A Ward of Colonel Starbottle's Page #3

"A Ward of Colonel Starbottle's" is a short story by Bret Harte that revolves around themes of love, social class, and the complexities of human relationships in the American West. The narrative follows Colonel Starbottle, a colorful and charismatic character, as he navigates the challenges of caring for his ward, a young woman named Miss Isabel from a respectable family. The story explores the interactions between the Colonel, his ward, and other characters in their small community, blending humor and poignant moments to highlight the contrasts between societal expectations and individual desires. Through engaging storytelling, Harte captures the spirit of frontier life while delving into the intricacies of personal connections.

• Short story

								

so as to enable him to put his other hand in his breast in his favorite
pose. But presently he was conscious of a more active movement in the
hall, of the sounds of scuffling, of a high youthful voice saying "I
won't" and "I shan't!" of the door opening to a momentary apparition of
Miss Tish dragging a small hand and half of a small black-ribboned arm
into the room, and her rapid disappearance again, apparently pulled back
by the little hand and arm; of another and longer pause, of a whispered
conference outside, and then the reappearance of Miss Tish majestically,
reinforced and supported by the grim presence of her partner, Miss
Prinkwell.

"This--er--unexpected visit," began Miss Tish--"not previously arranged
by letter"--

"Which is an invariable rule of our establishment," supplemented Miss
Prinkwell--

"And the fact that you are personally unknown to us," continued Miss
Tish--

"An ignorance shared by the child, who exhibits a distaste for an
interview," interpolated Miss Prinkwell, in a kind of antiphonal
response--

"For which we have had no time to prepare her," continued Miss Tish--

"Compels us most reluctantly"--But here she stopped short. Colonel
Starbottle, who had risen with a deep bow at their entrance and remained
standing, here walked quietly towards them. His usually high color
had faded except from his eyes, but his exalted manner was still more
pronounced, with a dreadful deliberation superadded.

"I believe--er--I had--the honah--to send up my kyard!" (In his supreme
moments the colonel's Southern accent was always in evidence.) "I
may--er--be mistaken--but--er--that is my impression." The colonel
paused, and placed his right hand statuesquely on his heart.

The two women trembled--Miss Tish fancied the very shirt frill of the
colonel was majestically erecting itself--as they stammered in one
voice,--

"Ye-e-es!"

"That kyard contained my full name--with a request to see my ward--Miss
Stannard," continued the colonel slowly. "I believe that is the fact."

"Certainly! certainly!" gasped the women feebly.

"Then may I--er--point out to you that I AM--er--WAITING?"

Although nothing could exceed the laborious simplicity and husky
sweetness of the colonel's utterance, it appeared to demoralize utterly
his two hearers--Miss Prinkwell seemed to fade into the pattern of the
wall paper, Miss Tish to droop submissively forward like a pink wax
candle in the rays of the burning sun.

"We will bring her instantly. A thousand pardons, sir," they uttered in
the same breath, backing towards the door.

But here the unexpected intervened. Unnoticed by the three during the
colloquy, a little figure in a black dress had peeped through the door,
and then glided into the room. It was a girl of about ten, who, in all
candor, could scarcely be called pretty, although the awkward change of
adolescence had not destroyed the delicate proportions of her hands and
feet nor the beauty of her brown eyes. These were, just then, round and
wondering, and fixed alternately on the colonel and the two women. But
like many other round and wondering eyes, they had taken in the full
meaning of the situation, with a quickness the adult mind is not apt to
give them credit for. They saw the complete and utter subjugation of
the two supreme autocrats of the school, and, I grieve to say, they were
filled with a secret and "fearful joy." But the casual spectator saw
none of this; the round and wondering eyes, still rimmed with recent and
recalcitrant tears, only looked big and innocently shining.

The relief of the two women was sudden and unaffected.

"Oh, here you are, dearest, at last!" said Miss Tish eagerly. "This is
your guardian, Colonel Starbottle. Come to him, dear!"

She took the hand of the child, who hung back with an odd mingling of
shamefacedness and resentment of the interference, when the voice of
Colonel Starbottle, in the same deadly calm deliberation, said,--

"I--er--will speak with her--alone."

The round eyes again saw the complete collapse of authority, as the two
women shrank back from the voice, and said hurriedly,--

"Certainly, Colonel Starbottle; perhaps it would be better," and
ingloriously quitted the room.

But the colonel's triumph left him helpless. He was alone with a
simple child, an unprecedented, unheard-of situation, which left him
embarrassed and--speechless. Even his vanity was conscious that his
oratorical periods, his methods, his very attitude, were powerless here.
The perspiration stood out on his forehead; he looked at her vaguely,
and essayed a feeble smile. The child saw his embarrassment, even as
she had seen and understood his triumph, and the small woman within her
exulted. She put her little hands on her waist, and with the fingers
turned downwards and outwards pressed them down her hips to her bended
knees until they had forced her skirts into an egregious fullness before
and behind, as if she were making a curtsy, and then jumped up and
laughed.

"You did it! Hooray!"

"Did what?" said the colonel, pleased yet mystified.

"Frightened 'em!--the two old cats! Frightened 'em outen their slippers!
Oh, jiminy! Never, never, NEVER before was they so skeert! Never since
school kept did they have to crawl like that! They was skeert enough
FIRST when you come, but just now!--Lordy! They wasn't a-goin' to let
you see me--but they had to! had to! HAD TO!" and she emphasized each
repetition with a skip.

"I believe--er," said the colonel blandly, "that I--er--intimated with
some firmness"--

"That's it--just it!" interrupted the child delightedly.
"You--you--overdid 'em"

"What?"

"OVERDID 'EM! Don't you know? They're always so high and mighty! Kinder
'Don't tech me. My mother's an angel; my father's a king'--all that sort
of thing. They did THIS"--she drew herself up in a presumable imitation
of the two women's majestic entrance--"and then," she continued,
"you--YOU jest did this"--here she lifted her chin, and puffing out her
small chest, strode towards the colonel in evident simulation of his
grandest manner.

A short, deep chuckle escaped him--although the next moment his face
became serious again. But Pansy in the mean time had taken possession of
his coat sleeve and was rubbing her cheek against it like a young colt.
At which the colonel succumbed feebly and sat down on the sofa, the
child standing beside him, leaning over and transferring her little
hands to the lapels of his frock coat, which she essayed to button over
his chest as she looked into his murky eyes.

"The other girls said," she began, tugging at the button, "that you was
a 'cirkiss'"--another tug--"'a n*gger minstrel'"--and a third tug--"'a
agent with samples'--but that showed all they knew!"

"Ah," said the colonel with exaggerated blandness, "and--er--what did
YOU--er--say?"

The child smiled. "I said you was a Stuffed Donkey--but that was BEFORE

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