The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 20, 1904, Page 3

¥.ith redoubled force. She felt that the flood of tears would begin again. don’t go,” she said, with the im- ney of old friendshi member it. andma, be- 4 because fami alway asked ri ng with extinguished € of bread she was Sierra a lot of the ued, “and then I'm of time. I come ims. I locate a Sierra, and I come That's my busi- “What's posa sudde: last and most pertinent question with the dry glibness of an interviewer. 7 name? Great Scott, you don’t he threw back his head and sonorous laugh filled the room. s great, you and I sitting here together over supper as If we'd grown up together in the same nursery, and t know what my name is. It's Gamaliel Barron. Do you like 1t?* “Yes,” sald Mariposa, gravely, “it's a 3 y nice name.” d you think =o. I can’t say tached to the front end of ble name. I haven't the the gentleman was, or but he's In the Bible name? asked Mari- least id ul sat at his feet,” sald Mariposa; “he was & great teacher.” “Well, I'm afraid his namesake isn't much like I never taught any- body anj g, and certainly no one ver sat at my feet, and I'd hate 1t if 4 as another pause, while Bar- inued his supper with wun- He had finished the cold now spreading jam on butter and eating it, with mouthfuls of tea. Though he ly, as one accustomed to take lone, he ate like a gentle- She found herself regarding him s curiosity, faintly won- nanner of man he was. he met her eyes and said: I very comfortable here. let the first glimpse discourage and the boys are ¥ Id, but they’re all right when u come to know them better, and grandma’s fine. There's not many n in San Francisco to match old ra Garcia. She's the true kind.” “What a pity her son died!” said Mariposa. He raised his head instantly and an expression of pain passed over his face. “You're right, there,” he said in a Jow voice. “That was one of the hard- est things that ever happened. If there's 2 God I'd like to know why he Jet it happen. Juan Garcia was the salt of the earth—a great man. He was the best son, the best husband and the best friend I ever knew. And he was killed offhand, for no reason, by an un- necessary accident, leaving these poor, helpless creatures this way.” He made a gesture with his head to- ward the door. k v Lim well?” said Mariposa, 7 ‘eves looked into hers very my best friend,” he an- he best friend any man ever swered; had in the The girl saw he was moved. “The people we love, and depend on, and live for ways die,” she said come up. They don’t their places, but they fill up t ex- and erious proposi- nd poor Elsie > them than she bronco. But right. Don’t you X re all right.” ui to return to the rem- ser when his eyes fell icd paper, ,which had been side of the table. %) “we forget the d; wouldn’t you The paper had her at the best don’t ming, T'll make me ups are my the when he h a crash on 4, her face , and she sat »d man with gasped ; “why every- the paper on the sorry; T didn’t know I didn't know he 1, aimost with a , he was my t strain of the whelming depression tely u hter suddenl ed that Elsie undoubtedly ac- ths man be- te to be exposed nding star to him, t water n a pitcher was the r He ized the washsta began to t timidly with his ed by pouring a but he mi chill rent head in rillets over a sal up. The man 3 b > her, anxiously re- her, the pitcher held ready for application. She pushed it an icy hand ght she gasped “You'd better go. And—and—if I said vou understand, I hat T was saying. I Mr. Shackleton was a v father’'s. He's been very It gave me an awful down the pitcher and went. He was overcome with pity for the brok eature, and furious with the shock he had given her. he had uttered had made ipression on him at first. It was afterward, while he v in the silence of his ¢ n, th: they recurred to im with mcre significance. For space he thought of the remark and explanation of it with some w But before he settled to sleep, he had pushed the matter from his mind, set- ting it down as the meaningless utter- ance of an hysterical woman. CHAPTER XL BREAKS IN THE RAIN. ime to hate because would hinder me, not so simple 1 nish enmity.”” —Dickinson. For two days after her hysterical out- burst Mariposa kept her room, sick in body and mind. The quick succession of nerve-shattering events, ending with the death of Shackleton, seemed to stun her. She lay on the sofa, white and motionless, irresponsive ‘even to the summons of the boys, who drummed cheerfully on ber door as they came home from school. Fortunately for her, solitude was as difficult to find in that slipshod men- age as method or order. When the boys were at school, young Mrs. Garcia, in the disarray that attended the ac- complishment of her household tasks, mounted to her first-floor boarder and regaled her with mingled accounts of past splendors and present miseries. Mrs. Garcia spoke freely of her hus- band and the afluence with which he had surrounded her. The listener, look- ing at the faded, blond prettiness of her foolish face, wondered how the Juan Garcia that Gamaliel Barron had described could have loved her. Mari- posa had yet to learn that nature mates the strong men of the world to the fee- ble women, in an effort to maintain an equilibrium. Once or twice the old senora came upstairs, carrying some dainty in a covered dish. She had been born at Monterey, and had come to San Fran- cisco as a bride in the late fifties, but had never learned English, speaking the sonorous Spanish of her girlhood to every one she met, whether it was understood or not. Even in the com- plete wreck of fortune and position, in which Mariposa saw her, she was a fine example of the highest class of Spanish Californian, that once brilliant and picturesque race, careless, simple, lazy, happy, lords of a kingdom whose value they never guessed, possessors of limitless acres on which thelr cattle grazed. The day after Shackleton's death Mrs. Willers appeared, still aghast at the suddenness of the castatrophe. Mariposa did not know that a few days previously, Shackleton had ac- THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. e ———— quainted the newspaper woman with his intention of sending her to Paris with Miss Moreau, the post of corre- spondent to The Trumpet being as- signed to her. It had been the cumlmi- nating point of Mrs. Willers’ life strug- gle. Now all that lay shattered. Be it said to her credit her disappointment was more for the girl than for herself. She knew that Shackleton had made no definite arrangements for the starting of Mariposa on her way. All had been in statu quo, attending on the daugh- ter's recovery from her mother’'s loss. Now death had stepped in and forever closed the door upon these hopes. Mrs. Willers found Mariposa strange- Iy apathetic. She had tried to cheer her and«then d seen, to her amaze- nt, that the girl showed little disap- pointmen: That the sudden biow had upset her was obvious. She undoubted- looked ill. But the wrenching from r hand of liberty, independence, pos- sibilities of fame, seemed to affect her little. She listened in silence to Mrs. Willers’ account of the Bonanza's King's death. As an “inside writer” on The Trumpet the newspaper woman had heard every detail of the tragic event discussed threadbare in the per- turbed office. Shackleton had\ been found, as the paper stated, sittinz at his desk In the library at Menlo Park. He had been writing letters when death called him. His wife had come in late at night and found him thus, leaning on the desk as if tired. It was an an- eurism, the doctors said. The heart had been diseased for years. No one, however, had had any idea of Poor Shackleton was completely pros- trated. It was not newspaper talk that she was in a state of collapse. ugh to coilapse any sald Mrs. Willers, with a 2 of her head, “to come our husband sitting up- at sk stone dead. And a good hus- 0" It would have given me a shock t6 have found Willers that way, Mrs. and even an obituary notice in the of which he was p etor could have called Willers a good hus- Two days' rest restored Mariposa to some sort of balance. She still felt weak and stunned in heart and brain. The lack of interest she had shown to Mre. Willers had beén - the outward sign of this internal benumbed condi- tion. But as she slowly dressed on the morning of the third day, she felt a slight ripple of returning life, a thaw- ing of these congealed faculties. She heard the quick, decisive. step of Bar- ron in the hallway outside, and then its stoppage at her door, and his call through the crack, “How are you this morning? Better?"” “Much,” she answered; “I'm getting up. “First-rate. Couldn't do better. et a move on and go out. It's a day that would put life into a mummy. I'd take you out myself, but I've got to go downtown and lasso one of my vic- tims. Then he clattered down the stairs. Mariposa had not seen him since their supper together. Every morning he had stopped and called a greeting of some sort through the door. She shrank from meeting him again. The extraordinary remark she had made to him haunted her. The only thing that appeased her was the memory ‘of his face, In which there was no consclous- ness of the meaning of her words, only consternation and amaze at the effect his news had produced. It was, indeed, a wonderful day. Through her parted curtains she saw detalls of the splendor in the bits of turquoise sky between the houses, and the vivid greens of the rain-washed gardens. When the sun was well up, and the opened windows let in deliclous earth scents, she put on her hat and jacket and went out, turning her steps to that high spine of the city along the crest of which California street runs. Has any place been found where there are finer days than those San Francisco can show in winter? “The breaks in the rain,” old Californians call them. It is the rain that gives them their glory, for the whole world has been washed clean and gleams like an agate beneath a wave. The skies re- flect this clearness of tint. There are no clouds. The whole arch is a rich blue, fading at the horizon to a thin, pale transparency. The landscape is painted with & few washes of fresh primary colors, each one deep, but lim- pid, like the tints In the heart of a gem. And in this crystalline purity of atmosphere efery line is cut with un- faltering distinctness. There is no faintness, no breath of haze, orgfor- gotten film of fog. Nature seems even jealous of the smcke wreaths that rise from the city to blur the beauty of the mighty picture, and the gray spirals are hurriedly dispersed. Mariposa walked slowly, ascerding by a zigzag course from street to street, idly looking at the houses and gardens as she passed. People of con- sideration had for some time been on the move from South Park to this side of town. The streets through which the young girl’s course led her were now the gathering place .of the city's successful citizens. On , the heights above them, the new millionaires were raising palaces, which they were emu- lating on the escending slopes. Great houses reared themselves cn every sun- ny corner. The architecture of the bay- windowed mansion with the two lions sleeping on the front steps had sup- planted that of the dignified, plastered brick fronts, with the long lines of win- dows opening on wrought-iron bal- conies. These huge wooden edifices housed the wealth and fashion of the city. Mariposa paused and £tocd with knit brows, looking down from a vantage- point on the glittering curve of green- house and the velvet lewns ~of - Jake Shackleton’s town ho ; there was no sign of life or occupation about - it. Curtains of lace veiled its innumer- able windows. Only in the angle of lawn and garden’ that abutted on the intersection of two streets, a man, in shirt-sleeves, s was cutting calla s from the ‘hefige that'topped the 1 high stone wall which rese fromithe sidewalk. Finally, where California street runs between on the crest of the hill, its palaces, the girl paused and looked about her. The great buildings were new, and stood, vast, awe-compelling monuments to Califdrnia’s material glory. Their owners were still trying to make themselves comfortable in them. Perched high above the city, in these many-windowed aeries, they could look down on the town they had seen grow from a village in the days when they, too, had been young, poor and struggling. What memories must have crowded their minds as they thought of the San Francisco they had first seen, and the San Francisco they saw now; of themselves as they had been then, and as they were now! Maripcsa leaned against a convenient wall top and looked down. The city lay clear-edged and gray in the cup made by .the encircling hills. It had not yet thrown out feelers toward the Mission hills, and they rose above the varied sweep of roof and chimney, in undu- lating greenness, flecked here and there by the white dot of a cottage. The gir- dle of the bay shone sapphire-blue on this day of still sunshine. 'From its farther side other hills were revealed, each peak and shoulder clear cut against its mneighbor and defining themselves in a crumpl~d, cobalt line agalin:’ the faint sky. Over all Mount Diavolo rose, a purple point, pricking up above the green of newly grassed hills, about whose feet hung a white fringe of little towns. Turning her eyes again on the de- scending walls and roofs, the watcher saw a long cortege passing soberly be- tween the gray house-fronts on a street a few blocks below her. As she looked the boom of solemn music rose to her. It w funeral, and one of unusual length, she thought, as her eyes caught the low line of carriages far back through breaks in the houses. Presently, in the opening where two streets crossed, the hearse came into view, black and gloomy, with its nod- ding tufts of feathers and somberly caparisoned horses. Men walked be- hind it, and the measured music swelled lo\udet, melancholy and yet in- spiring. Suddenly she realized whose it was. The rich man was going splendidly to rest. “My father!” she whisperdd to her- self. “My father! How strange! how strange!” The cortege passed on, the swelling grandiosely and then dying down into fitful snatches of sweetness. The long line of carriages moved slow- ly forward, at a crawling foot-pace. The daughter leaned on the coping of the wall, watching this Jast passage through the city of the father she had known so slightly and toward whom she felt a bitter and silent resentment. She watched the nodding plumes till they were out cf sight. How strangely death had drawn together the three thdat “life had separated! In six months the woman and two men, tled together by a twist of the hand of fate, had been summoned, one after the into the darkn yond. Would they meot there? Maripcsa shuddered and turned away. The black plumes had disappeared, but the music still boomed fitfully in measured majesty. The whistles were blowing for mid- day when she retraced her steps to the Garcia house. As she mounted the stairs to the front door she became aware that there were several people grouped on the balcony, their forms dimly visible through the grimy glass and behind the rampart of long- stemmed geraniums, that grew there in straggling neglect. The opening of the outer door let her in on them. She started and slightly changed color when she saw that one of the figures was that of Gamaliel Barron. He was sitting on the arm of a dilapidated rocker, frowningly staring at Benito, the younger Garcia boy, against whom, it appeared, a charge of some moment had just been hrought. The case was being placed before Barron, who evi- dently acted as judge, by a person Mariposa had not seen before—a tall, thin young man of some thirty years, with a stoop In the shoulders, a shock of fine black hair, and a pair of very soft and beautiful blue eyes. They were #o preoccupied in the matter before them that no effort was made to introduce the stranger to Mar- iposa, though Barron offered her his armchalr, retiring to a seat on the bal- cony railing, whence he loomed darkly severe, from among the strag- gling geraniums. Benlto, in his sailor collar and wispy curls, maintained an air of smiling innocence, but Miguel, the elder boy, who was an interested witness, bore evidence of uneasiness of mind in the strained attention of the face turned toward Barron. Mariposa paused, her hand on the back of the rocking-chair. Benite had already inserted himself into her affections. She looked from one te the other to ascertain his offense Both men were regarding the culprit, Barron with frowning disapproval, the other with eyes full of amuse- ment. It was he whe proceeded to state the case against the accused: “She leaned over the ralling and said to me, ‘Them little boys will be sick if they eat that crab. crab and what little boys quite innocently, and she answered, “Them little boys in the vacant lot Then I turned and saw Benito and Miguel squatting in the grass among the tomato cans and fragments of the Gaily press, with a crab about as big as a cart-wheel.” “We found it there,” “It was just lying there.” * ‘If they eat t crab, continued, ‘they’ll be sick. It ain't good. I threw it out myself. And T've been hollerin’ to them to stop, and that little one with the curls, just turned round on me and says, “Oh, you go to the devil!” " " The complainant paused, looked at Mariposa with an eye in which she saw laughter dancing, and sa “That’s rather a startling wi gentleman to speak to a lady, it2?” Though the language used by the accused was hard to associate with his sald Benito. the lady cherubic appearance, and had some- W shocked Mariposa's affection, she could hardly suppress a smile. Eenito grinning, as if with pride at the prowess he had shown in the encoun- ter with the strange female, looked at his brother and emitted an explosive Miguel, however, had more clear guessed the seriousness of the offense, and looked uneasy. Barron was regarding the younger boy with unmoved and angry gravity. Mari- posa saw that the man was not in the Jeast inclined to treat the matter hu- morously. be d you really he said. “Well,” said .Benito, swaying his hody from side to side, and fastening knife he had carelessly laugh. say that, Benito?" hig eves on a extracted from his pocket, “I didn't see what she had to do with that crab. It was all alone in the vacant lot. How was we to know it was her crab?” “But.,”” to Miguel, “she told you not to, touch it, that it was bad, didn't sHe?” “Yes,” returned the elder boy, ex- ceedingly uncomfortable. ““She come and leaned over the railing and hol- Iered at us not to touch tnat i1t was bad and it 'ud make us sick. Then I stopped 'cause I didn't wamt to get sick. But Ben wouldn't, and she hol- lered again, and then he told her to go to the devil, and Mr. Pierpont came along just then, and she told him, and Ben got skairt and sto There was a moment’s silence. The younger boy continued to smile and finger his knife, but it was evident he was not so easy in his mind. The stranger, now with difficulty restrain- ing his laughter, turned again to Mar- ifposa and said: “If the lady had been in any way aggressive on the young gentleman's comfort or convenience, it would not have been exactly justifiable, but com- prehensible. But when you consider that her sole desire was to save him from eating something that would make him sick, then you begin to real- ize the seriousness of the offense. Oh, Benito, you're in a bad way, I'm a id “I ain’t nothing of the kind,” sald Benito, smiling and showing his dim- ples. “I ain’t done nothing more than Miguel.” “I didn’t tell her to go to the devil,” exclaimed Miguel, in a loud, combat- ive voice. “’Cause I said it first,” replied his brother calmly. “You didn’t have no time.” “Well, Benito,” said Barron, “I've got no use for you when you behave that way. There’s no excuse for it. You've used the worst kind of lan- guage to a lady who was trying to do a decent thing. I won't take you this afternoon.” The thange on Benito's face was sudden and piteous. The smile was frozen on his lips, he turned crimson, and said stammeringly, evidently hardly believing his ears: “To see the balloon? Oh, Uncle Gam, you promised it for a week. Oh, I'd rather see the balloon than any- thing. Oh, Uncle Gam!” “There’s no use talking; I won't take a boy who behaves that way. I'm angry with you.” The man was absolutely grave and, Mariposa saw, spoke the truth when he said he was angry. The boy was about to plead, when probably a knowledge of the hopelessness of such a course silenced him. With a flushed face, he stood before the tribunal fighting with his tears, proud and lent. When he could no longer con- trol them he turned and rushed Into the house, his bursting sobs issuing from the hallway. Miguel charged after him. “Oh, poor little fellow!" cried Mar- iposa; ow could you? Take him to see the balloon; do, please.” Barron made no reply, sitting on the ralling, frowning and abstrgcted. She turned her eyes on the other man. He ‘was still smiling. “Barron’s bringing up the beys,” he said, “and he takes it hard.” “If I didn’t,” sald the man from the railing, “who would? Heaven knows I don’t wapt to disappeint the peor little cuss, but somebody’s got te try and keep him in order.” “Can’t you punish him some other way? He’s been talking about seeing the balloon for days.” “I wish to goodness I'd somebody to help me,” said the judge; moodily “I'm not up to this sort of work. It makes me feel the meanest thing that walks to get up and punish a boy for things that are just what I did when I was the same age. But what's a man to do? I can't see those children 20 to the devil." The howls of Benito had been rising loudly from the house for some min- utes. They now suffered a sudden check; there was a quick step In the hall and Mrs. Garcia appeared in the doorway, red and angry. Benito was at her side, eating a large siice of cake. “What d've Gam Barron,” she said in a h aking my ou got ne in to tease tie, helpless protect “T wasn't t swered quie use you to go some- where else, I k And so you put it off on that woman and the crab. ¥ is, anyway; I kno my ba oking his hair “1l take you to jerked himself away from the maternal hand and said, with his mouth full of cake “I don’t want go with you; I want to go with Uncle Gam. He lets me ride in the goat-cart and buy pea- nuts.” “You'll go with me,"” with asperity, to said Mrs. Gar- or you'll not go at “I don’t want to go with vou,” sald Benito, beginning to grow clamorous; “I dom’t have fun when I go with you." “You'll go with me, or stay home shut up in the cupboard all after- tearful and en- r caugh s hand bent with set n a tense gr s and sald “Do you in the kitcl want to stay all afternoon think you'r goin’ to go “You mean, u talk g0 with me this after- t balioon If I have to way. Yes, you wi " roared Benito, now en- 1 control; and In his his rven- much for Mrs. Gar- s a mother. She took her nd boxed Benito smartly on the e Then for a mo- nt there was Ben kicked, roaring tily whil his mother cuffed. he din bat was loud on the balcony ral of the geranium pots wer: d ov It remained on to descend from the railing drag the boy away from his wrathful parent. ‘Here, stop kicking your mother,” hat won't deo he said peremptor at all.” “Then make her stop slapping me,™ howled Benito. “Ain’t I got a ri to kick back? I guess you'd kic right if you were slapped that wa “All righ said his mother the doorway, “next time me, Benito Garcia, to be taken circus or the fair, you'll find o you've barked up the wrong tre “I don’t care,” responded Bénito de- flantly; “grandma or Uncle Gam w - Five minutes after her irate with- Iy: you come to the that drawal she reappeared, calm, and smiling, the memory of her recent combat showing only In her height- ened color, and announced that lunch was ready. At lunch the stranger was intro- duced to Mariposa, and she learned that he was Isaac Plerpont, a singing teacher living in-the house. CHAPTER XIL » DRIFT AND CROSSCUT. “A living dog !s better than a dead lom."=—e Ecclesiastes. On the evening of the day when Jake Shackleton went to his account Essex had walked slowly to Bertrand's rotisserie, his head drooped, the even= ing paper in his hand. Two hours before the cries of the newsboys announcing the sudden de- mise of his chief had struck on his ear, for the first moment freezing himy into motionless amazement. Standing under a lamp, he had read the short report, then hurried down to the office of The Trumpet. There in the turmoi! and hubbub which marks the first portentous movement of the great daily making ready to go to press, he had heard fuller details. The office was in an uprear, shaken to its foundation by the start] news, every man and woman ready with a speculation or a rumor as to the ulti- mate fate of The Trumpet, on which thelr own little fates hung. At his table in the far corner of Bertrand's he mused over the various reports he had heard. The death of Shackleton would undoubtedly throw the present make-up of The Trumpet out of gear. Its sale would be inevi- table. From what he had heard of him, Win Shackleton would be quits incapable of taking his father's place as proprietor and manager of the paper that Jake Shackleton, the man of brain and initiative, was transform« ing into a powerful organ of public opinion. And in the general weeding out of men which would unquestion- ably occur, why should not Bdrry Es- sex mount to a top place? The Trumpet had always paid - its capable men large salaries. It was worth while considering. Essex had now decided io remain in San Francis- co, at least throughout the winter. The climate pleased him: the cosme- politan atmosphere of the remote, picturesque city continued to exert its charm. The very duck he was now eating, far beyond his purse in any other American ecity, was induce- ment to remain. But the real one was the woman, all the more desperately desired because denied him. Her in- dignation had net repelled him, but he saw it would mean a long weoing. Once In his own room, he kindled the fire and drew toward him a pile