Book: The Shagganappi

E >> E. Pauline Johnson >> The Shagganappi




"I won't always be an expense at home, and have dad keep me as if I
were a girl," Archie would tell himself on his good strong days when
he felt he had accomplished something with his violin. "I can feel
the music growing right in my fingers. I feel I'll play to thousands
yet--thousands of people and thousands of dollars." Then perhaps a fit
of coughing would come on, and the boy would grow discouraged again,
but only until Hock appeared on his daily round, and plumping his
sturdy person into a chair would tell all the news, and finish with,
"Say, Arch, fiddle for a fellow, won't you?"

And while Archie played, Hock would sit quietly looking out of
the window, vowing to himself he would give up slang, and go to
Sunday-school regularly, and not shoot craps any more behind the barn
with boys his father had expressed a wish not to have around the place.
In after years Hock knew what made him have these good impulses while
he listened to Archie's playing. He knew that a great and beautiful
art--the art of music--was inborn in his chum; that the wild,
melancholy voice of the violin was bringing out the best in them both.

* * * * * * * *

It was summer time. The little Canadian city where they lived, which
stretched its length along the borders of the great lake, became a very
popular resort for holiday makers, and many Southerners flocked to the
two large hotels, seeking the cooler air of the North. Ball and tennis
matches and regattas made the little city very gay, and the season was
swinging at its height when one night Hock's burly voice heralded his
legs through the window of the Anderson parlor. Evidently he was greatly
excited, for he shouted at the top of his lungs that the east end
factory was on fire, with a dozen operators cut off from the stairs and
elevators, and that his father, who was foreman, was begging on all
sides for volunteers to rescue the people from the top story. In the
twinkling of an eye Hock was off again with crowds of running men and
boys; the fire engines went clanging past with the rattle and roar of
galloping horses and shouting men. Never had Archie Anderson felt his
frailty as he felt it at this moment. The very news made him almost
faint, but he started to run with the crowd until his shortening breath
and incessant coughing compelled him to return home, where he flung
himself down on the doorstep, burying his throbbing forehead in his
hands and saying: "Oh! I'm no good! I can never hope to be a man! I'm
not even a boy! I seem to myself like a baby!"

Late at night his father and brothers returned, all begrimed with soot
and ashes. They had worked valiantly with the firemen and rescuers,
saving life after life. But with all their courage and pluck they could
not save big Tom Morris, who perished in the flames just because he
insisted upon others and weaker ones being saved first.

For days the town was plunged in gloom. Everyone liked Tom Morris,
and everyone's heart ached for his little widow and her three small
children, left penniless. Then the only pleasant thing in connection
with the disaster occurred. The kindly visitors at the summer hotels
began getting up a huge benefit concert, the proceeds of which were to
be presented to Mrs. Tom and her babies. Hock heard of it first--nothing
ever escaped his lynx-like ears. Astride the window-sill he communicated
his gossip to Archie something in this fashion:

"Say, Arch, they're going to have the best performance. Miss Van Alstine
from New York is going to sing, and some long-haired fellow at one of
the hotels is going to play the piano--they say he's great; and, oh!
say, Arch, did you ever hear of a great fiddler named Ventnor?"

"Only the world-renowned Ventnor," said Archie. "Why do you ask, Hock?"

"Well, he's the one! 'Greatest on earth,' they say. Gets thousands of
dollars every night he fiddles. He's staying at the Lake View Hotel,
and--"

"Ventnor _here_!" fairly screamed Archie. "The _great_ Ventnor! Oh,
Hock, is he going to play?"

"Yes, he is!" said Hock, smacking his lips together with glee that
something had at last taken Archie out of himself and made him forget
his frailty, if only for a moment, "Yes, siree," continued Hock. "He's
going to play three times. Heard him say so myself when they asked him
on the beach this morning. He speaks the tanglest-legged English you
ever heard. He said, 'Me, I holiday; me, I not blay when I holiday.'
Then a batch of ladies tried to explain things to him, and when his
Russian-Italian-French brain got around things, he up with his hands and
ran them through his long grey hair and wagged his head, and said, 'Me,
I understand! Me, I don't blay money when I holiday, but me, I blay for
unfortunate beeples. I blay dree times.' Oh, it was funny, Arch!"

"Funny!" said Archie. "Funny! Hock, I'll knock you down if you call
Ventnor 'funny.' Why, it's the most beautiful thing in the world for
him to do. Oh, Hock! and to think that at last I will hear him!"

"I never heard tell of him before," observed Hock, with evident pride
in his ignorance.

"There's no greater violinist in the world, Hock," replied Archie with
enthusiasm. His cheeks were scarlet, his eyes sparkling, his thin hands
trembling with excitement.

"Well, I'm not keen on hearing anyone fiddle any better than you do,"
Hock answered soberly. "Whenever you fiddle you just give me the
jim-jams, with the creeps going up and down my back; and what's worse,
I always have to blow my nose when you get through."

"What a good chap you are, Hock! You make me believe in myself. Perhaps
I really will amount to something some day," replied Archie, warmly.

"Betcherlife!" said the sturdy one. "Well, so-long! I'm glad you'll hear
the big violin player, Arch, if you really have been wanting to."

Wanting to! Archie Anderson had longed to hear Ventnor ever since he
first drew a bow across the strings. He could hardly wait until the
night of the great concert. Owing to the extreme heat of the summer he
had been taking his lessons late in the evening, but on this eventful
night his teacher, himself anxious to go, told Archie to come at seven
o'clock; he could then give him a full hour, and the lesson would be
over in plenty of time for them both to attend the concert at half-past
eight. The lesson was trying and the excitement was beginning to tell on
the boy, so, without returning home, he went straight to the hall, his
violin case tucked under his arm. Purposely he had engaged a seat in
the very first row; he wanted to watch the great master's marvellous
fingers, as well as drink in the music they made. Even at eight o'clock
the hall was so packed that he could hardly get through the aisles.
The excellence of the programme, as well as the charitable object, had
drawn out the entire town, and Archie took his seat fearful that the
overpowering summer heat and crowded hall would be his undoing. He did
not even hear the opening piano solo by the "long-haired fellow," as
Hock had called him, nor did he rhapsodize over handsome Miss Van
Alstine, whose wonderful gown and thrilling voice captured the audience.
It was only when a slender, dark, elderly man stepped down to the
footlights with a violin in his long, thin hands that Archie sat bolt
upright, his eyes blazing with excitement, his breath catching in his
throat.

The great man's face was fine as an engraving, with a melancholy mouth,
and eyes that burned like black fires. He stood a brief second, gave his
head, crowned with long, grey hair, a quick, nervous toss, and drew his
bow across the strings softly, sweetly, with a heart-breaking sound that
fell on his listeners like the sob of a thousand winds. For five minutes
he held them spellbound. It was only when he half smiled and stepped
into the stage wings that they realized that it was over. Then with one
accord the entire audience broke into a storm of applause--all but
Archie, who sat with locked fingers and tense face; for the life of
him he could not move a single muscle--he was simply paralyzed with
pleasure; at last he had listened to _music_!

It was nearing the end of the programme, and Ventnor had stepped forth
to play his last number. It was a wild, eerie Hungarian air, that wailed
and whispered like a lost child, then mounted up, up, louder, louder, a
perfect hurricane of melody, when--suddenly a sharp crack like a pistol
shot cut the air. The music ceased--one of the violin strings had
snapped. At another time the great man would have finished the number on
the three remaining strings, but the heat, the lax practice of a holiday
season--something, or perhaps everything combined, for the instant
overcame him. He stood like an awkward child, gazing down at the
trailing, useless string.

Instantly, Archie's sensitive brain grasped the whole situation.
Ventnor's business manager was not with him; he had not brought a second
violin. Like a flash Archie whipped his own out of its case. He had just
come from his lesson; it was in perfect tune. Before the shy, frail boy
knew what he was actually doing he was beside the footlights, handing
his own violin up to the great master, whose wonderful eyes gazed down
into the small, pale face, and whose hand immediately reached out,
grasping the poor, cheap little fiddle that Archie had learned his
scales on. The audience broke into applause, but with a single glance
Ventnor stilled them, and dashed straight into the melody precisely
where he had left off.

Archie could hardly believe his ears. Was _that_ his old thirty-dollar
fiddle? That marvellous thing that murmured, and wept, and laughed under
the master hand! Oh! the voice of it! The voice of it!

They would not let Ventnor go when he smiled himself off the stage.
They called and shouted, "Encore!" "Encore!" until he returned to
respond--respond, not with his own priceless instrument, but with
Archie's, and with a grace and kindliness that only a great man
possesses. He played a good-night lullaby on the boy's cheap little
violin, and, moreover, played it as he never had before. Archie
remembered afterwards that he had presence of mind enough to get on his
feet when they all sang "God Save the King," but it really seemed a
dream that Ventnor was shaking hands with him and saying, "I t'ank you,
me; I t'ank you. You save me great awkwardness." And then, before he
knew it, he had promised to go to the hotel the next day and play for
Ventnor.

All the way home he was thinking, "Fancy it!--I, Archie Anderson, asked
to play before Ventnor!" Then came the fuss and the delight of the
people at home over his good fortune, but he soon slipped away to bed,
exhausted with the evening's events. His mother, coming into the room
later to say good-night, saw that close to his bed, on a table where he
could reach out and touch it during the night, lay his violin.

"Motherette," he smiled happily, "I feel that it is consecrated."

"Keep it so, little lad of mine. Keep both your music and your violin
consecrated."

* * * * * * * *

Never had Archie played so well, for all his shyness and nervousness. He
seemed to gather something of the great man's soul as he played before
him at the hotel the following day.

Ventnor became greatly excited. "Boy, boy!" he cried, "you have a great
music in you! You must have study and work, like what is it you
Canadians say?--like Sam Hill!"

"Yes," said Archie, quietly; "rainy days and east wind days, when I
coughed and could not go to school, I worked, and--well, I just worked."

"Me, I should t'ink you did! Why, boy, I will make you great. I will
teach you all this summer."

"I'm afraid father can't afford that," faltered Archie.

"Me, I tell you I holiday now. I take no money in my holiday. I teach
you because I like you, me," replied the master, irritably.

"But I can never repay you," answered Archie.

"Me, I will give to the world a great musician; it is you! That's repay
enough for me--the satisfaction of making one great violinist. That's
repay."

And so it all came about. Day after day Ventnor taught, trained and
encouraged Archie Anderson. Day after day the boy drew greater music
from the heart of his fiddle. He seemed to stride ahead under the power
of the master; and as for Ventnor, he seemed beside himself with joy at
what he called his "find." They grew to be friends. Archie confided his
great discouragement of ill-health, his inability to attend school.

"Me, I fix all that," answered Ventnor. "Me, I go see to-night your
parents. I talk to them." And he did, but his "talk" amazed even the
boy. He wanted Archie to go with him to California, where his autumn
season began. He wanted to adopt him, to take him away for two years. He
gesticulated, and raised his eyebrows, and talked down every objection
they had.

"I tell you I want him. I make a virtuoso of him. He is _my_ boy. I
discover him. He's good boy; he work, work, work. Never do I see a boy
work like dat. He is in earnest. Dat is de greatest t'ing a boy can
have, to be earnest. It make him a great, good man. He's not selfish
either. He not t'ink of himself, only other beeple. I meet with
misfortune. I break my string. He lend me his violin. Me, I'm selfish. I
don't lend my violin to not a person. No, not even the King of England.
Den, too, Archie, his throat and lungs, and his physique, it is not
strong, not robust. I take him hot country, warm California. He get
strong."

This last argument was too much for Archie's family. They yielded, and
when Ventnor left for the West the boy went with him. He never missed a
week writing home or to "Hock," and at the end of two years he returned.
In his pocket was a signed contract as "first violin" in the finest
orchestra of a great Southern city. He had left his cough with his short
trousers in California, and had outgrown as much of his frailness as a
boy of his temperament ever can. The day he left to fill his engagements
the lady called who used to speak of him as "poor Archie, he's such an
expense to his parents," and sat talking to Mrs. Anderson in the little
parlor. Trig had just secured a "situation," and the caller was asking
about it.

"Yes," replied Mrs. Anderson, "Trig has done very well. He gets six
dollars a week now, and Dudley, you know, gets ten." Then with
pardonable asperity she added:

"Archie is doing a little better, however; he's getting seventy-five
dollars a week to start on. He has already paid his father back every
copper spent on his tuition."

"_Archie! Seventy-five dollars a week_! Why, he is hardly seventeen! How
ever did he do it?" exclaimed the visitor.

"Hock, dear loyal old Hock, says it's because Archie is the very best
boy in the world," replied Mrs. Anderson, laughingly, "but I say it was
the result of a broken string."



Maurice of His Majesty's Mails


Old Maurice Delorme boasted the blood of many nations; his "bulldog"
grit came to him from an English sea-captain, a bluff, genial old tar
whom he could recall as being his "grand-daddy" sixty years ago; his
gay, rollicking love of laughter and song came to him through his half
French father; his love of wood and water lore, his endurance, his gift
of strategy, were his birthright directly from his Red Indian mother;
consequently there was but one place in the world where such a trinity
of nationalities could be fostered in one man, but one place where that
man could breathe and be happy, and that place was amid the struggling
heights and the yawning canyons of the Rocky Mountains.

Years before Canada had constructed her world-famous transcontinental
railroad, which now stretches its belt of steel from Atlantic to
Pacific, Maurice Delorme set out for the golden West, working his way
across the vast Canadian half of the American continent. He had done
everything for a living--that is, everything that was honorable, for his
British-French-Indian blood was the blood of honest forefathers, and he
prided himself that he could directly and bravely look into the eyes of
any man living; for, after all, does not dishonesty make the eyes shift
and the heart cowardly?

He had trapped for fur-bearing animals on the North Shores; he had
twice fought the rebels at the Red River; he had freighted many and
many a "prairie schooner" from the Assiniboine to the Saskatchewan; and
then, one glorious morning in July, when the hot yellow sun poured its
wealth of heat and light into the velvety plains of Alberta, Maurice
descried at the very edge of the western horizon a far-off speck of
shining white, apparently not larger than a single lump of sugar. As
day followed day, and he traversed mile upon mile, more sugar lumps were
visible; and, below their whiteness, the grayish distances grew into
mountain shapes. Then he realized that at last he beheld the inimitable
glory of the Rockies that swept in snow-tipped grandeur from south to
north.

Then followed the years when he, his wife and a little Maurice lived
in the fastnesses of those mighty ranges; when he learned to know and
follow the trail of the mountain goat; when the rugged passes grew
familiar to him as the little village where he had been born in Quebec;
when the countless forests of Douglas fir held no mysteries and no fears
for him; and, because he had learned these things, because he was brave
and courageous, because his life had been clean and honest, he was
selected to carry His Majesty's mails from a primitive "landing" on one
of the Kootenay Lakes to the great gold mines, forty miles into the
interior, and over one of the wildest, loneliest mountain trails in all
British Columbia.

Then it was that, once a month, when the mail came in by the tiny
steamer, Maurice Delorme would harness up his six tough little
mountain-climbing horses, put on his cartridge belt, tuck a formidable
revolver into his hip pocket and a good gun beneath the seat of the
wagon, toss in the bags of mail and the express packages, say a laughing
good-bye to Mrs. Delorme and little Maurice, and "hit the trail" for
the gold mines. How he hated to leave those two helpless ones alone in
the vast, uninhabited surroundings! But Mrs. Delorme had the fearless
courage and self-reliance of the women of the North, and little Maurice
was yearly growing, growing, growing. Now he was ten, now twelve, now
fourteen--a sturdy young mountaineer, with the sinews of an athlete, and
a store of learning, not from books, for he had never known a school,
but from the simple teaching of his parents and the unlimited knowledge
of woodcraft, of the habits of wild things, of mountain peaks, of
plants, of animals, insects and birds, and of the incessant hunt for
food that must always be when one lives beyond the pale of civilized
markets.

* * * * * * * *

And then one day, when little Maurice was about fifteen years old, his
father staggered into their pretty log home, bleeding, crushed and
dazed. The fate of the mountaineer had met him, for, during one of those
sudden tempests that sweep through the canyons, a wind-riven tree had
hurled its length down across the trail, its rotting heart and decaying
branches falling--providentially with broken force--sparing the
galloping horses and only injuring the driver--for how he escaped death
was beyond human explanation.

Little Maurice was then the man of the house. He helped his brave mother
dress the sufferer's wounds, he cared for the horses, he provided wood
and water, going about whistling softly to himself and trying to shut
his eyes to the fact that the food was growing less and less daily, and
that the mail day was drawing nearer and nearer. Of course the steamer
would bring flour and bacon and tea but it would also bring the mail and
express to be transported to the gold mines. His father would never be
well enough to drive the mails up that jagged mountain trail; and, worse
than that, his father must have fresh meat broth at once. Little Maurice
went into the sick-room, and standing beside the bed looked carefully
into the face of old Maurice. The eyes were feverish, the forehead
puckered with pain, the hands hot and growing thin. Then he turned
away, followed his mother outside, and, after a brief talk with her, he
reached up for his father's gun, took the stock of ammunition and dry
biscuits, whistled for his dog, and, a moment later, was swallowed up in
the forest.

The long day slipped by; hour after hour Mrs. Delorme would go to the
door, shade her eyes with her hand, and look keenly up the mountain
slopes, with their wilderness of pines. Once she saw a faint, blue puff
of smoke, and her quick ear caught the sharp crack of a far-off rifle.
Then all was silent for hours. The warm September sun had dropped behind
the western peaks, and the canyons were purpling with oncoming twilight,
when two quick successive shots broke the evening stillness, and echoed
like a salute of twenty-one guns far down the valley. Mrs. Delorme ran
once again to the door. The shots could not have been five hundred yards
distant, for down through the firs came Royal, the magnificent hound,
whining and grinning and licking his mouth with delight, and, behind
him, Maurice, shouting that he had killed a deer, and was hungry enough
to eat half of it himself.

"And, mother," he cried, "I could have got the game at noon to-day,
but Royal and I have been hours and hours closing in on him, getting
him into the runway, so that, when I did drop him, it would be near
home, for I could never pack his carcass all that way. He must weigh
two hundred and fifty pounds. Oh, but he's a fat one. And here are some
mountain grouse Roy and I got. Daddy will have all the broth he can
drink, and you and old Roy here and I will have some venison steaks for
supper!"

So, breathless and proud and excited, Maurice chattered on, preparing
a huge knife to quarter the deer, the more easily to pack it home.

There was great rejoicing in the log shack that night. Old Maurice
swallowed his bowl of hot grouse soup with relish, and clasped his son's
hand with the firm grip one man gives to another. The anxious lines left
Mrs. Delorme's face, as she laughed and praised young Maurice's prowess
as a bread-winner. Royal stretched his long, lithe legs, yawning audibly
with weariness and content as he lay beside the stove sniffing the
appetizing smells of broiling steaks, knowing well his share would be
generous after his long and faithful hunt and obedience to his young
master. And so the little mountain home was well supplied with fresh
meat, hot soups, smoked venison hams and dried flitches, until the day
of fresh supplies, when the primitive steamer tooted its shrill whistle
far down the lake, and Mrs. Delorme, young Maurice and Royal all went
down to greet the first fellow-beings they had seen for a month, and to
receive and care for seven bags of His Majesty's mails, bound for the
distant gold mines.

"Why seven bags?" asked Mrs. Delorme of the captain. "We never get more
than six."

"The extra is a large consignment of registered mail, madam," he
replied. "Big money for the mines, they tell me. You want to keep an eye
on that extra bag. Old Maurice doesn't want to lose that."

Then he was told the story of the old driver's accident, and forthwith
climbed the steep trail from the landing to the shack to see how things
really were. He saw at a glance that Delorme would not be about for some
weeks to come; so, after an encouraging word and a kindly good-bye, the
captain turned, as he left the door, and, slapping young Maurice on the
shoulder in his bluff, hearty way, said:

"Well, kid, I guess you'll have to carry the mails this time. Start
good and early to-morrow. I'm a day late bringing them, as it is. The
managers of the mines are not the waiting sort, and there's money--money
that they need--in that extra bag. Better take a gun with you, boy, and
keep a sharp lookout for that registered stuff--mind!"

"Yes, captain," answered young Maurice, very quietly. "I'll land the
mail at the mines all right."

And, a few minutes later, the departing whistle of the little steamer
was heard far down the lake, as night fell softly and silently on the
solitary little mountain home of the Delormes.

* * * * * * * *

In the grey dawn of the next morning Maurice was astir, his horses were
being well fed, his mail bags packed securely, his gun looked over
sharply. Then came the savory smells of bacon and toast for breakfast,
the hurried good-byes, the long, persistent whistle for Royal, the deer
hound, his constant chum in all things, then the whizzing crack of
the young driver's "blacksnake" whip, a bunching together of the four
horses' sturdy little hoofs, a spring forward, and the "mountain mail"
was away--away up the yawning canyon, where the peaks lifted on every
side, where the black forests crowded out the glorious sunrise, away up
the wild gorge, where human foot rarely fell and only the wild things
prowled from starlight to daylight the long years through; where the
trail wound up and up the steeps, losing itself in the clouds which hung
like great festoons of cobwebs half-high against the snow line. In all
that vast world Maurice drove on utterly alone, save for the pleasant
companionship of his four galloping horses and the cheering presence of
Royal, who panted at the rear wheels of the mail coach, and wagged his
tail in a frenzy of delight whenever his human friend spoke to him.
The climb was so precipitous that it was hours before he could reach
the summit, and he was yet some miles from being half way when his
well-trained eye caught indications of coming disaster. A thousand
trivial things announced that a mountain storm was brewing; the clouds
trailed themselves into long, leaden ribbons, then swirled in circles
like whirlpools. The huge Douglas firs began to murmur, then whisper,
then growl. The sky grew thick and reddish, the gleaming, snow-clad
peaks disappeared.

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