A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance
The four men on the "Zip Coon" Ledge had not got fairly settled to
their morning's work. There was the usual lingering hesitation
which is apt to attend the taking-up of any regular or monotonous
performance, shown in this instance in the prolonged scrutiny of a
pick's point, the solemn selection of a shovel, or the "hefting" or
weighing of a tapping-iron or drill. One member, becoming
interested in a funny paragraph he found in the scrap of newspaper
wrapped around his noonday cheese, shamelessly sat down to finish
it, regardless of the prospecting pan thrown at him by another.
They had taken up their daily routine of mining life like schoolboys
at their tasks.
"Hello!" said Ned Wyngate, joyously recognizing a possible further
interruption. "Blamed if the Express rider ain't comin' here!"
He was shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed over the broad
sun-baked expanse of broken "flat" between them and the highroad.
They all looked up, and saw the figure of a mounted man, with a
courier's bag thrown over his shoulder, galloping towards them. It
was really an event, as their letters were usually left at the
grocery at the crossroads.
"I knew something was goin' to happen," said Wyngate. "I didn't
feel a bit like work this morning."
Here one of their number ran off to meet the advancing horseman.
They watched him until they saw the latter rein up, and hand a
brown envelope to their messenger, who ran breathlessly back with
it to the Ledge as the horseman galloped away again.
"A telegraph for Jackson Wells," he said, handing it to the young
man who had been reading the scrap of paper.
There was a dead silence. Telegrams were expensive rarities in
those days, especially with the youthful Bohemian miners of the Zip
Coon Ledge. They were burning with curiosity, yet a singular thing
happened. Accustomed as they had been to a life of brotherly
familiarity and unceremoniousness, this portentous message from the
outside world of civilization recalled their old formal politeness.
They looked steadily away from the receiver of the telegram, and he
on his part stammered an apologetic "Excuse me, boys," as he broke
the envelope.
There was another pause, which seemed to be interminable to the
waiting partners. Then the voice of Wells, in quite natural tones,
said, "By gum! that's funny! Read that, Dexter,--read it out loud."
Dexter Rice, the foreman, took the proffered telegram from Wells's
hand, and read as follows:--
Your uncle, Quincy Wells, died yesterday, leaving you sole heir.
Will attend you to-morrow for instructions.
BAKER AND TWIGGS,
Attorneys, Sacramento.
The three miners' faces lightened and turned joyously to Wells; but
HIS face looked puzzled.
"May we congratulate you, Mr. Wells?" said Wyngate, with affected
politeness; "or possibly your uncle may have been English, and a
title goes with the 'prop,' and you may be Lord Wells, or Very
Wells--at least."
But here Jackson Wells's youthful face lost its perplexity, and he
began to laugh long and silently to himself. This was protracted
to such an extent that Dexter asserted himself,--as foreman and
senior partner.
"Look here, Jack! don't sit there cackling like a chuckle-headed
magpie, if you ARE the heir."
"I--can't--help it," gasped Jackson. "I am the heir--but you see,
boys, there AIN'T ANY PROPERTY."
"What do you mean? Is all that a sell?" demanded Rice.
"Not much! Telegraph's too expensive for that sort o' feelin'.
You see, boys, I've got an Uncle Quincy, though I don't know him
much, and he MAY be dead. But his whole fixin's consisted of a
claim the size of ours, and played out long ago: a ramshackle lot
o' sheds called a cottage, and a kind of market garden of about
three acres, where he reared and sold vegetables. He was always
poor, and as for calling it 'property,' and ME the 'heir'--good
Lord!"
"A miser, as sure as you're born!" said Wyngate, with optimistic
decision. "That's always the way. You'll find every crack of that
blessed old shed stuck full of greenbacks and certificates of
deposit, and lots of gold dust and coin buried all over that cow
patch! And of course no one suspected it! And of course he lived
alone, and never let any one get into his house--and nearly starved
himself! Lord love you! There's hundreds of such cases. The
world is full of 'em!"
"That's so," chimed in Pulaski Briggs, the fourth partner, "and I
tell you what, Jacksey, we'll come over with you the day you take
possession, and just 'prospect' the whole blamed shanty, pigsties,
and potato patch, for fun--and won't charge you anything."
For a moment Jackson's face had really brightened under the
infection of enthusiasm, but it presently settled into perplexity
again.
"No! You bet the boys around Buckeye Hollow would have spotted
anything like that long ago."
"Buckeye Hollow!" repeated Rice and his partners.
"Yes! Buckeye Hollow, that's the place; not twenty miles from
here, and a God-forsaken hole, as you know."
A cloud had settled on Zip Coon Ledge. They knew of Buckeye
Hollow, and it was evident that no good had ever yet come out of
that Nazareth.
"There's no use of talking now," said Rice conclusively. "You'll
draw it all from that lawyer shark who's coming here tomorrow, and
you can bet your life he wouldn't have taken this trouble if there
wasn't suthin' in it. Anyhow, we'll knock off work now and call it
half a day, in honor of our distinguished young friend's accession
to his baronial estates of Buckeye Hollow. We'll just toddle down
to Tomlinson's at the cross-roads, and have a nip and a quiet game
of old sledge at Jacksey's expense. I reckon the estate's good for
THAT," he added, with severe gravity. "And, speaking as a fa'r-
minded man and the president of this yer Company, if Jackson would
occasionally take out and air that telegraphic dispatch of his
while we're at Tomlinson's, it might do something for that Company's
credit--with Tomlinson! We're wantin' some new blastin' plant bad!"
Oddly enough the telegram--accidentally shown at Tomlinson's--
produced a gratifying effect, and the Zip Coon Ledge materially
advanced in public estimation. With this possible infusion of new
capital into its resources, the Company was beset by offers of
machinery and goods; and it was deemed expedient by the sapient
Rice, that to prevent the dissemination of any more accurate
information regarding Jackson's property the next day, the lawyer
should be met at the stage office by one of the members, and
conveyed secretly past Tomlinson's to the Ledge.
"I'd let you go," he said to Jackson, "only it won't do for that
d----d skunk of a lawyer to think you're too anxious--sabe? We want
to rub into him that we are in the habit out yer of havin' things
left to us, and a fortin' more or less, falling into us now and
then, ain't nothin' alongside of the Zip Coon claim. It won't hurt
ye to keep up a big bluff on that hand of yours. Nobody would dare
to 'call' you."
Indeed this idea was carried out with such elaboration the next day
that Mr. Twiggs, the attorney, was considerably impressed both by
the conduct of his guide, who (although burning with curiosity)
expressed absolute indifference regarding Jackson Wells's
inheritance, and the calmness of Jackson himself, who had to be
ostentatiously called from his work on the Ledge to meet him, and
who even gave him an audience in the hearing of his partners.
Forced into an apologetic attitude, he expressed his regret at
being obliged to bother Mr. Wells with an affair of such secondary
importance, but he was obliged to carry out the formalities of the
law.
"What do you suppose the estate is worth?" asked Wells carelessly.
"I should not think that the house, the claim, and the land would
bring more than fifteen hundred dollars," replied Twiggs
submissively.
To the impecunious owners of Zip Coon Ledge it seemed a large sum,
but they did not show it.
"You see," continued Mr. Twiggs, "it's really a case of 'willing
away' property from its obvious or direct inheritors, instead of a
beneficial grant. I take it that you and your uncle were not
particularly intimate,--at least, so I gathered when I made the
will,--and his simple object was to disinherit his only daughter,
with whom he had had some quarrel, and who had left him to live
with his late wife's brother, Mr. Morley Brown, who is quite
wealthy and residing in the same township. Perhaps you remember
the young lady?"
Jackson Wells had a dim recollection of this cousin, a hateful,
red-haired schoolgirl, and an equally unpleasant memory of this
other uncle, who was purse-proud and had never taken any notice of
him. He answered affirmatively.
"There may be some attempt to contest the will," continued Mr.
Twiggs, "as the disinheriting of an only child and a daughter
offends the sentiment of the people and of judges and jury, and the
law makes such a will invalid, unless a reason is given.
Fortunately your uncle has placed his reasons on record. I have a
copy of the will here, and can show you the clause." He took it
from his pocket, and read as follows: "'I exclude my daughter,
Jocelinda Wells, from any benefit or provision of this my will and
testament, for the reason that she has voluntarily abandoned her
father's roof for the house of her mother's brother, Morley Brown;
has preferred the fleshpots of Egypt to the virtuous frugalities of
her own home, and has discarded the humble friends of her youth,
and the associates of her father, for the meretricious and slavish
sympathy of wealth and position. In lieu thereof, and as
compensation therefor, I do hereby give and bequeath to her my full
and free permission to gratify her frequently expressed wish for
another guardian in place of myself, and to become the adopted
daughter of the said Morley Brown, with the privilege of assuming
the name of Brown as aforesaid.' You see," he continued, "as the
young lady's present position is a better one than it would be if
she were in her father's house, and was evidently a compromise, the
sentimental consideration of her being left homeless and penniless
falls to the ground. However, as the inheritance is small, and
might be of little account to you, if you choose to waive it, I
dare say we may make some arrangement."
This was an utterly unexpected idea to the Zip Coon Company, and
Jackson Wells was for a moment silent. But Dexter Rice was equal
to the emergency, and turned to the astonished lawyer with severe
dignity.
"You'll excuse me for interferin', but, as the senior partner of
this yer Ledge, and Jackson Wells yer bein' a most important
member, what affects his usefulness on this claim affects us. And
we propose to carry out this yer will, with all its dips and spurs
and angles!"
As the surprised Twiggs turned from one to the other, Rice
continued, "Ez far as we kin understand this little game, it's the
just punishment of a high-flying girl as breaks her pore old
father's heart, and the re-ward of a young feller ez has bin to our
knowledge ez devoted a nephew as they make 'em. Time and time
again, sittin' around our camp fire at night, we've heard Jacksey
say,--kinder to himself, and kinder to us, 'Now I wonder what's
gone o' old uncle Quincy;' and he never sat down to a square meal,
or ever rose from a square game, but what he allus said, 'If old
uncle Quince was only here now, boys, I'd die happy.' I leave it
to you, gentlemen, if that wasn't Jackson Wells's gait all the
time?"
There was a prolonged murmur of assent, and an affecting
corroboration from Ned Wyngate of "That was him; that was Jacksey
all the time!"
"Indeed, indeed," said the lawyer nervously. "I had quite the idea
that there was very little fondness"--
"Not on your side--not on your side," said Rice quickly. "Uncle
Quincy may not have anted up in this matter o' feelin', nor seen
his nephew's rise. You know how it is yourself in these things--
being a lawyer and a fa'r-minded man--it's all on one side,
ginerally! There's always one who loves and sacrifices, and all
that, and there's always one who rakes in the pot! That's the way
o' the world; and that's why," continued Rice, abandoning his
slightly philosophical attitude, and laying his hand tenderly, and
yet with a singularly significant grip, on Wells's arm, "we say to
him, 'Hang on to that will, and uncle Quincy's memory.' And we hev
to say it. For he's that tender-hearted and keerless of money--
having his own share in this Ledge--that ef that girl came
whimperin' to him he'd let her take the 'prop' and let the hull
thing slide! And then he'd remember that he had rewarded that gal
that broke the old man's heart, and that would upset him again in
his work. And there, you see, is just where WE come in! And we
say, 'Hang on to that will like grim death!'"
The lawyer looked curiously at Rice and his companions, and then
turned to Wells: "Nevertheless, I must look to you for instructions,"
he said dryly.
But by this time Jackson Wells, although really dubious about
supplanting the orphan, had gathered the sense of his partners, and
said with a frank show of decision, "I think I must stand by the
will."
"Then I'll have it proved," said Twiggs, rising. "In the meantime,
if there is any talk of contesting"--
"If there is, you might say," suggested Wyngate, who felt he had
not had a fair show in the little comedy,--"ye might say to that
old skeesicks of a wife's brother, if he wants to nipple in, that
there are four men on the Ledge--and four revolvers! We are
gin'rally fa'r-minded, peaceful men, but when an old man's heart is
broken, and his gray hairs brought down in sorrow to the grave, so
to speak, we're bound to attend the funeral--sabe?"
When Mr. Twiggs had departed again, accompanied by a partner to
guide him past the dangerous shoals of Tomlinson's grocery, Rice
clapped his hand on Wells's shoulder. "If it hadn't been for me,
sonny, that shark would have landed you into some compromise with
that red-haired gal! I saw you weakenin', and then I chipped in.
I may have piled up the agony a little on your love for old Quince,
but if you aren't an ungrateful cub, that's how you ought to hev
been feein', anyhow!"
Nevertheless, the youthful Wells, although touched by his elder
partner's loyalty, and convinced of his own disinterestedness, felt
a painful sense of lost chivalrous opportunity.
. . . . . .
On mature consideration it was finally settled that Jackson Wells
should make his preliminary examination of his inheritance alone,
as it might seem inconsistent with the previous indifferent
attitude of his partners if they accompanied him. But he was
implored to yield to no blandishments of the enemy, and to even
make his visit a secret.
He went. The familiar flower-spiked trees which had given their
name to Buckeye Hollow had never yielded entirely to improvements
and the incursions of mining enterprise, and many of them had even
survived the disused ditches, the scarred flats, the discarded
levels, ruined flumes, and roofless cabins of the earlier
occupation, so that when Jackson Wells entered the wide, straggling
street of Buckeye, that summer morning was filled with the radiance
of its blossoms and fragrant with their incense. His first visit
there, ten years ago, had been a purely perfunctory and hasty one,
yet he remembered the ostentatious hotel, built in the "flush time"
of its prosperity, and already in a green premature decay; he
recalled the Express Office and Town Hall, also passing away in a
kind of similar green deliquescence; the little zinc church, now
overgrown with fern and brambles, and the two or three fine
substantial houses in the outskirts, which seemed to have sucked
the vitality of the little settlement. One of these--he had been
told--was the property of his rich and wicked maternal uncle, the
hated appropriator of his red-headed cousin's affections. He
recalled his brief visit to the departed testator's claim and
market garden, and his by no means favorable impression of the
lonely, crabbed old man, as well as his relief that his
objectionable cousin, whom he had not seen since he was a boy, was
then absent at the rival uncle's. He made his way across the road
to a sunny slope where the market garden of three acres seemed to
roll like a river of green rapids to a little "run" or brook,
which, even in the dry season, showed a trickling rill. But here
he was struck by a singular circumstance. The garden rested in a
rich, alluvial soil, and under the quickening Californian sky had
developed far beyond the ability of its late cultivator to restrain
or keep it in order. Everything had grown luxuriantly, and in
monstrous size and profusion. The garden had even trespassed its
bounds, and impinged upon the open road, the deserted claims, and
the ruins of the past. Stimulated by the little cultivation Quincy
Wells had found time to give it, it had leaped its three acres and
rioted through the Hollow. There were scarlet runners crossing the
abandoned sluices, peas climbing the court-house wall, strawberries
matting the trail, while the seeds and pollen of its few homely
Eastern flowers had been blown far and wide through the woods. By
a grim satire, Nature seemed to have been the only thing that still
prospered in that settlement of man.
The cabin itself, built of unpainted boards, consisted of a
sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and two bedrooms, all plainly
furnished, although one of the bedrooms was better ordered, and
displayed certain signs of feminine decoration, which made Jackson
believe it had been his cousin's room. Luckily, the slight,
temporary structure bore no deep traces of its previous occupancy
to disturb him with its memories, and for the same reason it gained
in cleanliness and freshness. The dry, desiccating summer wind
that blew through it had carried away both the odors and the sense
of domesticity; even the adobe hearth had no fireside tales to
tell,--its very ashes had been scattered by the winds; and the
gravestone of its dead owner on the hill was no more flavorless of
his personality than was this plain house in which he had lived and
died. The excessive vegetation produced by the stirred-up soil had
covered and hidden the empty tin cans, broken boxes, and fragments
of clothing which usually heaped and littered the tent-pegs of the
pioneer. Nature's own profusion had thrust them into obscurity.
Jackson Wells smiled as he recalled his sanguine partner's idea of
a treasure-trove concealed and stuffed in the crevices of this
tenement, already so palpably picked clean by those wholesome
scavengers of California, the dry air and burning sun. Yet he was
not displeased at this obliteration of a previous tenancy; there
was the better chance for him to originate something. He whistled
hopefully as he lounged, with his hands in his pockets, towards the
only fence and gate that gave upon the road. Something stuck up on
the gate-post attracted his attention. It was a sheet of paper
bearing the inscription in a large hand: "Notice to trespassers.
Look out for the Orphan Robber!" A plain signboard in faded black
letters on the gate, which had borne the legend: "Quincy Wells,
Dealer in Fruit and Vegetables," had been rudely altered in chalk
to read: "Jackson Wells, Double Dealer in Wills and Codicils," and
the intimation "Bouquets sold here" had been changed to "Bequests
stole here." For an instant the simple-minded Jackson failed to
discover any significance of this outrage, which seemed to him to
be merely the wanton mischief of a schoolboy. But a sudden
recollection of the lawyer's caution sent the blood to his cheeks
and kindled his indignation. He tore down the paper and rubbed out
the chalk interpolation--and then laughed at his own anger.
Nevertheless, he would not have liked his belligerent partners to
see it.
A little curious to know the extent of this feeling, he entered one
of the shops, and by one or two questions which judiciously
betrayed his ownership of the property, he elicited only a
tradesman's interest in a possible future customer, and the
ordinary curiosity about a stranger. The barkeeper of the hotel
was civil, but brief and gloomy. He had heard the property was
"willed away on account of some family quarrel which "warn't none
of his." Mr. Wells would find Buckeye Hollow a mighty dull place
after the mines. It was played out, sucked dry by two or three big
mine owners who were trying to "freeze out" the other settlers, so
as they might get the place to themselves and "boom it." Brown,
who had the big house over the hill, was the head devil of the
gang! Wells felt his indignation kindle anew. And this girl that
he had ousted was Brown's friend. Was it possible that she was a
party to Brown's designs to get this three acres with the other
lands? If so, his long-suffering uncle was only just in his
revenge.
He put all this diffidently before his partners on his return, and
was a little startled at their adopting it with sanguine ferocity.
They hoped that he would put an end to his thoughts of backing out
of it. Such a course now would be dishonorable to his uncle's
memory. It was clearly his duty to resist these blasted satraps of
capitalists; he was providentially selected for the purpose--a
village Hampden to withstand the tyrant. "And I reckon that shark
of a lawyer knew all about it when he was gettin' off that 'purp
stuff' about people's sympathies with the girl," said Rice
belligerently. "Contest the will, would he? Why, if we caught
that Brown with a finger in the pie we'd just whip up the boys on
this Ledge and lynch him. You hang on to that three acres and the
garden patch of your forefathers, sonny, and we'll see you through!"
Nevertheless, it was with some misgivings that Wells consented that
his three partners should actually accompany him and see him put in
peaceable possession of his inheritance. His instinct told him
that there would be no contest of the will, and still less any
opposition on the part of the objectionable relative, Brown. When
the wagon which contained his personal effects and the few articles
of furniture necessary for his occupancy of the cabin arrived, the
exaggerated swagger which his companions had put on in their
passage through the settlement gave way to a pastoral indolence,
equally half real, half affected. Lying on their backs under a
buckeye, they permitted Rice to voice the general sentiment.
"There's a suthin' soothin' and dreamy in this kind o' life,
Jacksey, and we'll make a point of comin' here for a couple of days
every two weeks to lend you a hand; it will be a mighty good change
from our nigger work on the claim."
In spite of this assurance, and the fact that they had voluntarily
come to help him put the place in order, they did very little
beyond lending a cheering expression of unqualified praise and
unstinted advice. At the end of four hours' weeding and trimming
the boundaries of the garden, they unanimously gave their opinion
that it would be more systematic for him to employ Chinese labor at
once.
"You see," said Ned Wyngate, "the Chinese naturally take to this
kind o' business. Why, you can't take up a china plate or saucer
but you see 'em pictured there working at jobs like this, and they
kin live on green things and rice that cost nothin', and chickens.
You'll keep chickens, of course."
Jackson thought that his hands would be full enough with the
garden, but he meekly assented.
"I'll get a pair--you only want two to begin with," continued
Wyngate cheerfully, "and in a month or two you've got all you want,
and eggs enough for market. On second thoughts, I don't know
whether you hadn't better begin with eggs first. That is, you
borry some eggs from one man and a hen from another. Then you set
'em, and when the chickens are hatched out you just return the hen
to the second man, and the eggs, when your chickens begin to lay,
to the first man, and you've got your chickens for nothing--and
there you are."
This ingenious proposition, which was delivered on the last slope
of the domain, where the partners were lying exhausted from their
work, was broken in upon by the appearance of a small boy,
barefooted, sunburnt, and tow-headed, who, after a moment's hurried
scrutiny of the group, threw a letter with unerring precision into
the lap of Jackson Wells, and then fled precipitately. Jackson
instinctively suspected he was connected with the outrage on his
fence and gate-post, but as he had avoided telling his partners of
the incident, fearing to increase their belligerent attitude, he
felt now an awkward consciousness mingled with his indignation as
he broke the seal and read as follows:--
SIR,--This is to inform you that although you have got hold of the
property by underhanded and sneaking ways, you ain't no right to
touch or lay your vile hands on the Cherokee Rose alongside the
house, nor on the Giant of Battles, nor on the Maiden's Pride by
the gate--the same being the property of Miss Jocelinda Wells, and
planted by her, under the penalty of the Law. And if you, or any
of your gang of ruffians, touches it or them, or any thereof, or
don't deliver it up when called for in good order, you will be
persecuted by them.
AVENGER.
It is to be feared that Jackson would have suppressed this also,
but the keen eyes of his partners, excited by the abruptness of the
messenger, were upon him. He smiled feebly, and laid the letter
before them. But he was unprepared for their exaggerated
indignation, and with difficulty restrained them from dashing off
in the direction of the vanished herald. "And what could you do?"
he said. "The boy's only a messenger."
"I'll get at that d----d skunk Brown, who's back of him," said
Dexter Rice.
"And what then?" persisted Jackson, with a certain show of
independence. "If this stuff belongs to the girl, I'm not certain
I shan't give them up without any fuss. Lord! I want nothing but
what the old man left me--and certainly nothing of HERS."
Here Ned Wyngate was heard to murmur that Jackson was one of those
men who would lie down and let coyotes crawl over him if they first
presented a girl's visiting card, but he was stopped by Rice
demanding paper and pencil. The former being torn from a
memorandum book, and a stub of the latter produced from another
pocket, he wrote as follows:--
SIR,--In reply to the hogwash you have kindly exuded in your letter
of to-day, I have to inform you that you can have what you ask for
Miss Wells, and perhaps a trifle on your own account, by calling
this afternoon on--Yours truly--
"Now, sign it," continued Rice, handing him the pencil.
"But this will look as if we were angry and wanted to keep the
plants," protested Wells.
"Never you mind, sonny, but sign! Leave the rest to your partners,
and when you lay your head on your pillow to-night return thanks to
an overruling Providence for providing you with the right gang of
ruffians to look after you!"
Wells signed reluctantly, and Wyngate offered to find a Chinaman in
the gulch who would take the missive. "And being a Chinaman, Brown
can do any cussin' or buck talk THROUGH him!" he added.
The afternoon wore on; the tall Douglas pines near the water pools
wheeled their long shadows round and halfway up the slope, and the
sun began to peer into the faces of the reclining men. Subtle
odors of mint and southern-wood, stragglers from the garden,
bruised by their limbs, replaced the fumes of their smoked-out
pipes, and the hammers of the woodpeckers were busy in the grove as
they lay lazily nibbling the fragrant leaves like peaceful
ruminants. Then came the sound of approaching wheels along the
invisible highway beyond the buckeyes, and then a halt and silence.
Rice rose slowly, bright pin points in the pupils of his gray eyes.
"Bringin' a wagon with him to tote the hull shanty away," suggested
Wyngate.
"Or fetched his own ambulance," said Briggs.
Nevertheless, after a pause, the wheels presently rolled away again.
"We'd better go and meet him at the gate," said Rice, hitching his
revolver holster nearer his hip. "That wagon stopped long enough
to put down three or four men."
They walked leisurely but silently to the gate. It is probable
that none of them believed in a serious collision, but now the
prospect had enough possibility in it to quicken their pulses.
They reached the gate. But it was still closed; the road beyond it
empty.
"Mebbe they've sneaked round to the cabin," said Briggs, "and are
holdin' it inside."
They were turning quickly in that direction, when Wyngate said,
"Hush!--some one's there in the brush under the buckeyes."
They listened; there was a faint rustling in the shadows.
"Come out o' that, Brown--into the open. Don't be shy," called out
Rice in cheerful irony. "We're waitin' for ye."
But Briggs, who was nearest the wood, here suddenly uttered an
exclamation,--"B'gosh!" and fell back, open-mouthed, upon his
companions. They too, in another moment, broke into a feeble
laugh, and lapsed against each other in sheepish silence. For a
very pretty girl, handsomely dressed, swept out of the wood and
advanced towards them.
Even at any time she would have been an enchanting vision to these
men, but in the glow of exercise and sparkle of anger she was
bewildering. Her wonderful hair, the color of freshly hewn
redwood, had escaped from her hat in her passage through the
underbrush, and even as she swept down upon them in her majesty she
was jabbing a hairpin into it with a dexterous feminine hand.
The three partners turned quite the color of her hair; Jackson
Wells alone remained white and rigid. She came on, her very short
upper lip showing her white teeth with her panting breath.
Rice was first to speak. "I beg--your pardon, Miss--I thought it
was Brown--you know," he stammered.
But she only turned a blighting brown eye on the culprit, curled
her short lip till it almost vanished in her scornful nostrils,
drew her skirt aside with a jerk, and continued her way straight to
Jackson Wells, where she halted.
"We did not know you were--here alone," he said apologetically.
"Thought I was afraid to come alone, didn't you? Well, you see,
I'm not. There!" She made another dive at her hat and hair, and
brought the hat down wickedly over her eyebrows. "Gimme my plants."
Jackson had been astonished. He would have scarcely recognized in
this willful beauty the red-haired girl whom he had boyishly hated,
and with whom he had often quarreled. But there was a recollection--
and with that recollection came an instinct of habit. He looked
her squarely in the face, and, to the horror of his partners, said,
"Say please!"
They had expected to see him fall, smitten with the hairpin! But
she only stopped, and then in bitter irony said, "Please, Mr.
Jackson Wells."
"I haven't dug them up yet--and it would serve you just right if I
made you get them for yourself. But perhaps my friends here might
help you--if you were civil."
The three partners seized spades and hoes and rushed forward
eagerly. "Only show us what you want," they said in one voice.
The young girl stared at them, and at Jackson. Then with swift
determination she turned her back scornfully upon him, and with a
dazzling smile which reduced the three men to absolute idiocy, said
to the others, "I'll show YOU," and marched away to the cabin.
"Ye mustn't mind Jacksey," said Rice, sycophantically edging to her
side, "he's so cut up with losin' your father that he loved like a
son, he isn't himself, and don't seem to know whether to ante up or
pass out. And as for yourself, Miss--why-- What was it he was
sayin' only just as the young lady came?" he added, turning
abruptly to Wyngate.
"Everything that cousin Josey planted with her own hands must be
took up carefully and sent back--even though it's killin' me to
part with it," quoted Wyngate unblushingly, as he slouched along on
the other side.
Miss Wells's eyes glared at them, though her mouth still smiled
ravishingly. "I'm sure I'm troubling you."
In a few moments the plants were dug up and carefully laid
together; indeed, the servile Briggs had added a few that she had
not indicated.
"Would you mind bringing them as far as the buggy that's coming
down the hill?" she said, pointing to a buggy driven by a small boy
which was slowly approaching the gate. The men tenderly lifted the
uprooted plants, and proceeded solemnly, Miss Wells bringing up the
rear, towards the gate, where Jackson Wells was still surlily
lounging.
They passed out first. Miss Wells lingered for an instant, and
then advancing her beautiful but audacious face within an inch of
Jackson's, hissed out, "Make-believe! and hypocrite!"
"Cross-patch and sauce-box!" returned Jackson readily, still under
the malign influence of his boyish past, as she flounced away.
Presently he heard the buggy rattle away with his persecutor. But
his partners still lingered on the road in earnest conversation,
and when they did return it was with a singular awkwardness and
embarrassment, which he naturally put down to a guilty consciousness
of their foolish weakness in succumbing to the girl's demands.
But he was a little surprised when Dexter Rice approached him
gloomily. "Of course," he began, "it ain't no call of ours to
interfere in family affairs, and you've a right to keep 'em to
yourself, but if you'd been fair and square and above board in what
you got off on us about this per--"
"What do you mean?" demanded the astonished Wells.
"Well--callin' her a 'red-haired gal.'"
"Well--she is a red-haired girl!" said Wells impatiently.
"A man," continued Rice pityingly, "that is so prejudiced as to
apply such language to a beautiful orphan--torn with grief at the
loss of a beloved but d----d misconstruing parent--merely because
she begs a few vegetables out of his potato patch, ain't to be
reasoned with. But when you come to look at this thing by and
large, and as a fa'r-minded man, sonny, you'll agree with us that
the sooner you make terms with her the better. Considerin' your
interest, Jacksey,--let alone the claims of humanity,--we've
concluded to withdraw from here until this thing is settled. She's
sort o' mixed us up with your feelings agin her, and naturally
supposed we object to the color of her hair! and bein' a penniless
orphan, rejected by her relations"--
"What stuff are you talking?" burst in Jackson. "Why, YOU saw she
treated you better than she did me."
"Steady! There you go with that temper of yours that frightened
the girl! Of course she could see that WE were fa'r-minded men,
accustomed to the ways of society, and not upset by the visit of a
lady, or the givin' up of a few green sticks! But let that slide!
We're goin' back home to-night, sonny, and when you've thought this
thing over and are straightened up and get your right bearin's,
we'll stand by you as before. We'll put a man on to do your work
on the Ledge, so ye needn't worry about that."
They were quite firm in this decision,--however absurd or obscure
their conclusions,--and Jackson, after his first flash of
indignation, felt a certain relief in their departure. But
strangely enough, while he had hesitated about keeping the property
when they were violently in favor of it, he now felt he was right in
retaining it against their advice to compromise. The sentimental
idea had vanished with his recognition of his hateful cousin in the
role of the injured orphan. And for the same odd reason her
prettiness only increased his resentment. He was not deceived,--it
was the same capricious, willful, red-haired girl.
The next day he set himself to work with that dogged steadiness
that belonged to his simple nature, and which had endeared him to
his partners. He set half a dozen Chinamen to work, and followed,
although apparently directing, their methods. The great difficulty
was to restrain and control the excessive vegetation, and he
matched the small economies of the Chinese against the opulence of
the Californian soil. The "garden patch" prospered; the neighbors
spoke well of it and of him. But Jackson knew that this fierce
harvest of early spring was to be followed by the sterility of the
dry season, and that irrigation could alone make his work
profitable in the end. He brought a pump to force the water from
the little stream at the foot of the slope to the top, and allowed
it to flow back through parallel trenches. Again Buckeye
applauded! Only the gloomy barkeeper shook his head. "The moment
you get that thing to pay, Mr. Wells, you'll find the hand of
Brown, somewhere, getting ready to squeeze it dry!"
But Jackson Wells did not trouble himself about Brown, whom he
scarcely knew. Once indeed, while trenching the slope, he was
conscious that he was watched by two men from the opposite bank;
but they were apparently satisfied by their scrutiny, and turned
away. Still less did he concern himself with the movements of his
cousin, who once or twice passed him superciliously in her buggy on
the road. Again, she met him as one of a cavalcade of riders,
mounted on a handsome but ill-tempered mustang, which she was
managing with an ill-temper and grace equal to the brute's, to the
alternate delight and terror of her cavalier. He could see that
she had been petted and spoiled by her new guardian and his friends
far beyond his conception. But why she should grudge him the
little garden and the pastoral life for which she was so unsuited,
puzzled him greatly.
One afternoon he was working near the road, when he was startled by
an outcry from his Chinese laborers, their rapid dispersal from the
strawberry beds where they were working, the splintering crash of
his fence rails, and a commotion among the buckeyes. Furious at
what seemed to him one of the usual wanton attacks upon coolie
labor, he seized his pick and ran to their assistance. But he was
surprised to find Jocelinda's mustang caught by the saddle and
struggling between two trees, and its unfortunate mistress lying
upon the strawberry bed. Shocked but cool-headed, Jackson released
the horse first, who was lashing out and destroying everything
within his reach, and then turned to his cousin. But she had
already lifted herself to her elbow, and with a trickle of blood
and mud on one fair cheek was surveying him scornfully under her
tumbled hair and hanging hat.
"You don't suppose I was trespassing on your wretched patch again,
do you?" she said in a voice she was trying to keep from breaking.
"It was that brute--who bolted."
"I don't suppose you were bullying ME this time," he said, "but you
were YOUR HORSE--or it wouldn't have happened. Are you hurt?"
She tried to move; he offered her his hand, but she shied from it
and struggled to her feet. She took a step forward--but limped.
"If you don't want my arm, let me call a Chinaman," he suggested.
She glared at him. "If you do I'll scream!" she said in a low
voice, and he knew she would. But at the same moment her face
whitened, at which he slipped his arm under hers in a dexterous,
business-like way, so as to support her weight. Then her hat got
askew, and down came a long braid over his shoulder. He remembered
it of old, only it was darker than then and two or three feet
longer.
"If you could manage to limp as far as the gate and sit down on the
bank, I'd get your horse for you," he said. "I hitched it to a
sapling."
"I saw you did--before you even offered to help me," she said
scornfully.
"The horse would have got away--YOU couldn't."
"If you only knew how I hated you," she said, with a white face,
but a trembling lip.
"I don't see how that would make things any better," he said.
"Better wipe your face; it's scratched and muddy, and you've been
rubbing your nose in my strawberry bed."
She snatched his proffered handkerchief suddenly, applied it to her
face, and said: "I suppose it looks dreadful."
"Like a pig's," he returned cheerfully.
She walked a little more firmly after this, until they reached the
gate. He seated her on the bank, and went back for the mustang.
That beautiful brute, astounded and sore from its contact with the
top rail and brambles, was cowed and subdued as he led it back.
She had finished wiping her face, and was hurriedly disentangling
two stinging tears from her long lashes, before she threw back his
handkerchief. Her sprained ankle obliged him to lift her into the
saddle and adjust her little shoe in the stirrup. He remembered
when it was still smaller. "You used to ride astride," he said, a
flood of recollection coming over him, "and it's much safer with
your temper and that brute."
"And you," she said in a lower voice, "used to be"-- But the rest
of her sentence was lost in the switch of the whip and the jump of
her horse, but he thought the word was "kinder."
Perhaps this was why, after he watched her canter away, he went
back to the garden, and from the bruised and trampled strawberry
bed gathered a small basket of the finest fruit, covered them with
leaves, added a paper with the highly ingenious witticism, "Picked
up with you," and sent them to her by one of the Chinamen. Her
forcible entry moved Li Sing, his foreman, also chief laundryman to
the settlement, to reminiscences:
"Me heap knew Missy Wells and ole man, who go dead. Ole man allee
time make chin music to Missy. Allee time jaw jaw--allee time make
lows--allee time cuttee up Missy! Plenty time lockee up Missy
topside house; no can walkee--no can talkee--no hab got--how can
get?--must washee washee allee same Chinaman. Ole man go dead--
Missy all lightee now. Plenty fun. Plenty stay in Blown's big
house, top-side hill; Blown first-chop man."
Had he inquired he might have found this pagan testimony, for once,
corroborated by the Christian neighbors.
But another incident drove all this from his mind. The little
stream--the life blood of his garden--ran dry! Inquiry showed that
it had been diverted two miles away into Brown's ditch! Wells's
indignant protest elicited a formal reply from Brown, stating that
he owned the adjacent mining claims, and reminding him that mining
rights to water took precedence of the agricultural claim, but
offering, by way of compensation, to purchase the land thus made
useless and sterile. Jackson suddenly recalled the prophecy of the
gloomy barkeeper. The end, had come! But what could the scheming
capitalist want with the land, equally useless--as his uncle had
proved--for mining purposes? Could it be sheer malignity, incited
by his vengeful cousin? But here he paused, rejecting the idea as
quickly as it came. No! his partners were right! He was a
trespasser on his cousin's heritage--there was no luck in it--he
was wrong, and this was his punishment! Instead of yielding
gracefully as he might, he must back down now, and she would never
know his first real feelings. Even now he would make over the
property to her as a free gift. But his partners had advanced him
money from their scanty means to plant and work it. He believed
that an appeal to their feelings would persuade them to forego even
that, but he shrank even more from confessing his defeat to THEM
than to her.
He had little heart in his labors that day, and dismissed the
Chinamen early. He again examined his uncle's old mining claim on
the top of the slope, but was satisfied that it had been a hopeless
enterprise and wisely abandoned. It was sunset when he stood under
the buckeyes, gloomily looking at the glow fade out of the west, as
it had out of his boyish hopes. He had grown to like the place.
It was the hour, too, when the few flowers he had cultivated gave
back their pleasant odors, as if grateful for his care. And then
he heard his name called.
It was his cousin, standing a few yards from him in evident
hesitation. She was quite pale, and for a moment he thought she
was still suffering from her fall, until he saw in her nervous,
half-embarrassed manner that it had no physical cause. Her old
audacity and anger seemed gone, yet there was a queer determination
in her pretty brows.
"Good-evening," he said.
She did not return his greeting, but pulling uneasily at her glove,
said hesitatingly: "Uncle has asked you to sell him this land?"
"Yes."
"Well--don't!" she burst out abruptly.
He stared at her.
"Oh, I'm not trying to keep you here," she went on, flashing back
into her old temper; "so you needn't stare like that. I say,
'Don't,' because it ain't right, it ain't fair."
"Why, he's left me no alternative," he said.
"That's just it--that's why it's mean and low. I don't care if he
is our uncle."
Jackson was bewildered and shocked.
"I know it's horrid to say it," she said, with a white face; "but
it's horrider to keep it in! Oh, Jack! when we were little, and
used to fight and quarrel, I never was mean--was I? I never was
underhanded--was I? I never lied--did I? And I can't lie now.
Jack," she looked hurriedly around her, "HE wants to get hold of
the land--HE thinks there's gold in the slope and bank by the
stream. He says dad was a fool to have located his claim so high
up. Jack! did you ever prospect the bank?"
A dawning of intelligence came upon Jackson. "No," he said; "but,"
he added bitterly, "what's the use? He owns the water now,--I
couldn't work it."
"But, Jack, IF you found the color, this would be a MINING claim!
You could claim the water right; and, as it's your land, your claim
would be first!"
Jackson was startled. "Yes, IF I found the color."
"You WOULD find it."
"WOULD?"
"Yes! I DID--on the sly! Yesterday morning on your slope by the
stream, when no one was up! I washed a panful and got that." She
took a piece of tissue paper from her pocket, opened it, and shook
into her little palm three tiny pin points of gold.
"And that was your own idea, Jossy?"
"Yes!"
"Your very own?"
"Honest Injin!"
"Wish you may die?"
"True, O King!"
He opened his arms, and they mutually embraced. Then they
separated, taking hold of each other's hands solemnly, and falling
back until they were at arm's length. Then they slowly extended
their arms sideways at full length, until this action naturally
brought their faces and lips together. They did this with the
utmost gravity three times, and then embraced again, rocking on
pivoted feet like a metronome. Alas! it was no momentary
inspiration. The most casual and indifferent observer could see
that it was the result of long previous practice and shameless
experience. And as such--it was a revelation and an explanation.
. . . . . .
"I always suspected that Jackson was playin' us about that red-
haired cousin," said Rice two weeks later; "but I can't swallow
that purp stuff about her puttin' him up to that dodge about a new
gold discovery on a fresh claim, just to knock out Brown. No, sir.
He found that gold in openin' these irrigatin' trenches,--the usual
nigger luck, findin' what you're not lookin' arter."
"Well, we can't complain, for he's offered to work it on shares
with us," said Briggs.
"Yes--until he's ready to take in another partner."
"Not--Brown?" said his horrified companions.
"No!--but Brown's adopted daughter--that red-haired cousin!"
-THE END-
Bret Harte's short story: A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance
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