Dandy Steve

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Title:     Dandy Steve
Author: Helen Hunt Jackson [More Titles by Jackson]

Everything in this world is relative, and nothing more so than the significance of the same word in different localities. If Dandy Steve had walked Broadway in the same clothes which he habitually wore in the Adirondack wilderness, not only would nobody have called him a dandy, but every one would have smiled sarcastically at the suggestion of that epithet's being applied to him. Nevertheless, "Dandy Steve" was the name by which he was familiarly known all through the Saranac region; and judging by the wilderness standard, the adjective was not undeserved. No such flannel shirts, no such jaunty felt hats, no such neckties, had ever been worn by Adirondack guides as Dandy Steve habitually wore. And as for his buck-skin trousers, they would not have disgraced a Sioux chief,--always of the softest and yellowest skins, always daintily made, the seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines of delicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said that Dandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, but nobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusive question of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting about his private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian hands embroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were such buckskins for sale,--perhaps he bought them. A man who would spend the money he did for neckties and fine flannel shirts would not stop at any extravagance in the price of trousers. The buckskins, however, were not the only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of a brilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles once seen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly one evening without the formality of knocking. Such foolish conventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was before Steve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared in that region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to be alone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin.

This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at some of the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destination that night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed to the island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country, walked in at the half-open door.

He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, it had a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a big arm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the red shawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as if some one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Steve sprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it and the bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded the shawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible.

"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper," said old Ben, "an' I declare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic, sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn't nobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the next mornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave a big blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the things clean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the whole bundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give ye a comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book, bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on the floor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to the cabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there was any woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been ever since he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I never know'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there's anybody doos know any more 'n I do; but if them wa'n't women's gear he had out there that night I hain't never seen any women's gear, that's all! Whose'omeever they was, I hain't no idea, nor how they got there; but they was women's gear. Dandy's Steve is he couldn't ha' had any use for sech a shawl's that, let alone sayin' what he'd wanted o' bracelets on his arms!"

"That's so," was the universal ejaculation of Ben's audience when he reached this point in his narrative, and there seemed to be little more to be said on either side. This was all there was of the story. It must stand in each man's mind for what it was worth, according to his individual bias of interpretation. But it had become an old story long before the time at which our later narrative of Dandy Steve's history began; so old, in fact, that it had not been mentioned for years, until the events now about to be chronicled revived it in the minds of Steve's associates and fellow-guides.

Before the end of Steve's first year in his wilderness retreat he had become as conversant with every nook and corner of its labyrinthian recesses as the oldest guides in the region. Not a portage, not a short cut unfamiliar to him; not a narrow winding brook wide enough for a canoe to float in that he did not know. He had spent all his days and many of his nights in these solitary wanderings. Visitors to the region grew wonted to the sight of the comely figure in the slight birch canoe, shooting suddenly athwart their track, or found lying idly in some dark and shaded stream-bed. On the approach of strangers he would instantly away, lifting his hat courteously if there were ladies in the boats he passed, otherwise taking no more note of the presence of human beings than of that of the deer, or the wild fowl on the water. He was not a handsome man, but there was a something in his face at which all looked twice,--men as well as women. It was an unfathomable look,--partly of pain, partly of antagonism. His eyes habitually sought the sky, yet they did not seem to perceive what they gazed upon; it was as if they would pierce beyond it.

"What a strange face!" was a common ejaculation on the part of those thus catching glimpses of his upturned countenance. More than once efforts were made by hunters who encountered him to form his acquaintance; but they were always courteously repelled. Finally he came to be spoken of as the "hermit;" and it was with astonishment, almost incredulity, that, in the spring of his third year in the Adirondacks, he was found at "Paul Smith's" offering his services as guide to a party of gentlemen who, their guide having fallen suddenly ill, were in sore straits for some one to take them down again through the lakes.

Whether it was that he had grown suddenly weary of his isolation and solitude, or whether need had driven him to this means of earning money, no one knew, and he did not say. But once having entered on the life of a guide, he threw himself into it as heartily as if it had been his life-long avocation, and speedily became one of the best guides in the region. It was observed, however, that whenever he could do so he avoided taking parties in which there were ladies. Sometimes for a whole season it would happen that he had not once been seen in charge of such a party. Sometimes, when it was difficult, in fact impossible, for him to assign any reason for refusing to go with parties containing members of the obnoxious sex, he would at the last moment privately entreat some other guide to take his place, and, voluntarily relinquishing all the profits of the engagement, disappear and be lost for several days. During these absences it was often said, "Steve's gone to see his wife," or, "Off with that Indian wife o' his up North;" and these vague, idle, gossiping conjectures slowly crystallized into a positive rumor which no one could either trace or gainsay.

And so the years went on,--one, two, three, four,--and Dandy Steve had become one of the most popular and best-known guides in the Adirondack country. His seeming effeminacy of attire had been long proved to mark no effeminacy of nature, no lack of strength. There was not a better shot, a stronger rower, on the list of summer guides; nor a better cook and provider. Every party which went out under his care returned with warm praise for Steve, with a friendly feeling also, which would in many instances have warmed into familiar acquaintance if Steve would have permitted it. But with all his cheerfulness and obliging good-will he never lost a certain quantity of reserve. Even the men whose servant he was for the time being were insensibly constrained to respect this, and to keep the distance he, not they, determined. There remained always something they could not, as the phrase was, "make out" about him. His aversion to women was well known; so much so that it had come to be a tacitly understood thing that parties of which women were members need not waste their time trying to induce Dandy Steve to take them in charge.

But fate had not lost sight of Steve yet. He had had his period of solitary independence, of apparent absolute control of his own destinies. His seven years were up. If he had supposed that he was serving them, like Jacob of old, for that best-beloved mistress, Freedom, he was mistaken. The seven years were up. How little he dreamed what the eighth would bring him!

It was midsummer, and one of Steve's best patrons, Richard Cravath, of Philadelphia, had not yet appeared. For three summers Mr. Cravath and two or three of his friends had spent a month in the Adirondacks hunting, fishing, camping under Steve's guidance. They were all rich men, and generous, and, what was to Steve of far more worth than the liberal pay, considerate of his feelings, tolerant of his reticence; not a man of them but respected their queer, silent guide's individuality as much as if he had been a man of their own sphere of life. Steve had learned, by some unpleasant experience, that this delicate consideration did not always obtain between employers and employed. It takes an organization finer than the ordinary to perceive, and live up to the perception, that the fact that you have hired a man for a certain sum of money per month to cook your food or drive your horses gives you no right to ask him in regard to his private, personal affairs prying questions which you would not dare to put to common acquaintances in society.

As week after week went by and no news came from Mr. Cravath, Steve found himself really saddened at the thought of not seeing him. He had not realized how large a part of his summer's pleasure, as well as profit, came from the month's sport with this Philadelphia party. Wistfully he scrutinized the lists of arrivals at the different houses day after day, for the familiar names; but they were not to be found. At last, after he had given over looking for them, he was electrified, one evening in September, by having his name called from the piazza of one of the hotels,--"Steve, is that you? You're just the man I want; I was afraid we were too late to get you!"

It was Mr. Cravath, and with him the two friends whom Steve had liked best of all who had been in Mr. Cravath's parties. It was the joy of the sudden surprise which prevented Steve's giving his customary close attention to Mr. Cravath's somewhat vague description of the party he had brought this time.

"You must arrange for eight, Steve," he said. "There may not be quite so many. One or two of the fellows I hoped for have not arrived, and it is too late to wait long for any one. If they are not here by day after to-morrow we will start.--And oh, Steve," he continued, with an affected careless ease, but all the while eying Steve's face anxiously, "I forgot to mention that I have brought my wife along this time. She positively refused to let me off. She said she was tired of hearing so much about the Adirondacks! She was coming this time to see for herself. You needn't have the least fear about having her along! She's as good a traveller as I am, every bit; I've had her in training at it for thirty years, and I tell her, old as we are, we are better campers than most of the young people."

"That's so, Mr. Cravath," replied Steve, his countenance clouded and his voice less joyous, "I'll answer for it with you; but do you think, sir, any lady could go where we went last year?"

In his heart Steve was saying to himself: "The idea of bringing an old woman out here! I wouldn't do it for anybody in the world but Mr. Cravath."

"My wife can go anywhere and do anything that I can, Steve," said Mr. Cravath. "You need not begin to look blue, Steve; and if you back out, or serve us any of your woman-hating tricks, such as I've heard of, I'll never speak to you again,--never."

"I wouldn't serve you any trick, Mr. Cravath, you know that," replied Steve, proudly; "and I haven't the least idea of backing out. But I am afraid Mrs. Cravath will be disappointed," he added, as he went down the steps, and luckily did not turn his head to see Mr. Cravath's face covered with the laughter he had been restraining during the last few moments.

"Caught him, by Jove!" he said, turning to his companion, a tall dark-faced man,--"caught him, by Jove, Randall! He never once thought to ask of what sex the other members of the party might be. He took it for granted my wife was to be the only woman."

"Do you think that was quite fair, Cravath?" replied Mr. Randall. "He would never have taken us in the world if he had known there were three women in the party."

"Pshaw!" laughed Mr. Cravath. "Good enough for him for having such a crotchet in his head. We'll take it out of him this trip."

"Or set it stronger than ever," said Mr. Randall. "My mind misgives me. We shall wish we had not done it. He may turn sulky and unmanageable on our hands when he finds himself trapped."

"I'll risk it," said Mr. Cravath, confidently. "If I can't bring him around, Helen Wingate will. I never saw the man, woman, child, or dumb beast yet that could resist her."

Mr. Randall sighed. "Poor child!" he said. "Isn't her gayety something wonderful? One would not think to look at her that she had ever had an hour's sorrow; but my wife tells me that she cannot speak of that husband of hers yet without the most passionate weeping!"

"I know it! It's a shame," replied Mr. Cravath, "to see a glorious woman like that throwing her life away on a memory. I did have a hope at one time that she would marry again; but I've given it up. If she would have married any one, it would have been George Walton last winter. No one has ever come so near her as he did; but she sent him off at last, like all the rest."

The "two fellows" on whom Mr. Cravath was counting to make up his party of eight did not appear; and on the second morning after the above conversations Steve received orders to have his boats in readiness at ten o'clock to start with the Cravath party, only six in number.

Old Ben was on the wharf as Steve was making his final arrangements.

"Wall, Steve," he said, shifting his quid of tobacco in a leisurely manner from one side of his mouth to the other, "you've got a soft thing again. You're a damned lucky fellow, Steve; dunno whether you know it or not."

"No, I don't know it," replied Steve, curtly; "and what's more, I don't believe in luck."

"Don't yer?" said Ben, reflectively. "Wall, I do; an' Lord knows 't ain't because I've seen so much of it. Say, Steve," he added, "how'd ye come to take on such a lot o' women folks, this trip?"

"Lot o' women folks! what d' ye mean?" shouted Steve. "There's no womenkind going except one,--Mr. Cravath's wife; and I wish to thunder he'd left her behind."

"Oh, is that all?" said Ben, half innocently, half mischievously,--he was not quite sure of his ground; "be the rest on 'em goin' to stay here? There's three women in the party. Mr. Randall he's got his wife, and there's a widder along, too; mighty fine-lookin' she is; aren't nothin' old about her, I can tell yer!"

A flash shot from Steve's eyes. A half-smothered ejaculation came from his lips as he turned fiercely towards Ben.

"There they be, now, all a-comin' down the steps," continued Ben, chuckling. "I reckon ye got took in for onst; but it's too late now."

"Yes," thought Steve, angrily, as he looked at the smiling party coming towards the landing,--three men and three women.

"It's too late now. If it had been a half-hour sooner 'twould have been early enough. But it's the last time I'm caught in any such way. What a blamed fool I was not to ask who they were! Never thought of the Cravath set lumbering themselves up with women!" And a very unpromising sternness settled down on Steve's expressive features as he stooped down to readjust some of the smaller packages in the boat.

Meantime the members of the approaching party were not wholly at ease in their minds. Mr. Cravath had confessed his suppression of the truth, and Mr. Randall's evident misgiving as to the success of the experiment had proved contagious. "If he's as queer as you say," murmured Mrs. Cravath, "he can make it awfully disagreeable for us. I am almost afraid to go."

"Nonsense!" cried Helen Wingate, merrily. "I'll take that out of him before night. Who ever heard of a man's really disliking women! It is only some particular woman he's disliked. He won't dislike us! He sha'n't dislike me! I'm going to take him by storm! Let me run ahead and jump in first." And she danced on in advance of the rest.

"Wait, Mrs. Wingate!" cried Mr. Cravath, hurrying after her. "Let me come with you."

But he was too late; she ran on, and as she reached the shore, sprang lightly on the plank, calling out: "Oh, there are all our things in already! Guide, guide, please give me your hand, quick! I want to be the first one in the boat."

Steve rose slowly,--turned. At the first glimpse of his face Helen Wingate uttered a shriek which rang in the air, and fell backwards on the sand insensible.

"Good God! she lost her footing!" exclaimed Mr. Cravath.

"She is killed!" cried the others, as they hurried breathlessly to the spot. But when they reached it, there knelt Dandy Steve on the ground by her side, his face whiter than hers, his eyes streaming with tears, his arms around her, calling, "Helen! Helen!"

At the sound of footsteps and voices he looked up, and, instantly seeking Mr. Cravath's face, gasped: "She is my wife, Mr. Cravath!"

The dumbness of unutterable astonishment fell on the whole party at these words; but in another second, rallying from the shock; they knelt around the seemingly lifeless woman, trying to arouse her. Presently she opened her eyes, and, seeing Mrs. Randall's face bending above her, said faintly: "It's Stephen! I always knew I should find him somewhere." Then she sank away again into unconsciousness.

The party for the lakes must be postponed; that was evident. Neither would it go out under the guidance of Dandy Steve, nor would Mrs. Wingate go with it; those two things were equally evident.

Which facts, revolving slowly in Old Ben's brain, led him to seat himself on the shore and abide the course of events. When, about noon, Mr. Cravath appeared, coming to look after their hastily abandoned effects, Old Ben touched his hat civilly, and said: "Good-day, sir; I thought maybe I'd get this job o' guidin' now. Leastways, I'd stay by yer truck here till somebody come to look it up."

Old Ben was the guide of all others Mr. Cravath would have chosen, next to Dandy Steve.

"By Jove, Ben," he said, "this is luck! Can you go off with us at once? Steve has got other business on hand. That lady is his wife, from whom he has been separated many years."

"So I heerd him say, sir, when he was a-pickin' her up," answered Ben, composedly, as if such things were a daily occurrence in the Adirondacks.

"Can you go with us at once?" continued Mr. Cravath.

"In an hour, sir," said Ben.

And in an hour they were off, a bewildered but on the whole a relieved and happier party than they had been in the morning. Helen Wingate's long sorrow in the mysterious disappearance of her husband had ennobled and purified her character, and greatly endeared her to her friends; but that which had seemed to them to be explainable only by the fact of his death or his unworthiness she knew was explainable by her own folly and pride.

The end of the story is best told in Old Ben's words. He was never tired of telling it.

"I never heered exactly the hull partikelers," he said, "for they'd gone long before we got back, and the folks she was with wa'n't the kind that talks much; but I could see they set a store by her. They'd always liked Steve, too, up here's a guide. They niver know'd him while he was a-livin' with her, else they'd ha' know'd him here; but he hadn't lived with her but a mighty little while's near's I could make out. Yer see, she was powerful rich, an' he hadn't but little; 'n' for all she was so much in love with him, she couldn't help a-throwin' it up to him, sort o', an' he couldn't stan' it. So he jest lit out; an' he'd never ha' gone back to her,--never under the shining sun. He'd got jest that grit in him. She'd been a-huntin' everywhere, they said,--all over Europe, 'n' Azhay, 'n' Africa, till she'd given up huntin'; an' he was right close tu hum all the time. He was a first-rate feller, 'n' we was all glad when his luck come ter him 't last. I wished I could ha' seen him to 've asked him if he didn't b'leeve in luck now! Me 'n' him was talkin' about luck that very mornin' while she was a-steppin' down the landin' towards him's fast 's ever she could go! My eyes! how that woman did come a runnin', an' a-callin', 'Guide! guide!' I sha'n't never forgit it. I asked some o' the fellers how she looked when they went off, an' they said her eyes was shinin' like stars; but there wasn't any more of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, It gits hoppin' cold here in September. I've always thought't was that same red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno's 'twas."

"Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin' journey o' theirn," said one of Ben's rougher cronies one day at the end of the narrative; "'t ain't every feller gets the chance o' two honeymoons with the same woman."

Old Ben looked at him attentively. "Youngster," said he, "'t ain't strange, I suppose, young's you be, th't ye should look at it that way; but ye're off, crony. Ye don't seem ter recolleck 'bout all them years they'd lost out of their lives. I tell ye, it's kind o' harrowin' ter me. Old's I am, and hain't never felt no call ter be married nuther, it's kind o' harrowin' ter me yit ter think o' that woman's yell she giv' when she seed Steve's face. If thar warn't jest a hull lifetime o' misery in't, 'sides the joy o' findin' him, I ain't no jedge. I haven't never felt no call ter marry, 's I sed; but if I had I wouldn't ha' been caught cuttin' up no sech didos's that,--a-throwin' away years o' time they might ha' hed together 'z well's not! Ther' ain't any too much o' this life, anyhow; 't kinder looks ter you youngsters's ef 't 'd last forever. I know how 'tis. I hain't forgot nothin', old's I am. But I tell you, when ye're old's I am, 'n' look back on 't, ye'll be s'prised ter see how short 'tis, an' ye'll reelize more what a fool a man is, or a woman too,--an' I do s'pose they're the foolishest o' ther two,--ter waste a minnit out on 't on querrils, or any other kind o' foolin'."

[The end]
Helen Hunt Jackson's short story: Dandy Steve

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