But while there was doubt as to the fatherland of the little colony of Pikes at Jagger's Bend, their every neighbor would willingly make affidavit7 as to the cause of their locating and remaining at the Bend. When humanitarians8 and optimists9 argued that it was because the water was good and convenient, that the Bend itself caught enough drift-wood for fuel, and that the dirt would yield a little gold when manipulated by placer and pan, all farmers and stockowners would freely admit the validity of these reasons; but the admission was made with a countenance10 whose indignation and sorrow indicated that the greater causes were yet unnamed. With eyes speaking emotions which words could not express, they would point to sections of wheatfields minus the grain-bearing heads—to hides and hoofs11 of cattle unslaughtered by themselves—to mothers of promising12 calves13, whose tender bleatings answered not the maternal14 call—to the places which had once known fine horses, but had been untenanted since certain Pikes had gone across, the mountains for game. They would accuse no man wrongfully, but in a country where all farmers had wheat and cattle and horses, and where prowling Indians and Mexicans were not, how could these disappearances16 occur?
But to people owning no property in the neighborhood—to tourists and artists—the Pike settlement at the Bend was as interesting and ugly as a skye-terrier. The architecture of the village was of original style, and no duplicate existed. Of the half-dozen residences, one was composed exclusively of sod; another of bark; yet another of poles, roofed with a wagon17-cover, and plastered on the outside with mud; the fourth was of slabs18, nicely split from logs which had drifted into the Bend; the fifth was of hide stretched over a frame strictly19 gothic from foundation to ridgepole; while the sixth, burrowed20 into the hillside, displayed only the barrel which formed its chimney.
A more aristocratic community did not exist on the Pacific Coast. Visit the Pikes when you would, you could never see any one working. Of churches, school-houses, stores and other plebeian21 institutions, there were none; and no Pike demeaned himself by entering trade, or soiled his hands by agriculture.
Yet unto this peaceful, contented22 neighborhood there found his way a visitor who had been everywhere in the world without once being made welcome. He came to the house built of slabs, and threatened the wife of Sam Trotwine, owner of the house; and Sam, after sunning himself uneasily for a day or two, mounted a pony23, and rode off for a doctor to drive the intruder away.
When he returned he found all the men in the camp seated on a log in front of his own door, and then he knew he must prepare for the worst—only one of the great influences of the world could force every Pike from his own door at exactly the same time. There they sat, yellow-faced, bearded, long-backed and bent24, each looking like the other, find all like Sam; and, as he dismounted, they all looked at him.
"How is she?" said Sam, tying his horse and the doctor's, while the latter went in.
"Well," said the oldest man, with deliberation, "the wimmin's all thar ef that's any sign."
Each man on the log inclined his head slightly but positively25 to the left, thus manifesting belief that Sam had been correctly and sufficiently26 answered. Sam himself seemed to regard his information in about the same manner.
Suddenly the raw hide which formed the door of Sam's house was pushed aside, and a woman came out and called Sam, and he disappeared from his log.
As he entered his hut, all the women lifted sorrowful faces and retired27; no one even lingered, for the Pike has not the common human interest in other people's business; he lacks that, as well as certain similar virtues28 of civilization.
Sam dropped by the bedside, and was human; his heart was in the right place; and though heavily intrenched by years of laziness and whisky and tobacco, it could be brought to the front, and it came now.
The dying woman cast her eyes appealingly at the surgeon, and that worthy29 stepped outside the door. Then the yellow-faced woman said:
"Sam, doctor says I ain't got much time left."
"Mary," said Sam, "I wish ter God I could die fur yer. The children—"
"It's them I want to talk about, Sam," replied his wife. 'An' I wish they could die with me, rather'n hev 'em liv ez I've hed to. Not that you ain't been a kind husband to me, for you hev. Whenever I wanted meat yev got it, somehow; an' when yev been ugly drunk, yev kep' away from the house. But I'm dyin', Sam, and it's cos you've killed me."
"Good God, Mary!" cried the astonished Sam, jumping up; "yure crazy—here, doctor!"
"Doctor can't do no good, Sam; keep still, and listen, ef yer love me like yer once said yer did; for I hevn't got much breath left," gasped31 the woman.
"Mary," said the aggrieved32 Sam, "I swow to God I dunno what yer drivin' at."
"It's jest this, Sam," replied the woman: "Yer tuk me, tellin' me ye'd love me an' honor me an' pertect me. You mean to say, now, yev done it? I'm a-dyin', Sam—I hain't got no favors to ask of nobody, an' I'm tellin' the truth, not knowin' what word'll be my last."
"Then tell a feller where the killin' came in, Mary, for heaven's sake," said the unhappy Sam.
"It's come in all along, Sam," said the woman; "there is women in the States, so I've heerd, that marries fur a home, an' bread an' butter, but you promised more'n that, Sam. An' I've waited. An' it ain't come. An' there's somethin' in me that's all starved and cut to pieces. An' it's your fault, Sam. I tuk yer fur better or fur wuss, an' I've never grumbled33."
"I know yer hain't, Mary," whispered the conscience-stricken Pike. "An' I know what yer mean. Ef God'll only let yer be fur a few years, I'll see ef the thing can't be helped. Don't cuss me, Mary—I've never knowed how I've been a-goin'. I wish there was somethin' I could do 'fore34 you go, to pay yer all I owe yer. I'd go back on everything that makes life worth hevin'."
"Pay it to the children, Sam," said the sick woman, raising herself in her miserable35 bed. "I'll forgive yer everything if you'll do the right thing fur them. Do—do—everything!" said the woman, throwing up her arms and falling backward. Her husband's arm caught her; his lips brought to her wan30 face a smile, which the grim visitor, who an instant later stole her breath, pityingly left in full possession of the rightful inheritance from which it had been so long excluded.
Sam knelt for a moment with his face beside his wife—what he said or did the Lord only knew, but the doctor, who was of a speculative36 mind, afterward37 said that when Sam appeared at the door he showed the first Pike face in which he had ever seen any signs of a soul.
Sam went to the sod house, where lived the oldest woman in the camp, and briefly38 announced the end of his wife. Then, after some consultation39 with the old woman, Sam rode to town on one of his horses, leading another. He came back with but one horse and a large bundle; and soon the women were making for Mrs. Trotwine her last earthly robe, and the first new one she had worn for years. The next day a wagon brought a coffin40 and a minister, and the whole camp silently and respectfully followed Mrs. Trotwine to a home with which she could find no fault.
For three days all the male Pikes in the camp sat on the log in front of Sam's door, and expressed their sympathy as did the three friends of Job—that is, they held their peace. But on the fourth their tongues were unloosed. As a conversationalist the Pike is not a success, but Sam's actions were so unusual and utterly41 unheard of, that it seemed as if even the stones must have wondered and communed among themselves.
"I never heard of such a thing," said Brown Buck2; "he's gone an' bought new clothes for each of the four young 'uns."
"Yes," said the patriarch of the camp, "an' this mornin', when I went down to the bank to soak my head, 'cos last night's liquor didn't agree with it, I seed Sam with all his young 'uns as they wuz a washin' their face an' hands with soap. They'll ketch their death an' be on the hill with their mother 'fore long, if he don't look out; somebody ort to reason with him."
"'Twon't do no good," sighed Limping Jim. "He's lost his head, an' reason just goes into one ear and out at t'other. When he was scrapin' aroun' the front door t'other day, an' I asked him what he wuz a-layin' the ground all bare an' desolate42 for, he said he was done keepin' pig-pen. Now everybody but him knows he never had a pig. His head's gone, just mark my words."
On the morning of the fourth day Sam's friends had just secured a full attendance on the log, and were at work upon their first pipes, when they were startled by seeing Sam harness his horse in the wagon and put all his children into it.
"Whar yer bound fur, Sam?" asked the patriarch.
Sam blushed as near as a Pike could, but answered with only a little hesitation43:
"Goin' to take 'em to school to Maxfield—goin' to do it ev'ry day."
The incumbent44 of the log were too nearly paralyzed to remonstrate45, but after a few moments of silence the patriarch remarked, in tones of feeling, yet decision:
"He's hed a tough time of it, but he's no bizness to ruin the settlement. I'm an old man myself, an' I need peace of mind, so I'm goin' to pack up my traps and mosey. When the folks at Maxfield knows what he's doin', they'll make him a constable46 or a justice, an' I'm too much of a man to live nigh any sich."
And next day the patriarch wheeled his family and property to parts unknown.
A few days later Jim Merrick, a brisk farmer a few miles from the Bend, stood in front of his own house, and shaded his eyes in solemn wonder. It couldn't be—he'd never heard of such a thing before yet it was—there was no doubt of it—there was a Pike riding right toward him, in open daylight. He could swear that Pike had often visited him—that is, his wheatfield and corral—after dark, but a daylight visit from a Pike was as unusual as a social call of a Samaritan upon a Jew. And when Sam—for it was he—approached Merrick and made his business known, the farmer was more astonished and confused than he had ever been in his life before. Sam wanted to know for how much money Merrick would plow47 and plant a hundred and sixty acres of wheat for him, and whether he would take Sam's horse—a fine animal, brought from the States, and for which Sam could show a bill of sale—as security for the amount until he could harvest and sell his crop. Merrick so well understood the Pike nature, that he made a very liberal offer, and afterward said he would have paid handsomely for the chance.
A few days later, and the remaining Pikes at the Bend experienced the greatest scare that had ever visited their souls. A brisk man came into the Bend with a tripod on his shoulder, and a wire chain, and some wire pins, and a queer machine under his arm, and before dark the Pikes understood that Sam had deliberately48 constituted himself a renegade by entering a quarter section of land. Next morning two more residences were empty, and the remaining fathers of the hamlet adorned49 not Sam's log, but wandered about with faces vacant of all expression save the agony of the patriot50 who sees his home invaded by corrupting51 influences too powerful for him to resist.
Then Merrick sent up a gang-plow and eight horses, and the tender green of Sam's quarter section was rapidly changed to a dull-brown color, which is odious52 unto the eye of the Pike. Day by day the brown spot grew larger, and one morning Sam arose to find all his neighbors departed, having wreaked53 their vengeance54 upon him by taking away his dogs. And in his delight at their disappearance15, Sam freely forgave them all.
Regularly the children were carried to and from school, and even to Sunday-school—regularly every evening Sam visited the grave on the hillside, and came back to lie by the hour looking at the sleeping darlings—little by little farmers began to realize that their property was undisturbed—little by little Sam's wheat grew and waxed golden; and then there came a day when a man from 'Frisco came and changed it into a heavier gold—more gold than Sam had ever seen before. And the farmers began to stop in to see Sam, and their children came to see his, and kind women were unusually kind to the orphans55, and as day by day Sam took his solitary56 walk on the hillside, the load on his heart grew lighter57, until he ceased to fear the day when he, too, should lie there.
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1
beset
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| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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6
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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7
affidavit
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| n.宣誓书 | |
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8
humanitarians
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| n.慈善家( humanitarian的名词复数 ) | |
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9
optimists
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| n.乐观主义者( optimist的名词复数 ) | |
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10
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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11
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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12
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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13
calves
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| n.(calf的复数)笨拙的男子，腓；腿肚子( calf的名词复数 )；牛犊；腓；小腿肚v.生小牛( calve的第三人称单数 )；（冰川）崩解；生（小牛等），产（犊）；使（冰川）崩解 | |
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14
maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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15
disappearance
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| n.消失，消散，失踪 | |
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disappearances
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| n.消失( disappearance的名词复数 )；丢失；失踪；失踪案 | |
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17
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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18
slabs
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| n.厚板，平板，厚片( slab的名词复数 )；厚胶片 | |
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19
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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20
burrowed
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的过去式和过去分词 )；翻寻 | |
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21
plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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22
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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23
pony
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| adj.小型的；n.小马 | |
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24
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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25
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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26
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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28
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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29
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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30
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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31
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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32
aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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33
grumbled
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| 抱怨( grumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 发牢骚； 咕哝； 发哼声 | |
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34
fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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35
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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36
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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37
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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38
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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39
consultation
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| n.咨询；商量；商议；会议 | |
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40
coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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41
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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42
desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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43
hesitation
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| n.犹豫，踌躇 | |
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44
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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45
remonstrate
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| v.抗议，规劝 | |
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46
constable
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| n.(英国)警察，警官 | |
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47
plow
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| n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough | |
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48
deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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49
adorned
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| [计]被修饰的 | |
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50
patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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51
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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52
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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53
wreaked
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| 诉诸（武力），施行（暴力），发（脾气）( wreak的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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54
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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55
orphans
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| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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56
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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57
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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