Jeff Briggs's Love Story

by Bret Harte

it's little good I am any way,"he added, with a new-found bitterness in his tone, "ye'll not ask me todo that."

  "What's gone o' ye, Jeff?" said his aunt lugubriously; "ye ain't nat'rallike."

  Jeff laughed. "See here, aunty; I'm goin' to take your advice. You knowRabbit?"

  "The mare?"

  "Yes; I'm going to sell her. The blacksmith offered me a hundred dollarsfor her last week."

  "Ef ye'd done that a month ago, Jeff, ez I wanted ye to, instead o'keeping the brute to eat ye out o' house and home, ye'd be better off."Aunt Sally never let slip an opportunity to "improve the occasion," butpreferred to exhort over the prostrate body of the "improved." "Well, Ihope he mayn't change his mind."

  Jeff smiled at such suggestion regarding the best horse within fiftymiles of the "Half-way House." Nevertheless he went briskly to thestable, led out and saddled a handsome grey mare, petting her the while,and keeping up a running commentary of caressing epithets to whichRabbit responded with a whinny and playful reaches after Jeff's redflannel sleeve. Whereat Jeff, having loved the horse until it wasdisplaced by another mistress, grew grave and suddenly threw his armsaround Rabbit's neck, and then taking Rabbit's nose, thrust it in thebosom of his shirt and held it there silently for a moment. Rabbitbecoming uneasy, Jeff's mood changed too, and having caparisoned himselfand charger in true vaquero style, not without a little Mexican dandyismas to the set of his doeskin trousers, and the tie of his red sash, puta sombrero rakishly on his curls and leaped into the saddle.

  Jeff was a fair rider in a country where riding was understood as anatural instinct, and not as a purely artificial habit of horse andrider, consequently he was not perched up, jockey fashion, with aknee-grip for his body, and a rein-rest for his arms on the beast'smouth, but rode with long, loose stirrups, his legs clasping the barrelof his horse, his single rein lying loose upon her neck, leaving herhead free as the wind. After this fashion he had often emerged from acloud of dust on the red mountain road, striking admiration into thehearts of the wayfarers and coach-passengers, and leaving a trailof pleasant incense in the dust behind him. It was therefore withconsiderable confidence in himself, and a little human vanity, that hedashed round the house, and threw his mare skilfully on her haunchesexactly a foot before Miss Mayfield--himself a resplendent vision offlying riata, crimson scarf, fawn-colored trousers, and jingling silverspurs.

  "Kin I do anythin' for ye, miss, at the Forks?"

  Miss Mayfield looked up quietly. "I think not," she said indifferently,as if the flaming-Jeff was a very common occurrence.

  Jeff here permitted the mare to bolt fifty yards, caught her up sharply,swung her round on her off hind heel, permitted her to paw the air onceor twice with her white-stockinged fore-feet, and then, with anotherdash forward, pulled her up again just before she apparently took MissMayfield and her chair in a running leap.

  "Are you sure, miss?" asked Jeff, with a flushed face and a ratherlugubrious voice.

  "Quite so, thank you," she said coldly, looking past this centaur to thewooded mountain beyond.

  Jeff, thoroughly crushed, was pacing meekly away when a childlike voicestopped him.

  "If you are going near a carpenter's shop you might get a new shutterfor my window; it blew away last night."

  "It did, miss?"

  "Yes," said the shrill voice of Aunt Sally, from the doorway, "in courseit did! Ye must be crazy, Jeff, for thar it stands in No. 8, whar yemust have put it after ye picked it up outside."

  Jeff, conscious that Miss Mayfield's eyes were on his suffused face,stammered "that he would attend to it," and put spurs to the mare, eageronly to escape.

  It was not his only discomfiture; for the blacksmith, seeing Jeff'snervousness and anxiety, was suspicious of something wrong, as the worldis apt to be, and appeased his conscience after the worldly fashion,by driving a hard bargain with the doubtful brother in affliction--themorality of a horse trade residing always with the seller. WherebyMaster Jeff received only eighty dollars for horse and outfit--worth atleast two hundred--and was also mulcted of forty dollars, principal andinterest for past service of the blacksmith. Jeff walked home withforty dollars in his pocket--capital to prosecute his honest callingof innkeeper; the blacksmith retired to an adjoining tavern to discussJeff's affairs, and further reduce his credit. Yet I doubt which was thehappier--the blacksmith estimating his possible gains, and doubtfulof some uncertain sequence in his luck, or Jeff, temporarily relieved,boundlessly hopeful, and filled with the vague delights of a firstpassion. The only discontented brute in the whole transaction was poorRabbit, who, missing certain attentions, became indignant, after themanner of her sex, bit a piece out of her crib, kicked a hole in herbox, and receiving a bad character from the blacksmith, gave a worse oneto her late master.

  Jeff's purchases were of a temporary and ornamental quality, but notalways judicious as a permanent investment. Overhearing some remark fromMiss Mayfield concerning the dangerous character of the two-tined steelfork, which was part of the table equipage of the "Half-way House," hepurchased half a dozen of what his aunt was pleased to specify as "splitspoons," and thereby lost his late good standing with her. He not onlyrepaired the window-shutter, but tempered the glaring window itselfwith a bit of curtain; he half carpeted Miss Mayfield's bed-room withwild-cat skins and the now historical bear-skin, and felt himselfoverpaid when that young lady, passing the soft tabbyskins across hercheek, declared they were "lovely." For Miss Mayfield, deprecatingslaughter in the abstract, accepted its results gratefully, like therest of her sex, and while willing to "let the hart ungalled play,"nevertheless was able to console herself with its venison. The woods,besides yielding aid and comfort of this kind to the distressed damsel,were flamboyant with vivid spring blossoms, and Jeff lit up the cold,white walls of her virgin cell with demonstrative color, and made--whathis aunt, a cleanly soul, whose ideas of that quality were based uponthe absence of any color whatever, called--"a litter."

  The result of which was to make Miss Mayfield, otherwise lanquid andennuye, welcome Jeff's presence with a smile; to make Jeff, otherwiseanxious, eager, and keenly attentive, mute and silent in her presence.Two symptoms bad for Jeff.

  Meantime Mr. Mayfield's small conventional spirit pined for fellowship,only to be found in larger civilizations, and sought, under plea ofbusiness, a visit to Sacramento, where a few of the Mayfield type, stillsurviving, were to be found.

  This was a relief to Jeff, who only through his regard for the daughter,was kept from open quarrel with the father. He fancied Miss Mayfieldfelt relieved too, although Jeff had noticed that Mayfield had deferredto his daughter more often than his wife--over whom your conventionalsmall autocrat is always victorious. It takes the legal matrimonialcontract to properly develop the first-class tyrant, male or female.

  On one of these days Jeff was returning through the woods from marketingat the Forks, which, since the sale of Rabbit, had became a foot-soreand tedious business. He had reached the edge of the forest, and throughthe wider-spaced trees, the bleak sunlit plateau of his house wasbeginning to open out, when he stopped instantly. I know not what Jeffhad been thinking of, as he trudged along, but here, all at once, he wasthrilled and possessed with the odor of some faint, foreign perfume. Heflushed a little at first, and then turned pale. Now the woods were asfull of as delicate, as subtle, as grateful, and, I wot, far healthierand purer odors than this; but this represented to Jeff the physicalcontiguity of Miss Mayfield, who had the knack--peculiar to some of hersex--of selecting a perfume that ideally identified her. Jeff lookedaround cautiously; at the foot of a tree hard by lay one of her wraps,still redolent of her. Jeff put down the bag which, in lieu of a marketbasket, he was carrying on his shoulder, and with a blushing face hid itbehind a tree. It contained her dinner!

  He took a few steps forwards with an assumption of ease andunconsciousness. Then he stopped, for not a hundred yards distantsat--Miss Mayfield on a mossy boulder, her cloak hanging from hershoulders, her hands clasped round her crossed knees, and
one littlefoot out--an exasperating combination of Evangeline and little RedRiding Hood in everything, I fear, but credulousness and self-devotion.She looked up as he walked towards her (non constat that the littlewitch had not already seen him half a mile away!) and smiled sweetlyas she looked at him. So sweetly, indeed, that poor Jeff felt like thehulking wolf of the old world fable, and hesitated--as that wolf didnot. The California faunae have possibly depreciated.

  "Come here!" she cried, in a small head voice, not unlike a bird'stwitter.

  Jeff lumbered on clumsily. His high boots had become suddenly veryheavy.

  "I'm so glad to see you. I've just tired poor mother