Part 17

When Sim finally learned the cause of his trouble, he promptly announced his intention of converting Mrs. Blizzer to common sense, and as he had argued Uncle Ben, first into a perfect frenzy and then into silence, the crowd considered Mrs. Blizzer’s faith doomed.

Monday morning, bright and early, as men with aching heads were taking their morning bitters, Mrs. Blizzer appeared at Sim Ripson’s store, and purchased a bar of soap.

“Boys heerd ye singin’ yesterday,” said Sim.

“Yes?” inquired Mrs. Blizzer.

“Yes—all of ’em delighted,” said Sim, gallantly. “But ye don’t believe in no sich stuff, I s’pose, do ye?”

“What stuff?” asked Mrs. Blizzer.

“Why, ’bout heaven an’ hell, an’ the Bible, an’ all them things. Do ye know what the Greek fur hell meant? An’ do ye know the Bible’s all the time contradictin’ itself? I can show ye——”

“I tell you what I _do_ know, Mr. Ripson,” said the woman; “I know some things in my heart that no mortal bein’ never told me, an’ they couldn’t be skeered out by all the dictionaries an’ commentators a-goin; that’s what I know.”

And Mrs. Blizzer departed, while the astonished theologian sheepishly admitted that he owed drinks to the crowd.

While the ex-deacon, Uncle Ben, was trying to determine to go home, he found quite a pretty nugget that settled his mind, and he announced that same night, at the store, that all his mining property was for sale, as he was going back East.

“I’ll go with you, Uncle Ben,” said Fourteenth Street.

The crowd was astounded; men of Fourteenth Street’s calibre seldom had pluck enough to go to the mines, and their getting away, or their doing _any_ thing that required manliness, was of still more unfrequent occurrence.

“I know it,” said the young man, translating the glances which met his eye. “You fellows think I don’t amount to much, anyway. Perhaps I don’t. I came out here because I fell out with a girl I thought I loved. She acted like a fool, and I made up my mind _all_ women were fools. But that wife of Blizzer’s has shown me more about true womanliness than all the girls I ever knew, and I’m going back to try it over again.”

One morning a small crowd of early drinkers at Sim Ripson’s dropped their glasses, yet did not go briskly out to work as usual. In fact, they even hung aloof, in a most ungentlemanly manner, from Jerry Miller, who had just stood treat, and both these departures from the usual custom indicated that something unusual was the matter. Finally, Topjack remarked:

“He’s a stranger, an’ typhus is a bad thing to hev aroun’, but _somethin’_ ‘ort to be done for him. ’Taint the thing to ax fur volunteers, fur it’s danger without no chance of pleasin’ excitement. We might throw keerds aroun’, one to each feller in the camp, and him as gets ace of spades is to tend to the poor cuss.”

“I think Jerry ought to go himself,” argued Flipp. “He’s been exposed already, by lookin’ in to the feller’s shanty, an’s prob’bly hurt ez bad as he’s goin’ to be.”

“_I_ might go,” said Sim Ripson, who, in his character of barkeeper, had to sustain a reputation for bravery and public spirit, “but ’twouldn’t do to shut up the store, ye know, an’ specially the bar—nobody’d stan’ it.”

“Needn’t trouble yerselves,” said Arkansas Bill, who had entered during the conversation; “_she’s_ thar.”

“Thunder!” exclaimed Topjack, frowning, and then looking sheepish.

“Yes,” continued Bill; “she stopped me ez I wuz comin’ along, an’ sed she’d jist heerd of it, an’ was a-goin’. I tol’ her ther’ wuz men enough in camp to look out fur him, but she said she reckoned she could do it best. Wants some things from ’Frisco, though, an’ I’m a-goin’ for ’em.”

And Arkansas Bill departed, while the men at Sim Ripson’s sneaked guiltily down to the creek.

For many days the boys hung about the camp’s single street every morning, unwilling to go to work until they had seen Mrs. Blizzer appear in front of the sick man’s hut. The boys took turns at carrying water, making fires, and serving Mrs. Blizzer generally, and even paid handsomely for the chance.

One morning Mrs. Blizzer failed to appear at the usual hour. The boys walked about nervously—they smoked many pipes, and took hurried drinks, and yet she did not appear. The boys looked suggestingly at her husband, and he himself appeared to be anxious; but being one of the shiftless kind, he found anxiety far easier than action.

Suddenly Arkansas Bill remarked, “I can’t stan’ it any longer,” and walked rapidly toward the sick man’s hut, and knocked lightly on the door, and looked in. There lay the sick man, his eyes partly open, and on the ground, apparently asleep, and with a very purple face, lay Mrs. Blizzer.

“Do somethin’ for her,” gasped the sick man; “give her a chance, for God’s sake. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but I kind o’ woke up las’ night ez ef I’d been asleep; she wuz a-standin’ lookin’ in my eyes, an’ hed a han’ on my cheek. ‘I b’lieve it’s turned,’ sez she, still a-lookin’. After a bit she sez: ‘It’s turned sure,’ an’ all of a sudden she tumbled. I couldn’t holler—I wish to God I could.”

Arkansas Bill opened the door, and called Blizzer, and the crowd followed Blizzer, though at a respectful distance. In a moment Blizzer reappeared with his wife, no longer fat, in his arms, and Arkansas Bill hurried on to open Blizzer’s door. The crowd halted, and didn’t know what to do, until Moosoo, the little Frenchman, lifted his hat, upon which every man promptly uncovered his head.

A moment later Arkansas Bill was on Sim Ripson’s horse, and galloping off for a doctor, and Sim Ripson, who had always threatened sudden death to any one touching his beloved animal, saw him, and refrained even from profanity. The doctor came, and the boys crowded the door to hear what he had to say.

“Hum!” said the doctor, a rough miner himself, “new arrival—been fat—worn out—rainy season just coming on—not much chance. No business to come to California—ought to have had sense enough to stay home.”

“Look a’ here, doctor,” said Arkansas Bill, indignantly; “she’s got this way a-nussin’ a feller—stranger, too—that ev’ry _man_ in camp wuz afeard to go nigh.”

“Is that so?” asked the doctor, in a tone considerably softened; “then she shall get well, if my whole time and attention can bring it about.”

The sick woman lay in a burning fever for days, and the boys industriously drank her health, and bet heavy odds on her recovery. No singing was allowed anywhere in camp, and when an old feud broke out afresh between two miners, and they drew their pistols, a committee was appointed to conduct them at least two miles from camp, before allowing them to shoot.

The Sundays were allowed to pass in the commonplace quietness peculiar to the rest of the week, and men who were unable to forego their regular weekly spree were compelled to emigrate. Sim Ripson, though admitting that the change was decidedly injurious to his business, declared that he would cheerfully be ruined in business rather than have that woman disturbed; he was ever heard to say that, though of course there was no such place as heaven, there _ought_ to be, for such women.

One evening, as the crowd were quietly drinking and betting, Arkansas Bill suddenly opened the door of the store, and cried: “She’s mendin’! The fever’s broke—’sh-h!”

“My treat, boys,” said Sim Ripson, hurrying glasses and favorite bottles on the bar.

The boys were just clinking glasses with Blizzer himself, who, during his wife’s absence and illness, had drifted back to the store, when Arkansas Bill again opened the door.

“She’s a-sinkin’, all of a sudden!” he gasped. “Blizzer, yer wanted.”

The two men hurried away, and the crowd poured out of the store. By the light of a fire in front of the hut in which the sick woman lay, they saw Blizzer enter, and Arkansas Bill remain outside the hut, near the door.

The boys stood on one foot, put their hands into their pockets and took them out again, snapped their fingers, and looked at each other, as if they wanted to talk about something that they couldn’t. Suddenly the doctor emerged from the hut, and said something to Arkansas Bill, and the boys saw Arkansas Bill put both hands up to his face. Then the boys knew that their sympathy could help Blizzer’s wife no longer.

Slowly the crowd re-entered the store, and mechanically picked up the yet untasted glasses. Sim Ripson filled a glass for himself, looked a second at the crowd, and dropping his eyes, raised them again, looked as if he had something to say, looked intently into his glass, as if espying some irregularity, looked up again, and exclaimed:

“Boys, it’s no use—mebbe ther’s no hell—mebbe the Bible contradicts itself, but—but ther _is_ a heaven, or such folks would never git their just dues. Here’s to Blizzer’s wife, the best man in camp, an’ may the Lord send us somebody like her!”

In silence, and with uncovered heads, was the toast drank; and for many days did the boys mourn for her whose advent brought them such disappointment.

A BOARDING-HOUSE ROMANCE.

I KEEP a boarding-house.

If any fair proportion of my readers were likely to be members of my own profession, I should expect the above announcement to call forth more sympathetic handkerchiefs than have waved in unison for many a day. But I don’t expect anything of the sort; I know my business too well to suppose for a moment that any boarding-house proprietor, no matter how full her rooms, or how good pay her boarders are, ever finds time to read a story. Even if they did, they’d be so lost in wonder at one of themselves finding time to _write_ a story, that they’d forget the whole plot and point of the thing.

I can’t help it, though—I _must_ tell about poor dear Mrs. Perry, even if I run the risk of cook’s overdoing the beef, so that Mr. Bluff, who is English, and the best of pay, can’t get the rare cut he loves so well. Mrs. Perry’s story has run in my head so long, that it has made me forget to take change from the grocer at least once to my knowledge, and even made me lose a good boarder, by showing a room before the bed was made up. They say that poets get things out of their heads by writing them down, and I don’t know why boarding-house keepers can’t do the same thing.

It’s about three months since Mrs. Perry came here to board. I’m very sure about the time, and it was the day I was to pay my quarter’s rent, and to-morrow will be quarter-day again; thank the Lord I’ve got the money ready.

I _didn’t_ have the money ready then, though, and the landlord left his temper behind him, instead of a receipt, and I was just having a little cry in my apron, and asking the Lord _why_ it was that a poor lone woman who was working her finger-ends off should have such a hard time, when the door-bell rang.

“That’s the landlord again. _I_ know his ways, the mean wretch!” said I to myself, hastily rubbing my eyes dry, and making up before the mirror in the hat-tree as fierce a face as I could. Then I snatched open the door, and tried to make believe my heart _wasn’t_ in my mouth.

But the landlord wasn’t there, and I’ve always been a little sorry, for I was looking so savage, that a wee little woman, who _was_ at the door, trembled all over, and started to go down the steps.

“Don’t go, ma’am,” I said, very quickly, with the best smile I could put on (and I think I’ve been long enough in the business to give the right kind of a smile to a person that looks like a new boarder). “Don’t go—I thought it was—I thought it was—somebody else that rang. Come in, do.”

She looked as if I was doing her a great honor, and I thought that looked like poor pay, but I was too glad at not seeing the landlord just then to care if I did lose _one_ week’s board; besides, she didn’t look as if she _could_ eat much.

“I see you advertise a small bedroom to let,” said she, looking appealing-like, as if she was going to beat me down on the strength of being poor. “How much is it a week?”

“Eight dollars,” said I, rather shortly. Seven dollars was all I expected to get, but I put on one, so as to be beaten down without losing anything. “I can get eight from a single gentleman, the only objection being that he wants to keep a dog in the back yard.”

“Oh, I’ll pay it,” said she, quickly taking out her pocketbook. “I’ll take it for six weeks, anyhow.”

I never felt so ashamed of myself in my life. I made up my mind to read a penitential passage of Scripture as soon as I closed the bargain with her, but, remembering the Book says to be reconciled to your brother before laying your gift on the altar, I says, quick as I could, for fear that if I thought over it again I couldn’t be honest:

“You shall have it for seven, my dear madame, if you’re going to stay so long, and I’ll do your washing without extra charge.”

This last I said to punish myself for suspecting an innocent little lady.

“Oh, thank you—thank you _very_ much,” said she, and then she began to cry.

I knew _that_ wasn’t for effect, for we were already agreed on terms, and she had her pocketbook open showing more money that _I_ ever have at a time, unless it’s rent-day.

She tried to stop crying by burying her face in her hands, and it made her look so much smaller and _so_ pitiful that I picked her right up, as if she was a baby, and kissed her. Then she cried harder, and I—a woman over forty, too—couldn’t find anything better to do than to cry with her.

I knew her whole story within five minutes—knew it perfectly well before I’d fairly shown her the room and got it aired.

They were from the West, and had been married about a year. She hadn’t a relative in the world, but _his_ folks had friends in Philadelphia, so he’d got a place as clerk in a big clothing factory, at twelve hundred dollars a year. They’d been keeping house, just as cozy as could be in four rooms, and were as happy as anybody in the world, when one night he didn’t come home.

She was almost frantic about him all night long, and first thing in the morning she was at the factory. She waited until all the clerks got there, but George—his name was George Perry—didn’t come. The proprietor was a good-hearted man, and went with her to the police-office, and they telegraphed all over the city; but there didn’t seem to be any such man found dead or drunk, or arrested for anything.

She hadn’t heard a word from him since. Her husband’s family’s friends were rich—the stuck up brutes!— but they seemed to be annoyed by her coming so often to ask if there wasn’t any other way of looking for him, so she, like the modest, frightened little thing she was, staid away from them. Then somebody told her that New York was the place everybody went to, so she sold all her furniture and pawned almost all her clothes, and came to New York with about fifty dollars in her pocket.

“What I’ll do when that’s gone I don’t know,” said she, commencing to cry again, “unless I find George. I won’t live on _you_, though, ma’am,” she said, lifting her face up quickly out of her handkerchief; “I won’t, indeed. I’ll go to the poorhouse first. But——”

Then she cried worse than before, and I cried, too, and took her in my arms, and called her a poor little thing, and told her she shouldn’t go to any poorhouse, but should stay with me and be my daughter.

I don’t know how I came to say it, for, goodness knows, I find it hard enough to keep out of the poorhouse myself, but I did say it, and I meant it, too.

Her things were all in a little valise, and she soon had the room to rights, and when I went up again in a few minutes to carry her a cup of tea, she pointed to her husband’s picture which she had hung on the wall, and asked me if I didn’t think he was very handsome.

I said yes, but I’m glad she looked at the tea instead of me, for I believe she’d seen by my face that I didn’t like her George. The fact is, men look very differently to their wives or sweethearts than they do to older people and to boarding-house keepers. There was nothing vicious about George Perry’s face, but if he’d been a boarder of mine, I’d have insisted on my board promptly—not for fear of his trying to cheat me, but because if he saw anything else he wanted, he’d spend his money without thinking of what he owed.

I felt so certain that he’d got into some mischief or trouble, and was afraid or ashamed to come back to his wife, that I risked the price of three ribs of prime roasting beef in the following “Personal” advertisement:

“GEORGE P.—Your wife don’t know anything about it, and is dying to see you. Answer through Personals.”

But no answer came, and his wife grew more and more poorly, and I couldn’t help seeing what was the matter with her. Then her money ran out, and she talked of going away, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I just took her to my own room, which was the back parlor, and told her she wasn’t to think again of going away; that she was to be my daughter, and I would be her mother, until she found George again.

I was afraid, for _her_ sake, that it meant we were to be with each other for ever, for there was no sign of George.

She wrote to his family in the West, but _they_ hadn’t heard anything from him or about him, and they took pains not to invite her there, or even to say anything about giving her a helping hand.

There was only one thing left to do, and that was to pray, and pray I _did_, more constantly and earnestly than I ever did before, although, the good Lord knows there _have_ been times, about quarter-day, when I haven’t kept much peace before the Throne.

Finally, one day Mrs. Perry was taken unusually bad, and the doctor had to be sent for in a hurry. We were in her room—the doctor and Mrs. Perry and I—I was endeavoring to comfort and strengthen the poor thing, when the servant knocked, and said a lady and gentleman had come to look at rooms.

I didn’t _dare_ to lose boarders, for I’d had three empty rooms for a month, so I hurried into the parlor. I was almost knocked down for a second, for the gentleman was George Perry, and no mistake, if the picture his wife had was to be trusted.

In a second more I was cooler and clearer-headed than I ever was in my life before. I felt more like an angel of the Lord than a boarding-house keeper.

“Kate,” said I, to the servant “show the lady all the rooms.”

Kate stared, for I’d never trusted her, or any other girl, with such important work, and she knew it. She went though, followed by the lady, who, though she seemed a weak, silly sort of thing, I _hated_ with all my might. Then I turned quickly, and said:

“Don’t you want a room for your wife, too, George Perry?”

He stared at me a moment, and then turned pale and looked confused. Then he tried to rally himself, and he said:

“You seem to know me, ma’am.”

“Yes,” said I; “and I know Mrs. Perry, too; and if ever a woman needed her husband she does _now_, even if her husband _is_ a rascal.”

He tried to be angry, but he couldn’t. He walked up and down the room once or twice, his face twitching all the time, and then he said, a word or two at a time:

“I wish I could—poor girl!—God forgive me!—what _can_ I do?—I wish I was dead!”

“You wouldn’t be any use to _any_body then but the Evil One, George Perry, and you’re not ready to see _him_ just yet,” said I.

Just then there came a low, long groan from the backroom, and at the same time some one came into the parlor. I was too excited to notice who it was; and George Perry, when he heard the groan, stopped short and exclaimed:

“Good God! who’s that?”

“Your wife,” said I, almost ready to scream, I was so wrought up.

He hid his face in his hands, and trembled all over.

There was half a minute’s silence—it seemed half an hour—and then we heard a long, thin wail from a voice that hadn’t ever been heard on earth before.

“What’s that?” said Perry, in a hoarse whisper, his eyes almost starting out of his head, and hands thrown up.

“Your baby—just born,” said I. “Will you take rooms for your family _now_, George Perry?” I asked.

“_I_ sha’n’t stand in the way,” said a voice behind me.

I turned around quickly, just in time to see, with her eyes full of tears, the woman who had come with George go out the door and shut the hall-door behind her.

“Thank God!” said George, dropping on his knees.

“Amen!” said I, hurrying out of the parlor and locking the door behind me.

I thought if he wanted to pray while on his knees he shouldn’t be disturbed, while if he should suddenly be tempted to follow his late companion, _I_ shouldn’t be held at the Judgment day for any share of the guilt.

I found the doctor bustling about, getting ready to go, and Mrs. Perry looking very peaceful and happy, with a little bundle hugged up close to her.

“I guess the Lord will bring him _now_,” said Mrs. Perry, “if it’s only to see his little boy.”

“Like enough, my dear,” said I, thanking the Lord for opening the question, for my wits were all gone by this time, and I hadn’t any more idea of what to do than the man in the moon; “but,” said I, “He won’t bring him till you’re well, and able to bear the excitement.”

“Oh, I could bear it any time now,” said she, very calmly, “It would seem just as natural as could be to have him come in and kiss me, and see his baby and bless it.”

“Would it?” I asked, with my heart all in a dance. “Well, trust the Lord to do just what’s right.”

I hurried out and opened the parlor-door. There stood George Perry, changed so I hardly knew him. He seemed years older; his thick lips seemed to have suddenly grown thin, and were pressed tightly together, and there was such an appealing look from his eyes.

“Be very careful now,” I whispered, “and you may see them. She expects you, and don’t imagine anything has gone wrong.”

I took him into the room, and she looked up with a face like what I hope the angels have. I didn’t see anything more, for my eyes filled up all of a sudden, so I hurried up-stairs into an empty room, and spent half an hour crying and thanking the Lord.

There was a pretty to-do at the dinner table that day. I’d intended to have _souffle_ for desert, and I always make my own _souffles_; but I forgot everything but the Perrys, and the boarders grumbled awfully. I didn’t care, though; I was too happy to feel abused.

I don’t know how George Perry explained his absence to his wife; perhaps he hasn’t done it at all. But I know she seems to be the happiest woman alive, and that _he_ don’t seem to care for anything in the world but his wife and baby.

As to the woman who came with him to look at a room, I haven’t seen her since; but if she happens to read this story, she may have the consolation of knowing that there’s an old woman who remembers her one good deed, and prays for her often and earnestly.

RETIRING FROM BUSINESS.

WHAT the colonel’s business was nobody knew, nor did any one care, particularly. He purchased for cash only, and he never grumbled at the price of anything that he wanted; who could ask more than that?

Curious people occasionally wondered how, when it had been fully two years since the colonel, with every one else, abandoned Duck Creek to the Chinese, he managed to spend money freely, and to lose considerable at cards and horse-races. In fact, the keeper of that one of the two Challenge Hill saloons which the colonel did not patronize was once heard to absentmindedly wonder whether the colonel hadn’t a money-mill somewhere, where he turned out double-eagles and “slugs” (the Coast name for fifty-dollar gold-pieces).