CHAPTER XI
The arrangement thus happily consummated had failed to take note of a very important factor necessary to its perfect adjustment, namely Paul himself. It was Paul, with the assistance of Asa, who finally settled the problem of his future.
For some weeks the “big white house” continued to be the headquarters of Paul, where, through a mutual understanding between his father and Mrs. Pelham, he spent the greater part of the day. But no day passed that did not see Paul for some hours at Pine Croft in the company of his father, working up his music according to his father’s interpretation of the great masters; reciting his catechism and Bible lessons, for these his father insisted upon more keenly than upon any other; playing with his father’s paints and brushes, with now and then a word of instruction as to line or colour, composition or perspective; and struggling with his mathematics, in which Augusta frankly acknowledged that she was rather weak.
His father was eager to supplement in the education of his son the elements which might be lacking in the instruction received at the big white house, which, however excellent of its kind, partook somewhat of the quality and characteristics of that received in an English Dame School. With this idea in mind, the boy was initiated into the mysteries of the elements of engineering, and under his father’s instruction began to apply in a series of primitive experiments the principles of the science to road building, bridge construction, water wheels, the laying of water mains, and such like practical undertakings. Many a long and delightful afternoon the boy toiled at construction work, with his father watching while he lay and smoked, occasionally throwing a word of advice or lending a hand.
In these studies and occupations, Peter was his constant companion and worshipful assistant.
Between the Indian woman and Paul hung a veil of reserve which neither seemed able to remove. The woman herself seemed unwilling to take the place of wife and mother in the household. Centuries of tradition wrought in her soul an ineradicable sense of subordination to her lord and master. At the family table Gaspard insisted that she take her place, but inasmuch as the charge of the household duties fell upon her alone she seized every opportunity to serve her lord as the women of her race had served from time immemorial, rather than preside as his equal in the family. This was especially the case at such times as Paul happened to be a member of the family circle, and had it not been for Gaspard’s express command she on every occasion would have played the part of servant to her master and the “young chief,” as she sometimes shyly named him. Her love for the boy, which was with her second only to that for her lord and master, was a strange mingling of maternal tenderness and of adoration for something high and remote.
As for Paul, he could not have analysed to himself, much less explained to any other, just in what light he considered the Indian woman who occupied such a peculiar place in the household. What that place was Paul, having never been told, was too reserved to enquire. His father had never spoken of it, taking for granted that the boy had understood, and no other had ventured to speak of the matter. For his twelve years the boy had developed an unusual ability to do his own thinking on many subjects, and, moreover, he carried an air of reserve that forbade intrusion into the more intimate things of life.
For one member of the household, however, the sixteen-months babe, Paul developed a swift and absorbing devotion. At his first sight of her the boy utterly lost his heart, and thenceforward was her slave. For half a century of a life teeming with incident and rich in emotion he was never to forget that first vision of little Tannawita—“Singing Water.”
It was the afternoon of the eventful day on which he had recovered his father after those three lonely years that he first saw the child. Together his father and he had spent the morning hours, having the house to themselves. After lunch his father, exhausted with the emotions of the meeting, had gone to his room to rest, leaving Paul to meander through a dream world of his own as his fingers wandered softly over the keyboard of the piano. Thus wandering, with face turned toward his father’s room, the boy became conscious of the lightest of light fingers touching his arm. Startled, he swung about upon his stool, and there beheld a pair of the bluest of blue eyes, looking fixedly into his through a tangle of curls richly golden. The face made him think at once of the child in a Madonna picture which he remembered his mother to have shown him long ago. The eyes in the picture had the same far away, other-worldly look as the eyes staring so fixedly at him. Hardly daring to breathe, he smiled into the blue eyes, pouring into his smile the utmost magic of his fascination. But the blue eyes gazed, unwinking, unchanging, into his.
“Hello, baby,” he said softly, as if fearing to break a spell. “Who are you?”
At once the little hands were lifted up high, while over the face ran rippling waves of light and laughter.
“You are a ripping baby,” said the boy, lifting her to his knee. Immediately the little hands went wandering over his face like little gentle living things, poking into mouth and eyes and ears, while from the baby lips came flowing in a gurgling stream the most exquisitely melodious sounds that had ever fallen upon the boy’s ears.
“Well, you are a darling,” said Paul. “But where in the world do you come from?” He glanced into his father’s room and seeing that he was asleep he picked up the baby in his arms and went out into the garden at the back of the house. There upon the grass he lay, playing with the gurgling babe.
The little one had reached the toddling stage, able to move with timid and uncertain steps. In a few minutes the two were deep in a game of hide-and-seek. The baby had curious manners, one with her little hands, carrying them before her face as if pushing something from her. Then, too, she would pause suddenly in mid-career and stand silent, her head forward as if listening intently. Paul had little experience of babies. The only babe he knew was one of a neighbour’s, a Mrs. Macdonald, the jolly, kindly matronly wife of a very shrewd and successful rancher some five miles down the river. That baby, a sturdy, rosy little rascal about the same age as this, would dash madly after Paul, chasing him round and over obstacles with a reckless disregard of consequences. This youngster had its own queer mannerisms which puzzled Paul. Holding by his finger she could race with him freely and with sure foot on the smooth grass, but alone she was filled with timid hesitation. Once he hid behind a tree, calling her. Cautiously she came running, her little hands high in front of her face, halted a moment listening, then in response to a call came dashing toward him and ran full tilt squarely into the tree. The impact hurled her violently upon her back with an abrased nose. Her screams brought the Indian woman from the house, running swiftly.
“She ran into the tree I was hiding behind,” explained Paul remorsefully.
The mother caught the child in her arms and, sitting on the grass, soothed her with soft strange sounds till her tears were stayed.
“I am awfully sorry,” said the boy. “She must have stumbled head first against the tree.”
Clasping the babe tightly to her breast and rocking her gently while she crooned a quaint low song, the mother said nothing in reply.
“I am awfully sorry” again said Paul, puzzled and a little fearful at her silence.
“No,” said the mother, when the babe had grown quiet, “she did not see the tree. She does not see—anything. She—is—blind.” As she spoke she clutched the babe fiercely to her breast.
“Blind! She can’t see anything? She can’t see me—now?” The boy was staring, horror-stricken, into the blue eyes once more turned steadily on him. He moved closer to the child. “She can’t see!” he said again in a voice shrill with bewilderment, pain, anger.
The mother shook her head, rocking her child in her arms, her face fixed in a look of stony despair.
“Will she never see?” demanded the boy. Again the woman shook her head.
“How did she—who did this to her?” again demanded the boy.
“She was born—this way,” said the woman in a toneless voice.
“Born—blind!” The boy kneeled down, looked into the blue eyes, touched with his fingers the uplifted face now turned toward him, then, with a low cry, put his face in the little one’s lap. “Oh, God, why did you let her? Why did you let her?” he sobbed again and again. “She’s so little—so little.”
At the sight of him the woman’s stony face broke in tender pity, the silent tears flowed down her cheeks, while the baby’s fingers, like little living things, played lightly over the boy’s head seeking his face.
In that hour of solemn sacrament the boy in an unspoken covenant dedicated himself to the care and protection of this babe upon whose blue eyes God for some mysterious reason had let this unspeakable horror of darkness fall. Thenceforth no love, no lure could draw away the boy’s heart whensoever the babe had need of him. In that hour too the Indian mother of the blind child gave to the boy the deep adoring love of her heart, veil it as she might, second only to that she had given to the man for whose sake she had abandoned home and race and all else that she held dear.
The weeks following the arrangement as to Paul’s headquarters were somewhat difficult for the boy. For one thing, Peg was never satisfied that the whole afternoon should be given to Pine Croft, and was continually impressing into her service the Colonel in planning expeditions of one kind and another in which Paul should join. Then, more and more Paul came to see that the days were dragging wearily for his father. Few of the old neighbours visited at Pine Croft, in spite of the vigorous propaganda carried on in the little community by the Colonel and his lady in favour of a generous and liberal judgment of Gaspard and his social misadventures. The only response came from the Macdonalds who, in spite of the stern and rigid ethical standards inherited from their sturdy Nova Scotian forebears, frankly accepted the guarantee of the Colonel and his wife and often dropped in of an evening or on a Sunday afternoon. But it was hard going for them all. The old friends found it difficult to unbend in the old free and easy manners of the old days, without finding themselves involved in reminiscences painful and embarrassing to all concerned. And none of them, with the very best of intentions, could break through the shy, proud reserve of the Indian woman. She had her own life, and between that life and the life of the valley there existed but one vital point of contact, the man whose life she had twice saved and for whom she would gladly any day lay down her life.
Sleeman alone, their nearest neighbour, appeared to be able to establish free and friendly relations with Pine Croft and its mixed household. In and out of the house he was with a familiarity which in the old days Gaspard would have made short work of, but which in these days of ostracism and loneliness he tolerated, even welcomed. Long hours they sat together with, too often, the bottle on the table. Often too a poker game beguiled the hours. Paul hated these afternoons and evenings and hated the man whose visits made them possible. From Sleeman his very soul turned in revulsion. There was in him the same quality which Paul discovered in the big milk snakes which here and there he used to come upon, sliding without changing shape out of sight into the underbrush. His son, Asa, affected Paul in a similar manner. Never with any degree of comfort had he been able to touch Asa’s hand. With Adelina it was different. There was nothing snaky about her. A biting tongue she had when it was needed, and a hard-hitting fist when occasion demanded, but she never showed any snake-like movements. She stood up straight, ready to fight for her rights and ready to accept a beating when it came her way. But both father and son Paul kept at long range, and it is fair to say that the repulsion was mutual. And this repulsion it was that wrought upon Paul’s life a potent reaction.
Often in their morning expeditions the children from the “big white house” and the Sleemans would foregather and explore some of the many bits of wonderland in the midst of which they had their homes. Were it not for Adelina, who was devoted to him, Paul would have avoided these meetings. And then too, for Asa the dainty, bright, vivacious little girl from the big white house had a strong fascination, of which, true to her sex, the child was pleasantly conscious but the reaction from which in a continual bullying and teasing she hated. But she admired Asa for his strength and his ability to do things men could do with horses and cattle and machinery, and in her heart she coveted for Paul, whose slave she was, these gifts and powers. Of course, Paul had compensating qualities which lifted him to a plane far beyond Asa’s poor reach. And she made Asa conscious of this, to Paul’s undoing. For Asa was ever on the watch for opportunities to humiliate him in the presence of the others. Yet there was that about Paul that imposed limits upon Asa’s bullying tendencies. Behind the smaller boy’s reserve there lurked a spiritual quality of mastery that somehow held Asa’s coarser nature in check and made the boy the dominating spirit in the little group. In moments of crisis it was to Paul they instinctively turned.
Notwithstanding this, however, Paul had often sore conflict with himself and was hard put to it to endure the humiliations which Asa put upon him. For in the matter of retaliations Paul was severely handicapped by his religious convictions. The majestic simplicity of the Sermon on the Mount, in such matters as anger and retaliations, hampered him. The impossibility of thelex talionishad been instilled into his soul by his mother’s doctrine in these matters which, by the way, was quite undiluted by the ingenious refinements of a school of interpretation which sought a place in that sublime ethical code for wrath, hatred, revenge and such like exercises of the human soul. His mother, simple soul, had only one method of interpretation, that of the childlike spirit. Consequently Paul’s limitation in the way of the ordinary human reactions to such tyrannies and wrongs as are the lot of the weak at the hands of the strong were serious enough. After much long and painful meditation Paul had achieved a working theory of ethics in regard to rights of freemen under the yoke of a tyrant. He was quite clear about that. He had cunningly extracted from the gallant Colonel his opinion as to legitimate causes for war and he had come to the fixed conviction that, given a worthy cause, war was praiseworthy and right, care being taken to exclude all purely selfish motives. In the early days of Asa’s tyrannous conduct, nearly two years ago, Paul made the painful discovery that he was afraid of his enemy. It was then that he had approached the Colonel with the request that he be taught to fight. He hated to feel afraid. It lowered his self-respect immeasurably. More than that, it deprived him of that fine glow of heroic virtue arising from his voluntary endurance without retaliation of many acts of persecution. It was this resolve to overcome the weakening and abasing sense of fear by learning how to fight that spurred him to endure the somewhat strenuous instructions of the little fighting Colonel in the manly art.
It was a glorious September morning and the Colonel was ready for his morning ride. There was a shimmer of heat over the landscape and a promise of thunder in the air. A breathless stillness had fallen upon all things, and over the fields and the distant woods the September haze hung like a thin blue veil.
It had been a successful season on the ranch. The fruit crops had been abundant and through the agency of the newly organised Fruit Growers’ Association had been fairly well marketed. The harvest had been quite up to the average, and within a day or two would be safely stacked or under cover.
The Colonel had abundant reason for satisfaction with life, and should have worn a much happier face. His wife, reading his face like an open page, broke forth into protest.
“I don’t see why you should go around looking like that,” she said impatiently.
“Looking like what?” exclaimed the Colonel, his face becoming at once a perfect picture of radiant cheer.
“Why doesn’t somebody do something about it?” she asked petulantly.
“What can any one do? Anyway, what are you talking about, my dear?” inquired her husband, illogically.
“You know quite well. You are worrying yourself to no end.”
“Worrying myself? Nonsense! And what about you?”
“The whole thing is about as bad as it could be. The man is doing nothing to his place. Buildings, fences, corrals, everything is going to wreck and ruin. And he hasn’t done a thing all this summer.”
“My dear, the man is ill. And he is hard up. I happen to know his Bank has turned him down.”
“Yes, you have good reason to know,” said his wife, with significant emphasis.
“My dear, we won’t speak of——”
“Oh, it is all very well, but you can’t go on like this. Something ought to be done. That man is about desperate. He may do anything some day. And he shuts himself up in that bungalow from everyone except Paul—and that creature, Sleeman.”
“I don’t like that fellow. I don’t trust him,” said the Colonel. “He has the worst sort of influence over poor Gaspard, with his poker and his whiskey.”
“My dear, there will be a tragedy there some day, you mark my words.”
“Oh, nonsense! But what can I do? Why can’t some of you ladies do something for the family?”
“There you are again!” cried his wife, lifting up her hands in despair. “You can’t get near her. She is an Indian through and through, proud, reserved. You can’t patronise her a——”
“But why should you?”
“Well, you know what I mean,” replied his wife impatiently. “Our women went at my solicitation prepared to be quite kind to her. She made them feel—Why, Mrs. Powers said to me, ‘She actually patronised us. Made me feel as if she were quite my equal.’”
“And why not?” asked the Colonel simply. “In what is Mrs. Powers the superior of this Indian lady?”
“Oh, I’m not snobbish, Edgar, as you probably know by this time, but——” His wife’s voice was coldly indignant.
“My dear, my dear,” the Colonel hastened to apologise, “who would suggest that you——”
“Well, I must say it is very difficult. She won’t visit. Even her church—she was educated, you know, in a convent—even her church is a kind of barrier. She rides down to the Post all alone when the priest comes. I am in despair. I’ve tried my best, you’ve tried your best. The long and the short of it is the man and his place are going to ruin.”
The Colonel remained silent. There was nothing to say. He had tried his best with Gaspard, and so far had failed.
“If he would only brace up,” sighed Augusta. “But he seems to have lost his nerve.”
“It is the last thing a man loses,” replied the Colonel gloomily.
“And there’s that boy——”
The Colonel lifted up his hand. “For God’s sake, don’t speak of the boy. He feels as you do.”
“Nonsense! He does not understand the thing at all. He is perfectly happy.”
The Colonel groaned. “Great heavens, Augusta, have you not noticed the boy whenever he returns from the ranch? Have you noticed the kind of music he improvises? The boy is worried. He is anxious. He is mystified about that whole outfit. Don’t you notice he never speaks of his father now. For the first month his father was his main theme. The thing is really heart-breaking. He spends more and more time there. Some day he will pack up and leave us.”
“Well, run away and take your ride. Look up the children and bring them back with you. Anddon’t worry,” she added, shaking a minatory figure at him.
“Not I!” shouted the Colonel, and putting his horse full tilt at the bars cleared in fine style and, waving a farewell at his wife, took his way by the river trail out of sight.
After an hour’s ride he found himself at the children’s rendezvous near the river bend where an open space provided a delightful playground for them. It was the Colonel’s practice to steal up Indian fashion and then swooping upon them with war whoop and brandished tomahawk claim, if unobserved till within twenty yards, capture and ransom. With great care he approached within charging distance and was gathering his horse for the final dash when a loud cry arrested him.
“Here you, Asa, stop that! Let him up! Let him up, I tell you!” It was Adelina, dancing frantically about the boys struggling on the ground, Asa uppermost and pummelling Paul vigorously about the head and shoulders. Her cry unheeded, Adelina dashed in, wreathed her arms around Asa’s neck and dragged him backward from his victim.
“You big coward!” panted the girl. “I’ll just go and tell pa on you right away.” So saying she sprang on her pony and dashed off toward her home, followed by the shouted threats of her brother.
“You called me a liar,” said Asa, approaching Paul threateningly.
“No,” said Paul, breathing hard, “I did not—but—you did tell a lie.”
“Yes, you did!” cried Peg, rushing toward the bigger boy like an enraged mother partridge defending her chicks.
“Oh, you shut up and keep out of this,” cried Asa, reaching for her and throwing her heavily to one side.
“You are a big coward!” said Paul, with one rip tearing off his jacket.
His longed for opportunity had come. The law of retaliation for one’s own injury was not abrogated for him, but for others, especially for the weak and defenceless, it was a man’s duty to fight. His heart glowed with the old Crusader fire. Whether a long series of bitter humiliations added some fuel to the flame he stayed not to consider. His religious inhibitions were withdrawn. A plain duty lay before him. All his fear of the bigger boy vanished. He was ready to be offered a sacrifice.
“Oho! you little liar, you have been wanting a good hiding for some time, and now you’re going to get it.”
“Peg, keep back!” said Paul, quietly waiting.
The Colonel slipped from the saddle and crept near the clearing, taking his place behind a thick bush.
“By Jove, the boy is going to stand up to him!” he said delightedly. “I hope he’ll keep his head and do some foot work now.”
The hope was realised. With a rush Asa sought to grapple with his opponent. Paul easily avoided and before Asa could recover had landed one, two, three upon his enemy’s unprotected face. The Colonel hugged himself in joy.
“Gad, the boy’s showing form,” he chuckled in high glee.
Once more Asa rushed, but again Paul eluded him, circling round his man.
“Aw, come on, you coward!” cried Asa. “You dassen’t stand up to me.”
“Keep away, Paul,” cried Peg, dancing excitedly in the offing.
“He’d better!” shouted Asa, rushing after his elusive foe. “But I’ll get you all right.” But even as he spoke Paul suddenly checked himself and landed heavily with a stiff swing upon Asa’s ear as he passed, with telling effect. For a moment or two Asa lay where he had fallen, more astonished than hurt, while Peg shrieked with joy. “Good foot work, Paul!” Not for nothing had she attended the boy’s fighting exercises with the Colonel for the last two years.
With greater deliberation the bigger boy set out to secure a clinch with his exasperating opponent.
“Jove, if he can only keep away!” murmured the Colonel. Out and in, back and forward, Asa sought to corner his victim, coming often within touch but just failing to make his catch. The pace was beginning to tell upon Asa, for he was quite unused to this sort of game and his wind was going.
“Now, boy, go in! Go in! Why don’t you go——” the Colonel whispered in a frenzy of excitement behind the bush. As if in obedience to the whispered entreaty Paul met a sudden reckless rush of the other with a full straight arm fair upon the chin, lifted him clear off his feet and landed him two yards away on his back, where he lay stretched at full length.
A shriek of delight from Peg greeted the result.
“What a little devil she is!” said the delighted Colonel to himself. “Jove, what a hit, a clean hit! The boy’s a wonder! Here, here, look out!” The Colonel’s anxiety was well founded. For Paul, dismayed at the unexpected effect of his blow, had approached his enemy with the idea of proffering aid. Slowly Asa recovered himself, raised himself to a sitting position and sat heaving deep sobs, with his head in his hands.
“I’m sorry, Asa,” said Paul penitently. “I didn’t mean to hit so hard.” But there was no response. Asa continued to sob heavily, still with his head in his hands.
“I’m awfully sorry,” repeated Paul, drawing nearer. “I didn’t mean to——”
His compassion for his fallen foe never found full expression. With a sidelong lurch Asa flung himself at Paul’s feet, gripped and hurled him to the ground; then, clambering upon him, held him fast by the throat.
“Now, I’ve got yeh,” he panted, “and I’m going to punch the daylights out o’ yeh.” And straightway he began pounding his prostrate foe about the head.
Before the Colonel could clear the bush there was a shrill cry, a flutter of legs and arms, and Peg hurled herself upon Asa, wreathed her hands in his bushy hair, and with one fierce swing jerked his head backward and dragged him off his victim.
The Colonel crept back into cover. “By Jove, I’ll let ’em fight it out,” he muttered. “I do believe they’ll handle him.”
“I’ll get you, you little beast,” cried Asa savagely, making for Peg. But before he had taken two steps Paul was on him like a thunderbolt, raining blows on his face and neck till Asa, staggering and bellowing, turned and fairly fled, with Paul hard upon his heels, landing right and left as opportunity offered, till, once more, Asa tripping upon a root tumbled headlong upon the grass and lay groaning.
The fight was over. Asa’s bullying days were done.