Len

“ Len was perhaps the most joyous member of the party. It was his first experience at the theater, and the elaborate stage settings, the bright lights, [Pg 208] and the catchy music had opened to him the gates of Fairyland, as it were.
When one of the characters cracked a joke, and the comedian replied that he was very fond of walnuts and hickory nuts, but not at all partial to chestnuts, Len nearly fell out of his seat, and the young lady who followed them on the stage was well through her song before he controlled his laughter enough to realize what was going on. ”

“ Len announced.
"So am I, but—"
"Look," said Len, moving energetically to the arm of her chair. "We've always had it pretty good, haven't we? Not that it hasn't been tough at times, but—you know."
"I know."
"Well, that's the way it'll be again, once this is over. I don't care how much of a superbrain he is, once he's born—you know what I mean? The only reason he's had the edge on us all this time is he could get at us and we couldn't get at him. If he's got the mind of an adult, he can learn to act like one. It's that simple."
Moira hesitated. "You can't take him out to the woodshed. ”

“ Len took a deep breath. "Let's not get off on that. What I want to know is, what is it like? Do you seem to hear a real voice, or do you just know what he's telling you, without knowing how you know?"
Moira put the comb down in order to think better. "It isn't like hearing a voice. You'd never confuse one with the other. It's more—the nearest I can come to it, it's like remembering a voice. Except that you don't know what's coming."
Len picked his tie off the floor and abstractedly began knotting it on his bare chest. ”

“ It's not that Len don't want the best for me. It was his plan our moving over in Beside the lake from where that day I showed you We used to live—ten miles from anywhere. We didn't change without some sacrifice, But Len went at it to make up the loss. His work's a man's, of course, from sun to sun, But he works when he works as hard as I do— Though there's small profit in comparisons. (Women and men will make them all the same.) But work ain't all. Len undertakes too much. He's into everything in town. This year It's highways, and he's got too many men Around him to look after that make waste. ”

“ Len didn't bother to mention that half-brother back on Fairhurst; a five-year-old kid isn't much kin to speak of. Besides, the boy probably didn't even know he had a brother—he'd been less than a year old when Len left. One of the barren women must have adopted him and brought him up as her own.
So Len Mattern filled out all the papers and was inscribed on the ship's rolls. And he made the terrible jump through hyperspace for the first time. ”

“ Inspecting the doleful few fingers of whisky in the bottle, Len swore under his breath. They couldn't afford a decent supply of booze or new clothes for Moira. The original idea had been for Len to teach for a year while they saved enough money so that he could go back for his master's degree. More lately, this proving unlikely, they had merely been trying to put aside enough for summer school, and even that was beginning to look like the wildest optimism.
High-school teachers without seniority weren't supposed to be married. ”

“ Len crossed off each day on their wall calendar with an emphatic black grease pencil. It would, he supposed, be an uncomfortable thing at best to be the parent of a super-prodigy. Leo would no doubt be dictator of the world by the time he was fifteen, unless he would be assassinated first, but almost anything would be a fair price for getting Leo out of his maternal fortress.
Then there was the day when Len came home to find Moira weeping over the typewriter, with a half-inch stack of manuscript beside her.
"It isn't anything. I'm just tired. He started this after lunch. Look." ”

“ Len placed the glass to his eye, and the exclamation he made told how much of a surprise the glance gave him.
"Is that Pierre, the owner of the island?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who are the women?"
"The servant and his daughter."
"What is the daughter's name, and is she the older or the younger woman?" asked Winslow, making a mental surmise as to the cause of the interest evinced by the young master of the Marie in the people on the shore.
"The young woman with bare head is the daughter," replied Len, evasively. ”

“ They are known as the water-cursed, and they are dying out. It is believed by the people here that Len will not escape the water curse, and it has isolated them from their own race. There are several who are afflicted, but Len has not come of age yet. I know what the effect upon them has been, and it is indeed a curse.
"Unfortunately for Len, he has grown into a violent attachment for Marie. No Acadian would marry a victim of the water curse." ”

“ Now—this is an observation made by Edgar Poe—when one suspects that one is dreaming, the waking comes almost instantly. I woke then, and every time in a very bad humour with Captain Len Guy. The idea of leaving the Kerguelens on the Halbrane had full possession of me, and I grew more and more angry with her disobliging captain. In fact, I passed the night in a fever of indignation, and only recovered my temper with daylight. Nevertheless I was determined to have an explanation with Captain Len Guy about his detestable conduct. ”

“ He had ample opportunity to learn that beneath the calm exterior, which always seemed unchanged in Winslow, was a great reserve of force and strength, and which he never attempted to trifle with. The one never took advantage of his position to work anything unmanly upon the other simply because he was in his employ. Nor would Len have submitted to imposition of any kind. One was perhaps as courageous as the other, but with the courage of Winslow was the strength of moral intelligence, the unobtrusive pride of a young manhood and a kind heart. ”

“ While Lenning was still busy with his thoughts, Billy Shoup came briskly back along the trail. Lenning started up as he drew close, and stared at the triumphant look on his waxlike face.
18 “I reckon you found what you were looking for,” said he.
“You can bet a blue stack I did,” was the answer. “It wasn’t the dope case, either, Len.”
“Not that?” queried the startled Len. “What was it, then?”
Shoup proudly drew from his pocket something which he held toward Lenning in the palm of his hand. It was a roll of bills with a “yellowback” on the outside.
“Made a raise,” he chuckled. ”

“ They met a few days after the discovery of the blue vein, and Len soon turned the conversation upon his daughter.
"Why should Marie, because those Americans are here, never speak to me now?"
"Never mind the girl, Len; you are a rich man now, and that will give you a better chance to look about for someone who will please you as much as Marie. You know she is but a child in my eyes, and I must not lose her for a long time yet."
"If I am rich, why does she still shun me?" he persisted.
"You must let a woman have her way, Len," Pierre said.
"What has Winslow said of me? ”

“ He watched Len mount his bay horse and ride out of town.
“Worth more alive than dead,” repeated Breezy to himself. “Now, what did he mean by that, do yuh suppose? Oh, well, he’s deep, Len is. If I was in his place, I’d never stop to consider the worth of anybody. But I shore pity Baggs if Len ever thinks his usefulness is over.”
CHAPTER VII: A WARNING
Nan’s first week at the Box S was so interesting that she forgot to be lonesome. Len found a gentle horse for her to ride, and bought her a pair of overalls, shirt and wide hat at Lobo Wells. ”

“ All Len had to hear was the old gag: "We've never lost a father yet." His child was not even born and it was thoroughly unbearable!
en and Moira Connington lived in a rented cottage with a small yard, a smaller garden, and too many fir trees. The lawn, which Len seldom had time to mow, was full of weeds, and the garden was overgrown with blackberry brambles. The house itself was clean and smelled better than most city apartments, and Moira kept geraniums in the windows. ”

“ CHAPTER X DAVE WONDERS Giving utterance to this sneering remark Len Molick began to urge his horse forward, but, though his face flushed, and a sense of anger choked him, Dave remained cool as he put out a hand and caught the bridle of the other's steed.
"Not so fast, Len Molick!" Dave exclaimed.
"You may not want to talk to a nobody—that's your business—but you're going to talk to a somebody right now, and that somebody is I!" ”

“ Dirk Peters let go the paddles, stooped towards the after-part of the boat, and then raised himself, holding up an inert body.
An agonized cry from Captain Len Guy rent the air!
"My brother—my brother!"
"He is living! He is living!" shouted Dirk Peters.
A moment later, the boat had touched the beach, and Captain Len Guy held his brother in his arms. ”

“ Greer or anybody?"
he looked slightly embarrassed. "Not till he's born, I think, don't you? It would be an awful hard thing to prove—even you wouldn't have believed me if you hadn't felt him kick."
This experiment had not been repeated, though Len had asked often enough. All little Leo had wanted, Moira said, was to establish communication with his mother—he didn't seem to be interested in Len at all. "Too young," she explained.
And still—Len recalled the frogs his biology class had dissected last semester. One of them had had two hearts. This disorderly cell growth ... like a cancer. ”

“ When I found myself with Captain Len Guy, the mate, and the boatswain, I questioned them on this subject.
“I agree with you,” replied West, “that the operation involves great risks, but since it is indispensable, we will accomplish it. I think it will be necessary to dig out a sort of slide down to the base of the iceberg.”
“And without the delay of a single day,” added Captain Len Guy.
“Do you hear, boatswain?” said Jem West. “Work begins to-day.”
“I hear, and everyone will set himself to the task,” replied Hurliguerly. “If you allow me, I shall just make one observation, captain.” ”

“ Do you think any man, even your Edgar Poe, could have been capable of inventing, of creating—?”
The increasing vehemence of Captain Len Guy warned me of the necessity of treating his monomania with respect, and accepting all he said without discussion.
“Now,” he proceeded, “please to keep the facts which I am about to state clearly in your mind; there is no disputing about facts. You may deduce any results from them you like. I hope you will not make me regret that I consented to give you a passage on the Halbrane.” ”

“ Captain Len Guy did not answer, and I thought I saw tears glisten in his eyes. Then, as though he would escape from some harrowing recollection which my words had evoked, he said,—
"Who would venture to seek the South Pole?"
"It would be difficult to reach, and the experiments would be of no practical use," I replied. "Nevertheless there are men sufficiently adventurous to embark in such an enterprise."
"Yes—adventurous is the word!" muttered the captain. ”

“ I thought I must be dreaming when I heard Captain Len Guy's words. Edgar Poe's romance was nothing but a fiction, a work of imagination by the most brilliant of our American writers. And here was a sane man treating that fiction as a reality. ”

“ I looked at Captain Len Guy. His pale face dim eyes and knit brow told too plainly that hope was beginning to die within his breast.
And then the population of Tsalal Island, the almost naked men, armed with clubs and lances, the tall, well-made, upstanding women, endowed with grace and freedom of bearing not to be found in a civilized society—those are the expressions of Arthur Pym—and the crowd of children accompanying them, what had become of all these? Where were the multitude of natives, with black skins, black hair, black teeth, who regarded white colour with deadly terror? ”

“ Still he threatened and hoped on. It was beyond his Chinese, comprehension that Tchin Len could be either so dishonest or so dull as not to pay him that money. Tchin Len was rich, and no child. Yes; he would pay. And Low Hee Tong, confident of his position, made ready his opium layout for a good smoke.
The mission matron and Tchin Len hit upon a plan. Tchin Len would privily marry little Bow Kum—that must precede all else. Upon that point of wedding bells, the mission matron was as moveless as Gibraltar. The knot tied, Tchin Len should sell out his Stockton truck-farm and move to New York. ”

“ Why did his coming to your house shut me out altogether?" he continued, his rage growing.
"He is a worthy young man, Len. Do not believe anything that is dishonoring to him. He does no man harm."
"Pierre! Pierre! he does not love Marie, if she does love him," he cried, brutally.
"How much do you gain by that, Len?" said the old man, turning upon him his kind eyes, yet without a sign of anger. "You must not think to get [Pg 118] nearer to Marie by speaking in this way about the persons she thinks are her friends."
"Pierre," said Len, "does Marie think that the water curse will come to me?" ”

“ Well, then, you all-round people, who can turn your hand to anything, you're always chopping firewood with razors; you're always diverting your energies from their proper channel, and doing a dozen people's work indifferent well, because you haven't time to do it properly. Len cleans boots and door-steps and candlesticks, and comes to his real work with only half a heart; Chloe can't do her drawing comfortably, because she has sweeping and dusting and cooking to see to. A really reasonable Len, a truly conscientious Chloe, would work at its own trade, and hire other people to work at theirs. ”

“ Life on board was very regular, very simple, and its monotony was not without a certain charm. Sailing is repose in movement, a rocking in a dream, and I did not dislike my isolation. Of course I should have liked to find out why Captain Len Guy had changed his mind with respect to me ”