Bret Harte

“ I dressed myself hurriedly, and slipped into the hall. The first object that met my eyes was a boot lying upon the stairs. It bore the marks of Baby's teeth; and as I looked along the hall, I saw too plainly that the usual array of freshly-blackened boots and shoes before the lodgers' doors was not there. As I ascended the stairs I found another, but with the blacking carefully licked off. On the third floor were two or three more boots, slightly mouthed, but at this point Baby's taste for blacking had evidently palled. A little further on was a ladder leading to an open scuttle. ”

“ A courageous servant in No. 4 had seen a masked burglar, on his hands and knees, attempting to enter their scuttle: but on her shouting, "Away wid yees," he instantly fled.
I sat through this recital with cheeks that burned uncomfortably; nor was I the less embarrassed on raising my eyes to meet Mrs. Brown's fixed curiously and mischievously on mine. As soon as I could make my escape from the table, I did so; and running rapidly up stairs, sought refuge from any possible inquiry in my own room. Baby was still asleep in the corner. ”

“ The open doors plainly disclosed each rudely-furnished interior,—the rough pine table, with the scant equipage of the morning meal still standing; the wooden bunk, with its tumbled and disheveled blankets. A golden lizard—the very genius of desolate stillness—had stopped breathless upon the threshold of one cabin; a squirrel peeped impudently into the window of another; a woodpecker, with the general flavor of undertaking which distinguishes that bird, withheld his sepulchral hammer from the coffin-lid of the roof on which he was professionally engaged, as we passed. ”

“ A fairy child, attended by Titania and her train, lying in an expensive cradle, would not have surprised me; a Sleeping Beauty, whose awakening would have repeopled these solitudes with life and energy, I am afraid I began to confidently look for, and would have kissed without hesitation.
But I found none of these. Here was the evidence of my friend's taste and refinement in the hearth swept scrupulously clean, in the picturesque arrangement of the fur skins that covered the floor and furniture, and the striped serape [1] lying on the wooden couch. ”

“ His intercourse with mankind had evidently quickened his intellect without broadening his moral nature.
I had great difficulty in keeping Mrs. Brown from smothering him in blankets and ruining his digestion with the delicacies of her larder; but I at last got him completely rolled up in the corner of my room and asleep. I lay awake some time later with plans for his future. I finally determined to take him to Oakland, where I had built a little cottage and always spent my Sundays, the very next day. ”

“ Baby goes down on night-boat. Be a father to him.—S.
It was due, then, at one o'clock that night. For a moment I was staggered at my own precipitation. I had as yet made no preparations,—had said nothing to my landlady about her new guest. I expected to arrange everything in time; and now, through Sylvester's indecent haste, that time had been shortened twelve hours.
Something, however, must be done at once. I turned to Mrs. Brown. I had great reliance in her maternal instincts; I had that still greater reliance, common to our sex, in the general tender-heartedness of pretty women. ”

“ I exclaimed, with considerable relief; "the mother is dead, you know. Sylvester—that is my friend, who sent this—shot her when the Baby was only three days old——" But the expression of Mrs. Brown's face at this moment was so alarming, that I saw that nothing but the fullest explanation would save me. ”

“ I was standing upon the bank of the river; and. apparently, the only other human beings in the world were my interlocutors, who were even then just disappearing from my horizon down the steep bank toward the river's dry bed. ”

“ My guests were all rising with difficulty,—the floor of the verandah was covered with some glutinous substance. It was—syrup! I saw it all in a flash. I ran to the barn; the keg of "golden syrup," purchased only the day before, lay empty upon the floor. There were sticky tracks all over the enclosure, but still no Baby.
"There's something moving the ground over there by that pile of dirt," said Barker.
He was right; the earth was shaking in one corner of the enclosure like an earthquake. I approached cautiously. I saw, what I had not before noticed, that the ground was thrown up ”

“ You remember Watson: for an intelligent man, he knows very little of California fauna. How are you fixed for bears on Montgomery street,—I mean in regard to corrals and things? S.
P. P. S.—He's got some new tricks. The boys have been teaching him to put up his hands with them. He slings an ugly left.—S.
I am afraid that my desire to possess myself of Baby overcame all other considerations, and I telegraphed an affirmative at once to Sylvester. When I reached my lodgings late that afternoon, my landlady was awaiting me with a telegram. It was two lines from Sylvester:
All right. ”

“ Brown, believed that a lion among ladies was a dreadful thing, what must——" But here I broke down, for Mrs. Brown, with the awful intuition of her sex, I saw at once was more occupied with my manner than my speech. ”