Read Ebook: Dave Porter at Star Ranch; Or The Cowboy's Secret by Stratemeyer Edward

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Ebook has 2299 lines and 65000 words, and 46 pages

Editors: George Rex Graham Rufus W. Griswold

Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

The Bud and Blossom De Pontis Harry Cavendish The Sisters Shakspeare Error Tousky Wousky The Johnsons Review of New Books Editor's Table

Poetry and Music

The Maiden's Sorrow Song The Watchers Elizabeth To My Sisters The Last Leap of Uncas Sonnet "Hath Not Thy Rose a Canker." To a Swallow That Dropped on Deck During a Storm at Sea Farewell to a Fashionable Acquaintance Song The Student's Dream of Fame The Zanoni Gallop

GRAHAM'S MAGAZINE.

THE BUD AND BLOSSOM.

A REASON FOR BACHELORISM.

BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.

"You have told me, Mr. Hunter, at least a dozen times, you would reveal to me the secret of your bachelorism; now we have no visiters, and no prospect of any; the quiet patter of the rain has tempted you to cigar and slippers; and that dim burning of the coal in the grate, the drowsy fire of June, just enough to dispel the damp, and not enough to rouse one uneasy nerve, is of itself a pledge for a long, tranquil evening. And yet--by no means, my dear sir, don't toss aside your cigar, and as to sighing, it is out of the question--you are too stout for sentiment, have a well-to-do air, a sort of tell-tale good-dinner aspect, that don't accord well with the sentimental."

Mr. Hunter drew from his bosom a small miniature, the portraits of two sisters, the one a girl of seventeen, the other a child of seven or eight--a bud and a blossom of female loveliness. Even I forgot the well-to-do air, and found myself unconsciously sympathizing as his smooth, unmarked face settled into an expression of melancholy. To be sure it was unnatural, and, just as it was about to reassume its habitual look of easy content, and the cigar was quietly restored to the lips, he caught a glimpse of my eyes, and they might have looked mischievous, for he flung the cigar aside, and declared he would never, no never, satisfy my curiosity. "Women were all alike heartless, untruthful, and full of whim. A man never knew where to find them--one thing to-day, another to-morrow. A book that is all preface--the reader never gets beyond the first page. No wonder married men are lean and cadaverous. That same lean Cassius must have been a married man. Othello's occupation was done when he became a married man. Witness the spleen of Iago--it is that of a married man. Macbeth was a married murderer--it makes me desperate--"

"Yes, desperate to be married. I won't enter into a defence, because, my dear sir, I do so much want that same story. I forgive this little ebullition of bachelor spleen, believing it may be of service to you. But, Mr. Hunter, here is the secret of all the bachelorism in the world--Inconstancy--remember the old ballad that saith,

'Sigh no more, ladye, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever-- One foot on sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.'

"Now do tell me the story of these pretty girls, and I promise not to annoy you."

"This is a painting from a sketch I made of the two girls, shortly before we embarked upon that fatal voyage. They were standing as you now see; Ellen with the same tranquil, gentle demeanor, and the roguish Anne in this very attitude indeed, but a thousand changeful meanings flitting over her face.

"I was but twenty-two--full of life, health, and the enthusiasm of early manhood. Ellen was the realization of my dreams, the one pure and blessed being forever floating about the fancies of the imagination, the impersonation of my ideal of womanhood at that time; meek, trusting, dependent, and loving with a singleness and purity of soul that sanctified every emotion. I need not say that the most restless dream of ambition, the most alluring incitements to pleasure, were as nothing to me when weighed by the wealth of her guileless tones of affection, the earnest and touching accents of tenderness that fell from her sweet lips.

"I was about to return to one of our southern cities, there to prosecute my profession, and Mrs. Lacey, a widow of some fortune, and long an invalid, determined to arrange her affairs and remove thither also, in company with her two daughters, my sweet Ellen and Anne.

"The first evening of our voyage Ellen joined me for a promenade on the deck, and as she confidingly put her arm within mine, I shall never forget the renewed sense of manhood I experienced at that moment, nor the exquisite delight arising from a consciousness that a creature of such grace and tenderness relied on me, and me only, for protection. Believe me, too, a woman can realize but once, I mean only in the one individual who engrosses her whole heart, that sweet sense of dependence, that delight in appealing to the manliness of a being, to whom alone she is not ashamed to confess her weakness.

"You smile, but we bachelors know more of your woman hearts than you do yourselves. For instance, you admire strength, because you are physically inferior. You admire intellect, because however intellectual you may be, you delight still more in the affections. Beauty is nothing to you, but self-sustaining manliness is every thing. You admire nobleness and generosity of sentiment, because they are not your own characteristics--courage because you are cowards--"

"Yet hear me through. Love with a woman must be commingled with reverence. She cannot love deeply, fervently; she cannot feel that the whole of her own exhaustless and beautiful sympathies are welling up to the light, like a pure fountain gushing up to the sunshine, only as love has become an idolatry, a holiness, a religion; and wo unto her when such is its nature! Earth has set its seal against it; the very stars look down sadly upon it; everywhere an altar arises to the living God, on which the incense that may not, cannot find a worthy censor here, is transferred to that of the Eternal. Thus it is that women are more religious than men--and thus it is that one of the most gifted of their number has said,

"'Oh, hope not, ask thou not too much Of sympathy below-- Few are the hearts, whence one same touch Bids the sweet waters flow-- Few, and by still conflicting powers Forbidden here to meet-- Such ties would make this world of ours Too fair for aught so fleet.'

"But to my story. We had been out three or four days, with favorable winds, and the sea and sky had revealed to us each day their varied aspect of beauty. A change had been threatening through the day, and as the night approached the dense settling of the vapors seemed to hem us in, and that strange utterance of the elements, where they call from point to point, holding as they do undivided empire over the world of waters, was sublime, not to say appalling. Mrs. Lacey was a timid woman, and though the thread of life seemed every moment ready to sunder, she still clung to it with a wild tenacity. Ellen thought not of herself, and I believe she would have shrunk from witnessing the fearful uproar about us, as the vessel plunged onward, bravely onward, yet helpless even in her strength. I was leaning against the companion-way, alive to an almost painful sense of sublimity, when the light form of Anne rushed into my arms, and clasping hers about me she buried her face in my bosom.

"'Oh! Charles, dear brother Charles, don't send me back--let me stay with you and I shall fear nothing.'

"I gathered the sweet child to my bosom, and by a strange instinct approached the tafferel of the ship. I became aware of a sudden and terrible tumult--of a blackness even more dense than the thick clouds about us. Anne clung convulsively to my neck, and I instinctively put out my hands for support, for there was a fearful crash, a wild reeling beneath me, and I felt myself lifted from my feet and borne onward in the thick darkness. I was clinging to the chains of a larger ship that had crossed our track in that fearful storm, and had passed over her gallant souls, leaving all to perish, save us two so wondrously preserved.

"When afflictions come singly upon ourselves we are overpowered with a sense of desolation; we tread the wine-press alone, and the burden is often too much for human endurance; but when the calamity is general the individual is merged in the many, and the selfishness of grief is forgotten. I scarcely wept for the gentle and beautiful Ellen. I was conscious of a dull aching weight of bereavement; but then I felt as an atom, a quivering, vital one indeed, but yet only as an atom in the great mass of human suffering. The ocean, too, pure and deep, seemed a fit resting place for the good and lovely.

"When Anne awoke to consciousness, she called frantically for her mother and sister. Slowly and gently I revealed the sad reality. She stood with her little hands clasped, her wet hair streaming over her shoulders, and those deep earnest eyes gazing into mine with an intensity that pained me to the very heart. When all had become clear to her, she dropped her hands slowly and the tears gathered into her eyes; then, as by a new impulse, she drew herself to my bosom, and nestled there, like a dove, weary and desolate.

"Tender and beautiful sufferer! she gathered her duty only from my eyes, and assented to the slightest intimation of my will. I was her only friend on the earth, and her gentle nature, now doubly gentle in her sorrow, lavished all its tenderness on me.

"Gradually she awoke from the listlessness induced by newness to suffering, and the wonderful elasticity of her character revealed a thousand glowing and impassioned traits, that had hitherto escaped my observation. Frank and courageous, she regarded things as they were in themselves, and not as they might appear to others. Challenging the opinions of none, with an intuitive feminine tact, her conclusions were always what one would desire.

"Nature is, after all, the best teacher--would women but yield themselves to the promptings of a simple and womanly nature, they would be far more effective than they at present are. Our sex are worshippers of truth--you smile--but it is true nevertheless; and might you, dared you preserve your primitive truthfulness of heart, we should fall down and worship you.

"But I digress, and am describing Anne rather as she appeared when, like Spenser's Amoret, she 'reclined in the lap of womanhood,' than while she sat upon my knee, a tender and simple child.

"I would scarcely assert that Anne was endowed with genius; and yet I know not--at any rate it was thoroughly a woman's genius--earnest, truthful, affectionate, dependent, and yet nobly self-sustained--impassioned and yet never mistaking or perverting her emotions--embodying every quality of her sex, and yet elevating all--gay as a bird, simple as a child; her own bright nature investing all things with an ideal halo, and yet with a singular clearness of perception and soundness of judgment correcting all such illusions; a creature of contradictions, and yet grand in her consistency; a true woman; the life-study of a man, aye, and were he the wisest of his sex, he might never exhaust the sweet subject; just not an angel, but all a woman--

'A creature not too bright nor good, For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.'

"The ship that had wrecked our own good barque was bound on a three years cruise, and all that time Anne was the only one of her sex on board. She never seemed to feel the peculiarity of her situation, all she said or did was feminine and becoming,ion was a large one, and by an arrangement with him it was settled that, for the present, the Porters should make the place their home. All in a flutter of excitement, Laura came back from the West, and the meeting between brother and sister was as affecting as had been that between father and son. The girl brought with her some news that interested Dave deeply. It was to the effect that the ranch next to that of the Endicotts was owned by a Mr. Felix Merwell, the father of Link Merwell, one of Dave's bitterest enemies at Oak Hall. Link had met Laura out there and gotten her to correspond with him.

"It's too bad, Laura; I wish you hadn't done it," Dave had said on learning the news. "It may make trouble, for Merwell is no gentleman." And trouble it did make, as the readers of "Dave Porter and His Classmates" know. The trouble went from bad to worse, and not only were Laura and Dave involved, but also pretty Jessie Wadsworth and several of Dave's school chums. In the end Dave "took the law in his own hands" by giving Link Merwell a sound thrashing. Then some of the bully's wrongdoings reached the ears of the master of the school, and he was ordered to pack his trunk and leave, and a telegram was sent to his father in the West, stating that he had been expelled for violating the school rules. He left in a great rage.

"This is the work of that miserable poorhouse rat, Dave Porter," Link told some of his cohorts. "Just wait--I'll fix him for it some day, see if I don't!" Then he wrote a most abusive letter to Dave, but in his rage he forgot to address it properly, and it never reached the youth.

The term at Oak Hall came to an end in June and then arose the question of what to do during the vacation. In the meantime letters had been flying forth between Laura and her warm friend, Belle Endicott, who was still at Star Ranch, as Mr. Endicott's place was called. It may be said in passing that Mr. Endicott was a rich railroad president, and the ranch, while it paid well, was merely a hobby with him, and he and his family resided upon it only when it suited their fancy to do so.

"The Endicotts want me to come out again," said Laura to Dave. "They want me to bring you along with some of your chums, and they want me to bring Jessie, too, if her folks will let her come."

"Oh, that would be jolly!" Dave answered. When he thought of Jessie's going he blushed to himself, for to him the girl whose life he had once saved was the nicest miss in the whole world. Dave was by no means sentimental, but he had a warm, manly regard for Jessie that did him credit.

More letters passed back and forth, and it was finally arranged that Laura and Dave should visit Star Ranch during July and August, taking with them Jessie and Phil and Roger. Dunston Porter was to accompany the young folk as far west as Helena, near which the Endicotts were to meet the travelers, and then Dave's uncle was to go on to Spokane on business, coming back to take the young folks home about six weeks later.

The thoughts of spending their vacation on a real ranch filled the young folk with delight. All anticipated a "Jim-dandy" time, as Phil expressed it.

"We can go out hunting and fishing, and all that," declared the shipowner's son to his chums. "And maybe we'll bring down a bear or two." And then he suggested that they get revolvers and perfect themselves in marksmanship.

"Maybe we'll run into Link Merwell out there," said Roger. "My, but he was mad when he left Oak Hall! He'd like to chew your head off, Dave!"

"I don't want to see him," answered Dave, soberly. But this wish was not to be fulfilled. He was to meet Link Merwell in the near future, and that meeting was to be productive of some decidedly unpleasant results.

A STRAY SHOT

Dave soon returned to the field with a rope, and the representation of a bear was swung from the lower limb of an old apple tree. Then another smaller line was fastened at one side, so that the "bear" could be swung to and fro.

"You can do the first shooting," said Dave to his chums. "I'll play bellman." And he pulled on the side rope, so that the door swung like the pendulum of a clock.

"Hi! don't swing too fast!" called out Phil. "Sixty seconds to the minute, remember."

He took his position, and watching his chance, fired.

"How's that?" he asked, after the report had died away.

"Hit his bearship in the left ear," announced Dave.

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