Part 38

So, with breezy walks and games with the children, occasional confidences with Melinda and Silas, and the Sabbath “singing of anthems,” Mr. Hamlin's three weeks of convalescence drew to a close. He had lately relaxed his habit of seclusion so far as to mingle with the company gathered for more social purposes at the rancho, and once or twice unbent so far as to satisfy their curiosity in regard to certain details of his profession.

“I have no personal knowledge of games of cards,” said Parson Greenwood patronizingly, “and think I am right in saying that our brothers and sisters are equally inexperienced. I am--ahem--far from believing, however, that entire ignorance of evil is the best preparation for combating it, and I should be glad if you'd explain to the company the intricacies of various games. There is one that you mentioned, with a--er--scriptural name.”

“Faro,” said Hamlin, with an unmoved face.

“Pharaoh,” repeated the parson gravely; “and one which you call 'poker,' which seems to require great self-control.”

“I couldn't make you understand poker without your playing it,” said Jack decidedly.

“As long as we don't gamble--that is, play for money--I see no objection,” returned the parson.

“And,” said Jack musingly, “you could use beans.”

It was agreed finally that there would be no falling from grace in their playing among themselves, in an inquiring Christian spirit, under Jack's guidance, he having decided to abstain from card playing during his convalescence, and Jack permitted himself to be persuaded to show them the following evening.

It so chanced, however, that Dr. Duchesne, finding the end of Jack's “cure” approaching, and not hearing from that interesting invalid, resolved to visit him at about this time. Having no chance to apprise Jack of his intention, on coming to Hightown at night he procured a conveyance at the depot to carry him to Windy Hill Rancho. The wind blew with its usual nocturnal rollicking persistency, and at the end of his turbulent drive it seemed almost impossible to make himself heard amongst the roaring of the pines and some astounding preoccupation of the inmates. After vainly knocking, the doctor pushed open the front door and entered. He rapped at the closed sitting room door, but receiving no reply, pushed it open upon the most unexpected and astounding scene he had ever witnessed. Around the centre table several respectable members of the Hightown Church, including the parson, were gathered with intense and eager faces playing poker, and behind the parson, with his hands in his pockets, carelessly lounged the doctor's patient, the picture of health and vigor. A disused pack of cards was scattered on the floor, and before the gentle and precise Mrs. Rivers was heaped a pile of beans that would have filled a quart measure.

When Dr. Duchesne had tactfully retreated before the hurried and stammering apologies of his host and hostess, and was alone with Jack in his rooms, he turned to him with a gravity that was more than half affected and said, “How long, sir, did it take you to effect this corruption?”

“Upon my honor,” said Jack simply, “they played last night for the first time. And they forced me to show them. But,” added Jack after a significant pause, “I thought it would make the game livelier and be more of a moral lesson if I gave them nearly all good pat hands. So I ran in a cold deck on them--the first time I ever did such a thing in my life. I fixed up a pack of cards so that one had three tens, another three jacks, and another three queens, and so on up to three aces. In a minute they had all tumbled to the game, and you never saw such betting. Every man and woman there believed he or she had struck a sure thing, and staked accordingly. A new panful of beans was brought on, and Seth, your friend, banked for them. And at last the parson raked in the whole pile.”

“I suppose you gave him the three aces,” said Dr. Duchesne gloomily.

“The parson,” said Jack slowly, “HADN'T A SINGLE PAIR IN HIS HAND. It was the stoniest, deadest, neatest BLUFF I ever saw. And when he'd frightened off the last man who held out and laid that measly hand of his face down on that pile of kings, queens, and aces, and looked around the table as he raked in the pile, there was a smile of humble self-righteousness on his face that was worth double the money.”

A PUPIL OF CHESTNUT RIDGE

The schoolmaster of Chestnut Ridge was interrupted in his after-school solitude by the click of hoof and sound of voices on the little bridle path that led to the scant clearing in which his schoolhouse stood. He laid down his pen as the figures of a man and woman on horseback passed the windows and dismounted before the porch. He recognized the complacent, good-humored faces of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover, who owned a neighboring ranch of some importance and who were accounted well to do people by the community. Being a childless couple, however, while they generously contributed to the support of the little school, they had not added to its flock, and it was with some curiosity that the young schoolmaster greeted them and awaited the purport of their visit. This was protracted in delivery through a certain polite dalliance with the real subject characteristic of the Southwestern pioneer.

“Well, Almiry,” said Mr. Hoover, turning to his wife after the first greeting with the schoolmaster was over, “this makes me feel like old times, you bet! Why, I ain't bin inside a schoolhouse since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Thar's the benches, and the desks, and the books and all them 'a b, abs,' jest like the old days. Dear! Dear! But the teacher in those days was ez old and grizzled ez I be--and some o' the scholars--no offense to you, Mr. Brooks--was older and bigger nor you. But times is changed: yet look, Almiry, if thar ain't a hunk o' stale gingerbread in that desk jest as it uster be! Lord! how it all comes back! Ez I was sayin' only t'other day, we can't be too grateful to our parents for givin' us an eddication in our youth;” and Mr. Hoover, with the air of recalling an alma mater of sequestered gloom and cloistered erudition, gazed reverently around the new pine walls.

But Mrs. Hoover here intervened with a gracious appreciation of the schoolmaster's youth after her usual kindly fashion. “And don't you forget it, Hiram Hoover, that these young folks of to-day kin teach the old schoolmasters of 'way back more'n you and I dream of. We've heard of your book larnin', Mr. Brooks, afore this, and we're proud to hev you here, even if the Lord has not pleased to give us the children to send to ye. But we've always paid our share in keeping up the school for others that was more favored, and now it looks as if He had not forgotten us, and ez if”--with a significant, half-shy glance at her husband and a corroborating nod from that gentleman--“ez if, reelly, we might be reckonin' to send you a scholar ourselves.”

The young schoolmaster, sympathetic and sensitive, felt somewhat embarrassed. The allusion to his extreme youth, mollified though it was by the salve of praise from the tactful Mrs. Hoover, had annoyed him, and perhaps added to his slight confusion over the information she vouchsafed. He had not heard of any late addition to the Hoover family, he would not have been likely to, in his secluded habits; and although he was accustomed to the naive and direct simplicity of the pioneer, he could scarcely believe that this good lady was announcing a maternal expectation. He smiled vaguely and begged them to be seated.

“Ye see,” said Mr. Hoover, dropping upon a low bench, “the way the thing pans out is this. Almiry's brother is a pow'ful preacher down the coast at San Antonio and hez settled down thar with a big Free Will Baptist Church congregation and a heap o' land got from them Mexicans. Thar's a lot o' poor Spanish and Injin trash that belong to the land, and Almiry's brother hez set about convertin' 'em, givin' 'em convickshion and religion, though the most of 'em is Papists and followers of the Scarlet Woman. Thar was an orphan, a little girl that he got outer the hands o' them priests, kinder snatched as a brand from the burnin', and he sent her to us to be brought up in the ways o' the Lord, knowin' that we had no children of our own. But we thought she oughter get the benefit o' schoolin' too, besides our own care, and we reckoned to bring her here reg'lar to school.”

Relieved and pleased to help the good-natured couple in the care of the homeless waif, albeit somewhat doubtful of their religious methods, the schoolmaster said he would be delighted to number her among his little flock. Had she already received any tuition?

“Only from them padres, ye know, things about saints, Virgin Marys, visions, and miracles,” put in Mrs. Hoover; “and we kinder thought ez you know Spanish you might be able to get rid o' them in exchange for 'conviction o' sins' and 'justification by faith,' ye know.”

“I'm afraid,” said Mr. Brooks, smiling at the thought of displacing the Church's “mysteries” for certain corybantic displays and thaumaturgical exhibitions he had witnessed at the Dissenters' camp meeting, “that I must leave all that to you, and I must caution you to be careful what you do lest you also shake her faith in the alphabet and the multiplication table.”

“Mebbee you're right,” said Mrs. Hoover, mystified but good-natured; “but thar's one thing more we oughter tell ye. She's--she's a trifle dark complected.”

The schoolmaster smiled. “Well?” he said patiently.

“She isn't a nigger nor an Injin, ye know, but she's kinder a half-Spanish, half-Mexican Injin, what they call 'mes--mes'”--

“Mestiza,” suggested Mr. Brooks; “a half-breed or mongrel.”

“I reckon. Now thar wouldn't be any objection to that, eh?” said Mr. Hoover a little uneasily.

“Not by me,” returned the schoolmaster cheerfully. “And although this school is state-aided it's not a 'public school' in the eye of the law, so you have only the foolish prejudices of your neighbors to deal with.” He had recognized the reason of their hesitation and knew the strong racial antagonism held towards the negro and Indian by Mr. Hoover's Southwestern compatriots, and he could not refrain from “rubbing it in.”