“YOU BETTER HAND OVER THEM WEAPONS!”“YOU BETTER HAND OVER THEM WEAPONS!”(Page220)
In spite of his civility, he was plainly angry, and I was the more resolved not to yield. The storm had been gradually lessening, the rain had subsided to a mere drizzle, and, in the increasing silence, I plainly heard the musical tinkle of old Cleo’s bell. It came from beyond the ridge, so that it was certain that the cows were in the little green valley where I had hoped to find them. I started to climb the ridge, remarkingover my shoulder to the baffled cowboy, “You’ll find your things in the pine, where I told you.”
“Say, now, don’t make me go down there on the high road!” he pleaded; “some one might see me and tell the boss. I won’t touch the consarned dog if you’ll give me the gun; I won’t, honest! The boss, he thinks I’m on the range now, an’ it’s where I had ort to be.”
I was sorry for him, but my fear was greater than my sympathy. Guard had torn the skirt of his coat in such a manner that it trailed behind as he walked, like a long and very disreputable pennant, and I could not be blind to the malevolent looks that he turned on my canine follower in spite of his fair promises.
“I never heard of any one’s being the better for drinking whiskey,” I volunteered, as a bit of information that might be of interest to him. Then I started on again, to be brought to an abrupt halt by hearing a voice on the trail below calling in a tone of piercing anxiety:
“Leslie! Leslie! Leslie!” The voice was Jessie’s.
“Jessie, I am here!” I called back re-assuringly, and ran down in the direction of the voice, leaving the cowboy staring.
In a moment I came face to face with my sister as she panted, breathless, up the trail.
“Oh, Leslie! Leslie!” she gasped. “What a chase I have had after you!”
“Why did you follow me? I have the cows—or they have themselves—and your skirts are all wet.”
For answer, Jessie gazed at me with an expression curiously compounded of horror and dismay.
“The coat! Where is the coat?” she gasped.
I remembered then that in my eagerness to escape from the cave I had left the coat lying as I had used it, rolled up for a pillow.
“It’s in the Hermit’s cave,” I said meekly, ashamed to admit that I had forgotten the thing that she held so sacred that, for its sake, she hadfollowed me in the rain for some toilsome upward miles.
“Go back and get it instantly, instantly!” cried my usually calm sister, wringing her hands in distress. The distress was so unnecessarily acute for the cause that I resented it.
“The coat is all right, Jessie; it is safe; and I do not want to go back there now.”
“Why not?”
I told her.
“You must!” said Jessie, with whitening lips. “You must! Come!” and she rushed up the trail toward the cavern.
“What have you done with Ralph?” I asked, hurrying after her. Jessie turned an anguished glance back at me over her shoulder.
“I have left him locked up in the house with a pair of scissors and a picture book; hurry!”
“I hope they’ll keep him from thinking of the matches,” I said, bitterly. It seemed to me at that moment that Jessie showed more concern for the out-worn garment of the dead than she did for the safety of the living.
Big Jim had gone back into the cavern; he, too, had evidently been searching it, for when, at the sound of our approaching footsteps, he appeared at the entrance, it was with father’s coat in his hands. Jessie went boldly to his side.
“I want that coat, if you please,” she said firmly.
Jim backed off a little, holding the coat out at arm’s length, and examining it critically.
“Whose is it?” he asked.
“It was my father’s; it is ours; please give it to me.”
Big Jim shook his head. “No; your dog done tore my coat half offen my back; your sister made way with my tonic—I’m ’bleeged to take it for my lungs—an’ she’s got my gun an’ fixin’s, an’ won’t give ’em up. I reckon as I’ll jest keep this coat till she forks them things over.”
“Give him his things, Leslie,” Jessie commanded.
“No,” I remonstrated; “no, Jessie, if I do he will shoot Guard; I’m sure of it.”
Jessie turned on the dog: “Go home! go home, sir!” she cried, stamping her foot. Guard slunk off, his tail between his legs, and his bright eyes fixed reproachfully on me. I threw the gun with its trappings at the cowboy’s feet. “There, take them! You can shoot me if you like. I threw away your whiskey.”
“I wouldn’t ’a’ cared a bit if you’d ’a’ drunk it, as I reckoned you did,” Jim returned with a light laugh, as he picked up the gun. “I ain’t agoin’ to hurt you; tole you so in the first place. Got your little handkercher yet, I have. Here’s the coat.” He tossed it into Jessie’s outstretched arms. Clasping it tightly to her breast she started quickly down the trail.
Following her for a few steps before taking my way over the ridge, I observed that her hands were wandering swiftly over the coat, from pocket to pocket; as if seeking something. Suddenly the expression of intense anxiety on her face gave way to one of unspeakable relief. She turned around quickly and caught my hand: “Come on, you poor,abused girl! Let’s run, I am so anxious about Ralph.”
“I’m glad you’ve got some affection left for him!” I retorted scornfully. “It seemed to me from the way you’ve gone on, that you cared less for either of us than for father’s old coat.”
Jessie gave the hand that lay limply in her’s an ecstatic little squeeze. “Our money, Leslie, is all in a little bag that is pinned in the lining of this old coat; it’s here now, all safe.”
I could only gasp, as she had done before me, with a difference of names, “Oh, Jessie!”
“Yes,” Jessie repeated, nodding, “and it’s quite safe, I can feel it. Our cowboy friend did not have time to find it. I only hope that Ralph has not got into mischief.” He had not. I was obliged to leave Jessie and go over the ridge for the cows, but she told me, when I presently followed her into the house, that she had found Ralph still contentedly destroying his picture book.
It was the day but one after our exciting trip to the Water Storage Reservoir when, as we were busy about our usual work, our attention was attracted by a loud voice at the gate, shouting: “Whoa! Whoa, sir! Whoa, now, I tell you!” and I was guilty of a disrespectful laugh.
“There comes Mr. Wilson, Jessie. You can always tell when he is coming, for he begins shouting to his horses to stop as soon as he sights a point where he wishes them to halt. Evidently he is intending to call on us.”
“Good morning, young folks, good morning!” was the hearty salutation, a moment after, as our neighbor himself stood on the threshold.
“No, I can’t stop,” he declared, as usual, when Jessie offered him a chair. “If I set,” he continued, “I shall stay right on, like a big clamthat’s got fixed to his liking, prob’ly, and I’ve got a heap to do to-day.”
Nevertheless, he dropped easily into the seat as he continued:
“Day after to-morrow’s the day, I s’pose?”
“Yes,” Jessie responded, dejectedly, “it is.”
“Hu—m—wal’, wal’, you don’t seem real animated about it, if you’ll excuse my saying so. I swan, I ’lowed you all would be right pleased to think the long waiting’s so nearly over.”
“It isn’t that,” Jessie told him, trying to keep her lips from quivering, “but—Joe has gone.”
“What!”
Jessie repeated the statement.
“Pshaw! Now, that’s too bad!” Mr. Wilson exclaimed, rubbing his hair upright, as he always did when perplexed. “Wal’, I don’t know when I’ve heard anything more surprising,” he continued, when Jessie had detailed the manner of Joe’s disappearance to him; “I’d a banked on that old man to the last breath o’ life. And he’s gone! Appearances are all-fireddeceivin’, that’s so, but don’t you grieve over it, girls; it’ll all come out all right in the end. The old man has stayed right by you and helped you good since your pa was taken, but we must remember that he never was in the habit of tyin’ himself down to one place before this, and, more’n likely’s not, his old, rovin’ habits have suddenly proved too strong fer him, and he’s jest lit out because he couldn’t stan’ the pressure any longer.”
“But Joe is so faithful; he has always been just like one of the family, and he knows so well how badly we need him,” I objected; “it does not seem possible for him to have deserted us.”
“Desert is a purty ha’sh word, Miss Leslie. There’s some mystery about it, take my word for it. Joe’ll be back again, and when he comes I’ll guarantee that he’ll be able to give some good reason for going away.”
Jessie shook her head, tearfully. “I don’t believe he will ever come back,” she said.
“Wal’, s’pose he doesn’t? I reckon you twoain’t goin’ to let go your grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o’ thicken around you! That’s so.”
He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old playfellow, the big cat: “My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?” he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection.
“Yes, yes, I see, little feller,” was the absent reply.
Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. “Her won’t bite; ’oo needn’t be ’fraid,” he said.
Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to the ground—using its tail for a handle, to Ralph’s speechless indignation—then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with anxious wrinkles: “There’s one thing that I never thought of until early this morning—when I did, I hurried through with my chores and came right over here. It’s astunner to find that Joe’s gone, now, in addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is, I’m to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks—yes, three months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children,” he swept us all with a compassionate glance, “the day that your father died. I’d be willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man—which I’m thankful to say that I ain’t—that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it well in mind all along; he ain’t the man to overlook such a thing as that.” Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately: “This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal’,” he ran his fingers again through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright than ever, “there ain’t no Ralph C. Gordon!”
The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital importance,as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and began to brighten as our friend proceeded.
“There are ways,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of some of ’em; but I am desperate afraid that none of ’em will do. The agent might, if he was disposed to be obligin’, transfer your father’s claim to you, Jessie, if you could swear that you are the head of a family, and that’s what you can’t do—not as the law requires it, you can’t. The law don’t recognize any one as the head of a family until of legal age. Even if you were of legal age, the agent might refuse, if he saw fit. If he should, all that you can do will be to file on the claim again and go in for another five years’ tussle with the homesteading problem. ’Pears like there was a pretty fair prospect of your whole family coming of age before another siege of homesteading is ended. Why didn’t I think of all this before?’Cause I’m an old wooden head, I s’pose! No, I’m mighty afeared that the only thing we can do is for you to jest go down and file on the land in your own name, and say nothing about age, if the agent asks no questions. As I said before, you’ll be old enough for anything before it comes time for a second proving up.”
Jessie, who had been listening intently, here suddenly interposed with sparkling eyes, “I’m old enough now, Mr. Wilson, or, at least, I shall be to-morrow. To-morrow is my birthday, and I shall be eighteen!”
Mr. Wilson sprang up so suddenly that he overturned his chair, and sent Ralph’s new pet scurrying from the room in wild alarm.
“Hooray for us!” he cried, seizing Jessie’s hand. “The Gordons forever! Now we’re all right. I’ve felt certain all along that the agent would give you a deed if he could, but he couldn’t if you were all under age. ’Twouldn’t ’a’ been legal. But if one of you is of legal age, the homestead business is settled.”
“But suppose he should refuse to give us adeed on account of the claim’s standing in father’s name?” Jessie asked.
“In that case the thing to do is to file on it again, right there and then, in your own name—strange, ain’t it,” he interjected, suddenly, “that the law ’pears to declare that a girl’s as smart at eighteen as a boy is at twenty-one? Wal’, the law don’t know everything; you must go down there day after to-morrow, prepared to enter the claim again, though I do hope it won’t come to that.”
“That will cost a good deal, too, won’t it?” Jessie inquired, dejectedly.
“Yes; it will. I don’t see but you must go down with money enough not only to pay up the final fees, but to file on the land again in case of the agent’s refusal.”
“Will that take more than the fees would amount to?” I inquired.
“Bless you, yes! I don’t know jest how much, but a right smart. How much have you got now?”
It needed no reckoning to tell the sum totalof our painfully garnered hoard. Mr. Wilson shook his head when Jessie named the sum total. “Not enough; not enough, by half! And, as the worst luck will have it, I’m clean out of money myself jest now. I declare, I don’t see where my money all goes! It don’t ’pear to matter how much I may have one day, it’s all gone the next; beats all, it does!” He looked at us solemnly, sitting with his lips pursed up, his hair standing bolt upright, and his brows knit over the problem of his own financial shortage, yet, to one who knew him, no problem was of easier solution. Up and down the length and breadth of the valley, in miner’s lonely cabin, in cowboy’s rough shack, or struggling rancher’s rude domicile—wherever a helpful friend was needed, Mr. Wilson was known and loved, and, if money was needed, all that he had was freely given. So it was no surprise to learn that he was suffering from temporary financial embarrassment at a time when he would have liked, as usual, to help a friend.
“Say,” he suddenly exclaimed, starting fromhis troubled reverie; “in order to make all safe, you’ve got to have money enough to file on that land when you go down; there’s no ‘if’s’ nor ‘and’s’ about that! Your father would never ’a’ hesitated a minute about borrowing the money for such a purpose, if he had it to do. Now, Jim Jackson—over Archeleuta way—he’s owing me quite a consid’able. I’ll go over there to-day and see what I can do with him. He’ll help us out if he can, but he’s been having sickness in his family, and maybe he can’t; we’ll have to take our chances. I do’ no’s a hold-up is ever justifiable,” he continued, with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes; “but if it is, this would be one of the times. I hope we won’t be drove to that!”
He took his departure shortly after, going back home to exchange his team—to the detriment of his own affairs, I’m afraid—for a saddle-horse, the better to perform the somewhat hazardous journey up “Archeleuta way,” but, before going, he enjoined us, if we had any written proof of Jessie’s coming of age on themorrow, to look it up and have it in readiness to offer in evidence, in case the fact were questioned.
“Your coming of age to-morrow is of so much importance that it seems almost too good to be true,” he said, earnestly.
So, after he had gone, Jessie took the big family Bible down from the book shelf, and, opening the book, turned to the pages where the Gordon family record had been carefully kept for many years. We knew, of course, that there could be no mistake, but it was pleasant to see the proof of our security in indisputable black and white.
“I’m afraid that Mr. Wilson will get nothing out of the Jacksons,” Jessie remarked, as we turned away from a prolonged inspection of the record; “he has had bad luck, and I heard, the other day, that Ted had broken his arm.”
“I’m not going to be afraid about anything now,” I declared valiantly. “I’m sure we’ll come out all right. Mercy on us! What was that?” I broke off, as a chorus of mingled outcriescame to our ears. Outside the doorway there appeared to be, judging by the sound, a lively commotion, in which cat, dog, and boy were each bearing a part. We ran out in alarm and found Ralph just picking himself up off the ground upon which he seemed to have been thrown with some force.
Ralph, unnoticed in the interest of our talk with Mr. Wilson, had been amusing himself in his own way. His way had been to overturn the empty bushel basket and put it over Guard, who was lying by the doorstep. Guard had submitted to imprisonment with placid indifference until it came to Ralph’s thrusting the new cat in with him; this he instantly resented, so, to insure the dog’s staying within, Ralph had climbed upon the basket. Whereupon Guard sprang up, overturning both jail and jailor. The liberated cat fled with all speed, and Guard walked off in disgust.
“What on earth are you trying to do?” I demanded.
Ralph raised his violet eyes soberly tomy face as he replied: “Us was havin’ a round-up; now us all ’tampeded,” and the violet eyes were drenched with raindrops, as the little cattleman threw himself on the ground, sobbing.
“Never mind, darling, your herd will all come home,” I said, consolingly.
“Me don’t want ’em to tum back; me’s so mad!” was the uncompromising reply.
Late that same evening Mr. Wilson called again. He was on his way home, and stopped to tell us—with evident chagrin—that his mission had been a failure.
“You’ll have to take the trail in the morning, Leslie, and see what you can do,” he said, as he went away.
The cows broke out of the corral that night, and it took so long to hunt them up, get them back into the corral, and milk them, that it was quite the middle of the day when I was ready to start out on my unwelcome business. Try as I might to convince myself to the contrary, the effort to borrow money seemed to me, somehow, akin to beggary. In my heart I had a cowardly wish that Joe had been on hand to take my place, but I kept all such reflections to myself. I had changed my print dress for the worn oldriding habit of green serge, and was about starting for the barn to get Frank, when Jessie remarked:
“While you are hunting for a chance to borrow money, I’ll be earning some. If I can finish this work to-day—it’s Annie Ellis’ wrapper—I’ll have two dollars to add to the fund. Why, Leslie, I’d pretty nearly sell the dress off my back to raise money to-day!”
“Well, I know I’d do that, with half the reason for it that we have now. Dresses are a bother, anyway”—my habit was too short and too tight, not having kept pace with my growth—“but, all the same, I hate to see you working so hard. You’ve really grown thin and pale lately,” I added.
“It won’t be for long; I’ll soon be through with it now—” Jessie was beginning, when a cheerful voice from the doorway echoed her words:
“No; it won’t be for long! That’s a comfort, ain’t it?”
We both started. We had been so engrossedthat we had heard no one approaching, and, even if we had, we could scarcely have been less startled, for the man leaning comfortably against the door-jamb was Jacob Horton. It had been many weeks since he had, to our knowledge, set foot on our premises.
“Good morning, Miss Jessie and Leslie,” he began affably. “Nice morning, ain’t it? I’ve been living in this valley going on eight year, and I don’t recollect as ever I see a nicer mornin’ than this is.”
He put one foot upon the door sill—a suggestive attitude—but neither of us invited him to enter. He was not easily daunted, however. The hand that rested against the door-jamb was still bandaged, and, as I made out with a swift glance, a button was still missing from his coat. It was the coat that he had worn on the night that he had ostensibly salted the cattle in the far pasture. From his point of observation Mr. Horton, turning slightly, threw an admiring glance around. The glance seemed to include the outer prospect as well as the inner.
“This is a sightly place for a house, ain’t it?” he remarked. “I do’no—I really do’no but I’d like that knoll t’other side the river just as well, though, and it would be nigher the spring. I’ll speak to my wife about it; if she likes this spot better, why, here our house goes up. I shan’t object. We can move this contraption that your father built, back for a hen house, or a pig-pen; just as she says. I always try to please my wife.”
“When you get ready, perhaps you’ll kindly tell us what you are talking about, Mr. Horton,” Jessie said, rising from the sewing machine and going toward the door, whither I followed her.
“Tell you? Oh, yes, I forgot. Of course you girls can’t be expected to know—young as you be—that you can’t hold this claim. This claim was open for re-entry the day that your father was drowned. I wasn’t ready to take it up just then; I am ready now. Odd, ain’t it? I’ve been hearin’ some talk—my wife told me, in fact—that you girls had laid out to go downto the land office with your witnesses to offer final proof to-morrow; Well, now—he, he! That’s a reg’lar joke, for if you’ll believe it, to-morrow’s the day I’ve set to go down and file on this claim, ’count of it’s being vacant! I don’t s’pose, now, that you girls are reely in earnest about trying to keep the place? It would be a sight of trouble to you, even if the law would allow it, which it won’t.”
“Why not, Mr. Horton?” I asked.
“Why not? Wal’, I don’t know just why; I didn’t make the homestead laws—reasonable laws they be, though; I couldn’t ’a’ made better ones myself—but I can tell you two girls one big, fundamental clause, so to speak, of the Homestead Act, under which you don’t come—yes, two of ’em. First, foremost, and enough to swamp your whole outfit, if there was nothing else, you ain’t neither of you of age. Second, not being of age, you ain’t neither of you the head of a family.”
I looked at Mr. Horton’s bandaged hand, and a thrill of genuine delight went through me, asI hastened to dispute one of his fundamental clauses.
“Jessie is the head of a family, Mr. Horton—Ralph and I are her family.”
“Maybe! Maybe! I s’pose, no doubt, you regard yourselves in that light. No harm’s done, as long as you keep it to yourselves, but you’ll find that the law won’t recognize you in that way. The law’s everlastin’ partic’lar about such things. But, again, there’s the matter of your both being under age! Now, what a misfortune that is to you—s’posing that you’re in earnest about wanting to keep this place, but I reckon you ain’t—if you recollect, you two, I’ve always said that I’d have this place. It may save you some trouble and expense, if I say right here and now, that I mean to have it! I mean to have it! Don’t forget that! But I ain’t a hard man—not at all—and I’m willing to make it as easy as I can for you. Why, I could ’a’ filed on this any time since your pa died, but I didn’t, and why not?”
“If you ask me,” I said, speaking veryquietly, though I was trembling with indignation, “I suppose you didn’t file on it because you thought it would be better to let us get a crop in before you did it; then you could steal the crop along with the place.”
“Leslie!” Jessie exclaimed, aghast.
But Mr. Horton’s thin lips parted in a wolfish smile. “Oh—ho! you’re up on the homestead laws to some extent, I see. Crops do go with the land when the claimant forfeits his right to the land that bears them. Your father, he forfeited his right by getting drownded, and no one has entered the claim since, so I’m about to enter it. As I said before I ain’t a hard man, and I’m willing to make it as easy as I can for you, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pay a fair price for such improvements as your father made. They don’t amount to much—”
“But if you should decide to commute the claim, instead of waiting five years to prove up, it would be worth a good deal to you to be able to swear that such and such things had stood on the place so long, which you could not do if wetook our improvements away; for we have a right to remove whatever we have built, if we do not keep the claim.”
Mr. Horton’s narrow eyes rested on me with anything but a friendly expression. “You’re posted quite a consid’able; ain’t you, Miss Smarty? Pity you didn’t know jest a little mite more. Well; we won’t quarrel over a little thing like that. I’ll pay for the improvements, and you’ll jest leave ’em where they are. This house, now, I’ll take a look at it; it don’t amount to much, that’s so, but such as ’tis, I’ll look at it.”
“You are welcome to do so,” Jessie assured him.
I think it came into her mind, as it certainly did into mine, that he wished to ascertain if the house were not lacking in some one or more of the essential equipments of a homesteader’s claim. If he should discover such a lack his task would be all the easier. I ran over a hasty, furtive inventory on my fingers: “Cat, clock, table, chairs, stove—”
The cat was lying comfortably outstretched on the window ledge, her head resting on the open pages of the Bible, that we had both neglected to replace. The clock ticked loudly from its place on the mantel-piece; there was a fire in the stove, and, absorbed in staring, Mr. Horton stumbled over one of the chairs. The result of his inspection did not please him; he scowled at the cat, who resented his glance by springing from the window and hissing spitefully at his legs as she passed him on her way out. Her sudden spring drew our visitor’s attention to the book on which her head had been resting; the written pages attracted his notice.
“What’s that?” he demanded, going nearer, the better to examine them.
“That is our family Bible,” Jessie replied, laying her hand upon it reverently. “This”—she looked up at him with a kind of still, pale defiance—“this is the Gordon family record! It has been kept in these pages since the days of our great-great-grandfather, and”—she turned the book so that Mr. Horton’s eyes rested on theentry—“it may interest you to know that I am eighteen, of legal age, to-day.”
Mr. Horton’s jaw dropped, and for a speechless instant he looked the picture of blank amazement, then he rallied.
“Records can lie,” he declared, brutally. “You don’t look eighteen, Jessie Gordon, and I don’t believe you are. It’s a likely story, ain’t it now, that you should happen to be of age on the very day, almost, that it’s a matter of life or death, as one might say, that you should be! No, that’s too thin; it won’t wash. You’ve made a little mistake in your entry, that’s all. One of them convenient mistakes that folks are apt to make when it’s to their interest to do so.”
“As there is no man here to kick you out of the house, I suppose you feel at liberty to say whatever comes into your wicked head, and we must bear it!” Jessie said, her voice shaken with anger.
In spite of himself, Mr. Horton winced at that. “I ain’t one to take advantage of your being helpless,” he declared, virtuously. “You’veno call to hint as much. But you know as well as I do that you don’t look a day over sixteen, if you do that, and you couldn’t make nobody—no land agent—believe that you are of age, if you didn’t have that record to swear by.”
“As we do have it, it will probably answer our purpose.”
“Oh, well; maybe ’twill; maybe ’twill!” his glance ranged up and down the window, where lay the book with its irrefutable evidence. Then his eyes fell, and his tones changed to blandness once more. “I must be going,” he announced, edging toward the door; “I was passing along, and an idee popped into my head. You’ve been to some expense in helping to find your pa’s body—though why you should ’a’ been so set on finding it, nobody knows; folks is so cur’ous, that way! If it had been my case, I reckon my folks would ’a’ had sense enough to leave me where I was—”
“I am sure they would—gladly!” I interposed, quickly.
Mr. Horton shot an evil glance in my direction,and went on: “Well, you’ve been to some expense, and the mines have shut down so’s ’t that old crackerjack of a nigger that hangs ’round your place is out of work. I’m going to pre-empt this place—none o’ your slack-twisted homestead rights for me—and I thought it would be neighborly if I was to step in and tell you, Jess, that my wife’s wanting a hired girl. She was speaking of it last night, and the thought came into my head right off, though I didn’t mention it to her, that you was going to need a home, and there was your chance. Being so young and inexperienced—for you don’t look eighteen, no—I reckon you’d be willing to work without any more wages than jest your board and lodging until you had kind o’ got trained into doing things our way.”
“I’m afraid that I should never earn any wages at anything—not if I were to live a thousand years, if I had to be trained to do things your way first!” Jessie told him, with flashing eyes.
“Oh, that’s all right; you’ll get over someof your high notions when you get to be a hired girl. You’ll prob’ly acquire the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, same’s the Bible speaks of, and it’s one that you ain’t got at present. As for you”—he turned on me savagely, and it was evident that he held me in even less esteem than he did my sister—“you can get out, and that brat”—he glared at Ralph, who had drawn near, and was regarding him with a kind of solemn, impersonal interest—“you can get shet of him easy enough—you can send him to the poor-house.”
Mr. Horton was returning to the charge when I eagerly caught at an opportunity that now presented itself, of speeding his departure. He was standing with his back to the open door, and had not observed, as we did, that his horse—contrary to the usual habit of mountain ponies—was not standing patiently where his master had left him.
Weary of waiting, he was walking away along the homeward road as rapidly as the dangling bridle reins would allow.
“Mr. Horton,” I said, “your horse is leaving.” A wicked impulse forced me to add: “I am sure you would hate to lose your horse here—as you did a coat button, one night not so long ago.”
It was a reckless speech to make, as I felt when I looked at him. His face turned of alivid pallor; he looked murderous as he stood in his tracks, glaring at me. He was, I am certain, afraid to trust himself to speak, or to remain near me. He bounded out of the house shouting “Whoa! Whoa!” as he ran. Guard was dozing by the doorstep. Mr. Horton’s action and call were so sudden that he sprang up, wide awake, looking eagerly around, under the impression that his services were in requisition. Though nearly full grown he was still a puppy, with many things to learn. The horse, also startled by Mr. Horton’s outcry, raised his head, turning it from side to side as he looked back in search of the creature that had made such a direful noise. He quickened his pace into a trot, checked painfully whenever he stepped on the trailing bridle.
An older and wiser dog than Guard, seeing the saddle and the trailing bridle, would have known better than to attempt to practice his “heeling” accomplishments on the animal that wore them. But Guard, eager to air his lately-acquired knowledge, stopped for no such considerations.Passing Mr. Horton, who was running after the horse, like a flash, he made a bee-line for that gentleman’s mount. Reaching the animal, he crouched and bit one of his heels sharply. As the horse bounded away, he followed, nipping the flying heels and yelping with excitement. Mr. Horton toiled along in their rear and I ran after him—not actuated by any strong desire to come to his assistance, but in fear of what might happen should he succeed in laying hands on Guard. The very set of his vanishing shoulders told me that he was purple with rage and fatigue, and I had good cause to fear for the safety of the dog, to whom I called and whistled, imploringly. After a chase of about half a mile, Guard, making a wide detour around Mr. Horton, came slinking back to me. He was evidently troubled with misgivings as to the propriety of his conduct, and crouched in the dust at my feet, looking up at me with beautiful beseeching eyes. “You did very, very wrong!” I admonished him, earnestly. “You are never—ne-ver—to heel a horse thathas a saddle or bridle on. Do you understand?”
Guard hung his head dejectedly, his bright eyes seeming to say that he understood, and would profit by the lesson.
Returning to the house I went in again instead of mounting the waiting horse and getting about my delayed errand.
“Did Mr. Horton catch his horse?” Jessie inquired.
“I don’t know; I hope not, I’m sure. I think a five-mile walk will do him good. He’ll have time to cool off a little.”
“He thinks that we have made a false entry here,” Jessie went on, resentfully, approaching the window ledge and turning the leaves of the record. “Why,” she continued, “it does not seem to me that even a hardened criminal would dare to do a thing like that! And I’m not a hardened criminal—yet. I am not sure but that I might become one if I am obliged to see much of Mr. Horton, though!” She closed the book and, stepping up on a chair, laid it on the shelfwhere our few books were kept. When she stepped down again she had another book in her arms. It was a large, square, leather-bound volume, almost identical in appearance with the one that she had just laid away.
“What are you looking in the dictionary for?” I asked, as she laid the book on the broad window ledge that made such a convenient reading-desk.
“I want to know exactly what ‘fundamental’ means,” she replied. “I know pretty well, or I think I do, but I want to know exactly.”
Finding the word, she presently read aloud:
“‘Fundamental—pertaining to the foundation; hence, essential, elementary; a leading or primary principle; an essential.’”
“Well, that’s plain enough,” she said, closing the book; “but I think we have looked out for fundamental clauses pretty faithfully. I wish that Joe was at home; we must get an early start to-morrow. It is foolish to feel so, when we know just how matters stand; but, somehow, Mr. Horton’s threats have made me uneasy.”
“No wonder! The very sight of him is enough to make one shudder. But I don’t see that there is anything that we can do, more than we are doing, Jessie.”
“You might ride over, since you are going out anyway, and tell Mr. Wilson what Mr. Horton has been saying. If you call on Mr. Drummond, who is our main hope for raising the money, you’ll pass Wilson’s, anyway.”
“Oh, yes! I’ll see him, sure; and now I must be going.”
I went out accordingly, observing in an absent way, as I left the room, that, since no fundamental clause required Jessie to replace the dictionary on its shelf, it was still lying on the window-ledge.
I rode immediately over to Mr. Wilson’s, and was fortunate in finding him at home. He promised to “turn the thing over in his mind,” and, if there seemed to him, as a result of this process, anything, any new move, called for on our part, to ride over during the day and let us know.
Then I went on to the two or three places that we had in mind as most promising, if one desired to raise money, and failed distinctly, in every case. It was, as one of the ranchmen feelingly explained, “a dry time; between hay and grass. Too late for the spring round-up and too early for the fall harvest.” Every one was, accordingly, lacking in ready cash.
I returned home, not greatly dejected by my failure, since, thanks to Mr. Wilson, I had so well understood the existing conditions before starting out that I would have been surprised if I had succeeded.
Joe being still absent, I was obliged to care for Frank myself. When, in the dusky twilight, I at length entered the house, it was to find little Ralph already fast asleep and Jessie about starting for the corral with the milk-pail.
“Haven’t you got the milking done yet, Jessie?”
“No; I waited for Ralph to get to sleep and for you to come. Did you get any money?”
“No.”
Jessie sighed. “I don’t know, after all, that I much expected that you would. Well, if you can wait a little for your supper, come out to the corral and let me tell you what Mr. Wilson has been saying.”
“Has he been here again?”
“Yes; he just left a few minutes before you came.”
We went on out to the corral where the cows were waiting to be milked, Guard following after us with as much sedateness and dignity as if he had never contemplated, much less committed, a foolish act in his life.
Jessie seated herself on the milking-stool by old Cleo’s side, while I leaned against the corral bars, watching her.
“You’re tired, aren’t you, Leslie?” she asked, glancing up at me, as under her nimble fingers, the streams of milk began to rattle noisily into the pail.
“Yes; I am, rather. I think I’m some disappointed too, maybe. What did Mr. Wilson say?”
“He said that my best plan—for it must go in my name, now—is to get to town to-morrow before Mr. Horton does, explain to the agent about father’s death—he must have heard of it, Mr. Wilson says, but he is not obliged to take official note of a thing that has not been reported to him, and that he has only heard of incidentally—and ask him to make out the deed to me, as the present head of the family. Mr.Wilson says that I must be there, ready to tell my story, the minute the office opens. He hopes that, in that way, we may frustrate Mr. Horton, who is likely, he says, to be one of the very first on hand to-morrow morning. After I have explained matters to the agent, he will be forced to wait the arrival of my witnesses, of course, before he can do anything. But Mr. Wilson thinks that anything that Mr. Horton may say, after the agent has seen me, and heard my story, will be likely to work in my favor, it will show so plainly what Mr. Horton is up to. Mr. Wilson says that I had better take a horse and start for town to-morrow, just as soon as it is light enough to see.”
“Twenty miles!” I said. “How long will it take you to ride it?” I knew how long it would take me, on Frank’s back, but Jessie is less wonted to the saddle than I.
“It will take me nearly four hours, I should think, shouldn’t you?” She stopped milking while she looked at me, anxiously awaiting my reply.
“Just about that, Jessie.”
“It would kill me to keep up such a gait as you and Frank seem to both take delight in,” she continued. “So I must be poking along for four hours doing the distance that you could cover in two. The Land Office opens at seven o’clock—there’s a rush of business just now, Mr. Wilson says—and I must start not later than half-past two.”
“Dear me, Jessie, I hate to have you start out alone in the night, that way!”
“I don’t like it very well myself,” Jessie admitted. “But Mr. Wilson thought we’d better not say a word to any one about my going—lest it should get to Mr. Horton’s ears some way, and he will drive around later in the morning and pick up the witnesses and bring them down. Oh, and Leslie, above all things, don’t forget the Bible. Be sure to put that in the wagon when Mr. Wilson comes.”
“Certainly I shall! Do you imagine that I would forget the one fundamental clause of our proving up?”
“No, of course you wouldn’t. Mr. Wilson said that he would go down with me—we could drive his fast horse down in the light cart, if only Joe were here to bring down our witnesses. But he isn’t, and I must go alone.”
It was evident that Jessie did not relish the prospect of taking a lonely night ride.
“I will leave the money—what little there is of it—for Mr. Wilson to bring down,” Jessie presently remarked. “Then, if I am held up, we will have saved that much, anyhow.”
“And much good it will do us, with our fundamental clause in the hands of brigands,” I retorted laughingly. For, indeed, there was about as much danger of a hold-up as of an earthquake.
“What a fuss you are making, Guard—what’s the matter?” Jesse said, in a tone of remonstrance, as she resumed the milking. The dog had been looking toward the house, growling and bristling, for some minutes. His response to Jessie’s remonstrance was a tumultuous rush toward the house, around the corner of whichhe disappeared. Presently we saw him bounding away into the oak scrub beyond, apparently in hot pursuit of some retreating object, for his voice, breaking out occasionally in angry clamor, soon died away in the distance.
“I hope there isn’t another wildcat after the chickens,” Jessie remarked, as, the milking finished, we started toward the house.
“I don’t think it’s a wildcat,” I said; “from all the legends we have heard lately, a wildcat would have stood its ground: more likely it was a polecat.”
Entering the house that we had left vacant, save for the sleeping child in the bed-room, we were startled at sight of a dusky, silent figure, sitting motionless before the fire—for, in the mountain country, a blaze is always welcome after night-fall, even in midsummer. At the sound of our approaching footsteps the figure turned toward us a head crowned with white wool, and smiled benignly.
“Joe!” we both cried, in a breath.
“Joe I is!” returned the old man, placidly,stretching his gnarled hands toward the blaze, and grinning delightedly; “I reckon you all begin fur to projec’ ‘Whar’s Joe?’ long ’bout dish yer time o’ day, so I done p’inted my tracks in dish yer way.”
“It must have been you that Guard was barking at,” I said, stirring the fire into a brighter blaze.
“No; hit wa’nt me. I yeard his racketin’ as I come up along. Hit war’ some udder varmint, I reckons. What fur he want ter bark at me?”
“True enough. Well, we’re just awful glad you’ve come back, Joe,” Jessie told him. “Leslie has been out all the afternoon and she hasn’t had her supper. I waited for her before eating mine, so now I’ll fix yours on this little table beside the fire and we can all eat at the same time.”
Joe accepted the proposition thankfully, and, after seeing him comfortably established, we seated ourselves at the large table near the window. I was hungry after my long ride and fell to with a will, but I presently observed that Jessie ate nothing.
“Why don’t you eat your supper, Jessie?”
“I can’t,” she replied, pushing away her plate; “I’m so worried. Leslie, have you thought that if the agent refuses to issue a deed to us we shall have no home? I feel just sure of it, for we haven’t money enough to re-enter the claim, hire a surveyor, and all that.”
“Must there be a new survey made?”
“So Mr. Wilson says; he says that it will be the same, in the eye of the law, as if no entry had ever been made.”
“The eye of the law must be half blind, then!” I exclaimed, indignantly. “As if the survey already made and paid for, was not good enough, and when we know that a new one would only follow the same lines!”
“That’s just what I said to Mr. Wilson. He said that surveyors had to have a chance to earn their living, and this way of doing business was one of the chances,” Jessie replied, dropping her head dejectedly on her hand.
“Well; don’t let’s worry about it, Jessie dear, we must keep on hoping, as father used to say.He used to say, you know, that no one was ever really poor until he had ceased to hope. We will do our best and God will look out for the rest, I guess. I don’t believe He intends to let our home be taken from us. He wouldn’t have given us such good men for witnesses if He had.”
“Yes, they are good. If we were only able to borrow a little more money now I should feel quite safe. If we could just borrow money enough to—”
“Woe unto him that goeth up an’ down de lan’ seeking fur t’ borrow money! Borrowed money, hit stingeth like an adder; hit biteth like a surpunt! Hit weaves a chain what bin’s hit’s victims han’ an’ foot! Hit maketh a weight what breaks his heart, amen!”
In the interest of our conversation we had, for the nonce, forgotten Joe, who was quietly toasting his ragged shoes before the fire, until his voice thus solemnly proclaimed his presence.
“Dat’s w’at ole Mas’r Gordon, yo’ chillen’s gran’fadder, used fur t’ say, an’ hit’s true. Hit’strue! He knowed; Good Heaven, didn’t he know!”
There was the tragedy of some remembered bitter suffering in the old man’s voice, and, recalling father’s stern determination to endure all things, to lose all things, if need be, rather than to become a borrower, I felt that the misery hinted at in old Joe’s words had been something very real and poignant in the days of those Gordons, now beyond all suffering.
“Hit may be,” continued the old man reflectively, “dat I ain’ got all dem verses jess right, but dat was deir senses. W’at s’prises me, Miss Jessie, is dat yo’ alls is talkin’ ob wantin’ fur to borrow money, too. W’at fur yo’ wan’ ter borry money, w’en de’re’s a plenty in de fambly? A plenty ob hit, yes. W’at yo’ reckons I’s been doin’ all dese yer weeks, off an’ on? T’inks I’s a ’possum, an’ doan know w’en hit’s time ter come t’ life? Ain’ I been a knowin’ ’bout dish yer lan’ business an’ a gittin’ ready fur hit, ebber sense long ’fore Mas’r Ralph was took. I didn’t gitdrownded w’en he did—wish’t I had, I does—an’ long ’fore dat, I’se been sabin’ up my wages agin’ a time w’en Mas’r Ralph goin’ need ’em wustest. I reckoned he goin’ need ’em w’en hit comes to de provin’ up on dish yer claim. Hit doan tek’ much ter keep a ole nigger like me, an’ I ain’ been crippled wid de rheumatiz so bad until ’long dis summah, an’ so, chillen, I’se done got five hundred dollahs in de bank at Fa’hplay, fo’ de credit ob Mas’r Ralph Gordon—dat’s yo’s now, Miss Jessie, honey, cause yo’s ob age.”
Joe had remembered that important fact, too, it seemed. We could only stare at him in speechless amazement, while he concluded, abruptly: “So doan let’s heah no more fool talk ’bout borrowin’ money. We’s got a plenty, I tells yo’. I been a-keepin’ hit in de bank at Arnold—whar’ Mas’r Ralph an’ me stopped fur quite a spell ’afore we done come yer—an’ so, a few days ago, I done slipped ober to Arnold an’ drawed de money out, an’ put it in de bank at Fa’hplay, subject to de order ob Miss Jessie Gordon—dat’s yo’, honey,” he added, as if fearfulthat Jessie might not recognize herself under this formal appellation. He was holding his coffee-cup suspended, half-way to his lips, while he looked at us exultantly, and then we both expressed our feelings in a characteristic manner. I ran to him, and threw my arms around his neck.
“Oh, Joe! Joe! you are an angel!” I sobbed, dropping my head on his shoulder.
“Maybe I is,” the old man admitted, stiffly, edging away; “but if dere’s airy angel, w’ite or black, w’at likes ter hab hot coffee spilled ober his laigs, I ain’ nebber met up wid him!”
“I’ll get you another cup, Joe,” I said, laughing, as I brushed away my tears. While I was getting it, Jessie clung to his rough old hand.
“God bless you, Joe! Oh, you have lifted such a weight from my heart! I don’t know how to thank you; but Joe, we’ll pay it all back to you! We will, if it takes the place to do it!”
Joe, freeing his hand from her clasp, rose to his feet—not stiffly, this time, but with a certain grave dignity. Motioning aside the coffee that I was bringing, he picked his ragged old hat upfrom the floor beside his chair, put it on, pulled it down over his eyes, and started for the door.
“’Fore Heaben! I wouldn’t ’a’ beliebed dat one ob Mas’r Ralph Gordon’s chillen gwine fur insult me like dis!” he muttered, huskily; “Talk ob payin’ me! Me, like I was a stranger, an’ didn’ belong to de fambly!”
“Wait!” cried Jessie, springing forward, as the old man laid a trembling hand on the door knob. “Wait, sit down, Joe, dear Joe, don’t desert us when we need you most! As for the money, God bless you for making sure of our home, for, of course, it’s your home, too, always, always! And I’ll never pay a cent of the money back; not if I use it all!”
“Yo’s gwine hab to use hit all, honey,” Joe returned, with a beaming face, as he resumed his seat. “Dere’s de fence buildin’ an’ breakin’ de new groun’, and de seedin’.”
“True enough! Oh, we shall come out all right, now, thanks to you, Joe.”
And Jessie spoke with the happy little laugh that we had not heard for a long, long time.
It was, apart from the pecuniary relief that his coming had brought us, a great satisfaction to have old Joe again with us. Remembering his habit of not speaking until he was, as he sometimes expressed it, “plumb ready,” we forbore to ask any more questions until he had finished his supper, and smoked his pipe afterward. Smoking is a bad habit, I know, but I am afraid that there are few good habits from which people derive more comfort than fell to Joe when he was puffing contentedly away at his old clay pipe. After a long interval of blissful enjoyment he knocked the ashes out of his pipe, pocketed it, and then remarked, rather wistfully, apparently to the fire as much as to either of us: “I reckons he’s fas’ asleep, shore’ nuff!” “He” meant Ralph, of course.
“Yes,” Jessie said, “he’s been asleep ever since a little while before dark.”
“Yo’ reckons hit gwine fur ’sturb him, jess fur me ter tek’ a look at him, honey?”
“Surely not, Joe.” Accordingly I took up a lamp, and stepped with it into the next room—the sitting-room, in which Ralph’s crib was stationed. The crib stood close to the window, which was open. I was surprised that Jessie had left it so, knowing, as she did, that Ralph caught cold with painful facility. Joe cast a disapproving look at the opening as we stood by the crib side, but, fearful of awakening the little sleeper, he said nothing. All children are lovely in their sleep, but as I held the lamp aloft, while we admiringly surveyed this one, I think the same idea occurred to us both—that never was there one more beautiful than our Ralph. Joe, cautiously advancing a horny fore-finger, softly touched the moist, dimpled little hand that lay relaxed outside the coverlet. Then he drew the coverlet a little closer over the baby sleeper’s shoulders, and, noiselessly closing thewindow, turned away with a sigh that belonged, I felt, not to Ralph, but to some one whom he seemed to the old man to resemble.
When we were again in the kitchen, he said decidedly: “I ’clar fo’ hit, Miss Jessie—fo’ hit mus’ ’a’ been yo, w’at done hit; fo’ yo’ said Miss Leslie done been gone—I’se ’sprised fur to see yo’ a-puttin’ dat chile ter bed wid the winder beside him wide open, an’ the nights plumb cole an’ varmints a wanderin’ roun’—”
“Why, Joe, what are you talking about? I never left it open. I’d be afraid that that cat of Ralph’s would jump in and wake him, if nothing else. When it’s open at all I’m careful to open it from the top; but it’s so cool to-night that I didn’t open it.”
“I jess reckons yo’ furgot ter shet it, honey,” Joe insisted.
“I’m quite sure it hasn’t been opened,” returned Jessie, who did not give up a point easily. I could see, though I had no doubt that Joe was right, that the matter really puzzled her.
“Ralph, he de libin’ picter ob Mas’r Ralph,w’en he was a little feller, an’ hit in’ no ways likely dat I gwine ter set still an’ see Mas’r Ralph’s onliest son lose his ’heritance; not ef I can holp it,” Joe remarked reflectively, after Jessie had again proclaimed that she did not leave the window open.
The words reminded me of the danger which still threatened us, in spite of the providential help that Joe’s coming had brought us.
A new idea occurred to me. “Jessie,” I said, “there’s nothing to hinder your going down to town as early as you please to-night, now that Joe has come, and Mr. Wilson will be left free to go with you.”
Jessie sprang to her feet, as if she would go on the instant.
“That is so!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Joe, how glad I am that you came just as you did!”
The matter was then explained to Joe, who volunteered to go over at once to Mr. Wilson’s and arrange to take his place in the morning, thus leaving him free to go with Jessie.
It was past ten o’clock and the moon wasjust coming up over the tree-tops when Joe started on his two-mile tramp to Mr. Wilson’s.
“You’d better take one of the horses,” Jessie had told him.
“W’at fur I want ob a hoss? Rudder hab my own two footses to trabbel on—if dey is kine o’ onsartain some times—dan airy four-legged hoss dat eber libed,” Joe returned, disrespectfully.
Sure that our good neighbor would return with him, Jessie proceeded to make ready for the trip. We were not disappointed. After a wait of about an hour we heard the rattle of approaching wheels, and presently Mr. Wilson, with Joe in the cart beside him, stopped the fast colt before the gate.
“All ready, Miss Jessie?” he sang out in response to our eager greeting.
“Yes,” said Jessie, “I’m quite ready.”
“Climb right in, then, and we’ll get well started before midnight. Whatever Horton does, he can’t beat that, for we’ll have our forces—part of ’em, any way—drawn up inbattle array before the Land Office doors when they open at seven o’clock. We won’t need to hurry to do it, either. We’ll have time to brush up and eat our breakfasts like a couple of Christians after we get there.”
“Had I better take the money with me?” Jessie asked.
“Certainly, all you can rake and scrape.”
Jessie laughed gleefully; it was evident that Joe had not told Mr. Wilson of his recent financial transaction. When Jessie told him, he got up—the colt had been tied at the gate and we were all within doors again, in spite of Mr. Wilson’s first entreaty to Jessie to “get right in”—crossed the room and held out his hand to the old negro.
“Shake, friend!” As Joe, rather reluctantly, I thought, for he was a shy old man, laid his black hand in Mr. Wilson’s clasp, the latter continued: “I reckon I know a man when I see one, be he white or black, and I tell you I’m proud to have the chance of shaking hands with you!”
Joe, furtively rubbing the hand that he had released—for, in his earnestness, Mr. Wilson had evidently given it a telling pressure—hung his head, and responded, sheepishly: “I reckons I’se be a whole Noah’s A’k full of animals ef dish yer sort ob t’ing gwine keep on. Miss Leslie, she done call me a angel, and now yo’ done says I’se a man. Kine o’ ha’d on a ole feller like me, hit is!”
Mr. Wilson laughed good-humoredly.
“You’re all right, Joe; we won’t talk about it. And now, how is Miss Jessie to get the money?”
“I’se gwine draw a check on de bank in Fa’hplay to cobber de whole ’posit,” returned Joe, with dignity; “I done axed the cashier ’bout hit, an’ he tole me w’at ter do. He gin me some papers w’at he called blanket checks, an’ tole me how to fill ’em out. I’se done been keepin’ ob ’em safe.” In proof of which statement Joe drew an old-fashioned leather wallet from an inner pocket of his ragged coat, undid the strap with which it was bound, and, openingit, carefully extracted therefrom two or three bits of paper, that a glance sufficed to show were blank checks on the First National Bank of Fairplay. While he was getting the checks out another paper, loosely folded and yellow with age, slipped from the wallet, falling to the hearth. As it fell there slid from its loose folds a soft curl of long, bright hair, of the exact hue of little Ralph’s. Stooping, Jessie picked up the shining tendril, pausing to twine it gently around her finger before tendering it to Joe.
“Ralph’s hair is a little darker, I believe, than it was when you cut this, Joe,” she remarked, going to the light for a nearer view.
“Dat ar’ cu’l didn’ grow on dis Ralph’s head, honey; I cut dat offen de head ob dat odder Ralph w’at’s a lyin’ in de grabeya’d, w’en he was littler dan dis one; an’ I’se ’done carried dat cu’l close to my heart fo’ upwa’ds ob fo’ty yeah,” responded Joe simply, as he took the bit of hair from Jessie’s finger, and carefully replaced it. “W’en I dies,” he continued, “I ain’ carin’ w’at sort ob a berryin’ I gets, nerw’at sort ob clo’se my ole body is wrapped up in, but I’d like fur to be suah dat dish yer bit o’ hair goes inter de groun’ wid me.”
He looked up at us, his beloved young master’s children, solemnly and questioningly, as though exacting a promise, which was given, though no words were spoken on either side. Eyes have a language of their own.
“Now ef yo’ll done fotch me de ink bottle, Miss Leslie, honey, I’se boun’ ter fill out dish yer blanket check, same like de cashier done tole me,” Joe went on with a business-like change of tone.
The ink bottle, with pen and holder, was produced and placed on the table which Joe immediately cleared for action by removing every article upon it until he had a clear sweep of some three or four feet, then he sat down and proceeded, slowly, slowly, to fill out the check in Jessie’s favor. It was a task that required time and infinite painstaking. We had not known that Joe could write, and I am afraid that, even when he announced that the work was done andthe check filled out, we were by no means sure of it, for wonderful indeed were the hieroglyphics through whose agency Joe proclaimed his purpose. There was one thing certain, however, no sane cashier, having once seen that unique signature, could for a moment doubt its authenticity.
Mr. Wilson glanced over the document, as Joe at length put it in Jessie’s hand. “That’s all right,” he said, in his hearty, re-assuring way. “You’ve got it all as straight as a string, Joe”—which he had not, so far as mechanical execution went—“we’ll have no trouble now. Put that away safely, Jessie, and let’s be going.”
“Shall we take the Bible now?” Jessie asked, after she had complied with his directions.
“Oh, no; time enough for that when Joe comes down. Put on a warm bonnet and shawl, now,” he continued, “for the nights are chilly.”
In the days of his youth women and girls wore bonnets and shawls, and I never knew him to refer to their cloaks or headgear in any otherterms. Jessie assured him that she was well protected, and Joe and I followed her and her sturdy escort out to the gate.
“Had Leslie better come down with the others to-morrow?” Jessie inquired after they were seated in the cart, and while Joe was tucking the lap robe around her feet.
“Oh, no! By no means. It isn’t necessary, and her being here will enable us to swear that the house hasn’t been vacant, day or night, since the claim was first filed on, and ain’t vacant even at the present minute. We can’t be too careful, you know. Good night to you both!”
He spoke to the colt; Jessie echoed his good night, and they were gone.