The Bell-Ringer of Angel's Page #4

"The Bell-Ringer of Angel's" is a short story by Bret Harte that revolves around the life of a mysterious bell-ringer in the mining town of Angel's Camp. Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, the story explores themes of love, identity, and community. The protagonist, whose bell-ringing serves as a harbinger of events, becomes intertwined with the lives of the townspeople, revealing their dreams and struggles. Harte's vivid storytelling captures the spirit of the West while delving into the complexities of human relationships in a rapidly changing environment.

• Short story

								


"She fell in," echoed McGee.

Wayne hesitated; then a murky blush came into his face as he slowly
repeated, "She FELL in."

McGee's eyes only brightened. "I have been too hard on her. She might
have drowned ef you hadn't took risks. You see? You understand what I
mean? And she never let out anything about it--and never boasted o' YOU
helpin' her out. All right--you'll come along and see her agin'." He
turned and walked cheerfully away.

Wayne re-entered the cabin. He sat for a long time by the window until
the stars came out above the river, and another star, with which he had
been long familiar, took its place apparently in the heart of the wooded
crest of the little promontory. Then the fringing woods on the opposite
shore became a dark level line across the landscape, and the color
seemed to fade out of the moist shining gravel before his cabin.
Presently the silhouette of his dark face disappeared from the window,
and Mr. McGee might have been gratified to know that he had slipped to
his knees before the chair whereon he had been sitting, and that his
head was bowed before it on his clasped hands. In a little while he rose
again, and, dragging a battened old portmanteau from the corner, took
out a number of letters tied up in a package, with which, from time to
time, he slowly fed the flame that flickered on his hearth. In this way
the windows of the cabin at times sprang into light, making a somewhat
confusing beacon for the somewhat confused Arthur Wayne, who was
returning from a visit to Angel's, and who had fallen into that slightly
morose and irritated state which follows excessive hilarity, and is also
apt to indicate moral misgivings.

But the last letter was burnt and the cabin quite dark when he entered.
His brother was sitting by the slowly dying fire, and he trusted that
in that uncertain light any observation of his expression or manner--of
which he himself was uneasily conscious--would pass unheeded.

"You are late," said Madison gravely.

At which his brother rashly assumed the aggressive. He was no later than
the others, and if the Rogers boys were good enough to walk with him
for company he couldn't run ahead of them just because his brother was
waiting! He didn't want any supper, he had something at the Cross Roads
with the others. Yes! WHISKEY, if he wanted to know. People couldn't
keep coffee and temperance drinks just to please him and his brother,
and he wasn't goin' to insult the others by standing aloof. Anyhow, he
had never taken the pledge, and as long as he hadn't he couldn't see
why he should refuse a single glass. As it was, everybody said he was a
milksop, and a tender-foot, and he was just sick of it.

Madison rose and lit a candle and held it up before his brother's face.
It was a handsome, youthful face that looked into his, flushed with the
excitement of novel experiences and perhaps a more material stimulation.
The little silken moustache was ostentatiously curled, the brown curls
were redolent of bear's grease. Yet there was a certain boyish timidity
and nervousness in the defiance of his blue eyes that momentarily
touched the elder brother.

"I've been too hand with him," he said to himself, half consciously
recalling what McGee had said of Safie. He put the candle down, laid
his hand gently on Arthur's shoulder, and said, with a certain cautious
tenderness, "Come, Arty, sit down and tell me all about it."

Whereupon the mercurial Arthur, not only relieved of his nervousness but
of his previous ethical doubts and remorse, became gay and voluble.
He had finished his purchases at Angel's, and the storekeeper had
introduced him to Colonel Starbottle, of Kentucky, as one of "the Waynes
who had made Wayne's Bar famous." Colonel Starbottle had said in his
pompous fashion--yet he was not such a bad fellow, after all--that the
Waynes ought to be represented in the Councils of the State, and
that he, Starbottle, would be proud to nominate Madison for the next
Legislature and run him, too. "And you know, really, Mad, if you mixed
a little more with folks, and they weren't--well, sorter AFRAID of
you--you could do it. Why, I've made a heap o' friends over there,
just by goin' round a little, and one of old Selvedge's girls--the
storekeeper, you know--said from what she'd heard of us, she always
thought I was about fifty, and turned up the whites of my eyes instead
of the ends of my moustache! She's mighty smart! Then the Postmaster has
got his wife and three daughters out from the States, and they've asked
me to come over to their church festival next week. It isn't our church,
of course, but I suppose it's all right."

This and much more with the volubility of relieved feelings. When he
stopped, out of breath, Madison said, "I have had a visitor since you
left--Mr. McGee."

"And his wife?" asked Arthur quickly. Madison flushed slightly. "No; but
he asked me to go and see her."

"That's HER doin', then," returned Arthur, with a laugh. "She's always
lookin' round the corners of her eyes at me when she passes. Why, John
Rogers was joking me about her only yesterday, and said McGee would blow
a hole through me some of these days if I didn't look out! Of course,"
he added, affectedly curling his moustache, "that's nonsense! But you
know how they talk, and she's too pretty for that fellow McGee."

"She has found a careful helpmeet in her husband," said Madison sternly,
"and it's neither seemly nor Christian in you, Arthur, to repeat the
idle, profane gossip of the Bar. I knew her before her marriage, and if
she was not a professing Christian, she was, and is, a pure, good woman!
Let us have no more of this."

Whether impressed by the tone of his brother's voice, or only affected
by his own mercurial nature, Arthur changed the subject to further
voluble reminiscences of his trip to Angel's. Yet he did not seem
embarrassed nor disconcerted when his brother, in the midst of his
speech, placed the candle and the Bible on the table, with two chairs
before it. He listened to Madison's monotonous reading of the evening
exercise with equally monotonous respect. Then they both arose, without
looking at each other, but with equally set and stolid faces, and knelt
down before their respective chairs, clasping the back with both hands,
and occasionally drawing the hard, wooden frames against their breasts
convulsively, as if it were a penitential act. It was the elder brother
who that night prayed aloud. It was his voice that rose higher by
degrees above the low roof and encompassing walls, the level river camp
lights that trembled through the window, the dark belt of riverside
trees, and the light on the promontory's crest--up to the tranquil,
passionless stars themselves.

With those confidences to his Maker this chronicle does not
lie--obtrusive and ostentatious though they were in tone and attitude.
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