Stories of the Foot-hills Part 20

THE COMPLICITY OF ENOCH EMBODY.

I.

The afternoon train wound through the waving barley-fields of the Temecula Valley and shrieked its approach to the town of Muscatel. It was a mixed train, and half a dozen pa.s.sengers alighted from the rear coach to stretch their legs while the freight was being unloaded.

Enoch Embody stood on the platform with the mail-bag in his hand, and listened to their time-worn pleasantries concerning the population of the city and the probable cause of the failure of the electric cars to connect with the train.

Enoch was an orthodox Friend. There was a hint of orthodoxy all over his thin, shaven countenance, except at the corners of his mouth, where it melted into the laxest liberality.

A swarthy young man, with a deep scar across his cheek, swung himself from the platform of the smoking-car, and came toward him.

"Is there a stopping-place in this burg?" he called out gayly.

"Thee'll find a hotel up the street on thy right," said Enoch.

The stranger looked at him curiously.

"By gum, you're a Quaker," he broke out, slapping Enoch's thin, high shoulder. "I haven't heard a 'thee' or a 'thou' since I was a kid. It's good for earache. Wait till I get my grip."

He darted into the little group of men and boys, who were listening with the grim appreciation of the rural American to the badinage of the conductor and the station agent, and emerged with a satchel and a roll of blankets.

"Now, uncle, I'm ready. Shall we take the elevated up to the city?" he asked, smiling with gay goodfellowship up into Enoch's mild, austere face.

The old man threw the mail-bag across his shoulder.

"I'll take thee as far as the store. Thee can see most of the city from there."

The young fellow laughed noisily, and hooked his arm through his companion's gaunt elbow. Enoch glanced down at the grimy, broken-nailed, disreputable hand on his arm, and a faint flush showed itself under the silvery stubble on his cheeks.

"By gum, this town's a daisy," said the stranger, sniffing the honey-laden breeze appreciatively and glancing out over the sea of wild flowers that waved and shimmered under the California sun; "nice quiet little place--eh?"

"Thee hears all the noise there is," answered Enoch gravely.

The young fellow gave a yell of delight and bent over as if the shaft of Enoch's wit had struck him in some vital part. Then he disengaged his arm and writhed in an agony of mirth.

"Holy Moses!" he gasped, "that's good. Hit 'im again, uncle."

Enoch stood still and looked at him, a mild, contemptuous sympathy twinkling in his blue eyes.

"Is thee looking for a quiet place?" he asked.

The newcomer reduced his hilarity to an intermittent chuckle, and resumed his affectionate grasp on Enoch's arm.

"That's about the size of it, uncle. I've knocked around a good deal, and I'm suffering from religious prostration. I'm looking for a nice, quiet, healthy place to take a rest--to recooperate my morals, so to speak. Good climate, good water, good society. Everything they don't have in--some places. What's the city tax on first-cla.s.s residence property close in?"

"I think thee'll find it within thy means," said Enoch dryly. "Has thee a family?"

"Well, you might say--yes," rejoined the stranger, "that is, I'm married. My wife's not very well. I want to build a seven by nine residence on a fashionable street and send for her. I'm going to draw up the plans and specifications and bid on the contract myself, and I think by rustling the foreman I can get everything but the telephone and the hot water in before she gets here. Relic of the ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay?" he asked, pointing to a vacant store building across the gra.s.s-grown street; "or bought up by the government, maybe, to keep out compet.i.tion in the post-office business--h.e.l.lo, is this where you hang out?"

Enoch turned into the combined store and post-office, and the stranger stood on the platform, bestowing his tobacco-stained smile generously upon the bystanders.

"Thee'll find the hotel a little further up the street," said Enoch; "there may be no one about; I think I saw Isaac and Esther Penthorn driving toward Maravilla this afternoon. But they'll be back before dark. Thee can make thyself at home."

"You're right I can," a.s.sented the newcomer with emphasis; "I see you've caught on to my disposition. Isaac and Esther will find me as domestic as a lame cat. Be it ever so homely there's no place like hum. By-by, uncle; see you later."

He went up the street, walking as jauntily as his burden would permit, and Enoch looked after with a lean, whimsical smile.

"Thee seems to have a good deal of cheek," he reflected, as he emptied the mail-bag, "but thee's certainly cheerful."

II.

Within a week every resident of Muscatel had heard the sound of Jerry Sullivan's voice. It arose above the ring of his hammer as he worked at the pine skeleton of his shanty, and the sage-laden breeze from the mountains seemed a strange enough vehicle for the questionable sentiments of his song. New and startling variations of street songs, and other unfamiliar melodies came to Enoch's ears as he distributed the mail, or held the quart measure under the mola.s.ses barrel, and occasionally the singer himself dropped in to make a purchase and chat a few moments with the postmaster concerning the progress of his house.

"The architect has rather slopped over on the plans," he said, when the frame was up, "so I'm putting up a Queen Anne wood-shed for the present, while he knocks a few bay windows out of the conservatory. 'A penny saved 's a penny earned,' you know. That's the way I came to be a millionaire--stopped drinking in my infancy and learned to chew, saved a rattleful of nickels before I could walk--got any eighteen-carat nails, uncle? I want to do a little finishing-work in the bath-room."

Enoch met his new friend's trifling, always with the same gentle gravity; but something, perhaps that lurking liberality about the corners of his mouth, seemed to inspire the young fellow with implicit confidence in the old man's sympathy.

After the frame of Jerry's domicile was inclosed, a prodigious sawing and hammering went on inside the redwood walls, and the bursts of music were spasmodic, indicating a closer attention on the part of the workman to nicety of detail in his work. He called to Enoch as he was pa.s.sing one day, and drew him inside the door mysteriously.

"Take a divan, uncle," he said airily, pushing a three-legged stool toward his guest. "I've got something to show you,--something that's been handed up to me from posterity. How does that strike you for a starter in the domestic business?"

He drew forward an empty soap-box, fashioned into an old-time cradle, and fitted with rude rockers at the ends.

"Happy thought--eh?" he rattled on, gleefully pointing to the stenciled end, where everything but "Pride of the Family" had been carefully erased. "How's this for a proud prospective paternal?"

He balanced himself on one foot and rocked the little craft, with all its cargo of pathetic emptiness, gently to and fro.

Enoch's face quivered as if he had been stabbed.

The young fellow stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with jaunty satisfaction.

"I made that thing just as a bird builds its nest--by paternal instinct.

It's a little previous, and I'd just as soon you wouldn't mention it; but I had to show it to somebody. Got any children?" he turned upon Enoch suddenly.

"No. Not any--living."

The old man's voice wavered, and caught itself on the last word.

Jerry thrust the cradle aside hastily.

"Neither have I, uncle, neither have I," he said; "not chick nor child.

If you ain't too tired, let me show you over the house. I'm sorry the elevator isn't running, so you could go up to the cupolo. This room's a sort of e pluribus unum, many in one; kind of a boodwar and kitchen combined. The other rooms ain't inclosed yet, but they're safe enough outside. That's the advantage of this climate, you don't have to put everything under cover. Ground-plan suit you pretty well?"

"I think thee's very cosy," Enoch said, smiling gravely; "when does thee look for thy wife?"

"Just as soon as she's able," said Jerry, drawing an empty nail-keg confidentially toward Enoch and seating himself; "you see"--