Ruth Comfort Mitchell

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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!" ”

“ She was a delicious person to hug, the Signorina, warm and soft and smelling faintly of rare and costly scents.
"So?" said the great singer again. "It is of some comfort, then, to embrace so much of fatness, when your arms ache to feel muscles and hard flesh? There, there, my good small one," she patted her with a puffy and jeweled hand, "I jest, but I rejoice. It is all good for the voice, this."
"Signorina," said Honor, honestly, "I've told you and told you, but you don't seem to believe me, that I'm only studying to fill up the time until they'll let me marry Jimsy. ”

“ Nothing for you to worry about! He has to do more or less as others do, a man of his prominence in college. It's unavoidable. Of course, it might be better if he could steer clear of that sort of thing altogether—" he would stop at a point like that and frown into space for a moment, as if remembering, weighing, considering, and Honor's heart would sink coldly. Then he would brighten again and lay a reassuring hand on her sleeve. "But you mustn't worry. Jimsy's got a level head on his shoulders, and he has too much at stake to go too far. He'll be all right in the end, Honor, I'm sure of that. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When Carter Van Meter reached Los Angeles and his tearfully happy mother he drew her into the library and closed the door. "Mater," he said with an odd air of intense repressed excitement, "I'm going to show you something, but you must promise me on your honor not to breathe it to a living soul, least of all, Mrs. Lorimer."
"Oh, dearest," gasped his mother, "I promise faithfully——"
He took Honor's telegram out of his wallet and unfolded it and smoothed it out for her to read the single word it contained. Then, at her glad cry, "Sh ... Mater! It isn't—exactly—what you think. ”

“ When she was alone she read the little letter.
[Pg 119]
"Dear Honor—" Carter had written in a ragged scrawl unlike his usual firm hand—"Will you try to forgive me? You are the kindest and least bitter person in the world; I know you can forgive me. But—and this will be harder—can you forget last night? I promise to deserve it, if you will. Will you pretend to yourself that it never happened, and just remember the good days we've had this summer, and that—in spite of my losing my head—I'm your friend, and Jimsy's friend? Will you, Honor?" ”

“ Think we're all cheerful enough? We know that two of us are! All right!" He called down the request and it seemed to Honor that a little quiver went through the singers in the shadow. The guitars broke into a poignant, sobbing melody.
"I don't know what the words mean," said the personage under his breath. "I don't believe I want to know. I fancy every one fits his own words to it."
"Or his own need," said Richard King's wife. She slipped her hand into her husband's. The melody rose and fell, sobbed and soared. Honor drew closer to Jimsy and he put his arm about her and held her hard. ”

“ It lifted up its multiple voice, young, insolent, unafraid, in mocking song, and Honor Carmody, just on the edge of the section, beside her stepfather, sang with them:
You can't beat L. A. High!
You can't beat L. A. High!
Use your team to get up steam
But you can't beat L. A. High!
It rolled out over the football field and echoed away in the soft Southern California air. It was gay, inexorable; you couldn't beat L. A. High, field or bleachers.
Stephen Lorimer never missed a game. His wife went once and never again. ”

“ The mother wore rich but dowdy black and an impossible headgear, a rather hawklike affair which appeared to have alighted by mistake on the piles of dusky hair where it was shakily balancing itself, but Mariquita's narrow blue serge was entirely modish, and her tan pumps, and sheer amber silk hose, and her impudent hat. The Señor spent a large portion of his time in the smoker and the Señora bent over a worn prayer book or murmured under her breath as her fingers slipped over the beads in her lap, but the girl chattered unceasingly. ”

“ There was that about the Kings; it had to be granted that their women always stuck; they must have had compensating traits and graces. No King wife ever gave up or deserted save by death, and no King wife ever wept on a neighbor's shoulder.
And now they had all wandered back to Virginia or up to Alaska or down to Mexico, and there was not an uncle or cousin of his tribe left in Los Angeles for Jimsy King; only his bad, beloved father, coming home at noon in rumpled evening dress, but wearing it better and more handily, for all that, than any other man on the block. ”

“ The number of miles doesn't matter."
"But—perhaps Jimsy wouldn't stay at Stanford then. Oh, Stepper, dear, haven't we waited long enough?"
"He's only twenty, T. S."
She sighed. "Being young is the cruelest thing in the world!"
"You are blaspheming!" said her stepfather, sternly. "T. S., that's the only stupid and wicked thing you've ever said in the years I've known you! Don't ever dare to say it—or think it—again! Being young is the most golden and glorious thing in the world! Being young—" he ran a worried hand over his thinning hair and sighed. ”

“ Honor's stepfather held that there might be a generous share of the firm-chinned Scotch mother in Jimsy. Certainly it was a fighting chance; he was living in a day of less warmth and color than his father and his forbears; there were more outlets for his interest and his energy. His father, for instance, had not played football. Jimsy had played as soon as he could walk alone—football, baseball, basketball, handball, water polo; life was a hard and tingling game to him. ”

“ I've never gotten over not being a boy! But Jimsy's wonderful about letting me have as much share in it as I can. You'll hear all sorts of tales about him, when you come to know people,—plays he's made and games he's won, and how he never, never loses his head or his temper, no matter what the other team does. If we should ever have another war, I expect he'd be a great general. ”

“ The Kings were parched for music; they begged for another and another. She had almost to reproduce her recital in Florence. Jimsy listened, rapt and proud, and at the end he said—"Not too tired for one more, Skipper? Our song?"
"Never too tired for that, Jimsy!" She sat down again and struck her stepfather's ringing, rousing chords. Instantly it ceased, there in the room, to be Mexico; it was as if a wind off the sea blew past them. The first verse had them all erect in their chairs. She swung into the second, holding a taut rein on herself:
The sand of the desert is sodden red ”

“ He kissed her again. "No; you can't go to Italy, Skipper. That's settled."
"Then—what are we going to do, Jimsy dear?"
"Why, we'll just get—" his bright face clouded over. "Good Lord, I'm talking like a nit-wit. We've got to wait, that's all. What could I do now? Run up alleys with groceries? Take care of gardens?"
"Not my garden! You don't know a tulip from a cauliflower!"
"No, I'll have to learn to do something with my head and my hands,—not just my legs! I guess life isn't all football, Skipper."
"But I guess it's all a sort of game, Jimsy, and we have to 'play' it! ”

“ Carter tried to catch her. "Come back! You mustn't—Are you crazy?"
But Honor and the Mexican who had been on guard at the steps were running, side by side, to meet them. Yaqui Juan flung a word to the peón and he stood with his gun leveled, covering the path.
"Mira!" said the Indian, proudly. "Señorita, I have brought back your man!"
"Skipper," cried Jimsy King in a strong voice, "get in the house! Get in! I'm all right!"
Then, unaccountably, inconsistently, all the terror she had not suffered before laid hold on her. "Jimsy! You're hurt! You're wounded!" ”

“ Think what you've done in athletics!"
"Fast on the feet and slow in the head," he grinned. "Well, I'll die trying. But you've got to stand by, Skipper."
"Of course. I'll do your Latin and English and part of your Spanish."
"Gee, you're a brick."
"It's nothing." She dismissed it briefly. "It's my way of doing something, Jimsy, that's all. It's the only way I can be on the team." She glowed pinkly at the thought. "When I sit up on the bleachers and see you make a touchdown and hear 'em yell—why I'm there! I'm on the team because I've helped a little to keep you on the team! ”

“ With her daughter she became motherly and admonitory in her official third person. "Mother wants only your happiness; you know that, dear."
"Well, then, there's nothing to worry about," said Honor, comfortably, "for you want me to be happy and I can't be happy unless it's with Jimsy, so you'll have to want me to have Jimsy, Muzzie!"
"Mother wants real happiness for you, Honor, genuine, lasting happiness. That's why she wants you to be sure. And you cannot possibly be sure at your age." ”

“ She was a little nervous about Roman fever, so they left Italy for Paris, and then went on to Switzerland, and for the first few days she was supremely content with her choice,—Carter gained color and vigor in the sun and snow, and Honor glowed and bloomed, but she presently saw her mistake. Switzerland was not the place to throw Honor and Carter together,—Switzerland filled to overflowing with knickerbockered, hard muscled, mountain climbing men and women; Honor who should have been climbing with the best of them; who would be, if Jimsy King were with them ”

“ He often reeled off whole chapters in his mind, warm and glowing. It was only when he got it down on paper that it cooled and congealed. "Running with them in the race—for the race——" his hurtling promenade took him to the window and he paused for an instant. "Come here, Mildred. Look at her!"
Mildred Lorimer came to join him. On the shabby, rusty lawn of the King place, next door, all the rustier for its nearness to their own emerald turf, sat Honor Carmody and Jimsy King, jointly and severally lacing up a football. ”

“ Then she opened a window wide to the wet sweet air and drew the other shades down, and came to sit on the floor beside him, talking all the time, softly, lazily, about the English lady novelist who didn't take sugar "to" her porridge ... about the giddy mocking bird, singing in the rain ... about a new book which Carter thought was wonderful and which she couldn't see through at all ... until his quick, burdened breathing yielded to a long relaxing sigh like that of a tired puppy, and the hope of L. A. High and the last of the "Wild Kings" slept. ”

“ And there were only James King III and James King IV, his son, Honor's Jimsy, left of the line in the old home. The negress fed and mended them; an infrequent Japanese came in to make futile efforts on house and garden.
The neighbors said, "How do you do, Mr. King? Like summer, really, isn't it?" and looked hastily away. One never could be sure of finding him quite himself. Even if he walked quite steadily he might not be able to talk quite steadily, but he was always a King, always sure of his manner, be he ever so unsure of his feet or his tongue. ”

“ Jimsy, you've got to sleep now. You've got to put it—you've got to put your father away—out of your mind. You don't belong to him to-day; you belong to the team; you belong to L. A.... No matter what's happening to you, you've got to do your best—and—and be your best. ”

“ Honor was the only daughter she had, the only daughter she would ever have, for she had definitely decided, at forty-one, to cease her dealings with the long-legged bird who had flapped six times to her roof, and it seemed intolerable to her that—with five boys—her one girl should be so robustly ungirlish. ”

“ Lorimer's tearful relief, Honor's attitude toward the last of the "Wild Kings" was at seventeen what it had been at twelve, at six.
"I was right, wasn't I?" Stephen wanted to know.
"Well ... if you can only keep on being right about it! I'm so thankful about her singing. That year abroad will be wonderful. She'll meet new people ... real men."
"Young Jimsy is exhibiting every known symptom of becoming a real man."
"Yes, but he's a King."
"That appears to be the universal opinion regarding him."
"Stephen dear, don't be ridiculous! You've always been as bewitched about the boy as Honor herself." ”

“ Then it would be O. K. Loads of girls are married at eighteen."
"You weren't born five years before me because then it would have spoiled everything," said Honor, securely confident of the eternal rightness of the scheme of things. "You would have been marching around in overalls when I was born, and when I was ten you would have been fifteen, and you wouldn't have looked at me,—and now you'd be through college and engaged to some wonderful Stanford girl! No, it's perfectly all right as it is, Jimsy. Only, we've just got to be sensible." ”