The incident of the bear did not add anything in Miggless favor to the opinions of those of her own sex who were present. In fact, the repast over, a chillness radiated from the two lady passengers that no pine boughs brought in by Yuba Bill and cast as a sacrifice upon the hearth could wholly overcome. Miggles felt it; and suddenly declaring that it was time to turn in, offered to show the ladies to their bed in an adjoining room. You, boys, will have to camp out here by the fire as well as you can, she added, for thar aint but the one room.
Our sexby which, my dear sir, I allude of course to the stronger portion of humanityhas been generally relieved from the imputation of curiosity or a fondness for gossip. Yet I am constrained to say, that hardly had the door closed on Miggles than we crowded together, whispering, snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, surmises, and a thousand speculations in regard to our pretty hostess and her singular companion. I fear that we even hustled that imbecile paralytic, who sat like a voiceless Memnon in our midst, gazing with the serene indifference of the Past in his passionless eyes upon our wordy counsels. In the midst of an exciting discussion the door opened again and Miggles reentered.
But not, apparently, the same Miggles who a few hours before had flashed upon us. Her eyes were downcast, and as she hesitated for a moment on the threshold, with a blanket on her arm, she seemed to have left behind her the frank fearlessness which had charmed us a moment before. Coming into the room, she drew a low stool beside the paralytics chair, sat down, drew the blanket over her shoulders, and saying, If its all the same to you, boys, as were rather crowded, Ill stop here to-night, took the invalids withered hand in her own, and turned her eyes upon the dying fire. An instinctive feeling that this was only premonitory to more confidential relations, and perhaps some shame at our previous curiosity, kept us silent. The rain still heat upon the roof, wandering gusts of wind stirred the embers into momentary brightness, until, in a lull of the elements, Miggles suddenly lifted up her head, and, throwing her hair over her shoulder, turned her face upon the group and asked,
Is there any of you that knows me?
There was no reply.
Think again! I lived at Marysville in 53. Everybody knew me there, and everybody had the right to know me. I kept the Polka Saloon until I came to live with Jim. Thats six years ago. Perhaps Ive changed some.
The absence of recognition may have disconcerted her. She turned her head to the fire again, and it was some seconds before she again spoke, and then more rapidly
Well, you see I thought some of you must have known me. Theres no great harm done anyway. What I was going to say was this: Jim hereshe took his hand in both of hers as she spokeused to know me, if you didnt, and spent a heap of money upon me. I reckon he spent all he had. And one dayits six years ago this winterJim came into my back room, sat down on my sofy, like as you see him in that chair, and never moved again without help. He was struck all of a heap, and never seemed to know what ailed him. The doctors came and said as how it was caused all along of his way of life,for Jim was mighty free and wild-like,and that he would never get better, and couldnt last long anyway. They advised me to send him to Frisco to the hospital, for he was no good to any one and would be a baby all his life. Perhaps it was something in Jims eye, perhaps it was that I never had a baby, but I said No. I was rich then, for I was popular with everybody,gentlemen like yourself, sir, came to see me,and I sold out my business and bought this yer place, because it was sort of out of the way of travel, you see, and I brought my baby here.
With a womans intuitive tact and poetry, she had, as she spoke, slowly shifted her position so as to bring the mute figure of the ruined man between her and her audience, hiding in the shadow behind it, as if she offered it as a tacit apology for her actions. Silent and expressionless, it yet spoke for her; helpless, crushed, and smitten with the Divine thunderbolt, it still stretched an invisible arm around her.
Hidden in the darkness, but still holding his hand, she went on:
It was a long time before I could get the hang of things about yer, for I was used to company and excitement. I couldnt get any woman to help me, and a man I dursnt trust; but what with the Indians hereabout, whod do odd jobs for me, and having everything sent from the North Fork, Jim and I managed to worry through. The Doctor would run up from Sacramento once in a while. Hed ask to see Miggless baby as he called Jim, and when hed go away, hed say, Miggles, youre a trump,God bless you, and it didnt seem so lonely after that. But the last time he was here he said, as he opened the door to go, Do you know, Miggles, your baby will grow up to be a man yet and an honor to his mother; but not here, Miggles, not here! And I thought he went away sad,andandand here Miggless voice and head were somehow both lost completely in the shadow.
The folks about here are very kind, said Miggles, after a pause, coming a little into the light again. The men from the Fork used to hang around here, until they found they wasnt wanted, and the women are kind, and dont call. I was pretty lonely until I picked up Joaquin in the woods yonder one day, when he wasnt so high, and taught him to beg for his dinner; and then thars Pollythats the magpieshe knows no end of tricks, and makes it quite sociable of evenings with her talk, and so I dont feel like as I was the only living being about the ranch. And Jim here, said Miggles, with her old laugh again, and coming out quite into the firelight,JimWhy, boys, you would admire to see how much he knows for a man like him. Sometimes I bring him flowers, and he looks at em just as natural as if he knew em; and times, when were sitting alone, I read him those things on the wall. Why, Lord! said Miggles, with her frank laugh, Ive read him that whole side of the house this winter. There never was such a man for reading as Jim.
Why, asked the Judge, do you not marry this man to whom you have devoted your youthful life?
Well, you see, said Miggles, it would be playing it rather low down on Jim to take advantage of his being so helpless. And then, too, if we were man and wife, now, wed both know that I was bound to do what I do now of my own accord.
But you are young yet and attractive
Its getting late, said Miggles gravely, and youd better all turn in. Good-night, boys; and throwing the blanket over her head, Miggles laid herself down beside Jims chair, her head pillowed on the low stool that held his feet, and spoke no more. The fire slowly faded from the hearth; we each sought our blankets in silence; and presently there was no sound in the long room but the pattering of the rain upon the roof and the heavy breathing of the sleepers.
It was nearly morning when I awoke from a troubled dream. The storm had passed, the stars were shining, and through the shutterless window the full moon, lifting itself over the solemn pines without, looked into the room. It touched the lonely figure in the chair with an infinite compassion, and seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story, bathed the feet of him she loved. It even lent a kindly poetry to the rugged outline of Yuba Bill, half reclining on his elbow between them and his passengers, with savagely patient eyes keeping watch and ward. And then I fell asleep and only woke at broad day, with Yuba Bill standing over me, and All aboard ringing in my ears.