Part 5 (1/2)
”Do you think red hair is so awful ugly?”
And what a wondrous glory of hair it was! It was so intensely black; and then it had that singular fringe of fire, or touch of t.i.tian color, which seen in the sunset made it almost red.
The man stops, turns, comes back a step or two, as she continues:
”I do--I do! Oh, I wish to Moses I had tow hair, I do, like Sylvia Fields.”
The man is standing close beside her now. He is looking down into her face and she feels his presence. The foot does not swing so violently now, and the girl has cautiously, and, as she believes, unseen, lifted the edge of her tattered sleeve to her eyes. ”Why Carrie, your hair is not red.” And he speaks very tenderly. ”Carrie, you are going to be beautiful. You are beautiful now. You are very beautiful!”
Carrie is not so angry now. The foot stops altogether, and she lifts her face and says:
”No I ain't--I ain't beautiful! Don't you try to humbug me. I am ugly, and I know it! For, last winter, when I went down to the grocery to fetch Forty-nine--he'd gone down there to get medicine for his ager, Mr.
John Logan--I heard a man say, 'She is ugly as a mud fence.' Oh, I went for him! I made the fur fly! But that didn't make me pretty. I was ugly all the same. No, I'm not pretty--I'm ugly, and I know it!”
”Oh, no, you're not. You are beautiful, and getting lovelier every day.”
Carrie softens and approaches him.
”Am I, John Logan? And you really don't think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world?”
”Do I really not think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world? Why, Carrie?”
Carrie, starting back, looks in his face and says, bitterly: ”You do.
You do think red hair is the ugliest thing in all this born world, and I just dare you to deny it. Sylvia Fields--she's got white hair, she has, and you like white hair, you do. I despise her; I despise her so much that I almost choke.”
”Why, now, Carrie, what makes you despise Sylvia Fields?”
”I don't know; I don't know why I despise her, but I do. I despise her with all my might and soul and body. And I tell you, Mr. John Logan, that”--here the lips begin to quiver, and she is about to burst into tears--”I tell you, Mr. John Logan, that I do hope she likes ripe bananas; and I do hope that if she does like ripe bananas, that when bananas come to camp this fall, that she will take a ripe banana and try for to suck it; and I do hope she will suck a ripe banana down her throat, and get choked to death on it, I do.”
”Oh, Carrie, this is very wicked!” cries John Logan, reproachfully, ”and I must leave you if you talk that way. Good-bye,” and the man shoulders his gun and again turns away.
”Well, do you think red hair is the ugliest thing in the world? Do you?
Do you now?”
”Carrie, don't you know I love the beautiful, red woods of autumn?”
It is the May-day of the maiden's life; the May shower is over again, and the girl lifts her beautiful face, and says lightly, almost laughing through her tears,
”And, oh, you did like the red bush, didn't you, Mr. John Logan? And, oh, you did say that Moses saw the face of G.o.d in the burning bush, didn't you, Mr. John Logan?”
”I want you to tell me a story, I do,” interposes Stumps. The boy had stood there a long time, first on one foot, then on the other, swinging his squirrel, pouting out his mouth, and waiting.
”Yes, tell us a story,” urges Carrie.
”Oh, yes, tell us a story about a c.o.o.n--no, about a panther--no, a bear.
Oh, yes, about a bear! about a bear!” cries the boy, ”about a bear!”
”Poor, half-wild children!” sighs John Logan. ”Nothing to divert them, their little minds go out, curiously seeking something new and strange, just, I fancy as older and abler people's do in larger ways. Yes, I will tell you a story about a bear. And let us sit down; my long walk has tired my legs;” and he looks about for a resting place.