“PERHAPS I SHALL GO AWAY”
ALONE the next day I took up the search for Joey, beating back and
forth between Roselake and Cedar Dale, and penetrating to Wallace and
Wardner. It was to Wanza that I spoke my conviction at last, sitting my
cayuse on the river road, while she sat stiff and tearful-eyed in her
cart, pale even beneath the pink-lined umbrella.
“It looks to me, Wanza girl,” I said wearily, “like a plain case of
kidnapping.”
“But who would kidnap him, Mr. Dale?” Wanza queried pitifully.
“Why--that’s the question,” I returned. “Have you ever seen him talking
to any one--any stranger--when you have met him going and returning
from school?”
She shook her head. “Once,” she replied, “Joey was with me, and Mr.
Batterly stopped us. He asked me all about Joey--seeming so keen! And I
told him--thinking it no harm--just how a dying woman gave him to you,
saying he was a waif that had been picked up after a storm over on the
Sound by her dead brother, who had been a fisherman.”
“Where is Batterly now,” I asked.
“Gone away--this week past.”
“Oh, well,” I sighed, “we’ll acquit him. I’m sure he was not over fond
of Joey.” After a pause I asked brusquely: “Where has he gone?”
“I don’t know--sure I don’t, Mr. Dale. The last I heard of him he was
going to hire a swift-water boat and a poler, and try the swift-water
fishing above St. Joe.”
“Then he hasn’t left the country,” I said. And my heart sank leaden and
my hate of the man boiled up in my veins fiercely, as I pictured him
still skulking about, a menace to Haidee’s peace of mind.
The time went very heavily past. All my days and many nights were
spent in the saddle, and the evenings that I passed at Cedar Dale were
consumed in feverish plans for the scoutings that I made. I did not
even now attempt to visit Haidee at Hidden Lake; but one morning, at
sunrise, hearing a soft tap on my door, I opened to see Wanza standing
there with a covered basket on her arm.
“I saw your light last night,” she quavered. “I have brought you some
good nourishing food. I can see you’re not cooking for yourself. You’re
growing white and thin.”
Her womanly act in coming thus to offer me comfort stirred me
strangely, appealed to the finest fibre in my nature. Her simplicity,
her self-forgetfulness made me falter at her feet.
But at last I gave over my scoutings. I made a cedar chest for Joey’s
room, and in this I placed all his little kickshaws, his few clothes,
and his flute, along with the gay Indian blanket he had reveled in, and
the quilt Wanza had pieced for him. The room thus became to me a sort
of shrine. And finding me here at the close of a long day with tears of
which I was not ashamed in my eyes, Wanza broke down and sobbed beside
me.
“I’d like to kill whoever it is as has taken Joey away,” she cried,
brandishing a resentful fist.
“If we knew any one had taken him,” I said, thoughtfully. “Sometimes I
think--I think, Wanza, that Joey is dead.”
“I don’t think so! No, indeed!” Wanza returned with thrilling
earnestness. “Oh, I feel sure he ain’t dead! He’ll be found--some day.
He sure will, Mr. Dale.”
She helped me by her sturdy optimism.
Soon after this Wanza and I fell into the habit of tramping through the
gleaming golden woods together almost daily, breathing the crisp sweet
autumn air. Wanza in her bright sweater, with her tawny hair, and the
carmine in her cheek flitted in and out of the wood paths like a forest
dryad, exclaiming at every frost-touched leaf, and reveling in the
painted glory about us.
“But the birds are gone,” she said, a tear in her tones, as we looked
into an empty king-bird’s nest one day. “I love the king-birds--they’re
sleek dandies--that’s what they are! Oh, Mr. Dale, what a heartache an
empty nest gives me! The dear little birds are gone--”
“And Joey is not here,” I ended sadly.
After awhile I went on: “Yes, summer has gone. It is the most
evanescent time of the year. It slips and slips away--and just as you
grasp it and thrill to its sweetness it melts into--this--as happiness
merges into sorrow.”
Her face quivered, and her eyes came to mine. “I guess that is so,” she
said in a low tone.
Looking in Wanza’s face lately I always turned away. I did so
now. The look of questioning I found there--the mute appeal--the
suffering--these unmanned me. But it grew to be a strange satisfaction
to be with her, through long crisp daylight hours, in the hush of pink
sunsets, in the gilded autumn twilights, while we rested after a meagre
supper cooked over a camp fire, chatting desultorily, and watching the
big pale stars came out to lie like white-tipped marguerites on the
purple bosom of the sky above our heads.
One day I spoke my thought.
“I am thinking, Wanza--perhaps I shall go away.”
We were in the heart of the woods. A tinkling, sly little brook made
the forest musical, the rustle and purr of the pines sounded about
us like fluty organ notes. Wanza’s eyes were lifted to the sprightly
shivering leaves of a cottonwood, and her face was very still. She did
not move as I spoke, and I repeated my sentence.
“I thought you’d go,” she said. She spoke harshly.
“I can’t stop on here without Joey. I can’t bear it,” I said, haltingly.
“But I’ve got to stay on without either of you--and bear it.”
I saw her eyes. I recoiled at the depth of pain revealed.
“Mr. Dale,” she said gropingly, after a pause, “where are you going?”
“I don’t know, Wanza. But inaction is intolerable. I must be doing
something. I must get away for awhile, at least. It is better.”
Wanza’s eyes were very bright. Her hands that were smoothing a maple
leaf were trembling. Her voice sounded dry and hard as she asked:
“When do you reckon you’ll go?”
“Why, child, I do not know! Each day I say to myself I cannot bear
another.”
“It’ll be the same wherever you are.”
“Perhaps so, Wanza,” I sighed. And then because I knew the tears were
on her cheeks, I sprang to my feet, saying: “This may be our last day
in the woods together, who knows? Come, let us try to forget--let us
make the best of what we have.”
Wanza rose. She came close to me. When our eyes met she gave a cry: “If
you go you may never come back!”
“Never fear. I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I replied, and I am afraid
my voice was bitter. And when she put her hand on my arm I shook it
off and would have strode away, but again as in the woods on the
occasion of our gipsying I saw her face close to my own, and caught
my breath in marvel. No, there was never such a girl-face! Such an
elf-face! I stooped suddenly and framed the face with my hands. What
were her wonderful eyes saying, back of all the tears, all the mystery?
Why--when I was in love with Haidee--did they draw me like a lodestar?
Why now and then did she stir me in this strange fashion till I gazed
and gazed, and needs must curb my will to keep from taking her in my
arms and crushing her against my heart?
I had never faced the question. I did not care to face it now. I put
it away for some future time, feeling vaguely that it remained to be
reckoned with.
“I have no home but Cedar Dale,” I repeated.
“And I am glad of that,” she whispered.
She pressed nearer to me, and I released her face, and drew her slowly
within the circle of my arms. But when I held her so, when the floating
hair meshes were just beneath my chin, and her face brushed my sleeve,
I steadied myself.
“Wanza,” I said, “I am almost glad, too, that I have no other home.
When I think of the good friends I have here--you and your father and
Father O’Shan--I realize that I am ungrateful to despise my humble
place among you. Keep it for me, little girl, and I shall come back.
Yes, I shall come back better equipped for the future among you. If it
must be without Joey--” I hesitated and bit my lip--“without Joey,”
I continued more firmly, “I shall at least try to earn your respect
by holding up my head, and forging on to some goal. I shall attain
to something at last, I hope. And I hope I shall be able to serve my
neighbors in many ways, and make myself needed in the community.”
I held her for a moment after saying this, and then I bent down and
for the first time in my life kissed her. But it was on the brow that
I kissed her. And I am sure no brother could have saluted her more
respectfully.
She drew back. Her head fell against my shoulder. I saw deep into her
splendid eyes,--deep, deep. Back of all the tears and the smiles and
the mystery I read at last what they were saying. I read--and I was
humbled and abashed. I knew the truth at last. Wanza loved me.
I saw clearly now, indeed. I recalled Father O’Shan’s words: “Be
careful in your dealings with that child.” I had been blind, and a
fool. I blamed myself, and I hated myself. I stood stupidly staring
into the face so near my own until with a sudden wrench Wanza jerked
away from me, and ran on down the purpling wood-aisle before me,
dashing the tears from her eyes as she fled.
I walked home slowly, astounded and perplexed by the revelation I had
had.