Part 30 (1/2)

”I don't know--a street urchin in a camp, that was all I was. If I got licked, and I did, I was a coward for years and had to give up my pennies. I used strategy, cunning, because I was afraid to fight till I whipped Red. That made a difference. If the old fellow I liked so hadn't given Red a quarter to lick me, I'd have been a coward yet. It made me so mad I licked Red.”

Lawrence laughed again merrily.

”That started me fighting, and I fought daily without provocation.

Dirty, scaly fisted little rat, whose stockings sagged around his shoes, fighting for money in the saloons! The men liked me, too. All of them called me their kid. I used to stand big-eyed and watch the faro-table stacked with gold. There were days, too, when I went out alone over the hills. I was ashamed of my little figures and afraid lest the boys find my mud-pies, as Red had called a tiny dog that fell out of my pocket in a fight.

”One day in an electric storm I saw a man and his horse killed by lightning. I was awed, and electricity became my G.o.d. I wors.h.i.+ped it like a little heathen. I even bought penny suckers and stuck them up in the ground where the lightning played in stormy weather.

”It always seemed that the only things about the whole camp that fitted with the hills were that girl in white and an old mountaineer who fought with his fists alone against a gang of drunks. I don't know why. They just belonged.”

He stopped and lay a long time in silence. Claire thought over what he had said, and her heart went out to this man as if he were still the little gamin of the hills.

”Poor little chap,” she murmured aloud.

Lawrence half raised himself in bed, talking again, and she was obliged to push him back.

”It was all paradise, though, compared to that school where the Women's Club sent me. I didn't want an education. Freedom was taken from me. I was chained with discipline. I had seen too much and I told the other marveling boys. They talked, and I was punished as a degenerate little villain. I couldn't see why. That first winter was h.e.l.l. They all misunderstood me, and I them. I ached for my mountains again, and when they sent me to the camp for the summer I whooped for joy.

”I must have been thirteen at that time. The men in camp paid the Widow Morgan to keep me through the summer. She had a daughter seventeen or thereabouts. Georgia had curly hair and blue eyes. She didn't pay much attention to me at first. I didn't care.

”Then one night the widow went off to a lodge-meeting and left us alone.

Pearly and the gang came around and began throwing rocks at the house and demanding that Georgia let them in. I was furious, and she was nearly scared to death. She got her mother's pistol and asked me to shoot it. I took it and, opening the door, fired into the night. The gang slunk off, but Georgia was still frightened.

”We slipped out of our clothes in trembling silence and huddled together in her mother's bed. She was crying, and I felt very brave. I put my arms around her and comforted her. She became quiet by and by and slipped her arms around me. After that we found ourselves.

”She said we were in love, and I guess we were. That night was the beginning of my rebellious manhood. Her mother abused us roundly for immoral little whiffits. I was put out, and after that the county kept me. Georgia hated me, for she said I was to blame.

”I suppose that was all right, too, but it made me bitter against what seemed to me an unjust world. I went back to school, hating. I never stopped hating as long as I was there. It was misunderstanding from first to last. I never ceased rebelling against punishment for rebellion.

”It was a hopeless snarl, but it made me what I was when I entered college, distant, sullen, and ferocious. My only joy was in my work, and I spent all my spare time in the studio. Then the second summer I shot off the gunpowder, and blindness came.”

Lawrence lay back silent, then began again.

”After the accident it was a thousand times worse. I thought people didn't like me because I was blind. They only pitied and misunderstood.

Misunderstood--that word might be my epitaph. It could certainly be placed over my childhood's grave.

”It was in college that I started thinking. Thought out my plan of militant egoism. It seemed to succeed, but all the time I was afraid it was only pity that sold my work. You know, Claire, as you said, I've got to do it all over again. All of it, building a new platform, a new work-bench. I've got to allow for things. I've got to understand.”

In her tension, Claire walked the floor. Would he never stop? That glimpse into his life at the widow's--who was Pearly?--and what a tough little gang he must have grown up with! Poor boy!

He did not talk much for a long time, then he kept repeating: ”I must build a new work-bench, Claire. That's the thing to do.”

She felt at times that she must scream at him, then she would be all motherly tenderness. ”Lawrence,” she would whisper, ”do it, my man. You can, my laddie.”

He tossed, and chided an unseen man or woman for having helped him through charity under the garb of admiration. He was misunderstanding again. He thought everything was charity, pity for his blindness, and he raved. She began to see that this sudden bitterness which poured from his lips was the outcome of years of sorrow, the product of a deep-burning fire to see the beauty his soul craved.

”Lawrence,” she cried, ”G.o.d knows if I could I would give you my eyes!”

She knew that he was consumed with the pain of his struggle to comprehend more beauty. Even exaggerating his hunger for sight, she wept beside him. Her whole soul yearned to help him, to give him more of the beauty which seemed the prime need of his nature.