The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 19

"Here we are. Just step in this door-way a bit and look at the view.

Glorious, isn't it? I have sent for a lot of very choice shrubs and trees for the grounds, and mean to make this the prettiest place in town."

"It must be very pretty, with this view," replied Mrs. Smiley, drinking in the beauty of the scene with genuine delight.

"Please to step inside. Now, it is about the arrangement of the doors, windows, closets, and all that, I wanted advice. I am told that ladies claim to understand these things better than men."

"They ought, I am sure, since the house is alone their realm. What a charming room! So light, so airy, with such a view! and the doors and windows in the right places, too. And this cunning little porch towards the west! I'm glad you have that porch, Mr. Rumway. I have always said every house should have a sunset porch. I enjoy mine so much these lovely summer evenings."

And so they went through the house: she delighted with it, in the main, but making little suggestions, here and there; he palpitating with her praises, as if they had been bestowed on himself. And, indeed, was not this house a part of himself, having so many of his sweetest hopes built into it? For what higher proof does a man give of a worthy love then in constructing a bright and cheerful shelter for the object of it--than in making sure of a fitting home?

"It will lack nothing," she said, as they stood together again on the "sunset porch," talking of so grouping the shrubbery as not to intercept the view.

"Except a mistress," he added, turning his eyes upon her face, full of intense meaning. "With the right woman in it, it will seem perfect to me, without her, it is nothing but a monument of my folly. There is but one woman I ever want to see in it. Can you guess who it is? Will you come?"

Mrs. Smiley looked up into the glowing face bent over her, searching the pa.s.sionate dark eyes with her clear, cool gaze; while slowly the delicate color crept over face and neck, as her eyes fell before his ardent looks, and she drew in her breath quickly.

"I, I do not know; there are so many things to think of."

"What things? Let me help you consider them. If you mean--"

"O, mamma, mamma!" shouted Willie, from the street. "Here we are, and I've had such a splendid time. We've got some fish for you, too. Are you coming right home?" And there, on the sidewalk, was Chillis, carrying a basket, with his hat stuck full of flowers, and as regardless as a child of the drollery of his appearance.

Mrs. Smiley started a little as she caught the expression of his face, thinking it did not comport with the holiday appearance of his habiliments, and hastened at once to obey its silent appeal. Rumway walked beside her to the gate.

"Have you no answer for me?" he asked, hurriedly.

"Give me a week," she returned, and slipped away from him, taking the basket from Chillis, and ordering Willie to carry it, while she walked by the old man's side.

"You have been lookin' at your new house?" he remarked. "You need not try to hide your secret from me. I see it in your face;" and he looked long and wistfully upon the rosy record.

"If you see something in _my_ face, I see something in yours. You have a trouble, a new pain of some kind. Yesterday you looked forty, and radiant; this evening your face is white and drawn by suffering."

"You do observe the old man's face sometimes, then? That other has not quite blotted it out? O, my lovely lady! How sweet an' dainty you look, in that white dress. It does my old eyes good to look at you."

"You are never too ill or sad to make me pretty compliments, Mr.

Chillis. Do you know, I think I have grown quite vain since I have had you to flatter me. We const.i.tute a mutual admiration society, I'm sure."

Then she led him into the rose-covered porch, and seated him in the "sleepy-hollow;" brought him a dish of strawberries, and told him to rest while she got ready his supper.

"Rest!" he answered; "_I'm_ not tired. Willie an' I cooked our own supper, too. So you jest put Willie to bed--he's tired enough, I guess--an' then come an' talk to me. That's all I want to-night--is jest to hear the White Rose talk."

While Mrs. Smiley was occupied with Willie--his wants and his prattle--her guest sat motionless, his head on his hand, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair. He had that rare repose of bearing which is understood to be a sign of high breeding, but in him was temperament, or a quietude caught from nature and solitude. It gave a positive charm to his manner, whether animated or depressed; a dignified, introspective, self-possessed carriage, that suited with his powerfully built, symmetrical frame, and regular cast of features. Yet, self-contained as his usual expression was, his face was capable of vivid illuminations, and striking changes of aspect, under the influence of feelings either pleasant or painful. In the shadow of the rose-vines, and the gathering twilight, it would have been impossible to discern, by any change of feature, what his meditations might be now.

"The moon is full to-night," said Mrs. Smiley, bringing out her low rocker and placing it near her friend. "It will be glorious on the river, and all the 'young folks' will be out, I suppose."

"Did not Rumway ask you to go? Don't let me keep you at home, ef he did."

"No; I am not counted among young folks any longer," returned she, with a little sigh, that might mean something or nothing. Then a silence fell between them for several minutes. It was the fashion of these friends to wait for the spirit to move them to converse, and not unfrequently a silence longer than that which was in heaven came between their sentences; but to-night there was thunder in their spiritual atmosphere, and the stillness was oppressive. Mrs. Smiley beat a tattoo with her slipper.

"Rumway asked you to marry him, did he?" began Chillis, at last, in a low and measured tone.

"Yes."

"An' you accepted him?"

"Not yet"--in a quavering adagio.

"But you will?"

"Perhaps so. I do not know"--in a firmer voice.

"Rumway is doin' well, an' he is a pretty good fellow, as men go. But he is not half the man that I was at his age--or, rather, that I might have been, ef I had had sech a motive for bein' a man as he has."

"It is not difficult to believe that, Mr. Chillis. There is heroic material in you, and, I fear, none in Mr. Rumway." She spoke naturally and cheerfully now, as if she had no sentiment too sacred to be revealed about the person in question. "But why was there no motive?"

"Why? It was my fate; there was none--that's all. I had gone off to the mountains when a lad, an' couldn't git back--couldn't even git letters from home. The fur companies didn't allow o' correspondence--it made their men homesick. When I came to be a man, I did as the other men did, took an Indian wife, an' became the father o' half-breed children. I never expected to live any other way than jest as we lived then--roamin'

about the mountains, exposed to dangers continually, an' reckless because it was no use to think. But, after I had been a savage for a dozen years--long enough to ruin any man--the fur companies began to break up. The beaver were all hunted out o' the mountains. The men were ashamed to go home--Indians as we all were--an' so drifted off down here, where it was possible to git somethin' to eat, an' where there was quite a settlement o' retired trappers, missionaries, deserted sailors, and such-like Whites."

"You brought your families with you?"

"Of course. We could not leave them in the mountains, with the children, to starve. Besides, we loved our children. They were not to blame for bein' half-Indian; an' we could not separate them from their mothers, ef we had a-wished. We did the only thing we could do, under the circ.u.mstances--married the mothers by White men's laws, to make the children legitimate. Even the heads of the Hudson's Bay Company were forced to comply with the sentiment of the White settlers; an' their descendants are among the first families of Oregon. But they had money an' position; the trappers had neither, though there were some splendid men among them--so our families were looked down upon. O, White Rose!

didn't I use to have some bitter thoughts in those days? for my blood was high blood, in the State where I was raised."

"I can imagine it, very easily," said Mrs. Smiley, softly.

"But I never let on. I was wild and devil-may-care. To hide my mortification, I faced it out, as well as I could; but I wasn't made, in the beginnin', for that kind o' life, an' it took away my manhood. After the country began to settle up, an' families--real White families--began to move in, I used to be nearly crazy, sometimes. Many's the day that I've rode through the woods, or over the prairies, tryin' to git away from myself; but I never said a cross word to the squaw wife. Why should I?--it was not her fault. Sometimes she fretted at me (the Indian women are great scolds); but I did not answer her back. I displeased her with my vagabond ways, very likely--her White husband, to whom she looked for better things. I couldn't work; I didn't take no interest in work, like other men."

"O, Mr. Chillis! was not that a great mistake? Would not some kind of ambition have helped to fill up the blank in your life?"

"I didn't have any--I couldn't have any, with that old Indian woman sittin' there, in the corner o' my hearth. When the crazy fit came on, I jest turned my back on home, an' mounted my horse for a long, lonely ride, or went to town and drank whisky till I was past rememberin' my trouble. But I never complained. The men I a.s.sociated with expected me to amuse them, an' I generally did, with all manner o' wild freaks an'

incredible stories--some o' which were truer than they believed, for I had had plenty of adventures in the mountains. White Rose, do you imagine I ever loved that squaw wife o' mine?"

"I remember asking myself such a question, that night of the storm, as you stood by the fire, so still and strange. I was speculating about your history, and starting these very queries you have answered to-night."

"But you have never asked me."

"No; how could I? But I am glad to know. Now I understand the great patience--the tender, pathetic patience--which I have often remarked in you. Only those who have suffered long and silently can ever attain to it."

"An' so people say, 'Poor old Joe!' an' they don't know what they mean, when they say it. They think I am a man without the ambitions an'

pa.s.sions of other men; a simple, good fellow, without too much brain, an' only the heart of a fool. But they don't know me--they don't know me!"

"How could they, without hearing what you have just told me, or without knowing you as I know you?"

"They never will know. I don't want to be pitied for my mistakes. 'Poor old Joe' is proud, as well as poor."

Mrs. Smiley sat silent, gazing at the river's silver ripples. Her shapely hands were folded in her lap; her whole att.i.tude quiet, absorbed. Whether she was thinking of what she had heard, or whether she had forgotten it, no one could have guessed from her manner; and Chillis could not wait to know. The fountains of the deep had been stirred until they would not rest.

"Was there no other question you asked yourself about the old mountain man which he can answer? Did you never wonder whether he ever had loved at all?"