Shadows of Shasta Part 2

"Carats, she didn't; and that's what's the matter--and that's why I don't want to eat any peaches, Carats. Carats, I wish she had--I do, I do, so help me. Let's not eat 'em--let's take 'em back--Carrie, sister Carrie, let's take 'em back."

Carrie thoughtfully and tenderly gazes in his face.

"Let's take 'em to old Forty-nine, Johnny. There ain't nothing he can eat, you know; an' then he's been a-shakin' since melon-time,--an'

Johnny, I don't think we are very good to him, anyhow."

Stumps, scratching his bleeding s.h.i.+n with his foot, exclaims:

"I've barked my s.h.i.+n, and I've tore'd my pants, an' I don't care! But I won't take him a peach that I've stoled. Why, what would he think, Carats? He'd die dead, he would, if he thought I'd stoled them peaches from the poor old sick Injun woman; yes he would, Carats."

"Johnny, I'll tell him we found 'em," as Stumps looks doubtingly at her, "tell him we found 'em in a tree, Stumps. Yes tell him we found 'em away up in the top of a cedar tree."

"But I don't want to tell no lie, nor do nothin' bad no more, and I want to go home, I do."

"Well, Stumps--Johnny, brother Johnny, what will we do with them? We can't stand here all day. I want to go home, too. Oh, this hateful, hateful peach! I want to go right off!" and the girl, hiding her face in her hands, begins to weep.

"Oh, sister Carrie--sister, don't, don't; sister, don't, don't!"

"Then let's eat 'em."

"I don't like peaches."

"I don't like peaches either!" cries Carrie, throwing back her hair, wiping her eyes, and trying to be bright and cheerful. "I never could eat peaches. I like pine-nuts, and cowc.u.mbers, and tomatuses, and--pine-nuts. Oh, I'm very fond of pine-nuts. I like pine-nuts roasted, and tomatuses, an' I like chestnuts raw, an' tomatuses. Don't you like pine-nuts and tomatuses, Johnny, and cowc.u.mbers."

"I don't like nothin' any more."

"Then, Johnny, take 'em back."

"I--I--I take 'em back by myself? I take 'em back, an' hear old Bose growl, and look into her holler eyes?" Here the boy shudders, and looking around timidly, he creeps closer to his sister and says, as he again gazes back in the direction of the Indian woman's cabin: "I'd be afraid she might be dead, Carats, an' there'd be n.o.body to hold the dog. Oh, I see her holler eyes looking at me all the time. If she'd only let the dog come. Confound her! If she'd only let the dog come!"

"Oh, Johnny, Johnny--brother Johnny, come, lets go home! Shoo! There's somebody coming. It's John Logan, coming home from his work."

As the girl speaks, John Logan, the sick woman's son, a strong handsome man, only brown as if browned by the sun, with a pick on his shoulder and a gold-pan slanting under his arm, comes whistling along the trail.

Seeing the children, he stops and says:

"Why, children, good evening! What are you running away for? Come, come now, don't be so shy, my little neighbors, and don't give the trail all to me because I happen to be a man, and the strongest. Come, Johnny, give me your hand. There! an honest, chubby little fist it is. Why, what have you got in your other hand? Been gathering nuts, hey? You little squirrel! Give me a nut, won't you."

Carrie approaches, dives her hand into her ragged pocket and reaches the man a heaped handful of nuts.

"There, if you'll have nuts I'll bring you nuts; I'll bring you lots of nuts, I will; I'll bring you a bushel of nuts, an'--some tomatuses."

"Oh, you are too kind. But now I must hasten home to mother. Come, shake hands again, and say good-bye." The girl gives her left hand. "No your right hand."

Carrie is bothered, and slips the peach in her left hand behind, and, with a lifted face, full of glow and enthusiasm, says:

"I'll bring you a whole bag full of nuts, I will," and she reaches him her hand eagerly.

"Oh Carrie, I have a nice little surprise for you, and if you won't tell I'll let you into the secret. You won't tell?"

He comes close to her, sits down his gold-pan, and resting his pick on the ground, with his two hands on the top of the handle, leans toward her and looks into her innocent uplifted face.

The girl's eyes brighten, and she seems to grow tall and beautiful under his earnest gaze.

"I won't tell, sir. Oh, please to trust me, sir--I won't tell, Mr. John Logan!"

The boy eagerly comes forward also.

"I won't tell, neither. I won't tell neither; so help me!"

"Well, then, come close to me, Johnny, come close up here, and look in my face--there! Why, I declare the pleasure I now have, telling you this, is more than gold! And I need money sadly enough."

"You're awful poor, ain't you?" asked Stumps, hitching up his pants.

"Been workin' all day and ain't got much in the pan," says Carrie, looking sidewise at the few colors of gold in the bottom edge of the pan.

"Ah, yes, Carrie. Look at my hands--hard and rough as the bark of a tree; but I don't mind that, Carrie, I was born here, I was born poor, I shall live poor and die poor. But I don't mind it, Carrie. I have my mother to love and look after, and while she lives I am content."

The girl looks at the woods, looks at the man, and then once more at the woods, and at last in her helplessness to solve the problem, falls to eating nuts, as usual; while the man continues, as if talking to himself:

"This is the peace of Paradise; and see the burning bus.h.!.+ Now I can well understand that Moses saw the face of G.o.d in the bush of fire."

"Oh," the girl says to herself, "if he only would be cross! If he only would say something rough to us! If he only would cuss."

She resolves to say or do something to break the spell. She asks eagerly:

"Are you going to give something to Stumps and me?--I mean Johnny and me?"

"Yes, yes, to-morrow evening, after my work is done. And now I am going to tell you and Johnny what it is. It ain't much; it's the least little thing in the world; but I don't deserve any credit for even that--it's my poor dear old mother's idea. She has laid there, day after day, on the porch, and she has been thinking, not all the time of her own sickness and sorrow, but of others, as well; and she has thought much of you."

The boy stands far aside, and at mention of this he jerks himself into a knot, his head drops down between his shoulders, his mouth puckers up, and he exclaims "Oh, hoka!"

"Thought of me?" says Carrie.

"Of you, Carrie. And listen; I must tell you a little story. When I was a very young man, and killed my first grizzly bear, I bought a little peach-tree and planted it in the corner of the yard, as people sometimes plant trees to remember things. Well, my mother, she had the ague that day powerful, for it was after melon-time, and she sat on the porch and shook, and shook, and shook, and watched me plant it, and when I got done, my mother she cried. I don't know why she cried, Carrie, but she did. She cried and she cried, and when I went up to her, and put my arms around her neck and kissed her, she only cried the more, for she was sort of hysteric-like, you know, and she said she knew she'd never live to eat any fruit off of that tree."

Carrie stops eating nuts a moment.

"But she will--she will get well, Mr. John Logan--she will get well, won't she?"

"Ah, indeed, I believe she will get well, but whether she ever gets right well or not, she certainly will live to eat peaches from that tree. Carrie, we've talked it all over, and what do you think? Why, now listen, I will tell you. This tree that I planted, and that my poor sick mother was afraid she would not live to eat the fruit from--this tree was a peach tree."

Carrie again takes out a handful of nuts from her pocket, as if she would like to eat them. She looks at them a second, throws them away, and hastens to one side.

"I want to go home," cries Stumps. "I don't like peaches, Mr. John Logan. I don't--I don't--so help me," and the boy jerks at his pants wildly.

John Logan turns to him kindly. "Why, you never had a peach in your little hand in your life." Then turning to Carrie: "Yes, Carrie, there has grown this year, high up in the sun on that tree, side by side, two--and only two--red, ripe peaches. Why, children, don't run away!

Wait one moment, and I will go a little way with you. As I was about to say, these two peaches are at last ripe. I own I was the least bit afraid, even after I saw them there on that bough one Summer morning, that even then my mother might die before they became fully ripe. But now they are ripe, and this evening I shall pull them. And to-morrow, after my day's work is done, my sick mother shall eat one, and you two shall eat the other."