by Zane Grey
Inside the boxes were the purses, shares of benefit, presents from directors, and from individuals. Chase won both hitting and base-stealing purses, Cas the pitcher’s, Enoch the fielder’s. Each got a silver watch, a gold scarf-pin, and link cuff-buttons. Each got cards calling for an umbrella, a hat, a Morris chair, a box of candy. All received different presents from personal friends and admirers. Chase was almost overcome to find that Judge Meggs and other friends had that very morning furnished his cottage completely.
Then the toastmaster interrupted the happy buzzings and called on Mac. The little manager bounced up with shiny face; he lauded Findlay and its generous citizens; he raved about the baseball team; he spouted over Cas and Benny, and almost ended in tears over Chase.
“Gentlemen,” said Judge Meggs impressively, “we have with us tonight a remarkable ball-player and good fellow. He has captained the team with excellent judgment; he has been a great factor in our victory. We have expected much of him and have not been disappointed. We expect much of him tonight. For surely a man with his wonderful command of language, his startling originality of expression, and his powers of uninterrupted, flowing speech, such as we are all so happily familiar with, will give us a farewell word to cheer our hearts through the long winter to come. Gentlemen, Mr. Enoch Winters.”
Enoch rose as if some subterranean force had propelled him. His round red face and owl eyes had their habitual expression of placid wisdom. But Enoch had difficulty with his vocalization.
“Gennelmen,” he began, and then it was evident his voice frightened him. “I—this—y’see—” he stammered, rolled up his tongue into his cheek to find his never-failing quid this time failing him. “Great honor—sure—I—we ’preciate—”
Then the voluble coacher, the bane of pitchers and umpires, the terror of the inexperienced, stammered that something was “too full fer words” and sat down. Whether he said “stomach” or “heart” no one knew, but all assumed he meant the latter and roared their applause. Judge Meggs, with a few fitting words, called upon Castorious; and Cas, he of the iron arm, iron heart, and iron voice, could not establish relations between his mind and his speech.
Judge Meggs said: “Gentlemen, we want to hear from our great second baseman, who, we are sorry to say and happy also, will not be with us next season. For he is going higher up. We have heard of a yet better stroke of fortune that has befallen him. In brief, we understand he has won from our midst one of Findlay’s sweetest and best girls, and that the happy fulfilment of such good fortune is to be celebrated upon a day in the near future. We think he owes us something. Gentlemen, Mr. Benny Ross.”
“No one ever had such friends!” cried Benny, dramatically. “No one ever had such friends!” And that was all he could say.
“Gentlemen,” said Judge Meggs, “we have with us tonight a lad who came to Findlay empty-handed, yet who brought much. We shall watch his future as we have watched him develop here. And when he returns to Findlay to become one of her solid, substantial businessmen, we shall not forget when he was a Star of the Diamond. Gentlemen, Mr. Chase Alloway.”
Chase managed to rise to his feet, but was utterly unable to respond. Emotion made him speechless. He smiled helplessly at Judge Meggs and sat down. The judge called upon several other players, and they too might as well have been struck speechless.
Then Mittie-Maru laboriously climbed upon his chair and raised his strange, shrunken figure. He put his right hand to his breast and beamed upon the company.
“Mr. Toastmaster an’ friends,” began Mittie, “my worthy captain an’ fellow players are too full fer utterance. Mebbe the sparklin’ stuff in the long-stemmed glasses hes tongue-tied ’em. Somebody must thank all you gentlemen fer this banquet, an’ it’s up to me. If the bases was full now we could feel sure of gittin’ a hit, fer we’re sure long on hits an’ short on speeches.
“Fer the team I wanter say thet this is a gran’ an’ glorious occasion, thet Findlay is the finest town in the U. S., thet the directors an’ supporters of the team are real sports an’ good fellows, the best ever! This hes been a great summer fer us all, an’ we’ve been happy. We’re sorry it’s over. Baseball players hev to go from town to town an’ part from each other an’ kind friends. An’ I’m sure none of us will ever forgit the fight we made fer the pennant an’ the friends we made in good old Findlay.”
Right warmly did all join in applause. Then, after a parting word from the judge, good-nights were spoken, and the banquet to the championship team was over.
Before Chase went home he wrote a letter to his mother, and told her, as he was still boss of the family, and disposed to become more so in the future, she and Will were to come to Findlay. They were to dispense with all the old useless furniture and belongings, that would only have reminded them of past dark hours, and to come prepared for a surprise and future brightness.
Chase slept poorly that night, and kept Mittie-Maru awake, and in the morning got him out at an early hour to see the cottage. It seemed that a fairy’s hand had been at work during the last forty-eight hours. The cottage was furnished from one end to the other, not poorly nor yet lavishly, but in a manner that showed the taste of a woman and the hand of a man. Chase felt that someone had read his mind. Who had guessed which was to be his mother’s room, and Will’s, and his own, and therein placed such articles as would best please each? So Chase learned in another way that the needs of the human heart are alike in everyone.
That day he and Mittie loaded the pantry with all manner of groceries. Then while Mittie went out to his old home in the brick-kiln to fetch the few things he owned, Chase fitted up the little room next to his. When Mittie saw it he screwed up his face and sat gingerly on the little, white bed. “I’ll be dinged if it ain’t swell!”
After this, Chase would have it that Mittie should go with him to a store and purchase a suit. Mittie submitted gracefully, and after a trying time in the store he produced a dilapidated pocket-book and began to count out the price marked on the tag of the selected suit.
“No, you don’t,” said Chase, “this is on me.”
“Mebbe you tho’t I was busted,” replied Mittie, with a smile. “I ain’t on my uppers yet, me boy. Never was much fer style, but, now when the time comes, I can produce.”
Chase and Mittie were arguing the question when the storekeeper said they must regard the suit as a present, and refused to be paid.
“Wot t’ ’ell!” exclaimed Mittie. “Hev I ben hittin’ the pipe?”
The afternoon and evening were very long to Chase. He slept that night from sheer exhaustion. He was up with the sun, woke Mittie, whistled, sang, and consulted his watch every few moments. The train he expected his mother and Will on was due at ten o’clock. He packed his effects, and sent Mittie for a wagon to take them to the cottage. Then he went, hours before train-time, to the station where he paced the platform. What an age it seemed! At last he heard the train whistle, and he trembled. He ran to and fro. Suppose they did not come? With a puffing and rumbling, the engine slowed up and came to a stop.
Only two passengers got off, and upon these Chase swooped down like a hawk. He gathered the little woman up in his arms and smothered all her voice except “my Chase.”
“Hello, Will! How about college, old boy,”
“You great, brown giant!”
And that was all. Chase bundled them into a hack, and telling the driver where to go, he looked at his mother and brother, so as really to see them. How changed they were! His mother’s face had lost its weary shade. She was actually young and pretty again. And Will-he was not the same at all. Bells of joy rang in Chase’s heart. Then he began to talk and he talked like a babbling brook. Baseball, the championship, his leading the league, his sale to Detroit, his many friends, about the certainty of Will’s going to college—everything but where they were going. Then the hack stopped. Chase helped them out, and turning to the hackman, thanked him and held up a dollar.
“This’s my treat,” said th
e hackman, tipping his hat.
“Say, isn’t my money any good ’round here?” demanded Chase.
“Your money’s same as counterfeit in Findlay. Good luck!” With a smile, the hackman turned his team and drove away.
“Chase, what a pretty place!” said his mother. “Do you board here?”
“Well, not yet. But I hope to.”
Chase opened the front door and ushered them in. A bright fire crackled in the open grate.
“Mother, this is home.”
Then for a brief space the three mingled tears with their happiness. And at last the mother raised her face with a flush. “How I have worried—for nothing!”
Chase called up the stairway. “Mittie! Come down. We’ve company.” Then he whispered to them, “Mittie is my little friend of whom I wrote. He’s a hunchback. If you look at his eyes you will never think of his deformity.”
Mittie came down without reluctance, yet shyly. The new suit considerably altered his appearance; nevertheless, as always, he made a strange and pathetic little figure. He advanced a few steps, stopped and waited, with his fine eyes fixed gravely and steadily upon them.
“I am very glad indeed to meet my son’s friend,” said Chase’s mother.
“My name’s Mitchel Malone,” answered Mittie, “an’ I’m happy to know you—an’ Chase’s brother.”
“Mittie-Maru, he’ll always be to me,” said Chase. “Mother, he is going to live with us.”
“I hev no home,” replied Mittie, to Mrs. Alloway’s kind questioning look. “My parents are dead. I never saw them.”
Then followed the pleasant task of showing the cottage and grounds. The day passed like a happy dream. At sunset, Chase slipped away from them and went down through the grove to the river.
He was rejoicing in the happiness of others. Yet now that his hopes were realities, an unaccountable weight suddenly lay heavy as lead on his heart. He had succeeded beyond his wildest fancy. There was the cottage, and it contained his friend Mittie-Maru; and Will, with the clear light of joy in his eyes; and his mother, well and happier than he had ever seen her. These were blessings such as he was sure he did not deserve, but humble and thankful as they made him, he was not entirely content. Suddenly the glamour of all he had been working to accomplish paled in the moment of its achievement.
The swift-flowing river murmured over stones and glided along the brown banks toward the setting sun. The song of the water was all the sound to break the silence. Silver clouds and golden light lay reflected in the river and slowly shaded as the sun sank. This hour with its diminishing brightness, its slow approach of gray twilight, its faint murmuring river-song, sadder than any stillness, singularly fitted Chase’s mood.
A shout from Mittie-Maru brought Chase out of the depths. He answered and turned toward the grove. Mittie came hobbling with a celerity that threatened peril to the frail limbs so unaccustomed to such effort.
“Lock the gate!” he called out, waving a letter at Chase.
“Wonder who’s writing me?” asked Chase, failing to note Mittie’s agitation.
“Thet’s Miss Marjory’s writin’.”
Chase’s hands trembled slightly. Mittie’s eyes were gloriously bright.
“Last innin’s!” sang out the lad. “You waited it out, Chase. An’ now’s the time to dig. Git up on yer toes an’ run, Chase—run as yer never run turnin’ third in yer life, an’ when yer reach home base an’ Miss Marjory, an’ score—why—why just give her one fer Mittie, who umpired yer game.”
Chase scarcely heard his little friend, and did not see him hurry away toward the cottage, for his eyes were now fixed on the opened letter.
DEAR CHASE:
This letter is as difficult to write now as it has been to keep from writing sooner.
I have so much to tell you. Ever since you saved the Geyser well, father has been on my side, and I persuaded him to take me to see that last Columbus-Findlay game.
He had forgotten he used to play ball when a boy, and it came back to him. First he grew excited, then red in the face, and he shouted till he lost his voice. Before the game was half over, he turned purple. When you made that wonderful, wonderful hit, he smashed a hole right through his hat.
Such a state as he was in when we got home! His hat was a wreck, his coat mussed, his collar wilted, and his face all crimson. But I never saw him so happy, and even mother’s disgust at his appearance made no difference.
I think—I am sure—we made life miserable for her. She said you might come to see me. And—I say come soon.
Marjory
THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT (1910) [Part 1]
I. THE SIGN OF THE SUNSET
“But the man’s almost dead.”
The words stung John Hare’s fainting spirit into life. He opened his eyes. The desert still stretched before him, the appalling thing that had overpowered him with its deceiving purple distance. Near by stood a sombre group of men.
“Leave him here,” said one, addressing a gray-bearded giant. “He’s the fellow sent into southern Utah to spy out the cattle thieves. He’s all but dead. Dene’s outlaws are after him. Don’t cross Dene.”
The stately answer might have come from a Scottish Covenanter or a follower of Cromwell.
“Martin Cole, I will not go a hair’s-breadth out of my way for Dene or any other man. You forget your religion. I see my duty to God.”
“Yes, August Naab, I know,” replied the little man, bitterly. “You would cast the Scriptures in my teeth, and liken this man to one who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves. But I’ve suffered enough at the hands of Dene.”
The formal speech, the Biblical references, recalled to the reviving Hare that he was still in the land of the Mormons. As he lay there the strange words of the Mormons linked the hard experience of the last few days with the stern reality of the present.
“Martin Cole, I hold to the spirit of our fathers,” replied Naab, like one reading from the Old Testament. “They came into this desert land to worship and multiply in peace. They conquered the desert; they prospered with the years that brought settlers, cattle-men, sheep-herders, all hostile to their religion and their livelihood. Nor did they ever fail to succor the sick and unfortunate. What are our toils and perils compared to theirs? Why should we forsake the path of duty, and turn from mercy because of a cut-throat outlaw? I like not the sign of the times, but I am a Mormon; I trust in God.”
“August Naab, I am a Mormon too,” returned Cole, “but my hands are stained with blood. Soon yours will be if you keep your water-holes and your cattle. Yes, I know. You’re strong, stronger than any of us, far off in your desert oasis, hemmed in by walls, cut off by canyons, guarded by your Navajo friends. But Holderness is creeping slowly on you. He’ll ignore your water rights and drive your stock. Soon Dene will steal cattle under your very eyes. Don’t make them enemies.”
“I can’t pass by this helpless man,” rolled out August Naab’s sonorous voice.
Suddenly, with livid face and shaking hand, Cole pointed westward. “There! Dene and his band! See, under the red wall; see the dust, not ten miles away. See them?”
The desert, gray in the foreground, purple in the distance, sloped to the west. Eyes keen as those of hawks searched the waste, and followed the red mountain rampart, which, sheer in bold height and processional in its craggy sweep, shut out the north. Far away little puffs of dust rose above the white sage, and creeping specks moved at a snail’s pace.
“See them? Ah! then look, August Naab, look in the heavens above for my prophecy,” cried Cole, fanatically. “The red sunset—the sign of the times—blood!”
A broad bar of dense black shut out the April sky, except in the extreme west, where a strip of pale blue formed background for several clouds of striking color and shape. They alone, in all that expanse, were dyed in the desert’s sunset crimson. The largest projected from behind the dark cloud-bank in the shape of a huge fist, and the others, small and round, float
ed below. To Cole it seemed a giant hand, clutching, with inexorable strength, a bleeding heart. His terror spread to his companions as they stared.
Then, as light surrendered to shade, the sinister color faded; the tracing of the closed hand softened; flush and glow paled, leaving the sky purple, as if mirroring the desert floor. One golden shaft shot up, to be blotted out by sudden darkening change, and the sun had set.
“That may be God’s will,” said August Naab. “So be it. Martin Cole, take your men and go.”
There was a word, half oath, half prayer, and then rattle of stirrups, the creak of saddles, and clink of spurs, followed by the driving rush of fiery horses. Cole and his men disappeared in a pall of yellow dust.
A wan smile lightened John Hare’s face as he spoke weakly: “I fear your—generous act—can’t save me…may bring you harm. I’d rather you left me—seeing you have women in your party.”
“Don’t try to talk yet,” said August Naab. “You’re faint. Here—drink.” He stooped to Hare, who was leaning against a sage-bush, and held a flask to his lips. Rising, he called to his men: “Make camp, sons. We’ve an hour before the outlaws come up, and if they don’t go round the sand-dune we’ll have longer.”
Hare’s flagging senses rallied, and he forgot himself in wonder. While the bustle went on, unhitching of wagon-teams, hobbling and feeding of horses, unpacking of camp-supplies, Naab appeared to be lost in deep meditation or prayer. Not once did he glance backward over the trail on which peril was fast approaching. His gaze was fastened on a ridge to the east where desert line, fringed by stunted cedars, met the pale-blue sky, and for a long time he neither spoke nor stirred. At length he turned to the camp-fire; he raked out red coals, and placed the iron pots in position, by way of assistance to the women who were preparing the evening meal.
