Part 13 (1/2)
”He's a good boy,” he said thoughtfully. ”No one can say he ain't.
But some way or other, I'd rather have had a bigger man for you, Missy.”
”Bigger!” she exclaimed indignantly. ”He's nearly six feet. And girls don't pick out their husbands because of their height.”
”I ain't meant it that way. Bigger in what's in him--can get hold o'
more, got a bigger reach.”
”I don't know what you mean. If you're trying to say he's not got a big mind you're all wrong. He knows more than anybody I ever met except father. He's read hundreds and hundreds of books.”
”That's it--too many books. Books is good enough but they ain't the right sort 'er meat for a feller that's got to hit out for himself in a new country. They're all right in the city where you got the butcher and the police and a kerosene lamp to read 'em by. David 'ud be a fine boy in the town just as his books is suitable in the town. But this ain't the town. And the men that are the right kind out here ain't particularly set on books. I'd 'a' chose a harder feller for you, Missy, that could have stood up to anything and didn't have no soft feelings to hamper him.”
”Rubbish,” she snapped. ”Why don't you encourage me?”
Her tone drew his eyes, sharp as a squirrel's and charged with quick concern. Her face was partly turned away. The curve of her cheek was devoid of its usual dusky color, her fingers played on her under lip as if it were a little flute.
”What do you want to be encouraged for?” he said low, as if afraid of being overheard.
She did not move her head, but looked at the bluffs.
”I don't know,” she answered, then hearing her--voice hoa.r.s.e cleared her throat. ”It's all--so--so--sort of new. I--I--feel--I don't know just how--I think it's homesick.”
Her voice broke in a bursting sob. Her control gone, her pride fell with it. Wheeling on the seat she cast upon him a look of despairing appeal.
”Oh, Daddy John,” was all she could gasp, and then bent her head so that her hat might hide the shame of her tears.
He looked at her for a nonplused moment, at her brown arms bent over her shaken bosom, at the s.h.i.+eld of her broken hat. He was thoroughly discomfited for he had not the least idea what was the matter. Then he s.h.i.+fted the reins to his left hand and edging near her laid his right on her knee.
”Don't you want to marry him?” he said gently.
”It isn't that, it's something else.”
”What else? You can say anything you like to me. Ain't I carried you when you were a baby?”
”I don't know what it is.” Her voice came cut by sobbing breaths. ”I don't understand. It's like being terribly lonesome.”
The old frontiersman had no remedy ready for this complaint. He, too, did not understand.
”Don't you marry him if you don't like him,” he said. ”If you want to tell him so and you're afraid, I'll do it for you.”
”I do like him. It's not that.”
”Well, then, what's making you cry?”
”Something else, something way down deep that makes everything seem so far away and strange.”
He leaned forward and spat over the wheel, then subsided against the roof prop.
”Are you well?” he said, his imagination exhausted.
”Yes, very.”