Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 March 1896 — TRIAL BY FIRE. [ARTICLE]

TRIAL BY FIRE.

The Major was one of the many wellborn Englishmen who came to California with a younger son's portion and a small monthly allowance, aud hope to make a fortune on a vineyard or a wheat ranch. The plan always looks feasible In England, and the agent assures his victim that tho £I,OOO will buy a ten-acre plot, plant vines, build a decent bungalow and tide the owner over until the vines shall bear and bring him a harvest of good American gold. The Major was going the way of many of his English friends. The £I,OOO legacy was gone, and the monthly allowance of £2O (which, viewed from a distance, seemed large) always grew painfully small as it neared California and the debts it was supposed to cover. The Major’s little mountain vineyard had been destroyed by phylloxera, and he was living on the uncertain promise of a number of green shoots, called, respectfully, “the olive brchnrd.” But the Major was not unhappy. When he was not tilling the soil, he sat on his little veranda, with his briarwood pipe between his teetli, and studied the long, narrow, picturesque Napa Valley far below. It may be said that the Major’s failure to succeed in the grape business was not the fault of the country, but that his genial, unpraeticed nature was the true obstacle to success. The Major was, in fact, the most helpless Englishman who ever came to California to take care of himself. The poor fellow became so convinced of this after a short trial that he engaged a man to act as valet to himself and Incidentally to cook the meals for both. The Major was a solitary bachelor then. The gods alone know In what unpropitious moment he picked up Pete, to hang about his neck, a mill-stone of inefficiency. Pete’s poverty must have been his recommendation and the Major’s poverty the excuse for koping him. Pete had about as much knowledge of laying out and caring for a man's wardrobe as the Major had of running a ranch. The consequence was that the Major often presented himself at his friends’ houses in the most surprising garb, a combination of white duck trousers, black •rock coat and russet hunting hoots being one of Pete’s masterpieces. In his capacity as cook Pete was not one whit more efficient, and often suffered mental agony over the ponderous directions of the Major’s French cook book, which were like the hieroglyphics of the ancients to his clouded intellect. Considering the diet of sour bread and tinned meats which Pete provided, it is only less than marvellous that his benefactor was still alive.

When the Major married Elbe Smith, a pretty San Francisco girl, Pete was promoted to he manager of the ranch, and expended his grooming talents on the pet mule. The Major’s wife was “artistic.” She had studied sketching, and did some really clever bits. Her admiring husband was sure that she possessed the divine afflatus, and consequently much time was devoted to art and little time to ranching. But this was not without protest from pne Individual. Not that he was disturbed by lack of work, but poor Pete oftener than not the unwilling mcpjel for Elbe’s clever studies. One day'Pete posed for “The Mari With the Hoe.” His temper was particularly tried on that occasion, for he had taken up his tool with the honest intention of weeding the primitive vegetable garden. Though he had scudded through the back yard and climbed the rear fence, he had not counted on meeting his young mistress in the barnyard. He began to wrestle with the weeds and pretended not to see her. His education, however, had not included a sight of Millet’s picture, he would have fled the mountain side in utter despair. “Stop, stop. Pete, right there. Don’t move an inch,’ called the sweet voice that drove him to madness. “Kenneth,” Elbe called her husband, “look. Isn’t it wonderful? The lights, the pose, the very landscape like ” “The Man J\ ith the Hoe,’ ” shouted the Major gleefully. “I’ll get your paints, Elbe. Hold on, Pete.” And before that honest son of toil had time to collect bis scattered senses be found himself posing in a very uncomfortable attitude, with the Napa Valley lying at his feet and the Major’s familiar phrases ringing in his ears—“ Fine pose —jolly good subject—delicious coloring.” After Pete posed for a hundred or more indifferent works of art without names, he began to think of deserting his master and leaving him to a just and awful fate. But this stupendous blow was averted by the (arrival of Brompton Edwards, another Englishman. who had come to learn practical ranching under the direction of his father’s old friend, the Major. After a week liad been given np to driving his protege about the valley and introducing Mm to the English colony, the Major returned to his daily routine of pruning olive trees and digging out worm-eaten grape vines. Elbe soon discovered in the young man’s clean-cut features and fine athletic figure an entirely new field for art study, and Edwards found the time pass more pleasantly as a model than as an embryo rancher. They were together during most of the daylight hours.* When

Brompton was not posing for a wild Norseman or a Greek hero, he was sitting very close to Ellie, criticising, in soft,caressing tones, tne sketches of himself which she had been doing. Without actually straying from the path of duty, Ellie was treading on dangerously uncertain territory. She quite frankly admitted to herself that she was pretty and charming and. being of that mind, she did not repress comparisons between her husband aud the younger man. Matters had arrived at a state where a warm-hearted, but vain, young woman needed a friend with the strength to hold up a good, powerful, unrelenting mirror for her to gaze into. Pete could have held up the mirror with right good will.-dnit he did not know how. In those days he followed the Major around with dog-like devotion, and only glowered when Ellie came out to the orchard one morning with her paints and succeeded in bringing upon herself a scolding from her over-indul-gent husband. She held her head very high and stiff, and marched over the hill some distance away, where she seated herself and pretended to sketch, but was in reality nursing her injured feelings to keep them alive. The Major watched her disappear with a pained expression on his good-natured face, and then went dejectedly into the house. Pete was deeply incensed against Ellie, aud made another solemn vow to desert the ranch. It was the ninety-and-ninth time that he had done so, and this time he sealed the vow with an oath. The long grass on the Napa hills was burned and crisp, aud Ellie was daubing yellow ochre and burnt umber over her canvas with vicious strokes. She was not giving any attentioh to her work, however, for an athletic form stood between her and the landscape, and she was indulging in a very foolish day-dream. To do the little woman justice she was not in love with Brompton, but her vanity had been stimulated to. such wonderful activity by his youthful gallantries, that she fancied he was deeply infatuated with her.

Over the mountain side, a half mile away, l'ete leaned on his hoe, and watched a thread of fire crawling, like a red snake, through the underbrush of chapparal and manzanita. He knew only too well that no human power could stop it, and within a few minutes the gentle breeze would cause a flying spai'k to fall upon the long, dry grass, and puff!—the crawling snake would become a great swirling, galloping mass of flame aud smoke, and would pass over the place where Ellie sat sulking and dreaming, Pete had firmly determined to leave the ranch. He had washed his hands of these people. He would not—but the grass was on lire and Pete made a dash for the house yelling at tlie top of his lungs for the Major. The volume of smoke was rising high when Ellie rose to her feet and sniffed the air. Before she could gather up her paints a thin rim of fire ran along the top of the little liill above her. The small birds and insects rose from the ground with a whirr, and scattered down the hillside. Ellie glanced quickly backward, and saw the tire licking up the grass as it bore down upon her and the smoke rolling heavenward in dense, sooty clouds. She did not lose her presence of mind, but remembered a small ploughed field a short distance away, where the flames could not reach her, and ran nimbly down the hill, with her fluttering skirts gathering cockleburs and sticker weed as she sped. When she \vas fairly on the ploughed ground and gasping for breath she saw the young Englishman tearing along the hill at a frantic rate. Through the smoke he looked pale and frightened. Ellie felt a thrill of satisfaction; here was the longed-for proof of his love, he thought she was in danger and had come to her rescue. A deep blush mounted to her cheeks and her heart beat to suffocation. But he did not seem to see her. It was evident to her that he was crazed with fear and would plunge into the tire in search of her. Merciful God! he would be burned. “Brampton! - ’ she screamed; “Brampton, I am here, safe!” The fire was very close and she had to throw herself flat upon the ground to escape being burned. She gave one more despairing cry as she felt the hot breath scorching her clothing: “Brampton! Brampton! Brampton!” A great wave of smoke and flame swept around the edges of the ploughed ground, and for a minute nothing could be seen or heard. Fortunately for Ellie, the dry grass burned like tinder, and the lire was soon roaring down the hill toward the valley. When Ellie, choked aud frightened, lifted her head, she saw the thin, long, scantily-clad legs of her husband bounding over the blackened earth toward her. His duck trousers were smeared with soot, and he had a wet blanket about his shoulders. He could not speak, but caught Ellie in his arms and burst into stifled sobs. Back of them was heard the voice of Brampton Edwards. “Hello, there, Major,” he called; “1 had a very narrow squeak of it. My hammock and books are burned to tinder by this. By jove, old fellow, you are burned yourself, aren’t you? Your wife was .safe enough. I knew she could take care of herself.” But Ellie buried her head in the wet blanket with a shudder, and burst into tears of shame and contrition. “Well, well,” gasped Pete, who had stumbled up the hill with a bundle of wet sacks, “I never was so plaguey scared in my life. Thought you’d be burned sure, Miss Ellie. Me an’ the Major’ll have a fine time next week clearing ” For Pete had reconsidered his ninety-and-ninth vow. Indeed, it was only a week later when he was speculating if ever there was a happier couple than the Major and his Ellie. And Pete beamed as he thought of the ignoble part Brompton Edwards played on the day of the fire.—San Francisco Argonaut.