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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems, by
+Frances Fuller Victor
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems
+
+Author: Frances Fuller Victor
+
+Release Date: September 22, 2006 [EBook #19357]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE NEW PENELOPE AND OTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW PENELOPE
+
+AND
+
+OTHER STORIES AND POEMS.
+
+
+
+BY
+
+Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor.
+
+
+
+San Francisco:
+A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, PRINTERS.
+1877.
+
+Copyright, 1877, by
+MRS. FRANCES FULLER VICTOR.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+This collection consists of sketches of Pacific Coast life, most of
+which have appeared, from time to time, in the _Overland Monthly_, and
+other Western magazines. If they have a merit, it is because they
+picture scenes and characters having the charm of newness and
+originality, such as belong to border life.
+
+The poems embraced in the collection, have been written at all periods
+of my life, and therefore cannot be called peculiarly Western. But they
+embody feelings and emotions common to all hearts, East or West; and as
+such, I dedicate them to my friends on the Pacific Coast, but most
+especially in Oregon.
+
+Portland, August, 1877.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+STORIES.
+                                                   PAGE
+
+The New Penelope                                      9
+A Curious Interview                                  80
+Mr. Ela's Story                                      96
+On the Sands                                        112
+An Old Fool                                         132
+How Jack Hastings Sold His Mine                     180
+What They Told Me at Wilson's Bar                   197
+Miss Jorgensen                                      212
+Sam Rice's Romance                                  231
+El Tesoro                                           247
+
+
+POEMS.
+
+A Pagan Reverie                                     269
+Passing by Helicon                                  272
+Lost at Sea                                         275
+'Twas June, Not I                                   276
+Lines to a Lump of Virgin Gold                      281
+Magdalena                                           284
+Repose                                              289
+Aspasia                                             291
+A Reprimand                                         296
+To Mrs. ----                                        297
+Moonlight Memories                                  299
+Verses for M----                                    301
+Autumnalia                                          303
+Palo Santo                                          305
+A Summer Day                                        306
+He and She                                          308
+O Wild November Wind                                308
+By the Sea                                          309
+Polk County Hills                                   310
+Waiting                                             312
+Palma                                               314
+Making Moan                                         316
+Childhood                                           317
+A Little Bird that Every One Knows                  318
+Wayward Love                                        319
+A Lyric of Life                                     320
+From an Unpublished Poem                            321
+Nevada                                              324
+The Vine                                            326
+What the Sea Said to Me                             327
+Hymn                                                328
+Do You Hear the Women Praying?                      329
+Our Life is Twofold                                 331
+Souvenir                                            334
+I Only Wished to Know                               335
+Lines Written in an Album                           335
+Love's Footsteps                                    336
+The Poet's Ministers                                336
+Sunset at the Mouth of the Columbia                 340
+The Passing of the Year                             342
+
+
+
+
+STORIES.
+
+
+The New Penelope and Other Stories And Poems.
+
+
+
+
+THE NEW PENELOPE.
+
+
+I may as well avow myself in the beginning of my story as that anomalous
+creature--a woman who loves her own sex, and naturally inclines to the
+study of their individual peculiarities and histories, in order to get
+at their collective qualities. If I were to lay before the reader all
+the good and bad I know about them by actual discovery, and all the
+mean, and heroic, attributes this habit I have of studying people has
+revealed to me, I should meet with incredulity, perhaps with opprobrium.
+However that may be, I have derived great enjoyment from having been
+made the recipient of the confidences of many women, and by learning
+therefrom to respect the moral greatness that is so often coupled with
+delicate physical structure, and almost perfect social helplessness.
+Pioneer life brings to light striking characteristics in a remarkable
+manner; because, in the absence of conventionalities and in the presence
+of absolute and imminent necessities, all real qualities come to the
+surface as they never would have done under different circumstances. In
+the early life of the Greeks, Homer found his Penelope; in the pioneer
+days of the Pacific Coast, I discovered mine.
+
+My wanderings, up and down among the majestic mountains and the sunny
+valleys of California and Oregon, had made me acquainted with many
+persons, some of whom were to me, from the interest they inspired me
+with, like the friends of my girlhood. Among this select number was Mrs.
+Anna Greyfield, at whose home among the foot-hills of the Sierras in
+Northern California, I had spent one of the most delightful summers of
+my life. Intellectual and intelligent without being learned or
+particularly bookish; quick in her perceptions and nearly faultless in
+her judgment of others; broadly charitable, not through any laxity of
+principle on her own part, but through knowledge of the stumbling-blocks
+of which the world is full for the unwary, she was a constant surprise
+and pleasure to me. For, among the vices of women I had long counted
+uncharitableness; and among their disadvantages want of actual knowledge
+of things--the latter accounting for the former.
+
+I had several times heard it mentioned that Mrs. Greyfield had been
+twice married; and as her son Benton was also called Greyfield, I
+presumed that he was the son of the second marriage. How I found out
+differently I am about to relate.
+
+One rainy winter evening, on the occasion of my second visit to this
+friend, we were sitting alone before a bright wood fire in an open
+fireplace, when we chanced to refer to the subject of her son's personal
+qualities; he then being gone on a visit to San Francisco, and of course
+very constantly in his mother's thoughts, as only sons are sure to be.
+
+"Benton is just like his father," she said. "He is self-possessed and
+full of expedients, but he says very little. I have often wished he
+conversed more readily, for I admire a good talker."
+
+"And yet did not marry one:--the common lot!"
+
+Mrs. Greyfield smiled, and gazed into the fire, whose pleasant radiance
+filled the room, bringing out the soft warm colors in the carpet, and
+making fantastic shadows of our easy-chairs and ourselves upon the wall.
+
+"Mr. Greyfield was your second husband?" I said, in an inquiring tone,
+but without expecting to be contradicted.
+
+"Mr. Greyfield was my first, last, and only husband," she replied, with
+a touch of asperity, yet not as if she meant it for me.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I hastened to explain: "but I had been told--"
+
+"Yes, I can guess what you have been told. Very few people know the
+truth: but I never had a second husband, though I was twice married;"
+and my hostess regarded me with a smile half assumed and half
+embarrassed.
+
+For my own part, I was very much embarrassed, because I had certainly
+been informed that she had lived for a number of years with a second
+husband who had not used her well, and from whom she was finally
+divorced. Doubt her word I could not; neither could I reconcile her
+statement with facts apparently well known. She saw my dilemma, and,
+after a brief silence, mentally decided to help me out of it. I could
+see that, in the gradual relaxing of certain muscles of her face, which
+had contracted at the first reference to this--as I could not
+doubt--painful subject. Straightening her fine form as if ease of
+position was not compatible with what was in her mind, she grasped the
+arms of her chair with either hand, and looking with a retrospective
+gaze into the fire, began:
+
+"You see it was this way: the man I married the second time had another
+wife."
+
+While she drew a deep breath, and made a momentary pause, I seemed to
+take it all in, for I had heard so many stories of deserted Eastern
+homes, and subsequent illegal marriages in California, that I was
+prepared not to be at all surprised at what I should learn from her.
+Directly she went on:
+
+"I found out about it the very day of the marriage. We were married in
+the morning, and in the afternoon a man came over from Vancouver who
+told me that Mr. Seabrook had a wife, and family of children, in a
+certain town in Ohio." Another pause followed, while she seemed to be
+recalling the very emotions of that time.
+
+"Vancouver?" I said: "that is on the Columbia River."
+
+"Yes; I was living in Portland at that time."
+
+In reply to my glance of surprise, she changed the scene of her story to
+an earlier date.
+
+"Mr. Greyfield had always wanted to come to California, after the gold
+discoveries; but when he married me he agreed not to think of it any
+more. I was very young and timid, and very much attached to my
+childhood's home, and my parents; and I could not bear the thought of
+going so long a distance away from them. It was not then, as it is now,
+an easy journey of one week; but a long six months' pilgrimage through a
+wilderness country infested by Indians. To reach what? another
+wilderness infested by white barbarians!"
+
+"But I have always heard," I said, "that women were idealized and
+idolized in those days."
+
+"That is a very pretty fiction. If you had seen what I have seen on this
+coast, you would not think we had been much idealized. Women have a
+certain value among men, when they can be useful to them. In the old
+States, where every man has a home, women have a fixed position and
+value in society, because they are necessary to make homes. But on this
+coast, in early times, and more or less even now, men found they could
+dispense with homes; they had been converted into nomads, to whom earth
+and sky, a blanket and a frying-pan, were sufficient for their needs.
+Unless we came to them armed with endurance to battle with primeval
+nature, we became burdensome. Strong and coarse women who could wash
+shirts in any kind of a tub out of doors under a tree, and iron them
+kneeling on the ground, to support themselves and half a dozen little,
+hungry young ones, were welcome enough--before the Chinamen displaced
+them. We had some value as cooks, before men, with large means, turned
+their attention to supplying their brothers with prepared food for a
+consideration below what we could do with our limited means. And then
+the ladies, the educated, refined women, who followed their husbands to
+this country, or who came here hoping to share, perchance, in the golden
+spoils of the mines! Where are they to-day, and what is their condition?
+Look for them in the sunless back rooms of San Francisco
+boarding-houses, and you will find them doing a little fine sewing for
+the shops; or working on their own garments, which they must make out of
+school hours, because the niggardly pay of teachers in the lower grades
+will not allow of their getting them done. Idealized indeed! Men talk
+about our getting out of our places where we clamor for paying work of
+some kind, for something to do that will enable us to live in half
+comfort by working more hours than they do to earn lordly livings."
+
+How much soever I might have liked to talk this labor question over with
+my intelligent hostess at any other time, my curiosity concerning her
+own history having been so strongly aroused, the topic seemed less
+interesting than usual, and I seized the opportunity given by an
+emphasized pause to bring her back to the original subject.
+
+"Did you come first to California?" I asked.
+
+"No. I had been married little over a year when Benton was born. 'Now,'
+I thought, 'my husband will be contented to stay at home.' He had been
+fretting about having promised not to take me to California; but I hoped
+the baby would divert his thoughts. We were doing well, and had a
+pleasant house, with everything in and about it that a young couple
+ought to desire. I deceived myself in expecting Mr. Greyfield to give up
+anything he had strongly desired; and seeing how much he brooded over
+it, I finally told him to be comforted; that I would go with him to
+California if he would wait until the baby was a year old before
+starting; and to this he agreed."
+
+"How old were you at that time?"
+
+"Only about nineteen. I was twenty the spring we started; and celebrated
+my anniversary by making a general gathering of all my relatives and
+friends at our house, before we broke up and sold off our house-keeping
+goods--all but such as could be carried in our wagons across the
+plains."
+
+"You were not starting by yourselves?"
+
+"O no. There was a large company gathering together on the Missouri
+river, to make the start in May; and we, with some of our neighbors,
+made ready to join them. I shall never forget my feelings as I stood in
+my own house for the last time, taking a life-long leave of every
+familiar object! But you do not want to hear about that."
+
+"I want to hear what you choose to tell me; but most of all about your
+second marriage, and what led to it."
+
+"It is not easy to go back so many years and take up one thread in the
+skein of life, and follow that alone. I will disentangle it as rapidly
+as I can; but first let us have a fresh fire."
+
+Suiting the action to the word, my hostess touched a bell and ordered a
+good supply of wood, which I took as an intimation that we were to have
+one of our late sittings. In confirmation of this suspicion a second
+order was given to have certain refreshments, including hot lemonade,
+made ready to await our pleasure. When we were once more alone I begged
+her to go on with her story.
+
+"We left the rendezvous in May, and traveled without any unusual
+incidents all through the summer."
+
+"I beg pardon for interrupting you; but I do want to know how you
+endured that sort of life. Was it not terrible?"
+
+"It was monotonous, it was disagreeable, but it was not _terrible_ while
+everybody was well. There were compensations in it, as in almost any
+kind of life. My husband was strong and cheerful, now that he was having
+his own way; the baby throve on fresh air and good milk--for we had
+milch cows with us--and the summer months on the grassy plains are
+delightful, except for rather frequent thunder storms. The grass was
+good, and our cattle in fine order. Everything went well until the
+cholera broke out among us."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"And then my husband died."
+
+"Ah, what have not pioneer women endured!"
+
+"Mr. Greyfield had from the first been regarded as a sort of leader.
+Without saying much, but by being always in the right place at the right
+time, he had gained an ascendancy over the less courageous, strong and
+decided men. When the cholera came he was continually called upon to
+nurse the sick, to bury the dead and comfort the living."
+
+"And so became the easier victim?"
+
+My remark was unheeded, while my hostess lived over again in
+recollection the fearful scenes of the cholera season on the plains. I
+wanted to divert her, and called her attention to the roaring of the
+wind and beating of the rain without.
+
+"Yes," she said; "it stormed just in that way the night before he died.
+We all were drenched to the skin, and he was not in a condition to bear
+the exposure. I was myself half sick with fever, and when the shock came
+I became delirious. When I came to myself we were a hundred and fifty
+miles away from the place where he died."
+
+"How dreadful!" I could not help exclaiming. "Not even to know how and
+where he was buried."
+
+"Nor if he were buried at all. So frightened were the people in our
+train that they could not be prevailed upon to take proper care of the
+sick and dying, nor pay proper respect to the dead. After my reason
+returned, the one subject that I could not bear to have mentioned was
+that of my husband's death. Some of the men belonging to the train had
+taken charge of my affairs and furnished a driver for the wagon I was
+in. The women took care of Benton; and I lived, who would much rather
+have died. Probably I should have died, but for the need I felt, when I
+could think, of somebody to care for, support and educate my child. My
+constitution was good; and that, with the anxiety about Benton, made it
+possible for me to live."
+
+"My dear friend," I exclaimed; "what a dreadful experience! I wonder
+that you are alive and sit there talking to me, this moment."
+
+"You will wonder more before I have done," she returned, with what might
+be termed a superior sort of smile at my inexperience.
+
+"But how did you get to Oregon?" I asked, interrupting her again.
+
+"Our train was about at the place where the Oregon and California
+emigrants parted company, when I recovered my reason and strength enough
+to have any concern about where I was going. Some of those who had
+started for Oregon had determined to go to California; and the most
+particular friend Mr. Greyfield had in the train had decided to go to
+Oregon instead of to California, as he first intended. Now, when my
+husband was hopeless of his own recovery, he had given me in charge of
+this man, with instructions to be governed by him in all my business
+affairs; and I had no thought of resisting his will, though that bequest
+was the cause of the worst sorrows of my life, by compelling me to go to
+Oregon."
+
+"Why cannot people be contented with ruling while living, without
+subjecting others to the domination of an irrevocable will, when they
+are no longer able to mold or govern circumstances. I beg your pardon.
+Pray go on. But first let me inquire whether the person to whom you were
+commanded to trust your affairs proved trustworthy?"
+
+"As trustworthy as nearly absolute power on one side, and timid
+inexperience on the other, is likely to make any one. When we arrived
+finally in Portland, he took my wagons and cattle off my hands, and
+returned me next to nothing for them. Yet, he was about like the average
+administrator; it did not make much difference, I suppose, whether this
+one man got my property, or a probate court."
+
+"Poor child! I can see just how you were situated. Alone in a new
+country, with a baby on your hands, and without means to make a home for
+yourself. What _did_ you do? did you never think of going back to your
+parents?"
+
+"How could I get back? The tide of travel was not in that direction.
+Besides, I had neither money nor a sufficient outfit. There was no
+communication by mail in those days oftener than once in three months.
+You might perish a thousand times before you could get assistance from
+the East. O, no! there was nothing to be done, except to make the best
+of the situation."
+
+"Certainly, you had some friends among your fellow-immigrants who
+interested themselves in your behalf to find you a home? Somebody
+besides your guardian already mentioned."
+
+"The most of them were as badly off as myself. Many had lost near
+friends. I was not the only widow; but some women had lost their
+husbands who had several young children. They looked upon me as
+comparatively fortunate. Men had lost wives, and these were the most
+wretched of all; for a woman can contrive some way to take care of her
+children, where a man is perfectly helpless. Families, finding no houses
+to go into by themselves, were huddled together in any shelter that
+could be procured. The lines of partition in houses were often as
+imaginary as the parallels of latitude on the earth; or were defined by
+a window, or a particular board in the wall. O, I couldn't live in that
+way. My object was to get a real home somewhere. As soon as I could, I
+rented a room in a house with a good family, for the sake of the
+protection they would be to me, and went to work to earn a living. Of
+course, people were forward enough with their suggestions."
+
+"Of what, for instance?"
+
+"Most persons--in fact everybody that I talked with--said I should have
+to marry. But I could not think of it; the mention of it always made me
+sick that first winter. I was recovering strength, and was young; so I
+thought I need not despair."
+
+"Such a woman could not but have plenty of offers, in a new country
+especially; but I understand how you must have felt. You could not marry
+so soon after your husband's death, and it revolted you to be approached
+on the subject. A wife's love is not so easily transferred."
+
+"You speak as any one might think, not having been in my circumstances.
+But there was something more than that in the feeling I had. I could not
+realize the fact of Mr. Greyfield's death. It was as if he had only
+fallen behind the train, and might come up with us any day. I _waited_
+for him all that winter."
+
+"How distressing!" I could not help saying. Mrs. Greyfield sat silent
+for some minutes, while the storm raged furiously without. She rested
+her cheek on her hand and gazed into the glowing embers, as if the past
+were all pictured there in living colors. For me to say, as I did, "how
+distressing," no doubt seemed to her the merest platitude. There are no
+conventional forms for the expression of the utmost grief or sympathy.
+Silence is most eloquent, but I could not keep silence. At last I asked,
+"What did she do to earn a living?"
+
+"I learned to make men's clothes. There was a clothing store in the
+place that gave me employment. First I made vests, and then pants; and
+finally I got to be quite expert, and could earn several dollars a day.
+But a dollar did not buy much in those times; and oh, the crying spells
+that I had over my work, before I had mastered it sufficiently to have
+confidence in myself. Sancho Panza blessed the man that invented
+sleep--I say, blessed be the woman that invented crying-fits, for they
+save thousands and thousands of women from madness, annually!"
+
+This was a return to that sprightly manner of speech that was one of
+Mrs. Greyfield's peculiar attractions; and which often cropped out in
+the least expected places. But though she smiled, it was easy to see
+that tears would not be far to seek. "And yet," I said, "it is a bad
+habit to cultivate--the habit of weeping. It wastes the blood at a
+fearful rate."
+
+"Don't I know it? But it is safer than frenzy. Why I used--but I'll not
+tell you about that yet. I set out to explain to you my marriage with
+Mr. Seabrook. As I told you, everybody said I must marry; and the
+reasons they gave were, that I must have somebody to support me; that it
+was not safe for me to live alone; that my son would need a man's
+restraining hand when he came to be a few years older; and that I,
+myself, was too young to live without love!--therefore the only correct
+thing to do was to take a husband--a good one, if you could get him--a
+husband, anyway. As spring came round, and my mind regained something of
+its natural elasticity, and my personal appearance probably improved
+with returned health, the air seemed full of husbands. Everybody that
+had any business with me, if he happened not to have a wife, immediately
+proposed to take me in that relation. All the married men of my
+acquaintance jested with me on the subject, and their wives followed in
+the same silly iteration. I actually felt myself of some consequence,
+whether by nature or by accident, until it became irksome."
+
+"How did all your suitors contrive to get time for courtship?" I
+laughingly inquired.
+
+"O, time was the least of their requirements. You know, perhaps, that
+there was an Oregon law, or, rather, a United States law, giving a mile
+square of land to a man and his wife: to each, half. Now some of the
+Oregonians made this "Donation Act" an excuse for going from door to
+door to beg a wife, as they pretended, in order to be able to take up a
+whole section, though when not one of them ever cultivated a quarter
+section, or ever meant to."
+
+"And they come to _you_ in this way? What did they say? how did they
+act?"
+
+"Why, they rode a spotted cayuse up to the door with a great show of
+hurry, jangling their Mexican spurs, and making as much noise as
+possible. As there were no sidewalks in Portland, then, they could sit
+on their horses and open a door, or knock at one, if they had so much
+politeness. In either case, as soon as they saw a woman they asked if
+she were married; and if not, would she marry? there was no more
+ceremony about it."
+
+"Did they ever really get wives in that way, or was it done in
+recklessness and sport? It seems incredible that any woman could accept
+such an offer as that."
+
+"There were some matches made in that way; though, as you might
+conjecture, they were not of the kind made in heaven, and most of them
+were afterwards dissolved by legislative action or decree of the
+courts."
+
+"Truly you were right, when you said women are not idealized in
+primitive conditions of society," I said, after the first mirthful
+impulse created by so comical a recital had passed. "But how was it,
+that with so much to disgust you with the very name of marriage, you
+finally did consent to take a husband? He, certainly, was not one of the
+kind that came riding up to doors, proposing on the instant?"
+
+"No, he was not: but he might as well have been for any difference it
+made to me," said Mrs. Greyfield, with that bitterness in her tone that
+always came into it when she spoke of Seabrook. "You ask 'how was it
+that I at last consented to take a husband?' Do you not know that such
+influences as constantly surrounded me, are demoralizing as I said? You
+hear a thing talked of until you become accustomed to it. It is as Pope
+says: You 'first endure, then pity, then embrace.' I endured, felt
+contempt, and finally yielded to the pressure.
+
+"Why, you have no idea, from what I have told you, of the reality. My
+house as I have already mentioned, was one room in a tenement. It opened
+directly upon the street. In one corner was a bed. Opposite the door
+was a stove for cooking and warming the house. A table and two chairs
+besides my little sewing-chair completed the furnishing of the
+apartment. The floor was bare, except where I had put down an old
+coverlet for a rug before the bed. Here in this crowded place I cooked,
+ate, slept, worked, and received company and offers!
+
+"Just as an example of the way in which some of my suitors broached
+the subject I will describe a scene. Fancy me kneeling on the floor,
+stanching the blood from quite a serious cut on Benton's hand. The door
+opens behind me, and a man I never have seen before, thrusts his head
+and half his body in at the opening. His salutation is 'Howdy!'--his
+first remark, 'I heern thar was a mighty purty widder livin' here; and
+I reckon my infurmation was correct. If you would like to marry, I'm
+agreeable.'"
+
+"How did you receive this candidate? You have not told me what you
+replied on these occasions," I said, amused at this picture of pioneer
+life.
+
+"I turned my head around far enough to get one look at his face, and
+asking him rather crossly 'if there were any more fools where he came
+from,' went on bandaging Benton's hand."
+
+The recollection of this absurd incident caused the narrator to laugh as
+she had not often laughed in my hearing.
+
+"This may have been a second Werther," I remarked, "and surely no
+Charlotte could have been more unfeeling than you showed yourself. It
+could not be that a man coming in that way expected to get any other
+answer than the one you gave him?"
+
+"I do not know, and I did not then care. One day a man, to whose
+motherless children I had been kind when opportunity offered, slouched
+into my room without the ceremony of knocking and dropping into a chair
+as if his knees failed him, began twirling his battered old hat in an
+embarrassed manner, and doing as so many of his predecessors had
+done--proposing off-hand. He had a face like a terra-cotta image, a long
+lank figure, faded old clothes, and a whining voice."
+
+"He told me that he had no 'woman,' and that I had no 'man,' a condition
+that he evidently considered deplorable. He assured me that I suited him
+'fustrate;' that his children 'sot gret store by me,' and 'liked my
+victuals;' and that he thought a 'heap' of my little boy. He also
+impressed upon me that he had been 'considerin' the 'rangement of jinin'
+firms for some time. To close the business at once, he proposed that I
+should accept of him for my husband then and there."
+
+"And pray, what did you say to _him_!"
+
+"I told him that I did not know what use I had for him, unless I should
+put him behind the stove, and break bark over his head."
+
+This reply tickled my fancy so much that I laughed until I cried. I
+insisted on knowing what put it into her mind to say that.
+
+"You see, we burned fir wood, the bark of which is better to make heat
+than the woody portion of the tree; but is never sawed or split, and has
+to be broken. I used to take up a big piece, and bring it down with a
+blow over any sharp corner to knock it into smaller fragments, and
+something in the man's appearance, I suppose, suggested that he might be
+good for that, if for nothing else. I did not stop to frame my replies
+on any forms laid down in young ladies' manuals; but they seemed to be
+conclusive as a general thing."
+
+"I should think so. Yet, there must have been some, more nearly your
+equals, attracted by your youth and beauty, loving you, or capable of
+loving you, to whom you could not give such answers, by whom such
+answers would not be taken."
+
+"As I look back upon it now, I cannot think of any one I might have
+taken and did not, that I regret. There were men of all classes nearly;
+but they were not desirable, as I saw it then, or as I see it now. It is
+true that I was young, and pretty, perhaps, and that women were in a
+minority. But then, too, the men who were floating about on the surface
+of pioneer society were not likely to be the kind of men that make true
+lovers and good husbands. Some of them have settled down into
+steady-going benedicts, and have money and position. The worst effect of
+all this talk about marrying was, that it prepared me to be persuaded
+against my inner consciousness into doing that which I ought not to have
+done. My truer judgment had become confused, my perceptions clouded,
+from being so often assailed by the united majority who could not bear
+to see poor, little minority go unappropriated. But come, let us have
+our cakes and lemonade. You need something to sustain you while I
+complete the recital of my conquests."
+
+I felt that she needed a brief interval in which to collect her thoughts
+and calm a growing nervousness that in spite of her efforts at
+pleasantry would assert itself in various little ways, evident enough to
+my observation. A saucepan of water was set upon the hot coals on the
+hearth, the lemons cut and squeezed into two elegant goblets, upon
+square lumps of sugar that eagerly took up the keen acid, and grew
+yellow and spongy in consequence. A sociable little round table was
+rolled out of its seclusion in a corner, and made to support a tray
+between us, whereon were such dainty cakes and confections as my hostess
+delighted in.
+
+There was an air of substantial comfort in all the arrangements of my
+friend's house that made it a peculiarly pleasant one to visit. It
+lacked nothing to make it home-like, restful, attractive. The house
+itself was large and airy, with charming views; the furniture
+sufficiently elegant without being too fine for use; flowers, birds, and
+all manner of _curios_ abounded, yet were never in the way, as they so
+often are in the houses of people who are fond of pretty and curious
+things, but have no really refined taste to arrange them. Our little
+ten-o'clock lunch was perfect in its appointments--a "thing of beauty,"
+as it was of palatableness and refreshment. So strongly was I impressed
+at the moment with this talent of Mrs. Greyfield's, that I could not
+refrain from speaking of it, as we sat sipping hot and spicy lemonade
+from those exquisite cut-glass goblets of her choosing, and tasting
+dainties served on the loveliest china: "Yes, I suppose it is a gift of
+God, the same as a taste for the high arts is an endowment from the same
+source. Did it never strike you as being absurd, that men should expect,
+and as far as they can, require all women to be good housekeepers? They
+might as well expect every mechanic to carve in wood or chisel marble
+into forms of life. But it is my one available talent, and has stood me
+in good stead, though I have no doubt it was one chief cause of my
+trouble, by attracting Mr. Seabrook."
+
+"You must know," I said, "that I am tortured with curiosity to hear
+about that person. Will you not now begin?"
+
+"Let me see--where did I leave off? I was telling you that although I
+had so many suitors, of so many classes, and none of them desirable, to
+my way of thinking, I was really gradually being influenced to marry.
+You must know that a woman so young and so alone in the world, and who
+had to labor for her bread, and her child's bread, could not escape the
+solicitations of men who did not care to marry; and it was this class
+who gave me more uneasiness than all the presuming ignorant ones, who
+would honor me by making me a wife. I know it is constantly asserted,
+by men themselves, that no woman is approached in that way who does
+not give some encouragement. But no statement could be more utterly
+false--unless they determine to construe ordinary politeness and
+friendliness into a covert advance. The cunning of the "father of lies"
+is brought to bear to entrap artless and inexperienced women into
+situations whence they are assured there is no escape without disgrace.
+
+"During my first year of widowhood my feelings were several times
+outraged in this way; and at first I was so humiliated, and had such a
+sense of guilt, that it made me sick and unfit for my work. The guilty
+feeling came, I now know, from the consciousness I had of the popular
+opinion I have referred to, that there must be something wrong in my
+deportment. But by calling to mind all the circumstances connected with
+these incidents, and studying my own behavior and the feelings that
+impelled me, I taught myself at last not to care so very much about it,
+after the first emotions of anger had passed away. Still I thought I
+could perceive that I was not quite the same person: you
+understand?--the 'bloom' was being brushed away."
+
+"What an outrage! What a shame, that a woman in your situation could not
+be left to be herself, with her own pure thoughts and tender sorrows!
+Was there no one to whom you could go for advice and sympathy?--none
+among all those who came to the country with you who could have helped
+you?"
+
+"The people who came out with me were mostly scattered through the
+farming country; and would have been of very little use to me if they
+had not been. In fact, they would, probably, have been first to condemn
+me, being chiefly of an uneducated class, and governed more by
+traditions than by the wisdom of experience. There were two or three
+families whose acquaintance I had made after arriving in Portland, who
+were kindly disposed towards me, and treated me with great
+neighborliness; especially the family that was in the same tenement with
+me. To them I sometimes mentioned my troubles; but while they were
+willing to do anything for me in the way of a common friendly service,
+like the loaning of an article of household convenience, or sitting with
+me when Benton was sick--as he very often was--they could not understand
+other needs, or minister to the sickness of the mind. If I received any
+counsel, it was to the effect that a woman was in every way better off
+to be married. I used to wonder why God had not made us married--why he
+had given us our individual natures, since there was forever this
+necessity of being paired!"
+
+"Yet you had loved your husband?"
+
+"I had never ceased to love him!--and that was just what these people
+could not understand. Death cut _them_ loose from everything, and they
+were left with only strong desires, and no sentiment to sanctify them.
+That I should love a dead husband, and turn with disgust from a living
+one, was inexplicable to them."
+
+"My dear, I think I see the rock on which you wrecked your happiness."
+For the moment I had forgotten what she had told me in the beginning,
+that Seabrook had married her illegally; and was imagining her married
+to a living husband, and loving only the memory of one dead. She saw my
+error, and informed me by a look. Pushing away the intervening table
+with its diminished contents, and renewing the fire, Mrs. Greyfield
+proceeded:
+
+"It would take too long to go over the feelings of those times, and
+assign their causes. You are a woman that can put yourself in my place,
+to a great extent, though not wholly; for there are some things that
+cannot be imagined, and only come by experience."
+
+"Benton was two years and a half old; a very delicate child, suffering
+nearly all the time with chills and fever. I had occasional attacks of
+illness from the malaria, always to be met with on the clearing up of
+low-lands near a river. Still I was able to sew enough to keep a shelter
+over our heads, and bread in our mouths, until I had been a year in
+Portland. But I could not get ahead in the least, and was often very low
+spirited. About this time I made the acquaintance of Mr. Seabrook. He
+was introduced to me by a mutual acquaintance, and having a little
+knowledge of medicine, gave me both advice and remedies for Benton. He
+used to come in quite often, and look after the child, and praise my
+housekeeping, which probably was somewhat better than that of the
+average pioneer of those days. He never paid me any silly compliments,
+or disturbed my tranquillity with love-making of any sort. Just for that
+reason I began to like him. He was twelve or fifteen years older than
+myself; and more than ordinarily fine-looking and intelligent. You have
+no idea, because you have never been so placed, what a comfort it was to
+me to have such a friend."
+
+"Yes, I think I know."
+
+"One day he said to me, 'Mrs. Greyfield, this sitting and sewing all day
+is bad for your health. Now, I should think, being so good a housekeeper,
+you might do very well by taking a few boarders; and I believe you could
+stand that kind of labor better than sewing.' We had a little talk about
+it, and he proposed trying to find me a house suited to the purpose; to
+which I very readily consented; for, though I was wholly inexperienced
+in any business, I thought it better to venture the experiment than to
+keep on as I was doing."
+
+"How did you expect to get furniture? Pardon me; but you see I want to
+learn all about the details of so strange a life."
+
+"I don't think I expected anything, or thought of all the difficulties
+at once."
+
+"Which was fortunate, because they would have discouraged you."
+
+"It is hard to say what has or has not been for the best. But for that
+boarding-house scheme, I do not believe I should have married the man I
+did.
+
+"As I was saying, Mr. Seabrook never annoyed me with attentions. He came
+and talked to me in a friendly manner, and with a superior air that
+disarmed apprehension on that score. Mrs. ----, my neighbor in the next
+room, once hinted to me that his visits were indicative of his
+intentions, and thereby caused me a sleepless night. But as _he_ never
+referred to the subject, and as I was now full of my new business
+project, the alarm subsided. A house was finally secured, or a part of a
+house, consisting of a kitchen, dining-room and bed-room, on the first
+floor; and the same number of rooms above. I had a comfortable supply of
+bedding and table linen; the trouble was about cabinet furniture. But as
+most of my boarders were bachelors, who quartered themselves where they
+could, I got along very well."
+
+"You made a success of it, then?"
+
+"I made a success. I threw all my energies into it, and had all the
+boarders I could cook for."
+
+"Mr. Seabrook boarded with you?--I conjecture that."
+
+"Yes; and he took a room at my house. At first I liked it well enough; I
+had so much confidence in him. But in a short time I thought I could
+perceive that my other boarders were disposed to think that we looked
+toward a nearer relationship in the future. Perhaps they were justified
+in thinking so, as they could only judge from appearances; and I had
+asked Mr. Seabrook to take the foot of the table, and carve, because I
+had so much else to do that it was impossible for me to do that also.
+Gradually he assumed more the air of proprietor than of boarder; but as
+he was so much older and wiser, and had been of so much service to me, I
+readily pardoned what I looked upon as a matter of no great consequence.
+
+"It proved to be, however, a matter of very great consequence. I had
+been established in the new house and business four or five weeks, when
+one evening, Benton being unusually ill, I asked Mr. Seabrook's advice
+about him. My bed-room was up stairs, against the partition which
+separated my apartments from those occupied by a family of Germans. I
+chose that room for myself because it seemed less lonely, and safer for
+me, to be where I could hear the voice of the little German woman, and
+she could hear mine. In the same manner my kitchen joined on to hers,
+and we could hear each other at our work. Benton being too ill to be
+dressed, was lying on the bed in my room, and I asked Mr. Seabrook to go
+up and look at him. He examined him and told me what to do, in his usual
+decided and assured manner, and went back to the dining-room, which was
+also my sitting-room. As soon as Benton was quieted, so that I could
+leave him, I also returned to the lower part of the house to finish my
+evening tasks.
+
+"There is such a feeling of hatred arises in my heart when I recall that
+part of my history that it makes me fear my own wickedness! Do you think
+we can hate so much as to curse and blight our own natures?"
+
+"Undoubtedly; but that would be a sort of frenzy, and would finally end
+in madness. _You_ do not feel in that way. It is the over-mastering
+sense of wrong suffered, for which there can be no redress. Terrible as
+the feeling is, it must be free from the wickedness you impute to
+yourself. Your nature is sound and sweet at the core--I feel sure of
+that."
+
+"Thank you. I have had many grave doubts about myself. But to go on.
+Contrary to his usual habit, Mr. Seabrook remained at the house that
+evening, and in the dining-room instead of his own room. I was so busy
+with my work and anxious about Benton, that I did not give more than a
+passing thought to him. He, also, seemed much pre-occupied.
+
+"At last my work was done, and I took a light to go to my room, telling
+Mr. Seabrook to put out the lights below stairs, as I should not be down
+again. 'Stop a moment,' said he, 'I have something to tell you that you
+ought to know.' He very politely placed a chair for me, which I took.
+His manners were faultless in the matter of etiquette--and how very far
+a fine manner goes, in our estimate of people! I had not the shadow of a
+suspicion of what was coming. 'Mrs. Greyfield,' he said, with great
+gravity, 'I fear I have unintentionally compromised you very seriously.
+In advising you to take this house, and open it for boarders, I was
+governed entirely by what I conceived to be your best interests; but it
+seems that I erred in my judgment. You are very young--only
+twenty-three, I believe, and--I beg your pardon--too beautiful to pass
+unnoticed in a community like this. Your boarders, so far, are all
+gentlemen. Further, it has been noticed and commented upon that--really,
+I do not know how to express it--that _I_ have seemed to take the place
+in your household that--pray, forgive me, Mrs. Greyfield--only a
+husband, in fact or in expectancy, could be expected or permitted to
+occupy. Do you see what I mean?'
+
+"I sat stunned and speechless while he went on. 'I presume your good
+sense will direct you in this matter, and that you will grasp the right
+horn of the dilemma. If you would allow me to help you out of it, you
+would really promote my happiness. Dear Mrs. Greyfield, permit me to
+offer you the love and protection of a husband, and stop these gossips'
+mouths.'"
+
+"You do not think he had premeditated this?" I asked.
+
+"I did not take it in then, but afterwards I saw it plainly enough. He
+pressed me for an answer, all the time plausibly protesting that
+although he had hoped some time to win my love, he had not anticipated
+the necessity for urging his suit as a matter of expediency. In vain I
+argued that if his presence in the house was an injury to me, he could
+leave it. It was too late, he said. I indignantly declared that it was
+not my fault that my boarders were all men. I was working for my living,
+and would just as willingly have boarded any other creature if I could
+have got my money for it; a monkey or a sheep; it was all the same to
+me. He smiled superiorly on my fretfulness; and when I at last burst
+into a passion of tears, bade me good night with such an air of being
+extremely forbearing and judicious that I could not help regarding
+myself as a foolish and undisciplined child.
+
+"That night I scarcely slept at all. Benton was feverish, and I half
+wild. All sorts of plans ran through my head; but turn the matter over
+any way I would, it amounted to the same thing. The money I must earn,
+must come from men. Whether I sewed or cooked, or whatever I did, they
+were the paymasters to whom I looked for my wages. How, then, was it
+possible to escape contact with them, or avoid being misunderstood. In
+one breath I resented, with all the ardor of my soul, the impertinence
+of the world's judgment, and in the next I declared to myself that I did
+not care; that conscious innocence should sustain me, and that I had a
+right to do the best I could for myself and child.
+
+"But that was only sham courage. I was morally a coward, and could not
+possibly face the evil spirit of detraction. Therefore, the morning
+found me feverish in body and faint in spirit. I kept out of sight of my
+boarders, except Mr. Seabrook, who looked into the kitchen with a
+sympathizing face, and inquired very kindly after Bennie, as he
+pet-named Benton. When my dinner was over that day, I asked the little
+German woman to keep the child until I could go on an errand, and went
+over to Mrs. ----, my old house-mate, to get advice.
+
+"Do you know how much advice is worth? If you like it, you haven't needed
+it; and if you do not like it, you will not take it. Mrs. ---- told me
+that if she were in my place, as if she _could be_ in my place! she would
+get rid of all her troubles by getting some man to take charge of her and
+her affairs. When I asked, with transparent duplicity, where I was to
+find a man for this service, she laughed in my face. People _did_ talk
+so then, and what Mr. Seabrook said was the unexaggerated truth. It did
+not occur to me to examine into the authorship of the rumors; I was too
+shrinking and sensitive for that.
+
+"When I reached home I found Mr. Seabrook at the house. A sudden feeling
+of anger flashed into my mind, and must have illuminated my eyes; for he
+gave me one deprecating glance, and immediately went out. This made me
+fear I was unjust to him. That evening he did not come to tea, but sent
+me a note saying he had business at Vancouver and would not return for
+two or three days; but that when he did return it would be better to
+have my mind made up to dismiss him entirely out of the country, or to
+have our engagement made known.
+
+"That threw the whole responsibility upon me; and it was, as he knew it
+would be, too heavy for my twenty-three years to carry. To lose the most
+helpful and agreeable friend I had in the country, to banish him for no
+fault but being too kind to me, or to take him in place of one whose
+image would always stand between us: that was the alternative.
+
+"The next day an incident occurred that decided my destiny. I had to go
+out to make some purchases for the house. At the store where I usually
+bought provisions I chanced to meet a woman who had crossed the
+continent in my company; and she turned her back upon me without
+speaking. She was an ignorant, bigoted sort of woman, of an uncertain
+temper, and at another time I might not have cared for the slight; but
+coming at a time when I was in a state of nervous alarm, it cut me to
+the quick. With great difficulty I restrained my tears, and left the
+store. While hurrying home with a basket on my arm, almost choked with
+grief, I passed a kind old gentleman who had always before had a
+pleasant word for me, and an inquiry about my child. He, too, passed me
+with only the slightest sign of recognition. I thought my heart would
+burst in my breast, so terrible was the sense of outrage and shame--"
+
+"Which was, after all, probably imaginary," I interrupted. "The insult
+of the ignorant, ill-tempered woman was purely an accidental display of
+those qualities, and the slight recognition of your old friend the
+consequence of the other, for your face certainly expressed the state of
+your feelings, and your friend was surprised into silence by seeing you
+in such distress."
+
+"That, very likely, is the true explanation. But it did not so impress
+me then. You cannot, in the state of mind I was in, go after people, and
+ask them to tell you whether or not they really mean to insult you,
+because you are only too certain that they do. I was sick with pain and
+mortification. How I got through my day's work I do not remember; but
+you can understand that my demoralization was complete by this time, and
+that when Mr. Seabrook returned I was like wax in his hands. All that I
+stipulated for was a little more time; he had my permission to announce
+our engagement.
+
+"My boarders and every one who spoke to me about it congratulated me.
+When I look back upon it now, it seems strange that no one ever
+suggested to me the importance of knowing the antecedents of the man I
+was going to marry; but they did not. It seemed to be tacitly understood
+that antecedents were not to be dragged to light in this new world, and
+that "by-gones should be by-gones." As to myself, it never occurred to
+my inexperience to suspect that a man might be dishonorable, even
+criminal, though he had the outside bearing of a gentleman."
+
+"Did he propose to relieve you of the necessity of keeping boarders?"
+
+"No. The business was a good one; and, as I have said, I was a success
+in this line. My constitution was good; my energy immense, in labor; my
+training in household economy good; and, besides, I had a real talent
+for pleasing my boarders. I was to be provided with a servant; and the
+care of the marketing would devolve upon Mr. Seabrook. With this
+amelioration of my labors, the burden could be easily borne for the sake
+of the profits."
+
+"What business was Mr. Seabrook in?"
+
+"I never thought of the subject at that time. He was always well
+dressed; associated with men of business; seemed to have money; and I
+never doubted that such a man was able to do anything he proposed.
+Women, you know, unconsciously attribute at least an earthly omnipotence
+to men. Afterwards, of course, I was disillusioned. But I must hasten,
+for it is growing late; and either the storm or these old memories shake
+my nerves.
+
+"I had asked for a month's time to prepare my mind for my coming
+marriage. At the end of a week, however, Mr. Seabrook came to me and
+told me that imperative business called him away for an absence of
+several weeks, and that, in his judgment, the marriage ceremony should
+take place before he left. He should be away over the month I had
+stipulated for; and, in case of accident, I would have the protection of
+his name. My objections were soon overruled, and on the morning of his
+departure we were married--as I believed, legally and firmly bound--in
+the presence of my family of boarders, and two or three women, including
+Mrs. ----. He went away immediately, and I was left to my tumultuous
+thoughts."
+
+"May I be permitted to know whether you loved him at all, at that time?
+It seems to me that you must have sometimes yearned for the ownership of
+some heart, and the strong tenderness of man's firmer nature."
+
+Mrs. Greyfield looked at me with a curiously mixed expression, half of
+sarcastic pity, half of amused contempt. But the thought, whatever it
+was, went unspoken. She reflected a moment silently before she answered.
+
+"I have told you that my heart remained unweaned from the memory of my
+dead husband. I told Mr. Seabrook the same. But I admired, respected and
+believed in him; he was agreeable to me, and had my confidence. There
+can be no doubt, but if he had been all that he seemed, I should have
+ended by loving him in a quiet and constant way. As it was, the shock I
+felt at the discovery of his perfidy was terrible.
+
+"My ears were yet tingling with my new name, when, everybody having
+gone, I sat down with Benton on my lap to have the pleasure of the few
+natural tears that women are bound to shed over their relinquished
+freedom. I was very soon aroused by a knock at the door, which opened to
+admit an old acquaintance, then residing in Vancouver, and a former
+suitor of mine. Almost the first thing he said was, 'I hear you have
+been getting married?' 'Yes,' I said, trying to laugh off my
+embarrassment, 'I had to marry a man at last to get rid of them!'
+
+"'You made a poor selection, then,' he returned, rather angrily.
+
+"His anger roused mine, for his tone was, as I thought, insolent, 'Do
+you think I should have done better to have taken you?' I asked,
+scornfully.
+
+"'You would at least have got a man that the law could give you,' he
+retorted, 'and not another woman's husband.'
+
+"The charge seemed so enormous that I laughed in his face, attributing
+his conduct to jealous annoyance at my marriage. But something in his
+manner, in spite of our mutual excitement, unsettled my confidence. He
+was not inventing this story; he evidently believed it himself. 'For
+God's sake,' I entreated, 'if you have any proof of what you say, give
+it me at once!' And then he went on to tell me that on the occasion of
+Mr. Seabrook's late visit to Vancouver, he had been recognized by an
+emigrant out from Ohio, who met and talked with him at the Hudson's Bay
+store. That man had told him, my informant, that he was well acquainted
+with the family of Mr. Seabrook, and that his wife and several children
+were living when he left Ohio.
+
+"'Can you bring this man to me?' I asked, trembling with horrible
+apprehensions.
+
+"'I don't know as I could,' said he; 'for he went, I think, over to the
+Sound to look up a place. But I can give you the name of the town he
+came from, if that would be of any use.' I had him write the address for
+me, as I was powerless to do it for myself.
+
+"'I am sorry for you,' he said, as he handed me the slip of paper; 'that
+is, if you care anything for the rascal.'
+
+"'Thank you,' I returned, 'but this thing is not proven yet. If you
+really mean well by me, keep what you have told me to yourself.'
+
+"'You mean to live with him?' he asked.
+
+"'I don't know what I shall do; I must have time to think.'
+
+"'Very well; it is no affair of mine. I don't want a bullet through my
+head for interfering; but I thought it was no more than fair to let you
+know.'
+
+"'I am very grateful, of course;--I mean I am if there is any occasion;
+but this story is so strange, and has come upon me so suddenly that I
+cannot take it all in at once, with all its consequences.'
+
+"'I know what you think,' he said finally: 'You suspect me of making up
+this thing to be revenged on you for preferring Seabrook to me. I'd be a
+damned mean cuss, to do such a turn by any woman, wouldn't I? As to
+consequences, if the story is true, and I believe it is, why your
+marriage amounts to nothing, and you are just as free as you were
+before!'
+
+"I fancied his face brightened up with the idea of my freedom, and a
+doubt of his veracity intruded upon my growing conviction. Distracted,
+excited, pressed down with cares and fears, I still had to attend to my
+daily tasks. I begged him to go away, and not to say a word to any other
+mortal about what he had told me; and he gave me the promise I desired.
+That was a fatal error, and fearfully was I punished."
+
+"How an error? It seems to me quite remarkable prudence for one in your
+situation."
+
+"So I thought then; but the event proved differently."
+
+"Pray do tell me how you bore up under all this excitement, and the care
+and labor of a boarding-house? The more I know of your life, the more
+surprised I am at your endurance."
+
+"It was the care and labor that saved me, perhaps. At all events, here I
+am, alive and well, to-night. I sometimes liken myself to a tree that I
+know of. It was a small fir tree in a friend's garden. For some reason,
+it began to pine and dwindle and turn red. My friend's husband insisted
+on cutting it down, as unsightly; but this she objected to, until all
+the leaves were dry and faded, and the tree apparently dead. Still she
+asked for it to be spared for another season; and, taking a stick, she
+beat the tree all over until not a leaf was left on a single bough; and
+there it stood, a mere frame of dry branches, until everybody wished it
+out of the way. But behold! at last it was covered with little green
+dots of leaves, that rapidly grew to the usual size, and now that tree
+is the thriftiest in my friend's garden, and a living evidence of the
+uses of adversity. But for the beating it got, it would now be a dead
+tree! I had my child to live and work for; and really, but for this last
+trouble, I should have thought myself doing well. I had found out how I
+could make and lay up money, and was gaining that sense of independence
+such knowledge gives. Besides, I was young, and in good physical health
+most of the time before this last and worst stroke of fortune. _That_
+broke down my powers of resistance in some directions, I had so much to
+resist in others."
+
+"Do you see what o'clock it is?" I asked.
+
+"Yes; but if you do not mind the sitting up, let's make a night of it. I
+feel as if I could not sleep--as if something were going to happen."
+
+Very cheerfully I consented to the proposed vigil. I wanted to hear the
+rest of the story; and I knew she had a sort of prophetic consciousness
+of coming events. If she said "something was going to happen," something
+surely did happen. So the fire was renewed, and we settled ourselves
+again for "a night of it.
+
+"What did you do? and why do you say that you committed a fatal error by
+keeping silence?"
+
+"By suffering the matter to rest, I unfortunately fixed myself in the
+situation I would have avoided. My object was what yours would have
+been, or any woman's--to save all scandal, until the facts were known to
+a certainty. I was so sensitive about being talked over; and besides
+felt that I had no right to expose Mr. Seabrook to a slanderous
+accusation. It was not possible for me to have foreseen what actually
+happened.
+
+"I took one night to think the matter over. It was a longer night than
+this one will seem to you. My decision was to write to the postmaster of
+the town from which Mr. Seabrook was said to come. _Now_ that would be a
+simple affair enough; the telegraph would procure us the information
+wanted in a day. _Then_ a letter was five or six months going and
+coming. In the meantime I had resolved not to live with Mr. Seabrook as
+his wife; but you will see how I would, under the circumstances, be
+compelled to seem to do so. I did not think of that at first, however.
+You know how you mentally go over impending scenes beforehand? I meant
+to surprise him into a confession, if he were guilty; and believed I
+should be able to judge of his innocence, if he should be wrongly
+accused. I wrote and dispatched my letter at once, and under an assumed
+name, to prevent its being stolen. When that was done I tried to rest
+unconcerned; but, of course, that was impossible. My mind ran on this
+subject day and night.
+
+"The difficulties of my position could never be imagined; you would have
+to be in the same place to see them. Everybody now called me Mrs.
+Seabrook, and I could not repudiate the name without sufficient cause. I
+was forced to appear to have confidence in the man I had married of my
+own free will. Besides, I really did not know, of a verity, that he was
+not worthy of confidence. It seemed quite as credible that another man
+should invent a lie, as that Mr. Seabrook should be guilty of an
+enormous crime.
+
+"Naturally I had a buoyant temper; was inclined to see the amusing side
+of things; enjoyed frolicsome conversation; and in a general way was
+well fitted to bear up under worries, and recover quickly from depressed
+conditions. The gentlemen who boarded with me were a cheerful and
+intelligent set, whose conversation entertained me, as they met three
+times a day at table. They were all friends of Mr. Seabrook, which gave
+them the privilege of saying playful things to me about him daily. To
+these remarks I must make equally playful replies, or seem ungracious to
+them. You will see how every such circumstance complicated my
+difficulties afterwards.
+
+"You know, too, how pliable we all are at twenty-three--how often our
+opinions waver and our emotions change. I was particularly mercurial in
+my temperament before the events I am relating hardened me. I often laid
+in a half-waking state almost all night, my imagination full of horrible
+images; and when breakfast-time came, and I listened to an hour of
+entertaining talk, with frequent respectful allusions to Mr. Seabrook,
+and kindly compliments to myself, these ugly visions took flight, while
+I persuaded myself that everything would come out right in the end.
+
+"A little while ago you asked me if I did not love Mr. Seabrook at
+all?--did not long for tenderness from him? The question roused
+something of the wickedness in me that I confessed to you before; but I
+will answer the inquiry now, by asking _you_ if you think any woman in
+her twenties is quite reconciled to live unloved? I had not wished to
+marry again; yet undoubtedly there was a great blank in my life, which
+my peculiarly friendless condition made me very sensible of; and there
+_was_ a yearning desire in my heart to be petted and cared for, as in my
+brief married life I had been. But the coarseness and intrusiveness I
+had experienced in my widowhood had made me as irritable as the 'fretful
+porcupine' towards that class of men. The thought of Mr. Seabrook loving
+me had never taken root in my mind. Even when he proposed marriage, it
+had seemed much more a matter of expediency than of love. But when,
+after I had accepted him as an avowed lover, his conduct had continued
+to be unintrusive, and delicately flattering to my womanly pride, it was
+most natural that I should begin to congratulate myself on the prospect
+before me of life-long protection from such wounds as I had received,
+with the great satisfaction of increased dignity in point of social
+position; for then, much more than now, and in a new country more than
+in an old one, a woman's position depended on her relationship to men;
+the wife of the most worthless man being the superior of an unmarried
+woman. Accordingly I felt my promised importance, and began to exult in
+it."
+
+"In short, you were preparing to become much more subject to the second
+love than the first; a not infrequent experience," I interrupted. "You
+certainly must have loved a handsome, agreeable, courteous, and manly
+man, who would have interposed between you and the rude shocks of the
+world; and you had begun to realize that you could, in spite of your
+first love?"
+
+"And to have a feeling of disappointment when the possibility presented
+itself that after all these blessings might be wrested from me; of
+horror when I reflected that in that case my last estate would be
+inexpressibly worse than the first."
+
+"There was a terrible temptation there!"
+
+"No; that was the one thing I was perfectly clear about. Not to be
+dragged into crime or deserved disgrace, I was determined upon. How I
+should avoid it was where I was in doubt."
+
+"I am very anxious to know how you met him on his return."
+
+"There was no one in the house except myself, and Benton, who was now
+quite well again for the time. I was standing by the dining-room window,
+arranging some ferns in a hanging basket, and Benton was amusing himself
+with toys the boarders were always giving him. I heard a footstep, and
+turned my head slightly to see who it was. Mr. Seabrook stood in the
+door, regarding us with a pleased smile.
+
+"'How is my wife and boy?' he said, cheerily, advancing towards me, and
+proffering a kiss of greeting.
+
+"I put up my hand to ward him off, and my heart stood motionless. I
+seemed to be struck with a chill. My teeth chattered together, while the
+ends of my fingers turned cold at once.
+
+"Naturally, he was surprised; but thinking perhaps that the suddenness
+of his return, under the circumstances, had overcome me, he quickly
+recovered his tenderness of manner.
+
+"'Have I frightened you, my darling?' he asked, putting out his arms to
+fold me to his breast. Not being able to speak, I whirled round rapidly,
+and hastened to place the table between us. Of course, he could not
+comprehend such conduct, but thought it some nervous freak, probably.
+
+"Turning to Benton, he took him up in his arms and kissed him, asking
+him some questions about himself and toys. 'Could you tell me what is
+the matter with your mamma, Bennie?' he asked, seeing that my manner
+remained inexplicable.
+
+"'I tink see has a till,' answered Benton, who by this time knew the
+meaning of the word 'chill' by experience.
+
+"'She has given _me_ one, I know,' said Mr. Seabrook, regarding me
+curiously. I began to feel faint, and sat down, leaning my head on my
+hand, my elbow on the table.
+
+"'Anna,' said he, addressing me by my Christian name for the first time,
+and giving me a little shock in consequence--for I had almost forgotten
+I had ever been called 'Anna'--'if I am so disagreeable to you, I will
+go away again; though I certainly had reason to expect a different
+reception.'
+
+"'No,' I said, suddenly rousing up; 'you must not go until I have told
+you something; unless you go to stay--which would perhaps be best.'
+
+"'To stay! go to stay? There seems great need of explanation here. Will
+you be good enough to tell me why I am to go away to stay?'
+
+"'The reason is, Mr. Seabrook,' I answered, 'that your true wife, and
+your own children expect you at home, in Ohio.'
+
+"I had worded my answer with the intention of shocking the truth out of
+him, if possible. If he should be innocent, I thought, he would forgive
+me. There was too much at stake to stand upon niceties of speech; and I
+watched him narrowly."
+
+"How did he receive such a blow as that? I am curious to know how guilty
+people act, on being accused."
+
+"You cannot tell an innocent from a guilty person," Mrs. Greyfield
+returned, with a touch of that asperity that was sometimes noticeable in
+her utterances. Then, more quietly: "Both are shocked alike at being
+accused; one because he is innocent; the other, because he is guilty.
+How much a person is shocked depends upon temperament and circumstance.
+The guilty person, always consciously in danger of being accused, is
+likely to be prepared and on the defensive, while the other is not.
+
+"What Mr. Seabrook did, was to turn upon me a look of keen observation,
+not unmixed with surprise. It might mean one thing; it might mean
+another; how could I tell? He always impressed me so with his
+superiority that even in that moment, when my honor and life's happiness
+were at stake, I was conscious of a feeling of abasement and guiltiness
+that I dare accuse _him_ to his face. Perhaps, he saw that I was
+frightened at my own temerity; at all events he was not thrown off his
+guard.
+
+"'Do I understand you to charge me with crime--a very ugly crime,
+indeed?' he asked pointedly.
+
+"'You know,' I said, 'whether you are guilty. If you are, may God so
+deal with you as you have meant to deal with me.'
+
+"I fancied that he winced slightly at this; but in my excitement could
+not have seen very clearly. He knitted his brows, and took several turns
+up and down the room.
+
+"'If I knew who had put this monstrous idea into your mind,' he finally
+said with vehemence; 'I would send a bullet through his heart!'
+
+"'In that case,' I replied: 'you could not expect me to tell you;' and I
+afterwards made that threat my excuse for concealing the name of my
+informant.
+
+"Mr. Seabrook continued to pace the floor in an excited manner, stroking
+his long blonde beard rapidly and unconsciously. I still sat by the
+table, trying to appear the calm observer that I was not. He came and
+stood by me, saying: 'Do you believe this thing against me?'
+
+"'I do not know what to believe, Mr. Seabrook,' I replied, 'but
+something will have to be done about this rumor.' I could not bear to go
+on; but he understood me. He leaned over my chair, and touched my cheek
+with his:
+
+"'Are you my wife, or not?' he asked. I shuddered, and put my face down
+on my hands. He knelt by my side, and taking my hands in his, so that my
+face must be seen, asked me to look into his eyes and listen to him.
+What he said, was this:
+
+"'If I swear to you, by Almighty God, that you are my true and only
+wife, will you then believe me?'"
+
+Mrs. Greyfield was becoming visibly agitated by these reminiscences, and
+paused to collect herself.
+
+"You dared not say 'yes,'" I cried, carried away with sympathy, "and yet,
+you could not say 'no.' What did you do?"
+
+"I burst into a passion of tears, and cried convulsively. He would have
+caressed and consoled me, but I would have none of it.
+
+"'Anna, what a strange home-coming for a bridegroom!' he said,
+reproachfully.
+
+"'Go away, and leave me to myself,' I entreated; 'You must not stay
+here.'
+
+"'What madness?' he exclaimed. 'Do you wish to set everybody to talking
+about us?' Ah! 'talking about us,' was the bugbear I most dreaded, and
+he knew it. But I wanted to seem brave; so I said that in private
+matters we were at liberty to do as we thought right and best.
+
+"'And I think it right and best to stay where my wife is. Anna, what is
+to be the result of this strange suspicion of yours, but to make us both
+unhappy, and me desperate! Why, I shall be the laughing-stock of the
+town--and I confess it is more than I can bear without flinching, to
+have it circulated about, that Seabrook married a wife who cut him
+adrift the first thing she did. And then look at your position, too,
+which would be open to every unkind remark. You must not incur this
+almost certain ruin.'
+
+"'Mr. Seabrook,' I said, more calmly than I had yet spoken; 'what you
+have said has suggested itself to me before. Stay here, then, if you
+must, until I can take measures to satisfy myself of the legality of our
+marriage. You can keep your own counsel, and I can keep mine. I have
+spoken to no one about this matter, nor will I for the present. There is
+your old room; your old place at the table. I will try to act as natural
+as possible; more than this you must not expect of me.' This
+business-like tone nettled him.
+
+"'May I inquire, Mrs. Seabrook, how long a probation I may anticipate,
+and what measures you intend taking to establish my good or bad
+character? A man may not be willing to wait always for a wife.'
+
+"'Very well,' I replied to this covert threat; 'when you tire of
+waiting, you know what to do.' But my voice must have trembled, for he
+instantly changed his manner. There was more chance of winning me
+through my weakness than of intimidating me, coward though I was.
+
+"'My dear Anna,' he said kindly, 'this is a most mortifying and trying
+predicament that I am in; and you must pardon me if I seem selfish. I do
+not know how I am to bear several months of this unnatural life you
+propose; and in thinking of myself I forget you. Yet your case, as _you_
+see it, is harder than mine; and I ought to pity and comfort you. If my
+darling would only let me!' He stretched out his arms to me. It was all
+I could do to keep from rushing into them, and sobbing on his breast. I
+was so tempest-tossed and weary!--what would I not have given to lay
+down my burdens?"
+
+"That is where the unrecognized heroism of women comes in. How few men
+would suffer in this way for the right! Had you chosen to ignore the
+tale that you had heard, and taken this man whom fortune had thrown with
+you upon this far-off coast, he might have been to you a kind friend and
+protector. Do you not think so?"
+
+"Very likely. Plenty of bad men, when deferred to, have made good
+husbands, as men go. But I, by resisting the will of one bad man, made
+infinite trouble for myself. Are you becoming wearied?"
+
+"No, no; go on."
+
+"I must pass over a great deal; and, thank God! some things have been
+forgotten. Mr. Seabrook took his old room down stairs. As before, he sat
+at the foot of the table and carved, but now as master of the house.
+Servants not being easily obtained, it was not remarked that my duties
+prevented my sitting down with my supposed husband at meals. He marketed
+for me, and received the money of my boarders when pay-day came; and at
+first he did--what he failed to do afterwards--pay the money over to me.
+
+"You are curious to know how Mr. Seabrook conducted himself toward me
+personally, and in particular. For a few days, well; so that I began to
+feel confidence that so honorable a gentleman would be proved free from
+all stain. But he soon began to annoy me with the most persistent
+courtship, looking, as I could see, to breaking down my reserve, and
+subjecting me to the domination of a passion for him. If I had ever
+really loved Mr. Seabrook, it would have been a love of the senses, of
+interest, of the understanding, and not of the imagination and heart. I
+was just on the eve of such a love when it was fortunately put in check
+by my suspicions. For him to endeavor to create a feeling now that
+might, nay, that was intended to subvert principle and virtue, appeared
+even to my small worldly sense, an insult and an outrage.
+
+"When I talked in this way to him, he half laughingly and half in
+earnest always declared that I should get into the habit of forgetting
+our marriage before my 'proofs' came from Ohio, unless he every day put
+me in mind of it! and this willingness to refer to 'proofs' threw me off
+my guard a little. He designed very cunningly, but not quite cunningly
+enough. As time wore on and he feared the proofs might come before he
+had bent me to his will, his attempts lost even the semblance of love or
+decency. Many and many a night I feared to close my eyes in sleep, lest
+he should carry out his avowed purpose; for locks and bolts in a house
+in those days were considered unnecessary, and I improvised such
+defenses as I could. I used to threaten to call in my little German
+neighbor, to which he replied she would probably recognize a man's right
+to occupy the same apartment with his wife! Still, I think he was
+deterred somewhat by the fear of exposure from using violence."
+
+The recital of such sufferings and anxieties as these; endured, too, by
+a young and lonely woman, affected me powerfully. My excited imagination
+was engaged in comparing the Mrs. Greyfield I saw before me, wearing her
+nearly fifty years with dignity and grace, full of a calm and ripe
+experience, still possessing a dark and striking beauty, with the
+picture she had given me of herself at twenty-three. What a wonder it
+was that with her lively temperament either for pain or pleasure; with
+her beauty and her helplessness, she had come out of the furnace
+unscathed, as she now appeared.
+
+"How could you," I said, with a feeling of deep disgust, "how _could_
+you allow such a man to remain in your house?"
+
+"How could I get him out? We were legally married, so far as anybody in
+Oregon knew, except himself. Everybody presumed us to be living amicably
+together. He was careful to act the courteous gentleman to me in the
+presence of others. If we never went out together, it was easily
+explained by reference to my numerous household cares, and Benton's
+frequent illness. As I before said, no one could understand the position
+who had not been in it. I could not send him away from me; nor could I
+go away from him. He would have followed me, he said, to the 'ends of
+the earth.' Besides, where could I go? There was nothing for me but to
+endure until the answer to my letter came. Never was letter so anxiously
+desired as that one; for, of course, I fully expected that whatever news
+it contained, would bring relief in some way. But I had made up my mind
+to his guilt, rightly judging that, had he been innocent, he would
+either have found means to satisfy me, or have gone away and left me
+altogether.
+
+"It had been six or seven months since my marriage. I had a large family
+of boarders to cook for, and Benton giving me a great deal of worry,
+fearing I should lose him. Working hard all day, and sleeping very
+little nights, with constant excitement and dread, had very much
+impaired my health. My boarders of ten said to me: 'Mrs. Seabrook, you
+are working too hard; you must make Mr. Seabrook get you a cook.' What
+could I say in return, except to force a smile, and turn the drift of
+the conversation? Once, carried away with indignation, I replied that
+'Mr. Seabrook found it as much as _he_ could do to collect the money I
+earned!'"
+
+"And you were set down at once as a vixen!" I said, smiling.
+
+"Well, they were not expected to know how matters stood, when I had
+taken so much pain to conceal the truth. I was sorry I had not held my
+peace a little longer, or altogether. Men never can understand a woman's
+right to resent selfishness, however atrocious; even when they are
+knowing to it, which in this case they were not. I might as well have
+held my tongue, since every unguarded speech of mine militated against
+me afterwards."
+
+"You allowed Mr. Seabrook to have all your earnings?"
+
+"I could not prevent it; he was _my husband_. Sometimes I thought he
+meant to save up all he could, to take him out of the country, when the
+hoped-for proofs of his crime should arrive. And in that light I was
+inclined to rejoice in his avarice. I would have given all I had for
+that purpose. Oh, those dreadful, dreadful days! when I was so near
+insane with sleeplessness and anxiety, that I seemed to be walking on
+the air! Such, indeed, was my mental and physical condition, that
+everything seemed unreal, even myself; and it surprises me now that my
+reason did not give way."
+
+"Did you never pray?"
+
+"My training had been religious, and I had always prayed. This, I felt,
+entitled me to help; and yet help did not come. I felt forsaken of God,
+and sullenly shut my lips to prayer or complaint. All severely tried
+souls go through a similar experience. Christ himself cried out: 'My
+God, my God, why hast _forsaken_ me!'"
+
+"No wonder you felt forsaken, indeed."
+
+"You think I was as tried as I could be then, when I had a hope of
+escape; but worse came after that--worse, because more hopeless."
+
+"You were really married to him then?" I cried in alarm: "I thought you
+told me in the beginning, that you were not."
+
+"Neither was I; but that did not release me. When at last I received an
+answer to my inquiries, confirming the statement of the immigrant from
+Ohio, it was too late."
+
+"You do not mean!"--I interrupted, in a frightened voice.
+
+"No, no! I only mean that I had committed a great error, in keeping
+silence on the subject at the first. You can imagine one of your
+acquaintances who had been several months peaceably living with a man of
+good appearance and repute, to whom you had seen her married, suddenly
+declaring her husband a bigamist and refusing to live with him; and on
+no other evidence than a letter obtained, nobody knew how. To _me_ the
+proof was conclusive; and it made me frantic to find that it was not so
+received by others."
+
+"What did he say, when you told him that you had this evidence? How did
+he act?"
+
+"He swore it was a conspiracy; and declared that now he had borne enough
+of such contumelious conduct; he should soon bring me into subjection.
+He represented himself to me, as an injured and long-suffering man; and
+me, to myself, as an unkind, undutiful, and most unwomanly woman. He
+told me, what was true, that I need not expect people to believe such a
+'cock and bull story;' and used every possible means of intimidation,
+except actual corporeal punishment. _That_ he threatened long after; and
+I told him if he ever laid a finger on me, I should certainly shoot him
+dead. But we had not come to that yet."
+
+"Long after!" I repeated. "You do not, you cannot mean that this wretch
+continued to live under the same roof with you, long after he knew that
+you would never acknowledge him as your husband?"
+
+"Yes, for years! For years after he knew that I knew he was _what he
+was_, he lived in my house and took my earnings; yes, and ordered me
+about and insulted me as much as he liked."
+
+"But," I said, "I cannot understand such a condition of things. Was
+there no law in the land? no succor in the society about you? How could
+other women hold still, and know that a young creature like you was
+being tortured in that way?"
+
+"The inertia of women in each other's defense is immense," returned Mrs.
+Greyfield, in her most incisive tone. "You must not forget that Portland
+was then almost a wilderness, and families were few, and often 'far
+between.' Among the few, my acquaintances were still fewer; for I had
+come among them poor and alone, and with all I could do to support
+myself, without time or disposition to visit. The peculiar circumstances
+I have related to you broke my spirit and inclined me to seclusion.
+However, I did carry my evidence, and my story together, to two or three
+women that I knew, and what do you suppose they said? That I 'should
+have thought of all that before I married!' They treated it exactly as
+if, having gone through the marriage ceremony, I was bound, no matter
+how many wives Mr. Seabrook had back in Ohio."
+
+"They could not have believed your story," I said; not being able to
+take in such inferior morality.
+
+"What they believed I do not know: what they said I have told you. I
+incline to the opinion that they thought I might be a little daft--I am
+sure I must have looked so at times, from sheer sleeplessness and
+exhaustion. Or they thought I had no chance of establishing the truth,
+and would be better off to submit quietly. At all events, not one
+encouraged me to resist Mr. Seabrook; and to overflow my cup of misery,
+he contrived to find the important letter, which I had hidden, and
+destroy it."
+
+"Did you never go to men about your case, and ask for assistance?"
+
+"At first I was afraid to appeal to them, having had so many unpleasant
+experiences; and when I at last was driven to seek counsel, I was too
+late, as I before explained."
+
+"Too late?"
+
+"Yes; I mean that the idea of my being Mr. Seabrook's wife was so firmly
+seated in their minds that they could not see it in any other light. The
+fact of my having written and received a letter did not impress them as
+of any consequence. You will find this to be a truth among men; they
+respect the sense of ownership in women, entertained by each other; and
+they respect it so much that they would as soon be caught stealing, as
+seeming in any way to interfere with it. That is the reason that,
+although there is nothing in the wording of the marriage contract
+converting the woman into a bond-slave or a chattel, the man who
+practices any outrage or wrong on his wife is so seldom called to
+account. In the eyes of these men, having entered into marriage with Mr.
+Seabrook, I belonged to him, and there was no help for me. For life and
+until death, I was his, to do what he pleased with, so long as he did
+not bruise my flesh nor break my bones. Is not that an awful power to be
+lodged with any human being?"
+
+"But," I said, "if they were told the whole truth, that the marriage had
+never been consummated, and why, would they not have been moved by a
+feeling of chivalry to interfere? Your view of their sentiments
+pre-supposes the non-existence of what I should call chivalry."
+
+"There may be in men such a sentiment as you would call chivalry; but I
+never yet have seen the occasion where they were pleased to exercise it.
+I would not advise any other young woman to tell one of them that she
+had lived alone in the same house with a man reputed to be her husband,
+for seven months, without the marriage having been consummated. She
+would find, as I did, that his chivalry would be exhibited by an
+ineffectual effort to suppress a smile of incredulity."
+
+"Can it be possible," I was forced to exclaim, "that there was no help
+for you?"
+
+"You see how it was. I have outlined the bare facts to you. Nobody
+wanted to be mixed up in my troubles, and the worst of it was that Mr.
+Seabrook got more sympathy than I did, as the unfortunate husband of a
+terrible termagant, who made his life a burden to him. He could talk in
+a certain way around among men, and put on an aggrieved air at home
+before the boarders, and what was the use of my saying anything. If it
+had not been for my little German neighbor, I should have felt utterly
+forsaken by all the world. But she, whatever she thought of my domestic
+affairs, was sorry for me. 'What for you cry so much all de time?' she
+said to me one day. 'You makes yourself sick all de time mit cryin'; an'
+your face be gettin' wite as my hankershif. De leedle boy, too, he sees
+you, an' he gets all so wite as you are, all de same. Dat is not goot.
+You gomes to see me, an' brings de boy to see my Hans. You get sheered
+up den.' And I took her advice for Benton's sake."
+
+"What object had Mr. Seabrook in remaining where he was so unwelcome? He
+certainly entertained no hope that you would finally yield; and his
+position could not have been an agreeable one, from any point of view;
+for whether he was regarded as the monster he was, or only as a sadly
+beshrewed husband, he must have felt himself the subject of unpleasant
+remark."
+
+"He could afford to be remarked upon when he was a free pensioner upon a
+woman's bounty, and in receipt of a fine income which I earned for him
+by ceaseless toil. I can see him now sitting at the bottom of the table,
+my table, flourishing his white hands, and stroking his flowing blonde
+beard occasionally as something very gratifying to his vanity was said;
+talking and laughing with perfect unconcern, while he fattened himself
+at my expense; while I, who earned and prepared his dinner for him,
+gasped half fainting in the heat of a kitchen, sick in heart and body.
+Do you wonder that I hated him?"
+
+"I wonder more that you did not kill him," I said; feeling that this
+would have been a case of 'justifiable homicide.'
+
+"The impulse certainly came to me at times to kill him; or if not
+exactly that, to wish him dead. Yet when the opportunity came to be
+revenged upon him by fate itself, I interfered to save him. That was
+strange, was it not? To be suffering as I suffered at this man's hands,
+and yet when he was in peril to have compassion upon him?"
+
+"You could not alter your nature," I said, "which is, as I told you
+before, thoroughly sound and sweet. It goes against us to suffer wrong;
+but it goes still harder with us to do wrong. Besides, you had your
+religious training to help you."
+
+"I had the temptation, all the same. It happened in this way: One night
+I was lying awake, as I usually did, until I heard Mr. Seabrook come in
+and go to his room. He came in rather later than usual, and I listened
+until all was still in the house, that I might sleep the more safely and
+soundly afterwards. I had, however, become so nervously wakeful by this
+time that the much needed and coveted sleep refused to visit me, and I
+laid tossing feverishly upon my bed when I became aware that there was a
+smell of fire in the air. Rapidly dressing, I took Benton in my arms and
+hastened down stairs, to have him where I could save him, should the
+house be in danger. There was a still stronger odor of burning cloth and
+wood in the lower rooms, but very little smoke to be detected. After
+looking into the kitchen and finding all right there, I feared the fire
+might be in the other part of the house, and was about to give the
+alarm, when it occurred to me that the trouble might be in Mr.
+Seabrook's room.
+
+"Leaving Benton asleep on the dining-room table, I ran to his door and
+knocked. No answer came; but I could smell the smoke within. Pushing
+open the door I discovered him lying in a perfectly unconscious state,
+and half undressed, on the bed, sleeping off the effects of a wine
+supper. A candle which he had lighted, and left burning, had consumed
+itself down to the socket, and by some chance had ignited a few loose
+papers on the table beside the bed; the fire had communicated to the
+bedding on one side, and to some of his wearing apparel on the other.
+All was just ready to burst into a blaze with the admission of fresh
+air, which I had the presence of mind to prevent, by closing the door
+behind me.
+
+"There I was, in the presence of my enemy, and he in the clutches of
+death. I shudder when I think of the feelings of that moment! An evil
+spirit plainly said to me, 'Now you shall have rest. Let him alone; he
+is dying by his own hand, not yours--why do you interfere with the
+decree of fate?' An exulting yet consciously guilty joy agitated my
+heart, which was beating violently. 'Let him die!' I said to myself,
+'let him die!'
+
+"Very rapidly such thoughts whirl through the brain under great
+excitement. The instant that I hesitated seemed an age of cool
+deliberation to me. Then the wickedness of my self-gratulation rushed
+into my mind, making me feel like a murderer. 'O, God,' I cried in
+anguish of spirit, 'why have I been put to this test?' The next instant
+I was working with might and main to extinguish the fire, which with the
+aid of blankets and a pitcher of water was soon suppressed.
+
+"Through it all he slept on, breathing heavily, an object of disgust to
+my senses and my feelings. When all was safe I returned to my room,
+thankful that I had been able on the spot to expiate my murderous
+impulses. The next day he took occasion to say to me, 'I shouldn't have
+expected a visit of mercy from you, Mrs. Seabrook. If I had known you
+were coming, I should have tried to keep awake!' 'If ever you refer to
+such a subject again,' I replied, 'I will set fire to you myself, and
+let you burn;' and either the threat deterred him, or some spark of
+generosity in his nature was struck by the benefit received, but he
+never afterwards offered me any annoyance of that kind."
+
+"How did Mr. Seabrook usually treat your son? Was he kind to him?"
+
+"He was not unkind. Perhaps you cannot understand such a character; but
+he was one who would be kind to man, woman, or child who would be
+governed by him; yet resistance to his will, however just, roused a
+tyranny that sought for opportunities to exhibit itself. Such a one
+passes in general society for a 'good fellow,' because 'the iron hand in
+the velvet glove' is scarcely perceptible there, while its ungloved
+force is felt most heavily in the relations of private life. If I had
+been in a position to flatter Mr. Seabrook, undoubtedly he would have
+shown me a corresponding consideration, notwithstanding his selfishness.
+It would have been one way of gratifying his own vanity, by putting me
+in a humor to pander to it. But knowing how I hated and despised him, he
+felt toward me all the rancor of his vain and tyrannical nature. It is
+always more dangerous to hate justly than unjustly, and that is the
+reason why domestic differences are so bitter. Somebody has always done
+wrong and knows it, and cannot bear to suffer the natural
+consequences--the disapprobation of the injured party, in addition to
+the stings of conscience."
+
+"I suppose, then," I said, "it has been the perception of this truth that
+has caused the sweetest and purest women in all time to ignore the baser
+sins of man, while calling their own sex to strict account. And yet I
+cannot think but that this degree of mercy is injurious to their own
+purity and derogatory to their dignity. I remember being excessively
+shocked several years ago by having this trait of _forgiveness_ in
+woman placed in its true light by an accidental publication in a New
+York paper, which was intended to have just the opposite effect. It
+was headed 'A Model Woman,' and appeared in the _Evening Post_--Bryant's
+paper. With a curious desire to know the poet's model for a woman--though
+the article may have never come under his eye--I commenced reading it.
+It ran to this effect: A certain man in New York had a good wife and two
+interesting little children. But he met and fell in love with a handsome,
+dashing, and rather coarse girl; and the affair had gone so far as to
+lead to serious expostulation on the part of the wife. The writer did
+not relate whether or not the girl knew the man to be married; but only
+that the two were infatuated with each other.
+
+"As the story ran, the wife expostulated, and the husband was firm in
+his determination to possess the girl at all hazards, concluding his
+declaration with this business-like statement: 'I shall take the girl,
+and go to California. If you keep quiet about it, I will leave a
+provision for you and the children; if you do not, I shall go just the
+same, but without leaving you anything.' _The wife acquiesced in the
+terms._ Her husband went to California with his paramour, and tired of
+her (it was in old steamer times), about as soon as he got there. Very
+soon he deserted her and returned to New York _a la prodigal_, and was
+received back to the arms of his forgiving wife. The girl followed her
+faithless lover to New York, and failing to win a kind word from him by
+the most piteous appeals, finally committed suicide at her hotel in that
+city. The wife continued to live with the author of this misery upon the
+most affectionate terms.
+
+"That was the whole story. Is it possible, I asked myself, that the
+writer of that article, whoever he may be, could have meant its title in
+anything but irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most
+respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To
+my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly
+self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's
+victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper
+of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly
+for consenting to, or for forgiving three of the most heinous crimes in
+the decalogue, because committed _by her husband_. I confess that since
+that day I have been prone to examine into the claims of men to be
+forgiven, or the moral right of women to forgive them certain offenses."
+
+"When you examine into the motives of women," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I
+think you will find there is a large measure of sordid self-interest in
+their mercy, as in the case you have just quoted. While some women are
+so weak, and so foolishly fond of the men to whom they became early
+attached, as to be willing to overlook everything rather than part with
+them; a far greater number yield an unwilling submission to wrongs
+imposed upon them, simply because they do not know how to do without the
+pecuniary support afforded them by their husbands. The bread-and-butter
+question is demoralizing to women as well as to men, the difference
+being that men have a wider field to be demoralized in; and that the
+demoralization of women is greatly consequent upon their circumscribed
+field of action."
+
+"Do you think that the enlargement of woman's sphere of work would have
+a tendency to elevate her moral influence?"
+
+"The way the subject presents itself to me is, that it is degrading to
+have sex determine everything for us: our employments, our position in
+society, the obedience we owe to others, the influence we are permitted
+to exercise, all and everything to be dependent upon the delicate matter
+of a merely physical function. It affects me so unpleasantly to hear
+such frequent reference to a physiological fact, that I have often
+wished the word _female_ stricken from our literature. And when you
+reflect, that we are born and bred to this narrow view of ourselves, as
+altogether the creatures of sex, you cannot but recognize its
+belittleing, not to say depraving effect, or fail to see the temptation;
+we have to seize any base advantage it may give us."
+
+When we had canvassed this, to us interesting, topic a little further, I
+begged Mrs. Greyfield to go on with the relation of her history.
+
+"I find I must be less particular," she said, "to give so many and
+frequent explanations of my feelings. By this time you can pretty well
+imagine them, and my story is likely to be too long, unless I
+abbreviate.
+
+"I had been living in the way I have described, for two years, and had
+learned to do a good many things in my own defence, very disagreeable to
+me, but nevertheless very useful. I had gotten a little money together
+by asking some of my boarders for pay before pay-day came, or by making
+such remarks as prompted them to hand the money to me instead of Mr.
+Seabrook. It was my intention to save enough in such ways to take me to
+California, where I felt confident, with the experience I had gained, I
+should be able to make myself a competence. This plan I had nourished in
+secret for more than a year, when I was tempted to do a very unwise
+thing.
+
+"I ought to say, perhaps, that with every year that had passed since my
+arrival in Portland, the population had increased, and with this
+increase there was a proportionate rise in the value of property.
+Hearing business topics discussed almost every day at table, I could not
+help being more or less infected with the spirit of speculation; and it
+often almost drove me wild to think how profitably I might have invested
+my earnings could I have gained possession of them for myself.
+
+"Having an opportunity one day to speak on the subject to a gentleman in
+whose honor I placed great confidence, I mentioned that I was tempted to
+buy some property, but that my means were so limited I feared I could
+not do so. He immediately said that he would sell me a certain very good
+piece of land in the best business locality, on the installment plan,
+and at a bargain, so that when it was paid up I could immediately sell
+again at an advance. Thinking this would accelerate the carrying out of
+my scheme of fleeing from my master, to a land of freedom, I eagerly
+accepted the proposition, and paid down all the money I had, taking a
+bond for a deed. The transaction was to be kept a secret between us, and
+he was to assist me in selling when it came the proper time, by deeding
+direct to my purchaser. I felt almost light-hearted in view of the fact
+that I should be able, after all, to achieve a kind of independence in
+the course of time."
+
+"It seems to me," I said, "that I should have grown reckless before
+this, and have done something of a desperate nature--committed suicide,
+for instance. Did the thought never occur to you to end your bondage in
+that way?"
+
+"My desperation never took that form, because I had my child to take
+care of. If I killed myself, I should have to kill him, too. But many
+and many a night I have felt it so impossible to be alive in the
+morning, and go right on in my miserable round of life, worn out in mind
+and body, with Benton always ailing--often very ill, that I have
+prepared both myself and him for burial, and laid down praying God to
+take us both before another day. But Death is like our other friends--he
+is not at hand to do us a service when most desired.
+
+"I have told you that I used to cry a good deal. Weeping, though a
+relief to us in one way, by removing the pressure upon the brain, is
+terribly exhausting when excessive, and I was very much wasted by it. An
+incident occurred about the time I was just speaking of, which gave me
+comfort in a strange manner. I used sometimes, when my work for the day
+was done, to leave Benton with my German friend, and go out for a walk,
+or to call on an acquaintance. All the sights and sounds of nature are
+beautiful and beneficial to me in a remarkable degree. With trees and
+flowers and animals, I am happy and at home.
+
+"One evening I set out to make a visit to Mrs. ----, my old neighbor,
+who lived at some distance from me. The path led through the fir forest,
+and at the time of day when I was at liberty, was dim and gloomy. I
+walked hurriedly along, fearing darkness would overtake me; and looking
+about me as I went, was snatching a hasty pleasure from the
+contemplation of Nature's beneficence, when my foot caught in a
+projecting root of some tough shrub, and I fell prostrate.
+
+"In good health and spirits I should not have minded the fall; but to
+me, in my weak condition, every jar to the nervous system affected me
+seriously. I rose with difficulty, and seating myself upon a fallen
+tree, burst into tears, and wept violently. It seemed as if even the
+sticks and stones were in league to injure me. Looking back upon my
+feelings, I can understand how man, in the infancy of the race,
+attributed power and will to everything in Nature. In his weakness and
+inexperience, Nature was too strong for him, and bruised him
+continually.
+
+"As I sat weeping with pain and an impotent resentment, a clear sweet
+voice spoke to me out of the dusky twilight of the woods. '_Don't cry so
+much!_' it said. Astonishment dried my tears instantly. I looked about
+me, but no one was near; nor any sound to be heard, but the peculiar cry
+of a bird that makes itself heard in the Oregon woods at twilight only.
+A calm that I cannot explain came over my perturbed spirit. It was like
+the heavenly voices heard upon the earth thousands of years ago, in its
+power to move the heart. It may make you smile for me to say so; but
+from that hour I regained a degree of cheerfulness that I had not felt
+since the day of my marriage to Mr. Seabrook. I did not go to Mrs.
+----'s that evening, but returned home and went to my bed without
+putting on clothes to be buried in!"
+
+We talked for a little of well attested instances of similar incidents
+of the seeming supernatural. Then I said:
+
+"And how did your investment turn out?"
+
+"As might have been expected by a more worldly-wise person. After
+succeeding, almost, I was defeated by the selfishness and indifference
+of the man I had trusted to help me through with it. He sold out his
+property, including that bonded to me, when nearly the whole
+indebtedness was paid, without mentioning his design, or giving me an
+opportunity to complete the purchase. The new proprietor went
+immediately to Mr. Seabrook, who, delighted with this unexpected piece
+of fortune, borrowed the small amount remaining to be paid, and had the
+property deeded to himself. A short time after he sold it at a handsome
+advance on the price I paid for it, and I had never one dollar of the
+money. The entire savings of the whole time I had been in a really
+profitable business, went with that unlucky venture."
+
+"You were just as far from getting to California as ever? O, what
+outrageous abuse of the power society gives men over women!" I exclaimed
+with vehemence.
+
+"You may imagine I was bitterly disappointed. The lesson was a hard one,
+but salutary. I took no more disinterested advice; I bought no more
+property. There are too many agents between a woman and the thing she
+aims at, for her ever to attain it without danger of discomfiture. The
+experience, as you may guess, put me in no amicable mood towards Mr.
+Seabrook. Just think of it! There were three years I had supported, by
+my labor, a large family of men, for that is what it amounted to. My
+money purchased the food they all ate, and I had really received nothing
+for it except my board and the clothes I worked in. The fault was not
+theirs; it was Mr. Seabrook's and society's."
+
+"I will tell you what you remind me of," I said: "You are like Penelope,
+and her train of ravenous suitors, in the _Odyssey_ of Homer."
+
+"In my busy life, I have not had time to read Homer," Mrs. Greyfield
+replied; "but if any other woman has been so eaten out of house and
+home, as I was, I am sorry for her."
+
+"Homer's Penelope, if we may believe the poet, was in much better
+circumstances to bear the ravages of her riotous boarders, than you were
+to feed yours gratuitously."
+
+"Talking about suitors," said Mrs. Greyfield, "I was not without those
+entirely, either. No young mismated woman can escape them perhaps. The
+universal opinion among men seems to be that, if you do not like the man
+you have, you _must_ like some other one; and each one thinks it is
+himself."
+
+The piquant tone in which Mrs. Greyfield uttered her observations always
+provoked a smile. But I caught at an intimation in her speech.
+"Sometimes," I said, "you speak as if you acknowledged Mr. Seabrook as
+your husband, and it shocks me unpleasantly."
+
+"I am speaking of things as they appeared to others. In truth, I was as
+free to receive suitors as ever I had been; but such was not the common
+understanding, and I resented the advances of men upon the ground that
+_they_ believed themselves to be acting unlawfully, and that they hoped
+to make me a party to their breaches of law and propriety. I laugh now,
+in remembering the blunders committed by self-conceit so long ago; but I
+did not laugh then; it was a serious matter at that time."
+
+"Was Mr. Seabrook jealous in his behavior, fearing you might fancy some
+one else?"
+
+"Just as jealous as vain and tyrannical men always are when they are
+thwarted in their designs. No real husband could have been more critical
+in his observations on his wife's deportment, than he was in his remarks
+on mine. If I could have been guilty of coquetry, the desire to annoy
+him would have been incentive enough; but I always considered that I
+could not afford to suffer in my own estimation for the sake of
+punishing him. When I recall all these things, I take credit to myself
+for magnanimity; though then I was governed only by my poor uncultivated
+judgment, and my impulses. For instance, Mr. Seabrook fell ill of a
+fever not long after he appropriated my real estate. Of course, I was as
+bitter towards him in my heart as it is possible to conceive, but I
+could not know that he was lying unattended in his room, without
+offering assistance; so, after many struggles with myself to overcome my
+strong repulsion, I visited him often enough to give him such attentions
+as were necessary, but not more. I had no intention of raising any false
+expectations."
+
+"I hope you took advantage of his being confined to his room, to collect
+board-money," I said.
+
+"I found out, in time, several ways of managing that matter, which I
+would once have thought inadmissible. When I had begged some money from
+a boarder, Mr. Seabrook discovered it when payday came, very naturally.
+He then ordered me to do the marketing. Without paying any attention to
+the command, I served up at meal-time whatever there was in the house.
+This brought out murmurs from the boarders, and haughty inquiries from
+the host himself. All the reply I vouchsafed was, that what he procured
+I would cook. In this way I forced him to pay out the money in his
+possession, at the expense of my character as a good wife, and a polite
+one. He took his revenge in abusive language, and occasional fits of
+destructiveness in the kitchen, which alarmed my little German neighbor
+more than it did me. So long as he secured all my earnings, and deceived
+people thoroughly as to his real conduct, he maintained, before others
+at least, a gentlemanly demeanor. But this was gradually giving way to
+the pressure of a constant thorn in his flesh, and the consciousness of
+his own baseness. He could swear, threaten, and almost strike at slight
+provocation now. He never really attempted the latter, but once, and it
+was then I told him I should shoot him, if he dared it.
+
+"I ought to say here, that in the last year I had two or three families
+in the house for a short time. I don't know what these real wives
+thought of me; that I was a termagant probably; but they were not the
+kind of women I could talk to about myself, and I made no confidences. A
+plan was maturing in my mind that was to make it a matter of
+indifference what any one thought. I had relinquished the idea of
+getting money enough together to make a sure start in California, and
+was only waiting to have enough to take me out of the country in any way
+that I could go cheapest. Another necessary point to gain was secrecy.
+That could not be gained while I was surrounded by boarders, nor while
+Mr. Seabrook was in the house, and I resolved to be rid of both."
+
+"Oh," I cried, delighted and relieved, "how _did_ you manage that?"
+
+"I am going to tell you by how simple an expedient. _I starved them
+out!_"
+
+"How strange that in all those years you never thought of that," I said
+laughing. "But, then, neither did Homer's heroine, who kept a
+first-class free boarding house for twice or thrice as long as you. Do
+tell me how you accomplished the feat of clearing your house."
+
+"It is not quite true that I had not thought of it; but I had not dared
+to do it. Besides, I wanted to get some money, if possible. Perhaps I
+should not have done it at the time I did, had not a little help come to
+me in the shape of real friends. I was all the time like a wild bird in
+a cage, and the continual attempts to escape I was making, only bruised
+my wings. It occurred to me one day to go to a certain minister who had
+lately come to Portland, and whose looks pleased me, as did his wife's,
+and tell them my story. This I did.
+
+"Instead of receiving it as fiction, or doubting the strange parts of it
+in a way to make me wish I had never spoken of them, they manifested the
+greatest interest and sympathy, and promised me any assistance they
+could give. This was the first recognition I had gotten from anyone as
+being what I was; a woman held in bondage worse than that of African
+slavery, by a man to whom she owed nothing, and in the midst of a free,
+civilized, and Christian community. They were really and genuinely
+shocked, and firmly determined to help me. I told them all the
+difficulties in the way, and of the expedient I had almost decided upon,
+to free my house from every one; for I thought that when his income
+stopped, Mr. Seabrook would be forced to go away, and seek some other
+means of living. They agreed with me that there appeared no better way,
+and I decided to attempt it.
+
+"It did not take long, of course, to drive away the boarders, for they
+were there only to eat; and when provisions entirely failed, or were
+uncooked, there was nothing to be done but to go where they could be
+better served. I did not feel very comfortable over it, as many of them
+were men I liked and respected, whose ill opinion it was disagreeable to
+incur, even in a righteous cause; and then no woman likes to be the talk
+of the town, as I knew I must be. The 'town talk,' as it happened, in
+time suggested my further course to me.
+
+"Pray tell me if Mr. Seabrook followed the boarders, or did he stay and
+compel you to cook for him?"
+
+"He stayed, but he did not compel me to cook for him. That I
+peremptorily refused to do. Neither would I buy any supplies. If he
+wanted a meal, he must go out, get his provisions, and cook them for
+himself. Then he refused to buy anything to come in the house, lest I
+should share _his_ plenty. This reduced our rations to nothing. I used
+to take Benton out and buy him good, wholesome food, myself eating as
+little as would support nature. Occasionally, now that I had time on my
+hands, I spent a day out among my few visiting acquaintances; and
+sometimes I took a meal with my German friend. In this way I compelled
+my former master to look out for himself.
+
+"One night, there not being a mouthful in the house to eat, I went out
+and bought a loaf of bread and some milk for Benton's breakfast; for I
+was careful not to risk the child's health as I risked my own. In the
+morning when I came down stairs the bread and milk were gone. Mr.
+Seabrook had breakfasted. 'Bennie' and I could go hungry. And that
+brings me back to what 'town talk' did for me.
+
+"It soon became noised about that Mr. and Mrs. Seabrook, who had never
+got on well together, were now going on dreadfully, and that probably
+there would be a divorce. 'Divorce!' I said, when my new friend, the
+minister, mentioned it to me, 'divorce from what? How can there be a
+divorce where there is no marriage?' 'Nevertheless,' he replied, 'it is
+worth considering. If the society you live in insist that you are
+married, why not gratify this society, and ask its leave to be legally
+separated from your nominal husband?'
+
+"At first I rebelled strongly against making this tacit admission of a
+relationship of that kind to Mr. Seabrook. It appeared to me to be a
+confession of falsehood to those few persons who were in my confidence,
+some of whom I felt had always half-doubted the full particulars, as
+being too ugly for belief. And what was quite as unpalatable as the
+other was that my enemy would rejoice that for once, at least, and in a
+public record, I should have to confess myself his wife. My friends
+argued that it could make little difference, as that was the popular
+understanding already, which nothing could alter; and that so far as Mr.
+Seabrook was concerned his triumph would be short-lived and valueless.
+They undertook to procure counsel, and stand by me through the trial."
+
+"What complaint did you purpose making?" I interrupted.
+
+"'Neglect of support, and cruel treatment;' the general charge that is
+made to cover so many abominable sins, because we women shrink from
+exposing the crimes we have been in a measure partners to. My attorney
+assured me that, under the circumstances, Mr. Seabrook would not make
+any opposition, fearing we might prove the whole, if he did so; but
+would let the case go by default. This was just what he did; and oh, you
+should have witnessed his abject humility when I at last had the
+acknowledged right to put him out of my house!
+
+"Up to the time the divorce was obtained, he kept possession of the room
+he had first taken, on the lower floor, and which I hired an Indian
+woman to take care of as one of the chores assigned her about the house.
+For myself, I would not set my foot in it, except on the occasions
+referred to; but the rent, and the care of it, he had free. Such was the
+moral degradation of the man, through his own acts, that after all that
+had passed, he actually cried, and begged of me the privilege to remain
+in that room, and be taken care of, as he had been used to be."
+
+"What did you answer him?"
+
+"I told him never to darken my door--never to offend my sight again;
+that I should never be quite happy while his head was above the sod. O,
+I was very vindictive! And he was as mild as milk. He 'could not see why
+I should hate him so, who had always had so high a regard for me. He had
+never known a woman he admired and loved so much!' Even I was astonished
+at the man's abjectness."
+
+"It is not uncommon in similar cases. Dependence makes any one more or
+less mean; but it is more noticeable in men, who by nature and by custom
+are made independent. And so you were free at last?"
+
+"Free and happy. I felt as light as a bird, and wondered I couldn't fly!
+I was poor; but that was nothing. My business was broken up; but I felt
+confidence in myself to begin again. My health, however, was very much
+broken down, and my friends said I needed change. That, with the desire
+to quit a country where I had suffered so much, determined me to come to
+California. It was the land of promise to my husband--the El Dorado he
+was seeking when he died. I always felt that if I had come here in the
+first place, my life would have been very different. So, finally, with
+the help of my kind friends I came."
+
+"_I_ should have felt, with your experience, no courage to undertake
+life among strangers, and they mostly men."
+
+"On the contrary, I felt armed in almost every point. The fact of being
+a divorced woman was my only annoyance; but I was resolved to suppress
+it so far as I was able, and to represent myself to be, as I was, the
+widow of Mr. Greyfield. I took letters from my friends, to use in case
+of need; and with nothing but my child, and money enough to take me
+comfortably to the mines on the American River, left Oregon forever."
+
+"To behold you as you are now, in this delightful home, it seems
+impossible that you should have gone through what you describe; and yet
+there must have been much more before you achieved the success here
+indicated."
+
+"It was nothing--nothing at all compared with the other. I proceeded
+direct to the most populous mining town, hired a house, bought furniture
+on credit, and took boarders again. I kept only first-class boarders,
+had high prices--and succeeded."
+
+"Did you never have the mining-stock fever, and invest and lose?"
+
+"Not to any dangerous extent. One or two parties, in whose judgment I
+knew I might confide, indicated to me where to invest, and I fortunately
+lost nothing, while I made a little. My best mining-stock was a present
+from a young man who was sick at my house for a long time, and to whom I
+was attentive. He was an excellent young fellow, and my sympathies were
+drawn out towards him; alone in a mining-camp, and sick, and, as I
+suspected, moneyless. When he was well enough to go away, he confessed
+his inability to pay up, and presented me with several shares in a mine
+then but little known; saying that it might not be worth the paper it
+was printed on, but that he hoped it might bring enough to reimburse my
+actual outlay on his account; 'the kindness he had received could not be
+repaid with filthy lucre.' A few months afterwards that stock was worth
+several thousand dollars. I made diligent inquiry for my young friend,
+but could get no news of him from that day to this. I have been
+fortunate in everything I have touched since I came to California.
+Benton grew well and strong; I recovered my health; Fortune's wheel for
+me seemed to remain in one happy position; and now there seems nothing
+for me to do but to move slowly and easily down the sunset slope of life
+to my final rest."
+
+Mrs. Greyfield smiled and sighed, and remarked upon the fact that the
+hour-hand of the clock pointed to two in the morning. "It is really
+unkind of me to keep you out of bed until such an hour as this," she
+said, laughing a little, as if we had only been talking of ordinary
+things. "But I am in the mood, like the 'Ancient Mariner;' and you are
+as much forced to listen as the 'Wedding Guest.'"
+
+"There is one thing yet I desire to be satisfied about," I replied. "As
+a woman, I cannot repress my curiosity to know whether, since all the
+troubles of your early life have been past, you have desired to marry
+again. Opportunities I know you must have had. What I want to be
+informed about is your feeling upon this subject, and whether any man
+has been able to fill your eye or stir your heart."
+
+The first smile my question called up died away, and an introspective
+look came over Mrs. Greyfield's still handsome face. She sat silent for
+a little time, that seemed long to me, for I was truly interested in her
+reply.
+
+"I think," she said at last, "that women who have had anything like my
+experience, are unfitted for married life. Either they are ruined
+morally and mentally, by the terrible pressure; or they become so
+sharp-sighted and critical that no ordinary man would be able to win
+their confidence. I believe in marriage; a single life has an
+incomplete, one-sided aspect, and is certainly lonely." Then rallying,
+with much of her usual brightness: "Undoubtedly I have had my times of
+doubt, when I found it hard to understand myself; and still, here I am!
+Nobody would have me; or I would not have anybody; or both."
+
+"One more question, then, if it is a fair one: Could you love again the
+husband of your youth; or has your ideal changed?"
+
+Mrs. Greyfield was evidently disturbed by the inquiry. Her countenance
+altered, and she hesitated to reply.
+
+"I beg your pardon," I said; "I hope you will not answer me, if I have
+been impertinent."
+
+"That is a question I never asked myself," she finally replied. "My
+husband was all in all to me during our brief married life. His death
+left me truly desolate, and his memory sacred. But we were both young,
+and probably he may have been unformed in character, to a great degree,
+as well as myself. How he would seem now, if he could be restored to me
+as he was then, I can only half imagine. What he would now _be_, if he
+had lived on, I cannot at all imagine. But let us now go take a wink of
+sleep. My eyelids at last begin to feel dry and heavy; and you, I am
+sure, are perishing under the tortures of resistance to the drowsy god."
+
+"The storm is over," I said. "I thought you felt that something was
+going to happen!"
+
+"It will be breakfast, I suppose. By the way, I must go and put a note
+under Jane's door, telling her not to have it before half-past nine.
+There will be a letter from Benton, by the morning mail. Good night; or,
+good morning, and sweet slumber."
+
+"God be with you," I responded, and in twenty minutes was sleeping
+soundly.
+
+Not so my hostess, it seems, for when we met again at our ten o'clock
+breakfast, she looked pale and distraught, and acknowledged that she had
+not been able to compose herself after our long talk. The morning was
+clear and sunny, but owing to the storm of the night, the mail was late
+getting in, a circumstance which gave her, as I thought, a degree of
+uneasiness not warranted by so natural a delay.
+
+"You know I told you," she said, trying to laugh off her nervousness,
+"that something was going to happen!"
+
+"It would be a strange condition of things where nothing did happen," I
+answered; and just then the horn of the mail-carrier sounded, and the
+lumbering four-horse coach rattled down the street in sight of our
+windows.
+
+"There," I said, "is your U. S. M. safe and sound, road-agents and
+land-slides to the contrary and of no effect."
+
+Very soon our letters were brought us, and my hostess, excusing herself,
+retired to her room to read hers. Two hours later she sent for me to
+come to her. I found her lying with a wet handkerchief folded over her
+forehead and eyes. A large and thick letter laid half open upon a table
+beside the bed.
+
+"Read that," she said, without uncovering her eyes. When I had read the
+letter, "My dear friend," I said, "what _are_ you going to do? I hope,
+after all, this may be good news."
+
+"What _can_ I do? What a strange situation!"
+
+"You will wish to see him, I suppose? 'Arthur Greyfield.' You never told
+me his name was Arthur," I remarked, thinking to weaken the intensity of
+her feelings by referring to a trifling circumstance.
+
+"Why have I not died before this time?" she exclaimed, unheeding my
+attempt at diversion. "This is too much, too much!"
+
+"Perhaps there is still happiness in store for you, my dear Mrs.
+Greyfield," I said. "Strange as is this new dispensation, may there not
+be a blessing in it?"
+
+She remained silent a long time, as if thinking deeply. "He has a
+daughter," she at length remarked; "and Benton says she is very sweet
+and loveable."
+
+"And motherless," I added, not without design. I had meant only to
+arouse a feeling of compassion for a young girl half-orphaned; but
+something more than was in my mind had been suggested to hers. She
+quickly raised herself from a reclining posture, threw off the
+concealing handkerchief, and gazed intently in my face, while saying
+slowly, as if to herself: "Not only motherless, but according to law,
+fatherless."
+
+"Precisely," I answered. "Her mother was in the same relation to Mr.
+Greyfield, that you were in to Mr. Seabrook; but happily she did not
+know it in her lifetime."
+
+"Nor he--nor he! Arthur Greyfield is not to be spoken of in the same
+breath with Mr. Seabrook."
+
+The spirit with which this vindication of her former husband was made,
+caused me to smile, in spite of the dramatic interest of the situation.
+The smile did not escape her notice.
+
+"You think I am blown about by every contending breath of feeling," she
+said, wearily; "when the truth is, I am trying to make out the right of
+a case in which there is so much wrong; and it is no easy thing to do."
+
+"But you will find the right of it at last," I answered. "You are not
+called upon to decide in a moment upon a matter of such weight as this.
+Take time, take rest, take counsel."
+
+"Will you read the letter over to me?" she asked, lying down again, and
+preparing to listen by shielding her face with her hands.
+
+The letter of Arthur Greyfield ran as follows:
+
+"My Dear Anna: How strange it seems to me to be writing to you again! It
+is like conversing with one returned from another world, to you, too, no
+doubt. There is so much to explain, and some things that perhaps will
+not ever be explained satisfactorily to you, that I know not where to
+begin or what to say. Still Benton insists on my writing before seeing
+you, and perhaps this is best.
+
+"To begin at the beginning. When I was left for dead by my frightened
+comrades on the plains, I had not died, but was only insensible; and I
+do not believe they felt at all sure of my death, for they left me
+unburied, as if to give me a chance; and deserted me rather than take
+any risks by remaining any longer in that place. How long I laid
+insensible I do not know. When I came to myself I was alone, well
+wrapped up in a large bed-quilt, and lying on the ground close by the
+wagon-trail. Nothing was left for my support, if alive, from which I
+concluded that they agreed to consider me dead.
+
+"When I opened my eyes again on the wilderness world about me, the sun
+was shining brightly, and the wind blowing cool from the near mountains;
+but I was too much exhausted to stir; and laid there, kept alive by the
+pure air alone, until sunset. About that time of day I heard the tread
+of cattle coming, and the rumbling of wagons. The shock of joy caused me
+to faint, in which condition I was found by the advance guard of a large
+train bound for the mines in California. I need not tell you all those
+men did for me to bring me round, but they were noble fellows, and
+earned my everlasting gratitude.
+
+"You can imagine that the first thought in my mind was about you and
+Benton. When I was able to talk about myself and answer questions, my
+new friends, who had laid by for a couple of days on my account, assured
+me that they should be able to overtake the California train, in which I
+supposed you were, before they came to the Sierras. But we had accidents
+and delays, and failed to come up with that train anywhere on the route.
+
+"At last we arrived in the mining country, and my new friends speedily
+scattered abroad, looking for gold. I was still too feeble to work in
+the water, washing out, or to dig. I had no money or property of any
+kind, and was obliged to accept any means that offered of earning a
+subsistence. Meanwhile I made such inquiry as I could under the
+circumstances, and in such a country, but without learning anything of
+any of my former friends and acquaintances, for two years. Before this
+time, however, my health was restored, notwithstanding great hardships;
+and being quite successful in mining, I was laying up considerable
+gold-dust.
+
+"About this time a man came into our camp from Oregon. As I was in the
+habit of inquiring of any newcomer concerning you, and the people in the
+train you were in, I asked this man if he had ever met a Mrs. Greyfield,
+or any of the others. He replied that he thought there was a woman of my
+name living in Portland, Oregon, a year or two before--he was sure he
+had heard of a young widow of that name. I immediately wrote to you at
+that place; but whether the letter was lost on the way, or whether it
+was intercepted there (as by some intimations I have from Benton, it
+might have been), no reply ever came to it. I also sent a letter to Mr.
+----, in whose care I had left you, but nothing was ever heard from
+him.
+
+"When I had waited a reasonable length of time I wrote again to the
+postmaster of the same place, asking him if he knew of such a person as
+Mrs. Greyfield, in Oregon. The reply came this time from a man named
+Seabrook, who said that there had been a woman of the name of Greyfield
+in Portland at one time, but that both she and her child were dead. This
+news put an end to inquiries in that direction, though I continued to
+look for any one who might have known you, and finally found one of our
+original party, who confirmed the intelligence of your having gone to
+Oregon instead of California, and so settled the question, as I
+supposed, forever.
+
+"You may wonder, dear Anna, that I did not go to Oregon when I had the
+barest suspicion of your being there. The distance and the trouble of
+getting there were not what deterred me. I was making money where I was,
+and did not wish to abandon my claim while it was producing well, for an
+uncertain hint that might mislead me."
+
+"Stop there!" interrupted Mrs. Greyfield. "Do you think _I_ should have
+hesitated in a case like that? But go on."
+
+"I knew you had considerable property, and thought I knew you were with
+friends who would not let you suffer--"
+
+"Though they had abandoned him while still alive, in the wilderness! Beg
+pardon; please go on again."
+
+"And that Oregon was really a more comfortable, and safe place for a
+family than California, as times were then--"
+
+Mrs. Greyfield groaned.
+
+"And that you, if there, would do very well until I could come for you.
+I could not suspect that you would avail yourself of the privilege of
+widowhood within so short a time, if ever."
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated my listener, with irrepressible impatience.
+
+I read on without appearing to observe the interruption.
+
+"To tell the truth, I had not thought of myself as dead, and that is
+probably where I made the greatest mistake. It did not occur to me, that
+you were thinking of yourself as a widow; therefore, I did not realize
+the risk. But when the news came of your death, if it were really you,
+as I finally made up my mind it must be--"
+
+An indignant gesture, accompanied by a sob, expressed Mrs. Greyfield's
+state of feeling on this head.
+
+"I fell into a state of confirmed melancholy, reproaching myself
+severely for not having searched the continent over before stopping to
+dig gold! though it was for you I was digging it, and our dear boy, whom
+I believed alive and well, somewhere, until I received Mr. Seabrook's
+letter.
+
+"My dear Anna, I come now to that which will try your feelings; but you
+must keep in view that I have the same occasion for complaint. Having
+made a comfortable fortune, and feeling miserable about you and the boy,
+I concluded to return to the Atlantic States, to visit my old home.
+While there I met a lovely and excellent girl, who consented to be my
+wife, and I was married the second time. We had one child, a girl, now
+eighteen years of age; and then my wife died. I mourned her sincerely,
+but not more so than I had mourned you.
+
+"At last, after all these years, news came of you from a reliable
+source. The very man to whose charge I committed you when I expected to
+die, returned to the States, and from him I heard of your arrival in
+Oregon, your marriage, and your subsequent divorce. Painful as this last
+news was to my feelings, I set out immediately for California (I had
+learned from him that you were probably in this State), and commenced
+inquiries. An advertisement of mine met Benton's eye only two days ago,
+and you may imagine my pleasure at the discovery of my only and dear
+son, so long lost to me. He is a fine, manly fellow, and good; for which
+I have to thank you, of course."
+
+"You see, he appropriates Benton at once. Never so much as 'by your
+leave.' But Benton will not quit me to follow this new-found father,"
+Mrs. Greyfield said, with much feeling.
+
+"He may not be put to the test of a choice. You have a proposition to
+consider," I replied. "Let me read it."
+
+"No, no! Yet, read it; what do I care? Go on."
+
+"My daughter, Nellie, is the very picture of her mother, and as sweet
+and good as one could desire. Benton seems to be delighted with her for
+a sister. And now that the young folks have taken such a fancy to each
+other, there is something that I wish to propose to you. It cannot be
+expected, after all that has passed, and with the lapse of so many
+years, we could meet as if nothing had come between us--"
+
+"Who suffered all this to come between us?" cried Mrs. Greyfield, much
+agitated.
+
+"But I trust we can meet as friends, dear friends, and that possibly in
+time we may be re-united, as much for our own sakes, as the children's."
+
+"Oh, how can I ever forgive him? Does it not seem to you that if Mr.
+Greyfield had done his duty, all this terrible trouble and illegal
+marrying would have been avoided? Do you think a man should consider
+anything in this world before his wife and children, or fail of doing
+his utmost in any circumstances for them? How else is marriage superior
+to any illicit relation, if its duties are not sacred and not to be set
+aside for anything? I could never have done as he has done, blameless as
+he thinks himself."
+
+The condition of Mrs. Greyfield's mind was such that no answer was
+written or attempted that day nor the next. She sent a brief dispatch to
+Benton, asking him to come home, and come alone. I wished to go away,
+thinking she would prefer being left quite to herself under the
+circumstances, but she insisted on my remaining until something had been
+decided on about the meeting between her and Mr. Greyfield. Benton came
+home as requested, and the subject was canvassed in all its bearings.
+The decision arrived at was, that an invitation should be sent to Mr.
+Greyfield and daughter to visit Mrs. Greyfield for a fortnight.
+Everything beyond that was left entirely to the future. When all was
+arranged, I took my leave, promising and being promised frequent
+letters.
+
+The last time I was at Mrs. Greyfield's, I found there only herself and
+her daughter Nellie.
+
+"I have adopted her," she said, "with her father's consent. She is a
+charming girl, and I could not bear to leave her motherless. Benton is
+very much attached to his father. They are off on a mountaineering
+expedition at present, but I hope they will come home before you go
+away."
+
+"Are you not going to tell me," I asked, "how you finally settled
+matters between Mr. Greyfield and yourself."
+
+"He is a very persistent suitor," she replied, smiling, "I can hardly
+tell what to do with him."
+
+"You do not want to break bark over his head?" I said, laughing.
+
+"No; but I do almost wish that since he had stayed away so long he had
+never come back. I had got used to my own quiet, old-maid ways. I was
+done, or thought I was done, with passion and romance; and now to be
+tossed about in this way, on the billows of doubt--to love and not to
+love--to feel revengeful and forgiving--to think one way in the morning
+and another way by noon, is very tiresome. I really do _not_ know what
+to do with him."
+
+I smiled, because I thought the admission was as good as Mr. Greyfield
+need desire, for his prospects.
+
+"I think I can understand," I said, "how difficult it must be to get
+over all the gaps made by so many years of estrangement--of fancied
+death, even. Had you been looking for him for such a length of time,
+there would still be a great deal of awkwardness in the meeting, when
+you came together again."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Greyfield, "it is inevitable. The most artistic bit of
+truth in the _Odyssey_ (you see I have read Homer since you called me
+PENELOPE), is where the poet describes the difficulty the faithful wife
+had in receiving the long-absent, and now changed, Ulysses as her true
+husband."
+
+"But she did receive him," I interrupted, "and so will you."
+
+"The minister will have to bless the reception then. And to confess the
+whole truth to you, we are corresponding with my friend of long ago in
+Portland. He has promised to come down to perform the ceremony, and as
+his health is impaired, we have invited him to bring his family, at our
+expense, and to remain in our home while Mr. Greyfield and I, with
+Benton and Nellie, make a tour to and through Europe."
+
+"How much you and Mr. Greyfield must have to talk over! It will take a
+year or two of close association to make you even tolerably well
+acquainted again."
+
+"No; the 'talking over' is _tabooed_, and that is why we are going to
+travel--to have something else to talk about. You see I am so
+unforgiving that I cannot bear to hear Mr. Greyfield's story, and too
+magnanimous, notwithstanding, to inflict mine upon him. To put
+temptation out of my way, I proposed this European excursion."
+
+"You are commencing a new life," I said. "May it be as happy as your
+darkest days were sad. There is one thing you never told me, what became
+of Mr. Seabrook."
+
+"I saw his death in a Nevada paper, only a few days ago. He died old,
+poor and alone, or so the account ran, in a cabin among the mountains.
+'The mills of the gods,' etc., you know?"
+
+"Then I am not to see Mr. Greyfield?"
+
+"O yes; if you will stay until Mr. ---- comes from Portland. I shall be
+glad of your presence on that occasion. Mr. Greyfield, you must
+understand, is under orders to keep out of the way until that time
+arrives. You can be of service to me, if you will stay."
+
+I staid and saw them off to Europe, then went on my way to Lake Tahoe,
+to meet other friends; but I have a promise from this strangely reunited
+couple, to spend a summer in Oregon, when they return from their
+trans-Atlantic tour; at which time I hope to be able to remove from Mrs.
+Greyfield's mind the painful impression derived from her former
+acquaintance with the city of my adoption.
+
+
+
+
+A CURIOUS INTERVIEW.
+
+
+Vancouver's Island furnishes some of the finest scenery on the Pacific
+Coast; not grandest, perhaps, but quietly charming. Its shores are
+indented every here and there with the loveliest of bays and sounds,
+forming the most exquisite little harbors to be found anywhere in the
+world. The climate of the Island, especially its summer climate, is
+delightful. Such bright, bracing airs as come from the sea on one side,
+and from the snow-capped mountains of the mainland on the other, are
+seldom met with on either hemisphere. Given a July day, a pleasant
+companion or two in a crank little boat, whose oars we use to make
+silvery interludes in our talk, and I should not envy your sailor on the
+Bosphorus.
+
+On such a July day as I am hinting at, our party had idled away the
+morning, splashing our way indolently through the blue waters of
+Nittinat Sound, the mountains towering behind us, the open sea not far
+off; but all around us a shore so emerald green and touched with bits of
+color, so gracefully, picturesquely wild, that not, in all its
+unrestraint, was there an atom of savagery to be subdued in the interest
+of pure beauty. It was a wilderness not wild, a solitude not solitary;
+but rather populous with happy fancies, born of all harmonious
+influences of earth, air and water; of sunlight, shadow, color and
+fragrance.
+
+    "My soul to-day is far away,
+    Sailing a sunny tropic bay,"
+
+sang Charlie, bursting with poetry. The next moment "Hallo! boat ahoy!"
+and into the scene in which just now we had been the only life, slipped
+from some hidden inlet, an Indian canoe.
+
+"Isn't she a beauty, though?" said Charlie, laying on his oar. "Fourteen
+paddles; slim, crank, and what a curious figure-head! By George, that's
+a pretty sight!"
+
+And a pretty sight it was, as the canoe, with its red and blue-blanketed
+oarsmen, was propelled swiftly through the water, and quickly brought
+alongside; when we had opportunity to observe that the crew were all
+stalwart young fellows, with rather fine, grand features, that looked as
+if they might have been cut in bronze, so immobile and fixed were they.
+Their dress was the modern dress of the Northern Indians, supplied by
+the Hudson's Bay Company, of bright colors and fine texture. But what
+most engaged our attention was the figure of the fifteenth occupant of
+the canoe, who acted as steersman. He was evidently a very old man, and
+instead of being dressed in blankets, had on a mantle of woven rushes,
+and leggins of wolf-skin. A quiver full of arrows hung at his back; his
+bow rested on his knees. On his grizzled head was a tall, pointed and
+gaily painted hat, made of braided grasses, which completely resembled a
+mammoth extinguisher. As the canoe shot past us, I imagined that I
+detected an expression of contempt upon the old man's face, though he
+never moved nor spoke, nor in any way evinced any interest in us.
+
+"Eheu! what a funny-looking old cove," said Charlie, gazing after the
+canoe, "I should like to cultivate his acquaintance."
+
+"Well, you have the opportunity," rejoined Fanny, the third member of
+our party. "They are going to land on that point just ahead of us."
+
+We were all watching them, fascinated by the noiseless dexterity of
+their movements, when suddenly there was nothing to be seen of either
+boat or crew.
+
+"Where the deuce have they gone to?" asked Charlie, staring at the
+vacant spot where the canoe had disappeared.
+
+"Great heavens!" cried Fanny, who, like her brother, used a very
+exclamatory style of speech; "why, they have all vanished into thin
+air!"
+
+As I could not contradict this assertion, I proposed that we should
+follow, and examine into the mystery; but Fanny cried out, "O, for
+goodness' sake, don't! I'm afraid. If they have the power to make
+themselves invisible, they may be hiding to do us harm."
+
+"It is only visible harm that I'm afraid of," answered Charlie, with his
+eyes still fixed wonderingly on the point of space where they had so
+lately been; "pull fast, Pierre, let us find out what the rascals are up
+to."
+
+Thus urged, I threw what force I could into my oar-stroke (for I was but
+a convalescent), and very soon we came to the long sloping point of
+mossy rocks where we had expected to see the canoe's passengers land. I
+own that I approached it with some caution, thinking it possible that a
+whirlpool might have sucked the boat and its freight of fifteen lives
+out of sight, in some point of time when our eyes were for an instant
+averted. But the water was perfectly quiet, and the whole place, both on
+water and on land, silent, sunny, and not in the least uncanny or
+alarming. We dropped our oars and gazed at each other in amazement.
+
+"Well, if that don't beat the Dutch!" was Charlie's comment; and I
+fancied that his brown cheek grew a shade less ruddy than usual. As for
+Fanny, she was in a fright, paling and shrinking as if from some
+terrible real and visible danger; and when I proposed to land and
+investigate the mystery, fairly mustered quite a copious shower of tears
+with which to melt my resolve.
+
+"O, Pierre--Mr. Blanchett, I mean--oh, please don't go ashore. I am sure
+either that these dreadful savages are lurking here to destroy us, or
+that we have been deceived by some wicked conjuror. Oh, I am so
+frightened!"
+
+"My dear Miss Lane," I answered, "I give you my word no harm shall come
+to you. Shall we let a lot of blanketed savages perform a conjurer's
+trick right before our faces that we do not attempt to have explained?
+By no means. If you are too nervous to come ashore with us, Charlie may
+stay with you in the boat, and I will go by myself to look into this
+matter." Whereupon Fanny gave me so reproachful a look out of her great
+brown eyes that I quailed beneath it.
+
+"Do you think Charlie and I would leave you to go into danger alone? No,
+indeed; if you _will_ be so rash, we will accompany you; and if _die_ we
+must, we will all die together." That last appeal being made with a very
+touching quaver of a very melodious voice.
+
+For answer, I assisted her out of the boat, which Charlie was already
+fastening by the chain to some bushes near the bit of beach; and tucking
+the little gloved hand under my arm, seized an opportunity to whisper
+something not particularly relevant to this story.
+
+The boat being secured, we climbed a short distance up the rocky bank,
+stopping to gather wild roses and mock-orange blossoms, which, in spite
+of her alarm, engaged Miss Lane's attention to such an extent that
+Charlie had gotten fairly out of sight before we missed him. But as we
+turned to follow, he confronted us with a face expressive of a droll
+kind of perplexity.
+
+"Not a red rascal in sight," said he, glancing back over his shoulder,
+"except that queer old cove that was sitting in the stern. _He's_ just
+over there," jerking his head in the direction meant, "sitting on his
+haunches like an Egyptian idol, and about as motionless, and about as
+ancient."
+
+"But their canoe," I said, "what could they have done with their canoe?
+It is not in the water, and there is no sign here of their having
+dragged it ashore."
+
+"They didn't land, not in the regular way, I mean, for I was watching
+for them every instant; and how that old chap got there, and how that
+canoe got out of sight so quick, is too hard a nut for me to crack, I
+confess."
+
+"Let us not go near the dreadful old thing," pleaded Fanny once more,
+her alarm returning.
+
+Again I proposed to her to stay in the boat with Charlie, which had the
+effect, as before, to determine her upon going with us; which
+determination I strengthened by an encouraging pressure of the little
+gloved hand in my possession; and without waiting for further alarms
+pressed on at once, with Charlie for guide, to the spot where the
+"dreadful old thing" was understood to be.
+
+And there, sure enough, he was, squatting on the ground beside a spring,
+where grew a thicket of willows and wild roses; alone and silent,
+evidently watching, if not waiting, for our approach.
+
+"What will you say to him?" asked Fanny, as we came quite near, eyeing
+the singular object with evident dread.
+
+"We'll ask him if he is hungry," said Charlie lightly. "If he is a live
+Indian he is sure to say 'yes' to that proposition;" and Charlie
+actually produced from his pockets some sandwiches, in a slightly
+damaged condition. Holding these before him, very much as one holds an
+ear of corn to a frisky colt he wishes to catch, he approached near
+enough to offer them, Fanny still holding me back just enough to let
+this advance be made before we came up. To her great relief the mummy
+put out a skinny hand, and snatched the offered provisions under its
+robe.
+
+"You see he is only a poor starving old Indian," I said.
+
+"Me no poor--no starve; me big chief," retorted the old man, glancing
+disdainfully at us, with eyes that now appeared bright.
+
+I exchanged telegraphic communication with Charlie and Fanny, seated her
+comfortably upon a mossy boulder, and threw myself at her feet, while
+Charlie disposed of himself also, within conversational distance.
+
+"May I ask what is your name?" I inquired, insinuatingly.
+
+"My name is Nittinat--this is my country; this water is mine; this
+earth, these stones--all mine that you see."
+
+"Such a great chief must have many warriors--many people. I do not see
+any. Were those your people that I saw in the canoe?"
+
+"Nittinat's people all gone," answered the old man sadly, dropping his
+chin upon his rush-clad breast.
+
+"But we saw a canoe with fourteen warriors in it, besides yourself,"
+Charlie eagerly asserted. "Where are those young men?"
+
+"Me great medicine man; make see canoe--make see young men," responded
+the owner of the place, with a wan yet superior sort of smile.
+
+Charlie glanced at us, then asked quite deferentially, "Can you make us
+see what is not here?"
+
+"You have seen," was the brief reply.
+
+"Ask him why we are thus favored," whispered Fanny.
+
+"This young cloochman (you see I must talk to him in his own tongue,
+Fanny), wishes to know why you opened our eyes to your great medicine."
+
+"White man come to Nittinat's land, white man see Nittinat's power.
+White man ask questions!"--this last contemptuously, at which Fanny
+laughed, as asking questions was one of her reserved rights.
+
+"You must be an old man, since these waters are named after you,"
+suggested I. "Who was the first white man you remember seeing?"
+
+"_Hyas tyee_, Cappen Cook. Big ship--big guns!" answered Nittinat,
+warming with the recollection.
+
+"This is a good lead," remarked Charlie, _sotto voce_; "follow it up,
+Pierre."
+
+"You were a child then? very little?" making a movement with my hand to
+indicate a child's stature.
+
+"Me a chief--many warriors--big chief. Ugh!" said the mummy, with
+kindling eyes.
+
+At this barefaced story, Charlie made a grimace, while he commented in
+an undertone: "But it is ninety-six years since Captain Cook visited
+this coast. How the old humbug lies."
+
+At this whispered imputation upon his honor, the old chief regarded us
+scornfully; though how such a parchment countenance could be made to
+express anything excited my wonder.
+
+"Me no lie. Nittinat's heart big. Nittinat's heart good. _Close
+tum-tum_, ugh!"
+
+"White man's eyes are closed--his heart is darkened," said I, adopting
+what I considered to be a conciliatory style of speech. "My friend cannot
+understand how you could have known Captain Cook so long ago. All the
+white men who knew the great white chief have gone to their fathers."
+
+"Ugh, all same as Cappen Cook. He no believe my cousin Wiccanish see big
+Spanish ship 'fore he came."
+
+"How did he make him see it at last?" asked Charlie, stretching himself
+out on the grass, and covering his eyes with his hat, from under the
+brim of which he shot quizzical glances at Fanny and I.
+
+"Wiccanish showed Cook these," replied Nittinat, drawing from beneath
+his robe a necklace of shells, to which two silver spoons were attached,
+of a peculiar pattern, and much battered and worn.
+
+"Oh, do let me see them," cried Fanny, whose passion for relics was
+quickly aroused. Charlie, too, was constrained to abandon his lazy
+attitude for a moment to examine such a curiosity as these quaint old
+spoons.
+
+"Only to think that they are more than a hundred years old! But I cannot
+make out the lettering upon them; perhaps he is deceiving us after all,"
+said Fanny, passing them to me for inspection.
+
+I took out of my pocket a small magnifying-glass, which, although it
+could not restore what was worn away, brought to light all that was left
+of an inscription, probably the manufacturer's trade-mark, the only
+legible part of which was 17-0.
+
+"Did the Spanish captain give these to your cousin?" I asked.
+
+"Ugh!" responded Nittinat, nodding his tall extinguisher. "Wiccanish go
+on board big ship, see cappen."
+
+"And stole the spoons," murmured Charlie from under his hat.
+
+Fanny touched his foot with the stick of her parasol, for she stood in
+awe of this ancient historian, not wishing to be made a subject of his
+powerful "medicine."
+
+"And so you knew Captain Cook?" I repeated, when the spoons were hidden
+once more under the mantle of rushes, "and other white men too, I
+suppose. Did your people and the white people always keep on friendly
+terms?"
+
+"Me have good heart," answered Nittinat rather sadly. "Me and my cousins
+Wiccanish, Clyoquot, Maquinna, and Tatoocheatticus, we like heap sell
+our furs, and get knives, beads, and brass buttons. Heap like nails,
+chisels, and such things. If my young men sometimes stole very little
+things, Nittinat's heart was not little. He made the white chiefs
+welcome to wood and water; he gave them his women; and sometime make a
+big feast--kill two, three, six slaves. White chief heap mean to make
+trouble about a few chains or hammers after all that!"
+
+"Oh, the horrid wretch!" whispered Fanny: "Does he say he killed half a
+dozen slaves for amusement?"
+
+"If he did, Miss Lane," I answered; "was it worse than the elegant
+Romans used to do? The times and the manners have to be considered, you
+know."
+
+Fanny shuddered, but said nothing, and I went on addressing myself to
+Nittinat:
+
+"How many ships did you ever see in these waters at one time?--I mean
+long ago, in Captain Cook's time?"
+
+The old chief held up five fingers, for answer.
+
+"And you and your cousins were friendly to all of them?"
+
+"Maquinna's heart good, too,--_close tum-tum_. Sell land to one Cappen;
+he go 'way. Sell land to other Cappen; he go 'way, too. Bime-by two
+Cappens come back, quarrel 'bout the land. Maquinna no say anything.
+When one Cappen ask: 'Is the land mine?' Maquinna tell him 'yes.' When
+other Cappen ask: 'Is the land mine?' Maquinna tell him 'yes,' too, all
+same. O yes; Indian have good heart; no want to fight great white chief
+with big guns. He stay in his lodge, and laugh softly to himself, and
+let the white chiefs fight 'bout the land. Ugh!"
+
+"The mercenary old diplomat!" muttered Charlie, under his hat. "Here's
+your 'noble savage,' Fanny. Burn a little incense, can't you?" But Fanny
+preferred remaining silent to answering her brother's bantering remarks;
+and if she was burning incense at all, I had reason to think it was to
+one who shall be nameless.
+
+"Did you always have skins to sell to so many vessels?" I asked,
+returning to the subject of the trading vessels.
+
+"Long ago had plenty; bime-by not many. White chief he heap mean. Skin
+not good, throw 'em back to Indian. My young men take 'em ashore,
+stretch tail long like sea-otter, fix 'em up nice; give 'em to other
+Indian, tell him go sell 'em. All right. Cappen buy 'em next time; pay
+good price; like 'em heap;" at which recollection the mummy actually
+laughed.
+
+"How is that for Yankee shrewdness?" asked a muffled voice under a hat;
+to which, however, I paid no attention.
+
+"You speak of the white chiefs fighting about land. Did they ever use
+their big guns on each other? Tell me what you remember about the white
+men who came here in ships, long ago."
+
+"After Cappen Cook go 'way, long time, come Spanish ship, King George
+ship, Boston ship. Spanish Cappen no like King George Cappen. One day
+fight with long knives; (swords) and Spanish Cappen put King George man
+in big ship; send him 'way off. Many ships came and went; sold many
+skins. One time all go 'way but the Boston ships. Bime-by King George's
+ships came back and fight the Boston's."
+
+"And you kept your good heart all the time? Never killed the Bostons or
+King George men?"
+
+At this interrogation, Nittinat shuffled his withered limbs uneasily
+beneath his rush mantle, and averted his parchment countenance. Upon my
+pressing the question, as delicately as I knew how, he at length
+recovered his immobility, and answered in a plausible tone enough:
+
+"Boston Cappen Gray, he build a fort at Clyoquot. My cousin Wiccanish
+sell him the ground, and Cappen Gray bring all his goods from the ship,
+and put them in the fort for winter. Our young men were lazy, and had
+not many skins to sell; but they wanted Cappen Gray's goods; they liked
+the firewater a heap. So the young men they say, 'kill Cappen Gray, and
+take his goods.' My cousin say, 'no; that a heap bad.' Nittinat say that
+bad too. But we tell our young men if they _will_ do this bad thing, we
+will not leave them without a chief to direct them. So my young men came
+to Clyoquot to help their cousins take the big guns of the fort. But
+Cappen Gray find all out in time to save our young men from doing wrong.
+We tell him our hearts all good. He give us presents, make _close
+tum-tum_. No use kill Boston _tyee_ when he give us what we want."
+
+Charlie tilted up his sombrero, and shot an approving glance at the
+venerable philosopher that caused a smile to ripple Fanny's face at the
+instant she was saying, "The horrid wretch!" with feminine vehemence. To
+cover this by-play, I asked if Nittinat remembered the _Tonquin_.
+
+"Oh, come!" ejaculated Charlie, starting up, "I say we have had enough
+of this artless historian's prattle; don't you?"
+
+"Consider," I urged, "how rare the opportunity of verifying tradition.
+Compose yourself, my friend, while I continue my interviewing." Turning
+to Nittinat I asked: "Why did the Indians destroy Captain Thorn's
+vessel?"
+
+"Cappen Thorn big chief; no like Indian; big voice; no give presents; no
+let Indian come on board without leave; Indian no like Cappen Thorn. He
+get mad at my cousin Kasiascall for hiding on his ship; keep him all
+night prisoner, cause he no punish his young men for cutting the
+boarding-netting. Kasiascall get mad. Next day no Indian go to trade
+with the ship; then Cappen Thorn he send McKay ashore to say he is
+sorry, and talk to Indian 'bout trade.
+
+"Indian very good to McKay; say not mad; say come next day to trade
+plenty. Kasiascall, too, tell McKay all right; come trade all same. But
+McKay he look dark; he no believe my cousin; think Indian lie. All same
+he tell come to-morrow; and he shake hands, and go back to ship. He tell
+Cappen Thorn, 'Indian say he trade to-morrow.' Big Cappen walk the deck
+very proud. He say he 'teach the damned Indians to behave themselves.'
+
+"Next day six white men come ashore to visit our lodges. My cousin treat
+white men well. Kasiascall and his young men go to the ship to trade.
+Pretty soon Kasiascall come back: say McKay look dark and sad; say
+Indian buy plenty of knives and hide under their blankets; say I will
+see the ship taken by the Indians in one hour. My heart was sad for
+McKay. He good man. Indian like McKay heap. But my cousin and his people
+want plenty goods; no like Cappen Thorn; so Nittinat say nothing.
+
+"Bimeby there was big noise like a hundred guns, and the ship was all in
+pieces, flying through the air like leaves on the wind. My cousin's
+people were all in pieces too; one arm, one leg, one piece head. Ugh!"
+
+"Served them right, too!" ejaculated Charlie. "Is that the whole story,
+old mortality?"
+
+But Nittinat was silent--overcome, as it seemed by these sad
+reminiscences. He bowed his head upon his breast until the extinguisher
+pointed directly at Fanny's nose, as her brother mischievously made her
+aware. When I thought that Nittinat had taken time to sufficiently
+regret his cousin's misfortune in losing so many young men, I gently
+reminded him of Charlie's question.
+
+"Kasiascall's heart was very little when he saw the destruction of his
+warriors, and heard the wailing of the women and children. To comfort
+him the six white men were taken and bound for slaves. When the days of
+mourning were past, my cousin laid the six white slaves in a row, their
+throats resting on the sharp edge of a rock, and set his Indian slaves
+to saw off their heads with a cedar plank. It was a very fine sight; our
+hearts were good; we were comforted."
+
+As no one uttered an opposing sentiment, Nittinat, after a pause,
+continued:
+
+"For many moons we feared the Bostons down on the Columbia would come to
+make war on us; and we went no more to trade with any ships. But after a
+time Kasiascall's heart grew big within him. He asked my advice. I said
+'you are my brother. Go kill all the whites on the Columbia.' Then we
+danced the medicine dance; and Kasiascall went alone to the country of
+the Chinooks, to the fort of the Boston men. He told the chief of the
+Bostons how the _Tonquin_ was destroyed, with all on board; but he kept
+a dark place in his heart, and his tongue was crooked. He said
+Kasiascall knew not of the treachery of his relations, and people, and
+he said nothing of the six white slaves. Then the Boston chief gave him
+presents, and he staid many days at the fort, until he heard that some
+Indians from Sooke were coming there. Fearing the Sooke Indians might
+have straight tongues, Kasiascall left the fort that day, and went among
+the Klatskenines, and stirred them up to take the fort and kill all the
+Bostons. But the chief discovered the plot, and my cousin fled back to
+Neweeta. Ugh?"
+
+"These events occurred a long time ago," I suggested. "Your hearts were
+dark then, but surely you have a better heart now. You would not kill
+the whites to-day if you could?"
+
+A very expressive "Ugh!" was the only rejoinder.
+
+"But the Indians I see about here look very comfortable and happy. They
+have good warm blankets, and enough to eat."
+
+"Indian hunt furs to pay for blanket; Indian catch fish for eat. Bime-by
+furs grow scarce; white man catch fish, too. Bime-by Hudson Bay men go
+way; Indian go naked. Then come black-gowns (priests, or preachers). He
+say, 'Indian pray for what he want.' But that all d----d lie; pray one
+moon--two, three moons, nothing comes. White man say to Indian, 'work.'
+What can Indian do? Indian big fool--know nothing."
+
+"He is making out a case," said Charlie; "but he don't look as if _he_
+need concern himself about the future."
+
+"Ask him if he ever saw any white ladies, in that long ago time he has
+been telling us of," whispered Fanny, who could not muster courage to
+address the manikin directly. I considered how best to put the desired
+question, but Nittinat was beforehand with me.
+
+"I have seen many things with my eyes. First came the big ships, with
+wings; and only men came in them. By and by came a long, black ship,
+without sails, or oars, but with a great black and white smoke. I went
+on board this vessel with one of my wives, the youngest and prettiest;
+and here I saw the first white woman that came to my country. I liked
+the white woman, and asked her to be my wife. She laughed, and said, 'go
+ask the Cappen.' I asked the Cappen, but he would not hear. I offered
+him many skins, and my new wife. He swore at me. I am sworn at and
+laughed at for wanting wife with a white skin. White man take Indian
+wife when he please. Nittinat has many wrongs; yet Nittinat has good
+heart, all same. Bime-by big medicine-man come and make all right. White
+man all melt away like snow on the mountain-side. Indian have plenty
+house, plenty blankets, plenty eat--all, everything, all the time.
+Good!"
+
+"White wives included, I presume. Well," said Charlie, "I think this
+interview might be brought to a close. Hold fast to Pierre and I, Fanny,
+or the wizard may spirit you off to his wigwam, to inaugurate the good
+time coming that he speaks of."
+
+So saying, Charlie rose to his feet, stretched his limbs lazily, and
+turned to disengage his sister's veil from a vicious thorn-bush in our
+way. Not succeeding immediately, I lent my assistance, and the delicate
+tissue being at last rescued with some care, turned to say farewell to
+the chief of all the Nittinats, when lo! I addressed myself to space.
+
+"The old cove has taken himself off as mysteriously as he came. That is
+a confounded good trick; couldn't do it better myself. Does anybody miss
+anything?" was Charlie's running comment on the transaction.
+
+"Can't say that I do, unless it is my luncheon. I'm ravenously hungry,
+and every sandwich gone. Could that dreadful old ghoul have eaten those
+you gave him, Charlie? Do you know, I couldn't help thinking he must be
+a ghost?"
+
+"Well, the ghost of an Indian could eat, steal, and beg, I should think.
+I felt like rattling his dry bones, when he so coolly confessed to the
+most atrocious murders of white men."
+
+"That is because you are not an Indian, I presume," said I, with a heavy
+sense of conviction about what I gave expression to. "Indian virtue is
+not white men's virtue. If it won you rank, and riches, and power, to
+become a mighty slayer, a slayer you would undoubtedly become. A man,
+even an Indian, is what his circumstances make him. The only way I can
+conceive to make a first-class man, is to place him under first-class
+influences. I am generalizing now, of course; the exceptions are rare
+enough to prove the rule."
+
+"I wish I had those spoons," said Fanny, "they would be such a curiosity
+at home."
+
+"The spoon I wish for is one of the vessel's forks, with a bit of roast
+beef on it. Here, Sis, jump in; we shall be late for dinner, and the
+Captain will call us to account."
+
+In a few moments we were out of the little cove, and in open water of
+the sound, pulling back toward the harbor, where the steamer was lying
+that had brought us this summer excursion. As we came abreast of a
+certain inlet, Fanny cried out, "Look there!" and turning our eyes in
+the direction of her glance, we saw the canoe with its bronzed crew just
+disappearing up the narrow entrance, half-hidden in shrubbery.
+
+Our adventure was related at dinner in the steamer's cabin, and various
+were the conjectures regarding the identity of Chief Nittinat. The
+captain declared his ignorance of any such personage. Most of the party
+were inclined to regard the whole affair as a practical joke, though who
+could have been the authors of it no one ventured to say. It was
+proposed that another party should repeat the excursion on the following
+day, in order that another opportunity might be given the mysterious
+medicine man to put in an appearance. And this, I believe, really was
+carried into effect, but without result, so far as solving the mystery
+was concerned. A canoe, similar to the one we had seen, had been
+discovered up one of the numerous arms of the Sound, but on attempting
+to overtake it, the pursuing party had been easily distanced, and the
+clue lost, so that all hope of clearing up the mystery was relinquished.
+
+One evening, shortly after, Fanny and I sat together in the soft, clear
+moonlight, listening to the dance-music in the cabin, and the gentle
+splash of the waters about the vessel's keel. All at once, a canoe-load
+of Nootkans shot across the moon's wake, not fifty yards from our
+anchorage, and as suddenly was lost again in shadow. "Fanny," I said,
+"being the only invalid of this party, I feel a good deal nervous about
+these apparitions. They are usually regarded, I believe, as portentious.
+Without designing to take advantage of your too sympathizing
+disposition, I am tempted to remind you that if I am ever to have the
+happiness of calling your precious self truly my own, it ought to be
+before the third appearance of the ghostly presence; will you condescend
+to name the day?"
+
+"I should prefer, Pierre, not to have any ghostly influences brought to
+bear on this occasion. Suppose we try a valse, which I think will tend
+to dissipate your melancholy forebodings."
+
+I may as well own it here: the little witch could not be brought to make
+any final arrangements, although I did entreat her seriously.
+
+"You must talk about these things when I am at home with my papa and
+mamma," she insisted; and I was compelled to respect her decision.
+
+But we have been married almost a year, and we often refer to the
+strange interview we had with Chief Nittinat. Perhaps the Smoke-eller
+doctrine now popular among the northern Indians, and which corresponds
+to our spiritualism, may have some foundation in similar occurrences
+themselves. Who knows but Nittinat was talking to us through a medium?
+
+
+
+
+MR. ELA'S STORY.
+
+
+Three or four years ago, my husband and I were making a winter voyage up
+the Oregon coast. The weather was not peculiarly bad: it was the
+ordinary winter weather, with a quartering wind, giving the ship an
+awkward motion over an obliquely-rolling sea. Cold, sick, thoroughly
+uncomfortable, with no refuge but the narrow and dimly-lighted
+state-room, I was reduced in the first twenty-four hours to a condition
+of ignominious helplessness, hardly willing to live, and not yet fully
+wishing or intending to die.
+
+In this unhappy frame of mind the close of the second weary day found
+me, when my husband opened our state-room door to say that Mr. Ela, of
+----, Oregon, was on board, and proposed to come and talk to me, in the
+hope of amusing me and making me forget my wretchedness. Submitting
+rather than agreeing to the proposal, chairs were brought and placed
+just inside the door-way, where the light of the saloon lamps shown
+athwart the countenance of my self-constituted physician. He was a young
+man, and looked younger than his years; slightly built, though
+possessing a supple, well-knit frame, with hands of an elegant shape,
+fine texture, and great expression. You saw at a glance that he had a
+poet's head, and a poet's sensitiveness of face; but it was only after
+observation that you saw how much the face was capable of which it did
+not convey, for faces are apt to indicate not so much individual culture
+as the culture of those with whom we are habitually associated. Mr.
+Ela's face clearly indicated to me the intellectual poverty, the want of
+aesthetic cultivation in his accustomed circle of society, at the same
+time that it suggested possible phases of great beauty, should it ever
+become possible for certain emotions to be habitually called to the
+surface by sympathy. Evidently a vein of drollery in his nature had been
+better appreciated, and oftener exhibited to admiring audiences, than
+any of the finer qualities of thought or sentiment of which you
+instinctively knew him to be capable; and yet the face protested against
+it, too, by a gentle irony with a hint of self-scorn in it, as if its
+owner, in his own estimation, wrote himself a buffoon for his
+condescension. Altogether it was a good face; but one to make you wish
+it were better, since by not being so, it was untrue to itself. I
+remember thinking all this, looking out with sluggish interest from my
+berth, while the two gentlemen did a little preliminary talking.
+
+Mr. Ela's voice, I observed, like his face, was susceptible of great
+change and infinite modulations. Deep chest tones were followed by
+finely attenuated sounds; droning nasal tones, by quick and clear ones.
+The quality of the voice was soft and musical; the enunciation slow,
+often emphatic. His manner was illustrative, egotistic, and keenly
+watchful of effects.
+
+"You never heard the story of my adventure in the mountains?" Ela began,
+turning to me with the air of a man who had made up his mind to tell his
+story.
+
+"No; please tell it."
+
+"Well"--running his tapering fingers through his hair and pulling it
+over his forehead--"I started out in life with a theory, and it was
+this: that no young man should ask a woman to marry him until he had
+prepared a home for her. Correct, wasn't it? I was about nineteen years
+old when I took up some land down in the Rogue River Valley, and worked
+away at it with this object."
+
+"Had you really a wife selected at that age?"
+
+"No; but it was the fashion in early times in that country to marry
+early, and I was getting ready, according to my theory; don't you see? I
+was pretty successful, too; had considerable stock, built me a house,
+made a flower garden for my wife, even put up the pegs or nails she was
+to hang her dresses on. I intended that fall to get on my horse, ride
+through the Wallamet Valley, and find me my girl."
+
+At the notion of courting in that off-hand, general style, both my
+husband and I laughed doubtingly. Ela laughed, too, but as if the
+recollection pleased him.
+
+"You think that is strange, do you? 'Twasn't so very strange in those
+days, because girls were scarce, don't you see? There was not a girl
+within forty miles of me; and just the thought of one now, as I was
+fixing those nails to hang her garments on; why, it ran just through me
+like a shock of electricity!
+
+"Well, as I said, I had about two hundred and fifty head of cattle, a
+house with a garden, a young orchard, and vegetables growing; everything
+in readiness for the wife I had counted on getting to help me take care
+of it. And what do you think happened? There came such a plague of
+grasshoppers upon the valley that they destroyed every green thing:
+crops, orchard, flowers, grass, everything! My stock died, the greater
+portion of them, and _I was ruined_." (Deep bass.) "I considered myself
+disappointed in love, too, because, though I hadn't yet found my girl, I
+knew she was somewhere in the valley waiting for me; and I felt somehow,
+when the grasshoppers ate up every thing, as if I had been jilted.
+Actually, it pierces me with a pang now to think of those useless pegs
+on which so often my imagination hung a pink calico dress and a girl's
+sun-bonnet."
+
+Knitting his brows, and sighing as he shifted his position, Ela once
+more pulled the hair over his forehead, in his peculiar fashion, and
+went on:
+
+"I became misanthropic; felt myself badly used. Packing up my books and
+a few other traps, I started for the mountains with what stock I had
+left, built myself a fort, and played hermit."
+
+"A regular fort?"
+
+"A stockade eighteen feet high, with an embankment four feet high around
+it, a strong gate, a tent in the middle of the inclosure, all my
+property, such as books, feed, arms, etc., inside."
+
+"On account of Indians?"
+
+"Indians and White Men. Yes, I've seen a good many Indians through the
+bead of my rifle. They learned to keep away from my fort. There were
+mining camps down in the valley, and you know the hangers-on of those
+camps? I sold beef to the miners; had plenty of money by me sometimes.
+It was necessary to be strongly forted."
+
+"What a strange life for a boy! What did you do? How spend your time?"
+
+"I herded my cattle, drove them to market, cooked, studied, wrote, and
+indulged in misanthropy, with a little rifle practice. By the time I had
+been one summer in the mountains, I had got my hand in, and knew how to
+make money buying up cattle to sell again in the mines."
+
+"So there was method in your madness--misanthropy, I mean?"
+
+"Well, a man cannot resign life before he is twenty-one. I was doing
+well, and beginning to think again of visiting the Wallamet to hunt up
+my girl. One Sunday afternoon, I knew it was Sunday, because I kept a
+journal; I was sitting outside of my fort writing, when a shadow fell
+across the paper, and, looking up, lo! a skeleton figure stood before
+me." (Sepulchral tones, and a pause.) "Used as I was to lonely
+encounters with strange men, my hair stood on end as I gazed on the
+spectre before me. He was the merest boy in years; pretty and delicate
+by nature, and then reduced by starvation to a shadow. His story was
+soon told. He had left Boston on a vessel coming out to the northwest
+coast, had been wrecked at the mouth of the Umpqua, and been wandering
+about in the mountains ever since, subsisting as best he could on roots
+and berries. But you are becoming tired?"
+
+"No, I assure you; on the contrary, growing deeply interested."
+
+"The boy was not a young woman in disguise, or anything like that, you
+know"--with an amused look at me. "I thought you'd think so; but as he
+comes into the story as a collateral, I just mention his introduction to
+myself. I fed him and nursed him until he was able to go to work, and
+then I got Sam Chong Lung to let him take up a claim alongside a Chinese
+camp, promising to favor the Chinaman in a beef contract if he was good
+to the boy. His claim proved a good one, and he was making money, when
+two Chinamen stole a lot of horses from Sam Chong Lung, and he offered
+four hundred dollars to Edwards if he would go after them and bring them
+back. Edwards asked my advice, and I encouraged him to go, telling him
+how to take and bring back his prisoners." (Reflective pause.) "You
+can't imagine me living alone, now, can you? Such an egotistical fellow
+as I am, and fond of ladies' society. You can't believe it, can you?"
+
+"Hermits and solitaires are always egotists, I believe. As to the
+ladies, your loneliness was the result of circumstances, as you have
+explained."
+
+"Well, I should have missed Edwards a good deal, if it had not been for
+some singular _incidents_ which happened during his absence." Ela always
+accented the last syllable of any word ending in e-n-t, like "incident"
+or "commencement," giving it besides a peculiar nasal sound, which was
+sure to secure the attention. The word incident, as he pronounced it,
+produced quite a different effect from the same word, spoken in the
+usual style.
+
+"A man came to my fort one day who was naked and starving. He was a
+bad-looking fellow; but a man naturally does look bad when his clothes
+are in rags, and his bones protruding through his skin. I clothed him,
+fed him, cared for him kindly, until he was able to travel, and then he
+went away. The next Sunday, I was sitting outside the stockade, as
+customary, reading some translations of the Greek poets, when, on
+raising my eyes from the book to glance over the approach to my fort--I
+was always on the alert--I beheld a VISION. Remember, I had not
+seen a woman for a year and half! She was slowly advancing, riding with
+superb grace a horse of great beauty and value, richly caparisoned. She
+came slowly up the trail, as if to give me time for thought, and I
+needed it. That picture is still indelibly impressed upon my mind; the
+very flicker of the sunlight and shadow across the road, and the glitter
+of her horse's trappings, as he champed his bit and arched his neck with
+impatience at her restraining hand----. Are you very tired?" asked Ela,
+suddenly.
+
+"Never less so in my life; pray go on."
+
+"You see I had been alone so long, and I am very susceptible. That
+vision coming upon me suddenly as it did, in my solitude, gave me the
+strangest sensations I ever had. I was spell-bound. Not so she. Reining
+in her horse beside me, she squared around in her saddle, as if asking
+assistance to dismount. Struggling with my embarrassment, I helped her
+down, and she accepted my invitation into the fort, signifying, at the
+same time, that she wished me to attend to stripping and feeding her
+horse. This gave us mutually an opportunity to prepare for the coming
+interview.
+
+"When I returned to my guest, she had laid aside her riding-habit and
+close sun-bonnet, and stood revealed a young, beautiful,
+elegantly-dressed woman. To my unaccustomed eyes, she looked a goddess.
+Her figure was noble; her eyes large, black, and melting; her hair long
+and curling; her manner easy and attractive. She was hungry, she said;
+would I give her something to eat? And, while I was on hospitable cares
+intent, she read to me some of my Greek poems, especially an ode of one
+of the votaries of Diana, with comments by herself. She was a splendid
+reader. Well," said Ela, slowly, with a furtive glance at me, and in his
+peculiar nasal tones, "you can guess whether a young man, used to the
+mountains, as I was, and who had been disappointed and jilted as I had
+been, enjoyed this sort of thing or not. It wasn't in my line, you see,
+this entertaining goddesses; though, doubtless, in this way, before now,
+men have entertained angels unawares. You shall judge whether I did.
+
+"What with reading, eating together, singing--she sang 'Kate Kearney'
+for me, and her voice was glorious--our acquaintance ripened very fast.
+Finally, I conquered my embarrassment so far as to ask her some
+questions about herself, and she told me that she was of a good New
+England family, raised in affluence, well educated, accomplished, but by
+a freak of fortune, reduced to poverty: that she had come to California
+resolved to get money, and had got it. She went from camp to camp of the
+miners with stationery, and other trifling articles needed by them; sold
+them these things, wrote letters for them, sang to them, nursed them
+when sick, or carried letters express to San Francisco, to be mailed.
+For all these services, she received high prices, and had also had a
+good deal of gold given to her in specimens. I asked her if she liked
+that kind of a life, so contrary to her early training. She answered me:
+'It's not what we choose that we select to do in this world, but what
+chooses us to do it. I have made a competency, and gained a rich and
+varied experience. If life is not what I once dreamed it was, I am
+content.' But she sighed as she said it, and I couldn't believe in her
+content."
+
+"You have not told us yet what motives brought her to you," I remarked,
+in an interval of silence.
+
+"No; she hadn't told me herself, then. By and by, I asked her, in my
+green kind of way, what brought her to see _me_. I never shall forget
+the smile with which she turned to answer me. We were sitting quite
+close: it never was in my nature, when once acquainted with a woman, to
+keep away from her. Her garments brushed my knees; occasionally, in the
+enthusiasm of talk, I leaned near her cheek. You know how it was. I was
+thinking of the useless pegs in my house down in the valley: 'You will
+be disappointed,' she said, 'when you learn that I came to do you a real
+service.' And then she went on to relate that, having occasion to pass
+the night at a certain place not many miles away, she had overheard
+through the thin partitions of the house, the description of my fort, an
+account of my wealth, real or supposed, and a plan for my murder and
+robbery. The would-be murderer was so described as to make it quite
+certain that it was he whom I had fed, clothed, and sent away rejoicing,
+only a few days previous. I was inclined to treat the matter as a jest;
+but she awed me into belief and humility at once by the majesty with
+which she reproved my unbelief: 'A _woman_ does not trifle with subjects
+like this; nor go out of her way to tell travelers tales. I warn you.
+Good bye.'
+
+"After this she would not stay, though I awkwardly expressed my regret
+at her going. By her command I saddled her horse, and helped her mount
+him. Once in the saddle, her humor turned, and she reminded me that I
+had not invited her to return. She said she 'could fancy that a week of
+reading, talking, riding, trout-fishing, and romancing generally, up
+there in those splendid woods, might be very charming. Was I going to
+ask her to come?'
+
+"I didn't ask her. A young man with a reputation to sustain up there in
+the mountains, couldn't invite a young lady to come and stop a week with
+him, could he? I must have refused to invite her, now, mustn't I?"
+
+The perfect ingenuousness with which Ela put these questions, and the
+plaintive appeal against the hard requirements of social laws in the
+mountains, which was expressed in his voice and accent, were so
+indescribably ludicrous that both my husband and myself laughed
+convulsively. "I never tell my wife that part of the story, for fear she
+might not believe in my regard for appearances, knowing how fond I am of
+ladies' society. And the struggle _was_ great; I assure you, it was
+_great_.
+
+"So she went away. As she rode slowly down the trail, she turned and
+kissed her hand to me, with a gesture of such grace and sweetness that I
+thrilled all over. I've never been able to quite forgive myself for what
+happened afterward. _She came back, and I drove her away!_ Usually, when
+I tell that to women, they call me mean and ungrateful; but a young man
+living alone in the mountains has his reputation to look after--now,
+hasn't he? That's what I ought to have done--now, wasn't it--what I
+always say I did do. It was the right thing to do under the
+circumstances, wasn't it?"
+
+While we had our laugh out, Ela shifted position, shook himself, and
+thridded his soft, light hair with his slender fingers. He was satisfied
+with his success in conveying an impression of the sort of care he took
+of his reputation. "Now, then, I was left alone again, in no pleasant
+frame of mind. I couldn't doubt what my beautiful visitant had told me,
+and the thought of my murder all planned out was depressing, to say the
+least of it. But, as sure as I am telling you, the departure of my
+unknown friend depressed me more than the thought of my possible murder.
+The gate barred for the night, I sat and looked into my fire for hours,
+thinking wild thoughts, and hugging to my lonely bosom an imaginary
+form. The solitude and the sense of loss were awful.
+
+"This was Sunday night. Tuesday morning I received a visit from three or
+four mounted men, one of whom was my former naked and hungry _protege_.
+He did not now try to conceal his character from me, but said he was
+going down to clean out the Chinese camp, and proposed to me to join
+him, saying that when Edwards returned with the horses we would pay him
+the $400, as agreed by Sam Chong Lung. I was on my guard; but told him I
+would have nothing to do with robbing the Chinese; that they were my
+friends and customers, and he had better let them alone; after which
+answer he went off. That afternoon, Edwards came in with his prisoners
+and horses. He was very tired, on account of having traveled at night,
+to prevent the rescue of his prisoners by other vagabonds, and to avoid
+the Indians.
+
+"You will understand how the presence of the horses increased my peril,
+as there was no doubt the scoundrels meant to take them. It wouldn't do
+either to let Edwards go on to the Chinese camp; so I persuaded him to
+wait another day. We brought the prisoners, bound, inside the fort, and
+took care of the horses. I said nothing to Edwards of my suspicions.
+
+"About dusk, my expected visitor came. He appeared to have been
+drinking; and, after some mumbling talk, laid down inside the fort, near
+the gate. I made the gate fast, driving the big wooden pins home with an
+axe; built up a great fire, and sent Edwards to bed in the tent. The
+Chinese prisoners were already asleep on the ground. Then I sat down on
+the opposite side of the fire, facing the gate, placed my
+double-barreled rifle beside me, and mounted guard."
+
+"Had you no arms but your rifle?" asked my husband, anxiously.
+
+"I wanted none other, for we understood each other--my rifle and I."
+
+"What were you looking for; what did you expect? A hand-to-hand
+encounter with these men?" was my next inquiry.
+
+"It seemed most likely that he had planned an attack on the fort. If so,
+his associates would be waiting outside for a signal. He had intended,
+when he laid down close to the gate, to open it to them; but when I
+drove the pins in so tight, I caught a gleam from his eyes that was not
+a drunken one, and he knew that I suspected him. After that, it was a
+contest of skill and will between us. He was waiting his opportunity,
+and so was I.
+
+"You think I've a quick ear, don't you? You see what my temperament is;
+all sense, all consciousness. My hearing was cultivated, too, by
+listening for Indians. Well, by and by, I detected a very stealthy
+movement outside the fort, and then a faint chirrup, such as a young
+squirrel might make. In an instant the drunken man sprang up; and I
+covered him with my rifle, cocked. He saw the movement and drew his
+pistol, but not before I had ordered him to throw down his arms, _or_
+DIE."
+
+It is impossible to convey, by types, an idea of Ela's manner or tone as
+he pronounced these last words. They sounded from the bottom of his
+chest, and conveyed in the utterance a distinct notion that death was
+what was meant. Hearing him repeat the command, it was easy to believe
+that the miscreant dared not do more than hesitate in his obedience.
+After a moment's silence--which was the climax to his rendering of the
+scene--he continued:
+
+"I haven't told you, yet, how the man looked. He was a tall, swarthy,
+black-bearded fellow, who might have been handsome once, but who had
+lost the look which distinguishes men in sympathy with their kind; so
+that then he resembled some cruel beast, in the shape of a man, yet
+whose disguise fitted him badly. His eyes burned like rubies, out of the
+gloomy caverns under his shaggy eyebrows. His lips were drawn apart, so
+that his teeth glistened. The man's whole expression, as he stood there,
+glaring at me, was Hate and Murder.
+
+"My eye never winked, while he hesitated. He saw that, and it made him
+quail. With my finger on the trigger, I kept my rifle leveled, while he
+threw down his arms--pistols and knife--with a horrible oath. With the
+knife in his hand, he made a movement, as if he would rush on me; but
+changed his purpose in time to stop my fire. His cursing was awful; the
+foam flew from his mouth. He demanded to be let out of the fort; accused
+me of bad intentions toward him, and denounced me for a robber and
+murderer. To all his ravings I had but one answer: To be quiet, to obey
+me, and he might live; dare to disobey me, and he should die.
+
+"I directed him to sit down on the opposite side of the fire--not to
+move from that one spot--not to make a doubtful motion. And then I told
+him I knew what he was, and what he had meant to do. When he became
+convinced of this, he broke down utterly, and wept like a child,
+declaring that now he knew my pluck, and I had been the first man ever
+to get the best of him, he loved me like a brother!
+
+"There was a long night before us, and I had got to sit there, with my
+rifle across my knees, till morning. I could move a little, to stir up
+or add to the fire; but he could have no liberty whatever. The restraint
+was horrible to him. One moment he laughed uneasily--another cursed or
+cried. It was a strange scene, wasn't it? Finally, to pass the time, I
+asked him to relate the history of his life. He wanted first to shake
+hands, for the love he bore me. Touching my rifle, significantly, I
+pointed to a stick lying across the fire between us. 'That is our
+boundary line; don't go to reaching your hands over that.' Then he sank
+into a fit of gloom and sullenness.
+
+"We must have remained thus silent until near midnight. Several times I
+observed him listening to slight sounds outside the fort. But his
+associates must have given up the game and gone off, for, as the morning
+hours approached, he ceased to listen, and everything remained quiet.
+His head was bent forward, his chin resting on his breast, the shaggy
+beard spreading over it like a mantle."
+
+"How horrible it must have been to keep such company. Why not call on
+Edwards?"
+
+"The boy was worn out, and there was no need. I was very much strung up,
+too; so that the exhaustion of sleeplessness, fatigue, or excitement was
+not felt or noticed. But _he_ suffered. He was like a hyena caged,
+though he showed it only by involuntary movements and furtive glances.
+Finally, he could bear it no longer, and entreated me piteously,
+abjectly, to give him his freedom or blow out his brains. I told him he
+couldn't have his freedom just yet; but he knew how to get his brains
+blown out, if he desired it. Then followed more execration, ending in
+renewed protestations of regard for me. I reminded him that talking
+would relieve the irksomeness of his position, again inviting him to
+tell me his history. He replied that if he talked about himself, he
+would be sure to get excited and move about; but I promised to remind
+him.
+
+"Once on the subject of himself, it seemed to have a fascination for
+him. What he told me was, in substance, this: He had been honestly
+raised, by good, affectionate parents, in the State of Missouri; loved a
+young girl in the town where he lived; and, wishing to marry her, had
+resolved to go to California, to make the necessary money, quickly. He
+was successful; returned full of joyful anticipations, and arrived at an
+old neighbor's, a few miles from his home, having hardly tasted food or
+taken any rest the previous twenty-four hours.
+
+"While he hastily ate some breakfast and listened to the friendly gossip
+of his entertainers, one name, the name of her he loved, his promised
+wife, was mentioned. _She was married._ He staggered to his feet, asking
+the name of her husband; and when he heard it, he knew he had been
+betrayed by that man. He could recall a strange sensation in his brain,
+as if molten lead had been poured into it; that was the last of his
+recollections. Afterward, he learned that he had been weeks in a brain
+fever.
+
+"When he had recovered, some of his old friends, thinking to do him
+honor, made an evening party for him. To this party came his love, and
+her husband; his betrayer. When she gave her hand to welcome him home,
+and looked in his eyes, he knew that she too had been betrayed. Again
+the molten lead seemed poured upon his brain. Turning to leave the room,
+fate placed in his path the man he now hated with a deadly hatred. With
+one blow of a knife, he laid him dead at his feet. A few hours later, in
+the desperation of trying to escape, he killed two other men. Then he
+eluded his pursuers, and got back to California. Since then he had
+reveled in murder, and every species of crime. Once he had seen, in the
+streets of Sacramento, the woman he loved. Up to that moment, it had
+never occurred to him that she was free. Following her to her home, he
+forced himself into her house, and reminded her of their former
+relations. She had denied all knowledge of him, finally calling upon her
+husband to satisfy him. The husband ordered him out of the house, and he
+shot him. Then the Vigilantes made it hazardous to remain in California.
+He fled to the mountains, where he was nearly starved out, when I took
+him in and fed and clothed him.
+
+"Such was his story. My blood curdled in my veins, as I listened to the
+recitals of his atrocities. 'In God's name,' I said, 'who are you--what
+is your name?' 'I am BOONE HELM.'"
+
+"Who was Boone Helm?" I asked.
+
+"One of the greatest desperadoes that ever was on this coast. He met his
+fate, afterward, up east of the mountains."
+
+"What did you do with him? What _could_ you do with him?"
+
+"You ought to have shot him while you had him," my husband suggested.
+
+"_I_ didn't want to shoot him. He said, if I had been a coward, I would
+have killed him. To confess the truth, the wretch appealed to my
+sympathies. I don't think he had ever been sane since the time when he
+felt the 'molten lead poured into his brain.' I knew somebody was sure
+to kill him, before long; so, when morning came, I called Edwards to
+open the gate; and, when it was unbarred, escorted my visitor out,
+telling him that there was not room enough in that part of the country
+for both of us, and that the next time I pointed my rifle at him it
+would be to shoot. I never saw him again."
+
+"Then he did not molest the Chinese camp?"
+
+"No. Edwards got his four hundred dollars, and went home to Boston."
+
+There fell a silence upon us, and, through my open door, I could see
+that the cabin was nearly deserted. Ela seemed wearied--sighed, and made
+a movement, as if to go.
+
+"What about your Guardian Angel?" my husband asked. "You have not told
+us about her second coming."
+
+"I always say that she didn't come; or else I say that she came, and I
+drove her away. That is proper; isn't it, now?" glancing at me.
+
+"But _I_ want to know if you have seen her--if you never met her
+anywhere in the world--since that time. I have a right to be
+curious--yes, or no?" I urged, laughingly.
+
+"How do you feel, now?"--with a light laugh and peculiar change of
+expression.
+
+"O, better; a great deal better. To be perfectly cured, I only need to
+hear the sequel."
+
+"I may as well tell it, I suppose. It has been running in my head all
+day. Wouldn't want my wife to know it. Didn't think of meeting her when
+I came down to 'Frisco. You see, I've been in Oregon a long while--never
+traveled on a railroad in my life--wanted to see something of the great
+outside world--and so, ran down to the great city to see the sights. The
+first thing I did, I went up to Colfax, on the cars; and while I was up
+there, the engineer invited me to take a ride on the engine--a special
+one. Now, I knew that he meant to astonish me, because he thought I was
+green; and I didn't know, really, how fast the thing ought to run. But
+we came down the grade with a speed that was ter-rif-ic!--more than a
+mile a minute, the engineer said. When we got to Lincoln, the fellow
+asked me, with his superior sort of smile, 'How I liked _that_ rate of
+travel?' I told him I liked _that_ pretty well; 'but, I suppose, when
+you want to make time, you can travel at a considerably _more_
+accelerated rate of locomotion?'"
+
+How we laughed at the natural drollery of the man, the deliberate
+utterance, the unsophisticated air. While we laughed, he prepared
+himself to finish his story.
+
+"It was only day before yesterday," he said, "that I met her. I happened
+to be in the parlor of the hotel when she came in. At first, I wasn't
+certain of its being her; but, as I watched her, I became certain of it.
+And she recognized me; I felt certain of that, too. It was in the early
+part of the evening, and I had to wait until the people in the parlor
+would disperse. She saw what I was waiting for, and stayed, too; she
+told me with her eyes that she _remembered_. After a while she went to
+the piano, and played and sang 'Kate Kearney.' Then I was satisfied that
+she would not leave me before I had spoken to her. As soon as the
+opportunity came, we confessed ourselves."
+
+"Was she married? was she happy?"
+
+"She was married, yes. Happy? she told me, as she had once before, that
+she was 'content.' She said it with a sigh, as she did the first time;
+and I doubted her as I did then. But they are putting out the lights.
+There is always, in this world, somebody going around, putting out our
+lights. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+ON THE SANDS.
+
+
+I was summering at our Oregon Newport, known to us by the aboriginal
+name of Clatsop. Had a balloonist, uninstructed in the geography and
+topography of this portion of the Pacific coast, dropped down among us,
+his impression would have been that he had alighted in a military
+encampment, very happily chosen, as military encampments usually are.
+
+Given, one long, low, whitewashed house enclosed by whitewashed pickets;
+a group of tents outside the enclosure and on the bank of a beautiful
+graveled-bottom, tree-shadowed stream, and you have the brief summing up
+of accommodations for summer visitors at Clatsop. The plentiful
+sprinkling of army buttons among the guests--for there are two forts
+within a three hours' ride of this beach--tend to confirm the impression
+of military possession. Besides, our host of the whitewashed hotel is a
+half-breed; and there is enough of the native element hanging about the
+place, picking berries and digging clams, to suggest an Indian family
+where a temporary station might be demanded. It would only be by peeping
+inside those tents where ladies and children are more numerous than
+bearded men, that one could be convinced of the gypsy nature of this
+encampment; though, to be sure, one need not press inside to find them,
+for the gay campers are sauntering about in all directions, ladies with
+their escorts, children with their nurses, parties returning from
+boating or fishing, or riding or bathing: everybody living out in the
+open air the whole day through on one pretense or another, and only
+repairing to the hotel at meal times, when the exquisite dishes prepared
+by French half-breeds suffer the most instant demolition--such hunger
+does open air inspire.
+
+I had come here just invalid enough to be benefited by our primitive
+style of living; not too delicate to endure it, nor too robust to enjoy
+the utter vagabondism of it. There had been no necessity upon us to ape
+fashionable manners; no obligation to dress three times a day; no balls
+to weary ourselves with at night. Therefore this daily recurring picnic
+was just sufficient for our physical recreation, while our mental powers
+took absolute rest. For weeks I had arisen every morning to a breakfast
+of salmon-trout. French coffee (_au lait_), delicious bread, and fresh
+berries; and afterwards to wander about in the cool sea-fog, well
+wrapped up in a water-proof cloak. Sometimes we made a boating party up
+the lovely Neah-can-a-cum, pulling our boat along under the overhanging
+alders and maples, frightening the trout into their hiding-places under
+the banks, instead of hooking them as was our ostensible design. The
+limpid clearness of the water seemed to reflect the trees from the very
+bottom, and truly made a medium almost as transparent as air, through
+which the pebbles at the greatest depth appeared within reach of our
+hands. A morning idled away in this manner, and an afternoon spent in
+seeing the bathers--I never trust my easily curdled blood to the chill
+of the sea--and in walking along the sands with a friend, or dreaming
+quietly by myself as I watched the surf rolling in all the way from
+Tilamook Head to Cape Disappointment,--these were my daily labors and
+recreations. The arrival of a bundle of letters, or, still better, of a
+new visitor, made what variety there was in our life.
+
+I had both of these excitements in one day. One of my correspondents had
+written: "I hope to see you soon, and to have the opportunity, long
+sought, of telling you some of the experiences of my early life. When I
+promised you this I had not anticipated the pleasure of talking over the
+recollections of my youth while listening with you to the monotone of
+the great Pacific, whose 'ever, forever' is more significant to me than
+to most lovers of its music. I never gaze upon its restless waves, nor
+hear the sound of their ripple on the sands, or their thunder on the
+rocks without being reminded of one episode in my life peculiarly
+agitating to remember; but perhaps when I have told it to you, you may
+have power to exercise the restless spirit which rises in me at the
+recollection."
+
+So here was promise of the intellectual aliment I had begun to crave
+after all these weeks of physical, without mental, action. I folded my
+letter with a feeling of self-congratulation, and turned to watch the
+movements of a newly arrived party for whom our half-breed host was
+spreading a tent, and placing in it rather an extra amount of furniture;
+for, be it known to the uninitiated, we had platform floors under our
+tents, real bedsteads, dressing-bureaus, rugs, and other comforts to
+match. That our new arrival exceeded us in elegant conveniences was, of
+course, duly noted by such idlers as we.
+
+The party consisted of a lady, a little girl of ten, and a Kanaka
+servant. The lady's name, we learned, was Mrs. Sancy, and she was from
+the Sandwich Islands. More than that no one was informed. We discussed
+her looks, her manners, her dress, and her probable circumstances, as we
+sat around the camp-fire that evening, after the way of idle people. It
+occurred to me, as I glanced toward her tent door, illuminated by our
+blazing fire, and saw her regarding the weird scene with evident
+admiration of its picturesqueness, to ask her to come and sit with us
+and help us eat roast potatoes--roasted as they cook pigs in the
+Islands, by covering up in the ground with hot stones. The fact that the
+potatoes, and the butter which went with them, were purloined from our
+host's larder, gave a special flavor to the feast--accompanied as it
+was, too, by instrumental and vocal music, and enlivened by sallies of
+wit.
+
+Mrs. Sancy seemed to enjoy the novelty of her surroundings, contributing
+her quota to the general fund of mirth and sparkling talk, and I
+congratulated myself on having acquired an interesting acquaintance,
+whose cheerfulness, notwithstanding the partial mourning of her dress,
+promised well for its continuance. Had she been sad or reserved she
+certainly would not have been sought as she was by our pleasure-loving
+summer idlers, consequently my chances of becoming intimate with her
+would have been greatly abridged. As she was, she soon became, without
+question, one of the chief social attractions; easily falling into our
+vagabond ways, yet embellishing them with so much grace and elegance
+that they became doubly precious to us on account of the new charm
+imparted to them. All the things any of us could do, Mrs. Sancy could do
+better; and one thing she could do that none of the rest of us could,
+which was to swim out and float herself in on a surf-board, like a
+native island woman; and seeing Mrs. Sancy do this became one of the
+daily sensations of Clatsop Beach.
+
+I had known Mrs. Sancy about one week, and came to like her extremely,
+not only for her brilliant, social qualities, but on account of her
+native originality of thought, and somewhat peculiar culture. I say
+peculiar, because her thinking and reading seemed to be in the byways
+rather than the highways of ordinary culture. If she made a figure of
+speech, it was something noticeably original; if she quoted an author,
+it was one unfamiliar though forcible. And so she constantly supplied my
+mind with novelties which I craved, and became like a new education to
+me. One forenoon, a misty one, we were out on the beach alone, wrapped
+up in water-proofs, pacing up and down the sands, and watching the grey
+sullen sea, or admiring the way in which the masses of fog roll in among
+the tops of the giant firs on Tilamook Head, and were torn into
+fragments, and tangled among them.
+
+"You never saw the like of this in the islands?" I said, meaning the
+foggy sea, and the dark, fir-clad mountains.
+
+"I have seen _this_ before;" she answered, waving her hand to indicate
+the scene as we then beheld it. "You look surprised, but I am familiar
+with every foot of this ground. I have lived years in this
+neighborhood--right over there, in fact, under the Head. This spot has,
+in truth, a strong fascination for me, and it was to see it once more
+that I made the voyage."
+
+"You lived in this place, and liked it years ago! How strange! It is but
+a wilderness still, though a pleasant one, I admit."
+
+She gave me a playfully superior smile: "We are apt to think ourselves
+the discoverers of every country where we chance to be set down; and so
+Adam thought he was the first man on the earth, though his sons went out
+and found cities where they learned the arts of civilization. So birth,
+and love, and death, never cease to be miracles to us, notwithstanding
+the millions who have been born, and loved, and died, before our
+experience began."
+
+"But how did it happen," I urged, unable to repress my curiosity, "that
+you lived here, in this place, _years ago_? That seems so strange to
+me."
+
+"My parents brought me here when a little child. It is a common enough
+history. My mother was an enthusiast with brain, who joined her fortunes
+to those of an enthusiast without brain, and emigrated to this coast,
+when it was an Indian country, in the vain hope of doing good to the
+savages. They only succeeded in doing harm to themselves, and
+indirectly, harm to the savages also. The spirit of the man became
+embittered, and the mean traits of his nature asserted themselves, and
+wreaked their malice, as is customary with mean natures, on the nearest
+or most inoffensive object. My poor mother! Maternity was marred for you
+by fear and pain and contempt; and whatever errors your child has fallen
+into, were an evil inheritance that only years of suffering and
+discipline could eradicate."
+
+As Mrs. Sancy pronounced the last sentence, she seemed for the moment to
+have forgotten my presence, and stood, looking off over the calm grey
+sea, with absent unrecognizing gaze. After a brief silence she turned to
+me with a smile: "Pardon my mental desertion. It is not good to talk of
+our own lives. We all become Adams again, and imagine ourselves sole in
+the universe."
+
+On this hint I changed the conversation, and we returned to the hotel to
+lunch, after which, I saw no more of Mrs. Sancy for that day.
+
+That afternoon, my correspondent, Mr. Kittredge arrived; and as it was
+bright and sunny after the fog, we took a boat, and pulled along under
+the alders that shade the Neah-can-a-cum. It was there that I listened
+to this story:
+
+"While I was still a young man, nearly fifteen years ago, I floated on
+this stream, as we are doing to-day. My companion was a young girl whom
+I shall call Teresa. She was very young, I remember now with sorrow, and
+very beautiful; though _beautiful_ is not so much the word to describe
+her as _charming_--magnetic, graceful, intelligent. A lithe, rather tall
+figure, a high-bred, sensitive, fine face, and pleasing manners. She
+seemed older than she really was, on account of her commanding physique
+and distinguished manner.
+
+"I will not go over the details of our acquaintance, which ripened
+rapidly into love;--so I thought. This was a new country then, even more
+emphatically that it is now; new with the charm of novelty--not new
+because it had ceased to progress, as is now the case. Scattered around
+here within a radius of a dozen miles were half-a-dozen other young men
+like myself, who had immigrated to the far west, in the spirit of
+romantic adventure; and once here, were forced to do whatever came to
+our hands to gain a subsistence. I lived on a farm which I improved,
+keeping house quite by myself, and spending my leisure hours in study.
+Of course, the other young men, similarly situated, often visited me,
+and we usually talked over authors, or such questions of the day as we
+were familiar with or interested in.
+
+"But one evening love was the theme of our conversation, and incidently,
+Teresa's name was mentioned among us. I don't know who first uttered it,
+but I observed at once, that the faces of all three of my companions
+betrayed an interest too strong and too peculiar to be attributed to an
+ordinary acquaintanceship with the subject of our remarks. For myself, I
+felt my own face flushing hotly, as a horrible suspicion seized my
+consciousness, becoming on the instant, conviction too painful to
+endure.
+
+"You being a woman, cannot imagine the situation. I believed myself to
+be Teresa's accepted lover; and so I knew intuitively, did all my three
+companions; their faces revealing their thoughts to me, as did mine to
+them. Whatever you women do in the presence of your rivals, I know not.
+Men rage. It is not often, either, that a man encounters more than one
+rival at a time. But three!--each of us poor rivals saw three rivals
+before him. Whatever of friendship had hitherto existed among us was
+forgotten in the extreme anguish of the moment, and we sat glaring at
+each other in silence, with heaving chests and burning brows.
+
+"All but Charlie Darling--darling Charlie, we used to call him--his face
+was deathly white, and his eyes glowed like a panther's in the dark. Yet
+he was the first to recover himself. 'Boys,' said he, 'we ought not to
+have brought a lady's name into the discussion; but since Teresa's has
+been mentioned, we may as well have an understanding. I consider the
+young lady as engaged to me, and you will please remember that fact when
+you are talking of her.'
+
+"He said it bravely, proudly, though his lip trembled a little, but he
+eyed us unflinchingly. No one replied for some moments. Then Tom Allen,
+a big clumsy, good-hearted, but conceited fellow, lifted his eyes
+slowly, and answered with a hysterical laugh: 'You may be her darling
+Charlie, but I'll be d----d if I am not to be her husband!'
+
+"This was the match to the powder. Charlie, myself, and Harry King, each
+sprang simultaneously forward, as if we meant to choke poor Tom for his
+words. Again Charlie was the first to use reason:
+
+"'Hold, boys;' cried he hoarsely; 'let us take a little time to reflect.
+Two of us have declared ourselves to be engaged to Teresa. Let us hear
+if she contemplates marrying King and Kittredge, also. What do you say,
+King?'
+
+"'I say yes!' thundered King, bending his black brows, and bringing down
+his fist on the table by which he stood.
+
+"'And _I_ say, I contemplate marrying _her_,' was my answer to Charlie's
+challenge.
+
+"Charlie flung himself into a chair, and covered his face with his
+hands. The action touched some spring in our ruder natures which
+responded in sympathy for our favorite, and had the effect to calm us,
+in manner at least. I motioned the others to sit down, and addressed
+myself to Charlie Darling. 'See here, Charlie?' I said, 'it seems that
+Teresa has been playing us false. A girl who could be engaged to four
+young men at once cannot be worth the regards of any of us. Let us
+investigate the matter, and if she is truly guilty of such falsehood,
+let us one and all quit her forever without a word of explanation. What
+do you say? do you agree to that?'
+
+"'How are you going to investigate?' asked Tom Allen, roughly. 'Have not
+we each declared that she was committed to us individually, and what
+more can be said?'
+
+"'It appears incredible to me that any girl, much less a girl like
+Teresa, could so compromise her self-respect as to encourage four
+suitors, each in such a manner as that he expected to marry her. It is
+so strange that I cannot believe it, except each man swears to his
+statement. Can we all swear to it?'
+
+"I laid my little pocket-bible on the table, and set the example of
+taking an oath to the effect that Teresa had encouraged me to believe
+that she meant to marry me. King and Allen followed with a similar oath.
+Charlie Darling was the last to take the oath; but as he did so, a gleam
+of gladness broke over his pale, handsome face; for he could word his
+oath differently from ours. 'I swear before these witnesses and Almighty
+God,' said Charlie, 'that Teresa Bryant is my _promised wife_.'
+
+"'That takes the wind out of our sails,' remarked Allen.
+
+"'Do you allow other men to kiss your promised wife?' asked King, with a
+sneer.
+
+"Charlie sprang at King, and had his hand on his throat in an instant;
+but Allen and I interfered to part them. It was no difficult matter, for
+Darling, excited as he was, felt the force of my observations on the
+quarrel. I said: 'Shall a trifling girl make us enemies, when she has so
+behaved that no one of us can trust her. You, Darling, do not, cannot
+have confidence in her promise, after all you have this night learned.
+You had best accept my first suggestion, and join with the rest of us in
+renouncing her forever and at once.'
+
+"'That _I_ will not,' broke out King, vehemently. 'Her word is no better
+than her acts, and I have as much right to her as Charlie Darling, or
+either of you, and I'll not give up the right to a man of you.'
+
+"'We'll have to fight a four-cornered duel,' remarked Tom Allen,
+beginning to see the ludicrous side of the affair. 'Shall we choose up,
+two on a side?'
+
+"'I will withdraw my pretensions,' I reiterated, 'if the others will do
+so, or even if King and Allen will quit the field to Charlie, who feels
+himself bound by Teresa's promise to him.'
+
+"'I have said I would not withdraw,' replied King, sullenly. And thus we
+contended, hot-browed and angry-voiced, for more than an hour. Then
+rough but practical Tom proposed a scheme, which was no less than to
+compel Teresa to decide between us. After long deliberation, an
+agreement was entered into, and I hope I shall not shock you too much
+when I tell you what it was."
+
+Kittredge paused, and looked at me doubtingly. I glanced aside at the
+over-hanging trees, the glints of sunshine on the bank, a brown bird
+among the leaves, at anything, rather than him, for he was living over
+again the excitement of that time, and his face was not pleasant to
+study. After a little waiting, I answered:
+
+"I must know the remainder of the story, since I know so much; what did
+you agree upon?"
+
+"A plan was laid by which Teresa should be confronted with her four
+lovers, and forced to explain her conduct. To carry out our design it
+was necessary to use artifice, and I was chosen as the one who should
+conduct the affair. I invited her to accompany me to a neighboring
+farm-house to meet the young folks of the settlement. There was nothing
+unusual in this, as in those primitive times great latitude was granted
+to young people in their social intercourse. To mount her horse and ride
+several miles to a neighbor's house with a single escort, not to return
+until far into the night, was the common privilege of any young lady,
+and therefore there was no difficulty about obtaining either her consent
+or that of her parents to my proposition.
+
+"We set off just at sunset, riding along the beach some distance,
+admiring the gorgeous western sky, the peaceful sea, and watching the
+sand-pipers skating out on the wet sands after every receding wave. I
+had never seen Teresa more beautiful, more sparkling, or more
+fascinating in every way; and my heart grew 'very little' as the Indians
+say. It was impossible to accuse her even in my thoughts, while under
+that bewitching influence. She was so full of life and vivacity that she
+did not observe the forced demeanor I wore, or if she did, had too much
+tact to seem to do so. As for me, guarded both by my hidden suspicions
+and by my promise to my friends, I uttered no word of tenderness or
+admiration with my tongue, whatever my eyes may have betrayed.
+
+"The road we were going led past my house. When we were almost abreast
+of it I informed Teresa that there were some of our friends waiting for
+us there, and invited her to alight. Without suspicion she did
+so.----Don't look at me that way, if you can help it. It was terribly
+mean of us fellows, as I see it now. It looked differently then; and we
+had none of us seen much of the world and were rude in our notions of
+propriety.
+
+"When she came inside of the house and saw only three men in place of
+the girls of her acquaintance she expected to meet, she cast a rapid,
+surprised glance all round, blushed, asked, 'where are the girls?'--all
+in the most natural manner. There was positively nothing in her
+deportment to betray a guilty conscience. I recognized that, and so, I
+could see, did Darling. He made haste to hand her a chair, which she
+declined, still looking about her with a puzzled, questioning air. I was
+getting nervous already over my share in the business, and so plunged at
+once into explanation.
+
+"'Teresa,' I said, 'we four fellows have made a singular discovery,
+recently, to the effect that we each believed himself to be your
+accepted lover. We have met together to hear your explanation. Is there
+a man in the house you are engaged to?"
+
+"She gave one quick, scrutinizing glance at our faces, and read in them
+that we were in earnest. Indeed, the scene would have given scope to the
+genius of a Hogarth. Alternate red and white chased each other in quick
+succession over her brow, cheeks, neck. Her eyes scintillated, and her
+chest heaved.
+
+"'Please answer us, Teresa,' said Darling, after a most painful silence
+of a minute, which seemed an hour.
+
+"She raised her flashing eyes to his, and her tones seemed to stab him
+as she uttered, '_You_? you too?' Then gathering up her riding-skirt,
+she made haste to leave us, but found the door guarded by Tom Allen.
+When she saw that she was really a prisoner among us, alarm seized her,
+and woman-like, she began to cry, but not passionately or humbly. Her
+spirit was still equal to the occasion, and she faced us with the tears
+running over her cheeks.
+
+"'If there is a man among you with a spark of honor, open this door! Mr.
+Kittredge, this is your house. Allow me to ask if I am to be retained a
+prisoner in it, or what you expect to gain by my forcible detention?"
+
+"Tom Allen whispered something unheard by any save her, and she struck
+at him with her riding-whip. This caused both Darling and myself to
+interpose, and I turned door-keeper while Allen retreated to the other
+side of the room with rather a higher color than usual on his lumpish
+face. All this while--not a long while, at all--King had remained in
+sullen silence, scowling at the proceedings. At this juncture, however,
+he spoke:
+
+"'Boys,' said he, 'this joke has gone far enough, and if you will permit
+us to take our leave, I will see Miss Bryant safe home.'
+
+"Involuntarily she turned toward the only one who proffered help; but
+Darling and I were too angry at the ruse to allow him to succeed, and
+stood our ground by the door. 'You see, Teresa, how it is,' continued
+King, glancing at us defiantly: 'these fellows mean to keep you a
+prisoner in this house until they make you do and say as they please.'
+
+"'What is it you wish me to do and say?" asked Teresa, with forced
+composure.
+
+"'We wish you to state,' said I, hoarsely, 'whether or not you are or
+have been engaged to either of us. We want you to say it because we are
+all candidates for your favor, and because there is a dispute among us
+as to whose claim is the strongest. It will put an end to our quarrel,
+and secure to you the instant return of your liberty, if you will
+declare the truth.'
+
+"At that she sank down on a chair and covered her face with her hands.
+After a little time she gathered courage and looked up at Darling and
+me. I observed, even then, that she took no notice of the others. 'If I
+am promised to either of you, you know it. But this I say now: if I were
+a hundred times promised, I would break that promise after such insult
+as you have all offered me this evening. Let me go!'
+
+"What Charlie Darling suffered all through the interview had been patent
+to each of us. When she delivered his sentence in tones so determined, a
+cry that was a groan escaped his colorless lips. To say that _I_ did not
+writhe under her just scorn would be false. Tears, few, but hot and
+bitter, blinded my eyes. She took no further notice of any of us, but
+sat waiting for her release.
+
+"'You knew by this time,' I said, 'that you had been deceived.'
+
+"I felt by this time that I had been a fool--a poor, coarse fool; there
+had been treachery somewhere, and that all together we were a villainous
+lot. I was only hesitating about how to get out of the scrape decently,
+when Darling spoke in a voice that was hardly recognizable:
+
+"'Teresa, we _were_ engaged; I told these others so before; but they
+would not believe me. On the contrary, each one claims to have received
+such encouragement from you as to entitle him to be considered your
+favored lover. Hard as it was for me to believe such falsehood possible
+to you, two of these claimants insisted upon their rights against mine,
+and they overruled my judgment and wishes to such a degree that I
+consented to this trial for you. It has resulted in nothing except shame
+to us and annoyance to you! I beg your pardon. More I will not say
+to-night.'
+
+"Then she rose up and faced us all again with burning cheeks and
+flashing eyes. 'If any other man says I have given him a promise, or
+anything amounting to a promise, he lies. To Tom Allen I have always
+been friendly, and have romped with him at our little parties; but
+to-night he grossly insulted me, and I will never speak to him again. As
+to Harry King, I was friendly with him, too, until about a fortnight ago
+he presumed to kiss me rudely, in spite of resistance, since which time
+I have barely recognized him. If Mr. Kittredge says I have made him any
+promises, he is unworthy of the great respect I have always had for
+him;' and with that last word she broke down, and sobbed as if her heart
+would break. But it was only for a few minutes that she cried--she was
+herself again before we had recovered our composure.
+
+"'What was it Tom Allen said to you?' asked Charlie, when her tears were
+dried.
+
+"'He said _he_ would have me, if the rest did cast me off. Thank you,'
+with a mocking courtesy to Allen. 'It is fortunate for you--and for you
+all, that I have no "big brother."'
+
+"'I beg you will believe no "big brother" could add to my punishment,'
+Charlie answered; and I felt included in the confession. Then he offered
+to see her home without more delay, but she declined any escort
+whatever, only requesting us to remain where we were until she had been
+gone half an hour; and rode off into the moonlight and solitude
+unattended, with what feelings in her heart God knows. We all watched
+her until she was hidden from sight by the shadows of a grove of pines,
+and I still remember the shudder with which I saw her plunge recklessly
+into the gloom--manlike, careful about her beautiful body, and not
+regarding her tender girl heart."
+
+"That must have been a pleasant half hour for you," I could not help
+remarking.
+
+"Pleasant! yes; we were like a lot of devils chained. That night
+dissolved all friendships between any two of us, except between Darling
+and me; and _that_ could never be quite the same again, for had I not
+shown him that I believed myself a favored rival? though I afterwards
+pretended to impute my belief to vanity."
+
+"How did you account _to yourself_ for the delusion? Had she not
+flirted, as it is called, with you?"
+
+"She had certainly caused me to be deluded, innocently or otherwise,
+into a belief that she regarded me with peculiar favor; and I had been
+accustomed to take certain little liberties with her, which probably
+seemed of far greater importance to me than they did to her; for her
+passional nature was hardly yet awakened, and among our primitive
+society there was no great restraint upon any innocent familiarities."
+
+"What became of her after that night?--did she marry Darling?"
+
+The answer did not come at once. Thought and feeling were with the past;
+and I could not bring myself to intrude the present upon it, but busied
+myself with the leaves and vines and mosses that I had snatched from the
+banks in passing, while my friend was absorbed in his silent
+reminiscences.
+
+"You have not heard the saddest part of the story yet," he said at last,
+slowly and reluctantly. "She kept her word with each of us; ignoring
+Allen and King entirely; and only vouchsafing a passing word to Charlie
+and me. Poor Charlie was broken-hearted. He had never been strong, and
+now he was weak, ill; in short, fell into a decline, and died in the
+following year."
+
+"Did the story never get out?"
+
+"Not the true story. That scoundrel King spread a rumor abroad which
+caused much mischief, and was most cruel after what we had done to
+outrage her feelings in the first instance; but that was his revenge for
+her slight--I never knew whether she regretted Darling or not. She was
+so sensitive and willfully proud that she would have died herself sooner
+than betray a regret for any one who had offended her. Her mother died,
+and her father took her away with him to the Sandwich Islands. It was
+said he was not kind to her, especially after her 'disgrace,' as he
+called it."
+
+"She never forgave you? What do you know about her subsequent history?"
+
+"Nothing of it. But she had her revenge for what went before. After she
+went to the Islands I wrote her a very full and perfect confession of my
+fault, and the extenuating circumstances, and offered her my love, with
+the assurance that it had always been hers. What do you think she wrote
+me in return? Only this: that once she _had_ loved me; that she had but
+just made the discovery that she loved me, and not Charlie Darling, when
+we mutually insulted her as we did, and forced her to discard both of
+us; for which she was not now sorry."
+
+"After all, she was not an angel," I said, laughing lightly, to his
+embarrassment.
+
+"But to think of using a girl of sixteen like that!"
+
+"You are in a self-accusing mood to-day. Let us talk of our neighbors.
+Bad as that practice is, I believe it is better than talking about
+ourselves:--Mrs. Sancy thinks so, I know?"
+
+"Who is Mrs. Sancy?"
+
+"I will introduce you to-morrow."
+
+Next to being principal in a romantic _affaire de coeur_ is the
+excitement of being an interested third party. In consonance with this
+belief I laid awake most of the night imagining the possible and
+probable "conclusion of the whole matter." I never doubted that Mrs.
+Sancy was Teresa, nor that she was more fascinating at thirty-one than
+she had been at sixteen: but fifteen years work great changes in the
+intellectual and moral person, and much as I desired to play the part of
+Fate in bringing these two people together, I was very doubtful about
+the result. But I need not have troubled myself to assume the
+prerogative of Fate, which by choosing its own instruments saved me all
+responsibility in the matter.
+
+As Mr. Kittredge messed with a party of military officers, and was off
+on an early excursion to unknown localities, I saw nothing of him the
+following morning. We were to ride on the beach after lunch, returning
+on the turn of the tide to see the bathers. Therefore no opportunity
+seemed likely to present itself before evening for the promised
+introduction.
+
+The afternoon proved fine, and we were cantering gaily along in the
+fresh breeze and sunshine, when another party appeared, advancing from
+the opposite direction, whom I knew to be Mrs. Sancy, her little
+daughter Isabelle, and the Kanaka servant. The child and servant were
+galloping hard, and passed us with a rush. But the lady seemed in a
+quieter mood, riding easily and carelessly, with an air of
+pre-occupation. Suddenly she too gave her horse whip and rein, and as
+she dashed past I heard her exclaim, "The quicksands! the quicksands!"
+
+Instinctively we drew rein, turned, and followed. We rode hard for a few
+minutes, without overtaking her; then slackened our speed on seeing her
+come up with the child, and arrest the race which had so alarmed her.
+
+"There are no quicksands in this direction;" was the first remark of
+Kittredge when we could speak.
+
+"What should make her think so?"
+
+"There _were_ quicksands there a number of years ago, and by her manner
+she must have known it then."
+
+"And by the same token," I replied, "she cannot have been here since the
+change."
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"My friend, Mrs. Sancy."
+
+"Where is she from?"
+
+"From the quicksands;" I replied evasively, as I saw the lady
+approaching us.
+
+"I fear you have shared my fright," she said, as soon as she came within
+speaking distance. "When I used to be familiar with these sands there
+was a dangerous spot out there; but I perceive time has effaced it, as
+he does so many things;" smiling, and bowing to my escort.
+
+"There are some things time never effaces, even from the sands,"
+returned Kittredge, growing visibly pale.
+
+"That is contrary to the poets," laughingly she rejoined; "but I believe
+the poets have been superseded by the scientists, who prove everything
+for you by a fossil."
+
+I could not help watching her to learn how much or how little
+recognition there was in her face. The color came and went, I could
+perceive; but whether with doubt or certainty I could not determine. I
+felt I ought to introduce them, but shrunk from helping on the
+denouement in that way. In my embarrassment I said nothing. We were now
+approaching the vicinity of the bathing-houses, and seeing the visitors
+collecting for the bath, an excuse was furnished for quickening our
+paces. Mrs. Sancy bowed and left us. Mr. Kittredge seemed to have lost
+the power of speech.
+
+Fifteen minutes after I was sitting on some drift-wood, watching the
+pranks of the gayest of the crowd as they "jumped the rollers," when
+Mrs. Sancy came out of a dressing-room, followed by her Kanaka with a
+surf-board. Her bathing-dress was very jaunty and becoming, and her
+skill as a swimmer drew to her a great deal of attention. To swim out
+and float in on the rollers seemed to be to her no more of a feat than
+it would be to a sea-gull, she did it so easily and gracefully. But
+to-day something went wrong with her. Either she was too warm from
+riding, or her circulation was disturbed by the meeting with Kittredge,
+or both; at all events the second time she swam out she failed to
+return. The board slipped away from her, and she sank out of sight.
+
+While I gazed horror-stricken, scarce understanding what had taken
+place, a man rushed past me in his bathing clothes, running out to where
+the water was deep enough to float him, and striking out rapidly from
+there. I could not recognize him in that dress, but I knew it was
+Kittredge. Fate had sent him. The incoming tide kept her where she sank,
+and he soon brought her to the surface and through the surf to the
+beach. I spread my cloak on the sand, and, wrapping her in it, began
+rubbing and rolling her, with the assistance of other ladies, for
+resuscitation from drowning.
+
+In three minutes more Kittredge was kneeling by my side with a
+brandy-flask, administering its contents drop by drop, and giving
+orders. "It is congestion," said he. "You must rub her chest, her back,
+her hands and feet; so, so. She will die in your hands if you are not
+quick. For God's sake, work fast!"
+
+By his presence of mind she was saved as by a miracle. When she was
+removed to her lodgings, and able to converse, she asked me who it was
+that had rescued her.
+
+"Mr. Kittredge," I said.
+
+"The same I met on the beach?"
+
+"The same."
+
+She smiled in a faint, half-dreaming way, and turned away her face. She
+thought I did not know her secret.
+
+I am not going to let my hero take advantage of the first emotion of
+gratitude after a service, to mention his wishes in, as many
+story-tellers do. I consider it a mean advantage; besides Mr. Kittredge
+did not do it. In fact, he absented himself for a week. When he
+returned, I introduced him formally to Mrs. Sancy, and we three walked
+together down to the beach, and seated ourselves on a white old
+cottonwood that had floated out of the Columbia river, and been cast by
+the high tides of winter above the shelving sands.
+
+We were rather a silent party for a few minutes. In his abstraction, Mr.
+Kittredge reached down and traced a name in the sand with the point of
+my parasol stick--TERESA.
+
+Then, seeing the letters staring at him, he looked up at her, and said,
+"I could not brush them out if I would. Time has failed to do that." Her
+gaze wandered away, out to sea, up towards the Capes, down toward the
+Head; and a delicate color grew upon her cheek. "It has scarcely changed
+in fifteen years," she said. "I did not count on finding all things the
+same."
+
+With that I made a pretense of leaving them, to seek shells along the
+beach; for I knew that fate could no longer be averted. When I returned
+she was aware that I possessed the secret of both, and she smiled upon
+me a recognition of my right to be pleased with what I saw; what I
+beheld seeming the prelude to a happy marriage. That night I wrote in my
+diary, after some comments on my relations with Mr. Kittredge:
+
+    "It is best to be off with the old love,
+    Before you are on with the new."
+
+
+
+
+AN OLD FOOL.
+
+PART I.
+
+
+The annual rain-fall on the lower Columbia River is upward of eighty
+inches--often almost ninety; and the greater amount of this fall is
+during the winter months, from November to March, generally the least
+intermittent in December. I mention this climatic fact, the better to be
+understood in attempting to describe a certain December afternoon in the
+year 186-.
+
+It lacked but two days of Christmas, and the sun had not shone out
+brightly for a single hour in three weeks. On this afternoon the steady
+pour from the clouds was a strong reminder of the ancient deluge.
+Between the rain itself and the mist which always accompanies the
+rain-fall in Oregon, the world seemed nearly blotted out. Standing on
+the wharf at Astoria, the noble river looked like a great gray caldron
+of steaming water, evaporating freely at 42 deg.. The lofty highlands on the
+opposite shore had lost all shape, or certain altitude. The stately
+forest of firs along their summits were shrouded in ever-changing masses
+of whitish-gray fog. Nothing could be seen of the light-house on the
+headland at the mouth of the river; nothing of Tongue Point, two miles
+above Astoria; and only a dim presentment of the town itself, and the
+hills at the back of it. Even the old Astorians, used to this sort of
+weather and not disliking it, having little to do in the winter time,
+and being always braced up by sea-airs that even this fresh-water flood
+could not divest of their tonic flavor--these old sea-dogs, pilots,
+fishermen, and other _amphibia_, were constrained at last to give
+utterance to mild growls at the persistent character of the storm.
+
+A crowd of these India-rubber clad, red-cheeked, and, alas! too often
+red-nosed old men of the sea, had taken shelter in the Railroad
+Saloon--called that, apparently, because there was no railroad then
+within hundreds of miles--and were engaged in alternate wild railings at
+the weather, reminiscences of other storms, and whisky-drinking; there
+being an opinion current among these men that water-proof garments alone
+did not suffice to keep out the all-prevailing wet.
+
+"If 'twant that we're so near the sea, with a good wide sewage of river
+to carry off the water, we should all be drownded; thet's my view on't,"
+said Rumway, a bar pilot, whose dripping hat-rim and general shiny
+appearance gave point to his remark.
+
+"You can't count on the sea to befriend you this time, Captain. Better
+git yer ark alongside the wharf; fur we're goin' to hev the Columbia
+runnin' up stream to-night, sure as you're born."
+
+"Hullo! Is that you, Joe Chillis? What brought you to town in this kind
+o' weather? And what do you know about the tides?--that's _my_ business,
+I calculate."
+
+"Mebbe it is; and mebbe a bar pilot knows more about the tides nor a
+mountain man. But there'll be a rousin' old tide to-night, and a
+sou'wester, to boot; you bet yer life on that!"
+
+"I'll grant you thet a mountain man knows a heap thet other men don't.
+But I'll never agree thet he can tell _me_ anything about _my_ business.
+Take a drink, Joe, and then let's hear some o' your mountain yarns."
+
+"Thankee; don't keer ef I do. I can't stop to spin yarns, tho', this
+evenin'. I've got to git home. It won't be easy work pullin' agin the
+tide an hour or two from now."
+
+"What's your hurry?" "A story--a story!" "Let's make a night of it." "O,
+come, Joe, you are not wanted at home. Cabin won't run away; wife won't
+scold." "Stop along ov us till mornin';" were the various rather noisy
+and ejaculatory remarks upon Chillis's avowed intention of abandoning
+good and appreciative company, without stopping to tell one of his
+ever-ready tales of Indian and bear fighting in the Rocky Mountains
+thirty years before.
+
+"Why, you ain't goin' out again till you've shaken off the water, Joe.
+You're dripping like a Newfoundland;" said Captain Rumway, as Chillis
+put down his empty glass, and turned toward the door, which he had
+entered not five minutes before. This thoughtfulness for his comfort,
+however, only meant, "Stay till you've taken another drink, and then
+maybe you will tell us a story;" and Chillis knew the bait well enough
+to decline it.
+
+"Thankee, Captain. One bucketful more or less won't make no difference.
+I'm wet to the skin now. Thank ye all, gentlemen; I've got business to
+attend to this evenin'. Have any of you seen Eb Smiley this
+arternoon?"--looking back, with his hand on the door-knob. "I'd like to
+speak to him afore I leave, ef you can tell me whar to find him."
+
+"You'll find him in there," answered the bar-tender, crooking his thumb
+toward a room leading out of the saloon, containing a tumbled single-bed
+and a wooden settee, besides various masculine bijouterie in the shape
+of boots, old and new, clean and dirty; candle and cigar ends; dusty
+bits of paper on a stand, the chief ornament of which was a
+black-looking derringer; coats, vests, fishing-tackle; and cheap prints,
+adorning the walls in the wildest disregard of effect--except, indeed,
+the effect aimed at were chaos.
+
+Into this apartment Chillis unceremoniously thrust himself through the
+half-open door, frowning as darkly as his fine and pleasant features
+would admit of, and muttering to himself, "Damme, I thought as much."
+
+On the wooden settee reclined a man thirty years his junior--Chillis was
+over sixty, though he did not look it--sleeping the heavy, stupid sleep
+of intoxication. The old hunter did not stand upon ceremony, nor
+hesitate to invade the sleeper's privacy, but marched up to the settee,
+his ragged old blanket-coat dripping tiny streams from every separate
+tatter, and proceeded at once roughly to arouse the drunken man by a
+prolonged and vigorous shaking.
+
+"Wha'er want? Lemme 'lone," grumbled Smiley, only dimly conscious of
+what was being said or done to him.
+
+"Get up, I say. Get up, you fool! and come along home. Your wife is
+needin' ye. Go home and take care of her and the boy. Come along--d'ye
+hear?"
+
+But the sleeper's brain was impervious to sound or sense. He only
+muttered, in a drowsy whisper, "Lemme 'lone," a few times, and went off
+into a deeper stupor than before.
+
+"You miserable cuss," snarled Chillis, in his wrath, "be d----d to you,
+then! Drink yerself to death, ef you want to--the sooner the better;"
+and, with this parting adjuration, and an extra shake, the old mountain
+man, who had drank barrels of alcohol himself with comparative immunity
+from harm, turned his back upon this younger degenerate victim of modern
+whisky, and strode out of the room and the house, without stopping to
+reply to the renewed entreaties of his friends to remain and "make a
+night of it."
+
+Making directly for the wharf, where his boat was moored, half filled
+with water, he hastily bailed it out, pushed off, and, dropping the oars
+into the row-locks, bent to the work before him; for the tide was
+already beginning to run up, and the course he had to take brought him
+dead against it for the first two or three miles, after which the tide
+would be with him, and, if there should not be too much sea, the labor
+of impelling the boat would be materially lessened.
+
+The lookout from a small boat was an ugly one at three o'clock of this
+rainy December afternoon. A dense, cold fog had been rolling in from the
+sea for the last half hour, and the wind was rising with the tide. Under
+the shelter of the hills at the foot of which Astoria nestled, the wind
+did not make itself felt; but once past "The Point," and in the exposed
+waters of Young's Bay, the south-westers had a fair sweep of the great
+river, of which the bay is only an inlet. One of these dreaded storms
+was preparing to make itself felt, as Chillis had predicted, and as he
+now saw by the way in which the mist was being blown off the face of the
+river, and the "white-caps" came instead. Before he arrived off the
+Point he laid down his oars, and, taking out of his coat-pocket a
+saturated yellow cotton handkerchief, proceeded to tie his old soft felt
+hat down over his ears, and otherwise make ready for a struggle with
+wind and water--neither of them adversaries to be trifled with, as he
+knew.
+
+Not a minute too soon, either; for, just when he had resumed the oars,
+the boat, having drifted out of her course, was caught by a wave and a
+blast on its broadside, and nearly upset.
+
+"Steady, little gal," said Chillis, bringing his boat round, head to the
+wind. "None o' your capers now. Thar is serious work on hand, an' I want
+you to behave better'n ever you did afore. It's you an' me, an' the
+White Rose, this time, sure," and he pressed his lips together grimly,
+and peered out from under his bent old hat at the storm which was
+driving furiously against his broad breast, and into his white, anxious
+face, almost blinding and strangling him. His boat was a small one--too
+small for the seas of the lower Columbia--but it was trim and light, and
+steered easily. Besides, the old mountaineer was a skilled oarsman,
+albeit this accomplishment was not a part of the education of American
+hunters and trappers, as it was of the French _voyageurs_. Keeping his
+little craft head to the wind, he took each wave squarely on the prow,
+and with a powerful stroke of the oars cut through it, or sprang over
+it, and then made ready for the next. Meanwhile, the storm increased,
+the rain driving at an angle of 45 deg., and in sheets that flapped
+smotheringly about him like wet blankets, and threatened to swamp his
+boat without assistance from the waves. It was growing colder, too, and
+his sodden garments were of little service to protect him from the chill
+that comes with a south-wester; nor was the grip of the naked hands upon
+the oars stimulating to the circulation of his old blood through the
+swollen fingers.
+
+But old Joe Chillis had a distinct comprehension of the situation, and
+felt himself to be master of it. He had gone over to Astoria that day,
+not to drink whisky and tell stories, but to do a good turn for the
+"White Rose." Failing in his purpose, he was going back again, at any
+cost, to make up for the miscarriage of that effort. Death itself could
+not frighten him; for what was the Columbia in a storm to the dangers he
+had passed through in years of hunting and trapping in the Rocky
+Mountains? He had seemed to bear a charmed life then; he would believe
+that the charm had not deserted him.
+
+But, O, how his old arms ached! and the storm freshening every minute,
+with two miles further to row, in the teeth of it. The tide was with him
+now; but the wind was against the tide, and made an ugly sea. If he only
+could reach the mouth of the creek before dark. If he could? Why, he
+must. The tide would be up so that he could not find the entrance in the
+dark. He worked resolutely--worked harder than ever--but he did not
+accomplish so much, because his strength was giving out. When he first
+became aware of this, he heaved a great sigh, as if his heart were
+broken, then pressed his lips together as before, and peered through the
+thick gray twilight, looking for the creek's mouth while yet there was a
+little light.
+
+He was now in the very worst part of the bay, where the current from
+Young's River was strongest, setting out toward the Columbia, and where
+the wind had the fairest sweep, blowing from the coast across the low
+Clatsop plains. Only the tide and his failing strength were opposed to
+these; would they enable him to hold his own? He set his teeth harder
+than ever, but it was all in vain, and directly the catastrophe came.
+His strength wavered, the boat veered round, a sudden gust and roll of
+water took it broadside, and over she went, keel up, more than a mile
+from land.
+
+But this was not the last of Joe Chillis--not by any manner of means. He
+had trapped beaver too many years to mind a ducking more or less, if he
+only had his strength. So, when he came up, he clutched an oar that was
+floating past him, and looked about for the boat. She was not far
+off--the tide was holding her, bobbing up and down like a cork. In a few
+minutes she was righted, and Chillis had scrambled in, losing his oar
+while doing it, and regaining it while being nearly upset again.
+
+It had become a matter of life and death now to keep afloat, with only
+one oar to fight the sea with; and, though hoping little from the
+expedient, in such a gale--blowing the wrong way, besides--Chillis
+shouted for assistance in every lull of the tempest. To his own intense
+astonishment, as well as relief, his hail was answered.
+
+"Where away?" came on the wind, the sound seeming to flap and flutter
+like a shred of torn sail.
+
+"Off the creek, about a mile?" shouted Chillis, with those powerful
+lungs of his, that had gotten much of their bellows-like proportions
+during a dozen years of breathing the thin air of the mountains.
+
+"All right!" was returned on the snapping, fluttering gale. After this
+answer, Chillis contented himself with keeping his boat right side up,
+and giving an occasional prolonged "Oh-whoo!" to guide his rescuers
+through the thickening gloom. How long it seemed, with the growing
+darkness, and the effort to avoid another upset! But the promised help
+came at last, in the shape of the mail-carrier's plunger, her trim
+little mast catching his eyes, shining white and bare out of the dusk.
+Directly he heard the voices of the mail-carrier and another.
+
+"Where be ye? _Who_ be ye?"
+
+"Right here, under yer bow. Joe Chillis, you bet your life!"
+
+"Waal, come aboard here, mighty quick. Make fast. Mind your boat; don't
+let her strike us. Pole off--pole off, with yer oar!"
+
+"Mind _your_ oars," returned Chillis; "I'll mind mine"--every word
+spoken with a yell.
+
+"What was the row, out there?" asks the mail-carrier, making a trumpet
+of his hand.
+
+"Boat flopped over; lost an oar," answered Chillis, keeping his little
+craft from flying on board by main force.
+
+"Guess I won't go over to-night," says the carrier. "'Taint safe for
+the mail"--The wind snatching the word "mail" out of his mouth, and
+scattering it over the water as if it had been a broken bundle of
+letters. "I'll go back to Skippanon"--the letters flying every way
+again.
+
+"Couldn't get over noways, now," shouts back Chillis, glad in his heart
+that he could not, and that the chance, or mischance, favored his
+previous designs. Then he said no more, but watched his boat, warding it
+off carefully until they reached the mouth of the creek and got inside,
+with nothing worse to contend against than the insolent wind and rain.
+
+"This is a purty stiff tide, for this time o' day. It won't take long to
+pull up to Skippanon, with all this water pushin' us along. Goin' home
+to-night, Joe?"
+
+"Yes, I'm goin' home, ef I can borrer an oar," said Chillis. "My house
+ain't altogether safe without me, in sech weather as this."
+
+"Safer 'n most houses, ef she don't break away from her moorin's,"
+returned the mail-carrier, laughing. "Ef I can git somebody to take my
+place for a week, I'm comin' up to spend it with you, an' do some
+shootin'. Nothin' like such an establishment as yours to go huntin'
+in--house an' boat all in one--go where you please, an' stay as long as
+you please."
+
+"Find me an oar to git home with, an' you can come an' stay as long as
+the grub holds out."
+
+"Waal, I can do that, I guess, when we git to the landin'. I keep an
+extra pair or two for emergencies. But it's gittin' awful black,
+Chillis, an' I don't envy you the trip up the creek. It's crooked as a
+string o' S's, an' full o' shoals, to boot."
+
+"It won't be shoal to-night," remarked Chillis, and relapsed into
+silence.
+
+In a few minutes the boat's bow touched the bank. "Mind the tiller!"
+called out both oarsmen, savagely. But as no one minded it, and it was
+too dark to see what was the matter, the mail-carrier dropped his oar,
+and stepped back to the stern to _feel_ what it was.
+
+"He's fast asleep, or drunk, or dead, I don't know which," he called to
+the other oarsman, as he got hold of the steering gear, and headed the
+boat up-stream again. His companion made no reply, and the party
+proceeded in silence to the landing. Here, by dint of much shouting and
+hallooing, the inmates of a house close by became informed of something
+unusual outside, and, after a suitable delay, a man appeared, carrying a
+lantern.
+
+"It's you, is it?" he said to the mail-carrier. "I reckoned you wouldn't
+cross to-night. Who ye got in there?"
+
+"It's Joe Chillis. We picked him up outside, about a mile off the land.
+His boat had been upset, an' he'd lost an oar; an' ef we hadn't gone to
+his assistance it would have been the last of old Joe, I guess."
+
+"Hullo, Joe! Why don't you git up?" asked the man, seeing that Chillis
+did not rise, or change his position.
+
+"By George! I don't know what's the matter with him. Give me the
+lantern;" and the mail-carrier took the light and flashed it over
+Chillis's face.
+
+"I don't know whether he's asleep, or has fainted, or what. He's awful
+white, an' there's an ugly cut in his shoulder, an' his coat all torn
+away. Must have hurt himself tryin' to right his boat, I guess. George!
+the iron on the rowlock must have struck right into the flesh."
+
+"He didn't say he was hurt," rejoined the other oarsman.
+
+"It's like enough he didn't know it," said the man with the lantern.
+"When a man's in danger he doesn't feel a hurt. Poor old Joe! he wasn't
+drunk, or he couldn't have handled his boat at all in this weather. We
+must take him in, I s'pose."
+
+Then the three men lifted him upon his feet, and, by shaking and
+talking, aroused him sufficiently to walk with their support to the
+house. There they laid him on a bench, and brought him a glass of hot
+whisky and water; and the women of the house gathered about shyly,
+gazing compassionately upon the ugly wound in the old man's delicate
+white flesh, white and delicate as the fairest woman's.
+
+Presently, Chillis sat up and looked about him. "Have you got me the
+oars?" he said to the mail-carrier.
+
+"You won't row any more to-night, Joe, _I_ guess," the carrier answered,
+smiling grimly. "Look at your shoulder, man."
+
+"Shoulder be d----d!" retorted Chillis. "Beg pardon, ladies; I didn't
+see you. Been asleep, haven't I? Perhaps, sence you seem to think I'm
+not fit for rowin', one of these ladies will do me the favor to help me
+put myself in order. Have you a piece of court-plaster, or a healing
+salve, ma'am?"--to the elder woman. "Ladies mostly keep sech trifles
+about them, I believe."
+
+Then he straightened himself up to his magnificent height, and threw out
+his broad, round chest, as if the gash in his shoulder were an epaulet
+or a band of stars instead.
+
+"Of course, I can do something for you," said the woman he had
+addressed, very cheerfully and quickly. "I have the best healing salve
+in all the country;" and, running away, she quickly returned with a roll
+of linen, and the invaluable salve.
+
+"I must look at the wound, and see if it wants washing out. Ugh! O,
+dear! it is a dreadful cut, and ragged. You will have to go to the
+doctor with that, I'm afraid. But I'll just put this on to-night, to
+prevent your taking cold in it; though you will take cold, anyway, if
+you do not get a change of clothes;" and the good woman looked round at
+her husband, asking him with her eyes to offer this very necessary
+kindness.
+
+"You'll stop with us to-night, Joe," said the man, in answer to this
+appeal, "an' the sooner you git off them wet clothes the better. I'll
+lend you some o' mine."
+
+"Yes, indeed, Mr. Chillis, you must get out of these wet things, and put
+on some of Ben's. Then you will let me get you a bit of hot supper, and
+go right to bed. You don't look as if you could sit up. There!" she
+added, as the salve was pressed gently down over the torn flesh, and
+heaving a deep sigh, "if you feel half as sick as I do, just looking at
+it, you will do well to get ready to lie down."
+
+"Thankee, ma'am. It's worth a man's while to git hurt a leetle, ef he
+has a lady to take care o' him," answered Chillis, gallantly. "But I
+can't accept your kindness any furder to-night. Ef I can git the loan of
+a lantern an' a pair o' oars, it is all I ask, for home I must go, as
+soon as possible."
+
+"Ben will lend you a lantern," said the mail-carrier, "an' I will lend
+you the oars, as I promised; but what on earth you want to go any
+further in this storm for, beats me."
+
+"This storm has only jist begun, and its goin' to last three days,"
+returned Chillis. "No use waitin' for it to quit; so, good-night to you
+all. I've made a pretty mess o' your floor," he added, turning to glance
+at the little black puddles that had drained out of his great spongy
+blanket coat, and run down through his leaky boots on to the
+white-scoured boards of the kitchen; then, glancing from them to the
+mistress of the house--"I hope you'll excuse me." And with that he
+opened the door quickly, and shut himself out into the tempest once
+more, making his way by the lantern's aid to the boat-house at the
+landing, where he helped himself to what he needed, and was soon pulling
+up the creek. Luckily there was no current against him, for it was
+sickening work making the oar-stroke with that hurt in his shoulder.
+
+He could see by the light of the lantern, which he occasionally held
+aloft, that the long grass of the tide-marsh was already completely
+submerged, the immense flats looking like a sea, with the wind driving
+the water before it in long rolls, or catching it up and flirting it
+through the air in spray and foam. His only guide to his course was the
+scattering line of low willows whose tops still bent and shook above the
+flood, indicating the slightly raised banks of the creek, everything
+more distant being hidden in the profound darkness which brooded over
+and seemed a part of the storm. But even with these landmarks he
+wandered a good deal in his reckoning, and an hour or more had elapsed
+before his watchful eyes caught the gleam of what might have been a star
+reflected in the ocean.
+
+"Thank God!" he whispered, and pulled a little faster toward that spark
+of light.
+
+In ten minutes more, he moored his boat to the hitching-post in front of
+a tiny cottage, from whose uncurtained window the light of a brisk
+wood-fire was shining. As the chain clanked in the ring, the door
+opened, and a woman and child looked out.
+
+"Is that you, Eben?" asked the woman, in an eager voice, made husky by
+previous weeping. "I certainly feared you were drowned." Then seeing, as
+her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, that the figure still
+lingering about the boat was not her husband's she shrank back, fearing
+the worst.
+
+"I'm sorry I'm not the one you looked for, Mrs. Smiley," answered
+Chillis, standing on the bit of portico, with its dripping honeysuckle
+vines swinging in the wind; "but I'm better than nobody, I reckon, an'
+Smiley will hardly be home to-night. The bay's awful rough, an' ef I
+hadn't started over early, I shouldn't have ventured, neither. No, you
+needn't look for your husband to-night, ma'am."
+
+"Will you not come in by the fire, Mr. Chillis?" asked the woman,
+hesitatingly, seeing that he seemed waiting to be invited.
+
+"Thankee. But I shall spile your floor, ef I do. I'm a perfect sponge,
+not fit to come near a lady, nohow. I thought," he added, as he closed
+the door and advanced to the hearth, "that I would jest stop an' see ef
+I could do anything for you, seein' as I guessed you'd be alone, and
+mebbe afeard o' the storm an' the high tide. Ladies mostly is afeard to
+be alone at sech times"--untying the yellow cotton handkerchief and
+throwing his sodden hat upon the stone hearth.
+
+"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Smiley, embarrassed, yet
+anxious. She stood in the middle of the room, behind him, with that
+irresolute air an inexperienced person has in unexpected circumstances.
+
+He turned around with his back to the blaze, while a faint mist of
+evaporation began to creep out all over him, and occasionally to dart
+out in slender streams and float up the wide chimney.
+
+"There's no danger _now_, an' mebbe there won't _be_ any. But the tide
+will not turn much afore midnight, an' it's higher now than it generally
+is when it is full."
+
+"What's that?" cried Willie, the boy, his senses sharpened by the
+mention of danger.
+
+"It's the wind rattlin' my boat-chains," returned Chillis, smiling at
+the little fellow's startled looks.
+
+"Your boat-chain!" echoed his mother, not less startled. "Was it your
+boat that you were fastening to the hitching-post? I thought it was your
+horse. Is the water up so high, then, already?"--her cheeks paling as
+she spoke.
+
+"I dragged it up a little way," returned Chillis, slowly, and turning
+his face back to the fire. He was listening attentively, and thought he
+caught the sound of lapping water.
+
+"Have you just come from Astoria?" asked Mrs. Smiley, approaching, and
+standing at one corner of the hearth. The fire-light shone full upon her
+now, and revealed a clear white face; large, dark-gray eyes, full of
+sadness and perplexity; a beautifully shaped head, coiled round and
+round with heavy twists of golden hair, that glittered in its high
+lights like burnished metal; and a figure at once full and lithe in its
+proportions, clad in a neat-fitting dress of some soft, dark material,
+set off with a tiny white collar and bright ribbon. It was easy to see
+why she was the "White Rose" to the rough old mountain man. She was
+looking up at him with an eager, questioning gaze, that meant, O, ever
+so much more than her words.
+
+"Not quite direct. I stopped down at the landin', an' I lost a little
+time gittin' capsized in the bay. I left about three o'clock."
+
+"Might not Eben have left a little later," the gray eyes added, "and
+have been capsized, too?"
+
+"He wouldn't _try_ to cross half an hour later--I'll wager my head on
+that. He can't get away from town to-night; an', what is worse, I don't
+think he can cross for two or three days. We've got our Christmas storm
+on hand, an' a worse one than we've had for twenty years, or I'm
+mistaken."
+
+"If you thought the storm was going to be severe, why did you not warn
+Eben, Mr. Chillis?" The gray eyes watched him steadily.
+
+"I did say, there would be a sou'-wester uncommon severe; but Rumway
+laughed at me for prophesyin' in his company. Besides, I was in a hurry
+to get off, myself, and wouldn't argue with 'em. Smiley's a man to take
+his own way pretty much, too."
+
+"I wish you had warned him," sighed Mrs. Smiley, and turned wearily
+away. She left her guest gazing into the fire and still steaming in a
+very unsavory manner, lighted a candle, set it in the window, and opened
+the door to look out. What she saw made her start back with a cry of
+affright, and hurriedly close the door.
+
+"Your boat is this side of the hitching-post, and the water is all
+around us!"
+
+"An' it is not yet eight o'clock. I guessed it would be so."
+
+Just then, a fearful blast shook the house, and the boat's chain clanked
+nearer. Willie caught his mother's hand, and shivered all over with
+terror. "O, mamma!" he sobbed, "will the water drown our house?"
+
+"I hope not, my boy. It may come up and wet our warm, dry floor; but I
+trust it will not give us so much trouble. We do not like wet feet, do
+we, Willie?"
+
+Then the mother, intent on soothing the child, sat down in the
+fire-light and held his curly head in her lap, whispering little cooing
+sentences into his ear whenever he grew restless; while her strange,
+unbidden guest continued to evaporate in one corner of the hearth,
+sitting with his hands on his knees, staring at something in the coals.
+There was no attempt at conversation. There had never, until this
+evening, been a dozen words exchanged between these neighbors, who knew
+each other by sight and by reputation well enough. Joe Chillis was not a
+man whose personal appearance--so far as clothes went--nor whose
+reputation, would commend him to women generally--the one being shabby
+and careless, the other smacking of recklessness and whisky. Not that
+any great harm was known of the man; but that he was out of the pale of
+polite society even in this new and isolated corner of the earth. He had
+had an Indian wife in his youth; being more accustomed to the ways of
+her people than of his own. For nearly twenty years he had lived a
+thriftless, bachelor existence, known among men, and by hearsay among
+women, as a noted story-teller, and genial, devil-may-care, old mountain
+man, whose heart was in the right place, but who never drew very heavily
+upon his brain resources, except to embellish a tale of his early
+exploits in Indian-fighting, bear-killing and beaver-trapping. It was
+with a curious feeling of wonder that Mrs. Smiley found herself
+_tete-a-tete_ with him at her own fireside; and, in spite of her anxiety
+about other matters, she could not help studying him a good deal, as he
+sat there, silent and almost as motionless as a statue; nor keep from
+noticing his splendid _physique_, and the aristocratic cut of his
+features; nor from imagining him as he must have been in his youth. She
+was absorbed for a little while, picturing this gallant young White
+among his Indian associates--trying to fancy how he treated his squaw
+wife, and whether he really cared for her as he would for a White woman;
+then, she wondered what kind of an experience his present life would be
+for any one else--herself, for instance--living most of the year on a
+flat-boat housed in, and hiding in sloughs, and all manner of watery,
+out-of-the-way places. She loved forest and stream, and sylvan shades,
+well enough; but not well enough for that. So a human creature who could
+thus voluntarily exile himself must be peculiar. But Joe Chillis did not
+look peculiar; he looked as alive and human as anybody--in fact,
+particularly alive and human just now; and it was not any eccentricity
+which had brought him to her this night, but a real human reason. What
+was the reason?
+
+What with his mother's cooing whispers, and the passing of her light
+hand over his hair, Willie had fallen asleep. Mrs. Smiley lifted him in
+her arms and laid him on the lounge, covering him carefully, and
+touching him tenderly, kissing his bright curls at the last. Chillis
+turned to watch her--he could not help it. Perhaps he speculated about
+_her_ way of living and acting, as she had speculated about his.
+Meantime, the tempest outside increased in fury, and the little cottage
+trembled with its fitful shocks.
+
+Now that Willie was asleep, Mrs. Chillis felt a growing nervousness and
+embarrassment. She could not bring herself to sit down again, alone with
+Joe Chillis. Not that she was afraid of him--there was nothing in his
+appearance to inspire a dread of the man; but she wanted to know what he
+was there for. The sensitive nerves of the man felt this mental inquiry
+of her, but he would not be the first to speak; so he let her flutter
+about--brightening the fire, putting to right things that were right
+enough as they were, and making a pretense of being busied with
+household cares. At length, there was nothing more to do except to wind
+the clock, which stood on the mantel, over the hearth. Here was her
+opportunity. "The evening has seemed very long," she said, "but it is
+nine o'clock, at last."
+
+Chillis got up, went to the door, and opened it. The boat was bumping
+against the floor of the tiny portico. She saw it, too, and her heart
+gave a great bound. Chillis came back, and sat down by the fire, looking
+very grave and preoccupied. With a little shiver, she sat down opposite.
+It was clear that he had no intention of going; and, strange as she felt
+the situation to be, she experienced a sort of relief that he was there.
+She was not a cowardly woman, nor was her guest one she would have been
+likely to appeal to in any peril; but, since a possible peril had come,
+and he was there of his own accord, she owned to herself she was not
+sorry. She was a woman, any way, and must needs require services of men,
+whoever they might be. Having disposed of this question, it occurred to
+her to be gracious to the man whose services she had made up her mind to
+accept. Glancing into his face, she noticed its pallor; and then
+remembered what he had said about being capsized in the bay, and that he
+was an old man; and then, that he might not have had any supper. All of
+which inspired her to say, "I beg pardon, Mr. Chillis. I presume you
+have eaten nothing this evening. I shall get you something, right
+away--a cup of hot coffee, for instance." And, without waiting to hear
+his faint denial, Mrs. Smiley made all haste to put her hospitable
+intentions into practice, and soon had spread a little table with a very
+appetizing array of cold meats, fruit, bread, and coffee.
+
+While her guest, with a few words of thanks, accepted and disposed of
+the refreshments, Mrs. Smiley sat and gazed at the fire in her turn. The
+little cottage trembled, the windows rattled, the storm roared without,
+and--yes, the water actually lapped against the house! She started,
+turning to the door. The wind was driving the flood in under it. She
+felt a chill run through her flesh.
+
+"Mr. Chillis, the water is really coming into the house!"
+
+"Yes, I reckoned that it would," returned the old man, calmly, rising
+from the table and returning to the hearth. "That is the nicest supper
+I've had for these dozen years; and it has done me good, too. I was a
+little wore out with pullin' over the bay, agin the wind."
+
+Mrs. Smiley looked at him curiously, and then at the water splashing in
+under the door. He understood her perfectly.
+
+"A wettin' wouldn't hurt you, though it would be disagreeable, an' I
+should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. But the wind
+_and_ the water may unsettle the foundation o' your house, the chimney
+bein' on the outside, an' no support to it. Even that would not
+certainly put you in danger, as the frame would likely float. But I
+knew, ef sech a thing should happen, an' you here alone, you would be
+very much frightened, an' perhaps lose your life a-tryin' to save it."
+
+"And you came up from the landing in all this storm to take care of me?"
+Mrs. Smiley exclaimed, with flushing cheeks.
+
+"I came all the way from Astoria to do it," answered Chillis, looking at
+the new-blown roses of her face.
+
+"And Eben----" She checked herself, and fixed her eyes upon the hearth.
+
+"He thought there was no danger, most likely."
+
+"Mr. Chillis, I can never thank you!" she cried, fervently, as she
+turned to glance at the sleeping child.
+
+"White Rose," he answered, under his breath, "I don't want any thanks
+but those I've got." Then, aloud to her: "You might have some blankets
+ready, in case we are turned out o' the house. The fire will be 'most
+sure to be put out, any way, an' you an' the boy will be cold."
+
+Mrs. Smiley was shivering with that tenseness of the nerves which the
+bravest women suffer from, when obliged to wait the slow but certain
+approach of danger. Her teeth chattered together, as she went about her
+band-box of a house, collecting things that would be needed, should she
+be forced to abandon the shelter of its lowly roof; and, as she was thus
+engaged, she thought the place had never seemed so cosy as it did this
+wild and terrible night. She put on her rubber overshoes, tied snugly on
+a pretty woollen hood, got ready a pile of blankets and a warm shawl,
+lighted a large glass lantern (as she saw the water approaching the
+fireplace), and, last, proceeded to arouse Willie, and wrap him up in
+overcoat, little fur cap, and warm mittens; when all was done, she
+turned and looked anxiously at the face of her guest. It might have been
+a mask, for all she could learn from it. He was silently watching her,
+not looking either depressed or hopeful. She went up to him, and touched
+his sleeve. "How wet you are, still," she said, compassionately. "I had
+forgotten that you must have been uncomfortable after your capsize in
+the bay. Perhaps it is not too late to change your clothes. You will
+find some of Eben's in the next room. Shall I lay them out for you?"
+
+He smiled when she touched him, a bright, warm smile, that took away ten
+years of his age; but he did not move.
+
+"No," said he, "it's no use now, to put on dry clothes. It won't hurt me
+to be wet; I'm used to it; but I shall be sorry when this cheerful fire
+is out."
+
+He had hardly spoken, when a blast struck the house, more terrific than
+any that had gone before it, and a narrow crack became visible between
+the hearth-stone and the floor, through which the water oozed in quite
+rapidly. Mrs. Smiley's face blanched.
+
+"That started the house a leetle," said Chillis, lighting his lantern by
+the fire.
+
+"Could we get to the landing, do you think?" asked Mrs. Smiley,
+springing instinctively to the lounge, where the child lay in a
+half-slumber.
+
+"Not afore the tide begins to run out. Ef it was daylight, we might, by
+keepin' out o' the channel; but the best we can do now is to stick to
+the place we're in as long as it holds together, or keeps right side up.
+When we can't stay no longer, we'll take to the boat."
+
+"I believe you know best, Mr. Chillis; but it's frightful waiting for
+one's house to float away from under one's feet, or fall about one's
+head. And the tide, too! I have always feared and hated the tides, they
+have been a horror to me ever since I came here. It seems so dreadful to
+have the earth slowly sinking into the sea; for that is the way it
+appears to do, you know."
+
+"Yes, I remember hearin' you say you were nervous about the tides, once,
+when I called here to see your husband. Curious, that I often thought o'
+that chance sayin' o' yours, isn't it?"
+
+Mrs. Smiley's reply was a smothered cry of terror, as another
+blast--sudden, strong, protracted--pushed the house still further away
+from the fire-place, letting the storm in at the opening; for it was
+from that direction that the wind came.
+
+"Now she floats!" exclaimed Chillis. "We'll soon know whether she's
+seaworthy or not. I had better take a look at my boat, I reckon; for
+that's our last resort, in case your ark is worthless, Mrs. Smiley." He
+laughed softly, and stepped more vigorously than he had done, as the
+danger grew more certain.
+
+"All right yet--cable not parted; ready to do us a good turn, if we need
+it."
+
+"We shall not be floated off to the bay, shall we?" asked Mrs. Smiley,
+trying to smile too.
+
+"Not afore the tide turns, certain."
+
+"It seems to me that I should feel safer anywhere than here. Unseen
+dangers always are harder to battle with, even in imagination. I do not
+wish to put you to any further trouble; but I should not mind the storm
+and the open boat so much as seeing my house going to pieces, with me in
+it--and Willie."
+
+"I've been a-thinkin'," replied Chillis, "that the house, arter all,
+ain't goin' to be much protection, with the water splashin' under foot,
+an' the wind an' rain drivin' in on that side where the chimney is took
+away. It's an awful pity such a neat, nice little place should come to
+grief, like this--a real snug little home!"
+
+"And what else were you thinking?"--bringing him back to the subject of
+expedients.
+
+"You mentioned goin' to the landin'. Well, we can't go there; for I
+doubt ef I could find the way in the dark, with the water over the tops
+of the bushes on the creek bank. Besides, in broad daylight it would be
+tough work, pullin' agin' the flood; an' I had the misfortin to hurt my
+shoulder, tryin' to right my boat in the bay, which partly disables me,
+I am sorry to say; for I should like to put my whole strength to your
+service."
+
+"O, Mr. Chillis!--say no more, I beg. How selfish I am! when you have
+been so kind--with a bruise on your shoulder, and all! Cannot I do
+anything for you? I have liquor in the closet, if you would like to
+bathe with it."
+
+"See--she moves again!" cried he, as the house swayed yet further away
+from the smouldering fire. "I've heard of 'abandonin' one's
+hearth-stone;' but I'd no idea that was the way they done it."
+
+"I had best get the brandy, any way, I think. We may need it, if we are
+forced to go into the boat. But do let me do something for you now, Mr.
+Chillis? It seems cruel, that you have been in your wet clothes for
+hours, and tired and bruised besides."
+
+"Thankee--'tain't no use!"--as she offered him the brandy-flask. "The
+lady down at the landin' put on a plaster, as you can see for
+yourself"--throwing back the corner of a cloth cape the woman had placed
+over his shoulders, to cover the rent in his coat. "The doctor will have
+to fix it up, I reckon; for it is cut up pretty bad with the iron."
+
+Mrs. Smiley turned suddenly sick. She was just at that stage of
+excitement when "a rose-leaf on the beaker's brim" causes the overflow
+of the cup. The undulations of the water, under the floor and over it,
+contributed still further to the feeling; and she hurried to the lounge
+to save herself from falling. Here she threw herself beside Willie, and
+cried a little, quietly, under cover of her shawl.
+
+"There she goes! Well, this isn't pleasant, noways," said Chillis, as
+the house, freed with a final crash from impediments, swayed about
+unsteadily, impelled by wind and water. "I was sayin', a bit ago, that
+we could not git to the landin', at present. There are three ways o'
+choosin', though, which are these: to stay where we are; to git into the
+boat, an' let the house take its chances; or to try to git to my cabin,
+where we would be safe an' could keep warm."
+
+"How long would it take us to get to your house?" asked Mrs. Smiley,
+from under her shawl.
+
+"An hour, mebbe. We should have to feel our way."
+
+Mrs. Smiley reflected. Sitting out in an open boat, without trying to do
+anything, would be horrible; staying where she was would be hardly less
+so. It would be six or seven hours still to daylight. There was no
+chance of the storm abating, though the water must recede after
+midnight.
+
+"Let us go," she said, sitting up. "You will not desert _me_, I know;
+and why should I keep you here all night, in anxiety and peril? Once at
+home, you can rest and nurse yourself."
+
+"So be it; an' God help us!"
+
+"Amen!"
+
+Chillis opened the door and looked out, placing a light first in the
+window. Then coming back for a basin, he waded out, bailed his boat,
+and, unfastening the chain, hauled it alongside the doorway. Mrs. Smiley
+had hastily put some provisions into a tin bucket, with a cover, and
+some things for Willie into another, and stood holding them, ready to be
+stowed away.
+
+"You will have to take the tiller," said Chillis, placing the buckets
+safely in the boat.
+
+"I meant to take an oar," said she.
+
+"If you know how to steer, it will be better for me to pull alone. Now,
+let us have the boy, right in the bottom here, with plenty o' blankets
+under and over him; the same for yourself. The lanterns--so. Now, jump
+in!"
+
+"The fire is dead on the hearth," she said, looking back through the
+empty house, and across the gap of water showing through the broken
+wall. "What a horrible scene! God sent you, Mr. Chillis, to help me live
+through it."
+
+"I believe he did. Are you quite ready?"
+
+"Quite; only tell me what I must do. I wish I could help you."
+
+"You do?" he answered; and then he bent himself to the work before him,
+with a sense of its responsibility which exalted it into a deed of the
+purest chivalry.
+
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+PART II.
+
+
+The widow Smiley did not live on Clatsop Plains. Ever since the great
+storm at Christmas, when her house was carried off its foundations by
+the high tide, she had refused to go back to it. When the neighbors
+heard of her husband's death, they took her over to Astoria to see him
+buried, for there was no home to bring him to, and she had never
+returned. Smiley, they say, was drowned where he fell, in the streets of
+Astoria, that night of the high tide, being too intoxicated to get up.
+But nobody told the widow that. They said to her that he stumbled off
+the wharf, in the dark, and that the tide brought him ashore, and that
+was enough for her to know.
+
+She was staying with the family at the landing when the news came, two
+days after his death. Joe Chillis brought her things down to the
+landing, and had them sent over to Astoria, where she decided to stay;
+and afterward she sold the farm and bought a small house in town, where,
+after two or three months, she opened a school for young children. And
+the women of the place had all taken to making much of Joe Chillis, in
+consideration of his conduct during that memorable time, and of his
+sufferings in consequence; for he was laid up a long while afterward
+with that hurt in his shoulder, and the consequences of his exposure.
+Mrs. Smiley always treated him with the highest respect, and did not
+conceal that she had a great regard for him, if he _was_ nothing but an
+old mountain man, who had had a squaw wife; which regard, under the
+circumstances, was not to be wondered at.
+
+Widow Smiley was young, and pretty, and _smart_; and Captain Rumway, the
+pilot, was dreadfully taken up with her, and nobody would blame her for
+taking a second husband, who was able and willing to provide well for
+her. If it was to be a match, nobody would speak a word against it. It
+was said that he had left off drinking on her account, and was building
+a fine house up on the hill, on one of the prettiest lots in town. Such
+was the gossip about Mrs. Smiley, a year and a half after the night of
+the high tide.
+
+It was the afternoon of a July day, in Astoria; and, since we have given
+the reader so dismal a picture of December, let us, in justice, say a
+word about this July day. All day long the air had been as bright and
+clear as crystal, and the sun had sparkled on the blue waters of the
+noblest of rivers without blinding the eyes with glare, or sickening the
+senses with heat. Along either shore rose lofty highlands, crowned with
+cool-looking forests of dark-green firs. Far to the east, like a cloud
+on the horizon, the snowy cone of St. Helen's mountain stood up above
+the wooded heights of the Cascade Range, with Mount Adams peeping over
+its shoulder. Quite near, and partly closing off the view up the river,
+was picturesque Tongue Point--a lovely island of green--connected with
+the shore only by a low and narrow isthmus. From this promontory to the
+point below the town, the bank of the river was curtained and garlanded
+with blossoming shrubs--mock-orange, honeysuckle, spirea, _aerifolia_,
+crimson roses, and clusters of elder-berries, lavender, scarlet, and
+orange--everywhere, except where men had torn them away to make room for
+their improvements.
+
+Looking seaward, there was the long line of white surf which marks where
+sea and river meet, miles away; with the cape and light-house tower
+standing out in sharp relief against the expanse of ocean beyond, and
+sailing vessels lying off the bar waiting for Rumway and his associates
+to come off and show them the entrance between the sand-spits. And
+nearer, all about on the surface of the sparkling river, snowy sails
+were glancing in the sun, like the wings of birds that skim beside them.
+It is hard, in July, to believe it has ever been December.
+
+Perhaps Mrs. Smiley was thinking so, as from her rose-embowered
+cottage-porch on the hill, not far from Captain Rumway's new house, she
+watched the sun sinking in a golden glory behind the light-house and the
+cape. Her school dismissed for the week, and her household tasks
+completed, she was taking her repose in a great sleepy-hollow of a
+chair, near enough to the roses to catch their delicate fragrance. Her
+white dress looked fresh and dainty, with a rose-colored ribbon at the
+throat, and a bunch of spirea; sea-foam, Willie called it, in her
+gleaming, braided hair. Her great gray eyes, neither sad nor bright, but
+sweetly serious, harmonized the delicate pure tones that made up her
+person and her dress, leaving nothing to be desired, except, perhaps, a
+suggestion of color in the clear, white oval of her cheeks. And that an
+accident supplied.
+
+For, while the sun yet sent lances of gold up out of the sea, the garden
+gate clicked, and Captain Rumway came up the walk. He was a handsome
+man, of fine figure, with a bronzed complexion, dark eyes, and hair
+always becomingly tossed up, owing to a slight wave in it, and a springy
+quality it had of its own. The sun and sea-air, while they had bronzed
+his face, had imparted to his cheeks that rich glow which is often the
+only thing lacking to make a dark face beautiful. Looking at him, one
+could hardly help catching something of his glow, if only through
+admiration of it. Mrs. Smiley's sudden color was possibly to be
+accounted for on this ground.
+
+"Good evening, Mrs. Smiley," he said, lifting his hat gracefully. "I
+have come to ask you to walk over and look at my house. No, thank you; I
+will not come in, if you are ready for the walk. I will stop here and
+smell these roses while you get your hat."
+
+"Is your house so nearly completed, then?" she asked, as they went down
+the walk together.
+
+"So nearly, that I require a woman's opinion upon the inside
+arrangements; and there is no one whose judgment upon such matters I
+value more than yours."
+
+"I suppose you mean to imply that I am a good housekeeper? But there is
+great diversity of taste among good housekeepers, Mr. Rumway."
+
+"Your taste will suit me--that I am sure of. I did not see Willie at
+home; is he gone away?" he asked, to cover a sudden embarrassing
+consciousness.
+
+"I let him go home with Mr. Chillis, last evening, but I expect him home
+to-night."
+
+"Poor old Joe! He takes a great deal of comfort with the boy. And no
+wonder!--he is a charming child, worthy such parentage,"--glancing at
+his companion's face.
+
+"I am glad when anything of mine gives Mr. Chillis pleasure," returned
+Mrs. Smiley, looking straight ahead. "I teach Willie to have a great
+respect and love for him. It is the least we can do."
+
+Rumway noticed the inclusive _we_, and winced. "He is a strange man," he
+said, by way of answer.
+
+"A hero!" cried Mrs. Smiley firmly.
+
+"And never more so then when in whisky," added Rumway, ungenerously.
+
+"Younger and more fortunate men have had that fault," she returned,
+thinking of Eben.
+
+"And conquered it," he added, thinking of himself.
+
+"Here we are. Just step in this door-way a bit and look at the view.
+Glorious, isn't it? I have sent for a lot of very choice shrubs and
+trees for the grounds, and mean to make this the prettiest place in
+town."
+
+"It must be very pretty, with this view," replied Mrs. Smiley, drinking
+in the beauty of the scene with genuine delight.
+
+"Please to step inside. Now, it is about the arrangement of the doors,
+windows, closets, and all that, I wanted advice. I am told that ladies
+claim to understand these things better than men."
+
+"They ought, I am sure, since the house is alone their realm. What a
+charming room! So light, so airy, with such a view! and the doors and
+windows in the right places, too. And this cunning little porch towards
+the west! I'm glad you have that porch, Mr. Rumway. I have always said
+every house should have a sunset porch. I enjoy mine so much these
+lovely summer evenings."
+
+And so they went through the house: she delighted with it, in the main,
+but making little suggestions, here and there; he palpitating with her
+praises, as if they had been bestowed on himself. And, indeed, was not
+this house a part of himself, having so many of his sweetest hopes built
+into it? For what higher proof does a man give of a worthy love then in
+constructing a bright and cheerful shelter for the object of it--than in
+making sure of a fitting home?
+
+"It will lack nothing," she said, as they stood together again on the
+"sunset porch," talking of so grouping the shrubbery as not to intercept
+the view.
+
+"Except a mistress," he added, turning his eyes upon her face, full of
+intense meaning. "With the right woman in it, it will seem perfect to
+me, without her, it is nothing but a monument of my folly. There is but
+one woman I ever want to see in it. Can you guess who it is? Will you
+come?"
+
+Mrs. Smiley looked up into the glowing face bent over her, searching the
+passionate dark eyes with her clear, cool gaze; while slowly the
+delicate color crept over face and neck, as her eyes fell before his
+ardent looks, and she drew in her breath quickly.
+
+"I, I do not know; there are so many things to think of."
+
+"What things? Let me help you consider them. If you mean--"
+
+"O, mamma, mamma!" shouted Willie, from the street. "Here we are, and
+I've had such a splendid time. We've got some fish for you, too. Are you
+coming right home?" And there, on the sidewalk, was Chillis, carrying a
+basket, with his hat stuck full of flowers, and as regardless as a child
+of the drollery of his appearance.
+
+Mrs. Smiley started a little as she caught the expression of his face,
+thinking it did not comport with the holiday appearance of his
+habiliments, and hastened at once to obey its silent appeal. Rumway
+walked beside her to the gate.
+
+"Have you no answer for me?" he asked, hurriedly.
+
+"Give me a week," she returned, and slipped away from him, taking the
+basket from Chillis, and ordering Willie to carry it, while she walked
+by the old man's side.
+
+"You have been lookin' at your new house?" he remarked. "You need not
+try to hide your secret from me. I see it in your face;" and he looked
+long and wistfully upon the rosy record.
+
+"If you see something in _my_ face, I see something in yours. You have a
+trouble, a new pain of some kind. Yesterday you looked forty, and
+radiant; this evening your face is white and drawn by suffering."
+
+"You do observe the old man's face sometimes, then? That other has not
+quite blotted it out? O, my lovely lady! How sweet an' dainty you look,
+in that white dress. It does my old eyes good to look at you."
+
+"You are never too ill or sad to make me pretty compliments, Mr.
+Chillis. Do you know, I think I have grown quite vain since I have had
+you to flatter me. We constitute a mutual admiration society, I'm sure."
+
+Then she led him into the rose-covered porch, and seated him in the
+"sleepy-hollow;" brought him a dish of strawberries, and told him to
+rest while she got ready his supper.
+
+"Rest!" he answered; "_I'm_ not tired. Willie an' I cooked our own
+supper, too. So you jest put Willie to bed--he's tired enough, I
+guess--an' then come an' talk to me. That's all I want to-night--is jest
+to hear the White Rose talk."
+
+While Mrs. Smiley was occupied with Willie--his wants and his
+prattle--her guest sat motionless, his head on his hand, his elbow
+resting on the arm of the chair. He had that rare repose of bearing
+which is understood to be a sign of high breeding, but in him was
+temperament, or a quietude caught from nature and solitude. It gave a
+positive charm to his manner, whether animated or depressed; a
+dignified, introspective, self-possessed carriage, that suited with his
+powerfully built, symmetrical frame, and regular cast of features. Yet,
+self-contained as his usual expression was, his face was capable of
+vivid illuminations, and striking changes of aspect, under the influence
+of feelings either pleasant or painful. In the shadow of the rose-vines,
+and the gathering twilight, it would have been impossible to discern, by
+any change of feature, what his meditations might be now.
+
+"The moon is full to-night," said Mrs. Smiley, bringing out her low
+rocker and placing it near her friend. "It will be glorious on the
+river, and all the 'young folks' will be out, I suppose."
+
+"Did not Rumway ask you to go? Don't let me keep you at home, ef he
+did."
+
+"No; I am not counted among young folks any longer," returned she, with
+a little sigh, that might mean something or nothing. Then a silence fell
+between them for several minutes. It was the fashion of these friends to
+wait for the spirit to move them to converse, and not unfrequently a
+silence longer than that which was in heaven came between their
+sentences; but to-night there was thunder in their spiritual atmosphere,
+and the stillness was oppressive. Mrs. Smiley beat a tattoo with her
+slipper.
+
+"Rumway asked you to marry him, did he?" began Chillis, at last, in a
+low and measured tone.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' you accepted him?"
+
+"Not yet"--in a quavering adagio.
+
+"But you will?"
+
+"Perhaps so. I do not know"--in a firmer voice.
+
+"Rumway is doin' well, an' he is a pretty good fellow, as men go. But he
+is not half the man that I was at his age--or, rather, that I might have
+been, ef I had had sech a motive for bein' a man as he has."
+
+"It is not difficult to believe that, Mr. Chillis. There is heroic
+material in you, and, I fear, none in Mr. Rumway." She spoke naturally
+and cheerfully now, as if she had no sentiment too sacred to be revealed
+about the person in question. "But why was there no motive?"
+
+"Why? It was my fate; there was none--that's all. I had gone off to the
+mountains when a lad, an' couldn't git back--couldn't even git letters
+from home. The fur companies didn't allow o' correspondence--it made
+their men homesick. When I came to be a man, I did as the other men did,
+took an Indian wife, an' became the father o' half-breed children. I
+never expected to live any other way than jest as we lived then--roamin'
+about the mountains, exposed to dangers continually, an' reckless
+because it was no use to think. But, after I had been a savage for a
+dozen years--long enough to ruin any man--the fur companies began to
+break up. The beaver were all hunted out o' the mountains. The men were
+ashamed to go home--Indians as we all were--an' so drifted off down
+here, where it was possible to git somethin' to eat, an' where there was
+quite a settlement o' retired trappers, missionaries, deserted sailors,
+and such-like Whites."
+
+"You brought your families with you?"
+
+"Of course. We could not leave them in the mountains, with the children,
+to starve. Besides, we loved our children. They were not to blame for
+bein' half-Indian; an' we could not separate them from their mothers, ef
+we had a-wished. We did the only thing we could do, under the
+circumstances--married the mothers by White men's laws, to make the
+children legitimate. Even the heads of the Hudson's Bay Company were
+forced to comply with the sentiment of the White settlers; an' their
+descendants are among the first families of Oregon. But they had money
+an' position; the trappers had neither, though there were some splendid
+men among them--so our families were looked down upon. O, White Rose!
+didn't I use to have some bitter thoughts in those days? for my blood
+was high blood, in the State where I was raised."
+
+"I can imagine it, very easily," said Mrs. Smiley, softly.
+
+"But I never let on. I was wild and devil-may-care. To hide my
+mortification, I faced it out, as well as I could; but I wasn't made, in
+the beginnin', for that kind o' life, an' it took away my manhood. After
+the country began to settle up, an' families--real White families--began
+to move in, I used to be nearly crazy, sometimes. Many's the day that
+I've rode through the woods, or over the prairies, tryin' to git away
+from myself; but I never said a cross word to the squaw wife. Why should
+I?--it was not her fault. Sometimes she fretted at me (the Indian women
+are great scolds); but I did not answer her back. I displeased her with
+my vagabond ways, very likely--her White husband, to whom she looked for
+better things. I couldn't work; I didn't take no interest in work, like
+other men."
+
+"O, Mr. Chillis! was not that a great mistake? Would not some kind of
+ambition have helped to fill up the blank in your life?"
+
+"I didn't have any--I couldn't have any, with that old Indian woman
+sittin' there, in the corner o' my hearth. When the crazy fit came on, I
+jest turned my back on home, an' mounted my horse for a long, lonely
+ride, or went to town and drank whisky till I was past rememberin' my
+trouble. But I never complained. The men I associated with expected me
+to amuse them, an' I generally did, with all manner o' wild freaks an'
+incredible stories--some o' which were truer than they believed, for I
+had had plenty of adventures in the mountains. White Rose, do you
+imagine I ever loved that squaw wife o' mine?"
+
+"I remember asking myself such a question, that night of the storm, as
+you stood by the fire, so still and strange. I was speculating about
+your history, and starting these very queries you have answered
+to-night."
+
+"But you have never asked me."
+
+"No; how could I? But I am glad to know. Now I understand the great
+patience--the tender, pathetic patience--which I have often remarked in
+you. Only those who have suffered long and silently can ever attain to
+it."
+
+"An' so people say, 'Poor old Joe!' an' they don't know what they mean,
+when they say it. They think I am a man without the ambitions an'
+passions of other men; a simple, good fellow, without too much brain,
+an' only the heart of a fool. But they don't know me--they don't know
+me!"
+
+"How could they, without hearing what you have just told me, or without
+knowing you as I know you?"
+
+"They never will know. I don't want to be pitied for my mistakes. 'Poor
+old Joe' is proud, as well as poor."
+
+Mrs. Smiley sat silent, gazing at the river's silver ripples. Her
+shapely hands were folded in her lap; her whole attitude quiet,
+absorbed. Whether she was thinking of what she had heard, or whether she
+had forgotten it, no one could have guessed from her manner; and Chillis
+could not wait to know. The fountains of the deep had been stirred until
+they would not rest.
+
+"Was there no other question you asked yourself about the old mountain
+man which he can answer? Did you never wonder whether he ever had loved
+at all?"
+
+"You have made me wonder, to-night, whether, at some period of your
+life, you have not loved some woman of your own race and color. You must
+have had some opportunities of knowing white women."
+
+"Very few. An' my pride was agin seekin' what I knew was not for me; for
+the woman I fancied to myself was no common white woman. White Rose, I
+carried a young man's heart in my bosom until I was near sixty, _an'
+then I lost it_." He put out a hand and touched one of hers, ever so
+lightly. "I need not tell you any more."
+
+A silence that made their pulses seem audible followed this confession.
+A heavy shadow descended upon both hearts, and a sudden dreary sense of
+an unutterable and unalterable sorrow burdened their spirits.
+
+After a little, "Mr. Chillis! Mr. Chillis!" wailed the woman's pathetic
+voice; and "O, my lovely lady!" sighed the man's.
+
+"What shall I do? what shall I do? I am so sorry. What shall I do?"
+
+"Tell me to go. I knew it would have to end so. I knew that Rumway would
+drive me to say what I ought not to say; for he is not worthy of you--no
+man that I know of is. Ef I was as young as he, an' had his chance, I
+would _make_ myself worthy o' you, or die. But it is too late. Old Joe
+Chillis may starve his heart, as he has many a time starved his body in
+the desert. But I did love you so! O, my sweet White Rose, I did love
+you so! always, from the first time I saw you."
+
+"What is that you say?" said Mrs. Smiley, in a shocked voice.
+
+"Always, I said, from the first time I saw you. My love was true; it did
+not harm you. I said, '_There_ is such a woman as God designed for me.
+But it is too late to have her now. I will jest worship her humbly, a
+great ways off, an' say "God bless her!" when she passes; an' think o'
+her sweet ways when I am ridin' through the woods, or polin' my
+huntin'-boat up the sloughs, among the willows an' pond-lilies. She
+would hardly blame me, ef she knew I loved her that way.'
+
+"But it grew harder afterwards, White Rose, when you were grateful to
+me, in your pretty, womanly way, an' treated me so kindly before all the
+world, an' let your little boy love me, an' loved me yourself--I knew
+it--in a gentle, friendly fashion. O, but it was sweet!--but not sweet
+enough, sometimes. Ef I have been crazed for the lack o' love in my
+younger days, I have been crazed with love since then. There have been
+days when I could neither work nor eat, nights when I could not sleep,
+for thinkin' o' what might have been, but never could be; times when I
+have been tempted to upset my boat in the bay, an' never try to right
+it. But when I had almost conquered my madness, that you might never
+know, then comes this Rumway, with his fine looks, an' his fine house,
+an' his fine professions, an' blots me out entirely; for what will old
+Joe be worth to Madame Rumway, or to Madame Rumway's fine husband?"
+
+Mrs. Smiley sat thoughtful and silent a long time after this declaration
+of love, that gave all and required so little. She was sorry for it; but
+since it was so, and she must know it, she was glad that she had heard
+it that night. She could place it in the balance with that other
+declaration, and decide upon their relative value to her; for she saw,
+as he did, that the two were incompatible--one must be given up.
+
+"It is late," she said, rising. "You will come up and take breakfast
+with Willie and me, before you go home? My strawberries are in their
+prime."
+
+"I thought you would a-told me to go, an' never come back," he said,
+stepping out into the moonlight with the elastic tread of twenty-five.
+He stopped and looked back at her, with a beaming countenance, like a
+boy's.
+
+She was standing on the step above him, looking down at him with a
+pleasant but serious expression. "I am going to trust you never to
+repeat to me what you have said to-night. I know I can trust you."
+
+"So be it, White Rose," he returned, with so rapid and involuntary a
+change of attitude, voice, and expression, that the pang of his hurt
+pierced her heart also. "But I know I can trust you," she repeated, as
+if she had not seen that shrinking from the blow. "And I am going to try
+to make your life a little pleasanter, and more like other people's.
+When you are dressed up, and ordered to behave properly, and made to
+look as handsome as you can, so that ladies shall take notice of you and
+flatter you with their eyes and tongues, and you come to have the same
+interest in the world that other men have--and why shouldn't you?--then
+your imagination will not be running away with you, or making angels out
+of common little persons like myself--how dreadfully prosy and
+commonplace you have no idea! And I forbid you to allow Willie to stick
+your hat full of flowers, when you go fishing together; and order you to
+make that young impudence respectful to you on all occasions--asserting
+your authority, if necessary. And, lastly, I prefer you should not call
+me Madame Rumway until I have a certified and legal claim to the title.
+Good-night."
+
+He stood bareheaded, his face drooping and half-concealed, pulling the
+withered flowers out of his hat. Slowly he raised it, made a military
+salute, and placed it on his head. "It is for you to command and me to
+obey," he said.
+
+"Breakfast at seven o'clock precisely," called out the tuneful voice of
+Mrs. Smiley after him, as he went down the garden-path with bent head,
+walking more like an old man than she had ever seen him. Then she went
+into the house, closed it carefully, after the manner of lone women, and
+went up to her room. But deliciously cool and fragrant as was the tiny
+chamber, Mrs. Smiley could not sleep that night. Nor did Chillis come to
+breakfast next morning.
+
+A month passed away. Work was suspended on Mr. Rumway's house, the doors
+and windows boarded up, and the gate locked. Everybody knew it could
+mean but one thing--that Mrs. Smiley had refused the owner. But the
+handsome captain put a serene face upon it, and kept about his business
+industriously and like a gentleman. The fact that he did not return to
+his wild courses was remarked upon as something hardly to be credited,
+but greatly to his honor; for it was universally conceded, that such a
+disappointment as his was enough to drive almost any man to drink who
+had indulged in it previously; such is the generally admitted frailty of
+man's moral constitution.
+
+Toward the last of August, Mrs. Smiley received a visit from Chillis. He
+was dressed with more than his customary regard to appearances, and
+looked a little paler and thinner than usual. Otherwise, he was just the
+same as ever; and, with no questions asked or answered on either side,
+their old relations were re-established, and Willie was rapturously
+excited with the prospect of more Saturday excursions. Yet there was
+this difference in their manner toward each other--that he now seldom
+addressed her as "White Rose," and never as "my lovely lady;" while it
+was she who made graceful little compliments to him, and was always gay
+and bright in his company, and constantly watchful of his comfort or
+pleasure. She prevailed upon him, too, to make calls with her upon other
+ladies; and gave him frequent commissions that would bring him in
+contact with a variety of persons. But she could not help seeing, that
+it was only in obedience to her wishes that he made calls, or mingled
+with the town-people; and when, one evening, returning together from a
+visit where he had been very much patronized, he had remarked, with a
+shrug and smile of self-contempt, "It is no use, Mrs. Smiley--oil an'
+water won't mix," she had given it up, and never more interfered with
+his old habits.
+
+So the summer passed, and winter came again, with its long rains, dark
+days, and sad associations. Although Mrs. Smiley was not at all a
+"weakly woman," constant effort and care, and the absence of anything
+very flattering in her future, or inspiring in her present, wore upon
+her, exhausting her vitality too rapidly for perfect health, as the
+constantly increasing delicacy of her appearance testified. In truth,
+when the spring opened, she found herself so languid and depressed as to
+be hardly able to teach, in addition to her house-work. Then it was that
+the gossips took up her case once more, and declared, with considerable
+unanimity, that Mrs. Smiley was pining for the handsome Captain, after
+all, and, if ever she had refused him, was sorry for it--thus revenging
+themselves upon a woman audacious enough to refuse a man many others
+would have thought "good enough for them," and "too good for" so
+unappreciative a person.
+
+With the first bright and warm weather, Willie went to spend a week with
+his friend, and Mrs. Smiley felt forced to take a vacation. A
+yachting-party were going over to the cape, and Captain Rumway was to
+take them out over the bar. Rumway himself sent an invitation to Mrs.
+Smiley--this being the first offer of amity he had felt able to make
+since the previous July. She laughed a little, to herself, when the note
+came (for she was not ignorant of the town-tattle--what school-teacher
+ever is?) and sent an acceptance. If Captain Rumway were half as
+courageous as she, the chatterers would be confounded, she promised
+herself, as she made her toilet for the occasion--not too nice for
+sea-water, but bright and pretty, and becoming, as her toilets always
+were.
+
+So she sailed over to the cape with the "young folks," and, as widows
+can--particularly widows who have gossip to avenge--was more charming
+than any girl of them all, to others beside Captain Rumway. The officers
+of the garrison vied with each other in showing her attentions; and the
+light-house keeper, in exhibiting the wonders and beauties of the place,
+always, if unconsciously, appealed to Mrs. Smiley for admiration and
+appreciation. Yet she wore her honors modestly, contriving to share this
+homage with some other, and never accepting it as all meant for herself.
+And toward Captain Rumway her manner was as absolutely free from either
+coquetry or awkwardness as that of the most indifferent acquaintance.
+Nobody, seeing her perfectly frank yet quiet and cool deportment with
+her former suitor, could say, without falsehood, that she in any way
+concerned herself about him; and if he had heard that she was pining for
+him, he was probably undeceived during that excursion. Thus she came
+home feeling that she had vindicated herself, and with a pretty color in
+her face that made her look as girlish as any young lady of them all.
+
+But, if Captain Rumway had reopened an acquaintance with Mrs. Smiley out
+of compassion for any woes she might be suffering on his account, or out
+of a design to show how completely he was master of himself, or, in
+short, for any motive whatever, he was taken in his own devices, and
+compelled to surrender unconditionally. Like the man in Scripture, out
+of whom the devils were cast only to return, his last estate was worse
+than the first, as he was soon compelled to acknowledge; and one of the
+first signs of this relapse into fatuity was the resumption of work on
+the unfinished house, and the ornamentation of the neglected grounds.
+
+"I will make it such a place as she cannot refuse," he said to himself,
+more or less hopefully. "She will have to accept the house and grounds,
+with me thrown in. And whatever she is pining for, she _is_ pining,
+_that_ I can see. It may be for outdoor air and recreation, and the care
+which a husband only can give her. If it be that she can take them along
+with me."
+
+Thus it was, that when Chillis brought Willie home from his long visit
+to the woods and streams, he saw the workmen busy on the Captain's
+house. He heard, too, about the excursion to the cape, and the
+inevitable comments upon Rumway's proceedings. But he said nothing about
+it to Mrs. Smiley, though he spent the evening in the snug little
+parlor, and they talked together of many things personally interesting
+to both; especially about Willie's education and profession in life.
+
+"He ought to go to college," said his mother. "I wish him to be a
+scholarly man, whatever profession he decides upon afterward. I could
+not bear that he should not have a liberal education."
+
+"Yes, Willie must be a gentleman," said Chillis; "for his mother's sake
+he must be that."
+
+"But how to provide the means to furnish such an education as he ought
+to have, is what puzzles me," continued Mrs. Smiley, pausing in her
+needle-work to study that problem more closely, and gazing absently at
+the face of her guest. "Will ten years more of school-teaching do it, I
+wonder?"
+
+"Ten years o' school-teachin', an' house-work, an' sewin'!" cried he.
+"Yes, long before that you will be under the sod o' the grave-yard!
+_You_ cannot send the boy to college."
+
+"Who, then?"--smiling at his vehemence.
+
+"_I_ will."
+
+"You, Mr. Chillis? I thought...." She checked herself, fearing to hurt
+his pride.
+
+"You thought I was poor, an' so I am, for I never tried to make money.
+_I_ don't want money. But there is land belongin' to me out in the
+valley--five or six hundred acres--an' land is growin' more valuable
+every year. Ten years from now I reckon mine would pay a boy's
+schoolin'. So you needn't work yourself to death for that, Mrs. Smiley."
+
+The tears sprang to the gray eyes which were turned upon him with such
+eloquent looks. "It is like you," she said, in a broken voice, "and I
+have nothing to say."
+
+"You are welcome to my land, White Rose, an' there is nothin' _to_ be
+said."
+
+Then she bent her head over her sewing, feeling, indeed, that there was
+little use for words.
+
+"Do you know," he asked, breaking a protracted silence, "that you have
+got to give up teachin'?"
+
+"And do what? I might take to gardening. That would be better, perhaps;
+I have thought about it."
+
+"Let me see your hands. They look like gardenin': two rose-leaves! Don't
+it make me wish to be back in my prime? Work for you! Wouldn't I love to
+work for you?"
+
+"And do you not, in every way you can? Am I to have no pride about
+accepting so much service? What a poor creature you must take me for,
+Mr. Chillis."
+
+"There is nothin' else in the world that I think of; nothin' else that I
+live for; an' after all it is so little, that I cannot save you from
+spoilin' your pretty looks with care. An' you have troubled yourself
+about me, too; don't think I haven't seen it. You fret your lovely soul
+about the old man's trouble, when you can't help it--you, nor nobody.
+An', after all, what does it matter about _me_? _I_ am nothin', and you
+are everything. I want you to remember that, and do everything for your
+own happiness without wastin' a thought on me. I am content to keep my
+distance, ef I only see you happy and well off. Do you understand me?"
+
+Mrs. Smiley looked up with a suffused face. "Mr. Chillis," she answered,
+"you make me ashamed of myself and my selfishness. Let us never refer to
+this subject again. Work don't hurt me; and since you have offered to
+provide for Willie's education, you have lifted half my burden. Why
+should you stand at a distance to see me happier than I am, when I am so
+happy as to have such a friend as you? How am I to be happier by your
+being at a distance, who have been the kindest of friends? You are out
+of spirits this evening, and you talk just a little--nonsense." And she
+smiled at him in a sweetly apologetic fashion for the word.
+
+"That is like enough," he returned gravely; "but I want you to remember
+my words, foolish or not. Don't let me stand in your light--not for one
+minute; and don't forgit this: that Joe Chillis is happy when he sees
+the White Rose bloomin' and bright."
+
+Contrary to his command, Mrs. Smiley did endeavor to forget these words
+in the weeks following, when the old mountain-man came no more to her
+rose-embowered cottage, and when Captain Rumway invented many ingenious
+schemes for getting the pale school-teacher to take more recreation and
+fresh air. She endeavored to forget them, but she could not, though her
+resolve to ignore them was as strong as it ever had been when her
+burdens had seemed lighter! But in spite of her resolve, and in spite of
+the fact that it could not be said that any encouragement had been given
+to repeat his addresses, Rumway continued to work at his house and
+grounds steadily, and, to all appearance, hopefully. And although he
+never consulted Mrs. Smiley now concerning the arrangement of either, he
+showed that he remembered her suggestions of the year before, by
+following them out without deviation.
+
+Thus quietly, without incident, the June days slipped away, and the
+perfect July weather returned once more, when there was always a chair
+or two out on the sunset porch at evening. At last Chillis re-appeared,
+and took a seat in one of them, quite in the usual way. He had been
+away, he said, attending to some business.
+
+"An' I have fixed that matter all right about the boy's schoolin'," he
+added. "The papers are made out in the clerk's office, an' will be sent
+to you as soon as they are recorded. There are five hundred and forty
+acres, which you will know how to manage better than I can tell you. You
+can sell by and by, ef you can't yet the money out of it any other way.
+The taxes won't be much, the land being unimproved."
+
+"You do not mean that you have _deeded_ all your land to Willie?" asked
+Mrs. Smiley. "I protest against it: he must not have it! Would you let
+us rob you," she asked wonderingly. "What are _you_ to do, by and by, as
+you say?"
+
+"Me? I shall do well enough. Money is o' no use to me. But ef I should
+want a meal or a blanket that I couldn't get, the boy wouldn't see me
+want them long. Ef he forgot old Joe Chillis, his mother wouldn't, I
+reckon."
+
+"You pay too high a price for our remembrance, Mr. Chillis; we are not
+worth it. But why do you talk of forgetting? You are not going away from
+us?"
+
+"Yes; I am goin' to start to-morrow for my old stampin' ground, east o'
+the mountains. My only livin' son is over there, somewhar. He don't
+amount to much--the Indian in him is too strong; but, like enough, he
+will be glad to see his father afore I die. An' I want to git away from
+here."
+
+"You will come back? Promise me you will come back?" For something in
+his voice, and his settled expression of melancholy and renunciation,
+made her fear he was taking this step for a reason that could not be
+named between them.
+
+"It is likely," he said; "but ef I come or no, don't fret about me. Just
+remember this that I am tellin' you now. The day I first saw you was the
+most fortunate day of my life. Ef I hadn't a-met you, I should have died
+as I had lived--like a creature without a soul. An' now I have a soul,
+in you. An' when I come to die, as I shall before many years, I shall
+die happy, thinkin' how my old hands had served the sweetest woman under
+heaven, and how they had been touched by hers so kindly, many a time,
+when she condescended to serve _me_."
+
+What could she say to a charge like this? Yet say something she must,
+and so she answered, that he thought too highly of her, who was no
+better than other women; but, that, since in his great singleness of
+heart, he did her this honor, to set her above all the world, she could
+only be humbly grateful, and wish really to be what in his vivid
+imagination she seemed to him. Then she turned the talk upon less
+personal topics, and Willie was called and informed of the loss he was
+about to sustain; upon which there was a great deal of childish
+questioning, and boyish regret for the good times no more to be that
+summer.
+
+"I should like to take care of your boat," said he--"your hunting-boat,
+I mean. If I had it over here, I would take mamma down to it every
+Saturday, and she could sew and do everything there, just as she does at
+home; and it would be gay, now, wouldn't it?"
+
+"The old boat is sold, my boy; that an' the row-boat, and the pony, too.
+You'll have to wait till I come back for huntin', and fishin', and
+ridin'."
+
+Then Mrs. Smiley knew almost certainly that this visit was the last she
+would ever receive from Joe Chillis, and, though she tried hard to seem
+unaffected by the parting, and to talk of his return hopefully, the
+effort proved abortive, and conversation flagged. Still he sat there
+silent and nearly motionless through the whole evening, thinking what
+thoughts she guessed only too well. With a great sigh, at last he rose
+to go.
+
+"You will be sure to write at the end of your journey, and let us know
+how you find things there, and when you are coming back?"
+
+"I will write," said he; "an' I want you to write back and tell me that
+you remember what I advised you some time ago." He took her hands,
+folded them in his own, kissed them reverently, and turned away.
+
+Mrs. Smiley watched him going down the garden-walk, as she had watched
+him a year before, and noted how slow and uncertain his steps had grown
+since then. At the gate he turned and waved his hand, and she in turn
+fluttered her little white handkerchief. Then she sat down with the
+handkerchief over her head, and sobbed for full five minutes.
+
+"There are things in life one cannot comprehend," she muttered to
+herself, "things we cannot dare to meddle with or try to alter;
+Providences, I suppose, they are. If God had made a man like that for
+me, of my own age, and given him opportunities suited to his capacities,
+and he had loved me as this man loves, what a life ours would have
+been!"
+
+The summer weather and bracing north-west breezes from the ocean
+renewed, in a measure, Mrs. Smiley's health, and restored her cheerful
+spirits; and, if she missed her old friend, she kept silent about it, as
+she did about most things that concerned herself. To Willie's
+questioning she gave those evasive replies children are used to receive;
+but she frequently told him, in talks about his future, that Mr. Chillis
+had promised to send him to college, and that as long as he lived he
+must love and respect so generous a friend. "And, Willie," she never
+failed to add, "if ever you see an old man who is in need of anything;
+food, or clothes, or shelter; be very sure that you furnish them, as far
+as you are able." She was teaching him to pay his debt: "for, inasmuch
+as ye have done it unto the least of these," he had done it unto his
+benefactor.
+
+September came, and yet no news had arrived from beyond the mountains.
+Captain Rumway's house was finished up to the last touch of varnish. The
+lawn, and the shrubbery, and fence were all just as they should be; yet,
+so far as anybody knew, no mistress had been provided for them, when,
+one warm and hazy afternoon, Mrs. Smiley received an invitation to look
+at the completed mansion, and pass her judgment upon it.
+
+"I am going to furnish it in good style," said its master, rather
+vauntingly, Mrs. Smiley thought, "and I hoped you would be so good as to
+give me your assistance in making out a list of the articles required to
+fit the house up perfectly, from parlor to kitchen."
+
+"Any lady can furnish a list of articles for each room, Mr. Rumway, more
+or less costly, as you may order; but only the lady who is to live in
+the house can tell you what will please _her_;" and she smiled the very
+shadow of a superior smile.
+
+Mr. Rumway had foolishly thought to get his house furnished according to
+Mrs. Smiley's taste, and now found he should have to consult Mrs.
+Rumway's, present or prospective, and the discovery annoyed him. Yet,
+why should he be annoyed? Was not the very opportunity presented that he
+had desired, of renewing his proposal to her to take the establishment
+in charge? So, although it compelled him to change his programme, he
+accepted the situation, and seized the tide at flood.
+
+"It is that lady--the one I entreat to come and live in it--whose wishes
+I now consult. Once more will you come?"
+
+Mrs. Smiley, though persistently looking aside, had caught the eloquent
+glance of the Captain's dark eyes, and something of the warmth of his
+face was reflected in her own. But she remained silent, looking at the
+distant highlands, without seeing them.
+
+"You must have seen," he continued, "that notwithstanding your former
+answer, I have been bold enough to hope you might change your mind; for,
+in everything I have done here, I have tried to follow your expressed
+wishes. I should in all else strive to make you as happy as by accepting
+this home you would make me. You do not answer; shall I say it is
+'yes?'" He bent so close that his dark, half-curling mop of hair just
+brushed her golden braids, and gave her a little shock like electricity,
+making her start away with a blush.
+
+"Will you give me time to decide upon my answer, Mr. Rumway?"
+
+"You asked for time before," he replied, in an agitated voice, "and,
+after making me suffer a week of suspense, refused me."
+
+"I know it," she said simply, "and I was sorry I had asked it; but my
+reasons are even more imperative than they were then for wishing to
+delay. I want to decide right, at last," she added, with a faint attempt
+at a smile.
+
+"That will be right which accords with your feelings, and certainly you
+can tell me now what they are--whether you find me the least bit lovable
+or not."
+
+The gray eyes flashed a look up into the dark eyes, half of mirth and
+half of real inquiry. "I think one might learn to endure you, Mr.
+Rumway," she answered, demurely. "But"--changing her manner--"I can not
+tell you whether or not I can marry you, until--until--well," she
+concluded desperately--"it may be a day, or a week, or a month. There is
+something to be decided, and until it is decided, I can not give an
+answer."
+
+Captain Rumway looked very rebellious.
+
+"I do not ask you to wait, Mr. Rumway," said Mrs. Smiley, tormentingly.
+"Your house need not be long without a mistress."
+
+"Of course, I must wait, if you give me the least ground of hope. This
+place was made for you, and no other woman shall ever come into it as my
+wife--that I swear. If you will not have me, I will sell it, and live a
+bachelor."
+
+Mrs. Smiley laughed softly and tunefully. "Perhaps you would prefer to
+limit your endurance, and tell me how long you _will_ allow me to
+deliberate before you sell and retire to bachelorhood?"
+
+"You know very well," he returned, ruefully, "that I shall always be
+hoping against all reason that the wished-for answer was coming at
+last."
+
+"Then we will say no more about it at present."
+
+"And I may come occasionally to learn whether that 'something' has been
+decided?"
+
+"Yes, if you have the patience for it. But, I warn you, there is a
+chance of my having to say 'No.'"
+
+"If there is only a chance of your having to say 'No,' I think I may
+incur the risk," said Rumway, with a sudden accession of hopefulness;
+and, as they walked home together once more, the gossips pronounced it
+an engagement. The Captain himself felt that it was, although, when he
+reviewed the conversation, he discovered that he founded his impression
+upon that one glance of the gray eyes, rather than upon anything that
+had been said. And Mrs. Smiley put the matter out of mind as much as
+possible, and waited.
+
+One day, about the last of the month, a letter came to her from over the
+mountains. It ran in this wise:
+
+    "MY LOVELY LADY: I am once more among the familyar seanes of 40
+    year ago. My son is hear, an' about as I expected. I had rather
+    be back at Clatsop, with the old bote; but, owin' to circumstances
+    I can't controll, think it better to end my dais on this side ov
+    the mountains. You need not look for me to come back, but I send
+    you an' the boy my best love, an' hope you hav done as I advised.
+
+    "Yours, faithfully, til deth,
+
+    "JOE CHILLIS."
+
+Soon after the receipt of this letter, Captain Rumway called to inquire
+concerning the settlement of the matter on which his marriage depended.
+That evening he stayed later than usual, and, in a long confidential
+talk which he had with Mrs. Smiley, learned that there was a condition
+attached to the consummation of his wishes, which required his
+recognition of the claims of "poor old Joe" to be considered a friend of
+the family. To do him justice, he yielded the point more gracefully
+than, from his consciousness of his own position, could have been
+expected.
+
+The next day, Mrs. Smiley wrote as follows:
+
+    "DEAR MR. CHILLIS: I shall move into the new house about the
+    last of October, _according to your advice_. We--that is, myself,
+    and Willie, and the present owner of the house--shall be delighted
+    if you will come and stay with us. But if you decide to remain
+    with your son, believe that we think of you very often and very
+    affectionately, and wish you every possible happiness. R. agrees
+    with me that the land ought to be deeded back to you; and _I_
+    think you had best return and get the benefit of it. It would
+    make you very comfortable for life, properly managed, and about
+    that we might help you. Please write and let us know what to do
+    about it.
+
+    "Yours affectionately,
+
+    "ANNIE SMILEY."
+
+No reply ever came to this letter; and, as it was written ten years ago,
+Mrs. Rumway has ceased to expect any. Willie is about to enter College.
+
+
+
+
+HOW JACK HASTINGS SOLD HIS MINE.
+
+
+The passenger train from the East came thundering down the head of the
+Humboldt Valley, just as morning brightened over the earth--refreshing
+eyes wearied with yesterday's mountains and canons, by a vision of green
+willows and ash trees, a stream that was not a torrent, and a stretch of
+grassy country.
+
+Among the faces oftenest turned to the flitting views was that of a
+young, gracefully-formed, neatly-dressed, delicate-looking woman. The
+large brown eyes often returned from gazing at the landscape, to scan
+with seriousness some memoranda she held in her hand. "Arrive at Elko at
+eight o'clock a.m." said the memorandum. Consulting a tiny watch, whose
+hands pointed to ten minutes of eight, the lady began making those little
+preparations which betoken the journey's end at hand.
+
+"What a strange looking place it is!" she thought, as the motley
+collection of board shanties and canvas houses came in sight;--for the
+famous Chloride District had been discovered but a few months before,
+and the Pacific Railroad was only four weeks open. "I wish Jack had come
+to meet me! I'm sure I don't see how I am to find the stage agent to
+give him Jack's letter. What a number of people!"
+
+This mental ejaculation was called forth by the sight of the long
+platform in front of the eating-house, crowded with a surging mass of
+humanity just issuing from the dining-room. They were the passengers of
+the eastward-bound train, ready to rush headlong for the cars when the
+momently-expected "All aboard!" should be shouted at them by the
+conductor. Into this crowd the freshly-arrived passengers of the
+westward-bound train were a moment after ejected--each eyeing the other
+with a natural and pardonable interest.
+
+The brown-eyed, graceful young lady conducted herself in a very
+business-like manner--presenting the checks for her baggage; inquiring
+out the office of Wells, Fargo & Co., and handing in her letter, all in
+the briefest possible time. Having secured a seat in a coach to Chloride
+Hill, with the promise of the agent to call for her when the time for
+departure arrived, the lady repaired to the dining-room just in time to
+see her acquaintances of the train departing. Sitting down alone to a
+hastily-cooked and underdone repast, she was about finishing a cup of
+bitter black coffee with a little shudder of disgust, when a gentleman
+seated himself opposite her at table. The glance the stranger cast in
+her direction was rather a lingering one; then he ordered his breakfast
+and ate it. Meanwhile the lady retired to the ladies' sitting-room.
+
+After an hour of waiting, one, two, three, coaches rolled past the door,
+and the lady began to fear she had been forgotten, when the polite agent
+appeared to notify "Mrs. Hastings" that "the stage was ready." This was
+Mrs. Alice Hastings, then--wife of Mr. Jack Hastings, of Deep Canon,
+Chloride District. The agent thought Mr. Hastings had a very pretty
+wife, and expressed his opinion in his manner, as men will.
+
+When, just before starting, there entered three of the roughest-looking
+men she had ever encountered, Mrs. Hastings began to fear that in his
+zeal to obey instructions, the agent had exceeded them, and in packing
+the first three coaches with first-comers, had left this one to catch up
+the fag end of travel. If the first impression, gained from sight, had
+made her shrink a little, what was her dismay when, at the end of ten
+minutes, one of her fellow-travelers--the only American of the
+three--produced a bottle of brandy, which, having offered it first to
+her, he passed to the bullet-headed Irishman and very shabby Jew:
+repeating the courtesy once in twenty minutes for several times.
+
+Mrs. Hastings was a brave sort of woman, where courage was needful; and
+she now began to consider the case in hand with what coolness she could
+command. One hundred and thirty miles--eighteen or twenty hours of such
+companionship--with no chance of change or intermission; a wilderness
+country to travel over, and all the other coaches a long way ahead. The
+dainty denizen of a city home, shuddering inwardly, showed outwardly a
+serene countenance. Her American friend, with wicked black eyes and a
+jolly and reckless style of carrying himself, continued to offer brandy
+at short intervals.
+
+"Best take some, Madame," said he; "this dust will choke you if you
+don't."
+
+"Thanks," returned the lady, with her sweetest smile, "I could not drink
+brandy. I have wine in my traveling-basket, should I need it; but much
+prefer water."
+
+At the next station, although hardly four minutes were lost in changing
+horses, the men procured for her a cup of water. Mrs. Hastings' thanks
+were frank and cordial. She even carefully opened a conversation about
+the country they were passing over, and contrived to get them to ask a
+question or two about herself. When they learned that she had come all
+the way from New York on the newly-opened railroad, their interest was
+at its height; and when they heard that she was going to join her
+husband in the Chloride District, their sympathy was thoroughly
+enlisted.
+
+"Wonderful--such a journey! How she could be six days on the cars, and
+yet able to take such a stage-ride as this, is astonishing."
+
+Such were the American's comments. The Jew thought of the waiting
+husband--for your Israelite is a man of domestic and family affections.
+"Her husband looking for her, and she behind time! How troubled he must
+be! Didn't _he_ know how it was? Wasn't his wife gone away on a visit
+once, and didn't write; and he a running to the express office every
+morning and evening for a letter, and getting so anxious as to
+telegraph? Such an expense and loss of time!--and all because he felt so
+uneasy about his wife!"
+
+The bullet-headed young Irishman said nothing. He was about half asleep
+from brandy and last night's travel; too stupid to know that his hat had
+flown out of the window, and was bowling along in the wind and dust half
+a mile behind--all the better for his head, which looked at a red heat
+now.
+
+The lady had lifted the rude men up to her level, when directly they
+were ashamed of their brandy and other vices, and began to show
+instinctive traits of gentlemen. By the time they arrived at the dinner
+station, where half an hour was allowed for food and rest out of the
+eighteen or twenty, she had at least two humble servitors, who showed
+great concern for her comfort.
+
+The day began to wane. They had traveled continuously over a long
+stretch of plain between two mountain ranges, over a country entirely
+uninhabited except by the stage company's employees, who kept the
+stations and tended the stock. This lone woman had seen but one other
+woman on the road. Plenty of teams--great "prairie schooners," loaded
+with every conceivable thing for supplying the wants of an isolated
+non-producing community, and drawn by ten or fourteen mules--had been
+passed through the day.
+
+As night fell, Mrs. Hastings saw what she had never before seen or
+imagined--the camps of these teamsters by the roadside; horses and mules
+staked, or tied to the wagons; the men lying prone upon the earth,
+wrapped in blankets, their dust-blackened faces turned up to the frosty
+twinkling stars. Did people really live in that way?--how many
+superfluous things were there in a city!
+
+The night was moonless and clear, and cold as at that altitude they
+always are. Sleep, from the roughness of the road, was impossible. Her
+companions dozed, and woke with exclamations when the heavy lurchings of
+the coach disturbed them too roughly. Mrs. Hastings never closed her
+eyes. When morning dawned, they were on the top of a range of mountains,
+like those that had been in sight all the day before. Down these heights
+they rattled away, and at four in the morning entered the streets of
+Chloride Hill--a city of board and canvas houses. Arrived at the stage
+office, the lady looked penetratingly into the crowd of men always
+waiting for the stages, but saw no face she recognized. Yes, one--and
+that the face of the gentleman who sat down opposite her at table in
+Elko.
+
+"Permit me," he said; "I think you inquired for Mr. Hastings?"
+
+"I did; he is my husband. I expected to find him here," she replied,
+feeling that sense of injury and desire to cry which tired women feel,
+jostled about in a crowd of men.
+
+Leaving her a moment to say something to an employee of the office, the
+stranger returned immediately, saying to the man: "Take this lady to
+Mrs. Robb's boarding-house." Then to her: "I will inquire for your
+husband, and send him to you if he is in town. The hack does not go over
+to Deep Canon for several hours yet. Meanwhile you had better take some
+rest. You must be greatly fatigued."
+
+Fatigued! her head swam round and round; and she really was too much
+exhausted to feel as disappointed as she might at Jack's non-appearance.
+Much relieved by the prospect of a place to rest in, she followed the
+man summoned to escort her, and fifteen minutes after was sound asleep
+on a sofa of the boarding-house.
+
+Three hours of sleep and a partial bath did much to restore tired
+nature's equilibrium; and, although her head still felt absurdly light,
+Mrs. Hastings enjoyed the really excellent breakfast provided for her,
+wondering how such delicacies ever got to Chloride Hill. Breakfast over,
+and no news of Jack, the time began to drag wearily. She was more than
+half inclined to be angry--only relenting when she remembered that she
+was two or three days behind time, and of course Jack could not know
+when to expect her. She had very full directions, and if she could not
+find her way to Deep Canon she was a goose, that was all!
+
+So she sent for the driver of the hack, told him to get her baggage from
+the express office; and started for Deep Canon. Who should she find in
+the hack but her friend of the morning!
+
+"I could not hear of your husband," said he; "but you are sure to find
+him at home."
+
+Mrs. Hastings smiled faintly, and hoped she should. Then she gave her
+thoughts to the peculiar scenery of the country, and to the sharpness of
+the descent, as they whirled rapidly down the four miles of canon at the
+bottom of which was the town of that name--another one of those places
+which had "come up as a flower" in a morning. She longed to ask about
+her husband and his "home"; but as there were several persons in the
+stage, she restrained her anxiety, and said never a word until they
+stopped before the door of a saloon where all the other passengers
+alighted. Then she told the driver she wanted to be taken to Mr.
+Hastings' house.
+
+He didn't know where that was, he said, but would inquire.
+
+Did he know Dr. Earle?
+
+"That's him, ma'am;" pointing out her friend of the morning.
+
+"How can I serve you?" he asked, raising his hat politely.
+
+Mrs. Hastings blushed rosily, between vexation at Jack's invisibility
+and confusion at being so suddenly confronted with Dr. Earle.
+
+"Mr. Hastings instructed me to inquire of you, if I had any difficulty
+in finding him," she said, apologetically.
+
+"I will show you his place with pleasure," returned the Doctor
+pleasantly; and, jumping on the box, proceeded to direct the driver.
+
+Had ladies of Mrs. Hastings' style been as plenty in Deep Canon as in
+New York, the driver would have grumbled at the no road he had to follow
+along the stony side of a hill and among the stumps of mahogany trees.
+But there were few like her in that mountain town, and his chivalry
+compelled him to go out of his way with every appearance of
+cheerfulness. Presently the stage stopped where the sloping ground made
+it very uncertain how long it could maintain its balance in that
+position; and the voice of Dr. Earle was heard saying "This is the
+place."
+
+Mrs. Hastings, who had been looking out for some sign of home, was
+seized with a doubt of the credibility of her senses. It was on the tip
+of her tongue to say "This must be the house of some other Mr.
+Hastings," when she remembered prudence, and said nothing. Getting out
+and going toward the house to inquire, the door opened, and a man in a
+rough mining suit came quickly forward to meet her.
+
+"Alice!"
+
+"Jack!"
+
+Dr. Earle and the driver studiously looked the other way while
+salutations were exchanged between Mr. and Mrs. Hastings. When they
+again ventured a look, the lady had disappeared within the cabin, the
+first glimpse of which had so dismayed her.
+
+That afternoon, Jack initiated Alice into the mysteries of cooking by an
+open fire, and expatiated largely on the merits of his outside kitchen.
+Alice hinted to him that she was accustomed to sleep on something softer
+than a board, and the two went together to a store to purchase materials
+out of which to make a mattress.
+
+After that, for two or three weeks, Mrs. Hastings was industriously
+engaged in wondering what her husband meant when he wrote that he had
+built a house, and was getting things ready to receive her. Reason or
+romance as she might, she could not make that single room of rough
+boards, roofed with leaky canvas and unfurnished with a single comfort
+of life, into a house or home. At last, Jack seemed to guess her
+thoughts, for she never spoke them.
+
+"If I could sell my mine," he then often said, "I could fix things up."
+
+"If you sold your mine, Jack, you would go back to New York, and then
+there would be no need of fixing up this place." Alice wanted to say
+"horrid" place, but refrained.
+
+At length, from uncongenial air, water, food, and circumstances in
+general, the transplanted flower began to droop. The great heat and
+rarified mountain air caused frantic headaches, aggravated by the glare
+which came through the white canvas roof. Then came the sudden mountain
+tempests, when the rain deluged everything, and it was hard to find a
+spot to stand in where the water did not drip through. She grew wild,
+looking forever at bare mountain sides simmering in the sun by day, and
+at night over their tops up to the piercing stars. A constant anxious
+fever burnt in her blood, that the cold night air could not quench,
+though she often left her couch to let it blow chilly over her, in her
+loose night robes. Then she fell really ill.
+
+Sitting by her bedside, Jack said: "If I could sell my mine!" And she
+had answered, "let the mine go, Jack, and let us go home. Nothing is
+gained by stopping in this dreadful place."
+
+Then Mr. Hastings had replied to her, "I have no money, Alice, to go
+home with, not a cent. I borrowed ten dollars of Earle to-day to buy
+some fruit for you."
+
+That was the last straw that broke the camel's back. By night Mrs.
+Hastings was delirious, and Dr. Earle was called.
+
+"She has a nervous fever," he said, "and needs the carefullest nursing."
+
+"Which she cannot have in this d----d place," Mr. Hastings replied,
+profanely.
+
+"Why don't you try to get something to do?" asked Earle of the
+sad-visaged husband, a day or two after.
+
+"What is there to do? Everything is flat; there is neither business nor
+money in this cursed country. I've stayed here trying to sell my mine,
+until I'm dead broke; nothing to live on here, and nothing to get out
+with. What I'm to do with my wife there, I don't know. Let her die,
+perhaps, and throw her bones up that ravine to bleach in the sun. God!
+what a position to be in!"
+
+"But you certainly must propose to do something, and that speedily.
+Couldn't you see it was half that that brought this illness on your
+wife; the inevitable which she saw closing down upon you?"
+
+"If I cannot sell my mine soon, I'll blow out my brains, as that poor
+German did last week. Alice heard the report of the shot which killed
+him, and I think it hastened on her sickness."
+
+"And so you propose to treat her to another such scene, and put an end
+to her?" said Earle, savagely.
+
+"Better so than to let her starve," Jack returned, growing pale with the
+burden of possibilities which oppressed him. "How the devil I am to save
+her from that last, I don't know. There is neither business, money, nor
+credit in this infernal town. I've been everywhere in this district,
+asking for a situation at something, and cannot get anything better than
+digging ground on the new road."
+
+"Even that might be better than starving," said Dr. Earle.
+
+Jack was a faithful nurse; Dr. Earle an attentive physician; young
+people with elastic constitutions die hard: so Alice began to mend, and
+in a fortnight was convalescent. Jack got a situation in a quartz mill
+where the Doctor was part owner.
+
+Left all day alone in the cabin, Alice began staring again at the dreary
+mountains whose walls inclosed her on every side. The bright scarlet and
+yellow flowers which grew out of their parched soil sometimes tempted
+her to a brief walk; but the lightness of the air fatigued her, and she
+did not care to clamber after them.
+
+One day, being lonely, she thought to please Jack by dressing in
+something pretty and going to the mill to see him. So, laying aside the
+wrapper which she had worn almost constantly lately, she robed herself
+in a delicate linen lawn, donned a coquettish little hat and parasol,
+and set out for the mill, a mile away. Something in the thought of the
+pleasant surprise it would be to Jack gave her strength and animation;
+and though she arrived somewhat out of breath, she looked as dainty and
+fresh as a rose, and Jack was immensely proud and flattered. He
+introduced her to the head of the firm, showed her over the mill,
+pointed out to her the mule-train packing wood for the engine fires, got
+the amalgamator to give her specimens, and in every way showed his
+delight.
+
+After an hour or so she thought about going home; but the walk home
+looked in prospect very much longer than the walk to the mill. In truth,
+it was harder by reason of being up-hill. But opportunely, as it seemed,
+just as Jack was seeing her off the door-stone of the office, Dr. Earle
+drove up, and, comprehending the situation, offered to take Mrs.
+Hastings to her own door in his carriage, if she would graciously allow
+him five minutes to see the head man in.
+
+When they were seated in the carriage, a rare luxury in Deep Canon; and
+had driven a half mile in embarrassed silence--for Mrs. Hastings somehow
+felt ashamed of her husband's dependence upon this man,--the Doctor
+spoke, and what he said was this:
+
+"Your life is very uncongenial to you; you wish to escape from it, don't
+you?"
+
+"Yes, I wish to escape; that is the word which suits my feeling--a very
+strange feeling it is."
+
+"Describe it," said the Doctor, almost eagerly.
+
+"Ever since I left the railroad, in the midst of a wilderness and was
+borne for so many hours away into the heart of a still more desert
+wilderness, my consciousness of things has been very much confused. I
+can only with difficulty realize that there is any such place as New
+York; and San Francisco is a fable. The world seems a great bare
+mountain plane; and I am hanging on to its edge by my fingertips, ready
+to drop away into space. Can you account for such impressions?"
+
+"Easily, if I chose. May I tell you something?"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I've half a mind to run away with you."
+
+Now, as Dr. Earle was a rather young and a very handsome man, had been
+very kind, and was now looking at her with eyes actually moistened with
+tears, a sudden sense of being on the edge of a pitfall overcame Mrs.
+Hastings; and she turned pale and red alternately. Yet, with the
+instinct of a pure woman, to avoid recognizing an ugly thought, she
+answered with a laugh as gay as she could make it.
+
+"If you were a witch, and offered me half of your broomstick to New
+York, I don't know but I should take it;--that is, if there was room on
+it anywhere for Jack."
+
+"There wouldn't be," said the Doctor, and said no more.
+
+The old fever seemed to have returned that afternoon. The hills glared
+so that Mrs. Hastings closed the cabin door to shut out the burning
+vision. The ground-squirrels, thinking from the silence that no one was
+within, ran up the mahogany tree at the side, and scampered over the
+canvas roof in glee. One, more intent on gain than the rest, invaded
+Jack's outside kitchen, knocking down the tin dishes with a clang, and
+scattering the dirt from the turf roof over the flour-sack and the two
+white plates. Every sound made her heart beat faster. Afraid of the
+silence and loneliness at last, she reopened the door; and then a
+rough-looking man came to the entrance, to inquire if there were any
+silver leads up the ravine.
+
+Leads? she could not say: prospectors in plenty there were.
+
+Then he went his way, having satisfied his curiosity; and the door was
+closed again. Some straggling donkeys wandered near, which were mistaken
+for "Diggers;" and dreading their glittering eyes, the nervous prisoner
+drew the curtain over the one little sliding window. There was nothing
+to read, nothing to sew, no housekeeping duties, because no house to
+keep; she was glad when the hour arrived for preparing the late
+afternoon meal.
+
+That night she dreamed that she was a skeleton lying up the canon--the
+sunshine parching her naked bones; that Dr. Earle came along with a
+pack-train going to the mill, and picking her up carefully, laid her on
+top of a bundle of wood; that the Mexican driver covered her up with a
+blanket, which so smothered her that she awakened, and started up
+gasping for breath. The feeling of suffocation continuing, she stole
+softly to the door, and opening it, let the chilly night air blow over
+her. Most persons would have found Mr. Hastings' house freely
+ventilated, but some way poor Alice found it hard to breathe in it.
+
+The summer was passing; times grew, if possible, harder than before. The
+prospectors, who had found plenty of "leads," had spent their "bottom
+dollar" in opening them up and in waiting for purchasers, and were going
+back to California any way they could. The capitalists were holding off,
+satisfied that in the end all the valuable mines would fall into their
+hands, and caring nothing how fared the brave but unlucky discoverers.
+In fact, they overshot themselves, and made hard times for their own
+mills, the miners having to stop getting out rock.
+
+Then Jack lost his situation. Very soon food began to be scarce in the
+cabin of Mr. Hastings. Scanty as it was, it was more than Alice craved;
+or rather, it was not what she craved. If she ate for a day or two, for
+the next two or three days she suffered with nausea and aversion to
+anything which the outside kitchen afforded. Jack seldom mentioned his
+mine now, and looked haggard and hopeless. The conversation between her
+husband and Dr. Earle, recorded elsewhere, had been overheard by Alice,
+lying half conscious; and she had never forgotten the threat about
+blowing out his brains in case he failed to sell his mine. Trifling as
+such an apprehension may appear to another, it is not unlikely that it
+had its effect to keep up her nervous condition. The summer was
+going--was gone. Mrs. Hastings had not met Dr. Earle for several weeks;
+and, despite herself, when the worst fears oppressed her, her first
+impulse was to turn to him. It had always seemed so easy for him to do
+what he liked!
+
+Perhaps _he_ was growing anxious to know if he could give the
+thumb-screw another turn. At all events, he directed his steps toward
+Mr. Hastings' house on the afternoon of the last day in August. Mrs.
+Hastings received him at the threshold and offered him the
+camp-stool--the only chair she had--in the shade outside the door; at
+the same time seating herself upon the door-step with the same grace as
+if it had been a silken sofa.
+
+She was not daintily dressed this afternoon; for that luxury, like
+others, calls for the expenditure of a certain amount of money, and
+money Alice had not--not even enough to pay a Chinaman for "doing up"
+one of her pretty muslins. Neither had she the facilities for doing them
+herself, had she been skilled in that sort of labor; for even to do your
+own washing and ironing pre-supposes the usual conveniences of a
+laundry, and these did not belong to the furniture of the outside
+kitchen. She had not worn her linen lawn since the visit to the mill.
+The dust which blew freely through every crack of the shrunken boards
+precluded such extravagance. Thus it happened that a soiled cashmere
+wrapper was her afternoon wear. She had faded a good deal since her
+coming to Deep Canon; but still looked pretty and graceful, and rather
+too _spirituelle_.
+
+The Doctor held in his hand, on the point of a knife, the flower of a
+cactus very common in the mountains, which he presented her, warning her
+at the same time against its needle-like thorns.
+
+"It makes me sick," said Alice hastily, throwing it away. "It is the
+color of gold, which I want so much; and of the sunshine, which I hate
+so."
+
+"I brought it to you to show you the little emerald bee that is always
+to be found in one: it is wonderously beautiful,--a living gem, is it
+not?"
+
+"Yes, I know," Alice said, "I admired the first one I saw; but I admire
+nothing any longer--nothing at least which surrounds me here."
+
+"I understand that, of course," returned the Doctor. "It is because your
+health is failing you--because the air disagrees with you."
+
+"And because my husband is so unfortunate. If he could only get away
+from here--and I!" The vanity of such a supposition, in their present
+circumstances, brought the tears to her eyes and a quiver about her
+mouth.
+
+"Why did you ever come here! Why did he ever ask you to come;--how
+_dared_ he?" demanded the Doctor, setting his teeth together.
+
+"That is a strange question, Doctor!" Mrs. Hastings answered with
+dignity, lifting her head like an antelope. "My husband was deceived by
+the same hopes which have ruined others. If I suffer, it is because we
+are both unfortunate."
+
+"What will he do next?" questioned the Doctor curtly. The cruel meaning
+caused the blood to forsake her cheeks.
+
+"I cannot tell what he will do,"--her brief answer rounded by an
+expressive silence.
+
+"You might help him: shall I point out the way to you?"--watching her
+intently.
+
+"Can you? _can_ I help him?"--her whole form suddenly inspired with
+fresh life.
+
+Dr. Earle looked into her eager face with a passion of jealous inquiry
+that made her cast down her eyes:
+
+"Alice, do you _love_ this Hastings?"
+
+He called her Alice; he used a tone and asked a question which could not
+be misunderstood. Mrs. Hastings dropped her face into her hands, her
+hands upon her knees. She felt like a wild creature which the dogs hold
+at bay. She knew now what the man meant, and the temptation he used.
+
+"Alice," he said again, "this man, your husband, possesses a prize he
+does not value; or does not know how to care for. Shall you stay here
+and starve with him? Is he worth it?"
+
+"He is my husband," she answered simply, lifting up her face, calm, if
+mortally pale.
+
+"And I might be your husband, after a brief interval," he said quickly.
+"There would have to be a divorce;--it could be conducted quietly. I do
+not ask you to commit yourself to dishonor. I will shield you; no care
+shall fall upon you, nor any reproach. Consider this well, dearest
+darling Alice! and what will be your fate if you depend upon him."
+
+"Will it help _him_ then, to desert him?" she asked faintly.
+
+"Yes, unless by remaining with him you can insure his support. Maintain
+you he cannot. Suppose his mine were sold, he would waste that money as
+he wasted what he brought here. I don't want his mine, yet I will buy it
+tomorrow if that will satisfy you, and I have your promise to go with
+me. I told you once that I wanted to run away with you, and now I mean
+to. Shall I tell you my plan?"
+
+"No, not to-day," Mrs. Hastings answered, struggling with her pain and
+embarrassment; "I could not bear it to-day, I think."
+
+"How cruel I am while meaning to be kind! You are agitated as you ought
+not to be in your weak state. Shall I see you to-morrow--a professional
+visit, you know?"
+
+"You will buy the mine?"--faintly, with something like a blush.
+
+"Certainly; I swear I will--on what conditions, you know."
+
+"On none other?"
+
+"Shall I rob myself, not of money only, but of what is far dearer?--On
+_none other_." He rose, took her cold hand, clasped it fervently, and
+went away.
+
+When Jack came home to his very meagre dinner, he brought a can of
+peaches, which, being opened, looked so deliciously cool and tempting
+that Alice could not refrain from volubly exulting over them. "But how
+did you get them, Jack?" she asked; "not by going into debt, I hope."
+
+"No. I was in Scott's store, and Earle, happening to come in just as
+Scott was selling some, and praising them highly, paid for a can, and
+asked me to take them to you and get your opinion. They are splendid, by
+Jove!"
+
+"I do not fancy them," said Alice, setting down her plate; "but don't
+tell the Doctor," she added hastily.
+
+"You don't fancy anything, lately, Alice," Mr. Hastings replied, rather
+crossly.
+
+"Never mind, Jack; my appetite will come when you have sold your mine;"
+and upon that the unreasonably fastidious woman burst into tears.
+
+"As if my position is not trying enough without seeing you cry!" said
+Jack, pausing from eating long enough to look injured. Plastic Jack!
+your surroundings were having their effect on you.
+
+The _Mining News_ of the second of September had a notice of the sale of
+Mr. Hastings' mine, the "Sybil," bearing chloride of silver, to Dr.
+Eustance Earle, all of Deep Canon. The papers to be handed over and cash
+paid down at Chloride Hill on the seventh; at which time Dr. Earle would
+start for San Francisco on the business of the mining firm to which he
+belonged. Mr. Hastings, it was understood, would go east about the same
+time.
+
+All the parties were at Chloride Hill on the morning of the seventh,
+promptly. By eleven o'clock, the above-mentioned transaction was
+completed. Shortly after, one of the Opposition Line's stages stopped at
+Mrs. Robb's boarding-house, and a lady, dressed for traveling, stepped
+quickly into it. Having few acquaintances, and being closely veiled, the
+lady passed unrecognized at the stage-office, where the other passengers
+got in.
+
+Half an hour afterwards Mr. Jack Hastings received the following note:
+
+    "DEAR JACK: I sold your mine for you. Dr. Earle is running away with
+    me, per agreement; but if you take the express this afternoon, you
+    will reach Elko before the train leaves for San Francisco to-morrow.
+    There is nothing worth going back for at Deep Canon. If you love me,
+    save me.
+
+    "Devotedly,
+
+    "ALICE."
+
+It is superfluous to state that Jack took the express, which, arriving
+at Elko before the Opposition, made him master of the situation. Not
+that he felt very masterful; he didn't. He was thinking of many things
+that it hurt him to remember; but he was meaning to do differently in
+future. He had at last sold his mine--no, he'd be d----d if _he_ had
+sold it; but--Hallo! there's a big dust out on the road there!--it must
+be the other stage. Think what you'll do and say, Jack Hastings!
+
+What he did say was: "Ah, Doctor! you here? It was lucky for my wife,
+wasn't it, since I got left, to have you to look after her? Thanks, old
+fellow; you are just in time for the train. Alice and I will stop over a
+day to rest. A thousand times obliged: good-bye! Alice, say good-bye to
+Doctor Earle! you will not see him again."
+
+Their hands and eyes met. He was pale as marble: she flushed one
+instant, paled the next, with a curious expression in her eyes which the
+Doctor never forgot and never quite understood. It was enough to know
+that the game was up. He had another mine on his hands, and an ugly pain
+in his heart which he told himself bitterly would be obstinate of cure.
+If he only could be sure what that look in her eyes had meant!
+
+
+
+
+WHAT THEY TOLD ME AT WILSON'S BAR.
+
+
+The mining season was ended in the narrow valley of one of the
+Sacramento's northern tributaries, as, in fact, it was throughout the
+whole region of "placer diggings;" for it was October of a dry year, and
+water had failed early in all the camps. The afternoon of a long, idle
+day at Wilson's Bar was drawing to a close. The medium through which the
+sun's hot rays reached the parched earth was one of red dust, the effect
+of which was that of a mellow Indian summer haze, pleasing to the eye,
+if abhorred by the skin and lungs, compelled to take it in, whether
+brute or human. In the landscape was an incongruous mingling of beauty
+and deformity; the first, the work of nature; the last, the marring of
+man.
+
+To the east and to the west rose hills, whose ruggedness was softened by
+distance to outlines of harmonious grandeur. Scattered over the valley
+between them, the stately "digger," or nut-pines, grew at near
+intervals, singly or in groups of three or five, harmonizing by their
+pale gray-green with the other half-tints of earth, air, and sky.
+Following the course of the dried up river was a line, more or less
+continuous, of the evergreen oaks, whose round, spreading tops are such
+a grateful relief to the eye in the immense levels of the lower
+Sacramento and upper San Joaquin valleys. Depending from these, hung
+long, venerable-looking beards of gray moss, as devoid of color as
+everything else in the landscape; everything else, except the California
+wild grape, which, so far from being devoid of color, was gorgeous
+enough in itself to lighten up the whole foreground of the picture.
+Growing in clumps upon the ground, it was gay as a bed of tulips.
+Clambering up occasional tall trees, it flaunted its crimson and
+party-colored foliage with true bacchanalian jollity, each leaf seeming
+drunk with its own red wine. There is truly nothing that grows in the
+Golden State more beautiful than the _Vitus Californica_ in October.
+
+That was Nature's side of the picture. The reverse was this: the earth
+everywhere torn and disfigured by prospectors, whose picks had produced
+the effect of some huge snout of swine, applied with the industry
+characteristic of that animal in forbidden grounds. Rude cabins were
+scattered about, chiefly in the neighborhood of the stream. Rockers,
+sluice-boxes, and sieves strewed its borders. Along the dusty road which
+led to Wilson's Bar toiled heavily laden trains of freight-wagons,
+carrying supplies for the coming winter. At each little deviation from
+the general level, the eight-mule teams strained every muscle; the
+dust-enswathed drivers swore frantically and whipped mercilessly; the
+immense wagons groaned and creaked, and--the world moved on, however
+much the pained observer might wish to bring it to a stand-still.
+
+A rosy sunset beyond the western mountains was casting its soft glamour
+over the scene--happily not without one appreciative beholder--when Bob
+Matheny's wagon drew up in front of the Traveler's Rest, the principal
+hotel of Wilson's Bar. From the commotion which ensued immediately
+thereupon, it would appear that Matheny was a person widely and also
+somewhat favorably known; such ejaculations as "Hulloa! thar's Bob
+Matheny," "How-dy, old feller!" and many other similar expressions of
+welcome greeting him on all sides, as he turned from blocking the wheels
+of his wagon, which else might have backed down the slight incline that
+led to Traveler's Rest.
+
+At the same moment that the hand-shaking was progressing, a young woman,
+mounted on a handsome filly, rode up to the rude steps of the hotel and
+prepared to dismount; and Bob Matheny instantly broke away from his
+numerous friends, to lift her from the saddle, which act occasioned a
+sympathetic smile in that same numerous circle, and a whisper ran round
+it, half audible, to the effect that Bob had "bin gittin' married," "A
+dog-goned purty gal," "The old cock's puttin' on frills," and similar
+appropriate remarks, _ad infinitum_. In the meantime--the young woman
+disappearing within the hotel, and Matheny occupying himself firstly
+with the wants of his team, and lastly with his own and those of his
+traveling companion--gossip had busily circulated the report among the
+idlers of Wilson's Bar that Bob Matheny had taken to himself a young
+wife, who was accompanying him on his monthly trip to the mountains.
+This report was published with the usual verbal commentaries, legends,
+and annotations; as relevant and piquant as that sort of gossip usually
+is, and as elegant as, from the dialect of Wilson's Bar, might be
+expected.
+
+Late that evening, a group of honest miners discussed the matter in the
+Star Empire Saloon.
+
+"He's the last man I'd a-suspected ov doin' sech a act," said Tom Davis,
+with a manly grief upon his honest countenance, as he hid the ace and
+right-bower under the brim of his ragged old _sombrero_, and proceeded
+to play the left upon the remainder of that suit--with emphasis, "the
+very last man!"
+
+"It's a powerful temptation to a feller in _his_ shoes," remarked the
+tall Kentuckian on his right. "A young gal is a mighty purty thing to
+look at, and takes a man's mind off from his misfortin's. You mind the
+verse, don't ye:
+
+    'Sorrows I divide, and joys I double?'"
+
+"And give this world a world o' trouble," subjoined Davis's partner,
+with a good natured laugh at his own wit. "It's your deal, Huxly. Look
+and see if all the cards are in the pack. Deuced if I don't suspect
+somebody's hidin' them."
+
+"Every keerd's thar thet I hed in my hands, ef you mean _me_," said the
+Kentuckian, sharply.
+
+"Waal, I _don't_ mean you. A feller may have his little joke, I
+suppose."
+
+"Depends on the kind o' jokes. Here's the two missin' keerds on the
+floor. Now, ef you say I put 'em thar, it's a little joke I reckon I
+won't stand. _Sabe_?"
+
+"Come, I'll pay for the drinks, old fel', if you'll allow me to
+apologize. Waiter, drinks all round. What'll you take, gentlemen?"
+
+"Now, that's what I call blarsted 'an'some," remarked Huxley, who was an
+Englishman from Australia:
+
+    "'Friend of me soul, this goblet sip,
+      'Twill dry the starting tear;
+    'Tis not so bright as woman's lip,
+      But oh, 'tis more sincere!'
+
+"Here's to ye, me hearties."
+
+"Which brings us back to our subject," responded Davis's partner,
+commonly called "Gentleman Bill," as the glasses were drained and sent
+away. "Do you believe in curses, Kentuck?"
+
+"B'lieve in cusses? Don't the Bible tell about cussin'? Wasn't thar an
+old man in the Bible--I disremember his name--that cussed one of his
+sons, and blessed t'other one? I reckon I _do_ b'lieve in cussin'."
+
+His interlocutor laughed softly at the statement and argument. "Did you
+ever know any body to be cursed in such a manner that it was plain he
+was under a ban of unintermitting vengeance?"
+
+"Ef you mean did I ever know a man as was cussed, I ken say I did, onct.
+He was a powerful mean man--a nigger-driver down in Tennessee. He was
+orful to swear, and cruel to the niggers, an' his wife besides. One day
+she died an' left a mite of a baby; an' he was so mad he swore he
+'wouldn't bury her; the neighbors might bury her, an' the brat, too, if
+they liked.' As he was a-swearin' an' a-tearin' with all his might, an'
+a-callin' on God to cuss him ef he didn't do so an' so, all of a
+suddent, just as his mouth opened with a oath, he was struck speechless,
+an' never has spoke a word till this day!--leastways, not that I ever
+heard ov."
+
+"That is what I should call a special example of Divine wrath," said
+Gentleman Bill, deftly dealing the cards for a new game. "What I meant
+to ask was, whether any one, yourself especially, had ever known one man
+to curse another man so as to bring ruin upon him, in spite of his will
+to resist it."
+
+"Waal, I've heern tell of sech things; can't say as I know such a man,
+without it's Bob Matheny. _He_ says he's cussed; an' I reckon he _is_.
+Everybody in Wilson's Bar has heern about that."
+
+"Not everybody, for I am still ignorant of his story. Was that why Mr.
+Davis objected so strongly to his marriage? I begin to be interested.
+Count me another game, partner. I should like to hear about Mr.
+Matheny."
+
+"You may tell the story, Davis," said Kentuck, magnanimously. "I want
+ter chaw terbacker fur awhile, an' I can't talk an' chaw."
+
+Tom Davis gladly took up the theme, as it gave him an opportunity to
+display his oratorical and rhetorical abilities, of which he was almost
+as proud as he was of his skill in hiding cards in his sleeves, his hat,
+his hair, his boots.
+
+"Gentlemen," he began, hesitating an instant--while, attention being
+fixed on what he was about to say, he stocked the cards--"gentlemen,
+it's one of the curusest things you ever heerd in yer life. It seems
+thar was a woman at the bottom of it--I believe thar allers is at the
+bottom of everything. Waal, he stole another man's sunflower--I've heerd
+Bob say so, hisself--an' the other feller got mad--as mad as
+thunder--an', when he found his gal had vamosed with Bob, he cursed him;
+an' his curse was this: that as long as he lived all that he did should
+prosper for a little while, an' jest when he begun to enj'y it, a curse
+should come onto it. Ef it wor business, when he thought he was sure of
+a good thing, it should fail. Ef it wor love, the woman he loved should
+die. Ef it wor children, they should grow up, and turn agin' him; or, if
+they stuck to him, the same curse should be on them; what they undertook
+should fail; what they loved should die."
+
+"Did the woman he loved die? did his children desert him?" asked the
+Englishman, eagerly.
+
+"His wife died seven year arter he married her; one ov his boys was
+killed by his horse fallin' on him; the other got into bad company down
+to Red Bluffs, an', arter leadin' the old man a devil of a life for two
+year or more, run off, an' got taken by the lynchers--so folks said. I
+b'lieve he has a gal, back in the States; but his wife's folks won't let
+her come to Californy. They're a-eddicatin' her quite grand, an' she
+writes a powerful nice letter. The old man showed me one, last time he
+was up to the Bar. Han'some as any school-marm's ever ye saw. But Bob
+says he don't see what's the use; somethin's sure to happen her;
+somethin' allers does happen to him an' to his chillern."
+
+"Is that why he thinks he's cursed--because 'something always happens?'"
+asked Gentleman Bill, indifferently.
+
+"Sart'in; an' it's so, as sure as yer born. Nothin' never pans out long
+with Bob Matheny. His beginnin's is all good, an' his endin's all bad. I
+reckon thar never was a man to Wilson's Bar has been cleaned eout, down
+to the bed-rock, as often as Matheny."
+
+"Is he a good man?" asked the Englishman, interested.
+
+"Never had a better man to Wilson's Bar," responded Kentuck, decidedly,
+as he cast his quid under the table. "He ain't a lucky feller, an' he's
+mighty superstitious an' the like; but I make a heap o' Bob Matheny. His
+luck an' his cuss don't hurt him none for me. It's jest a notion,
+mebbe."
+
+"Notion or no notion," said Davis, with a knowing leer, "he's not the
+man to marry a nice gal like that 'un he's got up to the Rest. Better
+let her be for some lucky young feller as could make her happy. Don't
+you say so, boys?"
+
+While the laugh went round, the crowd that had been gradually collecting
+and listening to the story, began to move, and then to part, as the man
+so much talked of forced his way toward the group of speakers.
+
+"Hold yer tongue, Tom Davis," said Kentuck. "Hulloa, Bob! take my hand,
+won't ye? I'll introduce ye to my friends. My pardner is Huxly--a
+tip-top feller, as you'll diskiver fur yerself. Davis' pardner is
+Randolph--Gentleman Bill, we call him fur short, he's so nice and
+perlite. He's from yer State, too, I reckon."
+
+"Randolphs of Booneville," said Gentleman Bill; rising and extending his
+hand.
+
+Matheny, who was a mild-looking man of about fifty, with a hesitating
+manner and rather care-worn countenance, half concealed under a
+wide-brimmed, dusty black hat, instead of meeting half-way the extended
+hand of his friend's friend, thrust his own into his pockets and gazed
+fixedly at young Randolph. "Be ye Boone Randolph, or be ye his sperrit?"
+he asked, hoarsely.
+
+"Neither, quite," said the young man, smiling, yet a little flushed. "I
+am son of Boone Randolph of Booneville, if you know who he was."
+
+Matheny turned and hurried out of the crowd, followed by Kentuck, who
+wanted to have explained this singular conduct of Bob's towards his
+friends. As there was no witness of their conversation, its meaning can
+only be guessed at by another which took place two hours later, after
+Matheny had turned in at the Traveler's Rest. It was late, even for him,
+when Kentuck started for his lodgings at the other end of the long,
+densely crowded street--crowded not only with buildings of wood and
+canvas, but choked up with monstrous freight wagons, and their numerous
+horse and mule-teams, for which there was not stable-room enough in all
+Wilson's Bar. Stumbling along the uneven sidewalk, often touching with
+his feet some unhoused vagabond, Kentuck was about to mount the stairs
+which led to his bedroom, when some one touched him on the shoulder, and
+the voice of Gentleman Bill addressed him:
+
+"I beg your pardon, Kentuck; but you've been with Matheny, haven't you?
+I want to know why he wouldn't shake hands. He told you, of course?"
+
+"Waal, I'm a friend of Bob's, ye know, Bill; an' he is mighty rough on
+you, sure. Better not say nothin' about it."
+
+"That wouldn't suit me, Kentuck. I want to understand something about
+the matter which concerns me so evidently. Come, out with it, and I'll
+leave you to go to bed."
+
+"Waal, you heerd Tom Davis' blab this evenin'; an' you know that Bob's
+got the idee into his intelleck that the cuss of a sart'in man as he
+onct wronged is a-stickin' to him yit, an' never will let loose till he
+passes in his checks?"
+
+"Who was the man?"
+
+"Boone Randolph, of Booneville."
+
+"My father?"
+
+"Yaas, yer pap. He's down powerful on your pap, that's sart'in. Sez he
+to me: 'Loh! that's the ornary whelp ov the devil that cussed me. Old's
+I am I'd like to fight him, fur the sake o' the man that I knowed onct.
+I feel my young blood a-risin'; he looks so mighty like Boone Randolph.'
+But I tole him he war a fool to talk ov fightin' yer; ye'd whip him all
+ter flinders."
+
+"I wouldn't fight him, of course: he's too old for me. And then he's
+just married, too, isn't he? I have no wish to make that young woman a
+widow."
+
+"A widow!" said Kentuck, laughing. "That girl's name is Anne Matheny;
+but she ain't Bob's wife, not by a long shot. Why, she's Bob's darter,
+as has just come out to see her old pap."
+
+"Well, I like that. I am less than ever inclined to fight the man who
+owns such a daughter. I must find a way to make friends with him, even
+if I have to quarrel with him to do it. Good-night, Kentuck. Pleasant
+dreams to you."
+
+Gentleman Bill felt more than ordinarily wide-awake, whether it was from
+the novel excitement of the brief encounter with Matheny or not. When
+Kentuck had left him, he stood for some time irresolute, with no wish
+for rest, and no desire to go anywhere in particular. He looked up to
+the sky. It was murky with filmy fog-clouds and dust not yet settled to
+the earth. Not a star was visible in the whole arch of heaven. He looked
+down the street, and his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could just
+faintly distinguish the outlines of the wagons that crowded it. Every
+sound was hushed, except the occasional movement of a restless animal,
+or the deep sighing of a sleeping one. Not a light was burning anywhere
+along the street. While gazing aimlessly into the gloom he saw, all at
+once, as if lighted by a flash from the sky, a sudden illumination
+spring up, and a column of flame stand erect over the Traveler's Rest.
+
+Now, Wilson's Bar did not boast a fire company. At some seasons of the
+year, had a fire broken out, there would have been a chance of its
+extinguishment, inflammable as were the materials of which the place was
+built; but just after the long, hot summer, when the river was all but
+dried up, and every plank in houses, fences, and sidewalks so much
+tinder, a fire that should get under headway would have everything its
+own way. Seeing the danger, Gentleman Bill started down the street on a
+run, shouting, in his clarion tones, that ever-thrilling cry of "Fire!
+fire! fire!" till it seemed to him he must wake the dead. But it was
+that hour of the night, or rather morning, when sleep is heaviest, and
+the watchful senses off their guard. The teamsters, who slept in their
+wagons, were the first to be aroused; but they, seeing the peril which
+might come to their teams, and destruction to their property, kept by
+their own. The inhabitants of the dwellings awoke more slowly, and came
+pouring into the street only in time to see the roof of the Traveler's
+Rest falling in, although the lower story was not yet consumed.
+
+Nobody knew much about the details of the scene that ensued. The current
+of heated air produced the usual rush of cold wind, which spread and fed
+the flames, until, in half an hour, all hope of saving any part of the
+principal street in the Bar was abandoned, and people were flying for
+safety to the outskirts of the town.
+
+On a little eminence, overlooking the burning buildings, together stood
+Gentleman Bill and a young woman he had rescued from smoke and flame
+just in time to save her from suffocation. Together they looked down
+upon the conflagration, and together listened to the horrible medley of
+sounds proceeding from it.
+
+"If I could only know that my father is safe!" was the repeated moan of
+Anne Matheny, as she gazed intently upon the scene of distress.
+
+Seeing the fright and trouble in her eyes, her companion cunningly
+diverted her attention for one moment to the weird landscape stretching
+away toward the western mountains. It was the same scene she had beheld
+for the first time with such interest twelve hours before; but in what
+a different aspect! The murky heavens reflected the red glare of the
+flames upon every object for miles around, tinging each with a lurid
+gleam like nothing in nature. The dark neutrals of the far-off
+mountains, the gray-green of the pines, the sere colors of the parched
+valley, the dark dull-green of the oaks, garlanded with hoary moss, and
+the gay foliage of the wild grape; all came out distinctly in this
+furnace-glow, but with quite new effects. In the strong and strange
+fascination of the scene, both these young people, so singularly
+situated, forgot for three minutes their mutual anxiety. Longer it
+would be impossible to forget it.
+
+"Do not you think I might go to look for my father now, Mr. ----?"
+
+"Randolph"--supplied that gentleman.
+
+"Oh, thank you!--Mr. Randolph?"
+
+"I do not see how you could, really;" and, without intending it in the
+least, but simply through his embarrassment, Randolph glanced hastily at
+her scanty dress, which thereby she blushingly understood to be his
+objection.
+
+"If I could get only a blanket from father's wagon! Do you think it
+would be possible? Would you be running a risk to try for a blanket, do
+you think, Mr. Randolph? If there is any risk, please do not go; but I
+am so anxious--so terribly anxious."
+
+He knew she was, and knew the reason she had for her apprehensions; so,
+although he mistrusted the result of his errand, he answered simply:
+"Certainly; I will go, if you are not afraid to be left alone. _I_ shall
+be in no danger."
+
+"O, thank you--thank you! You will bring me a message from my father?"
+
+"I hope so, indeed, since you desire it so much. I think you had better
+sit down on this newspaper, and let me cover your shoulders with my
+coat."
+
+"No, indeed. If you are going near the fire, you will need it to protect
+you from cinders."
+
+But Randolph quickly divested himself of his upper garment, and laid it
+lightly over her shivering form; then quietly charging her to feel no
+alarm, and as little anxiety as possible, strode rapidly away toward the
+fire. Fifteen minutes afterward he returned more slowly, with a blanket,
+which Anne rose up to receive.
+
+"My father? Did you see my father?"
+
+"I did not see him. He must have taken his horses off a little distance
+for safety, and you may not see him for several hours. Do not indulge in
+apprehensions. In the morning we shall find him: it is almost daylight
+now."
+
+He pointed to a faint light along the eastern horizon; but her eyes were
+blinded with tears.
+
+"It is not like my father to leave me so long--at such a time, too! He
+would not care for his horses, nor for anything but me. O, can he have
+perished!"
+
+She spoke as though the awful significance of her loneliness had just
+dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent
+from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the
+Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an
+expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her
+inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the
+midst of her alarm and distress.
+
+The day had dawned when Anne Matheny lifted her tear-swollen face from
+her knees, and looked upon the smoking ruins of Wilson's Bar. It was
+but a blackened heap of rubbish; yet somewhere in its midst, she felt
+assured, were buried the charred remains of her father. Each moment that
+he came not deepened her conviction, until at last her companion ceased
+his efforts to inspire hope, and accepted her belief as his own. Then,
+with the inconsistency of sorrow, she violently repudiated the suspicion
+of her father's death, and besought him piteously to seek and bring him
+to her side.
+
+It was while obeying this last command that Gentleman Bill encountered
+Kentuck, who, after the confusion of the fire was over, was, like
+himself, looking for Matheny. When they had consulted together, the
+two returned to the place where Anne was awaiting them.
+
+"There is one request I have to make, Kentuck: which is, that you will
+not inform Miss Matheny of the enmity of her father toward my father and
+myself. It would only distress her. Besides, I should like to befriend
+her, poor girl! and I could not, if she looked upon me with her father's
+eyes."
+
+"No, 'tain't no use to tell her nothin' about that, sure enough. It's
+mighty curus, though, 'bout that fire: not another man got hurt, not a
+mite; and Bob Matheny dead! I'll be hanged if it ain't mighty curus. I
+hope _ye_ won't hurt the gal, bein' yer the son of yer father."
+
+"Hurt her! I'd----"
+
+Gentleman Bill did not say what he would do: but Kentuck, glancing his
+way, caught a perfectly comprehensible expression, and muttered softly
+to himself:
+
+"Waal, if that ain't the dog-gondest curusest sarcumstance I ever seed.
+Hit, the first pop! Waal, I'm not the feller to come atween 'em ef
+thet's ther notion. Far play's my rule."
+
+To Bill, aloud, he said: "Reckon you'll hev' to let _me_ be her uncle
+for awhile yet. Yer most too young a feller to offer to take car' of a
+gal like that. Bob Matheny's darter has a right to what leetle dust pans
+out o' Kentuck's claim. Thet's my go."
+
+Just at this moment Anne, who had been watching for the return of her
+friend, seeing two figures approaching, uttered a cry of joy and ran
+forward to meet them. The shock of her disappointment at seeing a
+stranger in place of her father, caused her nearly to swoon away in
+Kentuck's arms.
+
+"Neow, don't ye, honey," he said, soothingly, in his kind Kentucky
+dialect. "Sho! don't ye take on. We's all got to die, sometime or
+'nother. Don't mind me: I'm yer pap's oldest friend on this coast--hev'
+prospected an' dug an' washed up with him sence '49; and a kinder
+comrade a man never hed. In course, I consider it my dooty an' privilege
+to see that you're took car' ov. The Bar's purty much cleared
+eout--thet's so; but I'll soon hev' a cabin up somewhere; an' ye can
+jest run my shebang anyway ye like. Reckon I can find some nice woman to
+stay along with ye, fur comp'ny."
+
+This was just the kind of talk best calculated to engage the attention
+of one in Anne's situation--half soothing and half suggestive--and by
+degrees her father's old friend succeeded in arousing her to face her
+loss, and the prospects of her future.
+
+                        *    *    *    *    *
+
+They told me at Wilson's Bar, only last October--it must have been about
+the anniversary of the fire--that in two or three months Anne had
+recovered her spirits and health so far as to essay teaching the little
+flock of children at the Bar, with flattering success; and that in two
+or three more it began to be observed that Gentleman Bill--now more
+commonly called Mr. Randolph, out of respect to Miss Matheny--generally
+happened to be in the neighborhood of the school-house about the hour of
+closing, in order that he might walk home with the teacher. In truth,
+the young people had taken to looking and sighing after each other in a
+way that provoked remark, and augured a wedding. As Anne insisted on
+completing her term of teaching, as well as on taking a little time for
+preparation, the wedding did not come off until the first part of
+September.
+
+On this occasion--the only one of the kind Kentuck had ever had anything
+to do with--the rude, but generous-hearted Kentuckian made a point of
+displaying his hospitality on a scale commensurate with his ideas of its
+importance; and the _elite_ of Wilson's Bar were invited to eat, drink,
+and dance from dusk till dawn of that memorable day. As for the bride,
+she looked as lovely as it is the right and duty of all brides to
+look--even lovelier than the most; and the groom was the very prince of
+bridegrooms--so all the maiden guests declared.
+
+On the following morning, when the young couple were to go away, Annie
+kissed and cried over Kentuck, her second father, in a truly gratifying
+fashion; and Randolph behaved very gentlemanly and kindly--as, in fact,
+he always did; and Kentuck put on paternal airs, blessing his children
+in all the honeyed epithets of a true Kentuckian.
+
+Alas, that the legend does not end here! If the reader is of my mind, he
+will wish that it had. But if he is of that sanguinary sort who always
+insist upon seeing the grist the gods send to their slow-grinding mills,
+he will prefer to know the sequel. As I have already told you, it was in
+September they were married. On the morning they left Kentuck the
+weather was extremely hot, with queer little clouds hanging about the
+mountains. They took the road up the canon, toward McGibeney's
+ranch--laughing and chatting, as they rode along side by side, Anne
+replying to every lark singing by the roadside in a voice almost as
+musical.
+
+Well, if it must be told, there was a cloud-burst on the mountains about
+noon that day. Not four hours after they had taken leave of him, Kentuck
+received their poor bruised bodies at his very threshold, brought there
+without the interposition of human hands. Wilson's Bar will long
+remember that day. The fire took chiefly that which could be replaced;
+but the flood washed out claims, ruined aqueducts, and destroyed lives
+of men and brutes, carrying away with it the labors and hopes of years.
+
+
+
+
+MISS JORGENSEN.
+
+
+I am a plain, elderly, unmarried man, and I board at Mrs. Mason's. A
+great deal of what I am about to relate came under my own observation;
+and the remainder was confided to me from time to time by my landlady,
+with whom I am upon terms of friendship and intimacy, having had a home
+in her house for a period of seven years.
+
+Mrs. Mason lives in her own tenement, in a quiet part of the city; and
+besides myself, has usually three or four other boarders, generally
+teachers, or poor young authors--some person always of the class that,
+having few other pleasures, makes it a point to secure rooms with a fine
+view of the bay. When Miss Jorgensen came to us, we were a quiet,
+studious, yet harmonious and happy family; so well satisfied with our
+little community that we did not take kindly to the proposed addition to
+our circle when Mrs. Mason mentioned it. Neither did our landlady seem
+to desire any change; but she explained to us that the young person
+applying had made a strong appeal; that her classes (she was a teacher
+of French) were principally in our part of the city; and that she would
+be satisfied with a mere closet for a room. The only privilege for which
+she stipulated was the use of the common parlor twice a week to receive
+her company in.
+
+"But I cannot agree to give up the parlor any single evening," Mrs.
+Mason replied, "because it is used by all the family, every evening. You
+will be entitled to the same privileges with the others." After some
+hesitation this was agreed to, and our new boarder was installed in the
+upper hall bed-room, which, when it had received the necessary furniture
+and a saratoga trunk, with numerous boxes and baskets, would scarcely
+allow space enough to dress in. However, Mrs. Mason reported that the
+tenant professed real satisfaction with her quarters; and we all were on
+tiptoe with curiosity to see the new inmate.
+
+"Miss Jorgensen," said Mrs. Mason, that evening, as she escorted to the
+dinner-table a small, pale, dark-eyed young person, in deep mourning;
+and we being severally and separately presented afterward, endeavored to
+place this little lonely scrap of humanity at ease with ourselves. But
+in this well-intentioned effort Miss Jorgensen did not seem to meet us
+half way. On the contrary, she repelled us. She was reserved without
+being diffident; mercilessly critical, and fierily disputatious--all of
+which we found out in less than a week. She never entered or left a room
+without somehow disturbing the mental atmosphere of it, and giving the
+inmates a little shock; so that Mr. Quivey, our dramatic writer, soon
+took to calling her the "Electrical Eel," substituting "E. E." when the
+person indicated was within ear-shot possibly or probably. In return, as
+we afterward discovered, Miss Jorgensen told Miss Flower, our other
+young lady boarder, that she had christened Mr. Quivey "I.
+I."--"Incurable Idiot." How the "E. E." came to her knowledge was never
+made plain. Before three months were past, she had quarreled with every
+one in the house except Mrs. Mason and myself; though, to her credit be
+it said, she always apologized for her temper when they were over, with
+a frankness that disarmed resentment. Nevertheless, she was so
+frequently in a hostile attitude toward one or another in the family,
+that the mere mention of Miss Jorgensen's name was sure to arrest
+attention and excite expectations. Thus, when I only chanced to whisper
+to Mrs. Mason at breakfast one morning, "Miss Jorgensen keeps late
+hours," every one at the table glanced our way inquiringly, as much as
+to ask, "What has the little woman done now?" And when she appeared at
+the close of the meal with pale face and swollen eyes, explaining her
+tardiness by saying she had a headache, no one gave her sympathizing
+looks except the landlady.
+
+That kind-hearted person confided to me, later in the day, that her new
+boarder troubled and puzzled her very much. "She will sit up until one
+or two o'clock every night, writing something or other, and that makes
+her late to breakfast. She goes out teaching every morning, and comes
+back tired and late to luncheon; and you see she is never in her place
+at dinner until the soup is removed, and every one at the table helped.
+When I once suggested that she ought not to sit up so long at night, and
+that her classes should be arranged not to fatigue her so much, with
+other bits of friendly advice, she gave me to understand, very promptly,
+that her ways were her own, and not to be interfered with by any one.
+And directly afterward the tears came into her eyes. I confess I did not
+understand her at all."
+
+"What about the young man who calls here twice a week?" I inquired.
+
+"She is engaged to him, she says."
+
+"What sort of a person does he seem to be?"
+
+"He looks well enough, only rather shabby, is very quiet, very attentive
+to her, and what you might call obedient to her requirements. She often
+seems displeased with him, but what she says to him at such times is
+unknown to me, for she does her scolding all in French; and he usually
+then invites her out to walk, by way of diversion, I suppose."
+
+"Do you know that he comes every morning and carries her books for her?
+He certainly cannot be employed, or he would not have time for such
+gallantries."
+
+"Perhaps he is engaged on one of the morning papers, and so is off duty
+in the forenoon. I cannot think so industrious a person as she would
+take up with a man both poor and idle. But you never know what a woman
+will do," sighed Mrs. Mason, who had known something of heart-troubles
+in her youth, and could sympathize with other unlucky women. "Excuse me;
+I must not stand here gossiping." And the good lady went about her house
+affairs.
+
+A few moments later I was hurrying down town to my office, when I
+overtook Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Hurst. As usual, she was leaning upon
+his arm, and he was carrying her books. She was talking excitedly, in
+French, and I thought her to be crying, though her face was covered with
+a black veil. The few words I caught before she recognized me reminded
+me of my conversation with Mrs. Mason.
+
+"You _must_ get something to do, Harry," she was saying. "You know that
+I work every instant of the time, yet how little I can save if I have to
+supply you with money. It is a shame to be so idle and helpless, when
+there is so much to be done before----"
+
+She perceived me and stopped short. "So," I thought, "this precious
+scamp is living off the earnings of the little French teacher, is he? A
+pretty fellow, truly! I'll get him his _conge_ if I have to make love to
+her myself." Which latter conceit so amused me, that I had forgotten to
+be indignant with Mr. Hurst before I reached my office and plunged into
+the business of the day.
+
+But I never made love to Miss Jorgensen. She was not the kind of person
+even a flirtish man would choose to talk sentiment with, and I was
+always far enough from being a gallant. So our affairs went on in just
+the usual way at Mrs. Mason's for three or four months. Miss Jorgensen
+and Mr. Quivey let fly their arrows of satire at each other; Miss
+Flower, the assistant high-school teacher, enacted the amiable
+go-between; our "promising young artist" was wisely neutral; Mrs. Mason
+and myself were presumed to be old enough to be out of the reach of
+boarding-house tiffs, and preserved a prudent unconsciousness. Mr. Hurst
+continued to call twice a week in the evening, and Miss Jorgensen kept
+on giving French lessons by day, and writing out translations for the
+press at night. She was growing very thin, very pale, and cried a good
+deal, as I had reason to know, for her room adjoined mine, and more than
+a few times I had listened to her sobbing, until I felt almost forced to
+interfere; but interfered I never had yet.
+
+One foggy July evening, on coming home to dinner, I encountered Miss
+Jorgensen in the hall. She appeared to be just going out, a circumstance
+which surprised me somewhat, on account of the hour. I however opened
+the door for her without comment, when by the fading daylight I
+perceived that her face was deathly pale, and her black eyes burning.
+She passed me without remark, and hurried off into the foggy twilight.
+Nor did she appear at dinner; but came in about eight o'clock and went
+directly to her own room. When Mrs. Mason knocked at her door to inquire
+if she was not going to take some refreshments, the only reply that
+could be elicited was, that she had a headache, and could not be induced
+to eat or drink--spoken through the closed door.
+
+"She's been having a row with that sunflower of hers," was Mr. Quivey's
+comment, when he overheard Mrs. Mason's report to me, made in an
+undertone. Truth to tell, Mr. Quivey, from associating so much with
+theatrical people in the capacity of playwright, had come to be rather
+stagy in his style at times. "By the way, he was not on escort duty this
+morning. I saw her proceeding along Powell street alone, and anxiously
+peering up and down all the cross streets, evidently on the lookout, but
+he failed to put in an appearance."
+
+"Which was very unkind of him, if she expected that he would," put in
+Miss Flower, glancing from under her long lashes at the speaker.
+
+"That is so," returned Quivey; "for the fellow does nothing else, I do
+believe, but play lackey to Miss Jorgensen; and if that is his sole
+occupation, he ought to perform that duty faithfully. I do not see, for
+my part, how he pays his way."
+
+"Perhaps it pays him to be a lackey," I suggested, remembering what I
+had once overheard between them. Mrs. Mason gave me a cautioning glance,
+which she need not have done, for I had no intention of making known
+Miss Jorgensen's secrets.
+
+"Well," said Miss Flower, as if she had been debating the question in
+her mind for some time previous, "I doubt if a woman can love a man who
+submits to her will as subserviently as Mr. Hurst seems to, to Miss
+Jorgensen. I know _some women_ could not."
+
+"By which you mean _you_ could not," Mrs. Mason returned, smiling. "I do
+not see that the case need be very different with men. Subserviency
+never won anybody's respect or love either. Neither does willful
+opposition, any more. Proper self-respect and a fair share of self-love
+is more sure of winning admiration, from men or women, than too little
+self-assertion or too much."
+
+"But where the self-assertion is all on one side, and the self-abasement
+all on the other--as in the case of Miss Jorgensen and Mr. Hurst--then
+how would you establish an equilibrium, Mrs. Mason?"
+
+"It establishes itself in that case, I should say," clipped in Mr.
+Quivey. "Oil and water do not mix, but each keeps its own place
+perfectly, and without disturbance."
+
+I do not know how long this conversation might have gone on in this
+half-earnest, half-facetious style, with Miss Jorgensen for its object,
+had not something happened just here to bring it abruptly to a close;
+and that something was the report of a pistol over our very heads.
+
+"Great heaven!" ejaculated Miss Flower, losing all her color and
+self-possession together.
+
+"E. E., as I live--she has shot herself!" cried Quivey, half doubting,
+half convinced.
+
+I caught these words as I made a rapid movement toward the staircase.
+They struck me as so undeniably true that I never hesitated in making an
+assault upon her door. It was locked on the inside, and I could hear
+nothing except a faint moaning sound within. Fearing the worst, I threw
+my whole weight and strength against it, and it flew open with a crash.
+There lay Miss Jorgensen upon the floor, in the middle of her little
+room, uttering low moaning sobs, though apparently not unconscious. I
+stooped over and lifted her in my arms to lay her upon the bed, and as I
+did so, a small pocket-pistol fell at my feet, and I discovered blood
+upon the carpet.
+
+"Yes, Miss Jorgensen had certainly shot herself, I told Mrs. Mason, and
+the rest who crowded after us into the little woman's room; but whether
+dangerously or not, I could not say, nor whether purposely or
+accidentally. Probably not dangerously, as she was already making signs
+to me to exclude people from the apartment.
+
+"You had better bring a surgeon," I said to Quivey, who turned away
+muttering, followed by Miss Flower.
+
+With Mrs. Mason's assistance, I soon made out the location of the wound,
+which was in the flesh of the upper part of the left arm, and
+consequently not so alarming as it would be painful during treatment.
+
+"Could she have meant to shoot herself through the heart, and failed
+through agitation?" whispered Mrs. Mason to me, aside.
+
+"No, no; it was an accident," murmured the victim, whose quick ear had
+caught the words. "I did not mean to shoot myself."
+
+"Poor child, I am very sorry for you," returned Mrs. Mason gently, whose
+kind heart had always leaned toward the little French teacher, in spite
+of her singular ways. "It is very unfortunate; but you shall receive
+careful nursing until you recover. You need not worry about yourself,
+but try to bear it the best you can."
+
+"O, I cannot bear it--I _must_ be well to-morrow. O, what shall I do!"
+moaned Miss Jorgensen. "O, that this should have happened to-night!" And
+momently, after this thought occurred to her, her restlessness seemed to
+increase, until the surgeon came and began an examination of the wound.
+
+While this was going on, notwithstanding the sickening pain, the
+sufferer seemed anxious only about the opinion to be given upon the
+importance of the wound as interfering with her usual pursuits.
+
+When, in answer to a direct appeal, she was told that it must be some
+weeks before she could resume going out, a fainting fit immediately
+followed, which gave us no little trouble and alarm.
+
+Before taking leave, the doctor accompanied me to my own apartment and
+proceeded to question me.
+
+"What is the history of the case?" said he. "Is there anything peculiar
+in the life or habits of Miss Jorgensen, to account for her great
+anxiety to get well immediately?"
+
+"She fears to lose her classes, I presume; and there may be other
+engagements which are unknown to us." I still had a great reluctance to
+saying what I suspected might be troubling Miss Jorgensen.
+
+"Neither of which accounts for all that I observe in her case," returned
+the doctor. "What are her connections?--has she any family ties--any
+lover, even?"
+
+"I believe she told Mrs. Mason she was engaged to a young man who calls
+here twice a week."
+
+"Ah! Do you know where this young man is to be found? It might be best
+to communicate with him, in the morning. Possibly he may be able to
+dispel this anxious fear of hers, from whatever cause it arises."
+
+I promised the Doctor to speak to Mrs. Mason about it, and he soon after
+took leave, having first satisfied himself that the unlucky pistol was
+incapable of doing further mischief, and safely hidden from Miss
+Jorgensen.
+
+Naturally, the next morning, the table-talk turned upon the incident of
+the evening previous.
+
+"She need not tell me that it was an accident," Mr. Quivey was saying,
+very decidedly. "She is just the sort of woman for desperate remedies;
+and she is tired of living, with that vampire friend of hers draining
+her life-blood!"
+
+I confess I felt startled by the correspondence of Quivey's opinion with
+my own; for I had heretofore believed that myself and Mrs. Mason were
+the only persons who suspected that Hurst was dependent upon Miss
+Jorgensen for the means of living. In my surprise I said: "You know that
+he does this?"
+
+"I know that Craycroft paid him yesterday for a long translation done by
+Miss Jorgensen, and I do not believe he had an order for it, other than
+verbal. Craycroft seeing them so much together, paid the money, and took
+a receipt."
+
+"Perhaps he paid the money to Mr. Hurst by her instructions, for her own
+use," suggested Miss Flower. "But then he did not see her last evening,
+did he? I hope he does not rob Miss Jorgensen. Such a delicate little
+woman has enough to do to look out for herself, I should think."
+
+"One thing is certain," interposed Mrs. Mason, "Miss Jorgensen does what
+she does, and permits what she permits, intelligently; and our
+speculations concerning her affairs will not produce a remedy for what
+we fancy we see wrong in them." Which hint had the effect of silencing
+the discussion for that time.
+
+Before I left the house that morning, I had a consultation with Mrs.
+Mason, who had passed the night in attendance upon Miss Jorgensen, and
+who had informed me that she had been very restless, in spite of the
+quieting prescription left by the doctor. "I wish you would go up and
+speak to her," Mrs. Mason said. "Perhaps you can do something for her
+which I could not; and I am sure she needs some such service."
+
+Thus urged, I obeyed an impulse of my own, which had been to do this
+very thing. When I tapped softly at her door, she said, "Come in!" in a
+pained and petulant tone, as if any interruption was wearisome to her;
+but when she saw who it was, her countenance assumed an eager and
+animated expression, which rewarded me at once for the effort I was
+making.
+
+"Thank you for coming to see me," said she quickly. "I was almost on the
+point of sending for you." Pausing for a moment, while her eyes searched
+my face, she continued: "I am in trouble, which cannot be all explained,
+and which will force you, if you do a service for me, to take me very
+much upon trust; but I will first assure you that what you may do for me
+will not involve _you_ in any difficulty. More than this I cannot now
+say. Will you do this service for me, and keep your agency in the matter
+secret? The service is slight, the importance of secrecy great."
+
+I expressed my willingness to do anything which would not compromise me
+with myself, and that, I told her, I did not fear her requiring.
+
+She then proceeded, with some embarrassment, to say that she wished a
+note conveyed to Mr. Hurst; upon which I smiled, and answered, "I had
+conjectured as much."
+
+"But you must not conjecture anything," she replied, with some asperity;
+"for you are sure to go wide of the truth. You think I have only to send
+for Mr. Hurst to bring him here; but you are mistaken. He cannot come,
+because he _dare_ not. He is in hiding, but I cannot tell you why. Only
+do not betray him; I ask no more. You are not called upon to do any
+more--to do anything against him, I mean." Seeing me hesitate, she
+continued: "I need not tell you that I believe my life is in your hands.
+I have been living a long time with all my faculties upon a severe
+strain, so severe that I feel I shall go mad if the pressure is
+increased. I entreat you not to refuse me."
+
+"Very well," I answered, "I will do what you require."
+
+"It is only to take this"--she pulled a note from beneath her pillow,
+addressed to "Mr. Harry Hurst," and handed it to me--"to the address,
+which you will have no difficulty in finding, though I am sorry to have
+to send you on a walk so out of your way. And please take this
+also"--handing me a roll of coin, marked $100. "No answer is expected. Of
+course, you will not give these things to any one but Mr. Hurst. That is
+all." And she sunk back wearily upon her pillow, with closed eyes, as if
+she had no further interest in the affair.
+
+I know as well as if she had told me that this note was a warning to
+fly, and this money the means to make flight good. I had promised to
+deliver them on her simple entreaty and assurance that I should not
+dishonor myself. But might I not wrong society? Might not she be herself
+deceived about Hurst? The assertion of Quivey that he had collected
+money from her employers the day before occurred to me. Did she know it
+or not? I questioned, while regarding the thin, pale, weary face on the
+pillow before me. While I hesitated she opened her eyes with a
+wondering, impatient gaze.
+
+"Do you repent?" she asked.
+
+"I deliberate, rather," I replied. "I chanced to learn yesterday, that
+Mr. Hurst had drawn money from Craycroft & Co., and was thinking that if
+you knew it, you might not wish to send this also."
+
+For an instant her black eyes blazed with anger, but whether at me or at
+Mr. Hurst I could not tell, and she seemed to hesitate, as I had done.
+
+"Yes, take it," she said, with hopeless sadness in her tone, "He may
+need it; and for myself, what does it matter now?"
+
+"I shall do as you bid me," I replied, "but it is under protest; for it
+is my impression that you are doing yourself an injury, and Mr. Hurst no
+good."
+
+"You don't understand," she returned, sharply. "Now go, please."
+
+"Very well; I am gone. But I promise you that if you exact services of
+me, I shall insist on your taking care of your health, by way of return.
+You are in a fever at this moment, which I warn you will be serious if
+not checked. Here comes the doctor. Good-morning."
+
+I pass over the trifling incidents of my visit to the residence of Mr.
+Hurst. Suffice to say that Mr. Hurst had departed to parts unknown, and
+that I had to carry about all day Miss Jorgensen's letter and money. On
+returning home to dinner that afternoon, I found a stranger occupying
+Miss Jorgensen's place at table. He was a shrewd-looking man of about
+forty years, talkative, versatile, and what you might call "jolly."
+Nothing escaped his observation; nothing was uttered that he did not
+hear, often replying most unexpectedly to what was not intended for
+him--a practice that would have been annoying but for a certain tact and
+good humor which disarmed criticism. The whole family, while admitting
+that our new day-boarder was not exactly congenial, confessed to liking
+his amusing talk immensely.
+
+"He quite brightens us up; don't you think so, Mr. Quivey?" was Miss
+Flower's method of indorsing him.
+
+"He does very well just now," replied Quivey, "though I'd lots rather
+see E. E. back in that place. When one gets used to pickles or pepper,
+one wants pickles or pepper; honey palls on the appetite."
+
+"I thought you had almost too much pepper sometimes," said Miss Flower,
+remembering the "I. I."
+
+"It's a healthful stimulant," returned Quivey, ignoring the covert
+reminder.
+
+"But not always an agreeable one."
+
+I suspected that Miss Flower, who had an intense admiration for dramatic
+talent, entertained her own reasons for jogging Mr. Quivey's memory; and
+being willing to give her every opportunity to promote her own views, I
+took this occasion to make my report to Miss Jorgensen. As might have
+been expected, she had been feverishly anticipating my visit. I had no
+sooner entered the room than she uttered her brief interrogation:
+
+"Well?"
+
+I laid the note and the money upon the bed. "You see how it is?" I said.
+
+"He is gone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I am so very glad!" she said, with emphasis, while something like a
+smile lighted up her countenance. "This gives me a respite, at least. If
+he is prudent"--she checked herself, and giving me a grateful glance,
+exclaimed, "I am so much obliged to you."
+
+"Nobody could be more welcome, I am sure, to so slight a service. I
+shall hope now to see you getting well."
+
+"O, yes," she answered, "I must get well; there is so much to do. But my
+classes and my writing must be dropped for a while, I presume, unless
+the doctor will let me take in some of my scholars, for, of course, I
+cannot go out."
+
+"Your arm must begin to heal before you can think of teaching, ever so
+little. I have an idea, Miss Jorgensen, from what you have said of
+yourself, that this necessity for repose, which is forced upon you, will
+prove to be an excellent thing. Certainly, you were wearing out very
+fast with your incessant labor."
+
+"Perhaps so--I mean, perhaps inforced rest will not be bad for me; but,
+O, there is such need to work! I can so poorly afford to be idle."
+
+"What you say relieves my mind of a suspicion, which at first I
+harbored, that the firing of that mischievous pistol was not wholly
+accidental. I now see you wish to live and work. But why had you such a
+weapon about you? Are you accustomed to fire-arms?"
+
+"The mischief this one did me shows that I am not; and my having it
+about me came from a fear I had of its doing worse mischief in the hands
+of Mr. Hurst."
+
+"Are affairs so desperate with him?"
+
+"Please don't question me. I cannot answer you satisfactorily. Mr. Hurst
+is in trouble, and the least that is said or known about him is the
+best. And yet you wonder, no doubt, that I should interest myself about
+a man who is compelled to act the part of a culprit. Well, I cannot tell
+you why at present; and it would be a great relief to know that you
+thought nothing more about it." This last she uttered rather petulantly,
+which warned me that this conversation was doing her no good.
+
+"Believe, then," I said, "that I have no interest in your affairs,
+except the wish to promote your welfare. And I think I may venture to
+affirm that everybody in the house is equally at your service when you
+wish to command him or her."
+
+"Thank you all; but I do not deserve your kindness; I have been so
+ill-tempered. The truth is I cannot afford to have friends; friends pry
+into one's affairs so mercilessly. Mrs. Mason tells me there is a new
+boarder," she said, suddenly changing the subject.
+
+I assented, and gave what I intended to be an amusing account of the
+new-comers' conversation and manners.
+
+"Was there anything said about me at dinner?" she asked, with a painful
+consciousness of the opinion I might have of such a question.
+
+"I do not think there was. We were all so taken up with the latest
+acquisition that we forgot you for the time."
+
+"May I ask this favor of you, to keep the conversation away from me as
+much as possible? I am morbidly sensitive, I presume," she said, with a
+poor attempt at a smile, "and I cannot keep from fancying, while I lie
+here, what you are saying about me in the dining-room or parlor."
+
+Of course, I hastened to disavow any disposition on the part of the
+family to make her a subject of conversation, and even promised to
+discountenance any reference to her whatever, if thereby she would be
+made more comfortable; after which I bade her good-night, having
+received the assurance that my visit had relieved her mind of several
+torturing apprehensions.
+
+The more I saw and thought of Miss Jorgensen, the more she interested
+and puzzled me. I should have inclined to the opinion that she was a
+little disturbed at times in her intellect, had it not been that there
+was apparent so much "method in her madness;" this reflection always
+bringing me back at last to the conclusion that her peculiarities could
+all be accounted for upon the hypothesis she herself presented; too much
+work and some great anxiety. The spectacle of this human mite fighting
+the battle of life, not only for herself but for the strong man who
+should have been her protector, worked so upon my imagination and my
+sympathy that I found it difficult to keep the little woman out of my
+thoughts.
+
+I kept my word to her, discountenancing, as far as I could, the
+discussion of her affairs, and in this effort Mrs. Mason co-operated
+with me; but it was practically impossible to prevent the inquiries and
+remarks of those of the family who were not so well informed concerning
+her as we were. The new boarder, also, with that quick apprehension he
+had of every subject, had caught enough to become interested in the
+patient up-stairs, and daily made some inquiries concerning her
+condition, and, as it appeared to me--grown a little morbid, like Miss
+Jorgensen--was peculiarly adroit in extracting information.
+
+Three weeks slipped away, and Miss Jorgensen had passed the most painful
+period of suppuration and healing in her arm, and had promised to come
+down-stairs next day to dine with the family. Mrs. Mason had just
+communicated the news to us in her cheeriest tones, as if each
+individual was interested in it, and was proceeding to turn out our
+coffee, when a servant brought in the letters for the house and laid
+them beside the tray, directly under the eye of the new boarder, who sat
+on the landlady's left.
+
+"'Miss Jorgensen," said he, reading the address of the topmost one. "A
+very peculiar handwriting." Then taking up the letter, as if to further
+examine the writing, I observed that he was studying the postmark as
+well, which, being offended at his unmannerly curiosity, I sincerely
+hoped was illegible. But that it was only too fatally plain will soon
+appear.
+
+With an air of _hauteur_ I seldom assumed, I recalled the servant, and
+ordered the letter to be taken at once to Miss Jorgensen. Before leaving
+the house I was informed that Miss Jorgensen wished to speak to me.
+
+"Mr. Hurst has done a most imprudent thing!" she exclaimed, the moment I
+was inside the door. "I ought to have published a 'personal,' or done
+something to let him know I could not go to the post-office, and to
+account for his not hearing from me."
+
+"He has returned to the city?"
+
+"Yes!" She fairly ground her teeth with rage at this "stupidity," as she
+termed it. "He always does the very thing he ought never to have done,
+and leaves undone the things most important to do. Of course he cannot
+come here, and I can not go to him without incurring the greatest risk.
+I really do not know what to do next."
+
+Tears were now coursing down her pale cheeks--tears, it seemed, as much
+of anger as of sorrow.
+
+"Let him take care of himself," I said, rather hotly. "It is not your
+province to care for him as you do."
+
+She gave me an indescribable look. "What can you, what can any one know
+about it? He may want money; how can he take care of himself in such
+circumstances without money? I sent for you to contrive some plan by
+which he can be communicated with. Do tell me at once what to do."
+
+"How can I tell you, when, as you say, I do not know what is required.
+You wish to see him, I presume?"
+
+"How can I--O, I dislike so much to ask this of you--but _will_ you take
+a message to him?" She asked this desperately, half expecting me to
+decline, as decline I did.
+
+"Miss Jorgensen, you are now able to ride. Shall I send a carriage for
+you?"
+
+"There may be those on the lookout who would instantly suspect my
+purpose in going out in that way. On the contrary, nobody would suspect
+you."
+
+"Still, I might be observed, which would not be pleasant, I can imagine,
+from what you leave me to surmise. No, Miss Jorgensen, much as I should
+like to serve you personally, you must excuse me from connecting myself
+in any way with Mr. Hurst; and if I might be allowed to offer advice, I
+should say that, in justice to yourself, you ought to cut loose from him
+at once."
+
+Miss Jorgensen covered her face with one little emaciated hand, and sat
+silent a few seconds. "Send me the carriage," she said, "and I will go."
+
+"You forgive me?"
+
+"You have been very good," she said. "I ought not have required more of
+you. I will go at once; the sooner the better."
+
+When I had reached the head of the stairs, I turned back again to her
+door.
+
+"Once more let me counsel you to free yourself from all connection with
+Mr. Hurst. Why should you ruin your chances of happiness for one so
+undeserving, as I must think he is? Keep away from him; let him shift
+for himself."
+
+"You don't know what you are talking about," she replied, with a touch
+of the old fierceness. "I have no chances of happiness to lose. Please
+go."
+
+On my way down to the office I ordered a carriage.
+
+What happened afterward I learned from Mrs. Mason and the evening
+papers. Miss Jorgensen, dressed in deep black, with her face veiled,
+entered the carriage, directing the driver to take her to the houses of
+some of her pupils. At the corner of the street, a gentleman, who proved
+to be our day-boarder, got upon the box with the driver, and remained
+there while Miss Jorgensen made her calls. Finding him constantly there,
+and becoming suspicious, she ordered the carriage home, and gave
+directions to have it return an hour later to take her down town for
+some shopping. At the time set, the carriage was in attendance, and
+conveyed her to one of the principal stores in the city. After
+re-entering the carriage, and giving her directions, our day-boarder
+once more mounted the box, though unobserved by her, and was conveyed
+with herself to the hiding-place of Mr. Hurst, contriving, by getting
+down before the door was opened, to elude her observation.
+
+Another carriage, containing officers of the police, was following in
+the wake of this one, and drew up when Miss Jorgensen had entered the
+house where Hurst was concealed. After waiting long enough to make it
+certain that the person sought was within, the officers entered to
+search and capture.
+
+At the moment they entered Hurst's apartment, he was saying, with much
+emotion, "If I can only reach China in safety, a way will be opened for
+me--"
+
+"Hush!" cried Miss Jorgensen, seeing the door opened, and by whom.
+
+"All is over!" exclaimed Hurst. "I will never be taken to prison!" And,
+drawing a revolver, he deliberately shot himself through the head.
+
+Miss Jorgensen was brought back to Mrs. Mason's in a fainting condition,
+and was ill for weeks afterward. That same evening our day-boarder
+called, and while settling his board with Mrs. Mason, acknowledged that
+he belonged to the detective police, and had for months been "working
+up" the case of a bank-robber and forger who had escaped from one of the
+eastern cities, and been lost to observation for a year and a half.
+
+And we further learned in the same way, and ultimately from the lady
+herself, that Miss Jorgensen was a myth, and that the little French
+teacher was Madame ----, who had suffered, and toiled, and risked
+everything for her unworthy husband, and who deserved rather to be
+congratulated than condoled with upon his loss.
+
+It is now a year since all this happened, and it is the common gossip of
+our boarding-house that Mr. Quivey is devoted to the little dark-eyed
+widow; and although Miss Flower still refers to "E. E." and "I. I.,"
+nobody seems to be in the least disturbed by the allusion. When I say to
+Quivey, "Make haste slowly, my dear fellow;" he returns: "Never fear, my
+friend; I shall know when the time comes to speak."
+
+
+
+
+SAM RICE'S ROMANCE.
+
+
+The coach of Wells, Fargo & Co. stood before the door of Piney-woods
+Station, and Sam Rice, the driver, was drawing on his lemon-colored
+gloves with an air, for Sam was the pink of stage-drivers, from his high
+white hat to his faultless French boots. Sad will it be when his
+profession shall have been altogether superseded; and the coach-and-six,
+with its gracious and graceful "whip," shall have been supplanted, on
+all the principal lines of travel, by the iron-horse with its grimy
+"driver" and train of thundering carriages.
+
+The passengers had taken their seats--the one lady on the box--and Sam
+Rice stood, chronometer held daintily between thumb and finger, waiting
+for the second hand to come round the quarter of a minute, while the
+grooms slipped the last strap of the harness into its buckle. At the
+expiration of the quarter of a minute, as Sam stuck an unlighted cigar
+between his lips and took hold of the box to pull himself up to his
+seat, the good-natured landlady of Piney-woods Station called out, with
+some officiousness:
+
+"Mr. Rice, don't you want a match?"
+
+"That's just what I've been looking for these ten years," responded Sam;
+and at that instant his eyes were on a level with the lady's on the box,
+so that he could not help seeing the roguish glint of them, which so far
+disconcerted the usually self-possessed professor of the whip that he
+heard not the landlady's laugh, but gathered up the reins in such a
+hasty and careless manner as to cause Demon, the nigh-leader, to go off
+with a bound that nearly threw the owner of the eyes out of her place.
+The little flurry gave opportunity for Mrs. Dolly Page--that was the
+lady's name--to drop her veil over her face, and for Sam Rice to show
+his genteel handling of the ribbons, and conquer the unaccountable
+disturbance of his pulses.
+
+Sam had looked at the way-bill, not ten minutes before, to ascertain the
+name of the pretty black-eyed woman seated at his left hand; and the
+consciousness of so great a curiosity gratified, may have augmented his
+unaccustomed embarrassment. Certain it is, Sam Rice had driven six
+horses, on a ticklish mountain road, for four years, without missing a
+trip; and had more than once encountered the "road-agents," without ever
+yet delivering them an express box; had had old and young ladies, plain
+and beautiful ones, to sit beside him, hundreds of times: yet this was
+the first time he had consulted the way-bill, on his own account, to
+find a lady's name. This one time, too, it had a _Mrs._ before it, which
+prefix gave him a pang he was very unwilling to own. On the other hand,
+Mrs. Dolly Page was clad in extremely deep black. Could she be in
+mourning for Mr. Page? If Demon had an unusual number of starting fits
+that afternoon, his driver was not altogether guiltless in the matter;
+for what horse, so sensitive as he, would not have felt the magnetism of
+something wrong behind him?
+
+But as the mocking eyes kept hidden behind a veil, and the rich, musical
+voice uttered not a word through a whole half-hour, which seemed an age
+to Sam, he finally recovered himself so far as to say he believed he
+would not smoke, after all; and thereupon returned the cigar, still
+unlighted, to his pocket.
+
+"I hope you do not deprive yourself of a luxury on my account," murmured
+the soft voice.
+
+"I guess this dust and sunshine is enough for a lady to stand, without
+my smokin' in her face," returned Sam, politely, and glancing at the
+veil.
+
+"Still, I beg you will smoke, if you are accustomed," persisted the
+cooing voice behind it. But Sam, to his praise be it spoken, refused to
+add anything to the discomforts of a summer day's ride across the
+mountains. His chivalry had its reward; for the lady thus favored,
+feeling constrained to make some return for such consideration, began to
+talk, in a vein that delighted her auditor, about horses--their points
+and their traits--and, lastly, about their drivers.
+
+"I have always fancied," said Mrs. Dolly Page, "that if I were a man I
+should take to stage-driving as a profession. It seems to me a free and
+manly calling, one that develops some of the best qualities of a man. Of
+course, it has its drawbacks. One cannot always choose one's society on
+a stage, and there are temptations to bad habits. Besides, there are
+storms, and upsets, and all that sort of thing. I've often thought,"
+continued Mrs. Dolly, "that we do not consider enough the hardships of
+drivers, nor what we owe them. You've read that poem--the Post-boy's
+Song:
+
+    "'Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of Fate,
+    Forward and back I go.'
+
+"Well, it is just so. They do bring us our letters, full of good and ill
+news, helping to weave the web of Fate for us; yet not to blame for what
+tidings they bring, and always faithful to their duties, in storm or
+shine."
+
+"I shall like my profession better after what you have said of it,"
+answered Sam, giving his whip a curl to make it touch the off-leader's
+right ear. "I've done my duty mostly, and not complained of the
+hardships, though once or twice I've been too beat out to get off the
+box at the end of my drive; but that was in a long spell of bad weather,
+when the roads was just awful, and the rain as cold as snow."
+
+"Would you mind letting me hold the lines awhile?" asked the cooing
+voice, at last. "I've driven a six-in-hand before."
+
+Though decidedly startled, and averse to trusting his team to such a
+pair of hands, Sam was compelled, by the psychic force of the little
+woman, to yield up the reins. It was with fear and trembling that he
+watched her handling of them for the first mile; but, as she really
+seemed to know what she was about, his confidence increased, and he
+watched her with admiration. Her veil was now up, her eyes were
+sparkling, and cheeks glowing. She did not speak often, but, when she
+did, it was always something piquant and graceful that she uttered. At
+last, just as the station was in sight, she yielded up the lines, with a
+deep-drawn sigh of satisfaction, apologizing for it by saying that her
+hands, not being used to it, were tired. "I'm not sure," she added, "but
+I shall take to the box, at last, as a steady thing."
+
+"If you do," responded Sam, gallantly, "I hope you will drive on my
+line."
+
+"Thanks. I shall ask you for a reference, when I apply for the
+situation."
+
+There was then a halt, a supply of fresh horses, and a prompt, lively
+start. But the afternoon was intensely hot, and the team soon sobered
+down. Mrs. Page did not offer again to take the lines. She was overwarm
+and weary, perhaps, quiet and a little sad, at any rate. Mr. Rice was
+quiet, too, and thoughtful. The passengers inside were asleep. The coach
+rattled along at a steady pace, with the dust so deep under the wheels
+as to still their rumble. At intervals, a freight-wagon was passed,
+drawn to one side, at a "turn-out," or a rabbit skipped across the road,
+or a solitary horseman suggested alternately a "road-agent," or one of
+James's heroes. Grand views presented themselves of wooded cliffs and
+wild ravines. Tall pines threw lengthening shadows across the open
+spaces on the mountain-sides. And so the afternoon wore away; and, when
+the sun was setting, the passengers alighted for their supper at the
+principal hotel of Lucky-dog--a mining-camp, pretty well up in the
+Sierras.
+
+"We both stop here," said Sam, as he helped the lady down from her high
+position; letting her know by this remark that her destination was known
+to him.
+
+"I'm rather glad of that," she answered, frankly, with a little smile;
+and, considering all that had transpired on that long drive, Sam was
+certainly pardonable if he felt almost sure that her reason for being
+glad was identical with his own.
+
+Lucky-dog was one of those shambling, new camps, where one street serves
+for a string on which two or three dozen ill-assorted tenements are
+strung, every fifth one being a place intended for the relief of the
+universal American thirst, though the liquids dispensed at these
+beneficent institutions were observed rather to provoke than to abate
+the dryness of their patrons. Eating-houses were even more frequent than
+those which dispensed moisture to parched throats; so that, taking a
+cursory view of the windows fronting on the street, the impression was
+inevitably conveyed of the expected rush of famished armies, whose wants
+this charitable community were only too willing to supply for a
+sufficient consideration. The houses that were not eating and
+drinking-houses were hotels, if we except occasional grocery and general
+merchandise establishments. Into what out-of-the-way corners the
+inhabitants were stowed, it was impossible to conjecture, until it was
+discovered that the men lived at the places already inventoried, and
+that women abode not at all in Lucky-dog--or if there were any, not more
+than a half a dozen of them, and they lived in unaccustomed places.
+
+The advent of Mrs. Page at the Silver Brick Hotel naturally made a
+sensation. As assemblage of not less than fifty gentlemen of leisure
+crowded about the entrance, each more intent than the other on getting a
+look at the arrivals, and especially at this one arrival--whose age,
+looks, name, business, and intentions in coming to Lucky-dog, were
+discussed with great freedom. Sam Rice was closely questioned, but
+proved reticent and non-committal. The landlord was besieged with
+inquiries--the landlady, too--and all without anybody being made much
+the wiser. There was the waybill, and there was the lady herself; put
+that and that together, and make what you could of it.
+
+Mrs. Dolly Page did not seem discomposed in the least by the evident
+interest she inspired. With her black curls smoothly brushed, her black
+robes immaculately neat, with a pretty color in her round cheeks, and a
+quietly absorbed expression in her whole bearing, she endured the
+concentrated gaze of fifty pairs of eyes during the whole of dinner,
+without so much as one awkward movement, or the dropping of a fork or
+teaspoon. So it was plain that the curious would be compelled to await
+Mrs. Page's own time for developments.
+
+But developments did not seem likely to come overwhelmingly. Mrs. Page
+made a fast friend of the landlady of the Silver Brick, by means of
+little household arts peculiarly her own, and, before a fortnight was
+gone, had become as indispensable to all the boarders as she was to Mrs.
+Shaughnessy herself. If she had a history, she kept it carefully from
+curious ears. Mrs. Shaughnessy was evidently satisfied, and quite
+challenged criticism of her favorite. Indeed, there was nothing to
+criticise. It was generally understood that she was a widow, who had to
+get on in the world as best she could, and thus the public sympathy was
+secured, and an embargo laid upon gossip. To be sure, there were certain
+men in Lucky-dog, of a class which has its representatives everywhere,
+who regarded all unappropriated women, especially pretty women, very
+much as the hunter regards game, and the more difficult the approach,
+the more exciting the chase. But these moral Nimrods had not half the
+chance with self-possessed Mrs. Dolly Page that they would have had with
+a different style of woman. The grosser sort got a sudden _conge_; and
+with the more refined sportsmen she coquetted just enough to show them
+that two could play at a game of "make-believe," and then sent them off
+with a lofty scorn edifying to behold--to the mingled admiration and
+amusement of Mrs. Shaughnessy.
+
+The only affair which seemed to have a kernel of seriousness in it, was
+that of Mr. Samuel Rice. Regularly, when the stage was in, on Sam's
+night, he paid his respects to Mrs. Page. And Mrs. Page always received
+him with a graceful friendliness, asking after the horses, and even
+sometimes going so far as to accompany him to their stables. On these
+occasions she never failed to carry several lumps of sugar in her
+pocket, which she fed to the handsome brutes off her own pink palm,
+until there was not one of them she could not handle at her will.
+
+Thus passed many weeks, until summer was drawing to a close. Two or
+three times she had gone down to Piney-woods Station and back, on Sam's
+coach, and always sat on the box, and drove a part of the way, but never
+where her driving would excite remark. It is superfluous to state, that
+on these occasions there was a happy heart beneath Sam's linen-duster,
+or that the bantering remarks of his brother-drivers were borne with
+smiling equanimity, not to say pride; for Sam was well aware that Mrs.
+Dolly Page's brunette beauty, and his blonde-bearded style, together
+furnished a not unpleasing _tableau_ of personal charms. Besides, Sam's
+motto was, "Let those laugh who win;" and he seemed to himself to be on
+the road to heights of happiness beyond the ken of ordinary
+mortals--especially ordinary stage-drivers.
+
+"I don't calkelate to drive stage more than a year or two longer," Sam
+said to Mrs. Page, confidentially, on the return from their last trip
+together to Piney-woods Station. "I've got a little place down in
+Amador, and an interest in the Nip-and-tuck gold-mine, besides a few
+hundreds in bank. I've a notion to settle down some day, in a cottage
+with vines over the porch, with a little woman to tend the flowers in
+the front-garden."
+
+As if Sam's heightened color and shining eyes had not sufficiently
+pointed this confession of his desires, it chanced that at this moment
+the eyes of both were attracted to a way-side picture: a cottage, a
+flower-bordered walk, a fair young woman standing at the gate, with a
+crowing babe in her arms lifting its little white hands to the
+sun-browned face of a stalwart young farmer who was smiling proudly on
+the two. At this sudden apparition of his inmost thoughts, Sam's heart
+gave a great bound, and there was a simultaneous ringing in his ears.
+His first instinctive act was to crack his whip so fiercely as to set
+the leaders off prancing; and when, by this diversion, he had partly
+recovered self-possession to glance at the face of his companion, a new
+embarrassment seized him when he discovered two little rivers of tears
+running over the crimsoned cheeks. But a coach-box is not a convenient
+place for sentiment to display itself; and, though the temptation was
+great to inquire into the cause of the tears, with a view of offering
+consolation, Sam prudently looked the other way, and maintained silence.
+The reader, however, knows that those tears sank into the beholder's
+soul, and caused to germinate countless tender thoughts and emotions,
+which were, on some future occasion, to be laid upon the alter of his
+devotion to Mrs. Dolly Page. And none the less, that, in a few minutes,
+the eyes which shed them resumed their roguish brightness, and the lady
+was totally unconscious of having heard, seen, or felt any
+embarrassment. Sentiment between them was successfully _tabooed_, so far
+as utterance was concerned, for that time. And so Sam found, somewhat to
+his disappointment, it continued to fall out, that whenever he got upon
+delicate ground, the lady was off like a humming-bird, darting hither
+and yon, so that it was impossible to put a finger upon her, or get so
+much as a look at her brilliant and restless wings. But nobody ever
+tired of trying to find a humming-bird at rest; and so Sam never gave up
+looking for the opportune moment of speaking his mind.
+
+Meanwhile, Lucky-dog Camp was having a fresh sensation. An organized
+band of gamblers, robbers, and "road-agents" had made a swoop upon its
+property, of various kinds, and had succeeded in making off with it. The
+very night after the ride just mentioned, the best horses in Sam Rice's
+team were stolen, making it necessary to substitute what Sam called "a
+pa'r of ornery cayuses." To put the climax to his misfortunes, the
+"road-agents" attacked him next morning, when, the "ornery cayuses"
+becoming unmanageable, Sam was forced to surrender the treasure-box, and
+the passengers their bullion. The excitement in Lucky-dog was intense. A
+vigilance committee, secretly organized, lay in waiting for the
+offenders, and, after a week or two, made a capture of a well-known
+sporting-man, whose presence in camp had for some time been regarded
+with suspicion. Short shrift was afforded him. That same afternoon his
+gentlemanly person swung dangling from a gnarled pine-tree limb, and his
+frightened soul had fled into outer darkness.
+
+When this event became known to Mrs. Dolly Page, she turned ghostly
+white, and then fainted dead away. Mrs. Shanghnessy was very much
+concerned for her friend; berating in round terms, the brutishness of
+people who could talk of such things before a tender-hearted lady like
+that. To Mr. Rice, particularly, she expatiated upon the coarseness of
+certain people, and the refined sensitiveness of others; and Sam was
+much inclined to agree with her, so far as her remarks applied to her
+friend, who was not yet recovered sufficiently to be visible. Indeed,
+Mrs. Page was not visible for so many days, that Sam's soul began to
+long for her with a mighty longing. At length, she made her appearance,
+considerably paler and thinner than was her wont; but doubly interesting
+and lovely to the eyes of so partial an observer as Sam, who would
+willingly have sheltered her weakness in his strong, manly arms. Sam,
+naturally enough, would never have hinted at the event which had so
+distressed her; but she relieved him of all embarrassment on that
+subject, by saying to him almost at once:
+
+"Mr. Rice, I am told they have not buried the man they hung, so
+shockingly, the other day. They certainly will not leave him _there_?"
+she added, with a shudder.
+
+"I don't know--I suppose," stammered Sam, "it is their way, with them
+fellows."
+
+"But you will not allow it? You _cannot_ allow it!"--excitedly.
+
+"I couldn't prevent them," said Sam, quite humbly.
+
+"Mr. Rice," and her voice was at once a command and an entreaty, "you
+_can_ and _must_ prevent it. You are not afraid? I will go with
+you--this very night--and will help you. Don't say you will not; for I
+cannot sleep until it is done. I have not slept for a week."
+
+She looked so white and so wild, as she uttered this confession, that
+Sam would have been the wretch he was not, to refuse her. So he said:
+
+"Don't you fret. I'll bury him, if it troubles you so. But you needn't
+go along. You couldn't; it's too far, and you're too weak,"--seeing how
+she trembled.
+
+"I am not weak--only nervous. I prefer to go along. But we must be
+secret, I suppose? Oh!"--with a start that was indeed "nervous."
+
+"Yes, we must be secret," said Sam; and he looked as if he did not half
+like the business, but would not refuse.
+
+"You are a good man, Mr. Rice, and I thank you." And with that, Mrs.
+Dolly Page caught up one of his hands, and kissing it hastily, began to
+cry, as she walked quickly away.
+
+"Don't cry, and don't go until I have promised to do whatever you ask,
+if it will make you well again," Sam said, following her to the door.
+
+"Then call for me to take a walk with you to-night. The moon is full,
+but no one will observe us. They would not think of our going
+_there_,"--with another shudder--and she slipped away from his detaining
+hand.
+
+That evening Mr. Samuel Rice and Mrs. Page took a walk by moonlight.
+Laughing gossips commented on it after their fashion; and disagreeable
+gossips remarked that they came home very late, after _their_ fashion.
+But nobody, they believed, saw where they went, or what they did. Yet
+those two came from performing an act of Christian charity, each with a
+sense of guilt and unworthiness very irritating to endure, albeit from
+very different causes. One, because an unwelcome suspicion had thrust
+itself into his mind; and the other----
+
+The ground of Sam's suspicion was a photograph, which, in handling the
+gambler's body somewhat awkwardly, by reason of its weight--Mrs. Page
+had found, at the last, she could not render any assistance--had slipped
+from some receptacle in its clothing. A hasty glance, under the full
+light of the moon, had shown him the features of the lady who sat twelve
+paces away, with her hands over her face. It is not always those that
+sin who suffer most from the consciousness of sin; and Sam, perhaps,
+with that hint of possible--nay, almost certain--wickedness in his
+breast-pocket, was more burdened by the weight of it than many a
+criminal about to suffer all the terrors of the law; for the woman that
+he loved stood accused, if not convicted, before his conscience and her
+own, and he could not condemn, because his heart refused to judge her.
+
+When the two stood together under the light of the lamp in the deserted
+parlor of the Silver Brick Hotel, the long silence which, by her quick
+perceptions, had been recognized as accusing her, upon what evidence she
+did not yet know, was at length broken by Sam's voice, husky with
+agitation.
+
+"Mrs. Page," he said, assuming an unconscious dignity of mien and
+sternness of countenance, "I shall ask you some questions, sometime,
+which you may not think quite polite. And you must answer me: you
+understand. I'm bound to know the truth about this man."
+
+"About this man!" Then he suspected her of connection with the wretched
+criminal whose body had only just now been hidden from mocking eyes? How
+much did he suspect? how much did he _know_? Her pale face and
+frightened eyes seemed to ask these questions of him; but not a sound
+escaped her lips. The imploring look, so strange upon her usually bright
+face, touched all that was tender in Sam's romantic nature. In another
+moment he would have recalled his demand, and trusted her infinitely;
+but in that critical moment she fainted quite away, to his mingled
+sorrow and alarm; and Mrs. Shaughnessy being summoned, Sam received a
+wordy reprimand for having no more sense than to keep a sick woman up
+half of the night; smarting under which undeserved censure, he retired,
+to think over the events of the evening.
+
+The hour of departure from Luckydog, for Sam's coach, was four o'clock
+in the morning; and its driver was not a little surprised, when about to
+mount the box, to discover Mrs. Page waiting to take a seat beside him.
+After the adventure of the previous night, it was with some restraint
+that he addressed her; and there was wanting, also, something of his
+cheerful alacrity of manner, when he requested the stranger who had
+taken the box-seat, to yield it to a lady. The stranger's mood seemed
+uncongenial, for he declined to abdicate, intimating that there was room
+for the lady between himself and the driver, if she insisted upon an
+outside seat.
+
+But Mrs. Page did not insist. She whispered Sam to open the coach-door,
+and quietly took a seat inside; and Sam, with a sense of irritation very
+unusual with him, climbed reluctantly to his place, giving the "cayuses"
+the lash in a way that set them off on a keen run. By the time he had
+gotten his team cooled down, the unusual mood had passed, and the
+longing returned to hear the sweet voice, and watch the bright eyes that
+had made his happiness on former occasions. Puzzled as he was, and
+pained by the evidence he possessed of her connection, in some way, with
+the victim of lynch-law, _that_ seemed like a dream in the clear, sunny
+air of morning, while the more blissful past asserted its claim to be
+considered reality. Not a lark, warbling its flute-notes by the
+way-side, not a pretty bit of the familiar landscape, nor glimpse of
+brook, that leaped sparkling down the mountain, but recalled some
+charming utterance of Mrs. Dolly Page, as he first knew her; as he could
+not now recognize her in the pale, nervous, and evidently suffering
+woman, sitting, closely veiled, inside the coach.
+
+Occupied with these thoughts, Sam felt a disagreeable shock when the
+outside passenger--in a voice that contrasted roughly with that other
+voice which was murmuring in his ear--began a remark about the mining
+prospects of Lucky-dog.
+
+"Some rich discoveries made in the neighborhood, eh? Did you ever try
+your luck at mining?"
+
+"Waal, no. I own a little stock, though," answered Sam, carelessly.
+
+"In what mine?"
+
+"In the Nip-and-tuck."
+
+"Good mine, from all I hear about it. Never did any prospecting?" asked
+the stranger, in that tone which denotes only a desire to make talk,
+with a view to kill time.
+
+"No," in the same tone.
+
+"That's odd," stuffing a handful of cut tobacco into his mouth. "I'd
+have sworn 'twas you I saw swinging a pick in the canon east of camp
+last night."
+
+"I'm not much on picks," Sam returned, with a slowness that well
+counterfeited indifference. "I was visiting a lady last evening, which is
+a kind of prospecting more in my line."
+
+"Yes, I understand; that lady inside the coach. She's a game one."
+
+"It strikes me you're devilish free in your remarks," said Sam, becoming
+irritated again.
+
+"No offense meant, I'm sure. Take a cigar? We may as well talk this
+matter over calmly, Mr. Rice. You see it's ten to one that you are
+implicated in this business. Been very attentive to Mrs. Page. Made
+several trips together. Let her handle your horses, so she could take
+them out of the stable for them thieves. Buried her thieving, gambling
+husband for her. You see the case _looks_ bad, anyway; though I'm
+inclined to think you've just been made a tool of. I know she's a smart
+one. Tain't often you find one smarter."
+
+Sam's eyes scintillated. He was strangely minded to pitch the outside
+passenger off the coach. The struggle in his breast between conviction
+and resistance to conviction amounted to agony. He could not, in that
+supreme moment, discriminate between the anger he felt at being falsely
+accused, and the grief and rage of being so horrible disillusioned.
+Their combined anguish paled his cheeks, and set his teeth on edge: of
+all of which the outside passenger was coolly cognizant. As they were,
+at that moment, in sight of the first station, he resumed.
+
+"Let her get up here, if she wants to; I can ride inside. I don't want
+to be hard on her; but mind, if you breathe a word to her about my being
+an officer, I'll arrest you on suspicion. Let every tub stand on its own
+bottom. If she's guilty, you can't help her, and don't want to, either;
+if she's innocent, she'll come out all right, never fear. Are you on the
+square, now?"
+
+"Have you got a warrant?" asked Sam, in a low tone, as he wound the
+lines around the break, previous to getting down.
+
+"You bet! but I'm in no hurry to serve it. Piney-woods station 'ill do
+just as well. Telegraph office there."
+
+Mr. Rice was not in any haste this morning, being, as he said, ahead of
+time. He invited Mrs. Page to take her usual place on the box, telling
+her the gentleman had concluded to go inside; and brought her a glass of
+water from the bar. While he was returning the glass, the passengers,
+including him of the outside, being busied assuaging their thirst with
+something stronger than water, a rattle of wheels and a clatter of hoofs
+was heard, and, lo! Mrs. Dolly Page was discovered to be practicing her
+favorite accomplishment of driving six-in-hand!
+
+When the "outside" recovered from his momentary surprise, he clapped his
+hand on the shoulder of Mr. Rice, and said, in a voice savage with spite
+and disappointment:
+
+"I arrest you, sir."
+
+"Arrest and be d----d!" returned Sam. "If you had done your duty, you'd
+have arrested _her_ while you had the chance."
+
+"That's so--your head is level; and if you'll assist me in getting on to
+Piney-woods station in time to catch the run-away--for she can't very
+well drive beyond that station--I'll let you off."
+
+"You'll wait till I'm on, I reckon. My horses can't go on that errand,
+and you darsn't take the up-driver's team. Put that it your pipe and
+smoke it, old smarty!"--and Sam's eyes emitted steel-blue lightnings,
+though his face wore a fixed expression of smiling.
+
+Upon inquiry, it was ascertained that horses might be procured a mile
+back from the station; and, while the baffled officer, and such of the
+passengers as could not wait until next day, went in pursuit of them,
+Sam mounted one of the "cayuses," and made what haste he could after the
+coach and Wells, Fargo & Company's express-box. Within a mile or less of
+Piney-woods Station, he met the keeper, the grooms, and an odd man or
+two, that chanced to have been about the place, all armed to the teeth,
+who, when they saw him, halted in surprise.
+
+"Why, we reckoned you was dead," said the head man, with an air of
+disappointment.
+
+"Dead?" repeated Sam. "Have you seen my coach?"
+
+"That's all right, down to the station; and the plucky gal that druv it
+told us all about the raid the 'road-agents' made on you. Whar's the
+passengers? any of 'em killed?"
+
+"Passengers are all right. Where is Mrs. Page?"
+
+"She cried, an' tuk on awful about ye; an' borrered a hoss to ride right
+on down the road to meet the other stage, an' let 'em know what's up."
+
+"She did, did she?" said Sam, very thoughtfully. "Waal, that _is_ odd.
+Why, she ran away with my team--that's what she did; and it's all a hoax
+about the 'road-agents.' The passengers are back at the other station."
+
+Sam had suddenly become "all things to all men," to a degree that
+surprised himself. He was wrong about the horse, too, as was proven by
+its return to its owner four days after. By the same hand came the
+following letter to Mr. Samuel Rice:
+
+    "DEAR MR. RICE: It was so good of you! I thank you more than I
+    can say. I wish I could set myself right in your eyes, for I prize
+    your friendship dearly--dearly; but I know that I cannot. It has not
+    been all my fault. I was married to a bad, bad man, when I was only
+    fifteen. He has ruined my life; but now he is dead, and I need not
+    fear him. I _will_ hereafter live as a good woman should live. The
+    tears run down my cheeks as I write you this farewell--as they did
+    that day when I saw that sweet woman and her babe at the farm-house
+    gate; and knew what was in your thought. Heaven send you such a wife.
+    Good-bye, dear Mr. Rice, good-bye.
+
+    "DOLLY PAGE!"
+
+There are some men, as well as women, in this world, who could figure in
+the _role_ of _Evangeline_, who have tender, loyal, and constant hearts.
+Such a one was the driver of the Lucky-dog stage. But, though he sat on
+that box for two years longer, and scrutinized every dark-eyed,
+sweet-voiced lady-passenger who rode in his coach during that time,
+often with an intense longing for a sight of the face he craved--it
+never came. Out of the heaven of his life that star had vanished
+forever, and nothing was left him but a soiled photograph, and a
+tear-stained letter, worn with frequent folding and unfolding.
+
+
+
+
+EL TESORO.
+
+
+"Wimmen nater is cur'us nater, that I'll allow. But a feller kind o'
+hankers arter 'em, fur all that. They're a mighty handy thing to hev
+about a house."
+
+The above oracular statement proceeded from the parched and puckered
+lips of Sandy-haired Jim--one of the many "hands" employed on the
+immense Tesoro Rancho, which covered miles of valley, besides extending
+up on to the eastern flank of the Coast Range, and taking in
+considerable tracts of woodland and mountain pasture. Long before, when
+it acquired its name, under Spanish occupancy, there had been a rumor of
+the existence of the precious metals in the mountains which formed a
+portion of the grant; hence, its name, Tesoro, signifying _treasure_.
+All search for, or belief in, gold mines, had been abandoned, even
+before the land came into the possession of American owners, and now was
+only spoken of in the light of a Spanish legend; but the name was
+retained, partly as a geographical distinction of a large tract of
+country, though it was sometimes called the Edwards Ranch, after its
+present proprietor, and after the American fashion of pronunciation.
+
+John Edwards had more than once said, in hearing of his men, that he
+would give half the proceeds of the mine and an interest in the ranch,
+to any one who would discover it and prove it to be of value; a remark
+which was not without weight, especially with the herders and shepherds,
+whose calling took them into the mountains a considerable portion of the
+year. But as the offer of the proprietor never seemed to assume the air
+of a business proposition, the men who might have been inflamed by it
+with a prospecting fever, held in check their desire to acquire sudden
+riches, and never looked very sharp at the "indications," which it was
+easy sometimes to imagine they had found. But that is neither here nor
+there with Sandy-haired Jim, who was not a cattle-herder, nor yet a
+shepherd, but farmer or teamster, as the requirement was, at different
+seasons of the year.
+
+He was expressing himself concerning John Edwards' sister, who, just one
+year ago, had come to set up domesticity in the house of her brother;
+whereas, previous to her advent, John had "bach'd it" on the ranch, with
+his men, for four or five years. Jim, and the chum to whom his remarks
+were addressed, were roosting on a fence, after the manner of a certain
+class of agriculturists, hailing usually from Missouri, and most
+frequently from the county of Pike.
+
+The pale December sunshine colored with a soft gold the light morning
+haze which hung over the valley in which lay the Tesoro Rancho. In spite
+of the year of drought which had scorched up the grain-fields, and given
+a character of aridity to the landscape, it had a distinctive soft
+beauty of tint and outline, seen in the favoring light we have
+mentioned. Of all the fascinating pictures we remember to have seen, the
+most remarkable was one of a desert scene, with nothing but the
+stretches of yellow sand and the golden atmosphere for middle distance
+and background, and, for a foreground, a white tent, with camels and
+picturesquely costumed Arabs grouped before it. There was the sense of
+infinite distance in it which is so satisfying to the mind, which the
+few figures and broken lines intensified; and there was that witching
+warmth and mellowness of coloring which does not belong to landscapes
+where green and gray hues predominate.
+
+Having said thus much about a picture, we have explained why Californian
+views, even in our great, almost treeless valleys, grow so into our
+hearts and imaginations, after the first dash of disappointment at not
+finding them like the vernal vales of New England or central New York.
+But Tesoro Rancho was not treeless. Great spreading oaks furnished just
+the necessary dark-green tones in the valley landscape; and the
+mountain-sides had multifarious shades of color, furnished by rocks and
+trees, by shadows, and by the atmosphere itself.
+
+It was no wonder, then, that sandy-haired Jim, sitting on a rail-fence,
+in an attitude more curious than graceful, cast his glance often
+unconsciously over the far valley-reaches, and up the mountain-sides,
+with a dim perception of something pleasant in the view which his
+thought took no cognizance of. In fact, for the last minute or two, his
+gaze had been a silent one; and any observer might have pondered,
+considering the sharpness of the perch beneath him, whether he might not
+be making up his mind to descend from it as soon as his slow-working
+mentality had had time to convey the decision of his brain to his
+muscles.
+
+At all events, that was what he did in answer to our mental query,
+taking up the thread of his discourse where it was broken off, as
+follows:
+
+"Miss Edwards, neow (thar she is, a-comin down from the mount'in, with
+her arms full of them 'zalias she's so fond of), she's a mighty peart
+kind of a gal, and wuth a heap more to keep a man's house in good shape
+than one o' them soft-lookin' Chinee. Them's my sentiments."
+
+"That's _so_," responded his chum, seeming constitutionally disinclined
+to a longer sentence.
+
+"John Edwards has tuk to dressin' hisself nicer, and fixin' up the place
+as he didn't used to when he bach'd it, I can tell ye! When I see her
+bringin' her pianny, and her picturs, and books, and sich like traps, I
+just told myself, 'Neow, John Edwards has got a pretty passel of trash
+on his hands, I veow.' And I ment _her_ as well as the other
+fol-de-rols. But, you bet your life, she's got more sense, two to one,
+than ary one of us! It was a lucky day for Edwards when she came onto
+this ranch, sure's you're born."
+
+What further this equally philosophical and devoted admirer of Miss
+Edwards might have said on this, to him, evidently interesting topic,
+had he not been interrupted, will never be known. For the lady herself
+appeared upon the scene, putting an end to her own praises, and
+discovering to us, upon nearer view, that she added youth and grace, if
+not absolute beauty, to her other qualities.
+
+Checking the rapid lope of her horse, as she came near where the men
+were standing, in attitudes of frank, if awkward, deference, she saluted
+them with a cheerful "Good-morning," and drew rein beside them.
+
+"Take Brownie by the head, and walk a little way with me, if you please,
+James. I have something I wish to say to you," was the lady's low-voiced
+command. A certain flush and pleased expression on honest Jim's ruddy
+countenance reminded her instantly of the inherent vanity of man, and
+when she next addressed her attendant it was as "Mr. Harris," for such,
+indeed, was the surname of our lank Missourian, though not many of his
+associates had ever heard it.
+
+"How long have you been on this place, Mr. Harris?"
+
+"Near onto six year, Miss Edwards," replied Jim.
+
+"Did you know Mr. Charles Erskine, my brother's former partner?"
+
+"Just as well as I know your brother, Miss."
+
+"What became of him, after he left this place?"
+
+"I couldn't rightly say, miss. Some said he went to the mines, up in
+Idaho, and other folks said they'd seen him in 'Frisco: but I don't know
+nary thing about him."
+
+"He must be found, Mr. Harris. Do you think you could find him, if I
+were to send you on such a mission? It is a very important one, and it
+is not every one I would intrust it to."
+
+The flush and the pleased look returned to Jim's face. "I'd do the best
+I could, miss; and, mebbe, I'd do as well as another."
+
+"That is what I was thinking, Mr. Harris. You have been a long time
+here, and you are prompt and capable about your own business; so I
+concluded I could trust you with mine. I am sure I was quite right."
+
+Jim was going on to "swar she was," when Miss Edwards interrupted him,
+to enlighten him further as to the requirements of "her business:" "I do
+not wish my brother to know what errand I send you on. They had a
+dreadful quarrel once, I believe; and he might not agree with me as to
+the wisdom of what I am about to do. It will, therefore, be necessary
+for you to ask John's permission to go on a visit to San Francisco, as
+if it was for yourself you were going. The drought has left so little to
+do that you can be spared, without embarrassment, until the rains begin.
+I am going to have a grand festival at Christmas, and I would like you
+to be home before that time. I will explain further when you have got
+John's consent to your absence. Come to the house after, and ask if I
+have any commission for you."
+
+When Miss Edwards cantered off, leaving him alone in the road, Jim was
+in a state of pleased bewilderment, not unmixed with an instinctive
+jealousy.
+
+"I do wonder, neow, what she wants with Charlie Erskine. He was a
+powerful nice feller, and smart as lightnin'; but, somehow, he an'
+Edwards never could hitch hosses. Erskine allus went too fast for steady
+John, an' I doubt ef he didn't git him into some money troubles. I'd
+like to know, though, what that girl's got to do about it. Wonder ef she
+knowed him back in the States. Wimmen is cur'us, sure enough."
+
+Jim's suggestion was the true one. Miss Edwards had known Charles
+Erskine "back in the States," and when they parted last, it had been as
+engaged lovers. When she left her home in the East to join her brother,
+a speedy marriage with him had been in contemplation. But how often did
+it happen, in old "steamer times," that wives left New York to join
+husbands in San Francisco, only to find, on arrival at the end of a long
+voyage, the dear ones hidden from sight in the grave, or the false ones
+gone astray! And so it happened to Mary Edwards, that, when she set foot
+on California soil, no lover appeared to welcome her, and her trembling
+and blushing were turned to painful suspense and secret bitter tears.
+
+Her brother had vouchsafed very little explanation; only declaring
+Charles Erskine a scoundrel, who had nearly ruined him, and swearing he
+should never set foot on Tesoro Rancho until every dollar of
+indebtedness was paid. Poor Mary found it hard settling into a place so
+new, and duties so unaccustomed; but her good sense and good spirits
+conquered difficulties as they arose, until now she was quite inclined
+to like the new life for its own sake. Her brother was kind, and
+gathered about her every comfort and many luxuries; though, owing to
+embarrassments into which Erskine had drawn him, and to the losses of a
+year of drought, his purse was not overflowing. Such was the situation
+of affairs on the December morning when our story opens.
+
+Miss Edwards mentioned to her brother, during the day, that James Harris
+had spoken of going to the city, and that she had some commissions for
+him to perform. She had made up her mind to discountenance the heathen
+habits into which everybody on the ranch had fallen. She had done all
+she could to keep the men from going to bull-fights on the Sabbath, and
+had offered to read the morning service, if the men would attend; and
+now she was going to celebrate Christmas, though she realty did believe
+that the people who never saw snow forgot that Christ was ever born! Yet
+was he not born in a country very strongly resembling this very one
+which ignored him?
+
+John smiled, and offered no opposition; only bidding her remember not to
+make her commissions to the city very expensive ones, and suggesting,
+that, since she meant to be gay, she had better send some invitations to
+certain of their friends.
+
+"By the way John, do you know where Charles Erskine is?" Miss Edwards
+asked, with much forced composure.
+
+"The last I heard of him he was in San Francisco, lying dangerously
+ill," answered John coldly.
+
+"Oh, John!"
+
+"Mary, you must hope nothing from that man. Don't waste your sympathies
+on him, either; he'll never repay you the outgo."
+
+"Tell me just one thing, John: Was Charles ever false to me? Tell me the
+truth."
+
+"I think he kept good faith with you. It is not that I complain of in
+his conduct. The quarrel is strictly between us. He can never come here,
+with my consent."
+
+"But I can go to him," said Miss Edwards, very quietly.
+
+And she did go--with Sandy-haired Jim for an escort, and her brother's
+frowning face haunted her.
+
+"If all is right," she said to him, at the very last, "I will be back to
+keep Christmas with you. Think as well as you can of me, John,
+and--good-by."
+
+It will be seen, that, whatever Miss Edwards' little, womanly plan of
+reconciliation had been, it was, as to details, all changed by the
+information John had given her. What next she would do depended on
+circumstances. It was, perhaps, a question of life and death. The long,
+wearying, dusty stage-ride to San Francisco, passed like a disagreeable
+dream; neither incident of heat by day, nor cold by night, or influence
+of grand or lovely scenes, seemed to touch her consciousness. James
+Harris, in his best clothes and best manners--the latter having a
+certain gentle dignity about them that was born of the occasion--sat
+beside her, and ministered assiduously to those personal wants which she
+had forgotten in the absorption of her painful thoughts.
+
+What Jim himself thought, if his mental processes could be called
+thinking, it would be difficult to state. He was dimly conscious that in
+his companion's mind there was a heavy trouble brooding; and conscious,
+also, of a desire to alleviate it, as far as possible, though in what
+way that might be done, he had not the remotest idea. There seemed an
+immense gulf between her and him, over which he never could reach to
+proffer consolation; and while he blindly groped in his own mind for
+some hint of his duty, he was fain to be content with such personal
+attentions as defending her from heat and cold, dust and fatigue, and
+reminding her that eating and drinking were among the necessary
+inconveniences of this life. After a couple of days spent in revolving
+the case hopelessly in his brain, his thoughts at length shaped
+themselves thus:
+
+"Waal, neow, 'taint no concern of mine, to be sure; but I'm beound to
+see this gal threough. She's captain of this train, an' only got ter
+give her orders. I'll obey 'em, ef they take me to thunder. That's so, I
+veow!" After which conclusion of the whole matter, Jim appeared more at
+his ease in all respects. In truth, the most enlightened of us go to
+school to just such mental struggles, with profit to our minds and
+manners.
+
+Arrived at San Francisco, Miss Edwards took quarters at a hotel,
+determined before reporting herself to any of her acquaintance to first
+find whether Charles Erskine was alive, and, if so, where he could be
+found. What a wearisome search was that before traces of him were
+discovered, in a cheap boarding-house, in a narrow, dirty street. And
+what bitter disappointment it was to learn that he had gone away some
+weeks before, as soon as he was able to be moved. To renew the search in
+the city, to send telegrams in every direction, was the next effort,
+which, like the first, proved fruitless; and, at the end of ten days
+Miss Edwards made a few formal calls on her friends, concluded some
+necessary purchases, and set out on her return to Tesoro Rancho,
+exhausted in mind and body.
+
+If Jim was careful of her comfort before, he was tender toward her now;
+and the lady accepted the protecting care of the serving-man with a dull
+sense of gratitude. She even smiled on him faintly, in a languid way,
+but in a way that seemed to him to lessen the distance between them.
+Jim's education had been going on rapidly during the last ten days. He
+seemed to himself to be quite another man than the one who sat on the
+fence with Missouri Joe, less than two weeks agone.
+
+Perhaps Miss Edwards noticed the change, and innocently encouraged him
+to aspire. We must not blame her if she did. This is what woman's
+education makes of her. The most cultured women must be grateful and
+flattering toward the rudest men, if circumstances throw them together.
+Born to depend on somebody, they must depend on their inferiors when
+their superiors are not at hand; must, in fact, assume an inferiority to
+those inferiors. If they sometimes turn their heads with the dangerous
+deference, what wonder!
+
+Secure in the distance between them, Miss Edwards assumed that she could
+safely defer to Sandy-haired Jim, if, as it seemed, he enjoyed the sense
+of being her protector. Even had he been her equal, she would have said
+to herself, "He knows my heart is breaking for another, and will respect
+my grief." In this double security, she paid no heed to the devotion of
+her companion, only thinking him the kindest and most awkward of good
+and simple-minded men. That is just what any of us would have thought
+about Sandy-haired Jim, gentle readers.
+
+John Edwards received his sister with a grave kindliness, which
+aggravated her grief. He would not ask her a question, nor give her the
+smallest opportunity of appealing to his sympathies. She had undertaken
+this business without his sanction, and without his sympathy she must
+abide the consequences. Toward her, personally, he should ever feel and
+act brotherly; but toward her foolish weakness for Erskine, he felt no
+charity. He was surprised and pleased to see that his sister's spirit
+was nearly equal to his own; for, though visibly "pale and pining,"
+after the absurd fashion of women, she went about her duties and
+recreations as usual, and prosecuted the threatened preparations for
+Christmas with enthusiasm.
+
+In some of these, it was necessary to employ the services of one of the
+men, and Miss Edwards, without much thought of why, except that she was
+used to him, singled out Jim as her assistant. To her surprise, he
+excused himself, and begged to substitute Missouri Joe.
+
+"You see, Miss Edwards, I've been a long time meanin' to take a trip
+into the mount'ins. I allow it'll rain in less nor a week, an' then
+it'll be too late; so ef you'll excuse me this onct, I'll promise to be
+on hand next time, sure."
+
+"Oh, certainly, Mr. Harris; Joe will do very well, no doubt; and there
+is no need for you to make excuses. I thought you would like to assist
+about these preparations, and I am sure you would, too; but go, by all
+means, for, as you say, it must rain very soon, when it will be too
+late."
+
+"Thar's nothing I'd like better nor stayin' to work for you, Miss
+Edwards," answered Jim, with some appearance of confusion; "but this
+time I'm obleeged to go--I am, sure."
+
+"Well, good-by, and good luck to you, Mr. Harris," Miss Edwards said,
+pleasantly.
+
+"Ef she only knowed what I'm a goin' fur!" muttered Jim to himself, as
+he went to "catch up" his horse, and pack up two or three days' rations
+of bread and meat. "But I ain't goin' to let on about it to a single
+soul. It's best to keep this business to myself, I reckon. 'Peared like
+'twas a hint of that kind she give me, the other day, when she said,
+'The gods help them that help themselves, Mr. Harris.' Such a heap o'
+sense as that gal's got! She's smarter'n John Edwards and me, and
+Missouri Joe, to boot: but I'm a-gainin' on it a leetle--I'm a-gainin'
+on it a leetle," concluded Jim, slowly, puckering his parched and
+sunburnt lips into a significant expression of mystery.
+
+What it was he was "gainin' on," did not appear, for the weight of his
+thoughts had brought him to a dead-stand, a few feet from the fence, on
+the hither side of which was the animal he contemplated riding. At this
+juncture of entire absence of mind, the voice of John Edwards, hailing
+him from the road, a little way off, dissolved the spell:
+
+"I say, Jim," hallooed Edwards; "if you discover that mine, I will give
+you half of it, and an interest in the ranch."
+
+The words seemed to electrify the usually slow mind to which the idea
+was addressed. Turning short about, Jim, in a score of long strides,
+reached the fence separating him from Edwards.
+
+"Will you put that in writin'?"
+
+"To be sure, I will," answered John, nodding his head, with a puzzled
+and ironical smile.
+
+"I'll go to the house with ye, an' hev it done to onct," said Jim,
+sententiously. "I hev about an hour to spar, I reckon."
+
+John Edwards was struck by the unusual manner of the proverbially
+deliberate man, who had served him with the same unvarying "slow and
+sure" faithfulness for years; but he refrained from comments. Jim, in
+his awkward way, proved to be more of a man of business than could have
+been expected.
+
+"I want a bond fur a deed, Mr. Edwards. That's the best way to settle
+it, I reckon."
+
+"That is as good a way as any; the discovery to be made within a certain
+time."
+
+"An' what interest in the ranch, Mr. Edwards?"
+
+"Well, about the ranch," said John, thoughtfully, "I don't want to run
+any risk of trading it off for nothing, and there will have to be
+conditions attached to the transfer of any portion of that more than the
+one of discovery of the mine. Let it be this way: that on the mine
+proving by actual results to be worth a certain sum--say $50,000--the
+deed shall be given to half the mine and one-third interest in the
+ranch; the supposition being, that, if it is proved to be worth $50,000,
+it is probably worth four times or ten times that amount."
+
+"That's about it, I should say," returned Jim. "It's lib'ral in you, any
+way, Mr. Edwards."
+
+"The truth is, Harris," said Edwards, looking him steadily in the eye,
+"I am in a devil of a pinch, that's the truth of it; and I am taking
+gambling chances on this thing. I only hope you may earn your third of
+the ranch. I'll not grudge it to you, if you do."
+
+"Thank ye, sir. An' when them papers is made eout, I'll be off."
+
+John handed him his papers half an hour afterward, which Jim prudently
+took care to have witnessed. Miss Edwards being called in, signed her
+name.
+
+"So, this is what takes you to the mountains, Mr. Harris? I'm sure I
+wish you good luck."
+
+"You did that afore, miss; an' it came, right on the spot."
+
+"I must be your 'wishing fairy,'" said she, laughing.
+
+"I'll bring you a Christmas present, Miss Edwards, like as not," Jim
+answered, coloring with delight at the thought.
+
+"I hope you may. Thank you for the intention, any way."
+
+"Are you going all alone, Harris?" asked Edwards, as he accompanied him
+a short distance from the house. "It is not quite safe going alone, is
+it? Have you any heirs, supposing you lose yourself or break your neck?"
+
+Once more Jim was electrified with an idea. His light, gray eyes turned
+on his questioner with a sudden flash of intelligence:
+
+"I mought choose my heir, I reckon."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Mought we go back to the house, an' make a will?"
+
+"Aren't you afraid turning back so often may spoil your luck?" asked
+Edwards, laughing.
+
+"Ef you think so, I'll never do it," answered Jim, soberly. "But I'll
+tell you, onct fur all, who it is shall be my heir if any thing chance
+me, an' I'll expect you'll act on the squar: that person is Miss Mary
+Edwards, your own sister, an' you'll not go fur to dispute my will?"
+
+"I've no right to dispute your will, whether I approve of it or not.
+There will be no proof of it, however, and I could not make over your
+property to my sister, should there be other heirs with a natural and
+rightful claim to it. But you are not going to make your will just yet,
+Harris; so, good-by. You'll be home on Christmas?"
+
+"I reckon I will."
+
+John Edwards turned back to the house, and to banter his sister on Jim
+Harris's will, while that individual went about the business of his
+journey. His spirits were in a strange state of half-elation,
+half-depression. The depression was a natural consequence of the talk
+about a will, and the elation was the result of a strong and sudden
+faith which had sprung up in him in the success of his undertaking, and
+of the achievements of every kind it would render possible.
+
+"She's my 'wishin' fairy,' she said, an' she wished me luck twice. I got
+the first stroke of it when John Edwards called to me across the field.
+I've got him strong on that; an' I war a leetle surprised, too. He
+wanted to make me look sharp, that's clar as mud. I'll look sharp, you
+bet, John Edwards! Didn't her hand look purty when she wrote her name?
+I've got her name to look at, any way." And at this stage of his
+reverie, Jim drew from an inner breast-pocket the bond which Miss
+Edwards had witnessed, and, after gazing at the signature for a moment
+with moveless features, gave a shy, hasty glance all round him, and
+pressed his parched and puckered lips on the paper.
+
+The sentiment which caused this ebullition of emotion in Sandy-haired
+Jim was one so dimly defined, so little understood, and so absolutely
+pure in its nature, that had Miss Edwards been made aware of it, she
+could only have seen in it the touching tribute which it was to abstract
+womanliness--to the "wimmen nater," of which Jim was so frank an
+admirer. The gulf which was between them had never yet been crossed,
+even in imagination, though it is presumable; that, unknown to himself,
+Jim was trembling on the verge of it at this moment, dragged thither by
+the excitement of prospective wealth and the possibilities involved in
+it, and by the recollection of the pleasant words and smiles of this, to
+him, queen of women.
+
+After this gush of romance--the first and only one Jim had ever been
+guilty of--he returned the document to his pocket, and, with his
+customary deliberation, proceeded to catch and mount his horse, and
+before noon was on his way across the valley, toward that particular
+gorge in the mountain where _el tesoro_ was supposed to be located. John
+Edwards stood in the house door watching him ambling over the waste,
+yellow plain, until Jim and his horse together appeared a mere speck in
+the distance, when he went to talk over with his sister the late
+transaction, and make some jesting remarks on the probability of the
+desired discovery.
+
+The days sped by, and there remained but two before Christmas. John and
+his sister were consulting together over the arrangement of some
+evergreen arches and wreaths of bay-leaves. Miss Edwards was explaining
+where the floral ornaments should come in, where she would have this
+picture, and where that, and how it would be best to light the rooms.
+
+"I confess, John," she said, sitting down to braid the scarlet berries
+of the native _arbutus_ into a wreath with the leaves of the California
+nutmeg, "that I can not make it seem like winter or like Christmas, with
+these open doors, these flowers, and this warm sunlight streaming in at
+the windows. I do wish we could have a flurry of snow, to make it seem
+like the holidays."
+
+"Snow is out of the question; but I should be thankful for a good
+rain-storm. If it does not rain soon, there will be another failure of
+crops next year in all this part of the country."
+
+"And then we should have to 'go down into Egypt for corn,' as the
+Israelites used to. Do you feel very apprehensive, John?"
+
+Before John could reply, his attention was diverted by a strange
+arrival. Dismounting from Jim's horse was a man whom he did not at once
+recognize, so shabby were his clothes, so worn and haggard his
+appearance. With a feeling of vague uneasiness and curiosity, he
+sauntered toward the gate, to give such greeting as seemed fit to the
+stranger who came in this guise, yet riding a well-conditioned horse
+belonging to one of his own men.
+
+Miss Edwards, who had also recognized the animal, ran, impulsively, to
+the door. She saw her brother advance to within a few feet of the
+stranger, then turn abruptly on his heel and return toward the house.
+The man thus contemptuously received, reeled, as if he would have
+fallen, but caught at the gate-post, where he remained, leaning, as if
+unable to walk.
+
+"Who is it, John?" asked Miss Edwards, anxiously regarding her brother's
+stern countenance; but he passed her, without a word.
+
+A sudden pallor swept over her face, and she looked, for one moment, as
+if she might have fainted; then, with a cry of, "Oh, John, John, be
+merciful!" she ran after him, and threw her arms about him.
+
+"Let me go, Mary," said he, hoarsely. "If you wish to see Charles
+Erskine, you can do as you please. _I_ wash my hands of him."
+
+"But, John, he is ill; he is suffering; he may die--and at your gate!"
+
+"Let him die!"
+
+It was then that the soul of Miss Edwards "stood up in her eyes, and
+looked at" her brother. She withdrew her arms and turned mutely toward
+the door, out of which she passed, with a proud, resolute, and rapid
+tread. Without hesitation she did that which is so hard for a woman to
+do--make advances toward the man with whom she had once been in tender
+relations, but whose position has, for any reason, been made to appear
+doubtful. She went to him, took him by the hand, and inquired, more
+tremulously than she meant, what she could do for him.
+
+"Mary!" answered the sick man, and then fainted quite away.
+
+Miss Edwards had him conveyed to her own room, by the hands of Missouri
+Joe and the Chinese cook, where she dispensed such restoratives as
+finally brought back consciousness; and some slight nourishment being
+administered, revealed the fact that exhaustion and famine, more than
+disease, had reduced the invalid to his present condition; on becoming
+aware of which fact, Miss Edwards grew suddenly embarrassed, and,
+arranging everything for his comfort, was about to withdraw from the
+apartment, when Erskine beckoned to her, and, fumbling in his pockets,
+brought out several pieces of white quartz, thickly studded with yellow
+metal, but of the value of which she had little conception.
+
+"Take these to John," he said, "and tell him they are a peace-offering.
+They came from _el tesoro_."
+
+"You have seen James Harris; and he has discovered the mine!"
+
+"I have seen no one. I discovered the mine myself."
+
+"But the horse? It was Harris' horse you were riding."
+
+"I did not know it; I found him, fortunately, when I could no longer
+walk."
+
+"Poor Charlie," whispered Miss Edwards, moved by that womanly weakness
+which is always betraying the sex. She never knew how it was, but her
+head sank on the pillow; and, when she remembered it afterward, she was
+certain that, in the confusion of her ideas, he kissed her. Then she
+fled from the room, and sought her brother everywhere, saying, over and
+over, to herself, "Poor Jim! I wonder what has happened to him;" with
+tears streaming from her eyes, which she piously attributed to
+apprehensions for James Harris.
+
+When John was found, and the "specimens" placed in his hands, he was
+first incredulous, and then indignant; for it hurts a proud man to be
+forced to change an opinion, or forgive an injury. The pressure of
+circumstances being too strong for him, he relented so far as to see
+Erskine, and talk over the discovery with him. What more the two men
+talked of, never transpired; but Miss Edwards concluded that everything
+was settled, as her brother gave orders concerning the entertainment of
+his former partner, and looked and spoke with unusual vivacity for the
+remainder of the day.
+
+Many conjectures were formed concerning the fate of Sandy-haired Jim, by
+the men on the ranch, who generally agreed that his horse would not
+leave him, and that, if he were alive, he would be found not far from
+the spot where Charles Erskine picked up the animal. From Erskine's
+account, it appeared that he had been several weeks in the mountains,
+prospecting, before he discovered the mine; by which time he was so
+reduced in strength, through hardship and insufficient food, that it was
+with difficulty he made his way down to the valley. Just at a time when
+to proceed further seemed impossible, and when he had been absent two
+days from the mine, he fell in with a riding-horse, quietly grazing, at
+the foot of the mountain. Catching and mounting him, he rode, first
+along the edge of the valley for some distance, to find, if possibly a
+party were encamped there; but finding no one, started for his old home,
+riding as long as his strength allowed, and dismounting quite often to
+rest. In this way, three days and a half had passed, since the discovery
+of the mine. Judging from where the horse was found, Harris must have
+gone up on the other side of the ridge or spur, in which _el tesoro_ was
+located. At all events, it was decided to send a party to look for him,
+as, whether or not any accident had befallen him, he was now without the
+means of reaching home; and, to provide for any emergencies, John
+ordered the light wagon to be taken along, with certain other articles,
+so suggestive of possible pain and calamity, that Miss Edwards felt her
+blood chilled by the sight of them.
+
+"He will be so disappointed," she said, "not to have been the discoverer
+of the mine. John, you must make him a handsome present, and I will see
+what I can do, to show my gratitude for his many kindnesses."
+
+And then, happy in the presence of her lover, and the returning
+cheerfulness of her brother, Miss Edwards forgot to give more than a
+passing thought to James Harris, while she busied herself in the
+preparations for a holiday, which, to her, would be doubly an
+anniversary, ever afterward.
+
+The clouds, which had been gathering for a storm, during the past week,
+sent down a deluge of rain, on Christmas Eve, making it necessary to
+light fires in the long-empty fire-places, and giving a truly festive
+glow to the holiday adornments of the Edwards Rancho. The ranch hands
+were dancing to the music of the "Arkansas Traveler," in their separate
+quarters. John Edwards's half-dozen friends from the city, with two or
+three of his sister's, and the now convalescent Charles Erskine, clothed
+in a suit of borrowed broadcloth, were making mirth and music, after
+their more refined fashion, in Miss Edwards's parlor.
+
+At the hour when, according to tradition, the Bethlehem Babe was born,
+Missouri Joe appeared at the door, and made a sign to the master of the
+house.
+
+"It's a pity, like," said Joe, softly, "to leave him out thar in the
+storm."
+
+"'Him!' Do you mean Harris? How is he?"
+
+"The storm can't hurt him none," continued Joe; "an' it do not look
+right to fetch him in yer, nor to 'tother house, no more."
+
+"What is it, John?" Miss Edwards asked anxiously, looking over his
+shoulder into the darkness. "Has Harris returned?"
+
+"They have brought him," answered John; "and we must have him in here."
+
+She shrank away, frightened and distressed, while the men brought what
+remained of Sandy-haired Jim, and deposited it carefully on a wooden
+bench in the hall. There was little to be told. The men had found him at
+the foot of a precipice where he had fallen. Beside him was a heavy
+nugget of pure gold, which he was evidently carrying when he fell. He
+had not died immediately, for in his breast-pocket was found the bond,
+with this indorsement, in pencil:
+
+    "I hev lit onto the mine foller mi trail up the kenyon miss Mary
+    edwards is mi air so help me God goodby.
+
+    "JAMES HARRIS."
+
+They buried him on Christmas Day; and Miss Edwards, smiling through her
+quiet-flowing tears, adorned his coffin with evergreen-wreaths and
+flowers. "I am glad to do this for him," she whispered to her lover,
+"for if ever there was a heart into which Christ was born at its birth,
+it was poor Jim's."
+
+
+
+
+POEMS.
+
+
+
+
+    A PAGAN REVERIE.
+
+    Tell me, mother Nature! tender yet stern mother!
+    In what nomenclature (fitlier than another)
+    Can I laud and praise thee, entreat and implore thee;
+    Ask thee what thy ways be, question yet adore thee.
+
+    Over me thy heaven bends its royal arches;
+    Through its vault the seven planets keep their marches:
+    Rising, shining, setting, with no change or turning;
+    Never once forgetting--wasted not with burning.
+
+    On and on, unceasing, move the constellations,
+    Lessening nor increasing since the birth of nations:
+    Sun and moon unfailing keep their times and seasons,--
+    But man, unavailing, pleads to thee for reasons.
+
+    Why the great dumb mountains, why the ocean hoary--
+    Even the babbling fountains, older are than story,
+    And his life's duration's but a few short marches
+    Of the constellations through the heavenly arches!
+
+    Even the oaks of Mamre, and the palms of Kedar,
+    (Praising thee with psalmry) and the stately cedar,
+    Through the cycling ages, stinted not are growing,--
+    While the holiest sages have not time for knowing.
+
+    Mother whom we cherish, savage while so tender,
+    Do the lilies perish mourning their lost splendor?
+    Does the diamond shimmer brightlier that eternal
+    Time makes nothing dimmer of its light supernal?
+
+    Do the treasures hidden in earth's rocky bosom,
+    Cry to men unbidden that they come and loose them?
+    Is the dew of dawntide sad because the Summer
+    Kissed to death the fawn-eyed Spring, the earlier comer?
+
+    Would the golden vapors trooping over heaven,
+    Quench the starry tapers of the sunless even?
+    When the arrowy lightnings smite the rocks asunder,
+    Do they shrink with frightenings from the bellowing thunder?
+
+    Inconceivable Nature! these, thy inert creatures,
+    With their sphinx-like stature, are of man the teachers;
+    Silent, secret, passive, endless as the ages,
+    'Gainst their forces massive fruitlessly he rages.
+
+    Winds and waves misuse him, buffet and destroy him;
+    Thorns and pebbles bruise him, heat and cold annoy him;
+    Sting of insect maddens, snarl of beast affrights him;
+    Shade of forest saddens, breath of flowers delights him.
+
+    O thou great, mysterious mother of all mystery!
+    At thy lips imperious man entreats his history.--
+    Whence he came--and whither is his spirit fleeing:
+    Ere it wandered hither had it other being:
+
+    Will its subtile essence, passing through death's portal,
+    Put on nobler presence in a life immortal?
+    Or is man but matter, that a touch ungentle,
+    Back again may shatter to forms elemental?
+
+    Can mere atoms question how they feel sensation?
+    Or dust make suggestion of its own creation?
+    Yet if man were better than his base conditions,
+    Could things baser fetter his sublime ambitions?
+
+    What unknown conjunction of the pure etherial,
+    With the form and function of the gross material,
+    Gives the product mortal? whose immortal yearning
+    Brings him to the portal of celestial learning.
+
+    To the portal gleaming, where the waiting sphinxes,
+    Humoring his dreaming, give him what he thinks is
+    Key to the arcana--plausible equation
+    Of the problems many in his incarnation.
+
+    Pitiful delusion!--in no nomenclature--
+    Maugre its profusion--O ambiguous nature!
+    Can man find expression of his own relation
+    To the great procession of facts in creation?
+
+    Fruitless speculating! none may lift the curtain
+    From the antedating ages and uncertain
+    When what is was not, and tides of pristine being
+    Beat on shores forgot, and all, as now, unseeing.
+
+    Whence impelled or whither, or by what volition;
+    Borne now here, now thither, in blind inanition.
+    Out of this abysmal, nebulous dim distance,
+    Haunted by a dismal, phantomic existence,
+
+    Issued man?--a creature without inspiration,
+    Gross of form and feature, dull of inclination?
+    Or was his primordial self a something higher?
+    Fresh from test and ordeal of elemental fire.
+
+    Were these ages golden while the world was younger,
+    When the giants olden knew not toil nor hunger?
+    When no pain nor malice marred joy's full completeness,
+    And life's honeyed chalice rapt the soul with sweetness?
+
+    When the restless river of time loved to linger;
+    Ere flesh felt the quiver of death's dissolving finger;
+    When man's intuition led without deflection,
+    To a sure fruition, and a full perfection.
+
+    Individual man is ever new created:
+    What his being's plan is, loosely predicated
+    On the circumstances of his sole condition,
+    Colored by the fancies borrowed from tradition.
+
+    His creation gives him clue to nothing older:
+    Naked, life receives him--wondering beholder
+    Of the world about him--and ere aught is certain,
+    Time and mystery flout him; and death drops the curtain.
+
+    Man, the dreamer, groping after what he should be,
+    Cheers himself with hoping to be what he would be:
+    When he hopes no longer, with self-adulation,
+    Fancies he was stronger at his first creation:
+
+    Else--in him inhering powers of intellection--
+    Death, by interfering with his mind's perfection,
+    Itself gives security to restore life's treasure,
+    Freed from all impurity and in endless measure.
+
+    Thou, O Nature, knowest, yet no word is spoken.
+    Time, that ever flowest, presses on unbroken:
+    All in vain the sages toil with proof and question--
+    The immemorial ages give no least suggestion.
+
+
+    PASSING BY HELICON.
+
+      My steps are turned away;
+        Yet my eyes linger still,
+      On their beloved hill,
+        In one long, last survey:
+    Gazing through tears that multiply the view,
+          Their passionate adieu!
+
+      O, joy-empurpled height,
+        Down whose enchanted sides
+        The rosy mist now glides,
+      How can I loose thy sight?
+    How can my eyes turn where my feet must go,
+          Trailing their way in woe?
+
+      Gone is my strength of heart;
+        The roses that I brought
+        From thy dear bowers, and thought
+      To keep, since we must part--
+    Thy thornless roses, sweeter until now,
+          Than round Hymettus' brow.
+
+      The golden-vested bees
+        Find sweetest sweetness in--
+        Such odors dwelt within
+      The moist red hearts of these--
+    Alas, no longer give out blissful breath,
+          But odors rank with death.
+
+      Their dewiness is dank;
+        It chills my pallid arms,
+        Once blushing 'neath their charms;
+      And their green stems hang lank,
+    Stricken with leprosy, and fair no more,
+          But withered to the core.
+
+      Vain thought! to bear along,
+        Into this torrid track,
+        Whence no one turneth back
+      With his first wanderer's song
+    Yet on his lips, thy odors and thy dews,
+          To deck these dwarfed yews.
+
+      No more within thy vales,
+        Beside thy plashing wells,
+        Where sweet Euterpe dwells
+      With songs of nightingales,
+    And sounds of flutes that make pale Silence glow,
+          Shall I their rapture know.
+
+      Farewell, ye stately palms!
+        Clashing your cymbal tones,
+        In thro' the mystic moans
+      Of pines at solemn psalms:
+    Ye myrtles, singing Love's inspired song,
+          We part, and part for long!
+
+      Farewell, majestic peaks!
+        Whereon my listening soul
+        Hath trembled to the roll
+      Of thunders that Jove wreaks--
+    And calm Minerva's oracles hath heard
+          All more than now unstirred!
+
+      Adieu, ye beds of bloom!
+        No more shall zephyr bring
+        To me, upon his wing,
+      Your loveliest perfume;
+    No more upon your pure, immortal dyes,
+          Shall rest my happy eyes.
+
+      I pass by; at thy foot,
+        O, mount of my delight!
+        Ere yet from out thy sight,
+      I drop my voiceless lute:
+    It is in vain to strive to carry hence
+          Its olden eloquence.
+
+      Your sacred groves no more
+        My singing shall prolong,
+        With echoes of my song,
+      Doubling it o'er and o'er.
+    Haunt of the muses, lost to wistful eyes,
+          What dreams of thee shall rise!
+
+      Rise but to be dispelled--
+        For here where I am cast,
+        Such visions may not last,
+      By sterner fancies quelled:
+    Relentless Nemesis my doom hath sent--
+          This cruel banishment!
+
+
+    LOST AT SEA.
+
+    A fleet set sail upon a summer sea:
+        'Tis now so long ago,
+    I look no more to see my ships come home;
+    But in that fleet sailed all 'twas dear to me.
+
+    Ships never bore such precious freight as these,
+        Please God, to any woe.
+    His world is wide, and they may ride the foam,
+    Secure from danger, in some unknown seas.
+
+    But they have left me bankrupt on life's 'change;
+        And daily I bestow
+    Regretful tears upon the blank account,
+    And with myself my losses rearrange.
+
+    Oh, mystic wind of fate, dost hold my dower
+        Where I may never know?
+    Of all my treasure ventured what amount
+    Will the sea send me in my parting hour!
+
+
+    'TWAS JUNE, NOT I.
+
+    "Come out into the garden, Maud;"
+      In whispered tones young Percy said:
+      He but repeated what he'd read
+    That afternoon, with soft applaud:
+    A snatch, which for my same name's sake,
+      He caught, out of the sweet, soft song,
+    A lover for his love did make,
+      In half despite of some fond wrong:--
+    And more he quoted, just to show
+      How still the rhymes ran in his head,
+      With visions of the roses red
+    That on the poet's pen did grow.
+
+    The poet's spell was on our blood;
+      The spell of June was in the air;
+    We felt, more than we understood,
+      The charm of being young and fair.
+    Where everything is fair and young--
+      As on June eves doth fitly seem:
+    The Earth herself lies in among
+      The misty, azure fields of space,
+    A bride, whose startled blushes glow
+      Less flame-like through the shrouds of lace
+    That sweeter all her beauties show.
+
+    We walked and talked beneath the trees--
+      Bird-haunted, flowering trees of June--
+      The roses purpled in the moon:
+    We breathed their fragrance on the breeze--
+    Young Percy's voice is tuned to clear
+    Deep tones, as if his heart were deep:
+    This night it fluttered on my ear
+    As young birds flutter in their sleep.
+    My own voice faltered when I said
+    How very sweet such hours must be
+    With one we love. At that word he
+    Shook like the aspen overhead:
+    "Must be!" he drew me from the shade,
+    To read my face to show his own:
+    "Say _are_, dear Maud!"--my tongue was stayed;
+    My pliant limbs seemed turned to stone.
+
+    He held my hands I could not move--
+    The nerveless palms together prest--
+    And clasped them tightly to his breast;
+    While in my heart the question strove.
+    The fire-flies flashed like wandering stars--
+    I thought some sprang from out his eyes:
+    Surely some spirit makes or mars
+    At will our earthly destinies!
+    "Speak, Maud!"--at length I turned away:
+    He must have thought it woman's fear;
+    For, whispering softly in my ear
+    Such gentle thanks as might allay
+    Love's tender shame; left on my brow,
+    And on each hand, a warm light kiss--
+    I feel them burn there even now--
+    But all my fetters fell at this.
+
+    I spoke like an injured queen:
+    It's our own defence when we're surprised--
+    The way our weakness is disguised;
+    I said things that I could not mean,
+    Or ought not--since it was a lie
+    That love had not been in my mind:
+    'Twas in the air I breathed; the sky
+    Shone love, and murmured it the wind.
+    It had absorbed my soul with bliss;
+    My blood ran love in every vein,
+    And to have been beloved again
+    Were heavenly!--so I thought till this
+    Unlooked for answer to the prayer
+    My heart was making with its might,
+    Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare,
+    Like two clouds meeting on a height,
+    And, pausing first in short strange lull,
+    Then bursting into awful storm,
+    Opposing feelings multiform,
+    Struggled in silence: and then full
+    Of our blind woman-wrath, broke forth
+    In stinging hail of sharp-edged ice,
+    As freezing as the polar north,
+    Yet maddening. O, the poor mean vice
+    We women have been taught to call
+    By virtue's name! the holy scorn
+    We feel for lovers left love-lorn
+      By our own coldness, or by the wall
+      Of other love 'twixt them and us!
+
+    The tempest past, I paused. He stood
+    Silent,--and yet "Ungenerous!"
+    Was hurled back, plainer than ere could
+    His lips have said it, by his eyes
+      Fire-flashing, and his pale, set face,
+      Beautiful, and unmarred by trace
+    Of aught save pain and pained surprise.
+      --I quailed at last before that gaze,
+      And even faintly owned my wrong:
+    I said I "spoke in such amaze
+      I could not choose words that belong
+    To such occasions." Here he smiled,
+      To cover one low, quick-drawn sigh:
+      "June eves disturb us differently,"
+    He said, at length; "and I, beguiled
+    By something in the air, did do
+      My Lady Maud unmeant offence;
+    And, what is stranger far, she too,
+    Under the baleful influence
+    of this fair heaven"--he raised his eyes,
+    And gestured proudly toward the stars--
+    "Has done me wrong. Wrong, lady, mars
+    God's purpose, written on these skies,
+    Painted and uttered in this scene:
+    Acknowledged in each secret heart;
+    We both are wrong, you say; 'twould mean
+    That we too should be wide apart--
+    And so, adieu!"--with this he went.
+
+    I sat down whitening in the moon,
+    With heat as of a desert noon,
+    Sending its fever vehement
+    Across my brow, and through my frame--
+    The fever of a wild regret--
+    A vain regret without a name,
+    In which both love and loathing met.
+
+    Was this the same enchanted air
+    I breathed one little hour ago?
+    Did all these purple roses blow
+    But yestermorn, so sweet, so fair?
+    Was it _this_ eve that some one said
+    "Come out into the garden, Maud?"
+    And while the sleepy birds o'erhead
+    Chirped out to know who walked abroad,
+    Did _we_ admire the plumey flowers
+    On the wide-branched catalpa trees,
+    And locusts, scenting all the breeze;
+    And call the balm-trees our bird-towers?
+    Did _we_ recall the "black bat Night,"
+    That flew before young Maud walked forth--
+    And say this Night's wings were too bright
+    For bats'--being feathered, from its birth,
+    Like butterflies' with powdered gold:
+    Still talking on, from gay to grave,
+    And trembling lest some sudden wave
+    Of the soul's deep, grown over-bold,
+    Should sweep the barriers of reserve,
+    And whelm us in tumultuous floods
+    Of unknown power? What did unnerve
+    Our frames, as if we walked with gods?
+    Unless they, meaning to destroy,
+    Had made us mad with a false heaven,
+    Or drunk with wine and honey given
+    Only for immortals to enjoy.
+
+    Alas, I only knew that late
+    I'd seemed in an enchanted sphere;
+    That now I felt the web of fate
+    Close round me, with a mortal fear.
+    If only once the gods invite
+    To banquets that are crowned with roses;
+    After which the celestial closes
+    Are barred to us; if in despite
+    Of such high favor, arrogant
+    We blindly choose to bide our time,
+    Rejecting Heaven's--and ignorant
+    What we have spurned, attempt to climb
+    To heavenly places at our will--
+    Finding no path thereto but one,
+    Nemesis-guarded, where atone
+    To heaven, all such as hopeful still,
+    Press toward the mount,--yet find it strewn
+    With corses, perished by the way,
+    Of those who Fate did importune
+    Too rashly, or her will gainsay.
+    If _I_ have been thrust out from heaven,
+    This night, for insolent disdain,
+    Of putting a young god in pain,
+    How shall I hope to be forgiven?
+    Yet let me not be judged as one
+    Who mocks at any high behest;
+    My fault being that I kept the throne
+    Of a JOVE vacant in my breast,
+    And when APOLLO claimed the place
+    I was too loyal to my Jove;
+    Unmindful how the masks of love
+    Transfigure all things to our face.
+
+    Ah, well! if I have lost to fate
+    The greatest boon that heaven disposes;
+    And closed upon myself the gate
+    To fields of bliss; 'tis on these roses,
+    On this intoxicating air,
+    The witching influence of the moon,
+    The poet's rhymes that went in tune
+    To the night's voices low and rare;
+    To all, that goes to make such hours
+    Like hasheesh-dreams. These did defy,
+    With contrary fate-compelling power,
+    The intended bliss;--'_twas June, not I_.
+
+
+    LINES TO A LUMP OF VIRGIN GOLD.
+
+    Dull, yellow, heavy, lustreless--
+    With less of radiance than the burnished tress,
+    Crumpled on Beauty's forehead: cloddish, cold,
+    Kneaded together with the common mold!
+    Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges
+    Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges;
+    Hidden within some mountain's rugged breast
+    From man's desire and quest--
+    Would thou could'st speak and tell the mystery
+    That shrines thy history!
+
+    Yet 'tis of little consequence,
+    To-day, to know how thou wert made, or whence
+    Earthquake and flood have brought thee: thou art here,
+    At once the master that men love and fear--
+    Whom they have sought by many strange devices,
+    In ancient river-beds; in interstices
+    Of hardest quartz; upon the wave-wet strand,
+    Where curls the tawny sand
+    By mountain torrents hurried to the main,
+    And thence hurled back again:--
+
+    Yes, suffered, dared, and patiently
+    Offered up everything, O gold, to thee!--
+    Home, wife and children, native soil, and all
+    That once they deemed life's sweetest, at thy call;
+    Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted;
+    Wearied for months at sea--yet ever painted
+    Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain
+    Invalidated pain,
+    Cured the sick soul--made nugatory evil
+    Of man or devil.
+
+    Alas, and well-a-day! we know
+    What idle dreams were these that fooled men so.
+    On yonder hillside sleep in nameless graves,
+    To which they went untended, the poor slaves
+    Of fruitless toil; the victims of a fever
+    Called home-sickness--no remedy found ever;
+    Or slain by vices that grow rankly where
+    Men madly do and dare,
+    In alternations of high hope and deep abysses
+    Of recklessnesses.
+
+    Painfully, and by violence:
+    Even as heaven is taken, thou wert dragged whence
+    Nature had hidden thee--whose face is worn
+    With anxious furrows, and her bosom torn
+    In the hard strife--and ever yet there lingers
+    Upon these hills work for the "effacing fingers"
+    Of time, the healer, who makes all things seem
+    A half forgotten dream;
+    Who smooths deep furrows and lone graves together,
+    By touch of wind and weather.
+
+    Thou heavy, lustreless, dull clod!
+    Digged from the earth like a base common sod;
+    I wonder at thee, and thy power to hold
+    The world in bond to thee, thou yellow gold!
+    Yet do I sadly own thy fascination,
+    And would I gladly show my estimation
+    By giving house-room to thee, if thou'lt come
+    And cumber up my home;--
+    I'd even promise not to call attention
+    To these things that I mention!
+
+    "The King can do no wrong," and thou
+    Art King indeed to most of us, I trow.
+    Thou'rt an enchanter, at whose sovereign will
+    All that there is of progress, learning, skill,
+    Of beauty, culture, grace--and I might even
+    Include religion, though that flouts at heaven--
+    Comes at thy bidding, flies before thy loss;--
+    And yet men call thee dross!
+    If thou art dross then I mistaken be
+    Of thy identity.
+
+    Ah, solid, weighty, beautiful!
+    How could I first have said that thou wert dull?
+    How could have wondered that men willingly
+    Gave up their homes, and toiled and died for thee?
+    Theirs was the martyrdom in which was planted
+    A glorious State, by precious memories haunted:
+    Ours is the comfort, ease, the power, the fame
+    Of an exalted name:
+    Theirs was the struggle of a proud ambition--
+    Ours is the full fruition.
+
+    Thou, yellow nugget, wert the star
+    That drew these willing votaries from afar,
+    'Twere wrong to call thee lustreless or base
+    That lightest onward all the human race,
+    Emblem art thou, in every song or story,
+    Of highest excellence and brightest glory:
+    Thou crown'st the angels, and enthronest Him
+    Who made the cherubim:
+    My reverend thought indeed is not withholden,
+    O nugget golden!
+
+
+    MAGDALENA.
+
+    You say there's a Being all-loving,
+      Whose nature is justice and pity;
+    Could you say where you think he is roving?
+      We have sought him from city to city,
+    But he never is where we can find him,
+      When outrage and sorrow beset us;
+    It is strange we are always behind him,
+      Or that He should forever forget us.
+
+    But being a god, he is thinking
+      Of the masculine side of the Human;
+    And though just, it would surely be sinking
+      The God to be thoughtful for woman.
+    For him and by him was man made:
+      Sole heir of the earth and its treasures;
+    An after-thought, woman--the handmaid,
+      Not of God, but of man and his pleasures.
+
+    Should you say that man's God would reprove us,
+      If we found him and showed him our bruises?
+    It is dreary with no one to love us,
+      Or to hold back the hand that abuses:
+    Man's hand, that first led and caressed us,
+      Man's lips, that first kissed and betrayed;--
+    If his God could know how he's oppressed us,
+      Do you think that we need be afraid?
+
+    For we loved him--and he who stood nearest
+      To God, who could doubt or disdain?
+    When he swore by that God, and the dearest
+      Of boons that he hoped to obtain
+    Of that God, that he truly would keep us
+      In his heart of hearts precious and only:
+    Say, how could we think he would steep us
+      In sorrow, and leave us thus lonely?
+
+    But you see how it is: he has left us,
+      This demi-god, heir of creation;
+    Of our only good gifts has bereft us,
+      And mocked at our mad desolation:
+    Says that we knew that such oaths would be broken--
+      Says we lured him to lie and betray;
+    Quotes the word of his God as a token
+      Of the law that makes woman his prey.
+
+    And now what shall we do? We have given
+      To this master our handmaiden's dower:
+    Our beauty and youth, aye, and even
+      Our souls have we left in his power.
+    Though we thought when we loved him, that loving
+      Made of woman an angel, not demon;
+    We have found, to our fond faith's disproving,
+      That love makes of woman a leman!
+
+    Yes, we gave, and he took: took not merely
+      What we gave, for his lying pretences:
+    But our whole woman world, that so dearly
+      We held by till then: our defences
+    Of home, of fair fame; the affection
+      Of parents and kindred; the human
+    Delight of child-love; the protection
+      That is everywhere owed to a woman.
+
+    You say there's a Being all-loving,
+      Whose nature is justice and pity:
+    Could you say where you think he is roving?
+      We have sought him from city to city.
+    We have called unto him, our eyes streaming
+      With the tears of our pain and despair:
+    We have shouted unto him blaspheming,
+      And whispered unto him in prayer.
+
+    But he sleeps, or is absent, or lending
+      His ear to man's prouder petition:
+    And the black silence over us bending
+      Scorches hot with the breath of perdition.
+    For this fair world of man's, in which woman
+      Pays for all that she gets with her beauty,
+    Is a desert that starves out the human,
+      When her charms charm not squarely with duty.
+
+    For man were we made, says the preacher,
+      To love him and serve him in meekness,
+    Of man's God is man solely the teacher
+      Interpreting unto our weakness:
+    He the teacher, the master, dispenser
+      Not only of law, but of living,
+    Breaks his own law with us, then turns censor,
+      Accusing, but never forgiving.
+
+    Do you think that we have not been nursing
+      Resentment for wrong and betrayal?
+    From our hearts, filled with gall, rises cursing,
+      To our own and our masters' dismayal.
+    'Tis for this that we seek the all-loving,
+      Whose nature is justice and pity;
+    And we'll find Him, wherever he's roving,
+      In country, in town, or in city.
+
+    He must show us his justice, who made us;
+      He must place sin where sin was conceived;
+    We must know if man's God will upbraid us
+      Because we both loved and believed.
+    We must know if man's riches and power,
+      His titles, crowns, sceptres and ermine,
+    Weigh with God against womanhood's dower,
+      Or whether man's guilt they determine.
+
+    It would seem that man's God should restrain him,
+      Or else should avenge our dishonor:
+    Shall the cries of the hopeless not pain him,
+      Or shall woman take all guilt upon her?
+    Let us challenge the maker that made us;
+      Let us cry to Christ, son of a woman;
+    We shall learn if, when man has betrayed us,
+      Heaven's justice accords with the human.
+
+    We must know if because we were lowly,
+      And kept in the place man assigned us,
+    He could seek us with passions unholy
+      And be free, while his penalties bind us.
+    We would ask if his gold buys exemption,
+      Or whether his manhood acquits him;
+    How it is that we scarce find redemption
+      For sins less than his self-law permits him.
+
+    Do we dare the Almighty to question?
+      Shall the clay to the potter appeal?
+    To whom else shall we go with suggestion?
+      Shall the vase not complain to the wheel?
+    God answered Job out of the groaning
+      Of thunder and whirlwind and hailing;
+    Will he turn a deaf ear to our moaning,
+      Or reply to our prayers with railing?
+
+    Did you speak of a Christ who is tender--
+      A deity born of a woman?
+    Of the sorrowful, God and defender,
+      And brother and friend of the human?
+    Long ago He ascended to heaven,
+      Long ago was His teaching forgotten;
+    The lump has no longer the leaven,
+      But is heavy, unwholesome and rotten.
+
+    The gods are all man's, whom he praises
+      For laws that make woman his creature;
+    For the rest, theological mazes
+      Furnish work for the salaried preacher.
+    In the youth of the world it was better,
+      We had deities then of our choosing;
+    We could pray, though we wore then a fetter,
+      To a GODDESS of binding and loosing.
+
+    We could kneel in a grove or a temple,
+      No man's heavy hand on our shoulder:
+    Had in Pallas Athene example
+      To make womanhood stronger and bolder.
+    But the temples are broken and plundered,
+      Sacred altars profanely o'erthrown;
+    Where the oracle trembled and thundered,
+      Are a cavern, a fount, and a stone.
+
+    Yet we would of the Christ hear the story,
+      'Twas familiar in days that are ended;
+    His humility, purity, glory,
+      Are they not into heaven ascended?
+    We see naught but scorning and hating;
+      We hear naught but threats and contemning:
+    For your Christian is good and berating,
+      And your sinner is first in condemning.
+
+    Should you say that the Christ would reprove us,
+      If we found him and told him our trouble?
+    It is fearful with no one to love us,
+      And our pain and despair growing double.
+    It is mad'ning to feel we're excluded
+      From the homes of the mothers that bore us;
+    And that man, by no false arts deluded,
+      May enter unchallenged before us.
+
+    It is hard to be humble when trodden;
+      We cannot be meek when oppressed;
+    Nor pure while our souls are made sodden
+      With loathing that can't be confessed;
+    Or true, while our bread and our shelter
+      By a lying pretence is obtained--
+    Deceived, in deception we welter;
+      By a touch are we evermore stained.
+
+    O hard lot of woman! the creature
+      Of a creature whose God is asleep,
+    Or gone on a journey. You teach her
+      She was made to sin, suffer, and weep;
+    We wait for a new revelation,
+      We cry for a God of our own;
+    O God unrevealed, bring salvation,
+      From our necks lift the collar of stone!
+
+
+    REPOSE.
+
+    I lay me down straight, with closed eyes,
+      And pale hands folded across my breast,
+    Thinking, unpained, of the sad surprise
+      Of those who shall find me thus fall'n to rest;
+    And the grief in their looks when they learn no endeavor,
+    Can disturb my repose--for my sleep is forever.
+    I know that a smile will lie hid in my eyes,
+      Even a soft throb of joy stir the pulse in my breast,
+    When they sit down to mourning, with tears and with sighs,
+      And shudder at death, which to me is but rest.
+
+    So sweet to be parted at once from our pain;
+      To put off our care as a robe that is worn;
+    To drop like a link broken out of a chain,
+      And be lost in the sands by Time's tide overborne:
+    And to know at my loss all the wildest regretting,
+    Will be as a foot-print, washed out in forgetting.
+    To be certain of this--that my faults perish first;
+      That when they behold me so calmly asleep,
+    They can but forgive me my errors at worst,
+      And speak of my praises alone as they weep.
+
+    "Whom the gods love die young," they will say;
+      Though they should think it, they will not say so:
+    "Whom the world pierces with thorns pass away,
+      Grieving, yet asking and longing to go!"
+    No, when they see how divine my repose is,
+    They'll forget that my-life-path is not over roses;
+    And they'll whisper together, with hands full of flowers,
+      How always I loved them to wear on my breast;
+    And strewing them over my bosom in showers,
+      With hands shaken by sobs, leave me softly to rest.
+
+    There is one who will come when the rest are away;
+      One bud of a rose will he bring for my hair;
+    He knows how I liked it, worn always that way,
+      And his fingers will tremble while placing it there.
+    Yes, he'll remember those soft June-day closes,
+    When the sky was as flushed as our own crimson roses;
+    He'll remember the flush on the sky and the flowers,
+      And the red on my cheek where his lips had been prest;
+    But the throes of his heart in the long, silent hours,
+      Will disturb not my dreams, so profoundly I'll rest.
+
+    So, all will forget, what to think of mere pain,
+      That the heart now asleep in this solemn repose,
+    Had contended with tempests of sorrow in vain,
+      And gone down in the strife at the feet of its foes:
+    They will choose to be mute when a deed I have done,
+    Or a word I have spoke I can no more atone;
+    They'll remember I loved them, was faithful and true;
+      They'll not say what a wild will abode in my breast;
+    But repeat to each other, as if they were new,
+      Old stories of what did the loved one at rest.
+
+    Ah! while I lie soothing my soul with this dream,
+      The terror of waking comes back to my heart;
+    Why is it not as I thus make it seem?
+      Must I come back to the world, ere we part?
+    Deep was the swoon of my spirit--why break it?
+    Why bring me back to the struggles that shake it?
+    Alas, there is room on my feet for fresh bruises--
+      The flowers are not dead on my brow or my breast--
+    When shall I learn "sweet adversity's uses,"
+      And my tantalized spirit be truly at rest!
+
+
+    ASPASIA.
+
+    O, ye Athenians, drunken with self-praise,
+      What dreams I had of you, beside the sea,
+    In far Miletus! while the golden days
+      Slid into silver nights, so sweet to me;
+    For then I dreamed my day-dreams sweetly o'er,
+      Fancying the touch of Pallas on my brow--
+    Libations of both heart and wine did pour,
+      And offered up my being with my vow.
+
+    'Twas thus to Athens my heart drew at last
+      My life, my soul, myself. Ah, well, I learn
+    To love and loathe the bonds that hold me fast,
+      Your captive and your conquerer in turn;
+    Am I not shamed to match my charms with those
+      Of fair boy-beauties? gentled for your love
+    To match the freshness of the morning rose,
+      And lisp in murmurs like the cooing dove.
+
+    O, men of Athens! by the purple sea
+      In far Miletus, when I dreamed of you,
+    Watching the winged ships that invited me
+      To follow their white track upon the blue;
+    'Twas the desire to mate my lofty soul
+      That drew me ever like a viewless chain
+    Toward Homer's land of heroes, 'til I stole
+      Away from home and dreams, to you and pain.
+
+    I brought you beauty--but your _boys_ invade
+      My woman's realm of love with girlish airs.
+    I brought high gifts, and powers to persuade,
+      To charm, to teach, with your philosophers.
+    But knowledge is man's realm alone, you hold;
+      And I who am your equal am cast down
+    Level with those who sell themselves for gold--
+      A crownless queen--a woman of the town!
+
+    Ye vain Athenians, know this, that I
+      By your hard laws am only made more free;
+    Your unloved dames may sit at home and cry,
+      But, being unwed, I meet you openly,
+    A foreigner, you cannot wed with me;
+      But I can win your hearts and sway your will,
+    And make your free wives envious to see
+      What power Aspasia wields, Milesian still.
+
+    Who would not be beloved of Pericles?
+      I could have had all Athens at my feet;
+    And have them for my flatterers, when I please;
+      Yet, one great man's great love is far more sweet!
+    He is my proper mate as I am his--
+      You see my young dreams were not all in vain--
+    And I have tasted of ineffable bliss,
+      If I am stung at times with fiery pain.
+
+    It is not that I long to be a wife
+      By your Athenian laws, and sit at home
+    Behind a lattice, prisoner for life,
+      With my lord left at liberty to roam;
+    Nor is it that I crave the right to be
+      At the symposium or the Agora known;
+    My grievance is, that your proud dames to me
+      Came to be taught, in secret and alone.
+
+    They fear; what _do_ they fear? is't me or you?
+      Am I not pure as any of them all?
+    But your laws are against me; and 'tis true,
+      If fame is lowering, I have had a fall!
+    O, selfish men of Athens, shall the world
+      Remember you, and pass my glory by?
+    Nay, 'til from their proud heights your names are hurled,
+      Mine shall blaze with them on your Grecian sky.
+
+    Am I then boastful? It is half in scorn
+      Of caring for your love, or for your praise,
+    As women do, and must. Had I been born
+      In this proud Athens, I had spent my days
+    In jealousy of boys, and stolen hours
+      With some Milesian, of a questioned place,
+    Learning of her the use of woman's powers
+      Usurped by men of this patrician race.
+
+    Alas! I would I were a child again,
+      Steeped in dream langours by the purple sea;
+    And Athens but the vision it was then,
+      Its great men good, its noble women free:
+    That I in some winged ship should strive to fly
+      To reach this goal, and founder and go down!
+    O impious thought, how could I wish to die,
+      With all that I have felt and learned unknown?
+
+    Nay, I am glad to be to future times
+      As much Athenian as is Pericles;
+    Proud to be named by men of other climes
+      The friend and pupil of great Socrates.
+    What is the gossip of the city dames
+      Behind their lattices to one like me?
+    More glorious than their high patrician names
+      I hold my privilege of being free!
+
+    And yet I would that they were free as I;
+      It angers me that women are so weak,
+    Looking askance when ere they pass me by
+      Lest on a chance their lords should see us speak;
+    And coming next day to an audience
+      In hope of learning to resemble me:
+    They wish, they tell me, to learn eloquence--
+      The lesson they should learn is _liberty_.
+
+    O Athens, city of the beautiful,
+      Home of all art, all elegance, all grace;
+    Whose orators and poets sway the soul
+      As the winds move the sea's unstable face;
+    O wonderous city, nurse and home of mind,
+      This is my oracle to you this day--
+    No generous growth from starved roots will you find,
+      But fruitless blossoms weakening to decay.
+
+    You take my meaning? Sappho is no more,
+      And no more Sapphos will be, in your time;
+    The tree is dead on one side that before
+      Ran with such burning sap of love and rhyme.
+    Your glorious city is the utmost flower
+      Of a one-sided culture, that will spend
+    Itself upon itself, 'till, hour by hour,
+      It runs its sources dry, and so must end.
+
+    That race is doomed, behind whose lattices
+      Its once free women are constrained to peer
+    Upon the world of men with vacant eyes;
+      It was not so in Homer's time, I hear.
+    But Eastern slaves have eaten of your store,
+      Till in your homes all eating bread are slaves;
+    They're built into your walls, beside your door,
+      And bend beneath your lofty architraves.
+
+    A woman of the race that looks upon
+      The sculptured emblems of captivity,
+    Shall bear a slave or tyrant for a son;
+      And none shall know the worth of liberty.
+    Am I seditious?--Nay, then, I will keep
+      My lesson for your dames when next they steal
+    On tip-toe to an audience. Pray sleep
+      Securely, and dream well: we wish your weal!
+
+    Why, what vain prattle: but my heart is sore
+      With thinking on the emptiness of things,
+    And these Athenians, treacherous to the core,
+      Who hung on Pericles with flatterings.
+    I would indeed I were a little child,
+      Resting my tired limbs on the sunny sands
+    In far Miletus, where the airs blow mild,
+      And countless looms throb under busy hands.
+
+    The busy hand must calm the busy thought,
+      And labor cool the passions of the hour;
+    To the tired weaver, when his web is wrought,
+      What signifies the party last in power?
+    But here in Athens, 'twixt philosophers
+      Who reason on the nature of the soul;
+    And all the vain array of orators,
+      Who strove to hold the people in control.
+
+    Between the poets, artists, critics, all,
+      Who form a faction or who found a school,
+    We weave Penelope's web with hearts of gall,
+      And my poor brain is oft the weary tool.
+    Yet do I choose this life. What is to me
+      Peace or good fame, away from all of these,
+    But living death? I do choose liberty,
+      And leave to Athens' dames their soulless ease.
+
+    The time shall come, when Athens is no more,
+      And you and all your gods have passed away;
+    That other men, upon another shore,
+      Shall from your errors learn a better way.
+    To them eternal justice will reveal
+      Eternal truth, and in its better light
+    All that your legal falsehoods now conceal,
+      Will stand forth clearly in the whole world's sight.
+
+
+    A REPRIMAND.
+
+    Behold my soul? She sits so far above you
+      Your wildest dream has never glanced so high;
+    Yet in the old-time when you said, "I love you,"
+      How fairly we were mated, eye to eye
+    How long we dallied on in flowery meadows,
+      By languid lakes of purely sensuous dreams,
+    Steeped in enchanted mists, beguiled by shadows,
+      Casting sweet flowers upon loitering streams,
+    My memory owns, and yours; mine with deep shame,
+      Yours with a sigh that life is not the same.
+
+    What parted us, to leave you in the valley
+      And send me struggling to the mountain-top?
+    Too weak for duty, even love failed to rally
+      The manhood that should float your pinions up.
+    On my spent feet are many half-healed bruises,
+      My limbs are wasted with their heavy toil,
+    But I have learned adversity's "sweet uses,"
+      And brought my soul up pure through every soil;
+    _Have I_ no right to scorn the man's dead power
+      That leaves you far below me at this hour?
+
+    Scorn you I do, while pitying even more
+      The ignoble weakness of a strength debased.
+    Do I yet mourn the faith that died of yore--
+      The trust by timorous treachery effaced?
+    Through all, and over all, my soul mounts free
+      To heights of peace you cannot hope to gain,
+    Sings to the stars its mountain minstrelsy,
+      And smiles down proudly on your murky plain;
+    'Tis vain to invite you--yet come up, come up,
+      Conquer your way toward the mountain-top!
+
+
+    TO MRS. ----.
+
+    I cannot find the meaning out
+      That lies in wrong and pain and strife;
+    I know not why we grope through grief,
+      Tear-blind, to touch the higher life.
+
+    I see the world so subtly fair,
+      My heart with beauty often aches;
+    But ere I quiet this sweet pain,
+      Some cross so presses, the heart breaks.
+
+    To-day, this lovely golden day,
+      When heaven and earth are steeped in calm;
+    When every lightest air that blows,
+      Sheds its delicious freight of balm.
+
+    If I but ope my lips, I sob;
+      If but an eyelid lift, I weep;
+    I deprecate all good or ill,
+      And only wish for endless sleep.
+
+    For who, I ask, has set my feet
+      In all these dark and troubled ways?
+    And who denies my soul's desire,
+      When with its might it cries and prays?
+
+    In my unconscious veins there runs
+      Perchance, some old ancestral taint;
+    In Eve _I_ sinned: poor Eve and I!
+      We each may utter one complaint:--
+
+    One and the same--for knowledge came
+      Too late to save _her_ paradise;
+    And I my paradise have lost;
+      Forsooth because _I_ am not wise.
+
+    O vain traditions! small the aid
+      We women gather from your lore:
+    Why, when the world was lost, did death
+      Not come our children's birth before?
+
+    It had been better to have died,
+      Sole prey of death, and ended so;
+    Than to have dragged through endless time,
+      One long, unbroken trail of woe.
+
+    To suffer, yet not expiate;
+      To die at last, yet not atone;
+    To mourn our heirship to a guilt,
+      Erased by innocent blood alone!
+
+    You lift your hands in shocked surprise;
+      You say enough I have not prayed:
+    Can prayer go back through centuries,
+      And change the web of fate one braid?
+
+    Nay, own the truth, and say that we
+      Are but the bonded slaves of doom;
+    Unconscious to the cradle came,
+      Unwilling must go to the tomb.
+
+    Your woman's hands are void of help,
+      Though my soul should be stung to death;
+    Could I avert one pang from you,
+      Imploring with my latest breath?
+
+    And men!--we suffer any wrong
+      That men, or mad, or blind, may do;--
+    Let me alone in my despair!
+      There is no help for me or you.
+
+    I wait to find the meaning out
+      That lies beyond the bitter end;
+    Comfort yourself with 'wearying heaven,
+      I ask no comfort, oh my friend!
+
+
+    MOONLIGHT MEMORIES.
+
+    Do thy chamber windows open east,
+      Beloved, as did ours of old?
+    And do you stand when day has ceased,
+      Withdrawn thro' evening's porch of gold,
+    And watch the pink flush fade above
+      The hills on which the wan moon leans,
+    Remembering the sweet girlish love
+      That blest this hour in other scenes!
+
+    I see your hand upon your heart--
+      I see you dash away the tears--
+    It is the same undying smart,
+      That touched us in the long-gone years;
+    And cannot pass away. You stand
+      Your forehead to the window crest,
+    And stifle sobs that no command
+      Can keep from rising in your breast.
+
+    Dear, balm is not for griefs like ours,
+      Nor resurrection for dead hope:
+    In vain we cover wounds with flowers,
+      That grow upon life's western slope.
+    Their leaves tho' bright, are hard, and dry,
+      They have no soft and healing dew;
+    The pansies of past spring-times lie
+      Dead in the shadow of the yew.
+
+    You feel this in your heart, and turn
+      To pace the dimness of your room;
+    But lo, like fire within an urn,
+      The moonlight glows through all the gloom.
+    It sooths you like a living touch,
+      And spite of the slow-falling tears,
+    Sweet memories crowd with oh, so much,
+      Of all that girlhood's time endears.
+
+    On nights like this, with such a moon,
+      Full shining in a wintry sky;
+    Or on the softer nights of June,
+      When fleecy clouds fled thought-like by,
+    Within our chamber opening east,
+      With curtains from the window parted,
+    With hands and cheeks together prest,
+      We dreamed youth's glowing dreams, light-hearted.
+
+    Or talked of that mysterious love
+      That comes like fate to every soul:
+    And vowed to hold our lives above,
+      Perchance its sorrowful control.
+    Alas, the very vow we made,
+      To keep our lives from passion free,
+    To wiser hearts well had betrayed
+      Some future love's intensity.
+
+    How well that youthful vow was kept,
+      Is written on a deathless page--
+    Vain all regrets, vain tears we've wept,
+      The record lives from age to age.
+    But one who "doeth all things well,"
+      Who made us differ from the throng,
+    Has it within his heart to quell
+      This torturing pain of thirst, ere long.
+
+    And you, whose soul is all aglow
+      With fire Prometheus brought from heaven,
+    Shall in some future surely know
+      Joys for which high desires are given.
+    Not always in a restless pain
+      Shall beat your heart, or throb your brow;
+    Not always shall you sigh in vain
+      For hope's fruition, hidden now.
+
+    Beloved, are your tear-drops dried?
+      The moon is riding high above:--
+    Though each from other's parted wide,
+      We have not parted early love.
+    And tho' you never are forgot,
+      The moonrise in the east shall be
+    The token that my evening thought
+      Returns to home, and love and thee!
+
+
+    VERSES FOR M----.
+
+        The river on the east
+    Ripples its azure flood within my sight;
+        And, darting from the west,
+    Are "sunset arrows," feathered with red light.
+        The northern breeze has hung
+    His wintry harp upon some giant pine;
+        And the pale stars among,
+    I see the star I love to name as mine:
+        But toward the south I turn my eager eyes--
+        Beyond its flushed horizon my heart lies.
+
+        The snow-clad isles of ice,
+    Launched by wild Boreas from a northern shore,
+        Journey the way my eyes
+    Turn with an envious longing evermore--
+        Smiling back to the sky
+    Its own pink blush, and, floating out of sight,
+        Bear south the softest dye
+    Of northern heavens, to fade in southern night:--
+        My eyes but look the way my joys are gone,
+        And the ice-islands travel not alone.
+
+        The untrod fields of snow,
+    Glow with the rosy blush of parting day;
+        And fancy asks if so
+    The snow is stained with sunset far away;
+        And if some face, like mine,
+    Its forehead pressed against the window-pane,
+        Peers northward, with the shine
+    Of the pole-star reflected in eyes' rain:
+        "Ah yes," my heart says, "it is surely so;"
+        And, like a bound bird, flutters hard to go.
+
+        Sad eyes, that, blurred with tears,
+    Gaze into darkness, gaze no more in vain
+        Whence no loved face appears,
+    And no voice comes to lull the heart's fond pain!
+        Sad heart! restrain thy throbs,
+    For beauty, like a presence out of heaven,
+        Rests over all, and robs
+    Sorrow of pain, and makes earth seem forgiven:--
+        Twilight the fair eve ushers in with grace,
+        And rose clouds melt for stars to take their place.
+
+
+    AUTUMNALIA.
+
+        The crimson color lays
+    As bright as beauty's blush along the West;
+        And a warm golden haze,
+    Promising sheafs of ripe Autumnal days
+        To crown the old year's crest.
+    Hangs in mid air, a half-pellucid maze,
+        Through which the sun at set,
+    Grown round and rosy, looks with Bacchian blush,
+        For an old wine-god meet--
+    Whose brows are dripping with the grape-blood sweet,
+        As if his southern flush
+    Rejoiced him, in his northern-zone retreat.
+
+        The amber-colored air
+    Musical is with hum of tiny things
+        Held idly, struggling there,
+    As if the golden mist entangled were
+        About the viewless wings,
+    That beat out music on their gilded snare.
+
+        If but a leaf, all gay
+    With Autumn's gorgeous coloring, doth fall,
+        Along its fluttering way
+    A shrill alarum wakes a sharp dismay,
+        And, answering to the call,
+    The insect chorus swells and dies away
+        With a fine piping noise.
+    As if some younger singing notes cried out,
+        As do mischievous boys--
+    Startling their playmates with a pained voice,
+        Or sudden thrilling shout,
+    Followed by laughters, full of little joys.
+
+        Perchance a lurking breeze
+    Springs, just awakened to its wayward play,
+        Tossing the sober trees
+    Into a frolic maze of ecstasies,
+        And snatching at the gay
+    Banners of Autumn, strews them where it please.
+
+        The sunset colors glow
+    A second time in flame from out the wood,
+        As bright and warm as though
+    The vanished clouds had fallen, and lodged below
+        Among the tree-tops, hued
+    With all the colors of heaven's signal-bow.
+
+        The fitful breezes die
+    Into a gentle whisper, and then sleep;
+        And sweetly, mournfully,
+    Starting to sight, in the transparent sky,
+        Lone in the upper deep,
+    Sad Hesper pours its beams upon the eye;
+        And for one little hour,
+    Holds audience with the lesser lights of heaven;
+        Then to its western bower
+    Descends in sudden darkness, as the flower
+        That at the fall of Even
+    Shuts its bright eye, and yields to slumber's power.
+
+        Soon, with a dusky face,
+    Pensive and proud as an East Indian queen,
+        And with a solemn grace,
+    The moon ascends, and takes her royal place
+        In the fair evening scene;
+    While all the reverential stars, apace,
+    Take up their march through the cool fields of space,
+    And dead is the sweet Autumn day whose close we've seen.
+
+
+    PALO SANTO.
+
+    In the deep woods of Mexico,
+      Where screams the "painted paraquet,"
+    And mocking-birds flit to and fro,
+      With borrowed notes they half forget;
+    Where brilliant flowers and poisonous vines
+      Are mingled in a firm embrace,
+    And the same gaudy plant entwines
+      Some reptile of a poisonous race;
+    Where spreads the _Itos'_ icy shade,
+      Benumbing, even in summer's heat,
+    The thoughtless traveler who hath laid
+      Himself to noonday slumbers sweet;--
+    Where skulks unseen the beast of prey--
+    The native robber glares and hides,--
+      And treacherous death keeps watch alway
+    On him who flies, or he who bides.
+
+    In these deep tropic woods there grows
+    A tree, whose tall and silvery bole
+      Above the dusky forest shows,
+      As shining as a saintly soul
+    Among the souls of sinful men;--
+    Lifting its milk-white flowers to heaven,
+      And breathing incense out, as when
+      The passing saints of earth are shriven.
+
+    The skulking robber drops his eyes,
+      And signs himself with holy cross,
+    If, far between him and the skies,
+      He sees its pearly blossoms toss.
+    The wanderer halts to gaze upon
+      The lovely vision, far or near,
+    And smiles and sighs to think of one
+      He wishes for the moment here.
+
+    The Mexic native fears not fang
+      Of poisonous serpent, vine, nor bee,
+    If he may soothe the baleful pang
+      With juices of this "holy tree."
+
+    How do we all, in life's wild ways,
+      Which oft we traverse lost and lone,
+    Need that which heavenward draws the gaze,
+      Some _Palo Santo_ of our own!
+
+
+    A SUMMER DAY.
+
+        Fade not, sweet day!
+        Another hour like this--
+        So full of tranquil bliss--
+        May never come my way,
+    I walk in paths so shadowed and so cold:
+        But stay thou, darling hour,
+        Nor stint thy gracious power
+    To smile away the clouds that me enfold:
+        Oh stay! when thou art gone,
+        I shall be lost and lone.
+
+        Lost, lone, and sad;
+        And troubled more and more,
+        By the dark ways, and sore,
+        In which my feet are led;--
+    Alas, my heart, it was not always so!
+        Therefore, O happy day,
+        Haste not to fade away,
+    Nor let pale night chill all thy tender glow--
+        Thy rosy mists, that steep
+        The violet hills in sleep--
+
+        Thy airs of gold,
+        That over all the plain,
+        And fields of ripened grain,
+        A shimmering glory hold,--
+    The soft fatigue-dress of the drowsy sun;
+        Dreaming, as one who goes
+        To peace, and sweet repose,
+    After a battle hardly fought, and won:
+        Even so, my heart, to-day,
+        Dream all thy fears away.
+
+        O happy tears,
+        That everywhere I gaze,
+        Jewel the golden maze,
+        Flow on, till earth appears
+    Worthy the soft perfection of this scene:
+        Beat, heart, more soft and low,
+        Creep, hurrying blood, more slow:
+    Waste not one throb, to lose me the serene,
+        Deep, satisfying bliss
+        Of such an hour as this!
+
+        How like our dream,
+        Of that delightful rest
+        God keepeth for the blest,
+        This lovely peace doth seem;--
+    Perchance, my heart, He sent this gracious day,
+        That when the dark and cold,
+        Thy doubtful steps enfold,
+    Thou, may'st remember, and press on thy way,
+        Nor faint midway the gloom
+        That lies this side the tomb.
+
+        All, all in vain,
+        Sweet day, do I entreat
+        To stay thy winged feet;
+        The gloom, the cold, the pain,
+    Gather me back as thou dost pale and fade;
+        Yet in my heart I make
+        A chamber for thy sake,
+    And keep thy picture in warm color laid:--
+        Thy memory, happy day,
+        Thou can'st not take away.
+
+
+    HE AND SHE.
+
+    Under the pines sat a young man and maiden,
+    "Love," said he; "life is sweet, think'st thou not so?"
+    Sweet were her eyes, full of pictures of Aidenn,--
+    "Life?" said she; "love is sweet; no more I know."
+
+    Into the wide world the maid and her lover
+    Wandered by pathways that sundered them far;
+    From pine-groves to palm-groves, he flitted a rover,
+    She tended his roses, and watched for his star.
+
+    Oft he said softly, while melting eyes glistened,
+    "Sweet is my life, love, with you ever near:"
+    Morning and evening she waited and listened
+    For a voice and a foot-step that never came near.
+
+    Fainting at last, on her threshold she found him:
+    "Life is but ashes, and bitter," he sighed.
+    She, with her tender arms folded around him,
+    Whispered--"But love is still sweet;" and so died.
+
+
+    O WILD NOVEMBER WIND.
+
+    O wild November wind, blow back to me
+      The withered leaves, that drift adown the past;
+    Waft me some murmur of the summer sea,
+      On which youth's fairy fleet of dreams was cast;
+    Return to me the beautiful No More--
+      O wild November wind, restore, restore!
+
+    November wind, in what dim, loathsome cave,
+      Languish the tender-plumed gales of spring?
+    No more their dances dimple o'er the wave,
+      Nor freighted pinions song and perfume bring:
+    Those gales are dead--that dimpling sea is dark;
+      And cloudy ghosts clutch at each mist-like bark.
+
+    O wild, wild wind, where are the summer airs
+      That kissed the roses of the long-ago?
+    Taking them captive--swooned in blissful snares--
+      To let them perish. Now no roses blow
+    In the waste gardens thou art laying bare:
+      Where are my heart's bright roses, where, oh where?
+
+    Thou hast no answer, thou unpitying gale?
+      No gentle whisper from the past to me!
+    No snatches of sweet song--no tender tale--
+      No happy ripple of that summer sea;
+    Are all my dreams wrecked on the nevermore?
+      O wild November wind, restore, restore!
+
+
+    BY THE SEA.
+
+    Blue is the mist on the mountains,
+      White is the fog on the sea;
+    Ruby and gold is the sunset,--
+      And Bertha is waiting for me.
+
+    Down on the loathsome sand-beach,
+      Her eyes as blue as the mist;
+    Her brows as white as the sea-fog,--
+      Bertha, whose lips I have kissed.
+
+    Bertha, whose lips are like rubies,
+      Whose hair is like coiled gold;
+    Whose sweet, rare smile is tenderer
+      Than any legend of old.
+
+    One morn, one noon, one sunset,
+      Must pass before we meet;
+    O wind and sail bear steady on,
+      And bring me to her feet.
+
+    The morn rose pale and sullen,
+      The noon was still and dun;
+    Across the storm at sunset,
+      Came the boom of a signal-gun.
+
+    Who treads the loathsome sand-beach,
+      With wet, disordered hair;
+    With garments tangled with sea-weed,
+      And cheeks more pale than fair?
+
+    O blue-eyed, white-browed maiden,
+      He will keep love's tryst no more;
+    His ship sailed safely into port--
+      But on the heavenward shore.
+
+
+    POLK COUNTY HILLS.
+
+      November came that day,
+      And all the air was gray
+      With delicate mists, blown down
+    From hill-tops by the south wind's balmy breath;
+      And all the oaks were brown
+      As Egypt's kings in death;
+      The maple's crown of gold
+      Laid tarnished on the wold;
+    The alder and the ash, the aspen and the willow,
+      Wore tattered suits of yellow.
+
+      The soft October rains
+      Had left some scarlet stains
+    Of color on the landscape's neutral ground;
+      Those fine ephemeral things,
+      The winged motes of sound,
+      That sing the "Harvest Home"
+      Of ripe Autumn in the gloam
+    Of the deep and bosky woods, in the field and by the river,
+      Sang that day their best endeavor.
+
+      I said: "In what sweet place
+      Shall we meet face to face,
+      Her loveliest self to see--
+    Meet Nature at her sad autumnal rites,
+      And learn the mystery
+      Of her unnamed delights?"
+      Then you said: "Let us go
+      Where the late violets blow
+    In hollows of the hills, under dead oak leaves hiding;--
+      We'll find she's there abiding."
+
+      Do we recall that day?
+      Has its grace passed away?
+      Its tenderest, dream-like tone,
+    Like one of Turner's landscapes limned on air--
+      Has its fine perfume flown
+      And left the memory bare?
+      Not so; its charm is still
+      Over wood, vale and hill--
+    The ferny odor sweet, the humming insect chorus,
+      The spirit that before us
+
+      Enticed us with delights
+      To the blue, breezy hights.
+      O, beautiful hills that stand
+    Serene 'twixt earth and heaven, with the grace
+      Of both to make you grand,--
+      Your loveliness leaves place
+      For nothing fairer; fair
+      And complete beyond compare.
+    O, lovely purple hills, O, first day of November,
+      Be sure that I remember!
+
+
+    WAITING.
+
+    I cannot wean my wayward heart from waiting,
+      Though the steps watched for never come anear;
+    The wearying want clings to it unabating--
+      The fruitless wish for presences once dear.
+
+    No fairer eve e'er blessed a poet's vision;
+      No softer airs e'er kissed a fevered brow;
+    No scene more truly could be called Elysian,
+      Than this which holds my gaze enchanted now.
+
+    And yet I pine;--this beautiful completeness
+      Is incomplete, to my desiring heart;
+    'Tis Beauty's form, without her soul of sweetness--
+      The pure, but chiseled loveliness of art.
+
+    There is no longer pleasure in emotion.
+      I envy those dead souls no touch can thrill;
+    Who--"painted ships upon a painted ocean,"--
+      Seem to be moved, yet are forever still.
+
+    Where are they fled?--they whose delightful voices,
+      Whose very footsteps had a charmed fall:
+    No more, no more their sound my heart rejoices:
+      Change, death, and distance part me now from all.
+
+    And this fair evening, with remembrance teeming,
+      Pierces my soul with every sharp regret;
+    The sweetest beauty saddens to my seeming,
+      Since all that's fair forbids me to forget.
+
+    Eyes that have gazed upon yon silver crescent,
+      'Till filled with light, then turned to gaze in mine,
+    Lips that could clothe a fancy evanescent,
+      In words whose magic thrilled the brain like wine:
+
+    Hands that have wreathed June's roses in my tresses,
+      And gathered violets to deck my breast,
+    Where are ye now? I miss your dear caresses--
+      I miss the lips, the eyes, that made me blest.
+
+    Lonely I sit and watch the fitful burning
+      Of prairie fires, far off, through gathering gloom;
+    While the young moon, and one bright star returning
+      Down the blue solitude, leave Night their room.
+
+    Gone is the glimmer of the silent river;
+      Hushed is the wind that sped the leaves to-day;
+    Alone through silence falls the crystal shiver
+      Of the sweet starlight, on its earthward way.
+
+    And yet I wait, how vainly! for a token--
+      A sigh, a touch, a whisper from the past;
+    Alas, I listen for a word unspoken,
+      And wail for arms that have embraced their last.
+
+    I wish no more, as once I wished, each feeling
+      To grow immortal in my happy breast;
+    Since not to feel will leave no wounds for healing--
+      The pulse that thrills not has no need of rest.
+
+    As the conviction sinks into my spirit
+      That my quick heart is doomed to death in life;
+    Or that these pangs must pierce and never sear it,
+      I am abandoned to despairing strife.
+
+    To the lost life, alas! no more returning--
+      In this to come no semblance of the past--
+    Only to wait!--hoping this ceaseless yearning
+      May, 'ere long, end--and rest may come at last.
+
+
+    PALMA.
+
+    What tellest thou to heaven,
+    Thou royal tropic tree?
+    At morn or noon or even,
+    Proud dweller by the sea,
+    What is thy song to heaven?
+
+    The homesick heart that fainted
+    In torrid sun and air,
+    With peace becomes acquainted
+    Beholding thee so fair--
+    With joy becomes acquainted:
+
+    And charms itself with fancies
+    About thy kingly race--
+    With gay and wild romances
+    That mimic thee in grace--
+    Of supple, glorious fancies.
+
+    I feel thou art not tender,
+    Scion of sun and sea--
+    The wild-bird does not render
+    To thee its minstrelsy--
+    Fearing thou art not tender:
+
+    But calm, serene and saintly,
+    As highborn things should be:
+    Who, if they love us faintly,
+    Make us love reverently,
+    Because they are so saintly.
+
+    To be loved without loving,
+    O proud and princely palm!
+    Is to fancy our ship moving
+    With the ocean at dead calm--
+    The joy of love is loving.
+
+    Because the Sun did sire thee,
+    The Ocean nurse thy youth,
+    Because the Stars desire thee,
+    The warm winds whisper truth,
+    Shall nothing ever fire thee?
+
+    What is thy tale to heaven
+    In the sultry tropic noon?
+    What whisperest thou at even
+    To the dusky Indian Moon--
+    Has she sins to be forgiven?
+
+    Keep all her secrets; loyal
+    As only great souls are--
+    As only souls most royal,
+    To the flower or to the star
+    Alike are purely loyal.
+
+    O Palma, if thou hearest,
+    Thou proud and princely tree!
+    Thou knowest that my Dearest
+    Is emblemed forth in thee--
+    My kingly Palm, my Dearest.
+
+    I am his Moon admiring,
+    His wooing Wind, his Star;
+    And I glory in desiring
+    My Palm-tree from afar--
+    Glad as happier lovers are,
+    Am happy in desiring!
+
+
+    MAKING MOAN.
+
+          _I have learned how vainly given_
+          _Life's most precious things may be._
+
+                                                --Landon.
+
+
+        O, Christ, to-night I bring
+    A sad, weak heart, to lay before thy feet;
+        Too sad, almost, to cling
+        Even to Thee; too suffering,
+    If Thou shouldst pierce me, to regard the sting;
+    Too stunned to feel the pity I entreat
+    Closing around me its embraces sweet.
+
+        Shepherd, who gatherest up
+    The weary ones from all the world's highways;
+        And bringest them to sup
+        Of Thy bread, and Thy blessed cup;
+    If so Thou will, lay me within the scope
+    Only of Thy great tenderness, that rays
+    Too melting may not reach me from Thy face.
+
+        Here let me lie, and press
+    My forehead's pain out on Thy mantle's hem;
+        And chide not my distress,
+        For this, that I have loved thee less,
+    In loving so much some, whose sordidness
+    Has left me outcast, at the last, from them
+    And their poor love, which I cannot contemn.
+
+        No, cannot, even now,
+    Put Thee before them in my broken heart.
+        But, gentle Shepherd, Thou
+        Dost even such as I allow
+    The healing of Thy presence. Let my brow
+    Be covered from thy sight, while I, apart,
+    Brood over in dull pain my mortal hurt.
+
+
+    CHILDHOOD.
+
+    A child of scarcely seven years,
+      Light haired, and fair as any lily;
+    With pure eyes ready in their tears
+      At chiding words, or glances chilly;
+    And sudden smiles, as inly bright
+      As lamps through alabaster shining,
+    With ready mirth, and fancies light,
+      Dashed with strange dreams of child-divining:
+        A child in all infantile grace,
+        Yet with the angel lingering in her face.
+
+    A curious, eager, questioning child,
+      Whose logic leads to naive conclusions;
+    Her little knowledge reconciled
+      To truth amid some odd confusions;
+    Yet credulous, and loving much
+      The problems hardest for her reason,
+    Placing her lovely faith on such,
+      And deeming disbelief a treason;
+        Doubting that which she can disprove,
+        And wisely trusting all the rest to love.
+
+    Such graces dwell beside your hearth,
+      And bless you in a priceless pleasure,
+    Leaving no sweeter spot on earth
+      Than that which holds your household treasure.
+    No entertainment ever yet
+      Had half the exquisite completeness--
+    The gladness without one regret,
+      You gather from your darling's sweetness:
+        An angel sits beside the hearth
+        Where e're an innocent child is found on earth.
+
+
+    A LITTLE BIRD THAT EVERY ONE KNOWS.
+
+    There's a little bird with a wondrous song--
+    A little bird that every one knows--
+    (Though it sings for the most part _under the rose_),
+    That is petted and pampered wherever it goes,
+    And nourished in bosoms gentle and strong.
+
+    This petted bird has a crooked beak
+    And eyes like live coals set in its head,
+    A gray breast dappled with glowing red--
+    DABBLED--not dappled, I should have said,
+    From a fancy it has of which I shall speak.
+
+    This eccentricity that I name
+    Is, that whenever the bird would sing
+    It darts its black head under its wing,
+    And moistens its beak in--darling thing!--
+    A human heart that is broken with shame.
+
+    Then this cherished bird its song begins--
+    Always begins its song one way--
+    With two little dulcet words, THEY SAY,
+    Carolled in such a charming way
+    That the listener's heart it surely wins.
+
+    This sweetest of songsters sits beside
+    Every hearth in this Christian land,
+    Ever so humble or never so grand,
+    Gloating o'er crumbs which many a hand
+    Gathers to nourish it, far and wide.
+
+    Over each crumb that it gathers up
+    It winningly carols those two soft words
+    In the dulcet notes of the sweetest of birds,
+    Darting its sharp beak under its wing
+    As it might in a ruby drinking-cup.
+
+    A delicate thing is our bird withal
+    And owns but a fickle appetite,
+    So that old and young take a keen delight
+    In serving it ever, day and night,
+    With the last gay heart now turned to gall.
+
+    Thus, though a dainty dear, it sings
+    In a very well-conditioned way
+    A truly wonderful sort of lay,
+    Whose burden is ever the same--THEY SAY--
+    Darting its dabbled beak under its wings.
+
+
+    WAYWARD LOVE.
+
+    I leant above your chair last night,
+      And on your brow once and again,
+    I pressed a kiss as still and light
+      As I would have your bosom's pain.
+    You did not feel the gentle touch,
+      It gave you neither grief nor pleasure,
+    Though that caress held, oh, so much,
+      Of love and blessing without measure.
+
+    Thus ever when I see you sad,
+      My heart toward you overflows;
+    But when again you're gay and glad,
+      I shrink back into cold repose,
+    I know not why I like you best,
+      O'erclouded by a passing sorrow--
+    Unless because it gives a zest
+      To the _insouciance_ of to-morrow.
+
+    You're welcome to my light caress,
+      And all the love that with it went;
+    To live, and love you any less,
+      Would rob me of my soul's content.
+    Continue sometimes to be sad,
+      That I may feel that pity tender,
+    Which grieves for you, and yet is glad
+      Of an excuse for love's surrender.
+
+
+    A LYRIC OF LIFE.
+
+    Said one to me: "I seem to be--
+    Like a bird blown out to sea,
+    In the hurricane's wild track--
+    Lost, wing-weary, beating back
+    Vainly toward a fading shore,
+    It shall rest on nevermore."
+
+    Said I: "Betide, some good ships ride,
+    Over all the waters wide;
+    Spread your wings upon the blast,
+    Let it bear you far and fast:
+    In some sea, serene and blue,
+    Succor-ships are waiting you."
+
+    This soul then said: "Would I were dead--
+    Billows rolling o'er my head!
+    Those that sail the ships will cast
+    Storm-waifs back into the blast;
+    Omens evil will they call
+    What the hurricane lets fall."
+
+    For my reply: "Beneath the sky
+    Countless isles of beauty lie:
+    Waifs upon the ocean thrown,
+    After tossings long and lone,
+    To those blessed shores have come,
+    Finding there love, heaven, and home."
+
+    This soul to me: "The seething sea,
+    Tossing hungry under me,
+    I fear to trust; the ships I fear;
+    I see no isle of beauty near;
+    The sun is blotted out--no more
+    'Twill shine for me on any shore."
+
+    Once more I said: "Be not afraid;
+    Yield to the storm without a dread;
+    For the tree, by tempests torn
+    From its native soil, is borne
+    Green, to where its ripened fruit
+    Gives a sturdy forest-root.
+
+    "That which we lose, we think we choose,
+    Oft, from slavery to use.
+    Shocks that break our chains, tho' rude,
+    Open paths to highest good:
+    Wise, my sister soul, is she
+    Who takes of life the proffered key."
+
+
+    FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.
+
+        "Nay, Hylas, I have come
+    To where life's landscape takes a western slope,
+    And breezes from the occidental shores
+    Sigh thro' the thinning locks around my brow,
+    And on my cheeks fan flickering summer fires.
+    Oh, winged feet of Time, forget your flight,
+    And let me dream of those rose-scented bowers
+    That lapped my soul in youth's enchanted East!
+    It needs no demon-essence of Hasheesh
+    To flash _that_ sunrise glory in my eyes!--
+    It needs no Flora to bring back those flowers--
+    No gay Apollo to sound liquid reeds--
+    No muse to consecrate the hills and streams--
+    No God or oracle within those groves
+    To render sacred all the emerald glooms:
+    For here dwelt such bright angels as attend
+    The innocent ways of youth's unsullied feet;
+    And all the beautiful band of sinless hopes,
+    Twining their crowns of pearl-white amaranth;
+    And rosy, dream-draped, sapphire-eyed desires
+    Whose twin-born deities were Truth and Faith
+    Having their altars over all the land.
+    Beauty held court within its vales by day,
+    And Love made concert with the nightingales
+    In singing 'mong the myrtles, starry eves."
+
+        "You are inspired, Zobedia, your eyes
+    Look not upon the present summer world,
+    But see some mystery beyond the close
+    Of this pale blue horizon."
+
+        "Erewhile I wandered from this happy land.
+    Crowned with its roses, wearing in my eyes
+    Reflections of its shining glorious heaven,
+    And bearing on my breast and in my hands
+    Its violets, and lilies white and sweet,--
+    Following the music floating in the air
+    Made by the fall of founts, the voice of streams
+    And murmur of the winds among the trees,
+    I strayed in reveries of soft delight
+    Beyond the bounds of this delicious East.
+
+    "But oh, the splendors of that newer clime!
+    It was as if those oriental dreams
+    In which my soul was steeped to fervidness,
+    Were here transmuted to their golden real
+    With added glories for each shape or hue.
+    The stately trees wore coronals of flowers
+    That swung their censers in the mid-day sun:
+    The pines and palms of my delightful east
+    Chaunted their wild songs nearer to the stars;
+    Even the roses had more exquisite hues,
+    And for one blossom I had left behind
+    I found a bower in this fragrant land.
+    Bright birds, no larger than the costly gems
+    The river bedded in their golden sands,
+    Sparkle like prismal rain-drops 'mong the leaves;
+    And others sang, or flashed their plumage gay
+    Like rainbow fragments on my dazzled eyes.
+    The sky had warmer teints: I could not tell
+    Whether the heavens lent color to the flowers,
+    Or but reflected that which glowed in them.
+    The gales that blew from off the cloud-lost hills,
+    Struck from the clambering vines Eolian songs,
+    That mingled with the splashing noise of founts,
+    In music such as stirs to passionate thought:
+    This peerless land was thronged with souls like mine,
+    Straying from East to South, impelled unseen,
+    And lost, like mine, in its enchanted vales:--
+    Souls that conversed apart in pairs, or sang
+    Low breeze-like airs, more tender than sweet words;
+    Save here and there a wanderer like myself,
+    Dreaming alone, and dropping silent tears,
+    Scarce knowing why, upon the little group
+    Of Eastern flowers we had not yet resigned:--
+    'Till one came softly smiling in my eyes,
+    And dried their tears with radiance from his own.
+
+    "At last it came--I knew not how it came--
+    But a tornado swept this sunny South,
+    And when I woke once more, I stood alone.
+    My senses sickened at the dismal waste,
+    And caring not, now all things bright were dead,
+    That a volcano rolled its burning tide
+    In fiery rivers far athwart the land,
+    I turned my feet to aimless wanderings.
+    The equatorial sun poured scorching beams,
+    On my defenceless head. The burning winds
+    Seemed drying up the blood within my veins.
+    The straggling flowers that had outlived the storm
+    Won but a feeble, half-contemptuous smile;
+    And if a bird attempted a brief song,
+    I closed my ears lest it should burst my brain.
+    After much wandering I came at last
+    To cooler skies and a less stifling air;
+    And finally to this more temperate clime.
+    Where every beauty is of milder type--
+    Where the simoon nor tempest ever come,
+    And I can soothe the fever of my soul
+    In the bland breezes blowing from the West."
+
+
+    NEVADA.
+
+          Sphinx, down whose rugged face
+    The sliding centuries their furrows cleave
+    By sun and frost and cloud-burst; scarce to leave
+          Perceptible a trace
+          Of age or sorrow;
+    Faint hints of yesterdays with no to-morrow;--
+    My mind regards thee with a questioning eye,
+          To know thy secret, high.
+
+          If Theban mystery,
+    With head of woman, soaring, bird-like wings
+    And serpent's tail on lion's trunk, were things
+          Puzzling in history;
+          And men invented
+    For it an origin which represented
+    Chimera and a monster double-headed,
+          By myths Phenician wedded--
+
+          Their issue being this--
+    This most chimerical and wonderous thing
+    From whose dumb mouth not even the gods could wring
+          Truth, nor antithesis:
+          Then, what I think is,
+    This creature--being chief among men's sphinxes--
+    Is eloquent, and overflows with story,
+          Beside thy silence hoary!
+
+          Nevada!--desert waste!
+    Mighty, and inhospitable, and stern;
+    Hiding a meaning over which we yearn
+          In eager, panting haste--
+          Grasping and losing,
+    Still being deluded ever by our choosing--
+    Answer us Sphinx: What is thy meaning double
+          But endless toil and trouble?
+
+          Inscrutable, men strive
+    To rend thy secret from thy rocky breast;
+    Breaking their hearts, and periling heaven's rest
+          For hopes that cannot thrive;
+          Whilst unrelenting,
+    Upon thy mountain throne, and unrepenting,
+    Thou sittest, basking in a fervid sun,
+          Seeing or hearing none.
+
+          I sit beneath thy stars,
+    The shallop moon beached on a bank of clouds--;
+    And see thy mountains wrapped in shadowed shrouds,
+          Glad that the darkness bars
+          The day's suggestion--
+    The endless repetition of one question;
+    Glad that thy stony face I cannot see,
+          Nevada--Mystery!
+
+
+    THE VINE.
+
+      "Too many clusters weaken the vine"--
+      And that is why, on this morn in May,
+    She who should walk doth weakly recline
+      By the window whose view overlooks the Bay;
+    While I and the "clusters" dance in the sun,
+      Defying the breeze coming in from the sea,
+      Mocking the bird-song and chasing the bee,
+    Letting our fullness of mirth over-run,
+      While the "Vine" at the window smiles down on our glee.
+
+    If I should vow that these "clusters" are fair,
+      So, you would say, are a million more;
+    Ah, even jewels a rank must share--
+      Not every diamond's a Koh-i-noor!
+    Thus when our LILLIAN, needing but wings,
+      Plays us the queen of the fairies, we deem
+      Grace such as hers a bewildering dream--
+    Her laughter, her gestures, a dozen things,
+      Furnish our worshiping fondness a theme.
+
+    Or when our ALICE, scarcely less tall,
+      And none the less fair, tries her slim baby feet,
+    Or a new has lisped, to the pride of us all,
+      Smiling, we cry, "was aught ever so sweet?"
+    Even wee BERTHA, turning her eyes,
+      Searching and slow from one face to another--
+    Wrinkling her brow in a comic surprise,
+      And winking so soberly at her pale mother,
+    For a baby, is wondrously pretty and wise!
+
+    Well, _let_ the "vine" recline in the sun--
+      Three such rare "clusters" in three short years,
+    Have sapped the red wine in her veins that should run--
+      For the choicest of species the gardener fears!
+    LILLIAN, queen of the lilies shall be,
+      Fair, tall and graceful--queenly in will;
+    ALICE a Provence rose--rarely sweet she;
+      BERTHA NARCISSA--white daffodil--
+    And the "vine," once more strong, shall entwine around the three!
+
+
+    WHAT THE SEA SAID TO ME.
+
+    One evening as I sat beside the sea,
+    A little rippling wave stole up to me,
+    And whispered softly, yet impressively,
+            The word Eternity:
+    I smiled, that anything so small should utter,
+    A word the ocean in its wrath might mutter;
+    And with a mirthful fancy, vainly strove,
+    To suit its cadence to some word of love--
+    But all the little wave would say to me,
+    Was, over and again, Eternity!
+
+    After a time, the winds, from their dark caves,
+    Arose, and wrestled with the swelling waves,
+    Shrieking as doth a madman when he raves;
+            Yet still Eternity
+    Was spoken audibly unto my hearing;
+    While foaming billows, their huge crests up-rearing,
+    Rushed with a furious force upon the shore,
+    That only answered with a sullen roar;
+    As if it hoarsely echoed what the sea
+    Said with such emphasis--Eternity!
+
+    And by and by, the sky grew dun and dim;
+    Soon all was darkness, save the foam's white gleam;
+    And all was silence save the sea's deep hymn--
+            That hymn Eternity:
+    While some dread presence, all the darkness filling,
+    Crept round my heart, its healthy pulses chilling;
+    Making the night, so awful unto me,
+    More fearful with that word Eternity.
+
+    So that my spirit, trembling and afraid,
+    Bowed down itself before its God, and prayed
+    For His strong arm of terror to be stayed;
+            And sighed Eternity
+    From its white lips, as the dark sea, subsiding,
+    Sank into broken murmurs; and the gliding
+    Of the soothed waters seemed once more to me
+    The whisper I first heard, Eternity.
+
+    But now I mocked not what the ripple said:
+    I only reverently bent my head,
+    While the pure stars, unveiled, their lustre shed
+            Upon the peaceful sea--
+    And the mild moon, with a majestic motion,
+    Uprose, and shed upon the murmuring ocean,
+    Her calm and radiant glory, as if she
+    Knew it the symbol of Eternity.
+
+
+    HYMN.
+
+    Down through the dark, my God,
+      Reach me Thy hand;
+    Guide me along the road
+      I fail to understand.
+    Blindly I grope my way,
+      In doubt and fear,
+    Uncertain when I pray
+      If Thou art near.
+
+    O, God, renew my trust,
+      Hear when I cry;
+    Out of the cloud and dust
+      Lift me to thee on high.
+    The crooked paths make plain,
+      The burden light;
+    Touch me and heal my pain,
+      And clear my sight.
+
+    O, take my hand in Thine,
+      And lead me so
+    That all my steps incline
+      In Thy right way to go.
+    Out of this awful night
+      Some whisper send,
+    That I may feel my God,
+      My loving friend.
+
+    O, let me feel and see
+      Thy hand and face;
+    And let me learn of Thee
+      My true right place.
+    For I am Thine, and Thou
+      Art also mine.
+    Unto Thy will I bow,
+      Helper divine!
+
+
+    DO YOU HEAR THE WOMEN PRAYING?
+
+    [Read before the Women's Prayer League of Portland,
+    Oregon, May 27, 1874.]
+
+    Do you hear the women praying, oh my brothers?
+      Do you hear what words they say?
+    These, this free-born nation's wives and mothers,
+      Bowing, where you proudly stand, to pray!
+    Can you coldly look upon their faces,
+      Pale, sad faces, seamed with frequent tears;
+    See their hands uplifted in their places--
+      Hands that toiled for all your boyhood's years?
+
+    Can you see your wives and daughters pleading
+      In the dust you spurn beneath your feet,
+    Baring hearts for years in secret bleeding,
+      To the scoffs and jestings of the street?
+    Can you hear, and yet not heed the crying
+      Of the children perishing for bread?
+    Born in fear, not love, and daily dying,
+      Cursed of God, they think, but cursed of _you_ instead?
+
+    Do you hear the women praying, oh my brothers?
+      Hear the oft-repeated burden of their prayer--
+    Hear them asking for one boon above all others--
+      _Not_ for vengeance on the wrongs they have to bear;
+    But imploring, as their Lord did, "God forgive them,
+      For they know not what they do;
+    Strike the sin, but spare the sinners--save them"--
+      Meaning, oh ye men and brothers, _you_!
+
+    For your heels have ground the women's faces;
+      You have coined their blood and tears for gold;
+    Have betrayed their kisses and embraces--
+      Returned their love with curses twentyfold;
+    Made the wife's crown one of thorns and not of honor,
+      Made her motherhood a pain and dread;
+    Heaped life's toil unrecompensed upon her;
+      Laid her sons upon her bosom, dead!
+
+    Do you hear the women praying, oh my brothers?
+      Have you not one word to say?
+    Will a _just_ God be as gentle as these mothers,
+      If you dare to say them nay?
+    Oh, ye men, God waits for _you_ to answer
+      The prayers that to him rise,
+    He waits to know if _you_ are just ere _He_ is--
+      There your deliverance lies!
+
+    Rise and assert the manhood of this nation,
+      Its courage, honor, might--
+    Wipe off the dust of our humiliation--
+      Dare nobly to do right!
+    Shall women plead from out the dust forever?
+      Will you not work, men, if you cannot pray?
+    Hold up the suppliant hands with your endeavor,
+      And seize the world's salvation while you may.
+
+    Yes, from the eastern to the western ocean,
+      The sound of prayer is heard;
+    And in our hearts great billows of emotion
+      At every breath are stirred.
+    From mountain tops of prayer down to sin's valley
+      The voice of women sounds the cry, "Come up!"
+    O, men and brothers, heed that cry, and rally--
+      Help us to dash to earth the deadly cup!
+
+
+    "OUR LIFE IS TWOFOLD."
+
+    Sweet, kiss my eyelids close, and let me lie,
+    On this old-fashioned sofa, in the dim
+    And purple twilight, shut out from the sky,
+    Which is too garish for my softer whim.
+    And while I, looking inward on my thought,
+    Tell thee what phantoms thicken in its air.
+    Twine thou thy gentle fingers, slumber-fraught,
+    With the loose shreds of my disheveled hair:
+    I shall see inly better if thou keep
+    My outer senses in a charmed sleep.
+
+    Sweet friend!--I love that pleasant name of friend--
+    We walk not ever singly, through the world;
+    But even as our shadow doth attend
+    Our going in the sunshine, and is furled
+    About us in the darkness--so that shade
+    Which haunts our other self, is faintly seen
+    Beside us in our gladness, and is made
+    To wrap us coldly life's bright hours between.
+    Unconsciously we court it. In our youth,
+    While yet our morning sky is pink with joy,
+    We, curious if our happiness be truth,
+    Try to discern the shadow of alloy.
+    O, I remember well the earliest time
+    A sorrow touched me, and I nursed it then;
+    Tho' but few summers of our northern clime
+    Had sunned my growth among the souls of men.
+
+    In an old wood, reputed for its age,
+    And for its beauty wild and picturesque;
+    The bound and goal of each day's pilgrimage,
+    Where were all forms of graceful and grotesque;
+    And countless hues, from the dark stately pine
+    That whispered its wild mysteries to my ear,
+    To the smooth silver of the birch-trees shine,
+    Showing between the aspens straight and fair;
+    With forest flowers, and delicate vines that crept
+    From the rich soil far up among the trees,
+    Seeking that light their boughs did intercept,
+    And dalliance and caresses of the breeze.
+    In midst of these, sheltered from sun and wind
+    Glimmered a lake, in long and shining curves,
+    Like a bright fillet that should serve to bind
+    That scene to earth--if she the gem deserves!
+    For gem it was, as proud upon her brow
+    As jewels on the forehead of a queen;
+    And one thought as one turned from it, of how
+    Eve exiled, must have missed some just such scene.
+    O, there I type my life! I used to sigh
+    Sitting on this side, with my lap piled up
+    With violets of the real sapphire dye,
+    For the gay gold of the bright buttercup
+    Spangling the green sod on the other side--
+    For the lake's breadth was but an arrow's flight,
+    And the brief distance did not serve to hide
+    What yet could not be reached except by sight.
+
+    Day after day I dreamed there, while my heart
+    Gathered up knowledge in its childish way,
+    Making fine pictures with unconscious art,
+    And learning beauty more and more each day.
+    Ever and ever haunted I that spot--
+    Sitting in dells scooped out between the hills,
+    That rising close around me, formed a grot
+    Fragrant with ferns, and musical with rills.
+    Far up above me grew the long-armed beech,
+    Dropping its branches down in graceful bent;
+    While farther up, beyond my utmost reach,
+    Stood dusky hemlocks, crowning the ascent.
+    And all about were sweeter sights and sounds
+    Than elsewhere, but in poet's dream, abounds.
+
+    Thus, and because my life was all too fair,
+    I sought to color it with thoughts I nursed
+    In sylvan solitudes: and in the air
+    Of these soft, silent influences, I first
+    Saw, or felt, rather, that the shadow fell
+    Upon my pathway from the light behind--
+    The light of youth's first joyousness. Ah, well,
+    If it had stayed there, nor been more unkind!
+    My earliest sorrow was a flower's death--
+    At which I wept until my swollen eyes
+    Refused to shed more tears--just that my wreath
+    One morn in autumn lacked its choicest dyes.
+    So, knowing what it was to have a loss,
+    I went on losing, and the shadow grew
+    Darker and longer, 'till it lies across
+    My pathway to the measure of my view.
+    We all remember sorrow's first impress--
+    No matter whether we had cause to grieve,
+    Or whether sad in very willfulness--
+    The lesson is the same that we receive.
+    And afterwards, when the great shadow falls--
+    The tempest--when the lightning's flash reveals
+    The darkness brooding o'er us, and appals
+    Hope by the terror of the stroke it deals--
+    _Then_, how the shadow hugs us in its fold!
+    We see no light behind, and none to come;
+    But dumbly shiver in the gloom and cold,
+    Or with despair lie down, and wait our doom.
+
+    Sweet, press thy cheek upon my own again--
+    Even now my life's dark ghost is haunting nigh:
+    Sing me to sleep with some old favorite strain--
+    Some gentle poet's loving lullaby;
+    For I would dream, and in my dream forget
+    Our twofold life is full of shadows set.
+
+
+    SOUVENIR.
+
+    You ask me, "Do you think of me?"
+      Dear, thoughts of thee are like this river,
+    Which pours itself into the sea,
+      Yet empties its own channel never.
+
+    All other thoughts are like these sail
+      Drifting the river's surface over;
+    _They_ veer about with every gale--
+      The _river_ keeps its course forever.
+
+    So deep and still, so strong and true,
+      The current of my soul sets thee-ward,
+    Thy river I, my ocean you,
+      And all myself am running seaward.
+
+
+    I ONLY WISH TO KNOW.
+
+    Pray do not take the kiss again
+      I risked so much in getting,
+    Nor let my blushes make you vain
+      To your and my regretting.
+    I'm sure I've heard your sex repeat
+      A thousand times or so,
+    That stolen kisses are most sweet--
+      I only wished to know!
+
+    I own 'twas not so neatly done
+      As you know how to do it,
+    And that the fright out-did the fun,
+      But still I do not rue it.
+    I can afford the extra beat
+      My heart took at your "Oh!"
+    Which plainly said _that_ kiss was sweet--
+      _When I so wished to know!_
+
+    Nay, I will not give back the kiss,
+      Nor will I take a second;
+    _Creme de la creme_ of pain and bliss
+      This one shall e'er be reckoned.
+    The pain was mine, the bliss was--_ours_,
+      You smile to hear it so;
+    But the same thought was surely yours,
+      As I have cause to know.
+
+
+    LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.
+
+      The highest use of happy love is this;
+        To make us loving to the loveless ones;
+      Willing indeed to halve our meed of bliss,
+        If our sweet plenty others' want atones:
+    Of love's abundance may God give thee store,
+    To spend in love's sweet charities, LENORE.
+
+
+    LOVE'S FOOTSTEPS.
+
+    I sang a song of olden times,
+      Sitting upon our sacred hill--
+      Sang it to feel my bosom thrill
+    To the sweet pathos of its rhymes.
+
+    I trilled the music o'er and o'er,
+      And happy, gazed upon the scene,
+      Thinking that there had never been
+    So blue a sea, so fair a shore.
+
+    A vague half dream was in my mind;
+      I hardly saw how sat the sun;
+      I noted not the day was gone
+    The rosy western hills behind.
+
+    'Till, soft as if Apollo blew
+      For me the sweet Thessalian flute,
+      I heard a sound which made me mute,
+    And more than singing thrilled me through.
+
+    THY STEP--well known and well beloved!
+      No more I dreamed on shore or sea;
+      I thought of, saw but only thee,
+    Nor spoke, but blushed to be so moved.
+
+
+    THE POET'S MINISTERS.
+
+        POET.
+
+    Oh, my soul! the draught is bitter
+      Yet it must be sweetly drunken:
+    Heart and soul! the grinding fetter
+      Galls, yet have ye never shrunken:
+    Heart and soul, and pining spirit,
+      Fail me not! no coward weakness
+    Such as ye are should inherit--
+    Be ye strong even in your meekness.
+
+    Born were ye to these strange uses,
+      To brief joy and crushing ill,
+    To small good and great abuses;
+      Yet oh, yield not, till they kill.
+    The stag wounded runneth steady
+      With his blood in streams a-gushing;
+    Soul and spirit, be ye ready
+      For the arrows toward ye rushing.
+
+
+        SPIRIT OF THE FLOWERS.
+
+    Now what ails our gentle friend?
+      In his eye a meaning double,
+    Sorrow and defiance blend--
+      Let us soothe him of his trouble.
+    Poet! do not pass us by:
+      See how we are robed to meet you;
+    Heed you not our perfumed sigh?
+      Heed you not how sweet we greet you?
+    Ever since the breath of morn
+      We have waited for your coming,
+    Fearing when the bee's dull horn
+      Round our quiet bower was humming:
+    We have kept our sweets for thee--
+      Poet, do not pass us by:
+    Place us on thy breast, for see!
+      By the sunset we must die.
+
+
+        SPIRIT OF THE MOUNTAIN STREAM.
+
+    Bathe thy pale face in the flood
+      Which overflows this crystal fountain,
+    Then to rouse thy sluggish blood,
+      Seek its source far up the mountain.
+    Note thou how the stream doth sing
+      Its soft carol, low and light,
+    To the jagged rocks that fling
+      Mildew shadows, black and blight.
+    Learn a lesson from the stream,
+      Poet! though thy path may lie
+    Hid forever from the gleam
+      Of the blue and sunny sky,--
+    Though thy way be steep and long,
+      Sing thou still a cheerful song!
+
+
+        SPIRIT OF BEAUTY.
+
+    Come sister spirits, touch his eyelids newly,
+      With that rare juice whose magic power it is,
+    To give the rose-hue to those things which truly
+      Wear the sad livery of ugliness.
+    Oh, dignify the office of the meanest
+      Of all God's manifold created things;
+    And sprinkle his heart's wounds with the serenest
+      Waters of sweetness, from our fabled springs.
+    Oh, close him round with visions of all rareness,
+      Make him see everything with smiling eye;
+    Let all his dreams be unsurpassed for fairness,
+      And what we feign out-charm reality.
+    Come, sister spirits, up and do your duty;
+    When the Poet pines, feast his soul with beauty.
+
+
+        SPIRIT OF THE TREES.
+
+    Let us wave our branches gently
+      With a murmur low and loving;
+    He will say we sang him quaintly
+      Some old ballad, sweetly moving.
+    'Tis of all the ways the surest
+      To awake a poet's fancies,
+    For he loves these things the purest--
+      Sigh of leaves, and scent of pansies.
+    He has loved us, we will love him,
+      And will cheer his hour of sadness,
+    Spirits, wave your boughs above him
+      To a measure of soft gladness.
+
+
+        SPIRIT OF LOVE.
+
+    Ye gentle ministers, ye have done well,
+      But 'tis for love that most the poet pineth,
+    And till I spell him with my magic spell,
+      In vain for him earth smiles or heaven shineth.
+    Behold I touch his heart, and there upspring
+      Blooms to his cheeks, and flashes to his eyes;
+    His scornful lips upon the instant sing,
+      And all his pulses leap with ecstasies.
+    'Tis love the poet wants; he cannot live
+    Without caressing and without caress,
+      Which all to charity his fellows give;
+    But I will wrap his soul in tenderness,
+      And straightway from his lips will burst a song
+      All loving hearts shall echo and prolong.
+
+
+        POET.
+
+    O Earth, and Sky, and Flowers, and Streams agushing,
+      God made ye beautiful to make us blest:
+    O bright-winged Songsters through the blue air rushing;
+      O murmuring Tree-tops, by the winds carest;
+    O Waves of Ocean, Ripples of the River,
+      O Dew and Fragrance, Sunlight, and Starbeam,
+    O blessed summer-sounds that round me quiver,
+      Delights impassable that round me teem--
+        Oh all things beautiful! God made ye so
+        That the glad hearts of men might overflow!
+
+    O Soul within me, whose wings sweep a lyre--
+      God gave thee song that thou might'st give him praise;
+    O Heart that glows with the Promethean fire,
+      O Spirit whose fine chords some influence plays:
+    O all sweet thoughts and beautiful emotions,
+      O smiles and tears, and trembling and delight,
+    Have ye not all part in the soul's devotions,
+      To help it swell its anthem's happy height?
+        Spirit of Love, of God, of inspiration,
+        The poet's glad heart bursts in acclamation!
+
+
+                      CHORUS OF SPIRITS.
+
+              Ring every flower-bell on the wind,
+                And let each insect louder sing;
+              Let elfin "joy be unconfined;"
+                And let the laughing fairies bring
+              A wreath enchanted, and to bind
+                Upon the Poet's worthy brow
+              Heartsease and laurel, and a kind
+                Of valley lily, white as snow;
+              And fresh May-roses, branching long--
+                Braid all these in a garland gay,
+              To crown the Poet for his song,
+              Sung in our haunts this summer day!
+
+
+    SUNSET AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA.
+
+    There sinks the sun; like cavalier of old,
+      Servant of crafty Spain,
+    He flaunts his banner, barred with blood and gold,
+      Wide o'er the western main,
+    A thousand spear heads glint beyond the trees
+      In columns bright and long:
+    While kindling fancy hears upon the breeze
+      The swell and shout of song.
+
+    And yet, not here Spain's gay, adventurous host,
+      Dipped sword or planted cross;
+    The treasures guarded by this rock-bound coast,
+      Counted them gain nor loss.
+    The blue Columbia, sired by the eternal hills,
+      And wedded with the sea;
+    O'er golden sands, tithes from a thousand rills,
+      Rolled in lone majesty--
+
+    Through deep ravine, through burning, barren plain,
+      Through wild and rocky strait,
+    Through forest dark, and mountain rent in twain,
+      Toward the sunset gate.
+    While curious eyes, keen with the lust of gold,
+      Caught not the informing gleam;
+    These mighty breakers age on age have rolled
+      To meet this mighty stream.
+
+    Age after age these noble hills have kept,
+      The same majestic lines:
+    Age after age the horizon's edge been swept
+      By fringe of pointed pines.
+    Summers and Winters circling came and went,
+      Bringing no change of scene;
+    Unresting, and unhasting, and unspent,
+      Dwelt nature here serene.
+
+    Till God's own time to plant of Freedom's seed,
+      In this selected soil;
+    Denied forever unto blood and greed;
+      But blest to honest toil.
+    There sinks the sun. Gay Cavalier! no more
+      His banners trail the sea,
+    And all his legions shining on the shore
+      Fade into mystery.
+
+    The swelling tide laps on the shingly beach,
+      Like any starving thing;
+    And hungry breakers, white with wrath, upreach,
+      In vain clamoring.
+    The shadows fall; just level with mine eye
+      Sweet Hesper stands and shines,
+    And shines beneath an arc of golden sky,
+      Pinked round with pointed pines.
+
+    A noble scene! all breadth, deep tone and power,
+      Suggesting glorious themes;
+    Shaming the idler who would fill the hour
+      With unsubstantial dreams.
+    Be mine the dreams prophetic, shadowing forth
+      The things that yet shall be,
+    When through this gate the treasures of the North
+      Flow outward to the sea.
+
+
+    THE PASSING OF THE YEAR.
+
+                       Worn and poor,
+    The Old Year came to Eternity's door.
+    Once, when his limbs were young and strong,
+    From that shining portal came he forth,
+    Led by the sound of shout and song,
+    To the festive halls of jubilant earth;--
+    Now, his allotted cycle o'er,
+    He waited, spent, by the Golden Door.
+
+            Faint and far--faint and far,
+    Surging up soft between sun and star,
+    Strains of revelry smote his ear;
+    Musical murmurs from lyre and lute--
+    Rising in choruses grand and clear,
+    Sinking in cadences almost mute--
+    Vexing the ear of him who sate
+    Wearied beside the Shining Gate.
+
+                    Sad and low,
+    Flowed in an undertone of woe:
+    Wailing among the moons it came,
+    Sobbing in echoes against the stars;
+    Smothered behind some comet's flame,
+    Lost in the wind of the war-like Mars,
+    --Mingling, ever and anon,
+    With the music's swell a sigh or moan.
+
+                       "As in a glass,
+    Let the earth once before me pass,"
+    The Old Year said; and space untold
+    Vanished, till nothing came between;
+    Folded away, crystal and gold,
+    Nor azure air did intervene;
+    "As in a glass" he saw the earth
+    Decking a bier and waiting a birth.
+
+    "You crown me dead," the Old Year said,
+    "Before my parting hour is sped:
+    O fickle, false, and reckless world!
+    Time to Eternity may not haste;
+    Not till the last Hour's wing is furled
+    Within the gate my reign is past!
+    O Earth! O World! fair, false and vain,
+    I grieve not at my closing reign."
+
+                       Yet spirit-sore
+    The dead king noted a palace door;
+    He saw the gay crowd gather in;
+    He scanned the face of each passer by;
+    Snowiest soul, and heart of sin;
+    Tried and untried humanity:
+    Age and Youth, Pleasure and Pain,
+    Braided at chance in a motley skein.
+
+                       "Ill betide
+    Ye thankless ones!" the Old Year cried;
+    "Have I not given you night and day,
+    Over and over, score upon score,
+    Wherein to live, and love, and pray,
+    And suck the ripe world to its rotten core?
+    Yet do you reek if my reign be done?
+    E're I pass ye crown the newer one!
+    At ball and rout ye dance and shout,
+    Shutting men's cries of suffering out,
+    That startle the white-tressed silences
+    Musing beside the fount of light,
+    In the eternal space, to press
+    Their roses, each a nebula bright,
+    More close to their lips serene,
+    While ye wear this unconscious mein!"
+
+                       "Even so."
+    The revelers said: "We'll have naught of woe.
+    Why should we mourn, who have our fill?
+    Enough that the hungry wretches cry:
+    We from our plenty cast at will
+    Some crumbs to make their wet eyelids dry;
+    But to the rich the world is fair--
+    Why should we grovel in tears and prayer?"
+
+                       In her innocent bliss,
+    A fair bride said with sweet earnestness,
+    "For the dead Year am I truly sad;
+    Since in its happy and hopeful days,
+    Every brief hour my heart was glad,
+    And blessings were strewn in all my ways:
+    Will it be so forevermore?
+    Will the New Years bring of love new store?"
+
+                       Youth and maid.
+    Of their conscious blushes half afraid,
+    Shunning each other's tell-tale eyes,
+    Yet cherishing hopes too fond to own;
+    Speed the Old Year with secret sighs;
+    And smile that his time is overflown;
+    Shall they not hear each other say
+    "Dear Love!" ere the New Year's passed away?
+
+                       "O, haste on!
+    The year or the pleasure is dead that is gone!"
+    Boasted the man of pomp and power;
+    "That which we hold is alone the good;
+    Give me new pleasures for every hour,
+    And grieve over past joys ye who would--
+    Joys that are fled are poor, I wis--
+    Give me forever the newest bliss!"
+
+                       "Wish me joy,"
+    Girl-Beauty cried, with glances coy:
+    "In the New Year a woman I;
+    I'll then have jewels in my hair,
+    And such rare webs as Princes buy
+    Be none too choice for me to wear:
+    I'll queen it as a beauty should,
+    And not be won before I'm wooed!"
+
+        "Poor and proud--poor and proud!"
+    Sighed a student in the motley crowd--
+    "I heard her whisper that aside:
+    O fatal fairness, aping heaven
+    When earthly most!--I'll not deride--
+    God knows that were all good gifts given
+    To me as lavishly as rain,
+    I'd bring them to her feet again."
+
+        "Here are the fools we use for tools;
+    Bending their passion, ere it cools,
+    To any need," the cynic said:
+    "Lo, I will give him gold, and he
+    Shall sell me brain as it were bread!
+    His very soul I'll hold in fee
+    For baubles that shall buy the hand
+    Of the coldest woman in the land!"
+
+                       Spirit sore,
+    The Old Year cared to see no more;
+    While, as he turned, he heard a moan--
+    Frosty and keen was the wintry night--
+    Prone on the marble paving-stone,
+    Unwatched, unwept, a piteous sight,
+    Starved and dying a poor wretch lay;
+    Through the blast he heard him gasping say:
+
+                       "O, Old Year!
+    From sightless eyes you force this tear;
+    Sorrows you've heaped upon my head,
+    Losses you've gathered to drive me wild,
+    All that I lived for, loved, are dead,--
+    Brother and sister, wife and child,
+    I, too, am perishing as well;
+    I shall share the toll of your passing bell!"
+
+                       Grieved, and sad,
+    For the sins and woes the Human had,
+    The Old Year strove to avert his eyes;
+    But fly or turn wherever he would,
+    On his vexed ear smote the mingled cries
+    Of revel and new-made widowhood--
+    Of grief that would not be comforted
+    With the loved and beautiful lying dead.
+
+                  Evermore, every hour,
+    Rising from hovel, hall and tower,
+    Swelling the strain of discontent;
+    Gurgled the hopeless prayer for alms,
+    Rung out the wild oath impotent;
+    Echoed by some brief walls of calms,
+    Straining the listener's shrinking ears,
+    Like silence when thunderbolts are near.
+
+    Across that calm, like gales of balm,
+    Some low, sweet household voices came;
+    Thrilling, like flute-notes straying out
+    From land to sea, some stormy night,
+    The ear that listens for the shout
+    Of drowning boatmen lost to sight--
+    And died away, again so soon
+    The pulseless air seemed fallen in a swoon.
+
+                          Once pure and clear,
+    Clarion strains fell on his ear:
+    The preacher shook the soulless creeds,
+    And pierced men's hearts with arrowy words,
+    Yet failed to stir them to good deeds:
+    Their new-fledged thoughts, like July birds,
+    Soared on the air and glanced away,
+    Before the eloquent voice could stay.
+
+                "'Tis very sad the man is mad,"
+    The men and women gaily said;
+    As they, laughing, thread their homeward road,
+    Talking of other holidays;
+    Of last year, how it rained or snowed;
+    Who went abroad, who wed a blaze
+    Of diamonds with his shoddy bride,
+    On certain days--and who had died.
+
+                          "Would I were dead,
+    And vexed no more," the Old Year said:
+    "In vain may the preacher pray and warn;
+    The tinkling cymbals in your ears
+    Turn every gracious word to scorn;
+    Ye care not for the orphan's tears;
+    Your sides are fed, and your bodies clad
+    Is there anything heaven itself could add?"
+
+            And then he sighed, as one who died,
+    With a great wish unsatisfied;
+    Around him like a wintry sea,
+    Whose waves were nations, surged the world,
+    Stormy, unstable, constantly
+    Upheaved to be again down-hurled;
+    Here struggled some for freedom; here
+    Oppression rode in the high career.
+
+                              In hot debate
+    Men struggled, while the hours waxed late;
+    Contending with the watchful zeal
+    Of gladiators, trained to die;
+    Yet not for life, nor country's weal,
+    But that their names might hang on high
+    As men who loved themselves, indeed,
+    And robbed the State to satisfy their need!
+
+                    Heads of snow, and eyes aglow
+    With fires that youth might blush to know;
+    And brows whose youthful fairness shamed
+    The desperate thoughts that strove within;
+    While each his cause exulting named
+    As purest that the world had seen:
+    All names they had to tickle honest ears,
+    Reform, and Rights, and sweet Philanthropy's cares.
+
+                    "Well-a-day! Well-a-day!"
+    The Old Year strove to put away
+    Sight and sound of the reckless earth;
+    But soft! from out a cottage door,
+    Sweet strains of neither grief nor mirth,
+    Upon his dying ear did pour;
+    "Give us, O God," the singers said,
+    "As good a year as this one dead!"
+
+    Pealing loud from sod to cloud,
+    Earth's bell's rang out in a chorus proud;
+    Great waves of music shook the air
+    From organs pulsing with the sound;
+    Hushed was the voice of sob and prayer,
+    As time touched the eternal bound:
+    To the dead monarch earth was dimmed,
+    But the golden portals brighter beamed.
+
+                    Sad no more,
+    The Old Year reached the golden door,
+    Just as the hours with crystal clang
+    Aside the shining portals bent
+    And murmuring 'mong the spheres there rang
+    The chorus of earth's acknowledgment:
+    One had passed out at the golden door,
+    And one had gone in forevermore!
+
+    THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The New Penelope and Other Stories and
+Poems, by Frances Fuller Victor
+
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