"Funny--! Oh, Lord!"
"Well---" Susan laughed at herself, "I didn't mean funny! But I'll tell you what I'd do in your place," she added thoughtfully.
Billy glanced at her quickly.
"What YOU'D do?" he asked curiously.
"Certainly! I've been thinking it over, as a dispassionate outsider," Susan explained calmly.
"Well, go on," he said, grinning indulgently.
"Well, I will," Susan said, firing, "if you'll treat me seriously, and not think that I say this merely because the Carrolls want you to go camping with us! I was just thinking---" Susan smiled bashfully, "I was wondering why you don't go to Carpenter---"
"He won't see me!"
"Well, you know what I mean!" she said impatiently. "Send your committee to him, and make him this proposition. Say that if he'll recognize the union--that's the most important thing, isn't it?"
"That's by far the most important! All the rest will follow if we get that. But he's practically willing to grant all the rest, EXCEPT the union. That's the whole point, Sue!"
"I know it is, but listen. Tell him that if he'll consent to all the other conditions--why," Susan spread open her hands with a shrug, "you'll get out! Bill, you know and I know that what he hates more than anything or anybody is Mr. William Oliver, and he'd agree to almost ANY terms for the sake of having you eliminated from his future consideration!"
"I--get out?" Billy repeated dazedly. "Why, I AM the union!"
"Oh, no you're not, Bill. Surely the principles involved are larger than any one man!" Susan said pleasantly.
"Well, well--yes--that's true!" he agreed, after a second's silence. "To a certain extent--I see what you mean!--that is true. But, Sue, this is an unusual case. I organized these boys, I talked to them, and for them. They couldn't hold together without me--they'll tell you so themselves!"
"But, Billy, that's not logic. Suppose you died?"
"Well, well, but by the Lord Harry I'm not going to die!" he said heatedly. "I propose to stick right here on my job, and if they get a bunch of scabs in here they can take the consequences! The hour of organized labor has come, and we'll fight the thing out along these lines---"
"Through your hat--that's the way you're talking now!" Susan said scornfully. "Don't use those worn-out phrases, Bill; don't do it! I'm sick of people who live by a bunch of expressions, without ever stopping to think whether they mean anything or not! You're too big and too smart for that, Bill! Now, here you've given the cause a splendid push up, you've helped these particular men! Now go somewhere else, and stir up more trouble. They'll find someone to carry it on, don't you worry, and meanwhile you'll be a sort of idol--all the more influential for being a martyr to the cause!"
Billy did not answer. He got up and walked away from her, turned, and came slowly back.
"I've been here ten years," he said then, and at the sound of pain in his voice the girl's heart began to ache for him. "I don't believe they'd stand for it," he added presently, with more hope. And finally, "And I don't know what I'd do!"
"Well, that oughtn't to influence you," Susan said bracingly.
"No, you're quite right. That's not the point," he agreed quickly.
Presently she saw him lean forward in the darkness, and put his head in his hands. Susan longed to put her arm about him, and draw the rough head to her shoulder and comfort him.
At breakfast time the next morning, Billy walked into Mrs. Cudahy's dining-room, very white, very serious, determined lines drawn about his firm young mouth. Susan looked at him, half-fearful, half-pitying.
"How late did you walk, Bill?" she asked, for he had gone out again after bringing her back to the house the night before.
"I didn't go to bed," he said briefly. He sat down by the table. "Well, I guess Miss Brown put her finger on the very heart of the matter, Clem," said he.
"And how's that?" asked Clem Cudahy. His wife, in the very act of pouring the newcomer a cup of coffee, stopped with arrested arm. Susan experienced a sensation of panic.
"Oh, but I didn't mean anything!" she said eagerly. "Don't mind what I said, Bill!"
But the matter had been taken out of her hands now, and in less than an hour the news spread over the entire settlement. Mr. Oliver was going to resign!
The rest of the morning and the early afternoon went by in a confused rush. At three o'clock Billy, surrounded by vociferous allies, walked to the hall, for a stormy and exhausting meeting.
"The boys wouldn't listen to him at all at first," said Clem, in giving the women an account of it, later. "But eventually they listened, and eventually he carried the day. It was all too logical to be ignored and turned aside, he told them. They had not been fighting for any personal interest, or any one person. They had asked for this change, and that, and the other,--and these things they might still win. He, after all, had nothing to do with the issue; as a recognized labor union they might stand on their own feet."
After that the two committees met, in old Mr. Carpenter's office, and Billy came home to Susan and Mrs. Cudahy, and sat for a tense hour playing moodily with Lizzie's baby.
Then the committee came back, almost as silently as it had come last night. But this time it brought news. The strike was over.
Very quietly, very gravely, they made it known that terms had been reached at last. Practically everything had been granted, on the single condition that William Oliver resign from his position in the Iron Works, and his presidency of the union.
Billy congratulated them. Susan knew that he was so emotionally shaken, and so tired, as to be scarcely aware of what he was doing and saying. Men and women began to come in and discuss the great news. There were some tears; there was real grief on more than one of the hard young faces.
"I'll see all you boys again in a day or two," Billy said. "I'm going over to Sausalito to-night,--I'm all in! We've won, and that's the main thing, but I want you to let me off quietly to-night,--we can go over the whole thing later.
"Gosh, about one cheer, and I would have broken down like a kid!" he said to Susan, on the car. Rassette and Clem had escorted them thither; Mrs. Cudahy and Lizzie walking soberly behind them, with Susan. Both women kissed Susan good-bye, and Susan smiled through her tears as she saw the last of them.
"I'll take good care of him," she promised the old woman. "He's been overdoing it too long!"
"Lord, it will be good to get away into the big woods," said Billy. "You're quite right, I've taken the whole thing too hard!"
"At the same time," said Susan, "you'll want to get back to work, sooner or later, and, personally, I can't imagine anything else in life half as fascinating as work right there, among those people, or people like them!"
"Then you can see how it would cut a fellow all up to leave them?" he asked wistfully.
"See!" Susan echoed. "Why, I'm just about half-sick with homesickness myself!"
The train went on and on and on; through woods wrapped in dripping mist, and fields smothered in fog. The unseasonable August afternoon wore slowly away. Betsey, fitting her head against the uncomfortable red velvet back of the seat, dozed or seemed to doze. Mrs. Carroll opened her magazine over and over again, shut it over and over again, and stared out at the landscape, eternally slipping by. William Oliver, seated next to Susan, was unashamedly asleep, and Susan, completing the quartette, looked dreamily from face to face, yawned suppressedly, and wrestled with "The Right of Way."
They were making the six hours' trip to the big forest for a month's holiday, and it seemed to each one of the four that they had been in the train a long, long time. In the racks above their heads were coats and cameras, suit-cases and summer hats, and a long cardboard box, originally intended for "Gents' medium, ribbed, white," but now carrying fringed napkins and the remains of a luncheon.
It had all been planned a hundred times, under the big lamp in the Sausalito sitting-room. The twelve o'clock train--Farwoods Station at five--an hour's ride in the stage--six o'clock. Then they would be at the cabin, and another hour--say--would be spent in the simplest of housewarming. A fire must be built to dry bedding after the long months, and to cook bacon and eggs, and just enough unpacking to find night-wear and sheets. That must do for the first night.
"But we'll sit and talk over the fire," Betsey would plead. "Please, Mother! We'll be all through dinner at eight o'clock!"
The train however was late, nearly half-an-hour late, when they reached Farwoods. The stage, pleasant enough in pleasant weather, was disgustingly cramped and close inside. Susan and Betsey were both young enough to resent the complacency with which Jimmy climbed up, with his dog, beside the driver.
"You let him stay in the baggage-car with Baloo all the way, Mother," Betts reproached her, flinging herself recklessly into the coach, "and now you're letting him ride in the rain!"
"Well, stop falling over everything, for Heaven's sake, Betts!" Susan scolded. "And don't step on the camera! Don't get in, Billy,--I say DON'T GET IN! Well, why don't you listen to me then! These things are all over the floor, and I have to---"
"I have to get in, it's pouring,--don't be such a crab, Sue!" Billy said pleasantly. "Lord, what's that! What did I break?"
"That's the suitcase with the food in it," Susan snapped. "PLEASE wait a minute, Betts!--All right," finished Susan bitterly, settling herself in a dark corner, "tramp over everything, I don't care!"
"If you don't care, why are you talking about it?" asked Betts.
"He says that we'll have to get out at the willows, and walk up the trail," said Mrs. Carroll, bending her tall head, as she entered the stage, after a conversation with the driver. "Gracious sakes, how things have been tumbled in! Help me pile these things up, girls!"
"I was trying to," Susan began stiffly, leaning forward to do her share. A sudden jolt of the starting stage brought her head against Betts with a violent concussion. After that she sat back in magnificent silence for half the long drive.
They jerked and jolted on the uneven roads, the rain was coming down more steadily now, and finally even Jimmy and the shivering Baloo had to come inside the already well-filled stage.
It was quite dark when they were set down at the foot of the overgrown trail, and started, heavily loaded, for the cabin. Wind sighed and swept through the upper branches of the forest, boughs creaked and whined, the ground underfoot was spongy with moisture, and the air very cold.
The cabin was dark and deserted looking; a drift of tiny redwood branches carpeted the porch. The rough steps ran water. Once inside, they struck matches and lighted a candle.
Cold, darkness and disorder everybody had expected to find. But it was a blow to discover that the great stone fireplace, the one real beauty of the room, and the delight of every chilly evening, had been brought down by some winter gale. A bleak gap marked its once hospitable vicinity, cool air rushed in where the breath of dancing flames had so often rushed out, and, some in a great heap on the hearth, and some flung in muddy confusion to the four corners of the room, the sooty stones lay scattered.
It was a bad moment for everyone. Betsey began to cry, her weary little head on her mother's shoulder.
"This won't do!" Mrs. Carroll said perplexedly. "B-r-r-r-r! How cold it is!"
"This is rotten," Jimmy said bitterly. "And all the fellows are going to the Orpheum to-night too!" he added enviously.
"It's warm here compared to the bedroom," Susan, who had been investigating, said simply. "The blankets feel wet, they're so cold!"
"And too wet for a camp-fire--" mused the mother.
"And the stage gone!" Billy added.
A cold draught blew open the door and set the candle guttering.
"Oh, I'm so COLD!" Susan said, hunching herself like a sick chicken.
The rest of the evening became family history. How they took their camping stove and its long tin pipe from the basement, and set it up in the woodshed that, with the little bedroom, completed the cabin, how wood from the cellar presently crackled within, how suitcases were opened by maddening candle-light, and wet boots changed for warm slippers, and wet gowns for thick wrappers. How the kettle sang and the bacon hissed, and the coffee-pot boiled over, and everybody took a turn at cutting bread. Deep in the heart of the rain-swept, storm-shaken woods, they crowded into the tiny annex, warm and dry, so lulled by the warm meal and the warm clothes that it was with great difficulty that Mrs. Carroll roused them all for bed at ten o'clock.
"I'm going to sleep with you, Sue," announced Betsey, shivering, and casting an envious glance at her younger brother who, with Billy, was to camp for that night in the kitchen, "and if it's like this to-morrow, I vote that we all go home!"
But they awakened in all the fragrant beauty and stillness of a great forest, on a heavenly August morning. Sunshine flooded the cabin, when Susan opened her eyes, and the vista of redwood boughs beyond the window was shot with long lines of gold. Everywhere were sweetness and silence; blots of bright gold on feathery layers of soft green. High-arched aisles stretched all about the cabin like the spokes of a great wheel; warm currents, heavy with piney sweetness, drifted across the crystal and sparkling brightness of the air. The rain was gone; the swelled creek rushed noisily down a widened course; it was cool now, but the day would be hot. Susan, dressing with her eyes on the world beyond the window, was hastened by a sudden delicious odor of boiling coffee, and the delightful sound of a crackling wood fire.
Delightful were all the sights and sounds and duties of the first days in camp. There must be sweeping, airing, unpacking in the little domicile. Someone must walk four miles to the general store for salt, and more matches, and pancake flour. Someone must take the other direction, and climb a mile of mountain every day or two for milk and eggs and butter. The spring must be cleared, and a board set across the stream; logs dragged in for the fire, a pantry built of boxes, for provisions, and ship-shape disposition made of mugs and plates.
Billy sharpened cranes for their camp-kitchen, swung the kettles over a stone-lined depression, erected a protection of flat redwood boughs. And under his direction the fireplace was rebuilt.
"It just shows what you can do, if you must!" said Susan, complacently eying the finished structure.
"It's handsomer than ever!" Mrs. Carroll said. The afternoon sunlight was streaming in across the newly swept hearth, and touching to brighter colors the Navajo blanket stretched on the floor. "And now we have one more happy association with the camp!' she finished contentedly.
"Billy is wishing he could transfer all his strikers up here," said Susan dimpling. "He thinks that a hundred miles of forest are too much for just a few people!"
"They wouldn't enjoy it," he answered seriously, "they have had no practice in this sort of life. They'd hate it. But of course it's a matter of education---"
"Help! He's off!" said the irreverent Susan, "now he'll talk for an hour! Come on, Betts, I have to go for milk!"
Exquisite days these for them all, days so brimming with beauty as to be forever memorable. Susan awoke every morning to a rushing sense of happiness, and danced to breakfast looking no more than a gay child, in her bluejacket's blouse, with her bright hair in a thick braid. Busy about breakfast preparations, and interrupted by a hundred little events in the forest or stream all about her, Billy would find her. There was always a moment of heat and hurry, when toast and oatmeal and coffee must all be brought to completion at once, and then they might loiter over their breakfast as long as they liked.
Afterward, Susan and Mrs. Carroll put the house in order, while the others straightened and cleaned the camp outside. Often the talks between the two women ran far over the time their work filled, and Betsey would come running in to ask Mother and Susan why they were laughing. Laughter was everywhere, not much was needed to send them all into gales of mirth.
Usually they packed a basket, gathered the stiff, dry bathing suits from the grass, and lunched far up in the woods. Fishing gear was carried along, although the trout ran small, and each fish provided only a buttery, delicious mouthful. Susan learned to swim and was more proud of her first breathless journey across the pool than were the others with all their expert diving and racing. Mrs. Carroll swam well, and her daughters were both splendid swimmers.
After the first dip, they lunched on the hot shingle, and dozed and talked, and skipped flat stones on the water, until it was time to swim again. All about them the scene was one of matchless beauty. Steep banks, aquiver with ferns, came down on one side of the pool, to the very edge of the crystal water; on the other, long arcades, shot with mellow sunlight, stretched away through the forest. Bees went by on swift, angry journeys, and dragon-flies rested on the stones for a few dazzling palpitating seconds, and were gone again. Black water-bugs skated over the shallows, throwing round shadows on the smooth floor of the pool.
Late in the afternoon, the campers would saunter home, crossing hot strips of meadow, where they started hundreds of locusts into flight, or plunging into the cool green of twilight woods. Back at the camp, there would be the crackle of wood again, with all the other noises of the dying forest day. Good odors drifted about, broiling meat and cooking wild berries, chipmunks and gray squirrels and jays chattered from the trees overhead; there was a whisking of daring tails, a flutter of bold wings.
Daylight lasted for the happy meal, and stars came out above their camp-fire. And while they talked or sang, or sat with serious young eyes watching the flames, owls called far away through the wood, birds chuckled sleepily in the trees, and, where moonlight touched the stream, sometimes a trout rose and splashed.
When was it that Billy always began to take his place at Susan's side, at the campfire, their shoulders almost touching in the dark? When was it that, through all the careless, happy companionship that bound them all, she began to know, with a thrill of joy and pain at her heart, that there were special looks for her, special glad tones for her? She did not know.
But she did know that suddenly all the world seemed Billy,--Billy's arm to cross a stream, Billy's warning beside the swimming pool, Billy's laughter at her nonsense, and Billy's eyes when she looked up from musing over her book or turned, on a trail, to call back to the others, following her. She knew why the big man stumbled over words, grew awkward and flushed when she turned upon him the sisterly gaze of her blue eyes.
And with the knowledge life grew almost unbearably sweet. Susan was enveloped in some strange golden glory; the mere brushing of her hair, or shaking out of her bathing-suit became a rite, something to be done with an almost suffocating sense of significance. Everything she did became intensified, her laughter and her tears were more ready, her voice had new and sweeter notes in it, she glowed like a rose in the knowledge that he thought her beautiful, and because he thought her sweet and capable and brave she became all of these things.
She did not analyze him; he was different from all other men, he stood alone among them, simply because he was Billy. He was tall and strong and clean of heart and sunny of temper, yes--but with these things she did not concern herself,--he was poor, too, he was unemployed, he had neither class nor influence to help him,--that mattered as little.
He was Billy,--genial and clever and good, unconventional, eager to learn, full of simple faith in human nature, honest and unaffected whether he was dealing with the president of a great business, or teaching Jim how to play his reel for trout,--and he had her whole heart. Whether she was laughing at his arguments, agreeing with his theories, walking silently at his side through the woods, or watching the expressions that followed each other on his absorbed face, while he cleaned his gun or scrutinized the detached parts of Mrs. Carroll's coffee-mill, Susan followed him with eyes into which a new expression had crept. She watched him swimming, flinging back an arc of bright drops with every jerk of his sleek wet head; she bent her whole devotion on the garments he brought her for buttons, hoping that he did not see the trembling of her hands, or the rush of color that his mere nearness brought to her face. She thrilled with pride when he came to bashfully consult her about the long letters he wrote from time to time to Clem Cudahy or Joseph Rassette, listened eagerly to his talks with the post-office clerk, the store-keeper, the dairymen and ranchers up on the mountain.
And always she found him good. "Too good for me," said Susan sadly to herself. "He has made the best of everything that ever came his way, and I have been a silly fool whenever I had half a chance."
The miracle was worked afresh for them, as for all lovers. This was no mere attraction between a man and a maid, such as she had watched all her life, Susan thought. This was some new and rare and wonderful event, as miraculous in the eyes of all the world as it was to her.
"I should be Susan Oliver," she thought with a quick breath. An actual change of name--how did other women ever survive the thrill and strangeness of itl "We should have to have a house," she told herself, lying awake one night. A house--she and Billy with a tiny establishment of their own, alone over their coffee-cups, alone under their lamp! Susan's heart went out to the little house, waiting for them somewhere. She hung a dream apron on the door of a dream kitchen, and went to meet a tired dream-Billy at the door----
He would kiss her. The blood rushed to her face and she shut her happy eyes.
A dozen times a day she involved herself in some enterprise from which she could not extricate herself without his help. Billy had to take heavy logs out of her arms, had to lay a plank across the stretch of creek she could not cross, had to help her down from the crotch of a tree with widespread brotherly arms.
"I thought--I--could--make--it!" gasped Susan, laughing, when he swam after her, across the pool, and towed her ignominiously home.
"Susan, you're a fool!" scolded Billy, when they were safe on the bank, and Susan, spreading her wet hair about her, siren-wise, answered meekly: "Oh, I know it!"
On a certain Saturday Anna and Philip climbed down from the stage, and the joys of the campers were doubled as they related their adventures and shared all their duties and delights. Susan and Anna talked nearly all night, lying in their canvas beds, on a porch flooded with moonlight, and if Susan did not mention Billy, nor Anna allude to the great Doctor Hoffman, they understood each other for all that.
The next day they all walked up beyond the ranch-house, and followed the dripping flume to the dam. And here, beside a wide sheet of blue water, they built their fire, and had their lunch, and afterward spent a long hour in the water. Quail called through the woods, and rabbits flashed out of sight at the sound of human voices, and once, in a silence, a doe, with a bright-eyed fawn clinking after her on the stones, came down to the farther shore for a drink.
"You ought to live this sort of life all the time, Sue!" Billy said idly, as they sat sunning themselves on the wide stone bulkhead that held back the water.
"I? Why?" asked Susan, marking the smooth cement with a wet forefinger.
"Because you're such a kid, Sue--you like it all so much!"
"Knowing what you know of me, Bill, I wonder that you can think of me as young at all," the girl answered drily, suddenly somber and raising shamed eyes to his.
"How do you mean?" he stammered, and then, suddenly enlightened, he added scornfully, "Oh, Lord!"
"That---" Susan said quietly, still marking the hot cement, "will keep me from ever--ever being happy, Bill---" Her voice thickened, and she stopped speaking.
"I don't look at that whole episode as you do, Sue," Billy said gruffly after a moment's embarrassed silence. "I don't believe chance controls those things. I often think of it when some man comes to me with a hard-luck story. His brother cheated him, and a factory burned down, and he was three months sick in a hospital--yes, that may all be true! But follow him back far enough and you'll find he was a mean man from the very start, ruined a girl in his home town, let his wife support his kids. It's years ago now perhaps, but his fate is simply working out its natural conclusion. Somebody says that character IS fate, Sue,--you've always been sweet and decent and considerate of other people, and your fate saved you through that. You couldn't have done anything wrong--it's not IN you!"
He looked up with his bright smile but Susan could hear no more. She had scrambled to her feet while he was speaking, now she stopped only long enough to touch his shoulder with a quick, beseeching pressure. The next instant she was walking away, and he knew that her face was wet with tears. She plunged into the pool, and swam steadily across the silky expanse, and when he presently joined her, with Anna and Betts, she was quite herself again.
Quite her old self, and the life and heart of everything they did. Anna laughed until the tears stood in her eyes, the others, more easily moved, went from one burst of mirth to another. They were coming home past the lumber mill when Billy fell in step just beside her, and the others drifted on without them. There was nothing in that to startle Susan, but she did feel curiously startled, and a little shy, and managed to keep a conversation going almost without help.
"Stop here and watch the creek," said Billy, at the mill bridge. Susan stopped, and they stood looking down at the foaming water, tumbling through barriers, and widening, in a ruffled circle, under the great wheel.
"Was there ever such a heavenly place, Billy?"
"Never," he said, after a second. Susan had time to think his voice a little deep and odd before he added, with an effort, "We'll come back here often, won't we? After we're married?"
"Oh, are we going to be married?" Susan said lightly.
"Well, aren't we?" He quietly put his arm about her, as they stood at the rail, so that in turning her innocent, surprised eyes, she found his face very near. Susan held herself away rigidly, dropped her eyes. She could not answer.
"How about it, Sue?" he asked, very low and, looking up, she found that he was half-smiling, but with anxious eyes. Suddenly she found her eyes brimming, and her lip shook. Susan felt very young, a little frightened.
"Do you love me, Billy?" she faltered. It was too late to ask it, but her heart suddenly ached with a longing to hear him say it.
"Love you!" he said scarcely above his breath. "Don't you know how I love you! I think I've loved you ever since you came to our house, and I gave you my cologne bottle!"
There was no laughter in his tone, but the old memory brought laughter to them both. Susan clung to him, and he tightened his arms about her. Then they kissed each other.
Half an hour behind the others they came slowly down the home trail. Susan had grown shy now and, although she held his hand childishly, she would not allow him to kiss her again. The rapid march of events had confused her, and she amused him by a plea for time "to think."
"Please, please don't let them suspect anything tonight, Bill!" she begged. "Not for months! For we shall probably have to wait a long, long time!"
"I have a nerve to ask any girl to do it!" Billy said gloomily.
"You're not asking any girl. You're asking me, you know!"
"But, darling, you honestly aren't afraid? We'll have to count every cent for awhile, you know!"
"It isn't as if I had been a rich girl," Susan reminded him.
"But you've been a lot with rich people. And we'll have to live in some place in the Mission, like Georgie, Sue!"
"In the Mission perhaps, but not like Georgie! Wait until you eat my dinners, and see my darling little drawing-room! And we'll go to dinner at Coppa's and Sanguinetti's, and come over to Sausalito for picnics,--we'll have wonderful times! You'll see!"
"I adore you," said Billy, irrevelantly.
"Well," Susan said, "I hope you do! But I'll tell you something I've been thinking, Billy," she resumed dreamily, after a silence.
"And pwhats dthat, me dar-r-rlin'?"
"Why, I was thinking that I'd rather---" Susan began hesitatingly, "rather have my work cut out for me in this life! That is, I'd rather begin at the bottom of the ladder, and work up to the top, than be at the top, through no merit of my own, and live in terror of falling to the bottom! I believe, from what I've seen of other people, that we'll succeed, and I think we'll have lots of fun doing it!"
"But, Sue, you may get awfully tired of it!"
"Everybody gets awfully tired of everything!" sang Susan, and caught his hand for a last breathless run into camp.
At supper they avoided each other's eyes, and assumed an air of innocence and gaiety. But in spite of this, or because of it, the meal moved in an unnatural atmosphere, and everyone present was conscious of a sense of suspense, of impending news.
"Betts dear, do listen!--the SALT," said Mrs. Carroll. "You've given me the spoons and the butter twice! Tell me about to-day," she added, in a desperate effort to start conversation. "What happened?"
But Jimmy choked at this, Betsey succumbed to helpless giggling, and even Philip reddened with suppressed laughter.
"Don't, Betts!" Anna reproached her.
"You're just as bad yourself!" sputtered Betsey, indignantly.
"I?" Anna turned virtuous, outraged eyes upon her junior, met Susan's look for a quivering second, and buried her flushed and laughing face in her napkin.
"I think you're all crazy!" Susan said calmly.
"She's blushing!" announced Jimmy.
"Cut it out now, kid," Billy growled. "It's none of your business!"
"WHAT'S none of his business?" carroled Betsey, and a moment later joyous laughter and noise broke out,--Philip was shaking William's hand, the girls were kissing Susan, Mrs. Carroll was laughing through tears. Nobody had been told the great news, but everybody knew it.
Presently Susan sat in Mrs. Carroll's lap, and they all talked of the engagement; who had suspected it, who had been surprised, what Anna had noticed, what had aroused Jimmy's suspicions. Billy was very talkative but Susan strangely quiet to-night.
It seemed to make it less sacred, somehow, this open laughter and chatter about it. Why she had promised Billy but a few hours ago, and here he was threatening never to ask Betts to "our house," unless she behaved herself, and kissing Anna with the hilarious assurance that his real reason for "taking" Susan was because she, Anna, wouldn't have him! No man who really loved a woman could speak like that to another on the very night of his engagement, thought Susan. A great coldness seized her heart, and pity for herself possessed her. She sat next to Mrs. Carroll at the camp-fire, and refused Billy even the little liberty of keeping his fingers over hers. No liberties to-night!
And later, tucked by Mrs. Carroll's motherly hands into her little camp bed on the porch, she lay awake, sick at heart. Far from loving Billy Oliver, she almost disliked him! She did not want to be engaged this way, she wanted, at this time of all times in her life, to be treated with dignity, to be idolized, to have her every breath watched. How she had cheapened everything by letting him blurt out the news this way! And now, how could she in dignity draw back----
Susan began to cry bitterly. She was all alone in the world, she said to herself, she had never had a chance, like other girls! She wanted a home to-night, she wanted her mother and father---!
Her handkerchief was drenched, she tried to dry her eyes on the harsh hem of the sheet. Her tears rushed on and on, there seemed to be no stopping them. Billy did not care for her, she sobbed to herself, he took the whole thing as a joke! And, beginning thus, what would he feel after a few years of poverty, dark rooms and unpaid bills?
Even if he did love her, thought Susan bursting out afresh, how was she to buy a trousseau, how were they to furnish rooms, and pay rent, "one always has to pay a month's rent in advance!" she thought gloomily.
"I believe I am going to be one of those weepy, sensitive women, whose noses are always red," said Susan, tossing restlessly in the dark. "I shall go mad if I can't get to sleep!" And she sat up, reached for her big, loose Japanese wrapper and explored with bare feet for her slippers.
Ah--that was better! She sat on the top step, her head resting against the rough pillar of the porch, and felt a grateful rush of cool air on her flushed face. Her headache lessened suddenly, her thoughts ran more quietly.
There was no moon yet. Susan stared at the dim profile of the forest, and at the arch of the sky, spattered with stars. The exquisite beauty of the summer night soothed and quieted her. After a time she went noiselessly down the dark pathway to the spring-house for a drink.
The water was deliciously cool and fresh. Susan, draining a second cup of it, jumped as a voice nearby said quietly:
"Don't be frightened--it's me, Billy!"
"Heaven alive--how you scared me!" gasped Susan, catching at the hand he held out to lead her back to the comparative brightness of the path. "Billy, why aren't you asleep?"
"Too happy, I guess," he said simply, his eyes on her.
She held his hands at arm's length, and stared at him wistfully.
"Are you so happy, Bill?" she asked.
"Well, what do you think?" The words were hardly above a whisper, he wrenched his hands suddenly free from her, and she was in his arms, held close against his heart. "What do you think, my own girl?" said Billy, close to her ear.
"Heavens, I don't want him to care THIS much!" said the terrified daughter of Eve, to herself. Breathless, she freed herself, and held him at arm's length again.
"Billy, I can't stay down here--even for a second--unless you promise not to!"
"But darling--however, I won't! And will you come over here to the fence for just a minute--the moon's coming up!"
Billy Oliver--the same old Billy!--trembling with eagerness to have Susan Brown--the unchanged Susan!--come and stand by a fence, and watch the moon rise! It was very extraordinary, it was pleasant, and curiously exciting, too.
"Well---" conceded Susan, as she gathered her draperies about her, and went to stand at the fence, and gaze childlishly up at the stars. Billy, also resting elbows on the old rail, stood beside her, and never moved his eyes from her face.
The half-hour that followed both of them would remember as long as they lived. Slowly, gloriously, the moon climbed up the dark blue dome of the sky, and spread her silver magic on the landscape; the valley below them swam in pale mist, clean-cut shadows fell from the nearby forest.
The murmur of young voices rose and fell--rose and fell. There were little silences, now and then Susan's subdued laughter. Susan thought her lover magnificent in the moonlight; what Billy thought of the lovely downcast face, the loose braid of hair that caught a dull gleam from the moon, the slender elbows bare on the rail, the breast that rose and fell, under her light wraps, with Susan's quickened breathing, perhaps he tried to tell her.
"But I must go in!" she protested presently. "This has been wonderful, but I must go in!"
"But why? We've just begun talking--and after all, Sue, you're going to be my wife!"
The word spurred her. In a panic Susan gave him a swift half-kiss, and fled, breathless and dishevelled, back to the porch. And a moment later she had fallen into a sleep as deep as a child's, her prayer of gratitude half-finished.
The days that followed were brightened or darkened with moods so intense, that it was a real, if secret, relief to Susan when the forest visit was over, and sun-burned and shabby and loaded with forest spoils, they all came home again. Jim's first position awaited him, and Anna was assistant matron in the surgical hospital now,--fated to see the man she loved almost every day, and tortured afresh daily by the realization of his greatness, his wealth, his quiet, courteous disregard of the personality of the dark-eyed, deft little nurse. Dr. Conrad Hoffman was seventeen years older than Anna. Susan secretly thought of Anna's attachment as quite hopeless.
Philip and Betts and Susan were expected back at their respective places too, and Billy was deeply interested in the outcome of the casual, friendly letters he had written during the month in camp to Joseph Rassette. These letters had been passed about among the men until they were quite worn out; Clem Cudahy had finally had one or two printed, for informal distribution, and there had been a little sensation over them. Now, eastern societies had written asking for back numbers of the "Oliver Letter," and a labor journal had printed one almost in full. Clement Cudahy was anxious to discuss with Billy the feasibility of printing such a letter weekly for regular circulation, and Billy thought well of the idea, and was eager to begin the enterprise.
Susan was glad to get back to the little "Democrat," and worked very hard during the fall and winter. She was not wholly happy, or, rather, she was not happy all the time. There were times, especially when Billy was not about, when it seemed very pleasant to be introduced as an engaged girl, and to get the respectful, curious looks of other girls. She liked to hear Mrs. Carroll and Anna praise Billy, and she liked Betts' enthusiasm about him.
But little things about him worried her inordinately, sometimes she resented, for a whole silent evening, his absorption in other people, sometimes grew pettish and unresponsive and offended because he could keep neither eyes nor hands from her. And there were evenings when they seemed to have nothing to talk about, and Billy, too tired to do anything but drowse in his big chair, was confronted with an alert and horrified Susan, sick with apprehension of all the long evenings, throughout all the years. Susan was fretted by the financial barrier to the immediate marriage, too, it was humiliating, at twenty-six, to be affected by a mere matter of dollars and cents.
They quarreled, and came home silently from a dinner in town, Susan's real motive in yielding to a reconciliation being her disinclination to confess to Mrs. Carroll,--and those motherly eyes read her like a book,--that she was punishing Billy for asking her not to "show off" before the waiter!
But early in the new year, they were drawn together by rapidly maturing plans. The "Oliver Letter," called the "Saturday Protest" now, was fairly launched. Billy was less absorbed in the actual work, and began to feel sure of a moderate success. He had rented for his office half of the lower floor of an old house in the Mission. Like all the old homes that still stand to mark the era when Valencia Street was as desired an address as California Street is to-day, it stood upon bulkheaded ground, with a fat-pillared wooden fence bounding the wide lawns.
The fence was full of gaps, and the house, with double bay-windows, and with a porch over its front door, was shabby and bare. Its big front door usually stood open; opposite Billy, across a wide hall, was a modest little millinery establishment, upstairs a nurses' home, and a woman photographer occupied the top floor. The "Protest," a slim little sheet, innocent of contributed matter or advertising, and written, proofed and set up by Billy's own hands, was housed in what had been the big front drawing-room. Billy kept house in the two back rooms that completed the little suite.
Susan first saw the house on a Saturday in January, a day that they both remembered afterwards as being the first on which their marriage began to seem a definite thing. It was in answer to Billy's rather vague suggestion that they must begin to look at flats in the neighborhood that Susan said, half in earnest:
"We couldn't begin here, I suppose? Have the office downstairs in the big front room, and clean up that old downstairs kitchen, and fix up these three rooms!"
Billy dismissed the idea. But it rose again, when they walked downtown, in the afternoon sunlight, and kept them in animated talk over a happy dinner.
"The rent for the whole thing is only twenty dollars!" said Susan, "and we can fix it all up, pretty old-fashioned papers, and white paint! You won't know it!"
"I adore you, Sue--isn't this fun?" was William's somewhat indirect answer. They missed one boat, missed another, finally decided to leave it to Mrs. Carroll.
Mrs. Carroll's decision was favorable. "Loads of sunlight and fresh air, Sue, and well up off the ground!" she summarized it.
The decision made all sorts of madness reasonable. If they were to live there, would this thing fit--would that thing fit--why not see paperers at once, why not look at stoves? Susan and Billy must "get an idea" of chairs and tables, must "get an idea" of curtains and rugs.
"And when do you think, children?" asked Mrs. Carroll.
"June," said Susan, all roses.
"April," said the masterful male.
"Oh, doesn't it begin to seem exciting!" burst from Betsey. The engagement was an old story now, but this revived interest in it.
"Clothes!" said Anna rapturously. "Sue, you must be married in another pongee, you NEVER had anything so becoming!"
"We must decide about the wedding too," Mrs. Carroll said. "Certain old friends of your mother, Sue---"
"Barrows can get me announcements at cost," Philip contributed.
After that Susan and Billy had enough to talk about. Love-making must be managed at odd moments; Billy snatched a kiss when the man who was selling them linoleums turned his back for a moment; Susan offered him another as she demurely flourished the coffee-pot, in the deep recesses of a hardware shop.
"Do let me have my girl for two seconds together!" Billy pleaded, when between Anna, with samples of gowns, Betts, wild with excitement over an arriving present, and Mrs. Carroll's anxiety that they should not miss a certain auction sale, he had only distracted glimpses of his sweetheart.
It is an undeniable and blessed thing that, to the girl who is buying it, the most modest trousseau in the world seems wonderful and beautiful and complete beyond dreams. Susan's was far from being the most modest in the world, and almost every day brought her beautiful additions to it. Georgie, kept at home by a delicate baby, sent one delightful box after another; Mary Lou sent a long strip of beautiful lace, wrapped about Ferd's check for a hundred dollars.
"It was Aunt Sue Rose's lace," wrote Mary Lou, "and I am going to send you a piece of darling Ma's, too, and one or two of her spoons."
This reminded Georgie of "Aunt Sue Rose's box," which, unearthed, brought forth more treasures; a thin old silver ladle, pointed tea-spoons connected with Susan's infant memories of castor-oil. Virginia had a blind friend from whom she ordered a wonderful knitted field-coat. Anna telephoned about a patient who must go into mourning, and wanted to sell at less than half its cost, the loveliest of rose-wreathed hats.
Susan and Anna shopped together, Anna consulting a shabby list, Susan rushing off at a hundred tangents. Boxes and boxes and boxes came home, the engagement cups had not stopped coming when the wedding presents began. The spareroom closet was hung with fragrant new clothes, its bed was heaped with tissue-wrapped pieces of silver.
Susan crossed the bay two or three times a week to rush through some bit of buying, and to have dinner with Billy. They liked all the little Spanish and French restaurants, loitered over their sweet black coffee, and dry cheese, explored the fascinating dark streets of the Chinese Quarter, or went to see the "Marionettes" next door to the old Broadway jail. All of it appealed to Susan's hunger for adventure, she wove romances about the French families among whom they dined,--stout fathers, thin, nervous mothers, stolid, claret-drinking little girls, with manes of black hair,--about the Chinese girls, with their painted lips, and the old Italian fishers, with scales glittering on their rough coats.
"We've got to run for it, if we want it!" Billy would say, snatching her coat from a chair. Susan after jabbing in her hatpins before a mirror decorated with arabesques of soap, would rush with him into the street. Fog and pools of rain water all about, closed warehouses and lighted saloons, dark crossings--they raced madly across the ferry place at last, with the clock in the tower looking down on them.
"We're all right now!" Billy would gasp. But they still ran, across the long line of piers, and through the empty waiting-room, and the iron gates.
"That was the closest yet!" Susan, reaching the upper deck, could stop to breathe. There were seats facing the water, under the engine-house, where Billy might put his arm about her unobserved. Their talk went on.
Usually they had the night boat to themselves, but now and then Susan saw somebody that she knew on board. One night she went in to talk for a moment with Ella Saunders. Ella was gracious, casual. Ken was married, as Susan knew,--the newspapers had left nothing to be imagined of the most brilliant of the season's matches, and pictures of the fortunate bride, caught by the cameras as she made her laughing way to her carriage, a white blur of veil and flowers, had appeared everywhere. Emily was not well, said Ella, might spend the summer in the east; Mama was not very well. She asked Susan no questions, and Susan volunteered nothing.
And on another occasion they were swept into the company of the Furlongs. Isabel was obviously charmed with Billy, and Billy, Susan thought, made John Furlong seem rather stupid and youthful.
"And you MUST come and dine with us!" said Isabel. Obviously not in the month before the wedding, Isabel's happy excuses, in an aside to Susan, were not necessary, "---But when you come back," said Isabel.
"And you with us in our funny little rooms in the Mission," Susan said gaily. Isabel took her husband's arm, and gave it a little squeeze.
"He'd love to!" she assured Susan. "He just loves things like that. And you must let us help get the dinner!"
On Sundays the old walks to the beach had been resumed, and the hills never had seemed to Susan as beautiful as they did this year, when the first spring sweetness began to pierce the air, and the breeze brought faint odors of grass, and good wet earth, and violets. Spring this year meant to the girl's glowing and ardent nature what it meant to the birds, with apple-blossoms and mustard-tops, lilacs and blue skies, would come the mating time. Susan was the daughter of her time; she did not know why all the world seemed made for her now; her heritage of ignorance and fear was too great. But Nature, stronger than any folly of her children, made her great claim none the less. Susan thrilled in the sunshine and warm air, dreamed of her lover's kisses, gloried in the fact that youth was not to pass her by without youth's hour.
By March all Sausalito was mantled with acacia bloom, and the silent warm days were sweet with violets. The sunshine was soft and warm, if there was still chill in the shade. The endless weeks had dragged themselves away; Susan and Billy were going to be married.
Susan walked in a radiant dream, curiously wrapped away from reality, yet conscious, in a new and deep and poignant way, of every word, of every waking instant.
"I am going to be married next week," she heard herself saying. Other women glanced at her; she knew they thought her strangely unmoved. She thought herself so. But she knew that running under the serene surface of her life was a dazzling great river of joy! Susan could not look upon it yet. Her eyes were blinded.
Presents came in, more presents. A powder box from Ella, candle-sticks from Emily, a curiously embroidered tablecloth from the Kenneth Saunders in Switzerland. And from old Mrs. Saunders a rather touching note, a request that Susan buy herself "something pretty," with a check for fifty dollars, "from her sick old friend, Fanny Saunders."
Mary Lou, very handsomely dressed and prosperous, and her beaming husband, came down for the wedding. Mary Lou had a hundred little babyish, new mannerisms, she radiated the complacency of the adored woman, and, when Susan spoke of Billy, Mary Lou was instantly reminded of Ferd, the salary Ferd made at twenty, the swiftness of his rise in the business world, his present importance. Mary Lou could not hide the pity she felt for Susan's very modest beginning. "I wish Ferd could find Billy some nice, easy position," said Mary Lou. "I don't like you to live out in that place. I don't believe Ma would!"
Virginia was less happy than her sister. The Eastmans were too busy together to remember her loneliness. "Sometimes it seems as if Mary Lou just likes to have me there to remind her how much better off she is," said Virginia mildly, to Susan. "Ferd buys her things, and takes her places, and all I can do is admire and agree! Of course they're angels," added Virginia, wiping her eyes, "but I tell you it's hard to be dependent, Sue!"
Susan sympathized, laughed, chattered, stood still under dressmakers' hands, dashed off notes, rushed into town for final purchases, opened gifts, consulted with everyone,--all in a golden, whirling dream. Sometimes a cold little doubt crossed her mind, and she wondered whether she was taking all this too much for granted, whether she really loved Billy, whether they should not be having serious talks now, whether changes, however hard, were not wiser "before than after"?
But it was too late for that now. The big wheels were set in motion, the day was coming nearer and more near. Susan's whole being was tuned to the great event; she felt herself the pivot upon which all her world turned. A hundred things a day brought the happy color to her face, stopped her heart-beats for a second. She had a little nervous qualm over the announcements; she dreamed for a moment over the cards that bore the new name of Mrs. William Jerome Oliver. "It seems so--so funny to have these things here in my trunk, before I'm married!" said Susan.
Anna came home, gravely radiant; Betsy exulted in a new gown of flimsy embroidered linen; Philip, in the character of best man, referred to a list of last-moment reminders.
Three days more--two days more--then Susan was to be married to-morrow. She and Billy had enough that was practical to discuss the last night, before he must run for his boat. She went with him to the door.
"I'm going to be crazy about my wife!" whispered Billy, with his arms about her. Susan was not in a responsive mood.
"I'm dead!" she said wearily, resting her head against his shoulder like a tired child.
She went upstairs slowly to her room. It was strewn with garments and hats and cardboard boxes; Susan's suitcase, with the things in it that she would need for a fortnight in the woods, was open on the table. The gas flared high, Betsey at the mirror was trying a new method of arranging her hair. Mrs. Carroll was packing Susan's trunk, Anna sat on the bed.
"Sue, dear," said the mother, "are you going to be warm enough up in the forest? It may be pretty cold."
"Oh, we'll have fires!" Susan said.
"Well, you are the COOLEST!" ejaculated Betsey. "I should think you'd feel so FUNNY, going up there alone with Billy---"
"I'd feel funnier going up without him," Susan said equably. She got into a loose wrapper, braided her hair. Mrs. Carroll and Betsey kissed her and went away; Susan and Anna talked for a few minutes, then Susan went to sleep. But Anna lay awake for a long time thinking,--thinking what it would be like to know that only a few hours lay between the end of the old life and the beginning of the new.
"My wedding day." Susan said it slowly when she awakened in the morning. She felt that the words should convey a thrill, but somehow the day seemed much like any other day. Anna was gone, there was a subdued sound of voices downstairs.
A day that ushered in the full glory of the spring. All the flowers were blooming at once, at noon the air was hot and still, not a leaf stirred. Before Susan had finished her late breakfast Billy arrived; there was talk of tickets and train time before she went upstairs. Mary Lou had come early to watch the bride dress; good, homely, happy Miss Lydia Lord must run up to Susan's room too,--the room was full of women. Isabel Furlong was throned in the big chair, John was to take her away before the wedding, but she wanted to kiss Susan in her wedding gown.
Susan presently saw a lovely bride, smiling in the depths of the mirror, and was glad for Billy's sake that she looked "nice." Tall and straight, with sky-blue eyes shining under a crown of bright hair, with the new corsets setting off the lovely gown to perfection, her mother's lace at her throat and wrists, and the rose-wreathed hat matching her cheeks, she looked the young and happy woman she was, stepping bravely into the world of loving and suffering.
The pretty gown must be gathered up safely for the little walk to church. "Are we all ready?" asked Susan, running concerned eyes over the group.
"Don't worry about us!" said Philip. "You're the whole show to-day!"
In a dream they were walking through the fragrant roads, in a dream they entered the unpretentious little church, and were questioned by the small Spanish sexton at the door. No, that was Miss Carroll,--this was Miss Brown. Yes, everyone was here. The groom and his best man had gone in the other door. Who would give away the bride? This gentleman, Mr. Eastman, who was just now standing very erect and offering her his arm. Susan Ralston Brown--William Jerome Oliver--quite right. But they must wait a moment; the sexton must go around by the vestry for some last errand.
The little organ wheezed forth a march; Susan walked slowly at Ferd Eastman's side,--stopped,--and heard a rich Italian voice asking questions in a free and kindly whisper. The gentleman this side--and the lady here--so!
The voice suddenly boomed out loud and clear and rapid. Susan knew that this was Billy beside her, but she could not raise her eyes. She studied the pattern that fell on the red altar-carpet through a sun-flooded window. She told herself that she must think now seriously; she was getting married. This was one of the great moments of her life.
She raised her head, looked seriously into the kind old face so near her, glanced at Billy, who was very pale.
"I will," said Susan, clearing her throat. She reflected in a panic that she had not been ready for the question, and wondered vaguely if that invalidated her marriage, in the eyes of Heaven at least. Getting married seemed a very casual and brief matter. Susan wished that there was more form to it; pages, and heralds with horns, and processions. What an awful carpet this red one must be to sweep, showing every speck! She and Billy had painted their floors, and would use rugs----
This was getting married. "I wish my mother was here!" said Susan to herself, perfunctorily. The words had no meaning for her.
They knelt down to pray. And suddenly Susan, whose ungloved hand, with its lilies-of-the-valley, had dropped by her side, was thrilled to the very depth of her being by the touch of Billy's cold fingers on hers.
Her heart flooded with a sudden rushing sense of his goodness, his simplicity. He was marrying his girl, and praying for them both, his whole soul was filled with the solemn responsibility he incurred now.
She clung to his hand, and shut her eyes.
"Oh, God, take care of us," she prayed, "and make us love each other, and make us good! Make us good---"
She was deep in her prayer, eyes tightly closed, lips moving fast, when suddenly everything was over. Billy and she were walking down the aisle again, Susan's ringed hand on the arm that was hers now, to the end of the world.
"Billy, you didn't kiss her!" Betts reproached him in the vestibule.
"Didn't I? Well, I will!" He had a fragrant, bewildered kiss from his wife before Anna and Mrs. Carroll and all the others claimed her.
Then they walked home, and Susan protested that it did not seem right to sit at the head of the flower trimmed table, and let everyone wait on her. She ran upstairs with Anna to get into her corduroy camping-suit, and dashing little rough hat, ran down for kisses and good-byes. Betsey--Mary Lou--Philip--Mary Lou again.
"Good-bye, adorable darling!" said Betts, laughing through tears.
"Good-bye, dearest," whispered Anna, holding her close.
"Good-bye, my own girl!" The last kiss was for Mrs. Carroll, and Susan knew of whom the mother was thinking as the first bride ran down the path.
"Well, aren't they all darlings?" said young Mrs. Oliver, in the train.
"Corkers!" agreed the groom. "Don't you want to take your hat off, Sue?"
"Well, I think I will," Susan said pleasantly. Conversation languished.
"Tired, dear?"
"Oh, no!" Susan said brightly.
"I wonder if you can smoke in here," Billy observed, after a pause.
"I don't believe you can!" Susan said, interestedly.
"Well, when he comes through I'll ask him---"
Susan felt as if she should never speak spontaneously again. She was very tired, very nervous, able, with cold dispassion, to wonder what she and Billy Oliver were doing in this close, dirty train,--to wonder why people ever spoke of a wedding-day as especially pleasant,--what people found in life worth while, anyway!
She thought that it would be extremely silly in them to attempt to reach the cabin to-night; far more sensible to stay at Farwoods, where there was a little hotel, or, better yet, go back to the city. But Billy, although a little regretful for the darkness in which they ended their journey, suggested no change of plan, and Susan found herself unable to open the subject. She made the stage trip wedged in between Billy and the driver, climbed down silently at the foot of the familiar trail, and carried the third suitcase up to the cabin.
"You can't hurt that dress, can you, Sue?" said Billy, busy with the key.
"No!" Susan said, eager for the commonplace. "It's made for just this!"
"Then hustle and unpack the eats, will you? And I'll start a fire!"
"Two seconds!" Susan took off her hat, and enveloped herself in a checked apron. There was a heavy chill in the room; there was that blank forbidding air in the dusty, orderly room that follows months of unuse. Susan unpacked, went to and fro briskly; the claims of housekeeping reassured and soothed her.
Billy made thundering journeys for wood. Presently there was a flare of lighted papers in the fireplace, and the heartening snap and crackle of wood. The room was lighted brilliantly; delicious odors of sap mingled with the fragrance from Susan's coffee pot.
"Oh, keen idea!" said Billy, when she brought the little table close to the hearth. "Gee, that's pretty!" he added, as she shook over it the little fringed tablecloth, and laid the blue plates neatly at each side.
"Isn't this fun?" It burst spontaneously from the bride.
"Fun!" Billy flung down an armful of logs, and came to stand beside her, watching the flames. "Lord, Susan," he said, with simple force, "if you only knew how perfect you seem to me! If you only knew how many years I've been thinking how beautiful you were, and how clever, and how far above me----!"
"Go right on thinking so, darling!" said Susan, practically, escaping from his arm, and taking her place behind the cold chicken. "Do ye feel like ye could eat a little mite, Pa?" asked she.
"Well, I dunno, mebbe I could!" William answered hilariously. "Say, Sue, oughtn't those blankets be out here, airing?" he added suddenly.
"Oh, do let's have dinner first. They make everything look so horrid," said young Mrs. Oliver, composedly carving. "They can dry while we're doing the dishes."
"You know, until we can afford a maid, I'm going to help you every night with the dishes," said Billy.
"Well, don't put on airs about it," Susan said briskly. "Or I'll leave you to do them entirely alone, while I run over the latest songs on the PIARNO. Here now, deary, chew this nicely, and when I've had all I want, perhaps I'll give you some more!"
"Sue, aren't we going to have fun--doing things like this all our lives?"
"_I_ think we are," said Susan demurely. It was strange, it had its terrifying phases, but it was curiously exciting and wonderful, too, this wearing of a man's ring and his name, and being alone with him up here in the great forest.
"This is life--this is all good and right," the new-made wife said to herself, with a flutter at her heart. And across her mind there flitted a fragment of the wedding-prayer, "in shamefacedness grave." "I will be grave," thought Susan. "I will be a good wife, with God's help!"
Again morning found the cabin flooded with sunlight, and for all their happy days there the sun shone, and summer silences made the woods seem like June.
"Billum, if only we didn't have to go back!" said William's wife, seated on a stump, and watching him clean trout for their supper, in the soft close of an afternoon.
"Darling, I love to have you sitting there, with your little feet tucked under you, while I work," said William enthusiastically.
"I know," Susan agreed absently. "But don't you wish we didn't?" she resumed, after a moment.
"Well, in a way I do," Billy answered, stooping to souse a fish in the stream beside which he was kneeling. "But there's the 'Protest' you know,--there's a lot to do! And we'll come back here, every year. We'll work like mad for eleven months, and then come up here and loaf."
"But, Bill, how do we know we can manage it financially?" said Susan prudently.
"Oh, Lord, we'll manage it!" he answered comfortably. "Unless, of course, you want to have all the kids brought up in white stockings," grinned Billy, "and have their pictures taken every month!"
"Up here," said Susan dreamily, yet very earnestly too, "I feel so sure of myself! I love the simplicity, I love the work, I could entertain the King of England right here in this forest and not be ashamed! But when we go back, Bill, and I realize that Isabel Wallace may come in and find me pressing my window curtains, or that we honestly can't afford to send someone a handsome wedding present, I'll begin to be afraid. I know that now and then I'll find myself investing in finger-bowls or salted almonds, just because other people do."
"Well, that's not actionable for divorce, woman!"
Susan laughed, but did not answer. She sat looking idly down the long aisles of the forest, palpitating to-day with a rush of new fragrance, new color, new song. Far above, beyond the lacing branches of the redwoods, a buzzard hung motionless in a blue, blue sky.
"Bill," she said presently, "I could live at a settlement house, and be happy all my life showing other women how to live. But when it comes to living down among them, really turning my carpets and scrubbing my own kitchen, I'm sometimes afraid that I'm not big enough woman to be happy!"
"Why, but, Sue dear, there's a decent balance at the bank. We'll build on the Panhandle lots some day, and something comes in from the blue-prints, right along. If you get your own dinner five nights a week, we'll be trotting downtown on other nights, or over at the Carrolls', or up here." Billy stood up. "There's precious little real poverty in the world," he said, cheerfully, "we'll work out our list of expenses, and we'll stick to it! But we're going to prove how easy it is to prosper, not how easy it is to go under. We're the salt of the earth!"
"You're big; I'm not," said Susan, rubbing her head against him as he sat beside her on the stump. But his nearness brought her dimples back, and the sober mood passed.
"Bill, if I die and you remarry, promise me, oh, promise! that you won't bring her here!"
"No, darling, my second wife is going to choose Del Monte or Coronado!" William assured her.
"I'll bet she does, the cat!" Susan agreed gaily, "You know when Elsie Rice married Jerry Philips," she went on, in sudden recollection, "they went to Del Monte. They were both bridge fiends, even when they were engaged everyone who gave them dinners had to have cards afterwards. Well, it seems they went to Del Monte, and they moped about for a day or two, and, finally, Jerry found out that the Joe Carrs were at Santa Cruz,--the Carrs play wonderful bridge. So he and Elsie went straight up there, and they played every afternoon and every night for the next two weeks,--and all went to the Yosemite together, even playing on the train all the way!"
"What a damn fool class for any nation to carry!" Billy commented, mildly.
"Ah, well," Susan said, joyfully, "we'll fix them all! And when there are model poorhouses and prisons, and single tax, and labor pensions, and eight-hour days, and free wool--THEN we'll come back here and settle down in the woods for ever and ever!"