Part 15 (1/2)

Billy and Saxon exclaimed in mutual delight.

”Gee,” he muttered, ”I almost wisht I'd ben born a farmer. Folks wasn't made to live in cities.”

”Not our kind, at least,” she agreed. Followed a pause and a long sigh.

”It's all so beautiful. It would be a dream just to live all your life in it. I'd like to be an Indian squaw sometimes.”

Several times Billy checked himself on the verge of speech.

”About those fellows you thought you was in love with,” he said finally.

”You ain't told me, yet.”

”You want to know?” she asked. ”They didn't amount to anything.”

”Of course I want to know. Go ahead. Fire away.”

”Well, first there was Al Stanley--”

”What did he do for a livin'?” Billy demanded, almost as with authority.

”He was a gambler.”

Billy's face abruptly stiffened, and she could see his eyes cloudy with doubt in the quick glance he flung at her.

”Oh, it was all right,” she laughed. ”I was only eight years old. You see, I'm beginning at the beginning. It was after my mother died and when I was adopted by Cady. He kept a hotel and saloon. It was down in Los Angeles. Just a small hotel. Workingmen, just common laborers, mostly, and some railroad men, stopped at it, and I guess Al Stanley got his share of their wages. He was so handsome and so quiet and soft-spoken. And he had the nicest eyes and the softest, cleanest hands.

I can see them now. He played with me sometimes, in the afternoon, and gave me candy and little presents. He used to sleep most of the day. I didn't know why, then. I thought he was a fairy prince in disguise. And then he got killed, right in the bar-room, but first he killed the man that killed him. So that was the end of that love affair.

”Next was after the asylum, when I was thirteen and living with my brother--I've lived with him ever since. He was a boy that drove a bakery wagon. Almost every morning, on the way to school, I used to pa.s.s him. He would come driving down Wood Street and turn in on Twelfth.

Maybe it was because he drove a horse that attracted me. Anyway, I must have loved him for a couple of months. Then he lost his job, or something, for another boy drove the wagon. And we'd never even spoken to each other.

”Then there was a bookkeeper when I was sixteen. I seem to run to bookkeepers. It was a bookkeeper at the laundry that Charley Long beat up. This other one was when I was working in Hickmeyer's Cannery. He had soft hands, too. But I quickly got all I wanted of him. He was... well, anyway, he had ideas like your boss. And I never really did love him, truly and honest, Billy. I felt from the first that he wasn't just right. And when I was working in the paper-box factory I thought I loved a clerk in Kahn's Emporium--you know, on Eleventh and Was.h.i.+ngton. He was all right. That was the trouble with him. He was too much all right. He didn't have any life in him, any go. He wanted to marry me, though.

But somehow I couldn't see it. That shows I didn't love him. He was narrow-chested and skinny, and his hands were always cold and fishy. But my! he could dress--just like he came out of a bandbox. He said he was going to drown himself, and all kinds of things, but I broke with him just the same.

”And after that... well, there isn't any after that. I must have got particular, I guess, but I didn't see anybody I could love. It seemed more like a game with the men I met, or a fight. And we never fought fair on either side. Seemed as if we always had cards up our sleeves. We weren't honest or outspoken, but instead it seemed as if we were trying to take advantage of each other. Charley Long was honest, though. And so was that bank cas.h.i.+er. And even they made me have the fight feeling harder than ever. All of them always made me feel I had to take care of myself. They wouldn't. That was sure.”

She stopped and looked with interest at the clean profile of his face as he watched and guided the horses. He looked at her inquiringly, and her eyes laughed lazily into his as she stretched her arms.

”That's all,” she concluded. ”I've told you everything, which I've never done before to any one. And it's your turn now.”

”Not much of a turn, Saxon. I've never cared for girls--that is, not enough to want to marry 'em. I always liked men better--fellows like Billy Murphy. Besides, I guess I was too interested in trainin' an'

fightin' to bother with women much. Why, Saxon, honest, while I ain't ben altogether good--you understand what I mean--just the same I ain't never talked love to a girl in my life. They was no call to.”

”The girls have loved you just the same,” she teased, while in her heart was a curious elation at his virginal confession.

He devoted himself to the horses.

”Lots of them,” she urged.

Still he did not reply.

”Now, haven't they?”