Mr Jack Hamlins Mediation

by Harte, Bret

  The editor wrote "till forbid" in the margin of the paper and smiled.

  "How big will it be?" said Mr. Dimmidge.

  The editor took up a copy of the "Clarion" and indicated about an inch of space. Mr. Dimmidge's face fell.

  "I want it bigger,—in large letters, like a play-card," he said. "That's no good for a warning."

  "You can have half a column or a whole column if you like," said the editor airily.

  "I'll take a whole one," said Mr. Dimmidge simply.

  The editor laughed. "Why! it would cost you a hundred dollars."

  "I'll take it," repeated Mr. Dimmidge.

  "But," said the editor gravely, "the same notice in a small space will serve your purpose and be quite legal."

  "Never you mind that, lad! It's the looks of the thing I'm arter, and not the expense. I'll take that column."

  The editor called in the foreman and showed him the copy. "Can you display that so as to fill a column?"

  The foreman grasped the situation promptly. It would be big business for the paper. "Yes," he said meditatively, "that bold-faced election type will do it."

  Mr. Dimmidge's face brightened. The expression "bold-faced" pleased him. "That's it! I told you. I want to bill her in a portion of the paper."

  "I might put in a cut," said the foreman suggestively; "something like this." He took a venerable woodcut from the case. I grieve to say it was one which, until the middle of the present century, was common enough in the newspaper offices in the Southwest. It showed the running figure of a negro woman carrying her personal property in a knotted handkerchief slung from a stick over her shoulder, and was supposed to represent "a fugitive slave."

  Mr. Dimmidge's eyes brightened. "I'll take that, too. It's a little dark-complected for Mrs. P., but it will do. Now roon away, lad," he said to the foreman, as he quietly pushed him into the outer office again and closed the door. Then, facing the surprised editor, he said, "Theer's another notiss I want ye to put in your paper; but that's atween US. Not a word to THEM," he indicated the banished foreman with a jerk of his thumb. "Sabe? I want you to put this in another part o' your paper, quite innocent-like, ye know." He drew from his pocket a gray wallet, and taking out a slip of paper read from it gravely, "'If this should meet the eye of R. B., look out for M. J. D. He is on your track. When this you see write a line to E. J. D., Elktown Post Office.' I want this to go in as 'Personal and Private'—sabe?—like them notisses in the big 'Frisco papers."

  "I see," said the editor, laying it aside. "It shall go in the same issue in another column."

  Apparently Mr. Dimmidge expected something more than this reply, for after a moment's hesitation he said with an odd smile:

  "Ye ain't seein' the meanin' o' that, lad?"

  "No," said the editor lightly; "but I suppose R. B. does, and it isn't intended that any one else should."

  "Mebbe it is, and mebbe it isn't," said Mr. Dimmidge, with a self-satisfied air. "I don't mind saying atween us that R. B. is the man as I've suspicioned as havin' something to do with my wife goin' away; and ye see, if he writes to E. J. D.—that's my wife's initials—at Elktown, I'LL get that letter and so make sure."

  "But suppose your wife goes there first, or sends?"

  "Then I'll ketch her or her messenger. Ye see?"

  The editor did not see fit to oppose any argument to this phenomenal simplicity, and Mr. Dimmidge, after settling his bill with the foreman, and enjoining the editor to the strictest secrecy regarding the origin of the "personal notice," took up his gun and departed, leaving the treasury of the "Clarion" unprecedentedly enriched, and the editor to his proofs.

  The paper duly appeared the next morning with the column advertisement, the personal notice, and the weighty editorial on the wagon road. There was a singular demand for the paper, the edition was speedily exhausted, and the editor was proportionately flattered, although he was surprised to receive neither praise nor criticism from his subscribers. Before evening, however, he learned to his astonishment that the excitement was caused by the column advertisement. Nobody knew Mr. Dimmidge, nor his domestic infelicities, and the editor and foreman, being equally in the dark, took refuge in a mysterious and impressive evasion of all inquiry. Never since the last San Francisco Vigilance Committee had the office been so besieged. The editor, foreman, and even the apprentice, were buttonholed and "treated" at the bar, but to no effect. All that could be learned was that it was a bona fide advertisement, for which one hundred dollars had been received! There were great discussions and conflicting theories as to whether the value of the wife, or the husband's anxiety to get rid of her, justified the enormous expense and ostentatious display. She was supposed to be an exceedingly beautiful woman by some, by others a perfect Sycorax; in one breath Mr. Dimmidge was a weak, uxorious spouse, wasting his substance on a creature who did not care for him, and in another a maddened, distracted, henpecked man, content to purchase peace and rest at any price. Certainly, never was advertisement more effective in its publicity, or cheaper in proportion to the circulation it commanded. It was copied throughout the whole Pacific slope; mighty San Francisco papers described its size and setting under the attractive headline, "How they Advertise a Wife in the Mountains!" It reappeared in the Eastern journals, under the title of "Whimsicalities of the Western Press." It was believed to have crossed to England as a specimen of "Transatlantic Savagery." The real editor of the "Clarion" awoke one morning, in San Francisco, to find his paper famous. Its advertising columns were eagerly sought for; he at once advanced the rates. People bought successive issues to gaze upon this monumental record of extravagance. A singular idea, which, however, brought further fortune to the paper, was advanced by an astute critic at the Eureka Saloon. "My opinion, gentlemen, is that the whole blamed thing is a bluff! There ain't no Mr. Dimmidge; there ain't no Mrs. Dimmidge; there ain't no desertion! The whole rotten thing is an ADVERTISEMENT o' suthin'! Ye'll find afore ye get through with it that that there wife won't come back until that blamed husband buys Somebody's Soap, or treats her to Somebody's particular Starch or Patent Medicine! Ye jest watch and see!" The idea was startling, and seized upon the mercantile mind. The principal merchant of the town, and purveyor to the mining settlements beyond, appeared the next morning at the office of the "Clarion." "Ye wouldn't mind puttin' this 'ad' in a column alongside o' the Dimmidge one, would ye?" The young editor glanced at it, and then, with a serpent-like sagacity, veiled, however, by the suavity of the dove, pointed out that the original advertiser might think it called his bona fides into question and withdraw his advertisement. "But if we secured you by an offer of double the amount per column?" urged the merchant. "That," responded the locum tenens, "was for the actual editor and proprietor in San Francisco to determine. He would telegraph." He did so. The response was, "Put it in." Whereupon in the next issue, side by side with Mr. Dimmidge's protracted warning, appeared a column with the announcement, in large letters, "WE HAVEN'T LOST ANY WIFE, but WE are prepared to furnish the following goods at a lower rate than any other advertiser in the county," followed by the usual price list of the merchant's wares. There was an unprecedented demand for that issue. The reputation of the "Clarion," both as a shrewd advertising medium and a comic paper, was established at once. For a few days the editor waited with some apprehension for a remonstrance from the absent Dimmidge, but none came. Whether Mr. Dimmidge recognized that this new advertisement gave extra publicity to his own, or that he was already on the track of the fugitive, the editor did not know. The few curious citizens who had, early in the excitement, penetrated the settlement of the English miners twenty miles away in search of information, found that Mr. Dimmidge had gone away, and that Mrs. Dimmidge had NEVER resided there with him!

  Six weeks passed. The limit of Mr. Dimmidge's advertisement had been reached, and, as it was not renewed, it had passed out of the pages of the "Clarion," and with it the merchant's advertisement in the next column. The excitement had subsided, although its influence was
still felt in the circulation of the paper and its advertising popularity. The temporary editor was also nearing the limit of his incumbency, but had so far participated in the good fortune of the "Clarion" as to receive an offer from one of the San Francisco dailies.

  It was a warm night, and he was alone in his sanctum. The rest of the building was dark and deserted, and his solitary light, flashing out through the open window, fell upon the nearer pines and was lost in the dark, indefinable slope below. He had reached the sanctum by the rear, and a door which he also left open to enjoy the freshness of the aromatic air. Nor did it in the least mar his privacy. Rather the solitude of the great woods without seemed to enter through that door and encompassed him with its protecting loneliness. There was occasionally a faint "peep" in the scant eaves, or a "pat-pat," ending in a frightened scurry across the roof, or the slow flap of a heavy wing in the darkness below. These gentle disturbances did not, however, interrupt his work on "The True Functions of the County Newspaper," the editorial on which he was engaged.

  Presently a more distinct rustling against the straggling blackberry bushes beside the door attracted his attention. It was followed by a light tapping against the side of the house. The editor started and turned quickly towards the open door. Two outside steps led to the ground. Standing upon the lower one was a woman. The upper part of her figure, illuminated by the light from the door, was thrown into greater relief by the dark background of the pines. Her face was unknown to him, but it was a pleasant one, marked by a certain good-humored determination.

  "May I come in?" she said confidently.

  "Certainly," said the editor. "I am working here alone because it is so quiet." He thought he would precipitate some explanation from her by excusing himself.

  "That's the reason why I came," she said, with a quiet smile.

  She came up the next step and entered the room. She was plainly but neatly dressed, and now that her figure was revealed he saw that she was wearing a linsey-woolsey riding-skirt, and carried a serviceable rawhide whip in her cotton-gauntleted hand. She took the chair he offered her and sat down sideways on it, her whip hand now also holding up her skirt, and permitting a hem of clean white petticoat and a smart, well-shaped boot to be seen.

  "I don't remember to have had the pleasure of seeing you in Calaveras before," said the editor tentatively.

  "No. I never was here before," she said composedly, "but you've heard enough of me, I reckon. I'm Mrs. Dimmidge." She threw one hand over the back of the chair, and with the other tapped her riding-whip on the floor.

  The editor started. Mrs. Dimmidge! Then she was not a myth. An absurd similarity between her attitude with the whip and her husband's entrance with his gun six weeks before forced itself upon him and made her an invincible presence.

  "Then you have returned to your husband?" he said hesitatingly.

  "Not much!" she returned, with a slight curl of her lip.

  "But you read his advertisement?"

  "I saw that column of fool nonsense he put in your paper—ef that's what you mean," she said with decision, "but I didn't come here to see HIM—but YOU."

  The editor looked at her with a forced smile, but a vague misgiving. He was alone at night in a deserted part of the settlement, with a plump, self-possessed woman who had a contralto voice, a horsewhip, and—he could not help feeling—an evident grievance.

  "To see me?" he repeated, with a faint attempt at gallantry. "You are paying me a great compliment, but really"—

  "When I tell you I've come three thousand miles from Kansas straight here without stopping, ye kin reckon it's so," she replied firmly.

  "Three thousand miles!" echoed the editor wonderingly.

  "Yes. Three thousand miles from my own folks' home in Kansas, where six years ago I married Mr. Dimmidge,—a British furriner as could scarcely make himself understood in any Christian language! Well, he got round me and dad, allowin' he was a reg'lar out-and-out profeshnal miner,—had lived in mines ever since he was a boy; and so, not knowin' what kind o' mines, and dad just bilin' over with the gold fever, we were married and kem across the plains to Californy. He was a good enough man to look at, but it warn't three months before I discovered that he allowed a wife was no better nor a nigger slave, and he the master. That made me open my eyes; but then, as he didn't drink, and didn't gamble, and didn't swear, and was a good provider and laid by money, why I shifted along with him as best I could. We drifted down the first year to Sonora, at Red Dog, where there wasn't another woman. Well, I did the nigger slave business,—never stirring out o' the settlement, never seein' a town or a crowd o' decent people,—and he did the lord and master! We played that game for two years, and I got tired. But when at last he allowed he'd go up to Elktown Hill, where there was a passel o' his countrymen at work, with never a sign o' any other folks, and leave me alone at Red Dog until he fixed up a place for me at Elktown Hill,—I kicked! I gave him fair warning! I did as other nigger slaves did,—I ran away!"

  A recollection of the wretched woodcut which Mr. Dimmidge had selected to personify his wife flashed upon the editor with a new meaning. Yet perhaps she had not seen it, and had only read a copy of the advertisement. What could she want? The "Calaveras Clarion," although a "Palladium" and a "Sentinel upon the Heights of Freedom" in reference to wagon roads, was not a redresser of domestic wrongs,—except through its advertising columns! Her next words intensified that suggestion.

  "I've come here to put an advertisement in your paper."

  The editor heaved a sigh of relief, as once before. "Certainly," he said briskly. "But that's another department of the paper, and the printers have gone home. Come to-morrow morning early."

  "To-morrow morning I shall be miles away," she said decisively, "and what I want done has got to be done NOW! I don't want to see no printers; I don't want ANYBODY to know I've been here but you. That's why I kem here at night, and rode all the way from Sawyer's Station, and wouldn't take the stage-coach. And when we've settled about the advertisement, I'm going to mount my horse, out thar in the bushes, and scoot outer the settlement."

  "Very good," said the editor resignedly. "Of course I can deliver your instructions to the foreman. And now—let me see—I suppose you wish to intimate in a personal notice to your husband that you've returned."

  "Nothin' o' the kind!" said Mrs. Dimmidge coolly. "I want to placard him as he did me. I've got it all written out here. Sabe?"

  She took from her pocket a folded paper, and spreading it out on the editor's desk, with a certain pride of authorship read as follows:—

  "Whereas my husband, Micah J. Dimmidge, having given out that I have left his bed and board,—the same being a bunk in a log cabin and pork and molasses three times a day,—and having advertised that he'd pay no debts of MY contractin',—which, as thar ain't any, might be easier collected than debts of his own contractin',—this is to certify that unless he returns from Elktown Hill to his only home in Sonora in one week from date, payin' the cost of this advertisement, I'll know the reason why.—Eliza Jane Dimmidge."

  "Thar," she added, drawing a long breath, "put that in a column of the 'Clarion,' same size as the last, and let it work, and that's all I want of you."

  "A column?" repeated the editor. "Do you know the cost is very expensive, and I COULD put it in a single paragraph?"

  "I reckon I kin pay the same as Mr. Dimmidge did for HIS," said the lady complacently. "I didn't see your paper myself, but the paper as copied it—one of them big New York dailies—said that it took up a whole column."

  The editor breathed more freely; she had not seen the infamous woodcut which her husband had selected. At the same moment he was struck with a sense of retribution, justice, and compensation.

  "Would you," he asked hesitatingly,—"would you like it illustrated—by a cut?"

  "With which?"

  "Wait a moment; I'll show you."

  He went into the dark composing-room, lit a candle, and rummaging in a drawer sacred to weath
er-beaten, old-fashioned electrotyped advertising symbols of various trades, finally selected one and brought it to Mrs. Dimmidge. It represented a bare and exceedingly stalwart arm wielding a large hammer.

  "Your husband being a miner,—a quartz miner,—would that do?" he asked. (It had been previously used to advertise a blacksmith, a gold-beater, and a stone-mason.)

  The lady examined it critically.

  "It does look a little like Micah's arm," she said meditatively. "Well—you kin put it in."

  The editor was so well pleased with his success that he must needs make another suggestion. "I suppose," he said ingenuously, "that you don't want to answer the 'Personal'?"

  "'Personal'?" she repeated quickly, "what's that? I ain't seen no 'Personal.'" The editor saw his blunder. She, of course, had never seen Mr. Dimmidge's artful "Personal;" THAT the big dailies naturally had not noticed nor copied. But it was too late to withdraw now. He brought out a file of the "Clarion," and snipping out the paragraph with his scissors, laid it before the lady.

  She stared at it with wrinkled brows and a darkening face.

  "And THIS was in the same paper?—put in by Mr. Dimmidge?" she asked breathlessly.

  The editor, somewhat alarmed, stammered "Yes." But the next moment he was reassured. The wrinkles disappeared, a dozen dimples broke out where they had been, and the determined, matter-of-fact Mrs. Dimmidge burst into a fit of rosy merriment. Again and again she laughed, shaking the building, startling the sedate, melancholy woods beyond, until the editor himself laughed in sheer vacant sympathy.

  "Lordy!" she said at last, gasping, and wiping the laughter from her wet eyes. "I never thought of THAT."

  "No," explained the editor smilingly; "of course you didn't. Don't you see, the papers that copied the big advertisement never saw that little paragraph, or if they did, they never connected the two together."

  "Oh, it ain't that," said Mrs. Dimmidge, trying to regain her composure and holding her sides. "It's that blessed DEAR old dunderhead of a Dimmidge I'm thinking of. That gets me. I see it all now. Only, sakes alive! I never thought THAT of him. Oh, it's just too much!" and she again relapsed behind her handkerchief.