THE IDYL OF RED GULCH
Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea bush, in pretty muchthe same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How longhe had been lying there he could not tell, and didn't care; how longhe should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered.A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused andsaturated his moral being.
The spectacle of a drunken man, and of this drunken man in particular,was not, I grieve to say, of sufficient novelty in Red Gulch toattract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected atemporary tombstone at Sandy's head, bearing the inscription, "Effectsof McCorkle's whisky--kills at forty rods," with a hand pointing toMcCorkle's saloon. But this, I imagine, was, like most local satire,personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the processrather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With thisfacetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule,released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, andsniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deepsympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dustyboots, and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking oneeye in the sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was ingeniousand doglike in its implied flattery of the unconscious man beside him.
Meanwhile the shadows of the pine trees had slowly swung around untilthey crossed the road, and their trunks barred the open meadow withgigantic parallels of black and yellow. Little puffs of red dust, liftedby the plunging hoofs of passing teams, dispersed in a grimy shower uponthe recumbent man. The sun sank lower and lower; and still Sandy stirrednot. And then the repose of this philosopher was disturbed, as otherphilosophers have been, by the intrusion of an unphilosophical sex.
"Miss Mary," as she was known to the little flock that she had justdismissed from the log schoolhouse beyond the pines, was taking herafternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on theazalea bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck it--picking herway through the red dust, not without certain fierce little shivers ofdisgust and some feline circumlocution. And then she came suddenly uponSandy!
Of course she uttered the little staccato cry of her sex. But when shehad paid that tribute to her physical weakness she became overbold, andhalted for a moment--at least six feet from this prostrate monster--withher white skirts gathered in her hand, ready for flight. But neithersound nor motion came from the bush. With one little foot she thenoverturned the satirical headboard, and muttered "Beasts!"--an epithetwhich probably, at that moment, conveniently classified in her mind theentire male population of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary, being possessed ofcertain rigid notions of her own, had not, perhaps, properly appreciatedthe demonstrative gallantry for which the Californian has been so justlycelebrated by his brother Californians, and had, as a newcomer, perhapsfairly earned the reputation of being "stuck-up."
As she stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams wereheating Sandy's head to what she judged to be an unhealthy temperature,and that his hat was lying uselessly at his side. To pick it up and toplace it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularlyas his eyes were open. Yet she did it, and made good her retreat. Butshe was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat wasremoved, and that Sandy was sitting up and saying something.
The truth was, that in the calm depths of Sandy's mind he was satisfiedthat the rays of the sun were beneficial and healthful; that fromchildhood he had objected to lying down in a hat; that no people butcondemned fools, past redemption, ever wore hats; and that his rightto dispense with them when he pleased was inalienable. This was thestatement of his inner consciousness. Unfortunately, its outwardexpression was vague, being limited to a repetition of the followingformula--"Su'shine all ri'! Wasser maar, eh? Wass up, su'shine?"
Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage ofdistance, asked him if there was anything that he wanted.
"Wass up? Wasser maar?" continued Sandy, in a very high key.
"Get up, you horrid man!" said Miss Mary, now thoroughly incensed; "getup, and go home."
Sandy staggered to his feet. He was six feet high, and Miss Marytrembled. He started forward a few paces and then stopped.
"Wass I go home for?" he suddenly asked, with great gravity.
"Go and take a bath," replied Miss Mary, eying his grimy person withgreat disfavor.
To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled off his coat and vest,threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildlyforward, darted headlong over the hill, in the direction of the river.
"Goodness heavens!--the man will be drowned!" said Miss Mary; and then,with feminine inconsistency, she ran back to the schoolhouse and lockedherself in.
That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the blacksmith'swife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband ever gotdrunk. "Abner," responded Mrs. Stidger, reflectively, "let's see: Abnerhasn't been tight since last 'lection." Miss Mary would have liked toask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and if a coldbath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an explanation,which she did not then care to give. So she contented herself withopening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs. Stidger--a finespecimen of Southwestern efflorescence--and then dismissed the subjectaltogether. The next day she wrote to her dearest friend, in Boston:"I think I find the intoxicated portion of this community the leastobjectionable. I refer, my dear, to the men, of course. I do not knowanything that could make the women tolerable."
In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten this episode, except thather afternoon walks took thereafter, almost unconsciously, anotherdirection. She noticed, however, that every morning a fresh cluster ofazalea blossoms appeared among the flowers on her desk. This was notstrange, as her little flock were aware of her fondness for flowers, andinvariably kept her desk bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines;but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of theazaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearestto the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitouslaughter that threatened the discipline of the school. All that MissMary could get from him was, that someone had been "looking in thewinder." Irate and indignant, she sallied from her hive to do battlewith the intruder. As she turned the corner of the schoolhouse she cameplump upon the quondam drunkard--now perfectly sober, and inexpressiblysheepish and guilty-looking.
These facts Miss Mary was not slow to take a feminine advantage of, inher present humor. But it was somewhat confusing to observe, also,that the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissipation, wasamiable-looking--in fact, a kind of blond Samson whose corn-colored,silken beard apparently had never yet known the touch of barber's razoror Delilah's shears. So that the cutting speech which quivered onher ready tongue died upon her lips, and she contented herself withreceiving his stammering apology with supercilious eyelids and thegathered skirts of uncontamination. When she re-entered the schoolroom,her eyes fell upon the azaleas with a new sense of revelation. Andthen she laughed, and the little people all laughed, and they were allunconsciously very happy.
It was on a hot day--and not long after this--that two short-legged boyscame to grief on the threshold of the school with a pail of water,which they had laboriously brought from the spring, and that Miss Marycompassionately seized the pail and started for the spring herself. Atthe foot of the hill a shadow crossed her path, and a blue-shirted armdexterously but gently relieved her of her burden. Miss Mary was bothembarrassed and angry. "If you carried more of that for yourself," shesaid, spitefully, to the blue arm, without deigning to raise her lashesto its owner, "you'd do better." In the submissive silence that followedshe regretted the speech, and thanked him so sweetly at the door thathe stumbled. Which caused the children to laugh again--a laugh in whichMiss Mary joined, until the color came faintly into her pale cheek.The next day a barrel was mysteriously placed beside the door, and asmysterio
usly filled with fresh spring water every morning.
Nor was this superior young person without other quiet attentions."Profane Bill," driver of the Slumgullion Stage, widely known in thenewspapers for his "gallantry" in invariably offering the box seat tothe fair sex, had excepted Miss Mary from this attention, on the groundthat he had a habit of "cussin' on upgrades," and gave her half thecoach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently riddenwith her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of aconfederate for mentioning her name in a barroom. The overdressed motherof a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near thisastute Vestal's temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts, butcontent to worship the priestess from afar.
With such unconscious intervals the monotonous procession of blue skies,glittering sunshine, brief twilights, and starlit nights passed over RedGulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and proper woods.Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors ofthe firs "did her chest good," for certainly her slight cough was lessfrequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unendinglesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedfulor listless ears. And so, one day, she planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill,and took the children with her. Away from the dusty road, the stragglingshanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheapfinery of shop windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass,and the thin veneering which barbarism takes upon itself in suchlocalities--what infinite relief was theirs! The last heap of raggedrock and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossed--how the waitingwoods opened their long files to receive them! How the children--perhapsbecause they had not yet grown quite away from the breast of thebounteous Mother--threw themselves face downward on her brown bosom withuncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Maryherself--felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity ofspotless skirts, collar, and cuffs--forgot all, and ran like a crestedquail at the head of her brood until, romping, laughing, and panting,with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbonfrom her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of theforest, upon--the luckless Sandy!
The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensuedneed not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary hadalready established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough thathe was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with thatquick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless, recognized afriend, and played with his blond beard and long silken mustache, andtook other liberties--as the helpless are apt to do. And when he hadbuilt a fire against a tree, and had shown them other mysteries ofwoodcraft, their admiration knew no bounds. At the close of two suchfoolish, idle, happy hours he found himself lying at the feet of theschoolmistress, gazing dreamily in her face, as she sat upon the slopinghillside weaving wreaths of laurel and syringa, in very much the sameattitude as he had lain when first they met. Nor was the similitudegreatly forced. The weakness of an easy, sensuous nature that had founda dreamy exaltation in liquor, it is to be feared was now finding anequal intoxication in love.
I think that Sandy was dimly conscious of this himself. I know that helonged to be doing something--slaying a grizzly, scalping a savage,or sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of this sallow-faced,gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I should like to present him in a heroicattitude, I stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, beingonly withheld from introducing such an episode by a strong convictionthat it does not usually occur at such times. And I trust that myfairest reader, who remembers that, in a real crisis, it is always someuninteresting stranger or unromantic policeman, and not Adolphus, whorescues, will forgive the omission.
So they sat there, undisturbed--the woodpeckers chattering overhead andthe voices of the children coming pleasantly from the hollow below.What they said matters little. What they thought--which might have beeninteresting--did not transpire. The woodpeckers only learned howMiss Mary was an orphan; how she left her uncle's house, to come toCalifornia, for the sake of health and independence; how Sandy was anorphan, too; how he came to California for excitement; how he had liveda wild life, and how he was trying to reform; and other details, which,from a woodpecker's viewpoint, undoubtedly must have seemed stupid, anda waste of time. But even in such trifles was the afternoon spent; andwhen the children were again gathered, and Sandy, with a delicacy whichthe schoolmistress well understood, took leave of them quietly at theoutskirts of the settlement, it had seemed the shortest day of her wearylife.
As the long, dry summer withered to its roots, the school term of RedGulch--to use a local euphuism--"dried up" also. In another day MissMary would be free; and for a season, at least, Red Gulch would know herno more. She was seated alone in the schoolhouse, her cheek resting onher hand, her eyes half-closed in one of those daydreams in which MissMary--I fear to the danger of school discipline--was lately in the habitof indulging. Her lap was full of mosses, ferns, and other woodlandmemories. She was so preoccupied with these and her own thoughts that agentle tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated itself into theremembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted itself moredistinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and opened the door.On the threshold stood a woman the self-assertion and audacity of whosedress were in singular contrast to her timid, irresolute bearing.
Miss Mary recognized at a glance the dubious mother of her anonymouspupil. Perhaps she was disappointed, perhaps she was only fastidious;but as she coldly invited her to enter, she half-unconsciously settledher white cuffs and collar, and gathered closer her own chaste skirts.It was, perhaps, for this reason that the embarrassed stranger, after amoment's hesitation, left her gorgeous parasol open and sticking in thedust beside the door, and then sat down at the farther end of a longbench. Her voice was husky as she began:
"I heerd tell that you were goin' down to the Bay tomorrow, and Icouldn't let you go until I came to thank you for your kindness to myTommy."
Tommy, Miss Mary said, was a good boy, and deserved more than the poorattention she could give him.
"Thank you, miss; thank ye!" cried the stranger, brightening eventhrough the color which Red Gulch knew facetiously as her "war paint,"and striving, in her embarrassment, to drag the long bench nearer theschoolmistress. "I thank you, miss, for that! and if I am his mother,there ain't a sweeter, dearer, better boy lives than him. And if I ain'tmuch as says it, thar ain't a sweeter, dearer, angeler teacher livesthan he's got."
Miss Mary, sitting primly behind her desk, with a ruler over hershoulder, opened her gray eyes widely at this, but said nothing.
"It ain't for you to be complimented by the like of me, I know," shewent on, hurriedly. "It ain't for me to be comin' here, in broad day, todo it, either; but I come to ask a favor--not for me, miss--not for me,but for the darling boy."
Encouraged by a look in the young schoolmistress's eye, and putting herlilac-gloved hands together, the fingers downward, between her knees,she went on, in a low voice:
"You see, miss, there's no one the boy has any claim on but me, and Iain't the proper person to bring him up. I thought some, last year, ofsending him away to Frisco to school, but when they talked of bringinga schoolma'am here, I waited till I saw you, and then I knew it was allright, and I could keep my boy a little longer. And O, miss, he lovesyou so much; and if you could hear him talk about you, in his prettyway, and if he could ask you what I ask you now, you couldn't refusehim.
"It is natural," she went on, rapidly, in a voice that trembledstrangely between pride and humility--"it's natural that he shouldtake to you, miss, for his father, when I first knew him, was agentleman--and the boy must forget me, sooner or later--and so I ain'tgoin' to cry about that. For I come to ask you to take my Tommy--Godbless him for the bestest, sweetest boy that lives--to--to--take himwith you."
She had risen and caught the young girl's hand in her own, and hadfallen on her knees beside her.
/>
"I've money plenty, and it's all yours and his. Put him in some goodschool, where you can go and see him, and help him to--to--to forget hismother. Do with him what you like. The worst you can do will be kindnessto what he will learn with me. Only take him out of this wicked life,this cruel place, this home of shame and sorrow. You will; I know youwill--won't you? You will--you must not, you cannot say no! You willmake him as pure, as gentle as yourself; and when he has grown up, youwill tell him his father's name--the name that hasn't passed my lipsfor years--the name of Alexander Morton, whom they call here Sandy! MissMary!--do not take your hand away! Miss Mary, speak to me! You will takemy boy? Do not put your face from me. I know it ought not to look onsuch as me. Miss Mary!--my God, be merciful!--she is leaving me!"
Miss Mary had risen and, in the gathering twilight, had felt her way tothe open window. She stood there, leaning against the casement, hereyes fixed on the last rosy tints that were fading from the western sky.There was still some of its light on her pure young forehead, on herwhite collar, on her clasped white hands, but all fading slowly away.The suppliant had dragged herself, still on her knees, beside her.
"I know it takes time to consider. I will wait here all night; but Icannot go until you speak. Do not deny me now. You will!--I see it inyour sweet face--such a face as I have seen in my dreams. I see it inyour eyes, Miss Mary!--you will take my boy!"
The last red beam crept higher, suffused Miss Mary's eyes with somethingof its glory, flickered, and faded, and went out. The sun had set on RedGulch. In the twilight and silence Miss Mary's voice sounded pleasantly.
"I will take the boy. Send him to me tonight."
The happy mother raised the hem of Miss Mary's skirts to her lips. Shewould have buried her hot face in its virgin folds, but she dared not.She rose to her feet.
"Does--this man--know of your intention?" asked Miss Mary, suddenly.
"No, nor cares. He has never even seen the child to know it."
"Go to him at once--tonight--now! Tell him what you have done. Tell himI have taken his child, and tell him--he must never see--see--the childagain. Wherever it may be, he must not come; wherever I may take it, hemust not follow! There, go now, please--I'm weary, and--have much yet todo!"
They walked together to the door. On the threshold the woman turned.
"Good night."
She would have fallen at Miss Mary's feet. But at the same moment theyoung girl reached out her arms, caught the sinful woman to her own purebreast for one brief moment, and then closed and locked the door.
It was with a sudden sense of great responsibility that Profane Billtook the reins of the Slumgullion Stage the next morning, for theschoolmistress was one of his passengers. As he entered the highroad, inobedience to a pleasant voice from the "inside," he suddenly reined uphis horses and respectfully waited as Tommy hopped out at the command ofMiss Mary. "Not that bush, Tommy--the next."
Tommy whipped out his new pocketknife, and, cutting a branch from a tallazalea bush, returned with it to Miss Mary.
"All right now?"
"All right."
And the stage door closed on the Idyl of Red Gulch.