Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories Part 15

"'Cause sometimes she was n't good to me."

"Did you love her all the time?"

Another decided head-shaking.

"You did n't? Why?"

"I did n't love her when she did n't love me. But my new mamma loves me all the time an' all day an' all night an' every day an' every night an' always. An' we dust have the bestest times togevver, an' I love her dust all I can love anybody." She hugged her chubby arms close up to her breast as if she had them around the loved one's neck, screwed up her pretty face, and gave the little grunt with which childhood expresses the fulness of its affection.

"Did you see the tourist man take your gone-away mamma away?"

"No, I didn't see him, but he did, 'cause once she went to take a walk an' 'en he never came back any more."

"And did n't she ever come back?"

"'Course not!" She looked at me in wide-eyed amazement at my ignorance. "One day she said for me to stay there 'cause she was going to take a walk. An' I cried to go too, an' 'en she picked me up quick an' hugged me tight an' kissed me. An' 'en she put me down an' said no, she was going too far. An' she took off her ring, her pretty gold ring, 'at she never let me have before, an' said to play wif it and when papa come give it to him. An' I did, an' papa readed a letter 'at was on the table, an' 'en he fell down on the bed an' cried. An' I put my hand on his face an' said, 'Poor papa, what's 'e matter?' An' 'en he took me up in his arms, an' we bofe cried, an' cried, an' cried.

An' he said, 'Poor little girl!'"

She paused a moment, and then, with the air of one summing up a long discourse, she exclaimed, "An' that's why I 've got a gone-away mamma!"

I stroked the little one's hand, which nestled confidingly in mine, and said, half absently, "And she never came back?"

The child had fallen into a reverie, her big violet eyes fastened on the ground at our feet, but my words roused her into sociability again and she chattered on:

"No, 'course not, she never comed back. But one day 'ere was a letter, all alone dust for me, an' my papa called me an' said, 'Here is a letter for my little girl; now, I wonder who it's from?' She said this with the quaintest imitation of grown-up condescension addressing a child, waited a moment, as if to give to suspense its proper effect, and then went on:

"He tored it open an' inside the en'lope was dust a tiny bit of a letter wif just a little bit of reading and writing on it. An' 'en my papa dropped it 's if it was a yellow-jacket an' he said, great big an'

loud, 'Money! from them! Don't touch it, child!' An' he frowed it in the fire. But I did n't see no money and I wanted to keep my letter, 'cause it was all mine. But I had my new mamma then, an' when I cried she writed me another letter."

"Yes," I said, "it's very queer to have two mammas, is n't it? But when did you get your new mamma?"

"Well, one day, after there was n't any more snow, we all went to church. And I had on my new white dress--it's awful pretty--and a new ribbon on my hair, and a new hat--not this old one--prettier than this, lots, with pretty flowers on it. And papa and--and--_her_, they stood up and talked wif the preacher, an' I would n't sit still. I dust runned right up side of my papa and held on to his leg all the time.

An' when the preacher did n't talk any more she picked me up an' hugged me tight, an' kissed me an' said, 'I 'm going to be your mamma now, darling.'

"An' she 's been my new mamma ever since, an' I 'm going to keep her for my mamma always and always, and I don't want my gone-away mamma ever to come back, 'cause I love my new mamma best."

Just then there burst upon the warm, soft air a babel of shouts and yells and loud hurrahs. The wee maiden turned a brightening face in the direction of the uproar, and announced:

"That's wecess. I must go now. I 'spect my mamma will want me. She is n't dust my new mamma, she is n't. She's the teacher, too. An' I go to school wif her every day. But I don't have to stay in the schoolhouse 'less I want to."

She slipped off the log and started down the path, and then came back to kiss me good-bye. The hurried tread of a woman rustled through the thicket, and a Madonna-like face appeared between the branches.

"Come, dearie," she called, and the child ran across the glade, jumped into her arms and nestled upon her neck with a cry of delight.

Months afterward, in a city on the other side of the continent, I met a beautiful woman. She was a little overdressed and over-jewelled, but I thought as I talked with her that never before had I seen a woman of such glorious perfection of features and complexion and figure.

My visit to the Yosemite, the previous summer, chanced to be mentioned, and at once she began to ask me question after question about the Valley, and about those who live in it and cater to the comfort of travellers. Her husband, tall, athletic-looking, and handsome, leaned upon the back of her chair and made tactful efforts to divert the conversation into other channels. She yielded for the moment, but soon managed to lead me away to a quiet nook where she at once re-commenced her inquiries. Her beautiful face haunted and teased me with suggestions of previous sight. But I could not recall any former meeting, and so I decided that some chance street view of her countenance had impressed its beauty upon my memory.

As she rapidly poured forth question after question, I could not help noticing and wondering about the pathetic wistfulness in her eyes and the nervous eagerness of her manner. Presently she said she hoped to visit the Yosemite herself some time, and then hurriedly asked if I had seen any of the people who live there during the winter, and if any of them had children, and if the little ones, too, were subjected to that hards.h.i.+p.

There was intense longing in her lovely violet eyes as she asked these questions, but she quickly dropped her lids, and only her hands, trembling in her lap, betrayed that she felt more than casual interest.

I told her everything I could remember, facts, incidents, and anecdotes, that I thought would interest her. It did not occur to me that her eagerness for information was anything more than an unusually keen curiosity about a mode of life so different from her own.

Chancing to recall my adventure with the little maid I told her about it.

I dwelt on the child's beauty and precocity, and repeated her account of why she had two mammas. The red blood was dyeing my listener's face a deep crimson, but still I did not understand, and went on lightly--

"She was as charming a little thing as I ever saw, but she was not at all complimentary to the 'gone-away mamma,' for she declared, emphatically, that she loved her new mamma best, and meant to keep her always, and did n't want her gone-away mamma ever to come back, because the new mamma loved her so much, and they had such good times together."

The surging color flowed in a quick tide from her face and left there a gray pallor, like that of granite cliffs when the sun goes down, and her hands were so tightly locked that her fingers looked white and ghastly. I thought it was indignation against that distant and unknown woman who had yielded to temptation that was moving her so strongly, and expected to hear from her parted lips some sweeping sentence of fiery feminine scorn and contempt.

But it was a low moan that came through their paling curves as she swayed once in her chair and then fell to the floor.

The physician, who was hurriedly summoned, said that it was a case of heart failure, and that she must have died instantly from some sudden shock.

And then, looking again at the beautiful, cold face, I understood at last. For death had completed the likeness which life had only suggested, and the faultless features, lying now in their eternal, expressionless calm, were exactly those of the beautiful child.

Her friends wondered much at her strange and sudden death. But I knew that remorse had had its perfect work, and that the sudden vision of a sweet child-face out of whose rosy lips came the accusing words, "I love my new mamma best, and I don't want my gone-away mamma ever to come back," had pierced her heart through and through.

POSEY

"Since I breathed, A houseless head, beneath the sun and stars, The soul of the wood has stricken through my blood."

--THE FORESTERS.

Everybody who has ever seen him knows him only as "Posey"--a name for which he is indebted solely to the accident of birth. For in that Indiana county where he first saw the light, and when he went to California, some forty years ago, that was the name at once bestowed upon him, and by it he has been known ever since. It is possible that Posey has not forgotten what his name really is; but, if so, he is the only person who has allowed his memory to be burdened with that useless knowledge.

The traveller is likely to meet him striding along any one of the forest roads or trails within forty miles of the Yosemite Valley, or lounging around a stage station, or taking his ease in some mountaineer's cabin. And he will know at once that that is Posey, for no one who has ever heard of him can mistake his ident.i.ty at even the first glance. Moreover, Sunday is always with him, and Sunday is just as unmistakable as Posey. Sunday is a very small dog, of about the bigness of your two fists, that carries within his small skin enough courage, audacity, and dignity to befit the size of an elephant. He is also known as "Posey's bear dog"--a sobriquet bestowed upon him partly in humor, because of his ridiculously small size, and partly in honor, because of his utter fearlessness.

Posey is a sparely built, muscular man, of medium size, quick and jerky in his movements, and springy in his gait. His face is broad and tanned, his cheek bones high, and his nose a snub. His beard is short and thin and grizzled, and his gray hair, curling at the ends, hangs around his neck. His shoulders are sloping, his chest deep but not wide, his arms long, and his hips narrow. He is always dressed in a blue flannel s.h.i.+rt, blue overalls, hob-nailed shoes, and a gray slouch hat; and the whole outfit is always very old and very dirty. His overalls, fastened upon him in some miraculous way, hang far below his waist. Why they stay in place suggests the goodness of G.o.d since it pa.s.seth all understanding.

Nature made a great mistake when she caused Posey to be born a white man, heir to all the white man's achievement. For he is a child of earth--a gentle, kindly savage, a white man with the soul of an Indian.

But Posey has done his best to correct nature's mistake, and has made himself as much of an Indian as his white man's heritage will allow.

He is a nomad, as thorough a nomad as any barbarian who never heard of those wondrous works of man called civilization. In all that wide stretch of country which he frequents and in which he has lived for thirty years and better, there is not one spot which he can call home.

But that is nothing to Posey. He would not know what to do with a home if he had one.

His sole possessions are some blankets, a gun, and Sunday. If he wants to go anywhere, whether it be one mile or fifty miles away, he straps his blankets on his back, whistles to Sunday, shoulders his gun, and goes. Sometimes he sleeps on the ground and sometimes he stops for a night or for three months in the cabin of some lone mountaineer or in an Indian _rancheria_. It is doubtful if Posey himself knows how many Indian wives and half-breed children he has in these Indian villages scattered through the mountains. He will drop in on one of them for a day or a month, divide his possessions with her and her children, provide lavishly for them with gun and fis.h.i.+ng-tackle while he is there, and when the desire fills him to be somewhere else he will leave them with as little concern as he feels for the birds and squirrels in the trees.

Save in the mirthfulness of which he is an ever-bubbling spring, Posey has become, in looks and gestures, in mode of thought and manner of expression, as much Indian as white. Nevertheless, he prefers, very greatly, the society of his own race, and likes best that of people of superior mental qualities and force of character. In Posey's creed there is but one article, namely, that all men are eternally and immutably equal--just as good as he is. That is, that would be the sole article in his creed if he had any creed and if he were conscious that such is his belief. For it is very certain that Posey never gave thought, in all his life, to the question of human equality. He simply has an unconscious feeling about it which he has breathed into his being from the mountain air around him and absorbed from the earth which has been his bed for many and many a night. It is there, just as the dirt on his neck is there, and Posey is equally unconscious of them both.

Formerly, for a good many years, he was a guide in the Yosemite Valley, and once he had in his charge a woman who was a many times millionaire, of social prestige throughout two continents, and known by name all over her own land from the palaces of Newport to the huts in the Sierras. She found fault with many things, and finally insisted that her stirrup was too small. Posey, who had cheerfully endeavored to satisfy all her complaints, examined it carefully and then told her, in gentlest voice and politest manner: "The stirrup 's all right, madam.

It's your foot that 's too d.a.m.n big."

n.o.body ever saw Posey troubled in the least about anything in this world or the next. To him, mere existence is a pleasure, and the days of his life have been a linked merriment long drawn out. He is always ready to listen to and laugh at and join in jokes and fun; and if nothing new of that sort is at hand, old ones will answer the purpose almost as well. He is quick to repay such entertainment from his own inexhaustible store, and he never fails to turn anything that happens, no matter how serious it may be, into jest and farce. He has even been known to fling witticisms and ridicule at a bear that was coming at him full speed. But, no; that is not quite accurate. Posey has been known to say that he said these things to a charging bruin. But Posey usually hunts alone.