IMA'S LESSONS
She had odd ways, Percival found—oddly attractive; sometimes oddly disconcerting. She did not at first contribute to the conversation while they ate. She was very quiet; and that, and the way in which, as he noticed, she kept her eyes upon him, was in itself odd. Dusk was veiling the camp as they took the stew she had prepared. They had the meal on the grass near the van, and Percival, not eating with great ease in the squatting pose, noticed how erect she sat, as though her back were invisibly supported—her plate on her lap, the soles of her bare feet together.
He deferred his trouble, as Japhra had proposed, till the meal should be done. He was interested to know where the van had been all these months; and when he questioned Japhra, "We have had the solitary desires, Ima and I," Japhra told him. "The solitary desires, master, whiles thou hast been growing. A sudden wearying of Maddox's and all the noisy ones. North to Yorkshire, we have been; west to Bristol's border; deeper west to Cornwall. The road has had the spell on us—calling from every bend and ever keeping a bend ahead, as the road will to those who are of it. Summers we have passed the circus on its tour and laid a night with old Stingo and then away, urgent to move quicker and lonelier. Trouble has worsened in the circus crowd."
"What, between Stingo's men and Boss Maddox's?"
"Ay," said Japhra. "Boss Maddox is the biggest showman in the west these days. He rents the pitches at all the fairs before the season begins; and the Stingo crowd, who must take what he gives, he puts in the worst places. His hand is heavy against them. One fine day the sticks will come out and there'll be heads broken, as happened on the road back in '60. I was in that and carry the mark of it on my pate to this hour. Pray I'll be there when this one falls."
"I'd like to be with you, Japhra."
Japhra showed his tight-lipped smile: "Well, a camp fight with the sticks out and the heads cracking is a proper game for a man, master. Thou'dst be a handy one at it, I warrant me."
Ima broke in with her first contribution to their talk. She said quickly: "Shame, Father. Not for such as he—fights and the rough ways."
But she was silent again and without reply when Percival sought to rally her for this opinion of him; and Japhra twinkled at him and said: "There's one would like to meet thee, though—sticks or fists"; and went on, when Percival inquired who: "Thy friend Pinsent. Thy name of Foxy for him has stuck to him and he has not forgiven thee. A fine fighter he has grown—boxed in some class rings for good purses in the winter months, and in the summer is a great attraction at the fairs. Boss Maddox is fond of him. Boss Maddox has fitted him with a booth of his own and he gets the crowds—deserves 'em, too. But 'Foxy' has stuck to him—and suits him. He hates it; and's not forgotten where he owes it."
Percival laughed. "Well, if he's done so well, I ought to be proud to have given him something to remember me by. He could wallop me to death, of course."