The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 28, 1904, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. us She s 1 and began ng & with a piece of flour sack Don’t tell any more if you don't « 1 the man, hearing his nd.” she answered motional intona- come to feel she 1 them no- h wha the other baby " ne night st on theg san Fr é . « & B o . y P B £ Ty th £ K o 1 } e 1 d her on ¥ gip of . hands ¥ 2 v e e Sy = ath open with ey f the whisky dov 1 her quickly. She sat up sunbonnet, and then Ea ghter have done that, but 1t c s e p, but Moreau pu trying to 7 I been took like that bet st tiredness. I'm all rig s to rise, stood on her fee he eled back on 1t € A Kness she whis kness! ' the baby woke up, fting up it ce, began a loud, vi 1 woman looked in e e man to the other. baby! she cried; ok do? Is that one goin' to go toc The baby right,” said Moreau. “De gir worry about that. All ( by sh ed, un- heeding nly beginning to wring hands It'll die like Willie. 1t 5 4 it die? What's the mat- te s all right this morn- £ he answered, feeling s ere mysteries here he did ecause it don't get nothing t she cried desperately. “I've n ’ t. I'm too sick! I'm too s 1 it starve. Oh, my poor be o the wild, weak tears of e n, her sobs mingling with the ne nt yells of the hungry baby. ked at each other, g to understand m. The enfeebled condition it impossible for hild. It was a pre- r which even the resource- of Fletcher had no remedy. back his cap, and, scratch- at the front of his head, his mate with solemn per- shed wly ked at pl while the cabin echoed to sounds of misery unlike any that had ever before resounded within its peace- n—we get anything?” sald M n—"any—any—sort of 1« er—er any sort of stuff for it to eat?” Eat?” exclaimed Fletcher “how can scorn- fu it eat? It hasn't a “How would it do if Fletcher went in- to Hangtown and brought the doctor?” suggested Moreau, roothingly. “It'll s b ctor.” The woman shook her head. “A goat/’ she sobbed, the menace to her offspring having given her a ficti- tious courage. “If you could get a goat.” “A goat!” The two men looked at each other, horror-stricken at the magnitude of the suggestion. “She might as well ask us to get an elephant,” muttered Fletcher morosely. “There’s not a goat nearer than San Francisco,” “And it would take us two weeks anyway to get one up from there and across the mountains from Sacramen- to,” said Moreau. “By the time you got it here it'd be the most expensive goat you ever bucked up against,” said his partner disdainfully. “A cow!” exclaimed Moreau. Lucy, would a cow do?” “A ecow!” came the muffled answer; “oh, 1t don’t need a whole cow.” “But a cow would do? If I could get a cow the baby could be fed on the milk, couldn’'t it?" “Oh, yes; it 'ud do first rate.” “Very well, I'll get a cow. Don't you bother. any more; I'll have a cow here by to-morrow noon. The baby’ll have to hold out till then, for, not having a decent horse, I can’t get it here any sooner.” “And where do you calk’late to get a cow?” demanded Fletcher; “cows ain’t much more common than goats round these parts.” “On the Porter ranch. It's twelve miles off. I can go in to-night, rest there a bit, and by noon be here with the cow.” “And is that baby goin’ to yell like this from now till to-morrow noon? You might’s well hdve a mountain lien tied up in the bunk.” The difficulty was indeed only half solved. The infant's lusty cries were unabated. The miserable mother, with tear-drenched face and quivering chin, sat up in the bunk and tried to rise and “Say, twenty-four hours, but he's a good g0 to it, but was restrained by Mo- reau’s hand on her shoulder. “You stay here and I'll get it,” he said, then crossed to the other bunk, and gingerly lifted with his huge, hairy hands the shrieking bundle, from which protruded two tiny, red fists, jerking and clawing about, and carried it to its mother. Her practiced hand hushed it for a moment, but its pangs were be- yond temporary alleviation, and its cries soon broke forth. “If I get up and mix it some flour and water,” she said, feebly attempting to rise. “What's the matter with us doing that?” queried Moreau. “How do you do 1t? Just give us the proportions and we'll dish it up as if we were born to gy Under her direction he put flour in one of the dippers, and handed Fletch- er a tin cup with the order to fill it with water at the spring. Both men were deeply interested, and Fletcher rushed baek from the spring with a dripping cup, as if fearful that the infant would die unless the work of feeding was promptly begun. “Now go on,” sald Moreau, armed with the dipper and a tin teaspoon; “what’s next?” “‘Sugar,” she said; “if you put a touch of sugar in it tastes better to them.” “Ilere, sugar. Hand it over quick. Now, there we are. How do you mix ‘em, Lucy?” She gave the directions, while the men carefully followed, compounding a white, milky-looking liquid. The cur- cial moment came when they had to feed this to the crimsom and convul- sively screaming baby. To forward matters better they moved two boxes to the doorway, where the glow of sunset streamed in, and seated themselves, Fletcher ‘ with the dipper and spoon, Moreau with the baby. Both heads were lowered, both faces eagerly earnest when the first spoonful was administered. It was a tense moment till the tip of the spoon was Inserted between the infant's lips. Her puckered face took on a look of rather annoyed surprise; she caught at it, and then, with an audible smack, slowly drew in the counterfeit. The men looked at each other with heated triumph. “Takes it like a little man, doesn't she?” gaid Moreau proudly. ‘She.wasn't hungry,” sald Fletcher. “Oh-h, no! Listen to her smack.” “Here, hold up the dipper. Don't keep her waiting when she’s so blamed hungry.” “You're spilling half of it. You're getting it on her clothes.” “Well, she don’'t want to eat any faster. That’s the way she likes to eat —just slowly. suck it out of the .spoon. Take your time, old girl, even if you don’t swallow it all.” “My! don’t she take it down nice! Look alive there, it's running outer the corner of her mouth.” “Give us that bit of flour sack be- hina you. We ought to have put some- thing round her neck.” The baby, its round eyes intent, one small red fist still fanning the air, sucked noisily at the tip of the spoon. The mother, sitting up on the bunk in the background, watcked it with craned neck and jealous eye. Finally, when the meal was over, it was triumphantly handed back to her, sticky from end to end but sleepy and satisfied. A few hours later, in the star-sown darkness of the early night, Moreau started on his twelve-mile walk to the Porter ranch. The next morning, some time before midday, he reappeared, red and perspiring, but proudly leading by a rope a lean and dejected-looking cow. The problem of the baby’'s nutriment was now satisfactorily solved. The cow proved eminently fitted for the purpose of its purchase, and though the two miners had several unsuccess- ful bouts in learning to milk it, the handy Fletcher soon overcame this difficulty, and the stock of the cabin was augmented by fresh milk. ‘The baby throve upon this nourish- ment. Its cries no longer disturbed the serenity of the canyon. It slept and ate most of the time, but kindly consented to keep awake in the late afternoon and be gentle and patient when the men charily passed it from hand to hand during the rest before supper. Fletcher regarded it tolerantly as an object of amusement. But Moreau, es- pecially since the feeding episode, had developed a deep, delighted affection for it. Its helplessness appealed to all that was tender in him, and the first faint indications of a tiny formed char- acter were miraculous to his fascinated and wondering observation. He was secretly ashamed of letting the sneer- ingly indifferent Fletcher guess his sud- den attachment, and made foolish ex- cuses to account for the trips to the cabin which frequently interrupted his morning’s work in the stream bed. Lucy’'s recovery was slow. The col- lapse from which she suffered was as much mental as physical. The anguish ‘of the last two years had preyed on the bruised spirit as the hardship of. reau, one of his own. the journey had broken the feeble body. No particular form of ailment devel- oped in her, Lut she lay for days silent and almost motionless on the bunk, too feeble to move or to speak beyond short sentences. The men watched an‘d tended her, Moreau with clumsy solici- tude, Fletcher dutifully, but more through fear of his powerful mate than especial interest in Lucy as a woman or a human being. In his heart he still violer Moreau’s action in acquiring parting with the v able hor: Had she possessed any of the attractions of the human female, could have ur derstood and pro conda ly resented her and hly as she now was, plain, helpless, unable even to cook for them, demand- ing care which to from their w and lessened their profits, his resent- ment grew instead of diminishing. reau saw nothing of this, for Fl had long ago read the simple secr that generous but impractical natu and knew too much to bring down ¢ himself wrath which, once aroused, he felt Would be implacable. At the end of two weeks Lucy to show signs of improvement. The fragrant air that blew through the cabin, the soothing silence of the foot- hills, broken only by the dro tle of the river or the sad murr of the great pine, began its work of healing. The autumn was late that year. The days were still warm and dreamily brilliant, especially in the lit- tle canyon, where the sun drew the aro- matic odors from the pines till at mid- day they exhaled a hea pungent fragrance like incense rising to the worship of some sylvan god. Sometimes now, on warm afternoons, Lucy crept out and sat at the root of the pine where she had found her first place of refuge. There her dulled eyes began to note the beauties that sur- rounded her, the pines mounting dark rows on the slopes, the glimpses of chaste, white summits far abov against the blue. Her | breathe deep of the revivifying af an and untainted as the water in the little spring at her feet. The peace of it all entered her soul. Something in her for- began bade her to look back on the terrible past. A new life was here, and her youth rose up and whispered that it was not yet dead. ‘ During the period of her illness Mo- reau had begun to see both himself and the cabin through feminine ey Dis- crepancies revealed tnemselves. ¢ He wanted many things heretofor gard- ed as luxuries. From the tin cup of the table service to the towels made of ipped “flour sacks, his domestic ar- rangements seemed ean and inade- quate. Th were all right for two prospectors, but not fitting for a wo- man and child. Lucy’s illness also re- vealed wants in her equipment t struck him as piteous. Her only hoo were the ones he had seen her in on the morning after her arrival. She had no shawl or covering for cold weather. The baby’'s clothes were a few torn pieces of calico and flannel. Moreau had washed these many times himself, doing them in an old flour sack, which was attached to an aspen on the deepest parts of the current. Here it remained for two days. the percolatin water cleansing its contents as no washboard cpuld. One evening, smoking under the pine, he acquainted Fletcher with a d he had been some days fromulat This was that Fletcher should ride into Hangtown the next ddy and not only replenish the commissariat, but buy all things needful for Lucy and the baby. up gn Spotty was now alse recovered, and, theugh hardly a mettlesome steed, was at least a useful pack horse. But the numerous list of articles suggested by Moreau would have weighted Spotty to the ground. So Fletcher was commis- sioned to baiy a pack burro, and upon it to bring all needful food stuffs for the cabin and the habiliments for Lucy and the baby. “She’s got no shoes. You want to buy her some shoes, one useful pair and one cy pair with heels.” “What size do I git? I ain’t never bought shoes for a woman before.” This was a poser, and both men cog- itated till Moreau suggested leaving it to the shoe dealer, who should be told that Lucy was a woman of average size. But her feet ain't.” said Fletcher spitefully, never having been able to forgive Lucy her lack of beuaty. “Never mind; you'll have to make a bluff at it. Get the best you can. Then 1 want a shawl for her. It'll be cold soon, and she’s got nothing to keep her warm.” “What kind of a shawl? I don't know no more about shawls than I do about shoes.” “A pink crochet shawl,” said Moreau slowly, and with evident sheepish re- luctance at having to make this exhibi- tion of unexpected knowledge. “And what's that: I dunno what crochet is.” “I den't, either”—and then, with des- perate courage—"well, anyway, that's what she said she’d like. I asked her yesterday and she said that. You go into the store and ask for it. That'll be enough.” Fletcher grunted. “And then I want some toys for the kid. Anything you can get that seems the right kind. She’s a girl, so you don’t want a drum, or soldiers, or guns, or things of that kind. Get a doll if you can, and a musical box, or any- thing tasty and’ that's likely to catch a baby's eye.” “Why, she can't hardly see yet. She's ke a blind kitten. Lucy told me her- self yesterday she were only six weeks old.” “Never you mind. She's a smart kid; knows more now than most bables at six months. You might get a rattle— a nice one with bells; she might faney that.” “Silver or gold?” sneered Fletcher, whom this conversation was making meditative. “The best you can get. Don't stint yourself for money; everything of the best. Then clothes for her; she is going to be as well dressed as any baby In California. I take it you'd better go to Mrs. Wingate, at the Eldorado Hotel, and get her to make you out a list; then g0 to the store and buy the list right down."” “Seems to me you'll want a pack train, not a burro, to carry it all.” “Well, if you can’t get everything on Spotty and one burro, buy two. I'll give you a sack of dust and you can spend it all.” Fletcher was silent after this, and as he lay rolled in his blanket that night he looked at the stars for many hours, thinking. Early in the morning he departed on the now brisk and rejuvenated Spotty. Besides his instructions he carried one of Moreau’s buckskin sacks, roughly es- timated to contain twelve hundred dol- lars’ worth of dust, and, he told Mo- He was due to return the next morning. With a short word of forew with the single Mexican spur he and darted away down the roug n out Moreau watched him ou The day passe deces The marked their cot clean-up, Lue the evidences ot in the child To-day fine y the rusty tin coming of Fl € » h had wanted to surj e 1 only told tcher had supplies. B o signs nkly anxious and as they sat by 4 as dinner table, ssed. that id he have much dust oppre the box answ one sack of mine and one of his They're equal to about twelve lollars each.” startled look at and a little open, fear under the ated the box t down the Iid quietly, a an of qu!l realize what Moreau sh little pale. He was nota r mind, and he hard could had happened. It wa cy’s voice that explained it as she sald “He" did It I was out In the morning. 1 the stream to that pool to things at sun He took up. emar Fletcher had gone sil out leaving a trac with him the money. It was a startling situation for Moreau From comparat fMluence he suddenly without a r an ot dust. This, had h N only h ok would not have aff his free and jov its, but now the 4 he had so « 3 > possession of loomed bef their true light of a heavy ity. Lucy. as far as supp went, was still a long way off state of health where that w possible. And at the thought ing her forth, even though cured of her infirmities, Moreau experi- enced a sensation of depression. He felt that the cabin would be unbearably lonely when she and the baby were gone. That night under the pine he turned over the situation in his mind. The conclusion he arrived at was that there was nothing better to be done than stay by the stream bed and work it for all it was worth. Lucy would continue to improve in the fine air and the child was thriving. If the snows would hold off till late, as they had dome in the open winter of ‘50, he could amass a fair share of dust before it would be necessary to move Lucy and the baby to the superfor accommodations of Hangtown or Sacramento. It was now October. In November one might ex- pect the first snows. He must do a good deal in the next six weeks. This he started to do. The next day he spent in raising a brush shed against the back of the cabin where the chimney would offer warmth on cold nights. Into this he moved such few belongings as he had retained after Lucy and the baby had taken possession of the cabin. Then the working of the stream bed went on with renewed vigor. The water was low, hardly more than a thread, render- ing the washing of the dirt harder labor than during the earlier summer when the water courses were still full. But he tolled mightily, rejoicing In the splendor of his man’s work, not with the same knightly freedom that he felt when he had been that king of men, the miner with his pick on his shoulder and all the world before him. but with the soberer joy of the man into whose life others have entered to lay hold upon it with light, clinging hands. Against the complete and perfect loneliness of his life the woman and child, who had started up from no- where, stood out as flgures of vital significance. They had grown closer to him in that one month's isolation than they would have done in a year of city life. The child became the object of his secret but deep devotion. He had been ashamed to let Fletcher see it Now that Fletcher was gone, Moreau often stole up from his work in the creek t look at it as it sleep In a box by the open door. It was as fresh as a rose- bud, its skin clean :nd satiny, its tiny hands, crumpled, white and pink, like the petals of flowers. The big man leaned on his shovel to watch it ador- ingly. The miracle of its growth beauty never lost its wonder for him. Lucy, too, grew and bloomed in these quiet autumn days. Never talkative she begcame less laconic after the de- partu of Fléteher. She seemed re- lieved by his absence. Moreau begun to understand, as he saw her daily in- crease in freshness and youthful charm, that she was as young In na- ture as she was in years. Points of character that were touchingly child- ish appeared in her. Her casting of all responsibility on him was as absolute in