Stories of the Foot-hills

The girl accepted it carelessly, and stood in the doorway tying the bit of faded silk about her round, white throat.

"Where's the cow, mother?"

"She's staked on the 'fileree, t'other side of the barn. If ye don't find her when ye git there, come an' ask." The old woman drawled the last three words sarcastically.

Melissa smiled, showing a row of teeth, not small, but white and regular.

"Oh, if she's got away, I know where she's gone."

"Yes, I'll bet you do. Some folks has a heap of onnecessary learnin'."

There was no demand upon Melissa's supply of undervalued information. The cow was mooing reproachfully in a cropped circle of musky alfilaria behind the shed. The moon had risen, and rested for an instant upon the edge of Cucamonga, like a silver ball rolling down the mountain-side. Melissa laid her arms on the spotted heifer's back, and gazed at the landscape dreamily. Not discontent, nor longing, nor vague, troublesome aspirations mirrored themselves in the girl's placid face. Gentle, ease-loving natures, that might show in fair relief against a delicate background of luxury, become dull and lifeless in contrast with the coarser tints of poverty. In the parlance of those about her, Melissa was "dawdlin'," – and those about us are likely to be just, for they speak from the righteous standpoint of results.

The moon had floated high above Cucamonga, – so high that every nook and fastness of the mountain lay revealed in her soft, nocturnal splendor; even the tops of the mottled sycamores, far below in Sawpit Cañon, were touched with a vague, ghostly light; and still the council that sat in Lysander Sproul's kitchen was loud-voiced and shrill. The children, huddled in a corner that they might whisper and giggle beyond the reach of manual reproof, had fallen asleep, a confused heap of dejected weariness. The baby's head hung at an alarming angle from his father's arm, and even the acrid, high-pitched notes of his grandmother's voice failed to disturb the sleep of bedraggled innocence.

"So he's a-wantin' to develop the cañon, is he? Time wuz when you'd 'a' thought that cañon wuz good enough even fer him, from the lawin' and the lyin' and the swearin' he done to git his clutches onto it. Well, if he wants to improve it, why don't he improve it? Nobody's goin' to hender."

"That's what I told 'im," answered her son-in-law, taking the pipe from his mouth, and sending a halo of blue smoke about the head of his slumbering charge. "He said he wanted to improve the water. 'Nobody's goin' to kick at that,' says I; 'if they do, they're fools. I think the old lady'll tell you to go ahead. I shouldn't be s'prised, though,' says I, 'if she'd add that the water o' Sawpit Cañon's good enough fer her without any improvin'.'"

Mrs. Sproul glanced at her mother triumphantly.

"I told you Sandy talked up to him, mother. Oh, I do wish you'd 'a' wore your uniform, Sandy; then you could 'a' rose up before him proudly, an' told 'im you'd fought the battles of your country before" —

"Oh, shucks, Minervy!" interrupted the old woman dejectedly; "what does Nate Forrester care for anybody's country? What else'd he say, Lysander?"

"He said – well" – the man hesitated, and hitched his high shoulders a trifle uneasily – "he swore he hated to do business with a woman."

Spots of a deep, coppery red glowed through the tan of the old woman's cheeks.

"He said that, did 'e, Lysander Sproul? Then he must 'a' found some woman hard to cheat. Nate Forrester don't hate to do business with nobody he can cheat. The next time you see 'im, tell 'im it's mut'chal."

"I told 'im that," answered Lysander grimly. "I told 'im he didn't hate to do business with the hull female sect no worse than this partikiler woman hated to do business with him; but I reckoned you wouldn't bother 'im if he wanted to go to work on the cañon, – that'd be onreasonable."

"He hain't no notion o' doin' that," asserted the old woman contemptuously. "Ketch him improvin' anybody else's water right. We're nothin' to him but sticks to boil his pot. What's he up to now?"

"Well," rejoined Lysander skeptically, "he said he wanted to divide that upper volunteer barley-patch into ten-acre lots and put it onto the market. An' he b'lieved he could double the water right by tunnelin'."

"Why don't he tunnel away, then? Nobody's a-carin'," demanded the old woman shrilly.

"That's what I told 'im; and he 'lowed, of course, he wasn't a-goin' to put money into another feller's water right. An' then he figured away, showin' me how it'd increase the value o' this piece o' property; an' I told 'im this property was 'way up now," – Lysander sneered audibly, – "consider'ble higher 'n most folks wanted to go; an' then he went to blowin' about it, braggin' up the ranch, an' tellin' what a big thing he done when he give it to you" —

The old woman broke in upon him fiercely.

"Did he say that, Lysander?" She turned, and bent upon her son-in-law a quick, wrathful glance from under her shaggy brows; the muscles of her weather-beaten face twitched nervously. "I'd 'a' give my right hand to 'a' heerd 'im. I'd like to have Colonel Nate Forrester try to say anything to me about givin' anybody this ranch." She measured her words bitingly. "I s'pose when a feller puts his pistol at yer head, and tells you to hold up yer hands, and goes through yer pockets, if he happens to overlook a ten-cent piece he gives ye that much, does 'e? That's the way Colonel Nate Forrester give me this ranch. Loss Anjelus County hadn't heerd o' him when I settled onto this claim, and it ain't heerd no good of 'im sence."

The old woman's harsh, discordant voice rose higher with her wrath. The baby stirred uneasily in his father's arms. Even Melissa raised her eyes, – Melissa, who sat on the lowest step of the projecting staircase, twisting and untwisting the faded blue silk handkerchief in her lap with a gentle, listless monotony. It was impossible to tell whether ignorance or indifference characterized the girl, so calm, so inert, so absent was she, sitting in the half-shadow of the dimly lighted corner, her lustrous auburn head outlined against the sombre-hued redwood of the wall behind her.

There was a little hush in the room after the tempest.

"No, that's a fact, – that's a fact. Well – then – you see – " continued Lysander, groping for his forgotten place in the recital. "Oh, yes, – I got up and told 'im 'Addyoce,' as if I s'posed he was through, and started off; an' he called me back, an' 'lowed mebbe the old folks didn't have much loose change lyin' 'round to put into water improvements; an' I told 'im I didn't know, – I reckoned you could mortgage the ranch. From the way he talked, he'd make you a handsome loan on it, and jump at the chance; an' after he'd hummed and hawed a while, he offered to give you a clear title to Flutterwheel Spring if you'd deed 'im your int'rest in the rest o' the cañon. I told 'im it wasn't my funeral. I'd tell you what he said, an' you could do as you pleased."

The old woman fixed her small, shrewd eyes on her son-in-law.

"What else 'd he say, Lysander?"

"Nothin' much. Wanted me to use my influence with the old man!"

His mother-in-law gave a short, contemptuous sniff.

"I reckon he'd like to do business with the old man. What'd you tell 'im?"

"I told 'im I'd be sure to put my influence where it'd do the most good, an' I 'dvised him to see you. I 'lowed him an' you'd git on peaceable as a meetin' to 'lect a preacher," – Lysander rubbed his gnarled hand over his face, as if to erase a lurking grin, – "but he didn't seem anxious."

"I reckon not. Is that all he said?"

"'Bout all. He said it was a damned good trade."

"Lysander!" Mrs. Sproul sprang up, placing herself between her husband and the heap of slumbering innocents in the corner. "Lysander Sproul, – and you a father! This comes of consortin' with the ungodly, and settin' in the chair of the scorner."

"Oh, come now, Minervy, I was only quotin'." Lysander's eye twinkled, but he spoke contritely, with generous consideration for his wife's condition, which was imminently delicate.

"Oh, you're hystericky, Minervy. You'd best go to bed," observed her mother. "You're all tuckered out with yer walk. I guess Lysander's told all he knows, hain't you, Lysander?"

"'Bout all, – yes. He followed me out to the wagon, and hinted something about Poindexter wantin' help if he went to work on the tunnel, and 'lowed I'd find it handier to have a job nearder home, now that the grape-haulin' was over. But I told 'im there was no trouble about that. The nearder home I got, the more work I found, gener'ly. Pay was kind o' short, but then a man must be a trifle stickin' that wouldn't do his own work fer nothin'."

Lysander got up and carried the baby into the adjoining room, bending his lank form from habit rather than from necessity, as he passed through the doorway.

Mrs. Sproul, tearfully resentful of the charge of hysterics, investigated the sleeping children with a view to more permanent disposal of them for the night, a process which resulted in much whimpering, and a limp, somnolent sense of injury on the part of the investigated.

"I don't take much stock in Nate Forrester's trades," said the grandmother, elevating her voice so that Lysander could hear; "there's some deviltry back of 'em, gener'ly; the better they look, the more I'm afraid of 'em. I don't purtend to know what he's drivin' at now, not bein' the prince o' darkness, but I reckon he can wait till I do."

II

The next day Melissa turned her gray eyes with a vague, kindling interest toward the "volunteer barley-patch." Two or three points of white gleamed upon it in the afternoon sun. She mused upon them speculatively for awhile, and then consulted Lysander.

"I reckon it's the survey stakes, M'lissy," he said kindly. "Forrester's dividin' it up, as he said. I wouldn't say nothin' 'bout it to yer maw, 'f I was you; it'll only rile her up."

Melissa looked at the field in a quiet, dispassionate way.

"The land's his'n, ain't it, Lysander?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, the land's his'n, an' a good part o' the cañon, too, – all but a little that b'longs to yer maw. But the hull thing used to be hern; quite a spell back, though."

Lysander was hauling stones from a knoll near the house, and dumping them on the edge of the cañon, – a leisurely process, carried on by means of a sled, of unmistakable home manufacture, drawn by one of the dun-colored mules. Melissa was helping him in a desultory, intermittent fashion. There was a very friendly understanding between these two peace-loving members of the family.

The young girl carried two or three speckled granite boulders and dropped them into the rude vehicle, and then sat down on the edge of it meditatively. The dark rim of her hat made a background for her head with its little billows of richly tinted hair. Exertion had brought a faint transitory pink to her fair, freckled face.

"Did Colonel Forrester steal the land and water from mother, Lysander?" she asked, with the calm, unreasoning candor of youth.