Читать книгу The Girl of O. K. Valley - Robert Watson - Страница 9

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Saturday afternoon was the afternoon of the week for shopping, visitation and bargaining among the ranchers of the Valley.

On this particular day, in the dining room, Colin Jackson was deep in a heated contest for the extension of time and the reduction of another five dollars in the price per head of some cows which he contemplated purchasing from the genial old cattle-breeder, Muir of Saughs Ranch; while, in the sitting room, the only and spoiled son of the worthy visitor was bathing in adolescent admiration of Lizbeth's lusty charms and languishing personality.

Kathie, as usual on such occasions, had betaken herself to the out-houses. She was seated in the shade and cool of the dairy porch, cleaning and brightening up the utensils which she had recently been using at her work, and she was vaguely wondering how much longer she was going to be held in her self-imposed banishment, when the tattered but interesting figure of the old, country wanderer, Rube Stahl, hobbled across the yard.

Rube was a character—a strange being who seemed to have been uprooted too late in life to change either his manner or his calling, who seemed to have been transplanted, with his peculiarities and disabilities, in a country he did not understand and one that did not understand him.

As was his habit, he was muttering to himself, with his head bent, as he came along.

Kathie listened and caught the drift of his soliloquy.

"Beezness is punk—beezness is punk—ain't no damn good. Half a dollar for a golt brooch mit diamonts—ach!"

He kept on repeating his sing-song monotony.

Kathie eyed him curiously and a little sympathetically, for, although his face showed hardness and dissipation, even cruelty, yet his clothes were in rags, his hair was unkempt and he was very old; besides betraying a growing frailness brought on with the buffetings of time and circumstances.

Immediately he caught sight of Kathie in the shadows, his movement quickened. With a grunt, he deposited a heavy sack on the ground, for the purpose of giving his hands free play. Without the aid of his hands, Rube was unable to talk convincingly.

"Ah,—gol-darn!" he exclaimed, with a deferential bow, "it is zee pretty kid mit zee night in her hair and zee morning in her eyes. You bet!—I haf sometings ver' ver' beautiful to show zee dame. Pretty leetle golt brooches mit pearls, golt bangles dat vould make von prinzess gasp; combs for zee hair;—ya! and somethings vot will catch a fine hantzome sveetheart everytimes."

The Jew swung a box in front of him, and his boney fingers threw up the lid.

"Now!—you close that box," commanded Kathie, with a smile. "I don't wish brooches, or bangles, or combs. I have no sweetheart and I have no immediate desire to be after getting one."

"Vot!" exclaimed Rube in feigned astonishment. "No sveetheart, and you mit hair and eyes like dat and dese? Ah—gol-darn! dat is chust your leetle joke and I von't belief a vord of it; no, I von't belief it. Ah, ya!" he went on. "I savvey. You haf a leetle quarrel mit him. Dat is vot is wrong. But dis leetle ting in dis bottle I haf got vill fix it all up and you vill kiss and be friends again, vonce more, all over, instantly. Ya, you bet!" he croaked. "You vill kiss and be friends—and all for—-" (He threw out his hands) "half-a-dollar.

"Ah, zee pretty hair!" he continued with a sigh. "Zee pretty, long, black, glossy hair! Tree feet long if it's an inch."

His fingers almost touched it, ere Kathie shrank away in disgust. "Never mind my hair, Rube, if you please. Keep your distance. I have told you already you are simply wasting your time trying to sell anything to me."

"Ah, forgeeve me!" fawned the Jew. "But it vas so long, and thick, and so black. Ya!—it vas so black. Zee very devil could not vant blacker hair dan dat."

Kathie laughed, and the Jew continued to display his wares: yellow bracelets, blazing rings, paste beads and ribbons galore, all made to charm an Indian maid on a reservation.

"Now! there isn't a thing in your whole stock that I need," she reiterated, "and, even if there were, I haven't a cent with which to buy—not a single cent."

Rube looked disappointed.

"Nein, nein!—don't say dat, missy. You haf moneys, plenty moneys;—pretty girls alvays haf. I von't belief dat. No, gol-darn! I vill not belief."

"Well,—it is true anyway," replied Kathie.

The Jew closed up his box almost in despair, but his nature and upbringing would not allow him to go away empty-handed. Perceiving an empty bottle lying a few feet away, he went over and picked it up, opened a corner of his sack and deposited it inside.

Kathie watched in amusement.

"Why, Rube!—what is that you have in the black box?" she asked, rising and peering into the sack curiously.

"Oh,—notings for a girl," he remarked off-handedly, "it's chust a coffin; chust a leetle coffin for a leetle kid."

Kathie stepped back with an exclamation of horror. Her inquisitiveness was more than assuaged.

Rube gave vent to a crackling laugh.

"Ach!—I vas chust funning," he said. "It is only chust an old feedle in a case. I bought him dis morning for—ach! never mind vot I paid for him. But I vill sell him for more anyvays. Ya, you bet! I vill sell him for more or I am no son of Abraham."

Kathie's eyes glowed with freshly awakened interest.

"Oh, won't you please let me look at it?" she pleaded, drawing closer, "just for a little, teeny moment."

"Certainly, mein tear," replied the affable Rube, "and you may look at him for-efer and for-efer if you give me two dollars,—zee bow and zee nice black case into zee bargain. And he is dirt cheap too.

"But, ah! you are so pretty, an old man can't keep from giving you a bargain."

Kathie opened the case and took out the violin. She tightened up the pegs and plucked at the strings lovingly. Then she sighed and handed it back.

"Put it away," she said sadly. "You might as well ask me for two million dollars as for two dollars. I have no money."

"Vell, vell!—dat's mighty hard luck," said Rube, scratching his head. "I thought I vas going to make a sale.

"Say! I maybe could loan you dat two dollars and you could pay von extra next month,—eh!"

"No, certainly not!" exclaimed Kathie in annoyance.

"All right, all right!" droned the Jew, packing up again.

With drooping spirits Kathie watched the return of the black case to the dirty sack.

"Wouldn't you take something in exchange for it?" she asked. "I could give you this brooch. See—it is gold and it is worth far more than two dollars. You haven't one in your box nearly so good!"

Rube scrutinised the proffered article of jewellery, shook his matted grey locks and handed the brooch back.

"Nein, nein! I could not do it. It vould chust be giving dat fine feedle avay: it vould inteed." He looked at Kathie again with his crafty eyes, and sidled alongside.

"Mein Gott! vot nice long hair," he crooned. "Black and thick! I know a lady in Vernock—a fine, fancy lady, too—who haf zee same kint on her eyebrows, but none on her head. Ha-ha! Dat is a joke. Now,—if you don't haf no sveethearts, vell den, vhy not let me cut off your hair,—snip!—and zee feedle is yours for keeps—yours to play on, for-efer and for-efer and for-efer, see!"

He produced a pair of scissors from his pocket.

"Chust von leetle snip, and it is off, up close! It von't hurt a bit. And the feedle is yours, mit zee fine music. Everything is yours—all but zee hair. Ha-ha! anoder joke for Rube. But, ach! you can grow more again—plenty more. Grow chust like corn!"

Kathie drew away from him. Her blood chilled at his suggestion. What devil was he with his sneaking temptations! Exchange her hair—which she had cared for so long; which her mother used to stroke and tend so carefully, the pretty rope which people sometimes talked about—she would never do that! No, no!—it was too horrible.

She shrank farther away.

But in a few moments came the reaction. Her great, swelling love for the violin filled her bosom. The music for which she had hungered so long was now within her reach. The charmer which would dispel all her gloom and all her troubles! And she could have it in exchange—for what? A plait of hair—merely an adornment, and to Kathie, useless! Something which only attracted attention, and generally attention of an undesirable and questionable nature! Besides, she was merely a drudge on a ranch, without friends. She had no one to feel proud of her appearance. What need she care how she looked! Why should she not trade her hair for a pleasure worth while, now that the chance presented itself and she felt so inclined? Then, as old Rube had said,—her hair would grow again, and all that time she would have the violin, the music,—the old ballads and minuets. Yes, yes, yes! It was worth the sacrifice, if, after all, it could really be called a sacrifice.

Her bosom rose and fell rapidly.

"Here, Rube!" she panted, as the old man was leaving her, "cut it off and give me the violin. But,—be quick,—do it quick."

The Jew turned and ambled back, showing his yellow, broken teeth in a miserly grin.

"Ha-ha!" he exclaimed, "dat's a goot girl. Gol-darn!—I knew you vould. I knew you vould. Ya! he-he,—and it is such a fine feedle, too."

Kathie shut her eyes. Rube's dirty hands reached up and his clammy fingers closed on her hair. She could hear the scissors click ominously.

Rube was, first of all and before everything else, a Jew. He was not quite satisfied with his original position. His fingers were not close enough to the scalp. There was an extra inch in length that he almost missed. He moved the scissors further up.

A few long hairs were already severed by the sharp blades, when the touch of the cold steel on Katie's skin seemed to awaken her as from a trance. She dashed the Jew's sacrilegious hands away and pushed him roughly from her with a strength and frenzy greater by far than she thought she was capable of.

The old man tottered and fell in a heap on top of his sack, with a cry of bewilderment. Kathie looked at his hands in horror, then she put her own up to her head in terrible fear. She fancied her precious hair was severed, but, oh, joy! it was still intact. She tugged it to make sure, then she laughed tearfully. She kissed it and kissed it, again and again, burying her face in its silky softness.

"Ach, mein Gott!—vhy are you so rough, mein tear? It isn't goot manners mit an olt man. Vhy are you so rough? I didn't hurt," he remonstrated.

"Oh,—go away,—go away, you reptile!" cried Kathie. "I hate the very sight of you."

"All right,—all right!" he muttered in renewed disappointment, gathering his belongings and making a fresh start.

"Beezness is punk;—beezness is damn punk,—damn rotten. Half-a-dollar for a golt brooch mit a diamont,—ach!" he chanted again as he pulled his battered hat tightly over his head and crossed the yard.

Suddenly he turned and came shuffling back.

"Give me zee brooch, missy, and you can haf zee feedle. It is robbery—damn robbery," he grumbled, "but, ach! you are so pretty, I chust can't keep from giving you a bargain."

In unbecoming haste, lest the Jew might be tempted to change his vacillating mind again, Kathie made the exchange. Then, with a cry of joy, she darted off, hugging the violin-case to her bosom.

Across the orchard she skipped, up the grassy knoll and over to the other side, away from sight of the house and near the rough log fence which fringed the wood of firs; out in the sunshine among the singing birds and the bobbing inquisitive gophers which scampered about in the fearless confidence of a proven friendship. Breathlessly, she seated herself on the mound. She opened the case once more and took out the violin. It was old and dusty, but, still, it was a violin with its strings intact, ready to be played on,—and that was all Kathie cared.

With trembling fingers she turned the pegs and tuned the instrument; and, as she tightened up the bow, she chatted gaily to the quaint, inquisitive, half-rat, half-rabbit, animals, which sat up on their hind quarters at a respectable distance, timid and curious, watching her every movement. She laughed to the birds as they twittered on the branches of the firs around her.

Soon, however, she forgot all of them; for the first, faint strains which she produced thrilled her through and bore her away, slowly and sweetly, on a flowing tide of memories. Music, grave and gay, quiet and thunderous, poured from the sensitive violin which she fingered. She forgot how long it had been since she played before—she only knew that she was playing again; that ages could not smother up the dormant harmonies of her being and that her soul was at last experiencing a peace it had not known for ever so long.

She saw once more the little village of Ballywhallen; she imitated the whistling of the wind and the breaking of the sea on the jagged rocks; she saw the old barn with its flaring lights, and she heard again the merry shouts and jests of the happy, carefree dancers; and, ah! glory of music,—in it she forgot her drudgery and her sorrow, her surroundings and the fleeting time.

In her transport, she saw nothing of a shadow which hung over her for a brief moment ere it vanished, shadowlike, with its substance. For, behind every shadow is substance and behind substance must be the light. When evil befalls, thought flies to the shadow; but with the triumph of good, thought glories in the light. Substance, shutting out the light, suggests shadow. With the destruction of substance, the shadow dies, but the light cannot be destroyed and remains forever, of itself casting no shadow. And, as the creator is ever greater than that which he creates, so also is light greater, and so also must it overcome and govern both substance and shadow.

Kathie had sought the lea of the hill that she might be alone; alone with her music, alone in the sunshine, near the firs and the sun-flowers which she had so loved ever since her coming to the Valley a few short months previously.

On the other side of the old, log fence, deep in the shade of the firs, prone on the grass, lay another being with kindred fancies. He was scanning the pages of a little book in happy content. Softly the sound of Kathie's music floated on the air toward him, unnoticed at first, for it seemed to be part of the atmosphere and the environment of what he was reading. But ultimately it bore in on him that the fairy notes were from some outward source. Enthralled, he closed his book. He listened, scarce breathing lest he should disturb and thereby end such ethereal transport. The delicacy, the exquisiteness, the rapture, held him spell-bound, and for a long time he lay in abandonment to its witchery. Never had he heard such a co-mingling of laughter and tears interpreted by any human, if human it were. For the listener was a lover of music and had never admitted, even to himself, that there were no fairies.

At length he raised himself from the grass, bent on discovering whence such harmony came. Noiselessly, he crept through the brush to the fence, to the point to which his ear guided him, in the full expectancy of witnessing for the first time the progress of a state ball of all the elves and sprites of the surrounding hills and valleys. He peered through cautiously, but found himself still some way from the source of the music whose deceptive notes had issued in reality only a few yards on the other side from where he had been lying.

Although he did not see the dancing fairies, the melodious sweetness still kept them alive in his imagination. He saw what was to him of farther reaching consequence—a musician, fair-skinned, elfin-shaped and simply-clad, oblivious of all about her, hypnotised and lost in the ecstasy and passion of her own conception.

He clambered over the fence and walked toward her. Yet she did not detect his proximity.

As he drew near his heart stood still, then it thundered on again. Never had he felt as he did then. He was almost afraid—afraid for himself, afraid for her. He recognised at once in Kathie, the pale, weakly, seemingly helpless creature whom he had encountered and befriended in a small way on the road a few months before, but the change she now presented was scarcely to be believed:—the glowing cheeks, the dark eyes asparkle with health and enthusiasm, the still slender but rounded figure: the perfect, the inexpressible beauty and charm, suggestive of sunshine, honey and bursting rosebuds.

As he gazed, he began to doubt, and doubting, he gazed again then doubted no more. He could never mistake that glorious wealth of jet-black hair, for there was none other like it in all the Valley.

He doffed his hat and listened almost in reverence to the sweetness of the melodies.

His was the shadow that hovered over Kathie, covering the ground at her feet. But in neither the substance nor the shadow was there any evil.

For a time he remained motionless, until he began to think of his intrusion and the embarrassment the discovery of his presence might occasion. He bent down carefully and, at Kathie's side, he placed the book which he had been reading. It was the impulse of a fleeting fancy and had to be obeyed. Then he stole away, softly, quietly, as he had come—unheard and unobserved.

With a sigh, Kathie at last rose and stretched her arms to the feathery clouds that scudded overhead. Her pent-up passion was expended now and she was once more awake to the call of the work-a-day world around her.

She did not know how long she had been on the mound, but she was aware how swiftly the time always flew by in the old days when she had a violin in her hands. The sun had swung well round over the lake, to the west, too far for her comfort. She trembled in dread of the reprimand which she felt must surely follow the discovery of her long absence.

In haste, she gathered some dry brush and tangle. She placed the violin in its case close to the fence and covered it over carefully, for she knew she must hide it, not daring yet to let her people into the secret of her newly-found treasure.

She was hurrying away, when her eyes fell upon the book lying on the ground. With a little cry of surprise, she picked it up. She could not realise how it ever could have got there: she had heard no one, and there was no one now in sight. She began to feel as if the very heavens were raining favours upon her.

But it was already so late that she could not spare the time to think or reason the matter out. She felt tempted to put the book down again and leave it where she had found it. But books were such friends; such good, kind, uplifting friends. The counter-temptation was too strong; she placed the volume in her bosom, under her heart, warm and snug; then she sped on toward the farmhouse.

Her good angel favoured her still: farmer Muir had concluded his business and he and his son were just riding off. During all the time of her long absence, Kathie had not once been thought of.

At the departure of the visitors, Lizbeth hitched up Jess to the buggy and drove in to Vernock. Far down the road, at the avenue of trees leading to the beautiful summer home and wonderful ranch of that old, wealthy Englishman of roving tendencies, David Menteith,—who in his early youth had seen the Valley and had possessed himself of as much of it as he could purchase or pre-empt; and now, in his old age, was still held by its ever-changing charms,—Lizbeth picked up young Crawford, the Police Chief, with whom she had been carrying on a violent flirtation for several months.

It was nearing midnight when she returned to the ranch—for neither Lizbeth nor Bob Crawford respected elders' hours;—the one did not care and the other boasted of being well able to look after herself, two very dangerous conditions of mind to get driving tandem.

Kathie had retired at her usual hour and, for the first time since her coming to the Valley, she felt really happy. She sat down on the bed and drew out the warm, leather-bound volume from her bodice.

She examined it with interest.

It was Longfellow's "Evangeline":—something she had often heard of but never perused. She turned over the fly-leaf in front and there read in childish hand-writing:—

To Alexander Simpson, M.A., from a few of his scholars. Christmas, 19—

Her ears began to tingle as her memory flew back to the first interview she had had with her cousin, Lizbeth, when the latter had informed her that the quiet, manly person who had helped her on her way to the ranch was Mr. Simpson, the Principal of the High School at Vernock. That the book she held was his, Kathie had no doubt. Then she began to wonder again how it could have got on the mound. She had not noticed it when she sat down, although, to say truth, her excitement had been so great at that time, that she questioned if she would have noticed a whole library of books set out in rows on the hillside.

Then she wondered if, by any chance, he could have been near her and could have heard the semi-starved outpourings of her soul.

Her face became hot awhile, for in moments such as those she much preferred to think that no one had been within hail of her. She dismissed her conjecture as an idle fancy. Mr. Simpson was fond of walking; more than likely he had been that way early in the afternoon and had been reading there where she sat, then, in a moment of forgetfulness, had left the book lying on the grass. She wondered if he would hurry back when he noticed his loss and if he would be angry if he knew that Colin Jackson's serving lass had taken it. She thought of replacing it next morning when she took the cows to their pasturage, but, finally, she decided that she would take the pleasure of reading it through first, and after that the school teacher could have it if he ever chanced by way of the mound again.

She read that night until she heard Lizbeth's footsteps below, then she placed the book under her pillow and dropped off to sleep.