 | Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches |  |
THE ROMANCE OF MADROÑO HOLLOW.
THE latch on the garden gate of the Folinsbee
Ranch clicked twice. The gate itself was so
much in shadow that lovely night, that “old man
Folinsbee,” sitting on his porch, could distinguish
nothing but a tall white hat and beside it a few
fluttering ribbons, under the pines that marked
the entrance. Whether because of this fact, or
that he considered a sufficient time had elapsed
since the clicking of the latch for more positive
disclosure, I do not know; but after a few moments'
hesitation he quietly laid aside his pipe and
walked slowly down the winding path toward the
gate. At the Ceanothus hedge he stopped and
listened.
There was not much to hear. The hat was saying
to the ribbons that it was a fine night, and remarking
generally upon the clear outline of the
Sierras against the blue-black sky. The ribbons,
it so appeared, had admired this all the way home,
and asked the hat if it had ever seen anything
half so lovely as the moonlight on the summit
The hat never had; it recalled some lovely nights
in the South in Alabama (“in the South in Ahlabahm”
then there were other things that made this night
seem so pleasant. The ribbons could not possibly
conceive what the hat could be thinking about. At
this point there was a pause, of which Mr. Folinsbee
availed himself to walk very grimly and
craunchingly down the gravel-walk toward the
gate. Then the hat was lifted, and disappeared in
the shadow, and Mr. Folinsbee confronted only the
half-foolish, half-mischievous, but wholly pretty
face of his daughter.
It was afterward known to Madroño Hollow that
sharp words passed between “Miss Jo” and the old
man, and that the latter coupled the names of one
Culpepper Starbottle and his uncle, Colonel Starbottle,
with certain uncomplimentary epithets, and
that Miss Jo retaliated sharply. “Her father's
blood before her father's face boiled up and proved
her truly of his race,” quoted the blacksmith, who
leaned toward the noble verse of Byron. “She
saw the old man's bluff and raised him,” was the
directer comment of the college-bred Masters.
Meanwhile the subject of these animadversions
proceeded slowly along the road to a point where
the Folinsbee mansion came in view, — a long,
narrow, white building, unpretentious, yet superior
to its neighbors, and bearing some evidences of
taste and refinement in the vines that clambered
over its porch, in its French windows, and the
sun by day, and were now touched with silver
in the gracious moonlight. Culpepper leaned
against the low fence, and gazed long and earnestly
at the building. Then the moonlight vanished ghostlike
from one of the windows, a material glow took
its place, and a girlish figure, holding a candle, drew
the white curtains together. To Culpepper it was
a vestal virgin standing before a hallowed shrine;
to the prosaic observer I fear it was only a fair-haired
young woman, whose wicked black eyes still
shone with unfilial warmth. Howbeit, when the
figure had disappeared he stepped out briskly into
the moonlight of the high-road. Here he took off
his distinguishing hat to wipe his forehead, and
the moon shone full upon his face.
It was not an unprepossessing one, albeit a trifle
too thin and lank and bilious to be altogether
pleasant. The cheek-bones were prominent, and
the black eyes sunken in their orbits. Straight
black hair fell slantwise off a high but narrow
forehead, and swept part of a hollow cheek. A
long black mustache followed the perpendicular
curves of his mouth. It was on the whole a serious,
even Quixotic face, but at times it was relieved
by a rare smile of such tender and even pathetic
sweetness, that Miss Jo is reported to have said
that, if it would only last through the ceremony,
she would have married its possessor on the spot.
woman; “but the man instantly fell into a settled
melancholy, and has n't smiled since.”
A half-mile below the Folinsbee Ranch the white
road dipped and was crossed by a trail that ran
through Madroño Hollow. Perhaps because it was
a near cut-off to the settlement, perhaps from some
less practical reason, Culpepper took this trail, and
in a few moments stood among the rarely beautiful
trees that gave their name to the valley. Even in
that uncertain light the weird beauty of these harlequin
masqueraders was apparent; their red trunks
— a blush in the moonlight, a deep blood-stain in
the shadow — stood out against the silvery green
foliage. It was as if Nature in some gracious moment
had here caught and crystallized the gypsy
memories of the transplanted Spaniard, to cheer
him in his lonely exile.
As Culpepper entered the grove he heard loud
voices. As he turned toward a clump of trees, a
figure so bizarre and characteristic that it might
have been a resident Daphne — a figure overdressed
in crimson silk and lace, with bare brown
arms and shoulders, and a wreath of honeysuckle
— stepped out of the shadow. It was followed by
a man. Culpepper started. To come to the point
briefly, he recognized in the man the features of
his respected uncle, Colonel Starbottle; in the female,
a lady who may be briefly described as one
to the polite reader. To hurry over equally unpleasant
details, both were evidently under the
influence of liquor.
From the excited conversation that ensued, Culpepper
gathered that some insult had been put
upon the lady at a public ball which she had attended
that evening; that the Colonel, her escort,
had failed to resent it with the sanguinary completeness
that she desired. I regret that, even in
a liberal age, I may not record the exact and even
picturesque language in which this was conveyed
to her hearers. Enough that at the close of a fiery
peroration, with feminine inconsistency she flew at
the gallant Colonel, and would have visited her
delayed vengeance upon his luckless head, but for
the prompt interference of Culpepper. Thwarted
in this, she threw herself upon the ground, and
then into unpicturesque hysterics. There was a
fine moral lesson, not only in this grotesque performance
of a sex which cannot afford to be grotesque,
but in the ludicrous concern with which
it inspired the two men. Culpepper, to whom
woman was more or less angelic, was pained and
sympathetic; the Colonel, to whom she was more or
less improper, was exceedingly terrified and embarrassed.
Howbeit the storm was soon over, and
after Mistress Dolores had returned a little dagger
to its sheath (her garter), she quietly took herself
pages forever. The two men, left to themselves,
conversed in low tones. Dawn stole upon them
before they separated: the Colonel quite sobered
and in full possession of his usual jaunty self-assertion;
Culpepper with a baleful glow in his
hollow cheek, and in his dark eyes a rising fire.
The next morning the general ear of Madroño
Hollow was filled with rumors of the Colonel's
mishap. It was asserted that he had been invited
to withdraw his female companion from the floor
of the Assembly Ball at the Independence Hotel,
and that, failing to do this, both were expelled. It
is to be regretted that in 1854 public opinion was
divided in regard to the propriety of this step, and
that there was some discussion as to the comparative
virtue of the ladies who were not expelled;
but it was generally conceded that the real casus
belli was political. “Is this a dashed Puritan
meeting?” had asked the Colonel, savagely. “It's
no Pike County shindig,” had responded the floor-manager,
cheerfully. “You 're a Yank!” had
screamed the Colonel, profanely qualifying the
noun. “Get! you border ruffian,” was the reply.
Such at least was the substance of the reports.
As, at that sincere epoch, expressions like the
above were usually followed by prompt action, a
fracas was confidently looked for.
Nothing, however, occurred. Colonel Starbottle
made his appearance next day upon the streets
with somewhat of his usual pomposity, a little
restrained by the presence of his nephew, who
accompanied him, and who, as a universal favorite,
also exercised some restraint upon the curious and
impertinent. But Culpepper's face wore a look of
anxiety quite at variance with his usual grave repose.
“The Don don't seem to take the old man's
set-back kindly,” observed the sympathizing blacksmith.
“P'r'aps he was sweet on Dolores himself,”
suggested the sceptical expressman.
It was a bright morning, a week after this occurrence,
that Miss Jo Folinsbee stepped from her
garden into the road. This time the latch did not
click as she cautiously closed the gate behind her.
After a moment's irresolution, which would have
been awkward but that it was charmingly employed,
after the manner of her sex, in adjusting a
bow under a dimpled but rather prominent chin,
and in pulling down the fingers of a neatly fitting
glove, she tripped toward the settlement. Small
wonder that a passing teamster drove his six
mules into the wayside ditch and imperilled his
load, to keep the dust from her spotless garments;
small wonder that the “Lightning Express” withheld
its speed and flash to let her pass, and that
the expressman, who had never been known to
exchange more than rapid monosyllables with his
For she was certainly attractive. In a
country where the ornamental sex followed the
example of youthful Nature, and were prone to
overdress and glaring efflorescence, Miss Jo's simple
and tasteful raiment added much to the physical
charm of, if it did not actually suggest a sentiment
to, her presence. It is said that Euchre-deck
Billy, working in the gulch at the crossing, never
saw Miss Folinsbee pass but that he always
remarked apologetically to his partner, that “he
believed he must write a letter home.” Even Bill
Masters, who saw her in Paris presented to the
favorable criticism of that most fastidious man,
the late Emperor, said that she was stunning, but
a big discount on what she was at Madroño
Hollow.
It was still early morning, but the sun, with
California extravagance, had already begun to beat
hotly on the little chip hat and blue ribbons, and
Miss Jo was obliged to seek the shade of a by-path.
Here she received the timid advances of a
vagabond yellow dog graciously, until, emboldened
by his success, he insisted upon accompanying her,
and, becoming slobberingly demonstrative, threatened
her spotless skirt with his dusty paws, when
she drove him from her with some slight acerbity,
and a stone which haply fell within fifty feet
of its destined mark. Having thus proved her
she took a small panic, and, gathering her
white skirts in one hand, and holding the brim of
her hat over her eyes with the other, she ran
swiftly at least a hundred yards before she stopped.
Then she began picking some ferns and a few
wild-flowers still spared to the withered fields, and
then a sudden distrust of her small ankles seized
her, and she inspected them narrowly for those
burrs and bugs and snakes which are supposed to
lie in wait for helpless womanhood. Then she
plucked some golden heads of wild oats, and with
a sudden inspiration placed them in her black
hair, and then came quite unconsciously upon the
trail leading to Madroño Hollow.
Here she hesitated. Before her ran the little
trail, vanishing at last into the bosky depths below.
The sun was very hot. She must be very
far from home. Why should she not rest awhile
under the shade of a madroño?
She answered these questions by going there at
once. After thoroughly exploring the grove, and
satisfying herself that it contained no other living
human creature, she sat down under one of the
largest trees, with a satisfactory little sigh. Miss
Jo loved the madroño. It was a cleanly tree; no
dust ever lay upon its varnished leaves; its immaculate
shade never was known to harbor grub
or insect.
She looked up at the rosy arms interlocked and
arched above her head. She looked down at the
delicate ferns and cryptogams at her feet. Something
glittered at the root of the tree. She picked
it up; it was a bracelet. She examined it carefully
for cipher or inscription; there was none.
She could not resist a natural desire to clasp it on
her arm, and to survey it from that advantageous
view-point. This absorbed her attention for some
moments; and when she looked up again she beheld
at a little distance Culpepper Starbottle.
He was standing where he had halted, with instinctive
delicacy, on first discovering her. Indeed,
he had even deliberated whether he ought
not to go away without disturbing her. But some
fascination held him to the spot. Wonderful
power of humanity! Far beyond jutted an outlying
spur of the Sierra, vast, compact, and silent.
Scarcely a hundred yards away, a league-long
chasm dropped its sheer walls of granite a thousand
feet. On every side rose up the serried
ranks of pine-trees, in whose close-set files centuries
of storm and change had wrought no breach.
Yet all this seemed to Culpepper to have been
planned by an all-wise Providence as the natural
background to the figure of a pretty girl in a yellow
dress.
Although Miss Jo had confidently expected to
meet Culpepper somewhere in her ramble, now
and embarrassed. His manner, too, was
more than usually grave and serious, and more
than ever seemed to jar upon that audacious levity
which was this giddy girl's power and security in
a society where all feeling was dangerous. As he
approached her she rose to her feet, but almost before
she knew it he had taken her hand and drawn
her to a seat beside him. This was not what Miss
Jo had expected, but nothing is so difficult to predicate
as the exact preliminaries of a declaration
of love.
What did Culpepper say? Nothing, I fear, that
will add anything to the wisdom of the reader;
nothing, I fear, that Miss Jo had not heard substantially
from other lips before. But there was a
certain conviction, fire-speed, and fury in the manner
that was deliciously novel to the young lady.
It was certainly something to be courted in the
nineteenth century with all the passion and extravagance
of the sixteenth; it was something to
hear, amid the slang of a frontier society, the language
of knight-errantry poured into her ear by
this lantern-jawed, dark-browed descendant of the
Cavaliers.
I do not know that there was anything more in
it. The facts, however, go to show that at a certain
point Miss Jo dropped her glove, and that in
recovering it Culpepper possessed himself first of
to go Culpepper had his arm around her waist, and
her black hair, with its sheaf of golden oats, rested
against the breast pocket of his coat. But even
then I do not think her fancy was entirely captive.
She took a certain satisfaction in this demonstration
of Culpepper's splendid height, and mentally
compared it with a former flame, one Lieutenant
McMirk, an active, but under-sized Hector, who
subsequently fell a victim to the incautiously composed
and monotonous beverages of a frontier garrison.
Nor was she so much preoccupied but that
her quick eyes, even while absorbing Culpepper's
glances, were yet able to detect, at a distance, the
figure of a man approaching. In an instant she
slipped out of Culpepper's arm, and, whipping
her hands behind her, said, “There 's that horrid
man!”
Culpepper looked up and beheld his respected
uncle panting and blowing over the hill. His
brow contracted as he turned to Miss Jo: “You
don't like my uncle!”
“I hate him!” Miss Jo was recovering her
ready tongue.
Culpepper blushed. He would have liked to
enter upon some details of the Colonel's pedigree
and exploits, but there was not time. He only
smiled sadly. The smile melted Miss Jo. She
held out her hand quickly, and said with even
man get you into any trouble. Take care of yourself,
dear, and don't let anything happen to you.”
Miss Jo intended this speech to be pathetic;
the tenure of life among her lovers had hitherto
been very uncertain. Culpepper turned toward
her, but she had already vanished in the thicket.
The Colonel came up panting. “I 've looked
all over town for you, and be dashed to you, sir.
Who was that with you?”
“A lady.” (Culpepper never lied, but he was
discreet.)
“D—m 'em all! Look yar, Culp, I 've spotted
the man who gave the order to put me off the
floor” (“flo” was what the Colonel said) “the other
night!”
“Who was it?” asked Culpepper, listlessly.
“Jack Folinsbee.”
“Who?”
“Why, the son of that dashed nigger-worshipping
psalm-singing Puritan Yankee. What 's the
matter, now? Look yar, Culp, you ain't goin' back
on your blood, ar' ye? You ain't goin' back on
your word? Ye ain't going down at the feet of
this trash, like a whipped hound?”
Culpepper was silent. He was very white.
Presently he looked up and said quietly, “No.”
Culpepper Starbottle had challenged Jack Folinsbee,
alleged was the expelling of Culpepper's uncle from
the floor of the Assembly Ball by the order of
Folinsbee. This much Madroño Hollow knew and
could swear to; but there were other strange rumors
afloat, of which the blacksmith was an able
expounder. “You see, gentlemen,” he said to the
crowd gathered around his anvil, “I ain't got no
theory of this affair, I only give a few facts as have
come to my knowledge. Culpepper and Jack
meets quite accidental like in Bob's saloon. Jack
goes up to Culpepper and says, `A word with you.'
Culpepper bows and steps aside in this way, Jack
standing about here.” (The blacksmith demonstrates
the position of the parties with two old
horseshoes on the anvil.) “Jack pulls a bracelet
from his pocket and says, `Do you know that
bracelet?' Culpepper says, `I do not,' quite cool-like
and easy. Jack says, `You gave it to my sister.'
Culpepper says, still cool as you please, `I did
not.' Jack says, `You lie, G—d d—mn you,' and
draws his derringer. Culpepper jumps forward
about here” (reference is made to the diagram)
“and Jack fires. Nobody hit. It 's a mighty cur'o's
thing, gentlemen,” continued the blacksmith,
dropping suddenly into the abstract, and leaning
meditatively on his anvil, — “it 's a mighty cur'o's
thing that nobody gets hit so often. You and me
empties our revolvers sociably at each other over a
That 's what gets me.”
“Never mind, Thompson,” chimed in Bill Masters,
“there 's another and a better world where
we shall know all that and — become better shots.
Go on with your story.”
“Well, some grabs Culpepper and some grabs
Jack, and so separates them. Then Jack tells 'em
as how he had seen his sister wear a bracelet which
he knew was one that had been given to Dolores
by Colonel Starbottle. That Miss Jo would n't
say where she got it, but owned up to having seen
Culpepper that day. Then the most cur'o's thing
of it yet, what does Culpepper do but rise up and
takes all back that he said, and allows that he did
give her the bracelet. Now my opinion, gentlemen,
is that he lied; it ain't like that man to give
a gal that he respects anything off of that piece,
Dolores. But it 's all the same now, and there 's
but one thing to be done.”
The way this one thing was done belongs to the
record of Madroño Hollow. The morning was
bright and clear; the air was slightly chill, but
that was from the mist which arose along the banks
of the river. As early as six o'clock the designated
ground — a little opening in the madroño
grove — was occupied by Culpepper Starbottle,
Colonel Starbottle, his second, and the surgeon.
The Colonel was exalted and excited, albeit in a
the surgeon the excellence of the ground, which at
that hour was wholly shaded from the sun, whose
steady stare is more or less discomposing to your
duellist. The surgeon threw himself on the grass
and smoked his cigar. Culpepper, quiet and
thoughtful, leaned against a tree and gazed up the
river. There was a strange suggestion of a picnic
about the group, which was heightened when the
Colonel drew a bottle from his coat-tails, and, taking
a preliminary draught, offered it to the others.
“Cocktails, sir,” he explained with dignified precision.
“A gentleman, sir, should never go out
without 'em. Keeps off the morning chill. I remember
going out in '53 with Hank Boompirater.
Good ged, sir, the man had to put on his overcoat,
and was shot in it. Fact.”
But the noise of wheels drowned the Colonel's
reminiscences, and a rapidly driven buggy, containing
Jack Folinsbee, Calhoun Bungstarter, his second,
and Bill Masters, drew up on the ground.
Jack Folinsbee leaped out gayly. “I had the jolliest
work to get away without the governor's
hearing,” he began, addressing the group before him
with the greatest volubility. Calhoun Bungstarter
touched his arm, and the young man blushed. It
was his first duel.
“If you are ready, gentlemen,” said Mr. Bungstarter,
“we had better proceed to business. I
offered or accepted. We may as well settle preliminaries
at once, or I fear we shall be interrupted.
There is a rumor in town that the Vigilance Committee
are seeking our friends the Starbottles, and
I believe, as their fellow-countryman, I have the
honor to be included in their warrant.”
At this probability of interruption, that gravity
which had hitherto been wanting fell upon the
group. The preliminaries were soon arranged and
the principals placed in position. Then there was
a silence.
To a spectator from the hill, impressed with the
picnic suggestion, what might have been the popping
of two champagne corks broke the stillness.
Culpepper had fired in the air. Colonel Starbottle
uttered a low curse. Jack Folinsbee sulkily
demanded another shot.
Again the parties stood opposed to each other.
Again the word was given, and what seemed to be
the simultaneous report of both pistols rose upon
the air. But after an interval of a few seconds all
were surprised to see Culpepper slowly raise his
unexploded weapon and fire it harmlessly above
his head. Then, throwing the pistol upon the
ground, he walked to a tree and leaned silently
against it.
Jack Folinsbee flew into a paroxysm of fury.
Colonel Starbottle raved and swore. Mr. Bungstarter
“Really, gentlemen, if Mr. Culpepper Starbottle
declines another shot, I do not see how we can
proceed.”
But the Colonel's blood was up, and Jack Folinsbee
was equally implacable. A hurried consultation
ensued, which ended by Colonel Starbottle
taking his nephew's place as principal, Bill Masters
acting as second, vice Mr. Bungstarter, who declined
all further connection with the affair.
Two distinct reports rang through the Hollow.
Jack Folinsbee dropped his smoking pistol, took a
step forward, and then dropped heavily upon his
face.
In a moment the surgeon was at his side. The
confusion was heightened by the trampling of
hoofs, and the voice of the blacksmith bidding
them flee for their lives before the coming storm.
A moment more and the ground was cleared, and
the surgeon, looking up, beheld only the white face
of Culpepper bending over him.
“Can you save him?”
“I cannot say. Hold up his head a moment,
while I run to the buggy.”
Culpepper passed his arm tenderly around the
neck of the insensible man. Presently the surgeon
returned with some stimulants.
“There, that will do, Mr. Starbottle, thank you.
Now my advice is to get away from here while
hear?”
Culpepper's arm was still round the neck of his
late foe, but his head had drooped and fallen on
the wounded man's shoulder. The surgeon looked
down, and, catching sight of his face, stooped and
lifted him gently in his arms. He opened his coat
and waistcoat. There was blood upon his shirt,
and a bullet-hole in his breast. He had been shot
unto death at the first fire.
| Mrs. Skaggs's husbands, and other sketches | |