Mrs Skaggss Husbands | Page 8

it is Tommy
Islington.' Them's the very words I used."
He stopped and chafed his clammy hands upon his knees. "It's six
months ago sens I made you my pardner. Thar ain't a lick I've struck
sens then, Tommy, thar ain't a han'ful o' yearth I've washed, thar ain't a
shovelful o' rock I've turned over, but I tho't o' you. 'Share, and share
alike,' sez I. When I wrote to my agint, I wrote ekal for my pardner,
Tommy Islington, he hevin no call to know ef the same was man or
boy."
He had moved nearer the boy, and would perhaps have laid his hand
caressingly upon him, but even in his manifest affection there was a
singular element of awed restraint and even fear,--a suggestion of
something withheld even his fullest confidences, a hopeless perception
of some vague barrier that never could be surmounted. He may have
been at times dimly conscious that, in the eyes which Tommy raised to
his, there was thorough intellectual appreciation, critical good-humor,
even feminine softness, but nothing more. His nervousness somewhat
heightened by his embarrassment, he went on with an attempt at
calmness which his twitching white lips and unsteady fingers made
pathetically grotesque. "Thar's a bill o' sale in my bunk, made out
accordin' to law, of an ekal ondivided half of the claim, and the
consideration is two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,--gambling
debts,--gambling debts from me to you, Tommy,--you
understand?"--nothing could exceed the intense cunning of his eye at
this moment,--"and then thar's a will."

"A will?" said Tommy, in amused surprise.
Johnson looked frightened.
"Eh?" he said, hurriedly, "wot will? Who said anythin' 'bout a will,
Tommy?"
"Nobody," replied Tommy, with unblushing calm.
Johnson passed his hand over his cold forehead, wrung the damp ends
of his hair with his fingers, and went on: "Times when I'm took bad ez I
was to-day, the boys about yer sez--you sez, maybe, Tommy-- it's
whiskey. It ain't, Tommy. It's pizen,--quicksilver pizen. That's what's
the matter with me. I'm salviated! Salviated with merkery.
"I've heerd o' it before," continued Johnson, appealing to the boy, "and
ez a boy o' permiskus reading, I reckon you hev too. Them men as
works in cinnabar sooner or later gets salviated. It's bound to fetch 'em
some time. Salviated by merkery."
"What are you goin' to do for it?" asked Tommy.
"When the agint comes up, and I begins to realize on this yer mine,"
said Johnson, contemplatively, "I goes to New York. I sez to the
barkeep' o' the hotel, 'Show me the biggest doctor here.' He shows me. I
sez to him, 'Salviated by merkery,--a year's standin',--how much?' He
sez, 'Five thousand dollars, and take two o' these pills at bedtime, and
an ekil number o' powders at meals, and come back in a week.' And I
goes back in a week, cured, and signs a certifikit to that effect."
Encouraged by a look of interest in Tommy's eye, he went on.
"So I gets cured. I goes to the barkeep', and I sez, 'Show me the biggest,
fashionblest house thet's for sale yer.' And he sez, 'The biggest, nat'rally
b'longs to John Jacob Astor.' And I sez, 'Show him,' and he shows him.
And I sez, 'Wot might you ask for this yer house?' And he looks at me
scornful, and sez, 'Go 'way, old man; you must be sick.' And I fetches
him one over the left eye, and he apologizes, and I gives him his own

price for the house. I stocks that house with mohogany furniture and
pervisions, and thar we lives, you and me, Tommy, you and me!"
The sun no longer shone upon the hillside. The shadows of the pines
were beginning to creep over Johnson's claim, and the air within the
cavern was growing chill. In the gathering darkness his eyes shone
brightly as he went on: "Then thar comes a day when we gives a big
spread. We invites govners, members o' Congress, gentlemen o' fashion,
and the like. And among 'em I invites a Man as holds his head very
high, a Man I once knew; but he doesn't know I knows him, and he
doesn't remember me. And he comes and he sits opposite me, and I
watches him. And he's very airy, this Man, and very chipper, and he
wipes his mouth with a white hankercher, and he smiles, and he ketches
my eye. And he sez, 'A glass o' wine with you, Mr. Johnson'; and he
fills his glass and I fills mine, and we rises. And I heaves that wine,
glass and all, right into his damned grinnin' face. And he jumps for
me,--for he is very game, this Man, very game,--but some on 'em grabs
him, and he sez, 'Who