The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems Part 25

"Every keerd's thar thet I hed in my hands, ef you mean _me_," said the Kentuckian, sharply.

"Waal, I _don't_ mean you. A feller may have his little joke, I suppose."

"Depends on the kind o' jokes. Here's the two missin' keerds on the floor. Now, ef you say I put 'em thar, it's a little joke I reckon I won't stand. _Sabe_?"

"Come, I'll pay for the drinks, old fel', if you'll allow me to apologize. Waiter, drinks all round. What'll you take, gentlemen?"

"Now, that's what I call blarsted 'an'some," remarked Huxley, who was an Englishman from Australia:

"'Friend of me soul, this goblet sip, 'Twill dry the starting tear; 'Tis not so bright as woman's lip, But oh, 'tis more sincere!'

"Here's to ye, me hearties."

"Which brings us back to our subject," responded Davis's partner, commonly called "Gentleman Bill," as the gla.s.ses were drained and sent away. "Do you believe in curses, Kentuck?"

"B'lieve in cusses? Don't the Bible tell about cussin'? Wasn't thar an old man in the Bible--I disremember his name--that cussed one of his sons, and blessed t'other one? I reckon I _do_ b'lieve in cussin'."

His interlocutor laughed softly at the statement and argument. "Did you ever know any body to be cursed in such a manner that it was plain he was under a ban of unintermitting vengeance?"

"Ef you mean did I ever know a man as was cussed, I ken say I did, onct.

He was a powerful mean man--a n.i.g.g.e.r-driver down in Tennessee. He was orful to swear, and cruel to the n.i.g.g.e.rs, an' his wife besides. One day she died an' left a mite of a baby; an' he was so mad he swore he 'wouldn't bury her; the neighbors might bury her, an' the brat, too, if they liked.' As he was a-swearin' an' a-tearin' with all his might, an'

a-callin' on G.o.d to cuss him ef he didn't do so an' so, all of a suddent, just as his mouth opened with a oath, he was struck speechless, an' never has spoke a word till this day!--leastways, not that I ever heard ov."

"That is what I should call a special example of Divine wrath," said Gentleman Bill, deftly dealing the cards for a new game. "What I meant to ask was, whether any one, yourself especially, had ever known one man to curse another man so as to bring ruin upon him, in spite of his will to resist it."

"Waal, I've heern tell of sech things; can't say as I know such a man, without it's Bob Matheny. _He_ says he's cussed; an' I reckon he _is_.

Everybody in Wilson's Bar has heern about that."

"Not everybody, for I am still ignorant of his story. Was that why Mr.

Davis objected so strongly to his marriage? I begin to be interested.

Count me another game, partner. I should like to hear about Mr.

Matheny."

"You may tell the story, Davis," said Kentuck, magnanimously. "I want ter chaw terbacker fur awhile, an' I can't talk an' chaw."

Tom Davis gladly took up the theme, as it gave him an opportunity to display his oratorical and rhetorical abilities, of which he was almost as proud as he was of his skill in hiding cards in his sleeves, his hat, his hair, his boots.

"Gentlemen," he began, hesitating an instant--while, attention being fixed on what he was about to say, he stocked the cards--"gentlemen, it's one of the curusest things you ever heerd in yer life. It seems thar was a woman at the bottom of it--I believe thar allers is at the bottom of everything. Waal, he stole another man's sunflower--I've heerd Bob say so, hisself--an' the other feller got mad--as mad as thunder--an', when he found his gal had vamosed with Bob, he cursed him; an' his curse was this: that as long as he lived all that he did should prosper for a little while, an' jest when he begun to enj'y it, a curse should come onto it. Ef it wor business, when he thought he was sure of a good thing, it should fail. Ef it wor love, the woman he loved should die. Ef it wor children, they should grow up, and turn agin' him; or, if they stuck to him, the same curse should be on them; what they undertook should fail; what they loved should die."

"Did the woman he loved die? did his children desert him?" asked the Englishman, eagerly.

"His wife died seven year arter he married her; one ov his boys was killed by his horse fallin' on him; the other got into bad company down to Red Bluffs, an', arter leadin' the old man a devil of a life for two year or more, run off, an' got taken by the lynchers--so folks said. I b'lieve he has a gal, back in the States; but his wife's folks won't let her come to Californy. They're a-eddicatin' her quite grand, an' she writes a powerful nice letter. The old man showed me one, last time he was up to the Bar. Han'some as any school-marm's ever ye saw. But Bob says he don't see what's the use; somethin's sure to happen her; somethin' allers does happen to him an' to his chillern."

"Is that why he thinks he's cursed--because 'something always happens?'"

asked Gentleman Bill, indifferently.

"Sart'in; an' it's so, as sure as yer born. Nothin' never pans out long with Bob Matheny. His beginnin's is all good, an' his endin's all bad. I reckon thar never was a man to Wilson's Bar has been cleaned eout, down to the bed-rock, as often as Matheny."

"Is he a good man?" asked the Englishman, interested.

"Never had a better man to Wilson's Bar," responded Kentuck, decidedly, as he cast his quid under the table. "He ain't a lucky feller, an' he's mighty superst.i.tious an' the like; but I make a heap o' Bob Matheny. His luck an' his cuss don't hurt him none for me. It's jest a notion, mebbe."

"Notion or no notion," said Davis, with a knowing leer, "he's not the man to marry a nice gal like that 'un he's got up to the Rest. Better let her be for some lucky young feller as could make her happy. Don't you say so, boys?"

While the laugh went round, the crowd that had been gradually collecting and listening to the story, began to move, and then to part, as the man so much talked of forced his way toward the group of speakers.

"Hold yer tongue, Tom Davis," said Kentuck. "Hulloa, Bob! take my hand, won't ye? I'll introduce ye to my friends. My pardner is Huxly--a tip-top feller, as you'll diskiver fur yerself. Davis' pardner is Randolph--Gentleman Bill, we call him fur short, he's so nice and perlite. He's from yer State, too, I reckon."

"Randolphs of Booneville," said Gentleman Bill; rising and extending his hand.

Matheny, who was a mild-looking man of about fifty, with a hesitating manner and rather care-worn countenance, half concealed under a wide-brimmed, dusty black hat, instead of meeting half-way the extended hand of his friend's friend, thrust his own into his pockets and gazed fixedly at young Randolph. "Be ye Boone Randolph, or be ye his sperrit?"

he asked, hoa.r.s.ely.

"Neither, quite," said the young man, smiling, yet a little flushed. "I am son of Boone Randolph of Booneville, if you know who he was."

Matheny turned and hurried out of the crowd, followed by Kentuck, who wanted to have explained this singular conduct of Bob's towards his friends. As there was no witness of their conversation, its meaning can only be guessed at by another which took place two hours later, after Matheny had turned in at the Traveler's Rest. It was late, even for him, when Kentuck started for his lodgings at the other end of the long, densely crowded street--crowded not only with buildings of wood and canvas, but choked up with monstrous freight wagons, and their numerous horse and mule-teams, for which there was not stable-room enough in all Wilson's Bar. Stumbling along the uneven sidewalk, often touching with his feet some unhoused vagabond, Kentuck was about to mount the stairs which led to his bedroom, when some one touched him on the shoulder, and the voice of Gentleman Bill addressed him:

"I beg your pardon, Kentuck; but you've been with Matheny, haven't you?

I want to know why he wouldn't shake hands. He told you, of course?"

"Waal, I'm a friend of Bob's, ye know, Bill; an' he is mighty rough on you, sure. Better not say nothin' about it."

"That wouldn't suit me, Kentuck. I want to understand something about the matter which concerns me so evidently. Come, out with it, and I'll leave you to go to bed."

"Waal, you heerd Tom Davis' blab this evenin'; an' you know that Bob's got the idee into his intelleck that the cuss of a sart'in man as he onct wronged is a-stickin' to him yit, an' never will let loose till he pa.s.ses in his checks?"

"Who was the man?"

"Boone Randolph, of Booneville."

"My father?"

"Yaas, yer pap. He's down powerful on your pap, that's sart'in. Sez he to me: 'Loh! that's the ornary whelp ov the devil that cussed me. Old's I am I'd like to fight him, fur the sake o' the man that I knowed onct.

I feel my young blood a-risin'; he looks so mighty like Boone Randolph.'

But I tole him he war a fool to talk ov fightin' yer; ye'd whip him all ter flinders."

"I wouldn't fight him, of course: he's too old for me. And then he's just married, too, isn't he? I have no wish to make that young woman a widow."

"A widow!" said Kentuck, laughing. "That girl's name is Anne Matheny; but she ain't Bob's wife, not by a long shot. Why, she's Bob's darter, as has just come out to see her old pap."

"Well, I like that. I am less than ever inclined to fight the man who owns such a daughter. I must find a way to make friends with him, even if I have to quarrel with him to do it. Good-night, Kentuck. Pleasant dreams to you."

Gentleman Bill felt more than ordinarily wide-awake, whether it was from the novel excitement of the brief encounter with Matheny or not. When Kentuck had left him, he stood for some time irresolute, with no wish for rest, and no desire to go anywhere in particular. He looked up to the sky. It was murky with filmy fog-clouds and dust not yet settled to the earth. Not a star was visible in the whole arch of heaven. He looked down the street, and his eyes, accustomed to the darkness, could just faintly distinguish the outlines of the wagons that crowded it. Every sound was hushed, except the occasional movement of a restless animal, or the deep sighing of a sleeping one. Not a light was burning anywhere along the street. While gazing aimlessly into the gloom he saw, all at once, as if lighted by a flash from the sky, a sudden illumination spring up, and a column of flame stand erect over the Traveler's Rest.

Now, Wilson's Bar did not boast a fire company. At some seasons of the year, had a fire broken out, there would have been a chance of its extinguishment, inflammable as were the materials of which the place was built; but just after the long, hot summer, when the river was all but dried up, and every plank in houses, fences, and sidewalks so much tinder, a fire that should get under headway would have everything its own way. Seeing the danger, Gentleman Bill started down the street on a run, shouting, in his clarion tones, that ever-thrilling cry of "Fire!

fire! fire!" till it seemed to him he must wake the dead. But it was that hour of the night, or rather morning, when sleep is heaviest, and the watchful senses off their guard. The teamsters, who slept in their wagons, were the first to be aroused; but they, seeing the peril which might come to their teams, and destruction to their property, kept by their own. The inhabitants of the dwellings awoke more slowly, and came pouring into the street only in time to see the roof of the Traveler's Rest falling in, although the lower story was not yet consumed.

n.o.body knew much about the details of the scene that ensued. The current of heated air produced the usual rush of cold wind, which spread and fed the flames, until, in half an hour, all hope of saving any part of the princ.i.p.al street in the Bar was abandoned, and people were flying for safety to the outskirts of the town.