 | Tales of the Argonauts, and other sketches |  |
HOW OLD MAN PLUNKETT WENT
HOME.
I THINK we all loved him. Even after he
mismanaged the affairs of the Amity Ditch
Company, we commiserated him, although most
of us were stockholders, and lost heavily. I
remember that the blacksmith went so far as
to say that “them chaps as put that responsibility
on the old man oughter be lynched.” But
the blacksmith was not a stockholder; and the
expression was looked upon as the excusable
extravagance of a large, sympathizing nature,
that, when combined with a powerful frame,
was unworthy of notice. At least, that was
the way they put it. Yet I think there was a
general feeling of regret that this misfortune
would interfere with the old man's long-cherished
plan of “going home.”
Indeed, for the last ten years he had been
“going home.” He was going home after a six-months'
sojourn at Monte Flat; he was going
home after the first rains; he was going home
when he had cut the timber on Buckeye Hill,
when there was pasture on Dow's Flat, when he
struck pay-dirt on Eureka Hill, when the Amity
Company paid its first dividend, when the election
was over, when he had received an answer
from his wife. And so the years rolled by,
the spring rains came and went, the woods of
Buckeye Hill were level with the ground, the
pasture on Dow's Flat grew sear and dry, Eureka
Hill yielded its pay-dirt and swamped its owner,
the first dividends of the Amity Company were
made from the assessments of stockholders,
there were new county officers at Monte Flat,
his wife's answer had changed into a persistent
question, and still old man Plunkett remained.
It is only fair to say that he had made several
distinct essays toward going. Five years before,
he had bidden good-by to Monte Hill with
much effusion and hand-shaking. But he never
got any farther than the next town. Here
he was induced to trade the sorrel colt he was
riding for a bay mare, — a transaction that at
once opened to his lively fancy a vista of vast
and successful future speculation. A few days
after, Abner Dean of Angel's received a letter
from him, stating that he was going to Visalia to
buy horses. “I am satisfied,” wrote Plunkett,
with that elevated rhetoric for which his correspondence
that we are at last developing the real resources
of California. The world will yet look to Dow's
Flat as the great stock-raising centre. In view
of the interests involved, I have deferred my
departure for a month.” It was two before he
again returned to us — penniless. Six months
later, he was again enabled to start for the Eastern
States; and this time he got as far as San
Francisco. I have before me a letter which I
received a few days after his arrival, from which
I venture to give an extract: “You know, my
dear boy, that I have always believed that gambling,
as it is absurdly called, is still in its infancy
in California. I have always maintained
that a perfect system might be invented, by
which the game of poker may be made to yield
a certain percentage to the intelligent player.
I am not at liberty at present to disclose the
system; but before leaving this city I intend to
perfect it.” He seems to have done so, and
returned to Monte Flat with two dollars and
thirty-seven cents, the absolute remainder of
his capital after such perfection.
It was not until 1868 that he appeared to
have finally succeeded in going home. He left
us by the overland route, — a route which he
declared would give great opportunity for the
discovery of undeveloped resources. His last
three years. At the close of a very hot day in
midsummer, he alighted from the Wingdam
stage, with hair and beard powdered with dust
and age. There was a certain shyness about his
greeting, quite different from his usual frank
volubility, that did not, however, impress us as
any accession of character. For some days he
was reserved regarding his recent visit, contenting
himself with asserting, with more or less
aggressiveness, that he had “always said he was
going home, and now he had been there.” Later
he grew more communicative, and spoke freely
and critically of the manners and customs of
New York and Boston, commented on the social
changes in the years of his absence, and, I
remember, was very hard upon what he deemed
the follies incidental to a high state of civilization.
Still later he darkly alluded to the moral
laxity of the higher planes of Eastern society;
but it was not long before he completely tore
away the veil, and revealed the naked wickedness
of New York social life in a way I even
now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxication, it
appeared, was a common habit of the first ladies
of the city. Immoralities which he scarcely
dared name were daily practised by the refined
of both sexes. Niggardliness and greed were the
common vices of the rich. “I have always
exist where luxury and riches are rampant,
and capital is not used to develop the natural
resources of the country. Thank you — I will
take mine without sugar.” It is possible that
some of these painful details crept into the local
journals. I remember an editorial in “The Monte
Flat Monitor,” entitled “The Effete East,” in
which the fatal decadence of New York and
New England was elaborately stated, and California
offered as a means of natural salvation.
“Perhaps,” said “The Monitor,” “we might
add that Calaveras County offers superior inducements
to the Eastern visitor with capital.”
Later he spoke of his family. The daughter
he had left a child had grown into beautiful
womanhood. The son was already taller and
larger than his father; and, in a playful trial of
strength, “the young rascal,” added Plunkett,
with a voice broken with paternal pride and
humorous objurgation, had twice thrown his
doting parent to the ground. But it was of his
daughter he chiefly spoke. Perhaps emboldened
by the evident interest which masculine Monte
Flat held in feminine beauty, he expatiated at
some length on her various charms and accomplishments,
and finally produced her photograph,
— that of a very pretty girl, — to their infinite
peril. But his account of his first meeting with
after his own methods, which were, perhaps,
some shades less precise and elegant than his
written style.
“You see, boys, it's always been my opinion
that a man oughter be able to tell his own flesh
and blood by instinct. It's ten years since I'd
seen my Melindy; and she was then only seven,
and about so high. So, when I went to New
York, what did I do? Did I go straight to my
house, and ask for my wife and daughter, like
other folks? No, sir! I rigged myself up as a
peddler, as a peddler, sir; and I rung the bell.
When the servant came to the door, I wanted
— don't you see? — to show the ladies some
trinkets. Then there was a voice over the banister
says, `Don't want any thing: send him
away.' — `Some nice laces, ma'am, smuggled,' I
says, looking up. `Get out, you wretch!' says
she. I knew the voice, boys: it was my wife,
sure as a gun. Thar wasn't any instinct thar.
`Maybe the young ladies want somethin',' I
said. `Did you hear me?' says she; and with
that she jumps forward, and I left. It's ten
years, boys, since I've seen the old woman; but
somehow, when she fetched that leap, I naterally
left.”
He had been standing beside the bar — his
usual attitude — when he made this speech; but
look that was very effective. Indeed, a few
who had exhibited some signs of scepticism and
lack of interest, at once assumed an appearance
of intense gratification and curiosity as he
went on, —
“Well, by hanging round there for a day or
two, I found out at last it was to be Melindy's
birthday next week, and that she was goin' to
have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, it
weren't no slouch of a reception. The whole
house was bloomin' with flowers, and blazin'
with lights; and there was no end of servants
and plate and refreshments and fixin's” —
“Uncle Joe.”
“Well?”
“Where did they get the money?”
Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe
glance. “I always said,” he replied slowly,
“that, when I went home, I'd send on ahead of
me a draft for ten thousand dollars. I always
said that, didn't I? Eh? And I said I was
goin' home — and I've been home, haven't I?
Well?”
Either there was something irresistibly conclusive
in this logic, or else the desire to hear
the remainder of Plunkett's story was stronger;
but there was no more interruption. His ready
good-humor quickly returned, and, with a slight
chuckle, he went on, —
“I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town,
and I bought a pair of diamond ear-rings, and
put them in my pocket, and went to the house.
`What name?' says the chap who opened the
door; and he looked like a cross 'twixt a restaurant
waiter and a person. `Skeesicks,' said I.
He takes me in; and pretty soon my wife comes
sailin' into the parlor, and says, `Excuse me;
but I don't think I recognize the name.' She
was mighty polite; for I had on a red wig and
side-whiskers. `A friend of your husband's
from California, ma'am, with a present for your
daughter, Miss —,' and I made as I had forgot
the name. But all of a sudden a voice
said, `That's too thin;' and in walked Melindy.
`It's playin' it rather low down, father, to
pretend you don't know your daughter's name;
ain't it, now? How are you, old man?' And
with that she tears off my wig and whiskers,
and throws her arms around my neck — instinct,
sir, pure instinct!”
Emboldened by the laughter which followed
his description of the filial utterances of Melinda,
he again repeated her speech, with more or
less elaboration, joining in with, and indeed
often leading, the hilarity that accompanied it,
and returning to it, with more or less incoherency,
several times during the evening.
And so, at various times and at various
Ulysses of Monte Flat recount the story of
his wanderings. There were several discrepancies
in his statement; there was sometimes
considerable prolixity of detail; there was occasional
change of character and scenery; there
was once or twice an absolute change in the
denoûment: but always the fact of his having
visited his wife and children remained. Of
course, in a sceptical community like that of
Monte Flat, — a community accustomed to great
expectation and small realization, — a community
wherein, to use the local dialect, “they got
the color, and struck hardpan,” more frequently
than any other mining-camp, — in such a community,
the fullest credence was not given to
old man Plunkett's facts. There was only one
exception to the general unbelief, — Henry York
of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an
attentive listener; it was his scant purse that
had often furnished Plunkett with means to
pursue his unprofitable speculations; it was to
him that the charms of Melinda were more frequently
rehearsed; it was he that had borrowed
her photograph; and it was he that, sitting
alone in his little cabin one night, kissed that
photograph, until his honest, handsome face
glowed again in the firelight.
It was dusty in Monte Flat. The ruins of
everywhere the dying summer had
strewn its red ashes a foot deep, or exhaled
its last breath in a red cloud above the troubled
highways. The alders and cottonwoods, that
marked the line of the water-courses, were
grimy with dust, and looked as if they might
have taken root in the open air. The gleaming
stones of the parched water-courses themselves
were as dry bones in the valley of death. The
dusty sunset at times painted the flanks of the
distant hills a dull, coppery hue: on other days,
there was an odd, indefinable earthquake halo
on the volcanic cones of the farther coast-spurs.
Again an acrid, resinous smoke from the burning
wood on Heavytree Hill smarted the eyes, and
choked the free breath of Monte Flat; or a
fierce wind, driving every thing, including the
shrivelled summer, like a curled leaf before it,
swept down the flanks of the Sierras, and
chased the inhabitants to the doors of their
cabins, and shook its red fist in at their windows.
And on such a night as this, the dust
having in some way choked the wheels of material
progress in Monte Flat, most of the inhabitants
were gathered listlessly in the gilded
bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting
silently at the red-hot stove that tempered the
mountain winds to the shorn lambs of Monte
Flat, and waiting for the rain.
Every method known to the Flat of beguiling
the time until the advent of this long-looked-for
phenomenon had been tried. It is true, the
methods were not many, being limited chiefly
to that form of popular facetiæ known as practical
joking; and even this had assumed the
seriousness of a business-pursuit. Tommy Roy,
who had spent two hours in digging a ditch in
front of his own door, into which a few friends
casually dropped during the evening, looked
ennuyé and dissatisfied. The four prominent
citizens, who, disguised as foot-pads, had
stopped the county treasurer on the Wingdam
road, were jaded from their playful efforts
next morning. The principal physician and
lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an
unhallowed conspiracy to compel the sheriff
of Calaveras and his posse to serve a writ of
ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly disguised
under the name of one “Major Ursus,” who
haunted the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore
an expression of resigned weariness. Even the
editor of “The Monte Flat Monitor,” who had
that morning written a glowing account of a
battle with the Wipneck Indians, for the benefit
of Eastern readers, — even he looked grave
and worn. When, at last, Abner Dean of Angel's,
who had been on a visit to San Francisco,
walked into the room, he was, of course, victimized
honest questions, which ended in his
answering them, and then falling into the trap
of asking another, to his utter and complete
shame and mortification; but that was all. Nobody
laughed; and Abner, although a victim,
did not lose his good-humor. He turned quietly
on his tormentors, and said, —
“I've got something better than that — you
know old man Plunkett?”
Everybody simultaneously spat at the stove,
and nodded his head.
“You know he went home three years ago?”
Two or three changed the position of their legs
from the backs of different chairs; and one man
said, “Yes.”
“Had a good time, home?”
Everybody looked cautiously at the man who
had said, “Yes;” and he, accepting the responsibility
with a faint-hearted smile, said, “Yes,”
again, and breathed hard. “Saw his wife and
child — purty gal?” said Abner cautiously.
“Yes,” answered the man doggedly. “Saw
her photograph, perhaps?” continued Abner
Dean quietly.
The man looked hopelessly around for support.
Two or three, who had been sitting near
him, and evidently encouraging him with a look
of interest, now shamelessly abandoned him,
a little, and veiled his gray eyes. The man
hesitated, and then with a sickly smile, that
was intended to convey the fact that he was
perfectly aware of the object of this questioning,
and was only humoring it from abstract
good feeling, returned, “Yes,” again.
“Sent home — let's see — ten thousand dollars,
wasn't it?” Abner Dean went on. “Yes,”
reiterated the man with the same smile.
“Well, I thought so,” said Abner quietly.
“But the fact is, you see, that he never went
home at all — nary time.”
Everybody stared at Abner in genuine surprise
and interest, as, with provoking calmness
and a half-lazy manner, he went on, —
“You see, thar was a man down in 'Frisco as
knowed him, and saw him in Sonora during the
whole of that three years. He was herding
sheep, or tending cattle, or spekilating all that
time, and hadn't a red cent. Well it 'mounts
to this, — that 'ar Plunkett ain't been east of
the Rocky Mountains since '49.”
The laugh which Abner Dean had the right
to confidently expect came; but it was bitter
and sardonic. I think indignation was apparent
in the minds of his hearers. It was felt,
for the first time, that there was a limit to practical
joking. A deception carried on for a year,
deserving the severest reprobation. Of course,
nobody had believed Plunkett; but then the
supposition that it might be believed in adjacent
camps that they had believed him was gall
and bitterness. The lawyer thought that an
indictment for obtaining money under false pretences
might be found. The physician had long
suspected him of insanity, and was not certain
but that he ought to be confined. The four
prominent merchants thought that the business-interests
of Monte Flat demanded that something
should be done. In the midst of an
excited and angry discussion, the door slowly
opened, and old man Plunkett staggered into
the room.
He had changed pitifully in the last six
months. His hair was a dusty, yellowish gray,
like the chemisal on the flanks of Heavytree
Hill; his face was waxen white, and blue and
puffy under the eyes; his clothes were soiled
and shabby, streaked in front with the stains
of hurriedly eaten luncheons, and fluffy behind
with the wool and hair of hurriedly-extemporized
couches. In obedience to that odd
law, that, the more seedy and soiled a man's
garments become, the less does he seem inclined
to part with them, even during that portion
of the twenty-four hours when they are
gradually taken on the appearance of a kind
of a bark, or an outgrowth from within, for
which their possessor was not entirely responsible.
Howbeit, as he entered the room, he
attempted to button his coat over a dirty
shirt, and passed his fingers, after the manner
of some animal, over his cracker-strewn beard,
in recognition of a cleanly public sentiment.
But, even as he did so, the weak smile faded
from his lips; and his hand, after fumbling aimlessly
around a button, dropped helplessly at
his side. For as he leaned his back against the
bar, and faced the group, he, for the first time,
became aware that every eye but one was fixed
upon him. His quick, nervous apprehension at
once leaped to the truth. His miserable secret
was out, and abroad in the very air about him.
As a last resort, he glanced despairingly at
Henry York; but his flushed face was turned
toward the windows.
No word was spoken. As the bar-keeper
silently swung a decanter and glass before him,
he took a cracker from a dish, and mumbled it
with affected unconcern. He lingered over his
liquor until its potency stiffened his relaxed
sinews, and dulled the nervous edge of his apprehension,
and then he suddenly faced around.
“It don't look as if we were goin' to hev any
ease.
No one made any reply.
“Just like this in '52, and again in '60. It's
always been my opinion that these dry seasons
come reg'lar. I've said it afore. I say it again.
It's jist as I said about going home, you know,”
he added with desperate recklessness.
“Thar's a man,” said Abner Dean lazily,
“ez sez you never went home. Thar's a man
ez sez you've been three years in Sonora.
Thar's a man ez sez you hain't seen your wife
and daughter since '49. Thar's a man ez sez
you've bee playin' this camp for six months.”
There was a dead silence. Then a voice said
quite as quietly, —
“That man lies.”
It was not the old man's voice. Everybody
turned as Henry York slowly rose, stretching
out his six feet of length, and, brushing away
the ashes that had fallen from his pipe upon
his breast, deliberately placed himself beside
Plunkett, and faced the others.
“That man ain't here,” continued Abner
Dean, with listless indifference of voice, and a
gentle pre-occupation of manner, as he carelessly
allowed his right hand to rest on his hip
near his revolver. “That man ain't here; but,
if I'm called upon to make good what he says,
why, I'm on hand.”
All rose as the two men — perhaps the least
externally agitated of them all — approached
each other. The lawyer stepped in between
them.
“Perhaps there's some mistake here. York,
do you know that the old man has been home?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know it?”
York turned his clear, honest, frank eyes on
his questioner, and without a tremor told the
only direct and unmitigated lie of his life.
“Because I've seen him there.”
The answer was conclusive. It was known
that York had been visiting the East during the
old man's absence. The colloquy had diverted
attention from Plunkett, who, pale and breathless,
was staring at his unexpected deliverer.
As he turned again toward his tormentors, there
was something in the expression of his eye that
caused those that were nearest to him to fall
back, and sent a strange, indefinable thrill
through the boldest and most reckless. As
he made a step forward, the physician, almost
unconsciously, raised his hand with a warning
gesture; and old man Plunkett, with his eyes
fixed upon the red-hot stove, and an odd smile
playing about his mouth, began, —
“Yes — of course you did. Who says you
didn't? It ain't no lie. I said I was goin'
God! I have. Who says I've been lyin'?
Who says I'm dreamin'? Is it true — why
don't you speak? It is true, after all. You say
you saw me there: why don't you speak again?
Say, say! — is it true? It's going now. O my
God! it's going again. It's going now. Save
me!” And with a fierce cry he fell forward in
a fit upon the floor.
When the old man regained his senses, he
found himself in York's cabin. A flickering
fire of pine-boughs lit up the rude rafters, and
fell upon a photograph tastefully framed with
fir-cones, and hung above the brush whereon he
lay. It was the portrait of a young girl. It
was the first object to meet the old man's gaze;
and it brought with it a flush of such painful
consciousness, that he started, and glanced
quickly around. But his eyes only encountered
those of York, — clear, gray, critical, and patient,
— and they fell again.
“Tell me, old man,” said York not unkindly,
but with the same cold, clear tone in his voice
that his eye betrayed a moment ago, — “tell
me, is that a lie too?” and he pointed to the
picture.
The old man closed his eyes, and did not
reply. Two hours before, the question would
have stung him into some evasion or bravado.
well as the tone of York's voice, was to him now,
in his pitiable condition, a relief. It was plain,
even to his confused brain, that York had lied
when he had indorsed his story in the bar-room;
it was clear to him now that he had not been
home, that he was not, as he had begun to
fear, going mad. It was such a relief, that, with
characteristic weakness, his former recklessness
and extravagance returned. He began to
chuckle, finally to laugh uproariously.
York, with his eyes still fixed on the old man,
withdrew the hand with which he had taken
his.
“Didn't we fool 'em nicely; eh, Yorky! He,
he! The biggest thing yet ever played in this
camp! I always said I'd play 'em all some day,
and I have — played 'em for six months. Ain't
it rich? — ain't it the richest thing you ever
seed? Did you see Abner's face when he spoke
'bout that man as seed me in Sonora? Warn't
it good as the minstrels? Oh, it's too much!”
and, striking his leg with the palm of his hand,
he almost threw himself from the bed in a
paroxysm of laughter, — a paroxysm that, nevertheless,
appeared to be half real and half
affected.
“Is that photograph hers?” said York in a
low voice, after a slight pause.
“Hers? No! It's one of the San Francisco
actresses. He, he! Don't you see? I bought
it for two bits in one of the bookstores. I
never thought they'd swaller that too; but they
did! Oh, but the old man played 'em this
time didn't he — eh?” and he peered curiously
in York's face.
“Yes, and he played me too,” said York,
looking steadily in the old man's eye.
“Yes, of course,” interposed Plunkett hastily;
“but you know, Yorky, you got out of it
well! You've sold 'em too. We've both got
'em on a string now — you and me — got to
stick together now. You did it well, Yorky:
you did it well. Why, when you said you'd
seen me in York City, I'm d—d if I didn't” —
“Didn't what?” said York gently; for the
old man had stopped with a pale face and wandering
eye.
“Eh?”
“You say when I said I had seen you in New
York you thought” —
“You lie!” said the old man fiercely. “I
didn't say I thought any thing. What are you
trying to go back on me for, eh?” His hands
were trembling as he rose muttering from the
bed, and made his way toward the hearth.
“Gimme some whiskey,” he said presently,
“and dry up. You oughter treat anyway.
hookey, I'd made 'em — only I fell sick.”
York placed the liquor and a tin cup on the
table beside him, and, going to the door, turned
his back upon his guest, and looked out on the
night. Although it was clear moonlight, the
familiar prospect never to him seemed so dreary.
The dead waste of the broad Wingdam
highway never seemed so monotonous, so like
the days that he had passed, and were to come
to him, so like the old man in its suggestion
of going sometime, and never getting there.
He turned, and going up to Plunkett put his
hand upon his shoulder, and said, —
“I want you to answer one question fairly
and squarely.”
The liquor seemed to have warmed the torpid
blood in the old man's veins, and softened his
acerbity; for the face he turned up to York
was mellowed in its rugged outline, and more
thoughtful in expression, as he said, —
“Go on, my boy.”
“Have you a wife and — daughter?”
“Before God I have!”
The two men were silent for a moment, both
gazing at the fire. Then Plunkett began rubbing
his knees slowly.
“The wife, if it comes to that, ain't much,”
he began cautiously, “being a little on the
a liberal California education, which makes, you
know, a bad combination. It's always been my
opinion, that there ain't any worse. Why, she's
as ready with her tongue as Abner Dean is with
his revolver, only with the difference that she
shoots from principle, as she calls it; and the
consequence is, she's always layin' for you.
It's the effete East, my boy, that's ruinin' her.
It's them ideas she gets in New York and Boston
that's made her and me what we are. I
don't mind her havin' 'em, if she didn't shoot.
But, havin' that propensity, them principles
oughtn't to be lying round loose no more'n fire-arms.”
“But your daughter?” said York.
The old man's hands went up to his eyes
here, and then both hands and head dropped
forward on the table. “Don't say any thing
'bout her, my boy, don't ask me now.” With
one hand concealing his eyes, he fumbled about
with the other in his pockets for his handkerchief
— but vainly. Perhaps it was owing to
this fact, that he repressed his tears; for, when
he removed his hand from his eyes, they were
quite dry. Then he found his voice.
“She's a beautiful girl, beautiful, though I
say it; and you shall see her, my boy, — you shall
see her sure. I've got things about fixed now.
in a day or two; and I've got proposals from all
the smeltin' works here” (here he hastily produced
a bundle of papers that fell upon the floor),
“and I'm goin' to send for 'em. I've got the
papers here as will give me ten thousand dollars
clear in the next month,” he added, as he strove
to collect the valuable documents again. “I'll
have 'em here by Christmas, if I live; and you
shall eat your Christmas dinner with me, York,
my boy, — you shall sure.”
With his tongue now fairly loosened by
liquor and the suggestive vastness of his prospects,
he rambled on more or less incoherently,
elaborating and amplifying his plans, occasionally
even speaking of them as already accomplished,
until the moon rode high in the
heavens, and York led him again to his couch.
Here he lay for some time muttering to himself,
until at last he sank into a heavy sleep. When
York had satisfied himself of the fact, he gently
took down the picture and frame, and, going to
the hearth, tossed them on the dying embers,
and sat down to see them burn.
The fir-cones leaped instantly into flame;
then the features that had entranced San Francisco
audiences nightly, flashed up and passed
away (as such things are apt to pass); and
even the cynical smile on York's lips faded too.
flash as the embers fell together, and
by its light York saw a paper upon the floor.
It was one that had fallen from the old man's
pocket. As he picked it up listlessly, a photograph
slipped from its folds. It was the portrait
of a young girl; and on its reverse was written
in a scrawling hand, “Melinda to father.”
It was at best a cheap picture, but, ah me! I
fear even the deft graciousness of the highest
art could not have softened the rigid angularities
of that youthful figure, its self-complacent
vulgarity, its cheap finery, its expressionless ill-favor.
York did not look at it a second time.
He turned to the letter for relief.
It was misspelled; it was unpunctuated; it
was almost illegible; it was fretful in tone, and
selfish in sentiment. It was not, I fear, even
original in the story of its woes. It was the
harsh recital of poverty, of suspicion, of mean
makeshifts and compromises, of low pains and
lower longings, of sorrows that were degrading,
of a grief that was pitiable. Yet it was sincere
in a certain kind of vague yearning for the
presence of the degraded man to whom it was
written, — an affection that was more like a confused
instinct than a sentiment.
York folded it again carefully, and placed it
beneath the old man's pillow. Then he returned
been playing upon his face, deepening the curves
behind his mustache, and gradually overrunning
his clear gray eyes, presently faded away.
It was last to go from his eyes; and it left there,
oddly enough to those who did not know him,
a tear.
He sat there for a long time, leaning forward,
his head upon his hands. The wind that had
been striving with the canvas roof all at once
lifted its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly
in, and lay for a moment like a shining blade
upon his shoulder; and, knighted by its touch,
straightway plain Henry York arose, sustained,
high-purposed and self-reliant.
The rains had come at last. There was already
a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavytree
Hill; and the long, white track of the Wingdam
road was lost in outlying pools and ponds
a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The spent
water-courses, whose white bones had been sinuously
trailed over the flat, like the vertebræ of
some forgotten saurian, were full again; the
dry bones moved once more in the valley; and
there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable
extravagance in the columns of “The Monte Flat
Monitor.” “Never before in the history of the
county has the yield been so satisfactory. Our
yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?)
that our best citizens were leaving town in
`dugouts,' on account of the flood, will be glad
to hear that our distinguished fellow-townsman,
Mr. Henry York, now on a visit to his relatives
in the East, lately took with him in his `dugout'
the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars,
the result of one week's clean-up. We can
imagine,” continued that sprightly journal, “that
no such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside
this season. And yet we believe `The Beacon'
man wants a railroad.” A few journals broke
out into poetry. The operator at Simpson's
Crossing telegraphed to “The Sacramento Universe”
“All day the low clouds have shook
their garnered fulness down.” A San-Francisco
journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly
disguised as editorial prose: “Rejoice: the
gentle rain has come, the bright and pearly rain,
which scatters blessings on the hills, and sifts
them o' er the plain. Rejoice,” &c. Indeed,
there was only one to whom the rain had not
brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In
some mysterious and darksome way, it had interfered
with the perfection of his new method
of reducing ores, and thrown the advent of
that invention back another season. It had
brought him down to an habitual seat in the
ears, he sat and discoursed of the East and his
family.
No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumored
that some funds had been lodged with
the landlord, by a person or persons unknown,
whereby his few wants were provided for. His
mania — for that was the charitable construction
which Monte Flat put upon his conduct —
was indulged, even to the extent of Monte Flat's
accepting his invitation to dine with his family
on Christmas Day, — an invitation extended
frankly to every one with whom the old man
drank or talked. But one day, to everybody's
astonishment, he burst into the bar-room, holding
an open letter in his hand. It read as follows:
—
“Be ready to meet your family at the new cottage on
Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends
you choose.
The letter was handed round in silence. The
old man, with a look alternating between hope
and fear, gazed in the faces of the group. The
doctor looked up significantly, after a pause.
“It's a forgery evidently,” he said in a low
voice. “He's cunning enough to conceive it
(they always are); but you'll find he'll fail in
said suddenly, in a loud peremptory tone, “this
is a trick, a forgery, and you know it. Answer
me squarely, and look me in the eye. Isn't
it so?”
The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and
then dropped weakly. Then, with a feebler
smile, he said, “You're too many for me, boys.
The Doc's right. The little game's up. You
can take the old man's hat;” and so, tottering,
trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into silence
and his accustomed seat. But the next
day he seemed to have forgotten this episode,
and talked as glibly as ever of the approaching
festivity.
And so the days and weeks passed until
Christmas — a bright, clear day, warmed with
south winds, and joyous with the resurrection
of springing grasses — broke upon Monte Flat.
And then there was a sudden commotion in the
hotel bar-room; and Abner Dean stood beside
the old man's chair, and shook him out of a
slumber to his feet. “Rouse up, old man. York
is here, with your wife and daughter, at the
cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. Here,
boys, give him a lift;” and in another moment
a dozen strong and willing hands had raised the
old man, and bore him in triumph to the street,
up the steep grade of Heavytree Hill, and deposited
porch of a little cottage. At the same instant
two women rushed forward, but were restrained
by a gesture from Henry York. The old man
was struggling to his feet. With an effort at
last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye fixed, a
gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance
in his voice.
“It's all a trick, and a lie! They ain't no
flesh and blood or kin o' mine. It ain't my
wife, nor child. My daughter's a beautiful girl
— a beautiful girl, d'ye hear? She's in New York
with her mother, and I'm going to fetch her here.
I said I'd go home, and I've been home: d'ye
hear me?' I've been home! It's a mean trick
you're playin' on the old man. Let me go: d'ye
hear? Keep them women off me! Let me go!
I'm going — I'm going — home!”
His hands were thrown up convulsively in
the air, and, half turning round, he fell sideways
on the porch, and so to the ground. They
picked him up hurriedly, but too late. He had
gone home.
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