 | The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches |  |
MIGGLES.
WE were eight, including the driver. We
had not spoken during the passage of the
last six miles, since the jolting of the heavy vehicle
over the roughening road had spoiled the
Judge's last poetical quotation. The tall man beside
the Judge was asleep, his arm passed through
the swaying strap and his head resting upon it, —
altogether a limp, helpless-looking object, as if he
had hanged himself and been cut down too late.
The French lady on the back seat was asleep, too,
yet in a half-conscious propriety of attitude, shown
even in the disposition of the handkerchief which
she held to her forehead and which partially veiled
her face. The lady from Virginia City, travelling
with her husband, had long since lost all individuality
in a wild confusion of ribbons, veils,
furs, and shawls. There was no sound but the
rattling of wheels and the dash of rain upon the
roof. Suddenly the stage stopped and we became
dimly aware of voices. The driver was evidently
in the midst of an exciting colloquy with some
one in the road, — a colloquy of which such fragments
as “bridge gone,” “twenty feet of water,”
above the storm. Then came a lull, and a mysterious
voice from the road shouted the parting adjuration,
—
“Try Miggles's.”
We caught a glimpse of our leaders as the vehicle
slowly turned, of a horseman vanishing through
the rain, and we were evidently on our way to
Miggles's.
Who and where was Miggles? The Judge, our
authority, did not remember the name, and he
knew the country thoroughly. The Washoe traveller
thought Miggles must keep a hotel. We
only knew that we were stopped by high water in
front and rear, and that Miggles was our rock of
refuge. A ten minutes' splashing through a tangled
by-road, searcely wide enough for the stage,
and we drew up before a barred and boarded gate
in a wide stone wall or fence about eight feet
high. Evidently Miggles's, and evidently Miggles
did not keep a hotel.
The driver got down and tried the gate. It was
securely locked.
“Miggles! O Miggles!”
No answer.
“Migg-ells! You Miggles!” continued the
driver, with rising wrath.
“Migglesy!” joined in the expressman, persuasively.
“O Miggy! Mig!”
But no reply came from the apparently insensate
Miggles. The Judge, who had finally got the
window down, put his head out and propounded a
series of questions, which if answered categorically
would have undoubtedly elucidated the whole
mystery, but which the driver evaded by replying
that “if we did n't want to sit in the coach all
night, we had better rise up and sing out for
Miggles.”
So we rose up and called on Miggles in chorus;
then separately. And when we had finished, a
Hibernian fellow-passenger from the roof called
for “Maygells!” whereat we all laughed. While
we were laughing, the driver cried “Shoo!”
We listened. To our infinite amazement the
chorus of “Miggles” was repeated from the other
side of the wall, even to the final and supplemental
“Maygells.”
“Extraordinary echo,” said the Judge.
“Extraordinary d—d skunk!” roared the driver,
contemptuously. “Come out of that, Miggles,
and show yourself! Be a man, Miggles! Don't
hide in the dark; I would n't if I were you,
Miggles,” continued Yuba Bill, now dancing about
in an excess of fury.
“Miggles!” continued the voice, “O Miggles!”
“My good man! Mr. Myghail!” said the Judge,
softening the asperities of the name as much as
possible. “Consider the inhospitality of refusing
helpless females. Really, my dear sir —” But
a succession of “Miggles,” ending in a burst of
laughter, drowned his voice.
Yuba Bill hesitated no longer. Taking a heavy
stone from the road, he battered down the gate,
and with the expressman entered the enclosure.
We followed. Nobody was to be seen. In the
gathering darkness all that we could distinguish
was that we were in a garden — from the rose-bushes
that scattered over us a minute spray from
their dripping leaves — and before a long, rambling
wooden building.
“Do you know this Miggles?” asked the Judge
of Yuba Bill.
“No, nor don't want to,” said Bill, shortly, who
felt the Pioneer Stage Company insulted in his
person by the contumacious Miggles.
“But, my dear sir,” expostulated the Judge, as
he thought of the barred gate.
“Lookee here,” said Yuba Bill, with fine irony,
“had n't you better go back and sit in the coach
till yer introduced? I 'm going in,” and he
pushed open the door of the building.
A long room lighted only by the embers of a
fire that was dying on the large hearth at its further
extremity; the walls curiously papered, and
the flickering firelight bringing out its grotesque
pattern; somebody sitting in a large arm-chair
together into the room, after the driver and expressman.
“Hello, be you Miggles?” said Yuba Bill to
the solitary occupant.
The figure neither spoke nor stirred. Yuba
Bill walked wrathfully toward it, and turned the
eye of his coach-lantern upon its face. It was a
man's face, prematurely old and wrinkled, with
very large eyes, in which there was that expression
of perfectly gratuitous solemnity which I had
sometimes seen in an owl's. The large eyes wandered
from Bill's face to the lantern, and finally
fixed their gaze on that luminous object, without
further recognition.
Bill restrained himself with an effort.
“Miggles! Be you deaf? You ain't dumb
anyhow, you know”; and Yuba Bill shook the
insensate figure by the shoulder.
To our great dismay, as Bill removed his hand,
the venerable stranger apparently collapsed, —
sinking into half his size and an undistinguishable
heap of clothing.
“Well, dern my skin,” said Bill, looking appealingly
at us, and hopelessly retiring from the
contest.
The Judge now stepped forward, and we lifted
the mysterious invertebrate back into his original
position. Bill was dismissed with the lantern to
the helplessness of this solitary man there must be
attendants near at hand, and we all drew around
the fire. The Judge, who had regained his authority,
and had never lost his conversational
amiability, — standing before us with his back to
the hearth, — charged us, as an imaginary jury,
as follows: —
“It is evident that either our distinguished
friend here has reached that condition described
by Shakespeare as `the sere and yellow leaf,' or
has suffered some premature abatement of his
mental and physical faculties. Whether he is
really the Miggles —”
Here he was interrupted by “Miggles! O Miggles!
Migglesy! Mig!” and, in fact, the whole
chorus of Miggles in very much the same key as
it had once before been delivered unto us.
We gazed at each other for a moment in some
alarm. The Judge, in particular, vacated his position
quickly, as the voice seemed to come directly
over his shoulder. The cause, however, was
soon discovered in a large magpie who was
perched upon a shelf over the fireplace, and who
immediately relapsed into a sepulchral silence,
which contrasted singularly with his previous
volubility. It was, undoubtedly, his voice which
we had heard in the road, and our friend in the
chair was not responsible for the discourtesy.
search, was loath to accept the explanation,
and still eyed the helpless sitter with suspicion.
He had found a shed in which he had put
up his horses, but he came back dripping and
sceptical. “Thar ain't nobody but him within
ten mile of the shanty, and that 'ar d—d old
skeesicks knows it.”
But the faith of the majority proved to be securely
based. Bill had scarcely ceased growling
before we heard a quick step upon the porch,
the trailing of a wet skirt, the door was flung
open, and with a flash of white teeth, a sparkle
of dark eyes, and an utter absence of ceremony
or diffidence, a young woman entered, shut the
door, and, panting, leaned back against it.
“O, if you please, I 'm Miggles!”
And this was Miggles! this bright-eyed, full-throated
young woman, whose wet gown of coarse
blue stuff could not hide the beauty of the feminine
curves to which it clung; from the chestnut
crown of whose head, topped by a man's oil-skin
sou'wester, to the little feet and ankles, hidden
somewhere in the recesses of her boy's brogans,
all was grace; — this was Miggles, laughing
at us, too, in the most airy, frank, off-hand manner
imaginable.
“You see, boys,” said she, quite out of breath,
and holding one little hand against her side, quite
or the complete demoralization of Yuba Bill,
whose features had relaxed into an expression of
gratuitous and imbecile cheerfulness, — “you see,
boys, I was mor'n two miles away when you
passed down the road. I thought you might pull
up here, and so I ran the whole way, knowing
nobody was home but Jim, — and — and — I 'm
out of breath — and — that lets me out.”
And here Miggles caught her dripping oil-skin
hat from her head, with a mischievous swirl that
scattered a shower of rain-drops over us; attempted
to put back her hair; dropped two hairpins
in the attempt; laughed and sat down beside
Yuba Bill, with her hands crossed lightly on her
lap.
The Judge recovered himself first, and essayed
an extravagant compliment.
“I 'll trouble you for that thar har-pin,” said
Miggles, gravely. Half a dozen hands were eagerly
stretched forward; the missing hair-pin was restored
to its fair owner; and Miggles, crossing the
room, looked keenly in the face of the invalid.
The solemn eyes looked back at hers with an expression
we had never seen before. Life and intelligence
seemed to struggle back into the rugged
face. Miggles laughed again, — it was a singularly
eloquent laugh, — and turned her black eyes and
white teeth once more toward us.
“This afflicted person is — ” hesitated the
Judge.
“Jim,” said Miggles.
“Your father?”
“No.”
“Brother?”
“No.”
“Husband?”
Miggles darted a quick, half-defiant glance at
the two lady passengers who I had noticed did
not participate in the general masculine admiration
of Miggles, and said, gravely, “No; it 's
Jim.”
There was an awkward pause. The lady passengers
moved closer to each other; the Washoe
husband looked abstractedly at the fire; and the
tall man apparently turned his eyes inward for
self-support at this emergency. But Miggles's
laugh, which was very infectious, broke the silence.
“Come,” she said briskly, “you must be hungry.
Who 'll bear a hand to help me get tea?”
She had no lack of volunteers. In a few moments
Yuba Bill was engaged like Caliban in
bearing logs for this Miranda; the expressman
was grinding coffee on the veranda; to myself
the arduous duty of slicing bacon was assigned;
and the Judge lent each man his good-humored
and voluble counsel. And when Miggles, assisted
by the Judge and our Hibernian “deck passenger,”
we had become quite joyous, in spite of the
rain that beat against windows, the wind that
whirled down the chimney, the two ladies who
whispered together in the corner, or the magpie
who uttered a satirical and croaking commentary
on their conversation from his perch above. In
the now bright, blazing fire we could see that
the walls were papered with illustrated journals,
arranged with feminine taste and discrimination.
The furniture was extemporized, and adapted from
candle-boxes and packing-cases, and covered with
gay calico, or the skin of some animal. The
arm-chair of the helpless Jim was an ingenious
variation of a flour-barrel. There was neatness,
and even a taste for the picturesque, to be seen in
the few details of the long low room.
The meal was a culinary success. But more, it
was a social triumph, — chiefly, I think, owing to
the rare tact of Miggles in guiding the conversation,
asking all the questions herself, yet bearing
throughout a frankness that rejected the idea of
any concealment on her own part, so that we talked
of ourselves, of our prospects, of the journey, of
the weather, of each other, — of everything but
our host and hostess. It must be confessed that
Miggles's conversation was never elegant, rarely
grammatical, and that at times she employed expletives,
the use of which had generally been yielded
a lighting up of teeth and eyes, and were usually
followed by a laugh — a laugh peculiar to Miggles
— so frank and honest that it seemed to clear
the moral atmosphere.
Once, during the meal, we heard a noise like
the rubbing of a heavy body against the outer
walls of the house. This was shortly followed by a
scratching and sniffling at the door. “That 's Joaquin,”
said Miggles, in reply to our questioning
glances; “would you like to see him?” Before we
could answer she had opened the door, and disclosed
a half-grown grizzly, who instantly raised
himself on his haunches, with his forepaws hanging
down in the popular attitude of mendicancy,
and looked admiringly at Miggles, with a very
singular resemblance in his manner to Yuba Bill.
“That 's my watch-dog,” said Miggles, in explanation.
“O, he don't bite,” she added, as the two
lady passengers fluttered into a corner. “Does he,
old Toppy?” (the latter remark being addressed
directly to the sagacious Joaquin.) “I tell you
what, boys,” continued Miggles, after she had fed
and closed the door on Ursa Minor, “you were in
big luck that Joaquin was n't hanging round when
you dropped in to-night.” “Where was he?”
asked the Judge. “With me,” said Miggles.
“Lord love you; he trots round with me nights
like as if he was a man.”
We were silent for a few moments, and listened
to the wind. Perhaps we all had the same
picture before us, — of Miggles walking through
the rainy woods, with her savage guardian at her
side. The Judge, I remember, said something
about Una and her lion; but Miggles received it
as she did other compliments, with quiet gravity.
Whether she was altogether unconscious of the
admiration she excited, — she could hardly have
been oblivious of Yuba Bill's adoration, — I know
not; but her very frankness suggested a perfect
sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to
the younger members of our party.
The incident of the bear did not add anything
in Miggles's favor to the opinions of those of her
own sex who were present. In fact, the repast
over, a chillness radiated from the two lady passengers
that no pine-boughs brought in by Yuba
Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth could
wholly overcome. Miggles felt it; and, suddenly
declaring that it was time to “turn in,” offered to
show the ladies to their bed in an adjoining room.
“You, boys, will have to camp out here by the
fire as well as you can,” she added, “for thar ain't
but the one room.”
Our sex — by which, my dear sir, I allude of
course to the stronger portion of humanity — has
been generally relieved from the imputation of curiosity,
or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am constrained
Miggles than we crowded together, whispering,
snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions,
surmises, and a thousand speculations in regard to
our pretty hostess and her singular companion. I
fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic,
who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst,
gazing with the serene indifference of the Past in
his passionless eyes upon our wordy counsels. In
the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened
again, and Miggles re-entered.
But not, apparently, the same Miggles who a
few hours before had flashed upon us. Her eyes
were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment
on the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she
seemed to have left behind her the frank fearlessness
which had charmed us a moment before.
Coming into the room, she drew a low stool beside
the paralytic's chair, sat down, drew the blanket
over her shoulders, and saying, “If it 's all the same
to you, boys, as we 're rather crowded, I 'll stop
here to-night,” took the invalid's withered hand in
her own, and turned her eyes upon the dying fire.
An instinctive feeling that this was only premonitory
to more confidential relations, and perhaps
some shame at our previous curiosity, kept us silent.
The rain still beat upon the roof, wandering
gusts of wind stirred the embers into momentary
brightness, until, in a lull of the elements,
her hair over her shoulder, turned her face
upon the group and asked,—
“Is there any of you that knows me?”
There was no reply.
“Think again! I lived at Marysville in '53.
Everybody knew me there, and everybody had the
right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until
I came to live with Jim. That 's six years ago.
Perhaps I've changed some.”
The absence of recognition may have disconcerted
her. She turned her head to the fire again,
and it was some seconds before she again spoke,
and then more rapidly:—
“Well, you see I thought some of you must
have known me. There 's no great harm done,
anyway. What I was going to say was this: Jim
here” — she took his hand in both of hers as she
spoke — “used to know me, if you did n't, and
spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he
spent all he had. And one day — it 's six years
ago this winter — Jim came into my back room,
sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that
chair, and never moved again without help. He
was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to
know what ailed him. The doctors came and said
as how it was caused all along of his way of life,
— for Jim was mighty free and wild like, — and
that he would never get better, and could n't last
Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to any
one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it
was something in Jim's eye, perhaps it was that I
never had a baby, but I said `No.' I was rich
then, for I was popular with everybody, — gentlemen
like yourself, sir, came to see me, — and I
sold out my business and bought this yer place,
because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you
see, and I brought my baby here.”
With a woman's intuitive tact and poetry, she
had, as she spoke, slowly shifted her position so as
to bring the mute figure of the ruined man between
her and her audience, hiding in the shadow
behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology
for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet
spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten with
the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible
arm around her.
Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his
hand, she went on:—
“It was a long time before I could get the hang
of things about yer, for I was used to company
and excitement. I could n't get any woman to
help me, and a man I dursent trust; but what
with the Indians hereabout, who 'd do odd jobs for
me, and having everything sent from the North
Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The
Doctor would run up from Sacramento once in a
called Jim, and when he 'd go away, he 'd say,
`Miggles; you 're a trump, — God bless you'; and
it did n't seem so lonely after that. But the last
time he was here he said, as he opened the door to
go, `Do you know, Miggles, your baby will grow
up to be a man yet and an honor to his mother;
but not here, Miggles, not here!' And I thought
he went away sad, — and — and —” and here Miggles's
voice and head were somehow both lost completely
in the shadow.
“The folks about here are very kind,” said Miggles,
after a pause, coming a little into the light
again. “The men from the fork used to hang
around here, until they found they was n't wanted,
and the women are kind, — and don't call. I was
pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in the
woods yonder one day, when he was n't so high,
and taught him to beg for his dinner; and then
thar's Polly — that 's the magpie — she knows no
end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of evenings
with her talk, and so I don't feel like as I
was the only living being about the ranch. And
Jim here,” said Miggles, with her old laugh again,
and coming out quite into the firelight, “Jim —
why, boys, you would admire to see how much he
knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring
him flowers, and he looks at 'em just as natural as
if he knew 'em; and times, when we 're sitting
Lord!” said Miggles, with her frank laugh, “I 've
read him that whole side of the house this winter.
There never was such a man for reading as Jim.”
“Why,” asked the Judge, “do you not marry
this man to whom you have devoted your youthful
life?”
“Well, you see,” said Miggles, “it would be
playing it rather low down on Jim, to take advantage
of his being so helpless. And then, too, if
we were man and wife, now, we 'd both know that
I was bound to do what I do now of my own
accord.”
“But you are young yet and attractive —”
“It 's getting late,” said Miggles, gravely, “and
you 'd better all turn in. Good-night, boys”; and,
throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles laid
herself down beside Jim's chair, her head pillowed
on the low stool that held his feet, and spoke no
more. The fire slowly faded from the hearth; we
each sought our blankets in silence; and presently
there was no sound in the long room but the pattering
of the rain upon the roof, and the heavy
breathing of the sleepers.
It was nearly morning when I awoke from a
troubled dream. The storm had passed, the stars
were shining, and through the shutterless window
the full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines
without, looked into the room. It touched the
and seemed to baptize with a shining flood
the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in
the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him she
loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged
outline of Yuba Bill, half reclining on his elbow
between them and his passengers, with savagely
patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then
I fell asleep and only woke at broad day, with
Yuba Bill standing over me, and “All aboard”
ringing in my ears.
Coffee was waiting for us on the table, but Miggles
was gone. We wandered about the house and
lingered long after the horses were harnessed, but
she did not return. It was evident that she wished
to avoid a formal leave-taking, and had so left
us to depart as we had come. After we had helped
the ladies into the coach, we returned to the house
and solemnly shook hands with the paralytic Jim,
as solemnly settling him back into position after
each hand-shake. Then we looked for the last
time around the long low room, at the stool where
Miggles had sat, and slowly took our seats in the
waiting coach. The whip cracked, and we were
off!
But as we reached the high-road, Bill's dexterous
hand laid the six horses back on their haunches,
and the stage stopped with a jerk. For there, on
a little eminence beside the road, stood Miggles,
waving, and her white teeth flashing a
last “good-by.” We waved our hats in return.
And then Yuba Bill, as if fearful of further fascination,
madly lashed his horses forward, and we
sank back in our seats. We exchanged not a word
until we reached the North Fork, and the stage
drew up at the Independence House. Then, the
Judge leading, we walked into the bar-room and
took our places gravely at the bar.
“Are your glasses charged, gentlemen?” said
the Judge, solemnly taking off his white hat.
They were.
“Well, then, here 's to Miggles, God bless
her!”
Perhaps He had. Who knows?
| The luck of Roaring Camp, and other sketches | |