Under the Redwoods

Here was Bob’s chance. He turned to her politely; began gravely, “I simply came to”—when suddenly his face changed; he stopped as if struck by a blow. His cheek flushed, and then paled! Good God! What had he come for? To tell them that this brother they were longing for—living for—perhaps even dying for—was dead! In his crass stupidity, his wounded vanity over the scorn of the young girl, his anticipation of triumph, he had forgotten—totally forgotten—what that triumph meant! Perhaps if he had felt more keenly the death of Lasham the thought of it would have been uppermost in his mind; but Lasham was not his partner or associate, only a brother miner, and his single act of generosity was in the ordinary routine of camp life. If she could think him cold and heartless before, what would she think of him now? The absurdity of her mistake had vanished in the grim tragedy he had seemed to have cruelly prepared for her. The thought struck him so keenly that he stammered, faltered, and sank helplessly into a chair.

The shock that he had received was so plain to her that her own indignation went out in the breath of it. Her lip quivered. “Don’t you mind,” she said hurriedly, dropping into her Southern speech; “I didn’t go to hurt you, but I was just that mad with the thought of those pickaninnies, and the easy way you took it, that I clean forgot I’d no call to catechise you! And you don’t know me from the Queen of Sheba. Well,” she went on, still more rapidly, and in odd distinction to her previous formal slow Southern delivery, “I’m the daughter of Colonel Boutelle, of Bayou Sara, Louisiana; and his paw, and his paw before him, had a plantation there since the time of Adam, but he lost it and six hundred niggers during the Wah! We were pooh as pohverty—paw and maw and we four girls—and no more idea of work than a baby. But I had an education at the convent at New Orleans, and could play, and speak French, and I got a place as school-teacher here; I reckon the first Southern woman that has taught school in the No’th! Ricketts, who used to be our steward at Bayou Sara, told me about the pickaninnies, and how helpless they were, with only a brother who occasionally sent them money from California. I suppose I cottoned to the pooh little things at first because I knew what it was to be alone amongst strangers, Mr. Lasham; I used to teach them at odd times, and look after them, and go with them to the train to look for you. Perhaps Ricketts made me think you didn’t care for them; perhaps I was wrong in thinking it was true, from the way you met Jimmy just now. But I’ve spoken my mind and you know why.” She ceased and walked to the window.

Falloner rose. The storm that had swept through him was over. The quick determination, resolute purpose, and infinite patience which had made him what he was were all there, and with it a conscientiousness which his selfish independence had hitherto kept dormant. He accepted the situation, not passively—it was not in his nature—but threw himself into it with all his energy.

“You were quite right,” he said, halting a moment beside her; “I don’t blame you, and let me hope that later you may think me less to blame than you do now. Now, what’s to be done? Clearly, I’ve first to make it right with Tommy—I mean Jimmy—and then we must make a straight dash over to the girl! Whoop!” Before she could understand from his face the strange change in his voice, he had dashed out of the room. In a moment he reappeared with the boy struggling in his arms. “Think of the little scamp not knowing his own brother!” he laughed, giving the boy a really affectionate, if slightly exaggerated hug, “and expecting me to open my arms to the first little boy who jumps into them! I’ve a great mind not to give him the present I fetched all the way from California. Wait a moment.” He dashed into the bedroom, opened his valise—where he providentially remembered he had kept, with a miner’s superstition, the first little nugget of gold he had ever found—seized the tiny bit of quartz of gold, and dashed out again to display it before Jimmy’s eager eyes.

If the heartiness, sympathy, and charming kindness of the man’s whole manner and face convinced, even while it slightly startled, the young girl, it was still more effective with the boy. Children are quick to detect the false ring of affected emotion, and Bob’s was so genuine—whatever its cause—that it might have easily passed for a fraternal expression with harder critics. The child trustfully nestled against him and would have grasped the gold, but the young man whisked it into his pocket. “Not until we’ve shown it to our little sister—where we’re going now! I’m off to order a sleigh.” He dashed out again to the office as if he found some relief in action, or, as it seemed to Miss Boutelle, to avoid embarrassing conversation. When he came back again he was carrying an immense bearskin from his luggage. He cast a critical look at the girl’s unseasonable attire.

“I shall wrap you and Jimmy in this—you know it’s snowing frightfully.”

Miss Boutelle flushed a little. “I’m warm enough when walking,” she said coldly. Bob glanced at her smart little French shoes, and thought otherwise. He said nothing, but hastily bundled his two guests downstairs and into the street. The whirlwind dance of the snow made the sleigh an indistinct bulk in the glittering darkness, and as the young girl for an instant stood dazedly still, Bob incontinently lifted her from her feet, deposited her in the vehicle, dropped Jimmy in her lap, and wrapped them both tightly in the bearskin. Her weight, which was scarcely more than a child’s, struck him in that moment as being tantalizingly incongruous to the matronly severity of her manner and its strange effect upon him. He then jumped in himself, taking the direction from his companion, and drove off through the storm.

The wind and darkness were not favorable to conversation, and only once did he break the silence. “Is there any one who would be likely to remember—me—where we are going?” he asked, in a lull of the storm.

Miss Boutelle uncovered enough of her face to glance at him curiously. “Hardly! You know the children came here from the No’th after your mother’s death, while you were in California.”

“Of course,” returned Bob hurriedly; “I was only thinking—you know that some of my old friends might have called,” and then collapsed into silence.

After a pause a voice came icily, although under the furs: “Perhaps you’d prefer that your arrival be kept secret from the public? But they seem to have already recognized you at the hotel from your inquiry about Ricketts, and the photograph Jimmy had already shown them two weeks ago.” Bob remembered the clerk’s familiar manner and the omission to ask him to register. “But it need go no further, if you like,” she added, with a slight return of her previous scorn.

“I’ve no reason for keeping it secret,” said Bob stoutly.

No other words were exchanged until the sleigh drew up before a plain wooden house in the suburbs of the town. Bob could see at a glance that it represented the income of some careful artisan or small shopkeeper, and that it promised little for an invalid’s luxurious comfort. They were ushered into a chilly sitting-room and Miss Boutelle ran upstairs with Jimmy to prepare the invalid for Bob’s appearance. He noticed that a word dropped by the woman who opened the door made the young girl’s face grave again, and paled the color that the storm had buffeted to her cheek. He noticed also that these plain surroundings seemed only to enhance her own superiority, and that the woman treated her with a deference in odd contrast to the ill-concealed disfavor with which she regarded him. Strangely enough, this latter fact was a relief to his conscience. It would have been terrible to have received their kindness under false pretenses; to take their just blame of the man he personated seemed to mitigate the deceit.

The young girl rejoined him presently with troubled eyes. Cissy was worse, and only intermittently conscious, but had asked to see him. It was a short flight of stairs to the bedroom, but before he reached it Bob’s heart beat faster than it had in any mountain climb. In one corner of the plainly furnished room stood a small truckle bed, and in it lay the invalid. It needed but a single glance at her flushed face in its aureole of yellow hair to recognize the likeness to Jimmy, although, added to that strange refinement produced by suffering, there was a spiritual exaltation in the child’s look—possibly from delirium—that awed and frightened him; an awful feeling that he could not lie to this hopeless creature took possession of him, and his step faltered. But she lifted her small arms pathetically towards him as if she divined his trouble, and he sank on his knees beside her. With a tiny finger curled around his long mustache, she lay there silent. Her face was full of trustfulness, happiness, and consciousness—but she spoke no word.

There was a pause, and Falloner, slightly lifting his head without disturbing that faintly clasping finger, beckoned Miss Boutelle to his side. “Can you drive?” he said, in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“Take my sleigh and get the best doctor in town to come here at once. Bring him with you if you can; if he can’t come at once, drive home yourself. I will stay here.”

“But”—hesitated Miss Boutelle.

“I will stay here,” he repeated.

The door closed on the young girl, and Falloner, still bending over the child, presently heard the sleigh-bells pass away in the storm. He still sat with his bent head, held by the tiny clasp of those thin fingers. But the child’s eyes were fixed so intently upon him that Mrs. Ricketts leaned over the strangely-assorted pair and said—

“It’s your brother Dick, dearie. Don’t you know him?”

The child’s lips moved faintly. “Dick’s dead,” she whispered.

“She’s wandering,” said Mrs. Ricketts. “Speak to her.” But Bob, with his eyes on the child’s, lifted a protesting hand. The little sufferer’s lips moved again. “It isn’t Dick—it’s the angel God sent to tell me.”

She spoke no more. And when Miss Boutelle returned with the doctor she was beyond the reach of finite voices. Falloner would have remained all night with them, but he could see that his presence in the contracted household was not desired. Even his offer to take Jimmy with him to the hotel was declined, and at midnight he returned alone.

What his thoughts were that night may be easily imagined. Cissy’s death had removed the only cause he had for concealing his real identity. There was nothing more to prevent his revealing all to Miss Boutelle and to offer to adopt the boy. But he reflected this could not be done until after the funeral, for it was only due to Cissy’s memory that he should still keep up the role of Dick Lasham as chief mourner. If it seems strange that Bob did not at this crucial moment take Miss Boutelle into his confidence, I fear it was because he dreaded the personal effect of the deceit he had practiced upon her more than any ethical consideration; she had softened considerably in her attitude towards him that night; he was human, after all, and while he felt his conduct had been unselfish in the main, he dared not confess to himself how much her opinion had influenced him. He resolved that after the funeral he would continue his journey, and write to her, en route, a full explanation of his conduct, inclosing Daddy’s letter as corroborative evidence. But on searching his letter-case he found that he had lost even that evidence, and he must trust solely at present to her faith in his improbable story.

It seemed as if his greatest sacrifice was demanded at the funeral! For it could not be disguised that the neighbors were strongly prejudiced against him. Even the preacher improved the occasion to warn the congregation against the dangers of putting off duty until too late. And when Robert Falloner, pale, but self-restrained, left the church with Miss Boutelle, equally pale and reserved, on his arm, he could with difficulty restrain his fury at the passing of a significant smile across the faces of a few curious bystanders. “It was Amy Boutelle, that was the ‘penitence’ that fetched him, you bet!” he overheard, a barely concealed whisper; and the reply, “And it’s a good thing she’s made out of it too, for he’s mighty rich!”

At the church door he took her cold hand into his. “I am leaving to-morrow morning with Jimmy,” he said, with a white face. “Good-by.”

“You are quite right; good-by,” she replied as briefly, but with the faintest color. He wondered if she had heard it too.

Whether she had heard it or not, she went home with Mrs. Ricketts in some righteous indignation, which found—after the young lady’s habit—free expression. Whatever were Mr. Lasham’s faults of omission it was most un-Christian to allude to them there, and an insult to the poor little dear’s memory who had forgiven them. Were she in his shoes she would shake the dust of the town off her feet; and she hoped he would. She was a little softened on arriving to find Jimmy in tears. He had lost Dick’s photograph—or Dick had forgotten to give it back at the hotel, for this was all he had in his pocket. And he produced a letter—the missing letter of Daddy, which by mistake Falloner had handed back instead of the photograph. Miss Boutelle saw the superscription and Californian postmark with a vague curiosity.

“Did you look inside, dear? Perhaps it slipped in.”

Jimmy had not. Miss Boutelle did—and I grieve to say, ended by reading the whole letter.

Bob Falloner had finished packing his things the next morning, and was waiting for Mr. Ricketts and Jimmy. But when a tap came at the door, he opened it to find Miss Boutelle standing there. “I have sent Jimmy into the bedroom,” she said with a faint smile, “to look for the photograph which you gave him in mistake for this. I think for the present he prefers his brother’s picture to this letter, which I have not explained to him or any one.” She stopped, and raising her eyes to his, said gently: “I think it would have only been a part of your goodness to have trusted me, Mr. Falloner.”

“Then you will forgive me?” he said eagerly.

She looked at him frankly, yet with a faint trace of coquetry that the angels might have pardoned. “Do you want me to say to you what Mrs. Ricketts says were the last words of poor Cissy?”

A year later, when the darkness and rain were creeping up Sawyer’s Ledge, and Houston and Daddy Folsom were sitting before their brushwood fire in the old Lasham cabin, the latter delivered himself oracularly.

“It’s a mighty queer thing, that news about Bob! It’s not that he’s married, for that might happen to any one; but this yer account in the paper of his wedding being attended by his ‘little brother.’ That gets me! To think all the while he was here he was lettin’ on to us that he hadn’t kith or kin! Well, sir, that accounts to me for one thing,—the sing’ler way he tumbled to that letter of poor Dick Lasham’s little brother and sent him that draft! Don’t ye see? It was a feller feelin’! Knew how it was himself! I reckon ye all thought I was kinder soft reading that letter o’ Dick Lasham’s little brother to him, but ye see what it did.”