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Page 43
"The women-folks are down the creek, bakin', to-day," said Jules
explanatorily; "but I reckon that one of 'em will be up here in a
jiffy to make supper, so you just take it easy till they come.
I've got to meander over to the claim afore I turn in, but you just
lie by to-night and take a rest."
He turned away, leaving Hemmingway standing in the doorway still
distraught and hesitating. Nor did the young man recognize the
delicacy of Jules' leave-taking until he had unstrapped his
portmanteau and found himself alone, free to make his toilet,
unembarrassed by company. But even then he would have preferred
the rough companionship of the miners in the common dormitory of
the general store to this intrusion upon the half-civilization of
the women, their pitiable little comforts and secret makeshifts.
His disgust of his own indecision which brought him there naturally
recoiled in the direction of his host and hostesses, and after a
hurried ablution, a change of linen, and an attempt to remove the
stains of travel from his clothes, he strode out impatiently into
the open air again.
It was singularly mild even for the season. The southwest trades
blew softly, and whispered to him of San Francisco and the distant
Pacific, with its long, steady swell. He turned again to the
overflowed Flat beneath him, and the sluggish yellow water that
scarcely broke a ripple against the walls of the half-submerged
cabins. And this was the water for whose going down they were
waiting with an immobility as tranquil as the waters themselves!
What marvelous incompetency,--or what infinite patience! He knew,
of course, their expected compensation in this "ground sluicing" at
Nature's own hand; the long rifts in the banks of the creek which
so often showed "the color" in the sparkling scales of river gold
disclosed by the action of the water; the heaps of reddish mud left
after its subsidence around the walls of the cabins,--a deposit
that often contained a treasure a dozen times more valuable than
the cabin itself! And then he heard behind him a laugh, a short
and panting breath, and turning, beheld a young woman running
towards him.
In his first astounded sight of her, in her limp nankeen sunbonnet,
thrown back from her head by the impetus of her flight, he saw only
too much hair, two much white teeth, too much eye-flash, and, above
all,--as it appeared to him,--too much confidence in the power of
these qualities. Even as she ran, it seemed to him that she was
pulling down ostentatiously the rolled-up sleeves of her pink
calico gown over her shapely arms. I am inclined to think that the
young gentleman's temper was at fault, and his conclusion hasty; a
calmer observer would have detected nothing of this in her frankly
cheerful voice. Nevertheless, her evident pleasure in the meeting
seemed to him only obtrusive coquetry.
"Lordy! I reckoned to git here afore you'd get through fixin' up,
and in time to do a little prinkin' myself, and here you're out
already." She laughed, glancing at his clean shirt and damp hair.
"But all the same, we kin have a talk, and you kin tell me all the
news afore the other wimmen get up here. It's a coon's age since I
was at Sacramento and saw anybody or anything." She stopped and,
instinctively detecting some vague reticence in the man before her,
said, still laughing, "You're Mr. Hemmingway, ain't you?"
Hemmingway took off his hat quickly, with a slight start at his
forgetfulness. "I beg your pardon; yes, certainly."
"Aunty Stanton thought it was 'Hummingbird,'" said the girl, with a
laugh, "but I reckoned not. I'm Jinney Jules, you know; folks call
me 'J. J.' It wouldn't do for a Hummingbird and a Jay Jay to be in
the same camp, would it? It would be just TOO funny!"
Hemmingway did not find the humor of this so singularly exhaustive,
but he was already beginning to be ashamed of his attitude towards
her. "I'm very sorry to be giving you all this trouble by my
intrusion, for I was quite willing to stay at the store yonder.
Indeed," he added, with a burst of frankness quite as sincere as
her own, "if you think your father will not be offended, I would
gladly go there now."
If he still believed in her coquetry and vanity, he would have been
undeceived and crushed by the equal and sincere frankness with
which she met this ungallant speech.
"No! I reckon he wouldn't care, if you'd be as comf'ble and fit
for to-morrow. But ye WOULDN'T," she said reflectively. "The boys
thar sit up late over euchre, and swear a heap, and Simpson, who'd
sleep alongside of ye, snores pow'ful, I've heard. Aunty Stanton
kin do her level at that, too, and they say"--with a laugh--"that I
kin, too, but you're away off in that corner, and it won't reach
you. So, takin' it all, by the large, you'd better stay whar ye
are. We wimmen, that is, the most of us, will be off and away down
to Rattlesnake Bar shoppin' afore sun up, so ye'll sleep ez long ez
ye want to, and find yer breakfast ready when ye wake. So I'll
jest set to and get ye some supper, and ye kin tell me all the
doin's in Sacramento and 'Frisco while I'm workin'."
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