Chapter XVI: Red Plays Trumps (2)

As I said, I see Mick Murphy leaning back in his chair at the tavern. Of course, he had a word to say about me and Miss Hitty. Now, the bare sight of Mick used to make the hair stand up on the back of my neck and growls boil inside of me. I just naturally disliked that man. So I sassed him plenty. He got mad and threatened to slap my face. I sassed him more, and he _did_ slap my face. In one twenty-fifth of a second I caught him on his rum-bouquet and sent him plumb off his feet--not bad for a sixteen-year-old, when you consider the other party was an accomplished rough-houser. Yes, sir, he went right down, clean, more from the quickness than the stuff behind the blow, as I hadn't anywheres near grew into my strength yet. The tavern crowd set up a roar, and then jumped to interfere, for Mick he roared, too, and made to pull me apart. The onlookers wouldn't stand for it. They weren't such high-toned gents, but a contest between a leggy kid and a powerful man looked too far off the level.

"You run," says one fellow to me. "We'll hold him." But hanged if I was going to run. My thoughts was a mix, as usual in such cases--most of it hardly thinking at all, and the rest a kind of white-hot wish to damage something, and a desire to hustle away from there before I got hurt. Then, too, it had reached the limit about Miss Hitty--I sure wasn't going to stand hearing her name mishandled by tavern loafers. Yet the principal cause for my staying was my anxiety to leave. That big, bellowing Irishman, dragging a half-dozen men to get at me, blood streaming down his face, and his expression far from agreeable, put a crimp in my soul, and don't you forget it. But I understood that this was my first man's-size proposition, and if I didn't take my licking like a man I never could properly respect myself afterward. So whilst my legs were pleading, "Come, Willie, let's trot and see mother--it will be pleasanter," I raked my system for sand and stood pat.

I knew a trick or two about assaulting your fellow-man as well as Mick, when you come to that. Fighting is really as good an education for fighting as sparring is, and perhaps a little better. It ain't so much a question of how you make your props and parries, as how much damage you inflict upon the party of the second part.

"Let him come!" I says. "What you holding him for, 's if he was a ragin' lion or something? Let go of him!"

"You skip, you darn fool," says my first friend. "He'll eat you raw."

"Well, it will be my funeral," I says. "If you will see he don't put me down and gouge my eye out, I'll take him as he comes."

Gouging was a great trick with that gang,--I feared it more than death itself.

Just at that minute old Eli drove up. "What in tarnation's this?" says he. When he found out, he tried to make me go home, but all this advice I didn't want had made me more determined. I got crying mad. "Gol-ding it all to thunder!" says I, hopping up and down. "You see me fair play and turn him loose, Eli. I want one more swat at him,--just let me hit him once more, and I'll go home."

Eli was a tall, round-shouldered man, who looked like a cross between a prosperous minister and a busted lawyer. He had a consumptive cough, and an easy, smoothing way with his hands, always sort of apologizing. Several men had been led astray by these appearances, and picked a quarrel with Eli. Two weeks in bed was the average for making that mistake.

He looked at me with his head sideways, pulling his chin whisker. "Billy," says he, "I hev experienced them sentiments myself. It shell be as you say." He went to his wagon, and drew out a muzzle-loading pistol from under the seat. The pistol was loaded with buckshot, and four fingers of powder to push it, as every one around knew. He walked up to Mick and put the touch of a cold, gray, Yankee eye on him. "Young man," he says, "I ain't for your clawin', chawin', kickin' style of conductin' a row, so I tell you this: you fight that boy fair, or I'll mix buckshot with your whisky.--Turn your bullock loose!"

The men let go of him, and he come.

Fortunately, I remember every detail of that scrap, clear as crystal. I led with my left, and Mick countered with his chin. A thunderstorm hit me in the left ear. Kerbang, kerswot. Scurry-scurry, biff-biff-biff. Somebody hit somewhere. Somebody with a pain in the neck. No time to find out who it is. Zip, smash, rip; more pains; streaks of fire on the horizon; must have run aground. Roar-roar-bump,--ah, bully for you, Billy! Slam him, Mick! Hit him again, sonny! You got him! Now you got him! Aaaay-hooray!

Here we go, bumping over the ties. Right over the edge of the trestle,--bing! C'm' off'n him, you big black whelp, aggh! le' go! Twist his thumb! Kick the brute! Get up, boy! Roooor swishz.--Where in thunder did the big black thing come from? Never mind. No time to stop. Lovely Peter! How she rolls! Who's sick?--Mick, probably. Lightning struck, that time.... Again ... Mmmmmmearrrrr ... dark ... dark. Raining ice-water! He's all right! Give him a little air! Somebody crying, "I did the best I could by him, Eli; g-gu-gug-gol-darn him!" More light. Daybreak, and here I am again, on the ground, wet to the hide, the bucket they emptied on me alongside, and Eli holding my head up. And what's the thing opposite, with one eye swelled shut, and a mouth the size of a breakfast-roll?--Why, it's Mick!

"Did he lick me, Eli?" says I.

Eli laughed kind of nervous. "Neither you, nor him, nor me, will ever know," says he. "He's willing to call it a draw."

I staggered to my feet and wabbled to my partner in the dance, holding out my hand. "Much obliged to you, Mick," says I.

He leaned back and laughed, till I joined, as well as I could, for crying. He grabbed my hand and shook it. "Yer all right," says he. "Sorry I am I said a word to ye. An' yer th' h--- of a red-headed bye to fight. I've enough."

Whilst I was a simple lad, I wasn't a fool. For me to hold that two-hundred-and-twenty-five-pound rough-and-tumble fighter even, was impossible. He was ashamed of the whole thing. As soon as his ugly temper had the edge knocked off it, he took that way of closing the deal. No bad man at all, old Mick.

"You say that to save my feelings," I said.

"What's that?" says he, rough and hard. "Off with ye!" He wouldn't admit being decent for a farm. He swung away. Then I got another jar. A voice called me and I swung around.

V

"ON MY BUREAU WAS A KNIFE--"

My father stood behind me, such a picture it chills me to think of him. All of his face was chalk-white; his hands shook like palsy. I reckon I can slide over the next little while. You guess what a crazy-mad man, who's fed his mind on darkness for years, would be likely to do. I never raised a hand in defense--took it. At the same time I made my mind up to end this business, quick and strong. I had enough.

Of course, from father's point of view, something could be said. Had I been drunk and fighting at the tavern, as my nice, gentlemanly little friend, Algy Anker, ran and told him, nobody'd blamed him for getting orry-eyed. But he might have asked me what I had to say--a woman-killer gets that show. He used me bad enough, so Eli interfered. "I don't care if I never sell another thing to you," says he; "but, neighbor, you sha'n't hit thet boy ag'in--no, now! There's no use to squirm--you sha'n't do it, and that's all. You run along, Bill."

When mother saw me, she cried out. I was a sight, for sure. Ought to have washed up a bit, and not give her such a shock, but my head was sizzing like a pin-wheel. Only one idea stuck.

"I'm not hurt much, mother," I says. "I want to speak to you."

Mother was quick-witted and hardy-witted, too. She knew there was no boy foolishness in this, so she choked down her feelings, got a basin, clean water, and a towel, and said, "Tell me while I bathe your face."

I told her. It was queer how quiet I felt. I don't know but what it's always that way, though, when a man has made his mind up tight. We seemed almost of an age, mother and me, that little while.

She pleaded with me. "Don't leave your home, Will. I have been wrong; I should have done more; I didn't, thinking things would right themselves; but now I'll promise to stand between."

"And what will your life be like?" I asked her. I grew old pretty fast, under pressure.

"Never mind that!" she cried. "My boy, to have you with me--"

"Sh!" I says. "How could I help minding it?"

She was still.

"And worse might come," I went on. "I don't like to say it, yet every time I couldn't promise to be.... There'd come a day too often ... I'm strong, and if I should--" She put her hand on my lips.

"Go to your room, Will; and let me think alone for a while," she said. She caught me and held me close, with never a tear, but a look worse than an ocean of tears. I couldn't have stood it, if I hadn't known I was doing the right thing. To a dead certainty, there would be no peace with me in the house. Any doubts anybody might have had was removed when father come in. He went straight to mother's room. I heard him shouting; talking so fast his words were broken; stamping around; quoting Scripture one minute, crying threats and slaughter the next. It was pitiful. I hustled, getting things ready; I knew, a little more of listening, and I'd have nothing but contempt for my father. Then mother's voice rung out, telling him to leave until he could talk like a man. Usually, she could force him, when she wished, hers being so much bigger a mind, but this time the littler soul was beyond itself with fury. "Don't take that tone with me!" he roared. "I won't stand it! And as for the lies that boy told you, I'll have them out of his back!" Their door slammed open, and he fairly ran toward mine. I jumped and locked it. Mother was close after him. "You shall _not_!" she said. "Listen to reason! You've done enough harm--Oh!" she cried, in pain. I thought he hit her.

What I feared boiled up in me. On my bureau was a knife; a big, heavy knife, that got into my hand somehow. It was me and the devil for that round. How long I stood with the knife raised, I don't know. Then mother spoke calmly. "You hurt my arm, holding it so tight," she said. "That certainly isn't necessary." He had grace enough to beg her pardon. Finally, she got him to leave. A good job. That day had been a trifle too much for me, already. I can't see a bare knife since, without a shudder. Don't like the glint of steel at all. Years after, a flash of sun on water would bring things back, and I'd have a sickness in the stomach.

An hour after, mother came in. "Well, my boy, you are right," she says, as if the very life were out of her.

"Yes," I says, thinking of the knife; "and I'll just slide out quiet, and no trouble to anybody."

She roused herself. "You will leave in daylight, my son," she says, "with your mother to say good-by. You have done nothing wrong, and you sha'n't leave ashamed."

"But, mother, that will make it bad for you," I says.

"I married your father; I brought you into the world," she says. "I know my duty, and I shall do it, if it costs all our lives, let alone a little trouble. And, besides," she says, getting up, excited, "no matter what any one can say, you've been a good--" She broke down, all at once. The rest of it she cried into my shoulder, whilst I told her about how I'd be rich and great in no time, and father'd come around all right after a while, and we'd all be happy, till she felt better. And I believed it myself so strong, and put it out so clear, that I think I convinced her. Anyway, they got along all right after I left. That's a comfort.

So it was arranged. I shouldn't say anything, but keep out of father's way until she made him yield the point. She laid it out to the old gentleman clear and straight, Mattie tells me--(Mattie's mother was my mother's half-sister)--telling him I wasn't drunk, as he could readily prove, and as for the fighting, if he intended to beat me every time I defended a woman, why, she'd leave, too. That part of it stuck in mother's mind; she would not listen when I told her it was only one of the reasons for the row. And she summed the thing up by saying I was determined to leave; that it was best all around; and that he must act like a human being and a father for once. By this time, I reckon he didn't feel so terrible proud of himself. At least, it was pulled off easy. I left home, with some small money in my pocket, a trunk of clothes in Eli's care, and mother and father both waving me good-by in the road, for the Great World, per Boston, and a schooner trading South, that belonged to Eli's cousin.

And here's a queer thing. The day I left, Mick went into the tavern and called for a glass of whisky. He poured out a snorter and balanced it on the flat of his thumb. "Ladies and gintlemen," says he, "ye here behold th' koind friend that led Mick Murphy--that's licked the country--to bang a bit of a bye, after misnamin' a dacent woman." Smash! goes the glass on the floor. "Tra-la-loo to you!" says Mick, flinging the barkeep' a half-dollar. "Keep the change," he says. "It's the last cent I have, and the last you'll get from me."

And that's just what happened, too. He's located about twenty mile over yonder, with a good factory and somewheres between ninety and nine thousand Murphys claiming him as their start. And my best friend is old Mick. He cried when I first went to see him. I reformed him, but it cost me my home. I never knew, either, till he told me himself, a year ago.

VI

"I'M MARY SMITH"

Plunk, plunk, plunketty-plunk, down the pike, me and Eli, and Dandy Jim, Eli's black horse.

I'll never tell you how I felt. It was the first I'd ever been away from home. All the regrets I had was eased by knowing it wouldn't be more than six months before I'd come back with a gunny-sack full of hundred-dollar bills, buy Mr. Jasper's place with the pillars in front, and a railroad, and pervade things in general with a tone of pink and birds singing.

One thing about being a boy is that you're sure of to-morrow, anyhow.

Well, we slid along behind a free-gaited horse, in an easy wagon, over good roads, in early New England summer, when every breath of air had a pretty story to tell. If it hadn't been for the tight vest I had on, I reckon my heart would have bust my ribs for joyfulness.

Boston scart the life out of me. I had no notion there was that many folks and horses and buildings in the world. We pulled for the schooner right away, but none too quick for me. I never liked a crowd. A man understands he don't amount to much, yet don't like to have the fact rubbed in.

Cap'n Jesse Conklin owned the boat. He had a mild blue eye, a splendid line of cuss words, a body as big as mine, and a pair of legs that just saved him from running aground. When I first saw him I thought he was standing in a hole. Howsomever, he got around mighty lively on his little stumps, and he could light his pipe when the _Matilda_, of Boston, was throwing handsprings. He always opened his eyes wide and said, "Ha!" like he was perfectly astonished when you spoke to him. Then, to square things, you was really perfectly astonished when he spoke to you.

Eli introduced me. "Ha!" says the captain. "So this is one of them ripperty-splintered and bejiggered young thingermergummeries that runs away from hum, heh?" I don't wish to be understood as giving the captain's exact words, although I ain't one of your durn prudes, neither.

Eli explained.

"Ha!" says the captain. "Is that so? Howjer come by them legs, young feller? You'll be riggin' a set of stays fur them when we hit the stream. I've seen shorter and thicker things than them growin' on trellises."

"Never you mind about his legs, you old bladder-head," says Eli, cousinly. "You're to take the boy as passenger."

"_I_ am!" says Captain Jesse, jumping back, mad as a bumblebee. "_I_ am; that's _me_! I don't own this boat nor nothin'! I've got to be told what I'm to do, I have!"

"Sure!" says Eli, undisturbed.

"Well, all right," says the captain, calm as anything. "What makes you so hasty, Eli? Does he pay his passage, or work it?"

"He gives you five dollars in hand, and works the rest of it," says Eli.

The cap'n gave a horrible grin, showing a set of teeth like a small horse.

"And won't he work it!" says he, rubbing his hands together. "Dry land'll do for him, two weeks out."

"Yaaas," says Eli. "You're a turble person, you are--you'd ought to been a pirate, Jess."

Cap'n Jesse got mad again--he was more like a little boy than anybody of his weight I ever see. He come up to Eli and shook his finger under that hawk-bill of a nose.

"I don't want none of your slack, Eli!" he says. "You've tried me often"--here he got impressive, talking very slow--"don't you try me once too much!"

Eli grabbed the hand, stuck the finger in his mouth, and bit it.

"Aaoow!" yells the captain, grabbing his finger. "You quit your foolin'!"

By this time I was lost entirely. What to make of the proceedings was beyond guessing. Boylike, I thought men always acted with some big idea in view, but the next minute Eli and Cap'n Jesse had grabbed holt of one another and was scuffling and giggling around the deck like a pair of kids. Captain Jess was stout about the shoulders; he had Eli waving in the breeze once, but at last Eli gave him a back trip and down they come. Then up they got; each cut off a hunk of chewing and began to talk as if they'd acted perfectly reasonable. Seems that's the way they always come together.

The three of us took a look about the boat. She was an able, fine three-master, the pride of Jesse's soul; 'most as big as a ship.

Them were the days when most folk built deep and narrer, but Jesse had ideas of his own when he laid down the lines of the _Matilda_, of Boston. She looked bluff and heavy in the bows and her bilges turned hard, but she walked over the water, and don't you forget it. Moreover, she was the kindest boat in a seaway I ever boarded. Old _Matilda_ girl would heel just so far; after that the worst draft that ever whistled wouldn't put her under an inch; she'd part with her sticks first. Handy boat, a schooner, too; sensible and Yankeefied. Lord! what a claw-and-messing on board a square-rigger, compared to it! And taking two men to the schooner's one at that.

The _Matilda_ was fitted for passengers. She had eight nice clean cabins, and fine quarters for the crew. In most such boats you can't more 'n stand up, if you stretch between hair and shoe-leather the way I do, but here there was head-room a-plenty. And Uncle Jesse ate the boys well, too. Good old craft and good old boy running her. Soon's you realized that all his spitting and swearing and roaring didn't amount to no more than a hearty sneeze, you got along with Jesse great, if you was fit to get along with anybody.

We took aboard four passengers that night, one of 'em being a lady. The next morning at four we pulled out with the ebb-tide.

Before we got into the open water, I felt such a joy boiling inside me I had to sing, no matter what the feelings of the rest were. Oh! Oh! The blue, bright sky; and the blue, crinkly, good-smelling water; the quantities of fresh air around, and _Matilda_ picking up her white skirts and skipping for Panama! Neither man nor money will ever give me a feeling like that again. But then,--ah, then! And there's 'most always a then,--when the _Matilda_ tried to spear a gull with her bowsprit, and, shamefaced at the failure above, tried to harpoon some little fishy with the same weapon,--why, I hope I'll never have a feeling like that again, neither.

I hung over a bunk like a snarl of rope. Jesse come down and grinned at me. I couldn't even get mad. "Tell mother I died thinking of her," was all I could say.

Now that was noble of me. Many a man has cashed his checks not feeling half so bad; but if any poor soul ever regretted a good deed, I did that one. That last message to my mother seemed to remain in the memory of our ship's company, long after I was willing to forget it.

For two solid days I didn't live inside of myself,--mind floated around in space. After that, I got up, ready for anything in the line of eating they had on board. Jesse brought me a smoked herring and a cup of coffee,--the first coffee I ever tasted, mother thinking it wasn't good for boys. Within ten minutes after my meal, William De La Tour Saunders belonged to himself once more. Never had a squirm of seasickness since. For the first week I wasn't quite up to the mark, but Jesse told me to take a cup of sea-water every morning before breakfast, which tuned me up in jig-time.

I saw our lady passenger when she come up for air. A girl of about twenty, supple and balanced as a tight-rope walker; you thought she was slim when you first looked at her, yet when you looked the second time you couldn't prove it. What a beautiful thing is a set of muscles that know their business! Muscles that meet every roll of a boat, or whatever it is they should meet, without haste and without loss of time,--just there, when they should be there! Why, to see that girl walk twenty feet on the schooner's deck was a picture to remember for the rest of your days. Kid that I was, I noticed there wasn't a line in her makeup that said, "Look at me." Afterward I learned to shake my head at graceful ladies, but I feel kindly toward them still, out of memory of that first girl. My mother moved beautifully, likewise Mattie. They were quiet, though; restful women; this one was all spring and ginger,--for Heaven's sake, don't think I mean prancy! Nor that I haven't met a prancy girl or two who was all right, when I say that,--fat and jolly, yellow-haired girls, to go with good meals and a romp,--but this My Lady was made of the stuff Uncle Shakspere wrote. She was clean and sweet as pine-woods after rain, but full of fire, sense, and foolishness.

I remember thinking, "When this girl turns round she ain't going to be handsome in the face. With that head of hair, that back, and that walk, Providence will feel square on the deal." And when she did turn round I simply spread my hands, mouth, and eyes, and looked at her. I forgot being aboard ship, I forgot where I was going and why, I forgot who I was and everything else; all I knew was that a kind of human I never believed lived was walking toward me.

I caught one glance of her eyes; outside their beauty was fun, kindness, and a desire to be friends; from that minute one red-headed puppy-dog found something to live for.

My devotion had nothing to do with the ordinary love-affair. As for marrying her, no such idea entered my loft. I had no jealousies. All I wanted was for her to be near me, to be a friend of mine, and that she might be on hand to approve if I did something surprising. I wanted the privilege of her hearing me talk about myself; and, for the rest of it, I could sit and look at her beauty, the same as you or me could sit and listen to the greatest music. It meant more than just good looks; I wouldn't go too far if I said it was a kind of religion. And the devil take my soul if I forget the horse-sense and kindness that girl used in teaching a foot-loose boy what a different place this world is, from what he'd been like to think it, without her. A young feller's first outpourings toward a woman has more effect on him than even his mother's years of care. He kind of takes mother for granted. The other woman represents his own endeavors. I played in luck.

We were introduced, bang! When about ten feet away from me she took her hand from the rail to gather in one end of a shawl. At that minute the _Matilda_ saw a whale, or something, and shied. We struck the mainmast together, me trying to hold her up. She said, "Why, how do you do?" I said I did very well, and was she hurt? She said, not in the least, thank you, except in her feelings, at being so clumsy. I said, if _she_ was clumsy, why, then, why, then--Now I was a little bashful. Nobody could be a clodhopper who lived with my mother, and ordinarily I acted quite like a man when necessary, but this was a little sudden. I couldn't reach the word I looked for. With one hand braced against the mainmast, her hair standing in a black cloud about her head, the color whipped to her cheeks, she gave me a flash from the corner of her eye: "I'm afraid I lose my compliment," said she.

Afterward I learned she had liked me from the first, too, and was afraid I mightn't turn out well. Lucky for me I didn't try to show off!

"I wouldn't think it a compliment to compare you to anything on earth!" says I, meaning every word of it.

She laughed out, hearty as a boy. "Royal!" she said, and held out her hand.

"And the hand is the hand of--?" she asked.

"Bill Saunders," said I, thinking to take off my hat.

"I sound almost as honest as you," said she. "I'm Mary Smith."

It was almost a shock to think she was Mary Smith. Since then it would be a shock to think of her as Eulalie Rosalinde De Montmorency. She didn't need it. Plain Mary Smith told of what was beneath her loveliness,--and, I'm forced to admit, her side-stepping and buck-jumping, once in a while. Oh, she could cut loose for fair, if stirred, but you could always remember with perfect faith Mary Smith.

It wasn't five minutes after we started talking that Arthur Saxton came along. The girl knew him, and said good morning in that civil, hold-off fashion a good woman uses to a man she thinks may come to liking her too well, or that she may come to like too well, when the facts are against any happy result. So there was three of us, that took our little share of what followed, gathered together early in the game.

I liked Saxton from the jump. He had more faults than any other man I ever seen. He was the queerest, contrariest cuss, and yet such a gentleman; he had such a way, and such talents, that when you were mad enough to kill him, you couldn't help but feel glad you knew him to get mad at. Somehow, he steered clear of meanness. There was a sort of nobility in his capers, even when his best friends would have to admit they didn't seem to be of a size for a full-grown man. I don't know how to express myself. He often played a poor part; but darned if he didn't carry it off well, because it was him; I think that's the nearest I can come to it; good or bad, large or small, he was always Saxton, never attempting to put on anything different. And vain! Well, Heaven preserve us! And, on the other hand, not vain, neither. 'Twas like this. Among the things he did well enough to be high-class was playing the violin. He had a style and a go in it all his own, but he hadn't spent the time to learn some of the stunts that go with the trade. All the same, his natural gifts got him a job to play in concerts. The boss of the affair was a German, the kind of a man who had a soul to realize that Saxton made music, but had a head to go crazy over his slam-dashery. Now, Saxton grew excited whilst playing, and cut loose on his own hook, letting the poor perspiring Dutchman and the rest of the orchestra keep up to his trail the best they could. At these opportunities the Dutchman went home in a cab, frothing at the mouth. You see, he understood it was great stuff, as far as Saxton was concerned, so he cussed the cab-driver and the cab-horse, and the people on the street, being an honest sort of Dutchman, if limited; but, also, he had a pride in his gang, and he felt entitled to a show, here and there.

At last there come a big occasion. Saxton was half sick and loaded up on champagne and coffee to pull through the evening. I have his own word for it, the mixture done wonders. Right in the middle of a piece by a gentleman whose name I don't recall, as it's spelt with all the tail-end of the alphabet, and sounds like rip-sawing a board, Saxton throws dull care away and wanders into regions of beautiful sounds hitherto unexplored. Now and then the tall and melancholy gent with the bull-fiddle would scratch out a note or two, and the drummer got in a lick here and there, while the flute man toodle-oodled around to head off Saxy; but, on the whole, that orchestra was worse lost than so many West Pointers trying to catch an Apache who ain't longing for home. They sat and let old Saxton ramp by himself, laying low to hit her up strong on the last note. And they did,--but they misguessed the note. Saxton ground his teeth yet, recalling the finish. "It was my best," said he. "I was inspired that night,--and then, for that assortment of garlic and sausage to smash me!"

Well, he heaved his fiddle at the poor leader, and called him a barrel of sauerkraut afloat on a sea of beer, right before the whole audience. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that he and the orchestra parted company. Now he was off for Panama,--quit fiddling forever. Done with it. Going to take up a _man's_ work, he said. He didn't mention the variety, but rolled out the statement as if it was a joy. In the meantime, he was painting pictures and writing a novel. The pictures never got finished, and the novel hasn't come out, but those things didn't make him any less entertaining; and, as usual, what did get done of them was almighty well done, and done in a way only Arthur Saxton could do. I never see such a man to stamp himself on anything he put his hand to. And when he was working, if you said the least thing against the job, he wanted trouble with you; but the next day he'd smoke his pipe and tear it apart worse than you possibly could. That was Saxy: first crack, spoiled kid; second thought, clear-headed man.

The three of us, Mary and him and me, walked the deck day after day, talking of everything, from what fine weather it was to religion. Once Saxton called our attention to the wind in the rigging. Afterward I knew it sounded like Injun chants and coyotes howling, but Saxton asked if we didn't notice how much it was like the songs the children sing in play. He said those songs must have been handed down from far-off days--when we whites were savages, hopping around hollering hye-ee yah, hye-ee yah, and calling on the ladies, dressed in a streak of red paint. I don't know about that, though. No child in this world can be as mournful enjoying himself as a cow-puncher with all night before him and seven hundred verses to get through; there's puncher songs would make a strong man curl up and die.

Now, says Saxton, what makes children and savages, who have a clear field to amuse themselves as they see fit, pick, with deliberate choice, such melancholy tunes? And he said it was because nature always hit on that; wind in rigging, wind in trees, waterfalls, the far-off hum of the city, all sad, sad.

I asked him, if it was natural, where did we get the idea it was sad? It struck me that if a thing was natural, it was natural, not sad, nor nothin' else.

He said, because nature was sad. Mary said, no such a thing; nature wasn't sad--there were the flowers and green fields, also natural, and pleasant and cheerful to the eye; there was more blue sky than gray, and as for the savage being sad, why, that might be, but it wasn't sad to think that men were working out of savagery into civilization.

So then Saxton gave civilization one for its Ma, and talk brisked up. Civilization stood for Dutchmen that ran orchestras to Saxton, and he didn't spare her feelings none. I was glad Civvy, old girl, was no friend of mine. According to him, of all the mistakes so foolish that to think of bettering it was like building a hole with no rim around it, civilization stood first and foremost.

Mary got red in the face and her eyes shone. They had it up one side and down the other, forgetting me entirely. Finally Saxton told her she wasn't talking honestly, that she hated civilization worse than he did, and it was plumb hypocrisy for her to set up in its defense; whereupon she replied that _she_ hadn't wasted her time and talents, anyhow; that she wasn't throwing things up the first little obstacle that came in the way. Which didn't seem to be just the answer one might expect to the charge, but finished Saxton plenty.

He drew himself up proud. "If every topic had to turn to personalities--" said he.

"I didn't begin the personalities," said Mary. "You called me a fraud."

"I never did!" cries Saxton. "I said you were defending a cause you didn't believe in!"

"And that isn't a fraud? I admire your distinctions."

Saxton chewed his mustache and swallowed. He made her a low bow and said, in a tone of voice to flatten her out: "I am glad Miss Smith finds something admirable in me!"

Mary's lip curled hard and contemptuous. It _was_ kiddish.

"There'd be plenty in you to admire if you let it have liberty," she said. "The trouble is that your follies seem worth it, to you."

"Follies! You let me off lightly. Why not absurdities, idiocies?"

"Pick your name," she said, throwing away her interest with a sweep of her hand.

"There is one folly you give me great cause to regret," he answered her, his manhood coming back to him, "but yet I never do."

"Oh!" she jeered at him. "You should renounce them all. If I understand your meaning, that is the least excusable--you have some reason for the others."

Later I understood the cruelty of that speech. It was cruel to be kind, but it was mighty cruel and a doubtful kindness. It woke old Saxton up. He took a breath and shook. He put a hand on her shoulder, standing straight and tall--a handsome, slim critter, if ever there lived one.

"Listen!" he said, quiet, but all of him in it. "You shall care for me, just as I am--you understand? A fool, and a this, and a that--but you shall care."

A look in her eyes--the kind of defy that grows of being scart--showed his talk wasn't all air.

But it went in a second, and she whirled on him. "Why don't you advertise your intentions?" she demanded. "If I had an idea I should be so persecuted--"

"Don't say persecuted, little girl," he answered her softly. "Let's be friends the rest of the trip. I'll trouble you no more,--by sea," he finished, smiling.

She gripped the rail and looked out over the waters. Again her eyes turned to him for a second. He was worth it. That dark, long face of his, set off with his red neckerchief, made something for any woman to look at. And we're not always so darned fond of reasonable people as we make out.

"If only--" she began, then bit back whatever it was. "Well, as you say," she wound up, "let us be friends. Isn't it foolish for us to quarrel so, Will?" she asked, turning to me. "I think you must feel we're both ridiculous."

"I don't care whether you are or not," I said. "I like you both."

Saxton looked pleased 'way back in his dark eyes. "That's the boy for my money!" he said. And then we three began to laugh.

"It's all too beautiful to quarrel in," he said, waving an arm around. "To feel sorrowful on such a day, savage or civilized, really is ridiculous."

She couldn't help giving him one last jab,--I make a guess he turned happy too soon to please her. If she didn't like him, she liked somebody who so much resembled him that she wanted to have him around to remind her.

"Mr. Saxton's sorrows are soon healed," she said. "That's a valuable disposition."

"I take _that_ as friendly, because I must," said he, smiling in a way, as with the other things he did, that was beautiful in a fashion of its own. She tried to buck against it, to keep sneering; but something so young and joyful was in his face, she couldn't help smiling back at him. So we walked the deck and talked about everything in the best of humors.

VII

"SAVE ME, ARTHUR!"

The first part of the _Matilda's_ trip slid by, day after day, like a happy dream. We had weather that couldn't be bettered; days of sunlight and pretty sailing breezes; nights picked out of heaven. The moon was in her glory. I like high land better than I do the ocean, but few sights can beat a full moon swelling over the glitter of water. There's also a snugness, a cozy, contented feeling, aboard a small boat, that you can't get elsewhere, except in a prairie camp. I suppose it's the contrast between so much space of sky and land or water, where people are not, and the little spot where they are, that makes your partners rise in value.

Of course, the fact that it was my first cutaway puts a gilt edge on all that time, yet one other thing, a new thing, that made all my life different for me, must get its credit. That was music,--good music. Back home they weren't much in the musical line. I think I can remember when mother used to play the piano some, but her life soon jarred all that out of her. Bar here and there a man with a mouth-organ or a concertina, and a fiddler to do dance-tunes, the only thing that stood for music to me was the singing in father's church. I have since thought that anybody who could stand that once a week was certainly a good Christian. I remember one Sunday the preacher told us about heaven, and how it was a steady line of harps and hymn-tunes. I put in the rest of that Sunday bewildered. I didn't want to go to hell, and after that description of heaven I wasn't anxious to go there, neither. Looked like the hereafter was dark and uncertain.

But when I first heard Saxton, with his fiddle; Barbado Joe, the nigger cook, with the guitar; and Mary singing, my soul just laid on its back and purred. I was standing at the rail, thinking, kind of misty kid-fashion, one moonlit night, when there came a ripple of little notes from the guitar, with three wind-up chords like spring water in the desert. Then old Sax's fiddle 'way, 'way up; so light, so delicate, so sweet and pretty that shivers ran down my back. I stiffened like a pointer-pup first smelling game. "Here's something," I thought, "something that's me, all right, but I don't understand yet." And then, Mary's voice rose gorgeous out of the bigness of sky and moonlight and water; it filled the whole empty world, without an effort. Me and the moon and the waves stopped dead and listened. Even the _Matilda_ trod the water gently.

I turned and looked at Mary. There's no way for me to tell you what a picture she made. If I say she was beautiful, you'll think of some woman you know, and that's wrong, for there never was another like Mary. She was always beautiful, but never else had quite the touch as when lost in her singing. Man, she was Paradise itself, and when she opened her lips and sang, you entered the gates thereof.

Of course, everybody's heard good singing, the same as everybody's seen handsome faces, but once in a while you strike a face or a voice that's beyond all guessing. You'd never believed it, if you hadn't seen or heard it.

She sang as easily as you think,--opened her lips and it rolled out. And, in spite of power that could ring the air for miles and never seem loud, a deep something trembled underneath that was the very soul of pity and womankindness, and another little something floated high and joyful above it like the laugh of a child. Yes, sir. That voice was food, drink, and clean blankets. When she stopped, I thought I never wanted to hear a sound again. But I didn't know the limit of old Sax. With her voice quivering in his heart, he grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle. Sure, it was different; but just as sure he tore a hole in you. His eyes were on Mary, backing the story the violin was telling. She was giving way, too. Her eyes would meet his, as if she couldn't help herself. He'd promised not to speak, but that didn't stop the old fiddle from making out the prettiest kind of case.

She sat with her chin in her hand, breathing deep. The violin would give a tug at her, and, as I say, her eyes would turn to Sax, and then she'd force them away again, over the water, slowly down to the deck once more. She was frightened. I don't blame her, for Sax was out of himself. He towered there in the moonlight making those inhumanly beautiful sounds, his face burning white and his eyes burning black, fire clean through, fire in every soople muscle, fire pulsing out of every heave of his shoulders, one handsome and scary figure. There was something so out-and-out wild in him, I swear he looked as if he could call up devils from the sea.

Well, when a man does get beyond the ordinary he scares the rest of the tribe. If two fellows start to fight, the bystanders will try to separate them. It's kind of instinct--I've done it many a time myself, when it would have been better to let the boys whack 'emselves good-natured instead of keeping the grudge sour on their stomachs. Anyway, I can't blame Mary for feeling leery of Sax when I confess that he put creeps in my spine. He seemed to grow till he filled the bow of the boat; the fiddle sung in my ears till I couldn't think straight; heavy medicine in it, you bet. Mary got whiter and whiter. I saw her constantly wetting her lips, and her hand went to her heart. The whole night was changed. The air was full of war and uneasiness. I wish to Heaven I knew how it might have ended, if nothing interrupted, because Saxton was doing magic. It was the queerest feeling I ever had. What Mary's feelings were I'd give something to know, but just when things were the tightest old Jesse come up and pulled my sleeve.

"Get the girl below quiet," he says. "Hell will be loose in a minute."

I stared at him. Coming on top of my queer sensations, it gummed my works. Jesse pointed to the sou'east.

A cloud was flying north, the center of it black, but wisps and streamers flew out white in the moonlight like steam from an explosion. To the north of it lay another storm, huge and heavy, black as death, except where lightning sprayed through it.

"Wind, Jesse?" I says.

"The last time I see a thing like that, boy," he says, "I made land three days later, aboard a hencoop--the only one of a hull ship's company. Get that girl below."

I thought quick, as he walked away. The fiddle had stopped. A wicked silence lay on everything. Old man Fear put his cold feet on me. I looked again at the mass to s'utherd. It boiled and turned and twisted. Big gusts of black and white shot crazily out to nowhere--she was climbing! Then I looked at the group. Mary sat white and still. Sax stood behind her, his fiddle by his side, holding the bow like a sword. He was white and still, too, and looking up to where the moon was going out. Their backs were turned to the devilry that threatened us.

I stepped forward,--easy as possible, and spoke to her.

"You're not looking well, Mary," I said. "Hadn't you better go down?"

That was before my poker days. Playing a four-flush gives a man control of his face and voice. She heard what I wanted to hide at once, being naturally sharp as a needle and tuned high that night.

"What's the matter?" says she.

"Matter?" says I, laughing gaily. "Why, I don't want to see you sick--come along like a good girl."

"Tell me why I should, and I will," she says. Well, what was the use? Hadn't she the right to know? When old Jesse said trouble was turning the corner, you could expect the knock on the door. He had the reputation of being the most fearless as well as the most careful skipper in the coast trade. He never took a chance, if there was nothing in it, and he'd take 'em all, if there was.

Sax bent to us. "What's up?" says he. I didn't say a word--pointed behind him. He looked for a full five seconds.

"Tornado, by God!" he says in a sort of savage whisper.

He took the violin and bow in those thin strong hands of his and crumpled 'em up, and threw the pieces overboard. I'll swear he felt what I did--that he _had_ called up a devil from the sea.

Then he put a hand on Mary's shoulder. "Go below, sweetheart," he said.

"But you'll call me--you'll let me--" she says, an agony in her eyes.

"You ought to know that I will be with you, if there's no need of me here," he said. We stood stock-still for a minute. It had come with such a stunning bang.

"There is great danger, Mary," said Saxton. "But you'll be brave, my dear?"

"I will, Arthur," she answered. Then her eyes filled with panic and she caught him around the neck. "Save me, Arthur! Save me!" she cried. "Oh, I don't want to die!"

Never in his life had Arthur Saxton stood up more of a man and gentleman. He put his hand on her head and looked courage into her. "Nor do I want to die while there's a chance of you," he said. "Now you'll believe and trust me, and go with Will?"

I think he kissed her--I don't remember. That hell aloft was sudsing fast to us, and I was dancing inside to do something beside wait for a drowning. Anyhow, old Jesse's voice ripped out ferocious; there was a rattle of blocks, and I put Mary below at the bottom of the step, picked up a lantern for her, told her we'd watch out more for her than we would for ourselves, and seeing how utterly God-forsaken the poor girl looked, I kissed her, too.

"Don't leave me, Will! Oh, don't!" she cried; "I can't stand it!"

"I must," I pleaded. "Mary, think! I may be some use."

She gripped herself. "That is so. Go, Will."

It hurt to go. The lantern made a dim light in which her face half showed. The shadows shifted black, here and there. From above came a grinding, shattering sort of roar, like a train crossing a bridge. It was horrible to leave a woman alone to face it. But then came a scurry and trampling of feet on deck; yells and orders. That was my place.

"Good-by! God save you!" I said, caught her hand for a good-by, and jumped up the stair.

I was just in time. They slammed the hatch down almost on my heels.

"Mary's there!" I screamed in Jesse's ear.

"It's her only chance!" he roared back.

On deck that machinery roar drowned everything. It rattled the bones in your body. The deck sung to it. You felt the humming on your feet. It dumbed and tortured you at the same time, like a fever-dream. You couldn't think for it, and your temper was spoiled entirely.

Lightning! My God! It was zippitty-flash-flash-flash, so fast and fearful that the whole world jumped out into broad day and back a hundred times a minute. Heaven send I'll never see another such sight as the sea those flashes showed. Under the spout it was as if somebody had run a club into a snake-hole. You got it, to the least crinkle, in the lightning blasts. There were walls of water like Niagara Falls, jumbled up, falling, smashing together. If it hit us square we'd vanish.

Saxton stood near me. He passed me a rope and signed for me to make myself fast. I couldn't do it. I must be free. I thought of Mary, below, and shook. What must she feel? We couldn't get down to her now, and that made me sick. Saxton fastened the rope around me. He put his mouth to my ear and shouted, "You never could hold without it!"

I let him do what he liked. All desire to do anything myself, one way or the other, was rattled out of me.

"How is she?" he shrieked again. I could just hear him at a one-inch range.

"All right,"! said.

"Make a little prayer to Himmel," he says, "for here it comes!"