by Various
"What's the matter with Pap?" she asked, shrilly.
She was a pretty, tow-headed, rosy-cheeked creature, the daughter of George Leadham, a widower, who adored her. He was looking at her now with a strange light in his eyes. Not a man in the store but interpreted aright the father's glance.
"What's the matter with pore old Pap?" she demanded.
The blacksmith caught her up, kissing her face, smoothing her curls.
"Just that, my pet," said he. "He's old, and he's poor--the poorest man, ain't he, boys?--the very poorest man in Paradise."
The child looked puzzled. It would have taken a wiser head than hers to understand the minds of the men about her.
"I thought old Pap was rich," she faltered.
"He ain't," said the blacksmith, hugging her tight. "He's poorer than all of us poor folks put together."
"Oh, my!" said Sissy, opening her blue eyes. "No wonder he looks as if someone'd hit him with a fence rail. Pore old Pap!" Then she whispered some message, and father and child went out of the store.
We looked at each other. The storekeeper, who had children, blew his nose with unnecessary violence. Ajax said, abruptly: "Boys, I've been a fool. I've driven away the one man who might help us."
"That's all right," the storekeeper growled. "You done first-rate, young man. You tole the ole cuss in plain words what we've bin a- thinkin' fer a coon's age. Help us? Not he!"
Outside, our saddle-horses were hitched to the rail. We had managed to save our horses. Ajax and I rode down the valley, golden with the glory of the setting sun. Beyond, the bleak, brown hills were clothed in an imperial livery of purple. The sky was amber and rose. But Ajax, like Gallio, cared for none of these things. He was cursing his unruly tongue. As we neared the big, empty barn, he turned in his saddle.
"Look here," said he, "we'll nip up to Pap's after supper. I shall ask him to help us. I shall ask for a cheque."
"You expect me to go with you on this tomfool's errand?"
"Certainly. We must use a little tact. I'll beg his pardon--the doing of it will make me sick--you shall ask for the cheque. Yes, we're fools; otherwise we shouldn't be here in this forsaken wilderness."
* * * * *
Pap lived just outside the village in an adobe built upon a small hill to the north-west of our ranch. No garden surrounded it, no pleasant live oaks spread their shade between the porch and the big barns. Pap could sit on his porch and survey his domain stretching for leagues in front of him, but he never did sit down in the daytime-- except on a saddle--and at night he went to bed early to save the expense of oil. Knowing his habits, we rode up to the adobe about eight. All was dark, and we could see, just below us, the twinkling lights of Paradise. After thundering at the door twice, Pap appeared, carrying a lantern. In answer to his first question, we told him that we had business to discuss. Muttering to himself, he led us into the house and lighted two candles in the parlour. We had never entered the parlour before, and accordingly looked about with interest and curiosity. The furniture, which had belonged to Pap's father-in- law, a Spanish-Californian, was of mahogany and horsehair, very good and substantial. In a bookcase were some ancient tomes bound in musty leather. A strange-looking piano, with a high back, covered with faded rose-coloured silk, stood in a corner. Some half a dozen daguerreotypes, a case of stuffed humming-birds, and a wreath of flowers embellished the walls. Upon everything lay the fine white dust of the dry year, which lay also thick upon many hearts.
"Sit ye down," said Pap. "I reckon ye've come up to ask for a loan?"
"Yes," said Ajax. "But first I wish to beg your pardon. I had no right to speak as I did in the store this evening. I'm sorry."
Pap nodded indifferently.
"'Twas good advice," he muttered. "I ain't skeered o' much, but diptheery gives me cold feet. I calc'late to skin out o' this and into the mountains to-morrer. How about this yere loan?"
"It's not for us," said I.
"I don't lend no good dollars on squatters' claims," said Pap. "Let's git to business."
We explained what we wanted. Upon the top of Pap's head the sparse grey hairs bristled ominously. His teeth clicked; his eyes snapped. He was furiously angry--as I had expected him to be.
"You've a nerve," he jerked out. "You boys come up here askin' me fer a thousand dollars. What air you goin' to do?"
"We've no money," said Ajax, "but we've leisure. I dare say we may dig graves."
"You're two crazy fools."
"We know that, Mr. Spooner."
"I'm a-goin' to tell ye something. Diptheery in this yere country is worse'n small-pox--and I've seen both." The look of horror came again into his face. "My wife an' my child died o' diptheery nearly thirty- five year ago." He shuddered. Then he pointed a trembling finger at one of the daguerreotypes. "There she is--a beauty! And before she died--oh, Heaven!" I thought I saw something in his eyes, something human. Ajax burst out----
"Mr. Spooner, because of that, won't you help these poor people?"
"No! When she died, when the child died, something died in me. D'ye think I don't know what ye all think? Don't I know that I'm the ornariest, meanest old skinflint atween Point Sal and San Diego? That's me, and I'm proud of it. I aim to let the hull world stew in its own juice. The folks in these yere foothills need thinnin' anyway. Halloa! What in thunder's this?" Through the door, which we had left ajar, very timidly, all blushes and dimples, and sucking one small thumb, came Sissy Leadham. She stood staring at us, standing on one leg and scratching herself nervously with the other.
"Why, Sissy?" said Ajax.
She removed her thumb, reluctantly.
"Yas--it's me," she confessed. "Popsy don't know as I've comed up here." Then, suddenly remembering the conventions, she said, politely, "Good-evening, Mr. Spooner."
"Good-evening," said the astonished Pap.
"You wasn't expectin' me?"
"I didn't think it was very likely as you'd call in," said Pap, "seein', Missy, as you'd never called in afore."
"My name's Sissy, not Missy. Well, I'll call again, Mr. Spooner, when you've no comp'ny."
"Jee-roosalem! Call again--will ye? An' s'pose I ain't to home--hey? No, Missy--wal, Sissy, then--no, Sissy, you speak out an' tell me what brought you a-visitin'--me?"
She shuffled very uneasily.
"I felt so awful sorry for you, Mr. Spooner. I jest hed to come, but I'll call again, early to-morrer."
"No, ye won't. Because I aim ter leave this yere ranch afore sun-up. Jest you speak up an' out. If yer folks has sent you here"--his eyes hardened and flashed--"to borrer money, why, you kin tell 'em I ain't got none to loan."
Sissy laughed gaily.
"Why, I know that, Mr. Spooner. It's jest because, be-cause yer so pore--so very, very pore, that I comed up."
"Is that so? Because I'm so very poor?"
"I heard that in the store this evenin'. I was a-comin' in as you was a-comin' out. I heard Popsy say you was the porest man in the county, porer than all of us pore folks put together."
She had lost her nervousness. She stood squarely before the old man, lifting her tender blue eyes to his.
"Wal--an' what are you a-goin' to do about it?"
"I can't do overly much, Mr. Spooner, but fer a little girl I'm rich. The dry year ain't hurt me any--yet. I've three dollars and sixty cents of my own."
One hand had remained tightly clenched. Sissy opened it. In the moist pink palm lay three dollars, a fifty-cent piece, and a dime. Never had Pap's voice sounded so harsh in my ears as when he said: "Do I understan' that ye offer this to--me?"
His tone frightened her.
"Yas, sir. Won't you p-p-please t-take it?"
"Did yer folks tell ye to give me this money?"
"Why, no. I'd oughter hev asked 'em, I s'pose, but I never thought o' that. Honest Injun, Mr. Spooner, I didn't--and--and it's my own money," she concluded, half defiantly, "an' Popsy said as how I could do what I liked with it. Please take it."
"No," said Pa
p.
He stared at us, clicking his teeth and frowning. Then he said, curtly, "Wal, I'll take the dime, Sissy--I kin make a dime go farther than a dollar, can't I, boys?"
"You bet," said Ajax.
"And now, Sissy, you run along home," said Pap.
"We'll take her," I said, for Sissy was a sworn friend of ours. At once she put her left hand into mine. We bade the old man good-night, and took leave of him. On the threshold Ajax turned and asked a question----
"Won't you reconsider your decision, Mr. Spooner?"
"No," he snapped, "I won't. I dunno as all this ain't a reg'lar plant. Looks like it. And, as I say, the scallywags in these yere foothills need thinnin'--they need thinnin'."
Ajax said something in a low voice which Sissy and I could not hear. Later I asked him what it was, because Pap had clicked his teeth.
"I told him," said my brother, "that he needn't think his call was coming, because I was quite certain that they did not want him either in Heaven--or in the other place."
"Oh," said I, "I thought that you were going to use a little tact with Pap Spooner."
* * * * *
Next morning, early, we had a meeting in the store. A young doctor, a capital fellow, had come out from San Lorenzo with the intention of camping with us till the disease was wiped out; but he shook his head very solemnly when someone suggested that the first case, carefully isolated, might prove the last.
There were two fresh cases that night!
I shall not attempt to describe the horrors that filled the next three weeks. But, not for the first time, I was struck by the heroism and self-sacrifice of these rude foothill folk, whose great qualities shine brightest in the dark hours of adversity. My brother and I had passed through the big boom, when our part of California had become of a sudden a Tom Tiddler's ground, where the youngest and simplest could pick up gold and silver. We had seen our county drunk with prosperity --drunk and disorderly. And we had seen also these same revellers chastened by low prices, dry seasons, and commercial stagnation. But we had yet to witness the crowning sobering effect of a raging pestilence.
The little schoolmarm, Alethea-Belle Buchanan, organised the women into a staff of nurses. Mrs. Dumble enrolled herself amongst the band. Did she take comfort in the thought that she was wiping out John Jacob Dumble's innumerable rogueries? Let us hope so.
Within a week yellow bunting waved from half a score of cottages in and about Paradise. And then, one heavenly morning, as we were riding into the village, we saw the hideous warning fluttering outside George Leadham's door.
Sissy was down with it!
Poor George, his brown, weather-beaten face seamed with misery, met us at the garden gate.
"She's awful bad," he muttered, "an' the doc. says she'll be worse afore she's better."
Next door a man was digging two graves in his garden.
Meantime, Pap Spooner had disappeared. We heard that he had gone to a mountain ranch of his about fifteen miles away. Nobody missed him; nobody cared whether he went or stayed. In the village store it was conceded that Pap's room, rain or shine, was better than his company. His name was never mentioned till it began to fall from Sissy Leadham's delirious lips.
The schoolmarm first told me that the child was asking for Andrew Spooner, moaning, wailing, shrieking for "pore old Pap." George Leadham was distracted.
"What in thunder she wants that ole cuss fer I can't find out. She's drivin' me plum crazy." I explained.
"That's it," said George. "It's bin Pap an' her money night an' day fer forty-eight hours. She wanted ter give him--him, by Jing!--her money."
The doctor heard the story half an hour later. He had not the honour of Andrew Spooner's acquaintance, and he had reason to believe that all men in the foothills were devoid of fear.
"Fetch Pap," said he, in the same tone as he might have said, "Fetch milk and water!" We made no remark.
"I think," said the doctor, gravely, "that if this man comes at once the child may pull through."
"By Heaven! he shall come," said George Leadham to me. The doctor had hurried away.
"He won't come," said Ajax.
"If he don't," said the father, fiercely, "the turkey-buzzards'll hev a meal, for I'll shoot him in his tracks."
Ajax looked at me reflectively.
"George," said he, "shooting Pap wouldn't help little Sissy, would it? You and I can't handle this job. My brother will go. But--but, my poor old George, don't make ropes out of sand."
So I went.
When I started, the south-east wind, the rain-wind, had begun to blow, and it sounds incredible, but I was not aware of it. The pestilence had paralysed one's normal faculties. But riding due south-east I became, sooner or later, sensible of the change in the atmosphere. And then I remembered a chance remark of the doctor's. "We shall have this diphtheria with us till the rain washes it away," and one of the squatters had replied, bitterly, "Paradise'll be a cemetery an' nothin' else before the rain comes."
Passing through some pine woods I heard the soughing of the tree-tops. They were entreating the rain to come--to come quickly. How well I knew that soft, sibilant invocation! Higher up the few tufts of bunch grass that remained rustled in anticipation. On the top of the mountain, in ordinary years a sure sign of a coming storm, floated a veil of opaline sea mist ...
I found Pap and a greaser skinning a dead heifer. Pap nodded sulkily, thinking of his hay and his beans and bacon.
"What's up?" he growled.
"It's going to rain," said I.
"Ye ain't ridden from Paradise to tell me that. An' rain's not a- comin', either. 'Twould be a miracle if it did. How's folks? I heard as things couldn't be worse."
"They are bad," said I. "Eubank's sister-in-law and two children are dead. Judge Spragg has lost four. In all about sixteen children have gone and five adults. That's Paradise alone; in the foothills----"
"What brings you here?"
It seemed hopeless to soften this hardened old man. I had thought of a dozen phrases wherewith to soap the ways, so to speak, down which might be launched my petition. I forgot them all, confronted by those malicious, sneering eyes, by the derisive, snarling grin.
"Little Sissy Leadham is dying."
"What d'you say?"
"Little Sissy Leadham is dying."
For my life I could not determine whether the news moved him or not.
"Wal?"
"And she's asking for you."
"Askin'--fer me?"
At last I had gripped his attention and interest.
"Why?"
"She wants to give you her money."
"Then it wa'n't a plant? 'Twa'n't fixed up atween you boys an' her?"
"It was her own idea--an idea so strong that it has taken possession of her poor wandering wits altogether."
"Is that so?" He moistened his lips. "And you--ye've come up here to ask me to go down there, into that p'isonous Paradise, because a little girl who ain't nothin' to me wants to give me three dollars and a half?"
"If you get there in time it may save her life."
"An' s'pose I lose mine--hey?"
I shrugged my shoulders. He stared at me as if I were a strange animal, clicking his teeth and twisting his fingers.
"Look ye here," he burst out, angrily, with a curious note of surprise and petulance in his voice, "you an' that brother o' yours know me, old Pap Spooner, purty doggoned well. Hev ye heard anyone ever speak a good word fer me?"
"No one except--the schoolmarm."
"An' what did she say?"
"She reckoned you must have thought the world of your own little girl."
He paid no attention. Suddenly he said, irrelevantly--
"That dime little Sissy give me is the first gift I've had made me in thirty-five year. Wal, young man, ye must ha' known--didn't ye now?-- that you was takin' big chances in comin' after ole Pap Spooner. I'll bet the hull crowd down in Paradise laughed at the idee o' fetchin' me--hey?"
"Nobody laughs in
Paradise now, and nobody except my brother, the doctor, and Sissy's father knows that I've come after you."
"Ye'll ride back and say the old man was skeered--hey?"
"Well, you are, aren't you?"
"Yes; I've enough sense to know when I am skeered. I'm skeered plum to death, but all the same I'm a-goin' back with you, because Sissy give me that dime. There's a sack o' crushed barley behind that shed. Give yer plug a half feed, an' by then I'll be ready."
We rode into Paradise as night was closing in. The south-east wind was still blowing, and the thin veil of mist upon the mountain had grown into a cloud. In front of George Leadham's house were a couple of eucalyptus trees. Their long, lanceolate leaves were shaking as Pap and I passed through the gate. A man's shadow darkened the small porch. To the right was the room where Sissy lay. A light still shone in the window. The shadow moved; it was the doctor. He hurried forward.
"Glad to make your acquaintance," said he to Pap, whom he had never seen before.
"Air ye? You wa'n't expectin' me, surely?"
"Certainly," replied the doctor, impatiently. "What man wouldn't come under such circumstances?"
"Is there much danger?" said Pap, anxiously.
"The child is as ill as she can be."
"I meant fer--me."
"Great Scot! If you feel like that you'd better not go in." His tone was dully contemptuous.
"Wal--I do feel like that, on'y more so; an' I'm goin' in all the same. Reckon I'm braver'n you, 'cause you ain't skeered."
We entered the room. George Leadham was sitting by the bed. When he saw us he bent over the flushed face on the pillow, and said, slowly and distinctly: "Here's Mr. Spooner, my pretty; he's come. Do you hear?"
She heard perfectly. In a thick, choked voice she said: "Is that you, Pap?"
"It's me," he replied; "it's me, sure enough."
"Why, so'tis. Popsy, where's my money?"
"Here, Sissy, right here."
She extended a thin, wasted hand.
"I want you to have it, Pap," she said, speaking very slowly, but in a clearer tone. "You see, it's like this. I've got the diptheery, an' I'm a-goin' to die. I don't need the money--see! And you do, you pore old Pap, so you must take it."