by Bret Harte
wentinto his pockets and counted out into the palm the coins given by Jeff;they completely filled the tiny receptacle.
Miss Mayfield counted the money gravely, and placed it in herportemonnaie with a snap.
Certain qualities affect certain natures. This practical business act ofthe diminutive beauty before him--albeit he was just ten dollars outof pocket by it--struck the official into helpless admiration. Hehesitated.
"That's all," said Miss Mayfield coolly; "you need not wait. The letterwas only an excuse to get Mr. Briggs out of the way."
"I understand ye, miss." He hesitated still. "Do you reckon to stop inthese parts long?"
"I don't know."
"'Cause ye ought to come down some day to the Forks."
"Yes."
"Good morning, miss."
"Good morning."
Yet at the corner of the house the rascal turned and looked back at thelittle figure in the sunlight. He had just been physically overcome by ayounger man--he had lost ten dollars--he had a wife and three children.He forgot all this. He had been captivated by Miss Mayfield!
That practical heroine sat there five minutes. At the end of that timeJeff came bounding down the hill, his curls damp with perspiration; hisfresh, honest face the picture of woe, HER woe, for the letter could notbe found!
"Never mind, Mr. Jeff. I wrote another and gave it to him."
Two tears were standing on her cheeks. Jeff turned white.
"Good God, miss!"
"It's nothing. You were right, Mr. Jeff! I ought not to have walked downhere alone. I'm very, very tired, and--so--so miserable."
What woman could withstand the anguish of that honest boyish face? Ifear Miss Mayfield could, for she looked at him over her handkerchief,and said: "Perhaps you had something to say to your friend, and I'vesent him off."
"Nothing," said Jeff hurriedly; and she saw that all his other troubleshad vanished at the sight of her weakness. She rose tremblingly from herseat. "I think I will go in now, but I think--I think--I must ask youto--to--carry me!"
Oh, lame and impotent conclusion!
The next moment, Jeff, pale, strong, passionate, but tender as amother, lifted her in his arms and brought her into the sitting-room.A simultaneous ejaculation broke from Aunt Sally and Mrs. Mayfield--thepossible comment of posterity on the whole episode.
"Well, Jeff, I reckoned you'd be up to suthin' like that!"
"Well, Jessie! I knew you couldn't be trusted."
Mr. James Dodd did not return from the Forks that afternoon, to Jeff'svague uneasiness. Towards evening a messenger brought a note from him,written on the back of a printed legal form, to this effect:
DEAR SIR--Seeing as you Intend to act on the Square in regard to thatlittle Mater I have aranged Things so that I ant got to stop with youbut I'll drop in onct in a wile to keep up a show for a Drink--respyyours, J. DODD.
In this latter suggestion our legal Cerberus exhibited all three of hisheads at once. One could keep faith with Miss Mayfield, one could seeher "onct in a wile," and one could drink at Jeff's expense. InnocentJeff saw only generosity and kindness in the man he had half-choked,and a sense of remorse and shame almost outweighed the relief of hisabsence. "He might hev been ugly," said Jeff. He did not know how, inthis selfish world, there is very little room for gratuitous, activeugliness.
Miss Mayfield did not leave her room that afternoon. The wind wasgetting up, and it was growing dark when Jeff, idly sitting on hisporch, hoping for her appearance, was quite astounded at the apparitionof Yuba Bill as a pedestrian, dusty and thirsty, making for his usualrefreshment. Jeff brought out the bottle, but could not refrain frommixing his verbal astonishment with the conventional cocktail. Bill,partaking of his liquor and becoming once more a speaking animal, slowlydrew off his heavy, baggy driving gloves. No one had ever seen Billwithout them--he was currently believed to sleep in them--and when helaid them on the counter they still retained the grip of his hand, whichgave them an entertaining likeness to two plethoric and overfed spiders.
"Ef I concluded to pass over my lines to a friend and take a pasearup yer this evening," said Bill, eying Jeff sharply, "I don't knowez thar's any law agin it! Onless yer keepin' a private branch o' theOccidental Ho-tel, and on'y take in fash'n'ble fammerlies!"
Jeff, with a rising color, protested against such a supposition.
"Because ef ye ARE," said Bill, lifting his voice, and crushing one ofthe overgrown spiders with his fist, "I've got a word or two to say tothe son of Joe Briggs of Tuolumne. Yes, sir! Joe Briggs--yer father--ezblew his brains out for want of a man ez could stand up and say a wordto him at the right time."
"Bill," said Jeff, in a low, resolute tone--that tone yielded up onlyfrom the smitten chords of despair and desperation--"thar's a sick womanin the house. I'll listen to anything you've got to say if you'll say itquietly. But you must and SHALL speak low."
Real men quickly recognize real men the world over; it is only yourshams who fence and spar. Bill, taking in the voice of the speaker morethan his words, dropped his own.
"I said I had a kepple of words to say to ye. Thar isn't any time in thelast fower months--ever since ye took stock in this old shanty, for thematter o' that--that I couldn't hev said them to ye. I've knowed allyour doin's. I've knowed all your debts, 'spesh'ly that ye owe thatsneakin' hound Parker; and thar isn't a time that I couldn't andwouldn't hev chipped in and paid 'em for ye--for your father's sake--efI'd allowed it to be the square thing for ye. But I know ye, Jeff. Iknow what's in your BLOOD. I knew your father--allus dreamin', hopin,'waitin'; I know YOU, Jeff, dreamin', hopin', waitin' till the end. And Istood by, givin' you a free rein, and let it come!"
Jeff buried his face in his hands.
"It ain't your blame--it's blood! It ain't a week ago ez the kimpanypasses me over a hoss. 'Three-quarters Morgan,' sez they. Sez I: 'Wot'sthe other quarter?' Sez they: 'A Mexican half-breed.' Well, she wasa fair sort of hoss. Comin' down Heavytree Hill last trip, we meets adrove o' Spanish steers. In course she goes wild directly. Blood!"
Bill raised his glass, softly swirled its contents round and round,tasted it, and set it down.
"The kepple o' words I had to say to ye was this: Git up and git!"
Something like this had passed through Jeff's mind the day before theMayfields came. Something like it had haunted him once or twice since.He turned quickly upon the speaker.
"Ez how? you sez," said Bill, catching at the hook. "I drives up yersome night, and you sez to me, 'Bill, hev you got two seats over to theDivide for me and aunty--out on a pasear.' And I sez, 'I happen to hevone inside and one on the box with me.' And you hands out yer traps andany vallybles ye don't want ter leave, and you puts your aunt inside,and gets up on the box with me. And you sez to me, ez man to man,'Bill,' sez you, 'might you hev a kepple o' hundred dollars about yethat ye could lend a man ez was leaving the county, dead broke?' and Isez, 'I've got it, and I know of an op'nin' for such a man in the nextcounty.' And you steps into THAT op'nin', and your creditors--'spesh'lyParker--slips into THIS, and in a week they offers to settle with ye tencents on the dollar."
Jeff started, flushed, trembled, recovered himself, and after a momentsaid, doggedly: "I can't do it, Bill; I couldn't."
"In course," said Bill, putting his hands slowly into his pockets, andstretching his legs out--"in course ye can't because of a woman!"
Jeff turned upon him like a hunted bear. Both men rose, but Bill alreadyhad his hand on Jeff's shoulder.
"I reckoned a minute ago there was a sick gal in the house! Who's goingto make a row now! Who's going to stamp and tear round, eh?"
Jeff sank back on his chair.
"I said thar was a woman," continued Bill; "thar allus is one! Let a manbe hell-bent or heaven-bent, somewhere in his track is a woman's feet.I don't say anythin' agin this gal, ez a gal. The best of 'em, Jeff, isonly guide-posts to p'int a fellow on his right road, and only a fool ora drunken man holds on to 'em or leans agin em. Allowin' this gal is allyou think she is, how far
is your guide-post goin' with ye, eh? Is shegoin' to leave her father and mother for ye? Is she goin' to give upherself and her easy ways and her sicknesses for ye? Is she willin' totake ye for a perpetooal landlord the rest of her life? And if she is,Jeff, are ye the man to let her? Are ye willin' to run on her errants,to fetch her dinners ez ye do? Thar ez men ez does it; not yer inCaliforny, but over in