A SCRAP OF PAPER
Singing a sleepy little song, the waters of Coxing Kill flowed lazily
down their stony channel into a deep green pool.
A week ago, swollen by the deluge of the equinox, the Kill had ramped
and roared through this glen, overwhelming both the shallows and the
depths in brawling, swirling flood. But now the tumult and violence
were past, the raw chill had fled from the air, and under the soft
sun of new October the pool had again become its serene self: rimmed
by vertical gray-white rock, shadowed by shaggy hemlocks, reflecting
on its placid bosom the snowy clouds floating across the high blue
above--an exquisite little gem of sylvan beauty which would have held
an artist enthralled. Yet it knew few visitors except the birds and the
squirrels, whose practical eyes saw nothing of its charm; for it was
well away from the Clove road, and few of the denizens of the Traps
ever wasted their time seeking scenery.
To-day, however, the little nook was not empty of human life. At the
upper end of the small chasm a figure sat against the base of one of
the hemlocks, its bare feet tucked under the hem of a faded dress, its
tumbled hair glowing red in the sunlight filtering down through the
eastern tree-tangle. The little birds and the wood-mice, moving about
in their unceasing search for food, paused at times to cock their
round eyes at that unwonted gleam of red against the bark. But soon
they resumed their activities, unafraid; for, though they could not
understand what the girl sitting so quietly there was doing, they felt
that she was a friend.
On her updrawn knees rested a slanting piece of thin board, and on the
board a scrap of paper. Her pensive gray eyes studied the short vista
down-stream, and from time to time she moved a stubby pencil lightly
along the sheet, transferring to it new lines. Then, with a frown, she
would wet a finger-tip at her mouth and rub out a line or two.
It seemed to be an absorbing task, this marking and erasing and
studying, upon which she was concentrating her whole soul. Yet it was
not so engrossing as to rob her of the senses which she possessed in
common with the tiny wild things around her. All at once she and a
king-bird which had silently settled near by and a mouse under a bush
and a chipmunk on a bowlder-top did exactly the same thing--froze in
the intuitive immobility of the wilderness, looking northward. A few
yards beyond, a stick had cracked dully under foot.
Among the tree-trunks a moving form presently became visible, advancing
with no particular stealth but with the quiet step of a man acquainted
with woods travel. The king-bird launched himself on soundless wings
and was gone. The mouse faded into a hole. The chipmunk whisked about
on his tail and poised for a lightning jump. The girl made no movement
whatever.
The man swung nonchalantly along the brink of the rock rim, plumbing
with casual gaze the clear water below. Then he halted, his lifting
gaze caught and held by the red glint under the hemlock. A smile lit up
his lightly bronzed face.
“Howdy, Miss Marion,” he bowed. “Are you ‘waylaying’ me?”
“If I was, you’d be all shot ’fore now,” she retorted. “I could ’most
stick a gun right into your mouth from here. Are you near-sighted or
somethin’?”
“Blind as a bat, I reckon. I can’t see a thing beyond you, so I’m going
to stop and visit until my sight clears up.”
She flushed and sat up straighter.
“Are you makin’ fun of my hair?” she demanded.
“Why, no. Certainly not. What made you think that?”
“Oh, everybody does. They say Nigger Nat don’t need a lamp with my
red-head there into the house, and anybody that meets me onto the road
says he thought ’twas a forest-fire comin’, and--oh, I’m sick of it!
I thought mebbe you wanted to be funny the same way when you said you
couldn’t see past me.”
“No, no. It was a poor joke, but I didn’t mean it that way.” He dropped
beside her, laying his gun beside his right leg. “Don’t let folks
bother you. Chances are that they’d give anything to have hair like
yours--the women, anyway--but because they can’t have it they make fun
of it. It’s the way of the world. What’s this?”
His hand lifted the forgotten paper and board from her lap. She
snatched at it.
“Gimme that!”
“Not yet.” He jerked it aside and held it out of reach. “Why, it’s a
sketch! Let’s see--here’s the creek, and----”
She threw herself at him, her cheeks burning, her hands struggling to
seize the paper.
“You gimme that!” she blazed. “’Tain’t no good--don’t you look at it!”
But he laughed and stretched his long right arm to its longest, holding
the paper a yard from her.
“Now don’t get excited. I won’t hurt it. I like to look at pictures----”
She tore at his left arm, which blocked her like a steel bar.
“You--you--gimme that--paper!” she panted. “If you don’t I’ll--I’ll
scratch!”
He shot a shrewd glance at her furious face and at the slender,
long-nailed fingers now poising in curving menace. The restraining
arm gave way suddenly--so suddenly that she pitched forward. In one
flashing instant that arm had looped around her and pinned her against
him, her own arms blocked by his body.
“You little wildcat, I believe you would,” he nodded. “But I really
haven’t finished looking at the picture. So behave yourself. Now let’s
see--there’s a hemlock--good, too! And the rock edge along--no, that’s
not so good. But still, I can easily see what it’s meant for, and----
Behave, I say!”
Writhing, wrenching, heaving, she was fighting like a mad thing to
break his hold and free her hands. His arm only crushed her tighter.
Tears of helpless anger welled into her eyes. All at once her head
dropped on his shoulder.
“There, don’t cry.” He loosened his hold. “I’ll give it right---- Ouch!”
Instead of weeping on his shoulder she was biting it. He dropped the
board and lurched upward, drawing her with him. She lifted her head and
laughed out wildly.
“Guess you’ll let me go now, won’t you?” she taunted.
His jaw set. His right arm, too, swept around her, holding her loosely,
yet close.
“Think so?” he challenged. “Go on and bite! Bite hard!”
The blazing gray eyes burned up into the steely blue ones. Breast to
breast, body to body, they stood, their eyes welded together. She made
to move her head, but the motion died. Still their eyes clung. And then
something happened.
How, why, what it was neither knew--perhaps a subtle opening of some
hitherto unknown chamber of the heart. But the fire died from the gray
eyes, the chill melted from the blue ones; and something else crept
into their unswerving gaze. For unmeasured minutes the man and the girl
stood in silence.
Then his arms slowly loosened. Swaying a little, she stepped away.
“I--you--nobody never hugged me like that before,” she whispered, as if
unconscious of her words. “I’m--I’m dizzy, seems like.”
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“I ain’t,” she breathed. Wide-eyed, she stared up as if seeing a man
for the first time in her life: as if some fairy wand had swept from
before her a veil through which she had regarded men as creatures
little more interesting than any other common animals. “Why--why are
_you_ sorry?”
He made no answer. His gaze dropped and rested absently on the
pencil-lined paper which had brought it all about.
“Why did you--let me go?” she asked.
“I was thinking of--Steve,” was his slow reply.
Her face clouded. Her head drooped, and her fingers intertwined.
“Steve,” she repeated. “I see. I--I was forgittin’ about Steve.”
She sank down and sat with her chin in her hands, soberly contemplating
the passing water. He bent, picked up the paper, and forced his mind
to concentrate on it. After a studious interval he nodded and looked
thoughtfully at the tapering fingers which so recently had threatened
his face.
“Er--ahem! Do you know, Miss Marion, that you have the rudiments of
art? I’m no artist myself, but I know a little about it. How did you
ever come to draw like this? And why didn’t you want me to see it?”
She looked up, but in a detached way. Then her eyes returned to the
creek.
“’Most everybody makes fun of my pictures,” she said, as if only part
of her mind were talking. “I dunno what you mean by rood--roody--what
you said about art. But I like to draw; it comes natural. I git spells
when I jest _have_ to draw things. That’s what got me throwed out of
school. I’d draw pictures and teacher would catch me and tear ’em
up--and one day I ’most tore him up too: I flew and scratched his
face, and I got put out, and that was the end of my schoolin’. I don’t
care. I don’t want to go to school and work onto figgers and have ’em
make fun of me ’cause my hair’s red and my pop’s a nigger and all. I’d
ruther go off by my own self and make pictures into the woods and rocks.
“There was an artist feller in here two-three years back--they come
round sometimes--and I watched how he worked and tried to do like it,
and when he see what I was up to he laughed and laughed and--I can’t
stand to be laughed at! I thought you’d laugh too, soon as you see what
I made onto that paper.”
He said nothing for a time. He pondered on her work, studied her again,
and sighed.
“Too bad,” he thought. “She has real ability, if it could be developed.
And to think that she’s the offspring of such animals as ‘them Oakses’!”
Marion spoke again.
“Down in the city do men say ‘Miss Marryin,’ like you do? I thought
’twas jest ‘Miss Oaks,’ or ‘Marry.’”
“It all depends. If you don’t know her well, or if you don’t want to,
you say ‘Miss Oaks.’ If you’re pretty well acquainted, so that you feel
sort of friendly, it’s ‘Miss Marion.’ You have to be real good friends
to drop the ‘Miss’ part of it. Unless, of course, she’s only a little
girl.”
“I see. I dunno if I like ‘Miss Marryin,’ but mebbe I do, too.
It’s--it’s kind of respectful, ain’t it? Nobody never spoke respectful
to me in my life. It makes me feel kind of growed-up. But I notice you
keep on sayin’ ‘Miss Marryin’ even after you--after you hugged me jest
now. And that’s only sort of friendly, you say.”
He opened his mouth to answer, but closed it again. He did not know
just what to say. He felt, too, that no answer was needed--that she was
musing aloud rather than talking to him. A long pause followed. Then
she spoke, not of herself, but of him.
“I hear you’re livin’ right ’long into Jake’s house. Ain’t the ha’nt
there now?”
“Oh, yes. He’s there. But I’m used to him now. He never does anything
but tramp around and shake the bed once in awhile, and I sleep pretty
well. How’s Steve? And your pop?”
“Steve--he’s all right. He’s into a good place, and I see him every
day. Pop’s same as usual--drunk most of the time. But you want to watch
out if he gits sober. He’s p’ison mad at you, ’count of the dogs. I’m
awful glad you kilt them critters. They were always ugly and I was
scairt of ’em. One of ’em bit you, didn’t he?”
“Not to amount to anything--nipped my side a little, but the worst
damage was to my shirt.”
She nodded, and went on.
“Pop keeps a-stewin’ ’bout it. And Snake Sanders is out now, too.
Snake, he was all lamed up awhile, ’specially his neck--couldn’t hardly
move it for more’n a week. He says he fell down into the rocks.”
She paused. He said nothing. Then she added: “But some folks say he got
licked by a detective.”
With that she faced about, her eyes twinkling now. At sight of his wide
grin she laughed out.
“Folks sometimes tell the truth,” he admitted. “But what about Snake
and your pop?”
“Well----” She hesitated. “Snake’s got some kind of a hold onto pop,
and they’ve been together a lot lately, and pop seems to be soberin’ up
some. That sometimes means trouble for somebody. I dunno what’s up--I
keep out of the way when Snake comes to the house, ’cause I don’t want
him pesterin’ round me. But you better be careful.”
“H’m! Pestering around you? How?”
“Oh, he wants me to go and live with him. And he’s got a woman
already--Lou Brackett. She’s been his woman ’most a year. But I ain’t
a-goin’. Pop, he’d try to make me go, but mom won’t let him. She hates
Snake ’most as bad as I do.”
Douglas gave a soundless whistle. Her matter-of-fact statement jolted
him. Then his face hardened.
“Is he at your house now?” he demanded. “I didn’t come along the
road--rambled along the creek--so I didn’t go past there.”
“What you want to know for?” She swiftly arose. “You keep away from
Nigger Nat’s!”
For answer, he picked up his gun and turned toward the road. She sprang
at him, grasping his arm.
“What you goin’ to do? Tell me!”
“Teach that snake to keep away from your place.”
“No! Listen to me. That’s jest what they’d like. You go trompin’ into
there with a gun and makin’ a row, and you’d git it--into the back! You
keep out. Let ’em come to you if they want, but you keep out of Nigger
Nat’s. You’ll only make it worse for me if you go there--me and Steve
too.”
The last words stopped him. Frowning, he rubbed his chin and considered.
“Nobody knows I know you--I ain’t told,” she went on. “Mebbe I might
want a friend all to once, and so might Steve. A friend that nobody
knowed about might be worth a lot. And till then, I’d git ’long a lot
easier if pop and Snake didn’t s’picion things.”
Slowly he nodded. Again their eyes met and held, and the frank pleading
in the gray ones softened the chilled-steel glimmer of the blue.
“All right, Marion. I’ll mind--this time. But only if you promise to
come to me any time you need help.”
The tapering fingers gave his arm a quick pressure. Then she stood back.
“I promise you. Now you better go ’long--I’ve got to go home pretty
quick, and I’ll have to go by my own self. Go on up the crick, as if I
wasn’t here.”
He nodded and turned away. But he turned back.
“Keep right on doing that,” he urged, pointing at the sketch on the
ground. “It’s worth while. You’re doing fine.”
With that he trudged away. The bushes quietly closed behind him. The
little mouse came out, the chipmunk whisked in a yellow streak from
somewhere back to his bowlder, the creek sang placidly on. Still the
girl stood looking at the spot where the man had disappeared.
“He minded me!” she murmured, a soft glow coming and going in her
cheeks. “He minded me--and I bet he’d sooner fight than eat. And he
said ‘Marryin,’ too, not ‘Miss.’ But--but Steve----”
All at once she leaned against the hemlock tree. And the mouse and the
chipmunk stood still and stared about, seeking a sound which blended
into the gurgle of the creek but was not of it; a new, sad sound which
they never had heard before. It was the sobbing of a girl.