The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 26

On a little eminence, overlooking the burning buildings, together stood Gentleman Bill and a young woman he had rescued from smoke and flame just in time to save her from suffocation. Together they looked down upon the conflagration, and together listened to the horrible medley of sounds proceeding from it.

"If I could only know that my father is safe!" was the repeated moan of Anne Matheny, as she gazed intently upon the scene of distress.

Seeing the fright and trouble in her eyes, her companion cunningly diverted her attention for one moment to the weird landscape stretching away toward the western mountains. It was the same scene she had beheld for the first time with such interest twelve hours before; but in what a different aspect! The murky heavens reflected the red glare of the flames upon every object for miles around, tinging each with a lurid gleam like nothing in nature. The dark neutrals of the far-off mountains, the gray-green of the pines, the sere colors of the parched valley, the dark dull-green of the oaks, garlanded with h.o.a.ry moss, and the gay foliage of the wild grape; all came out distinctly in this furnace-glow, but with quite new effects. In the strong and strange fascination of the scene, both these young people, so singularly situated, forgot for three minutes their mutual anxiety. Longer it would be impossible to forget it.

"Do not you think I might go to look for my father now, Mr. ----?"

"Randolph"--supplied that gentleman.

"Oh, thank you!--Mr. Randolph?"

"I do not see how you could, really;" and, without intending it in the least, but simply through his embarra.s.sment, Randolph glanced hastily at her scanty dress, which thereby she blushingly understood to be his objection.

"If I could get only a blanket from father's wagon! Do you think it would be possible? Would you be running a risk to try for a blanket, do you think, Mr. Randolph? If there is any risk, please do not go; but I am so anxious--so terribly anxious."

He knew she was, and knew the reason she had for her apprehensions; so, although he mistrusted the result of his errand, he answered simply: "Certainly; I will go, if you are not afraid to be left alone. _I_ shall be in no danger."

"O, thank you--thank you! You will bring me a message from my father?"

"I hope so, indeed, since you desire it so much. I think you had better sit down on this newspaper, and let me cover your shoulders with my coat."

"No, indeed. If you are going near the fire, you will need it to protect you from cinders."

But Randolph quickly divested himself of his upper garment, and laid it lightly over her shivering form; then quietly charging her to feel no alarm, and as little anxiety as possible, strode rapidly away toward the fire. Fifteen minutes afterward he returned more slowly, with a blanket, which Anne rose up to receive.

"My father? Did you see my father?"

"I did not see him. He must have taken his horses off a little distance for safety, and you may not see him for several hours. Do not indulge in apprehensions. In the morning we shall find him: it is almost daylight now."

He pointed to a faint light along the eastern horizon; but her eyes were blinded with tears.

"It is not like my father to leave me so long--at such a time, too! He would not care for his horses, nor for anything but me. O, can he have perished!"

She spoke as though the awful significance of her loneliness had just dawned upon her. Randolph, from whom the thought had never been absent from the moment he saw the pillar of flame shooting up over the Traveler's Rest, was startled by the suddenness of her anguish; and an expression of profound grief came over his face, noticeable even to her inattentive eyes, and which comforted her by its sympathy, even in the midst of her alarm and distress.

The day had dawned when Anne Matheny lifted her tear-swollen face from her knees, and looked upon the smoking ruins of Wilson's Bar. It was but a blackened heap of rubbish; yet somewhere in its midst, she felt a.s.sured, were buried the charred remains of her father. Each moment that he came not deepened her conviction, until at last her companion ceased his efforts to inspire hope, and accepted her belief as his own. Then, with the inconsistency of sorrow, she violently repudiated the suspicion of her father's death, and besought him piteously to seek and bring him to her side.

It was while obeying this last command that Gentleman Bill encountered Kentuck, who, after the confusion of the fire was over, was, like himself, looking for Matheny. When they had consulted together, the two returned to the place where Anne was awaiting them.

"There is one request I have to make, Kentuck: which is, that you will not inform Miss Matheny of the enmity of her father toward my father and myself. It would only distress her. Besides, I should like to befriend her, poor girl! and I could not, if she looked upon me with her father's eyes."

"No, 'tain't no use to tell her nothin' about that, sure enough. It's mighty curus, though, 'bout that fire: not another man got hurt, not a mite; and Bob Matheny dead! I'll be hanged if it ain't mighty curus. I hope _ye_ won't hurt the gal, bein' yer the son of yer father."

"Hurt her! I'd----"

Gentleman Bill did not say what he would do: but Kentuck, glancing his way, caught a perfectly comprehensible expression, and muttered softly to himself:

"Waal, if that ain't the dog-gondest curusest sarc.u.mstance I ever seed.

Hit, the first pop! Waal, I'm not the feller to come atween 'em ef thet's ther notion. Far play's my rule."

To Bill, aloud, he said: "Reckon you'll hev' to let _me_ be her uncle for awhile yet. Yer most too young a feller to offer to take car' of a gal like that. Bob Matheny's darter has a right to what leetle dust pans out o' Kentuck's claim. Thet's my go."

Just at this moment Anne, who had been watching for the return of her friend, seeing two figures approaching, uttered a cry of joy and ran forward to meet them. The shock of her disappointment at seeing a stranger in place of her father, caused her nearly to swoon away in Kentuck's arms.

"Neow, don't ye, honey," he said, soothingly, in his kind Kentucky dialect. "Sho! don't ye take on. We's all got to die, sometime or 'nother. Don't mind me: I'm yer pap's oldest friend on this coast--hev'

prospected an' dug an' washed up with him sence '49; and a kinder comrade a man never hed. In course, I consider it my dooty an' privilege to see that you're took car' ov. The Bar's purty much cleared eout--thet's so; but I'll soon hev' a cabin up somewhere; an' ye can jest run my shebang anyway ye like. Reckon I can find some nice woman to stay along with ye, fur comp'ny."

This was just the kind of talk best calculated to engage the attention of one in Anne's situation--half soothing and half suggestive--and by degrees her father's old friend succeeded in arousing her to face her loss, and the prospects of her future.

They told me at Wilson's Bar, only last October--it must have been about the anniversary of the fire--that in two or three months Anne had recovered her spirits and health so far as to essay teaching the little flock of children at the Bar, with flattering success; and that in two or three more it began to be observed that Gentleman Bill--now more commonly called Mr. Randolph, out of respect to Miss Matheny--generally happened to be in the neighborhood of the school-house about the hour of closing, in order that he might walk home with the teacher. In truth, the young people had taken to looking and sighing after each other in a way that provoked remark, and augured a wedding. As Anne insisted on completing her term of teaching, as well as on taking a little time for preparation, the wedding did not come off until the first part of September.

On this occasion--the only one of the kind Kentuck had ever had anything to do with--the rude, but generous-hearted Kentuckian made a point of displaying his hospitality on a scale commensurate with his ideas of its importance; and the _elite_ of Wilson's Bar were invited to eat, drink, and dance from dusk till dawn of that memorable day. As for the bride, she looked as lovely as it is the right and duty of all brides to look--even lovelier than the most; and the groom was the very prince of bridegrooms--so all the maiden guests declared.

On the following morning, when the young couple were to go away, Annie kissed and cried over Kentuck, her second father, in a truly gratifying fashion; and Randolph behaved very gentlemanly and kindly--as, in fact, he always did; and Kentuck put on paternal airs, blessing his children in all the honeyed epithets of a true Kentuckian.

Alas, that the legend does not end here! If the reader is of my mind, he will wish that it had. But if he is of that sanguinary sort who always insist upon seeing the grist the G.o.ds send to their slow-grinding mills, he will prefer to know the sequel. As I have already told you, it was in September they were married. On the morning they left Kentuck the weather was extremely hot, with queer little clouds hanging about the mountains. They took the road up the canon, toward McGibeney's ranch--laughing and chatting, as they rode along side by side, Anne replying to every lark singing by the roadside in a voice almost as musical.

Well, if it must be told, there was a cloud-burst on the mountains about noon that day. Not four hours after they had taken leave of him, Kentuck received their poor bruised bodies at his very threshold, brought there without the interposition of human hands. Wilson's Bar will long remember that day. The fire took chiefly that which could be replaced; but the flood washed out claims, ruined aqueducts, and destroyed lives of men and brutes, carrying away with it the labors and hopes of years.

MISS JORGENSEN.

I am a plain, elderly, unmarried man, and I board at Mrs. Mason's. A great deal of what I am about to relate came under my own observation; and the remainder was confided to me from time to time by my landlady, with whom I am upon terms of friendship and intimacy, having had a home in her house for a period of seven years.

Mrs. Mason lives in her own tenement, in a quiet part of the city; and besides myself, has usually three or four other boarders, generally teachers, or poor young authors--some person always of the cla.s.s that, having few other pleasures, makes it a point to secure rooms with a fine view of the bay. When Miss Jorgensen came to us, we were a quiet, studious, yet harmonious and happy family; so well satisfied with our little community that we did not take kindly to the proposed addition to our circle when Mrs. Mason mentioned it. Neither did our landlady seem to desire any change; but she explained to us that the young person applying had made a strong appeal; that her cla.s.ses (she was a teacher of French) were princ.i.p.ally in our part of the city; and that she would be satisfied with a mere closet for a room. The only privilege for which she stipulated was the use of the common parlor twice a week to receive her company in.

"But I cannot agree to give up the parlor any single evening," Mrs.

Mason replied, "because it is used by all the family, every evening. You will be ent.i.tled to the same privileges with the others." After some hesitation this was agreed to, and our new boarder was installed in the upper hall bed-room, which, when it had received the necessary furniture and a saratoga trunk, with numerous boxes and baskets, would scarcely allow s.p.a.ce enough to dress in. However, Mrs. Mason reported that the tenant professed real satisfaction with her quarters; and we all were on tiptoe with curiosity to see the new inmate.

"Miss Jorgensen," said Mrs. Mason, that evening, as she escorted to the dinner-table a small, pale, dark-eyed young person, in deep mourning; and we being severally and separately presented afterward, endeavored to place this little lonely sc.r.a.p of humanity at ease with ourselves. But in this well-intentioned effort Miss Jorgensen did not seem to meet us half way. On the contrary, she repelled us. She was reserved without being diffident; mercilessly critical, and fierily disputatious--all of which we found out in less than a week. She never entered or left a room without somehow disturbing the mental atmosphere of it, and giving the inmates a little shock; so that Mr. Quivey, our dramatic writer, soon took to calling her the "Electrical Eel," subst.i.tuting "E. E." when the person indicated was within ear-shot possibly or probably. In return, as we afterward discovered, Miss Jorgensen told Miss Flower, our other young lady boarder, that she had christened Mr. Quivey "I.

I."--"Incurable Idiot." How the "E. E." came to her knowledge was never made plain. Before three months were past, she had quarreled with every one in the house except Mrs. Mason and myself; though, to her credit be it said, she always apologized for her temper when they were over, with a frankness that disarmed resentment. Nevertheless, she was so frequently in a hostile att.i.tude toward one or another in the family, that the mere mention of Miss Jorgensen's name was sure to arrest attention and excite expectations. Thus, when I only chanced to whisper to Mrs. Mason at breakfast one morning, "Miss Jorgensen keeps late hours," every one at the table glanced our way inquiringly, as much as to ask, "What has the little woman done now?" And when she appeared at the close of the meal with pale face and swollen eyes, explaining her tardiness by saying she had a headache, no one gave her sympathizing looks except the landlady.

That kind-hearted person confided to me, later in the day, that her new boarder troubled and puzzled her very much. "She will sit up until one or two o'clock every night, writing something or other, and that makes her late to breakfast. She goes out teaching every morning, and comes back tired and late to luncheon; and you see she is never in her place at dinner until the soup is removed, and every one at the table helped.

When I once suggested that she ought not to sit up so long at night, and that her cla.s.ses should be arranged not to fatigue her so much, with other bits of friendly advice, she gave me to understand, very promptly, that her ways were her own, and not to be interfered with by any one.

And directly afterward the tears came into her eyes. I confess I did not understand her at all."

"What about the young man who calls here twice a week?" I inquired.

"She is engaged to him, she says."

"What sort of a person does he seem to be?"

"He looks well enough, only rather shabby, is very quiet, very attentive to her, and what you might call obedient to her requirements. She often seems displeased with him, but what she says to him at such times is unknown to me, for she does her scolding all in French; and he usually then invites her out to walk, by way of diversion, I suppose."