Stories in Light and Shadow by Bret Harte (100 best novels of all time TXT) 📖

o’ going to that swell Oriental, jest as if ye’d made a big strike— and all the while ye wasn’t sleepin’ or eatin’ there, but jest wrastlin’ yer hash and having a roll down at the Good Cheer! Do you think I didn’t spy on ye and find that out? Oh, you long-eared jackass-rabbit!”

He laughed until the tears came into his eyes, and Uncle Billy laughed too, albeit until the laugh on his face became quite fixed, and he was fain to bury his head in his handkerchief.

“And yet,” said Uncle Jim, with a deep breath, “gosh! I was frighted—jest for a minit! I thought, mebbe, you HAD made a big strike—when I got your first letter—and I made up my mind what I’d do! And then I remembered you was jest that kind of an open sluice that couldn’t keep anythin’ to yourself, and you’d have been sure to have yelled it out to ME the first thing. So I waited. And I found you out, you old sinner!” He reached forward and dug Uncle Billy in the ribs.

“What WOULD you hev done?” said Uncle Billy, after an hysterical collapse.

Uncle Jim’s face grew grave again. “I’d hev—I’d—hev cl’ared out! Out er ‘Frisco! out er Californy! out er Ameriky! I couldn’t have stud it! Don’t think I would hev begrudged ye yer luck! No man would have been gladder than me.” He leaned forward again, and laid his hand caressingly upon his partner’s arm—“Don’t think I’d hev wanted to take a penny of it—but I—thar! I COULDN’T hev stood up under it! To hev had YOU, you that I left behind, comin’ down here rollin’ in wealth and new partners and friends, and arrive upon me—and this shanty—and”—he threw towards the corner of the room a terrible gesture, none the less terrible that it was illogical and inconsequent to all that had gone before—“and—and— THAT BROOM!”

There was a dead silence in the room. With it Uncle Billy seemed to feel himself again transported to the homely cabin at Cedar Camp and that fateful night, with his partner’s strange, determined face before him as then. He even fancied that he heard the roaring of the pines without, and did not know that it was the distant sea.

But after a minute Uncle Jim resumed:—

“Of course you’ve made a little raise somehow, or you wouldn’t be here?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Billy eagerly. “Yes! I’ve got”— He stopped and stammered. “I’ve got—a—few hundreds.”

“Oh, oh!” said Uncle Jim cheerfully. He paused, and then added earnestly, “I say! You ain’t got left, over and above your d—d foolishness at the Oriental, as much as five hundred dollars?”

“I’ve got,” said Uncle Billy, blushing a little over his first deliberate and affected lie, “I’ve got at least five hundred and seventy-two dollars. Yes,” he added tentatively, gazing anxiously at his partner, “I’ve got at least that.”

“Je whillikins!” said Uncle Jim, with a laugh. Then eagerly, “Look here, pard! Then we’re on velvet! I’ve got NINE hundred; put your FIVE with that, and I know a little ranch that we can get for twelve hundred. That’s what I’ve been savin’ up for—that’s my little game! No more minin’ for ME. It’s got a shanty twice as big as our old cabin, nigh on a hundred acres, and two mustangs. We can run it with two Chinamen and jest make it howl! Wot yer say—eh?” He extended his hand.

“I’m in,” said Uncle Billy, radiantly grasping Uncle Jim’s. But his smile faded, and his clear simple brow wrinkled in two lines.

Happily Uncle Jim did not notice it. “Now, then, old pard,” he said brightly, “we’ll have a gay old time tonight—one of our jamborees! I’ve got some whiskey here and a deck o’ cards, and we’ll have a little game, you understand, but not for ‘keeps’ now! No, siree; we’ll play for beans.”

A sudden light illuminated Uncle Billy’s face again, but he said, with a grim desperation, “Not tonight! I’ve got to go into town. That fren’ o’ mine expects me to go to the theayter, don’t ye see? But I’ll be out to-morrow at sun-up, and we’ll fix up this thing o’ the ranch.”

“Seems to me you’re kinder stuck on this fren’,” grunted Uncle Jim.

Uncle Billy’s heart bounded at his partner’s jealousy. “No—but I MUST, you know,” he returned, with a faint laugh.

“I say—it ain’t a HER, is it?” said Uncle Jim.

Uncle Billy achieved a diabolical wink and a creditable blush at his lie.

“Billy?”

“Jim!”

And under cover of this festive gallantry Uncle Billy escaped. He ran through the gathering darkness, and toiled up the shifting sands to the top of the hill, where he found the carriage waiting.

“Wot,” said Uncle Billy in a low confidential tone to the coachman, “wot do you ‘Frisco fellers allow to be the best, biggest, and riskiest gamblin’-saloon here? Suthin’ high-toned, you know?”

The negro grinned. It was the usual case of the extravagant spendthrift miner, though perhaps he had expected a different question and order.

“Dey is de ‘Polka,’ de ‘El Dorado,’ and de ‘Arcade’ saloon, boss,” he said, flicking his whip meditatively. “Most gents from de mines prefer de ‘Polka,’ for dey is dancing wid de gals frown in. But de real prima facie place for gents who go for buckin’ agin de tiger and straight-out gamblin’ is de ‘Arcade.’”

“Drive there like thunder!” said Uncle Billy, leaping into the carriage.

 

… …

 

True to his word, Uncle Billy was at his partner’s shanty early the next morning. He looked a little tired, but happy, and had brought a draft with him for five hundred and seventy-five dollars, which he explained was the total of his capital. Uncle Jim was overjoyed. They would start for Napa that very day, and conclude the purchase of the ranch; Uncle Jim’s sprained foot was a sufficient reason for his giving up his present vocation, which he could also sell at a small profit. His domestic arrangements were very simple; there was nothing to take with him—there was everything to leave behind. And that afternoon, at sunset, the two reunited partners were seated on the deck of the Napa boat as she swung into the stream.

Uncle Billy was gazing over the railing with a look of abstracted relief towards the Golden Gate, where the sinking sun seemed to be drawing towards him in the ocean a golden stream that was forever pouring from the Bay and the three-hilled city beside it. What Uncle Billy was thinking of, or what the picture suggested to him, did not transpire; for Uncle Jim, who, emboldened by his holiday, was luxuriating in an evening paper, suddenly uttered a long-drawn whistle, and moved closer to his abstracted partner. “Look yer,” he said, pointing to a paragraph he had evidently just read, “just you listen to this, and see if we ain’t lucky, you and me, to be jest wot we air—trustin’ to our own hard work—and not thinkin’ o’ ‘strikes’ and ‘fortins.’ Jest unbutton yer ears, Billy, while I reel off this yer thing I’ve jest struck in the paper, and see what d—d fools some men kin make o’ themselves. And that theer reporter wot wrote it—must hev seed it reely!”

Uncle Jim cleared his throat, and holding the paper close to his eyes read aloud slowly:—

“‘A scene of excitement that recalled the palmy days of ‘49 was witnessed last night at the Arcade Saloon. A stranger, who might have belonged to that reckless epoch, and who bore every evidence of being a successful Pike County miner out on a “spree,” appeared at one of the tables with a negro coachman bearing two heavy bags of gold. Selecting a faro-bank as his base of operations, he began to bet heavily and with apparent recklessness, until his play excited the breathless attention of every one. In a few moments he had won a sum variously estimated at from eighty to a hundred thousand dollars. A rumor went round the room that it was a concerted attempt to “break the bank” rather than the drunken freak of a Western miner, dazzled by some successful strike. To this theory the man’s careless and indifferent bearing towards his extraordinary gains lent great credence. The attempt, if such it was, however, was unsuccessful. After winning ten times in succession the luck turned, and the unfortunate “bucker” was cleared out not only of his gains, but of his original investment, which may be placed roughly at twenty thousand dollars. This extraordinary play was witnessed by a crowd of excited players, who were less impressed by even the magnitude of the stakes than the perfect sang-froid and recklessness of the player, who, it is said, at the close of the game tossed a twenty-dollar gold-piece to the banker and smilingly withdrew. The man was not recognized by any of the habitues of the place.’

“There!” said Uncle Jim, as he hurriedly slurred over the French substantive at the close, “did ye ever see such God-forsaken foolishness?”

Uncle Billy lifted his abstracted eyes from the current, still pouring its unreturning gold into the sinking sun, and said, with a deprecatory smile, “Never!”

Nor even in the days of prosperity that visited the Great Wheat Ranch of “Fall and Foster” did he ever tell his secret to his partner.

SEE YUP

I don’t suppose that his progenitors ever gave him that name, or, indeed, that it was a NAME at all; but it was currently believed that—as pronounced “See UP”—it meant that lifting of the outer angle of the eye common to the Mongolian. On the other hand, I had been told that there was an old Chinese custom of affixing some motto or legend, or even a sentence from Confucius, as a sign above their shops, and that two or more words, which might be merely equivalent to “Virtue is its own reward,” or “Riches are deceitful,” were believed by the simple Californian miner to be the name of the occupant himself. Howbeit, “See Yup” accepted it with the smiling patience of his race, and never went by any other. If one of the tunnelmen always addressed him as “Brigadier-General,” “Judge,” or “Commodore,” it was understood to be only the American fondness for ironic title, and was never used except in personal conversation. In appearance he looked like any other Chinaman, wore the ordinary blue cotton blouse and white drawers of the Sampan coolie, and, in spite of the apparent cleanliness and freshness of these garments, always exhaled that singular medicated odor—half opium, half ginger—which we recognized as the common “Chinese smell.”

Our first interview was characteristic of his patient quality. He had done my washing for several months, but I had never yet seen him. A meeting at last had become necessary to correct his impressions regarding “buttons”—which he had seemed to consider as mere excrescences, to be removed like superfluous dirt from soiled linen. I had expected him to call at my lodgings, but he had not yet made his appearance. One day, during the noontide recess of the little frontier school over which I presided, I returned rather early. Two or three of the smaller boys, who were loitering about the school-yard, disappeared with a certain guilty precipitation that I suspected for the moment, but which I presently dismissed from my mind. I passed through the empty school-room to my desk, sat down, and began to prepare the coming lessons. Presently I heard a faint sigh. Looking up, to my intense concern, I discovered a solitary Chinaman whom I had overlooked, sitting in a rigid attitude on a bench with his back to the window. He caught my eye and smiled sadly, but without moving.

“What are you doing here?” I asked sternly.

“Me washee shilts; me talkee ‘buttons.’”

“Oh! you’re See Yup, are you?”

“Allee same, John.”

“Well, come here.”