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OF MONTEREY COUNTY

CALIFORNIA

BY PETER STUDLEY

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Now my lady had been in the doldrums all the morning. It's a regular weapon, that way of hers, of sitting quiet a few hours, a wistful look about the eyes, and a pathetic droop at the corner of her mouth, and a general air of, "I should like to cry if you said the least thing to me." It's got up for the occasion, O, I know positively it is, yet it never fails to make me feel like a heathen or a criminal, or something of that sort. Sometimes she lets it creep into a gentleness that's more exasperating than ever, since I but that has nothing to do with it.

We were all right now, and her ladyship was herself again, thanks to the remark of our red-headed Jehu concerning our hostto-be. By long distance telephone the Honorable Jerry Ryley gave us to understand that he could not come to Salinas on that day, but if the party would care to come and see him, (he had already sent the spring cart, by which we could journey,) in the event of our not being able to wait in Salinas for another day or so, he would be at liberty, etc., etc. We decided to take the trip, and here we were, seated in the Honorable Jerry's spring cart, recklessly driven by the Jehu aforesaid. "Tss, whoa! don't get skeery, as if you never saw a bit of white paper afore in your life. That's the wust of Jerry Ryley he's got the skittishest mules in Monterey county."

My lady's fingers were itching for the ribbons. Up to the speech of the Jehu, for the first six miles from Salinas city, she had simply leaned back with an "Any-moment-Imay-be-killed" martyry air. Our young driver was certainly showing off, to say the least of it, turning the sharpest corners with

a flourish that just escaped taking a wheel away.

"Yes, Jerry's a character as the saying is." ("Jerry" it had come to now, if you please.) please.) "Whoa now! Whoa! Can't you see it's a bridge? Ten dollars fine for going faster nor a walk.' Whoa! Now you see that tablet up there?" jerking his head upwards as he endeavored to get the mules to a walk.

My lady looked, her uncle and I both looked, as we passed under the painted notice, but saw no tablet.

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'Whoa! now walk, money's skeearce. Whoa! That board's allus called the tablet round here. You see, Jerry was one of the supervisors when this yere bridge was built. All the supervisors wanted their names painted on the board, (it's done in lots of places, you know,) and they quarreled about whether the names should be painted on a black board with white letters, or black letters on a white board. Jerry took it all in, never letting on at all, till finally one of them saw he was silent like and appealed to him.

"Gintlemen,' says he, standing up straight as a man oughter who's bin a Senator. 'Gintlemen all, to my mind there's nothing less for the likes of yez than a tablet of brass.""

Jehu scored another point and immediately began to show off, worse than ever. The spring cart sprung in a remarkable manner, over rocks a foot high nearly.

"See, this is all his land from the bridge to the school house, this way, and from over there, as far as you see, to the hill yonder. That's his place down there. He sees you," said Jehu, looking at my lady carelessly, and then on second thoughts, critically, adding thoughtfully, "You bet Jerry 's there, every time."

Could it be possible? That little low shanty, the residence of the well known Honorable Jerry Ryley? Why the barns and stables were bigger than the shanty.

Her ladyship on the inspiration of the moment waved her bit of a handkerchief. The heartiest "Hello!" came across

the

field to us. Jehu drove up to the gate with a final flourish, scattering a stray tomato can or two, in fine style, if noise

had aught to do with it.

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The Honorable Jerry Ryley came forward to welcome us. His fine face was aglow with hospitality. Plainly, almost roughly, dressed as he was, every inch betokened the rale old Irish gintleman," still with a quiet dignity that told of immense reserve power. His bow to her ladyship was a revelation. At once recognizing her uncle, whom he had met at Washington, he extended both hands.

'I'm heartily glad to see you all, indeed I am.".

A great change came over my lady when she saw him face to face. In an instant she was as demure as a kitten, withdrawing into the background so very much, that for a change, her uncle and I felt actually that we had a personality apiece.

The shade of the little room was very grateful after the long ride in the heat and the dust.

A comely girl of about twenty came ina girl with a shy manner, but a sensible face, and the honestest eyes I ever saw in

woman.

"My daughter Kathleen," the Honorable Jerry said. Then at once to his daughter: "Now, Kathleen, take the lady to the room, and let her feel the good of some fresh water after her traveling. Gentlemen, may be ye'll be after taking a wash yourselves. This way."

"Ho, Jim!" (Our Jehu appeared) "There's not enough water to drown a sparrow. Two buckets of fresh water immediately."

Jim was moving off to obey. “Well?" queried the Honorable Jerry sharply.

"Yes, sir," with a faint accent on the "sir." (Evidently Jim did not "Jerry" him to his face).

"And ask Kathleen for another couple of towels. Eh?" eying Jim squarely.

Jim promptly answered, "Yes, sir."

This episode revealed volumes. The Honorable Jerry then, notwithstanding the smallness of his residence, unlike most Californian ranchers, exacted outward respect.

Yet there was utter absence of bossdom, other than in the upright character of the man which demanded recognition. His daughter was Kathleen, not introduced as

"Miss Kathleen," a fine lady. Still, with these broad acres, those barns and stables, his reputation, the house at first seemed incongruous, but there was that in the man, which said, "All is straight and can be explained in time."

Our wash was over. It had been conducted outside, at the back of the house. The bowls on a bench, the roller towel, suspended comb, and looking glass, disclosed this as the general lavatory.

Into the neat but sparsely furnished little parlor, we returned. At that moment, from the room beyond, we heard Kathleen and her ladyship, simultaneously burst into a peal of happy, spontaneous laughter as natural as the ripples of a running brook.

The face of the Honorable Jerry was transformed in a second. It was as though glory shone, when even light was there before. Her ladyship had understood his Kathleen, and Kathleen, he knew, could not have come to an understanding with her ladyship unless she had found the womanly woman within. It was with a tender grace he drew forward the low rocking chair to the open door, when they rejoined us.

You could hear the drone of the lazy big fly, the hum of the dainty humming bird as it darted in and out of the honeysuckle, and the chirruping and singing of the meadow lark with its quaint intervals and unfinished cadence. All was "Peace and good will" personified. Imperceptibly the chairs got nearer the door, and at last all were outside under the shade of the great oak tree, that overshadowed the house. Kathleen withdrew to prepare the supper. My lady was still demure; but bless my heart, if it was not another kind of siege. She had sized up the Honorable Jerry instanter, and sensed he would have been courteous, he could not have been otherwise, but not open. Open with a hail-fellow-well-met body? Never! She wanted the Honorable Jerry to be very open after a while, she sniffed stories galore, when the Honorable Jerry opened out. I softly whistled,

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We took in our chairs with us, and from the opening speech of the Honorable Jerry, we had our cue.

"Ah! and it's a trate to ate a bit of dry bread, it is," said he, his brogue developing as we became better acquainted.

"Father did not eat bread for three months, a while ago," explained Kathleen, half-way inviting question.

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'How was that, tell me?" said her ladyship coaxingly over to the Honorable Jerry. 'Well, you see, I was kind of interested in a little one-horse co-operative schame, for the farmers to put up a flour mill. There was a faction against it. As I was coming out of the Bank one day in Salinas, one of the big bugs there -the limb of Satan says to me,

"Jerry Riley, you'll never live to see the day when that mill goes up."

"Never live to see it up?' I yelled at him. Then let me tell you this:- by the blood of my forefathers, I'll niver ate bread again, till it's made from the flour of that mill.'

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"And you kept your oath?" asked my lady, her eyes glistening like a wild bird.

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Kept it solemnly! But I was so hungry, I had to take to drink."

As he smacked his lips together, holding them tightly, a le comedien, my lady roared. The ice was broken, for it reminded her of a joke, which somehow brought up that this very day was the 17th of March Saint Patrick's day.

"Yes!" said he. "And you must excuse me not coming to see you, and troubling you to come here, for I-I-I stay home on this day." (His voice sunk to low minor.) "Kathleen's mother came into this little house on the 17th of March, thirty-five years ago, and scarcely set foot out of it until the beautiful crayture went to her long home, when Kathleen there was born. So Kathleen and I always try to stay home on this day and have a friend or two drop in, to celebrate the 17th in the evening. And as she, the blessed angel of light, in our poverty was always contint with the cabin as you see it, why Kathleen and I agree to lave it as it is. When Kathleen wants to build, she can build. We would build in Ireland, only I could not kape quiet there. No, nor I could n't build there anyway whilst, whilst

" Do not say, know."

- there is no need. I

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Go over to your mother, Jim, at once, and ask her as a favor to me, to come over right away, and clare up, and make another big supper by twelve tonight; and bring your sister too. Now, Jim, attind mightily. Saddle Barney, and fill in your time between this and nine o'clock reminding iverybody round that the new barn 's ready for a dance; and that I've engaged a harp and a fiddler that's A 1 if they turn up and kape sober. Now fly now, and attind to business for wance, Jim Moriarity! — you young blackguard." (This last was added as Jim was out of hearing). "Now, Kathleen, darlint, and your swate lady companion, dhrive down to the village be'ant, I beg pardon, the Town, and buy up ivery yard of green calico that ye can get for foivedollar piece, and trim them rafters a bit. That's right, dear, go at wancet."

Then he went straight over to the fence and shouted to a man in the paddock:

"Banks, go over to the schoolhouse, and borrow the hanging lamp, and if that crossgrained baste of a schoolmaster says I can't have it, take it, for I paid for it, tell him, wid me own money, and it 's only a loan." (The brogue was getting rich. The Honorable Jerry was palpably excited.) "But if he behaves dacent-like, tell him the Honorable Jerry Ryley desoires his prisence at the dance tonight."

Returning to us, he continued excitedly: "That divil of a school-master 's swate on Kathleen, if you plase, and is too proud to ask for her, because he is poor,and Kathleen 's not, anyhow."

"But that is laudable on his part," suggested I.

"Laudable be hanged! Kathleen's swate on him. Does he want me to throw her at his head, and he not dacently Irish even? No, if you plase, he won't so much as be civil to me, for fear I'll misconstruh! Meescon-struuh!" he drawled, ending in a laugh at his own choler.

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"After all it's a mighty change, to see the little schoolhouse all over the land, change from my day. I remember wance,' (his eye began to twinkle, a story was forthcoming, and my lady not here to hear, well, perhaps,) "the first ould dominie that came to Ballyhaughna, a little village where I was born, he never taught a figure or a letter without the help of his twelve-inch ruler, as thick as my two thumbs, and rale blackthorn polished.

"Twice wan?' he'd ask with a whack, whack!

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"That's two for yez.

"Twice two? that's' (whack, whack, whack, whack!) 'four, you say.' And so we learned the toime of day.

"It got to be fashionable to know your letters, and Widdy Maloney was determined that her Larry should larn too. Poor Larry he had half his toile off- a great overgrown lout, and the day he first came to school (they tell me, for I was bird-nesting) he was a particular soight to say, for he was nigh as tall as the dominie, but his breeches were half up his legs and his coat half up his back, and his scarlet head had niver had a comb through it till that same morning.

"The dominie began with poor Larry to wanst.

"Stand up there, Larry Maloney. me in the eye. Answer the truth,

many Gods are there?'

Look How

"Larry scratched his poll, and finally stammered,

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"Thray! your honor,' mindful of the blessed Trinity.

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Whack, whack, whack! Take that for your thray Gods. Now, Larry Maloney, how many Gods be there now?'

"But Larry louped through the open window, and went willabalooing like the wind, and did n't stop for a mile, till in fact he came to the stepping-stones of the strame, where I was on the middle one, trying to jump over, and miss one if I could.

"Hold there, Jerry Ryley,' says he. I was a bit afraid, he looked so wild.

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'Sure an it's hell ye'll taste up there, with yez wan God-I said "Thray," an' it did n't save me from the ilegantest thrashing that ever I had.""

The thing was as old as the hills, but he dished it up so neatly that we enjoyed it better than a brand new one.

Just then the man arrived with the hanging lamp.

O, you've got it thin. An' is he coming to the dance, or is he afraid I should meescon-struuh?"

"He is coming, he says." The man grinned, evidently well aware of the whole play.

Soon after, the ladies returned with the cambric, so for one hour every soul that could be, by her ladyship and the Honorable Jerry, pressed into service was set to work decorating that barn, which soon presented a festive appearance. My lady deftly cut out an immense shamrock, which was tacked on a sheet, and a great harp, which was pinned on another. I found time to tell her the story of Kathleen and the schoolmaster. It was a little late when the schoolmaster arrived, but he had brought the flag with him, and as "Old Glory" went up, from the Irish contingent there rose a mighty whoop that told of the love they bore it. It was more than a piece of bunting; it was the emblem of liberty.

What a night it was! The harp and the fiddle, which did at last arrive, and sober,

that is, enough to play! The lungs of the man who yelled the changes of the dance! The good time all round, the awfully good time the very stout ladies had, who danced unceasingly. And my lady and the schoolmaster were missing for one ten minutes by my watch! That witch managed it by hook or by crook,- for up went my schoolmaster, yea, straight up to the Honorable Jerry, and tackled him there and then. What the schoolmaster said, heaven knows, the last few words were overheard:

"For God knows we love each other so.

If you refuse, for her sake, this night I'll go away forever."

Then the Honorable Jerry Ryley drew himself up in senatorial grandeur.

"Fetch Kathleen to me, here!"

By this time the thing had got wind. The dancing ceased, and in silence in which you could have heard a pin drop, the schoolmastera fine manly fellow, strength in every one of his Californian sinews, but with face as pale as death-led by the hand the girl, pale and flushing, by turns. The throng ranged on the sides of the barn, leaving the middle vacant, every one intensely excited.

Sternly spoke the Honorable Jerry :Kathleen! As I have been to thee father and mother both, since thy mother died at thy birth, answer before God: Do ye love this man?"

"I love him, father." Then frightened at the publicity, at everything, she turned to her lover, who took her in his arms before them all, and comforted her. It was the most touching thing I ever saw in my life. The betrothal was a fact, and licensed when the Honorable Jerry leaped on the table :

"Play, you divils, play up, can't yez? Haste to the widdin' now! Oup! Dance, what's the matter wid ye all, eh? Dance, I say! Oup."

O, the jigging of the next few minutes, and the shouting!

My lady I found in a corner, crying softly for joy, and I--but of that some other time. Suffice, that my lady and I ever kept the memory green of Kathleen and the Honorable Jerry Ryley.

MENDOCINO

WHERE the flying light and shadow fleck the ranges of the hills,
And the trout in silver gleamings flash among the rippling rills,
Where the deer come softly stepping, with a foot-fall all unheard,
And the squirrel's chatter mingles with the melody of bird,
Where the gray fog driving inland melts among the towering pines,
And the summer's glowing sunlight shimmers over purpling vines,
Where the voice of restless Ocean lingers in the echoing shell
And the winds among the redwoods with a changing cadence swell,
Where the sunrise gilds the mountains with the glory of the morn,
And the sunset's sobbed a requiem by the ranks of rustling corn,
Where poppies nod in springtime, and myriad lilies sway,
And Autumn's breath comes fragrant from hop fields far away,
Where the white-winged sails of ocean, nestling, linger by thy side
And the spray of the Pacific kisses thee, and calls thee bride,
Where the eagle spreads his pinions, and the panther hath his lair,
And falcons whistle shrilly from the heights of upper air,
There, O regal Mendocino! where thy storm-swept mountains stand,
Lie thy forests, vales, and cañons; fairest thou in northern land,
And as flows thy Russian river in the flood-time to the sea,

So, O Mother Mendocino! turn thy children's hearts to thee.

Lulu McNab.

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