CHAPTER XII.

MEETING AND PARTING.

The seed-and-tool store was at the Landing, close beside the wharf where the river boats stopped, on their way up and down. Across the narrow roadway was, also, the railway station. Between the whistling of engines, the rumbling of trains, it proved a most confusing spot for plain-reared Buster, and while Ephraim entered the store to make his gardening purchases, the broncho did his utmost to stand on his head or his hind heels, and in either direction to cast his rider to the ground.

In vain. The girl had been saddle-bred from her very infancy and wholly understood the vagaries of this four-footed friend.

“Now, boy, behave yourself. I’ll neither slip over your nose nor your tail. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? What’ll the people around all think of California horses, if you cut up like this? Whoa! There now, that’s better! Silly Buster! To be afraid of a train of cars that aren’t coming near you. Look at them. See. You must get acquainted with them, ’cause you’ll often, often see them. Steady, now. Good boy, Buster!”

A train had whizzed up to the station over the way and whizzed off again. The track lay behind the station; so that, at first, alighting passengers were invisible from the spot where Jessica waited, perched on the pony’s back, which wore a harness instead of a saddle. Even to her it was not a comfortable arrangement and a less experienced rider would have found it almost impossible.

Suddenly, the broncho’s eyes wavered from the train they had watched disappearing northward and came back to a passenger just coming into sight around the station. A quiver of some fresh emotion ran through all his sturdy frame, and with a wild whinny of delight he threw up his head and bolted across the roadway. Another instant and Jessica was off his back, in the arms of this passenger, crying incredulously:

“Mother! Why, mother! Is it you? Is it my--_Mother_!”

“My darling, my darling! It is true, then, that you are quite safe, unharmed?” returned Mrs. Trent, folding her daughter close, then holding her off at arm’s length, the better to assure herself of the girl’s safety.

“And Buster saw you first! Think of that! The pony saw and knew you first! But when--why--where? Ned? How happened--” demanded the excited “Little Captain,” without pausing for answers to her hurrying questions.

“_Why?_ because it _had_ to happen. Did you think I could learn of your peril in that terrible fire and not come to find you for myself? Indeed, I started within the hour after Mr. Hale’s telegram arrived, even though it was most reassuring and I see now quite true. But, why are you just here in this place? I stopped at Mr. Hale’s office to find the address of Cousin Margaret, but he was out and only an office boy there. Fortunately he found it on the address-book and I took the next train north. O my darling! My darling little Jess!”

During this fresh embrace a familiar voice broke upon that rhapsody of reunion, exclaiming:

“Not a mite more’n I expected. I’ve been reckoning time and I ’lowed to-day was about the limit. How are you, ma’am?”

Mrs. Trent released her daughter to take the outstretched hands of “Forty-niner,” and to cry, in response:

“You expected me, Mr. Marsh? But I might have known. You were always wise and sympathetic. You’d have done just the same, wouldn’t you?”

“Sure. Now, ma’am, I’ve been cipherin’ how’s best to get up-hill to that there cottage where we live now. I reckon the ‘easiest way is the purtiest way’ an’ that’ll be for me to lead this cantankerous old broncho, that ‘hasn’t sense enough to go in when it rains,’ and you and ‘Little Captain’ ride up in a ‘bus.’ There’s two or three of them always standin’ round, waiting for customers. Baggage, ma’am? Where’s that at?”

“Here is my check. It’s but a small satchel. I couldn’t wait for more--even if I was going to stay all summer.”

“All summer, mother dearest? Oh! how splendid! Yet--that won’t be but a mite of a time, anyway, ’cause it’s summer now. June; just think! I’ve been here two whole months already.”

The mother might have added: “They seem like as many years to me;” but it wasn’t her way to dwell upon unpleasant feelings and she had her arms about her child, at last.

What a ride that was! How the happy tongues flew, how questions and answers were tossed to and fro, how plans were laid, events discussed, and the returned easterner felt that she had come into her own again. California she loved. In California she would live and die; but beside this broad old river she had been born and its rugged, verdure-covered Highlands were most beautiful in her sight.

And what a welcome followed, when old Margaret and Gabriella met! How keen the glances with which each searched the other’s face and read thereon the lessons life and the years had taught. Through Mrs. Trent’s heart shot a swift pain, beholding in Madam the signs of a great grief. Despite the valiant front she would still present to her changed fortunes, the loss of her home had aged her as the flight of time could not. In repose, when no necessity for assumed brightness roused her, she looked to the full what she really was--an old, old woman; world-weary, life-weary, though a “Waldron” still!

Also, though she did not acknowledge it, she was wofully disappointed in Gabriella, whom she remembered as a gay, bright “society girl,” but who was so sadly changed.

To Granny Briggs, who had begun to usurp the confidences once enjoyed by Barnes, she regretted:

“My cousin Gabriella hasn’t an atom of style. She’s become a regular dowd, living out there in that wilderness. She used to be the most admired girl in our set and was Madam Mearsom’s star pupil. She graduated with highest honors--My! But she was a beauty, that day! in her white gown, of the finest, sheerest French organdie, with billows of filmy lace--I took good care that my ward’s gown should be the handsomest of all her class’s. Poor Gabriella! Such a pity, to throw herself away on a penniless man when she might easily have married a millionaire and a gentleman of the first family.”

“Yes’m. But seems if she was real peart and purty lookin’ yet. I don’t know much about that ‘style,’ I hear tell of, but she’s got a kind of voice that makes you feel warm in your insides when she talks with you; and that old Ephraim seems to worship the very ground she treads on. I don’t know, I ain’t no judge for the aristocratics, but seems if bein’ loved that way makes up for not havin’ that ‘style.’ What think she’d like best for dinner, to-day? I’d admire to cook her something as nice as that old ‘Aunt Sally’ of theirs, or that heathen Wun Lung’s. Ephraim Marsh, he’s makin’ great reckonin’ on that garden of his’n; but a garden planted in June ain’t goin’ to be no great shakes, ’cordin’ to New Hampshire notions. What say, we best have? Then I’ll go buy the stuff of the nighest huckster.”

“Anything, anything, dear Mrs. Briggs!” interrupted a voice, glad enough to belong to a girl, as Gabriella peeped in from the little verandah where she had been writing home to little Ned and where she had overheard all the above conversation. “Any sort of eastern cooking is delicious to me. I haven’t been so hungry in a long, long time as since I came ‘home.’”

Not only to little Ned, whose pride at receiving a letter all his own she could picture, but to that most helpful lawyer friend, Mr. Hale, had she been writing; and it was due to his kind offices that soon there joined these happy cottage folk another who could hardly believe her good fortune true.

“Ah! little daughter! That is the best of having this abundance of money--though I can scarcely realize yet, that it is really our own and it’s right to use it--that one may make others happy with it. So Mr. Hale has arranged with the surgeons in charge to have Sophy Nestor brought up here to stay as long as we do. I’ve hired that other little cottage, across the way--that empty one--for we shall need extra sleeping rooms. She is to be brought, ‘strapped’ as she must be for long to come, and her attendant nurse with her. The surgeon will run up, now and then, when it is necessary, and her improvement will not be hindered because of her coming. Indeed, the change of air will help her to grow strong. When I think of what we owe that child--I am almost overcome with gratitude.

“More than that, you and I will sail down to the city, to-morrow morning, and you shall select the very prettiest little set of furniture you see and it shall be for her own bedroom. We will give her one happy summer, if we can, despite that dreadful ‘strapping’ and lying still that is the price of her recovery. Ah! my darling! God was good to us when He sent old Pedro to show the way to that copper mine, with its immeasurable results of benefit to the poor and afflicted!”

That was always the way Gabriella talked. It was ever the one thought of her heart that this now rapidly growing, famous “Sobrante” mine was but a trust placed in her hands and those of her children for the happiness of other people. It made her very grateful, even more humble, to have been accounted worthy to hold this “trust”; and, thus listening to the wise mother whom she adored, little Jessica was in small danger ever of loving money for money’s sake.

To them sometimes laughingly spoke the more worldly-wise Madam.

“But shall you never do anything for the Trents themselves, my Gabriella? Shall you be always content to live in a frame house in a wilderness? Is Jessica never to have the benefit of that ‘society’ for which Madam Mearsom and her own wealth, will fit her? Remember that a little--just a little--is due those poor Trents and Waldrons!”

“All in good time, Cousin Margaret. The frame house has been, is still, the happiest of homes. When you come out to California to spend next winter in the sunshine, you’ll see for yourself how cosy we are. There is a hospital to be built, first; for so many, many workmen are coming to our dear Golden Valley, that there must sometimes be illness or even injury. We must have a place to care for them. We must have a fine school. The workmen have wives and children. We must have homes, dozens of those pretty ‘frame cottages,’ if you please! for them to live in. We must have a church. Maybe I should have put that first. We must have stores and libraries--Oh! there is no end to the things we must have if--if that mine holds out to pay for them!”

Such enthusiasm was contagious. Said the Madam, with mock dismay:

“Hold your tongue, Gabriella Trent! Or the first thing I know I shall be giving away that parcel of land in Washington Square for some ridiculous charity. Just say no more and let me keep my common sense, which you’ve almost talked out of my head.”

“O Cousin Margaret, do give it! Give it, surely. And let me care for you now as you cared for me when I was a girl. The only mother I ever knew--what so fitting as that you should turn your own proud back on this ‘society’ of fashion and come home with me to that other, better, more worth-while society of labor, honesty, and love. You’ll come, dear? Surely, you will come.”

“And leave our Jessica to the snares of this eastern ‘society,’ which ‘toils not, neither does it spin’? We’re a long way from that question of dinner we started with, and you’re here for the summer, at least. One request I have to make. Do me a personal favor. When you go to town, to-morrow, to buy that Sophy Nestor a set of furniture, please also buy yourself a decent gown. Even a ready-made one from a store is preferable to that thing you have on. The sleeves--Why, my dear girl, the sleeves are at least seven years behind the fashion! and there’s nothing so betrays the age of one’s clothes as the sleeves they wear. Since you came here before you got Jessica’s letter--that’s the worst of your California, it takes an age for letters to go to and fro!--since you came before then you must know that I have already ordered a few things for her. They should be finished by this time and sent up. You can inquire about them. Also, you can see Melanie and find out about my own things. Really, Gabriella, you are coming in very handy! I’ve been wanting a trustworthy woman to send shopping, since I’m to live in the country myself.”

She was in a merry mood, this proud old dame, happy through all her love-hungry nature to have her old ward with her once more. A merry party all; though the mother sometimes thought longingly of little Ned and his “shadow,” Luis; wondering what sort of mischief occupied their busy brains at that especial moment. But mostly she was as gay as her own girl. She had come away for a holiday and she was wise enough to take it to the utmost; leaving home cares and fortunes in the capable hands of Aunt Sally Benton, Mr. Ninian Sharp, and the faithful “boys.” That Sobrante would not seem really the old Sobrante to them there, with her and Jessica and “Forty-niner” absent, she was sure; but that her welcome, returning, would be all the more delightful and heartsome she was also sure.

“All summer together.”

Alas! How swift are summer days! And that one came whereon was parting. Another summer would come and all these with it, it was hoped; but it was a very sad-faced, if most patient, Sophy Nestor who looked about her dainty chamber to bid it a winter’s farewell. All that pretty furniture, of white, with rosebud decorations, which had been given to her for her “very, very own”; those soft swaying curtains; that adorable rosebush outside her window, whereon had been the roses right at hand to gather freely as she would; all the love and gayety of that simple cottage life; with Granny grown a happy-faced old lady, and with her beloved Jessica attendant on her as on a precious sister--this was ended.

The surgeon had come; the nurse had on her street costume and was waiting; she had herself been capped and wrapped against some adverse draught; and would presently be lifted in strong arms and carried on a comfortable stretcher back to that hospital she now called home.

Then--Why, then, so quick one couldn’t realize it--everything was over. Sophy was back on her own little cot in the children’s ward, there to become its very life and comfort, so confident and hopeful and uncomplaining was she. She had bidden Granny good-by. Granny who, despising conventions, had been installed in the dearest little flat that could be found near the hospital, and was there to keep house just as they did in “Cawnco’d”--baked beans and all--with Ephraim Marsh as boarder and sole companion. Buster had been put out to board in the village where he had disgraced himself by his own odd behavior. Tipkins--Well, Tipkins, erect and immaculate as of old, had purchased his own new livery and was ready to attend his mistress into those western wilds whither that deluded creature now was bound. Tipkins had his opinion of anybody, even his faultless Madam, who would forsake the “higher civilization” of New York, at this time of year, to live in a frame house on a sort of prairie, with nobody but workmen and horses, and wild ostriches around. Oh! Tipkins knew! he hadn’t listened all these weeks to the talk that went on among his betters, without understanding the entire situation, even though he gave no sign.

“Madam is getting into her second childhood!” he had said in a burst of confidence to Ephraim. “She’d never have done such a thing as this, if she wasn’t.”

“Shucks! Lots of folks and towerists come to Californy to spend the winter. ’Tain’t no fool of a trip, either. It costs money.”

“Well, yes, maybe. But they go to the hotels, the big ones, and pay high and live like the Waldronses had ought to. But I ain’t forgetting what she used to be; and I’m wearing my livery constant, to remind her that there’s others that remember it too. I’ll show them cowboys and Chinese laundry-cooks, that I knows what’s what, even if they don’t; and I’ll teach them what a first-class English butler is like.”

Then did “Forty-niner” toss back his grizzled head and laugh. How he did laugh! Almost as if he were at that moment on the broad plain of Sobrante where none would be disturbed because of a little noise. And said he:

“Good! Good enough! I like you, Tippy, I plumb do like you. You’re straight and white, almost as white as a Yankee. But I’d give all my old shoes to see the ‘boys’’ faces when you arrive in their midst. When you try to buttle your butlery in their presence--I tell you, Tippy, you’ll strike it rich! If ’twasn’t for turnin’ my back on the ‘Little Captain,’ now, when she’s going to need me the most, I’d join the homeward-bound myself just to be on hand when that bottle-green-and-poppy-yeller livery hits the ranch! Oh! Shucks!”

Again that uncontrollable laughter seized him, fancying the face of Samson the mighty, when Tipkins the haughty should appear before him; and bending himself double he retreated lest this untimely mirth should jar upon the feelings of others, to whom this day brought grief.

In the handsome drawing-room of Madame Mearsom, Mrs. Dalrymple, Gabriella, and poor Jessica gathered for a last embrace. Madam herself supported them by the kindly dignity of her deportment--exactly what that deportment should have been at such a time and such a moment. One glance at her countenance showed her eminently fitted to assume the charge and education of a “young lady of the higher class,” it was so benign, so composed, and so intelligent.

But Jessica had scarcely looked at her. She had eyes, at that moment only for that beloved face of her mother which would vanish in a moment and leave her alone.

Hark! The door has already closed! the dear face has vanished! “Little Captain” _is_ alone! On the threshold of a new, unknown life.