Plain Mary Smith Part 6

"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 s.p.a.ce 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 h.e.l.l, 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 n.i.g.g.e.r 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "He grabbed up his wooden box and made a miracle"]

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. "h.e.l.l 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 ma.s.s 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."