Part 13

He hung around all day while we put up the post and studding—probably to see that the sill was not turned over and his secret disclosed; and it was with this idea that I set the studding first on his particular sill. By night we had the frame so near up, that there was no possibility of the sill being moved; and then Markson went away.

He came up often, after that, to see how his house was getting along. Each time he came he would saunter around to that particular sill, and when I noticed that he did this, I made some excuse to call the men away from that side of the house.

Sometimes he brought his family with him, and I scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry; for, while his daughter, a handsome, strong, bright, honest, golden-haired girl of fifteen or sixteen, always affected me as if she was a streak of sunshine, and made me hope I should some day have a daughter like her, his wife always affected me unpleasantly.

I am not a good physiognomist, but I notice most people resemble animals of some sort, and when I decide on what animal it is, in any particular case, I judge the person accordingly.

Now, Mrs. Markson—who was evidently her husband’s second wife, for she was too young to be Helen’s mother—was rather handsome and extremely elegant, but neither manners nor dress could hide a certain tigerish expression which was always in her face. It was generally inactive, but it was never absent, and the rapidity with which it awoke once or twice when she disapproved something which was done or said, made me understand why Mr. Markson, who always seemed pleasant and genial with any one else, was quite silent and guarded when his wife was with him.

Pretty soon the people of Bartley knew all about the Marksons. How people learn all about other people is more than I can explain. _I_ never have a chance to know all about my neighbors, for I am kept busy in looking to myself; but if all the energy that is devoted to other people’s business in Bartley were expended on house-building, trade would soon be so dull that I should be longing for a mansion in the skies.

Everybody in Bartley knew that Helen Markson’s mother, who was very beautiful and lovable, had died years before, and that her stepmother had been Mrs. Markson only two or three years; that the second Mrs. Markson had married for money, and that her husband was afraid of her, and would run away from her if it wasn’t for Helen; that Mrs. Markson sometimes got angry, and then she raved like mad, and that it was wearing Mr. Markson’s life away; for he was a tender-hearted man, in spite of his smartness. Some even declared that Markson had willed her all his property, and insured his life heavily for her besides, and that if he died before Helen was married, Helen would be a beggar.

But none of these things had anything to do with my contract. I worked away and had good weather, so I lost no time, and at the end of five months I had finished the house, been paid for it, had paid my bills, and made a clear two thousand dollars on the job. I could have made a thousand more, without any one being the wiser for it, but I don’t build houses in that way—the public will greatly oblige me by cutting this out. This money gave me a handsome business start, and having had no serious losses, nor any houses thrown back upon my hands—(for I always make it a point to do a little better than I promise, so folks can’t find fault)—I am now quite well off, and building houses on my own account, to sell; while some of my competitors, who started before I did, have been through bankruptcy, while some have been too poor to do even that.

A few years after building Markson’s house, I went with a Southern friend into a black-walnut speculation. We bought land in the Southwest, cut the timber, got it to market, and made a handsome profit, I am glad to say. This business took me away from home, and kept me for months, but, as I was still without family ties, I did not suffer much during my absence. Still the old village seemed to take on a kind of motherly air as the stage, with me in it, rattled into town, and I was just dropping into a pleasant little reverie, when a carriage, which I recognized as Markson’s, dashed down the road, met us, and stopped, while the coachman shouted:

“Raines’s foreman says the old man’s coming home to-day.”

He meant me.

“Reckon his head was purty level,” replied the stage-driver, tossing his head backward toward me.

“Mr. Raines,” said the coachman, recognizing me, “Mr. Markson is awful sick—like to die any minute—an’ he wants to see you right away—wishes you wouldn’t wait for anything.”

What to make of it I didn’t know, and said so, upon which the stage-driver rather pettishly suggested that ’twouldn’t take long to find out if I got behind Markson’s team; and, as I agreed with him, I changed conveyances, and was soon at Markson’s house.

Helen met me at the door, and led me immediately to Markson’s chamber. The distance from the door of his room to the side of his bed couldn’t have been more than twenty feet, yet, in passing over it, it seemed to me that I imagined at least fifty reasons why the sick man had sent for me, but not one of the fifty was either sensible or satisfactory.

I was even foolish enough to imagine Markson’s conscience was troubled, and that he was going to pay me some money which he justly owed me, whereas he had paid me every cent, according to contract.

We reached his bedside before I had determined what it could be. Helen took his hand, and said:

“Father, here is Mr. Raines.”

Markson, who was lying motionless, with his face to the wall, turned quickly over and grasped my hand and beckoned me closer. I put my head down, and he whispered:

“I’m glad you’ve come; I want to ask you a favor—a dying man’s last request. You’re an honest man (N. B.—People intending to build will please make a note of this.—J. R.), I am sure, and I want you to help me do justice. You have seen my wife; she can be a tiger when she wants to. She married me for money; she thinks the will I made some time ago, leaving everything to her, is my last. But it is not. I’ve deceived her, for the sake of peace. I made one since, leaving the bulk of my property to Helen; it came to me through her dear mother. I know nobody to trust it with. Mrs. Markson can wrap almost any one around her finger when she tries, and——”

His breath began to fail, and the entrance of his wife did not seem to strengthen him any; but he finally regained it, and continued:

“She will try it with _you;_ but you are cool as well as honest, I believe. I meant to tell Helen where the will was the day after I put it there; but she was so young—it seemed dreadful to let her know how cowardly her father was—how he feared her. Get it—get a good lawyer—see she has her rights. I put it—no one could suspect where—I put it— in—the——”

His breath failed him entirely, and he fixed his eyes on mine with an agonized expression which makes me shiver whenever I think of it. Suddenly his strange operation with that sill, of which I had not thought for a long time, came into my mind, and I whispered, quickly:

“In the sill of the house?”

His expression instantly changed to a very happy one, and yet he looked wonderstruck, which was natural enough.

“I saw you put it there,” said I. “But,” I continued, fearing the dying man might suspect me of spying, and so fear he had mistaken my character—“but I did not mean to——I was on the ground when you came there that evening; and when I saw what you were doing, I could not move for fear of disturbing you. I know where to find it, and I can swear you put it there.”

Markson closed his eyes, and never opened them again; and his last act, before going out of the world, was to give my hand a squeeze, which, under the circumstances, I could not help believing was an honest one.

As his hand relaxed, I felt that I had better give place to those who had a right to it, so I quietly retired. Helen fell on her knees by his bedside, but Mrs. Markson followed me out of the room.

“Mr. Raines,” said she, with a very pleasant smile for a woman widowed but a moment before, “what did my dear husband want?”

Now, I am an honest man and a Church-member—and I was one then, and believed in truth and straightforwardness just as much as I do now—but, somehow, when such a person speaks to me, I feel as if I were all of a sudden a velvet-pawed cat myself. So I answered, with the straightest of faces:

“Only to see to one of the sills of the house, ma’am, and he made me solemnly swear to do it right away. He was an extraordinary man, ma’am, to think of the good of his family up to the last moment.”

“Ah, yes, dear man!” said she, with a sigh which her face plainly showed came from nowhere deeper than her lips. “I hope it won’t take long, though,” she continued, “for I can’t endure noise in the house.”

“Not more than an hour,” I replied.

“Oh, I’m glad to hear it!” said she. “Perhaps, then, you might do it while we are at the funeral, day after to-morrow? We will be gone at least two hours.”

“Easily, ma’am,” said I, with my heart in my mouth at the idea of managing the matter so soon, and having the papers for Helen as soon as, in any sort of decency, Mrs. Markson would be likely to have the old will read.

For the rest of the day I was so absent-minded to everything except this business of Markson’s that my acquaintances remarked that, considering how long I had been gone, I didn’t seem very glad to see any one.

Finally I went to old Judge Bardlow, who was as true as steel, and told him the whole story, and he advised me to get the papers, and give them to him to examine. So, on the day of the funeral, I entered the house with a mallet and a mortizing chisel, and within fifteen minutes I had in my pocket the package Markson had put in the sill years before, and was hurrying to the judge’s office.

He informed me that Mrs. Markson’s lawyer, from the city, had called on him that very morning, and invited him to be present at the reading of the will in the afternoon, so he would be able to put things in proper shape at once.

I was more nervous all that day than I ever was in waiting to hear from an estimate. It was none of my business, to be sure; but I longed to see Mrs. Markson punished for the mischief which I and every one else believed she had done her husband; and I longed to see Helen, whom every one liked, triumph over her stepmother, who, still young and gay, was awfully jealous of Helen’s beauty and general attractiveness.

Finally the long day wore away, and an hour or two after the carriages returned from the funeral, the city lawyer called for the judge, and, at the judge’s suggestion, they both called for me.

We found Mrs. Markson and Helen, with some of Mrs. Markson’s relatives—Helen had not one in the world—in the parlor, Mrs. Markson looking extremely pretty in her neat-fitting suit of black, and Helen looking extremely disconsolate.

The judge, in a courtly, old-fashioned way, but with a good deal of heart for all that, expressed his sympathy for Helen, and I tried to say a kind word to her myself. To be sure, it was all praise of her father, whom I really respected very highly (aside from my having had my first contract from him), but she was large-hearted enough to like it all the better for that. I was still speaking to her when Mrs. Markson’s lawyer announced that he would read the last will and testament of the deceased; so, when she sat down on a sofa, I took a seat beside her.

The document was very brief. He left Helen the interest of twenty thousand dollars a year, the same to cease if she married; all the rest of the property he left to his wife. As the lawyer concluded, Helen’s face put on an expression of wonder and grief, succeeded by one of utter loneliness; while from Mrs. Markson’s eyes there flashed an exultant look that had so much of malignity in it that it made me understand the nature of Satan a great deal more clearly than any sermon ever made me do. Poor Helen tried to meet it with fearlessness and dignity, but she seemed to feel as if even her father had abandoned her, and she dropped her head and burst into tears.

I know it wasn’t the thing to do before company, but I took her hand and called her a poor girl, and begged her to keep a good heart, and trust that her father loved her truly, and that her wrongs would be righted at the proper time.

Being kind to my fellow-creatures is the biggest part of my religion, for it’s the part of religion I understand best; but even if I had been a heathen, I couldn’t have helped wishing well to a noble, handsome woman like Helen Markson. I tried to speak in a very low tone, but Mrs. Markson seemed to understand what I said, for she favored me with a look more malevolent than any I had ever received from my most impecunious debtor; the natural effect was to wake up all the old Adam there was in _me_, and to make me long for what was coming.

“May I ask the date of that will?” asked Judge Bardlow.

“Certainly, sir,” replied Mrs. Markson’s lawyer, handing the document to the judge. The judge looked at the date, handed the will back to the lawyer, and drew from his pocket an envelope.

“Here is a will made by Mr. Markson,” said the judge, “and dated three months later.”

Mrs. Markson started; her eyes flashed with a sort of fire which I hope I may never see again, and she caught her lower lip up between her teeth. The judge read the document as calmly as if it had been a mere supervisor’s notice, whereas it was different to the first will in every respect, for it gave to Helen all of his property, of every description, on condition that she paid to Mrs. Markson yearly the interest of twenty thousand dollars until death or marriage, “this being the amount,” as the will said, “that she assured me would be amply sufficient for my daughter under like circumstances.”

As the judge ceased reading, and folded the document, Mrs. Markson sprang at him as if she were a wild beast.

“Give it to me!” she screamed—hissed, rather; “’tis a vile, hateful forgery!”

“Madame,” said the judge, hastily putting the will in his pocket, and taking off his glasses, “that is a matter which the law wisely provides shall not be decided by interested parties. When I present it for probate——”

“I’ll _break_ it!” interrupted Mrs. Markson, glaring, as my family cat does when a mouse is too quick for her.

Mrs. Markson’s lawyer asked permission to look at the newer will, which the judge granted. He looked carefully at the signature of Markson and the witnesses, and returned the document with a sigh.

“Don’t attempt it, madame—no use,” said he. “I know all the signatures; seen them a hundred times. I’m sorry, very—affects _my_ pocket some, for it cuts some of my prospective fees, but—_that_ will can’t be broken.”

Mrs. Markson turned, looked at Helen a second, and then dashed at her, as if “to scatter, tear and slay,” as the old funeral hymn says. Helen stumbled and cowered a little toward me, seeing which I—how on earth I came to do it I don’t know—put my arm around her, and looked indignantly at Mrs. Markson.

“You treacherous hussy!” said Mrs. Markson, stamping her foot—“you scheming little minx! I could kill you! I could tear you to pieces! I could drink your very heart’s blood—I could——”

What else she could do she was prevented from telling, for she fell into a fit, and was carried out rigid and foaming at the mouth.

I am generally sorry to see even wicked people suffer, but I wasn’t a bit sorry to see Mrs. Markson; for, while she was talking, poor Helen trembled so violently that it seemed to me she would be scared to death if her cruel stepmother talked much longer.

Two hours later Mrs. Markson, with all her relatives and personal effects, left the house, and six months afterward Mrs. Markson entrapped some other rich man into marrying her. She never tried to break Markson’s will.

As Helen was utterly ignorant of the existence of this new will until she heard it read, the judge explained to her where it came from; and as she was naturally anxious for all the particulars of its discovery, the judge sent me to her to tell her the whole story. So I dressed myself and drove down—for, though still under thirty, I was well off, and drove my own span—and told her of my interview with her father, on his deathbed, as well as of the scene on the night he hid the will.

As I told the latter part of the story a reverent, loving, self-forgetful look came into her face, and made her seem to me like an angel. As for myself, the recalling of the incident, now that I knew its sequel, prevented my keeping my eyes dry. I felt a little ashamed of myself and hurried away, but her look while I spoke of her father, and her trembling form in my arms while Mrs. Markson raved at her, were constantly in my mind, and muddled a great many important estimates. They finally troubled me so that I drove down again and had a long and serious talk with Helen.

What we said, though perfectly proper and sensible, might not be interesting in print, so I omit it. I will say, however, that my longing—when I first saw Helen as a little girl—for a daughter just like her, has been fulfilled so exactly, that I have named her Helen Markson Raines, after her mother; and if she is not as much comfort to me as I supposed she would be, it is no fault of hers, but rather because the love of her mother makes me, twenty years after the incidents of this story occurred, so constantly happy, that I need the affection of no one else.

GRUMP’S PET.

ON a certain day in November, 1850, there meandered into the new mining camp of Painter Bar, State of California, an individual who was instantly pronounced, all voices concurring, the ugliest man in the camp. The adjective ugly was applied to the man’s physiognomy alone; but time soon gave the word, as applied to him, a far wider significance. In fact, the word was not at all equal to the requirements made of it, and this was probably what influenced the pre-fixing of numerous adjectives, sacred and profane, to this little word of four letters.

The individual in question stated that he came from “no whar in pu’tiklar,” and the savage, furtive glance that shot from his hyena-like eyes seemed to plainly indicate why the land of his origin was so indefinitely located. A badly broken nose failed to soften the expression of his eyes, a long, prominent, dull-red scar divided one of his cheeks, his mustache was not heavy enough to hide a hideous hare-lip; while a ragged beard, and a head of stiff, bristly red hair, formed a setting which intensified rather than embellished the peculiarities we have noted.

The first settlers, who seemed quite venerable and dignified, now that the camp was nearly a fortnight old, were in the habit of extending hospitality to all newcomers until these latter could build huts for themselves; but no one hastened to invite this beauty to partake of cracker, pork and lodging-place, and he finally betook himself to the southerly side of a large rock, against which he placed a few boughs to break the wind.

The morning after his arrival, certain men missed provisions, and the ugly man was suspected; but so depressing, as one miner mildly put it, was his aspect when even looked at inquiringly, that the bravest of the boys found excuse for not asking questions of the suspected man.

“Ain’t got no chum,” suggested Bozen, an ex-sailor, one day, after the crowd had done considerable staring at this unpleasant object; “ain’t got no chum, and’s lonesome—needs cheerin’ up.” So Bozen philanthropically staked a new claim near the stranger, apart from the main party. The next morning found him back on his old claim, and volunteering to every one the information that “stranger’s a grump—a reg’lar grump.” From that time forth “Grump” was the only name by which the man was known.

Time rolled on, and in the course of a month Painter Bar was mentioned as an old camp. It had its mining rules, its saloon, blacksmith-shop, and faro-bank, like the proudest camp on the Run, and one could find there colonels, judges, doctors, and squires by the dozen, besides one deacon and a dominie or two.

Still, the old inhabitants kept an open eye for newcomers, and displayed an open-hearted friendliness from whose example certain Eastern cities might profit.

But on one particular afternoon, the estimable reception committee were put to their wit’s end. They were enjoying their _otium cum dignitate_ on a rude bench in front of the saloon, when some one called attention to an unfamiliar form which leaned against a stunted tree a few rods off.

It was of a short, loose-jointed young man, who seemed so thin and lean, that Black Tom ventured the opinion that “that feller had better hold tight to the groun’, ter keep from fallen’ upards.” His eyes were colorless, his nose was enormous, his mouth hung wide open and then shut with a twitch, as if its owner were eating flies, his chin seemed to have been entirely forgotten, and his thin hair was in color somewhere between sand and mud.

As he leaned against the tree he afforded a fine opportunity for the study of acute and obtuse angles. His neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, back, knees and feet all described angles, and even the toes of his shocking boots deflected from the horizontal in a most decided manner.

“Somebody ort to go say somethin’ to him,” said the colonel, who was recognized as leader by the miners.

“Fact, colonel,” replied one of the men; “but what’s a feller to say to sich a meanderin’ bone-yard ez that? Might ask him, fur perliteness sake, to take fust pick uv lots in a new buryin’ ground; but then Perkins died last week, yur know.”

“Say _somethin’_, somebody,” commanded the colonel, and as he spoke his eyes alighted on Slim Sam, who obediently stepped out to greet the newcomer.

“Mister,” said Sam, producing a plug of tobacco, “hev a chaw?”

“I don’t use tobacco,” languidly replied the man, and his answer was so unexpected that Sam precipitately retired.

Then Black Tom advanced, and pleasantly asked:

“What’s yer fav’rit game, stranger?”

“Blind man’s buff,” replied the stranger.

“What’s that?” inquired Tom, blushing with shame at being compelled to display ignorance about games; “anything like going it blind at poker?”

“Poker?—I don’t know what that is,” replied the youth.

“He’s from the country,” said the colonel, compassionately, “an’ hesn’t hed the right schoolin’. P’r’aps,” continued the colonel, “he’d enjoy the cockfight at the saloon to-night—these country boys are pretty well up on roosters. Ask him, Tom.”

Tom put the question, and the party, in deep disgust, heard the man reply:

“No, thank you; I think it’s cruel to make the poor birds hurt each other.”

“Look here,” said the good-natured Bozen, “the poor lubber’s all gone in amidships—see how flat his breadbasket is. I say, messmate,” continued Bozen, with a roar, and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder, “come and splice the main-brace.”

“No, thank you,” answered the unreasonable stranger; “I don’t drink.”

The boys looked incredulously at each other, while the colonel arose and paced the front of the saloon two or three times, looking greatly puzzled. He finally stopped and said:

“The mizzable rat isn’t fit to be out uv doors, an’ needs takin’ keer ov. Come here, feller,” called the colonel; “be kinder sociable—don’t stand there a gawpin’ at us ez ef we wuz a menagerie.”

The youth approached slowly, stared through the crowd, and finally asked:

“Is there any one here from Pawkin Centre?”

No one responded.

“Some men went out to Californy from Pawkin Centre, and I didn’t know but some of ’em was here. I come from ther’ myself—my name’s Mix,” the youth continued.