Part 19 (2/2)

”By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries.”

CHAPTER XIII.

At length the first sorrow fell upon the Club. The mail brought to Corrigan one day the news of the death of his mother in New York. It was a terrible blow to him. It had been his dream all through the years that he had been absent from his home that some time he would acc.u.mulate money enough to provide her with a home, where around her life every comfort would be drawn, and from her life every heart-breaking care would be driven away. But time would not wait for him, and the letter, which only in gentle words told him of his mother's death, kindled in his heart such bitter self-reproaches that for awhile the warm-hearted man's grief was inconsolable.

The Club heartily sympathized with him, but there was little said. The men who face death daily in a deep mine either come to think, after awhile, that this life hangs on too tender a thread to be grieved over so very much when that thread is broken, or, because of the nature of their occupation, which is necessarily carried on mostly in silence, they lose the faculty to say the words which in society circles are intruded upon people who are in deep sorrow.

On this evening the supper was eaten in silence, Corrigan hardly tasting anything.

As the Club took their seats Ashley found opportunity to covertly whisper to Yap Sing that Corrigan had received bad news and he must prepare something especially tempting for him to eat. When the meal was nearly finished Yap Sing brought a mammoth dish of strawberries, a bowl of sugar and pitcher of cream, and after the noiseless manner of his race, set them in front of Corrigan's plate. No one else at the table seemed to notice the act of the Chinaman. Corrigan gave a quick glance around the table and when he saw that no one else was to be served with the berries--that it was meant as a special act of sympathy for him--his eyes filled with tears and he hastily withdrew from the room.

At his leisure during the evening Yap Sing ate the berries and the cream, remarking to himself as he did so:

”Me heap slory Meester Clorigan; me likee be heap slory ebbly day.”

For an hour after supper the Club did little but smoke. At length, however, Harding, who usually spent his evenings absorbed in reading, laid aside his book and in his low and kindly voice, began to talk.

”Often when a boy I heard my father tell a story of a woman, a Sister of Charity, which, I think, may be, it will be good to tell to-night. In one of the mountain towns of Northern California a good many years ago, while yet good women, compared to the number of the men, were so disproportionately few, suddenly one day, upon the street, clad in the unattractive garb of a Sister of Charity, appeared a woman whose marvelous loveliness the coa.r.s.e garments and uncouth hood peculiar to the order could not conceal.

”There was a Sisters' Hospital in the place and this nun was one of the devoted women who had come to minister to the sick in that hospital.

”She was of medium size and height, and despite her shapeless garments it was easy to see that her form was beautiful. The hand that carried a basket was a delicate one; under her unsightly hood glimpses of a brow as white as a planet's light could be caught; the coa.r.s.e shoes upon her feet were three sizes too large. When she raised her eyes from the inner depths a light like that of kindly stars shone out, and though a Sister of Charity, there was something about her lips which seemed to say that of all famines a famine of kisses was hardest to endure. There was a stately, kindly dignity in her mien, but in all her ways there was a dainty grace which, upon the hungry eyes of the miners of that mountain town, seemed like enchantment. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.

”It was told that she was known as 'Sister Celeste,' that she had recently come to the Western Coast, it was believed, from France, and that was all that was known of her. When the Mother Superior at the hospital was questioned about the new sister, she simply answered: 'Sister Celeste is a sister now; she will be a glorified saint by and by.'

”The first public appearance of Sister Celeste in the town was one Sunday afternoon. She emerged from her hospital and started to carry some delicacy to a poor, sick woman, a Mrs. De Lacy, who lived on the opposite side of the town from the hospital; so to visit her the nun was obliged to walk almost the whole length of the one long, crooked street which, in the narrow canon, included all the business portion of the town.

”When the nun started out from the hospital the town was full of miners, as was the habit in those days on Sunday afternoons, and as the Sister pa.s.sed along the street hundreds of eyes were bent upon her. She seemed unconscious of the attention she was attracting; had she been walking in her sleep she could not have been more composed.

”Many were the comments made as she pa.s.sed out of the hearing of different groups of men. One big, rough miner, who had just accepted an invitation to drink, caught sight of the vision, watched the Sister as she pa.s.sed and then said to the companion who had asked him:

”'Excuse me, Bob, I have a feeling as though my soul had just partaken of the sacrament. No more gin for me to-day.'

”Said another: 'It is a fearful pity. That woman was born to be loved, and to love somebody better than nine hundred and ninety out of every thousand could. Her occupation is, in her case, a sin against nature.

Every hour her heart must protest against the starvation which it feels; every day she must feel upon her robes the clasp of little hands which are not to be.'

”One boisterous miner, a little in his cups, watched until the Sister disappeared around a bend in the crooked street, and then cried out: 'Did you see her, boys? That is the style of a woman that a man could die for and smile while dying. Oh! Oh!' Then drawing from his belt a buckskin purse, he held it aloft and shouted: 'Here are eighty ounces of the cleanest dust ever mined in Bear Gulch; it's all I have in the world, but I will give the last grain to any bruiser in this camp who will look crooked at that Sister when she comes back this way, and let me see him do it. In just a minute and a half--but no matter, I'm better that I have seen her.'

”After that, daily, for all the following week, Sister Celeste was seen going to and returning from the sick woman's house. It suddenly grew to be a habit with everybody to uncover their heads as Sister Celeste came by.

”Sunday came around again, and it was noticed that on that morning the nun went early to visit her charge and remained longer than usual. On her return, when just about opposite the main saloon of the place, a kindly, elderly gentleman, who was universally known and respected, ventured to cross the path of the Sister, and address her as follows:

”'I beg pardon, good Sister, but you are attending upon a sick person.

We understand that it is a woman. May I not ask if we can not in some way a.s.sist you and the woman?'

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