The Reformation of James Reddy Page #7

"The Reformation of James Reddy" is a short story by Bret Harte that explores themes of redemption and transformation in a Western setting. The narrative follows the character of James Reddy, a man with a dubious reputation who undergoes a significant change in his behavior and perspective. Through a series of events and encounters with other characters, Reddy grapples with his past mistakes and seeks to redefine himself. Harte's storytelling combines humor and social commentary, highlighting the complexities of human nature and the possibility of change against a backdrop of frontier life.

• Short story

								


"Me?" she repeated incredulously, yet with a rising color.

"Yes, YOU! I cannot stay here, and have you look down upon me."

"I don't look down on you," she said simply, yet without the haste of
repelling an unjust accusation. "Why should I? Mother and I have done
the same work that you are doing,--if that's what you mean; and father,
who is a man like yourself, helped us at first, until he could do other
things better." She paused. "Perhaps you think so because YOU looked
down on us when you first came here."

"But I didn't," said Reddy quickly.

"You did," said the young girl quietly. "That's why you acted toward me
as you did the night you walked home with me. You would not have
behaved in that way to any San Francisco young lady--and I'm not one of
your--fast--MARRIED WOMEN."

Reddy felt the hot blood mount to his cheek, and looked away. "I
was foolish and rude--and I think you punished me at the time," he
stammered. "But you see I was right in saying you looked down on me," he
concluded triumphantly.

This was at best a feeble sequitur, but the argument of the affections
is not always logical. And it had its effect on the girl.

"I wasn't thinking of THAT," she said. "It's that you don't know your
own mind."

"If I said that I would stay and accept your father's offer, would you
think that I did?" he asked quickly.

"I should wait and see what you actually DID do," she replied.

"But if I stayed--and--and--if I told you that I stayed on YOUR
account--to be with you and near you only--would you think that a
proof?" He spoke hesitatingly, for his lips were dry with a nervousness
he had not known before.

"I might, if you told father you expected to be engaged on those terms.
For it concerns HIM as much as me. And HE engages you, and not I.
Otherwise I'd think it was only your talk."

Reddy looked at her in astonishment. There was not the slightest trace
of coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in her clear, honest eyes, and
yet it would seem as if she had taken his proposition in its fullest
sense as a matrimonial declaration, and actually referred him to her
father. He was pleased, frightened, and utterly unprepared.

"But what would YOU say, Nelly?" He drew closer to her and held out both
his hands. But she retreated a step and slipped her own behind her.

"Better see what father says first," she said quietly. "You may change
your mind again and go back to San Francisco."

He was confused, and reddened again. But he had become accustomed to her
ways; rather, perhaps, he had begun to recognize the quaint justice that
underlaid them, or, possibly, some better self of his own, that had been
buried under bitterness and sloth and struggled into life. "But whatever
he says," he returned eagerly, "cannot alter my feelings to YOU. It can
only alter my position here, and you say you are above being influenced
by that. Tell me, Nelly--dear Nelly! have you nothing to say to me, AS
I AM, or is it only to your father's manager that you would speak?" His
voice had an unmistakable ring of sincerity in it, and even startled
him--half rascal as he was!

The young girl's clear, scrutinizing eyes softened; her red resolute
lips trembled slightly and then parted, the upper one hovering a little
to one side over her white teeth. It was Nelly's own peculiar smile, and
its serious piquancy always thrilled him. But she drew a little farther
back from his brightening eyes, her hands still curled behind her, and
said, with the faintest coquettish toss of her head toward the hill: "If
you want to see father, you'd better hurry up."

With a sudden determination as new to him as it was incomprehensible,
Reddy turned from her and struck forward in the direction of the hill.
He was not quite sure what he was going for. Yet that he, who had only
a moment before fully determined to leave the rancho and her, was now
going to her father to demand her hand as a contingency of his remaining
did not strike him as so extravagant and unexpected a denouement as
it was a difficult one. He was only concerned HOW, and in what way, he
should approach him. In a moment of embarrassment he hesitated, turned,
and looked behind him.

She was standing where he had left her, gazing after him, leaning
forward with her hands still held behind her. Suddenly, as with an
inspiration, she raised them both, carried them impetuously to her lips,
blew him a dozen riotous kisses, and then, lowering her head like a
colt, whisked her skirt behind her, and vanished in the cover.

III.

It was only May, but the freshness of early summer already clothed
the great fields of the rancho. The old resemblance to a sea was still
there, more accented, perhaps, by the undulations of bluish-green
grain that rolled from the actual shore-line to the foothills. The farm
buildings were half submerged in this glowing tide of color and lost
their uncouth angularity with their hidden rude foundations. The same
sea-breeze blew chilly and steadily from the bay, yet softened and
subdued by the fresh odors of leaf and flower. The outlying fringe of
oaks were starred through their underbrush with anemones and dog-roses;
there were lupines growing rankly in the open spaces, and along the
gentle slopes of Oak Grove daisies were already scattered. And, as if it
were part of this vernal efflorescence, the eminence itself was crowned
with that latest flower of progress and improvement,--the new Oak Grove
Hotel!

Long, low, dazzling with white colonnades, verandas, and balconies which
retained, however, enough of the dampness of recent creation to make
them too cool for loungers, except at high noon, the hotel nevertheless
had the charms of freshness, youth, and cleanliness. Reddy's fastidious
neatness showed itself in all the appointments, from the mirrored and
marbled barroom, gilded parlors, and snowy dining-room, to the chintz
and maple furnishing of the bedrooms above. Reddy's taste, too, had
selected the pretty site; his good fortune had afterward discovered
in an adjoining thicket a spring of blandly therapeutic qualities. A
complaisant medical faculty of San Francisco attested to its merits;
a sympathetic press advertised the excellence of the hotel; a
novelty-seeking, fashionable circle--as yet without laws and blindly
imitative--found the new hotel an admirable variation to the vulgar
ordinary "across the bay" excursion, and an accepted excuse for a novel
social dissipation. A number of distinguished people had already visited
it; certain exclusive families had secured the best rooms; there were a
score of pretty women to be seen in its parlors; there had already been
a slight scandal. Nothing seemed wanting to insure its success.

Reddy was passing through the little wood where four months before he
had parted from Kelly Woodridge to learn his fate from her father. He
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