Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

Such was the history of Mrs. Baker, who had just finished her afternoon levee, nodded a smiling "good-by" to her last customer, and closed her shutter again. Then she took up her own letters, but, before reading them, glanced, with a pretty impatience, at the two official envelopes addressed to herself, which she had shelved. They were generally a "lot of new rules," or notifications, or "absurd" questions which had nothing to do with Laurel Run, and only bothered her and "made her head ache," and she had usually referred them to her admiring neighbor at Hickory Hill for explanation, who had generally returned them to her with the brief endorsement, "Purp stuff, don't bother," or, "Hog wash, let it slide." She remembered now that he had not returned the two last. With knitted brows and a slight pout she put aside her private correspondence and tore open the first one. It referred with official curtness to an unanswered communication of the previous week, and was "compelled to remind her of rule 47." Again those horrid rules! She opened the other; the frown deepened on her brow, and became fixed.

It was a summary of certain valuable money letters that had miscarried on the route, and of which they had given her previous information. For a moment her cheeks blazed. How dare they; what did they mean! Her way-bills and register were always right; she knew the names of every man, woman, and child in her district; no such names as those borne by the missing letters had ever existed at Laurel Run; no such addresses had ever been sent from Laurel Run Post-Office. It was a mean insinuation! She would send in her resignation at once! She would get "the boys" to write an insulting letter to Senator Slocumb--Mrs. Baker had the feminine idea of Government as a purely personal institution--and she would find out who it was that had put them up to this prying, crawling impudence! It was probably that wall-eyed old wife of the postmaster at Heavy Tree Crossing, who was jealous of her. "Remind her of their previous unanswered communication," indeed! Where was that communication, anyway? She remembered she had sent it to her admirer at Hickory Hill. Odd that he hadn't answered it. Of course, he knew all about this meanness--could he, too, have dared to suspect her! The thought turned her crimson again. He, Stanton Green, was an old "Laurel Runner," a friend of John's, a little "triflin'" and "presoomin'," but still an old loyal pioneer of the camp! "Why hadn't he spoke up?"

There was the soft muffled fall of a horse's hoof in the thick dust of the highway, the jingle of dismounting spurs, and a firm tread on the platform. No doubt, one of the boys returning for a few supplemental remarks under the feeble pretense of forgotten stamps. It had been done before, and she had resented it as "cayotin' round"; but now she was eager to pour out her wrongs to the first comer. She had her hand impulsively on the door of the partition, when she stopped with a new sense of her impaired dignity. Could she confess this to her worshipers? But here the door opened in her very face and a stranger entered.

He was a man of fifty, compactly and strongly built. A squarely cut goatee, slightly streaked with gray, fell straight from his thin-lipped but handsome mouth; his eyes were dark, humorous, yet searching. But the distinctive quality that struck Mrs. Baker was the blending of urban ease with frontier frankness. He was evidently a man who had seen cities and knew countries as well. And while he was dressed with the comfortable simplicity of a Californian mounted traveler, her inexperienced but feminine eye detected the keynote of his respectability in the carefully tied bow of his cravat. The Sierrean throat was apt to be open, free, and unfettered.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Baker," he said, pleasantly, with his hat already in his hand. "I'm Harry Home, of San Francisco." As he spoke his eye swept approvingly over the neat enclosure, the primly tied papers, and well-kept pigeon-holes; the pot of flowers on her desk; her china silk mantle, and killing little chip hat and ribbons hanging against the wall; thence to her own pink flushed face, bright blue eyes, tendriled clinging hair, and then--fell upon the leathern mail bag still lying across the table. Here it became fixed on the unfortunate wire of the amorous expressman that yet remained hanging from the brass wards of the lock, and he reached his hand toward it.

But little Mrs. Baker was before him, and had seized it in her arms. She had been too preoccupied and bewildered to resent his first intrusion behind the partition, but this last familiarity with her sacred official property--albeit empty--capped the climax of her wrongs.

"How dare you touch it!" she said indignantly. "How dare you come in here! Who are you, anyway? Go outside at once!"

The stranger fell back with an amused, deprecatory gesture, and a long, silent laugh. "I'm afraid you don't know me, after all!" he said, pleasantly. "I'm Harry Home, the Department Agent from the San Francisco office. My note of advice, No. 201, with my name on the envelope, seems to have miscarried too."

Even in her fright and astonishment it flashed upon Mrs. Baker that she had sent that notice, too, to Hickory Hill. But with it all the feminine secretive instinct within her was now thoroughly aroused, and she kept silent.

"I ought to have explained," he went on smilingly; "but you are quite right, Mrs. Baker," he added, nodding toward the bag. "As far as you knew, I had no business to go near it. Glad to see you know how to defend Uncle Sam's property so well. I was only a bit puzzled to know" (pointing to the wire) "if that thing was on the bag when it was delivered to you?"

Mrs. Baker saw no reason to conceal the truth. After all this official was a man like the others, and it was just as well that he should understand her power. "It's only the expressman's foolishness," she said, with a slightly coquettish toss of her head. "He thinks it smart to tie some nonsense on that bag with the wire when he flings it down."

Mr. Home, with his eyes on her pretty face, seemed to think it a not inhuman or unpardonable folly. "As long as he doesn't meddle with the inside of the bag, I suppose you must put up with it," he said, laughingly. A dreadful recollection that the Hickory Hill postmaster had used the inside of the bag to convey _his_ foolishness came across her. It would never do to confess it now. Her face must have shown some agitation, for the official resumed with a half-paternal, half-reassuring air, "But enough of this. Now, Mrs. Baker, to come to my business here! Briefly, then, it doesn't concern you in the least, except so far as it may relieve you and some others whom the Department knows equally well from a certain responsibility, and, perhaps, anxiety. We are pretty well posted down there in all that concerns Laurel Run, and I think" (with a slight bow), "we've known all about you and John Baker. My only business here is to take your place to-night in receiving the 'Omnibus Way Bag,' that you know arrives here at 9.30, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Baker, hurriedly; "but it never has anything for us, except--" (she caught herself up quickly, with a stammer, as she remembered the sighing Green's occasional offerings), "except a notification from Hickory Hill Post-Office. It leaves there," she went on with an affectation of precision, "at half-past eight exactly, and it's about an hour's run--seven miles by road."

"Exactly," said Mr. Home. "Well, I will receive the bag, open it, and despatch it again. You can, if you choose, take a holiday."

"But," said Mrs. Baker, as she remembered that Laurel Run always made a point of attending her evening levee on account of the superior leisure it offered, "there are the people who come for letters, you know."

"I thought you said there were no letters at that time," said Mr. Home, quickly.

"No--but--but" (with a slight hysterical stammer) "the boys come all the same."

"Oh!" said Mr. Home, dryly.

"And--O Lord!--" But here the spectacle of the possible discomfiture of Laurel Run at meeting the bearded face of Mr. Home, instead of her own smooth cheeks, at the window, combined with her nervous excitement, overcame her so that, throwing her little frilled apron over her head, she gave way to a paroxysm of hysterical laughter. Mr. Home waited with amused toleration for it to stop, and, when she had recovered, resumed: "Now, I should like to refer an instant to my first communication to you. Have you got it handy?"

Mrs. Baker's face fell. "No; I sent it over to Mr. Green, of Hickory Hill, for information."

"What!"

Terrified at the sudden seriousness of the man's voice, she managed to gasp out, however, that, after her usual habit, she had not opened the official letters, but had sent them to her more experienced colleague for advice and information; that she never could understand them herself--they made her head ache, and interfered with her other duties--but he understood them, and sent her word what to do. Remembering, also, his usual style of endorsement, she grew red again.

"And what did he say?"

"Nothing; he didn't return them."

"Naturally," said Mr. Home, with a peculiar expression. After a few moments' silent stroking of his beard, he suddenly faced the frightened woman.

"You oblige me, Mrs. Baker, to speak more frankly to you than I had intended. You have--unwittingly, I believe--given information to a man whom the Government suspects of peculation. You have, without knowing it, warned the Postmaster at Hickory Hill that he is suspected; and, as you might have frustrated our plans for tracing a series of embezzlements to their proper source, you will see that you might have also done great wrong to yourself as his only neighbor and the next responsible person. In plain words, we have traced the disappearance of money letters to a point when it lies between these two offices. Now, I have not the least hesitation in telling you that we do not suspect Laurel Run, and never have suspected it. Even the result of your thoughtless act, although it warned him, confirms our suspicion of his guilt. As to the warning, it has failed, or he has grown reckless, for another letter has been missed since. To-night, however, will settle all doubt in the matter. When I open that bag in this office to-night, and do not find a certain decoy letter in it, which was last checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, I shall know that it remains in Green's possession at Hickory Hill."

She was sitting back in her chair, white and breathless. He glanced at her kindly, and then took up his hat. "Come, Mrs. Baker, don't let this worry you. As I told you at first, you have nothing to fear. Even your thoughtlessness and ignorance of rules has contributed to show your own innocence. Nobody will ever be the wiser for this; we do not advertise our affairs in the Department. Not a soul but yourself knows the real cause of my visit here. I will leave you here alone for a while, so as to divert any suspicion. You will come, as usual, this evening, and be seen by your friends; I will only be here when the bag arrives, to open it. Good-by, Mrs. Baker; it's a nasty bit of business, but it's all in the day's work. I've seen worse, and, thank God, you're out of it."

She heard his footsteps retreat into the outer office and die out of the platform; the jingle of his spurs, and the hollow beat of his horsehoofs that seemed to find a dull echo in her own heart, and she was alone.

The room was very hot and very quiet; she could hear the warping and creaking of the shingles under the relaxing of the nearly level sunbeams. The office clock struck seven. In the breathless silence that followed, a woodpecker took up his interrupted work on the roof, and seemed to beat out monotonously in her ear the last words of the stranger: Stanton Green--a thief! Stanton Green, one of the "boys" John had helped out of the falling tunnel! Stanton Green, whose old mother in the States still wrote letters to him at Laurel Run, in a few hours to be a disgraced and ruined man forever! She remembered now, as a thoughtless woman remembers, tales of his extravagance and fast living, of which she had taken no heed, and, with a sense of shame, of presents sent her, that she now clearly saw must have been far beyond his means. What would the boys say? what would John have said? Ah! what would John have done!

She started suddenly to her feet, white and cold as on that day that she had parted from John Baker before the tunnel. She put on her hat and mantle, and going to that little iron safe that stood in the corner, unlocked it, and took out its entire contents of gold and silver. She had reached the door when another idea seized her, and opening her desk she collected her stamps to the last sheet, and hurriedly rolled them up under her cape. Then with a glance at the clock, and a rapid survey of the road from the platform, she slipped from it, and seemed to be swallowed up in the waiting woods beyond.

II

Once within the friendly shadows of the long belt of pines, Mrs. Baker kept them until she had left the limited settlement of Laurel Run far to the right, and came upon an open slope of Burnt Ridge, where she knew Jo Simmons's mustang, Blue Lightning, would be quietly feeding. She had often ridden him before, and when she had detached the fifty-foot riata from his headstall, he permitted her the further recognized familiarity of twining her fingers in his bluish mane and climbing on his back. The tool shed of Burnt Ridge Tunnel, where Jo's saddle and bridle always hung, was but a canter further on. She reached it unperceived, and--another trick of the old days--quickly extemporized a side saddle from Simmons's Mexican tree, with its high cantle and horn bow, and the aid of a blanket. Then leaping to her seat, she rapidly threw off her mantle, tied it by its sleeves around her waist, tucked it under one knee, and let it fall over her horse's flanks. By this time Blue Lightning was also struck with a flash of equine recollection, and pricked up his ears. Mrs. Baker uttered a little chirping cry which he remembered, and the next moment they were both careering over the Ridge.

The trail that she had taken, though precipitate, difficult, and dangerous in places, was a clear gain of two miles on the stage road. There was less chance of her being followed or meeting any one. The greater cañons were already in shadow; the pines on the further ridges were separating their masses, and showing individual silhouettes against the sky, but the air was still warm, and the cool breath of night, as she well knew it, had not yet begun to flow down the mountain. The lower range of Burnt Ridge was still uneclipsed by the creeping shadow of the mountain ahead of her. Without a watch, but with this familiar and slowly changing dial spread out before her, she knew the time to a minute. Heavy Tree Hill, a lesser height in the distance, was already wiped out by that shadowy index finger--half-past seven! The stage would be at Hickory Hill just before half-past eight; she ought to anticipate it, if possible--it would stay ten minutes to change horses--she must arrive before it left!

There was a good two-mile level before the rise of the next range. Now, Blue Lightning! all you know! And that was much--for with the little chip hat and fluttering ribbons well bent down over the bluish mane, and the streaming gauze of her mantle almost level with the horse's back, she swept down across the long table-land like a skimming blue jay. A few more bird-like dips up and down the undulations, and then came the long, cruel ascent of the Divide.

Acrid with perspiration, caking with dust, slithering in the slippery, impalpable powder of the road, groggily staggering in a red dusty dream, coughing, snorting, head-tossing; becoming suddenly dejected, with slouching haunch and limp legs on easy slopes, or wildly spasmodic and agile on sharp acclivities, Blue Lightning began to have ideas and recollections! Ah! she was a devil for a lark--this lightly-clinging, caressing, blarneying, cooing creature--up there! He remembered her now. Ha! very well then. Hoop la! And suddenly leaping out like a rabbit, bucking, trotting hard, ambling lightly, "loping" on three legs, and recreating himself--as only a Californian mustang could--the invincible Blue Lightning at last stood triumphantly upon the summit. The evening star had just pricked itself through the golden mist of the horizon line--eight o'clock! She could do it now! But here, suddenly, her first hesitation seized her. She knew her horse, she knew the trail, she knew herself--but did she know the man to whom she was riding? A cold chill crept over her, and then she shivered in a sudden blast; it was Night at last swooping down from the now invisible Sierras, and possessing all it touched. But it was only one long descent to Hickory Hill now, and she swept down securely on its wings. Half-past eight! The lights of the settlement were just ahead of her--but so, too, were the two lamps of the waiting stage before the post-office and hotel.

Happily the lounging crowd were gathered around the hotel, and she slipped into the post-office from the rear, unperceived. As she stepped behind the partition, its only occupant--a good-looking young fellow with a reddish mustache--turned toward her with a flush of delighted surprise. But it changed at the sight of the white, determined face and the brilliant eyes that had never looked once toward him, but were fixed upon a large bag, whose yawning mouth was still open and propped up beside his desk.

"Where is the through money letter that came in that bag?" she said, quickly.

"What--do--you--mean?" he stammered, with a face that had suddenly grown whiter than her own.

"I mean that it's a decoy, checked at Heavy Tree Crossing, and that Mr. Home, of San Francisco is now waiting at my office to know if you have taken it!"

The laugh and lie that he had at first tried to summon to mouth and lips never reached them. For, under the spell of her rigid, truthful face, he turned almost mechanically to his desk, and took out a package.

"Good God! you've opened it already!" she cried, pointing to the broken seal.

The expression on her face, more than anything she had said, convinced him that she knew all. He stammered under the new alarm that her despairing tone suggested. "Yes!--I was owing some bills--the collector was waiting here for the money, and I took something from the packet. But I was going to make it up by next mail--I swear it."

"How much have you taken?"

"Only a trifle. I--"

"How much?"

"A hundred dollars!"

She dragged the money she had brought from Laurel Run from her pocket, and, counting out the sum, replaced it in the open package. He ran quickly to get the sealing wax, but she motioned him away as she dropped the package back into the mail bag.

"No; as long as the money is found in the bag the package may have been broken _accidentally_. Now burst open one or two of those other packages a little--so;" she took out a packet of letters and bruised their official wrappings under her little foot until the tape fastening was loosened. "Now give me something heavy." She caught up a brass two-pound weight, and in the same feverish but collected haste wrapped it in paper, sealed it, stamped it, and, addressing it in a large printed hand to herself at Laurel Hill, dropped it in the bag. Then she closed it and locked it; he would have assisted her, but she again waved him away. "Send for the expressman, and keep yourself out of the way for a moment," she said curtly.

An attitude of weak admiration and foolish passion had taken the place of his former tremulous fear. He obeyed excitedly, but without a word. Mrs. Baker wiped her moist forehead and parched lips, and shook out her skirt. Well might the young expressman start at the unexpected revelation of those sparkling eyes and that demurely smiling mouth at the little window.

"Mrs. Baker!"

She put her finger quickly to her lips, and threw a world of unutterable and enigmatical meaning into her mischievous face.

"There's a big San Francisco swell takin' my place at Laurel to-night, Charley."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And it's a pity that the Omnibus Waybag happened to get such a shaking up and banging round already, coming here."

"Eh?"

"I say," continued Mrs. Baker, with great gravity and dancing eyes, "that it would be just awful if that keerful city clerk found things kinder mixed up inside when he comes to open it. I wouldn't give him trouble for the world, Charley."

"No, ma'am, it ain't like you."

"So you'll be particularly careful on _my_ account."

"Mrs. Baker," said Charley, with infinite gravity, "if that bag _should tumble off a dozen times_ between this and Laurel Hill, I'll hop down and pick it up myself."

"Thank you! shake!"

They shook hands gravely across the window ledge.

"And you ain't goin' down with us, Mrs. Baker?"

"Of course not; it wouldn't do--for _I ain't here_--don't you see?"

"Of course!"

She handed him the bag through the door. He took it carefully, but in spite of his great precaution fell over it twice on his way to the road, where from certain exclamations and shouts it seemed that a like miserable mischance attended its elevation to the boot. Then Mrs. Baker came back into the office, and, as the wheels rolled away, threw herself into a chair, and inconsistently gave way for the first time to an outburst of tears. Then her hand was grasped suddenly, and she found Green on his knees before her. She started to her feet.

"Don't move," he said, with weak hysteric passion, "but listen to me, for God's sake! I am ruined, I know, even though you have just saved me from detection and disgrace. I have been mad!--a fool, to do what I have done, I know, but you do not know all--you do not know why I did it--you can not think of the temptation that has driven me to it. Listen, Mrs. Baker. I have been striving to get money, honestly, dishonestly--anyway, to look well in _your_ eyes--to make myself worthy of you--to make myself rich, and to be able to offer you a home and take you away from Laurel Run. It was all for _you_--it was all for love of _you_, Betsy, my darling. Listen to me!"

In the fury, outraged sensibility, indignation, and infinite disgust that filled her little body at that moment, she should have been large, imperious, goddess-like, and commanding. But God is at times ironical with suffering womanhood. She could only writhe her hand from his grasp with childish contortions; she could only glare at him with eyes that were prettily and piquantly brilliant; she could only slap at his detaining hand with a plump and velvety palm, and when she found her voice it was high falsetto. And all she could say was: "Leave me be, looney, or I'll scream!"

He rose, with a weak, confused laugh, half of miserable affectation and half of real anger and shame.

"What did you come riding over here for, then? What did you take all this risk for? Why did you rush over here to share my disgrace--for _you_ are as much mixed up with this now as _I_ am--if you didn't calculate to share _everything else_ with me? What did you come here for, then, if not for _me_?"

"What did _I_ come here for?" said Mrs. Baker, with every drop of red blood gone from her cheek and trembling lip. "What--did--I--come here for? Well!--I came here for _John Baker's_ sake! John Baker, who stood between you and death at Burnt Ridge, as I stand between you and damnation at Laurel Run, Mr. Green! Yes, John Baker, lying under half of Burnt Ridge, but more to me this day than any living man crawling over it--in--in"--Oh, fatal climax!--"in a month o' Sundays! What did I come here for? I came here as John Baker's livin' wife to carry on dead John Baker's work. Yes, dirty work this time, maybe, Mr. Green! but his work, and for _him_ only--precious! That's what I came here for; that's what I _live_ for; that's what I'm waiting for--to be up to him and his work always! That's me--Betsy Baker!"

She walked up and down rapidly, tying her chip hat under her chin again. Then she stopped, and taking her chamois purse from her pocket, laid it sharply on the desk.

"Stanton Green, don't be a fool! Rise up out of this, and be a man again. Take enough out o' that bag to pay what you owe Gov'ment, send in your resignation, and keep the rest to start you in a honest life elsewhere. But light out o' Hickory Hill afore this time to-morrow."

She pulled her mantle from the wall and opened the door.

"You are going?" he said, bitterly.

"Yes." Either she could not hold seriousness long in her capricious little fancy, or, with feminine tact, she sought to make the parting less difficult for him, for she broke into a dazzling smile. "Yes, I'm goin' to run Blue Lightning agin Charley and that way-bag back to Laurel Run, and break the record."

It is said that she did! Perhaps owing to the fact that the grade of the return journey to Laurel Run was in her favor, and that she could avoid the long, circuitous ascent to the summit taken by the stage, or that, owing to the extraordinary difficulties in the carriage of the way-bag--which had to be twice rescued from under the wheels of the stage--she entered the Laurel Run post-office as the coach leaders came trotting up the hill. Mr. Home was already on the platform.

"You'll have to ballast your next way-bag, boss," said Charley, gravely, as it escaped his clutches once more in the dust of the road, "or you'll have to make a new contract with the company. We've lost ten minutes in five miles over that bucking thing."

Home did not reply, but quickly dragged his prize into the office, scarcely noticing Mrs. Baker, who stood beside him pale and breathless. As the bolt of the bag was drawn, revealing its chaotic interior, Mrs. Baker gave a little sigh. Home glanced quickly at her, emptied the bag upon the floor, and picked up the broken and half-filled money parcel. Then he collected the scattered coins and counted them. "It's all right, Mrs. Baker," he said gravely. "_He's_ safe this time!"

"I'm so glad!" said little Mrs. Baker, with a hypocritical gasp.

"So am I," returned Home, with increasing gravity, as he took the coin, "for, from all I have gathered this after-noon, it seems he was an old prisoner of Laurel Run, a friend of your husband's, and, I think, more fool than knave!" He was silent for a moment, clicking the coins against each other; then he said carelessly: "Did he get quite away, Mrs. Baker?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," said Mrs. Baker, with a lofty air of dignity, but a somewhat debasing color. "I don't see why _I_ should know anything about it, or why he should go away at all."

"Well," said Mr. Home, laying his hand gently on the widow's shoulder, "well, you see, it might have occurred to his friends that the _coins were marked_! That is, no doubt, the reason why he would take their good advice and go. But, as I said before, Mrs. Baker, _you're_ all right, whatever happens--the Government stands by _you_!"

THE CAPTAIN'S VICES

BY FRANCOIS COPPEE

_Francois Edouard Joachim Coppée (born 1842), poet and story-writer; has happily characterized himself as "a man of refinement who enjoys simple people, an aristocrat who loves the masses." The son of a clerk in the War Department, and himself a citizen-soldier during the Franco-Prussian War, he has made a close study of military character, as appears in the present selection._

_Owing to his unusual sympathy with the trials, joys, and foibles of life among the middle and lower classes of Paris, Coppée has endeared himself to the general public as perhaps no other writer of this generation has succeeded in doing._

THE CAPTAIN'S VICES*

By FRANCOIS COPPEE

*Translated for Great Short Stories by Mrs. J. L. Meyer.

I

The name of the place where Captain Mercadier (thirty years in the service, twenty-two campaigns, and three wounds) settled when he was retired is of small importance. It was a place similar to all the little cities which strive to acquire, but do not acquire, a branch railway station. As there was no railway station there the natives had but one diversion: they all met on the Place de la Fontaine at the same hour every day to see the diligence roll in to the cracking of the long whip and the jingling of the little bells. The city numbered 3,000 inhabitants (ambitiously called by the statistics "souls"), and it fed its vanity on the fact that it was the county-seat. It possessed ramparts shaded by trees, a pretty river for fishing with the line, and a church of the charming epoch of the flamboyant Gothic, dishonored by a terrible "Stations of the Cross," sent down direct from Saint Sulpice.

Always on Monday the public square was mottled with the great blue and red umbrellas of the market; and the country people came in in carts and berlins. But the rest of the week the village fell back with drowsy delight into the silence and the solitude which endeared it to the sober bourgeoise who made up its 3,000 "souls."

The streets were paved in little patterns, and through the closed windows of the ground floors could be seen bouquets made of the hair of the departed--or of some other hair--and wreaths of orange blossoms on cushions under glass shades. And through the half-glass doors of the gardens passers-by could see statuettes of Napoleon formed of clam-shells. Of course, the principal inn was named "_l'Ecu de France_." The town registrar was a poet; he rimed acrostics for the ladies of the best society of the place.

Captain Mercadier had chosen that particular village for the frivolous reason that it was his birthplace. In his boisterous youth he had mutilated the advertising signs and chipped splinters out of the porcelain bell-knobs. Despite these potent reasons, he had neither relations nor friends in the city, and his memories of his childhood held nothing but the indignant faces of the tradesmen, who showed him their clenched fists as they screamed and capered on their doorsills; the catechism, which menaced him with hell; a school where he was told that he should die upon the scaffold, and--last memory of all--his departure for the regiment, a departure hastened a trifle by the paternal malediction. For he was no saint, this captain! The record of his career was black with days passed in the guard-house (causes for punishment being absence from roll-call without leave, and orgies after taps). Time and time again he had been stripped of his chevrons (both as corporal and as sergeant), and it had been only by chance--thanks to the broad license of the campaign--that he had won his first epaulette. Stern and bold soldier, he had passed the greater part of his life in Algeria, having enlisted at the time when our men in the ranks wore the high kepi and white cross-belt and carried the heavy cartridge-box. He had had Lamoricière for commandant; the Duc de Nemours (who had been near him when he received his first wound) had decorated him; and while he was sergeant-major old Bugeaud had called him by his given name and pulled his ears. He had been a prisoner of Abd-el-Kadir; he bore the scars of a yataghan on his neck; carried one bullet in his shoulder and another in his leg; and, despite absinthe, duels, and gambling debts, and the almond-shaped black eyes of the Jewesses, he had forced victory at the point of the bayonet and the sabre, and so won his grade of Captain in the First Regiment of Cuirassiers. Captain Mercadier (thirty years of service, twenty-two campaigns, three wounds) had just been retired, and for the first time drawn his half-pay--not quite two hundred dollars, which, added to the fifty dollars accompanying his cross, placed him in the condition of honorable poverty reserved by the state for the men who have best served her.

The Captain's entrance in his native town was devoid of pomp. He arrived one morning in the imperial of the diligence, chewing the remains of an extinct cigar, and talking and laughing with the driver, to whom during the journey he had narrated the story of how he had passed the Iron Gates. His auditor had cut the narrative by oaths or by gross threats addressed to the straining mare upon the right, but Mercadier was indulgent, and he had told his history to its end.

When the diligence drew into the Place de la Fontaine he flung down an old valise covered by labels representing all the railroads that he had traveled when he changed garrison, and three minutes later the assembled citizens were stupefied by the spectacle of a man wearing the ribbon, standing at the zinc counter of the nearest wine-shop and drinking and cracking jokes with the driver. (The fact of his ribbon would have been exciting had there been nothing else!)

Mercadier, Captain of the First, installed himself, in soldier fashion, very summarily, in a house in the suburbs, where two captive cows were lowing, and where ducks and chickens waddled or strutted with uplifted claw, passing and repassing the open door of a wagon-house. Mercadier had seen a sign, "Furnished room to let," and, preceded by a lady as dragoon-like as himself, had mounted some stairs (guarded by a wooden railing and perfumed by the strong odors of a stable), and had entered a large room with a tiled floor, with walls gaily covered with paper representing (in bright blue on a white ground) Joseph Poniatowski, multiplied _ad infinitum_ and leaping courageously into the Elster. It is probable that there was some subtle power for seduction in this bizarre decoration; for, without an instant's hesitation, without forebodings as to the almost inevitable discomfort presaged by the hard straw chairs, the stiff, neglected black walnut furniture, or the narrow bed with curtains yellowed by their years, he closed the bargain, and in a quarter of an hour he had emptied his trunk, hung his clothes, set his boots in a corner, and decorated the blue walls with a "trophy" composed of three pipes, a sabre, and a brace of pistols. That done, he sallied forth, visited the grocery and the wine-shop across the way, bought a pound of candles and a bottle of rum, returned to his room, set his purchases on the mantel-shelf, and looked around him with the air of a man well pleased. Then, according to a habit acquired in barracks and in the field, he shaved without a mirror, brushed his coat, pulled his hat over his ears, and went out in search of a café.

This visit to the café was a settled habit.

The Captain had three vices, equally balanced, and he satisfied all their claims. His vices were: Tobacco, Absinthe, and Cards. The greater part of his life had passed in cafés, and had any one denied it, he might have drawn a map of the countries where he had lived, and placed in that map all the cafés, just as they had stood when he had visited them. He was never at his ease unless seated on the smooth velvet of a café bench, before a square of green cloth, on which, as he played his games, glasses and saucers accumulated; and his cigars were never just right unless he could strike his matches on the rough underside of the marble table.

And he had never failed, having hung his sabre and his kepi on a peg, to settle down into his chair, unbutton some of the buttons of his vest, to heave a sigh and to cry out: "There, that is better!"

So now, his first care was to choose his café; and, having gone round the city, not finding just what he wished for, he fixed his critical eyes upon the café Prosper (at the angle of the Place du Marché and the rue de la Paroisse). It was not his ideal of a café. The exterior offered several details smacking too much of the province--for instance, that waiter in the black apron; the little yew trees in boxes painted green; the tables covered with white oilcloth! But the Captain liked the interior, so he took his place there. Immediately after his entrance he was rejoiced by the sound of the call-bell, pressed by the fat hand of the stout, florid cashier (dress of summer lightness; a red ribbon in her well-oiled hair). He saluted her with the gallantry of an officer (retired). He noticed that she held her place with majesty sufficient to the occasion, and that she was flanked by quaint pyramids of billiard balls. The café was bright and clean, and evenly carpeted with yellow sand. He sauntered around the room, looked into the mirrors and at the pictures, in which musketeers and ladies in riding-dress sipped champagne in landscapes full of hollyhocks. He ordered drinks. Flies were dying in his wine; but he was a soldier, habituated to witness death. As a man he was indulgent, and he ignored the very visible tragedies with a stoicism grounded by long experience in wild countries, where insects bathe in wine with a familiarity strictly provincial. Eight days later he was one of the pillars of the Café Prosper. His punctual habits were known there; the waiters anticipated his wishes. Soon he ate his meals with the proprietors of the café.

The Captain was a precious recruit for the café's habitual clients (people who were bored to death by the terrible inertia of the province); to them his arrival was a windfall. Here was a man who had seen the world--past master of all the games! He told, gaily enough, about his wars and his love affairs. He was enchanted to find people who were ignorant of his history. It would take six months to tell them of his raids, his skirmishes, his outpost duty of a dark night, his battles, his hunts, the retreat from Constantine, the capture of Bou-Mazâ, the officers' receptions, with their illimitible number of punches "_au kirsch_." Ah! human weakness! he was not sorry to be a little of an oracle somewhere, at least; he from whom the subs, just delivered from Saint-Cyr, had fled to escape his stories.

As a general thing his auditors were the master of the café (a fat beer-sack, silent and stupid; always in short-sleeves, and remarkable for nothing but his painted pipes), the constable, a dogged gentleman dressed like an undertaker--he was despised because he carried off the sugar that he could not use in his mazagran--the registrar, the man who wrote acrostics, truly a very sweet-tempered man, and a man of very weak constitution, who sent answers to the riddles in the illustrated journals; and, last of all, the veterinary of the county, who, in his quality of atheist and democrat, permitted himself to contradict the Captain now and then. This practitioner was a man with bushy whiskers and eyeglasses. He presided when the Radical Committee met toward election time. When the parish priest took up a little collection among the devotees of his congregation (to the end that he might decorate his church with some horrible gilded plaster statue), the veterinary wrote a letter to the "Siècle" denouncing "the cupidity of the sons of Loyola."

One evening the Captain left his cards and went out to get cigars. He had just had an animated political discussion with the veterinary. As soon as he was out of hearing the veterinary muttered some tirades, in which could be distinguished such phrases as "Sabre trailer!" "Braggart!" "Let him keep to facts!" "Smash his face for him!" etc. While the veterinary was grumbling, the Captain came back, whistling a march and twisting his cane as he had twisted his sabre. The veterinary stopped as if struck by lightning; and the incident was closed.

But this was only an incident; on the whole, the little community of the Café Prosper had few discussions. The old residents yielded peaceably to the presidency of the stranger. Mercadier's martial head, the white beard trimmed after the fashion of the Bearnais, were imposing enough; and the little city, already so proud of many things, had one thing more to boast of--her most conspicuous representative:

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ MERCADIER │
│ │
│ Captain of the First Cuirassiers │
│ Army of France (Retired) │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

II

There is no such thing as perfect happiness, and Captain Mercadier, who had thought that he had found it (happiness) when he installed himself in his café, was forced to abjure his illusions. On market-day the café was not fit to turn a card in. From daybreak it swarmed with trucksters, farmers, men who sold hogs, eggs, and poultry; loud-mouthed people with thick, sunburnt necks, carrying mammoth rawhides, slouching about in blue blouses and otter-skin caps, who drank as they drove their bargains, thumped the tables with their fists, called the waiter "thou," cracked the billiard balls, and "raised hell" generally. When the Captain entered the café for his 11 a.m. breakfast, he found the room full of drunkards lying over the tables, staggering about or bolting their coarse dinners. His own place was taken. The cashier's bell rang incessantly; the proprietor and the waiter bustled about, napkins on arms; in short, it was a day of bad luck, and the days preceding it weighed on the Captain's spirits like presentiments of evil. One Monday morning his courage failed him and he decided to eat at home.

He knew that the café would swarm; that he could not eat or drink in peace; that the green table would be unfit for play. But a ray of the soft autumnal sunlight enticed him, and he went out and took his seat on the stone bench by the street door. He was sitting there, smoking his damp cigar, melancholy enough, when he saw, coming down the street, a little girl eight or ten years old, driving before her a flock of geese. In her hand she held a switch.

Looking fixedly at her as she drew nearer, the Captain saw that she had a wooden leg. There was nothing of the father in the heart of the old soldier; he was a hardened bachelor, impervious as a shellback to the feelings of a family-father; in the days of his service in Algeria, when the little Arabs had pursued him, imploring him with their soft eyes, he had chased them with a whip. On the few occasions of his visits to his married comrades he had gone home growling against their ill-kept and weeping "young ones," who had "pawed" his gold lace with unclean fingers. But the strange aspect of this child, the peculiarity of her infirmity, moved him with feelings that he had never known. His heart contracted at sight of the little creature. The wasted frame was barely covered by a ragged skirt and worn-out shirt. And then she followed her geese so bravely! The dust arose in clouds around her bare foot as she stumped along on her ill-made wooden leg.

Recognizing their residence, the geese entered the courtyard and the child was following them, when the old man stopped her.

"Eh! little girl!" he cried, "what is your name?"

"Pierrette, at your service, sir," answered the child, fixing great dark eyes upon him and putting back her disordered hair.

"Do you belong here? I have never seen you until now."

"Oh! yes, and I know you well. I sleep under the stairs, and you wake me up every night when you come home."

"Truly? Well, hereafter I will come on tiptoes. How old are you?"

"Nine years old, sir, next All Saints."

"Is the madame your mother?"

"No, sir. I am a servant."

"What do they pay you?"

"They give me my soup and my bed under the stairs."

"How did you get that arrangement?" (pointing to the wooden leg).

"A horse kicked me when I was six years old."

"Are your parents living?"

The pale face reddened, and she murmured, hesitating as if ashamed to confess it:

"I am a foundling."

Then with an awkward salute she limped away, passing under the porte-cochère; and the Captain heard the clicking of the wooden leg as it struck the pavement of the courtyard.

"Good heavens!" he said, mechanically taking the road to the café.

"This is not according to regulations! If a soldier loses his leg he goes to the hospital! They give him money for tobacco. This one has to work and they give her nothing! That is too much! Such an infirmity! Too bad! too bad!" He had reached the café, but when he saw the blue blouses, and when he heard the roars of coarse laughter, he turned away and retraced his steps. He was in very bad humor.

He had never been in his room so long when it was daylight. The room was sordid! The bed-curtains were the color of tanned meerschaum; the rug was littered with cigar stumps and with other things more appropriate for the cuspidor than for the carpet; the dust lay on everything, and so thick that a man might write his name in it.

He gazed at the blue walls, the pictured river, where the sublime lancer of Leipsic met his glorious death; then, to pass the time, he reviewed his wardrobe.

"I need a striker," he murmured. "As I am now I should not pass muster"; and suddenly his thoughts turned to the cripple.

"I have it! I will rent the adjoining room! Winter is coming; the little one would freeze under the stairs! she shall be my striker, caterer, sutler; _that_ one is brave enough for a man! _Quoi!_"

Then his face clouded; quarter-day was coming, and he was deep in debt at the café.

"I am not rich enough," he said gloomily, "and yet they rob me down there! I could stake my pay on that! What do I have to eat? My board is too dear; and that devil of a horse-doctor cheats like old man Bezique himself. For eight days I have paid for his drinks. Who knows if I should not do better to take the little one! She could make soup for breakfast, _pot-au-feu_ for dinner, and a stew for supper. The campaign grub! don't I remember it!"

Decidedly, the temptation was strong.

Going into the street that night, he met the mistress of the house, a fat, rosy-cheeked peasant.

The little girl was with her; they stood half-bent, picking up the droppings before the house with pitchforks.

"Can she sew, scrub, make soup?" he asked abruptly.

"Who, Pierrette? Why shouldn't she?"

"Does she know anything of all that?"

"Why not? She is a foundling; she came from the hospital; they teach them to take care of themselves."

"I say! little one, you are not afraid of me, are you? No, I would not hurt you! What do you think of it, madame? May I take her? I need a servant."

"You may take her if you will feed and clothe her."

"Agreed! Here are four dollars; buy her a dress and a shoe; let her put them on at once. To-morrow we will draw up papers."

Then, amiably tapping the child upon the cheek, he went away, twirling his cane--it was just such a _moulinet_ as he had made with his sabre.

"I shall have to draw the line on my drinks--a few less absinthes, Captain Mercadier!" he thought merrily. "As for the horse-doctor, I must turn his flank! I can't play bezique any more. _This_ thing is according to regulations!"

. . . . . . . . . . . .

"Captain, you are a deserter!" said the pillars of the Café Prosper, when he appeared among them after a long absence.

"Well, that's about it!" answered the Captain.

But the poor man had not foreseen all the consequences of his charity. By suppressing his beer and absinthes he had managed to clothe and feed the child of his adoption; but the modest price of her sustenance did not end it! Now the bachelor was housekeeping! and housekeeping costs money.

The heart of the child was full of gratitude and she proved it by her acts. The Captain's room was as fresh as a rose; the furniture was like new; the spiders no longer trailed their threads over the glorious death of Poniatowski. When the Captain set foot upon the stair he was saluted by the odor of cabbage soup and all the well-remembered dishes of the mess! All that set upon the coarse but snow-white cloth; and the painted plate and the sparkling cover! Sapristi! _this_ was campaigning!

Pierrette always profited by the after-dinner humor to confess her wishes. She longed for brass andirons for the chimney; for now the Captain had a warm room every day; the little one kept the fire laid ready for his coming. The days were short and cold. And Pierrette longed for a pretty mold; for she made such cakes for the Captain!

"Yes, all that cost money. Where was it to come from?" But the Captain smiled at all her wishes. Home comforts had won the old war-dog; home was the best! and this home was a real home. "The andirons must be had--so must the mold! but how--where from?" He resisted the mellow seductions of his Loudrès--a demi-Loudrès must do for the present; then came another struggle and the demi-Loudrès was displaced by a 1-cent "Algérienne." Some one offered five points at écarté, and a stare that froze the marrow in his bones answered him. Then came the last sacrifice. The third glass of beer was suppressed--so was the second glass of chartreuse. It was a struggle! They were on foot, breast to breast! Time and time again the green demon tugged at the strings of his memory. Sometimes it was too strong for him; he entered the wine-shop; then, summoning all his manhood, he triumphed over his tempters; and that night his _moulinet_ was like a whirlwind on a whirlpool. Sometimes, in dreams, he turned the king and cried out _à tout_! Then, springing from his bed, he stood at attention, and saluted with the gesture of a conqueror.

"Drink, play, tobacco! Ho, ho! Not according to regulations!" He was not superhuman; _but he had been a soldier_! Mercadier, First Cuirassiers, Army of France (retired).

He loved his little adopted daughter all the better for the sacrifices made for her; and each time that he controlled his vices he kissed her more tenderly. _For he kissed her_. She was no longer a servant; that was past! Once, when she had stood silent and respectful on her wooden leg, his pent-up feelings had burst their bounds; he had seized the thin hands and cried out furiously:

"Come here and kiss me! then take your place at the table and talk to me. Give me the pleasure of hearing you say '_thou_' to me! _Mille tonnerres!_"

So _that_ was settled--she was his daughter. The child had saved him from an inglorious old age. He had cast aside the vices of the Egotist and to fill their place he had taken a passion for all eternity--the love of a father for his child! He adored the little infirm creature who limped around him in the coquettish, well-ordered room.

He had taught Pierrette to read, and now, recalling his own early lessons, he had set her a copy in writing. And he was never happier than when he sat in his polished chair watching the child bending over her copy, or, with face close to the paper, lapping up an ink-spot, as a kitten laps up cream. She had copied all the letters of the most interminable of adverbs!