第10章

"What? How can you ask? That awful, horrid, uncouth, sloppy girl." Again Mandy shuddered."Those hands, big, coarse, red, ugly.""Yes," cried Allan savagely, "the badge of slavery for a whole household of folk too ignorant to know the price that was being paid for the service rendered them.""And the hair," continued Mandy relentlessly, "uncombed, filthy, horrid.And the dress, and--""Stop it!" cried Allan peremptorily.

"No, let me go on.The stupid face, the ignorant mind, the uncouth speech, the vulgar manners.Oh, I loathe the picture, and I wonder you can ever bear to look at her again.And, oh, I wish you could forget.""Forget!" The young man's lean, swarthy face seemed to light up with the deep glowing fires in his dark eyes.His voice grew vibrant."Forget! Never while I live.Do you know what _I_remember?"

"Ah, spare me!" moaned his wife, putting her hands over his mouth.

"Do you know what _I_ remember?" he repeated, pulling her hands away and holding them fast."A girl with hands, face, hair, form, dress, manners damned to coarseness by a cruel environment? That?

No! No! To-day as I look back I remember only two blue eyes, deep, deep as wells, soft, blue, and wonderfully kind.And Iremember all through those days--and hard days they were to a green young fool fresh from the Old Country trying to keep pace with your farm-bred demon-worker Perkins--I remember all through those days a girl that never was too tired with her own unending toil to think of others, and especially to help out with many a kindness a home-sick, hand-sore, foot-sore stranger who hardly knew a buck-saw from a turnip hoe, and was equally strange to the uses of both, a girl that feared no shame nor harm in showing her kindness.That's what I remember.A girl that made life bearable to a young fool, too proud to recognize his own limitations, too blind to see the gifts the gods were flinging at him.Oh, what a fool I was with my silly pride of family, of superior education and breeding, and with no eye for the pure gold of as true and loyal a soul as ever offered itself in daily unmurmuring sacrifice for others, and without a thought of sacrifice.Fool and dolt! A self-sufficient prig!

That's what I remember."

The girl tore her hands away from him.

"Ah, Allan, my boy," she cried with a shrill and scornful laugh that broke at the end, "how foolishly you talk! And yet I love to hear you talk so.I love to hear you.But, oh, let me tell you what else I remember of those days!""No, no, I will not listen.It's all nonsense.""Nonsense! Ah, Allan! Let me tell you this once." She put her hands upon his shoulders and looked steadily into his eyes."Let me tell you.I've never told you once during these six happy months--oh, how happy, I fear to think how happy, too much joy, too deep, too wonderful, I'm afraid sometimes--but let me tell you what I see, looking back into those old days--how far away they seem already and not yet three years past--I see a lad so strange, so unlike all I had known, a gallant lad, a very knight for grace and gentleness, strong and patient and brave, not afraid--ah, that caught me--nothing could make him afraid, not Perkins, the brutal bully, not big Mack himself.And this young lad, beating them all in the things men love to do, running, the hammer--and--and fighting too!--Oh, laddie, laddie, how often did I hold my hands over my heart for fear it would burst for pride in you! How often did I check back my tears for very joy of loving you! How often did I find myself sick with the agony of fear that you should go away from me forever! And then you went away, oh, so kindly, so kindly pitiful, your pity stabbing my heart with every throb.Why do I tell you this to-day? Let me go through it.But it was this very pity stabbing me that awoke in me the resolve that one day you would not need to pity me.And then, then I fled from the farm and all its dreadful surroundings.And the nurse and Dr.Martin, oh how good they were! And all of them helped me.They taught me.

They scolded me.They were never tired telling me.And with that flame burning in my soul all that outer, horrid, awful husk seemed to disappear and I escaped, I became all new.""You became yourself, yourself, your glorious, splendid, beautiful self!" shouted Allan, throwing his arms around her."And then Ifound you again.Thank God, I found you! And found you for keeps, mine forever.Think of that!""Forever." Mandy shuddered again."Oh, Allan, I'm somehow afraid.

This joy is too great."

"Yes, forever," said Allan again, but more quietly, "for love will last forever."Together they sat upon the grass, needing no words to speak the joy that filled their souls to overflowing.Suddenly Mandy sprang to her feet.

"Now, let me go, for within an hour we must be away.Oh, what a day we've had, Allan, one of the very best days in all my life!

You know I've never been able to talk of the past to you, but to-day somehow I could not rest till I had gone through with it all.""Yes, it's been a great day," said Allan, "a wonderful day, a day we shall always remember." Then after a silence, "Now for a fire and supper.You're right.In an hour we must be gone, for we are a long way from home.But, think of it, Mandy, we're going HOME.

I can't quite get used to that!"

And in an hour, riding close as lovers ride, they took the trail to their home ten miles away.