The Mine with the Iron Door

by Harold Bell Wright

And so in their mutual need both mother and son found compensation for their dreams that now could never come true. In place of the professional honors that were predicted with such confidence for her boy, and toward which she had looked with such pride, the mother saw her son honored by the love of the unpretentious country folk. From plans that had failed and hopes that were buried, Jimmy himself turned to the grandeur of the mountains and the beauty of tree and bush and flower—to the limitless spaces of the desert and the peace of the quiet stars. The life of the great eastern city, with its hunger for fame, its struggle for riches, its endless tumult and its restless longings, faded farther and farther away. The simple, more primitive, more peaceful life of God’s great unimproved world became every day more satisfying.

To the roaming cowboys and miners and their kind, and to the people of the little mountain village, that tiny white house on the hill was known. And many a man, when things were going wrong, came to spend an hour with this friend whose understanding was so clear and whose counsel was so true. Many a girl or woman in need of comfort, strength or courage came to sit a while with Mrs. Burton. And sometimes a tired rider of the range would hear in the twilight dusk the clear, sweet song of Jimmy’s flute and, hearing, would smile and lift his wide-brimmed hat; or perhaps a lonely prospector, camped for the night in some gulch or wash would hear, and, hearing, would think again of things that in his search for gold he had forgotten. And this is how Doctor James Burton became Saint Jimmy and Saint Jimmy’s mother became Mother Burton to them all.

It was natural that the good doctor should become Marta Hillgrove’s teacher, and that Mrs. Burton should mother the girl who, until her fathers brought her to the Cañada del Oro, had never known a woman’s guiding love. Indeed, it was Saint Jimmy and his mother and all that their friendship meant to Marta that had kept the Pardners in that neighborhood. Never before since the beginning of their partnership had those wanderers stayed so long in one place. For four—nearly five—years Marta had been studying under Saint Jimmy; a fair equivalent of the usual college course. With this textbook education she had received from Mother Burton the kind of training that such a woman would have given a daughter of her own. And yet these most excellent teachers knew no more of their pupil’s history than did those thoughtless ones who so freely discussed the girl and looked at her askance for what they thought her parentage might be.

It should be said, too, that this schooling which Marta had received from Saint Jimmy and his mother was wholly a matter of love. As Doctor Burton explained to the Pardners, when they insisted that he should be paid “same as a reg’lar teacher,” the work was really a blessing to him in that his pupil contributed more to his life than he could possibly give to hers; while Mother Burton warned the anxious fathers, gently but firmly, that if they ever said another word about pay they would ruin everything.

But as the years passed and she watched the amazing development of the girl’s mind, and saw the unfolding of her richly endowed womanhood, wise Mother Burton came to wonder sometimes if Saint Jimmy’s teaching was not more a matter of love than even he perhaps realized.

On that spring morning when Marta rode to Oracle and her fathers discussed the problem that so troubled them, Saint Jimmy sat in the yard before the cottage door. On every side he saw the Mariposa tulips lifting their lovely orange cups, and sweet pea blossoms swinging like pink and white fairies above a lilac carpet of wild verbena and purple fragrant hyptis, while against the rocks that were stained with splashes of gray and orange and red and yellow lichens stood the purple pentstemon. The mountain sides below were wondrous with the scarlet glory of the ocotillo and the indescribable beauty of the chollas and opuntias with their crowns and diadems of red and salmon and orange and pink. The slopes and benches of the lower levels were bright with great fields of golden brittle-bush; and beyond these, on the wide spaces of the mesa, he could see the yuccas (our Lord’s candles) in countless thousands, raising their stately shafts with eight-foot clusters of creamy-white bloom.

Mrs. Burton, leaving her housework for a moment, came to stand in the doorway. When they had spoken of the beautiful sight that never failed to move them—calling each other’s attention to different favorite views—Saint Jimmy said:

“Mother, doesn’t it all make you sort of hungry for something—something that can’t be told in words?” he laughed in boyish embarrassment.

His mother smiled.

“Marta will be coming from Oracle with the mail, I suppose—this is Saturday, you know.”