 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
A NIGHT AT WINGDAM.
I HAD been stage-ridden and bewildered all day,
and when we swept down with the darkness
into the Arcadian hamlet of “Wingdam,” I resolved
to go no farther, and rolled out in a gloomy and
dyspeptic state. The effects of a mysterious pie,
and some sweetened carbonic acid known to the
proprietor of the “Half-Way House” as “lemming
sody,” still oppressed me. Even the facetiæ of the
gallant expressman who knew everybody's Christian
name along the route, who rained letters, newspapers,
and bundles from the top of the stage, whose
legs frequently appeared in frightful proximity to
the wheels, who got on and off while we were
going at full speed, whose gallantry, energy, and
superior knowledge of travel crushed all us other
passengers to envious silence, and who just then
was talking with several persons and manifestly
doing something else at the same time, — even this
had failed to interest me. So I stood gloomily,
clutching my shawl and carpet-bag, and watched
the stage roll away, taking a parting look at the
gallant expressman as he hung on the top rail with
one leg, and lit his cigar from the pipe of a running
Temperance Hotel.
It may have been the weather, or it may have
been the pie, but I was not impressed favorably
with the house. Perhaps it was the name extending
the whole length of the building, with a letter
under each window, making the people who looked
out dreadfully conspicuous. Perhaps it was that
“Temperance” always suggested to my mind rusks
and weak tea. It was uninviting. It might have
been called the “Total Abstinence” Hotel, from
the lack of anything to intoxicate or inthrall the
senses. It was designed with an eye to artistic
dreariness. It was so much too large for the settlement,
that it appeared to be a very slight improvement
on out-doors. It was unpleasantly new.
There was the forest flavor of dampness about it,
and a slight spicing of pine. Nature outraged, but
not entirely subdued, sometimes broke out afresh in
little round, sticky, resinous tears on the doors and
windows. It seemed to me that boarding there must
seem like a perpetual picnic. As I entered the
door, a number of the regular boarders rushed out
of a long room, and set about trying to get the
taste of something out of their mouths, by the application
of tobacco in various forms. A few immediately
ranged themselves around the fireplace,
with their legs over each other's chairs, and in that
position silently resigned themselves to indigestion.
the landlord to supper, but suffered myself to be
conducted into the sitting-room. “Mine host” was
a magnificent-looking, heavily bearded specimen
of the animal man. He reminded me of somebody
or something connected with the drama. I was
sitting beside the fire, mutely wondering what it
could be, and trying to follow the particular chord
of memory thus touched, into the intricate past,
when a little delicate-looking woman appeared at
the door, and, leaning heavily against the casing,
said in an exhausted tone, “Husband!” As the
landlord turned toward her, that particular remembrance
flashed before me in a single line of blank
verse. It was this: “Two souls with but one single
thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
It was Ingomar and Parthenia his wife. I imagined
a different dénouement from the play. Ingomar
had taken Parthenia back to the mountains,
and kept a hotel for the benefit of the Alemanni,
who resorted there in large numbers. Poor Parthenia
was pretty well fagged out, and did all the work
without “help.” She had two “young barbarians,”
a boy and a girl. She was faded, but still
good-looking.
I sat and talked with Ingomar, who seemed perfectly
at home and told me several stories of the
Alemanni, all bearing a strong flavor of the wilderness,
and being perfectly in keeping with the house.
“bar,” whose skin was just up “yar,” over his bed.
How he, Ingomar, had killed several “bucks,”
whose skins had been prettily fringed and embroidered
by Parthenia, and even now clothed him.
How he, Ingomar, had killed several “Injins,” and
was once nearly scalped himself. All this with
that ingenious candor which is perfectly justifiable
in a barbarian, but which a Greek might feel inclined
to look upon as “blowing.” Thinking of
the wearied Parthenia, I began to consider for the
first time that perhaps she had better married the
old Greek. Then she would at least have always
looked neat. Then she would not have worn a
woollen dress flavored with all the dinners of the
past year. Then she would not have been obliged
to wait on the table with her hair half down. Then
the two children would not have hung about her
skirts with dirty fingers, palpably dragging her
down day by day. I suppose it was the pie which
put such heartless and improper ideas in my head,
and so I rose up and told Ingomar I believed I 'd
go to bed. Preceded by that redoubtable barbarian
and a flaring tallow candle, I followed him up
stairs to my room. It was the only single room
he had, he told me; he had built it for the convenience
of married parties who might stop here,
but, that event not happening yet, he had left it
half furnished. It had cloth on one side, and large
over Wingdam at night-time, puffed through the
apartment from different apertures. The window
was too small for the hole in the side of the house
where it hung, and rattled noisily. Everything
looked cheerless and dispiriting. Before Ingomar
left me, he brought that “bar-skin,” and throwing
it over the solemn bier which stood in one corner,
told me he reckoned that would keep me warm,
and then bade me good night. I undressed myself,
the light blowing out in the middle of that ceremony,
crawled under the “bar-skin,” and tried to
compose myself to sleep.
But I was staringly wide awake. I heard the
wind sweep down the mountain-side, and toss the
branches of the melancholy pine, and then enter
the house, and try all the doors along the passage.
Sometimes strong currents of air blew my hair all
over the pillow, as with strange whispering breaths.
The green timber along the walls seemed to be
sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the
“bar-skin.” I felt like Robinson Crusoe in his
tree, with the ladder pulled up, — or like the
rocked baby of the nursery song. After lying
awake half an hour, I regretted having stopped
at Wingdam; at the end of the third quarter, I
wished I had not gone to bed; and when a restless
hour passed, I got up and dressed myself. There
had been a fire down in the big room. Perhaps it
my way along the passage, vocal with the snores
of the Alemanni and the whistling of the night
wind; I partly fell down stairs, and at last entering
the big room, saw the fire still burning. I
drew a chair toward it, poked it with my foot, and
was astonished to see, by the upspringing flash,
that Parthenia was sitting there also, holding a
faded-looking baby.
I asked her why she was sitting up.
“She did not go to bed on Wednesday night
before the mail arrived, and then she awoke her
husband, and there were passengers to 'tend to.”
“Did she not get tired sometimes?”
“A little, but Abner” (the barbarian's Christian
name) “had promised to get her more help next
spring, if business was good.”
“How many boarders had she?”
“She believed about forty came to regular meals,
and there was transient custom, which was as much
as she and her husband could 'tend to. But he
did a great deal of work.”
“What work?”
“O, bringing in the wood, and looking after the
traders' things.”
“How long had she been married?”
“About nine years. She had lost a little girl
and boy. Three children living. He was from
Illinois. She from Boston. Had an education
a little Latin and Greek). Mother and father
died. Came to Illinois alone, to teach school
Saw him — yes — a love match.” (“Two souls,”
etc., etc.) “Married and emigrated to Kansas.
Thence across the Plains to California. Always
on the outskirts of civilization. He liked it.
“She might sometimes have wished to go home.
Would like to on account of her children. Would
like to give them an education. Had taught them
a little herself, but could n't do much on account
of other work. Hoped that the boy would be like
his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful the
girl would be more like her. Had often thought
she was not fit for a pioneer's wife.”
“Why?”
“O, she was not strong enough, and had seen
some of his friends' wives in Kansas who could
do more work. But he never complained, — he
was so kind.” (“Two souls,” etc.)
Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on
one hand, holding the poor, wearied, and limp-looking
baby wearily on the other arm, dirty,
drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing
upon her features no longer fresh or young, but
still refined and delicate, and even in her grotesque
slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of
birth and breeding, it was not to be wondered that
I did not fall into excessive raptures over the barbarian's
she told me how she had given up, little by little,
what she imagined to be the weakness of her early
education, until she found that she acquired but
little strength in her new experience. How, translated
to a backwoods society, she was hated by the
women, and called proud and “fine,” and how her
dear husband lost popularity on that account with
his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts,
and partly from other circumstances, he
started with her to California. An account of that
tedious journey. How it was a dreary, dreary
waste in her memory, only a blank plain marked
by a little cairn of stones, — a child's grave. How
she had noticed that little Willie failed. How she
had called Abner's attention to it, but, man-like,
he knew nothing about children, and pooh-poohed
it, and was worried by the stock. How it happened
that after they had passed Sweetwater, she
was walking beside the wagon one night, and looking
at the western sky, and she heard a little voice
say “Mother.” How she looked into the wagon
and saw that little Willie was sleeping comfortably
and did not wish to wake him. How that in a
few moments more she heard the same voice saying
“Mother.” How she came back to the wagon
and leaned down over him, and felt his breath
upon her face, and again covered him up tenderly,
and once more resumed her weary journey beside
her face turned to the sky she heard the same
voice saying “Mother,” and directly a great bright
star shot away from its brethren and expired.
And how she knew what had happened, and ran to
the wagon again only to pillow a little pinched
and cold white face upon her weary bosom. The
thin red hands went up to her eyes here, and for
a few moments she sat still. The wind tore round
the house and made a frantic rush at the front
door, and from his couch of skins in the inner
room — Ingomar, the barbarian, snored peacefully.
“Of course she always found a protector from insult
and outrage in the great courage and strength
of her husband?”
“O yes; when Ingomar was with her she feared
nothing. But she was nervous and had been
frightened once!”
“How?”
“They had just arrived in California. They kept
house then, and had to sell liquor to traders. Ingomar
was hospitable, and drank with everybody,
for the sake of popularity and business, and Ingomar
got to like liquor, and was easily affected by
it. And how one night there was a boisterous
crowd in the bar-room; she went in and tried to
get him away, but only succeeded in awakening
the coarse gallantry of the half-crazed revellers.
And how, when she had at last got him in the
on the bed in a stupor, which made her think the
liquor was drugged. And how she sat beside him
all night, and near morning heard a step in the
passage, and, looking toward the door, saw the
latch slowly moving up and down, as if somebody
were trying it. And how she shook her husband,
and tried to waken him, but without effect. And
how at last the door yielded slowly at the top (it
was bolted below), as if by a gradual pressure
without; and how a hand protruded through the
opening. And how as quick as lightning she
nailed that hand to the wall with her scissors (her
only weapon), but the point broke, and somebody
got away with a fearful oath. How she never told
her husband of it, for fear he would kill that somebody;
but how on one day a stranger called here, and
as she was handing him his coffee, she saw a queer
triangular scar on the back of his hand.”
She was still talking, and the wind was still
blowing, and Ingomar was still snoring from his
couch of skins, when there was a shout high up
the straggling street, and a clattering of hoofs, and
rattling of wheels. The mail had arrived. Parthenia
ran with the faded baby to awaken Ingomar,
and almost simultaneously the gallant expressman
stood again before me addressing me by
my Christian name, and inviting me to drink out
of a mysterious black bottle. The horses were
expressman concluded, and, bidding Parthenia
good by, I got on the stage, and immediately fell
asleep, and dreamt of calling on Parthenia and
Ingomar, and being treated with pie to an unlimited
extent, until I woke up the next morning in
Sacramento. I have some doubts as to whether
all this was not a dyspeptic dream, but I never
witness the drama, and hear that noble sentiment
concerning “Two souls,” etc., without thinking of
Wingdam and poor Parthenia.
| Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches | |