The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jeff Briggs's Love Story, by Bret Harte This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Jeff Briggs's Love Story Author: Bret Harte Release Date: May 25, 2006 [EBook #2695] Last Updated: March 5, 2018 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY *** Produced by Donald Lainson and David Widger JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY By Bret Harte JEFF BRIGGS'S LOVE STORY. I. It was raining and blowing at Eldridge's Crossing. From the stately pine-trees on the hill-tops, which were dignifiedly protesting through their rigid spines upward, to the hysterical willows in the hollow, that had whipped themselves into a maudlin fury, there was a general tumult. When the wind lulled, the rain kept up the distraction, firing long volleys across the road, letting loose miniature cataracts from the hill-sides to brawl in the ditches, and beating down the heavy heads of wild oats on the levels; when the rain ceased for a moment the wind charged over the already defeated field, ruffled the gullies, scattered the spray from the roadside pines, and added insult to injury. But both wind and rain concentrated their energies in a malevolent attempt to utterly disperse and scatter the “Half-way House,” which seemed to have wholly lost its way, and strayed into the open, where, dazed and bewildered, unprepared and unprotected, it was exposed to the taunting fury of the blast. A loose, shambling, disjointed, hastily built structure—representing the worst features of Pioneer renaissance—it rattled its loose window-sashes like chattering teeth, banged its ill-hung shutters, and admitted so much of the invading storm, that it might have blown up or blown down with equal facility. Jefferson Briggs, proprietor and landlord of the “Half-way House,” had just gone through the formality of closing his house for the night, hanging dangerously out of the window in the vain attempt to subdue a rebellious shutter that had evidently entered into conspiracy with the invaders, and, shutting a door as against a sheriff's posse, was going to bed—i. e., to read himself asleep, as was his custom. As he entered his little bedroom in the attic with a highly exciting novel in his pocket and a kerosene lamp in his hand, the wind, lying in wait for him, instantly extinguished his lamp and slammed the door behind him. Jefferson Briggs relighted the lamp, as if confidentially, in a corner, and, shielding it in the bosom of his red flannel shirt, which gave him the appearance of an illuminated shrine, hung a heavy bear-skin across the window, and then carefully deposited his lamp upon a chair at his bedside. This done, he kicked off his boots, flung them into a corner, and, rolling himself in a blanket, lay down upon the bed. A habit of early rising, bringing with it, presumably, the proverbial accompaniment of health, wisdom, and pecuniary emoluments, had also brought with it certain ideas of the effeminacy of separate toilettes and the virtue of readiness. In a few moments he was deep in a chapter. A vague pecking at his door—as of an unseasonable woodpecker, finally asserted itself to his consciousness. “Come in,” he said, with his eye still on the page. The door opened to a gaunt figure, partly composed of bed-quilt and partly of plaid shawl. A predominance of the latter and a long wisp of iron-gray hair determined her sex. She leaned against the post with an air of fatigue, half moral and half physical. “How ye kin lie thar, abed, Jeff, and read and smoke on sich a night! The sperrit o' the Lord abroad over the yearth—and up stage not gone by yet. Well, well! it's well thar ez SOME EZ CAN'T SLEEP.” “The up coach, like as not, is stopped by high water on the North Fork, ten miles away, aunty,” responded Jeff, keeping to the facts. Possibly not recognizing the hand of the beneficent Creator in the rebellious window shutter, he avoided theology. “Well,” responded the figure, with an air of delivering an unheeded and thankless warning, “it is not for ME to say. P'raps it's all His wisdom that some will keep to their own mind. It's well ez some hezn't narves, and kin luxuriate in terbacker in the night watches. But He says, 'I'll come like a thief in the night!'—like a thief in the night, Jeff.” Totally unable to reconcile this illustration with the delayed “Pioneer” coach and Yuba Bill, its driver, Jeff lay silent. In his own way, perhaps, he was uneasy—not to say shocked—at his aunt's habitual freedom of scriptural quotation, as that good lady herself was with an occasional oath from his lips; a fact, by the way, not generally understood by purveyors of Scripture, licensed and unlicensed. “I'd take a pull at them bitters, aunty,” said Jeff feebly, with his wandering eye still recurring to his page. “They'll do ye a power of good in the way o' calmin' yer narves.” “Ef I was like some folks I wouldn't want bitters—though made outer the simplest yarbs of the yearth, with jest enough sperrit to bring out the vartoos—ez Deacon Stoer's Balm 'er Gilead is—what yer meaning? Ef I was like some folks I could lie thar and smoke in the lap o' idleness—with fourteen beds in the house empty, and nary lodger for one of 'em. Ef I was that indifferent to havin' invested my fortin in the good will o' this house, and not ez much ez a single transient lookin' in, I could lie down and take comfort in profane literatoor. But it ain't in me to do it. And it wasn't your father's way, Jeff, neither!” As the elder Briggs's way had been to seek surcease from such trouble at the gambling table, and eventually, in suicide, Jeff could not deny it. But he did not say that a full realization of his unhappy venture overcame him as he closed the blinds of the hotel that night; and that the half desperate idea of abandoning it then and there to the warring elements that had resented his trespass on Nature seemed to him an act of simple reason and justice. He did not say this, for easy-going natures are not apt to explain the processes by which their content or resignation is reached, and are therefore supposed to have none. Keeping to the facts, he simply suggested the weather was unfavorable to travelers, and again found his place on the page before him. Fixing it with his thumb, he looked up resignedly. The figure wearily detached itself from the door-post, and Jeff's eyes fell on his book. “You won't stop, aunty?” he asked mechanically, as if reading aloud from the page; but she was gone. A little ashamed, although much relieved, Jeff fell back again to literature, interrupted only by the charging of the wind and the heavy volleys of rain. Presently he found himself wondering if a certain banging were really a shutter, and then, having settled in his mind that it WAS, he was startled by a shout. Another, and in the road before the house! Jeff put down the book, and marked the place by turning down the leaf, being one of that large class of readers whose mental faculties are butter-fingered, and easily slip their hold. Then he resumed his boots and was duly caparisoned. He extinguished the kerosene lamp, and braved the outer air, and strong currents of the hall and stairway in the darkness. Lighting two candles in the bar- room, he proceeded to unlock the hall door. At the same instant a furious blast shook the house, the door yielded slightly and impelled a thin, meek-looking stranger violently against Jeff, who still struggled with it. “An accident has occurred,” began the stranger, “and”—but here the wind charged again, blew open the door, pinned Jeff behind it back against the wall, overturned the dripping stranger, dashed up the staircase, and slammed every door in the house, ending triumphantly with No. 14, and a crash of glass in the window. “'Come, rouse up!” said Jeff, still struggling with the door, “rouse up and lend a hand yer!” Thus abjured, the stranger crept along the wall towards Jeff and began again, “We have met with an accident.” But here another and mightier gust left him speechless, covered him with spray of a wildly disorganized water-spout that, dangling from the roof, seemed to be playing on the front door, drove him into black obscurity and again sandwiched his host between the door and the wall. Then there was a lull, and in the midst of it Yuba Bill, driver of the “Pioneer” coach, quietly and coolly, impervious in waterproof, walked into the hall, entered the bar-room, took a candle, and, going behind the bar, selected a bottle, critically examined it, and, returning, poured out a quantity of whiskey in a glass and gulped it in a single draught. All this while Jeff was closing the door, and the meek-looking man was coming into the light again. Yuba Bill squared his elbows behind him and rested them on the bar, crossed his legs easily and awaited them. In reply to Jeff's inquiring but respectful look, he said shortly— “Oh, you're thar, are ye?” “Yes, Bill.” “Well, this yer new-fangled road o' yours is ten feet deep in the hollow with back water from the North Fork! I've taken that yar coach inter fower feet of it, and then I reckoned I couldn't hev any more. 'I'll stand on this yer hand,' sez I; I brought the horses up yer and landed 'em in your barn to eat their blessed heads off till the water goes down. That's wot's the matter, old man, and jist about wot I kalkilated on from those durned old improvements o' yours.” Coloring a little at this new count in the general indictment against the uselessness of the “Half-way House,” Jeff asked if there were “any passengers?” Yuba Bill indicated the meek stranger with a jerk of his thumb. “And his wife and darter in the coach. They're all right and tight, ez if they was in the Fifth Avenue Hotel. But I reckon he allows to fetch 'em up yer,” added Bill, as if he strongly doubted the wisdom of the transfer. The meek man, much meeker for the presence of Bill, here suggested that such indeed was his wish, and further prayed that Jeff would accompany him to the coach to assist in bringing them up. “It's rather wet and dark,” said the man apologetically; “my daughter is not strong. Have you such a thing as a waterproof?” Jeff had not; but would a bear-skin do? It would. Jeff ran, tore down his extempore window curtain, and returned with it. Yuba Bill, who had quietly and disapprovingly surveyed the proceeding, here disengaged himself from the bar with evident reluctance. “You'll want another man,” he said to Jeff, “onless ye can carry double. Ez HE,” indicating the stranger, “ez no sort o' use, he'd better stay here and 'tend bar,' while you and me fetch the wimmen off. 'Specially ez I reckon we've got to do some tall wadin' by this time to reach 'em.” The meek man sat down helplessly in a chair indicated by Bill, who at once strode after Jeff. In another moment they were both fighting their way, step by step, against the storm, in that peculiar, drunken, spasmodic way so amusing to the spectator and so exasperating to the performer. It was no time for conversation, even interjectional profanity was dangerously exhaustive. The coach was scarcely a thousand yards away, but its bright lights were reflected in a sheet of dark silent water that stretched between it and the two men. Wading and splashing, they soon reached it, and a gully where the surplus water was pouring into the valley below. “Fower feet o' water round her, but can't get any higher. So ye see she's all right for a month o' sich weather.” Inwardly admiring the perspicacity of his companion, Jeff was about to open the coach door when Bill interrupted. “I'll pack the old woman, if you'll look arter the darter and enny little traps.” A female face, anxious and elderly, here appeared at the window. “Thet's my little game,” said Bill, sotto voce. “Is there any danger? where is my husband?” asked the woman impatiently. “Ez to the danger, ma'am,—thar ain't any. Yer ez safe HERE ez ye'd be in a Sacramento steamer; ez to your husband, he allowed I was to come yer and fetch yer up to the hotel. That's his look-out!” With this cheering speech, Bill proceeded to make two or three ineffectual scoops into the dark interior, manifestly with the idea of scooping out the lady in question. In another instant he had caught her, lifted her gently but firmly in his arms, and was turning away. “But my child!—my daughter! she's asleep!”—expostulated the woman; but Bill was already swiftly splashing through the darkness. Jeff, left to himself, hastily examined the coach: on the back seat a slight small figure, enveloped in a shawl, lay motionless. Jeff threw the bear-skin over it gently, lifted it on one arm, and gathering a few travelling bags and baskets with the other, prepared to follow his quickly disappearing leader. A few feet from the coach the water appeared to deepen, and the bear-skin to draggle. Jeff drew the figure up higher, in vain. “Sis,” he said softly. No reply. “Sis,” shaking her gently. There was a slight movement within the wrappings. “Couldn't ye climb up on my shoulder, honey? that's a good child!” There were one or two spasmodic jerks of the bear-skin, and, aided by Jeff, the bundle was presently seated on his shoulder. “Are you all right now, Sis?” Something like a laugh came from the bear-skin. Then a childish voice said, “Thank you, I think I am!” “Ain't you afraid you'll fall off?” “A little.” Jeff hesitated. It was beginning to blow again. “You couldn't reach down and put your arm round my neck, could ye, honey?” “I am afraid not!”—although there WAS a slight attempt to do so. “No?” “No!” “Well, then, take a good holt, a firm strong holt, o' my hair! Don't be afraid!” A small hand timidly began to rummage in Jeff's thick curls. “Take a firm holt; thar, just back o' my neck! That's right.” The little hand closed over half a dozen curls. The little figure shook, and giggled. “Now don't you see, honey, if I'm keerless with you, and don't keep you plump level up thar, you jist give me a pull and fetch me up all standing!” “I see!” “Of course you do! That's because you're a little lady!” Jeff strode on. It was pleasant to feel the soft warm fingers in his hair, pleasant to hear the faint childish voice, pleasant to draw the feet of the enwrapped figure against his broad breast. Altogether he was sorry when they reached the dry land and the lee of the “Half- way House,” where a slight movement of the figure expressed a wish to dismount. “Not yet, missy,” said Jeff; “not yet! You'll get blown away, sure! And then what'll they say? No, honey! I'll take you right in to your papa, just as ye are!” A few steps more and Jeff strode into the hall, made his way to the sitting-room, walked to the sofa, and deposited his burden. The bear-skin fell back, the shawl fell back, and Jeff—fell back too! For before him lay a small, slight, but beautiful and perfectly formed woman. He had time to see that the meek man, no longer meek, but apparently a stern uncompromising parent, was standing at the head of the sofa; that the elderly and nervous female was hovering at the foot, that his aunt, with every symptom of religious and moral disapproval of his conduct, sat rigidly in one of the rigid chairs—he had time to see all this before the quick, hot blood, flying to his face, sent the water into his eyes, and he could see nothing! The cause of all this smiled—a dazzling smile though a faint one—that momentarily lit up the austere gloom of the room and its occupants. “You must thank this gentleman, papa,” said she, languidly turning to her father, “for his kindness and his trouble. He has carried me here as gently and as carefully as if I were a child.” Seeing symptoms of a return of Jeff's distress in his coloring face, she added softly, as if to herself, “It's a great thing to be strong—a greater thing to be strong AND gentle.” The voice thrilled through Jeff. But into this dangerous human voice twanged the accents of special spiritual revelation, and called him to himself again, “Be ye wise as sarpints, but harmless as duvs,” said Jeff's aunt, generally, “and let 'em be thankful ez doesn't aboos the stren'th the Lord gives 'em, but be allers ready to answer for it at the bar o' their Maker.” Possibly some suggestion in her figure of speech reminded her of Jeff's forgotten duties, so she added in the same breath and tone, “especially when transient customers is waiting for their licker, and Yuba Bill hammerin' on the counter with his glass; and yer ye stand, Jeff, never even takin' up that wet bar-skin—enuff to give that young woman her death.” Stammering out an incoherent apology, addressed vaguely to the occupants of the room, but looking toward the languid goddess on the sofa, Jeff seized the bear-skin and backed out the door. Then he flew to his room with it, and then returned to the bar-room; but the impatient William of Yuba had characteristically helped himself and gone off to the stable. Then Jeff stole into the hall and halted before the closed door of the sitting-room. A bold idea of going in again, as became a landlord of the “Half-way House,” with an inquiry if they wished anything further, had seized him, but the remembrance that he had always meekly allowed that duty to devolve upon his aunt, and that she would probably resent it with scriptural authority and bring him to shame again, stayed his timid knuckles at the door. In this hesitation he stumbled upon his aunt coming down the stairs with an armful of blankets and pillows, attended by their small Indian servant, staggering under a mattress. “Is everything all right, aunty?” “Ye kin be thankful to the Lord, Jeff Briggs, that this didn't happen last week when I was down on my back with rheumatiz. But ye're never grateful.” “The young lady—is SHE comfortable?” said Jeff, accepting his aunt's previous remark as confirmatory. “Ez well ez enny critter marked by the finger of the Lord with gallopin' consumption kin be, I reckon. And she, ez oughter be putting off airthly vanities, askin' for a lookin'-glass! And you! trapesin' through the hall with her on yer shoulder, and dancin' and jouncin' her up and down ez if it was a ball-room!” A guilty recollection that he had skipped with her through the passage struck him with remorse as his aunt went on: “It's a mercy that betwixt you and the wet bar-skin she ain't got her deth!” “Don't ye think, aunty,” stammered Jeff, “that—that—my bein' the landlord, yer know, it would be the square thing—just out o' respect, ye know—for me to drop in thar and ask 'em if thar's anythin' they wanted?” His aunt stopped, and resignedly put down the pillows. “Sarah,” she said meekly to the handmaiden, “ye kin leave go that mattress. Yer's Mr. Jefferson thinks we ain't good enough to make the beds for them two city women folks, and he allows he'll do it himself!” “No, no! aunty!” began the horrified Jeff; but failing to placate his injured relative, took safety in flight. Once safe in his own room his eye fell on the bear-skin. It certainly WAS wet. Perhaps he had been careless—perhaps he had imperiled her life! His cheeks flushed as he threw it hastily in the corner. Something fell from it to the floor. Jeff picked it up and held it to the light. It was a small, a very small, lady's slipper. Holding it within the palm of his hand as if it had been some delicate flower which the pressure of a finger might crush, he strode to the door, but stopped. Should he give it to his aunt? Even if she overlooked this evident proof of HIS carelessness, what would she think of the young lady's? Ought he—seductive thought!—go downstairs again, knock at the door, and give it to its fair owner, with the apology he was longing to make? Then he remembered that he had but a few moments before been dismissed from the room very much as if he were the original proprietor of the skin he had taken. Perhaps they were right; perhaps he WAS only a foolish clumsy animal! Yet SHE had thanked him—and had said in her sweet childlike voice, “It is a great thing to be strong; a greater thing to be strong and gentle.” He was strong; strong men had said so. He did not know if he was gentle too. Had she meant THAT, when she turned her strangely soft dark eyes upon him? For some moments he held the slipper hesitatingly in his hand, then he opened his trunk, and disposing various articles around it as if it were some fragile, perishable object, laid it carefully therein. This done, he drew off his boots, and rolling himself in his blanket, lay down upon the bed. He did not open his novel—he did not follow up the exciting love episode of his favorite hero—so ungrateful is humanity to us poor romancers, in the first stages of their real passion. Ah, me! 'tis the jongleurs and troubadours they want then, not us! When Master Slender, sick for sweet Anne Page, would “rather than forty shillings” he had his “book of songs and sonnets” there, what availed it that the Italian Boccaccio had contemporaneously discoursed wisely and sweetly of love in prose? I doubt not that Master Jeff would have mumbled some verse to himself had he known any: knowing none, he lay there and listened to the wind. Did she hear it; did it keep her awake? He had an uneasy suspicion that the shutter that was banging so outrageously was the shutter of her room. Filled with this miserable thought, he arose softly, stole down the staircase, and listened. The sound was repeated. It was truly the refractory shutter of No. 7—the best bedroom adjoining the sitting-room. The next room, No. 8, was vacant. Jeff entered it softly, as softly opened the window, and leaning far out in the tempest, essayed to secure the nocturnal disturber. But in vain. Cord or rope he had none, nor could he procure either without alarming his aunt—an extremity not to be considered. Jeff was a man of clumsy but forceful expedients. He hung far out of the window, and with one powerful hand lifted the shutter off its hinges and dragged it softly into No. 8. Then as softly he crept upstairs to bed. The wind howled and tore round the house; the crazy water-pipe below Jeff's window creaked, the chimneys whistled, but the shutter banged no more. Jeff began to doze. “It's a great thing to be strong,” the wind seemed to say as it charged upon the defenseless house, and then another voice seemed to reply, “A greater thing to be strong and gentle;” and hearing this he fell asleep. II. It was not yet daylight when he awoke with an idea that brought him hurriedly to his feet. Quickly dressing himself, he began to count the money in his pocket. Apparently the total was not satisfactory, as he endeavored to augment it by loose coins fished from the pockets of his other garments, and from the corner of his washstand drawer. Then he cautiously crept downstairs, seized his gun, and stole out of the still sleeping house. The wind had gone down, the rain had ceased, a few stars shone steadily in the north, and the shapeless bulk of the coach, its lamps extinguished, loomed high and dry above the lessening water, in the twilight. With a swinging tread Jeff strode up the hill and was soon upon the highway and stage road. A half-hour's brisk walk brought him to the summit, and the first rosy flashes of morning light. This enabled him to knock over half-a-dozen early quail, lured by the proverb, who were seeking their breakfast in the chaparral, and gave him courage to continue on his mission, which his perplexed face and irresolute manner had for the last few moments shown to be an embarrassing one. At last the white fences and imposing outbuildings of the “Summit Hotel” rose before him, and he uttered a deep sigh. There, basking in the first rays of the morning sun, stood his successful rival! Jeff looked at the well-built, comfortable structure, the commanding site, and the air of serene independence that seemed to possess it, and no longer wondered that the great world passed him by to linger and refresh itself there. He was relieved to find the landlord was not present in person, and so confided his business to the bar-keeper. At first it appeared that that functionary declined interference, and with many head-shakings and audible misgivings was inclined to await the coming of his principal, but a nearer view of Jeff's perplexed face, and an examination of Jeff's gun, and the few coins spread before him, finally induced him to produce certain articles, which he packed in a basket and handed to Jeff, taking the gun and coins in exchange. Thus relieved, Jeff set his face homewards, and ran a race with the morning into the valley, reaching the “Half-way House” as the sun laid waste its bare, bleak outlines, and relentlessly pointed out its defects one by one. It was cruel to Jeff at that moment, but he hugged his basket close and slipped to the back door and the kitchen, where his aunt was already at work. “I didn't know ye were up yet, aunty,” said Jeff submissively. “It isn't more than six o'clock.” “Thar's four more to feed at breakfast,” said his aunt severely, “and yer's the top blown off the kitchen chimbly, and the fire only just got to go.” Jeff saw that he was in time. The ordinary breakfast of the “Half-way House,” not yet prepared, consisted of codfish, ham, yellow- ochre biscuit, made after a peculiar receipt of his aunt's, and potatoes. “I got a few fancy fixin's up at the Summit this morning, aunty,” he began apologetically, “seein' we had sick folks, you know—you and the young lady—and thinkin' it might save you trouble. I've got 'em here,” and he shyly produced the basket. “If ye kin afford it, Jeff,” responded his aunt resignedly, “I'm thankful.” The reply was so unexpectedly mild for Aunt Sally, that Jeff put his arms around her and kissed her hard cheek. “And I've got some quail, aunty, knowin' you liked em.” “I reckoned you was up to some such foolishness,” said Aunt Sally, wiping her cheek with her apron, “when I missed yer gun from the hall.” But the allusion was a dangerous one, and Jeff slipped away. He breakfasted early with Yuba Bill that morning; the latter gentleman's taciturnity being intensified at such moments through a long habit of confining himself strictly to eating in the limited time allowed his daily repasts, and it was not until they had taken the horses from the stable and were harnessing them to the coach that Jeff extracted from his companion some facts about his guests. They were Mr. and Mrs. Mayfield, Eastern tourists, who had been to the Sandwich Islands for the benefit of their daughter's health, and before returning to New York, intended, under the advice of their physician, to further try the effects of mountain air at the “Summit Hotel,” on the invalid. They were apparently rich people, the coach had been engaged for them solely—even the mail and express had been sent on by a separate conveyance, so that they might be more independent. It is hardly necessary to say that this fact was by no means palatable to Bill—debarring him not only the social contact and attentions of the “Express Agent,” but the selection of a box-seated passenger who always “acted like a man.” “Ye kin kalkilate what kind of a pardner that 'ar yaller-livered Mayfield would make up on that box, partik'ly ez I heard before we started that he'd requested the kimpany's agent in Sacramento to select a driver ez didn't cuss, smoke, or drink. He did, sir, by gum!” “I reckon you were very careful, then, Bill,” said Jeff. “In course,” returned Bill, with a perfectly diabolical wink. “In course! You know that 'Blue Grass,'” pointing out a spirited leader; “she's a fair horse ez horses go, but she's apt to feel her oats on a down grade, and takes a pow'ful deal o' soothin' and explanation afore she buckles down to her reg'lar work. Well, sir, I exhorted and labored in a Christian-like way with that mare to that extent that I'm cussed if that chap didn't want to get down afore we got to the level!” “And the ladies?” asked Jeff, whose laugh—possibly from his morning's experience—was not as ready as formerly. “The ladies! Ef you mean that 'ar livin' skellington I packed up to yer house,” said Bill promptly, “it's a pair of them in size and color, and ready for any first-class undertaker's team in the kintry. Why, you remember that curve on Break Neck hill, where the leaders allus look as if they was alongside o' the coach and faced the other way? Well, that woman sticks her skull outer the window, and sez she, confidential-like to old yaller-belly, sez she, 'William Henry,' sez she, 'tell that man his horses are running away!'” “You didn't get to see the—the—daughter, Bill, did you?” asked Jeff, whose laugh had become quite uneasy. “No, I didn't,” said Bill, with sudden and inexplicable vehemence, “and the less you see of her, Jefferson Briggs, the better for you.” Too confounded and confused by Bill's manner to question further, Jeff remained silent until they drew up at the door of the “Half- way House.” But here another surprise awaited him. Mr. Mayfield, erect and dignified, stood upon the front porch as the coach drove up. “Driver!” began Mr. Mayfield. There was no reply. “Driver,” said Mr. Mayfield, slightly weakening under Bill's eye, “I shall want you no longer. I have”— “Is he speaking to me?” said Bill audibly to Jeff, “'cause they call me 'Yuba Bill' yer abouts.” “He is,” said Jeff hastily. “Mebbee he's drunk,” said Bill audibly; “a drop or two afore breakfast sometimes upsets his kind.” “I was saying, Bill,” said Mr. Mayfield, becoming utterly limp and weak again under Bill's cold gray eyes, “that I've changed my mind, and shall stop here awhile. My daughter seems already benefited by the change. You can take my traps from the boot and leave them here.” Bill laid down his lines resignedly, coolly surveyed Mr. Mayfield, the house, and the half-pleased, half-frightened Jeff, and then proceeded to remove the luggage from the boot, all the while whistling loud and offensive incredulity. Then he climbed back to his box. Mr. Mayfield, completely demoralized under this treatment, as a last resort essayed patronage. “You can say to the Sacramento agents, Bill, that I am entirely satisfied, and”— “Ye needn't fear but I'll give ye a good character,” interrupted Bill coolly, gathering up his lines. The whip snapped, the six horses dashed forward as one, the coach plunged down the road and was gone. With its disappearance, Mr. Mayfield stiffened slightly again. “I have just told your aunt, Mr. Briggs,” he said, turning upon Jeff, “that my daughter has expressed a desire to remain here a few days; she has slept well, seems to be invigorated by the air, and although we expected to go on to the 'Summit,' Mrs. Mayfield and myself are willing to accede to her wishes. Your house seems to be new and clean. Your table—judging from the breakfast this morning—is quite satisfactory.” Jeff, in the first flush of delight at this news, forgot what that breakfast had cost him—forgot all his morning's experience, and, I fear, when he did remember it, was too full of a vague, hopeful courage to appreciate it. Conscious of showing too much pleasure, he affected the necessity of an immediate interview with his aunt, in the kitchen. But his short cut round the house was arrested by a voice and figure. It was Miss Mayfield, wrapped in a shawl and seated in a chair, basking in the sunlight at one of the bleakest and barest angles of the house. Jeff stopped in a delicious tremor. As we are dealing with facts, however, it would be well to look at the cause of this tremor with our own eyes and not Jeff's. To be plain, my dear madam, as she basked in that remorseless, matter-of-fact California sunshine, she looked her full age-twenty-five, if a day! There were wrinkles in the corners of her dark eyes, contracted and frowning in that strong, merciless light; there was a nervous pallor in her complexion; but being one of those “fast colored” brunettes, whose dyes are a part of their temperament, no sickness nor wear could bleach it out. The red of her small mouth was darker than yours, I wot, and there were certain faint lines from the corners of her delicate nostrils indicating alternate repression and excitement under certain experiences, which are not found in the classic ideals. Now Jeff knew nothing of the classic ideal—did not know that a thousand years ago certain sensual idiots had, with brush and chisel, inflicted upon the world the personification of the strongest and most delicate, most controlling and most subtle passion that humanity is capable of, in the likeness of a thick-waisted, idealess, expressionless, perfectly contented female animal; and that thousands of idiots had since then insisted upon perpetuating this model for the benefit of a world that had gone on sighing for, pining for, fighting for, and occasionally blowing its brains out over types far removed from that idiotic standard. Consequently Jeff saw only a face full of possibilities and probabilities, framed in a small delicate oval, saw a slight woman's form— more than usually small—and heard a low voice, to him full of gentle pride, passion, pathos, and human weakness, and was helpless. “I only said 'Good-morning,'” said Miss Mayfield, with that slight, arch satisfaction in the observation of masculine bashfulness, which the best of her sex cannot forego. “Thank you, miss; good-morning. I've been wanting to say to you that I hope you wasn't mad, you know,” stammered Jeff, desperately intent upon getting off his apology. “It is so lovely this morning—such a change!” continued Miss Mayfield. “Yes, miss! You know I reckoned—at least what your father said, made me kalkilate that you”— Miss Mayfield, still smiling, knitted her brows and went on: “I slept so well last night,” she said gratefully, “and feel so much better this morning, that I ventured out. I seem to be drinking in health in this clear sunlight.” “Certainly miss. As I was sayin', your father says his daughter is in the coach; and Bill says, says he to me, 'I'll pack—I'll carry the old—I'll bring up Mrs. Mayfield, if you'll bring up the daughter;' and when we come to the coach I saw you asleep—like in the corner, and bein' small, why miss, you know how nat'ral it is, I”— “Oh, Mr. Jeff! Mr. Briggs!” said Miss Mayfield plaintively, “don't, please—don't spoil the best compliment I've had in many a year. You thought I was a child, I know, and—well, you find,” she said audaciously, suddenly bringing her black eyes to bear on him like a rifle, “you find—well?” What Jeff thought was inaudible but not invisible. Miss Mayfield saw enough of it in his eye to protest with a faint color in her cheek. Thus does Nature betray itself to Nature the world over. The color faded. “It's a dreadful thing to be so weak and helpless, and to put everybody to such trouble, isn't it, Mr. Jeff? I beg your pardon—your aunt calls you Jeff.” “Please call me Jeff,” said Jeff, to his own surprise rapidly gaining courage. “Everybody calls me that.” Miss Mayfield smiled. “I suppose I must do what everybody does. So it seems that we are to give you the trouble of keeping us here until I get better or worse?” “Yes, miss.” “Therefore I won't detain you now. I only wanted to thank you for your gentleness last night, and to assure you that the bear-skin did not give me my death.” She smiled and nodded her small head, and wrapped her shawl again closely around her shoulders, and turned her eyes upon the mountains, gestures which the now quick-minded Jeff interpreted as a gentle dismissal, and flew to seek his aunt. Here he grew practical. Ready money was needed; for the “Half-way House” was such a public monument of ill-luck, that Jeff had no credit. He must keep up the table to the level of that fortunate breakfast—to do which he had $1.50 in the till, left by Bill, and $2.50 produced by his Aunt Sally from her work-basket. “Why not ask Mr. Mayfield to advance ye suthin?” said Aunt Sally. The blood flew to Jeff's face. “Never! Don't say that again, aunty.” The tone and manner were so unlike Jeff that the old lady sat down half frightened, and taking the corners of her apron in her hands began to whimper. “Thar now, aunty! I didn't mean nothin',—only if you care to have me about the place any longer, and I reckon it's little good I am any way,” he added, with a new-found bitterness in his tone, “ye'll not ask me to do that.” “What's gone o' ye, Jeff?” said his aunt lugubriously; “ye ain't nat'ral like.” Jeff laughed. “See here, aunty; I'm goin' to take your advice. You know Rabbit?” “The mare?” “Yes; I'm going to sell her. The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollars for her last week.” “Ef ye'd done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o' keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off.” Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to “improve the occasion,” but preferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the “improved.” “Well, I hope he mayn't change his mind.” Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fifty miles of the “Half-way House.” Nevertheless he went briskly to the stable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while, and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to which Rabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's red flannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it was displaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his arms around Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in the bosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment. Rabbit becoming uneasy, Jeff's mood changed too, and having caparisoned himself and charger in true vaquero style, not without a little Mexican dandyism as to the set of his doeskin trousers, and the tie of his red sash, put a sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle. Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as a natural instinct, and not as a purely artificial habit of horse and rider, consequently he was not perched up, jockey fashion, with a knee-grip for his body, and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast's mouth, but rode with long, loose stirrups, his legs clasping the barrel of his horse, his single rein lying loose upon her neck, leaving her head free as the wind. After this fashion he had often emerged from a cloud of dust on the red mountain road, striking admiration into the hearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers, and leaving a trail of pleasant incense in the dust behind him. It was therefore with considerable confidence in himself, and a little human vanity, that he dashed round the house, and threw his mare skilfully on her haunches exactly a foot before Miss Mayfield—himself a resplendent vision of flying riata, crimson scarf, fawn-colored trousers, and jingling silver spurs. “Kin I do anythin' for ye, miss, at the Forks?” Miss Mayfield looked up quietly. “I think not,” she said indifferently, as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence. Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards, caught her up sharply, swung her round on her off hind heel, permitted her to paw the air once or twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet, and then, with another dash forward, pulled her up again just before she apparently took Miss Mayfield and her chair in a running leap. “Are you sure, miss?” asked Jeff, with a flushed face and a rather lugubrious voice. “Quite so, thank you,” she said coldly, looking past this centaur to the wooded mountain beyond. Jeff, thoroughly crushed, was pacing meekly away when a childlike voice stopped him. “If you are going near a carpenter's shop you might get a new shutter for my window; it blew away last night.” “It did, miss?” “Yes,” said the shrill voice of Aunt Sally, from the doorway, “in course it did! Ye must be crazy, Jeff, for thar it stands in No. 8, whar ye must have put it after ye picked it up outside.” Jeff, conscious that Miss Mayfield's eyes were on his suffused face, stammered “that he would attend to it,” and put spurs to the mare, eager only to escape. It was not his only discomfiture; for the blacksmith, seeing Jeff's nervousness and anxiety, was suspicious of something wrong, as the world is apt to be, and appeased his conscience after the worldly fashion, by driving a hard bargain with the doubtful brother in affliction—the morality of a horse trade residing always with the seller. Whereby Master Jeff received only eighty dollars for horse and outfit—worth at least two hundred—and was also mulcted of forty dollars, principal and interest for past service of the blacksmith. Jeff walked home with forty dollars in his pocket—capital to prosecute his honest calling of innkeeper; the blacksmith retired to an adjoining tavern to discuss Jeff's affairs, and further reduce his credit. Yet I doubt which was the happier—the blacksmith estimating his possible gains, and doubtful of some uncertain sequence in his luck, or Jeff, temporarily relieved, boundlessly hopeful, and filled with the vague delights of a first passion. The only discontented brute in the whole transaction was poor Rabbit, who, missing certain attentions, became indignant, after the manner of her sex, bit a piece out of her crib, kicked a hole in her box, and receiving a bad character from the blacksmith, gave a worse one to her late master. Jeff's purchases were of a temporary and ornamental quality, but not always judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark from Miss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steel fork, which was part of the table equipage of the “Half-way House,” he purchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as “split spoons,” and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not only repaired the window-shutter, but tempered the glaring window itself with a bit of curtain; he half carpeted Miss Mayfield's bed-room with wild-cat skins and the now historical bear-skin, and felt himself overpaid when that young lady, passing the soft tabbyskins across her cheek, declared they were “lovely.” For Miss Mayfield, deprecating slaughter in the abstract, accepted its results gratefully, like the rest of her sex, and while willing to “let the hart ungalled play,” nevertheless was able to console herself with its venison. The woods, besides yielding aid and comfort of this kind to the distressed damsel, were flamboyant with vivid spring blossoms, and Jeff lit up the cold, white walls of her virgin cell with demonstrative color, and made—what his aunt, a cleanly soul, whose ideas of that quality were based upon the absence of any color whatever, called—“a litter.” The result of which was to make Miss Mayfield, otherwise lanquid and ennuye, welcome Jeff's presence with a smile; to make Jeff, otherwise anxious, eager, and keenly attentive, mute and silent in her presence. Two symptoms bad for Jeff. Meantime Mr. Mayfield's small conventional spirit pined for fellowship, only to be found in larger civilizations, and sought, under plea of business, a visit to Sacramento, where a few of the Mayfield type, still surviving, were to be found. This was a relief to Jeff, who only through his regard for the daughter, was kept from open quarrel with the father. He fancied Miss Mayfield felt relieved too, although Jeff had noticed that Mayfield had deferred to his daughter more often than his wife—over whom your conventional small autocrat is always victorious. It takes the legal matrimonial contract to properly develop the first-class tyrant, male or female. On one of these days Jeff was returning through the woods from marketing at the Forks, which, since the sale of Rabbit, had became a foot-sore and tedious business. He had reached the edge of the forest, and through the wider-spaced trees, the bleak sunlit plateau of his house was beginning to open out, when he stopped instantly. I know not what Jeff had been thinking of, as he trudged along, but here, all at once, he was thrilled and possessed with the odor of some faint, foreign perfume. He flushed a little at first, and then turned pale. Now the woods were as full of as delicate, as subtle, as grateful, and, I wot, far healthier and purer odors than this; but this represented to Jeff the physical contiguity of Miss Mayfield, who had the knack—peculiar to some of her sex—of selecting a perfume that ideally identified her. Jeff looked around cautiously; at the foot of a tree hard by lay one of her wraps, still redolent of her. Jeff put down the bag which, in lieu of a market basket, he was carrying on his shoulder, and with a blushing face hid it behind a tree. It contained her dinner! He took a few steps forwards with an assumption of ease and unconsciousness. Then he stopped, for not a hundred yards distant sat—Miss Mayfield on a mossy boulder, her cloak hanging from her shoulders, her hands clasped round her crossed knees, and one little foot out—an exasperating combination of Evangeline and little Red Riding Hood in everything, I fear, but credulousness and self- devotion. She looked up as he walked towards her (non constat that the little witch had not already seen him half a mile away!) and smiled sweetly as she looked at him. So sweetly, indeed, that poor Jeff felt like the hulking wolf of the old world fable, and hesitated— as that wolf did not. The California faunae have possibly depreciated. “Come here!” she cried, in a small head voice, not unlike a bird's twitter. Jeff lumbered on clumsily. His high boots had become suddenly very heavy. “I'm so glad to see you. I've just tired poor mother out—I'm always tiring people out—and she's gone back to the house to write letters. Sit down, Mr. Jeff, do, please!” Jeff, feeling uncomfortably large in Miss Mayfield's presence, painfully seated himself on the edge of a very low stone, which had the effect of bringing his knees up on a level with his chin, and affected an ease glaringly simulated. “Or lie down, there, Mr. Jeff—it is so comfortable.” Jeff, with a dreadful conviction that he was crashing down like a falling pine-tree, managed at last to acquire a recumbent position at a respectful distance from the little figure. “There, isn't it nice?” “Yes, Miss Mayfield.” “But, perhaps,” said Miss Mayfield, now that she had him down, “perhaps you too have got something to do. Dear me! I'm like that naughty boy in the story-book, who went round to all the animals, in turn, asking them to play with him. He could only find the butterfly who had nothing to do. I don't wonder he was disgusted. I hate butterflies.” Love clarifies the intellect! Jeff, astonished at himself, burst out, “Why, look yer, Miss Mayfield, the butterfly only hez a day or two to—to—to live and—be happy!” Miss Mayfield crossed her knees again, and instantly, after the sublime fashion of her sex, scattered his intellect by a swift transition from the abstract to the concrete. “But you're not a butterfly, Mr. Jeff. You're always doing something. You've been hunting.” “No-o!” said Jeff, scarlet, as he thought of his gun in pawn at the “Summit.” “But you do hunt; I know it.” “How?” “You shot those quail for me the morning after I came. I heard you go out—early—very early.” “Why, you allowed you slept so well that night, Miss Mayfield.” “Yes; but there's a kind of delicious half-sleep that sick people have sometimes, when they know and are gratefully conscious that other people are doing things for them, and it makes them rest all the sweeter.” There was a dead silence. Jeff, thrilling all over, dared not say anything to dispel his delicious dream. Miss Mayfield, alarmed at his readiness with the butterfly illustration, stopped short. They both looked at the prospect, at the distant “Summit Hotel”—a mere snow- drift on the mountain—at the clear sunlight on the barren plateau, at the bleak, uncompromising “Half-way House,” and said nothing. “I ought to be very grateful,” at last began Miss Mayfield, in quite another voice, and a suggestion that she was now approaching real and profitable conversation, “that I'm so much better. This mountain air has been like balm to me. I feel I am growing stronger day by day. I do not wonder that you are so healthy and so strong as you are, Mr. Jeff.” Jeff, who really did not know before that he was so healthy, apologetically admitted the fact. At the same time, he was miserably conscious that Miss Mayfield's condition, despite her ill health, was very superior to his own. “A month ago,” she continued reflectively, “my mother would never have thought it possible to leave me here alone. Perhaps she may be getting worried now.” Miss Mayfield had calculated over much on Jeff's recumbent position. To her surprise and slight mortification, he rose instantly to his feet, and said anxiously, “Ef you think so, miss, p'raps I'm keeping you here.” “Not at all, Mr. Jeff. Your being here is a sufficient excuse for my staying,” she replied, with the large dignity of a small body. Jeff, mentally and physically crushed again, came down a little heavier than before, and reclined humbly at her feet. Second knock- down blow for Miss Mayfield. “Come, Mr. Jeff,” said the triumphant goddess, in her first voice, “tell me something about yourself. How do you live here—I mean; what do you do? You ride, of course—and very well too, I can tell you! But you know that. And of course that scarf and the silver spurs and the whole dashing equipage are not intended entirely for yourself. No! Some young woman is made happy by that exhibition, of course. Well, then,...