As they drove home in the chill, yellow evening, Idy turned to her lover, and asked abruptly,—
"Who was that felluh?"
"What felluh?"
"The young felluh with the sandymustache, the one that stopped the team."
Parker's manner had been evasive from the first, but at this the evasiveness became a highly concentrated unconcern. He looked across the lake, and essayed a yawn with feeble success.
"There was a good many standin' around when I got there. What sort o' lookin' felluh was he?"
"I just told ye; with a sandy mustache, short, and middlin' heavy set."
"Sh-h-h!" said Parker, reaching for his gun. Idy stopped the horses.
A bronze ibis arose from the tules at the water's edge, and flapped slowly westward, its pointed wings and hanging feet dripping with the gold of the sunset. Parker laid down his gun.
"What did you want to shoot at thatthing fer?" asked Idy. "They ain't fit to eat."
"The wings is pretty. I thought you might like another feather in your cap."
The girl gave him a look of radiant contempt, and he spoke again hurriedly, anxious to prevent a relapse in the conversation.
"You was sayin' somethin' to-day about signin' the pledge, Idy: I've been layin' off to sign the pledge this good while. The next time there's a meetin' of the W. X. Y. Z. women, you fetch on one o' their pledges, an' I'll put my fist to it."
"W. C. T. U.," corrected Idy, with emphasis.
"All right; W. C. T. me, if that suits you any better. It's a long time since I learned my letters, an' I get 'em mixed. But I've made up my mind on the teetotal business, and don't ye forget it."
"There ain't any danger ofmeforgettin' it," said the young woman significantly. "What ye goin' to do about that other business?" she added, turning her wide eyes upon him abruptly—"about gettin' even with that cheatin' Barden?"
They had driven into the purple shadow of the mountains, and Parker seemed to have left his enthusiasm behind him with the sunlight.
"I don't know," he said gloomily. "Do ye want me to kill 'im?"
"Killhim!" sneered the girl; "I want yeto get even with 'im! 'Tain't no great trick to kill a man; any fool can do that. I want ye to get ahead of 'im!"
She glowed upon him in angry magnificence.
"Idy," said her lover, sidling toward her tenderly, "when you flare up that a-way, you mustn't expect me to think about Barden. You look just pretty 'nough to eat!"
A week later Eben began grubbing out the vineyard. The weather turned suddenly warm, and the harvest was coming on rapidly. Parker Lowe had gone to Temecula with Mose Doolittle, who was about to purchase a machine, presumably feminine, which they both referred to familiarly as "she," and styled more formally "a second-hand steam-thrasher." It was Monday,and Idy was putting the week's washing through the wringer with a loud vocal accompaniment of gospel hymn.
Eben had worked steadily since sunrise. The vines were young, and the ground was not heavy, but the day was warm, and he wielded the mattock rapidly, stooping now and then to jerk out a refractory root with his hands. An hour before noon his daughter saw him coming through the apricot orchard, walking wearily, with his soiled handkerchief pressed to his lips. The girl's voice lost its song abruptly, and then broke out again in a low, faltering wail. She bounded across the warm plowed ground to his side.
"Pappy! O pappy!" she cried, breathing wildly, "what is it? Tell me, can't you, pappy?"
The little man smiled at her with his patient eyes, and shook his head. She put her hand under his elbow, and walked beside him, her arm across his shoulders, her tortured young face close to his. When they reached the kitchen door he sank down on the edge of the platform, resting his head on his hand. The girl took off hisweather-beaten hat, and smoothed the wet hair from his forehead.
"O pappy! Poor, little, sweet old pappy!" she moaned, rubbing her cheek caressingly on his bowed head.
Eben took the handkerchief from his lips, and she started back, crying out piteously as she saw it stained with blood. He looked up at her, a gentle, tremulous smile twitching his beard.
"Don't—tell—your—maw," he said, putting out his hand feebly.
The words seemed to recall her. She went hurriedly into the house and close to the lounge where her mother was lying.
"Maw," she said quickly, "you must get up! Pappy's got a hem'ridge. I want you to help me to get 'im to bed, an' then I'm goin' fer a doctor."
The woman got up, and followed her daughter eagerly.
"Why, Eben!" she said, when they reached the kitchen door. Her voice was almost womanly; and a real anxiety seemed to have penetrated her hysterical egoism.
They got him to bed tenderly, and propped him up among the white pillows.His knotted hands lay on the coverlet, gray and bloodless under the stains of hard work. Idy bent over him, tucking him in with little pats and crooning moans of sympathy. When she had finished, she dropped her wet cheek against his beard.
"I'm goin' fer the doctor, pappy," she whispered; "I won't be gone but a little while,"—then rushed down the path to the stable, and flung the harness on the pinto.
The buggy was standing in the shed, and she caught the shafts and dragged it out with superabundant energy, as if her anxiety found relief in the exertion. A few minutes later she drove out between the rows of pallid young eucalyptus-trees that led to the road, leaning eagerly forward, her young face white and set beneath the row of knobby protuberances that represented the morning stage of her much cherished bang. It was thus that she drove into Elsmore, the rattling of the old buggy and the spots of lather on the pinto's sides exciting a ripple of curiosity, which furnished its own solution in the fact that it was "that there Starkweather girl," who was generally conceded to be "a great one."
She stopped her panting horse before the doctor's office, and sprang out.
"Are you the doctor?" she asked breathlessly, standing on the threshold, with one hand on each side of the casing.
A man in his shirt-sleeves, who was writing at the desk, turned and looked at her. It was the same man who had prevented the runaway. He began to smile, but the girl's stricken face stopped him.
"Dr. Patterson has gone to the tin-mine," he said, getting up and coming forward; "he will not be home till to-morrow."
Idy grasped the casing so tightly that her knuckles shone white and polished.
"My fawther's got a hem'ridge," she said, swallowing after the words. "I don't know what on earth to do."
"A hemorrhage!" said the young man with kindly sympathy. "Well, now, don't be too much alarmed, Miss—"
"Starkweather," quavered Idy.
"Starkweather? Oh, it's Mr. Starkweather. Why, he's a friend of mine. And so you're his daughter. Well, you mustn't be too much alarmed. I've had a great many hemorrhages myself, and I'mgood for twenty years yet." He had taken his coat from a nail at the back of the room, and was putting it on hurriedly. "Prop him up in bed, and don't let him talk, and give him a spoonful of salt-and-water now and then. My horse is standing outside, and I'll go right down to Maravilla and fetch a doctor. I'll come up on the other side of the lake, and get there almost as soon as you do—let me help you into your buggy. And drive right on home, and don't worry."
He had put on his hat, and they stood on the sidewalk together.
Idy made a little impulsive stoop toward him, as if she would have taken him in her arms.
"Oh!" she gasped, her eyes swimming, and her chin working painfully; "I just think you're the very best man I ever saw in all my life!"
A moment later she saw him driving a tall black horse toward the lake at a speed that brought her the first sigh of relief she had known, and made her put up her hand suddenly to her forehead.
"Good gracious me!" she exclaimed under her breath—"if I didn't forget to take down my crimps!"
Two or three times as she drove home through the warm odors of the harvest noon her anxiety was invaded by the recollection of this man, to whose promptness and decision her own vigorous nature responded with a strong sense of liking; and this liking did not suffer any abatement when he came into her father's sick-room with the doctor, and the invalid looked at the stranger, and then at her, with a faint, troubled smile.
"Don't try to speak, Mr. Starkweather," said the visitor cheerfully; "I've made your daughter's acquaintance already. We want you to give your entire attention to getting well, and let us do the talking."
He went out of the room, and strolled about the place while the doctor made his call, and when it was over he went around to the kitchen, where Idy was kindling a fire, and said:—
"Doctor Patterson thinks your father will be all right in a day or so, Miss Starkweather. Be careful to keep him quiet. I'm going to drive around to the station, so the doctor can catch the evening train, and save mydriving him down to Maravilla; and I'll go on over to Elsmore and get this prescription filled, and bring the medicine back to you. Is there anything else you'd like from town—a piece of meat to make beef-tea, or anything?"
"Well, I wouldn't mind much if youwouldbring me a piece of beef," said Idy, pausing with a stick of redwood kindling across her knee. Then she dropped it, and came forward. "We'reeverso much obliged to ye—pappy 'n' all of us. Seem 's if you always turn up. I think you've been just awful good and kind—an' us strangers, too."
"Oh, you're not strangers," laughed the young man, lifting his hat; "I've known your father ever since he came."
He went around the house, and got into the cart with the doctor. "Starkweather's a crank," he said, as they drove off, "but he's the kind of crank that makes you wish you were one yourself. When I see a man like that going off with consumption, and a lot of loafers getting so fat they crowd each other off the store boxes, I wonder what Providence is thinking of."
"He works too hard," growled the doctor, with the savagery of science. "What can Providence do with a man who grubs greasewood when he ought to be in bed!"
It was moonlight when the stranger returned, and handed the packages to Idy at the kitchen door.
"Pappy's asleep," she whispered, in answer to his inquiries; "he seems to be restin' easy."
"Is there no one about the place but yourself and mother, Miss Starkweather?"
Idy shook her head.
"Well, then, if you don't mind, I think I will put my horse in the barn, and sleep in the shed here, on the hay. If you should need any one in the night, you can call me. I haven't an idea but that your father will be all right, but it's a little more comfortable to have some one within call."
"Well," said Idy, dropping her hands at her sides, and looking at him in admiring bewilderment, "if you ain't just— Have you had anythin' to eat?" she broke off, with sudden hospitality.
"Oh yes, thank you; I had dinner at Elsmore," laughed the young man, backing out into the shadow. "Good-night."
Half a minute later she followed him down the walk, carrying a heavy blanket over her arm. He had led his horse to the water-trough, and the moonlight shone full upon him as he stood with one arm thrown over the glossy creature's neck.
"I brought you this here blanket, Mr.—"
"Barden," supplied the young man, carelessly.
Idy sank back against the corral fence as if she were stunned.
"Barden!" she repeated helplessly. "Is your name Barden?"
"Yes."
She stood breathless a moment, and then burst out:—
"An' you're him!you—an' doin' this way, after the way you've done—an' him sick—an' me talkin' to ye—an'—an'—everything!"
The two torrents of hate and gratitude had met, and were whirling her about wildly.
The young man pushed his hat back onhis head, and stared at her in sturdy, unflinching amazement.
"My dear young lady, what on earth do you mean?" he asked quietly.
"I mean that I didn't know that you washim—the man that sold my father this place, an' lied to him about the vineyard—told him they was raisin-grapes, an' they wasn't—an' you knowed he was a temp'rance man, a prohibitionist. An' him tryin' to grub 'em out, an' gettin' sick—an' bein' so patient, an' never hurtin' nobody—" she ended in a wild, angry sob that seemed to swallow up her voice.
"Miss Starkweather," said the young fellow steadily, "I certainly did sell this place to your father, and if I told him anything about the vineyard I most certainly told him they were raisin-grapes; and upon my soul I thought theywere. Aren't they?"
"No," sobbed Idy, "they ain't; they're wine-grapes! He was grubbin' 'em out to-day. That's what hurt 'im—I'm afraid he'll die!"
"You mustn't be afraid of that. Dr. Patterson says he will get better. But wemust see that he doesn't do any more grubbing. When Slater gave me this for sale," he went on, as if he were reflecting aloud, "he said there were ten acres of vineyard. I can't swear that he told me what the vines were, or that I asked him. But it never occurred to me that any man—even an Englishman—would plant ten acres of wine-grapes when there wasn't a winery within fifty miles of him."
Parker Lowe borrowed one of Mose Doolittle's mules Monday evening, and rode from Temecula to Jake Levison's saloon at Maravilla. It was understood when he left the thresher's camp that he would probably "make a night of it," and Mose gave him a word of friendly warning and advice.
"You want to remember, Park, that the old man is down on the flowing bowl; an' from what I've heard of the family I think it'll pay you to keep yourself solid with the old man."
"I'm a-goin' up to the drug-store to get some liniment for Dave Montgomery's lame shoulder," returned Parker, with a knowingwink at his companion, as he flung himself into the saddle; "but I hain't signed no pledge yet—not by a jugful," he called back, as the mule jolted lazily down the road.
It was a warm night, and half a dozen loafers were seated on empty beer-kegs in front of Levison's door when Parker rode up. Levison got up, and began to disengage himself from the blacksmith's story as he saw the newcomer dismount; but the blacksmith raised his voice insistently.
"'There don't no dude tell me how to pare a hoof,' says I; 'I'll do it my way, or I don't do it;' an' I done it, an' him kickin' like a steer all the time"—
"Who?" asked one of the other men.
"Barden."
"What was he doin' down here?"
"He came down for Doc Patterson. That teetotal wreck on the west side o' the lake took a hem'ridge—I furget his name, somethin'-weather: pretty dry weather, judgin' from what I hear."
"Starkweather?"
"Yes, Starkweather; I guess he's pretty low."
Parker started back to the post where hismule was tied. Then he turned and looked into the saloon. Levison had gone in and was wiping off the counter expectantly.
"It won't take but a minute," he apologized to himself.
It took a good many minutes, however, and by the time the minutes lengthened into hours Parker had ceased to apologize to himself, and insisted upon taking the by-standers into his confidence.
"I'm—I'm goin' to sign the pledge," he said, with an unsteady wink, "an' then I'm goin' to get merried,—yes, sir, boys; rattlin' nice girl, too,—'way up girl, temperance girl. But there's many a cup 'twixt the slip and the lip—ain't there, boys? Yes, sir, 'twixt the cup and the slip—yes, sir—yes, sir—ee." Then his reflections driveled off into stupor, and he sat on an empty keg with the conical crown of his old felt hat pointed forward, and his hands hanging limply between his knees.
When Levison was ready to leave he stirred Parker up with his foot, and helped him to mount his mule. The patient creature turned its head homeward.
It was after daybreak when Parker rodeinto the Starkweather ranch, and presented himself at the kitchen door. The night air had sobered him, but it had done nothing more. Idy was standing by the stove with her back toward him. She turned when she heard his step.
"Why, Park!" she said, with a start; then she put up her hand. "Don't make a noise. Pappy's sick."
He came toward her hesitatingly.
"So I heard down at Maravilla last night, Idy."
Her face darkened.
"And you been all night gettin' here?"
He bent over her coaxingly.
"Well, you see, Idy"—
The girl pushed him away with both hands, and darted back out of reach.
"Parker Lowe," she said, with a gasp, "you've been drinkin'!"
Parker hung his head sullenly.
"No, I hain't," he muttered; "not to speak of. Whose horse is that out 'n the corral?"
The girl looked at him witheringly.
"I don't know as it's any of your pertic'lar business, but I don't mind tellin' you that horse b'longs toa gentleman!"
"A gentleman," sneered Parker.
"Yes,a gentleman; if you don't know what that is you'd better look in the dictionary. You won't find out by lookin' in the lookin'-glass, I can tell you that."
"Oh, come now, Idy, you hadn't ought to be so mad; I hadn't signed the pledge yet."
He took a step toward her. The girl put out her hands warningly, and then clasped her arms about herself with a shudder.
"Don't you come near me, Parker Lowe," she gasped. "What do I care about the pledge! Didn't youtellme you'd stop drinkin'? Won't a man that tells lies with his tongue tell 'em with his fingers? Do you suppose I'd marry a man that 'u'd come to me smellin' of whiskey, an'himlyin' sick in there? Can't you see that he's worth ten thousand such folks as you an' me? I don't want a man that can't see that! I'm done with you, Parker Lowe,"—her voice broke into a dry sob; "I want you to go away and stay away! It ain't the drinkin'—it'shim—can't you understand?"
And Parker, as he climbed toward his lonesome cabin, understood.
The afternoon train wound through the waving barley-fields of the Temecula Valley and shrieked its approach to the town of Muscatel. It was a mixed train, and half a dozen passengers alighted from the rear coach to stretch their legs while the freight was being unloaded.
Enoch Embody stood on the platform with the mail-bag in his hand, and listened to their time-worn pleasantries concerning the population of the city and the probable cause of the failure of the electric cars to connect with the train.
Enoch was an orthodox Friend. There was a hint of orthodoxy all over his thin, shaven countenance, except at the corners of his mouth, where it melted into the laxest liberality.
A swarthy young man, with a deep scar across his cheek, swung himself from theplatform of the smoking-car, and came toward him.
"Is there a stopping-place in this burg?" he called out gayly.
"Thee'll find a hotel up the street on thy right," said Enoch.
The stranger looked at him curiously.
"By gum, you're a Quaker," he broke out, slapping Enoch's thin, high shoulder. "I haven't heard a 'thee' or a 'thou' since I was a kid. It's good for earache. Wait till I get my grip."
He darted into the little group of men and boys, who were listening with the grim appreciation of the rural American to the badinage of the conductor and the station agent, and emerged with a satchel and a roll of blankets.
"Now, uncle, I'm ready. Shall we take the elevated up to the city?" he asked, smiling with gay goodfellowship up into Enoch's mild, austere face.
The old man threw the mail-bag across his shoulder.
"I'll take thee as far as the store. Thee can see most of the city from there."
The young fellow laughed noisily, andhooked his arm through his companion's gaunt elbow. Enoch glanced down at the grimy, broken-nailed, disreputable hand on his arm, and a faint flush showed itself under the silvery stubble on his cheeks.
"By gum, this town's a daisy," said the stranger, sniffing the honey-laden breeze appreciatively and glancing out over the sea of wild flowers that waved and shimmered under the California sun; "nice quiet little place—eh?"
"Thee hears all the noise there is," answered Enoch gravely.
The young fellow gave a yell of delight and bent over as if the shaft of Enoch's wit had struck him in some vital part. Then he disengaged his arm and writhed in an agony of mirth.
"Holy Moses!" he gasped, "that's good. Hit 'im again, uncle."
Enoch stood still and looked at him, a mild, contemptuous sympathy twinkling in his blue eyes.
"Is thee looking for a quiet place?" he asked.
The newcomer reduced his hilarity to an intermittent chuckle, and resumed his affectionate grasp on Enoch's arm.
"That's about the size of it, uncle. I've knocked around a good deal, and I'm suffering from religious prostration. I'm looking for a nice, quiet, healthy place to take a rest—to recooperate my morals, so to speak. Good climate, good water, good society. Everything they don't have in—some places. What's the city tax on first-class residence property close in?"
"I think thee'll find it within thy means," said Enoch dryly. "Has thee a family?"
"Well, you might say—yes," rejoined the stranger, "that is, I'm married. My wife's not very well. I want to build a seven by nine residence on a fashionable street and send for her. I'm going to draw up the plans and specifications and bid on the contract myself, and I think by rustling the foreman I can get everything but the telephone and the hot water in before she gets here. Relic of the ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay?" he asked, pointing to a vacant store building across the grass-grown street; "or bought up by the government, maybe, to keep out competition in the post-office business—hello, is this where you hang out?"
Enoch turned into the combined store and post-office, and the stranger stood on the platform, bestowing his tobacco-stained smile generously upon the bystanders.
"Thee'll find the hotel a little further up the street," said Enoch; "there may be no one about; I think I saw Isaac and Esther Penthorn driving toward Maravilla this afternoon. But they'll be back before dark. Thee can make thyself at home."
"You're right I can," assented the newcomer with emphasis; "I see you've caught on to my disposition. Isaac and Esther will find me as domestic as a lame cat. Be it ever so homely there's no place like hum. By-by, uncle; see you later."
He went up the street, walking as jauntily as his burden would permit, and Enoch looked after with a lean, whimsical smile.
"Thee seems to have a good deal of cheek," he reflected, as he emptied the mail-bag, "but thee's certainly cheerful."
Within a week every resident of Muscatel had heard the sound of Jerry Sullivan's voice. It arose above the ring of hishammer as he worked at the pine skeleton of his shanty, and the sage-laden breeze from the mountains seemed a strange enough vehicle for the questionable sentiments of his song. New and startling variations of street songs, and other unfamiliar melodies came to Enoch's ears as he distributed the mail, or held the quart measure under the molasses barrel, and occasionally the singer himself dropped in to make a purchase and chat a few moments with the postmaster concerning the progress of his house.
"The architect has rather slopped over on the plans," he said, when the frame was up, "so I'm putting up a Queen Anne wood-shed for the present, while he knocks a few bay windows out of the conservatory. 'A penny saved 's a penny earned,' you know. That's the way I came to be a millionaire—stopped drinking in my infancy and learned to chew, saved a rattleful of nickels before I could walk—got any eighteen-carat nails, uncle? I want to do a little finishing-work in the bath-room."
Enoch met his new friend's trifling, always with the same gentle gravity; but something, perhaps that lurking liberality about the corners of his mouth, seemed to inspire the young fellow with implicit confidence in the old man's sympathy.
After the frame of Jerry's domicile was inclosed, a prodigious sawing and hammering went on inside the redwood walls, and the bursts of music were spasmodic, indicating a closer attention on the part of the workman to nicety of detail in his work. He called to Enoch as he was passing one day, and drew him inside the door mysteriously.
"Take a divan, uncle," he said airily, pushing a three-legged stool toward his guest. "I've got something to show you,—something that's been handed up to me from posterity. How does that strike you for a starter in the domestic business?"
He drew forward an empty soap-box, fashioned into an old-time cradle, and fitted with rude rockers at the ends.
"Happy thought—eh?" he rattled on, gleefully pointing to the stenciled end, where everything but "Pride of the Family" had been carefully erased. "How's this for a proud prospective paternal?"
He balanced himself on one foot and rocked the little craft, with all its cargo of pathetic emptiness, gently to and fro.
Enoch's face quivered as if he had been stabbed.
The young fellow stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with jaunty satisfaction.
"I made that thing just as a bird builds its nest—by paternal instinct. It's a little previous, and I'd just as soon you wouldn't mention it; but I had to show it to somebody. Got any children?" he turned upon Enoch suddenly.
"No. Not any—living."
The old man's voice wavered, and caught itself on the last word.
Jerry thrust the cradle aside hastily.
"Neither have I, uncle, neither have I," he said; "not chick nor child. If you ain't too tired, let me show you over the house. I'm sorry the elevator isn't running, so you could go up to the cupolo. This room's a sort of e pluribus unum, many in one; kind of a boodwar and kitchen combined. The other rooms ain't inclosed yet, but they're safe enough outside. That's the advantage of this climate, you don't have to put everything under cover. Ground-plan suit you pretty well?"
"I think thee's very cosy," Enoch said, smiling gravely; "when does thee look for thy wife?"
"Just as soon as she's able," said Jerry, drawing an empty nail-keg confidentially toward Enoch and seating himself; "you see"—
He stopped short. The cradle behind the old man was still rocking gently.
"I guess it won't be very long," he added indifferently.
The south-bound train was late, and the few loafers who found their daily excitement in its arrival had drifted away as it grew dark, leaving no one but Enoch on the platform. When the train whistled the station agent opened the office door and his kerosene lamp sent a shaft of light out into the darkness.
There was the usual noisy banter among the trainmen, and none of them seemed to notice the woman who alighted from the platform of the passenger coach and came toward Enoch.
She stood in the light of the doorway, so that the old man could see her tawdry dress and the travel-dimmed red and white of her painted face.
"Is there a man named Jerry Sullivan livin' in this town?" she asked.
Enoch was conscious of a vague disappointment.
"Yes," he said, half reluctantly, "he lives here. I suppose thee's his wife."
The woman looked at him curiously. Then she laughed.
"Yes, I suppose I am," she said; "can you show me where he lives?"
"I can't show thee very well in the dark, but it isn't far. If thee'll wait a minute, I'll take thy satchel and go with thee."
He brought the mail-bag and picked up the stranger's valise.
"Thy husband's been looking for thee," he said, as they went along the path that led across a vacant lot to the street.
The woman did not reply at once. She seemed intent upon gathering her showy skirts out of the dust. When she spoke, her voice trembled on the verge of a laugh.
"That so? I've been lookin' for him,too. Thought I'd give him a pleasant surprise."
"He's got his house about finished."
The woman stopped in the path.
"His house," she sneered; "he must be rattled if he thinks I'll live in a place like this—forty miles from nowhere."
They walked on in silence after that to the door of Jerry's shanty. There was a light inside, and the smell of cooking mingled with the resinous odor of the new lumber. Jerry was executing a difficult passage in a very light opera to the somewhat trying accompaniment of frying ham. The solo stopped abruptly when Enoch knocked.
"Come in," shouted the reckless voice of the singer, "let the good angels come in, come in!"
Enoch opened the door.
"Good-evening, Jerry," he said gravely; "here is thy wife."
The young fellow crossed the floor at a bound with a smile that stayed on his face after every vestige of joy had died out of it.
The woman gave him a coarse, triumphant stare.
"I heard you was lookin' for me," shesaid, with a chuckle, "but you seemed kind o' s'prised after all."
Jerry stood perfectly still, with his hands at his sides. Behind him, where the light fell full upon it, Enoch could see the cradle. The old man placed the satchel on the step.
"I must go back and attend to the mail," he said, disappearing in the darkness.
A few hours later, just as Enoch had fitted the key in the store door and turned down the kerosene lamp, preparatory to blowing it out, Jerry appeared in the doorway.
"I've got to go away on the early train," he said, in a dull, husky voice; "she's going with me. I don't know how long I'll be gone, and I thought I'd like to leave the key of the house with you, if it won't be too much trouble."
"It won't be any trouble, Jerry. I'll take care of it for thee," said Enoch.
The hand that held out the key seemed to Enoch to be stretched toward him across a chasm. He felt a yearning disgust for the man on the other side.
Jerry walked across the platform hesitatingly, and then came back.
"Would you mind locking up and coming outside, Mr. Embody?" he asked humbly; "I'd like to have a little talk with you."
Enoch blew out the lamp and closed the door and locked it. He felt a physical shrinking from the moral squalor into which he was being dragged.
"What is it, Jerry?" he asked kindly.
"I've been thinking," said the young man hurriedly, and in the same level, monotonous voice, "that families sometimes come to these new places without having any house ready, and of course it's a good deal of expense for them to board, and I just wanted to say to you that if any person—well, say a widow with a b—family—I wouldn't care to help a man that could rustle for himself—but a woman, you know, if she's not very strong, and has a—a—family—why, I'd just as soon you'd let her have the house, and you needn't say anything about the rent: I'll fix that when I come back. I haven't been to church and put anything in the collection since I've been here,"—his voice gave a suggestion of the old ring, and then fell back drearily,—"so I thought I'd hand you what I'd saved up, and you can use it for charitable purposes—groceries and little things that people might need, coming in without anything to start."
He handed Enoch a roll of money, and the old man put it into his pocket.
"I'll remember what thee says, Jerry. If any worthy family comes along, I'll see that they do not want."
"If I can, I'll send you a little now and then," the young fellow went on more cheerfully, "but I'd just as soon you wouldn't mention it. I'll be back sometime, there's no doubt about that, but I can't say just when. You can tell the folks that my—my wife," he choked on the word, "didn't feel satisfied here. She thinks it won't agree with her. And I guess it won't, she's very bad off"—he turned away lingeringly, and then came back. "About the—the—crib," he faltered, "if they happen to have a baby, I wouldn't mind them using it. Babies are pretty generally respectable, no matter what their folks are. Iwascalculating," he went on wistfully, "to get another box and hunt up some wheels, and Ithought maybe they could rig it up with a pink parasol and use it to cart the baby 'round; you know if a woman isn't very strong, it might save her a good deal—but then it's too late now;" he turned away hopelessly.
"I guess I can manage that for thee, Jerry," said Enoch; "I'm rather handy with tools. Thee needn't worry."
The two men stood still a moment in the moonlight.
"Good-by, Mr. Embody," said Jerry.
He did not put out his hand. Enoch hesitated a little.
"Farewell," he said, and his voice was not quite natural.
The next morning, when Enoch opened the outside letter-box to postmark the mail that had been dropped into it after the store was closed the night before, he found but one letter. It was addressed to Mrs. Josie Hart Sullivan, Pikeboro, Mo
"Are you the postmaster?"
Enoch dropped the tin scoop into the sugar-bin, and turned around. The voicewas timid, almost appealing, and Enoch glanced from the pale, girlish face that confronted him to the bundle in her arms.
There was no mistaking the bundle. It was of that peculiar bulky shapelessness which betokens a very small infant.
"Yes, I'm the postmaster," answered Enoch kindly; "is there anything I can do for thee?"
The young creature looked down, and a faint color came into her transparent face.
"I've just come in on the train," she faltered. "I thought you might be able to tell me where to go. I haven't very much money. I was sick on the way, and spent more than I expected. I—I"—she hesitated, and glanced at Enoch with a little expectant gasp.
"Is thee alone?" inquired the old man.
"Yes. That is—only Baby. My husband has just—just"—her voice fluttered and died away helplessly.
"Oh, thee's a widow," said Enoch gently.
"Yes." The poor young thing looked up with a smile of wistful gratitude. "I'm not very strong. I heard this was a healthyplace. They thought it would be good for us—Baby and me. I'm Mrs. Josie Hart. Baby's name is Gerald."
"Would thee be afraid to stay in a house alone?" inquired Enoch thoughtfully.
The stranger gave him a look of gentle surprise.
"Why, no, of course not—not with Baby; he's so much company."
There was a note of profound compassion for his masculine ignorance in her young voice.
The old man's mouth quivered into a smile. He went to the back of the room, and took a key from a nail.
"I think I can find thee a real cosy little place," he said; "shan't I carry the baby for thee?"
She hesitated, and looked up into his solemn, kindly face. Then she held the precious bundle toward him.
"I guess I'll have to let you. I didn't really know it till I got here, but I begin to feel, oh! so awful tired," she said, with a long, sighing breath, as Enoch folded his gaunt arms about the baby.
They went up the street together, andEnoch unlocked Jerry's house and showed the stranger in. She walked straight across the room to the cradle. When she turned around her eyes were swimming.
"Oh, I think it's justlovelyhere," she said; "I feel better already. This is such a nice little house, and so many wild flowers everywhere, and they smell so sweet—IknowBaby will like it."
She relieved Enoch of his burden and laid it on the bed.
The old man lingered a little.
"Thee needn't worry about provisions or anything," he said hesitatingly; "some of the neighbors will come in and help thee get started. Thee'll want to rest now. I guess I'll be going."
"Oh, you mustn't go without seeing Baby!" insisted the young mother, beginning to unswathe the shapeless bundle on the bed.
Enoch moved nearer, and waited until the tiny crumpled bud of a face appeared among the wrappings.
"Isn'the sweet?" pleaded the girl rapturously.
Enoch bent over and gazed into the quaint little sleeping countenance.
"He's a very nice baby," he said, with gentle emphasis.
"Andsogood," the girl-voice rippled on; "he never cried but once on the way out here, and that time I didn't blame him one bit; I wanted to cry myself,—we were so hot and tired and dusty. But he sleeps—oh, the way hedoessleep. There! did you notice him smile? I think he knows my voice. He often smiles that way when I am talking to him."
She caught him out of his loosened sheath and held him against her breast with the look on her face that has baffled the art of so many centuries.
It was thus that Enoch remembered her as he went down the street to the store.
"I would have taken her right home to Rachel," he said to himself, "but women folks sometimes ask a good many unnecessary questions, and the poor thing is tired."
So the little widow and her baby became the wards of the town of Muscatel. After one or two unsuccessful attempts to learn the particulars of her husband's last illness, the good women of the place decided thather bereavement was too recent to be made a subject of conversation.
The baby, on the contrary, being a topic all the more absorbing by reason of its newness, they held long and enthusiastic conferences with the young mother concerning his care, clothing, and diet. With that gentle receptivity which makes some natures the defenseless targets of advice, the inefficient little mother felt herself at times between the upper and the nether millstones of condensed milk and Caudle's food, but her weak, appealing face always brightened into tremulous delight when the rival factions united, as they invariably did, on the subject of the baby's undoubted precocity in the matter of "noticing."
Enoch was called in many times to give counsel which seemed to gain from his masculinity what it might be supposed to lack by reason of his ignorance concerning the ailments and accomplishments of the small stranger who held the heart of the community in his tiny purple fist. It was to Enoch that the young mother brought her small woes, and it was with Enoch that she left them.
The song of the hay-balers and the whir of the threshing-machine had died out of the valley, and the raisin-making had come on. The trays were spread in the vineyards, and the warm white air was filled with the fruity smell of the grapes, browning and sweetening beneath the October sun.
One drowsy afternoon Enoch was in the back room of the store, weighing barley and marking the weight on the sacks. Suddenly there was a quick step, and a voice in the outer room, and the old man turned slowly, with the brush in his hand, and confronted a man in the doorway.
"Jerry!"
"Yes, uncle, here I am; slightly disfigured, but still in the ring. How's the market? Long on barley, I see. I"—he broke off suddenly, and assumed an air of the deepest dejection. "I've had a great deal of trouble since I saw you, uncle. I've lost my wife."
He turned to the window and pretended to look through the cobwebbed glass.
"She went off very sudden, but she was conscious to the last."
Enoch stood still and slowly stirred thepaint in the paint-pot until his companion turned and caught the glance of his keen blue eye.
"Does thee think she will stay lost, Jerry?" he asked quietly.
The young fellow came close to Enoch's side.
"You bet," he said, with low, husky intensity; "the law settled that. She was a cursed fraud anyway," he went on, with hurrying wrath; "she ran away with—I thought she was dead—I'll swear by"—
"Thee needn't swear, Jerry," interrupted Enoch quietly; "if thy word is good for nothing, thy blasphemy will not help it any."
The young man's face relaxed. There was a little silence.
"Has thee been up to thy house?" asked Enoch presently.
"Yes, yes," said Jerry lightly; "I dropped right in on the family circle. The widow seems to be a nice, tidy little person, and the kid—did you ever see anything to beat that kid, uncle?"
Enoch had been appealed to on this subject before.
"He's a very nice baby," he said gravely.
"They seem to be settled rather comfortably, and I guess I'll get a tent and pitch it on some of these vacant lots, and not disturb them. The little woman isn't really well enough to move, and besides, the kid might kick if he had to give up the cradle; perfect fit, isn't it?"
"Enoch," said Rachel Embody to her husband, as they drove their flea-bitten gray mare to the Friends' meeting on First Day, "what does thee think of Jerry Sullivan and the widow Hart marrying as they did? Doesn't thee think it was a little sudden for both of them?"
Enoch slapped the lines on the gray's callous back.
"I don't know, Rachel," he said; "there are some subjects which I do not find profitable for reflection."
Mrs. Wickersham helped her son from his bed to a chair on the porch, and spread a patchwork quilt over his knees when he was seated.
"Don't you want something to put your feet on, Benny?" she asked anxiously, with that hunger for servitude with which women persecute their male sick.
The invalid looked down at his feet helplessly, and then turned his eyes toward the stretch of barley-stubble below the vineyard. A stack of baled hay in the middle of the field cast a dense black shadow in the afternoon sun.
"No, I guess not," he said absently. "Has Lawson sent any word about the hay?"
"He said he'd come and look at it in a day or two."
Mrs. Wickersham stood behind her son, smoothing the loose wrinkles from his coat with her hard hand. He was scarcely morethan a boy, and his illness had given him that pathetic gauntness which comes from the wasting away of youth and untried strength.
"I wanted a little money before the twenty-fourth," he said, feeling one feverish hand with the other awkwardly. "I can't seem to get used to being sick. I thought sure I'd be ready for the hay-baling."
"The doctor says you're doing real well, Benny," asserted the woman bravely. "I guess if it ain't very much you want, we can manage it."
"It's only five dollars."
Mrs. Wickersham went back to the kitchen and resumed her dish-washing. Her daughter came out of the pantry where she had been putting away the cups. She was taller than her mother, and looked down at her with patronizing deference.
"Do you think that new medicine's helping Ben any?" she asked in an undertone.
"Oh, I don't know, Emmy," the poor woman broke out desperately; "sometimes I think his cough's a little looser, but he's getting to have that same look about the eyes that your pa had that last winter"—Mrs. Wickersham left her work abruptly, and went and stood in the doorway with her back toward her daughter.
The girl took up her mother's deserted task, and went on with it soberly.
"Shall I put on some potatoes for yeast?" she asked, after a little heart-breaking silence.
"Yes, I guess you'd better," answered the older woman; "there's only the best part of a loaf left, and Benny hadn't ought to eat fresh bread."
She came back to her work, catching eagerly at the homely suggestion of duty.
"I'll finish them," she said, taking a dish out of her daughter's hand; "you brighten up the fire and get the potatoes."
The girl walked away without looking up. When she came into the room a little later with an armful of wood, Mrs. Wickersham was standing by the stove.
"Emmy," she said in a whisper, taking hold of her daughter's dress and drawing her toward her, "don't tell your brother I had to pay cash to the balers. It took all the ready money I had in the house: I'd rather he didn't know it."
"What's the matter, mother?" asked the girl, looking steadily into the older woman's worried face.
"He wants five dollars next week," whispered Mrs. Wickersham, nodding toward the door; "I hain't got it."
The girl threw the wood into the woodbox and stood gazing intently at it. She had a quaint, oval face, and the smooth folds of her dark hair made a triangle of her high forehead. Two upright lines formed themselves in the triangle as she gazed. She turned away without speaking, and took a pan from the shelf and went into the shed-room for potatoes. When she came back, she walked to her mother's side, and said in a low voice,—
"You needn't worry about the money any more, mother. I'll get it for Ben."
"You, Em!"
"Yes; I'm going over to Bassett's raisin-camp to pick grapes."
"Oh, I don't think I'd dothat, Emmy!"
"Why, what's wrong about it?"
"There's nothing wrong about it, of course; I didn't mean that. Only it seems so—so kind of strange. None of the womenfolks in our family's ever done anything of that kind."
"Then the women folks in our family will have to begin. I can get a dollar a day. The Burnham girls went, and they're as good as we are. I'm going, anyway,"—the girl's red lips shut themselves in a narrow line.
"Oh, they're allgoodenough, Emmy," protested Mrs. Wickersham; "it's nothing against them, only it's going out to work. You know the way men folks feel—I don't know what your brother will say."
"You can tell him I've set my heart on it. They have great fun over there. He wanted me to go camping to the beach with the same crowd of young folks this summer. I'll not stay at night, mother; I'll walk home every evening. It's no use saying anything, I'm going."
"Is Steve Elliott at the camp?" asked Benny, when his mother told him.
"She didn't say anything about him, Benny, but I suppose he is. Why?"
"I guess that explains it," said the invalid, smiling wistfully.
Nearly every available grape-picker in the little valley was at Bassett's vineyard. There was a faint murmur of surprise when Em walked into the camp on Monday morning.
"I thought you weren't coming, Em," said Irene Burnham, curving her smooth, sunburned neck away from the tall young fellow who stood beside her.
"I changed my mind," said Em quietly.
"It's awful hot work," giggled Irene, "and I always burn so; I wish I tanned. But I'm going to hold out the rest of this week, if I burn to a cinder."
"'Rene's after a new parasol," announced her brother teasingly; "she's bound to save her complexion if it takes the skin off."
The young people gave a little shout of delight, and straggled down the aisles of the vineyard. The thick growth had fallen away from the gnarled trunks of the vines, and the grapes hung in yellowing clusters to the warm, sun-dried earth. The trays were scattered in uneven rows on the plowed ground between the vines, their burden turning to sweetened amber in the sunshine. The air was heavy with the rich, fruity ferment of the grapes. Bees were beginning to drone among the trays. The mountains which hemmed in the little valley were a deep, velvety blue in the morning light. Em looked at them with a new throb in her heart. She did not care what was beyond them as she walked between the tangled vine-rows. Stephen Elliott had left Irene, and walked beside her. The valley was wide enough for Em's world,—a girl's world, which is hemmed in by mountains always, and always narrow.
As the day advanced the gay calls of the grape-harvesters grew more and more infrequent. The sky seemed to fade in the glare of the sun to a pale, whitish blue. Buzzards reeled through the air, as if drunken with sunlight. The ashen soil of the vineyard burned Em's feet and dazzled her eyes. She stood up now and then and looked far down the valley where the yellow barley-stubble shimmered off into haze. As she looked, something straightened her lips into a resolute line and sent her back to her work with softened eyes.
"Do you get very tired, Em?" her brother asked, as she sat in the doorway at nightfall.
The girl leaned her head against the casement as if to steady her weary voice.
"Not very," she said slowly and gravely; "it's a little warm at noon, but I don't mind it."
"I thought sure I'd be up by this time," fretted the invalid, the yearning in his heart that pain could not quench turning his sympathy to envy.
"The doctor says you're getting on real well, Ben," said Em steadily.
The young fellow looked down at his wasted hands, gray and ghostly in the twilight.
"Was 'Rene there?" he asked.
"Yes."
"It isn't like having your sister go out to work, Benny," said Mrs. Wickersham soothingly; "just the neighbors, and real nice folks, too. I wouldn't fret about it."
On Wednesday morning, as Em neared the camp, she saw the grape-pickers gathered in a little group before the girls'tent. Steve Elliott separated himself from the crowd, and came to meet her.
"We've struck, Em," he said, smiling down at her from the shadow of his big hat.
"Who's we?" asked Em gravely.
"All of us. They're paying a dollar and a quarter over at Briggs's; we ain't a-goin' to stand it."
Em had stopped in the path. The young fellow stepped behind her, and she went on.
"Why don't you all go over to Briggs's and go to work?" she asked, without turning her head.
"Too far—the foreman'll come to time."
They came up to the noisy group, and Em seated herself on a pile of trays and loosened the strings of her wide hat; she was tired from her walk, and the pallor of her face made her lips seem redder.
Irene Burnham crossed over to the newcomer, shrugging herself with girlish self-consciousness.
"Isn't it just too mean, Em?" she panted; "I know they'll discharge us. That means good-by to my new parasol; I've been dying for one all summer, a red silk one"—
"Let up on the parasol racket, Sis,"called one of the Burnham boys; "business is business."
The hum of the young voices went on, mingled with gay, irresponsible laughter. Em got up and began to tie her hat.
"Where are you going?" asked one of the girls.
"I'm going to work."
"To work! why, we've struck!"
"I haven't," said Em soberly. "I'm willing to work for a dollar a day."
There was a little cry of dismay from the girls; Steve Elliott's tanned face flushed a coppery red.
"You ain't goin' back on us, Em?" he said angrily.
"I ain't going back on my word," answered the girl; "you needn't work if you don't want to; this is a free country."
"It isn't, though,"' said Ike Burnham; "the raisin men have a ring—there's no freedom where there's rings."
"I suppose they go into them because they want to," said Em, setting her lips.
"They go into them because they'd get left if they didn't."
"Well, if I was a raisin man," persistedthe girl quietly, "and wanted to go into a ring, I'd do it; but if anybody undertook to boss me into it, they'd have the same kind of a contract on hand that you've got." She turned her back on the little group and started toward the vineyard.
Irene had drifted toward Steve Elliott's side and was smiling expectantly up into his bronzed face. He broke away from her glance and strode after the retreating figure.
"Em!" The girl turned quickly.
"Oh, Steve!" she cried, with a pleading sob in her voice.
"Em, you're making a fool of yourself!" he broke out cruelly.
The curve in the red lips straightened.
"Let me alone!" she gasped, putting up her hand to her throat. "If I'm to be made a fool of, I'd rather do it myself. I guess I can stand it, if you'll let me alone!"
When Bassett's foreman rode into the vineyard at noon to talk with the strikers, he saw a wide brown hat moving slowly among the vine-rows.
"Who's that?" he asked, pointing with his whip.
"Em Wickersham," said one of the group sullenly.
The foreman turned his horse's head, and galloped down the furrow.
"Miss Wickersham."
Em straightened herself, and pushed back her hat.
"You don't want to give up your job?"
The girl shaded her eyes with her hand. There was an unsteady movement of her chin before she spoke.
"I'd like to work till Friday night," she said.
"Well, I'd like to keep you; but I don't know how it will be. I won't stand any of their nonsense,"—he jerked his head toward the camp; "I'm going to send over to Aliso Cañon for a wagon-load of pickers. I'm pretty certain I can get them, but they'll all be men; you might find it a little unpleasant."
"Who are they?" asked Em.
"Only a lot of ranchers picked up over the neighborhood," said the foreman. "I think I can find enough men and boys who are through harvesting. I'll try anyway."
"Will you be here all the time?" asked the girl.
"All of to-morrow and most of Friday," he answered, wondering a little.
"Well, I guess if you don't care, I'll stay; I guess they won't hurt me,"—the wraith of a smile flitted across her face.
"All right." The foreman urged his horse forward.
"The Wickershams must be hard pressed," he said to himself; "the girl looks pale. Confound those young rascals!"
Across at the camp Em could hear laughter and snatches of song. The soft rustle of the grape-leaves in the tepid breeze seemed to emphasize the stillness about her. Now and then a quail, tilting its queer little crest, scurried across the furrows and whirred out of sight. Pink-footed doves ran along the edge of the vineyard, mourning plaintively. The girl worked on without faltering, looking down the valley now and then through a blur that was not haze, and seeing always something there that dulled the pain of her loneliness.
The day wore on. Em had eaten her lunch alone, in the shadow of the cypresshedge. As the afternoon advanced and the sea-breeze wandered over the mountains in fitful gusts, the campers trooped homeward, still laughing and calling to each other with reckless shouts. Em straightened her aching limbs, and watched them as they went. 'Rene's pink dress fluttered close to the tallest form among them, loitering a little, and standing out in silhouette against the afternoon sky at the end of the straggling procession as it disappeared over the hilltop.
It was Friday evening, and Em laid five silver dollars on the kitchen table beside her mother.
"You can give that to Ben," she said wearily.
Mrs. Wickersham glanced from the money to her daughter's dusty shoes, and set, colorless face.
"Emmy, I'm afraid you've overdone," she said with a start.
"No, I haven't," answered the girl without flinching; "it's been a little hard yesterday and to-day, and I'm tired, that's all. Don't tell Ben."
"Are you too tired to go to the church sociable this evening?" pursued the mother anxiously.
"Yes, I believe I am."
"I saw Steve Elliott and 'Rene Burnham driving that way a few minutes ago. I thought they was over at the camp." Mrs. Wickersham had resumed her work and had her back toward her daughter.
"They weren't there to-day," said Em listlessly.
"Does she go with him much?"
There was a rising resentment in Mrs. Wickersham's voice. Em glanced at her anxiously.
"I don't know," she faltered.
"I don't see how she can act so!" the older woman broke out indignantly.
The girl's face turned a dull white; she opened her lips to breathe.
"I used to think she liked Benny," Mrs. Wickersham went on, speaking in a heated undertone. "I should think she'd be ashamed of herself."
Em's voice came back.
"I don't believe Ben cares, mother," she said soothingly.
"I don't care if he doesn't, she'd ought to," urged Mrs. Wickersham, with maternal logic.
There was a sound of strained, ineffectual coughing in the front room. Mrs. Wickersham left her work and hurried away. When she came back Em was sitting on the doorstep with her forehead in her hands.
"Benny's got a notion he could drive over to the store to-morrow," her mother began excitedly; "he's got something in his head. He thinks if Joe Atkinson would bring their low buggy—I'm sure I don't know what to say;" the poor woman's voice trembled with responsibility.
Em got up with a quick, decisive movement.
"Don't say anything, mother. If Ben wants to go, he's got to go. I'll run over to Atkinson's right away."
Mrs. Wickersham caught her daughter's arm.
"No, no; not to-night. He said in the morning, he must be better, don't you think so, Emmy?" she pleaded.
"Of course," said Em fiercely. Then she turned and fastened a loosened hairpin inher mother's disordered hair. Even a caress wore its little mask of duty with Em. "Of course he's better, mother," she said more gently.