LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2020

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      EAN 4064066061883

Table of Contents

       CHAPTER I

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       CHAPTER V

       CHAPTER VI

       CHAPTER VII

       CHAPTER VIII

       CHAPTER IX

       CHAPTER X

       CHAPTER XI

       CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER I

       Table of Contents

      I

      COLONEL RICHARD PEYTON stepped to the edge of his veranda and looked up into the early morning through the branches of his over-arching live oak trees. He was very proud of those trees, for they were taller and more wide spread and branchy than any other live oaks in Arguello County; and that is saying a good deal. In fact so impressive were they that the Colonel had named the five or six acres they occupied Cathedral Oaks, thus placing them apart in all minds from the Rancho de la Corona del Monte, which was the Colonel's real property. Every morning thus the Colonel stepped early to his veranda's edge and looked up. And every morning something mysterious of the new day came down and met his spirit; whether it was a sound, as the low soft cooing of mourning doves; or a scent, as of something released by the dampness of fog or dew or the winter rains; or a sight, as of the slant of golden or sliver light, or a solemn belated owl, or the sailing of slow clouds down the wind. These things he absorbed, and they grew into his subconsciousness, and thus became part of him, so that at last he rose to a mild scorn of all who did not likewise arise betimes.

      "By Godfrey, Allie!" he would cry to his plump, bright-eyed, alert little wife, as he strode around the breakfast table to kiss her ceremonially. "I cannot understand these slug-abeds! They miss the best of the day!"

      And then he would seat himself across the table and beam about. The dining room thereupon resumed its natural size; ​for as long as the Colonel was afoot it became much smaller than even its actual and modest dimensions. The Colonel was not over six feet, and he was slender; but he had presence. Everything except the Cathedral Oaks and the Sierra del Sur seemed rather undersized when he was around—and, they only just fitted. As a matter of fact the ranch house, when analyzed right down and stripped of its vines and its coco-matting and its big pink seashells and its wonderful haircloth mahogany and its doilies and stuffed birds and steel engravings and traditions and such matters, would have turned out to be merely a rather small one-storied board-and-batten structure with a wide veranda running all the way around it, set comfortably amid the huge live oaks. It took a very clear-headed man to do this analysis. I know of two only; and they made their discovery with considerable surprise.

      But this particular morning of one spring of the eighties was an especial occasion. The Colonel did not, as was his usual custom, take a look at his oaks and his green half moon of lawn with its border of plumbago and geraniums and other bright flowers, glance down the perspective of his avenue of palms that led to the distant Camino Real, breathe deeply of the sparkling morning air, and so return to his table. On this one day were the most important matters afoot. It was Allie's birthday, and on that anniversary the Rancho de la Corona del Monte—hereafter, except on ceremonial occasions, let us call it, like the rest of the country, Corona del Monte for short—turned itself inside out and had the biggest barbecue picnic of the year. So the Colonel put on his low-crowned, wide-brimmed Stetson and took his way around the corner of the house.

      The Colonel, as has been said, was tall and slender. Beneath his Stetson his clean-shaven face with its hawknose and kindly eyes looked remarkably young and vigorous. Yet on closer inspection you could not have missed the network of fine quizzical lines that seamed his countenance; nor the delightful winter-apple quality in the colour of his lean ruddy cheeks; nor the calm, lofty dignified set of the mouth as in the portraits of Washington, Franklin, and their compeers, which means not so much loftiness of soul as lack of teeth. No, the Colonel was getting on. You ​never would have suspected it from the movements of his long figure in its black frock coat. The Colonel never suspected it at all. No one had told him, not even life itself.

      He moved around to the back of the house, humming something quite tuneless under his breath. On his way he did a number of little things of which he was not fully aware. He plucked successively leaves of the bay, the camphor tree, and sweet geranium, rolled them in the palms of his hands and inhaled their aroma; he took off the cover of the olla—the earthen evaporation jar hanging from a tree—and inspected its supply of cool drinking water; he pulled up a number of weeds from the brilliant flower borders and concealed them carefully beneath the shrubbery; a flaming humming bird poised buzzing in front of his face—he held motionless until the little creature had darted away. None of these things could he have repeated to you. A modern psychologist would have told you they were products of his subliminal. Manuelo, ranch foreman, at present superintending the preparations for the barbecue, would have shrugged his shoulders and said:

      "Eet is the señor. He ees like that."

      Same thing.

      But near the kitchen door the Colonel awakened from this sauntering, buzzing happy dreaming. In the course of his progress hung the substitute of that day and place for the modern icebox—a framework covered with layers of burlap over which water constantly sprayed. The evaporation lowered the temperature. This contraption possessed, of course, a door; and the Colonel's hand reached for it, as his hand had reached for the fragrant herbages or the cover of the olla. And then the alarm bell of his mind rang violently. The Colonel withdrew his hand as from a red hot iron, and looked about him with a comically guilty air. None too soon. Almost on the instant the back porch screen door opened behind him.

      "Good morning, Sing Toy," said the Colonel.

      "You wan' blekfus?" demanded Sing Toy.

      "Presently. Pretty soon," said the Colonel, managing a dignified retreat. He did not hasten his steps; yet one psychically endowed would have said he hastened. The expression of ​the calm, bland white-clad Chinaman on the doorstep was as blank as still water; yet the sensitive would have distinguished accusation and reproof. Sing Toy had a queue, as did all the Chinamen of those days. It was almost as expressive in some ways as a dog's tail. The rest of

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