The $30,000 Bequest, Mark Twain [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

all those peaceful expanses

of grass and woods but the drowsy hum of insects; no glimpse

of man or beast; nothing to keep up your spirits and make you glad

to be alive. And so, at last, in the early part of the afternoon,

when I caught sight of a human creature, I felt a most grateful uplift.

This person was a man about forty-five years old, and he was

standing at the gate of one of those cozy little rose-clad cottages

of the sort already referred to. However, this one hadn’t

a deserted look; it had the look of being lived in and petted

and cared for and looked after; and so had its front yard,

which was a garden of flowers, abundant, gay, and flourishing.

I was invited in, of course, and required to make myself at home—

it was the custom of the country.

 

It was delightful to be in such a place, after long weeks of daily

and nightly familiarity with miners’ cabins—with all which this

implies of dirt floor, never-made beds, tin plates and cups,

bacon and beans and black coffee, and nothing of ornament but war

pictures from the Eastern illustrated papers tacked to the log walls.

That was all hard, cheerless, materialistic desolation, but here was a

nest which had aspects to rest the tired eye and refresh that something

in one’s nature which, after long fasting, recognizes, when confronted

by the belongings of art, howsoever cheap and modest they may be,

that it has unconsciously been famishing and now has found nourishment.

I could not have believed that a rag carpet could feast me so,

and so content me; or that there could be such solace to the soul

in wall-paper and framed lithographs, and bright-colored tidies

and lamp-mats, and Windsor chairs, and varnished what-nots, with

sea-shells and books and china vases on them, and the score of little

unclassifiable tricks and touches that a woman’s hand distributes

about a home, which one sees without knowing he sees them, yet would

miss in a moment if they were taken away. The delight that was

in my heart showed in my face, and the man saw it and was pleased;

saw it so plainly that he answered it as if it had been spoken.

 

“All her work,” he said, caressingly; “she did it all herself—

every bit,” and he took the room in with a glance which was full

of affectionate worship. One of those soft Japanese fabrics

with which women drape with careful negligence the upper part of a

picture-frame was out of adjustment. He noticed it, and rearranged

it with cautious pains, stepping back several times to gauge

the effect before he got it to suit him. Then he gave it a light

finishing pat or two with his hand, and said: “She always does that.

You can’t tell just what it lacks, but it does lack something

until you’ve done that—you can see it yourself after it’s done,

but that is all you know; you can’t find out the law of it.

It’s like the finishing pats a mother gives the child’s hair

after she’s got it combed and brushed, I reckon. I’ve seen her

fix all these things so much that I can do them all just her way,

though I don’t know the law of any of them. But she knows the law.

She knows the why and the how both; but I don’t know the why;

I only know the how.”

 

He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom

as I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows,

carpeted floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror

and pin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand,

with real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish,

and on a rack more than a dozen towels—towels too clean and white

for one out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation.

So my face spoke again, and he answered with gratified words:

 

“All her work; she did it all herself—every bit. Nothing here

that hasn’t felt the touch of her hand. Now you would think—

But I mustn’t talk so much.”

 

By this time I was wiping my hands and glancing from detail to detail

of the room’s belongings, as one is apt to do when he is in a new place,

where everything he sees is a comfort to his eye and his spirit;

and I became conscious, in one of those unaccountable ways,

you know, that there was something there somewhere that the man

wanted me to discover for myself. I knew it perfectly, and I knew

he was trying to help me by furtive indications with his eye, so I

tried hard to get on the right track, being eager to gratify him.

I failed several times, as I could see out of the corner of my eye

without being told; but at last I knew I must be looking straight

at the thing—knew it from the pleasure issuing in invisible waves

from him. He broke into a happy laugh, and rubbed his hands together,

and cried out:

 

“That’s it! You’ve found it. I knew you would. It’s her picture.”

 

I went to the little black-walnut bracket on the farther wall,

and did find there what I had not yet noticed—a daguerreotype-case.

It contained the sweetest girlish face, and the most beautiful,

as it seemed to me, that I had ever seen. The man drank the admiration

from my face, and was fully satisfied.

 

“Nineteen her last birthday,” he said, as he put the picture back;

“and that was the day we were married. When you see her—ah, just wait

till you see her!”

 

“Where is she? When will she be in?”

 

“Oh, she’s away now. She’s gone to see her people. They live

forty or fifty miles from here. She’s been gone two weeks today.”

 

“When do you expect her back?”

 

“This is Wednesday. She’ll be back Saturday, in the evening—

about nine o’clock, likely.”

 

I felt a sharp sense of disappointment.

 

“I’m sorry, because I’ll be gone then,” I said, regretfully.

 

“Gone? No—why should you go? Don’t go. She’ll be disappointed.”

 

She would be disappointed—that beautiful creature! If she had said

the words herself they could hardly have blessed me more. I was

feeling a deep, strong longing to see her—a longing so supplicating,

so insistent, that it made me afraid. I said to myself: “I will

go straight away from this place, for my peace of mind’s sake.”

 

“You see, she likes to have people come and stop with us—

people who know things, and can talk—people like you. She delights

in it; for she knows—oh, she knows nearly everything herself,

and can talk, oh, like a bird—and the books she reads, why, you would

be astonished. Don’t go; it’s only a little while, you know,

and she’ll be so disappointed.”

 

I heard the words, but hardly noticed them, I was so deep in my

thinkings and strugglings. He left me, but I didn’t know.

Presently he was back, with the picture case in his hand, and he

held it open before me and said:

 

“There, now, tell her to her face you could have stayed to see her,

and you wouldn’t.”

 

That second glimpse broke down my good resolution. I would stay

and take the risk. That night we smoked the tranquil pipe,

and talked till late about various things, but mainly about her;

and certainly I had had no such pleasant and restful time for many

a day. The Thursday followed and slipped comfortably away.

Toward twilight a big miner from three miles away came—one of

the grizzled, stranded pioneers—and gave us warm salutation,

clothed in grave and sober speech. Then he said:

 

“I only just dropped over to ask about the little madam, and when

is she coming home. Any news from her?”

 

“Oh, yes, a letter. Would you like to hear it, Tom?”

 

“Well, I should think I would, if you don’t mind, Henry!”

 

Henry got the letter out of his wallet, and said he would skip

some of the private phrases, if we were willing; then he went

on and read the bulk of it—a loving, sedate, and altogether

charming and gracious piece of handiwork, with a postscript full

of affectionate regards and messages to Tom, and Joe, and Charley,

and other close friends and neighbors.

 

As the reader finished, he glanced at Tom, and cried out:

 

“Oho, you’re at it again! Take your hands away, and let me see

your eyes. You always do that when I read a letter from her.

I will write and tell her.”

 

“Oh no, you mustn’t, Henry. I’m getting old, you know, and any

little disappointment makes me want to cry. I thought she’d

be here herself, and now you’ve got only a letter.”

 

“Well, now, what put that in your head? I thought everybody knew

she wasn’t coming till Saturday.”

 

“Saturday! Why, come to think, I did know it. I wonder

what’s the matter with me lately? Certainly I knew it.

Ain’t we all getting ready for her? Well, I must be going now.

But I’ll be on hand when she comes, old man!”

 

Late Friday afternoon another gray veteran tramped over from his

cabin a mile or so away, and said the boys wanted to have a little

gaiety and a good time Saturday night, if Henry thought she wouldn’t

be too tired after her journey to be kept up.

 

“Tired? She tired! Oh, hear the man! Joe, YOU know she’d sit up

six weeks to please any one of you!”

 

When Joe heard that there was a letter, he asked to have it read,

and the loving messages in it for him broke the old fellow all up;

but he said he was such an old wreck that THAT would happen to him

if she only just mentioned his name. “Lord, we miss her so!”

he said.

 

Saturday afternoon I found I was taking out my watch pretty often.

Henry noticed it, and said, with a startled look:

 

“You don’t think she ought to be here soon, do you?”

 

I felt caught, and a little embarrassed; but I laughed, and said

it was a habit of mine when I was in a state of expenctancy.

But he didn’t seem quite satisfied; and from that time on he began

to show uneasiness. Four times he walked me up the road to a point

whence we could see a long distance; and there he would stand,

shading his eyes with his hand, and looking. Several times he said:

 

“I’m getting worried, I’m getting right down worried. I know

she’s not due till about nine o’clock, and yet something seems

to be trying to warn me that something’s happened. You don’t

think anything has happened, do you?”

 

I began to get pretty thoroughly ashamed of him for his childishness;

and at last, when he repeated that imploring question still another time,

I lost my patience for the moment, and spoke pretty brutally to him.

It seemed to shrivel him up and cow him; and he looked so wounded

and so humble after that, that I detested myself for having done

the cruel and unnecessary thing. And so I was glad when Charley,

another veteran, arrived toward the edge of the evening, and nestled

up to Henry to hear the letter read, and talked over the preparations

for the welcome. Charley fetched out one hearty speech after another,

and did his best to drive away his friend’s bodings and apprehensions.

 

“Anything HAPPENED to her? Henry, that’s pure nonsense. There isn’t

anything going to happen to her;