"I didn"t get to see "em, as I only put up my hoss there," he replied.
"But I know the stage took some away this mornin": it seemed pretty well loaded up when I pa.s.sed it."
The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as a possible return of her former nervous weakness. Her attention must at once be distracted at any cost--even conversation.
"Perhaps," he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, "I"m a-talkin"
to Mrs. McFadden?"
"No," said the woman, abstractedly.
"Then it must be Mrs. Delatour? There are only two township lots on that crossroad."
"My name IS Delatour," she said, somewhat wearily.
Mr. Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at all anxious to know her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggest that there was nothing more to say. He would, of course, have preferred to ask her if she had read the poetry about the Underbrush, and if she knew the poetess, and what she thought of it; but the fact that she appeared to be an "eddicated" woman made him sensitive of displaying technical ignorance in his manner of talking about it. She might ask him if it was "subjective" or "objective"--two words he had heard used at the Debating Society at Mendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?"
For a few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiative in conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as if appreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some relief in monotonous expression, talked mechanically, deliberately, but unostentatiously about herself. So colorless was her intonation that at times it did not seem as if she was talking to him, but repeating some conversation she had held with another.
She had lived there ever since she had been in California. Her husband had bought the Spanish t.i.tle to the property when they first married.
The property at his death was found to be greatly involved; she had been obliged to part with much of it to support her children--four girls and a boy. She had been compelled to withdraw the girls from the convent at Santa Clara to help about the house; the boy was too young--she feared, too shiftless--to do anything. The farm did not pay; the land was poor; she knew nothing about farming; she had been brought up in New Orleans, where her father had been a judge, and she didn"t understand country life. Of course she had been married too young--as all girls were.
Lately she had thought of selling off and moving to San Francisco, where she would open a boarding-house or a school for young ladies. He could advise her, perhaps, of some good opportunity. Her own girls were far enough advanced to a.s.sist her in teaching; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spoke French and Spanish fluently.
As Mr. Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in the feminine American indictment of life generally, he was not perhaps greatly moved.
But in the last sentence he thought he saw an opening to return to his main object, and, looking up cautiously, said:--
"And mebbe write po"try now and then?" To his great discomfiture, the only effect of this suggestion was to check his companion"s speech for some moments and apparently throw her back into her former abstraction.
Yet, after a long pause, as they were turning into the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject:--
"I only hope that, whatever my daughters may do, they won"t marry young."
The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presently came in view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozen dogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be the prevailing inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelp to shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber. Their places were taken on the veranda by two negro servants, two girls respectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, who remained silently staring. As Mr.
Bowers had accepted the widow"s polite invitation to enter, she was compelled, albeit in an equally dazed and helpless way, to issue some preliminary orders:--
"Now, Chloe--I mean aunt Dinah--do take Eunice--I mean Victorine and Una--away, and--you know--tidy them; and you, Sarah--it"s Sarah, isn"t it?--lay some refreshment in the parlor for this gentleman. And, Bob, tell your sister Cynthia to come here with Eunice." As Bob still remained staring at Mr. Bowers, she added, in weary explanation, "Mr.
Bowers brought me over from the Summit woods in his buggy--it was so hot. There--shake hands and thank him, and run away--do!"
They crossed a broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere the same look of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, and premature decay; most of the furniture was mismatched and misplaced; many of the rooms had changed their original functions or doubled them; a smell of cooking came from the library, on whose shelves, mingled with books, were dresses and household linen, and through the door of a room into which Mrs. Delatour retired to remove her duster Mr. Bowers caught a glimpse of a bed, and of a table covered with books and papers, at which a tall, fair girl was writing. In a few moments Mrs. Delatour returned, accompanied by this girl, and Eunice, her short-lipped sister. Bob, who joined the party seated around Mr. Bowers and a table set with cake, a decanter, and gla.s.ses, completed the group. Emboldened by the presence of the tall Cynthia and his glimpse of her previous literary att.i.tude, Mr. Bowers resolved to make one more attempt.
"I suppose these yer young ladies sometimes go to the wood, too?" As his eye rested on Cynthia, she replied:--
"Oh, yes."
"I reckon on account of the purty shadows down in the brush, and the soft light, eh? and all that?" he continued, with a playful manner but a serious accession of color.
"Why, the woods belong to us. It"s mar"s property!" broke in Eunice with a flash of teeth.
"Well, Lordy, I wanter know!" said Mr. Bowers, in some astonishment.
"Why, that"s right in my line, too! I"ve been sightin" timber all along here, and that"s how I dropped in on yer mar." Then, seeing a look of eagerness light up the faces of Bob and Eunice, he was encouraged to make the most of his opportunity. "Why, ma"am," he went on, cheerfully, "I reckon you"re holdin" that wood at a pretty stiff figger, now."
"Why?" asked Mrs. Delatour, simply.
Mr. Bowers delivered a wink at Bob and Eunice, who were still watching him with anxiety. "Well, not on account of the actool timber, for the best of it ain"t sound," he said, "but on account of its bein" famous!
Everybody that reads that pow"ful pretty poem about it in the "Excelsior Magazine" wants to see it. Why, it would pay the Green Springs hotel-keeper to buy it up for his customers. But I s"pose you reckon to keep it--along with the poetess--in your famerly?"
Although Mr. Bowers long considered this speech as the happiest and most brilliant effort of his life, its immediate effect was not, perhaps, all that could be desired. The widow turned upon him a restrained and darkening face. Cynthia half rose with an appealing "Oh, mar!" and Bob and Eunice, having apparently pinched each other to the last stage of endurance, retired precipitately from the room in a prolonged giggle.
"I have not yet thought of disposing of the Summit woods, Mr. Bowers,"
said Mrs. Delatour, coldly, "but if I should do so, I will consult you.
You must excuse the children, who see so little company, they are quite unmanageable when strangers are present. Cynthia, WILL you see if the servants have looked after Mr. Bowers"s horse? You know Bob is not to be trusted."
There was clearly nothing else for Mr. Bowers to do but to take his leave, which he did respectfully, if not altogether hopefully. But when he had reached the lane, his horse shied from the unwonted spectacle of Bob, swinging his hat, and apparently awaiting him, from the fork of a wayside sapling.
"Hol" up, mister. Look here!"
Mr. Bowers pulled up. Bob dropped into the road, and, after a backward glance over his shoulder, said:--
"Drive "longside the fence in the shadder." As Mr. Bowers obeyed, Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, half mysterious. "You wanter buy them Summit woods, mister?"
"Well, per"aps, sonny. Why?" smiled Mr. Bowers.
"Coz I"ll tell ye suthin". Don"t you be fooled into allowin" that Cynthia wrote that po"try. She didn"t--no more"n Eunice nor me. Mar kinder let ye think it, "cos she don"t want folks to think SHE did it.
But mar wrote that po"try herself; wrote it out o" them thar woods--all by herself. Thar"s a heap more po"try thar, you bet, and jist as good.
And she"s the one that kin write it--you hear me? That"s my mar, every time! You buy that thar wood, and get mar to run it for po"try, and you"ll make your pile, sure! I ain"t lyin". You"d better look spry: thar"s another feller snoopin" "round yere--only he barked up the wrong tree, and thought it was Cynthia, jist as you did."
"Another feller?" repeated the astonished Bowers.
"Yes; a rig"lar sport. He was orful keen on that po"try, too, you bet.
So you"d better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in. Mar got a hundred dollars for that pome, from that editor feller and his pardner.
I reckon that"s the rig"lar price, eh?" he added, with a sudden suspicious caution.
"I reckon so," replied Mr. Bowers, blankly. "But--look here, Bob! Do you mean to say it was your mother--your MOTHER, Bob, who wrote that poem?
Are you sure?"
"D"ye think I"m lyin"?" said Bob, scornfully. "Don"t I know? Don"t I copy "em out plain for her, so as folks won"t know her handwrite? Go "way! you"re loony!" Then, possibly doubting if this latter expression were strictly diplomatic with the business in hand, he added, in half-reproach, half-apology, "Don"t ye see I don"t want ye to be fooled into losin" yer chance o" buying up that Summit wood? It"s the cold truth I"m tellin" ye."
Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedly was at first,--and even self-deceived,--he recognized in a flash the grim fact that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparition of the sad-faced woman in the wood--her distressed manner, that to his inexperienced mind now took upon itself the agitated trembling of disturbed mystic inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorse succeeded his first shock of disappointment.
"Well, are ye going to buy the woods?" said Bob, eying him grimly. "Ye"d better say."
Mr. Bowers started. "I shouldn"t wonder, Bob," he said, with a smile, gathering up his reins. "Anyhow, I"m comin" back to see your mother this afternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the first chance for me."
He drove away, leaving the youthful diplomatist standing with his bare feet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentleman amused himself by a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then a smile of scornful superiority, mingled perhaps with a sense of previous slights and unappreciation, drew back his little upper lip, and brightened his mottled cheek.
"I"d like ter know," he said, darkly, "what this yer G.o.d-forsaken famerly would do without ME!"
CHAPTER V
It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually kept to their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of the poetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldom alluded to by either. Yet in that period White Violet had sent two other contributions, and on each occasion Mr. Hamlin had insisted upon increasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift. In vain the editor pointed out the danger of this form of munificence; Mr. Hamlin retorted by saying that if he refused he would appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object to taking the credit of this liberality.
"As to the risks," concluded Jack, sententiously, "I"ll take them; and as far as you"re concerned, you certainly get the worth of your money."