Читать книгу Joan of Arc of the North Woods - Holman Day - Страница 5

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LATISAN had eaten his breakfast in the grill of a big hotel with a vague idea that such an environment would tune him up to meet the magnates of the Comas company.

In his present and humbler state of mind, hungry again, he went into a cafeteria.

Waiting at the counter for his meat stew and tea—familiar woods provender which appealed to his homesickness—he became aware of a young woman at his elbow; she was having difficulty in managing her tray and her belongings. There was an autumn drizzle outside and Ward had stalked along unprotected, with a woodman’s stoicism in regard to wetness. The young woman had her umbrella, a small bag, and a parcel, and she was clinging to all of them, impressed by the “Not Responsible” signs which sprinkled the walls of the place. When her tray tipped at an alarming slant, as she elbowed her way from the crowded counter, Ward caught at its edge and saved a spill.

The girl smiled gratefully.

“If you don’t mind,” he apologized; his own tray was ready. He took that in his free hand. He gently pulled her tray from her unsteady grasp. “I’ll carry it to a table.”

The table section was as crowded as the counter space. He did not offer to sit opposite her at the one vacant table he found; he lingered, however, casting about himself for another seat.

“May I not exchange my hospitality for your courtesy?” inquired the girl. She nodded toward the unoccupied chair and he sat down and thanked her.

She was an extremely self-possessed young woman, who surveyed him frankly with level gaze from her gray eyes.

“You performed very nicely, getting through that crush as you did without spilling anything,” she commended.

“I’ve had plenty of practice.”

She opened her eyes on him by way of a question. “Not as a waiter,” he proceeded. “But with those trays in my hand it was like being on the drive, ramming my way through the gang that was charging the cook tent.”

“The drive!” she repeated. He was surprised by the sudden interest he roused in her. “Are you from the north country?” Her color heightened with her interest. She leaned forward.

Latisan, in his infrequent experiences, had never been at ease in the presence of pretty girls, even when their notice of him was merely cursory. In the region where he had toiled there were few females, and those were spouses and helpers of woods cooks, mostly.

Here was a maid of the big city showing an interest disquietingly acute—her glowing eyes and parted lips revealed her emotions. At the moment he was not able to separate himself, as a personality, from the subject which he had brought up. Just what there was about him or the subject to arouse her so strangely he did not pause to inquire of himself, for his thoughts were not coherent just then; he, too, was stirred by her nearer propinquity as she leaned forward, questioning him eagerly.

He replied, telling what he was but not who he was; he felt a twinge of disappointment because she did not venture to probe into his identity. Her questions were concerned with the north country as a region. At first her quizzing was of a general nature. Then she narrowed the field of inquiry.

“You say the Tomah waters are parallel with the Noda basin! Do you know many folks over in the Noda region?”

“Very few. I have kept pretty closely on my own side of the watershed.”

“Isn’t there a village in the Noda called Adonia?”

“Oh yes! It’s the jumping-off place—the end of a narrow-gauge railroad.”

“You have been in Adonia?”

“A few times.”

“I had—there were friends of mine—they were friends of a man in Adonia. His name was—let’s see!” He wondered whether the faint wrinkle of a frown under the bronze-flecked hair on her forehead was as much the expression of puzzled memory as she was trying to make it seem; there did appear something not wholly ingenuous in her looks just then. “Oh, his name is Flagg.”

“Echford Flagg?”

“Yes, that’s it. My friends were very friendly with him, and I’d like to be able to tell them——” She hesitated.

“You have given me some news,” he declared, bluntly; in his mood of the day he was finding no good qualities in mankind. “I never heard of Eck Flagg having any friends. Well, I’ll take that back! I believe he’s ace high among the Tarratine Indians up our way; they have made him an honorary chief. But it’s no particular compliment to a white man’s disposition to be able to qualify as an Indian, as I look at it.”

This time he was not in doubt about the expression on her face; a sudden grimace like grief wreathed the red lips and there was more than a suspicion of tears in her eyes. He stared at her, frankly amazed.

“If I have stepped on toes I am sorry. I never did know how to talk to young ladies without making a mess sooner or later.”

She returned no reply, and he went on with his food to cover his embarrassment.

“Do you know Mr. Flagg?” she asked, after the silence had been prolonged.

“Not very well. But I know about him.”

“What especially?”

“That he’s a hard man. He never forgets or forgives an injury. Perhaps that’s why he qualified so well as an Indian.”

She straightened in her chair and narrowed those gray eyes. “Couldn’t there have been another reason why he was chosen for such an honor?”

“I beg your pardon for passing along to you the slurs of the north country, miss——” he paused but she did not help him with her name. “It’s mostly slurs up there,” he went on, with bitterness, “and I get into the habit, myself. The Indians did have a good reason for giving Flagg that honor. He is the only one in the north who has respected the Indians’ riparian rights, given by treaty and then stolen back. He pays them for hold-boom privileges when his logs are on their shores. They are free to come and go on his lands for birch bark and basket stuff—he’s the only one who respects the old treaties. That’s well known about Flagg in the north country. It’s a good streak in any man, no matter what folks say about his general disposition.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that much!”

She pushed back her chair slightly and began to take stock of her possessions. A sort of a panic came upon him. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, and he could not seem to lay a tongue to one of them. He stammered something about the wet day and wondered whether it would be considered impudence if he offered to escort her, holding over her the umbrella or carrying her parcel. He had crude ideas about the matter of squiring dames. He wanted to ask her not to hurry away. “Do you live here in New York—handy by?”

The cafeteria was just off lower Broadway, and she smiled. He realized the idiocy of the question.

“I work near here! You are going home to the north soon?” The polite query was in a tone which checked all his new impulses in regard to her.

“I’m headed north right now. If there’s any information I can send you——”

She shook her head slowly, but even the negative was marked by an indecisive quality, as if she were repressing some importunate desire.

“I wish you a pleasant journey, sir.” All her belongings were in her hands.

“It’s queer—it’s almost more than queer how we happened to meet—both interested in the north country,” he stuttered, wanting to detain her.

He was hoping she would make something of the matter.

But she merely acknowledged the truth of his statement, adding, “There would be more such coincidences in life if folks took the trouble to interest themselves a bit in one another and compare notes.”

She started to walk away; then she whirled and came back to the table and leaned over it. Her soul of longing was in her eyes—they were filled with tears. “You’re going back there,” she whispered. “God bless the north country! Give a friendly pat to one of the big trees for me and say you found a girl in New York who is homesick.”

She turned from him before he could summon words.

He wanted to call after her—to find out more about her. He saw her gathering up her change at the cashier’s wicket. The spectacle reminded him of his own check. Even love at first sight, if such could be the strange new emotion struggling within him, could not enable him to leap the barrier of the cashier’s cold stare and rush away without paying scot. He hunted for his punched check. He pawed all over the marble top of the table, rattling the dishes.

A check—it was surely all of that!

The search for it checked him till the girl was gone, mingled with the street crowds. He found the little devil of a delayer in the paper napkin which he had nervously wadded and dropped on the floor. He shoved money to the cashier and did not wait for his change. He rushed out on the street and stretched up his six stalwart feet and craned his neck and hunted for the little green toque with the white quill.

It was a vain quest.

He did not know just what the matter was with him all of a sudden. He had never had any personal experience with that which he had vaguely understood was love; he had merely viewed it from a standpoint of a disinterested observer, in the case of other men. He hated to admit, as he stood there in the drizzle, his defeat by a cafeteria check.

He remained in New York for another night, his emotions aggravatingly complex. He tried to convince his soul that he had a business reason for staying. He lied to himself and said he would make another desperate sortie on the castle of the Comas company. But he did not go there the next day. Near noon he set himself to watch the entrance of the cafeteria. When he saw a table vacant near the door he went in, secured food, and posted himself where he could view all comers.

The girl did not come.

At two o’clock, after eating three meals, he did not dare to brave the evident suspicions of that baleful cashier any longer. Undoubtedly the girl had been a casual customer like himself. He gave it up and started for the north.