Lightnin'

"All right, Millie," he stopped her, resting his thin hand on her brown hair for an instant. "I wouldn't say nothin' as would hurt you. But you won't have to go back, my dear – not unless you really want to leave us. I got an idea, mother – that's why I was late gettin' home. Ideas take time, 'specially when they're good ones! I got a good one what'll fix this whole business!"

Bill stuck his thumbs in his faded old shirt comically. Even slumped down in his chair as he was, the suggestion of a harmless swagger was in his manner – the easy swagger of one who, hitherto unconsidered, has astonished the skeptics by giving birth to an idea and solving a problem. There was something about Bill that suppressed the gentle but none the less amused smile that was dimpling Millie's cheeks.

"Out with it, daddy!" she demanded, restraining a desire to pull his ear.

"If Lem Townsend is so anxious to help us," he stated, "he can arrange all the details for you, mother. I 'ain't got time for details – that's what I told Grant once, when we was havin' supper before Petersburg. Got enough to do with the idea. Lem can put the ads. in them Reno papers, an' hire the maids for you, an' things like that." Then Bill suddenly stopped, hugely enjoying the mystification of his two listeners.

His wife sat up. "Bill Jones," she said, "you been drinking again down to town, that's what I think!"

"Go on, daddy!" Millie encouraged, putting her hand on his arm. "I feel that you've thought of something! Tell us!"

Ignoring his wife's accusation, Bill gave Millie a grateful glance and resumed, in his slow drawl:

"I got an idea – sure enough, mother an' Millie! It didn't hit me until I was half-way home to-day, but I got it lookin' at the mornin' train what goes on through to Reno. I've looked at a pile o' trains in my time, but I never got no idea from 'em before. Look here, don't the state line run plumb through the middle o' this house, so's half of it is in California an' the other half in Nevada? Well, what's the matter with makin' this house a hotel temporary for busted hearts what takes six months to cure? Lots o' them rich folks from the East who goes on down to Reno to git divorced would like to live on the lake, but they can't because they got to live in Nevada for six months. They can live on one side o' this house an' be in Nevada. An' at the same time they gits all the good o' livin' in California! They'd be tickled to death an' they'd be comin' in shoals all year, winter an' summer. An' what they pays ain't nothin' to them – the Reno hotels is so rich off them they don't want to take in no one what 'ain't a busted heart! You better start right away gettin' ready, mother!"

Mrs. Jones and Millie gasped. Bill, however, having spoken at considerable length for him, merely reached for his eternal bag of tobacco and paper and idly rolled himself a cigarette.

Millie clapped her hands. "Why, mother!" she cried, "daddy's right – it is an idea! And so simple!"

"All big things is simple," Bill remarked, with the air of one who ought to know.

Mrs. Jones stared from her husband to Millie. "Oh, Bill," she said, finally, "I really think we can do it! And now I'll tell you somethin'. I – I was goin' to suggest this very thing some time ago, but – but I thought you wouldn't approve of it on account o' Millie. Lem Townsend put the notion in my head when he was talkin' about our sellin' the timber."

Bill looked up. "Lem thought of it, eh? Didn't think Lem had that much sense. Anyways, I bet I thought of it first – I must 'a' been thinkin' of it for a long time without knowin' it. Why shouldn't I approve – on account o' Millie, mother?"

"I – I don't know," said his wife, uncertainly. "I hear some of them divorcers is – is – "

"Shucks, mother," Bill stopped her. "They're human beings, ain't they? An' them as ain't we needn't take. But they're all right. I seen a lot o' them on the trains. Right smart lookers, most o' them! They can't help it if their hearts gets busted, can they? Human beings is human beings. Besides, we gotter look at it from a business point o' view – as Lincoln said to me about the Civil War. I was a business man once an' – "

Millie laughed, and Bill, remembering that he was in the bosom of his family and that there were certain things he couldn't "get away with" there, subsided.

Evidently Mrs. Jones had been thinking hard during the past few minutes, and now she spoke. "We'll do it, Millie!" she said. "Some o' them Reno hotels got started overnight, just like this, an' we can do the same. It'll be kinder queer at first, turning our home into a hotel, but maybe we can soon make enough to – to make it a home again. Shall we try it, Millie?"

"Of course!" Millie exclaimed. "I think it will be great fun! You're awful clever, daddy, to think of it!"

Bill, who had rolled and lighted another cigarette, arose and stuck his hands carelessly in the pockets of his worn, baggy old trousers. "'Tain't nothin'," he remarked, swaying on his heels and toes. "Nothin' at all! I think o' lots o' things like that, but I don't tell 'em – too busy! Well, mother, as Lem Townsend's comin' over to-night, you better have him fix them details. I got to go an' think some more about the idea!"

He moved away with elaborate unconcern and started to amble down the veranda steps. His wife suddenly remembered several odd jobs he should be attending to, but she did not stop him. Her mind was full of plans – and one is naturally timid about asking a Man with a Big Idea to perform menial tasks.

CHAPTER II

After supper the following evening Bill slipped from the house and ambled through the woods to the lake border, where a young moon, cradled above the western ridge, sent its shafts of silver light across the darkened waters. It was evident that Bill Jones wanted to be alone. He settled down on the trunk of a fallen tree and absently rolled himself a cigarette. When it was satisfactorily lighted he glanced down the shore. It was deserted, but a little way back, on the woodland path, he observed two people strolling in the dim shadows of the pines and cedars. He knew that the girl in the white dress was Millie, and he guessed that the man with her was John Marvin. Bill was not especially romantic, but there was no doubt that the sight of those two together pleased him. He knew that the pair had not seen much of each other of late, and he wondered why. He himself had not seen John Marvin for nearly two weeks. Though he did not indulge in romance personally, he understood much, and he sighed deeply as he watched the dim figure of the girl strolling along the path. His mind wandered off through a vista of past years to the time when Millie had first come to the Tahoe region and to the Jones family, a bit of a girl of three. Sinking into a reverie, Bill failed to note that the pair had finally parted, Marvin striding off up the trail in the direction of his cabin. A pull at his ear brought him back to earth.

"Why, daddy! What are you doing out here all alone?"

Millie sat down beside him, putting an arm around his neck.

"Hello!" said Bill, reaching for his bag of tobacco and papers. "Where's John?" he asked, a humorous gleam in his eyes, as he met hers.

Millie seemed to hesitate before answering: "He's gone back to his place. I told him Mr. Thomas was here and he wouldn't even come in to see him! He says he does not like it. I don't think it is any of his business," she added, giving Bill a hug.

"Why ain't it?" Bill asked.

Again Millie hesitated, then said, "Mr. Thomas is just as nice as he can be daddy, and – "

"His yaller gloves is nice. So's his cane. Must take him an awful long time to dress."

Millie took her arm away and looked at him. She caught the lift of his eyebrows and the peculiar expression of his half-open mouth and half-shut eyes, an expression which always decorated Bill's face when he gave vent to sentiments which Millie had come to regard as "Daddy's intuitions." Bill always used trivial words at such moments, but that did not minimize the effect.

"But, daddy, it seems so hard to make you understand how good Mr. Thomas has been to me! Mother understands. He took such pains with me. I was a perfect greenhorn and didn't know the first thing about office work. No matter what mistakes I made, he was just as patient as he could be. And he says he loves this beautiful country up here! He liked to hear me tell about our wonderful waterfall."

Bill puffed his cigarette, an odd gleam in his eyes, perhaps of amusement, perhaps of wisdom. Millie glanced back toward the house; then her eyes swept the shore and finally came to rest on something barely visible far up on the mountain – John Marvin's cabin. She sighed and continued to gaze in the same direction. Bill stole a look at her.

"Liked to hear about our waterfall, eh?" he remarked. "I thought so."

Millie started. "Thought what, daddy?" she asked, her brown eyes trying to read his face.

"Nothin'. Nothin'," he replied, with a note of finality that she had long learned to know as indicating the futility of further questioning.

"Well," she said, rising, "I think you'd better come up to the house, daddy. I suppose you left Mr. Thomas all alone there on the veranda, didn't you? You might have stayed and entertained him until I got back."

"Guess he entertains himself pretty well," said Bill. "Besides, mother's with him."

"But you ought to be there, too, daddy; you're the head of the house, you know!"

He gave her an amused glance as she cuddled his arm in hers and walked him off. "All right, Millie, but I kinder keep fergettin' that part of it."

Coming up the veranda steps, they found Mrs. Jones sitting there with a handsome, perfectly groomed young man of possibly twenty-seven. Raymond Thomas looked actually too good to be true in that backwoods region. He arose quickly, placed a chair for Millie, and then drew one beside his own, urging Bill to occupy it.

"Please sit right here, Mr. Jones!" he insisted, with an easy, flattering smile. "Where did you disappear to after supper? I've been looking all over for you. I want to hear some more of those famous stories of yours! Tell me how to get him started, Miss Buckley," he added, with mock appeal and turning his dazzling smile on Millie.

"Oh, daddy just starts himself!" she answered, laughing.

Bill dropped into the chair and crossed his legs. Gingerly he took the cigar Thomas offered him.

"I want to hear about some of your experiences in the Civil War," Thomas urged. "Why, I have heard that you were in most of the big battles!"

Bill glanced at his smiling questioner with an odd look. With great deliberation he bit off the end of the cigar. "I was in all them battles but two," he said, finally, holding up the cigar and subjecting it to a minute inspection.

"Yes?" Thomas encouraged. "Allow me to light the cigar, Mr. Jones!"

Bill gave him a quizzical glance at this unusual attention, a glance that apparently was quite lost on Thomas.

"Sure. All but two," said Bill, taking a long pull at the cigar. "I was in Washington on private business when them two was goin' on. I was greatly disappointed."

"I can imagine so!" exclaimed Thomas.

"You can imagine a lot o' things, can't you?" said Bill, unexpectedly. "I often imagine I never saw some people. It makes you feel better. But about them battles. Ye know Grant 'd never won the battle of Lookout Mountain if it hadn't been for me – "