An Episode Of Fiddletown

: Selected Stories

In 1858 Fiddletown considered her a very pretty woman. She had a

quantity of light chestnut hair, a good figure, a dazzling complexion,

and a certain languid grace which passed easily for gentle-womanliness.

She always dressed becomingly, and in what Fiddletown accepted as the

latest fashion. She had only two blemishes: one of her velvety eyes,

when examined closely, had a slight cast; and her left cheek bore a

small s
ar left by a single drop of vitriol--happily the only drop of

an entire phial--thrown upon her by one of her own jealous sex, that

reached the pretty face it was intended to mar. But when the observer

had studied the eyes sufficiently to notice this defect, he was

generally incapacitated for criticism; and even the scar on her cheek

was thought by some to add piquancy to her smile. The youthful editor of

THE FIDDLETOWN AVALANCHE had said privately that it was "an exaggerated

dimple." Colonel Starbottle was instantly "reminded of the beautifying

patches of the days of Queen Anne, but more particularly, sir, of the

blankest beautiful women that, blank you, you ever laid your two blank

eyes upon--a Creole woman, sir, in New Orleans. And this woman had a

scar--a line extending, blank me, from her eye to her blank chin. And

this woman, sir, thrilled you, sir; maddened you, sir; absolutely sent

your blank soul to perdition with her blank fascination! And one day I

said to her, 'Celeste, how in blank did you come by that beautiful scar,

blank you?' And she said to me, 'Star, there isn't another white man

that I'd confide in but you; but I made that scar myself, purposely, I

did, blank me.' These were her very words, sir, and perhaps you think it

a blank lie, sir; but I'll put up any blank sum you can name and prove

it, blank me."



Indeed, most of the male population of Fiddletown were or had been in

love with her. Of this number, about one-half believed that their love

was returned, with the exception, possibly, of her own husband. He alone

had been known to express skepticism.



The name of the gentleman who enjoyed this infelicitous distinction was

Tretherick. He had been divorced from an excellent wife to marry this

Fiddletown enchantress. She, also, had been divorced; but it was hinted

that some previous experiences of hers in that legal formality had made

it perhaps less novel, and probably less sacrificial. I would not have

it inferred from this that she was deficient in sentiment, or devoid of

its highest moral expression. Her intimate friend had written (on the

occasion of her second divorce), "The cold world does not understand

Clara yet"; and Colonel Starbottle had remarked blankly that with the

exception of a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she had more soul

than the whole caboodle of them put together. Few indeed could read

those lines entitled "Infelissimus," commencing "Why waves no cypress

o'er this brow?" originally published in the AVALANCHE, over the

signature of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear of sensibility

tremble on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his

cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of THE DUTCH FLAT

INTELLIGENCER, which the next week had suggested the exotic character

of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown, as a reasonable

answer to the query.



Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in a metrical

manner, and deliver them to the cold world through the medium of the

newspapers, that first attracted the attention of Tretherick.

Several poems descriptive of the effects of California scenery upon a

too-sensitive soul, and of the vague yearnings for the infinite which

an enforced study of the heartlessness of California society produced

in the poetic breast, impressed Mr. Tretherick, who was then driving a

six-mule freight wagon between Knight's Ferry and Stockton, to seek out

the unknown poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly conscious of a

certain hidden sentiment in his own nature; and it is possible that some

reflections on the vanity of his pursuit--he supplied several mining

camps with whisky and tobacco--in conjunction with the dreariness of the

dusty plain on which he habitually drove, may have touched some chord in

sympathy with this sensitive woman. Howbeit, after a brief courtship--as

brief as was consistent with some previous legal formalities--they were

married; and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing bride to Fiddletown, or

"Fideletown," as Mrs. Tretherick preferred to call it in her poems.



The union was not a felicitous one. It was not long before Mr.

Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had fostered while

freighting between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was different from that

which his wife had evolved from the contemplation of California scenery

and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to

beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to

a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same premise. Then Mr.

Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly

to the columns of the AVALANCHE. It was at this time that Colonel

Starbottle discovered a similarity in Mrs. Tretherick's verse to the

genius of Sappho, and pointed it out to the citizens of Fiddletown in a

two-columned criticism, signed "A. S.," also published in the AVALANCHE,

and supported by extensive quotation. As the AVALANCHE did not possess

a font of Greek type, the editor was obliged to reproduce the Leucadian

numbers in the ordinary Roman letter, to the intense disgust of Colonel

Starbottle, and the vast delight of Fiddletown, who saw fit to accept

the text as an excellent imitation of Choctaw--a language with which the

colonel, as a whilom resident of the Indian Territories, was supposed to

be familiar. Indeed, the next week's INTELLIGENCER contained some vile

doggerel supposed to be an answer to Mrs. Tretherick's poem, ostensibly

written by the wife of a Digger Indian chief, accompanied by a glowing

eulogium signed "A. S. S."



The result of this jocularity was briefly given in a later copy of the

AVALANCHE. "An unfortunate rencounter took place on Monday last,

between the Hon. Jackson Flash of THE DUTCH FLAT INTELLIGENCER and the

well-known Col. Starbottle of this place, in front of the Eureka Saloon.

Two shots were fired by the parties without injury to either, although

it is said that a passing Chinaman received fifteen buckshot in the

calves of his legs from the colonel's double-barreled shotgun, which

were not intended for him. John will learn to keep out of the way of

Melican man's firearms hereafter. The cause of the affray is not known,

although it is hinted that there is a lady in the case. The rumor that

points to a well-known and beautiful poetess whose lucubrations have

often graced our columns seems to gain credence from those that are

posted."



Meanwhile the passiveness displayed by Tretherick under these trying

circumstances was fully appreciated in the gulches. "The old man's

head is level," said one long-booted philosopher. "Ef the colonel

kills Flash, Mrs. Tretherick is avenged: if Flash drops the colonel,

Tretherick is all right. Either way, he's got a sure thing." During

this delicate condition of affairs, Mrs. Tretherick one day left her

husband's home and took refuge at the Fiddletown Hotel, with only the

clothes she had on her back. Here she staid for several weeks, during

which period it is only justice to say that she bore herself with the

strictest propriety.



It was a clear morning in early spring that Mrs. Tretherick, unattended,

left the hotel, and walked down the narrow street toward the fringe of

dark pines which indicated the extreme limits of Fiddletown. The few

loungers at that early hour were preoccupied with the departure of the

Wingdown coach at the other extremity of the street; and Mrs. Tretherick

reached the suburbs of the settlement without discomposing observation.

Here she took a cross street or road, running at right angles with the

main thoroughfare of Fiddletown and passing through a belt of woodland.

It was evidently the exclusive and aristocratic avenue of the town. The

dwellings were few, ambitious, and uninterrupted by shops. And here she

was joined by Colonel Starbottle.



The gallant colonel, notwithstanding that he bore the swelling port

which usually distinguished him, that his coat was tightly buttoned and

his boots tightly fitting, and that his cane, hooked over his arm,

swung jauntily, was not entirely at his ease. Mrs. Tretherick, however,

vouchsafed him a gracious smile and a glance of her dangerous eyes;

and the colonel, with an embarrassed cough and a slight strut, took his

place at her side.



"The coast is clear," said the colonel, "and Tretherick is over at Dutch

Flat on a spree. There is no one in the house but a Chinaman; and you

need fear no trouble from him. I," he continued, with a slight inflation

of the chest that imperiled the security of his button, "I will see that

you are protected in the removal of your property."



"I'm sure it's very kind of you, and so disinterested!" simpered the

lady as they walked along. "It's so pleasant to meet someone who

has soul--someone to sympathize with in a community so hardened and

heartless as this." And Mrs. Tretherick cast down her eyes, but not

until they wrought their perfect and accepted work upon her companion.



"Yes, certainly, of course," said the colonel, glancing nervously up and

down the street--"yes, certainly." Perceiving, however, that there

was no one in sight or hearing, he proceeded at once to inform Mrs.

Tretherick that the great trouble of his life, in fact, had been the

possession of too much soul. That many women--as a gentleman she would

excuse him, of course, from mentioning names--but many beautiful women

had often sought his society, but being deficient, madam, absolutely

deficient, in this quality, he could not reciprocate. But when two

natures thoroughly in sympathy, despising alike the sordid trammels of

a low and vulgar community and the conventional restraints of a

hypocritical society--when two souls in perfect accord met and mingled

in poetical union, then--but here the colonel's speech, which had been

remarkable for a certain whisky-and-watery fluency, grew husky, almost

inaudible, and decidedly incoherent. Possibly Mrs. Tretherick may have

heard something like it before, and was enabled to fill the hiatus.

Nevertheless, the cheek that was on the side of the colonel was quite

virginal and bashfully conscious until they reached their destination.



It was a pretty little cottage, quite fresh and warm with paint, very

pleasantly relieved against a platoon of pines, some of whose foremost

files had been displaced to give freedom to the fenced enclosure in

which it sat. In the vivid sunlight and perfect silence, it had a new,

uninhabited look, as if the carpenters and painters had just left it. At

the farther end of the lot, a Chinaman was stolidly digging; but there

was no other sign of occupancy. "The coast," as the colonel had said,

was indeed "clear." Mrs. Tretherick paused at the gate. The colonel

would have entered with her, but was stopped by a gesture. "Come for me

in a couple of hours, and I shall have everything packed," she said,

as she smiled, and extended her hand. The colonel seized and pressed it

with great fervor. Perhaps the pressure was slightly returned; for the

gallant colonel was impelled to inflate his chest, and trip away as

smartly as his stubby-toed, high-heeled boots would permit. When he had

gone, Mrs. Tretherick opened the door, listened a moment in the deserted

hall, and then ran quickly upstairs to what had been her bedroom.



Everything there was unchanged as on the night she left it. On the

dressing-table stood her bandbox, as she remembered to have left it

when she took out her bonnet. On the mantle lay the other glove she

had forgotten in her flight. The two lower drawers of the bureau were

half-open (she had forgotten to shut them); and on its marble top lay

her shawl pin and a soiled cuff. What other recollections came upon her

I know not; but she suddenly grew quite white, shivered, and listened

with a beating heart, and her hand upon the door. Then she stepped to

the mirror, and half-fearfully, half-curiously, parted with her fingers

the braids of her blond hair above her little pink ear, until she came

upon an ugly, half-healed scar. She gazed at this, moving her pretty

head up and down to get a better light upon it, until the slight cast

in her velvety eyes became very strongly marked indeed. Then she turned

away with a light, reckless, foolish laugh, and ran to the closet where

hung her precious dresses. These she inspected nervously, and missing

suddenly a favorite black silk from its accustomed peg, for a moment,

thought she should have fainted. But discovering it the next instant

lying upon a trunk where she had thrown it, a feeling of thankfulness

to a superior Being who protects the friendless for the first time

sincerely thrilled her. Then, albeit she was hurried for time, she could

not resist trying the effect of a certain lavender neck ribbon upon the

dress she was then wearing, before the mirror. And then suddenly she

became aware of a child's voice close beside her, and she stopped. And

then the child's voice repeated, "Is it Mamma?"



Mrs. Tretherick faced quickly about. Standing in the doorway was a

little girl of six or seven. Her dress had been originally fine, but was

torn and dirty; and her hair, which was a very violent red, was tumbled

seriocomically about her forehead. For all this, she was a picturesque

little thing, even through whose childish timidity there was a certain

self-sustained air which is apt to come upon children who are left much

to themselves. She was holding under her arm a rag doll, apparently

of her own workmanship, and nearly as large as herself--a doll with a

cylindrical head, and features roughly indicated with charcoal. A long

shawl, evidently belonging to a grown person, dropped from her shoulders

and swept the floor.



The spectacle did not excite Mrs. Tretherick's delight. Perhaps she had

but a small sense of humor. Certainly, when the child, still standing in

the doorway, again asked, "Is it Mamma?" she answered sharply, "No, it

isn't," and turned a severe look upon the intruder.



The child retreated a step, and then, gaining courage with the distance,

said in deliciously imperfect speech:



"Dow 'way then! why don't you dow away?"



But Mrs. Tretherick was eying the shawl. Suddenly she whipped it off the

child's shoulders, and said angrily:



"How dared you take my things, you bad child?"



"Is it yours? Then you are my mamma; ain't you? You are Mamma!" she

continued gleefully; and before Mrs. Tretherick could avoid her, she had

dropped her doll, and, catching the woman's skirts with both hands, was

dancing up and down before her.



"What's your name, child?" said Mrs. Tretherick coldly, removing the

small and not very white hands from her garments.



"Tarry."



"Tarry?"



"Yeth. Tarry. Tarowline."



"Caroline?"



"Yeth. Tarowline Tretherick."



"Whose child ARE you?" demanded Mrs. Tretherick still more coldly, to

keep down a rising fear.



"Why, yours," said the little creature with a laugh. "I'm your little

durl. You're my mamma, my new mamma. Don't you know my ol' mamma's dorn

away, never to turn back any more? I don't live wid my ol' mamma now. I

live wid you and Papa."



"How long have you been here?" asked Mrs. Tretherick snappishly.



"I fink it's free days," said Carry reflectively.



"You think! Don't you know?" sneered Mrs. Tretherick. "Then, where did

you come from?"



Carry's lip began to work under this sharp cross-examination. With a

great effort and a small gulp, she got the better of it, and answered:



"Papa, Papa fetched me--from Miss Simmons--from Sacramento, last week."



"Last week! You said three days just now," returned Mrs. Tretherick with

severe deliberation.



"I mean a monf," said Carry, now utterly adrift in sheer helplessness

and confusion.



"Do you know what you are talking about?" demanded Mrs. Tretherick

shrilly, restraining an impulse to shake the little figure before her

and precipitate the truth by specific gravity.



But the flaming red head here suddenly disappeared in the folds of Mrs.

Tretherick's dress, as if it were trying to extinguish itself forever.



"There now--stop that sniffling," said Mrs. Tretherick, extricating

her dress from the moist embraces of the child and feeling exceedingly

uncomfortable. "Wipe your face now, and run away, and don't bother.

Stop," she continued, as Carry moved away. "Where's your papa?"



"He's dorn away too. He's sick. He's been dorn"--she hesitated--"two,

free, days."



"Who takes care of you, child?" said Mrs. Tretherick, eying her

curiously.



"John, the Chinaman. I tresses myselth. John tooks and makes the beds."



"Well, now, run away and behave yourself, and don't bother me any more,"

said Mrs. Tretherick, remembering the object of her visit. "Stop--where

are you going?" she added as the child began to ascend the stairs,

dragging the long doll after her by one helpless leg.



"Doin' upstairs to play and be dood, and no bother Mamma."



"I ain't your mamma," shouted Mrs. Tretherick, and then she swiftly

re-entered her bedroom and slammed the door.



Once inside, she drew forth a large trunk from the closet and set to

work with querulous and fretful haste to pack her wardrobe. She tore her

best dress in taking it from the hook on which it hung: she scratched

her soft hands twice with an ambushed pin. All the while, she kept up an

indignant commentary on the events of the past few moments. She said to

herself she saw it all. Tretherick had sent for this child of his first

wife--this child of whose existence he had never seemed to care--just

to insult her, to fill her place. Doubtless the first wife herself would

follow soon, or perhaps there would be a third. Red hair, not auburn,

but RED--of course the child, this Caroline, looked like its mother,

and, if so, she was anything but pretty. Or the whole thing had been

prepared: this red-haired child, the image of its mother, had been

kept at a convenient distance at Sacramento, ready to be sent for when

needed. She remembered his occasional visits there on--business, as he

said. Perhaps the mother already was there; but no, she had gone East.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Tretherick, in her then state of mind, preferred to

dwell upon the fact that she might be there. She was dimly conscious,

also, of a certain satisfaction in exaggerating her feelings. Surely

no woman had ever been so shamefully abused. In fancy, she sketched

a picture of herself sitting alone and deserted, at sunset, among

the fallen columns of a ruined temple, in a melancholy yet graceful

attitude, while her husband drove rapidly away in a luxurious

coach-and-four, with a red-haired woman at his side. Sitting upon

the trunk she had just packed, she partly composed a lugubrious poem

describing her sufferings as, wandering alone and poorly clad, she came

upon her husband and "another" flaunting in silks and diamonds. She

pictured herself dying of consumption, brought on by sorrow--a beautiful

wreck, yet still fascinating, gazed upon adoringly by the editor of the

AVALANCHE and Colonel Starbottle. And where was Colonel Starbottle all

this while? Why didn't he come? He, at least, understood her. He--she

laughed the reckless, light laugh of a few moments before; and then her

face suddenly grew grave, as it had not a few moments before.



What was that little red-haired imp doing all this time? Why was she so

quiet? She opened the door noiselessly, and listened. She fancied

that she heard, above the multitudinous small noises and creakings

and warpings of the vacant house, a smaller voice singing on the floor

above. This, as she remembered, was only an open attic that had been

used as a storeroom. With a half-guilty consciousness, she crept softly

upstairs and, pushing the door partly open, looked within.



Athwart the long, low-studded attic, a slant sunbeam from a single small

window lay, filled with dancing motes, and only half illuminating the

barren, dreary apartment. In the ray of this sunbeam she saw the child's

glowing hair, as if crowned by a red aureole, as she sat upon the floor

with her exaggerated doll between her knees. She appeared to be talking

to it; and it was not long before Mrs. Tretherick observed that she was

rehearsing the interview of a half-hour before. She catechized the

doll severely, cross-examining it in regard to the duration of its

stay there, and generally on the measure of time. The imitation of Mrs.

Tretherick's manner was exceedingly successful, and the conversation

almost a literal reproduction, with a single exception. After she had

informed the doll that she was not her mother, at the close of the

interview she added pathetically, "that if she was dood, very dood, she

might be her mamma, and love her very much."



I have already hinted that Mrs. Tretherick was deficient in a sense of

humor. Perhaps it was for this reason that this whole scene affected

her most unpleasantly; and the conclusion sent the blood tingling to her

cheek. There was something, too, inconceivably lonely in the situation.

The unfurnished vacant room, the half-lights, the monstrous doll, whose

very size seemed to give a pathetic significance to its speechlessness,

the smallness of the one animate, self-centered figure--all these

touched more or less deeply the half-poetic sensibilities of the woman.

She could not help utilizing the impression as she stood there, and

thought what a fine poem might be constructed from this material if the

room were a little darker, the child lonelier--say, sitting beside a

dead mother's bier, and the wind wailing in the turrets. And then she

suddenly heard footsteps at the door below, and recognized the tread of

the colonel's cane.



She flew swiftly down the stairs, and encountered the colonel in the

hall. Here she poured into his astonished ear a voluble and exaggerated

statement of her discovery, and indignant recital of her wrongs. "Don't

tell me the whole thing wasn't arranged beforehand; for I know it was!"

she almost screamed. "And think," she added, "of the heartlessness of

the wretch, leaving his own child alone here in that way."



"It's a blank shame!" stammered the colonel, without the least idea

of what he was talking about. In fact, utterly unable as he was to

comprehend a reason for the woman's excitement, with his estimate of

her character, I fear he showed it more plainly than he intended. He

stammered, expanded his chest, looked stern, gallant, tender, but

all unintelligently. Mrs. Tretherick, for an instant, experienced a

sickening doubt of the existence of natures in perfect affinity.



"It's of no use," said Mrs. Tretherick with sudden vehemence, in answer

to some inaudible remark of the colonel's, and withdrawing her hand from

the fervent grasp of that ardent and sympathetic man. "It's of no use:

my mind is made up. You can send for my trunk as soon as you like; but I

shall stay here, and confront that man with the proof of his vileness. I

will put him face to face with his infamy."



I do not know whether Colonel Starbottle thoroughly appreciated the

convincing proof of Tretherick's unfaithfulness and malignity afforded

by the damning evidence of the existence of Tretherick's own child in

his own house. He was dimly aware, however, of some unforeseen obstacle

to the perfect expression of the infinite longing of his own sentimental

nature. But, before he could say anything, Carry appeared on the landing

above them, looking timidly, and yet half-critically, at the pair.



"That's her," said Mrs. Tretherick excitedly. In her deepest emotions,

in either verse or prose, she rose above a consideration of grammatical

construction.



"Ah!" said the colonel, with a sudden assumption of parental affection

and jocularity that was glaringly unreal and affected. "Ah! pretty

little girl, pretty little girl! How do you do? How are you? You find

yourself pretty well, do you, pretty little girl?" The colonel's impulse

also was to expand his chest and swing his cane, until it occurred to

him that this action might be ineffective with a child of six or seven.

Carry, however, took no immediate notice of this advance, but further

discomposed the chivalrous colonel by running quickly to Mrs. Tretherick

and hiding herself, as if for protection, in the folds of her gown.

Nevertheless, the colonel was not vanquished. Falling back into

an attitude of respectful admiration, he pointed out a marvelous

resemblance to the "Madonna and Child." Mrs. Tretherick simpered, but

did not dislodge Carry as before. There was an awkward pause for a

moment; and then Mrs. Tretherick, motioning significantly to the child,

said in a whisper: "Go now. Don't come here again, but meet me tonight

at the hotel." She extended her hand: the colonel bent over it gallantly

and, raising his hat, the next moment was gone.



"Do you think," said Mrs. Tretherick with an embarrassed voice and a

prodigious blush, looking down, and addressing the fiery curls just

visible in the folds of her dress--"do you think you will be 'dood' if I

let you stay in here and sit with me?"



"And let me tall you Mamma?" queried Carry, looking up.



"And let you call me Mamma!" assented Mrs. Tretherick with an

embarrassed laugh.



"Yeth," said Carry promptly.



They entered the bedroom together. Carry's eye instantly caught sight of

the trunk.



"Are you dowin' away adain, Mamma?" she said with a quick nervous look,

and a clutch at the woman's dress.



"No-o," said Mrs. Tretherick, looking out of the window.



"Only playing your dowin' away," suggested Carry with a laugh. "Let me

play too."



Mrs. Tretherick assented. Carry flew into the next room, and presently

reappeared dragging a small trunk, into which she gravely proceeded to

pack her clothes. Mrs. Tretherick noticed that they were not many. A

question or two regarding them brought out some further replies from

the child; and before many minutes had elapsed, Mrs. Tretherick was in

possession of all her earlier history. But, to do this, Mrs. Tretherick

had been obliged to take Carry upon her lap, pending the most

confidential disclosures. They sat thus a long time after Mrs.

Tretherick had apparently ceased to be interested in Carry's

disclosures; and when lost in thought, she allowed the child to rattle

on unheeded, and ran her fingers through the scarlet curls.



"You don't hold me right, Mamma," said Carry at last, after one or two

uneasy shiftings of position.



"How should I hold you?" asked Mrs. Tretherick with a half-amused,

half-embarrassed laugh.



"Dis way," said Carry, curling up into position, with one arm around

Mrs. Tretherick's neck and her cheek resting on her bosom--"dis

way--dere." After a little preparatory nestling, not unlike some small

animal, she closed her eyes, and went to sleep.



For a few moments the woman sat silent, scarcely daring to breathe in

that artificial attitude. And then, whether from some occult sympathy in

the touch, or God best knows what, a sudden fancy began to thrill her.

She began by remembering an old pain that she had forgotten, an old

horror that she had resolutely put away all these years. She recalled

days of sickness and distrust--days of an overshadowing fear--days of

preparation for something that was to be prevented, that WAS prevented,

with mortal agony and fear. She thought of a life that might have

been--she dared not say HAD been--and wondered. It was six years ago;

if it had lived, it would have been as old as Carry. The arms which were

folded loosely around the sleeping child began to tremble, and tighten

their clasp. And then the deep potential impulse came, and with a

half-sob, half-sigh, she threw her arms out and drew the body of the

sleeping child down, down, into her breast, down again and again as if

she would hide it in the grave dug there years before. And the gust that

shook her passed, and then, ah me! the rain.



A drop or two fell upon the curls of Carry, and she moved uneasily in

her sleep. But the woman soothed her again--it was SO easy to do it

now--and they sat there quiet and undisturbed, so quiet that they might

have seemed incorporate of the lonely silent house, the slowly declining

sunbeams, and the general air of desertion and abandonment, yet a

desertion that had in it nothing of age, decay, or despair.





Colonel Starbottle waited at the Fiddletown Hotel all that night in

vain. And the next morning, when Mr. Tretherick returned to his husks,

he found the house vacant and untenanted, except by motes and sunbeams.



When it was fairly known that Mrs. Tretherick had run away, taking Mr.

Tretherick's own child with her, there was some excitement and much

diversity of opinion, in Fiddletown. THE DUTCH FLAT INTELLIGENCER openly

alluded to the "forcible abduction" of the child with the same freedom,

and it is to be feared the same prejudice, with which it had criticized

the abductor's poetry. All of Mrs. Tretherick's own sex, and perhaps

a few of the opposite sex, whose distinctive quality was not,

however, very strongly indicated, fully coincided in the views of the

INTELLIGENCER. The majority, however, evaded the moral issue; that

Mrs. Tretherick had shaken the red dust of Fiddletown from her dainty

slippers was enough for them to know. They mourned the loss of the fair

abductor more than her offense. They promptly rejected Tretherick as

an injured husband and disconsolate father, and even went so far as to

openly cast discredit on the sincerity of his grief. They reserved an

ironical condolence for Colonel Starbottle, overbearing that excellent

man with untimely and demonstrative sympathy in barrooms, saloons,

and other localities not generally deemed favorable to the display

of sentiment. "She was alliz a skittish thing, Kernel," said one

sympathizer, with a fine affectation of gloomy concern and great

readiness of illustration; "and it's kinder nat'ril thet she'd get away

someday, and stampede that theer colt: but thet she should shake YOU,

Kernel, diet she should jist shake you--is what gits me. And they do

say thet you jist hung around thet hotel all night, and payrolled them

corriders, and histed yourself up and down them stairs, and meandered

in and out o' thet piazzy, and all for nothing?" It was another generous

and tenderly commiserating spirit that poured additional oil and wine

on the colonel's wounds. "The boys yer let on thet Mrs. Tretherick

prevailed on ye to pack her trunk and a baby over from the house to the

stage offis, and that the chap ez did go off with her thanked you, and

offered you two short bits, and sed ez how he liked your looks, and ud

employ you agin--and now you say it ain't so? Well, I'll tell the boys

it ain't so, and I'm glad I met you, for stories DO get round."



Happily for Mrs. Tretherick's reputation, however, the Chinaman in

Tretherick's employment, who was the only eyewitness of her flight,

stated that she was unaccompanied, except by the child. He further

deposed that, obeying her orders, he had stopped the Sacramento coach,

and secured a passage for herself and child to San Francisco. It was

true that Ah Fe's testimony was of no legal value. But nobody doubted

it. Even those who were skeptical of the pagan's ability to recognize

the sacredness of the truth admitted his passionless, unprejudiced

unconcern. But it would appear, from a hitherto unrecorded passage of

this veracious chronicle, that herein they were mistaken.



It was about six months after the disappearance of Mrs. Tretherick that

Ah Fe, while working in Tretherick's lot, was hailed by two passing

Chinamen. They were the ordinary mining coolies, equipped with long

poles and baskets for their usual pilgrimages. An animated conversation

at once ensued between Ah Fe and his brother Mongolians--a conversation

characterized by that usual shrill volubility and apparent animosity

which was at once the delight and scorn of the intelligent Caucasian who

did not understand a word of it. Such, at least, was the feeling with

which Mr. Tretherick on his veranda and Colonel Starbottle, who was

passing, regarded their heathenish jargon. The gallant colonel simply

kicked them out of his way; the irate Tretherick, with an oath, threw a

stone at the group, and dispersed them, but not before one or two slips

of yellow rice paper, marked with hieroglyphics, were exchanged, and a

small parcel put into Ah Fe's hands. When Ah Fe opened this in the dim

solitude of his kitchen, he found a little girl's apron, freshly washed,

ironed, and folded. On the corner of the hem were the initials "C. T."

Ah Fe tucked it away in a corner of his blouse, and proceeded to wash

his dishes in the sink with a smile of guileless satisfaction.



Two days after this, Ah Fe confronted his master. "Me no likee

Fiddletown. Me belly sick. Me go now." Mr. Tretherick violently

suggested a profane locality. Ah Fe gazed at him placidly, and withdrew.



Before leaving Fiddletown, however, he accidentally met Colonel

Starbottle, and dropped a few incoherent phrases which apparently

interested that gentleman. When he concluded, the colonel handed him a

letter and a twenty-dollar gold piece. "If you bring me an answer, I'll

double that--sabe, John?" Ah Fe nodded. An interview equally accidental,

with precisely the same result, took place between Ah Fe and another

gentleman, whom I suspect to have been the youthful editor of the

AVALANCHE. Yet I regret to state that, after proceeding some distance

on his journey, Ah Fe calmly broke the seals of both letters, and after

trying to read them upside down and sideways, finally divided them into

accurate squares, and in this condition disposed of them to a brother

Celestial whom he met on the road, for a trifling gratuity. The agony

of Colonel Starbottle on finding his wash bill made out on the unwritten

side of one of these squares, and delivered to him with his weekly clean

clothes, and the subsequent discovery that the remaining portions of his

letter were circulated by the same method from the Chinese laundry

of one Fung Ti of Fiddletown, has been described to me as peculiarly

affecting. Yet I am satisfied that a higher nature, rising above the

levity induced by the mere contemplation of the insignificant details

of this breach of trust, would find ample retributive justice in the

difficulties that subsequently attended Ah Fe's pilgrimage.



On the road to Sacramento he was twice playfully thrown from the top of

the stagecoach by an intelligent but deeply intoxicated Caucasian, whose

moral nature was shocked at riding with one addicted to opium-smoking.

At Hangtown he was beaten by a passing stranger--purely an act of

Christian supererogation. At Dutch Flat he was robbed by well-known

hands from unknown motives. At Sacramento he was arrested on

suspicion of being something or other, and discharged with a severe

reprimand--possibly for not being it, and so delaying the course of

justice. At San Francisco he was freely stoned by children of the public

schools; but, by carefully avoiding these monuments of enlightened

progress, he at last reached, in comparative safety, the Chinese

quarters, where his abuse was confined to the police and limited by the

strong arm of the law.



The next day he entered the washhouse of Chy Fook as an assistant, and

on the following Friday was sent with a basket of clean clothes to Chy

Fook's several clients.



It was the usual foggy afternoon as he climbed the long windswept hill

of California Street--one of those bleak, gray intervals that made the

summer a misnomer to any but the liveliest San Franciscan fancy. There

was no warmth or color in earth or sky, no light nor shade within or

without, only one monotonous, universal neutral tint over everything.

There was a fierce unrest in the wind-whipped streets: there was a

dreary vacant quiet in the gray houses. When Ah Fe reached the top of

the hill, the Mission Ridge was already hidden, and the chill sea

breeze made him shiver. As he put down his basket to rest himself, it

is possible that, to his defective intelligence and heathen experience,

this "God's own climate," as was called, seemed to possess but

scant tenderness, softness, or mercy. But it is possible that Ah

Fe illogically confounded this season with his old persecutors, the

schoolchildren, who, being released from studious confinement, at this

hour were generally most aggressive. So he hastened on, and turning a

corner, at last stopped before a small house.



It was the usual San Franciscan urban cottage. There was the little

strip of cold green shrubbery before it; the chilly, bare veranda, and

above this, again, the grim balcony, on which no one sat. Ah Fe rang

the bell. A servant appeared, glanced at his basket, and reluctantly

admitted him, as if he were some necessary domestic animal. Ah Fe

silently mounted the stairs, and entering the open door of the front

chamber, put down the basket and stood passively on the threshold.



A woman, who was sitting in the cold gray light of the window, with a

child in her lap, rose listlessly, and came toward him. Ah Fe instantly

recognized Mrs. Tretherick; but not a muscle of his immobile face

changed, nor did his slant eyes lighten as he met her own placidly. She

evidently did not recognize him as she began to count the clothes. But

the child, curiously examining him, suddenly uttered a short, glad cry.



"Why, it's John, Mamma! It's our old John what we had in Fiddletown."



For an instant Ah Fe's eyes and teeth electrically lightened. The child

clapped her hands, and caught at his blouse. Then he said shortly: "Me

John--Ah Fe--allee same. Me know you. How do?"



Mrs. Tretherick dropped the clothes nervously, and looked hard at Ah Fe.

Wanting the quick-witted instinct of affection that sharpened Carry's

perception, she even then could not distinguish him above his fellows.

With a recollection of past pain, and an obscure suspicion of impending

danger, she asked him when he had left Fiddletown.



"Longee time. No likee Fiddletown, no likee Tlevelick. Likee San Flisco.

Likee washee. Likee Tally."



Ah Fe's laconics pleased Mrs. Tretherick. She did not stop to consider

how much an imperfect knowledge of English added to his curt directness

and sincerity. But she said, "Don't tell anybody you have seen me," and

took out her pocketbook.



Ah Fe, without looking at it, saw that it was nearly empty. Ah Fe,

without examining the apartment, saw that it was scantily furnished.

Ah Fe, without removing his eyes from blank vacancy, saw that both Mrs.

Tretherick and Carry were poorly dressed. Yet it is my duty to

state that Ah Fe's long fingers closed promptly and firmly over the

half-dollar which Mrs. Tretherick extended to him.



Then he began to fumble in his blouse with a series of extraordinary

contortions. After a few moments, he extracted from apparently no

particular place a child's apron, which he laid upon the basket with the

remark:



"One piecee washman flagittee."



Then he began anew his fumblings and contortions. At last his efforts

were rewarded by his producing, apparently from his right ear, a

many-folded piece of tissue paper. Unwrapping this carefully, he at

last disclosed two twenty-dollar gold pieces, which he handed to Mrs.

Tretherick.



"You leavee money topside of blulow, Fiddletown. Me findee money. Me

fetchee money to you. All lightee."



"But I left no money on the top of the bureau, John," said Mrs.

Tretherick earnestly. "There must be some mistake. It belongs to some

other person. Take it back, John."



Ah Fe's brow darkened. He drew away from Mrs. Tretherick's extended

hand, and began hastily to gather up his basket.



"Me no takee it back. No, no! Bimeby pleesman he catchee me. He say,

'God damn thief!--catchee flowty dollar: come to jailee.' Me no takee

back. You leavee money topside blulow, Fiddletown. Me fetchee money you.

Me no takee back."



Mrs. Tretherick hesitated. In the confusion of her flight, she MIGHT

have left the money in the manner he had said. In any event, she had no

right to jeopardize this honest Chinaman's safety by refusing it. So she

said: "Very well, John, I will keep it. But you must come again and see

me--" here Mrs. Tretherick hesitated with a new and sudden revelation

of the fact that any man could wish to see any other than herself--"and,

and--Carry."



Ah Fe's face lightened. He even uttered a short ventriloquistic laugh

without moving his mouth. Then, shouldering his basket, he shut the door

carefully and slid quietly down stairs. In the lower hall he, however,

found an unexpected difficulty in opening the front door, and, after

fumbling vainly at the lock for a moment, looked around for some help

or instruction. But the Irish handmaid who had let him in was

contemptuously oblivious of his needs, and did not appear.



There occurred a mysterious and painful incident, which I shall simply

record without attempting to explain. On the hall table a scarf,

evidently the property of the servant before alluded to, was lying.

As Ah Fe tried the lock with one hand, the other rested lightly on the

table. Suddenly, and apparently of its own volition, the scarf began to

creep slowly toward Ah Fe's hand; from Ah Fe's hand it began to creep up

his sleeve slowly, and with an insinuating, snakelike motion; and then

disappeared somewhere in the recesses of his blouse. Without betraying

the least interest or concern in this phenomenon, Ah Fe still repeated

his experiments upon the lock. A moment later the tablecloth of red

damask, moved by apparently the same mysterious impulse, slowly gathered

itself under Ah Fe's fingers, and sinuously disappeared by the same

hidden channel. What further mystery might have followed, I cannot say;

for at this moment Ah Fe discovered the secret of the lock, and was

enabled to open the door coincident with the sound of footsteps upon

the kitchen stairs. Ah Fe did not hasten his movements, but patiently

shouldering his basket, closed the door carefully behind him again, and

stepped forth into the thick encompassing fog that now shrouded earth

and sky.



From her high casement window, Mrs. Tretherick watched Ah Fe's figure

until it disappeared in the gray cloud. In her present loneliness, she

felt a keen sense of gratitude toward him, and may have ascribed to

the higher emotions and the consciousness of a good deed that certain

expansiveness of the chest, and swelling of the bosom, that was really

due to the hidden presence of the scarf and tablecloth under his blouse.

For Mrs. Tretherick was still poetically sensitive. As the gray fog

deepened into night, she drew Carry closer toward her, and, above

the prattle of the child, pursued a vein of sentimental and egotistic

recollection at once bitter and dangerous. The sudden apparition of Ah

Fe linked her again with her past life at Fiddletown. Over the dreary

interval between, she was now wandering--a journey so piteous, willful,

thorny, and useless that it was no wonder that at last Carry stopped

suddenly in the midst of her voluble confidences to throw her small arms

around the woman's neck, and bid her not to cry.



Heaven forefend that I should use a pen that should be ever dedicated

to an exposition of unalterable moral principle to transcribe Mrs.

Tretherick's own theory of this interval and episode, with its feeble

palliations, its illogical deductions, its fond excuses, and weak

apologies. It would seem, however, that her experience had been hard.

Her slender stock of money was soon exhausted. At Sacramento she

found that the composition of verse, although appealing to the highest

emotions of the human heart, and compelling the editorial breast to the

noblest commendation in the editorial pages, was singularly inadequate

to defray the expenses of herself and Carry. Then she tried the stage,

but failed signally. Possibly her conception of the passions was

different from that which obtained with a Sacramento audience; but it

was certain that her charming presence, so effective at short range, was

not sufficiently pronounced for the footlights. She had admirers enough

in the greenroom, but awakened no abiding affection among the audience.

In this strait, it occurred to her that she had a voice--a contralto of

no very great compass or cultivation, but singularly sweet and touching;

and she finally obtained position in a church choir. She held it for

three months, greatly to her pecuniary advantage, and, it is said, much

to the satisfaction of the gentlemen in the back pews, who faced toward

her during the singing of the last hymn.



I remember her quite distinctly at this time. The light that slanted

through the oriel of St. Dives's choir was wont to fall very tenderly on

her beautiful head with its stacked masses of deerskin-colored hair, on

the low black arches of her brows, and to deepen the pretty fringes

that shaded her eyes of Genoa velvet. Very pleasant it was to watch

the opening and shutting of that small straight mouth, with its quick

revelation of little white teeth, and to see the foolish blood faintly

deepen her satin cheek as you watched. For Mrs. Tretherick was very

sweetly conscious of admiration and, like most pretty women, gathered

herself under your eye like a racer under the spur.



And then, of course, there came trouble. I have it from the soprano--a

little lady who possessed even more than the usual unprejudiced judgment

of her sex--that Mrs. Tretherick's conduct was simply shameful; that her

conceit was unbearable; that, if she considered the rest of the choir

as slaves, she (the soprano) would like to know it; that her conduct on

Easter Sunday with the basso had attracted the attention of the whole

congregation; and that she herself had noticed Dr. Cope twice look up

during the service; that her (the soprano's) friends had objected to her

singing in the choir with a person who had been on the stage, but

she had waived this. Yet she had it from the best authority that Mrs.

Tretherick had run away from her husband, and that this red-haired child

who sometimes came in the choir was not her own. The tenor confided to

me behind the organ that Mrs. Tretherick had a way of sustaining a note

at the end of a line in order that her voice might linger longer with

the congregation--an act that could be attributed only to a defective

moral nature; that as a man (he was a very popular dry goods clerk on



weekdays, and sang a good deal from apparently behind his eyebrows on

the Sabbath)--that as a man, sir, he would put up with it no longer.

The basso alone--a short German with a heavy voice, for which he seemed

reluctantly responsible, and rather grieved at its possession--stood up

for Mrs. Tretherick, and averred that they were jealous of her because

she was "bretty." The climax was at last reached in an open quarrel,

wherein Mrs. Tretherick used her tongue with such precision of statement

and epithet that the soprano burst into hysterical tears, and had to

be supported from the choir by her husband and the tenor. This act was

marked intentionally to the congregation by the omission of the usual

soprano solo. Mrs. Tretherick went home flushed with triumph, but

on reaching her room frantically told Carry that they were beggars

henceforward; that she--her mother--had just taken the very bread out

of her darling's mouth, and ended by bursting into a flood of penitent

tears. They did not come so quickly as in her old poetical days; but

when they came they stung deeply. She was roused by a formal visit from

a vestryman--one of the music committee. Mrs. Tretherick dried her long

lashes, put on a new neck ribbon, and went down to the parlor. She staid

there two hours--a fact that might have occasioned some remark but that

the vestryman was married, and had a family of grownup daughters. When

Mrs. Tretherick returned to her room, she sang to herself in the glass

and scolded Carry--but she retained her place in the choir.



It was not long, however. In due course of time, her enemies received a

powerful addition to their forces in the committeeman's wife. That lady

called upon several of the church members and on Dr. Cope's family.

The result was that, at a later meeting of the music committee, Mrs.

Tretherick's voice was declared inadequate to the size of the building

and she was invited to resign. She did so. She had been out of a

situation for two months, and her scant means were almost exhausted,

when Ah Fe's unexpected treasure was tossed into her lap.



The gray fog deepened into night, and the street lamps started into

shivering life as, absorbed in these unprofitable memories, Mrs.

Tretherick still sat drearily at her window. Even Carry had slipped away

unnoticed; and her abrupt entrance with the damp evening paper in

her hand roused Mrs. Tretherick, and brought her back to an active

realization of the present. For Mrs. Tretherick was wont to scan

the advertisements in the faint hope of finding some avenue of

employment--she knew not what--open to her needs; and Carry had noted

this habit.



Mrs. Tretherick mechanically closed the shutters, lit the lights, and

opened the paper. Her eye fell instinctively on the following paragraph

in the telegraphic column:





FIDDLETOWN, 7th.--Mr. James Tretherick, an old resident of this place,

died last night of delirium tremens. Mr. Tretherick was addicted to

intemperate habits, said to have been induced by domestic trouble.





Mrs. Tretherick did not start. She quietly turned over another page of

the paper, and glanced at Carry. The child was absorbed in a book. Mrs.

Tretherick uttered no word, but during the remainder of the evening was

unusually silent and cold. When Carry was undressed and in bed, Mrs.

Tretherick suddenly dropped on her knees beside the bed, and, taking

Carry's flaming head between her hands, said:



"Should you like to have another papa, Carry, darling?"



"No," said Carry, after a moment's thought.



"But a papa to help Mamma take care of you, to love you, to give you

nice clothes, to make a lady of you when you grow up?"



Carry turned her sleepy eyes toward the questioner. "Should YOU, Mamma?"



Mrs. Tretherick suddenly flushed to the roots of her hair. "Go to

sleep," she said sharply, and turned away.



But at midnight the child felt two white arms close tightly around her,

and was drawn down into a bosom that heaved, fluttered, and at last was

broken up by sobs.



"Don't ky, Mamma," whispered Carry, with a vague retrospect of their

recent conversation. "Don't ky. I fink I SHOULD like a new papa, if he

loved you very much--very, very much!"



A month afterward, to everybody's astonishment, Mrs. Tretherick was

married. The happy bridegroom was one Colonel Starbottle, recently

elected to represent Calaveras County in the legislative councils of the

State. As I cannot record the event in finer language than that used by

the correspondent of THE SACRAMENTO GLOBE, I venture to quote some of

his graceful periods. "The relentless shafts of the sly god have been

lately busy among our gallant Solons. We quote 'one more unfortunate.'

The latest victim is the Hon. C. Starbottle of Calaveras. The fair

enchantress in the case is a beautiful widow, a former votary of

Thespis, and lately a fascinating St. Cecilia of one of the most

fashionable churches of San Francisco, where she commanded a high

salary."



THE DUTCH FLAT INTELLIGENCER saw fit, however, to comment upon the fact

with that humorous freedom characteristic of an unfettered press. "The

new Democratic war horse from Calaveras has lately advented in the

legislature with a little bill to change the name of Tretherick

to Starbottle. They call it a marriage certificate down there. Mr.

Tretherick has been dead just one month; but we presume the gallant

colonel is not afraid of ghosts." It is but just to Mrs. Tretherick

to state that the colonel's victory was by no means an easy one. To

a natural degree of coyness on the part of the lady was added the

impediment of a rival--a prosperous undertaker from Sacramento, who

had first seen and loved Mrs. Tretherick at the theater and church, his

professional habits debarring him from ordinary social intercourse, and

indeed any other than the most formal public contact with the sex. As

this gentleman had made a snug fortune during the felicitous prevalence

of a severe epidemic, the colonel regarded him as a dangerous rival.

Fortunately, however, the undertaker was called in professionally to lay

out a brother senator, who had unhappily fallen by the colonel's pistol

in an affair of honor; and either deterred by physical consideration

from rivalry, or wisely concluding that the colonel was professionally

valuable, he withdrew from the field.



The honeymoon was brief, and brought to a close by an untoward incident.

During their bridal trip, Carry had been placed in the charge of

Colonel Starbottle's sister. On their return to the city, immediately on

reaching their lodgings, Mrs. Starbottle announced her intention of at

once proceeding to Mrs. Culpepper's to bring the child home. Colonel

Starbottle, who had been exhibiting for some time a certain uneasiness

which he had endeavored to overcome by repeated stimulation, finally

buttoned his coat tightly across his breast, and after walking

unsteadily once or twice up and down the room, suddenly faced his wife

with his most imposing manner.



"I have deferred," said the colonel with an exaggeration of port that

increased with his inward fear, and a growing thickness of speech--"I

have deferr--I may say poshponed statement o' fack thash my duty ter

dishclose ter ye. I did no wish to mar sushine mushal happ'ness, to

bligh bud o' promise, to darken conjuglar sky by unpleasht revelashun.

Musht be done--by God, m'm, musht do it now. The chile is gone!"



"Gone!" echoed Mrs. Starbottle.



There was something in the tone of her voice, in the sudden

drawing-together of the pupils of her eyes, that for a moment nearly

sobered the colonel, and partly collapsed his chest.



"I'll splain all in a minit," he said with a deprecating wave of the

hand. "Everything shall be splained. The-the-the-melencholly event

wish preshipitate our happ'ness--the myster'us prov'nice wish releash

you--releash chile! hunerstan?--releash chile. The mom't Tretherick

die--all claim you have in chile through him--die too. Thash law. Who's

chile b'long to? Tretherick? Tretherick dead. Chile can't b'long dead

man. Damn nonshense b'long dead man. I'sh your chile? no! whose chile

then? Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Unnerstan?"



"Where is she?" said Mrs. Starbottle, with a very white face and a very

low voice.



"I'll splain all. Chile b'long to 'ts mother. Thash law. I'm lawyer,

leshlator, and American sis'n. Ish my duty as lawyer, as leshlator, and

'merikan sis'n to reshtore chile to suff'rin mother at any coss--any

coss."



"Where is she?" repeated Mrs. Starbottle, with her eyes still fixed on

the colonel's face.



"Gone to 'ts m'o'r. Gone East on shteamer, yesserday. Waffed by fav'rin

gales to suff'rin p'rent. Thash so!"



Mrs. Starbottle did not move. The colonel felt his chest slowly

collapsing, but steadied himself against a chair, and endeavored to beam

with chivalrous gallantry not unmixed with magisterial firmness upon her

as she sat.



"Your feelin's, m'm, do honor to yer sex, but conshider situashun.

Conshider m'or's feelings--conshider MY feelin's." The colonel paused,

and flourishing a white handkerchief, placed it negligently in his

breast, and then smiled tenderly above it, as over laces and ruffles, on

the woman before him. "Why should dark shed-der cass bligh on two sholes

with single beat? Chile's fine chile, good chile, but summonelse chile!

Chile's gone, Clar'; but all ish'n't gone, Clar'. Conshider dearesht,

you all's have me!"



Mrs. Starbottle started to her feet. "YOU!" she cried, bringing out a

chest note that made the chandeliers ring--"You that I married to give

my darling food and clothes--YOU! a dog that I whistled to my side to

keep the men off me--YOU!"



She choked up, and then dashed past him into the inner room, which had

been Carry's; then she swept by him again into her own bedroom, and then

suddenly reappeared before him, erect, menacing, with a burning fire

over her cheekbones, a quick straightening of her arched brows and

mouth, a squaring of jaw, and ophidian flattening of the head.



"Listen!" she said in a hoarse, half-grown boy's voice. "Hear me! If

you ever expect to set eyes on me again, you must find the child. If you

ever expect to speak to me again, to touch me, you must bring her back.

For where she goes, I go; you hear me! Where she has gone, look for me."



She struck out past him again with a quick feminine throwing-out of her

arms from the elbows down, as if freeing herself from some imaginary

bonds, and dashing into her chamber, slammed and locked the door.

Colonel Starbottle, although no coward, stood in superstitious fear

of an angry woman, and, recoiling as she swept by, lost his unsteady

foothold and rolled helplessly on the sofa. Here, after one or two

unsuccessful attempts to regain his foothold, he remained, uttering from

time to time profane but not entirely coherent or intelligible protests,

until at last he succumbed to the exhausting quality of his emotions,

and the narcotic quantity of his potations.



Meantime, within, Mrs. Starbottle was excitedly gathering her valuables

and packing her trunk, even as she had done once before in the course

of this remarkable history. Perhaps some recollection of this was in her

mind; for she stopped to lean her burning cheeks upon her hand, as if

she saw again the figure of the child standing in the doorway, and heard

once more a childish voice asking, "Is it Mamma?" But the epithet now

stung her to the quick, and with a quick, passionate gesture she dashed

it away with a tear that had gathered in her eye. And then it chanced

that, in turning over some clothes, she came upon the child's slipper

with a broken sandal string. She uttered a great cry here--the first she

had uttered--and caught it to her breast, kissing it passionately again

and again, and rocking from side to side with a motion peculiar to her

sex. And then she took it to the window, the better to see it through

her now streaming eyes. Here she was taken with a sudden fit of coughing

that she could not stifle with the handkerchief she put to her feverish

lips. And then she suddenly grew very faint. The window seemed to recede

before her, the floor to sink beneath her feet; and staggering to the

bed, she fell prone upon it with the sandal and handkerchief pressed

to her breast. Her face was quite pale, the orbit of her eyes dark; and

there was a spot upon her lip, another on her handkerchief, and still

another on the white counterpane of the bed.



The wind had risen, rattling the window sashes and swaying the white

curtains in a ghostly way. Later, a gray fog stole softly over the

roofs, soothing the wind-roughened surfaces, and in-wrapping all things

in an uncertain light and a measureless peace. She lay there very

quiet--for all her troubles, still a very pretty bride. And on the

other side of the bolted door the gallant bridegroom, from his temporary

couch, snored peacefully.





A week before Christmas Day, 1870, the little town of Genoa, in the

State of New York, exhibited, perhaps more strongly than at any other

time, the bitter irony of its founders and sponsors. A driving snowstorm

that had whitened every windward hedge, bush, wall, and telegraph pole,

played around this soft Italian Capital, whirled in and out of the great

staring wooden Doric columns of its post office and hotel, beat upon the

cold green shutters of its best houses, and powdered the angular, stiff,

dark figures in its streets. From the level of the street, the four

principal churches of the town stood out starkly, even while their

misshapen spires were kindly hidden in the low, driving storm. Near

the railroad station, the new Methodist chapel, whose resemblance to

an enormous locomotive was further heightened by the addition of a

pyramidal row of front steps, like a cowcatcher, stood as if waiting for

a few more houses to be hitched on to proceed to a pleasanter

location. But the pride of Genoa--the great Crammer Institute for Young

Ladies--stretched its bare brick length and reared its cupola plainly

from the bleak Parnassian hill above the principal avenue. There was

no evasion in the Crammer Institute of the fact that it was a public

institution. A visitor upon its doorsteps, a pretty face at its window,

were clearly visible all over the township.



The shriek of the engine of the four-o'clock Northern express brought

but few of the usual loungers to the depot. Only a single passenger

alighted, and was driven away in the solitary waiting sleigh toward the

Genoa Hotel. And then the train sped away again, with that passionless

indifference to human sympathies or curiosity peculiar to express

trains; the one baggage truck was wheeled into the station again; the

station door was locked; and the stationmaster went home.



The locomotive whistle, however, awakened the guilty consciousness

of three young ladies of the Crammer Institute, who were even then

surreptitiously regaling themselves in the bakeshop and confectionery

saloon of Mistress Phillips in a by-lane. For even the admirable

regulations of the Institute failed to entirely develop the physical

and moral natures of its pupils. They conformed to the excellent dietary

rules in public, and in private drew upon the luxurious rations of their

village caterer. They attended church with exemplary formality, and

flirted informally during service with the village beaux. They received

the best and most judicious instruction during school hours, and

devoured the trashiest novels during recess. The result of which was

an aggregation of quite healthy, quite human, and very charming young

creatures that reflected infinite credit on the Institute. Even Mistress

Phillips, to whom they owed vast sums, exhilarated by the exuberant

spirits and youthful freshness of her guests, declared that the sight of

"them young things" did her good, and had even been known to shield them

by shameless equivocation.



"Four o'clock, girls! and, if we're not back to prayers by five, we'll

be missed," said the tallest of these foolish virgins, with an aquiline

nose, and certain quiet elan that bespoke the leader, as she rose

from her seat. "Have you got the books, Addy?" Addy displayed three

dissipated-looking novels under her waterproof. "And the provisions,

Carry?" Carry showed a suspicious parcel filling the pocket of her sack.

"All right, then. Come, girls, trudge--Charge it," she added, nodding to

her host as they passed toward the door. "I'll pay you when my quarter's

allowance comes."



"No, Kate," interposed Carry, producing her purse, "let me pay; it's my

turn."



"Never!" said Kate, arching her black brows loftily, "even if you do

have rich relatives, and regular remittances from California. Never!

Come, girls, forward, march!"



As they opened the door, a gust of wind nearly took them off their feet.

Kindhearted Mrs. Phillips was alarmed. "Sakes alive, galls! ye mussn't

go out in sich weather. Better let me send word to the Institoot, and

make ye up a nice bed tonight in my parlor." But the last sentence was

lost in a chorus of half-suppressed shrieks as the girls, hand in hand,

ran down the steps into the storm, and were at once whirled away.



The short December day, unlit by any sunset glow, was failing fast. It

was quite dark already, and the air was thick with driving snow. For

some distance their high spirits, youth, and even inexperience kept them

bravely up; but, in ambitiously attempting a short cut from the highroad

across an open field, their strength gave out, the laugh grew less

frequent, and tears began to stand in Carry's brown eyes. When they

reached the road again, they were utterly exhausted. "Let us go back,"

said Carry.



"We'd never get across that field again," said Addy.



"Let's stop at the first house, then," said Carry.



"The first house," said Addy, peering through the gathering darkness,

"is Squire Robinson's." She darted a mischievous glance at Carry that,

even in her discomfort and fear, brought the quick blood to her cheek.



"Oh, yes!" said



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