Part 25

"A merchant, a Chinaman and a widower," I replied. And then I gave them the information that Big Sam had confided to me.

"Well," said Laura decisively, "that's very interesting about Moon Ying's family, but I don't see that it can do her much good. And that widower can come up here, and we'll look him over. I can tell you right now that he will have to pass a very rigid examination, and he shan't have Moon Ying unless she wants him."

"Hm-m! I suspect he will have to acquire some new ideas on the qualifications of an expectant husband, and I'm afraid he's rather old to learn."

"Well, if the ideas are new to him, it's time he learned 'em," said Laura, "and if he's too old to learn, why, so much the worse for him. He can go back where he came from."

"Yes," said Mercy quietly, "if it is to be worse for him or worse for her, why, he is the one who must give way."

"I'm afraid you are in a fair way to upset the whole scheme of Chinese domesticity," I said.

"Well, it's high time it was upset," returned Laura. "And if I'm not much mistaken, Moon Ying has learned a thing or two since she has been here that will upset it for at least one household. So Mr. No-Name Chinaman had better be preparing his credentials and studying up to pass his examinations." And she thereupon gave such a list of qualifications for a possible husband for Moon Ying that I was disposed to condole with Big Sam's candidate on his chances of election to the blessed state of matrimony.

Mercy Fillmore expressed a somewhat less exalted ideal of the suitor who would fill the measure of Moon Ying's maiden fancies, though I was certain that it was one that would astonish the celestial widower. And then in sudden concern, lest her patients should be in need of her attention, she excused herself, and Laura and I were left alone.

For a little time she was silent, gazing dreamily at the floor, and I was content to watch her without speech. The storm and stress of the past few weeks had given something more of womanliness to the delicately cut features, and, to my eyes at least, there was an added grace to the attitude and movements of the small figure. It seemed as though the woman in her had suddenly bloomed into the strength that the girl had only suggested.

At last a little smile dimpled the corners of her mouth, and without raising her eyes she said:

"Don't you know it's rude to stare at one so?"

"I beg your pardon," I returned impenitently, "but it's impossible to help it."

"Oh," she said, with a quick return to her matter-of-fact tone, "that's ruder yet. And now I want to know how much longer you're going to keep this pack of men around the house. They're rather a responsibility for a housekeeper, and it's something like living in a public square."

"I'm going to cut the force in half to-morrow, but the rest of them will stay till Moon Ying is out of the place. I'm taking no more risks."

"I suppose you are right," she said slowly. Then she looked up impulsively, and added: "How good you have been to us! I don't see how we should have got through without you. We are through, aren't we? I'm hoping you feel that you have our thanks, at least."

I stepped to her side and took her hand.

"I've asked for much more than that," I began. I intended to say a good deal more, but a diabolic click in my throat interfered with my voice, and a whirl of brain cells tangled my ideas into such inextricable confusion that I was able only to gasp out: "I want an answer to my question. I want you, and I'm going to have you."

She had risen to her feet, and I was panic-stricken with the fear that she was going to run away. Then, while I was struggling to get my ideas and my vocal organs into subordination that would make them of use in this emergency, the hereditary instinct coming from some ancestor with, more courage than I--may Heaven bless him for coming into the family!--inspired my arm, and I clasped her in close embrace. She struggled for a moment. Then she looked up at me, and, my ancestor's courage inspiring me once more, I bent down and kissed her.

"Oh, it isn't fair," she whispered in protesting accent; and I repeated the offense. "How can I answer?" she added. "You know I can't."

"There's only one answer," I whispered in return, "and you might as well give it now."

At this moment I heard a gasp, and Mercy Fillmore's voice exclaimed in consternation:

"Oh, I beg pardon--I hadn't any idea--"

At the sound, Laura whirled about and was out of my clasp, with a strength and quickness marvelous and unexpected.

"You may come in, Mercy," she said with an enviable self-possession, though her face bloomed into a most admirable variety of rose-colors. "You shall be the first to congratulate us. We--we didn't intend to announce it yet--but we are engaged to be married."

Mercy gave her good wishes most prettily, and though I suspected that she considered Mr. Baldwin a more suitable match, she was kind enough not to give any hint of it, and kissed Laura, and assured me that I had won the greatest prize in the world.

*EPILOGUE*

Big Sam was as good as his word. As soon as Moon Ying was pronounced in a state to receive callers, his Chinese merchant abated so much of his dignity as to pay a stately visit to the Kendrick house. He fell several points below the standard of eligibility set by Miss Kendrick and Miss Fillmore. But Moon Ying asserted her individuality to the extent of approving him with such earnestness as to weep at unfavorable comments. At this demonstration of affinity, Mercy Fillmore promptly surrendered her doubts. Miss Kendrick went around with her nose tip-tilted for a full day, but as Moon Ying continued to weep, she finally said:

"Well, I suppose you couldn't expect to get anything better out of Chinatown."

This form of approval was not resented, either by the enamored merchant or the fair Moon Ying. So the marriage was celebrated in double form: First, and with many protests, one of which went even to the length of a temporary rupture of the marriage negotiations, there was a lawful Christian ceremony at the Kendrick house. On this point the protectresses were inexorable. Therefore, before the Reverend Doctor Western, appeared Lan Yune Yow, portly, shiny, erect, dressed like a rainbow and looking convinced that he was making a fool of himself; and Moon Ying, radiant in silks, dazzling with pearls and embroideries, and beaming with celestial happiness; and in lawful form they were pronounced man and wife. Secondly, there was a wedding in Chinatown, which was reported to be the most magnificent celebration ever witnessed in the oriental quarter. We were not favored with an invitation to this part of the marriage ceremonies, but we were participants in the wedding-feast, for there descended on the Kendrick house such a shower of Chinese confections and nuts and fruits that it seemed impossible that any could be left for the bidden guests.

So Moon Ying went out of our lives, and carried with her our lasting gratitude for the services she had unconsciously rendered.

Mr. Baldwin affected not to see me the next time we met, and then repenting of his churlishness gave me his congratulations; but he never called again at the Kendrick house, and presently consoled himself by marrying the heiress of the Bellinger fortune.

Wharton Kendrick recovered strength slowly, but at last resumed his place at the head of his business. He enlivened his convalescence by telling me how much better he could have managed certain details of our campaign if he could have been in command; but when he was wholly himself again he made more handsome acknowledgments of his approval--both verbal and financial--than I had a right to expect. While he was still on his sick-bed, I asked him if he would mind telling me the origin of the Bolton-Kendrick feud, now that it was all over.

"I'm ashamed to tell it," he said. "But if you will have it, the whole thing started with a blackboard caricature that I drew of Bolton when we were barefoot boys together at the old school-house. He retaliated by drawing attention to a caricature I had made of the teacher, and I can feel the tingle yet from the licking I got. It went on from one thing to the other, like a fire spreading from a little match, until even San Francisco wasn't big enough to hold both of us. Sounds foolish when you tell it, doesn't it? But it's been serious enough."

When the subject of an approaching wedding was broached to Wharton Kendrick, I had an indistinct impression that he thought his niece could have done better. But as the date drew near, I had no fault to find with his growing enthusiasm, and indeed had to enter into conspiracy with Laura to curb his extravagance. He gave away the bride with exemplary dignity, made a speech that set the wedding-table in a roar, and as we drove away, sent a farewell shoe after me with such unerring aim that I spent the first part of the honeymoon in an odor of arnica and opodeldoc. And even now a whiff of liniment carries me back in fancy to that happy time.

Mercy Fillmore made a most charming bridesmaid at our wedding, and General Wilson was so loud in her praise, and so frank in telling what he would do if he were thirty years younger, that she went through the evening with an unwonted color in her face. But a few months later she was married--at our house, and with many misgivings on our part--to Parks. But we were happily disappointed in our fears. Whether from the calming influence of Mercy, or the black eye bestowed upon him by an ungrateful constituency, Parks ceased to be a militant reformer, and turned his energies to the prosaic but more remunerative business of selling groceries. He cut his hair, and though on occasion he delivers addresses before numberless clubs, in which he declares that the remedy for the evils of society is to be found in socialism, he is careful to insist that this panacea is to be applied in the distant future, and is not adapted to present conditions.

It is a good many years since I married my wife, and it is my candid opinion that she is prettier than ever. I can join the children in testifying that her talent for managing a family is unsurpassed. Perhaps there is a little more of it than is absolutely necessary, but it is some time since I ceased to offer that suggestion. As for me--well, I've grown stouter than in the hurrying days of old; but Mrs. Hampden affects to believe that a portly form is highly becoming in a man, and I shouldn't think of being the one to contradict her.

*POSTSCRIPT*

The author offers his apologies to the Muse of History for a few liberties that have been taken with chronology in the tale. Kearney's rise to prominence followed instead of preceding the riots of 1877. Otherwise, the history of the time, where touched on, has been faithfully followed, and, I hope, the spirit of the self-reliant men who organized a city for its own defense has given some inspiration to these pages.

The city of which the tale is told is gone. Such buildings of the era as had survived the march of time and progress were swept away by the mightiest conflagration of history, and all that is left of the old San Francisco is a memory. That the new city that springs from its ashes may prove as picturesque as the old, and be animated by the same spirit, is the hope of the author of these pages.

* * * * * * * *

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