Part 10

Her house was not far distant from the railway station, and as the time approached for the train to pass, the poor creature had pressed her face against the window, listening for the whistle and looking for the light. Becoming alarmed at length by the long delay, she had run bareheaded to the station to find what it meant. Seeing the waiting crowd, she had understood at once, and had thrown herself on the ground, resolved not to leave the place till the train had come and gone. No thought of withdrawing from her agreement or even of looking again on the face of her child had been in her mind. On the contrary, her resolve had strengthened hourly since her interview with Miss Sophy; but the strengthening of her resolve did not diminish the intensity of her grief.

“It’ll kill me, I know ’twill,” was the constant refrain in her thoughts; always following it, however, “but I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t do it. I darstn’t not do ’t!”

Sobbing aloud in the safe shelter of the darkness, she watched each movement in the confusion at the train, vainly trying to distinguish the form of Miss Sophy or of Gammer. The moments which seemed so long to all the other actors in the drama seemed to her like lightning seconds.

“Oh, they’re goin’!” she cried, as the train began to move. “Oh, God, she’s gone! Baby!” and she fell back senseless on the earth.

At that moment Zeph was saying to himself, “Thank God, we’re safe off!” and Miss Sophy, devoutly, “Thank God, she didn’t come down!” and Gammer, aloud, taking Miss Sophy’s hand in hers, “What ails yer? Yer tremblin’ like a leaf!”

“I’ve got something to tell you, Gammer,” replied Miss Sophy, in a whisper; and she told her then, at last, the truth.

It was well that the necessity of carrying on their conversation in a cautious whisper restrained Gammer from the full expression of her emotions; but the repression of them was almost beyond her power. Disjointed and incredulous ejaculations were at first all which could take shape in her thought; then followed an avalanche of questions, some of them hard to answer; but soon all else was swallowed up in a heartfelt sympathy and gladness which were comforting to Miss Sophy’s heart.

“You don’t think ’twas wrong, then, not to let her know who she was givin’ her to, do you?” said Miss Sophy.

“Nerry bit of it!” replied Gammer. “’Twa’n’t no use runnin’ ther resk on’t. I donno haow she’d hev tuk it. Mebbe she’d hev been willin’er, ’n’ mebbe not ser willin’. Thar ain’t no countin’ on folks; yer can’t never tell. I sh’d allaow she’d been willin’er; but then agin she might er tuk a jealous fit ’n’ thar wouldn’t hev been any doin’ nothin’. ’T ’s best ’s ’tis. Ye’ve managed wonderful, I allaow yeow hev; ’n’ naow ther sooner yer let thet pore Zeph know she’s hyar ther better. I allaow he’s ’most crazy, settin’ thar waitin’!”

“Oh,” faltered Miss Sophy, “I didn’t mean to tell him till we got out of the train! I don’t want to have any kind o’ fuss in the cars.”

“He won’t make no fuss,” replied Gammer. “He ain’t thet

* * * * *

Here the story of Zeph comes to an abrupt ending. Conceived and begun by Mrs. Jackson in Los Angeles during the winter of 1884-1885, it was put by to be finished on her arrival home in Colorado Springs,—a home she was destined never to reach. In her last hours she sent the manuscript to her publisher with this message:—

I am very sorry I cannot finish “Zeph.” Perhaps it is not worth publishing in its unfinished state, as the chief lesson for which I wrote it was to be forcibly told at the end. You must be judge about this. I suppose there will be some interest in it as the last thing I wrote. I will make a short outline of the plot of the close of the story.... Good-by. Many thanks for all your long good-will and kindness. I shall look in on your new rooms some day, be sure—but you won’t see me. Good-by.

Affectionately forever,

H. J.

AUGUST 7.

On a separate sheet was the “Outline.”

THE CLOSE OF “ZEPH.”

They were to settle down on a ranch in one of the beautiful cañons in South California, opening out seaward, yet not so near the water as to be too cold for fruits. I had the precise spot in my memory,—an ideal nook, apricots and vineyards, cherry-trees in bloom there in March, tomatoes ripe on the hillsides in January; a glimmer of sea to be seen from the mouth of the cañon fourteen miles away,—endless charm to Miss Sophy, half-sad spell to Zeph. At the end of two years, one night as she is watching the sunset light on the water from one of the hills at the mouth of their cañon, she looks down and sees Zeph coming up the road with his arm around a boy’s waist. It is Zephie. His mother is dead,—had saved enough money for him to come to South California and join his father. She had learned of the marriage, and as soon as Gammer returned there was a stormy scene; but she soon grew reconciled, and finally glad. As Gammer had predicted, she never recovered her strength, but pined away in a mysterious nervous break-down. Zephie’s story is pathetic. The stepfather was never “bad” to her, but never “real good;” the boy was her only comfort. Whenever she could save a dollar, she sent it by Zephie to Gammer to keep, and made Gammer promise to see him safe started for California. A letter from Gammer sent by Zephie told the details of the last hours, when the poor woman said she died easier, thinking how forgiving Zeph had been to her; that she thought if a _man_ could forgive her like that, perhaps Christ would forgive her too! “She allaowed,” said Gammer, “thet she couldn’t never hev got no faith to die trustin’, ef it hedn’t ben fur ther way Zeph ’d allers kep’ on er furgivin’ her, time an’ agen; ’n’ she jest trusted God ’d be ez good ter her ez Zeph wuz!”

“Now,” said Miss Sophy in her heart, “at last, Zeph’ll have real peace and comfort. He’s never felt settled in his mind yet, and he never would ’s long ’s he hadn’t got the boy; ’n’ I don’t know ’s he would ’s long ’s she was above ground! But there won’t be a happier man in all California than he’ll be now!” And a flush born of a secret known only to Miss Sophy’s own heart was red on her cheek as she went to the door and called her husband and his boy in to supper.

_Messrs. Roberts Brothers’ Publications._

_Messrs. ROBERTS BROTHERS have in preparation, and will shortly publish_:—

I.

=GLIMPSES OF THREE COASTS.= By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.).

These are “Bits of Travel” in California and Oregon, Scotland and England, and Norway, Denmark, and Germany, partly new and partly reprinted from the “Atlantic Monthly” and “Century Magazine.”

II.

=VERSES.= Second Series. By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.).

A collection of Mrs. Jackson’s poems, including everything of importance written by her since the publication of her first volume.

III.

=BETWEEN WHILES.= By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.).

“P.S.—Did anybody ever publish a volume of short stories called ‘Between Whiles’? If not, hide it away and don’t tell anybody, and by next spring I will have had enough short stories printed to make a nice summer volume. Isn’t it a lovely title?”—_Postscript to a letter of Mrs. Jackson to her publisher, dated San Francisco, June 26, 1885._

RAMONA: A STORY.

BY HELEN JACKSON (H. H.).

12mo. Cloth. Price $1.50.

_The Atlantic Monthly_ says of the author that she is “a Murillo in literature,” and that the story “is one of the most artistic creations of American literature.” Says a lady: “To me it is the most distinctive piece of work we have had in this country since ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ and its exquisite finish of style is beyond that classic.” “The book is truly an American novel,” says the _Boston Advertiser._ “Ramona is one of the most charming creations of modern fiction,” says Charles D. Warner. “The romance of the story is irresistibly fascinating,” says _The Independent_.

“The best novel written by a woman since George Eliot died, as it seems to me, is Mrs. Jackson’s ‘Ramona.’ What action is there! What motion! How _entrainant_ it is! It carries us along as if mounted on a swift horse’s back, from beginning to end, and it is only when we return for a second reading that we can appreciate the fine handling of the characters, and especially the Spanish mother, drawn with a stroke as keen and firm as that which portrayed George Eliot’s ‘Dorothea.’”—_T. W. Higginson, in Harper’s Bazar._

Unsolicited tribute of a stranger, a lady in Wisconsin:—

“I beg leave to thank you with an intense heartiness for your public espousal of the cause of the Indian. In your ‘Century of Dishonor’ you showed to the country its own disgrace. In ‘Ramona’ you have dealt most tenderly with the Indians as men and women. You have shown that their stoicism is not indifference, that their squalor is not always of their own choosing. You have shown the tender grandeur of their love, the endurance of their constancy. While, by ‘Ramona,’ you have made your name immortal, you have done something which is far greater. You are but one: they are many. You have helped those who cannot help themselves. As a novel, ‘Ramona’ must stand beside ‘Romola,’ both as regards literary excellence and the portrayal of life’s deepest, most vital, most solemn interests. I think nothing in literature since Goldsmith’s ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ equals your description of the flight of Ramona and Alessandro. Such delicate pathos and tender joy, such pure conception of life’s realities, and such loftiness of self-abnegating love! How much richer and happier the world is with ‘Ramona’ in it!”

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the publishers_,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.

A KEY TO “RAMONA.”

A CENTURY OF DISHONOR.

A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with some of the Indian Tribes.

By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),

AUTHOR OF “RAMONA,” “VERSES,” “BITS OF TRAVEL,” ETC.

A New Edition. 12mo. pp. 514. Cloth. $1.50.

“The report made by Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Kinney is grave, concise, and deeply interesting. It is added to the appendix of this new edition of her book. In this California journey, Mrs. Jackson found the materials for ‘Ramona,’ the Indian novel, which was the last important work of her life, and in which nearly all the incidents are taken from life. In the report of the Mission Indians will be found the story of the Temecula removal and the tragedy of Alessandro’s death as they appear in ‘Ramona.’”—_Boston Daily Advertiser._

“A number of striking cases of breach of faith, heartless banishment from homes confirmed to the Indians by solemn treaties, and wars wantonly provoked in order to make an excuse for dispossessing them of their lands, are grouped together, making a panorama of outrage and oppression which will arouse the humanitarian instincts of the nation to the point of demanding that justice shall be done toward our savage wards.... ‘H. H.’ succeeds in holding up to the public eye a series of startling pictures of Indian wrongs, drawn from a century of American history.”—_New York Tribune._

Mrs. Jackson’s Letter of Gratitude to the President.

The following letter from Mrs. Jackson to the President was written by her four days before her death, Aug. 12, 1885:—

_To_ GROVER CLEVELAND, _President of the United States_:

Dear Sir,—From my death-bed I send you a message of heartfelt thanks for what you have already done for the Indians. I ask you to read my “Century of Dishonor.” I am dying happier for the belief I have that it is your hand that is destined to strike the first steady blow toward lifting this burden of infamy from our country, and righting the wrongs of the Indian race.

With respect and gratitude,

HELEN JACKSON.

_Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers_,

ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.