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Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders

<h2>VI</h2> <h3>"I'M MARY SMITH"</h3> Plunk, plunk, plunketty-plunk, down the pike, me and Eli, and Dandy Jim, Eli's black horse. I'll never tell you how I felt. It was the first I'd ever been away from home. All the regrets I had was eased by knowing it wouldn't be more than six months before I'd come back with a gunny-sack full of hundred-dollar bills, buy Mr. Jasper's place with the pillars in front, and a railroad, and pervade things in general with a tone of pink and birds singing. One thing about being a boy is that you're sure of to-morrow, anyhow. Well, we slid along behind a free-gaited horse, in an easy wagon, over good roads, in early New England summer, when every breath of air had a pretty story to tell. If it hadn't been for the tight vest I had on, I reckon my heart would have bust my ribs for joyfulness. Boston scart the life out of me. I had no notion there was that many folks and horses and buildings in the world. We pulled for the schooner right away, but none too quick for me. I never liked a crowd. A man understands he don't amount to much, yet don't like to have the fact rubbed in. Cap'n Jesse Conklin owned the boat. He had a mild blue eye, a splendid line of cuss words, a body as big as mine, and a pair of legs that just saved him from running aground. When I first saw him I thought he was standing in a hole. Howsomever, he got around mighty lively on his little stumps, and he could light his pipe when the Matilda, of Boston, was throwing handsprings. He always opened his eyes wide and said, "Ha!" like he was perfectly astonished when you spoke to him. Then, to square things, you was really perfectly astonished when he spoke to you. Eli introduced me. "Ha!" says the captain. "So this is one of them ripperty-splintered and bejiggered young thingermergummeries that runs away from hum, heh?" I don't wish to be understood as giving the captain's exact words, although I ain't one of your durn prudes, neither. Eli explained. "Ha!" says the captain. "Is that so? Howjer come by them legs, young feller? You'll be riggin' a set of stays fur them when we hit the stream. I've seen shorter and thicker things than them growin' on trellises." "Never you mind about his legs, you old bladder-head," says Eli, cousinly. "You're to take the boy as passenger." "I am!" says Captain Jesse, jumping back, mad as a bumblebee. "I am; that's me! I don't own this boat nor nothin'! I've got to be told what I'm to do, I have!" "Sure!" says Eli, undisturbed. "Well, all right," says the captain, calm as anything. "What makes you so hasty, Eli? Does he pay his passage, or work it?" "He gives you five dollars in hand, and works the rest of it," says Eli. The cap'n gave a horrible grin, showing a set of teeth like a small horse. "And won't he work it!" says he, rubbing his hands together. "Dry land'll do for him, two weeks out." "Yaaas," says Eli. "You're a turble person, you are—you'd ought to been a pirate, Jess." Cap'n Jesse got mad again—he was more like a little boy than anybody of his weight I ever see. He come up to Eli and shook his finger under that hawk-bill of a nose. "I don't want none of your slack, Eli!" he says. "You've tried me often"—here he got impressive, talking very slow—"don't you try me once too much!" Eli grabbed the hand, stuck the finger in his mouth, and bit it. "Aaoow!" yells the captain, grabbing his finger. "You quit your foolin'!" By this time I was lost entirely. What to make of the proceedings was beyond guessing. Boylike, I thought men always acted with some big idea in view, but the next minute Eli and Cap'n Jesse had grabbed holt of one another and was scuffling and giggling around the deck like a pair of kids. Captain Jess was stout about the shoulders; he had Eli waving in the breeze once, but at last Eli gave him a back trip and down they come. Then up they got; each cut off a hunk of chewing and began to talk as if they'd acted perfectly reasonable. Seems that's the way they always come together. The three of us took a look about the boat. She was an able, fine three-master, the pride of Jesse's soul; 'most as big as a ship. Them were the days when most folk built deep and narrer, but Jesse had ideas of his own when he laid down the lines of the Matilda, of Boston. She looked bluff and heavy in the bows and her bilges turned hard, but she walked over the water, and don't you forget it. Moreover, she was the kindest boat in a seaway I ever boarded. Old Matilda girl would heel just so far; after that the worst draft that ever whistled wouldn't put her under an inch; she'd part with her sticks first. Handy boat, a schooner, too; sensible and Yankeefied. Lord! what a claw-and-messing on board a square-rigger, compared to it! And taking two men to the schooner's one at that. The Matilda was fitted for passengers. She had eight nice clean cabins, and fine quarters for the crew. In most such boats you can't more 'n stand up, if you stretch between hair and shoe-leather the way I do, but here there was head-room a-plenty. And Uncle Jesse ate the boys well, too. Good old craft and good old boy running her. Soon's you realized that all his spitting and swearing and roaring didn't amount to no more than a hearty sneeze, you got along with Jesse great, if you was fit to get along with anybody. We took aboard four passengers that night, one of 'em being a lady. The next morning at four we pulled out with the ebb-tide. Before we got into the open water, I felt such a joy boiling inside me I had to sing, no matter what the feelings of the rest were. Oh! Oh! The blue, bright sky; and the blue, crinkly, good-smelling water; the quantities of fresh air around, and Matilda picking up her white skirts and skipping for Panama! Neither man nor money will ever give me a feeling like that again. But then,—ah, then! And there's 'most always a then,—when the Matilda tried to spear a gull with her bowsprit, and, shamefaced at the failure above, tried to harpoon some little fishy with the same weapon,—why, I hope I'll never have a feeling like that again, neither. I hung over a bunk like a snarl of rope. Jesse come down and grinned at me. I couldn't even get mad. "Tell mother I died thinking of her," was all I could say. Now that was noble of me. Many a man has cashed his checks not feeling half so bad; but if any poor soul ever regretted a good deed, I did that one. That last message to my mother seemed to remain in the memory of our ship's company, long after I was willing to forget it. For two solid days I didn't live inside of myself,—mind floated around in space. After that, I got up, ready for anything in the line of eating they had on board. Jesse brought me a smoked herring and a cup of coffee,—the first coffee I ever tasted, mother thinking it wasn't good for boys. Within ten minutes after my meal, William De La Tour Saunders belonged to himself once more. Never had a squirm of seasickness since. For the first week I wasn't quite up to the mark, but Jesse told me to take a cup of sea-water every morning before breakfast, which tuned me up in jig-time. I saw our lady passenger when she come up for air. A girl of about twenty, supple and balanced as a tight-rope walker; you thought she was slim when you first looked at her, yet when you looked the second time you couldn't prove it. What a beautiful thing is a set of muscles that know their business! Muscles that meet every roll of a boat, or whatever it is they should meet, without haste and without loss of time,—just there, when they should be there! Why, to see that girl walk twenty feet on the schooner's deck was a picture to remember for the rest of your days. Kid that I was, I noticed there wasn't a line in her makeup that said, "Look at me." Afterward I learned to shake my head at graceful ladies, but I feel kindly toward them still, out of memory of that first girl. My mother moved beautifully, likewise Mattie. They were quiet, though; restful women; this one was all spring and ginger,—for Heaven's sake, don't think I mean prancy! Nor that I haven't met a prancy girl or two who was all right, when I say that,—fat and jolly, yellow-haired girls, to go with good meals and a romp,—but this My Lady was made of the stuff Uncle Shakspere wrote. She was clean and sweet as pine-woods after rain, but full of fire, sense, and foolishness. I remember thinking, "When this girl turns round she ain't going to be handsome in the face. With that head of hair, that back, and that walk, Providence will feel square on the deal." And when she did turn round I simply spread my hands, mouth, and eyes, and looked at her. I forgot being aboard ship, I forgot where I was going and why, I forgot who I was and everything else; all I knew was that a kind of human I never believed lived was walking toward me. I caught one glance of her eyes; outside their beauty was fun, kindness, and a desire to be friends; from that minute one red-headed puppy-dog found something to live for. My devotion had nothing to do with the ordinary love-affair. As for marrying her, no such idea entered my loft. I had no jealousies. All I wanted was for her to be near me, to be a friend of mine, and that she might be on hand to approve if I did something surprising. I wanted the privilege of her hearing me talk about myself; and, for the rest of it, I could sit and look at her beauty, the same as you or me could sit and listen to the greatest music. It meant more than just good looks; I wouldn't go too far if I said it was a kind of religion. And the devil take my soul if I forget the horse-sense and kindness that girl used in teaching a foot-loose boy what a different place this world is, from what he'd been like to think it, without her. A young feller's first outpourings toward a woman has more effect on him than even his mother's years of care. He kind of takes mother for granted. The other woman represents his own endeavors. I played in luck. We were introduced, bang! When about ten feet away from me she took her hand from the rail to gather in one end of a shawl. At that minute the Matilda saw a whale, or something, and shied. We struck the mainmast together, me trying to hold her up. She said, "Why, how do you do?" I said I did very well, and was she hurt? She said, not in the least, thank you, except in her feelings, at being so clumsy. I said, if she was clumsy, why, then, why, then—Now I was a little bashful. Nobody could be a clodhopper who lived with my mother, and ordinarily I acted quite like a man when necessary, but this was a little sudden. I couldn't reach the word I looked for. With one hand braced against the mainmast, her hair standing in a black cloud about her head, the color whipped to her cheeks, she gave me a flash from the corner of her eye: "I'm afraid I lose my compliment," said she. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/></div> <h3>"The Matilda saw a whale, or something and shied"</h3> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> Afterward I learned she had liked me from the first, too, and was afraid I mightn't turn out well. Lucky for me I didn't try to show off! "I wouldn't think it a compliment to compare you to anything on earth!" says I, meaning every word of it. She laughed out, hearty as a boy. "Royal!" she said, and held out her hand. "And the hand is the hand of—?" she asked. "Bill Saunders," said I, thinking to take off my hat. "I sound almost as honest as you," said she. "I'm Mary Smith." It was almost a shock to think she was Mary Smith. Since then it would be a shock to think of her as Eulalie Rosalinde De Montmorency. She didn't need it. Plain Mary Smith told of what was beneath her loveliness,—and, I'm forced to admit, her side-stepping and buck-jumping, once in a while. Oh, she could cut loose for fair, if stirred, but you could always remember with perfect faith Mary Smith. It wasn't five minutes after we started talking that Arthur Saxton came along. The girl knew him, and said good morning in that civil, hold-off fashion a good woman uses to a man she thinks may come to liking her too well, or that she may come to like too well, when the facts are against any happy result. So there was three of us, that took our little share of what followed, gathered together early in the game. I liked Saxton from the jump. He had more faults than any other man I ever seen. He was the queerest, contrariest cuss, and yet such a gentleman; he had such a way, and such talents, that when you were mad enough to kill him, you couldn't help but feel glad you knew him to get mad at. Somehow, he steered clear of meanness. There was a sort of nobility in his capers, even when his best friends would have to admit they didn't seem to be of a size for a full-grown man. I don't know how to express myself. He often played a poor part; but darned if he didn't carry it off well, because it was him; I think that's the nearest I can come to it; good or bad, large or small, he was always Saxton, never attempting to put on anything different. And vain! Well, Heaven preserve us! And, on the other hand, not vain, neither. 'Twas like this. Among the things he did well enough to be high-class was playing the violin. He had a style and a go in it all his own, but he hadn't spent the time to learn some of the stunts that go with the trade. All the same, his natural gifts got him a job to play in concerts. The boss of the affair was a German, the kind of a man who had a soul to realize that Saxton made music, but had a head to go crazy over his slam-dashery. Now, Saxton grew excited whilst playing, and cut loose on his own hook, letting the poor perspiring Dutchman and the rest of the orchestra keep up to his trail the best they could. At these opportunities the Dutchman went home in a cab, frothing at the mouth. You see, he understood it was great stuff, as far as Saxton was concerned, so he cussed the cab-driver and the cab-horse, and the people on the street, being an honest sort of Dutchman, if limited; but, also, he had a pride in his gang, and he felt entitled to a show, here and there. At last there come a big occasion. Saxton was half sick and loaded up on champagne and coffee to pull through the evening. I have his own word for it, the mixture done wonders. Right in the middle of a piece by a gentleman whose name I don't recall, as it's spelt with all the tail-end of the alphabet, and sounds like rip-sawing a board, Saxton throws dull care away and wanders into regions of beautiful sounds hitherto unexplored. Now and then the tall and melancholy gent with the bull-fiddle would scratch out a note or two, and the drummer got in a lick here and there, while the flute man toodle-oodled around to head off Saxy; but, on the whole, that orchestra was worse lost than so many West Pointers trying to catch an Apache who ain't longing for home. They sat and let old Saxton ramp by himself, laying low to hit her up strong on the last note. And they did,—but they misguessed the note. Saxton ground his teeth yet, recalling the finish. "It was my best," said he. "I was inspired that night,—and then, for that assortment of garlic and sausage to smash me!" Well, he heaved his fiddle at the poor leader, and called him a barrel of sauerkraut afloat on a sea of beer, right before the whole audience. It is perhaps unnecessary to state that he and the orchestra parted company. Now he was off for Panama,—quit fiddling forever. Done with it. Going to take up a man's work, he said. He didn't mention the variety, but rolled out the statement as if it was a joy. In the meantime, he was painting pictures and writing a novel. The pictures never got finished, and the novel hasn't come out, but those things didn't make him any less entertaining; and, as usual, what did get done of them was almighty well done, and done in a way only Arthur Saxton could do. I never see such a man to stamp himself on anything he put his hand to. And when he was working, if you said the least thing against the job, he wanted trouble with you; but the next day he'd smoke his pipe and tear it apart worse than you possibly could. That was Saxy: first crack, spoiled kid; second thought, clear-headed man. The three of us, Mary and him and me, walked the deck day after day, talking of everything, from what fine weather it was to religion. Once Saxton called our attention to the wind in the rigging. Afterward I knew it sounded like Injun chants and coyotes howling, but Saxton asked if we didn't notice how much it was like the songs the children sing in play. He said those songs must have been handed down from far-off days—when we whites were savages, hopping around hollering hye-ee yah, hye-ee yah, and calling on the ladies, dressed in a streak of red paint. I don't know about that, though. No child in this world can be as mournful enjoying himself as a cow-puncher with all night before him and seven hundred verses to get through; there's puncher songs would make a strong man curl up and die. Now, says Saxton, what makes children and savages, who have a clear field to amuse themselves as they see fit, pick, with deliberate choice, such melancholy tunes? And he said it was because nature always hit on that; wind in rigging, wind in trees, waterfalls, the far-off hum of the city, all sad, sad. I asked him, if it was natural, where did we get the idea it was sad? It struck me that if a thing was natural, it was natural, not sad, nor nothin' else. He said, because nature was sad. Mary said, no such a thing; nature wasn't sad—there were the flowers and green fields, also natural, and pleasant and cheerful to the eye; there was more blue sky than gray, and as for the savage being sad, why, that might be, but it wasn't sad to think that men were working out of savagery into civilization. So then Saxton gave civilization one for its Ma, and talk brisked up. Civilization stood for Dutchmen that ran orchestras to Saxton, and he didn't spare her feelings none. I was glad Civvy, old girl, was no friend of mine. According to him, of all the mistakes so foolish that to think of bettering it was like building a hole with no rim around it, civilization stood first and foremost. Mary got red in the face and her eyes shone. They had it up one side and down the other, forgetting me entirely. Finally Saxton told her she wasn't talking honestly, that she hated civilization worse than he did, and it was plumb hypocrisy for her to set up in its defense; whereupon she replied that she hadn't wasted her time and talents, anyhow; that she wasn't throwing things up the first little obstacle that came in the way. Which didn't seem to be just the answer one might expect to the charge, but finished Saxton plenty. He drew himself up proud. "If every topic had to turn to personalities—" said he. "I didn't begin the personalities," said Mary. "You called me a fraud." "I never did!" cries Saxton. "I said you were defending a cause you didn't believe in!" "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. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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