Chapter 11
"An' so she keeps a-teasin' an' a-teasin', till finally Jud he gits desperate.
"'Oram,' says he to me one day, 'Oram, you're an ol' flume man. What do you think o' runnin' that pianner down to Five?'
"I shakes my head. I likes the boy, an' I don't want ter see him take sech big chances o' gittin' inter trouble. Somebody might tell Sneath, an' then it might be all off about his bein' flume boss. Besides, nobody had never run no pianner down no flume before, an' yeh couldn't tell what might happen.
"'D' yeh think, honest, Oram,' says he, 'the ol' flume's likely ter give way anywheres?'
"'No,' says I; 'she's strong as a railroad-track.'
"'Wal, then,' says he, 'I'm a-goin' to do it. You come down Sunday an' we'll take her out afore anybody's out o' the bunk-house.'
"I tries to argy him out of it, but he won't listen. So Sunday, about five in the mornin', I goes up to Skyland, an' we slides the big boat inter the flume an' gits the pianner onto the rollers, an' 't ain't much trouble to load her all right; fer, yer know, them big boats has flat tops like decks, an' things sets up on top of 'em. But while we was a-doin' that an' the boat is hitched tight to a stanchion 'longside o' the flume, the water backs up behind so high that it looks as though the pianner is a-goin' ter git wet. This skeers Jud, an' he seems to lose his head someways.
"'Hustle up, Oram!' says he, very nervous-like. 'The boat's crowdin' down so it won't let any water past. Ontie that rope.'
"I takes a good notice o' the pianner, an' I don't like her looks, sittin' up there so high on that little deck.
"'We oughter tie her on good an' tight,' says I.
"She's a upright, yeh see, an' she's as top-heavy as a pile-driver. I was afeard she'd strike a low limb or somethin' an' git smashed. So I goes to settle her a bit an' lay her down on her back an' tie her on; but he says he don't know about that layin'-down business, an' declares she'll ride all right. He speaks pretty sharp, too. So I gits a little huffy an' onties the rope, an' we starts.
"Wal, she don't go very fast at first, 'cos she's heavy an' they ain't none too much water in front; but after a while we comes to the Devil's Slide,--you remember the place,--an' we scoots down there like the mill-tails o' hell.
"'Gee-whiz!' says Jud. 'She's a-rockin' like a teeter. I hope she'll stay on all right.' He was settin' back with me, behind the pianner, an' we both tries to holt on to her an' keep her stiddy, but we cain't do much more'n set down an' cuss haff the time, we're so afeard we'll git throwed out. Wal, after we come to the foot of the slide, we breathes easy-like, an' Jud he says it's all right, for that there was the wust place. For about three miles the pianner set on that boat as stiddy as a church, an' from there on down to Four it was pretty good sailin'. Of course we went a good deal faster in the steep places than any other boat ever sent down the flume, because the heft o' the thing, when she got started, was bound to make her fly, water or no water. In a good many places we run ahead o' the stream, an' then in the quiet spots the water would catch up to us an' back up behind us an' shove us along.
"Between Four an' Five there's a place we used ter call Cape Horn. The flume is bracketed onto a cliff, yeh know, fer about a mile, an' it's a skeery place any way yeh shoot it; yeh scoot aroun' them there sharp curves so lively, an' yeh look down there four or five hundred feet inter the bottom o' the cañon. That's where yeh shut yer eyes. Yeh remember? Wal, when I sees Cape Horn ahead I gits a little skeer'd when I thinks how she might rock. We run onto a place where I could look away ahead, an' there, wavin' her apron or somethin', is a gal, an' I knows it's Jess, out from Five to see the pianner come down. Jud he knows, too, an' waves back.
"We runs out onto the brackets, turns a sharp curve, an' she begins to wabble an' stagger like a drunken man, floppin' back an' forth, an' the strings an' things inside is a-hummin' an' a-drummin'.
"'Slow her down!' yells Jud. 'Slow her down, or we'll never git past the Horn!'
"I claps on the brake, but she's so heavy she don't pay no 'tention to it, though I makes smoke 'long them planks, I tell yer. She scoots ahead faster'n ever, an' bows to the scenery, this way an' that, like she was crazy, an' a-hummin' harder than ever.
"'Slow her down! Ease her down!' hollers Jud, grittin' his teeth an' holdin' onto her with all his hundred an' eighty pounds weight. But 't ain't no good. I gits a holt oncet, but the water backs up behind us an' we goes a-scootin' down on a big wave that sloshes out o' the flume on both sides an' sends us flyin' toward that Horn fer further orders.
"When we gits to the sharpest curve we knows we're there all right. She wabbles on one side an' then on the other, so I can see chunks o' sky ahead right under her. An' then, all of a sudden, she gives a whoopin' big jump right off the top o' the boat, an' over the side o' the flume she goes, her strings all a-singin' like mad, an' sailin' down four hundred feet. Jud had a holt of her before she dropped, an' if I hadn't 'a' grabbed him he'd 'a' gone over, too.
"You might not believe it, pardner, but we run a quarter of a mile down that there flume before we hears her strike. Jeroosalem! What a crash! I ever heer'd one o' them big redwoods that made half so much noise when she dropped. How she did roar! An' I tell yeh what was strange about that there noise: it seemed like all the music that everybody had ever expected to play on that pianner for the nex' hundred years come a-boomin' out all to oncet in one great big whoop-hurray that echered up an' down that cañon fer half an hour.
"'We've lost somethin',' says I, cheerful-like, fer I thinks the' 's no use cryin' over spilt pianners.
"But Jud he never says nothin',--jest sets there like he was froze plumb stiff an' couldn't stir a eyelid--sets there, starin' straight ahead down the flume. Looks like his face is caught in the air and held that way.
"Of course, now our load's gone, the brake works all right, an' I hooks a-holt onto the side about a hundred feet from where Jess stands like a marble statute, lookin' down inter the gulch.
"'Come on, Jud,' says I, layin' my hand onto his arm soft-like; 'we gits out here.'
"He don't say nothin', but tries to shake me off. I gits him out at last, an' we goes over to where poor Jess stands, stiff an' starin' down inter the gulch. When she hears our feet on the side planks, she starts up an' begins to beller like a week-old calf; an' that fetches Jud outer his trance for a while, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' he helps her back along the walk till we comes to a place where we gits down an' goes over to view the wreck.
"Great snakes, pardner, but it was a sight! The pianner had flew down an' lit onto a big, flat rock, an' the' wasn't a piece of her left as big as that there plate. There was all kinds o' wires a-wrigglin' aroun' on the ground an' a-shinin' in the sun, an' the' was white keys an' black keys an' the greatest lot o' them little woolly things that strikes the strings all mixed up with little bits o' mahogany an' nuts an' bolts an' little scraps o' red flannel an' leather, an' pegs an' bits o' iron that didn't look as if it had ever been any part o' the machine. It was the dernedest mess! I picked up somethin' Jess said was a pedal,--a little piece o' shiny iron about as long as that,--'n' that was the only thing that seemed to have any shape left to it. The litter didn't make any pile at all--jest a lot o' siftin' sawdust-stuff scattered aroun' on the rocks.
"'She struck tol'able hard,' says I, lookin' at Jud. But he don't say nothin'; jest stan's over there on the side o' the rock an' looks as if he'd like to jump off another fifty feet the' was there.
"'Don't take it like that, Jud,' says Jess, grabbin' holt o' him an' not payin' any 'tention to my bein' there. 'Cry, cuss, swear--anything, but don't be so solemn-like. It's my fault, Juddie dear--all my fault. Can yeh ever, ever fergive me? Yeh said yeh didn't think it was safe, an' I kep' a-goadin' yeh to it; an' now----' She broke out a-blubberin' an' a-bellerin' again, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' smiles, an' says soft-like:
"'It don't matter much. I can raise the money an' buy a new one fer Mis' Sneath. How much do they cost?' says he.
"'Oh, I dunno! Five hundred dollars, I think. It's an awful lot o' money!'
"'Wal, I got three-fifty saved up,--you know what fer,--an' I can raise the rest an' put a new pianner in the place o' that one,' says he.
"He looks at the wreck, an' fer the first time I sees his eyes is jest a little damp.
"They didn't either of 'em seem to take any notice o' me, an' I didn't feel that I counted, nohow.
"'An' we cain't git married,' says Jud, sorrowful-like, 'fer ever so long. There'll be nothin' to house-keep on till I can save up some more.'
"'Yes, we can, too,' says she. 'I don't keer if yeh ain't got so much as a piece o' bale-rope.'
"'But yer paw?'
"'I don't keer,' says she, very hard-like, a-stampin' her foot. 'He can like it or lump it.'
"Wal, I sneaks away an' leaves 'em there, an' by an' by they comes up to where I sets on top o' the boat, an' Jud isn't so plumb gloomy as I thinks he'd be.
"Him an' her goes down ter Fresno nex' day an' buys one o' that same identical make o' pianners an' has it shipped up on the first freight-wagon to Skyland. An' they puts it inter the warehouse, an' there she stands till Mr. Sneath comes home with his wife.
"When Mis' Sneath she sees the pianner brung inter her house she don't notice any difference fer a while; but one day she sets down ter play, an' she pounds out a few music, an' then she gives a jump an' looks all over the machine an' she says, 'Good Lord!' An' Sneath he comes in, an' they has a great time over how the' 's be'n sech a change in that pianner. She finally makes up her mind it's a bran'-new one, an' sends fer Jud an' asts him what he knows about it. An' he cain't lie a little bit, so he up an' tells her that her pianner is all inter sawdust an' scrap-iron down on the rocks, an' that this is a new one that he owes a hundred an' fifty dollars on down ter Fresno.
"Then she busts out a-laughin', an' says:
"'Why, that old tin-pan! I'm glad it flew the flume. It wasn't wuth twenty dollars. I got a noo grand pianner on the way here that I ordered in Noo York. I'll make this here one a weddin' present to you an' Jess.'
"And the soop'rintendent he writes out his check an' sends it down to Fresno to pay off the hundred an' fifty, an' when the weddin' it comes off he gives 'em a set o' chiny dishes besides.
"Jud's flume boss now, an' Jess she plays that pianner an' sings like a bird. When we gits down ter Mill Flat I'll show yeh their house. It's a white one up on the side o' the hill, jest across the gulch from the mill.
"Wal, yeh had all the grub yeh want, pardner? Say, ain't them green gages sour? They sets yer teeth on aidge all right. An' I couldn't find the boys' sugar-can. If yer full up, I guess we'd better git inter the boat."
I took my seat behind Oram and a particularly offensive pipe he had just lighted. Looking down the long, swift-running, threatening flume, I shuddered; for since Oram's recital the native hue of my resolution had been "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I remarked that if he saw any of those Cape Horn curves ahead to let me know and I would get out and walk.
"Don't yeh be skeer'd by what I told yeh," said he. "Yeh got a pretty fair-sized head, but yeh ain't quite so top-heavy as Mis' Sneath's big upright. An', besides, the' ain't no more Cape Horn on this flume; they calls that place Pianner P'int now."
THE CONTUMACY OF SARAH L. WALKER
BY
MIRIAM MICHELSON
Reprinted from _Munsey's Magazine_ of April, 1904 by permission
"THE BOARD will now pass to consideration of the case of Mrs.--Mrs. Walker."
The president looked from the report in front of her to the superintendent sitting opposite.
The Rev. Alexander McCaleb rose slowly to his feet.
"I regret exceedingly," he said, "to have to report this case to the board. I need not say that if it had been possible to convince Mrs. Walker of the error of her ways, no pains or time would have been spared. But I have done all that I could. Mrs. Walker persists. She--ah!--she flouts all authority, and--ah!--sets such an example of rebellious conduct that I fear the discipline of the home may be gravely compromised."
The president knitted her pretty, dark brows. Her hair was white, with a soft, youthful whiteness that haloed her head as if it was a joke of old Time's. She was new to her office, and was conscious of a critical atmosphere that subtly underlined the formality of the proceedings--an official formality that made the meeting of the lady managers of this Old People's Home a formidable affair.
"I see no record of any case of disciplining heretofore," she said, troubled. "There is no precedent by which the chair can be----"
"But there are the by-laws," suggested the superintendent. He reached over to his own desk, and read from a pamphlet that had lain open there: "If any inmate of the home shall persistently and willfully disobey the rules, the superintendent shall report such case to the board of managers. If, after full and complete investigation, and a notice to that effect having been duly served, said inmate shall continue to persist in contumacy, the board is by a majority vote empowered to expel."
A little hush fell upon the assemblage at this invocation of its dread powers.
"It seems rather hard on the old bodies, doesn't it?" the president was encouraged to remark.
"But it is plainly stated in the by-laws," said the recording secretary, a bright-eyed, business-like matron.
"And dear Mr. McCaleb is so patient and tactful that it is seldom necessary," remarked the single member of this week's visiting committee.
"I thank you, Mrs. Davis." The superintendent bowed in his stateliest manner. "I do my best--I try always to do my best. Old people are trying, we all know."
The president looked up from her perusal of the by-laws.
"Suppose we have the old lady in," she said. "Mr. McCaleb, will you send for Mrs. Walker?"
The old lady held her head haughtily as she walked into the handsomely furnished office. The president, mindful of her official capacity, looked severely upon Mrs. Walker--Sarah Lucinda Walker, according to the cramped signature of the home's register, widow, native of Maine, aged sixty-seven on her entrance into the home five years ago. And Mrs. Walker--a miracle of aged neatness, trim, straight, little, in her somber black and immaculate cap--looked severely back.
"Be seated, Mrs. Walker," said the president.
"Thank you." Mrs. Walker crossed with a formal "Good morning, ladies," and took the chair indicated.
"Now, Mr. McCaleb, if you please----" said the president.
The superintendent rose.
"Ladies," he began with a solemnity that made the offender quake within, though outwardly she was calm as the president herself, "it is with positive pain that I have to report to you the case of Mrs. Sarah Lucinda Walker. It is now fully three months since I began to labor with her--three months since I warned her of this very thing that has come to pass, an investigation by your honorable board. On the 9th of January"--he glanced methodically at a note-book--"I sent her a copy of the by-laws, with the section referring to insubordination underscored in red ink. On the 23d I made a personal call upon her, and sought to convince her how impossible it was that such conduct could be tolerated. On February 7th I publicly reprimanded her. On the 13th--five days ago--I informed her that, after considering it prayerfully, I had laid the matter before your honorable body, and that she should hold herself in readiness to be summoned before you to meet the following charges:
"First, insubordination; second, breaking Rule VIII of the house regulations; third, taking food from the table; fourth, disturbing neighbors in early morning; and fifth, defacing the building."
Mr. McCaleb took his seat. The shocked gaze of the board bent itself upon the criminal. The bad little old lady's far-sighted eyes swept insolently past them all and met the president's--twenty years younger than her own.
"Do you like birds, ma'am?" she asked, herself in an eager, bird-like way. And then, without waiting for an answer, she went on: "I love 'em--anything that's got wings. Old Cap'n Walker used to say, 'Sary Lucindy, they was a moughty fine ornithologist spiled when God A'mighty made you a woman 'stead of a man.' He was a free-spoken man, Cap'n Walker, not so pious-mouthed as some, but he had charity in his soul, which is more than some others has."
She swept a superbly disdainful look toward the Rev. McCaleb. The recording secretary tapped reprovingly with her pencil, but the president only listened.
"Now, ma'am, we ain't paupers, we old folks. Every one of us, as you know, has paid our thousand dollars in. An' we ain't bad children as needs disciplinin'; an' they's no use treatin' grandmothers an' great-grandmothers as though they was. It's in me to love birds, an' no 'mount of rules and regulations is goin' to change me. My canary bird died the same year Cap'n Walker saved every other soul on board his ship and went down alone to the bottom with her. Since then I've sort o' adopted the sparrers. Why, haven't I spent every afternoon through the summer out in the park a-feedin' them my lunch? An' now that winter's come, d'ye think I'd have the face to desert them?
"'Not one of them is forgotten before God'--do you remember, ma'am? One of 'em seemed to be in the early winter. It was before my rheumatism got so bad. I was out in the park the afternoon the first snow fell, an' this poor little crittur with a wing broke kep' a trailin' an' chirpin' an' scuttlin' in front o' me. It'd fell out o' the nest; hardly covered with feathers, it was. I picked it up an' carried it to my room in my apron. Poor little mite--how it fluttered an' struggled! I kep' it overnight in my spool-box. In the mornin' I fed it; by noon the sun come out, an' I let it out on the window-sill, where I keep my house plants; just a bit o' musk--the cap'n liked musk--an' a pot o' bergamot. Do you know, ma'am, that little thing was that contented by the end of the week that I could leave the windows open an' nary a wing's stroke away would it go? That was in December, 'fore it got to be known that I kep' a bird in my room. That mild spell we had 'fore Christmas it did fly away one morning, but at sundown there it was back again; an' when it came on to snow that night I felt same's I used to 'tween voyages, when I could hear how the ocean'd get lashed to a fury, an' Cap'n Walker'd be fast asleep safe beside me.
"Of course it was a pity that when the bird came back it showed others the way--but wasn't it cute of it, ma'am? An' wasn't it just like a lot o' children hangin' 'round at maple-syrup time? They did make a clatter an' a racket in the early mornin' when I wouldn't be up an' they'd be ready for breakfast. But wasn't it for all the world like children with empty little stummicks an' chatterin' tongues? When Mis' Pearson complained of me an' the noise, I didn't take it kind of her. Take food from the table? Course I did. But it was my own lunch, that I'd a right to go hungry for ef I wanted to, an' nobody's affair.
"But I tell you, ma'am, one day--it was that day Mr. McCaleb sent me that printed notice, an' everybody on my floor see it comin' an' knew it was something shameful an' legal--that evening I tried honestly to keep 'em out. I pulled down the shade--it was a bitter cold day, a regular blizzard blowing--an' I sat with my back to the window an' tried to read my Bible while them birds jest shrieked themselves hoarse outside. Well, guess where that Bible opened to! 'Yea, the sparrow hath found a house and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young.' That was a message, ma'am, a straight, sure message. I opened the window an' scattered their bread-crumbs out on the sill, which I had made jest the least bit wider for them--that's what he calls 'defacin' the buildin'.' After that, I told Mr. McCaleb flat-footed that if he had the heart to starve them innocent critturs in the dead o' winter, it was more than I had. I told him if he'd wait till spring, I'd promise never to open the window that faces south after that; but till they could shift for themselves, I'd shift for them. That's all. Thank _you_, ma'am, for letting me have my say."
She smiled into the president's soft eyes, and rose, looking like a trim, saucy, gray-haired sparrow about to take flight. The president's smile started back to her, but on the way it had to pass the recording secretary, the visiting committee, and the Rev. Alexander McCaleb. By the time it had made the journey it was shorn of half its sympathetic understanding.
"You admit then, Mrs. Walker, that you have broken the rule against having pets in the room?" the president asked with gravity. "It is a necessary rule. Fancy what would be the condition of the place if a lady in No. 117 had a tame sparrow, a gentleman in No. 120 a monkey, his neighbor a spaniel, the lady across the way a cat, and so on! I appreciate--we all do, and Mr. McCaleb more than all of us--how tender and charitable a nature yours is, but"--she looked at the recording secretary to gain courage--"but we simply must enforce the rules. I know so good a housekeeper as you must have been will understand this, and agree with me when I say that such a disciplinarian as Captain Walker no doubt was--unfortunately, I never had the pleasure of his acquaintance--would have been the first to counsel you to obey the rules. Won't you think it over from our point of view, Mrs. Walker, when you go back to your room? Do! Good afternoon."
It was a very dejected Sarah Lucinda Walker that returned to her room. Her depression was noted and audibly commented upon by Mrs. Pearson, her next-door neighbor and arch-enemy. In fact, the whole corridor was alive with the news of her defeat. At the lunch-table it was the sole topic of conversation, and in the library old Colonel Rockwell--in the pauses of a quavering rendition of "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep"--bet Mr. Patterson three of the cigars his nephew always sent him on Fridays that Mrs. Walker, being a woman of spirit, would not yield even though the ultimatum were expulsion.
Mrs. Walker heard of the wager, of course, that afternoon. They were a hundred or more antiquated and unseaworthy vessels, all anchored in a semi-genteel haven; and from morning till night, till sun should cease for them to shine and water to flow they had nothing to do but to listen to the whispering tide that told of the great ocean of life beyond, or to gossip among themselves of their own voyages dead and done.
The incorrigible Mrs. Walker's spotless little room, with its bag of dried crusts on the window-sill, saved for her pet, became the storm center that afternoon. Every old lady who could possibly claim acquaintance called to inquire her intentions; every old gentleman leaned hard upon his cane as he lifted his hat to her in the halls with the deference due a gallant rebel. They loved a rebel, these old children, at the end of their lives fallen again into the domain of "you must" and "you must not."
Sarah Lucinda Walker's world rocked beneath her. She intended, she believed, to obey the rules, to cast off the one creature on earth to which she could still play Lady Bountiful; to shut her hospitable window and her loving old heart on all these fluttering, visiting strangers who had heard of her generosity, and with every hour carried the news of it further.