Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands Page #3

"Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands" is a humorous and insightful short story by Bret Harte, set in the American West during the late 19th century. The narrative follows Mrs. Skaggs, a resilient and resourceful woman who has had multiple husbands, each with their own unique quirks and characteristics. The story explores themes of gender roles, love, and the complexity of relationships, all while offering a satirical look at frontier life. Harte's deft storytelling and vibrant characters make this tale a delightful reflection on the challenges and triumphs of marriage in a rugged landscape.

• Short story

								

untrustworthy account of the habits of California fauna, until he was
interrupted by Johnson.

"And snakes, eh, Tommy?" said the man, with an abstracted air, gazing
intently on the ground before him.

"And snakes," said Tommy; "but they don't bite, at least not that kind
you see. There!--don't move, Uncle Ben, don't move; they're gone now.
And it's about time you took your dose."

Johnson had hurriedly risen as if to leap upon the log, but Tommy had
as quickly caught his arm with one hand while he drew a bottle from his
pocket with the other. Johnson paused, and eyed the bottle. "Ef you say
so, my boy," he faltered, as his fingers closed nervously around it; "say
'when,' then." He raised the bottle to his lips and took a long draught,
the boy regarding him critically. "When," said Tommy, suddenly. Johnson
started, flushed, and returned the bottle quickly. But the color that
had risen to his cheek stayed there, his eye grew less restless, and
as they moved away again, the hand that rested on Tommy's shoulder was
steadier.

Their way lay along the flank of Table Mountain,--a wandering trail
through a tangled solitude that might have seemed virgin and unbroken
but for a few oyster-cans, yeast-powder tins, and empty bottles that had
been apparently stranded by the "first low wash" of pioneer waves.
On the ragged trunk of an enormous pine hung a few tufts of gray hair
caught from a passing grizzly, but in strange juxtaposition at its foot
lay an empty bottle of incomparable bitters,--the chef-d'oeuvre of a
hygienic civilization, and blazoned with the arms of an all-healing
republic. The head of a rattlesnake peered from a case that had
contained tobacco, which was still brightly placarded with the
high-colored effigy of a popular danseuse. And a little beyond this the
soil was broken and fissured, there was a confused mass of roughly hewn
timber, a straggling line of sluicing, a heap of gravel and dirt, a rude
cabin, and the claim of Johnson.

Except for the rudest purposes of shelter from rain and cold, the cabin
possessed but little advantage over the simple savagery of surrounding
nature. It had all the practical directness of the habitation of some
animal, without its comfort or picturesque quality; the very birds that
haunted it for food must have felt their own superiority as architects.
It was inconceivably dirty, even with its scant capacity for accretion;
it was singularly stale, even in its newness and freshness of material.
Unspeakably dreary as it was in shadow, the sunlight visited it in
a blind, aching, purposeless way, as if despairing of mellowing its
outlines or of even tanning it into color.

The claim worked by Johnson in his intervals of sobriety was represented
by half a dozen rude openings in the mountain-side, with the heaped-up
debris of rock and gravel before the mouth of each. They gave very
little evidence of engineering skill or constructive purpose, or indeed
showed anything but the vague, successively abandoned essays of their
projector. To-day they served another purpose, for as the sun had heated
the little cabin almost to the point of combustion, curling up the long
dry shingles, and starting aromatic tears from the green pine beams,
Tommy led Johnson into one of the larger openings, and with a sense of
satisfaction threw himself panting upon its rocky floor. Here and there
the grateful dampness was condensed in quiet pools of water, or in
a monotonous and soothing drip from the rocks above. Without lay the
staring sunlight,--colorless, clarified, intense.

For a few moments they lay resting on their elbows in blissful
contemplation of the heat they had escaped. "Wot do you say," said
Johnson, slowly, without looking at his companion, but abstractly
addressing himself to the landscape beyond,--"wot do you say to two
straight games fur one thousand dollars?"

"Make it five thousand," replied Tommy, reflectively, also to the
landscape, "and I'm in."

"Wot do I owe you now?" said Johnson, after a lengthened silence.

"One hundred and seventy-five thousand two hundred and fifty dollars,"
replied Tommy, with business-like gravity.

"Well," said Johnson, after a deliberation commensurate with the
magnitude of the transaction, "ef you win, call it a hundred and eighty
thousand, round. War's the keerds?"

They were in an old tin box in a crevice of a rock above his head. They
were greasy and worn with service. Johnson dealt, albeit his right hand
was still uncertain,--hovering, after dropping the cards, aimlessly
about Tommy, and being only recalled by a strong nervous effort. Yet,
notwithstanding this incapacity for even honest manipulation, Mr.
Johnson covertly turned a knave from the bottom of the pack with such
shameless inefficiency and gratuitous unskilfulness, that even Tommy was
obliged to cough and look elsewhere to hide his embarrassment. Possibly
for this reason the young gentleman was himself constrained, by way of
correction, to add a valuable card to his own hand, over and above the
number he legitimately held.

Nevertheless, the game was unexciting, and dragged listlessly. Johnson
won. He recorded the fact and the amount with a stub of pencil and
shaking fingers in wandering hieroglyphics all over a pocket diary.
Then there was a long pause, when Johnson slowly drew something from his
pocket, and held it up before his companion. It was apparently a dull
red stone.

"Ef," said Johnson, slowly, with his old look of simple cunning,--"ef
you happened to pick up sich a rock ez that, Tommy, what might you say
it was?"

"Don't know," said Tommy.

"Mightn't you say," continued Johnson, cautiously, "that it was gold, or
silver?"

"Neither," said Tommy, promptly.

"Mightn't you say it was quicksilver? Mightn't you say that ef thar was
a friend o' yourn ez knew war to go and turn out ten ton of it a day,
and every ton worth two thousand dollars, that he had a soft thing, a
very soft thing,--allowin', Tommy, that you used sich language, which
you don't?"

"But," said the boy, coming to the point with great directness, "DO you
know where to get it? have you struck it, Uncle Ben?"

Johnson looked carefully around. "I hev, Tommy. Listen. I know whar
thar's cartloads of it. But thar's only one other specimen--the mate to
this yer--thet's above ground, and thet's in 'Frisco. Thar's an agint
comin' up in a day or two to look into it. I sent for him. Eh?"

His bright, restless eyes were concentrated on Tommy's face now, but the
boy showed neither surprise nor interest. Least of all did he betray
any recollection of Bill's ironical and gratuitous corroboration of this
part of the story.

"Nobody knows it," continued Johnson, in a nervous whisper,--"nobody
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