Ruth Comfort Mitchell

“ Cold Spring was in an elbow of the trail—it was like an arm sharply crooked to hold it. Snort, his reins over his head, cropped the sparse, green grass; the figure of a man lounged at ease. It was an entirely peaceful picture. But, just beyond, in the opposite direction from that in which the girl and the Scout were coming, there was no peace, but war; relentless war of extermination by the strong upon the weak. A young fawn, breathless, almost exhausted, ran stumbling and swaying, a pitifully few paces before a lion, long, lithe, trotting easily, sure of its prey. ”

“ But one humid evening, when all the vigor and backbone seemed to have melted out of the world, Michael Daragh asked her to ride with him on the top of the bus to Grant's Tomb and walk back along the river, and presently they sat down on the damp grass like a shop girl and her gentleman friend and looked off across the river, shining in the moonlight, and after a silence Jane said pleasantly, with her new admixture of aloofness and indulgence, "Well, Michael Daragh, I know you haven't marched me here merely to revel in the beauty of the evening. ”

“ In a day when every one who was any one, as Honor's mother put it, was getting a motor car, the Kings had none. Jimsy, of course, rode regally in every one else's. The Lorimers had two, an electric in which Honor's mother glided softly with her little whirring bell from clubs to luncheons and from luncheons to teas, and a rough and ready seven-passenger affair into which the whole tribe might be piled, and which Honor Carmody drove better than her stepfather, who was apt to dream at the wheel. ”

“ Mayfield had told her that the child would never live to grow up; he gave him, in fact, hardly more than a year, but Ginger, riding the high wave of happiness, told herself that she would prove her friend wrong for once in his wise life. Elmer Bunty should go to Dos Pozos to be cuddled by old Manuela and fed by Ling, to drink golden milk and sleep out in the tonic air all through the calendar; death on a pale horse riding should be routed—she felt strong and victorious as she thought of it. ”

“ He would understand; he must be—understanding. And her mother, pale Effie, would go further; she would not only understand but rejoice. Tears stung suddenly in Glen’s eyes; she wished she could have her there, in the grave and charming room, sitting in the sedate little rocker on the Persian rug, to tell her everything that was to be....
She thought Peter would come to her soon after eight, but she did not want the hour to come too swiftly and she looked often at Janice Jennings’s clock on the mantel in a swiftly mounting panic of happiness. ”

“ He swept Jane out of the circle of light from the street lamp, into the black shadow of the Farraday shrubbery, and into a breathless embrace. "You—little—rascal—" he said, huskily, gasping a trifle as he always did in moments of high emotion. "You—little—witch! Now I've got you—and I'm going to keep you! Now I guess you'll listen to what I've got to say and—and answer me!" His broad, warm face was coming inexorably nearer; life—the pleasant and placid pattern of Wetherby Ridge—was coming inexorably nearer; life with melted marshmallows floating on its surface!
"Oh, Marty, please!" ”

“ Suddenly and without warning, as on the day when Stephen Lorimer had first read the Newbolt poem to them, Honor began to cry.
"Skipper! Skipper, dearest—" she was in the young iron clasp of his arms and his cheek was pressed down on her hair. "What is it? Skipper, tell me!"
"Oh," she sobbed, clinging to him, "I can't bear it, Jimsy! All the years—all those splendid men, all those faithful women, 'holding hard' against—against——"
He gathered her closer. "My Dad's the last of 'em, Skipper. He's the last 'Wild King.' It stops with him. I told him that, and he believes me. ”

“ Dean Wolcott sat down beside the body of his Scout, his head bare, his heart heavy, his face hidden in his hands. The sound of the mourning beast’s lament fitted blackly into his mood. The world was a bleak place of loss. The quaint, engaging little creature who had established himself so snugly in his heart was dead; Snort was gone; he had only imagined that Ginger yielded to his arms that night, that far-away night of laughing and music at the Lodge. Ginger would go back to her cattle ranch and marry ’Rome Ojeda: she had spent a whole winter in the east and never made him a sign. ”

“ She flung herself into it with all the energy which she had meant for her new responsibilities at the mill, and for being in love with Luke, and she rose at five and stayed up until midnight many nights, and flew up the hill at noon for a precious half hour. Slowly, very slowly, the old house crawled out of its skin of ugliness and became simple and charming. The two women worked tirelessly; Miss Ada hurried home from school to sew on curtains and covers and valances, and Glen performed the more robust tasks of painting and polishing, of hammering and tacking. ”

“ Jane.
At Señor Don Diego's Palacio.
Sally, mía, how you'd adore this house! The floors are of dull-red tiles and they are massaged three times a day, and the whole thing is medieval in flavor,—a flock of velvet-voiced, dove-eyed servants who adore Lupe and are pledged to her cause. Old Cristina, who was her mother's nurse, is to be our stoutest ally.
Every night for an hour Emilio stands under her balcony "playing the bear." Lupe, her face shrouded in her reboso, leans over and whispers. I hover in the background like Juliet's nurse. ”

“ Jimsy King, collapsed in the arms of Yaqui Juan, failing her in the hour of her direst need. Jimsy, her lover, who had promised her she should never go alive into those dark and terrible hands ... Jimsy, who could not lift a finger now to defend her, or to put her beyond their grasp. It became intolerable to sit still. She sprang up and began to walk swiftly from wall to wall of the big room, her heels tapping sharply on the smooth red tiles. Josita lifted mournful eyes to stare at her for an instant and then returned to her beads. Honor paused and looked out of the window. ”

“ Beyond question, he told himself, deeply content, the boy had learned to ride. When they finished the twisting climb and came out on a level shoulder of the mountain he saw Dean Wolcott lean suddenly forward in the saddle, and Snort shot ahead in a plunging lope; horse and rider, a splendid, pulsing unit, flashed over the open space in the warm glow of the sunset, wheeled sharply at the foot of the next rise, and came back, Snort curveting, prancing, flinging up his handsome head, his flanks lathered with excitement rather than heat. ”

“ The first evening was all Miss Lydia's, save that Sarah was coming over later to stay the night, and again Jane sat in the rosewood and mahogany dining room, served by the middle-aged maid who did not know that there was a servant problem, and ate the reliable stock supper—the three slices of pink boiled ham on the ancient and honorable platter of blue willow pattern ware, the small pot of honey, the two kinds of preserves, the hot biscuit, the delicate cups of not-too-strong, uncolored Japan tea, the sugar cookies, the pale custard. ”

“ She had never seen a dying person and she began to shiver.
As if he read her thought the doctor spoke. "Isn't going to die while you're here. Not for a week—perhaps two weeks. But he'll never be up again." His voice was gruff and his brow was furrowed. He had been with Jeanie King when Jimsy was born and when she died, and he had cherished and scorned James King for long years.
There was a chair beside the bed and Honor seated herself there in silence. Presently the sick man opened his eyes and his worn and ravaged look of his son caught at her heart. ”

“ Luke Manders, the splendid young mountaineer; Luke, the doctor’s discovery and pride; the golden lad of their golden legend.
Luke, Luke, Luke!
Surely, if she kept saying it over and over, it would fill her mind, and there wouldn’t be room for anybody—for anything else, and the silly place in her palm would stop pulsing, pulsing....
“Well, here we are!” said her companion, briskly. “A delightful night for a walk, and I have enjoyed it extremely. I try very hard to do a certain amount of walking every day, but in my intensely busy life it is apt to be crowded out.” ”

“ The young steers were timid, suspicious, quarrelsome; stupid, [82] quick to get into a blind and unreasoning panic—brown streaks of speed when they broke away from the bunch. Ginger was here, there, everywhere, swallow-swift on Diablo, darting after a fugitive—up a sheer bank, down a steep cañon, hanging low out of her saddle, Indian-fashion, to dodge a dangerous branch. Estrada had had to give up his duties as guide; he was in the thick of the job. Dean rode alone, and Snort, who, by some miracle of mercy, had been mild and tractable earlier in the day, now developed temper and temperament. ”

“ The figure on the couch was relaxing more and more now, and the Irishman sank his voice to a purling murmur of brogue.
Jane found a low chair and propped her elbow on the arm of it and leaned her cheek on her hand and closed her eyes. She did not want to look at young Randal and she found that she could not look at Michael Daragh. She was glad to be in a corner of the little room where the faint light of the lamp did not penetrate; she wished it might have been complete darkness to cover her. She was so unutterably tired ... never in her life had she been so tired. ”

“ The old crone’s “son’s son’s son” would never be “fotched on” now. All that splendid strength and the fine young possibilities would narrow down to a shot from ambush, himself or his hereditary foe. If he held the family luck, he would bring down the ancient enemy of his house, skulking and hiding thereafter from a languid law; if it went against him, then he would topple forward one sunny day, one silver night, coincidentally with a harmless little popping sound, and lie face downward somewhere on the brown earth, high in his hills, a dark stain widening beneath him. ”

“ It's all my fault."
"Whatever happens to Honor—whatever happens to her—and death wouldn't be the worst thing, would it?—it's your fault. Do you hear what I say? It's all your fault!" In all the years since he had known him Jimsy had never seen Carter Van Meter like this,—cool Carter, with his little elegancies of dress and manner, his studied detachment. This was a different person altogether,—hot-eyed, white-lipped, snarling. "Your fault if she dies here, dies of thirst; your fault if they get in here and carry her off, those filthy brutes out there." ”

“ They worked, the young man and the thin Boy Scout, until it seemed certain that they could not work any longer, and then they worked on. They dug frantically into the sun-baked earth; they chopped frantically with their hatchets into the singeing chaparral; they slapped frantically at the flames with their dry sacks; and sometimes the sacks caught on fire. Then the witch-wind went away as suddenly as it had come, and up from the ocean—as if impelled by the Ranger’s rain-prayer—rose a dense gray fog, blessédly cool, blessédly wet, blessédly enveloping. ”

“ Jane swung happily into her fourth year in New York, flying home to Sarah Farraday for Christmas, meeting the young year with high hopes and canny plans, a definite part, now, of the confraternity of ink. Her circle widened and widened; important persons came down from their heights of achievement to make much of her, and the late spring saw the successful launching of another gay little play, and early fall found her deep—head, hands, and heart—in her first serious novel, but she found amazing margins of time for Rodney Harrison, for Hope House, for Michael Daragh. ”

“ When Glen came back with her bowl of steaming broth Luke Manders was, quite as her father had predicted, wholly conscious. He dragged himself up on the elbow on the uninjured side and fell upon the food with wolfish hunger.
“Uh-huh,” Dr. Darrow wagged his head. “When’d you eat last, boy?”
“Yes’dy mawning,” he said thickly, without lifting his head.
The man handed the emptied bowl back to his daughter, and chuckled at the hungry pleading in the boy’s eyes. “That’ll hold you for a while, son. Can’t let you founder yourself. ”

“ It was more like a college than a High School in those days, with its numbers and its spirit, that strong, intangible evidence of things not seen. There was something about it, a concentrated essence of Jimsy King and hundreds of lesser Jimsy Kings, which made it practically unconquerable. In the year before his final one the team reached its shining perfection and held it to the end. It is still a name to conjure with at the school on the hill, Jimsy King's. The old teachers remember; the word comes down. "A regular old-time L. A. team—the fighting spirit. Like the days of Jimsy King!" ”

“ When she tried, gropingly, to tell Mary Wiley what she felt, she quoted to her a line of Huneker’s; it ought, she thought, to be graven over the door of every concert hall: “Other arts give us defined pleasures, but music is the only art that restores us to ourselves.”
It restored Ginger not only to herself but to her lover. Whether they ever came together again, whether she ever saw him again, sitting perched in her high balcony seat in Carnegie Hall, all the pride and criticism and bitterness were cleansed away; she went to him once more as she had gone to him on Aleck’s bridge ”

“ She kissed him thoroughly. “Don’t wince, Glen. I’ve kissed Peter many times before, and with any sort of luck I expect to kiss him many times again! Cheerio!” She sped away and left the three of them alone together, the pale youth with his bandaged head, the glowing girl with the flame of coppery hair about her face, and the small, preternaturally grave child.
Peter Parker walked to the Persian rug and stood looking down at it. “After to-night,” he said, “we’ll have it framed and hung on the wall. It’s entirely too potent. ”

“ Jane and the Irishman came into the Settlement one day to find the superintendent red-eyed, with two books on her desk. It was clear that she had been having a luxuriously miserable time. "I've just finished two of the most powerful stories," she said, polishing the precious powder from her nose with a damp handkerchief. "Every girl should read them—and every man!"
"I wonder at you, Emma Ellis," said Michael Daragh, "the way you'll be keening over a printed tale, when you've your heart and head and hands full of real woes about you, surely!" ”

“ A heartening person, Margaret Golinda; across a continent and an ocean, down the long corridor of the years, her house would always be “King’s X!” to Dean Wolcott.
They rode on together, the Ranger and the Scout on Snort and the Mabel horse with the Airedale plodding sturdily behind, and soon there was tangible evidence of the red demon in the distance. The boy was stout-heartedly ready for action and the young man considered him with warm and possessive pride. Air and exercise and good food had nourished his meager little body and comradely appreciation had fed his starved soul. ”

“ Jimsy's just about an hour older than I am!"
"I have never had many friends," said Carter Van Meter. "I've been moving about so much, traveling ... other things have interfered." He never referred, directly or indirectly, to his ill health or his limp.
"Well, you can have all you want now," said Honor, generously. "And Jimsy likes you!" She bestowed that like a decoration. "Honestly, I never knew him to take such a fancy to any one before in all his life. He likes every one, you know,—I mean, he never dislikes anybody, but he never gets crushes. ”

“ Here was maternity, parenthood, another breed than that of the Teddy-bear's hot, pink nursery.
Jane picked up the baby's stubby little hand and patted it. "Then, why do you?"
Ethel's face flamed, but she looked her inquisitor more fully in the eye than she had done at any time before. "Because—Jerry! Jerry! That's why."
"Oh ... I see. You care more for him than for your baby?"
Now there came into the childish face a look of shrewd and calculating wisdom. "I can—I could—have other babies, but I couldn't ever have another—him!" Strength here, of a sort, it appeared, in this Weak Sister. ”

“ Her father did not make friends; she did not make friends herself; it was, in her bleak young creed, rather a pledge of fineness not to make friends.
A respectable number of his patients, the two doctors and the nurse, and three or four good-natured neighborhood people came to the brief, drab little funeral, and Glen sat between Miss Ada and Luke Manders. Just as they drove home from the cemetery Nancy Carey, in a soft blue dress, came down from The Hill with her hands filled with flowers. ”

“ He shook his head. “I couldn’t think of it, Ginger. Miss Fanny would never forgive me; I expect she never will, as it is! No, you must go back to camp.”
Ginger swung into the saddle. She flushed, but her gaze was very steady. “Doctor, how is Dean doing? Are you satisfied?”
The taut lines of his face loosened and his tired eyes warmed. “Ginger, that boy’s doing splendidly—remarkably! I’m no end pleased with him. Fighting like an old campaigner, but he’s trying to swing too much alone. He’s handling all the Marble Peak slope by himself—just the youngster with him. ”

“ Honor ran across Figueroa Street between flashing headlights on automobiles, and her heart was soft within her. Poor old Cartie! How he must have grieved and reproached himself, and how seriously he must have taken it, to tell his mother! Fancy not forgiving people! Her stepfather had marked a passage for her in her pocket "R. L. S."... "The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a green hand in life," Stevenson had said. Honor believed him. She could even forgive James King, poor, proud, miserable James King, for failing Jimsy. ”