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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18725-8.txt b/18725-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f7545c --- /dev/null +++ b/18725-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1685 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters, by +Charles A. Gunnison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters + +Author: Charles A. Gunnison + +Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18725] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NAPA CHRISTCHILD; AND *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + A NAPA CHRISTCHILD. + + --AND-- + + BENICIA'S LETTERS. + + + BY + + CHARLES A. GUNNISON + + + PRESS OF + COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + + TO + + THE MOTHER AND SISTERS + + OF + + EDOUARD STOLTERFOHT, + + This Christmas book is offered, to keep in memory sunny winter + days, spent in Rostock, Hohen Niendorf bei Kroepelin, and Gross + Kussewitz, and with the added hope that Poppendorf bei Bentwish + will not forget that I wrote in the house-book-- + + + You have a gentle cure for parting's pain; + It is your German word Aufwiederseh'n. + + + These are just old-fashioned Christmas tales, to be read before an + open fire, with a heart full of charity for me. There is no modern + realism in them, for every word is a lie, the telling of which has + given me the greatest pleasure. I have also stolen a quotation from + Hawthorne, which is the best thing in the book, and last I have had + the exquisite joy of bloodless murder in killing one of my people. + Thus, you see, I need your charity truly, for I have broken + deliberately, for your entertainment, Three out of a possible Ten. + + CHARLES A. GUNNISON, + In the Embarcadero Rd. + Palo Alto, Santa Clara. + _Christmas, 1896._ + + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +A Napa Christchild. + + + + +I. + + +An evening sky, broken by wandering clouds, which hastening onward +toward the north, bear their rich gifts of longed-for rain to the brown +meadows, filling the heavens from east to west with graceful lines and +swelling bosoms, save, just at the horizon where the sun descended +paints a broad, lurid streak of crimson, glowing amid the deepening +shadows, a coal in dead, gray ashes. + +Darker grows the streak, as a stain of blood, while the clouds about it +now assume a purple tinge with gloomier shadings; suddenly in the centre +of the lurid field starts out as if that moment born to Earth, with +clear, silver light, the Evening Star. The colour slowly fades till all +is dead and ashy, and the silver star drops down below the purpled +hills, leaving for a moment a soft, trembling twilight; the dense clouds +then rolling in between, blot out the last sign of departed day and +night is come. + +It was Christmas Eve. The winter was late, and rain had fallen during +the last few weeks only, so that the fields were just assuming the fresh +pea-green colour of their new life, and the long, dead grass still +standing above the recent growth gave that odd smokey appearance to the +hills and mesas, so familiar to all us Californians also in our olive +groves. The night, however, was dark and nothing of hills, or mesas, or +gray fields, could be seen as the hurrying bands of clouds joined +together in one great company, overspreading the whole sky and clothing +all in a dreary shroud of blackness. + +The little arroyo, which was dry in the summertime, had now risen, +increased by last week's tribute to be quite a large stream, tearing +noisely among the rocks and over its old courses, giving friendly +greetings of recognition to the old water-marks and dashing a playful +wave now and then about the worn roots of the enormous laurel tree whose +branches reached high above and far around. + +Beneath the tree's protecting limbs, a little cabin, of roughest +workmanship, found shelter from the wind, or shade from the intense heat +of summer; the house was built almost entirely of logs, excepting the +upper part where boards had been used and through which were cut the +three windows which served to light the single room it contained. + +This Christmas Eve, only the dark form of the cabin was to be seen with +the tall adobe chimney built up the outside; the smoke blew, beaten here +and there, about the roof till it finally disappeared, a cloud of +ghosts, among the swaying branches of the laurel tree. + +By day in the sunshine, no pleasanter spot could be found than the +little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier +view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where +Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in +all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend +and far from his native country. + +On the very day which opens this story, one might have stood upon the +bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green +surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen +the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles +were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the +water-side, some broken, others upright, waved gracefully, moved by both +wind and current. To the left hand on both sides of the arroyo which +here joined the river, one could have seen Crescimir's fields and the +vegetable garden with its whitey-green cabbages, the rich brown heaps of +manure and straw, and the beds of beets all crimson and green, then the +borders of oaks and the far, blue hills, while myriads of little +gray-winged moths hovered over the masses of tangled blackberry vines +and giant dock. To the southward rose, far away, the peak of glorious +Tamalpais, a dark blue dash without a shadow. There were the black, +ploughed fields, steaming in the sunshine, larks springing up from the +glittering leaves, and noisy squirrels in the bay tree laying away their +stores of nuts and maize in its hundred hollows. Leaning upon the rail +and watching the river, rippled in the centre but calm and glassy near +the banks, one could have seen the silver fish springing from the water +for the insects playing about the surface, and could have breathed the +rich perfume of growing onions and the sweet, fresh, green life. + +On the hillside Crescimir had planted grape vines, but they were young +yet and bore no fruit, still, had they borne the heaviest of clusters +there was no one to eat them then for there were but few settlers in the +valley and Crescimir had no neighbours, but the Rancho Tulucay, nearer +than the little village three miles distant. + +Thus Crescimir the Illyrian lived alone improving his lands and selling +vegetables to the Yankee traders who came up the river in their little +schooners; he was always busy ploughing and dressing the gardens or +clearing away the chaparral. + +Two years had been spent here since he had left his fatherland, amid the +wild scenes of the Julian Alps. It was on a Christmas Eve that he had +bidden his old friends good bye and at each return of the day he thought +more sadly of his lonely life, sighing for the old mountain village +where he had so often made merry with his comrades. + +There was one bright spot in Crescimir's daily routine and he prized +that above all the day, for it showed to him that there was one person +who did think of him, though who he could never learn. For a year or +more he had found each day at his cabin door a bunch of garden flowers +and in their place he daily left a bunch of his sweetest onions or some +rare vegetable, which were always taken away. + +The rain began to fall, after Crescimir, having made the horse and +cattle right for the night, started to his cabin. The barn was on the +summit of the knoll, at the foot of which, by the arroyo, he had built +his little house of one room. + +Crescimir felt his way along through the vegetable garden, carrying the +milk pail in one hand and holding the lantern out before him with the +other; the light glistened upon the tall stalks of last year's maize and +gleamed back from the glossy, pungent leaves of the bay tree, from the +tin pail and his wet boots, all reflected in the little pools fast +collecting in the path. As he neared the cabin the rain fell as it +seldom does, save in the tropics, and Crescimir entering the cabin +closed the door with a noise, warning the storm not to encroach on the +little bit of the world which was his own. + +Inside the cabin there was a blazing wood-fire on the open hearth and a +lighted candle on the table; the interior was homelike and comfortable; +in one corner stood the bed with white cover, there were two arm chairs, +a tall dresser and two tables, one of the tables set for supper, which +consisted simply of bread and milk which Crescimir was ready for as soon +as he had washed his hands at the pump in the little "lean-to," and +exchanged his long boots for a pair of easy slippers. + +Over the fireplace hung a bunch of crimson toyone berries and a branch +of hemlock, which Crescimir had hung there to mark the holiday. He did +not sit down at once to his meal, but stood, leaning against the +chimney piece, meditatively picking off bits of the hemlock and +throwing them into the fire where they crackled with a merry noise and +blazed up, scenting the room with their fragrance of the forest. + +As he threw the bits into the fire he sang that melody which the +Illyrian children sing when bearing home their Christmas trees, found +always in the deep forests; it was a song dear to him and the words +brought up memories of all his happy home life and he grew sad as he +thought of the lonely present. + + + "Deep in the wilds of Illyria's mountains + Under a hemlock tree, + Good Spirits buried a wonderful treasure, + Long years ago for me. + There in the gloom by a snow-born fountain + We found the hemlock tree, + Bore it away with loud notes of pleasure, + Hearts overrunning with glee. + Here is my hemlock tree + Christchild kiss it for me, + Make every branch bear + A gift that is fair, + This glossy-leaved hemlock tree, + Evergreen hemlock tree. + + Hemlock ne'er blooms unless kissed by the Christchild, + Glossy-leaved hemlock tree! + Come little Christchild and breathe on its branches + That its fair blossoms we see; + Kissed by the lips of the Heavenly Christchild, + Blessed by the wind so free, + Grown o'er the treasure the Good Spirits planted + Wondrous its fruit must be! + Here is my hemlock tree, + Christchild kiss it for me. + Make every branch bear + A gift that is fair, + This glossy-leaved hemlock tree, + Evergreen hemlock tree." + + +"Alas for me," exclaimed Crescimir, "my happy Christchild days are over +and I fear he has forgotten where I live out in Alta California and +will never bring me anything again." + +Just as the song was finished, a sound was heard at the door but +Crescimir thinking that it was the wind, gave no attention to it, +sitting down to his supper. + +He had not eaten the first spoonful of his bread and milk when the door +opened and by the aid of the firelight, for the draught extinguished the +candle, he saw a pretty, little, golden haired child in a short, white +frock which reached to the knees; the child wore neither hat, shoes, nor +stockings and, what seemed most remarkable, was dry despite the heavy +rain. The little creature as quietly closed the door as he had opened +it, and smiling, walked up to the hearth, spreading out before it his +tiny, pink hands. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +II. + + +As the little visitor stretched out his hands to warm them at the fire, +his shadow formed a flickering cross upon the floor. Crescimir noticed +this, and also wondering at the mysterious advent of the child, which +coming so closely upon his song, caused him almost to think that he must +be dreaming. + +"Art thou the Christchild?" he said finally, to the little figure which +stood with its back toward him gazing up at the branch of hemlock above +the fireplace. + +The child turned around and looking merrily at Crescimir, broke into a +fit of boisterous laughter, but did not answer. + +"Thou art not a very polite little boy, to break into a house this way +and then not answer a simple question. Thou art no Austrian Christchild, +I am sure of that. No matter," he added, as he saw the little face +pucker up for a cry, "wait till we are better acquainted and then we can +talk it all over." + +The child smiled again and made a sign indicating that he wanted the +hemlock branch above his head. Crescimir took it down for him and as +soon as the little creature received it, he began hopping about the +room, holding the branch aloft and humming the melody which Crescimir +had just been singing. + +"Truly, thou art a strange little elf, but I know how to tell if thou +art mortal. Wilt thou have thy supper?" and he held out a spoonful of +the bread and milk to the dancing figure. The child immediately stopped +his whirling, and running to Crescimir, eagerly ate the food, and then +climbing into his lap, sat there quietly, with expectant face as if +anticipating a share in the rest of the supper. So Crescimir took one +spoonful and the Christchild the next, until the bowl was empty. + +"I am glad that thou art come, little one," said Crescimir, as he held +the child in his arms, seated in the wooden armchair before the fire. +"Thou hast made my Christmas Eve a very pleasant one, but I wish that I +could know who thou art and whether thy parents are anxiously searching +for thee this stormy night. Canst thou not speak?" + +The child shook his golden head solemnly and began throwing bits of the +hemlock into the flames, watching the blaze they made as if he could +read in it. + +Crescimir had spoken in German and the little waif understood him, but +it seemed that he was unable to answer except in a cooing sound +expressive of his sensations; however, he could sing most sweetly, not +articulating, but singing as a bird and making beautiful melody. The +song which Crescimir had been singing when he entered, seemed to please +his ear greatly and he warbled it over again in his strangely sweet +tones. Crescimir sung the song a number of times to him and also many +others, some of which with their merry music, breathing fresh from the +high Alps, caused his little hand to keep time with the hemlock branch +as he joined in the songs with his curious notes. + +"Thou art a little elf!" exclaimed Crescimir as he kissed the rosy +face. "Thou bringest back all the old days and makest me feel as merry +as I used in far off Illyria. Bless thee little Christchild." + +The mysterious guest laughed gaily pulling Crescimir's hair and drawing +his smooth fingers over the dark, weather beaten face of the man. Then +he played horse, riding on Crescimir's knee using the branch for a whip, +while Crescimir sang little verses which came to his mind, verses which +set to rolicking music he had sung in his old home on feast days at +dances in the tavern, accompanied by zither or hackbretl. + + + "My girl has ta'en her love away, + I'm easier now I guess, + Don't have to go so oft to church, + Nor half so oft confess-- + Nor half so oft confess." + + +The wind blew harder but neither Crescimir nor his guest heeded it, +while the roaring of the arroyo and river and the steady pouring of the +rain on the roof did not mar their merry making in the least, and they +laughed and sung regardless of it all. + + + "Now I have two girls, + An old one and a new, + So now I need two hearts, + A false one and a true." + + +He continued: + + + "Here Heavenly Father, + 'T were fine to remain + If for just half an hour + 'T would gold dollars rain." + + +Just then the little cabin shook. + +"Strong wind to-night; it is lucky for thee, Christchild, that thou hast +found shelter and lucky for me that the evening which promised to be so +dull has been a very merry one. + + + "Don't be so sad, boy, + If she did treat thee rough, + The world is like a hen-roost, + Has pullets quite enough." + + +Crescimir ceased singing, for the Christchild stopped suddenly in his +romping, gazing fixedly with his large, wondering eyes upon the floor. + +"What see'st thou, little one?" + +The child pointed to the door and Crescimir saw two small streams of +white, foamy water pouring in from each side, and the floor was covered. +Crescimir quickly placed the Christchild on the table and started to +open the door, but before he reached it, the house trembled as if in an +earthquake shock and the door fell back into the room with a loud crash, +while a volume of seething water washed over it almost throwing him down +with its terrible force. The water poured in little jets through the +cracks in the walls and rushing into the fireplace put out the flames +and left the room in total darkness. + +The water rose rapidly and by the time that Crescimir had grasped the +form of his little guest and opening one of the windows had drawn +himself with his charge upon the roof, the flood had reached the upper +sashes. + +The cabin swayed to and fro and every moment seemed about to be carried +from its foundations. The Christchild made no sound of fear and +Crescimir could not see his face, yet he held the long hemlock branch +tightly in his little hand. + +The roof was firmly built of logs and planks so in case the house fell +it could be used as a raft and Crescimir exerting all his strength +pulled from the sides the flat boards which held it fixed to the cabin. + +As the flood rose higher, he took the Christchild and lying down in the +middle of the roof held on firmly. + +Suddenly the roof was lifted and whirled down the swollen arroyo into +the broad river. Floating logs struck against it, and as they tore +along under the bridge they struck against the buttress with terrific +force. Onward they were whirled; they could see the lights in the houses +of the village and could hear the voices of men and women along the +bluffs or in the trees where they had sought shelter. + +The rain ceased falling, but the wind did not go down, rolling the waves +over their raft. Once they lodged for a moment against a great oak where +Crescimir strove in vain to make fast. The tide was too powerful and all +went with it whirling blindly onward. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +III. + + +The waters fell almost as rapidly as they had risen, and by sunrise on +Christmas Day, the river had returned between its banks, though still +flowing fast and frothy. + +Mists lay in strata along the hills showing the green grass between in +long, even stripes. Up from the high mesas sprang the larks ready to +greet the day, or perching for a moment on some sturdy manzanita they +spread their broad tails, with two white feathers, balancing and +chirping cheerily. + +A little valley through which an arroyo flowed, scantily bordered by low +growing willows, formed the scene; on one side was a stubble-field with +many cattle grazing on the new grass; there were a few dark oaks and +then on the first risings, yellow patches of vineyards with red, +ploughed ground dotted with manzanitas. The high hills which formed the +background were rough and black. + +In the hollow at the foot of the mesa was a newly formed pond on which +floated branches of trees, bits of wood and some broken pieces of +household furniture; about the grass was strewn the same sort of drift +and the grass itself was torn and bent and there were yellow-white bits +of foam upon it. At one side wedged between two encina trees lay the +roof of a house, on the edge of which a little child was sitting beside +the body of a man, who lying with one arm hung listlessly over the side +seemed asleep or dead. The pond was fast lowering, leaving its burden of +debris scattered about. + +This was the scene which met the searching eyes of Jovita of Tulucay +Rancho as, mounted on her horse, she came around the knoll which hid the +house and buildings of the rancho from the meadow. + +Jovita quickly alighted, took up the child in her arms, and seeing that +he was unhurt but simply dazed at his situation, placed him upon her +horse and gave her attention to the man who lay there, to all +appearances dead. + +"Unfortunate man," she said aloud, unable to repress her tears, "his +wife has probably been lost and he has saved their child." + +She took his hand in hers and felt that his pulse was yet beating; a +bruise on the temple seemed to be the only wound and was caused by the +blow which had stunned him. + +As Jovita chafed his hands and smoothed his forehead, he opened his +eyes, and then looking about astonished at his surroundings, asked, +"Where is the Christchild? Surely I have saved him." + +The little one from the back of the horse began in his strange tones to +sing the "Song of the Hemlock" in answer to Crescimir's enquiry. + +"I hardly know where we are, for in the darkness and swift whirl of last +night I lost my way," he said, sitting up. "I remember now that +something struck me when the raft stopped. I thank God that the +Christchild was not lost, dear little fellow." + +"Christchild?" exclaimed Jovita, looking at him in surprise, "Have you +given your boy that name?" + +"I do not know, Señorita, who the child is, but he came to my door last +night, Christmas Eve, and brought me some of the merriest hours I have +had since I left old Illyria, and had not the flood carried away +everything, I would have marked yesterday as one of the happiest in my +life. He is a strange little fellow and will not, or else cannot speak, +yet he sings beautifully in his own odd way as you hear him now. I +called him Christchild as I knew no better name. Are you not the +Señorita of El Tulucay? I know that horse which you have and have often +seen him with a lady on his back flying over all the fields about here." + +"Yes, I am Jovita of the Tulucay, and I know you now; you are called +Crescimir the Illyrian, and I have been often to your cabin and sat +beneath the great laurel while you were in the fields or at your work. I +have often left flowers there at your door just for the pleasure of +imagining the surprise when you should find them, and I always took the +vegetables I found there, for I knew that they were for me. However, I +never saw your face before this morning. You see I am little like our +Californians, but my mother is from the States and believes in more +freedom; she could not be better or kinder though she were a real +Californian. If you are able we had better go up to the hacienda now, +and after breakfast we will look about to see if assistance is needed +along the river, for the flood was sudden and unlooked for." + +Crescimir was not hurt and was able to walk slowly to the house. Jovita +walked by his side, leading her horse, while the Christchild sat quietly +in the saddle, nodding his head and winking like any sleepy child of +this mortal world. + +Both Crescimir and Jovita were silent during the walk, but their eyes +often met, and Jovita would blush as she thought of her strange freak +with the flowers and finding that the receiver was by no means the old +man she had imagined him to be. + +Crescimir was happy to think that he had not left his gifts +unappreciated and only regretted that he had not put whole pumpkins +there instead of onions. + +"So you have no idea to whom the child belongs?" asked Jovita, as they +neared the house. "He is strangely dressed and the frock is of an +unfamiliar texture; he does not seem cold either, although he is so +lightly clad. We must try to find his parents who, doubtless, are now +anxiously searching for him or believing him drowned in last night's +awful flood." + +The strange little creature seemed now entirely to lose his sleepiness +and broke into a merry laugh, sliding down from the saddle he capered +madly around the two astonished spectators like a little elf blown about +by the wind, his golden hair floating around him and the pink, little +feet scarcely seeming to touch the grass. + +"There has been a number of campers passing through the valley to settle +north on the Caymus ranchos, this little sprite must be one of their +children who has strayed away," said Jovita. + +"Come little one, let us go into the house and have our breakfast." + +The Christchild did not seem to understand her, for he continued his +capering and wild antics. + +"Stop, stop," exclaimed Crescimir in his native tongue, "stop and listen +to what the beautiful Señorita says to thee. Come now into the house." + +He ceased his play immediately and went before them up to the door, with +tears in his eyes on account of Crescimir's rebuke. As they reached the +veranda Crescimir caught the little elf up in his arms and kissed his +rosy lips; the moment the child's feet touched the ground when Crescimir +put him down, he put his hand over his mouth as if to keep the kiss warm +and running to Jovita, she lifted him in her arms, as he signed her to +do, when suddenly withdrawing his hand, he kissed her, looking back +significantly and laughing. + +Both Jovita and Crescimir knew what the child had intended to express +and both blushed consciously, yet could but marvel at the acuteness of +the little creature who so soon was able to read their hearts, even +before they had perfectly known them themselves. + +The mother of Jovita now came to the door and inviting them into the +living room, the events of the past night were related and all that was +known of the little waif. + +Crescimir spent the day by the river searching for what might have been +left on the banks by the flood. He learned that his raft had been +carried out of the stream through a break in the bank, and much of the +wreckage of his own house with it. Returning to the hacienda he +discovered in a clump of bushes, over which the water had run when at +its highest mark, the bodies of a man and woman entangled in the canvas +cover of a camp wagon. It was evident to Crescimir from their dress that +they were German emigrants. + +With the help of some of the rancheros the bodies were carried to the +house. + +"They may be the parents of the little one," said Jovita's mother. "We +will bring him here and see if he recognizes them; it seems cruel but it +is the only way." + +They brought the Christchild to the room where the bodies lay. When the +little fellow saw them, he clung to Crescimir and uttering a moaning +sound, yet seeming half like a laugh, he hid his eyes and would not look +again. + +"Are these thy parents little one?" asked Crescimir tenderly; the +Christchild shook his head negatively and broke into hysterical sobs. + +Though the Christchild had denied that these were the bodies of his +parents, both Jovita, her mother and Crescimir felt certain that they +were. + +Crescimir remained that night at the Tulucay hacienda and early next +morning the bodies were taken to the village and given burial in +consecrated ground, as the cross which the woman wore and a medal of +silver which the man carried showed them to be of the true church. + +After the burial Crescimir returned to the rancheria. "I will be thy +father now, little Christchild," said he as they stood at the well with +Jovita, who had been filling the little olla for her mother's night +drink. + +The child looked up with a pleased smile and then turning to Jovita, +asked with his bright eyes a question which words could not better have +expressed. + +Jovita replied softly as she looked down at the strange, wistful face, +and felt the touch of Crescimir's hand on her own, "And I thy mother." + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +IV. + + +By the beginning of summer Crescimir's place had all been restored and +the house rebuilt on the summit of the knoll, far away from any danger +of another flood. + +It was a pretty cottage now, in the new, American style with a +trellis-porch over which passion vines spread in the profusion of first +growth. The flower garden and the long lines and square beds of the +vegetable garden looked fresh and bright down by the arroyo. + +The house had been completed by the middle of January and Crescimir by +careful and steady work had brought back his fields to their former +state. The Christchild still lived with him, always as merry as the day +was long. He was, as on the night of his arrival, still dressed in his +little, white frock or shirt of strange texture, and he would wear +nothing else, not even shoes. + +Jovita's mother had, however, once made for him a suit, but when she +tried to have him put it on, he objected so strenuously that the project +had to be abandoned, for not even Crescimir's will, which usually was +all that was needed on such occasions, had not in this case any power at +all; so he ran quite wild about the gardens, the same pretty, little elf +as ever. + +He was extremely fond of the water and paddled in the arroyo all day +long, so that even the little frock was for the greater time +superfluous, and there was never any difficulty in having it for the +old woman who came once a week from the village to do the washing. She +often said that when she touched it, it gave her "goose flesh," the +"feel" was so queer. She had never seen anything like it in all her long +experience in her particular line of business. + +Crescimir's visits to Tulucay were frequent now and the little +Christchild always went with him, his greatest delight seeming to be to +see Crescimir and Jovita together. + +The day for the wedding was set to be the day before Christmas, for it +seemed well that as that season had first made them known to each other, +it should see them made man and wife. + +The rainless summer and autumn passed and winter came with its green +grass and new flowers. + +Never had there been such a prosperous year for the Napa Valley, and the +fields were fast blossoming with little white cottages, while golden +vineyards were growing higher up the hillsides driving the chaparral +back from its old inheritance as the Gringos did the natives. The town +had increased to nearly twice its former size, so Crescimir's gardens +were much sought, and he no longer was compelled to labour from sunrise +till sunset to keep the weeds away, for now he was able to hire the +hardest work done and enjoy the fruits of his first years' toil. + +The month of December came and the leaves on the poplar trees in the +village were turning golden, just lingering long enough to mingle +lovingly for a while with the new-born green of winter, and then be +hidden by the growth of broad leaved plants as soon as they had fallen +brown upon the earth, producing that endless harmony of Californian +nature, a life everlasting. + +There were a few orange coloured poppies nodding in the mesas but violet +star-flowers scattered over the lower meadows were powerful enough, by +reason of their numbers, to conquer the colour of the grass, while the +fields near the river were yellow with juicy cowslips. + +Now the blue dome of St. Helena was not so often visible, for the clouds +hovered about it filled with wealth giving rain. + +Ploughing and planting had begun and in some places the grain had +already started; blackbirds in hosts were perched on all the fences, +watching the sowers and chattering saucily to each other as they snapped +their bead-like eyes in anticipation of the feast so profusely spreading +for them. + +Over the low lands where the bay stretched its many arms in and out, +offering to the ranchos its assistance to carry their abundant produce +to a market, the marshes were red with short-growing sorrel, and the +dark green of the tules along the edges fringed the silver indentations +of the water in harmonious contrast. + +All this did Jovita and Crescimir see from the veranda of Tulucay as +with the Christchild by them they talked of the strange discovery and +first sudden birth of their love, of how Jovita had first left the +flowers at his door and how he had longed so much to know the one, the +only one who had cheered his loneliness, and how he had loved the donor +even before he had known that it was she. + +Then they would talk of the terrible flood which had brought them +together, and how each knew the other's love the moment their eyes had +met, and of the mysterious little child who had been the medium of +their first lovers' kiss. + +They had become quite accustomed to the little elf's strange ways, and +he no longer seemed to them to be the half supernatural creature he had +at first appeared. Jovita's mother had at last discovered, she was sure, +that the mysterious frock was nothing more nor less remarkable than a +kind of goat hair woven carefully and fine. + +So thus was the little elfin Christchild resolved by the power of +familiarity into the orphan of some German emigrants who had lost their +lives in the great flood; nevertheless, strangers never passed him +without giving a second glance and never heard him sing in his sweet, +odd tones, without wondering. + +Crescimir and Jovita were married at Tulucay on the day before Christmas +and walked over the fields to the new house on the knoll by the laurel +tree, the Christchild going with them. + +He had decorated his head and frock with blossoms of early mariposas +(calochortus) in honour of the occasion, and his joy seemed +uncontrollable and he skipped over the meadow scarcely seeming to tread +upon the ground. + +There was a bright fire in the cottage when they reached it; the fire +was in an open fireplace similar to that which had been in the old +cabin. + +As they entered, the Christchild, running up to the hearth, pointed to +the chimney piece, and then turning to Crescimir with a look which could +not be misunderstood, began in his odd notes to sing. + +Crescimir then first noticed that there was no hemlock branch above the +hearth, so taking one from the other side of the room where they hung in +festoons, he fastened it with a bunch of toyone berries over the +chimney piece. + +The sun was set and in the crimson glow with which the heavens were +painted, just above the low, black hills, shone bright and silvery the +Evening Star. + +Crescimir, with Jovita leaning on his shoulder, stood at the west window +looking out over the misty valley where the real seemed ghostlike in the +gray evening haze, and even those things with which they were familiar, +seemed in the fading light to take to themselves unknown forms. + +"Strange world!" said Jovita, meditatively, "Real and Unreal so often +blended that we can never say which is tangible and which is air." + +"Look Jovita, look!" and Crescimir seizing her hand pointed out toward +the garden. + +They stood there gazing from the window, as if spellbound, until the +crimson light faded from the sky and the clear star descended below the +hills. + +A bit of mist or fog, or what you will hovered about the garden and then +gradually rising it became dissolved and was gone. + +"Gone!" whispered Jovita, as the darkness shut out the valley from view. +"Good little Christchild; but his memory shall ever be with us," +answered Crescimir, as they sat side by side before the open fireplace. + + * * * * * + +Everybody wondered where the little Christchild had gone, and search was +made, but, of course, unsuccessfully; yet Crescimir and Jovita said +nothing. + +Thus, in time, people forgot about the tiny elf and now there are few +who have even heard of Crescimir's guest. + +The pretty cottage may to-day be seen on the knoll near the wonderful, +wide-spreading laurel tree and every Christmas Eve upon the chimney +piece of its open hearted hearth may be seen a dark, glossy branch of +hemlock with a bunch of toyone. + +Before the fire sit Crescimir and Jovita singing the little Christmas +carrol of the Illyrian children. Sometimes they think that they hear a +sweet, soft voice joining in harmony with their own, but yet they are +not sure but that it may perhaps be only the music of their own happy +hearts, and smiling at Jovita, who holds the little Crescimir in her +arms, Crescimir the Illyrian points to the branch above the hearth while +the little one opens his eyes in wonderment. + +"Was he not, Jovita mia, like the affection which is seen by all the +world between lovers before marriage? And then the world wonders where +it has gone when the priest has pronounced the two as one. But we +married lovers will never tell, for we are content to know that our +Christchild has sunken deep into our hearts where his song inaudible to +others is heard by us forever and ever." + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +Benicia's Letters. + + +After my aunt Benicia's death I found in her little desk a bundle of +letters, which threw light upon the romance of her life, and on the +reason perhaps of her refusing many offers which were known to have been +made her by honoured Californians of the last generation. The letters +are curious and interesting to me, and were written to my uncle by his +chum, and enclosed many sketches. + +The letters are in Spanish, but for your better understanding I have +translated them with all their strange expressions as best I can. + +At first I thought that I would destroy them, but as most of my friends +who read them now, have long known my aunt Benicia, I feel sure that +they will be, even in these practical days, interested and touched by +the revelation they so suggest of a life-long love which filled the +heart of the good, little woman, who is at last at rest. + + + GRÜNEN MARKT. + + WÜRZBURG, 20th October, 18--. + +DEAR JOSÉ: + +How dull life here is, I cannot bear to look forward to the time so far +ahead when I shall have done with the University, not that I shall be at +all unhappy to leave and return to my dear California, but the twelve or +sixteen months between now and then, make me shudder to think of. + +My time is quite free now and I make many pleasure walks to Zell and the +Hochberg, while almost every day finds me at some time on the Nicholaus +Berg enjoying its ever lovely views of the green Maine valley, which +however is now taking on its first autumnal tints. + +Today I come from the stone quarry, which lies on the road to the +Hochberg, where I have been chatting with the workmen and making a few +sketches to send home to Benicia; the day has been one of the +pleasantest I have known, just one of those mild autumn days we love so +much in Santa Clara when her hills are clothed in their warmest colours +and the big leaves are first falling from the fig trees. Ah, I did wish +to be back again to walk with you along the dry Francisquito and gather +the first golden poppies for Benicia's black hair. Yes, of course, I +should be contented with these world-known beauties which I have about +me, nevertheless, it is a pleasure to recall those happy days now that I +am here alone on the continent of Europe. The warmth of our Californian +sun must have entered our very hearts, for nowhere in all the world but +there are found no strangers. + +The grapes are not all picked as yet, and the vineyards are lively +indeed with gaily dressed peasant girls, cutting and tying up the vines +for the winter. There is a great difference between Catholic and +Lutheran Germany in this one regard of dress; in all the Protestant +districts the prevailing colour is a dull blue, while in Catholic parts +the dress seems to have no end of colour and brilliant adornment; for an +artist the latter is more pleasing, but for such a thoughtful moralist +as yourself, I know the peasant girls in blue frocks would be +preferable. + +There are very few students in the city now and scarcely a traveller is +to be seen, except now and then a stray one may be noticed wandering +about the old cathedral or counting the restored statues on the river +bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage +for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of +my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I +hope that I will be more satisfied than I am now. + +Every day I go to Vespers at one of the churches, and I enjoy this bit +of the day more than you could believe. It is beautiful just at dusk to +enter the church in the Market Place, which is near my hotel, and there +in the gloom, lighted only by the tapers at the shrines and where some +of the worshipers are kneeling, each with a small wax light to illumine +the Prayer Books, to bow with them and receive the blessing from the +priest and to be touched by the Holy Water; then the Ave Maria, how I +love to hear it chanted with such heartfelt praise by the old and +trembling men and women, who throw their whole spirit into the melody. +The melody, I know, could not bear cold criticism, but when I kneel +there beneath the great, gray vault and see their breath ascending in +the cold air, bearing like incense their prayers to Heaven, and hear the +subdued strains of the organ, I feel that it is not the music of this +world, and my heart is moved and I join in the grand hymn, mingling my +soft Latin words with their glorious German. + +The priest has passed down the aisle and sprinkled the Holy Water over +us with the aspergil, the boys bearing the censers, preceding him have +passed from sight with him behind the dark curtain at the Chancel door; +there is a shuffling noise of the departing worshipers and I am alone. + +Far away, before the golden Altar hangs a taper which throws a red glow +into all the darkness, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, ever burning +amid the gloom of sin. As my eyes become accustomed to the dim light, I +can discern a female figure robed in gray, standing before the shrine of +the Virgin, I cannot see the face though I often try, but whenever she +becomes aware of my presence, she leaves the cathedral by the little +door to the right which opens into the small court. This occurs every +night, and though I have often tried to meet her by going out by the +other door and around the front, I have as yet, not succeeded. + +But enough of that now; today as I returned from my walk, I saw as I was +crossing the bridge one of the first Californian women I have seen for +a long time; I know that she was Californian or Mexican for there was +more life in the eye than we see in the quiet, expressionless beauties +of the rest of the world. I do not know why I must ever have this face +in my mind since I met the fair one on the bridge; she looked at me +directly in the eyes, and I feel sure that I have met her sometime +before. I know the face; there is a strange drooping about the eyelids, +which to me adds a charm to the whole appearance. I do wish I could +think where in the world I have seen her. I am going to search the hotel +books to-morrow for I will not rest until I find out her name. It was +almost dark, however, when we met, and she was going toward the opposite +side of the Maine where there are no foreign hotels. + +I surmise, and suppose, and guess, but all to no purpose, while that one +look seems to be planted indelibly upon my mind. I would give anything +to see her again; I can think of nothing now, for the strange, +inexpressible fascination of those eyelids has me entirely captive. +Where have we met? Try and think, my dear boy, of some one of our +acquaintance who tallies with my description; about my height, black +hair, a white, unusually white face, finely marked eyebrows and the +drooping lids, which when raised, disclose large, brilliant, yet +languid, blue eyes,--I cannot give the picture to suit me, but you note +the strange paleness and the eyes, and you must remember if you have +ever met her. + +I often go to the little opera house, where the music is of the best, +yet I cannot enjoy myself, for, as ever I am alone; all I can do is just +to think and think and imagine things to interest me through the dreary +time. What strange fantasies I have brought up in my life! You know +some of them, and it is quite true as you wrote in your last that +translation from Hawthorne, "His caprices had their origin in a mind +that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose and feelings that +preyed upon themselves for lack of other food." + +I try to interest myself in the things about me, but I am a dreamer. I +wonder often what my life will come to in the end, of what use I shall +be. No, it is not good that I should be alone; now, however, since I +have seen the unknown beauty, I will not have to search my mind for +subjects to keep it occupied, for Señorita California is quite a solid +damsel and far from ethereal, and not at all ghostly, only that look +about the eyes when the lids are drooping, and the complexion. + +Don't forget my usual token to Benicia and give her the sketches, but +of course no word of the girl; women never understand such things +properly. + + B. L. M. + + JOAQUIN. + + + * * * * * + + + ON THE NICHOLAUS BERG, + + 22nd October 18--. + +DEAR JOSÉ: + +This morning early, I took my walk as usual to the Chapel on the hill; +the day was as fine as the last three have been and I began to feel +better contented with so much Californian weather to help me. + +Yesterday I did not think so much of the bridge beauty but today her +strange features have come to me with double vividness, and it was to +escape from this that I took the walk so very early this morning. I +brought my sketch-book with me and expected to pass the whole day on the +hill and in the woods just beyond. + +The little, old woman who sweeps away the dry leaves from the steps so +ruthlessly, smiled more than usual when I gave her the customary two +pfennigs. I can never understand how the poor creature wages such a +heartless war against these dying leaves of Autumn; it seems that she +should have a sisterly feeling for them, knowing that she is herself so +near to her own December. + +The Stations of the Cross are arranged in little shrines on the many +terraces which adorn the castle side of the hill; it is a pretty +thought, bordering the path to the chapel with these stone pictures, +most of them representing Christ's long, weary journey up Mount Calvary. +There are always to be found before these shrines, people, mostly the +peasantry, praying aloud, and here and there many a time I have seen +them ascending the toilsome road on their knees. + +What a grand view one has from the summit; the wide Valley of the Maine +not yet brown, but smiling as it always does in its green beauty, far +into December. The lumber rafts are floating lazily down, as it were in +a dream, little thinking that in a few more hours they will have reached +their journey's end, there to be broken. They are like myself somewhat, +who am just as lazily, uselessly and alone wandering through life to the +ending sooner or later; it is hard to go against the stream and the +river is long and lovely, so I will float on just a little farther. + +I made a sketch of Würzburg with its many spires and domes, which I +enclose for Benicia, and then turned my attention to the Chapel with +which I am always delighted; the frescoes in the dome are good and I +never tire of sitting and looking up at them while I listen to the dull +chanting of the Capuzin monks behind the iron grating to the right. + +I have often had conversation with these monks whom I meet walking in +the garden, and find them pleasant and entertaining, and far from being +the gloomy mortals some people think them to be. + + + * * * * * + + + NICHOLAUS BERG. + + Night. + +DEAR JOSÉ: + +Before I had finished my letter, Brother Andreas, with whom I am better +acquainted than with the others, came to me and asked me to walk with +him; he is not a German, but is from Spain, so you see I find use for my +mother tongue where I little expected to need it. Brother Andreas speaks +German of course, as he has been here some twenty years, and tells me he +is quite contented with his life, never having a desire for sunny +Spain, saying that all the home he has is beyond this world; I wish that +I might feel as contented as the old Capuzin. + +But you are curious to know why I am here at this time, and I will +hasten to tell you what the strange cause is. + +We walked about the Chapel and through parts of the garden where I had +never been before, Brother Andreas relating to me the history of the +city and the little Chapel. By this time we had wandered to the front of +the building, and Brother Andreas raising his arm pointed to the face of +the church over the door and repeated, "Refugium Peccatorum, Consolatrix +Afflictorum, Sancta Maria, Ora Pro Nobis." + +I did not look up at first, my attention at the time being directed to a +company of peasants in the neighbouring vineyard, but at the words +"Sancta Maria," I raised my eyes to the face of the church, and, oh my +God, what did I see! + +"Ora pro nobis," broke unintentionally from my lips, I clung +convulsively to the arm of the good, old priest, my eyes were riveted +upon the niche above the door, for there looking down on me, her eyes +strangely drooping, her hands folded across her breast, stood the woman +whom day before yesterday I met on the bridge; I say stood the woman, +but it was only a statue carved in gray stone, an image of the Virgin, +such as we see every day in the churches; this, however, was somewhat +different, as it held no infant Christ in its arms, and then the face, +that was not the face which should be given to Mary, the Mother of our +Saviour. + +No, the more I see those eyes, which I at first so much admired, the +more I hate their look, but also strange to say, the more I am +fascinated. + +In a few moments I had recovered my usual composure enough to assure +Brother Andreas that the cause of my strange behaviour was a sudden +illness to which I was often subject, when tired, but the good man shook +his head sadly and said, "No, my child, you have seen something +supernatural, which has disturbed you; it is well that I am here." With +that, he immediately made the Sign of the Cross and drew me into the +chapel where he made some use of the Holy Water which I did not +understand, nor did I care, for the sudden fright which had stopped my +heart in its beating, now that all was over, sent the blood rushing +through my veins with frightful rapidity making my head ache so terribly +that I thought that I must die. + +It was dark, the next I knew, the room was strange to me; A Crucifix +hung on the wall, before which a single, dim oil lamp was burning, +before this was a monk at prayer;--it seemed like a dream to me, it +could not be real. + +After awhile I moved, and the monk rose and came to me, showing, in the +flickering light, the fatherly features of Brother Andreas. + +"My child," he said, taking my hand in his, "I am happy that you are of +our flock, for I can help you; I know your thoughts; it is well to think +now when all is still. I will not urge you, but Christ is ever seeking +for your soul; come to the true light of the Church where he may find +you." + +I made confession and received absolution, and he, making the Sign of +the Cross, went from the room. + +Presently I heard the monotonous chant of the monks in the Chapel and +knew it was midnight. I have written this to you hurriedly on paper I +have in my portfolio. The chanting is over and Brother Andreas' step is +audible in the echoing corridor. Good Night. + + + Besa la mano, + + JOAQUIN. + + + * * * * * + + + NICHOLAUS BERG. + + 30th October, 18--. + +DEAR JOSÉ: + +I am still at the cloister, though I have done nothing it seems to me +during the past week but sleep, and am hardly strong enough now to carry +the pen over the paper as I write to you. + +The statue over the door stands there as it ever has, but it is too far +away for me to see the awful eyes, so I can say nothing about them. But +now my dear friend I have something more wonderful than ever to tell +you. + +Every night when the moon shines, this image of the Virgin comes down +from her niche and wanders about the church; I have seen her four or +five times, and she has often come under my window in these lone walks, +and once I spoke to her, but the moment my voice sounded on the night +air she was gone, and the same gray, stone image stood silent and dead +in the niche. + +What can I think of all this? I could not believe if any one should tell +me of these things, but what I see with my own eyes I certainly cannot +doubt. + +The Brother Andreas is very good to me, and my box has been brought from +the hotel to the cloister, so my room is as cheerful as possible with +all your pictures around me. + +How I wish that you were here, or I could hear from you, but never, my +dear boy will that time come, I fear; I have given up the idea of ever +having so great a pleasure in this world. I cannot write more now as I +am too weak. Good night and greet Benicia for me. + + + * * * * * + + + 31st October + +It is very late, but I must write now or never. To-night the image was +stranger than ever, and for the first time I heard its voice, and oh, it +sounded too sweetly to me as I sat by the window and looked out over the +city as the moon rose above the hills to the east. + +The Brothers were chanting at the time, and their deep base came in ever +and ever so beautifully between the stanzas which the Virgin sung, and +as she sung, she came down from her station slowly, as if there were +steps in the air and she could tread upon them. The words were as weird +as the scene. + + + "The silver moon is slowly, slowly rising + The night is clear and all the clouds are fled, + Their midnight prayer the weary monks are chanting; + Now I may leave my cold and stony bed." + + +Then the monks chanted in their low, measured tones, + + + "Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis! + Mater Christi, ora, ora!" + "Cursed be my lot, but useless is repining, + Here must I stay till dreary day is gone, + Living only in the pale moon's shining; + To-night my hated penance though is done. + Gaily, gaily, gaily I'll live + Though I be but a spirit of air; + Every pleasure the world can give + Shall be mine while the moon shines fair. + + The Devil in Hell has promised me + That if I gain him a soul + I shall be forever from that time free, + So long as the Rhine shall run to the sea + And the Maine shall Rhineward roll." + + +And from the heights above the echo came,--"Roll--roll." + +Then running lightly to the wall, which is on the river side, she leaned +over and sung in a high, unearthly, wild voice, while her dark hair +waved in the night wind, + + + "Beautiful river rushing on, + Touched with light by the silver moon, + Grant me now this simple boon. + Let thy merry spirits come, + And elfin dancers with beating drum, + Here with me for the wild night long, + To dance and whirl with eldrich song + Till the moon shall faint and her light be gone." + + +Then running merrily to the other side nearer my window, she sung in the +same wild key, as she turned her face to the forest, + + + "Spirits of the black larch-wood + Come to-night to dance and sing, + Come and all thy flowers bring, + Come and gaily join our ring, + Come upon thy fleetest wing, + Come, oh come, ere the moon be fading." + + +The low chanting of the Monks ceased, and as I opened my window wider I +could hear, like the higher notes of an organ, voices rising from the +river and mingling in heavenly harmony; I could not at first catch the +words, but the sweet, divinely sweet strains came nearer and nearer, and +then with the same inexpressible gentleness, softly as if wafted from +the angelic chorus came the rich, low notes from the forest, like the +humming of bees, the sighing of hemlocks, or that sweet, strange sound +we ever hear in the ocean shell. The voices came nearer and I could hear +the wild, free words long before the singers were in the court. + + + "We are coming from the forest, + All laden with flowers, + With bright, crimson flowers + All sparkling with dew." + + +Then from the river rose the song: + + + "We come from the water + With bright, polished pebbles, + With white, glittering pebbles, + Our love-gift to you." + + +The singing now was in the very garden, but I could not see the singers, +though I knew that they were there, for the strange creature-image +whirled about the court, laughing and nodding on every side, while the +music grew each moment louder and wilder, when suddenly all was still, +and the image pausing in the middle of the court began with many odd +gestures this weird song: + + + "What am I? Who am I? Where did I come from? + What, who and where--well, no human knows; + Ye though my loved ones know what to answer, + My pale face ye follow wherever it goes. + My home's in the forest, my home's in the city, + Wherever the terror of loneliness lies, + And woe be to him who when out in the moonlight + Catches the glance of my soul-piercing eyes. + By day I am stone + By night I have breath, + And those whom I meet, know the sister of Death." + + +"Curse you!" I shrieked, leaning from the window, and all was gone; the +statue was in its niche again, the Maria Virgo Sancta. I staggered back +from the window and was received almost breathless from excitement in +the arms of Brother Andreas who entered the room just then. + +"My child, you should not sit by an open window; I fear that you have +done yourself an injury already." He laid me down on the bed and when I +awoke he was gone, and now I am writing off this scrap of a letter for +you my dear friend. How I long to see you, and oh, why can I not have +you here! Would to God that I had not met the woman on the bridge. My +friend, my José, I dare not tell you what I fear; those eyes were upon +me, those fatal eyes. No, no I will not keep it from you, I will tell +you all and leave you the terrible duty of telling Benicia. + +My dear boy, I am growing colder each moment; my hand trembles as I +write this, my last letter; I pray that I may have strength to finish +it. The river was not so long as I expected, and now my poor raft is +breaking. Nor would I live, for now I know who has power over me, I know +now whose were those drooping eyelids; it is better not to live, for I +have not strength to conquer them. + +It is autumn, the last leaves are falling, the cold winter is coming, +but I shall not be here to dread its cold. My winter is on me now, and +may God grant that through it I come to the eternal spring. All that I +want is to see Benicia and you once more, but that cannot be. Now a +last, long farewell to Benicia; I can write no more, I am too cold. The +raft is broken; the journey was not long. + +God bless you, good bye; I am going to lie down now. Give the ruby ring, +which I wear, to dear Benicia as a memory of me; and tell Beni-- + + + * * * * * + + +Here was the ending of the letter in the unfinished name of his loved +one. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's +Letters, by Charles A. 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Gunnison + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + hr.smler { width: 10%; } + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .left {text-align: left;} + .tbrk { margin-top: 2.75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem div {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem div.i1 {display: block; margin-left: 1em;} + .poem div.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem div.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em;} + + + /* index */ + + div.index ul li { padding-top: 1em ;text-align: center; } + + div.index ul ul ul, div.index ul li ul li { padding: 0; text-align: left; } + + div.index ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; } + + div.index ul, div.index ul ul ul li { display: inline; } + + div.index .subitem { display: block; text-align: center; } + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters, by +Charles A. Gunnison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters + +Author: Charles A. Gunnison + +Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18725] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NAPA CHRISTCHILD; AND *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>A NAPA CHRISTCHILD.</h1> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h3>—AND—</h3> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h1>BENICIA'S LETTERS.</h1> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>CHARLES A. GUNNISON</h2> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h4>PRESS OF<br />COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY.</h4> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<blockquote><h3>TO</h3> + +<h3>THE MOTHER AND SISTERS</h3> + +<h3>OF</h3> + +<h3>EDOUARD STOLTERFOHT,</h3> + +<p>This Christmas book is offered, to keep in memory sunny winter +days, spent in Rostock, Hohen Niendorf bei Kroepelin, and Gross +Kussewitz, and with the added hope that Poppendorf bei Bentwish +will not forget that I wrote in the house-book—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>You have a gentle cure for parting's pain;</div> +<div>It is your German word Aufwiederseh'n.</div> +</div></div> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p>These are just old-fashioned Christmas tales, to be read before an open +fire, with a heart full of charity for me. There is no modern realism in +them, for every word is a lie, the telling of which has given me the +greatest pleasure. I have also stolen a quotation from Hawthorne, which +is the best thing in the book, and last I have had the exquisite joy of +bloodless murder in killing one of my people. Thus, you see, I need your +charity truly, for I have broken deliberately, for your entertainment, +Three out of a possible Ten.</p> + +<p class='center'>CHARLES A. GUNNISON,<br /> + In the Embarcadero Rd.<br /> + Palo Alto, Santa Clara.</p> + +<p><i>Christmas, 1896.</i></p></blockquote> + +<hr /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="index"> +<ul> +<li><a href="#A_Napa_Christchild"> A NAPA CHRISTCHILD.</a> +<ul> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#I">I.</a></li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#II">II.</a></li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#III">III.</a></li> + <li class="subitem"><a href="#IV">IV.</a></li> +</ul></li> +<li><a href="#Benicias_Letters">BENICIA'S LETTERS.</a></li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/008.png" width='500' height='241' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="A_Napa_Christchild" id="A_Napa_Christchild"></a>A Napa Christchild.</h2> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> + +<p>An evening sky, broken by wandering clouds, which hastening onward +toward the north, bear their rich gifts of longed-for rain to the brown +meadows, filling the heavens from east to west with graceful lines and +swelling bosoms, save, just at the horizon where the sun descended +paints a broad, lurid streak of crimson, glowing amid the deepening +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span>shadows, a coal in dead, gray ashes.</p> + +<p>Darker grows the streak, as a stain of blood, while the clouds about it +now assume a purple tinge with gloomier shadings; suddenly in the centre +of the lurid field starts out as if that moment born to Earth, with +clear, silver light, the Evening Star. The colour slowly fades till all +is dead and ashy, and the silver star drops down below the purpled +hills, leaving for a moment a soft, trembling twilight; the dense clouds +then rolling in between, blot out the last sign of departed day and +night is come.</p> + +<p>It was Christmas Eve. The winter was late, and rain had fallen during +the last few weeks only, so that the fields were just assuming the fresh +pea-green colour of their new life, and the long, dead grass still +standing above the recent growth gave that odd smokey appearance to the +hills and mesas, so familiar to all us Californians also in our olive +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>groves. The night, however, was dark and nothing of hills, or mesas, or +gray fields, could be seen as the hurrying bands of clouds joined +together in one great company, overspreading the whole sky and clothing +all in a dreary shroud of blackness.</p> + +<p>The little arroyo, which was dry in the summertime, had now risen, +increased by last week's tribute to be quite a large stream, tearing +noisely among the rocks and over its old courses, giving friendly +greetings of recognition to the old water-marks and dashing a playful +wave now and then about the worn roots of the enormous laurel tree whose +branches reached high above and far around.</p> + +<p>Beneath the tree's protecting limbs, a little cabin, of roughest +workmanship, found shelter from the wind, or shade from the intense heat +of summer; the house was built almost entirely of logs, excepting the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>upper part where boards had been used and through which were cut the +three windows which served to light the single room it contained.</p> + +<p>This Christmas Eve, only the dark form of the cabin was to be seen with +the tall adobe chimney built up the outside; the smoke blew, beaten here +and there, about the roof till it finally disappeared, a cloud of +ghosts, among the swaying branches of the laurel tree.</p> + +<p>By day in the sunshine, no pleasanter spot could be found than the +little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier +view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where +Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in +all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend +and far from his native country.</p> + +<p>On the very day which opens this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> story, one might have stood upon the +bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green +surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen +the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles +were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the +water-side, some broken, others upright, waved gracefully, moved by both +wind and current. To the left hand on both sides of the arroyo which +here joined the river, one could have seen Crescimir's fields and the +vegetable garden with its whitey-green cabbages, the rich brown heaps of +manure and straw, and the beds of beets all crimson and green, then the +borders of oaks and the far, blue hills, while myriads of little +gray-winged moths hovered over the masses of tangled blackberry vines +and giant dock. To the southward rose, far away, the peak of glorious +Tamalpais,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> a dark blue dash without a shadow. There were the black, +ploughed fields, steaming in the sunshine, larks springing up from the +glittering leaves, and noisy squirrels in the bay tree laying away their +stores of nuts and maize in its hundred hollows. Leaning upon the rail +and watching the river, rippled in the centre but calm and glassy near +the banks, one could have seen the silver fish springing from the water +for the insects playing about the surface, and could have breathed the +rich perfume of growing onions and the sweet, fresh, green life.</p> + +<p>On the hillside Crescimir had planted grape vines, but they were young +yet and bore no fruit, still, had they borne the heaviest of clusters +there was no one to eat them then for there were but few settlers in the +valley and Crescimir had no neighbours, but the Rancho Tulucay, nearer +than the little village three miles distant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> + +<p>Thus Crescimir the Illyrian lived alone improving his lands and selling +vegetables to the Yankee traders who came up the river in their little +schooners; he was always busy ploughing and dressing the gardens or +clearing away the chaparral.</p> + +<p>Two years had been spent here since he had left his fatherland, amid the +wild scenes of the Julian Alps. It was on a Christmas Eve that he had +bidden his old friends good bye and at each return of the day he thought +more sadly of his lonely life, sighing for the old mountain village +where he had so often made merry with his comrades.</p> + +<p>There was one bright spot in Crescimir's daily routine and he prized +that above all the day, for it showed to him that there was one person +who did think of him, though who he could never learn. For a year or +more he had found each day at his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> cabin door a bunch of garden flowers +and in their place he daily left a bunch of his sweetest onions or some +rare vegetable, which were always taken away.</p> + +<p>The rain began to fall, after Crescimir, having made the horse and +cattle right for the night, started to his cabin. The barn was on the +summit of the knoll, at the foot of which, by the arroyo, he had built +his little house of one room.</p> + +<p>Crescimir felt his way along through the vegetable garden, carrying the +milk pail in one hand and holding the lantern out before him with the +other; the light glistened upon the tall stalks of last year's maize and +gleamed back from the glossy, pungent leaves of the bay tree, from the +tin pail and his wet boots, all reflected in the little pools fast +collecting in the path. As he neared the cabin the rain fell as it +seldom does, save in the tropics, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> Crescimir entering the cabin +closed the door with a noise, warning the storm not to encroach on the +little bit of the world which was his own.</p> + +<p>Inside the cabin there was a blazing wood-fire on the open hearth and a +lighted candle on the table; the interior was homelike and comfortable; +in one corner stood the bed with white cover, there were two arm chairs, +a tall dresser and two tables, one of the tables set for supper, which +consisted simply of bread and milk which Crescimir was ready for as soon +as he had washed his hands at the pump in the little "lean-to," and +exchanged his long boots for a pair of easy slippers.</p> + +<p>Over the fireplace hung a bunch of crimson toyone berries and a branch +of hemlock, which Crescimir had hung there to mark the holiday. He did +not sit down at once to his meal, but stood, leaning against the +chimney<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> piece, meditatively picking off bits of the hemlock and +throwing them into the fire where they crackled with a merry noise and +blazed up, scenting the room with their fragrance of the forest.</p> + +<p>As he threw the bits into the fire he sang that melody which the +Illyrian children sing when bearing home their Christmas trees, found +always in the deep forests; it was a song dear to him and the words +brought up memories of all his happy home life and he grew sad as he +thought of the lonely present.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Deep in the wilds of Illyria's mountains</div> +<div class="i2">Under a hemlock tree,</div> +<div>Good Spirits buried a wonderful treasure,</div> +<div class="i2">Long years ago for me.</div> +<div>There in the gloom by a snow-born fountain</div> +<div class="i2">We found the hemlock tree,</div> +<div>Bore it away with loud notes of pleasure,</div> +<div class="i2">Hearts overrunning with glee.</div> +<div class="i2">Here is my hemlock tree</div> +<div class="i2">Christchild kiss it for me,</div> +<div class="i2">Make every branch bear</div> +<div class="i2">A gift that is fair,</div> +<div class="i2">This glossy-leaved hemlock tree,</div> +<div class="i2">Evergreen hemlock tree.</div> +</div> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> +<div class="stanza"> +<div>Hemlock ne'er blooms unless kissed by the Christchild,</div> +<div class="i2">Glossy-leaved hemlock tree!</div> +<div>Come little Christchild and breathe on its branches</div> +<div class="i2">That its fair blossoms we see;</div> +<div>Kissed by the lips of the Heavenly Christchild,</div> +<div class="i2">Blessed by the wind so free,</div> +<div>Grown o'er the treasure the Good Spirits planted</div> +<div class="i2">Wondrous its fruit must be!</div> +<div class="i2">Here is my hemlock tree,</div> +<div class="i2">Christchild kiss it for me.</div> +<div class="i2">Make every branch bear</div> +<div class="i2">A gift that is fair,</div> +<div class="i2">This glossy-leaved hemlock tree,</div> +<div class="i2">Evergreen hemlock tree."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>"Alas for me," exclaimed Crescimir, "my happy Christchild days are over +and I fear he has forgotten where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> I live out in Alta California and +will never bring me anything again."</p> + +<p>Just as the song was finished, a sound was heard at the door but +Crescimir thinking that it was the wind, gave no attention to it, +sitting down to his supper.</p> + +<p>He had not eaten the first spoonful of his bread and milk when the door +opened and by the aid of the firelight, for the draught extinguished the +candle, he saw a pretty, little, golden haired child in a short, white +frock which reached to the knees; the child wore neither hat, shoes, nor +stockings and, what seemed most remarkable, was dry despite the heavy +rain. The little creature as quietly closed the door as he had opened +it, and smiling, walked up to the hearth, spreading out before it his +tiny, pink hands.</p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/008.png" width='500' height='241' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II.</h2> + +<p>As the little visitor stretched out his hands to warm them at the fire, +his shadow formed a flickering cross upon the floor. Crescimir noticed +this, and also wondering at the mysterious advent of the child, which +coming so closely upon his song, caused him almost to think that he must +be dreaming.</p> + +<p>"Art thou the Christchild?" he said finally, to the little figure which +stood with its back toward him gazing up at the branch of hemlock above +the fireplace.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>The child turned around and looking merrily at Crescimir, broke into a +fit of boisterous laughter, but did not answer.</p> + +<p>"Thou art not a very polite little boy, to break into a house this way +and then not answer a simple question. Thou art no Austrian Christchild, +I am sure of that. No matter," he added, as he saw the little face +pucker up for a cry, "wait till we are better acquainted and then we can +talk it all over."</p> + +<p>The child smiled again and made a sign indicating that he wanted the +hemlock branch above his head. Crescimir took it down for him and as +soon as the little creature received it, he began hopping about the +room, holding the branch aloft and humming the melody which Crescimir +had just been singing.</p> + +<p>"Truly, thou art a strange little elf, but I know how to tell if thou +art<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> mortal. Wilt thou have thy supper?" and he held out a spoonful of +the bread and milk to the dancing figure. The child immediately stopped +his whirling, and running to Crescimir, eagerly ate the food, and then +climbing into his lap, sat there quietly, with expectant face as if +anticipating a share in the rest of the supper. So Crescimir took one +spoonful and the Christchild the next, until the bowl was empty.</p> + +<p>"I am glad that thou art come, little one," said Crescimir, as he held +the child in his arms, seated in the wooden armchair before the fire. +"Thou hast made my Christmas Eve a very pleasant one, but I wish that I +could know who thou art and whether thy parents are anxiously searching +for thee this stormy night. Canst thou not speak?"</p> + +<p>The child shook his golden head solemnly and began throwing bits of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> the +hemlock into the flames, watching the blaze they made as if he could +read in it.</p> + +<p>Crescimir had spoken in German and the little waif understood him, but +it seemed that he was unable to answer except in a cooing sound +expressive of his sensations; however, he could sing most sweetly, not +articulating, but singing as a bird and making beautiful melody. The +song which Crescimir had been singing when he entered, seemed to please +his ear greatly and he warbled it over again in his strangely sweet +tones. Crescimir sung the song a number of times to him and also many +others, some of which with their merry music, breathing fresh from the +high Alps, caused his little hand to keep time with the hemlock branch +as he joined in the songs with his curious notes.</p> + +<p>"Thou art a little elf!" exclaimed Crescimir as he kissed the rosy +face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> "Thou bringest back all the old days and makest me feel as merry +as I used in far off Illyria. Bless thee little Christchild."</p> + +<p>The mysterious guest laughed gaily pulling Crescimir's hair and drawing +his smooth fingers over the dark, weather beaten face of the man. Then +he played horse, riding on Crescimir's knee using the branch for a whip, +while Crescimir sang little verses which came to his mind, verses which +set to rolicking music he had sung in his old home on feast days at +dances in the tavern, accompanied by zither or hackbretl.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"My girl has ta'en her love away,</div> +<div class='i2'>I'm easier now I guess,</div> +<div>Don't have to go so oft to church,</div> +<div class='i2'>Nor half so oft confess—</div> +<div class='i2'>Nor half so oft confess."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The wind blew harder but neither Crescimir nor his guest heeded it, +while the roaring of the arroyo and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> river and the steady pouring of the +rain on the roof did not mar their merry making in the least, and they +laughed and sung regardless of it all.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Now I have two girls,</div> +<div class='i2'>An old one and a new,</div> +<div>So now I need two hearts,</div> +<div class='i2'>A false one and a true."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>He continued:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Here Heavenly Father,</div> +<div class='i2'>'T were fine to remain</div> +<div class='i2'>If for just half an hour</div> +<div class='i2'>'T would gold dollars rain."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Just then the little cabin shook.</p> + +<p>"Strong wind to-night; it is lucky for thee, Christchild, that thou hast +found shelter and lucky for me that the evening which promised to be so +dull has been a very merry one.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Don't be so sad, boy,</div> +<div class='i2'>If she did treat thee rough,</div> +<div>The world is like a hen-roost,</div> +<div class='i2'>Has pullets quite enough."</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>Crescimir ceased singing, for the Christchild stopped suddenly in his +romping, gazing fixedly with his large, wondering eyes upon the floor.</p> + +<p>"What see'st thou, little one?"</p> + +<p>The child pointed to the door and Crescimir saw two small streams of +white, foamy water pouring in from each side, and the floor was covered. +Crescimir quickly placed the Christchild on the table and started to +open the door, but before he reached it, the house trembled as if in an +earthquake shock and the door fell back into the room with a loud crash, +while a volume of seething water washed over it almost throwing him down +with its terrible force. The water poured in little jets through the +cracks in the walls and rushing into the fireplace put out the flames +and left the room in total darkness.</p> + +<p>The water rose rapidly and by the time that Crescimir had grasped the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +form of his little guest and opening one of the windows had drawn +himself with his charge upon the roof, the flood had reached the upper +sashes.</p> + +<p>The cabin swayed to and fro and every moment seemed about to be carried +from its foundations. The Christchild made no sound of fear and +Crescimir could not see his face, yet he held the long hemlock branch +tightly in his little hand.</p> + +<p>The roof was firmly built of logs and planks so in case the house fell +it could be used as a raft and Crescimir exerting all his strength +pulled from the sides the flat boards which held it fixed to the cabin.</p> + +<p>As the flood rose higher, he took the Christchild and lying down in the +middle of the roof held on firmly.</p> + +<p>Suddenly the roof was lifted and whirled down the swollen arroyo into +the broad river. Floating logs struck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> against it, and as they tore +along under the bridge they struck against the buttress with terrific +force. Onward they were whirled; they could see the lights in the houses +of the village and could hear the voices of men and women along the +bluffs or in the trees where they had sought shelter.</p> + +<p>The rain ceased falling, but the wind did not go down, rolling the waves +over their raft. Once they lodged for a moment against a great oak where +Crescimir strove in vain to make fast. The tide was too powerful and all +went with it whirling blindly onward.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/028.png" width='300' height='216' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/008.png" width='500' height='241' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2> + +<p>The waters fell almost as rapidly as they had risen, and by sunrise on +Christmas Day, the river had returned between its banks, though still +flowing fast and frothy.</p> + +<p>Mists lay in strata along the hills showing the green grass between in +long, even stripes. Up from the high mesas sprang the larks ready to +greet the day, or perching for a moment on some sturdy manzanita they +spread their broad tails, with two white feathers, balancing and +chirping cheerily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p> + +<p>A little valley through which an arroyo flowed, scantily bordered by low +growing willows, formed the scene; on one side was a stubble-field with +many cattle grazing on the new grass; there were a few dark oaks and +then on the first risings, yellow patches of vineyards with red, +ploughed ground dotted with manzanitas. The high hills which formed the +background were rough and black.</p> + +<p>In the hollow at the foot of the mesa was a newly formed pond on which +floated branches of trees, bits of wood and some broken pieces of +household furniture; about the grass was strewn the same sort of drift +and the grass itself was torn and bent and there were yellow-white bits +of foam upon it. At one side wedged between two encina trees lay the +roof of a house, on the edge of which a little child was sitting beside +the body of a man, who lying with one arm hung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> listlessly over the side +seemed asleep or dead. The pond was fast lowering, leaving its burden of +debris scattered about.</p> + +<p>This was the scene which met the searching eyes of Jovita of Tulucay +Rancho as, mounted on her horse, she came around the knoll which hid the +house and buildings of the rancho from the meadow.</p> + +<p>Jovita quickly alighted, took up the child in her arms, and seeing that +he was unhurt but simply dazed at his situation, placed him upon her +horse and gave her attention to the man who lay there, to all +appearances dead.</p> + +<p>"Unfortunate man," she said aloud, unable to repress her tears, "his +wife has probably been lost and he has saved their child."</p> + +<p>She took his hand in hers and felt that his pulse was yet beating; a +bruise on the temple seemed to be the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> only wound and was caused by the +blow which had stunned him.</p> + +<p>As Jovita chafed his hands and smoothed his forehead, he opened his +eyes, and then looking about astonished at his surroundings, asked, +"Where is the Christchild? Surely I have saved him."</p> + +<p>The little one from the back of the horse began in his strange tones to +sing the "Song of the Hemlock" in answer to Crescimir's enquiry.</p> + +<p>"I hardly know where we are, for in the darkness and swift whirl of last +night I lost my way," he said, sitting up. "I remember now that +something struck me when the raft stopped. I thank God that the +Christchild was not lost, dear little fellow."</p> + +<p>"Christchild?" exclaimed Jovita, looking at him in surprise, "Have you +given your boy that name?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know, Señorita, who the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> child is, but he came to my door last +night, Christmas Eve, and brought me some of the merriest hours I have +had since I left old Illyria, and had not the flood carried away +everything, I would have marked yesterday as one of the happiest in my +life. He is a strange little fellow and will not, or else cannot speak, +yet he sings beautifully in his own odd way as you hear him now. I +called him Christchild as I knew no better name. Are you not the +Señorita of El Tulucay? I know that horse which you have and have often +seen him with a lady on his back flying over all the fields about here."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am Jovita of the Tulucay, and I know you now; you are called +Crescimir the Illyrian, and I have been often to your cabin and sat +beneath the great laurel while you were in the fields or at your work. I +have often left flowers there at your door<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> just for the pleasure of +imagining the surprise when you should find them, and I always took the +vegetables I found there, for I knew that they were for me. However, I +never saw your face before this morning. You see I am little like our +Californians, but my mother is from the States and believes in more +freedom; she could not be better or kinder though she were a real +Californian. If you are able we had better go up to the hacienda now, +and after breakfast we will look about to see if assistance is needed +along the river, for the flood was sudden and unlooked for."</p> + +<p>Crescimir was not hurt and was able to walk slowly to the house. Jovita +walked by his side, leading her horse, while the Christchild sat quietly +in the saddle, nodding his head and winking like any sleepy child of +this mortal world.</p> + +<p>Both Crescimir and Jovita were sil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>ent during the walk, but their eyes +often met, and Jovita would blush as she thought of her strange freak +with the flowers and finding that the receiver was by no means the old +man she had imagined him to be.</p> + +<p>Crescimir was happy to think that he had not left his gifts +unappreciated and only regretted that he had not put whole pumpkins +there instead of onions.</p> + +<p>"So you have no idea to whom the child belongs?" asked Jovita, as they +neared the house. "He is strangely dressed and the frock is of an +unfamiliar texture; he does not seem cold either, although he is so +lightly clad. We must try to find his parents who, doubtless, are now +anxiously searching for him or believing him drowned in last night's +awful flood."</p> + +<p>The strange little creature seemed now entirely to lose his sleepiness +and broke into a merry laugh, sliding down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> from the saddle he capered +madly around the two astonished spectators like a little elf blown about +by the wind, his golden hair floating around him and the pink, little +feet scarcely seeming to touch the grass.</p> + +<p>"There has been a number of campers passing through the valley to settle +north on the Caymus ranchos, this little sprite must be one of their +children who has strayed away," said Jovita.</p> + +<p>"Come little one, let us go into the house and have our breakfast."</p> + +<p>The Christchild did not seem to understand her, for he continued his +capering and wild antics.</p> + +<p>"Stop, stop," exclaimed Crescimir in his native tongue, "stop and listen +to what the beautiful Señorita says to thee. Come now into the house."</p> + +<p>He ceased his play immediately and went before them up to the door, with +tears in his eyes on account of Cresci<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>mir's rebuke. As they reached the +veranda Crescimir caught the little elf up in his arms and kissed his +rosy lips; the moment the child's feet touched the ground when Crescimir +put him down, he put his hand over his mouth as if to keep the kiss warm +and running to Jovita, she lifted him in her arms, as he signed her to +do, when suddenly withdrawing his hand, he kissed her, looking back +significantly and laughing.</p> + +<p>Both Jovita and Crescimir knew what the child had intended to express +and both blushed consciously, yet could but marvel at the acuteness of +the little creature who so soon was able to read their hearts, even +before they had perfectly known them themselves.</p> + +<p>The mother of Jovita now came to the door and inviting them into the +living room, the events of the past<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> night were related and all that was +known of the little waif.</p> + +<p>Crescimir spent the day by the river searching for what might have been +left on the banks by the flood. He learned that his raft had been +carried out of the stream through a break in the bank, and much of the +wreckage of his own house with it. Returning to the hacienda he +discovered in a clump of bushes, over which the water had run when at +its highest mark, the bodies of a man and woman entangled in the canvas +cover of a camp wagon. It was evident to Crescimir from their dress that +they were German emigrants.</p> + +<p>With the help of some of the rancheros the bodies were carried to the +house.</p> + +<p>"They may be the parents of the little one," said Jovita's mother. "We +will bring him here and see if he recognizes them; it seems cruel but it +is the only way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + +<p>They brought the Christchild to the room where the bodies lay. When the +little fellow saw them, he clung to Crescimir and uttering a moaning +sound, yet seeming half like a laugh, he hid his eyes and would not look +again.</p> + +<p>"Are these thy parents little one?" asked Crescimir tenderly; the +Christchild shook his head negatively and broke into hysterical sobs.</p> + +<p>Though the Christchild had denied that these were the bodies of his +parents, both Jovita, her mother and Crescimir felt certain that they +were.</p> + +<p>Crescimir remained that night at the Tulucay hacienda and early next +morning the bodies were taken to the village and given burial in +consecrated ground, as the cross which the woman wore and a medal of +silver which the man carried showed them to be of the true church.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> + +<p>After the burial Crescimir returned to the rancheria. "I will be thy +father now, little Christchild," said he as they stood at the well with +Jovita, who had been filling the little olla for her mother's night +drink.</p> + +<p>The child looked up with a pleased smile and then turning to Jovita, +asked with his bright eyes a question which words could not better have +expressed.</p> + +<p>Jovita replied softly as she looked down at the strange, wistful face, +and felt the touch of Crescimir's hand on her own, "And I thy mother."</p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/028.png" width='300' height='216' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/008.png" width='500' height='241' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV.</h2> + +<p>By the beginning of summer Crescimir's place had all been restored and +the house rebuilt on the summit of the knoll, far away from any danger +of another flood.</p> + +<p>It was a pretty cottage now, in the new, American style with a +trellis-porch over which passion vines spread in the profusion of first +growth. The flower garden and the long lines and square beds of the +vegetable garden looked fresh and bright down by the arroyo.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p> + +<p>The house had been completed by the middle of January and Crescimir by +careful and steady work had brought back his fields to their former +state. The Christchild still lived with him, always as merry as the day +was long. He was, as on the night of his arrival, still dressed in his +little, white frock or shirt of strange texture, and he would wear +nothing else, not even shoes.</p> + +<p>Jovita's mother had, however, once made for him a suit, but when she +tried to have him put it on, he objected so strenuously that the project +had to be abandoned, for not even Crescimir's will, which usually was +all that was needed on such occasions, had not in this case any power at +all; so he ran quite wild about the gardens, the same pretty, little elf +as ever.</p> + +<p>He was extremely fond of the water and paddled in the arroyo all day +long, so that even the little frock was for the greater time +superfluous, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> there was never any difficulty in having it for the +old woman who came once a week from the village to do the washing. She +often said that when she touched it, it gave her "goose flesh," the +"feel" was so queer. She had never seen anything like it in all her long +experience in her particular line of business.</p> + +<p>Crescimir's visits to Tulucay were frequent now and the little +Christchild always went with him, his greatest delight seeming to be to +see Crescimir and Jovita together.</p> + +<p>The day for the wedding was set to be the day before Christmas, for it +seemed well that as that season had first made them known to each other, +it should see them made man and wife.</p> + +<p>The rainless summer and autumn passed and winter came with its green +grass and new flowers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p> + +<p>Never had there been such a prosperous year for the Napa Valley, and the +fields were fast blossoming with little white cottages, while golden +vineyards were growing higher up the hillsides driving the chaparral +back from its old inheritance as the Gringos did the natives. The town +had increased to nearly twice its former size, so Crescimir's gardens +were much sought, and he no longer was compelled to labour from sunrise +till sunset to keep the weeds away, for now he was able to hire the +hardest work done and enjoy the fruits of his first years' toil.</p> + +<p>The month of December came and the leaves on the poplar trees in the +village were turning golden, just lingering long enough to mingle +lovingly for a while with the new-born green of winter, and then be +hidden by the growth of broad leaved plants as soon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> as they had fallen +brown upon the earth, producing that endless harmony of Californian +nature, a life everlasting.</p> + +<p>There were a few orange coloured poppies nodding in the mesas but violet +star-flowers scattered over the lower meadows were powerful enough, by +reason of their numbers, to conquer the colour of the grass, while the +fields near the river were yellow with juicy cowslips.</p> + +<p>Now the blue dome of St. Helena was not so often visible, for the clouds +hovered about it filled with wealth giving rain.</p> + +<p>Ploughing and planting had begun and in some places the grain had +already started; blackbirds in hosts were perched on all the fences, +watching the sowers and chattering saucily to each other as they snapped +their bead-like eyes in anticipation of the feast so profusely spreading +for them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> + +<p>Over the low lands where the bay stretched its many arms in and out, +offering to the ranchos its assistance to carry their abundant produce +to a market, the marshes were red with short-growing sorrel, and the +dark green of the tules along the edges fringed the silver indentations +of the water in harmonious contrast.</p> + +<p>All this did Jovita and Crescimir see from the veranda of Tulucay as +with the Christchild by them they talked of the strange discovery and +first sudden birth of their love, of how Jovita had first left the +flowers at his door and how he had longed so much to know the one, the +only one who had cheered his loneliness, and how he had loved the donor +even before he had known that it was she.</p> + +<p>Then they would talk of the terrible flood which had brought them +together, and how each knew the other's love the moment their eyes had +met, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> of the mysterious little child who had been the medium of +their first lovers' kiss.</p> + +<p>They had become quite accustomed to the little elf's strange ways, and +he no longer seemed to them to be the half supernatural creature he had +at first appeared. Jovita's mother had at last discovered, she was sure, +that the mysterious frock was nothing more nor less remarkable than a +kind of goat hair woven carefully and fine.</p> + +<p>So thus was the little elfin Christchild resolved by the power of +familiarity into the orphan of some German emigrants who had lost their +lives in the great flood; nevertheless, strangers never passed him +without giving a second glance and never heard him sing in his sweet, +odd tones, without wondering.</p> + +<p>Crescimir and Jovita were married at Tulucay on the day before Christmas +and walked over the fields to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> new house on the knoll by the laurel +tree, the Christchild going with them.</p> + +<p>He had decorated his head and frock with blossoms of early mariposas +(calochortus) in honour of the occasion, and his joy seemed +uncontrollable and he skipped over the meadow scarcely seeming to tread +upon the ground.</p> + +<p>There was a bright fire in the cottage when they reached it; the fire +was in an open fireplace similar to that which had been in the old +cabin.</p> + +<p>As they entered, the Christchild, running up to the hearth, pointed to +the chimney piece, and then turning to Crescimir with a look which could +not be misunderstood, began in his odd notes to sing.</p> + +<p>Crescimir then first noticed that there was no hemlock branch above the +hearth, so taking one from the other side of the room where they hung in +festoons, he fastened it with a bunch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> of toyone berries over the +chimney piece.</p> + +<p>The sun was set and in the crimson glow with which the heavens were +painted, just above the low, black hills, shone bright and silvery the +Evening Star.</p> + +<p>Crescimir, with Jovita leaning on his shoulder, stood at the west window +looking out over the misty valley where the real seemed ghostlike in the +gray evening haze, and even those things with which they were familiar, +seemed in the fading light to take to themselves unknown forms.</p> + +<p>"Strange world!" said Jovita, meditatively, "Real and Unreal so often +blended that we can never say which is tangible and which is air."</p> + +<p>"Look Jovita, look!" and Crescimir seizing her hand pointed out toward +the garden.</p> + +<p>They stood there gazing from the window, as if spellbound, until the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> +crimson light faded from the sky and the clear star descended below the +hills.</p> + +<p>A bit of mist or fog, or what you will hovered about the garden and then +gradually rising it became dissolved and was gone.</p> + +<p>"Gone!" whispered Jovita, as the darkness shut out the valley from view. +"Good little Christchild; but his memory shall ever be with us," +answered Crescimir, as they sat side by side before the open fireplace.</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p>Everybody wondered where the little Christchild had gone, and search was +made, but, of course, unsuccessfully; yet Crescimir and Jovita said +nothing.</p> + +<p>Thus, in time, people forgot about the tiny elf and now there are few +who have even heard of Crescimir's guest.</p> + +<p>The pretty cottage may to-day be seen on the knoll near the wonderful,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> +wide-spreading laurel tree and every Christmas Eve upon the chimney +piece of its open hearted hearth may be seen a dark, glossy branch of +hemlock with a bunch of toyone.</p> + +<p>Before the fire sit Crescimir and Jovita singing the little Christmas +carrol of the Illyrian children. Sometimes they think that they hear a +sweet, soft voice joining in harmony with their own, but yet they are +not sure but that it may perhaps be only the music of their own happy +hearts, and smiling at Jovita, who holds the little Crescimir in her +arms, Crescimir the Illyrian points to the branch above the hearth while +the little one opens his eyes in wonderment.</p> + +<p>"Was he not, Jovita mia, like the affection which is seen by all the +world between lovers before marriage? And then the world wonders where +it has gone when the priest has pronounced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the two as one. But we +married lovers will never tell, for we are content to know that our +Christchild has sunken deep into our hearts where his song inaudible to +others is heard by us forever and ever."</p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/028.png" width='300' height='216' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<hr /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/008.png" width='500' height='241' alt="Scroll" /></p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<h2><a name="Benicias_Letters" id="Benicias_Letters"></a>Benicia's Letters.</h2> + +<p>After my aunt Benicia's death I found in her little desk a bundle of +letters, which threw light upon the romance of her life, and on the +reason perhaps of her refusing many offers which were known to have been +made her by honoured Californians of the last generation. The letters +are curious and interesting to me, and were written to my uncle by his +chum, and enclosed many sketches.</p> + +<p>The letters are in Spanish, but for your better understanding I have +trans<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>lated them with all their strange expressions as best I can.</p> + +<p>At first I thought that I would destroy them, but as most of my friends +who read them now, have long known my aunt Benicia, I feel sure that +they will be, even in these practical days, interested and touched by +the revelation they so suggest of a life-long love which filled the +heart of the good, little woman, who is at last at rest.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Grünen Markt</span>. <br /> +<span class="smcap">Würzburg</span>, 20th October, 18—.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear José</span>:</p> + +<p>How dull life here is, I cannot bear to look forward to the time so far +ahead when I shall have done with the University, not that I shall be at +all unhappy to leave and return to my dear California, but the twelve or +sixteen months between now and then, make me shudder to think of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>My time is quite free now and I make many pleasure walks to Zell and the +Hochberg, while almost every day finds me at some time on the Nicholaus +Berg enjoying its ever lovely views of the green Maine valley, which +however is now taking on its first autumnal tints.</p> + +<p>Today I come from the stone quarry, which lies on the road to the +Hochberg, where I have been chatting with the workmen and making a few +sketches to send home to Benicia; the day has been one of the +pleasantest I have known, just one of those mild autumn days we love so +much in Santa Clara when her hills are clothed in their warmest colours +and the big leaves are first falling from the fig trees. Ah, I did wish +to be back again to walk with you along the dry Francisquito and gather +the first golden poppies for Benicia's black hair. Yes, of course, I +should be contented with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> these world-known beauties which I have about +me, nevertheless, it is a pleasure to recall those happy days now that I +am here alone on the continent of Europe. The warmth of our Californian +sun must have entered our very hearts, for nowhere in all the world but +there are found no strangers.</p> + +<p>The grapes are not all picked as yet, and the vineyards are lively +indeed with gaily dressed peasant girls, cutting and tying up the vines +for the winter. There is a great difference between Catholic and +Lutheran Germany in this one regard of dress; in all the Protestant +districts the prevailing colour is a dull blue, while in Catholic parts +the dress seems to have no end of colour and brilliant adornment; for an +artist the latter is more pleasing, but for such a thoughtful moralist +as yourself, I know the peasant girls in blue frocks would be +preferable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>There are very few students in the city now and scarcely a traveller is +to be seen, except now and then a stray one may be noticed wandering +about the old cathedral or counting the restored statues on the river +bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage +for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of +my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I +hope that I will be more satisfied than I am now.</p> + +<p>Every day I go to Vespers at one of the churches, and I enjoy this bit +of the day more than you could believe. It is beautiful just at dusk to +enter the church in the Market Place, which is near my hotel, and there +in the gloom, lighted only by the tapers at the shrines and where some +of the worshipers are kneeling, each with a small wax light to illumine +the Prayer Books,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> to bow with them and receive the blessing from the +priest and to be touched by the Holy Water; then the Ave Maria, how I +love to hear it chanted with such heartfelt praise by the old and +trembling men and women, who throw their whole spirit into the melody. +The melody, I know, could not bear cold criticism, but when I kneel +there beneath the great, gray vault and see their breath ascending in +the cold air, bearing like incense their prayers to Heaven, and hear the +subdued strains of the organ, I feel that it is not the music of this +world, and my heart is moved and I join in the grand hymn, mingling my +soft Latin words with their glorious German.</p> + +<p>The priest has passed down the aisle and sprinkled the Holy Water over +us with the aspergil, the boys bearing the censers, preceding him have +passed from sight with him behind the dark curtain at the Chancel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> door; +there is a shuffling noise of the departing worshipers and I am alone.</p> + +<p>Far away, before the golden Altar hangs a taper which throws a red glow +into all the darkness, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, ever burning +amid the gloom of sin. As my eyes become accustomed to the dim light, I +can discern a female figure robed in gray, standing before the shrine of +the Virgin, I cannot see the face though I often try, but whenever she +becomes aware of my presence, she leaves the cathedral by the little +door to the right which opens into the small court. This occurs every +night, and though I have often tried to meet her by going out by the +other door and around the front, I have as yet, not succeeded.</p> + +<p>But enough of that now; today as I returned from my walk, I saw as I was +crossing the bridge one of the first Californian women I have seen for +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> long time; I know that she was Californian or Mexican for there was +more life in the eye than we see in the quiet, expressionless beauties +of the rest of the world. I do not know why I must ever have this face +in my mind since I met the fair one on the bridge; she looked at me +directly in the eyes, and I feel sure that I have met her sometime +before. I know the face; there is a strange drooping about the eyelids, +which to me adds a charm to the whole appearance. I do wish I could +think where in the world I have seen her. I am going to search the hotel +books to-morrow for I will not rest until I find out her name. It was +almost dark, however, when we met, and she was going toward the opposite +side of the Maine where there are no foreign hotels.</p> + +<p>I surmise, and suppose, and guess, but all to no purpose, while that one +look seems to be planted indelibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> upon my mind. I would give anything +to see her again; I can think of nothing now, for the strange, +inexpressible fascination of those eyelids has me entirely captive. +Where have we met? Try and think, my dear boy, of some one of our +acquaintance who tallies with my description; about my height, black +hair, a white, unusually white face, finely marked eyebrows and the +drooping lids, which when raised, disclose large, brilliant, yet +languid, blue eyes,—I cannot give the picture to suit me, but you note +the strange paleness and the eyes, and you must remember if you have +ever met her.</p> + +<p>I often go to the little opera house, where the music is of the best, +yet I cannot enjoy myself, for, as ever I am alone; all I can do is just +to think and think and imagine things to interest me through the dreary +time. What strange fantasies I have brought up in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> my life! You know +some of them, and it is quite true as you wrote in your last that +translation from Hawthorne, "His caprices had their origin in a mind +that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose and feelings that +preyed upon themselves for lack of other food."</p> + +<p>I try to interest myself in the things about me, but I am a dreamer. I +wonder often what my life will come to in the end, of what use I shall +be. No, it is not good that I should be alone; now, however, since I +have seen the unknown beauty, I will not have to search my mind for +subjects to keep it occupied, for Señorita California is quite a solid +damsel and far from ethereal, and not at all ghostly, only that look +about the eyes when the lids are drooping, and the complexion.</p> + +<p>Don't forget my usual token to Benicia and give her the sketches, but +of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> course no word of the girl; women never understand such things +properly.</p> + +<p class='center'>B. L. M.</p> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Joaquin</span>.</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">On the Nicholaus Berg</span>. <br /> +22nd October, 18—.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear José</span>:</p> + +<p>This morning early, I took my walk as usual to the Chapel on the hill; +the day was as fine as the last three have been and I began to feel +better contented with so much Californian weather to help me.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I did not think so much of the bridge beauty but today her +strange features have come to me with double vividness, and it was to +escape from this that I took the walk so very early this morning. I +brought my sketch-book with me and expected to pass the whole day on the +hill and in the woods just beyond.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>The little, old woman who sweeps away the dry leaves from the steps so +ruthlessly, smiled more than usual when I gave her the customary two +pfennigs. I can never understand how the poor creature wages such a +heartless war against these dying leaves of Autumn; it seems that she +should have a sisterly feeling for them, knowing that she is herself so +near to her own December.</p> + +<p>The Stations of the Cross are arranged in little shrines on the many +terraces which adorn the castle side of the hill; it is a pretty +thought, bordering the path to the chapel with these stone pictures, +most of them representing Christ's long, weary journey up Mount Calvary. +There are always to be found before these shrines, people, mostly the +peasantry, praying aloud, and here and there many a time I have seen +them ascending the toilsome road on their knees.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p> + +<p>What a grand view one has from the summit; the wide Valley of the Maine +not yet brown, but smiling as it always does in its green beauty, far +into December. The lumber rafts are floating lazily down, as it were in +a dream, little thinking that in a few more hours they will have reached +their journey's end, there to be broken. They are like myself somewhat, +who am just as lazily, uselessly and alone wandering through life to the +ending sooner or later; it is hard to go against the stream and the +river is long and lovely, so I will float on just a little farther.</p> + +<p>I made a sketch of Würzburg with its many spires and domes, which I +enclose for Benicia, and then turned my attention to the Chapel with +which I am always delighted; the frescoes in the dome are good and I +never tire of sitting and looking up at them while I listen to the dull +chanting of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> Capuzin monks behind the iron grating to the right.</p> + +<p>I have often had conversation with these monks whom I meet walking in +the garden, and find them pleasant and entertaining, and far from being +the gloomy mortals some people think them to be.</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Nicholaus Berg</span>. <br /> +Night.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear José</span>:</p> + +<p>Before I had finished my letter, Brother Andreas, with whom I am better +acquainted than with the others, came to me and asked me to walk with +him; he is not a German, but is from Spain, so you see I find use for my +mother tongue where I little expected to need it. Brother Andreas speaks +German of course, as he has been here some twenty years, and tells me he +is quite contented with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> his life, never having a desire for sunny +Spain, saying that all the home he has is beyond this world; I wish that +I might feel as contented as the old Capuzin.</p> + +<p>But you are curious to know why I am here at this time, and I will +hasten to tell you what the strange cause is.</p> + +<p>We walked about the Chapel and through parts of the garden where I had +never been before, Brother Andreas relating to me the history of the +city and the little Chapel. By this time we had wandered to the front of +the building, and Brother Andreas raising his arm pointed to the face of +the church over the door and repeated, "Refugium Peccatorum, Consolatrix +Afflictorum, Sancta Maria, Ora Pro Nobis."</p> + +<p>I did not look up at first, my attention at the time being directed to a +company of peasants in the neighbouring vineyard, but at the words +"Sancta<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> Maria," I raised my eyes to the face of the church, and, oh my +God, what did I see!</p> + +<p>"Ora pro nobis," broke unintentionally from my lips, I clung +convulsively to the arm of the good, old priest, my eyes were riveted +upon the niche above the door, for there looking down on me, her eyes +strangely drooping, her hands folded across her breast, stood the woman +whom day before yesterday I met on the bridge; I say stood the woman, +but it was only a statue carved in gray stone, an image of the Virgin, +such as we see every day in the churches; this, however, was somewhat +different, as it held no infant Christ in its arms, and then the face, +that was not the face which should be given to Mary, the Mother of our +Saviour.</p> + +<p>No, the more I see those eyes, which I at first so much admired, the +more I hate their look, but also<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> strange to say, the more I am +fascinated.</p> + +<p>In a few moments I had recovered my usual composure enough to assure +Brother Andreas that the cause of my strange behaviour was a sudden +illness to which I was often subject, when tired, but the good man shook +his head sadly and said, "No, my child, you have seen something +supernatural, which has disturbed you; it is well that I am here." With +that, he immediately made the Sign of the Cross and drew me into the +chapel where he made some use of the Holy Water which I did not +understand, nor did I care, for the sudden fright which had stopped my +heart in its beating, now that all was over, sent the blood rushing +through my veins with frightful rapidity making my head ache so terribly +that I thought that I must die.</p> + +<p>It was dark, the next I knew, the room was strange to me; A Crucifix<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> +hung on the wall, before which a single, dim oil lamp was burning, +before this was a monk at prayer;—it seemed like a dream to me, it +could not be real.</p> + +<p>After awhile I moved, and the monk rose and came to me, showing, in the +flickering light, the fatherly features of Brother Andreas.</p> + +<p>"My child," he said, taking my hand in his, "I am happy that you are of +our flock, for I can help you; I know your thoughts; it is well to think +now when all is still. I will not urge you, but Christ is ever seeking +for your soul; come to the true light of the Church where he may find +you."</p> + +<p>I made confession and received absolution, and he, making the Sign of +the Cross, went from the room.</p> + +<p>Presently I heard the monotonous chant of the monks in the Chapel and +knew it was midnight. I have written this to you hurriedly on paper I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> +have in my portfolio. The chanting is over and Brother Andreas' step is +audible in the echoing corridor. Good Night.</p> + +<p class='center'>Besa la mano,</p> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Joaquin</span>.</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p class='right'><span class="smcap">Nicholaus Berg</span>. <br /> +30th October, 18—.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear José</span>:</p> + +<p>I am still at the cloister, though I have done nothing it seems to me +during the past week but sleep, and am hardly strong enough now to carry +the pen over the paper as I write to you.</p> + +<p>The statue over the door stands there as it ever has, but it is too far +away for me to see the awful eyes, so I can say nothing about them. But +now my dear friend I have something more wonderful than ever to tell +you.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>Every night when the moon shines, this image of the Virgin comes down +from her niche and wanders about the church; I have seen her four or +five times, and she has often come under my window in these lone walks, +and once I spoke to her, but the moment my voice sounded on the night +air she was gone, and the same gray, stone image stood silent and dead +in the niche.</p> + +<p>What can I think of all this? I could not believe if any one should tell +me of these things, but what I see with my own eyes I certainly cannot +doubt.</p> + +<p>The Brother Andreas is very good to me, and my box has been brought from +the hotel to the cloister, so my room is as cheerful as possible with +all your pictures around me.</p> + +<p>How I wish that you were here, or I could hear from you, but never, my +dear boy will that time come, I fear;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> I have given up the idea of ever +having so great a pleasure in this world. I cannot write more now as I +am too weak. Good night and greet Benicia for me.</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p class='right'>31st October. </p> + +<p>It is very late, but I must write now or never. To-night the image was +stranger than ever, and for the first time I heard its voice, and oh, it +sounded too sweetly to me as I sat by the window and looked out over the +city as the moon rose above the hills to the east.</p> + +<p>The Brothers were chanting at the time, and their deep base came in ever +and ever so beautifully between the stanzas which the Virgin sung, and +as she sung, she came down from her station slowly, as if there were +steps in the air and she could tread upon them. The words were as weird +as the scene.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class='i1'>"The silver moon is slowly, slowly rising</div> +<div class='i1'>The night is clear and all the clouds are fled,</div> +<div>Their midnight prayer the weary monks are chanting;</div> +<div class='i1'>Now I may leave my cold and stony bed."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Then the monks chanted in their low, measured tones,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class='i1'>"Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis!</div> +<div class='i1'>Mater Christi, ora, ora!"</div> +<div class='i1'>"Cursed be my lot, but useless is repining,</div> +<div class='i1'>Here must I stay till dreary day is gone,</div> +<div>Living only in the pale moon's shining;</div> +<div class='i1'>To-night my hated penance though is done.</div> +<div>Gaily, gaily, gaily I'll live</div> +<div class='i1'>Though I be but a spirit of air;</div> +<div>Every pleasure the world can give</div> +<div class='i1'>Shall be mine while the moon shines fair.</div></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<div>The Devil in Hell has promised me</div> +<div class='i1'>That if I gain him a soul</div> +<div>I shall be forever from that time free,</div> +<div class='i1'>So long as the Rhine shall run to the sea</div> +<div>And the Maine shall Rhineward roll."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>And from the heights above the echo came,—"Roll—roll."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then running lightly to the wall, which is on the river side, she leaned +over and sung in a high, unearthly, wild voice, while her dark hair +waved in the night wind,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Beautiful river rushing on,</div> +<div>Touched with light by the silver moon,</div> +<div>Grant me now this simple boon.</div> +<div>Let thy merry spirits come,</div> +<div>And elfin dancers with beating drum,</div> +<div>Here with me for the wild night long,</div> +<div>To dance and whirl with eldrich song</div> +<div>Till the moon shall faint and her light be gone."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Then running merrily to the other side nearer my window, she sung in the +same wild key, as she turned her face to the forest,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"Spirits of the black larch-wood</div> +<div>Come to-night to dance and sing,</div> +<div>Come and all thy flowers bring,</div> +<div>Come and gaily join our ring,</div> +<div>Come upon thy fleetest wing,</div> +<div>Come, oh come, ere the moon be fading."</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>The low chanting of the Monks ceased, and as I opened my window wider I +could hear, like the higher notes of an organ, voices rising from the +river and mingling in heavenly harmony; I could not at first catch the +words, but the sweet, divinely sweet strains came nearer and nearer, and +then with the same inexpressible gentleness, softly as if wafted from +the angelic chorus came the rich, low notes from the forest, like the +humming of bees, the sighing of hemlocks, or that sweet, strange sound +we ever hear in the ocean shell. The voices came nearer and I could hear +the wild, free words long before the singers were in the court.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"We are coming from the forest,</div> +<div>All laden with flowers,</div> +<div>With bright, crimson flowers</div> +<div>All sparkling with dew."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>Then from the river rose the song:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div>"We come from the water</div> +<div>With bright, polished pebbles,</div> +<div>With white, glittering pebbles,</div> +<div>Our love-gift to you."</div> +</div></div> + +<p>The singing now was in the very garden, but I could not see the singers, +though I knew that they were there, for the strange creature-image +whirled about the court, laughing and nodding on every side, while the +music grew each moment louder and wilder, when suddenly all was still, +and the image pausing in the middle of the court began with many odd +gestures this weird song:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class='i1'>"What am I? Who am I? Where did I come from?</div> +<div class='i1'>What, who and where—well, no human knows;</div> +<div>Ye though my loved ones know what to answer,</div> +<div class='i1'>My pale face ye follow wherever it goes.</div> +<div>My home's in the forest, my home's in the city,</div> +<div class='i1'>Wherever the terror of loneliness lies,</div> +<div>And woe be to him who when out in the moonlight</div> +<div class='i1'>Catches the glance of my soul-piercing eyes.</div> +<div class="i6">By day I am stone</div> +<div class="i6">By night I have breath,</div> +<div>And those whom I meet, know the sister of Death."</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>"Curse you!" I shrieked, leaning from the window, and all was gone; the +statue was in its niche again, the Maria Virgo Sancta. I staggered back +from the window and was received almost breathless from excitement in +the arms of Brother Andreas who entered the room just then.</p> + +<p>"My child, you should not sit by an open window; I fear that you have +done yourself an injury already." He laid me down on the bed and when I +awoke he was gone, and now I am writing off this scrap of a letter for +you my dear friend. How I long to see you, and oh, why can I not have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> +you here! Would to God that I had not met the woman on the bridge. My +friend, my José, I dare not tell you what I fear; those eyes were upon +me, those fatal eyes. No, no I will not keep it from you, I will tell +you all and leave you the terrible duty of telling Benicia.</p> + +<p>My dear boy, I am growing colder each moment; my hand trembles as I +write this, my last letter; I pray that I may have strength to finish +it. The river was not so long as I expected, and now my poor raft is +breaking. Nor would I live, for now I know who has power over me, I know +now whose were those drooping eyelids; it is better not to live, for I +have not strength to conquer them.</p> + +<p>It is autumn, the last leaves are falling, the cold winter is coming, +but I shall not be here to dread its cold. My winter is on me now, and +may God grant that through it I come to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> the eternal spring. All that I +want is to see Benicia and you once more, but that cannot be. Now a +last, long farewell to Benicia; I can write no more, I am too cold. The +raft is broken; the journey was not long.</p> + +<p>God bless you, good bye; I am going to lie down now. Give the ruby ring, +which I wear, to dear Benicia as a memory of me; and tell Beni—</p> + +<hr class='smler' /> + +<p>Here was the ending of the letter in the unfinished name of his loved +one.</p> + +<p class='tbrk'> </p> + +<p class="center"><img src="images/081.png" width='300' height='225' alt="Scroll" /></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's +Letters, by Charles A. 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Gunnison + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters + +Author: Charles A. Gunnison + +Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18725] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NAPA CHRISTCHILD; AND *** + + + + +Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + A NAPA CHRISTCHILD. + + --AND-- + + BENICIA'S LETTERS. + + + BY + + CHARLES A. GUNNISON + + + PRESS OF + COMMERCIAL PUBLISHING COMPANY. + + + TO + + THE MOTHER AND SISTERS + + OF + + EDOUARD STOLTERFOHT, + + This Christmas book is offered, to keep in memory sunny winter + days, spent in Rostock, Hohen Niendorf bei Kroepelin, and Gross + Kussewitz, and with the added hope that Poppendorf bei Bentwish + will not forget that I wrote in the house-book-- + + + You have a gentle cure for parting's pain; + It is your German word Aufwiederseh'n. + + + These are just old-fashioned Christmas tales, to be read before an + open fire, with a heart full of charity for me. There is no modern + realism in them, for every word is a lie, the telling of which has + given me the greatest pleasure. I have also stolen a quotation from + Hawthorne, which is the best thing in the book, and last I have had + the exquisite joy of bloodless murder in killing one of my people. + Thus, you see, I need your charity truly, for I have broken + deliberately, for your entertainment, Three out of a possible Ten. + + CHARLES A. GUNNISON, + In the Embarcadero Rd. + Palo Alto, Santa Clara. + _Christmas, 1896._ + + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +A Napa Christchild. + + + + +I. + + +An evening sky, broken by wandering clouds, which hastening onward +toward the north, bear their rich gifts of longed-for rain to the brown +meadows, filling the heavens from east to west with graceful lines and +swelling bosoms, save, just at the horizon where the sun descended +paints a broad, lurid streak of crimson, glowing amid the deepening +shadows, a coal in dead, gray ashes. + +Darker grows the streak, as a stain of blood, while the clouds about it +now assume a purple tinge with gloomier shadings; suddenly in the centre +of the lurid field starts out as if that moment born to Earth, with +clear, silver light, the Evening Star. The colour slowly fades till all +is dead and ashy, and the silver star drops down below the purpled +hills, leaving for a moment a soft, trembling twilight; the dense clouds +then rolling in between, blot out the last sign of departed day and +night is come. + +It was Christmas Eve. The winter was late, and rain had fallen during +the last few weeks only, so that the fields were just assuming the fresh +pea-green colour of their new life, and the long, dead grass still +standing above the recent growth gave that odd smokey appearance to the +hills and mesas, so familiar to all us Californians also in our olive +groves. The night, however, was dark and nothing of hills, or mesas, or +gray fields, could be seen as the hurrying bands of clouds joined +together in one great company, overspreading the whole sky and clothing +all in a dreary shroud of blackness. + +The little arroyo, which was dry in the summertime, had now risen, +increased by last week's tribute to be quite a large stream, tearing +noisely among the rocks and over its old courses, giving friendly +greetings of recognition to the old water-marks and dashing a playful +wave now and then about the worn roots of the enormous laurel tree whose +branches reached high above and far around. + +Beneath the tree's protecting limbs, a little cabin, of roughest +workmanship, found shelter from the wind, or shade from the intense heat +of summer; the house was built almost entirely of logs, excepting the +upper part where boards had been used and through which were cut the +three windows which served to light the single room it contained. + +This Christmas Eve, only the dark form of the cabin was to be seen with +the tall adobe chimney built up the outside; the smoke blew, beaten here +and there, about the roof till it finally disappeared, a cloud of +ghosts, among the swaying branches of the laurel tree. + +By day in the sunshine, no pleasanter spot could be found than the +little cabin and broad fields of Crescimir the Illyrian, no lovelier +view of the rich Napa Valley could be had than from the hill where +Crescimir's cattle grazed and no happier home could have been found in +all the Californias than his, had he not been so alone, without a friend +and far from his native country. + +On the very day which opens this story, one might have stood upon the +bridge and watched the lazy flowing of the river on whose dull green +surface all the spans and bars were shadowed, and on the buttress seen +the sunshine in ever changing, trembling glints of gold. Dead thistles +were on the bank rustling in the breeze and the long tules by the +water-side, some broken, others upright, waved gracefully, moved by both +wind and current. To the left hand on both sides of the arroyo which +here joined the river, one could have seen Crescimir's fields and the +vegetable garden with its whitey-green cabbages, the rich brown heaps of +manure and straw, and the beds of beets all crimson and green, then the +borders of oaks and the far, blue hills, while myriads of little +gray-winged moths hovered over the masses of tangled blackberry vines +and giant dock. To the southward rose, far away, the peak of glorious +Tamalpais, a dark blue dash without a shadow. There were the black, +ploughed fields, steaming in the sunshine, larks springing up from the +glittering leaves, and noisy squirrels in the bay tree laying away their +stores of nuts and maize in its hundred hollows. Leaning upon the rail +and watching the river, rippled in the centre but calm and glassy near +the banks, one could have seen the silver fish springing from the water +for the insects playing about the surface, and could have breathed the +rich perfume of growing onions and the sweet, fresh, green life. + +On the hillside Crescimir had planted grape vines, but they were young +yet and bore no fruit, still, had they borne the heaviest of clusters +there was no one to eat them then for there were but few settlers in the +valley and Crescimir had no neighbours, but the Rancho Tulucay, nearer +than the little village three miles distant. + +Thus Crescimir the Illyrian lived alone improving his lands and selling +vegetables to the Yankee traders who came up the river in their little +schooners; he was always busy ploughing and dressing the gardens or +clearing away the chaparral. + +Two years had been spent here since he had left his fatherland, amid the +wild scenes of the Julian Alps. It was on a Christmas Eve that he had +bidden his old friends good bye and at each return of the day he thought +more sadly of his lonely life, sighing for the old mountain village +where he had so often made merry with his comrades. + +There was one bright spot in Crescimir's daily routine and he prized +that above all the day, for it showed to him that there was one person +who did think of him, though who he could never learn. For a year or +more he had found each day at his cabin door a bunch of garden flowers +and in their place he daily left a bunch of his sweetest onions or some +rare vegetable, which were always taken away. + +The rain began to fall, after Crescimir, having made the horse and +cattle right for the night, started to his cabin. The barn was on the +summit of the knoll, at the foot of which, by the arroyo, he had built +his little house of one room. + +Crescimir felt his way along through the vegetable garden, carrying the +milk pail in one hand and holding the lantern out before him with the +other; the light glistened upon the tall stalks of last year's maize and +gleamed back from the glossy, pungent leaves of the bay tree, from the +tin pail and his wet boots, all reflected in the little pools fast +collecting in the path. As he neared the cabin the rain fell as it +seldom does, save in the tropics, and Crescimir entering the cabin +closed the door with a noise, warning the storm not to encroach on the +little bit of the world which was his own. + +Inside the cabin there was a blazing wood-fire on the open hearth and a +lighted candle on the table; the interior was homelike and comfortable; +in one corner stood the bed with white cover, there were two arm chairs, +a tall dresser and two tables, one of the tables set for supper, which +consisted simply of bread and milk which Crescimir was ready for as soon +as he had washed his hands at the pump in the little "lean-to," and +exchanged his long boots for a pair of easy slippers. + +Over the fireplace hung a bunch of crimson toyone berries and a branch +of hemlock, which Crescimir had hung there to mark the holiday. He did +not sit down at once to his meal, but stood, leaning against the +chimney piece, meditatively picking off bits of the hemlock and +throwing them into the fire where they crackled with a merry noise and +blazed up, scenting the room with their fragrance of the forest. + +As he threw the bits into the fire he sang that melody which the +Illyrian children sing when bearing home their Christmas trees, found +always in the deep forests; it was a song dear to him and the words +brought up memories of all his happy home life and he grew sad as he +thought of the lonely present. + + + "Deep in the wilds of Illyria's mountains + Under a hemlock tree, + Good Spirits buried a wonderful treasure, + Long years ago for me. + There in the gloom by a snow-born fountain + We found the hemlock tree, + Bore it away with loud notes of pleasure, + Hearts overrunning with glee. + Here is my hemlock tree + Christchild kiss it for me, + Make every branch bear + A gift that is fair, + This glossy-leaved hemlock tree, + Evergreen hemlock tree. + + Hemlock ne'er blooms unless kissed by the Christchild, + Glossy-leaved hemlock tree! + Come little Christchild and breathe on its branches + That its fair blossoms we see; + Kissed by the lips of the Heavenly Christchild, + Blessed by the wind so free, + Grown o'er the treasure the Good Spirits planted + Wondrous its fruit must be! + Here is my hemlock tree, + Christchild kiss it for me. + Make every branch bear + A gift that is fair, + This glossy-leaved hemlock tree, + Evergreen hemlock tree." + + +"Alas for me," exclaimed Crescimir, "my happy Christchild days are over +and I fear he has forgotten where I live out in Alta California and +will never bring me anything again." + +Just as the song was finished, a sound was heard at the door but +Crescimir thinking that it was the wind, gave no attention to it, +sitting down to his supper. + +He had not eaten the first spoonful of his bread and milk when the door +opened and by the aid of the firelight, for the draught extinguished the +candle, he saw a pretty, little, golden haired child in a short, white +frock which reached to the knees; the child wore neither hat, shoes, nor +stockings and, what seemed most remarkable, was dry despite the heavy +rain. The little creature as quietly closed the door as he had opened +it, and smiling, walked up to the hearth, spreading out before it his +tiny, pink hands. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +II. + + +As the little visitor stretched out his hands to warm them at the fire, +his shadow formed a flickering cross upon the floor. Crescimir noticed +this, and also wondering at the mysterious advent of the child, which +coming so closely upon his song, caused him almost to think that he must +be dreaming. + +"Art thou the Christchild?" he said finally, to the little figure which +stood with its back toward him gazing up at the branch of hemlock above +the fireplace. + +The child turned around and looking merrily at Crescimir, broke into a +fit of boisterous laughter, but did not answer. + +"Thou art not a very polite little boy, to break into a house this way +and then not answer a simple question. Thou art no Austrian Christchild, +I am sure of that. No matter," he added, as he saw the little face +pucker up for a cry, "wait till we are better acquainted and then we can +talk it all over." + +The child smiled again and made a sign indicating that he wanted the +hemlock branch above his head. Crescimir took it down for him and as +soon as the little creature received it, he began hopping about the +room, holding the branch aloft and humming the melody which Crescimir +had just been singing. + +"Truly, thou art a strange little elf, but I know how to tell if thou +art mortal. Wilt thou have thy supper?" and he held out a spoonful of +the bread and milk to the dancing figure. The child immediately stopped +his whirling, and running to Crescimir, eagerly ate the food, and then +climbing into his lap, sat there quietly, with expectant face as if +anticipating a share in the rest of the supper. So Crescimir took one +spoonful and the Christchild the next, until the bowl was empty. + +"I am glad that thou art come, little one," said Crescimir, as he held +the child in his arms, seated in the wooden armchair before the fire. +"Thou hast made my Christmas Eve a very pleasant one, but I wish that I +could know who thou art and whether thy parents are anxiously searching +for thee this stormy night. Canst thou not speak?" + +The child shook his golden head solemnly and began throwing bits of the +hemlock into the flames, watching the blaze they made as if he could +read in it. + +Crescimir had spoken in German and the little waif understood him, but +it seemed that he was unable to answer except in a cooing sound +expressive of his sensations; however, he could sing most sweetly, not +articulating, but singing as a bird and making beautiful melody. The +song which Crescimir had been singing when he entered, seemed to please +his ear greatly and he warbled it over again in his strangely sweet +tones. Crescimir sung the song a number of times to him and also many +others, some of which with their merry music, breathing fresh from the +high Alps, caused his little hand to keep time with the hemlock branch +as he joined in the songs with his curious notes. + +"Thou art a little elf!" exclaimed Crescimir as he kissed the rosy +face. "Thou bringest back all the old days and makest me feel as merry +as I used in far off Illyria. Bless thee little Christchild." + +The mysterious guest laughed gaily pulling Crescimir's hair and drawing +his smooth fingers over the dark, weather beaten face of the man. Then +he played horse, riding on Crescimir's knee using the branch for a whip, +while Crescimir sang little verses which came to his mind, verses which +set to rolicking music he had sung in his old home on feast days at +dances in the tavern, accompanied by zither or hackbretl. + + + "My girl has ta'en her love away, + I'm easier now I guess, + Don't have to go so oft to church, + Nor half so oft confess-- + Nor half so oft confess." + + +The wind blew harder but neither Crescimir nor his guest heeded it, +while the roaring of the arroyo and river and the steady pouring of the +rain on the roof did not mar their merry making in the least, and they +laughed and sung regardless of it all. + + + "Now I have two girls, + An old one and a new, + So now I need two hearts, + A false one and a true." + + +He continued: + + + "Here Heavenly Father, + 'T were fine to remain + If for just half an hour + 'T would gold dollars rain." + + +Just then the little cabin shook. + +"Strong wind to-night; it is lucky for thee, Christchild, that thou hast +found shelter and lucky for me that the evening which promised to be so +dull has been a very merry one. + + + "Don't be so sad, boy, + If she did treat thee rough, + The world is like a hen-roost, + Has pullets quite enough." + + +Crescimir ceased singing, for the Christchild stopped suddenly in his +romping, gazing fixedly with his large, wondering eyes upon the floor. + +"What see'st thou, little one?" + +The child pointed to the door and Crescimir saw two small streams of +white, foamy water pouring in from each side, and the floor was covered. +Crescimir quickly placed the Christchild on the table and started to +open the door, but before he reached it, the house trembled as if in an +earthquake shock and the door fell back into the room with a loud crash, +while a volume of seething water washed over it almost throwing him down +with its terrible force. The water poured in little jets through the +cracks in the walls and rushing into the fireplace put out the flames +and left the room in total darkness. + +The water rose rapidly and by the time that Crescimir had grasped the +form of his little guest and opening one of the windows had drawn +himself with his charge upon the roof, the flood had reached the upper +sashes. + +The cabin swayed to and fro and every moment seemed about to be carried +from its foundations. The Christchild made no sound of fear and +Crescimir could not see his face, yet he held the long hemlock branch +tightly in his little hand. + +The roof was firmly built of logs and planks so in case the house fell +it could be used as a raft and Crescimir exerting all his strength +pulled from the sides the flat boards which held it fixed to the cabin. + +As the flood rose higher, he took the Christchild and lying down in the +middle of the roof held on firmly. + +Suddenly the roof was lifted and whirled down the swollen arroyo into +the broad river. Floating logs struck against it, and as they tore +along under the bridge they struck against the buttress with terrific +force. Onward they were whirled; they could see the lights in the houses +of the village and could hear the voices of men and women along the +bluffs or in the trees where they had sought shelter. + +The rain ceased falling, but the wind did not go down, rolling the waves +over their raft. Once they lodged for a moment against a great oak where +Crescimir strove in vain to make fast. The tide was too powerful and all +went with it whirling blindly onward. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +III. + + +The waters fell almost as rapidly as they had risen, and by sunrise on +Christmas Day, the river had returned between its banks, though still +flowing fast and frothy. + +Mists lay in strata along the hills showing the green grass between in +long, even stripes. Up from the high mesas sprang the larks ready to +greet the day, or perching for a moment on some sturdy manzanita they +spread their broad tails, with two white feathers, balancing and +chirping cheerily. + +A little valley through which an arroyo flowed, scantily bordered by low +growing willows, formed the scene; on one side was a stubble-field with +many cattle grazing on the new grass; there were a few dark oaks and +then on the first risings, yellow patches of vineyards with red, +ploughed ground dotted with manzanitas. The high hills which formed the +background were rough and black. + +In the hollow at the foot of the mesa was a newly formed pond on which +floated branches of trees, bits of wood and some broken pieces of +household furniture; about the grass was strewn the same sort of drift +and the grass itself was torn and bent and there were yellow-white bits +of foam upon it. At one side wedged between two encina trees lay the +roof of a house, on the edge of which a little child was sitting beside +the body of a man, who lying with one arm hung listlessly over the side +seemed asleep or dead. The pond was fast lowering, leaving its burden of +debris scattered about. + +This was the scene which met the searching eyes of Jovita of Tulucay +Rancho as, mounted on her horse, she came around the knoll which hid the +house and buildings of the rancho from the meadow. + +Jovita quickly alighted, took up the child in her arms, and seeing that +he was unhurt but simply dazed at his situation, placed him upon her +horse and gave her attention to the man who lay there, to all +appearances dead. + +"Unfortunate man," she said aloud, unable to repress her tears, "his +wife has probably been lost and he has saved their child." + +She took his hand in hers and felt that his pulse was yet beating; a +bruise on the temple seemed to be the only wound and was caused by the +blow which had stunned him. + +As Jovita chafed his hands and smoothed his forehead, he opened his +eyes, and then looking about astonished at his surroundings, asked, +"Where is the Christchild? Surely I have saved him." + +The little one from the back of the horse began in his strange tones to +sing the "Song of the Hemlock" in answer to Crescimir's enquiry. + +"I hardly know where we are, for in the darkness and swift whirl of last +night I lost my way," he said, sitting up. "I remember now that +something struck me when the raft stopped. I thank God that the +Christchild was not lost, dear little fellow." + +"Christchild?" exclaimed Jovita, looking at him in surprise, "Have you +given your boy that name?" + +"I do not know, Senorita, who the child is, but he came to my door last +night, Christmas Eve, and brought me some of the merriest hours I have +had since I left old Illyria, and had not the flood carried away +everything, I would have marked yesterday as one of the happiest in my +life. He is a strange little fellow and will not, or else cannot speak, +yet he sings beautifully in his own odd way as you hear him now. I +called him Christchild as I knew no better name. Are you not the +Senorita of El Tulucay? I know that horse which you have and have often +seen him with a lady on his back flying over all the fields about here." + +"Yes, I am Jovita of the Tulucay, and I know you now; you are called +Crescimir the Illyrian, and I have been often to your cabin and sat +beneath the great laurel while you were in the fields or at your work. I +have often left flowers there at your door just for the pleasure of +imagining the surprise when you should find them, and I always took the +vegetables I found there, for I knew that they were for me. However, I +never saw your face before this morning. You see I am little like our +Californians, but my mother is from the States and believes in more +freedom; she could not be better or kinder though she were a real +Californian. If you are able we had better go up to the hacienda now, +and after breakfast we will look about to see if assistance is needed +along the river, for the flood was sudden and unlooked for." + +Crescimir was not hurt and was able to walk slowly to the house. Jovita +walked by his side, leading her horse, while the Christchild sat quietly +in the saddle, nodding his head and winking like any sleepy child of +this mortal world. + +Both Crescimir and Jovita were silent during the walk, but their eyes +often met, and Jovita would blush as she thought of her strange freak +with the flowers and finding that the receiver was by no means the old +man she had imagined him to be. + +Crescimir was happy to think that he had not left his gifts +unappreciated and only regretted that he had not put whole pumpkins +there instead of onions. + +"So you have no idea to whom the child belongs?" asked Jovita, as they +neared the house. "He is strangely dressed and the frock is of an +unfamiliar texture; he does not seem cold either, although he is so +lightly clad. We must try to find his parents who, doubtless, are now +anxiously searching for him or believing him drowned in last night's +awful flood." + +The strange little creature seemed now entirely to lose his sleepiness +and broke into a merry laugh, sliding down from the saddle he capered +madly around the two astonished spectators like a little elf blown about +by the wind, his golden hair floating around him and the pink, little +feet scarcely seeming to touch the grass. + +"There has been a number of campers passing through the valley to settle +north on the Caymus ranchos, this little sprite must be one of their +children who has strayed away," said Jovita. + +"Come little one, let us go into the house and have our breakfast." + +The Christchild did not seem to understand her, for he continued his +capering and wild antics. + +"Stop, stop," exclaimed Crescimir in his native tongue, "stop and listen +to what the beautiful Senorita says to thee. Come now into the house." + +He ceased his play immediately and went before them up to the door, with +tears in his eyes on account of Crescimir's rebuke. As they reached the +veranda Crescimir caught the little elf up in his arms and kissed his +rosy lips; the moment the child's feet touched the ground when Crescimir +put him down, he put his hand over his mouth as if to keep the kiss warm +and running to Jovita, she lifted him in her arms, as he signed her to +do, when suddenly withdrawing his hand, he kissed her, looking back +significantly and laughing. + +Both Jovita and Crescimir knew what the child had intended to express +and both blushed consciously, yet could but marvel at the acuteness of +the little creature who so soon was able to read their hearts, even +before they had perfectly known them themselves. + +The mother of Jovita now came to the door and inviting them into the +living room, the events of the past night were related and all that was +known of the little waif. + +Crescimir spent the day by the river searching for what might have been +left on the banks by the flood. He learned that his raft had been +carried out of the stream through a break in the bank, and much of the +wreckage of his own house with it. Returning to the hacienda he +discovered in a clump of bushes, over which the water had run when at +its highest mark, the bodies of a man and woman entangled in the canvas +cover of a camp wagon. It was evident to Crescimir from their dress that +they were German emigrants. + +With the help of some of the rancheros the bodies were carried to the +house. + +"They may be the parents of the little one," said Jovita's mother. "We +will bring him here and see if he recognizes them; it seems cruel but it +is the only way." + +They brought the Christchild to the room where the bodies lay. When the +little fellow saw them, he clung to Crescimir and uttering a moaning +sound, yet seeming half like a laugh, he hid his eyes and would not look +again. + +"Are these thy parents little one?" asked Crescimir tenderly; the +Christchild shook his head negatively and broke into hysterical sobs. + +Though the Christchild had denied that these were the bodies of his +parents, both Jovita, her mother and Crescimir felt certain that they +were. + +Crescimir remained that night at the Tulucay hacienda and early next +morning the bodies were taken to the village and given burial in +consecrated ground, as the cross which the woman wore and a medal of +silver which the man carried showed them to be of the true church. + +After the burial Crescimir returned to the rancheria. "I will be thy +father now, little Christchild," said he as they stood at the well with +Jovita, who had been filling the little olla for her mother's night +drink. + +The child looked up with a pleased smile and then turning to Jovita, +asked with his bright eyes a question which words could not better have +expressed. + +Jovita replied softly as she looked down at the strange, wistful face, +and felt the touch of Crescimir's hand on her own, "And I thy mother." + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +IV. + + +By the beginning of summer Crescimir's place had all been restored and +the house rebuilt on the summit of the knoll, far away from any danger +of another flood. + +It was a pretty cottage now, in the new, American style with a +trellis-porch over which passion vines spread in the profusion of first +growth. The flower garden and the long lines and square beds of the +vegetable garden looked fresh and bright down by the arroyo. + +The house had been completed by the middle of January and Crescimir by +careful and steady work had brought back his fields to their former +state. The Christchild still lived with him, always as merry as the day +was long. He was, as on the night of his arrival, still dressed in his +little, white frock or shirt of strange texture, and he would wear +nothing else, not even shoes. + +Jovita's mother had, however, once made for him a suit, but when she +tried to have him put it on, he objected so strenuously that the project +had to be abandoned, for not even Crescimir's will, which usually was +all that was needed on such occasions, had not in this case any power at +all; so he ran quite wild about the gardens, the same pretty, little elf +as ever. + +He was extremely fond of the water and paddled in the arroyo all day +long, so that even the little frock was for the greater time +superfluous, and there was never any difficulty in having it for the +old woman who came once a week from the village to do the washing. She +often said that when she touched it, it gave her "goose flesh," the +"feel" was so queer. She had never seen anything like it in all her long +experience in her particular line of business. + +Crescimir's visits to Tulucay were frequent now and the little +Christchild always went with him, his greatest delight seeming to be to +see Crescimir and Jovita together. + +The day for the wedding was set to be the day before Christmas, for it +seemed well that as that season had first made them known to each other, +it should see them made man and wife. + +The rainless summer and autumn passed and winter came with its green +grass and new flowers. + +Never had there been such a prosperous year for the Napa Valley, and the +fields were fast blossoming with little white cottages, while golden +vineyards were growing higher up the hillsides driving the chaparral +back from its old inheritance as the Gringos did the natives. The town +had increased to nearly twice its former size, so Crescimir's gardens +were much sought, and he no longer was compelled to labour from sunrise +till sunset to keep the weeds away, for now he was able to hire the +hardest work done and enjoy the fruits of his first years' toil. + +The month of December came and the leaves on the poplar trees in the +village were turning golden, just lingering long enough to mingle +lovingly for a while with the new-born green of winter, and then be +hidden by the growth of broad leaved plants as soon as they had fallen +brown upon the earth, producing that endless harmony of Californian +nature, a life everlasting. + +There were a few orange coloured poppies nodding in the mesas but violet +star-flowers scattered over the lower meadows were powerful enough, by +reason of their numbers, to conquer the colour of the grass, while the +fields near the river were yellow with juicy cowslips. + +Now the blue dome of St. Helena was not so often visible, for the clouds +hovered about it filled with wealth giving rain. + +Ploughing and planting had begun and in some places the grain had +already started; blackbirds in hosts were perched on all the fences, +watching the sowers and chattering saucily to each other as they snapped +their bead-like eyes in anticipation of the feast so profusely spreading +for them. + +Over the low lands where the bay stretched its many arms in and out, +offering to the ranchos its assistance to carry their abundant produce +to a market, the marshes were red with short-growing sorrel, and the +dark green of the tules along the edges fringed the silver indentations +of the water in harmonious contrast. + +All this did Jovita and Crescimir see from the veranda of Tulucay as +with the Christchild by them they talked of the strange discovery and +first sudden birth of their love, of how Jovita had first left the +flowers at his door and how he had longed so much to know the one, the +only one who had cheered his loneliness, and how he had loved the donor +even before he had known that it was she. + +Then they would talk of the terrible flood which had brought them +together, and how each knew the other's love the moment their eyes had +met, and of the mysterious little child who had been the medium of +their first lovers' kiss. + +They had become quite accustomed to the little elf's strange ways, and +he no longer seemed to them to be the half supernatural creature he had +at first appeared. Jovita's mother had at last discovered, she was sure, +that the mysterious frock was nothing more nor less remarkable than a +kind of goat hair woven carefully and fine. + +So thus was the little elfin Christchild resolved by the power of +familiarity into the orphan of some German emigrants who had lost their +lives in the great flood; nevertheless, strangers never passed him +without giving a second glance and never heard him sing in his sweet, +odd tones, without wondering. + +Crescimir and Jovita were married at Tulucay on the day before Christmas +and walked over the fields to the new house on the knoll by the laurel +tree, the Christchild going with them. + +He had decorated his head and frock with blossoms of early mariposas +(calochortus) in honour of the occasion, and his joy seemed +uncontrollable and he skipped over the meadow scarcely seeming to tread +upon the ground. + +There was a bright fire in the cottage when they reached it; the fire +was in an open fireplace similar to that which had been in the old +cabin. + +As they entered, the Christchild, running up to the hearth, pointed to +the chimney piece, and then turning to Crescimir with a look which could +not be misunderstood, began in his odd notes to sing. + +Crescimir then first noticed that there was no hemlock branch above the +hearth, so taking one from the other side of the room where they hung in +festoons, he fastened it with a bunch of toyone berries over the +chimney piece. + +The sun was set and in the crimson glow with which the heavens were +painted, just above the low, black hills, shone bright and silvery the +Evening Star. + +Crescimir, with Jovita leaning on his shoulder, stood at the west window +looking out over the misty valley where the real seemed ghostlike in the +gray evening haze, and even those things with which they were familiar, +seemed in the fading light to take to themselves unknown forms. + +"Strange world!" said Jovita, meditatively, "Real and Unreal so often +blended that we can never say which is tangible and which is air." + +"Look Jovita, look!" and Crescimir seizing her hand pointed out toward +the garden. + +They stood there gazing from the window, as if spellbound, until the +crimson light faded from the sky and the clear star descended below the +hills. + +A bit of mist or fog, or what you will hovered about the garden and then +gradually rising it became dissolved and was gone. + +"Gone!" whispered Jovita, as the darkness shut out the valley from view. +"Good little Christchild; but his memory shall ever be with us," +answered Crescimir, as they sat side by side before the open fireplace. + + * * * * * + +Everybody wondered where the little Christchild had gone, and search was +made, but, of course, unsuccessfully; yet Crescimir and Jovita said +nothing. + +Thus, in time, people forgot about the tiny elf and now there are few +who have even heard of Crescimir's guest. + +The pretty cottage may to-day be seen on the knoll near the wonderful, +wide-spreading laurel tree and every Christmas Eve upon the chimney +piece of its open hearted hearth may be seen a dark, glossy branch of +hemlock with a bunch of toyone. + +Before the fire sit Crescimir and Jovita singing the little Christmas +carrol of the Illyrian children. Sometimes they think that they hear a +sweet, soft voice joining in harmony with their own, but yet they are +not sure but that it may perhaps be only the music of their own happy +hearts, and smiling at Jovita, who holds the little Crescimir in her +arms, Crescimir the Illyrian points to the branch above the hearth while +the little one opens his eyes in wonderment. + +"Was he not, Jovita mia, like the affection which is seen by all the +world between lovers before marriage? And then the world wonders where +it has gone when the priest has pronounced the two as one. But we +married lovers will never tell, for we are content to know that our +Christchild has sunken deep into our hearts where his song inaudible to +others is heard by us forever and ever." + +[Illustration: Scroll] + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + +Benicia's Letters. + + +After my aunt Benicia's death I found in her little desk a bundle of +letters, which threw light upon the romance of her life, and on the +reason perhaps of her refusing many offers which were known to have been +made her by honoured Californians of the last generation. The letters +are curious and interesting to me, and were written to my uncle by his +chum, and enclosed many sketches. + +The letters are in Spanish, but for your better understanding I have +translated them with all their strange expressions as best I can. + +At first I thought that I would destroy them, but as most of my friends +who read them now, have long known my aunt Benicia, I feel sure that +they will be, even in these practical days, interested and touched by +the revelation they so suggest of a life-long love which filled the +heart of the good, little woman, who is at last at rest. + + + GRUeNEN MARKT. + + WUeRZBURG, 20th October, 18--. + +DEAR JOSE: + +How dull life here is, I cannot bear to look forward to the time so far +ahead when I shall have done with the University, not that I shall be at +all unhappy to leave and return to my dear California, but the twelve or +sixteen months between now and then, make me shudder to think of. + +My time is quite free now and I make many pleasure walks to Zell and the +Hochberg, while almost every day finds me at some time on the Nicholaus +Berg enjoying its ever lovely views of the green Maine valley, which +however is now taking on its first autumnal tints. + +Today I come from the stone quarry, which lies on the road to the +Hochberg, where I have been chatting with the workmen and making a few +sketches to send home to Benicia; the day has been one of the +pleasantest I have known, just one of those mild autumn days we love so +much in Santa Clara when her hills are clothed in their warmest colours +and the big leaves are first falling from the fig trees. Ah, I did wish +to be back again to walk with you along the dry Francisquito and gather +the first golden poppies for Benicia's black hair. Yes, of course, I +should be contented with these world-known beauties which I have about +me, nevertheless, it is a pleasure to recall those happy days now that I +am here alone on the continent of Europe. The warmth of our Californian +sun must have entered our very hearts, for nowhere in all the world but +there are found no strangers. + +The grapes are not all picked as yet, and the vineyards are lively +indeed with gaily dressed peasant girls, cutting and tying up the vines +for the winter. There is a great difference between Catholic and +Lutheran Germany in this one regard of dress; in all the Protestant +districts the prevailing colour is a dull blue, while in Catholic parts +the dress seems to have no end of colour and brilliant adornment; for an +artist the latter is more pleasing, but for such a thoughtful moralist +as yourself, I know the peasant girls in blue frocks would be +preferable. + +There are very few students in the city now and scarcely a traveller is +to be seen, except now and then a stray one may be noticed wandering +about the old cathedral or counting the restored statues on the river +bridge. I always feel a longing to speak to these late birds of passage +for they look so forlorn without their mates, that they make me think of +my own sad plight so far away from you all; when the lectures begin I +hope that I will be more satisfied than I am now. + +Every day I go to Vespers at one of the churches, and I enjoy this bit +of the day more than you could believe. It is beautiful just at dusk to +enter the church in the Market Place, which is near my hotel, and there +in the gloom, lighted only by the tapers at the shrines and where some +of the worshipers are kneeling, each with a small wax light to illumine +the Prayer Books, to bow with them and receive the blessing from the +priest and to be touched by the Holy Water; then the Ave Maria, how I +love to hear it chanted with such heartfelt praise by the old and +trembling men and women, who throw their whole spirit into the melody. +The melody, I know, could not bear cold criticism, but when I kneel +there beneath the great, gray vault and see their breath ascending in +the cold air, bearing like incense their prayers to Heaven, and hear the +subdued strains of the organ, I feel that it is not the music of this +world, and my heart is moved and I join in the grand hymn, mingling my +soft Latin words with their glorious German. + +The priest has passed down the aisle and sprinkled the Holy Water over +us with the aspergil, the boys bearing the censers, preceding him have +passed from sight with him behind the dark curtain at the Chancel door; +there is a shuffling noise of the departing worshipers and I am alone. + +Far away, before the golden Altar hangs a taper which throws a red glow +into all the darkness, it is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, ever burning +amid the gloom of sin. As my eyes become accustomed to the dim light, I +can discern a female figure robed in gray, standing before the shrine of +the Virgin, I cannot see the face though I often try, but whenever she +becomes aware of my presence, she leaves the cathedral by the little +door to the right which opens into the small court. This occurs every +night, and though I have often tried to meet her by going out by the +other door and around the front, I have as yet, not succeeded. + +But enough of that now; today as I returned from my walk, I saw as I was +crossing the bridge one of the first Californian women I have seen for +a long time; I know that she was Californian or Mexican for there was +more life in the eye than we see in the quiet, expressionless beauties +of the rest of the world. I do not know why I must ever have this face +in my mind since I met the fair one on the bridge; she looked at me +directly in the eyes, and I feel sure that I have met her sometime +before. I know the face; there is a strange drooping about the eyelids, +which to me adds a charm to the whole appearance. I do wish I could +think where in the world I have seen her. I am going to search the hotel +books to-morrow for I will not rest until I find out her name. It was +almost dark, however, when we met, and she was going toward the opposite +side of the Maine where there are no foreign hotels. + +I surmise, and suppose, and guess, but all to no purpose, while that one +look seems to be planted indelibly upon my mind. I would give anything +to see her again; I can think of nothing now, for the strange, +inexpressible fascination of those eyelids has me entirely captive. +Where have we met? Try and think, my dear boy, of some one of our +acquaintance who tallies with my description; about my height, black +hair, a white, unusually white face, finely marked eyebrows and the +drooping lids, which when raised, disclose large, brilliant, yet +languid, blue eyes,--I cannot give the picture to suit me, but you note +the strange paleness and the eyes, and you must remember if you have +ever met her. + +I often go to the little opera house, where the music is of the best, +yet I cannot enjoy myself, for, as ever I am alone; all I can do is just +to think and think and imagine things to interest me through the dreary +time. What strange fantasies I have brought up in my life! You know +some of them, and it is quite true as you wrote in your last that +translation from Hawthorne, "His caprices had their origin in a mind +that lacked the support of an engrossing purpose and feelings that +preyed upon themselves for lack of other food." + +I try to interest myself in the things about me, but I am a dreamer. I +wonder often what my life will come to in the end, of what use I shall +be. No, it is not good that I should be alone; now, however, since I +have seen the unknown beauty, I will not have to search my mind for +subjects to keep it occupied, for Senorita California is quite a solid +damsel and far from ethereal, and not at all ghostly, only that look +about the eyes when the lids are drooping, and the complexion. + +Don't forget my usual token to Benicia and give her the sketches, but +of course no word of the girl; women never understand such things +properly. + + B. L. M. + + JOAQUIN. + + + * * * * * + + + ON THE NICHOLAUS BERG, + + 22nd October 18--. + +DEAR JOSE: + +This morning early, I took my walk as usual to the Chapel on the hill; +the day was as fine as the last three have been and I began to feel +better contented with so much Californian weather to help me. + +Yesterday I did not think so much of the bridge beauty but today her +strange features have come to me with double vividness, and it was to +escape from this that I took the walk so very early this morning. I +brought my sketch-book with me and expected to pass the whole day on the +hill and in the woods just beyond. + +The little, old woman who sweeps away the dry leaves from the steps so +ruthlessly, smiled more than usual when I gave her the customary two +pfennigs. I can never understand how the poor creature wages such a +heartless war against these dying leaves of Autumn; it seems that she +should have a sisterly feeling for them, knowing that she is herself so +near to her own December. + +The Stations of the Cross are arranged in little shrines on the many +terraces which adorn the castle side of the hill; it is a pretty +thought, bordering the path to the chapel with these stone pictures, +most of them representing Christ's long, weary journey up Mount Calvary. +There are always to be found before these shrines, people, mostly the +peasantry, praying aloud, and here and there many a time I have seen +them ascending the toilsome road on their knees. + +What a grand view one has from the summit; the wide Valley of the Maine +not yet brown, but smiling as it always does in its green beauty, far +into December. The lumber rafts are floating lazily down, as it were in +a dream, little thinking that in a few more hours they will have reached +their journey's end, there to be broken. They are like myself somewhat, +who am just as lazily, uselessly and alone wandering through life to the +ending sooner or later; it is hard to go against the stream and the +river is long and lovely, so I will float on just a little farther. + +I made a sketch of Wuerzburg with its many spires and domes, which I +enclose for Benicia, and then turned my attention to the Chapel with +which I am always delighted; the frescoes in the dome are good and I +never tire of sitting and looking up at them while I listen to the dull +chanting of the Capuzin monks behind the iron grating to the right. + +I have often had conversation with these monks whom I meet walking in +the garden, and find them pleasant and entertaining, and far from being +the gloomy mortals some people think them to be. + + + * * * * * + + + NICHOLAUS BERG. + + Night. + +DEAR JOSE: + +Before I had finished my letter, Brother Andreas, with whom I am better +acquainted than with the others, came to me and asked me to walk with +him; he is not a German, but is from Spain, so you see I find use for my +mother tongue where I little expected to need it. Brother Andreas speaks +German of course, as he has been here some twenty years, and tells me he +is quite contented with his life, never having a desire for sunny +Spain, saying that all the home he has is beyond this world; I wish that +I might feel as contented as the old Capuzin. + +But you are curious to know why I am here at this time, and I will +hasten to tell you what the strange cause is. + +We walked about the Chapel and through parts of the garden where I had +never been before, Brother Andreas relating to me the history of the +city and the little Chapel. By this time we had wandered to the front of +the building, and Brother Andreas raising his arm pointed to the face of +the church over the door and repeated, "Refugium Peccatorum, Consolatrix +Afflictorum, Sancta Maria, Ora Pro Nobis." + +I did not look up at first, my attention at the time being directed to a +company of peasants in the neighbouring vineyard, but at the words +"Sancta Maria," I raised my eyes to the face of the church, and, oh my +God, what did I see! + +"Ora pro nobis," broke unintentionally from my lips, I clung +convulsively to the arm of the good, old priest, my eyes were riveted +upon the niche above the door, for there looking down on me, her eyes +strangely drooping, her hands folded across her breast, stood the woman +whom day before yesterday I met on the bridge; I say stood the woman, +but it was only a statue carved in gray stone, an image of the Virgin, +such as we see every day in the churches; this, however, was somewhat +different, as it held no infant Christ in its arms, and then the face, +that was not the face which should be given to Mary, the Mother of our +Saviour. + +No, the more I see those eyes, which I at first so much admired, the +more I hate their look, but also strange to say, the more I am +fascinated. + +In a few moments I had recovered my usual composure enough to assure +Brother Andreas that the cause of my strange behaviour was a sudden +illness to which I was often subject, when tired, but the good man shook +his head sadly and said, "No, my child, you have seen something +supernatural, which has disturbed you; it is well that I am here." With +that, he immediately made the Sign of the Cross and drew me into the +chapel where he made some use of the Holy Water which I did not +understand, nor did I care, for the sudden fright which had stopped my +heart in its beating, now that all was over, sent the blood rushing +through my veins with frightful rapidity making my head ache so terribly +that I thought that I must die. + +It was dark, the next I knew, the room was strange to me; A Crucifix +hung on the wall, before which a single, dim oil lamp was burning, +before this was a monk at prayer;--it seemed like a dream to me, it +could not be real. + +After awhile I moved, and the monk rose and came to me, showing, in the +flickering light, the fatherly features of Brother Andreas. + +"My child," he said, taking my hand in his, "I am happy that you are of +our flock, for I can help you; I know your thoughts; it is well to think +now when all is still. I will not urge you, but Christ is ever seeking +for your soul; come to the true light of the Church where he may find +you." + +I made confession and received absolution, and he, making the Sign of +the Cross, went from the room. + +Presently I heard the monotonous chant of the monks in the Chapel and +knew it was midnight. I have written this to you hurriedly on paper I +have in my portfolio. The chanting is over and Brother Andreas' step is +audible in the echoing corridor. Good Night. + + + Besa la mano, + + JOAQUIN. + + + * * * * * + + + NICHOLAUS BERG. + + 30th October, 18--. + +DEAR JOSE: + +I am still at the cloister, though I have done nothing it seems to me +during the past week but sleep, and am hardly strong enough now to carry +the pen over the paper as I write to you. + +The statue over the door stands there as it ever has, but it is too far +away for me to see the awful eyes, so I can say nothing about them. But +now my dear friend I have something more wonderful than ever to tell +you. + +Every night when the moon shines, this image of the Virgin comes down +from her niche and wanders about the church; I have seen her four or +five times, and she has often come under my window in these lone walks, +and once I spoke to her, but the moment my voice sounded on the night +air she was gone, and the same gray, stone image stood silent and dead +in the niche. + +What can I think of all this? I could not believe if any one should tell +me of these things, but what I see with my own eyes I certainly cannot +doubt. + +The Brother Andreas is very good to me, and my box has been brought from +the hotel to the cloister, so my room is as cheerful as possible with +all your pictures around me. + +How I wish that you were here, or I could hear from you, but never, my +dear boy will that time come, I fear; I have given up the idea of ever +having so great a pleasure in this world. I cannot write more now as I +am too weak. Good night and greet Benicia for me. + + + * * * * * + + + 31st October + +It is very late, but I must write now or never. To-night the image was +stranger than ever, and for the first time I heard its voice, and oh, it +sounded too sweetly to me as I sat by the window and looked out over the +city as the moon rose above the hills to the east. + +The Brothers were chanting at the time, and their deep base came in ever +and ever so beautifully between the stanzas which the Virgin sung, and +as she sung, she came down from her station slowly, as if there were +steps in the air and she could tread upon them. The words were as weird +as the scene. + + + "The silver moon is slowly, slowly rising + The night is clear and all the clouds are fled, + Their midnight prayer the weary monks are chanting; + Now I may leave my cold and stony bed." + + +Then the monks chanted in their low, measured tones, + + + "Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis! + Mater Christi, ora, ora!" + "Cursed be my lot, but useless is repining, + Here must I stay till dreary day is gone, + Living only in the pale moon's shining; + To-night my hated penance though is done. + Gaily, gaily, gaily I'll live + Though I be but a spirit of air; + Every pleasure the world can give + Shall be mine while the moon shines fair. + + The Devil in Hell has promised me + That if I gain him a soul + I shall be forever from that time free, + So long as the Rhine shall run to the sea + And the Maine shall Rhineward roll." + + +And from the heights above the echo came,--"Roll--roll." + +Then running lightly to the wall, which is on the river side, she leaned +over and sung in a high, unearthly, wild voice, while her dark hair +waved in the night wind, + + + "Beautiful river rushing on, + Touched with light by the silver moon, + Grant me now this simple boon. + Let thy merry spirits come, + And elfin dancers with beating drum, + Here with me for the wild night long, + To dance and whirl with eldrich song + Till the moon shall faint and her light be gone." + + +Then running merrily to the other side nearer my window, she sung in the +same wild key, as she turned her face to the forest, + + + "Spirits of the black larch-wood + Come to-night to dance and sing, + Come and all thy flowers bring, + Come and gaily join our ring, + Come upon thy fleetest wing, + Come, oh come, ere the moon be fading." + + +The low chanting of the Monks ceased, and as I opened my window wider I +could hear, like the higher notes of an organ, voices rising from the +river and mingling in heavenly harmony; I could not at first catch the +words, but the sweet, divinely sweet strains came nearer and nearer, and +then with the same inexpressible gentleness, softly as if wafted from +the angelic chorus came the rich, low notes from the forest, like the +humming of bees, the sighing of hemlocks, or that sweet, strange sound +we ever hear in the ocean shell. The voices came nearer and I could hear +the wild, free words long before the singers were in the court. + + + "We are coming from the forest, + All laden with flowers, + With bright, crimson flowers + All sparkling with dew." + + +Then from the river rose the song: + + + "We come from the water + With bright, polished pebbles, + With white, glittering pebbles, + Our love-gift to you." + + +The singing now was in the very garden, but I could not see the singers, +though I knew that they were there, for the strange creature-image +whirled about the court, laughing and nodding on every side, while the +music grew each moment louder and wilder, when suddenly all was still, +and the image pausing in the middle of the court began with many odd +gestures this weird song: + + + "What am I? Who am I? Where did I come from? + What, who and where--well, no human knows; + Ye though my loved ones know what to answer, + My pale face ye follow wherever it goes. + My home's in the forest, my home's in the city, + Wherever the terror of loneliness lies, + And woe be to him who when out in the moonlight + Catches the glance of my soul-piercing eyes. + By day I am stone + By night I have breath, + And those whom I meet, know the sister of Death." + + +"Curse you!" I shrieked, leaning from the window, and all was gone; the +statue was in its niche again, the Maria Virgo Sancta. I staggered back +from the window and was received almost breathless from excitement in +the arms of Brother Andreas who entered the room just then. + +"My child, you should not sit by an open window; I fear that you have +done yourself an injury already." He laid me down on the bed and when I +awoke he was gone, and now I am writing off this scrap of a letter for +you my dear friend. How I long to see you, and oh, why can I not have +you here! Would to God that I had not met the woman on the bridge. My +friend, my Jose, I dare not tell you what I fear; those eyes were upon +me, those fatal eyes. No, no I will not keep it from you, I will tell +you all and leave you the terrible duty of telling Benicia. + +My dear boy, I am growing colder each moment; my hand trembles as I +write this, my last letter; I pray that I may have strength to finish +it. The river was not so long as I expected, and now my poor raft is +breaking. Nor would I live, for now I know who has power over me, I know +now whose were those drooping eyelids; it is better not to live, for I +have not strength to conquer them. + +It is autumn, the last leaves are falling, the cold winter is coming, +but I shall not be here to dread its cold. My winter is on me now, and +may God grant that through it I come to the eternal spring. All that I +want is to see Benicia and you once more, but that cannot be. Now a +last, long farewell to Benicia; I can write no more, I am too cold. The +raft is broken; the journey was not long. + +God bless you, good bye; I am going to lie down now. Give the ruby ring, +which I wear, to dear Benicia as a memory of me; and tell Beni-- + + + * * * * * + + +Here was the ending of the letter in the unfinished name of his loved +one. + +[Illustration: Scroll] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's +Letters, by Charles A. 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