The San Rosario Ranch
the bit of a note, smoothed it, and laid it at Mrs. Deering's plate on
the breakfast table.
Millicent asked Barbara later on in the day who and what John Graham
might be. She was told that the man with the bronze hair and strange
eyes was a near neighbor, and that she would without doubt soon make his
acquaintance.
With this answer Millicent was fain to be content. She thought about
him all that day and dreamed of him that night; the next morning his
face was not so distinctly in her mind, but her thoughts were constantly
busy with weaving romances in which John Graham played a conspicuous
part. The girl was indeed a creature "of the stuff which dreams are
made of;" the web of her daily life, no matter how common-place its
actual experience might be, was rich with her own vivid imaginings, like
the gold thread that a weaver twists through a sad-colored fabric.
"Mr. Deering, take me to the dairy. I have not yet seen it," said
Millicent one afternoon, as they all sat together on the wide piazza,
after the early dinner. The young man rose slowly, his great length
unfolding itself as he left his chair; and for answer put down his pipe
and reached up for Millicent's hat, which he had hung on a peg high
above her reach. The two young people passed down the gravel walk
between the broad flower beds fragrant with the wonderful roses which
grow only upon the shores of the Pacific. A geranium tree twelve feet
high, with its great scarlet bunches, and the vine of Marechal roses
which climbed up the piazza and tapped with its heavy blossoms at her
casement, aroused Millicent's enthusiasm.
The dairy, Hal told her, was fully thirty years old. But her own palace
had frowned grim and black upon the Grand Canal before the passengers on
the good ship "Mayflower" had landed in Plymouth. The dairy was a
plain, neat frame-building painted white, looking out upon a great
farm-yard. Here the pretty cows all stood crowded together, waiting
their turn to offer up their evening tribute. Two black-browed Mexicans
were milking, and a tall Yankee was overseeing the straining of the
milk. He stood by a large trough and received the brimming buckets from
the milkers, pouring their contents through a strainer into the great
receptacle. In the midst of the herd lay Jupiter, the splendid bull,
lazily chewing his cud and switching away the sand flies with his thick
black tail.
In a cool inner room were long shelves ranged about the brick walls,
whereon stood a shining array of pans filled with milk in different
stages. Millicent was one of those people who are always stimulated with
a desire to accomplish whatever other people are engaged in doing. She
now announced her intention of learning to milk. This suggestion was
promptly vetoed by Hal, who, to divert her attention, called to one of
the men to bring him the skimming utensils. He placed a large stone jar
beneath the shelf, and taking one of the milk pans which was covered
with a rich coating of yellow cream, proceeded to skim it. His only
tool was a little wooden wand, resembling a sculptor's modelling stick.
With this he separated the yellow disk of cream from the sides of the
pan, tipping it slightly so that the whole mass of cream slipped off
unbroken, leaving the pale-blue skimmed milk in the vessel. Millicent
was delighted with the operation which Hal accomplished with such skill,
and after many unsuccessful attempts finally performed the feat in a
manner very creditable to a beginner.
"If you will find your way back to the house, Princess, I will help the
men to finish the milking," said young Deering, when Millicent had
announced her intention of returning.
She nodded her assent, and walking a few steps stopped and leaned over
the gate of the farm-yard. Presently Deering came out from the dairy,
having donned his rough overalls and jersey, and, placing himself on a
three-legged stool, proceeded to milk a tall white cow. Millicent looked
at him musingly for a few minutes, and then took her way down the path
which led to the house. It was but a short distance, and lay within
sight of both farm and dwelling-house, and yet she was somewhat
astonished at the young man's allowing her to return alone. To see him
milking, too, at work with the common laborers, had greatly perplexed
her. She cast a glance over her shoulder to reassure herself that it
was really Hal's hatless head which was bending forward, almost touching
the side of the white cow. "And yet he is a gentleman," she said aloud;
and, remembering the white hands of her papa and the gentlemen whom she
had known in the Old World, was reminded of the truth, which when it is
spoken seems a truism, and yet which is often lost sight of, that the
proof of gentlehood lies neither in the skin of the body, nor its
raiment.
Neither goodly clothes nor skin
Show the gentleman within.
CHAPTER III.
"And to watch you sink by the fireside now
Back again, as you mutely sit
Musing by fire-light, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it."
John Douglass Graham, by birth American, by descent Scottish, by
profession painter, sat looking out from his tower window. It was too
dark to paint, and not yet late enough for him to light his study lamp
and begin his evening work; so he sat idle, a rare thing for him.
Before his window there stretched a fair landscape; and a man, a painter
above other men, might well be forgiven an hour's idleness in such a
place. The sun's last rays made the little copse look more golden and
dreamy than did the stronger morning light. The still pool with its
warm reflection of sky and trees, the mysterious dark wood beyond, all
shadowy and full of dreams, made a picture which his hand never wearied
of reproducing. On his easel stood a canvas which bore a reflection of
the scene on which he was looking, painted in a strong, masterly manner,
but not yet completed. "Ah, Heavens! no wonder that men love to paint
in cities, with nothing of nature's beauty before them to shame their
work. If I dwelt face to face with a brick wall and saw no motion save
that of horse-cars and over-laden dray horses I might be more satisfied
with what I accomplish. This picture might then seem beautiful to me.
It is a different thing to look into the face of the great model and
then at one's work. Only the strongest of us can do that, only our
Dupres and Rousseaus. Shall I ever feel that I can even dimly picture
this one view? Can I ever send my testimony of beauty to the world?
Can I say the one word of truth which was given me to speak?"
Graham spoke to the four walls to which most of his conversation was
addressed. The only sympathy he ever received in his bursts of
enthusiasm or despair was from a portrait which hung where the first
rays of light fell upon it in the morning. It was the portrait of a
woman neither young nor beautiful with the beauty of youth. A tender,
sad face, with those heavy lines at the mouth and nose which tell of
grief and long weeping. The gray hair was smoothly brushed from the
forehead, and the whole mien and costume showed that dignity of age so
rarely seen in these days when grandmothers dress in rainbow-hued
garments fit for their grandchildren, curl and frizzle their locks after
the mode worn by the reigning beauty of the time, and in every possible
way simulate a youth whose charm they have not, thus losing the real
grace which belongs to their age. Before his mother's portrait the
artist always kept fresh flowers, and to that dear and noble face his
eyes were turned in a mute appeal for sympathy many times during the
long solitary day.
The fires in the western sky burned low and finally faded out before
Graham rose from his seat near the window and touched his lamp into
flame. The searching light of the large astral revealed clearly the
interior of the apartment in which the artist lived and worked. It was
a square, high room, not very large, with a miscellaneous furnishing.
One corner, half hidden by a large canvas, was devoted to his narrow
wooden bed and dressing-table. Near a large casement stood his easel
with palette and brushes. On the walls hung a pair of foils and masks
and some boxing gloves. These, and a pair of Indian clubs in the
corner, proved that the occupant of the tower was not careless of
developing the splendid muscles with which he was endowed. Near the
doorway hung a string of curious Japanese _netshukes_,--masks, monkeys,
bears, men, women, and fruit, carefully carved in wood or ivory by the
greatest artificers the world knows to-day. The walls were covered with
pictures and sketches; the large table littered with books and tubes of
paint. A group of deer antlers served as clothes-pegs, and the floor
was strewn with the skins of these and many other animals. A quaint
apartment, in which no attempts at the picturesque had been made, which
the careless grouping together of many objects had nevertheless
attained.
John Graham had reclaimed the old tower from utter desolation two years
before, when he took up his residence in the ruins of the Spanish
Mission. The adobe building had fallen to decay, a thick cloak of ivy
and flowering vines mercifully hiding from the light of day the desolate
ruin of what had been the religious centre of the country of San
Rosario. The church walls had fallen to the ground; but the reredos and
deserted altar stood swept by the winds of heaven, and decked with
climbing roses and clinging ferns. The tower, which had been built very
substantially, and with a view to defence in case of danger, still stood
stanch, gray and weather-beaten. A flight of steep wooden stairs
leading from what had been the vestibule of the church gave access to
the room.
The tower stood within the limits of the San Rosario Ranch, the property
of Mr. Ralph Almsford, which included twenty square miles of wooded
country and arable land.
When Graham had asked permission to establish himself in the old tower,
Mr. Almsford had readily granted the request, thinking, however, that he
would weary of the solitary life in a few weeks. Two years had now
passed, and the artist still inhabited his little eyrie, whose
possession he disputed with the night owls which had been wont to sit
blinking in the tower through the long hours of daylight. The place was
five miles distant from the Deering house, and Graham's only neighbor
was an old wood-cutter who lived in a cabin hard by, and who went by the
name of French John. He prepared the artist's meals and took charge of
his room. French John was a strange, silent old creature, whose life had
been a varied one. He had served in the French army first as a soldier,
then as an officer's servant. His reminiscences, when he could be
induced to tell them, were full of interest. He had been in Paris in
'48; his hands had helped to tear up the pavement to make the blockades
and barriers. He had served in Algiers, whence he had come to America,
and gone as a private to the war of the Southern Rebellion. He had
finally drifted out to the San Rosario Ranch, where he would in all
probability pass the remainder of his days. For some reason he had
received no pension from either of the governments for the support of
which he had shed his blood. In his old age this stranded bit of
humanity was forced to support himself by the hard labor of a
wood-cutter. His little cabin was built behind the altar, where the Lady
Chapel had once stood, sheltered from the winds by the high screen of
the reredos.
It was to the humble dwelling of French John that Graham proceeded after
having made a toilet with unusual care. The door of the little log hut