A First Family of Tasajara. Bret Harte
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assuringly, “it ain’t far.”
“He’s skipped with one o’ those story-books he’s borrowed,” said Phemie. “He’s always doin’ it. Like as not he’s reading with a candle in the wood-shed. We’ll all be burnt up some night.”
“But he’s got through his chores,” interposed Mrs. Harkutt deprecatingly.
“Yes,” continued Harkutt, aggrievedly, “but instead of goin’ to bed, or addin’ up bills, or takin’ count o’ stock, or even doin’ sums or suthin’ useful, he’s ruinin’ his eyes and wastin’ his time over trash.” He rose and walked slowly into the sitting-room, followed by his daughter and a murmur of commiseration from his wife. But Mrs. Harkutt’s ministration for the present did not pass beyond her domain, the kitchen.
“I reckon ye ain’t expectin’ anybody tonight, Phemie?” said Mr. Harkutt, sinking into a chair, and placing his slippered feet against the wall.
“No,” said Phemie, “unless something possesses that sappy little Parmlee to make one of his visitations. John Milton says that out on the road it blows so you can’t stand up. It’s just like that idiot Parmlee to be blown in here, and not have strength of mind enough to get away again.”
Mr. Harkutt smiled. It was that arch yet approving, severe yet satisfied smile with which the deceived male parent usually receives any depreciation of the ordinary young man by his daughters. Euphemia was no giddy thing to be carried away by young men’s attentions,—not she! Sitting back comfortably in his rocking-chair, he said, “Play something.”
The young girl went to the closet and took from the top shelf an excessively ornamented accordion,—the opulent gift of a reckless admirer. It was so inordinately decorated, so gorgeous in the blaze of papier mache, mother-of-pearl, and tortoise-shell on keys and keyboard, and so ostentatiously radiant in the pink silk of its bellows that it seemed to overawe the plainly furnished room with its splendors. “You ought to keep it on the table in a glass vase, Phemie,” said her father admiringly.
“And have HIM think I worshiped it! Not me, indeed! He’s conceited enough already,” she returned, saucily.
Mr. Harkutt again smiled his approbation, then deliberately closed his eyes and threw his head back in comfortable anticipation of the coming strains.
It is to be regretted that in brilliancy, finish, and even cheerfulness of quality they were not up to the suggestions of the keys and keyboard. The most discreet and cautious effort on the part of the young performer seemed only to produce startlingly unexpected, but instantly suppressed complaints from the instrument, accompanied by impatient interjections of “No, no,” from the girl herself. Nevertheless, with her pretty eyebrows knitted in some charming distress of memory, her little mouth half open between an apologetic smile and the exertion of working the bellows, with her white, rounded arms partly lifted up and waving before her, she was pleasantly distracting to the eye. Gradually, as the scattered strains were marshaled into something like an air, she began to sing also, glossing over the instrumental weaknesses, filling in certain dropped notes and omissions, and otherwise assisting the ineffectual accordion with a youthful but not unmusical voice. The song was a lugubrious religious chant; under its influence the house seemed to sink into greater quiet, permitting in the intervals the murmur of the swollen creek to appear more distinct, and even the far moaning of the wind on the plain to become faintly audible. At last, having fairly mastered the instrument, Phemie got into the full swing of the chant. Unconstrained by any criticism, carried away by the sound of her own voice, and perhaps a youthful love for mere uproar, or possibly desirous to drown her father’s voice, which had unexpectedly joined in with a discomposing bass, the conjoined utterances seemed to threaten the frail structure of their dwelling, even as the gale had distended the store behind them. When they ceased at last it was in an accession of dripping from the apparently stirred leaves outside. And then a voice, evidently from the moist depths of the abyss below, called out,—
“Hullo, there!”
Phemie put down the accordion, said, “Who’s that now?” went to the window, lazily leaned her elbows on the sill, and peered into the darkness. Nothing was to be seen; the open space of dimly outlined landscape had that blank, uncommunicative impenetrability with which Nature always confronts and surprises us at such moments. It seemed to Phemie that she was the only human being present. Yet after the feeling had passed she fancied she heard the wash of the current against some object in the stream, half stationary and half resisting.
“Is any one down there? Is that you, Mr. Parmlee?” she called.
There was a pause. Some invisible auditor said to another, “It’s a young lady.” Then the first voice rose again in a more deferential tone: “Are we anywhere near Sidon?”
“This is Sidon,” answered Harkutt, who had risen, and was now quite obliterating his daughter’s outline at the window.
“Thank you,” said the voice. “Can we land anywhere here, on this bank?”
“Run down, pop; they’re strangers,” said the girl, with excited, almost childish eagerness.
“Hold on,” called out Harkutt, “I’ll be thar in a moment!” He hastily thrust his feet into a pair of huge boots, clapped on an oilskin hat and waterproof, and disappeared through a door that led to a lower staircase. Phemie, still at the window, albeit with a newly added sense of self-consciousness, hung out breathlessly. Presently a beam of light from the lower depths of the house shot out into the darkness. It was her father with a bull’s-eye lantern. As he held it up and clambered cautiously down the bank, its rays fell upon the turbid rushing stream, and what appeared to be a rough raft of logs held with difficulty against the bank by two men with long poles. In its centre was a roll of blankets, a valise and saddle-bags, and the shining brasses of some odd-looking instruments.
As Mr. Harkutt, supporting himself by a willow branch that overhung the current, held up the lantern, the two men rapidly transferred their freight from the raft to the bank, and leaped ashore. The action gave an impulse to the raft, which, no longer held in position by the poles, swung broadside to the current and was instantly swept into the darkness.
Not a word had been spoken, but now the voices of the men rose freely together. Phemie listened with intense expectation. The explanation was simple. They were surveyors who had been caught by the overflow on Tasajara plain, had abandoned their horses on the bank of Tasajara Creek, and with a hastily constructed raft had intrusted themselves and their instruments to the current. “But,” said Harkutt quickly, “there is no connection between Tasajara Creek and this stream.”
The two men laughed. “There is NOW,” said one of them.
“But Tasajara Creek is a part of the bay,” said the astonished Harkutt, “and this stream rises inland and only runs into the bay four miles lower down. And I don’t see how—
“You’re almost twelve feet lower here than Tasajara Creek,” said the first man, with a certain professional authority, “and that’s WHY. There’s more water than Tasajara Creek can carry, and it’s seeking the bay this way. Look,” he continued, taking the lantern from Harkutt’s hand and casting its rays on the stream, “that’s salt drift from the upper bay, and part of Tasajara Creek’s running by your house now! Don’t be alarmed,” he added reassuringly, glancing at the staring storekeeper. “You’re all right here; this is only the overflow and will find its level soon.”
But Mr. Harkutt remained gazing abstractedly at the smiling speaker. From the window above the impatient Phemie was wondering why he kept the strangers waiting in the rain while he talked about things that were perfectly plain. It was so like a man!
“Then there’s a waterway straight to Tasajara Creek?” he said slowly.
“There is, as long as this flood lasts,” returned the first speaker promptly; “and a cutting through the bank of two or three hundred yards would make it permanent. Well, what’s the matter with that?”
“Nothin’,” said Harkutt hurriedly. “I am only considerin’! But come in, dry yourselves, and take suthin’.”
The light over