Part 69 (2/2)
when we come out from the shower, rubbed down and dressed, our skin an'
muscles like silk, our bodies an' brains all a-tinglin' like silk.. ..”
He paused and gave up from sheer inability to express ideas that were nebulous at best and that in reality were remembered sensations.
”Silk of the body, can you beat it?” he concluded lamely, feeling that he had failed to make his point, embarra.s.sed by the circle of listeners.
”We know all that,” Hall retorted. ”The lies of the flesh. Afterward come rheumatism and diabetes. The wine of life is heady, but all too quickly it turns to--”
”Uric acid,” interpolated the wild Irish playwright.
”They's plenty more of the good things,” Billy took up with a sudden rush of words. ”Good things all the way up from juicy porterhouse and the kind of coffee Mrs. Hall makes to....” He hesitated at what he was about to say, then took it at a plunge. ”To a woman you can love an'
that loves you. Just take a look at Saxon there with the ukulele in her lap. There's where I got the jellyfish in the dishwater an' the prize hog skinned to death.”
A shout of applause and great hand-clapping went up from the girls, and Billy looked painfully uncomfortable.
”But suppose the silk goes out of your body till you creak like a rusty wheelbarrow?” Hall pursued. ”Suppose, just suppose, Saxon went away with another man. What then?”
Billy considered a s.p.a.ce.
”Then it'd be me for the dishwater an' the jellyfish, I guess.” He straightened up in his chair and threw back his shoulders unconsciously as he ran a hand over his biceps and swelled it. Then he took another look at Saxon. ”But thank the Lord I still got a wallop in both my arms an' a wife to fill 'em with love.”
Again the girls applauded, and Mrs. Hall cried:
”Look at Saxon! She blus.h.i.+ng! What have you to say for yourself?”
”That no woman could be happier,” she stammered, ”and no queen as proud.
And that--”
She completed the thought by strumming on the ukulele and singing:
”De Lawd move in er mischievous way His blunders to perform.”
”I give you best,” Hall grinned to Billy.
”Oh, I don't know,” Billy disclaimed modestly. ”You've read so much I guess you know more about everything than I do.”
”Oh! Oh!” ”Traitor!” ”Taking it all back!” the girls cried variously.
Billy took heart of courage, rea.s.sured them with a slow smile, and said:
”Just the same I'd sooner be myself than have book indigestion. An' as for Saxon, why, one kiss of her lips is worth more'n all the libraries in the world.”
CHAPTER X
”There must be hills and valleys, and rich land, and streams of clear water, good wagon roads and a railroad not too far away, plenty of suns.h.i.+ne, and cold enough at night to need blankets, and not only pines but plenty of other kinds of trees, with open s.p.a.ces to pasture Billy's horses and cattle, and deer and rabbits for him to shoot, and lots and lots of redwood trees, and... and... well, and no fog,” Saxon concluded the description of the farm she and Billy sought.
Mark Hall laughed delightedly.
”And nightingales roosting in all the trees,” he cried; ”flowers that neither fail nor fade, bees without stings, honey dew every morning, showers of manna betweenwhiles, fountains of youth and quarries of philosopher's stones--why, I know the very place. Let me show you.”
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