Chapter 5

"I'm--nothin'--to--ye; but ye've bin the world an' all ter me. Well--I said I'd never go ter my little girl, because I wasn't fit, but I always thought that the Lord in His mercy would bring her ter me. Ye wore the clothes I sent, an' mebbee ye wondered who made 'em. 'Twas the happiness o' my life sewing on 'em, an' ter think you was wearin' them. I've worked awful hard, but I kin take it easy--now. I feel reel sleepy, too. Good-night, my pretty, good-night!"

We were quite unprepared for what happened, believing that our poor friend was merely over-wrought and weary. But as the words "good- night" fell softly upon our ears Gloriana sighed peacefully--and died.

"Who is this woman?" said Miriam for the second time, thinking that Gloriana had fallen asleep.

The Doctor was not so deceived. He pressed forward, and laid his trembling fingers upon the wrist of the dead, and then bent his head till it rested upon the breast of her he had counted a scandalous sinner. When he confronted us the tears were rolling down his face.

"May God forgive me!" he cried, falling upon his knees. "This woman, Miriam, was your mother."

V

BUMBLEPUPPY

Bumblepuppy is a synonym of whist played in defiance of certain time- honoured conventions and principles. Ajax said with reason that Johnnie Kapus, the nephew of our neighbour, old man Kapus, played the game of life in such a sorry, blundering fashion that he marvelled why his uncle gave him house-room. Ajax christened Johnnie--Bumble-puppy.

Once we hired Johnnie to work for us at the rate of half-a-dollar a day. A heavy rain-storm had just taken place, and my brother insisted that Johnnie was the right man to fill up the "wash-outs" in and about the corrals. He was strong, big, docile as a cow, and he lived within a few hundred yards of the ranch-house.

Johnnie was provided with a spade and a wheelbarrow, and led to a gaping hole beneath the barn. I explained that the rain had washed away the soil and made the hole, which must be filled up before more rain should fall.

"Wheer shall I git the dirt from?" Johnnie demanded.

"From the most convenient place," said I. Ajax and I returned to the barn an hour later. The hole was filled; but another hole, from which Johnnie had taken the dirt, as large as the first, seriously threatened the under-pinning of the building.

Ajax swore. Johnnie looked at me, as he drawled out:

"The boss told me to git the dirt wheer 'twas mos' handy."

Ajax grinned.

"I see. It was the boss' fault, not yours. Now then, Johnnie, the work must be done all over again."

"If you say so, boys, I'll do it."

As we moved away Ajax pointed out the propriety of giving explicit directions. At dinner time we came back to the barn. Johnnie had taken the earth out of the first hole and put it back again into the second!

"You star-spangled fool!" said Ajax.

"You tole me," replied Johnnie, "that the work mus' be did all over agen--an' I done it."

"Directions," I remarked, "may be made too explicit."

After this incident, we always spoke of Johnnie as Bumblepuppy.

Some six months later Alethea-Belle told us that Johnnie Kapus was doing "chores" for the widow Janssen; milking her cow, taking care of the garden, and drawing water. Upon inquiry, however, we learned that the cow was drying up, the well had caved in, and the garden produced no weeds, it is true, and no vegetables!

"Why doesn't the widow sack him?" Ajax asked.

"Mis' Janssen is kinder sorry for Johnnie," replied the schoolmistress; then she added irrelevantly, "There's no denyin' that Johnnie Kapus has the loveliest curly hair."

About a fortnight after this, when the July sun was at its zenith and the starch out of everything animate and inanimate, old man Kapus came up to the ranch-house. Johnnie, he said, disappeared during the previous night.

"And he's bin kidnapped, too," the uncle added.

"Kidnapped?"

"Yes, boys--hauled out o' winder! A man weighin' close onter two hundred pounds 'd naterally prefer to walk out o' the door, but the widder hauled Johnnie out o' winder."

"The widow?"

"Mis' Janssen. There was buggy tracks at the foot o' the melon patch, and the widder's missin'. She's put it up to marry my Johnnie. I suspicioned something, but I counted on Johnnie. I sez to myself: 'Others might be tempted by a plump, well-lookin' widder, but not Johnnie.' Ye see, boys, Johnnie ain't quite the same as you an' me."

"Not quite," said Ajax.

"Mebbee ye've wondered why I sot sech store by Johnnie. Wal--I'll tell ye. Johnnie's paw an' me was brothers an' pardners afore the war. An' after Bull Run John sez to me: 'Abram,' he sez, 'we mustn't let Ole Glory trail in the dust.' That's what he sez. 'John,' I answers, 'what kin we do to prevent it?' '_Enlist_,' sez he. An' we done it. But afore we go within smellin' distance o' the rebs, yes, boys, afore we saw 'em, a bullet comes slam-bang into John's head."

The old man paused, overcome. We turned our eyes from his wrinkled, troubled face, as Ajax entreated him to say no more.

"He died in defence of his flag," I muttered.

"Ah!" exclaimed Johnnie's uncle, "I thought you'd say that. No, boys, John didn't die. A Kapus takes a heap o' killin.' John up an lived-- an' _married_! He married my girl, too, Susie Bunker. Susie felt awful sorry for him, for that there rebel bullet had kinder made scrambled eggs with pore John's brains. I let Susie marry John, because I knew that he needed a good woman's keer. And then Johnnie was born: a whoppin' baby, but with a leetle something missin' in his purty head. Then John died, and soon enough Susie got peaked-face an' lost her relish fer food. She tuk a notion that John needed her t'otherside. Just afore she sent in her checks, she give me Johnnie, an' she ast my pardon for marryin' John instead o' me. I tole her she done right. An' I promised to look after Johnnie. Up to date, boys, I hev. But now that darned widder woman has onexpectedly kidnapped him. What kin I do?"

"The widow will look after both of you," I suggested.

"What! Share my Johnnie with her? Not much. She stole that there boy from me by force. By Jing! I'll take him from her without liftin' a finger. Ye see, Johnnie is mighty apt to disappint the widder. Sometimes--more often than not--Johnnie _is_--disappintin'! I allus jedge the pore boy by contrairies. Most o' men when they marry air apt to forgit them as raised 'em, but Johnnie'll pine fer me. I know it. Bless his heart, he can't git along nohow without me."

Listening to this simple talk, watching the old man's rough, honest face, my own heart grew chill with apprehension. The widow had a small income and many charms. It was certain that Johnnie's curly hair, bright blue eyes, and stalwart figure had captivated her fancy. Pity had bloomed into love. The pair must have driven--as fast as the widow's steed could travel--into San Lorenzo. By this time, high noon, the licence, doubtless, had been issued and the marriage solemnised by parson or justice of the peace. Once married, no man--not even old man Kapus--would be justified in tearing Bumblepuppy from the fond arms of his bride.

We asked Johnnie's uncle to dine with us. He thanked us warmly.

"Boys, you surmise that I'm feelin' lonesome. And I am. But I won't be lonesome long. The widder can't let that cow o' hers go without two milkin's, an' her pigs an' chickens must be fed. She'll be back in the village 'bout four or five; an' to-night, to-night, boys, my Johnnie 'll be home to supper."

Ajax discreetly descanted upon the widow's fine complexion, but old man Kapus lent him but an indifferent ear.

"She's fat an' slick," he admitted, "but Johnnie's fat an' slick, too. An' who made him so? Why--his uncle Abram. D'ye think now that I've fed him up and got him into sech fine shape that he'll leave me? No, sir. You might act that-a-way, but not my Johnnie."

After dinner, we accompanied Uncle Abram as far as the creek which flows between the village and our domain. Here stand some fine cottonwood trees and half-a-dozen lordly white-oaks. The spot is famous as a picnicking ground, and in the heat of summer is as cool a place as may be found in the county. And here, paddling in the brook like an urchin, we found Bumblepuppy. His eyes sparkled as they fell upon the face of his uncle.

"Ye've got back, Johnnie," said the old man.

"Yas. 'Twas hotter'n a red-hot stove on the road."

"Ye druv in with the widder woman?"

"Yas. I druv in with her; but I walked back. Guess I run the most o' the way, too."

"An' Mis' Janssen--wheer is she?"

"I dunno', uncle Abram."

"Is she still a widder woman, Johnnie?"

"She was when I left her," said Bumblepuppy.

He had ascended the bank. Sitting down, he began to put on his socks. I noted the admirable symmetry of calf and ankle; I thought of the lungs and muscles which had sustained the superb body during a twenty- six mile run between blazing earth and sky.

"What in thunder did ye go to town fer?" asked the old man. "Speak up, Johnnie. Give us the cold facts."

Then Bumblepuppy made the speech of his life.

"Uncle Abram, you tole me to obey Mis' Janssen, an' do what she said."

"That's so, Johnnie."

"Yesday, she tole me to fix up an' be ready to go to San Lorenzy with her. She said we'd travel by night 'cause o' the heat. An' she said I was not to 'sturb you. She said she'd come to the winder an' tap. Then I'd crawl out without 'sturbin' you. Wal--she come around about two, jest as the roosters was a'crowin 'fer the second time. I slipped out o' winder in my stockined feet. I hope I didn't 'sturb ye?"

"Ye didn't. Go on."

"In town Mis' Janssen said she'd fixed it up to marry me. She said I needed a lovin' wife, and that me an' she'd have a Fourth o' July time together. I said nothing, 'cause you'd tole me never to interrup' a lady when she was a-talkin'. She kep' on a-talkin' till we got to the Court House, where Mis' Janssen bought a licence. Then we hunted a minister. Bimeby, he ast me if I was willin' to take Sairy Anne Janssen to be my wife----"

"An' ye said NO, my own Johnnie?"

"That's what I done, Uncle Abram. And then she sez, kinder wheedlin': 'But you will marry yer Sairy Anne, Johnnie, won't ye?' And then, gittin' scared, I kinder forgot my manners, fer I said: 'No--I'm d---- d if I will!' An' I disremember what she said nex', but I found myself in the road, a-runnin' like a mad steer. Jee! that road was hotter'n a red-hot stove!"

During the recital of this adventure Bumblepuppy's face had deepened in tint till it glowed like an iron disc in the heart of a fire. As he finished speaking, he knelt down and dipped his head into the cool, bubbling creek. Lifting up his ruddy face, a ray of sunshine, filtering through the tremulous leaves of the cottonwoods, fell full upon his chestnut curls, and each drop of water on his hair became of a sudden a gem of prismatic colour and most brilliant lustre.

"Phew-w-w!" said Bumblepuppy. "I hope Mis' Janssen ain't feelin' as warm as I am."

VI

JASPERSON'S BEST GIRL

Jasperson came to the ranch at the time of the March branding, and it was well understood between the contracting parties--Ajax and I of the first part, and Jasper Jasperson of the second part, all of San Lorenzo County, in the State of California--that the said Jasperson came to us as a favour, and, so to speak, under protest. For he had never worked out before, and was possessed of money in bank and some four hundred acres of good arable land which, he carefully explained to us, he was unwilling to farm himself. Indeed, his appearance bespoke the man of independent means, for he wore a diamond collar- stud--his tie was always pulled carefully down so as not to interfere with this splendid gem--and two diamond rings. In Jasperson's hot youth he had come into violent contact with a circular saw, and the saw, as he admitted, had the best of the encounter--two fingers of his left hand being left in the pit. A man of character and originality, he insisted upon wearing the rings upon his maimed hand, both upon the index finger; and once, when Ajax suggested respectfully that the diamonds would shine to better advantage upon the right hand, he retorted reasonably enough that the mutilated member "kind of needed settin' off." He seized the opportunity to ask Ajax why we wore no jewellery, and upon my brother replying that we considered diamonds out of place upon a cattle ranch, he roundly asserted that in his opinion a "gen'leman couldn't be too dressy."

During the first month he bought in San Lorenzo a resplendent black suit, and an amazing dress shirt with an ivy pattern, worked in white silk, meandering down and up the bosom. To oblige Ajax he tried on these garments in our presence, and spoke hopefully of the future, which he said was sure to bring to his wardrobe another shirt and possibly a silk hat. We took keen interest in these important matters, and assured Jasperson that it would afford us the purest pleasure to see once more a silk hat. Then Ajax indiscreetly asked if he was about to commit matrimony.

"Boys," he replied, blushing, "I'd ought to be engaged, but I ain't. Don't give me away, but I ain't got no best girl--not a one. Surprisin', yes, sir, considerin' how I'm fixed--most _sur_prisin'."

He took off his beautiful coat, and wrapped it carefully in tissue paper. We were sitting on the verandah after supper, and were well into our second pipes. The moonlight illumined the valley, but Jasperson's small delicate face was in shadow. From the creek hard by came the croaking of many frogs, from the cow pasture the shrilling of the crickets. A cool breeze from the Pacific was stirring the leaves of the willows and cottonwoods, and the wheat, now two feet high, murmured praise and thanksgiving for the late rains. When nature is eloquent, why should a mortal refrain from speech?

"Boys," continued Jasperson; "I'm a-goin' to tell ye something; because--well, because I feel like it. I've never had no best girl!" "Jasperson," said Ajax, "I can't believe that. What! you, a young and----"

"I ain't young," interrupted the man of independent means. "I'm nigh on to thirty-six. Don't flim-flam me, boys. I ain't young, and I ain't beautiful, but fixed up I am--dressy, an' that should count."

"It does count," said my brother, emphatically. "I've seen you, Jasperson, on Sundays, when I couldn't take my eyes off you. The girls must be crazy."

"The girls, gen'lemen, air all right; the trouble ain't with them. It's with me. Don't laugh: it ain't no laughin' matter. Boys--I'm bashful. That's what ails Jasper Jasperson. The girls," he cried scornfully; "you bet they know a soft snap when they see it, and I am a soft snap, an' don't you forget it!

"I left my own land," he continued dreamily, in a soft, melancholy voice, "because there ain't a lady within fifteen miles o' my barn, and here there's a village, and----"

"Her name, please," said Ajax, with authority; "you must tell us her name."

"Wal," he bent forward, and his face came out of the shadows; we could see that his pale blue eyes, red-rimmed and short-sighted, were suffused with tender light, and his pendulous lower lip was a-quiver with emotion; even the hair of his head--tow-coloured and worn _à la Pompadour_--seemed to bristle with excitement, "Wal," he whispered "it's--it's Miss Birdie Dutton!"

In the silence that followed I could see Ajax pulling his moustache. Miss Birdie Dutton! Why, in the name of the Sphinx, should Jasperson have selected out of a dozen young ladies far more eligible Miss Birdie Dutton? She was our postmistress, a tall, dark, not uncomely virgin of some thirty summers. But, alas! one of her eyes was fashioned out of glass; her nose was masculine and masterful; and her chin most positive. Jasperson's chin was equally conspicuous-- negatively. Miss Birdie, be it added, was a frequent contributor to the columns of the _San Lorenzo Banner_, and Grand Secretary of a local temperance organisation. She boarded with the Swiggarts; and Mr. Swiggart, better known as Old Smarty, told me in confidence that "she wouldn't stand no foolishness"; and he added, reflectively, that she was something of a "bull-dozer." I knew that Old Smarty had sold his boarder an aged and foundered bronco for fifty dollars, and that within twenty-four hours the animal had been returned to him and the money refunded to Miss Birdie. Many persons had suffered grievously at the hands of Mr. Swiggart, but none, saving Miss Dutton, could boast of beating him in a horse-deal.

Presently I expressed surprise that Jasperson had the honour of Miss Dutton's unofficial acquaintance.

"I was interdooced last fall," said our friend, "at a candy-pullin' up to Mis' Swiggart's. Not that Miss Birdie was a-pullin' candy. No, sir; she ain't built that a way, but she was settin' there kind of scornful, but smilin' An' later she an' me sung some hymns together. Mebbe, gen'lemen, ye've heard Miss Birdie sing?"

I shook my head regretfully, but Ajax spoke enthusiastically of the lady's powers as a vocalist. He had previously described her voice to me as "a full choke, warranted to kill stone-dead at sixty yards."

"It is a lovely voice," sighed Jasperson, "strong, an' full, an' rich. Why, there ain't an organ in the county can down her high B!" Then, warmed by my brother's sympathy, he fumbled in his pocket, and found a sheet of note-paper. Upon this he had written a quatrain that he proposed to read to us _au clair de la lune_. The lines were addressed: "To My Own Blackbird."

"She's a pernounced brunette," explained the poet; "and her name is Birdie. I thought some of entitlin' the pome: 'To a Mocking Bird'; but I surmised that would sound too pussonal. She has mocked me, an' others, more'n once."

He sighed, still smarting at the memory of a gibe; then he recited the following in an effective monotone:--

"Oh! scorn not the humble worm, proud bird, As you sing i' the top o' the tree; Though doomed to squirm i' the ground, unheard. He'll make a square meal for thee."

"It ain't Shakespeare," murmured the bard, "but the idee is O.K."

My brother commended the lines as lacking neither rhyme nor reason, but he questioned the propriety of alluding to a lady's appetite, and protested strongly against the use of that abject word--worm. He told Jasperson that in comparing himself to a reptile he was slapping the cheeks of his progenitors.

"But I do feel like a worm when Miss Birdie's around," objected the man of acres. "It may be ondignified, but that there eye of hers does make me wiggle."

"It's a thousand pities," said I softly, "that Miss Dutton has only one eye."

Jasperson wouldn't agree with me. He replied, with ardour, that he would never have dared to raise his two blue orbs to Miss Dutton's brilliant black one, unless he had been conscious that his mistress, like himself, had suffered mutilation.

"I'm two fingers short," he concluded, "an' she's lackin' an eye. That, gen'lemen, makes it a stand-off. Say, shall I send her this yere pome?"

"Most certainly not," said Ajax.

"Then for the Lord's sake, post me."

I touched Ajax with my foot, and coughed discreetly; for I knew my brother's weakness. He is a spendthrift in the matter of giving advice. If Jasperson had appealed to me, the elder and more experienced, I should have begged politely, but emphatically, to be excused from interference. I hold that a man and a maid must settle their love affairs without help from a third party. Ajax, unhappily, thinks otherwise.

"Miss Dutton," he began, tentatively, "is aware, Jasperson, of your-- er--passion for her?"

"She ain't no sech a thing," said the lover.

"Yet her eye," continued Ajax, "is keen--keen and penetrating."

"It's a peach," cried the enthusiastic poet. "There ain't another like it in the land, but it can't see in the dark; an', boys, I've not shown my hand--yet!"

"You've made no advances directly or indirectly?"

"Not a one. By golly! I--I dassn't. I jest didn't know how. I ain't up to the tricks. You air, of course; but I'm not."

My brother somewhat confusedly hastened to assure Jasperson that his knowledge of the sex was quite elementary, and gleaned for the most part from a profound study of light literature.

The poet grinned derisively. "You ain't no tenderfoot," he said. "I reckon that what you don't know about the girls ain't worth picklin'."

"Well, if you mean business," said Ajax didactically, "if nothing we can say or do will divert your mind from courtship and matrimony--if, my dear Jasperson, you are prepared to exchange the pleasant places, the sunny slopes, and breezy freedom of bachelor life for the thorny path that leads to the altar, and thence to--er--the cradle, if, in short, you are determined to own a best girl, why, then the first and obvious thing to do is to let her know discreetly that you're in love with her."

"As how?" said Jasperson, breathlessly. "I told ye that when she was around I felt like a worm."

"You spoke of wiggling," replied my brother; "and I suppose that heretofore you have wiggled _from_ and not _to_ the bird. Next time, wiggle up, my boy--as close as possible."

"You're dead right," murmured the disciple; "but look at here: when I call on Miss Birdie, she sez, 'Mister Jasperson,' or, mebbe, 'Mister Jasper, please be seated, an' let me take your hat.' Naterally, boys, I take the chair she p'ints out, an' then, dog-gone it! she takes _another_."

"Do you expect this young lady to sit down in your lap, sir? Maids, Jasperson, must not be lightly put to confusion. They must be stalked, and when at bay wooed with tender words and languishing glances. Now listen to me. Next Sunday, when you call upon Miss Dutton, take the chair she offers, but as soon as a suitable opportunity presents itself, ask to see the album. Thus you will cleverly betray a warm interest in her by showing a lively interest in her people. And to look over an album two persons must----"

"You bet they must," interrupted the poet. "They must nestle up. That's right! What kind of a chump am I not to have thought of that before? Yes, boys, she's got an album, a beaut', too: crimson plush an' nickel. And, of course, the pictures of her folks is inside. By gum! I'll give the homeliest of 'em sech a send-off as----"

"You will not," said Ajax. "Remember, Jasperson, that a burning black eye indicates jealousy, which you must beware of arousing. Don't praise too wantonly the beauty of Miss Dutton's sisters and cousins; but if the father is well-looking, pay your mistress the compliment of saying that the children of true lovers always take after the father. In turning the leaves of the album you might touch her hand, quite accidentally. No less an authority than Mr. Pickwick commends a respectful pressure."

"I'll do it," exclaimed Jasperson, "I'll do it, sure!"

"Has she a pretty hand?" I asked.

"Has she a pretty hand!" echoed the lover, in disdainful tones, "She has the hand of a queen! The Empress of Roosia ain't got a whiter nor a finer hand! Miss Birdie ain't done no harder work than smackin' a kid that needs it."

"I've heard," said I, "that she can smack--hard."

"An' I'd be a liar if I denied it," replied Jasperson. "Wal, gen'lemen, I'm obligated to ye. Next Sabbath I'll wade right in."