A 522792

ווה
ARTES
1837
SCIENTIA
LIBRARY
VERITAS
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
PLURIBUS UNIJA
UEBOR
SI-QUAERIS PENINSULAM AMOENAM
CIRCUMSPICE

.
ZEPH.
ZEPH.
A POSTHUMOUS STORY.
BY
HELEN JACKSON (H.H.),
AUTHOR OF
<<
<<
RAMONA, A CENTURY OF DISHONor,'
VERSES,"
"
""
bits of travel,”
"C BITS OF TRAVEL AT HOME," BITS OF TALK ABOUT HOME
"} (
MATTERS, BITS OF TALK FOR YOUNG FOLKS," MERCY
PHILBRICK'S CHOICE," "HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY,'
"NELLY'S SILver mine,' 'LETTERS FROM A CAT,"
MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY,
((
CC THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA.
""
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1886.
Copyright, 1885,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
UNIVERSITY PRESS:
JOHN WILSON and Son, Cambridge,
ZEPH.
I.
THE long Colorado twilight was over. But
it was not yet quite lamplight time by the
clock, and Miss Sophy Burr was sitting in a
brown study at her kitchen window. This was
the time she always took to make a swift retro-
spect in her mind of the results, profitable or
otherwise, of the day just ended. She could
think better in the dark, and the small econ-
omy of doing without a lamp until the last
possible minute gave her a distinct pleasure.
She was the strangest mixture of generosity
and stinginess ever poured into human mould,
her boarders said; and nobody knew better
than they, for there was not a boarder in the
142136
6
1
ZEPH.
t
- house who had not been with her at least a
year: some five and some six, and one old
couple - Mr. and Mrs. Jones - had been with
her ten. They were in Colorado for their
health, Mr. Jones for Mrs. Jones's, and vice
versa Mrs. Jones for Mr. Jones's; so they
always declared, a rare instance of uniformity
in conjugal needs. They began with Miss
Sophy in the year when she began, and the
town began, — almost before Miss Sophy fairly
began; for all she had in way of a house then
was a tent with a sort of fly attachment for a
kitchen, and the boarders ate their meals in
Miss Sophy's bedroom; or, to put it differently,
Miss Sophy was obliged, owing to the scarcity
of accommodations and the rush of custom, to
sleep temporarily in her dining-room. That
sounds better than to say that her boarders
dined in her bedroom.
This was ten years ago. But to look at
Pendar Basin to-day, and to recall what it was
ZEPH.
7
then, one would say it must have been nearer
twenty, so marvellously had the colony grown
and developed. It was now what is called a
"thriving" place of some six thousand peo-
ple, — all active, all making money, none rich,
none very poor, few of any pretence to what
is called in older places "social position," but
all or nearly all of fair intelligence and good
business education in their respective callings.
It had the making of a town in it, a
superb site, good water, the command of two
mountain passes through which must go up and
out of the Basin all the freight for two large min-
ing districts in the west and in the south. A
railroad, one of the main Colorado lines, brought
in the supplies to be thus shipped, and kept it,
moreover, in close relation with the outside world.
On the whole, a very lucky little village was
Pendar Basin; and especially lucky were those
who came in the beginning, in the "tent and
coyote" days, as they were called, and had seen
8
ZEPH.
1
the lots they bought then for hundreds of dol-
lars boom up into value rated by thousands.
Miss Sophy had not ten dollars in the world
when she began. Her story was a sad one, but
its details do not belong here. She had come
out from New England to Colorado to join her
lover; found him dead, buried only the week
before her arrival, his last words full of anguished
anxiety on her account, for he had not been
successful, and had nothing to leave her except
a grave to be tended; and the first thing the poor
soul did, was to spend a few of her dollars in
building a high fence around the bare sandy
mound which hid her lover from her sight.
Then she hired a tent, put out her sign, rolled
up her sleeves, and went to work to earn money
enough to carry her home. But the spell of the
wilderness seized hold upon
her, and she never
went; and now there was not in all the town
a better-known, a more universally respected
woman than Miss Sophy: respected by the
ZEPH.
9
women because of her helpful cheery nature
and exceeding decorum of conduct; respected
by the men because she had a "level head" and
owned considerable property," surest pass-
ports to favor in the minds of business men.
As Miss Sophy sat revolving in her mind the
relative proportions between what she had ex-
pended and what she had received on the day
just closed, a frown deepened on her forehead.
The balance did not please her. The margin of
profit which she had prescribed to herself as a
uniform rule had been diminished by injudicious
luxury added to dinner.
"'T was the jelly," she said to herself. "That
was what did it. But I can't bring myself to
give roast mutton without it. Capers come
cheaper and go farther. I'll boil oftener.”
At least hundreds of times in the last eight
years Miss Sophy had come to this or similar
resolutions; but they always failed her when the
instant arrived for putting them into practice.
ΙΟ
ZEPH.
Her love of a good dinner herself, and her still
keener love of the approbation she won by set-
ting it before others, kept up perpetual warfare
with her savingness, and being two to one, often
came off victorious, often enough to keep up
her reputation for setting the best table in the
town; not often enough, however, to prevent her
making money in the long run, and coming out
at the end of the year with a creditable surplus
ahead.
Just as Miss Sophy had said, half aloud, the
last words of her soliloquy, she heard a faint
knock at the door, an irresolute, vacillating sort
of knock, which aroused her curiosity at once.
"Who ever's that," she said, rising briskly,
"that don't know his mind-or his fingers?" and
she opened the door with impatient quickness.
A tall man, with a painful expression of incer-
titude and feebleness in his bent figure, stood
before her without speaking.
'Well?" said Miss Sophy, sharply.
ZEPH.
I I
"I see a woman come in here a little while
ago," he stammered, "'bout half an hour back."
"Well, supposin' you did!" interrupted Miss
Sophy, still more sharply.
The man lifted his eyes to hers, with the
look of a hunted animal. "Beg your pardon,
ma'am, I did n't mean to 'fend ye; I thought
mebbe 't was my wife, 'n' I'd like to speak to
her."
"Your wife!" cried Miss Sophy, eying him
keenly, she began to suspect him of being
either a tramp or a lunatic,-"your wife!
There has n't any woman come in here but me;
't was me came int' the gate just now. What
you think your wife was wantin' in here?"
The man hung his head. A strange hesitancy
seemed to hold back his every word.
'd
"She said she was goin' out to look for work,"
he said slowly, "an' I thought 't was her I see
turnin' in here. Beg yor pardon, ma'am. Sorry
I troubled ye."
I2
ZEPH.
"Tain't any great trouble answerin' a ques-
tion," replied Miss Sophy, her heart warming at
once at the symptoms of suffering. "What sort
of work did she want? What do you do? Do
you want work?"
"I'm a carpenter," answered the man, still
speaking slowly, and with almost a stumbling
vagueness; "'t least that's my trade; I hain't
got any tools now, though; I've been teamin'
since I've been here."
"Do you want work?" asked Miss Sophy
again, curtly.
No reply from the man. He seemed lost
in thought, his eyes resting on Miss Sophy's
face almost like the unseeing eyes of a sleep-
walker.
"Man alive!" exclaimed Miss Sophy. "I'm
askin' you if you want work! I can get you
somethin' to do."
Still in the same curiously irresolute, hesitant
voice the man answered: "No, I donno's as
ZEPH.
13
I do; that is, I donno's I'll be here; if I was
here, I'd be glad o' work.”
Miss Sophy's patience evaporated. "Well,
you are here, 's near 's I can judge; but you
don't seem to me to want work so much's some
men I 've met. I don't know how you expect
to get along in this world without workin'!"
'I don't," said the man. "'Tain't that I ain't
willin' to work. Ye hain't seen anything o'
my wife, have ye?" he added, with a sudden
desperate energy strangely unlike his manner
hitherto. "She's somethin' your build, an'
about your height; that was the reason I took
you for her jest now; hain't no sech woman
been here to-day? I've looked 'most every-
where else I could think of she'd be likely to
go. Hain't she stopped here?"
"Stark crazy, evidently," thought Miss Sophy,
as she answered: "No, she has n't been here.
No woman has been into this door to-day but
me. Tell me where you live, and if your wife
14
ZEPH.
does call here I'll tell her you want to see
her."
He started apprehensively. "Oh, no, ma'am,"
he said, "don't you say nothin' to her about it.
She does n't like it to have me goin' round fol-
lowin' her up. But I thought if she was in
the house I'd like to get a word with her. My
name's Riker, ma'am, -Zeph Riker. We live
down in the Flat; ye can't miss it. If I'm here
I'd be glad to do teamin'; or, if it was n't for
not havin' tools, carpenterin' 's my trade. Good-
night, ma'am," and turning with a swift move-
ment quite out of keeping with his shambling,
inert attitude, he was gone.
Miss Sophy stood gazing out into the dark-
ness after him for some seconds before she
recovered from her bewilderment.
"Well, if that don't beat all the cur'us things
that's ever come to my door yet!" she mentally
ejaculated as she walked slowly through the
kitchen into the dining-room and began setting
ZEPH.
15
her supper-table. "I guess he's crazy, poor
thing! An' yet, he did n't seem somehow exactly
like crazy neither. Perhaps some o' the folks 'll
know him. It's borne in on me that that man
wants lookin' after."
None of the "folks," that is, Miss Sophy's
boarders, had ever heard of Zeph Riker. As
she told them the tale of her interview they
all with one accord began to warn her against
letting her sympathies go out towards him.
He was a tramp; he was a burglar; he was a
madman. One after another the boarders con-
fidently advanced their theories of explanation
of his singular behavior. It was odd to see,
but a student of psychological phenomena
could have classified the fact, how, as the con-
versation went on, Miss Sophy instinctively
took the attitude of Zeph's defender.
"I don't b'leeve he's one o' them things,"
she said. "I ain't goin' to say it for sure,
but I b'leeve he's jest kind o' dumb with
16
ZEPH.
1
trouble. I think that's all't ails him,
some
dreadful kind o' trouble; 'n' I think he ought
to be looked after. It's been growin' on me, the
more I've thought on 't, that 't was trouble he
was in. Trouble makes folks that way some-
times,―makes the words kind o' stick, an' your
head seem to be all of a kind of a buzz, so
you don't know anythin'. I think somebody
ought to look after him."
Whenever it became clear to Miss Sophy
that a thing or a person wanted "looking af-
ter," the next logical step in her mind was
the conclusion that she herself was the person
whose duty lay in the line of that precise "look-
ing after." "And especially after the trouble
I've seen myself," said Miss Sophy, as she
took her energetic way. the next afternoon
towards "The Flat," a part of the town in
which, strangely enough, she had never be-
fore been. Miss Sophy was not a walker;
that is, not an outdoor walker. The number of
ZEPH.
17
}
1
miles her tireless feet walked each day in her
house it would have greatly surprised her to be
told. She always said it tired her to death to
walk, she was too stout; and when her "folks
sometimes observed, "Why, Miss Sophy, you are
always walking, you never sit down," she would
reply, "Oh, but I don't call it walkin', just
runnin' round the house." And she honestly
thought so; and felt over-fatigued by a half-
hour's walk out of doors, when she would be
fresh as a lark at the end of eight or nine
hours' steady trot on her own floors.
It was a warm day, and the perspiration
stood in drops on Miss Sophy's face when she
finally found herself in the centre of the low,
thinly settled district known as the Flat. Look-
ing around her with mingled disgust and com-
passion, she indulged in the strongest ejaculation
ever permitted to pass her lips.
"Land o' the livin'! What a hole! Poor
creaturs! I don't suppose this land costs
2
18
ZEPH.
anythin', an' that's what brought 'em all in
here. 'Tain't any more nor less than a kind o’
cellar! A nice time scarlet fever'd have if it
was to get in amongst these shanties. It's a
shame! I never knew there was such a place
's this in this town. Well, one half the world
does n't know how the other half lives, is jest
as true in small places as in big, I vow! I
don't know what the man meant by sayin'
I could n't miss it. As if there was n't but
one house in the Flat, and that his'n!" and
Miss Sophy stood looking right and left in
blank perplexity. The dogs and the children
of the Flat soon gathered around her in won-
der at her appearance, and from one of the
oldest and least terrified of the children she
learned which of the shanties was "Zeph's."
It was a poor little place, unfenced, un-
cared for, the house unpainted and dilapi-
dated; and in strange mockery, it seemed,
of the probable needs of the occupants of
ZEPH.
19
such a house, a trim new tying-post stood in
front of the door. Looming up gauntly at its
side was the half-done frame of a two-story
house, evidently long since abandoned to wind
and weather; for the beams were gray from
exposure, and weeds grew high where floors
should have been.
"Should n't wonder a mite if that was his'n,"
thought Miss Sophy. "He looked just the
kind o' man to leave off that way. He wants
spurrin' up." And there was an unconsciously
authoritative quality in the very knock Miss
Sophy gave at Zeph's door.
No answer. Again she knocked, still more
sharply. No sound of any one stirring in the
house. Impatiently Miss Sophy stepped to the
window- there was but one- and looked in.
An ejaculation of dismay escaped her.
"Of all the pigsties, for such a decent man
as he looked, to be livin' in! she said. It was
a bare floor, long
indeed an unsightly place,
20
ZEPH.
unswept; a rusty cooking-stove in the centre of
the room, ashes and brands piled on the hearth
in front; a battered table; wooden chairs; a few
utensils and dishes on cupboard shelves in one
corner; through a half-open door into an adjoin-
ing room were to be seen untidy beds, and a
bureau, with drawers wide open, looking as if
they had just been ransacked by thieves; on a
small stand at the head of the bed was a brass
candlestick in which the candle had burned down
to the socket, leaving grimy strata of melted
tallow and blackened wick piled around it.
Miss Sophy's New England soul revolted.
"I donno's there's any use tryin' to help
anybody that'd have a house like this," she
thought, and stepped back from the window,
again looking around her in a half-compassionate,
half-resentful study of the region. As she did
so she perceived a strange head peering over
a high board fence just beyond the unfinished
frame building. It was an old woman. Her
ZEPH.
21
thin gray hair, streaked with yellow, drawn up
in a tight knot on the top of her head, was
surmounted again by a pair of huge iron-
rimmed spectacles of a kind out of vogue for
fifty years. Her hair looked twenty years older
than her face, and her face, again, twenty years
older than her eyes, which were bright hazel,
clear and keen, making the spectacles seem a
grotesque adornment rather than a necessary
aid to vision. The old woman had been watch-
ing Miss Sophy's every movement, and as she
saw her turn away from the window, called out,
"Ain't nobody in thar, be ther?"
"No," said Miss Sophy, "no one.”
I allowed he hed n't come hum," said the
woman. "I seed thar warn't no smoke out'er'n
ther chimbly, 'n' I said ter Vilm, sez I, 'I jest
allow thet thar Zeph's been walkin' ther streets
all night, I allow he hez!""
Miss Sophy walked briskly towards the fence.
As she did so, the head disappeared from view,
22
ZEPH.
and simultaneously from behind the boards
came the hospitable invitation, "Ef yeow 'll
step raound ter the front a piece, I'll let yer in;
this gate's done nailed up, kase ther young
uns's allers lettin' ther pig aout.”
"What
"I never!" thought Miss Sophy.
next, I wonder!" But she complied with the
directions, and reaching the other side of the
house found herself confronted by her strange
interlocutor, who exclaimed, "Oh, ther yer be!
I allowed yer wan't comin', mebbe! It took yer
ser long, I allowed yer 'd gone off. Yer wuz
lookin' for Zeph Riker, wuz n't yer? Did yer
want him ter work fur yer?"
"Yes," replied the dazed Miss Sophy, who
had never before heard the Missouri vernacular,
and had never before seen so strange a figure as
the one which now stood before her.
"Wall, thet's jest what I wuz a hopin' up
when I seed yer gwine ter ther door. I allowed
to myself thet Zeph wuz gwine ter git holped;
}
ZEPH.
23
he's clar down, Zeph is, 'n' I allow he 'll jest git
ter be outer'n his wits ef he keeps on ther way
he's ben goin', er walkin', walkin', night-times
'n' daytimes; they's all one ter him, he sez, an'
she ain't wuth it, 'n' never wuz. Thar's lots kin
tell him thet; but he won't listen to nary word
agen her, nary. Vilm, he 'lows he's crazy,
naow; but I don't. He's got's wits, Zeph
hez; an' there wan't never no better man cum
inter this yer flairt, never. I allow ter you
ther warn't. He's reel good, Zeph is. I ain't
gwine ter say but what ther's men thet's rustled
more 'n he did; but 't ain't in some men to
rustle; thar's some that ken, an' thar 's some
that can't; an' thar can't nobody rustle when
ther heart's took outer 'em; 'n' thet's what's
ther matter with Zeph; he's got the heart gone
plumb outer him; he's been settin' thar 'n thet
house sence she's went off this last time, 'n' I
allow he'd ha' starved ter death ef I hed n't
tuk him over vittles. We're pore, but we ain't
24
ZEPH.
1
gwine ter see a human critter starve, not right
next dore, we ain't. I seed him when he went
off yesterday mornin'. I was jest cummin' crost
ther floor, an' I seed him kinder stealin' by.
He know'd I'd ask him whar he wuz gwine.
An' sez I, 'Zeph Riker, air yer goin' huntin'
thet woman agen? I allow yer the biggest fool
in all this yer flairt, Zeph Riker.' Thet's what
I said. I hain't no patience with a man that'll
git down 'n' be run over wuss 'n ary dog. An'
he jest give me sech er look, an' he sez, 'She's
my wife, Gammer! an', more 'n somever, she's
took the chillen along this time.'
sez I. 'Yes, she hez,' sez he.
She hain't!'
Wall, when I
heered she'd got the chillen, I hed n't no more
ter say. He'd got ter go hunt 'em, 'n' git 'em
away ef he ennywise could; fur 't's a dumb
shame fur little chillen to be with a-
sech a
critter's she is!" And Gammer Stein stopped
at last, not for lack of words, but of breath.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about,"
ZEPH.
25
was Miss Sophy's sole reply to this outpouring
of mingled invective and sympathy.
"Don't know what I'm talkin' abaout!"
cried the old woman, wrathfully.
"Hain't you
heered haow Zeph Riker's wife's allers gwine
off 'n' leavin' him? Sometimes 't is one thing,
'n' sometimes 't is another; she's allers got an
excuse ready; most gen'ully it's lookin' fur
work, she sez; she lets on she's got ter support
the family, 'n' she's allers a scandalizin' him up
'n' down; she 'lows he don't yern nothin', 'n'
she sez ef one don't bring in, the other must;
'n' so she goes off ter work down 'n the restau-
rants, fust one, 'n' then another, but's allers 'n
the one whar that skunk o' a feller she's goin'
with, thet Nat Leeson, 's a cookin'. Thet's the
kind o' work she's a doin'! I allow she'd
oughter be took up; she'd oughter; sech
women's a disgrace to thar sex, they air now.
Hain't yeow heered nothin' abaout it? I allow
yeow must be a stranger hyar, ef yeow hain't
26
ZEPH.
heered o' Rusha Riker. She's jest famed, ill
famed, too, in this hyar town. I allowed thar
warn't nobody thet hed n't heered o' her scan-
daliginous carak'ter!"
This last adjective was too much for Miss
Sophy's risibles. In spite of herself she
laughed; at which Gammer Stein broke out
again: "I allow 'tain't no larfin' marter; it's jest
life 'n' death, thet's what 't is, to this hyar man
'n' his chillen, 'n' ef thar ain't murder in 't afore
all's said 'n' done, I allow we kin be thankful t'
ther A'mighty. What wuz ye wantin' o' Zeph,
ef so be 's ye never heered o' him afore?”
pulling down her spectacles, and adjusting them
perilously near the end of her nose, Gammer
Stein looked scrutinizingly across their iron
rims at her visitor. "I don't know ye," she said
distrustfully. "What mought yer name be?
Be ye new cum?"
And
“Oh, no,” replied Miss Sophy. "I have lived
here ever since the town was begun; but I
ZEPH.
27
live a mile away from here, and I have never
happened to hear of Zeph till yesterday, when
he came to my house lookin' for his wife. I
thought he was in some sort of trouble, an' I'd
look after him a little."
"Jes so, jes so," said Gammer, instantly ap-
peased by the presence of sympathy. "Yer
live on ther hill, I allow?"
"Yes," said Miss Sophy.
''Land's drefful dear up thar," replied Gam-
((
mer, or else me'n' Vilm, we'd been up thar
tew, yeow bet! I did n't
but pore folks's got ter
never like hollers;
live whar they kin.
Back 'n Missouri we wuz up on a ridge like,
but 't warn't ser healthy's this, fur all 't wuz
higher; 'n' Vilm's allers tellin' me thet this
hyar flairt ain't reelly a holler. Thar can't be
no hollers, he sez, when ther hull country's
ez high up ez this is; but I tell him I don't
want ter live 'n enny place thet ser much 's
favors ther look 'v er holler, 'n' 's soon's we
28
ZEPH.
git er little erhead we's got ter move outer'n
this flairt. What part o' ther hill der yeow live
on? Be yeow a married woman?”
"No,” replied Miss Sophy, curtly, with some-
thing in her tone which the sensitive old
woman felt without fully recognizing, and in-
stinctively wished she had not asked the ques-
tion. "I have never been married. I live
alone. I keep the boarding-house next to the
Presbyterian church."
"Dew yer?" exclaimed Gammer. "Naow
I allow thet's kind o' cur'us. Vilm, he's done
teamin' ter yeour place; he's tolt me abaout
yeow. Don't yer want er man steady ter dew
yer outside work? Ef ye 'd take Zeph in, he's
handy; he's a fust-rate carpenter tew, 'n' a good
hand fur hosses; ef he'd jest git hisself inter some
sech place, thar's plenty 'd take keer o' the chil-
len for jest their keep, 'n' thay 're li'le, 't would
n't be much, 'n' let thet hussy o' his'n go
whar she belongs; 'n' I allow thar ain't much
ZEPH.
29
doubtin' whar 't'd be. Ef he cud wunst git shet
'v her wunst fur all, thar'd be some hope o'
Zeph yit. He wuz a reel likely man when they
fust moved in hyar three years ago. She
wan't what she oughter be, neow I don't
s'pose; but she had n't gin herself clean away
t' the devil then 's she hez sence. I allow it's
strange yer hain't never heered her. Why,
she's been up inter the jail, 'n' her name 'n
the paper, 'n the 'Times,' 'n' the trial, 'n' all.
Jerushy Riker 'disorderly' they called it; 'n'
Zeph he paid the fine, 'n' all the costs, 'n' got
her hum; 'n' I allow ter yeow 't wan't more 'n
a week 'fore she wuz aout agen, 'n' feathers 'n
her bunnit, 'n' goin' to dances wi' thet Nat, 's
brazhen's any brass ye ever seen. 'N' there
was n't erry woman 'n this flairt 'ud ser much.
's speak ter her, only ther men. I allow men
is shameful; 'n' 's long 's they'll go with her
'n' give her things, she just spites the women.
My man won't hev nothin' ter say ter her; he
30
ZEPH.
sez he'd kill her ef she wuz his'n, 'n' I sh'd
hope he would. But thet ther Zeph, he jest
worships her, 's ef she wuz the best wife a man
ever hed. He'll foller her, 'n' coax her, 'n'
hang round her, 'n' give her his last cent he's
got in this blessed yarth, ef she'll only look
wunst torerds him."
"He's a fool!" broke in Miss Sophy.
"Wall, yis, I allow he is," said Gammer, re-
flectively. "I allow he must be; an' yit he
ain't, nuther. Zeph ain't no fool. Ef a man.
gits took thet way 'bout a woman, he can't
holp hisself, 'thout he kin git shet 'v her outern
out. Thet's what I'm tellin' him allers. I sez
to him jest this last week, sez I, 'Zeph Riker,
yeow jest light aout er hyar; yeow take yer
team,' he's got a fust-rate team ef he hain't
sold 'em since last week to git money 'n' go
hunt fur thet hussy, -'yeow take yeour team
'n' ther young uns, 'n' light aout; 'n' yeow keep
er travellin' till yer 've got whar yer can't never
ZEPH.
31
´hear name of her agin. Yeow kin stop when
your money's giv aout, 'n' work till yer git
more ter go on with; 'n' yeow jest keep movin'.
I allow Californy'd be fur enough; 'n' livin'
's easy made thar, everybody sez thet's ben
thar; yeow jest light aout er hyar.''
"What did he say?" asked Miss Sophy,
breathlessly.
"He did n't say but jest tew words, he did n't,"
replied Gammer. "But them tew, 'n' the way
he sed 'em, wuz more 'n some folks's preachin'
all day. He sez, sez he, 'Gammer, I can't; ' 'n'
I allow to yeow I 'spect thet's jest the trew
on't; 'n' ef he can't, he can't."
"You don't mean to tell me you think he
loves the woman still!" cried Miss Sophy.
"But he doos," said Gammer. "Thet's why
Vilm sez he's a fool, 'n' I can't gainsay 't he
ain't; 'n' yit thar's times, I allow to yeow, when
I git ter feelin' 's ef he wuz better 'n most folks.
He don't never give her a hash word; he's
{
32
ZEPH.
7
allers 's glad ter see her 's aour pup hyar ter see
the chillen cumin' hum when school's aout; 'n'
he'll slave hisself ter death, 'n' sell the coat
offen his back, ter git her all she wants; 'n' she
don't give him ser much 's a word er a look, let.
alone disgracin' him 'n' his chillen 'n' the name
he's gin her! I donno's the Lord 's gwine ter
call him a fool er not. It kind o' cums over me
cur'us sometimes, ther way he acts." And the
old woman gazed half-inquiringly, half-shame-
facedly, into Miss Sophy's face.
Miss Sophy's eyes were full of tears. She
tried to keep them back, but they were too big
to be concealed, genuine, unmistakable tears.
Brushing them away impatiently, she said,
"Well, he's a fool, anyhow!"
"I s'pose he must be," replied Gammer.
"Thar ain't many like him."
"I wonder where he is now," said Miss Sophy.
"No knowin'," said Gammer. "It's two days
naow he's ben huntin' her. He won't go in
ZEPH.
33
bold like 'n' ask ef she's thar 't these places,
kase it mads her. He'll jest hang raound 'n'
watch. He sez he won't mortify her! Him
mortify her! Thet sounds likely, don't it?
He sed thet ter me wunst, when I sed ter
him, sez I, 'Zeph Riker, ef yer want her ser
bad's yer say, take er perliceman 'n' go git her.
She's yer wife. The law guvs her ter ye where
somever yer kin ketch her.' 'I would n't mor-
tify her thet way,' sez he; 'n' then I jest up 'n' I
sez ter him-wall, I pollergized ter him arter
fur the words I used; they wuz outrageous, 'n'
ther would n't nobody but a fool ha' stood 'em,
Vilm sed; but somehow, I allow ter yeow, I've
allers liked him better sence thet day. Sez he,
'I don't feel ter blame yer, not fur nothin' yer
say. Thar can't nobody understand, but I can't
holp myself.''
Strange emotions were tugging at Miss
Sophy's heart-strings. What had this poor
man's experiences in common with hers?
1
3
34
ZEPH.
Nothing, surely. The lover she had lost had
been an upright man.
Her affection had never
been put to the strain of wrestling with even so
much as a suspicion of the unworthiness of its
object. And if such evil destiny as that had
ever befallen her, she would have seemed to be
the last person,-she with her practical com-
mon sense, clear business head, matter-of-fact
way of looking at life,—the last person, surely,
to have clung to a base and dishonored man.
And yet this pathetic story she was hearing of
Zeph Riker's inalienable affection for the mis-
erable creature he called wife seemed to be
breaking up within her bosom the very founda-
tions of some strange, undreamed-of, mighty
emotion which threatened to overwhelm her.
"I don't know what's the matter with me,"
thought Miss Sophy. "It must be the long
walk. It always does upset me to walk."
"I must be going now," she said suddenly.
"I have a great deal to do. I wish you'd let
ZEPH.
35
me know if there is anything I can do to help
this poor man. If he wants work I can give
him a good deal." And she turned abruptly
away, to the great discomfiture of Gammer
Stein, who had not said half her say.
"Ye'll call raound agen, won't ye?" she
called after her. "Dew. I'd like ter see yer
fust-rate."
"Perhaps I will," said Miss Sophy, "some
day. But I'm very busy. You must come and
see me."
This pleased Gammer even better.
"I allow I will," she said eagerly. "I'd like
ter see yer place. I wuz by thar. It's an awful
nice house yer got."
“Good afternoon," said Miss Sophy, already
some paces away, and quickening her steps to
avoid further talk. She walked unconsciously
faster and faster till she reached home.
Not
for ten years had Miss Sophy's spinster breast
been the seat of such keen and conflicting
36
ZEPH.
emotion. She could neither analyze it nor shake
it off. The image of her long-buried lover rose
up before her with almost terrifying vividness,
and she seemed compelled by some strange
power outside of herself to continue thinking
of him, fancying what would have been the
result had their marriage taken place and he
afterward proved as unfit for trust, unworthy
of love, as Zeph's wife. She felt herself disloyal
at the very thought, but she could not free her-
self from it.
"What nonsense!" she said to herself, sternly.
"There was n't a bad drop of blood in Robert
Barrett's veins, not one; not a man in that
family ever went to the bad."
"But what if he had?" persisted this strangely
disquieted spirit in her breast. "What if he
had? What if he had been overpowered by
temptation? He was human. Men seemingly
as good as he have fallen; have become drunk-
ards; have been unfaithful to their wives.
}
r
ZEPH.
37
:
What if he had? What would you have done?
Wouldn't you have clung to him through every-
thing? Do you suppose you could ever have
left off loving him, no matter what he had
done?"
"No, I know I could n't," responded Miss
Sophy's passionate heart, also strangely dis-
quieted in her breast; "I know I could n't!"
And then by a not unnatural sequence there
came into her thoughts the solemn words of the
marriage service, which she could never hear
without a strange pang, remembering that she
had once expected to hear them spoken for
herself. "For better, for worse; till death do
us part.' What does that mean," she said, "if
it does not mean just what this poor Zeph
is doing? For better, for worse,' no matter
how much worse! I do believe I should have
looked at it just as he does, this very minute!
I would n't wonder if I'd ha' been just such a
fool's he is; an' I don't know as I call it exactly
38
ZEPH.
bein' a fool, neither, any more 'n she does!" And
with a tremendous effort Miss Sophy shook.
herself free from the bootless soliloquy, and
went about her work, reiterating in her mind
the original resolution with which she had left
home early in the afternoon, that that man
must be "looked after."
ZEPH.
39
II.
WHEN Zeph left Miss Sophy's door he had
in his mind no specific plan of action, although
from his brisk gait one would have supposed
him to have in view a definite goal which he
wished to reach in the shortest possible time.
He walked on, looking neither to the right nor
the left, till he reached the outskirts of the town,
at the farthest possible remove from his own
house. Here the land fell away abruptly into
bottoms through which ran a stream, low and
shrunken now from the long drought. The
sight of the water was the first thing which
roused him from the vague yet painful reverie
in which he had been walking. As he looked
into the water, he thought to himself, "If it was
's high's I've seen it in the spring freshets, I
40
ZEPH.
believe I'd jump in and make an end o' this
misery. Perhaps 't-would be better for her if I
was out o' the world altogether. But a fellow 'd
have to hold himself down, to drown in that
depth o' water." And with a dreary smile at
the thought he turned back towards the town.
Suddenly a new idea struck him.
"Mebbe she's gone home now, an' she 'll be
worse 'n ever, not findin' any fire nor nothin'
to cook. I'll go home an' clear up, and get
some steak!" He put his hand in his pocket
and drew out the few bits of money he had
there, less than two dollars in all. He sighed
bitterly as he looked at it. "Come to that, has
it, an' I hain't bought a mouthful to eat to-day!
Don't take long to play a man out, lying by
this way. But there's enough for a good sup-
per to-night!" And he quickened his pace.
How many times had he made just such boot-
less returns as this, each time lured on by a
stronger and stronger hope that surely now she
ZEPH.
4I
would have come back; he would see a light
at the window telling him she was there; she
must have come by this time! And each time it
had been only a delusion; each time the empty,
silent house and the cold, blackened hearth had
mocked his misery anew, and he had turned
away sicker at heart, more despairing than ever,
to resume his hopeless quest.
"She likes beefsteak better 'n anythin' else,"
he said to himself as he entered the streets once
more and looked on the brightly lighted shops
on either hand. "I'll get a first-rate good one;
and there's a bit o' horse-radish left in the
tumbler; she likes that." And as he went on
with his foolish, affectionate plannings, the hope
in his bosom grew stronger, till he half per-
suaded himself that he knew she was at home
waiting for him to bring the supper, or that his
thus making ready for her would bring her
before long. And yet he had done this very
thing, hoped this unreasoning hope, scores of
42
ZEPH.
times before, all in vain. Why did he still con-
tinue to hope? He could not have told.
As he paid for the meat the butcher, eying
him closely, said, "All well at home, Riker?"
Zeph gave a slight start, but recovering him-
self instantly, replied, "Thank you; I hope so.
Hain't been home since mornin'."
"Don't that beat all?" said the butcher,
after he had gone, turning to his assistant.
'Nobody's never heard Zeph Riker admit it
yet when his wife 's run off from him an' he's
a huntin' her; an' he don't never exactly lie
about it neither. He's always got his answer
ready."
"He's a blamed fool he don't bill her," said
the assistant.
"That's so," replied the other. "A little
teched in the upper story, I reckon. But
he's a good fellow's ever lived; an' she's a
handsome huzzy. I expect he can't let go on
her."
ZEPH.
43
"Well, I'd let go on her mighty quick if
she b’longed to me. I know that! I say he's
a blamed fool!" replied the assistant, waxing
wrathy. "Why, she 's been took up, 'n' in
jail. She was down to the beer-garden with
that Nat 'n' a lot o' others, 'n' they all got
tight, 'n' kicked up such a row the night
watchman clapped the hull batch of 'em into
the lock-up; 'n' Riker he went right into court
'n' paid everything, 'n' got her out 'n' took her
home. She might ha' rotted there for all me,
if I'd been her husband."
"When ye've got a wife o' your own, mebbe
ye'll know more 'n you do now," said the
butcher, going to the door and looking after
Zeph's figure, now nearly lost in the darkness.
"He's a streakin' it like lightnin'. I do be-
lieve the fellow thinks she's to home waitin'
for him."
"Where is she?" asked the assistant.
"Out on the mesa, in them freighters' camp,"
44
ZEPH.
replied the butcher. "She's been there three
days, cookin' for 'em, 'n' trainin' like Sam Hill.
I tell you she's a flyer! But she can cook, you
bet. Tim was in to-day buyin' veal 'n' a tur-
key. He said they was goin' to keep Sunday
in that camp, and no mistake! they 'd got
Rusha Riker for cook and Sal Leeson for
preacher! If Riker 'd ever ask anybody where
she's gone to, he 'd find out a heap quicker 'n
he does. But he's too proud. He never opens
his head to nobody, an' there ain't nobody
goin' to volunteer to tell him; 'n' so he goes
sozzlin' round, 'n' wastin' his time, 'n' gettin'
out o' pocket. I hain't much patience with
him myself, I own; but I don't know how we'd
any of us act if we was placed just 's he is. It's
pretty hard tellin'."
As Zeph drew near his home he walked
faster. The more he thought, the surer he
felt she would be there; the more he blamed
himself for not having had everything ready for
ZEPH.
45
her at early dusk. "I might ha' remembered,"
he said to himself remorsefully, "that its bein'
Saturday night 'd be likely to bring her home,
for she hain't took none o' her best things nor
the youngsters', an' of course she 'll come back
to get 'em even if she don't stay." And he broke
into a run at the top of the hill above the Flat
walling it to the west. Twinkling lights like
fireflies shone all over the place; the humble
homes there were thick set; a rush of emotion
came over Zeph as he saw the glimmering
lights. "All them homes," he thought, "an'
not one of 'em 's got such trouble 's I have!
God! but it's hard!" And he pressed on,
newly disheartened, as so many lonely souls
have been, by the simple sight of home-lights
gleaming.
As he turned the corner, where, if a light were
burning in his own window it would greet his
eye, his heart beat loud. "If she ain't there
this time I think it'll kill me!" he muttered.
46
ZEPH.
All was dark. She was not there. He stopped,
gazed, threw down his parcels on the ground,
and folded his arms on his breast. The moon
was just coming up in the east, beyond the
wide plains which stretched away, it seemed
endlessly. Zeph looked at it with dogged dis-
like. “I don't need no moonlight to-night,"
he thought. "I forgot 't was full moon. I
might ha' known she would n't come home.
early if 't was full moon. She's foolin' some-
where."
The moon came up fast; its white light fell
on the beams of the unfinished frame, which
stood mute record of the terrible ruin of all
Zeph's plans and hopes of a home. The out-
lines of the building loomed out against the sky
like a black skeleton, and smote Zeph's very
heart. Just about 's much home 's I 've got,"
he said to himself.
"A kind of a ghost it looks
like, in this light, 'n' that's about what it is! I
believe I'll take the thing down. The lumber 'd
ZEPH.
47
bring considerable. But she 'll throw it up at
me if I do; she's always blamin' me for not
finishin' it. I guess most folks 'd say the
house she's got 's good enough to run away
from!" And Zeph strode on gloomily, with
reluctant steps.
Entering the house, he looked around the
room with a bitter expression on his face.
"I've a mind to clear out too," he thought.
"What's the use o' goin' on this way? But,
no, I can't. I can't leave her so long 's
there's a chance o' gettin' her right. She did
care for me once, I know she did; an' she is
real fond o' the children; there can't nobody
say she does n't love them even if she has got
so set against me; an' if she had n't got some
good heart somewhere she 'd hate them too
just because I'm their father. I've heard o'
women's turnin' thet way till they could n't
bide the sight o' husband nor children, either
one o' them. It's a kind o’craziness comes
48
ZEPH.
over 'em. Poor Rushy! Seems 's if she must
be crazy."
While thinking these thoughts he was me-
chanically moving about the rooms, setting
things into place, putting back the tumbled
clothes into the drawers, making the beds;
then he lighted a fire in the stove, and open-
ing the drawer in the table took out a fresh
candle and set it in the candlestick.
"That's
the last but one," he said, "but I'll light it,
an' then if she does come in, she'll know I'll
be back before long."
He put the beefsteak on a platter by the
candlestick. "So she'll see it first thing," he
thought, "an' know I got something good for
supper."
Then he went out, locking the door and
putting the key in their usual hiding-place for
it, a hollow under the tying-post.
The thought of the freighters' camp had at
last occurred to him, and he could not rest now
ZEPH
49
till he had found out if his wife were there. He
groaned aloud as he turned his steps toward
the mesa.
'I'd 'most as soon find her dead," he thought,
"as find her there! Don't know but I'd sooner!
If she's been there all this time, 't ain't for no
good. But then she's got the children along.
She would n't—' And Zeph clenched his
hands and groaned again.
The "mesa" was a high table-land stretching
away to the north of the town, not over a quar-
ter of a mile wide on the top. Its sides were
broken up into alternating shallow cañons and
soft rounding ridges, grass-grown,―good places
for grazing and shelter; at the base of the
western side ran a little brook. It was
a fa-
vorite spot for camping, and at times in the
summer looked like an army encampment, so
thickly dotted was it with white tents and
wagons and picketed horses.
"It's the strangest thing I never thought
4
50
ZEPH.
o' that before!" mused Zeph as he struck out
into the plain. "They 'll pay good wages to
a cook, the boys will, when they're in town;
and Rushy can't be beat at cookin', that's
one thing." And he tried manfully to keep
out all other interpretations of her presence
there. "If so be's she's here," he reiterated
to himself, "I'm a dumb fool to cry out 'fore
I know I'm hurt worse 'n I am by just not
knowin' what's got her."
The moon was riding high in the heavens.
and flooding plain, mesa, mountains, all, with a
light hardly less clear than sun, as Zeph finally
climbed up through one of the shorter cañons
and came out on the top of the mesa. The
freighters' camp was close before him, SO
close that he started, and involuntarily re-
treated a step or two into cover of the ridge,
lest he should be too suddenly seen. There
was but one tent. From that came sounds of
fiddling and riotous laughter.
ZEPH.
51
She's there, for sure!" sighed Zeph. “Lord
have mercy on me! Has she got them children
in there this time o' night?" and he glanced up
"Ten o'clock if it's a minute!
at the moon.
The poor young uns!"
There were ten of the freight-wagons ar-
ranged in a circle around the tent, some of
them with rounded white tops. Cautiously
Zeph stole up to one of these, parted the flaps
at the back, and looked in. Surely his fatherly
instinct had guided him to the spot. There lay
his two children sound asleep on a straw bed
in the bottom of the wagon. Surprise, joy, an-
guish, all held Zeph dumb. As he stood look-
ing at them the boy raised his head and opened
his eyes.
Pappy, pappy!" he cried, and scrambled
towards him, rousing the baby, who began to
whimper.
"Hush, sis, hush!" he exclaimed. "Mammy
said she'd whip ye if ye cried! It's pappy!
52
ZEPH.
Don't ye know pappy?" In a second more the
little creature was in her father's arms, and for
a brief moment Zeph felt himself glad. Only
for a moment, however.
"Zephie," he said, "where's your mammy?'
"In there," replied the child, pointing to-
wards the tent. "There's a lot o' men in
there; they're dancin'; the men's beds is all
took out."
"Who's there besides mammy? any other
women besides mammy ?" asked Zeph, his
words stifling him as he spoke them.
((
"Nobody but Sal," replied Zephie. She's
here all the time to help mam cook. Mam says
she never cooked so much vittles before. Mam
reckons they must ben starved where they
come from. Splendid vittles, pap, they has!
It's bully! Why didn't you come too, pap?
Mam was tellin' some o' the men she was a
lookin' for ye to come 'fore now."
Bitter gall and wormwood to the father's ears
ZEPH.
53
were these innocent prattlings of his boy. Too
well he knew the gibe and jest with which his
wife had told "some of the men
some of the men" she was look-
ing for him to appear on the scene. Too well
he knew the "Sal" who was her assistant,
one of the most notorious women in the town,
and sister of the man to whom Zeph still per-
suaded himself he owed all the misery which
had come into his married life. He was mis-
taken. Nat Leeson was merely one man among
many who had had right to mock at his dis-
honor; but it was Nat Leeson with whom his
wife's relations were now openly and flaunt-
ingly intimate. It was Nat Leeson for whom
she really cared, so far as it was in her
shallow, unprincipled nature to care for any
man.
((
"We're comin' home to-morrow, pap," con-
tinued Zephie;
mam says she 's tired out; 'n'
the teams is all goin' to start up the mountains
early Monday mornin'; so mam 'n' Sally's goin'
54
ZEPH.
to cook up lots o' vittles to-morrow for 'em to
take, 'n' then we're comin' home."
"Be ye? That's good!" said Zeph. "You
tell mammy pap's real glad ye 're comin' home,
will ye?"
"Stay, pap," replied the boy. "You stay,
too; there's lots room in here. Sal and mam
and us all sleeps in here. You stay; we're
goin' to have turkey to-morrow, an awful
big one."
No, I can't stay, my boy," replied Zeph.
"Mammy's too busy. She don't want me. You
help her all you can, Zephie, an' you be sure 'n'
tell her pap was here, 'n' he was dreadful glad
you was all comin' home to-morrow,
will ye?
Tell her pap's ben dreadful lonesome. Don't
ye forget now to tell her 's soon's she comes
to bed."
"I'll tell her 'n the mornin'," said Zephie.
"I'll be asleep when she comes to bed."
"No, you tell her to-night, Zephie," said
ZEPH.
55
his father. "You stay awake till she comes.
She'll be here pretty soon, I guess. It's late
now."
"Well, I'll try," said the child; "but, pap,
I'll be awful sleepy 's soon 's you're gone.
Why don't you go up 'n' speak to her in the
tent ? "
""
Oh, I don't want to interrupt the dancing!
said poor Zeph. “I don't know any o' the
men."
"Yes, Nat's there! you know him," said the
child. "All the rest is freighters."
This was the last drop in unhappy Zeph's
cup. It overflowed.
"I'll" he began in a loud tone. "No,
I won't either," he continued; and kissing the
baby, who had nestled herself to sleep in his
arms, he laid her gently down on the straw, and
then kissing the boy, said, "Good-night, Zephie;
be a good boy, and take care of your little
sister. Good-night; I must go now." And as
56
ZEPH.
cautiously as he had come, he stole down the
cañon and was gone.
Skirting along the base of the mesa for some
rods, he climbed up again at a point some dis-
tance the other side of the tent, where stood a
clump of huge pine-trees. Seating himself on
the ground, partially hid by the trunk of the
largest of these trees, he fixed his eyes on the
tent. Now that he knew his wife was there,
he would watch the place all night. It appeared
to him that the moon stood still in the sky, so
long did the moments seem before the freight-
ers' revelry broke up. At last, with loud laugh-
ing and talking, the party came out from the
tent and separated for the night: the men going
to their respective wagons, and his wife and
Sal-with what breathless anguish he watched
their every step! — to the wagon in which the
children lay. Soon the lights were all out, and
the stillness, the unutterable wilderness stillness,
rested on the place. Zeph drew a long breath
ZEPH.
57
of relief.
"That's over!" he said aloud, and
leaned his head back against the tree.
He had eaten nothing since morning, but
he was not conscious of hunger or faintness.
He had been under such a mental strain that
all physical sensations were dulled. He could
not have told, had he been asked, when he last
ate food. Matters seemed to him to be fast
approaching a crisis in his life; he felt a vague
terror of he knew not what, some terrible
catastrophe approaching. He had felt this
fear-stricken presentiment growing within him
rapidly during the last three days. None of
his previous experiences of suffering in conse-
quence of his wife's conduct had so told upon
him. No one of her unexplained or only
too well explained absences from home had
crushed him like this last one. As he sat
hour after hour in this strange solitude, alone,
as it almost seemed, in the universe, with the
vast star-set dome of the sky above him and
58
ZEPH.
the vast rayless plains stretching around him,
the near mountains looming up colossal and
black like an eternal barrier in the west, he
lived these absences all over again in full and
harrowing detail.
The first one, that was three years ago.
How well he recollected his fright when he
found her gone; the angry incredulity with
which he heard Gammer Stein's half-implied
reflection on her character that night; the joy
with which he welcomed her back the next
morning, and the full acceptance he had given
to her story of having been watching with the
sick child of a neighbor, the child too sick to
be left, and no one in the house who could be
sent with a message to him. It was not many
weeks before he knew that this was a shame-
ful, shameless lie. And after that miseries had
thickened in his life, his own house a gather-
ing-place of the disgraceful and the disgraced;
his wife oftener and oftener absent, sometimes
ZEPH.
59
with excuse, sometimes without; her intimate
associates men and women with whom no
self-respecting person would consort; his earn-
ings wasted on fineries or worse.
"It's been just a hell on earth, that's what
it's been," he thought, as he buried his face
in his hands at some of the reminiscences.
That brief interval of quiet of a few months
during which the last child had been born,-
the little girl from whose unconscious influ-
ence over the mother's heart he had hoped
much, — recurred to him now, in this bitter
retrospect, merely as an intensification of his
woe. "And me hopin' its bein' a girl might
maybe save her! I don't see why I thought
that'd make any difference if the boy did n't!"
How vividly he recalled the day when they
were discussing the baby's name; and his wife
having expressed the desire to give it her own
name, he had taken heart from that, and said to
her meaningly, "Would ye really like to have
60
ZEPH.
her called by your name, Rushy?" and she,
in her usual flippant tone, and yet he fancied
with a shade of feeling in her face, had an-
swered, "You've got the boy named for you,
an' I should think the girl ought to be named for
me; that's no more 'n fair;" and he had made
haste to reply, "Of course 't ain't, an' I 'd rather
call her Rushy than any other name 'n all the
world, 'n' you know that, wife, without my tellin'
ye; 'n' she's goin' to favor you in looks, too;
anybody with half an eye can see that a'ready;
so there'll be two Rushy Rikers the first thing
ye know." And when he said this his wife
colored, and said, "I hope to goodness she'll
turn out better 'n the first Rushy Riker!" And
he, poor fool, had gone about for many a week
hugging that exclamation to his soul as an
omen and token of good coming to their lives.
But it was short-lived. Before her baby was
three months old the old demons of love of
admiration, excitement, finery, folly, and sin
ZEPH.
61
had got full hold again of her weak and un-
stable nature, and all was as bad as before,
or worse.
Then came the most flagrant of all her mis-
demeanors, the drunken frolic at the beer-gar-
den and the disgrace of the lock-up; and after
that all sense of shame or of restraint seemed to
leave her; and finally, only a few weeks ago, the
most daring of all her escapades, when, taking
the baby, she had gone to Denver openly in
the company of Nat Leeson and his sister;
then it was that Zeph, at his wits' end, had sold
some of their furniture and his kit of carpen-
ter's tools to get money for the journey, put
the boy into Gammer Stein's motherly keeping,
followed and tracked her; and for the first and
only time exercising his husbandly authority over
her, had brought her home. But it was only
an enforced return. She was sullen, reluctant,
full of hatred and reproaches. "A pretty home
it was," she said, "to bring a woman back to,
62
ZEPH.
stripped of half the furniture, and not a dollar
to buy anything with!" If he'd let her alone,
she'd make her own living an' not be beholden
to anybody.
"Hold your tongue, Rushy!" cried Zeph,
the only time in his life he had thus spoken to
her. "Don't you dare to talk to me about
makin' your own livin'! If you'll stay at
home an' keep decent, I'll keep ye in as good
a livin' as folks o' our station needs! I'd ha'
had a good house done for ye now, if ye'd
done's ye'd oughter."
"It's easy makin' excuses," she retorted; "ye
never did have no spunk, an' it's a mighty poor
livin' ye'll ever get in this world. I donno
what's hendered your buildin' the house 'fore
now, 'cept your own laziness!”
"I'll tell ye what's hendered me, Rushy,'
replied Zeph, thoroughly angered, -"runnin'
round all creation huntin' you, 'n' sellin' my tools
to get money to follow ye an' keep ye from
ZEPH.
63
comin' on the town!
That's what's hendered
me; an' 'twill hender me, too, s' long's ye go
on as ye're doin'!”
As Zeph lived over this bitterest of all their
quarrels his heart smote him remorsefully.
"I expect I was too fierce with her," he
((
thought. Perhaps if I'd been real lovin' then
she'd ha' come round. She's been lots worse
ever since then, 'n' I expect I did n't manage
right. I'll try 'n' see if I can't be different to
her to-morrow when she comes home. She's
had the children along with her this time, 'n'
that's some comfort.”
It was near morning when Zeph finally fell
into an uneasy sleep. His sorrows pursued him
even there, and he dreamed a nightmare dream.
of seeing his wife at the window of a burning
house and being unable to move hand or foot
to her rescue. He opened his eyes with the
horror of this dream full upon him, and for the
first second thought the dream was no dream,
64
ZEPH.
but actual truth; for the sky over his head and
the whole front of the mountain range on his
right were red as from the light of a conflagra-
tion.
Bewildered, he sprang to his feet with a
cry, but in the same second sank down again,
saying, "It's only the sun a comin' up! Lord!
How it scared me!”
It was the marvellous rosy dawn peculiar
to high altitudes. So vivid, so fiery a glow
does it spread over both sky and earth for
a few seconds before sunrise, that when the
sun is above the horizon, and the day fairly
breaks, the light seems less, and not more, and
the earth and sky darkened instead of illu-
mined.
All was still in the freighters' camp. A few
faint upward curls of smoke in the distant town
were the only signs of life in the beautiful land-
scape. As Zeph gazed on the picture he felt
insensibly strengthened.
"'T don't seem 's if folks need to suffer so 'n
:
ZEPH.
65
7
such a world's this," he thought; "things must
come out right, sooner or later, somehow, if
there's any kind o' reason 'n anything. It don't
look no ways likely that God set it all a goin'
jest to make folks miserable! I expect it's
all our own fault, somewheres, if things goes
wrong! I believe Rushy 'n' I'll get on yet. If
I could once rake 'n' scrape money enough to
take her clean out o' this place 'n' begin over
again, that would be best; but how to fetch
that about I don't see!"
Time slipped by imperceptibly to Zeph
absorbed in his reverie, and an hour or more
had gone, when he was roused by the sounds of
stirring in the camp. Hastily concealing him-
self in a ravine, he lay stretched along the
ground, only his eyes above the edge of the
mesa, and watched every movement.
He saw
his wife and Sal come out, the children follow-
ing, the fires lighted in the camp stoves, the
preparations for cooking begun. Presently he
5
66
ZEPH.
saw Nat Leeson stroll up towards the stoves and
stop to talk with his sister.
"If I see him go nigh Rushy I'll do some
harm, I know I shall," said Zeph. "I'll not
risk it. I'll leave here." And darting down the
ravine he set off by a circuitous route, on which
he could not be seen, towards home.
When he reached the outskirts of the town
the church-bells were ringing. The sound
seemed full of unwonted invitation to Zeph. It
was long since he had been inside the walls of
a church. In the first years of their married
life Rushy had been fond of going to meeting
of a Sunday, and he had been only too proud
to go with her and see the admiration with
which people looked at her handsome face and
pretty clothes. Even then were to be seen, if
Zeph had only had the wisdom to recognize
them, the germs of all the misery and shame.
which time had since brought. But he looked
on with the blinded eyes of a man's first un-
ZEPH.
67
reasoning passion, saw nothing wrong, thought
no harm, feared no evil. He even shared the
pride, which seemed innocent, in the undeniable
fact that Rushy was the handsomest woman in
the congregation. And now, alas, it was for
Rushy's sake, and because of her beauty,
that he was ashamed to look any man in the
eye!
A strange desire seized him to go this morn-
ing and hear what the preacher had to say.
He looked down at his clothes. They were
shabby enough, certainly; not at all what he
would once have thought it necessary to wear
to be decent at church. But Zeph had been
down into depths from which all thoughts of
trivial considerations had long ago vanished.
He smiled half sadly as he turned towards the
church door, saying to himself, "I would n't
have been caught goin' to meetin' in such cloes
's these once; but I guess it don't make any
difference to nobody but me, 'n' I feel a real
68
ZEPH.
4
call to hear some hymn-singin' to-day.
It'll
get rid o' the mornin', too, quicker 'n any other
way. I hain't got anythin' to do but wait the
day out till she comes home to-night. She
won't be down, I don't suppose, before dark."
And Zeph slipped in and sat down humbly in
one of the side pews nearest the door, which he
knew were free to all. It was early. The bells
he had heard were the first bells. No one was
in the building except the sexton, who was
bustling about, giving last touches of dusting to
the pulpit Bible. Presently two women entered,
bringing, one a large sheaf of white clematis
blooms, the other a high vase filled with the
feathery tassels of Indian corn and a few of the
graceful, tall, sword-like leaves. It was the cus-
tom for the women of this congregation to take
turns in decorating the church for the Sunday
services; and there was much vying among
them, and continual exercise of ingenuity, each
to outdo the others in effective arrangement of
ZEPH.
69
i
1
'flowers. As they walked up the aisle Zeph's
eyes followed them with astonishment.
's
"If that ain't just common field corn,
sure's I'm alive," he said; "'n' it's prettier 'n
the flowers be, heaps! Well, I never!" And
for the moment he forgot his misery in watch-
ing the women dispose their bouquets on the
reading-desk and table.
Presently one of them turned briskly and
stepped down the aisle to look up at the desk
to see if the arrangement could be improved.
“Oh, Lord!” said Zeph. And in the same in-
stant he buried his face in his hands on the back
of the seat in front of him. "That's that Miss
Burr I was askin' after Rushy last night. I don't
want her to see me.
She'll be sure to spry
round here askin' if I've found her. She's
dreadful active." And Zeph remained bowed
over, his face hid from view, till he heard their
steps leaving the church.
It was indeed Miss Sophy; and as she came
70
ZEPH.
down the aisle, her quick eyes catching sight of
Zeph's bowed figure, she said to her companion:
"Just look at that man all doubled up there
in the poor-pews. I do declare, I think it's a
shame to have any such thing's poor-pews: it's
a kind o' badge o' disgrace to sit there; I've
known lots 'n' lots o' poor folks that would n't
set foot 'n 'em, not if they never heard a ser-
mon t' their dyin' day, they said. I always feel
ashamed when I go by 'em 'n' shut the door t'
my pew. It's borne in on me 't ain't Christian.
I think the Catholics are lots better 'n we are
about that, lots. There ain't anything but
poor-pews 'n their churches, 'n' that's the way
it ought to be, free to all."
-
"How you do talk, Sophy!" replied her com-
panion, good Mrs. Jones. "Why don't you be
a Catholic 'n' done with it, if you think their
way's so much better 'n ours?"
"I don't!" retorted Miss Sophy," nothin'
o' the kind. But I say they've got the right
+
ZEPH.
71
idea about seatin' people.
get all the poor people;
No wonder they
I should think they
would. I wouldn't stir into our church if I
could n't hire my pew, the way 't is now; but 't
You'll see
ain't right, 'n' 't won't last, neither.
it don't last. 'Twon't be a great many years
before there'll be free sittin's, 's they call it,
in every church 'n America.”
"Well, then there'll be lots o' rich people 'll
stay away 'stead o' the poor people!" retorted
Mrs. Jones. "Who wants to sit alongside o'
such a common-looking day-laborer 's that?"
pointing to Zeph.
"I
He
He's clean enough," replied Miss Sophy,
eying Zeph closely as they passed out.
would n't mind sitting alongside of him.
must be awfully broken down, somehow, to be
in here this time o' day, sittin' all scrouched into
a heap like that. I've a good mind to go speak
to him." And she halted.
Sophy Burr, you come right straight along
72
ZEPH.
You
out this minute!" exclaimed Mrs. Jones, raising
her voice indignantly above the decorous whis-
per in which they had been conversing. "I do
believe you'd take all the dead beats 'n this
town on your shoulders if you could.
sha'n't go near the man!" And as Miss Sophy,
laughing, allowed herself to be dragged out of
the doorway, Zeph lifted his head with a sense
of relief and escape.
Just as the congregation stood up for the first
singing, the door of the pew where he sat was
timidly opened, and a lame old woman, dressed
in rusty black, leading a little boy, edged shame-
facedly in, glancing with a mute apology in her
eyes at Zeph. Sitting down slowly and with
difficulty, she motioned to the child to stand;
whispering to Zeph, "I've got the rheumatiz
so 't I can't keep on my feet." The child, shy,
and unwonted to the place, refused to stand up,
and clinging to her skirts began to whimper.
Zeph reached out his hand to him, with a smile,
ZEPH.
73
:
and whispered, "You stand up here by me."
The little fellow yielded at once, the old woman
looking on wonderingly at his sudden obedi-
ence to a stranger. When the singing was over,
the child, instead of drawing close to her, nestled
up to Zeph, and laid one hand confidingly on
his knee. It was a small thing, a very small
thing, but it comforted Zeph. Putting his arm.
round the little chap, he drew him closer, and
resting his head comfortably against his shoulder,
whispered, "Go to sleep, sonny, if you want to."
The boy looked up with a vague smile, nestled
again, and shut his eyes. Zeph hugged him
tighter still, stroking his hair, and thinking,
"Poor little fellow! He's got to be a man some
day!"
The minister had risen in the pulpit, opened
the Bible, and was reading his text.
What words were these, falling on Zeph's ear?
No wonder he started, started so violently
that the child opened his dozing eyes and looked
74
ZEPH.
up in alarm at his new friend. An audible
exclamation had nearly burst from Zeph's lips.
He gazed at the minister with an emotion very
like terror. Was this stranger, this man of
whom he had never heard, speaking directly
to him, him alone, of all that congregation?
Had a message come straight from Heaven
to his soul at this crisis in his life? Was it
God, and no mere earthly voice, saying these
words: " I say not unto thee until seven times,
but until seventy times seven "?
"Seventy times seven!"" repeated the preach-
er. "We have heard it so often that we do not
realize what it means; we set it down as a fig-
ure of speech and let it go out of our thoughts.
And so it was a figure of speech whereby the
Master intended to convey to us the great truth
that forgiveness is to last as long as offences
last, unto the very end, no matter how long
the life, how bitter the offence. Is not that the
way God deals with us? Day after day, year
ZEPH.
75
after year, have we not been offending Him,
breaking His law, slighting His love? We are
old, many of us; have we yet ceased to offend?
Yet here comes this beautiful sun shining on us,
forgiving us anew, this very morning."
"Just what I was thinkin' up on the mesa
there," said Zeph to himself, "only I did n't put
it that way."
P
"And even if we took the numbers literally,"
the preacher went on, "even then, do we live
up to it? 'Seventy times seven:' four hundred
and ninety. Can we look into our hearts, deal-
ing honestly with ourselves, and say we have for-
given, any one of us,-forgiven so many offences
as that? Friend, neighbor, husband, wife, how
is it? Hast thou been hurt by any one four
hundred and ninety times, and four hundred
and ninety times forgiven the hurt, forgiven
it, wiped it out?"
It was a homely and realistic putting of the
phrase, but it struck home better than a loftier
76
ZEPH.
one would have done. Not a pew in which
some suddenly remorseful heart, thinking of
some one especial offender, did not own, shame-
smitten, "No, not so many as that;" and no
one more swiftly, remorsefully, than the always
gentle Zeph.
"That's a fact!" he was saying in his
thoughts. "'T ain't been near so many times 's
that; an' I don't know either 's I've ever once
really forgiven her, out 'n' out, without layin'
it up to make next time harder; 'n' that ain't
the way the Lord figures it. 'T would go hard
with us ef He did! When Rushy comes home
to-night I don't mean to say 's much 's one
word t' her about anythin', only how glad I
am to get her to home again."
At the end of the sermon the preacher, his
whole soul deeply stirred within him by the
attempt to hold up in its true light, shape,
color, to bring within his people's real grasp
the one eternal talisman,— talisman alike for life
F
ZEPH.
77
and death, for time and eternity, Forgiveness,
paused, and with bent head and trembling voice
"Shall we dare now to utter the prayer
said,
He paused again. "Yes. Since the Master
gave us the words, we must dare to use them;
let us dare now to utter this prayer, 'Forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us.'"
Sobs were heard throughout the church, and
after the benediction the congregation dispersed
silently, as from a funeral service. There had
indeed been many a grave closed forever in
those last few moments, closed, and a white
stone set in token; it had been a moment of
inspiration for the preacher, of salvation to the
people.
Zeph passed out of the door, the little boy
still clinging to his hand and the old woman
hobbling by his side. The poor do not stand
on ceremony with each other.
"That was drefful good doctrine he preached,"
78
ZEPH.
!
she said tremulously, "but 't's pretty hard to
live up to. Guess he hain't had no great crosses
hisself."
"
'I don't know about that," replied Zeph,
slowly. "I was a thinkin' mebbe he had had
more 'n common, 'r else he would n't ha' thought
it all out so clear. 'T seemed to me he felt all
he was sayin'."
"There's things can't be forgiven!" she said
sullenly.
Zeph made no reply. Her words grated
on him. The child looked up apprehensively
as she pulled him away into another road.
"I never see him take so to a stranger," she
said. "Guess ye 've got children o' your
own."
"Yes, two," replied Zeph.
"He's my grandson," she said.
“All I've
got left out o' three boys 'n' two girls: all
dead. But there's lots o' things worse 'n
death," she added gloomily. "I've lived long
ZEPH.
79
enough to know that. Good day t' ye." And
she turned away.
"Lots o' things worse 'n death,'" repeated
Zeph, as he took his lonely road home.
"That's true; 'n' then again 't ain't true.
While there's life, there's hope." He felt him-
self strangely cheered and lifted. If forgive-
ness were so mighty a thing as the preacher
had said, — and it must be, since it was all that
God had or needed to save the world by,
what more could be needed to straighten out
all the tangles of any one little life? He felt
his heart full of a larger, better forgiveness to-
wards his wife than he had ever before known;
a warmer love than he had felt for many a
month.
"There is nothing love cannot do," the
preacher had said. "The thing is, to be sure
that the love is truly love, and not selfishness."
(C
"I know I love Rushy," thought Zeph, an'
't ain't selfish love, I know 't ain't!
I'd give
80
ZEPH.
her up to-day, if I could see any way she'd be
better off without me."
And with his heart full of such thoughts as
these he sat down to wait patiently till night for
her return.
ZEPH.
81
III.
It was a bitter home-coming,- a bitter return
for the forgiving lovingkindness awaiting her.
Tired, more discontented with her home than
ever, bearing the baby in her arms, Rushy
entered the door, Zephie following, carrying a
basket almost heavier than he could lift.
As her eyes fell upon her husband, who went
forward to meet her, about to speak words of
welcome, she exclaimed testily: "Oh, you're
here, are you! sittin' round, I s'pose, doin'
nothin', ever since I went away."
A hot flush rose in Zeph's face, but he made.
a mighty effort to curb his anger, and answered
gravely: "No, Rushy, I have n't been sittin'
much o' the time these last three days. I've
been huntin' you."
6
82
ZEPH.
1
'Well, ye might have spared yourself that
trouble," she rejoined. “If I'd wanted to be
found, I could ha' told ye where I was goin'."
((
Rushy," exclaimed Zeph, "don't aggravate
me so! I want to live peaceable with ye. I
wan't goin' to say a word to ye about havin'
been gone all this time; I'll do anythin' on
God's earth for ye, Rushy, if ye 'll only stay at
home 'n' live 's ye'd oughter."
She turned on him like a fury: "Live 's I'd
oughter! Ye miserable, mean-spirited, no-
'count critter! I've earned six dollars these
three days I've been gone; earned it by as
hard work 's ever I did in my life, six
dollars in money, besides stuff enough in the
basket there to feed the children 'n' me for two
days more. Have you been earnin' anything,
I'd jest like to know? Have you earned a cent,
now, these three days? I say you're the one
that had better live as he'd oughter!" And lay-
ing the baby on the bed, she began unpacking
ZEPH.
83
the basket of food, and with a triumphant air
enumerating the articles as she took them out:
"There's cold turkey and veal, and corn-starch,
an' a can o' tomatoes, 'n' tea, 'n' coffee, better
vittles than there's been in this house for one
whiles."
-
Zeph gazed at her in a sort of dumb despair.
He had not been prepared for this. Like a
strange, far-away sound came into his mind
the preacher's words on which he had been
musing so much of the day: "There is noth-
ing that love cannot do if it is true love, and
not selfishness."
"I got a nice steak for supper," he said.
"It's there on the table."
She glanced at it contemptuously.
"What's
two pounds o' steak?" she said. "You can
keep it for yourself; we've got all we want.
I'm goin' down town in the mornin' into
rooms I've got there. I sha'n't live here no
longer!"
'
84
ZEPH.
"Rooms!" gasped Zeph.
"Rushy, what do
ye mean? Ye ain't goin' to leave me for good
an' all! You don't mean that, Rushy?" And
he came towards her with a bound, and putting
his hands on her shoulders, looked her in the
eyes with an expression which had melted any
but a hardened heart. Outraged love, indigna-
tion, incredulity, were blended in it; but over
and above all, a yearning tenderness, the whole
passion of a man's nature, that could not, would
not, surrender the loved object.
"I'll never let you go, Rushy, never!" he
cried. "Ye don't mean it. You'll never go 'n'
shame me 'n' the children 'n' yourself that way.
You don't mean it! Say you don't mean it,
Rushy!" And his voice broke into almost a
sob.
"I do mean it too, Zeph Riker, an' you'll
see I mean it. I hate the very sight of you,
'n' you know it; an' if you can't earn a livin', I
can, 'n' I'm goin' to; but I ain't goin' to earn
ZEPH.
85
it for you too.
The rooms is took 'n' paid for,
'n' I'm goin' into 'em to-morrow."
Zeph buried his face in his hands and was
silent. A tempest was raging within him. A
terrible impulse to spring upon his wife and kill
her swept through his veins, — gone in a second;
yet it had been there, and Zeph shuddered as it
fled.
Again the far-away refrain sounded in his
"There is nothing love cannot do."
ears:
((
'Rushy," he said, "you can't say I hain't
made a livin' for us all."
'A livin'!" she broke in scornfully. "Tain't
what I call a livin'!" and she threw a contempt-
uous glance round the rooms. "A livin'!" she
repeated tauntingly.
"It ain't what it used to be, I know, Rushy,"
said Zeph. "But that ain't my fault; you stay
at home 'n' see to things 's ye used to, 'n' I 'll
have everything comfortable for ye mighty
quick. I've been dreadful broke up this last
86
ZEPH.
year, Rushy. You don't keep count o' the days
I've been goin' round huntin' you; that's what's
broke up my work; 'n' then havin' to sell my
tools."
"Yes, I do keep count of 'em, too!" she
shrieked; "you need n't think I don't! An'
every time ye come taggin' on like a fool after
me I hate ye worse; so you can put that 'n
your pipe 'n' smoke it. Perhaps if ye'd let me
alone 'n' let me come and go like other folks,
without spyin' on me, I should n't ha' gone
away so often. But I'm goin' now, an' goin' to
stay. This's the last night ever I'll sleep 'n
this house; you mark my words!"
"What makes ye say 'like other folks,'
Rushy? You can't fling it up against me that
I hain't tried to shelter ye from gettin' yer name
into folks's mouths. There ain't the livin' man
can say he's ever heard me open my lips against
ye; nobody's ever heard it from me that you
was off; many 'n' many's the time I've's
ZEPH.
87
good 's lied to keep it covered up.
There
is n't any woman was ever heard of goin' away
from home the way you do,― leastways, no de-
cent woman," he muttered in a bitterer tone.
This last expression seemed to subdue in-
stead of increasing her wrath. She looked at
him for a moment reflectively, as if a new idea
had struck her; then her fury broke forth
anew: "Decent woman,' eh! Well, I call a de-
cent man, a man that keeps his family comfort-
able, and can earn good wages, and don't grudge
a woman the price of a bonnet, 'n' 's got some
pride about him 'n' 'll fix up his place, 'n' not
begin a house 'n' then let it stand till the
timbers rots without so much 's roofin' it in.
That's what I call 'decent; ''n' I don't call you
anyways decent, 'n' I hain't for a good while,
'n' I don't care who knows it, I'm done now!
I've stood it 's long 's I'm goin' to. I can take
care o' myself 'n' the children, 'n' I will!"
"I hain't ever made any objection to your
88
ZEPH.
earnin' money, Rushy," persisted Zeph, "any
way you could do it here 't home."
"How 's anybody to get a thing to do
down 'n this Flat?" she replied. "You don't
suppose anybody'd come down here to
board?"
"Are you going to take boarders, Rushy?"
said Zeph, the words coming slowly from his
lips. A new horror was seizing him.
"Yes, I am!" she answered defiantly. "There
's more money in that than anything."
What're you goin' to do for furniture?
"The rooms I've took is ready furnished,"
she answered sullenly.
"And the boarders too?" said Zeph, in a
hard voice. "I begin to understand. Ye 're
goin' in with that Sal Leeson, Rushy."
"Well, supposin' I am!" she muttered. "She
's a good friend to me, 'n' that's more than
any other woman 'n this God-forsaken town's
been!"
ZEPH.
89
"Oh, Rushy, Rushy!" groaned Zeph. "They
was all your friends once; everybody liked you
when we first come here, you know they did.
An' if we was to move away now, 'n' go some-
wheres else, an' begin over again, ye 'd make
plenty o' friends anywheres. Come, Rushy, let's
go. I'll start with ye anywheres ye say; we can
sell out for money enough to go with. Come,
Rushy!" and he tried to take her hand in his.
She pushed him away roughly, with a brutal
laugh. "Zeph Riker," she said, "you 're a
fool! Hain't I tried ye? I tell ye I'm done.
I won't never live with ye any more, never!
I've had my mind made up to that for longer 'n
you 've any idea. I've only been waitin' to see
my way clear, 'n' now I see it, 'n' I'm goin',
'n' you might 's well quit makin' a fuss! I'm
goin'!"
"I forbid ye, Rushy," said Zeph, solemnly.
"I forbid ye! I'm your husband, 'n' I for-
bid ye."
90
ZEPH.
"Forbid away!" she sneered. "I'm goin' all
the same."
Zeph left the house. This was a new pass
to which things had come. The tender cur-
rents of yearning affection which had been all
day setting warmly towards his wife were fast
changing under her wicked and cruel words to
angry and revengeful feeling. He would talk
no more with her. He would go apart by him-
self and wrestle with this new dilemma. What
it was possible for him to do he did not clearly
see. Bitterly he wondered within himself what
a rich man would do in such a dilemma; if a
woman threatening such disgrace to herself and
family could be locked up and guarded like a
lunatic; what provision the law made for such
contingencies.
"It's easy enough for the judge to say, if't
came into court, that she's got to stay 't home;
but that won't keep her there, 'n' locks 'n' bars
would n't either, if she's made up her mind to
ZEPH.
91
{
go; 'n' I can't stay at home 'n' watch her, nor
pay anybody else for doin' it either. Lord have
mercy on me, now! I don't see any way to
And half blinded by these whirling,
miserable thoughts, Zeph went on walking,
walking, he knew not where. At last he
turned.
turn."
"
"I'll go home,” he said. She sha'n't have
it to say I did n't stay with her to-night. Per-
haps I can bring her round yet."
But when he entered the house his first
glance showed him that she had not faltered
in her intention, and that the morning would
see it carried out. Two boxes stood in the
middle of the kitchen floor locked and corded.
Her own clothes and the children's had all been
taken out of the closet and drawers. The steak
lay untouched on the platter where he had left
it. The basket of provisions she had brought
from the camp was repacked, and a brown paper
tied tight over its top. "She don't even mean
92
ZEPH.
to get breakfast here," thought Zeph, as he
passed through into the bedroom. The chil-
dren were in their bed asleep, undressed as
usual. Rushy lay on the outside of the bed,
none of her clothes removed, her arm flung
over the little ones with an expression of fierce
protection, which smote Zeph none the less
because he could not have analyzed the
feeling.
She need n't ha' thought I'd take 'em away
from her in their sleep," he thought. "What
could I do with the baby, anyway, even if I was
minded to steal 'em from her?"
Rushy was asleep and breathing heavily.
She had indeed worked hard and was tired out.
As Zeph stood looking down on her face there
swept over him a storm of memories of the
early days of their acquaintance, courtship, and
marriage, — days when he was like a man tread-
ing in air, so foolish and fond was he; so blind
to everything except her beauty and her fasci-
ZEPH.
93
nating, bewitching ways. Every reminiscence
of these was now but fuel to the fires that
were consuming him.
"There does n't anybody know any better 'n
I do," he said, in jealous anguish, "what ways
she's got o' takin' a man off his feet. I don't
blame any of 'em, not a mite, I don't, if she
makes up her mind to fool 'em. There was n't
ever the man born could stand out against
her!" and he groaned.
The sound awoke Rushy. Looking up at
him angrily, she exclaimed, "Keep away, can't
ye? Let me alone!
"I wasn't going to touch ye, Rushy," said
Zeph; and he crossed the room and threw
himself, without undressing, on the outside of
the bed.
Slowly the night wore away, Rushy sleeping
heavily, as undisturbed as if no tragedy brooded
over her home; Zeph lying motionless, with
wide-open eyes, asking himself over and over
94
ZEPH.
and over again the bootless question, what he
should do. It was like a waking nightmare, the
sense of near catastrophe which weighed on his
helplessness.
Once in the night the baby woke and cried
hoarsely. Rushy rose, lighted the lamp, and
attended lovingly to the little creature's wants.
As she was doing so she met Zeph's steady
gaze following her every motion. Her face
hardened instantly into an evil and defiant
expression which cut Zeph to the quick.
"She hates me," he thought. "That wa'n't
anythin' less than hate, that look she had then."
He was glad when she blew out the light, and
without speaking threw herself again on the bed.
The bedroom windows faced the east. At
the first ray of light Rushy sprang up, and
rousing the children began dressing them.
Zeph sat on the edge of his bed, watching her
silently. He had resolved not to speak first,
to simply bide the issue as she might force it
}
ZEPH.
95
upon him.
His continued silence made her
uneasy. From time to time she glanced at him
apprehensively. His quiet, calm look made
her anxious. She was not clear in her own
mind what it meant, nor what might be the
extent of his power in the matter. The evil
counsellors with whom she had resolved to now
cast in her fortunes had warned her that the
law would uphold her husband in compelling
her to remain at home, or in taking the children
from her did he choose to let her go.
"Let him just try it!" she had answered
boastfully. "I'd like to see any man take my
children away from me."
"But it's the law, Rushy," Nat Leeson had
said. To tell the truth, infatuated as he was with
Rushy, he was by no means unwilling that the
children should be left with their father.
"I don't care if it's a hundred laws," Rushy
had made answer. "I tell you nobody's goin'
to get my children away from me. I'll make
96
ZEPH.
a good livin' for 'em, 'n' no judge is goin' to take
'em away 'n' give 'em to Zeph Riker to take
care of! I ain't a mite afraid.”
But she was; and the longer Zeph's silence
lasted, and the more glances she stole at his
calm, resolute face, the more afraid she grew;
and it was with an almost sinking heart that at
last, when she had no longer any excuse for
further delay, she turned to him and said, with
a poor attempt at bravado in her tone, "I'm
going now, Zeph." She was tying her bonnet-
strings as she spoke. Her hands trembled.
Zeph saw it.
"Haven't ye thought better o' what ye said
last night, Rushy?" he asked.
The gentleness of his voice and manner de-
ceived her. It is a piteous thing to see how, in
this life, the gentler and finer organized nature
is always the one to suffer most and come off
vanquished in collisions, and the coarse-grained,
brutal one to triumph.
•
ZEPH.
97
"No, I hain't!" she cried in a harsh tone.
"I've thought better 'n' better of goin'. Ye
poor shiftless thing, ye, I donno 's ye 've got
spirit enough to take care o' yourself, let alone
taking care of a wife an' children!'
"Ye know ye're sayin' what's not true,
Rushy," said Zeph, gravely, with no excite-
ment in his manner. "Ye're only trumpin' up
things like that to say to folks to keep 'em from
shamin' ye 's ye deserve. Ye know you 've
had a good home with me, 'n' a man to love
ye's nobody else ever'll love ye, out o' all
these that's been foolin' 'n' tollin' ye to the
devil."
"You go to the devil yourself then," cried
Rushy, "'n' don't sit there talkin' to me like a
preacher. Look to home! If I was a mind to
cast up at you, I could do it fast enough; but
I've got too much to do. Come, Zephie, come.
with mam! You've got to carry the basket,
but 't ain't so heavy's 't was last night. There'll
7
98
ZEPH.
be a man here to get the things this noon," she
added, turning again to Zeph.
He did not heed her. He was gazing at
little Zephie. The child stood looking from his
mother to his father, the tears slowly rolling
down his cheeks. He was only ten years old, but
he understood too well the wretched, shameful
scene. It was not the first he had witnessed.
"Come on, Zephie," said his mother, moving
towards the door. The boy did not stir.
((
Zeph held out his hands to him. Stay here
with pappy," he said. "Mam 'll come back per-
haps sooner'n she says.
You stay with pappy."
And tears which all Rushy's cruelty had failed
to wring from Zeph's eyes fell now as he drew
his boy close and folded him in his arms.
((
Oh,
Rushy halted. She was undecided.
well," she said, in a hard tone, affecting to
laugh, “Zephie can stay with you if he wants to;
he'll be glad enough to come to his mammy,
though, when he's hungry. He knows where
ZEPH.
99
't is. When you want some o' mam's ginger-
bread, Zephie, you come down and get it."
And without another look at her husband she
left the house, the baby in her arms.
For some moments Zeph sat like one
stunned. He had not really believed she would
do it; or that it would be anything more than
her previous absences. But he realized now
that it was different; something had passed,
had gone forever; a new gulf had opened be-
tween him and his wife. He was recalled to
himself by little Zephie, who still stood be-
tween his knees, softly crying.
"What makes mam go away?" he sobbed.
The innocent question unnerved Zeph. He
too sobbed, and holding the child convulsively
to his breast, cried: "I don't know, Zephie;
something dreadful 's got into mam. Pappy's
afraid she's crazy; but perhaps she 'll come
back different."
"She won't ever come back,
- not into this
Uor M
100
ZEPH.
house," said the boy. "I heard her tell Sal so
last night."
""
"What did Sal say?" asked Zeph.
"She said she'd be just fool enough!" he
replied.
So these were the influences under which
Rushy had been. He knew it before, but the
child's artless story seemed to vivify his realiza-
tion of it.
"What did mam say when Sal said that?"
asked Zeph.
"I don't know," said the child; "I did n't
hear her say anything. Nat said -"
“What did Nat say?" broke in Zeph, so
fiercely that the child started.
"Nat said she'd have to come back."
"He did, did he?" muttered Zeph.
"Zephie," he continued, "you an' pappy'll
live together now till mam comes home. We'll
have some beefsteak now for breakfast, 'n' then
pappy'll take you over to Gammer's to stay
ZEPH.
ΙΟΙ
while he goes to work; 'n' you can go to school
with Bud; 'n' to-night pappy 'll get a nice
supper."
"Will you have gingerbread?" asked Zephie.
"Yes," replied the father, "gingerbread and
apples." And by some inexplicable mental pro-
cess the very incongruity between this ques-
tion and answer and the depth of misery in his
breast moved him to laughter, and helped him
as no other thing just at that moment could
have done.
Gammer Stein was "Gammer" to the whole
neighborhood. Not a family in all the Flat,
or, as Gammer's Missourian tongue called it,
“Flairt,” but went to her for sympathy, coun-
sel, help, in the perplexities and troubles of
their hard-working lives. She was the only
person with whom Zeph had ever talked of his
troubles with his wife. A great-hearted, tire-
less, motherly woman, caring tenderly, through
all her poverty, for every one, neighbor or
102
ZEPH.
stranger, poorer than herself; bringing up, in
her old age, with the affectionate patience of
a mother, two orphan grandchildren; bearing
with more than wifely, almost with superhuman,
good-nature the ill-temper of a brutal husband,
to whom even his seventy years had brought
neither decency nor moderation of passions,
Gammer Stein was one of those unknown, un-
noted saints, whose lives, unwritten in words,
are written in records of influence as inefface-
able, as eternal, as the records of changes
and influences in the solid substance of the
earth.
It was not a year after she arrived in town,
with the two little grandsons clinging to her
skirts, and calling loudly, unceasingly, from
morning till night, "Gammer, Gammer!" before
the whole neighborhood where she lived had
learned to echo the children's name and the
children's cry; and it had so nearly passed out
of the memory of the place that the old woman
1
}
ZEPH.
103
had another name than "Gammer," that when, as
sometimes happened, a stranger asked her real
name, the people had to bethink themselves, to
recall that "Mary," and not " Gammer," was the
name by which she had been christened.
Two weeks had passed since Rushy bade her
defiant farewell to her husband. It was again
a cloudless summer Sabbath morning, and the
hush of the beneficent rest it had brought
brooded over all the working-people's homes
in the Flat. Even the belated curls of smoke
seemed to ascend lingeringly, as if knowing
that on this day there was no hurry about any-
thing. But there was no curl of smoke going
up out of the chimney of Zeph's house. More
than once Gammer Stein had glanced that way
in neighborly curiosity, and had thought to
herself, "Poor fellow! he sleeps late to-day.
It's well he can."
As the morning wore on, and still no sign
of life came from the house, her thoughts took
104
ZEPH.
a shape of anxiety, and she said to her husband,
"I allow Zeph's sick. He hain't stirred yit.
Yeow jest go over 'n' see ef he wants any-
thin'."
"I allow he kin run his sickness hisself,"
growled Wilhelm, who was the antipodes of his
wife in every one of the traits which so endeared
her to her neighbors. "I allow I hain't got no
call to go aout nussin' jest yit. Yeow kin ef yer
want ter. I allow yer fool enough."
Gammer glanced at him reproachfully. For
fifty years she had held her peace at such re-
plies as this; but this morning, for some rea-
son, her mild soul was moved to make answer.
"Ef yer wuz layin' sick in yer bed hyar, 'n'
nobody ter come nigh yer, I allow Zeph 'd
be ther fust one as 'ud be lookin' arter yer; I
allow he would. He's all alone thar. The
boy's ben these two days daown 't his mother's.
I seed 't was cuttin' inter Zeph, the little feller's
goin' off ter her. I would n't wonder a mite ef
ZEPH.
105
Zeph hed gone killed hisself. He's sed more
'n once he bleeved she'd drive him t' it; 'n' I
see him sharpenin' a big knife 'n aour grind-
stone. Thet wuz last Wednesday; no, 't wuz
Toosday. I wuz ironin', 'n' sez I, jest careless,
'What yer sharpenin' 't so sharp fur, Zeph?'
'n' he sez, sez he, 'I ain't gwine ter cut my
throat, Gammer, yit, never yeow be afeerd; '
jest 's ef he seen I wuz thinkin'; 'n' I sez ter
him, 'Naow, Zeph, ef yeow 've hed a hell 'n
this life, yeow don't want ter go right straight
inter anuther wuss one, dew yer? An' I
allow ef yer go 'n' murder yeourself, ye'll jest
go right straight inter torment thar won't be
no gettin' shet of, never!' I jest spoke plain
ter him."
"I sh'd think ser," growled Wilhelm; "allers
a meddlin' in business 't ain't any o' yeourn. I
allow 't ain't nothin' ter yeow ef Zeph Riker
cuts his throat ef he wants ter."
"I allow 't is," continued Gammer, placidly;
106
ZEPH.
"I allow he's my brother, accordin' to Scriptur';
thar ain't nobody gwine to kill hisself thet I
knows on, ef I kin hender him."
The words had hardly passed her lips, when
a sharp cry, "Gammer, Gammer!" came from
the front of the house. Both Gammer and
Wilhelm sprang to their feet.
"That's Zephie," exclaimed Gammer, as she
ran to the door. Little Zephie was running by
at the top of his speed. As he passed, he
shrieked, "Nat's cut pappy all ter pieces!
He's bleedin'! The men's bringin' him."
Horror-stricken, Gammer followed the child,
and overtook him as he was vainly trying with
his trembling little fingers to fit the key into
the door.
"Oh, hurry, hurry!" he cried. "Oh, Gam-
mer, get the door open! Pappy told me to
run 'n' git his bed ready."
"He's alive, then?" gasped Gammer.
"Yes, he's alive," sobbed Zephie, “but he's
ZEPH.
107
bleedin'; his face 's all cut. Oh, Gammer, Gam-
mer, when I'm a man I'll kill Nat!"
((
Hush, child! naow don't yeow talk thet
way; tew killin's is wuss 'n one! It's all mur-
der," said Gammer, moving about the rooms
distractedly, hardly knowing what she did, as
she heard the steady tramp of men's feet near-
ing the house.
It was
a ghastly burden they brought, a
ghastly story they had to tell. After they had
made the wounded man as comfortable as it
was possible to make him with the scanty
accommodations at hand, the doctor drew Gam-
mer aside and told her the tale.
It seemed that Zeph, poor fellow, had not
been able to keep away from the house where.
his wife was living. Not only did he yearn for
the sight of her face and the baby's, but he had
a foolish notion that his being occasionally seen
there would be a shelter to her reputation. He
had even said, with incredible magnanimity, to
108
ZEPH.
1
Sal Leeson, who reluctantly bore that much of
testimony to his goodness, "It's all against my
will, Rushy 's bein' here; but so long 's she's
my wife, 'n' 's got my children along with her,
it's better for all round that I should be here
some o' the time, whether she wants me or
not!'
The evil-doers, men and women, who con-
sorted in the place, had been more than once
shamed and sobered and finally driven out of
Rushy's room by the sight of the silent, sad-
faced man whose name she had so dishonored.
It was incredible that he could have borne it.
But he did; and it had become evident that if
Rushy was insensible to his presence, others
were not, and a new feeling of respect and
sympathy for Zeph had arisen, even in the
minds of those previously most hostile to him.
Nat himself had been sometimes shamed into
withdrawing from the stern, silent gaze of the
injured husband. Encouraged by these signs
1
ZEPH.
109
that the man was not wholly insensible to dis-
grace, Zeph had resolved to make one effort to
reason with him, and had timed this remon-
strance unluckily, addressing him when he was
sufficiently under the influence of liquor to be
savagely irritable. It was late on Saturday
evening. As Nat entered Rushy's kitchen with
the easy familiarity of one privileged, Zeph,
who had been waiting for him to come in, rose,
and said, "Nat, I owe all my troubles with my
If it was n't for you
wife to you.
He did not finish the sentence.
Seizing a
carving-knife which lay on the table, Nat sprang
on him like a tiger. Zeph, wholly unarmed,
caught up a chair to ward off the blows, and one
swift, terrible second saw the two men wrestling
in a life-and-death fight. Stretched from one
corner to the other of the room was a line on
which Rushy had towels and small articles hung
airing after the wash. The chair with which
Zeph was hitting out blindly caught in this
ΙΙΟ
ZEPH.
line, throwing him to the floor; and that was
the last he knew till, coming vaguely to his
senses, he heard voices above him: one, his
wife's, angry, hard, how it smote him!" I
tell you he sha'n't stay here! I've left him!
I won't have him laid on that bed! He's no
business here, any way!"
Zeph opened his eyes. Opposite him was
Nat, raging, swearing, held firm by two po-
licemen, who were dragging him out of the
room.
"Why did n't ye let me alone till I'd finished
my job?" he bellowed, like a wild beast in his
fury, Rushy, one hand on his arm, one on his
mouth, vainly striving to check him from
incriminating himself further.
Zeph closed his eyes at the harrowing sight.
Yes; why had they not let Nat finish his job!
How much better it would have been! What
a release from misery!
Then he heard a voice saying angrily to
ZEPH.
III
Rushy, it was the doctor,
"I don't care
Stand out of the way!"
And then
who he is or what he is, he has got to be laid
on that bed, I tell you! Are you a woman, or
a devil?
Zeph felt himself lifted and borne, and a buzz
of murmuring voices, and sharp stinging pains
in his cheek and throat; and then he sank away
and knew no more until in the night, when he
waked again to himself, and all was still, no
sound except the loud ticking of a clock; and
some man sitting by him, a stranger, said in a
not unkind voice, "Hey! 'wake, are ye? Want
anything?" and Zeph had said feebly, "Water,"
and had tried to ask for Rushy, but the words
would not form themselves; and while he was
struggling to speak them, he floated off, he
thought, on a big white cloud, and the air was
full of the sound of bells ringing, and he remem-
bered that it must be Sunday, and opened his
eyes again, and saw the broad daylight stream-
ing into the room, and the doctor standing in
112
ZEPH.
the doorway, and men's heads rising one behind
the other, and the doctor's voice again, angry
and indignant, reasoning with Rushy. Could
those tones be Rushy's, and those cruel words?
Yes, it was Rushy, saying in a shrill voice, “I
don't care! I tell ye I won't have him here.
He's brought me trouble enough a'ready; an'
now he's got Nat into prison, 'n' I don't care
what becomes of him. 'T was all his fault.
He begun the fight, aggravatin' Nat. Nat never
spoke the first word."
And above all the confused and struggling
sounds of the excited voices still pealed on the
church-bells; and at the sound Zeph's brain
seemed suddenly to clear itself, and strength to
come back to him; and half raising himself in
the bed, he spoke aloud: "Say, doctor, let
them carry me home; I'd rather go. 'T'won't
hurt me. I ain't very bad hurt, am I?"
A hush fell on the group of excited talkers.
They had thought him asleep.
ZEPH.
113
"No, you're not very bad hurt," said the
doctor, coming to the bedside and feeling his
pulse. "I don't suppose it'll do you any hurt
to be carried over to your house. But you've
got an ugly cut in your face, came mighty near
being your throat, and it'll need watching for
a few days, two weeks maybe. You've got to
be tended pretty close. You can't be left all
alone in the house." And the doctor glanced
wrathfully at Rushy, who stood silent, sullen,
looking down on the floor.
"I'll manage that, doctor," said Zeph, cheer-
fully, "if you 'll just get me home. My boy 'll
go with me, I guess; he's there 'most o'the
time. I'll have to keep him out of school a
few days, but after that I'll do for myself. I've
got good neighbors out there."
All this time Rushy spoke no word, but her
face grew harder and darker with every syllable
that fell from her husband's lips. She saw how
his words were telling against her. Even her evil
8
114
ZEPH.
comrade, Sal Leeson, bent almost compassion-
ately over the bed and wiped Zeph's forehead
as he spoke.
"I say, Rushy," she muttered, "you might
let him stay just a few days; I'll look after
him."
Before Rushy could reply, Zeph cried out,
"No, no! I tell you I won't stay. Doctor,
it 'ud kill me to stay," he continued plead-
ingly. "Oh, get me out o' here 's quick 's
you can!"
They were all rough men who were standing
there ready to give what help might be in their
power, but there was not a man among them
whose pulses did not beat quicker at this cry
of Zeph's. They lifted him in their arms ten-
derly, as if he had been a helpless woman,
and many a resentful glance was shot back
at the unfeeling wife, who neither moved nor
spoke as her husband was borne out of the
house.
ZEPH.
115
(6
Good-by, Rushy," he said. "I'm awful
sorry to have got ye into this trouble.
But
ye know 't wan't any o' my doin', Rushy. Ye
know 't wan't. Say good-by to me, Rushy.
P'raps I'll never see ye again.”
"Good-by," she said sullenly, without look-
ing up. In league and fast bound with malig-
nant spirits, surely, must Rushy Riker's heart
have been, to have resisted the appeal of that
moment. Even Sal Leeson was crying; but
Rushy's eyes glittered hard and dry with an
evil light. Her guilty and passionate heart was
full of terror for Nat. She had overheard one
of the policemen say, as they dragged him off
after the fray, "You'll swing for this night's
work, Nat Leeson; " and Nat, frantic in his fury,
had replied, "Swing and be damned! If you'd
let me alone a minute longer, I'd have finished
him!"
Rushy knew only too well that if Zeph was
to die of his hurts, these reckless words of Nat's
116
"
ZEPH.
3
would carry terrible weight against him in the
trial for murder which must follow. Her whole
nature was on fire with apprehensions, wild and
bootless plottings and plannings, and over and
above all raged an unreasoning anger against
her husband for having been the occasion of
such danger to Nat.
"If worst comes to worst, I'll swear him out
myself," said the wretched woman. "I'll swear
Zeph set on him with the knife first. 'Twas
just the same 's a knife, the words he used.
They just made Nat crazy."
The jail was in full sight from her door: a
square, stone building with grated windows, at
the back a high fence surrounding an enclosure
in which a man had been hung only a few
months previous, hung for a murder com-
mitted in a sudden fray not unlike this one
between her husband and Nat. As Rushy
recalled the day of this hanging and the crowd
of men and women she had seen outside the
ZEPH.
117
fence eagerly striving, like wild beasts athirst
for blood, to look through cracks in the fence,
to climb up and see over, her heart sickened
within her; clenching her fist, she shook it
toward the jail and muttered: "They sha'n't
ever hang Nat. I'll burn the place down over
their heads first. If 'tis stone I'll fire it some-
how, or I'll get him poison! They sha'n't
hang him!"
The church in which Zeph had listened two
weeks before to the sermon on forgiveness
stood only a few rods from Rushy's house. As
the men were carrying him past the door the
choir had just begun the singing of the first.
hymn.
"(
Stop a minute, can't ye?" whispered Zeph.
"It jars me awful, bein' carried; just rest a
minute here 'n this shade.” He would not
confess that it was for sake of the singing that
he wished to stop. With closed eyes he lay
listening. He could not hear the words, but
118
ZEPH.
the tune was one of the sweet old-fashioned
ones he had heard sung when he was a child;
and there were words echoing in his thoughts
which seemed to fit strangely into its rhythm,
words echoing yet in the air, though it was
now fourteen days since their syllables had
been spoken: "Yea, I say unto you, until
seventy times seven."
"I don't know what's got into me," thought
Zeph, "to be so haunted like by them words.
I don't lay no claim to bein' a Christian, 'n'
I'd just as soon kill that Nat this minute 's
I would a pizen snake; but I can't get free
from them words."
ZEPH.
119
IV.
DURING these two weeks which had brought
such tragedy into Zeph's life the memory of
him and his troubles had by no means died out
of Miss Sophy's mind. She found herself re-
verting with strange persistency to the trains
of unwonted thought awakened within her by
his inexplicable devotion to his unworthy wife.
The more she thought, the surer she became
that the man had done only what she herself
would have done in similar circumstances. "For
better, for worse,'
," she repeated. "That does
n't mean but one thing; there are n't any two
ways o' readin' or sayin' such plain words as that!
An' it's 'worse' he 's got, no mistake. But I'm
as sure's I'm alive, that there ain't many men
would take it the way he does; it's more the
120
ZEPH.
way a woman 'ud do. Strange, too; such a
great strong man's he is! six foot if he's an
inch, I'd have thought he 'd made short
work o' any man that came foolin' round his
wife. I'll go up 'n' see how he's gettin' along
to-morrow."
But times were busy with Miss Sophy. Mid-
summer brought crowds of travellers to Pendar
Basin, and the reputation of Miss Sophy's good
table was so wide that her doors were besieged
with applicants for board. She had to turn them
away by dozens, much to the distress of her
thrifty soul; but, as she curtly remarked some-
times to those who wearied her by importunities,
"Four walls is four walls, 'n' ye can't make 'em
any bigger. It's more for my interest to take
ye than 't is for yours to come, but I have n't got
so much as room for a shake-down left; that's
the truth."
In addition to this inroad of boarders, Miss
Sophy had other perplexities on her mind; one
ZEPH.
121
1
of her wise and long-seeing measures had been
the purchase of a small ranch, a few miles
from town, where she raised vegetables and
kept poultry and cows. Until this summer the
scheme had worked well; the ranch, in the
hands of a faithful Swede and his wife, yielding
her a profit on the investment, and contributing
no small share to the fame of her house. She
had called the ranch "Greenhills," partly in
affection for her old Vermont home, partly be-
cause the house stood in a little park-like open,
surrounded by low hills which had springs in
them, and were consequently green when the
rest of the plains around were sere and brown.
Greenhills butter and Greenhills poultry, when-
ever there was any surplus above Miss Sophy's
own needs, brought fancy prices in market; and
the sole air-castle Miss Sophy had, was the
vision of the time when she would have money
enough put away in the bank and on loans to
make it safe for her to give up keeping boarders
122
ZEPH.
and live at Greenhills. And it was Greenhills
she had in her thoughts on that evening when
Zeph knocked at her kitchen door, and she had
with a hasty impulse, so unlike her usual cir-
cumspection, told him she could give him work.
Something in Zeph's eyes inspired her with sud-
den and entire confidence in him, and she would
then and there have taken him into her employ,
had he been so minded; she was near at her
wits' end with the miserable and dishonest fel-
lows she had employed on the place since the
Swede had gone away in the spring. Bitten
by the mining craze, of which there had been a
fresh outburst in the region, he had left her,
with only a week's warning, in the midst of the
spring planting, and everything had seemed to
be going from bad to worse ever since.
"If I could just get that Zeph up there to
overlook things! I believe he 's as honest 's a
Newfoundland dog," said Miss Sophy. And it
was, after all, not wholly philanthropy which
ZEPH.
123
made her, on the very Sunday afternoon after
Zeph's fray with Nat, turn her steps once more
towards his house. With her usual straightfor-
wardness she was going directly to him to offer
him the situation. "An' if that wife o' his is in
the house," said the resolute Miss Sophy, “I
sha'n't mince any words with her.
I shall just
tell her it's her husband I want, an' not her,
'n' she won't be allowed to set her foot on the
place. If he's fool enough to come home to
her Sundays he can." From which it is plain
to be seen, that, spite of her tender meditations
on the solemn words of the marriage service,
and on the touching faithfulness of Zeph to his
erring wife, Miss Sophy was not quite sound in
the practical application of the doctrine.
But Providence intervened to save her the
shock of being suddenly confronted by the spec-
tacle of the wounded, helpless Zeph. As she
crossed the open in front of his house, Gammer
Stein's sharp eyes spied her. Gammer was
124
ZEPH.
keeping the Sabbath in her wonted fashion, by
taking in vigorous hand the bodies of her grand-
children. Cleanliness, in her creed, took place.
of all especial observance of conventional godli-
ness on the seventh day; and a terrible day it
made of it for Bud and Tim. No possible Sun-
day purgatory of hard benches and long ser-
mons, as experienced by the children of more
Orthodox parents, could have compared in terror
with the Sunday scrubbings and combings to
Gammer Stein's grandchildren. The foreshadow-
ing gloom of it fell on them of a Saturday, and
the smart and tingle of it lasted all day Mon-
day, and longer.
It was at a lucky crisis for Bud that Miss
Sophy appeared on the scene. The six days'
tangle of his hair had proved too much both
for his grandmother's patience and his own, and
he had just broken into loud crying, and she
into something as near scolding as her placid
nature ever reached, when, suddenly throwing
ZEPH.
125
combs, brushes, scissors, all to the floor, the
old lady cried, "Thar she goes now! Wall, ef
thet ain't cur'us!" And without another word
she ran out of the house, waving her arms and
calling aloud: "Hyar! Miss Burr! Yeow hyar!
Don't yer go nigh ther house. Yeow wait tell
I kin come up ter ye."
Miss Sophy, surprised, and, if the truth were
told, not wholly pleased, stood still, as admon-
ished, till Gammer reached her, and then coolly
waited for her to speak. Nothing daunted,
Gammer gasped breathlessly, "I allowed ye
wuz gwine ter Zeph's, wan't yer?"
"Yes," replied Miss Sophy.
"Wall, I allowed ye wuz, 'n' I jest dropped
everythin'. I wuz er grapplin' wi' Bud's hair;
it's somethin' orful, Bud's hair ez: 'n' I jest
throwed the combs daown 'n' run ter tell yer
not ter go nigh ther haouse." And Gammer
stopped for want of breath.
"Why not?" exclaimed Miss Sophy, curiosity
126
ZEPH.
getting the better of her reserve. "What's hap-
pened? Who's sick?"
"'T ain't no sickness, it's wuss!" replied
Gammer, sententiously. "It 's wuss 'n any
sickness. Thet Nat's cut Zeph all ter pieces,
'n' he's layin' thar; the doctor's in thar naow,
the city doctor; pore folks hez ter hev him,
yer know.
I allow he don't know much;
Zeph wuz bleedin' orful when they brung him
over; I wuz thar. I never seed sech a sight,
'n' I don't never want ter. I allow he'll die,
sure."
"Cut to pieces!" interrupted Miss Sophy.
What do you mean? He can't be cut to
pieces! Is she in there? Did he find her?
Who's takin' care o' him?"
"Well, it ez in his face 'n' jaw, mostly," re-
plied Gammer; "he ain't cut nowhar's else;
'n' ther doctor sez when his beard 's growed out
agen full, 't won't show none. The doctor, he
allowed ez he would n't ha' hed sech a cut's
ZEPH.
127
!
thet not fur no woman livin'; he allowed he
would n't."
It was of no use to attempt to direct courses
and channels of narrative in Gammer Stein's
mouth; once launched, she was as unmanage-
able as a rudderless boat, and veered wildly
from past to present, from actual to hypotheti-
cal, from descriptive to didactic, according to
the quarter from which each sudden reminis-
cence and emotion struck her. After one or
two vain attempts to interpolate questions or
get some consecutive order of statement, Miss
Sophy abandoned all such efforts and pa-
tiently listened, and in the course of half an
hour was in possession of the substantial facts
of the case.
Two scarlet spots glowed on her cheeks. "It
is the most shameful thing I ever heard!" she
cried, when at length Gammer paused.
"Ain't it?" said Gammer.
"Ain't she jest
a disgrace ter ther whole on us? I allow thar
128
ZEPH.
ain't no hell, wharever 't is ner whatsomeever
it's made outer, thet's bad enough fur sech 's
her."
"I'm goin' in to see him," said Miss Sophy,
firmly.
"Yer ain't, though, be yer?" said Gammer.
"Be yer reel steady headed? He looks
orful."
"I'm goin' in," repeated Miss Sophy. "He's
got to be looked after. I shall ask the doctor
what he ought to have to eat."
"I allow I'll go 'long tew," said Gammer.
"Tew's better 'n one." And she accompanied
Miss Sophy to the door. As they reached it,
the doctor came out.
"Ah! Ah, Miss Burr," he said, in a tone of
relief, "I'm glad to see you here. How did
you hear of it? The man is badly hurt, but
he will pull through if he can be kept quiet.
He wants nursing, though."
Miss Sophy nodded. "Yes, I should think
ZEPH.
129
he did," she said in a wrathful tone.
"I sup-
pose that good-for-nothing wife of his -"
"Don't speak of her!" broke in the doctor.
"She's a regular she-devil! If she shows her
face here, I'll have her arrested. He's better
alone, than with her round. She won't come,
anyhow; she's left him."
((
Humph!" said Miss Sophy, with something
between a snort and a sob. "Good riddance!
I should say."
"The little chap's very handy," continued the
doctor," and he seems fond of his father. I've
showed him how to keep the bandages wet;
he must n't swallow anything but liquids for a
good many days, — only milk at first. In a day
or two, if you can give him some of your good
soups, Miss Burr, that will be all he will need.
He'll pull through. It is a close shave; but the
man's got the constitution of an ox."
"I'll see he has the soups, doctor," said Miss
Sophy, turning away.
9
130
ZEPH.
"Ain't yer gwine in?" cried Gammer, disap-
pointed. "Yer said ye wuz gwine in. I allow 't
w'ud be good fur him ter know he'd got some
friends more 'n he 'd knowed on."
Miss Sophy hesitated. A sudden repugnance
had seized her.
"No," she said, "not to-day.
"not to-day. I'll be up
again to-morrow. You can tell him I was here,
and that I'll look after him. He need n't give
himself one mite of uneasiness about food. I'll
see that he 'n' the boy have all they need.
I'll look after 'em."
Then I allaow they'll be looked arter," said
Gammer. "Anybody 'd know jest by ther
way yer step aout yer hed n't no slouch abaout
yeow! Yer powerful active, yer air, fur a
woman er yeour build. It's cur'us naow what
tuk Zeph ter yeour door thet night, ain't it?
He hain't hed much luck, but thet wuz luck; I
allow ter yeou, looks like 't wuz! Good day t'
ye, good day! I allow thet Bud 's got hes
ZEPH.
131
;
hair inter a wuss
we've been talkin'.
cleanin' him up I
snarl 'n 'twuz afore, while
Ez soon's I've got through
shell go inter Zeph's 'n'
straighten aout things thar."
Miss Sophy went home like one walking in a
dream of horror. In the whole course of her
placid thirty-five years no such glimpse as this
of the dark side of human life and human
nature had ever reached her. The currents of
existence in her native village were always as
smooth as they were dull; no crime had ever
been committed there, neither did any of the
great daily newspapers come into the place
with its record of the wretched iniquities of
the outside world. Vaguely Miss Sophy knew
that such things were, as she knew that there
were volcanic eruptions and cyclones; but to
find herself thus face to face with, in fact almost
involved in, one of the most dreadful of all
human tragedies, stunned her.
(6
Right here in Pendar Basin, too," she said
132
!
ZEPH.
1
I
!
to herself, "in this little village, and 'mongst
workin' folks, too; I declare it's awful!
don't like bein' mixed up in it, anyhow. It
don't seem decent to even know about it. But
somebody's got to look after that man, that 's
certain; 'n' I'd rather do it myself without any
help than go 'n' tell anybody such a story 's
that. I'd bite my tongue off first.
And so with a grim repression which cost
Miss Sophy a dear expenditure of nerve force.
in the self-restraint it involved, she went about
her business and said not a word to any one of
her ministrations to the wounded man.
It was
not till the fourth day that she nerved herself
up to accompany Gammer to his bedside. The
sight overcame her, and routed her last vestige
of cowardly unwillingness to an open responsi-
bility about the case.
"I don't care what 's to be said," she ex-
claimed, "nor who's mixed up in it; that man
ain't goin' to lie another day in that hole. I'm
1T
133
ZEPH.
goin' to have him moved right out to Green-
hills and taken care of decent. I can drive
out there every day 'n' see to him. I do go
out pretty near every day 's 't is; 'n' the air out
there'll half cure him. Why, the flies 'n that
room o' his are enough to kill him,-just the
flies alone! There ain't a window nor a door
out to Greenhills that has n't got mosquito net
in it."
"Yer don't mean it, dew yer?" exclaimed
Gammer Stein, taken all aback at the sug-
gestion.
"I do, too!" cried Miss Sophy. "I'm going
to the doctor this minute to ask him if he's got
anything to say against it."
"I dunno 's Zeph ud be willin'," began Gam-
mer, hesitatingly. "I allow-”
"He'll go if I come for him," interrupted
Miss Sophy, impatiently. "He is n't a fool,
that is, not in everything," she added testily.
"I want him out there to work's soon 's he's
134
ZEPH.
able, 'n' he'll be right there to begin." And
Miss Sophy was off.
In an hour she was back again with the doc-
tor, who was heartily in favor of her scheme.
In fact, he said the man's one chance for life.
lay in some such change; the wounds were not
of themselves enough to kill him, but the soli-
tary brooding over his troubles was keeping
up a fever in which he grew daily weaker and
daily worse.
When Miss Sophy's plan was explained to
Zeph, he lifted his eyes to her face in a long,
scrutinizing gaze.
"I donno what reason ye've got, ma'am," he
said slowly, "for takin' so much trouble for me.
I ain't worth it."
"I dare say you ain't," replied Miss Sophy,
"but you can't be left to die here o' these flies.
If there was a hospital, that's the place you
ought to go to; but there ain't any, 'n' my
house out to Greenhills's plenty o' room in it,
ZEPH.
135
¡
'n' there's a man out there can see to all you
want. You don't want anythin', the doctor
says, but good food 'n' to be quiet; 'n' you can
have that out there without its costin' anybody
anythin', so we've decided to move you out
there. The men'll be here about four o'clock
with the wagon."
"Greenhills ranch?” said Zeph, inquiringly,
- a faint gleam of interest lighting up the sad-
ness in his eyes.
"Yes," said Miss Sophy, "that's my ranch;
that's where I was going to give you work,
if you'd wanted it, that night you came to my
house; 'n' just 's soon 's you're on your feet
there's plenty for you to do out there."
Zeph made no reply. His eyes turned to
Zephie, who stood at the foot of the bed,
listening wide-mouthed to the startling propo-
sition.
Miss Sophy misunderstood the expression of
Zeph's gaze.
136
ZEPH.
"Yes, the boy can go too," she said. "It'll
be handy to have him there. There's plenty o'
room."
"I was a thinkin' that it would be hard to be
where I could n't see him, ma'am," said Zeph,
slowly. "But I could n't take him out there.
He'd have to stay with his mother."
"Stay with his mother!" shrieked Miss
Sophy; and, "His mother!" cried the doctor.
"What d'ye mean, man!'
Zeph's face flushed. "I've been talkin' a
good many things over with the boy," he said,
"an' he'd rather stay an' help his mother, —
a while, at any rate, till we see how things goes.
He was goin' to see her to-day. That's all
settled, sir," he added, as the doctor opened
his lips again with an impatient ejaculation.
"There's things that nobody knows anything
about except folks themselves, an' other folks
can't judge. I had been plannin' to go away
for a spell 's soon's I was fit to work, 'n'
:
A
}
ZEPH.
137
{
Zephie was to stay with his mother till I come
back."
There was a dignity in Zeph's tone and bear-
ing which lifted the homely language to the
level of eloquence; and the earnest answering
look on the child's face, as he met his father's
eyes, completed the revelation. This was in-
deed no matter for "other folks" to judge of
or to interfere with.
"I'll go out to your place, ma'am," continued
Zeph, again fixing a bewildered and scrutinizing
gaze on Miss Sophy's face. "I'll go out, an'
be thankful to ye for the kindness. I think it's
more 'n likely I'll get on my feet quicker there
'n here. I ain't so very bad hurt, 'n''s soon 's
I'm able to be round, I 'll work out all I owe ye,
ma'am, for the 'commodation."
Miss Sophy laughed in spite of herself.
"I ain't takin' you's a boarder," she said.
"As soon as you are able to be round, I'll make
a bargain with you, if you're a mind to, to look
138
ZEPH.
་
after the ranch. I think you're about the sort
of man I want out there, that is, if we can
agree about terms," added Miss Sophy, her
shrewd business habit returning to her; "there
will be time enough to talk about that when
you're up and out.”
Zeph smiled faintly. "We ain't likely to dis-
agree about terms, ma'am," he said. "I don't
rate myself over 'n' above high. I've got a
good team, though, 'n' wagon, if they'd be any
use to ye."
"Have you?" exclaimed Miss Sophy. "The
very thing I was needing. One of the farm
horses has broken down, an' Waters said I'd
have to buy another. That is lucky,"· · and
Miss Sophy chuckled to herself at this speedy
returning of the bread she had cast on the
waters, "that is downright lucky. You can
be carried out in your own team, and Waters 'll
work one o' your horses right in harvestin' the
wheat, 'n' that 'll save me buyin' a horse, 'n' be
!
i
i
:
I
ZEPH.
139
蔓
​a good deal more 'n your board to me, which 'll
set your mind to rest about that part on 't. I
always did hate to have anything to do with
horses; don't know anything about 'em, if I did
grow up on a farm; never could learn to har-
ness 'em; don't know a bad one from a good
one; expect I'm cheated every time. I dare
say you'll find there's nothin' the matter with
this one Waters says 's sick. When you get
out there you can begin to keep your eye on
Waters 's soon's you 're a mind to. You don't
need to be on your feet to do that, 'n' he needs
watchin'.'
""
A most injudicious confidence this to put in
a stranger, and a thing wholly foreign to Miss
Sophy's habitual way of talking with persons
whom she did not know. She could not ac-
count for it to herself, and felt a half embar-
rassment in her own presence, as it were, as
she realized it. With an unconscious effort at
reassuring her self-respect, she turned to the
140
ZEPH.
4
doctor, as they left the house together, and
said, "I don't know how it is, but there's some-
thing about that fellow makes you trust him 'on
sight,' as you say on money notes. Don't you
think he's all right?"
""
'No doubt of it," replied the doctor, heartily.
"No doubt of his being 's honest 's the day is
long; but I don't believe he's much force."
"How could he help having force, with that
great body of his?" said Miss Sophy, ingenu-
ously, coloring as she spoke. "He's 'most a
giant."
"I did n't mean that kind of force," laughed
the doctor, privately amused at Miss Sophy's
standard. "Some of the smallest men I've
ever known have had the most force. I don't
know much about this man. Nobody says any
harm of him, though. But that wife of his is
a regular devil! He's a fool to stick to her 's
he does."
Miss Sophy cast her eyes down.
"But he's
t
ZEPH.
141
married to her," she said. "What's he goin'
to do?"
"Do!" shouted the doctor. And he thought
to himself, "Well! of all queer questions for
a steady-going old maid like Sophy Burr to
ask! Do!" he repeated. "Why, get a di-
vorce from her quicker 'n lightning! That's
what he'd do if he'd got the force you was
talking about.”
"Perhaps he does n't think that would be
right," persisted Miss Sophy in a still lower
voice, still with downcast eyes. They had
been walking fast, and had just reached her
gate, and as she said these last words she
lifted the latch and held it in her fingers,
nervously slipping it up and down. "Gammer
Stein says he loves her spite of all she 's
done."
The doctor stared in undisguised amazement.
"Loves her!" he ejaculated.
"Yes," said Miss Sophy; "so Gammer Stein
142
ZEPH.
4
says, and that is the reason he was down there;
he follows her wherever she goes."
'Well, he is a fool, then," said the doctor.
"Beg your pardon, Miss Sophy. The word
slipped out unawares to me; but that's what
he is!"
"I suppose most folks would call him so,"
answered Miss Sophy, conveying her faint last
retaliation and championship in a slight em-
phasis on the word "most" as she closed the
gate.
"I should say so," retorted the doctor stiffly,
walking away with a puzzled sense of sudden
antagonism towards Miss Sophy, and a general
disposition to reflect contemptuously on spin-
ster views of life. "I should say so !" he mut-
tered to himself again. "What ever has got
into Sophy Burr, to be standing up for that
kind of immorality!"
And probably nothing short of a revelation
from Heaven could have made it apparent to
i
ZEPH.
143
the good doctor's mind that it was not at all
for immorality that Miss Sophy was "stand-
ing up."
In the cool air and peaceful stillness of the
Greenhills ranch Zeph mended by the hour,
mended so fast that it seemed to him like a
miracle, mended spiritually as well as bodily;
new resolution, new purpose, awoke within him;
clouds lifted, and he saw clearly what he ought
to do. This new vision and purpose wrote
themselves at once in his face. It was little
less than a transformation. So great was the
change, that when one morning Miss Sophy
saw him driving up to her gate in the Green-
hills wagon, she did not know him. It was not
quite two weeks since the day she had seen him
lying wan and spiritless in his bed.
"Sakes alive!" she ejaculated, "that can't be
Zeph Riker! 'Tis too! Well, I never! He's
more of a man than I thought." And there was
a certain indefinable tribute of new respect in her
144
ZEPH.
manner as she greeted him with friendly kind-
ness. "How you have picked up! I didn't
know you at first. Ready to go to work, ain't
you? You look as if you was!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Zeph. "I'm feelin' fust-
rate now; I'm ready to take hold o' anythin'
ye've got for me to do, 'n' very thankful to
you, ma'am, for givin' me the chance. I expect
ye've got the right to me; the doctor he was
a tellin' me to-day that he'd about giv' me up
when you come along that day 'n' took me out
to your place."
"Pshaw!" said Miss Sophy.
you then!
"That's all
nonsense. There was a dozen dead men in
You come in, and I'll tell you what
I want you to do. I'm goin' to put a good
deal of responsibility on you, 'n' I don't ex-
pect you'll disappoint me."
"I'll try not to," said Zeph, gravely. "I
sha'n't cheat ye; but I might disap'int ye, for
all that. There's those that 'd answer for me
1
ZEPH.
145
not cheatin' ye, if ye'd like a reference, or some-
thin' o' the kind," he added.
"No!" replied Miss Sophy. "I'll take you
and mine! I ain't
on your own references
often mistaken in folks, 'n' I made up my mind
the first night I saw you that I'd like to get
you to work for me."
As soon as the words had passed her lips she
would have given much to recall them. The
effect they produced upon Zeph was pitiful to
see. In the flash of a second his face altered.
Bitter memories swept over him. His whole
figure seemed to droop, to lose strength; he
looked again the grief-stricken, wandering, vacil-
lating man who had fumbled weakly at her door
that night.
But it passed. In the few moments during
which Miss Sophy stood, embarrassed, dumb,
wondering at her own thoughtlessness in having
thus reminded him of his sorrow, Zeph had
wrestled himself free from the sudden grasp of
10
146
ZEPH.
it, and looking her straight in the eyes, said:
"I'm more to be trusted now than I was then,
Miss Burr. I was pretty near out o' my mind
that night. But I know where I stand now, an'
I'm goin' to work. I'm all right, ma'am."
"That's all right, all right," exclaimed Miss
Sophy, awkwardly. She did not intend to have
any further implication with Zeph's domestic
miseries. "If he's going to be my overseer
'n' run that ranch," said the shrewd woman to
herself, "he's just got to be my overseer 'n'
nothin' else. I can't be carryin' all his troubles
on my shoulders. Now he's on his feet, he 'll
have to steer his own canoe."
It was only the helpless that appealed to
Miss Sophy. People who were, as she in con-
cise metaphor expressed it, " on their feet" must
look out for themselves. She did, and she
expected everybody else to. A very odd mix-
ture of sympathy and hardness, compassion
and coldness, was Miss Sophy. Even to herself
ZEPH.
147
she was puzzling, so swept away from her
bearings sometimes by great waves of pity
and desire to help her fellow-beings, and again
flintily indifferent to suffering, whose shape or
phase antagonized her common sense. There
was no limit to her benevolent activity, gener-
osity, when once her heart was touched; but
she was quite capable of dismissing other cases
with a curt, "I've no patience with such people,
-no patience at all! They deserve to suffer.
Good enough for them!"
But to keep Zeph her "overseer 'n' nothin'
else" proved not to be so easy as Miss Sophy
had thought; and the burden of the thought of
his sorrows would not roll off her shoulders as
she had intended. Do her best, she could not
shake herself free of a haunting consciousness
of his trouble and a growing admiration for his
courageous patience. No word of allusion to it
passed between them. She would not ask, and
nothing would have been further from Zeph's
148
ZEPH.
impulse than to offer, any information in regard
to the state of affairs; but she fell into the habit
of studying his face, and drawing from its ex-
pression her own conclusions as to the posture
of matters. When he looked cheery and reso-
lute, and spoke with vivacity, she said to herself,
<<
Well, he's gettin' along with it wonderfully."
Whenever he looked downcast and was silent,
saying only what was needful to be said, wrath
shook her inmost soul, and her soliloquies were
vindictive. “She's been pesterin' him, I know
she has, the hussy! I'd like to see her
drummed out o' town!" or "I expect he's
worryin' himself to death about those children.
I don't believe but the law 'd give 'em to him if
he'd set about it. He could have the boy out
at the ranch's well as not, an' the baby could
be boarded. I don't know what the Lord sends
children to such women for!"
Ah, very far was Miss Sophy drifting from
the purpose she had laid down to herself of
1
ZEPH.
149
1.
letting the overseer of her ranch "steer his own
canoe"! She was fast nearing the pass of being
ready to snatch from his hands both rudder
and oars.
It is a dangerous thing for a woman
to thus study and pity a man. By paths of
whose bearing she does not so much as dream,
she is approaching a country whose name, if it
were once pronounced in her ears, would terrify
her. But there is no one to pronounce the
name; the paths are winding; no guide-posts
are there; no tokens; not so much as a dropped
leaf to show who last went through. Shrewdest
of all commanders in the world is Love, who
makes his recruits recruit themselves.
If Miss Sophy had been told in these days
that this constant, half-tender, half-impatient,
half-pitying, half-wrathful watch and interest
she was keeping up in Zeph's affairs was carry-
ing her straight and fast into loving him, she
would have been ready to slay her informant,
and would have been sure the tale was a lie. All
150
ZEPH.
the same it was true. This was what was coming
to Miss Sophy; helpless, unaware, stout-hearted,
sturdy, independent, as she was, it was coming
to her, and she did not know it; in her ignorance
she was inviting it, making ready for it, feeding
it. A mighty passion it would be when once it
had Miss Sophy fairly in its clutch; no half-way
measure or measures in anything Miss Sophy
did, or became.
And so the days wore on, faster than ever,
it seemed to her; with this new absorbing in-
terest added to her other duties, she appeared
to somehow lose time out of each day, and
never, as she phrased it, "get round." From
morning to night she went about her work
with her brown straw hat pressed tight down
on her forehead. This hat was always to
Miss Sophy's servants a weather-signal. It had
hitherto been her habit to wear it only on days
of extra work, -house-cleaning, or the refitting
of a room, moving of a stove, or some such
ZEPH.
151
((
But
exigency. The sight of it always struck terror
to her workwomen's hearts. "When Miss Sophy
comes down in the morning with her brown
hat on," one of them once said, we jest know
we've got to look out an' step lively!"
this summer the brown hat was worn day after
day, till gradually it lost its portentous mean-
ing to the household. It really was no less
a symptom of perturbations than before, but
they were perturbations whose existence no
one suspected,—least of all, Miss Sophy.
The summer had gone and the autumn had
begun. October, with its hasty scurrying snows
and threatening sleets, took Miss Sophy by
surprise. "Goodness!" she cried one morning;
"if it ain't snowing a'ready! Of all climates
ever I heard of, I do think this Colorado's the
most unreasonable. It's bad enough to keep
on snowing into May; but to begin again the
first week in October is a little too much! It
don't seem but yesterday I had the stoves took
152
ZEPH.
down, an' now they've all got to be set up
again. It's as bad as Vermont, every bit."
Why don't you go to South California, Miss
Sophy?" said one of her boarders, a young
engineer, who had recently come from San
Diego. "That's the climate of all the world;
never a flake of snow from one year's end to
the other; flowers blooming out of doors all
winter."
((
Really? Truly?" said Miss Sophy, turning
a wondering look at him. "I did n't know as
't was so warm's that.”
more
"It is n't," the engineer replied, laughing.
"That's the joke of it. I never suffered
with cold here than I have
I have there,
when I've got caught out in the mountains.
at night; but it is n't cold by the thermom-
eter, and that's what the plants go by, I sup-
pose; at any rate, I know they 're in bloom
all winter, and I've seen barley in full head
in January."
ZEPH.
153
"And never any snow, honest, now?" asked
Miss Sophy, incredulously.
"Never," he replied; "that is, never except
on the mountains. Once I saw a few flakes
come down in Los Angeles; it was in February;
it lasted about ten minutes, and everybody in
town was out looking at it. There had n't been
a flake seen there for nine years."
"That's where I'd like to live, then!" ejac-
ulated Miss Sophy. "I guess I'll move."
((
Many a true word's spoken in jest, Miss
Sophy," laughed the young man as he left the
table. “I dare say I'll see you there yet.”
"You'll see me in the moon first!" retorted
Miss Sophy. "It's my destiny to live an' die in
Pendar Basin!" And she honestly thought so.
154
ZEPH.
V.
GREENHILLS was shut up; the cows stabled
in town and turned out daily to the meagre
winter pasture with the town herd; the horses
also, Zeph having represented to Miss Sophy
that this would be far her best plan; it was
nonsense keeping the ranch house open all win-
ter, he said.
"Just cuttin' himself right out o' bread an'
butter," thought Miss Sophy. "That's the
kind o' man I knew he was. But what will you
do, Zeph?" she said.
"Oh, I shall do very well," he replied. "I've
got my house, and there is always teamin' to do,
and odd jobs o' carpenterin'; they say there'll
be considerable buildin' here this winter."
Building! Ah! the word reminded Miss
Sophy. She had long wanted to build an
ZEPH.
155
addition to her house; she had more than once
had estimates made for it, but had given it up
on account of the exorbitant price or so it
seemed to her asked by the builders. Here
was her chance.
"I want some buildin' done," she said. "I've
been wantin' it for a long time.
I suppose
you'd as soon carpenter by the month as do
anything else?"
'I would sooner do anything for you, Miss
Burr, than do anything else," replied Zeph, with
an unconscious emphasis on the "you" which
made Miss Sophy feel ashamed of the under-
current of avariciousness in her proposition.
The plans were soon drawn, the materials pro-
cured, and Zeph's winter work was begun. And
now began also new and undreamed-of expe-
riences in Miss Sophy's breast. Nothing was
more natural than that she should be in fre-
quent consultation with her builder, should be
continually taking a look at the progress of the
156
ZEPH.
building; this she would have done, whoever
had been laboring on her new rooms. But to
no other man's hammer would she have listened
as she did to Zeph's. Not a sound of it escaped
her ear; if she had been a poet she could have
sung a strange song of the things it seemed to
say: every vibration its steady stroke made in
the air seemed to her to be telling the story
of his sad life and his patient goodness. When
it stopped, she wondered what he was doing,
and often ran in to see. Hour by hour, day by
day, she listened to and studied the building up
of the walls, the laying of the floors.
"I'most think I could build a house myself,
I've watched you so, Zeph," she said one day.
"I reckon there's nothin' you couldn't do, if
you was to try, Miss Burr," replied Zeph, as he
stepped back from a window-sill he was fitting
and half shut his eyes to see if it were straight.
"There ain't many women like you." And
Zeph sighed. Women were to him a terrible
ZEPH.
157
problem. He was an innocent-minded man by
nature, and had remained so spite of rough
surroundings. His own experience of the fal-
sity of a fair face and cooing voice had made
him not so much bitter as afraid. He could
not read the riddle. What was there in a
woman to make her such an embodiment of
heaven or of hell to a man? Zeph did not
like to look any fair woman in the eye since
he knew what Rushy was at heart. As for
Miss Sophy, poor Miss Sophy!-into his
meditations on her the thought of sex seldom
entered. He thought of her only as a force,
a helping, guiding, protecting personality. Per-
haps his thoughts of her might have formulated
themselves, even yet, somewhat as they did
when he crouched in the church pew in in-
stinctive fear of her "dreadful" activity. But
by whatever name or trait she stood in his
mind, she possessed the grateful loyalty of his
steadfast nature. He had no phrases for this
158
ZEPH.
t
sentiment; neither avowed, measured, nor ques-
tioned it; he simply acted it. A doubt as to
the fealty and service he owed to her no more
occurred to him than a doubt as to the love he
bore to his children. Money could not have
bought from him one hour for which Miss
Sophy had need or use. This was simply the
man's instinct; the way he was made; he did
not know that there was anything out of the
ordinary in it. Persons of this order do not
analyze either their own or other men's mo-
tives. They simply are what they are, and
live their lives out day by day. They are
spared much which more subjective natures
suffer of perplexity and pain. But sometimes.
when a blow strikes them they are shivered.
to the ground as fatally as a tree is rent by
a lightning shaft or uprooted by a sudden
blast. And when this happens, nobody knows.
what did it. People wonder of what they have
died.
ZEPH.
159
A dim knowledge of some such quality as
this in Zeph was slowly filtering into Miss
Sophy's perception.
"He has n't ever got over it," she said to her-
self as she went stirring about the house, quite
unaware that she was always thinking of Zeph.
"He hasn't ever got over it, 'n' I don't sup-
pose he ever will. If he'd only get the chil-
dren with him he'd stand it better. I should
n't wonder if 't was the death o' the man yet!
The hussy!"
Perhaps if Miss Sophy had not been so
absorbed in these reviewings of Zeph's situa-
tion and emotions she might have come sooner
to the realization of her own. But she had no
time to think of herself. She was forever grop-
ing, groping, like one in the dark; half blinded
by pity and by a stinging sense of the utter
impotence of all outside help for this sorrowing
man whose life had been so strangely set side
by side with her own.
160
ZEPH.
However, the groping days were nearly over.
They could not last forever. Such situations
clear themselves by laws no less fixed than the
laws which determine the joining and the sepa-
rating of chemical elements. Events combined
to help on the clearing up. Strange things had
been happening to Zeph of which Miss Sophy
knew nothing, and never would have known
except for her half ally and confidante in regard
to him, Gammer Stein.
Miss Sophy and Gammer had seen each other
seldom of late. The winter had been a severe
one, with frequent snows and bitter cold; a foot
of snow was to Gammer a more absolute barrier
than a stone wall; and to Miss Sophy the mer-
cury at zero meant simply a stiffening of every
faculty as well as every muscle. Her energy
was in direct ratio to the warmth of the air; at
ninety Fahrenheit she was in full vigor; even
at a hundred she worked on with delight. In
cold weather she grew inert and torpid, and
ZEPH.
161
}
used to say she would like to curl up like a
spider and lie in a dark corner till spring.
Thus it had happened that nearly three
months had gone by without her seeing Gam-
mer; and one morning in March she said to
herself, as she was washing the breakfast
dishes, "I really must go and see Gammer
to-day. If this wind 'll only stop blowin',
I'll go right after dinner." The words had
hardly formed themselves in her thought,
when, seeing a shadow darken the window,
she looked up and saw Gammer herself at the
door.
I never!" said Miss Sophy aloud. “If that
ain't speakin' o' angels, sure enough! There's
somethin' cur'us about its so often happenin'
that way!'
>>
"I was just this very minute sayin' to myself
I'd come up 'n' see you this afternoon, Gam-
mer!" she exclaimed, as she opened the door.
"I'm real glad to see you."
II
162
ZEPH.
"Then yer've heered it!" gasped Gammer,
sinking breathless into a chair.
"Heard what?" cried Miss Sophy, instantly
alert, already, in her heart, sure it was some-
thing about Zeph. "I hain't heard anything.
What's happened?
"Rushy Riker's got her bill," cried Gammer.
"She's got it; 'n' she 'n' thet Nat wuz married
last night."
"Married!" cried Miss Sophy. "What do
you mean? How could she be married?"
"Why, she's billed," retorted Gammer.
"Ther papers come yisterday 't noon, 'n' she
'n' Nat wuz married last night. I allow ther
won't nobody hev nothin' ter do with 'em,
nobody thet's decent. I allow 't 's the dearest
day's work ever she's done 'n her life. Thet
Nat'll go off 'n' leave her some day; he's none
too good; 'n' she can't lay down on Zeph agen.”
Miss Sophy stood like a statue, her face
scarlet, her eyes flashing.
1
ZEPH.
163
"How 'd she
Divorced!" she shrieked.
ever get a divorce? There ain't a thing against
that man, not one!”
"Ter be sure ther ain't," said Gammer, settling
back in her chair. "I allow thar ain't no two
sides ter thet; she couldn't hev got no bill ef
he'd hev appeared agen it; but he would n't.
He talked it over with me. She come up thar
ter ther house 's long ago 's-wall, somewhar
abaout New Year's, I allaow 't wuz, 'n' she told
Zeph she wuz gwine to bill him 'n' marry Nat; 'n'
he told her she could n't; 'n' she sez, sez she, ‘I
kin 'n' I will; 'n''t any rate I'm gwine ter live with
Nat.' 'He'll never marry ye, Rushy,' sez Zeph.
'He will too,' sez she; an' then, ef yer 'll b'leeve
me, thet thar Zeph, I swar, I donno ef the
man's flesh 'n' blood, er what he ez, sez he,
'Ef he 'll marry yer, Rushy, I won't hender yer
gettin' ther bill. Then yer kin live decent. But
he's got ter swar ter marry ye;' 'n' I allaow ter
yeow, the next night, ef they did n't both on 'em,
164
ZEPH.
she 'n' Nat, the pizen skunk, — ef thar war n't
both on 'em thar to Zeph's, tellin' him what
they'd made up thar minds ter dew; 'n' naow
they've got 't done. Thet's the kind er law thar
ez in this hyar country; she's billed aout clar 'n'
free ez ef she'd been 'z decent ez enny woman
could be, 'n' he wuz ther one 't wuz wrong. He
jest never 'peared 't all. Thet wuz all they
wanted. I'd jest like ter see 'em both jugged!
I allow ther would n't nothin' short er thet tech
'em. 'Twan't but er few nights sence, thar wuz
er dance, a real respectable dance, down thar
whar she lives, 'n' she 'n' Nat went in, 'n' thar
come up one o' ther managers, 'n' sez he, 'Yer 'll
be ser good's ter git aout er this room, 'n' be
mighty quick abaout et, tew, or yer'll git holped
aout;' 'n' they jest larfed, 'n' went aout a tossin'
thar heads ez high 'n' mighty. I allaow naow
they're married they 'll brazen 't aout. Folks
forgits everythin'."
"Has she got the right to keep the children?"
ZEPH.
165
asked Miss Sophy in a hoarse whisper. Her
face was very pale now, and the flashing of her
eye strangely dimmed.
"I did n't heer 't said," replied Gammer, "but
she's got 'em. I allaow ef he did n't 'pear, the
childen 'd go to her, same ez she got ther bill.
'N' he sez he'd ruther she hed 'em; they'll dew
more fur her, he sez, 'n everythin' else. She's
allers good ter 'em. He'll keep an eye ter 'em."
"Then he's 's free to-day 's if he'd never
been married 't all," said Miss Sophy, still in a
whisper, still pale, and with dimmed eyes.
"I allow he ez," said Gammer; "'n' I allaow
ter yeow thet, much 's I'm agen bills, 'n' billed
folks marryin' agen, I'd like ter see Zeph Riker
git him another wife, pesky quick tew, jest ter
spite them tew devils thet 's kep' him in er hell,
's yer might say, these tew years, goin' on three.
Mebbe 't ain't right, 'n' mebbe 'tis. I allow
I'd take the resk on 't ef 't wuz me."
And now a startling thing occurred. Miss
166
ZEPH.
Sophy, who had been standing, immovable, rigid,
in front of Gammer, listening to this narrative,
turning first red, then pale, and fast losing her
self-control, suddenly lost it altogether, and fling-
ing herself into a chair, buried her face in her
hands, and burst into tears, sobbing out, half
apologetically, "I never heard such a story in
my life! Such things never happened where I
was brought up."
Gammer was astounded. Miss Sophy's bear-
ing, her attitude throughout all her active interest
in Zeph's affairs, had always been unmistakably
that of the cool, common-sense, kindly benefac-
tor. Her sudden change to the level of a weep-
ing friend baffled Gammer's utmost powers of
understanding. Bewilderment made her dumb.
Finally she stammered: "I allaow yer tired,
mebbe. I git plum beat aout sometimes, 'n'
ther leastest thing 'll set me off cryin'." At
which Miss Sophy cried harder than ever, and
Gammer's bewilderment deepened.
ZEPH.
167
At last Miss Sophy, recovering herself, said:
"That's so. This long spell o' cold weather 's
got my nerves all strung up, somehow, so I
can't bear anything; an' I'm sure it's enough
to make anybody cry, to think what that man's
gone through with. I've got to know him real
well, you see, havin' him here this winter to
work on the addition," she added.
Yes," said Gammer, glad to change to a less
exciting topic. "He wuz er tellin' us abaout it.
He allowed he hed reel pleasure buildin' it fur
ye. He sets a heap by yer; donno 's yer know
it, but he doos. He sez thar war n't never sech
er woman 'n the world ez yeow be."
Miss Sophy's cheeks were red again, and
her eyes, brighter than before, fastened on Gam-
mer's face as she spoke these words, fastened
there with an expression which the honest old
woman was far from understanding.
Miss Sophy had had a revelation. No more
disguise, equivocation, illusion, ignorance, on
168
ZEPH.
:
her part, in regard to her feeling toward Zeph.
She loved him, and she knew it.
What would come of it? Nothing; she said
to herself sternly, - nothing could come of it.
The man's heart was not his own, was no
longer to be won by any woman; it had been
given once for all, and he was not a man to love
twice, said Miss Sophy in her simplicity, — given
once for all to that wretched, wicked woman,
the mother of his children, who had now sepa-
rated herself from him forever. It was bitter.
But there were consolations. Very well Miss
Sophy knew that his life would not be severed
from hers unless she herself chose; that they
would work together, her interests the same to
him as his own, her wishes and needs deter-
mining his daily duties, and, what was still
more, the sight of her, and talking with her, the
greatest comfort and happiness left to his sad-
dened life. This was a great deal. With this,
Miss Sophy thought she could be contented.
ZEPH.
169
"And if I can't, I can go away," she said to
herself. All this and much more had passed
through her mind while she was saying her
final words of parting with Gammer, who had,
as she phrased it, "dropped everything 'n' run
to tell the noos on't," and was in haste to get
home.
After Gammer had gone, Miss Sophy turned
her back on her work, and locked herself into
her room for a resolute thinking. She did not.
mince matters with herself any more than she
would have done with another.
"Here you are, Sophy Burr," she said, as she
would have said it aloud to a culprit standing
bodily before her. "Here you are! Now
what?" At the end of the hour she was no
nearer knowing. Her second soliloquy had
closed, like her first, with the words, "If I
can't, I can go away."
The March snows, and the April snows, and
the May snows, came and went. June followed
170
ZEPH.
like a midsummer close on their icy days, and
Greenhills was green again. Young vegetables
were peering up in the garden; the cows were
revelling in fresh grass; and Zeph, back at his
post on the ranch, was proud of the cream and
butter he had for Miss Sophy twice a week.
On the face of things were prosperity and
peace in both Miss Sophy's houses. Zeph's
countenance wore a new look of contentment
and calm. He had put behind him the things
that were dead, and was pressing forward to the
things that remained alive, in way of duty and
work.
A change had come about in his relations
with Miss Sophy, which had given him a new
self-respect, and a sense of manly indepen-
dence, which were an ever-present stimulus
and pleasure. He did not clearly know how
this had happened. Miss Sophy knew. It
had begun by her calling him "Mr. Riker"
one day.
ZEPH.
171
Startled and uneasy, he looked at her,—looked
the question he did not speak. Miss Sophy
laughed. Relieved, he exclaimed, "Ye scared
me, Miss Burr. I was afraid I'd 'fended ye.”
"Oh, no!" said the clever Miss Sophy. "Far
from it. But I don't feel it's respectful for me
to go on calling a man by his first name, when
he manages all my affairs for me. I look to
you for 'most everything now, and I ain't goin'
to call you Zeph any longer."
"'Most everybody does," said Zeph.
"That's because they don't know you so
well as I do," said Miss Sophy.
All the way out to Greenhills Zeph kept
thinking this over. It puzzled him. He was
pleased, and yet not pleased. It seemed to put
him farther from Miss Sophy, and yet nearer.
He gave up trying to understand the mystery of
it. On the whole, however, he wished that she
would say "Zeph." But she did not, not for
many a day.
172
ZEPH.
The next thing Miss Sophy did was simply
an act of justice. She said to him one day,
"Mr. Riker, at the rate you are going on, you
will double the value of my ranch for me. I
can see that. You are working as if you were
working for yourself."
"Of course," said Zeph, simply.
"Well," continued Miss Sophy, "that's a
thing money does n't pay for. Wages don't
cut any figure at all when a man takes hold of
a place that way; you ought to have a share in
the place. Now, what I've been thinking would
be a fairer way, would be for me to reckon your
year's wages in a lump as so much put into the
ranch on your account, so we shall be owning it
together; do you understand? And if you want
to go into stock a little more, why I'll go shares
in that too."
Zeph stared. The good luck of the thing
amazed him. Yet he saw that there was a cer-
tain fairness in it. Miss Sophy was not making
ZEPH.
173
him a gift, only helping him to a good invest-
ment of his earnings.
He did not make any profuse expressions of
gratitude. It was not his way. But his "Thank
you, Miss Burr, I could n't ask for anythin'
better 'n that if I'd had my choice given t' me,"
was all that Miss Sophy needed. And the new
life and spirit in him which dated from that day
were also new life and spirit to her affectionate
soul.
Good as it was for Zeph to be called Mr.
Riker, he did not like it. At last it seemed to
him he could not bear it.
Vainly he wondered
at the intensity of his feeling in regard to it.
"What odds does 't make what she calls me?
I swear it's queer how I hate to hear her say
Mr. Riker t' me," he said.
Finally he mustered courage to say this. It
was at Miss Sophy's back gate; he had come in
as usual with the Greenhills butter and cream,
and a fine lot of green peas, the first of the
Mor M
174
ZEPH.
•
season, - and Greenhills peas were always two
weeks ahead of anybody's else in the region.
Miss Sophy was delighted, and as she bade
him good-by, she said, "I'm proud enough,
to have peas so early. I can't see how you
did it. I'm ever so much obliged to you,
Mr. Riker."
"My name's Zeph," said Zeph, in a sudden
impulse of desperate courage.
"So 's mine Sophy," retorted Miss Sophy, in
an equally sudden impulse of desperate courage,
looking full into his eyes.
'Why! Miss Burr!" gasped Zeph, dropping
the reins in his agitation. But Miss Sophy
had turned and run up the path as fast as her
feet could carry her, laughing, however, and
looking back at Zeph, who sat gazing after her
in consternation.
"
"Good Lord!" he said to himself as she
disappeared in the doorway. "What did she
mean? She wan't mad, anyhow. She could n't
ZEPH.
175
ha' meant I was to call her Sophy! O' course
it could n't ha' been that!
་
"
"What did she mean?" was a constant refrain
in Zeph's thoughts for the next three days; and,
"I wonder what he'll do when he comes in
Thursday?" was the refrain in Miss Sophy's.
And when Thursday morning came, and the
Greenhills wagon was seen turning into the
lane at the back of Miss Sophy's house, her
heart thumped like a hammer in her bosom.
"If he don't call me Sophy now, he never
will," she thought.
Zeph was also in trepidation. "I dassent
open my mouth," he thought, "till she's said
something first. Perhaps she's forgotten all
about it."
She met him on the porch. The instant he
looked in her face, he knew she had not forgot-
ten. The instant Miss Sophy looked in his, she
divined his thought; divined also that it would
be hers, and not his, to speak the first word.
176
ZEPH.
"Good morning," she said;
ond's pause, "Is it to be Mr.
Zeph ?"
and after a sec-
Riker, then, or
"Zeph," he said, in a voice so low it seemed
less than a whisper. "I can't bear it, somehow,
to have ye call me anythin' else."
"Well, then, Zeph it is," replied Miss Sophy,
as lightly and glibly as if she had nothing more
at stake than a jest of an idle moment; “but
you know what I told you. If Zeph's your name,
Sophy's mine. Give and take's fair play."
Zeph's hands were full- his hands and arms
also of parcels from Greenhills: the butter,
the jug of cream, young radishes, lettuce, peas.
He did not speak, but went on slowly laying
them down one by one, trying to think what
he should say.
"Well?" said Miss Sophy.
"Bargain ?"
Her light tone deceived him. "I can't think
ye'd make fun o' me, Miss Burr," he said. “I
don't make out your meanin'."
ZEPH.
177
"I couldn't ever make fun of you, Mr.
Riker," retorted Miss Sophy, in a tone still
merry, but with an under note in it which
Zeph had not been man if he had failed to
perceive.
"You're the best friend I ever had, or ever
shall have, in this world," cried Zeph.
"And you're the best friend I have, or ever
expect to have, in this world," answered Miss
Sophy; "the very best-Zeph!"
Their eyes met, Miss Sophy's shining with
resolution and tears, Zeph's, dark with unfath-
omable emotion and bewilderment. He opened
his lips to speak; then slowly shaking his head,
turned to go.
"
Good-by, Zeph!" said Miss Sophy, smil-
ing. She had conquered, she was sure. It
would not be on that day, or the next, perhaps,
that Zeph could speak her name, but it would
come.
"If you can't say Sophy, you need n't say
I2
178
ZEPH.
anything," she continued.
"I don't like Miss
Burr any better than you do Mr. Riker!"
Zeph's eyes lighted up. His tongue was
loosed now. "Don't ye?" he exclaimed. "If I
thought that, I could learn any name ye wanted
me to!"
"(
'Sophy 'll do," said Miss Sophy, dryly.
"It's as good as Zeph.
'em any great beauties 'o
They ain't either of
names to boast of!
And now they both laughed merrily, and parted
without another word, only a farewell smile to
each other, a smile out of which all the
sparkle of the mirthful laughter had gone,
leaving behind the soft light of a deep affection.
And the next time the Greenhills wagon came
in (it was but three days from Thursday to
Monday), Miss Sophy met it at the gate,
and said with sweet gravity, Good-morning,
Zeph;" and Zeph made answer, "Good-morn-
ing, Sophy." And it would have been hard to
say which of them was the happier in the new
ZEPH.
179
sound the syllables bore and the new bond their
speaking made.
The happiness of it lasted Miss Sophy for
many days; but as the summer wore away she
began to look for something more, she hardly
dared phrase to herself for what, yet in her
heart she knew; and knew, too, that the thing
she craved was hers by right; that the lonely,
sorrowful, deserted man for whom she had come
to care so tenderly had come also to love her
with a true devotion. But gradually there grew
up in her a fear that he would never say so.
Not by word or look did he show that any idea
of any relation beyond or different from their
present one was in his mind. Whether it were
that he lacked courage, or that he still held
himself bound by the bond which his wife had
broken, Miss Sophy could not determine. On
the latter point she herself had had doubts, but
by some surreptitious reading on the subject
of divorce, and by several cautiously conducted
180
ZEPH.
..
consultations with her minister and with other
persons, she had at length become fully satis-
fied that there could be no possible shadow of
wrong in the second marriage of a man whose
wife had not only betrayed and deserted him,,
but become legally the wife of another.
"It hasn't got any business to stand in his
way one minute," she said to herself again and
again; “and perhaps 't ain't that that is standing
in his way.
But what else can it be? 'T ain't
any love for her; I'm sure o' that. That's one
comfort!"
And by the help of this last item of comfort
Miss Sophy weathered the summer fairly well.
But when the autumn signals were flung out,
great yellow patches of aspens high up on the
mountain-sides, and tossing plumes of purple
asters around the Greenhills spring, Miss
Sophy lost heart.
"Winter 'll be here in a jiffy," she said, “an'
he won't let me keep the ranch open, an' I can't
ZEPH.
181
stand it; I can't stand not to see him 's I've
been seein' him!" And Miss Sophy racked her
brain vainly for a device.
Finally one occurred to her, so desperate, so
final, it almost took her breath away as it first
flashed through her thoughts; but the longer
she thought, the more she believed it good. It
was desperate, and it would be final: if she won,
she won; if she lost, she lost-all. This is a
common trick of Love's winning. He makes
gamesters, desperate gamesters, of most of us
at least once in our lives. We throw down our
last card and bravely call out color or number,
all the while feeling a death-grip at our throats.
"I might as well!" said Miss Sophy.
"There's no use going on this way forever.
It's nonsense; besides that, it'll kill me. I
can't stand it. I'd rather go away."
And she made up her mind. But after she
had made it up, she hesitated day after day.
She trembled. More than once she opened her
182
ZEPH.
lips to speak the words, and terror held her
dumb. If she lost, she lost all.
At last she spoke. It was at Greenhills.
Already the foreshadowing of winter glooms
had touched the place; frost had turned the
vines black and shrivelled every leaf in the
garden. Yet it was only the middle of Sep-
tember. It looked desolate.
“Looks as I feel," said Miss Sophy, grim and
resolute; "but I'll feel worse, mebbe, before
I'm done with it."
'Zeph," she said. Zeph was standing by
her side at the bars of the corral where all
the yearlings had been put. He had been
pointing them out to her with great satis-
faction.
There was something in Miss Sophy's tone
which fell strangely on Zeph's ear. He knew
the inflections of her voice better than she
dreamed. What was coming? She had never
pronounced his name thus before. Never, in-
ZEPH.
183
deed! He turned his face quickly towards
her, inquiringly.
"Zeph!" she said again, and again the words
refused to come.
She took firm hold of the
upper rail of the fence to support herself, and
began once more: "Zeph, I've made up my
mind to go to California. I'm goin' to sell out
an' go this fall. I about made up my mind last
winter I'd never stand another o' these Colorado
winters; but it's been so pleasant this summer,
it kind of put me out o' the notion; but now I
see it settin' in again I feel just 's I did, 'n' I'm
goin'! I'm gettin' too old to stand any more
snow. Do you know anybody that ud like to
buy this ranch? There's a man ready to take
the other house right off my hands just as 't is,
furniture 'n' all."
Astonishment, incredulity, pain, bewilder-
ment, each in turn and all together, had swept
over Zeph's face while Miss Sophy was speak-
ing these words. His eyes fastened themselves.
184
ZEPH.
on hers blankly. As soon as she ceased speak-
ing, he stammered: "Sophy! you! going to
California! goin' away! You can't mean it,
Sophy! What are ye goin' for? You're doin'
splendid here!" The words came slower and
slower; the man was half stunned; and before
the hesitating sentences were concluded, he, too,
had instinctively grasped the bars for support.
"Ye can't mean it, Sophy! I'most think ye 're
ye're
crazy."
"I guess not," said Miss Sophy, more at ease
already. If he felt it like this, he would never
let her go alone, surely. Her winning must be
close at hand. She did not yet thoroughly know
the nature of the man she was dealing with.
"I guess not," she repeated. "I hain't ever
had the name o' bein' light-headed. I've been
a long time makin' up my mind to this."
"I wish ye'd ha' let me know on 't sooner,"
said Zeph, in an aggrieved tone, which was
music to Miss Sophy's ears.
ZEPH.
185
""
Why?" she said.
"I could ha' got used t' 't by degrees," he
replied sadly. "It's struck me all of a heap.
But I'll do all I can to help ye, Sophy," he
continued, bracing himself up, and looking away
from her for a minute. "I could ha' got a
buyer for the ranch better in the summer than
now. It's a bad time to sell. I expect it would
be better to let it lay 's 't is till spring. I can
look after it for ye till then, same 's I have
done." And Zeph sighed.
Alas! Had she lost? What was Miss Sophy
to say next? The talk had taken a hopeless
turn. To gain time, she replied meaninglessly:
"I don't know! I suppose 't is a bad time!
I never thought o' that. But I want to go be-
fore the cold weather sets in. There's flowers
all winter long in the south part o' California,
they say; an' that's where I'm goin'."
"Ye've always seemed real happy here,
Sophy," cried Zeph, "'n' real well too! 'T never
186
ZEPH.
so much's crossed my mind ye'd ever leave;
ye ain't got nothin' ailin' ye, have ye, to make
ye need to go?" And his face clouded over
with the new anxiety which had that instant
occurred to him.
What tantalizing cruelty sometimes in these
impenetrable veils between human hearts, which
are at other times such merciful protection! If
Miss Sophy could have known that as Zeph
asked this question his racked heart was say-
ing, "If she's got any disease hold on her I'll
coax her t' let me go 'long too, 'n' take care of
her," she would have then and there feigned
herself the victim of any known malady. But
in her pride of energetic health she made haste.
to repudiate any such implication.
"Mercy, no!" she said. "Do I look like.
a sick woman? Never felt better. But I'm
tired o' this place, an' this life, an' everything
about it, an' especially o' these winters. I'd
like to go where I'd never see another flake o'
ZEPH.
187
snow 's long 's I live. I was brought up on
snow; 'n' I've had six months o' snow that is
o'bein' liable to snow-out o' every year I've
been here; 'n' I'm sick on 't, 'n' I'm goin'.
I've got enough to get me a place that I can
make a livin' off anywhere; 'n' I don't know
any reason why I should slave myself here, 'n'
freeze to death every winter."
Luckless Miss Sophy. Each one of these last
sentences went like a bullet to Zeph's heart.
"Tired o' this place," was she? The place
which had seemed to him almost blissful of
late; and the work which they had been jointly
doing, he and she, the fruitful ranch, the in-
creasing herd, the prosperous boarding-house,
-all this was to her "slaving to death," and
she was going. She had made up her mind to
it without a word to him any more than if he had
been the poorest cattle-herder, on the ranch,
to him, to whom she had said, only a few short
months ago, that he was the best friend she had
188
ZEPH.
on the earth! Very well! woman like woman!
They were all the same, heartless and untrue,
one from vanity and passion, another from ca-
price! They were all alike! This was the last
woman whom he would ever trust! The storm
of all these bitter thoughts turned Zeph's face
stern and his voice cold, and when he replied.
curtly, "Well, ye 'd better go, then, if that's the
way ye feel, Sophy," poor Miss Sophy had to
clutch tight to her rail to keep from staggering.
The hurt that he gave her, however, was their
salvation. Without it they might have perhaps
parted forever, then and there, neither knowing
that the other was wounded. But this hurt was
too sudden and too deep to be borne without
a cry; and Miss Sophy's voice, even without
the tears in her eyes, would have appealed to
any man like a cry, as she exclaimed, "Oh,
Zeph! I don't see why you take it that way!
I think you're real cruel!"
"I don't never mean to be that," said Zeph,
ZEPH.
189
1
"not to nobody.
But you don't seem to think
it's anythin' for a fellow to be turned off all
in a minute, an' everythin' all broke up!”
Miss Sophy took heart again. "Who said
anything about turning off?" she asked, with a
faint smiling in her tearful eyes.
((
Well, you did n't say anythin' about any-
thin' else!" retorted Zeph, still sullen. "You
had n't any idee o' takin' me with ye?"
"I've been thinkin' all the time, Zeph," said
Miss Sophy," that I did n't know how I'd ever
get along without you!"
"Why did n't ye say so, then?"
"How could I?"
"How could ye? What's to hender? Ye
got me to do your business for ye here, 'n'
let on to think so much o' my managin'; 'n'
why could n't ye 've said ye'd like to have me
keep on with it there? No, ye're tired o' the
place 'n' everybody in it! That's what's the
matter with you!"
190
ZEPH.
Was this Zeph? What was to become of
Miss Sophy in this chaos of confusion which
she had drawn down on her head? Stretching
out both her hands, she cried: "Zeph, I don't
know what's got into you 'n' me to be quarrel-
lin' here, nor what we're quarrellin' about,
neither. I should think you'd know that the
last thing I'd want to do, would be to part from
you, an' that I'd rather have you manage for
me than anybody!"
The pleading in her voice was unmistakable;
her face glowed with affection.
Still Zeph
seemed both deaf and blind.
"Then why didn't ye ask me to go 'long
too?" he reiterated. "Why did n't ye take
me into any o' your plans? Will you take
me now?" he added, with a half-surly and in-
credulous emphasis.
Miss Sophy hid her face in both her hands;
she was rosy red; she saw a vista opening.
"How could I, Zeph?" she whispered. "Folks
ZEPH.
191
don't know us out there. It's very different
here, where everybody knows us. I don't want
to go without you, Zeph, you need n't think!"
Into the chambers of Zeph's brain light had
broken at last. What a dolt he had been!
(C
"Oh, Sophy, Sophy!" he cried, "was ye a
tryin' me? I do believe ye was!" and he threw
his arms around her.
Sophy, it 'most killed
me to hear ye talk so cool o' goin' away 'n'
leavin' me, when I hain't had a thought, day
nor night, except o' servin' you 'n' belongin' to
you, for so long!
"Well, why did n't you say so, then?" retorted
Miss Sophy, half laughing, half crying, making
haste to turn the tables on him and avenge her-
self. "Why did n't you say so, and not drive
me into just about offerin' myself to you?"
"Sophy! Sophy!" answered Zeph, "don't you
go to talkin' any such way 's that. I don't know
about offerin', 's you call it; givin' 's more 'n
offerin', an' you know well enough I giv' myself
192
ZEPH.
to you a long ways back, an' hain't ever had,
from that day to this, any idee o' doin' anythin'
but helpin' ye an' lovin' ye 's long's I live on
this earth!"
And Miss Sophy was content.
ZEPH.
193
VI.
THERE was but one drawback to Miss Sophy's
happiness. In the new confidence which now
existed between her and Zeph, she learned
more fully than she had done before the depth
of his affection for his children. She found that
during all these months it had been his habit to
see them frequently, sometimes by clandestine
watchings, sometimes by Rushy's consent that
Zephie should on a Sunday take his little sister
to their father's house. By this means Zeph had
kept himself constantly in relation with them
and retained strong influence over the boy.
Separation from them was going to be a ter-
rible thing to him; there were times when he
even doubted if it were right for him to go away
and leave them entirely in the control and at the
13
194
ZEPH.
mercy of their stepfather. Only his unshaken
confidence in the strength of Rushy's maternal
affection enabled him to think of it.
"She's just like a wildcat 'bout the chillen,"
he said, "an' always was; if Nat Leeson should
so much's raise his hand to 'em, she'd leave him
quicker 'n lightnin'. I ain't a mite afraid of his
ever doin' 'em any harm that way. But if she
should come to want any way, Sophy, I don't
see it clear just how to fix that. Ye know,
Sophy, I'd always feel myself bound to those
children."
" And so
"Of course!" replied Miss Sophy.
do I. I wish to goodness we had 'em both here
this minute to take 'em with us! That's what
I'd like!"
"Would ye, Sophy?" cried Zeph. "Would
ye really? Oh, Sophy, ye 're real good!"
"I don't suppose there'd be any chance o'
gettin' 'em, or either one on 'em," said Miss
Sophy. "Would there?"
ZEPH.
195
((
'Oh, Lord!" cried Zeph, catching his breath
at the very idea. "That's all ye know about
Rushy! She'd rather kill 'em than let anybody
else have 'em! She's fierce, Rushy is. There
is n't the least use thinkin' o' such a thing."
But the doctrine that there was no use in
thinking of a thing was not in Miss Sophy's
creed. The more obstacles lay in the way, the
more her native obstinacy allied itself with her
indomitable courage to surmount them. And
in this instance a passion greater than either
the courage or the obstinacy came in, making
a triple alliance strong enough to move moun-
tains. Her love for Zeph was so great that
its instincts were preternaturally keen.
"He'll never be happy long away from them
children o' his," she said, "an' he's got to have
'em,
or at least the baby; she'd be more to
him than the boy; he'd get along if he had her;
an' if we got her, the boy'd be big enough to
come before long if he wanted to."
196
ZEPH.
Plan after plan, all visionary and impracticable,
Miss Sophy revolved in her head. Actual kid-
napping of the child would not have seemed to
her wrong; but her common sense told her that
it would involve dangers not to be thought of.
Cautiously she sounded Gammer Stein as to
the possibility of Rushy's being induced, by
the prospects of superior advantages to her
daughter, to give her to be adopted by a stran-
ger. No suspicion crossed Gammer's mind as
to Miss Sophy's personal interest in the matter,
any further than her benevolent interest in Zeph
explained it.
"Some o' yer folks wantin' to 'dopt a child?”
she said. "Wall, I allow ef they know what's
fur thar good they'll keep shy o' proposin' it to
Rushy Riker, Leeson, I s'pose her name is
naow, but I sha'n't never call her nothin' but
Riker, not outen Zeph wuz ter git married,
an' I allow thet's ther furthest off from his
thoughts 't ever wuz. He seems ter be reel
ZEPH.
197
settled naow. 'T wuz luck fur him a gittin'
yeour place.
"Then you think that Mrs. Leeson would not
give up the little girl?" interrupted Miss Sophy,
who found the conversation both disagreeable
and embarrassing.
"I'll say thet
"Not she!" said Gammer.
much fur Rushy Riker. Money could n't buy
one o' her young uns, I allaow 't could n't.
She's fierce fur 'em allers, an' reel good ter
'em, tew. She's a hussy, aout an' aout, an'
allers wuz, I be bound; but she's a good
mother t' her young uns ser fur's lovin' 'em
goes.
She'd run round 'n' leave 'em fur frolics
an' sech, an' she ain't no great hand ter tidy 'em
up; but she loves 'em more 'n most women doos
thar young uns, I allaow she doos. Thet's one
thing made me ser sure Nat'd never marry her
'n ther livin' world, kase I allowed he would n't
be bothered 'th ther young uns; but 't wuz
young uns 'n' all, 'r else not 't all, 'n' it doos
198
ZEPH.
look ez ef he wuz bound ter hev Rushy. He's
workin' her 'most ter death tew; thet's what
some says; 't wuz jest fur her cookin' he wanted
her. He's took the restaurant now, the Star
restaurant, whar he wuz a cookin', 'n' he 'n' her
ez runnin' it, 'n' er takin' in money like greased
lightnin', they say. She's an orful good cook,
Rushy ez. She's smart; nothin' she can't do
ef she wants ter, 'cept be decent; I allow she
could do thet tew, ef she wanted ter. She
don't want ter. But she
naow, don't yer furgit it!
naow 'stead o' er slave;
don't do no gaddin'
She's got er marster
thet's what she hed
afore, er reg'lar slave, thet Zeph wuz. She'll
be sick o' her bargain, I allaow, 'fore she's
through with it. I know a reel likely young
un I allow them folks could git, - it's a
boy, though. 'Twuz a gal yer said they wuz
wantin'?"
"Yes," said Miss Sophy, feeling guilty, but
playing her game boldly. "It is a girl these
ZEPH.
199
parties want. I dare say they'll find one,
though; children are plenty enough."
"More 'n enough, whar they ain't wanted,"
replied Gammer. "I allaow thet 's anuther
queer thing ther Lawd doos. Hyar 's these yer
folks o' yourn huntin' fur a child ter 'dopt, 'n'
hyar daown 'n this yer very flairt I could p'int
yer ter 's many 's twenty houses whar they'd
be glad 'n' thankful ef thar wuz fewer chillen
ter feed 'n' clothe. Thet's ther way 'tis. I
allaow 't 's cur'us. But I could n't never see
haow 't is folks wants ter 'dopt chillen. I allaow
I couldn't dew no sech thing 's thet."
(6
'Why not?" asked Miss Sophy, so sharply
that Gammer looked up in surprise.
"Wall, I allaow I could n't jest say why not,"
she replied. "It's er kind er feelin' I hev;
'pears like 't would be a kinder cheatin' natur',
somehow, thet would n't work."
"I don't think so at all," answered Miss
Sophy. "It seems to me the most natural
200
ZEPH.
thing in the world for folks that haven't got
any child o' their own, to adopt one."
"I expect it's hevin' chillen o' yer own
makes 'doptin' 'em seem so cur'us," replied
Gammer, placidly; "arter ye 've hed 'em, I allow
yer don't think much o' 'doptations. 'S fur 's
I'm concerned, I would n't durst trust myself
with other folks's chillen. Chillen ez tryin'."
"I should think they must be," said Miss
Sophy, turning to go, glad to escape from the
conversation which booted nothing and made
her uncomfortable.
Slowly, reluctantly, she abandoned her project
as impracticable. It grieved her sorely, and it
disquieted her anticipations of the future. But
she saw
no means, which she dared use, of
bringing about the desired end. She did not
stop thinking about it, however; that was out
of her power. Many a night she lay awake far
into the morning hours vainly pondering, wish-
ing, regretting.
ZEPH.
201
Her arrangements for leaving were nearly
complete; so quietly and judiciously had she
made them, that few persons in the town knew
of her contemplated change; and to no one
except her minister had she confided her inten-
tion of marrying Zeph.
"There's been talk enough about his affairs,"
she said, "an' it's nobody's business but his
and mine what we're going to do." The mar-
riage was to take place at the minister's house,
with only the necessary witnesses, on the even-
ing of their departure from town, and would
not be known until she and Zeph were many
miles away. They were going to take the long
overland journey in their own wagon, in com-
pany with a party of emigrants who were about
setting off from a mining town a few hours by
rail south of Pendar Basin. This was Zeph's
plan. He had long desired such a journey.
When he proposed it to Miss Sophy, her first
reply was, "Mercy, Zeph, it'd take forever!"
202
ZEPH.
Only about two months, Sophy," he said
pleadingly. "Two months out o' doors every
minute."
'Two months!" echoed Miss Sophy. "Is that
all? Well, I suppose that'd be two honeymoons
'stead o' one!" And in this view the prospect
of the journey grew more and more pleasing to
her.
It only lacked a week of the day fixed for
starting. Greenhills was sold, and well sold,
and the money in the bank, - quite enough to
buy the new ranch in California, or wherever they
might determine to live. The people who had
bought Miss Sophy's boarding-house, furniture,
good-will, and so forth, had arrived and taken
possession, the transfer being made with sur-
prisingly little jar to the household. "It's easy
enough to do anything if you once set about it,"
said Miss Sophy, never suspecting how uncom-
mon was the executive force within her which
made all the difference in the world in the way
ZEPH.
203
of" setting about" things. It seemed odd to her
to be a boarder in her own home; and the hours
hung so heavily on her hands that she more than
once wished that she was at liberty to go into
the kitchen and cook the dinner. Zeph was away.
He had gone to make the arrangements for their
wagon journey, to have everything in readiness,
so that their wagons might be in waiting for
them at the railway station where they would
leave the cars. When this plan was made, it had
not occurred to Miss Sophy that it would dis-
tress her to be separated from Zeph for a few
days; but she was finding it intolerable. Except
for sheer shame, she would have followed him.
Her mind continually reverted to the grief of
her youth, the death of her first lover. "Folks
that belongs to each other hain't got any busi-
ness takin' such risks," she soliloquized. “If
there was anythin' to happen to Zeph, an' me
not there, I'd never get over it, never. If I
was to lose him as I did Robert, I do believe it
204
ZEPH.
would kill me dead." Fiercely she taunted her-
self with being silly; but her heart got the better
of her common sense in every such argument,
and she grew unhappier hour by hour. In this
morbid mood her thoughts also dwelt more and
more on the separation which was coming be-
tween Zeph and his children, and her doubts
grew stronger and stronger as to the possibility
of his being happy away from them. "And if
he ain't, that'd be worse than seein' him dead, a
long ways," said the miserable Miss Sophy, tor-
turing herself to no purpose, and fighting vainly
against the pricks on all sides. "I'd lots better
gone off an' left him here to shift for himself.
Well, there's one thing; if worst comes to worst,
he can come back. I sha'n't keep any man from
doin' what he thinks 's right."
But fate had better things in store for Miss
Sophy than she dreamed. One night, as she had
just fallen into an uneasy sleep after lying awake
for hours grappling with these anxieties, she was
ZEPH.
205
roused by the sharp ringing of the fire-bells.
Springing from her bed, she saw the whole
southern sky aglow, heard the sounds of tramp-
ling feet and hoarse cries. In a moment she
was dressed and at her door. Men and women
were running breathlessly past. In Pendar Basin
everybody went to fires; it was simply a duty
of good-fellowship, for their one fire-engine was
none too good, and the company but poorly
trained; and every hand, even a woman's hand,
counted, when it came to passing up buckets
in line.
"Where is it? What is it?" cried Miss
Sophy.
"The
Nobody knew. "The depot," said one.
hotel," said another. Nobody stopped to make
sure, or to answer again; the ruddy sheets of
flame rolled up fiercer and faster; the bells rang
harder. A terrible thing is a midnight fire, even
where the best appliances of a city are close
at hand; but in a country village it seems far
206
ZEPH.
crueller,—almost like a personal enemy come to
slay the helpless in their sleep.
Suddenly Miss Sophy caught sound of
another word. “The Star restaurant 'll go,
sure," said one of the panting runners
went by.
as he
"My God!" cried Miss Sophy aloud; and
clasping her hands she ran bareheaded into
the street and looked up to the reddening
sky. At that instant she felt her arm grasped
violently.
"Thet restaurant's a gwine, whar she ez; it
ez er judgment on 'em, I allow 't is!" cried
Gammer Stein. "Come on, come on! I expect
thet Zeph's thar; he'll gin his life fur her ef
she's in ther fire!"
"He won't do any such thing!" cried Miss
Sophy, angrily, forgetting herself, and turning
on Gammer. "He ain't here; he's been gone
three days!" and a prayer of thanksgiving
went up from her heart. What a mercy was
ZEPH.
207
this! How should she be thankful enough!
"Thank God, thank God!" she said in her
heart, as hand in hand with Gammer she ran
towards the fire.
"
It was indeed the Star restaurant that was
going," going fast. The flames had already
burst out of one spot in the roof; figures
like black imps were seen flying past the
windows; the crowd surged around the house,
helplessly; shrieks, oaths, commands, confused
calls, all were blent in a terrible din, which
heightened the horror of the black rolling
columns of smoke and fire pouring from the
windows. Vainly the little engine threw its
feeble stream into the blazing mass. It quelled
the flame for a second, only to let it leap up
fiercer in a new spot.
In a terrible fascination Miss Sophy and
Gammer pressed closer, nearer, - Miss Sophy
clutching Gammer's hand in a frenzy of excite-
ment. Oh, where are the children? Who's
208
ZEPH.
R
ལ་
seen the children? Has anybody seen the chil-
dren ?" she shrieked.
"Burnt in their beds, I reckon," said one.
"'T ain't ten minutes since the fire burst out, 'n'
look 't that roof; it's ready to fall in now!
))
"Thet's him! thet's Nat," said Gammer,
pointing to a man, blackened with smoke,
leaping from the door, bearing a desk in his
hands; back again into the flames, spite of the
warning cries of the crowd; back, and out
again, not a drop of coward blood in Nat
Leeson's bad heart! At that moment, just as
Miss Sophy had fastened her eyes on his face,
a scream rang out close beside her, a scream
that no one who heard it ever forgot: "Nat!
Nat! where's the baby?" And more like some
swift flying creature than like a human being
there came, parting the crowd right and left, as
if they had been straws in her way, the figure
of a woman, uttering shriek after shriek. Men
tried to grasp her by the arm to hold her back.
ZEPH.
209
They could no more grasp her than they could
grasp the flames themselves. "Nat! Nat !
where's the baby?" she shrieked. "Oh, God!
save my baby! Zephie! Zephie!" Over and
above all the din Nat heard the cry; and mad-
dened as he was by terror and loss, the words
seemed to turn him into a fiend. As she
reached him he pushed her back, shouting
hoarsely, "Damn your brat! let it burn! Good
riddance!" A cry of “Shame! shame!" went
up, but there was time for no further retribu-
tion. The flames were licking out of the win-
dows now, and running up the outside walls.
A few minutes would see all over. The crowd
swept back a little.
"Mam, here's baby," cried a shrill, quavering
voice; and out of the smoke, out of the flame,
past the raging Nat, who did not even see him,
tottered Zephie, bearing the baby in his arms.
There went up a cheer, a short one, indeed, for
the men's voices broke. They closed round the
14
210
ZEPH.
:
boy, took the baby, lifted her; took Zephie,
lifted him. Nobody thought any longer of the
burning house; let it go; here were the chil-
dren. But where was the mother?
It was
some minutes before she was found. As she
tossed her arms in despair at her husband's
brutal answer to her cry, merciful unconscious-
ness had seized her, and she wavered and fell,-
fell, by the strangest of chances, into the arms
of Gammer Stein, who had pressed on closely
after her, expecting, as she afterwards confessed,
to see her plunge into the burning building and
be devoured by the flames.
"An' I allaow I wuz er thinkin' ez haow
the Lawd hed erpinted thet ther fire ez er
jedgment," she said, "'n' the next I knowed,
thar she wuz, ther pore cretur, a settlin' down
agen me, 'n' er swayin' back 'n' forth, 'n' 's
soon's I ketched her I seen she wuz in er
dead faint; 'n' I allaow ter yeow it kind er
fetched me raound, skeered, 's ef ther Lawd
ZEPH.
2II
hed tuk me ter witness he wa'n't plum done
aout wi' Rushy Riker yit!"
It was surely a strange chance which put into
the hands of Gammer Stein and Miss Sophy
the joint labor of restoring the woman to con-
sciousness. When at last she opened her eyes
and saw Zephie in a chair opposite her, with
the child in his arms, she put her hand to her
head, and cried out pitifully, "Be we dead?
Where's Nat?"
"No, no, mam," cried Zephie, holding the
baby out to her, we ain't none of us dead!
The house 's all burnt up, but we got out. I
brought Rushy downstairs myself, 'n' the stairs
was a blazin' under me; donno how I ever did
it; but she never so much 's kicked nor hollered.
If she had, I'd a dropped her sure."
"Your husband is safe too," said Miss
Sophy, with a not wholly kindly emphasis.
Miss Sophy was very human.
Snatching the baby from Zephie's arms and
212
ZEPH.
1
straining it to her bosom, rocking herself to and
fro, looking up into Gammer Stein's face wildly,
Rushy exclaimed, "I wish he'd burned up! I
never want to set my eyes on him again!
"'Sh, 'sh!" exclaimed Gammer; "ye donno
what ye're sayin'."
"Did ye hear what he said to me, then?"
cried Rushy, bursting into a flood of hysterical.
crying. "He meant to let the children burn
up. He set it afire hisself. That's what he
sent me out o' the house for last night."
Horror-stricken, Gammer threw up her hands.
Miss Sophy stood at the foot of the bed, listen-
ing intently. They were alone with her.
"I wish God may strike me dead," cried the
raving woman, "if I don't believe it! I'll never
go nigh him again, never! 'T was to get rid o'
the children he did it!
"Rushy Riker!" exclaimed Gammer, and
the old woman drew herself up till her gaunt
figure seemed preternaturally tall, and, spite of
1
ZEPH.
213
her uncouth language, her utterance had the
dignity of inspiration, "Rushy Riker! yeow
jest shet yer mouth, an' don't yeow tempt ther
Lawd ter strike yer dead, blasphemin' thet way.
Yeow air plum crazy, thet's what yer air. Yer
know Nat Leeson, bad's he ez, never done
nothin' er ther kind. The Lawd's gin yer both
yer chillen safe 'n' sound, 'n' ye'd better git
daown 'n yer knees 'n' be thankful, 'n' begin ter
lead ther life ye'd oughter. 'T ain't tew late
yit. Yer young; 'n' I allaow the Lawd's er
dealin' 'th yeow powerful."
Rushy's great black eyes fastened on Gam-
mer's face fiercely; the tears stopped; sobs
shook her, but she did not speak. The baby,
terrified, began to cry. Hushing her tenderly,
cooing over her, caressing her, Rushy, with a
swiftly changing face, began again to weep, but
softly, as if she feared to terrify the child.
"I expect I was kind o' crazy," she muttered,
"but 't aint strange."
}
214
ZEPH.
A
i
"No," said Gammer gently, "'t ain't strange!
We'll be gwine naow; yer better alone. Ther
folks 'n this house said yer could hev this
room till yer got time ter look raound, yeow
'n' yer-yeow 'n' Nat!" Gammer could not
bring herself to speak the word "husband"
in that connection. "Come, Miss Burr," she
added, touching Miss Sophy on the shoulder,
'll be gwine; we can't do nothin' more
we
fur 'er."
Miss Sophy did not stir. She was gazing
fixedly at Zephie. The child had thrown him-
self on the floor, and was lying with his eyes.
shut. "Look at him!" she whispered.
"Dew yer feel bad, Zephie?" asked Gammer.
He did not answer. Bending over him, she ex-
claimed: "Ef thet ain't cur'us! He's sleepin'!
Ain't thet a mercy, naow, he kin?" And again
she drew Miss Sophy away.
Shaking off the old woman's hand, Miss Sophy
stepped nearer to the bed, and said, "Mrs. Lee-
ZEPH.
215
son, I'd like to see you to-morrow morning.
Will you be here?"
"Who be ye?" asked Rushy, half defiantly,
with a distrustful glance. "I s'pose I'll be
here."
"My name is Burr," answered Miss Sophy,
slowly. "You do not know me, I suppose."
"That keeps boarders?" asked Rushy.
"Yes," said Miss Sophy, trembling.
"I know where yer place is," answered
Rushy, indifferently, "'n' my husband that was,
he's been workin' for you, I heered. You was
the fust one 't ever got any work out o' him, I
heered say."
Miss Sophy's face grew hard. It was well
that the light was dim. She clenched her hands
as she replied coldly, nerving herself by the
thought of the purpose she had in view, "He
did all the work which he did for me very well."
"Ain't he workin' on your ranch now?"
asked Rushy.
!
!
1
216
ZEPH.
"No," said Miss Sophy, thankful for the form
of the question. "I've sold my ranch."
"A good while 'fore Zeph Riker 'll get such
another job!" said Rushy, vindictively.
Again Miss Sophy clenched her hands and
held herself calm. For Zeph's sake nothing
was too much to be borne. For the stake for
which she was playing now she could afford
to strain every nerve.
"Yes," she said, under all her excitement
taking a certain grim satisfaction in the artful
wording of her reply. "Yes, I think it will be.
But I will see you in the morning, Mrs. Leeson.
There's something I want to talk to you about."
"All right," said Rushy, without a gleam of
curiosity in her face. The reaction after her
terrible shock was setting in; a stupor was fast
stealing over her.
Miss Sophy's heart was beating high. She
had hard work to keep from telling her project
to Gammer Stein, but she refrained.
ZEPH.
217
"Time enough if it succeeds," she said. "But
it will I know it will!"
Miss Sophy had watched Rushy's face closely
while Gammer was upbraiding her for her ac-
cusation against Nat. She had seen the swift
look of terror there, followed by dogged resolve,
as she regained partial composure. Miss Sophy
did not believe that the woman had been crazy
when she uttered that accusation, or that she
thought herself to have been so. Miss Sophy
believed it true; and if this were so, the very
strength of the poor creature's maternal affec-
tion, which had hitherto been the barrier to the
carrying out of Miss Sophy's project, would be
its surest aid.
Minute by minute all through the lingering
darkness Miss Sophy watched for the dawn.
As soon as it was fairly light, she took her way
to the house. She reckoned, and rightly, that
she would find Rushy alone. As she passed
the still smouldering ruins of the restaurant she
218
ZEPH.
recognized Nat working there with a hopeless
sort of fury in his motions, dragging out bits
of iron and half-burnt timbers. It seemed a
mockery that the chimney was left standing,
and projecting from it a grate half full of coal
and ashes, the remains of the last home-fire
lighted on that ill-fated hearth. While she stood
gazing at this, Nat pried the grate out with an
iron bar; as it fell, his face was convulsed with
rage, and he poured out a volley of oaths which
made Miss Sophy's heart stand still.
"It was true! I believe it!" she gasped, as
she quickened her pace, and did not once look
back till she reached Rushy's bedside.
In the white, haggard face which looked up
from the pillow half-inquiring, half-alarmed, at
Miss Sophy, there were few traces left of the
beauty which had been so fatal a lure to Zeph
in days gone by. The year of hard work, and
still more of suffering which she had been too
proud to betray, had told upon Rushy sadly.
ZEPH.
219
And this last night with its anguish, its dire se-
cret, its shock, - this had completed the wreck.
She had almost the look of a dying woman.
Placid, rosy, fast asleep on her arm, lay the
child over whose destiny forces strangely con-
flicting were now coming together.
Miss Sophy was a keen reader of faces. As
she met Rushy's first glance she perceived in it a
defined terror. Rushy was indeed in an agony
of apprehension lest the words she had spoken
in her frenzy would be used to work harm to Nat.
She was rent between her still passionate love
for him and her mighty love for her children.
On the instant Miss Sophy changed her entire
plan of approach. This terror should be made
to play into her hands.
"Mrs. Leeson," she said gravely, "I came
down so early to be sure of seeing you before
any one else did. I suppose you remember
what you said last night about your husband's
having set his place on fire? I think no one
220
ZEPH.
J
heard you except Gammer and me; but we
both heard you."
Rushy's eyes dilated with horror. "I was
crazy!" she cried. "I was out o' my head! I did
n't mean no such thing! Gammer said I was
crazy. She knows Nat would n't do such a thing."
"I suppose you did not know," continued
Miss Sophy, eying her steadily, no mercy in
Miss Sophy's heart now," that I owned the
bakery next your restaurant?"
-
"No! Did ye?" gasped Rushy. “Oh, Miss
Burr, don't ye tell on me! I swear to God it
wa'n't true! I did n't know I said it! Oh, have
some mercy on me, won't ye? Nat'd kill me
in a minute if ever he was to hear 't I'd said
such a word. He never did it, Miss Burr,
never! Nat's real good, he is; only jest hasty,
that's all. Oh, for God's sake, ma'am, don't
you go to tell it!" And in anguish too great
for tears Rushy threw herself back on the bed
and groaned aloud.
ZEPH.
221
"I had no idea of telling it, Mrs. Leeson,"
said Miss Sophy. "It was not for that I came.
The property was not much injured, and I am
going away. I did n't care a fig for the build-
ing. But I'll tell you what I did come for."
Miss Sophy hesitated, bent over the bed, whis-
pering low, "I am certain you spoke the truth.
about Nat's setting that fire.
your scream, never; an' I
'There's a woman would be
child out o' that man's way
I'll never forget
said to myself,
glad to get her
if she could.'
Again Miss Sophy paused. Rushy's eyes trans-
fixed her. Confession, awe, yearning, surren-
der, were in them.
"Oh! what be ye?" she said faintly. "Ye
scare me! What d'ye mean?"
Miss Sophy never could remember distinctly
the rest of the conversation, how she gradu-
ally made clear to Rushy her own wish to adopt
a child; her sudden desire the night before to
take the little one whose life had been thus
222
ZEPH.
endangered by her stepfather's crime; her feel-
ing that she had been sent to the fire for this
very purpose. The words seemed to come to
her as from some power outside herself; and as
she spoke, the mother's heart seemed melted;
tears like rain ran down her face. Wringing her
hands, she said again and again, "I can't! Oh,
I can't never let her go; I'd die without her!
And yet again and again she returned to the
point, groaning, "But I darst n't keep her! I
darst n't! I donno why I trust ye so, ma'am,
but I can't help it! I know ye won't do me no
harm; I've heard lots about ye, how good ye
was to everybody, 'n' I know ye're rich! Oh,
I'll never forgive myself if I stand 'n the child's
light 'n' keep her out o' all ye'd do for her; 'n'
I'll die if I let her go out o' my sight! 'n' there
't is!" It was a terrible struggle. More than
once Miss Sophy was on the point of abandon-
ing it. All seemed lost. Once she rose to go.
But Rushy clutched her gown and cried, "Don't
ZEPH.
223
ye go! don't go! I hain't made my mind up!
I can't! If it wa'n't for fearin' she ain't safe I
could n't! But oh, if anythin' did happen to her
here, I'd die! I donno why Nat hates her so;
he's real good to Zephie; allers has been; but
ever sence we was married he 's seemed to hate
the sight o' baby. I suppose it's hard on a man
to take to another man's children; but there's
Zephie, just the same, an' he's fond o' him.”
Finally the storm-tossed creature said: "You
send Gammer here; I'll talk it over with her.
I'm spent. I can't think no longer! Gammer
knows ye real well; if she says it'll be right, I'll
do it! I'm thankful ye 're goin' way off; that's
the only way I'd stand it 't all. It'll be just same
's ef she was dead; 'n' that 's the way I want it
to be! I could n't give her up no other way!"
Still the baby slept on, placid, unconscious.
As Miss Sophy turned to go, she bent down
and kissed its forehead. "She is a most beau-
tiful child," she said. "I love her already."
224
ZEPH.
1
"Oh, ye'd be good to her always, always, 's
long 's ye live, and leave her safe 'n' comfort-
able! Oh, swear it, won't ye?" cried Rushy,
hysterically. Then with a fresh outburst of
crying, her words hardly articulate, she sobbed,
"Should ye want her to call ye mammy? She's
just beginnin' to say it this last month or two;
p'r'aps ye might let her call ye aunt, or suthin'
else besides mammy!"
The anguish in the mother's voice as she said
this touched a chord in Miss Sophy's breast
that had never before vibrated. As tenderly
and understandingly as if she herself had borne
children, she answered, “Don't you think it
would be best for her to call me mother? You
would n't want her to grow up thinking she had
no mother!
"No, no! I s'pose she must call ye mammy.
Oh, I donno but I wish she was dead now!
Oh, ma'am, don't ye be angry with me! You
go away now. I can't talk to ye a minute
ZEPH.
225
longer. Send Gammer; she'll come. She hates.
me, but she's good; she'll come; she'll tell
me. When are ye going?"
"To-morrow night."
"I'm glad it's so soon,
that is, if I'm goin'
to do it. If I was to think it over 'n' over
weeks, I should n't know no better 't the end;
I'd ruther she'd go 't oncet. Gammer'll bring
She always goes to Gammer,
her ter ye.
Zephie says.
Sundays.
He takes her up there sometimes
I expect
I expect" Rushy paused. Miss
Sophy's instinct filled up the interval. It was
of Zeph Rushy was thinking. Spite of Miss
Sophy's steady nerves, she trembled now. "He
hain't got no right, anyhow," Rushy muttered
to herself. "The judge giv' 'em to me."
"Thar'd have to be papers, would n't there?”
she said, looking up furtively, "so there couldn't
nobody else get her away from you?"
Miss Sophy's heart bounded. She made a
feint of stooping to pick up something from the
15
226
ZEPH.
floor to hide her exultation.
The words, "and
mine enemy was my helper," flashed across her
thoughts.
"Yes," she replied, "that would be better.
I will send them to you by Gammer. I'll have
a lawyer draw them up, so they will be all right;
and if you make up your mind to do it, you
can sign them, and give them to Gammer with
the baby, and I'll have Gammer go with me
part way till the baby's used to me."
"Swear! swear!" shrieked Rushy, snatching
Miss Sophy's hand, fastening her wild eyes
on her face. 'Oh, swear to me, here 'n'
the same 's yer own!
now, she 'd be t' ye
Swear!'
""
"So help me God," said Miss Sophy, tears
on her cheeks and her voice faltering, "she
shall be to me the same 's my own."
"I believe ye!" gasped Rushy, half fainting
from her fierce struggle. "I believe ye! I
don't never want to see ye agen, though! Don't
ZEPH.
227
ye come back here. Send Gammer. If I'll do
it, Gammer 'll bring the baby to your house.
If I don't do 't, I don't never want to be asked
no more! Be ye sure ye 're goin' to-morrow
night?"
"Yes," said Miss Sophy.
"South? The south-goin' train?"
"Yes," answered Miss Sophy, suddenly alive.
to a new danger, and perceiving as suddenly
how it could be averted. "Yes, I am going
on the south-bound train."
"Send Gammer quick," was Rushy's only
answer; and she closed her eyes exhausted.
Even in this final crisis Miss Sophy did
not confide to Gammer her relation to Zeph.
"What folks don't know, they can't let out,"
had been Miss Sophy's motto all her life, and it
stood her in good stead now. Except for this
reticence, her plans at the last moment might
have miscarried disastrously. All that Gammer
knew when she set out on her strange embassy
228
ZEPH.
was simply what had already been said by Miss
Sophy herself to Rushy. In her pocket she
carried the papers, made out in due form, by
the signing of which the legal adoption of the
child would be put forever beyond question or
revocal.
"An' I allaow she'll sign 'em fast enough,
I allaow she will ef 't is ez she sez, accordin' ter
what I'd 'vise her ter dew. Ther ain't no tew
sides ter ther thing; ther ez ter most things;
but I allow ther ain't ter this," said Gammer,
as she bade Miss Sophy good-by and set out
on her errand.
It was arranged between them that if Gammer
obtained the child she would pass Miss Sophy's
house on her way home, Miss Sophy watching
at the window to see if she had been successful.
In that case Gammer was to keep the child
with her until the next evening, when she would
bring her to the train, joining Miss Sophy there
at the last moment. Miss Sophy's brain ached
ZEPH.
229
with all this plotting and planning, so foreign
to her straightforward nature. She felt dis-
graced in her own eyes by so much conceal-
ment. "Lord knows I'll be thankful to get
done with all this coverin'-up business," she
reflected. "It's a new trade for me; but then,
I'm takin' up a new trade altogether," and
her face softened into a younger look at the
very thought. "It's all for his sake I'm doin'
it. Once we're out o' this country 'n' settled
down, it won't seem nothin' at all; 'n' I know
't's right! that's one comfort."
It was late in the afternoon before Gammer,
equipped with the paper ready for Rushy's sig-
nature, and already signed by Miss Sophy, set
out on her exciting errand. Never before in
Gammer's life had she been called upon to take
part in such stirring events. But she bore her-
self like a veteran, and had no misgivings as
to the success of the enterprise. The only thing
that puzzled her was the mysterious secrecy in
230
ZEPH.
which Miss Sophy insisted on wrapping the
whole affair.
“Thar ain't no disgrace 'n 'doptin' er child,"
she reflected. "I allaow 't 's ter ennybody's
cheeriterble credit ter feel ter dew it; but Miss
Burr ez fur coverin' 't up ez much ez ef 't wuz
er case er stealin'. I allaow she's drefful afeard
o' folks talkin', bein' an old maid 's she ez; 'n'
thar's plenty 't would talk, 'n' kinder larf; folks
ez jest mean enuf. It's different, her bein' 'n
old maid. Naow ef 't wuz me, nobody'd say er
word. Old maids hez er hard time, ennyway;
'pears like thar shet out er lots o' things, 'sides
not hevin' no man o' ther own."
The minutes seemed hours to Miss Sophy
as she sat at her window gazing down the street
by which Gammer would return. The sun went
slowly down toward the mountain-tops, reached
them, seemed to linger a moment, then sank,
and was gone; then the slow twilight passed,
and dusky gloom settled on the little town.
ZEPH.
231
There was no moon; Miss Sophy could see but
a few paces beyond her gate. No Gammer
yet!
She could not bear it. Throwing a shawl
over her head, she stole out and paced up and
down in the path. At last she saw the tall
figure looming up in the distance, walking with
a swift stride, —too swift to be the step of one
carrying the burden of a heavy child.
Miss Sophy stood still. As soon as she saw
that the old woman's arms were empty, she ran
forward, exclaiming under her breath, "Would
n't she do it? Oh, what shall I do! What
shall I do!"
(6
Hesh, naow," said Gammer, as composedly
as if it were an every-day transaction over
which Miss Sophy excited herself unnecessarily.
"Don' git yerself inter er fever! She's gwine
ter; she's signed; but she don't want ter giv
her up till ther last minute; she wants ter fix
her up; she hain't got no cloes fit ter go in,
232
ZEPH.
she sez.
I declar ter yeow, Miss Burr, I did n't
never allaow ter feel ez near kind ter Rushy
Riker ez I dew. Thet
Thet 's what 's kep' me. 'T
seemed ter kind er dew her sum good ter talk.
She sed she allers knowed I war daown on her,
an' I war; but she's broke naow. But ez I ben
tellin' her, she's made her bed 'n' she's got ter
lay in 't, this time; 'n' I allaow it's a hard un.
She's 'feard 's death o' thet Nat, 'feard 's
death; 'n' yit she kinder doos love him tew;
she won't never leave him ser long 's the breath
er life's in her body; she darst n't; she sez he'd
kill ennybody in a minnit, 'n' not mean ter,
nuther; when he 's inter his rages he donno
nothin'. I allaow she's got inter hell afore her
time, she hez! Thet's the way ye've got ther
baby; she'd ha' died afore she 'd parted 'th her,
ef 't hed n't been jest 's 't is. Yeow'd hev pitied
her ef ye 'd seen her tryin' to sign thet paper,
yeow would. 'T seemed 's ef she could n't do 't.
She'd put ther pen daown, 'n' then she'd pick 't
ZEPH.
233
up; 'n' ther paper's all riz up in blotches whar
she cried on 't 'n' tried ter wipe 't off 'th her
gown, 'n' 't made 't wuss. Yeow'd hev pitied
her."
"No, I would n't!" replied Miss Sophy. "I
haven't got any pity for a woman that does
what she's done."
Gammer drew a long sigh. It was too dark
for her to see Miss Sophy's face. They were
standing close together in the shadow of a tree,
whispering like conspirators.
"Yeow 'd hev ter, ef yer seen her," she said;
"not but what she 's reapin' ez she sowed; I
ain't er gainsayin' thet; 'n' I allaow ther Lawd 's
gwine ter punish her wuss yit 'fore He 's done
'th her."
"How?" said Miss Sophy.
"I allaow she's gwine ter break all ter pieces.
She 's jest ther high-strung kind thet doos;
she 's all uv er tremble; narves ez awful when
they gits broke up thet way. She sez she
234
ZEPH.
knows she 's gwine ter die, 'n' she don't care
how soon; 'n' I say, ther sooner ther better, tew;
fur thet Nat, he won't keer fur her a minnit
when she's lost her looks 'n' can't cook, not er
minnit; he's thet kind. Naow thet Zeph, he 'd
hev
")
"Are you sure she will give you the child
to-morrow?" interrupted Miss Sophy. She
could not bear any reference to Zeph in this
connection.
Sure's I am 't I'm erlive," answered Gam-
mer. She's a gwine ter bring her up ter-
morrer arter she 's hed her supper, 'n' she 'll git
her ter sleep ter my house. I allaow ter yeow
I dread ter see her go 'n' leave her. I allowed
mebbe she 'd better come down ter ther train;
but-
("
""
'Oh," shrieked Miss Sophy, "don't let her!
She'd be sure to take it all back at the last
minute. Don't let her!" And Miss Sophy actu-
ally quivered with alarm.
ZEPH.
235
"She won't come thar," answered Gammer.
"She allaowed she could n't. She allowed
she'd die when she heered the whistle, 's 't wuz.
She sez it's a comfort ter her I'm goin' part
way. Not thet she's got enny kind er distrust
o' yeow; but ther baby knows me, 'n' she's a
sckeery little thing. I allow yeow 'll have
trouble 'th her along fur a spell."
"I think not," said Miss Sophy, with a joy
at her heart, thinking of the baby nestled in its
father's arms. "I'm not afraid."
After they had parted, Gammer turned back,
calling cautiously, "Oh, Miss Burr, I clar fur-
got! She's powerful 'fraid Zeph'll get wind
on 't somehow 'n' interfere. I allaowed ter her
he'd ruther yeow hed ther baby 'n enny woman
livin'; he knowed yer; but she ain't easy 'bout
it. Whar is Zeph naow? D'yer know? We
hain't seed him for a week back.”
"He went into the country on business for
me," replied Miss Sophy.
236
ZEPH.
"'Ll he be back 'fore yer go?"
I expect him to-morrow; at least, that was
the plan. But he may be detained," said the
guilty Miss Sophy.
'Ef he doos come, ye kin tell him all about
it yerself," replied the unsuspecting Gammer,
"'n' he'll be thankful ter ther Lawd, I allaow
he will."
"I hope he will," ejaculated Miss Sophy, fer-
vently. And as she ran home she said to her-
self, "I hope to the Lord that's the last manou-
verin' I'll have to do till my dyin' day. It's
awful wearin'. I should n't wonder if it's worse
'n out-'n'-out lyin'!"
ZEPH.
237
VII.
THE simple ceremony which had made Miss
Sophy and Zeph "man and wife," as the cus-
tomary phrase strangely words it, was over.
The minister and his wife, who had known Miss
Sophy ever since her coming into the town,
respected her, and trusted her as a stanch
friend, were nevertheless disquieted by this last
act of hers, and by the seemingly clandestine
way in which she had insisted upon having it
performed.
"If she wa'n't ashamed of it, what'd she want
to come in here to be married, just like a ser-
vant-girl?" said the wife. "I'd never believed
it o' Sophy Burr, never!" And the minister had
replied thoughtfully, "It does seem queer; but
238
ZEPH.
Miss Sophy's always got some good reason for
what she does; that poor Riker 's been through
such dreadful troubles here, I don't wonder she
does n't want it talked about."
She's just thrown herself away, that 's what
it is," said the wife.
"I hope not," replied the minister, still more
thoughtfully. "There's something noble in
the man's look, sad as 'tis. He'll come up
yet. Sophy Burr 's no fool."
Meantime the two thus being discussed were
standing hand in hand just outside the parson-
age gate. Strange words to be spoken by
bride and bridegroom within five minutes of
the ceremony which had made them one were
passing between them.
Zeph," said Sophy, the instant they had
passed the gate,
"Zeph, I've got to do some-
thing now that 'll try you considerable; but you
must trust me.
You've got to let me walk
alone down to the depot and get into the cars
ZEPH.
239
by myself, and you get into the last car and
stay there till I come t' ye. 'T won't be
long-"
<<
Sophy!" interrupted Zeph, half alarmed,
half angry, "what notion 's taken ye to do
that? I don't think it's decent, Sophy. What
'll folks think? It's dark; ye need n't be afraid
o' folks seein' us 's we go along. They've got
to know it to-morrow morning; they might as
well know it to-night."
It had been a sore point to Zeph already, the
secrecy in which their plans had been shrouded.
Humble-minded and self-distrustful as he was,
he was also sensitive to a fault; and he had
spent many a wretched hour, needlessly tortur-
ing himself with the question if it could be that
the faithful and devoted Sophy felt shame of
having linked her fortunes with his.
"If you'd heard me through," retorted
Sophy, brusque even in this supreme moment
of her life," you'd have seen that it was n't any
240
ZEPH.
notion, nor nothin' like a notion.
It's got to
be done, Zeph, an' you've got to trust me. I've
got a reason, an' if you
ask me to do different.
knew it you would n't
You'd help me all you
could, an' not make me feel bad either. Can't
ye trust me 's long 's one hour, Zeph? I'd do
it for you. Trust me, Zeph. I'm your wife
now, you know!"
"Of course I'll trust ye, Sophy," replied
Zeph, half appeased, but only half. "It was
n't no question o' trustin', an' I'll do jest as
you want me to; hain't I always? But I
don't see why ye
Sophy."
can't tell me what 'tis,
"Oh, dear!" she cried hysterically, "we
have n't got any time to lose, standin' here; it's
'most train-time now. I can't tell you! an'
when you know what 't is, you'll see I could n't
tell you. You'll be real glad I did n't, Zeph.
Oh, do trust me! you've got to!" she was
crying now," for I'm goin' right off this
ZEPH.
241
minute!" And with a convulsive clasp of her
husband's hand she turned and walked away
at the top of her speed. Tears ran down her
cheeks, and in her excitement she talked aloud
to herself as she ran: "If she should take it
into her head to come down there! If she was
to see Zeph, she might suspect! Perhaps she's
backed out already! Perhaps Gammer won't
get down there in time! Supposin' Zeph did n't
take notice o' my tellin' him to get into the last
car!"
The fast-multiplying terrors so unnerved her,
that she felt for the first time in her sturdy life
faint, which but added another alarm. "If I
should be fool enough to go an' faint, I should
give up!" she said. The self-contempt she felt
at this thought proved the best of tonics, and
by the time she reached the railway station she
was almost herself again.
It wanted only ten minutes of the train-time,
but there was a sleepy expression about every-
16
242
ZEPH.
3
body and everything at the station which struck
fear to her heart. "Train's late, I'll be bound,"
she thought.
Yes, the train was late; only an hour, though.
That would soon pass. In a few moments she
saw a tall figure, much wrapped and encum-
bered, coming over a low hill to the north of the
station. A short cross-cut from Gammer Stein's
house would run that way. Her breath coming
thick and fast, Miss Sophy stepped towards the
figure. It was Gammer, and she held the child
in her arms. At the sight, Miss Sophy felt
herself again in danger of fainting. "I did n't
know I'd got it in me to be so upset," she
thought, as she laid her hand on Gammer's
"You've got
shoulder, and tried to speak.
her!" was all she could say.
"Yes," whispered Gammer, "she's asleep.
I jest giv' her ther leastest bit er paregoric;
't won't hurt her er mite; 'n' I put er li'le bottle
on't inter ther bundle, already sweetened. Yer
ZEPH.
243
need n't be er mite afeerd ter give it ter her ef
she hollers."
"The train's late!" said Miss Sophy, clutch-
ing Gammer's arm. "We'll have to walk about.
Keep out here 'n the shade."
"Ain't thet drefful, naow," said Gammer. "I
allaowed ter git hyar jest on ther minnit, five
minnits erhead er time, so 's ter git right on
board. It's lucky I giv' her the paregoric. But
she's powerful heavy. I allaow ter yeow my
arm's plum broke!"
"Let me take her," said Miss Sophy; and a
warm glow kindled in her breast as the uncon-
scious little creature was laid in her arms.
Zeph was peering anxiously in every direc-
tion. He too had discovered that the train was
late; but that did not console him for his wife's
non-appearance, since she could not have known
that fact, and ought long before this to have
been on the platform. Dire anxiety consumed
him. Where was she? What did it mean? He
244
ZEPH.
saw the two dimly outlined figures pacing up
and down in the distance; but in contrast with
Gammer's great height, Sophy's figure looked
so short, he did not dream of its being hers;
and besides, that figure was carrying a child.
He did not give it a second look.
The hour had nearly passed. The sleepy,
waiting passengers outside on the benches and
in the waiting-room were beginning to bestir
themselves; trucks were being wheeled, luggage
moved, carriages driving up. Walking boldly
forward now, Zeph scrutinized all. No Sophy
to be seen! Just as he was on the point of
turning away, with the resolve that come what
might he would not get into the train till he
had seen her, his eye was arrested by a swift-
running figure, a woman, crossing the track
a few rods from the station and turning towards
it. A signal-lantern, hung high on a derrick,
flashed its light full upon her as she passed. It
was Rushy, her face wild, her hair dishevelled.
I
ZEPH.
245
"My God!" gasped Zeph. "That's what
Sophy was afraid of! That's Rushy, and she's
drunk! I'll hide, 'n' do jest 's Sophy told me
to. She's got some plan o' gettin' aboard her-
self; she had a reason, sure enough! But she
might ha' told me!"
Beyond the track, on the side farthest from
the station, was a gulch thick grown with weeds
and young cottonwood trees. Into this Zeph
leaped, and stood waiting for the train; as soon
as it pulled in he sprang to the platform of
the rear car, and entering it, sank into a seat.
Whatever came now, he at least had fulfilled
to the letter his wife's request. But the suspense
was beyond his endurance.
"It'd kill Sophy if she was to make a row
'n' insult her," he said, "'n' me not there to
stand by her!" And going out on the platform,
he leaned out, straining his eyes forward along
the train, just in time to see Sophy standing
back from the steps of the forward car and
246
ZEPH.
assisting an elderly woman burdened with a
child in her arms to get in before her.
"Just like Sophy," he thought, "always
helpin' somebody! Oh, why don't she jump
in quick? Where's Rushy? She was a lookin'
to see me, I expect, an' so she's missed her!"
It had been but five minutes, only an insig-
nificant way-station stop; but it had settled the
life-destiny of more than one human being.
The unfortunate Rushy was coming to the
station on a very different errand from that
which Zeph had suspected. In fact, she did not
reach the station at all. If he had watched for
a moment longer he would have seen her pause,
look attentively at the crowd gathered there,
and then, retreating into the darkness, seat her-
self on the ground at the base of a telegraph-
pole, against which she leaned in an attitude of
despair.
Her house was not far distant from the rail-
way station, and as the time approached for the
ZEPH.
247
#
train to pass, the poor creature had pressed her
face against the window, listening for the whistle
and looking for the light. Becoming alarmed
at length by the long delay, she had run bare-
headed to the station to find what it meant.
Seeing the waiting crowd, she had understood
at once, and had thrown herself on the ground,
resolved not to leave the place till the train had
come and gone. No thought of withdrawing
from her agreement or even of looking again
on the face of her child had been in her mind.
On the contrary, her resolve had strengthened
hourly since her interview with Miss Sophy;
but the strengthening of her resolve did not
diminish the intensity of her grief.
"It'll kill me, I know 't will," was the con-
stant refrain in her thoughts; always following
it, however, "but I'll never forgive myself if I
don't do it. I darst n't not do 't!"
Sobbing aloud in the safe shelter of the dark-
ness, she watched each movement in the con-
248
ZEPH.
fusion at the train, vainly trying to distinguish
the form of Miss Sophy or of Gammer. The
moments which seemed so long to all the other
actors in the drama seemed to her like light-
ning seconds.
"Oh, they're goin'!" she cried, as the train
began to move. "Oh, God, she 's gone!
Baby!" and she fell back senseless on the
earth.
At that moment Zeph was saying to himself,
"Thank God, we're safe off!" and Miss Sophy,
devoutly, "Thank God, she did n't come down!"
and Gammer, aloud, taking Miss Sophy's hand
in hers, "What ails yer? Yer tremblin' like a
leaf!"
"I've got something to tell you, Gammer,"
replied Miss Sophy, in a whisper; and she told
her then, at last, the truth.
It was well that the necessity of carrying on
their conversation in a cautious whisper re-
strained Gammer from the full expression of
ZEPH.
249
her emotions; but the repression of them was
almost beyond her power. Disjointed and in-
credulous ejaculations were at first all which
could take shape in her thought; then followed
an avalanche of questions, some of them hard
to answer; but soon all else was swallowed up
in a heartfelt sympathy and gladness which
were comforting to Miss Sophy's heart.
"You don't think 't was wrong, then, not to
let her know who she was givin' her to, do
you?" said Miss Sophy.
""
Nerry bit of it!" replied Gammer. "Twa'n't
no use runnin' ther resk on 't. I donno haow
she 'd hev tuk it. Mebbe she 'd hev been
willin'er, 'n' mebbe not ser willin'.
Thar ain't
I
no countin' on folks; yer can't never tell.
sh'd allaow she 'd been willin'er; but then agin
she might er tuk a jealous fit 'n' thar would n't
hev been any doin' nothin'. 'T's best 's 't is.
Ye 've managed wonderful, I allaow yeow hev;
'n' naow ther sooner yer let thet pore Zeph
250
ZEPH.
know she's hyar ther better. I allaow he 's
'most crazy, settin' thar waitin'!"
'Oh," faltered Miss Sophy, "I did n't mean
to tell him till we got out of the train! I don't
want to have any kind o' fuss in the cars."
"He won't make no fuss," replied Gammer.
"He ain't thet
|
HERE the story of Zeph comes to an abrupt
ending. Conceived and begun by Mrs. Jackson
in Los Angeles during the winter of 1884-1885,
it was put by to be finished on her arrival home
in Colorado Springs,—a home she was destined
never to reach. In her last hours she sent
the manuscript to her publisher with this mes-
sage:
I am very sorry I cannot finish "Zeph." Perhaps
it is not worth publishing in its unfinished state, as the
chief lesson for which I wrote it was to be forcibly told
at the end. You must be judge about this. I suppose
there will be some interest in it as the last thing I
ZEPH.
251
wrote. I will make a short outline of the plot of the
close of the story. . . . Good-by. Many thanks for
all your long good-will and kindness. I shall look in
on your new rooms some day, be sure
see me. Good-by.
but you won't
Affectionately forever,
H. J.
AUGUST 7.
On a separate sheet was the "Outline."
THE CLOSE OF "ZEPH."
THEY were to settle down on a ranch in one
of the beautiful cañons in South California, open-
ing out seaward, yet not so near the water as to
be too cold for fruits. I had the precise spot in
my memory, an ideal nook, apricots and vine-
yards, cherry-trees in bloom there in March,
tomatoes ripe on the hillsides in January; a
glimmer of sea to be seen from the mouth of
the cañon fourteen miles away, endless charm
to Miss Sophy, half-sad spell to Zeph. At the
end of two years, one night as she is watching
252
ZEPH.
the sunset light on the water from one of the
hills at the mouth of their cañon, she looks down.
and sees Zeph coming up the road with his arm
around a boy's waist. It is Zephie. His mother
is dead, had saved enough money for him to
come to South California and join his father.
She had learned of the marriage, and as soon
as Gammer returned there was a stormy scene;
but she soon grew reconciled, and finally glad.
As Gammer had predicted, she never recovered
her strength, but pined away in a mysterious
nervous break-down. Zephie's story is pathetic.
The stepfather was never "bad" to her, but
never "real good; " the boy was her only com-
fort. Whenever she could save a dollar, she sent
it by Zephie to Gammer to keep, and made Gam-
mer promise to see him safe started for Califor-
nia. A letter from Gammer sent by Zephie told
the details of the last hours, when the poor
woman said she died easier, thinking how for-
giving Zeph had been to her; that she thought
ZEPH.
253
if a man could forgive her like that, perhaps
Christ would forgive her too! "She allaowed,"
said Gammer, "thet she could n't never hev got
no faith to die trustin', ef it hed n't ben fur ther
way Zeph'd allers kep' on er furgivin' her, time
an' agen; 'n' she jest trusted God 'd be ez good
ter her ez Zeph wuz!"
"Now," said Miss Sophy in her heart, “at
last, Zeph'll have real peace and comfort. He's
never felt settled in his mind yet, and he never
would's long 's he had n't got the boy; 'n' I
don't know 's he would 's long 's she was above
ground! But there won't be a happier man in
all California than he'll be now! And a flush
born of a secret known only to Miss Sophy's
own heart was red on her cheek as she went to
the door and called her husband and his boy in
to supper.
}
Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
RAMONA: A STORY.
BY HELEN JACKSON (H. H.).
12mo. Cloth. Price $1.50.
"}
The Atlantic Monthly says cf the author that she is "a Murillo
in literature," and that the story "is one of the most artistic
creations of American literature.' Says a lady: "To me it is the
most distinctive piece of work we have had in this country since
Uncle Tom's Cabin,' and its exquisite fiuish of style is beyond that
classic." "The book is truly an American novel," says the Boston
Advertiser. "Ramona is one of the most charming creations of
modern fiction," says Charles D Warner. The romance of the
story is irresistibly fascinating," says The Independent.
( The best novel written by a woman since George Eliot died, as
it seems to me, is Mrs. Jackson's 'Ramona.' What action is there!
What motion! How entrainant it is! It carries us along as if
mounted on a swift horse's back, from beginning to end, and it is
only when we return for a second reading that we can appreciate
the fine handling of the characters, and especially the Spanish
mother, drawn with a stroke as keen and firm as that which
portrayed George Eliot's 'Dorothea."" -T. W. Higginson.
Unsolicited tribute of a stranger, a lady in Wisconsin :-
•
In
"I beg leave to thank you with an intense heartiness for your
public espousal of the cause of the Indian. In your Century of
Dishonor' you showed to the country its own disgrace.
Ramona' you have dealt most tenderly with the Indians as men
and women. You have shown that their stoicism is not indiffer-
ence, that their squalor is not always of their own choosing. You
have shown the tender grandeur of their love, the endurance of
their constancy. While, by Ramona,' you have made your name
immortal, you have done something which is far greater. You are
but one: they are mary. You have helped those who cannot help
themselves. As a novel, 'Ramona' must stand beside 'Romola,'
both as regards literary excellence and the portrayal of life's deepest,
most vital, most solemn interests. I think nothing in literature
since Gridsmith's Vicar of Wakefield' equals your description of
the flight of Ramora and Alessandro. Such delicate pathos and
tender joy, such pure conception of life's realities, and such loftiness
of self-abnegating love! How much richer and happier the world
is with Ramona' in it!"
·
Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the publishers,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston,
Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications.
A KEY TO "RAMONA."
A CENTURY OF DISHONOR.
A Sketch of the United States Government's Dealings
with some of the Indian Tribes.
By HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),
AUTHOR OF "RAMONA,"
99.66 VERSES," BITS OF TRAVEL," ETC.
A New Edition. 12mo. PP. 514. Cloth.
$1.50.
"The report made by Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Kinney is grave, concise, and
deeply interesting. It is added to the appendix of this new edition of her book.
In this California journey, Mrs. Jackson found the materials for 'Ramona,' the
Indian novel, which was the last important work of her life, and in which nearly
all the incidents are taken from life. In the report of the Mission Indians will
be found the story of the Temecula removal and the tragedy of Alessandro's death
as they appear in Ramona.'" Boston Daily Advertiser.
•
"A number of striking cases of breach of faith, heartless banishment from
homes confirmed to the Indians by solemn treaties, and wars wantonly provoked
in order to make an excuse for dispossessing them of their lands, are grouped
together, making a panorama of outrage and oppression which will arouse the
humanitarian instincts of the nation to the point of demanding that justice shall
be done toward our savage wards. . . . 'H. H.' succeeds in holding up to the
public eye a series of startling pictures of Indian wrongs, drawn from a century
of American history." New York Tribune.
Mrs. Jackson's Letter of Gratitude to the President.
The following letter from Mrs. Jackson to the President was
written by her four days before her death, Aug. 12, 1885:-
To GROVER CLEVELAND, President of the United States:
Dear Sir, From my death-bed I send you a message of heartfelt thanks for
what you have already done for the Indians. I ask you to read my "Century of
Dishonor." I am dying happier for the belief I have that it is your hand that is
destined to strike the first steady blow toward lifting this burden of infamy from
our country, and righting the wrongs of the Indian race.
With respect and gratitude,
HELEN JACKSON.
Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of
price, by the publishers,
ROBERTS BROTHERS, BOSTON.


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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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