A California Girl. Edward Henry Eldridge
Charles Herne has come home with a bride."
"There, now, Sarah, you surprise me," said Mrs. Green.
"I guess every body is surprised," said Mrs. Gilmore.
After a few minutes' more conversation, she hurried back to wash her dishes and get dinner.
When Sam came to dinner he found his wife in the best of spirits, with a big dinner for him to enjoy. Sam's alimentive faculty being in a state of great activity, he ate heartily, finishing up with two pieces of Sarah's extra rich peach cobbler. After dinner Sam went to the fire-place where he sat rocking himself, and soon was enjoying a smoke. He had been smoking about five minutes when his wife said: "I really like the smell of the tobacco you smoke, but if you were to smoke such stinking stuff as Horace does, I would get up and leave you. But yours does smell real sweet."
"Horace Green is too stingy to smoke good tobacco," said Sam, after which remark he brought his hand to the side of his leg each time he let the smoke curl out of his mouth, feeling well satisfied with himself and all the world beside.
Did you ever have the experience of passing through a large barnyard, and going from one end to the other with a lean, hungry hog after you, yelling and squealing, trying to eat you up by snapping first at one of your legs and then at the other? You kick at him with first one foot, saying, "Sooy, sooy;" then you, with the other foot, kick backwards, saying, "Sooy, sooy." And after going through this performance many, many times, you reach the gate and shut it between yourself and the hog, leaving him on the inside, amidst deafening noise made by his hungry squeals. After you have left, he does his best to tear down the fence, so strong are the pangs of hunger in him.
A few minutes after that you take him a pail of rich buttermilk, then a large pail of fresh ripe figs, and two dozen ears of sweet corn. You go out in that barnyard an hour afterwards and you don't hear any hog noise. You don't see a hog even moving, for he is lying down in the greatest state of quiet. He will let you do just what you have a mind to do to him. You can scratch him and you will find him good-natured and he seems to enjoy your attentions. He is in such a contented, happy state, that you can roll him or do anything you wish to him.
So it is with some men. By making love to them through their stomachs, you will find them in as happy a frame of mind as Sam Gilmore was as he finished his pipe. His wife saw that he was taking his last puffs, so she said, "Sam, can I have the bays to go over to the Henshaws' this afternoon?"
"Well," replied Sam, "I was going to haul wood, but I guess I can let that go. What time do you want them?"
"Two o'clock," said his wife.
Sarah said that Sam brought the bays around to the front door and was as lively round her and the team as he was twenty years ago when she was a maiden and he came courting her at her father's.
Talk about the diplomacy of Bismarck, d'Israeli, and the Russian Ambassador in settling the Eastern question at the close of the Russo-Turkish war; why there are women in Orangeville who can give them pointers on diplomacy.
The bays thought that either a peddler or minister was driving them that afternoon, they made so many short calls. There was one thing certain—Sarah Gilmore was not to blame if the people of Orangeville did not know Charles Herne was married.
When Green entered the house his wife said: "Horace, what do you think? Charles Herne has brought home a bride."
"A what?" said her husband.
"A bride," said his wife. "May be it's so long since you saw a bride, you have entirely forgotten how one looks. You had better hustle round and pony up that seventy-five dollars you are owing him. He will need it to buy silks, satins and laces for the bride."
"Hell's to pay," said Green.
Early the same morning Henry Storms entered the "Crow's Nest" saloon in Orangeville, where two men were talking over the bar to the saloon-keeper. Storms, walking up to where they were, saluted them by saying: "Hell's broke loose."
"What's up now?" said one of the men.
"Why," said Storms, "Charles Herne has got a running mate."
"Drinks for four," called out another man.
When the drinks were ready four men raised their glasses, one saying, "Drink hearty to Charles Herne and his partner."
At the conclusion of the toast four glasses of whiskey were emptied down four men's throats.
A man went down from his house to the road where his mailbox was nailed to a redwood post. The stage was just coming in.
"Any news?" asked the man of the stage-driver as he took his mail.
"News!" said the driver. "I should say there was. They tell me that Charles Herne has been, and gone, and done it."
Saunders, the merchant of Orangeville, told his customers that day that "Charles Herne had got spliced."
Tim Collins took a span of kicking mules to Pierce, the blacksmith, to be shod.
"Well, Tim, I got some news for you," said Pierce.
"What is it?" said Tim.
"Charles Herne has got hitched up."
Now one could not discern any perceptible change in Charles Herne, if it were true that he had done all the many and varied things which his neighbors stated he had; such as "Brought home a brand-new wife," "Got him a woman," "Got a bride," "Got a running mate," "Been, gone, and done it," "Got spliced," "Got hitched up," and so on.
The waves of ether in the atmosphere of Orangeville were pregnant with all these sayings and produced such an effect on a number of ladies as to make them call at different times at the Treelawn home.
When some of the ladies had made a call and had seen Mrs. Herne, and these ladies saw some others in Orangeville who had not seen Mrs. Herne, conversation did not drag. And as for speculation. Why the amount of speculative genius displayed by certain ladies of that locality would eclipse all speculative talent of Kant, Spencer and Mill. Listen to some of the inquiries: "Is she proud?" "Is she pretty?" "Has she much style about her?" "Do you think they will get along well together?" "Is she fond of children?" "Will they have any babies?" "Is she fond of dress?" "Is she a society lady?" "Do you think she will get lonesome?" "Can she do housework?" "Is she much account with a needle?" "Is she close and saving?" "Is she extravagant?" "Do you think she will put her foot down on Charles Herne furnishing his men with so many luxuries?" "Is she happy?" "Is she a scold?" "Will she wear the breeches?" and numerous other questions which, like problems concerning the Universe, will take time to solve.
Clara Herne was very happy in her new home as the wife of Charles Herne. She found her duties light and pleasant. Everything in the house and about the house was order and system, no friction, all harmony. She remarked to her husband one evening: "It pays to have good help. Every one here takes an interest in what he has to do and does it the very best he knows how, cheerfully and willingly."
She respected her husband exceedingly for the generous way in which he treated his men, and she helped him to still further their comforts.
On retiring one night after they had both spent the evening with their men, which they often did, she said to her husband: "How good it is to have love and respect between employers and employed. Every one speaks in such a kind way; so considerate for the feelings and interests of each one."
"Yes," said her husband, "it makes life worth living to treat your hired help not as if they were merely machines for the use of getting so much work out of them, but to live and act towards them as if they were men. Better still to realize the thought always, that they are our brothers."
Charles and Clara Herne were very happy as man and wife, because they were a social unit. They were one in their domestic and social natures; they were fond of going out to parties, suppers and dances, and enjoyed entertaining company; they were strictly moral, though not religious, and occasionally attended church.
One evening about a year after they had been married, they