The Comstock Club Part 11

"'You see I've been tossed about a powerful sight in my time; have drank heaps of bad whisky; have done a great many no-account things and not a great many good ones. Since I wus a boy I have never had chick or kin of my own. I met the woman and her babies up by the cabin; they wus as pitiful a sight as ever you seen; and besides, the woman wus jist about to go stark mad with grief and hunger and anxiety and weariness. I seen she must have quiet and that anxiety about her children must be soothed some way. Then I did some of the best lyin' you ever heard. I got her to eat some supper and waited until the whole outfit wus fast asleep. I watched 'em a little while and then I got curis to know what kind of a provider I would have made for a family had I started out in life different, and that wus all there wus about it.'

"Is it a wonder, then, that when the old man died his body was dressed in soft raiment, placed in a costly casket, and that, preceded by a martial band playing a requiem, all the people followed sorrowingly to the grave; and that, as they gently heaped the sods above his breast they sent after him into the Beyond heartfelt 'all-hails and farewells?'"

"You see your man through colored spectacles, Colonel," spoke up Brewster. "From your description, I think there was more of the border deviltry in the old man than there was true royalty. Life had been a joke to him always; he played it as a joke to the end. One such a man was entertainment to the village; had there been a dozen more like him they would have become intolerable nuisances?"

"That," said the Colonel, "only shows how miserable are my descriptive powers. There are not a dozen other such men as old Zack Taylor was among all the fourteen hundred millions of people on this sorrowful earth."

"No," interposed Miller, "you told the story well enough, but it was only descriptive of a good-humored b.u.mmer at best--of one who was warm-hearted without a conscience, of one who was more willing to work to perpetrate a joke on others than to honorably earn the bread that he ate.

"I will tell you of a royal fellow that I knew. It was Billie Smith. He lived in Eureka that first hard winter of '70-71. He was not a miner as we are, receiving four dollars per day. He and his partner, a surly old fellow, had a claim which they were developing, hoping that it would amount to something in the spring. That was before smelting had been made a success. The ores were all base and of too low a grade to s.h.i.+p away. These men had a little supply of flour, bacon and coffee, and that was about all, and it was all they expected until spring.

"It was early in January and the weather was exceedingly cold. Their cabin was but a rude hut, open on every side to the winds. I was there and I know how things were. One day I was waiting in a tent, which by courtesy was called a store, when Billie came in. He had a cheery smile and hearty, welcome words for every one. He had been there but a few minutes when his partner came in. The old man was fairly boiling with rage. So angry was he that he could hardly articulate distinctly.

Finally he explained that some thief had stolen their mattress, a pair of their best blankets and a sack of flour. He wanted an officer dispatched with a search warrant. Then I overheard the following conversation between the two men:

"'O, never mind,' said Billie; 'some poor devil needed the things or he would not have taken them.'

"'Yes, but we need them, too; need them more than anything else,' was the response.

"'O, we will get along; we have plenty.'

"'Yes,' retorted the partner, 'but what are we going to do for a bed?

Our hair mattress and best pair of blankets are gone, and the cabin is cold.'

"'We can sew up some sacks into a mattress, and fill it with soft brush and leaves, and use our coats for blankets,' replied Billie. 'We'll get along all right. The truth is we have been sleeping too warm of late.'

"Too warm!' said the partner, bitterly; 'I should think so. A polar bear would freeze in that cabin without a bed.'

"'Do you think so?' asked Billie, smiling. 'Well, that is the way to keep it, and so if any wild animal comes that way we can freeze him out.

Brace up, partner! Why should a man make a fuss about the loss of a trifle like that?'

"Later I found out the facts. A little below Billie's cabin was another cabin, into which a family of emigrants had moved. They were dreadfully poor. Going to and returning from town Billie had noticed how things were. One night as he pa.s.sed, going home in the dark, he heard a child crying in the cabin and heard it say to its mother that it was hungry and cold.

"Next morning he waited until his partner had gone away, then rolled the mattress around a sack of flour, then rolled the mattress and flour up in his best pair of blankets, swung the bundle on his shoulder, carried it down the trail to the other cabin, where, opening the door, he flung it inside; then with finger on his lip he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper to the woman: 'Don't mention it! Not a word. I stole the bundle, and if you ever speak of it you will get me sent to prison,' and in a moment was swinging down the trail singing joyously:

"If I had but a thousand a year, Robin Ruff, If I had but a thousand a year."

"Last winter, after the fire, there was one man in this city, John W.

Mackay, who gave $150,000 to the poor. It was a magnificent act, and was as grandly and gently performed as such an act could be. No one would ever have known it, had not the good priest who distributed the most of it, one day, mentioned the splendid fact. That man will receive his reward here, and hereafter, for it was a royal charity. But he has $30,000,000 to draw against, while, when Billie in the wilderness gave up his bed and his food, he not only had not a cent to draw against, but he had not a reasonably well-defined hope.

"When at last the roll-call of the real royal men of this world shall be sounded, if any of you chance to be there, you will hear, close up to the head of the list, the name of Billie Smith, and when it shall be p.r.o.nounced, if you listen, you will hear a very soft but dulcet refrain trembling along the harps and a murmur among the emerald arches that will sound like the beating of the wings of innumerable doves."

"That was a good mon, surely. Did he do well with his mine?" asked Corrigan.

"No," answered Miller. "It was but a little deposit, and was quickly worked out. He scuffled along until the purchase of the Eureka Con. in the spring, then went to work there for a few months, then came here, and a day or two after arriving, was shot dead by the ruffian Perkins.

"He was shot through the brain, and people tell me he was so quickly transfixed that in his coffin the old sunny smile was still upon his face. I don't believe that, though. I believe the smile came when, as the light went out here, he saw the dawn and felt the hand clasps on the other side.

"By the way, there was a man here who knew him, and who wrote something with the thought of poor Billie in his mind while he was writing."

At this Miller arose and went to his carpet-sack, opened it and drew out a paper. Then handing it to Harding, he said: "Harding, you read better than I do, read it for us all."

Harding took the paper and read as follows:

ERNEST FAITHFUL.

'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful Loosed from its home of clay-- Its mission on earth completed, To the judgment pa.s.sed away.

'Twas the soul of Ernest Faithful Stood at the bar above, Where the deeds of men are pa.s.sed upon In justice, but in love.

And an angel questioned Faithful Of the life just pa.s.sed on earth!

What could he plead of virtue, What could he count of worth.

And the soul of Ernest Faithful Trembled in sore dismay; And from the judgment angel's gaze Shuddering, turned away.

For memory came and whispered How worldly was that life; Unfairly plotting, sometimes, In anger and in strife;

For a selfish end essaying To treasures win or fame, And the soul of Ernest cowered 'neath The angel's eye of flame.

Then from a book the angel drew A leaf with name and date, A record of this Ernest's life Wove in the looms of Fate.

And said: "O, Faithful, answer me, Here is a midnight scroll, What didst thou 'neath the stars that night?

Didst linger o'er the bowl?

"Filling the night with revelry With cards and wine and dice, And adding music's ecstacy, To give more charms to vice?"

Then the soul of Faithful answered, "By the bedside of a friend I watched the long hours through; that night His life drew near its end."

"Here's another date at midnight, Where was't thou this night, say?"

"I was waiting by the dust of one Whose soul had pa.s.sed that day."

"These dollar marks," the angel said; "What mean they, Ernest, tell?"

"It was a trifle that I gave To one whom want befell."

"Here's thine own picture, illy dressed; What means this scant attire?"

"I know not," answered Faithful, "save That once midst tempest dire,

"I found a fellow-man benumbed, And lost amid the storm And so around him wrapped my vest, His stiffening limbs to warm."

"Here is a woman's face, a girl's.

O, Ernest, is this well?

Knowst thou how often women's arms Have drawn men's souls to h.e.l.l?"

Then Ernest answered: "This poor girl An orphan was. I gave A trifle of my ample store The child from want to save."

"Next are some words. What mean they here?"

Then Ernest answered low: "A fellow-man approached me once Whose life was full of woe,