THE CUTTIN’-OUT OF BART WINN
“Lavin-ee!”
“Well?”
Mrs. Vaiden came to the foot of the stairs.
“You up there?” she said.
“Yes, maw. What you want?”
“Somebody’s comin’,” said Mrs. Vaiden, lowering her voice to a tone of important mystery.
“I guess not here,” said Lavinia, lightly. She sat down on the top step and smiled at her mother.
“Yes, it is here, too,” retorted Mrs. Vaiden, with some irritation. “If you couldn’t conterdict a body ’t wouldn’t be you! You’re just like your paw!” She paused, and then added: “It’s a man a-foot. He’s comin’ up the path slow, a-stoppin’ to look at the flowers.”
“Maybe it’s the minister,” said the girl, still regarding her mother with a good-natured, teasing smile.
“No, it ain’t the minister, either. As if I didn’t know the minister when I see him! You do aggravate me so! It’s a young fello’, an’ he’s all dressed up. You’ll have to go to the door.”
“Oh, maw!” cried Lavinia, reproachfully. “I just can’t! In this short dress?”
She stood up, with a look of dismay, and began pulling nervously at her fresh gingham skirt. It was short, showing very prettily-arched insteps and delicate ankles.
“Well, you just can, an’ haf to,” said Mrs. Vaiden, shortly. “I’ve told you often enough to put a ruffle on the bottom o’ that dress, an’ I’m glad you’re caught. Mebbe you’ll do’s I tell you after this—”
She started guiltily as a loud rap sounded upon the door behind her, and began to tiptoe heavily down the hall toward the kitchen. The girl looked after her in mingled amusement and chagrin. Then she leaned forward slightly, drawing the skirt back closely on both sides, and looked at her feet, with her head turned on one side like a bird. When the cessation of her mother’s labored breathing announced silently that she had reached the kitchen in safety, Lavinia shrugged her beautiful shoulders—which no gown could conceal—and opened the door. A young man in a light traveling-suit stood before her. In his hand was a bunch of her own sweet-peas.
At sight of her he whisked off his hat in a way that brought a lovely color to her face and throat. For a little while it seemed as if he were not going to say or do anything but just look at her. She was well worth looking at. She had the rare beauty of velvet eyes of a reddish-brown color, hair wavy and brown, with red glints in it, and a clear complexion, unfreckled and of exquisite coloring.
Lavinia’s eyes went to the sweet-peas, and then, with a deeper blush under them, to his face.
“Won’t you come in?” she said.
“Why, yes, if you’ll let me.” The young man smiled, and Lavinia found her lips and eyes responding, in all the lightness of youth and a clear conscience.
“I couldn’t help taking some of your sweet-peas,” he said, following her into the parlor. It was a large, solemn-looking room. The blinds were lowered over the windows, but the girl raised one slightly, letting a splash of pale autumnal sunshine flicker across the hit-and-miss rag carpet. There was an organ in one corner and a hair-cloth sofa in another. Eight slender-legged hair-cloth chairs were placed at severely equal distances around the room, their backs resting firmly against the walls. All tipped forward slightly, their front legs being somewhat shorter than the others. On the back of each was a small, square crocheted tidy. There were some family portraits on the walls, in oval gilt frames; and there was a large picture of George Washington and family, on their stateliest behavior; another, named in large letters “The Journey of Life,” of an uncommonly roomy row-boat containing at least a dozen persons, who were supposed to represent all ages from the cradle to the grave; in the wide, white margin beneath this picture were two verses of beautiful, descriptive poetry, and in one corner appeared, with apparent irrelevancy, the name of an illustrated newspaper. There was also a chromo of a scantily-attired woman clinging to a cross which was set in the midst of dashing sea-waves; and there was a cheerful photograph, in a black cloth frame, of flowers—made into harps, crosses, anchors and hearts—which had been sent at some time of bereavement by sympathetic but misguided friends. A marble-topped centre-table held a large plush album, a scrap book, a book of autographs, a lamp with a pale-green shade, and a glass case containing a feather-wreath.
“Oh, we’ve got lots of sweet-peas,” said Lavinia, adjusting the blind carefully. Then she looked at him.
“May I see Mrs. Vaiden?” he asked, easily.
“She’s—busy,” said Lavinia, with a look of embarrassment. “But I’ll see—”
“Oh, don’t,” interrupted the young man lightly. “They told me at the postoffice she took boarders sometimes, and I came to see if there was a chance for me.” He handed a card to the girl with an air of not knowing that he was doing it. Her very eyelids seemed to blush as she looked at it and read the name—Mr. C. Daun Diller. “I am writing up the Puget Sound country for a New York paper, and I should like to make my headquarters here at Whatcom, but I can’t stand the hotels in your new towns. It’s the most amazing thing!” he went on, smiling at her as she stood twisting the card in her fingers, not knowing exactly what to do with it. “You go to sleep at night in a Puget Sound village with the fronts of the stores painted green, blue and red, spasmodic patches of sidewalk here and there, dust ankle deep, and no street-lights—and you wake in the morning in a city! A city with fine stone blocks and residences, stone pavements, electric lights and railways, gas, splendid water-works,”—he was checking off now, excitedly, on his fingers,—“sewerage, big mills, factories, canneries, public schools that would make the East stare, churches, libraries”—he stopped abruptly, and, dropping his arms limply to his sides, added—“and not a hotel! Not a comfortable bed or a good meal to be had for love or money!”
“Yes, that’s so,” said Lavinia, reluctantly. “But you can’t expect us to get everything all at onct. Why, Whatcom’s boom only started in six months ago.”
Mr. C. Daun Diller looked amused. “Oh, if it were this town only,” he said, sitting down on one of the hair-cloth chairs and feeling himself slide gently forward, “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. But the truth is, there are only three decent hotels in the whole Puget Sound country. But I know”—here he smiled at her again—“that it’s not safe to breathe a word against Puget Sound to a Puget-Sounder.”
“No, it ain’t,” said the girl, responding to the smile and the respectfully bantering tone. Then she moved to the door. “Well, I’ll see what maw says to it,” she said, and vanished.
Mr. C. Daun Diller stood up and pushed his hands down into his pockets, whistling softly. He walked over to the organ and looked at the music. There were three large books: “The Home Circle,” “The Golden Chord,” and “The Family Treasure;” a “simplified” copy of “The Maiden’s Prayer,” and a book of “Gospel Songs.”
The young man smiled.
“All the same,” he said, as if in answer to a disparaging remark made by some one else, “she’s about the handsomest girl I ever saw. I’m getting right down anxious to see myself what ‘maw’ will ‘say to it.’”
After a long while Mrs. Vaiden appeared in a crisply-starched gingham dress and a company manner—both of which had been freshly put on for the occasion. Mr. Diller found her rather painfully polite, and he began to wonder, after paying his first week’s board, whether he could endure two or three months of her; but he was quite, quite sure that he could endure a full year of the daughter.
A couple of evenings later he was sitting by the window in his quaint but exquisitely neat room, writing, when a light rap came upon his door. Upon opening it he found Lavinia standing, bashfully, a few steps away. There was a picturesque, broad-brimmed hat set coquettishly on her splendid hair.
“Maw wanted I sh’u’d ask you if you’d like to see an Indian canoe-race,” she said.
“Would I?” he ejaculated, getting into a great excitement at once. “Well, I should say so! Awfully good of your mother to think—but where is it—when is it? How can I see it?”
“It’s down by the viaduck—right now,” said Lavinia. Then she added, shyly, pretending to be deeply engrossed with her glove: “I’m just goin’.”
“Oh, are you?” said Diller, seizing his hat and stick and coming eagerly out to her. “And may I go with you? Will you take me in hand? I haven’t the ghost of an idea where the viaduct is.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll show you,” she said, with a glad little laugh, and they went swiftly down the stairs and out into the sweet evening.
“You know,” she said, as he opened the gate for her with a deference to which she was not accustomed, and which gave her a thrill of innocent exultation, “the Alaska Indians are just comin’ back from hop-pickin’ down around Puyallup an’ Yakima an’ Seattle, an’ they alwus stop here an’ have races with the Lummies an’ the Nooksacks.”
Mr. Diller drew a deep breath.
“Do you know,” he said, “I wouldn’t have missed this for anything—not for anything I can think of. And yet I should if it hadn’t been for”—he hesitated, and then added—“your mother.” They looked into each other’s eyes and laughed, very foolishly and happily.
The sun was setting—moving slowly, scarlet and of dazzling brilliancy, down the western sky, which shaded rapidly from pale blue to salmon, and from salmon to palest pea-green. Beneath, superbly motionless, at full tide, the sound stretched mile on mile away to Lummi peninsula, whose hills the sun now touched—every fir-tree on those noble crests standing out against that burnished background. A broad, unbroken path of gold stretched from shore to shore. Some sea-gulls were circling in endless, silvery rings through the amethystine haze between sea and sky. The old, rotten pier running a mile out to sea shone like a strip of gold above the deep blue water. It was crowded with people, indifferent to danger in their eagerness to see the races. Indeed, there seemed to be people everywhere; on the high banks, the piers, and the mills scattered over the tide-flats, and out in row boats. Two brass bands were playing stirring strains alternately. There was much excitement—much shouting, hurrying, running. The crowd kept swaying from the viaduct over to the pier, and from the pier back to the viaduct. Nobody seemed to be quite sure where the start would be; even the three judges, when asked, yelled back, as they clambered down to their row-boat: “We don’t know. Wait and see!”
“What accommodating persons,” said Mr. Diller, cheerfully. “Shall we go over to the pier? The tide seems to be running that way.”
“Oh, the tide’s not running now,” said Lavinia. “It’s full.”
Diller looked amused. “I meant the people,” he said.
The girl laughed and looked around on the pushing crowd. “I guess we’d best stop right here on the viaduck; here’s just where they started last year an’ the year before. Oh, see, here’s the Alaskas camped pretty near under us!”
As she lifted her voice a little Diller saw a young man standing near start and turn toward her with a glad look of recognition; but at once his glance rested on Diller, and his expression changed to a kind of puzzled bewilderment. The girl was leaning over the railing and did not see him, but he never took his eyes away from her and Diller.
There was a long wait, but the crowd did not lose its patience or its good humor. There was considerable betting going on, and there was the same exciting uncertainty about the start. The sun went down and a bank of apricot-colored clouds piled low over the snow crest of Mount Baker in the East. The pier darkened and the path of gold faded, but splashes of scarlet still lingered on the blue water. A chill, sweet wind started up suddenly, and some of the girl’s bronze curls got loose about her white temples. Diller put her wrap around her carefully, and she smiled up at him deliciously. Then she cried out, “Oh, they’re gettin’ into the boat! They’re goin’ to start. Oh, I’m so glad!” and struck her two hands together gleefully, like a child.
The long, narrow, richly-painted and carven canoe slid down gracefully into the water. Eleven tall, supple Alaskan Indians, bare to the waist, leaped lightly to their places. They sat erect, close to the sides of the boat, holding their short paddles perpendicularly. At a signal the paddles shot straight down into the water, and, with a swift, magnificent straining and swelling of muscles in the powerful bronze arms and bodies, were pushed backward and withdrawn in lightning strokes. The canoe flashed under the viaduct and appeared on the other side, and a great shout belched from thousands of throats. From camping-places farther up the shore the other boats darted out into the water and headed for the viaduct.
“Oh, good! good!” cried Lavinia in a very ecstasy of excitement. “They’re goin’ to start right under us. We’re just in the place!”
“Twenty dollars on the Nooksacks!” yelled a blear-eyed man in a carriage. “Twenty! Twenty ag’inst ten on the Nooksacks!”
The band burst into “Hail, Columbia!” with beautiful irrelevancy. The crowd came surging back from the pier. Diller was excited, too. His face was flushed and he was breathing heavily. “Who’ll you bet on?” he asked, laughing, and thinking, even at that moment, how ravishingly lovely she was with that glow on her face and the loose curls blowing about her face and throat.
“Oh, the Alaskas!” cried the girl, striking little blows of impatience on the railing with her soft fists. “They’re so tall an’ fine-lookin’! They’re so strong an’ grand! Look at their muscles—just like ropes! Oh, I’ll bet on the Alaskas! I love tall men!”
“Do you?” said Diller. “I’m tall.”
They looked into each other’s eyes again and laughed. Then a voice spoke over their shoulders—a kind, patient voice. “Oh, Laviny,” it said; “I wouldn’t bet if I was you.”
Lavinia gave a little scream. Both turned instantly. The young man who had been watching them stood close to them. He wore working-clothes—a flannel shirt and cheap-faded trousers and coat. He had a good, strong, honest face, and there was a tenderness in the look he bent on the girl that struck Diller as being almost pathetic.
The glow in Lavinia’s face turned to the scarlet of the sunset.
“Oh!” she said, embarrassedly. “That you, Bart? I didn’t know you was back.”
“I just got back,” he replied, briefly. “I got to go back again in the mornin’. I was just on my way up to your house. I guess I’ll go on. I’m tired, an’ I’ve seen lots o’ c’noe races.” He looked at her wistfully.
“Well,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “You go on up, then. Maw an’ paw’s at home, an’ I’ll come as soon ’s the race ’s over.”
“All right,” he said, with a little drop in his voice, and walked away.
“Oh, dear!” cried Lavinia. “We’re missin’ the start, ain’t we?”
The canoes were lying side by side, waiting for the signal. Every Indian was bent forward, holding his paddle suspended above the water in both hands. There was what might be termed a rigid suppleness in the attitude. The dark outlines of the paddles showed clearly in the water, which had turned yellow as brass. Suddenly the band ceased playing and the signal rang across the sunset. Thirty-three paddles shot into the water, working with the swift regularity of piston-rods in powerful engines. The crowds cheered and yelled. The canoes did not flash or glide now, but literally plowed and plunged through the water, which boiled and seethed behind them in white, bubbled foam that at times completely hid the bronze figures from sight. There was no shouting now, but tense, breathless excitement. People clung motionless, in dangerous places and stared with straining eyes, under bent brows, after the leaping canoes. The betting had been high. The fierce, rhythmic strokes of the paddles made a noise that was like the rapid pumping of a great ram. To Diller, who stood, pale, with compressed lips, it sounded like the frantic heart-beat of a nation in passionate riot. Mingled with it was a noise that, once heard, cannot be forgotten—a weird, guttural chanting on one tone, that yet seemed to hold a windy, musical note; a sound, regular, and rhythmic as the paddle-strokes, that came from deep in the breasts of the rigidly swaying Indians and found utterance through locked teeth.
A mile out a railroad crossed the tide-lands, and this was the turning point. The Nooksacks made it first, closely followed by the Alaskans, and then, amid wild cheering, the three canoes headed for the viaduct. Faster and faster worked those powerful arms; the paddles whizzed more fiercely through the air; the water spurted in white sheets behind; the canoes bounded, length on length, out of the water; and louder and faster the guttural chant beat time. The Alaskans and the Nooksacks were coming in together, carven prow to carven prow, and the excitement was terrific. Nearer and nearer, neither gaining, they came. Then, suddenly, there burst a mad yell of triumph, and the Alaskan boat arose from the water and leaped almost its full length ahead of the Nooksack’s; and amidst waving hats and handkerchiefs, and almost frantic cheering—the race was won.
“By the eternal!” said Diller, beginning to breathe again and wiping the perspiration from his brow. “If that isn’t worth crossing the plains to see, I don’t know what is!” But his companion did not hear. She was alternately waving her kerchief to the victors and pounding her small fists on the railing in an ecstasy of triumph.
“Lavin-ee!”
“Well?”
“You come right down hyeer an’ help me em’ty this renchin’-water. I’d like to know what’s got into you! A-stayin’ upstairs half your time, an’ just a-mopin’ around when you are down. You ain’t b’en worth your salt lately!”
The girl came into the kitchen slowly. “What you jawin’ about now, maw?” she said, smiling.
“I’ll show you what I’m a-jawin’ about, as you call it. Take holt o’ this tub an’ help me em’ty this renchin’-water.”
“Well, don’t holler so; Mr. Diller’ll hear you.”
“I don’t care ’f he does hear me. I can give him his come-up’ans if he goes to foolin’ around, listenin’. I don’t care ’f he does write for a paper in New York! You’ve got to take holt o’ the work more’n you’ve b’en lately. A-traipsin’ around all over the country with him, a-showin’ him things to write about an’ make fun of! I sh’u’d think Bart Winn had just about got enough of it.”
“I wish you’d keep still about Bart Winn,” said Lavinia, impatiently.
“Well, I ain’t a-goin’ to keep still about him.” Mrs. Vaiden poured the dish-water into the sink and passed the dish-cloth round and round the pan, inside and outside with mechanical care, before she opened the back door and hung it out on the side of the house. “I guess I don’t haf to ask you when I want to talk. There you was—gone all day yeste’day a-huntin’ star-fish, an’ that renchin’-water a-settin’ there a-ruinin’ that tub because I couldn’t em’ty it all myself. Just as if he never saw star-fish where he come from. An’ then to-day—b’en gone all the mornin’ a-ketchin’ crabs! How many crabs ’d you ketch, I’d like to know!”
“We didn’t ketch many,” said Lavinia, with a soft, aggravating laugh. “The water wa’n’t clear enough to see ’em.”
“No, I guess the water wa’n’t clear enough to see ’em!” The rinsing-water had been emptied, and Mrs. Vaiden was industriously wiping the tub. “I’ve got all the star-fishin’ an’ the crab-ketchin’ I want, an’ I’m a-goin’ to tell that young man that he can go some’ers else for his board. He’s b’en here a month, an’ he’s just about made a fool o’ you. Pret’ soon you’ll be a-thinkin’ you’re too good for Bart Winn.”
“Oh, no,” said Bart Winn’s honest voice in the doorway; “I guess Laviny won’t never be a-thinkin’ that.”
“Mercy!” cried Mrs. Vaiden, starting and coloring guiltily. “That you? How you scairt me! I’m all of a-trimble.”
Bart advanced to Lavinia and kissed her with much tenderness; but instead of blushing, she paled.
“When ’d you come?” she asked, briefly, drawing away, while her mother, muttering something about the sour cream and the spring-house, went out discreetly.
“This mornin’,” said Bart. “I’m a-goin’ to stay home now.”
The girl sat down, taking a pan of potatoes on her lap. “I wonder where the case-knife is,” she said, helplessly.
“I’ll get it,” said Bart, running into the pantry and returning with the knife. “I love to wait on you, Laviny,” he added, with shining eyes. “I guess I’ll get to wait on you a sight, now. I see your paw ’s I come up an’ he said as how I could board hyeer. I’ll do the shores for you—an’ glad to. An’, oh, Laviny! I ’most forgot. I spoke for a buggy ’s I come up, so’s I can take you a-ridin’ to-night.”
“I guess I can’t go,” said Lavinia, holding her head down and paring potatoes as if her life depended upon getting the skins off.
“You can’t? Why can’t you?”
“I—why, I’m goin’ a salmon-spearin’ up at Squalicum Creek, I guess. Salmon’s a-runnin’ like everything now. ’Most half the town goes there soon ’s it gets dark.”
“That a fact?” said Bart, shifting from one foot to the other and looking interested. “I want to know! Well”—his face brightened—“I’ll go down an’ tell ’em I’ll take the rig to-morro’ night, an’ I’ll go a-spearin’ with you. Right down in front o’ Eldridge’s?”
“Yes.” A pulse began thumping violently in the girl’s throat. Her eyelids got so heavy she could not lift them. “I guess—that is, I—why, you see, Bart, I got comp’ny.”
“Well, I guess the girls won’t object to my goin’ along o’ you.”
“It ain’t girls,” said Lavinia, desperately. “It’s—a—it’s Mr. Diller; the gentleman that boards here.”
“Oh,” said Bart, slowly. Then there was a most trying silence, during which the ticking of the clock and the beating of her own heart were the only sounds Lavinia heard. At last she said, feebly: “You see he writes for a New York newspaper—one o’ the big ones. He’s a-writin’ up the whole Puget Sound country. An’ he don’t know just what he’d ort to see, nor just how to see it, unless somebody shows him about—an’ I’ve b’en a-showin’ him.”
“Oh!” said Bart again, but quite in another tone, quite cheerfully. “That’s it, is ’t, Laviny? Well, that’s all right. But I’ll be hanged if you didn’t take my breath away for a minute. I thought you meant—Laviny!”—a sudden seriousness came into his tone and look—“I guess you don’t know how much I think o’ you. My heart’s just set on you, my girl—my whole life’s wrapped up in you.” He paused, but Lavinia did not speak or look at him, and he added, very slowly and thoughtfully—“I reckon it ’u’d just about kill me, ’f anything happened to you.”
“I guess nothin’ ’s a-goin’ to happen.” She dropped one potato into a pan of cold water and took up another.
“No, I guess not.” He took on a lighter tone. “But I’ll tell you what, Laviny! If that’s all, he ain’t comp’ny at all; so you can just tell him I’m a-goin’, too.” He came closer and laid a large but very gentle hand on her shoulder. “You might even tell him I’ve got a right to go, Laviny.”
The girl shrank, and glanced nervously at the door.
“I wouldn’t like to do that, Bart. After his arrangin’ to go, an’ a-hirin’ the skiff hisself. I don’t know but what he’s got somebody else to go along of us.”
“Why, does he ever?”
“Well, I don’t recollect that he ever has; but then he might of, this time, I say, for all I know.”
There was another silence. Then the big hand patted the girl’s shoulder affectionately and the honest eyes bent on her the look of patient tenderness that Diller had considered pathetic.
“All right, Laviny; you go along of him, just by yourself, an’ I’ll stop home with your paw an’ your maw. I want you to know, my girl, that I trust you, an’ believe every word you say to me. I ain’t even thought o’ much else besides you ever sence I saw you first time at the liberry sociable, an’ I won’t ever think o’ much else, I don’t care what happens. Bein’ afraid to trust a body ’s a poor way to show how much you think about ’em, is my religion; so you go an’ have a good time, an’ don’t you worry about me.” He tucked one of her runaway curls behind her ear awkwardly. “I’ll slip down to the liv’ry stable now, an’ tell ’em about the rig.”
“All right,” said Lavinia.
Her mother came in one door, after a precautionary scraping of her feet and an alarming paroxysm of coughing, and looked rather disappointed to see Bart going out at the other, and to realize that her modest warnings had been thrown away. “Well, ’f I ever!” she exclaimed. “Laviny Vaiden, whatever makes you look so? You look just ’s if you’d seen a spook! You’re a kind o’ yellow-gray—just like you had the ja’ndice! What ails you?”
“I got a headache,” said the girl; and then, somehow, the pan slid down off her lap, and the potatoes and the parings went rolling and sprawling all over the floor; Lavinia’s head went down suddenly on the table, and she was sobbing bitterly.
Her mother looked at her keenly, without speaking, for a moment; then she said dryly, “Why, I guess you must have an awful headache. Come on kind o’ sudden like, didn’t it? I guess you’d best go up and lay down, an’ I’ll bring a mustard plaster up an’ put on your head. Ain’t nothin’ like a plaster for a headache—’specially that kind of a headache.”
Bart Winn walked into the livery stable with an air of indifference put on so stiffly that it deceived no one. It was not that he did not feel perfectly satisfied with Lavinia’s explanation, but he was a trifle uneasy lest others should not see the thing with his eyes.
“I guess I won’t want that rig to-night, Billy,” he said, pulling a head of timothy out of a bale of hay that stood near. “I’ll take it to-morro’ night.”
“All right,” said the young fellow, with a smile that Bart did not like. “Girl sick, aigh?”
“No,” said Bart, softly stripping the fuzz off the timothy.
“Well, I guess I understan’,” said Billy, winking one eye, cheerfully. “I’ve b’en there myself. Girls is as much alike ’s peas—sweet-peas”—he interjected with a hearty laugh—“in a pod, the world over. It ain’t never safe for a fellow to come home, after bein’ away a good spell, an’ engage a buggy before findin’ out if the girl ain’t engaged to some other fello’—it ain’t noways safe. I smiled in my sleeve when you walked in so big an’ ordered your’n.”
Bart Winn was slow to anger, but now a dull red came upon his face and neck, and settled there as if burnt into the flesh. His eyes looked dangerous, but he spoke quietly. “I guess you don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Billy. I guess you hadn’t best go any furder.”
Billy came slowly toward him, nettled by his tone—by its very calm, in fact. “D’ you mean to say that Laviny Vaiden ain’t goin’ a-salmon-spearin’ to-night with that dandy from New York?”
Bart swallowed once or twice.
“I don’t mean to say anything that’s none o’ your business,” he said.
“Well, she’s been a-spearin’ with him ev’ry night sence the salmon’s b’en a-runnin’, anyway.”
The strong, powerful trembling of a man who is trying to control himself now seized Bart Winn.
“If you’re goin’ to put on airs with me,” continued Billy, obtusely, “I’ll just tell you a few fax! They don’t burn any torch in their boat, an’ they don’t spear any salmon! That’s just a blind. They go off by theirselves—clear away from the spearers, an’ they don’t come back till they see the torches a-goin’ out an’ know that we all’s a-goin’ home. It’s the town talk. Not that they say anything wrong, for we’ve all knowed Laviny sence she was a baby; but it’s as plain as the nose on a man’s face that you ain’t in it there since that dood come.”
A panorama of colors flamed over Bart’s face; his hands clenched till the nails cut into the flesh and the blood spurted; who has seen the look in the eyes of the lion that cowers and obeys under the terrible lash of the trainer will know the look that was in the man’s eyes while the lash of his own will conquered him; his broad chest swelled and sunk. At last he spoke, in a deep, shaking voice. “Billy,” he said, “you’re a liar—a liar! Damn you!” He struggled a moment longer with himself, and then turned and hurried away as if possessed of the devil.
But Billy followed him to the door and called after him—“Oh, damn me, aigh? Now, I don’t want I sh’u’d have a fight with you, Bart. I was tryin’ to do you a favor. If you think I’m a liar, it’s a mighty easy thing for you to go down there to-night an’ see for yourself. That’s all I ask.”
Bart went on in a passion of contending emotions. “He’s a liar! He’s a liar!” he kept saying, deep in his throat; but all the time he had the odd feeling that somebody, or something, was contradicting him. A warm wind had arisen, and it beat against his temples so persistently that they felt numb by the time he reached the Vaiden’s. He cleaned his boots on the neat mat of gunny-sacking laid at the door for that purpose, and entered the kitchen. “Where’s Laviny?” he asked.
“She’s upstairs with a headache,” replied Mrs. Vaiden, promptly.
“It must ’a’ come on sudden.”
“Yes, I guess it must.” Mrs. Vaiden spoke cautiously. She was sure there had been a quarrel, and she was afraid her own remark, overheard by Bart, had brought it on.
“Well, I want to see her.”
“Right away?”
“Yes,” said Bart, after a little hesitation, “right away, I reckon.”
Mrs. Vaiden went upstairs, and returned presently, followed by Lavinia. The girl looked pale; a white kerchief bound about her brow increased her pallor; her eyes were red. She sat down weakly in a splint-bottom chair and crossed her hands in her lap.
At sight of the girl’s suffering, Bart knew instantly that he had been doubting her without realizing it, because his faith in her came back with such a strong rush of tenderness.
“Sick, Laviny?” he asked, in a tone that was a caress of itself—it was so very gentle a thing to come from so powerful a man.
“I got a headache,” said Lavinia, looking at the floor. “It came on right after you left. It aches awful.”
Bart went to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. It was a strong hand to be shaking so.
“Laviny, I’m a brute to get you up out o’ bed; but I’m more of a brute to ’a’ believed”—He stopped, and she lifted her eyes, fearfully, to his face. “I’ve been listenin’ to things about you.”
“What things?” She looked at the floor again.
“Well, I ain’t goin’ to so much as ask you ’f it’s so; but I’m goin’ to tell you how mean I’ve b’en to listen to ’t an’ to keep a-wonderin’ if it c’u’d be so,—an’ then see if you can forgive me. I’ve b’en hearin’ that you don’t light no torch nor ketch no salmon when you go a-spearin’, but that you an’ him go off by yourselves an’ stay—an’ that he—he”—the words seemed to stick in his throat—“he’s cut me out.”
After a little Lavinia said—“Is that all?”
“All! Yes. Ain’t that enough?”
“Yes, it’s enough—plenty for you to ’a’ believed about me. I wouldn’t ’a’ believed that much about you.” The humor of this remark seemed to appeal to her, for she smiled a little. Then she got up. “But it’s all right, Bart. I ain’t mad. If that’s all, I guess I’ll go back to bed. You tell maw I couldn’t put them roastin’-ears on—my head feels so.”
He caught her to his breast and kissed her several times, with something like a prayer in his eyes, and with a strong, but sternly controlled passion that left him trembling and staggering like a drunken man when she was gone.
After Lavinia and Diller were gone that night Bart sat out on the kitchen steps, smoking his pipe. He stooped forward, his elbows resting on his knees. His right hand held the pipe, and the left supported his right arm. His eyes looked straight before him into the purple twilight. The wind had gone down, but now and then a little gust of perfume came around the corner from the wild clover, still in delicate pink blossom on the north side of the house. The stars came out, one by one, in the deep blue spaces above, and shrill mournful outcries came from winged things in the green depths of the ferns. Already the torches of the salmon-spearers were beginning to flare out from the shadow of the cliffs across the bay. Mr. Vaiden was not at home, but Mrs. Vaiden was walking about heavily in the kitchen, finishing the evening work.
Mrs. Vaiden was not quite easy in her mind. She really liked Bart Winn, but, to be unnecessarily and disagreeably truthful, she liked even better his noble donation claim, which he was now selling off in town lots. Time and time again during the past month she had cautioned Lavinia to not “go galivantin’ ’round with that Diller so much;” and on numerous occasions she had affirmed that “she’d bet Laviny would fool along till she let Bart Winn slip through her fingers, after all.” Still, it had been an unconfessed satisfaction to her to observe Mr. Diller’s frank admiration for her daughter—to feel that Lavinia could “have her pick o’ the best any day.” She knew how this rankled in some of the neighbors’ breasts. She wished now that she had been more strict. She said to herself, as she went out to the spring-house: “I wish I’d ’a’ set my foot right down on his goin’ a step with her. An’ there I started it myself, a-sendin’ her off to that c’noe race with him, just to tantalize Mis’ Bentley an’ her troop o’ girls. But land knows I never dreamt o’ its goin’ on this way. What’s a newspaper fello’ compared to a donation claim, I’d like to know?”
At nine o’clock she went to the door and said, in that tone of conciliatory tenderness which comes from a remorseful conscience: “Well, Bart, I guess I’ll go to bed. I’m tired. You goin’ to set up for Laviny?”
“Yes,” said Bart; “good-night.”
“Well, good-night, Bart.” She stood holding a lighted candle in one hand, protecting its flame from the night air with the other. “I reckon they’ll be home by ten.”
“I reckon so.”
At the top of the stairs Mrs. Vaiden remembered that the parlor windows were open, and she went back to close them. The wind was rising again, and as she opened the parlor door it puffed through the open windows and sent the curtains streaming out into the room; then it went whistling on through the house, banging the doors.
After a while quiet came upon the house. Bart sat smoking silently. The Vaidens lived on a hill above the town, and usually he liked to watch the chains of electric lights curving around the bay; but to-night he watched the torches only. Suddenly he flung his pipe down with a passionate movement and stood up, reaching inside the door for his hat. But he sat down again as suddenly, shaking himself like a dog, as if to fling off something that was upon him. “No; I’m damned if I will!” he said in his throat. “I won’t watch her! She said it wa’n’t so, an’ I believe her.” But he did not smoke again, and he breathed more heavily as the moments ticked by and she did not come. At half-past ten Mrs. Vaiden came down in a calico wrapper and a worsted shawl.
“Why, ain’t she come yet?” she asked, holding the candle high and peering under it at the back of the silent figure outside.
“No,” said Bart quietly; “she ain’t.”
“Why, it’s half-after ten! She never’s b’en out this a-way before. D’you think anything c’u’d ’a’ hapened?”
“No,” said Bart, slowly; “I guess they’ll be along.”
“Well, I don’t want that she sh’u’d stay out till this time o’ night with anybody but you. She’s old enough to know better. It don’t look well.”
“It looks all right, as fur as that goes,” said Bart.
“Oh, if you think so.”
Mrs. Vaiden lowered the candle huffily.
Bart arose and came inside. He was pale but he spoke calmly, and he looked her straight in the eyes.
“It’s all right as fur as she goes; I’d trust her anywheres. But how about him? What kind of a man is he?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Vaiden, weakly. “How d’ you expect me to know what kind of a man he is? He’s a nice-appearin’, polite sort of a fello’, an’ he writes for a newspaper ’n New York—one o’ them big ones. But he don’t seem to me to have much backbone or stand-upness about him. I sh’u’d think he’s one o’ them that never intends to do anything wrong, but does it just because it’s pleasant for the time bein’, and then feels sorry for ’t afte’ards.”
Bart’s brows bent together blackly.
“But I must say”—Mrs. Vaiden’s tone gathered firmness—“you might pattern after him a little in politeness, Bart. I think Laviny likes it. He’s alwus openin’ gates for her, an’ runnin’ to set chairs for her when she comes into a room, an’ takin’ off his hat to her, an’ carryin’ her umberella, an’ fetchin’ her flow’rs; an’ I b’lieve he’d most die before he’d walk on the inside o’ the sidewalk or go over a crossin’ ahead o’ her. An’ I can see Laviny likes them things.”
She put the candle on the table and huddled down into a chair.
The look of anger on the man’s face gave place to one of keen dismay.
“I didn’t know she liked such things. I never thought about ’em. I wa’n’t brought up to such foolishness.”
“Well, she likes ’em, anyhow. I guess most women do.” Mrs. Vaiden sighed unconsciously. “Why, Bart, it’s a quarter of, an’ she ain’t here yet. D’ you want I sh’u’d go after her?”
“No, I don’t want you sh’u’d go after her. I want you sh’u’d let her alone, an’ show her we got confidence in her. She’s just the same as my wife, an’ I don’t want her own mother sh’u’d think she’d do anything she hadn’t ort to.”
Mrs. Vaiden’s feelings were sensitive and easily hurt; and she sat now in icy silence, looking at the clock. But when it struck eleven she thawed, being now thoroughly frightened.
“Oh, Bart, I do think we’d best look in her room. She might ’a’ got in someway without our hearin’ her—an’ us settin’ hyeer like a couple o’ bumps on a lawg.”
“She might ’a’,” said Bart, as if struck by the suggestion. “You get me a candle an’ I’ll go up and see. You stay here,” he added, over his shoulder, as he took the candle and started.
“Look out!” she cried, sharply, as the blue flame plowed a gutter down one side of the candle. “Don’t hold it so crooked! You’ll spill the sperm onto the stair-carpet!”
It was with a feeling of awe that Bart went into the dainty little room. There were rosebuds on the creamy wall-paper, and the ceiling, slanting down on one side, was pale, pale blue, spangled with silver stars; the windows were closed, and thin, soft curtains fell in straight folds over them; the rag carpet was woven in pink-and-cream stripes; there was a dressing-table prettily draped in pink. For a moment the man’s love was stronger than his anxiety; the prayer came back to his eyes as he looked at the narrow, snowy bed.
Then he went to the dressing-table and saw a folded slip of paper with his name upon it.
After a while he became conscious that he had read the letter a dozen times, and still had not grasped its meaning. He stooped closer to the candle and read it again, his lips moving mechanically:
“Dear Bart:—I’m goin’ away. I’m goin’ with him. I told you what wa’n’t so this mornin’. I do like him the best. I couldn’t have you after knowin’ him. I feel awful bad to treat you this a-way, but I haf to.
“Laviny.”
“P. S.—I want that you sh’u’d marry somebody else as soon as you can, an’ be happy.”
A querulous call came from the hall below. He took the candle in one hand and the letter in the other and went down, stumbling clumsily on the stairs. A great many noises seemed to be ringing in his head, and the sober paper with which the walls of the hall were covered to have suddenly taken on great scarlet spots. He felt helpless and uncertain in his movements, as if he had no will to guide him. He must have carried the candle very crookedly, for Mrs. Vaiden, who was watching him from below, cried out, petulantly: “There, you are spillin’ the sperm! Just look at you!” But she stopped abruptly when she saw his face.
“Why, whatever on this earth!” she exclaimed, solemnly. “What you got there? A letter?”
“Yes.” He set the candle on the table and held the letter toward her. “It’s from Laviny.”
“From Laviny! Why, what on earth did she write to you about?”
He burst into wild, terrible laughter. “She wants I sh’u’d marry somebody else as soon as I can, an’ be happy.” These words, at least, seemed to have written themselves on his brain. He groped about blindly for his hat, and went out into the shrill, whistling night. The last torch had burnt itself out, and everything was black save the electric lights, winking in the wind, and one strip of whitening sky above Mount Baker, where presently the moon would rise, silver and cool.
It was seven o’clock in the morning when he came back. He washed his hands and face at the sink on the porch, and combed his hair before a tiny mirror, in which a dozen reflections of himself danced. Mrs. Vaiden was frying ham. At sight of him she began to cry, weakly and noiselessly. “Where you been?” she sniffled. “You look forty year old. I set up till one o’clock, a-waitin’ for you.”
“Mrs. Vaiden,” said Bart, quietly, “I’m in great trouble. I’ve walked all night, tryin’ to make up my mind to ’t. I’ve done it at last; but I cu’dn’t ’a’ come back tell I did. I’m sorry you waited up.”
“Oh, I don’t mind that as long as you’re gettin’ reconciled to ’t, Bart.” Mrs. Vaiden spoke more hopefully. “You set right down an’ have a bite to eat.”
“I don’t want anything,” he replied; but he sat down and took a cup of coffee. It must have been very hot, for suddenly great tears came into his eyes and stood there. Mrs. Vaiden sat down opposite to him and leaned her elbow on the table and her head on her hand. “Bart,” she said, solemnly, “I don’t want you sh’u’d think I ever winked at this. It never entered my head. My heart’s just broke. To see a likely girl, that c’u’d ’a’ had her pick anywheres, up an’ run away with a no-account newspaper fello’—when she c’u’d ’a’ had you!” The man’s face contracted. “Whatever on earth the neighbors’ll say I don’t know.”
“Who cares what neighbors say?”
“Oh, that’s all very well for you to say; you ain’t her mother.”
“No,” said Bart, with a look that made her quail; “I ain’t. I wish to God I was! Mebbe ’twouldn’t hurt so!”
“Well, it ’ad ort to hurt more!” retorted the lady, with spirit. “Just ’s if you felt any worse ’n I do!” He laid his head on his hand and groaned. “Oh, I know it’s gone deep, Bart”—her tone softened—“but ’s I say, you ain’t her mother. You’ll get over it an’ marry again—like Laviny wanted that you sh’u’d. It was good o’ her to think o’ that. I will say that much for her.”
“Yes,” said Bart; “it was good of her.” Then there came a little silence, broken finally by Mrs. Vaiden. Her voice held a note of peevish regret. “There’s that fine house o’ your’n ’most finished—two story an’ a ell! An’ that liberry across the front hall from the parlor! When I think how vain Laviny was o’ that liberry! What’ll you do with the house, now, Bart?”
“Sell it!” he answered, between his teeth.
“An’ there’s all that fine furnitur’ that Laviny an’ you picked out. She fairly danced when she told me about it. All covered with satin—robin-egg green, wa’n’t it?”
“Blue.” The word dropped mechanically from his white lips.
“Well, blue, then. What’ll you do with it?”
“I guess they’ll take it back by my losin’ my first payment,” he answered, with a kind of ghastly humor.
“Well, there’s your new buggy—all paid for. They won’t take that back.”
“I’ll give that to you,” he said, with a bitter smile.
“Oh, you!” exclaimed Mrs. Vaiden, throwing out her large hand at him in a gesture of mingled embarrassment and delight. “As if I’d take it, after Laviny’s actin’ up this a-way!”
He did not reply, and presently she broke out, angrily, with:
“The huzzy! The ungrateful, deceitful jade! To treat a body so. How do we know whether he’s got anything to keep a wife on? I’ll admit, though, he was alwus genteel-dressed. I do think, Bart, you might ’a’ took pattern ’n that. ’Twa’n’t like as if you wa’n’t able to wear good clo’es—an’ Laviny liked such things.”
“I wish you’d ’a’ told me a good spell ago what she liked, Mrs. Vaiden.”
“Well, that’s so. There ain’t much use ’n lockin’ the stable door after the horse ’s gone. Oh, that makes me think about your offerin’ me that buggy—’s if I w’u’d!”
“I guess you’ll have to. I’m goin’ to leave on the train, an’ I’ll order it sent to you.”
“Oh, you! Why, where you goin’, Bart?”
“I’m goin’ to follow him!” he thundered, bringing his fist down on the table in a way that made every dish leap out of its place. “I ain’t goin’ to hurt him—unless talk hurts—but I’m goin’ to say some things to him. I ain’t had a thought for three year that that girl ain’t b’en in! I ain’t made a plan that she ain’t b’en in. I’ve laid awake night after night just too happy to sleep. An’ now to have a—a thing like him take her from me in one month. But that ain’t the worst!” he burst out, passionately. “We don’t know how he’ll treat her, an’ she’ll be too proud to complain—”
“I can’t see why you care how he treats her,” said Mrs. Vaiden, “after the way she’s treated you.”
“No,” he answered, with a look that ought to have crushed her, “I didn’t s’pose you c’u’d see. I didn’t expect you to see that, or anything else but your own feelin’s—the way the thing affex you. But that’s what I’m goin’ to follow him for, Mrs. Vaiden. An’ when I find him—I’m goin’ to tell him”—there was an awful calm in his tone now—“that if he ever misuses her, now that he’s married her, I’ll kill him. I’ll shoot him down like a dawg!”
“My Lord!” broke in Mrs. Vaiden, with a new thought. “What if he ain’t married her! She never said so ’n her letter. Oh, Bart!” beginning to weep hysterically. “Mebbe you c’u’d get her back.”
He leaped to his feet panting like an animal; his great breast swelled in and out swiftly, his hands clenched, his eyes burned at her.
“What!” he said. “Do you dare? Her mother! Oh, you—you—God! but I wish you was a man!”
The whistle of a coming train broke across the morning stillness. He turned, seized his hat and crushed it on his head. Then he came back and took up the chair in which he had been sitting.
“Mrs. Vaiden,” he said, quietly, “d’ you see this chair? Well, if he ain’t married her—”
With two or three movements of his powerful wrists he wrenched the chair into as many pieces and dropped them on the floor.
After a while Mrs. Vaiden emerged from the stupefaction into which his last words had thrown her, and resumed her breakfast.
“Well,” she said, stirring her coffee until it swam round and round in a smooth eddy in the cup, “if I ever see his beat! Whoever’d ’a’ thought he’d take his cuttin’-out that a-way? I never ’d ’a’ thought it. Worryin’ about her, after the way she’s up and used him! A body ’d think he’d be glad if she was treated shameful, and hatto lead a mis’rable life a-realizin’ what she’d threw away. But not him. Well, they say still water runs deep. Mebbe it’s ungrateful to think it after his givin’ me that fine buggy—(How Mis’ Bentley will stare when I drive roun’ to see her!” she interjected with a smile of anticipation.) “But after seein’ how he showed up his temper just now I ain’t sure but Laviny’s head was level when she took the other ’n. ’F only he had a donation claim!”