Buch lesen: «The Twins of Suffering Creek»

CHAPTER I
POTTER’S CLAY

Scipio moved about the room uncertainly. It was characteristic of him. Nature had given him an expression that suggested bewilderment, and, somehow, this expression had got into his movements.

He was swabbing the floor with a rag mop; a voluntary task, undertaken to relieve his wife, who was lounging over the glowing cookstove, reading a cheap story book. Once or twice he paused in his labors, and his mild, questioning blue eyes sought the woman’s intent face. His stubby, work-soiled fingers would rake their way through his straw-colored hair, which grew sparsely and defiantly, standing out at every possible unnatural angle, and the mop would again flap into the muddy water, and continue its process of smearing the rough boarded floor.

Now and again the sound of children’s voices floated in through the open doorway, and at each shrill piping the man’s pale eyes lit into a smile of parental tenderness. But his work went on steadily, for such was the deliberateness of his purpose.

The room was small, and already three-quarters of it had been satisfactorily smeared, and the dirt spread to the necessary consistency. Now he was nearing the cookstove where the woman sat.

“I’d hate to worry you any, Jess,” he said, in a gentle, apologetic voice, “but I’m right up to this patch. If you’d kind of lift your feet, an’ tuck your skirts around you some, guess you could go right on reading your fiction.”

The woman looked up with a peevish frown. Then something like a pitying smile warmed her expression. She was a handsome creature, of a large, somewhat bold type, with a passionate glow of strong youth and health in every feature of her well-shaped face. She was taller than her diminutive husband, and, in every detail of expression, his antithesis. She wore a dress with some pretensions to display, and suggesting a considerable personal vanity. But it was of the tawdry order that was unconvincing, and lacked both refinement and tidiness.

Scipio followed up his words with a glance of smiling amiability.

“I’m real sorry–” he began again.

But she cut him short.

“Oh, bother!” she exclaimed; and, thrusting her slippered feet upon the stove, tucked her skirts about her. Then, utterly ignoring him, she buried herself once more in her book.

The mop flapped about her chair legs, the water splashed the stove. Scipio was hurrying, and consequently floundering. It was his endeavor not to disturb his wife more than was necessary.

Finally he wrung out his mop and stood it outside the door in the sun. He emptied his bucket upon the few anæmic cabbages which grew in an untidy patch at the side of the hut, and returned once more to the room.

He glanced round it with feeble appreciation. It was a hopeless sort of place, yet he could not detect its shortcomings. The rough, log-built walls, smeared with a mud plaster, were quite unadorned. There was one solitary opening for a window, and in the center of the room was a roughly manufactured table, laden with the remains of several repasts. Breakfast was the latest, and the smell of coffee and fried pork still hung about the room. There were two Windsor chairs, one of which his wife was occupying, and a ramshackle food cupboard. Then there were the cookstove and a fuel box, and two or three iron pots hanging about the walls.

Out of this opened a bedroom, and the rough bedstead, with its tumbled blankets, was in full view where Scipio stood. Although the morning was well advanced the bed was still unmade. Poor as the place was, it might, in the hands of a busy housewife, have presented a very different appearance. But Jessie was not a good housewife. She hated the care of her little home. She was not a bad woman, but she had no sympathy with the harshnesses of life. She yearned for the amplitude to which she had been brought up, and detested bitterly the pass to which her husband’s incapacity had brought her.

When she had married Scipio he had money–money that had been left to him for the purpose of embarking in business, a purpose he had faithfully carried out. But his knowledge of business was limited to the signing of checks in favor of anyone who wanted one, and, as a consequence, by the time their twins were three years old he had received an intimation from the bank that he must forthwith put them in credit for the last check he had drawn.

Thus it was that, six months later, the thirty or forty inhabitants of Job’s Flat on Suffering Creek–a little mining camp stowed away in the southwest corner of Montana, almost hidden amongst the broken foothills of the Rocky Mountains–basking in the sunshine of a Sunday afternoon haze, were suddenly startled by the apparition of a small wagon, driven by a smaller man with yellow hair, bearing down upon them. But that which stirred them most surely was the additional sight of a handsome girl, sitting at his side, and, crowded between them on the seat, a pair of small children.

Scipio, in a desperate effort to restore his fortunes, and set his precious family once more on a sound financial basis, had come in search of the gold which report said was to be had on Suffering Creek for the trouble of picking it up.

This vision startled Suffering Creek, which, metaphorically, sat up and rubbed its eyes. Here was something quite unaccustomed. The yellow-haired fragment of humanity at the end of the reins was like nothing they had ever seen; the children were a source of wondering astonishment; but the woman–ah! There was one woman, and one woman only, on Suffering Creek until Jessie’s arrival, and she was only the “hash-slinger” at Minky’s store.

The newcomer’s face pleased them. Her eyes were fine, and full of coquetry. Her figure was all that a woman’s should be. Yes, the camp liked the look of her, and so it set out to give Scipio a hearty welcome.

Now a mining camp can be very cordial in its rough way. It can be otherwise, too. But in this case we have only to do with its cordiality. The men of Suffering Creek were drawn from all sorts and conditions of society. The majority of them lived like various grades of princes when money was plentiful, and starved when Fortune frowned. There were men amongst them who had never felt the softer side of life, and men who had been ruthlessly kicked from that downy couch. There were good men and scoundrels, workers and loafers; there were men who had few scruples, and certainly no morals whatever. But they had met on a common ground with the common purpose of spinning fortune’s wheel, and the sight of a woman’s handsome face set them tumbling over each other to extend the hand of friendship to her husband.

And the simple-minded Scipio quickly fell into the fold. Nor was it long before his innocence, his mildness, his never-failing good-nature got hold of this cluster of ruffians. They laughed at him–he was a source of endless amusement to them–but they liked him. And in such men liking meant a great deal.

But from the first Scipio’s peculiar nature, and it was peculiar, led him into many grievous mistakes. His mind was full of active purpose. He had an enormous sense of responsibility and duty to those who belonged to him. But somehow he seemed to lack any due sense of proportion in those things which were vital to their best interests. Ponderous thought had the effect of turning his ideas upside down, leaving him with but one clear inspiration. He must do. He must act–and at once.

Thus it was he gave much consideration to the selection of the site of his house. He wanted a southern aspect, it must be high up, it must not be crowded amongst the other houses. The twins needed air. Then the nearer he was to the creek, where the gold was to be found, the better. And again his prospecting must tap a part of it where the diggers had not yet “claimed.” There were a dozen and one things to be considered, and he thought of them all until his gentle mind became confused and his sense of proportion completely submerged.

The result was, he settled desperately upon the one site that common sense should have made him avoid. Nor was it until the foundations of the house had been laid, and the walls were already half their full height, that he realized, from the desolation of refuse and garbage strewn everywhere about him, that his home was overlooking the camp “dumps.”

However, it was too late to make any change, and, with characteristic persistence, he completed his work and went into residence with his wife and the twins.

The pressure of work lessened, he had a moment in which to look around. And with the thought of his twins on his mind, and all his wife had once been accustomed to, he quickly realized the necessity of green vegetables in his ménage. So he promptly flew to the task of arranging a cabbage patch. The result was a foregone conclusion. He dug and planted his patch. Nor was it until the work was completed that it filtered through to his comprehension that he had selected the only patch in the neighborhood with a heavy underlay of gravel and lime stone.

But his crowning effort was his search for gold. There are well-established geological laws governing the prospector’s craft which no experienced gold-seeker ever departs from. These were all carefully explained to him by willing tongues. Then, after poring over all he had learned, and thought and searched for two days and two nights, he finally discovered a spot where no other prospector had staked the ground.

It was a curious, gloomy sort of patch, nearly half-a-mile up the creek from the camp, and further in towards the mountains. Just at this spot the banks of the creek were high, there was an unusual blackness about the soil, and it gave out a faint but unrecognizable odor, that, in the bright mountain air, was quite pleasant. For several hundred yards the ground of this flat was rankly spongy, with an oozy surface. Then, beyond, lay a black greasy-looking marsh, and further on again the hills rose abruptly with the facets of auriferous-looking soil, such as the prospector loves to contemplate.

Scipio pondered. And though the conditions outraged all he had been told of the craft he was embarking upon, he plunged his pick into this flat, and set to work with characteristic good-will.

The men of the camp when they discovered his venture shook their heads and laughed. Then their laugh died out and their hard eyes grew serious. But no one interfered. They were all seeking gold.

This was Scipio’s position on Suffering Creek, but it does not tell half of what lay somewhere in the back of his quaintly-poised mind. No one who knew him failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, and drove him to such superlative degrees of self-sacrifice that could surely only have been endured by a man of his peculiar mind.

No matter what the toil of his claim, he always seemed to find leisure and delight in saving his wife from the domestic cares of their home. And though weary to the breaking-point with his toil, and consumed by a hunger that was well-nigh painful, when food was short he never seemed to realize his needs until Jessie and the children had eaten heartily. And afterwards no power on earth could rob him of an hour’s romp with the little tyrants who ruled and worshiped him.

Now, as he stood before the littered table, he glanced out at the sun. The morning was advancing all too rapidly. His eyes drifted across to his wife. She was still reading. A light sigh escaped him. He felt he should be out on his claim. However, without further thought he took the boiler of hot water off the stove and began to wash up.

It was the clatter of the plates that made Jessie look up.

“For goodness’ sake!” she exclaimed, with exasperation. “You’ll be bathing the children next. Say, you can just leave those things alone. I’ve only got a bit more to read to the end of the chapter.”

“I thought maybe it ’ud help you out some. I–”

“You give me a pain, you sure do,” Jessie broke in. “You get right out and hustle gold, and leave things of that sort to others.”

“But I don’t mind doing it, truth I don’t,” Scipio expostulated mildly. “I just thought it would save you–”

Jessie gave an artificial sigh.

“You tire me. Do you think I don’t know my work? I’m here to do the chores–and well I know it. You’re here to do a man’s work, same as any other man. You get out and find the gold, I can look after the house–if you can call it a house,” she added contemptuously.

Her eyes were quite hopeless as she let them wander over the frowsiness in the midst of which she sat. She was particularly discontented this morning. Not only had her thoughts been rudely dragged back from the seductive contemplation of the doings of the wealthy ones as the dime fiction-writer sees them, but there was a feeling of something more personal. It was something which she hugged to her bosom as a priceless pearl of enjoyment in the midst of a barren, rock-bound life of squalor.

The sight of him meandering about the room recalled these things. Thoughts, while they troubled her, yet had power to stimulate and excite her; thoughts which she almost dreaded, but which caused her exquisite delight. She must get rid of him.

But as she looked about the room something very like dismay assailed her. There were the hated household duties confronting her; duties she was longing to be free of, duties which she was tempted to abandon altogether, with everything else that concerned her present sordid life.

But Scipio knew none of this. His unsuspicious nature left him utterly blinded to the inner workings of her indolent, selfish spirit, and was always ready to accept blame for her ill-humors. Now he hurriedly endeavored to make amends.

“Of course you can, Jess,” he said eagerly. “I don’t guess there’s another woman around who can manage things like you. You don’t never grumble at things, and goodness knows I couldn’t blame you any, if you did. But–but ther’ seems such a heap to be done–for you to do,” he went on, glancing with mild vengefulness at the litter. “Say,” he cried, with a sudden lightening and inspiration, “maybe I could buck some wood for you before I go. You’ll need a good fire to dry the kiddies by after you washened ’em. It sure wouldn’t kep me long.”

But the only effect of his persistent kindliness was to further exasperate his wife. Every word, every gentle intention on his part made her realize her own shortcomings more fully. In her innermost heart she knew that she had no desire to do the work; she hated it, she was lazy. She knew that he was far better than she; good, even noble, in spite of his mental powers being so lamentably at fault. All this she knew, and it weakly maddened her because she could not rise above herself and show him all the woman that was so deeply hidden under her cloak of selfishness.

Then there was that other thought, that something that was her secret. She had that instinct of good that made it a guilty secret. Yet she knew that, as the world sees things, she had as yet done no great harm.

And therein lay the mischief. Had she been a vicious woman nothing would have troubled her, but she was not vicious. She was not even less than good in her moral instincts. Only she was weak, hopelessly weak, and so all these things drove her to a shrewish discontent and peevishness.

“Oh, there’s no peace where you are,” she cried, passionately flinging her book aside and springing to her feet. “Do you think I can’t look to this miserable home you’ve given me? I hate it. Yes, I hate it all. Why I married you I’m sure I don’t know. Look at it. Look round you, and if you have any idea of things at all what can you see but a miserable hog pen? Yes, that’s it, a hog pen. And we are the hogs. You and me, and–and the little ones. Why haven’t you got some ‘get up’ about you? Why don’t you earn some money, get some somehow so we can live as we’ve been used to living? Why don’t you do something, instead of pottering around here trying to do chores that aren’t your work, an’ you can’t do right anyway? You make me mad–you do indeed. But there! There’s no use talking to you, none whatever!”

“I’m sorry, Jess. I’m real sorry you feel like this.”

Scipio left the table and moved to the cupboard, into which he mechanically began to stow the provender. It was an unconscious action and almost pathetic in its display of that kindly purpose, which, where his wife was concerned, was never-failing. Jessie saw, angry as she was, and her fine eyes softened. Perhaps it was the maternal instinct underlying the selfishness that made her feel something akin to a pitying affection for her little husband.

She glanced down at the boiler of water, and mechanically gathered some of the tin plates together and proceeded to wash them.

“I’m kind of sorry, Zip,” she said. “I just didn’t mean all that. Only–only it makes me feel bad seeing all this around, and you–you always trying to do both a man’s and a woman’s work. Things are bad with us, so bad they seem hopeless. We’re right here with two kiddies and–and ourselves, and there’s practically no money and no prospects of there being any. It makes me want to cry. It makes me want to do something desperate. It makes me hate things–even those things I’ve no right to hate. No, no,” as the man tried to stop her, “don’t you say anything. Not a word till I’ve done. You see, I mayn’t feel like talking of these things again. Maybe I shan’t never have a chance of talking them again.”

She sighed and stared out of window.

“I want you to understand things as I see them, and maybe you’ll not blame me if I see them wrong. You’re too good for me, and I–I don’t seem grateful for your goodness. You work and think of others as no other man would do. You don’t know what it is to think of yourself. It’s me, and the children first with you, and, Zip–and you’ve no call to think much of me. Yes, I know what you’d say. I’m the most perfect woman on earth. I’m not. I’m not even good. If I were I’d be glad of all you try to do; I’d help you. But I don’t, and–and I just don’t seem able to. I’m always sort of longing and longing for the old days. I long for those things we can never have. I think–think always of folks with money, their automobiles, their grand houses, with lots and lots of good things to eat. And it makes me hate–all–all this. Oh, Zip, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m not good. But I’m not, and I–I–”

She broke off and dashed the back of her hand across her eyes in time to wipe away the great tears that threatened to roll down her rounded cheeks. In a moment Scipio was at her side, and one arm was thrust about her waist, and he seized one of her hands.

“You mustn’t to cry,” he said tenderly, as though she were a child. “You mustn’t, Jess–truth. You ain’t what you’re saying. You ain’t nothing like it. You’re dear and good, and it’s ’cause you’re that good and honest you’re saying all these things. Do you think I don’t know just how you’re suffering? Do you? Why, Jess, I know just everything about you, and it nigh breaks my heart to think of all I’ve brought you to. It ain’t you, Jess, it’s me who’s bad. It’s me who’s a fool. I hain’t no more sense than a buck rabbit, and I ain’t sure a new-littered pup couldn’t put me to sleep for savvee. Now don’t you go to crying. Don’t you indeed. I just can’t bear to see those beautiful eyes o’ yours all red and running tears. And, say, we sure have got better prospects than you’re figgering. You see, I’ve got a claim there’s no one else working on. And sure there’s minerals on it. Copper–or leastways it looks like copper, and there’s mica, an’ lots–an’ lots of stuff. I’ll sure find gold in that claim. It’s just a matter of keepin’ on. And I’m going to. And then, when we find it, what a blow-out we’ll have. We’ll get automobiles and houses, and–and we’ll have a bunch of sweet corn for supper, same as we had at a hotel once, and then–”

But the woman had suddenly drawn away from his embrace. She could stand no more of her little husband’s pathetic hopes. She knew. She knew, with the rest of the camp, the hopelessness of his quest, and even in her worst moments she had not the heart to destroy his illusions. It was no good, the hopelessness of it all came more than ever upon her.

“Zip dear,” she said, with a sudden, unwonted tenderness that had something strangely nervous in it, “don’t you get staying around here or I’ll keep right on crying. You get out to your work. I’m feeling better now, and you’ve–you’ve made things look kind of brighter,” she lied.

She glanced out of window, and the height of the sun seemed suddenly to startle her. Her more gentle look suddenly vanished and one of irritability swiftly replaced it.

“Now, won’t you let me help you with all these things?” Scipio coaxed.

But Jessie had seemingly quite forgotten her moment of tenderness.

“No,” she said sharply. “You get right out to work.” Then after a pause, with a sudden warming in her tone, “Think of Jamie and Vada. Think of them, and not of me. Their little lives are just beginning. They are quite helpless. You must work for them, and work as you’ve never done before. They are ours, and we love them. I love them. Yes”–with a harsh laugh–“better than myself. Don’t you think of me, Zip. Think of them, and work for them. Now be off. I don’t want you here.”

Scipio reluctantly enough accepted his dismissal. His wife’s sudden nervousness of manner was not hidden from him. He believed that she was seriously upset, and it pained and alarmed his gentle heart. But the cause of her condition did not enter into his calculations. How should it? The reason of things seemed to be something which his mind could neither grasp nor even inquire into. She was troubled, and he–well, it made him unhappy. She said go and work, work for the children. Ah, yes, her thoughts were for the children, womanly, unselfish thoughts just such as a good mother should have. So he went, full of a fresh enthusiasm for his work and for his object.

Meanwhile Jessie went on with her work. And strangely enough her nervousness increased as the moments went by, and a vague feeling of apprehension took hold of her. She hurried desperately. To get the table cleared was her chief concern. How she hated it. The water grew cold and greasy, and every time she dipped her cloth into it she shuddered. Again and again her eyes turned upon the window surveying the bright sunlight outside. The children playing somewhere beyond the door were ignored. She was even trying to forget them. She heard their voices, and they set her nerves jangling with each fresh peal of laughter, or shrill piping cry.

At last the last plate and enameled cup was washed and dried. The boiler was emptied and hung upon the wall. She swabbed the table carelessly and left it to dry. Then, with a rush, she vanished into the inner room.

The moments passed rapidly. There was no sound beyond the merry games of the twins squatting out in the sun, digging up the dusty soil with their fat little fingers. Jessie did not reappear.

At last a light, decided step sounded on the creek side of the house. It drew nearer. A moment or two later a shadow flitted across the window. Then suddenly a man’s head and shoulders filled up the opening. The head bent forward, craning into the room, and a pair of handsome eyes peered curiously round.

“Hi!” he cried in a suppressed tone. “Hi! Jessie!”

The bedroom curtain was flung aside, and Jessie, arrayed carefully in her best shirtwaist and skirt, suddenly appeared in the doorway. Her eyes were glowing with excitement and fear. But her rich coloring was alight with warmth, and the man stared in admiration. Yes, she was very good to look upon.