Short Stories of Various Types

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For a moment I could only stare at her in bewildered terror. Far from
recognizing me, she seemed to be absorbed in a nymph-like contemplation
of her own graces in the pool. Then I called "Consuelo!" and galloped
frantically around the spring. But there was no response, nor was there
anything to be seen but the all-unconscious Chu Chu. The pool, thank
Heaven! was not deep enough to have drowned any one; there were no
signs of a struggle on its quaggy edges. The horse might have come from
a distance! I galloped on, still calling. A few hundred yards further I
detected the vivid glow of Chu Chu's scarlet saddle-blanket in the
brush near the trail. My heart leaped--I was on the track. I called
again; this time a faint reply, in accents I knew too well, came from
the field beside me!

Consuelo was there! reclining beside a manzanita bush which screened
her from the road, in what struck me, even at that supreme moment, as a
judicious and picturesquely selected couch of scented Indian grass and
dry tussocks. The velvet hat with its balls of scarlet plush was laid
carefully aside; her lovely blue-black hair retained its tight coils
undisheveled, her eyes were luminous and tender. Shocked as I was at
her apparent helplessness, I remember being impressed with the fact
that it gave so little indication of violent usage or disaster.

I threw myself frantically on the ground beside her.

"You are hurt, Consita! For Heaven's sake, what has happened?"

She pushed my hat back with her little hand, and tumbled my hair
gently.

"Nothing. _You_ are here, Pancho--eet is enofe! What shall come after
thees--when I am perhaps gone among the grave--make nothing! _You_ are
here--I am happy. For a little, perhaps--not mooch."

"But," I went on desperately, "was it an accident? Were you thrown? Was
it Chu Chu?"--for somehow, in spite of her languid posture and voice, I
could not, even in my fears, believe her seriously hurt.

"Beat not the poor beast, Pancho. It is not from _her_ comes thees
thing. She have make nothing--believe me! I have come upon your
assignation with Miss Essmith! I make but to pass you--to fly--to never
come back! I have say to Chu Chu, 'Fly!' We fly many miles. Sometimes
together, sometimes not so mooch! Sometimes in the saddle, sometimes on
the neck! Many things remain in the road; at the end, I myself remain!
I have say, 'Courage, Pancho will come!' Then I say, 'No, he is talk
with Miss Essmith!' I remember not more. I have creep here on the
hands. Eet is feenish!"

I looked at her distractedly. She smiled tenderly and slightly smoothed
down and rearranged a fold of her dress to cover her delicate little
boot.

"But," I protested, "you are not much hurt, dearest. You have broken no
bones. Perhaps," I added, looking at the boot, "only a slight sprain.
Let me carry you to my horse; I will walk beside you, home. Do, dearest
Consita!"

She turned her lovely eyes towards me sadly. "You comprehend not, my
poor Pancho! It is not of the foot, the ankle, the arm, or the head
that I can say, 'She is broke.' I would it were even so. But"--she
lifted her sweet lashes slowly--"I have derrange my inside. It is an
affair of my family. My grandfather have once toomble over the bull at
a _rodeo_.[165-1] He speak no more; he is dead. For why? He has
derrange his inside. Believe me, it is of the family. You comprehend?
The Saltellos are not as the other peoples for this. When I am gone,
you will bring to me the berry to grow upon my tomb, Pancho; the berry
you have picked for me. The little flower will come too, the little
star will arrive, but Consuelo, who lofe you, she will come not more!

"When you are happy and talk in the road to the Essmith, you will not
think of me. You will not see my eyes, Pancho; thees little grass"--she
ran her plump little fingers through a tussock--"will hide them; and
the small animals in the black coats that lif here will have much
sorrow--but you will not. It ees better so! My father will not that I,
a Catholique, should marry into a camp-meeting and lif in a tent." (It
was one of Consuelo's bewildering beliefs that there was only one form
of dissent--Methodism!) "He will not that I should marry a man who
possess not the many horses, ox, and cow, like him. But _I_ care not.
_You_ are my only religion, Pancho! I have enofe of the horse, and ox,
and cow when _you_ are with me! Kiss me, Pancho. Perhaps it is for the
last time--the feenish! Who knows?"

There were tears in her lovely eyes; I felt that my own were growing
dim; the sun was sinking over the dreary plain to the slow rising of
the wind; and infinite loneliness had fallen upon us, and yet I was
miserably conscious of some dreadful unreality in it all. A desire to
laugh, which I felt must be hysterical, was creeping over me; I dared
not speak. But her dear head was on my shoulder, and the situation was
not unpleasant.

Nevertheless, something must be done! This was the more difficult as it
was by no means clear what had already been done. Even while I
supported her drooping figure, I was straining my eyes across her
shoulder for succor of some kind. Suddenly the figure of a rapid rider
appeared upon the road. It seemed familiar. I looked again--it was the
blessed Enriquez! A sense of deep relief came over me. I loved
Consuelo; but never before had lover ever hailed the irruption of one
of his beloved's family with such complacency.

"You are safe, dearest; it is Enriquez!"

I thought she received the information coldly. Suddenly she turned upon
me her eyes, now bright and glittering. "Swear to me at the instant,
Pancho, that you will not again look upon Miss Essmith, even for once."

I was simple and literal. Miss Smith was my nearest neighbor, and
unless I was stricken with blindness, compliance was impossible. I
hesitated--but swore.

"Enofe--you have hesitate--I will no more."

She rose to her feet with grave deliberation. For an instant, with the
recollection of the delicate internal organization of the Saltellos on
my mind, I was in agony lest she should totter and fall, even then,
yielding up her gentle spirit on the spot. But when I looked again, she
had a hairpin between her white teeth and was carefully adjusting her
toreador hat. And beside us was Enriquez--cheerful, alert, voluble, and
undaunted.

"Eureka! I have found! We are all here! Eet is a leetle public--eh! A
leetle too much of a front seat for a _tete-a-tete_,[167-1] my yonge
friends," he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, "but
for the accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of
the one man shall envenom the meat of the other. But" (in a whisper to
me) "as to thees horse--thees Chu Chu, which I have just pass--why is
she undress? Surely you would no make an exposition of her to the
traveler to suspect! And if not, why so?"

I tried to explain, looking at Consuelo, that Chu Chu had run away,
that Consuelo had met with a terrible accident, had been thrown, and I
feared had suffered serious internal injury. But to my embarrassment
Consuelo maintained a half scornful silence, and an inconsistent
freshness of healthful indifference, as Enriquez approached her with an
engaging smile. "Ah, yes, she have the headache, and the molligrubs.
She will sit on the damp stone when the gentle dew is falling. I
comprehend. Meet me in the lane when the clock strike nine! But," in a
lower voice, "of thees undress horse I comprehend nothing! Look you--it
is sad and strange."

He went off to fetch Chu Chu, leaving me and Consuelo alone. I do not
think I ever felt so utterly abject and bewildered before in my life.
Without knowing why, I was miserably conscious of having in some way
offended the girl for whom I believed I would have given my life, and I
had made her and myself ridiculous in the eyes of her brother. I had
again failed in my slower Western nature to understand her high
romantic Spanish soul! Meantime she was smoothing out her riding habit,
and looking as fresh and pretty as when she first left her house.

"Consita," I said hesitatingly, "you are not angry with me?"

"Angry?" she repeated haughtily, without looking at me. "Oh, no! Of a
possibility eet is Mees Essmith who is angry that I have interroopt her
tete-a-tete with you, and have send here my brother to make the same
with me."

"But," I said eagerly, "Miss Smith does not even know Enriquez!"

Consuelo turned on me a glance of unutterable significance. "Ah!" she
said darkly, "you _tink_!"

Indeed I _knew_. But here I believed I understood Consuelo and was
relieved. I even ventured to say gently, "And you are better?"

She drew herself up to her full height, which was not much. "Of my
health, what is it? A nothing. Yes! Of my soul let us not speak."

Nevertheless, when Enriquez appeared with Chu Chu she ran towards her
with outstretched arms. Chu Chu protruded about six inches of upper lip
in response--apparently under the impression, which I could quite
understand, that her mistress was edible. And, I may have been
mistaken, but their beautiful eyes met in an absolute and distinct
glance of intelligence!

During the home journey Consuelo recovered her spirits and parted from
me with a magnanimous and forgiving pressure of the hand. I do not know
what explanation of Chu Chu's original escapade was given to Enriquez
and the rest of the family; the inscrutable forgiveness extended to me
by Consuelo precluded any further inquiry on my part. I was willing to
leave it a secret between her and Chu Chu. But strange to say, it
seemed to complete our own understanding, and precipitated, not only
our love-making, but the final catastrophe which culminated that
romance. For we had resolved to elope. I do not know that this heroic
remedy was absolutely necessary from the attitude of either Consuelo's
family or my own; I am inclined to think we preferred it because it
involved no previous explanation or advice.

Need I say that our confidant and firm ally was Consuelo's brother--the
alert, the linguistic, the ever-happy, ever-ready Enriquez? It was
understood that his presence would not only give a certain mature
respectability to our performance--but I do not think we would have
contemplated this step without it. During one of our riding excursions
we were to secure the services of a Methodist minister in the adjoining
county, and later that of the Mission _padre_[169-1]--when the secret
was out. "I will gif her away," said Enriquez confidently, "it will on
the instant propitiate the old fellow who shall perform the affair and
withhold his jaw. A little chin-music from your oncle 'Arry shall
finish it! Remain tranquil and forget not a ring! One does not always,
in the agony and dissatisfaction of the moment, a ring remember. I
shall bring two in the pocket of my dress."

If I did not entirely participate in this roseate view, it may have
been because Enriquez, although a few years my senior, was much
younger-looking, and with his demure deviltry of eye and his upper lip
close shaven for this occasion, he suggested a depraved acolyte rather
than a responsible member of a family. Consuelo had also confided to me
that her father--possibly owing to some rumors of our previous
escapade--had forbidden any further excursions with me alone. The
innocent man did not know that Chu Chu had forbidden it also, and that
even on this momentous occasion both Enriquez and myself were obliged
to ride in opposite fields like out-flankers. But we nevertheless felt
the full guilt of disobedience added to our desperate enterprise.
Meanwhile, although pressed for time and subject to discovery at any
moment, I managed at certain points of the road to dismount and walk
beside Chu Chu (who did not seem to recognize me on foot), holding
Consuelo's hand in my own, with the discreet Enriquez leading my horse
in the distant field. I retain a very vivid picture of that walk--the
ascent of a gentle slope towards a prospect as yet unknown but full of
glorious possibilities; the tender dropping light of an autumn sky,
slightly filmed with the promise of the future rains, like foreshadowed
tears, and the half-frightened, half-serious talk into which Consuelo
and I had insensibly fallen.

And then, I don't know how it happened, but as we reached the summit
Chu Chu suddenly reared, wheeled, and the next moment was flying back
along the road we had just traveled, at the top of her speed! It might
have been that, after her abstracted fashion, she only at that moment
detected my presence; but so sudden and complete was her evolution that
before I could regain my horse from the astonished Enriquez she was
already a quarter of a mile on the homeward stretch, with the frantic
Consuelo pulling hopelessly at the bridle.

We started in pursuit. But a horrible despair seized us. To attempt to
overtake her, even to follow at the same rate of speed would only
excite Chu Chu and endanger Consuelo's life. There was absolutely no
help for it, nothing could be done; the mare had taken her determined,
long, continuous stride, the road was a straight, steady descent all
the way back to the village, Chu Chu had the bit between her teeth, and
there was no prospect of swerving her. We could only follow hopelessly,
idiotically, furiously, until Chu Chu dashed triumphantly into the
Saltellos' courtyard, carrying the half-fainting Consuelo back to the
arms of her assembled and astonished family.

It was our last ride together. It was the last I ever saw of Consuelo
before her transfer to the safe seclusion of a convent in Southern
California. It was the last I ever saw of Chu Chu, who in the confusion
of that _rencontre_[172-1] was overlooked in her half-loosed harness
and allowed to escape through the back gate to the fields. Months
afterwards it was said that she had been identified among a band of
wild horses in the Coast Range, as a strange and beautiful creature who
had escaped the brand of the _rodeo_ and had become a myth. There was
another legend that she had been seen, sleek, fat, and gorgeously
caparisoned, issuing from the gateway of the Rosario _patio_,[172-2]
before a lumbering Spanish _cabriole_[172-3] in which a short, stout
matron was seated--but I will have none of it. For there are days when
she still lives, and I can see her plainly still climbing the gentle
slope towards the summit, with Consuelo on her back and myself at her
side, pressing eagerly forward towards the illimitable prospect that
opens in the distance.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

Feathertop

A MORALIZED LEGEND

"Dickon," cried Mother Rigby, "a coal for my pipe!"

The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. She had
thrust it there after filling it with tobacco but without stooping to
light it at the hearth where, indeed, there was no appearance of a fire
having been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the
order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the
pipe and a whiff of smoke from Mother Rigby's lips. Whence the coal
came and how brought hither by an invisible hand, I have never been
able to discover.

"Good!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. "Thank ye, Dickon!
And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I
need you again."

The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely
sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended
to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of
May, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little
green, rolled-up leaf of the Indian corn just peeping out of the soil.
She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as
ever was seen, and to finish it immediately from top to toe, so that it
should begin its sentinel's duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby
(as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent
witches in New England, and might with very little trouble have made a
scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. But on this
occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was
further dulcified by her pipe of tobacco, she resolved to produce
something fine, beautiful, and splendid rather than hideous and
horrible.

"I don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at
my own doorstep," said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of
smoke. "I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired of doing marvelous
things, and so I'll keep within the bounds of everyday business just
for variety's sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little
children for a mile roundabout, though 'tis true I'm a witch." It was
settled, therefore, in her own mind that the scarecrow should represent
a fine gentleman of the period so far as the materials at hand would
allow.

Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of the articles that
went to the composition of this figure. The most important item of all,
probably, although it made so little show, was a certain broomstick on
which Mother Rigby had taken many an airy gallop at mid-night, and
which now served the scarecrow by way of a spinal column or, as the
unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its arms was a disabled flail
which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby before his spouse worried him
out of this troublesome world; the other, if I mistake not, was
composed of the pudding-stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied
loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the right was a
hoe-handle, and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous stick
from the wood-pile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of that kind,
were nothing better than a meal-bag stuffed with straw. Thus we have
made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the
exception of its head, and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat
withered and shriveled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two holes for
the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a bluish-colored knob in the
middle to pass for a nose. It was really quite a respectable face.

"I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said Mother
Rigby. "And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my
scarecrow."

But the clothes in this case were to be the making of the man; so the
good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of
London make and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs,
pocket-flaps, and buttonholes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched
at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the
left breast was a round hole whence either a star of nobility had been
rent away or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it
through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged
to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby's
cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to
make a grand appearance at the governor's table. To match the coat
there was a velvet waist-coat of very ample size, and formerly
embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the
maple-leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the
substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches once worn
by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had
touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand.[176-1] The
Frenchman had given these small-clothes to an Indian pow-wow, who
parted with them to the old witch for a gill of strong waters at one of
their dances in the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair
of silk stockings and put them on the figure's legs, where they showed
as unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks
making itself miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her
dead husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the
whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest
tail-feather of a rooster.

Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and
chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby
little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied
aspect, and seemed to say, "Come, look at me!"

"And you are well worth looking at, that's a fact!" quoth Mother Rigby,
in admiration at her own handiwork. "I've made many a puppet since I've
been a witch but methinks this the finest of them all. 'Tis almost too
good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I'll just fill a fresh pipe of
tobacco, and then take him out to the corn-patch."

While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost
motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth,
whether it were chance or skill or downright witchcraft, there was
something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape bedizened with its
tattered finery, and, as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel
its yellow surface into a grin--a funny kind of expression betwixt
scorn and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at
mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked, the better she was pleased.

"Dickon," cried she, sharply, "another coal for my pipe!"

Hardly had she spoken than, just as before, there was a red-glowing
coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff, and puffed it
forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through
the one dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to
flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney-corner
whence this had been brought. But where that chimney-corner might be or
who brought the coal from it--further than that the invisible messenger
seemed to respond to the name of Dickon--I cannot tell.

"That puppet yonder," thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed
on the scarecrow, "is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a
corn-patch frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He's capable of
better things. Why, I've danced with a worse one when partners happened
to be scarce at our witch-meetings in the forests! What if I should let
him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty fellows who
go bustling about the world?"

The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled.

"He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street-corner," continued
she. "Well, I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day further than
the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am and a witch I'm likely to be
and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow,
were it only for the joke's sake."

While muttering these words Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own
mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature
in the pumpkin-visage of the scarecrow.

"Puff, darling, puff!" she said. "Puff away, my fine fellow! Your life
depends on it!"

This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere
thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a
shriveled pumpkin for a head, as we know to have been the scarecrow's
case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother
Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this
fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in
the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty
will be at once got over if we can only bring ourselves to believe that
as soon as the old dame bade him puff there came a whiff of smoke from
the scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be sure,
but it was followed by another and another, each more decided than the
preceding one.

"Puff away, my pet! Puff away, my pretty one!" Mother Rigby kept
repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "It is the breath of life to ye
and that you may take my word for."

Beyond all question, the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a
spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely glowing coal that so
mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungently aromatic smoke
which exhaled from the kindled weed. The figure, after a few doubtful
attempts, at length blew forth a volley of smoke extending all the way
from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and
melted away among the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort, for
the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still
glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage. The old witch
clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her
handiwork. She saw that the charm had worked well. The shriveled yellow
face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin
fantastic haze, as it were, of human likeness shifting to and fro
across it, sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more perceptible
than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like
manner, assumed a show of life such as we impart to ill-defined shapes
among the clouds and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our own
fancy.

If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether
there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, worn-out,
worthless and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow, but merely a
spectral illusion and a cunning effect of light and shade, so colored
and contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The miracles of
witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety and at
least, if the above explanations do not hit the truth of the process, I
can suggest no better.

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