a waif of the plains(草原流浪儿)
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2024-12-26
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A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
1
A WAIF OF THE
PLAINS
by Bret Harte
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
2
CHAPTER I
A long level of dull gray that further away became a faint blue, with
here and there darker patches that looked like water. At times an open
space, blackened and burnt in an irregular circle, with a shred of
newspaper, an old rag, or broken tin can lying in the ashes. Beyond these
always a low dark line that seemed to sink into the ground at night, and
rose again in the morning with the first light, but never otherwise changed
its height and distance. A sense of always moving with some indefinite
purpose, but of always returning at night to the same place--with the same
surroundings, the same people, the same bedclothes, and the same awful
black canopy dropped down from above. A chalky taste of dust on the
mouth and lips, a gritty sense of earth on the fingers, and an all-pervading
heat and smell of cattle.
This was "The Great Plains" as they seemed to two children from the
hooded depth of an emigrant wagon, above the swaying heads of toiling
oxen, in the summer of 1852.
It had appeared so to them for two weeks, always the same and always
without the least sense to them of wonder or monotony. When they
viewed it from the road, walking beside the wagon, there was only the
team itself added to the unvarying picture. One of the wagons bore on its
canvas hood the inscription, in large black letters, "Off to California!" on
the other "Root, Hog, or Die," but neither of them awoke in the minds of
the children the faintest idea of playfulness or jocularity. Perhaps it was
difficult to connect the serious men, who occasionally walked beside them
and seemed to grow more taciturn and depressed as the day wore on, with
this past effusive pleasantry.
Yet the impressions of the two children differed slightly. The eldest,
a boy of eleven, was apparently new to the domestic habits and customs of
a life to which the younger, a girl of seven, was evidently native and
familiar. The food was coarse and less skillfully prepared than that to
which he had been accustomed. There was a certain freedom and
roughness in their intercourse, a simplicity that bordered almost on
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
3
rudeness in their domestic arrangements, and a speech that was at times
almost untranslatable to him. He slept in his clothes, wrapped up in
blankets; he was conscious that in the matter of cleanliness he was left to
himself to overcome the difficulties of finding water and towels. But it is
doubtful if in his youthfulness it affected him more than a novelty. He
ate and slept well, and found his life amusing. Only at times the rudeness
of his companions, or, worse, an indifference that made him feel his
dependency upon them, awoke a vague sense of some wrong that had been
done to him which while it was voiceless to all others and even uneasily
put aside by himself, was still always slumbering in his childish
consciousness.
To the party he was known as an orphan put on the train at "St. Jo" by
some relative of his stepmother, to be delivered to another relative at
Sacramento. As his stepmother had not even taken leave of him, but had
entrusted his departure to the relative with whom he had been lately living,
it was considered as an act of "riddance," and accepted as such by her
party, and even vaguely acquiesced in by the boy himself. What
consideration had been offered for his passage he did not know; he only
remembered that he had been told "to make himself handy." This he had
done cheerfully, if at times with the unskillfulness of a novice; but it was
not a peculiar or a menial task in a company where all took part in manual
labor, and where existence seemed to him to bear the charm of a
prolonged picnic. Neither was he subjected to any difference of affection
or treatment from Mrs. Silsbee, the mother of his little companion, and the
wife of the leader of the train. Prematurely old, of ill-health, and harassed
with cares, she had no time to waste in discriminating maternal tenderness
for her daughter, but treated the children with equal and unbiased
querulousness.
The rear wagon creaked, swayed, and rolled on slowly and heavily.
The hoofs of the draft-oxen, occasionally striking in the dust with a dull
report, sent little puffs like smoke on either side of the track. Within, the
children were playing "keeping store." The little girl, as an opulent and
extravagant customer, was purchasing of the boy, who sat behind a counter
improvised from a nail-keg and the front seat, most of the available
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
4
contents of the wagon, either under their own names or an imaginary one
as the moment suggested, and paying for them in the easy and liberal
currency of dried beans and bits of paper. Change was given by the
expeditious method of tearing the paper into smaller fragments. The
diminution of stock was remedied by buying the same article over again
under a different name. Nevertheless, in spite of these favorable
commercial conditions, the market seemed dull.
"I can show you a fine quality of sheeting at four cents a yard, double
width," said the boy, rising and leaning on his fingers on the counter as he
had seen the shopmen do. "All wool and will wash," he added, with easy
gravity. "I can buy it cheaper at Jackson's," said the girl, with the
intuitive duplicity of her bargaining sex.
"Very well," said the boy. "I won't play any more."
"Who cares?" said the girl indifferently. The boy here promptly upset
the counter; the rolled-up blanket which had deceitfully represented the
desirable sheeting falling on the wagon floor. It apparently suggested a
new idea to the former salesman. "I say! let's play 'damaged stock.' See,
I'll tumble all the things down here right on top o' the others, and sell 'em
for less than cost."
The girl looked up. The suggestion was bold, bad, and momentarily
attractive. But she only said "No," apparently from habit, picked up her
doll, and the boy clambered to the front of the wagon. The incomplete
episode terminated at once with that perfect forgetfulness, indifference,
and irresponsibility common to all young animals. If either could have
flown away or bounded off finally at that moment, they would have done
so with no more concern for preliminary detail than a bird or squirrel.
The wagon rolled steadily on. The boy could see that one of the
teamsters had climbed up on the tail-board of the preceding vehicle. The
other seemed to be walking in a dusty sleep.
"Kla'uns," said the girl.
The boy, without turning his head, responded, "Susy."
"Wot are you going to be?" said the girl.
"Goin' to be?" repeated Clarence.
"When you is growed," explained Susy.
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
5
Clarence hesitated. His settled determination had been to become a
pirate, merciless yet discriminating. But reading in a bethumbed "Guide
to the Plains" that morning of Fort Lamarie and Kit Carson, he had
decided upon the career of a "scout," as being more accessible and
requiring less water. Yet, out of compassion for Susy's possible
ignorance, he said neither, and responded with the American boy's modest
conventionality, "President." It was safe, required no embarrassing
description, and had been approved by benevolent old gentlemen with
their hands on his head.
"I'm goin' to be a parson's wife," said Susy, "and keep hens, and have
things giv' to me. Baby clothes, and apples, and apple sass-- and
melasses! and more baby clothes! and pork when you kill."
She had thrown herself at the bottom of the wagon, with her back
towards him and her doll in her lap. He could see the curve of her curly
head, and beyond, her bare dimpled knees, which were raised, and over
which she was trying to fold the hem of her brief skirt.
"I wouldn't be a President's wife," she said presently.
"You couldn't!"
"Could if I wanted to!"
"Couldn't!"
"Could now!"
"Couldn't!"
"Why?"
Finding it difficult to explain his convictions of her ineligibility,
Clarence thought it equally crushing not to give any. There was a long
silence. It was very hot and dusty. The wagon scarcely seemed to
move. Clarence gazed at the vignette of the track behind them formed by
the hood of the rear. Presently he rose and walked past her to the tail-
board. "Goin' to get down," he said, putting his legs over.
"Maw says 'No,'" said Susy.
Clarence did not reply, but dropped to the ground beside the slowly
turning wheels. Without quickening his pace he could easily keep his
hand on the tail-board.
"Kla'uns."
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
6
He looked up.
"Take me."
She had already clapped on her sun-bonnet and was standing at the
edge of the tail-board, her little arms extended in such perfect confidence
of being caught that the boy could not resist. He caught her cleverly.
They halted a moment and let the lumbering vehicle move away from
them, as it swayed from side to side as if laboring in a heavy sea. They
remained motionless until it had reached nearly a hundred yards, and then,
with a sudden half-real, half-assumed, but altogether delightful trepidation,
ran forward and caught up with it again. This they repeated two or three
times until both themselves and the excitement were exhausted, and they
again plodded on hand in hand. Presently Clarence uttered a cry.
"My! Susy--look there!"
The rear wagon had once more slipped away from them a considerable
distance. Between it and them, crossing its track, a most extraordinary
creature had halted.
At first glance it seemed a dog--a discomfited, shameless, ownerless
outcast of streets and byways, rather than an honest stray of some drover's
train. It was so gaunt, so dusty, so greasy, so slouching, and so lazy!
But as they looked at it more intently they saw that the grayish hair of its
back had a bristly ridge, and there were great poisonous-looking dark
blotches on its flanks, and that the slouch of its haunches was a peculiarity
of its figure, and not the cowering of fear. As it lifted its suspicious head
towards them they could see that its thin lips, too short to cover its white
teeth, were curled in a perpetual sneer.
"Here, doggie!" said Clarence excitedly. "Good dog! Come."
Susy burst into a triumphant laugh. "Et tain't no dog, silly; it's er
coyote."
Clarence blushed. It wasn't the first time the pioneer's daughter had
shown her superior knowledge. He said quickly, to hide his discomfiture,
"I'll ketch him, any way; he's nothin' mor'n a ki yi."
"Ye can't, tho," said Susy, shaking her sun-bonnet. "He's faster nor a
hoss!"
Nevertheless, Clarence ran towards him, followed by Susy. When
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
7
they had come within twenty feet of him, the lazy creature, without
apparently the least effort, took two or three limping bounds to one side,
and remained at the same distance as before. They repeated this onset
three or four times with more or less excitement and hilarity, the animal
evading them to one side, but never actually retreating before them.
Finally, it occurred to them both that although they were not catching him
they were not driving him away. The consequences of that thought were
put into shape by Susy with round-eyed significance.
"Kla'uns, he bites."
Clarence picked up a hard sun-baked clod, and, running forward,
threw it at the coyote. It was a clever shot, and struck him on his
slouching haunches. He snapped and gave a short snarling yelp, and
vanished. Clarence returned with a victorious air to his companion.
But she was gazing intently in the opposite direction, and for the first time
he discovered that the coyote had been leading them half round a circle.
"Kla'uns," said Susy, with a hysterical little laugh.
"Well?"
"The wagon's gone."
Clarence started. It was true. Not only their wagon, but the whole
train of oxen and teamsters had utterly disappeared, vanishing as
completely as if they had been caught up in a whirlwind or engulfed in the
earth! Even the low cloud of dust that usually marked their distant
course by day was nowhere to be seen. The long level plain stretched
before them to the setting sun, without a sign or trace of moving life or
animation. That great blue crystal bowl, filled with dust and fire by day,
with stars and darkness by night, which had always seemed to drop its rim
round them everywhere and shut them in, seemed to them now to have
been lifted to let the train pass out, and then closed down upon them
forever.
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
8
CHAPTER II
Their first sensation was one of purely animal freedom.
They looked at each other with sparkling eyes and long silent breaths.
But this spontaneous outburst of savage nature soon passed. Susy's little
hand presently reached forward and clutched Clarence's jacket. The boy
understood it, and said quickly,--
"They ain't gone far, and they'll stop as soon as they find us gone."
They trotted on a little faster; the sun they had followed every day and
the fresh wagon tracks being their unfailing guides; the keen, cool air of
the plains, taking the place of that all- pervading dust and smell of the
perspiring oxen, invigorating them with its breath.
"We ain't skeered a bit, are we?" said Susy.
"What's there to be afraid of?" said Clarence scornfully. He said this
none the less strongly because he suddenly remembered that they had been
often left alone in the wagon for hours without being looked after, and that
their absence might not be noticed until the train stopped to encamp at
dusk, two hours later. They were not running very fast, yet either they
were more tired than they knew, or the air was thinner, for they both
seemed to breathe quickly. Suddenly Clarence stopped.
"There they are now."
He was pointing to a light cloud of dust in the far-off horizon, from
which the black hulk of a wagon emerged for a moment and was lost.
But even as they gazed the cloud seemed to sink like a fairy mirage to the
earth again, the whole train disappeared, and only the empty stretching
track returned. They did not know that this seemingly flat and level plain
was really undulatory, and that the vanished train had simply dipped below
their view on some further slope even as it had once before. But they
knew they were disappointed, and that disappointment revealed to them
the fact that they had concealed it from each other. The girl was the first
to succumb, and burst into a quick spasm of angry tears. That single act
of weakness called out the boy's pride and strength. There was no longer
an equality of suffering; he had become her protector; he felt himself
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
9
responsible for both. Considering her no longer his equal, he was no
longer frank with her.
"There's nothin' to boo-boo for," he said, with a half-affected
brusqueness. "So quit, now! They'll stop in a minit, and send some one
back for us. Shouldn't wonder if they're doin' it now."
But Susy, with feminine discrimination detecting the hollow ring in his
voice, here threw herself upon him and began to beat him violently with
her little fists. "They ain't! They ain't! They ain't. You know it!
How dare you?" Then, exhausted with her struggles, she suddenly threw
herself flat on the dry grass, shut her eyes tightly, and clutched at the
stubble.
"Get up," said the boy, with a pale, determined face that seemed to
have got much older.
"You leave me be," said Susy.
"Do you want me to go away and leave you?" asked the boy.
Susy opened one blue eye furtively in the secure depths of her sun-
bonnet, and gazed at his changed face.
"Ye-e-s."
He pretended to turn away, but really to look at the height of the
sinking sun.
"Kla'uns!"
"Well?"
"Take me."
She was holding up her hands. He lifted her gently in his arms,
dropping her head over his shoulder. "Now," he said cheerfully, "you
keep a good lookout that way, and I this, and we'll soon be there."
The idea seemed to please her. After Clarence had stumbled on for a
few moments, she said, "Do you see anything, Kla'uns?"
"Not yet."
"No more don't I." This equality of perception apparently satisfied
her. Presently she lay more limp in his arms. She was asleep.
The sun was sinking lower; it had already touched the edge of the
horizon, and was level with his dazzled and straining eyes. At times it
seemed to impede his eager search and task his vision. Haze and black
A WAIF OF THE PLAINS
10
spots floated across the horizon, and round wafers, like duplicates of the
sun, glittered back from the dull surface of the plains. Then he resolved
to look no more until he had counted fifty, a hundred, but always with the
same result, the return of the empty, unending plains--the disk growing
redder as it neared the horizon, the fire it seemed to kindle as it sank, but
nothing more.
Staggering under his burden, he tried to distract himself by fancying
how the discovery of their absence would be made. He heard the listless,
half-querulous discussion about the locality that regularly pervaded the
nightly camp. He heard the discontented voice of Jake Silsbee as he
halted beside the wagon, and said, "Come out o' that now, you two, and
mighty quick about it." He heard the command harshly repeated. He
saw the look of irritation on Silsbee's dusty, bearded face, that followed his
hurried glance into the empty wagon. He heard the query, "What's gone
o' them limbs now?" handed from wagon to wagon. He heard a few
oaths; Mrs. Silsbee's high rasping voice, abuse of himself, the hurried and
discontented detachment of a search party, Silsbee and one of the hired
men, and vociferation and blame. Blame always for himself, the elder,
who might have "known better!" A little fear, perhaps, but he could not
fancy either pity or commiseration. Perhaps the thought upheld his pride;
under the prospect of sympathy he might have broken down.
At last he stumbled, and stopped to keep himself from falling forward
on his face. He could go no further; his breath was spent; he was
dripping with perspiration; his legs were trembling under him; there was a
roaring in his ears; round red disks of the sun were scattered everywhere
around him like spots of blood. To the right of the trail there seemed to
be a slight mound where he could rest awhile, and yet keep his watchful
survey of the horizon. But on reaching it he found that it was only a
tangle of taller mesquite grass, into which he sank with his burden.
Nevertheless, if useless as a point of vantage, it offered a soft couch for
Susy, who seemed to have fallen quite naturally into her usual afternoon
siesta, and in a measure it shielded her from a cold breeze that had sprung
up from the west. Utterly exhausted himself, but not daring to yield to
the torpor that seemed to be creeping over him, Clarence half sat, half
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AWAIFOFTHEPLAINS1AWAIFOFTHEPLAINSbyBretHarteAWAIFOFTHEPLAINS2CHAPTERIAlonglevelofdullgraythatfurtherawaybecameafaintblue,withhereandtheredarkerpatchesthatlookedlikewater.Attimesanopenspace,blackenedandburntinanirregularcircle,withashredofnewspaper,anoldrag,orbrokentincanlyingintheashes.Beyondtheseal...
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