Plet: A Christmas Tale of the Wasatch

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH.*

BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE, AUTHOR OF *'hOLLY AND EASTER LILLIES," "pictures of an inland SEA," ETC.

— And so, dear friend, you want me to tell you a tale a tale — from my western life something to suit the time. Strange that you should ask it, and tonight of all nights. What prompted you to make the request? Was it becauae you think the comforts of this snug little room, that ruddy fire, are fitting accessories for an hour of confidence? At least between the two old bachelors like ourselves, that were friends in the auld lang syne? I grant it;

but why did you say, something to suit the time? Was that a slip of the tongue merely, a whim, or a thought, perhaps, that at this time of festivity one should tell none but seasonable tales? Which was it; either of those reasons, or did it originate otherwise? Come, let me know. You see I am just a little bit curious. Why did you say, to suit the time? Well, let it go, if you cannot account for it; but you will see that I had a good reason for asking. Had you made the request of me any other night of the year, I could not have complied so easily. I will tell you a tale, a tale from my western life, and one to suit the time. It all comes back again, as it always does and will, on each Christmas eve. No matter how many more years I have to live,

Copyright by Alfred Lambourne.

I shall never forget it. It will keep fresh in my mind till my death. A good long one, too, did you say? Yes; if you want it so. Too long, perhaps, and preachy; and after all, not exactly what a Christmas tale should be, one to carry the attention along as a boat on a swift-running stream, never letting it slip away or grow weary before the end is reached. Mine may not do that, but it will interest you, I believe. I am no artist, however; so you won't expect me to be one.

You will overlook all shortcomings in that line, won't you, old friend? and also that it is a love tale, something which old bachel- ors are supposed to know nothing about. Well, then I'll begin.

I.

CHRISTMAS EVE— JO'S WORK. Crash! crash!! crash!!! The hills re-echoed with the dull volumes of sound. What did it mean? I knew, and so did Jo.

There was no mistaking it. The air that had been humid for the last few days, strangely so for the latter part of December, grew suddenly cold; the great canyon v^as filled from side to side with a cloud of mist; there were other sounds, too, besides the dull roarings — crashing and crackling and snapping of breaking tim- bers. Then shrieks came sharp and shrill through the night. It

was the awful slides beginning again. We hurried along, fast as our snow-shoes would let us. Some- times when we came to a long, smooth slope we would make a glissade. There was danger in front of us and danger behind. There was no telling where the slides would come down, when once they were started. In a moment, they might sweep the spot where we stood; in another, we might step in their path. Jo took the lead. He was a brave young lad, always ready at the time of danger. No shirking of work or of help from him. Come what luck would, Jo was on hand. Good fortune or bad, Jo could be counted upon. Humanity called us forward —we might be of use. Under the fallen snow most likely were women and children. He worked

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 47

with a will, too, when we got there, and I did what I could, but I was a trifle too old (yes, I'm over sixty now), and I could do little compared with hira. How he did dig and delve! not one of the brawny men that helped that night did as much as he. In half an hour we had rescued four. Did you ever see a snowslide or help at a rescue? I guess

not. Well, it is dreadful. But one must not think of that. It is a time not to mourn for the dead but to work for the living. But we cannot always control our emotions, however. They well up sometimes in spite of us. I've seen the brown cheeks of men, brave and strong, turn pale, as the crushed, lifeless forms of women and children were lifted from the white prison house, and seen the eyes of the hardest workers filled with tears when they reached a comrade believed to be past hope, but who was found to breathe — to live. They have tender hearts, those men that work in the hills, though they may be rough at times. Jo kept on steadily working. Often I have asked of myself since then, what influence led him? There must have been some- thing — something even more than his kindness of heart — or how could he have toiled so, on and on, taking no rest? There must have been something of which we did not know. Perhaps when one heart is made for another there is a link between them which we don't understand. Soon we had reached three more — a father, mother and child,

all dead. The father had been crushed by a falling beam, but neither mother nor child was disfigured. The snow, however, was packed around them hard as ice almost, and we had to chop it away in places with an ax. The little one's tiny hands were clasped to- gether as if in prayer, and there was something hanging upon the wall at the cradle head. It made a great lump come up in our

— throats when we saw it a small blue stocking. For you see it was, as now, the Christmas eve, and the child or the mother had placed it there t be seen ! by the first peep of light. But the lit- tle one's eyes would never open again to see what Saint Nicholas

had brought her for the Christmas morn. After that we worked slower. It seemed that the sight had taken our strength away, though, as I said before, it was a time to work for the living, not to mourn for the dead.

So we continued, .though sadly, working on through the night; that is, Jo and a few of the others did, for we who were older had become exhausted. It seemed that the task would never end,

there was so much to do. Nor did we older ones leave our post entirely, but remained to cheer up those who worked, and assisted them, too, by holding the lanterns. It was a long and trying night. Before we got through with it there were twelve dead bodies lying on the snow, side by side as we had placed them, but there were only two more added to the number we had saved. It all comes back to me; as I've said, it seems to transpire

again. I had before helped at rescue, and was us^d to their

dreadful sights, so it must have been how it ended, and what fol- lowed, that keeps it so clear in my mind. She was the last one we saved, just after her father. You see, they had been but a short time at the camp, and the house they occupied had for some time before been untenanted, and so no one thought of it, no one save Jo, and through him we set to work to dig it out. The camp was in a small, round valley, a widening^ of the canyon head, and the slides had come down from the north. The snow had cut its way through the straggling lines of houses, hurl- ing fragments of buildings up the opposite slopes. Theirs was the last house on the southern side, and there the snow was piled up deep. We had but little hope of saving them. No answer came to our calls, as sometimes there does from those imprisoned below. All was silent. We labored in dread, expecting nothing more than a fresh sight of death to reward our toil. But at last we reached them. At first glance, it seemed too late. They revived, however, though it was hard work to keep them from going. The girl's arms were thrown around her father's neck, as though she had rushed to him for protection when she heard the roar of the advancing snow, terrified at the awful sound, it seemed.

She was lovely, indeed; lovely even then, when she lay there in her long, white night-rob 3, her silken eyelashes sweeping her cheek, and her masses of dark-brown, rippling hair falling across her full, ripe bosom. No wonder that Jo fell in love with her. How could he help it.? The wonder would have been if he had not.

—

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 49

Afterward, when the cheeks were crimson with health, and the tender eyes aglow, she was such a vision as I had not seen before. Whenever I saw her with Jo, it seemed that they were created for each other, and, as time went on, it also seemed that it would be so.

That was the first time Jo ever beheld her — as he reverently raised her in his arms. Strange that the Christmas eve should play such a part as it did in their lives.

li.

OUR HOME. Our cabin, Jo's and mine, where we slept and prepared our meals (for I'm going to tell you something about our home, and who Jo was, before going on with my tale), stood in a huge hollow far up on the mountain side. Our claim (we were mining, as you can guess, of course,) was higher yet, and from the cabin door the zig-zag trail, which our constantly passing feet had made, could be seen leading to it. Between the two places —cabin and claim lay a deep and almost circular lake; small, really not more than a pond in size, a quarter of a mile across, perhaps, but so nobly sur- rounded by the hoary old mountain that it seemed to be, as I still recall it, quite a large sheet of water. Our claim was so high that from the tunnel mouth the canyon below the lake appeared but as a fissure in the earth. All around U3, almost level with our feet, were the tops of the highest peaks. We breathed sure- ly the freshest of air, whilst down in the canyon it seemed that one must needs feel stified, shut in, and long for a view of the blue, crystalline heaven, and the bright sunshine that arched above or flashed around us. A wild, lonely place, for certain; overhung by crags, and away from the world, fit, had it been elsewhere, for an eremite or a bandit of Calabria. Imagination could hardly conjure up a place more solitary, or one more rugged. Nature, however, had done much to malce the place in spots lovely. Wild flowers stood in masses along the lake margin, and on the rocky slopes, and in the steep, picturesque ravine where

the lake waters fell away. Sometimes the rocks were hidden en- tirely by them, they grew in such clustered profusion.Why, from June to September the hollow was asrlow with their gorgeous colors. They would have delighted the heart of a young girl; and they afterwards did, as I shall tell you. I have some little

knowledge of botany, and therefore soon learned to know, as well as to admire, all the various kinds. There were a gaudy mimulus, crimson with a throat of dusky gold, fiery geraniums, and myriads of starry asters. There were painted cups, and, in damp places, bunches of tall, purple monk's hood. There were saxifrages, gen- tians and mertensias; and, most charming of all, great clusters of cream-white columbines. Even in winter (winter on that alti- tude), when the snow was yet ten feet deep or more, we had flowers for companions still. Down in the well- like opening which surrounded the pine trunks, and in the narrow, uncovered space around the earliest exposed boulders, the golden, sturdy little buttercups gathered in gleaming rings. But all else in the hollow was somber, or savage, or stern. The lake waters, a pale, coldish green, where they mingled with the melting snow, or lay shallow in the rock-pools on the northern shore, appeared nevertheless of a terrible darkness where they leaned deep on the mountain side. On clear noondays, we could trace the step-like ledges of granite leading down into the watery gloom. Hemmed by the huge mountain on the east, west and south, the hollow, however, was open to the north; to the north- east, the only gap in the mountains around was the yawning can- yon. Through it, we caught a glimpse of remote blue peaks, the Oquirrh range. A mass of rock terraces, richly inlaid with mosses and lichens, stood at one end of the lake —the west. These were overtopped with a dome-shaped peak, naked of verdure, bleached into gray, or mottled here and there with orange stains of mineral. At the other end — the east — overhanging our cabin, was a vast pile of

crags, purplish iron-gray in hue, rising in spirals, and suggesting in shape another Tower of Babel. Between these two wardens of the lake — peak and tower—was a long slope of debris; a tum- bled, chaotic mass of the mountain's wasting strength. Of sounds up there, there were few. For weeks at a time.

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF IHE WASATCH. 51

naught but the plaint on the rocks of the new-born torrent, the bird-like chirp of the ground squirrel, or, sometimes at rare inter- vals, a faint boom on the face of the crags, the echo of a distant

blast. Save when the tempests came, and then there was noise enough; the wind shrieking like a fiend among the rocks, and the thunder peals crashing around us as though they must shake the mountain to pieces. Oh, we knew the voice of the mountains well! Three years we lived in that hollow, winter and summer. We saw the place under a thousand different aspects, but none, we thought, more beautiful than then, when we first met, Jo and I, and we set foot for the first time also by the deep, dark lake. 'Twas a wondrous sight then, surely. Heavy curtains of storm- cloud hung over the hollow that day, and in the murky gloom, the huge Babylonish pile of crags at its eastern end appeared to be little else than shadows, black, gigantic shadows, save for the lines of snow that gleamed on the spiral ledges. Along the north- ern shore of the lake, the rounded boulders, and the clusters of brilliant flowers, were relieved in mass against the indigo blue of

the canyon depths. The top of the conical peak was half buried in cloud, and a great wreath of steam-like vapor lay white along the crests. We gazed in silence, we two. We had met on the mountain as strangers, but had climbed the slopes together. Little did we

know then how closely our lives were to be afterwards linked,

what fast friends we were to become. But now I digress, anticipate, and that I don't want to do. While we gaze, a sudden transformation took place in the scene before us. The sunlight, breaking through a rift in the cloud-curtains, shone down across the sides of the tall, naked peak; gleamed over the mossy rock terraces; flashed a silver edge along each dark-breaking lake-wave, and rested at last upon the entangled wild-flowers on the rocks. 0, it was glorious! It

thrilled us both! We took the inspiring sight for an omen of good; and happily enough, for on that day we struck what was af- terward our claim, decided to become "pards," and chose a spot upon which to build our cabin.

52 IMPR0VEMEN7 ERA.

So you see it was kind of singular the way in which we met, and that it was a wildish place where we made our home. Sometimes, I thought that* Jo felt lonely there, though he never complained, and of course when anything was needed for use, Jo was generally the one who went to the camp. Wild and solitary as the place But I did not feel lonely. was, it somehow or other reminded me of my boyhood home, so I was contented there. How that could be, the places being so different, I do not know; but so it was, and so I tell it to you. That boyhood home, as you know, was among the New Eng- land hills, in a quiet, green valley. A broad, stilly river passed through it, and my father's old, mossy mill stood on the river bank. On the hillside was a cluster of graves —graves of depart- ed members of our family —and from the hill-top, at night-time,

we could see the window lights in the nearest village; just as from above our cabin, Jo's and mine, we could see the lights of the mining camp twinkling like fire-flies in the dusk. Thus, there seemed a likeness, to me at least, though no one else could have seen it. Not one that passed by our cabin, which was seldom, indeed, would have thought that the place was dear to either of its occupants for that reason, from any memories it might bring. They noticed only, for they were miners or pros- pectors, how isolated we were, and wondered, no doubt, how we ever expected to get down the ore should we strike any. But that was really why I did cherish it, more than for a thought of gain. I know that even now. Sometimes 1 thought of being buried there. I said so to Jo, and mentally I saw my grave on the hill-side —as thase others — were in a bit of smooth, grass-covered ground, where there were a few spruce trees, the only ones in all the place. So we became fast friends, in that high and lonely hollow, learning to know each other well. Jo told me of his hopes for the future, and then I told him — well, I was going to say of mine;

but I had few hopes then, so in place of such, I recalled for his hearing incidents and dreams from the past. And now I will tell you of Jo himself. He was a poor young lad, orphaned at an early age. He had

PLET: A CHRISTMAS TALE OF THE WASATCH. 53

been allured to the west from a desire to better his fortunes. There was that in his face which said he would be a successful man. Pie was sure to win. He was generous and brave. Honesty shone in his clear, blue eyes. His short, golden hair made a thou- sand little ringlets upon his head.I loved him as though he had

been my son, and he also was attached to me. He would be a suc- cess, though he had nothing to start with but his own energies and hopes; whilst I, who had had every advantage in youth, been fitted for a very different position in Ife, had been a failure. Per- haps it was that, the difference between us, that so attached me to him; my past life all a mistake, his future all so full of promise. But enough of that. What is the use of sighing after lost days? Let that all go. Often we would sit at the cabin door in the summer months, enjoying our dreams; lingering there in the calm twilight until the evening stars or the new moon had sunk behind the mountain tops, and the rose-red had faded from off the distant bars of cloud. Sometimes the moon, when it was at the full, would surprise us; find us watchers yet, when it came up from behind the great crags

at our back, making the lake appear as a lake of ink, so black it

would be, lying there, among the pale ledges and boulders, all wan in the misty moonbeams.

in.

PLET.

After the night of the snowslide, Plet, for that was her name, became the idol of the camp. It turned out that her father was a heavy investor in one of the richest mines near-by. He had, in fact, come west to take charge of the property. Plet, daring girl

that she was, must needs accompany him. The thought that she would have a glimpse of the wild, western mining life had irre-

sistible charms for her; so finally, after much coaxing, her father

had consented to bring her along. (He could refuse her nothing, it seemed, when she took to coaxing.) "And none happier than she," he said, "when I had yielded to her wish, and she knew that she was to come."

Everyone in the camp soon learned why she had been nick- named Plet. It was her father's doing. He was fond of telling it, too — how — came about and to no one oftener than the girl it

herself. It seemed to give him unbounded pleasure.

When his merry mood was upon him, which was not infre- quent, for he was of a social and pleasant nature, he would say: "Plet," calling his daughter to his side; "Plet, my girl, it is a won- der you are not a vain little puss. We used to spoil you in those days gone by, when you were a little toddler, and I am half afraid we have done no better since. Those brown locks of yours were pale yellow then, and there was not a prettier little head in all the country around. We used to call you pretty then, and so often, too, that after a while you thought it your name, and would an- swer to no other. So pretty you became, as pretty you were for ;

what could we do with such a little wilful? But Pletty your tripping tongue used to shape it, and, sometimes just to make you pout, we would call you Pletty, too. That's how it was, for as time went on it was shortened to Plet, and really, to tell the truth, I sometimes forget the name you were christened, it is so seldom

that I hear it spoken." Then Plet's cheeks would redden, if this kind of talk was^in- dulged in, in certain company. And so everyone who went to her father's house knew where the short pet name came from, and what it meant and also everyone could see that the father's heart was ;

wrapped up in his child. All of this we learned before the snow, which had so nearly taken the lives of them both, father and daughter, was melted from off the ground. By that time, too, everyone in the camp loved Plet. Her sweet face wrought change in many a heart there. Those whose lives were steeped in sin drew back abashed if the superintendent's child passed by. Her light smile, her kind word, were coveted by everyone; all said, or wished to say, a kind word to her. And Jo; he too was always treated well at the camp, was made much of, for the part he had taken at the rescue. {To be continued.)