A First Family of Tasajara. Bret Harte
introduced such delightful and shameless obviousness of cheating, and displayed such fascinating and exaggerated partisanship that the game resolved itself into a hilarious melee, to which peace was restored only by an exhibition of tricks of legerdemain with the cards by the young surveyor. All of which Mr. Harkutt supervised patronizingly, with occasional fits of abstraction, from his rocking-chair; and later Mrs. Harkutt from her kitchen threshold, wiping her arms on her apron and commiseratingly observing that she “declared, the young folks looked better already.”
But it was here a more dangerous element of mystery and suggestion was added by Mr. Lawrence Grant in the telling of Miss Euphemia's fortune from the cards before him, and that young lady, pink with excitement, fluttered her little hands not unlike timid birds over the cards to be drawn, taking them from him with an audible twitter of anxiety and great doubts whether a certain “fair-haired gentleman” was in hearts or diamonds.
“Here are two strangers,” said Mr. Grant, with extraordinary gravity laying down the cards, “and here is a 'journey;' this is 'unexpected news,' and this ten of diamonds means 'great wealth' to you, which you see follows the advent of the two strangers and is some way connected with them.”
“Oh, indeed,” said the young lady with great pertness and a toss of her head. “I suppose they've got the money with them.”
“No, though it reaches you through them,” he answered with unflinching solemnity. “Wait a bit, I have it! I see, I've made a mistake with this card. It signifies a journey or a road. Queer! isn't it, Steve? It's THE ROAD.”
“It is queer,” said Rice with equal gravity; “but it's so. The road, sure!” Nevertheless he looked up into the large eyes of Clementina with a certain confidential air of truthfulness.
“You see, ladies,” continued the surveyor, appealing to them with unabashed rigidity of feature, “the cards don't lie! Luckily we are in a position to corroborate them. The road in question is a secret known only to us and some capitalists in San Francisco. In fact even THEY don't know that it is feasible until WE report to them. But I don't mind telling you now, as a slight return for your charming hospitality, that the road is a RAILROAD from Oakland to Tasajara Creek of which we've just made the preliminary survey. So you see what the cards mean is this: You're not far from Tasajara Creek; in fact with a very little expense your father could connect this stream with the creek, and have a WATERWAY STRAIGHT TO THE RAILROAD TERMINUS. That's the wealth the cards promise; and if your father knows how to take a hint he can make his fortune!”
It was impossible to say which was the most dominant in the face of the speaker, the expression of assumed gravity or the twinkling of humor in his eyes. The two girls with superior feminine perception divined that there was much truth in what he said, albeit they didn't entirely understand it, and what they did understand—except the man's good-humored motive—was not particularly interesting. In fact they were slightly disappointed. What had promised to be an audaciously flirtatious declaration, and even a mischievous suggestion of marriage, had resolved itself into something absurdly practical and business-like.
Not so Mr. Harkutt. He quickly rose from his chair, and, leaning over the table, with his eyes fixed on the card as if it really signified the railroad, repeated quickly: “Railroad, eh! What's that? A railroad to Tasajara Creek? Ye don't mean it!—That is—it ain't a SURE thing?”
“Perfectly sure. The money is ready in San Francisco now, and by this time next year—”
“A railroad to Tasajara Creek!” continued Harkutt hurriedly. “What part of it? Where?”
“At the embarcadero naturally,” responded Grant. “There isn't but the one place for the terminus. There's an old shanty there now belongs to somebody.”
“Why, pop!” said Phemie with sudden recollection, “ain't it 'Lige Curtis's house? The land he offered”—
“Hush!” said her father.
“You know, the one written in that bit of paper,” continued the innocent Phemie.
“Hush! will you? God A'mighty! are you goin' to mind me? Are you goin' to keep up your jabber when I'm speakin' to the gentlemen? Is that your manners? What next, I wonder!”
The sudden and unexpected passion of the speaker, the incomprehensible change in his voice, and the utterly disproportionate exaggeration of his attitude towards his daughters, enforced an instantaneous silence. The rain began to drip audibly at the window, the rush of the river sounded distinctly from without, even the shaking of the front part of the dwelling by the distant gale became perceptible. An angry flash sprang for an instant to the young assistant's eye, but it met the cautious glance of his friend, and together both discreetly sought the table. The two girls alone remained white and collected. “Will you go on with my fortune, Mr. Grant?” said Phemie quietly.
A certain respect, perhaps not before observable, was suggested in the surveyor's tone as he smilingly replied, “Certainly, I was only waiting for you to show your confidence in me,” and took up the cards.
Mr. Harkutt coughed. “It looks as if that blamed wind had blown suthin' loose in the store,” he said affectedly. “I reckon I'll go and see.” He hesitated a moment and then disappeared in the passage. Yet even here he stood irresolute, looking at the closed door behind him, and passing his hand over his still flushed face. Presently he slowly and abstractedly ascended the flight of steps, entered the smaller passage that led to the back door of the shop and opened it.
He was at first a little startled at the halo of light from the still glowing stove, which the greater obscurity of the long room had heightened rather than diminished. Then he passed behind the counter, but here the box of biscuits which occupied the centre and cast a shadow over it compelled him to grope vaguely for what he sought. Then he stopped suddenly, the paper he had just found dropping from his fingers, and said sharply—
“Who's there?”
“Me, pop.”
“John Milton?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What the devil are you doin' there, sir?”
“Readin'.”
It was true. The boy was half reclining in a most distorted posture on two chairs, his figure in deep shadow, but his book was raised above his head so as to catch the red glow of the stove on the printed page. Even then his father's angry interruption scarcely diverted his preoccupation; he raised himself in his chair mechanically, with his eyes still fixed on his book. Seeing which his father quickly regained the paper, but continued his objurgation.
“How dare you? Clear off to bed, will you! Do you hear me? Pretty goin's on,” he added as if to justify his indignation. “Sneakin' in here and—and lyin' 'round at this time o' night! Why, if I hadn't come in here to”—
“What?” asked the boy mechanically, catching vaguely at the unfinished sentence and staring automatically at the paper in his father's hand.
“Nothin', sir! Go to bed, I tell you! Will you? What are you standin' gawpin' at?” continued Harkutt furiously.
The boy regained his feet slowly and passed his father, but not without noticing with the same listless yet ineffaceable perception of childhood that he was hurriedly concealing the paper in his pocket. With the same youthful inconsequence, wondering at this more than at the interruption, which was no novel event, he went slowly out of the room.
Harkutt listened to the retreating tread of his bare feet in the passage and then carefully locked the door. Taking the paper from his pocket, and borrowing the idea he had just objurgated in his son, he turned it towards the dull glow of the stove and attempted to read it. But perhaps lacking the patience as well as the keener sight of youth, he was forced to relight the candle which he had left on the counter, and reperused the paper. Yes! there was certainly no mistake! Here was the actual description of the property which the surveyor had just indicated as the future terminus of the new railroad, and here it was conveyed to him—Daniel Harkutt! What was that? Somebody