Under the Redwoods

THE YOUNGEST MISS PIPER

I do not think that any of us who enjoyed the acquaintance of the Piper girls or the hospitality of Judge Piper, their father, ever cared for the youngest sister. Not on account of her extreme youth, for the eldest Miss Piper confessed to twenty-six—and the youth of the youngest sister was established solely, I think, by one big braid down her back. Neither was it because she was the plainest, for the beauty of the Piper girls was a recognized general distinction, and the youngest Miss Piper was not entirely devoid of the family charms. Nor was it from any lack of intelligence, nor from any defective social quality; for her precocity was astounding, and her good-humored frankness alarming. Neither do I think it could be said that a slight deafness, which might impart an embarrassing publicity to any statement—the reverse of our general feeling—that might be confided by any one to her private ear, was a sufficient reason; for it was pointed out that she always understood everything that Tom Sparrell told her in his ordinary tone of voice. Briefly, it was very possible that Delaware—the youngest Miss Piper—did not like us. Yet it was fondly believed by us that the other sisters failed to show that indifference to our existence shown by Miss Delaware, although the heartburnings, misunderstandings, jealousies, hopes and fears, and finally the chivalrous resignation with which we at last accepted the long foregone conclusion that they were not for us, and far beyond our reach, is not a part of this veracious chronicle. Enough that none of the flirtations of her elder sisters affected or were shared by the youngest Miss Piper. She moved in this heart-breaking atmosphere with sublime indifference, treating her sisters’ affairs with what we considered rank simplicity or appalling frankness. Their few admirers who were weak enough to attempt to gain her mediation or confidence had reason to regret it.

“It’s no kind o’ use givin’ me goodies,” she said to a helpless suitor of Louisiana Piper’s who had offered to bring her some sweets, “for I ain’t got no influence with Lu, and if I don’t give ‘em up to her when she hears of it, she’ll nag me and hate you like pizen. Unless,” she added thoughtfully, “it was wintergreen lozenges; Lu can’t stand them, or anybody who eats them within a mile.” It is needless to add that the miserable man, thus put upon his gallantry, was obliged in honor to provide Del with the wintergreen lozenges that kept him in disfavor and at a distance. Unfortunately, too, any predilection or pity for any particular suitor of her sister’s was attended by even more disastrous consequences. It was reported that while acting as “gooseberry”—a role usually assigned to her—between Virginia Piper and an exceptionally timid young surveyor, during a ramble she conceived a rare sentiment of humanity towards the unhappy man. After once or twice lingering behind in the ostentatious picking of a wayside flower, or “running on ahead” to look at a mountain view, without any apparent effect on the shy and speechless youth, she decoyed him aside while her elder sister rambled indifferently and somewhat scornfully on. The youngest Miss Piper leaped upon the rail of a fence, and with the stalk of a thimbleberry in her mouth swung her small feet to and fro and surveyed him dispassionately.

“Ye don’t seem to be ketchin’ on?” she said tentatively.

The young man smiled feebly and interrogatively.

“Don’t seem to be either follering suit nor trumpin’,” continued Del bluntly.

“I suppose so—that is, I fear that Miss Virginia”—he stammered.

“Speak up! I’m a little deaf. Say it again!” said Del, screwing up her eyes and eyebrows.

The young man was obliged to admit in stentorian tones that his progress had been scarcely satisfactory.

“You’re goin’ on too slow—that’s it,” said Del critically. “Why, when Captain Savage meandered along here with Jinny” (Virginia) “last week, afore we got as far as this he’d reeled off a heap of Byron and Jamieson” (Tennyson), “and sich; and only yesterday Jinny and Doctor Beveridge was blowin’ thistletops to know which was a flirt all along the trail past the crossroads. Why, ye ain’t picked ez much as a single berry for Jinny, let alone Lad’s Love or Johnny Jumpups and Kissme’s, and ye keep talkin’ across me, you two, till I’m tired. Now look here,” she burst out with sudden decision, “Jinny’s gone on ahead in a kind o’ huff; but I reckon she’s done that afore too, and you’ll find her, jest as Spinner did, on the rise of the hill, sittin’ on a pine stump and lookin’ like this.” (Here the youngest Miss Piper locked her fingers over her left knee, and drew it slightly up,—with a sublime indifference to the exposure of considerable small-ankled red stocking,—and with a far-off, plaintive stare, achieved a colorable imitation of her elder sister’s probable attitude.) “Then you jest go up softly, like as you was a bear, and clap your hands on her eyes, and say in a disguised voice like this” (here Del turned on a high falsetto beyond any masculine compass), “‘Who’s who?’ jest like in forfeits.”

“But she’ll be sure to know me,” said the surveyor timidly.

“She won’t,” said Del in scornful skepticism.

“I hardly think”—stammered the young man, with an awkward smile, “that I—in fact—she’ll discover me—before I can get beside her.”

“Not if you go softly, for she’ll be sittin’ back to the road, so—gazing away, so”—the youngest Miss Piper again stared dreamily in the distance, “and you’ll creep up just behind, like this.”

“But won’t she be angry? I haven’t known her long—that is—don’t you see?” He stopped embarrassedly.

“Can’t hear a word you say,” said Del, shaking her head decisively. “You’ve got my deaf ear. Speak louder, or come closer.”

But here the instruction suddenly ended, once and for all time! For whether the young man was seriously anxious to perfect himself; whether he was truly grateful to the young girl and tried to show it; whether he was emboldened by the childish appeal of the long brown distinguishing braid down her back, or whether he suddenly found something peculiarly provocative in the reddish brown eyes between their thickset hedge of lashes, and with the trim figure and piquant pose, and was seized with that hysteric desperation which sometimes attacks timidity itself, I cannot say! Enough that he suddenly put his arm around her waist and his lips to her soft satin cheek, peppered and salted as it was by sun-freckles and mountain air, and received a sound box on the ear for his pains. The incident was closed. He did not repeat the experiment on either sister. The disclosure of his rebuff seemed, however, to give a singular satisfaction to Red Gulch.

While it may be gathered from this that the youngest Miss Piper was impervious to general masculine advances, it was not until later that Red Gulch was thrown into skeptical astonishment by the rumors that all this time she really had a lover! Allusion has been made to the charge that her deafness did not prevent her from perfectly understanding the ordinary tone of voice of a certain Mr. Thomas Sparrell.

No undue significance was attached to this fact through the very insignificance and “impossibility” of that individual;—a lanky, red-haired youth, incapacitated for manual labor through lameness,—a clerk in a general store at the Cross Roads! He had never been the recipient of Judge Piper’s hospitality; he had never visited the house even with parcels; apparently his only interviews with her or any of the family had been over the counter. To do him justice he certainly had never seemed to seek any nearer acquaintance; he was not at the church door when her sisters, beautiful in their Sunday gowns, filed into the aisle, with little Delaware bringing up the rear; he was not at the Democratic barbecue, that we attended without reference to our personal politics, and solely for the sake of Judge Piper and the girls; nor did he go to the Agricultural Fair Ball—open to all. His abstention we believed to be owing to his lameness; to a wholesome consciousness of his own social defects; or an inordinate passion for reading cheap scientific textbooks, which did not, however, add fluency nor conviction to his speech. Neither had he the abstraction of a student, for his accounts were kept with an accuracy which struck us, who dealt at the store, as ignobly practical, and even malignant. Possibly we might have expressed this opinion more strongly but for a certain rude vigor of repartee which he possessed, and a suggestion that he might have a temper on occasion. “Them red-haired chaps is like to be tetchy and to kinder see blood through their eyelashes,” had been suggested by an observing customer.

In short, little as we knew of the youngest Miss Piper, he was the last man we should have suspected her to select as an admirer. What we did know of their public relations, purely commercial ones, implied the reverse of any cordial understanding. The provisioning of the Piper household was entrusted to Del, with other practical odds and ends of housekeeping, not ornamental, and the following is said to be a truthful record of one of their overheard interviews at the store:—

The youngest Miss Piper, entering, displacing a quantity of goods in the centre to make a sideways seat for herself, and looking around loftily as she took a memorandum-book and pencil from her pocket.

“Ahem! If I ain’t taking you away from your studies, Mr. Sparrell, maybe you’ll be good enough to look here a minit;—but” (in affected politeness) “if I’m disturbing you I can come another time.”

Sparrell, placing the book he had been reading carefully under the counter, and advancing to Miss Delaware with a complete ignoring of her irony: “What can we do for you to-day, Miss Piper?”

Miss Delaware, with great suavity of manner, examining her memorandum-book: “I suppose it wouldn’t be shocking your delicate feelings too much to inform you that the canned lobster and oysters you sent us yesterday wasn’t fit for hogs?”

Sparrell (blandly): “They weren’t intended for them, Miss Piper. If we had known you were having company over from Red Gulch to dinner, we might have provided something more suitable for them. We have a fair quality of oil-cake and corn-cobs in stock, at reduced figures. But the canned provisions were for your own family.”

Miss Delaware (secretly pleased at this sarcastic allusion to her sister’s friends, but concealing her delight): “I admire to hear you talk that way, Mr. Sparrell; it’s better than minstrels or a circus. I suppose you get it outer that book,” indicating the concealed volume. “What do you call it?”

Sparrell (politely): “The First Principles of Geology.”

Miss Delaware, leaning sideways and curling her little fingers around her pink ear: “Did you say the first principles of ‘geology’ or ‘politeness’? You know I am so deaf; but, of course, it couldn’t be that.”

Sparrell (easily): “Oh no, you seem to have that in your hand”—pointing to Miss Delaware’s memorandum-book—“you were quoting from it when you came in.”

Miss Delaware, after an affected silence of deep resignation: “Well! it’s too bad folks can’t just spend their lives listenin’ to such elegant talk; I’d admire to do nothing else! But there’s my family up at Cottonwood—and they must eat. They’re that low that they expect me to waste my time getting food for ‘em here, instead of drinking in the First Principles of the Grocery.”

“Geology,” suggested Sparrell blandly. “The history of rock formation.”

“Geology,” accepted Miss Delaware apologetically; “the history of rocks, which is so necessary for knowing just how much sand you can put in the sugar. So I reckon I’ll leave my list here, and you can have the things toted to Cottonwood when you’ve got through with your First Principles.”

She tore out a list of her commissions from a page of her memorandum-book, leaped lightly from the counter, threw her brown braid from her left shoulder to its proper place down her back, shook out her skirts deliberately, and saying, “Thank you for a most improvin’ afternoon, Mr. Sparrell,” sailed demurely out of the store.

A few auditors of this narrative thought it inconsistent that a daughter of Judge Piper and a sister of the angelic host should put up with a mere clerk’s familiarity, but it was pointed out that “she gave him as good as he sent,” and the story was generally credited. But certainly no one ever dreamed that it pointed to any more precious confidences between them.

I think the secret burst upon the family, with other things, at the big picnic at Reservoir Canyon. This festivity had been arranged for weeks previously, and was undertaken chiefly by the “Red Gulch Contingent,” as we were called, as a slight return to the Piper family for their frequent hospitality. The Piper sisters were expected to bring nothing but their own personal graces and attend to the ministration of such viands and delicacies as the boys had profusely supplied.

The site selected was Reservoir Canyon, a beautiful, triangular valley with very steep sides, one of which was crowned by the immense reservoir of the Pioneer Ditch Company. The sheer flanks of the canyon descended in furrowed lines of vines and clinging bushes, like folds of falling skirts, until they broke again into flounces of spangled shrubbery over a broad level carpet of monkshood, mariposas, lupines, poppies, and daisies. Tempered and secluded from the sun’s rays by its lofty shadows, the delicious obscurity of the canyon was in sharp contrast to the fiery mountain trail that in the full glare of the noonday sky made its tortuous way down the hillside, like a stream of lava, to plunge suddenly into the valley and extinguish itself in its coolness as in a lake. The heavy odors of wild honeysuckle, syringa, and ceanothus that hung over it were lightened and freshened by the sharp spicing of pine and bay. The mountain breeze which sometimes shook the serrated tops of the large redwoods above with a chill from the remote snow peaks even in the heart of summer, never reached the little valley.

It seemed an ideal place for a picnic. Everybody was therefore astonished to hear that an objection was suddenly raised to this perfect site. They were still more astonished to know that the objector was the youngest Miss Piper! Pressed to give her reasons, she had replied that the locality was dangerous; that the reservoir placed upon the mountain, notoriously old and worn out, had been rendered more unsafe by false economy in unskillful and hasty repairs to satisfy speculating stockbrokers, and that it had lately shown signs of leakage and sapping of its outer walls; that, in the event of an outbreak, the little triangular valley, from which there was no outlet, would be instantly flooded. Asked still more pressingly to give her authority for these details, she at first hesitated, and then gave the name of Tom Sparrell.

The derision with which this statement was received by us all, as the opinion of a sedentary clerk, was quite natural and obvious, but not the anger which it excited in the breast of Judge Piper; for it was not generally known that the judge was the holder of a considerable number of shares in the Pioneer Ditch Company, and that large dividends had been lately kept up by a false economy of expenditure, to expedite a “sharp deal” in the stock, by which the judge and others could sell out of a failing company. Rather, it was believed, that the judge’s anger was due only to the discovery of Sparrell’s influence over his daughter and his interference with the social affairs of Cottonwood. It was said that there was a sharp scene between the youngest Miss Piper and the combined forces of the judge and the elder sisters, which ended in the former’s resolute refusal to attend the picnic at all if that site was selected.

As Delaware was known to be fearless even to the point of recklessness, and fond of gayety, her refusal only intensified the belief that she was merely “stickin’ up for Sparrell’s judgment” without any reference to her own personal safety or that of her sisters. The warning was laughed away; the opinion of Sparrell treated with ridicule as the dyspeptic and envious expression of an impractical man. It was pointed out that the reservoir had lasted a long time even in its alleged ruinous state; that only a miracle of coincidence could make it break down that particular afternoon of the picnic; that even if it did happen, there was no direct proof that it would seriously flood the valley, or at best add more than a spice of excitement to the affair. The “Red Gulch Contingent,” who WOULD be there, was quite as capable of taking care of the ladies, in case of any accident, as any lame crank who wouldn’t, but could only croak a warning to them from a distance. A few even wished something might happen that they might have an opportunity of showing their superior devotion; indeed, the prospect of carrying the half-submerged sisters, in a condition of helpless loveliness, in their arms to a place of safety was a fascinating possibility. The warning was conspicuously ineffective; everybody looked eagerly forward to the day and the unchanged locality; to the greatest hopefulness and anticipation was added the stirring of defiance, and when at last the appointed hour had arrived, the picnic party passed down the twisting mountain trail through the heat and glare in a fever of enthusiasm.

It was a pretty sight to view this sparkling procession—the girls cool and radiant in their white, blue, and yellow muslins and flying ribbons, the “Contingent” in its cleanest ducks, and blue and red flannel shirts, the judge white-waistcoated and panama-hatted, with a new dignity borrowed from the previous circumstances, and three or four impressive Chinamen bringing up the rear with hampers—as it at last debouched into Reservoir Canyon.

Here they dispersed themselves over the limited area, scarcely half an acre, with the freedom of escaped school children. They were secure in their woodland privacy. They were overlooked by no high road and its passing teams; they were safe from accidental intrusion from the settlement; indeed they went so far as to effect the exclusiveness of “clique.” At first they amused themselves by casting humorously defiant eyes at the long low Ditch Reservoir, which peeped over the green wall of the ridge, six hundred feet above them; at times they even simulated an exaggerated terror of it, and one recognized humorist declaimed a grotesque appeal to its forbearance, with delightful local allusions. Others pretended to discover near a woodman’s hut, among the belt of pines at the top of the descending trail, the peeping figure of the ridiculous and envious Sparrell. But all this was presently forgotten in the actual festivity. Small as was the range of the valley, it still allowed retreats during the dances for waiting couples among the convenient laurel and manzanita bushes which flounced the mountain side. After the dancing, old-fashioned children’s games were revived with great laughter and half-hearted and coy protests from the ladies; notably one pastime known as “I’m a-pinin’,” in which ingenious performance the victim was obliged to stand in the centre of a circle and publicly “pine” for a member of the opposite sex. Some hilarity was occasioned by the mischievous Miss “Georgy” Piper declaring, when it came to her turn, that she was “pinin’” for a look at the face of Tom Sparrell just now!

In this local trifling two hours passed, until the party sat down to the long-looked for repast. It was here that the health of Judge Piper was neatly proposed by the editor of the “Argus.” The judge responded with great dignity and some emotion. He reminded them that it had been his humble endeavor to promote harmony—that harmony so characteristic of American principles—in social as he had in political circles, and particularly among the strangely constituted yet purely American elements of frontier life. He accepted the present festivity with its overflowing hospitalities, not in recognition of himself—(“yes! yes!”)—nor of his family—(enthusiastic protests)—but of that American principle! If at one time it seemed probable that these festivities might be marred by the machinations of envy—(groans)—or that harmony interrupted by the importation of low-toned material interests—(groans)—he could say that, looking around him, he had never before felt—er—that—Here the judge stopped short, reeled slightly forward, caught at a camp-stool, recovered himself with an apologetic smile, and turned inquiringly to his neighbor.

A light laugh—instantly suppressed—at what was at first supposed to be the effect of the “overflowing hospitality” upon the speaker himself, went around the male circle until it suddenly appeared that half a dozen others had started to their feet at the same time, with white faces, and that one of the ladies had screamed.

“What is it?” everybody was asking with interrogatory smiles.

It was Judge Piper who replied:—

“A little shock of earthquake,” he said blandly; “a mere thrill! I think,” he added with a faint smile, “we may say that Nature herself has applauded our efforts in good old Californian fashion, and signified her assent. What are you saying, Fludder?”

“I was thinking, sir,” said Fludder deferentially, in a lower voice, “that if anything was wrong in the reservoir, this shock, you know, might”—

He was interrupted by a faint crashing and crackling sound, and looking up, beheld a good-sized boulder, evidently detached from some greater height, strike the upland plateau at the left of the trail and bound into the fringe of forest beside it. A slight cloud of dust marked its course, and then lazily floated away in mid air. But it had been watched agitatedly, and it was evident that that singular loss of nervous balance which is apt to affect all those who go through the slightest earthquake experience was felt by all. But some sense of humor, however, remained.

“Looks as if the water risks we took ain’t goin’ to cover earthquakes,” drawled Dick Frisney; “still that wasn’t a bad shot, if we only knew what they were aiming at.”

“Do be quiet,” said Virginia Piper, her cheeks pink with excitement. “Listen, can’t you? What’s that funny murmuring you hear now and then up there?”