Chapter IX: Getting the Author’s Mood (9)

For the first twenty minutes the road was hard and smooth and level; after that gentle, shallow undulations began, and at last, at brief intervals, were sharp, narrow arroyos (ditches eight or nine feet wide). I reined Kaweah in, and brought him up sharply on their bottoms, giving him the bit to spring up on the other side; but he quickly taught me better, and, gathering, took them easily, without my feeling it in his stride.

The hot sun had arisen. I saw with anxiety that the tremendous speed began to tell painfully on Kaweah. Foam tinged with blood fell from his mouth, and sweat rolled in streams from his whole body, and now and then he drew a deep-heaving breath. I leaned down and felt of the cinch to see if it had slipped forward, but, as I had saddled him with great care, it kept its true place, so I had only to fear the greasers behind, or a new relay ahead. I was conscious of plenty of reserved speed in Kaweah, whose powerful run was already distancing their fatigued mustangs.

As we bounded down a roll of the plain, a cloud of dust sprang from a ravine directly in front of me, and two black objects lifted themselves in the sand. I drew my pistol, cocked it, whirled Kaweah to the left, plunging by them and clearing by about six feet; a thrill of relief came as I saw the long, white horns of Spanish cattle gleam above the dust.

Unconsciously I restrained Kaweah too much, and in a moment the Spaniards were crowding down upon me at a fearful rate. On they came, the crash of their spurs and the clatter of their horses distinctly heard; and as I had so often compared the beats of chronometers, I unconsciously noted that while Kaweah’s, although painful, yet came with regular power, the mustangs’ respiration was quick, spasmodic, and irregular. I compared the intervals of the two mustangs, and found that one breathed better than the other, and then, upon counting the best mustang with Kaweah, found that he breathed nine breaths to Kaweah’s seven. In two or three minutes I tried it again, finding the relation ten to seven; then I felt the victory, and I yelled to Kaweah. The thin ears shot flat back upon his neck; lower and lower he lay down to his run. I flung him a loose rein, and gave him a friendly pat on the withers. It was a glorious burst of speed; the wind rushed by and the plain swept under us with dizzying swiftness. I shouted again, and the thing of nervous life under me bounded on wilder and faster, till I could feel his spine thrill as with shocks from a battery. I managed to look round—a delicate matter of speed—and saw, far behind, the distanced villains, both dismounted, and one horse fallen.

In an instant I drew Kaweah into a gentle trot, looking around every moment, lest they should come on me unawares. In a half-mile I reached the station, and I was cautiously greeted by a man who sat by the barn door, with a rifle across his knees. He had seen me come over the plain, and had also seen the Spanish horse fall. Not knowing but he might be in league with the robbers, I gave him a careful glance before dismounting and was completely reassured by an expression of terror which had possession of his countenance.

I sprang to the ground and threw off the saddle, and after a word or two with the man, who proved to be the sole occupant of this station, we fell to work together upon Kaweah, my cocked pistol and his rifle lying close at hand. We sponged the creature’s mouth, and, throwing a sheet over him, walked him regularly up and down for about three-quarters of an hour, and then taking him upon the open plain, where we could scan the horizon in all directions, gave him a thorough grooming. I never saw him look so magnificently as when we led him down to the creek to drink: his skin was like satin, and the veins of his head and neck stood out firm and round like whip-cords.—From “Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada.” Copyright and used by kind permission of the publishers, _Chas. Scribner’s Sons_, New York.

A HERO OF THE FURNACE-ROOM

ANONYMOUS

The duty of the boiler-makers on warships is of the most dangerous nature. In action, between actions, and out of action the repairs that they are called upon at a moment’s notice to effect are sufficient to send a chill of fear through the hearts of most men. They will creep right inside a boiler or furnace which had but a few moments before been full of boiling liquid or hot coals. They will screw up nuts and fasten bolts or repair leaking pipes or joints in places that other men would consider impossible to approach. While the ship’s big guns are making the vessel tremble, and the enemy’s shells are bursting in every direction, these men, with positively reckless fearlessness, will venture down into the bowels of the fighting ship, amid roaring machinery, hissing steam, and flaming fires, to rectify an accident which, unrepaired, might send the ship and all her human freight to the bottom more easily and more surely and more quickly than shell or shot from the best guns of the enemy. These men are heroes.

The _Castine_, when she went to work to batter the walls of San Juan, carried on board three of these boiler-makers, Fish, another, and one Huntley, of Norfolk, Virginia. The _Castine_ went into action under full steam, her triple screws revolving at the fullest speed, and her battery of eight guns started her quivering with excitement and the fierce delight of battle. The furnaces were heated almost to white heat, and the forced draught was urging the flames to greater heat, the boiling water to the higher production of steam, the engines to increasing revolutions. Suddenly, without expectation, without warning, far down in the furnace hole, unheard by officer or man, amid the din of battle, the thundering reverberations of exploding gun-powder, there arose a fierce hissing noise right inside one of the furnaces; and all those who heard it trembled as no guns or shot or shell had power to make them tremble.

A socket bolt in the back connection at the very farthest interior extremity of the furnace had become loose. A leak had been sprung; the steam was pouring in upon the fire, threatening in a few moments to put it out and stop the progress of the ship if it did not have the more awful effect of causing a terrible explosion and annihilation!

The faces of the men below, in that moment of terrible suspense, blanched beneath the grime that covered them. None knew what to do save to wait the awful coming of the shock they knew must come.

None? Nay, but there was one! The first to pull himself together, the first to whom returned the fear-driven senses, was boiler-maker Huntley. His name does not appear on the navy list. Even his first name was unknown to his confrère, Fish. Only boiler-maker Huntley, of Norfolk, Virginia. But that is enough, and the annals of fame whenever and wherever the story of the United States and her navy is told.

One instant of startled horror—then, without hesitation, without trepidation, with stern-set jaws and fierce, devoted determination on every line of face and form—

“Turn off the forced draught!” he cried.

“Goodness, Huntley, what are you going to do?”

“Bank the fire! Quick!”

“It’s certain death!”

“For one—unless, for all! Turn off the draught! Bank the fire!”

The orders were carried out feverishly.

“Now a plank!”

And before they could stop him this hero had flung the plank into the furnace, right on top of the black coal with which it was banked, and had himself climbed and crawled over the ragged mass, far back to where the steam was rushing like some hissing devil from the loosened socket.

For three minutes he remained inside that fearful place, and then the work was done—the ship was saved—and his friends drew him out at the door. The forced draught went to its work again, and in an instant the furnace was once more raging.

But what of Huntley? Scorched, scalded, insensible, well-nigh dead, he lay upon the iron floor of the furnace room, while around him stood his mates dousing him with water, and using every known means for his resuscitation. He did not die, but when once more he opened his eyes, and was able to be carefully lifted into daylight, there arose such cheers from the throats of those dirty, grimy mates as never greeted taking of city or sinking of fleet.

The story is briefly chronicled in the log of the _Castine_, and Huntley simply claims that he “did his duty.” But while the United States remains a nation; so long as the banner bearing the silver stars on the field of blue, above alternate stripes of red and white, remains the symbol of purity, bravery, and patriotism to American hearts the whole world over; so long, when her heroes are spoken of, one name should never be omitted—that of Boiler-maker Huntley, of Norfolk, Virginia.—From _The Toledo Blade_.

THE DEATH IN THE WHEAT

BY FRANK NORRIS

S. Behrman soon discovered his elevator. It was the largest structure discernible, and upon its red roof, in enormous white letters, was his own name. Thither, between piles of grain bags, halted drays, crates and boxes of merchandise, with an occasional pyramid of salmon cases, S. Behrman took his way. Cabled to the dock, close under his elevator, lay a great ship with lofty masts and great spars. Her stern was toward him as he approached, and upon it, in raised golden letters, he could read the words, “_Swanhilda_—Liverpool.”

He went aboard by a very steep gangway and found the mate on the quarter deck. S. Behrman introduced himself.

“Well,” he added, “how are you getting on?”

“Very fairly, sir,” returned the mate, who was an Englishman. “We’ll have her all snugged down tight by this time day after to-morrow. It’s a great saving of time shunting the stuff in her like that, and three men can do the work of seven.”

“I’ll have a look ’round, I believe,” returned S. Behrman.

“Right-o,” answered the mate with a nod.

S. Behrman went forward to the hatch that opened down into the vast hold of the ship. A great iron chute connected this hatch with the elevator, and through it was rushing a veritable cataract of wheat.

It came from some gigantic bin within the elevator itself, rushing down the confines of the chute to plunge into the roomy, gloomy interior of the hold with an incessant, metallic roar, persistent, steady, inevitable. No men were in sight. The place was deserted. No human agency seemed to be back of the movement of the wheat. Rather, the grain seemed impelled with a force of its own, a resistless, huge force, eager, vivid, impatient for the sea.

S. Behrman stood watching, his ears deafened with the roar of the hard grains against the metallic lining of the chute. He put his hand once into the rushing tide, and the contact rasped the flesh of his fingers and like an undertow drew his hand after it in its impetuous dash.

Cautiously he peered down into the hold. A musty odor rose to his nostrils, the vigorous, pungent aroma of the raw cereal. It was dark. He could see nothing; but all about and over the opening of the hatch the air was full of a fine, impalpable dust that blinded the eyes and choked the throat and nostrils.

As his eyes became used to the shadows of the cavern below him, he began to distinguish the gray mass of the wheat, a great expanse, almost liquid in its texture, which, as the cataract from above plunged into it, moved and shifted in long, slow eddies. As he stood there, this cataract on a sudden increased in volume. He turned about, casting his eyes upward toward the elevator to discover the cause. His foot caught in a coil of rope, and he fell headforemost into the hold.

The fall was a long one and he struck the surface of the wheat with the sodden impact of a bundle of damp clothes. For the moment he was stunned. All the breath was driven from his body. He could neither move nor cry out. But, by degrees, his wits steadied themselves and his breath returned to him. He looked about and above him. The daylight in the hold was dimmed and clouded by the thick chaff-dust thrown off by the pour of grain, and even this dimness dwindled to twilight at a short distance from the opening of the hatch, while the remotest quarters were lost in impenetrable blackness. He got upon his feet only to find he sunk ankle deep in the loose packed mass underfoot.

“Hell,” he muttered, “here’s a fix.”

Directly underneath the chute, the wheat, as it poured in, raised itself in a conical mound, but from the sides of this mound it shunted away incessantly in thick layers, flowing in all directions with the nimbleness of water. Even as S. Behrman spoke, a wave of grain poured around his legs and rose rapidly to the level of his knees. He stepped quickly back. To stay near the chute would soon bury him to the waist.

No doubt, there was some other exit from the hold, some companion ladder that led up to the deck. He scuffled and waddled across the wheat, groping in the dark with outstretched hands. With every inhalation he choked, filling his mouth and nostrils more with dust than with air. At times he could not breathe at all, but gagged and gasped, his lips distended. But search as he would, he could find no outlet to the hold, no stairway, no companion ladder. Again and again, staggering along in the black darkness, he bruised his knuckles and forehead against the iron sides of the ship. He gave up the attempt to find any interior means of escape and returned laboriously to the space under the open hatchway. Already he could see that the level of the wheat was raised.

“God,” he said, “this isn’t going to do at all.” He uttered a great shout. “Hello, on deck there, somebody. For God’s sake.”

The steady, metallic roar of the pouring wheat drowned out his voice. He could scarcely hear it himself above the rush of the cataract. Beside this, he found it impossible to stay under the hatch. The flying grains of wheat, spattering as they fell, stung his face like wind-driven particles of ice. It was a veritable torture; his hands smarted with it. Once he was all but blinded. Furthermore, the succeeding waves of wheat, rolling from the mound under the chute, beat him back, swirling and dashing against his legs and knees, mounting swiftly higher, carrying him off his feet.

Once more he retreated, drawing back from beneath the hatch. He stood still for a moment and shouted again. It was in vain. His voice returned upon him, unable to penetrate the thunder of the chute, and horrified, he discovered that so soon as he stood motionless upon the wheat, he sank into it. Before he knew it, he was knee-deep again, and a long swirl of grain sweeping outward from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming pyramid below the chute, poured around his thighs, immobilizing him.

A frenzy of terror suddenly leaped to life within him. The horror of death, the Fear of The Trap, shook him like a dry reed. Shouting, he tore himself free of the wheat and once more scrambled and struggled towards the hatchway. He stumbled as he reached it and fell directly beneath the pour. Like a storm of small shot, mercilessly, pitilessly, the unnumbered multitude of hurtling grains flagellated and beat and tore his flesh. Blood streamed from his forehead and, thickening with the powder-like chaff-dust, blinded his eyes. He struggled to his feet once more. An avalanche from the cone of wheat buried him to his thighs. He was forced back and back and back, beating the air, falling, rising, howling for aid. He could no longer see; his eyes crammed with dust, smarted as if transfixed with needles whenever he opened them. His mouth was full of the dust; his lips were dry with it; thirst tortured him, while his outcries choked and gagged in his rasped throat.

And all the while without stop, incessantly, inexorably, the wheat, as if moving with a force all its own, shot downward in a prolonged roar, persistent, steady, inevitable.

He retreated to a far corner of the hold and sat down with his back against the iron hull of the ship and tried to collect his thoughts, to calm himself. Surely there must be some way of escape; surely he was not to die like this, die in this dreadful substance that was neither solid nor fluid. What was he to do? How make himself heard?

But even as he thought about this, the cone under the chute broke again and sent a great layer of grain rippling and tumbling toward him. It reached him where he sat and buried his hand and one foot.

He sprang up trembling and made for another corner.

“My God,” he cried, “my God, I must think of something pretty quick!”

Once more the level of the wheat rose and the grains began piling deeper about him. Once more he retreated. Once more he crawled, staggering to the foot of the cataract, screaming till his ears sang and his eyeballs strained in their sockets, and once more the relentless tide drove him back.

Then began that terrible dance of death; the man dodging, doubling, squirming, hunted from one corner to another; the wheat slowly, inexorably flowing, rising, spreading to every angle, to every nook and cranny. It reached his middle. Furious and with bleeding hands and broken nails, he dug his way out to fall backward, all but exhausted, gasping for breath in the dust-thickening air. Roused again by the slow advance of the tide, he leaped up and stumbled away, blinded with the agony in his eyes, only to crash against the metal hull of the vessel. He turned about, the blood streaming from his face; he paused to collect his senses, and with a rush, another wave swirled about his ankles and knees. Exhaustion grew upon him. To stand still meant to sink; to lie or sit meant to be buried the quicker; and all this in the dark, all this in the air that could not be breathed, all this while he fought an enemy that could not be gripped, toiling in a sea that could not be stayed.

Guided by the sound of the falling wheat, S. Behrman crawled on hands and knees toward the hatchway. Once more he raised his voice in a shout for help. His bleeding throat and raw, parched lips refused to utter but a wheezing moan. Once more he tried to look toward the one patch of faint light above him. His eyelids, clogged with chaff, could no longer open. The wheat poured about his waist as he raised himself upon his knees.

Reason fled. Deafened with the roar of the grain, blinded and made dumb with its chaff, he threw himself forward with clutching fingers, rolling upon his back, and lay there, moving feebly, the head rolling from side to side. The wheat, leaping continuously from the chute, poured around him. It filled the pockets of the coat, it crept up the sleeves and trouser legs, it covered the great, protuberant stomach, it ran at last in rivulets into the distended, gasping mouth. It covered the face.

Upon the surface of the wheat, under the chute, nothing moved but the wheat itself. There was no sign of life. Then, for an instant, the surface stirred. A hand, fat, with short fingers and swollen veins, reached up, clutching, then fell limp and prone. In another instant it was covered. In the hold of the _Swanhilda_ there was no movement but the widening ripples that spread flowing from the ever-breaking, ever-reforming cone; no sound, but the rushing of the wheat that continued to plunge incessantly from the iron chute in a prolonged roar, persistent, steady, inevitable.—From “The Octopus.” Copyright and used by kind permission of the publishers, _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York.

DIALECT SELECTIONS

BOY WANTED

BY MADGE ELLIOT

One 24th of December, Mr. Oscar Blunt, who kept a large hat store in the lower part of Broadway, was writing at his desk, which was at the very end of the store, when somebody touched his elbow softly, and, looking up, was much astounded to see a ragged boy, whose old broad-brimmed hat almost hid his face, standing beside him. He was so much astonished, in fact, that he dropped his pen upon his paper, and thereby made a blot instead of a period.

“Why, my lad, how came you here?”

“I slid past some of the fellers. Wot a woppin’ big store dis is, and wot lots of fellers it takes to stan’ ’roun’, an’ I cheeked some an’ I tole de odders I had somethin’ most awful partiklar to say to de big boss.”

“And what have you most awful particular to say to me?” said the “big boss” in a kinder voice than that in which he had spoken at first, for there was something in the boy’s dark gray eyes that made him think of a darling little son he had buried only a year ago in the same grave where he had buried his wife the year before.

“Well, I seen in yer window a sigh wot reads, ‘Boy Wanted.’ An’ I’m a boy; an’ as nobody never wanted me yet, sez I to myself, sez I, ‘Dusty, ole feller, p’r’haps there’s _your_ chance at last,’ sez I, an’ in I comes.”

“Sorry, but you won’t suit at all, my boy.”

“How do you know ’fore you try a feller? I know I ain’t worry pooty, nor I hain’t got no fashnoble clothes, but I’m smart, I am. I’ve been to night-school two winters, I have, an’ got a sixth ’ward of merit, I did, wunst, an’ I kin read readin’ fust rate wen it’s only two syllabubbles an’ I kin spell it out wen it’s three syllabubbles, an’ I kin speak some four syllabubbles, an’ I can read writin’ wen it’s print-letters, an’ I kin wissel you or any oder man in des ’ere tre-men-yu-ous (four syllabubbles) old hat-box outer his boots.” And he began to whistle a lively tune so loudly, clearly and sweetly that everybody in the large store turned in amazement toward the desk, and listened.

“Yes, yes, I see you whistle remarkably well, but we don’t want a boy to whistle.”

“I kin dance too. I danced for Johnny Sniffs ben’fit when he fell inter wun of dem cole-holes in de sidewalk, and broke his leg off short, I did, ’midst thunders of applause.” And cutting a double shuffle he went off into a rollicking break-down, his big shoes wobbling about, and the broad brim of his hat flopping up and down at every step.

“Stop, stop! I tell you! I don’t want a boy to dance. You won’t do, my boy; you won’t do, as I’ve told you before. Here’s a quarter for you, and now go away.”

“I don’t want de quarter; nor I don’t want to go ’way,” persisted the boy. “I didn’t come ’way from Fishhead Alley to dis swell street to go ’way so soon. I want a sit-u-wa-tion (four syllabubbles), I do. An’ de fust thing I seen, wen I comes round de corner, was dat sign, ‘Boy Wanted.’ ‘An’ dat’s good luck,’ sez I. ‘Go in, Dusty ole feller,’ sez I. An’ I ain’t tole you haff what I kin do. Jess yez hole on a minnit. I kin see a cop furder nor any our gang; an’ wen one comes in de front door arter you, I kin give you de wink, quicker’n lightenin’, an’ out de back door you pops. An’ I kin speak pieces, I kin—‘A hoss! A hoss! my kingdom fer a hoss! Dere’s sixty Richmons in de field to-day, an’ I’ve killed every wun of dem. A hoss—’”

“Silence!” commanded Mr. Blunt; and then in spite of himself he burst into a fit of laughter and laughed until he shook again, and there was a great deal of him to shake—two hundred pounds at the very least. “Tell me something about yourself, my boy, but mind, no more performances of any kind. What is your name, and where do you live, to begin with?”

“Dusty’s my name. I don’t know no odder. One feller, he’s from the country, he is—calls me ‘Dusty Miller’; he sez ’cause dey’s a flower wot dey calls ‘Dusty Miller’ dare. I believe he’s foolin’. But if I’m de boy wot’s wanted, I must get a nobbier name dan dat. Wot’s your name, boss?”

“Mr. Oscar Blunt.”

“Well, you might call me dat, too, without de mister. It soun’s werry nice—‘Hoss car Blunt,’ or you might keep de Hoss car, an I’d be de El-e-wa-ted (four syllabubbles) Road Blunt. Any way you’ve mind to. You pay your money, and takes your choice. An’ I lives roun’ anywhere sence Aunt Kate died.”

“Aunt Kate? And was Aunt Kate your only relation? Have you no father and mother?” asked Mr. Blunt.

“Nope; never had none, ’cept Aunt Kate. An’ I ain’t no frien’s, ’cept Straw Hat. He keeps a paper stan’, he does; an’ onst he giv a party, he did, in a charcoal-box. I wos dere, an’ it wuz bully, you bet. An’ I’ve got a little brudder.”

“A little brother?”

“Yep, sir. He wuz my cousin wunst, ’fore dey took Aunt Kate away; but he’s my brudder now, an’ I got to take care of him. He jess gobbles bread and milk, an’ dat’s w’y I’m lookin’ for a sit-i-wa-tion—’nother four syllabubbles. Crackey! I’m as full of big words as a diction’ry, I am. An’ Straw Hat he sez to me, sez he, ‘If you want me to say you’re honest an’ sober an’ ’dustyous, I’ll say it,’ says he. He’s a bully good feller, he is, an’ I ain’t givin’ taffy, neider. He’s took care of me an’ my little brudder sence Aunt Kate died—dat’s lass week—but he can’t do it forev’r’n’ever.”

“And where is this little brother now?”

“Sittin’ on your stoop, waitin’ till I come out.”

“Sitting on my stoop? Why he must be half frozen, poor little fellow. Go and bring him in directly.”

The boy flew, and in a moment returned, leading by the hand a wee child, who could just walk, and whose very small nose was blue with cold, and who was wrapped in an old shawl, the ends of which dragged behind him.

“He’s a boy too, an’ he’s real pooty, an’ if he’s the kind of boy yer want, you may have him; but you must be awful good to him, an’ let me come and see him. Say, boss, to-morrer’s Chrismus day!”

“Well, and what then?”

“Wen folks all gits presents, an’ fellers wot’s got stockin’s hangs ’em up, an’ spose, boss—jess fer fun—you let me an’ my little brudder be your Chrismus present?”

“Done!” said Mr. Blunt, conquered at last by the boy’s patient and persistent coaxing. “I’ll make believe I found one in each stocking. But mind, Dusty, you must be the best of boys, and stop using slang, or I won’t keep you.”

“You kin bet you bottom dollar I’ll do everything you want me to. Horay! ain’t dis a bully racket? I’m de boy wot’s wanted in dis es-tab-lish-ment (four syllabubbles) an’ I mean to be in-wal-u-a-ble—five syllabubbles, by gracious! Mind my little brudder a minnit till I run an’ tell Straw Hat.” And before Mr. Blunt could say a word, the crown of the hat was on his head, and he was out of the store and away.

And when he returned with Straw Hat the baby was sitting in the lap of the good natured colored woman who kept the store clean, as happy as any baby could be who had just eaten four sugar cakes and a stick of candy.

And Dusty E. Road proved himself to be, as he himself said he would be, the very boy wanted in that establishment.

THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF LOVE

BY AMANDA MATHEWS

The mother of Teodota sat in the doorway with a bowl of meat in her lap. Her greasy black dress wrinkled latitudinally about her shapeless figure. Her countenance was smooth, blank, and oily. As she cut the meat into bits for the tamales, an impotent dribble of monologue flowed from her flabby, pendulous lips. While awake, talking was a function as natural and continuous as respiration or digestion, and was interrupted only when her present husband exerted himself to beat or kick her into a brief interval of sniffling repression. On this particular afternoon Señor Garcia was not interested in damming the sluggish but endless current of his wife’s conversation, for he lay in drunken sleep on a filthy blanket in a corner of the rough board pen, a Mexican Caliban, swart, lowbrowed, bestial.

Teodota knelt behind the metate grinding corn to be mixed with chile in the pungent tamales. She had dragged the clumsy stone implement to a position where she could see that her stepfather still slept, notwithstanding his frightful inarticulate gulps and growls. A thin, flat-chested slip of a girl was Teodota, with great, piteous brown eyes, high cheek bones, small, pointed chin, and a complexion of tan satin. She was not beautiful; rather was she an intaglio of beauty with hollows where there should have been roundness. Her untidy black braids had been slept on many times since they had known a comb; the scant, tattered calico gown fell away from the upturned leathery soles of her bare feet. She guided the heavy stone roller with languid, perfunctory movements, while some clockwork in her brain prompted the periodical “Si, madre,” that fully satisfied her mother’s conversational requirements.

The real Teodota was back in Old Mexico. Certainly she was not driven thither by any lack of familiar environment in the Mexican quarter of Los Angeles. Nor would it seem necessary for Teodota to keep tryst in Mexico with a lover who had not preceded her to the United States, but they had not found each other yet and she could meet her Pablo only at the plaza fountain in Texcoco.

Suddenly into the dream, but not of it, a white folded paper fluttered through the open window and lay on the floor beside the metate. The girl examined it curiously.

“What is it, daughter?” inquired the elder woman.

“I do not know, mother. It looks like drawing; I am sure it isn’t writing.”

“I can use it to light my cigarette.”

“No, mamacita, I want it.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

The girl hid the paper where billows of a not overclean chemise escaped at long gaps between buttons, and returned to her labor, but the apparently trifling incident had taken a certain hold on her listless, stunted intelligence. Recklessly, she pushed a handful of corn off the end of the metate and edged about on her knees as if to pick it up, in order to study the document with her back to her mother. The unlettered brain, not accustomed to flat symbols for the appearance of things, was slow to find any significance in the lines. Very gradually did she achieve recognition of a railway train and the human figures, male and female.

As her stepfather pulled himself into a sitting posture she thrust the paper back into her bosom, trembling lest he had seen it, and still more lest he beat her for the unground corn.

“_Caramba!_” he growled. “May the roof fall upon the Labor Union.”

Mother and daughter exchanged glances of relief that, so far, the object of his wrath was remote and intangible.

“They told me in Mexico,” he continued, “of a fine thing here in America called the Labor Union that pays a man when he does not work, that throws stones at him if he is such a fool as to desire work, and calls him—calls him—a pest overtake their speech that is hard as rocks in the mouth—”

“Scabe, _padre_,” supplied Teodota, timidly.

“I come here with my innocent family. I seek out this Labor Union and say, ‘Here am I, Juan Garcia, who is no—no—’”

“Scabe, _padre_,” ventured the girl again.

“But hates work like the very devil. Do they embrace me? Do they put money in my hand? Ah-h-h!”

His memory of the rest of that painful interview, when a muscular labor leader chose to consider that he was being trifled with, vented itself in a shrill howl of rage.

Teodota caught up a brown earthen pitcher, and slipping out as though to bring water from the hydrant, hid herself behind a scrubby red geranium in the angle between the last tenement and the high board fence. At first she crouched in wretched fear of being dragged forth to receive a beating, or witness one bestowed upon her mother, but the minutes slipped by without pursuit.

It was not because she needed to exercise her reposeful wits during this period of hiding that she fell to studying the paper again, but rather on account of a pleasant stir in some rudimentary faculty that under happier circumstances might have been imagination. Man, boy, woman, train, mules, she identified with growing ease and satisfaction. For her, it was a notable mental achievement when she perceived relations among the members of the groups of objects.

That man was kissing the hand of the maiden with a water-jar on her shoulder. Even so had Pablo kissed her hand under the _portales_ that last morning, and when she inquired saucily if she were his grandmother, he snatched her to him and kissed both cheeks and called her _queridita_. In the next square the same girl was being flogged. Even so had she been used by her stepfather, who wished her to have no lover, but to continue making tamales for his support. Her beloved had left for the United States in just such a train.

This was a communication from Pablo! That supreme illumination in her dim intellect was a blessed miracle of love. She kissed the picture-letter and rocked back and forth, hugging it, while her heart nearly leaped out of her joy. Then she fell to studying it anew. The square showing forth a man driving a team of mules hitched to a scraper was beyond her comprehension, as she was unfamiliar with grading camps.

At the bottom of the sheet the boy with the shirt-waist and simulated fur cap was receiving a letter, running with it, and in the last square, delivering it to the maiden. Dear Pablo evidently believed that this boy was the messenger between them, whereas it must have been the angels or the saints, for had she not seen the boy looking as innocent and indifferent as you please?

When Teodota returned to the squalid room her stepfather had a more immediate grievance.

“You impudent, lazy hussy! You _sin verguenza_! I’ll teach you to leave your work and gad about the court!”

“If you touch me again,” blazed the girl, “you’d better keep awake. I’ll kill you if I ever catch you asleep!”

A rabbit at bay is at least a surprise, and the brute’s jaw dropped, the upraised arm fell back, and cursing and blustering, he strolled forth into the court. With a champion hovering near, there had suddenly come to the girl the power to hate bravely. Heretofore she had feared her stepfather as the savage who dares not hate the evil powers moving in the darkness lest they perceive his hatred and smite him afresh.

“Daughter! daughter!” wailed the frightened mother, “that was not a respectful manner to address a parent. When I was a girl it was the custom—”

“_Si, madre_,” responded Teodota, patiently, as she indited her answer to her lover with a burnt match on a scrap of wrapping paper. Roughly, but eloquently, she sketched two little imploring hands, and flung the epistle from the window with childlike confidence that whatever powers had brought Pablo’s letter would convey her reply.

It was a transformed Teodota that stood just out of the heavy wooden gates of the court the next morning, apparently loitering in idle contemplation of the street, where Latin infants disported themselves on the sidewalks, and soft Spanish speech was heard in every doorway, but in reality her whole body was charged with excitement and impatience. Personal neatness in a board pen devoted chiefly to the manufacture of tamales could not be expected to attain any high standard, but her appearance this morning bore eloquent testimony to the civilizing power of love. Her abundant black hair, moist and glossy, rippled on her shoulders, with a red geranium glowing in its shadows. The billows of chemise between the distant buttons were snowy white, the worst rents in the tattered pink gown had been roughly mended, and even the blue _rebozo_ lying across her shoulders had taken on a faded purity.

As though to set the seal of heavenly approval on such cleanliness, another communication from Pablo was found pinned to the _rebozo_ when she drew it in from the window where it had swung to dry. That the small boy was not in sight was ample proof that it had come by supernatural agency.

This last letter said more eloquently than mere words could have done: “I await thee at the tunnel.” Yet with seeming nonchalance, Teodota watched the squat, receding figure of her stepfather abroad on the only tasks compatible with his dignity and tastes—the delivery of the tamales to a dealer down the street, and the collection of the revenue therefrom. The very instant, however, that he disappeared into a doorway, she was off in the opposite direction, wrapping her _rebozo_ about her head as she went, and giving the end a final fling over her shoulder.

At the Mexican end of the tunnel, just beyond the Chinese laundry, but before one enters the cavernous chill and shadow, stands an unroofed adobe[8] hovel close to the highway. Teodota, hurrying by this ruin, thrilled from head to foot to hear her name.

“Pablo!” she gasped. Her soul rode the wave of joy to its crest; then dropped back into the trough of despair. “I took you for _gente decente_! How fine you are! How elegant! A grand señor!”

The tall, handsome Aztec looked down complacently at his black suit and the ends of his red tie, not displeased at the impression he made.

“Didst think, _queridita_,” he laughed, kissing her cheeks as he had done under the _portales_, “that here in America I would be wearing white cotton trousers and leather sandals? No, indeed! This is another day.”

“But I, Señor—”

“Call me not ‘Señor,’ but Pablo and thy sweetheart,” he cried, swinging her to the top of a crumbling wall, where she was obliged to cling to him most deliciously.

“You will be ashamed of me.”

“Nay, little one, we will soon mend thy distress. I know of a store not far from here with a sign—I cannot speak the strange word, but it looks thus.” With a pencil he scrawled on a bit of plaster still clinging to the adobe: RUMMAGE SALE.

“This is a strange country, Teodota. At home it is the poor who sell their clothes—mostly in the pawn-shops, though my uncle had six serapes bought off his back by gringo tourists. Here, it is the aristocrats who sell their garments to the poor, and very cheap, though, of course, one offers the half. Poor rich, to lose their pretty clothes, but I suppose the rents are high where they live, and they must have plenty to eat, being so accustomed. I can buy thee silk and velvet and thou shalt be a grand señora, as I am a grand señor.”

“Dear Pablo, you are as good as the blessed saints who brought me your letters.”

“It was a little boy, Teodota, whose father works in the same camp.”

“He seemed not to be concerned in the matter, and I was sure it was the saints. I must go back now or my stepfather will beat me.”

“Back, little one? Never! Come with me instead. The beast shall never beat thee again.”

“But the tamales?”

“I like tamales. You shall make them for me.”

“What would my poor mother say?”

“We can let her know later, and she will be glad to have thee free from that _cochino_. Listen, _lindita_: Beyond this tunnel is a big red house that they say is the National Palace of Los Angeles, and here one must get a permit to marry, though the priest really does the work. Let us seek the red house.”

“Oh, Pablo! Now?”

“Yes, _querida_.”

Hand in hand, the lovers left the adobe, and the somber echoing tunnel, with the electric wires seen like a spider’s web across its farther end, was to them an underground passage to Paradise.

—Copyright, and used by kind consent of the author.

Note.—Spanish words are pronounced according to the continental pronunciation, and each vowel is given a syllable. “Si Ma-dre,” pronounced See Ma´dray, yes, mother. “Ma-ma-ci-ta,” pronounced Ma-ma-cee-tah, little mother. “Sin Ver-gu-en-za,” pronounced Seen Vehr-goo-ain´tha, shameless. “Que-ri-di-ta,” pronounced Kay-ree-dee´tah, little love. “Por-ta-les,” pronounced Por-tah´lays, covered sidewalks. “Gente decente,” pronounced Hen´tay day-then´tay, the aristocracy. “Coch-i-no,” pronounced Co-chee´no, pig. “Lin-di-ta,” pronounced Leen-dee´ta, pretty. “Que-ri-da,” pronounced Kay-ree´da, beloved.

THE INTERVENTION OF PETER

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

No one knows just what statement it was of Harrison Randolph’s that Bob Lee doubted. The annals of these two Virginia families have not told us that. But these are the facts:

It was at the home of the Fairfaxes that a few of the sons of the old Dominion were giving a dinner, and a brave dinner it was. The courses had come and gone, and over their cigars they had waxed more than merry. In those days men drank deep, and these men were young, full of the warm blood of the South and the joy of living. What wonder then that the liquor that had been mellowing in the Fairfax cellars since the boyhood of their revolutionary ancestor should have its effect upon them?

It is true that it was only a slight thing which Bob Lee affected to disbelieve, and that his tone was jocosely bantering rather than impertinent. But sometimes Virginia heads are not less hot than Virginia hearts. The two young men belonged to families that had intermarried. They rode together, hunted together and were friends as far as two men could be who had read the message of love in the dark eyes of the same woman. So perhaps there was some thought of the long-contested hand of Miss Sallie Ford in Harrison Randolph’s mind when he chose to believe that his honor had been assailed.

His dignity was admirable. There was no scene to speak of. It was all very genteel.

“Mr. Lee,” he said, “had chosen to doubt his word, which to a gentleman was a final insult. But he felt sure that Mr. Lee would not refuse to accord him a gentleman’s satisfaction.” And the other’s face had waxed warm and red and his voice cold as he replied: “I shall be most happy to give you the satisfaction you demand.”

Here friends interposed and attempted to pacify the two. But without avail.

Each of the young men nodded to a friend and rose to depart. The joyous dinner-party bade fair to end with much more serious business.

* * * * *

“You shall hear from me very shortly,” said Randolph, as he strode to the door.

“I shall await your pleasure with impatience, sir, and give you such a reply as even you cannot disdain.”

Peter, the personal attendant of Harrison Randolph, stood at the door as his master passed out, and went on before him to hold his stirrup. The young master and his friend and cousin, Dale, started off briskly and in silence, while Pete, with wide eyes and disturbed face, followed on behind. Just as they were turning into the avenue of elms that led to their own house, Randolph wheeled his horse and came riding back to his servant.

“Pete,” said he sternly, “what do you know?”

“Nuffin’, Mas’ Ha’ison, nuffin’ ’t all. I do’ know nuffin’.”

“I don’t believe you.” The young master’s eyes were shining through the dusk. “You’re always slipping around spying on me.”

“Now, dah you goes, Mas’ Randolph. I ain’t done a thing, and you got to ’mence pickin’ on me—”

“I just want you to remember that my business is mine.”

“Well, I knows dat.”

“And if you do know anything, it will be well for you to begin forgetting it right now. Take Bess around and see her attended to. Leave Dale’s horse here, and—I won’t want you any more to-night.”

Pete turned away with an injured expression on his dark face. “Bess,” he said to the spirited black mare, as he led her toward the stables, “you jes’ better t’ank yo’ Makah dat you ain’t no human bein’, ’ca’se human bein’s is cur’ous articles. Now you’s a horse, ain’t you? And dey say you ain’t got no soul, but you got sense, Bess, you got sense. You’s a high steppah, too, but you don’ go to work an’ try to brek yo’ naik de fus’ chanst you git. Bess, I ’spect you ’ca’se you got jedgment, an’ you don’ have to have a black man runnin’ aftah you all de time plannin’ his head off jes’ to keep you out o’ trouble. Some folks dat’s human bein’s does. Yet an’ still, Bess, you ain’t nuffin’ but a dumb beas’, so dey says. Now, what I gwine to do? Co’se dey wants to fight. But whah an’ when an’ how I gwine to stop hit? Doan want me to wait on him to-night, huh! No, dey want to mek dey plans an’ do’ want me ’roun’ to hyeah, dat’s what’s de mattah. Well, I lay I’ll hyeah somep’n’ anyhow.”

Peter hurried through his work and took himself up to the big house and straight to his master’s room. He heard voices within, but though he took many liberties with his owner, eavesdropping was not one of them. It proved too dangerous. So, though he lingered on the mat, it was not for long, and he unceremoniously pushed the door open and walked in. With a great show of haste, he made for his master’s wardrobe and began busily searching among the articles therein. Harrison Randolph and his cousin were in the room, and their conversation, which had been animated, suddenly ceased when Peter entered.

“I thought I told you I didn’t want you any more to-night.”

“I’s a-lookin’ fu’ dem striped pants o’ yo’n. I want to tek ’m out an’ bresh ’em; dey’s pintly a livin’ sight.”

“You get out o’ here.”

“But, Mas’ Ha’ison, now—now—look-a-hyeah—”

“Get out, I tell you.”

Pete shuffled from the room, mumbling as he went: “Dah now, dah now! driv’ out lak’ a dog! How’s I gwine to fin’ out anyt’ing dis way? It do ’pear lak Mas’ Ha’ison do try to give me all de trouble he know how. Now he plannin’ and prijickin’ wif dat cousin Dale an’ one jes’ ez scattah-brained ez de othah. Well, I ’low I got to beat dis time somehow er ruther.”

He was still lingering hopeless and worried about the house when he saw young Dale Randolph come out, mount his horse, and ride away. After a while his young master also came out and walked up and down in the soft evening air. The rest of the family were seated about on the broad piazza.

“I wonder what is the matter with Harrison to-night,” said the young man’s father, “he seems so preoccupied.”

“Thinking of Sallie Ford, I reckon,” some one replied; and the remark passed with a laugh. Pete was near enough to catch this, but he did not stop to set them right in their conjectures. He slipped into the house.

It was less than two hours after this when Dale Randolph returned and went immediately to his cousin’s room, where Harrison followed him.

“Well?” said the latter, as soon as the door closed behind them.

“It’s all arranged, and he’s anxious to hurry it through for fear some one may interfere. Pistols, and to-morrow morning at daybreak.”

“And the place?”

“The little stretch of woods that borders Ford’s Creek. I say, Harrison, it isn’t too late to stop this thing yet. It’s a shame for you two fellows to fight. You’re both too decent to be killed yet.”

“He insulted me.”

“Without intention, every one believes.”

“Then let him apologize.”

“As well ask the devil to take Communion.”

“We’ll fight then.”

“All right. If you must fight you must. But you’d better go to bed, for you’ll need a strong arm and a steady hand to-morrow.”

“I’m going to write a couple of letters first,” he said; “then I shall lie down for an hour or so. And, by the way, Dale, if I—if it happens to be me to-morrow, you take Pete; he’s a good fellow.”

The cousins clasped hands in silence and passed out. As the door closed behind them a dusky form rolled out from under the bed and the disreputable, eavesdropping, backsliding Peter stood up and rubbed a sleeve across his eyes.

“It ain’t me dat’s gwine to be give to nobody else. I hates to do it; but dey ain’t no othah way. Mas’ Ha’ison cain’t be spaihed.” He glided out mysteriously, some plan of salvation working in his black head.

* * * * *

Just before daybreak next morning three stealthy figures crept out and made their way toward Ford’s Creek. One skulked behind the other two, dogging their steps and taking advantage of the darkness to keep very near to them. At the grim trysting-place they halted and were soon joined by other stealthy figures, and together they sat down to wait for the daylight. The seconds conferred for a few minutes. The ground was paced off, and a few, low-pitched orders prepared the young men for business.

“I will count three, gentlemen,” said Lieutenant Custis. “At three, you are to fire.”

At last daylight came, gray and timid at first, and then red and bold as the sun came clearly up. The pistols were examined and the men placed face to face.

“Are you ready, gentlemen?”

But evidently Harrison Randolph was not. He was paying no attention to the seconds. His eyes were fixed on an object behind his opponent’s back. His attitude relaxed and his mouth began to twitch. Then he burst into a peal of laughter.

“Pete,” he roared, “drop that and come out from there!” and away he went into another convulsion of mirth. The others turned just in time to see Pete cease his frantic grimaces of secrecy at his master, and sheepishly lower an ancient fowling-piece which he had had leveled at Bob Lee.

“What were you going to do with that gun leveled at me?” asked Lee, his own face twitching.

“I was gwine to fiah jes’ befo’ dey said free. I wa’n’t gwine to kill you, Mas’ Bob. I was on’y gwine to lame you.”

Another peal of laughter from the whole crowd followed this condescending statement.

“You unconscionable scoundrel, you! If I was your master, I’d give you a hundred lashes.”

“Pete,” said his master, “don’t you know that it is dishonorable to shoot a man from behind? You see you haven’t in you the making of a gentleman.”

“I do’ know nuffin’ ’bout mekin’ a gent’man, but I does know how to save one dat’s already made.”

The prime object of the meeting had been entirely forgotten. They gathered around Pete and examined the weapon.

“Gentlemen,” said Randolph, “we have been saved by a miracle. This old gun, as well as I can remember and count, has been loaded for the past twenty-five years, and if Pete had tried to fire it, it would have torn up all this part of the country.”

Then the eyes of the two combatants met. There was something irresistibly funny in the whole situation, and they found themselves roaring again. Then, with one impulse, they shook hands without a word.

And Pete led the way home, the willing butt of a volume of good-natured abuse.—From “Folks from Dixie,” copyright by _Dodd, Mead & Company_, New York, and used by arrangement.