MY SURPRISE
WHEN May came I began to look forward in earnest to the return of
Haidee and Joey. Every day since the beginning of spring I had gone to
Hidden Lake to tend the vines and shrubs that I had set out with so
much care the previous fall. I had also made a flower bed and planted
the seeds of many old-fashioned flowers--larkspur, Sweet William,
marigolds, phlox, lobelia, clove pinks and mignonette, sweet peas and
rosemary. In another few weeks the little cabin would be surrounded by
bloom.
A Vigor’s wren was building a nest in the pergola, and a calliope
humming-bird’s nest hung on a pine limb near the kitchen door, not more
than eight feet above the ground. I could scarcely wait for Joey to see
the latter. The hours I spent at Hidden Lake were filled with strange
anticipations, and unanswered questions and grim wonderment.
But Fate had a surprise in store for me.
One day as I stood looking at the humming-bird’s nest a man approached
the cabin from the wood path beyond the garden. He was a hard-faced
man, a grizzled, uncouth figure of a man. I took an instant dislike to
him without even waiting to see his features. When he saw me he halted
irresolutely. I nodded to him carelessly, and stooped to pull a stray
weed from the bed of thyme beside the kitchen door. When I looked up he
stood beside me.
“Good day, sir,” he said.
“Good day,” I returned.
“Is Mrs. Batterly to home?”
“No,” I replied, “Mrs. Batterly is in the East.”
“Is her cabin shut up?”
“It is,” I said curtly.
“Well, I swan! Say, did she take the kid with her?”
“She took the little boy with her, certainly.”
He grinned, showing blackened teeth and unsightly gums. “Um,” he said,
half shutting his red-lidded eyes, “um, um--you’re Mr. Dale, I take it;
I have seen you in the village.”
“Yes, I am David Dale,” I answered straightening up. “Is there anything
I can do for you?”
He guffawed. “No,” he chuckled, “you can’t do a darn thing for me, but
you bet your gosh darned boots I can do something for you.”
I turned away in disgust.
“Say, partner,” he pulled me round to him by the sleeve, “I reckon that
Mrs. Batterly took the kid with her thinking the kid was hern. Well, he
ain’t!”
I gaped at him. He grinned at me in a would-be friendly manner.
“My name’s Bill Jobson. I’m a miner,” he volunteered.
“That means nothing to me,” I told him sharply.
“Well, now, I don’t suppose it does! See here! I’m the man as helped
Randall Batterly kidnap your boy, Joey-- Wait a minute, wait a minute!
Don’t get excited. It was a frame up--the whole darn thing! Batterly
never had no idea the kid was his. He framed the whole thing up to get
a rise out of his wife. He was set on getting her back, and he took
that way of doing it. He knew mighty well the kid warn’t his. His own
boy died from an over-dose of medicine Batterly gave it one night when
he was drunk, on board the ship him and me was on going from Alaska
to Seattle. The boy died in my arms, and was buried at sea. Batterly
wouldn’t go back to Alaska and face his wife and tell her the truth
about the child. He made me swear not to squeak. And he went back, and
he let on to his wife that the child was never seen after the collision
between our ship and another, in the fog, off Cape Flattery. He told
his wife as how a nurse on board ship had the babe in her stateroom,
caring for it, the night of the wreck. There was a nurse on board who
was drowned that night, so the story passed muster.”
I watched the man with fascinated eyes as he sat down on the doorstep,
filled his pipe leisurely, and struck a match on his boot heel. The
full import of his statement did not sink into my brain at once. When
it did I said, speaking with dry lips:
“But what about the mark on the lad’s chest?”
“That’s what you call a coincidence, partner--that and their age
seeming to be the same. When Batterly saw the mark on the kid’s chest
the whole blame plan came to him quick as lightning, he said. And when
the girl, Wanza Lyttle, told him as how he was picked up by a fisherman
over on the Sound, that settled it. He took a chance on his wife’s not
remembering the mark on her kid’s chest was just over his heart. This
kid’s is higher up.”
Completely unmanned, I sat down on the step beside my visitor, and
rested my head in my hands. “It does not seem possible your story is
true,” I groaned.
Bill Jobson brought his hand down hard on my knee. “Look ahere, Mr.
Dale, do you think I tramped way over here from Roselake to see Mrs.
Batterly just because I wanted a country stroll? Well, I didn’t! Get
that through your head--quick! I’m a busy man-- I oughtn’t to have took
the time to come and say my say as I have--”
“Will you write a statement and have it witnessed, and send it to Mrs.
Batterly?” I interrupted.
“I will that. And I’ll tell you why I’m doing it. I’m doing it because
I used to see the little chap with you in the village last summer and I
saw him after that in the fall with Mrs. Batterly, and he never run and
skipped as he did with you. It just got me for fair--it did! I’ve been
intending all this winter to see Batterly’s widder and tell her the
gosh darned truth, but I been working in the Alice mine, a good fifty
mile from Roselake, and I ain’t been down but once before since fall,
and that time I--well, I got pickled, partner, I sure did! I wa’n’t
exactly up to holding lucid conversation with folks, you might say.”
I was silenced.
That night the statement was written in the presence of Captain Grif,
Wanza, and Father O’Shan, and it went forward with a letter from me to
Haidee.
Wanza and I waited impatiently for a return letter from Haidee. But the
days went past like shadows, and no letter came. I had been climbing
upward toward the summit of comparative peace, I had almost reached it
when Bill Jobson came with his disclosure. But now, hearing nothing
from my wonder woman, the valley closed around me. I walked in a
stagnant marsh, the atmosphere was that of the lowland.
One night some three weeks after the letter from Haidee should have
reached me, I found myself unable to sleep. I arose and dressed, and
went outside and walked along the river road toward the village. After
going some distance I lay down beneath a tree in a pine grove. It was
about two o’clock. A purple darkness lay all around me. The stars were
like pale gems, clear and cool and polished. The Milky Way was like
a fold of silver gauze. The pines stood up very black and silent in
my grove. I began to wonder why I ever slept indoors, when out in
the woods I felt as though I were in God’s house, a partaker of his
hospitality.
I relished my bed of pine needles extremely. I began to ponder many
things, the silence and the stars served to give my thoughts a strange
turn, and I recalled what a well-loved writer has said: “To live out of
doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most complete and
free.”
Yes, I said to myself:
“Wandering with the wandering wind,
Vagabond and unconfined.”
Slowly I said over to myself the last verse of the song--the verse I
had not given to Wanza:
“Marna of the far quest
After the divine!
Striving ever for some goal
Past the blunder-god’s control!
Dreaming of potential years
When no day shall dawn in fears!
That’s the Marna of my soul,
Wander-bride of mine!”
Wander-bride of mine! Was it a woman like Haidee who had suggested
those lines to the poet?-- Haidee with her narrow, oval face, and brow
of ivory, and slow, bell-like voice. Or had it been some elf-girl, some
girl of flame with a temperament wilder than most--a gipsy thing of
changing moods, and passionate phases of self-will, alternating with
abnegation and tenderness,--with a face like a wind-blown flower, and a
nature very human, very lovable and rare!--a girl like Wanza--say?
After a time I slept. When I awakened the horizon showed a silvery
light. The purple darkness still mantled the woods and the stars still
shone, but day was coming on apace. As I lay there, half dozing, and
gradually becoming tranquil and restored, I heard faint footfalls and
a modulated whistling on the road beyond. There was a mellowness about
the whistle that was infinitely piquant, some quality that stirred me
as a bird’s song stirs. Doubtless some ranch hand thus early astir, I
said to myself.
I had not long to speculate, for the whistler approached, left the
road, and entered the grove wherein I lay. I could hear a light
crackling as the invader of my solitude brushed through the growth of
young scrub pines. The whistle changed to a low song, and the song was
sung in a woman’s voice.
It was Wanza who was coming through the pines toward me!
When she was comparatively near I spoke from my couch beneath the tree.
“Hist! Hist! Wanza!”
The song ceased. I knew she was standing stock still.
“Who--who--where are you?” her voice sounded frightened.
“I’m David Dale. And I’m not ten feet from you--follow my voice. Don’t
trip on the tree roots.”
She came towards me slowly. I stood up and went to meet her. As I
advanced a strange glee took possession of me. I was elated at this
unexpected encounter, this beautiful rendezvous between darkness and
dawn in the pine forest. And at the thought of a companion to watch
with me the coming in of day.
I took her hand silently. We went forward to the pine tree and sat down
together beneath it. Wanza did not speak. I was enchanted because she
did not. I could just dimly see her face. Her head was thrown back, and
I knew her eyes were lifted.
The light began to spread over the east. Soon the mountain tops were
touched with orange fire. A cool breeze sprang up, and the young
hemlocks on the hillsides swayed and tossed their fringes. But the
pines in our grove stood immovable and black, and the wood vistas were
unlit. I heard the river, and the babble of a rillet in a draw hard by.
The dulcet sounds were the only sounds we heard. The whole world seemed
waiting. We sat thus for perhaps ten minutes, while the light spread
over the east and the purple darkness of our grove gradually gave way
to a cool gray aspect. And then the sun came up, a spurt of liquid
amber in the urn of the sky, and its light trickled far out over the
hills, and the stars grew pale and disappeared. The day had come.
I was exhilarated. I was filled with full measure of good will and
gratification. And I glanced at my companion, to read in her face her
appreciation of the miracle. She was smiling ineffably, and as I turned
fully towards her, she closed her eyes. I became conscious then that
I was holding out my hand to her. I looked down at it curiously, and
I looked at her face, bent forward and peered at it again. Who was
this companion who had shared my solitude, and by her understanding
made it perfect?--who had given me quiet fellowship, sat near me in
the starlight, watched the day come in with me, and now rested within
reach of my hand? Who should it be, I answered myself wonderingly, but
my old friend and companion, Wanza?
She opened her lids and I saw the wonder of the sunrise in her eyes,
and something mysterious and deep blended with the languor of sleep.
And when she smiled at me and whispered my name, I quivered suddenly
and the blood surged unbidden into my face. “Wanza,” I said, “Wanza!”
“Yes?” she breathed.
“Hasn’t it been wonderful, Wanza? Hasn’t it been miraculous? ‘Every
hour of the light and dark’ is a miracle, but the sunrise is the
greatest one of all. It is arresting. I can never drop off to sleep
again if I waken and see the sky rosy.” I spoke with a fluttered haste,
my words tumbling over each other in a way not at all characteristic,
and when Wanza whispered: “Why, neither can I,” I laughed outright
joyously.
“I found a wonderful wake-robin in the woods yesterday,” I began
after a pause; “the petals were pink and strongly veined, and it was
monstrous--monstrous! petals two inches--well, almost two inches. It
must be a large-flowered wake-robin. The trilliums have been profuse
this spring. This fellow was belated--its companions are all gone.”
“The robins woke up two months ago,” Wanza said, shyly eager. “And they
have finished their courting.”
“Yes, they are very wide-awake, and business-like. But they have not
finished their courting,--I am sure I witnessed a love scene yesterday.”
“Not really, Mr. Dale?”
“It looked uncommonly like one.”
In the growing light I saw that her face had kindled. It was lifted
to mine, and she was drinking in every word. The emotion the sight of
that kindled face aroused in me started a train of thought, and checked
the words on my lips. Oh, in very truth there was something puzzlingly
complex about my feeling for Wanza! I recoiled as from some revelation
that I did not care to face as she continued to smile at me. But her
eyes drew me, and I leaned forward and peered into them; and as once
before I read their message, but I continued to gaze this time until
the lashes swept down and the light was hid.
I walked back to the village with Wanza, and there was the tinkle of
bells on cattle awake in the meadows, and the stir of sheep milling on
rocky hillsides, and the crowing of cocks and the chirp of birds to
proclaim that morning had come. We were almost at the village when she
put a question to me.
“Mr. Dale, do you know what day to-morrow is?”
I had been expecting the question and dreading it.
“Yes,” I answered, “I know well that it is the day we have been
accustomed to celebrate as Joey’s birthday.”
I spoke impatiently. But when I saw the tears in her eyes, I stopped
there in the road and took her by the shoulders and turned her around
to me ruthlessly, crying:
“Listen to me! You must be hurt, if you will, at my surliness, Wanza
Lyttle! I cannot keep my tongue smooth when my nerves are ragged. We go
on and on, and bear much--stoically--for weeks, months, years, indeed,
and then--suddenly, we can bear no more! We reach the pinnacle of pain.
We cry out--with the poignancy of it. But after that, I have a fancy,
we can never suffer so much again. I am at the pinnacle. There is no
last straw for me. It has been placed. After to-morrow the worst will
be over. God! let me get through the day and play the man.”
She said not a word. We parted silently. But after I had gone a little
way she came running after me.
“I only wanted to say, David Dale,” she breathed, “I only wanted to
say--”
“Yes, Wanza?”
“I only wanted to say, ‘God bless you.’”