Evelyn Raymond

“ Losing a home is nothing to losing honor,” said Jessica, earnestly. “We don’t care half so much about Sobrante as that other thing.”
“You shall keep both. Your home and our master’s honor,” cried the old man, fiercely.
“Yes, that we will!” echoed Jessica, clasping his hand again.
So doing she dropped the canvas bag on the floor, and, picking it up, Mrs. Trent would have restored it to its owner, as she so considered the sharpshooter. But he would have none of it.
“I’ve heard the little tackers call one another ‘Indian giver.’ I couldn’t, ma’am, you know. ”

“ Now I shall be apt to escape that promised visit to an amateur coal mine, and not endanger my life in their rickety car.”
Elsa’s conduct upon reaching home was as curious and contradictory as ever. Instead of collecting her scattered treasure, she merely said, with a shrug of her fat shoulders:
“What good? let it lie. When the much is gone who cares for the little?”
Then she dropped into a chair and began again to cry, disconsolately.
Jessica could not endure the scene.
“Oh! I hate this! Elsa, stop. Be happy. Nobody has robbed you. If there has ’tis nobody here. I’m going home. ”

“ Jessica’s face grew serious.
“Oh! poor Antonio!”
“Quit that!” commanded “Forty-niner,” with more sharpness than he often used toward his beloved lady.
“But, it is so terrible to be a–prisoner. That means that one can never go out into the fields or climb the mountains, or ride, or hunt, or anything one likes. He has done dreadful wrongs, and I never used to like him as well as I ought, but now I’m sorry for him. I can’t help it, Ephraim, even if it does displease you.” ”

“ Samson rose in his stirrups and pointed forward with his crop. Upon a barren, wide-stretching tableland stood a cluster of adobe huts. Behind them a clump of live oaks, beside them a sandy, curving streak, an arroyo, lighter in hue than the surrounding soil, but parched and dry as if part of the desert itself; behind them, three mighty, jagged, upward-pointing rocks.
“There she is. The weirdest, lonesomest, God-for-sakenest habitation that fools ever made or lived in, quoted the joker, giving Samson’s hand a cordial grasp. Hello! What’s up captain?” ”

“ The bravest men are cowards before physical suffering, sometimes. Ephraim would have faced death for Jessica without flinching, but that gathering agony of pain made him indifferent, for the moment, even to her welfare. This calamity had fallen upon him like lightning from a clear sky and benumbed him, so to speak. But it had not benumbed those about him. Within five minutes the clang of an ambulance gong was heard, and the aid which some thoughtful person had summoned arrived. ”

“ Hale had to take off his glasses and wipe them as, looking around upon his comrades, great Samson swung his hat and cried:
“And may God bless Our Lady Jess! And may every man who seeks to injure her be–stricken with numb palsy! And may every crop be doubled, prices likewise! Peace, prosperity and happiness to Sobrante–destruction to her enemies!”
“Forgiveness for her enemies, Samson, dear, if there really are. That will be nobler, more like father’s rule. Make it peace, prosperity and happiness to all the world! ”

“ Poor Elsa thought his hilarity ill-timed. She glared at him first, then began to weep, and her tears sobered him as no frowns could do.
“Look, here, old girl, cheer up! Likely it’s only a passing fit of madness has got you in tow. Women are kittle cattle, I’ve been told. Except Lady Jess and the madam. But they’re quality. It’s in their blood to be noble just as ’tis in–well, let that go. If you’ve lost any of your money, as you ’pear to think, you’ll find it again. Why, you’re bound to. Who is there to steal it save your own selves? ”

“ Cut us loose, can’t you? Don’t you see we can’t do it ourselves?”
Mr. Hale adjusted his eyeglasses and looked rather helplessly toward the shepherd; but that phlegmatic person was working away on his wonderful basket as stolidly as if there was none beside himself upon the mesa.
“Oh! you hateful old Pedro! Cut us free, I tell you! Ain’t I your master? You’d do it mighty quick for ‘Lady Jess.’”
The frightened little fellow, whose fun had now ebbed into a terrible fear of an indefinite bondage, began to whimper, and Mr. Hale to act. ”

“ If Ephraim was minded to be facetious, she’d match him at the business. Whereupon, instead of rehearsing the history of Gabriella’s “folks” she veered round upon disease and gave them details of all the dreadful things she had ever heard till “Forty-niner” cried, “Quits! I’ll not tackle you again.”
Mrs. Benton’s eyes twinkled over her cup, for she had joined them at table. She knew, as he did, that this was but foolish sport, yet that it had served their mutual purpose; which was to divert Jessica’s thoughts from trouble and her lips from asking why her mother did not appear. ”

“ But it is the lawyer I want, yet. The lawyer who will make a villain return the great money I have given. Caramba! If I had him in my hands this minute!”
Jessica lifted a warning finger and the manager lowered his voice. He even made an attempt at soothing Ephraim, but chose an unfortunate argument.
“Take peace to yourself, ‘Forty-niner.’ All must be told some day. Adios.”
“Adios, you foreign serpent! Old? Old! he calls me–me–old! Why, I’m a babe in arms to Pedro, or Fra Mateo, or even fat Brigida, who washes for us ‘boys.’ Old! A man but just turned eighty! Snake, I’ll outlive you yet. ”

“ You can do us no further harm. My father’s name is freed from all the shadow that your wickedness cast over it, and as for titles to property–poor! None of the Trents, big or little, care anything for property since we have regained honor! Besides, Sobrante isn’t the only home in the world. They are everywhere, waiting for those who will take them. If we lose Sobrante, as I suppose we may, I–just I, Jessica Trent, a child, will make a home for my mother and my brother–somewhere. I am strong. I can work. I am not at all afraid.”
Despite his meanness and cupidity, Antonio was moved. ”

“ Hale, I must insist you take a dose of this saffron tea. I steeped it while I was having that set-to with the Chinaman, for I thank my stars I can always do two 103 things at once. And if I know the signs–Gabriella Trent, if that man hasn’t got the janders or shingles, or malary fever, don’t you tell me a thing!”
“I certainly shall not tell you any such thing as that, dear soul. The trouble is, Mr. Hale, Aunt Sally is never so happy as when she has a sick person to nurse. If nobody is ill she does her utmost to make somebody so, with her uncalled for doses and stews. But–once be ill! ”

“ Hospitals are for sick folks and old fools that don’t know enough to sit a horse steady. They’re not for a happy little girl, who can make new friends for herself anywhere. No. I guess, maybe, that Mr. Hale’ll find you a place, or get you on the cars to go home again. Oh! child, I wish you were safe back at Sobrante this minute!”
“And our work not done? Foolish ‘boy!’ As if I’d leave you alone, either, when you’re ill and–and Aunt Sally so far away.”
Ephraim groaned and Jessica looked toward the reporter, who was talking earnestly with the nurse, just outside in the corridor. ”

“ Nothing! Not a man jack of you! Let that viper warm himself at her very fireside, least to say, south porch, and not show him up for what he was. Land! The men! I never saw one yet was worth shucks, savin’ hers and mine. If you was half the fellow your father was, John Benton, or that noble Cass’us was–oh! if ever I wanted to be a man in my life I want to be this minute!”
The carpenter darted into his chamber and reappeared with a vial and spoon.
“To please me, mother, ’fore you say any more, just take a spoonful of this dandelion relish. ”

“ The race would not have been so even had the trail been wider, for King Zulu could easily have beaten his contestant, but, as it was, the fleeing bay bruised his master’s leg against the canyon wall, now and then, while bits of the bird’s plumage were torn on the same projecting rocks. There was no point of passage till more than a mile higher on the mountain, and Jess knew this if Mr. Hale did not. ”

“ As they approached the foothills they had dropped into a little hollow where the sandy ground was moist and retained an impression distinctly, and it was thus that Jessica’s keen eyes discovered the peculiar footprints of “Forty-niner’s” halting steed. But she quickly forgot these in the interest of the race she had started and was now bent upon nothing save beating Mr. Hale at the goal, the miner’s cabin.
“He has by far the better horse. He ought to win, but he shall not–he can’t. He mustn’t! Go, Buster! A taste of Elsa’s honey if you get there first!” ”

“ Glad to see you, little one. ‘Looks like you’d be quite a man when you get growed up,’” quoted the joker, giving Samson’s hand a cordial grasp.
“Come on! Come on! You’re the lad for us! Well, sir, you do me proud. You do Sobrante proud. You do all the world proud, and that’s my sentiment to a t-i-o-n, sir! Breakfast’s ready.”
“Oh, Mr. Ninian, he’s brought–my mother has sent you the horse that nobody else has ridden since my father did. Nimrod, the swiftest, gentlest thoroughbred that anybody ever rode.” ”

“ What if he has and is? Is he not the old man, already? Even here there is no room for the old. When one is fifty one should die. That would be wisdom.”
“Elsa Winkler, nonsense! That’s not polite for me to say, but it’s true. You’re fifty, yourself, I guess, and you don’t want to die, do you?”
Elsa shivered slightly. “When the right time comes and the usefulness is past. As the Lord wills.”
Jessica laughed and kissed the woman’s cheek, then sprang to the ground, demanding:
“Where is he? For he’s mine, you know. He belongs to Sobrante just as much the sunshine does. ”

“ But it was not a lawyer’s habit to anticipate evil, and he was thankful for her suggestion.
“You should have a ride this fine morning, Mr. Hale, before the sun is too high. I’ve ordered a horse brought round for you at nine o’clock, and Jessica shall act your guide, on Scruff. That is–if the laddies haven’t already disappeared with him. Ah! here comes my girl, herself. You are to show our friend as much of Sobrante as he cares to see, in one morning, daughter. If the children have ridden the burro off you may have Buster saddled.” ”

“ Ephraim, I’m so glad, too, and the gladness is so deep, deep down that I don’t want to dance. I just want to cry. And that poor man is little Luis’ father. Oh! it is pitiful.”
“Hush, captain. Don’t you go to grieving over that scamp. A man don’t get good nor bad all in a minute. It was hard enough, I ’low, for a fellow to be snatched out of the world that sudden. ”

“ Hale, glad of any diversion to his perturbed thoughts.
“’Tis a circus, temperance union, a salvation army, a woman’s rights convention, what Samson calls a Mother Carey’s chicken, an Amazon, a wild Indian, a–a–shucks! There isn’t anything on earth that yonder doesn’t try a hand at. Land of Goshen! I’d almost rather turn and go back to be jawed by the Dutchwoman. And I’ve come home–just for this!”
But Jessica was laughing as she had not laughed all day, and if the person driving along in front was objectionable to Ephraim it was evidently not the fact in her case. ”

“ She waved her husband toward the waiting car and he obeyed her gesture without protest, gently lifting Jessica into it, for she would not otherwise have been removed from Ephraim’s side.
“Go with him, lady. Elsa won’t want to live down here and we’ll follow presently. Never had a woman seem so fond of my company, not in all my eighty years. H-m-m!”
Commonly, the most genial of men, the sharpshooter’s spirits had fully regained their normal poise. Since he had not been dismissed by Mrs. Trent, and since his little Jessica believed in him, everything was all right. ”

“ This Ephraim–guess you what that Antonio said of him?”
“How should I? Yes, that’s not the truth. But what he said was so dreadful I wouldn’t even tell my mother.”
“Ach! A child should tell the mother all things. Heed that. It is so we train our Otto.”
Jessica laughed.
“Otto is no child. He is a grown man. He is bigger than you. You should not shame him by keeping him a boy always.”
“Pst! girl! I would not he heard you, for my life.”
“He’ll not hear. Elsa is talking. But what did Antonio say about my old ‘Forty-niner’?” ”