"'How they seemed to fill the sea and air,With their sweet jargoning.'"
"'How they seemed to fill the sea and air,With their sweet jargoning.'"
"'How they seemed to fill the sea and air,
With their sweet jargoning.'"
Certainly they were a gay and happy lot, singing for the very love of melody, it seemed. Then they passed masses of flowers, beautiful groups of trees again, wound around unexpected corners.
"I wonder you found anything to praise up there on the hill," she said in a low, rather disheartened tone.
"Oh, I came to see you, and the gull, and Snippy, and to have the nice ride. And I did have a fine day. Now, you are not going to envy your neighbor's garden!"
"Why, no; I wouldn't want to take it away if I could, for there are so many of you to enjoy it, you see, and only so few of us."
"And your uncle will be rich enough to give you everything you want some day."
She had never thought about his being that.
A sudden shower of olives dropped down upon them like a great pelting rain.
"Oh, Elena, where are you, you little witch! Ah, I see you. Shall I shake you down out of the tree?"
A gay, rippling laugh mocked him.
"Lena, come down. The little girl is here who has the squirrel named Snippy, and the gull."
"I thought it was Olive. I was going to crown her with her namesakes. Why did they give her that name, like hard, bitter fruit?"
"Why are girls named Rose and Lily?"
"Oh, they are pretty names, and sweet."
"Well, you see, no one consulted me about it. Please, come down."
She laughed again, like the shivering of glass that made a hundred echoes. Then there was a rustling among the branches, and a lithe figure stood before them, looking as if she might fly the next moment.
"Lena! Lena!" and Victor caught her by the shoulder. "What did you promise this very morning—thatyou wouldn't torment Olive, but behave discreetly."
"This isn't Olive," and she gave her elfin laugh.
"But you meant it for Olive. This is the little girl who lives over on the rock, where we go to see the seals and the great flocks of birds. You know I told you of her."
Elena stared at the visitor. She had a curious, gypsy-like brilliance, with her shining, laughing mischievous eyes and the glow in her cheeks. She was very dark, a good deal from living in the sun, and not a bad-looking child either. And now an odd, coquettish smile flashed over the eyes, mouth, and chin, and was fascinating in its softness. She held out her hand.
"Victor likes you so much," she said, and Victor flushed at the betrayal of confidence he had used to persuade her into cordiality. "I think I shall like you, too. Let us run a race. If I beat you, you must like me the most and do just as I say, and if you beat I will be just like your slave all day long."
"No, Lena. You must not do any such thing."
"She is like a little snail then! She is afraid!" and the black eyes flashed mirth as well as insolence.
"I am not afraid." Laverne stood up very straight, a bright red rose blooming on each cheek. "Where to?" she asked briefly.
"Down to the fig trees."
"Will you count three?" Laverne asked of Victor.
He smiled and frowned.
"Count!" she insisted authoritatively.
They started like a flash, the shadows dancing on the path. Elena gained. Victor grew angry, and cameafter them; then Laverne gave a sudden swift swirl and turned on her antagonist.
Lena stopped with a laugh. She was not angry.
"How you can run!" she exclaimed. "I wish you lived here. We would have races twenty times a day. And—can you climb trees?"
"Oh, yes."
"And swim?"
"No," admitted Laverne frankly.
"Then you can't do everything that I can."
"And she can do something you cannot. She can read French and Spanish, while you really can't read English; she can do sums and write letters, and—and sew," he was guessing at accomplishments now.
"There are the women to sew."
"But you might be wrecked on an island where there were no women, and tear your frocks, as you generally do."
Laverne smiled. How find a needle and thread on a desolate island? Lena did not see the point, and looked rather nonplussed.
"Oh, well, I shouldn't care then," she retorted.
"Come, let us go to the aviary. Miss Laverne will like to see the birds."
There was a large space netted in from tree to tree in which there were many rare birds of most exquisite plumage, and quantities of tiny South American love birds, gossiping with each other in low, melodious tones.
"Oh, how wonderful!" Laverne exclaimed.
"It's a great fancy of father's. Sea captains bring him birds from all countries. After a while, when theyget really acclimated and can protect themselves, he lets them out to settle in the woods about. Do you see those two with the beautiful long tails? They came from the island of Java. Do you know where that is?"
"Oh, it is one of the Sunda Islands down by the Indian Ocean. Uncle Jason has been to Borneo and Sumatra. And coffee comes from Java."
"How do you know? Have you been there?" questioned Elena.
"Father knows, and he has not been there," returned Victor. "He could tell you a good many things if you did not like to learn them out of books."
Laverne walked round the inclosure in a trance of delight. And though the voices now and then made discord, on the whole it was a fascinating orchestra.
"Couldn't you tame some of them?"
"It would take a long time, I think. Those bright Brazilian birds are very wild. Every one cannot charm birds, and father is a pretty busy man."
Elena soon tired of the birds, and inquired if Laverne had a pony. Then they might ride after luncheon.
"And it must be nearly that now. Come, let us go up to the house."
Elena chattered like a magpie, and danced about, now and then hopping on one foot, and running to and fro.
"You will think we are a rather queer lot," Victor said, half in apology.
"Oh,youare not queer. I like you very much." She raised her clear, innocent eyes, and it seemed a very sweet compliment to him.
"There isn't much training. Mamacita could notgovern a cat, though, for that matter, I don't believe cats are easily governed. Cats are queer things. But school straightens up one, I suppose. Elena will go to a convent to be trained presently. Isola cannot, so she has a governess to teach her music and a few things. You must hear her play on the organ. All she cares about is music."
"Is she very ill?"
"Oh, not very, I think. But she won't ride, which the doctor thinks would be good for her, and she goes about in that wheeling chair when she ought to walk, and lies in the hammock. Mamacita would like her to be gay and bright and entertaining to the young men, as Isabel is, because all girls are expected to marry. Mamacita was only fifteen when papa met her at a ball at New Orleans. That must be a very gay place, without the crime and rough life that San Francisco has. I do hope sometime we will be civilized, and not have to take in the off-scourings of all lands. I want it to be a splendid city, like Rome on its seven hills. And there is the grand sea outlook that Rome did not have, though she made herself mistress of the seas."
The little girl watched him with such intelligent eyes that it was a great satisfaction to talk to her. She was different from any one he had known. For those of the Southern blood were coquettes from their very cradle, and wanted to talk of pleasure only. Of course, she was being brought up by a great traveller, even if he had never risen higher than mate of a trading vessel. And then the eastern women were somehow different.
Elena ran on, and announced with a shout "that theywere coming." The porch was set out with little tables. Mrs. Personette was the matron of the one that had her daughters and the two young men. Mrs. Savedra took charge of Elena and Isola, and left Miss Holmes to Laverne and Victor.
There were flowers and fruits, dainty summer viands, and much gay chatting, since they were near enough to interchange with each other. Laverne was very enthusiastic about the aviary.
"Oh, you must go out and see it," she said eagerly.
Victor was thinking of the great difference between Miss Holmes and Mam'selle Claire. Of course, she could talk about musicians, she seemed to have them at her tongue's end, and some French writers. He was not of an age to appreciate them; young, energetic souls were quoting Carlyle, even Emerson had crept out here on the Western coast. In a way there was a good deal of politics talked, and a rather bitter feeling against the East for turning so much of the cold shoulder to them. Even the suggestion of war with England over the northern boundary did not seem very stirring to these people. It was their own advancement, the appreciation of all they held in their hands, the wonderful possibilities of the Oriental trade. And though it seemed quite necessary to study French, when there were so many French citizens, the young fellow considered the literature rather effeminate. But Miss Holmes was conversant with the march of the Carthaginian general over the Alps, and later, that of Napoleon, and the newer scheme that had set their wisdom at naught, and that the railroad was a necessity if the Union was not to part in the middle. He liked MissHolmes' admiration of California. Mam'selle Claire thought it rude and rough.
There was lounging in the hammocks afterward, the sun was too hot to drive about. Isola went in the room presently, and played some soft, low chords on the organ. Laverne crept in, enchanted. She liked the voluntaries in church when they had no grand crushes in them. Victor was talking with Miss Holmes, so she slipped away, for Elena had found the quiet irksome, and there were always dogs to play with. The dogs she thought better company than most people.
Laverne had never been near an organ. This was not a very large one, but sweet-toned for parlor use. She crept nearer and nearer, and almost held her breath, while the tears came to her eyes. It seemed the sad story of some one, the story the ocean waves told at times, or the wind in the trees, when twilight was falling, and now it was darkness, and you could almost hear the stars pricking through the blue. Then one faint call of a bird, and a far-off answer, and lower, lower, until the sound wandered away and was lost.
"Oh," she breathed, "oh!"
"You like it?"
Laverne drew a long breath. "Oh, that isn't the word," she said. "We may like a good many things, but they do not all go to your heart."
Isola took the fair face in both hands, which were cold, but the child did not shrink, she was still so impressed with the melody.
"Let me look at you. Oh, what beautiful eyes you have—sometimes you find that color in the sky. Butmusic goes to the soul, the brain, and I wish I could see yours. Did you feel as if you could swoon away?"
"I wanted to cry," Laverne said, in a tremulous tone. "But it was not from sorrow nor joy; you sometimes do cry when you are full of delight, but—at times when I hear the right music in church, I think that is what heaven will be like."
"What was that like—not heaven?"
"It was night when I am sitting out on the step, and not thinking, but just watching the stars come out."
"Oh, you little darling. I wish you could stay here always. I wish they, your people, would fancy Elena, and we could change. She laughs, and it goes through me like a bolt of lightning, and leaves me numb. I'd like to have some one who listens that way. Mam'selle declares the playing is wrong because I do not follow the notes, and one day when she insisted, I flung myself down on the floor and cried until I was sick. And now I am let to play what I like most of the time. I hate books—do you like to study dry, prosy things? What does it matter whether the world is round or square?"
"Why, it might not revolve in quite the right way, and I guess the ships couldn't sail as well." She smiled at the thought of the corners.
"Now, we will have morning."
First it was a wind rustling among the trees. The sort of metallic swish of the evergreens, the whisper of the pines, the patter of the oaks; then a bird singing somewhere, another answering, hardly awake; young ones peeping a hungry cry, then a gay, swinging, dashing chorus, with a merry lark going higher and higher,until he was out of hearing. Sounds growing discordant, impatient, harsh.
"That's the world," she explained; "morning down on the bay; the people working, scolding, swearing; don't you hate all that?"
"We are not near enough to hear it."
"But if you have heard it once you can imagine it. And some music isn't much better. Mam'selle plays things that set my teeth on edge. Do you know what your soul is?"
Laverne was startled. "Why," hesitatingly, "it is the part that goes to heaven."
"Well—heaven must be sweet and soft and fair, if it is full of angels. And why don't we keep to the soft and lovely sides of everything if we are to go there. Is kneeling on a hard stone floor in a convent at all like heaven?"
"I should think not."
"Mam'selle considers it useful discipline. Why, it is being dead to be shut up in a cold, dark cell. And I think you are taken up in strong, tender arms, and wafted above the clouds, like this——"
Then she began to play again. The sound stole along softly, halting a little, murmuring, comforting, entreating, floating on and on to sounds so sweet that the tears did overflow Laverne's eyes, and yet she was not crying.
Victor glanced through the wide doorway.
"Why, that child has even found a way to Isola's heart," he said.
"I have been listening. Your sister is really a musical genius," Miss Holmes replied.
Mr. Savedra came home early to have a share in the guests. It was pleasant now for riding and driving, for the wind was coming from the ocean, and wafting with it the inspiration that started the pulses afresh. There were ponies and saddle horses. Laverne must ride.
"I will go if she can sit by me in the carriage," said Isola.
Laverne gave a quick breath. She would rather have had the mount, but the almost melancholy eyes decided her. She held out her hand with a smile, and she saw that it pleased Mr. Savedra also.
Victor had a little of his mother, but he had taken most of his good looks from his father.
"Aunt Grace, won't you go with them?" he said persuasively. "I want Miss Holmes. Both of us will be needed to keep watch of this monkey."
"As if I didn't go alone often and often!" Elena retorted, wrinkling up her face in a funny fashion.
They took their way to the eastward, and were soon in the open country, with the great Sierra Range towering in the distance. Summer had not scorched up the fields or the woods. Hill and valley werespread out before them, here glowing with flowers, there still green with herbage, where Mexican shepherds were letting their flocks browse. Some pastures had been eaten off to the roots and glinted in golden bronze. Tangles of wild grapes, with their pungent fragrance, reaching up and climbing over clumps of trees. The far-off points seemed to touch the very sky that was like a great sea with drifts one could imagine were an array of ships bound to some wondrous port. Laverne thought of the weird experiences of the "Ancient Mariner."
Yellow wings, blues of every shade, black and gold and iridescent, dashed here and there or floated lazily as if the butterfly had no body.
Isola held the child's hand, but did not say anything, she hated exclamations. Mrs. Savedra smiled to herself, she knew her daughter was enjoying her companion. Laverne felt half mesmerized by the hand that had been cold at first, and was now gently throbbing with some human warmth. She seemed to have gone into a strange country.
The sun set gorgeously as they were returning. There was a tempting supper spread for them, and some lanterns were lighted at the edge of the porch. Then Mr. Savedra insisted upon sending the party home in the carriage.
"I hope you have had a nice time, Laverne," Mrs. Personette said, in a most cordial tone. "I don't know what the Savedras will do with that daughter. I'd like to shake her up out of that dreaminess. She'll be in a consumption next. As for you two girls, I think you have had your fill of attention to-day," and she laughed."You have a stepmother out of a thousand, and I hope you will never do her any discredit."
They certainly had enjoyed their day wonderfully, never imagining Victor had planned it so that he could be left at liberty.
The little girl sat out under the rose vine that trailed over their little porch, thinking of the beautiful house, the garden, the grounds, the birds, and, oh, the organ with its bewildering music.
"An organ must cost a good deal," she said, in a grave tone, but there was no longing in it. "And then if you couldn't play—I like the things that are not tunes, that just go on when you don't know what is coming next, and the voices of the birds and the sound of the waves and all sweet things. It was like fairyland, only I don't believe fairyland could be quite so satisfying, and this is all real and won't vanish when you wake up." She laughed tenderly in her joy. "Mr. Savedra must be very rich," she continued.
"Yes, he is," said Uncle Jason.
She leaned her head down on the broad breast where the heart beat for her alone.
"And you had a happy day?"
"Oh, so happy. If you had been there!"
She should have all these things some day. He was working and saving for her. And times had changed very much. He and her mother could have been happy in a little cottage where the sharp north winds rushed down, and the drifts of snow hedged one in half the winter. She busy about household work, he wresting scanty crops from the grudging earth. Yetif she could have seen a world like this! Well, the little one should have it all, and see strange lands and no end of beautiful things, for the world kept improving all the time.
He began to feel a good deal more secure about her. At first, when he saw men from every State in the Union, men who had committed various crimes, tramps, and scamps, he had a vague fear that somewhere among them David Westbury would come to light. He would not know him, only the name. And he wished now he had changed his in this new western world. But he would know nothing about the child unless he went to the old home, and that was hardly likely. But if some day, stepping off a vessel or wandering around the docks, a man should clap him on the shoulder and say, "Hello, Chadsey, old man, I never thought to find you here!" he would shake him off, or pay his way somewhere else.
It had never happened, and was not likely to now. He could go on planning this delightful life for the little girl. Presently they would make another move, have a better house and finer furniture. He had lost nothing through this snap of hard times, neither had he made, but business looked brighter. Occasionally he had a longing to go to the mines. Several times he had dreamed of finding a great nugget, and once he dreamed that in stumbling over rocks and wilds, he had lost her. Night came on and all through the darkness he called and called, and woke with great drops of cold perspiration streaming down his brow. No, he could not go to the gold fields and leave her behind.
The weeks and months passed on. There was vacation when she went over to Oaklands, and had splendid times again, and was fascinated by Isola and her music, and they took up a peculiar friendship that seemed to rouse the dreamy girl and delight Mrs. Savedra. Then Mrs. Personette was going down to Monterey with her two girls for a fortnight, and nothing would do but Miss Holmes and Laverne should accompany them. It was not the Monterey of forty years later, but a queer old Spanish town with its convent, where they found Carmencita Estenega, who did not look like a joyous, happy girl, though next year she was to be married.
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Personette; "it seems the same thing everywhere, just lovers and marriage. There is really no career for girls here but that, and the convent people are as anxious to marry them off as any one else. To be sure, they can become sisters, which covers the obloquy of old maidism. And so many of the husbands are not worth having, and desert their wives on the slightest pretext. I'd counted on taking some comfort with my girls, but here is Isabel considering every young man as a matrimonial subject, wanting to leave school and go into society, and her father saying, 'Why not?'"
Miss Holmes smiled a little.
"We used to think a girl ought to look at marriage in a serious light, and get ready for the important step; now it is fine clothes, an engagement ring, and a wedding gown. But I suppose in this wonderful land where your fruit buds, and blossoms, and ripens in a night, girls do mature sooner."
Some weeks later she saw her friend again and announced that she had been compelled to yield.
"Isabel would not go to school," she said. "If there had been a good boarding school anywhere near, I should have pleaded hard for that. But her father would not listen to her being sent East. She has a smattering of several branches. She can converse quite fluently in French and Spanish, she dances with grace and elegance, she has correct ideas of the fitness of things that are certainly attractive, and is quick at repartee. She reads the fashion magazines when they arrive, and the newspaper bits of arranging a table, cooking odd dishes, giving luncheons and dinners. She is really a fashionable young lady. And we are to give a ball for her, and after that I must see that she is properly chaperoned. My dear Marian, wedobelong to the past generation, there is no denying it. And I half envy you that you can live out of the hurly-burly."
"I am glad myself," Miss Holmes returned. "So far as most things go, we could be living in some quaint old Puritan town. I don't know whether it is really best for the child, but it suits her uncle to have it so. Now she is going over to the Savedras two afternoons a week to study piano music. They think Isola improves by the companionship. And those French children, the Verriers, are very nice and trusty. They are up here quite often. She likes some of her schoolmates very well, and she and Olive have friendly spells," laughing.
"Olive blows hot and cold. She takes up a girl with a certain vehement preference and for a whilecan think of no one else. Then she finds her friend has some faults, or fails in two or three points, and she is on with a new admiration. Girls are crude, funny creatures! Do you suppose we were like them?" she questioned with laughing, disavowing eyes.
"No, we were not," returned Marian. "Times have changed. Life and its demands have changed. We were taught to sew, to darn, to do fine needlework; here a Mexican or a Spanish woman will do the most exquisite work for a trifle. Every country lays its treasures at our feet; it would be folly to spin and to weave. And there is money to buy everything with. How careful we were of a bit of lace that our grandmother had! The women of the street flaunt in yards and yards of it, handsomer than we could ever have achieved. We are on the other side of the country, and are topsy-turvy. We have begun at the big end of everything. Whether we are to come out at the little end——" and she paused, her eyes indecisive in their expression.
"Would you like to go back?"
"I'd like to see dear old, proper Boston, and really feel how much we had changed. But the breadth and freedom here are fascinating. It has not the hardships of new settlers. Even the men who sleep out on the foothills with the blue sky for covering may be rich six months hence, and putting up fine buildings. And when you come to that there is no lack of intelligence. Haven't we some of the best brain and blood of the East, as well as some of the worst? Our papers are teeming with news, with plans, with business schemes, that would craze an Eastern man. No, I do not believeI should be satisfied to take up the old life there again."
"And now I must consider my daughter's entrée into society. Think of the mothers in the old novels, who took their daughters to Bath or to London, and looked over the list of eligibles and made two or three selections. Our young women will select for themselves in a half-mercenary fashion, and one can't altogether blame them. Poverty is not an attractive subject."
Miss Holmes was out for a little shopping expedition, and went in her friend's carriage. Every year saw great changes. Fire destroyed only to have something grander rise from the ashes. There was already an imposing line of stores, and a display of fabrics that roused envy and heart-burning. Where there had been one-story shanties filled with the miscellany of a country store, only a few years ago, now all things were systematized and compared well with some Eastern towns, not as much, but certainly as great a variety. It had taken San Francisco only a few years to grow up. She sprang from childhood to full stature.
Then one drove round the Plaza to Russ's, mingling in the gay cavalcade until a stranger might have considered it a gala day of some sort. Then to Winn's for luncheon, tickets, perhaps, to the theatre where Laura Keene was drawing full houses of better-class people.
The little girl was not in much of this. She went to school regularly; she found some very congenial friends. She never could tell how much she liked Olive, and she was accustomed to be taken up withfervor and then dropped with a suddenness that might have dislocated most regards, and would if she had set her heart on Olive. She had a serene sort of temperament not easily ruffled; she had brought that from Maine with her. She talked over her lessons with Uncle Jason, who seemed to know so many things, more she thought than Miss Holmes, though she had taught school in Boston.
She had a host of squirrel friends now, though Snippy was amusingly jealous, and at times drove the others off. There were flocks of birds, too, who would hop up close or circle round her and occasionally light on her shoulder, and sing deafeningly in her ear, trills and roulades, such as Mam'selle played on the piano—she was not so fond of the organ, it was fit only for church and convents in the Frenchwoman's estimation.
It was funny to see Balder follow her about. During the rainy season he found so many puddles in which to stop and rest and disport himself, but in the dry times they filled a tub for him, and he was content. Pablo caught fish for him, and it was his opinion that Balder lived like some grand Señor. She never tired of the flowers, and was always finding stray nooks where they bloomed. She and Miss Holmes often went over to the ocean and sat on the rocks, looking, wondering.
"Sometime Uncle Jason is going to take me way over yonder," nodding her head. "We shall go to the Sandwich Islands, which he says are still more beautiful than California. And then to China. Perhaps then all the gates of Japan will be open and they will let us in. I'd like to see the little girls in Japan; they don't drown them there, they never have too many.And then there will be India, and all those queer islands. You wouldn't think there would be room for Australia, which is almost a continent by itself, would you? The world is very wonderful, isn't it?"
Sometimes they watched magnificent sunsets when the whole Pacific seemed aflame with gorgeous tints, for which there could be no name, for they changed as quick as thought. Then they noted a faint pearl-gray tint just edging the horizon line, it seemed, and then spreading out in filmy layers, growing more distinct and yet darker, marching on like an army. Gulls circled and screamed, great loons and murres gave their mournful cry, cormorants swept on, hardly stirring a wing until, with one swift lurch, they went down and came up triumphant. Then the sky and sea faded, though you knew the sea was there because it dashed upon the rocks, though its tone was curiously muffled.
"Come," Miss Holmes would say, "we shall be caught in the fog."
"I'd just like to be damp and cold. It has been so dry that one wants to be wet through and through."
"We shall have to pick our way."
It would sometimes come up very fast, woolly, soft to the skin, at others like a fine cutting mist, when the west wind drove it in. And now it was all gray like a peculiar twilight that made ghosts out of the rocks, piled about and shut out the Golden Gate and the peaks beyond, but they drew long breaths of the sea fragrance that were reviving. The ponies stepped carefully down this way, and across that level, and then on the road Pablo was making for his mistress. The ponies shook their heads and whinnied for very gladness.Bruno gave his cheerful bark. Balder made a funny grumbling noise as if he were scolding.
"Oh, you know you like the fog. You are dripping wet," with a hug of tenderness.
They were dripping wet, too, but they soon found dry clothes. Miss Holmes kindled up the fire, for Pablo kept them well supplied, though sometimes he went long distances and came home with a great bundle on his back that almost bent him double.
"Now you look just like a German peasant," Laverne would declare; and Pablo would shake his head mysteriously. The young Missy had seen so many wonderful things.
Wood was a rather scarce article in this vicinity, and was expensive. Coal likewise, though now some had been discovered nearer home. The charcoal venders were familiar figures in the streets. Wild indeed would he have been who had ventured to predict a gas range, even the useful kerosene stove.
The fog storms were all they would have for a time in the summer, and it was wonderful how in a night vegetation would start up.
Then Uncle Jason would come in puffing and blowing, fling off his long, wet coat, and stand before the fire and declare that Maine people said:
"An August fog would freeze a dog,"
"An August fog would freeze a dog,"
"An August fog would freeze a dog,"
which always made Laverne laugh.
Miss Holmes did not go to the ball given in honor of Miss Isabel Personette, but Miss Gaines was among the grown people. It was at one of the fine halls used for such purposes, and was beautifully decorated withvines and flowers and American flags. The greatest curiosity was the really splendid chandelier with its branching burners and glittering prisms. Few of the real boy friends were invited—there were enough young men very glad to come and dance their best. No one had to entreat them in those days. Indeed, dancing parties were the great entertainment for young people. True, women played cards and lost and won real money, but it was done rather privately and not considered the thing for any but the seniors.
It was very gay and delightful, quite an ovation to Miss Personette, and the banquet part eminently satisfactory to the elders. Of course, Victor Savedra was included, being a cousin, and went, and it brought freshly to his mind the party when he had danced with the sweet, fair-haired, little girl, who had no knowledge, but infinite grace, and how happy she had been.
Even with politics, city improvements, vigilance committees, quarrels, and crimes, there was found space in the papers of the day for the social aspects of life, and though "sweet girl graduates" had not come in fashion, débutantes were graciously welcomed. Miss Isabel felt much elated. She had shot up into a tall girl and was very well looking. Miss Gaines had transformed her into beauty.
Olive considered it very hard and cruel that she could not go, but she was quite a heroine at school for several days. It was truly the next thing to a wedding.
"And to think of all the splendid things that come to real young ladies!" she complained, yet there was a kind of pride in her tone as well. "Two theatre parties,and she goes to Sausalito to a birthday ball, and stays three days with some very stylish English people, friends of father's. I just hate being thought a little schoolgirl! And I want to go to the Seminary."
And then she said to Laverne:
"I don't see what you find in Isola to be so devoted to her. I wouldn't go over there twice a week and bother with her for all the music in the world. And those cold hands of hers make you shiver. They're like a frog."
"They have grown warmer. She goes to ride every day now. And we read French and English, and—verses. I like the music so much."
Olive was still secretly jealous of Victor. But presently he was going away to finish his education. And she knew several boys who went to the Academy that she thought much more fun. Victor was growing too sober, too intellectual.
They had all become very fond of the little girl at the Savedras. Even wild Elena, in a half-bashful way, copied her. She could run races and climb and ride the pony with the utmost fearlessness, she did not squeal over bugs and mice and the little lizards that came out to sun themselves. Lena had thrown one on her, and she had never told of it. She was not a bit like Isola, although she could sit hours over the music and reading of verses. And she knew so much of those queer countries where tigers and lions and elephants lived.
"But you have never been there," the child said with severe disbelief.
"You study it in books and at school."
"I hate to study!"
"You will love it when you are older. Some day your father may take you to France, and then you will want to know the language."
"I know a little of it, enough to talk."
"Mam'selle will be glad to teach you the rest."
"And Spanish—I knew that first."
"And I had to learn it, and French, with a good deal of trouble."
"But you knew English," rather jealously.
"Just as you knew Spanish—in my babyhood."
That seemed very funny, and Lena laughed over it.
"Then you really were a baby, just like Andrea, only whiter. Will your hair always be goldy like that?"
"I think so. Uncle Jason likes it."
She asked dozens of inconsequent questions.
"You must not let her trouble you so much," Mrs. Savedra said. "She will have more sense as she grows older."
Laverne only smiled a little.
Isola found her such a companion, such a listener as she had never known before. Isabel did not care for music; Olive teased her, and she put her stolid side out. She would not get angry and satisfy them. And then it seemed as if Victor suddenly cared more for her, and she half unconsciously did some of the things he suggested. She did not know that Laverne had said to him, "Oh, you ought to do the things that please her, and then she will love you. I wish I had a sister."
She wondered a little whom she would want her like? It was a serious matter to have a sister who would be with one continually. She was used to Miss Holmes,and that was more like—well, like an aunt. Sometimes she tried to think of her mother, but the remembrance was vague. She could seem to see her old grandmother much easier, fretting and scolding.
Victor was glad and proud that she had found a way to all their hearts.
There were Christmas and New Year's with all their gayety. And in a month spring, that had run away from the tropics.
"It goes on too fast," she said to Uncle Jason. "And do you see how I am growing? Miss Holmes says something has to be done to my frocks all the time. I don't want to be big and grown up."
He studied her in amazement. He did not want her to be big and grown up either. These years were so satisfying.
They were planning at the school for a May Celebration. They would go clear up the bay in a boat to San Pablo, and have a picnic and a dance out of doors, and come home in the moonlight.
So it was a little late, and Bruno stood watching out for her. "Good old fellow!" she said, with a pat. Miss Holmes had a visitor, she saw through the open window. She went round by the kitchen.
Bruno tugged at her skirt.
"What is it, Bruno?"
His eyes had a sorrowful look, she thought. "What is it, what do you want?"
He tugged again at her skirt.
"Well, come on. Though I've stacks of lessons to learn. Look at all those books."
She dropped them on the step, and followed the dog. Up the winding path, and now there was water enough for a musical trickle over the stones.
There was Balder's basin, where he was so fond of disporting himself after the rains filled it up. Oh, what was that lying on the side, that still white thing glistening in the sunshine!
"Bruno?" She stamped her foot and looked upbraidingly at him. Had he been playing roughly withher pet? Oh, what was the meaning of these blood-stained feathers about his neck! She flung herself down beside him. The eyes were dull and partly closed. She stroked the white feathers with tender hands.
"Bruno, I shall never love you again, never! Oh, how could you!"
He took a few steps away. Then he dragged some tumbled gray thing to her feet. Why, that was a fox, with his bushy tail. They had been hunted a good deal and were giving civilization a rather wide berth.
She looked at the dog, who told the story with his eyes as he glanced from one to the other. She reached up and put her arms about his neck.
"Oh, Bruno, I'm sorry I blamed you. I thought perhaps you were a little rough, but you cared so for my beautiful Balder that I might have known you couldn't hurt him! And that wicked, wretched fox! Well, I am glad he has his deserts. But that will not bring back my dear Balder. Oh, have you gone to join the old heroes in Valhalla? For I can't think you were just a common bird. You would have gone back to your kind if you had been. I ought to write a lament for you."
Pablo was coming up the road with a back load of brush. But he dropped it in dismay as she called.
Bruno pawed the fox, then gave it a push, and glanced up at Pablo.
"You see—the fox must have crept up here, and seized my dear Balder by the neck and killed him. And Bruno made him pay for it."
When Pablo was deeply moved or amazed, he wentback to his Mexican patois, that Bruno had come to understand very well, and nodded sagaciously.
"The thief! The murderer! Last year, you know, your uncle and I shot two of the bloody thieves over the ridge there, and I've not seen one since. Bruno seized him by the throat, and has torn him well. Look at the brush—why, a lady could put it on her tippet. And the skin—I'll have that. We'll throw him out to feed the hawks. Oh, the poor gull! He was like folks, Missy, you had all trained him so much. Oh, don't cry so, Missy."
Bruno came up and rubbed her shoulder, licked her hand, and gave a low, mournful lament of sympathy.
Laverne rose and took the dead bird in her arms. The visitor had gone, and Miss Holmes stood out by the door, wondering. The procession took their way thither.
"The mean, sneaking brute, that he should have come just when I had gone. The bird was so fond of paddling round there. Strange that he never wanted to go with his kind, but most things want to keep by you, Missy."
They told the sad story over. Laverne laid the gull down tenderly on a bit of matting.
"Pablo, will you wash his neck and have him all clean and white?"
"My dear," Miss Holmes said, and clasped the child in her arms, letting her cry out her sorrow. She and Bruno went down to meet Uncle Jason presently. No grief, hardly a disappointment, had come near her until now. How could he comfort his darling? And he felt with Pablo that the bird had been almost human.
"I wonder," he said in the evening, "if you would like to have him mounted. There's an old Frenchman down in Rincon Street who does this to perfection. The birds look alive."
Laverne considered. "No, I believe I would rather have him buried. I should think how the sly fox crept up and dragged him out before he could turn to defend himself. We will put him in a box and bury him. Oh, Balder, I shall miss you so much."
"I think I could capture one easily."
"To be sure you could. They're stupid things," subjoined Pablo.
"But he wasn't. Uncle Jason, I think some wicked fairy changed him from something else, for he used to look at times as if he had a story in his eyes. No, I don't want another. And I should always be afraid of a fox."
He snuggled her up with his arm close about her. So they sat until the stars came out, twinkling like live spirits in the cloudless blue. It was warm, with all manner of odors in the air, and the hum of the city, lying below them, came up faintly. Oh, how he loved her. And he prayed there might never come any deeper sorrow to touch her tender heart.
Pablo dug a grave the next morning, and they buried Balder the beautiful. All day she dreamed of the Norse gods, and of Hermod, who took the journey to the barred gates of Hell, at Frigga's earnest persuasion, and how every rock, and tree and all living things wept for him, except one old hag, sitting in the mouth of a cavern, who refused because she hated him, and so Balder could not return. She was a little absent,and missed two or three questions, and Miss Bain asked her if her head ached, she made such an effort to keep the tears from her eyes.
So Balder slept under a straight young pine near the little lake they had made for him. Pablo skinned the fox with great zest, and made of it a fine rug, with a strip of black bearskin for a border.
She wondered whether she ought to feel merry enough to go on the May party. But the children insisted. The boat was a fine strong one, and there really was no danger; Uncle Jason was assured of that. Then it was such a glorious day. There was a fog early in the morning, and the fight between the golden arrows of the sun and the gray armor that came up out of the sea. Sometimes it did conquer, and came over the city, but this morning it was pierced here and there, and then torn to tatters, driven out beyond the strait, into the ocean.
Miss Bain took supervision of her scholars, and Miss Holmes had many charges not to let the little girl out of her sight a moment. There were a number of schools, but some of the children preferred the May walk, and the treat afterward. They started off with flags flying, and the young Geary Band had volunteered their services. There were a drum, two fifes, a cornet, and a French horn, and the boys began with the stirring patriotic tunes. But even here the old negro melodies had found their way, many of them pathetic reminders of the cotton fields of the South, that seemed to gain melody from the stretch of bay.
They passed Fort Point and Alcatraz Island, where the government was beginning magnificent defences,its high point looming up grandly. Angel Island, then almost covered with a forest of oak, yet oddly enough containing a fine quarry, where laborers were at work, hewing into the rock, almost under the shadow of the waving trees. Yerba Buena, with its fragrant odors blown about by the wind, smaller islands, big rocks rising out of the sea, the inhabitants being chiefly birds; vessels of nearly every description, and intent mostly upon trade, plied hither and thither. Here was another strait opening into San Pablo Bay, into which emptied creeks and rivers, the Sacramento washing down golden sands; and the San Joaquin. And up there was the wonderful land where the Argonauts were searching for treasure with less toil and anxiety than the elder Jason, though here, too, there were treachery and murder.
Almost by the strait there was a beautiful point of land jutting out in the water, and nearly covered with magnificent trees, that had grown so close together that the branches interlaced and made arches, while underneath were aisles, carpeted with fallen leaves and moss, that made you feel as if you were walking over velvet. You could see San Raphael and San Quentin, and the mountain range with the one high peak, as you looked westward; eastward there was, after the woodland, meadows of richest verdure, with their thousand blooms nodding gayly to each other, and softly gossiping, perhaps about these strange newcomers, who were presently to disturb their long, long possessorship. There the great, grand Sierras, that looked so near in the marvellously clear air.
They found a choice spot, and built a fire—it wouldnot have been a picnic without that. There were boys, of course, though a girl was restricted to a brother or cousin. I fancy some cousins were smuggled in. They ran about; they were even young enough to play "tag," and "blind man in a ring," and "fox and geese," which was the greatest fun of all. Then they spread out their tablecloths on a level space, and though real paper plates and thin wooden ones had not come in yet, they had made some for themselves that answered the purpose. They were merry enough with jests and laughter.
Olive Personette was quite the heroine of the day. Miss Isabel's engagement to Captain Gilbert, who had been appointed to take some charge at Alcatraz, and had come of an old Californian family, beside being educated at West Point, was still a topic of interest, because there had been two other aspirants for her hand who had quarrelled and fought a duel, which was quite an ordinary matter in those days, though frowned upon by the best people. So neither had won her heart. One was lying in the hospital, the other had fled northward. But it had made quite a stir.
Of course, she had asked Victor, importuned him, though he had meant all the time to come. He was a fine, manly fellow now, and the girlsdidflock about him. He had such a grave, courteous manner, and never descended into rudeness, though he was quick enough at fun, and it does not need an intricate order of wit to amuse before one is twenty.
Olive picked out the most prominent girls for him, and kept him busy enough. But he managed now andthen to pass Laverne and say a word to show that she was in his mind.
"I think Isola wanted to come very much," he announced to her once. "She's taking such an interest in the pleasures that girls have, and she has grown stronger. Father is planning some day to take a sail all around the bay, just a little party of us, and we want you and Miss Holmes."
That was such a delight. She did not refuse to talk to other boys, but she liked the girls better. Her rather secluded life had not given her so much interest in hunting and fishing and ball-playing and race-running. Then on Sunday there was always horse-racing up on the track by the old Mission. Church-going people, not really members, but those who considered it the proper thing to pay a decorous attention to religion, went to church in the morning and drove out in the afternoon. Throngs of fine carriages, and handsomely dressed ladies, men on horseback, with enough of the old-style attire to stamp them as Mexican, Spanish, or the more than half Old Californian. Many of the more successful ones began to plume themselves on a sort of aristocracy.
The boys knew the favorite horses, some of their fathers owned a fast trotter. But somehow she did not care much to talk about them, though she had gone out occasionally with Uncle Jason, and it was exciting to witness the trials of speed. But she liked better to jog about on Pelajo and talk in the lovely by-paths they were always finding.
After the repast they swung in hammocks and talked over plans, or rambled about, then the bandplayed for dancing. No gathering would have been perfect without that. Of course, they flirted a little, that was in the young blood, but they came home merry, and had not disputed unduly about their respective admirers.
Victor found time to say that he should come over next Saturday. "We'll have a nice time, all to ourselves," he whispered, and she glanced up with delighted eyes.
All her life thus far had been very quiet, in spite of the fact that she was in such a turbulent place, and with all sorts of people, gathered from the ends of the earth; where seldom a day passed without some tragedy. And it seemed as if the city was coming nearer and nearer, though it went southward, too, and all along the bay, docks and wharves and warehouses were springing up in a night.
Victor came over the following Saturday as he had promised. They sat under the pine tree and wrote verses to Balder's memory. Victor had found a volume of Scandinavian legends and poems, and they were fascinated with it.
"Of course, we can't write anything like that," she said simply, "but you notice these do not rhyme. Do you not think it really grander, tenderer?"