CHAPTER XIV.
TWO YEARS AFTER.
The little brown house on the hill vanished; in its place stands a modern mansion, broad and high, attractively arrayed in white and green, with commodious out-buildings, broad walks and flower-beds about it; a wide and well-cultivated vegetable patch stretching to the water, with a young orchard, handsome and vigorous, away to the right. There are evidences of abundant means in its laying out, and of rare taste in its nurture. It is still the Sleeper place, and Captain Cyrus Sleeper is the head of its household. When the earthly remains of Delia Sleeper had been laid away in the quiet churchyard, and the serious faces of the gossips of Cleverly had resumed their wonted aspect, eager was the desire of these curious people to know the cause of the long absence of the captain; and the stricken household were not long left to the solitude they coveted.
The captain’s story was very brief. Generally a man of voluble tongue, the sad scene which had greeted his return home seemed to have so shocked him, that his communications were abrupt, often rude, and entirely unsatisfactory to the news-seekers.
He had been to California, among the first adventurers to the Golden State, had struck gold with the earliest, and at the end of a year’s absence from home, returned to San Francisco well laden with treasure. Here a thirst for speculation took hold of him; and, without experience, he became the gull of a set of sharpers, and in less than three months was penniless. Back to the mines again, but with a sterner experience. The mines were overcrowded, gold was harder to find, and still harder to keep. Yet he worked away for eighteen months, recovered all he had lost, and came back to San Francisco, determined to start for home. But this time he had a partner; and before the division of the hard-won nuggets was made, his partner, thinking a whole loaf better than half a loaf, vanished with the joint stock, leaving Sleeper with barely enough to reach home.
At this time news of the gold discoveries in Australia reached California, and thirsty Sleeper started for the new fount, to fill his empty pitcher. His good luck returned to him, and, after long and patient delving, the coveted treasure was in his grasp. Taught wisdom by experience, he banked his gold as fast as gained, and when he reached Boston was worth at least three hundred thousand dollars.
He reached home, a wealthy man, to find his wife dying of neglect; to find she had not heard from him for years. He could not understand it. Had he written? Certainly, often. But no letters had ever reached her. Yet when closely questioned, it appeared he had only written twice, being a man with whom penmanship was a most unmanageable craft, and had entrusted his epistles to the care of others. He was a fair type of too many sailors; the bonds of affection held strong at home; but away, the driving winds and tossing waves snapped them, and they were useless to guide the giddy rover.
Cyrus Sleeper mourned his wife deeply for a while, and then his bustling spirit set itself to work. He was proud of his daughter; gazed upon her with admiration; watched her quick steps and ready tact in household affairs, and swore a big sailor oath to himself that she should have the best home in Cleverly. He kept his word. He went to Captain Thompson, and asked him to take his child until he could build. The captain took them all—his friend, Becky, Teddy, even Aunt Hulda; and for a year they were the inhabitants of his house.
Then the old house came down, and the new structure went up. With ready money and a pushing spirit, Cyrus Sleeper found men and materials ready at his command; and after a year’s absence the family returned to the old spot, to find it entirely metamorphosed, as if by the hands of an enchanter.