Tales of the Argonauts by Bret Harte (top books to read .txt) 📕

He had been standing beside the bar—his usual attitude—when he made this speech; but at this point he half faced his auditors with a look that was very effective. Indeed, a few who had exhibited some signs of scepticism and lack of interest, at once assumed an appearance of intense gratification and curiosity as he went on,—

“Well, by hangin round there for a day or two, I found out at last it was to be Melindy’s birthday next week, and that she was goin’ to have a big party. I tell ye what, boys, it weren’t no slouch of a reception. The whole house was bloomin’ with flowers, and blazin’ with lights; and there was no end of servants and plate and refreshments and fixin’s”—

“Uncle Joe.”

“Well?”

“Where did they get the money?”

Plunkett faced his interlocutor with a severe glance. “I always said,” he replied slowly, “that, when I went home, I’d send on ahead of me a draft for ten thousand dollars. I always said that, didn’t I? Eh? And I said I was goin’ home—and I’ve been home, haven’t I? Well?”

Either there was something irresistibly conclusive in this logic, or else the desire to hear the remainder of Plunkett’s story was stronger; but there was no more interruption. His ready good-humor quickly returned, and, with a slight chuckle, he went on,—

“I went to the biggest jewelry shop in town, and I bought a pair of diamond ear-rings, and put them in my pocket, and went to the house. ‘What name?’ says the chap who opened the door; and he looked like a cross ‘twixt a restaurant waiter and a parson. ‘Skeesicks,’ said I. He takes me in; and pretty soon my wife comes sailin’ into the parlor, and says, ‘Excuse me; but I don’t think I recognize the name.’ She was mighty polite; for I had on a red wig and side-whiskers. ‘A friend of your husband’s from California, ma’am, with a present for your daughter, Miss—,’ and I made as I had forgot the name. But all of a sudden a voice said, ‘That’s too thin;’ and in walked Melindy. ‘It’s playin’ it rather low down, father, to pretend you don’t know your daughter’s name; ain’t it, now? How are you, old man?’ And with that she tears off my wig and whiskers, and throws her arms around my neck—instinct, sir, pure instinct!”

Emboldened by the laughter which followed his description of the filial utterances of Melinda, he again repeated her speech, with more or less elaboration, joining in with, and indeed often leading, the hilarity that accompanied it, and returning to it, with more or less incoherency, several times during the evening.

And so, at various times and at various places, but chiefly in bar-rooms, did this Ulysses of Monte Flat recount the story of his wanderings. There were several discrepancies in his statement; there was sometimes considerable prolixity of detail; there was occasional change of character and scenery; there was once or twice an absolute change in the denoument: but always the fact of his having visited his wife and children remained. Of course, in a sceptical community like that of Monte Flat,—a community accustomed to great expectation and small realization,—a community wherein, to use the local dialect, “they got the color, and struck hardpan,” more frequently than any other mining-camp,—in such a community, the fullest credence was not given to old man Plunkett’s facts. There was only one exception to the general unbelief,— Henry York of Sandy Bar. It was he who was always an attentive listener; it was his scant purse that had often furnished Plunkett with means to pursue his unprofitable speculations; it was to him that the charms of Melinda were more frequently rehearsed; it was he that had borrowed her photograph; and it was he that, sitting alone in his little cabin one night, kissed that photograph, until his honest, handsome face glowed again in the firelight.

It was dusty in Monte Flat. The ruins of the long dry season were crumbling everywhere: everywhere the dying summer had strewn its red ashes a foot deep, or exhaled its last breath in a red cloud above the troubled highways. The alders and cottonwoods, that marked the line of the water-courses, were grimy with dust, and looked as if they might have taken root in the open air. The gleaming stones of the parched water-courses themselves were as dry bones in the valley of death. The dusty sunset at times painted the flanks of the distant hills a dull, coppery hue: on other days, there was an odd, indefinable earthquake halo on the volcanic cones of the farther coast-spurs. Again an acrid, resinous smoke from the burning wood on Heavytree Hill smarted the eyes, and choked the free breath of Monte Flat; or a fierce wind, driving every thing, including the shrivelled summer, like a curled leaf before it, swept down the flanks of the Sierras, and chased the inhabitants to the doors of their cabins, and shook its red fist in at their windows. And on such a night as this, the dust having in some way choked the wheels of material progress in Monte Flat, most of the inhabitants were gathered listlessly in the gilded bar-room of the Moquelumne Hotel, spitting silently at the red-hot stove that tempered the mountain winds to the shorn lambs of Monte Flat, and waiting for the rain.

Every method known to the Flat of beguiling the time until the advent of this long-looked-for phenomenon had been tried. It is true, the methods were not many, being limited chiefly to that form of popular facetiae known as practical joking; and even this had assumed the seriousness of a business-pursuit. Tommy Roy, who had spent two hours in digging a ditch in front of his own door, into which a few friends casually dropped during the evening, looked ennuye and dissatisfied. The four prominent citizens, who, disguised as foot-pads, had stopped the county treasurer on the Wingdam road, were jaded from their playful efforts next morning. The principal physician and lawyer of Monte Flat, who had entered into an unhallowed conspiracy to compel the sheriff of Calaveras and his posse to serve a writ of ejectment on a grizzly bear, feebly disguised under the name of one “Major Ursus,” who haunted the groves of Heavytree Hill, wore an expression of resigned weariness. Even the editor of “The Monte Flat Monitor,” who had that morning written a glowing account of a battle with the Wipneck Indians, for the benefit of Eastern readers,—even HE looked grave and worn. When, at last, Abner Dean of Angel’s, who had been on a visit to San Francisco, walked into the room, he was, of course, victimized in the usual way by one or two apparently honest questions, which ended in his answering them, and then falling into the trap of asking another, to his utter and complete shame and mortification; but that was all. Nobody laughed; and Abner, although a victim, did not lose his good-humor. He turned quietly on his tormentors, and said,—

“I’ve got something better than that—you know old man Plunkett?”

Everybody simultaneously spat at the stove, and nodded his head.

“You know he went home three years ago?” Two or three changed the position of their legs from the backs of different chairs; and one man said, “Yes.”

“Had a good time, home?”

Everybody looked cautiously at the man who had said, “Yes;” and he, accepting the responsibility with a faint-hearted smile, said, “Yes,” again, and breathed hard. “Saw his wife and child—purty gal?” said Abner cautiously. “Yes,” answered the man doggedly. “Saw her photograph, perhaps?” continued Abner Dean quietly.

The man looked hopelessly around for support. Two or three, who had been sitting near him, and evidently encouraging him with a look of interest, now shamelessly abandoned him and looked another way. Henry York flushed a little, and veiled his gray eyes. The man hesitated, and then with a sickly smile, that was intended to convey the fact that he was perfectly aware of the object of this questioning, and was only humoring it from abstract good feeling, returned, “Yes,” again.

“Sent home—let’s see—ten thousand dollars, wasn’t it?” Abner Dean went on. “Yes,” reiterated the man with the same smile.

“Well, I thought so,” said Abner quietly. “But the fact is, you see, that he never went home at all—nary time.”

Everybody stared at Abner in genuine surprise and interest, as, with provoking calmness and a half-lazy manner, he went on,—

“You see, thar was a man down in ‘Frisco as knowed him, and saw him in Sonora during the whole of that three years. He was herding sheep, or tending cattle, or spekilating all that time, and hadn’t a red cent. Well it ‘mounts to this,—that ‘ar Plunkett ain’t been east of the Rocky Mountains since ‘49.”

The laugh which Abner Dean had the right to confidently expect came; but it was bitter and sardonic. I think indignation was apparent in the minds of his hearers. It was felt, for the first time, that there was a limit to practical joking. A deception carried on for a year, compromising the sagacity of Monte Flat, was deserving the severest reprobation. Of course, nobody had believed Plunkett; but then the supposition that it might be believed in adjacent camps that they HAD believed him was gall and bitterness. The lawyer thought that an indictment for obtaining money under false pretences might be found. The physician had long suspected him of insanity, and was not certain but that he ought to be confined. The four prominent merchants thought that the business-interests of Monte Flat demanded that something should be done. In the midst of an excited and angry discussion, the door slowly opened, and old man Plunkett staggered into the room.

He had changed pitifully in the last six months. His hair was a dusty, yellowish gray, like the chemisal on the flanks of Heavytree Hill; his face was waxen white, and blue and puffy under the eyes; his clothes were soiled and shabby, streaked in front with the stains of hurriedly eaten luncheons, and fluffy behind with the wool and hair of hurriedly-extemporized couches. In obedience to that odd law, that, the more seedy and soiled a man’s garments become, the less does he seem inclined to part with them, even during that portion of the twenty-four hours when they are deemed less essential, Plunkett’s clothes had gradually taken on the appearance of a kind of a bark, or an outgrowth from within, for which their possessor was not entirely responsible. Howbeit, as he entered the room, he attempted to button his coat over a dirty shirt, and passed his fingers, after the manner of some animal, over his cracker-strewn beard, in recognition of a cleanly public sentiment. But, even as he did so, the weak smile faded from his lips; and his hand, after fumbling aimlessly around a button, dropped helplessly at his side. For as he leaned his back against the bar, and faced the group, he, for the first time, became aware that every eye but one was fixed upon him. His quick, nervous apprehension at once leaped to the truth. His miserable secret was out, and abroad in the very air about him. As a last resort, he glanced despairingly at Henry York; but his flushed face was turned toward the windows.

No word was spoken. As the barkeeper silently swung a decanter and glass before him, he took a cracker from a dish, and mumbled it with affected unconcern. He lingered over his liquor until its potency stiffened his relaxed sinews, and dulled the nervous edge of his apprehension, and then he suddenly faced around. “It don’t look as if we were goin’ to hev any rain much afore Christmas,” he said with defiant ease.

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