"But, say, ain't your skin cool," he repeated with renewed
wonder. "Soft as velvet, too, an' smooth as silk. It feels
great."
Gently explorative, he slid his hand from wrist to elbow and came
to rest half way back. Tired and languid from the morning in the
sun, she found herself thrilling to his touch and half-dreamily
deciding that here was a man she could love, hands and all.
"Now I've taken the cool all out of that spot." He did not look
up to her, and she could see the roguish smile that curled on his
lips. "So I guess I'll try another."
He shifted his hand along her arm with soft sensuousness, and
she, looking down at his lips, remembered the long tingling they
had given hers the first time they had met.
"Go on and talk," he urged, after a delicious five minutes of
silence. "I like to watch your lips talking. It's funny, but
every move they make looks like a tickly kiss."
Greatly she wanted to stay where she was. Instead, she said:
"If I talk, you won't like what I say."
"Go on," he insisted. "You can't say anything I won't like."
"Well, there's some poppies over there by the fence I want to
pick. And then it's time for us to be going."
"I lose," he laughed. "But you made twenty-five tickle kisses
just the same. I counted 'em. I'll tell you what: you sing 'When
the Harvest Days Are Over,' and let me have your other cool arm
while you're doin' it, and then we'll go."
She sang looking down into his eyes, which ware centered, not on
hers, but on her lips. When she finished, she slipped his hands
from her arms and got up. He was about to start for the horses,
when she held her jacket out to him. Despite the independence
natural to a girl who earned her own living, she had an innate
love of the little services and finenesses; and, also, she
remembered from her childhood the talk by the pioneer women of
the courtesy and attendance of the caballeros of the
Spanish-California days.
Sunset greeted them when, after a wide circle to the east and
south, they cleared the divide of the Contra Costa hills and
began dropping down the long grade that led past Redwood Peak to
Fruitvale. Beneath them stretched the flatlands to the bay,
checkerboarded into fields and broken by the towns of Elmhurst,
San Leandro, and Haywards. The smoke of Oakland filled the
western sky with haze and murk, while beyond, across the bay,
they could see the first winking lights of San Francisco.
Darkness was on them, and Billy had become curiously silent. For
half an hour he had given no recognition of her existence save
once, when the chill evening wind caused him to tuck the robe
tightly about her and himself. Half a dozen times Saxon found
herself on the verge of the remark, "What's on your mind?" but
each time let it remain unuttered. She sat very close to him. The
warmth of their bodies intermingled, and she was aware of a great
restfulness and content.
"Say, Saxon," he began abruptly. "It's no use my holdin' it in
any longer. It's ben in my mouth all day, ever since lunch.
What's the matter with you an' me gettin' married?"
She knew, very quietly and very gladly, that he meant it.
Instinctively she was impelled to hold off, to make him woo her,
to make herself more desirably valuable ere she yielded. Further,
her woman's sensitiveness and pride were offended. She had never
dreamed of so forthright and bald a proposal from the man to whom
she would give herself. The simplicity and directness of Billy's
proposal constituted almost a hurt. On the other hand she wanted
him so much--how much she had not realized until now, when he had
so unexpectedly made himself accessible.
"Well you gotta say something, Saxon. Hand it to me, good or bad;
but anyway hand it to me. An' just take into consideration that I
love you. Why, I love you like the very devil, Saxon. I must,
because I'm askin' you to marry me, an' I never asked any girl
that before."
Another silence fell, and Saxon found herself dwelling on the
warmth, tingling now, under the lap-robe. When she realized
whither her thoughts led, she blushed guiltily in the darkness.
"How old are you, Billy?" she questioned, with a suddenness and
irrelevance as disconcerting as his first words had been.
"Twenty-two," he answered.
"I am twenty-four."
"As if I didn't know. When you left the orphan asylum and how old
you were, how long you worked in the jute mills, the cannery, the
paper-box factory, the laundry--maybe you think I can't do
addition. I knew how old you was, even to your birthday."
"That doesn't change the fact that I'm two years older."
"What of it? If it counted for anything, I wouldn't be lovin'
you, would I? Your mother was dead right. Love's the big stuff.
It's what counts. Don't you see? I just love you, an' I gotta
have you. It's natural, I guess; and I've always found with
horses, dogs, and other folks, that what's natural is right.
There's no gettin' away from it, Saxon; I gotta have you, an' I'm
just hopin' hard you gotta have me. Maybe my hands ain't soft
like bookkeepers' an' clerks, but they can work for you, an'
fight like Sam Hill for you, and, Saxon, they can love you."
The old sex antagonism which she had always experienced with men
seemed to have vanished. She had no sense of being on the
defensive. This was no game. It was what she had been looking for
and dreaming about. Before Billy she was defenseless, and there
was an all-satisfaction in the knowledge. She could deny him
nothing. Not even if he proved to be like the others. And out of
the greatness of the thought rose a greater thought--he would not
so prove himself.
She did not speak. Instead, in a glow of spirit and flesh, she
reached out to his left hand and gently tried to remove it from
the rein. He did not understand; but when she persisted he
shifted the rein to his right and let her have her will with the
other hand. Her head bent over it, and she kissed the teamster
callouses.
For the moment he was stunned.
"You mean it?" he stammered.
For reply, she kissed the hand again and murmured:
"I love your hands, Billy. To me they are the most beautiful
hands in the world, and it would take hours of talking to tell
you all they mean to me."
"Whoa!" he called to the horses.
He pulled them in to a standstill, soothed them with his voice,
and made the reins fast around the whip. Then he turned to her
with arms around her and lips to lips.
"Oh, Billy, I'll make you a good wife," she sobbed, when the kiss
was broken.
He kissed her wet eyes and found her lips again.
"Now you know what I was thinkin' and why I was sweatin' when we
was eatin' lunch. Just seemed I couldn't hold in much longer from
tellin' you. Why, you know, you looked good to me from the first
moment I spotted you."
"And I think I loved you fr
om that first day, too, Billy. And I
was so proud of you all that day, you were so kind and gentle,
and so strong, and the way the men all respected you and the
girls all wanted you, and the way you fought those three Irishmen
when I was behind the picnic table. I couldn't love or marry a
man I wasn't proud of, and I'm so proud of you, so proud."
"Not half as much as I am right now of myself," he answered, "for
having won you. It's too good to be true. Maybe the alarm
clock'll go off and wake me up in a couple of minutes. Well,
anyway, if it does, I'm goin' to make the best of them two
minutes first. Watch out I don't eat you, I'm that hungry for
you."
He smothered her in an embrace, holding her so tightly to him
that it almost hurt. After what was to her an age-long period of
bliss, his arms relaxed and he seemed to make an effort to draw
himself together.
"An' the clock ain't gone off yet," he whispered against her
cheek. "And it's a dark night, an' there's Fruitvale right ahead,
an' if there ain't King and Prince standin' still in the middle
of the road. I never thought the time'd come when I wouldn't want
to take the ribbons on a fine pair of horses. But this is that
time. I just can't let go of you, and I've gotta some time
to-night. It hurts worse'n poison, but here goes."
He restored her to herself, tucked the disarranged robe about
her, and chirruped to the impatient team.
Half an hour later he called "Whoa!"
"I know I'm awake now, but I don't know but maybe I dreamed all
the rest, and I just want to make sure."
And again be made the reins fast and took her in his arms.
CHAPTER XII
The days flew by for Saxon. She worked on steadily at the
laundry, even doing more overtime than usual, and all her free
waking hours were devoted to preparations for the great change
and to Billy. He had proved himself God's own impetuous lover by
insisting on getting married the next day after the proposal, and
then by resolutely refusing to compromise on more than a week's
delay.
"Why wait?" he demanded. "We're not gettin' any younger so far as
I can notice, an' think of all we lose every day we wait."
In the end, he gave in to a month, which was well, for in two
weeks he was transferred, with half a dozen other drivers, to
work from the big stables of Corberly and Morrison in West
Oakland. House-hunting in the other end of town ceased, and on
Pine Street, between Fifth and Fourth, and in immediate proximity
to the great Southern Pacific railroad yards, Billy and Saxon
rented a neat cottage of four small rooms for ten dollars a
month.
"Dog-cheap is what I call it, when I think of the small rooms
I've ben soaked for," was Billy's judgment. "Look at the one I
got now, not as big as the smallest here, an' me payin' six
dollars a month for it."
"But it's furnished," Saxon reminded him. "You see, that makes a
difference."
But Billy didn't see.
"I ain't much of a scholar, Saxon, but I know simple arithmetic;
I've soaked my watch when I was hard up, and I can calculate
interest. How much do you figure it will cost to furnish the
house, carpets on the floor, linoleum on the kitchen, and all?"
"We can do it nicely for three hundred dollars," she answered.
"I've been thinking it over and I'm sure we can do it for that."
"Three hundred," he muttered, wrinkling his brows with
concentration. "Three hundred, say at six per cent.--that'd be
six cents on the dollar, sixty cents on ten dollars, six dollars
on the hundred, on three hundred eighteen dollars. Say--I'm a
bear at multiplyin' by ten. Now divide eighteen by twelve, that'd
be a dollar an' a half a month interest." He stopped, satisfied
that he had proved his contention. Then his face quickened with a
fresh thought. "Hold on! That ain't all. That'd be the interest
on the furniture for four rooms. Divide by four. What's a dollar
an' a half divided by four?"
"Four into fifteen, three times and three to carry," Saxon
recited glibly. "Four into thirty is seven, twenty-eight, two to
carry; and two-fourths is one-half. There you are."
"Gee! You're the real bear at figures." He hesitated. "I didn't
follow you. How much did you say it was?"
"Thirty-seven and a half cents."
"Ah, ha! Now we'll see how much I've ben gouged for my one room.
Ten dollars a month for four rooms is two an' a half for one. Add
thirty-seven an' a half cents interest on furniture, an' that
makes two dollars an' eighty-seven an' a half cents. Subtract
from six dollars. . . ."
"Three dollars and twelve and a half cents," she supplied
quickly.
"There we are! Three dollars an' twelve an' a half cents I'm
jiggered out of on the room I'm rentin'. Say! Bein' married is
like savin' money, ain't it?"
"But furniture wears out, Billy."
"By golly, I never thought of that. It ought to be figured, too.
Anyway, we've got a snap here, and next Saturday afternoon you've
gotta get off from the laundry so as we can go an' buy our
furniture. I saw Salinger's last night. I give'm fifty down, and
the rest installment plan, ten dollars a month. In twenty-five
months the furniture's ourn. An' remember, Saxon, you wanta buy
everything you want, no matter how much it costs. No scrimpin' on
what's for you an' me. Get me?"
She nodded, with no betrayal on her face of the myriad secret
economies that filled her mind. A hint of moisture glistened in
her eyes.
"You're so good to me, Billy," she murmured, as she came to him
and was met inside his arms.
"So you've gone an' done it," Mary commented, one morning in the
laundry. They had not been at work ten minutes ere her eye had
glimpsed the topaz ring on the third finger of Saxon's left hand.
"Who's the lucky one? Charley Long or Billy Roberts?"
"Billy," was the answer.
"Huh! Takin' a young boy to raise, eh?"
Saxon showed that the stab had gone home, and Mary was all
contrition.
"Can't you take a josh? I'm glad to death at the news. Billy's a
awful good man, and I'm glad to see you get him. There ain't many
like him knockin' 'round, an' they ain't to be had for the
askin'. An' you're both lucky. You was just made for each other,
an' you'll make him a better wife than any girl I know. When is
Going home from the laundry a few days later, Saxon encountered
Charley Long. He blocked the sidewalk, and compelled speech with
her.
"So you're runnin' with a prizefighter," he sneered. "A blind man
can see your finish."
For the first time she was unafraid of this big-bodied,
black-browed men with the hairy-matted hands and fingers. She
held up her left hand.
"See that? It's something, with all your strength, that you could
never put on my finger. Billy Roberts put it on inside a week. He
got your number, C
harley Long, and at the same time he got me."
"Skiddoo for you," Long retorted. "Twenty-three's your number."
"He's not like you," Saxon went on. "He's a man, every bit of
him, a fine, clean man."
Long laughed hoarsely.
"He's got your goat all right."
"And yours," she flashed back.
"I could tell you things about him. Saxon, straight, he ain't no
good. If I was to tell you--"
"You'd better get out of my way," she interrupted, "or I'll tell
him, and you know what you'll get, you great big bully."
Long shuffled uneasily, then reluctantly stepped aside.
"You're a caution," he said, half admiringly.
"So's Billy Roberts," she laughed, and continued on her way.
After half a dozen steps she stopped. "Say," she called.
The big blacksmith turned toward her with eagerness.
"About a block back," she said, "I saw a man with hip disease.
You might go and beat him up."
Of one extravagance Saxon was guilty in the course of the brief
engagement period. A full day's wages she spent in the purchase
of half a dozen cabinet photographs of herself. Billy had
insisted that life was unendurable could he not look upon her
semblance the last thing when he went to bed at night and the
first thing when he got up in the morning. In return, his
photographs, one conventional and one in the stripped fighting
costume of the ring, ornamented her looking glass. It was while
gazing at the latter that she was reminded of her wonderful
mother's tales of the ancient Saxons and sea-foragers of the
English coasts. From the chest of drawers that had crossed the
plains she drew forth another of her several precious heirloom--a
scrap-book of her mother's in which was pasted much of the
fugitive newspaper verse of pioneer California days. Also, there
were copies of paintings and old wood engravings from the
magazines of a generation and more before.
Saxon ran the pages with familiar fingers and stopped at the
picture she was seeking. Between bold headlands of rock and under
a gray cloud-blown sky, a dozen boats, long and lean and dark,
beaked like monstrous birds, were landing on a foam-whitened
beach of sand. The men in the boats, half naked, huge-muscled and
fair-haired, wore winged helmets. In their hands were swords and
spears, and they were leaping, waist-deep, into the sea-wash and
wading ashore. Opposed to them, contesting the landing, were
skin-clad savages, unlike Indians, however, who clustered on the
beach or waded into the water to their knees. The first blows
were being struck, and here and there the bodies of the dead and
wounded rolled in the surf. One fair-haired invader lay across
the gunwale of a boat, the manner of his death told by the arrow
that transfixed his breast. In the air, leaping past him into the
water, sword in hand, was Billy. There was no mistaking it. The
striking blondness, the face, the eyes, the mouth were the same.
The very expression on the face was what had been on Billy's the
day of the picnic when he faced the three wild Irishmen.
Somewhere out of the ruck of those warring races had emerged
Billy's ancestors, and hers, was her afterthought, as she closed
the book and put it back in the drawer. And some of those
ancestors had made this ancient and battered chest of drawers
which had crossed the salt ocean and the plains and been pierced
by a bullet in the fight with the Indians at Little Meadow.
Almost, it seemed, she could visualize the women who had kept
their pretties and their family homespun in its drawers--the
women of those wandering generations who were grandmothers and
greater great grandmothers of her own mother. Well, she sighed,
it was a good stock to be born of, a hard-working, hard-fighting
stock. She fell to wondering what her life would have been like
had she been born a Chinese woman, or an Italian woman like those