University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
WHICH HAS A GOOD MORAL TENDENCE.

Somewhat less spiteful in her intercourse with
the other scholars, Mliss still retained an offensive
attitude toward Clytemnestra. Perhaps
the jealous element was not entirely stilled in
her passionate little breast. Perhaps it was
that Clytemnestra's round curves and plump
outlines afforded an extensive pinching surface.
But while these ebullitions were under the master's
control, her enmity occasionally took a new
and irrepressible form.

In his first estimate of the child's character
he could not conceive that she had ever possessed
a doll. But the master, like many other professed
readers of character, was safer in a
posteriori than a priori reasoning, for Mliss had
a doll. But then it was a peculiar doll—a
frightful perversion of wax and sawdust—a doll
fearfully and wonderfully made—a small edition
of Mliss. Its unhappy existence had been a
secret discovered by Mrs. Morpher. It had been
the old-time companion of Mliss's wanderings,
and bore evident marks of suffering. Its original
complexion was long since washed away by the
weather, and annointed by the slime of ditches.
It looked very much as Mliss had to days past.
Its one gown of faded stuff was dirty and ragged
as hers had been. Mliss had never been known
to apply to it any childish term of endearment.
She never exhibited it in the presence of other
children. It was put severly to bed in a hollow
tree near the school-house, and only allowed
exercise during Mliss's rambles. Fulfilling a
stern duty to her doll—as she would to herself—
it knew no luxuries.

Now Mrs. M., obeying a commendable impulse,
bought another doll and gave it to Mliss. The
child received it gravely and curiously. The
master on looking at it one day fancied he saw
a slight resemblance in its round red cheeks and
mild blue eyes to Clytemnestra. It became evident
before long that Mliss had also noticed the
same resemblance. Accordingly, she hammered
is waxen head on the rocks when she was alone,
and sometimes dragged it with a string round its
neck to and from school. At other times, setting
it up on her desk, she made a pin cushion
of its patient and inoffensive body. Whether
this was done in revenge of what she considered
a second figurative obtrusion of Clytie's excellences
upon her; or whether she had an intuitive
appreciation of the rites of certain other
heathens, and indulging in that “Fetish” ceremony
imagined that the original of her wax
model would pine away and finally die, is a
metaphysical question I shall not now consider.

In spite of these moral vagaries, the master
could not help noticing in her different tasks
the working of a quiet, restless and vigorous
perception. She knew neither the hesitancy
nor the doubts of childhood. Her answers in
class were always sughtly dashed with audacity,
Of course she was not infallible. But her courage
and daring in venturing beyond her own
depth and that of the floudering little swimmers
around her, in their minds, outweighed all
error of judgment. Children are no better than
grown people in this respect. I fancy; and whenever
the little red hand flashed above her desk,
there was a wandering silence, and even the
master was something oppressed with a doubt
of his own experience and judgment.

Nevertheless, certain attributes which at first
amused and entertained his fancy, began to
afflict him with grave doubts. He could not but
see that Mliss was revengeful, irreverent and
willful. That there was but one better quality
which pertained to her semi-savage disposition
—the faculty of physical fortitude and self-sacrifice,
and another—though not always an
attribute of the noble savage—Truth. Mliss was
both fearless and sincere—perhaps in such a
character the adjectives were synonymous.

The resident physician of Smith's Pocket was
a Dr. Duchesne, or as he was better known to
that locality, “Dr. Doochesny.” Of a naturally
refined nature and liberal education, he had
steadily resisted the aggressions and temptations
of Smith's Pocket, and represented to the
master a kind of connecting link between his
present life and the past. So that an intimacy
sprang up between the two men, involving prolo
ged interviews in the doctor's little back
shop, often to the exclusion of other suffering
humanity and their physical ailments. It was
in one of these interviews that the master mentioned
the coincidence of the date of the memoranda
on the back of Mliss's letter and the day
of Smith's suicide.

“If it were Smith's own handwriting, as the
child says it is,” said the master, “it shows
queer state of mind that could contemplate suicide
and indite private memoranda within the
same twenty-four hours.”

Dr. Duchesne removed his cigar from his lips
and looked attentively at his friend.

“The only hypothesis,” continued the master,
“is that Smith was either drunk or crazy,
and the fatal act was in a measure unpremeditated.”

“Every man who commits suicide,” returned
the doctor, gravely, “is in my opinion insane,
or what is nearly the same thing, becomes,
through suffering, an irresponsible agent. In
my professional experience I have seen most of
the forms of mental and physical agony, and
know what sacrifices men will make to preserve

even an existence, that to me seemed little better
than death, so long as their intellect remained
unclouded. When you come to reflect
on the state of mind that chooses death as a
preferable alternative, you generally find an exaltation
and enthusiasm that differ very little
from the ordinary diagnosis of delirium. Smith
was not drunk,” added the doctor, in his usual
careless tone. “I saw his body.”

The master remained buried in reflection.
Presently the doctor removed his cigar.

“Perhaps I might help you to explain the coincidence
you speak of.”

“How?”

“Very easily. But this is a professional secret—you
understand?”

“Yes—I understand,” said the master, hastily,
with an ill-defined uneasiness creeping over
him.

“Do you know anything of the phenomena of
death by gunshot wounds?”

“No.”

“Then you must take certain facts as granted.
Smith, you remember, was killed instantly. The
nature of his wound and the manner of his death
were such as would have caused an instantaneous
and complete relaxation of all the muscles.
Rigidity and contraction would have supervened,
of course, but only after life was extinct, and
consciousness had fled. Now Smith was found
with his hands tightly grasping a pistol.”

“Well?”

“Well, my dear boy, he must have grasped it
after he was dead, or have prevailed upon some
friend to stiffen his fingers around it”

“Do you mean that he was murdered?”

Dr. Duchesne rose and closed the door. “We
have different names for these things in Smith's
Pocket. I mean to say that he didn't kill himself—that's
all.”

“But, doctor,” said the master, earnestly,
“do you think you have done right in concealing
this fact? Do you think it just—do you think it
consistent with your duty to his orphan
child?”

“That's why I have said nothing about it,”
replied the doctor, coolly—“because of my consideration
for his orphan child.”

The master breathed quickly, and stared at the
doctor.

“Doctor!—you don't think that Mliss—”

“Hush!—don't get excited, my young friend.
Remember I am not a lawyer—only a doctor.”

“But Mliss was with me the very night he
must have been killed. We were walking together
when we heard the report—that is—a report—which
must have been the one,” stammered
the master.

“When was that?”

“At half-past eleven. I remember looking at
my watch.”

“Humph!—when did you meet her first?”

“At half-pasteight. Come, doctor, you have
made a mistake here, at least,” said the young
man, with an assumption of ease he was far from
feeling. “Give Mliss the benefit of the doubt.”

Dr. Duchesne replied by opening a drawer of
his desk. After rummaging among the powders
and mysterious looking instruments with which
it was stored, he finally brought forth a longitudinal
slip of folded white paper. It was appropriately
labeled “Poison.”

“Look here,” said the doctor, opening the
paper. It contained two or three black coarse
hairs. “Do you know them?”

“No.”

“Look again!”

“It looks something like Mliss's hair,” said
the master, with a fathomless sinking of the
heart.

“When I was called to look at the body,”
continued the doctor, with the deliberate cautiousness
of a professional diagnosis, “my suspicions
were aroused by the circumstance I told
you of. I managed to get possession of the pistol,
and found these hairs twisted around the lock as
though they had been accidentally caught and
violently disengaged. I don't think that any
one else saw them. I removed them without
observation and—they are at your service.”

The master sank back in his seat and pressed
his hand to his forehead. The image of Mliss
rose before him with flashing eye and long black
hair, and seemed to seat down and resist defiantly
the suspicion that crept slowly over his
heart.

“I forbore to tell you this, my friend,” continued
the doctor, slowly and gravely, “because
when I learned that you had taken this
strange child under your protection I did not
wish to tell you that which—though I contend
it does not alter her claims to man's sympathy
and kindness—still might have prejudiced her
in your eyes. Her improvement under your
care has proven my position correct. I have, as
you know, peculiar ideas of the extent to which
much humanity is responsible. I find in my
heart—looking back over the child's career—
no sentiment but pity. I am mistaken in you
if I thought this circumstance aroused any
other feeling in yours.”

Still the figure of Mliss stood before the master
as he bent before the doctor's words, in the
same defiant attitude, with something of scorn
in the great dark eyes, that made the blood
tingle in his cheeks, and seemed to make the
reasoning of the speaker but meaningless and
empty words. At length he rose. As he stood

with his hand on the latch he turned to Dr. Duchesne,
who was watching him with careful
solicitude.

“I don't know but that you have done well to
keep this from me. At all events it has not—
cannot, and should not alter my opinion toward
Mliss. You will of course keep it a secret. In
the meantime you must not blame me if I
cling to my instincts in preference to your
judgment. I still believe that you are mistaken
in regard to her.”

“Stay one moment,” said the doctor, “promise
me you will not say anything of this, nor attempt
to prosecute the matter further till you
have consulted with me.”

“I promise. Good night.”

“Good night”—and so they parted.

True to that promise and his own instinctive
promptings the master endeavored to atone for
his momentary disloyalty by greater solicitude
for Mliss. But the child had noticed some
change in the master's thoughtful manner, and
in one of their long post-prandial walks, she
stopped suddenly and mounting a stump, looked
full in his face with big searching eyes. “You
ain't mad?” said she, with an interrogative
shake of the black braids. “No.” “Nor
bothered?” “No.” “Nor hungry?” (Hunger
was to Mliss a sickness that might attack a
person at any moment.) “No.” “Nor thinking
of her?” “Of whom, Lissy?” “That
white girl.” (This was the latest epithet invented
by Mliss, who was a very dark brunette,
to express Clytemnestra.) “No.” “Upon your
word?” (A substitute for “Hope you'll die!”
proposed by the master.) “Yes.” `And sacred
honor?' “Yes.” Then Mliss gave him a fierce
little kiss, and hopping down, fluttered off.
For two or three days after that she condescended
to appear more like other children and
be, as she expressed it, “good.”

When the summer was about spent, and the
last harvest had been gathered in the valleys, the
master bethought him of gathering in a few
ripened shoots of the young idea, and having his
Harvest Home or Examination. So the savans
and professionals of Smith's Pocket were gathered
to witness that time-honored custom of placing
timid children in a constrained position, and
bullying them as in a witness-box. As usual in
such cases, the most audacious and self-possessed
were the lucky recipients of the honors. The
reader will imagine that in the present instance,
Mliss and Clytie were pre-eminent and divided
public attention; Mliss with her clearness of
material perception and self-reliance. Clytie with
her placid self-esteem, and saint-like correctness
of deportment. The other little ones were timid
and blundering. Mliss's readiness and brilliancy,
of course, captivated the greatest number, and
provoked the greatest applause, and Mliss's antecedents
had unconsciously awakened the
strongest sympathies of the miners, whose athletic
forms were ranged against the walls, or
whose handsome bearded faces looked in at the
window. But Mliss's popularity wasoverthrown
by an unexpected circumstance.

McSnagley had invited himself, and had been
going through the pleasing entertainment of
frightening the more timid pupils by the vaguest
and most ambiguous questions, delivered in
an impressive funeral tone; and Mliss had soared
into astronomy, and was tracking the course of
our “spotted ball” through space, and defining
the “tethered orbits” of the planets—when McSnagley
deliberately arose.

“Meelissy, ye were speaking of the revolutions
of this yer yearth, and its movements with regard
to the sun, and I think you said it had
been a doin' of it since the creashun, eh?

Mliss nodded a scornful affirmative.

“Well, war that the truth?” said McSnagley,
folding his arms.

“Yes,” said Mliss shutting up her little red
lips tightly.

The handsome outlines at the windows peered
further into the school-room, and a saintly
Raphael-like face, with blonde beard and soft
blue eyes, belonging to the biggest scamp in the
diggings, turned toward the child and whispered.

“Stick to it Mliss! It's only a big bluff of the
parson.”

The reverend gentleman heaved a deepsigh, and
cast a compassionate glance at the master, then
at the children, and then rested his eye on Clytie.
That young woman softly elevated her round,
white arm. Its seductive curves were enhanced
by a gorgeous and massive specimen bracelet,
the gift of one of her humblest worshipers
worn in honor of the occasion. There was a momentary
pause. Clytie's round cheeks were very
pink and soft. Clytie's big eyes were very bright
and blue. Clytie's low-necked, white, book muslin
rested softly on Clytie's white, plump shoulders.
Clytie looked at the master, and the master
nedded. Then Clytie spoke softly:

“Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and
it obeyed him.”

There was a low hum of applause in the school-room,
a triumphant express on on McSnagley's
face, a grave shadow on the master's, and a comical
look of disappointment reflected from the
windows. Mliss akimmed rapidly over her astronomy,
and then shut the book with a loud
snap. A groan burst from McSnagley, an expression
of astonishment from the school-room,
and a yell from the windows as Mliss brought
her red fist down on the desk, with the emphatic
declaration:

“It's a d—n lie. I don't believe it!”