Читать книгу It, and Other Stories - Gouverneur Morris - Страница 4

Table of Contents

They engaged themselves to be married when they were so young they couldn't tell anybody about it for fear of being laughed at; and if I mentioned their years to you, you would laugh at me. They thought they were full-grown, but they weren't even that. When they were finally married they couldn't either of them have worn the clothes they got engaged in. The day they got engaged they wore suits made of white woollen blankets, white knitted toques, and white knitted sashes. It was because they were dressed exactly alike that they first got excited about each other. And Cynthia said: "You look just like a snowman." And G. G.—which was his strange name—said: "You look just like a snowbird."

G. G. was in Saranac for his health. Cynthia had come up for the holidays to skate and to skee and to coast, and to get herself engaged before she was full-grown to a boy who was so delicate that climate was more important for him than education. They met first at the rink. And it developed that if you crossed hands with G. G. and skated with him you skated almost as well as he did. He could teach a girl to waltz in five minutes; and he had a radiant laugh that almost moved you to tears when you went to bed at night and got thinking about it. Cynthia had never seen a boy with such a beautiful round head and such beautiful white teeth and such bright red cheeks. She always said that she loved him long before he loved her. As a matter of fact, it happened to them both right away. As one baby, unabashed and determined, embraces a strange baby—and is embraced—so, from their first meeting in the great cold stillness of the North Woods, their young hearts snuggled together.

G. G. was different from other boys. To begin with, he had been born at sea. Then he had lived abroad and learned the greatest quantity of foreign languages and songs. Then he had tried a New England boarding-school and had been hurt playing games he was too frail to play. And doctors had stethoscoped him and shaken their heads over him. And after that there was much naming of names which, instead of frightening him, were magic to his ear—Arizona, California, Saranac—but, because G. G.'s father was a professional man and perfectly square and honest, there wasn't enough money to send G. G. far from New York and keep him there and visit him every now and then. So Saranac was the place chosen for him to get well in; and it seemed a little hard, because there was almost as much love of sunshine and warmth and flowers and music in G. G. as there was patience and courage.

The day they went skeeing together—which was the day after they had skated together—he told Cynthia all about himself, very simply and naturally, as a gentleman farmer should say: "This is the dairy; this is the blacksmith shop; this is the chicken run." And the next day, very early, when they stood knee-deep in snow, armed with shot-guns and waiting for some dogs that thought they were hounds to drive rabbits for them to shoot at, he told her that nothing mattered so long as you were happy and knew that you were happy, because when these two stars came into conjunction you were bound to get well.

A rabbit passed. And G. G. laid his mitten upon his lips and shook his head; and he whispered:

"I wouldn't shoot one for anything in the world."

And she said: "Neither would I."

Then she said: "If you don't shoot why did you come?"

"Oh, Miss Snowbird," he said, "don't I look why I came? Do I have to say it?"

He looked and she looked. And their feet were getting colder every moment and their hearts warmer. Then G. G. laughed aloud—bright, sudden music in the forest. Snow, balanced to the fineness of a hair, fell from the bowed limbs of trees. Then there was such stillness as may be in Paradise when souls go up to the throne to be forgiven. Then, far off, one dog that thought he was a hound began to yap and thought he was belling; but still G. G. looked into the snowbird's eyes and she into his, deeper and deeper, until neither had any secret of soul from the other. So, upon an altar cloth, two wax candles burn side by side, with clear, pure light.

Cynthia had been well brought up, but she came of rich, impatient stock, and never until the present moment had she thought very seriously about God. Now, however, when she saw the tenderness there was in G. G.'s eyes and the smile of serene joyousness that was upon his lips, she remembered the saying that God has made man—and boys—in His image—and understood what it meant.

She said: "I know why you think you've come."

"Think?" he said. "Think!"

And then the middle ends of his eyebrows rose—all tender and quizzical; and with one mitten he clutched at his breast—just over his heart. And he said:

"If only I could get it out I would give it to you!"

Cynthia, too, began to look melting tender and wondrous quizzical; and she bent her right arm forward and plucked at its sleeve as if she were looking for something. Then, in a voice of dismay:

"Only three days ago it was still there," she said; "and now it's gone—I've lost it."

"Oh!" said G. G. "You don't suspect me of having purloined—" His voice broke.

"We're only kids," said Cynthia.

"Yes," said he; "but you're the dearest kid!"

"Since you've taken my heart," said she, "you'll not want to give it back, will you? I think that would break it."

"I oughtn't to have taken it!" said G. G.

And then on his face she saw the first shadow that ever he had let her see of doubt and of misgiving.

"Listen!" he said. "My darling! I think that I shall get well. … I think that, once I am well, I shall be able to work very hard. I have nothing. I love you so that I think even angels don't want to do right more than I do. Is that anything to offer? Not very much."

"Nobody in all the world," said she, "will ever have the chance to offer me anything else—just because I'm a kid doesn't mean that I don't know the look of forever when I see it."

"Is it really forever?" he said. "For you too?"

"For me—surely!"

"Ah," said he, "what shall I think of to promise you?"

His face was a flash of ecstasy.

"You don't even have to promise that you will get well," she said. "I know you will try your hardest. No matter what happens—we're final—and I shall stick to you always, and nothing shall take you from me, and nobody. … When I am of age I shall tell my papa about us and then we shall be married to each other! And meanwhile you shall write to me every day and I shall write to you three times every day!" Her breath came like white smoke between her parted lips and she stood valiant and sturdy in the snow—a strong, resolute girl, built like a boy—clean-cut, crystal-pure, and steel-true. A shot sounded and there came to them presently the pungent, acid smell of burnt powder.

"And we shall never hurt things or kill them," said G. G. "And every day when I've been good I shall kiss your feet and your hands."

"And when I've been good," she said, "you'll smile at me the way you're smiling now—and it won't be necessary to die and go to Heaven to see what the gentlemen angels look like."

"But," cried G. G., "whoever heard of going to Heaven? It comes to people. It's here."

"And for us," she said, "it's come to stay."

All the young people came to the station to see Cynthia off and G. G. had to content himself with looking things at her. And then he went back to his room and undressed and went to bed. Because for a week he had done all sorts of things that he shouldn't have done, just to be with Cynthia—all the last day he had had fever and it had been very hard for him to look like a joyous boy angel—he knew by experience that he was in for a "time." It is better that we leave him behind closed doors with his doctors and his temperature. We may knock every morning and ask how he is, and we shall be told that he is no better. He was even delirious at times. And it is only worth while going into this setback of G. G's because there are miracles connected with it—his daily letter to Cynthia.

Each day she had his letter—joyous, loving, clearly writ, and full of flights into silver-lined clouds and the plannings of Spanish castles. Each day G. G. wrote his letter and each day he descended a little farther into the Valley of the Shadow, until at last he came to Death Gate—and then rested, a voyager undecided whether to go on or to go back. Who may know what it cost him to write his letter, sitting there at the roadside!

His mother was with him. It was she who took the letter from his hands when he sank back into his pillows; and they thought for a little that he had gone from that place—for good and all. It was she who put it into the envelope and who carried it with her own hands to the post-office. Because G. G. had said: "To get there, it must go by the night's mail, Mumsey."

G. G.'s mother didn't read the letter; but you may be sure she noted down the name and address in her heart of hearts, and that for the girl who seemed to mean so much to G. G. she developed upon the spot a heavenly tenderness, mixed with a heavenly jealousy.