Читать книгу A California Girl - Edward Henry Eldridge - Страница 12

The settlement in which Treelawn was located was called Orangeville, and covered a large area of country. It had a general store—post-office, church, school-house, hall, blacksmith-shop, and two saloons.

For reasons best known to himself, Charles Herne had kept his wedding a secret from all his neighbors, and it was really more by intuition than by actual knowledge that Mrs. Holbrooke came into possession of the fact.

On the morning after the wedding, Sam Gilmore, like a good husband, had quietly risen and dressed himself, leaving his spouse to finish her nap. After seeing that the fire in the kitchen stove was burning brightly and the tea-kettle set on, he went to the barn. After a short time he returned to the house, and putting his head into the bedroom, said with some excitement, "Sarah, I've got some news for you. Charles Herne has got him a wife."

When Sarah Gilmore received that piece of astounding intelligence, the mental shock seemed to produce paralysis, for the garment she was about to put on remained suspended in the air as she exclaimed: "Well, I swan! I thought he was married to his hired pets. How did you hear the news, Sam?"

"Nettleton told me. He was over to see if I would let him have the bays to-day."

"Did you let them go?" asked his wife.

"No, I told him I was going to use them on the ranch to-day," said Sam, closing the door and going back to the barn.

As Sam went out of the bedroom door the paralysis went, too, for no woman ever moved more quickly in putting on the rest of her garments than did Sarah Gilmore that morning.

There was a very good breakfast waiting for Sam when he came in from the barn, and above all Sarah had made him a plate of light, rich batter-cakes, which he always relished very much. They were set a little way into the oven with the door open, to keep warm, his good wife having buttered and sugared them, all ready for Sam to pour rich cream over them.

After breakfast, as Sam was on his way to the barn, he said to himself, "My! Sarah is a fine cook. I would be willing to bet ten dollars she can knock the spots out of Charles Herne's wife in cooking; and she is so cheerful while getting up good meals, and don't make any fuss about it, either."

Sam and the bays worked well that morning in doing a little light work.

Sarah lost no time in putting the breakfast dishes into the dish-pan, but instead of washing them immediately, as was her way, she was seen going over a well-beaten trail toward a house where smoke was coming out of the chimney. When she opened the door, she found Mrs. Green just wiping a mush-bowl which had been used at breakfast.

"Well, Carrie," said Sarah Gilmore to Mrs. Green, "what do you think has happened? Charles Herne has come home with a bride."

"There, now, Sarah, you surprise me," said Mrs. Green.

"I guess every body is surprised," said Mrs. Gilmore.

After a few minutes' more conversation, she hurried back to wash her dishes and get dinner.

When Sam came to dinner he found his wife in the best of spirits, with a big dinner for him to enjoy. Sam's alimentive faculty being in a state of great activity, he ate heartily, finishing up with two pieces of Sarah's extra rich peach cobbler. After dinner Sam went to the fire-place where he sat rocking himself, and soon was enjoying a smoke. He had been smoking about five minutes when his wife said: "I really like the smell of the tobacco you smoke, but if you were to smoke such stinking stuff as Horace does, I would get up and leave you. But yours does smell real sweet."

"Horace Green is too stingy to smoke good tobacco," said Sam, after which remark he brought his hand to the side of his leg each time he let the smoke curl out of his mouth, feeling well satisfied with himself and all the world beside.

Did you ever have the experience of passing through a large barnyard, and going from one end to the other with a lean, hungry hog after you, yelling and squealing, trying to eat you up by snapping first at one of your legs and then at the other? You kick at him with first one foot, saying, "Sooy, sooy;" then you, with the other foot, kick backwards, saying, "Sooy, sooy." And after going through this performance many, many times, you reach the gate and shut it between yourself and the hog, leaving him on the inside, amidst deafening noise made by his hungry squeals. After you have left, he does his best to tear down the fence, so strong are the pangs of hunger in him.

A few minutes after that you take him a pail of rich buttermilk, then a large pail of fresh ripe figs, and two dozen ears of sweet corn. You go out in that barnyard an hour afterwards and you don't hear any hog noise. You don't see a hog even moving, for he is lying down in the greatest state of quiet. He will let you do just what you have a mind to do to him. You can scratch him and you will find him good-natured and he seems to enjoy your attentions. He is in such a contented, happy state, that you can roll him or do anything you wish to him.

So it is with some men. By making love to them through their stomachs, you will find them in as happy a frame of mind as Sam Gilmore was as he finished his pipe. His wife saw that he was taking his last puffs, so she said, "Sam, can I have the bays to go over to the Henshaws' this afternoon?"

"Well," replied Sam, "I was going to haul wood, but I guess I can let that go. What time do you want them?"

"Two o'clock," said his wife.

Sarah said that Sam brought the bays around to the front door and was as lively round her and the team as he was twenty years ago when she was a maiden and he came courting her at her father's.

Talk about the diplomacy of Bismarck, d'Israeli, and the Russian Ambassador in settling the Eastern question at the close of the Russo-Turkish war; why there are women in Orangeville who can give them pointers on diplomacy.

The bays thought that either a peddler or minister was driving them that afternoon, they made so many short calls. There was one thing certain—Sarah Gilmore was not to blame if the people of Orangeville did not know Charles Herne was married.

When Green entered the house his wife said: "Horace, what do you think? Charles Herne has brought home a bride."

"A what?" said her husband.

"A bride," said his wife. "May be it's so long since you saw a bride, you have entirely forgotten how one looks. You had better hustle round and pony up that seventy-five dollars you are owing him. He will need it to buy silks, satins and laces for the bride."

"Hell's to pay," said Green.

Early the same morning Henry Storms entered the "Crow's Nest" saloon in Orangeville, where two men were talking over the bar to the saloon-keeper. Storms, walking up to where they were, saluted them by saying: "Hell's broke loose."

"What's up now?" said one of the men.

"Why," said Storms, "Charles Herne has got a running mate."

"Drinks for four," called out another man.

When the drinks were ready four men raised their glasses, one saying, "Drink hearty to Charles Herne and his partner."

At the conclusion of the toast four glasses of whiskey were emptied down four men's throats.

A man went down from his house to the road where his mailbox was nailed to a redwood post. The stage was just coming in.

"Any news?" asked the man of the stage-driver as he took his mail.

"News!" said the driver. "I should say there was. They tell me that Charles Herne has been, and gone, and done it."

Saunders, the merchant of Orangeville, told his customers that day that "Charles Herne had got spliced."

Tim Collins took a span of kicking mules to Pierce, the blacksmith, to be shod.

"Well, Tim, I got some news for you," said Pierce.

"What is it?" said Tim.

"Charles Herne has got hitched up."

Now one could not discern any perceptible change in Charles Herne, if it were true that he had done all the many and varied things which his neighbors stated he had; such as "Brought home a brand-new wife," "Got him a woman," "Got a bride," "Got a running mate," "Been, gone, and done it," "Got spliced," "Got hitched up," and so on.

The waves of ether in the atmosphere of Orangeville were pregnant with all these sayings and produced such an effect on a number of ladies as to make them call at different times at the Treelawn home.

When some of the ladies had made a call and had seen Mrs. Herne, and these ladies saw some others in Orangeville who had not seen Mrs. Herne, conversation did not drag. And as for speculation. Why the amount of speculative genius displayed by certain ladies of that locality would eclipse all speculative talent of Kant, Spencer and Mill. Listen to some of the inquiries: "Is she proud?" "Is she pretty?" "Has she much style about her?" "Do you think they will get along well together?" "Is she fond of children?" "Will they have any babies?" "Is she fond of dress?" "Is she a society lady?" "Do you think she will get lonesome?" "Can she do housework?" "Is she much account with a needle?" "Is she close and saving?" "Is she extravagant?" "Do you think she will put her foot down on Charles Herne furnishing his men with so many luxuries?" "Is she happy?" "Is she a scold?" "Will she wear the breeches?" and numerous other questions which, like problems concerning the Universe, will take time to solve.

Clara Herne was very happy in her new home as the wife of Charles Herne. She found her duties light and pleasant. Everything in the house and about the house was order and system, no friction, all harmony. She remarked to her husband one evening: "It pays to have good help. Every one here takes an interest in what he has to do and does it the very best he knows how, cheerfully and willingly."

She respected her husband exceedingly for the generous way in which he treated his men, and she helped him to still further their comforts.

On retiring one night after they had both spent the evening with their men, which they often did, she said to her husband: "How good it is to have love and respect between employers and employed. Every one speaks in such a kind way; so considerate for the feelings and interests of each one."

"Yes," said her husband, "it makes life worth living to treat your hired help not as if they were merely machines for the use of getting so much work out of them, but to live and act towards them as if they were men. Better still to realize the thought always, that they are our brothers."

Charles and Clara Herne were very happy as man and wife, because they were a social unit. They were one in their domestic and social natures; they were fond of going out to parties, suppers and dances, and enjoyed entertaining company; they were strictly moral, though not religious, and occasionally attended church.

One evening about a year after they had been married, they were sitting in front of the open fire, interesting themselves in talking about some of the people in Orangeville who were at the party they had attended the evening previous.

"I think last night's party was one of the best we have attended," said Mrs. Herne.

"Yes," said her husband, "the Hammonds are great entertainers. They always make it interesting and pleasant for every one who comes."

"Of course, their daughter Julia has a tact for receiving company and making delicacies for a party," added Clara. "What taste she displayed in the arrangement of the table. Then she herself is personally a great attraction to the young men. I consider her the belle of Orangeville. Her age I think is about twenty-one."

"Yes, but she has a most unusual development for that age. She has such a commanding form, so erect; there is something very fascinating about her expression; and those black eyes of hers denote a powerful magnetism. No wonder she attracts men so strongly."

"She seemed to pay more attention to that young Webber, I thought, than to any one else. Certainly, she smiled very sweetly upon him."

"You don't know Julia," said Mr. Herne, decidedly. "She is like a cat, as meek as Moses or as full of deviltry as Judas Iscariot. She is just playing with Webber and he is too vain and foolish to see it. Why, Julia Hammond would not marry Webber if he were the last man in Orangeville. The man she wants is Ben West, and she scarcely spoke to him during the evening; in fact, did not pay him as much attention as she would have paid to the merest stranger. In most girls such an action would be the result of shyness and the desire to avoid observation; in Julia, I think it arises from an inborn, stubborn pride which prevents her from yielding even to such an uncontrollable feeling. She has an iron will and though she knows she must yield eventually, she holds herself defiantly as long as she can."

"I don't blame her for wanting Ben West, for he is the finest looking and most popular young man in Orangeville," said Clara.

"He is, indeed," replied her husband. "Almost any girl in Orangeville would be glad to marry him, but Julia wants him and she will get him. He has not lost his heart so far, but Julia has not played her cards yet. She knows her power and loves to use it. She would do anything to gain her end."

"Why, dear, you seem to be well posted on Julia's disposition," said his wife.

"You see," he replied, "I have known her ever since she has lived in Orangeville, which has been twelve years. And now I am going to tell you something that will surprise you. I got it straight from Hammond himself, and he and I are close friends, as I have helped him financially out of some hard places. Several times he has made me a confidant. Only one or two in Orangeville know what I am going to tell you.

"It seems that about four years after Mr. and Mrs. Hammond were married, Mrs. Hammond received a letter from her cousin, Mrs. Featherstone, saying that Nat Harrison, a mutual friend, had been shot dead in a dispute over a faro game. He was under the influence of liquor at the time of the trouble. He left a wife and a girl baby eighteen months old, without any means of support, the mother being incompetent to take care of either herself or the child, and the letter asked would Mrs. Hammond like to adopt the baby. If so, Mrs. Featherstone was coming to San Diego in about a month's time and would bring the child (the Hammonds lived at San Diego then). The mother would make her home with her aunt.

"Mrs. Hammond said, after reading the letter, 'Poor Annie Harrison. Only think. I sat beside her at the graduating exercises of Nat Harrison's class, and remember how pleased she was at the applause which greeted the oration delivered by Nat, "American Commerce." So many congratulated him on his talent and thought he would become a rising member of the bar, and his voice would be heard in the halls of legislation of the nation.

"'Annie looked so pretty and sweet that day, you could not have bought her prospects in life for a million dollars. She thought she had a jewel of a lover, poor thing, she was so innocent of the nature of men. She knew nothing of the world, for her mother always treated her as a baby, never teaching her any self-reliance, and had kept her as a hot-house plant. She grew up with no higher ideal in life for herself than to be some rich man's toy and pet, under marriage. She was more adapted to be a flower in the "Garden of Eden" than to fight the battle of life in the present state of society.'

"Nat Harrison had money and was doing well when he married Annie, but being a man of strong passions and appetites, Annie's freshness and bloom soon wilted. Then he sought other pastures for his carnal pleasures, and with that came drinking and gambling. When his estate was settled up after his death they found he was in debt.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hammond talked the matter over and decided to adopt the child. They were both much pleased when they received the baby from Mrs. Featherstone and saw what a fine child she was. They have loved her and done everything that parents could do for a child of their own to make her happy. Julia brought lots of sunshine into their home, and everything went all right and they took a great deal of comfort with her till she got to be about fourteen and then she seemed to become stubborn, grew inattentive to her studies, seemed to care less for her girl companions, but was always with the boys. All she appeared to care for was to be in their company. She took less interest in things in the house, did not care about helping her mother, and would have odd spells. Sometimes she took a notion to do up the work, and it was then done quickly and well. Then for quite a time it would be like pulling teeth to get her to do anything. She has the ability if she would only use it. The last four years she has given Mr. and Mrs. Hammond many an anxious thought, and they have wished that Ben West or some other such man would marry her. They see the older she grows the more the hot blood of her father shows in her. Hammond told me last night at the party that Julia was great on dress parade, but was not there when it came to doing the common every day duties of life with no excitement."

"Why, Charles, the narrative concerning Julia's life is very interesting. Some of the people around us would be just as good material for a novel as those we read about in fiction."