dollars, he would take six thousand and give me four thousand, less the costs of course. And something would have to be done for the judge, till at last I cried, '*I have no case, I have no claim. There is no claim." 'Tt is simply this," I continued, "a — well, a merchant of this place died here ten years and more ago, leaving, I don't know how much or how little. He was separated from his wife for some years before he died, but not divorced. Their two children had been living with him. At his death the wife took them and went away with them from this place. Now, would it be possible to find out 321 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS from the records of the court proceedings where they went, where they are at present ? That is all I want to know." ''Possible/' he answered, "why, yes ! Possibly it would be possible. It depends. Any real estate? Children minors yet?" ''The boy would be under age yet," I said. "Oh, the boy!" he echoed. "Then the other child was a girl. You are not the boy ? No! No! Any relative? Son by a former wife ? No ! No ! How about the will?" I was very angry with myself for letting him find out so much. 1 was all but resolved not to say a word more. But I did. "There was a will," I told him, "made years before, right after the marriage, leaving everything to the wife and probably making her executor as well as administrator. There was no former wife." He thereupon explained to me that in that case where there was a proper will, leaving everything uncondition- ally, if uncoTiditionally, to the wife, or widow, the records of the court would show nothing of the whereabouts of the person in question, at the present time. The estate would be settled up and out of probate long ago. Of course the will must have gone to probate, but after the lawful limit of claims and the estate once settled, the court would have nothing more to do with any part of it, the wife or widow would be absolute owner of all the prop- erty, real as well as personal and if she sold or leased or deeded or kept any or all of it, the court would have no say in the matter, except the wife or widow had died during administration, before settlement, which would bring her heirs into court. Or except there had been suits, and nothing was more likely, to keep the estate from being settled. Or the widow owning property here, her death occurring at any time would bring her estate into probate here. But, of course that would be another case. 322 CHROXICLES OF MAXUEL ALAXUS .\iid he went on and on, about will^, estates, minor heirs, illegitimate children, second wives, former husbands, tricks in law, tricks in court, suit, influence with judges, secret understanding between lawyers, prices of judg- ments, till I thought he would never stop. And I did not know what to admire more in him, the scoundrelship he showed, the barefacedness with which he showed it, the utter absence of all shame, or the stupidity with which he constantly gave himself away. Finally he pioposed that I should retain him as counsel and give him as retaining fee one dollar of the money he had paid me. But this I did not do. We were having all this talk on the rear porch, where I had trailed a creeper up the corner post. The old- est one of the two little bo} s came out of the kitchen and joined us, sent perhaps by his mother as a reminder to his father that supper was waiting. The father called him to him and petted him a little and said, as if making him do a little child's trick: "Now, show the man that you are a boy," which to my consternation the child im- mediately did, whereat Mr. Snivers chuckled and patted his head and called him his own boy, what, no doubt, lie is. Ullard many times said: ''Show me the man or the woman without shame, and I shall show you the born, true criminal." That is what this man Snivers is : the born criminal. It drags me back to prison, where he belongs, to think of it. Sometimes I feel as if I must tell, proclaim aloud what T know. If people only knew they would kill more than nine-tenths of all those they send to prison. But are they any bettter? Are we not all criminals? That is what those on the inside of the prison walls say : All are criminals, but those on the outside are the lucky ones that are not caught. 323 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS And the children ? Ullard used to brand them as crim- inals. They know no shame, certainly, not till they are taught. Nor do other animals know it. No more! August. Accidentally I may have stumbled on our Smith, who was our head clerk in my father's business. I do not really believe it, yet when I think it might be and that from him I can surely learn the whereabouts of Harry, I can hardly contain myself to wait. I went to the place of Mr. DeLang this morning to take a passing look at the front yard. Everything about the place was so quiet that I felt certain of nobody's being at home. Still something impelled me to go up the steps and ring the bell. And Mrs. DeLang answered it, looking as fresh as a morning after the rain. Charming. She had a letter in her hand. I asked jokingly if it was from her to me. "Well," she cried, '*if that is not funny! I never had anything so funny happen to me in all my life. I should never have thought of it, if you had not mentioned it. Mr. DeLang left a note for you in his office and I had forgotten all about it. I never should have remembered it if you had not spoken. How did you come to ask? Did you meet Mr. DeLang? No? Well, if that is not funny! Did I ever? How did you come to speak of it?" I said, "I did not know. Perhaps her appearance had surprised me, since I had not expected to find her home : and she coming in all her loveliness so suddenly upon me had probably turned my head and made me say the first, silly thing at hand. For was it not silly?" She gave me a look and laughed. There was some- thing in her look. But who could describe her laugh? How poor after all is actually all language, unable even to describe a laugh! Cooing, rippling, bubbling, nothing fits. Fits? Preposterous is what all these attributes are. 3^4 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Hideous seems the sound of every one of them by com- parison. I hear it now. It makes me smile whenever I but think of it as I hsten, it seems to tickle me. Something in it, I don't know what, a little, just a touch, is what makes it so. She asked me to come in, but I resisted. She went to fetch her husband's note for me from his workroom or office. She was gone quite a long time. Once I thought I heard a calling sound. I did not stir. When she came to the open door again she told me with the most doleful face that she could not find the letter high or low. Slie had taken it from the desk where Mr. Del.ang had left it and laid it on the drawing table, all by itself, so that it would easier catch her eye. Now it had vanished. At a venture I interposed: "Is not that it perhaps?" pointing to tlie letter she had held in her hand all this time and was biting the corner of now, with her beautiful, little, even, white teeth. And it was. The note was not closed. It was addressed to a Mr. Malls, introducing me and recommending me for some garden work. I thanked her, told her to give my thanks to Mr. DeLang, and asked her if there was anything else he wished me to do. She answered "No! Oh, yes! There is. He told me that Mr. Mauresse is going to give his gardening job to you. But I was not to tell you, because, of course, you know, it might not be, Mr. DeLang says. But I reckon you are going to get that job all right. Mrs. Mauresse wants you to do it. She wants to see you some time, Mr. DeLang says. Did you ever see her?" "No! Why? Because she is so very handsome?" "Now I declare, how did you guess that? Or some- body told you." "No! Why, the way you spoke, anyone would know that she must be either very plain or very beautiful to 325 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS be something remarkable to look at. And as Mr. Manresse is rater plain, the natural deduction is that she is the reverse." "Rather plain," she mocked. "Well I should say, rather plain. I don't see, for my life, how in the world she could ever marry such a monkey." *'But there are other considerations," I replied. "Who knows but what he is the very best kind of husband. He is giving her for one thing a very fine house to live in." "Oh!" she pouted, "who cares for a house? Give me a hotel to live in every time." While we were speaking, a young man, walking rather fast, passed the house. She bowed to him and smiled and spoke, addressing him as Mr. Smith. He returned the bow and smiled pleasantly enough, if, as I thought, a little carelessly, while I had been thinking that Mrs. De- Lang's manner had shown more than necessary neighbor- ly interest. I asked her if he was a neighbor. She said yes, he lived in the last but one cottage in the block, and she entered into a lengthy relation of their acquaintance and other particulars. Mr. DeLang had built tlie cottage, of course since he had built all the dwellings in that row. Mr. Smith was a clerk in a bank, was married and had the sweetest, cutest, little girl baby in the whole world. Had I not thought him handsome and well dressed ?" I looked after him for another glance of observation. but he already had disappeared round a corner. How- ever, I could tell Mrs. DeLang that he had appeared to me very handsome, very gentlemanlike and very well dressed. "Oh!" she exclaimed with a little half gasp and half sigh, "if his mustache were only dark, instead of light. he would be my ideal." And she finished by casually remarking that his name was James Algernon Smith. "Well, now it is my turn," I said, "to find something happening very strange ; for I knew a man of that name. 326 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and I should like to speak to him too. And he had a son of that same name who should be of exactly the age of this gentleman ; about twenty-four years." And I asked her if she could not find out for me from this 2vlr. James Algernon Smith, since she said she saw him every day, if his father had been chief clerk in the banking house of H. Alanus up to about thirteen, fourteen years ago. I did not give her any more particulars. And now I fear, I already gave her too much. She will not remem- ber. She has forgotten before this, I am sure. Why did I want to tell her to ask him anything? I could go my- self to him. I wonder if he is the boy Algie who would come to our office once in a long while to see his father, and al- ways by his coming made his father angry. I cannot say that he looked in the least what one would expect to see that boy grown up to be like. I remember him very well. He was constantly asking everybody for money. Sometimes he would tell by what means, arts, stories, representations and misrepresentations he had succeeded in obtaining money from different people, showing quite an intuition or knowledge of human nature. I am going out now to ^Ir. 2vlalls with my letter of recommendation. Later. As I was setting out for Mr. 2^Ialls with my letter of recommendation in my pocket, it came into my head to go down to the Tern Oldock offices to ask for news froin Mr. Tem Oldock or Mahon. I am sorry I went. I might have known that I should not be told anything. An el- derly gentleman was the only person in the office, at least the only visible person. And he would hardly listen to me. As soon as I put my question lie began to question me and after a very few words plainly told me that unless I gave a full account of myself and my objects I should receive no information whatever. The rich men here or 327 LliROXJCLliS Of ALIXUiiL ALANUS everywhere are quite persecuted by cranks and crooks I suppose. And if I call again, maybe, I shall be looked upon as a crook or crank. Or I am already regarded as such. I hunted up the old, colored janitor. I ought to have gone to him in the first place. He recollected me and told me that neither Mr. Tem Oldock or Mahon had come and that he did not expect them to come before next summer, if they came at all. September. Patience ! Patience ! To think of all the time gone by ! On Tuesday I went out to the place of Mr. Malls. It took a long ride on the street cars and a short walk uphill to get there. It is a place intended to be a sort of public garden, and I think it is very suitably located for that purpose on the leveled-off head of a little eminence pro- jecting out from the broad sweep of a glen, among the farther mission hills, all sheltered from the everlasting sea breeze by a forest of planted trees. I had to go to work right away, the head-gardener employed before me having suddenly fallen ill the work was waiting to be completed. And I have been out there till last night. I slept in a very elegant bed- room in the public house or inn, built and run in conjunction with the place. Not but what I wished, every conscious moment, myself back in my shabby little room here, where, last night when I came home, Mrs. and Mr. Carpenter have made me feel doubly welcome and comfortable. They had been much con- cerned about me. I could not advise them of my whereabouts till the third day, having no time or opportunity. I think Mr. Malls was very well satisfied with me. He paid me first class foreman's wages. He wanted me to stay too, after the head-gardener had come back, and keep on workng, though at ordinary laborers rates. It was not the rates that made me leave, nor the re- 328 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS turn of the head-gardener, though he did not care much to see me there. I left for several reasons, principally I think from a sort of homesickness. And I like more independence of work, and smaller jobs. The job for Mr. Mauresse was in my head too ; but that is not a smaller job. And I wanted to see Mrs. De Lang and hear what Mr. Smith said. How long shall I have to wait for that? I was twice at Mrs. DeLang's to-day. Nobody was at home. I passed by Mr. Smith's cottage. I came very near going in. What kept me back was the thought of the prison. If this Mr. Smith is that Algie he must know all that happened and can not have forgotten. How foolish of me to set Mrs. De Lang inquiring. Now it may all come out. Not that she would care. Evening. Another scare ! Opium Loo ! I never saw much of him. I never met him particularly. I never spoke to him, nor he to me. And I am quite convinced that he does not know me at all. M}- hair too and beard, growing and being so dense and black make me look different. At least it must change my looks suffi- ciently to make me not easily recognizable. He did not see me. Yet it gave me a scare. It was funny as Mrs. De Lang would say. I had gone out to the park to while away the time till eve- ning. I was sitting in the crowd on the benches. The band was playing. Something made me turn my head and I saw him four, five benches away, Opium Loo ! The most debased of the prisoners ! The vilest of the vile in that vile place ! As I saw him I seemed to have known before that he would be sitting there, that I should see him. I felt like dropping on my hands and knees and crawling off between the benches to get away unseen by him. I believe I did stoop somewhat as I walked off; I had a sensation as though 329 CriROXiCLi:S OF MANUEL ALANUS I did. And again, thinking the people might notice my stooping, I tried to straighten up. I will put him away out of my mind altogether. But I shall have to be on the look-out. For I will not know nor be known by anybody of the prison. Mr. Malls is a very vain man. If the people of the United States of America are the vainest of all peoples, of a vanity, Ullard would maintain that is greater than that of all other peoples together, Mr. Malls is a good representative. He wants to be flattered and petted all the time. If you do not do it, he does it himself for you. And he will think very ill of you for not doing it. He even hates to hear anybody else well spoken of. The only one he likes to hear praised is Mr. Malls. He will allow no merit in any one else, arrogating to himself every particle of it, to the abuse of common sense. And in this condition then he would not be like the American people. For the Americans, be they as vain as Ullard proclaimed them, are eminently endowed with common sense, even if it does not always so appear. The first thing Mr. Malls told me was that all this place of his came out of his head. Brains were the thing, he said; brains! I replied I had heard that his head-gardener was a very competent man. "My foreman," he retorted, "was a mere automaton, knew nothing, absolutely nothing, could do nothing. I had first to tell him what to do and how to do it, and then direct his every move; in fact do it myself. Automaton! You know what an automaton is. Well, automaton! I had first to wind him up and then set him going, and follow him and keep following his steps to set him right at every turn. You said head- gardener. I am the head-gardener. I am my own head-everything. Always !" The inn connected with the place is located at the 330 CHROXiCLES or MASUEL ALASUS base of some large, rough out-cropping rocks, form- ing a sort of broken wall. A bed of ferns was to be arranged to fill out the corner between the wing of the inn and the rock-wall. I was sent to consult about it the man who is going to run the inn. I wa^ told to arrange the plantation as he desired, and fin 1- ing him a man knowing what he wanted and able to communicate his ideas, it took but a few minutes till I had several laborers working planting the bed of ferns. Presently Mr. Malls appeared and wanted to know what I was doing. I began to explain, when he interrupted me saying: "That is all very well, but I want you to understand that I am the man." I, somewhat nonplussed, answered : "You sent me to this man and told me yourself to get at what he wanted and do it. And that is what I am doing." "Yes ! Yes !" he cried, "that is all right ; only I want you to know that I am the man." So I paid no further attention to him, for that time Talking with the inn-keeper. I had mentioned to him that I thought that a foot-path, laid out to lead from the inn to the top of the rocks would be quite a feature and a great convenience. As he concurred with me, and as the costs would be small, ^ spoke to Mr. Malls about it later in the day. "The ideal" he exclaimed, "a path I Ab.-nrdl" The next forenoon he had me called to him and toll me he had an idea he wished to communicate to me. ''You must know Mr. Eguren," said he, "1 am a great thinker. Nights, when you people lie in dead oblivion, I lie awake and think. And then I have ideas. I have them not only then, I have them all the ..mie. I had an idea a good many nights ago, I may have mentioned it at the time. I believe I did. It is to have a path connect the top of the rocks w^ith the inn." 331 CHROMCLlS Or MA:-!l:rL ALAXIJS And he brought forthwith every particular of my proposi- tion of the day before, all in his grandest manner. I suppose I ought to have called him dov^n, as the saying is, if for no other reason, to hear what he would say, how he would manage to carry through his pretense, and to see if he could not be shamed into confessing himself a dissimulator and plagiarist. But if in one way such self-inflation is ridiculous enough to take it not seriously, it is in another way too silly to be anything but tiresome. If I had been merely an outsider, I might have found the incident more funny. As it was, I had nothing to say and carried out Mr. Malls' idea in silence. At my laying out of a sweeping walk, which I was working on the last thing, the last day before the head-gardener returned and I took my discharge, Mr. Malls had a last opportunity to show the peculiarity of his notions. He was looking at what I was doinjo;-, "By the by," he called to me, "what is the radius of your curve, Mr. Eguren?" "What curve, Mr. Malls?" "The curve of your walk." "I don't know what you mean, Sir?" I returned. "I am laying out this walk from the original plan. It was not changed, you know, when you changed the slope." "That is all right, I only want to know the radius of your curve." "Do you mean the border-line of the walk?" I asked. "Yes, your curve." "Well," I said, "I am afraid I can not give you what you ask; the line is altogether too complex and ir- regular. Here it is even straight." *T only want to know the radius of your curve. You know every curve must have a radius." 332 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS '*But here is a whole collection of curves, ellipses, parabolas, whatever they are. I suppose you could get their elements, but I think you would have to get mathematicians and civil engineers to do that for you. I am only a gardener." I kept on with my work, while he kept on exclaim- ing: "But! But there must be a radius to every curve." September. Another blank! Perhaps it is as well. I called at Mrs. De Lang's this morning. She opened the door for me. She asked me in, but I kept my place on the front porch, while she stood in the front door-opening, talking. She had seen Mr. Smith and he was not the man. His father was not the man I had been inquir- ing about; his father's name had not been James Algernon, but Henry. She was dimpling with smiles. "Well! Did I? Did I? Yes, I did. I saw him. Certainly! You were so particular. Well, you know first off it went clean out of my head. But when we met it all came back. He was very nice. So since you were so anxious I made a point of speaking to your friend." "He is not my friend. He never knev/ me." "Well, my life ! How funny you are ! He does not know you now. I did not mention you. How could T? I do not even know your name. I never saw such a funny person as you in all my life. If I was to ask him things, I had to meet him and speak to him, had I not? Well! Well, he does not know a thing about those people. He never heard of them in lili his life. And bis father's name was Henry. And he died three years ago ; the father did. What are you smiling at?" After this she told me Mr. De Lang wished to see 333 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US me this evening, about my making a sketch to show somebody how something could be laid out. I don't know if I shall go to their house to-night. I wish I had remained out at Mr. Malls, working hard. To do something I walked over to Mr. Rickon's where I did my first work the first day. He was just as dull and lifeless as on that occasion. But he had not forgotten me and was willing to let me earn a dollar, setting out some new plants that he had. I worked all day there. Now I am ready to go to see Mr. DeLang. Shall I really find him at home? I half incline to think the appointment was but one of her slips of mind, which are not alwa3^s that. Or what ? I wonder if she had been expecting me this morn- ing? I half think she had. But I hardly believe it truly. Her skin, how beautiful ! She is a little broad- shouldered. And her hands are not small. Her wrists show that she has done work. All this seems just right for her. And the suppleness about her ! And her full, red lips with the dazzling teeth ! And her laughing blue eyes. Late night. She opened the door. I thought, I really for one moment thought she was alone in the house. And she knew that I thought so. Mr. DeLang was in the office. What he wanted of me was to make a sketch of the grounds for a building he is figuring on putting some addition to. It is a hospital and asylum for aged people. He has not yet got the job, but expects to get it and wants to show the managers or directors of the institution how the old grounds can be altered to suit the addi- 334 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tions to the buildings. I am to go to-morrow to take a book at the old place. While we were at our business Mrs. DeLang came into the room, and standing back of our chairs, as we were sitting side by side at the table, made some remarks about our pencillings on the ground plan of the lot we had before us. I don't know that what she said was very witty or funny, but we laughed at it, and he laughingly told her to go away or he would put her out of the room, when she put her arms from behind around his throat, hugging his head that way tightly to her bosom, laughing her delicious laugh. He took it as something he was accustomed to and did not dislike. Her loose sleeves were being worked back, leaving her arms bare to above the elbows. He untwined them while she playfully resisted him, turn- ing them so as to touch his face and covering his eyes and mouth with their soft inner sides : panting with the exertion, laughing all the time, till he made moves to jump up, when she ran awa}', but imme- diately came back with a box of candy, offering some to us. She gave us each a few pieces from her haiul, claiming to have picked out the best pieces for us, and retired to a lounge on the other side of the room and laid herself down to finish the box of sweets. She had carelessly drawn a shawl or blanket of manv brilliant colors on the lounge over her and lay there, her bosom rising and falling with her still agitated ])reathing. like some kind of lovely feline. One could almost expect presently to be hearing her purr, and feel as though one must put out the hand to stroke the A'elvety satin of her skin. September. Just returning from my early visit to the asylum for a view of the grounds, I met in front of my gate the letter-carrier, who held out a letter to me. ask- 335 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ing me if I knew anybody living here by the name of the address. It was my name. I don't know what did all rush through my mind, wondering who could be writing to me. It is Mr. Snivers. I ought not to have given him my address. I did not want to do it at the time. But when he point blank asked me for it, I told him the street and number. At the moment I could think of no excuse to refuse it. He writes that I am to call on a certain P. Brown in the Mission, who has some gardening to be done. A brother attorney he calls him, to whom I am to give his name and tell him that I am the man he recom- mended. Further he cautions me not to tell Mr. Brown anything about our little matter, saying I should have all the lawyers in town after me if I talked about my case to any one of them. I well believe it; and he does not even except him- self. Besides this he writes a whole lot of stuflF about my case as he calls it. He says he has been think- ing over the points I have been giving him and is almost certain he can put his finger on the case, if only I will help him by giving him the name ; that I should be satisfied with him and never regret having em- ployed him ; that he was sure to win my case ; that he would take hold as soon as he received my orders, which he expected me to give him as soon as I received this. Or that, if I was too busy, he would call on me in the evening. Now, what shall I do? I feel like hiding to keep away from this man. And yet I can not go away from this town. I know of no other place to make my living in. It is the only place to form the base of my operations to trace my brother; even if I could make my living elsewhere, I should always have to come back here. 336 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS But I will not g-o away. I will not hide. 1 shall go to Mr. Snivers and tell him that I will not utter one more word to him about what he calls my case, and he can withdraw his recommendation to Mr. Brown, or any other recommendation, which of course is meant to be my reward for g"iving Mr. Snivers my case. Evening. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Snivers on the point of leaving home to go to his business. Everything is all right. When I had told him what I had to say, it really seemed unnecessary to have gone to this trouble about this matter, since he was so easy about it. It lies in my nature to look for a certain solidity in people, stability and fixedness of purpose. And I may say in general I find it, too. That is, in general I find that people mean what they say and aim at what they claim to pursue. But Mr. Snivers is one of those that know not what they pursue. He had all but forgotten me. And this light-head- edness or light-mindedness fits so well into the whole con- struction of his character, as I see it, that T have lost all apprehension of his forcing himself on me. Greedy, sanguine and unscrupulous he scents a case in every word he hears, and darts at it. But only till the next word proves a stronger scent and makes him abandon the first. He met Mr. Brown the morn- ing after I had worked for him, and hearing- that 'Mr. Brown wanted a gardener, recommended me, as being yet in his mind. He had promised to notify me, but forgotten all about it and me, till he had yester- day in court met Mr. Brown again and been by him asked about it. By the time I reached his house I had gone out of his head to his forgetting even my name and address. Mr. Brown to whom he had casually told both and who remembered them, had 337 CHKOXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS to tell him, so that he could write his letter to me. All this he recounted with the easiest of manners, and when I thanked him, he came out in his best colors, asking me to pay him a commission for getting me the job. I had no money with me, except a few dimes and nickels, which I had not the face to offer him. I told him so, promising to pay him what he would ask as soon as Mr. Brown had paid me. But in his greediness, or not trusting me, or both, he declared himself in want of some car-fare and willing to take what small change I had with me, in satisfaction of his claim. *'You give me what you have got about you," he said, "and I will call it square. All right if that is all ! Did you go through all your pockets? Put your hand in that one! No more? How is this one? You did not put your hand down this one, did you? All the way down? Nothing? Feel along the bottom of your vest. Sometimes when there is a hole in a vest- pocket, a dime and even a nickel will slip through and lodge in the lining and you don't know it. ^lay be right in back! Let me feel! What is that? That is one ! A dime ! Yes, sir ! Sure enough ! A dime ! No, only a button ! Well I will take that button any- how. I want just such a one on my drawers, I busted one off this morning." I knew, of course, I should be out that much little change if his recommendation bore no fruit, but I was most glad to be square with him, by his own say so. Mr. Brown, I found after some trouble. The ad- dress Mr. Snivers had given me was wrong. But I had a clue in knowing from Mr. Snivers' talk the location of Mr. Brown's new houses where the garden- work was to be done. I went there and kept on in- quiring among the neighbors till I found one who 338 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS could tell me where Mr. Brown lived. And there T found him home for lunch. He walked back to the new houses with me, explaining on the way the gen- eral arrangement of the whole improvements, as well as the special plan of each house or rather cottage for it is a block of semi-detached cottages Mr. Brown has had built. They are not quite finished yet. Their front gardens are to be laid out in flower-beds of different sizes and shapes. I think parterres is the name of what he meant. I told him so at least. "Oh, yes," he replied "parterres, to be sure. No shrubs, vou know, nor trees! Something different from our regulation front yard with a magnolia or palm in the centre. Nothing but flowers and leaf- plants, or mosses, too, for the borders and in-betweens. I shall show you presently what I mean. I have a great deal of taste that way. And something differ- ent, you know, is not so all the same." When w^e came to the buildings, I had to go over everything with him in person, he showing me through everyone of the cottages and explaining again most minutely their superior plannings and fittings, but this only after first standing me up against a telegraph pole on the next street corner above, to get a sort of birdseye view of the place, then taking me into the adjoining house yard for a side view, likewise to an- other point for a rear view and finally up the high front steps of the house opposite, for a front viev/. I had to admire every door and every window. I had to put my hand on the mantelshelf to feel the fineness of the polish of the wood. I had to bend down to convince myself to his satisfaction that I could not get my thumbnail into the seam of the flooring. I was brought into every closet and had the number of the shelves counted out to me. 339 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALAN US "One, two, three, four, five ! Five shelves ! Five ! One less than six. Six w^ould be one more. But there would not be so much room above. Or the spaces between would be less. And if the spaces be- tween were less they would not be so far apart. You see? Everything thought of ! No space wasted ! Not an inch, perfectly grand ! And here is the sink. You see? You notice that door to the kitchen closet? Rolling! Not hinged, but rolling! If it were hinged it would not roll but open like any door. This slides. You perceive? You wash your dishes in your sink, you push back the door, you put your dishes on the shelves in the closet ; it shuts. Perfectly coniplete ! Oh, my architect is a grand young man. And he has the same exquisite taste, that I have. Taste you know is a great thing. I have it from my mother. My mother, sir ! Oh, grand ! She had that taste in every- thing, just perfect." Finally to come down to our business, I roughly marked with a pencil on a piece of paper how I thought the front gardens might be plotted, about which I found, as I had expected, Mr. Brown had no clear ideas at all, but which he instantly declared to be the way he always had wanted them to be fixed. It was only when we drew near the money question that he became cooler. As soon however as that was settled, I became as perfectly grand a person with him as the rest, and was told to go right ahead with the work. I shall do very well. I shall have two Filipinos to help me. They are house-servants or some kind of servants of Mr. Brown's. They understand something of the Japanese way of gardening. They live for the time in one of the woodsheds of the cottages, and they are to board me with themselves. That is in the agreement. 340 CHROXICLES or MANUEL ALANUS September. I left Mr. Brown to-day noon, all finished with my job, paid and praised to^he skies. Sometimes dur- ing these days I had to laugh in Mr. Brown's face. And I have smiled and smiled to myself till my face ached. I love absurdity to laugh at, but this time the dose has been enough, quite ; if I was to have more of it, it would cease to be diverting. And the childish vanity of it! About the last thing Mr. Brown had to say, when I was giving one of the Filipinos some explanation about something he had done wrongly was to tell me: "You have that same pleasant, considerate way, that same delicate manner of spekaing to inferiors that I have." I made answer that 1 did not look on anybody much as my inferior ; that if I might know about some things more than others, others would know much more than I about other things, and that I could claim to know for sure but one thing, which was that I knew very little of anything and that little only in a confused way. His reply was to repeat the words: "delicate manner;'* and if he understood at all that T had meant to lecture him a little, he did not feel. I think, that the shoe fitted him. How he can give any sort of satisfaction as a lawyer I can't conceive. Yet he is not disagreeable, and he is businesslike, too, and not illiberal. He seems to be very well off. My experience with Mr. Snivers has made me rather shy of putting any more direct questions to law^vers, but incidentally in some conversation with Mr. Brown about real estate, I learned that I could find out the name of any owner of any piece of real estate here by going to the assessor's office in the City Hall and looking over the books. I have to work on my sketch 341 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS for Mr. DeLang or I should go to the City Hall now. September. Mr. Carpenter last night corroborated Mr. Brown's assertion that I should at the City Hall upon applica- tion be shown any one of the books containing all the blocks and lots in the cit}^ mapped out and marked with the owners' names. He thought it strange that I should not know this. I have hard work with my sketch for Mr. DeLang. I do not succeed in making anything of it at all. All yesterday afternoon I labored with it, only to give it up at last and start afresh a second time. Now I have started a third time. That heaviness of my hand! I know it well enough. That is the cause. The result of the hard work I had to do when a child! It always seems strange to me though, that this heaviness of hand does not interfere with my ex- ecution on any musical instrument, nor my writing, in fact anything but my drawing. So there must be I suppose, something in drawing requiring a special gift which I do not possess, outside of my heavy hand. September. My third sketch is better than the other two. Still it does not compare with the one I made for Mr. Mauresse. That was the chance effect of the buoy- ancy of those days. My exuberant spirits! I may never again succeed so well with anything in that line. I don't know how Mr. DeLang will like this last sketch. I shall have to bring it to him to-night. She will not think much of it, I know. This forenoon I am going to call at Mrs. Jackson's to see how her grounds have developed; perhaps also to hear Mrs. Woodelin sing. First how^ever I am going to the City Hall. Evening. The property that was my father's where the house 34:2 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS stood we lived in, the old, brick warehouse and the adjoining lots and properties which were his too, being that whole block with the buildings on same all now belong to Mr. Tern Oldock; the other property, too, the house and lot near South Park. I presume there was a sale, and he bought them. Probably the widow wanted the cash yet there must have been plenty cash. I know there was ; cash and bonds, stocks, notes, mort- gages. If she still owned the properties or but one piece, I could find her through the agent. My father owned no other real estate in this city. He told me so himself. And the name Alanus does not appear on the tax-list of this town. The man in the assessor's office, looking over some index books, told me so. But there w^as the ranch. Perhaps Mr. Tem Oldock has bought that too, if it was sold. I may find out. I suppose I could write to the assessor of the county. Only I hate to give names, especially in writing. I hope it has not been sold. I don't know what all I am thinking and planning. I believe in my mind I have worked out something like a regular plot, how^ Harry as soon as he is of age will come here and undertake the management of the ranch, and how I then shall go and hire out to him and work for him. first as a common laborer, till he finally discovers who I am. A regular, sentimental story, such as I always used to be thinking out for myself when I was alone in my boyhood's days. And perhaps as my father did before me. Mr. DeLang was or professed to be highly pleased with my sketch. I found him alone. His wife was not at home. He did not know where she was. It was as well, he explained in his slow way, that she was out because he would presently have to go away 343 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS himself, to confer with the managers of that asylum about his contract. He added he would ask me to dine with him but that he had no time to dine. I had just come in time with my sketch. He had wanted to take it along. He was glad I had kept my word. And the sketch was fine. It would get him the job. At part- ing, with some hesitation, he asked me to come to the Mauresse residence in the morning where I might meet Mr. Mauresse, who might say something to me about his job. Mr. DeLang I fancied was afraid of saying too much about this, raising my hopes too high. At Mrs. Jackson's this morning I was well received, but I did not hear Mrs. Woodelin sing. I asked her, but she would not. "She had been eating walnuts," she said, "and she never could sing after eating wal- nuts." This day has been the first one since I have been back here all clear of fog. It is about time for the season to change. Perhaps we shall have rain soon. I wish we would. It is very smoky, not alone of the city's smoke, but more the smoke of the country, where there are grass-fires and brush-fires and forest fires in all directions at this time of the year, every- thing being so dry. All this smoke mixing with the sea-fog has made the city extra gloomy these last weeks. A good rain-storm would put these fires all well out. And how fresh and clean everything looks after such a drenching! The first spring of the country! For California really has two springs; one after the first rain and the second later. But we may not get our first rains till much later. One never can tell. No two seasons are ever alike. They are diilferent every year. The year I came away from Five Oaks we had a very smoky spell, like this one now, before the rains set in. I think however it was later 344 CIJRO^^ICLI-S OI' MAM'EL ALANUS in the year, at least two months later than this year. I remember how anxious everybody was about the rain holding oif so long. Although at our place and all Fountain Head, water was always plentiful. I recollect the days were getting very short. I had not missed going to Fountain Head for a number ot Saturdays and again I had gone up this Saturday forenoon, after getting through the necessary home- work for the days till I should be back, leaving to aid France as little to do as possible except to look out for himself. , .. , , At Fountain Head I had found that the Boss had left in the morning, before dawn, in the moonlight with a team of four horses and the carryall, to get to the river landing in time to give the horses a good rest before taking back to Fountain Head a party of three or four gentlemen who were coming on the river- boat from the city to pay the Boss a visit of sev- eral davs' duration. No particular work had been staked out for me at Fountain Head, the Boss. 1 surmised, being too much taken up with his expedition and his arrangements for the entertainment of the visitors, to think of me. I could alwavs go into the kitchen and lend Sam a hand, the cook, or Ho and Sue, the servant-boys of all work, v.ho were nice, clean Chinamen, that I liked verv well. This day they had to prepare for a great, late supper, and Sam iokingly advised me to go home. because if I staved at Fountain Head I should cer- tainlv be put to work in the hot kitchen, washing dishes all the time. Afterwards, remembering this, I have sometimes fancied I had a sort of presentiment that that strange man would be among these visitors of the Boss's. ^It was only that I always expected to meet him thus one day. xAnd for this I must remain on the spot ; or I might have taken Sam's advice. 345 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS It was night when the team with the party arrived at Fountain Head. Some of the hired men, besides Sue and Ho and me, were at the solid gates leading from the farmyard to the house entrance. A man stood at the leader's heads with a lantern. Several others held lanterns. I had picked out one with a re- flector, which, the wa}^ I held it, put me in darkness. Valises, gun-cases, fishing-tackles, satchels were being handed out. The gentlemen arriving were stepping from the wagon by the rear steps. I was standing at the side, a little back. I let the light from my lantern fall full on the face of each gentleman alighting, and the last but one was he, that man, that strange man. I stepped back a step. Some of the men pressed forward for the last of the luggage. I let myself be crowded back. I set my lantern on the nearest one of the small tree-stumps standing in the farm- yard for hitching posts. In the dark I took a few more steps backwards, turned and walked to the cor- ral where my horse stood saddled. I brought it out to the gate of the old North road. Outside the farm- yard I tightened the cinch, mounted and rode slowly down the branch road through the plantations, turn- ing to the right around the bottom of the park. I saw the lights at the house above and heard voices on the veranda, laughter, the Boss squeaking above the rest, but I rode no faster up the road along the hedgerow bordering the park, turning more to the right, leading up between field-fences to where it struck the wagon-road to Five Oaks and the valley, quite beyond the last outhouses of Fountain Head. Here was in the road-fence a gate which I could open and shut without dismounting, and as soon as I was in the road I put my horse to running. I had so far held myself well in hand, but now going so fast along the wooded hillside, fleeing, I lost some 346 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS control over myself. My flesh was beginning to creep. Something was coming on behind me. I went faster, and faster came after me the icy terrors. Pursued! I could hear the clatter of horses' hoofs. They were gaining on me. Out of the bushes to both sides black shapes sprang at me as I went past and joined in the chase behind. Cries and calls sounded. Shots were fired. I heard the bullets whistle over me and sing away, ahead. It was not real. It could not be. It was all imagina- tion. I must stop it. I pulled up the horse. All was silence. Only the blood was pumping in my temples. I had gone a good distance. I was near the stony butte at the pass into our open hill-country. I could tell by the light that the moon must be rising, and as I rounded the butte I rode into the light of her yellow oval, deep down as though floating on the thin sur- face-mist and smoke which covered the great flat val- ley as if with a shining vail. I was on the level stretch of road along the high, narrow ridge, and as I was going faster again till I went at full speed, far above the mystic shimmer, spreading as if into illimitable space, something took possession of me, a spell, driving me to dash on into what lay open at my feet, a wondrous world of liberty and life. Before this I do not know but what my ideas had gone no farther than to get away from Fountain Head to Five Oaks and there to stay till that strange man had gone away again, which, I could be reasonably sure would be in one week's time, or less, the Boss's hospitality being as short-lived as lavish during its limited periods, no visitor being well endured longer than a week's time. Now my thoughts were on the road well known to 347 CHRO\'ICLliS OF MANUEL ALAXUS tliein, down the hills to the valley, to the river, down the river to the city by the bay. What all was at work in me, w'ho can tell? The terrors were shrunk back. Yet they were still there behind me, only a little more distant, and I still felt their power, as I always did. Before me lay a world in part remembered as full of sweetest life. And in it was at least one figure I could try to follow and hope to find, Mr. Tem Oldock. He was, I believe, never out of my thoughts since I had met him at Purple Creek ; and the finding of him again meant to me the getting back to all I had lost when I was taken from the old wharf, as my meeting him had brought back to me the hope and joy of the belief in the return to me of my^ happiness. But one sensation was dominant in me, I know. I feel it yet. Exultation ! I had escaped. The dangers I well knew, I should have to face again and again, and finally succumb. But I had escaped this time. Just so I should have planned my flight if I had planned it. And had I not? Just such a meeting I had been prepared for, and had been on the spot, at my post, and had succeeded in getting away. No- body would know, nobody could suspect. The Boss would be busy with his visitors till they departed. If he at all inquired for me, he would be told that I had been at Fountain Head until his arrival with his guests and would only think I had gone back to Five Oaks, on the natural conclusion that so many guests must keep him from attending to anything but them. I could safely calculate on two weeks to elapse before he would send or come for me, while old France would make no move to find out anything about me, suppos- ing me to be kept by the Boss at Fountain Head. All the chances were that long before I came to be really missed and talked about, that strange man would be 348 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS gone away again from Fountain Head without hearing- a single word to awaken the least suspicion or doubt or thought in him, referring to me. The only thing that might be a little doubtful was the sending back of my horse from the river. It would go back, I was sure. It had not long ago been twice over the road with a man from Fountain Head, who was working in our fields. For the rest I must trust to old France's lack of perception, which would prevent his noticing the horse when it did come back. Most likely he would never know it had been away. But I must do away with the bridle and saddle. At the accommodation gate in our Five Oaks fence my horse wanted to stop. It hardly knew any other way to go over the trail through our bottom lands to the road up our hill. Farther along where the road ran around the last spur of hill land, due west from Five Oaks I turned to look back. From one rear window of our house a piece of the road here was visible, and now, the moment T looked back, I saw on the black hill the light in the little house. How often, later in life have I thought of that soli- tary light and seen in my mind the old man, poring b)- it over our schoolbooks, preparing problems and themes and lessons for me that he was never more to teach, and have felt that I treated him almost like a criminal, almost as if I was then basely deserting him, I, the only one left, the last of his life's interests ! Down, round the hills, at their base, the road v/ent on winding. I must be near the point where the river road came up tlie valley. The shadows of brush and rocks and weeds and every little unevenness lay on the whitish, moonlit ground so black it v.'ould look solid and like some- thing lying there in wait. A\^here the shadov/s of trees on the bluiT fell across the road all was black as. though there was an abyss. Viy horse stopped. I could not 349 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS recognize anything. I heard the tinkhng of water. It must be in the watering barrel at the spring. I gave my horse the reins to go and find the water barrel and drink. When it was through drinking it wanted to go back the Five Oaks way. I had to pull it round. I could make out the river road now. I thought I recognized the water course with its bushes, along which I went. It was draw- ing away from the road. The road became evener. The land grew flat and spread out level and empty under the moon. I could go faster now. I was sure I was on the right road. The air grew cooler and thicker with smoke and vapor. The moonlight formed queer, long- drawn shafts in it and streaks crowding together ahead, but always scattering as I came near. Often I heard sounds. Some, I knew, were of travel- ing birds. At times I fancied I caught the noise of some- thing moving on the road behind, and turning in the sad- dle I saw, I thought, something coming on. But it never came any nearer. Once I saw a light. That was not imagination. It hung above the valley's floor. I knew it must be a brush fire on some far-away hill. The road went on straight and straight. There were more fences than I remembered. A dark streak in front of me made me wonder, if already I had come to the river. It was a long field of something growing, irri- gated alfalfa, I thought it was, extending along both sides of the road. A small noise from one side, far away, sounded a little like the barking of a dog, but so faint, I could not be sure. I remembered some talk I had heard at Fountain Head, months ago, that some ])eople had bought farm land in the valley and settled there. This might be the place. I was glad when I had passed it. I rode fast. The fog and smoke had thickened so as to hide the moon. I had just thought it must be drawing near morn- 350 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ing when I felt my horse noticing something ahead. Sud- denly it grew quite clear. It was light in the east. The road went down a short sag in the ground, and up again to the top of a little swell, and I saw the glint of the river. I knew the sag in the ground. x\nd I knew the reedy grass, bordering the water, but everything else was un- known to me. There were no gardens, no plantations. I had heard there had been an inundation of this part of the big valley last winter, but I had had no idea what that meant. The Chinese camp was all gone. No build- ings of any kind were to be seen. Yet there must be a landing somewhere, for the Boss certainly had fetched his visitors from this place. So I followed the road turn- ing down the river, till I came to it, below where the Chinese camp had been. It was larger and run out a good deal farther into the river than the former wharf had been. A lot of firewood was piled upon it, which made it look again more like the former landing. I dismounted and took the saddle and bridle off the horse and started to drive it back on the road. I walked back with it a little beyond the swell and hollow in the road, gave it a slap and told it to go home, as we used to do in the fields of Five Oaks when we sent a horse home. It walked a few steps and stood still, looking round at me. Then I ran to it, petted it, ran with it a short distance, slapped it again, telling it to go home; and it went, gradually going faster, till pretty soon I could not see it any more, nor hear it. And then I began to be sorry. I walked back to the landing. I twisted the bridle to- gether and flung it into the river as far as I could. It did not make a loud splash, which I took for a sign that it had gone down well. The saddle I dragged to the edge of the wharf planking and tumbled it over. It made a good splash. I went behind the woodpile and listened, 351 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US concluding if anybody at all were near, they would show themselves now to find out what that splash had been. ] did hear some noises too, some rustling in the tule- grass, sounding very much like a boat being pushed through them, but I judged it to be only the movement of marsh birds. It was daylight now. Far away, where our hills must be, the tule-fog hung whitish. I had always liked the low fogs coming round our hills like the waters of the bay. I had a feeling now, wishing I were there to see it. I heard what must be the noise of the steamboat. 1 saw her smoke. She was quite near. From her smoke- stack the smoke was streaming away, studded with sparks. The whistle blew. Hardly had she been made fast be- fore a gang plank was run out. and the deck hands went to work taking in firewood. I went right on board on the lower deck, nobody mind- ing me. I moved about carelessly till I found a good, dark place, abaft the engine from where I could see the gangplank and everybody coming on board. Some freight was stored there on which some people were sitting and lying, half asleep, and there I laid me down as though asleep. T thought the taking in of the firewood never would end. Every time one of the steamer's crew came passing by, I felt as though he must be looking for me, and al- though I had one of my five-dollar pieces ready to pay my fare, I dreaded being spoken to, questioned and having to invent some untruthful replies, which always was my weak point. All the time people were passing by the place where I lay : deckhands and officers too. One time one thrust a lantern right in my face, hut he did not look at me. only behind mo. looking for a {package or box, ex- cusing himself to me for disturbing mo. No one ever asked for my fare. .\t last the boat v.n< niovins'. working an'l creakino^ a 35^ CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS good deal, and tl-.en I fell asleep; and when T awoke I found we were on a big water, which must be the bay, and it must be afternoon. Some country people were on board. They were keeping together as if they were neighbors at home. I went to stand near them on the lower, forward deck and kept as close to them as was feasible, so that to any casual observer it might appear that I belonged to them. Some boys were with them and they spoke to me. They did not ask me where I came from ; they seemed to take it for granted that I was from the steamer-town on the river. They were friendly children. I liked them. And I well remember the deso- late feeling I regarded them with, longing in my heart to be like them v;ith folks of my own. One of them gave me a couple of applies which I wa= very glad to get to eat as I was very hungry. Looking ahead, I saw that we were coming to a big place of a lot of houses on hilly ground, all in smoke and fog. It must be the city. A cold wind was blowing sharph.'. I seemed to know the wind. I seemed to know some of the hills round about too. And I knew the water. It w^as past slack water. In the water, in a winding line, was a long fringe string of fruit and vegetables and other things, orange-, potatoes strav;. boxe=. which showed the edge of the incoming tide a^ I had seen it hundreds of times. A couple of fishing boats were slipping by; sev- eral steamers were moving; a ferryboat came quite close in a rush of foam. We were at the tov;n. It was all houses and shipping and wharves. I knew none of it. We were hauling up to a v.'harf. which was enclosed like a shed. Many people were standing there, looking up at u^. Some street boy.s were about. I noticed their eying me. and I knew I should have to fight some of them ^ome time. One of them looked particularly hard at me. He was dressed a good deal as I was, in overalls and gray, flannel shirt. 353 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS When I left the boat in the crowd I found myself at the bottom of the gangway face to face with him and he looked as if he might pitch into me then and there, only that he thought I belonged to the people I was with. I see his tough, blocky face now, as I think of it. The people kept on crowding. We had come through the gate of the wharf-shed and were in the open street. There was a deafening noise of thundering trucks, thumping carts, screaming of steam whistles, shouting and calling of men, ringing and clanging of bells. A violent wind, damp with rushing fog and dusky gray with smoke and dust almost held me pinned to the side of the shed. The stream of passengers landed from the steamboat, was drifting away from me, and I followed the scattering drift till it was all scattered, and one might wonder what had become of it. If there is anything I can recall vividly it is my turning back to go into an eating house I had just passed, to ask for work, so as not to have to spend any of my ten dollars for getting something to eat which I wanted badly. The place was quite empty. When I spoke to a waiter standing in the doorway, two, three other waiters came up to hear what I had to say. and they were so pleasant, 1 had at first great hopes they would put me to work right away. But I got no work and nothing to eat. zA.fter that I went to every eating house on the street, asking if there was any work for me to do in payment for a meal. Without knowing it I was imitating Hants in one of his exploits he more than often told me of, when he had one time come to the city, dead broke, and had gone, as I did now, to every eating house on the water front asking for work in exchange for something to eat, till he had gotten it. I came very near giving it up, though. Everywhere I was told I was too small, too young. Some of the restaurant men offered to give me a meal if I had no money to pay for one. But that I 354 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS would not accept. One stung me prett\' badly by telling me I was too dirty looking for his place. Upon my then asking him in reply to let me go to his yard-sink and wash myself, he ordered me out of his shop. I was some- what dusty, I suppose. For all this I kept on asking for work till I struck the coffee saloon of Bob, who set me to work washing dishes, and where I remained. It was a very small place with a short counter with turn-stools in front, a narrow gas range behind the counter, and a few tables and chairs in back. Bob's real name was, he told me the first thing, Mr. Duncan Hamilton ; and he laid such stress on it that I thought he rather disliked being called Bob, and there- fore started in to call him Mr. Hamilton : but very soon found out that he believed I did it to make fun of him, and desisted, easing it off with calling him Mr. Bob for awhile. Another thing he told me right away as he set me to work was that if the union came after him he would have to let me go ; but his place being so small and out of the way they generally left him alone, as he usually did all his own work, too. For if he had to hire help he could not make expenses. To me. however, it appeared that he would have done better if he had had at least one man to help him serve his customers, who came all in a crowd and rush at meal times. And how he had done without me, I could not see at all. For this reason I ventured next day to stay there and go to work unbidden, and then day after day, continuing steadily to work. And since I asked for no pay, only my meals and a sleeping place on the shelf on the back porch, he was very willing to have me retain my position as part dish washer and part waiter, even after I took up boot- blacking. He w^as very close and stingy, which of course I must 355 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS have quickly noticed after the Hberalness I had at Five Oaks been used to, and been taught by both my men to consider proper and due to myself to practice under all circumstances. He was suspicious too. Behind the shop on the back porch was a closet, a sink and a washtub, where some of the customers would wash themselves be- fore eating, and where I daily washed myself and washed my clothes, and to which place, being ready at hand, pri- vate and rather dark, I would, during the first week or two slip out and pretend to do some washing, or even go hiding in the closet, when overcome by the paroxysms of my homesick despair. Then Bob would be watching, ner- vously speculating wdiat I could be up to, suspecting I don't know what ; always looking for some hidden mean- ing of what was said and done. Equally great was his inquisitiveness, but as he had a way of partially answering his own questions, and being as credulous as he was suspicious, it was never difficult to thwart his endeavors to find out what one did not want him to know, and without having to take the trouble of making up much of a story. Such particulars 1 observed the first days, I may say without really seeing, or understanding and knowing, be- ing so disqualified by my homesickness. And yet I had to hold myself enough together to undergo an almost regular examination the first evening after business was over. The very first thing of all Bob wanted to know was if T knew the ten commandments. And when I told him I knew them both in Spanish and in English, but not so well in English, he made me say them in both languages and corrected me where I was wrong in English. I had to promise him, too, that I would repeat them to myself every morning and evening. That T had ten dollars in gold he very soon had made me acknowledge. He wanted me to leave them with him 356 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS for safe keeping, but I told him, I had promised the man who gave them to me to keep them myself, and he said no more about that. I did once give him some money to keep for me, but that was later, and I did not get it back. But in justice to him I must state that I do not know if he was the one that kept it from me. He was too distrustful to let me sleep in the shop on one of the tables, but he allowed me to lay myself down on the wide shelf on the open porch in the rear of the shop the first night. Before long, however, he repented of having given this permission, and after locking the shop and going to his lodgings he came back to tell me he would rather I should pick out for me a place to lie in and sleep in the old lumber yard that surrounded the porch and tlie house on three sides. I was by this time feeling so miser- able that I hardly cared what became of me, but because I did not want him to see me cry, I pretended after the first moment of alarm at his reappearance to be dead asleep when he came to talk to me. And I heard all his doubts and considerations, never moving, till he had talked himself out, had lingered in irresolute silence for some time, had gone away, had come back a second time to look at me once more, finally going away for good, leaving me to my untenable relief alone with my agony. If I had been unhappy before with homesick grief, what was I now ! I slept from exhaustion, to awake to the same, horrible noise in the early morning, the smoke and flying mist and dust, the dirt, the foul smells, the cold, damp wind ! Was this the home I once had pined for? And had I fondly listened for this roar of the streets, which now nearly drove me out of my head, and which it seemed impossible ever to get away from ? 357 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Aiul thus it appears to me to have been continually dur- ing the whole following couple of months of my stay in the city. Whenever my thoughts go back to this period of my life, they are accompanied by a feeling as though the dirty gloom of smoke and dust and fog, covering and infolding the big town, had bodily fallen on me, staining every observation, dulling all perceptions, tainting every emotion, darkening my whole soul, being as much cause as effect of the outbreak of my inborn melancholy, which now came into fullest play. 1 felt nothing but my homesick misery, knew nothing to do but to give myself up to it : hiding the unoccupied moments of the day and the blessed nights, lying crying in secret places, mostly the recesses of the old lumber yard in back of our shop. My longing for the places 1 had left in the country was so intense, there were mo- ments when the mere recollecting, the thinking of the little house on the hill, of but the rounding up of the hill- side against the sky, of but a broken fence rail, a dry leaf on the ground, was enough to unman me. What I could at the same time distinguish enough so as to strike me as peculiar was that in my melancholy griev- ing, there was a certain satisfaction, in my very unhappi- ness a definite sweetness, which made me abandon myself to it the more. And I could also at that time remember that it had been the same, or nearly the same at Five Oaks, when I was so very homesick at my first coming there. Only now it was worse. Perhaps it made me more indifferent to what might happen to me; and I may have been the better off for that. My dreams, certainly, visited me very seldom dur- ing this time. And if the old terrors were still there, why should I care ? Was it not all misery and wretched- ness anyhow ? How I first came to gain some self-conscious insight into the questions and conditions of my present life and 358 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US being, and then to reason on them, to suspect the harmful- ness of my immoderate grieving, the mischief of it to myself, and how I first began to become sensible that I must subdue it, exert myself, force myself to it, all this 1 know but so little of that I cannot attempt to think it out and tell it ; but the comprehension did come and the resolution. And I think it is again the old German school- master, whom principally I have to thank for teaching me so much self -observation and self-discipline, and I owe nearly as much to the personally direct and more practical treatment of Hants and his example. And again I must give my passionate grieving credit for doing me what perhaps was a great advantage. For my homesickness was not alone my longing for the homes I had lost, it was my child's heart's craving for father and mother, the despair of the homeless, the feeling of the nothingness of life without some one to cherish and be loved by. If I had never met my father at the time I did, if at that time of my life I had not known anybody to show me affection and whom I learned to love so passion- ately, everything would have been different. The life at the old wharf would never have become the most hal- lowed, which it was, of all my life. Homesick I should ever have been, but never to the extent that shaped my whole life. I should have been drawn away from it easier, brought to mingle with the crowd that grows up in the streets. And who can promise that in spite of all the principles I had been given, I might not have been one of the many of that crowd who founder and are lost m the ocean of evil in their surroundings. Now, quite a child yet and belonging to nobody, all alone in my misery, thinking with tenderness of everyone I ever had known, feeding even on loving memories of our most obstrep- erous pigs at Five Oaks, the giving myself up altogether to my sorrow isolated me. I was kept to myself, away from associations only too vicious and eager to corrupt. 359 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS From time to time came to me the recollection of my father, and he alv/ays appeared to me as different from other people as he ever had done. I had, I very v^^ell knew, actually belonged to Nick and Nello at that time more than to him, and later much more to Hants and France, even more to the Boss, to Jim, and Antonio be- fore, and to Bob now, but he had always belonged to me. Fie had loved me as nobody else ever had. And he loved me and belonged to me still. I do not remember that I ever wondered who he was, where he might be, if I should ever meet him again. It seems I should have done so, but I do not remember that I did. Of the other man I had less apprehension than at Foun- tain Head, and I tried to think still less about him. Yet, one evening, when for some purpose I had gone up town to the main shopping streets of the city and saw walking right before me on the crowded sidewalk in the bright light of the show windows a man who looked so much like him it very likely was he, I felt the terrors as near as at Fountain Head. It may have been my father. For however it was, the image in me of Richard Alanus to my father had to a great extent driven the one image of my father out of my mind, extinguished it, or rather absorbed it. I could call up something of the look of my father's eyes, his manner, the touch of his hand, but not much else. When I (lid see him again I thought at the first moment it was the other. I never again went to the main shopping parts of the town. I did go once to the old wharf. That is I believe I must have gone there. I remember nothing about it, but there is in me a picture of the old wharf the existence of which I can hardly explain, except I really saw the wharf that way. It shows perfectly plain the wharf at 360 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS dawn, reflected on die calm surface of die bay the boats gone, the shanty gone, the whole place deserted. The shanty was burnt down and the planknig charred, that is the reason why I think I must actually have seen the place For I did not then know the shanty was burnt down. Otherwise I should not believe I had been there at all I had a very strong feeling, I know, of its being a very unsafe place for me to go to, apt to be visited and watched by any pursuer of mine. It is possible of course that I had accidentally learned and ajtervvards forgotten that the shanty was burnt down and that the picture in my mind is a product of my imagination or a dream of either of which I am not conscious. For one thing i should think it very strange, if I did find my way some early morning along the water front to the old wharf, that I then should not have gone to Mr. iem Oldock's old brewery, which I did not do, or I should know it. , . , . Once I recollect being far uptown, wandering about, going up very steep streets and getting a far and wide view over the city, so extensive indeed, that I felt amazed at the size of the town. I have no idea of having any object in going there, but I fancy I went to look if I could place our wharf, ihe day was clear of fog and there was but little wind, think it was very late in the year, and the ram was still holding off. The smoke was spread over the whole city and out to sea. It was like seeing things through a thm. dirty black veil. One house I especially remember a fine house with a high front wall of straw-colored bricks, steps of white stone and wide circle-head windows with glass that was polished like a mirror. At one of the win- dows between the pushed-back, crimson and white drap- ery stood a boy, a very handsome boy, bigger than I very nicely dressed. I stood still and looked at him. He did not look at me, although he must have seen me. Pretty 361 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS soon he glanced at me and with a contemptuous face turned away behind the curtains. And I remember per- fectly walking away, saying: "I am just as good as you." After the first night Bob had nothing more to say against my sleeping on the porch. I hated it because it was so dirty and could not be kept clean, but its great advantage was the nearness and accessibility of the old lumber yard on the sides and rear. I could climb up the stacks to the top in scores of places and get away in all directions from any pursuer. It was sheltered too by different shed roofs and full of hiding places ; and it was not infested with vagabonds. I think the lumber was in litigation, liened or garnisheed. A watchman was about there all the time, one by day and another by night. They soon had become familiar enough with me to let me go and come over the lumber as I wanted to. When I had taken up bootblacking and worked at it some nights very late, not coming back before Bob had closed the shop and gone away, I had to get through the lumber yard to my porch. But if it was at all possible I came back before Bob closed the shop. I liked it. I liked to come and see the light. That was now my home. From the first moment I had seen some bootblack boys, I had conceived the notion of going into that business myself. Perhaps the idea had been .planted in me before this, long before, and kept alive by what I had noticed and heard. I must always have known that boys blacked boots on the streets for money. Probably I must have known such boys myself. Two weeks after coming to the city I had bought from an Italian bootblack boy his kit, the complete outfit, and went hustling for work every free hour. And it was not long before I found myself moneyed enough to buy me 362 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS clothes that I stood badly in need of. The better gar- ments of these clothes, or what sailors would call their .^hore clothes were to be worn, I presume, when I should set out to try to locate Mr. Tem Oldock for 1 am pretty sure that had been and still was my objective ponit though I did not realize how my personal experiences, the reali- ties of city life, together with my homesickness were changing my objects. u n 4. Bob, when I had told him of my project, had at the first outset opposed it, because of course he wanted to keep me working for him the way I was doing. But as that was the very thing I was aiming at, we had no further difficulty to come to an understanding which le t my time about evenly divided between chop-house work in Bob s place during meal hours and cleaning up time, and boot- blackincr My best customers were the seafaring men, and in one certain sailor's boarding house called ^'George s Rancho, I could always count on a dozen jobs daily, the great objection, however, to that place being that the sailors were all the time getting up fights between the boys, in the large bar-room of the house, making bets on them, setting all the boys coming into the place, bootblacks as well as others, newsboys, peddlers, any boys, against each other, often utterly corrupting them by giving them money and drinks. , , , It still seems to me that I was always the one that was wanted to do the fighting. I had kept away from other boys from the first. I had done it to hide my sorrow from them. And indeed, I never wanted to fight any- bodv But I was forced into it. And bigger boys were pitted against me all the time. At the boardmg house the men would see fair play, and I oftenest came out victorious. But when I met some of those boys at other narts of the water front I was liable to be set upon by a whole crowd, and badly ill-treated, being a stranger, 363 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS too, nobody knew where from, and naturally hated as such and as being given to retiring ways. I was in constant danger, too, of being picked up by the police and put in a reformatory school. Another place where I took in a good many dimes was at a ship chandler's, where a number of coasters' captains congregated every morning or forenoon and whiled away the hours till lunch time with telling stories, joking, teas- ing each other, adjourning from time to time to the next- door saloon and returning each time with increasing ban- ter and laughter. Some of them were not very good pay and would sometimes put me off from day to day and at last make me compromise for as much as half my bill, in order for me to get a settlement. The worst one of these was Captain Cornelius Smid- kins. He liked very much to get his shoes polished every morning. In fact it was rather a particular weakness of his to always want to have his footwear clean and well shined. But he did not like at all to pay for it. It was all quite comic, and I don't know but what already at that time I could fully enjoy the humor of it. When I asked him if he wanted a shine he would not answer but in a self-forgetful sort of way put out his feet, and only after the work was done and I was standing before him, mod- estly waiting to be paid, would he pretend to notice what had been done, coming to his senses like, crying in a tone of annoyance: "Oh, I did not want you to polish my shoes, 1 am dead-broke to-day." Or another time he would ask: "How much money do I owe you now?" And when I told him the sum, he would exclaim it was too much, he would not pay that. I had no right to let a bill run up that much. He did not mean to say that I wanted to cheat him, he knew I was honest, but I was mistaken. I should always collect my money at the finish of each job, then no mistake like this could happen. Any- how he had no money with him now, but if I were around 364 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US to-morrow or next day he would settle with me. But to- morrow or next day he would say : "J^^st run your brush over my shoes. Not a regular shine! I don't want a shine. I only want the dust taken off. I have no money to-day. I had to pay some small bills I did not think of yesterday. I shall have plenty money to-morrow." And to-morrow he would maybe pay me ten cents on account. He was quite indifferent, too,, to the blackguarding of the other skippers about this. They often and privately urged me on to next time polish but one of his shoes, leaving the other unblackened and refuse to polish it till he paid me. But this I did not want to do. It seemed mean to me, though again I felt it to be not fair to the other customers, to let him get his work done for less than they, and I had made up my mind to tell him so and quit doing his work altogether, when the day came that ended all this, the day I was set upon by three boy toughs and had to fight for as good as my life, as I had often forejudged I should and had, I thought, prepared myself for. I was on my way to Bob's shop for supper. It was rather early. I was crossing a planked lot where there had been a small coal yard which was now removed, leav- ing the place empty, excepting a large shed, half full of junl:, when the three boys came rushing onto me from behind out of the shed where they had been hiding, wait- ing for me, as I often came that way going home. With the first one of the three I had had a wrestling match some days ago in the barroom of George's Rancho. He was nearly my match. The second boy had not long ago been pointed out to me as a fellow who had declared that lie would break my face. He was smaller than I, but older, built somewhat dwarfish, with short legs and very long, strong arms and big hands. The third boy was the Ijiggcst of all, perhaps thirteen years old. I did not know him at all. He did not look as if he amounted to much. They had me down and first were searching me for 365 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS money. For I bore the reputation of having money and always carrying money on my person. They did not find any. I had some sewed in the bottom of my overalls, but they did not look there. The first boy was strad- dling me and had his hand on my throat. The second boy lay on my legs and held one of my hands with his long reach. The third boy was holding my other hand down. ''Let us torture him," cried the third boy. ''He is only a Greaser. I guess he is over ten, too, anyhow." "Gouge his eye," croaked the long-armed devil. "Wait," said the first boy," let me hook his nose first." He was going to hook his fingers in my nostrils, but see- ing some rough, stiff, pine splinters lying by, which seemed to him more suitable, he grabbed some of them in a bunch to drive them up my nose, when very awkwardly he turned his hand so that I got two of his fingers between my teeth and I bit them to the bone. He gave shriek on shriek. He kicked ; he clawed with his other hand. But I held on. I think he kicked the second boy in the face. The third boy had let loose my hand and most stupidly was trying to drag the first boy away from me, dragging me up in the struggle. As soon as I was on my feet I let go the fingers. T turned and putting into it all my strength dealt the second boy a left-handed, awfully lucky blow, square under the jaw, that sent him backward falling and down like a log of wood. I believe though that he had been badly hurt by the kicking of the first boy ; and he had hardly gained his feet. The first boy was keeping up his screaming. T certainly had torn the flesh of his fingers. People were coming running. The second boy lay like dead. Per- haps I had broken his jaw. My hand felt broken, as if T had hit a lump of iron with it. The third boy ran. And I ran too. I first ran up-hill. I hardlv knew what I was running -5.66 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS away from. I had not done any wrong. T was not sorry and I was not afraid, even if I knew enough to know that there miglit trouble ensue for me. But I hated what 1 had had to do. The horrible taste of blood was in my mouth, and I thought 1 had crunched the bones of the fingers. Then all at once the idea came into my head to go away from this place, give up all this life. I could not go back to Five Oaks, and I never had any thought of doing that, but I could go to sea as Hants had done. Probably the idea to go to sea had been in my head all along. And if the encounter with these boys was the last cause of my leaving town, I suspect the first and real cause was my having seen that strange man in the evening on the sidewalk in the shopping streets of the town. I had stopped running and turned to go down hill again in another direction to the water front, where some coast- ing craft were always lying ready for sea. On one I saw the name *'Good Fellow." which T knew was tlie name of Captain Smidkin's vessel. I am not sure that I should have selected Captain Smidkins' as the one most agreeable to me, or he the most agreeable captain to go to sea with, yet now that the ves- sel here was his and ready for sailing next forenoon, as T heard one asking a man on deck, whom I took to be the watchman, I was eager to go and speak to him and went, directed by the watchman, into the cabin where I found Captain Smidkins alone at his desk, filing some papers, utterly surprising him. He evidently thought I had come after some money he owed me yet. And there was some money lying on his desk, too, which instinctively he cov- ered quickly with some papers, knowing though as he must; that I had seen it. I understood it all plainly enough, and not to shame him or anger him and thus injure my own cause, I right away 367 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS told him straightforward that I had come to ask him to let me go to sea with him. When he understood that I had not come for money, and that instead of wanting money from him I had some little money saved up that I wanted him to collect for me from Bob, who was taking care of it for me, together with my new clothes, I felt I could consider my case won. Of course I had to do some more talking. I did not tell him how sick I was of the life on the water front and the whole city life, how much I wanted to get away from the riotous uproar there, but I told him I liked his vessel and wished to sail in her, that he need not pay me any wages, if only he gave me my board and clothes, that I could pull an oar or scull and handle a boat, a small boat I meant; that I also could cook a plain meal if it came to that, and would serve him faithfully, and at the same time keep his shoes always polished neatly. Also that I had no father nor mother nor anybody to whom I belonged, so that he ran no risk of becoming responsible for me to anybody. My clothes he brought me next morning, but not the money. Whether Mr. Duncan Hamilton kept it, deny- ing that I had any in his keeping as Captain Smidkins re- ported, or whether Captain Smidkins collected and then subverted it to balance my indenture I have never been able to decide by myself. The tug was alongside. We cast off our lines and were towed outside the heads, where we could make a fair wind for the southern coast. I was more than half at home aboard ship already from my former acquaintance with vessels. I was not seasick. I was in a way happy to be clear of the life T had been leading, but yet, when the town had vanished in fog and smoke, and only a fa- ding glow, as the evening advanced, showed where it was located, far and farther away, a lonely feeling of loss gave my heart a twinge, making me think of the lighted- up water front street. Bob in his place, the sizzling chops 368 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US and steaks filling the whole shop with fatty steam, the longshoremen, deckhands, coal heavers all crowding in, so many people I had come to know, who had so^ many times shown me kindness, giving me words of friendly, joking encouragement. September. When I came to Mr. Mauresse's new residence this morning it was before the appointed time and before Mr. DeLang had come. I heard from one of the workmen that Mr. Mauresse had already been there. Mr. DeLang was rather late and seemed a trifle put out about the mis- carrying of his appointment with Mr. Mauresse. For it had been a fixed appointment, I now came to understand, for Mr. Mauresse to meet us. However by questioning among the men working on the building Mr. DeLang at last found a plumber's helper, with whom Mr. Mauresse had left word for Mr. DeLang to send the gardener to the hotel, this evening, making Mr. DeLang quite satisfied now. "I thought," he said, "it might be better if I was pres- ent at your meeting the gentleman here. I might be able to put a word in now and then that would help you along. But if he wants you at the hotel, all right! The hotel means the wife. You will see the whole family. All you have to do now is to let them have what they want." And he proceeded to give me in his slowest way snudry advice, counsel and instruction how to let everybody have their way, but at the same time to take care of my own interest, which I rather inclined to disregard, he thought. Very seriously he cautioned me not to give right ofT any esti- mate or figure of cost or make a mere guess at price. If I wanted him to, he said, he willingly would sit down m his oflfice and go over my figures with me on the cost of the thing, supposing I had made any figures as yet at all. Or if I had not, he could give me the bigger part of all to-morrow to assist me to figure up the job and make 369 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS an intelligent bid. For that was what Mr. Mauresse would want to arrive at, an understanding, a contract. He spoke more friendly like than ever. It moved me so, I could hardly answer "yes" and "no." What makes him take such a friendly interest in me? What have I done that he should want to be so helpful to me? But it is not what there is in me; it is not what 1 have done, what I am. To quote Ullard again: "It is the other way, it is what there is in him. It is his own helpfulness and goodness that acts and works." To show him my appreciation of his kindness, I asked him to direct me to some nurserymen of whom I could obtain prices of plants, and he wrote for me letters of introduction to several. He made the ap- pointment to meet me to-morrow a little before noon. "My wife will be at home I understand," he ex- plained, "and she will make us a little lunch. Then I can give you the rest of the day. You better re- port here to-morrow morning to be sure of our ar- rangements. All right !" I have seen, now, nearly all the florists Mr. DeLang directed me to and some others besides. I have ob- tained prices and samples of almost everything and the address, I am certain, of everybody in any business or trade or occupation connected in the remotest de- gree with the doing of such a job as this. I am truly a trifle bewildered. Business ! Business ! Everybody seems to be fully on the alert as soon as that magic word comes into play. I almost feel as though I had caught a little of the spirit of it and can not say that I dislike it. One belongs, as it is, to some sort of special association, to be one of a set. There is a com- munity of interests. And more. One does not only become to the others of interest but of importance. 370 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Something about this pleases the conceit. I can under- stand this and follow it; and yet I am no busmess man; nor ever shall be! One florist I called on is interested in a large seed- farm in the upper part of Santa Clara valley. I thought at first it must be near my father's ranch, but from the description the man gave me it must be on the other side of the valley. I questioned the man about other landowners there and their tracts, but found out nothing of my father's ranch. I am specu- lating now on getting Mr. Mauresse interested m a trip to that man's place for the selection of some dwarf roses, which the man raises in great variety and which could be used in the new garden with great effect. If Mr. Mauresse would go there to select them him- self and take me along or send me I might get a chance to find out something about what has become of my fathers place. On my wav back from the nursery farthest out, 1 came within a block's distance from Mrs. Stillborn's residence, and seeing Mrs. Stillborn in the grounds, I walked that much out of my way over to the place. She was cutting roses in the shrubbery, which divides the barnyard from the side lawn, the lot being a large corner lot, falling very steeply on the grade of the side street to the rear, with the barn on the outer rear end, opening onto the side street. I walked in through the barn, seeing that she knew me again. "If there is not that good for nothing Cholo," she cried. ''I knew you would come back. What do you want? Did I not tell you to stay away? Now. what do you want?" I raised my hat and with some exertion to keep from laughing I answered very civilly, "You did not absolutely forbid me to come back. You told me not to come back expecting permanent employment. 3/1 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US More you could not anyhow very well forbid me to do. And I am not here expecting a permanent situation. I only want a day's work, or half a day's work to help make my living. I know you have a regular gardener." "You know ! You know nothing about it," she ex- claimed. "Or perhaps you have heard that I dis- charged the lazy good-for-nothing, and that is the rea- son of your reappearance. But don't you flatter your- self that you will get the situation. There is no situa- tion and there will be none. What is the use of a gardener? A common laborer, if he can only handle a spade, is all that is required here. And since we have given up our horses and carriage we need no coach- man." "I think so myself," I put in. "You think! You think! Well, I don't know what your thinking amounts to; I think the place demands a gardener, if gardeners such as ought to be, could be got." "Very true." "Oh," she cried, "you need not try to look as if you were the only capable and reliable man in the country. There are plenty as good as you and many more better. I could get any number of offers from able and honest men, if I would but advertise." "No doubt!" "No doubt?" she shouted, "I doubt it very much. They are all robbers. Not one is to be trusted." It was certainly quite entertaining to notice and watch how concurrence with her in all her proposi- tions acted on her peculiar temper, increasing her anger, if anger is the right word for it, and I might have been provoked to keep it up in the spirit of mis- chief, to see how far she would go, only I am such a poor actor; I really cannot act. And also, she had really gone far enough and could but repeat her per- 372 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL A LAN US formance. So I talked back to her, opposing her with sensible contradictions speaking loud, too, if not as loud as she did. She came quicker to reason than I had expected. Her struggle was but brief, and it all ended in her offering me the job of keeping the grounds in trim. As they are in good condition it will not take more, than one day in a week to keep them so, unless she makes changes. The amount of my wages I am to settle with Mr. Stillborn. I had to tell her of course that I could not enter into any agreement till I had heard from another person about a gardening job I was expecting to get. She did not like this very much, but had to be satis- fied with having me work for her this afternoon, for which I am to receive a dollar and a half from Mr. Stillborn as soon as I see him. she having no money and never paying any bill whatever, always leaving that for her husband to do, not even wanting to pay me on an order, to be given me by her on her hus- band and indorsed by me, which way of ending the business I proposed for fun but which fun she did not understand in the least. That I felt a little elated at my victory over her is true. Yet what is there to be elated about ! Anybody with ordinary judgment, if he can but keep his temper, must be able to manage her. I have before this known people who had to be treated with contradiction and opposition. It does interest me a little to try to make her out. She has common sense. At least she knows it when she meets it. At bottom she seems to be equally good-natured or, indeed, soft-natured and con- trary. Perhaps she is not so very contrary after all, only of a lively disputing turn. At the end of the dispute she is then quite willing to give in and do what one wished of her. There is even a motherly way 373 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS about her. And I am sure she very much likes to be coaxed. Mr. Stillborn I dare say, aggravates her case, by being so taciturn, so more than undemonstrative and unresisting, so frozen mannered as I take him to be. And she again, I don't doubt, aggravates him. I suppose there are no children. Children would have cured both their cases long ago. Another thing chil- dren might have been a cure for is her saving spirit, as it appears. Now to the hotel ! From one comedy to another. Late night. One more failure to find out anything! Mr. DeLang was right in saying that I should see the whole family. They were all there. And they were all full of Paris. I had to wait no great length of time before I had the opportunity of mentioning Mahon and asking Mrs. Mauresse if during her resi- dence in Paris she had met Mahon or heard of him. She tried to think, to remember. The whole family came to her assistance, trying to think, to remember. Everyone of the first class hotels in Paris was mentioned, some country places, too, but all to no purpose. I could only explain that Mahon Mark Tem Oldock was the son of Mr. John Tem Oldock, whom Mr. Mauresse must certainly know by name, that I had known him when a boy, had gone to school with him for about a year but was not in the same grade, since he was several years older than I. He had then gone with his father to Europe and I had afterwards heard that he was living in Paris. And his father who was in Boston had grown very rich. "Yes, very rich!" sneered Mr. Mauresse. *Tf Tem Oldock was a young man, he would die in the poor- house. As it is he will probably die before he gets there." I was rather early in coming. They were still at dinner. A waiter showed me a seat in the parlor, 374 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS bringing me word to wait a few minutes. They seem to occupy quite a number of rooms, including a private dining room, all very lavishly decorated. Pretty soon Mr. Mauresse entered the room with a couple of young men, who, I think, I saw at his place of business when I delivered my sketch there. They were in evening dress, and two young ladies coming in after them, nieces of Mrs. Mauresse, I learned after- wards, were in full dress. Full dress was indeed the order. And I am sure it must lend in importance to the principal meal of the day, even if does not altogether improve the appearance of the head of the family. How the possession of a fine family and wealth invests a man, even otherwise not framed for it, with dignity! Only he must not be an absolute fool, I suppose. And Mr. Mauresse is no fool. And the family is fine : seven beautiful children ! And the wife! At first sight of her it was impossible not to think of Mrs. De Lang's remark. Then for some moments I was lost in admiration. Astonishing is her fairness. She is a perfect blonde with beautiful, pale, deep-sea blue eyes, her somewhat level eyebrows and eyelashes are a few shades darker than her hair. Her complexion is most lovely ; pale, yet free of all milkiness, not pink, nor blushing red, still with a soft glow of freshness and health! And she is the mother of seven children! One after another, smaller and smaller, they kept coming in by all doors. "Another county heard from," she would exclaim and laugh as one appeared ; all like her in shapeliness, beauty of features, figure, complexion, only with rather darker hair, boys and girls. Mr. Mauresse's first words had been : **How much ? What is it going to cost?'' And as I lifted my shoulder, he cried: "An idea! I only want an idea. You must 375 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS have an idea. Give us an idea." However, following Mr. De Lang's advice, I gave him no idea. When Airs. Mauresse presently had entered, he had for a while not spoken. In a way he seemed to be dis- playing her, though it was but to an ordinary gardener : her beauty, her gown, her lace, her jewels; certainly he was proud of her, and well he might be. Her arms were bare and her neck, showing the most lovely throat and shoulders. She was all in white with a bluish orchid on the corsage below the right shoulder. Over her shoulders went cords, the twisted strands of which were strings of pearls fastened to the bodice with diamond clasps. She wore a collar of three or four strings of larger pearls with half a dozen cross bars of very large diamonds and on the left arm, to balance the orchid, I suppose, half way between the dimpling elbow and the shoulder was clasped a bracelet of still larger diamonds, just denting the skin. Diamonds were on her breast, her belt, on her fingers, in her ears, in her hair. For more than an hour my sketch was discussed, every- body, to the smallest child, having in good democratic manner their say about every flower, but nothing finally was changed. I was told to do my figuring and hand in my bid on the work in accordance with the sketch as it stood. "Make your figure carefully as low as you can," Mr. Mauresse impressed on me several times, "as low as pos- sible, and I shall give you the preference." I do not know about getting any preference; that is, more than another one. I don't take Mr. Mauresse for a man to give preferences in such a manner much; but at the same bid as another I think the job will be given to me. And I feel as indififerent about it now as possible. Probably it was the expectation of learning something of Mahon's life in Paris which gave this job its main interest. Well, at least Mr. Mauresse knows Mr. Tem Oldock or 376 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS of him. And so there must be others. I should inquire. Perhaps Mr. De Lang knows something. September. I saw Mr. De Lang this morning and reported prog- ress. He sent me off to different contractors to find out the cost of certain materials. At eleven o'clock I was back at Mr. Mauresse's place, and Mr. De Lang was here to take me to his house in his buggy. ^'I understand my wife is going to be home," he said, "but I am not sure. I thought she had gone to Berkeley to see her cousin. I sent word there for her to come home. But if she did not get it and she is not home, we can get dinner afterwards somewhere. We shall find enough in the pantry now for a sandwich or two." But she was come home and all smiles. She quickly set the table for us in the kitchen and took a seat at it with us. Her husband's message had just caught her somewhere and just come at the right time, she pro- fessed, for she had never in her life felt so much like having a nice, cosy lunch at home. And so she fixed everything all right. When I said soemthing about my seeing Mrs. Mauresse at the hotel last night she became very much interested, and I had to tell her all I had observed, and then she ex- claimed that she was all astonishment that I had noticed and remembered so much. "Well," I told her, "T have everything down black on white: her lace and her jewels and her dimpling elbows; everything ! I put it down on purpose, not to forget any- thing. I knew you would want to hear about it." "Oh' I love to hear it," she cried. "Is not that a bad twitch she has in her left cheek ?> They say she got that trving to work a dimple in the cheek. You did not notice it? No? But the funniest thing I ever saw in all my life is that as soon as the cold summer winds set in, her nose turns pink, 377 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "How can you say that?" interposed Mr. De Lang, quite ruffled. "How can you know anything like that about her at all? You have not seen her but once or twice. She has been away for years. You never saw her since she came back but once or twice. And I don't believe you ever saw her before that time." "Oh, yes, I did. And I know. The girl that manicures me works on her, too. Ellen, you know !" I asked Mr. De Lang if he knew Mr. Tem Oldock. "Yes," he said, "if you mean John Tem Oldock, the rich Tem Oldock. That is," he corrected himself, "I know who he is. I am not acquainted with him person- ally. Why?" "Oh," I answered, "I know him a little. I used to know his boy when I was a boy. His name was mentioned last night, and Mr. Mauresse declared that if Mr. Tem Oldock was a young man he would die in the poorhouse, but, being an old man, he would probably die before he got there. He is very rich, is he not ?" Mr. De Lang, still somewhat ruffled, called out, "You should have told Mr. Mauresse there might be people who talked that way about himself ; other rich people." Then he added with more coldness, "I don't know anything about Tem Oldock's affairs, nor about him, himself at all, except what one reads in the daily papers and hears on the street. He is known here because he took his rise here in this town, his first rise. He is one of the very many, very rich men of the country. At least he has the name of being. He is, generally speaking, considered a very enterprising man. Probably he has a good many irons in the fire. Men like him have to have. I reckon he knows how to take care of himself." After that Mr. De Lang was silent, and I thought he felt sorry for having shown anger. And now, lunch over, we set ourselves down to work. Mr. De Lang is very methodical, such as I had expected 378 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS him to be. I think I have learned enough from him in this one afternoon to henceforth do my own figuring. He directed me to make another plot or ground plan of the improvements, a plain line drawing on tough, brown paper, what he called a working plan on a much larger scale than the original sketch. Of this he bade me make three tracings. And mostly from his dictation I had to write specifications of the different materials and work and two copies of each. The marble work will be the most expensive part of the whole job. The drawings for it ought to be elaborated more. But Mr. De Lang says the marble men will submit drawings for all those parts afterwards, and moldings and carvings to be selected. He made an unfinished sketch of the ornamental cheeks of the marble steps. He is a far better draughtsman than I am. And he likes that kind of work; I suppose that is partly the secret of his busying himself so much with this job. I told him I thought he would make a very good architect. He shook his head ; "he had no ideas," he said. Mrs. De Lang came in while we were at work. She came to bid us good-by. She was going out. She did not say any more than just that, ''she was going out." He seemed to feel some compunction for having spoken a little harshly at luncheon. But his manner is such one can hardly tell his anger from his repentance. He asked her if she wanted any money. She said, ''no," very pleas- antly. He did not ask her where she was going nor when she was coming back. Accidentally, in turning, she brushed against me. She smiled. September. All this day I have been going with Mr. De Lang ni his buggy from place to place to get offers, estimates, bids, on the materials and also some work for the different parts of Mr. Mauresse's gardening job. To the marble men we went first and left drawings and specifications 379 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS with them for figuring, returning later in the day for the bid. Toward evening he took me back to his house, where we went over all the figures and made out my bid, which I wrote out according to his dictation, signed and closed. Then, together with my original sketch, and also one of the tracings of the working plan, and one copy of the speicfications, I took it to Mr. Mauresse's place of business. It was so late I had expected the gentleman to be gone home. But he was there I and I handed him the papers. He made as though he would open the envelope con- taining the bid, but desisted and put all the papers on his desk, turning to face me, almost like wanting to prevent me from getting at them again. "Well, sir," he said, "I hope this will be satisfactory." J replied that I had figured the job carefully, as low as possible, as he had told me to do, and that I hoped to get it. "If you are five cents the lowest, I give you the prefer- ence," he assured me. "I shall let you know on Monday: I shall inform Mr. De Lang. He has told me that he will be your bondsman. He is a good man. If we come to an understanding, you may then right away go to my archi- tect and sign the contract he will draw up. And the bond. There is no necessity of having a lawyer draw up the papers. The architect can do it just as well, better in fact, and much cheaper. I am saving you that much money. You pay for the contract, you know. And you pay for the bond. And the acknowledgment. I know Mr. De Lang, and I know he is a good man, but I must have his signature acknowledged before a notary public. Business ! And it is proper that you should pay for that, not I. Or he, as you arrange it. I don't care. It will cost half a dollar. What is half a dollar? You make that on the job in half an hour. Don't tell me! Mr. De Lang is a good man." 380 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Mr. De Lang invited me to dine with him to-night. I told him I ought to be the one to pay for the dinner this time. He said I had better wait till the contract was signed before I invited people to dinners on the job. As I came home just now from Mr. Mauresse's offices, to clean up a little for the dinner, Mrs. Carpenter scared me by handing me a letter. I had vision of Mr. Snivers. It was from Mr. Brown, asking me to call about some work. I am going to Mr. De Lang's now. I can truly say, I wish he had not invited me. Mrs. De Lang has not been home since yesterday afternoon. He was rather in a peculiar humor all day to-day. I thought at first this morning he had heard from her. Maybe he has. I don't want to ask. Late night. Mr. De Lang took me to dinner at the same place where we dined before. After dinner he invited me to go to the theatre wath him. I have been avoiding all theatres. I know how they affect me. I tried to excuse myself. But a few glasses of claret had given sway in him to a clam- orous insistence on having his way that I had to submit to. We went to a variety theatre. It was not much more than an ordinary place, yet all the conditions of it, the lights, the music, the crowd and their noise, the acts and even the very poor scenery excited me to high degree, awakening I don't know what all in me. A young, Spanish looking girl was one of the perform- ers. Twelve years old I took her to be. The play bill called her vStella, and her act an acrobatic dance, that was about the right name for it. Near the end of the act quite a small child, dressed as a clown, came on the stage, and the two finished the dance together to great applause. Mr. De Lang was growding out something about not liking to see children made do such things. I told hirh they were very easy ; when I was a bov I had prac- 381 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tised such tricks and had enjoyed doing them. Then, in the emotion of the moment, I told him that I had had a little brother, no bigger than this little clown, with whom I had been used to go through some gymnastics like these, and we never had been hurt. **Well," he asked, ''were you on the stage?" "Well, no, not with my brother, and not in such acts! But yes, I have once been on the stage, long ago, acting, singing, when I was a boy. I was a member of an opera company, a children's opera company." "Now," he drawled, "I always had an idea you had been on the stage, I don't know what, but something gave me the notion. And you are not affected neither. I did not know till just now though. I mean, I did not know I had the idea. Was it here in town?" I said it had been here, and he proceeded with putting some more questions. I named our company and went on to describe the whole business to him, when, after awhile, having caught up with me, he interrupted me, saying he knew all about it. "I heard those children sing," he continued, and began to tell me the particulars ; but it took him so long that the intermission had come to an end before he had finished and a new act had commenced, stopping our conversation until the act was over. The next one being some athletics, gave us a chance to talk again. "There was a girl in that company," he resumed, "a pretty little girl, smaller than this one ; she was very good. She sang and acted the best I ever heard. That is all I remember. I don't remember you. Rut that is a long time ago, nineteen years." "Oh, no, not more than fifteen." "Well, perhaps," he conceded. "What was her name?" was?" "Carmen ! Carmencita !" "Carmencita! Well, if that is not Spanish all over! 382 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS What does it mean anyhow? Carmencita! And you? Did you sing with her? Could you sing? What made you quit?" "I lost my voice." He seemed to be ready with some objection to this, when our attention was drawn to the girl, Stella, appear- ing in the audience. She must have come into the audi- torium by the stage door and was going down the differ- ent aisles, peddling her photographs at twenty-five cents apiece. We watched her. She looked off the stage still prettier than on it. There was a gentle seriousness about her, one felt more than one saw. The little clown was not with her. When she came to our row, Mr. De Lang, who had the aisle seat, held out a five dollar gold piece to her. She looked at him very earnestly. ''That is gold," she said. "I know it," he answered, ''take it." She told him her father did not allow her to take more than the price of the photographs bought, from anybody, and she moved to go, which was exactly the thing to make Mr. De Lang more insistent, and he stretched out his hand to detain her. She grew first pale, then red, and. speaking very low, said, 'Tlease take your hand away." She stood perfectly still, showing no fear, but at the same time turned her eyes to mine with a look of both appeal and reproof, as though she would say: 'This man. I see, is not himself, but you, why don't you help me?" I was afraid that to oppose and thwart Mr. De Lang would only make things worse, and, after all, he had only meant it kindly. However, her look made me quickly exert myself to do something. I observed to him that he might buy five dollars' worth of the photographs from her; she could sell him so much and more without dis- obeying her father. He caught at the idea, laughed, coughed, asked how many pictures she had in her little 383 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS leather bag, saying he would take them all, running his hands down his pockets for more money. A deeper blush and a smiling glance were my reward. I suggested that we should go and see the father of Stella, and that she should come there as soon as she was disengaged, when we would settle everything. I asked her father's name. It was Moreno. "But he is home giving my brother lessons," she ex- plained. "And your mother ?" I asked. "She is sitting in the last row, this side aisle." "And what has become of the little clown ?" I inquired. "She is with mama." "She ? I thought it was a boy." "No, sir, it is my sister Nina." "And you have a brother at home who does not act?" "Yes, sir, the Children's Aid Society won't let him act. They let me act because I am older. And they let Nina act because she only has to come in at the last figure and stand on my shoulders." Without thinking I asked how old she was. She blushed, hesitated, and said "sixteen," so low, one could hardly hear her ; blushing still more when Mr. De Lang exclaimed : "What a story !" He was quite ready now to go and see Mrs. Moreno. Stella smiled. She smiled again as she went farther down the aisle, while we walked back toward the rear, where through looking up the little girl who, we could imagine, must be the little clown, we very soon located the mother, and laid our case before her. The lady was very quick, I must say, to understand the case, to weigh Mr. De Lang and judge his manner. She repeated that her husband would not permit the children to take money from anybody and everybody. But if a gentleman like Mr. De Lang wanted to make Stella a present, there could be no objection. And Stella would 384 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS be only too glad to accept it. If Mr. De Lang would give Mrs. Moreno the money, she would give it to Stella. The joke about buying out the stock of photographs she treated with the regard it merited. It was a good joke but, I think, the five dollars exceeded the price of the pictures at twenty-five cents apiece. Mr. De Lang, I think, had wanted to give Stella the money herself, but he gave it to the mother. "And this is the little clown," said Mrs. Moreno, pre- senting the little girl. I believe she did it perfectly innocently, but Mr. De Lang laughed rather queerly, put his hand in his pocket, and handed the child a bright silver dollar. She thanked him very pretttily and a little shamefaced, which made it a hundred times more pretty, and captured Mr. De Lang entirely. He had taken the seat next to Mrs. Moreno, which hap- pened to be unoccupied. The little one was sitting on his knee. It made me think of his home, and how different it would be if he but had a child in it. I was standing behind them, listening to Mrs. Moreno's talk, sometimes watching Stella on her way back now% up the aisle, making signs to her that everything was settled and all right, which signs she did not seem to understand. Nor could, I suppose, anybody. But she would answer mv smile. There was no lack of voluntary communication on the part of Mrs. Moreno. She is an Irishwoman, her husband a native of Chile. They had met and married in Aus- tralia, where she had gone as a member of a theatrical company and he as the principal clown of a large circus making the circuit of Australia and parts of Asia. She had gone with him, and the children had been born, and it had been a life of happiness and content till Mr. Moreno had fallen ill and been rendered unable to lead the life of a circus man any longer. 385 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US The children were their mainstay now. And here Mrs. Moreno grew very bitter, complaining of the local Chil- dren's Aid Society forbidding the acting of the children. "My husband is the kindest of men," she exclaimed, "and for his own children he would give his life. He taught them himself. They did their tricks since they could walk. They like to do them. It is to them play. And it is in the family. All our folks have been in the show business for half a dozen generations. Why should we send them to school? My husband is well taught speaks three languages, is well informed and experienced. He can teach the children more and better than any schoolma'am. Like to-night now, he is home giving our boy his lesson. You must come and see our boy." Stella came very quietly to join us. She looked at me a little as if she would excuse herself for the reproachful looks she had given me. The mother gave her the money. I was glad now Mr. De Lang had given it to the mother. Somehow it was more satisfactory to me for the mother to receive it first, and I thought I understood the correctness of the rule of the old clown, for the children to take no money presents. She was glad to get it through. As glad as a child. And she seems to me grown up. She was standing by my side. The little Nina com- menced to gently struggle to get away from Mr. De Lang and Mrs. Moreno, till she succeeded and came and squeezed herself in between Stella and me. 1 lifted her up in my arms. With wonderful, delightful secrecy she showed Stella her silver dollar. She had more secrets. She was thirsty. And Stella happened to be thirsty also, and asked me to get them a large glass of water. I was detained by the crowd at the bar. When T got back I found Mr. Moreno had joined the party. He had cut his boy's evening lesson short, as he had' been tired, had sent him to bed, and had 386 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS come to the theatre to see his wife and daughters home. Stella introduced me to her father. He knew all about the presents of money already. Stella had some little joking remarks to make. He answered her the same way. I could only listen, smile, and not say anything. Mr. De Lang wanted to order some wine now, but, in spite of all his urging, was refused, and we broke up and left the place with the little family on their way home. Stella wanted to walk. I am sure, with her father and me. But Mr. De Lang wanted to walk with the children, so it finally fell to me to walk with Mrs. Moreno, who talked to me about the children, how good they were and bright and sweet and affectionate and truthful and strong and able, all of which I liked to hear and knew to be true. When we came to their street we parted after they had invited us to call on them at their lodgings on Geary street. Mr. De Lang then kept on walking with me and talking, till we walked all the way out to his house. He was more stirred up than I thought he ever could be. It was the conversation of the old clown that had worked him up so. He grew quite talkative over him, although he, by this time, was quite free from the influence of his dinner. One remark of Mr. Moreno's he repeated manv times. In speaking of theatrical affairs, Mr. Moreno had called New York the town of the feeble joke. "That is it exactly," cried Mr. De Lang, "I have lived there. These clowns are sometimes very superior people." When I came home, I wrote this. Now I have been standing outside on the porch. The night is clear. There is no wind. The town below is quite asleep. Vain regrets ! To have no vain regrets ! I thought I had none. I looked on all that came as due deserts. I do so still. That is not what m.akes me feel desolate. But this little family? A little family like this, is it not that which I long for? What would be my happiness? And mv brother? 387 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Something will come to tell me that I am giving up my life for a dream. And I seem to hear one sa}^ : ''Live your own life." How handsome that girl with those serious eyes. And joyous, too ! With what frank, childlike gladness she turned to me to tell how much money she had taken in, showing it ; but Mr. De Lang's five dollar piece first, and again last, with an arch, twinkling glance, as though she would say, "I have to thank you for that." The re- spect she showed her parents! Her aflfection for the little sister ! Her love for the half broken-down, kindly old clown ! I could love her for that alone. And must I put all such away from me ? She sleeps. September. This morning I walked by the place where the Morenos are living. It is an apartment house of the cheap kind, with accommodations for cooking, I suppose. I was thinking of calling on them this evening before the per- formance. I was thinking, too, of getting a little present to give Stella. I ought not to do this, I know, but I should like to. What can I give? Now, I should like to be rich, so as to do everything for them ! And would that make them happier? As long as I was idle, I walked out to Mr. Brown's, to see what he wanted. He had a little job for me to do, on Liberty street. I told him of my prospective job for Mr. Mauresse and I was fortunate enough to obtain his con- sent to my employing his two Manila workmen on that job, if I get it. I had been thinking of this scheme before this. I shall need no more help than that. The thought came to me just now that Mr. De Lang might take his wife to see the Moreno family, and it gave me a very disagreeable sensation to think that she and Stella should meet. Evening. 388 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US 1 was at Mr. De Lang's place. I think I wanted to see him, to ascertain if he was home and was going to see the Moreno family to-night. I never expected to find her at home. I went straight into the back yard. The kitchen screen door was unhooked and the inner door ajar, i knocked. I received no answer. 1 looked round the door. The door of the adjoining bedroom was wide open, and she stood in the bedroom smiling at me. She was brush- ing her hair, giving her head a sort of toss. It was a saucy smile. It was a more than saucy gesture. I did not hear it, but I saw her say: ''Come." What must I do now ? September. I went to Mr. Mauresse's new residence this morning to look for Mr. De Lang, my mind fully made up what to do. I found him in the attic, in what is to be the children's play room, where he was alone, laying out a stage and other fittings. "Well," he saluted me, *T thought I should see you last night at that Spanish clown's. I met them going to the theatre. They all asked for you and we waited at the theatre after the girl's performance for you to come. I had not been home all day. and I did not know my wife had come home till I came home late at night after twelve o'clock. She would have liked to go to the show, and to meet those people ; if I had only known that she had come home ! And you ! We waited for you all the even- ing, and we left word with the waiter at the theatre to tell you to come to where we were, if you should put in your appearance. I took them all to supper next door. The boy was along, too. He is the funniest fellow out. He can walk and run and stalk like all kinds of animals. He had the whole restaurant roaring. I laughed so much I could not breathe. He is what you call a mimic. He can mimic anything. I wish you had been there. And the girl telephoned twice for you to the playhouse, to the 389 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS waiter. It is too bad you could not come. Perhaps you did not want to. Are they not the smartest children ? Is anything the matter?" When I told him I'd like to speak privately to him, he closed and locked the doors of the large room and came to sit on the edge of the platform that is to form the floor of the stage, close to where I was standing on the attic floor proper. I said to him, he and his wife had treated me with such unexampled kindness ; he had, I well might say, fed me and clothed me and taken me into his house, and he had now offered himself as bondsman for me, I simply could not help myself, I had to tell him that I was a par- doned convict who had left the prison but one month ago, but one week before the day he first had seen me ; that I had been in prison on a life sentence for killing a man. When he did not speak, but sat, keeping his eyes away from me, J went on to tell, but not as collectively, cer- tainly, as it then appeared to me, "how the jury that tried me had found me guilty of murder in the first degree, but on account of my extreme youth had fixed the penalty at imprisonment for life; that I had found friends in the prison from the first, friends in the officers and in the prisoners, too, especially in one of the last- appointed prison directors, who had succeeded in getting me pardoned ; that I ought to have told him this before I allowed him to take me into his house the very first time, but had not had the strength to do it. Nor, must I say for a true excuse, had it seemed so utterly necessary, as he had shown a liberal mindedness w^hich at first must lessen my consciousness of wrong-doing, although event- ually, as it had done, increase it and raised my feeling of duty and accountability to a pitch which nothing but unre- served confession could satisfy. And I had made my confession now." As he sat silent, glancing now and then at me, I could 390 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS fancy him telling himself that he always had had an idea that something was wrong with me. "You must have been quite young," he drawled at last so quietly I could not tell if it was indifference or was he giving me a leading point. I took it, however, as such a point, and responded: "I was very young. I don't know my age to several months, but I was under fifteen years of age; probably little over fourteen." It sounded like a breath of relief as he inquired, "How did you come to kill him ?" "He was my father's half brother. It is a long story. I don't know that I can tell it as it ought to be told, if I am to tell it in a few words, not to detain you. He and my father were half brothers. My father was an illegiti- mate child, as I am of him. The other was the legitimate son, both of the same father ! There is not the least doubt in my mind that they were true half brothers, sons of the same man, though he never acknowledged my father's father. But, however that was, he adopted my father when he was about eight or nine years old, letting the two boys that were nearly of an age. grow up together as brothers." And I proceeded to relate my story as concisely as I could, seeming peculiarly to understand it better myself as I went on telling it, at least I fancied I did. Perhaps the interest, the sympathy that Mr. De Lang manifested with all his quietness, influenced me. "I was very young," I repeated when I had finished, "but I make that no excuse. And I don't know that my youth made any difference, except that if I had been older I should perhaps first have tried to get my little brother out of this fellow's hands through some Children's Aid Society. But yet, could I have taken the risk of his getting hold of my brother again? They were rich now. They could do anything. I don't know that before this moment, my thinking and 391 CHRONICLES Of ^MANUEL ALANUS acting at that time has ever made itself so fully clear to me. . I felt then, as I feel now, as I have never at any time since felt differently. I knew this man, what he was and what he would do. 1 must save my brother from him. To do that I must kill the man. There was no other way. And for that I was willing to give my life. At the same time I had some notions of fair play. I wanted to fight fair, though I must kill him. We had met at my father's burial. I did not then know that he already had begun his brutish, cruel treatment of my little crippled brother. As soon as I had heard of his horrible deeds I followed him to the place in the country, belong- ing to an acquaintance of his, where he had gone to hide in fear of me, not knowing that I was better ac- quainted in all those parts than ever he was. I knew he would go armed, but to make doubly sure of his arming himself and being prepared for me, I let him know where I was waiting for him. He tried to escape by an old un- used road over the mountains, but I was there. I let him fire at me, emptying his magazine, and gave him plenty time to load again. And he had begun his firing from behind a rock at first sight of me. But all the time I knew I should kill him." "What are you telling me all this for?" growled Mr. De Lang. "You should not go into details that way. I don't go in for killing. I can imagine cases where I could kill a man myself, but I don't go in for it. I don't want to know all this. If you say you killed a man, all right ! Well, no ! Not all right ! I don't want to say that, but still, it is done. Everybody has done something some time that he deserves being shot for. Well, if he is, it is done. Say no more about it. If you go into details, you spoil the case and make people feel bad." '*I had to tell you this," I said. "I have done. For my life in prison, my character, I can refer you to the prison officials." And then I told him about Ullard and his 392 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS teachings to save me from the degradation of prison Hfe. ''Well/' he questioned, "what do you want me to do?" I did not speak, and he looked at me almost angrily. "Do you want me to go to Mr. Mauresse and inform him that you want to throw up his job? What is your object?" I found it not so easy to say what my object was, but I had to speak. I said I would tell him how 1 felt. I did not want to give up Mr. Mauresse's job, nor any job. I did not want him to let Mr. Mauresse know anything I had told him, nor anybody else. I wanted to retain his friendship. He had been to me I could not say what all, nor what I should be without him. And so I beseeched him to let it be. Not to throw me off, to let me have him for a bene- factor still, not to withdraw his helping hand now ! If I had never met him, maybe I should have gotten along in a manner by myself, but now, having been made so much more of a man by his treatment, I should be lost without him. Therefore I wanted him to let everything stand as it was, only not to take me into his house. Let me stay outside of that and of other homes ! Not to let me bring the atmosphere of the prison into them. For the point was not the criminal act I had committed, if it had been a criminal act, the point was the prison life I had led. He was silent an awful long minute, when he said, with his usual drawl : "Don't tell my wife. Of course I shall not tell anybody anything, but don't tell her. There would be no danger of her telling, because she would not remember, but it would make you too interesting." I could not give the smile he was perhaps wanting to call up. He shook hands with me. "I reckon you told me this," he remarked, "to give me the chance to back out of going 393 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS on your bond. Now, I am glad you told me. It makes no difference. Don't think for a moment that it makes any difference with me. Suppose you feel the way you tell me, let it go at that. If you want to draw the line at entering my house and other homes, you are the man to do it. But I think you are wrong, you ought to just enter any home you can. However, at first it may be as well. After a while you will naturally come to it any- how. And will you not go to that Spanish family now ? That girl thinks the world of you. They are going to Australia. Well, perhaps by the time they come back! All right ! I am glad you told me." We began talking about our job. He said he was sat- isfied Mr. Mauresse wanted me to do the work, if only I was not too high. And he advised me to go and see the architect of Mr. Mauresse's, whom I should be able to find in his office to-morrow forenoon. Once more shaking hands, we parted. Evening. At last someone to have some knowledge of my father ! Mrs. Stillborn! It is not much she knows or wants to tell, but it excites me, and it comes in time to quell other excitements. I never thought of Mrs. Stillborn before this day, as one who might know something about our family. I went to her place to-day merely to busy myself and not think too much of other things. The agreement I have entered into there is that I shall put in my Sundays, or rather half of them, keeping the place in trim, till Mr. Mauresse's job is finished. I get very good wages, if only I get the money without so much palavering! When I was making shift to go away to-night I had the sudden thought to ask Mrs. Stillborn if she heard of my father. She had been hindering me all the afternoon at my work, speaking of old times and old times people. Per- .haps that put the notion in my head. I made up a little 394 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS story how 1 had heard it said that this place of hers had formerly belonged to a family by the name of Alauus. She answered no, and that she had bought the place from a widow Delany. "Well," I said, "that comes pretty near it." *'Not at all," she objected. "Alanus? 1 know the name quite well. There was a family here by the name of Alanus, and a most disreputable family they were. Did you never hear of old One-Per-Cent a Minute, they called him? Did you know him? But you could not. You were too young. He was one of the richest men in town." "The first time I worked here," I faltered, "I met a man, as I was going aw^ay, who seemed to be a neighbor, and who began to talk to me and told me that you had bought this house and lot at an incredibly low figure from a Mr. Alanus, or, I should say, a Mrs. Alanus, who sold the place below value as she was going away from here to live in Chicago or Europe, some twelve years ago." "What confusion!" called out Mrs. Stillborn. "The Alanus never owned this place. They had a place in South Park, but they always lived in the country. How- ever, that about Mrs. Alanus' going away is not wrong. She must have been going away about that time. And I am sure she must have been willing and ready to do almost anything to get away from this town. Good reason why. Because nobody here would have anything to do with such an odious, absolutely indecent person. Of course it is so long ago that one forgets, but I remember that there were the most disgraceful carryings-on in that family. Incredible scandals ! Any number of illegitimate children! A whole family of misers, bastards, usurers and spendthrifts, fighting amongst themselves, committing every kind of felony, to actual murder! Some of them are in states prison now." 395 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS And such appears my family to others ! And what can I deny? My best friend now, I think, is Mr. Carpenter, who evening after evening comes into my room as soon as he is through supper and I am come home, and asks for music, makes me play and praises my playing, makes me play more, talks in between and makes me talk, often coaxes me into his neat kitchen, where his wife makes us a lemonade, and where we sit comfortably, pleasantly discussing the past day, falling back each time the sub- ject of conversation gives out on music, with more prais- ing of my talent and execution, which I think not half insincere and makes me feel good. Homely happiness! No, it hardly deserves the name of happiness. And there is also the shadow of homely sorrow on the com- monplace life. The son and daughter left the father, that took another wife, after their mother had died. He misses the young people very much, though he may not rightly know what he misses, li he says in his way, "that since they showed themselves as they did their absence is a small loss and that anyhow it was no different than if they were moved to another place," I don't think that makes the hardness of their action felt less. She cer- tainly feels it more than he. Sometimes she looks at him with a sort of pity in her face, when something is mentioned that brings us near the subject. She feels it for him and for herself. He feels it less for her. He cannot feel the sting of the additional -slight to her, and the self -blame. And the young people, I suppose, feel the marriage as a slight to the dead mother who must have been a good woman, I think, and a good wife. I feel the want of work. I must work. September. My little jobs of taking care of places, like Mrs. Jack- son's, I have given to an old man whom Mr. Carpenter 396 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS recommended to me, and who is now already seeing to Mr. De Lang's garden patch. I was lucky enough to find everybody at home when I took my substitute to the (liflferent places and introduced him to the owners. And everybody professed themselves satisfied, if sorry at my desertion, and glad to hear of my getting a good job. I have not got it yet. I walked past the lodgings of the Moreno family. I was afraid some of them would see me and come out after me. And I don't know if I was not wishing they would and walking slowly on purpose. I called at the office of Mr. Mauresse's architect, who was very important, explaining to me all points of the contract, giving me a great deal of superfluous advice and some tracings of drawings for the marble work of the front, which is all changed now, the whole of that work being now, following my sketch, included in my bid, making the contract for the gardening so much bigger. So much so, indeed, that I sometimes think Mr. Mauresse will consider the whole thing too costly alto- gether and give it up or have it worked out plainer. I should be very well satisfied then to do the real gardening part of the job by the day at ordinary wages, rather than the way it is nov/. In truth, I am sorry I have this con- tract before me. I am neither sure about the financial outcome of it, nor my ability to carry out the design. It seems to me now not only presumptions, but utterly fool- ish to undertake this business at all. If it was not for Mr. De Lang's good opinion of me I should back out of the proposition to-day. And that, what may it be but entirely illusory? If I think that he has a good opinion oi me, which I possess vanity enough not to v/ant to for- feit, he may think reversedly that I have the highest opin- ion of his qualities, which he may be vain enough not to want me to lose. Still behind it is something, a certain influence of what I should call business-likeness. 397 CHROXUCLES OF MANUEL ALANUS September. Everything is settled. All contracts are signed. But what could I do without Mr. De Lang? Some day Mrs. Mauresse is going with me to the nur sery near San Jose, of which I saw the owner last Tuesday, to pick out some dwarf roses for the grounds. That is now the day ahead, when I hope to get the oppor- tunity of finding out who owns my father's ranch. September. A light rain of about four hours duration in the night before last has come exactly at the right time and in the suitable quantity. The concretemen are at work on the lot ; the marblemen are at full go in the shops. Nothing but work now ! 1 went to Mrs. Stillborn's this morning and worked till two o'clock. Mr. Stillborn was in the country, and so I did not receive any pay. I spoke seriously to Mrs. Stillborn, but to no purpose. "What did I tell you?" she cried. ** Never bother me for money." I bothered her with all kind of talk till J could introduce Mrs. Alaiuis. I did it awkwardly enough, I believe, but without exciting any suspicion of my object. I have satisfied myself that she knows nothing of Mrs. Alanus' present whereabouts. September. To-day I feel as if I was not so very far from sharing Mr. Mauresse's opinion about the close of Mr. Tern Ol- dock's career. Mr. Tem Oldock owns my father's ranch, lie bought it about seven years ago, and Mrs. Sullivan's little farm likewise. It seems* my father had bought that just at that time when he moved to town with us. He never told me he had done so, but I thought from the first he would take it ofif her hands. I think he had a mort- gage on it. I remember the first horseback ride I took with him to her place, when he, in a way I could not understand, asked me what I thought of the transaction. as if lie wanted my approval. 398 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS I wonder why Mr. Tern Oldock bought all this proi>- erty that once was my father's. Yet why should he not ? He must look up investments for his nioney. And I dare say he got it cheap. I dare say the widow squan- dered all she could. If she owned it yet. 1 might have found out now where she is. So. as I have not found it out, I think Mr. Tern Oldock is on the road to the poorhouse. I was notified yesterday that Mrs. Mauresse would io- day go to San Jose w^ith me to visit the nursery of the man I had seen and spoken to about his dwarf roses, and so we w'ent. One of her nieces was of the party and one of her little boys. The day was most beautiful, and she was as beautiful as the day. But I cannot say that this day has increased my admiration of her. She is altogether very democratic, almost to a lack of refinement. She prides herself on being what she calls businesslike, but it is nothing but ordinary, niggardly closeness, and doubly ofiFensive where coupled with so much wealth and charm, or at least beauty and daintiness of person. She was quite distressed when she found that we could not reach the nursery we were going to by the street cars on any line or combination of lines, and that she would have to hire a carriage to take us there. She walked us round the streets a good many blocks to find a cheap coflFee saloon, the cheapest kind of an eating house, and far from clean, to take our luncheon at : from liere she telephoned to every livery stable in town to get the lowest priced rig. Again at the nursery it was bargaining, haggling, beating down to get prices below anybody else. By sheer good luck, missing a train, detaining us one hour. I got the chance to go to the ofiice of the Assessor. In town when we came back the fog was flying and the smoke also. If my father had only willed my brother the ranch or part of it ! 399 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US Or only Mrs. Sullivan's small patch! September. To-day I received the first payment on the job, which I paid all out to sub-contractors and material men. It looks as if I should come out pretty well on the contract. I told Mr. DeLang I thought so. He retorted quite roughly : "Don't you ever say one word about that to anybody. Never let anybody know how you stand, what money you make or lose." October. The second payment on my contract fell due to-day. The job is done. I never believed I could feel so pleased at anything of that sort. Everybody praises it. That I do not care for. Mr. Mauresse and his family are quite tickled, that I like more. What most satisfies me is that Mr. De Lang likes it and thinks well of me for it. By Mr. De Lang's advice I have paid out one-half of this payment to the sub-contractors and material men and put the other half in the bank. The last payment, when it comes due, will more than cover all claims. I have just done what Mr. De Lang has told me to do. But T find there is now something springing up in me that appears to me remarkable. Since I now possess this money, T seem to like it. When did I ever care for money ? But, to be sure, I never had any to care for. And now I have, and it seems to make a change in me. I like the having it, the possessing it. I wish it was more. I feel as though I wanted to save it, make more. I even feel a disinclination to pay it out, an anxiousness I might lose it. I think of putting all T now have out on interest. Hoard ! It is only a few hundred dollars. I could go to Boston now. And now it seems unnecessary. Writing indeed is much better. To go without having first written appears foolish to me now. What I must do is to try to make money enough to buy 400 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS a farm for me and my brother. To travel would be wast- ing money. But first I must have this Mr. Mauresse's job settled. The last payment will be due in thirty-five days. And meanwhile I must live. I must go after my old custom- ers and hunt up new ones. I wish I had another job like this one just finished. So little money to make so much confusion. October. Leaving the Stillborn place yesterday, I walked out beyond the old cemeteries and picked up a job for to-day. A terribly dirty-looking elderly man was in the most awk- ward manner clipping a cypress hedge around a large, neglected flower yard, at the side of an old weather- beaten, frame cottage, and I stopped to watch him. "Well," he snarled, "what are you grinning at ?" "At your spoiling that hedge," T replied. "None of your business!" "That is just what it is. My business !" "Your business, I guess, is to loaf and find fault with people's work." "Work !" I cried. "Do you call that work ? Here ! Let me show you how to do that." I took the shears from his hands and clipped away for a short time, he looking on with the snarl on his face which I fancied was the right expression of his inner self. We bandied words some time more, till T asked him to -let me do this job for him, and he engaged me finally to come to-day and do his garden up a bit. I set my price according to my opinion of him, and he immediately commenced to beat me down. I suppose, eventually, he will hardly pay me more than half the amount agreed on. This morning I went out to the place quite early. It looked as if it might rain and I was almost hoping it would, so as to give me the chance of a good excuse for dropping this job, as my opinion of the owner grew poor 401 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and poorer. His name is Mellant, he is rich and a — well, a miser. He has a wife and a son, a young man, or what the newspapers here call a boy, of twenty-one years of age; and mother and son seem to be united to a sort of offensive and defensive alliance against the old man. The son received me when I arrived and let me into the yard. "You are going to, now, work here, are you not?" he inquired. 'T saw you talking to the old skinner, now, yes- terday. He told you to come, now, did he, and what now to do?" ''Yes, he told me all about it," I said as I took the shears out of the shed and began finishing the clipping of the hedge. ''Well," he grunted, "you better look out, he will now, now, never pay you a cent. He would not pay a, now, rat if he hired him." "What good would that do?" "What?" "A rat," I called out, "hiring a rat." "You mind !" he whined. "Never mind! You will find out. He is the meanest, now, now, skunk that ever lived. Look at my clothes ! He never, now, gives me money enough to get a decent suit of clothes." "Well," I told him, "you ought to be able to earn enough money yourself to buy your own clothes. You are big enough. Don't you do any work?" "Oh!" he exclaimed, "what should I work for? And my mother says I need not do any work all my life. He has money enough." And he did not do a stroke to assist me. He would not even do me such little favors as putting a stake in the soft ground, or holding the end of a tape line. Idly standing by with his hands in his pockets, he closely kept near me, talking to me all the time in his dronish way. growing more and more confidential, explaining how his 402 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS father wanted to sell this place and had a customer, and for that reason had engaged me to put it in a little better condition ; telling me too what schemes he and his mother would put in execution to get money out of the old man. Once they had gone, he related, to consult a fortune teller to find out how best to succeed in their endeavors. "And the fortune teller," he proceeded, "she told me, that I was now^ wanting and waiting for my father to die so I should get his money. Now, how could the. now, w^oman know that? Was it not wonderful that she should know that?" The forenoon was pretty well advanced before Mr. Mellant appeared, dressed in a dirty linen dust coat reach- ing to below his knees, buttoned up close to his throat, and with an aged, black silk stock showing above, no sign of a shirt or collar ; shiny black pants hung on his legs, frayed and muddy at the bottom with some portions of dirty brown socks hanging down over worn-out rubber shoes. A battered old beaver hat with a mourning band turned brown set back on his head, everything in perfect keeping with his unwashed, unshaven face, the greenish, half decayed fangs of his mouth, his snarling speech and voice, his sneaking walk and manner. He had not looked so bad the evening before or I should never have dared to take any work of his. Now I had to do the best I could. First I asked him for some money to get something to eat, it being lunch time. He would not give me any. Then I told him outright that I had no belief in his want- ing to pay me at all and should not go on with the job unless he paid me down for what T had already done and the rest evenly divided at the end of each hour. It must have been comical enough to look at us. how we disputed. He kept circling round me in the most absurd manner, falling back as I would advance, and the reverse ; as though he was keeping me at bay, talking all the time the most ridiculous stuff, denying my claim, defying and 403 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS abusing me, swearing at me, threatening me, sometimes raising his voice to such a pitch as to attract the attention of passing people. As I stepped toward the water faucet to wash my hands, preparatory to leaving the job, he yelled: "Don't you dare to touch that faucet! Don't you dare to take my water! Stealing! A thief! You are a thief, sir? I shall have you arrested. Police! Stop thief! Police!" Except for the fun in it for me, I don't think I should have held out a minute. That and the lesson in bargain- ings which I received some weeks ago from the beautiful Mrs. Mauresse at San Jose. And, to be sure, the knowl- edge I had of his wanting to sell and having a customer, gave me the advantage. He fought me all he could, let me lay down the tools, put on my coat, go out of the gate, and then he came with the money and paid me, first the half of the price agreed on and then the hourly payments, all but for the last hour. I had expected that he would beat me out of that. As I went away, I met the young fellow round the next corner. I had seen him in the rear street, watching, nearly all the time. He came slouching up to me, saying: "Well, what did I tell you ? You, nows ought to give me some- thing. If I had not posted you, you would not have got a cent. You ought to, now, divide." "It is a mighty small matter to pay a commission," I told him, "on such a job as this. But you are right. You warned me and told me about the sale, and should be rewarded. How does it strike you, if I give you an order on your father for the balance he still owes me, as you must know ?" "Now, now !'' he wailed, "that is not fair. You ought to give me a nickel anyhow." "Here is a dime, will that do?" I asked. He made no answer, but took the money. And it was most disagreeable to me to see how the touch of the coin 404 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS seemed to sweep and spread all through his ungainly cadaver. Keep me from all such ! Let it be a lesson, November. The last payment, the thirty-five days payment on my contract fell due to-day and was paid. Mr. De Lang as bondsman, and at my request, went with me first to Mr. ^lauresse's place of business and afterwards to all the sub-contractors and material men of the job, to disburse the money. Then his bond was cancelled. I had signed the receipt for the amount of balance of contract price the first thing. When we were through with all this, I conferred with Mr. De Lang about the placing of my money. He thought it would suit my purposes best to put it in one of our large savings banks, where it would pay a small interest as long as it remained there, and could be drawn out, if I wanted it. And so I have now placed it. To swell the amount all I could I scraped together all I had to scrape. It was foolish, I fear, for it has actually left me absolutely without any money but three dimes. But I have a new meal ticket for twenty-four meals, and my room rent is paid for the whole of this month. I shall have to try hard now to get some new work. But that is just what I wanted. Xot to turn idle ! Beside, I liked to round off the sum of money. I cannot deny it. 1 liked it. My first money ! November. Yesterday I forced myself to work at Mr. Stillborn's. I had to. He had returned from the country. I received all the money due me. I told him I did not know if T could do his work any more. I would send him a good man, if he wanted me to do that. What do I know ? Sunday I loitered about all day, like my father, I sup- pose, used to do. 405 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Saturday it was. Three days gone. I had gone to Mrs. Stillborn's Saturday and worked there all day till late in the afternoon. I had told her that I should want another day to do all she wanted me to do, and was ready for another struggle with her about payment of my wages, or some part of them, which I should very much have liked to have, since it annoyed rne to have but those few dimes in my pocket. But, being sure of the usual refusal, I concluded not to say anything to her about it, and wait till Mr. Stillborn was come home, which might be as soon as next day. I was closing the empty barn, pushing to the big roll- ing* door to the side street before putting on my coat to go away, when I noticed in the next block up the hill a number of boys. There were always boys playing in that or the adjoining block, which are without improvements and ungraded, only fenced in with rough board-rail fences and with some narrow sidewalks laid along the streets, that are cut down to the official city grade, leaving irregu- lar bluffs standing. But these boys seemed to be up to something particu- lar ; and immediately I saw two boys put forward to fight. They were both small boys, and one was again quite a bit smaller than the other, not more than six, seven years old possibly. Yet, standing up spunkily, taking and giving- his blows, not for the first time, surely, or rather perhap* like one that has been taught how to put up and use his hands. He was visibly overmatched by the other, larger and fully one or two years older boy, who repeatedly struck him down. It was pretty far for me to run up to and interfere, but I felt like doing it very much. It was too unfair a fight. I could never stand letting that go on. I thought of my boyhood's battles. The little fellow was evidently a stranger among the rest. He was much better dressed. He showed such pluck. No sooner was he down than he 406 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US was up again, and getting in his blows, too, only that his blows were too light to tell against the bigger boy. 1 could stand it no longer ; the smaller boy was down again and the whole crowd of spalpeens cheered and seemed in- clined to jump on him. I had started to run up the street, when I saw the boys stop, scatter and run, climbing the fences, jump and disappear as a man came looming up over the brow of the farther bluff. He came up to the little fellow, who alone had re- mained behind. I thought he must know the boy. They spoke to each other. The boy was wiping the blood off his face with his handkerchief. They shook hands. The boy was showing the man something. He was motion- ing with his hands, as if telling him how he had come there. After a little more conversation, they moved to the edge of the lot, climbed through the fence, and came down my way. And then, as soon as they had come a little nearer, and as I was turning back into the barn and actu- ally pulling the door to, I recognized the man. It was Opium Loo. How came he to interfere ? He might be here cer- tainly, he might be anywhere, idling about. But how came he to interfere? Could he know the boy, who was, any- body could tell, gentlefolk's child? Only by chance could he have come upon that crowd of boys. They saw- him and ran. They need not have run for him. They could have driven him off again. But they ran, and that way he got onto the little fellow. And now I must get the child away from him. I watched them from the barn. I did not show my- self. They were making for the car line on the second street north of us. I was wondering why Opium Loo had not gone in the southern direction, up hill, where there was a car line three blocks nearer ; but I came to reflect that the more northern car line must take him closer to his proper haunts, which were sure to be somewhere 407 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS near the part of town known as Barbary Coast, where undoubtedly he was going to take the boy, or to the as nearby Chinatown, where he might be wanting to sell him to some Chinaman. He held him fast by the hand. A nice looking, strong built, little fellow he was, dressed in a short, grayish suit of waist and knee breeches. The clothes showed the tousling he had gone through, and on his face was blood. He looked to me like my brother. They were going down the narrow sidewalk on the other side of the street. I hardly had any thought how I should do it, only that I must get the child out of the hands of that vile abomination. It had to be done. When they were right abreast the barn door, I pushed it back and stepped into the opening, and as if I knew the boy and but that moment caught sight of him I called out to him: ''Hallo, Bobbie! Why, what brings you over this way ?" And going out into the street to cross over, I shouted to the man, "Where are you going with that boy? Where are you taking that boy?" continuing smartly to walk up to them. 1 did not care now if that fellow knew me or recog- nized me. I would fight him if he showed fight, run him down if he ran away with the child, get the boy out of his hands by any means whatever, when not to my sur- prise, but certainly to my relief, he let go the boy's hand, turned and fled up the street. The boy stood gazing after him, then at me, puzzled what this meant, I could see, but not at all scared nor making any move to follow the man, or run off himself. Yet so anxious was I about it that I laid my hand on his arm and drew him across the street into the barn, saying to him many times over : ''Don't go with that man, boy! He is a bad man. You must not go with him !" 408 CHRONICLES OF ^MANUEL ALAN US 1 stepped back onto the sidewalk a moment to assure myself of Opium Loo's complete flight and saw him at the upper car line, where a car was approaching, which he boarded as it went by oaits w^ay down town. '^Did he take any money away from you?" 1 asked the boy as I shut the door. ''He did not take it away from me, sir," he answered. "He asked me if I had some money, and I gave him a dollar I had." The agitation of the fight was yet on him, and perhaps of some experiences that had gone before, and his voice had something that thrilled me. "But he took it and kept it," 1 said, as i led him into the light of the inner yard to examine his hurts. "And that," I continued, ''accounts for his running away. 1 knew it. He was afraid he would have to hand back the money. And so he would. Well, he will keep away from this neighborhood for a good while, that is one satisfaction. And his coming made the boys run away. That was worth a dollar, was it not? Vou had a hard time of it. 1 was just coming to help you. 1 saw you." As 1 was looking him over, 1 kept on talking to him to calm him down more, telling him that he was not hurt very much, that his one eye would most likely swell a little more and turn black, but that in a week's time he would hardly have any marks of his fight left: all but his hand, that had been skinned on the knuckles. "What were you fighting about?" I questioned him. *T really don't know. sir. The boys said we must fight. The other boy struck me. I had not thought he would, or 1 should have guarded myself. They did not call time." Such a modest, old-fashioned, artless way he had of talking, and so gentle as to resemble little Harry to me more and more. He had been struck in the mouth, but his teeth were unhurt, his first teeth yet. His underlip was cut and his little nose was set in drying blood. 409 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "That was from the first blow, that was foul," he ex- plained. "You know something of boxing," I told him. "A little, sir. We had lessons in Oakland with Mr. Carrol. But no more now. But papa taught us before." Seeing he moved a little lame, I found on looking far- ther for hurts, that his shins were very much barked, especially on the left leg. "That boy must have kicked you," I remarked, "or did you fall?" "I don't know, sir. I did not feel it till now." I took him into the wash room of the barn and washed the blood off his face and hands and other places, and gave him some water to rinse his mouth, while I was gone to where my coat was hanging to fetch some court plaster I always carry, to put it on his knuckles and raw shins. "Now," I said, setting me down in a garden chair, "stand between my knees, this way with your back to me, till I hold this wet towel to your eyes. When that towel feels no longer cold, tell me and I will change it. Do you feel much hurt?" "No, sir, I do not feel hurt much, only a little funny in the head, and a little stiff. "I thought he was goinf to cry, but if he was, he overcame it, and I, to help him, went on talking to him as unconcernedly as possible. "You don't know that man at all, do you ?" I asked "No, sir." "What did he say?" "He said he just came by. He said he had seen us i« Oakland when I told him we had been living there." "Where were you going with him ?" "He said he would take me home." "Home ? How ?" "I am afraid, sir," faltered the little fellow, "I have lost myself. I have lost my way." 410 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS -Lost your way? Why, where do you Uve?" I felt him tremble. He was struggling with himself. All but on the point of breaking down, with an effort that seemed almost too much for such a little man he mastered himself, and, turning to me with the faintest^ miserable littk ^shadow of a smile, said: I dont know where we live. -You mean, you don't know the name of the street you TiTe in, nor the number of your house?" . "No, sir, I don't know." ''What a big boy like you don't know the name of his street? Can't you read?" I cried a little roughly, on pur- pose to help him sustain himself. . ^ , , t "Yes sir, I know it is very stupid, but I dont know^ i must have heard the name of the street, too. And 1 think I saw the number of the house on the glass over the door, yesterday when we moved over from Oakland, I think there was a four in it. But that would do no rood " he added in his old-fashioned, gentlemanly man- ner ' It might have amused, if it had not been so moving, ;tnd made me smile, only one had to think of the distress of the heavy little heart. "And have you no idea at all which way you came here, in which direction your house is located or your street > Could you see the bay from your house? Or the l>ark?' You know the park? You know what a park is, '^''" Ye^'lir ! No, sir ! Yes, sir 1 I don't know that we could see any park or the bay. There was a big hill witk some houses." ^. , , ,. Although he spoke very pure English, and sounding so pretty I thought I detected a foreign intonation in his speech that made me ask him if he was born here. "No sir we are Americans, but we were born m Hol- land," he replied, making the answer as one he had often to give. 411 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US 1 turned back to the main question, asking him to tell me how he had come to lose his way, and how he had come here, thinking he might, in recounting this, adven- titiously mention something which could give me some idea in what part of the town his house was. But I ob- tained no such clue. It was such a plain story that it would fit almost any locality in any town, almost any child, almost any losing of the way. He had seen some boys with a little dog near his house and had gone to see what they were doing. They had wanted to sell the dog, when the man had come who owned the little dog and had set a big dog to chase them. They had all run with the big dog after them, and when they had stopped run- ning he had not been able to see his house. One boy had said he knew where his house was and had taken him a long way to the house, but it had not been his house. Then a drunken man had come upon them and had run after them. And then he had been all alone. He had tried to get up to the top of a hill, that looked like the hill above his house, but every street had always looked like every other, till at last there had been no more streets and no more houses. And then he had come upon those boys I had seen him with. They had said he must fight one of them. They had taken hold of him and run him a long way over to the empty blocks. And the boy had struck him. And he had had to fight. He made a short pause, indicating that he had finished his account to conscientiously answer my question. And as if he felt how very little all he had told could serve to give me a point as to the locality of his house, in correc- tion of his first statement that he did not know the direc- tion in which he had come, he added, motioning with his hand to the hill above us, 'T think our house is over that way," turning round to look me in the eye, beseechingly : could not that give me the idea I wanted, to find the house. 412 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS "Oh, we will find the house all right," T exclaimed cheerfully. 'That is nothing, if you only know your name. You know your name, don't you ?" "Yes, sir. My name is Mahon Mark Tem Oldock." I had just turned him round again to stand as before between my knees with his back to me for another appli- cation of the cold, wet towel to his eyes. I moved back a little the chair I was sitting on. I was not touching him. I moved still further back. I got up and went into the adjoining room. I came back. I was trying to say something. I had no power over my voice. I had to go once more out of the room to catch me by the throat and choke back the feeling, the passion of joy, the bliss, the unspeakable happiness that had come to me. T came to sit behind him, giving him, not to touch him, the wet, folded towel to hold to his eyes himself. I started to speak several times before I succeeded to steady my voice enough, forcing myself to it, speaking very slow to keep my voice from trembling and sounding too unnatural. "I know a house," I said, "down town, a big house of many rooms, that is called the Tem Oldock Block. Does that belong to your father ?" "I don't know, sir." "I have gone by that building several times, though not lately," I went on, gaining a little more self-control, finger- ing some buttons of his waist, to have some excuse for touching him, ''I have been inside the house and have also seen the janitor, an old colored man. At the entrance of that building is a sign with the names on it of John Tem Oldock and Son. Is that your papa's name?" 'T think that is grandpa's name, sir." "There! You see! That must be your grandpa's busi- ness place. Now just as soon as I am fixed up here, in five minutes, we will go down to that building and the old janitor will tell us the name and number of your . 413 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS street. Or there will be other persons to do it. And then I will take you right home. Keep bathing your face over this washstand. I shall be away no more than five minutes." I wanted to try to get some money from Mrs. Stillborn. And how I repented now of my foolish putting away of all my money! If I could not induce Mrs. Stillborn to pay some of the money down, I had, of course, enough for car fare; and that was really all I needed. Only in case of some accident, what then? But if it came to the worst, I could take little Mahon to my place to stay over night. Mrs. Carpenter would be glad to care for him. But it would be cruel to keep the little boy from home one moment longer than absolutely unavoidable. With more patience and management, I might have got some money from Mrs. Stillborn, but I could not take the time, I could not waste one minute. While. I was talking to her, there was constantly in me the shadow of the idea that little Mahon, left alone in the strange, darkening place, bewildered, scared, might run off, which grew into a wild fear and drove me to rush back to the barn, where I found him patiently sitting on the empty box I had placed for him before the washstand, bathing his eyes. A little expression of satisfaction or relief to see me return was in his face. I must appear to him now, not unlike an old acquaintance, I thought. I dried his face to pass my hand over it. I looked at his hurts once more, and, pretending that the court plaster did not altogether stick, moistened it with my tongue that my lips might touch him. I walked away with him down the street to the car line. He limped a little. I could but just keep from tak- ing him up to carry him. But if I once had him in my arms, how could I help hugging him to my heart ? Then he would break down, and I would break down. I did 414 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS not even dare to take him by the hand. And yet some- times I had to touch him. In the street cars we were the only inside passengers, the time of evening it was getting to be when the intown travel is light. He sat just a little bit away from me. A little shy he was, or no, not shy, reserved, or feelmg, perhaps, strange and wondering at my familiarity of manner. For my manner must have appeared peculiar, with all the emotions that spun my heart. And I did not think of this. I think of it now. I did not then. I thought he was naturally shy, and that made him so much more like little Harry to me. I noticed that he was tired. Before he had appeared more stunned, dizzy from the fight. Now he showed mere exhaustion. Whenever I gave him an assurmg smile he would try to smile back to acknowledge my en- deavors and make at least a show of being encouraged, but it was only a heavy-hearted, short-lived little smile, and the tears were very near him all the time. Once I began to speak of his home and only just in time recol- lected myself. I kept on talking and making him talk, that there might be some outward restraint helping him to hold his own. I was convinced that he felt sure I was a friend, but what other anxiety, uncertainty, doubt, con- fusion and more yet there must have been in him ! The grandfather being presumably the safest person of the family to mention, I asked some questions about him, and so much I came to understand that, coming from Europe to Boston, they had stayed there some time with Mr. Tem Oldock and then come on here to Oakland some weeks ago, where they had lived at a private hotel, run by a Mrs. Smith, whence they had moved yesterday to the city. But that Mr. Tem Oldock had gone away to Mexico a week ago and was soon coming back. As the little fellow was constantly using the plural, saying we. 415 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS us, our, I concluded that he had some brothers and sis- ters. Naturally I did not inquire about it. They must have arrived here about the time I was employing my energies to scrape together what money I could. It was beginning to get dark. The windows were light- ing up here and there. When we gained the top of Rus- sian Hill we saw the street lamps stretch away in long lines through the city. My little restaurant round the corner bravely shone with many lights. Little Mahon looked at it, and that suggested to me that he might be hungry. And then by dint of much careful questioning I learned that it had been rather early, but shortly after breakfast when he had come away from his house. "I never thought of that," I cried. "You must be very hungry, knocking about all day. We will get out down- town and I know a place where you can get a glass of real good milk. Do you drink milk?" "Yes, sir, we have milk with a little hot water for sup- per. And bread. But I am not hungry, I think; onlv a little thirsty." When we reached Montgomery street, I took him to a place where they keep good milk and where he got a big glassful with a little boiling water and some fresh French bread. And what a pleasure it gave me to see him eat and drink! Mahon's son! And he so much like little Harry again in his eating, so deliberate with such nicety. Only, his eating amounted to nothing. I saw he could eat nothing and forbore to press him, but told him not to eat anything if he did not feel like it. And but a few mouthfuls of milk could he swallow. Then we went away, and I had not but a single dime left. it was no darker than it had been before, but the dark- ness then, coming on gradually, had not seemed so dark, and there had been more street life, and stepping out of the glaringly lit-up eating-house into the almost deserted, 416 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US nightly street, with the tops of the tall business houses lost in dusk against the shadowy sky, and few lights shining from windows, the boy held back. It was only a mo- mentary hesitating. If I had not been holding him by the hand I should not have perceived it at all. I could not help myself, I took him up in my arms. He was limping more, too. I was carrying him sitting on my left arm in front of me, my right arm across his back, his face to mine, his arms round my neck. His heart beating against mine. The warmth of his young body iowing through mine. If I turned my head down a little my cheek would touch his. Long ago, another lif«! I had so carried my little brother through these streets; my father's house looking down at us. We had come where we must see the Tern Oldock Block, and I was ready to call out to the boy to look at it, for there it was, when I saw that something was the matter with it. It must be undergoing some repairs or alterations. Great heaps of building material were piled up in front of it, and pretty soon I could see in the light falling on it from somewhere beyond the next corner a large sign reading that the Tem Oldock Block was being enlarged, rebuilt, renovated, improved, to be finished some time next year. I walked on without speaking to little Mahon. I was expecting to see some signboard, or notice on the close- board fence around the property, stating where the Tem Oldock Company had moved their office to, but before I had come near enough to hunt for such a notice a man with a bright lantern came moving from out the shadow of the fence between the building and a mountain of rough mortar, who was unmistakably the watchman of the property, and whom I hailed and asked what I wanted to know. First I asked him if he knew where Mr. Tem Oldock lived. But he knew nothing of that. The Tem 417 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Oldock Company had moved their offices to the Jones Block, he informed me with a good deal of bawling, ancj told me the location of that building and the shortest route to get there, the little boy listening to the con- versation. ''We shall fetch it now," I told him. *'One more tack! Do you know what a tack it? No? You don't? Oh, you bad boy!" 1 felt like making fun, dancing with jollity. Nothing but consideration, compassion for little Mahon's how different feelings could seemingly keep me from swinging him round in my arms, right and left. I sung his name to him a dozen times and with variations. Like what chaos must all this have presented itself to him ! A rough, bawling voice of an invisible man with a lantern ; all about unrecognizable masses of houses ; interminable streets ; sometimes a solitary person, sud- denly advancing out of the gloom, passing by and vanish- ing again in it ; strange lights and noises in the distance, all without ending, dying away in nightly blackness ; only above, a little lighter the sky with its dim stars ! He was so still, I thought for a moment he was falling asleep. Then 1 thought he was crying, silently. But he was only quiet. "Hold on with your hand to my coat collar, then I can carry you better," T urged him, and when he hesi- tated I took it and put it on the collar, on my neck. I bent over him. He turned his face more to mine, and a little wonderingjy he asked half-loud: "Do you know us?" "Why," I said, " your name is Mahon Mark Tem Ol- dock, you were born in Holland, you came to Boston where your grandpa was living, and from there you all came here where you lived in Oakland till yesterday when you moved to town. And to-day you started for Mexico to fetch back your grandpa, but lost your way 418 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS and I caught you and am taking you home. Now, don't I know you ?" He drew himself a very little closer to me, and it was as though he would say that he understood my fun, only he could not enter more into it just then. Partly to give reason to my behavior, partly to divert his thoughts. I began again, and speaking lightly: "I had a little brother once like you, I used to carry him like this now. and on evenings like this, home to the house we used to live in ; over that way. He turned his face more to me, and almost as if feeling something my words might imply, he laid his head down in the hollow^ of mv shoulder. We passed a telephone office and it struck me that there Mahon's address might be kiiown. I went in and asked. A young girl behind the counter looked in a book and told me the address was a certain number in Oakland. I answered that Mr. Tem Oldock had yesterday moved from Oakland and was living in the city. She talked to another girl behind the counter and reported to mc that no notice of any change had been received. She added, there must have been some neglect. If T had but had a little more money, I reckon I could have got the address from Oakland, from that Mrs Smith, but I did not dare to pay out my last dime, and at the Jones Block it certainly must be known where Mahon lived. We were now where there were more lights and the streets livelier. We had nearly reached the big Jones Block. But the increasing life and the greater glare of lights seemed to make little Mahon more uneasy than the darkness had done before. Or I fancied it, for he held on to my hand so tightly as we walked into the 419 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS wide, high entrance of the Jones Block, where people were coming and going in almost as great a hurry as in daytime, if not in as large numbers. Inside a large clock showed the time to be seven o'clock. I pronounced the name Tern Oldock to one of the elevator men standing by his cage. ''Seventh floor!" he ejaculated *'I suppose there is no one in their office now," I said. "No, they are gone long ago. Mr. Tem Oldock never was here all day." "Do you know where Mr. Tern Oldock lives?" I a.sked. ''Yes, he lives in Oakland." "No, he moved to town yesterday. Don't you know what his address is?" He eyed me a trifle sharply and looked two or three times at little Mahon. "Ben," he shouted to an older man, wearing the star of a police officer or private de- tective, standing in the inner court of the building, who at his call came sauntering over to us with his hands in his pockets, "liere is a Mexican boy that wants to know where Tem Oldock lives ; he docs not live in Oakland any more, he says." At this moment three or four gentlemen came walking up, that the elevator man had to take upstairs. We were crowded to one side, and I with little Mahon followed Mr. Ben into the inner court, into what I took to be the business office of the building where by some glass parti- tions were some tables and arm-chairs, into one of which I lifted little Mahon, Mr. Ben looking on indifferently, not to say offensively. I thought he might know the boy. might have seen him with his father. But such evi- dently was not the case. He regarded him with dis- favor, which I did not understand, though in truth the hoy looked battered and shaggy enough. At the same time as Air. Ben seemed to be a man in authority, head- 420 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS janitor perhaps, I felt as if I owed him some explanation. And anyhow, if I wanted to find out something, I had to ask. So I spoke. "I should like to know where Mr. Tem Oldock lives," I commenced, "I mean where he resides. This is his son. I want to take him home. They used to live in Oakland. They moved over to town yesterday, and the boy went from the house this morning, lost his way and could not find it back. I happened to meet him in the streets and brought him here, thinking you would know the private address of Mr. Tem Oldock, he being your tenant here in this building and a man of standing." **Well, I don't," he replied sourly. "We have not been notified of any change of residence by Mr. Tem Oldock. He has not been here all day to-day, too ; hunting the boy probably. Somebody in their office is to blame. I guess I know him, too. It is no fault of ours. What do you want to come round here for making a fuss, at this time of the night. Why don't you take the boy over to Oak- land with you and bring him back to-morrow. By morn- ing the newspapers will have all the story." He was thinking, judging by my way of speaking, that I lived in Oakland, had known the family there, perhaps been work- ing for them ; just what I wanted him to think. *T happen to have not money enough with me for that," I rejoined, "but even if I had, I should not think that would do at all ; it would be cruelty to the boy and to his folks perhaps even more." "Well, I don't know that I can help you any. Why don't you go to the police ?" At the very first the thought of going to the police had presented itself to me, but as something to be avoided by all possibilities. Afterwards the idea had recurred to me, but in my exaltation of feeling, and things seeming to work smoothly, I had put it away from me without much thought. I don't know that I fully realized what 421 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS appl3nng to the police all meant to me, in what difficulties it could entangle me, how it might disastrously end all my hopes, my whole life, but instinctively as soon as Mr. Ben spoke, I was ready to fight the idea, when I had an inspiration, giving up for the time all my own wishes, plans, claims, throwing all away to immediately and se- curely bring little Mahon to his home. "I think you can help us very much," I said, "and at once help us out of all our trouble, if you will kindly telephone now to the Chief of Police. He will know Mr. Tern Oldock's address, I am sure." "Now, by George!" cried Mr. Ben, "you struck it." He went to the telephone at once, but it took a long time before he could get the connection. In my excitement I had hardly formed any plan how finally to get little Mahon delivered home, except that I meant to take him in a street car as near to the house as possible, then to go on foot with him as much farther as would answer, and then send him up to the front door by himself, remaining myself on watch at a sheltered point of observation. Then as soon as the door was opened and the boy received in safety, I should make my escape. I believe something like this or some other plan equally as foolish was in my mind. I had not wanted Mahon to see me, nor any of the family. But now it was hard to conceive that I could have been so amaz- ingly stupid not to think that little Mahon would be searched for and hunted after, all over town ; as if Mahon and the family would be sitting round the tea table, calmly waiting for my little boy to come his way back and ring the doorbell. I understood now that if I did not want to be seen by Mahon, I must look out. I suppose I just got into the Jones Block in time to escape being taken up with the boy on the streets, too, by some policeman. "I reckon half the police force is out scouring the town 422 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS for you, my young gentleman," exclaimed Mr. Ben to little Mahon. "And somebody punched your nose," he added. He was quite civil spoken now, if still with a lit- tle air of protest at times. "The lines are awfully bad to-night, he explained to me, everybody is talking. But you struck it, by Jove. Just as soon as we get the connection we shall know." Then in a minute he was speaking and in a few more he hung up the instrument and turning to the boy, said : "Your father will be here in twenty minutes. He had just come into the police office with the Chief." I had not now come to any resolution what to do with myself, only that I did not want Mahon to see me, and yet I wanted to stay by and guard little Mahon till the last minute. I stood and moved about in the inner court and the main entrance and came back, repeating that sev- eral times, so that little Mahon should think nothing of my moving about this way and not think that I was go- ing to leave him. I went outside once or twice, too, and stood on the sidewalk for a few seconds. Fewer people were in the street, yet enough for me to lose myself amongst. I walked back into the vestibule and ran up the one flight of stairs. There were two flights connected by platforms half way up, with corner pillars and angle pillars, posts and heavy balustrades, all of marble, with heavy, ornamental, black iron screens. From behind one of the big angle pillars, when I stepped close up to the screen, I had a full view of the inner court and. com- pletely hidden myself, looked right down on little Mahon. He was sitting just as I had placed him. Several per- sons were standing 'round him, janitors, elevator men and whatever they might be, all but mobbing him, Mr. Ben leading the attack, questioning and explaining to the others and declaiming, the little fellow keeping up bravely, answering in his simple way the questions he could an- 423 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS swer, but often glancing around, looking, I thought for his protector. I ran downstairs and entered the court and came to him. The gentlemanly mob drifted away at my ap- proach, Mr. Ben saying ostentatiously: ''He is all right." The little face brightened. AVhen we were alone, I took his hurt, little hand and kissed it. "Are you going away now ?" he asked. 'T am only going outside. I shall not go away till I see your father here. He will be here now immediately," I told him. And when 1 came outside, I saw him. 1 saw him. I knew him. But what disappointment to find him so changed ! Where was the large-limbed giant of my childhood days? I did not see the first meeting between the little man and his father. When I came to my lookout place on the stair platform behind the angle pillar, little Mahon was hanging on his father's neck, all his self-command gone now, his face pressed to his father's breast, his whole, little body shaking with sobbing. Mahon was speaking to him, admonishing him, it must be, not to cry ; for he be- gan to struggle as I had seen him do before, unavailing at first, till with a great effort he straightened himself, loos- ened his arms, slipped down and stood by his father, turned close to him yet and his lips still quivering, dry- ing his face on his father's handkerchief and blowing his poor, little, swollen nose. Mr. Ben now drew near, and I caught some words he spoke. He had sent for a cab. He also must be telling Mahon sornething of my role in this melodrama. "Stout Mexican boy," I heard myself called several times. Mahon glanced round ; Mr. Ben, too. Little Mahon was appealed to; but he shook his head a little, and I could just know, if they asked for me, he would be saying: "I 424 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS tiiiiik he is gone." The cab arrived. Mahon with the boy by the hand, was going toward the entrance, Mr. Ben convoying them on, what sailors would call, the weather beam. I heard the cab door being slammed and the cab rolling away. Mr. Ben went back into the inner court. Some lights were turned off, I left my recess in the angle pillar, sneaked down the stairs, out into the street and walked the streets for long hours as my father would do so many years ago. All day yesterday and to-day I have wandered about, out to the Stillborn place, the barn door, the empty blocks of building lots, along the car line into town, over Russian Hill all the way I went with little Mahon, going into the same eating house, sitting at the same table, going down to the altered Tem Oldock Block and to the Jones Block, standing outside, across the street. The pressure of his arms is always around my neck, his head on my shoulder. I am like one lost in sweet unreality. It is my little brother I am holding in my arms. Of course it was the resemblance of Mahon I saw in the boy, and I took it for Harry's ; his age being the same that Harry's was when we parted. The blue eyes with the long, black lashes are Mahon's exactly. My brother's eyes were different. But in other ways little Mahon did resemble little Harry. He does ; I cannot get over it. In manner and in speaking, too. When he asked : "Do you know us?" and. "Are you going away now?" it was my brother that spoke. He would have used the same words and in the same way, with the same expression of voice. But Mahon's boy is not in the least bashful as my brother was. He is as I was, and it is I that is being carried by my father. 425 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS Again, I may be all mistaken. What was the picture in me of my childhood's Mahon? May it not be similar with my recollections of my brother? How often have I not seen children that I thought resembled Harry? Every blue-eyed boy of his age and nice appearance and giving signs of his gentle disposition has seemed to me to look like him. Can I be all wrong? Have I in all that shut-in life built up a fanciful world of the past, by which I now find myself surrounded and cut off from the real world ? One week is past. I must come to some conclusion. As long as I knew nothing of anybody's being here I had only to wish and hope that somebody would come and the rest would arrange itself by itself, so easily, naturally, I did not even consider, (so it now seems) what that rest would consist of. Or my longing was so great it did away with all power of reasoning as to what re- mained to be done afterwards. When I met little Mahon and learned that which I had hardly dared to believe would happen some time in the fortuneful future ; had already happened : Mahon was already here, it could not but overcome me. His child in my hands ! at my knees, giving his name ! And little Harry brought back to me by Mahon's boy ! Then seeing Mahon! I could only give myself up to it. But now, what shall I do? Mahon, a man of family now, of standing in the com- monwealth of this country ! He may not, and I reckon he is not the man of business and action his father al- ways was. Still, if for no other reason than his share in his father's wealth he must be a prominent member of the community. And can I, a convict, inflict myself on him? 426 CHROXICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS 1 know he will not care. If 1 go to him and tell him who 1 am, and that I want to come to him, I know he will say, "come." But can 1 go? The wife and chil- dren! Can 1 so thrust myself upon them? Did 1 not go purposely to kill that man ? But the cause ! The wrong ! But the cause! the wrong! And if it was not enough, have I not paid for it? Have I not paid for it? Am I not still paying for it, whether I will or not ? Shall I not pay for it as long as I live? Is not that atonement enough? What more can I do? Tell me somebody and I will do it. I will do it, try to do it. But do not tell me that I must repent, for I cannot be sorry for what I did. That is impossible. Invent some other punishment instead of that, and I will take it, some chastisement fierce and raw. I will bear it, be it everlasting. Did I not bear the terrors when but a child? Give me some task, wherein I may work out my purification, if I must be purified and made fit to associate with Mahon and his family, his wife and children. For that is what I want, their friendship, their home, to be one w'ith them ! And my brother? How does everything seem twisted that I constantly confound my brother with jMahon's boy? As regards Mahon, the secret of my life is twofold — my identity the first, my prison-life the other. When they are unclosed, then should my life in prison be wiped out by the fact of who I am, the boy that loved him and was his devoted follower and would be that now again ; the boy he so often protected, and who will now defend and protect his children to his last breath, who has rescued and protected one of them already. Sometimes I think Mahon has utterly forgotten me, as he did before. But I will not tell him who I am. I will leave that till Mr. Tern Oldock has come back. He 427 CHRONICLES Oi^ MANUEL ALAN US will know me. All secrets will be out when Mr. Tern Oldock is returned. But will Mahon remember then? 1 am in his house. His wife has left him. She ran away with some one else. The man at the very start of the elopement was killed by some accident. Mahon obtained a full divorce and possession of the children, two boys, twins, my little Mahon, whom they call Mark and the other named John Henry. Mahon told me everything, very much in the way his father used to tell his tales, rather disconnectedly and with repetitions ; quite the same, only that he is more candid. Altogether he reminds me of his father now much more than he ever did before. Less jolly he has become, more serious. But I well remember that with all his frolicsomeness, when a boy, he always treated what was seriously put before him, seriously. He told me everything. I knew he very soon would. And does he really not know me at all ? It seems impos- sible. But yet it is so. It gave me a bitter enough pang to find myself so dead to him. For that is what I am. Gone out of existence and so utterly forgotten as if I never had been! He feels I am a friend, the friend I have pronounced myself to be. I am in a way familiar to him. He is pretty certain, too, that he has met me and has known me some time, somewhere, or that I resemble somebody he has been well acquainted with. He spoke to the boy of an uncle whom I might look like. He asked me if I had ever been in France. But Manuel, the work boy on the old wharf near his father's old brewery he does not recollect, nor the later Manuel, he went to CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS school with. The earlier one, indeed, he had forgotten when I came into Mr. Tern Oldock's house. It is his memory that is at fault. I had gone to the Jones Block on purpose to present myself to him, to wait for him in the entrance. Back in the lobby I saw Mr. Ben and thought he was observing me, I did not particularly care if he did or not. Per- haps I might make use of him for an introduction to Mahon to gain a hearing. Only I had to see Mahon alone first; for, of course there was such a thing as Mahon's not wanting to have anything to do with me at all, the possibility of his knowing me and turning me off, disowning me, denouncing me. I never believed it^ though I don't know that I had any very clearly defined idea about the way Mahon would receive me. But it stood with him to repudiate me if he judged right to do so. I had to give him the chance to do it and for that I wanted to see him first, alone. I had to wait a long time. It was after eleven o'clock when I saw Mahon coming straight towards me. He di4 not see me till I addressed him, right in the wide entrance of the building. As he looked at me, his face brightened, like his little son's face had brightened, as his own face, when he was a boy, would brighten at any glad emotion, as with a flash. ''Why," he exclaimed, "how are yon ?" stopping to ex- tend his hand. Then, instantly there was a change. 'T beg your pardon," he said, "I thought I knew you. You must resemble some one I am acquainted with. Ex- cuse the mistake." He still smiled, but he did not know me. He spoke 429 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS very politely. His politeness disconcerted me a little, as well as my finding myself such a complete blank to him. 1 could see he had not the least idea who I was, and also that he made not the least effort to remember. But my disconcertion he noticed and with an unexpected gentle- ness, when he saw I could not speak, remarked, "But you were speaking to me." 1 had prepared myself a little for what I would say to him, but only very slowly did I gain self-possession enough to speak with some clearness and certainty. 1 told him I had been given to understand that he was going with his family to Mexico, where he or his father or both had possessions and that T had come to ask him to take me along with him in his employ. He would make me very happy if he did. 1 had always wished to go there. I was almost a Mexican. I was a gardener and other things. 1 should serve him faithfully. I could take care of horses, cattle, chickens, children, any kind of animals. My name I spoke very guiltily, Manuel Eguren, the name I had borne in school : almost losing my breath, stopping short to be recognized. But no recognition came, and at the mention of the children a look of dis- trust came in his face. Involuntarily, it seemed, he stepped back a little into a recess in the vestibule wall. He glanced right and left along the stream of people, moving out and in at our side. I was observing him. He should be taller, broader, heavier, larger every way. The longer 1 looked the less I saw of the old Mahon. My imagination could not adapt what I saw to the past; at least but little. His eyes have the old lighting up that appears to brighten all that surrounds him. His red cheeks are gone. He looks quite pale, if not of an unhealthy paleness. His mus- tache liides his mouth and I could hardly follow some of 430 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS the old lines of good will around his lips. There was more than I saw though. At first he did not look at me very much. He stood leisurely listening with perfect good breeding, seeming in a way to like to listen to me. Once when I looked toward Mr. Ben, he followed my glance, but he scarcely appeared interested. All the time I continued to speak. Beginning in next to incoherence, I pretty soon had to take care, not to be- come too familiar in mv manner. It was very hard. In me was something calling, cry- ing all the time. *'Mahon! Mahon ! Don't you know me?" I could only hold it dowm by keeping on talking. I had been to sea, I told him, and I had lived and worked on a farm and in the city and could do any kind of work in the house or field. "Or for your children," I proceeded, "as a sort of first tutor, as long as they are little, I know I should give satisfaction. All the ele- mentary branches taught in our public schools I can teach them. Spanish, too, and music, if you like. And I can put them to pull an oar, sail a boat, break and handle a horse, box a bout, sing a song and dance a jig. I have no home, no folks, nor any other ailments except a few hundred dollars in the bank. I am constant, I like work, and I love children." There was interest enough in his face now and no dis- trust nor displeasure. With his brightest smile he asked : "Will you not tell me who you are?" "I wish," I said, "you would not insist on my telling you all about myself now. I should like you to become acquainted with me first, to see for yourself what I am and if all I have praised myself up to be. comes true. You will soon enough know enough of me. If you re- member at all, I cannot remain a secret long. I know I ought to tell you, even if you should not know then. But in truth, you ought to know me without any telling for 4.^1 CHRONICLES Of MANUEL ALANUS you were my friend once. No, not once, but a hundred times, and I was yours always." "Were you ever in France?" "I never was away from the Pacific coast." "Well, I cannot place you. But who told you that I wanted somebody for the children, for just such a posi- tion, in fact, as you are applying for ? Will you not tell me that ? Has anybody sent you ?" "I did not say," I returned, "that anybody had told me you wanted a tutor for your children, or general-utility man, or sort of serving man. But somebody did tell me that your father, Mr. John Tem Oldock had gone to Mexico, shortly to return and that as soon as he came back, you all were going to Mexico, to live there." "And?" I had noticed Mr. Ben approaching. "It was your son," I said. "How?" At that moment Mr. Ben laid his hand on my arm and called out loud : "This is the fellow Mr. Tem Oldock, he is the fellow who brought your boy here the other night." "Oh!" exclaimed Mahon; and we both laughed and shook hands. Before the laugh was ended, I had told him I should need the balance of that day and part of next day to ar- range about my different gardening jobs and to get some men to see to them for my customers, but that I should be at his house with my things the evening of the next day. He smiled assent and said, "all right." And not a word more did he utter relative to my place in the family, my situation, my position in the house. He takes it for granted that I shall make my own place, find my own du- ties, prepare and do my own work. And in all this he is entirely his own, old self. He had that morning taken the boys to Oakland, to 432 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS visit the Mrs. Smith, at whose boarding house or private hotel they had hved before they moved to the city. He was going over the bay again in the afternoon to fetch them back. Now he proposed to stay over there with them and return with them home the next day, when I would be coming out to the house in the evening. Mahon had proposed to keep the children in ignorance of my coming, promising me that little Mahon should recognize me by himself. But when I came to the house, I found he had told the boys everything, quite in the way his father would have acted, and perhaps to everybody's greater satisfaction. For I am not at all sure that little Mahon would have recognized me without prompting. Now, however, he came running, jumping upon me, be- fore I was well inside the door, throwing his arms round me. And when I took him up to sit on my left arm with his feet out behind and asked him, ''This is the way I carried you, don't you remember?" he shouted, ''Look, papa ! Henry, look ! Look, papa, look ! This is the way he carried me." He was so free of all reserve now, letting me handle him and do with him as I pleased, so openly confident, affectionate, happy as was worth any hundred surprises however well prepared and success- fully carried out. It was amusing, too, how he did a little showing off with his prior acquaintance with me, informing his twin brother with some importance that I was the man who had brought him all the way to the Jones Block. When I looked at his hurts and inquired how they were, he ex- clairned, "Oh ! that was nothing." - The other boy is very different. He is very bashful. I had sent out my traps to the house by an expressrnan. Tliey arrived while we were at supper and were carried 433 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS up to my room by one of the four Chinamen in the house, who are all servants, old and tried, of Mr. Tem Oldock. We all went, after supper upstairs together and I was shown my bedroom adjoining the boys' rooms. On the other side of the boys' nursery are Mahon's rooms and some bathrooms. Mr. Tem Oldock's rooms are in front. The way the house has been furnished, after having very lately been bought by Mr. Tem Oldock, does not make it look as if there would be a speedy departure for Mexico. Naturally there was no rest till I had opened my boxes and shown my musical instruments and other possessions. After that T proposed a play with the children to make us gdi acquainted quicker, one of the plays my father used to play with Harry and me, which I never forgot, which plays always were to me the perfection of such childrens' entertainments. Mahon was looking on. He claimed to have an appointment to go somewhere. I at first thought he hesitated to leave the boys in my charge, but he lingered as if he would really like to join us, till he went oflf hurriedly, just as the play was growing most interesting. A mirror laid flat on the nursery table was a big lake or inland sea, whatever the children wanted; out of handy things; blocks, boxes, tablescloths, books; the hilly land around the lake was formed as were also the mountains farther back. With the contents of toy-boxes the coun- try was settled up. Towns were founded, roads were built, railroads and even tunnels. Little squares of paper were folded to sail as boats the glassy deep. Larger ships had toothpicks for masts. Trading around the inland sea became lively. Sometimes a hurricane scattered the vessels ; then the end had come. One of the Chinese ser- vants, who is quite an elderly man appeared and said it was bedtime. He came to put the children to bed, but T told him I should see to it myself. When I put little Mahon in his bed, he asked : 434 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ''Will you stay with us now always ?" "Your papa has not told me yet if he will want me to." "Oh, do stay! Stay with us!" "T will, if your papa is satisfied." "Oh, he is satisfied." "He may not be." "Oh, yes! he will. Do you know many such plays.?" "Yes, a good many ! My father used to play such plays with me often and show me others ; me and my brother. You remember, I told you I once had a little brother, just like you, don't you?" "I don't know. I don't think I remember. Is he not here now ?" "No, I don't know where he is, he went away with his mama." The little fellow lay quite still. He was looking me in the eyes. And with an expression of something not un- like awe he asked in a half whisper : "Did your mama go away from you when you were little?" Presently he was asleep. I was all the time careful not to obtrude myself on the shy little Henry. Shy, yes ! but how different from little Harry ! He is not only bashful, and in some ways he is not bashful at all. He reminds me of something I don't want to think of, at times. He has a way of what I should call working an advantage out of his father's re- gard for his shy disposition; working on his sympathy, acting so as to make himself out more bashful yet than he is, so as to make his father believe him to be the still greater sufferer from his peculiar disposition. For the boy's condition appeals to Mahon's strong, inborn sense of helpfulness and protection of the weak, and makes him 435 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS ever ready in the boy's defence. In the same spirit, also, Mahon seems to give the boy Henry more Hcense to do and say what Httle Mahon is not allowed to say and do without reprimand or even punishment. And so manfully does little Mahon take it ! Mahon is very wrong in this and I shall tell him sc before another day is done. He acts, as I believe many fathers, under the mistaken idea that they can in that way even up things between children. Or, very often, in fact, most of the time, there is personal feeling in the matter. Little Henry's helpless bashfulness makes Mahon cross, and little Mahon catches it. It was near midnight when Mahon returned. He had been to Oakland to pay Mrs. Smith another visit after having, but a few hours ago, I might say, left her. When I heard from him where he had been, I felt sure he was going to marry Mrs. Smith, what he after- wards admitted to be the case. I longed to ask him if he had any orders for me from her, but I thought he would have to be educated up a little to my way of joking before I allowed myself such liberties. However I soon found, that I should not have been far from right. Her influence and her power over him were detectable in all his communications and the result of his consultations with her plainly showed itself in a number of what could be called instructions. I had been wondering before, why he had not remained living in Oakland, boarding with Mrs. Smith, at her pri- vate hotel. I am now convinced that it was she that sent him away. And I reckon it was advisable. And I have come to the conclusion that sTie is something of a superior mutually, strongly attached. CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS woman of tact and judgment, sensible if, maybe, not very quick, firm, yet tender-hearted, and that they are Certainly I cannot know it altogether for sure, but I believe he went to her to-night to obtain her permission to take me into his full confidence. Or if permission be too harsh an expression, I will say, he went to her for her sanction, her approval of such a step. When he went to Oakland the day he had first met me he made his report to her of all that had happened, of my appearance on the scene, my almost forcing myself on him and his family. He and she had then most as- suredly talked me over: the likeliness of my being some one he had known formerly here, in this place, and for- gotten; the possibility of my being an emissary of some sort of the divorced woman, but the improbability of the same. It all had duly been considered ; he had asked her advice, what he should do ; she had conditioned for time till to-night to think it over ; to-night they had talked it all over again, and she had advised him to do what he had been ready and wanting to do spontaneously himself : to take me for the friend I had so openly declared myself to be. Hence the bright smile on his face, and the eager clasp of his hand as I opened the door for him, as I heard him coming up the front steps. He was very glad to find I had not gone to bed, he said, as he wanted to confer with me very much about several things. But if I was tired or not disposed to be bothered with confidential intercourse so late at night he would postpone what he had to say till morning. Only that he thought, since I proposed to become an inmate of the house, a trainer of the children and a friend to all the family, the sooner I became acquainted with the con- dition of things concerning all parties, the better. I told him he was right, and I was altogether at his 437 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS disposal, when he asked me into his bedroom, where he took off his coat and sat with me in his shirt sleeves. He first made some observations on the coincidence of my coming to him at the very time he ever had most wanted such a friend. For, as an act of the greatest friendship, he said, he regarded it, for me to offer myself as companion, teacher and trainer of the boys, something he himself never had been and never would be fit and able to be. But he must tell me right off, he interrupted himself that he was not going to Mexico. He hoped that would not make him lose me and that I could be prevailed upon, being so fond of the children and such a true, old, though as yet unknown friend of his, to stay with them and be- come one of them altogether. For himself he must say he was a Calif ornian born and had come back now to California to remain as long as he lived, to be and stay a Californian rancher ; a farmer. "The only thing he was still fit to be was a farmer," he exclaimed. "The first time I found that out," he went on, "was when I was a young fellow of sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen years of age, just before I went away from here with my father to Europe, where I have lived a fool's life since that time. "I don't remember the circumstances. My memory is bad. I had accidentally gotten on some ranch hereabouts belonging to some acquaintance of my father, where I worked in the fields just like a farm hand. And it was the best time of my life, if I had only known it. But I was too young and too ignorant to know what I felt and wanted. And traveling, going to Europe and elsewhere seemed to be a fine thing, too. That was my first ex- perience. "The second time was when I was traveling with my wife. She was suddenly confined. The boys were born 438 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US For quite a time we were detained in a small village near the eastern border of Holland. "I used to knock round and pass my time watchmg the men and women working in the fields. And then, talk- ing to them and inquiring and afterwards havmg records searched. I found out there, nearby where we were staying was the place where long ago my folks, my an- cestors now, had owned large farms of rich bottom-lands, had lived and tilled their big East Frisian fields for hun- dreds of years. And one fine day, a beautiful summer day I had gone out in the fields and stood lookmg at the crops, and it came to me, such must be my life in the fields like of my ancestors. It came to me, I don't know how, but it came to me, just as I was standing there look- ing over the fields full of ripening grain, waving in tiie soft breeze. How it came I cannot tell, nor really what it was that came to me, but those crops, those waving grain fields, I liked them above all things, and at once 1 felt such a place that was the place where I belonged. And I kind of made up my mind I would live and die on a farm. I had to, it seemed, and my children after ''But then I had a wife and she was rich. And I had a father and he was rich. So what could I do. "And now I will just tell you how I am situated and how I feel. , , ^ cu ''My wife is gone. Well, I told you that before. She made life a hell for me while she had the chance. I am free of her. I am legally and fully divorced. But she may come for the children, steal them, carry them off. She is rich. She knows every trick. "I never speak of her, not even to my father. Well yes there is one person I have spoken to of her, and that is the woman I am going to marry, the woman I have been to see to-night. I had to talk to Sarah about her of course. But we don't speak of her unless '- 439 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS must. 1 want to forget that there is any such as she in the whole world. I don't want to think any more of her at all. But to you I must speak of her, just once. I shall do it but this one time. If I did not tell you about her you would blame me. It would not be fair. For you will now be responsible for the children. 1 shall be with you certainly, if I live. But their principal defender will be you. And I can't help always thinking, how- strange it all worked that you should come to us at the very time w-e needed you most. **I have told you, have I not? that we had a tutor. I should not have dismissed him, only he was such a liar. The occasion of Mark's getting lost got him his discharge. He lied so outrageously, I could not stand it. But you cannot think how I fretted. And now this turn that that very accident of the boy's losing himself should bring you to us ! "I want to say though that I don't consider the man was to blame for the boy's losing his way, and I told him so. "But I have told you this before, more than once, I reckon. And I should be talking of other things that give you an idea of the one you will some day have to fight. "Just this for one thing. She told me the day before she ran away, I must not think that the boys were my chil- dren. You may think very poorly of me for telling this. But I think I should be doing wrong in accepting your friendship for myself and more yet for the children if I did not tell you this, or other things as bad, in warning. T don't believe what she said, mind you ! Never ! The boys are mine and I love them. Perhaps I don't concern myself quite as much for one as for the other, but they are mine. "Yes, she told me the boys were not my children. Yes ! 440 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS And she — yes, she told — she told them. Think of it ! A mother to— such — and a He to poison "That is the woman. "And she does not care a rap for the boys. Naturally she hates children, and for her own not one beat of the heart counts. She only would want to get them away from us, because, well, 1 suppose because we like them and love them. And sometimes I can't help thinking she would want to get them into her hands because she would like to have the corrupting of them, to gratify the depraved cravings of a corrupt mind. "Now I rely on you. For in the case of my death 1 shall make you guardian of the boys, together with Sarah, and not my father, though he likes the boys as well as I do. And I like my father, too. "But now I will tell you. Half of my life is gone, and it was nothing. But no divorced wife, no father and no children shall stand in my way of working out my happi- ness for my own self from this time forth, for what is left of my days. "You see, I am a spoilt child. I am the regulation spoilt only son. only child. I have been indulged and in- dulged from the day of my birth. My mother died when I was, oh ! I don't know how young. Had she lived, per- haps. Oh ! what is the use I I can't blame my father for it all. That is. he did not know what he was doing and he does not know what he has done. now. And there is, I cannot deny it, a certain something in me, that lends it self to spoiling me. to let myself be spoilt. "It is a kind of laziness. People call me good-natured. That is only laziness. And that laziness makes me sort of ready to be indulged. The woman I was married to, she made me understand that. "Still that does not m.ake my father's doings right. And I can well say. if he had sworn to make a loafer of 441 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS me, he could not have done better than he did. Yes ! I may cry and cry: Had but my father put me to work, made me work ! I would bless every beating he had given me to make me work. "What have I learned? What do I know? What can I do? What do I amount to?" He was greatly moved and for a moment seemed un- able to control himself. He struggled just as little Mahon had done, till he won. And he will win ! He then went on to tell me what he proposed to do. He wanted his father to give him outright a piece of land he possessed in California; and I think it is what was my father's ranch. He wanted it, to have for his own, to hold and possess and work as a farm. His idea was to first go on some other farm to work, find a place like a hired man, go out to learn the work and trade and business of farming, like any apprentice to any other trade and business, from the beginning. He was not toe old to learn. Then he would gradually take the working of his own place, the ranch his father had given him onto himself. This he wanted decided right away and have his father give him that ranch now. But it was not alone a ranch he wanted, he also wanted a wife. He was going to marry again. He had found a woman that would take him, a woman, sensible and clean and sweet, not afraid of work, too, and healthy. And she was born and bred on a farm, too, liked farm life and knew all about it. She was willing to wait till he had learned what he was going to learn. It was her idea in fact that he should go out thus and learn farming, the work and the life of it. When he was ready, they would marry, a year or two hence. But longer than two years he would not wait. Then as soon as he was mar- ried we would live all together on the ranch; his father, 442 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS too, if he wanted to. For his father was fond of country life himself. He knew very well, he said, that Sarah would be boss. But all good women should be boss and manage their husbands. Men were only good for doing work. She was a widow and about three months older than he. That was another point that was all right, he ex- claimed. And he could only advise me to go and do like- wise. But about that he would not say anything. Prob- ably I had already some one in view, and she should be as welcome on the ranch as myself when I brought her there. "And now," he concluded, ''there are our boys. We, that is Sarah and I, have been quite a little puzzled how to dispose of the two. Of course Sarah would take them without asking, and with the one it would probably work all right, even after Sarah has children of her own, which I certainly shall want her to have. But two and so dif- ferent as to really require a separate treatment, how i? that to work ? And how are they to be separately treated, unless they are separated? It is too ridiculous. You will find it out yourself. I don't know sometimes what to do. It is really an awful thing. Consider how it must handicap anybody to be thus smitten and stricken with shyness! It is just as mean, yes as mean as being a coward. Sometimes I cannot help thinking it actually makes a person cowardly all the way through. Now, the other one, he does not take up with everybody for a friend, and I can't say I quite like it, but he has his pick. For all his life, there are people pushing him along, while with the other it is all up-hill work. He is afraid or shy of everybody. He can make no friends. He cannot do things rightly. He is dead against himself. He must be helped, and that will fall to your lot, that will be your principal task, to help him and help us to make a man of him. 443 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALANUS , "Once we thought of taking one and letting my father take the other. He would like to take both. But can I consent to that? Can I allow them to be spoilt, like I have been, and my life rumed ? Well, no! I won't say that. I can't say that. Not altogether. I shall get on top yet. **Now, your coming has solved the puzzzle. If you take charge of them, everything is settled. You will live with the boys at Mrs. Smith's till we are married, when you will come to live with us on the ranch. "Is that satisfactory?" "Say, yes ! Say it is all right !" I had to smile as I told him, he ought to wait till his father came to have his say in the matter and to identify me. He came to-day. As he saw me. he called out: "Hallo, Manuel!" just as I had known he would, holding out his hand, pointing to the scar, the mark of my teeth. "So, you know him?" Mahon said. "Know him? Why, don't you?" "No, I don't." "Well, if you don't, you ought to. Do you mean to tell me that you don't know who this is?" "I know who he is? I don't know who he was; and T don't want to know. He has come to me as a friend, T have taken him as a friend. He is my friend and the friend of my children who already take to him, as if they had known him all their life. Why should I want to know who he was?" "And why should they not take to him?" cried Mr. Tem Oldock. "Is he not their uncle?" "Uncle?" 444 CHRONICLES OF MANUEL ALAN US "Why, to be sure ! Are you not the son of Henry Alanus, and is not the daughter of Henry Alanus their mother?" "Their mother?" "Why, certainly ! Cora !" "Cora! And Harry?" "What Harry?" "My brother!" "Oh ! Uncle Henrv ! He is dead." 445 14 DAY USE ^! RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. 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