The way led through Grizzly Canyonby this time clothed in funereal drapery and shadows. The redwoods, burying their moccasined feet in the red soil, stood in Indian file along the track, trailing an uncouth benediction from their bending boughs upon the passing bier. A hare, surprised into helpless inactivity, sat upright and pulsating in the ferns by the roadside as the cortege went by. Squirrels hastened to gain a secure outlook from higher boughs; and the bluejays, spreading their wings, fluttered before them like outriders, until the outskirts of Sandy Bar were reached, and the solitary cabin of Tennessees Partner.
Viewed under more favorable circumstances, it would not have been a cheerful place. The unpicturesque site, the rude and unlovely outlines, the unsavory details, which distinguish the nest-building of the California miner, were all here, with the dreariness of decay superadded. A few paces from the cabin there was a rough enclosure, which in the brief days of Tennessees Partners matrimonial felicity had been used as a garden, but was now overgrown with fern. As we approached it we were surprised to find that what we had taken for a recent attempt at cultivation was the broken soil about an open grave.
The cart was halted before the enclosure; and rejecting the offers of assistance with the same air of simple self-reliance he had displayed throughout, Tennessees Partner lifted the rough coffin on his back and deposited it, unaided, within the shallow grave. He then nailed down the board which served as a lid; and mounting the little mound of earth beside it, took off his hat, and slowly mopped his face with his handkerchief. This the crowd felt was a preliminary to speech; and they disposed themselves variously on stumps and boulders, and sat expectant.
When a man, began Tennessees Partner, slowly, has been running free all day, whats the natural thing for him to do? Why, to come home. And if he aint in a condition to go home, what can his best friend do? Why, bring him home! And heres Tennessee has been running free, and we brings him home from his wandering. He paused, and picked up a fragment of quartz, rubbed it thoughtfully on his sleeve, and went on: It aint the first time that Ive packed him on my back, as you seed me now. It aint the first time that I brought him to this yer cabin when he couldnt help himself; it aint the first time that I and Jinny have waited for him on yon hill, and picked him up and so fetched him home, when he couldnt speak, and didnt know me. And now that its the last time, whyhe paused and rubbed the quartz gently on his sleeveyou see its sort of rough on his pardner. And now, gentlemen, he added, abruptly, picking up his long-handled shovel, the funls over; and my thanks, and Tennessees thanks, to you for your trouble.
Resisting any proffers of assistance, he began to fill in the grave, turning his back upon the crowd that after a few moments hesitation gradually withdrew. As they crossed the little ridge that hid Sandy Bar from view, some, looking back, thought they could see Tennessees Partner, his work done, sitting upon the grave, his shovel between his knees, and his face buried in his red bandanna handkerchief. But it was argued by others that you couldnt tell his face from his handkerchief at that distance; and this point remained undecided.
In the reaction that followed the feverish excitement of that day, Tennessees Partner was not forgotten. A secret investigation had cleared him of any complicity in Tennessees guilt, and left only a suspicion of his general sanity. Sandy Bar made a point of calling on him, and proffering various uncouth, but well-meant kindnesses. But from that day his rude health and great strength seemed visibly to decline; and when the rainy season fairly set in, and the tiny grass-blades were beginning to peep from the rocky mound above Tennessees grave, he took to his bed. One night, when the pines beside the cabin were swaying in the storm, and trailing their slender fingers over the roof, and the roar and rush of the swollen river were heard below, Tennessees Partner lifted his head from the pillow, saying, It is time to go for Tennessee; I must put Jinny in the cart; and would have risen from his bed but for the restraint of his attendant. Struggling, he still pursued his singular fancy: There, now, steady, Jinnysteady, old girl. How dark it is! Look out for the rutsand look out for him, too, old gal. Sometimes, you know, when hes blind-drunk, he drops down right in the trail. Keep on straight up to the pine on the top of the hill. TharI told you so!thar he iscoming this way, tooall by himself, sober, and his face a-shining. Tennessee! Pardner!
And so they met.
THE IDYL OF RED GULCH
Sandy was very drunk. He was lying under an azalea bush, in pretty much the same attitude in which he had fallen some hours before. How long he had been lying there he could not tell, and didnt care; how long he should lie there was a matter equally indefinite and unconsidered. A tranquil philosophy, born of his physical condition, suffused and saturated 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 to attract attention. Earlier in the day some local satirist had erected a temporary tombstone at Sandys head, bearing the inscription, Effects of McCorkles whiskykills at forty rods, with a hand pointing to McCorkles saloon. But this, I imagine, was, like most local satire, personal; and was a reflection upon the unfairness of the process rather than a commentary upon the impropriety of the result. With this facetious exception, Sandy had been undisturbed. A wandering mule, released from his pack, had cropped the scant herbage beside him, and sniffed curiously at the prostrate man; a vagabond dog, with that deep sympathy which the species have for drunken men, had licked his dusty boots, and curled himself up at his feet, and lay there, blinking one eye in the sunlight, with a simulation of dissipation that was ingenious and doglike in its implied flattery of the unconscious man beside him.
Meanwhile the shadows of the pine trees had slowly swung around until they crossed the road, and their trunks barred the open meadow with gigantic parallels of black and yellow. Little puffs of red dust, lifted by the plunging hoofs of passing teams, dispersed in a grimy shower upon the recumbent man. The sun sank lower and lower; and still Sandy stirred not. And then the repose of this philosopher was disturbed, as other philosophers have been, by the intrusion of an unphilosophical sex.
Miss Mary, as she was known to the little flock that she had just dismissed from the log schoolhouse beyond the pines, was taking her afternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on the azalea bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck itpicking her way through the red dust, not without certain fierce little shivers of disgust and some feline circumlocution. And then she came suddenly upon Sandy!
Of course she uttered the little staccato cry of her sex. But when she had paid that tribute to her physical weakness she became overbold, and halted for a momentat least six feet from this prostrate monsterwith her white skirts gathered in her hand, ready for flight. But neither sound nor motion came from the bush. With one little foot she then overturned the satirical headboard, and muttered Beasts!an epithet which probably, at that moment, conveniently classified in her mind the entire male population of Red Gulch. For Miss Mary, being possessed of certain rigid notions of her own, had not, perhaps, properly appreciated the demonstrative gallantry for which the Californian has been so justly celebrated by his brother Californians, and had, as a newcomer, perhaps fairly earned the reputation of being stuck-up.
As she stood there she noticed, also, that the slant sunbeams were heating Sandys 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 to place it over his face was a work requiring some courage, particularly as his eyes were open. Yet she did it, and made good her retreat. But she was somewhat concerned, on looking back, to see that the hat was removed, and that Sandy was sitting up and saying something.
The truth was, that in the calm depths of Sandys mind he was satisfied that the rays of the sun were beneficial and healthful; that from childhood he had objected to lying down in a hat; that no people but condemned fools, past redemption, ever wore hats; and that his right to dispense with them when he pleased was inalienable. This was the statement of his inner consciousness. Unfortunately, its outward expression was vague, being limited to a repetition of the following formulaSushine all ri! Wasser maar, eh? Wass up, sushine?
Miss Mary stopped, and, taking fresh courage from her vantage of distance, 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; get up, and go home.
Sandy staggered to his feet. He was six feet high, and Miss Mary trembled. 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 with great disfavor.
To her infinite dismay, Sandy suddenly pulled off his coat and vest, threw them on the ground, kicked off his boots, and, plunging wildly forward, 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 locked herself in.
That night, while seated at supper with her hostess, the blacksmiths wife, it came to Miss Mary to ask, demurely, if her husband ever got drunk. Abner, responded Mrs. Stidger, reflectively, lets see: Abner hasnt been tight since last lection. Miss Mary would have liked to ask if he preferred lying in the sun on these occasions, and if a cold bath would have hurt him; but this would have involved an explanation, which she did not then care to give. So she contented herself with opening her gray eyes widely at the red-cheeked Mrs. Stidgera fine specimen of Southwestern efflorescenceand then dismissed the subject altogether. The next day she wrote to her dearest friend, in Boston: I think I find the intoxicated portion of this community the least objectionable. I refer, my dear, to the men, of course. I do not know anything that could make the women tolerable.
In less than a week Miss Mary had forgotten this episode, except that her afternoon walks took thereafter, almost unconsciously, another direction. She noticed, however, that every morning a fresh cluster of azalea blossoms appeared among the flowers on her desk. This was not strange, as her little flock were aware of her fondness for flowers, and invariably kept her desk bright with anemones, syringas, and lupines; but, on questioning them, they one and all professed ignorance of the azaleas. A few days later, Master Johnny Stidger, whose desk was nearest to the window, was suddenly taken with spasms of apparently gratuitous laughter that threatened the discipline of the school. All that Miss Mary could get from him was, that someone had been looking in the winder. Irate and indignant, she sallied from her hive to do battle with the intruder. As she turned the corner of the schoolhouse she came plump upon the quondam drunkardnow perfectly sober, and inexpressibly sheepish and guilty-looking.
These facts Miss Mary was not slow to take a feminine advantage of, in her present humor. But it was somewhat confusing to observe, also, that the beast, despite some faint signs of past dissipation, was amiable-lookingin fact, a kind of blond Samson whose corn-colored, silken beard apparently had never yet known the touch of barbers razor or Delilahs shears. So that the cutting speech which quivered on her ready tongue died upon her lips, and she contented herself with receiving his stammering apology with supercilious eyelids and the gathered skirts of uncontamination. When she re-entered the schoolroom, her eyes fell upon the azaleas with a new sense of revelation. And then she laughed, and the little people all laughed, and they were all unconsciously very happy.
It was on a hot dayand not long after thisthat two short-legged boys came to grief on the threshold of the school with a pail of water, which they had laboriously brought from the spring, and that Miss Mary compassionately seized the pail and started for the spring herself. At the foot of the hill a shadow crossed her path, and a blue-shirted arm dexterously but gently relieved her of her burden. Miss Mary was both embarrassed and angry. If you carried more of that for yourself, she said, spitefully, to the blue arm, without deigning to raise her lashes to its owner, youd do better. In the submissive silence that followed she regretted the speech, and thanked him so sweetly at the door that he stumbled. Which caused the children to laugh againa laugh in which Miss Mary joined, until the color came faintly into her pale cheek. The next day a barrel was mysteriously placed beside the door, and as mysteriously 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 the newspapers for his gallantry in invariably offering the box seat to the fair sex, had excepted Miss Mary from this attention, on the ground that he had a habit of cussin on upgrades, and gave her half the coach to herself. Jack Hamlin, a gambler, having once silently ridden with her in the same coach, afterward threw a decanter at the head of a confederate for mentioning her name in a barroom. The overdressed mother of a pupil whose paternity was doubtful had often lingered near this astute Vestals temple, never daring to enter its sacred precincts, but content 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 Red Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and proper woods. Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the balsamic odors of the firs did her chest good, for certainly her slight cough was less frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she had learned the unending lesson which the patient pines are never weary of repeating to heedful or 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 straggling shanties, the yellow ditches, the clamor of restless engines, the cheap finery of shop windows, the deeper glitter of paint and colored glass, and the thin veneering which barbarism takes upon itself in such localitieswhat infinite relief was theirs! The last heap of ragged rock and clay passed, the last unsightly chasm crossedhow the waiting woods opened their long files to receive them! How the childrenperhaps because they had not yet grown quite away from the breast of the bounteous Motherthrew themselves face downward on her brown bosom with uncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary herselffelinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of spotless skirts, collar, and cuffsforgot all, and ran like a crested quail at the head of her brood until, romping, laughing, and panting, with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbon from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of the forest, uponthe luckless Sandy!