THE OLD SWIMMING HOLE
AND so I came to the day that was sacred to Joey!
I began it by ploughing in the field back of the cabin. I went not
near the shop. I did not venture into the cabin for lunch at noon. I
had made up my mind to work doggedly till sundown and then go to the
village inn for supper, and later join Father O’Shan at Captain Grif’s.
Someway it comforted me to think of the evening; of the snug little
nook beneath the eaves; and of the welcome that awaited me there. I saw
Wanza’s face, in fancy--solicitous, pleased; I saw her figure there in
the centre of the room, clasped by the yellow light of the swinging
lamp, her hair gilded by its rays, on her cheek an eager flush.
Kind heart! Dear, helpful girl! Cheerful, buoyant, valiant little
wander-friend!
The sun for a June sun was unduly fervid, so that by four o’clock I
was weary and dripping with perspiration, and longing for a dip in
the river. I rested, and leaning on my plough, looked away through
the cedars and cottonwoods to the green of the river flashing in the
sunlight. I heard the rattle of the stage on the road, and when I was
certain it had passed I went to the cabin and put on my bathing suit.
I went in at the back door of the cabin, and out at the front, passed
through the yew grove, crossed the bridge to the shop, and so gained
the river bank and my favorite swimming hole beneath the cedar trees.
The spreading trees threw a deep shade over the pool. It was almost
twilight beneath their network of branches. And I was on the bank
prepared for a dive before I saw a small figure below me seated on a
boulder at the edge of the water, half hidden from view by the steep
slope of the bank. I saw the flash of bare feet in the water. Poised
ready to spring I gave a shout, “Look out,” and shot out over the small
figure and into the pool.
When I came up, blowing like a porpoise, the figure was standing waist
deep in water and waving thin excited arms abroad. I saw the face. It
was gaunt, fever-bright, and not like my lad’s as I had seen it last,
but it was Joey who stood there.
I lifted him up and he clasped my neck almost to strangulation,
wrapping his long legs around me, and I raced with him to the house.
Once inside I stripped him, seized a towel and rubbed his cold little
body until it glowed, and he laughed and cried and laughed again, and
clutched my neck and finally stammered:
“I got--got here! I come for my birthday--all the way from the East
alone.”
“Alone!”
“Yep! And I’m going to stay. Going to stay forever--Bell Brandon said
so. They’s a letter in my satchel for you.”
I hugged him to my breast.
“But what were you doing in the swimming hole, Joey?”
He looked at me, smiled his shrewd young smile, and said:
“Washing off the dust and--and tidying myself. Let’s see the cake, now,
Mr. David.”
“The cake?”
He nodded. “Hasn’t Wanza baked it yet?”
“Why, Joey lad, we haven’t any ready to-day! Can’t you understand?”
His face grew blank, his eyes filled, and he shivered suddenly; he
seemed to shrivel in my arms, and he turned his head away from me.
“What is it, Joey?”
“I--I--don’t anybody want me?”
“Want you?” I was aghast. “There, and there, and there,” I cried,
giving him a rapid succession of hugs. “Doesn’t this look as though I
wanted you?”
“Is Wanza sick?” There was something hopeful in his tone.
“No,” I said, “Wanza is very well, lad.”
Again that blank look, that delicate shiver.
“We’ll have a fire going in no time, lad, and a cake in the oven,
and the blue dishes on the table. And say the word and I’ll slap the
saddle on Buttons and ride post-haste to Wanza and tell her I have a
wonderful, wonderful surprise for her--that Joey has come back, after
we had given up hoping. I’ll bring her here--shall I, Joey?--to help
bake the cake. Oh, dear, dear lad!--” I cried, and broke down.
Such a shout as he gave. He had me by the neck and was clinging to me
like a wild young savage. “You didn’t get my letter--you didn’t, you
didn’t!”
“Did you write, Joey?”
“Yep, sure I wrote. Course I wrote. Soon as Bell Brandon told me I
belonged to you really and truly I wrote and I let Bell Brandon put a
letter in the envelope with mine. I put your name on the outside. I
printed Mr. David, as careful, and Bell Brandon watched me. She made
me write Dale on it, too. But when she wasn’t looking I rubbed out the
Dale part, and I mailed it myself on the corner. I told you to spect me
on my birthday, and Bell Brandon told you to meet me at Spokane ’cause
I was coming all alone from Chicago.”
Poor lad! Poor disappointed lad! He gave a strange, tired sigh, but
meeting my somber eyes, brightened. “I like traveling alone. Pooh! I’d
liever travel alone than--than anything. But when you didn’t meet me
at Roselake even, I thought--I thought p’r’aps you didn’t want me! And
when I got out of the stage at the meadow and cut across, and peeked at
the cabin and you wasn’t around, I was ’most sure you didn’t want me.
And then I saw how dirty I was, and I thought I’d tidy up first before
you saw me, anyhow.”
I went back to the river bank, sought for and found Joey’s traveling
bag and carried it to the house. Joey brought out of its depths a
letter and handed it to me. But I did not read it at once. I put my lad
in a big chair in the kitchen, and I built a fire in the stove and I
set out flour and sugar and molasses, all the while praying that Wanza
would appear. I laid the table in the front room with the best blue
china, and I got out the pressed glass comport; and I gathered handfuls
of syringa and honeysuckle, and brought them in the big yellow pitcher
to Joey, saying:
“You may arrange these, Joey, for the table.”
But to my surprise he took the flowers listlessly, and when I glanced
around after a few moments I saw that he had set the pitcher down on
the floor and was leaning back in the chair with closed eyes. I went
and stood at his side, but he did not open his eyes.
“Tired, Joey?”
He yawned. “Terrible tired, Mr. David.”
I looked at him irresolutely, then gathered him up in my arms.
“Come along, old fellow, lie down on your bed in the cedar room, and
sleep till supper’s ready,” I suggested.
His hand stroked my cheek with the old caress. He yawned again. I
lifted him and carried him to the cedar room and placed him on the bed.
I took off his shoes and drew the shawl-flower quilt over him. He spoke
then:
“Tell Wanza when she comes, to wake me first thing. I love Bell
Brandon--but I love Wanza best. I guess--I’ll--sleep pretty good--with
this dear old quilt over me--” his voice grew indistinct, he stretched,
blinked once or twice, closed his eyes, and snuggled luxuriously into
his pillows. I tiptoed from the room.
In the front room I sat down by the window, took Haidee’s letter from
my pocket and read it.
“I hope nothing will prevent you from meeting Joey in Spokane,” I
read. “I have heard nothing from you on that point. But I am almost
sure you received my letter telling you of my illness and inability
to travel, and asking you to meet Joey on the fifth. I cannot but
believe Bill Jobson’s story--strange as it seems. My own little boy
is gone forever.
“When you receive this Joey will be with you--there in the old place
that he loves so dearly. And you--how you will rejoice to have your
lad again. Bless you both! David Dale, I shall not visit Hidden
Lake this summer,--I have learned much in these past months. Do you
not know your own heart yet? I have read carefully, searchingly
all the letters you have written me this past winter, and I find
Wanza, Wanza, between the lines. She is the true mate for you--can
you not see this? Do you not feel it? Do you not know you love
her--as she loves you? I knew I should reach a happy solution of
our problem--given the much needed perspective; and the solution is
this--you love Wanza Lyttle, and I care for you only as a dear, kind
friend.
“No, I shall not visit Hidden Lake this year. Perhaps next
summer--but ‘To-morrow is a day too far to trust whate’er the day
be.’ I shall never forget Joey or you, or your wonderful kindness and
friendship. Good-bye, Mr. Fixing Man,--or not good-bye! au revoir.
Oh, all the good wishes in the world I send to you and Joey--and
Wanza.
“JUDITH BATTERLY.”
When I finished this letter I sat quietly, watching curiously a white
butterfly--a Pine White--skimming back and forth above a flowering
currant bush that grew close to the window. I found myself strangely
impassive. I said to myself that Haidee was mistaken about my feeling
for Wanza; but I experienced no sense of bereavement because she had
found that her own feeling for me was that of a friend, merely. I was
not even surprised. “I have Joey,” I kept repeating over and over to
myself, hugging this comfort to my breast. There was a fear back of
my exultation in the lad’s possession. A fear that was strong enough
to force the full significance of Haidee’s communication into the
background of my mind. Was my lad ill? Was he really ill? I asked
myself. He was thin, and his cheeks were feverishly bright, and his
voice sounded tired,--but, was he a sick child?
I went back to the kitchen, looked at the ingredients set forth on the
table and then out of the window anxiously. If only Wanza would come
and a wonderful spice cake could be in the oven when Joey awakened. If
only-- But here I broke off in my musings, for I heard a strange sound
from the cedar room.
I went as fast as my feet could carry me to the room where I had left
my boy. I found him lying, face downward on the floor, where he had
evidently fallen when he attempted to walk from his bed to the door. I
lifted him, turned his face to me, and examined it. It was flushed so
deep a red as to be almost purple. His eyes were open, but he did not
seem to see me, his lips were parted, the breath was hot on my face. I
placed him on the bed, and he murmured unintelligibly.
I knew then that my lad was ill, indeed, and when I heard a step behind
me and saw Wanza on the threshold, I ran and caught her hand. “Thank
God, you have come,” I exclaimed.
“They told me in Roselake Joey was back,” she cried, and brushed past
me to the bed.
I turned and went from the room. A few moments later she came to me.
“What has she done to him? What has she done to him?” she burst forth.
“She has done nothing, Wanza.”
“Why did you say, ‘Thank God’?” she cried, fiercely. “Do you think _I_
can save him? Mr. Dale, he is sick--he is very sick--he has pined and
pined--for a sight of you, and Jingles and Buttons. What do you think
he said just now?--raving as he is. ‘Will I go back soon, Bell Brandon?
No, thank you, I can’t eat--I guess I want Mr. David, and Jingles and
Buttons, and my own little cedar room.’ If he dies--David Dale--if he
dies!--”
“Please--please, Wanza--”
She looked into my face, her eyes were black with emotion.
“Saddle Buttons and go at once for a doctor! I’ll put Joey in a cold
pack while you’re gone; he’s burning with fever.”
“Practical, capable, ever ready to serve; lavish of her affection,
staunch in her friendship, ‘steel true,--blade straight,’--that is
Wanza,” I said to myself as I rode away.
The outcome of the doctor’s visit was that I sent for Mrs. Olds. Wanza
and I got through the night somehow, and the next day Mrs. Olds came. I
think this strange being entertained some slight tenderness for Joey,
for when she saw him lying among his pillows with heavy-lidded eyes
and fever-seared cheeks, she stooped and touched his brow very gently
with her lips. Joey recognized her when she entered the room late at
night in her heelless slippers and flannel dressing-gown, and set
her small clock on the shelf above the bed. “Mrs. Olds,” he ordered
distinctly, “take that clock out to the kitchen.”
Taken by surprise, Mrs. Olds protested: “There, there, Joey, don’t
bother with me--that’s a good boy. Just close your eyes and go to sleep
again.”
“I don’t watch the clock! Mr. David says the Now is the thing. Take it
out! When the birds sing I’ll get up.”
But the birds sang and Joey did not awaken. He slept heavily all that
day. And when he aroused toward midnight he did not know me. The
following day he was worse, and that night I despaired. In his delirium
he said things that well nigh crazed me. His mutterings were all of me,
with an occasional reference to the collie and Buttons. “I don’t like
to leave Mr. David alone, so long,” he kept repeating. “I ’most know he
wants me back again--I been his boy so long.”
Presently when he sobbed out shrilly: “I just got to go back to Mr.
David!” I arose precipitately, quitted the room and went out to the
bench in the Dingle.
But some one already was sitting there. I could see her in the light
from the room. A girl in a rose-colored dressing-gown with long braids
down her back, sat there, looking up at the star-filled sky through
the tree branches. I advanced and she made room for me at her side. I
sat down, too stunned, too grief stricken for words. We sat there in
silence. Presently her uneven breathing, her sobbing under-breaths,
disturbed me.
“Please--please, Wanza--don’t,” I begged.
“I’ve been praying,” she stammered.
“That is well, dear girl.”
“Praying that Joey will live.”
“It seems a small thing for God to grant--in his omnipotence. It is
everything in the world to me,” I murmured brokenly. “Why, girl, if my
boy lives I shall be the happiest man on God’s footstool! I shall be
immeasurably content. I shall ask nothing beside--nothing!”
She stirred. “Nothing, Mr. Dale--nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, Mr. Dale, you think so now--but you’ll be wanting _her_ to come
back--you can’t help wanting that!”
“I am very sure I shall never ask for that, Wanza. Joey brought me a
letter. She is not coming back this year.”
“Not coming back?”
“She may never come again to Hidden Lake, Wanza. We may never see her
again.”
“But I don’t understand, David Dale!--oh, I thought some day you would
marry--you and she.”
Her voice was uneven and very low.
“Child,” I said gravely, “it is not to be. She cares for me only as a
friend. And I--”
“You love her--you know you do!”
She spoke passionately.
“Wanza,” I said thoughtfully, “it has been a long winter, hasn’t it?”
“Pretty long,” she answered, surprised.
“You have learned much this winter.”
“Yes, Mr. Dale.”
“And I have learned, too--without knowing it. I have learned very
gradually that I do not love Judith Batterly--so gradually, indeed,
that I did not realize until to-day the extent of my knowledge. She
told me in her letter it was so--then I knew.”
She sat very still, her head thrown back, her eyes on the sky. The
stirring leaves made shadows on her gown, the moonlight flicked
through the vines above her, and her hair glittered like gilt. Her eyes
were big and shining, and something on her cheek was shining, too.
“Praying--still, Wanza?” I whispered, after a time.
She put out her hand.
“Please, Wanza, say a prayer for me.”
“I am praying that what you told me is true.”
“It is true. Pray that I be forgiven for being a stupid, clumsy fellow,
unable to appreciate your true worth--” I stopped. I was being carried
on and I knew not where I desired to pause. I checked myself, and bit
my lip.
“I could not offer such a prayer,” I heard her say. “I am not worth
anything to anybody, Mr. Dale, except to Father. I am going to try,
though, to make myself all over--knowing you want me to improve, and
to show you I take your kindness to heart. I think I am improving a
little, don’t you? I don’t talk so loud, and I dress quieter--more
quietly--and I speak better. Can’t you see an improvement, Mr. Dale?”
“Someway, Wanza,” I replied, speaking musingly, “I like you as you
are--as you have always been. It is only for your own sake that I care
to have you improve.” And as I said the words I realized that this
thought had been in the back of my mind for some time, and that Wanza’s
piquant utterances and lapses in English had never jarred on me--that
it was strictly true that it was only for Wanza’s own sake I would have
her changed.
“You like me as I am?”
The voice was incredulous.
“As well as I shall when you have finished your education, child.”
“As well?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t like me better then?”
“No, no better, Wanza.”
She rose and stood before me. The light from the open door of the
cedar room was on her face, and I saw hopelessness in her eyes, and a
tremulousness about her lovely child-mouth.
“You will never like me very, very much, then, I guess,” she said in a
low tone.
She did not give me a chance to respond to this, but turned and went
away through the cedars, and I sat still, saying over to myself: “Very,
very much.”
And as I said the words I thrilled; my blood seemed to surge into my
eyes and blind me. Something had me by the throat. It was a strange
moment. In that moment I had a glimpse of the truth--a white light
illumined my seeking, groping senses. Then it was gone. I was in
darkness again. But in that brief lightning space I had stood on the
brink of a revelation. In the weeks and months past, through the
blinding--the fervid--gleam of my feeling for Haidee I had seen Wanza
but obscurely--Wanza--tried day after day by homeliest duties, and not
found wanting; I had seen that she had her own bookless lore as she had
her own indisputable charm; I had known that at times she swayed me;
but I had never come so near to knowing my heart as in that evanescent,
stabbing, revealing, moment.
As I sat there I felt a sudden sense of rest, almost of emancipation.
I was weary of cob-webbed dreams, sick of straining after the
unattainable. My thoughts reverted to life as it had been in the old
days before the coming of the wonder woman, to the days when Joey and
Wanza and I had managed to go through the tedium of our hours placidly
enough. I longed to take up the old, sane routine. I was impatient with
suffering that chafed and gnawed the heart-strings.
I said to myself that all that was left of my former feeling for
Haidee was admiration, reverence for her goodness, and a wonder--she
was a dream woman--she would remain a dream woman always--an elusive,
charming personality, something too fine for the common round of
daylight duties. I thought of the poet’s lines:
“I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and
candle light.”
Had I thought of Haidee so?
When I turned back to the cedar room, Mrs. Olds met me at the door with
a whispered, “Joey is lucid--he is asking for you.” I crossed swiftly
to the bed, knelt down and took my lad’s hand. He smiled at me in his
old way, but his eyes went past me to Mrs. Olds. His voice was distinct
as he ordered, “Go, get Wanza, Mrs. Olds, please.”
I heard Wanza’s step at that moment. She came softly forward and
crouched beside me. “I am here, Joey,” she said in her rich young voice.
“That’s all right then! Wanza; if I don’t get well you got to marry Mr.
David.”
The troubled face bending down over the gray one on the pillow, flamed.
“Joey--dear!”
“Yes, Wanza,” pleadingly, “cause who’ll take care of him?”
I cleared my throat. “Come, lad, you will be well in a few days--up and
around in the woods, feeding the squirrels.”
“Yes--but if I ain’t!” Tender, wistful, questioning, his loyal brown
eyes sought Wanza’s. “You got to, Wanza. Say yes.”
The girl’s voice whimpered and broke. “I can’t!”
“Why, yes you can! They’s no one can cook like you, Wanza. Mr. David
can’t live here alone when he’s old--he can’t live here alone no
more--say you’ll come and take care of him. Why, you like the birds and
the squirrels--you know you do, Wanza--and you like Mr. David, too.
Will you, Wanza?” The soft wheedling accents wrung my heart.
At the girl’s head-shake he whispered to me, “You ask her, Mr. David.”
My hand groped for hers, closed over it, gripped it hard.
“If I ask her now--if she says yes, lad--it will be for your sake--all
for your sake, Joey.”
The big eyes were understanding. “Go on, ask her.”
“Will you, Wanza?”
She was weeping.
“Because Joey asks it--because it will ease his mind,” I heard her
choked voice stammer, “only because of that, Mr. Dale--only for Joey’s
sake as you say--I promise if--if you need me--” she came to a dead
stop.
“To marry me, Wanza.”
“For Joey’s sake, Mr. Dale.”
“There, Joey!” I shook up his pillow and laid him gently back. “It is
all settled, lad. Go to sleep now.”
“Kiss me, once, Mr. David.”
I kissed him.
“Kiss Wanza, now.”
Weariness was heavy in his eyes, his voice was quavering and weak;
and forgetting all else but his gratification, forgetting Mrs. Olds,
propriety, the consequences of so rash an act, I took Wanza in my arms
and kissed her lips, then stumbled blindly from the room.