Tales of the Argonauts by Bret Harte (digital ebook reader .txt) đ
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He sat there for a long time, leaning forward, his head upon his hands. The wind that had been striving with the canvas roof all at once lifted its edges, and a moonbeam slipped suddenly in, and lay for a moment like a shining blade upon his shoulder; and, knighted by its touch, straightway plain Henry York arose, sustained, high-purposed and self-reliant.
The rains had come at last. There was already a visible greenness on the slopes of Heavytree Hill; and the long, white track of the Wingdam road was lost in outlying pools and ponds a hundred rods from Monte Flat. The spent water-courses, whose white bones had been sinuously trailed over the flat, like the vertebrae of some forgotten saurian, were full again; the dry bones moved once more in the valley; and there was joy in the ditches, and a pardonable extravagance in the columns of âThe Monte Flat Monitor.â âNever before in the history of the county has the yield been so satisfactory. Our contemporary of âThe Hillside Beacon,â who yesterday facetiously alluded to the fact (?) that our best citizens were leaving town in âdugouts,â on account of the flood, will be glad to hear that our distinguished fellow-townsman, Mr. Henry York, now on a visit to his relatives in the East, lately took with him in his âdugoutâ the modest sum of fifty thousand dollars, the result of one weekâs clean-up. We can imagine,â continued that sprightly journal, âthat no such misfortune is likely to overtake Hillside this season. And yet we believe âThe Beaconâ man wants a railroad.â A few journals broke out into poetry. The operator at Simpsonâs Crossing telegraphed to âThe Sacramento Universeâ âAll day the low clouds have shook their garnered fulness down.â A San Francisco journal lapsed into noble verse, thinly disguised as editorial prose: âRejoice: the gentle rain has come, the bright and pearly rain, which scatters blessings on the hills, and sifts them oâer the plain. Rejoice,â &c. Indeed, there was only one to whom the rain had not brought blessing, and that was Plunkett. In some mysterious and darksome way, it had interfered with the perfection of his new method of reducing ores, and thrown the advent of that invention back another season. It had brought him down to an habitual seat in the bar-room, where, to heedless and inattentive ears, he sat and discoursed of the East and his family.
No one disturbed him. Indeed, it was rumored that some funds had been lodged with the landlord, by a person or persons unknown, whereby his few wants were provided for. His maniaâfor that was the charitable construction which Monte Flat put upon his conductâ was indulged, even to the extent of Monte Flatâs accepting his invitation to dine with his family on Christmas Day,âan invitation extended frankly to every one with whom the old man drank or talked. But one day, to everybodyâs astonishment, he burst into the bar-room, holding an open letter in his hand. It read as follows:â
âBe ready to meet your family at the new cottage on Heavytree Hill on Christmas Day. Invite what friends you choose.
âHENRY YORK.â
The letter was handed round in silence. The old man, with a look alternating between hope and fear, gazed in the faces of the group. The doctor looked up significantly, after a pause. âItâs a forgery evidently,â he said in a low voice. âHeâs cunning enough to conceive it (they always are); but youâll find heâll fail in executing it. Watch his face!âOld man,â he said suddenly, in a loud peremptory tone, âthis is a trick, a forgery, and you know it. Answer me squarely, and look me in the eye. Isnât it so?â
The eyes of Plunkett stared a moment, and then dropped weakly. Then, with a feebler smile, he said, âYouâre too many for me, boys. The Docâs right. The little gameâs up. You can take the old manâs hat;â and so, tottering, trembling, and chuckling, he dropped into silence and his accustomed seat. But the next day he seemed to have forgotten this episode, and talked as glibly as ever of the approaching festivity.
And so the days and weeks passed until Christmasâa bright, clear day, warmed with south winds, and joyous with the resurrection of springing grassesâbroke upon Monte Flat. And then there was a sudden commotion in the hotel bar-room; and Abner Dean stood beside the old manâs chair, and shook him out of a slumber to his feet. âRouse up, old man. York is here, with your wife and daughter, at the cottage on Heavytree. Come, old man. Here, boys, give him a lift;â and in another moment a dozen strong and willing hands had raised the old man, and bore him in triumph to the street up the steep grade of Heavytree Hill, and deposited him, struggling and confused, in the porch of a little cottage. At the same instant two women rushed forward, but were restrained by a gesture from Henry York. The old man was struggling to his feet. With an effort at last, he stood erect, trembling, his eye fixed, a gray pallor on his cheek, and a deep resonance in his voice.
âItâs all a trick, and a lie! They ainât no flesh and blood or kin oâ mine. It ainât my wife, nor child. My daughterâs a beautiful girlâa beautiful girl, dâye hear? Sheâs in New York with her mother, and Iâm going to fetch her here. I said Iâd go home, and Iâve been home: dâye hear me? Iâve been home! Itâs a mean trick youâre playinâ on the old man. Let me go: dâye hear? Keep them women off me! Let me go! Iâm goingâIâm goingâhome!â
His hands were thrown up convulsively in the air, and, half turning round, he fell sideways on the porch, and so to the ground. They picked him up hurriedly, but too late. He had gone home.
THE FOOL OF FIVE FORKSHe lived alone. I do not think this peculiarity arose from any wish to withdraw his foolishness from the rest of the camp, nor was it probable that the combined wisdom of Five Forks ever drove him into exile. My impression is, that he lived alone from choice,âa choice he made long before the camp indulged in any criticism of his mental capacity. He was much given to moody reticence, and, although to outward appearances a strong man, was always complaining of ill-health. Indeed, one theory of his isolation was, that it afforded him better opportunities for taking medicine, of which he habitually consumed large quantities.
His folly first dawned upon Five Forks through the post-office windows. He was, for a long time, the only man who wrote home by every mail; his letters being always directed to the same person,â a woman. Now, it so happened that the bulk of the Five Forks correspondence was usually the other way. There were many letters received (the majority being in the female hand), but very few answered. The men received them indifferently, or as a matter of course. A few opened and read them on the spot, with a barely repressed smile of self-conceit, or quite as frequently glanced over them with undisguised impatience. Some of the letters began with âMy dear husband;â and some were never called for. But the fact that the only regular correspondent of Five Forks never received any reply became at last quite notorious. Consequently, when an envelope was received, bearing the stamp of the âdead letter office,â addressed to âThe Fool,â under the more conventional title of âCyrus Hawkins,â there was quite a fever of excitement. I do not know how the secret leaked out; but it was eventually known to the camp, that the envelope contained Hawkinsâs own letters returned. This was the first evidence of his weakness. Any man who repeatedly wrote to a woman who did not reply must be a fool. I think Hawkins suspected that his folly was known to the camp; but he took refuge in symptoms of chills and fever, which he at once developed, and effected a diversion with three bottles of Indian cholagogue and two boxes of pills. At all events, at the end of a week, he resumed a pen stiffened by tonics, with all his old epistolatory pertinacity. This time the letters had a new address.
In those days a popular belief obtained in the mines, that luck particularly favored the foolish and unscientific. Consequently, when Hawkins struck a âpocketâ in the hillside near his solitary cabin, there was but little surprise. âHe will sink it all in the next holeâ was the prevailing belief, predicated upon the usual manner in which the possessor of ânigger luckâ disposed of his fortune. To everybodyâs astonishment, Hawkins, after taking out about eight thousand dollars, and exhausting the pocket, did not prospect for another. The camp then waited patiently to see what he would do with his money. I think, however, that it was with the greatest difficulty their indignation was kept from taking the form of a personal assault when it became known that he had purchased a draft for eight thousand dollars, in favor of âthat woman.â More than this, it was finally whispered that the draft was returned to him as his letters had been, and that he was ashamed to reclaim the money at the express-office. âIt wouldnât be a bad specilation to go East, get some smart gal, for a hundred dollars, to dress herself up and represent that âHag,â and jest freeze onto that eight thousand,â suggested a far-seeing financier. I may state here, that we always alluded to Hawkinsâs fair unknown as the âHagâ without having, I am confident, the least justification for that epithet.
That the âFoolâ should gamble seemed eminently fit and proper. That he should occasionally win a large stake, according to that popular theory which I have recorded in the preceding paragraph, appeared, also, a not improbable or inconsistent fact. That he should, however, break the faro bank which Mr. John Hamlin had set up in Five Forks, and carry off a sum variously estimated at from ten to twenty thousand dollars, and not return the next day, and lose the money at the same table, really appeared incredible. Yet such was the fact. A day or two passed without any known investment of Mr. Hawkinsâs recently-acquired capital. âEf he allows to send it to that âHag,ââ said one prominent citizen, âsuthinâ ought to be done. Itâs jest ruininâ the reputation of this yer camp,âthis sloshinâ around oâ capital on non-residents ez donât claim it!â âItâs settinâ an example oâ extravagance,â said another, âez is little better nor a swindle. Thais morân five men in this camp, thet, hearinâ thet Hawkins hed sent home eight thousand dollars, must jest rise up and send home their hard earnings too! And then to think thet thet eight thousand was only a bluff, after all, and thet itâs lyinâ there on call in Adams & Co.âs bank! Well, I say itâs one oâ them things a vigilance committee oughter look into.â
When there seemed no possibility of this repetition of Hawkinsâs folly, the anxiety to know what he had really done with his money became intense. At last a self-appointed committee of four citizens dropped artfully, but to outward appearances carelessly, upon him in his seclusion. When some polite formalities had been exchanged, and some easy vituperation of a backward season offered by each of the parties, Tom Wingate approached the subject.
âSorter dropped heavy on Jack Hamlin the other night, didnât
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