XIV
"HOW FAST YOU SEW!"
And she had not seen him! He was touched with a sense of guilt forhaving looked so long; for not having at once called to her; and ratherthan give her the shock of calling now, he moved toward her, the scuffof his limp, pendent foot attracting her attention. Her start at thesound was followed, when she saw him, with amazement and a flush and amovement as if she would rise. But she controlled the movement, if notthe flush, and fell back into her chair, picking up her sewing, whichhad dropped on the table.
It was like him, she might well think, to come unexpectedly, withoutinvitation or announcement. She was alert, ready to take the offensive asthe best means of defence, and wishing, in devout futility, that he hadstayed away. He was smiling happily at everything in cosmos and at her asa part of it.
"Good afternoon!"
"Good afternoon!"
"That last lot of jelly was better than the first," he said softly.
"Was it? You must favor vintage jelly!"
"I came to call--my p.p.c. call--and to see your garden," he added.
"Is there any particular feature that interests you?" she asked. "Thedate-trees? The aviary? The nursery?"
"No," he answered, "not just yet. It is very cool here under theumbrella-trees, isn't it? I have walked all the way from the Galways andI'll rest a while, if I may."
He was no longer the play cavalier in overornamented _chaparejos_ andcart-wheel spurs, but a lame fellow in overalls, who was hitching towardher on crutches, his cowpuncher hat held by the brim and flopping withevery step. But he wore the silk shirt and the string tie, and somehow hemade even the overalls seem "dressy."
"Pray sit down," she said politely.
Standing his crutches against the table, he accepted the invitation. Sheresumed her sewing, eyes on the needle, lips pressed into a straight lineand head bending low. He might have been a stranger on a bench in apublic park for all the attention she was paying to him. She realizedthat she was rude and took satisfaction in it as the only way ofexpressing her determination not to reopen a closed incident.
"It's wonderful--wonderful!" he observed, in a voice of contemplativeawe.
"What is?" she asked.
"Why, how fast you sew!"
"Yes?" she said, as automatically as she stitched. "Your wound is quiteall right? No danger of infection?"
"I don't blame you!" he burst out. His tone had turned sad and urgent.
She looked up quickly, with the flare of a frown. His remark had broughther out of her pose and she became vivid and real.
"Blame me!" she demanded, sharply, as one who flies to arms.
But she met a new phase--neither banter, nor fancy, nor unvaryingcoolness in the face of fire. He was all contrition and apology. Must shebe the audience to some fresh exhibition of his versatility?
"I do not blame you for feeling the way that you do," he said.
"How do you know how I feel?" she asked; and as far as he could see intoher eyes there was nothing but the flash of sword-points.
"I don't. I only know how I think you feel--how you might well feel," heanswered delicately. "After Pete let his gun drop in the store I shouldnot have named terms for an encounter. I should have turned to the lawfor protection for the few hours that I had to remain in town."
"But to you that would have been avoiding battle!" she exclaimed.
"Which may take courage," he rejoined. "What I did was selfish. It wasbravado, with no thought of your position."
"It is late to worry about that now. What does it matter? I did not wantanyone killed on my account, and no one was," she insisted. "Besides, youshould not be blue," this with a ripple of satire; "it is not quite allbravado to face Pete Leddy's gun at twenty yards."
"And it is not courage. Courage is a force of will driving you intodanger for some high purpose. I want you to realize that I am not such abarbarian that I do not know that I could have kept you out of it all ifI had had proper self-control. Though probably, on the impulse, I woulddo the fool thing over again! Yes, that's the worst of it!"
"There is a devil in him!" Ignacio's words were sounding in her ears. Tohow many men had he said, "I am going to kill you?" What other quarrelshad he known in his wanderings from Colorado to Chihuahua?
"If you really want my opinion, I am glad, so far as I am concerned, thatyou did fight," she said lightly. "Aren't you a hero? Isn't the town freeof Leddy? And you take the train in the morning!"
"Yes."
The monosyllable was drawn out rather faintly. For the first time sincethey had met on the pass she felt she was mistress of the situation.This time she had not to plead with him in fear for his life. She couldregard him without any sense of obligation, this invader of her gardenretreat who had to put in one more afternoon in a dull desert townbefore he was away to that outside world which she might know onlythrough books and memory.
She rose exultantly, disregarding any formality that she would owe to theaverage guest; for an average guest he was not. Her attitude meant thatshe was having the last word; that she was showing her mettle.
He did not rise. He was staring into the sunlight, as if it were darknessalive with flitting spectres which baffled identification.
"Yes, back--back to armies of Leddys!" he said slowly.
But this she saw as still another pose. It did not make her pause ingathering up her sewing. She was convinced that there was nothing morefor her to say, except to give their parting an appearance of ease andunconcern.
"Is it work you mean? You are not used to that, I take it?" she inquireda little sarcastically.
"Yes, call it work," he answered, looking away from the spectres andback to her.
"And you have never done any work!" she added.
"Not much," he admitted, with his old, airy carelessness. He was smilingat the spectres now, as he had at the dinosaur.
"As there is nothing particular about the garden that I can show you--"she was moving away.
"No, I will be walking back to the house," he said after she had taken afew steps. "Will you wait on my slow pace?"
He reached for his crutches, lifted himself to his feet and swung toher side. She who wished that the interview were over saw that it mustbe prolonged. Then suddenly she realized the weakness as well as thebrusqueness of her attitude. She had been about to fly from him asfrom something that she feared. It was not necessary. It was foolish,even cowardly.
"I thought perhaps you preferred to be alone, you seemed so abstracted,"she said, lamely; and then, as they came out into the sunlight in thecircle, she began talking of the garden as she would to any visitor; ofits beginnings, its growth, and its future, when her father's plansshould have been fulfilled.
"And in all these years you have never been back East?" he asked.
"No. We are always planning a trip, but the money which we save for itgoes into more plantings."
They had been moving slowly toward the house, but now he stopped and hisglance swept the sky and rested on Galeria.
"It is the best valley of all! I knew it as soon as I saw it from thepass!" and the rapture of the scene was sounding in every syllable likechimes out of the distance. She knew that he was far away from thegarden, and delaying, still delaying. If she spoke she felt that he wouldnot hear what she said. If she went on it seemed certain that she wouldleave him standing there like a statue.
"And there is more land here to make gardens like this?" he askedslowly, absorbed.
"Yes, with water and labor and time."
Though his face was in the full light of the sun, it seemed at times inshadow; then it glowed, as if between two passions. For an instant it wasgrim, the chin coming forward, the brows contracting; then it wastransformed with something that was as a complete surrender to thetransport of irresistible temptation. He looked down at her quickly andshe saw him in the mood of story-telling to the children, suffused withthe radiance of a decision.
"I prefer the Leddys of Little Rivers to the Leddys of New Yor
k," hesaid. "I am not going to-morrow! I am going to have land and a home underthe aegis of the Eternal Painter and in sight of Galeria, and worship atthe shrine of fecund peace. Will you and the Doge help me?" he asked withan enthusiasm that was infectious. "May I go to his school ofagriculture, horticulture, and floriculture?"
Dumfounded, she bent her head and stared at the ground to hide herastonishment.
"You want citizens, industrious young citizens, don't you?" he persisted.
"Yes, yes!" she said hastily and confusedly.
"Do you know a good piece of land?" he continued.
"Yes, several parcels," she answered, recovering her poise and smilingin mockery.
"Come on!" he cried.
He was taking long, jumping steps on his crutches as they went up thepath.
"You will take me to look at the land, won't you, please--now? I want toget acquainted with my future estate. I mean to beat the Smiths at plums,Jim Galway at alfalfa, even rival Bob Worther at pumpkins and peonies.And you will help me lay out the flower garden, won't you? You see, Ishall have to call in the experts in every line to start with, before Ibegin to improve on them and make them all jealous. I may find a kind ofplum that will grow on alfalfa stalks," he hazarded. "What ahorticultural sensation!"
"And a spineless cactus called the Leddy!"
His eyes were laughing into hers and hers irresistibly laughed back. Sheguessed that he was only joking. He had acted so well in the latest rolethat she had actually believed in his sincerity for a moment. He meant totake the train, of course, but his resourceful capriciousness hadsupplied him with a less awkward exit from the garden than she hadprovided. He would yet have the last word if she did not watch out--alast mischievous word at her expense.
"First, you will have to plow the ground, in the broiling hot sun," shesaid tauntingly, when they had passed around to the porch. She wasstarting into the house with nervous, precipitate triumph. The last wordwas hers, after all.
"But you are going to show me the land now!"
His tone was so serious and so hurt that she paused.
"And"--with the seriousness electrified by a glance that sought formutual understanding--"and we are to forget about that duel and the wholehero-desperado business. I am a prospective settler who just arrived thisafternoon. I came direct to headquarters to inquire about property. TheDoge not being at home, won't you show me around?"
Again he had said the right thing at the right time, with a delightfulimpersonality precluding sentiment.
"I couldn't be unaccommodating," she admitted. "It is against all LittleRivers ethics."
"I feel like a butterfly about to come out of his miserable chrysalis!Haven't you a walking-stick? I am going to shed the crutches!"
She became femininely solicitous at once.
"Are you sure you ought? Did the doctor say you might? Is thewound healed?"
"There isn't any wound!" he answered. "That is one of the things which weare to forget."
She brought a stick and he laid the crutches on the porch.
He favored the lame leg, yet he kept up a clipping pace, talking thewhile as fast as the Doge himself as they passed through one of the sidestreets out onto the cactus-spotted, baking, cracked levels.
"This is it!" she said finally. "This is all that father and I had tobegin with."
"Enough!" he answered, and held out his hands, palms open. "Withcallouses I will win luxuriance!"
She showed him the irrigation ditch from which he should draw his water;she told him of the first steps; She painted all the difficulties in thedarkest colors, without once lessening the glow of his optimism. He wasso overwhelmingly, boyishly happy that she had to be happy with him inmaking believe that he was about to be a real rancher. But he should nothave the sport all on his side. He must not think that she accepted thislatest departure of his imagination incarnated by his Thespian gift inanything but his own spirit.
"You plowing! You spraying trees for the scale! You digging up weeds! Youstacking alfalfa! You settling down in one place as a unit of co-ordinateindustry! You earning bread by the sweat of your brow! You withcallouses!" Thus she laughed at him.
Very seriously he held out his hands and ran a finger around a palm andacross the finger-joints:
"That is where I shall get them," he said. "But not on the thumb. Ibelieve you get them on the thumb only by playing golf."
He asked about carpenters and laborers; he chose the site for his house;he plotted the walks and orchards. She could not refuse her advice. Whocan about the planning of new houses and gardens? He had everythingquite settled except the land grant from the Doge when they startedback; while the sun, with the swift passage of time in such fascinatingdiversion, had swung low in its ellipse. When they reached the mainstreet the Doge was on the porch passing his opinion on the EternalPainter's evening work.
"Some very remarkable purples to-night, I admit, Your Majesty, withoutany intention of giving you too good an opinion of yourself; butotherwise, you are not up to your mark. There must have been a downpourin the rainy world on the other side of the Sierras that moistened yourpigments. Next thing we know you will be turning water-colorist!" he wassaying, when he heard Jack's voice.
"Here's a new settler!" Jack called. "I am going to stay in Little Riversand win all the prizes."
"You are joking!" gasped the Doge.
"Not joking," said Jack. "I want to close the bargain to-night."
"You bring color and adventure--yes! I did not expect the honor--thetown will be delighted! I am overwhelmed! Will you plow with PeteLeddy's gun drawn by Wrath of God, sir, and harrow with your spurs drawnby Jag Ear? Shall you make a specialty of olives? Do you dare to aspireas high as dates?"
The Doge's speech had begun incoherently, but steadied into rallyinghumor at the close.
"I haven't seen the date-tree yet," said Jack. "Not until I have can Ijudge whether or not I shall dare to rival the lord of the manor in hisown specialty. And there are business details which I must settle withyou, O Doge of this city of slender canals!"
"O youth, will you tarry with peace between wars?" answered the Doge, inquick response to the spirit of nonsense as a basis for their newrelations. "Come, and I will show you our noblest product of peace, theDate-Tree Wonderful!" he said, leading the way to the garden, while Maryhurried rather precipitately into the house.
Jasper Ewold was at his best, a glowing husbandman, when he pointed aloftto the clusters of fruit pendent from the crotches of the stiffbranches, enclosed in cloth bags to keep them free of insects.
"Do you see strange lettering on the cloth?" he asked.
"Yes, it looks like Arabic."
"So it is! Among other futile diversions in a past incarnation I studiedArabic a little, and I still have my lexicon. Perhaps my constructionmight not please the grammarians of classic Bagdad, but the sentiment isthere safe enough in the language of the mother romance world of thedate: 'All hail, first-born of our Western desert fecundity!' It iscalling out to the pass and the range from the wastes where thesagebrush has had its own way since the great stir that there was in theworld at genesis."
"With the unlimited authority I have in bestowing titles," said Jack, "Ihave a mind to make you an Emir. But it's a pity that you haven't a camelsquatting under your date-tree and placidly chewing his cud."
"A tempting thought!" declared the Doge unctuously.
"Bob Worther could ride him on the tours of inspection. I think thejounce would be almost as good a flesh-reducer as pedestrianism."
"There you go! You would have the camel wearing bells, with reins of redleather and a purple saddle-cloth hung with spangles, and Bob--ourexcellent Bob--in a turban! Persiflage, sir! A very demoralization ofthe faculties with cataracts of verbiage, sir!" declared the Doge as hestarted back to the house. "Little Rivers is a practical town," heproceeded seriously. "We indulge in nonsense only after sunset and when astranger appears riding a horse with a profane name. Yes, a practicaltown; and I am surprised at y
our disloyalty to your own burro bymentioning camels."
"It rests with you, I believe, to let me have the land and also thewater," said Jack.
"We grow businesslike!" returned the Doge with a change of manner.
"Very!" declared Jack.
"The requirement is that you become a member of the water users'association and pay your quota of taxes per acre foot; and the price youpay for your land also goes to the association. But I decide on theeligibility of the applicant."
They were in front of the house by this time, and again the Doge gaveJack that sharp, quick, knowing glance of scrutiny through his heavy,tufted eyebrows, before he proceeded:
"The concession for the use of the river for irrigation is mine,administered by the water users' association as if it were theirs, underthe condition that no one who has not my approval can have membership.That is, it is practically mine, owing to my arrangement with old Mr.Lefferts, who lives upstream. He is an eccentric, a hermit. He came heremany years ago to get as far away from civilization as he could, I judge.That gives him an underlying right. Originally he had two partners, squawmen. Both are dead. He had made no improvements beyond drawing enoughwater for a garden and for his horse and cow. When I came to make abargain with him he named an annual sum which should keep him for therest of his life; and thus he waived his rights. First, Jim Galway, thenother settlers drifted in. I formed the water users' association. Alltaxes and sums for the sale of land go into keeping the dam and ditchesin condition."
"You take nothing for yourself!"
"A great deal. The working out of an idea--an idea in moulding a littlecommunity in my old age in a fashion that pleases me; while my ownproperty, of course, increases in value. At my death the rights go to thecommunity. But no Utopia; Sir Chaps! Just hard-working, cheerful men andwomen in a safe refuge!"
"And I am young!" exclaimed Jack, with a hopeful smile. "I have goodhealth. I mean to work. I try to be cheerful. Am I eligible?"
"Sir Chaps, you--you have done us a great favor. Everybody likes you. SirChaps"--the Doge hesitated for an instant, with a baffling, unspokeninquiry in his eyes--"Sir Chaps, I like your companionship and yourmastery of persiflage. Jim Galway, who is secretary of the association,will look after details of the permit and Bob Worther will turn the wateron your land, and the whole town will assist you with advice! Luck, SirChaps, in your new vocation!"
That evening, while the Doge took down the David and set a fragment fromthe frieze of the Parthenon in its place, Little Rivers talked of thedelightful news that it was not to lose its strange story-teller andduelist. Little Rivers was puzzled. Not once had Jack intimated a thoughtof staying. By his own account, so far as he had given any, his wound hadmerely delayed his departure to New York, where he had pressing business.He had his reservation on the Pullman made for the morning express; hehad paid a farewell call at the Ewolds, and apparently then had changedhis mind and his career. These were the only clues to work on, except theone suggested by Mrs. Galway, who was the wise woman of the community,while Mrs. Smith was the propagandist.
"I guess he likes the way Mary Ewold snubs him!" said Mrs. Galway.
But there was one person in town who was not surprised at Jack'sdecision. When Jack sang out as he entered the Galway yard on returningfrom the Doge's, "We stay, Firio, we stay!" Firio said: "_Si_, SenorJack!" with no change of expression except a brighter gleam than usual inhis velvety eyes.