by Bret Harte
a secret from her brother--overnight. "Supper's gettin' cold,"she said, rising.
They went into the dining-room--an apartment as plainly furnished asthe one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closelyfitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of thehouse--and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugalmeal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid downhis knife and fork and stared at his sister.
"Hello!"
"What's the matter?" said Maggie, starting slightly. "How you do skeerone."
"Who's been prinkin', eh?"
"My ha'r was in kinks all along o' that hat," said Maggie, with areturn of higher color, "and I had to straighten it. It's a boy's hat,not a girl's."
"But that necktie and that gown--and all those frills and tuckers?"continued Jim generalizing, with a rapid twirling of his fingers overher. "Are you expectin' Judge Martin, or the Expressman this evening?"
Judge Martin was the lawyer of Logport, who had proven her father'swill, and had since raved about his single interview with theKingfisher's beautiful daughter; the Expressman was a young fellow whowas popularly supposed to have left his heart while delivering anothervaluable package on Maggie in person, and had "never been the same mansince." It was a well-worn fraternal pleasantry that had done dutymany a winter's evening, as a happy combination of moral admonition andcheerfulness. Maggie usually paid it the tribute of a quick littlelaugh and a sisterly pinch, but that evening those marks of approbationwere withheld.
"Jim dear," said she, when their Spartan repast was concluded and theywere reestablished before the living-room fire. "What was it theRedwood Mill Kempany offered you for that piece near Dead Man's Slough?"
Jim took his pipe from his lips long enough to say, "Ten thousanddollars," and put it back again.
"And what do ye kalkilate all our property, letting alone this yerhouse, and the driftwood front, is worth all together?"
"Includin' wot the Gov'nment owes us?--for that's all ours, ye know?"said Jim quickly.
"No--leavin' that out--jest for greens, you know," suggested Maggie.
"Well nigh onter a hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, I reckon,by and large."
"That's a heap o' money, Jim! I reckon old Kernel Preston wouldn'traise that in a hundred years," continued Maggie, warming her knees bythe fire.
"In five million years," said Jim, promptly sweeping away furtherdiscussion. After a pause he added, "You and me, Mag, kin seeanybody's pile, and go 'em fifty thousand better."
There were a few moments of complete silence, in which Maggie smoothedher knees, and Jim's pipe, which seemed to have become gorged andapoplectic with its owner's wealth, snored unctuously.
"Jim dear, what if--it's on'y an idea of mine, you know--what if yousold that piece to the Redwood Mill, and we jest tuk that moneyand--and--and jest lifted the ha'r offer them folks at Logport? Jestastonished 'em! Jest tuk the best rooms in that new hotel, got a hossand buggy, dressed ourselves, you and me, fit to kill, and made themFort people take a back seat in the Lord's Tabernacle, oncet for all.You see what I mean, Jim," she said hastily, as her brother seemed tobe succumbing, like his pipe, in apoplectic astonishment, "jest on'y toSHOW 'em what we COULD do if we keerd. Lord! when we done it and spentthe money we'd jest snap our fingers and skip back yer ez nat'ral ezlife! Ye don't think, Jim," she said, suddenly turning half fiercelyupon him, "that I'd allow to LIVE among 'em--to stay a menet afterthat!"
Jim laid down his pipe and gazed at his sister with stony deliberation."And--what--do--you--kalkilate--to make by all that?" he said withscornful distinctness.
"Why, jest to show 'em we HAVE got money, and could buy 'em all up ifwe wanted to," returned Maggie, sticking boldly to her guns, albeitwith a vague conviction that her fire was weakened through elevation,and somewhat alarmed at the deliberation of the enemy.
"And you mean to say they don't know it now," he continued with slowderision.
"No," said Maggie. "Why, theer's that new school-marm over at Logport,you know, Jim, the one that wanted to take your picter in your boat fora young smuggler or fancy pirate or Eyetalian fisherman, and allowedthat you'r handsomed some, and offered to pay you for sittin'--do youreckon SHE'D believe you owned the land her schoolhouse was built on.No! Lots of 'em don't. Lots of 'em thinks we're poor and lowdown--and them ez doesn't, thinks"--
"What?" asked her brother sharply.
"That we're MEAN."
The quick color came to Jim's cheek. "So," he said, facing herquickly, "for the sake of a lot of riff-raff and scum that's driftedhere around us--jest for the sake of cuttin' a swell beforethem--you'll go out among the hounds ez allowed your mother was aSpanish nigger or a kanaka, ez called your father a pirate andlandgrabber, ez much as allowed he was shot by some one or killedhimself a purpose, ez said you was a heathen and a looney because youdidn't go to school or church along with their trash, ez kept away fromMaw's sickness ez if it was smallpox, and Dad's fun'ral ez if he was ahoss-thief, and left you and me to watch his coffin on the marshes allnight till the tide kem back. And now you--YOU that jined hands withme that night over our father lyin' there cold and despised--ez if hewas a dead dog thrown up by the tide--and swore that ez long ez thattide ebbed and flowed it couldn't bring you to them, or them to youagin! You now want--what? What? Why, to go and cast your lot among'em, and live among 'em, and join in their God-forsaken hollerfoolishness, and--and--and"--
"Stop! It's a lie! I DIDN'T say that. Don't you dare to say it!"said the girl, springing to her feet, and facing her brother in turn,with flashing eyes.
For a moment the two stared at each other--it might have been as in amirror, so perfectly were their passions reflected in each line, shade,and color of the other's face. It was as if they had each confrontedtheir own passionate and willful souls, and were frightened. It hadoften occurred before, always with the same invariable ending. Theyoung man's eyes lowered first; the girl's filled with tears.
"Well, ef ye didn't mean that, what did ye mean?" said Jim, sinking,with sullen apology, back into his chair.
"I--only--meant it--for--for--revenge!" sobbed Maggie.
"Oh!" said Jim, as if allowing his higher nature to be touched by thisnoble instinct. "But I didn't jest see where the revenge kem in."
"No? But, never mind now, Jim," said Maggie, ostentatiously ignoring,after the fashion of her sex, the trouble she had provoked; "but tothink--that--that--you thought"--(sobbing).
"But I didn't, Mag"--(caressingly).
With this very vague and impotent conclusion, Maggie permitted herselfto be drawn beside her brother, and for a few moments they plumed eachother's ruffled feathers, and smoothed each other's lifted crests, liketwo beautiful young specimens of that halcyon genus to which they werepopularly supposed to belong. At the end of half an hour Jim rose,and, yawning slightly, said in a perfunctory way:
"Where's the book?"
The book in question was the Bible. It had been the self-imposedcustom of these two young people to read aloud a chapter every night astheir one vague formula of literary and religious discipline. When itwas produced, Maggie, presuming on his affectionate and penitentialcondition, suggested that to-night he should pick out "suthin'interestin'." But this unorthodox frivolity was sternly put aside byJim--albeit, by way of compromise, he agreed to "chance it," i. e.,open its pages at random.
He did so. Generally he allowed himself a moment's judicious pause fora certain chaste preliminary inspection necessary before reading aloudto a girl. To-night he omitted that modest precaution, and in apleasant voice, which in reading was singularly free from colloquialinfelicities of pronunciation, began at once:
"'Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly theinhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, tothe help of the Lord against the mighty.'"
"Oh, you looked first," said Maggie.
"I didn't now--honest Injin! I just opened."
"Go o
n," said Maggie, eagerly shoving him and interposing her neck overhis shoulder.
And Jim continued Deborah's wonderful song of Jael and Sisera to thebitter end of its strong monosyllabic climax.
"There," he said, closing the volume, "that's what I call revenge.That's the real Scripture thing--no fancy