"Because there's dangers what the on'y thing you can do to fight 'em is
to run away."
"Who said anything about danger? Do you suppose ...?"
In sticking in his needle Honey handled the implement as if it were an
awl. "Do I suppose she's playin' the dooce with yer? No, Kid. She don't
have to. You're playin' the dooce with yerself. It's yer age. Sixteen
is a terr'ble imagination age."
"Oh, if you think I'm framing the whole thing...."
"No, I don't. Yer believes it all right. On'y it ain't quite so bad as
what yer think. It don't do to be too delikit with women. Got to bat
'em away as if they was flies, when they bother yer too much. Once let
a woman in on yer game and yer 'and can be queered for good."
"Did I say anything about letting a woman in on my game?"
"No, yer on'y said she'd slipped in. It's too late now to keep her out.
She's made the diff'rence."
"What difference?"
Honey threaded his needle laboriously, held up the end of the thread
to moisten it with his lips, and tied a knot in it. "The diff'rence in
you. Yer ain't the same young feller what yer was six months ago. You
and me has been like one," he went on, placidly. "Now we're two. Been
two this spell back. Couldn't make it out, no more'n Billy-be-damned;
and now I see. The first girl."
Tom lashed about the bed.
"It was bound to come; and that's why--yer've arsked me about it onst
or twice, so I may as well tell yer--that's why I never lets meself get
fond o' yer. Could'a did it just as easy as not. When a man gits to
my age a young boy what's next o' kin to him--why, he'll seem like as
if 'twould be his son. But I wouldn't be ketched. 'Honey,' I says to
meself, 'the first girl and you'll be dished.'"
"Oh, go to blazes!"
Having finished his button, Honey made it doubly secure by winding the
thread around it. "Not that I blame yer, Kiddy. I ain't never led no
celebrant life meself, not till I had to take you on, and cut out all
low company what wouldn't 'a been good for you. But I figured it out
that we might 'a got yer through college before yer fell for it. Well,
we ain't. Maybe now we'll not git yer to college at all. But we'll
make a shy at it. We'll move."
"If you think that by moving you'll keep me from seeing her again...."
"No, son, not no more'n I could keep yer from cuttin' yer throat by
lockin' up yer razor. Yer could git another razor. I know that. All
the same, it'd be up to me, wouldn't it, not to leave no razors layin'
round the room, where yer could put yer 'and on 'em?"
This settling of his destiny over his head angered Tom especially.
"I can save you the trouble of having me on your mind any more.
To-morrow I'll be out on my own. I'm going to be a man."
"Sure, you're going to be a man--in time. But yer ain't a man yet."
"I'm sixteen. I can do what any other fellow of sixteen can do."
"No fella of sixteen can do much."
"He can earn a living."
"He can earn part of a livin'. How many boys of sixteen did yer ever
know that could swing clear of home and friends and everythink, and
feed and clothe and launder theirselves on what they made out'n their
job?"
"Well, I can try, can't I?"
"Oh, yes, yer can try, Kid. But if you was me, I wouldn't cut loose
from nobody, not till I'd got me 'and in."
Tom raised himself on his elbow, his eyes, beneath their protruding
horizontal eyebrows, aglitter with the wrath which puts life and the
world out of focus.
"I _am_ going to cut loose. I'm going to be my own master."
"Are you, Kid? How much of yer own master do yer expect to be, on the
ten or twelve per yer'll git to begin with--_if_ yer gits that?"
"Even if it was only five or six per, I'd be making it myself."
"And what about college?"
"College--hell!"
The boy fell back on his pillow. Feeling he had delivered his
ultimatum, he waited for a reply. But Honey only stowed away his sewing
materials in a little black box, after which he pulled off the articles
of clothing he continued to wear, and set about his toilet for the
night. At the sound of his splashing water on his face Tom muttered to
himself: "God, another night of this will kill me."
Honey spoke through the muffling of the towel, while he dried his face.
"Isn't all this fuss what I'm tellin' yer? The minute a girl gits in on
a young feller's life there's hell to pay. That's why I'd like yer to
steer clear of 'em as long as yer can hold out."
Tom shut his eyes, buried his face in the pillow, and affected not to
hear.
"They don't mean to do no harm; they're just naterally troublesome.
Seems as if they was born that way, and couldn't 'elp theirselves.
There's a lot of 'em as is never satisfied till they've got a man like
a jumpin'-jack, what all they need to do is to pull the string to make
him jig. This girl is one o' them kind."
Tom continued to hold his peace.
"I've saw her. Pretty little thing she is all right. But give her two
or three years. Lord love you, Kid, she'll be as washed out then as one
of her own ribbons after a hard rain. And yet them is the kind that
most young fellers'll run after, like a pup'll run after a squirrel."
Tom was startled. The figure of speech had been used to him before. He
could hear it drawled in a tired voice, soft and velvety. It was queer
what conclusions about women these grown men came to! Quidmore had
thought them as dangerous as Honey, and warned him against them much
as Honey was doing now. Mrs. Quidmore had once been what Maisie was at
that minute, and yet as he, Tom, remembered her.... But Honey was going
on again, spluttering his words as he brushed his teeth.
"It can be awful easy to git mixed up with a girl, and awful hard to
git unmixed. She'll put a man in a hole where he can't help doin'
somethink foolish, and then make out as what she've got a claim on
him. There's a lot o' talk about women bein' the prey o' men; but for
one woman as I've ever saw that way I've saw a hundred men as was the
prey o' women. Now when a girl of eighteen gits a young boy like you to
spend the money as he's saved for his eddication...."
The boy sprang up in bed, hammering the bedclothes. "Don't you say
anything against her. I won't listen to it."
With that supple tread which always made Tom think of one who could
easily slip through windows, Honey walked to the closet where he kept
his night-shirt. "'Tain't nothink agin her, Kid. Was on'y goin' to say
that a girl what'll git a young boy to do that shows what she is. And
yer did spend the money a-takin' her about, now didn't yer?"
Tom fell back upon his pillow. Putting out the gas, Honey threw himself
on his creaking cot.
"You're a free boy, Kiddy," he went on, while arranging the sheet and
blanket as he liked them. "If yer wants to beat it to-morrer, beat it
away. Don't stop because yer'll be afraid I'll miss yer. Wasn't never
no hand for missin' no one, and don't mean to begin. What I'd 'a liked
have been to fill yer up with eddication so that yer could jaw to beat
the best of 'em, if yer turned out to be the Whitelaw baby."
Tom had almost forgotten who the Whitelaw baby was. Not since that
Sunday afternoon nearly three years ago had Honey ever mentioned
him. The memory having come back, he made an inarticulate sound of
impatience, finally snuggling to sleep.
He tried to think of Maisie, to conjure up the rose in her cheeks, the
laughter in her eyes; but all he saw, as he drifted into dreams, was
the quaint Cambodian face of little Hildred Ansley. Only once did Honey
speak again, muttering, as he too fell asleep:
"We'll move."