Tales of the Argonauts | Page 4

saying quite audibly that it was "too ridiculous for any
thing." As she came back to her dressing-table, it was noticeable that
she walked steadily and erect, without that slight affectation of
lameness common to people with whom bare feet are only an episode.
Indeed, it was only four years ago, that without shoes or stockings, a
long-limbed, colty girl, in a waistless calico gown, she had leaped from
the tailboard of her father's emigrant-wagon when it first drew up at
Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild habits of the "Rose" had outlived
transplanting and cultivation.
A knock at the door surprised her. In another moment she had leaped
into bed, and with darkly-frowning eyes, from its secure recesses
demanded "Who's there?"
An apologetic murmur on the other side of the door was the response.
"Why, father!--is that you?"
There were further murmurs, affirmative, deprecatory, and persistent.
"Wait," said the "Rose." She got up, unlocked the door, leaped nimbly
into bed again, and said, "Come."
The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping shoulders, and grizzled
head, of a man past the middle age, appeared: after a moment's
hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod with canvas slippers,
concluded to follow. When the apparition was complete, it closed the
door softly, and stood there,--a very shy ghost indeed,--with apparently
more than the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation. The
"Rose" resented this impatiently, though, I fear, not altogether

intelligibly.
"Do, father, I declare!"
"You was abed, Jinny," said Mr. McClosky slowly, glancing, with a
singular mixture of masculine awe and paternal pride, upon the two
chairs and their contents,--"you was abed and ondressed."
"I was."
"Surely," said Mr. McClosky, seating himself on the extreme edge of
the bed, and painfully tucking his feet away under it,--"surely." After a
pause, he rubbed a short, thick, stumpy beard, that bore a general
resemblance to a badly-worn blacking-brush, with the palm of his hand,
and went on, "You had a good time, Jinny?"
"Yes, father."
"They was all there?"
"Yes, Rance and York and Ryder and Jack."
"And Jack!" Mr. McClosky endeavored to throw an expression of arch
inquiry into his small, tremulous eyes; but meeting the unabashed,
widely-opened lid of his daughter, he winked rapidly, and blushed to
the roots of his hair.
"Yes, Jack was there," said Jenny, without change of color, or the least
self-consciousness in her great gray eyes; "and he came home with
me." She paused a moment, locking her two hands under her head, and
assuming a more comfortable position on the pillow. "He asked me that
same question again, father, and I said, 'Yes.' It's to be--soon. We're
going to live at Four Forks, in his own house; and next winter we're
going to Sacramento. I suppose it's all right, father, eh?" She
emphasized the question with a slight kick through the bed-clothes, as
the parental McClosky had fallen into an abstract revery.
"Yes, surely," said Mr. McClosky, recovering himself with some

confusion. After a pause, he looked down at the bed-clothes, and,
patting them tenderly, continued, "You couldn't have done better, Jinny.
They isn't a girl in Tuolumne ez could strike it ez rich as you hev--even
if they got the chance." He paused again, and then said, "Jinny?"
"Yes, father."
"You'se in bed, and ondressed?"
"Yes."
"You couldn't," said Mr. McClosky, glancing hopelessly at the two
chairs, and slowly rubbing his chin,--"you couldn't dress yourself again
could yer?"
"Why, father!"
"Kinder get yourself into them things again?" he added hastily. "Not all
of 'em, you know, but some of 'em. Not if I helped you-- sorter stood
by, and lent a hand now and then with a strap, or a buckle, or a necktie,
or a shoestring?" he continued, still looking at the chairs, and evidently
trying to boldly familiarize himself with their contents.
"Are you crazy, father?" demanded Jenny suddenly sitting up with a
portentous switch of her yellow mane. Mr. McClosky rubbed one side
of his beard, which already had the appearance of having been quite
worn away by that process, and faintly dodged the question.
"Jinny," he said, tenderly stroking the bedclothes as he spoke, "this
yer's what's the matter. Thar is a stranger down stairs,--a stranger to you,
lovey, but a man ez I've knowed a long time. He's been here about an
hour; and he'll be here ontil fower o'clock, when the up-stage passes.
Now I wants ye, Jinny dear, to get up and come down stairs, and kinder
help me pass the time with him. It's no use, Jinny," he went on, gently
raising his hand to deprecate any interruption, "it's no use! He won't go
to bed; he won't play keerds; whiskey don't take no effect on him. Ever
since I knowed him, he was the most onsatisfactory critter to