MLISS
CHAPTER I
Just where the Sierra Nevada begins to subside in gentler undulations,and the rivers grow less rapid and yellow, on the side of a great redmountain, stands "Smith's Pocket." Seen from the red road at sunset,in the red light and the red dust, its white houses look like theoutcroppings of quartz on the mountainside. The red stage toppedwith red-shirted passengers is lost to view half a dozen times in thetortuous descent, turning up unexpectedly in out-of-the-way places, andvanishing altogether within a hundred yards of the town. It is probablyowing to this sudden twist in the road that the advent of a strangerat Smith's Pocket is usually attended with a peculiar circumstance.Dismounting from the vehicle at the stage office, the too-confidenttraveler is apt to walk straight out of town under the impression thatit lies in quite another direction. It is related that one of the tunnelmen, two miles from town, met one of these self-reliant passengerswith a carpetbag, umbrella, Harper's Magazine, and other evidences of"Civilization and Refinement," plodding along over the road he had justridden, vainly endeavoring to find the settlement of Smith's Pocket.
An observant traveler might have found some compensation for hisdisappointment in the weird aspect of that vicinity. There were hugefissures on the hillside, and displacements of the red soil, resemblingmore the chaos of some primary elemental upheaval than the work ofman; while halfway down, a long flume straddled its narrow body anddisproportionate legs over the chasm, like an enormous fossil of someforgotten antediluvian. At every step smaller ditches crossed the road,hiding in their sallow depths unlovely streams that crept away to aclandestine union with the great yellow torrent below, and here andthere were the ruins of some cabin with the chimney alone left intactand the hearthstone open to the skies.
The settlement of Smith's Pocket owed its origin to the finding of a"pocket" on its site by a veritable Smith. Five thousand dollars weretaken out of it in one half-hour by Smith. Three thousand dollars wereexpended by Smith and others in erecting a flume and in tunneling. Andthen Smith's Pocket was found to be only a pocket, and subject likeother pockets to depletion. Although Smith pierced the bowels of thegreat red mountain, that five thousand dollars was the first and lastreturn of his labor. The mountain grew reticent of its golden secrets,and the flume steadily ebbed away the remainder of Smith's fortune.Then Smith went into quartz-mining; then into quartz-milling; then intohydraulics and ditching, and then by easy degrees into saloonkeeping.Presently it was whispered that Smith was drinking a great deal; then itwas known that Smith was a habitual drunkard, and then people began tothink, as they are apt to, that he had never been anything else. But thesettlement of Smith's Pocket, like that of most discoveries, was happilynot dependent on the fortune of its pioneer, and other parties projectedtunnels and found pockets. So Smith's Pocket became a settlement, withits two fancy stores, its two hotels, its one express office, and itstwo first families. Occasionally its one long straggling street wasoverawed by the assumption of the latest San Francisco fashions,imported per express, exclusively to the first families; making outragedNature, in the ragged outline of her furrowed surface, look still morehomely, and putting personal insult on that greater portion of thepopulation to whom the Sabbath, with a change of linen, brought merelythe necessity of cleanliness without the luxury of adornment. Then therewas a Methodist Church, and hard by a Monte Bank, and a little beyond,on the mountainside, a graveyard; and then a little schoolhouse.
"The Master," as he was known to his little flock, sat alone one nightin the schoolhouse, with some open copybooks before him, carefullymaking those bold and full characters which are supposed to combine theextremes of chirographical and moral excellence, and had got as far as"Riches are deceitful," and was elaborating the noun with an insincerityof flourish that was quite in the spirit of his text, when he heard agentle tapping. The woodpeckers had been busy about the roof duringthe day, and the noise did not disturb his work. But the opening of thedoor, and the tapping continuing from the inside, caused him to lookup. He was slightly startled by the figure of a young girl, dirtyand shabbily clad. Still, her great black eyes, her coarse, uncombed,lusterless black hair falling over her sunburned face, her red armsand feet streaked with the red soil, were all familiar to him. It wasMelissa Smith--Smith's motherless child.
"What can she want here?" thought the master. Everybody knew "Mliss,"as she was called, throughout the length and height of Red Mountain.Everybody knew her as an incorrigible girl. Her fierce, ungovernabledisposition, her mad freaks and lawless character, were in their wayas proverbial as the story of her father's weaknesses, and asphilosophically accepted by the townsfolk. She wrangled with and foughtthe schoolboys with keener invective and quite as powerful arm. Shefollowed the trails with a woodman's craft, and the master had mether before, miles away, shoeless, stockingless, and bareheaded on themountain road. The miners' camps along the stream supplied her withsubsistence during these voluntary pilgrimages, in freely offered alms.Not but that a larger protection had been previously extended to Mliss.The Rev. Joshua McSnagley, "stated" preacher, had placed her in thehotel as servant, by way of preliminary refinement, and had introducedher to his scholars at Sunday school. But she threw plates occasionallyat the landlord, and quickly retorted to the cheap witticisms of theguests, and created in the Sabbath school a sensation that was soinimical to the orthodox dullness and placidity of that institutionthat, with a decent regard for the starched frocks and unblemishedmorals of the two pink-and-white-faced children of the first families,the reverend gentleman had her ignominiously expelled. Such were theantecedents, and such the character of Mliss as she stood before themaster. It was shown in the ragged dress, the unkempt hair, and bleedingfeet, and asked his pity. It flashed from her black, fearless eyes, andcommanded his respect.
"I come here tonight," she said rapidly and boldly, keeping her hardglance on his, "because I knew you was alone. I wouldn't come here whenthem gals was here. I hate 'em and they hates me. That's why. You keepschool, don't you? I want to be teached!"
If to the shabbiness of her apparel and uncomeliness of her tangled hairand dirty face she had added the humility of tears, the master wouldhave extended to her the usual moiety of pity, and nothing more. Butwith the natural, though illogical, instincts of his species, herboldness awakened in him something of that respect which all originalnatures pay unconsciously to one another in any grade. And he gazed ather the more fixedly as she went on still rapidly, her hand on that doorlatch and her eyes on his:
"My name's Mliss--Mliss Smith! You can bet your life on that. Myfather's Old Smith--Old Bummer Smith--that's what's the matter with him.Mliss Smith--and I'm coming to school!"
"Well?" said the master.
Accustomed to be thwarted and opposed, often wantonly and cruelly, forno other purpose than to excite the violent impulses of her nature, themaster's phlegm evidently took her by surprise. She stopped; she beganto twist a lock of her hair between her fingers; and the rigid lineof upper lip, drawn over the wicked little teeth, relaxed and quiveredslightly. Then her eyes dropped, and something like a blush struggled upto her cheek and tried to assert itself through the splashes of reddersoil, and the sunburn of years. Suddenly she threw herself forward,calling on God to strike her dead, and fell quite weak and helpless,with her face on the master's desk, crying and sobbing as if her heartwould break.
The master lifted her gently and waited for the paroxysm to pass. When,with face still averted, she was repeating between her sobs the MEACULPA of childish penitence--that "she'd be good, she didn't mean to,"etc., it came to him to ask her why she had left Sabbath school.
Why had she left the Sabbath school?--why? Oh, yes. What did he(McSnagley) want to tell her she was wicked for? What did he tell herthat God hated her for? If God hated her, what did she want to go toSabbath school for? SHE didn't want to be "beholden" to anybody whohated her.
Had she told McSnagley this?
Yes, she had.
The master laughed. It was a hearty laugh,
and echoed so oddly in thelittle schoolhouse, and seemed so inconsistent and discordant with thesighing of the pines without, that he shortly corrected himself witha sigh. The sigh was quite as sincere in its way, however, and after amoment of serious silence he asked about her father.
Her father? What father? Whose father? What had he ever done for her?Why did the girls hate her? Come now! what made the folks say, "OldBummer Smith's Mliss!" when she passed? Yes; oh yes. She wished he wasdead--she was dead--everybody was dead; and her sobs broke forth anew.
The master then, leaning over her, told her as well as he could what youor I might have said after hearing such unnatural theories from childishlips; only bearing in mind perhaps better than you or I the unnaturalfacts of her ragged dress, her bleeding feet, and the omnipresent shadowof her drunken father. Then, raising her to her feet, he wrapped hisshawl around her, and, bidding her come early in the morning, he walkedwith her down the road. There he bade her "good night." The moon shonebrightly on the narrow path before them. He stood and watched the bentlittle figure as it staggered down the road, and waited until it hadpassed the little graveyard and reached the curve of the hill, where itturned and stood for a moment, a mere atom of suffering outlined againstthe far-off patient stars. Then he went back to his work. But the linesof the copybook thereafter faded into long parallels of never-endingroad, over which childish figures seemed to pass sobbing and crying intothe night. Then, the little schoolhouse seeming lonelier than before, heshut the door and went home.
The next morning Mliss came to school. Her face had been washed, and hercoarse black hair bore evidence of recent struggles with the comb,in which both had evidently suffered. The old defiant look shoneoccasionally in her eyes, but her manner was tamer and more subdued.Then began a series of little trials and self-sacrifices, in whichmaster and pupil bore an equal part, and which increased the confidenceand sympathy between them. Although obedient under the master's eye,at times during recess, if thwarted or stung by a fancied slight, Mlisswould rage in ungovernable fury, and many a palpitating young savage,finding himself matched with his own weapons of torment, would seekthe master with torn jacket and scratched face and complaints of thedreadful Mliss. There was a serious division among the townspeople onthe subject, some threatening to withdraw their children from such evilcompanionship, and others as warmly upholding the course of the masterin his work of reclamation. Meanwhile, with a steady persistence thatseemed quite astonishing to him on looking back afterward, the masterdrew Mliss gradually out of the shadow of her past life, as though itwere but her natural progress down the narrow path on which he hadset her feet the moonlit night of their first meeting. Remembering theexperience of the evangelical McSnagley, he carefully avoided that Rockof Ages on which that unskillful pilot had shipwrecked her young faith.But if, in the course of her reading, she chanced to stumble upon thosefew words which have lifted such as she above the level of the older,the wiser, and the more prudent--if she learned something of a faiththat is symbolized by suffering, and the old light softened in her eyes,it did not take the shape of a lesson. A few of the plainer people hadmade up a little sum by which the ragged Mliss was enabled to assumethe garments of respect and civilization; and often a rough shake ofthe hand, and words of homely commendation from a red-shirted and burlyfigure, sent a glow to the cheek of the young master, and set him tothinking if it was altogether deserved.
Three months had passed from the time of their first meeting, and themaster was sitting late one evening over the moral and sententiouscopies, when there came a tap at the door and again Mliss stood beforehim. She was neatly clad and clean-faced, and there was nothing perhapsbut the long black hair and bright black eyes to remind him of hisformer apparition. "Are you busy?" she asked. "Can you come withme?"--and on his signifying his readiness, in her old willful way shesaid, "Come, then, quick!"
They passed out of the door together and into the dark road. As theyentered the town the master asked her whither she was going. Shereplied, "To see my father."
It was the first time he had heard her call him by that filial title, orindeed anything more than "Old Smith" or the "Old Man." It was the firsttime in three months that she had spoken of him at all, and the masterknew she had kept resolutely aloof from him since her great change.Satisfied from her manner that it was fruitless to question her purpose,he passively followed. In out-of-the-way places, low groggeries,restaurants, and saloons; in gambling hells and dance houses, themaster, preceded by Mliss, came and went. In the reeking smoke andblasphemous outcries of low dens, the child, holding the master's hand,stood and anxiously gazed, seemingly unconscious of all in the oneabsorbing nature of her pursuit. Some of the revelers, recognizingMliss, called to the child to sing and dance for them, and would haveforced liquor upon her but for the interference of the master. Others,recognizing him mutely, made way for them to pass. So an hour slippedby. Then the child whispered in his ear that there was a cabin on theother side of the creek crossed by the long flume, where she thought hestill might be. Thither they crossed--a toilsome half-hour's walk--butin vain. They were returning by the ditch at the abutment of the flume,gazing at the lights of the town on the opposite bank, when, suddenly,sharply, a quick report rang out on the clear night air. The echoescaught it, and carried it round and round Red Mountain, and set thedogs to barking all along the streams. Lights seemed to dance and movequickly on the outskirts of the town for a few moments, the streamrippled quite audibly beside them, a few stones loosened themselves fromthe hillside and splashed into the stream, a heavy wind seemed to surgethe branches of the funereal pines, and then the silence seemed to fallthicker, heavier, and deadlier. The master turned toward Mliss with anunconscious gesture of protection, but the child had gone. Oppressed bya strange fear, he ran quickly down the trail to the river's bed, and,jumping from boulder to boulder, reached the base of Red Mountain andthe outskirts of the village. Midway of the crossing he looked up andheld his breath in awe. For high above him on the narrow flume he sawthe fluttering little figure of his late companion crossing swiftly inthe darkness.
He climbed the bank, and, guided by a few lights moving about a centralpoint on the mountain, soon found himself breathless among a crowd ofawe-stricken and sorrowful men. Out from among them the child appeared,and, taking the master's hand, led him silently before what seemed aragged hole in the mountain. Her face was quite white, but her excitedmanner gone, and her look that of one to whom some long-expectedevent had at last happened--an expression that to the master in hisbewilderment seemed almost like relief. The walls of the cavern werepartly propped by decaying timbers. The child pointed to what appearedto be some ragged, castoff clothes left in the hole by the lateoccupant. The master approached nearer with his flaming dip, and bentover them. It was Smith, already cold, with a pistol in his hand and abullet in his heart, lying beside his empty pocket.
CHAPTER II
The opinion which McSnagley expressed in reference to a "change ofheart" supposed to be experienced by Mliss was more forcibly describedin the gulches and tunnels. It was thought there that Mliss had"struck a good lead." So when there was a new grave added to thelittle enclosure, and at the expense of the master a little boardand inscription put above it, the RED MOUNTAIN BANNER came out quitehandsomely, and did the fair thing to the memory of one of "our oldestPioneers," alluding gracefully to that "bane of noble intellects," andotherwise genteelly shelving our dear brother with the past. "He leavesan only child to mourn his loss," says the BANNER, "who is now anexemplary scholar, thanks to the efforts of the Rev. Mr. McSnagley." TheRev. McSnagley, in fact, made a strong point of Mliss's conversion,and, indirectly attributing to the unfortunate child the suicide ofher father, made affecting allusions in Sunday school to the beneficialeffects of the "silent tomb," and in this cheerful contemplationdrove most of the children into speechless horror, and caused thepink-and-white scions of the first families to howl dismally and refuseto be comforted.
The long dry summer came. As each fierce
day burned itself out in littlewhiffs of pearl-gray smoke on the mountain summits, and the upspringingbreeze scattered its red embers over the landscape, the green wave whichin early spring upheaved above Smith's grave grew sere and dry andhard. In those days the master, strolling in the little churchyard ofa Sabbath afternoon, was sometimes surprised to find a few wild flowersplucked from the damp pine forests scattered there, and oftener rudewreaths hung upon the little pine cross. Most of these wreaths wereformed of a sweet-scented grass, which the children loved to keep intheir desks, intertwined with the plumes of the buckeye, the syringa,and the wood anemone, and here and there the master noticed thedark-blue cowl of the monkshood, or deadly aconite. There was somethingin the odd association of this noxious plant with these memorials whichoccasioned a painful sensation to the master deeper than his estheticsense. One day, during a long walk, in crossing a wooded ridge he cameupon Mliss in the heart of the forest, perched upon a prostrate pine ona fantastic throne formed by the hanging plumes of lifeless branches,her lap full of grasses and pine burrs, and crooning to herself one ofthe Negro melodies of her younger life. Recognizing him at a distance,she made room for him on her elevated throne, and with a graveassumption of hospitality and patronage that would have been ridiculoushad it not been so terribly earnest, she fed him with pine nuts and crabapples. The master took that opportunity to point out to her the noxiousand deadly qualities of the monkshood, whose dark blossoms he saw in herlap, and extorted from her a promise not to meddle with it as longas she remained his pupil. This done--as the master had tested herintegrity before--he rested satisfied, and the strange feeling which hadovercome him on seeing them died away.
Of the homes that were offered Mliss when her conversion became known,the master preferred that of Mrs. Morpher, a womanly and kindheartedspecimen of Southwestern efflorescence, known in her maidenhood as the"Per-rairie Rose." Being one of those who contend resolutely againsttheir own natures, Mrs. Morpher, by a long series of self-sacrifices andstruggles, had at last subjugated her naturally careless disposition toprinciples of "order," which she considered, in common with Mr. Pope,as "Heaven's first law." But she could not entirely govern the orbitsof her satellites, however regular her own movements, and even her own"Jeemes" sometimes collided with her. Again her old nature asserteditself in her children. Lycurgus dipped into the cupboard "betweenmeals," and Aristides came home from school without shoes, leaving thoseimportant articles on the threshold, for the delight of a barefootedwalk down the ditches. Octavia and Cassandra were "keerless" of theirclothes. So with but one exception, however much the "Prairie Rose"might have trimmed and pruned and trained her own matured luxuriance,the little shoots came up defiantly wild and straggling. Thatone exception was Clytemnestra Morpher, aged fifteen. She was therealization of her mother's immaculate conception--neat, orderly, anddull.
It was an amiable weakness of Mrs. Morpher to imagine that "Clytie" wasa consolation and model for Mliss. Following this fallacy, Mrs. Morpherthrew Clytie at the head of Mliss when she was "bad," and set her upbefore the child for adoration in her penitential moments. It was not,therefore, surprising to the master to hear that Clytie was coming toschool, obviously as a favor to the master and as an example for Mlissand others. For "Clytie" was quite a young lady. Inheriting her mother'sphysical peculiarities, and in obedience to the climatic laws of the RedMountain region, she was an early bloomer. The youth of Smith's Pocket,to whom this kind of flower was rare, sighed for her in April andlanguished in May. Enamored swains haunted the schoolhouse at the hourof dismissal. A few were jealous of the master.
Perhaps it was this latter circumstance that opened the master's eyesto another. He could not help noticing that Clytie was romantic; thatin school she required a great deal of attention; that her pens wereuniformly bad and wanted fixing; that she usually accompanied therequest with a certain expectation in her eye that was somewhatdisproportionate to the quality of service she verbally required; thatshe sometimes allowed the curves of a round, plump white arm to rest onhis when he was writing her copies; that she always blushed and flungback her blond curls when she did so. I don't remember whether I havestated that the master was a young man--it's of little consequence,however; he had been severely educated in the school in which Clytiewas taking her first lesson, and, on the whole, withstood the flexiblecurves and factitious glance like the fine young Spartan that hewas. Perhaps an insufficient quality of food may have tended to thisasceticism. He generally avoided Clytie; but one evening, when shereturned to the schoolhouse after something she had forgotten, anddid not find it until the master walked home with her, I hear that heendeavored to make himself particularly agreeable--partly from thefact, I imagine, that his conduct was adding gall and bitterness to thealready overcharged hearts of Clytemnestra's admirers.
The morning after this affecting episode Mliss did not come to school.Noon came, but not Mliss. Questioning Clytie on the subject, it appearedthat they had left the school together, but the willful Mliss had takenanother road. The afternoon brought her not. In the evening he called onMrs. Morpher, whose motherly heart was really alarmed. Mr. Morpher hadspent all day in search of her, without discovering a trace that mightlead to her discovery. Aristides was summoned as a probable accomplice,but that equitable infant succeeded in impressing the household with hisinnocence. Mrs. Morpher entertained a vivid impression that the childwould yet be found drowned in a ditch, or, what was almost as terrible,muddied and soiled beyond the redemption of soap and water. Sick atheart, the master returned to the schoolhouse. As he lit his lamp andseated himself at his desk, he found a note lying before him addressedto himself, in Mliss's handwriting. It seemed to be written on aleaf torn from some old memorandum book, and, to prevent sacrilegioustrifling, had been sealed with six broken wafers. Opening it almosttenderly, the master read as follows:
RESPECTED SIR--When you read this, I am run away. Never to come back.NEVER, NEVER, NEVER. You can give my beeds to Mary Jennings, and myAmerika's Pride [a highly colored lithograph from a tobacco-box] toSally Flanders. But don't you give anything to Clytie Morpher. Don'tyou dare to. Do you know what my opinion is of her, it is this, she isperfekly disgustin. That is all and no more at present from
Yours respectfully,
MELISSA SMITH.
The master sat pondering on this strange epistle till the moon liftedits bright face above the distant hills, and illuminated the trail thatled to the schoolhouse, beaten quite hard with the coming and goingof little feet. Then, more satisfied in mind, he tore the missive intofragments and scattered them along the road.
At sunrise the next morning he was picking his way through the palmlikefern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from itsform, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, whohad evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridgewhere he had once found Mliss. There he found the prostrate pine andtasseled branches, but the throne was vacant. As he drew nearer, whatmight have been some frightened animal started through the cracklinglimbs. It ran up the tossed arms of the fallen monarch and sheltereditself in some friendly foliage. The master, reaching the old seat,found the nest still warm; looking up in the intertwining branches, hemet the black eyes of the errant Mliss. They gazed at each other withoutspeaking. She was first to break the silence.
"What do you want?" she asked curtly.
The master had decided on a course of action. "I want some crab apples,"he said humbly.
"Sha'n't have 'em! go away. Why don't you get 'em of Clytemnerestera?"(It seemed to be a relief to Mliss to express her contempt in additionalsyllables to that classical young woman's already long-drawn title.) "Oyou wicked thing!"
"I am hungry, Lissy. I have eaten nothing since dinner yesterday. I amfamished!" and the young man in a state of remarkable exhaustion leanedagainst the tree.
Melissa's heart was touched. In the bitter days of her gypsy lifeshe had known the sensation he so artfully simulated. Overcome by hisheartbroken tone, but no
t entirely divested of suspicion, she said:
"Dig under the tree near the roots, and you'll find lots; but mind youdon't tell," for Mliss had HER hoards as well as the rats and squirrels.
But the master, of course, was unable to find them; the effects ofhunger probably blinding his senses. Mliss grew uneasy. At length shepeered at him through the leaves in an elfish way, and questioned:
"If I come down and give you some, you'll promise you won't touch me?"
The master promised.
"Hope you'll die if you do!"
The master accepted instant dissolution as a forfeit. Mliss slid downthe tree. For a few moments nothing transpired but the munching of thepine nuts. "Do you feel better?" she asked, with some solicitude. Themaster confessed to a recuperated feeling, and then, gravely thankingher, proceeded to retrace his steps. As he expected, he had not gone farbefore she called him. He turned. She was standing there quite white,with tears in her widely opened orbs. The master felt that the rightmoment had come. Going up to her, he took both her hands, and lookingin her tearful eyes, said, gravely, "Lissy, do you remember the firstevening you came to see me?"
Lissy remembered.
"You asked me if you might come to school, for you wanted to learnsomething and be better, and I said--"
"Come," responded the child, promptly.
"What would YOU say if the master now came to you and said that he waslonely without his little scholar, and that he wanted her to come andteach him to be better?"
The child hung her head for a few moments in silence. The master waitedpatiently. Tempted by the quiet, a hare ran close to the couple, andraising her bright eyes and velvet forepaws, sat and gazed at them.A squirrel ran halfway down the furrowed bark of the fallen tree, andthere stopped.
"We are waiting, Lissy," said the master, in a whisper, and the childsmiled. Stirred by a passing breeze, the treetops rocked, and a longpencil of light stole through their interlaced boughs full on thedoubting face and irresolute little figure. Suddenly she took themaster's hand in her quick way. What she said was scarcely audible, butthe master, putting the black hair back from her forehead, kissed her;and so, hand in hand, they passed out of the damp aisles and forestodors into the open sunlit road.
CHAPTER III
Somewhat less spiteful in her intercourse with other scholars, Mlissstill retained an offensive attitude in regard to Clytemnestra. Perhapsthe jealous element was not entirely lulled in her passionate littlebreast. Perhaps it was only that the round curves and plump outlineoffered more extended pinching surface. But while such ebullitionswere under the master's control, her enmity occasionally took a new andirrepressible form.
The master in his first estimate of the child's character could notconceive that she had ever possessed a doll. But the master, like manyother professed readers of character, was safer in a posteriori than apriori reasoning. Mliss had a doll, but then it was emphatically Mliss'sdoll--a smaller copy of herself. Its unhappy existence had been asecret discovered accidentally by Mrs. Morpher. It had been the old-timecompanion of Mliss's wanderings, and bore evident marks of suffering.Its original complexion was long since washed away by the weather andanointed by the slime of ditches. It looked very much as Mliss had indays past. Its one gown of faded stuff was dirty and ragged, as hershad been. Mliss had never been known to apply to it any childish term ofendearment. She never exhibited it in the presence of other children. Itwas put severely to bed in a hollow tree near the schoolhouse, and onlyallowed exercise during Mliss's rambles. Fulfilling a stern duty to herdoll, as she would to herself, it knew no luxuries.
Now Mrs. Morpher, obeying a commendable impulse, bought another dolland gave it to Mliss. The child received it gravely and curiously. Themaster on looking at it one day fancied he saw a slight resemblancein its round red cheeks and mild blue eyes to Clytemnestra. It becameevident before long that Mliss had also noticed the same resemblance.Accordingly she hammered its waxen head on the rocks when she wasalone, and sometimes dragged it with a string round its neck to and fromschool. At other times, setting it up on her desk, she made a pincushionof its patient and inoffensive body. Whether this was done in revengeof what she considered a second figurative obtrusion of Clytie'sexcellences upon her, or whether she had an intuitive appreciation ofthe rites of certain other heathens, and, indulging in that "fetish"ceremony, imagined that the original of her wax model would pine awayand finally die, is a metaphysical question I shall not now consider.
In spite of these moral vagaries, the master could not help noticingin her different tasks the working of a quick, restless, and vigorousperception. She knew neither the hesitancy nor the doubts of childhood.Her answers in class were always slightly dashed with audacity. Ofcourse she was not infallible. But her courage and daring in passingbeyond her own depth and that of the floundering little swimmers aroundher, in their minds outweighed all errors of judgment. Children arenot better than grown people in this respect, I fancy; and whenever thelittle red hand flashed above her desk, there was a wondering silence,and even the master was sometimes oppressed with a doubt of his ownexperience and judgment.
Nevertheless, certain attributes which at first amused and entertainedhis fancy began to afflict him with grave doubts. He could not but seethat Mliss was revengeful, irreverent, and willful. That there was butone better quality which pertained to her semisavage disposition--thefaculty of physical fortitude and self-sacrifice, and another, thoughnot always an attribute of the noble savage--Truth. Mliss was bothfearless and sincere; perhaps in such a character the adjectives weresynonymous.
The master had been doing some hard thinking on this subject, and hadarrived at that conclusion quite common to all who think sincerely, thathe was generally the slave of his own prejudices, when he determinedto call on the Rev. McSnagley for advice. This decision was somewhathumiliating to his pride, as he and McSnagley were not friends. But hethought of Mliss, and the evening of their first meeting; and perhapswith a pardonable superstition that it was not chance alone thathad guided her willful feet to the schoolhouse, and perhaps with acomplacent consciousness of the rare magnanimity of the act, he chokedback his dislike and went to McSnagley.
The reverend gentleman was glad to see him. Moreover, he observedthat the master was looking "peartish," and hoped he had got over the"neuralgy" and "rheumatiz." He himself had been troubled with a dumb"ager" since last conference. But he had learned to "rastle and pray."
Pausing a moment to enable the master to write his certain methodof curing the dumb "ager" upon the book and volume of his brain,Mr. McSnagley proceeded to inquire after Sister Morpher. "She is anadornment to ChrisTEWanity, and has a likely growin' young family,"added Mr. McSnagley; "and there's that mannerly young gal--so wellbehaved--Miss Clytie." In fact, Clytie's perfections seemed to affecthim to such an extent that he dwelt for several minutes upon them. Themaster was doubly embarrassed. In the first place, there was an enforcedcontrast with poor Mliss in all this praise of Clytie. Secondly, therewas something unpleasantly confidential in his tone of speaking of Mrs.Morpher's earliest born. So that the master, after a few futileefforts to say something natural, found it convenient to recall anotherengagement, and left without asking the information required, but in hisafter reflections somewhat unjustly giving the Rev. Mr. McSnagley thefull benefit of having refused it.
Perhaps this rebuff placed the master and pupil once more in the closecommunion of old. The child seemed to notice the change in the master'smanner, which had of late been constrained, and in one of their longpostprandial walks she stopped suddenly, and mounting a stump, lookedfull in his face with big, searching eyes. "You ain't mad?" said she,with an interrogative shake of the black braids. "No." "Nor bothered?""No." "Nor hungry?" (Hunger was to Mliss a sickness that might attacka person at any moment.) "No." "Nor thinking of her?" "Of whom, Lissy?""That white girl." (This was the latest epithet invented by Mliss, whowas a very dark brunette, to express Clytemnestra.) "No." "Upon yourword?" (A substitute for "Hope you'll d
ie!" proposed by the master.)"Yes." "And sacred honor?" "Yes." Then Mliss gave him a fierce littlekiss, and, hopping down, fluttered off. For two or three days afterthat she condescended to appear more like other children, and be, as sheexpressed it, "good."
Two years had passed since the master's advent at Smith's Pocket, and ashis salary was not large, and the prospects of Smith's Pocket eventuallybecoming the capital of the State not entirely definite, he contemplateda change. He had informed the school trustees privately of hisintentions, but educated young men of unblemished moral character beingscarce at that time, he consented to continue his school term throughthe winter to early spring. None else knew of his intention except hisone friend, a Dr. Duchesne, a young Creole physician known to the peopleof Wingdam as "Duchesny." He never mentioned it to Mrs. Morpher,Clytie, or any of his scholars. His reticence was partly the result ofa constitutional indisposition to fuss, partly a desire to be sparedthe questions and surmises of vulgar curiosity, and partly that he neverreally believed he was going to do anything before it was done.
He did not like to think of Mliss. It was a selfish instinct, perhaps,which made him try to fancy his feeling for the child was foolish,romantic, and unpractical. He even tried to imagine that she would dobetter under the control of an older and sterner teacher. Then she wasnearly eleven, and in a few years, by the rules of Red Mountain, wouldbe a woman. He had done his duty. After Smith's death he addressedletters to Smith's relatives, and received one answer from a sisterof Melissa's mother. Thanking the master, she stated her intention ofleaving the Atlantic States for California with her husband in a fewmonths. This was a slight superstructure for the airy castle which themaster pictured for Mliss's home, but it was easy to fancy that someloving, sympathetic woman, with the claims of kindred, might betterguide her wayward nature. Yet, when the master had read the letter,Mliss listened to it carelessly, received it submissively, andafterward cut figures out of it with her scissors, supposed to representClytemnestra, labeled "the white girl," to prevent mistakes, and impaledthem upon the outer walls of the schoolhouse.
When the summer was about spent, and the last harvest had been gatheredin the valleys, the master bethought him of gathering in a fewripened shoots of the young idea, and of having his Harvest Home, orExamination. So the savants and professionals of Smith's Pocket weregathered to witness that time-honored custom of placing timid childrenin a constrained positions and bullying them as in a witness box. Asusual in such cases, the most audacious and self-possessed were thelucky recipients of the honors. The reader will imagine that in thepresent instance Mliss and Clytie were preeminent, and dividedpublic attention; Mliss with her clearness of material perceptionand self-reliance, Clytie with her placid self-esteem and saintlikecorrectness of deportment. The other little ones were timid andblundering. Mliss's readiness and brilliancy, of course, captivated thegreatest number and provoked the greatest applause. Mliss's antecedentshad unconsciously awakened the strongest sympathies of a class whoseathletic forms were ranged against the walls, or whose handsome beardedfaces looked in at the windows. But Mliss's popularity was overthrown byan unexpected circumstance.
McSnagley had invited himself, and had been going through the pleasingentertainment of frightening the more timid pupils by the vaguest andmost ambiguous questions delivered in an impressive funereal tone; andMliss had soared into astronomy, and was tracking the course of ourspotted ball through space, and keeping time with the music of thespheres, and defining the tethered orbits of the planets, when McSnagleyimpressively arose. "Meelissy! ye were speaking of the revolutions ofthis yere yearth and the move-MENTS of the sun, and I think ye said ithad been a doing of it since the creashun, eh?" Mliss nodded a scornfulaffirmative. "Well, war that the truth?" said McSnagley, folding hisarms. "Yes," said Mliss, shutting up her little red lips tightly. Thehandsome outlines at the windows peered further in the schoolroom, and asaintly Raphael face, with blond beard and soft blue eyes, belongingto the biggest scamp in the diggings, turned toward the child andwhispered, "Stick to it, Mliss!" The reverend gentleman heaved adeep sigh, and cast a compassionate glance at the master, then at thechildren, and then rested his look on Clytie. That young woman softlyelevated her round, white arm. Its seductive curves were enhanced by agorgeous and massive specimen bracelet, the gift of one of her humblestworshipers, worn in honor of the occasion. There was a momentarysilence. Clytie's round cheeks were very pink and soft. Clytie's bigeyes were very bright and blue. Clytie's low-necked white book muslinrested softly on Clytie's white, plump shoulders. Clytie looked at themaster, and the master nodded. Then Clytie spoke softly:
"Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and it obeyed him!" Therewas a low hum of applause in the schoolroom, a triumphant expression onMcSnagley's face, a grave shadow on the master's, and a comical look ofdisappointment reflected from the windows. Mliss skimmed rapidly overher astronomy, and then shut the book with a loud snap. A groan burstfrom McSnagley, an expression of astonishment from the schoolroom, ayell from the windows, as Mliss brought her red fist down on the desk,with the emphatic declaration:
"It's a damn lie. I don't believe it!"
CHAPTER IV
The long wet season had drawn near its close. Signs of spring werevisible in the swelling buds and rushing torrents. The pine forestsexhaled the fresher spicery. The azaleas were already budding, theceanothus getting ready its lilac livery for spring. On the green uplandwhich climbed Red Mountain at its southern aspect the long spike of themonkshood shot up from its broad-leaved stool, and once more shookits dark-blue bells. Again the billow above Smith's grave was soft andgreen, its crest just tossed with the foam of daisies and buttercups.The little graveyard had gathered a few new dwellers in the past year,and the mounds were placed two by two by the little paling until theyreached Smith's grave, and there there was but one. General superstitionhad shunned it, and the plot beside Smith was vacant.
There had been several placards posted about the town, intimating that,at a certain period, a celebrated dramatic company would perform, fora few days, a series of "side-splitting" and "screaming farces"; that,alternating pleasantly with this, there would be some melodrama and agrand divertisement which would include singing, dancing, etc. Theseannouncements occasioned a great fluttering among the little folk,and were the theme of much excitement and great speculation among themaster's scholars. The master had promised Mliss, to whom this sort ofthing was sacred and rare, that she should go, and on that momentousevening the master and Mliss "assisted."
The performance was the prevalent style of heavy mediocrity; themelodrama was not bad enough to laugh at nor good enough to excite.But the master, turning wearily to the child, was astonished and feltsomething like self-accusation in noticing the peculiar effect upon herexcitable nature. The red blood flushed in her cheeks at each stroke ofher panting little heart. Her small passionate lips were slightly partedto give vent to her hurried breath. Her widely opened lids threw up andarched her black eyebrows. She did not laugh at the dismal comicalitiesof the funny man, for Mliss seldom laughed. Nor was she discreetlyaffected to the delicate extremes of the corner of a white handkerchief,as was the tender-hearted "Clytie," who was talking with her "feller"and ogling the master at the same moment. But when the performance wasover, and the green curtain fell on the little stage, Mliss drew along deep breath, and turned to the master's grave face with ahalf-apologetic smile and wearied gesture. Then she said, "Now take mehome!" and dropped the lids of her black eyes, as if to dwell once morein fancy on the mimic stage.
On their way to Mrs. Morpher's the master thought proper to ridiculethe whole performance. Now he shouldn't wonder if Mliss thought that theyoung lady who acted so beautifully was really in earnest, and in lovewith the gentleman who wore such fine clothes. Well, if she were in lovewith him it was a very unfortunate thing! "Why?" said Mliss, with anupward sweep of the drooping lid. "Oh! well, he couldn't support hiswife at his present salary, and pay so much a week for his fine clothes,and then they would
n't receive as much wages if they were married as ifthey were merely lovers--that is," added the master, "if they are notalready married to somebody else; but I think the husband of the prettyyoung countess takes the tickets at the door, or pulls up the curtain,or snuffs the candles, or does something equally refined and elegant. Asto the young man with nice clothes, which are really nice now, and mustcost at least two and a half or three dollars, not to speak of thatmantle of red drugget which I happen to know the price of, for I boughtsome of it for my room once--as to this young man, Lissy, he is a prettygood fellow, and if he does drink occasionally, I don't think peopleought to take advantage of it and give him black eyes and throw him inthe mud. Do you? I am sure he might owe me two dollars and a half along time, before I would throw it up in his face, as the fellow did theother night at Wingdam."
Mliss had taken his hand in both of hers and was trying to look in hiseyes, which the young man kept as resolutely averted. Mliss had a faintidea of irony, indulging herself sometimes in a species of sardonichumor, which was equally visible in her actions and her speech. Butthe young man continued in this strain until they had reached Mrs.Morpher's, and he had deposited Mliss in her maternal charge. Waivingthe invitation of Mrs. Morpher to refreshment and rest, and shadinghis eyes with his hand to keep out the blue-eyed Clytemnestra's sirenglances, he excused himself, and went home.
For two or three days after the advent of the dramatic company, Mlisswas late at school, and the master's usual Friday afternoon ramble wasfor once omitted, owing to the absence of his trustworthy guide. As hewas putting away his books and preparing to leave the schoolhouse, asmall voice piped at his side, "Please, sir?" The master turned andthere stood Aristides Morpher.
"Well, my little man," said the master, impatiently, "what is it?quick!"
"Please, sir, me and 'Kerg' thinks that Mliss is going to run awayagin."
"What's that, sir?" said the master, with that unjust testiness withwhich we always receive disagreeable news.
"Why, sir, she don't stay home any more, and 'Kerg' and me see hertalking with one of those actor fellers, and she's with him now; andplease, sir, yesterday she told 'Kerg' and me she could make a speechas well as Miss Cellerstina Montmoressy, and she spouted right off byheart," and the little fellow paused in a collapsed condition.
"What actor?" asked the master.
"Him as wears the shiny hat. And hair. And gold pin. And gold chain,"said the just Aristides, putting periods for commas to eke out hisbreath.
The master put on his gloves and hat, feeling an unpleasant tightnessin his chest and thorax, and walked out in the road. Aristides trottedalong by his side, endeavoring to keep pace with his short legs to themaster's strides, when the master stopped suddenly, and Aristides bumpedup against him. "Where were they talking?" asked the master, as ifcontinuing the conversation.
"At the Arcade," said Aristides.
When they reached the main street the master paused. "Run down home,"said he to the boy. "If Mliss is there, come to the Arcade and tell me.If she isn't there, stay home; run!" And off trotted the short-leggedAristides.
The Arcade was just across the way--a long, rambling building containinga barroom, billiard room, and restaurant. As the young man crossed theplaza he noticed that two or three of the passers-by turned and lookedafter him. He looked at his clothes, took out his handkerchief, andwiped his face before he entered the barroom. It contained the usualnumber of loungers, who stared at him as he entered. One of them lookedat him so fixedly and with such a strange expression that the masterstopped and looked again, and then saw it was only his own reflection ina large mirror. This made the master think that perhaps he was a littleexcited, and so he took up a copy of the RED MOUNTAIN BANNER from one ofthe tables, and tried to recover his composure by reading the column ofadvertisements.
He then walked through the barroom, through the restaurant, and into thebilliard room. The child was not there. In the latter apartment a personwas standing by one of the tables with a broad-brimmed glazed hat on hishead. The master recognized him as the agent of the dramatic company;he had taken a dislike to him at their first meeting, from the peculiarfashion of wearing his beard and hair. Satisfied that the object of hissearch was not there, he turned to the man with a glazed hat. He hadnoticed the master, but tried that common trick of unconsciousness inwhich vulgar natures always fail. Balancing a billiard cue in his hand,he pretended to play with a ball in the center of the table. The masterstood opposite to him until he raised his eyes; when their glances met,the master walked up to him.
He had intended to avoid a scene or quarrel, but when he began to speak,something kept rising in his throat and retarded his utterance, and hisown voice frightened him, it sounded so distant, low, and resonant. "Iunderstand," he began, "that Melissa Smith, an orphan, and one of myscholars, has talked with you about adopting your profession. Is thatso?"
The man with the glazed hat leaned over the table and made an imaginaryshot that sent the ball spinning round the cushions. Then, walking roundthe table, he recovered the ball and placed it upon the spot. This dutydischarged, getting ready for another shot, he said:
"S'pose she has?"
The master choked up again, but, squeezing the cushion of the table inhis gloved hand, he went on:
"If you are a gentleman, I have only to tell you that I am her guardian,and responsible for her career. You know as well as I do the kind oflife you offer her. As you may learn of anyone here, I have alreadybrought her out of an existence worse than death--out of the streets andthe contamination of vice. I am trying to do so again. Let us talk likemen. She has neither father, mother, sister, or brother. Are you seekingto give her an equivalent for these?"
The man with the glazed hat examined the point of his cue, and thenlooked around for somebody to enjoy the joke with him.
"I know that she is a strange, willful girl," continued the master, "butshe is better than she was. I believe that I have some influence overher still. I beg and hope, therefore, that you will take no furthersteps in this matter, but as a man, as a gentleman, leave her to me. Iam willing--" But here something rose again in the master's throat, andthe sentence remained unfinished.
The man with the glazed hat, mistaking the master's silence, raised hishead with a coarse, brutal laugh, and said in a loud voice:
"Want her yourself, do you? That cock won't fight here, young man!"
The insult was more in the tone than in the words, more in the glancethan tone, and more in the man's instinctive nature than all these. Thebest appreciable rhetoric to this kind of animal is a blow. The masterfelt this, and, with his pent-up, nervous energy finding expression inthe one act, he struck the brute full in his grinning face. The blowsent the glazed hat one way and the cue another, and tore the gloveand skin from the master's hand from knuckle to joint. It opened upthe corners of the fellow's mouth, and spoilt the peculiar shape of hisbeard for some time to come.
There was a shout, an imprecation, a scuffle, and the trampling of manyfeet. Then the crowd parted right and left, and two sharp quick reportsfollowed each other in rapid succession. Then they closed again abouthis opponent, and the master was standing alone. He remembered pickingbits of burning wadding from his coat sleeve with his left hand. Someonewas holding his other hand. Looking at it, he saw it was still bleedingfrom the blow, but his fingers were clenched around the handle of aglittering knife. He could not remember when or how he got it.
The man who was holding his hand was Mr. Morpher. He hurried the masterto the door, but the master held back, and tried to tell him as wellas he could with his parched throat about "Mliss." "It's all right,my boy," said Mr. Morpher. "She's home!" And they passed out into thestreet together. As they walked along Mr. Morpher said that Mliss hadcome running into the house a few moments before, and had dragged himout, saying that somebody was trying to kill the master at the Arcade.Wishing to be alone, the master promised Mr. Morpher that he would notseek the agent again that night, and parted from him, taking
the roadtoward the schoolhouse. He was surprised in nearing it to find the dooropen--still more surprised to find Mliss sitting there.
The master's nature, as I have hinted before, had, like most sensitiveorganizations, a selfish basis. The brutal taunt thrown out by his lateadversary still rankled in his heart. It was possible, he thought, thatsuch a construction might be put upon his affection for the child,which at best was foolish and Quixotic. Besides, had she not voluntarilyabnegated his authority and affection? And what had everybody else saidabout her? Why should he alone combat the opinion of all, and be at lastobliged tacitly to confess the truth of all they predicted? And he hadbeen a participant in a low barroom fight with a common boor, and riskedhis life, to prove what? What had he proved? Nothing? What would thepeople say? What would his friends say? What would McSnagley say?
In his self-accusation the last person he should have wished to meet wasMliss. He entered the door, and going up to his desk, told the child, ina few cold words, that he was busy, and wished to be alone. As sherose he took her vacant seat, and, sitting down, buried his head in hishands. When he looked up again she was still standing there. She waslooking at his face with an anxious expression.
"Did you kill him?" she asked.
"No!" said the master.
"That's what I gave you the knife for!" said the child, quickly.
"Gave me the knife?" repeated the master, in bewilderment.
"Yes, gave you the knife. I was there under the bar. Saw you hit him.Saw you both fall. He dropped his old knife. I gave it to you. Whydidn't you stick him?" said Mliss rapidly, with an expressive twinkle ofthe black eyes and a gesture of the little red hand.
The master could only look his astonishment.
"Yes," said Mliss. "If you'd asked me, I'd told you I was off with theplay-actors. Why was I off with the play-actors? Because you wouldn'ttell me you was going away. I knew it. I heard you tell the Doctor so.I wasn't a goin' to stay here alone with those Morphers. I'd rather diefirst."
With a dramatic gesture which was perfectly consistent with hercharacter, she drew from her bosom a few limp green leaves, and, holdingthem out at arm's length, said in her quick vivid way, and in the queerpronunciation of her old life, which she fell into when unduly excited:
"That's the poison plant you said would kill me. I'll go with theplay-actors, or I'll eat this and die here. I don't care which. I won'tstay here, where they hate and despise me! Neither would you let me, ifyou didn't hate and despise me too!"
The passionate little breast heaved, and two big tears peeped over theedge of Mliss's eyelids, but she whisked them away with the corner ofher apron as if they had been wasps.
"If you lock me up in jail," said Mliss, fiercely, "to keep me from theplay-actors, I'll poison myself. Father killed himself--why shouldn'tI? You said a mouthful of that root would kill me, and I always carry ithere," and she struck her breast with her clenched fist.
The master thought of the vacant plot beside Smith's grave, and ofthe passionate little figure before him. Seizing her hands in his andlooking full into her truthful eyes, he said:
"Lissy, will you go with ME?"
The child put her arms around his neck, and said joyfully, "Yes."
"But now--tonight?"
"Tonight."
And, hand in hand, they passed into the road--the narrow road that hadonce brought her weary feet to the master's door, and which it seemedshe should not tread again alone. The stars glittered brightly abovethem. For good or ill the lesson had been learned, and behind them theschool of Red Mountain closed upon them forever.