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a first family of tasajara-第13节

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for him had always been shown in excessive and depressing

commiseration of him in even his lightest moments; that afternoon

seemed to add a prophetic and Cassandra…like sympathy for some

vague future of his that would require all her ministration。  〃You

won't need them new boots; Milty dear; in the changes that may be

comin' to ye; so don't be bothering your poor father in his

worriments over his new plans。〃



〃What new plans; mommer?〃 asked the boy abruptly。  〃Are we goin'

away from here?〃



〃Hush; dear; and don't ask questions that's enough for grown folks

to worry over; let alone a boy like you。  Now be good;〃a quality

in Mrs。 Harkutt's mind synonymous with ceasing from troubling;

〃and after supper; while I'm in the parlor with your father and

sisters; you kin sit up here by the fire with your book。〃



〃But;〃 persisted the boy in a flash of inspiration; 〃is popper

goin' to join in business with those surveyors;a surveyin'?〃



〃No; child; what an idea!  Run away there;and mind!don't bother

your father。〃



Nevertheless John Milton's inspiration had taken a new and

characteristic shape。  All this; he reflected; had happened since

the surveyors camesince they had weakly displayed such a

shameless and unmanly interest in his sisters!  It could have but

one meaning。  He hung around the sitting…room and passages until he

eventually encountered Clementina; taller than ever; evidently

wearing a guilty satisfaction in her face; engrafted upon that

habitual bearing of hers which he had always recognized as

belonging to a vague but objectionable race whose members were

individually known to him as 〃a proudy。〃



〃Which of those two surveyor fellows is it; Clemmy?〃 he said with

an engaging smile; yet halting at a strategic distance。



〃Is what?〃



〃Wot you're goin' to marry。〃



〃Idiot!〃



〃That ain't tellin' which;〃 responded the boy darkly。



Clementina swept by him into the sitting…room; where he heard her

declare that 〃really that boy was getting too low and vulgar for

anything。〃  Yet it struck him; that being pressed for further

explanation; she did NOT specify why。  This was 〃girls' meanness!〃



Howbeit he lingered late in the road that evening; hearing his

father discuss with the search…party that had followed the banks of

the creek; vainly looking for further traces of the missing 'Lige;

the possibility of his being living or dead; of the body having

been carried away by the current to the bay or turning up later in

some distant marsh when the spring came with low water。  One who

had been to his cabin beside the embarcadero reported that it was;

as had been long suspected; barely habitable; and contained neither

books; papers; nor records which would indicate his family or

friends。  It was a God…forsaken; dreary; worthless place; he

wondered how a white man could ever expect to make a living there。

If Elijah never turned up again it certainly would be a long time

before any squatter would think of taking possession of it。  John

Milton knew instinctively; without looking up; that his father's

eyes were fixed upon him; and he felt himself constrained to appear

to be abstracted in gazing down the darkening road。  Then he heard

his father say; with what he felt was an equal assumption of

carelessness: 〃Yes; I reckon I've got somewhere a bill of sale of

that land that I had to take from 'Lige for an old bill; but I

kalkilate that's all I'll ever see of it。〃



Rain fell again as the darkness gathered; but he still loitered on

the road and the sloping path of the garden; filled with a half

resentful sense of wrong; and hugging with gloomy pride an

increasing sense of loneliness and of getting dangerously wet。  The

swollen creek still whispered; murmured and swirled beside the

bank。  At another time he might have had wild ideas of emulating

the surveyors on some extempore raft and so escaping his present

dreary home existence; but since the disappearance of 'Lige; who

had always excited an odd boyish antipathy in his heart; although

he had never seen him; he shunned the stream contaminated with the

missing man's unheroic fate。  Presently the light from the open

window of the sitting…room glittered on the wet leaves and sprays

where he stood; and the voices of the family conclave came fitfully

to his ear。  They didn't want him there。  They had never thought of

asking him to come in。  Well!who cared?  And he wasn't going to

be bought off with a candle and a seat by the kitchen fire。  No!



Nevertheless he was getting wet to no purpose。  There was the tool…

house and carpenter's shed near the bank; its floor was thickly

covered with sawdust and pine…wood shavings; and there was a mouldy

buffalo skin which he had once transported thither from the old

wagon…bed。  There; too; was his secret cache of a candle in a

bottle; buried with other piratical treasures in the presence of

the youthful Peters; who consented to be sacrificed on the spot in

buccaneering fashion to complete the unhallowed rites。  He

unearthed the candle; lit it; and clearing away a part of the

shavings stood it up on the floor。  He then brought a prized;

battered; and coverless volume from a hidden recess in the rafters;

and lying down with the buffalo robe over him; and his cap in his

hand ready to extinguish the light at the first footstep of a

trespasser; gave himself upas he had given himself up; I fear;

many other timesto the enchantment of the page before him。



The current whispered; murmured; and sang; unheeded at his side。

The voices of his mother and sisters; raised at times in eagerness

or expectation of the future; fell upon his unlistening ears。  For

with the spell that had come upon him; the mean walls of his

hiding…place melted away; the vulgar stream beside him might have

been that dim; subterraneous river down which Sindbad and his bale

of riches were swept out of the Cave of Death to the sunlight of

life and fortune; so surely and so simply had it transported him

beyond the cramped and darkened limits of his present life。  He was

in the better world of boyish romance;of gallant deeds and high

emprises; of miraculous atonement and devoted sacrifice; of brave

men; and those rarer; impossible women;the immaculate conception

of a boy's virgin heart。  What mattered it that behind that

glittering window his mother and sisters grew feverish and excited

over the vulgar details of their real but baser fortune?  From the

dark tool…shed by the muddy current; John Milton; with a battered

dogs'…eared chronicle; soared on the wings of fancy far beyond

their wildest ken!





CHAPTER V。





Prosperity had settled upon the plains of Tasajara。  Not only had

the embarcadero emerged from the tules of Tasajara Creek as a

thriving town of steamboat wharves; warehouses; and outlying mills

and factories; but in five years the transforming railroad had

penetrated the great plain itself and revealed its undeveloped

fertility。  The low…lying lands that had been yearly overflowed by

the creek; now drained and cultivated; yielded treasures of wheat

and barley that were apparently inexhaustible。  Even the helpless

indolence of Sidon had been surprised into activity and change。

There was nothing left of the straggling settlement to recall its

former aspect。  The site of Harkutt's old store and dwelling was

lost and forgotten in the new mill and granary that rose along the

banks of the creek。  Decay leaves ruin and traces for the memory to

linger over; prosperity is unrelenting in its complete and smiling

obliteration of the past。



But Tasajara City; as the embarcadero was now called; had no

previous record; and even the former existence of an actual settler

like the forgotten Elijah Curtis was unknown to the present

inhabitants。  It was Daniel Harkutt's idea carried out in Daniel

Harkutt's land; with Daniel Harkutt's capital and energy。  But

Daniel Harkutt had become Daniel Harcourt; and Harcourt Avenue;

Harcourt Square; and Harcourt House; ostentatiously proclaimed the

new spelling of his patronymic。  When the change was made and for

what reason; who suggested it and under what authority; were not

easy to determine; as the sign on his former store had borne

nothing but the legend; Goods and Provisions; and his name did not

appear on written record until after the occupation of Tasajara;

but it is presumed that it was at the instigation of his daughters;

and there was no one to oppose it。  Harcourt was a pretty name for

a street; a square; or a hotel; even the few in Sidon who had

called it Harkutt admitted that it was an improvement quite

consistent with the change from the fever…haunted tules and sedges

of the creek to the broad; level; and handsome squares of Tasajara

City。



This might have been the opinion of a visitor at the Harcourt

House; who arrived one summer afternoon from the Stockton boat; but

whose shrewd; half…critical

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