A Sappho of Green Springs

by Bret Harte

  Produced by Donald Lainson

  A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

  By Bret Harte

  CONTENTS

  A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

  THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE

  THROUGH THE SANTA CLARA WHEAT

  A MAECENAS OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE

  A SAPPHO OF GREEN SPRINGS

  CHAPTER I

  "Come in," said the editor.

  The door of the editorial room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began tocreak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain andunfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritation theeditor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm of his chairwith a certain youthful dexterity. With one hand gripping its back,the other still grasping a proof-slip, and his pencil in his mouth, hestared at the intruder.

  The stranger, despite his hesitating entrance, did not seem in the leastdisconcerted. He was a tall man, looking even taller by reason of thelong formless overcoat he wore, known as a "duster," and by a longstraight beard that depended from his chin, which he combed with tworeflective fingers as he contemplated the editor. The red dust whichstill lay in the creases of his garment and in the curves of his softfelt hat, and left a dusty circle like a precipitated halo around hisfeet, proclaimed him, if not a countryman, a recent inland importationby coach. "Busy?" he said, in a grave but pleasant voice. "I kin wait.Don't mind ME. Go on."

  The editor indicated a chair with his disengaged hand and plunged againinto his proof-slips. The stranger surveyed the scant furniture andappointments of the office with a look of grave curiosity, and then,taking a chair, fixed an earnest, penetrating gaze on the editor'sprofile. The editor felt it, and, without looking up, said--

  "Well, go on."

  "But you're busy. I kin wait."

  "I shall not be less busy this morning. I can listen."

  "I want you to give me the name of a certain person who writes in yourmagazine."

  The editor's eye glanced at the second right-hand drawer of his desk.It did not contain the names of his contributors, but what in thetraditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent,--a revolver.He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. But he laid aside hisproofs, and, with a slight darkening of his youthful, discontented face,said, "What do you want to know for?"

  The question was so evidently unexpected that the stranger's facecolored slightly, and he hesitated. The editor meanwhile, withouttaking his eyes from the man, mentally ran over the contents of the lastmagazine. They had been of a singularly peaceful character. There seemedto be nothing to justify homicide on his part or the stranger's. Yetthere was no knowing, and his questioner's bucolic appearance by nomeans precluded an assault. Indeed, it had been a legend of the officethat a predecessor had suffered vicariously from a geological hammercovertly introduced into a scientific controversy by an irate professor.

  "As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct of the magazine,"continued the young editor, with mature severity, "we do not give up thenames of our contributors. If you do not agree with their opinions"--

  "But I DO," said the stranger, with his former composure, "and I reckonthat's why I want to know who wrote those verses called 'Underbrush,'signed 'White Violet,' in your last number. They're pow'ful pretty."

  The editor flushed slightly, and glanced instinctively around for anyunexpected witness of his ludicrous mistake. The fear of ridicule wasuppermost in his mind, and he was more relieved at his mistake not beingoverheard than at its groundlessness.

  "The verses ARE pretty," he said, recovering himself, with a criticalair, "and I am glad you like them. But even then, you know, I could notgive you the lady's name without her permission. I will write to her andask it, if you like."

  The actual fact was that the verses had been sent to him anonymouslyfrom a remote village in the Coast Range,--the address being thepost-office and the signature initials.

  The stranger looked disturbed. "Then she ain't about here anywhere?" hesaid, with a vague gesture. "She don't belong to the office?"

  The young editor beamed with tolerant superiority: "No, I am sorry tosay."

  "I should like to have got to see her and kinder asked her afew questions," continued the stranger, with the same reflectiveseriousness. "You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o' them verses,--andthey kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they?--it wasn't the chyce o'words,--and I reckon they allus hit the idee in the centre shot everytime,--it wasn't the idees and moral she sort o' drew out o' what shewas tellin',--but it was the straight thing itself,--the truth!"

  "The truth?" repeated the editor.

  "Yes, sir. I've bin there. I've seen all that she's seen in thebrush--the little flicks and checkers o' light and shadder down inthe brown dust that you wonder how it ever got through the dark of thewoods, and that allus seems to slip away like a snake or a lizard if yougrope. I've heard all that she's heard there--the creepin', the sighin',and the whisperin' through the bracken and the ground-vines of all thatlives there."

  "You seem to be a poet yourself," said the editor, with a patronizingsmile.

  "I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino," returned the stranger, with sublimenaivete. "Got a mill there. You see, sightin' standin' timber andselectin' from the gen'ral show of the trees in the ground and the layof roots hez sorter made me take notice." He paused. "Then," he added,somewhat despondingly, "you don't know who she is?"

  "No," said the editor, reflectively; "not even if it is really a WOMANwho writes."

  "Eh?"

  "Well, you see, 'White Violet' may as well be the nom de plume of a manas of a woman, especially if adopted for the purpose of mystification.The handwriting, I remember, WAS more boyish than feminine."

  "No," returned the stranger doggedly, "it wasn't no MAN. There's ideasand words there that only come from a woman: baby-talk to the birds, youknow, and a kind of fearsome keer of bugs and creepin' things that don'tcome to a man who wears boots and trousers. Well," he added, with areturn to his previous air of resigned disappointment, "I suppose youdon't even know what she's like?"

  "No," responded the editor, cheerfully. Then, following an ideasuggested by the odd mingling of sentiment and shrewd perception inthe man before him, he added: "Probably not at all like anything youimagine. She may be a mother with three or four children; or an old maidwho keeps a boarding-house; or a wrinkled school-mistress; or a chitof a school-girl. I've had some fair verses from a red-haired girl offourteen at the Seminary," he concluded with professional coolness.

  The stranger regarded him with the naive wonder of an inexperiencedman. Having paid this tribute to his superior knowledge, he regained hisprevious air of grave perception. "I reckon she ain't none of them. ButI'm keepin' you from your work. Good-by. My name's Bowers--Jim Bowers,of Mendocino. If you're up my way, give me a call. And if you do writeto this yer 'White Violet,' and she's willin', send me her address."

  He shook the editor's hand warmly--even in its literal significanceof imparting a good deal of his own earnest caloric to the editor'sfingers--and left the room. His footfall echoed along the passage anddied out, and with it, I fear, all impression of his visit from theeditor's mind, as he plunged again into the silent task before him.

  Presently he was conscious of a melodious humming and a light leisurelystep at the entrance of the hall. They continued on in an easy harmonyand unaffected as the passage of a bird. Both were pleasant and bothfamiliar to the editor. They belonged to Jack Hamlin, by vocation agambler, by taste a musician, on his way from his apartments onthe upper floor, where he had just risen, to drop into his friend'seditorial room and glance over the exchanges, as was his habit beforebreakfast.

  The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious of a faint o
dor ofscented soap, a sensation of freshness and cleanliness, the impressionof a soft hand like a woman's on his shoulder and, like a woman's,momentarily and playfully caressing, the passage of a graceful shadowacross his desk, and the next moment Jack Hamlin was ostentatiouslydusting a chair with an open newspaper preparatory to sitting down.

  "You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if he can't keep thingscleaner," he said, suspending his melody to eye grimly the dust whichMr. Bowers had shaken from his departing feet.

  The editor did not look up until he had finished revising a difficultparagraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortably settled himself ona cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference to his surroundings, hadsubdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft, and heartbreaking whistle ashe unfolded a newspaper. Clean and faultless in his appearance, he hadthe rare gift of being able to get up at two in the afternoon withmuch of the dewy freshness and all of the moral superiority of an earlyriser.

  "You ought to have been here just now, Jack," said the editor.

  "Not a row, old man, eh?" inquired Jack, with a faint accession ofinterest.

  "No," said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents of theprevious interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration which was partof his nature. But Jack did not smile.

  "You ought to have booted him out of the ranch on sight," he said. "Whatright had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?--at least a ladyas far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzy with frumpled hairtrying to rope in a greenhorn with a string of words and phrases,"concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equally cynical distrust of thesex and of literature.

  "That's about what I told him," said the editor.

  "That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him," returned Jack. "Youought to have stuck up for that woman as if she'd been your own mother.Lord! you fellows don't know how to run a magazine. You ought to let MEsit on that chair and tackle your customers."

  "What would you have done, Jack?" asked the editor, much amused tofind that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinary humanweakness of offering advice as to editorial conduct.

  "Done?" reflected Jack. "Well, first, sonny, I shouldn't keep a revolverin a drawer that I had to OPEN to get at."

  "But what would you have said?"

  "I should simply have asked him what was the price of lumber atMendocino," said Jack, sweetly, "and when he told me, I should have saidthat the samples he was offering out of his own head wouldn't suit. Yousee, you don't want any trifling in such matters. You write well enough,my boy," continued he, turning over his paper, "but what you're lackingin is editorial dignity. But go on with your work. Don't mind me."

  Thus admonished, the editor again bent over his desk, and his friendsoftly took up his suspended song. The editor had not proceeded far inhis corrections when Jack's voice again broke the silence.

  "Where are those d----d verses, anyway?"

  Without looking up, the editor waved his pencil towards an uncut copy ofthe "Excelsior Magazine" lying on the table.

  "You don't suppose I'm going to READ them, do you?" said Jack,aggrievedly. "Why don't you say what they're about? That's your businessas editor."

  But that functionary, now wholly lost and wandering in the non-sequiturof an involved passage in the proof before him, only waved an impatientremonstrance with his pencil and knit his brows. Jack, with a sigh, tookup the magazine.

  A long silence followed, broken only by the hurried rustling of sheetsof copy and an occasional exasperated start from the editor. The sunwas already beginning to slant a dusty beam across his desk; Jack'swhistling had long since ceased. Presently, with an exclamation ofrelief, the editor laid aside the last proof-sheet and looked up.

  Jack Hamlin had closed the magazine, but with one hand thrown over theback of the sofa he was still holding it, his slim forefinger betweenits leaves to keep the place, and his handsome profile and darklashes lifted towards the window. The editor, smiling at this unwontedabstraction, said quietly,--

  "Well, what do you think of them?"

  Jack rose, laid the magazine down, settled his white waistcoat with bothhands, and lounged towards his friend with audacious but slightlyveiled and shining eyes. "They sort of sing themselves to you," he said,quietly, leaning beside the editor's desk, and looking down upon him.After a pause he said, "Then you don't know what she's like?"

  "That's what Mr. Bowers asked me," remarked the editor.

  "D--n Bowers!"

  "I suppose you also wish me to write and ask for permission to give youher address?" said the editor, with great gravity.

  "No," said Jack, coolly. "I propose to give it to YOU within a week, andyou will pay me with a breakfast. I should like to have it said that Iwas once a paid contributor to literature. If I don't give it to you,I'll stand you a dinner, that's all."

  "Done!" said the editor. "And you know nothing of her now?"

  "No," said Jack, promptly. "Nor you?"

  "No more than I have told you."

  "That'll do. So long!" And Jack, carefully adjusting his glossy hat overhis curls at an ominously wicked angle, sauntered lightly from the room.The editor, glancing after his handsome figure and hearing him takeup his pretermitted whistle as he passed out, began to think that thecontingent dinner was by no means an inevitable prospect.

  Howbeit, he plunged once more into his monotonous duties. But thefreshness of the day seemed to have departed with Jack, and thelater interruptions of foreman and publisher were of a more practicalcharacter. It was not until the post arrived that the superscription onone of the letters caught his eye, and revived his former interest.It was the same hand as that of his unknown contributor'smanuscript--ill-formed and boyish. He opened the envelope. It containedanother poem with the same signature, but also a note--much longer thanthe brief lines that accompanied the first contribution--was scrawledupon a separate piece of paper. This the editor opened first, and readthe following, with an amazement that for the moment dominated all othersense:--

  MR. EDITOR,--I see you have got my poetry in. But I don't see thespondulix that oughter follow. Perhaps you don't know where to send it.Then I'll tell you. Send the money to Lock Box 47, Green Springs P.O., per Wells Fargo's Express, and I'll get it there, on account of myparents not knowing. We're very high-toned, and they would think it'slow making poetry for papers. Send amount usually paid for poetry inyour papers. Or may be you think I make poetry for nothing? That's whereyou slip up!

  Yours truly,

  WHITE VIOLET.

  P. S.--If you don't pay for poetry, send this back. It's as good as whatyou did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me? that's me--allthe time.

  WHITE VIOLET.

  The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for some corroborationof what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder. But no! The few linesthat he hurriedly read breathed the same atmosphere of intellectualrepose, gentleness, and imagination as the first contribution. And yetthey were in the same handwriting as the singular missive, and both wereidentical with the previous manuscript.

  Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original? No;they were distinctly original, local in color, and even local in the useof certain old English words that were common in the Southwest. He hadbefore noticed the apparent incongruity of the handwriting and the text,and it was possible that for the purposes of disguise the poet mighthave employed an amanuensis. But how could he reconcile the incongruityof the mercenary and slangy purport of the missive itself with themental habit of its author? Was it possible that these inconsistentqualities existed in the one individual? He smiled grimly as he thoughtof his visitor Bowers and his friend Jack. He was startled as heremembered the purely imaginative picture he had himself given to theseriously interested Bowers of the possible incongruous personality ofthe poetess.

  Was he quite fair in keeping this from Jack? Was it really honorable, inview of their wager? It is to be feared that a very human enjoyment ofJack's possible discomfiture qui
te as much as any chivalrous friendshipimpelled the editor to ring eventually for the office-boy.

  "See if Mr. Hamlin is in his rooms."

  The editor then sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows:--

  DEAR MADAM,--You are as right as you are generous in supposing thatonly ignorance of your address prevented the manager from previouslyremitting the honorarium for your beautiful verses. He now begs to sendit to you in the manner you have indicated. As the verses have attracteddeserved attention, I have been applied to for your address. Shouldyou care to submit it to me to be used at my discretion, I shall feelhonored by your confidence. But this is a matter left entirely to yourown kindness and better judgment. Meantime, I take pleasure in accepting"White Violet's" present contribution, and remain, dear madam, yourobedient servant,

  THE EDITOR.

  The boy returned as he was folding the letter. Mr. Hamlin was not onlyNOT in his rooms, but, according to his negro servant Pete, had lefttown an hour ago for a few days in the country.

  "Did he say where?" asked the editor, quickly.

  "No, sir: he didn't