Under the Redwoods

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UNDER THE REDWOODS


By Bret Harte




CONTENTS


JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA

THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER

A WIDOW OF THE SANTA ANA VALLEY

THE MERMAID OF LIGHTHOUSE POINT

UNDER THE EAVES

HOW REUBEN ALLEN "SAW LIFE" IN SAN FRANCISCO

THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD

A VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN

A ROMANCE OF THE LINE

BOHEMIAN DAYS IN SAN FRANCISCO





UNDER THE REDWOODS




JIMMY'S BIG BROTHER FROM CALIFORNIA


As night crept up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer's
Ledge was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but presently
reappeared in little nebulous star-like points along the mountain side,
as the straggling cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by
the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying
brilliancy that evening, two notably so--one that eventually resolved
itself into a many-candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity;
the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one.
They might have represented the extreme mutations of fortune in the
settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a
lucky miner; and the sick-bed of Dick Lasham, an unlucky one.

The latter was, however, not quite alone. He was ministered to by Daddy
Folsom, a weak but emotional and aggressively hopeful neighbor, who was
sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there
was something perfunctory in his attitude: his eyes were continually
straying to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities
could be seen between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the
songs and laughter that came faintly from the distance than on the
feverish breathing and unintelligible moans of the sufferer.

Nevertheless he looked troubled equally by the condition of his charge
and by his own enforced absence from the revels. A more impatient moan
from the sick man, however, brought a change to his abstracted face, and
he turned to him with an exaggerated expression of sympathy.

"In course! Lordy! I know jest what those pains are: kinder ez ef you
was havin' a tooth pulled that had roots branchin' all over ye! My! I've
jest had 'em so bad I couldn't keep from yellin'! That's hot rheumatics!
Yes, sir, I oughter know! And" (confidentially) "the sing'ler thing
about 'em is that they get worse jest as they're going off--sorter
wringin' yer hand and punchin' ye in the back to say 'Good-by.' There!"
he continued, as the man sank exhaustedly back on his rude pillow of
flour-sacks. "There! didn't I tell ye? Ye'll be all right in a minit,
and ez chipper ez a jay bird in the mornin'. Oh, don't tell me about
rheumatics--I've bin thar! On'y mine was the cold kind--that hangs on
longest--yours is the hot, that burns itself up in no time!"

If the flushed face and bright eyes of Lasham were not enough to
corroborate this symptom of high fever, the quick, wandering laugh he
gave would have indicated the point of delirium. But the too optimistic
Daddy Folsom referred this act to improvement, and went on cheerfully:
"Yes, sir, you're better now, and"--here he assumed an air of cautious
deliberation, extravagant, as all his assumptions were--"I ain't sayin'
that--ef--you--was--to--rise--up" (very slowly) "and heave a blanket or
two over your shoulders--jest by way o' caution, you know--and leanin'
on me, kinder meander over to Bob Falloner's cabin and the boys, it
wouldn't do you a heap o' good. Changes o' this kind is often prescribed
by the faculty." Another moan from the sufferer, however, here
apparently corrected Daddy's too favorable prognosis. "Oh, all right!
Well, perhaps ye know best; and I'll jest run over to Bob's and say how
as ye ain't comin', and will be back in a jiffy!"

"The letter," said the sick man hurriedly, "the letter, the letter!"

Daddy leaned suddenly over the bed. It was impossible for even his
hopefulness to avoid the fact that Lasham was delirious. It was a strong
factor in the case--one that would certainly justify his going over
to Falloner's with the news. For the present moment, however, this
aberration was to be accepted cheerfully and humored after Daddy's own
fashion. "Of course--the letter, the letter," he said convincingly;
"that's what the boys hev bin singin' jest now--

'Good-by, Charley; when you are away,
Write me a letter, love; send me a letter, love!'

"That's what you heard, and a mighty purty song it is too, and kinder
clings to you. It's wonderful how these things gets in your head."

"The letter--write--send money--money--money, and the photograph--the
photograph--photograph--money," continued the sick man, in the rapid
reiteration of delirium.

"In course you will--to-morrow--when the mail goes," returned Daddy
soothingly; "plenty of them. Jest now you try to get a snooze, will ye?
Hol' on!--take some o' this."

There was an anodyne mixture on the rude shelf, which the doctor had
left on his morning visit. Daddy had a comfortable belief that what
would relieve pain would also check delirium, and he accordingly
measured out a dose with a liberal margin to allow of waste by the
patient in swallowing in his semi-conscious state. As he lay more quiet,
muttering still, but now unintelligibly, Daddy, waiting for a more
complete unconsciousness and the opportunity to slip away to Falloner's,
cast his eyes around the cabin. He noticed now for the first time since
his entrance that a crumpled envelope bearing a Western post-mark was
lying at the foot of the bed. Daddy knew that the tri-weekly post had
arrived an hour before he came, and that Lasham had evidently received a
letter. Sure enough the letter itself was lying against the wall beside
him. It was open. Daddy felt justified in reading it.

It was curt and businesslike, stating that unless Lasham at once sent
a remittance for the support of his brother and sister--two children in
charge of the writer--they must find a home elsewhere. That the arrears
were long standing, and the repeated promises of Lasham to send money
had been unfulfilled. That the writer could stand it no longer. This
would be his last communication unless the money were sent forthwith.

It was by no means a novel or, under the circumstances, a shocking
disclosure to Daddy. He had seen similar missives from daughters, and
even wives, consequent on the varying fortunes of his neighbors; no one
knew better than he the uncertainties of a miner's prospects, and
yet the inevitable hopefulness that buoyed him up. He tossed it aside
impatiently, when his eye caught a strip of paper he had overlooked
lying upon the blanket near the envelope. It contained a few lines in
an unformed boyish hand addressed to "my brother," and evidently slipped
into the letter after it was written. By the uncertain candlelight Daddy
read as follows:--


Dear Brother, Rite to me and Cissy rite off. Why aint you done it? It's
so long since you rote any. Mister Recketts ses you dont care any more.
Wen you rite send your fotograff. Folks here ses I aint got no big
bruther any way, as I disremember his looks, and cant say wots like him.
Cissy's kryin' all along of it. I've got a hedake. William Walker make
it ake by a blo. So no more at present from your loving little bruther
Jim.


The quick, hysteric laugh with which Daddy read this was quite
consistent with his responsive, emotional nature; so, too, were the
ready tears that sprang to his eyes. He put the candle down unsteadily,
with a casual glance at the sick man. It was notable, however, that
this look contained less sympathy for the ailing "big brother" than his
emotion might have suggested. For Daddy was carried quite away by his
own mental picture of the helpless children, and eager only to relate
his impressions of the incident. He cast another glance at the invalid,
thrust the papers into his pocket, and clapping on his hat slipped from
the cabin and ran to the house of festivity. Yet it was characteristic
of the man, and so engrossed was he by his one idea, that to the usual
inquiries regarding his patient he answered, "he's all right," and
plunged at once into the incident of the dunning letter, reserving--with
the instinct of an emotional artist--the child's missive until the last.
As he expected, the money demand was received with indignant criticisms
of the writer.

"That's just like 'em in the States," said Captain Fletcher; "darned if
they don't believe we've only got to bore a hole in the ground and snake
out a hundred dollars. Why, there's my wife--with a heap of hoss sense
in everything else--is allus wonderin' why I can't rake in a cool fifty
betwixt one steamer day and another."

"That's nothin' to my old dad," interrupted Gus Houston, the "infant"
of the camp, a bright-eyed young fellow of twenty; "why, he wrote to me
yesterday that if I'd only pick up a single piece of gold every day and
just put it aside, sayin' 'That's for popper and mommer,' and not fool
it away--it would be all they'd ask of me."

"That's so," added another; "these ignorant relations is just the ruin
o' the mining industry. Bob Falloner hez bin lucky in his strike to-day,
but he's a darned sight luckier in being without kith or kin that he
knows of."

Daddy waited until the momentary irritation had subsided, and then drew
the other letter from his pocket. "That ain't all, boys," he began in a
faltering voice, but gradually working himself up to a pitch of pathos;
"just as I was thinking all them very things, I kinder noticed this yer
poor little bit o' paper lyin' thar lonesome like and forgotten,
and I--read it--and well--gentlemen--it just choked me right up!" He
stopped, and his voice faltered.

"Go slow, Daddy, go slow!" said an auditor smilingly. It was evident
that Daddy's sympathetic weakness was well known.

Daddy read the child's letter. But, unfortunately, what with his real
emotion and the intoxication of an audience, he read it extravagantly,
and interpolated a child's lisp (on no authority whatever), and a
simulated infantile delivery, which, I fear, at first provoked the
smiles rather than the tears of his audience. Nevertheless, at its
conclusion the little note was handed round the party, and then there
was a moment of thoughtful silence.

"Tell you what it is, boys," said Fletcher, looking around the table,
"we ought to be doin' suthin' for them kids right off! Did you," turning
to Daddy, "say anythin' about this to Dick?"

"Nary--why, he's clean off his head with fever--don't understand a
word--and just babbles," returned Daddy, forgetful of his roseate
diagnosis a moment ago, "and hasn't got a cent."

"We must make up what we can amongst us afore the mail goes to-night,"
said the "infant," feeling hurriedly in his pockets. "Come, ante up,
gentlemen," he added, laying the contents of his buckskin purse upon the
table.

"Hold on, boys," said a quiet voice. It was their host Falloner, who had
just risen and was slipping on his oilskin coat. "You've got enough to
do, I reckon, to look after your own folks. I've none! Let this be my
affair. I've got to go to the Express Office anyhow to see about my
passage home, and I'll just get a draft for a hundred dollars for
that old skeesicks--what's his blamed name? Oh, Ricketts"--he made a
memorandum from the letter--"and I'll send it by express. Meantime, you
fellows sit down there and write something--you know what--saying that
Dick's hurt his hand and can't write--you know; but asked you to send
a draft, which you're doing. Sabe? That's all! I'll skip over to the
express now and get the draft off, and you can mail the letter an hour
later. So put your dust back in your pockets and help yourselves to the
whiskey while I'm gone." He clapped his hat on his head and disappeared.

"There goes a white man, you bet!" said Fletcher admiringly, as the door
closed behind their host. "Now, boys," he added, drawing a chair to the
table, "let's get this yer letter off, and then go back to our game."

Pens and ink were produced, and an animated discussion ensued as to
the matter to be conveyed. Daddy's plea for an extended explanatory and
sympathetic communication was overruled, and the letter was written to
Ricketts on the simple lines suggested by Falloner.

"But what about poor little Jim's letter? That ought to be answered,"
said Daddy pathetically.

"If Dick hurt his hand so he can't write to Ricketts, how in thunder is
he goin' to write to Jim?" was the reply.

"But suthin' oughter be said to the poor kid," urged Daddy piteously.

"Well, write it yourself--you and Gus Houston make up somethin'
together. I'm going to win some money," retorted Fletcher, returning
to the card-table, where he was presently followed by all but Daddy and
Houston.

"Ye can't write it in Dick's name, because that little brother knows
Dick's handwriting, even if he don't remember his face. See?" suggested
Houston.

"That's so," said Daddy dubiously; "but," he added, with elastic
cheerfulness, "we can write that Dick 'says.' See?"

"Your head's level, old man! Just you wade in on that."

Daddy seized the pen and "waded in." Into somewhat deep and difficult
water, I fancy, for some of it splashed into his eyes, and he sniffled
once or twice as he wrote. "Suthin' like this," he said, after a
pause:--


DEAR LITTLE JIMMIE,--Your big brother havin' hurt his hand, wants me to
tell you that otherways he is all hunky and A1. He says he don't forget
you and little Cissy, you bet! and he's sendin' money to old Ricketts
straight off. He says don't you and Cissy mind whether school keeps
or not as long as big Brother Dick holds the lines. He says he'd have
written before, but he's bin follerin' up a lead mighty close, and
expects to strike it rich in a few days.


"You ain't got no sabe about kids," said Daddy imperturbably; "they've
got to be humored like sick folks. And they want everythin' big--they
don't take no stock in things ez they are--even ef they hev 'em worse
than they are. 'So,'" continued Daddy, reading to prevent further
interruption, "'he says you're just to keep your eyes skinned lookin'
out for him comin' home any time--day or night. All you've got to do is
to sit up and wait. He might come and even snake you out of your beds!
He might come with four white horses and a nigger driver, or he might
come disguised as an ornary tramp. Only you've got to be keen on
watchin'.' (Ye see," interrupted Daddy explanatorily, "that'll jest keep
them kids lively.) 'He says Cissy's to stop cryin' right off, and if
Willie Walker hits yer on the right cheek you just slug out with your
left fist, 'cordin' to Scripter.' Gosh," ejaculated Daddy, stopping
suddenly and gazing anxiously at Houston, "there's that blamed
photograph--I clean forgot that."

"And Dick hasn't got one in the shop, and never had," returned Houston
emphatically. "Golly! that stumps us! Unless," he added, with diabolical
thoughtfulness, "we take Bob's? The kids don't remember Dick's face, and
Bob's about the same age. And it's a regular star picture--you bet! Bob
had it taken in Sacramento--in all his war paint. See!" He indicated a
photograph pinned against the wall--a really striking likeness which did
full justice to Bob's long silken mustache and large, brown determined
eyes. "I'll snake it off while they ain't lookin', and you jam it in
the letter. Bob won't miss it, and we can fix it up with Dick after he's
well, and send another."

Daddy silently grasped the "infant's" hand, who presently secured the
photograph without attracting attention from the card-players. It was
promptly inclosed in the letter, addressed to Master James Lasham. The
"infant" started with it to the post-office, and Daddy Folsom returned
to Lasham's cabin to relieve the watcher that had been detached from
Falloner's to take his place beside the sick man.

Meanwhile the rain fell steadily and the shadows crept higher and higher
up the mountain. Towards midnight the star points faded out one by one
over Sawyer's Ledge even as they had come, with the difference that the
illumination of Falloner's cabin was extinguished first, while the dim
light of Lasham's increased in number. Later, two stars seemed to shoot
from the centre of the ledge, trailing along the descent, until they
were lost in the obscurity of the slope--the lights of the stage-coach
to Sacramento carrying the mail and Robert Falloner. They met and passed
two fainter lights toiling up the road--the buggy lights of the doctor,
hastily summoned from Carterville to the bedside of the dying Dick
Lasham.


The slowing up of his train caused Bob Falloner to start from a half
doze in a Western Pullman car. As he glanced from his window he could
see that the blinding snowstorm which had followed him for the past six
hours had at last hopelessly blocked the line. There was no prospect
beyond the interminable snowy level, the whirling flakes, and the
monotonous palisades of leafless trees seen through it to the distant
banks of the Missouri. It was a prospect that the mountain-bred Falloner
was beginning to loathe, and although it was scarcely six weeks since
he left California, he was already looking back regretfully to the deep
slopes and the free song of the serried ranks of pines.

The intense cold had chilled his temperate blood, even as the rigors and
conventions of Eastern life had checked his sincerity and spontaneous
flow of animal spirits begotten in the frank intercourse and brotherhood
of camps. He had just fled from the artificialities of the great
Atlantic cities to seek out some Western farming lands in which he
might put his capital and energies. The unlooked-for interruption of his
progress by a long-forgotten climate only deepened his discontent. And
now--that train was actually backing! It appeared they must return to
the last station to wait for a snow-plough to clear the line. It was,
explained the conductor, barely a mile from Shepherdstown, where there
was a good hotel and a chance of breaking the journey for the night.

Shepherdstown! The name touched some dim chord in Bob Falloner's memory
and conscience--yet one that was vague. Then he suddenly remembered that
before leaving New York he had received a letter from Houston informing
him of Lasham's death, reminding him of his previous bounty, and begging
him--if he went West--to break the news to the Lasham family. There was
also some allusion to a joke about his (Bob's) photograph, which he had
dismissed as unimportant, and even now could not remember clearly. For a
few moments his conscience pricked him that he should have forgotten it
all, but now he could make amends by this providential delay. It was not
a task to his liking; in any other circumstances he would have written,
but he would not shirk it now.

Shepherdstown was on the main line of the Kansas Pacific Road, and as he
alighted at its station, the big through trains from San Francisco
swept out of the stormy distance and stopped also. He remembered, as he
mingled with the passengers, hearing a childish voice ask if this was
the Californian train. He remembered hearing the amused and patient
reply of the station-master: "Yes, sonny--here she is again, and here's
her passengers," as he got into the omnibus and drove to the hotel. Here
he resolved to perform his disagreeable duty as quickly as possible,
and on his way to his room stopped for a moment at the office to ask for
Ricketts' address. The clerk, after a quick glance of curiosity at his
new guest, gave it to him readily, with a somewhat familiar smile. It
struck Falloner also as being odd that he had not been asked to write
his name on the hotel register, but this was a saving of time he was not
disposed to question, as he had already determined to make his visit to
Ricketts at once, before dinner. It was still early evening.

He was washing his hands in his bedroom when there came a light tap at
his sitting-room door. Falloner quickly resumed his coat and entered the
sitting-room as the porter ushered in a young lady holding a small boy
by the hand. But, to Falloner's utter consternation, no sooner had the
door closed on the servant than the boy, with a half-apologetic glance
at the young lady, uttered a childish cry, broke from her, and calling,
"Dick! Dick!" ran forward and leaped into Falloner's arms.

The mere shock of the onset and his own amazement left Bob without
breath for words. The boy, with arms convulsively clasping his body, was
imprinting kisses on Bob's waistcoat in default of reaching his face.
At last Falloner managed gently but firmly to free himself, and turned
a half-appealing, half-embarrassed look upon the young lady, whose own
face, however, suddenly flushed pink. To add to the confusion, the boy,
in some reaction of instinct, suddenly ran back to her, frantically
clutched at her skirts, and tried to bury his head in their folds.

"He don't love me," he sobbed. "He don't care for me any more."

The face of the young girl changed. It was a pretty face in its
flushing; in the paleness and thoughtfulness that overcast it it was a
striking face, and Bob's attention was for a moment distracted from
the grotesqueness of the situation. Leaning over the boy she said in a
caressing yet authoritative voice, "Run away for a moment, dear, until
I call you," opening the door for him in a maternal way so inconsistent
with the youthfulness of her figure that it struck him even in his
confusion. There was something also in her dress and carriage that
equally affected him: her garments were somewhat old-fashioned in style,
yet of good material, with an odd incongruity to the climate and season.

Under her rough outer cloak she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of
summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly
trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air
of breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. It was possible
that her cool self-possession might have been due to some instinctive
antagonism, for as she came a step forward with coldly and
clearly-opened gray eyes, he was vaguely conscious that she didn't like
him. Nevertheless, her manner was formally polite, even, as he fancied,
to the point of irony, as she began, in a voice that occasionally
dropped into the lazy Southern intonation, and a speech that easily
slipped at times into Southern dialect:--

"I sent the child out of the room, as I could see that his advances
were annoying to you, and a good deal, I reckon, because I knew your
reception of them was still more painful to him. It is quite natural, I
dare say, you should feel as you do, and I reckon consistent with your
attitude towards him. But you must make some allowance for the depth of
his feelings, and how he has looked forward to this meeting. When I
tell you that ever since he received your last letter, he and his
sister--until her illness kept her home--have gone every day when the
Pacific train was due to the station to meet you; that they have taken
literally as Gospel truth every word of your letter"--

"My letter?" interrupted Falloner.

The young girl's scarlet lip curled slightly. "I beg your pardon--I
should have said the letter you dictated. Of course it wasn't in your
handwriting--you had hurt your hand, you know," she added ironically.
"At all events, they believed it all--that you were coming at any
moment; they lived in that belief, and the poor things went to the
station with your photograph in their hands so that they might be the
first to recognize and greet you."

"With my photograph?" interrupted Falloner again.

The young girl's clear eyes darkened ominously. "I reckon," she said
deliberately, as she slowly drew from her pocket the photograph Daddy
Folsom had sent, "that that is your photograph. It certainly seems an
excellent likeness," she added, regarding him with a slight suggestion
of contemptuous triumph.

In an instant the revelation of the whole mystery flashed upon him! The
forgotten passage in Houston's letter about the stolen photograph stood
clearly before him; the coincidence of his appearance in Shepherdstown,
and the natural mistake of the children and their fair protector, were
made perfectly plain. But with this relief and the certainty that he
could confound her with an explanation came a certain mischievous desire
to prolong the situation and increase his triumph. She certainly had not
shown him any favor.

"Have you got the letter also?" he asked quietly.

She whisked it impatiently from her pocket and handed it to him. As he
read Daddy's characteristic extravagance and recognized the familiar
idiosyncrasies of his old companions, he was unable to restrain a smile.
He raised his eyes, to meet with surprise the fair stranger's leveled
eyebrows and brightly indignant eyes, in which, however, the rain was
fast gathering with the lightning.

"It may be amusing to you, and I reckon likely it was all a California
joke," she said with slightly trembling lips; "I don't know No'thern
gentlemen and their ways, and you seem to have forgotten our ways as you
have your kindred. Perhaps all this may seem so funny to them: it may
not seem funny to that boy who is now crying his heart out in the hall;
it may not be very amusing to that poor Cissy in her sick-bed longing
to see her brother. It may be so far from amusing to her, that I should
hesitate to bring you there in her excited condition and subject her
to the pain that you have caused him. But I have promised her; she is
already expecting us, and the disappointment may be dangerous, and I
can only implore you--for a few moments at least--to show a little more
affection than you feel." As he made an impulsive, deprecating gesture,
yet without changing his look of restrained amusement, she stopped him
hopelessly. "Oh, of course, yes, yes, I know it is years since you have
seen them; they have no right to expect more; only--only--feeling as you
do," she burst impulsively, "why--oh, why did you come?"