Tales of the Argonauts | Page 5

hev
round"--

"What do you have him round for, then?" interrupted Miss Jinny
sharply.
Mr. McClosky's eyes fell. "Ef he hedn't kem out of his way to- night to
do me a good turn, I wouldn't ask ye, Jinny. I wouldn't, so help me! But
I thought, ez I couldn't do any thing with him, you might come down,
and sorter fetch him, Jinny, as you did the others."
Miss Jenny shrugged her pretty shoulders.
"Is he old, or young?"
"He's young enough, Jinny; but he knows a power of things."
"What does he do?"
"Not much, I reckon. He's got money in the mill at Four Forks. He
travels round a good deal. I've heard, Jinny that he's a poet-- writes
them rhymes, you know." Mr. McClosky here appealed submissively
but directly to his daughter. He remembered that she had frequently
been in receipt of printed elegaic couplets known as "mottoes,"
containing enclosures equally saccharine.
Miss Jenny slightly curled her pretty lip. She had that fine contempt for
the illusions of fancy which belongs to the perfectly healthy young
animal.
"Not," continued Mr. McClosky, rubbing his head reflectively, "not ez
I'd advise ye, Jinny, to say any thing to him about poetry. It ain't twenty
minutes ago ez I did. I set the whiskey afore him in the parlor. I wound
up the music-box, and set it goin'. Then I sez to him, sociable-like and
free, 'Jest consider yourself in your own house, and repeat what you
allow to be your finest production,' and he raged. That man, Jinny, jest
raged! Thar's no end of the names he called me. You see, Jinny,"
continued Mr. McClosky apologetically, "he's known me a long time."
But his daughter had already dismissed the question with her usual
directness. "I'll be down in a few moments, father," she said after a

pause, "but don't say any thing to him about it--don't say I was abed."
Mr. McClosky's face beamed. "You was allers a good girl, Jinny," he
said, dropping on one knee the better to imprint a respectful kiss on her
forehead. But Jenny caught him by the wrists, and for a moment held
him captive. "Father," said she, trying to fix his shy eyes with the clear,
steady glance of her own, "all the girls that were there to-night had
some one with them. Mame Robinson had her aunt; Lucy Rance had
her mother; Kate Pierson had her sister-- all, except me, had some other
woman. Father dear," her lip trembled just a little, "I wish mother
hadn't died when I was so small. I wish there was some other woman in
the family besides me. I ain't lonely with you, father dear; but if there
was only some one, you know, when the time comes for John and
me"--
Her voice here suddenly gave out, but not her brave eyes, that were still
fixed earnestly upon his face. Mr. McClosky, apparently tracing out a
pattern on the bedquilt, essayed words of comfort.
"Thar ain't one of them gals ez you've named, Jinny, ez could do what
you've done with a whole Noah's ark of relations, at their backs! Thar
ain't 'one ez wouldn't sacrifice her nearest relation to make the strike
that you hev. Ez to mothers, maybe, my dear you're doin' better without
one." He rose suddenly, and walked toward the door. When he reached
it, he turned, and, in his old deprecating manner, said, "Don't be long,
Jinny," smiled, and vanished from the head downward, his canvas
slippers asserting themselves resolutely to the last.
When Mr. McClosky reached his parlor again, his troublesome guest
was not there. The decanter stood on the table untouched; three or four
books lay upon the floor; a number of photographic views of the
Sierras were scattered over the sofa; two sofa-pillows, a newspaper,
and a Mexican blanket, lay on the carpet, as if the late occupant of the
room had tried to read in a recumbent position. A French window
opening upon a veranda, which never before in the history of the house
had been unfastened, now betrayed by its waving lace curtain the way
that the fugitive had escaped. Mr. McClosky heaved a sigh of despair.
He looked at the gorgeous carpet purchased in Sacramento at a

fabulous price, at the crimson satin and rosewood furniture unparalleled
in the history of Tuolumne, at the massively-framed pictures on the
walls, and looked beyond it, through the open window, to the reckless
man, who, fleeing these sybaritic allurements, was smoking a cigar
upon the moonlit road. This room, which had so often awed the youth
of Tuolumne into filial respect, was evidently a failure. It remained to
be seen if the "Rose" herself had lost her fragrance. "I reckon Jinny will
fetch him yet," said Mr. McClosky