by Bret Harte
CHAPTER I
When Alvin Mulrady announced his intention of growing potatoes andgarden "truck" on the green slopes of Los Gatos, the mining communityof that region, and the adjacent hamlet of "Rough-and-Ready," regardedit with the contemptuous indifference usually shown by thoseadventurers towards all bucolic pursuits. There was certainly noactive objection to the occupation of two hillsides, which gave solittle promise to the prospector for gold that it was currentlyreported that a single prospector, called "Slinn," had once gone mad orimbecile through repeated failures. The only opposition came,incongruously enough, from the original pastoral owner of the soil, oneDon Ramon Alvarado, whose claim for seven leagues of hill and valley,including the now prosperous towns of Rough-and-Ready and Red Dog, wasmet with simple derision from the squatters and miners. "Looks ez efwe woz goin' to travel three thousand miles to open up his d--d oldwilderness, and then pay for the increased valoo we give it--don't it?Oh, yes, certainly!" was their ironical commentary. Mulrady might havebeen pardoned for adopting this popular opinion; but by an equallyincongruous sentiment, peculiar, however, to the man, he called uponDon Ramon, and actually offered to purchase the land, or "go shares"with him in the agricultural profits. It was alleged that the Don wasso struck with this concession that he not only granted the land, butstruck up a quaint reserved friendship for the simple-mindedagriculturist and his family. It is scarcely necessary to add thatthis intimacy was viewed by the miners with the contempt that itdeserved. They would have been more contemptuous, however, had theyknown the opinion that Don Ramon entertained of their particularvocation, and which he early confided to Mulrady.
"They are savages who expect to reap where they have not sown; to takeout of the earth without returning anything to it but their preciouscarcasses; heathens, who worship the mere stones they dig up." "Andwas there no Spaniard who ever dug gold?" asked Mulrady, simply. "Ah,there are Spaniards and Moors," responded Don Ramon, sententiously."Gold has been dug, and by caballeros; but no good ever came of it.There were Alvarados in Sonora, look you, who had mines of SILVER, andworked them with peons and mules, and lost their money--a gold mine towork a silver one--like gentlemen! But this grubbing in the dirt withone's fingers, that a little gold may stick to them, is not forcaballeros. And then, one says nothing of the curse."
"The curse!" echoed Mary Mulrady, with youthful feminine superstition."What is that?"
"You knew not, friend Mulrady, that when these lands were given to myancestors by Charles V., the Bishop of Monterey laid a curse upon anywho should desecrate them. Good! Let us see! Of the three Americanoswho founded yonder town, one was shot, another died of afever--poisoned, you understand, by the soil--and the last got himselfcrazy of aguardiente. Even the scientifico,[1] who came here years agoand spied into the trees and the herbs: he was afterwards punished forhis profanation, and died of an accident in other lands. But," addedDon Ramon, with grave courtesy, "this touches not yourself. Throughme, YOU are of the soil."
Indeed, it would seem as if a secure if not a rapid prosperity was theresult of Don Ramon's manorial patronage. The potato patch and marketgarden flourished exceedingly; the rich soil responded with magnificentvagaries of growth; the even sunshine set the seasons at defiance withextraordinary and premature crops. The salt pork and biscuit consumingsettlers did not allow their contempt of Mulrady's occupation toprevent their profiting by this opportunity for changing their diet.The gold they had taken from the soil presently began to flow into hispockets in exchange for his more modest treasures. The little cabin,which barely sheltered his family--a wife, son, and daughter--wasenlarged, extended, and refitted, but in turn abandoned for a morepretentious house on the opposite hill. A whitewashed fence replacedthe rudely-split rails, which had kept out the wilderness. By degrees,the first evidences of cultivation--the gashes of red soil, the pilesof brush and undergrowth, the bared boulders, and heaps ofstone--melted away, and were lost under a carpet of lighter green,which made an oasis in the tawny desert of wild oats on the hillside.Water was the only free boon denied this Garden of Eden; what wasnecessary for irrigation had to be brought from a mining ditch at greatexpense, and was of insufficient quantity. In this emergency Mulradythought of sinking an artesian well on the sunny slope beside hishouse; not, however, without serious consultation and much objectionfrom his Spanish patron. With great austerity Don Ramon pointed outthat this trifling with the entrails of the earth was not only anindignity to Nature almost equal to shaft-sinking and tunneling, butwas a disturbance of vested interests. "I and my fathers, San Diegorest them!" said Don Ramon, crossing himself, "were content with wellsand cisterns, filled by Heaven at its appointed seasons; the cattle,dumb brutes though they were, knew where to find water when they wantedit. But thou sayest truly," he added, with a sigh, "that was beforestreams and rain were choked with hellish engines, and poisoned withtheir spume. Go on, friend Mulrady, dig and bore if thou wilt, but ina seemly fashion, and not with impious earthquakes of devilishgunpowder."
With this concession Alvin Mulrady began to sink his first artesianshaft. Being debarred the auxiliaries of steam and gunpowder, the workwent on slowly. The market garden did not suffer meantime, as Mulradyhad employed two Chinamen to take charge of the ruder tillage, while hesuperintended the engineering work of the well. This trifling incidentmarked an epoch in the social condition of the family. Mrs. Mulrady atonce assumed a conscious importance among her neighbors. She spoke ofher husband's "men"; she alluded to the well as "the works"; shechecked the easy frontier familiarity of her customers with pretty MaryMulrady, her seventeen-year-old daughter. Simple Alvin Mulrady lookedwith astonishment at this sudden development of the germ planted in allfeminine nature to expand in the slightest sunshine of prosperity."Look yer, Malviny; ain't ye rather puttin' on airs with the boys thatwant to be civil to Mamie? Like as not one of 'em may be makin' up toher already." "You don't mean to say, Alvin Mulrady," responded Mrs.Mulrady, with sudden severity, "that you ever thought of givin' yourdaughter to a common miner, or that I'm goin' to allow her to marry outof our own set?" "Our own set!" echoed Mulrady feebly, blinking at herin astonishment, and then glancing hurriedly across at hisfreckle-faced son and the two Chinamen at work in the cabbages. "Oh,you know what I mean," said Mrs. Mulrady sharply; "the set that we movein. The Alvarados and their friends! Doesn't the old Don come hereevery day, and ain't his son the right age for Mamie? And ain't theythe real first families here--all the same as if they were noblemen?No, leave Mamie to me, and keep to your shaft; there never was a manyet had the least sabe about these things, or knew what was due to hisfamily." Like most of his larger minded, but feebler equipped sex,Mulrady was too glad to accept the truth of the latter proposition,which left the meannesses of life to feminine manipulation, and wentoff to his shaft on the hillside. But during that afternoon he wasperplexed and troubled. He was too loyal a husband not to be pleasedwith this proof of an unexpected and superior foresight in his wife,although he was, like all husbands, a little startled by it. He triedto dismiss it from his mind. But looking down from the hillside uponhis little venture, where gradual increase and prosperity had not beenbeyond his faculties to control and understand, he found himselfhaunted by the more ambitious projects of his helpmate. From his ownknowledge of men, he doubted if Don Ramon, any more than himself, hadever thought of the possibility of a matrimonial connection between thefamilies. He doubted if he would consent to it. And unfortunately itwas this very doubt that, touching his own pride as a self-made man,made him first seriously consider his wife's proposition. He was asgood as Don Ramon, any day! With this subtle feminine poison instilledin his veins, carried completely away by the logic of his wife'sillogical premises, he almost hated his old benefactor. He looked downupon the little Garden of Eden, where his Eve had just tempted him withthe fatal fruit, and felt a curious consciousness that he was losingits simple and innocent enjoyment forever.
Happily, about this time Don Ramon died. It is not pro
bable that heever knew the amiable intentions of Mrs. Mulrady in regard to his son,who now succeeded to the paternal estate, sadly partitioned byrelatives and lawsuits. The feminine Mulradys attended the funeral, inexpensive mourning from Sacramento; even the gentle Alvin was forcedinto ready-made broadcloth, which accented his good-natured butunmistakably common presence. Mrs. Mulrady spoke openly of her "loss";declared that the old families were dying out; and impressed the wivesof a few new arrivals at Red Dog with the belief that her own familywas contemporary with the Alvarados, and that her husband's health wasfar from perfect. She extended a motherly sympathy to the orphaned DonCaesar. Reserved, like his father, in natural disposition, he was stillmore gravely ceremonious from his loss; and, perhaps from the shynessof an evident partiality for Mamie Mulrady, he rarely availed himselfof her mother's sympathizing hospitality. But he carried out theintentions of his father by consenting to sell to Mulrady, for a smallsum, the property he had leased. The idea of purchasing had originatedwith Mrs. Mulrady.
"It'll be all in the family," had observed that astute lady, "and it'sbetter for the looks of the things that we shouldn't he his tenants."
It was only a few weeks later that she was startled by hearing herhusband's voice calling her from the hillside as he rapidly approachedthe house. Mamie was in her room putting on a new pink cotton gown, inhonor of an expected visit from young Don Caesar, and Mrs. Mulrady wastidying the house in view of the same event. Something in the tone ofher good man's voice, and the unusual circumstance of his return to thehouse before work was done, caused her, however, to drop her dustingcloth, and run to the kitchen door to meet him. She saw him runningthrough the rows of cabbages, his face shining with perspiration andexcitement, a light in his eyes which she had not seen for years. Sherecalled, without sentiment, that he looked like that when she hadcalled him--a poor farm hand of her father's--out of the brush heap atthe back of their former home, in Illinois, to learn the consent of herparents. The recollection was the more embarrassing as he threw hisarms around her, and pressed a resounding kiss upon her sallow cheek.
"Sakes alive! Mulrady!" she said, exorcising the ghost of a blush thathad also been recalled from the past with her housewife's apron, "whatare you doin', and company expected every minit?"
"Malviny, I've struck it; and struck it rich!"
She disengaged herself from his arms, without excitement, and looked athim with bright but shrewdly observant eyes.
"I've struck it in the well--the regular vein that the boys have beenlooking fer. There's a fortin' fer you and Mamie: thousands and tensof thousands!"
"Wait a minit."
She left him quickly, and went to the foot of the stairs. He couldhear her wonderingly and distinctly. "Ye can take off that new frock,Mamie," she called out.
There was a sound of undisguised expostulation from Mamie.
"I'm speaking," said Mrs. Mulrady, emphatically.
The murmuring ceased. Mrs. Mulrady returned to her husband. Theinterruption seemed to have taken off the keen edge of his enjoyment.He at once abdicated his momentary elevation as a discoverer, andwaited for her to speak.
"Ye haven't told any one yet?" she asked.
"No. I was alone, down in the shaft. Ye see, Malviny, I wasn'texpectin' of anything." He began, with an attempt at fresh enjoyment,"I was just clearin' out, and hadn't reckoned on anythin'."
"You see, I was right when I advised you taking the land," she said,without heeding him.
Mulrady's face fell. "I hope Don Caesar won't think"--he began,hesitatingly. "I reckon, perhaps, I oughter make some sortercompensation--you know."
"Stuff!" said Mrs. Mulrady, decidedly. "Don't be a fool. Any golddiscovery, anyhow, would have been yours--that's the law. And youbought the land without any restrictions. Besides, you never had anyidea of this!"--she stopped, and looked him suddenly in the face--"hadyou?"
Mulrady opened his honest, pale-gray eyes widely.
"Why, Malviny! You know I hadn't. I could swear!"
"Don't swear, and don't let on to anybody but what you DID know it wasthere. Now, Alvin Mulrady, listen to me." Her voice here took thestrident form of action. "Knock off work at the shaft, and send yourman away at once. Put on your things, catch the next stage toSacramento at four o'clock, and take Mamie with you."
"Mamie!" echoed Mulrady, feebly.
"You want to see Lawyer Cole and my brother Jim at once," she went on,without heeding him, "and Mamie wants a change and some proper.clothes. Leave the rest to me and Abner. I'll break it to Mamie, andget her ready."
Mulrady passed his hands through his tangled hair, wet withperspiration. He was proud of his wife's energy and action; he did notdream of opposing her, but somehow he was disappointed. The charmingglamour and joy of his discovery had vanished before he could fairlydazzle her with it; or, rather, she was not dazzled with it at all. Ithad become like business, and the expression "breaking it" to Mamiejarred upon him. He would have preferred to tell her himself; to watchthe color come into her delicate oval face, to have seen her soft eyeslight with an innocent joy he had not seen in his wife's; and he felt asinking conviction that his wife was the last one to awaken it.
"You ain't got any time to lose," she said, impatiently, as hehesitated.
Perhaps it was her impatience that struck harshly upon him; perhaps, ifshe had not accepted her good fortune so confidently, he would not havespoken what was in his mind at the time; but he said gravely, "Wait aminit, Malviny; I've suthin' to tell you 'bout this find of mine that'ssing'lar."
"Go on," she said, quickly.
"Lyin' among the rotten quartz of the vein was a pick," he said,constrainedly; "and the face of the vein sorter looked ez if it hadbeen worked at. Follering the line outside to the base of the hillthere was signs of there having been an old tunnel; but it had fallenin, and was blocked up."
"Well?" said Mrs. Mulrady, contemptuously.
"Well," returned her husband, somewhat disconnectedly, "it kinderlooked as if some feller might have discovered it before."
"And went away, and left it for others! That's likely--ain't it?"interrupted his wife, with ill-disguised intolerance. "Everybody knowsthe hill wasn't worth that for prospectin'; and it was abandoned whenwe came here. It's your property and you've paid for it. Are yougoin' to wait to advertise for the owner, Alvin Mulrady, or are yougoing to Sacramento at four o'clock to-day?"
Mulrady started. He had never seriously believed in the possibility ofa previous discovery; but his conscientious nature had prompted him togive it a fair consideration. She was probably right. What he mighthave thought had she treated it with equal conscientiousness he did notconsider. "All right," he said simply. "I reckon we'll go at once."
"And when you talk to Lawyer Cole and Jim, keep that silly stuff aboutthe pick to yourself. There's no use of putting queer ideas into otherpeople's heads because you happen to have 'em yourself."
When the hurried arrangements were at last completed, and Mr. Mulradyand Mamie, accompanied by a taciturn and discreet Chinaman, carryingtheir scant luggage, were on their way to the high road to meet the upstage, the father gazed somewhat anxiously and wistfully into hisdaughter's face. He had looked forward to those few moments to enjoythe freshness and naivete of Mamie's youthful delight and enthusiasm asa relief to his wife's practical, far-sighted realism. There was apretty pink suffusion in her delicate cheek, the breathless happinessof a child in her half-opened little mouth, and a beautiful absorptionin her large gray eyes that augured well for him.
"Well, Mamie, how do we like bein' an heiress? How do we like layin'over all the gals between this and 'Frisco?"
"Eh?"
She had not heard him. The tender beautiful eyes were engaged in ananticipatory examination of the remembered shelves in the "FancyEmporium" at Sacramento; in reading the admiration of the clerks; inglancing down a little criticisingly at the broad cowhide brogues thatstrode at her side; in looking up the road for the stage-co
ach; inregarding the fit of her new gloves--everywhere but in the loving eyesof the man beside her.
He, however, repeated the question, touched with her charmingpreoccupation, and passing his arm around her little waist.
"I like it well enough, pa, you know!" she said, slightly disengaginghis arm, but adding a perfunctory little squeeze to his elbow to softenthe separation. "I always had an idea SOMETHING would happen. Isuppose I'm looking like a fright," she added; "but ma made me hurry toget away before Don Caesar came."
"And you didn't want to go without seeing him?" he added, archly.
"I didn't want him to see me in this frock," said Mamie, simply. "Ireckon that's why ma made me change," she added, with a slight laugh.
"Well I reckon you're allus good enough for him in any dress," saidMulrady, watching her attentively; "and more than a match for him NOW,"he added, triumphantly.
"I don't know about that," said Mamie. "He's been rich all the time,and his father and grandfather before him; while we've been poor andhis tenants."
His face changed; the look of bewilderment, with which he had followedher words, gave way to one of pain, and then of anger. "Did he get offsuch stuff as that?" he asked, quickly.
"No. I'd like to catch him at it," responded Mamie, promptly. "There'sbetter nor him to be had for the asking now."
They had walked on a few moments in aggrieved silence, and the Chinamanmight have imagined some misfortune had just befallen them. ButMamie's teeth shone again between her parted lips. "La, pa! it ain'tthat! He cares everything for me, and I do for him; and if ma hadn'tgot new ideas--" She stopped suddenly.
"What new ideas?" queried her father, anxiously.
"Oh, nothing! I wish, pa, you'd put on your other boots! Everybody cansee these are made for the farrows. And you ain't a market gardenerany more."
"What am I, then?" asked Mulrady, with a half-pleased, half-uneasylaugh.
"You're a capitalist, I say; but ma says a landed proprietor."Nevertheless, the landed proprietor, when he reached the boulder on theRed Dog highway, sat down in somewhat moody contemplation, with hishead bowed over the broad cowhide brogues, that seemed to have alreadygathered enough of the soil to indicate his right to that title.Mamie, who had recovered her spirits, but had not lost herpreoccupation, wandered off by herself in the meadow, or ascended thehillside, as her occasional impatience at the delay of the coach, orthe following of some ambitious fancy, alternately prompted her. Shewas so far away at one time that the stage-coach, which finally drew upbefore Mulrady, was obliged to wait for her.
When she was deposited safely inside, and Mulrady had climbed to thebox beside the driver, the latter remarked, curtly,--
"Ye gave me a right smart skeer, a minit ago, stranger."
"Ez how?"
"Well, about three years ago, I was comin' down this yer grade, at justthis time, and sittin' right on that stone, in just your attitude, wasa man about your build and years. I pulled up to let him in, when,darn my skin! if he ever moved, but sorter looked at me withoutspeakin'. I called to him, and he never answered, 'cept with thatidiotic stare. I then let him have my opinion of him, in mighty strongEnglish, and drove off, leavin' him there. The next morning, when Icame by on the up-trip, darn my skin! if he wasn't thar, but lyin' allof a heap on the boulder. Jim drops down and picks him up. DoctorDuchesne, ez was along, allowst it was a played-out prospector, with abig case of paralysis, and we expressed him through to the CountyHospital, like so much dead freight. I've allus been kindersuperstitious about passin' that rock, and when I saw you jist now,sittin' thar, dazed like, with your head down like the other chap, itrather threw me off my centre."
In the inexplicable and half-superstitious uneasiness that thiscoincidence awakened in Mulrady's unimaginative mind, he was almost onthe point of disclosing his good fortune to the driver, in order toprove how preposterous was the parallel, but checked himself in time.
"Did you find out who he was?" broke in a rash passenger. "Did youever get over it?" added another unfortunate.
With a pause of insulting scorn at the interruption, the driverresumed, pointedly, to Mulrady: "The pint of the whole thing was mycussin' a helpless man, ez could neither cuss back nor shoot; and thenafterwards takin' you for his ghost layin' for me to get even." Hepaused again, and then added, carelessly, "They say he never kem toenuff to let on who he was or whar he kem from; and he was eventooallytaken to a 'Sylum for Doddering Idjits and Gin'ral and PermiskusImbeciles at Sacramento. I've heerd it's considered a first-classinstitooshun, not only for them ez is paralyzed and can't talk, as forthem ez is the reverse and is too chipper. Now," he added, languidlyturning for the first time to his miserable questioners, "how did YOUfind it?"
[1] Don Ramon probably alluded to the eminent naturalist Douglas, whovisited California before the gold excitement, and died of an accidentin the Sandwich Islands.