Chapter 1
“But James, he is our son, and we must bear with him. If we cannot bear with him, how can we expect others to do it?”
“I have not said I expected it, Sarah. I am very far from expecting it. He is the most trying ass that was ever born.”
“James! You forget that he is our son.”
“That does not save him from being an ass. It does not even take the sting out of it.”
“I do not see how you can be so hard toward your own flesh and blood. [Mr. Rucker] does not think of him as you do.”
“And why should he? Mr. Rucker is an ass himself.”
“James—do think what you are saying. Do you think it becoming to speak so of a minister—a person called of God?”
“Who said he was?”
“Who said he was? Now you are becoming blasphemous. His office is proof that he was called.”
“Very well, then, perhaps he was. But it was an error of judgment.”
“James, I might have known you would say some awful thing like that. Some day a judgment will overtake you when you least expect it. And after saying what you have said about Mr. Rucker, [begin page 110] perhaps you will feel some natural shame when you learn what he has been saying to me about our Oscar.”
“What was it? What did he say?”
“He said there was not another youth of seventeen in the Sunday School that was so bright.”
“Bright. What of that? He is bright enough, but what is brightness worth when it is allied to constitutional and indestructible instability of character? Oscar’s a fool.”
“For pity’s sake! And he your own son.”
“It’s what he is. He is a fool. And I can’t help his being my son. It is one of those judgments that overtake a person when he is least expecting it.”
“James, I wonder how you can say such things. The idea of calling your own son a judgment.”
“Oh, call him a benefaction if you like.”
“I do call him one, James; and I bless the day that God in his loving thoughtfulness gave him to us.”
“James Carpenter!”
“That is what it is, and you know it. What is there about it to suggest loving thoughtfulness—or any kind of thoughtfulness? It was an inadvertence.”
“James, such language is perfectly shocking. It is profanity.”
“Profanity is better than flattery. The trouble with you Presbyterians and other church-people is that you exercise no discrimination. Whatever comes, you praise; you call it praise, and you think it praise; yet in the majority of cases it is flattery. Flattery, and undignified; undignified and unworthy. Your singular idea that Oscar was a result of thoughtfulness—”
“James, I won’t listen to such talk! If you would go to church yourself, instead of finding fault with people who do, it would be better.”
“But I don’t find fault with people who do.”
“Didn’t you just say that they exercise no discrimination, and all that?”
“Certainly, but I did not say that that was an effect of going to [begin page 111] church. It probably is; and now that you press me, I think it is; but I didn’t quite say it.”
“Well, James, you as good as said it; and now it comes out that at bottom you thought it. It shows how staying away from church makes a person uncharitable in his judgments and opinions.”
“Oh, come!”
“But it does.”
“I dissent—distinctly.”
“Now James, how can you know? In the nineteen years that we have been married, you have been to church only once, and that was nearly nineteen years ago. You have been uncharitable in your judgments ever since—more or less so.”
“I do not quite catch your argument. Do you mean that going to church only once made me uncharitable for life?”
“James, you know very well that I meant nothing of the kind. You just said that to provoke me. You know perfectly well that I meant—I meant—now you have got me all confused, and I don’t know what I did mean.”
“Don’t trouble about it, Sarah. It’s not like having a new experience, you know. For—”
“That will do, James. I do not wish to hear anything more about it. And as for Oscar—”
“Good—let us have some more Oscar for a change. Is it true that he has resigned from the [Cadets of Temperance]?”
“Ye-s.”
“I thought he would.”
“Indeed? And what made you think it?”
“Because he has been a member three months.”
“What has that to do with it?”
“It’s his limit.”
“What do you mean by that, James?”
“Three months is his limit—in most things. When it isn’t three weeks or three days or three hours. You must have noticed that. He revolves in threes—it is his make. He is a creature of [ enthusiasms]. Burning enthusiasms. They flare up, and light all the region round. For three months, or weeks, or days. Then they go out and he [begin page 112] catches fire in another place. You remember he was the joy of the Methodist Sunday school at 7—for three months. Then he was the joy of the [[ Campbellite] Sunday school]—for three months. Then of the Baptist—for three months. Then of the Presbyterian—for three months. Then he started over again with the Methodist contingent, and went through the list again; and yet again; and still again; and so on. He has been the hope and joy of each of those sources of spiritual supply nine times in nine years; and from Mr. Rucker’s remark I gather that he is now booming the Presbyterian interest once more. As concerns the Cadets of Temperance, I was just thinking that his quarterly period—”
“James, it makes me sick to hear you talk like that. You have never loved your boy. And you never encourage him. You know how sensitive he is to slights and neglect, yet you have always neglected him. You know how quickly he responds to praise, and how necessary praise and commendation and encouragement are to him—indeed they are his very life—yet he gets none of these helps from you. How can you expect him to be steadfast; how can you expect him to keep up his heart in his little affairs and plans when you never show any interest in them and never applaud anything he does?”
“Applaud? What is there to applaud? It is just as you say: praise is his meat and bread—it is his life. And there never was such an unappeasable appetite. So long as you feed him praise, he gorges, gorges, gorges, and is obscenely happy; the moment you stop he is famished—famished and wretched; utterly miserable, despondent, despairing. You ought to know all about it. You have tried to keep him fed-up, all his life, and you know what a job it is. I detest that word—encouragement—where the male sex is concerned. The boy that needs much of it is a girl in disguise. He ought to put on petticoats. Praise has a value—when it is earned. When it isn’t earned, the male creature receiving it ought to despise it; and will, when there is a proper degree of manliness in him. Sarah, if it is possible to make anything creditable out of the boy, only a strong hand can do it. Not yours, and not mine. You are all indulgence, I all indifference. The earlier the strong hand takes him in charge, the [begin page 113] better. And not here in Dawson’s Landing, where he can be always running home for sympathy and pettings, but in some other place—as far off as St Louis, say. You gasp!”
“Oh, James, James, you can’t mean what you say! Oh, I never could bear it; oh, I know I never could.”
“Now come, don’t cry, Sarah. Be reasonable. You don’t want the boy ruined. Now do you?”
“But oh, to have him away off there, and I not by if anything should happen.”
“Nothing’s going to happen. He—”
“James—he might get sick. And if I were not there—”
“But you can go there, if he gets sick. Let us not borrow trouble—there is time enough. Other boys go from home—it is nothing new—and if Oscar doesn’t, he will be ruined. Now you know [Underwood—a good man, and an old and trusty friend of mine.”
“The printer]?”
“Yes. I have been corresponding with him. He is willing to take Oscar as an apprentice. Now doesn’t that strike you pleasantly?”
“Why—yes. If he must go away from home—oh, dear, dear, dear!—why of course I would rather have him with Mr. Underwood than with anyone else. I want to see Oscar succeed in the world; I desire it as much as you can. But surely there are other ways than [ the] one proposed; and ways more soothing to one’s pride, too. Why should our son be a common mechanic—a printer? As far back as we can go there have been no mechanics in your family, and none in mine. In Virginia, for more than two centuries they have been as good as anybody about them; they have been [ slave-holding] planters, professional men, politicians—now and then a merchant, but never a mechanic. They have always been gentlemen. And they were that in England before they came over. Isn’t it so?”
“I am not denying it. Go on.”
“Don’t speak in that tired way, James. You always act annoyed when I speak of our ancestors, and once you said ‘Damn the ancestors.’ I remember it very well. I wonder you could say such a horrid thing about them, knowing, as you do, how brief this life is, and how soon you must be an ancestor yourself.”
[begin page 114] “God forgive me, I never thought of that.”
“I heard that, James—heard every word of it; and you said it ironically, too, which is not good taste—no better taste than muttering it was—muttering to yourself like that when your wife is talking to you.”
“Well, I’m sorry; go on, I won’t do it again. But if the irony was the thing that pinched, that was a quite unnecessary unkindness; I could have said it seriously, and so saved you the hurt.”
“Seriously? How do you mean?”
“Oh, sometimes I feel as if I could give anything to give it all up and lie down in the peace and the quiet and be an ancestor, I do get so tired of being posterity. It is when things go wrong and I am low spirited that I feel like that. At such times—peculiarly dark times, times of deep depression, when the heart is bruised and sore and the light of life is veiled in shadows—it has seemed to me that I would rather be a dog’s ancestor than a lieutenant governor’s posterity.”
“For shame! James, it is the same as saying I am a disappointment to you, and that you would be happier without me than with me. Oh, James, how could you say such a thing?”
“I didn’t say it.”
“What did you say?”
“I said that sometimes I would rather be an ancestor than posterity.”
“Well, isn’t that separating us?”
“No—for I included you.”
“That is different. But James you didn’t say so. It sounded as if you only wanted to be an ancestor by yourself, and of course that hurt me. Did you always think of me, James? Did you always include me? Did you wish I was an ancestor as often as you wished you were one?”
“Yes. Oftener. Twice as often.”
“How good you are, James—when you want to be. But you are not always good; I wish you were. Still, I am satisfied with you, just as you are; I don’t want you changed. You don’t want me changed, do you, James?”
“No, I don’t think of any change that I would want to risk.”
[begin page 115] “How lovely of you!”
“Don’t mention it. Now, as I remember it, your argument had reached the point where—well, I think you had about finished with the ancestry, and—”
“Yes—and was coming to you. You are county judge—the position of highest dignity in the gift of the ballot—and yet you would see your son become a mechanic.”
“I would see him become a man. He needn’t remain a mechanic, if you think it would damage his chances for [the peerage].”
“The peerage! I never said anything about the peerage. He would never get rid of the stain. It would always be remembered that he had been a mechanic.”
“To his discredit? Nonsense. Who would remember it as a smirch?”
“Well, I would, for one. And so would the widow Buckner—”
“Grand-daughter of a Hessian corporal, whom she has painted up in a breastpin as an English general. She despise mechanics! Why, her ancestors were bought and sold in shoals in Cassel, at the price of a pound of candles apiece. And it was an overcharge.”
“Well, there’s Miss Rector—”
“Bosh!”
“It isn’t bosh! She—”
“Oh, I know all about that old Tabby. She claims to be descended in an illegal and indelicate way from Charles II. That is no distinction; we are all that. Come, she is no aristocracy. Her opinion is of no consequence. That poor scraggy old thing—why, she is the descendant of an interminable line of Presbyterian Scotch fishermen, and is built, from the ground up, out of hereditary holiness and herring-bones.”
“James, it is scandalous to talk so. She—”
“Get back on your course, Sarah. We can discuss the Hessian and the osteological remains another time. You were coming to some more reasons why Oscar should not be a printer.”
“Yes. It is not a necessity—either moneywise or otherwise. You are comfortably off and need no help from earnings of his. By grace of his grandfather he has a permanent income of four hundred [begin page 116] dollars a year, which makes him rich—at least for this town and region.”
“Yes; and fortunately for him it is but a life-interest and he can never touch the principal; otherwise I would rather have a hatful of smoke than that property.”
“Well, that is neither here nor there. He has that income; and has six hundred dollars saved from it and laid up.”
“Don’t let him find it out, Sarah.”
“I—I—he already knows it, James. I did not mean to tell him; it escaped me when I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”
“I am, too. But it is no matter—yet awhile. It is out of his reach until he is of age.”
Sarah said nothing, but she was a little troubled. She had lent trifles of money to Oscar from time to time, against the day of his financial independence.
Judge Carpenter mused a while, then said—
“Sarah, I think your objections to my project are not very strong. I believe we must let it stand, unless you can suggest something better. What is your idea about the boy?”
“I think he ought to be trained to one of the professions, James.”
“Um-m. Medicine and surgery?”
“Oh, dear no! not surgery. He is too kind-hearted to give pain, and the sight of blood distresses him. A physician has to turn out of his bed at all hours and expose himself to all weathers. I should be afraid of that—for his health, I mean. I should prefer the law. There is opportunity for advancement in that; such a long and grand line of promotions open to one who is diligent and has talent. James, only think of it—he could become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States!”
“Could? Would, you mean.”
“Oh, James, do you think he would?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Oh, James, what makes you think so?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
[begin page 117] “Then what made you say so?”
“I don’t know.”
“James, I think you are the most provoking man that ever—James, are you trifling with me? But I know you are—I can see it. I don’t see how you can act so. I think he would be a great lawyer. If you have doubts—”
“Well, Sarah, I have. He has a fair education; good enough for the business—here in a region where lawyers are hardly ever college-bred men; he has a brighter mind than the average, hereabouts—very much brighter than the average, indeed; he is honest, upright, honorable, his impulses are always high, never otherwise—but he would make a poor lawyer. He has no firmness, no steadfastness, he is as changeable as the wind. He will stick at a thing no longer than the novelty of it lasts, and the praises—then he is off again. When his whole heart is in something and all his fires blazing, anybody can squirt a discouraging word on them and put them out; and any wordy, half-clever person can talk him out of his dearest opinion and make him abandon it. This is not the stuff that good lawyers are made of.”
“James, you cannot be right. It cannot be as bad as you think; you are prejudiced. You never would consent to see any but the most unfavorable side of Oscar. Do you believe he is unfitted for all the professions?”
“All but one.”
“Which one?”
“The pulpit.”
“James, I could hug you for that! It was the secret wish of my heart—my day-dream all these years; but I never dared to speak of it to you, of all creatures. Oh, James, do you think, do you really and seriously think that he would make a name for himself in the pulpit—be spoken of, written about?”
“I know it.”
“Oh, it is too good, too lovely! Think of it—our Oscar famous! You really believe he would be famous!”
“No. Notorious.”
“Well—what is the difference?”
[begin page 118] “There is a good deal.”
“Well, what is it?”
“Why, fame is a great and noble thing—and permanent. Notoriety is a noise—just a noise, and doesn’t last.”
“So that is what you think our Oscar would reach. Then pray, why do you think him suited for the pulpit?”
“The law is a narrow field, Sarah; in fact it is merely a groove. Or, you may call it a house with only one room in it. But in religion there are a hundred sects. It is a hotel. Oscar could move from room to room, you know.”
“James!”
“Yes, he could. He could move every quarter, and take a fresh start. And every time he moved, there would be a grand to-do about it. The newspapers would be full of it. That would make him happy. It is my opinion that he ought to be dedicated to this career of sparkling holiness, usefulness and health-giving theological travel.”
Sarah’s face flushed and all her frame quivered with anger. Her breath came in gasps; for the moment she could not get her voice. Then she got it, but before she could use it the thin pipe of a boy calling to a mate pierced to her ear through the still and murky air—
“Thug Carpenter’s got drownded!”
“Oh, James, our Oscar—drowned!” She sank into a chair, pallid and faint, and muttered, “The judgment—I warned you.”
“Drownded, you say?” This from another boy.
“Well, not just entirely, but he’s goin’ to be. The ice is breaking up, and he’s got caught all by himself on [ t’other] side of the split, about a half a mile from shore. He’s a goner!”
Sarah Carpenter was on her feet in a moment, and fumbling with bonnet and shawl with quaking hands. “Quick, James, there’s hope yet!” The Judge was getting into his overcoat with all haste. [begin page 119] Outside, the patter of hurrying footsteps was heard, and a confusion of excited voices; through the window one could see the village population pouring out upon the white surface of the vast Mississippi in a ragged long stream, the further end of it, away toward the middle of the river, reduced by distance to a creeping swarm of black ants.
Now arose the ringing sound of flying hoofs, and a trim and fair young girl, bareheaded and riding bareback and astride, went thundering by on a great black horse.
“There goes Hellfire Hotchkiss! Oh, James, he’s saved, if anybody can save him!”
“You’ve said the truth, Sarah. She has saved him before, and she will do it again. Keep up your heart, it will all come right.”
By this time the couple had crossed the river road and were starting down the ice-paved slope of the bank. Ahead, on the level white plain, the black horse was speeding past detachment after detachment of plodding citizens; and all along the route hats and handkerchiefs went up in welcome as the young girl swept by, and burst after burst of cheers rose and floated back, fainter and fainter, as the distance grew.
Far out toward the middle of the river the early arrivals were massed together on the border of a wide rift of indeterminable length. They could get no further. In front of them was the water; beyond it, clear to the Illinois shore, a moaning and grinding drift and turmoil of monster ice-cakes, which wandered apart at times, by compulsion of the swirling currents, then crashed thunderously together again, piling one upon another and rising for a moment into rugged hillocks, then falling to ruin and sagging apart once more. It was an impressive spectacle, and the people were awed by the sight and by the brooding spirit of danger and death that was in the air, and they spoke but little, and then in low voices. Most of them said nothing at all, but gazed fixedly out over the drifting plain, searching it for the missing boy. Now and then, through the vague steam that rose from the thawing ice they caught sight of a black speck away out among the recurrent up-bursting hillocks under the lowering sky, and then there would be a stir among the crowd, and eager questions of “Where? which is it? where do you [begin page 120] see it?” and answers of “There—more to the right—still more—look where I am pointing—further out—away out—just a black speck—don’t you see it now?” But the speck would turn out to be a log or some such thing, and the crowd would fall silent again.
By and by distant cheering was heard, and all turned to listen. The sound grew and grew, approached nearer and nearer, the black horse was sighted, the people fell apart, and down the lane the young girl came flying, with her welcome roaring about her. Evidently she was a favorite. All along, from the beginning of her flight, as soon as she was recognised the cry went up—
“It’s Hellfire Hotchkiss—stand back and give her the road!” and then the cheers broke out.
She reined up, now, and spoke—
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows. Him and the other boys were skating, along about yonder, somewheres, and they heard a rip, and the first they knew their side of the river begun to break up. They made a rush, and got through all right; but he was behind, and by the time he got here the split was too wide for him—for him, you understand—so they flew home to tell, and get help, and he broke for up the river to hunt a better place, and—”
The girl did not wait for the rest, but rode off up stream, peering across the chasm as she went, the people following her with their eyes, and commenting.
“She’s the only person that had enough presence of mind to come fixed to do something in case there was a chance. She’s got a life-preserver along.” It was Miss Hepworth, the milliner, that said that. Peter Jones, the blacksmith, said—
“It ought to do some good, seeing she took the trouble and had the thoughtfulness to fetch it, but there’s never any telling which way Thug Carpenter is going to act. Take him as a rule, he is afraid of his shadow; and then again, after a mighty long spell, he’ll up and do a thing which is brave enough for most anybody to be proud of. If he is just his ordinary natural self to-day, the life-preserver ain’t going to be any good; he won’t dare use it when Hellfire throws it to him.”
[begin page 121] “That’s about the size of it,” said Jake Thompson, the baker. “There’s considerable difference betwixt them two—Thug and her. Pudd’nhead Wilson says Hellfire Hotchkiss is the only genuwyne male man in this town and Thug Carpenter’s the only genuwyne female girl, if you leave out sex and just consider the business facts; and says her pap used to—hey, she’s stopped.”
“So she has. Maybe she’s found him.”
“No, only thought she had. She’s moving on, again. Pudd’nhead Wilson says Thug’s got the lightest heart and the best disposition of any person in this town, and pretty near the quickest brains, too, but is a most noble derned fool just the same. And he says Hellfire’s a long sight the prettiest human creature that ever lived, and the trimmest built, too, and as graceful as a fish; and says he’d druther see her eyes snap when she’s mad, or water up when she’s touched than—’y George, she’s stopped again. Say—she’s faced around; she’s coming this way.”
“It’s so. Stopped again. She’s found him, sure. Seems to be talking across the rift—don’t you see? Got her hand up to her mouth for a trumpet. Ain’t it so?”
“Oh, yes, there ain’t any doubt. She’s got off of her horse. Hi!—come along, everybody. Hellfire’s found him!”
The crowd set out at a pace which soon brought them to the girl; then they faced about and walked along with her. Oscar was abreast, prisoner on a detached and independent great square of ice, with a couple of hundred yards of water and scattered ice-cakes between him and the people. His case had a bad look. Oscar’s parents arrived, now, and when his mother realized the situation she put out her hands toward him and began to wail and sob, and call him by endearing names, and implore him not to leave her, not to take away the light of her life and make it desolate; and then she looked beseechingly into the faces about her, and said, “Oh, will nobody save him? he is all the world to me; oh, I cannot give him up.” She caught sight of the young girl, now, and ran to her and said, “Oh, Rachel, dear, dear Rachel, you saved him before, you’ll not let him die now, will you?”
“No.”
[begin page 122] “Oh, you precious child! if ever—”
“’Sh! What is he saying? Listen.”
Oscar was shouting something, but the words could not be made out with certainty.
“Wasn’t it something about snags?” asked the girl. “Are there snags down yonder?”
“Snags? Yes,” said the baker, “there’s a whole rack-heap of them. That is what he’s talking about, sure. He knows they are there, and he knows they’ll wreck him.”
“Then it won’t do to wait any longer for the rift to get narrower,” said Rachel. “He must be helped now or it will be too late.”
She threw off her winter wrap, and began to take off her shoes.
“What are you going to do?” said old Uncle Benny Stimson, Indian doctor and tavern keeper.
“Take him the preserver. He isn’t much of a swimmer, and couldn’t ever make the trip without it.”
“You little fool, you’ll freeze to death.”
“Freeze to death—the [ idea]!”
“Well, you will. You let some of these young fellows do it.”
“When I want anybody’s help, I’ll ask for it, Uncle Benny. I am one of the young fellows myself, I’ll let you know.”
“Right you are. The pig-headedest little devil, for a parson’s daughter, I ever saw. But a brick just the same; I’ll say that for you, H. H.,—every time.”
“Thank you, dear. Please lead my horse and carry my things, and go along down yonder and stand by. Thug is pretty well chilled by this time; [ somebody] please lend me a whisky-flask.”
Thirty-five were offered. She took one, and put it in her [ bosom. Uncle] Benny said—
“No use in that, he’s teetotal—he won’t touch it, girly.”
“That was last week. He has reformed by this time.”
She plunged in and struck out. Somebody said “Let us pray,” but no one heard; all were absorbed in watching. The girl made good progress both ways—forward, by her own strength, and [downstream] by the force of the current. She made her goal, and got a cheer when she climbed out of the water. Oscar had been in a state [begin page 123] of exhausting fright for an hour and more, and he said he was weak and chilled and helpless and unmanned, and would rather die where he was than chance the desperate swim—he knew he couldn’t make it.
“Yes you can. I’ll help you, Thug, and the preserver will keep you up. Here, take some of this—it will hearten you.”
“What is it?”
“Milk.”
He took a drain.
“Good milk, too,” he said. “It is so comforting, and I was so cold. I will take some more. How thoughtful it was of you to bring the flask; but you always think of everything.”
“Hurry. Get off your overcoat, Thug.”
But he glanced at the water and the wide distance, and said, “Oh, I don’t dare to venture it. I never could make it.”
“Yes you can. Trust to me. I’ll help you with the coat. There, it’s off. Now the boots. Sit down—I’ll help. Now the preserver; hold still, I’ll strap it around you. We are ready, now. Come—you are not afraid to trust to me, Thug?”
“I am going to do it, if I die—but I wouldn’t risk it with any other person. You’ll go through safe, I know that; and you’ll fetch me through if anybody can.” He added, tearfully, “But it may be that I’ll never get across; I don’t feel that I shall. And if these are my last words, I want to say this. If I go down, you must tell my mother that I loved her and thought of her to the last; and I want you to remember always that I was grateful to you. I think you are the best, best girl that ever lived; and if I pass from this troubled life this day, I shall enter heaven with a prayer on my lips for you, Hellfire. I am ready.”
“You are a dear good boy, Thug, but it is not wise to be thinking about death at such a time as this. Come along, and don’t be afraid; your mother is yonder, and you will be with her in a very little while. Quick, here are the snags.”
They were away in time; in a few moments more their late refuge went to wreck and ruin with a crash.
“Rest your right hand on my shoulder, Thug, and keep the same [begin page 124] stroke with me. And no matter what happens, don’t get rattled. Slack up a little—we mustn’t hurry.” After a little she said, “We are half way, now—are you getting tired?”
“Yes, and oh, so cold! I can’t hold out, Rachel.”
“Yes you can. You must. We are doing well; we are going to make it. Turn on your back and float a little—two minutes. There, that will do; you mustn’t get cramps.”
“Rachel, they are cheering us. How that warms a person up! If they’ll keep that up, I believe I can make it.”
“They’ll do it—hear that!”
“Rachel—”
“What?”
“I’m afraid there’s a cramp coming.”
“Hush—put it out of your mind!”
“I can’t, Rachel—[ it’s] coming.”
“Thug, you must put it out of your mind. Brace up—we are almost there. It is no distance at all, now. Two minutes more. Brace up. Don’t give in—I know we are safe.”
Both were well spent when they were hauled out on the ice, and also fairly well frozen; but a warm welcome and good whisky refreshed them and made them comfortable; and the attentions and congratulations and interest and sympathy and admiration lavished upon them deeply gratified Oscar’s love of distinction and made him glad the catastrophe had happened to him.
Vesuvius, isolated, conspicuous, graceful of contour, is lovely when it is at peace, with the sunshine pouring upon its rich vineyards and its embowered homes and hamlets drowsing in the drift of the cloud-shadows; but it is subject to irruptions. Rachel was a Vesuvius, seen through the butt-end of the telescope. She was largely made up of feeling. She had a tropically warm heart, a right spirit and a good disposition; but under resentment her [begin page 125] weather could change with remarkable promptness, and break into tempests of a surprising sort. Still, while the bulk of her was heart and impulse, the rest of her was mental, and good in quality. She had a business head, and practical sense, and it had been believed from the first, by Judge Carpenter and other thoughtful people, that she would be a valuable person when she got tame.
Part of what she was was born to her, the rest was due to environment and to her up-bringing. She had had neither brothers nor sisters; there was no young society for her in the house. Her mother was an invalid and kept her room the most of the time. She could not endure noise, nor tempers, nor restless activities; and from the cradle her child was a master hand in these matters. So, in her first years she was deprived of the society of her mother. The young slave woman, Martha, was superstitious about her, thinking at first that she was possessed of a devil, and later that he had found the accommodations to his mind and had brought his family. She petted and spoiled the child, partly out of her race’s natural fondness for children of any sort or kind, and partly to placate and pacify the devils; but she had a world of work to do and could give but little time to play, so the child would soon find the kitchen a dull place and seek elsewhere for amusement.
The father was sweetness and amiability itself, and greatly loved the child, but he was no company for the volatile creature, nor she for him. He was always musing, dreaming, absorbing himself in his books, or grinding out sermons, and while the child was present these industries suffered considerable interruption. There was conversation—abundance of it—but it was of a wearing and nerve-racking kind.
“Can I have this, fa’r?” (father.)
“No, dear, that is not for lit—”
“Could I have that?”
“No, dear, please don’t handle it. It is very frail and you might—”
“What is this for, fa’r? Can Wildcat have it?” This was Martha’s love-name for Rachel.
“Oh, dear no! My child, you must not put your hands on things without asking beforehand whether you may or—”
[begin page 126] “Ain’t there anything for me to play with?—and it’s so lonesome; and there isn’t any place to go.”
“Ah, poor child, I wish—there! Oh, I knew you would; the whole inkstand emptied onto your nice clean clothes. Run along, dear, and tell Martha to attend to you—quick, before you smear it over everything.”
There was no one to govern Rachel, no one to train her, so she drifted along without these aids; and such rearing as she got was her own handiwork and was not according to any familiar pattern. She was never still when awake, she was stored to the eyelids with energies and enthusiasms, her mind, her hands, her feet, her body, were in a state of constant and tireless activity, and her weather was about equally divided between brilliant and happy sunshine and devastating tempests of wrath. Martha said she was a “sudden” child—the suddenest she had ever seen; that when anything went wrong with her there was no time to provide against consequences: she had smashed every breakable thing she could get her hands on before a body could say a word; and then as suddenly her fury was over and she was gathering up the wreckage and mourning over it remorsefully.
By the law of her nature she had to have society; and as she could not get it in the house she forsook that desert early and found it outside. And so while she was as yet a toddling little thing it became a peaceful house—a home of deep and slumberous tranquillity, and for a good while perhaps forgot that it had ever been harassed and harried and terrorised by her family of uneasy devils.
She was a stranger outside, but that was nothing; she soon had a reputation there. She laid its foundations in her first week at Miss Roper’s school, when she was six years old and a little past. At first she took up with the little girls, but they were a disappointment; she found their society a weariness. They played with dolls; she found that dull. They cried for a pin-scratch: she did not like that. When they quarreled, they took it out in calling each other names; according to her ideas, this was inadequate. They would not jump from high places; they would not climb high trees; they were afraid of the thunder; and of the water; and of cows; and would take no [begin page 127] perilous risks; and had no love of danger for its own sake. She tried to reform them, but it failed. So she went over to the boys.
They would have none of her, and told her so. They said they were not going to play with girls—they despised them. [Shad Stover] threatened her with a stout hickory, and told her to move along or she would catch it. She perceived, now, that she could be happy, here, and was sorry she had wasted so much time with the little girls. She did not say anything to the boy, but snatched his switch away and wore it out on him. She made him beg. He was nearly twice her own age and size, and as he was the bully of the small-fry side of the school, she had established her ability to whip the whole of his following by whipping him—and if she had been a boy this would have been conceded and she would have succeeded to the bully’s captainship without further balloting; but she was a girl, and boys have no manly sense of fairness and justice where girls are concerned; so she had to whip two or three of the others before opposition was quenched and her wish to play with the gang granted. Shad Stover withdrew and took a minor place in a group of somewhat larger boys.
Thenceforth Rachel trained with the boys altogether, and found in their rough play and tough combats and dangerous enterprises the contentment and joy for which she long had hungered. She took her full share in all their sports, and was a happy child. All through the summer she was encountering perils, but she had luck, and disappointed all the prophets. They all said she would get herself killed, but in no instance did her damages reach quite to that, though several times there were good hopes. She was a hardy and determined fighter, and attacked anything that came along, if it offended. By and by when the cool October came and the news went about that the circus was coming, on its way to the South, she was on hand outside the village, with many others, at sunrise, to get a look at the elephant free of charge. With a cake in her hand for the animal, [ she] sat with the crowd on the grass by the country road. When the elephant was passing by, he scooped up a snoutful of dust and flung it over his back, then scooped up another and discharged it into the faces of the audience. They were astonished [begin page 128] and frightened, and all except Rachel flitted promptly over the rail fence with a rush, gasping and coughing; but the child was not moved to run away. The little creature was in a towering rage; for she had come to offer hospitality, and this was the thanks she got. She sprang into the road with the first stick that came handy and began to fiercely bang and hammer the elephant’s hind legs and scream at him all the injurious epithets she could think of. But the elephant swayed along, and was not aware of what was happening. This offensive indifference set fire to all the child’s reserves of temper, and she ran forward to see if she could get any attention at that end. She gave the trunk a cordial bang, saying, “Now let that learn you!” and raised her stick for another stroke; but before she could deliver it the elephant, without changing his gait, gathered her gently up and tossed her over the fence among the crowd. She was beside herself at this new affront, and was for clearing out after him again; and struggled to get free, but the people held her. They reasoned with her, and said it was no use to fight the elephant, for he didn’t mind a stick. “I know it,” she said, “but I’ve got a pin, now, and if I can get to him I will stick it in him.”
A few months later her mother died. Rachel was then seven years old. During the next three years [ she] went on playing with the boys, and gradually building up a perfect conflagration of a reputation, as far as unusual enterprises and unsafe exploits went. Then at last arguments and reasonings began to have an effect upon her, and she presently stopped training with the boys.
She played with the girls six months, and tried to get used to it and fond of it, but finally had to give it up. The amusements were not rugged enough; they were much too tame, not to say drowsy. Kissing parties and candy pullings in the winter, and picnics in the summer: these were good romps and lively, but they did not happen often enough, and the intermediate dissipations seemed wholly colorless to Rachel.
She withdrew. She did not go back to the boys at once, but tried to get along by herself. But nature was too strong for her; she had to have company; within two months she was a tomboy again, and her life was once more a satisfaction to her, a worry to her friends, and a marvel to the rest of the community.
[begin page 129] Before the next four and a half years were out she had learned many masculine arts, and was more competent in them than any boy of her age in the town. All alone she learned how to swim, and with the boys she learned to skate. She was the only person of her sex in the county who had these accomplishments—they were taboo. She fished, boated, hunted, trapped, played “shinny” on the ice and ball on the land, and ran foot races. She broke horses for pastime, and for the risk there was in it. At fifteen [ she] ranked as the strongest “boy” in the town, the smartest boxer, a willing and fearless fighter, and good to win any fight that her heart was in. [The firemen conferred an honorary membership upon her, and allowed her to scale the roofs of burning houses and help handle the hose; for she liked that sort of employment, she had good judgment and coolness in danger, she was spry and active, and she attended strictly to business when on the roof. Whenever there was a fire she and her official belt and helmet were a part of the spectacle]—sometimes lit up with the red flush of the flames, sometimes dimly glimpsed through the tumbling volumes of smoke, sometimes helping to get out the inmates, sometimes being helped out herself in a suffocated condition. Several times she saved lives, several times her own life was saved by her mates; and once when she was overcome by the smoke they penetrated to her and rescued her when the chance of success was so slender that they would not have taken the risk for another.
She kept the community in an unrestful state; it could settle to no permanent conclusion about her. She was always rousing its resentment by her wild unfeminine ways, and always winning back its forgiveness again by some act or other of an undeniably creditable sort.
By the time she was ten she had begun to help about the house, and before she was thirteen she was become in effect its mistress—mistress and assistant housekeeper. She kept the accounts, checked wastage, and was useful in other ways. But she had earned her picturesque nickname, and it stayed by her. It was a country where nicknames were common; and once acquired, they were a life-property, and inalienable. Rachel might develop into a saint, but that would not matter: the village would acknowledge the saintship [begin page 130] and revere the saint, but it would still call her Hellfire Hotchkiss. Old use and habit would take care of that.
Along in her sixteenth year she accidentally crossed the orbit of her early antagonist, Shad Stover, and this had good results for her; or rather it led up to something which did her that service. Shad Stover was now twenty, and had gone to the dogs, along with his brother Hal, who was [ twenty-one]. They were dissipated young loafers, and had gotten the reputation of being desperadoes, also. They were as vain of this dark name as if they had legitimately earned it—which they hadn’t. They went armed—which was not the custom of the town—and every now and then they pulled their pepper-box revolvers and made some one beg for his life. They traveled in a pair—two on one—and they always selected their man with good discretion, and no bloodshed followed. It was a cheap way to build up a reputation, but it was effective. About once a month they added something to it in an inexpensive way: they got drunk and rode the streets firing their revolvers in the air and scaring the people out of their wits. They had become the terror of the town. There was a sheriff, and there was also a constable, but they could never be found when these things were going on. Warrants were not sued out by witnesses, for no one wanted to get into trouble with the Stovers.
One day there was a commotion in the streets, and the cry went about that the Stovers had picked a quarrel with a stranger and were killing him. Rachel was on her way home from a ball-game, and had her bat in her hand. She turned a corner, and came upon the three men struggling together; at a little distance was gathered a crowd of citizens, gazing spell-bound and paralyzed. The Stovers had the stranger down, and he had a grip upon each of them and was shouting wildly for help. Just as Rachel arrived Shad snatched himself free and drew his revolver and bent over and thrust it in the man’s face and pulled the trigger. It missed fire, and Rachel’s bat fell before he could pull again. Then she struck the other brother senseless, and the stranger jumped up and ran away, grateful but not stopping to say so.
A few days later old [Aunt Betsy Davis] paid Rachel a visit. She [begin page 131] was no one’s aunt in particular, but just the town’s. The title indicated that she was kind and good and wise, well beloved, and in age. She said—
“I want to have a little talk with you, dear. I was your mother’s friend, and I am yours, although you are so headstrong and have never done as I’ve tried to get you to do. But I’ve got to try again, and you must let me; for at last the thing has happened that I was afraid might happen: you are being talked about.”
Rachel’s expression had been hardening for battle; but she broke into a little laugh, now, and said—
“Talked about? Why, aunt Betsy, I was always talked about.”
“Yes, dear, but not in this new way.”
“New way?”
“Yes. There is one kind of gossip that this town has never dealt in before, in the fifty-two years that I’ve lived in it—and has never had any occasion to. Not in one single case, if you leave out [the town drunkard’s girls]; and even that turned out to be a lie, and was stopped.”
“Aunt Betsy!” Rachel’s face was crimson, and an angry light rose in her eyes.
“There—now don’t lose your temper, child. Keep calm, and let us have a good sensible talk, and talk it out. Take [ it all] around, this is a fair town, and a just town, and has been good to you—very good to you, everything considered, for you have led it a dance, and you know it. Now ain’t that so?”
“Ye-s, but—”
“Never mind the buts. Leave it just so. The town has been quite reasonably good to you, everything considered. Partly it was on account of your poor mother, partly on your father’s account and your own, and partly because it’s its natural and honorable disposition to stand by all its old families the best it can. Now then, haven’t you got your share to do by it? Of course you have. Have you done it? In some ways you haven’t, and I’m going to tell you about it. You’ve always preferred to play with the boys. Well, that’s all right, up to a certain limit; but you’ve gone away beyond the limit. You ought to have stopped long ago—oh, long ago. And [begin page 132] stopped being fireman, too. Then there’s another thing. It’s all right for you to break all the wild horses in the county, as long as you like it and are the best hand at it; and it’s all right for you to keep a wild horse of your own and tear around the country everywhere on it all alone; but you are fifteen years old, now, and in many ways you are seventeen and could pass for a woman, and so the time has gone by for you to be riding astraddle.”
“Why, I’ve not done it once since I was twelve, aunt Betsy.”
“Is that so? Well, I’m glad of it; I hadn’t noticed. I’ll set that down to your credit. Now there’s another thing. If you must go boating, and shooting, and skating, and all that—however, let that go. I reckon you couldn’t break yourself. But anyway, you don’t need the boys’ company—you can go alone. You see, if you had let the boys alone, why then these reports wouldn’t ever—”
“Aunt Betsy, does anybody believe those reports?”
“Believe them? Why, how you talk! Of course they don’t. Our [ people] don’t believe such things about our old families so easy as all that. They don’t believe it now, but if a thing goes on, and on, and on, being talked about, why that’s another matter. The thing to do is to stop it in time, and that is what I’ve come to plead with you to do, child, for your own sake and your father’s, and for the sake of your mother who is in her grave—a good friend to me she was, and I’m trying to be hers, now.”
She closed with a trembling lip and an unsteady voice. Rachel was not hearing; she was lost in a reverie. Presently a flush crept into her face, and she muttered—
“And they are talking about me—like that!” After a little she glanced up suddenly and said, “You spoke of it as new talk; how new is it?”
“Two or three days old.”
“Two or three days. Who started it?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I think I can. The Stovers.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll horsewhip them both.”
The old lady said with simplicity—
[begin page 133] “I was afraid you would. You are a dear good child, and your heart is always in the right place. And so like your grandfather. Dear me but he was a topper! And just as splendid as he could be.”
After aunt Betsy took her leave, Rachel sat a long time silent and thinking. In the end, she arrived at a conclusion, apparently.
“And they are talking about me—like that. Who would ever have dreamed it? Aunt Betsy is right. It is time to call a halt. It is a pity, too. The boys are such good company, and it is going to be so dull without them. Oh, everything seems to be made wrong, nothing seems to [ be the] way it ought to be. Thug Carpenter is out of his sphere, I am out of mine. Neither of us can arrive at any success in life, we shall always [ be] hampered and fretted and kept back by our misplaced sexes, and in the end defeated by them, whereas if we could change we should stand as good a chance as any of the young people in the town. I wonder which case is the hardest. I am sorry for him, and yet I do not see that he is any more entitled to pity than I am.”
She went on thinking at random for a while longer, then her thoughts began to settle and take form and shape, and she ended by making a definite plan.
“I will change my way of life. I will begin now, and stick to it. I will not train with the boys any more, nor do ungirlish things except when it is a duty and I ought to do them. I mean, I will not do them for mere pleasure. Before this I would have horsewhipped the Stovers just as a pleasure; but now it will be for a higher motive—a higher motive, and in every way a worthier one.
“That is for Monday. Tomorrow I will go to church. I will go every Sunday. I do not want to, but it must be done. It is a duty.
“Withdraw from the boys. The Stovers. Church. That makes three. Three in three days. It is enough to begin with; I suppose I have never done three in three weeks before—just as duties.”
And being refreshed and contented by this wholesale purification, she went to bed.
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