When the train pulled into the big, dingy station Helen had been
waiting for some time, her pulses fluttering with excitement. But her
self-confidence deserted her when she saw the crowds pouring from the
cars. She shrank back into the wailing-room doorway; and she saw Paul
before his eager eyes found her.
It was a shock to find that he had changed, too. Something boyish
was gone from his face, and his self-confident walk, his prosperous
appearance in a new suit, gave her the chill sensation that she was
about to meet a stranger. She braced herself for the effort, and when
they shook hands she felt that hers was cold.
"You're looking well," she said shyly.
"Well, so are you," he answered. They walked down the platform
together, and she saw that he carried a new suitcase, and that even his
shoes were new and shining. However, these details were somewhat offset
by her perception that he was feeling awkward, too.
"Where shall we go?" They hesitated, looking at each other, and in
their smile the strangeness vanished.
"I don't care. Anywhere, if you're along," he said. "Oh, Helen, it sure
is great to see you again! You look like a million dollars, too." His
approving eye was upon her new clothes.
"I'm glad you like them," she said, radiant. "That's an awfully nice
suit, Paul." Happiness came back to her in a flood and putting out her
hand, she picked a bit of thread from his dear sleeve. "Well, where
shall we go?"
"We'll get something to eat first," he said practically. "I'm about
starved, aren't you?" She had not thought of eating.
They breakfasted in a little restaurant on waffles and sausages and
coffee. The hot food was delicious, and the waiter in the soiled white
apron grinned understandingly while he served them. Paul gave him
fifteen cents, in an off-hand manner, and she thrilled at his careless
prodigality and his air of knowing his way about.
The whole long day lay before them, bright with limitless
possibilities. They left the suitcase with the cashier of the
restaurant and walked slowly down the street, embarrassed by the riches
of time that were theirs. Helen suggested that they walk awhile in the
capitol grounds; she had supposed they would do that, and perhaps in
the afternoon enjoy a car-ride to Oak Park. But Paul dismissed these
simple pleasures with a word.
"Nothing like that," he said. "I want a real celebration, a regular
blow-out. I've been saving up for it a long time." He struggled with
this conscience. "It won't do any harm to miss church one Sunday. Let's
take a boat down the river."
"Oh, Paul!" She was dazzled. "But--I don't know--won't it be awfully
expensive?"
"I don't care how much it costs," he replied recklessly. "Come on.
It'll be fun."
They went down the shabby streets toward the river, and even the dingy
tenements and broken sidewalks of the Japanese quarter seemed to them
to have a holiday air. They laughed about the queer little shops and
the restaurant windows, where electric lights still burned in the
clear daylight over pallid pies and strange-looking cakes. Helen must
stop to speak to the straight-haired, flat-faced Japanese babies who
sat stolidly on the curbs, looking at her with enigmatic, slant eyes,
and she saw romance in the groups of tall Hindoo laborers, with their
bearded, black faces and gaily colored turbans.
It was like going into a foreign land together, she said, and even Paul
was momentarily caught by the enchantment she saw in it all, though he
did not conceal his detestation of these foreigners. "We're going to
see to it we don't have them in our town," he said, already with the
air of a proprietor in Ripley.
"Now this is something like!" he exclaimed when he had helped Helen
across the gang-plank and deposited her safely on the deck of the
steamer. Helen, pressing his arm with her fingers, was too happy to
speak. The boat was filling with people in holiday clothes; everywhere
about her was the exciting stir of departure, calls, commands, the
thump of boxes being loaded on the deck below. A whistle sounded
hoarsely, the engines were starting, sending a thrill through the very
planks beneath her feet.
"We'd better get a good place up in front," said Paul. He took her
through the magnificence of a large room furnished with velvet chairs,
past a glimpse of shining white tables and white-clad waiters, to a
seat whence they could gaze down the yellow river. She was appalled by
his ease and assurance. She looked at him with an admiration which she
would not allow to lessen even when the boat edged out into the stream
and, turning, revealed that he had led her to the stern deck.
Her enthusiastic suggestion that they explore the boat aided Paul's
attempt to conceal his chagrin, and she listened enthralled to his
explanations of all they saw. He estimated the price of the crates
of vegetables and chickens piled on the lower deck, on their way to
the city from the upper river farms. It was his elaborate description
of the engines that caught the attention of a grimy engineer who had
emerged from the noisy depths for a breath of air, and the engineer,
turning on them a quizzically friendly gaze, was easily persuaded to
take them into the engine-room.
Helen could not understand his explanations, but she was interested
because Paul was, and found her own thrill in the discovery of a dim
tank half filled with flopping fish, scooped from the river and flung
there by the paddle wheel. "We take 'em home and eat 'em, miss," said
the engineer, and she pictured their cool lives in the green river, and
the city supper-tables at which they would be eaten. She was fascinated
by the multitudinous intricacies of life, even on that one small boat.
It was a disappointment to find, when they returned again to the upper
decks, that they could see nothing but green levee banks on each
side of the river. But this led to an even more exciting discovery,
for venturesomely climbing a slender iron ladder they saw beyond the
western levee an astounding and incredible stretch of water where land
should be. Their amazement emboldened Paul to tap on the glass wall
of a small room beside them, in which they saw an old man peacefully
smoking his pipe. He proved to be the pilot, who explained that it was
flood water they saw, and who let them squeeze into his tiny quarters
and stay while he told long tales of early days on the river, of
floods in which whole settlements were swept away at night, of women
and children rescued from floating roofs, of cows found drowned in
tree-tops, and droves of hogs that cut their own throats with their
hoofs while swimming. Listening to him while the boat slowly chugged
down the curves of the sunlit river, Helen felt the romance of living,
the color of all the millions of obscure lives in the world.
"Isn't everything interesting!" she cried, giving Paul's arm an excited
little squeeze as they walked along the main deck again. "Oh, I'd like
to live all the lives that ever were lived! Think of those women and
the miners and people in cities and everything!"
"I expect you'd find it pretty inconvenient before you got through,"
Paul said. "Gee, but you're awfully pretty, Helen," he added
irrelevantly, and they forgot everything except that they were together.
They had to get off at Lancaster in order to catch the afternoon boat
back to Sacramento. There was just time to eat on board, Paul said,
and overruling her flurried protests he led her into the white-painted
dining-room. The smooth linen, the shining silver, and the imposing
waiters confused her; she was able to see nothing but the prices on
the elaborate menu-cards, and they were terrifying. Paul himself
was startled by them, and she could see worried calculation in his
eyes. She felt that she should pay her share; she was working, too,
and earning money. The memory of the office, the advance she had
drawn on her wages, her uncomfortable existence in Mrs. Campbell's
house, passed through her mind like a shadow. But it was gone in an
instant, and she sat happily at the white table, eating small delicious
sandwiches and drinking milk, smiling across immaculate linen at Paul.
For a moment she played with the fancy that it was a honeymoon trip,
and a thrill ran along her nerves.
They were at Lancaster before they knew it. There was a moment of
flurried haste, and they stood on the levee, watching the boat push off
and disappear beyond a wall of willows. A few lounging Japanese looked
at them with expressionless, slant eyes, pretending not to understand
Paul's inquiries until his increasing impatience brought from them in
clear English the information that the afternoon boat was late. It
might be along about five o'clock, they thought.
"Well, that'll get us back in time for my train," Paul decided. "Let's
look around a little."
The levee road was a tunnel of willow-boughs, floored with soft sand in
which their feet made no sound. They walked in an enchanted stillness,
through pale light, green as sea-water, drowsy, warm, and scented with
the breath of unseen flowers. Through the thin wall of leaves they
caught glimpses of the broad river, the yellow waves of which gave
back the color of the sky in flashes of metallic blue. And suddenly,
stepping out of the perfumed shadow, they saw the orchards. A sea of
petals, fragile, translucent, unearthly as waves of pure rosy light,
rippled at their feet.
The loveliness of it filled Helen's eyes with tears. "Oh!" she said,
softly. "Oh--Paul!" Her hand went out blindly toward him. One more
breath of magic would make the moment perfect. She did not know what
she wanted, but her whole being was a longing for it. "Oh, Paul!"
"Pears, by Jove!" he cried. "Hundreds of acres, Helen! They're the tops
of trees! We're looking down at 'em! Look at the river. Why, the land's
fifteen feet below water-level. Did you ever see anything like it?"
Excitement shook his voice. "There must be a way to get down there. I
want to see it!" He almost ran along the edge of the levee, Helen had
to hurry to keep beside him. She did not know why she should be hurt
because Paul was interested in the orchards. She was the first to laugh
about going down-stairs to farm when they found the wooden steps on the
side of the levee.
But she felt rebuffed and almost resentful. She listened abstractedly
to Paul's talk about irrigation and the soil. He crumbled handfuls of
it between his fingers while they walked between the orchard rows,
and his opinion led to a monologue on the soil around Ripley and the
fight the farmers were making to get water on it. He was conservative
about the project; it might pay, and it might not. But if it did, a
man who bought some cheap land now would make a good thing out of it.
It occurred to her suddenly to wonder about the girls in Ripley. There
must be some; Paul had never written about them. She thought about it
for some time before she was able to bring the talk to the point where
she could ask about them.
"Girls?" Paul said. "Sure, there are. I don't pay much attention to
them, though. I see them in church, and they're at the Aid Society
suppers, of course. They seem pretty foolish to me. Why, I never
noticed whether they were pretty, or not." Enlightenment dawned upon
him. "I'll tell you; they don't seem to talk about anything much.
You're the only girl I ever struck that I could really talk to. I--I've
been awfully lonesome, thinking about you."
"Really truly?" she said, looking up at him. The sunlight fell across
her white dress, and stray pink petals fluttered slowly downward around
her. "Have you really been lonesome for me, too?" She swayed toward
him, ever so little, and he put his arms around her.
He did love her. A great contentment flowed through her. To be in his
arms again was to be safe and rested and warm after ages of racking
effort in the cold. He was thinking only of her now. His arms crushed
her against him; she felt the roughness of his coat under her cheek.
He was stammering love-words, kissing her hair, her cheeks, her lips.
"Oh, Paul, I love you, I love you, I love you!" she said, her arms
around his neck.
Much later they found a little nook under the willows on the levee bank
and sat there with the river rippling at their feet, his arm around
her, her head on his shoulder. They talked a little then. Paul told her
again all about Ripley, but she did not mind. "When we're married--"
said Paul, and the rest of the sentence did not matter.
"And I'm going to help you," she said. "Because I'm telegraphing now,
too. I'll be earning as much--almost as much, as you do. We can live
over the depot--"
"We will not!" said Paul. "We'll have a house. I don't know that I'm
crazy about my wife working."
"Oh, but I do want to help! A house would be nice. Oh, Paul, with
rose-bushes in the yard!"
"And a horse and buggy, so we can go riding Sunday afternoons."
"Besides, if I'm making money--"
"I know. We wouldn't have to wait so long."
She flushed. It was what she meant, but she did not want to think so.
"I didn't--I don't--"
"Of course there's mother. And I want to feel that I can support--"
She felt the magic departing.
"Never mind!" The tiniest of cuddling movements brought his arms tight
around her again.
"Oh, sweetheart, sweetheart, you're worth it!" he cried. "I'd wait for
you!"
They were startled when they noticed the shadows under the trees. They
had not dreamed it was so late. She smoothed her hair and pinned on her
hat with trembling fingers, and they raced for the landing. The river
was an empty stretch of dirty gray lapping dusky banks. There was no
one at the landing.
"It must be way after five o'clock. I wish I had a watch. The boat
couldn't have gone by without our seeing it?" The suggestion drained
the color from their cheeks. They looked at each other with wide eyes.
"It couldn't have possibly! Let's ask."
The little town was no more than half a dozen old wooden buildings
facing the levee. A store, unlighted and locked, a harness shop, also
locked, two dark warehouses, a saloon. She waited in the shadow of it
while he went in to inquire. He came out almost immediately.
"No, the boat hasn't gone. They don't know when it'll get here. No one
there but a few Japanese."
They walked uncertainly back to the landing and stood gazing at the
darkening river. "I suppose there's no knowing when it will get here?
There's no other way of getting back?"
"No, there's no railroad. I _have_ got you into a scrape!"
"It's all right. It wasn't your fault," she hastened to say.
They walked up and down, waiting. Darkness came slowly down upon them.
The river breeze grew colder. Stars appeared.
"Chilly?"
"A little," she said through chattering teeth.
He took off his coat and wrapped it around her, despite her protests.
They found a sheltered place on the bank and huddled together,
shivering. A delicious sleepiness stole over her, and the lap-lap of
the water, the whispering of the leaves, the warmth of Paul's shoulder
under her cheek, all became like a dream.
"Comfortable, dear?"
"Mmmmhuh," she murmured. "You?"
"You bet your life!" She roused a little to meet his kiss. The night
became dreamlike again.
"Helen?"
"What!"
"Seems to me we've been here a long time. What'll we do? We can't stay
here till morning."
"I don't--know--why not. All night--under the stars--"
"But listen. What if the boat comes by and doesn't stop? There isn't
any light."
She sat up then, rubbing the drowsiness from her eyes.
"Well, let's make a fire. Got any matches?"
He always carried them, to light the switch-lamps in Ripley. They
hunted dry branches and driftwood and coaxed a flickering blaze alive.
"It's like being stranded on a desert island!" she laughed. His eyes
adored her, crouching with disheveled hair in the leaping yellow light.
"You're certainly game," he said. "I--I think you're the pluckiest girl
in the world. And when I think what a fool I am to get you into this!"
There came like an echo down the river the hoarse whistle of the boat.
A moment later it was upon them, looming white and gigantic, its
lights cutting swaths in the darkness as it edged in to the landing.
Struggling to straighten her hat, to tuck up her hair, to brush the
sand from her skirt, Helen stumbled aboard with Paul's hand steadying
her.
The blaze of the salon lights hurt their eyes, but warmth and security
relaxed tired muscles. The room was empty, its carpet swept, the velvet
chairs neatly in place.
"Funny, I thought there'd be a lot of passengers," Paul wondered aloud.
He found a cushion, tucked it behind Helen's head, and sat down beside
her. "Well, we're all right now. We'll be in Sacramento pretty soon."
"Don't let's think about it," she said with quivering lips. "I hate to
have it all end, such a lovely day. It'll be such a long time--"
He held her hand tightly.
"Not so awfully long. I'm not going to stand for it." He spoke firmly,
but his eyes were troubled. She did not answer, and they sat looking at
the future while the boat jolted on toward the moment of their parting.
"Damn being poor!" The word startled her as a blow would have done.
Paul, so sincerely and humbly a church member--Paul swearing! He went
on without a pause. "If I had a little money, if I only had a little
money! What right has it got to make such a difference? Oh, Helen, you
don't know how I want you!"
"Paul, Paul dear, you mustn't!" Her hand was crushed against his face,
his shoulders shook. She drew his dear, tousled head against her
shoulder.
"Don't, dear, don't! Please."
He pushed away from her and got up. She let him go, shielding his
embarrassment even from her own eyes. "I seem to be making a fool of
myself generally," he said shakily. He walked about the room, looking
with an appearance of interest at the pictures on the walls. "It's
funny there aren't more people on board," he said conversationally
after a while. "Well, I guess I'll go see what time we get in." He came
back five minutes later, an odd expression on his face.
"Look here, Helen," he said gruffly. "We won't get in for hours.
Something wrong with the engines. They're only making half time.
I--ah--I don't know why I didn't think of it before. You've got to work
to-morrow and all. The man suggested--"
"Well, for goodness' sake, suggested what?"
"Everybody else has berths," he said. "You better let me get you one,
because there's no sense in your sitting up all night. There's no
knowing when we'll get in."
"But, Paul, I hate to have you spend so much. I could sleep a little
right here." A vision of the office went through her mind, and she
saw herself, sleepy-eyed, struggling to get messages into the right
envelopes and trying to manage the unmanageable messenger-boys. She was
tired. But it would be awfully expensive, no doubt. "And besides, I'd
rather stay here with you," she said.
"So would I. But we might as well be sensible. You've got to work,
and I'd probably go to sleep, too. Come on, let's see how much it is,
anyhow."
They found the right place after wandering twice around the boat. A
weary man sat behind the half-door, adding up a column of figures.
"Berths? Sure. Outside, of course. One left. Dollar and a half." His
expectation brought the money, as if automatically, from Paul's pocket.
He came out, yawning, a key with a dangling tag in his hand. "This way."
They followed him down the corridor. Matters seemed to be taken from
their hands. He stepped out on the dark deck.
"Careful there, better give your wife a hand over those ropes," he
cautioned over his shoulder, and they heard the sound of a key in a
lock. An oblong of light appeared; he stepped out again to let them
pass him. They went in. "There's towels. Everything all right, I
guess," he said cheerfully. "Good-night."
Their eyes met for one horrified second. Embarrassment covered
them both like a flame. "I--Helen! You don't think--?" They swayed
uncertainly in the narrow space between berths and wash-stand. Did the
boat jolt so or was it the beating of her heart?
"Paul, did you hear? How could--?"
"I guess I better go now," he said. He fumbled with the door.
"Good-night."
"Good-night." She felt suddenly forlorn. But he was not gone. "Helen?
It might be true. We might be married!"
She clung to him.
"We can't! We couldn't! Oh, Paul, I love you so!"
"We can be married--we will be--just as soon as we get to Sacramento."
His kisses smothered her. "The very first thing in the morning! We'll
manage somehow. I'll always love you just as much. Helen, what's the
matter? Look at me. Darling!"
"We can't," she gasped. "I'd be spoiling everything for you. Your
mother and me and everything on your hands, and you're just getting
started. You'd hate me after a while. No, no, no!"
They stumbled apart.
"What am I saying?" he said hoarsely, and she turned away from him,
hiding her face.
A rush of cold moist air blew in upon her from the open doorway. He was
gone. She got the door shut, and sat down on the edge of the berth. A
cool breeze flowed in like water through the shutters of the windows;
she felt the throbbing of the engines. Even through her closed lids
she could not bear the light, and after a while she turned it out,
trembling, and lay open-eyed in the darkness.
The stopping of the boat struck her aching nerves like a blow. She
sat up, neither asleep nor awake, pushing her hair back from a face
that seemed sodden and lifeless. A pale twilight filled the stateroom.
She smoothed her hair, straightened her crumpled dress as well as she
could, and went out on the deck. The boat lay at the Sacramento landing.
A few feet away Paul was leaning upon the railing, his face pale and
haggard in the cold light As she went toward him the events of the
night danced fantastically through her brain, as grotesque and feverish
as images in a dream.
"You don't hate me, do you, Helen?" he pleaded hopelessly.
"Of course not," she said. Through her weariness she felt a stirring of
pity. For the first time in her life she told herself to smile, and did
it. "We'd better be getting off, hadn't we?"
The grayness of dawn was in the air, paling the street-lights. A few
workmen passed them, plodding stolidly, carrying lunch-pails and tools;
a baker's wagon rattled by, awakening loud echoes. She tried to comfort
Paul, whose talk was one long self-reproach.
He hoped she would not get into a row with the folks where she stayed.
If she did, she must let him know; he wouldn't stand for anything like
that. She could reach him in Masonville till Saturday; then he would
come down again on his way home. He hadn't thought he could stop on
the way back, but he would. He'd be worried about her until he saw her
again and was sure everything was all right. He had been an awful boob
not to be sure about the boat; he'd never forgive himself if--
"What is it?" he broke off. She had turned to look after a young man
who passed them. The motion was almost automatic; she had hardly seen
the man and not until he was past did her tired mind register an
impression of a cynically smiling eye.
"Nothing," she said. She had been right; it was McCormick. But it would
require too much effort to talk about him.
The blinds of Mrs. Campbell's house were still down when they reached
it. The tight roll of the morning paper lay on the porch. She would
have to ring, of course, to get in. They faced each other on the damp
cement walk, the freshness of the dewy lawns about them.
"Well, good-by."
"Good-by." They felt constrained in the daylight, under the blank stare
of the windows. Their hands clung. "You really aren't mad at me, Helen,
about anything?"
"Of course I'm not. Nothing's happened that wasn't as much my fault as
it was yours."
"You'll let me know?"
She promised, though she had no intention of troubling him with her
problems. It was not his fault that the boat was late, and she had gone
as gladly as he. "Don't bother about it. I'll be all right. Good-by."
"Good-by." Still their fingers clung together. She felt a rush of
tenderness toward him.
"Don't look so worried, you dear!" Quickly, daringly, she leaned toward
him and brushed a butterfly's wing of a kiss upon his sleeve. Then,
embarrassed, she ran up the steps.
"See you Saturday," he called in a jubilant undertone. She watched his
stocky figure until it turned the corner. Then she rang the bell. There
was time for the momentary glow to depart, leaving her weak and chilly,
before Mrs. Campbell opened the door. She said nothing. Her eyes, her
tight lips, her manner of drawing her dressing-gown back from Helen's
approach, spoke her thoughts. Explanations would be met with scornful
unbelief.
Helen held her head high and countered silence with silence. But before
she reached her room she heard Mrs. Campbell's voice, high-pitched and
cutting, speaking to her husband.
"Brazen as you please! You're right. The only thing to do's to put her
out of this house before we have a scandal on our hands. That's what I
get for taking her in, out of charity!"
Helen shut her door softly. She would leave the house that very day.
The battered alarm clock pointed to half-past five. Three hours before
she could do anything. She undressed mechanically, half-formed plans
rushing through her mind. No money, next month's wages spent for these
crumpled clothes. She could telegraph her mother, but she must not
alarm her. Why hadn't she thought of borrowing something from Paul?
There was Mr. Roberts, but she could never make up more money. Perhaps
he would advance the raise he had promised. Her brain was working with
hectic rapidity. She saw in flashes rooming-houses, the office, Mr.
Roberts. She thought out every detail of long conversations, heard her
own voice explaining, arguing, promising, thanking.