[Noah Brooks, The Gentleman From Reno, The Overland Monthly, October 1868]

 

1868.]              THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.                379

 

THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.

            THE wind was blowing a gale. Dear, dear, how the wind does blow, though, over here on Russian Hill, where our house stands. My husband says that it seems to him sometimes as if the air was a river with a mill-race current, and was flying full of sticks, stones and sand. If our front door is left unfastened any time after half-past eleven o'clock in the forenoon, it flies open with a spiteful bang, and in a moment every door in the house is clapped to or slammed open, and the house—our house is small and thin—resounds as if a small army was firing off cannons in it. I do believe that some day Harry will come home and find the house, wife, children and fixtures, blown from Jenkins street to Decatur street. The structure is only clap-boards and shingles, and how it has ever stood so long as it has, surpasses my comprehension. But, as I was saying, the wind was blowing a gale, and I was just on the point of going to see if the front door was fastened—our Norah is so careless, and little Harry persists in going out at that door " because papa does "—when open it blew with a tremendous bang, every other door in the house flying to or fro as the case happened to be, each one firing a salute of its own and knocking down the plastering in great flakes ; they do build such cheap houses nowadays ! The gale swept through my bit of a parlor, sending everything whirling, and I was mad enough to cry to see my manuscript fly all over the floor ; for while the children were out with Nora, I had sat down to fix up my little story for the Trans-Continental, knowing full well that if I did not cross out all the best bits, the editor would. (What fatal stupidity editors always have for cutting out the best part of a thing, to be sure !) I was half-hesitating whether to try and save my precious manuscript or run first and shut the door, when I heard a voice at the front door saying, " Hallo ! house there !"

            Now, for a lone, lorn woman to hear a rough voice like that at her open door, with her husband off visiting patients, the servant and children gone the Lord knows where, and no neighbors nearer than three blocks of sand hills, you will admit that it was a little terrifying, especially when you know that I am a small woman, and am so cooped up at home with my household duties and three small children, that I never see anybody outside my own house. But, with no small quiver at my heart, I went into the little hall, and there stood a stout, dark-skinned man, wearing a soft hat and a new suit of clothes, the store creases in which I saw before I saw his face. "Blow me !" said he—which I thought quite unnecessary, as he was being blown and so was I ; for, as I stood in the narrow hall, I had hard work to keep my feet, and was painfully conscious that my hoop skirt was showing right through the thin calico I had on. " Blow me !" says he, " I thought I never should raise anybody. Ain 't this Hank Clayton's house." I replied with some dignity, not unmixed with tremulousness, that this was Dr. Henry Clayton's residence ; whereupon he bolted into the hall and closed the door after him, saying, " Well, marm, you'll blow right through the side of the house, if you don't get shet of this ere wind."

            The mysterious stranger, to my horror, marched into the parlor and sat down, deliberately hanging his hat on my lovely Clytie in real marble, which stands on a plaster pedestal in the little corner behind the sofa.

380      THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.    [OCT.

            "So you don't know me," said this apparition ; and, without waiting for my scared negative, he added, " Well, I should n't 'spose you would, considerin' that you never seen me afore. I'm just from Reno ; came down on the Sacramento boat last night, and after I had time to do a few odd chores and get kinder slicked up, I jest come out to see Hank and his young ones." He looked complacently down on his creased pantaloons, and tenderly picked a few grains of sand from his gray coat-sleeve as he spoke. I told him I was sorry my husband was not at home, but if he would call again to-morrow he would be sure to find him at nine o'clock, or he would be more likely to find him at four in the afternoon at his office, No. 2,010 Kearny street. But in vain ; the dreadful man insisted that he had got through with his day's chores, and could just as well wait as not, and he added : " Now, up in Reno, where we do things on the keen jump, why, a man hasn't no time to fool away waiting for nobody ; we are a ever sharp set up there ; built a town of three thousand inhabitants, fourteen stores, four hotels, twelve saloons, a French restaurant and a billiard emporium in six weeks. Oh, yes : in Reno we do things in a hurry, and you've got to look alive there, you jest bet yer life, now."

            Was ever a woman more painfully circumstanced ? I could scarcely believe that it was not some horrid dream, and that I was not actually sitting in my own sewing-chair, where I had passed so many busy hours, looking at that dreadful man, spreading his ungainly limbs all over my ruby plush sofa, crossing his ridiculous legs as though he were in a bar-room, and making the knick-knacks on the bracket over his head dance madly to the vibrations of his big, rough voice. But there he was, and how he got in and established himself on that sofa as though he owned the entire little establishment and was considering whether he should carry it off, I cannot for the life of me say. There he was and protested that he " had just as soon wait for Hank as not." It was a monstrous lie, of course ; he never knew my precious Harry, whom he dared to call " Hank," and he had  come here to rob the house, to carry off all my best dresses and Harry's silver goblet, given to him by a grateful patient who never paid his bill. Was he a burglar ; or an escaped lunatic ; or a wicked murderer, going about to kill people and burn down their houses, just  to make a sensation in the newspapers ? I could not tell ; but as I gave up all hopes of coaxing him out of the house, I wildly thought of baiting him with cake and wine while I stole up stairs, rolled up my silk dresses and escaped by the back door to intercept the children and Norah, and alarm the neighbors up on Decatur street. But there was my husband's precious goblet, on which my agonized gaze rested when I turned it away from the horrible fascination of the gentleman from Reno.

            He was plainly a cunning man, and was playing with me as a cat plays with a mouse. He talked long and loud of the wonders of Reno, of its growth, its glories, its brilliant future and its present greatness. " Why, marm," said he, " four months ago there wasn't a stick nor a stake to show where even the railroad was going to run ; not a plank was set up nor a lot run out—but to-day there 's a big town doing nigh on to five hundred thousand dollars worth of trade, and lots are going off like hot cakes ; you can't get round for the teams there is in the streets ; goods sell for eighty- five per cent. profit, and last week we had a right peart race, a ball at the El Dorado, four runaways, a tolerable lively shooting scrape, a new paper started, and four funerals !" To this catalogue of attractions I listened mechanically, knowing full well that the dreadful man was making up everything he said,

1868.]              THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.                381

amusing me with fabrications and playing on my ignorance. I had heard of such a place as Reno, but I had not been able to keep track of the new towns that spring up along the line of the Pacific railroad, and really could not say if Reno was in California or Utah. But here was a red-faced man, sun-burnt and with sticking-plaster on his lips, who said he was a citizen of Reno ! Where was Reno ? Was there any such place ? Was he not a base imposter, pretending to know my husband in order to ingratiate himself into my esteem before he set fire to the house and carried off my Bismarck silk dress and our best china ? Oh, would Norah never come ? And when would Harry be at home ?

            No Sister Ann, of Blue Beard story, ever gazed more anxiously from top of a tower for the coming of the avenging brothers, than I watched for the return of that blessed Norah. She came at length, and seemed an angel of light as she toiled through the sand, dragging one child by either hand, while a third clung fast to her skirts in the rear. At last I had companionship in my terrors ; but I found Norah no assistance, for as soon as I communicated to her the dreadful intelligence, and she had gained through the crack of the door one peep at the monster sitting on my ruby plush sofa, she threw her apron over her head, and, rocking herself too and fro, exclaimed : " Wirrah, wirrah, now, what will become of the poor childher ?" I had great difficulty in keeping her still and restraining her from departing by the back door with her prayer-book, Sunday bonnet, best boots and a five hundred dollar United States bond, which she had sewed up in her mattress. She finally quieted somewhat and agreed to get supper—though lamenting that she had not a dose of poison to put in a biscuit for the gentleman from Reno. Norah was more skeptical than I, even, in regard to the town from which our unwelcome visitor professed to have come. "Rayno ! Rayno !" she exclaimed indignantly, " Does he think to play the likes of us for a Josh ? There 's no such place as Rayno in all Californy, shure, unless its some dirthy hole that's lived in by the haythin Chinee."

            When I returned to the parlor I found little Minnie perched upon the monster's knee, telling I do n't know what about the wealth of jewels and silver her mamma had ; while the others, older and wiser, stood off at a discreet distance, and eyed the mysterious stranger suspiciously. He pressed his patched lips on the peachy cheeks of my darling child in a way that made me quiver with honest indignation ; I knew he was only playing on my maternal weakness, and when he hypocritically forced a little drop of moisture into the corner of his eye, he probably thought that he had, as Norah phrased it, "played me for a Josh." But I was not to be deceived, and sweeping the children away from him, waited and watched for my husband's return.

            The gentleman from Reno was not to be kept from the children, and actually succeeded in seducing Harry to his side by displaying an enormously heavy gold watch, which I noticed he carried in his trowsers pocket with only a strap of buckskin attached to it. Harry, he declared, "favored his father mightily ; had just such a pug nose as Hank had, and his eyes had the same queer kind of a squinny that Hank's did." Scared though I was at the stranger, I could not help denying that my husband's eyes had a cast in them or that his nose was a pug. But my visitor coolly told me that he couldn't see it.

            Presently, I discovered a small boy toiling over the wastes of sand in front of the house ; the door-bell rang, and Norah brought me in a note, the messenger departing in rapid somersaults, by way of diversion, before I could stop him and send out for help to the city. He had brought me evil tidings ; my

382      THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.    [OCT.

husband wrote in a hurry to say that he had been called across the bay to attend an old patient, and would not be at home until next morning ! This was dreadful news, indeed. Alone in the house with this strangely-acting man, with no neighbors near, night shutting down, and my hope of my husband's return suddenly cut off; was ever woman so horribly situated ? But in the darkness of despair I caught one gleam of hope. There was now no excuse for the gentleman from Reno to tarry any longer. I told him, with ill-concealed triumph, that my husband would not be at home until the next day, and he would be sure to meet him at the nine o'clock boat. So I rose and looked significantly at his huge soft hat, hanging on my bust of Clytie, and stood ready to show him the door. He said, " Oh, well, it do n't make any difference to me, I can jest wait here for him. I reckon you can bunk me in somewhere, and it wo n't be so lonesome for you if you have a man about the house, seeing as your old man's not round." In vain I protested that I was used to being alone, (which was a fib) and that I did not mind it, (which was another) and that it would not be convenient for me to have him stop.  He declared, with horrible irony, that I should be half-scared to death if I was left alone, and that he could "lop down " on the floor or anywhere if I had no spare bed for him. He had fared much worse before now in Reno.

            So he stayed. I can never forget nor can I depict the horrors of that night. He sat after supper chatting with rascally nonchalance of all sorts of improbable things which "Me and Hank" had done when they camped together in Brandy Cañon in 1850, just as though my refined and precious husband ever knew this rough creature before me, or had shared in the adventures which he now spun out in his wild talk of the days of '50 at Hog Bar and Brandy Cañon. He took up one of my fragile hyacinths blooming in the window, (the wind blows so we cannot raise flowers out doors in Jenkins street) and nursing it with his plastered lips, said : " Now, that 's purty ; we don't have no flowers up in Reno." I deluded myself into the notion that he gave a little sigh, but he added disdainfully, as if rallying himself, " We do n't have no time to fool away on posies, you bet." Every once in a while he got up and walked the room, and then I thought my time had come, but he only strode across the little parlor with two or three long steps, making the house rattle in every joint, so that I thought it would come down about my ears, and \then he sat down again. Once he extended his walk into the door-yard, but soon came back, smelling dreadfully of tobacco smoke, which the wind, now lulled to a zephyr, was not strong enough to blow away. The children having been put to bed, and Norah, snivelling with apprehension, being permitted to curl herself up in a corner of my own chamber, I had nothing to do but sit up with a fearful sort of fascination, and listen vacantly to the discursive talk of the gentleman from Reno. I sat and looked at him as he half-nodded in his chair, wildly wondering if he would not go to sleep, and if I could not seize him and pinion him before he could awake. I thought how terribly he would struggle, and how Norah would hear him and come howling down stairs, or vainly scream for help from the windows.

            Sometimes I thought I would rise up and fiercely ask him why he did not begin his bloody work, and put me out of Misery ? But as I am a timid and nervous little woman, I did no such thing, but let him run on with his talk, and wondered at his voice, which actually, now that the wind was down, made the house shake.

            Led by some awful spell upon me, I showed him, shudderingly, to his chamber, and after his gray suit had dropped in detached parts all over the

1863.]  THE GENTLEMAN FROM RENO.    383

floor, I heard him throw himself, with a sort of snort, upon the pretty little spare bed in the best room, with a crash that threatened to bring the frail thing in fragments through the thin floor. I did not dare take off my clothes, but softly placing a chair before the door of the gentleman from Reno, I slipped into my own room, locked the door, and lay quaking through the night, waiting for the signal when the violence would begin. Confused dreams of a great many gentlemen from Reno carrying off my children and best china in small installments, made my night long and troubled. I started up at every sound, rigid with terror as I fancied I heard my lodger fall over the chair which I had placed to trap him, or I was sure that I heard crackling of fire on the stairs, or the low whistle of a confederate under the windows. But no sound smote on the ear but the melancholy boom of the fog-bell at Fort-Point, the occasional barking of the dogs in the Western Addition, and the stertorous breathing of the gentleman from Reno.

            Daylight came and brought with it a sense of security, if not of rest. I had passed a miserable night ; but somewhat to my astonishment found myself alive and unharmed, and the house as peaceful and serene as usual. When I heard my visitor stirring in his room, I went and took away the chair from his door, feeling a little ashamed of the fears that looked so ridiculous by daylight. We had an early breakfast, at which the gentleman from Reno, who now was as much of a puzzle as a terror to me, announced that he would go to meet my husband at the boat. As he went out, he stooped and kissed little Minnie, saying : "Say what you will, we have n't got no such nice little gals as this over to Reno. Crocker—he's the boss contractor of that town—he 's offered a prize of a town lot for the first baby that's born on the place, and you jest better believe the women are all looking arter that lot, and they do say that some women are coming up from Cisco, and those in the town are mad to think—but I guess I'll tell Hank about that," he added, with a queer little laugh ; and so he went off over the sandhills, and with a great gulp of satisfaction, I actually saw the last of the gentleman from Reno.

            Harry came driving up to the gate about noon, just as that wretched wind began to blow again ; and as soon as I could get him inside the door, I said, reproachfully : " Oh, Harry, I have had such a time ! "

            " Have you, my dear ? Why, you look as if you had seen a ghost. There, there, now, don't set the deck pumps going, but tell me all about it,"

            Harry used to be in the navy, and has that injurious manner of twitting me about "deck-pumps," that I never dare let the water come into my eyes when he is about, so I swallowed my grief, under which I was weakly inclined to give way, and told him the whole story from beginning to end, minutely describing the mysterious visitor. Having listened attentively, his big eyes growing bigger and dancing with fun as I went on, finally he burst out with—" Why, that's Bob Patchen from Reno. He 's one of my old cronies that I used to know up in Brandy Cañon in '50."

            In vain I told him of the way he came into the house ; how he shook the building with his tread, and what dreadful stories he told about the doings of " Me and Hank" in those wild days of old. He protested that Bob Patchen was one of the best fellows in the world, and he was sorry that he had missed him at the Oakland boat. In fact, he said, I believe, that the gentleman from Reno was "a gentleman, every inch of him—rough, to be sure, and as uncouth as any man gets to be knocking about the world and deprived of the society of women ; but, nevertheless, a tender-hearted, whole- souled  fellow, who would not needlessly harm a fly, but who could drop his man at a hundred yards, just as easy." Well,

384      MATING.        [OCT.  

I had to give in, of course, and was well laughed at for my foolish fears, and that cruel husband of mine roared until I thought he and the wind together would raise the roof as I told him of my furtive preparations to carry his silver goblet and my Bismarck silk out at the back door.

            He drove off down town to hunt up "honest Bob Patchen," who went back to Reno that very night, and I never saw him again. But as Harry came into the house at supper time, he handed me a square pasteboard box, in which I found one of the loveliest and most delicate bouquets I ever laid eyes on. None but a refined taste could have selected it ; and in the bottom of the box was a card on which was written, crookedly and slantwise :

MR. ROBERT PATCHEN,

                                                                                    Reno,

                                                                                                Nev.