Mrs. Skaggs\'s Husbands and Other Stories

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MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS


By Bret Harte




CONTENTS


MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS

HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON'S BAR

THE PRINCESS BOB AND HER FRIENDS

THE ILIAD OF SANDY BAR

MR. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL

THE ROMANCE OR MADRONO HOLLOW

THE POET OF SIERRA FLAT

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT THAT CAME TO RUPERT




MRS. SKAGGS'S HUSBANDS.


PART I--WEST.


The sun was rising in the foot-hills. But for an hour the black mass
of Sierra eastward of Angel's had been outlined with fire, and the
conventional morning had come two hours before with the down coach from
Placerville. The dry, cold, dewless California night still lingered
in the long canyons and folded skirts of Table Mountain. Even on the
mountain road the air was still sharp, and that urgent necessity for
something to keep out the chill, which sent the barkeeper sleepily among
his bottles and wineglasses at the station, obtained all along the road.

Perhaps it might be said that the first stir of life was in the
bar-rooms. A few birds twittered in the sycamores at the roadside, but
long before that glasses had clicked and bottles gurgled in the saloon
of the Mansion House. This was still lit by a dissipated-looking
hanging-lamp, which was evidently the worse for having been up all
night, and bore a singular resemblance to a faded reveller of Angel's,
who even then sputtered and flickered in HIS socket in an arm-chair
below it,--a resemblance so plain that when the first level sunbeam
pierced the window-pane, the barkeeper, moved by a sentiment of
consistency and compassion, put them both out together.

Then the sun came up haughtily. When it had passed the eastern ridge it
began, after its habit, to lord it over Angel's, sending the thermometer
up twenty degrees in as many minutes, driving the mules to the sparse
shade of corrals and fences, making the red dust incandescent, and
renewing its old imperious aggression on the spiked bosses of the convex
shield of pines that defended Table Mountain. Thither by nine o'clock
all coolness had retreated, and the "outsides" of the up stage plunged
their hot faces in its aromatic shadows as in water.

It was the custom of the driver of the Wingdam coach to whip up his
horses and enter Angel's at that remarkable pace which the woodcuts in
the hotel bar-room represented to credulous humanity as the usual rate
of speed of that conveyance. At such times the habitual expression of
disdainful reticence and lazy official severity which he wore on the box
became intensified as the loungers gathered about the vehicle, and only
the boldest ventured to address him. It was the Hon. Judge Beeswinger,
Member of Assembly, who to-day presumed, perhaps rashly, on the strength
of his official position.

"Any political news from below, Bill?" he asked, as the latter slowly
descended from his lofty perch, without, however, any perceptible coming
down of mien or manner.

"Not much," said Bill, with deliberate gravity. "The President o' the
United States hezn't bin hisself sens you refoosed that seat in the
Cabinet. The ginral feelin' in perlitical circles is one o' regret."

Irony, even of this outrageous quality, was too common in Angel's to
excite either a smile or a frown. Bill slowly entered the bar-room
during a dry, dead silence, in which only a faint spirit of emulation
survived.

"Ye didn't bring up that agint o' Rothschild's this trip?" asked the
barkeeper, slowly, by way of vague contribution to the prevailing tone
of conversation.

"No," responded Bill, with thoughtful exactitude. "He said he couldn't
look inter that claim o' Johnson's without first consultin' the Bank o'
England."

The Mr. Johnson here alluded to being present as the faded reveller
the barkeeper had lately put out, and as the alleged claim notoriously
possessed no attractions whatever to capitalists, expectation naturally
looked to him for some response to this evident challenge. He did so
by simply stating that he would "take sugar" in his, and by walking
unsteadily toward the bar, as if accepting a festive invitation. To the
credit of Bill be it recorded that he did not attempt to correct the
mistake, but gravely touched glasses with him, and after saying "Here's
another nail in your coffin,"--a cheerful sentiment, to which "And the
hair all off your head," was playfully added by the others,--he threw
off his liquor with a single dexterous movement of head and elbow, and
stood refreshed.

"Hello, old major!" said Bill, suddenly setting down his glass. "Are YOU
there?"

It was a boy, who, becoming bashfully conscious that this epithet was
addressed to him, retreated sideways to the doorway, where he stood
beating his hat against the door-post with an assumption of indifference
that his downcast but mirthful dark eyes and reddening cheek scarcely
bore out. Perhaps it was owing to his size, perhaps it was to a certain
cherubic outline of face and figure, perhaps to a peculiar trustfulness
of expression, that he did not look half his age, which was really
fourteen.

Everybody in Angel's knew the boy. Either under the venerable title
bestowed by Bill, or as "Tom Islington," after his adopted father, his
was a familiar presence in the settlement, and the theme of much local
criticism and comment. His waywardness, indolence, and unaccountable
amiability--a quality at once suspicious and gratuitous in a pioneer
community like Angel's--had often been the subject of fierce discussion.
A large and reputable majority believed him destined for the gallows; a
minority not quite so reputable enjoyed his presence without troubling
themselves much about his future; to one or two the evil predictions of
the majority possessed neither novelty nor terror.

"Anything for me, Bill?" asked the boy, half mechanically, with the air
of repeating some jocular formulary perfectly understood by Bill.

"Anythin' for you!" echoed Bill, with an overacted severity equally well
understood by Tommy,--"anythin' for you? No! And it's my opinion there
won't be anythin' for you ez long ez you hang around bar-rooms and spend
your valooable time with loafers and bummers. Git!"

The reproof was accompanied by a suitable exaggeration of gesture
(Bill had seized a decanter) before which the boy retreated still
good-humoredly. Bill followed him to the door. "Dern my skin, if he
hezn't gone off with that bummer Johnson," he added, as he looked down
the road.

"What's he expectin', Bill?" asked the barkeeper.

"A letter from his aunt. Reckon he'll hev to take it out in expectin'.
Likely they're glad to get shut o' him."

"He's leadin' a shiftless, idle life here," interposed the Member of
Assembly.

"Well," said Bill, who never allowed any one but himself to abuse
his protege, "seein' he ain't expectin' no offis from the hands of
an enlightened constitooency, it IS rayther a shiftless life." After
delivering this Parthian arrow with a gratuitous twanging of the bow to
indicate its offensive personality, Bill winked at the barkeeper, slowly
resumed a pair of immense, bulgy buckskin gloves, which gave his fingers
the appearance of being painfully sore and bandaged, strode to the door
without looking at anybody, called out, "All aboard," with a perfunctory
air of supreme indifference whether the invitation was heeded, remounted
his box, and drove stolidly away.

Perhaps it was well that he did so, for the conversation at once assumed
a disrespectful attitude toward Tom and his relatives. It was more than
intimated that Tom's alleged aunt was none other than Tom's real mother,
while it was also asserted that Tom's alleged uncle did not himself
participate in this intimate relationship to the boy to an extent which
the fastidious taste of Angel's deemed moral and necessary. Popular
opinion also believed that Islington, the adopted father, who received
a certain stipend ostensibly for the boy's support, retained it as
a reward for his reticence regarding these facts. "He ain't ruinin'
hisself by wastin' it on Tom," said the barkeeper, who possibly
possessed positive knowledge of much of Islington's disbursements. But
at this point exhausted nature languished among some of the debaters,
and he turned from the frivolity of conversation to his severer
professional duties.

It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didactic propriety
was not further excited by the subsequent conduct of his protege. For
by this time Tom, half supporting the unstable Johnson, who developed
a tendency to occasionally dash across the glaring road, but checked
himself mid way each time, reached the corral which adjoined the Mansion
House. At its farther extremity was a pump and horse-trough. Here,
without a word being spoken, but evidently in obedience to some habitual
custom, Tom led his companion. With the boy's assistance, Johnson
removed his coat and neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and
gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout. With equal gravity and
deliberation, Tom took his place at the handle. For a few moments
only the splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump broke the
solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there was a pause in which Johnson put
his hands to his dripping head, felt of it critically as if it belonged
to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his companion. "That ought
to fetch IT," said Tom, in answer to the look. "Ef it don't," replied
Johnson, doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of all further
responsibility in the matter, "it's got to, thet's all!"

If "it" referred to some change in the physiognomy of Johnson, "it" had
probably been "fetched" by the process just indicated. The head that
went under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy, uncertain-colored
hair; the face was flushed, puffy, and expressionless, the eyes injected
and full. The head that came out from under the pump was of smaller size
and different shape, the hair straight, dark, and sleek, the face
pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard,
nervous ascetic that rose from the horse-trough there was very little
trace of the Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before. Familiar
as Tom must have been with the spectacle, he could not help looking
inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting to see some traces of the
previous Johnson in its shallow depths.

A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye--a mere dusty, ravelled
fringe of the green mantle that swept the high shoulders of Table
Mountain--lapped the edge of the corral. The silent pair were quick to
avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun.
They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking quite
rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and turned to his
companion with an interrogative "Eh?"

"I didn't speak," said Tommy, quietly.

"Who said you spoke?" said Johnson, with a quick look of cunning. "In
course you didn't speak, and I didn't speak, neither. Nobody spoke. Wot
makes you think you spoke?" he continued, peering curiously into Tommy's
eyes.

The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished as the boy
stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took his arm without a
word.

"In course you didn't speak, Tommy," said Johnson, deprecatingly. "You
ain't a boy to go for to play an ole soaker like me. That's wot I like
you for. Thet's wot I seed in you from the first. I sez, 'Thet 'ere boy
ain't goin' to play you, Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him,
when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet's wot I said. Eh?"

This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the interrogation, and
Johnson went on: "Ef I was to ask you another question, you wouldn't go
to play me neither,--would you, Tommy?"

"No," said the boy.

"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without heeding the reply, but
with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips,--"ef
I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit thet jest
passed,--eh?--you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You
wouldn't play the ole man on thet?"

"No," said Tommy, quietly, "it WAS a jackass rabbit."

"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, "ef it wore, say, fur
instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me, and say
it did, onless,"--he added, with intensified cunning,--"onless it DID?"

"No," said Tommy, "of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT DID."

"It did?"

"It did!" repeated Tommy, stoutly; "a green hat with yellow
ribbons--and--and--a red rosette."

"I didn't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow and
conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief; "but
that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?"

Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were great beads of
perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank
hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy,
the other, which was free, had a vague, purposeless, jerky activity, as
if attached to some deranged mechanism. Without any apparent concern in
these phenomena, Tommy halted, and, seating himself on a log, motioned
his companion to a place beside him. Johnson obeyed without a word.
Slight as was the act, perhaps no other incident of their singular
companionship indicated as completely the dominance of this careless,
half-effeminate, but self-possessed boy over this doggedly self-willed,
abnormally excited man.

"It ain't the square thing," said Johnson, after a pause, with a laugh
that was neither mirthful nor musical, and frightened away a lizard that
had been regarding the pair with breathless suspense,--"it ain't the
square thing for jackass rabbits to wear hats, Tommy,--is it, eh?"

"Well," said Tommy, with unmoved composure, "sometimes they do and
sometimes they don't. Animals are mighty queer." And here Tommy went
off in an animated, but, I regret to say, utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy account of the habits of California fauna, until he was
interrupted by Johnson.

"And snakes, eh, Tommy?" said the man, with an abstracted air, gazing
intently on the ground before him.

"And snakes," said Tommy; "but they don't bite, at least not that kind
you see. There!--don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they're gone now.
And it's about time you took your dose."

Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, but Tommy had
as quickly caught his arm with one hand while he drew a bottle from his
pocket with the other. Johnson paused, and eyed the bottle. "Ef you say
so, my boy," he faltered, as his fingers closed nervously around it; "say
'when,' then." He raised the bottle to his lips and took a long draught,
the boy regarding him critically. "When," said Tommy, suddenly. Johnson
started, flushed, and returned the bottle quickly. But the color that
had risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and
as they moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's shoulder was
steadier.

Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,--a wandering trail
through a tangled solitude that might have seemed virgin and unbroken
but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had
been apparently stranded by the "first low wash" of pioneer waves.
On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts of gray hair
caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange juxtaposition at its foot
lay an empty bottle of incomparable bitters,--the chef-d'oeuvre of a
hygienic civilization, and blazoned with the arms of an all-healing
republic. The head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the
high-colored effigy of a popular danseuse. And a little beyond this the
soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of roughly hewn
timber, a straggling line of sluicing, a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude
cabin, and the claim of Johnson.

Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and cold, the cabin
possessed but little advantage over the simple savagery of surrounding
nature. It had all the practical directness of the habitation of some
animal, without its comfort or picturesque quality; the very birds that
haunted it for food must have felt their own superiority as architects.
It was inconceivably dirty, even with its scant capacity for accretion;
it was singularly stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.
Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in
a blind, aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its
outlines or of even tanning it into color.

The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety was represented
by half a dozen rude openings in the mountain-side, with the heaped-up
debris of rock and gravel before the mouth of each. They gave very
little evidence of engineering skill or constructive purpose, or indeed
showed anything but the vague, successively abandoned essays of their
projector. To-day they served another purpose, for as the sun had heated
the little cabin almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long
dry shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine beams,
Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with a sense of
satisfaction threw himself panting upon its rocky floor. Here and there
the grateful dampness was condensed in quiet pools of water, or in
a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay the
staring sunlight,--colorless, clarified, intense.

For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in blissful
contemplation of the heat they had escaped. "Wot do you say," said
Johnson, slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
addressing himself to the landscape beyond,--"wot do you say to two
straight games fur one thousand dollars?"

"Make it five thousand," replied Tommy, reflectively, also to the
landscape, "and I'm in."

"Wot do I owe you now?" said Johnson, after a lengthened silence.

"One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars,"
replied Tommy, with business-like gravity.

"Well," said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate with the
magnitude of the transaction, "ef you win, call it a hundred and eighty
thousand, round. War's the keerds?"

They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock above his head. They
were greasy and worn with service. Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand
was still uncertain,--hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly
about Tommy, and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet,
notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipulation, Mr.
Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom of the pack with such
shameless inefficiency and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even Tommy was
obliged to cough and look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly
for this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, by way of
correction, to add a valuable card to his own hand, over and above the
number he legitimately held.

Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and dragged listlessly. Johnson
won. He recorded the fact and the amount with a stub of pencil and
shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over a pocket diary.
Then there was a long pause, when Johnson slowly drew something from his
pocket, and held it up before his companion. It was apparently a dull
red stone.

"Ef," said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of simple cunning,--"ef
you happened to pick up sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might you say
it was?"

"Don't know," said Tommy.

"Mightn't you say," continued Johnson, cautiously, "that it was gold, or
silver?"

"Neither," said Tommy, promptly.

"Mightn't you say it was quicksilver? Mightn't you say that ef thar was
a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go and turn out ten ton of it a day,
and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he had a soft thing, a
very soft thing,--allowin', Tommy, that you used sich language, which
you don't?"

"But," said the boy, coming to the point with great directness, "DO you
know where to get it? have you struck it, Uncle Ben?"

Johnson looked carefully around. "I hev, Tommy. Listen. I know whar
thar's cartloads of it. But thar's only one other specimen--the mate to
this yer--thet's above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco. Thar's an agint
comin' up in a day or two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh?"

His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's face now, but the
boy showed neither surprise nor interest. Least of all did he betray
any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous corroboration of this
part of the story.

"Nobody knows it," continued Johnson, in a nervous whisper,--"nobody
knows it but you and the agint in 'Frisco. The boys workin' round yar
passes by and sees the old man grubbin' away, and no signs o' color, not
even rotten quartz; the boys loafin' round the Mansion House sees the
old man lyin' round free in bar-rooms, and they laughs and sez, 'Played
out,' and spects nothin'. Maybe ye think they spects suthin now, eh?"
queried Johnson, suddenly, with a sharp look of suspicion.

Tommy looked up, shook his head, threw a stone at a passing rabbit, but
did not reply.

"When I fust set eyes on you, Tommy," continued Johnson, apparently
reassured, "the fust day you kem and pumped for me, an entire stranger,
and hevin no call to do it, I sez, 'Johnson, Johnson,' sez I,' yer's a
boy you kin trust. Yer's a boy that won't play you; yer's a chap that's
white and square,'--white and square, Tommy: them's the very words I
used."

He paused for a moment, and then went on in a confidential whisper,
"'You want capital, Johnson,' sez I, 'to develop your resources, and
you want a pardner. Capital you can send for, but your pardner,
Johnson,--your pardner is right yer. And his name, it is Tommy
Islington.' Them's the very words I used."

He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his knees. "It's six months
ago sens I made you my pardner. Thar ain't a lick I've struck sens
then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I've washed, thar ain't
a shovelful o' rock I've turned over, but I tho't o' you. 'Share, and
share alike,' sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal for my
pardner, Tommy Islington, he hevin no call to know ef the same was man
or boy."

He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand
caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was
a singular element of awed restraint and even fear,--a suggestion of
something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception
of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have been
at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which Tommy raised to his,
there was thorough intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor, even
feminine softness, but nothing more. His nervousness somewhat heightened
by his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at calmness which his
twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made pathetically grotesque.
"Thar's a bill o' sale in my bunk, made out accordin' to law, of an ekal
ondivided half of the claim, and the consideration is two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars,--gambling debts,--gambling debts from me to you,
Tommy,--you understand?"--nothing could exceed the intense cunning of
his eye at this moment,--"and then thar's a will."

"A will?" said Tommy, in amused surprise.

Johnson looked frightened.

"Eh?" he said, hurriedly, "wot will? Who said anythin' 'bout a will,
Tommy?"

"Nobody," replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.

Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung the damp ends of
his hair with his fingers, and went on: "Times when I'm took bad ez I
was to-day, the boys about yer sez--you sez, maybe, Tommy--it's whiskey.
It ain't, Tommy. It's pizen,--quicksilver pizen. That's what's the
matter with me. I'm salviated! Salviated with merkery.

"I've heerd o' it before," continued Johnson, appealing to the boy, "and
ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon you hev too. Them men as works
in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated. It's bound to fetch 'em some
time. Salviated by merkery."

"What are you goin' to do for it?" asked Tommy.

"When the agint comes up, and I begins to realize on this yer mine,"
said Johnson, contemplatively, "I goes to New York. I sez to the
barkeep' o' the hotel, 'Show me the biggest doctor here.' He shows me.
I sez to him, 'Salviated by merkery,--a year's standin',--how much?' He
sez, 'Five thousand dollars, and take two o' these pills at bedtime, and
an ekil number o' powders at meals, and come back in a week.' And I goes
back in a week, cured, and signs a certifikit to that effect."

Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he went on.

"So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 'Show me the
biggest, fashionblest house thet's for sale yer.' And he sez, 'The
biggest, nat'rally b'longs to John Jacob Astor.' And I sez, 'Show him,'
and he shows him. And I sez, 'Wot might you ask for this yer house?' And
he looks at me scornful, and sez, 'Go 'way, old man; you must be sick.'
And I fetches him one over the left eye, and he apologizes, and I gives
him his own price for the house. I stocks that house with mohogany
furniture and pervisions, and thar we lives, you and me, Tommy, you and
me!"