THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL
The Big Flume stage-coach had just drawn up at the Big Flume Hotelsimultaneously with the ringing of a large dinner bell in the two handsof a negro waiter, who, by certain gyrations of the bell was trying toimpart to his performance that picturesque elegance and harmonywhich the instrument and its purpose lacked. For the refreshment thusproclaimed was only the ordinary station dinner, protracted at BigFlume for three quarters of an hour, to allow for the arrival of theconnecting mail from Sacramento, although the repast was of a naturethat seldom prevailed upon the traveler to linger the full period overits details. The ordinary cravings of hunger were generally satisfied inhalf an hour, and the remaining minutes were employed by the passengersin drowning the memory of their meal in "drinks at the bar," in smoking,and even in a hurried game of "old sledge," or dominoes. Yet to-daythe deserted table was still occupied by a belated traveler, and alady--separated by a wilderness of empty dishes--who had arrived afterthe stage-coach. Observing which, the landlord, perhaps touched bythis unwonted appreciation of his fare, moved forward to give them hispersonal attention.
He was a man, however, who seemed to be singularly deficient in thosesupreme qualities which in the West have exalted the ability to "keep ahotel" into a proverbial synonym for superexcellence. He had little orno innovating genius, no trade devices, no assumption, no faculty foradvertisement, no progressiveness, and no "racket." He had the tolerantgood-humor of the Southwestern pioneer, to whom cyclones, famine,drought, floods, pestilence, and savages were things to be accepted,and whom disaster, if it did not stimulate, certainly did not appall. Hereceived the insults, complaints, and criticisms of hurried and hungrypassengers, the comments and threats of the Stage Company as he hadsubmitted to the aggressions of a stupid, unjust, but overrulingNature--with unshaken calm. Perhaps herein lay his strength. Peoplewere obliged to submit to him and his hotel as part of the unfinishedcivilization, and they even saw something humorous in his impassiveness.Those who preferred to remonstrate with him emerged from the discussionwith the general feeling of having been played with by a large-heartedand paternally disposed bear. Tall and long-limbed, with much strengthin his lazy muscles, there was also a prevailing impression that thisfeeling might be intensified if the discussion were ever carried tophysical contention. Of his personal history it was known only that hehad emigrated from Wisconsin in 1852, that he had calmly unyoked his oxteams at Big Flume, then a trackless wilderness, and on the opening of awagon road to the new mines had built a wayside station which eventuallydeveloped into the present hotel. He had been divorced in a WesternState by his wife "Rosalie," locally known as "The Prairie Flower ofElkham Creek," for incompatibility of temper! Her temper was not stated.
Such was Abner Langworthy, the proprietor, as he moved leisurely downtowards the lady guest, who was nearest, and who was sitting with herback to the passage between the tables. Stopping, occasionally, toprofessionally adjust the tablecloths and glasses, he at last reachedher side.
"Ef there's anythin' more ye want that ye ain't seein', ma'am," hebegan--and stopped suddenly. For the lady had looked up at the sound ofhis voice. It was his divorced wife, whom he had not seen since theirseparation. The recognition was instantaneous, mutual, and characterizedby perfect equanimity on both sides.
"Well! I wanter know!" said the lady, although the exclamation point waspurely conventional. "Abner Langworthy! though perhaps I've no call tosay 'Abner.'"
"Same to you, Rosalie--though I say it too," returned the landlord. "Buthol' on just a minit." He moved forward to the other guest, put the sameperfunctory question regarding his needs, received a negative answer,and then returned to the lady and dropped into a chair opposite to her.
"You're looking peart and--fleshy," he said resignedly, as if he weretolerating his own conventional politeness with his other difficulties;"unless," he added cautiously, "you're takin' on some new disease."
"No! I'm fairly comf'ble," responded the lady calmly, "and you'regettin' on in the vale, ez is natural--though you still kind o' run tobone, as you used."
There was not a trace of malevolence in either of their comments, onlya resigned recognition of certain unpleasant truths which seemed to havebeen habitual to both of them. Mr. Langworthy paused to flick away someflies from the butter with his professional napkin, and resumed,--
"It must be a matter o' five years sens I last saw ye, isn't it?--incourt arter you got the decree--you remember?"
"Yes--the 28th o' July, '51. I paid Lawyer Hoskins's bill that veryday--that's how I remember," returned the lady. "You've got a bigbusiness here," she continued, glancing round the room; "I reckon you'remakin' it pay. Don't seem to be in your line, though; but then, tharwasn't many things that was."
"No--that's so," responded Mr. Langworthy, nodding his head, asassenting to an undeniable proposition, "and you--I suppose you'regettin' on too. I reckon you're--er--married--eh?"--with a slightsuggestion of putting the question delicately.
The lady nodded, ignoring the hesitation. "Yes, let me see, it's justthree years and three days. Constantine Byers--I don't reckon you knowhim--from Milwaukee. Timber merchant. Standin' timber's his specialty."
"And I reckon he's--satisfactory?"
"Yes! Mr. Byers is a good provider--and handy. And you? I should sayyou'd want a wife in this business?"
Mr. Langworthy's serious half-perfunctory manner here took on anappearance of interest. "Yes--I've bin thinkin' that way. Thar's a youngwoman helpin' in the kitchen ez might do, though I'm not certain, andI ain't lettin' on anything as yet. You might take a look at her,Rosalie,--I orter say Mrs. Byers ez is,--and kinder size her up, andgimme the result. It's still wantin' seven minutes o' schedule timeafore the stage goes, and--if you ain't wantin' more food"--delicately,as became a landlord--"and ain't got anythin' else to do, it might passthe time."
Strange as it may seem, Mrs. Byers here displayed an equal animation inher fresh face as she rose promptly to her feet and began to rearrangeher dust cloak around her buxom figure. "I don't mind, Abner," shesaid, "and I don't think that Mr. Byers would mind either;" then seeingLangworthy hesitating at the latter unexpected suggestion, she addedconfidently, "and I wouldn't mind even if he did, for I'm sure if Idon't know the kind o' woman you'd be likely to need, I don't know whowould. Only last week I was sayin' like that to Mr. Byers"--
"To Mr. Byers?" said Abner, with some surprise.
"Yes--to him. I said, 'We've been married three years, Constantine, andef I don't know by this time what kind o' woman you need now--and mightneed in future--why, thar ain't much use in matrimony.'"
"You was always wise, Rosalie," said Abner, with reminiscentappreciation.
"I was always there, Abner," returned Mrs. Byers, with a complacent showof dimples, which she, however, chastened into that resignation whichseemed characteristic of the pair. "Let's see your 'intended'--as mightbe."
Thus supported, Mr. Langworthy led Mrs. Byers into the hall through acrowd of loungers, into a smaller hall, and there opened the door of thekitchen. It was a large room, whose windows were half darkened by theencompassing pines which still pressed around the house on the scantilycleared site. A number of men and women, among them a Chinaman and anegro, were engaged in washing dishes and other culinary duties; andbeside the window stood a young blonde girl, who was wiping a tin panwhich she was also using to hide a burst of laughter evidently caused bythe abrupt entrance of her employer. A quantity of fluffy hair and partof a white, bared arm were nevertheless visible outside the disk,and Mrs. Byers gathered from the direction of Mr. Langworthy's eyes,assisted by a slight nudge from his elbow, that this was the selectedfair one. His feeble explanatory introduction, addressed to theoccupants generally, "Just showing the house to Mrs.--er--Dusenberry,"convinced her that the circumstances of his having been divorced he hadnot yet confided to the young woman. As he turned almost immediatelyaway, Mrs. Byers in following him managed to get a better look at thegirl, as she was exchanging some f
acetious remark to a neighbor. Mr.Langworthy did not speak until they had reached the deserted dining-roomagain.
"Well?" he said briefly, glancing at the clock, "what did ye think o'Mary Ellen?"
To any ordinary observer the girl in question would have seemed theleast fitted in age, sobriety of deportment, and administrative capacityto fill the situation thus proposed for her, but Mrs. Byers was not anordinary observer, and her auditor was not an ordinary listener.
"She's older than she gives herself out to be," said Mrs. Byerstentatively, "and them kitten ways don't amount to much."
Mr. Langworthy nodded. Had Mrs. Byers discovered a homicidal tendency inMary Ellen he would have been equally unmoved.
"She don't handsome much," continued Mrs. Byers musingly, "but"--
"I never was keen on good looks in a woman, Rosalie. You know that!"Mrs. Byers received the equivocal remark unemotionally, and returned tothe subject.
"Well!" she said contemplatively, "I should think you could make hersuit."
Mr. Langworthy nodded with resigned toleration of all that might haveinfluenced her judgment and his own. "I was wantin' a fa'r-mindedopinion, Rosalie, and you happened along jest in time. Kin I put upanythin' in the way of food for ye?" he added, as a stir outside and thewords "All aboard!" proclaimed the departing of the stage-coach,--"anorange or a hunk o' gingerbread, freshly baked?"
"Thank ye kindly, Abner, but I sha'n't be usin' anythin' afore supper,"responded Mrs. Byers, as they passed out into the veranda beside thewaiting coach.
Mr. Langworthy helped her to her seat. "Ef you're passin' this wayag'in"--he hesitated delicately.
"I'll drop in, or I reckon Mr. Byers might, he havin' business along theroad," returned Mrs. Byers with a cheerful nod, as the coach rolled awayand the landlord of the Big Flume Hotel reentered his house.
For the next three weeks, however, it did not appear that Mr. Langworthywas in any hurry to act upon the advice of his former wife. Hisrelations to Mary Ellen Budd were characterized by his usual toleranceto his employees' failings,--which in Mary Ellen's case included many"breakages,"--but were not marked by the invasion of any warmer feeling,or a desire for confidences. The only perceptible divergence from hisregular habits was a disposition to be on the veranda at the arrival ofthe stage-coach, and when his duties permitted this, a cautious surveyof his female guests at the beginning of dinner. This probably led tohis more or less ignoring any peculiarities in his masculine patrons ortheir claims to his personal attention. Particularly so, in the case ofa red-bearded man, in a long linen duster, both heavily freighted withthe red dust of the stage road, which seemed to have invaded his veryeyes as he watched the landlord closely. Towards the close of thedinner, when Abner, accompanied by a negro waiter after his usualcustom, passed down each side of the long table, collecting payment forthe meal, the stranger looked up. "You air the landlord of this hotel, Ireckon?"
"I am," said Abner tolerantly.
"I'd like a word or two with ye."
But Abner had been obliged to have a formula for such occasions. "Ye'llpay for yer dinner first," he said submissively, but firmly, "and makeyer remarks agin the food arter."
The stranger flushed quickly, and his eye took an additional shade ofred, but meeting Abner's serious gray ones, he contented himself withostentatiously taking out a handful of gold and silver and paying hisbill. Abner passed on, but after dinner was over he found the strangerin the hall.
"Ye pulled me up rather short in thar," said the man gloomily, "but it'sjust as well, as the talk I was wantin' with ye was kinder betwixt andbetween ourselves, and not hotel business. My name's Byers, and my wifelet on she met ye down here."
For the first time it struck Abner as incongruous that another manshould call Rosalie "his wife," although the fact of her remarriagehad been made sufficiently plain to him. He accepted it as he would anearthquake, or any other dislocation, with his usual tolerant smile, andheld out his hand.
Mr. Byers took it, seemingly mollified, and yet inwardlydisturbed,--more even than was customary in Abner's guests after dinner.
"Have a drink with me," he suggested, although it had struck him thatMr. Byers had been drinking before dinner.
"I'm agreeable," responded Byers promptly; "but," with a glance at thecrowded bar-room, "couldn't we go somewhere, jest you and me, and have aquiet confab?"
"I reckon. But ye must wait till we get her off."
Mr. Byers started slightly, but it appeared that the impedimental sex inthis case was the coach, which, after a slight feminine hesitation, wasat last started. Whereupon Mr. Langworthy, followed by a negro with atray bearing a decanter and glasses, grasped Mr. Byers's arm, and walkedalong a small side veranda the depth of the house, stepped off, andapparently plunged with his guest into the primeval wilderness.
It has already been indicated that the site of the Big Flume Hotel hadbeen scantily cleared; but Mr. Byers, backwoodsman though he was, wasquite unprepared for so abrupt a change. The hotel, with its noisy crowdand garish newness, although scarcely a dozen yards away, seemed lostcompletely to sight and sound. A slight fringe of old tin cans, brokenchina, shavings, and even of the long-dried chips of the felled trees,once crossed, the two men were alone! From the tray, deposited at thefoot of an enormous pine, they took the decanter, filled their glasses,and then disposed of themselves comfortably against a spreading root.The curling tail of a squirrel disappeared behind them; the far-off tapof a woodpecker accented the loneliness. And then, almost magically asit seemed, the thin veneering of civilization on the two men seemed tobe cast off like the bark of the trees around them, and they loungedbefore each other in aboriginal freedom. Mr. Byers removed hisrestraining duster and undercoat. Mr. Langworthy resigned his dirtywhite jacket, his collar, and unloosed a suspender, with which heplayed.
"Would it be a fair question between two fa'r-minded men, ez hez livedalone," said Mr. Byers, with a gravity so supernatural that it could bereferred only to liquor, "to ask ye in what sort o' way did Mrs. Byersshow her temper?"
"Show her temper?" echoed Abner vacantly.
"Yes--in course, I mean when you and Mrs. Byers was--was--one? You knowthe di-vorce was for in-com-pat-ibility of temper."
"But she got the divorce from me, so I reckon I had the temper," saidLangworthy, with great simplicity.
"Wha-at?" said Mr. Byers, putting down his glass and gazing with drunkengravity at the sad-eyed yet good-humoredly tolerant man before him."You?--you had the temper?"
"I reckon that's what the court allowed," said Abner simply.
Mr. Byers stared. Then after a moment's pause he nodded with asignificant yet relieved face. "Yes, I see, in course. Times when you'dh'isted too much o' this corn juice," lifting up his glass, "insideye--ye sorter bu'st out ravin'?"
But Abner shook his head. "I wuz a total abstainer in them days," hesaid quietly.
Mr. Byers got unsteadily on his legs and looked around him. "Wot mighthev bin the general gait o' your temper, pardner?" he said in a hoarsewhisper.
"Don't know. I reckon that's jest whar the incompatibility kem in."
"And when she hove plates at your head, wot did you do?"
"She didn't hove no plates," said Abner gravely; "did she say she did?"
"No, no!" returned Byers hastily, in crimson confusion. "I kinder gotit mixed with suthin' else." He waved his hand in a lordly way, as ifdismissing the subject. "Howsumever, you and her is 'off' anyway," headded with badly concealed anxiety.
"I reckon: there's the decree," returned Abner, with his usual resignedacceptance of the fact.
"Mrs. Byers wuz allowin' ye wuz thinkin' of a second. How's that comin'on?"
"Jest whar it was," returned Abner. "I ain't doin' anything yet. Ye seeI've got to tell the gal, naterally, that I'm di-vorced. And as thatisn't known hereabouts, I don't keer to do so till I'm pretty certain.And then, in course, I've got to."
"Why hev ye 'got to'?" asked Byers abruptly.
"Because it wouldn't be on the sq
uare with the girl," said Abner. "Howwould you like it if Mrs. Byers had never told you she'd been married tome? And s'pose you'd happen to hev bin a di-vorced man and hadn't toldher, eh? Well," he continued, sinking back resignedly against the tree,"I ain't sayin' anythin' but she'd hev got another di-vorce, and FROMyou on the spot--you bet!"
"Well! all I kin say is," said Mr. Byers, lifting his voice excitedly,"that"--but he stopped short, and was about to fill his glass again fromthe decanter when the hand of Abner stopped him.
"Ye've got ez much ez ye kin carry now, Byers," he said slowly, "andthat's about ez much ez I allow a man to take in at the Big Flume Hotel.Treatin' is treatin', hospitality is hospitality; ef you and me wassquattin' out on the prairie I'd let you fill your skin with that pizenand wrap ye up in yer blankets afterwards. But here at Big Flume, theStage Kempenny and the wimen and children passengers hez their rights."He paused a moment, and added, "And so I reckon hez Mrs. Byers, and Iain't goin' to send you home to her outer my house blind drunk. It'smighty rough on you and me, I know, but there's a lot o' roughness inthis world ez hez to be got over, and life, ez far ez I kin see, ain'tall a clearin'."
Perhaps it was his good-humored yet firm determination, perhaps it washis resigned philosophy, but something in the speaker's manner affectedMr. Byers's alcoholic susceptibility, and hastened his descent from thepassionate heights of intoxication to the maudlin stage whither hewas drifting. The fire of his red eyes became filmed and dim, an equalmoisture gathered in his throat as he pressed Abner's hand with drunkenfervor. "Thash so! your thinking o' me an' Mish Byersh is like troofr'en'," he said thickly. "I wosh only goin' to shay that wotever MishByersh wosh--even if she wosh wife o' yours--she wosh--noble woman! Sucha woman," continued Mr. Byers, dreamily regarding space, "can't have toomany husbands."
"You jest sit back here a minit, and have a quiet smoke till I comeback," said Abner, handing him his tobacco plug. "I've got to give thebutcher his order--but I won't be a minit." He secured the decanter ashe spoke, and evading an apparent disposition of his companion to fallupon his neck, made his way with long strides to the hotel, as Mr.Byers, sinking back against the trees, began certain futile efforts tolight his unfilled pipe.
Whether Abner's attendance on the butcher was merely an excuse towithdraw with the decanter, I cannot say. He, however, dispatched hisbusiness quickly, and returned to the tree. But to his surprise Mr.Byers was no longer there. He explored the adjacent woodland withnon-success, and no reply to his shouting. Annoyed but not alarmed, asit seemed probable that the missing man had fallen in a drunken sleep insome hidden shadows, he returned to the house, when it occurred to himthat Byers might have sought the bar-room for some liquor. But he wasstill more surprised when the barkeeper volunteered the informationthat he had seen Mr. Byers hurriedly pass down the side veranda into thehighroad. An hour later this was corroborated by an arriving teamster,who had passed a man answering to the description of Byers, "mor' 'nhalf full," staggeringly but hurriedly walking along the road "twomiles back." There seemed to be no doubt that the missing man hadtaken himself off in a fit of indignation or of extreme thirst.Either hypothesis was disagreeable to Abner, in his queer senseof responsibility to Mrs. Byers, but he accepted it with his usualgood-humored resignation.
Yet it was difficult to conceive what connection this episode had inhis mind with his suspended attention to Mary Ellen, or why it shoulddetermine his purpose. But he had a logic of his own, and it seemed tohave demonstrated to him that he must propose to the girl at once.This was no easy matter, however; he had never shown her any previousattention, and her particular functions in the hotel,--the charge of thefew bedrooms for transient guests--seldom brought him in contact withher. His interview would have to appear to be a business one--which,however, he wished to avoid from a delicate consciousness of its truth.While making up his mind, for a few days he contented himself withgravely regarding her in his usual resigned, tolerant way, whenever hepassed her. Unfortunately the first effect of this was an audible gigglefrom Mary Ellen, later some confusion and anxiety in her manner, andfinally a demeanor of resentment and defiance.
This was so different from what he had expected that he was obligedto precipitate matters. The next day was Sunday,--a day on which hisemployees, in turns, were allowed the recreation of being driven to BigFlume City, eight miles distant, to church, or for the day's holiday.In the morning Mary Ellen was astonished by Abner informing her that hedesigned giving her a separate holiday with himself. It must be admittedthat the girl, who was already "prinked up" for the enthrallment of theyouth of Big Flume City, did not appear as delighted with the change ofplan as a more exacting lover would have liked. Howbeit, as soon as thewagon had left with its occupants, Abner, in the unwonted disguise ofa full suit of black clothes, turned to the girl, and offering her hisarm, gravely proceeded along the side veranda across the mound of debrisalready described, to the adjacent wilderness and the very trees underwhich he and Byers had sat.
"It's about ez good a place for a little talk, Miss Budd," he said,pointing to a tree root, "ez ef we went a spell further, and it's handyto the house. And ef you'll jest say what you'd like outer the cupboardor the bar--no matter which--I'll fetch it to you."
But Mary Ellen Budd seated herself sideways on the root, with her furledwhite parasol in her lap, her skirts fastidiously tucked about her feet,and glancing at the fatuous Abner from under her stack of fluffy hairand light eyelashes, simply shook her head and said that "she reckonedshe wasn't hankering much for anything" that morning.
"I've been calkilatin' to myself, Miss Budd," said Abner resignedly,"that when two folks--like ez you and me--meet together to kinderdiscuss things that might go so far ez to keep them together, if theyhez had anything of that sort in their lives afore, they ought to speakof it confidentially like together."
"Ef any one o' them sneakin', soulless critters in the kitchen hez binslingin' lies to ye about me--or carryin' tales," broke in Mary EllenBudd, setting every one of her thirty-two strong, white teeth togetherwith a snap, "well--ye might hev told me so to oncet without spilin' mySunday! But ez fer yer keepin' me a minit longer, ye've only got to payme my salary to-day and"--but here she stopped, for the astonishment inAbner's face was too plain to be misunderstood.
"Nobody's been slinging any lies about ye, Miss Budd," he said slowly,recovering himself resignedly from this last back-handed stroke of fate;"I warn't talkin' o' you, but myself. I was only allowin' to say that Iwas a di-vorced man."
As a sudden flush came over Mary Ellen's brownish-white face whileshe stared at him, Abner hastened to delicately explain. "It wasn'tno onfaithfulness, Miss Budd--no philanderin' o' mine, but only'incompatibility o' temper.'"
"Temper--your temper!" gasped Mary Ellen.
"Yes," said Abner.
And here a sudden change came over Mary Ellen's face, and she burst intoa shriek of laughter. She laughed with her hands slapping the sides ofher skirt, she laughed with her hands clasping her narrow, hollow waist,laughed with her head down on her knees and her fluffy hair tumblingover it. Abner was relieved, and yet it seemed strange to him that thisrevelation of his temper should provoke such manifest incredulity inboth Byers and Mary Ellen. But perhaps these things would be made plainto him hereafter; at present they must be accepted "in the day's work"and tolerated.
"Your temper," gurgled Mary Ellen. "Saints alive! What kind o' temper?"
"Well, I reckon," returned Abner submissively, and selecting a wordto give his meaning more comprehension,--"I reckon it waskinder--aggeravokin'."
Mary Ellen sniffed the air for a moment in speechless incredulity, andthen, locking her hands around her knees and bending forward, said,"Look here! Ef that old woman o' yours ever knew what temper was in aman; ef she's ever bin tied to a brute that treated her like a niggertill she daren't say her soul was her own; who struck her with hiseyes and tongue when he hadn't anythin' else handy; who made her lifemiserable when he was sober, and a terror when he was drunk; who atlast d
rove her away, and then divorced her for desertion--then--then shemight talk. But 'incompatibility o' temper' with you! Oh, go away--itmakes me sick!"
How far Abner was impressed with the truth of this, how far it promptedhis next question, nobody but Abner knew. For he said deliberately, "Iwas only goin' to ask ye, if, knowin' I was a di-vorced man, ye wouldmind marryin' me!"
Mary Ellen's face changed; the evasive instincts of her sex rose up."Didn't I hear ye sayin' suthin' about refreshments," she said archly."Mebbe you wouldn't mind gettin' me a bottle o' lemming sody outer thebar!"
Abner got up at once, perhaps not dismayed by this diversion, anddeparted for the refreshment. As he passed along the side veranda therecollection of Mr. Byers and his mysterious flight occurred to him. Fora wild moment he thought of imitating him. But it was too late now--hehad spoken. Besides, he had no wife to fly to, and the thirsty orindignant Byers had--his wife! Fate was indeed hard. He returned withthe bottle of lemon soda on a tray and a resigned spirit equal to herdecrees. Mary Ellen, remarking that he had brought nothing for himself,archly insisted upon his sharing with her the bottle of soda, and evencoquettishly touched his lips with her glass. Abner smiled patiently.
But here, as if playfully exhilarated by the naughty foaming soda, sheregarded him with her head--and a good deal of her blonde hair--verymuch on one side, as she said, "Do you know that all along o' you bein'so free with me in tellin' your affairs I kinder feel like just tellingyou mine?"
"Don't," said Abner promptly.
"Don't?" echoed Miss Budd.
"Don't," repeated Abner. "It's nothing to me. What I said about myselfis different, for it might make some difference to you. But nothing youcould say of yourself would make any change in me. I stick to what Isaid just now."
"But," said Miss Budd,--in half real, half simulated threatening,--"whatif it had suthin' to do with my answer to what you said just now?"
"It couldn't. So, if it's all the same to you, Miss Budd, I'd rather yewouldn't."
"That," said the lady still more archly, lifting a playful finger, "isyour temper."
"Mebbe it is," said Abner suddenly, with a wondering sense of relief.
It was, however, settled that Miss Budd should go to Sacramento to visither friends, that Abner would join her later, when their engagementwould be announced, and that she should not return to the hotel untilthey were married. The compact was sealed by the interchange of afriendly kiss from Miss Budd with a patient, tolerating one from Abner,and then it suddenly occurred to them both that they might as wellreturn to their duties in the hotel, which they did. Miss Budd's entireouting that Sunday lasted only half an hour.
A week elapsed. Miss Budd was in Sacramento, and the landlord of the BigFlume Hotel was standing at his usual post in the doorway during dinner,when a waiter handed him a note. It contained a single line scrawled inpencil:--
"Come out and see me behind the house as before. I dussent come in onaccount of her. C. BYERS."
"On account of 'her'!" Abner cast a hurried glance around the tables.Certainly Mrs. Byers was not there! He walked in the hall and theveranda--she was not there. He hastened to the rendezvous evidentlymeant by the writer, the wilderness behind the house. Sure enough,Byers, drunk and maudlin, supporting himself by the tree root, staggeredforward, clasped him in his arms, and murmured hoarsely,--
"She's gone!"
"Gone?" echoed Abner, with a whitening face. "Mrs. Byers? Where?"
"Run away! Never come back no more! Gone!"
A vague idea that had been in Abner's mind since Byers's last visit nowtook awful shape. Before the unfortunate Byers could collect his senseshe felt himself seized in a giant's grasp and forced against the tree.
"You coward!" said all that was left of the tolerant Abner--his evenvoice--"you hound! Did you dare to abuse her? to lay your vile hands onher--to strike her? Answer me."
The shock--the grasp--perhaps Abner's words, momentarily silenced Byers."Did I strike her?" he said dazedly; "did I abuse her? Oh, yes!" withdeep irony. "Certainly! In course! Look yer, pardner!"--he suddenlydragged up his sleeve from his red, hairy arm, exposing a blue cicatrixin its centre--"that's a jab from her scissors about three months ago;look yer!"--he bent his head and showed a scar along the scalp--"that'sher playfulness with a fire shovel! Look yer!"--he quickly opened hiscollar, where his neck and cheek were striped and crossed with adhesiveplaster--"that's all that was left o' a glass jar o' preserves--thepreserves got away, but some of the glass got stuck! That's when sheheard I was a di-vorced man and hadn't told her."
"Were you a di-vorced man?" gasped Abner.
"You know that; in course I was," said Byers scornfully; "d'ye meantersay she didn't tell ye?"
"She?" echoed Abner vaguely. "Your wife--you said just now she didn'tknow it before."
"My wife ez oncet was, I mean! Mary Ellen--your wife ez is to be," saidByers, with deep irony. "Oh, come now. Pretend ye don't know! Hi there!Hands off! Don't strike a man when he's down, like I am."
But Abner's clutch of Byers's shoulder relaxed, and he sank down to asitting posture on the root. In the meantime Byers, overcome by a senseof this new misery added to his manifold grievances, gave way to maudlinsilent tears.
"Mary Ellen--your first wife?" repeated Abner vacantly.
"Yesh!" said Byers thickly, "my first wife--shelected and picked outfer your shecond wife--by your first--like d----d conundrum. How wash It'know?" he said, with a sudden shriek of public expostulation--"thashwhat I wanter know. Here I come to talk with fr'en', like man to man,unshuspecting, innoshent as chile, about my shecond wife! Fr'en' dropsout, carryin' off the whiskey. Then I hear all o' suddent voice o'Mary Ellen talkin' in kitchen; then I come round softly and see MaryEllen--my wife as useter be--standin' at fr'en's kitchen winder. Then Ilights out quicker 'n lightnin' and scoots! And when I gets back home,I ups and tells my wife. And whosh fault ish't! Who shaid a man oughtertell hish wife? You! Who keepsh other mensh' first wivesh at kishenwinder to frighten 'em to tell? You!"
But a change had already come over the face of Abner Langworthy. Theanger, anxiety, astonishment, and vacuity that was there had vanished,and he looked up with his usual resigned acceptance of the inevitableas he said, "I reckon that's so! And seein' it's so," with good-naturedtolerance, he added, "I reckon I'll break rules for oncet and stand yeanother drink."
He stood another drink and yet another, and eventually put the doublywidowed Byers to bed in his own room. These were but details of a largertribulation,--and yet he knew instinctively that his cup was not yetfull. The further drop of bitterness came a few days later in a linefrom Mary Ellen: "I needn't tell you that all betwixt you and me is off,and you kin tell your old woman that her selection for a second wifefor you wuz about as bad as your own first selection. Ye kin tell Mr.Byers--yer great friend whom ye never let on ye knew--that when I wantanother husband I shan't take the trouble to ask him to fish one out forme. It would be kind--but confusin'."
He never heard from her again. Mr. Byers was duly notified that Mrs.Byers had commenced action for divorce in another state in whichconcealment of a previous divorce invalidated the marriage, but he didnot respond. The two men became great friends--and assured celibates.Yet they always spoke reverently of their "wife," with the touchingprefix of "our."
"She was a good woman, pardner," said Byers.
"And she understood us," said Abner resignedly.
Perhaps she had.