Slike strani
PDF
ePub

THE INFALLIBLE SYSTEM.

accompanying them, had taken entire charge of him.

"And is she here now?" queried Raymond, excitedly, when his friend had brought his recital to a close.

"Yes, and she's been watching you night and day, and paying you more attention than you'd get from any trained nurse. She left the Red Dog that night, but not before she'd found the loafer who'd stolen most of our money and your watch, and she stayed drinking with him until she'd got him so drunk he didn't know what he was doing, and then managed to get it all away from him; so we didn't lose more than a few dollars altogether. She behaved like a brick all through."

"And she left there to come and nurse me?" Raymond mused aloud. "She's the best little girl I've ever met, and I can't imagine whatever took her into a place like that."

"Oh, it's a sad story, old man. Sadder than most-she told me all about it. She'd only been married a month when the fellow deserted her. He took her down to Yuma, where he was working as one of the superintendents on the dam, and one day another woman turned up and claimed him for her husband, and the fellow skipped out. The other woman was his wife, all right, and the poor little mascot didn't know what to do, and he'd left her without a cent, and she'd quarreled with all her folks when she married. She went nearly crazy, she told me, and didn't care what she did, and then that fat saloon man, Mallory, met her and offered her a good chance to make a stake by decoying fellows to buy drinks in the saloon. She intended to stay there until she'd got enough to start in some business or other; millinery I think she said, so you see she isn't such a bad little sort after all." "She's a-she's the best" Raymond began, when the door opened, and the object of their discussion entered, looking wonderfully pretty and modest in a neat dress of some soft, dark material, and with supple grace in her every movement. As she grasped the fact that the patient had

457

regained his senses and was talking rationally to his friend, a deep flush suffused her cheeks, and she hesitated to approach the bed, but Raymond's face had so lighted up at sight of her and his greeting was so sincere that she felt instantly that all her fears had been groundless, and the words he spoke in greeting showed her that he was glad of her presence and more than grateful for what she had done. At the first opportunity she pleaded an excuse to hurry from the room and to seek the one she occupied, where she could give better vent to her overwrought feelings.

"She'll never go back to Yuma," said Raymond, when the door had closed behind her.

"I should think not," retorted Kent, hotly. hotly. "Nor you, nor me, either. I didn't tell you that they passed a State law last week to close gambling in Arizona, so there's no place we can play that system now, except we go to Monte Carlo, and for my part I've had about enough of it. I believe Chris Dalton was right.”

"Oh, I don't know," Raymond said, smiling. "It certainly works out all right. But how about the mascot? What's going to become of her?" Kent looked long and searchingly at his friend.

"That's a pretty serious proposition, isn't it?"

"You bet it is," replied Raymond, fervently. "She has practically saved my life, hasn't she?"

"Well-I-er-I don't say she has not. She most certainly helped to pull you through," agreed Kent, and then turned towards the window. "There's only one reason, you know, John, why a girl acts so devotedly as that."

"One reason? Yes-pity.'

"No, I didn't mean pity," returned Kent, still gazing at the window pane. "It is often akin to pity, but it's something much stronger, John." Raymond glanced sharply at his friend.

"What are you trying to infer ?" he queried. "That the mascot that Rita that she-oh, get out!"

"Well, you haven't been in a posi

tion to watch her as I have," Kent retorted. "But you'll see it quick enough now except you're a fool."

"You must be dreaming, Roy. She hardly knows me. I haven't done anything to-er-I mean, we haven't met more than a few times."

"I know; but the girl has nursed you back to life. Don't forget that."

"Of course I don't. I never shall. But what are you trying to suggest, Roy? That I-why, hang it all, old man, you haven't forgotten where we met her, have you?"

"Oh, cut that! That's nothing to do with it. She's better than half the girls we know, and it's darned lucky for us we did meet her in that place."

"I've thought a lot more about her than you think for," averred Raymond. "But suppose you were in my place, would you

"You bet I would," snapped Kent, turning sharply to face the anxious questioner. "I'd ask her quick enough if I thought she'd have me."

"How do you know she wouldn't?" demanded Raymond, somewhat astonished at his friend's earnest manner. "Did you ask her?"

"No, I didn't," retorted Kent. "I haven't been watching her for three weeks without seeing what I couldn't help seeing, could I? I'm not a fool." Raymond closed his eyes again, whilst a look of supreme happiness settled on his face.

"You'll have to come with us, old man," he said, determinedly. "We'll spend our honeymoon in Monte Carlo." Kent seized his hand.

"I'm glad," he muttered, his jealousy conquered and greatly relieved in consequence. "No, I won't do that; I don't want to have anything more to do with that system. It's too much like work; and besides two is company and three is none. You teach her the system, and make Monte Carlo pay for the honeymoon. I'll-I'll send her down to you, John, but you mustn't let her know that you received any inkling of what her feelings may be from me."

"I know," replied Raymond, smiling through his bandages. "Go on, Roy; tell her that her patient is anxious to see her, and that if she doesn't hurry up, I'm likely to have lapse."

a re

THE LOST LOVE

At evensong, when in the Western tent
The sun hangs low,

I hear, in silence, like some far-off bell,

A faint, sweet call that weaves a magic spell
About me, even now.

And, through the deepening twilight up above,
Half hidden from my eager upturned face,
Half silenced by my beating heart of love,
A spirit in its watchfulness breathes: "Grace!"

EDNA VON Der Heide.

The "Rattler"

By Archie B. Chadbourne

[blocks in formation]

"I reckon you-all heard the evidence. I reckon that's all there is to be said. I reckon you-all kin go ahead." There was a hush in the court room like death. Suddenly a voice from the rear of the room broke the stillness.

"Ask him about his daughter. Make him tell about his daughter."

There was a hush again, and the man at the bar turned and looked over the crowd that filled the seats and stood at the back of the room.

"Who was that spoke?" asked the old man fiercely. "Who was that spoke? I ain't got no daughter. No, I ain't got no daughter."

A woman arose near the back of the room. "You can't tell me you ain't got no daughter. I took care of her." She came forward without waiting an invitation, as she spoke. In the awful stillness, the swish of her petticoat could be distinctly heard all over the room. The mountaineer remained standing until the woman reached the railing a few feet from him; then he sat down, but he watched the woman as though fascinated as she spoke to the judge.

"Maybe you don't remember me,

judge, but I've been here before," she said. "I've got a record behind me; I had to leave this town, and maybe you won't believe me. But the man there had a daughter. He was with her when she died less than a month ago. He knows me; ask him if he don't know me'

The attorney for the prosecution started to speak, but the judge raised his hand for silence. "Go on," he said, to the woman.

"I didn't know who this man was until yesterday, though I've read about the case. I just happened to see a description of him, and I knew there couldn't be two like him. I read how he refused to talk or tell why he did it. He thinks it'll disgrace his daughter. If he won't tell about his daughter, I will. I'd rather he'd tell it himself-maybe she told him more than she did me. Then I know how your lawyers would do. They'd run down my past history to show that I can't tell the truth. My past ain't anything to brag of, but I've got over being ashamed of it. If he won't tell, I will."

The judge looked toward the prisoner. The old man sat staring at her, but there was a far-away look in his eyes. Finally he stood up, and looked at the judge "I'll tell ye," he said, evenly, though with evident effort, "I'll tell ye how it was. The woman is right. I did have a daughter. Her name was Emily. Her mother named her that befere she come to us-you know how mothers is, jedge-" He spoke to the judge as though there was no other person present. "Well, her mother died when Emily was born, and I raised her the best I knew. We

didn't have much. There wan't no carpet, nor no nice things up where we lived.

"When she growed up, she went down to the village to school in the winter, and in time she wanted to go to the city to live. She talked about the great chance she would have there -she read something about it in the papers or a magazine or somethin'. So finally, one day, I told her she could go. It didn't seem hardly right to keep her up in the mountains when her heart was down in the valley. She wan't just like other mountain children -Emily wan't. She was more like her mother.

"So I told her she could go to the city as she got through school down in the village. It was nigh the hardest thing I ever did, to let Emily go away from me. But she went, and she promised to write often. And she did write often for more'n a year. She used to write about the things she saw and about her work. She said things in the city wan't so easy as they pictured in the papers, but she got work in a factory. She said they had to work pretty hard; there were a hundred or so of 'em, she wrote, and they didn't make but a little bit.

"They could hardly make a livin', let alone buy clothes. So I sent her some money, now and then. And then she got work in a big store. She wrote how there was lots of girls there, and they all dressed well; they had to, or they'd lose their jobs. She thought she was getting along fine when she got work there, but she couldn't make enough money to buy the clothes like they had to have if they held their jobs. In the summer they gave the girls a trip up the river, but they didn't give them any more money.

"She wrote me that she told the man that owned the store that she couldn't live on what she was gettin', and he told her that she better get a man the same as the rest done. And he didn't give her no raise.

"Then her letters came farther apart, and they wasn't no joy in them any more. She still kept tellin' me how

she worked at the store, but they did not sound like Emily. Then for nigh a year I didn't hear from her at all.

"Well, I thought there must be something wrong, and so I come on to the city-I'd scraped up a little money sellin' hides-and I come on to the city. I had the place where she lived on paper, and I went there, but the woman she told me Emily lived at another place. And so I went there, and they sent me somewhere else.

"Well, I kept a-lookin' for her from one place to another. The people were nice to me, and put me up nights. There was lots of men came to them places. Then one lady told me how Emily had gone to another city. I didn't have more'n enough money to get there, but I went. There was a woman met me at the depot. She was about as old a woman as me, and she asked me where I was goin'. I told her I didn't know, only I was lookin' for Emily, and she took me to a big boarding house.

"The next day we started out together to find Emily. We went down to a place she called a bad part of town. I don't know, it seemed that all the women were nice to me, except in one or two places. She knew lots of them and called them by name. We didn't find Emily that day, but we found her the next morning in a place down there. Everything was fixed nice. The stairs had soft carpets on them, and there was nice curtains to the windows, and pictures on the wall.

"And Emily was sick. She didn't look like the Emily that I knew. She wasn't my Emily at all in looks, but I knew her, and I stayed there with her. It was in this woman's house"he jerked his thumb toward the woman -"it wasn't but a couple of days, I guess, when she died. Before she went she told me some things that I didn't know nothin' about.

"She told me that, one night, she went to a show with a young man that worked in the store, and they went in and had a lunch after the show. And then she didn't know nothin' until she woke up in a strange room, and there

THE CONFLICT.

It

was this rich man that owned the store there. He gave her some money and told her to keep quiet. She kept quiet, but it wan't because of the money-she threw that at him. was because of the shame of it. And she never went to work at that store again, but work was scarce-that was in the winter-and she got to driftin', and then she fell lower. And that's why she quit writing to me. She didn't want me to know. And then she went to another city, and there I found her."

The old man gulped hard a couple of times, and he stood looking for a moment through the window at some sparrows chirping on the sill in the sun before he continued:

"This woman gave me some money,

461

and so did the woman that helped me find Emily, and I took her body back home to the mountains, and buried her up there among the pines."

The mountaineer paused again, and looked into vacancy over the head of the judge. Then he pulled himself together.

"She had told me the name of this man that owned the store and was so rich, and I came back to the city. I found him up there in his office, and I killed him just like I would a rattler."

The tense quiet of the court room was unbroken. The judge sat silent, and the attorneys on either side stared at the mountaineer, who lurched forward in his chair as he sat down, and remained motionless.

THE CONFLICT

When my soul like a reed was shaken

In the grip of an anguish too strong for me,
How staunch you were, dear, how leal and tender
'Twas then you proved what a friend might be.
But when the worst of the pain was over,

So quickly careless and cold you grew,
I stand at the Bar of God's Truth and question
Which, my friend, is the real You?

For everywhere in the world's wide forum

Is Self the master, and Love his clown,

And the Soldier of Greed is crowned and laureled, And the Friend of the Friendless aye laughed down. What wonder, then, that your love should falter

At the pitiless shibboleth: "Does it pay?" Who knows but a breath of that far-off Heaven Lies in the good that we do to-day.

And deep in each soul the conflict rages
'Twixt God and Devil, 'twixt Man and Beast,
And whoso would save his life must lose it,
And he who is greatest must be least.
And I pray that though in that strife unceasing,
Weary and wounded I oft may be,

I may struggle on to the end undaunted

And make what is best in myself be Me.

ELEANOR DUNCAN WOOD.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »