Chapter 6

"Well, I think that's just dreadful!" said Miss Mattie. "I'd like to know what folks will think of me to hear I turned my own cousin out in the barn." Her voice trailed off a little at the end as the gist of what they might say if he stayed in the house, occurred to her. "Well," she continued, "if you're set, I suppose I can't object." Miss Mattie was not a good hand at playing a part.

"I'm set," said Red. "Get me a blanket." As she came in with this, he added, "Say, Mattie, could you let me have a loaf of bread? I've got a habit of wanting something to eat in the middle of the night."

"Certainly! Don't you want some butter with it? Here, I'll fix it for you on a plate."

"No, don't waste dish-washing--I'll show you how to fix it." He cut the loaf of bread in half, pulled out a portion of the soft part and filled the hole with butter. "There we are, and nothing to bother with afterwards."

"That's a right smart notion, Will--but you'll want a knife."

In answer he drew out a leather case from his breast pocket and opened it. Within was knife, fork, spoon and two flat boxes for salt and pepper. "You see I'm fixed," said he.

"Isn't that a cute trick!" she cried admiringly. "You're ready for most anything."

"Sure," said Red. "Now, good night, old lady!" He bent down in so natural a fashion that Miss Mattie had kissed him before she knew what she was going to do.

Down to the barn, through the soft June evening, went Red, whistling a Mexican love song most melodiously.

Miss Mattie stood in the half-opened door and listened. Without was balm and starlight and the spirit of flowers, breathed out in odours. The quaint and pretty tune rose and fell, quavered, lilted along as it listed without regard for law and order. It struck Miss Mattie to the heart. Her girlhood, with its misty dreams of happiness, came back to her on the wings of music.

"Isn't that a sweet tune," she said, with a lump in her throat.

She went up into her room and sat down a moment in confusion, trying to grasp the reality of all that had happened. In the middle of the belief that these things were not so, came the regret of a sensitive mind for errors committed. She remembered with a sudden sinking, that she had not thanked him for the necklace--and the money lay even now on the parlor table, where he had cast it! This added the physical fear of thieves. Down she went and got the money, counted out, to her unmitigated astonishment, five hundred dollars and thrust it beneath her pillow with a shiver. She wished she had thought to tell him to take care of it--but suppose the thieves were to fall on him as he slept? Red's friends would have spent their sympathy on the thieves. She rejoiced that the money was where it was. Then she tried to remember what she had said throughout the evening.

"Well, I suppose I must have acted like a ninny," she concluded. "But isn't he just splendid!" and as Cousin Will's handsome face, with its daring, kind eyes, came to her vision she felt comforted. "I don't believe but what he'll make every allowance for how excited I was," said she. "He seems to understand those things, for all he's such a large man. Well, it doesn't seem as if it could be true." With a half sigh Miss Mattie knelt and sent up her modest petition to her Maker and got into her little white bed.

In the meantime Red's actions would have awakened suspicion. He hunted around until he found a tin can, then lit a match and rummaged the barn, amid terror-stricken squawks from the inhabitants, the hens.

"One, two, three, four," he counted. "Reckon I can last out till morning on that. Mattie, she's white people--just the nicest I ever saw, but she ain't used to providing for a full-grown man."

He stepped to the back of the barn and looked about him. "Nobody can see me from here," he said, in satisfaction. Then he scraped together a pile of chips and sticks and built a fire, filled the tin can at the brook, sat it on two stones over the fire, rolled himself a cigarette and waited. A large, yellow tom-cat came out of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing tentatively.

"Hello, pussy!" said Red. "You hungry too? Well, just wait a minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, pussy?" The cat gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more. The tin can boiled over. Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light. "Gee! Ten minutes more, now!" said he. "Hardly seems to me as if I could wait." He pulled the watch out several times. "What's the matter with the damn thing? I believe it's stopped," he growled. But at last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered up its treasures in his handkerchief.

"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he. "Just sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by Jinks!" Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.

"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep." He swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.

"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused. "If I have got only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice. She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."

The cat came up, purring and "making bread." He sniffed feline fashion at Red's face.

"Foo! Shoo! Go 'way, pussy! Settle yourself down and we'll pound our ear for another forty miles. I like you first rate when you don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously. "Yes sir! Mattie's all right," said he. "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay Seeche Red was in the land of dreams. Here, back in God's country, within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all, sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous, devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.

II

The next morning when Red awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were in full chorus.

"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as he took in the view. "Oh, I remember!" and his heart leapt. "I'm in my own home, by the Lord!"

He went down to the brook and washed, drying hands and face on the silk neckerchief, which is meant for use as well as for decoration.

In the meantime, Miss Mattie had awakened, with a sense of something delightful at hand, the meaning of which escaped her for the time. And then she remembered, and sprang out of bed like a girl. She went to the window, threw open the shutters and let the stirring morning air flow in. This had been her habit for a long time. The window faced away from the road, and no one could see who was not on Miss Mattie's own premises.

But this morning Red had wandered around. Stopping at the rose bushes he picked a bud.

"That has the real old-time smell," he said, as he held it to his nose. "Sweetbriars are good, and I don't go back on 'em, but they ain't got the fram these fellers have."

Bud in hand he walked beneath Miss Mattie's windows, and he was the first thing her eye fell upon.

Her startled exclamation made him look up before she had time to withdraw.

"Hello there!" he called joyfully. "How do you open up this day? You look pretty well!" he added with a note of admiration. Miss Mattie had the wavy hair which is never in better order than when left to its own devices. Her idea of coiffure was not the most becoming that could have been selected, as she felt that a "young" style of hair dressing was foolish for a single woman of her years. Now, with the pretty soft hair flying, her eyes still humid with sleep, and a touch of color in her face from the surprise, relieved against the fleecy shawl she had thrown about her shoulders, she was incontestably both a discreet and pretty picture. Yet Miss Mattie could not forget the bare feet and night-gown, although they were hidden from masculine eyes by wood and plaster, and she was embarrassed. Still, with all the super-sensitive fancies, Miss Mattie had a strong back-bone of New England common-sense. She answered that she felt very well indeed, and, to cover any awkwardness, inquired what he had in his hand.

"Good old rose," replied Red. "Old-time smeller--better suited to you than to me--ketch!"

At the word he tossed it, and Miss Mattie caught it dexterously. Red had an exceedingly keen eye for some things, and he noticed the certainty of the action. He hated fumblers. "A person can do things right if they've got minds that work," was one of his pet sayings. "'Taint the muscles at all--it's in the head, and I like the kind of head that's in use all the time." Therefore this small affair made an impression on him.

"Why, you could be a baseball player," said he.

"I used to play with Joe, when I was a girl," said Miss Mattie, smiling. "I always liked boy's play better than I did girl's. Joe taught me how to throw a ball, too. He said he wouldn't play with me unless I learned not to 'scoop it,' girl fashion. I suppose you will be wanting breakfast?" There was a hint of sarcasm in the doubt of the inquiry.

"That's what I do!" said Red. "You must just hustle down and get things to boiling, or I'll throw bricks through the windows. I've been up for the last two hours."

"Why! I don't believe it!" said Miss Mattie.

"No more do I, but it seems like it," replied Red. "Don't you want the fire started? Come down and open up the house."

When Miss Mattie appeared at the door, in he strode with an armful of wood, dropping it man-fashion, crash! on the floor.

"Skip out of the way!" said he. "I'll show you how to build a fire!"

The early morning had been the most desolate time to Miss Mattie. As the day warmed up the feeling of loneliness vanished, perhaps to return at evening, but not then with the same absoluteness as when she walked about the kitchen to the echo of her own footsteps in the morning.

Now the slamming and the banging which accompanied Red's energetic actions rang in her ears most cheerily. She even found a relish in the smothered oath that heralded the thrust of a splinter in his finger. It was very wicked, but it was also very much alive.

Red arose and dusted off his knees. "Now we're off!" he said as the fire began to roar. "What's next?"

"If you'd grind the coffee, Will?" she suggested.

"Sure! Where's the hand organ?"

He put the mill between his knees, and converted the beans to powder, to the tune of "Old dog Tray" through his nose, which Miss Mattie found very amusing.

She measured out the coffee, one spoonful for each cup, and one for the pot. Red watched her patiently, and when she had finished, he threw in the rest of the contents of the mill-drawer. "I like it fairly strong," said he in explanation.

"Now, Will!" protested Miss Mattie. "Look at you! That will be as bitter as boneset!"

"Thin her up with milk and she'll be all right," replied Red.

"Well, such wasteful ways I never did see. Nobody'd think you were a day over fifteen."

"I'm not," said Red stoutly, "and," catching her chin in his hand and turning her face up toward him--"Nobody'd put your score much higher than that neither, if they trusted to their eyes this morning."

The compliment hit so tender a place that Miss Mattie lacked the resolution to tear it out, besides, it was so honest that it sounded much less like a compliment than a plain statement of fact. She bent hastily over the fire. "I'm glad I look young, Will," she said softly.

"So'm I!" he assented heartily. "What's the sense in being old, anyhow? I'm as limber and good for myself as ever I was, in spite of my forty years."

"You're not _forty_ years old!" exclaimed Miss Mattie. "You're joking!"

"Nary joke--forty round trips from flying snow to roses since I hit land, Mattie--why, you were only a little girl when I left here--don't you remember? You and your folks came to see us the week before I left. I got a thrashing for taking you and Joe to the millpond, and helping you to get good and wet. The thrashing was one of the things that gave me a hankering for the West. Very liberal man with the hickory, father. Spare the clothes and spoil the skin was his motto. He used to make me strip to the waist--phee-hew! Even a light breeze rested heavy on my back when dad got through with me--say, Mattie, perhaps I oughtn't to say so, now that he's gone, but I don't think that's the proper way to use a boy, do you?"

"No, I don't," said Miss Mattie. "Your father meant well, but his way was useless and cruel."

"I've forgiven him the whole sweep," said Red. "But damn me! If I had a boy I wouldn't club the life out of him--I'd try to reason with him first, anyhow. Makes a boy as ugly as anybody else to get the hide whaled off his back for nothing--once in a while he needs it. Boy that's got any life in him gets to be too much occasionally and then a warming is healthful and nourishing. Lord! You'd think I was the father of my country to hear me talk, wouldn't you? If somebody'd write a book, 'What Red Saunders don't know about raising children' it would be full of valuable information--how's that breakfast coming on?"

"All ready--sit right down, Will."

"Go you!" cried Red, and incautiously flung himself upon one of the kitchen chairs, which collapsed instantly and dropped him to the floor.

"Mercy on us! Are you hurt?" cried Miss Mattie, rushing forward.

"Hurt?" said Red. "Try it!--Just jump up in the air and sit on the floor where you are now, and see if you get hurt! Oh, no! I'm not hurt, but I'm astonished beyond measure, like the man that tickled the mule. I'll take my breakfast right here--shouldn't wonder a bit if the floor went back on me and landed me in the cellar--no sir! I won't get up! Hand me the supplies, I know when I'm well off. If you want to eat breakfast with me come sit on the floor. I'm not going to have my spine pushed through the top of my head twice in the same day."

"Will! You are the most ridiculous person I ever did see!" said Miss Mattie, and she laughed till she cried in sheer light-heartedness. "But there's a chair you can trust--come on now."

"Well, if you'll take your solemn oath that this one has no moustache to deceive me," said Red doubtfully. "It looks husky--well, I'll try it--Hooray! She didn't give an inch. This kind of reminds me of the time Jimmy Hendricks came back from town and walked off the edge of the bluff in the dark. It just happened that Old Scotty Ferguson's cabin was underneath him. Jim took most of the roof off with him as he went in. He sat awhile to figure out what was trumps, having come a hundred and fifty feet too fast to do much thinking. Then, 'Hello!' he yells. Old Scotty was a sleeper from 'way back, but this woke him up.

"'Hello!' says he. 'Was'er matter?'

"Jim saw he wasn't more than half awake yet, so he says, 'Why, I was up on the bluff there, Scotty, and seeing it was such a short distance I thought I'd drop in!'

"'Aw ri',' grunted Scotty. 'Make y'self t' home,' and with that he rolls over.

"Jim couldn't wait for morning, and though his leg was pretty badly sprained, he made the trip all the way round the trail and woke us up to tell us how he'd gone through Ferguson's roof and the old man asked him to make himself at home. Next morning there was Scotty out in front of his cabin, his thumbs in his vest holes, looking up.

"'What's the matter, Scotty?' says I.

"'Well, I wisht you'd tell me what in the name of God went through that roof!' says he.

"I swallered a laugh cross-ways and put on a serious face. 'Must have been a rock,' says I.

"'Rock nothin'!' says he. 'If it had been a rock 'twould have stayed in the cabin, wouldn't it! Well, there ain't the first blasted thing of any shape nor description in there but the hole--you can go in and look for yourself.'

"It cost Scotty one case of rye to make us forget those circumstances."

"I should have thought the man would be killed, striking on the roof that way," said Miss Mattie.

"Oh, no! Roof was made of quaking-asp saplings, just about strong enough to break his fall. Scotty was the sleeper, though! It wasn't hardly natural the way that man could pound his ear through thick and thin. He had quite a surprising time of it once. He'd been prospecting 'round the Ruby refractory ore district and he came out at Hank Cutter's saw-mill, just at sun-down. Hank's place was full of gold rushers, so Old Scotty thought he'd sleep out-doors in peace and quiet. He discovered some big boxes, that Hank was making for ore bins for the new mill, and as the ground was kind of damp from a thunder-shower they had that day, he spreads his blanket inside the box and goes to sleep; ore bins have to be smooth and dust tight, so it wasn't a bad shanty.

"Well, there came a jar and waked him up. The box was rolling a little, and going along, going along forty mile an hour. Scotty lit a match and found he was in a kind of big tunnel but the wall was flying by so fast, he couldn't make out just what kind of a tunnel it was. Now, he'd gone to sleep in peace and quiet on a side hill, and to wake up and find himself boat-riding in a tunnel was enough to surprise anybody. First he pinched himself to see if it was Hank's pie, or a cold fact, found it was a fact, then he lit another match and leaned over and looked at the black water underneath, but this made the box tip so it scart him and he settled down in the bottom again. He didn't try to think--what was the use? No man living could have figured things out with the few facts Scotty had before him. All of a sudden the box made a rush and shot out into the air, and Scotty felt they were falling. 'God sakes!' he says to himself. 'What's next, I wonder?' Then they hit the water below with a ker-flap that nearly telescoped Scotty and sent the spray flying. After that they went along smooth again. 'Well,' says Scotty, 'I don't know where I am, nor who I am, nor what's happened, nor who's it, nor nothing about this game. So far I ain't been hurt, though, and I might just as well lie down and get a little more rest.'

"It was broad daylight when he woke up again, and a man was looking into the box. 'Hello, pardner!' he says. 'I hope you've had a pleasant journey--do you always travel this way?'

"Scotty raised up and found his craft was aground--high and dry--no water within a hundred feet of it. On one side was quite a little town.

"'Say,' says he, 'could I trouble you to tell me where I am, friend?'

"'You're at Placerville,' answers the other.

"'Placerville!' yells Scotty, 'and I went to sleep at Cutter's Mill, sixty-five miles from here!--what are you giving us, man?'

"'I'm putting it to you straight,' says the stranger. 'Take a look around you.'

"Scotty looked and there was all kinds of wreckage, from a dead beef critter to a wheel barrow.

"'What in nation's all this?' says he.

"'Washout,' says the man. 'Cloud burst up on the divide--worst we've ever had--your box is about high water mark--you see there was water enough for awhile--I reckon you're about the only thing that came through alive.'

"'Well, wouldn't that knock you?' says Scotty.

--"Whilst the rest of the folk at the mill was taking to the high ground for their lives, with the water roaring and tearing through the gulch, Scotty had peacefully gone off in his little boat, down the creek, and instead of going over the rapids, where he'd have been done, for all his luck, the box ambles through the flume they was building for the new mill. Of course there was the jounce over the tail race, but that hadn't hurt him much, and after, he rocked in the cradle of the deep, until he got beached at Placerville.

"'Come along, friend,' says Scotty to the feller, 'you and me are going to have a little drink on this, if it is the last act.' And I reckon probably they made it two, for when Scotty got back again he was in a condition that made everybody believe that he'd only guessed at the story he told. But they found out afterward it was a solemn fact. Mattie, give us some more coffee."

Thus abruptly recalled to Fairfield, Miss Mattie started up.

"Well, Will, it does seem as if that was a dangerous country to live in," said she.

"Oh, not so awful!" said Red. "Just as many people die here as they do there--this world's a dangerous place to live in, wherever you strike it, Mattie."

"That's so," said she, thoughtfully.

"And now," said Red, pushing back his chair, "it's time I got to work and left you to do the housework undisturbed."

"What are you going to do, Will?"

"First place, there's fences and things to be tinkered up, I see. I suppose a millionaire like me ought to hire those things done, but I'd have measles of the mind if I sat around doing nothing."

"I have been wanting to get the place in good order for some time," said Miss Mattie, "but what with the money I had to spend for this and that, and not being able to get Mr. Joyce to come in for a day's work when I wanted him, it's gone on, until there is a good deal of wrack to it."

"We'll wrack it t'other way round in no time--got any tools here?"

"Out in the barn is what's left of father's tools--people have borrowed 'em and forgot to return 'em, and they've rusted or been lost until I'm afraid there ain't many of 'em left."

"Well, I'll get along to-day somehow, and later on we'll stock up--want any help around the house?"

"Thank you, no, Will."

"Then I'm off."

It was almost with a feeling of terror that Miss Mattie beheld him root up the fence. Her idea of repairing was to put in a picket here and there where it was most needed; Red's was to knock it all flat first, and set it up in A1 condition afterward. So, in two hours' time he straightened up and snapped the sweat from his brow, beholding the slain pickets prone on the grass with thorough satisfaction. Yet he felt tired, for the day was already hot with a moist and soaking sea-coast heat, to which the plainsman was unaccustomed. A three-quarter-grown boy passed by, lounging on the seat of a farm waggon.

"Hey!" hailed Red. The boy stopped and turned slowly around.

"Yes, sir," he answered courteously enough.

"Want a job?" said Red.

"Well, I dunno," replied the boy. He was much astonished at the appearance of his interrogator, and he was a cautious New England boy to boot.

"_You_ don't know?" retorted Red. "Well," with some sarcasm, "d'ye suppose I could find out at the post-office?"

The boy looked at Red with a twinkle in his eye, and a comical drawing of his long mouth.

"I calc'late if you cud fin' out anyweres, 'twould be there," said he.

Red laughed. He had noticed the busy post-mistress rushing out of her store to waylay anyone likely to have information on any subject, a stream of questions proceeding from her through the door.

"Say, you got anything particular to do?"

"No, sir--leastways th'ain't no hurry about it."

"Can I buy stuff to make a fence with, around here?"

"Yes, sir--Mister Pettigrew's got all kinds of buildin' material at his store--two mile over yonder," pointing with the whip.

"You drive over there for me, and get some--just like this here--pickets and posts and whatever you call them long pieces, and I'll make it right with you."

"Yes, sir--how much will I get?"

"Oh, tell him to fill the waggon up with it, and I'll send back what I don't want--hustle, now, like a good boy; I want to get shut of this job; I liked it better before I begun."