.dt Peanut, by Albert Bigelow Paine—A Project Gutenberg eBook

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<sc>Books by</sc>

<xl>ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE</xl>
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“<sc>Peanut.</sc>” Illustrated. 16mo <I>net</I> $ .50

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<sc>Mark Twain: A Biography.</sc> Illustrated.

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HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y.
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<s><sc>Frontispiece: Peanut</sc></s>
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[Illustration: Frontispiece - Peanut]
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<xl>“<I>Peanut</I>”</xl>
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THE STORY OF A BOY

<s>BY</s>

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE

<s>AUTHOR OF</s>

<s>MARK TWAIN—A BIOGRAPHY
THE TENT-DWELLERS, ETC</s>.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

MCMXIII
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<s>COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY HARPER & BROTHERS</s>
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<s>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</s>
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<s>PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1913</s>
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“PEANUT”
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[Illustration]
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I
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THE blackened
stumps had been
left—perhaps more
easily to identify the
little clearing about
the grave. From
the ravine below,
where the stage
passed, they were
still visible, but the
two-inch headboard,
weather-beaten by a
year of sun and rain,
.pn +1
.bn 008.png
was getting lost in a growth of bushes.
When pointed out by the driver as
marking the “last hangout of Blazer
Sam,” who had “died with his boots
on, and had two cuss-words in his epitaph,”
it could be discerned now with
difficulty and there were travelers,
men mostly, who prevailed upon the
somewhat garrulous official to “let
the horses blow a little while” they
scaled the mountain for a closer view.
The epitaph itself was worth the
climb.

A few of those who had made the
steep ascent for that literary treat,
and to pay their respects to the grave
of the notorious desperado, highwayman,
and general outlaw, had seen
something dart away into the bushes
at their approach. As a rule, they
had been too far off to tell whether
.pn +1
.bn 009.png
it was a coyote, a jack-rabbit, or a
boy. Those who had obtained the
closer view usually agreed that it was
a boy—a very thin boy of about ten,
with pale hair and no head-covering.

The stage-driver in due time acquired
information. Those who had
said it was a boy were correct.
When Blazer Sam had made his final
exit in the abrupt manner noted,
and so taken his boots with him, he
had left behind the Rose of Texas,
acquired long before in a poker game,
and a little waif known as Peanut,
picked up like a stray kitten during
one of the Blazer’s devious wanderings.
The name Peanut might have
come from the color of his hair, or
from his small size and value. The
driver did not know. He had heard
that the boy had been kindly treated
.pn +1
.bn 010.png
by both the Blazer and the Rose,
and with the latter still occupied
Sam’s little hut in the woods above
the clearing. The waif probably came
out into the opening to see the stage
pass. Then again he might be “kinder
lonesome for Sam.”

The driver was right in at least one
of these conjectures. Peanut was indeed
“lonesome for Sam.” He could
remember very little preceding the
day six years before when Sam had
brought him home to be company for
the Rose, during absences that had
grown ever more prolonged as the
years passed and the outlaw’s field of
labor had been found farther and yet
farther away from his cabin on the
hillside. What Peanut did remember
was that he never had been hungry
since that day. Also, the times when
.pn +1
.bn 011.png
Sam had come home. For whatever
had been the source of Sam’s gains,
he had provided well for the Rose;
and if, as was said, the hand of every
man was against him and his hand
against every man you could not have
guessed it to see the small, lean hand
of Peanut locked closely in his own,
and the two wandering over the mountain
together in those days that were
now no more and would never more
return. There remained to Peanut
only their memory and the barren
comfort of a grave and an epitaph.

Yet these were much to the lonely
child. When he had pushed through
the bushes to the grave he felt close
to Sam, while the vigor of the epitaph,
which he could read, because this
much the Rose had taught him, was
somehow satisfying. The last line afforded
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him special comfort. It assured
him that no one would ever
dare to take Sam away.

It did not occur to him that there
was anything objectionable in the
lines. He did not know that epitaphs
are not so true, as a rule; while as for
the emphasis, it was of the sort he knew
best. That he did not use those
words himself was only for the same
reason that he did not chew tobacco
yet, or drink whisky. He had been
assured by the Rose that these luxuries
were not for little boys, and he had
been willing to wait. He was glad,
however, that Sam, who had indulged
liberally in the good things of life,
could still have the best on his tombstone.

Portions of the inscription puzzled
him. He did not know that there
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had been a price on the outlaw’s head,
and he wondered why the “greaser,”
referred to in line three, should want
to kill Sam. Neither did he realize
that line two doubtless alluded to
the Blazer’s slight valuation of life in
general, rather than to any disregard
of his own particular existence. Peanut
failed to understand why it was
that Sam had not cared for life when
by living he could come home now and
then and show him the trout brook,
and make whistles for him, and visit
the eagle’s nest in the cliff. Why,
once they had even found a cave, and
in it a shot and dying mother bear,
with two little bears, that were now
big bears and still came to the cabin
to be fed. When it rained they had
sometimes run for this cave, to build
a fire at the mouth of it and to lie
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there and watch the blaze and talk
and play with the bears until the rain
was over. What was the reason, then,
that Sam had not cared to live and
have all these things when he, Peanut,
had cared for them so much?

He cared for them still. He could
find his way to the brook and the eagle’s
nest, and to the cave where the
bears were always glad to see him,
especially when he brought food. The
innumerable squirrels and birds and
other wood-folk were his own; yet
from them all he turned each day
to Sam’s grave, there to live over
again those other days when Sam had
taught him the lore and kinship of the
mountains, and when, hand in hand,
they had pushed through vines and
leaves to visit the forest people together.
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Often when it was bright and warm
he stayed by the grave most of the
day, and sometimes, with his face
down in the grass, he would talk to
Sam. When it stormed he crept under
the bushes and felt a deep commiseration
for the lonely mound with
the rain pelting down upon it. There
had been times in winter, when the
snow was deepest, that he could not
go at all. On these days he moped
in the house with the Rose, who
since Sam’s death had supplied their
meager wants by doing mending and
an occasional washing for the mining-camp
below. She had grown rather
fat and silent and spent most of her
days playing solitaire and telling her
own fortune with a greasy pack of
cards, which diversions did not appeal
to Peanut.
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But in supposing that Peanut had
come out into the clearing to see the
stage pass, the driver had been wholly
wrong. Sam had never cared for the
stage or for people. In fact, he had
rather avoided those things, Peanut
thought, and he knew Sam always
had good reasons for what he did.
When the boy saw strangers climbing
the steep hill to visit the grave he fled
hastily into the bushes, where, lying
hid, he watched to see that they did
not carry anything away save perhaps
an occasional walking-stick or a handful
of goldenrod. When they laughed
and talked loudly he was fiercely
angry, and thought he understood
why it was that Sam had preferred
the society of the quiet wood-folk.

With those of his own age Peanut
had had but one experience. Twice
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the Rose had prevailed upon him to
go with her to the mining-camp, and
on the last of these occasions a boy—the
only one in the camp—had defrauded
him of his best whistle and
of such other valuables as had been
upon his person at the time. He had
received in exchange some yellow ore,
which the boy had insisted was gold,
but which the Rose declared to be
slag, and worthless. It was his first
experience with deception.

Peanut had refused to go to the
camp again.
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.sp 4
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II
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ONE day in late August the stage
stopped to let a woman climb
the hill. Women visited the grave
now and then, and Miss Cynthia
Schofield, age thirty-four, a teacher in
a Chicago public institution of learning,
was just the one to improve such
an opportunity. For Miss Schofield
was progressive in the matter of
acquiring knowledge. She spent each
summer in some elemental region, of
which she made numerous photographs
and notes. These she used
later in certain illustrated evening lectures
called “In-gatherings,” given by
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Miss Schofield for the benefit of persons
with fewer opportunities; also
for the purpose of adding a trifle to
her own modest income. She was
“doing the mines” this year, and her
present destination was the camp, two
miles farther down. The desperado’s
grave and history would make a picturesque
addition to her collection.

The climb was harder than it appeared
from below. Being the only
passenger, the driver had told her to
take her time, and more than once
she leaned against a boulder to look
down into the dark ravine made
famous by some of Blazer’s earlier
exploits. She recognized the artistic
value of the fact that his last resting-place
overlooked the scene of his former
depredations. She must certainly
bring this out well in her
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lecture, and as she toiled upward
she was forming in her mind certain
phrases, with a view to this result.
Then she pushed gently between two
small cedars into the opening where
the grave was.

At first glance she saw only some
bushes and fireweed about the blackened
stumps, and the riotous mass of
goldenrod which possessed one corner
of the little clearing. Then just by
the goldenrod she saw the grave, and
paused, for, face down upon it, asleep,
lay a meager barefoot boy with faded
hair.

Miss Schofield was, first of all, the
artist. She had anticipated nothing
so rich in value as this, and with deft
hands she adjusted the camera and
secured the range. There came a
sharp click, and the outlaw’s grave,
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the goldenrod, the fireweed, the black
stumps, and the faded sleeping boy
had been added to her store of choice
in-gatherings.

There had been still another result.
The snap of the shutter had brought
the light figure to its feet, like some
spry wood creature as suddenly disturbed.
An instant more and he
would have darted away into the
bushes; only, Miss Schofield spoke just
then, and with persuasiveness—the result
of long pedagogical training.

“Don’t go! Oh, please don’t!” she
pleaded, gently. “<i>Please</i> wait. I
want so much to speak to you.”

Peanut had no particular reason for
being afraid of women. The only one
he had studied at close range had been
kind to him to the point of indulgence.
There was something in the voice of
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this one that held him fast. The woman
came a step closer. She seemed
young and beautiful to Peanut.

“<i>Please</i> tell me your name,” she
said.

“Peanut.”

“Oh, that is what they call you,
perhaps. Your real name, I mean.”

The boy made no reply at first to
this comment. He seemed gathering
something from the mists of memory.

“Sam told me that it used to be—longer
than that,” he ventured at last,
very slowly. “He told me once that
it was Philip—Nutt, but he said P.
was the same as Philip, and that
he thought Peanut fit me better.”

Panic seemed about to return, as
the result of this long speech, and
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.bn 023.png
once more it required the soothing
diplomacy of Miss Schofield to detain
him.

“How very nice,” she said. “And
now won’t you please tell me where
you live, and about Sam and the
grave?”

Again Peanut hesitated. Then he
pointed behind him.

“I live up there; and Sam, he—why
he’s in the grave, and dam the
man that moves his bones.”

Miss Schofield had been unprepared
for this. Her emotion, however, was
mistaken by Peanut for incredulity.
“I can show it to you on the board,”
he insisted, eagerly.

The woman came up close, now,
and followed where his wisp of a
finger pointed. As he indicated each
line, he repeated it with a sort of
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.bn 024.png
monotonous tenderness, laying special
emphasis on the last.

.pm verse-start
“Here lies the body of Blazer Sam,
 For life he didn’t care a dam—
 He was plugged by a greaser unbeknowns,
 And dam the man that moves his bones.”
.pm verse-end

Miss Schofield’s look of concern became
one of sympathetic understanding.
The waif turned to her.

“You didn’t want to take Sam
away, anyhow, did you?”

“Oh, no indeed! I don’t want to
take any one away—” She hesitated
and looked down into the wistful face
before her. “At least, not Sam,” she
qualified. “I have already taken a
picture of the grave and you shall
have one of them. Tell me, Philip,
whom you live with, so I shall know
how to send it.”
.pn +1
.bn 025.png

The sound of his name thus spoken
may have awakened a sort of dignity
in the waif.

“I live with the Rose of Texas,”
he said, gravely. “Me an’ Sam both
did, till Sam was plugged by a greaser
unbeknowns, and—”

Miss Schofield interrupted rather
hastily.

“Never mind the next line, Philip.
I remember it. Just a moment—”

She had taken out her note-book
and was puzzling over the proper
entry. “Philip Nutt, alias Peanut,
Care of the Rose of Texas, former
housekeeper for Blazer Sam.” It
seemed a doubtful combination to intrust
to the mail service. Then her
face lighted with a sudden resolution.

“Show me just where you live,
Philip.”
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The boy turned and pointed up the
mountain.

“That big spruce grows by the
house. It’s on the rocks behind it.”

“I see, Philip. I can find it easily.
I must be going now, for the stage is
waiting, but I shall stop a day or
two at the mines below here. I will
come to-morrow and learn just how
to send the picture. Good-by till
then, Philip.”

She took his thin brown hand in her
own soft palm. The mother instinct
welled up strong. She hungered to
gather him to her breast, but he was
already drawing back rather fearfully.
A step away she turned to wave
another good-by.

Peanut had disappeared among the
bushes.
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III
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THE Rose of Texas sat in the open
door of her cabin. The Rose
might have been beautiful once—it is
proper to give any woman past middle
age the benefit of this possibility—and
there may have been a time when the
Rose had deserved her name and been
fully equal in value to the Colt .44,
three ponies, and five hundred dollars
in gold which Sam had stacked up
against her, and so, with the aid of
three other knaves, attached her to
his household. On a stone a few feet
distant sat Peanut, in deep reverie.
The Rose was first to break the silence.
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“I reckon it’s the best thing for
you, Peanut,” she said, and there was
a sort of resolute hopelessness in her
voice. “It’ll be mighty lonesome, of
course, without you, but when you
get so you can write you can send
me a letter now and then. I guess
I can read ’em. I ain’t tried any for
a good while, but if you make ’em
plain, mebbe I can spell ’em out. It’s
a good chance, Peanut, an’ I don’t
s’pose you’d ever get another. Then
you’ll learn figgerin’, too.”

“What’s that, Rose? What’s figgerin’?”

“Why, it’s like writin’, only it’s
countin’, on paper. It’s to keep folks
from cheatin’ you, in a trade.”

Peanut recalled his experience with
the boy at the mines. The boy probably
knew about figgerin’.
.pn +1
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“How long does it take to learn
figgerin’, Rose?”

“Oh, I dun’no’. Mebbe a year.”

“Then can I come back to you—an’
the bears, an’ Sam’s grave?”

“You won’t want to. You’ll be
learnin’ other things an’ seein’ new
places an’ fine folks. You won’t
want to come back to the hills, even if
you could. But you can write, an’
you’ll have a picter of Sam’s grave,
like the kind she showed us to-day.
She seems like she’d be mighty good
to you, an’ I reckon you’ll have to go,
Peanut.”

“But I’m comin’ back, Rose, when
I’ve learnt figgerin’ an’ seen all the
places. I’m comin’ back to locate a
mine an’ make money for us. You
can’t stay here always alone. An’
our bears would forgit me if I was
.pn +1
.bn 030.png
gone too long. You’ll feed ’em jest
the same, won’t you, Rose, when I
ain’t here?”

The woman’s voice broke a little
as she assured him that the big brown
bears that lumbered down the mountain
every day for refuse should still
be cared for in his absence.

“She’s comin’ in the mornin’,” the
Rose continued, “an’ if yer goin’, you
want to be ready. Put on yer winter
shoes an’ yer hat an’ yer other shirt.
’Tain’t much of a outfit, but it’s
more’n you come with, an’ she’s goin’
to pervide fur you. I’ve got a little
scrap o’ money, though, Peanut, an’
I want you to take it along. You
ain’t to spend it unless somethin’
happens an’ she ain’t there. She’ll
pervide when she is. Jest keep it so
you know where it is. If you ever
.pn +1
.bn 031.png
get lost, er need anything when she
ain’t at home, then use it, but keep
it as long as you can.”

The woman’s hand had gone down
to the hem of her skirt and under her
knee. It came up holding a small
roll of currency.

“There’s ten dollars here, Peanut;
it won’t buy much, but it would go a
long ways if you was lost and hungry.
Keep it in the little sack, with Sam’s
ambertype an’ the last whistle he
made you, an’ don’t let the sack out
o’ yer hands.”

The boy took the money curiously.
He had never possessed any before.
He opened the bills and looked first
at one, then at the other. He went
into the cabin presently and deposited
them in a small buckskin bag which
Sam had given him for his treasures.
.pn +1
.bn 032.png
When Miss Schofield appeared next
morning he was sitting stiffly in his
winter shoes and hat, his wet, faded
hair plastered close, the little bag concealed
about his neck. He was quite
ready.

The Rose was wiping her eyes as
she saw them pass down the mountain
in the direction of Sam’s grave. She
was wondering what she was going
to do without Peanut. She did not
realize that perhaps Cynthia Schofield
was wondering equally what she
was going to do <i>with</i> him—what was
to be the outcome of the philanthropic
impulse and heart hunger that had
led her into taking the pathetic little
creature by her side, away from his
beloved hills, to begin a new development
in a strange atmosphere and
amid alien surroundings.
.pn +1
.bn 033.png

But if Miss Schofield had any misgivings
as to the wisdom of her undertaking,
she was upheld by the thought
that her purpose was altogether righteous,
and would be justified by results.
The fact that as they passed Sam’s
grave Peanut flung himself upon it
and wept, and refused to be comforted,
only strengthened her belief that he
would one day glorify her for having
removed him from the influence of
former companionships.
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.pb
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IV
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IT having developed that at some
former period Blazer Sam had
been known by the surname Hopkins,
Miss Schofield had agreed with the
Rose that the latter should receive
her mail under the very respectable
superscription of Mrs. Rose Hopkins,
and at the camp post-office arrangements
had been made to this end.
Miss Schofield had further agreed to
write. Also that Peanut should write
as soon as he was able to do so.

If the Rose went oftener to the
camp now, and, bringing home heavier
bundles, filled longer days with harder
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.bn 035.png
work, it may have been only that she
was providing for an old age that could
not be far distant, or very luxurious
at best.

If the mail service possessed a new
attraction for her, she did not show it.
Her years of lonely secretive life had
been not without their effect. She
made no inquiries for letters, and
seemed rather surprised when one
day in September the storekeeper,
who was also postmaster, laid a sealed
envelope with her package of coffee
on the counter.

Both the address and the letter
were printed—type-written. The
Rose did not understand this process,
and was deeply grateful to Miss Schofield
for taking extra pains to make
the reading easy. It was not a long
letter, telling only of her safe arrival
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in Chicago with Philip, and the fact
that he was already at school, where
he would learn very fast. Her friends
thought a great deal of her “little
mountain boy,” but she was trying not
to let them spoil him. She wished to
keep his nature as fresh and beautiful
as the mountains themselves, adding
only such education as would make
him understand the higher life, and
such knowledge of the world as would
fit him to take his part in it by and
by. Philip had sent greetings to
“Rose and the bears.” He would
write before long, himself. He could
already shape the letters, and was at
his work constantly. If the Rose
needed anything, she was of course to
let Miss Schofield know. Meantime,
she remained, etc., etc.

On the whole it was a satisfactory
.pn +1
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missive. Peanut was safe and remembered
her. He was learning to write,
and would send, by and by, letters of
his own. To the Rose of Texas the
type-written sheet containing these
assurances became of more value than
all her former possessions. She pinned
it against the cabin wall where she
could see it and pause before it as she
passed in her work.

Only, in one sentence of the letter
there was a pang. She had
called him <i>her</i> “little mountain boy.”
The Rose wondered vaguely if this
meant that she herself had surrendered
all claim. The sentence about
the “higher life” rather pleased her.
She took it to mean a more pretentious
mode of living. If Peanut
should visit her by and by he would
probably come in a buggy, wearing a
.pn +1
.bn 038.png
high hat such as she had seen on rich
mine speculators. She resolved to
make an effort herself to live up to
this higher life and so preserve
something of her claim on Peanut.

She recalled a tradition that women
of the higher life did not drink
whisky—at least not regularly. She
would give up her toddies—by degrees,
of course—but in time enough
to do without them almost altogether
when Peanut arrived. In the matter
of clothes, she had noticed that those
worn by Miss Schofield had been
quite plain, not at all like her own
gaudy finery of former years. She
would get some very plain clothes,
gradually, as she could earn the
money, and have them ready for
Peanut’s return. She would also piece
.pn +1
.bn 039.png
together the remnants of her meager
education.

She obtained at once such literature
as could be had at the camp, and
patiently pored over a government
survey, and a mutilated primary
arithmetic contributed by one of her
patrons. A line to Miss Schofield
would have brought her quantities of
educational matter, but this fact did
not occur to her. Indeed, the possibility
of ever writing at all did not
enter into her dreams.

In October came the first letter
from Peanut:

.pm verse-start
  <sc>Der Rose</sc>,—The house-es are hi
as hils and thair is nois al the tim.
      Yurs,
          <sc>P. Nutt</sc>.
.pm verse-end

The writing was very round and
plain. It seemed marvelous to the
.pn +1
.bn 040.png
Rose that he could do it already.
He would reach the higher life sooner
than she had thought. She would
leave out her “between” toddies to-morrow.

A week later brought still another
letter. Already there was improvement.

.pm verse-start
  <sc>Dear Rose</sc>,—Thare are no hills
here. I luk at my pic-cher of Sams
grav ev-ry day. I am lern-ing fig-grin,
they call it num-ber work.
      Yours,
          <sc>P. Nutt</sc>.
.pm verse-end

After that, letters came almost
every week, and became the chief life
interest of the lonely woman above
the clearing. She pinned them side
by side to the wall of her cabin, that
she might read them without the wear
of handling. She learned each by
.pn +1
.bn 041.png
heart as it came, but this in no way
destroyed the joy of after-perusal.
She compared the writing, too, and
his rapid improvement gratified her
and spurred her to vigorous new
efforts of her own.

I may say here that the boy’s progress
gratified Miss Schofield as well.
Alert, eager, sensitive to new impressions,
Peanut in two months had
overtaken many of his own age.
Some he had passed altogether. In
a November letter, he wrote:

“There is a rale-road here that
runs up in the air, and rale-roads on
the groun that go all the time, day
an nite. I want to see you and the
bears and Sams grave. And I want
to be in the woods where there are no
rale-roads.”

The evident homesickness of this
.pn +1
.bn 042.png
letter touched the Rose deeply. The
“rale-road in the air” made her
marvel.

The next letter contained further
information.

“Wim-men here do not smoak.
And they do not say dam. I mean
wim-men like Miss Schofield.”

The Rose had never been given to
profanity. It had been a luxury, to
be indulged in on rare occasions. She
could forego it easily. Her pipe would
be a harder matter. Harder even
than her toddy—yet, she must do it—she
would begin at once. She resolved
that nothing should stand between
her and a share in that higher
life for which Peanut was destined.

Later in November there came a
letter in which he said:

“The people here have white stones
.pn +1
.bn 043.png
at their graves in-sted of boards.
They call them marble. They put
their names on them, and when they
was born and was kild, or died.
They are not alwis kild here. I wish
Sam had a white mar-ble stone with
his true name on it. We could keep
the other too. They have one at
each end. When I come back I will
by one.”

The Rose toiled earlier and later
than before. She no longer had time
for solitaire. She also grew thinner,
and a new look had come into her
face. The possibility of former beauty
could be more easily accorded. A
miner from the camp came one day
and wanted to marry her. Some
trace of a far-off former life of coquetry
made her laugh and say to
him:
.pn +1
.bn 044.png

“You’re too late. I’ve a sweetheart
already. He’s coming in a
buggy, with fine clothes on, and a
high hat.”

The miner went back to camp and
reported that the Rose had caught a
speculator, who would take her to
Ogden in the spring.

Autumn became winter. The bears
went to sleep in their cave, and came
no more to the cabin. Blazer Sam’s
grave was lost in folds of white, and
at times the lone woman above the
clearing was shut in for days. But
though alone, she was no longer
lonely. With work and the letters
upon the wall her days had become
as dream-days, her nights brief periods
of untroubled sleep. It was only
when the passes were blocked and
detained the stage with Peanut’s letter
.pn +1
.bn 045.png
that she minded the storm. At
one time the delay was long. Then
she received two, and was proportionately
gratified. In the longer of
these he wrote:

“Miss Schofield gives shose. She
has a lant-ern that makes pic-tures on
a big sheet. They are seens of where
she goes. Last night she shode the
mines and told about them. Then
she shode Sams grave with me a-sleep
on it, and it was as big as it is there.
She came and took my hand and led
me up in front of the peo-ple and told
them it was the grave of the cel-ib-ra-ted
Sam Hopkins, and that he had
been called Blazer Sam, and how she
found me asleep on his grave, and
how he used to make me whissels and
go with me over the mount-ins. And
how he must have had a good hart to
.pn +1
.bn 046.png
care so much for a lit-tle boy. And
when I saw the picture so big and
plain and heard how much she liked
Sam too, I had to cry, and Miss Schofield
says that then all the peo-ple
cried, and that she must not do it
again. If Miss Schofield was not so
good I would come back. I think
about the bears up in their cave
a-sleep, and how the snow is on Sams
grave, and how lonesome you must
be there alone. She is almost as good
as Sam, and I know now that Sam
belonged to the hire life. I guess he
lerned it when he was away so much.”

It is doubtful if Miss Schofield saw
all the letters which Peanut wrote to
the Rose. I have reason to believe
that she saw none of them after the
first, and that one only to be sure
that it was legible and properly addressed.
.pn +1
.bn 047.png
She meant to be liberal, and
was so, according to her lights. Her
favorite word was “spontaneity” and
she was eager to allow the boy his
own privacy and expression—any
form of freedom, indeed, that did not
conflict with the lives of others or
with his spiritual development.

Concerning his former guardian and
beloved hero, she carefully avoided
any suggestion that would tend to
destroy a beautiful illusion of childhood.
In the boy’s dream-life Sam
had been all that he appeared, and
there must be no rude awakening.
Little by little, as we learn the truth
about Santa Claus and fairies, and
never wholly lose faith in them, so in
due course and almost imperceptibly
would come enlightenment and a truer
understanding.
.pn +1
.bn 048.png

But this attitude did not prevent
Miss Schofield from dilating upon the
lurid history of Blazer Sam in her
entertainment, as usually given. Peanut
was absent at such times, and the
audience unknown to him. It was
one of her choicest bits, and the grim
humor of it was only heightened by
the touch of pathos supplied by the
picture of the grave with the sleeping
figure of Peanut, the story of his devotion
to the outlaw, and his present
relation to herself. As I have said,
Miss Schofield was, before all, the
artist.

Nor would it be fair, I think, to
attach blame to Miss Schofield for
what the super-sensitive reader might
regard as a certain disloyalty to
Peanut. Certainly it was proper to
leave his faith in Sam’s goodness undisturbed,
.pn +1
.bn 049.png
at least through the boy’s
trusting childhood; while it was no
less justifiable to make such use of
the facts as would best serve their
artistic presentation. The ends of
art have justified conditions far more
questionable than these, and her error,
if there was an error, would seem to
have been an earlier matter—committed
on that August day when,
following a sudden half-romantic,
half-philanthropic impulse, she was
prompted to transplant, to a crowded
and noisy environment, a life so essentially
a thing of the open sky and the
wide freedom of the hills. But perhaps
there are no mistakes in this
world. A good many otherwise reasonable
persons hold by this doctrine.
.pn +1
.bn 050.png
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
V
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.65
MISS Schofield had been careful
to see that Peanut was in
bed and asleep on that night in June
when the schools closed and she was
giving a cozy supper to her fellow-teachers.
Ever since the breaking of
the buds in the park the boy had been
restless, and she did not wish him to
be disturbed by the voices and merriment
of her company. Then, too, a
little private exhibition of some of her
choicest “in-gatherings” would follow,
and it would not do for her group
of special friends to be deprived of any
feature of her collection. They would
.pn +1
.bn 051.png
be quite sure to want the outlaw’s
grave and her picturesque narrative
accompaniment.

She bent over the sleeping boy and
listened to his heavy breathing. What
a joy and comfort he was to her!
She had felt his hunger for the open
air and the breath of the mountains.
Yet how faithful he had been to his
books—how little he had mingled with
the sports of other children! He was
of different fiber. And what progress
he had made! Some day the world
would honor and claim him. Now he
was all hers—her captive wood-creature—her
dreamer, her poet! She
bent over and lightly kissed his hair.
Sometimes she had strained him to
her bosom. She longed to do so now,
but a moment later was stepping
silently to the door, then as silently
.pn +1
.bn 052.png
she closed it and drew the heavy
curtain without.

Miss Schofield was not mistaken in
the expectations of her guests. Like
their pupils, the merry teachers rejoiced
in a newly acquired freedom
and wished to be amused. In the
darkened parlor they forgot the year’s
restraints and labors and gave themselves
up to luxury of enjoyment.

As the gem of the programme, the
Blazer’s grave was held for the last.
When at length it was thrown upon
the sheet there was a chorus of approval
and a round of applause. And
Cynthia Schofield rose to the occasion.
She had never been so full of joy in
the present, so satisfied with what life
had brought to her in the past, so
pleased with the outlook ahead. The
picture on the screen was a part of
.pn +1
.bn 053.png
these happy conditions, her audience
inspiring. Her friends expected the
best, and they should have it. With
what subtle art she led up to the
incident: The stopping of the stage,
the driver pointing up the hillside with
his whip. Then the scaling of the
steep ascent, the pausing here and
there to look down upon the scene of
the outlaw’s former crimes, which she
recalled, as she had heard them, in
the vernacular of the hills. Next, her
entrance to the little clearing about
the grave—the black stumps, the
flowers—and Peanut on the grave,
asleep. And her interview with Peanut!
She made it a masterpiece!
She even may have colored it a little—the
ends of art would justify that,
too. The imitation of Peanut’s voice,
and his monotonous reading of the
.pn +1
.bn 054.png
profane and half-comprehended epitaph—she
gave them with a fidelity
that startled even herself. Her friends
became hysterical. At one moment
sobbing and wiping their eyes, at the
next laughing, the tears still running
down their cheeks. And then the picture
she drew of the Rose of Texas,
and of Peanut when he sat waiting
for her to take him away. “Worthy
of Dickens!” they cried out to her.
“You must write it, Miss Schofield!
You must certainly write it!”

But Miss Schofield will never write
that scene, and those of us who
listened that night in June heard not
only its greatest presentation, but its
last. A moment later the lights went
up, and she turned for congratulations.
Then she saw him. He stood just inside
the door, and his face was like death.
.pn +1
.bn 055.png

The prolonged merriment had found
its way through the heavy curtain
and closed door. Unable to sleep, he
had dressed and come out to find the
cause. He had never been forbidden
any part of the house, and at the
entrance of the darkened parlor had
listened in silence to the entertainment
that ended with ridicule and
defamation of his hero, with jeers of
laughter for himself and Rose. Once
more he had met with deception—this
time in one whom he had trusted and
loved, even as he had loved and
trusted Sam—in her, of all others,
who had promised to lead him to the
higher and better life.

As white and death-like as himself,
Cynthia Schofield led him back to his
bed. There she tried to speak to him.

Peanut turned his face to the wall.
.pn +1
.bn 056.png
.pb
.sp 4
.h2
VI
.sp 2
.dc 0.2 0.65
THE letter which the postmaster
handed to the Rose of Texas
seemed heavier than usual. The Rose
hugged it all the way up the mountain.
Then out on the doorstep,
where he had said good-by, she
opened and read it. The first sentence
made her heart leap:

.pm letter-start
<sc>Dear Rose</sc>,—I am coming back.
I will start before morning. If I go
west and keep on every day, some
day I will get there. Miss Schofield
told me once that it was fifteen hundred
miles, so if I can walk fifteen
miles a day it will take me a hundred
days to get to the cabin and
Sam’s grave. The money you gave
.pn +1
.bn 057.png
me is not enough to come on the
cars. I will spend it for things to
eat. At ten cents a day it will last
till I get home. Perhaps some days
I won’t need to spend so much. I
will wear the clothes you made me
and my own hat and shoes. I have
them all on now, and the lether
sack with Sam’s ambertipe and the
whissel, and the money. I would
like to take the picture of the grave,
but I shall leave it on the wall.

I wrote you how Miss Schofield
showed the picture of the grave and
told about Sam’s good heart. When
I am not there she tells how he had
a cruel heart and was only good to
me. And it is not true, and when
she told how she met me at Sam’s
grave she told other things that were
not true, and that did not happen at
all. She laughs at Sam and the
grave and at you and me. And she
makes other people laugh. That is
all she cares for. I thaut she was
like Sam, but she is not and I could
not be good here either, where there
.pn +1
.bn 058.png
are so many bad people and nothing
is clean. The snow is so dirty here
they take it right away and you can
never hear the wind and rain. They
have trees in the park and animals
and birds in cages, but they make
me cry because they are so homesick,
like me. I want to come back
to the hills where there is just you
and the bears and Sam’s grave. If
I start to-night and it takes a hundred
days it will be more than a
year since I went away. I will never
leave you any more. I am obliged
to Miss Schofield for sending me to
school, but I cannot stay here now.
I was yours before I was hers, and
I will be yours again. Perhaps I can
get some books and study lessons
there with you and learn to be a
naturallist, when I grow up, which
means to live in the woods and
know about the birds and animals,
and I will dig gold out of the mines
for us and I will put a white stone
at Sam’s grave so we can see it from
every-where.
.pn +1
.bn 059.png

Now I am going to start. I am
going to slip down-stairs and I will
be out in the country before morning.
Sam taut me how to hide, and
how to keep in one direction. Perhaps
I will write to you on the way,
but I must not buy many stamps or
paper. Anyway I will be coming all
the time, and some day I will be
there the same as ever.
.ti +10
Yours,
.ti +15
<sc>Peanut</sc>.
.pm letter-end

The Rose of Texas was a bundle of
conflicting emotions by the time she
reached the end of this letter. But
out of it all came one dominant joy.
Peanut was coming back to her—he
was already on the way. Whatever
resentment she may have felt toward
Miss Schofield was swallowed up in
this great fact.

As to Peanut’s ability to make the
long journey, she did not question it—not
.pn +1
.bn 060.png
yet. She knew, of course, that
the way was long, and would be hard
in places. How long or how hard,
neither she nor any one could know.
She realized much more fully Peanut’s
subtle knowledge of outdoor life, his
persistence, and the endurance of his
wiry little frame. She forgot that a
winter of comparative inaction and
close mental application might have
told on his physical powers. It would
be a weary journey, but with the long
days of summer-time at hand he
would not fail, and September would
bring him back to her.

She would begin preparing for him
at once. She would make up one of
the new dresses, and leave off her
second toddy to-morrow. Then there
was another purpose, which must be
accomplished now, sooner than she
.pn +1
.bn 061.png
had expected. Her boy was coming
back to her—not as she had once
dreamed, in a buggy, and wearing a
tall silk hat—but, better still, the boy
who had gone away. He would find
her ready to receive him.

But one thing troubled the Rose—the
amount of Peanut’s resources.
With the aid of her fragmentary
arithmetic she verified his calculation
that if a little boy traveled fifteen
miles a day, and traveled a hundred
days, he would travel fifteen hundred
miles; also, if the same little boy had
ten dollars, and spent ten cents of it
every day, he would have enough to
last him through the journey. Only,
she wished that he might have more
than ten cents a day. It seemed to
her so little—she wondered what he
would buy with it. Crackers, mostly,
.pn +1
.bn 062.png
she thought, and cheese. The Rose
thought of the eatables kept at the
camp store, and sighed as she remembered
how little of them could be had
for ten cents. If she only knew where
to send him more money. But she
remembered hearing that things were
cheaper beyond the mountains, and
this thought consoled her.

As the days passed, her confidence
in Peanut’s ability to make the long
trip began to wane. Chicago lay far
to the eastward, across rivers and beyond
mountains. She reasoned that
there must be a road and bridges
between, but in her imagination she
began to see the dusty little figure
toiling along in the sun, overcome by
thirst and heat, where the prairies
were wide, and the houses far apart.
At times she pictured him as being
.pn +1
.bn 063.png
run down by those terrible railroad
trains, as waylaid and robbed of his
little store of money and left by the
roadside to die. Almost clairvoyantly,
at night, she saw him asleep
in fence-corners, in haystacks, under
bushes and ledges of rock—anywhere
that afforded shelter to the friendless
little wayfarer toiling back to his beloved
hills. When the storm raged
down the mountains she would open
the door and, looking out into the
mystery of blackness, fancy she heard
his thin voice calling to her above
the roar of the torrent and the wail
of the tree-tops. However busy her
days, they no longer seemed brief, her
nights were no longer untroubled.
She knew that he was still far away
beyond the mountains, yet twenty
times a day she hastened to the door
.pn +1
.bn 064.png
to look and listen, while at night wild
dreams brought her bolt upright to
answer to his call.

When two weeks had passed the
stage one day brought her two letters.
One of them from Miss Schofield—written
from a sense of duty, we may
believe—told, briefly and guardedly,
of the strange disappearance of Peanut.
The writer assured the Rose
that there was no cause for uneasiness,
that every effort was being made to
find the missing boy and that he was
certain to be discovered in a brief
time. The Rose smiled grimly as she
read this epistle, for the other one
had been from Peanut—just a line on
a bit of wrapping-paper, to tell her
that in seven days he had reached
Iowa, which was farther than he had
expected to be at that time. People
.pn +1
.bn 065.png
had asked him to ride, sometimes, on
their wagons. There were nearly always
good places to sleep—mostly in
the woods, where he had the birds and
squirrels for company. He was well,
and happier than he had been for a year.

The Rose did not know where Iowa
was. When she asked the postmaster
he showed it to her on the map.
Then she did not know any better,
but she was comforted. Peanut wrote
again when he reached Nebraska, but
that was nearly three weeks later,
and the Rose had become almost desperate.
Now she was made briefly
happy by the statement that he was
still well, and had money, and that
he had found there were only two
more states to cross, Nebraska and
Wyoming, and then a little more and
he would be home.
.pn +1
.bn 066.png

To the Rose a state was a state.
That the distance yet to be traveled
was double that already covered, and
many times more difficult, did not
occur to her. But when two weeks
more had passed, and yet two more,
and brought no further word from the
little wayfarer, her heart grew very
heavy again, and she haunted the
camp post-office with each arrival of
the stage.

And still another two weeks went
by, and yet he did not come, and the
days brought her no word. She did
not know that the number of crackers
obtained by Peanut for five cents had
been reduced in his westward march
from ten to eight, from eight to six,
and that the bit of cheese received in
exchange for the other five cents had
grown so small that the little boy,
.pn +1
.bn 067.png
alarmed, had feared to spend even the
money necessary for another letter.
The Rose did not know these things,
and even had she known, it would
hardly have lessened her anxiety.

She spent most of her time now in
watching for him. The hundred days
had by no means expired, but his letters
had led her to hope that he had
gained time and would be there sooner
than he had calculated. According to
her count, if a little boy could cross
two states in four weeks, he could
cross four states and something over
in about nine weeks, and now twelve
weeks had gone by and he had not
come. The fact that he no longer
wrote encouraged her to believe that
at any moment he might walk in upon
her.

But now came an added anxiety.
.pn +1
.bn 068.png
A letter, indeed, not from Peanut, but
a broken-hearted confession from Cynthia
Schofield, who, good woman that
she was, acknowledged everything,
begging the Rose to forgive her, and
to write if she knew aught of their
little lad.

“It was all so strange and unsuited
to him here,” she wrote. “I can see,
now, how he belonged only there in
those beautiful hills and how his life
there would mean more to him, and
to others, too, I believe, than here in
the sordid clatter and struggle and
deception that he could not endure—”
Then, in closing, she added: “Sometimes
I think he must have started
home, and I am having notices posted
and published all along the way, so
that somebody may find him and keep
him safely until I come. Poor little
.pn +1
.bn 069.png
fellow! Where is he, and what is he
doing to-night, out all alone in this
great wicked waste of a world?”

The Rose comprehended little more
than the grief of this letter, and she
pitied Miss Schofield, as one woman
may pity another when there is but
one heart’s desire for both; but her
sympathy vanished in the fear that
Miss Schofield’s agents with their
wide knowledge and ample resources
would find the boy after all and that
to her, the Rose, he would now be lost
forever.

She was in a frenzy of suspense. A
hundred times she would have closed
the cabin and gone to meet him, but
feared she might pass him by a different
way, and so wander on and on
helplessly. Her anxiety at last overcame
her secretiveness, and she one
.pn +1
.bn 070.png
day partially unburdened herself to
the postmaster, who informed her that
for at least fifty miles to the eastward
there was but one road. This
was in September, more than three
months from the night that Peanut
had left Miss Schofield’s apartment
in Chicago. The Rose could wait no
longer. She set out to meet him the
same afternoon.

She put on one of her new plain
gowns, and a new, though not altogether
plain bonnet which the storekeeper
had ordered for her from
Ogden. She started to put on her
new shoes, too, but, remembering that
she might have far to walk, held to
the old ones. Then she packed a basket
with eatables—good things such
as Peanut had always liked. He
would be tired of the things he could
.pn +1
.bn 071.png
buy with his ten cents a day along the
road. Tired? dear heart! As if a
little boy trudging over range after
range of lofty mountains, only to find
range after range of still loftier ones
beyond, could be tired of any kind of
food! The Rose imagined how he
would welcome the freshly cooked
bread, and the coffee which she would
make in the little pail. She felt much
less unstrung now that she was really
going to meet him, and more nearly
happy than she had been for weeks.
Only, she must hurry, and get as far
as possible before nightfall. Over
her arm she threw a thick army
blanket, for sleeping on the ground.

It was well on toward two o’clock
when she started. The path led by
Sam’s grave, and she paused an instant
to regard the place with a new
.pn +1
.bn 072.png
pride. Then she pressed on—there
would be time enough for this afterward.

The Rose of Texas found it hard
climbing the mountain road. She
began to realize now why it was that
Peanut might be longer than he had
counted on, and her heart ached for
him more, and her arms ached, too,
under the heavy load of blanket and
basket. When she had been toiling
up the hill for perhaps three hours
she wondered how many miles she
had come. But at a high turn of the
road she paused to look back, and
was surprised to see—almost behind
her, it seemed—her own steep hillside,
with the little clearing about
Sam’s grave. It was fully six or
seven miles away, but in that clear
air it seemed almost as if she might
.pn +1
.bn 073.png
reach out and touch it. Wearily she
pushed on. Dark fell, and she halted
for the night.

It grew very cold. The Rose attempted
to kindle a fire, but she could
not find dry pieces, and the matches
flickered and smoldered to blackness.
She huddled down in her blanket at
last, realizing what this night must
mean to a hungry little boy with
nothing but the sky to cover him.
Perhaps experience had taught Peanut
a better means of providing, but the
Rose did not consider this, and
through the bitter night saw him
crouching in the dark, shivering with
cold and exposure. She did not sleep,
and before daybreak was toiling up
the long incline.

The way grew ever steeper: she
was nearing the mountain-top. It
.pn +1
.bn 074.png
grew lighter, too, and presently she
noticed that the trees ahead were
fringed with morning. The sun was
coming.

The fringe crept lower, the woods
on either side turned to amethyst, a
spot of radiance lay on the high trail
between. The Rose paused and, looking
up, gave welcome to the new day.

Then, all at once, in the patch of
sunrise ahead, something dark appeared;
something that moved, hesitated,
moved again, stopped. The
woman’s knees began to tremble exceedingly.
Hastily shifting her burdens,
she shaded her eyes and looked
steadily into the brightness. Then
she was sure. It was Peanut, and
the glory behind him set a halo upon
his faded hair.

The wayfarer had returned. Who
.pn +1
.bn 075.png
shall say across what desert wastes,
through what dark gorges, and by
what dizzy heights the long path
had led him home—had brought him
nearer to the abiding comfort of Sam’s
quiet grave and the rest of the enduring
mountains? Who shall determine
what unseen power had sustained that
frail body and guided those wandering
feet?

He had not seen her. She was in
the shadow beneath, and he seemed
looking over her head to some faraway
point beyond. For one supreme
instant the woman lingered to
drink in the vision. Then basket,
blanket, and old restraints fell away
as she pressed up the slope, the new
dawn shining in her face. He looked
down then and saw her. These two
had never embraced, but a moment
.pn +1
.bn 076.png
later he was in her arms and their
tears mingled.

“Peanut, oh, my poor little boy,
how thin you are!”

“Oh, Rose, Rose! You bought it
for him, didn’t you?”

For behold, from that high point
the steep clearing on the far-off hillside
was once more visible. But the
black stumps were no longer to be
seen, and in their place a white stone
gleamed with the radiance of morning.
.sp 4
.nf c
THE END
.nf-
.sp 4
.pb
.dv class='tnbox'
.ul
.it Transcriber’s Notes:
.ul indent=1
.it Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
.it Unbalanced quotation marks were left as the author intended.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a \
predominant form was found in this book.
.if t
.it Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
.if-
.ul-
.ul-
.dv-      // TN box end