Part 15 (1/2)
”In the main, though, that's my answer to your question. Here I can secure myself a good living--as a matter of fact, I can easily get the wherewithal to purchase any luxuries that I desire--and it is gotten without a petty-larceny struggle with my fellow men. Here I exploit only natural resources, take only what the earth has prodigally provided. Why should I live in the smoke and sordid clutter of a town when I love the clean outdoors? The best citizen is the man with a sound mind and a strong, healthy body; and the only obligation any of us has to society is not to be a burden on society. So I live in the wilds the greater part of the year, I keep my muscles in trim, and I have always food for myself and for any chance wayfarer--and I can look everybody in the eye and tell them to go to the fiery regions if I happen to feel that way. What business would I have running a grocery store, or a bank, or a real-estate office, when all my instincts rebel against it? What normal being wants to be chained to a desk between four walls eight or ten hours a day fifty weeks in the year? I'll bet a nickel there was many a time when you were clacking a typewriter for a living that you'd have given anything to get out in the green fields for a while. Isn't that so?”
Hazel admitted it.
”You see,” Bill concluded, ”this civilization of ours, with its peculiar business ethics, and its funny little air of importance, is a comparatively recent thing--a product of the last two or three thousand years, to give it its full historic value. And mankind has been a great many millions of years in the making, all of which has been spent under primitive conditions. So that we are as yet barbarians, savages even, with just a little veneer. Why, man, as such, is only beginning to get a glimmering of his relation to the universe. Pshaw, though! I didn't set out to deliver a lecture on evolution. But, believe me, little person, if I thought that any great good or happiness would result from my being elsewhere, from sc.r.a.pping with my fellows in the world crush, I'd be there with both feet. Do you think you'd be more apt to care for me if I were to get out and try to set the world afire with great deeds?”
”That wasn't the question,” she returned distantly, trying, as she always did, to keep him off the personal note.
”But it is the question with me,” he declared. ”I don't know why I let you go on flouting me.” He reached over and caught her arm with a grip that made her wince. The sudden leap of pa.s.sion into his eyes quickened the beat of her heart. ”I could break you in two with my hands without half trying--tame you as the cave men tamed their women, by main strength. But I don't--by reason of the same peculiar feeling that would keep me from kicking a man when he was down, I suppose.
Little person, why can't you like me better?”
”Because you tricked me,” she retorted hotly. ”Because I trusted you, and you used that trust to lead me farther astray. Any woman would hate a man for that. What do you suppose--you, with your knowledge of life--the world will think of me when I get out of here?”
But Roaring Bill had collected himself, and sat smiling, and made no reply. He looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, then resumed his reading of the Mad Philosopher, out of whose essays he seemed to extract a great deal of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt.
A day or two after that Hazel came into the kitchen and found Bill piling towels, napkins, and a great quant.i.ty of other soiled articles on an outspread tablecloth.
”Well,” she inquired, ”what are you going to do with those?”
”Take 'em to the laundry,” he laughed. ”Collect your dirty duds, and bring them forth.”
”Laundry!” Hazel echoed. It seemed rather a far-fetched joke.
”Sure! You don't suppose we can get along forever without having things washed, do you?” he replied. ”I don't mind housework, but I do draw the line at a laundry job when I don't _have_ to do it. Go on--get your clothes.”
So she brought out her acc.u.mulation of garments, and laid them on the pile. Bill tied up the four corners of the tablecloth.
”Now,” said he, ”let's see if we can't fit you out for a more or less extended walk. You stay in the house altogether too much these days.
That's bad business. Nothing like exercise in the fresh air.”
Thus in a few minutes Hazel fared forth, wrapped in Bill's fur coat, a flap-eared cap on her head, and on her feet several pairs of stockings inside moccasins that Bill had procured from some mysterious source a day or two before.
The day was sunny, albeit the air was hazy with mult.i.tudes of floating frost particles, and the tramp through the forest speedily brought the roses back to her cheeks. Bill carried the bundle of linen on his back, and trudged steadily through the woods. But the riddle of his destination was soon read to her, for a two-mile walk brought them out on the sh.o.r.e of a fair-sized lake, on the farther side of which loomed the conical lodges of an Indian camp.
”You sabe now?” said he as they crossed the ice. ”This bunch generally comes in here about this time, and stays till spring. I get the squaws to wash for me. Ever see Mr. Indian on his native heath?”
Hazel never had, and she was duly interested, even if a trifle shy of the red brother who stared so fixedly. She entered a lodge with Bill, and listened to him make laundry arrangements in broken English with a withered old beldame whose features resembled a ham that had hung overlong in the smokehouse. Two or three blanketed bucks squatted by the fire that sent its blue smoke streaming out the apex of the lodge.
”Heap fine squaw!” one suddenly addressed Bill. ”Where you ketchum?”
Bill laughed at Hazel's confusion. ”Away off.” He gestured southward, and the Indian grunted some unintelligible remark in his own tongue--at which Roaring Bill laughed again.
Before they started home Bill succeeded in purchasing, after much talk, a pair of moccasins that Hazel conceded to be a work of art, what with the dainty pattern of beads and the ornamentation of colored porcupine quills. Her feminine soul could not cavil when Bill thrust them in the pocket of her coat, even if her mind was set against accepting any peace tokens at his hands.
And so in the nearing sunset they went home through the frost-bitten woods, where the snow crunched and squeaked under their feet, and the branches broke off with a pistol-like snap when they were bent aside.
A hundred yards from the cabin Bill challenged her to a race. She refused to run, and he picked her up bodily, and ran with her to the very door. He held her a second before he set her down, and Hazel's face whitened. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and she could feel his arms quiver, and the rapid beat of his heart. For an instant she thought Roaring Bill Wagstaff was about to make the colossal mistake of trying to kiss her.
But he set her gently on her feet and opened the door. And by the time he had his heavy outer clothes off and the fires started up he was talking whimsically about their Indian neighbors, and Hazel breathed more freely. The clearest impression that she had, aside from her brief panic, was of his strength. He had run with her as easily as if she had been a child.