University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.
THE TRIALS OF MRS. MORPHER.

“Now, where on earth can that child be?”
said Mrs. Morpher, shading her eyes with her
band, as she stood at the door of the “Mountain
Ranch” looking down the Wingdam Road at
sunset. “With his best things on, too. Goodness!—what
were boys made for?”

Mr. Morpher, without replying to this question,
apparently addressed to himself as an
adult representative of the wayward species,
appeared at the door and endeavored to pour oil
on the troubled waters.

“Oh, he's all right, Sue! Don't fuss about
him,” said Mr. Morpher with an imbecile sense
of conveying comfort in the emphasized pronoun,
“he's down the gulch, or in the tunnel,
or over to the claim. He'll turn up by bed time.
Don't you worry about him. I'll look him up
in a minit”—and Mr. Morphor taking his hat,
sauntered down the road in the direction of the
National Hotel.

Mrs. M. gazed doubtfully after her liege.
“Looking up” Aristides, in her domestic experience
implied a prolonged absence in the
bar-room of the hotel—the tedium whereof was
beguiled by seven-up or euchre. But she only
said: “Don't be long, James” and sighed hopelessly
as she turned back in the house.

Once again within her own castle walls Mrs.
Morpher dropped her look of patient suffering
and glanced defiantly around for a fresh grievance.

The decorous little parlor offered nothing to
provoke the hostility of her peculiar instincts.
Spotless were the white curtains; the bright
carpet guiltless of stain or dust. The chairs
were placed arithmetically in twos, and added
up evenly on the four sides with nothing to
carry over. Two bunches of lavender and fennel
breathed an odor of sanctified cleanliness
through the room. Five daguerreotypes on the
mantel-piece, represented the Morpher family
in progressive stages of petrification, and had
the Medusa-like effect of freezing visitors into
similar attitudes in their chairs. The walls
were further enlivened with two colored engravings
of scenes in the domestic history of George
Washington, in which the Father of his Country
seemed to look blandly from his own correct
family circle into that of Morpher's and to
breathe quite audible from his gilt frame a
dignified blessing.

Lingering a moment in this sacred inclosure
to readjust the table-cloth. Mrs. Morpher passed
into the dining-room where the correct Clytie
presided at the supper table at which the rest of
the family were seated. Mrs. Morpher's quick
eyes caught the spectacle of Mliss with her chin
resting on her hands, and her elbows on the table,
sardonically surveying the model of deportment
opposite to her.

“Mliss!”

“Well!”

“Where's your elbows?”

“Here's one, and there's the other,” said
Mliss, quietly, indicating their respective localities
by smartly tapping them with the palm of
her hand.

“Take them off the table, instantly, you bold,
forward girl—and you, sir, quit that giggling
and eat your supper, if you don't want to be
put to bed without it!” added Mrs. Morpher to
Lycurgus, to whom Mliss's answer had afforded
boundless satisfaction. “You're getting to be
just as bad as her, and mercy knows you never
were a seraphim?”

“What's a seraphim, mother, and what do
they do?” asked Lycurgus, with growing interest.

“They don't ask questions when they should
be eating their supper, and thankful for it,” interposed
Clytie, authoratively, as one to whom
the genteel attributes and social habits of the
seraphim had been a privileged revelation.

“But, mother—”

“Hush—and don't be a heathen—run and see
who that is coming in,” said Mrs. Morpher; as
the sound of footsteps were heard in the
passage.

The door opened, and McSnagley entered.

“Why, bless my soul—how do you do?” said
Mrs. Morpher, with genteel astonishment
“Quite a stranger, I declare.”

This was a polite fiction. Mliss knew the fact
to be that Mrs. Morpher was reputed to “set
the best table” in Smith's Pocket, and McSnagley
always called in on Sunday evenings at supper,

to discuss the current gossip, and “nag”
Mliss with selected texts.

The verbal McSnagley as usual couldn't stop a
moment—and just dropped in “in passin'.” The
actual McSnagley deposited his hat in the corner,
and placed himself, in the flesh, on a chair
by the table.

“And how's brother James, and the fammerly?”

“They're all well; except `Risty.' He's off
agin. As if my life wern't already pestered out
with one child”—and Mrs. Morpher glanced
significantly at Mliss.

“Ah, well, we all have our trials,” said McSnagley.
“I've been ailin' agin. That ager
must be in my bones still. I've been onsettled
myself to-day.”

There was the appearance of truth in this
statement; Mr. McSnagley's voice had a hollow
resonant sound, and his eyes were nervous and
fidgety. He had an odd trick too of occasionally
stopping in the middle of a sentence, and
listening as though he heard some distant sound.
These things, which Mrs. Morpher recalled afterwards,
did not, in the undercurrent of uneasiness
about Aristides which she felt the whole of
that evening, so particularly attract her attention.

“I know something,” said Lycurgus, during
one of these pauses, from the retirement of his
corner. “If you dare to—Kerg!”—said Mliss.

“Mliss says she knows where Risty is, but
she won't tell,” said the law-giver, not heeding
the warning. The words were scarcely uttered
before Mliss's red hand flashed in the air and descended
with a resounding box on the traitor's
ear. Lycurgus howled, Mrs. Morpher darted
into the corner, and Mliss was dragged, defiant
and struggling to the light.

“O, you wicked, wicked child—why don't
you say if you know?” said Mrs Morpher, shaking
her as if the information were to be dislodged
from some concealed part of her dress.

“I didn't say I knew for good”—at last responded
Mliss. “I said I thought I knew.”

“Well, where do you think he is?”

But Mliss was firm. Even the gloomy picture
of the future state devised by McSnagley could
not alter her determination. Mrs. Morpher, who
had a wholesome awe for this strange child, at
last had recourse to entreaty. Finally, Mliss
offered a compromise.

“I'll tell the master, but I won't tell you nor
him—partikerily him —said Mliss indicating
the parson with a bodkin-dart of her forefinger.

Mrs. Morpher hesitated. Her maternal
anxiety at length overcame her sense of dignity
and discipline.

“Who knows where the master is, or
where he can be found to night?” she asked
hastily.

“He's over to Dr. Duchesne's,” said Clytie'
eagerly—“that is”—she stammered, a rich color
suddenly flushing from her temples to her round
shoulders—“he's usually there in the evenings,
I mean.”

“Run over, there's a dear, and ask him to
come here,” said Mrs. Morpher, without noticing
the sudden irregularity of conduct in her
first born. “Run quick!”

Clytie did not wait for a second command.
Without availing herself of the proffered company
of Mr. McSnagley, she hastily tied the
strings of her school hat under her plump chin,
and slipped out of the house. It was not far to
the doctor's office, and Clytie walked quickly,
overlooking in her haste and preoccupation the
admiring glances which several of the swain of
Smith's Pocket cast after her as she passed.
But on arriving at the doctor's door, so out of
breath and excitement was this usual model of
deportment that on finding herself in the presence
of the master and his friend, she only
stood in embarrassed silence, and made up for
her lack of verbal expression by a succession of
eloquent blushes.

Let us look at her for a moment as she stands
there. Her little straw hat, trimmed with
cherry-colored ribbons, rests on the waves of
her blonde hair. There are other gay ribbons
on her light summer dress, clasping her round
waist, girdling her wrist, and fastening her collar
about her white throat. Her large blue eyes
are very dark and moist—it may be with excitement
or a thought of the lost Aristides, or
the tobacco smoke, with which, I regret to say,
the room is highly charged. But certainly as
she stands leaning against the doorway, biting
her moist, scarlet lip, and trying to pull down
the broad brim of her hat over the surging
waves of color that will beat rhythmically up to
her cheeks and temples, she is so dangerously
pretty that I am glad for the master's sake he
is the philosopher he has just described himself
to his friend the doctor, and that he prefers to
study human physiology from the inner surface.

When Clytie has recovered herself sufficiently
to state her message, the master offered to accompany
her back. As Clytie took his arm
with some slight trepidation, Doctor Duchesne,
who had taken sharp note of these “febrile”
symptoms, uttered a prolonged whistle, and returned
thoughtfully to his office.

Although Clytie found the distance returning
no further than the distance going, with the exhaustion
of her first journey, it was natural that

her homeward steps should be slower, and that
the master should regulate his pace to accommodate
her. It was natural, too, that her voice
should be quite low and indistinct, so that the
master was obliged to bring his hat nearer the
cherry-colored ribbons in the course of conversation.
It was also natural that he should offer
the sensitive girl such comfort as lay in tenderly
modulated tones and playful epithets. And
if in the irregularities of the main street it was
necessary to take Clytie's hand or to put his arm
around her waist in helping her up declivities,
that the master saw no impropriety in the act
was evident from the fact that he did not remove
his arm when the difficulty was surmounted.
In this way Clytie's return occupied some
moments more than her going,and Mrs. Morpher
was waiting anxiously at the door when the
young people arrived.

As the master entered the room, Mliss called
him to her. “Bend down your head,” she said
“and I'll whisper. But mind, now I don't say I
know for truth where Risty is. I only reckon.”

The master bent down his head. As usual in
such cases, everybody else felt constrained to
listen, and McSnagley's curiosity was awakened
to its fullest extent.

When the master had received the required
information, he said quietly:

“I think I'll go myself to this place Mliss
wise s to make a secret of, and see if the boy is
there. It will save trouble to any one else if she
should be mistaken.”

“Hadn't you better take some one with you?”
said Mrs. Morpher.

“By all means—I'll go,” said Mr. McSnagley,
with feverish alacrity.

The master looked inquiringly at Mliss.

“He can go if he wants to, but he'd better
not,” said Mliss, looking directly into McSnagley's
eyes.

“What do you mean by that, you little savage?”
said McSnagley, quickly.

Mliss turned scornfully away. “Go,” she
said, “go if you want to`” and resumed her seat
in the corner.

The master hesitated. But he could not withstand
the appeal in the eyes of the mother and
daughter, and after a short inward struggle, he
turned to McSnagley and bade him briefly
“Come.”

When they had left the house and stood in the
road together, McSnagley stopped.

“Where are you goin'?”

“To Smith's Pocket.”

McSnagley still lingered.

“Do you ever carry any weppings?” he at
length asked.

“Weapons! No. What do you want with
weapons to go a mile on a starlit road to a deserted
claim? Nonsense, man, what are you
thinking of? We're hunting a lost child, not a
runaway felon. Come along,” and the master
dragged him away.

Mrs. Morpher watched them from the door,
until their figures were lost in the darkness.
When she returned to the dining-room, Clytie
had already retired to her own room, and Mrs.
Morpher overruling Mliss's desire to sit up until
the master had returned, bade her follow that
correct example. “There's Clytie, now, gone to
bed like a young lady, and do you do like her,”
and Mrs. Morpher, with this one drop of balm
in the midst of her trials, trimmed the light and
sat down in patience to wait for Aristides, and
console herself with the reflection of Clytie's excellence.
“Poor Clytie!” mused that motherly
woman, “how excited and worried she looks
about her brother. I hope she'll be able to get
to sleep.”

It did not occur to Mrs. Morpher that there
were seasons in the life of young girls when
younger brothers ceased to become objects of
extreme solicitude. It did not occur to her to
go up-stairs and see how her wish was likely to
be gratified. It was well in her anxiety hat she
did not, and that the crowning trial of the day's
troubles was spared her then. For at that
moment Clytie was lying on the bed where she
had flung herself without undressing, the heavy
masses of her blonde hair tumbled about her
neck, and her hot face buried in her hands.

Of what was the correct Clytie thinking?

She was thinking—lying there with her burning
cheeks pressed against the pillow—that she
loved the master! She was recalling, step by
step, every incident that had occurred in their
lonely walk. She was repeating to herself his
facile sentences, wringing and twisting them to
extract one drop to assuage the strange thirst
that was growing up in her soul. She was thinking—silly
Clytie—that he had never appeared so
kind before, and she was thinking—sillier Clytie—that
no one had ever before felt as she did
then.

“How soft and white his hands were. How
sweet and gentle were the tones of his voice.
How easily he spoke—so unlike her father, McSnagley,
or the young men whom she met at
church or on picnics. How tall and handsome
he looked as he pressed her hand at the door.
Did he press her hand—or was it a mistake?”
Yes, he must have pressed her hand, for she remembers
now to have pressed his in return.
And he put his arm around her waist once, and
she feels it yet, and the strange perfume as he

drew her closer to him. (Mem. The master had
been smoking. Poor Clytie!)

When she had reached this point she raised
herself and sat up, and began the process of undressing,
mechanically putting each article
away in the precise methodical habit of her
former life. But she found herself sitting again
on the bed twisting her hair, which fell over he
plump, white shoulders, idly between her finrgers,
and patting the carpet with her small
white foot. She had been sitting thus some
minutes, when she heard the sound of voices
without, the tramping of many feet, and a loud
rapping at the door below. She sprang to the
door and looked out into the passage. Something
white passed by her like a flash and
crouched down at the head of the stairs. It
was Mliss, Mrs. Morpher had opened the door.

“Is Mr. Morpher in?” said a half dozen
strange, hoarse voices.

“No!”

“Where is he?”

“He's at some of the saloons. O, tell me, has
anything happened? Is it about Aristides!
Where is he—is he safe?” said Mrs. Morpher,
wringing her hands in agony.

“He's all right,” said one of the men, with
Mr. Morpher's old emphasis, “but—”

“But what?”

“Mliss moved slowly down the staircase, and
Clytie, from the passage above, held her breath

“There's been a row down to Smith's old
Pocket—a fight—a man killed.”

“Who?” shouted Mliss from the stairs.

“McSnagley—shot dead!”