The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories Part 4

"It might make her crazy again to see such a lot of us, and I--I don't like to," said Benny. "I'll go 'n ask 'Bijah what to do."

They went and brought 'Bijah, who said he should think likely she _would_ want to sleep a spell, she must be pretty well beat out, pokin'

around all night. He'd heard her making them queer noises o'

hern--something like a hoa.r.s.e kind o' Phoebe bird, it sounded, in the distance.

"I shouldn't be surprised," he began, in a low tone, stooping and peering in at the wigwam; but, contrary to his words, he did look very much surprised indeed.

He stepped into the wigwam and touched the sleeper gently. Then he shook his head at the boys and motioned them away, and when he came out, they understood from his look, that old Winneenis was dead.

Wandering, as was her wont at night, she had come upon Benny's wigwam, standing in the clear moonlight, and to her longing, bewildered mind it had probably seemed the wigwam of her father. Who can ever know the joy, the feeling of peace, and rest, and relief, with which she laid her tired bones down in it, and fell asleep, a care-free child once more, and thus pa.s.sed from its door into the happy hunting-grounds? And Benny always felt glad the wigwam had been built.

BENNY'S DISAPPEARANCE.

Every year a few of the blest among the boys of Still Harbor were taken to New Haven or New London to see the Greatest Show on Earth, while the unlucky remainder were obliged to content themselves with what imagination could do for them. But one memorable year Mr. P. T. Barnum landed and magnified himself on our own fences. His magnanimity ran over and flamed into Still Harbor, bringing all his miracles and monsters to our very doors, as it were, and we had no more miserable boys. But we had plenty of boys who aspired to be miracles and monsters, or boys who essayed the trapeze, the tight rope, the flying leap and all sorts of possible and impossible acrobatic contortions and distortions.

Eminent among these was Benny Briggs, for if you looked high enough, you could see him any day with a balancing pole in his hand, walking on the ridge-poles and fences, or making of himself all sorts of peduncles and pendulums; bringing about in his own individual person the most astonis.h.i.+ng inversions, subversions and retroversions, and the most remarkable twists and lurches and topsey-turveys and topplings-over.

But there was one opportunity that Benny's soaring ambition had not embraced. His active mind had never yet discovered the possibility of a real tight rope. For a real tight rope he languished, on a tight rope he yearned to walk. The clothes line was a little too slender; his sister f.a.n.n.y's skipping rope was not only too slender, but too short; and these were the only ropes of his acquaintance. The ridge-poles and fences only mocked at his ideal. He wanted something that hung unsupported; something airy; something worthy of the acrobatic art, upon which he could walk with credit and grace, and, reaching the end, bow and kiss his hand to the spectators, before returning. For this he searched by day, and of this he dreamed by night. And one day he found it.

"Benny," said his mother on the morning of that day, "your grandmother Potter has sent for you to come over. She's going to have uncle John's and uncle Calvin's boys there. You'll like that, won't you?"

"Hi!" shouted Benny, throwing up his new straw hat, the sign and seal of pleasant summer weather, "I'd like to see the fellow that wouldn't!"

At nine o'clock that morning--at exactly nine o'clock--Benny started.

His mother remembered it well, for she looked up at the clock and said:

"Now, don't hurry, Benny; go along easily and you'll get there before ten," for grandmother Potter's was scarcely two miles back in the country, and Benny thought nothing of stepping over there, especially when inducements were offered.

He called his dog Sandy, and marched off with a light step and a light heart; but his hands remained at home, that is to say, his hands were nowhere so much at home as in his trousers pockets, and there they reposed, while Benny paced along, whistling "Not for Joseph, not if I knows it," and Sandy nosing it all the way. His mother watched him with pride as usual; the neighbors saw him go by and said, "There goes Benny Briggs; he hain't broken his neck yet, but I presume to say that'll be the next thing he does."

Uncle John's and uncle Calvin's boys from New Haven, arrived early at grandmother Potter's, a place which seemed to them to contain all the pleasures of all the spheres, for grandmother's weakness was for boys, and nothing suited her better than getting all her grandsons together and giving them "full swing," as Abijah called it, and Abijah was made by nature to help grandmother out in her benevolent plans. He inst.i.tuted jolly measures, and contrived possibilities of riot and revel that no mortal ever thought of before. As circuses were the fas.h.i.+on in urchin society, on that particular day, Abijah, like a wizard, had called up out of the farm resources, and out of certain mysterious resources of his own, that were so plainly of unearthly origin that it was of no use in the world to try to look into or understand them, such a circus as would have made not only P. T. Barnum, but the ancient Romans themselves perfectly miserable with envy. There was the trapeze, the tight rope, the--well, alas, I don't know the names of them all, having had a limited education in such matters, but there they all were, whatever they are called--those things that make a perfect, finished, spal-_en_-did, be-_yeu_-ti-ful circus. There were hoops with tissue paper pasted over them, to be jumped through by the most wonderful bareback riders on earth, and old Tom, grandmother's own horse, was perfectly safe as a trained Arabian steed, when 'Bijah was there to see how the thing was managed. Everything was safe and sure and delightful when 'Bijah had charge of it. Nothing ever went wrong, or upset, or came to a sorry end with him or his plans. He knew what he was about, and ends with him were even more brilliant and satisfactory than beginnings and means. I shouldn't dare to fully tell you what good times the boys had at grandmother Potter's, especially on Fourth of Julys, Thanksgivings, Christmases and birthdays, for fear of making all the boys who couldn't go there, discontented and low spirited for the rest of their lives. I'm sorry for those boys, but at the same time I may as well go on and tell them about Benny Briggs. _He_ was preparing to be very discontented and low spirited just at the moment when Joe and Will and Harry and Rob and Charlie and Morris and Cad were shouting their exultation at the only wonderful circus on earth. They all decided that the performances were not to begin, however, until Benny Briggs arrived.

There could be no circus without Ben. No, indeed! There were stars of the arena among them, of various magnitudes, but Benny was the comet that outshone and outstripped them all.

"Why don't he come along?" said Charlie, dancing a double-shuffle on the barn floor to let off his impatience.

"Let's go and look for him," said Joe, and they all shuffled off down to the gate, thinking to see Benny with his nose pointed straight for that gate, or as straight as could be expected, considering its faithfulness in another direction. But no Benny was to be seen.

"He can't be far off," said Joe, seizing an opportunity to look at his new silver watch, "for it's half-past ten now, and Ben is always here before ten--always _was_, I mean."

"Let's go up to the top of the hill and meet him," proposed Will; "we can see him from there anyhow."

So Charlie and Joe and Morris and Will and Cad started for the top of the hill, while Harry and Rob, who were a good deal inclined to wait for things to come to them, remained to swing on the gate.

The five spies soon returned and reported that Benny was nowhere to be seen. Impatience now seized them all, and they flocked into the house to put it to grandma whether it wasn't mighty queer that Ben Briggs hadn't come.

"He _hasn't come_?" exclaimed grandma, looking up over her gla.s.ses at the clock. "Why, what can be the matter? It's almost eleven o'clock!"

"It's one minute and a quarter past," said Joe, appealing to his watch.

"Your clock's 'leven minutes slow."

"O, get out!" said Charlie, with a contemptuous sniff. "All the clocks are either fast or slow, according to that turnip."

Here would have ensued a good deal of pro and con about watches, but grandma held them to the subject of Benny Briggs. She drew from them that they had been to the very top of the hill and couldn't see him coming.

Grandma was surprised and disappointed. "It's incomprehensible," said she.

"O, I say, grandma," groaned Charlie, flopping into a chair and fanning himself, with his hat, "_what_ a big word! In-com-pre-hen-si-ble! And the other day you said Prist-by-te-ri-an-ism! O my!"

"P-p-p-p-pooh!" stuttered Morris, who was always a little ahead of everybody, except in conversation; "I know a l-l-l-l-longer word."

"Let's hear you say it, then," shouted the rest of the boys.

"Takes you to make long words," said Charlie.

"I-i-i-i-i-i-i"--began Morris, embarra.s.sed by the evident want of confidence in his ability.

"Go it!" said Charlie.

"Fire away!" said Joe.

"In-co-co-co-co-co" proceeded Morris.

"Spell it!" suggested Harry.

"I-n, in, c-o-m-e, come," spelled Morris with great fluency, and then stopped short.

"_Income!_" exclaimed two or three voices disdainfully. "Call _that_ a long word? Ho-ho!"

"N-n-no; wa-wa-wa-wait a minute," implored Morris, tugging at a b.u.t.ton on his jacket, and fixing a studious, inquiring gaze on the kitchen floor.

"Write it," said Will.

"I c-c-c-c-can't," said poor Morris gloomily.

"Give it up, then," recommended Joe.

"No _sir_," said Charlie, putting his feet up in a second chair and making himself comfortable, "I don't give it up, sir; I'm going to know what this b.u.mper of a word is."

"Well, how are we ever going to know if Morris can't say it nor spell it nor write it?" demanded Joe.

"Mebby he can thing it," said little Cad.

"Good for you, Caddy!" said Charlie. "You've hit it; Morris can sing fast enough. Now, Morris, we'll sing, 'I love to go to Sunday-school,'

and you sing your word instead of those. Begin, boys! Sing loud, Morris."