A First Family of Tasajara. Bret Harte
a diversion. “Come,” he said, with brisk practicality, “you’d better hurry on to Rawlett’s before it gets worse. Have your clothes dried by his fire, take suthin’ to eat, and you’ll be all right.” He rubbed his hands cheerfully, as if summarily disposing of the situation, and incidentally of all ‘Lige’s troubles, and walked with him to the door. Nevertheless, as the man’s look remained unchanged, he hesitated a moment with his hand on the handle, in the hope that he would say something, even if only to repeat his appeal, but he did not. Then Harkutt opened the door; the man moved mechanically out, and at the distance of a few feet seemed to melt into the rain and darkness. Harkutt remained for a moment with his face pressed against the glass. After an interval he thought he heard the faint splash of hoofs in the shallows of the road; he opened the door softly and looked out.
The light had disappeared from the nearest house; only an uncertain bulk of shapeless shadows remained. Other remoter and more vague outlines near the horizon seemed to have a funereal suggestion of tombs and grave mounds, and one—a low shed near the road—looked not unlike a halted bier. He hurriedly put up the shutters in a momentary lulling of the wind, and re-entering the store began to fasten them from within.
While thus engaged an inner door behind the counter opened softly and cautiously, projecting a brighter light into the deserted apartment from some sacred domestic interior with the warm and wholesome incense of cooking. It served to introduce also the equally agreeable presence of a young girl, who, after assuring herself of the absence of every one but the proprietor, idly slipped into the store, and placing her rounded elbows, from which her sleeves were uprolled, upon the counter, leaned lazily upon them, with both hands supporting her dimpled chin, and gazed indolently at him; so indolently that, with her pretty face once fixed in this comfortable attitude, she was constrained to follow his movements with her eyes alone, and often at an uncomfortable angle. It was evident that she offered the final but charming illustration of the enfeebling listlessness of Sidon.
“So those loafers have gone at last,” she said, meditatively. “They’ll take root here some day, pop. The idea of three strong men like that lazing round for two mortal hours doin’ nothin’. Well!” As if to emphasize her disgust she threw her whole weight upon the counter by swinging her feet from the floor to touch the shelves behind her.
Mr. Harkutt only replied by a slight grunt as he continued to screw on the shutters.
“Want me to help you, dad?” she said, without moving.
Mr. Harkutt muttered something unintelligible, which, however, seemed to imply a negative, and her attention here feebly wandered to the roll of paper, and she began slowly and lazily to read it aloud.
“‘For value received, I hereby sell, assign, and transfer to Daniel D. Harkutt all my right, titles and interest in, and to the undivided half of, Quarter Section 4, Range 5, Tasajara Township’—hum—hum,” she murmured, running her eyes to the bottom of the page. “Why, Lord! It’s that ‘Lige Curtis!” she laughed. “The idea of HIM having property! Why, dad, you ain’t been THAT silly!”
“Put down that paper, miss,” he said, aggrievedly; “bring the candle here, and help me to find one of these infernal screws that’s dropped.”
The girl indolently disengaged herself from the counter and Elijah Curtis’s transfer, and brought the candle to her father. The screw was presently found and the last fastening secured. “Supper gettin’ cold, dad,” she said, with a slight yawn. Her father sympathetically responded by stretching himself from his stooping position, and the two passed through the private door into inner domesticity, leaving the already forgotten paper lying with other articles of barter on the counter.
CHAPER II
With the closing of the little door behind them they seemed to have shut out the turmoil and vibration of the storm. The reason became apparent when, after a few paces, they descended half a dozen steps to a lower landing. This disclosed the fact that the dwelling part of the Sidon General Store was quite below the level of the shop and the road, and on the slope of the solitary undulation of the Tasajara plain,—a little ravine that fell away to a brawling stream below. The only arboreous growth of Tasajara clothed its banks in the shape of willows and alders that set compactly around the quaint, irregular dwelling which straggled down the ravine and looked upon a slope of bracken and foliage on either side. The transition from the black, treeless, storm-swept plain to this sheltered declivity was striking and suggestive. From the opposite bank one might fancy that the youthful and original dwelling had ambitiously mounted the crest, but, appalled at the dreary prospect beyond, had gone no further; while from the road it seemed as if the fastidious proprietor had tried to draw a line between the vulgar trading-post, with which he was obliged to face the coarser civilization of the place, and the privacy of his domestic life. The real fact, however, was that the ravine furnished wood and water; and as Nature also provided one wall of the house,—as in the well-known example of aboriginal cave dwellings,—its peculiar construction commended itself to Sidon on the ground of involving little labor.
Howbeit, from the two open windows of the sitting-room which they had entered only the faint pattering of dripping boughs and a slight murmur from the swollen brook indicated the storm that shook the upper plain, and the cool breath of laurel, syringa, and alder was wafted through the neat apartment. Passing through that pleasant rural atmosphere they entered the kitchen, a much larger room, which appeared to serve occasionally as a dining-room, and where supper was already laid out. A stout, comfortable-looking woman—who had, however, a singularly permanent expression of pained sympathy upon her face—welcomed them in tones of gentle commiseration.
“Ah, there you be, you two! Now sit ye right down, dears; DO. You must be tired out; and you, Phemie, love, draw up by your poor father. There—that’s right. You’ll be better soon.”
There was certainly no visible sign of suffering or exhaustion on the part of either father or daughter, nor the slightest apparent earthly reason why they should be expected to exhibit any. But, as already intimated, it was part of Mrs. Harkutt’s generous idiosyncrasy to look upon all humanity as suffering and toiling; to be petted, humored, condoled with, and fed. It had, in the course of years, imparted a singularly caressing sadness to her voice, and given her the habit of ending her sentences with a melancholy cooing and an unintelligible murmur of agreement. It was undoubtedly sincere and sympathetic, but at times inappropriate and distressing. It had lost her the friendship of the one humorist of Tasajara, whose best jokes she had received with such heartfelt commiseration and such pained appreciation of the evident labor involved as to reduce him to silence.
Accustomed as Mr. Harkutt was to his wife’s peculiarity, he was not above assuming a certain slightly fatigued attitude befitting it. “Yes,” he said, with a vague sigh, “where’s Clemmie?”
“Lyin’ down since dinner; she reckoned she wouldn’t get up to supper,” she returned soothingly. “Phemie’s goin’ to take her up some sass and tea. The poor dear child wants a change.”
“She wants to go to ‘Frisco, and so do I, pop,” said Phemie, leaning her elbow half over her father’s plate. “Come, pop, say do,—just for a week.”
“Only for a week,” murmured the commiserating Mrs. Harkutt.
“Perhaps,” responded Harkutt, with gloomy sarcasm, “ye wouldn’t mind tellin’ me how you’re goin’ to get there, and where the money’s comin’ from to take you? There’s no teamin’ over Tasajara till the rain stops, and no money comin’ in till the ranchmen can move their stuff. There ain’t a hundred dollars in all Tasajara; at least there ain’t been the first red cent of it paid across my counter for a fortnit! Perhaps if you do go you wouldn’t mind takin’ me and the store along with ye, and leavin’ us there.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Harkutt, with sympathetic but shameless tergiversation. “Don’t bother your poor father, Phemie, love; don’t you see he’s just tired out? And you’re not eatin’ anything, dad.”
As Mr. Harkutt was uneasily conscious that he had been eating heartily in spite of his financial difficulties, he turned the subject abruptly. “Where’s John Milton?”
Mrs. Harkutt