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Plain Mary Smith: A Romance of Red Saunders

<h2>XIII</h2> <h3>RED MAKES A FEW REMARKS</h3> It seemed to me it was only friendly for me to get some sympathy for Saxton, as he wouldn't try for himself. Yet this looked a delicate proposition. I can't give you the proper idea of how quick-witted Mary was, how easy she saw the behind-meaning of your words, or even saw things you didn't know yourself. It's a good trait to its possessor, but, like everything else in this world, there's a price to pay for it. She sometimes saw things that weren't there. A man with extra good sight is more fooled by mirage than a man who doesn't trust his eyes so much. And it had fallen down on her, on the most important dealing of her life. She saw Saxton wrong, and couldn't see him right, for that trust in her own judgment. She had to root up the very foundation of her belief in everything to upset her wrong judgment of him. She felt the drawing toward him was something to be fought hard, the same as a man would fight a growing inclination to drink. And like a great many people (although it's a thing I can't understand myself), she swung to what was solemn, uninteresting, and hard, for safety. And changed! Well, that morning, when I slid around to the house of the fountain, I scarcely knew her. It was Saturday, and no school. About a dozen or twenty young Panamans walked or sat about the yard. The Reconstructed looked stiff and unhappy in the boiled white shirt of progress, but out of native good nature tried to appear pleasant. Lots of the Great Works, that spread misery over whole communities, wouldn't come off, if a sense of a joke was left in the conspirators. Mary was keen for a laugh, and saw the funny side of things as quick as any man, yet those poor little devils all out of place and condition didn't raise a smile on her face. It did on mine, though. I thought of 'em, happy in their fleas, sun, and dirt, and then looked at the early-Christian-martyr expression on their faces and choked, but that laugh rode on sorrow and anger at that. It was a downright wickedness to the children. I looked at Mary, knowing her for a kind woman—one who loved all innocent play. I hit myself on the head at the dumb-foolishness of it. How in the devil's name could she bring herself to approve of this? Why is it we lay a course for somebody else we'd never think of following ourselves? Well, I sat there and echo continued to answer "Why?" as usual, till the silence thickened. She broke it with a lucky proposition. "You seem very serious this morning, Will," she said. I told her that was so; looking at the poor little revolutionists in their white shirts of suffering, I made up my mind to let her have it. "I wonder," I said, "if it's asking too much of you to listen to me for awhile. I had a miserable time of it, as a boy, and now and then it sits on me so hard I like to speak to a friend for comfort." It was the surest way to claim her time. She caught my hand. "Certainly," she said. "If you only knew, Will, how anxious I am to be of some real service in this world, instead of being told that I'm—" "Let it go!" I put in. "That you're good to look at, and so forth?" She nodded. "I don't mean that I'm so lofty-minded that I don't like it sometimes, yet I mustn't grow to like it and—" "For my part I'm glad there's some beauty in this little old world," said I. "I love to trig myself out as you see—give the folks a treat. Honest, I can't see the harm in brightening up the landscape all you're able. But, though I ain't much of a professional beauty, I can understand that too much sugar leads to seasickness." "You're as handsome a young man as a young man should be!" says Mary, indignant. "Don't attempt a foolish modesty. I wish I were strong, and six-foot-three, and a man!" "Throw in the red hair?" "You have beautiful hair! I believe you know it, you vain boy, and let it grow purposely. And now you're just leading me to sound your praises!" I laughed. "I'd stick at nothing, for that," I answered. "Oh, why ain't I ten years older! I'd have you out of here in a minute!" "I believe you would," she said; "I don't believe you'd care for my protests nor prayers nor tears. You'd just selfishly pick me right up and walk away with me and bully me for the rest of my days!" "Just that—Heavens! But I'd make it awful for you! Captain Jesse would be a lambkin beside me!" We both laughed, thinking of Jesse the Terrible. "The dear old Matilda!" she said,—almost whispered,—and her eyes grew softer. "Happy times, weren't they? And coming after what I'd left—" I shook my head. "Tell me, Will." "I've wondered how much was my not understanding," I went on, "and how much I had to kick about. I suppose if I was older, I'd be like Sax—keep my troubles to myself—but I haven't learned how, yet. Still, I don't want to spoil your morning." She frowned a little at Saxton's name, not an ill-tempered, but a thoughtful frown, as a new idea struck her. She put it away from her, and turned. "That you should come to me, Will, is a high compliment. I know you're not the kind to give your woes to the world. If—" she smiled at me, "if you won't think it heartless of me, I'll say I'll enjoy hearing 'em." "I understand," I answered; "just as, in a way, I'll enjoy telling them. Well, here we go." So I put the facts to her as fair and calm as I could, patterning after Saxton's method. I hadn't his nerve; gradually heat swept into my discourse. I forgot where I was and who I was talking to, as the old wrongs boiled up. When I finished I remembered, and sat back. Mary was also still. I rolled a cigarette and played for airiness. "Of course," I said, "it's all in a lifetime." She put her hand on mine. "Don't," she said, "don't." I shut up. The minutes slid by heavy-footed. At last she spoke. "For sheer inhumanity," she said, "I think that is without an equal." "Oh, no!" I said. "I reckon the story's common enough wherever people let an idea ride 'em bareback. Father was a good man, with bad notions, that's all." I purposely let my eye fall on the little revolutionists, standing in a melancholy line—nothing to do, nothing to think, all balloon-juice to them. As I hoped, her eyes followed mine. She straightened, seeing the point. Color came into her face. "Children!" she called sharply in Spanish, "why do you not run and play?" The line fell into embarrassment. They hooked the dirt with their feet and looked at each other. "Alfonso!" said Mary, "start some game!" The biggest boy took off his hat and smiled his grave, polite smile. "Si, Señorita!" he replied; "but what is 'game'?" "I've been so busy with—more important things that I haven't thought of amusements," Mary explained to me, aside. There was apology in the explanation; I heard with glad ears. "Is it possible they know no games?" "Why, I suppose they do, of a kind," I answered; "but it seems to me the chief lack of these kids is real play; they're all little old men and women; the kid spring is knocked out of 'em; they've lived in war and slaughter so much they don't believe in anything else." "Well," said she promptly, "that's a poor state of affairs." "The worst," said I. "What kind of nation can you grow out of children who have no fun? Their God will look like a first cousin of our devil. I did manage to rake some sport out of my time, or else I'd gone to the bad entirely, I reckon." The color deepened in her face. She didn't have to be hit with a club. "We wanted to furnish them a moral backbone, first," she apologized again. "It seemed necessary to give them some standards of conduct." "I'd give 'em a good time, first—they're a hint young for standards." "Just see them stand there! Why, they seem without an idea—what shall I do with them?" She was all at a loss. "It isn't right, poor children!" She suddenly turned to me, with eagerness in her face. "Couldn't you stir them up, Will?" "Sure!" says I, throwing away the cigarette. "Come along! Tag, you're it!" and I lit out at a gallop, Mary after me, and the revolutionists watching, altogether too polite to appear astonished. My! but that girl could run! Jump, too; I cleared the fountain, thinking she'd have to go 'round, but she gathered her skirts in her hand and was over it in a flash of black and white, clean-motioned as a greyhound. "Qui dado, compadres!" I yelled. "Here comes the government army!" Instantly they understood and scattered. By hollering at them, they finally got the idea. Tag wouldn't have interested them—revolution did. We divided into sides. As soon as they got going good, Mary and I dropped out of it. "There," said I, watching 'em running and hollering and giggling, "I like that better." "It is better," agreed Mary, "and my thanks to you for the change. I'm afraid one forgets the little needs in thinking of the great ones." "Mary," I said, "it may sound strange coming from me; I hope you won't take it wrong; but do you know that in reading the New Testament plumb through, I can't remember coming on a place where it says anything about big needs? Please don't think I'm talking too careless for decency; Christ always acted like a kind friend, as I see it. I can't believe it would hurt His feelings a particle to hear me talk this way. He was above worrying about lots of things that bother the churches. He stopped to take a glass of wine and have a talk with a saloon-keeper. Now, if He was God, was that a little thing? Does God do little useless things? Remember, I thought these things over when I was getting it hard—stop me, if I seem disrespectful." "No," she said, "it sounds queerly to me, but I know you are not disrespectful, Will. I wouldn't accuse you of being the kind of fool who'd play smart at the expense of the Almighty." "All right—glad you understand me. Now, listen! Is it great to pull a long face? Is it right to get melancholy about religion, when the head of it always preached happiness? Is it sensible to try and make every one do your way, when you're told the nearer like little children we are, the better we are off? Don't you think you're acting as if you knew better than Christ Himself? You don't imagine that those kids, as they were ten minutes ago, was what He meant when He said, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me'? Seems to me you've altered the text to read: 'Suffer, little children, to come unto Me.' They sure were suffering in them starched white shirts, but I'm betting the words weren't meant to read like that." "Will," she said earnestly, "I think I've made the common mistake of supposing that I alone cared. Even now, while I feel you have more the real spirit than I, your way of speaking jars on me." She sat down as if she had suddenly grown weak. "I have simply worshiped a certain way of doing things and forgotten the results and the reason for doing anything. Your straight way of putting it makes my life seem ridiculous." She stopped with a miserable face. I hadn't, in the least, thought to convince her. Most people will hang on to a mistake of that kind harder than they will to a life-preserver. It was like turning a Republican into a Democrat by simply showing him he was wrong—who'd go into politics with that idea? I stared at her, not believing. "Why, Mary," I said, hedging, as a person will in such circumstances, "it ain't a cinch that I'm right. I'm only a boy, and of course things appear to me boy fashion." She cut me short. "To be honest, doubts have troubled me before this. Your history proves what can be done by extreme—" Up to this she had spoken quite quietly. Now she put her head in her hands and burst out crying; fortunately we were in a little summer-house where no one could see us. "Oh, Will!" she sobbed out, "the struggle for nothing at all! All fight, fight, and no peace! I want to be a good woman, I do; but what is there for me?" "Listen to me again," says I, so sorry that I had another attack of reason. "There's this for you—to be a man's wife, and make him twice a man because you are his wife; to raise boys and girls that prove what's right—there's a job for you." She dried her tears and smiled at me, ashamed of showing so much feeling. "Is this an offer?" she said. I had to laugh. "You don't squirm out that way, young lady—you were in earnest and you know it. I'll take you, if necessary—by the Prophet Moses, I will, if some other feller doesn't show up soon—but I want to speak of a more suitable man." She looked at me. It was a try at being stern, but, as a result, it was a good deal more scared. "You can do a great deal with me, Will," she said, "but I'll not hear a word of Arthur Saxton." "Then," says I, stern in dead earnest, "you are a foolish and an unfair woman. You've believed what was told you; now you shall hear a friend." "I will not," she cried, rising. I caught her arms and forced her back into the seat. "You will," I answered. "Very well," she said with quivering lips. "If you wish to take advantage of the friendship I have shown you, and, because you are strong, make me hear what I have forbidden you to say, I'm helpless." "All the mean things you say sha'n't stop me. Now, as long as you must listen, won't you pay attention?" I asked this in my most wheedling tone. I knew I'd fetch her. She stayed stiff for about ten seconds. Then the dimples came. "It makes me so angry to think I can't get angry with you, I don't know what to do," she snapped at me. "You have no business to talk to me this way. I shouldn't stand it for a minute. You're nothing but a great bully, bullying a poor little woman, you nice boy! Who ever heard of such an argument? Because you make me listen, I must pay attention! Well, to show you what a friend I am, I will." "Thank you, Mary," I said, holding out my hand. "Thank you, dear. You'll not be the worse for hearing the truth. It isn't like you to condemn a man unheard." "I heard him." "You heard a lunatic—he told me; why will you call up the worst of him and believe only in that?" She sprang up, outraged. "I do not call up the worst of him! That is a cowardly excuse—he should be man enough to—" "Wait: I never meant you did it intentionally. Can't you see how anxious he might be to please you? Can't you believe that if he did something he thought would please you greatly, and you called him a rascal for it, that the worst of him would likely come on top?" "Yes," she answered slowly; "I can see that—I should, I know." "Of course you would. Now listen. I have a story for you, that your love of kindness and nobility will find pleasure in." Again I tried Saxton's method—there isn't a better one, if it's real stuff you have to tell. Very quietly I put it to her as he had to me. She had less color when I finished. "If that is the truth, it was noble," she said, when I finished. The breath fluttered in her throat. "It is the truth. Arthur isn't too good to lie, by any means, but he has too much pride and courage to lie about a thing like that." She nodded her head in assent. I got excited, seeing victory in sight, but had sense enough to keep cool. I knew, even at that early age, there's snags sometimes underneath the smoothest water. She sighed as if the life of her went out. "Impulse," she said, "a noble impulse—and then? an ignoble one, followed with the same determination." That had too much truth in it. I didn't approve of his drinking himself to death, because he couldn't have what he wanted. "Yes," I answered smoothly, "and what he needs is a strong excuse to make them all good—he has the strength to do it, you don't deny that?" "He has strength to do anything—there is the pity of it. There never lived a man who so had his life in his own hand as Arthur Saxton. Would you have me marry him to reform him? Have I no right to feel proud, on my side?" "No, to the first," says I, "and yes, to the second. He has waked up at last, I feel sure—if only you could believe in him a little more." "Oh, Will!" she said, "that is what I fear the most. I don't care if he demands much, for so do I, but to be dependent that way—I cannot trust him, till he trusts himself." "Yes, Mary," I agreed; "but at the same time, he's lots more of a man than the average, handicap him with all his faults!" She answered me with a curious smile. "Mine is an unhappy nature in one way," she said; "half a loaf is worse than no bread to me. I'd rather never know of Paradise than see and lose it." She threw her hands out suddenly, in a gesture that was little short of agony. "Oh, I wish sometimes I had no moral sense at all—that I could just live and be happy—and I can't be very good if I wish that—that's a comfort." She turned to me. "Now, Will, I have opened my heart to you as I could not have done to my own mother; will you believe me if I say I cannot talk about this any more?" "Sure, sweetheart," I said, and kissed her. She let her head stay on my shoulder. "You are a great comfort, brother Will," she said. The tone made something sting in my eyes. Poor little woman, fighting it out all alone, so unhappy under the smiles, so born to be happy! I couldn't speak to save me. She looked up at my face. "You are a brave and noble gentleman, brother mine," she said. I think that would have finished me up—I am such a darned woman at times, but she changed quick as lightning. "Let's play with the children," she said. "We've had enough of this." I was glad to scamper around. One thing was certain. I'd hurt Sax none, and proved the value of my plan. Another thing I wanted to know I learned on leaving. "Mary," I said, as if it was an understood thing between us, "why did Mr. Belknap speak against Saxton?" She fell into the trap, unthinking. "Because he wished to warn me, of course. And in spite of all you say, Will—forgive me—he is a man of such insight, I cannot believe him altogether wrong." "It would be bad if Belknap didn't turn out the man you think him, wouldn't it?" I asked, innocently. "It would," she said. And with that I came away. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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