Danny's Own Story Page 7

  CHAPTER VI

  I looks up, and that was how I got acquainted with Martha. She waseating one herself, setting up in the tree like a boy. In her lap was abook she had been reading. She was leaning back into the fork two limbsmade so as not to tumble.

  "Well," I says, "can I have one?"

  "You've eaten it already," she says, "so there isn't any use begging forit now."

  I seen she was a tease, that girl, and I would of give anything to ofbeen able to tease her right back agin. But I couldn't think of nothingto say, so I jest stands there kind o' dumb like, thinking what a dernpurty girl she was, and thinking how dumb I must look, and I felt myface getting red. Doctor Kirby would of thought of something to sayright off. And after I got back to camp I would think of somethingmyself. But I couldn't think of nothing bright, so I says:

  "Well, then, you give me another one!"

  She gives the core of the one she has been eating a toss at me. But Iketched it, and made like I was going to throw it back at her real hard.She slung up her arm, and dodged back, and she dropped her book.

  I thinks to myself I'll learn that girl to get sassy and make me feellike a dumb-head, even if she is purty. So I don't say a word. I jestpicks up that book and sticks it under my arm and walks away slow withit to where they was a stump a little ways off, not fur from the crick,and sets down with my back to her and opens it. And I was trying all thetime to think of something smart to say to her. But I couldn't of doneit if I was to be shot. Still, I thinks to myself, no girl can sass meand not get sassed back, neither.

  I hearn a scramble behind me which I knowed was her getting out of thattree. And in a minute she was in front of me, mad.

  "Give me my book," she says.

  But I only reads the name of the book out loud, fur to aggervate her. Ihad on purty good duds, but I kind of wisht I had on my Injun rig then.You take the girls that always comes down to see the passenger traincome into the depot in them country towns and that Injun rig of mine andLooey's always made 'em turn around and look at us agin. I never wishtI had on them Injun duds so hard before in my life. But I couldn't thinkof nothing bright to say, so I jest reads the name of that book over tomyself agin, kind o' grinning like I got a good joke I ain't going totell any one.

  "You give me my book," she says agin, red as one of them harvest apples,"or I'll tell Miss Hampton you stole it and she'll have you and yourshow arrested."

  I reads the name agin. It was "The Lost Heir." I seen I had her good andteased now, so I says: "It must be one of these here love stories by theway you take on over it."

  "It's not," she says, getting ready to cry. "And what right have you gotin our wood-lot, anyhow?"

  "Well," I says, "I was jest about to move on and climb out of it whenyou hollered to me from that tree."

  "I didn't!" she says. But she was mad because she knowed she HAD spoketo me first, and she was awful sorry she had.

  "I thought I hearn you holler," I says, "but I guess it must of been asquirrel." I said it kind o' sarcastic like, fur I was still mad withmyself fur being so dumb when we first seen each other. I hadn't no ideait would hurt her feelings as hard as it did. But all of a sudden shebegins to wink, and her chin trembled, and she turned around short, andstarted to walk off slow. She was mad with herself fur being ketched ina lie, and she was wondering what I would think of her fur being so boldas to of spoke first to a feller she didn't know.

  I got up and follered her a little piece. And it come to me all to oncetI had teased her too hard, and I was down on myself fur it.

  "Say," I says, kind of tagging along beside of her, "here's your oldbook."

  But she didn't make no move to take it, and her hands was over her face,and she wouldn't pull 'em down to even look at it.

  So I tried agin.

  "Well," I says, feeling real mean, "I wisht you wouldn't cry. I didn'tgo to make you do that."

  She drops her hands and whirls around on me, mad as a wet hen right off.

  "I'm not! I'm not!" she sings out, and stamps her feet. "I'm notcrying!" But jest then she loses her holt on herself and busts out andjest natcherally bellers. "I hate you!" she says, like she could ofkilled me.

  That made me kind of dumb agin. Fur it come to me all to oncet I likedthat girl awful well. And here I'd up and made her hate me. I held thebook out to her agin and says:

  "Well, I'm mighty sorry fur that, fur I don't feel that-a-way about youa-tall. Here's your book."

  Well, sir, she snatches that book and she gives it a sling. I thought itwas going kersplash into the crick. But it didn't. It hit right into thefork of a limb that hung down over the crick, and it all spread out whenit lit, and stuck in that crotch somehow. She couldn't of slung it thatway on purpose in a million years. We both stands and looks at it aminute.

  "Oh, oh!" she says, "what have I done? It's out of the town library andI'll have to pay for it."

  "I'll get it fur you," I says. But it wasn't no easy job. If I shookthat limb it would tumble into the crick. But I clumb the tree and easedout on that limb as fur as I dast to. And, of course, jest as I got holtof the book, that limb broke and I fell into the crick. But I had thebook. It was some soaked, but I reckoned it could still be read.

  I clumb out and she was jest splitting herself laughing at me. Thewet on her face where she had cried wasn't dried up yet, and she waslaughing right through it, kind o' like the sun does to one of thesehere May rainstorms sometimes, and she was the purtiest girl I everseen. Gosh!--how I was getting to like that girl! And she told me Ilooked like a drowned rat.

  Well, that was how Martha and me was interduced. She wasn't more'nsixteen, and when she found out I was a orphan she was glad, fur she wasone herself. Which Miss Hampton that lived in that house had took her toraise. And when I tells her how I been travelling around the country allsummer she claps her hands and she says:

  "Oh, you are on a quest! How romantic!"

  I asts her what is a quest. And she tells me. She knowed all about them,fur Martha was considerable of a reader. Some of them was longer andsome of them was shorter, them quests, but mostly, Martha says, they wasfur a twelvemonth and a day. And then you are released from your vowand one of these here queens gives you a whack over the shoulder with asword and says: "Arise, Sir Marmeluke, I dub you a night." And then itis legal fur you to go out and rescue people and reform them and spearthem if they don't see things your way, and come between husband andwife when they row, and do a heap of good in the world. Well, they wasother kind of quests too, but mostly you married somebody, or was dubbeda night, or found the party you was looking fur, in the end. And Marthahad it all fixed up in her own mind I was in a quest to find my father.Fur, says she, he is purty certain to be a powerful rich man and more'nlikely a earl.

  The way I was found, Martha says, kind o' pints to the idea they was aearl mixed up in it somewhere. She had read a lot about earls, and knewtheir ways. Mebby my mother was a earl's daughter. Earl's daughters isthe worst fur leaving you out in baskets, going by what Martha said. Itis a kind of a habit with them, fur they is awful proud people. But itwas a lucky way to start life, from all she said, that basket way. Therewas Moses was left out that way, and when he growed up he was made akind of a president of the hull human race, the same as Ruzevelt, andfiggered out the twelve commandments. Martha would of give anything ifshe could of only been found in a basket like me, I could see that. Butshe wasn't. She had jest been left a orphan when her folks died. Theywasn't even no hopes she had been changed at birth fur another one. ButI seen down in under everything Martha kind o' thought mebby one of themnights might come a-prancing along and wed her in spite of herself, orshe would be carried off, or something. She was a very romanceful kindof girl.

  When I seen she had it figgered out I was in a quest fur somehigh-mucky-muck fur a dad, I didn't tell her no different. I didn't takemuch stock in them earls and nights myself. So fur as I could see theywas all furriners of one kind or another. But that thing of being into aquest kind of interest
ed me, too.

  "How would I know him if I was to run acrost him?" I asts her.

  "You would feel an Intangible Something," she says, "drawing you towardhim."

  I asts her what kind of a something. I make out from what she says it issome like these fellers that can find water with a piece of witch hazelswitch. You take a switch of it between your thumbs and point it up.Then you shut your eyes and walk backwards. When you get over where thewater is the witch hazel stick twists around and points to the ground.You dig there and you get a good well. Nobody knows jest why thatstick is drawed to the ground. It is like one of these little whirlygigcompasses is drawed to the north. It is the same, Martha says, if you ison a quest fur a father or a mother, only you have got to be worthy ofthat there quest, she says. The first time you meet the right one youare drawed jest like the witch hazel. That is the Intangible Somethingworking on you, she says. Martha had learnt a lot about that. The bookthat had fell in the crick was like that. She lent it to me.

  Well, that all sounded kind of reasonable to me. I seen that witch hazelwork myself. Old Blindy Wolfe, whose eyes had been dead fur so manyyears they had turned plumb white, had that gift, and picked out all theplaces fur wells that was dug in our neighbourhood at home. And I makesup my mind I will watch out fur that feeling of being drawed wherever Igoes after this. You can't tell what will come of them kind of things.So purty soon Martha has to milk the cow, and I goes along back to campthinking about that quest and about what a purty girl she is, which wehad set there talking so long it was nigh sundown and my clothes haddried onto me.

  When I got over to camp I seen they must be something wrong. Looey wassetting in the grass under the wagon looking kind of sour and kind ofworried and watching the doctor. The doctor was jest inside the tent,and he was looking queer too, and not cheerful, which he was usually.

  The doctor looks at me like he don't skeercly know me. Which he don't.He has one of them quiet kind of drunks on. Which Looey explains isbound to come every so often. He don't do nothing mean, but jest getslow-sperrited and won't talk to no one. Then all of a sudden he will godown town and walk up and down the main streets, orderly, but lookinghard into people's faces, mostly women's faces. Oncet, Looey says, theywas big trouble over it. They was in a store in a good-sized town, andhe took hold of a woman's chin, and tilted her face back, and looked ather hard, and most scared her to death, and they was nearly being a riotthere. And he was jailed and had to pay a big fine. Since then Looeyalways follers him around when he is that-a-way.

  Well, that night Doctor Kirby is too fur gone fur us to have our show.He jest sets and stares and stares at the fire, and his eyes looks likethey is another fire inside of his head, and he is hurting outside andin. Looey and me watches him from the shadders fur a long time beforewe turns in, and the last thing I seen before I went to sleep was himsetting there with his face in his hands, staring, and his lips movingnow and then like he was talking to himself.

  The next day he is asleep all morning. But that day he don't drinkany more, and Looey says mebby it ain't going to be one of the reg'larpifflicated kind. I seen Martha agin that day, too--twicet I has talkswith her. I told her about the doctor.

  "Is he into a quest, do you think?" I asts her.

  She says she thinks it is remorse fur some crime he has done. But Icouldn't figger Doctor Kirby would of done none. So that night after theshow I says to him, innocent-like:

  "Doctor Kirby, what is a quest?" He looks at me kind of queer.

  "Wherefore," says he, "this sudden thirst for enlightenment?"

  "I jest run acrost the word accidental-like," I told him.

  He looks at me awful hard, his eyes jest natcherally digging into me.I felt like he knowed I had set out to pump him. I wisht I hadn't triedit. Then he tells me a quest is a hunt. And I'm glad that's over with.But it ain't. Fur purty soon he says:

  "Danny, did you ever hear of Lady Clara Vere de Vere?"

  "No," I says, "who is she?"

  "A lady friend of Lord Tennyson's," he says, "whose manners were abovereproach."

  "Well," I says, "she sounds kind of like a medicine to me."

  "Lady Clara," he says, "and all the other Vere de Veres, were peoplewith manners we should try to imitate. If Lady Clara had been here lastnight when I was talking to myself, Danny, her manners wouldn't have lether listen to what I was talking about."

  "I didn't listen!" I says. Fur I seen what he was driving at now withthem Vere de Veres. He thought I had ast him what a quest was because hewas on one. I was certain of that, now. He wasn't quite sure what he hadbeen talking about, and he wanted to see how much I had hearn. I thinksto myself it must be a awful funny kind of hunt he is on, if he onlyhunts when he is in that fix. But I acted real innocent and like myfeelings was hurt, and he believed me. Purty soon he says, cheerfullike:

  "There was a girl talking to you to-day, Danny."

  "Mebby they was," I says, "and mebby they wasn't." But I felt my facegetting red all the same, and was mad because it did. He grinned kind ofaggervating at me and says some poetry at me about in the spring a youngman's frenzy likely turns to thoughts of love.

  "Well," I says, kind of sheepish-like, "this is summer-time, and purtynigh autumn." Then I seen I'd jest as good as owned up I liked Martha,and was kind of mad at myself fur that. But I told him some more abouther, too. Somehow I jest couldn't help it. He laughs at me and goes oninto the tent.

  I laid there and looked at the fire fur quite a spell, outside the tent.I was thinking, if all them tales wasn't jest dern foolishness, how Iwisht I would really find a dad that was a high-muckymuck and could comeback in an automobile and take her away. I laid there fur a long, longtime; it must of been fur a couple of hours. I supposed the doctor hadwent to sleep.

  But all of a sudden I looks up, and he is in the door of the tentstaring at me. I seen he had been in there at it hard agin, andthinking, quiet-like, all this time. He stood there in the doorway ofthe tent, with the firelight onto his face and his red beard, and hisarms stretched out, holding to the canvas and looking at me strange andwild. Then he moved his hand up and down at me, and he says:

  "If she's fool enough to love you, treat her well--treat her well. Forif you don't, you can never run away from the hell you'll carry in yourown heart."

  And he kind of doubled up and pitched forward when he said that, andif I hadn't ketched him he would of fell right acrost the fire. He wasplumb pifflicated.