land o’ goshen! madam’s a cryin’!” mary jane had rubbed her eyes repeatedly, believing they deceived her; but she was now forced to admit the truth of their report.

“’tain’t no sech a thing!” retorted resolved, testily. yet he advanced to peep over his sister’s shoulder at this startling phenomenon; then he pushed his spectacles up out of place, the better to “see with his own eyes” this unprecedented proceeding, and ejaculated: “my-soul-i-declare!”

this was what he beheld.

daniel calthorp sitting near the window, leaning his brow upon his hand, not indeed to veil his sightless eyes from any untoward spectacle, but to hide the workings of his own face.

kentucky bob standing in the doorway, uneasily shifting his great length from foot to foot, and ready for flight the instant things became “a trifle too tropercal fer a westerner.”

while steenie was kneeling before the madam’s chair, her warm little hands resting upon the worn white hands in the lady’s lap, and her eager, loving glances trying to interpret the conflicting emotions which pictured themselves upon the noble face above her.

the worst sign of all, in mary jane’s opinion, was that her proud mistress evidently didn’t even care how many witnessed this unusual display of weakness. “she ain’t a tryin’ ter hide nothin’! not a tear! poor soul, poor soul! she’s a down deep in the waters o’ triberlation when she lets go o’ her hefty sperrit, an’ don’t mind us a seein’ what we do now. that ever i should a lived ter look at madam calthorp a weepin’ tears! oh, my soul, oh! i did think ’at we’d manage ter go out the old house, as steenie says, ‘colors flyin’’ an’ hearts braced up, even if bust. but when she—she—gins out, let us all gin out. oh, me—me!”

“shat up carn’t ye? hark! what’s the youngun a sayin’?”

curiosity comforted the faithful old serving-woman’s immediate grief; she paused in the very middle of a sigh to listen.

“don’t look so, dear grandmother, darling grandmother! did i do so very, very wrong? do b’lieve me, i didn’t mean to. an’—my! wait, grandmother! if you don’t want it, please don’t cry on poor judge courtenay’s check, ’cause papa says—oh, grandmother! will you? will you?”

the pantomime was more intelligible than the words. for the first time the stately head was bent slightly,—even under the relaxation of these unprecedented circumstances it had been held upright,—and a sudden smile broke over the tear-wet face, making it beautiful as proud.

proud it had always been, but not as now, proud with an unutterable tenderness, proud—even that paradox—in a new, sweet, and reverent humility, as the thin hands gently dropped upon the child’s curly head, and the tremulous lips found voice: “steenie, steenie! my brave, precious one! hush! there is no reproach for you; there is nothing but love and obligation. you have humbled me as i have never been humbled in my life; and you have made me proud as i have never been proud. you have conquered your grandmother, now come to her.”

steenie leaped, joyfully, into the arms opened to receive her, but the words which had fallen from the madam’s lips mystified her, and she was still clinging about the speaker’s shoulders, looking doubtfully upon the narrow white check, which had fallen to the carpetless floor, when bob’s resonant voice cut into a scene which was becoming “too all-fired watery round the eyes for him,” and cleared the mystery.

“which means, my little un, begging your pardon, ma’am, an’ everybody’s pardon, that our ‘little lady of the horse’ hain’t won her ticket for nothin’. which bein’ the case—i say, old feller? you unresolved old puritan, you, i think i know a cure for your lumbago. want to hear it?”

“yes, yes,” answered mr. tubbs, eagerly.

“here ’tis. price nothin’. turn to an’ fetch a hammer an’ nails, an’ unroll that strip o’ carpet thar. i don’t relish the sound o’ my own boots on hard oak floors like this un, an’ the sooner we get the carpet back into place, the sooner i shall feel to hum. lively, now. we’ll get it down afore pitch-dark, even in this region o’ short days.”

to picture mr. tubbs’s disgust is impossible. then, even to his selfish heart, crept a warm, tender, human feeling, and he cast a sidelong glance at the mistress he had served so long, if not so well.

observing which, bob, that clear-sighted translator of people’s emotions, gave friendly encouragement. “that’s the fust step. second—look! see here? look at this vial? know what it is? ever see anything so fine?”

“eh? no. what is it?” demanded resolved, who had a keen eye and ear for anything in the shape of “medicine.”

“rattlesnake ile,—that’s what she is. double distilled, an’ forty-thousandth purity. volatile as gas. can’t fix it in no ordinary bottles, with no ordinary stoppers. worth its weight in gold; worth more if it couldn’t be replaced. sample i brought from my little un’s property,—from the rancho er the mountain o’ santa trinidad. hm! didn’t mean to say that—yet. but no matter. step lively now. an’ if ye do, i’ll rub some o’ this precious stuff on your worthless old back, an’ if i don’t bounce the lumbago, my name ain’t bob, an’ i hain’t never rid on no santa felisa round-up.”

there was tonic, elixir, in the very tone; not only for the stiff-jointed mr. tubbs, but for every individual there present.

mary jane, proper baptist that she was, almost executed a fancy dance; but recollecting herself in time, went hurrying away to her kitchen, her cracked, quavering, but joyful voice proclaiming in song,—

“i’ve reached a land of corn and wine,

and all its riches freely mine.

here shines undimmed one blissful day,

for all my night has passed away.”

mr. calthorp crossed over and gave his mother a grateful kiss, then walked out whistling.

steenie slipped down and watched her grandmother fold the beneficent scrap of white paper safely away in her pocket-book, then danced a pas-de-seul without any of mary jane’s scruples of conscience.

and even madam calthorp began humming softly some melody of her youth, and moved the chairs out of the room, to further the cheerful labor of kentucky bob, who had the carpet unrolled and into place, “in the jerk of a lamb’s tail,” and who whistled gayly, till he remembered that he was the guest of a high-bred lady, when he restrained himself, and worked away all the faster, maybe.

“my, isn’t it just too delightful to be happy!” cried small steenie, in the fulness of her rapture; and the instant laugh which greeted her quaint exclamation was answer sufficient.

“it’s taken ferever ter git these things tore up an’ out o’ place; but i guess they’ll ’bout fly back inter it ag’in, o’ their own accord,” said mary jane, unwrapping the parlor “table-spread” and recklessly throwing away the string. while resolved puffed and stretched at that carpet, determined to keep ahead of bob’s resolute, speedy “tack,” “tack,” without one grunt or groan.

wasn’t it fun to put that old house “to rights” once more? wasn’t it? such fun that, as mary jane prophesied, the furniture almost seemed to march itself back into position; while steenie was allowed, not only to handle, but to unpack and restore to their own shelves the precious books which seemed “folks a’most” to their loving owner.

but to all sunshine there is shadow. to the brightest day succeeds a twilight; and a spiritual twilight fell upon these happy people, when, after all was done that could be done, they gathered about the blazing fire on the great hearth-stone in the dining-room, and heard the story which kentucky bob had come so far to tell.

“’pears as if i didn’t know how to begin it. but i must; though i ain’t no oraytor, i ain’t. come a here, little un. the ‘boss’ won’t mind a sparin’ of ye to me i ’low, an’ mebbe i kin talk straighter a feelin’ yer little hand in mine. good little hand, strong little hand, lovin’ little hand, that takes right a holt o’ everybody’s heart an’ pulls it out o’ wickedness an’ inter the straight. pulled old sutry vives out o’ malice an’ murder, ter live a christian an’ die a martyr.”

“what? what?” cried steenie, aghast.

“hush, little un, don’t! it’s ’bout all old bob kin do, anyhow—an’—don’t make a break in the perceedin’s ag’in, if ye kin help it, don’t! ’cause i ain’t much uset ter preachin’, an’ this here—is ’bout a—funeral sermon!”

he needed not to hush any one again, not even when the “sermon” was ended.

“sutry, he come hum. when he come i happened ter meet him, an’ when he stepped out o’ the car at san’ felis’ i didn’t scurcely know him. some o’ his folks lived above a hunderd; but couldn’t none on ’em ever looked so old as sutry did that day. an’ when i spoke to him an’ told him ‘howdy!’ he jest stared up inter my face—no matter! he’s square; squarest man i ever knowed.

“he told me ’t he’d made his will. he’d gin ever’thing he got ter the little un. ‘everything you’ve got?’ says i, laughin’, harsh like.

“‘yes, la trinidad.’

“then i laughed more, but—not long. that night he ast me ter take a couple o’ the boys, an’ go up inter that snake-infested peak with him. we didn’t wanter. snakes hadn’t be’n troublesome none, ’long back; but, somehow, thar warn’t no refusin’, he looked that queer an’ un-sutry like. so next mornin’ we went; an’ goin’ up he told me all the bad news ’bout you all, an’ his way o’ changin’ it inter good. he’d foond out, he thought, ’at steenie here couldn’t ’herit till he was dead. he could gin her anything he’d a mind to; but he knowed nobody wouldn’t b’lieve none o’ his big talk, long as he lived. but if it was her ’n, out an’ out, they’d have ter try an’ see what this ’heritance was. he kinder impressed me even then; an’ we went on quite chipper. killed a few rattlers by the way, an’ went spang up an’ up, an’ then down ag’in, inter the very heart o’ the mountain. then i seed thar’d be’n some prospectin’ done thar sometime. we found a trail an’ we follered it.

“an’ i ain’t never laughed at sutry vives, ner la trinidad property—sence. what he showed us was enough ter sober a drunken man arter a big spree.

“then we started hum ag’in; but, half-way down, sutry called us ter stop.

“‘boys,’ says he, ‘ye’ve seen what i showed ye. i picked you three out, ’cause you love the little un, an’ i kin trest ye. sw’ar ’at you’ll be true ter yer trest; sw’ar ter do the plumb square by the little seenoreety.’

“you bet we swore!—all an’ more’n he ast us. then we went on ag’in, but sutry didn’t foller.

“‘i feel like i’d like ter stay here a little while alone,’ says he; ’an’ if i don’t come down in fair season, you kin come an’ hunt me up.’

“‘better not,’ says i. but he would; an’ we, each on us, had our dooty ter do, an’ so we left him.”

there was a long silence, broken, at last, by steenie, asking softly: “well?”

“well, when i rec’lect that night—i—huckleberries! carn’t ye guess it? think o’ the squarest thing a feller could do, an’ then know he done it,—that poor, laughed-at, despised, weak-witted old don sutry!”

“oh, tell me, bob, please! my heart’s all suffocky, an’ i can’t breathe!”

“you ’low i couldn’t rest. i kep’ a thinkin’ o’ that old vener’ble up thar, a takin’ his last look at a property ’at had be’n his ’n, er his folks, sence way back—an’ the lonesomeness an’ all—an’ i couldn’t stan’ it. so i started just arter moon-rise, an’ clumb up ag’in, callin’ myself names all the time fer a fool. an’ when i got to the very heart o’ the place—thar he lay, sleepin’ quiet an’ a’most a smilin’,—right thar in that den!”

“but you waked him up, bob? quick—didn’t you?”

“yes, i did. perhaps i had a job, though! ’twas a close call fer the old caballero. an’ when i’d rousted him a little, ye should a heered him pitch inter me! ’cause i wouldn’t let him lay still thar an’ die o’ rattlesnake bite!”

“why, bob? why should he wish to die?”

“fer your sake, little un; to make you rich an’ happy an’ ever’thing. an’ i ’low the notion was jest as noble as if he’d be’n let ter finish it up as he meant.”

“well? the result?” asked mr. calthorp, impatiently.

“well, he’ll live, i reckin; but his old age won’t be not very flourishin’ ner green-bay-tree like. ’twas an even chance, ’bout. i carried him down on my back, an’ thar happened ter be an old indian on hand ’at done his level best; an’ he’ll live. so they think.

“but we had a tussle with him, fust. an’ not till lord plunkett himself, who had come round that way ag’in, was lugged inter the room ter hear the hull story, an’ ter promise ever’thing should be done same as if he died, would sutry consent ter take the stuff old pueblo forced down his throat. but, to all intents an’ purposes, he was a martyr, sutry vives was.”

the graphic story cast over them all an awed and solemn feeling which made speech seem impossible. till, after awhile, a half-charred stick fell into the coals, and mary jane looked up through her tears. “greater love hath no man than this,” said she, softly; and even resolved failed to sniff.

finally madam calthorp asked: “what was in the mountain that made it so valuable in the old spaniard’s eyes?”

“sunthin’, ’at when it’s developed—as lord plunkett an’ jedge courtenay has offered ter advance the funds fer—’ill make the little un rich enough ter kindle fires with jest sech checks as she fetched home ter-day.”

“but i do not understand.”

“silver, ma’am, silver. quality, a one. quantity, unlimited. that’s all it was.”

the end.