JIM PROPOSES
Eve Marsham was in two minds of hailing Peter Blunt as she saw him
pass on his way to his hut. She wanted him. She wanted to ask his
advice about something. Like many others who needed a sympathetic
adviser she preferred to appeal to Peter Blunt rather than to any of
her sex in Barnriff. However, she allowed the opportunity to slip by,
and saw him disappear within his doorway. Then she turned again to the
boy sitting on the rough bench beside her, and a look of alarm leaped
to her soft brown eyes. He was holding out a tiny pup at arm's length,
grasping it by one of its little fore paws.
"Elia, how can you?" she cried. "Put him down, instantly."
The boy turned a bland, beautiful face to her. There was seemingly no
expression beyond surprise in his pale blue eyes.
"He likes it," he said, while the whimpering pup still wriggled in his
grasp.
Eve made a move to take the wretched animal away, but the boy promptly
hugged it to his misshapen breast.
"He's mine," he cried. "I can do what I like with him."
There was no anger in his voice, not even protest. It was a simple
statement of denial that at the same time had no resistance in it.
"Well, don't you be cruel," Eve exclaimed shortly, and her eyes turned
once more in the direction of Peter Blunt's hut.
Her pretty face was very thoughtful. Her sun-tanned cheeks, her tall,
rounded body were the picture of health. She looked as fresh and
wholesome as any wild prairie flower with her rich coloring of almost
tropical splendor. She was neatly dressed, more after town fashion
than in the method of such places as Barnriff, and her expressed
reason for thus differentiating from her fellow villagers was a matter
of mild advertisement. She made her living as a dressmaker. She was
Barnriff's leading and only _modiste_.
The boy at her side continued his amusement at the puppy's expense. He
held it in his two hands and squeezed its little body until the poor
creature gasped and retched. Then he swung it to and fro by its
diminutive tail. Then he threw it up in the air, making it turn a
somersault, and catching it again clumsily.
All this he did in a mild, emotionless manner. There was no boyish
interest or amusement in it. Just a calm, serious immobility that gave
one the impression of a painting by one of the old European masters.
Elia was Eve Marsham's crippled brother. He was seven years younger
than she, and was just about to turn sixteen. In reality he was more
than a cripple. He was a general deformity, a deformity that somehow
even reached his brain. By this it must not be imagined that he was an
idiot, or lacking in intelligence in any way, but he had some curious
mental twists that marked him as something out of the normal. His
chief peculiarity lay in his dread of pain to himself. An ache, a
trifling bruise, a mere scratch upon himself, would hurl him into a
paroxysm of terror which frequently terminated in a fit, or, at least,
convulsions of a serious nature. This drove the girl, who was his only
living relative, to great pains in her care of him, which, combined
with an almost maternal love for him, kept her on a rack of
apprehension for his well-being.
He had another strange side to his character, and one of which
everybody but Eve was aware. He possessed a morbid love for horror,
for the sufferings of others. He had been known to sit for hours with
a sick man in the village who was suffering agonies of rheumatism, for
the mere delight of drawing from him details of the pains he was
enduring, and reveling in the horror of the description with ghoulish
delight.
When Restless, the carpenter, broke his leg the boy was always around.
And when the wretched man groaned while they set it, his face was a
picture of rapt fascination. To Eve his visits on such occasions were
a sign of his sympathetic nature, and she encouraged him because she
did not know the real meaning of them. But there were other things she
did not know. He used to pay weekly visits to Gay's slaughter yard on
killing day, and reveled in the cruel task of skinning and cutting up
the carcase of the slaughtered beast. If a fight between two men
occurred in the village Elia's instinct led him unerringly to it. It
was a curious psychological fact that the pains and sufferings which,
for himself, he dreaded with an almost insane abhorrence, he loved and
desired in others.
He was a quaint figure, a figure to draw sympathy and pity from the
hardiest. He was precisely four feet high. One leg was shorter than
the other, and the hip was drawn up in a corresponding manner. His
chest was sunken, and his back was hunched, and he carried his head
bent sideways on his shoulders, in the inquiring attitude one
associates with a bird.
He was his sister's sole charge, left to her, when much younger, by
their dying mother. And the girl lavished on him all the wealth of a
good woman's sympathy and love. She saw nothing of his faults. She saw
only his deplorable physical condition, and his perfect angel-face.
His skin and complexion were so transparent that one could almost have
counted the veins beneath the surface; the sun had no power to burn
that face to the russet which was the general complexion among prairie
folk. His mouth had the innocence of a babe's, and formed a perfect
Cupid's bow, such as a girl might well be proud of. His eyes were
large, inquiring and full of intelligence. His nose might have been
chiseled by an old Greek sculptor, while his hair, long and wavy, was
of the texture and color of raw silk.
He was certainly the idol of Eve's heart. In him she could see no
wrong, no vice. She cherished him, and served him, and worked for him.
He was her life. And, as is only natural, he had learned to claim as
his right all that which out of her boundless affection it was her joy
to bestow.
Suddenly the yelping of the pup brought Eve round on him again. He was
once more holding it aloft by its tail. The girl darted to its rescue,
and, instantly, Elia released his hold, and the poor creature fell
with a squelching sound upon the ground. She gave a little scream, but
the boy only looked on in silent fascination. Fortunately the poor
pup was only badly shaken and hastily crawled away to safety. Elia was
for recovering it, but Eve promptly vetoed his design.
"Certainly not, you cruel boy," she said sharply. "You remain
where you are. You can tell me about the chicken killing down at
Restless's."
In the interest of the subject on which Eve desired information Elia
forgot all about the pup. He offered no protest nor made the least
demur, but forthwith began his story.
"Sure I will," he said, with a curious, uncanny laugh. "Old Ma
Restless is just raving her fat head off. I was around this morning
and heard her. Gee! She was sayin' things. She was cussin' and cussin'
like mad. So I jest turned in the yard to see. It was just as funny as
a circus. She stood there, her fat sides all of a wabble, an' a
reg'lar waterfall pourin' out of her eyes. He! He! But what made me
laff most was to see those checkens around her on the ground. There
was ten of 'em lying around, and somebody had choppened off all their
heads. Say, the blood was tricklin', an'--well, there, you never did
see such a mess. It was real comic, an' I--well, to see her wringin'
her fat hands, and cussin'. Gee! I wonder she wasn't struck for it,
an' her a woman an' all."
He laughed silently, while his sister stared at him in amazement.
Finally she checked his amusement sharply.
"Yes? Well?"
"Well, then she see me, an' she turned on me like a wildcat, an' I was
'most scairt to death. She said, 'What you doin' here, you imp o'
Satan? Who's done this? Tell me! Tell me an' I'll lay for 'em! I'll
shoot 'em down like vermin.' I knew she wasn't really talkin' to me,
so then I wasn't scairt. She was jest blowin' off steam. Then I got
around an' looked close at 'em--the checkens, I mean--and I see just
where the knife had cut their necks off. It was an elegant way of
killing 'em, and say, how they must have flapped around after they'd
got clear of their silly heads." He laughed gleefully again. "I looked
up after that and see her watchin' me. Guess her eyes was kind of
funny lookin', so I said, 'You don't need to take on, mam,' I said.
'They'll make elegant roasts, an' you can get busy and hatch out some
more.' And somehow she got quiet then, and I watched her gather them
checkens up, an' take 'em into the house. Then when she came out an'
see me again, she says, 'Light you right out o' here, you imp o'
Satan! I fair hates the sight o' you.' So I lit out. Say, Eve," he
added, after a reflective pause, "why does folks all hate me so
much?"
The girl sighed and shook her head. Then she came over to him, and,
bending down, kissed his fair waving hair.
"Never mind, dear. I don't hate you," she said. "Perhaps it is you
offend folks somehow. You know you do manage to upset folks at times.
You seem to say--say queer things to them, and get them mad." She
smiled down upon the boy a little wistfully. She knew her brother was
disliked by most in the village, and it pained her terribly that it
should be so. They tried to be outwardly kind to him, but she always
felt that it was solely for her sake and never for his. As Elia had
never spoken of it before, she had lived in the hope that he did not
understand their dislike. However, it was as well that he should
know. If he realized it now, as he grew older he might endeavor to
earn their good-will in spite of present prejudice.
"Guess it must be, sis. You see I don't kind of mean to say things,"
he said almost regretfully. "Only when they're in my head they must
come out, or--or I think my head would jest bust," he finished up
naively.
The girl was still smiling, and one arm stole round the boy's hunched
shoulders.
"Of course you can't help saying those things you know to be
true----"
"But they most generally ain't true."
The innocent, inquiring eyes looked straight up into hers.
"No," he went on positively, "they generally ain't. I don't think my
head would bust keepin' in the truth. Now, yesterday, Will Henderson
was down at the saloon before he came up to see you. He came and sort
of spoke nice to me. I know he hates me, and--and I hate him worse'n
poison. Well, he spoke nice to me, as I said, an' I wanted to spit at
him for it. And I jest set to and tho't and tho't how I could hurt
him. And so I said, right out before all the boys, 'Wot for do you
allus come hangin' around our shack? Eve's most sick to death with
you,' I said; 'it isn't as if she ast you to get around, it's just you
buttin' in. If you was Jim Thorpe now----'"
"You never said all that, Elia," cried Eve, sternly. All her woman's
pride was outraged, and she felt her fingers itching to box the boy's
ears.
"I did sure," Elia went on, in that sober tone of decided
self-satisfaction. "And I said a heap more. And didn't the boys jest
laff. Will went red as a beet, and the boys laffed more. And I was
real glad. I hate Will! Say, he was up here last night. Wot for? He
was up here from six to nigh nine. Say, sis, I wish you wouldn't have
him around."
Eve did not respond. She was staring out at the rampart of hills
beyond, where Will worked. She was thinking of Will, thinking of--but
the boy was insistent.
"Say, I'd have been real glad if it had been Jim Thorpe. Only he don't
come so often, does he? I like him. Say, Jim's allus good to me. I
don't never seem to want to hurt him. No, sure. Jim's good. But
Will---- Say, sis, Will's a bad lot; he is certain. I know. He's never
done nuthing bad, I know, but I can see it in his face, his eyes. It's
in his head, too. Do you know I can allus tell when bad's in folks'
heads. Now, there's Smallbones. He's a devil. You'll see it, too, some
day. Then there's Peter Blunt. Now Peter's that good he'd break his
neck if he thought it 'ud help folks. But Will----"
"Elia," Eve was bending over the boy's crooked form. Her cheek was
resting on his silky hair. She could not face those bland inquiring
eyes. "You mustn't say anything against Will. I like him. He's not a
bad man--really he isn't, and you mustn't say he is. Will is just a
dear, foolish Irish boy, and when once he has settled down will
be--you wait----"
The boy abruptly wriggled out of his sister's embrace. His eyes sought
hers so that she could no longer avoid them.
"I won't wait for anything to do with Will Henderson--if that's what
you mean. I tell you he's no good. I hate him! I hate him! And--and I
hope some one'll kill all the checkens he's left in your care down at
that old shack of his." He scrambled to his feet and hobbled away,
vanishing round the corner of the house in a fury of fierce
resentment.
He had been roused to one of his dreaded fits of passion, and Eve was
alarmed. In a fever of apprehension she was about to follow him up and
soothe him, when she saw a horseman galloping toward the house. The
figure was unmistakable, besides she knew the horse's gait and color.
It was Jim Thorpe, riding in from the AZ ranch.
In a few moments he drew rein at the gate of her vegetable patch. He
flung the reins over his horse's head and removed the bit from its
mouth. Then he let it wander grazing on the tawny grass of the
market-place.
Eve waited for him to come up the garden path, and for the moment the
boy was forgotten. She welcomed him with the cordiality of old
friendship. There was genuine pleasure in her smile, there was hearty
welcome in her eyes, and in the soft, warm grip of her strong young
hand, but that was all. There was no shyness, no avoiding the honest
devotion in his look. The radiant hope shining in his clear, dark eyes
was not for her understanding. The unusual care in his dress, the
neatly polished boots under his leather chaps, the creamy whiteness of
his cotton shirt, the store creases of the new silk handkerchief about
his neck, none of these things struck her as being anything out of the
ordinary.
And he, blind soul, took courage from the warmth of her welcome. His
heart beat high with a hope which no ordinary mundane affairs could
have inspired. All the ill-fate behind him was wiped off the slate.
The world shone radiant before eyes, which, at such times, are
mercifully blinded to realities. An Almighty Providence sees that
every man shall live to the full such moments as were his just then.
It is in the great balance of things. The greater the joy, the
harder---- But what matters the other side of the picture!
"Eve," he exclaimed, "I was hoping to find you--not busy. I've ridden
right in to yarn with you--'bout things. Say, maybe you've got five
minutes?"
"I've always got five minutes for you, Jim," the girl responded
warmly. "Sit right down here on this seat, and get--going. How's
things with the 'AZ's'?"
"Bully! Dan McLagan's getting big notions of doing things; he's
heaping up the dollars in plenty. And I'm glad, because with him doing
well I'm doing well. I've already got an elegant bunch of cows and
calves up in the foot-hills. You see I make trade with him for my
wages. I've done more. Yesterday I got him to promise me a lease of
grazing, and a big patch for a homestead way up there in the
foot-hills. In another two years I mean to be ranching on my own, eh?
How's that?"
The girl's eyes were bright with responsive enthusiasm. She was
smiling with delight at this dear friend's evident success.
"It's great, Jim. But how quiet you've been over it. You never even
hinted before----"
The man shook his head, and for a moment a shadow of regret passed
across his handsome face.
"Well, you see I waited until I was sure of that lease. I've come so
many falls I didn't guess I wanted to try another by anticipating too
much. So I just waited. It's straight going now," he went on, with a
return to his enthusiasm, "and I'm going to start building."
"Yes, yes. You'll get everything ready for leaving the 'AZ's' in----"
"Two years, yes. I'll put up a three-roomed shack of split logs, a
small barn, and branding corrals. That'll be the first start. You
see"--he paused--"I'd like to know about that shack. Now what about
the size of the rooms and things? I--I thought I'd ask you----"
"Me?"
The girl turned inquiring eyes upon him. She was searching his face
for something, and that something came to her as an unwelcome
discovery, for she abruptly turned away again, and her attention was
held by those distant hills, where Will Henderson worked.
"I don't know," she said seriously. The light of enthusiasm had died
out of her eyes, leaving them somehow sad and regretful. "You see, I
don't know a man's requirements in such things. A woman has ideas, but
that is chiefly for herself. You see, she has the care of the house
generally."
"Yes, yes; that's it," Jim broke in eagerly. Then he checked himself.
Something in Eve's manner gave him pause. "You see I--I wanted a
woman's ideas. I don't want the house for a man. I----"
He did not finish what he had to say. Somehow words failed him. It was
not that he found it difficult to put what he wanted to say into
words. Something in the girl's manner checked his eagerness and drove
him to silence. He, too, suddenly found himself staring out at the
hills, where--Will worked.
For one fleeting instant Eve turned her gentle eyes upon the face
beside her. She saw the strong features, the steady look of the dark
eyes, the clean-cut profile and determined jaw. She saw, too, that he
was thinking hard, and her woman's instinct came to her aid. She felt
that she must be the first to speak. And on what she said depended
what would follow.
"Why not leave the house until toward the end of the two years? By
that time you will have been able to talk it over with--the right
person."
"That's what I want to do now."
Jim's eagerness leaped again. He thought he saw an opening. His eyes
had in them the question he wanted to ask. All his soul was behind his
words, all his great depth of feeling and love looked out at the
rounded oval of her sweet face. He hungrily took in the beauty of her
hair, her eyes, her cheeks; the sweet richness of her ripe lips, the
chiseled roundness of her beautiful neck. He longed to crush her to
his heart where they sat. He longed to tell her that she and she only
of all women could ever occupy the hut he intended to build; he longed
to pour into her ears his version of the old, old story, and so full
was his great, strong heart, so overwhelming was his lover's madness,
that he believed he could tell that story as it had never been told
before. But the question never reached his lips. The old story was not
for his telling. Nor did he ask himself why. It was as though a power
which was all-mastering forbade him to speak further.
"Have you seen Will to-day?" Eve suddenly inquired, with apparent
irrelevance. "I half expected to----" And she broke off purposely.
The look in Jim's eyes hardened to one of acute apprehension.
"You were--expecting him?"
"Well, not exactly, Jim." She withdrew her gaze from the distant
hills, and, gently smiling, turned her eyes upon him. They were full
of sympathy and profound kindness. "You see, he came here last night.
And, well, I thought he said something about----"
Jim started. A shiver passed through his body. He suddenly felt cold
in that blazing sun. His eyes painfully sought the girl's face. His
look was an appeal, an appeal for a denial of what in his heart he
feared. For some seconds he did not speak. There was no sound between
them, but of his breathing, which had become suddenly heavy.
"Will--Will was here last night?" he said at last.
His voice was husky and unusual. But he dropped his eyes before the
innocent look of inquiry in the girl's.
"Why, yes; he spent the evening with me."
In lowering his eyes Jim found them staring at the girl's hands,
resting in her lap. On one of them he noticed, for the first time, a
gold band. It was the inside of a ring. It was on the third finger of
the left hand. He had never seen Eve wearing rings before. Suddenly he
reached out and caught her hands in his. He turned them over with
almost brutal roughness. Eve tried to withdraw them, but he held them
fast.
"That ring!" he exclaimed, hoarsely. It was in full view now. "It
is Will's. It was my father's signet ring. I gave it to him.
Where?--How----? But no, you needn't tell me, I guess." He almost
flung her hands from him. And a wave of sickness swept over him as
he thought.
Then in a moment all the passion of his heart rose uppermost in him,
and its scorching tide swept through his body, maddening him, driving
him. A torrent of words surged to his lips, words of bitterness, cruel
words that would hurt the girl, hurt himself, words of hateful
intensity, words that might ease his tortured soul at the expense of
those who had always occupied foremost place in his heart.
But they were not uttered. He choked them back with a gasp, and seized
himself in an iron grip of will. And, for some moments, he held on as
a drowning man may cling to the saving hand. He must not hurt the
girl, he must not wound her love by betraying his cousin. If Will had
not played the game, at any rate he would. Suddenly, he spoke again,
and no one would have suspected the storm raging under his calm
exterior. Only his voice was hoarse, and his lips were dry, and the
usually clear whites of his eyes were bloodshot.
"The boy has asked you, then?" he said slowly. And he waited for the
death-knell of all his hopes, his love.
"Yes." Eve's voice was very low. Her gentle woman's heart ached, for
her instinct told her of the pain she was causing. "Last night he
asked me to be his wife, and I--I love him, Jim, and so I consented."
"Yes, yes." There was weariness in the man's voice now. It sounded
almost as though he were physically weary. "I hope you will be happy,
dear. Will's--a good boy----"
"Yes, and I asked him if you knew anything about it. And he said,
'No.' He said it would be a little surprise for you---- You are not
going?" Jim had suddenly started to his feet. "Won't you wait for
Will? He's staying in the village. He said he'd be up to see me this
morning--before he went out to the hills."
Jim could stand no more.
"I'm glad you told me, Eve," he said, almost harshly. "Will's not good
at surprises. No, I won't stay. I'll get right back, after I've done
some business in the village." He stood, glancing thoughtfully down at
the village for some moments. Then he turned again, and a shadowy
smile lit his sombre eyes.
"I've given out a contract for that homestead," he went on. "Well, I'm
going to cancel it. Good-bye, little girl."
"Oh, Jim, I----"
But the man shook his head.
"Don't you be sorry. Get all the happiness you can. Maybe Will will be
a real good husband to you."
He moved away and strode after his horse. The beast was well out on
the market-place, and Eve watched him catch it and clamber into the
saddle. Then she turned away with a sigh, and found herself looking
into the beautiful face of her brother. He had silently crept up to
her side.
"You've hurt him, sis; you've hurt him real bad. Did you see? It was
all inside. Inside here;" the boy folded his delicate hands over his
hollow breast. "I know it because I feel it here, too. It's as though
you'd taken right hold of a bunch of cords here, and were pulling 'em,
tearing 'em, an' someway they're fixed right on to your heart. That's
the way you've hurt him, an' it hurts me, because I like him--he's
good. You don't know what it feels when a man's hurt. I do. It's
elegant pain. Gee!" His calm face was quite unlit by the emotion he
described. "It don't stop at your heart. It gets right through to your
muscles, and they tingle and itch to do something, and they mostly
want to hurt, same as you've been hurt. Then it gets to the head,
through the blood. That's it; the blood gets hot, and it makes the
brain hot, an' when the brain's hot it thinks hot thoughts, an' they
scorch an' make you feel violent. You think hurt for some one, see?
It's all over the body alike. It's when men get hurt like that that
they want to kill. Gee! You've hurt him."
The boy paused a little breathlessly. His tense nerves were quivering
with some sort of mental strain. It was as though he were watching
something that was going on inside himself, and the effort was
tremendous, physically and mentally. But, used as Eve was to his
vagaries, she saw none of this. She was thinking only of Jim. Thinking
of the suffering which her brother had said she had caused him.
Woman-like, she felt she must excuse herself. Yet she knew she had
nothing to blame herself with.
"I only told him I had promised to marry Will."
The boy uttered a little cry. It was a strange sound, unlike anything
human. He rushed at her, and his thin hands seized upon her wrists,
and clutched them violently.
"You're goin' to marry Will? You! You! And you've hurt him--to marry
Will?" Then, with the force of his clutch upon her wrists, he drew her
down toward him till her face was near to his, and his placid eyes
looked coldly into hers. "You've--hurt--me--too," he hissed into her
face, "and I almost--hate you. No, it's not you--but I hate Will
worse'n I ever hated anything in my life."