Strange to say, the announcement of the new and startling dogma had
apparently no disturbing effect upon Aunt Rebecca. On the contrary,
the old woman seemed rather to enjoy the news.

"Reckin he oughter know all 'bout dat," she said. "He's done had three
wives, an' he ain't got rid o' dis one yit."

Judging from her chuckles and waggings of the head when she made this
remark, it might be imagined that Aunt Rebecca was rather proud of the
fact that her husband thought her capable of exhibiting a different
kind of diabolism every day in the week.

The leader of the indignant church-members was Susan Henry; a mulatto
woman of a very independent turn of mind. She prided herself that she
never worked in anybody's house but her own, and this immunity from
outside service gave her a certain pre-eminence among her sisters. Not
only did Susan share the general resentment with which the startling
statement of old Peter had been received, but she felt that its
promulgation had affected her position in the community. If every
woman was possessed by seven devils, then, in this respect, she was no
better nor worse than any of the others; and at this her proud heart
rebelled. If the preacher had said some women had eight devils and
others six, it would have been better. She might then have made a
mental arrangement in regard to her relative position which would have
somewhat consoled her. But now there was no chance for that. The words
of the preacher had equally debased all women.

A meeting of the disaffected church-members was held the next night at
Susan Henry's cabin, or rather in the little yard about it, for the
house was not large enough to hold the people who attended it. The
meeting was not regularly organized, but everybody said what he or she
had to say, and the result was a great deal of clamor, and a general
increase of indignation against Uncle Pete.

"Look h'yar!" cried Susan, at the end of some energetic remarks, "is
dar enny pusson h'yar who kin count up figgers?"

Inquiries on the subject ran through the crowd, and in a few moments
a black boy, about fourteen, was pushed forward as an expert in
arithmetic.

"Now, you Jim," said Susan, "you's been, to school, an' you kin count
up figgers. 'Cordin' ter de chu'ch books dar's forty-seben women
b'longin' to our meetin', an' ef each one ob dem dar has got seben
debbils in her, I jus' wants you ter tell me how many debbils come to
chu'ch ebery clear Sunday ter hear dat ole Uncle Pete preach."

This view of the case created a sensation, and much interest was shown
in the result of Jim's calculations, which were made by the aid of a
back of an old letter and a piece of pencil furnished by Susan. The
result was at last announced as three hundred and nineteen, which,
although not precisely correct, was near enough to satisfy the
company.

"Now, you jus' turn dat ober in you all's minds," said Susan. "More'n
free hundred debbils in chu'ch ebery Sunday, an' we women fotchin 'em.
Does anybody s'pose I's gwine ter b'lieve dat fool talk?"

A middle-aged man now lifted up his voice and said: "I's been thinkin'
ober dis h'yar matter and I's 'cluded dat p'r'aps de words ob de
preacher was used in a figgeratous form o' sense. P'r'aps de seben
debbils meant chillun."

These remarks were received with no favor by the assemblage.

"Oh, you git out!" cried Susan. "Your ole woman's got seben chillun,
shore 'nuf, an' I s'pec' dey's all debbils. But dem sent'ments don't
apply ter all de udder women h'yar, 'tic'larly ter dem dar young uns
wot ain't married yit."

This was good logic, but the feeling on the subject proved to be even
stronger, for the mothers in the company became so angry at their
children being considered devils that for a time there seemed to be
danger of an Amazonian attack on the unfortunate speaker. This was
averted, but a great deal of uproar now ensued, and it was the general
feeling that something ought to be done to show the deep-seated
resentment with which the horrible charge against the mothers and
sisters of the congregation had been met. Many violent propositions
were made, some of the younger men going so far as to offer to burn
down the church. It was finally agreed, quite unanimously, that old
Peter should be unceremoniously ousted from his place in the pulpit
which he had filled so many years.

As the week passed on, some of the older men of the congregation who
had friendly feelings toward their old companion and preacher talked
the matter over among themselves, and afterward, with many of their
fellow-members, succeeded at last in gaining the general consent that
Uncle Pete should be allowed a chance to explain himself, and give
his grounds and reasons for his astounding statement in regard to
womankind. If he could show biblical authority for this, of course
nothing more could be said. But if he could not, then he must get down
from the pulpit, and sit for the rest of his life on a back seat of
the church. This proposition met with the more favor, because even
those who were most indignant had an earnest curiosity to know what
the old man would say for himself.

During all this time of angry discussion, good old Peter was quietly
and calmly cutting and hauling wood on the Little Mountain. His mind
was in a condition of great comfort and peace, for not only had he
been able to rid himself, in his last sermon, of many of the hard
thoughts concerning women that had been gathering themselves together
for years, but his absence from home had given him a holiday from
the harassments of Aunt Rebecca's tongue, so that no new notions of
woman's culpability had risen within him. He had dismissed the subject
altogether, and had been thinking over a sermon regarding baptism,
which he thought he could make convincing to certain of the younger
members of his congregation.

He arrived at home very late on Saturday night, and retired to his
simple couch without knowing anything of the terrible storm which had
been gathering through the week, and which was to burst upon him on
the morrow. But the next morning, long before church time, he
received warning enough of what was going to happen. Individuals and
deputations gathered in and about his cabin--some to tell him all that
had been said and done; some to inform him what was expected of him;
some to stand about and look at him; some to scold; some to denounce;
but, alas! not one to encourage; nor one to call him "Brudder Pete,"
that Sunday appellation dear to his ears. But the old man possessed a
stubborn soul, not easily to be frightened.

"Wot I says in de pulpit," he remarked, "I'll 'splain in de pulpit,
an' you all ud better git 'long to de chu'ch, an' when de time fur de
sarvice come, I'll be dar."

This advice was not promptly acted upon, but in the course of half an
hour nearly all the villagers and loungers had gone off to the church
in the woods; and when Uncle Peter had put on his high black hat,
somewhat battered, but still sufficiently clerical looking for that
congregation, and had given something of a polish to his cowhide
shoes, he betook himself by the accustomed path to the log building
where he had so often held forth to his people. As soon as he entered
the church he was formally instructed by a committee of the leading
members that before he began to open the services, he must make it
plain to the congregation that what he had said on the preceding
Sunday about every woman being possessed by seven devils was Scripture
truth, and not mere wicked nonsense out of his own brain. If he could
not do that, they wanted no more praying or preaching from him.

Uncle Peter made no answer, but, ascending the little pulpit, he put
his hat on the bench behind him where it was used to repose, took out
his red cotton handkerchief and blew his nose in his accustomed way,
and looked about him. The house was crowded. Even Aunt Rebecca was
there.

After a deliberate survey of his audience, the preacher spoke:
"Brev'eren an' sisters, I see afore me Brudder Bill Hines, who kin
read de Bible, an' has got one. Ain't dat so, Brudder?"

Bill Hines having nodded and modestly grunted assent, the preacher
continued. "An' dars' Ann' Priscilla's boy, Jake, who ain't a brudder
yit, though he's plenty old 'nuf, min', I tell ye; an' he kin read de
Bible, fus' rate, an' has read it ter me ober an' ober ag'in. Ain't
dat so, Jake?"

Jake grinned, nodded, and hung his head, very uncomfortable at being
thus publicly pointed out.

"An' dar's good ole Aun' Patty, who knows more Scripter dan ennybuddy
h'yar, havin' been teached by de little gals from Kunnel Jasper's an'
by dere mudders afore 'em. I reckin she know' de hull Bible straight
froo, from de Garden of Eden to de New Jerus'lum. An' dar are udders
h'yar who knows de Scripters, some one part an' some anudder. Now I
axes ebery one ob you all wot know de Scripters ef he don' 'member
how de Bible tells how our Lor' when he was on dis yearth cas' seben
debbils out o' Mary Magdalum?"

A murmur of assent came from the congregation, Most of them remembered
that.

"But did enny ob you ebber read, or hab read to you, dat he ebber cas'
'em out o' enny udder woman?"

Negative grunts and shakes of the head signified that nobody had ever
heard of this.

"Well, den," said the preacher, gazing blandly around, "all de udder
women got 'em yit."

A deep silence fell upon the assembly, and in a few moments an elderly
member arose. "Brudder Pete," he said, "I reckin you mought as well
gib out de hyme."




A DOG'S TALE[1]

[Footnote 1: 1903]

_Mark Twain_ (1835)


I

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a
Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me; I do not know these nice
distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning
nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and
see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got so
much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was
only show: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and
drawing-room when there was company, and by going with the children to
Sunday-school and listening there; and whenever she heard a large word
she said it over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it
until there was a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she
would get it off, and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup
to mastiff, which rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a
stranger he was nearly sure to be suspicious, and when he got his
breath again he would ask her what it meant. And she always told him.
He was never expecting this, but thought he would catch her; so when
she told him, he was the one that looked ashamed, whereas he had
thought it was going to be she. The others were always waiting for
this, and glad of it and proud of her, for they knew what was going to
happen, because they had had experience. When she told the meaning of
a big word they were all so taken up with admiration that it never
occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the right one; and that was
natural, because, for one thing, she answered up so promptly that it
seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another thing, where could
they find out whether it was right or not? for she was the only
cultivated dog there was. By-and-by, when I was older, she brought
home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty hard
all the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and
despondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that
week she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and
flashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she
had more presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, of
course. She had one word which she always kept on hand, and ready,
like a life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she
was likely to get washed overboard in a sudden way--that was the word
Synonymous. When she happened to fetch out a long word which had had
its day weeks before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile,
if there was a stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a
couple of minutes, then he would come to, and by that time she would
be away down the wind on another tack, and not expecting anything; so
when he'd hail and ask her to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside
of her game) could see her canvas flicker a moment,--but only just a
moment,--then it would belly out taut and full, and she would say, as
calm as a summer's day, "It's synonymous with supererogation," or some
godless long reptile of a word like that, and go placidly about and
skim away on the next tack, perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave
that stranger looking profane and embarrassed, and the initiated
slatting the floor with their tails in unison and their faces
transfigured with a holy joy.

And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase,
if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and
explain it a new way every time,--which she had to, for all she cared
for was the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew
those dogs hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was
a daisy! She got so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such
confidence in the ignorance of those creatures. She even brought
anecdotes that she had heard the family and the dinner guests laugh
and shout over; and as a rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched
onto another chestnut, where, of course, it didn't fit and hadn't any
point; and when she delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the
floor and laughed and barked in the most insane way, while I could see
that she was wondering to herself why it didn't seem as funny as it
did when she first heard it. But no harm was done; the others rolled
and barked too, privately ashamed of themselves for not seeing the
point, and never suspecting that the fault was not with them and there
wasn't any to see.

You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and
frivolous character; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up,
I think. She had a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored
resentments for injuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind
and forgot them; and she taught her children her kindly way, and from
her we learned also to be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not
to run away, but face the peril that threatened friend or stranger,
and help him the best we could without stopping to think what the cost
might be to us. And she taught us, not by words only, but by example,
and that is the best way and the surest and the most lasting. Why, the
brave things she did, the splendid things! she was just a soldier;
and so modest about it--well, you couldn't help admiring her, and you
couldn't help imitating her; not even a King Charles spaniel could
remain entirely despicable in her society. So, as you see, there was
more to her than her education.


II

When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never
saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but
she comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into this
world for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties without
repining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good
of others, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair.
She said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward
by-and-by in another world, and although we animals would not go
there, to do well and right without reward would give to our brief
lives a worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She
had gathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the
Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory
more carefully than she had done with those other words and phrases;
and she had studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see
by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so
much lightness and vanity in it.

So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through
our tears; and the last thing she said--keeping it for the last to
make me remember it the better, I think--was, "In memory of me, when
there is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think
of your mother, and do as she would do."

Do you think I could forget that? No.


III

It was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great house, with
pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom
anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with
flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great
garden--oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I
was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted
me, and did not give me a new name, but called me by my old one that
was dear to me because my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavourneen.
She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it
was a beautiful name.

Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine
it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling
slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short
frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond
of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging
me, and laughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was
thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in
front, alert, quick in his movements, businesslike, prompt, decided,
unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiselled face that just
seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a
renowned scientist. I do not know what the word means, but my mother
would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to
depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came.
But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother
could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars
off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a
place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog said--no,
that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite different, and is
filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange
machines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in the
place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called
experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around
and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in
loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what
she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try
as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at all.

Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's workroom and slept,
she gently using me for a footstool, knowing it pleased me, for it was
a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well
tousled and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when
the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's
affairs; other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the
garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass
in the shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went
visiting among the neighbor dogs,--for there were some most pleasant
ones not far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful
one, a curly haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a
Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.

The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and
so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier
dog than I was, nor a gratefuller one. I will say this for myself, for
it is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and
honor my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness
that had come to me, as best I could.

By-and-by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness
was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth
and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and
such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it
made me so proud to see how the children and their mother adored it,
and fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it
did. It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to--

Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery.
That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the
crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It
was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of a gauzy
stuff that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers
were alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the
slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream
from the baby woke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the
ceiling! Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and
in a second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my
mother's farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed
again. I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby
out by the waistband, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor
together in a cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the
screaming little creature along and out at the door and around the
bend of the hall, and was still tugging away, all excited and happy
and proud, when the master's voice shouted:

"Begone, you cursed beast!" and I jumped to save myself; but he was
wonderfully quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his
cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong
blow fell upon my left fore-leg, which made me shriek and fall, for
the moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never
descended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, "The nursery's on
fire!" and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other
bones were saved.

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might
come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end
of the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a
garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say,
and where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I
searched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in
the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there,
yet still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered,
though it would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that
eases the pain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did me
some good.

For half an hour there was a commotion down-stairs, and shoutings,
and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some
minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began
to go down; and fears are worse than pains,--oh, much worse. Then
came a sound that froze me! They were calling me--calling me by
name--hunting for me!

It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of
it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It
went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all
the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then
outside, and further and further away--then back, and all about the
house again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it
did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long
ago been blotted out by black darkness.

Then in that blessed stillness my terror fell little by little away,
and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke
before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,
and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was,
to creep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the
cellar door, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn,
while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all
day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to--well,
anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to the master. I
was feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I thought, Why, what
would life be without my puppy!

That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must stay
where I was; stay, and wait, and take what might come--it was not my
affair; that was what life is--my mother had said it. Then--well, then
the calling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself,
the master will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make
him so bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog
could not understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.

They called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that
the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was
getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I
did. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to me that the calling
was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice,
and she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor
thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard
her say,

"Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it is all so sad
without our--"

I broke in with _such_ a grateful little yelp, and the next moment
Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber
and shouting for the family to hear, "She's found! she's found!"

The days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The mother and
Sadie and the servants--why, they just seemed to worship me. They
couldn't seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food,
they couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that
were out of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in
to hear about my heroism--that was the name they called it by, and it
means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once,
and explaining it that way, but didn't say what agriculture was,
except that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and
a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to
new-comers, and say I risked my life to save the baby's, and both of
us had burns to prove it, and then the company would pass me around
and pet me and exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the
eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted to know
what made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject, and
sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions
about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole
twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory,
and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them
said it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of
instinct they could call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence,
"It's far above instinct; it's _reason_, and many a man, privileged
to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its
possession, has less of it than this poor silly quadruped that's
foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and said, "Why, look at
me--I'm a sarcasm! Bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only
thing I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the
child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence--it's _reason_, I tell
you!--the child would have perished!"

They disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very centre and subject of
it all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had
come to me; it would have made her proud.

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain
injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not
agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by-and-by;
and next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the
summer Sadie and I had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you
know,--and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up
there, and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I
wished I could talk,--I would have told those people about it and
shown them how much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I
didn't care for the optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it
again it bored me, and I went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the
sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-bye, and
went away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't
any company for us, but we played together and had good times, and the
servants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and
counted the days and waited for the family.

And one day those men came again, and said now for the test, and they
took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along,
too, feeling proud, for any attention shown the puppy was a pleasure
to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly
the puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went
staggering around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped
his hands, and shouted:

"There, I've won--confess it! He's as blind as a bat!"

And they all said,

"It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you
a great debt from henceforth," and they crowded around him, and wrung
his hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little
darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood,
and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in
my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its
mother's touch, though it could not see me. Then it drooped down,
presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it
was still, and did not move any more.

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman,
and said, "Bury it in the far corner of the garden," and then went on
with the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and
grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it was
asleep. We went far down the garden to the furthest end, where the
children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer
in the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I
saw he was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would
grow and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a
beautiful surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to
help him dig, but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and
you have to have two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished
and covered little Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears
in his eyes, and he said, "Poor little doggie, you SAVED _his_ child."

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last
week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something
terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me
sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food;
and they pet me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say,
"Poor doggie--do give it up and come home; _don't_ break our hearts!"
and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has
happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet
any more. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun
where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said
things I could not understand, but they carried something cold to my
heart.

"Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in
the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave
deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them:
'The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'"




THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT[1]

[Footnote 1: From _The Luck of Roaring Camp_. 1871.]

_Bret Harte_ (1839-1902)


As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker
Flat on the morning of the 23d of November, 1850, he was conscious of
a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or
three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and
exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath lull in the air,
which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.

Mr. Oakhurst's calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these
indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was
another question. "I reckon they're after somebody," he reflected;
"likely it's me." He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with
which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his
neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.

In point of fact, Poker Flat was "after somebody." It had lately
suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses,
and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous
reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that
had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of
all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men
who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch,
and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable
characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is
but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was
professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of
evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.

Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this
category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible
example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets
of the sums he had won from them. "It's agin justice," said Jim
Wheeler, "to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp--an entire
stranger--carry away our money." But a crude sentiment of equity
residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win
from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.

Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the
less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was
too much of a gambler not to accept fate. With him life was at best an
uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the
dealer.

A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat
to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was
known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the
armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young
woman familiarly known as the "Duchess"; another who had won the title
of "Mother Shipton"; and "Uncle Billy," a suspected sluice-robber
and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the
spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only when the
gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the
leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to
return at the peril of their lives.

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a
few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother
Shipton, and a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy. The
philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to
Mother Shipton's desire to cut somebody's heart out, to the repeated
statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the
alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode
forward. With the easy good-humor characteristic of his class, he
insisted upon exchanging his own riding-horse, "Five Spot," for the
sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw
the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her
somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton
eyed the possessor of "Five Spot" with malevolence, and Uncle Billy
included the whole party in one sweeping anathema.

The road to Sandy Bar--a camp that, not having as yet experienced the
regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer
some invitation to the emigrants--lay over a steep mountain range. It
was distant a day's severe travel. In that advanced season, the party
soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foot-hills into
the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras. The trail was narrow and
difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the
ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party
halted.

The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheatre,
surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite,
sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked
the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp,
had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half
the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished; and the party were not
equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his
companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of
"throwing up their hand before the game was played out." But they were
furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of
food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it
was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle
Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the
Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone
remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.

Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which
required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his
own language, he "couldn't afford it." As he gazed at his recumbent
fellow-exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah-trade, his habits
of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him.
He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands
and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits,
and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his
weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him.
Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which,
singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for
which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a
thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky,
ominously clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow.
And, doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called.

A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the
new-comer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as the
"Innocent," of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over
a "little game," and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire
fortune--amounting to some forty dollars--of that guileless youth.
After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator
behind the door and thus addressed him: "Tommy, you're a good little
man, but you can't gamble worth a cent. Don't try it over again." He
then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and
so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.

There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic
greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker
Flat to seek his fortune. "Alone?" No, not exactly alone; in fact
(a giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn't Mr. Oakhurst
remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance
House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had
objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be
married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it
was they had found a place to camp, and company. All this the Innocent
delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen,
emerged from behind the pine-tree where she had been blushing unseen,
and rode to the side of her lover.

Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less
with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not
fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to
kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was
sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst's kick a superior power that
would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson
from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that
there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily,
the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was
provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions, and by the
discovery of a rude attempt at a log-house near the trail. "Piney can
stay with Mrs. Oakhurst," said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess,
"and I can shift for myself."

Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst's admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from
bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to
retire up the caГ±on until he could recover his gravity. There he
confided the joke to the tall pine-trees, with many slaps of his leg,
contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned
to the party, he found them seated by a fire--for the air had
grown strangely chill and the sky overcast--in apparently amicable
conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish
fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and
animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding
forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother
Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. "Is this yer a
d---d picnic?" said Uncle Billy, with inward scorn, as he surveyed the
sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the
foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that
disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he
felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.

As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked
the tops of the pine-trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy
aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine-boughs, was
set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted they unaffectedly
exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard
above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother
Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence
of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was
replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes
were asleep.

Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and
cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing
strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave
it--snow!

He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers,
for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had
been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and
a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been
tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly
disappearing in the snow.

The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with
his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered
peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the
virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though
attended by celestial guardians, and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket
over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn.
It came slowly in a whirling mist of snowflakes, that dazzled and
confused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared
magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the
present and future in two words--"Snowed in!"

A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the
party, had been stored within the hut, and so escaped the felonious
fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence
they might last ten days longer. "That is," said Mr. Oakhurst,
_sotto voce_ to the Innocent, "if you're willing to board us. If you
ain't--and perhaps you'd better not--you can wait till Uncle Billy
gets back with provisions." For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could
not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered
the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally
stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother
Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate's defection.
"They'll find out the truth about us _all_ when they find out
anything," he added, significantly, "and there's no good frightening
them now."

Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of
Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced
seclusion. "We'll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow'll
melt, and we'll all go back together." The cheerful gayety of the
young man and Mr. Oakhurst's calm infected the others. The Innocent,
with the aid of pine-boughs, extemporized a thatch for the roofless
cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the
interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that
provincial maiden to their fullest extent. "I reckon now you're used
to fine things at Poker Flat," said Piney. The Duchess turned away
sharply to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through
their professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to
"chatter." But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the
trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He
stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted
to the whiskey, which he had prudently _cachГ©d_. "And yet it don't
somehow sound like whiskey," said the gambler. It was not until he
caught sight of the blazing fire through the still blinding storm and
the group around it that he settled to the conviction that it was
"square fun."

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had _cachГ©d_ his cards with the whiskey as
something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say.
It was certain that, in Mother Shipton's words, he "didn't say
cards once," during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an
accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his
pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation
of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant
melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair
of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was
reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands,
sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain
defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than any
devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at
last joined in the refrain:

  "I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
  And I'm bound to die in His army."

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable
group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward, as if in token
of the vow.

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the
stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose
professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible
amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson, somehow
managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused
himself to the Innocent by saying that he had "often been a week
without sleep." "Doing what?" asked Tom. "Poker!" replied Oakhurst,
sententiously; "when a man gets a streak of luck--nigger-luck--he
don't get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck," continued the
gambler, reflectively, "is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it
for certain is that it's bound to change. And it's finding out when
it's going to change that makes you. We've had a streak of bad luck
since we left Poker Flat--you come along, and slap you get into it,
too. If you can hold your cards right along, you're all right. For,"
added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance--

  "'I'm proud to live in the service of the Lord,
  And I'm bound to die in His army,'"

The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained
valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of
provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of
that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the
wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it
revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut--a hopeless,
uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to
which the castaways still clung. Through the marvellously clear air
the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away.
Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky
fastness hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last
vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a
certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed
the Duchess. "Just you go out there and cuss, and see." She then set
herself to the task of amusing "the child," as she and the Duchess
were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a
soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact
that she didn't swear and wasn't improper.

When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the
accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the
flickering camp-fire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching
void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by
Piney--story-telling. Neither Mr., Oakhurst nor his female companions
caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have
failed, too, but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced
upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope's ingenious translation of the
_Iliad_. He now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that
poem--having thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the
words--in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of
that night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully
and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the caГ±on
seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus. Mr. Oakhurst listened
with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the
fate of "Ash-heels," as the Innocent persisted in denominating the
"swift-footed Achilles."