Stories from Everybody's Magazine Part 7

"Well," said Hemsley at length, "I don't like the looks of things, and I'm going to make it my business to take Miss Crane home to her father. I advise you not to make any trouble until you've proved who you are. Rockledge County Jail is only six miles away."

The other sobered to a statue, then turned, regarding Hemsley with mild fixity.

"Gentlemen," he said, "gentlemen both. I ain't askin' for your help, and, as far as I can see, neither is Peachey. I mean it.

Gentlemen, a mule is a most onsafe critter. Even when you go to his funeral, you'll do well to sit at the head of the coffin."

Then all three turned quickly, for there had arisen from below the sound of a grating keel.

"That settles it," said Hemsley with dry satisfaction. "Miss Crane has gone home in the canoe. So much the better: I'm not looking for trouble." And he turned away.

But the Man gave one great laugh, then he was off like a shot, down the slope and into the water. At shoulder-depth he overtook the canoe and clung to its stern.

"Go up forward, Little Peachey," he cried, "an' sit mighty still till I swing in, else we'll be swimmin' in another minute.

There!"

And drawing himself up over the stern, he seized the paddle, while the canoe leaped forward beneath his powerful strokes. From somewhere along the sh.o.r.e came the sound of voices, but the camp-fire blazed deserted. Gradually its light diminished to a twinkling spark in the blackness. For a while no word was spoken, the man bending to his task, the girl crouching with averted face in the extreme bow. Then a little new moon peered over the distant pine tops, the heavens spread their starry veil, and the hour of Susanna Crane's wooing had come.

"Me! You!" intoned the Man, to the sweep of his paddle. "Me! You!

That's what the waves were sayin', that's what you kep' a-callin'

to me through the woods, that's what the stars are writin' on the sky--Me! You! Big Chief, oh, you heap Big Chief, somewhar up yonder, ain't you l'arned me some things this day? Peachey, me and another man, down in the marble quarries, got fightin' in liquor, an' he drew a gun on me, an' I killed him with it. Then I got away quick and careless-like; but the Big Chief he leads me up here an' sets me in the woods, an' sends you along the trail.

An' while I'm lyin' thar asleep, He tells me in a dream, 'You proud man! You unbroke bucker! Maybe you kin kill a man, but I've got my own good way o' tamin' you and bringin' you home.' Blood for blood I thought He meant, but I wakes up and--Que gracia!--thar you stands. And your face it says to me, 'Come on, you wicked, red-handed man. G.o.d's a-callin'.' And I says to myself real sudden, like I was at a camp meetin', 'Praise G.o.d!'

Then, when we ran into the camp, just now, who was thar but Hemsley, the county sheriff, whose deputies have been after me for a week! Maybe the Big Chief's savin' me to l'arn me something more. So again I says, 'Praise G.o.d!'

"Will you travel with me, camarada?" he went on. "The whole big world's waitin' for us. I kin read an' write, an' my arms are strong. We'll ride the plains an' climb the hills an' swim in the rivers, and when you're tired I'll carry you on my shoulder. Then we'll take in the big, flat cities, Little Peachey, an' walk around 'em at night, lookin' on friendly. Yes, we'll drop in at all of 'em, stringin' out across the country like sideshows on the old Chicago Midway. And one o' these days, when we're gittin'

real old, we'll pull up stakes an' start off to locate our last campin' ground. Thar ain't no maps nor surveys to it; it's just somewhar over yonder, and we'll know it on sight, Little Peachey.

Maybe it's some picayune island chucked into the middle o' the ocean, with one high rock whar we can sit and watch the sun a-risin' an' the sun a-settin', an' the seagulls flyin'. And we'll talk over old times, Little Peachey, an' we'll just sit an'

watch an' wait thar together till--till thar ain't nothin' left at all, only the rocks an' the sky an' the gulls a-screamin' at the sea.

"Peachey, a man read me some pieces out o' a book once, and I wrote 'em down an' learned 'em.

" 'For springtime is here,' it says, 'thou soul unloosened--the restlessness after I know not what. Oh, if we could but fly like a bird! Oh, to escape, to sail forth as on a s.h.i.+p!' Camarada, give me your hand. I will give you myself, more precious than money. Will you give me yourself? Will you travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?"

The chant of his voice died away upon the night, and there was no sound but the soft ripple of the water under keel. In the bow sat the girl, motionless as a crouched Indian, her face fixed upon the nearing sh.o.r.e.

As the water shoaled, the Man stroked powerfully, landing the canoe sternforemost; then he stepped forth, drew it along the bank, and said:

"Camarada, give me your hand!"

But already the girl had risen, steadying herself with the bow paddle. With a sinuous movement she eluded his arms, and fled; then voices woke amid the pines, and the Man strode forward, to find his way blocked by two men holding the sobbing girl between them.

"I've seen enough of this," said Hemsley, facing him, "to know what you are. Miss Crane, can you find your way home alone? Jim, you and I will walk this man over to Rockledge."

"Peachey!" called the Man, retreating instantly. "Come on over here; thar's goin' to be trouble. Git behind me, Little Peachey!"

In the landing place there was driven a heavy stake. He drew this forth, then advanced, saying earnestly:

"Gentlemen both, you size me up wrong. Now, I ain't lookin' for trouble, but don't you bank too strong on takin' me anywhar with you to-night."

Hemsley's right hand drew backward, then came the level glitter of a long revolver barrel. "Drop that!" he began.

But suddenly something flashed before his face, and the keen edge of a boat-paddle bit numbingly into his extended hand; then the girl darted forward to where the revolver lay glistening among the pine needles.

"Well struck, Little Peachey," cried the Man; and he stepped protectingly in front of her, with upraised stake. But she stood from behind him and leveled the revolver full at Hemsley.

"I don't want your help," she said. The words came torn from her in sobbing whispers. "Git! Don't you come back no more. Don't you send no one lookin' for this man. I kin take care o' myself, I guess."

And the look in her eyes warned them to go. Now the Man and the Woman were alone in the black hush of the pine woods.

"I saved you," she said at length; "now go away from here. Yes, go!" And as her face lifted defiantly to his, her voice slid upward like the lonely, untamed wail of some wild creature. "Go back from whar you come! Don't you never let me see your face again, nor hear you speak; don't you never touch me no more, you Man! 'Cause I'm scairt o' you, I am; 'cause you're big an'

strong, an' you'd forgit a gal like me. 'Cause I hate you, an' I hate myself!"

For an instant the man gazed at her, perplexed, irresolute; then he took her right hand and guided it until the revolver muzzle touched his forehead.

"Peachey," he whispered tenderly, "you hate me--but could you kill me; Little Peachey?" And he smiled his great, full-hearted smile.

Then her hand fell, her head sunk upon his breast, and a strong shuddering filled all her young body.

"Oh, Man, Man!" she breathed, as his arms closed about her.

Vol. XXIII No.1 JULY 1910 {pages 74-83}

By Alice MacGowan and Grace MacGowan Cooke

Authors of "Return, A Story of the Sea Islands," etc.

"Is Ellen worse to-day?" The opening and closing of the front door brought in a swirl of red and yellow leaves from the porch outside. There came, too, a breath of sharp, sweet October air to tired little Mrs. Kendrick where she paused, foot on stair, the tray steadied in her hand, looking back at her husband.

"No. It's just that I got Mary Louise Jackson to come over and play with her. I can't ask Aunt Dicey to wait on a negro child like Ma'Lou is, and she's got to eat with Ellen; so I'm----"

"So you're waiting on her yourself," supplied Kendrick, hanging up a shabby overcoat on the hall rack.

"I'd do more than that to keep her here," his wife returned almost fiercely. "I tell you n.o.body knows till they've tried it what it is to have a child like Ellen, always lonesome and pining for company, and quarreling with every girl that comes about her.

Sometimes I think it would be better if we moved away from Watauga. Everybody pities her--they all notice that she's backward in her studies--how can she help it, poor dear, with that hip joint the way it is?"

Kendrick came closer; he laid a kind arm along the frail, bent shoulders of his wife, and her senses were aware of the fresh outdoor air as he put his cool cheek to hers. "Don't you grieve, f.a.n.n.y," he said. "Ma'Lou's a good companion for Ellen. The kid's better trained and better educated than half the white girls of her age in Watauga. If things go well, in a year or two we'll send Nellie to Baltimore and see what the big man there can do for her. You shall have a daughter that can dance like you used to, honey," and he patted her shoulder gently.

She turned with a little, gasping sigh to put up her tired face for his kiss. "You're good, Scott," she murmured, then went more cheerfully upstairs and to Ellen's room, glancing as she entered at the two girls, who were playing happily with paper dolls.

"Here's your feast," she called to them in the gay tone we use with sick children. "Come, Ellen. I'll go down and give your father his dinner, and you two can play any kind of party you want to with this."

The little girl with skin like white cotton cloth rolled her big, gray eves toward the tray and asked listlessly, "What you got for dinner, ma?" The brown-skinned one, tidily dressed from her carefully combed head with its crisp, black ma.s.s that was scarcely hair, held in place by spick-and-span hair ribbons, to the toes of her stout, handsome shoes, got up quickly and came forward to arrange the meal.

"They's mola.s.ses pie, Nell," Ma'Lou said joyously. "Oh, I'm going to bring it over there and fix it by the side of the lounge.

We'll play you' a sick lady, and I'm you' trained nurse. Just wait till I fix my handkerchief into a cap like they wear."

Mrs. Kendrick turned away and left the children at their play.

Mary Louise Jackson had been kept at home from school that she might come over and spend the day with Ellen. For when Ellen Kendrick was ill, her cry always was, "Oh, send for the doctor--and Mary Louise."