Margaret Graham - The Wizard's Daughter, and Other Stories

There had been a norther during the day, and at sunset the valley, seen from Dysart's cabin on the mesa, was a soft blur of golden haze. The wind had hurled the yellow leaves from the vineyard, exposing the gnarled deformity of the vines, and the trailing branches of the pepper-trees had swept their fallen berries into coral reefs on the southerly side.

A young man with a delicate, discontented face sat on the porch of the Dysart claim cabin, looking out over the valley. A last gust of lukewarm air strewed the floor with scythe-shaped eucalyptus-leaves, and Mrs. Dysart came out with her broom to sweep them away.

She was a large woman, with a crease at her waist that buried her apron-strings, and the little piazza creaked ominously as she walked about. The invalid got up with a man's instinctive distrust of a broom, and began to move away.

"Don't disturb yourself, Mr. Palmerston," she said, waving him back into his chair with one hand, and speaking in a large, level voice, as if she were quelling a mob, – "don't disturb yourself; I won't raise any dust. Does the north wind choke you up much?"

"Oh, no," answered the young fellow, carelessly; "it was a rather more rapid change of air than I bargained for, but I guess it's over now."

"Sick folks generally think the north wind makes them nervous. Some of them say it's the electricity; but I think it's because most of 'em's men-folks, and being away from their families, they naturally blame things on the weather."

Mrs. Dysart turned her ample back toward her hearer, and swept a leaf-laden cobweb from the corner of the window.

The young man's face relaxed.

"I don't think it made me nervous," he said. "But then, I'm not very ill. I'm out here for my mother's health. She threatened to go into a decline if I didn't come."

"Well, you've got a consumptive build," said Mrs. Dysart, striking her broom on the edge of the porch, "and you're light-complected; that's likely to mean scrofula. You'd ought to be careful. California's a good deal of a hospital, but it don't do to depend too much on the climate. It ain't right; it's got to be blessed to your use."

Palmerston smiled, and leaned his head against the redwood wall of the cabin. Mrs. Dysart creaked virtuously to and fro behind her broom.

"Isn't that Mr. Dysart's team?" asked the young man, presently, looking down the valley.

His companion walked to the edge of the porch and pushed back her sunbonnet to look.

"Yes," she announced, "that's Jawn; he's early."

She piled her cushiony hands on the end of the broom-handle, and stood still, gazing absently at the approaching team.

"I hope your mother's a Christian woman," she resumed, with a sort of corpulent severity.

The young man's face clouded, and then cleared again whimsically.

"I really never inquired," he said lightly; "but I am inclined to think she is. She is certainly not a pagan."

"You spoke as if she was a good deal wrapped up in you," continued his hostess, addressing herself unctuously to the landscape. "I was thinkin' she'd need something to sustain her if you was to be taken away. There's nothing but religion that can prepare us for whatever comes. I wonder who that Jawn's a-bringin' now," she broke off suddenly, holding one of her fat hands above her eyes and leaning forward with a start. "He does pick up the queerest lot. I just held my breath the other day when I saw him fetchin' you. I'd been wantin' a boarder all summer, and kind of lookin' for one, but I wasn't no more ready for you than if you'd been measles. It does seem sometimes as if men-folks take a satisfaction in seein' how they can put a woman to."

Mrs. Dysart wabbled heavily indoors, where she creaked about unresignedly, putting things to rights. Palmerston closed his eyes and struggled with a smile that kept breaking into a noiseless laugh. He had a fair, high-bred face, and his smile emphasized its boyishness.

When the wagon rattled into the acacias west of the vineyard, he got up and sauntered toward the barn. John Dysart saw him coming, and took two or three steps toward him with his hand at the side of his mouth.

"He's deaf," he whispered with a violent facial enunciation which must have assailed the stranger's remaining senses like a yell. "I think you'll like him; he's a wonderful talker."

The newcomer was a large, seedy-looking man, with the resigned, unexpectant manner of the deaf. Dysart went around the wagon, and the visitor put up his trumpet.

"Professor Brownell," John called into it. "I want to make you acquainted with Mr. Palmerston. Mr. Palmerston is a young man from the East, a student at Cambridge – no, Oxford" —

"Ann Arbor," interrupted the young man, eagerly.

Dysart ignored the interruption. "He's out here for his health."

The stranger nodded toward the young man approvingly, and dropped the trumpet as if he had heard enough.

"How do you do, Mr. Palmerston?" he said, reaching down to clasp the young fellow's slim white hand. "I'm glad to meet a scholar in these wilds."

Palmerston blushed a helpless pink, and murmured politely. The stranger dismounted from the wagon with the awkwardness of age and avoirdupois. John Dysart stood just behind his guest, describing him as if he were a panorama: —

"I never saw his beat. He talks just like a book. He's filled me chuck-full of science on the way up. He knows all about the inside of the earth from the top crust to China. Ask him something about his machine, and get him started."

Palmerston glanced inquiringly toward the trumpet. The stranger raised it to his ear and leaned graciously toward him.

"Mr. Dysart is mistaken," called Palmerston, in the high, lifeless voice with which we all strive to reconcile the deaf to their affliction; "I am a Western man, from Ann Arbor."

"Better still, better still," interrupted the newcomer, grasping his hand again; "you'll be broader, more progressive – 'the heir of all the ages,' and so forth. I was denied such privileges in my youth. But nature is an open book, 'sermons in stones.'" He turned toward the wagon and took out a small leather valise, handling it with evident care.

Dysart winked at the young man, and pointed toward the satchel.

"Jawn," called Mrs. Dysart seethingly, from the kitchen door, "what's the trouble?"

John's facial contortions stopped abruptly, as if the mainspring had snapped. He took off his hat and scratched his head gingerly with the tip of his little finger. He had a round, bald head, with a fringe of smooth, red-brown hair below the baldness that made it look like a filbert.

"I'm coming, Emeline," he called, glancing hurriedly from the two men to the vicinity of his wife's voice, as if anxious to bisect himself mentally and leave his hospitality with his guest.

"I'll look after Professor Brownell," said Palmerston; "he can step into my tent and brush up."

Dysart's countenance cleared.

"Good," he said eagerly, starting on a quick run toward the kitchen door. When he was half-way there he turned and put up his hand again. "Draw him out!" he called in a stentorian whisper. "You'd ought to hear him talk; it's great. Get him started about his machine."

Palmerston smiled at the unnecessary admonition. The stranger had been talking all the time in a placid, brook-like manner while he felt under the wagon-seat for a second and much smaller traveling-bag. The young man possessed himself of this after having been refused the first by a gentle motion of the owner's hand. The visitor accepted his signal of invitation, and followed him toward the tent.

"Our universities and colleges are useful in their way; they no doubt teach many things that are valuable: but they are not practical; they all fail in the application of knowledge to useful ends. I am not an educated man myself, but I have known many who are, and they are all alike – shallow, superficial, visionary. They need to put away their books and sit down among the everlasting hills and think. You have done well to come out here, young man. This is good; you will grow."