"Donahue," said Jimmie earnestly, "you may be frank. We do not
invite criticism, but we can stand observation. What, then,
after two thoughtful days, is your fairly honest opinion of
this--ah--institution, of which you are an ornament?"
"Jimmie, you shall not make fun of Donahue. I know he's not pretty. But
his eyes are kind, and he is good. He is not for ornament," Augusta
defended.
Jimmie laughed wickedly. "All the homely people I ever knew have had
that said about them. They are not pretty, but their eyes are good,
and they are useful. And they _do_ love to hear it! Yes! The men swear
great deep oaths under their breath. And what the women do I was never
able even to guess." And he shook his head in utter inability to deal
with the matter.
"But, pardon me, you are divinely right--as always--about Donahue. Not
only is he useful and good; he is more. He is essential, and virtuous.
I would defend his morals in open court. And when I think of his
temptations, of the wild free and frisky gypsy life that he has led,
and then contemplate the shining nobility of his stern virtues, I am
positively ashamed of myself. At such times I even resolve to lead a
better life.
"He is a thief, of course," he continued reflectively, "but then,
stealing is a gypsy virtue, so--"
"He isn't any such thing," Augusta said, again drawn out to the
defense. "I know he ate the bag of apples, bag and all. But he thought
they were--"
"Woman, you interrupt. You digress. You trifle. You dissipate and
confuse the issue. Let us get on. We are not discussing Donahue. _He_
is considering _us_. Does he approve, or does he merely tolerate? That
is the point."
Augusta was at the instant fearfully engaged in the perilous strategy
of turning a good sized steak on a very small pan, and was not paying
the slightest attention to what he said.
"Again I say, Donahue, let us have your decently reserved opinion. I
do not ask for brutal frankness. No rough work, you understand. You
have now, for the afore-mentioned two thoughtful days, listened to
my uplifting conversation. You have been blessed with the vision of
Augusta's beauty. You have eaten her apples. What then? It is time for
you to speak."
Thus adjured, Donahue turned his head slightly and sniffed delicately
of the mingled tang of Augusta's wood fire and the savor of the cooking
steak. His head was close to the ground. He wriggled one ear in a
deliberate and patent pretense that a fly was bothering him. Then, as
though realizing that that subterfuge would not serve, he calmly and
meditatively lifted his off fore leg and deliberatively scratched the
prominence back of his ear, with the soft side of his hock.
"Aha! A diplomat! Did you see that, Augusta? He has that rarest
combination of all--outstanding virtue coupled with tact and good
manners. How many very good people are there who could have refrained
from giving us their honest opinion? Their duty would have forced
them to it. But Donahue, no. He scratches his ear, and refrains. How
beautiful it is to be able to refrain!
"All right, Donahue. All in your own good time. Either you do not care
to hurt our feelings, or you are not yet sure that you have made us
out. Scratch on, oh gentle minded philosopher, and--"
"Jimmie, get the big plate. You might as well help as sit on that rock
and talk. He isn't listening anyway."
Leaving Donahue to his own thoughts, Jimmie went obediently over to the
wagon and stepping up on the cross-bar reached a long arm in back of
the seat to a swinging rack and deftly brought forth a heavy platter.
"We'll dine out to-night," said Augusta, nodding at the little folding
table that she had set out on the grass.
"Oh hear ye, Donahue, our beloved Lady cracketh a pun!"
"Don't jiggle the plate. And _don't drop_ it!"
Craftily, his eye on the shifting level of the gravy, his feet feeling
for the uneven places of the ground, Jimmie made his perilous journey,
with the combined manner of a sleep walker and of a priest of some
terrible temple of sacrifice, from the stove to the table.
Then, when Augusta had followed with other things, they sat down
on little camp stools close together. A sudden timid, half-fearful
reverence and diffidence came over them, as of a perfect moment that
could not be held nor ever fully repeated. A fleeting, intangible
joy in each other caught them, joy in their very aloneness, in their
oneness of thought and heart and soul. And they knew, almost fearfully,
that such moments are rare in even the very happiest of all lives. A
little tear glistened in the sunlight on Augusta's lashes.
But Jimmie knew better than to let the moment fade out trying to
prolong it. Better break it while the beauty of it was yet in the glow.
"I am dying, Egypt, dying, for the half of that steak! Is it any
concern of yours, Madam, that your husband has had no food for the last
four and twenty hours?"
"You've had six egg's and three quarts of milk, and you fought--"
"Food! I said. Didn't I, Donahue? I repeat, I've had nothing to eat
since this time last night. And I am ravening. If you don't cut, I
shall tear!"
"Hold the table steady, then."
They ate with happy hunger, laughing at the untried makeshifts with
which they tried to bridge over the distance between sacred table
manners and the bird-in-hand necessities of the rickety little board,
spatting a little now and then as each insisted on giving the other the
choicest bits of the food.
Once Jimmie spilled over the salt in a moment of forgetfulness, and he
watched curiously as he saw Augusta furtively pick up a tiny pinch of
it and pretend to look at it and then, just naturally, throw it over
her shoulder. Strangely enough, he had nothing to say on the matter.
This little girl woman of his made him think a great deal.
Augusta had brought him home that other morning, out of the park, and
sent him to bed. Then she had gone rapidly and ruthlessly to work as
though she had been planning just what she was to do.
She saw the boarders of the house at breakfast and told them that she
must close the house at once. Some of them had been friends and it
pained her to give them any inconvenience. But she told them just why
she was forced to do what she was doing. And, before she had finished,
there was not one of them who would not have agreed to move his or her
trunk out to the sidewalk on the instant, if it would help her.
Then she went to renting agents. And before another day she had sublet
the house for the remainder of the term of her mother's lease.
The next part of her work was the worst. She had to bring into the
house dirty, pock-marked men whose business it was to paw around
with grimy hands and shake the furniture and try to bluff her into
discouragement. But she had fixed upon a certain sum of cash money
that she must have from the sale of the furniture. And from that
determination she was not to be moved. One after another, Ann joyfully
drove these men from the house, and Augusta waited.
The dealers had, of course, run around and seen each other and had
agreed among themselves to force her to sell for very little cash. Her
husband was sick. She had to go away with him. What could she do? It
did not so much matter, they told each other, which of them got the
furniture. That could be all fixed up. The thing was to protect the
business, so that people shouldn't think that they ought to get new
prices in cash for old stuff.
But finally Augusta's steady insistence on one price convinced one
dealer that she would never sell for less. He talked with her over the
phone. Then he came hurrying to the house, not because he wished to
beat his brothers with whom he had agreed, but because he was afraid
some one of them would beat him.
He offered Augusta half what she had demanded. Augusta did not argue.
She called Ann to do her duty. The wordy battle raged down the stairs
and out through the front hall to the door. On the doorstep, with Ann
jamming the door on his foot where he had stuck it to prevent her
shutting the door, he came to within ten dollars of the sum which
Augusta had fixed. With another bang at his foot, Ann relented and let
him come back to the foot of the stairs.
Augusta was standing at the head of the stairs. She did not feel any
of the zest of battle which inspired Ann. Jimmie was worse that day
than she had dreamed of his being. She was keeping him to his room and,
as far as possible, hiding from him the things that were taking place
in the house. She dreaded now to have him hear any of this argument,
and she was sickened with the thought that the ten dollars over which
they were haggling might some day be just the price of the difference
between life and death for her Jimmie. Who could tell? The day might
come when just for that ten dollars he might be denied the some one
thing that would mean life for him. A wild, unknown anger flamed up in
her and she took a step down the stairs, threatening in a tense, bitter
voice:
"If you do not give me all, I will take everything out into the street
and burn it."
The man took one look up into her flaming eyes, and--his hands dropped
from the argument which they had been preparing. He turned quickly,
grabbed a bill from his pocket and handed it over to Ann, to bind the
contract.
Augusta left the two of them to quarrel out the details, for there were
some things which she had stipulated that Ann must have. For herself
she had reserved only some cooking things and plenty of blankets.
In the meantime she had accomplished the most ambitious part of the
whole enterprise. She had bought a horse. She owned Donahue.
Back in her not distant school days Augusta had known Mary Donahue.
Old Greenwich village, which nowadays harbors its thousands of
intellectual gypsies and free riders of every shade and hobby, used
to, and does still, furnish a winter home for a circle--they were not
a tribe--of Irish gypsies. They did not form a community, nor did they
travel the country in caravans. Each family went out by itself in the
spring, through the northern part of the state, sold its own laces,
told its own fortunes, swapped its own horses. But by what seemed an
unspoken agreement they all returned late in the fall to the same
neighborhood. With the instinct for places, which is strong in even the
most unreliable of migratory birds, they came to refuge in the rickety
jumbles of houses between Washington Square and West Fourteenth street,
where one street blunders into another, and gets nowhere, and turns
back, until, in desperation, West Fourth street crosses West Twelfth
street and ties the whole business up in a knot.
Patrick Sarsfield Donahue was one of these gypsies, coming honestly
and anciently into his way of living and having no intention of
leaving it for any other. But Mary Donahue, his daughter, was untrue
to the traditions of her kind in that she had insisted on going to
school every day of the time they were in New York. Augusta had been
interested in her. Augusta _would_ be.
Now Augusta went down across Fourteenth street to find Mary Donahue. If
Mary Donahue could, and she did, manage, cook for, boss and generally
hold together on the road, an enterprise that consisted of a father,
six horses--more or less according to the balance of trade, four
growing sisters, two wagons, two small healthy brothers, and uncounted,
and wholly unaccountable, dogs; if Mary Donahue could manage this, and
drive a team of horses, then Augusta could drive one horse and keep
Jimmie out in the air and free from worry until he should be cured.
The idea was so simple and so much to her own liking that Augusta was
almost ashamed to think of the fun she was going to have with it. And
she hugged it jealously to herself so that Jimmie should not know until
the wagon was at the door for him.
She knew how he would loathe and fret at the thought of going to any
sort of a sanitarium or a resort. And she had a terrible dread that
her money would not be enough for that. Now this way, once the horse
and wagon were paid for, they would not need any money except for the
things they actually ate, they and the horse. She was necessarily a
little vague about the latter item. But Mary Donahue could give her the
facts as an expert.
Mary Donahue, red haired, quick, a woman where Augusta was a child,
understood and glowed with sympathy. But she could not entirely
suppress the little smile of the professional at the ardent amateur.
Mentally she gave them about three days to stay out on the road.
But then Augusta talked to her. And Mary Donahue came and saw the
business-like way in which Augusta had dismantled the house. And she
saw Jimmie. And Augusta talked to her more.
The result was that Patrick Donahue sold Augusta a gypsy horse and a
gypsy wagon. And Mary Donahue drove the spectacle to Augusta's door one
morning early and announced that she herself would pilot the expedition
out of the perils of New York.
She drove the length of Broadway, until that thoroughfare became a
country road well beyond the sacred, constable haunted terraces of
Yonkers. All the while she discoursed valuable information and wise
counsel. Augusta listened greedily, cramming mental notes until her
head swam. Wardwell listened too, half asleep, lying most of the day in
a bunk that stretched along the side of the wagon, not really believing
that this thing was going on as it seemed to be, but not interested
enough, and really too sick, to bother about a protest.
Before sun-down Mary Donahue helped them with their first camping and
cooking. And Augusta, meekly submitting to the rulings of her mentor,
was filled with the secret inner triumph of the dreamer who sees his
dream come true under the last commonplace test of practicability. She
could do it! Her plan would work!
Wardwell, standing around, easing the soreness out of his joints, and
sniffing with water in his mouth at the cooking meat--. He had at this
time an almost animal craving for red meat, and Augusta's diet would
not allow it until night--Wardwell, too, knew with a sudden conviction
that Augusta's plan was going to work.
By the time the busy gypsy girl had shown how to stow the things away
for the night she had become so interested in the project that she
began to feel a certain responsibility for it.
"What would you do," she asked, eyeing Augusta speculatively as the
latter sat on a low stump with a red framing of low sumach bushes
hanging about her shoulders, "what could you do if you lost your money
on the road, or went broke, or--?"
"Oh, but," Augusta broke in quickly, "Jimmie's going to be all right in
no time. And he'll be writing lots and lots. And since it won't cost us
hardly anything to live, why we'll be getting rich--rich!"
She did not want the financial outcome of their venture discussed in
Jimmie's hearing. She herself had no more thought or fear of the future
than have the birds when they start to follow the spring into the
north. But she knew that Jimmie's mind was raw on just this, and she
wanted it plain that he was the man and the provider.
"Of course," said Mary Donahue, not listening. "But--with eyes like
yours"--she was studying Augusta out loud--"and with the look that
comes in them at times--why, it'd be a shame not to--" She wheeled
quickly and jumped up into the wagon.
She came back with a bundle which she dropped on Augusta's lap. Out
of it she shook a long flaming red veil which she wound quickly and
bewilderingly around Augusta's head and shoulders.
Wardwell looked on, a benign and philosophical spectator. It seemed
that the gypsy girl had packed the wagon. Jimmie was wondering mildly
if she had, perhaps, packed in a witch's cauldron, and a package or
two of forked lightning, and a few snail's teeth. If so, he would look
forward to an interesting summer.
"Your hair's all wrong for a fortune teller, of course," Mary Donahue
admitted. "But that don't make any difference--mine's worse, and I can
make as much as the best of them. If it does you no good, it'll do you
no harm," she grumbled as she felt Augusta's rising resistance.
"You don't have to keep the money, you know. But always make them pay
some money, anyway. Do you hear? Never tell a fortune without money to
pay."
She gave Augusta no time to answer but dove at the bundle again,
unfolding a red board and breaking out on it a pack of cards.
"You are a 'heart' woman," she said, continuing aloud her study of
Augusta. "You are almost too light now, but you'll get darker, and
you're married; that makes a difference."
She laid the cards at Augusta's hand, commanding:
"With your left hand, cut three piles towards your heart."
Augusta gingerly lifted the cards as she was told. She was just a
little frightened, but she would not protest or let Jimmie see that she
felt it to be anything more than a joke.
The gypsy gravely inspected the cards, top and bottom, of the three
piles, and said nothing. Then she put them together and began dealing
out from top and bottom into eight piles, a single card to each pile as
she went.
"To your house"--she named the piles as she laid down each card--"to
yourself--to the one you love best--what you do expect--what you do not
expect--sure to come true--this night--your wish."
When she had dealt out all the cards in this way, she turned up the
first pile and began to read:
"_To your house_: there is love and good times, lots of fun making.
You'll both still be laughing and taking fun out of it no matter what
comes. It is all good, good!" She was kneeling at Augusta's side now.
There was none of the air of mystery of the professional card reader.
She had forgotten that she was giving Augusta a lesson. She was poring
eagerly over the cards reading them swiftly as they came up to her,
with all of a child's abandon in a game.
"_To yourself_: there is shortness of money. You will be worried about
money, not right away, maybe, but some time before very long. And a
horse, a horse will be in a part of the worry.
"_To the one you love best_: a dark--!" She stopped and turned about
with a swift, tigerish twist of her lithe body. Wardwell, who had
been gangling about, amused, and yet feeling somewhat left out of the
picture, suddenly found himself pierced by the angriest pair of blue
eyes he had ever seen. He did not know what it was about. But from the
look the girl gave him he would not have been surprised if she had
leapt upon him and buried claws in him.
"What--what is it?" Augusta asked wonderingly.
"Nothing," said the gypsy girl shortly. And she turned back to the
cards.
"_What you do expect_: there is sickness and long journeying, and black
and white all mixed together.
"_What you do not expect_: deceit. Deceit will break your life."
Again the girl turned sharply to eye Wardwell. Evidently he stood the
scrutiny well, for she turned back and said quite gently:
"I mustn't do this. You didn't ask me. And you didn't pay me. And I'm
only giving you a lesson, anyway. Now just watch and listen." She
mixed the cards all up together and began pulling out combinations at
random, reading them in hasty rhymes as she showed them to Augusta.
"Back to back says speedy meeting--Three eights, change of states--Two
jacks and a king, a constable bring--Two kings and a jack, an old
friend back--" And so on through twenty flying combinations, while
Augusta watched the quick brown fingers and listened to the broken
rhyming, fascinated, yet feeling that she would very much rather not
touch the cards at all. She knew, of course, that she would never think
of using them in the way the gypsy girl had suggested. Nevertheless,
she was afraid of them. She was sharply conscious that the girl had
stopped telling what she saw in the reading because she had thought
that she saw something unpleasant, and something connected with Jimmie.
Augusta knew that she could never believe in any of this. It was just
the patter of a trade. The combinations suggested the rhymes that went
with them. That was all. But, just the same, and although she was very
grateful for the help that the girl had given her, Augusta was wishing
that Mary Donahue would take her cards and go home.
"Now shuffle the cards and see it for yourself," Mary Donahue wheedled.
"You've got it in you--I can see it in your eyes. And when you have
that, you can see things even if you don't know the names of the cards.
And if you haven't got it, you could study them all your life--I've
known people that did--and never know boo."
Augusta took the cards with evident reluctance, but began to shuffle
them with an ease and sureness that caught Wardwell's attention
instantly. He remembered that Rose Wilding had had an unexplained
horror of cards. She had never permitted even the most innocent game of
cards in her house. It had been a difficult and, at times, an irksome
restriction. He knew that more than once she had lost good boarders on
account of it. But Rose Wilding had persisted in her strong way, with
few words, giving neither excuse nor explanation. So he was fairly
certain that Augusta had never before held in her hands a pack of cards.
Now he watched with sharp interest Augusta's deft, natural handling of
the cards, and, somehow, he did not like it.
With a feeling of growing excitement Augusta laid out the piles as she
had seen the other girl do, and without wishing to do so found herself
naming over the piles as she went around. She had not thought that she
would remember how they ran. But she found that she could not forget if
she tried. And it seemed that she did not want to try.
Augusta turned up the first of the piles and looked blankly at them.
Her hands were cool and firm, but she felt herself trembling inwardly
with a queer, creeping surge of blood. And she drew a quick breath of
relief when she saw that the cards meant nothing to her. They were
just a jumble of red and black and white, just pictures and spots. She
wondered at herself for being excited about it.
"Don't try to read anything from them," the gypsy voice at her ear
commanded. "Just don't think of anything, and just keep staring steady
and steady until your eyes cross."
Wardwell, watching, felt an irritated impulse to interfere. He hated
to see Augusta's delicately sensitized mind submitted to these gypsy
tricks. But, man-like, he was afraid of appearing ridiculous if he made
any kind of a fuss. For, after all, it was only a little bit of fooling.
Augusta sat limp and stared indifferently down at the cards as she had
been told to do. Her eyes fell out of focus and she continued to stare
while the spots and pictures moved about in a soothing, restful sort
of blur that lured her mind farther and farther away from the grip of
conscious thought.
Without any wish to do so, and without any thought, she began to speak.
"_To my house_: there is laughter and fear, coming together and in
pairs. I must never, never share my house with any third one. There is
water laughing by it all the day long in the sunshine, and a bleak wind
whistling past in the night.
"_To myself_: I am starting upon a long, long journey. I shall not rest
and my feet will be hurrying always, always. For the end of my journey
is hidden in the heart of The Hills of Desire.
"_To the one I love best_: there is a dark woman, tall and straight,
and--"
A quick, visible tremor ran over her, and as though it had touched a
spring in her body she sprang into the air like a wounded animal. As
she came to her feet, groping and tottering, her head cleared and she
saw Wardwell and ran to him.
"What was it, dear?" he said soothingly, petting her head as she hid
her face against his breast. "Don't think of it, darling. We both know
that it's nothing but nonsense. We won't tell our fortunes, sweetheart.
We'll just live them."
Augusta did not say anything. But after a little, feeling the
security of Jimmie's arms about her, she turned and looked defiantly,
resentfully at Mary Donahue who was unconcernedly picking up the cards
and the board from the ground where Augusta's sudden move had scattered
them. Then Augusta was aware of the gypsy veil about her head. She tore
it off and threw it at the stooping girl.
She was instantly sorry and apologetic. She ran over and picking it up
she handed it to Mary Donahue, who had pretended, very plausibly, not
to notice.
Mary Donahue took it and wrapped up the bundle as she had brought it
from the wagon. Then she went to put the bundle back where it belonged,
at the same time announcing that she must be getting home.
With a final admonition to them not to poke holes in the roof of the
wagon, she shook hands with Wardwell, kissed Augusta, and stepped away
across the fields toward a trolley line that would take her to New York.
They never saw her again.
In the morning Jimmie saw Augusta struggling with the harness which
Mary Donahue had so easily slung under the wagon. He was minded to let
her wrestle with it for a while. For, with a sick man's querulousness
he was sometimes irritated by the ease and capability with which
Augusta got things done. It was a constant challenge to his own
frequent periods of helplessness. But he could not be unkind. He came
dutifully over to help her.
"We'll have to do this thing in the orthodox way, Augusta, or that
horse will laugh himself to death at us."
"I know what goes on first," Augusta defended herself against his
implications. "But I don't know the name of it."
"Never mind," said Jimmie. "Go over and get the horse by the mane. Talk
to him. Divert his attention. I'm nervous while he watches me fooling
about with his necktie and suspenders. What the deuce is his name,
anyhow? In another minute I'll be calling him 'it,' like a baby."
"Why, Jimmie, I forgot to ask!" Augusta confessed blankly, feeling
herself convicted of a serious neglect. "Whatever shall we do?"
"Christen him."
"But what good will that do? He won't know that it's his name."
"Tell him."
"But, how?"
"How did he find out his name in the first place?"
"I don't know--Oh yes," Augusta brightened, "You just shake the oats
at him, or whatever it is for little horses, and you say Dan, Dan, or
whatever it is. And that's his name!"
"But suppose it was Alice? Nonsense!" Jimmie argued contrarily. "He'd
think it was the name of the oats. Just as if you said Bran, Bran! or
Force, Force! or Shredded--"
"Now Jimmie, please stop. And be serious and think. You _know_ we've
got to call him _something_. Why just think! If anyone should stop us
and ask us what was our horse's name. And we'd have to say that we
didn't know. And then they'd tell somebody else. And somebody else
would stop us and ask us. And then we'd be stopped and suspected and
arrested and maybe put in a jail somewhere."
"_I_ wouldn't," said Jimmie basely. "_I_ didn't steal the horse."
He stooped quickly as though he expected something to be thrown at his
head. But as his eye caught something on the collar he straightened up
exultantly.
"It's all right!" he exclaimed eagerly. "We're safe! Here's his name on
the collar."
"Oh, on his collar! I didn't know they did that for horses. Let me see."
"There it is, plain as his nose."
"Donahue," Augusta read. "But that isn't _his_ name. That's his
father's name--I mean, Mary's father's name--I mean, his owner's name."
"No," said Jimmie gravely. "I'm afraid you don't understand at all.
You see, gypsies are that way. The oldest horse--You will admit that
this is the oldest horse--the oldest horse is always called by the
family name. You understand, it's just like in England. You know they
never think of calling the son and heir by any boy's name. He is not
Billie or Teddy or anything like that. He's simply called by the name
of the house. He's Kingsmead, or Duncastle, or Ravenwood--So strong,
you know, and effective."
"So," he waved his hand by way of introduction, "we have with us,
'Donahue.'"
Augusta crinkled up her little nose. She knew that Jimmie was quite
capable of cooking up the whole explanation on the instant. But, as she
had no way of convicting him just now, she accepted the introduction
and called out sweetly to the horse who was grazing unconcernedly at
the end of his tie-rope:
"Donahue!"
He lifted his head. So it was settled. His name was Donahue.
Jimmie glowed with virtuous triumph as he led "Donahue" over to the
wagon, slung on the harness and backed him between the shafts.
But as Augusta finally climbed into the wagon she noticed a name
painted on the front boxing under their seat. While Jimmie went
through the wholly superlative business of guiding Donahue out to the
open road--the horse would have done much better if let have his own
head--Augusta wriggled skilfully back into the body of the wagon, to
search for further proofs of Jimmie's duplicity. Evidently she found
plenty of them, for when she got back into her place her face was red
with exertion and suppressed anger. Jimmie gave his entire attention
to the road ahead, driving ostentatiously with both hands as though he
were in the finish of a crowded race--Donahue would not have left his
sober, middle-of-the-road walk for anything less than a roaring motor
truck.
Augusta broke out laughing hysterically. Jimmie preserved a dignified,
inquiring silence, while Donahue almost broke into a trot.
"The wagon's name is Donahue!" Augusta wailed shrilly between peals of
laughter. "Just like the first son in England! And the cook stove is
named Donahue. And they call the skillet Donahue. And the name of your
bunk is Donahue!"
"'Bunk?'" Jimmie queried dejectedly. "Was it all bunk? It sounded all
right while I--"
"I don't mean slang. I mean the thing you slept on."
"I didn't sleep," said Jimmie, springing nimbly to a diversion of the
attack. "I only touched the thing in three spots. And I've got corns in
all three places."
"Well, you snored," said Augusta cruelly.
"Never!" Jimmie averred with solemn unction. "I never snore."
"Very good," Augusta agreed pleasantly. "I suppose you'll say it was
Donahue."
"This comes of being married," Jimmie remarked warningly to the Hudson
river. "Never before did any lady tell me to my blushing face that I
snored like a horse."
So they bickered happily through the June morning, careless of where
the end of the road might be, the feeling of dependence upon each other
and of utter independence of all other things wrapping them together in
a nearness that was so sweet and so friendly tender that it almost hurt.
And here at the end of their beautiful first day alone Wardwell sat
watching his little lady furtively toss a pinch of the spilled salt
over her shoulder. He knew the superstition about spilled salt. Augusta
was taking no chances. But he was wondering--as he probably would
continue to wonder during the length of his life--at how little he knew
of the real thoughts that went on back of the beautiful blue eyes that
looked out so open and unafraid at him and at all the world.
Was she a child that had not learned to know fear? Or was she a woman
full grown, so wise in love and strength that she could look down all
fear? He guessed that she was both of these things. For she threw salt
over her shoulder. And she looked out of those deep blue eyes into the
blood-red sunset on the opposite hills across the wide river, and he
saw that there was in those eyes a light as brave and unafraid as fire
itself. The light is never afraid of the darkness, for while the light
lives there is no dark.
The day had been quite unseasonably hot and there were storm clouds
piling up like boulders on the tops of the lower Catskills, away to the
northwest. The river lay below them, dry-eyed, still, mistless, with a
great, terrifying gash of red shot across its bosom where lay the path
to the dying sun.
A breathless, heavy hush lay over the valley. Shutting their eyes to
the motion of the distant boats, they could have believed that the
world had suddenly died around them, leaving them alone and forgotten.
There was not a sound, not a ripple of air, not even the whirring of a
bat or the cheep of a bird. Wardwell, over sensitive and craving for
the homely cheery noises of things moving, stirred uneasily.
But Augusta, child though she was of shut in city walls, had in her
enough of the primitive to know that there was a physical cause for the
hush that had fallen upon nature. She could feel a storm coming.
How would Jimmie stand it? She had thought of this when she was
planning--if indeed she had really done any planning--to make this
adventure. But it was a fact that she had thought only vaguely of
warm rain beating harmlessly against the tight roof of the wagon, of
falling dreamily off to sleep in the dark listening to the soft patter
and drip of rain among the trees.
Now she looked fearfully at Jimmie, and at the frail walls of their
home. And she trembled as she thought of the security and comfort
from which she had brought him to this, where she had but a bit of
dripping canvas to put between him and exposure. Already in the process
of mothering him she had come to think of him as a helpless child.
And vague, terrifying memories played upon her, of things heard and
imagined, of great trees crashing down in forests, of roaring winds
and furious, driving rain beating down to death the little wild things
of the woods. Now she realized, for the first time it seemed, that
Jimmie's life hung perilously on the care that she could give him, that
even a wetting, such as, for herself, she could laugh at, would perhaps
cost him more than he could gain by days and days in the open.
With a determined shrug she threw off the impression and rising began
to rattle the dishes.
"Jimmie," she said lightly "take the pail from under the wagon and go
out to the spring for water. I've let the fire die down and now I'll
have to build it up again, for nothing but boiling water will take the
fat off these dishes."
"You should have camped near a hot water spring."
"There isn't any such thing."
"Sure there is; there's Arkansas Hot Springs--Why didn't you camp
there?--And Virginia Hot Spring, and San Antone, and--"
"Take Donahue with you, if you must talk. He'll listen, if you give him
a drink."
"Donahue," he said sadly as he unhooked the pail from under the wagon,
"we be brothers in calumny. She blackens your character. She belittles
my powers of charming converse. Let us retire to the unfrequented
spring and there we shall mingle our bitter tears with the sweet
waters."
Donahue saw the pail being taken from its place, knew that the pail was
going where there was water, and followed without comment.
Mary Donahue had indicated for Augusta the spring and the camping
place. A high wall of hill stood up above the road on the right and out
of the hill came the spring. On the river side of the road a fringe of
trees screened the little flat promontory in the centre of which the
wagon stood. Occasionally the purring of a swiftly driven automobile
on the hard road within a few yards of them told them that the world
still ran its hustling way, but they were as effectually hidden and
private as if they had been securely housed in the middle of some vast
estate of their own. And when the dishes were washed and everything put
in shape for the night, Augusta brought blankets and they sat perched
out on the very edge of the cliff looking down to where the "Central"
trains thundered along some two hundred feet directly below them, and
out across the broad, dark expanse of the river.
The Albany boat came gliding up the silent path of the river, her
tiered, warmly lighted decks looking like a series of summer porches,
the steady, even motion of the boat giving to the watchers on the hill
the pleasant feeling that she was standing and that they were being
gently carried past her.
The searchlight from the boat playing along the hill bank caught the
figures of the boy and girl struck out in enormous silhouettes above
the rim of the cliff and a merry cheer came up from the boat.
"Go on and mind your own business," scolded Jimmie. "We are no mooning
young couple. And we are no subject for flash-light pictures. We are
sober married folks, with our home in the background and a respectable
horse in the middle distance."
The flashlight held them for a moment and then swung off overhead and
went to peer into the windows of a moving train on the "West Shore."
The band on the now receding boat broke into an old fashioned waltz
tune which, sweetened and mellowed by the distance and the echoing
chording of the hills, came up to them with the softness of a gentle,
kindly dream of forgotten people.
The breaking contour of the river soon hid the lights of the boat, and
Jimmie and Augusta were left to the great, solemn thinking silences
about them, and to themselves, very content.
In the stark blackness of the closed wagon, in the middle of the night,
Augusta found herself standing on the floor. She did not know how, or
why, she had gotten out of the little string hammock that was her bed.
But now she was shocked into full wakefulness. The wagon seemed to be
moving and she gave a little scream of terror as she thought of the
cliff and the terrible broken fall to the tracks below.
But the roar of the wind and swish of driven rain drowned her scream
and she realized that what she thought was movement was just the
swaying of the wagon body on its springs.
Reassured, and recovering quickly from her first fright, she stood
swaying in the middle of the floor, her hand clutching the wooden side
of Jimmie's bunk. He was sleeping quietly, very quietly it seemed, and
Augusta had to lean her ear down almost to his lips to catch the stir
of his breathing.
The chill of the water laden air caught her lightly clad body and she
shivered as her hands went groping over Jimmie's bedding to see that
he was all covered and dry. The tugging of the wind at the canvas
threatened her now, not with the fear that it might overturn the wagon
or drive it over the cliff but that it might rip a hole somewhere and
drench Jimmie.
Again she thought with trembling of the safe refuge of solid walls, of
the friendly comfort of feeling that people were near at hand to help
if there were need, and a wave of homesick loneliness, a sickening fear
of destitution and homelessness, swept over her.
The storm driving high across the chasm of the river struck full and
mercilessly at the wagon exposed on the tip of the cliff. Sheets of
rain came whipping down the wind, tearing at the canvas and threatening
every instant to strip it from the frames. The wind went snapping and
howling by like some hungry, angry animal, defeated and driven off
for the moment, but sure to come and threaten again. Peals of thunder
rolled and reverberated against the rocks, coming every moment nearer
and more terrifying as the centre of the storm swept down the river.
Augusta straightened up and stood there, it seemed for hours, her
eyes staring wide and fascinated, waiting for and cringing under each
successive stroke of lighting as it came ripping down through the
storm, lighting the black interior of the wagon with a ghastly glow.
At last, when it seemed that if she faced another flash of the horrid
light she must surely go mad, she sank down to her knees upon the cold
floor and buried her eyes deep in the pillow beside Jimmie's head. She
wanted to wake him, to creep into his arms and be held, for she was
horribly frightened. But he was warm and safe as he was and she felt
that she must not disturb him.
After a little she remembered that she must not do things like this.
She must be sensible and get back into the warmth of her blankets. She
was shivering and chattering with cold and fright. And she knew that
she must take no risks of making herself ill. She rose obediently to
the telling of her own good sense and went groping for her hammock. But
she felt that she must look outside. If she could only once see the
solid world outside and know with her eyes that it was standing still
and unmoved while her own crazy shelter rocked and swayed she could
feel safer.
She poked a little hole between the curtains at the back of the wagon,
for the wind was driving dead at the front, and peeped out. A flash of
lightning showed her Donahue, the mis-named, the sturdy, the patient,
standing unmoved and uncomplaining in the lee of the wagon. Her heart
gave a bound of pity and compunction. She had forgotten him entirely.
She had not even thought of his being out there in the storm. He might
have walked away, she thought, and found some shed or shelter for
himself. Instead, he stood there, dumb and faithful. Impulsively she
put her hand out into the rain towards him, and she was thrilled with a
sudden feeling of comfort and help as she felt a cold wet nose come up
and nuzzle in her palm.
She did not know that the love which came to her in that moment for the
big, ungainly, faithful horse would one day spring the trap of life for
her and Jimmie. But even if she had known, I think she would still have
preferred to love him.
She crept contentedly back into bed. And although the wind howled and
the rain lashed mercilessly and she watched nervously all through the
night, yet she had none of the panic fear of her early fright. That
figure of patient, dumb strength and dependableness standing out there
in the storm had given her a courage that would not be easily shaken
again.
Towards morning the wind went down, but the rain continued to fall in a
steady drizzling mist that ushered in a gray, cold, depressing morning.
To Augusta it seemed interminable hours before it was time to get up
and feed Donahue. She thought seriously of making hot coffee for him,
but gave up the idea, not because she was afraid of Jimmie's ridicule
but because she was not sure that Donahue would understand.
Jimmie slept heavily and awoke feverish and coughing horribly. Augusta
could think of nothing to do but to get away from this place. It
would have seemed more reasonable to stay quiet at least until the
rain stopped, for here standing still she could keep the wagon tight
and dry inside. But she could not help feeling that they would be
better anywhere than here. Besides, the commissariat was in trouble.
When she opened the little chest in the side of the wagon she found
that the four bottles of milk which she had bought the evening before
for Jimmie's ration of today had all been curdled by the storm. That
settled the matter. Jimmie could not have his breakfast until she had
found a farmhouse or a country store where she could buy milk. They
must move on in the rain.
She bundled out cheerily in rain coat and rubbers to assay the doubtful
business of hitching the horse alone, for she would not think of
letting Jimmie out in the rain.
"I suppose, Donahue," she apologized, "it isn't proper for a gypsy to
wear rubbers. Probably I ought to go barefoot, but you won't please
expect that, for a little while anyway. Now I hate to hurry your
breakfast," she explained as she brought the bridle, "but you know
Jimmie hasn't had any yet, and doesn't know where he's going to get
any. And I strongly suspect that you're only pretending anyhow. I'm
almost sure," she said peering sharply down into the bucket where
Donahue was making a hurried business of snuffing up imaginary oats,
"that you finished the last of your oats five minutes ago. Hold up your
head, sir."
Donahue did not understand the spoken word. Mary Donahue had a way of
slapping him sharply under the jaw at this juncture. But out of the
corner of his eye he saw the bridle and raised his head cheerfully.
The harness was mean and sticky with the rain and the mildew of the
night's dampness, and Jimmie had been none to expert in hanging it away
so that it would come out right and convenient. But with much tugging
and careful study and brave whistling in the rain, and more tugging,
Donahue was finally backed into the shafts and the traces made fast.
When all was ready and Augusta was about to climb into the wagon she
noticed what seemed to be some entirely superfluous straps hanging down
towards Donahue's hind feet.
They were, of course, the "hold-back" straps, to keep the wagon from
bumping the horse's legs going down hill. Augusta could see no earthly
use for them, but she knew they were out of place dangling down there.
They gave Donahue a half dressed effect which she did not like. She
wondered if she ought to consult Jimmie, but after more study she
remembered triumphantly that they went around the shafts. She wound
them around the shafts and buckled them up neatly. Knowing nothing of
their importance or their purpose, she could not know that the proper
fastening home of a hold-back strap to the shaft is a thing that must
be learned, and learned young. Everything now looked right and neat, so
she climbed up and fixed the driving curtain as Mary Donahue had shown
her how to do.
"Do you think you'd better start," Jimmie objected through the inner
curtain at the last minute. "I'd rather go hungry all day than to see
you out there in the rain. I'm not hungry anyway."
"Why, who cares for a little rain. Giddap, Donahue," she sang out
tightening up the reins.
Donahue picked his way soberly out through the trees and in spite
of Augusta's tugging on the left hand rein to turn him up the road
deliberately crossed to the spring.
"I didn't think you'd ever want water again," Augusta explained her
oversight, "after last night."
Donahue took his accustomed morning draught, and, blowing the water
from his nostrils, turned sedately and started up the road.
Jimmie sat upon his bunk, fully dressed, shivering miserably and
trying to choke down the sound of his coughing. The wagon swayed along
creaking and complaining as they climbed the grade. He rose to look
out through the rear curtain at the gray, sodden day. He wished that
Augusta could not hear his cough. He knew that it hurt her really more
than it did him. And he wished, he wished, well--several things. As
he stood there, thinking vaguely, dejectedly, he felt the wagon slip
forward gently, and then there was a slight bump.
The wagon was yanked forward so roughly that he nearly fell out through
the curtain. He caught himself and swaying back was pitched into his
bunk. He scrambled up again and clutching desperately at the side
of his bunk managed to get forward to the back of the driving seat.
Tearing apart the curtain he tumbled into the seat and understood what
was happening.
The hold-back straps had slipped loose, the wagon was bumping cruelly
on Donahue's legs at every jump, and he was running away madly down a
long hill.
The driving curtain had broken down in front of Augusta. She was down
on her knees in the wet, her hair flying wildly about her, tugging
despairingly at the reins over the dashboard, and praying:
"Oh, please, please, Donahue! What is it? What is it? Please, whoa.
I don't care, but you'll hurt Jimmie Oh, please stop and don't hurt
Jimmie!"
Then she turned to another quarter:
"Dear, dear God, and Mary Mother, please don't let Jimmie get hurt.
It's my fault! You know I took him out this way. You know he didn't
want to come," she appealed. "And I'll be so good. Oh, please don't let
Jimmie be hurt!"
Wardwell slipped cautiously down and gathering her up braced her in the
seat.
"Hold tight, dear," he commanded. "We'll be all right." And he braced
himself to saw on the reins.
But Donahue by this time had the bit in his teeth, and so far as any
effect of the reins was concerned Jimmie might as well have been
pulling at the dashboard. The horse had no check rein. His head was
down, his back flattened out, and he was running like a frightened dog,
the wagon jolting down wickedly on his legs at every few jumps.
Jimmie knew that he was as frightened and as powerless as the girl
crouching beside him. If he jumped with her, they would be hurt or
killed. If they stayed and hung on the horse would surely stumble or
the wagon would slew off the road--he looked down the winding stretch
of the road and counted the curves and wondered at which one of them
they would be thrown over the bank--or they would meet some heavy truck
and be crushed.
The crazed fright of the horse came back to the hearts of the two
behind him. The mad Rap-a-rap, Rap-a-rap of his frantic feet on the
hard road, the wild careening of the wagon, the loud pumping of blood
in their throats took from them all sense and thought as the rain
beat unfelt upon their faces and trees and rocks and fences whirled
drunkenly by.
Augusta was hugging closely now while Jimmie sawed mechanically at the
reins, and he heard her praying quietly. His heart stopped beating as
he looked down a sudden dip of the road below them and saw a country
railroad crossing.
Beyond the tracks the road ran up a hill again. If he could only cross
safely, he could stop the horse there where the incline of the hill
would hold the wagon back from hitting him.
But because this was all an ordered nightmare, Wardwell heard, just
where in a nightmare he would expect to hear it, the whistle of a
train. He tried to drag the powerful crazed horse to the side of the
road, to overturn the wagon if he must. But he might as well have tried
to turn the oncoming engine.
Augusta saw the train coming toward the crossing, as they were coming.
She did not cry out, only snuggled a little closer and waited. Then
with one last mad dip the horse struck the tracks, and the wagon leaped
across in front of the grinding engine.
A gray faced man leaning out of the cab of the engine yelled crazily
at them, but they did not hear. Donahue ran on up the hill, until he
seemed to miss something. The wagon was not hitting him any more. Then
he became conscious of the tugging at his jaw. He slowed down to a
weak-kneed stumbling trot, then to a walk, and stopped, shaking and
panting.
Wardwell sat a while holding Augusta tight, for now she was crying
bitterly in great gasping sobs.
When he had petted and quieted her back to something like herself,
he started to get down to fix the hold-backs. He was shaking weakly
himself and as he reached his foot down to the step his hand caught
something for support. It was the handle of the brake.
He stumbled to his feet on the ground, and turning back, his hand still
on the handle of the brake, he broke out into a hysterical laugh.
"Oh Jimmie, don't!" said Augusta, frightened anew.
"Augusta," he said solemnly, "don't ever marry a fool again."
"What--what--?"
"This," he explained, "is a brake, to stop the wagon. If I hadn't been
a fool and lost my head I'd have thought of that brake and stopped us
right at the start.
"But, anyhow, I think this is enough. We had better go back to the
city, where people are paid to take care of us."
Augusta sat a little while thinking, while Jimmie fixed the hold-backs.
"Jimmie," she said simply, "do you think we'll ever go through anything
worse than that?"
"No, my dear, we will not."
"Then we've passed the worst, already," she announced calmly. "Let us
go and find your breakfast."
V
In the pearl dawn of a lovely July morning Augusta lay in her hammock,
happily lazy and wide awake looking up at the line of the hills,
watching the rosy light from the sun as it flushed color up into
the pale eastern sky. Were these the hills of desire, she wondered,
thinking vaguely of the words that had come to her while she studied
the cards at the gypsy girl's bidding. The long, sun-drenched, dusty
days upon the road, the sudden violent storms, the meetings with people
who thought her so queer a gypsy, all had swept into a distant past
the impression of that evening a month ago. A happy, busy month it had
been, full of new things to be learned, of old, half forgotten things
to be remembered, of careful explanations to people who did not listen;
and three black, fearful days when Jimmie had been so bad that they
could not move, days and especially nights when she had sat crouching
beside him and had felt her faith and her dear high hope slipping from
her and had frankly feared that he was dying.
Those nights of sinking fear seemed very far off this morning as she
lay and looked at Jimmie stretched out along the length of the wagon
on the other side, sleeping as smoothly and easily as a child. She
could see that the skin still stretched drum tight over his temple
hollows and she knew that there were still hollows under his big bony
shoulders into which her two hands would fit. But she no longer feared
these things, for she could see the vital tan of sun and wind creeping
up across his face and driving away the hated pallor and she knew that
this was the sign of life for him.
She smiled as she thought of the efforts she had wasted in trying
to tell people the truth of why they were on the road in this way.
She loved the freedom of the road, but she did not want to be taken
too literally for a gypsy. So she was careful to explain to the
farmer's wives to whom she went to buy eggs and milk and in the little
village stores where she stopped for meat and bread that she had
nothing to trade in the gypsy way, that she was just like anybody's
wife travelling in this way for her husband's health. They believed
her--everybody always believed Augusta on sight. But on returning to
the wagon it was often to find Jimmie eloquently discoursing from the
step of the wagon to a moderate sized crowd of people--Where _did_ they
come from? She would wonder horrified--upon the universal merits of a
certain gypsy remedy which had come down to him through a wonderful
and ever varying procession of lineal antecedents, and which he was
presently going to bestow, at a nominal price, upon this distinguished
and intelligent audience.
Humiliated and angry, afraid that she would laugh and yet wanting to
cry, Augusta would jump up into her seat and drive brusquely off,
Jimmie swaying on the step and waving apologies for his untimely
departure. To her shame, he actually did sell three bottles of cod
liver oil, which he had himself refused to take. When, however, she
caught him dressing up as hair restorer the bottle of harness oil which
Mary Donahue's care had provided, Augusta asserted genuine authority
and this outlet of his genius was stopped.
But in the matter of horse trading she found that she had no influence
whatever. With a cheery hail and a wave of the arm he would stop
anybody who drove a horse and proceed to ask pertinent and leading
questions about the horse which the other person drove. And if he could
but awaken in his listener's eye the faintest gleam of our American
rural passion he would be down on the ground instantly, walking around
the stranger's horse, squinting severely at him, cataloguing his points
in technical terms wonderfully misplaced, with a dispassionate, steady
flow of bewildering language, until his listener in sheer self defense
turned the inquiry upon Donahue.
Jimmie would then throw up his head, one ear cocked in the air in that
way he had, as though some new and interesting fact had been brought to
his attention. Then he would talk of Donahue.
On ordinary days, when Jimmie was in no more than his usual good strain
of talk, Donahue was only a pure blooded Arabian bay from a race of
desert horses, whose breed and pedigree had been guarded jealously
through a thousand years by Jimmie's own forbears. But when Jimmie was
having a good day Donahue was apotheosized. He, Donahue, was in fact a
lineal descendant of the fay white horses that used to run wild under
the lakes in Ireland in the days of the giants. Jimmie reminded his
listener truculently that Colonel Roosevelt had written all about these
things in his studies of the Irish Sagas, and he dared him to admit
that he had not read anything of it. Our rural people do not like to
admit complete ignorance of any given thing. They generally agreed that
they "had heard something about it."
That was enough for Jimmie's case. Donahue's rusty color proved the
matter--Those horses would certainly have turned rusty after all that
water.
It was in vain that Augusta explained to Jimmie that these people
really thought him crazy, and that they only listened to him and
humored him because they were afraid that he would turn violent. Not
argument, nor ridicule, nor even tears could break him from his mania
of proposing to trade Donahue to every person who drove a horse and who
could be persuaded to stop and listen to him. And Augusta could only
sit in her place, smothering her laughter and her anger until he was
willing to break off his farce and drive on.
She remembered one awful day in the Mohawk Valley between Little Falls
and Herkimer when he had stopped in succession, and labored with, a
candidate for Congress, who foolishly tried to sow the good political
seed which was quickly blown away in the breeze of Jimmie's zeal, with
a butcher, with a jolly old farmer who declared that if he had Jimmie's
tongue he would go on the road himself, with a capable spinster who
drove a smart horse and plainly showed that she would have liked to
crack her whip at Jimmie's ear, with a veterinary surgeon--with whom he
nearly came to blows, and with a minister of the Gospel.
Now their way was quieter, for they had left the main travelled roads
at Remsen and were faring straight into the heart of the hills. "You
can follow the M. & M. from Remsen," Mary Donahue had told Augusta. "We
never go that way, for there's no people much and the roads are rough.
But that's where the sick people all go. And you'll be all right. Just
keep somewhere not too far from the railroad. There's always some kind
of a road, and you can't get lost when you're not going anywhere in
particular anyway."
Augusta had as yet no definite plans. She had not indeed thought of the
need of any plans. Never had two birds set forth on flight into the
northland with less thought of the end of the summer than Augusta and
Jimmie had taken of where they might be when the nip of chilly nights
should come to warn them that the summer was over. Augusta had thought
only of a long, long summer of happy drifting before the end of which
Jimmie would somehow be wonderfully cured. And beyond that point her
thought had not gone.
With the sight of the solid hills before her, into which they had been
slowly climbing for some days, it seemed that the future was suddenly
drawing up to them with a sharpened, stiffened outline. The hills
looked so definite and decided that it seemed almost an impertinence
to go wandering at will among them without object or settled purpose.
Their very stillness and the steady, ordered lines of them as they
tiered up, hill behind hill, to meet the rising sun, reminded Augusta
that even here the rule of order of the world held good. People must
not go on too long trusting to the future just because the future is a
vague thing and far away.
The days along the road had taught her many things, and here where they
were almost in the big woods her eyes and ears were being sharpened in
the silences to learn and to understand the life of the little wild
things that rustled and scuttled through the grass and twittered in the
tree-tops and called sleepily to each other in the twilight.
Last night at dusk she had walked out on a bridge over a swampy creek
and had seen a muskrat jump from the tall grass of the bank into the
water and swim in a straight line, only the tip of his nose showing
above the water, right to his house. Then she had thought only of how
swiftly and quietly he had slipped away. Now she remembered that the
largest part of his wild wisdom was that he had a home to get into and
that he knew just where it was.
And yesterday she had seen a dog chasing another dog--Jimmie said it
was a woodchuck, but she had no great faith in Jimmie's wood lore.
It was too universal, too impromptu and, alas! too agreeable and
accomodating. The woodchuck--if Jimmie was right--had vanished suddenly
in the middle of a bare, open field. He had a place to go to and he
knew just where it was.
Even the melancholy owls who spread pessimism through the night were
probably hooting each on his own doorstep.
She and Jimmie were not fitted with the instincts of these little wild
things, to have a refuge always at hand against the storm that was sure
to come.
And she had noticed that the smaller these wild things were the better
they were equipped, in their apparent helplessness, to escape danger.
The little meadow bird building her nest in the open field was the very
color of the grass that stood up above her. And the busy woodpecker was
invisible against the bark of the tree where he worked for his living.
Looking up at the suggestive strength of the hills Augusta thought how
little and how unready people were in this great world that knew so
well its own laws and how to take care of itself. And of all people she
was sure that she and Jimmie were the least equipped, the least ready
for the test of life in the swift sweeping changes that nature's order
brings.
A little worried frown came clouding down over the morning light in
Augusta's face and a sharp little crease of trouble set itself straight
down in the middle of her forehead.
A new sound came now striking persistently at her attention and lifting
finally, by a fresh interest, the worried frown. For many minutes
she had been listening intermittently and subconsciously to what was
evidently a connubial argument in a tree-top. Two birds were talking
about her, or at least Augusta took the argument to herself and had
been translating it idly into unconscious words while her thoughts were
busy elsewhere.
An energetic, housewifely voice had been complaining insistently:
"Why _don't_ she get _up_-ee?
"Why _don't_ she get _up_-ee?"
And a somewhat sleepy, tolerant, patently male, voice answered back
good naturedly:
"Let'er _sleep_, let'er _sleep_."
The colloquy had rambled intermittently into other matters, but Augusta
felt guiltily sure that the energetic housewife in the treetop had an
eye upon her, for every little while she brought the dialogue back to
"Why _don't_ she get _up_-ee?
"Why _don't_ she get _up_-ee?"
And male laziness answered comfortably:
"Let'er _sleep_, let'er _sleep_."
The sound that now broke off her half listening reverie was a short,
plunking noise of something dropping into the little pond near which
the wagon stood. Could it be that some boy on the hill at the other
side was throwing stones into the pond.
She turned on her shoulder to watch the surface of the pond. Certainly
there were the ripples spreading out in gentle waving circles from
a centre at which something must have fallen into the pond. As her
eye followed the waving circle toward the farther bank, right in the
line of her vision there sprang straight out of the mirrored water
a beautiful, tapering, black, silver and green body, that seemed to
hang suspended an instant in a glistening arch and then dropped like a
silver knife, without a splash, and was gone.
Augusta lay for a moment staring bewildered at the spot where the
vision had disappeared.
Then she sprang for her dressing curtain and began to scuffle into her
clothes. "If that fish would only wait!"
Jimmie had bought fish lines at a country store the other day and had
rigged a pole after the manner that he had learned during boyhood
summers in the country. Yesterday he had persisted in stopping to fish
this stream lower down at a place that looked promising. And Augusta
had jeered good-naturedly at him, and even Donahue had kicked, when the
only result had been that they were all horridly bitten by great black
flies.
Now yesterday's scepticism was forgotten. Jimmie should have fish for
breakfast!--she knew how he sometimes loathed the milk and eggs that
she forced upon him. But even this was an afterthought. She had seen
her prey, and the fever of the hunt was tingling in her fingers as she
tore the pole loose from its fastenings on the top of the wagon and
grabbed a bit of pork rind for bait, jabbing it on to the hook as she
ran down to the pond and around to the side where she had seen the bass.
Probably she expected him to be there waiting for her, for when she had
looked sharply at the place where he had disappeared, and could see
nothing, she did not know what to do.
She remembered that Jimmie had just dropped the bait to the surface
and drawn it up again slowly, here and there at random without knowing
whether there was a fish near or not. Obviously, Jimmie's way had been
wrong, for he had caught nothing; and how could he expect to catch a
fish if he didn't know where the fish was?
She decided to wait and see if he would not come up again. He did. Away
at the farthest bend of the pond she heard the swish of his body as he
leaped and was in time to see the silver flash of him shooting down
into the water.
She started to run around the bank, but an instinct of primitive
wiliness caught her and, instead, she dropped down flat and motionless
in the grass at the very edge of the bank. That fish was hers. She knew
it with a sudden fierceness of possession which if she had been able
to think of herself would have shocked her. She would have fought the
world with teeth and nails for him. But she knew that she would not
get him by running after him. She would wait and make him come to her.
Slowly and carefully she let the pole out over the water, the bait
swinging gently just above the surface.
The sun was shining down past her shoulders as she lay there watching
fiercely, and she was surprised to see the bottom of the pond clearly
outlined in rocks and sand. It was her first real sight of sun-shot
water in the hills, and to her whose city experience had told her that
all ponds were dark and bottomless it would, at any other time, have
been wonderful. Now it only meant that she would have that fish if
she had to go into the pond after him. There was only one fish, she
thought; so the contest was narrowed down to the personal bitterness of
a duel.
She saw a thin dark line shoot across a bed of white sand. Could that
be merely a fish swimming, that streak of playing lightning that had
crossed again, under her fascinated eyes?
He had seen the shadow of the bait moving on the surface of the water,
and he was, for a reason about which Augusta knew nothing, even more
excited than the tensely nerved girl who watched for him, her head now
leaning out over the bank, the weight of half her body resting on one
elbow that dug a socket for itself in the dirt at the extreme edge of
the bank.
Again he came shooting across over the bed of sand where she could see
him clearly, and again, before she had time to do more than edge a
little farther out over the bank in her excitement, he flew back across
the line of her vision.
Now she was sure that he had seen the bait, for he came shooting past
more swiftly, if it could be, and with shorter and shorter dashes, each
time swimming closer to where the shadow fell upon the water. Swifter
and shorter came his rushes, now almost underneath the shadow of the
bait. Augusta trembled in her eagerness to drop the bait to the water.
But a cunning instinct told her that he was not ready, that her prey
was not yet worked up to the point of striking.
Hard as it was, she must still wait, fearing every instant that he
would rise and miss the hook, but not yet daring to drop the bait upon
the water.
Finally, when she was grinding her teeth to keep her hold upon her
trembling muscles, she saw him coming; this time from a longer dash
than he had been taking, and swifter, and straight at the shadow.
She plumped the bait down on the water.
In the little ripple of the surface she lost sight of him, thought
that she had frightened him away, had lost him. And the reaction, the
feeling of failure turned her weak and nerveless.
She had no time to be conscious of the violent yank upon the pole, for
with it she was toppled over the edge of the bank and found herself
rolling down into the water.
She was horribly, sickeningly frightened as she struck the water and
she did cry out Jimmie's name. But when she felt the pole being drawn
from the hand that still held it she gripped it fiercely with both
hands and began to fight.
She was on her knees now and struggling to her feet in the water, while
the fish shooting about in narrow circles drew the line through the
water like a flashing knife. It was battle now, her strength against
his strength and cunning. She did not know what to do, except to pull
and try to lift him out of the water. And she found that she could do
neither, for it was taking every ounce of her strength merely to keep
from being jerked from her slippery footing down into the deeper water.
She must somehow get back upon the bank for she had no strength here
where her feet had nothing to brace upon. Back and forth along the
shifting bank she struggled, fighting for a foothold, falling and
stumbling up again, but never loosening the death grip of her hands on
the pole. Her knuckles were bruised and stinging and she knew that her
knee was cut where she had fallen, but she had no thought of giving up
or even of calling for Jimmie.
There was no joy of battle now, nor was it a game that she played. It
was a desperate, racking struggle merely to hold her own, and she was
fighting blindly, without plan and without cunning.
Once the pull on the line suddenly slackened and she almost fell over
backwards, ready to cry, because she thought the line had broken.
Then straight out of the water and leaping towards her came the
fish. Augusta leaped back up the bank, and it was her fright at
this point--she actually thought that the fish was coming to attack
her--that changed the luck of the battle.
Here, on her feet on the firm ground, she felt that she was the
stronger, and while her strength was with her she was going to make one
mighty try at lifting him out of the water.
She braced herself, craftily waiting until the fish in his rushes
should give her a little slack in the line. Then she threw her whole
body into a straining heave at the pole.
At that instant the fish struck downward desperately. The two forces
met midway of the pole. Augusta heard a loud crack and found herself
tumbling backward, still holding the useless end of the broken pole.
When she looked and saw the other half of the pole shooting across the
pond she screamed for Jimmie and gave chase.
As she ran around the edge of the pond Augusta was fighting mad. She
was angry now at herself for calling to Jimmie. And at the very first
chance she was going right into the pond and put an end to that fish.
She came around to the side nearest the wagon and here, because it
seemed like her own ground, and the sand shelved gently out into the
water, she ran boldly in half way to the centre of the pond and grabbed
at the pole as it went shooting by.
The first time she missed it in her eagerness and nearly fell into deep
water. But she got her footing again and waited. Once the pole sailed
by well out of her reach, but the next time as the fish circled he
swerved sharply after he had passed Augusta and his quick turn slewed
the broken end of the pole around almost to her hand. She grabbed it
and ran, literally ran, out of the pond and up the bank, dragging after
her by main strength the pole, the line and the fish.
It was a most unsportsmanlike and unfair procedure. The fish could have
had her haled before any angler's court and condemned by all the laws
and canons of the sport. But Augusta ruthlessly dragged him up through
the sand and the dust to the grass.
When she thought that he was safely far enough from the water, she
turned to look at her prize.
Donahue, too, sniffing interestedly came ambling along for a view of
the happenings.
The sight of the fish did not please Augusta. He was black and dirty
and he squirmed disgustingly. And he had covered himself with a
loathesome coating of muddied dust.
Her idea of a fish in captivity was of one frozen restfully in colors
into the middle of a block of ice in a butcher's window.
When she looked closer at the fish she saw that he was bleeding dirtily
from the gills. She turned weakly sick and remorseful.
"I'm sorry!" she cried. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Please go back. Please! And
I'll never fish again!" She dropped limply down to the ground and began
to cry bitterly.
The fish was flopping his blind way back to the pond, when Donahue,
with every appearance of studied intention, dropped a blundering foot
upon the dragging line, and stood still contemplating affairs--thereby
saving Jimmie's breakfast.
So Jimmie, getting sleepily down from the wagon to investigate the
commotion, found his wife sitting disconsolate and soggy on the grass,
her face streaked with muddy tears, the accomplished Donahue standing
foolishly ruminative in the middle of the picture, and a very dirty
fish fighting for liberty at the end of the line.
Jimmie hurried Augusta to the wagon for repairs, and took charge of the
fish.
He cooked it and had to eat it all himself while Augusta sipped
remorsefully at the milk and eggs which Jimmie hated.
Now if Augusta had known the reason why her bass had struck so quickly,
and so viciously, at her baited hook she would have been much more
disturbed and remorseful than she actually was.
The truth is that among river and brook fish the black bass is the only
true and proper father of family. The males of the other brook tribes,
once their young have been hatched, exhibit only the most casual and
meandering attention toward their welfare. They seem to think that they
have done enough when they have seen their offspring born in water. Let
them swim, then, is their attitude.
The black bass is, on the extreme other hand, a most worried and
fretsome pater familias. In the period while his young are dependent
and helpless his responsibilities weigh upon him severely. He is
worried by trifles, and even by non-existent things, and the business
of being a new father is with him a matter of all-absorbing agitation.
Take a stout man, preferably somewhat bald, just under the line of
forty, say, and consider him in the days when his first child has just
come into the stages of breath holding and threatened spasms. Regard
him as he tip-toes about the house in under-shirt and trousers and
worried ferocity. Study him as he walks the floor through the hours of
the night warding off imaginary dangers with agitated anger and gentle
hearted ignorance. Cross this man at this time in anything that in the
remotest way touches the future of his family and you will rouse a
deadly enemy.
So your black bass. At all other times he is cautious, wary, worldly
wise. But at this time of his family's helplessness he is rash,
careless and blind in his hot anger at anything that threatens them.
He will strike madly at anything that comes near the surface of his
pond. He will snap rashly at a fly, at a twig dropped on the water, at
a shadow, at a bare hook, even, if he can see it.
He lives in a constant ramp of shifting, hurrying, belligerent,
aggressive defense. He is not hungry or greedy as he seems to act. He
is whole-heartedly and defiantly defending his own and his home against
what he is convinced is a jealous and a hostile world.
Augusta, mercifully, knew none of these things. She had blundered into
tragedy as unknowingly as Donahue's wandering foot had chanced to rest
upon the line and save Jimmie a welcome breakfast of fish.