Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Part 14

"Yes, he commenced when Malcolm was of no account--twenty-five years or so ago. He's met with lots of reverses, too. He was telling me just before you got home how the Senate wouldn't vote him any money to fix up the estate. He'll probably apologize. Everybody ready? Come on!" commanded Don.

They rode for a mile across the open prairie, then turned south into the Willow Creek road, which followed the foot-hills. Conversation regarding the Emperor was tantalizing, and questioning was forbidden. Accordingly, they pocketed their curiosity, and devoted their time to one another, and to the signs of approaching autumn upon the brown hillsides. Pedro and MacDuff, eager for a gallop, left the other horses, and dashed along a three-path, gra.s.s-grown trail which encircled the hill and met the road again a mile beyond.

"It's just the chance I wanted," said Donald, reining in MacDuff to ride beside Virginia. "I want to ask you about Carver. I can't make him out lately. I don't know what's the matter. He's been queer ever since that night on the mountain--last Tuesday, wasn't it? Of course he's all right to the folks, and all that, but he's stuck by himself more or less, and seemed stirred up over something. Dave, the man we got last winter, complained to Dad yesterday about Carver's being rather officious with the men. Dad smoothed it over, of course, and explained how Carver didn't understand that that sort of thing doesn't go out here. But it kind of worries me. Everything went all right up there, didn't it, Virginia--on the mountain, I mean?"

Not even Donald could detect hesitation in Virginia's reply. If Carver still chose to keep the ill-gotten role of protector, it was not up to her to take it from him.

"Why, of course, Don," she said promptly. "Everything was perfectly all right. I guess Carver wasn't awfully pleased at first when he found we had to stay. You see, he--he hasn't much patience with Vivian when she's nervous. But she did splendidly, and tried her best not to show how she felt inside. And I couldn't see why Carver didn't enjoy himself. He certainly seemed to!"

Donald was plainly puzzled.

"Well," he said, "it gets me! He's not a fellow you can reach very easily either. If it were Jack, I'd ask him just what the matter was, but somehow it's different with Carver. There's always something in the way. I believe it's--too much New England!"

Virginia laughed.

"Too much of it's a dreadful barrier," she observed. "Grandmother Webster had too much when I first went to Vermont, but I found a little path that led around it after I'd searched a long time. I think part of the trouble with Carver is that he's just one of us out here. He isn't looked up to the way he is at home. Priscilla knew him last summer, you know, and she's told me about him. We were talking about it just last night, because we've noticed he's queer lately. Priscilla says he's always been looked up to by boys and girls of his age because his family's so old, and his father so wealthy, and his grandfather a colonel. In New England, you know, those things count, especially the family and the colonel. Then, besides, Carver's bright and fine-looking and an only son. Out here, you see, Don, we don't care so much about colonels and old families and money. They're all right, of course, if you have them, but you've an equal chance if you don't."

"Maybe Carver's learning that we're right after all," said Donald thoughtfully. "Maybe he's seeing that ancestry won't make a man. It's hard to admit those things, I know that. I hated to admit that the Eastern fellows at school had better manners than we cow-punchers from this part of the country. But 'twas so all the same."

Virginia allowed Pedro to nibble at the quaking-asps before she spoke.

"He'll come out all right, Don," she said. "Don't let's worry! Sometimes I think he's like Captain Myles in the poem. Priscilla does, too. He gets angry all at once, and then hates himself for it. By and by he'll be all right again, and as nice as ever the Captain was at John Alden's wedding.

Come on, let's round the hill! We're nearly at Mr. Livy's, and they'll think we're too exclusive for worlds!"

The Emperor's flag was out--a diminutive and tattered Old Glory, whose shreds fluttered in the wind. It was tacked to a wooden box, which, mounted on a log at the entrance to a narrow, winding path, served as the Emperor's mail-box. The name

A. C. Levinsky

was painted upon the side facing the road. As they turned into the path, Priscilla halted Cyclone. There was a decided tinge of stubbornness in her voice as she spoke.

"I'm not going another step," she announced, "until I know about this Emperor business. I'm not going to embarra.s.s any poor old thing who may live in this wilderness by not knowing anything about him. Come, Donald!

You've got to tell!"

"I intended to all along just as soon as we reached the bridge," said Donald. "I know the Emperor, and I wouldn't have him hurt for anything.

His real name is Augustus Caesar Levinsky--at least, his last name is Levinsky, and I guess he hitched on the first. He's a poor old prospector who's been in this valley fifty years. He claims he was the very first to come, and perhaps he was. He's dug holes all over these mountains looking for gold, and you're always coming on him panning out gravel in some creek. Some one grub-stakes him up here to get his land. By that, I mean,"

he added, noting the puzzled faces of his listeners, "that some one gives him food and clothes and a promise to bury him for the sake of the land he's homesteaded. That's the way with old Pat Sheehan, and a lot of fellows around here."

"And now he thinks he's the Emperor of Rome," said Virginia, continuing the Emperor's story. "He's been thinking that for twenty-five years, Father says. Some one gave him an old Roman History years ago, and he knows it all by heart. We all call him Mr. Livy around here. He says he doesn't feel like asking his friends to t.i.tle him. He sounds pathetic, but he isn't at all. He's the happiest man you ever saw. He's like the verse at the beginning of Emerson's _Essay on History_. He believes he's Caesar, and so he is. You'll be surprised at the way he speaks, and the fine manners he has. It's believing he's the Emperor that's done those things, I'm sure."

Less curious but more interested, they followed the cool, shady path that led toward the imperial estates. They crossed a bridge over a creek, green with fresh water-cress, their open sesame. Upon the railing was tacked a second flag--this one new and untorn.

"The Emperor must have had a present," observed Virginia. "You catch your first glimpse of the palace around this curve."

Around the curve they went, and into an open, path-cut field through which the creek meandered. The palace lay in the farthest corner. It did not even stand. Its old logs, disjoined and askew, were all but on the ground.

How the roof managed to hold the chimney was a mystery. Perhaps, after all, it was the chimney which acted as a prop to the roof. A lean-to of poles, sod, and bark served as an entrance, and boasted a door.

Mountain-fringe and other vines had taken root in the sod, and were undoubtedly helping to hold the structure together.

An undisturbed, unbroken silence reigned over the imperial residence. The Emperor was doubtless busy with affairs of state, if indeed he were not away upon official business. Still the flag disproved his absence. He might be simply viewing the domain.

Suddenly from the lean-to came such fierce barking that more than one Vigilante made a hasty return to the safety of her saddle. Then the door opened, and, preceded by his dogs, the Emperor came out into the suns.h.i.+ne.

He had doubtless been too absorbed to note their coming.

"Down, Nero! Down, Trajan!" they heard him say. "Is this the way you receive my guests?"

The dogs ceased barking, and stood on either side of him as he surveyed his visitors. They in turn surveyed him. They saw a tall, slight old man, still unbent. It seemed as though dignity defied time and kept him upright. His frayed white s.h.i.+rt was spotless, and his gray trousers, held up by thongs of skin, were neatly darned and clean. The lines in his smoothly shaven face vied in intricacy with the streets of Boston; his thin hair was neatly brushed; his faded blue eyes were gentle. He was the kind of an old man to whom one instinctively showed deference. Moreover, he was the Roman Emperor.

The hats of Jack, Carver, and Donald came off as they greeted him.

"These are our friends, Mr. Livy," Donald explained. "You remember I told you some time ago that they were coming. And you know Virginia Hunter?"

Mr. Livy did know Virginia. He and Nero and Trajan came forward all together to greet her.

"It's good to see your face again, Miss Virginia," said the Emperor. "Your father was here day before yesterday. He mentioned water-cress. Was that your errand?"

"That, and to see you, Mr. Livy," answered Virginia. "My friends wished to come. I hope you're not too busy to show them around a little."

The Emperor was not too busy. He said this with a bow, which was many times repeated as he was presented to the others.

"I regard you as friends," he said with dignity, "otherwise I should hesitate to show you the palace. There is a sad lack of funds of late--a sad lack! All the Senate's appropriations are being expended on the new aqueduct, and on new roads through the provinces. The roads hold our great possessions together, and the Emperor's home can wait. But next year all will be different. Then I shall again plead my case, and money will be forthcoming. This way, please, young ladies and gentlemen. We will first view the grounds."

His guests in respectful silence followed him down a path toward the creek over which he had placed a little foot-bridge. A fish jumped as they stepped upon the logs, and swam away to the safe shelter of the water-cress.

"The stream is well-stocked with the best of trout," explained their host.

"It is my pastime to catch them in other streams and to bring them here.

You remember Horace upon his Sabine farm? Such pleasures as he enjoyed are mine. Yes, there is an abundance of cress. We will wait until later to gather it that it may be fresh and crisp."

They followed the stream in its meandering course through the fields.

Their guide pointed out to them this and that beauty--the fringed gentians in a thicket near the water's edge; a late wild rose which saw its pink reflection in the still, amber water. It was as though he, aided by the Senate's money, had laid out the grounds himself, such was his pride in them. Another foot-bridge brought them back to the other side, and to the field-path which led to the house.

The Emperor felt called upon to apologize again before opening the door of the lean-to.

"The Senate still appropriates for conquests," he said gravely. "I am much opposed. The Empire is large enough."

They went within. The lean-to was a chaotic place, filled to overflowing with pick-axes, spades, elk-horns, musk-rat traps, mining tools, samples of coal, and curiously-colored pieces of rock. Some skins, stretched on boards, were drying on the wall; some rude fis.h.i.+ng-rods stood in one corner. The little room was strangely like the Emperor's poor, befuddled brain.

The room in the main house was hardly imperial. A small, rickety stove, bearing corn-meal porridge in a tin basin, stood in the center. In one corner was the Emperor's bed, piled high with skins; in another, a scarred and battered table. Some ragged articles of clothing hung about the room.

By the one window was his chair, and on the floor close by lay a soiled and tattered book--Smith's _History of Ancient Rome!_ The Emperor picked it up eagerly and showed it to his guests.

"I was reading over again all that my reign has accomplished when you came," he said. "There are the fire department, and the police, and the new roads, and the patronage of poets. I feel encouraged when I think it all over."

"I should think you would," complimented Virginia. "And then think of all the things you did before you were Emperor! Think of the early days out here--the Vigilantes and all!"

Mr. Livy's faded blue eyes gleamed. Epochs had become as nothing to him.

Now he was Emperor of Rome, and then he had fought against robbers and road-agents in a new country. It was all one.

"Don't I remember it!" he cried. "Don't I remember how we hung seven robbers in one night from a single cottonwood! Don't I remember how old Jim Gillis said to me: 'For G.o.d's sake, Levinsky, get me one last drink before I die!' I got it for him, and in a minute more he was dead!"

Jack and Carver's eyes shone. They thought old tales were forthcoming, but they did not know the Emperor. He said no more of Vigilante days, but turned toward the stove to stir the porridge.