3stalwarts (93 page)

“I wouldn’t say that, mam.”

“You’re a nice young man, and you’re a lucky young man, too, to get such a pretty cook. You’ll make a smart-looking’ pair if she takes care of you right. She’s a good gal, a good cook. She’s willing and kind and honest; but there’s times when she’s hard to hold. I know her right through. I’ve took special care with her. Yes, sir, I’ve turned down bids when a man wanted to get her, by telling she had a job already. Jotham Klore turned out a kind of error. But he’s a good man, in a way, a fine free spender, and he gives a girl a good time, and Molly’d took an affection to him. There’s times, young man, when you’ll have to bear right down on her and make her mind. That’s the kind she is. She’s got to feel a bit all the while.”

She leaned forward, her Mother Hubbard wrinkling tight behind her arms, and took a coal out of the fire with a little pair of tongs. When she had her pipe drawing again, she asked Dan how he was fixed. He told her about the boat and Samson’s death.

“Poor Samson Weaver,” said Mrs. Cashdollar. “He was a nice man. I made quite a bit of money through him, but Annie always was that way. Lucky I don’t guarantee my gals’ll stay, unless I get a wife proposition. There was an old feller came in a year ago. He had a farm up by Steuben.

Used to be a boater and he come down to me to get him a cook. He wanted a young gal, so I give him one and told him the gal wouldn’t stand for it. Well, she was gone in a week. Back she come, and back come the old feller. White was his name. He was all cut up. He wanted another, when I told him the gal wouldn’t go back. So I let him have another. He tried three. The last time he come in I says to him, ‘Mr. White, you don’t want a gal that’s pretty,’ I said. ‘You want a woman that knows that sowing means reaping.’ Oh, I talked to him right like a mother. ‘I got a woman here— she’s the best cook in Utica,’ I said. ‘She ain’t pretty; she’s forty. But she’s about ready to tie up,’ I said. Well, even then he didn’t want only a gal. He thought he was a boater still. So off he went and I called up the woman, and I told her, ‘Hermy, there goes old man White. He’s a good man, but he’s notional. He’s got a good farm. You get ahead of him and get a good meal. I’ll loan you the money to get there— five per cent profit. If you can’t get there and stick, you ain’t the woman I think you are, with your powers for food. That man don’t know it, but he’s fonder of his insides than a hen is of corn. That’s the way a man gets when he gets old; with a gal the trouble comes outside.’ So off she went, and she beat him back and had his supper frying for him; and two weeks later, when it was time to pay up, I was sitting here one night thinking she might pop in, and getting ready to tell her she needn’t hang round my agency if she hadn’t settled down, when in comes White. He fishes the money I’d give her right out of his pocket, with the per cent with it, and he says, ‘Mrs. Cashdollar, here’s your money, and thank you,’ he says. I counted and told him it was right. ‘Yeanh,’ he says, ‘my wife give me the account.’ Well, she’d knowed where she stood all right; they’re real happy. I got her off my hands and made a profit. It was good all round.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan.

“That kind of a woman won’t give you no bother,” Mrs. Cashdollar said. “Give her a little honey-love once a day, and she’s fixed. But a gal like Molly Larkins has got to be rode steady. She’s notional.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “Thanks.”

“Course you ain’t paying a bit of attention to what an old woman tells you. Well,” she sighed again, “I was that way once.”

“When’U Molly be back?” Dan asked.

“Pretty late. Shall I tell her you’re waiting for her?”

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “Please.”

“All right, where’s the boat?”

“Wheaden’s wharf. It’s the Sarsey Sal.”

“All right. You’re certain you want her? I’ve got a pretty, dark-com- plected girl here, just in from the country, if you’re taken that way.”

“No, thanks,” Dan said, getting to his feet awkwardly. “I think I’d better be getting on back.”

“All right, young man, good luck to you. If you don’t have it, come back here and I’ll see what I can do for you. I’d enjoy having your trade.”

“All right. Good night, mam.”

“Good night,” said Mrs. Cashdollar.

He walked slowly down the stairs. The spotted cat was still at the same hole; and it looked up at him with a disgruntled air at the sound of his heavy tread.

Dan did not notice the cat. He went out through the bar and into the street and headed back for the Sarsey Sal. There was an odd feeling of suffocation in him as he went along the docks. Under a light he passed the watchman he had seen earlier in the evening, twirling a toothpick back and forth across his lower lip. The lapping of the water came upon his ears with a clear insistence; the wind was sharper; and the tread of his heels over the planks rang hard. Above him the stars clustered in a clear sky.

In the cabin he lit the lamp, and looked round him. His blue-green eyes shone and his tanned cheeks were flushed. He changed triflingly the position of the two chairs and pushed a stool back into the corner. Then he went into the cuddy. As in some of the older boats, it had a partition dividing the double bunk from the single. On the walls hung odds and ends of Samson Weaver’s clothes— a pair of overalls, deeply kneed; an old hat, the brim of which was pulling away from the crown in front; a pair of boots hung on a nail by their laces, the mark of the boater’s feet evident in their worn leather. Dan gathered them up and took them forward to the stable. The horses were lying down, but they turned their heads toward him, their eyes glowing warmly in the light of his lantern.

He dropped the clothes in a corner and grinned at the team.

“You old devils, you,” he said to them, his voice thick, “what’re you thinking about?”

They did not get up; but as he went out again one of them nickered whisperingly.

In the cabin once more he sat down; and then got up to put another stick in the stove; and then sat down with his book on his knee. But his eyes could not follow the letters through the short lines. It was warm in the cabin; the kettle was purring, hiding the mutter of the water outside; the air was dozy with the smell of past cargoes, of sweet apples, the choking smell of grain, the clinging, solemn smell of potatoes. A mist was closing on the windowpanes, shutting in the lights. A horn blew flatly far out along the water. Forward, one of the horses shifted its weight… .

Dan heard light footsteps on the dock, on the plank, on the deck of the boat just over him. He sat still for an instant, his hands gripping the arms of the rocker. The steps started down the stairs; the door opened; Molly Larkins came in, in her red dress and hat, carrying a carpetbag.

“Hullo, Dan.”

Her face was a bit flushed; but her dark blue eyes were cool. He got up slowly to take her bag.

“I’ll just drop it inside,” she said, and she carried it into the sleeping cuddy. His eyes followed her in and out again. She stood close before him, taking off her hat, her skirts lifting a little at the sides of her ankles.

“Hello, Molly.”

She gave him a wide smile.

“Just to think of you getting a boat so soon.”

“It ain’t actually mine.”

“Mrs. Cashdollar says it’s as good as yourn. She’d know.”

“I ain’t got any money yet. I won’t be able to get a driver for a spell.”

“Well, I guess I can steer, Dan.”

He glanced approvingly at her strong hands.

“I’d ought to get trade from Butterfield,” he said.

“Sure,” she said. Her blowzy bright hair hung down in a loose coil over one ear. She poked at it.

“My gracious, I can’t never make it stay respectable!”

She laughed and shook her head, and the coil slipped out to fall forward over her breast. Dan drew his breath and looked away suddenly.

“Samson said he had money hid on the boat, into one of the beams.”

“Goodness,” she exclaimed, her eyes shining. “We’ll have to look tomorrow.”

“I think we’d better wait till I’ve seen Mr. Butterfield, Molly.”

“I don’t see why.”

“If he says it’s our boat,” he said almost shyly, “it’ll be like looking for our own money.”

“It’d be fun to look tomorrow. Why, we might even find it tonight.”

He glanced down at his hands and shook his head.

“No, I don’t think we’d want to.”

She laughed again, low and clear.

“It don’t make much difference.”

She got up suddenly.

“I’ve got to nose round,” she said. “I always was nosey getting into a new boat.”

His eyes followed her here and there as she opened the cupboards and poked into corners, giving little exclamations, or wrinkling her nose as she found dust.

“I’ll have to clean up good right away,” she said. “My heavens, you could tell just two men had been living on this boat.”

He grinned with a warm feeling of pride in him. When she bent over, the loose strand of hair would brush her chin and she would catch it back with a pleasant sharp snatch; but it always curled forward again across her shoulder.

The clock whirred and rapidly beat out the hour.

“Goodness,” she exclaimed, looking from it to him. “I’d scarcely noticed it! Ain’t it a cute pretty horse prancing like that?”

The lamplight picked out the muscles in the arched neck of the little animal. He looked alive.

“It’ll be nice to have him there prancing with his feet,” she said. “There won’t be no drag in the time.”

“Molly,” he said.

“Yeanh?”

“Molly,” he said.

She came to him and stood by the arm of the chair.

He wanted to speak, but the word snagged in his throat.

Suddenly she reached down for his hand and pulled his arm round her waist. Her eyes were bright and large and a little misty, and there lurked in the long corners enough of the devil to make them sweet, and a dimple poked into her left cheek.

“Gracious me,” she said. “Ain’t a man a silly thing!”

She spun away from him suddenly, her skirt lifting about her knees, and laughed and went into the cuddy and drew the curtain.

Dan sat by himself a while, listening to the soft stirring beyond the curtain. The fire lulled in the stove; the kettle ceased its talk with a few light tinkles of the dying steam; the lapping sound of the ripple closed in round the boat. The clock struck the half hour.

Dan got up suddenly and turned to the cuddy.

“Land!” said Molly, a low, soft kindness in her voice. “Ain’t a man silly? You’ve forgot to blow out the lamp.”

Rome Haul

When Dan woke, he heard Molly moving round the cabin. He could hear the stove roaring and the fat hopping in the pan, and the warmth and the fry smells were already coming in to the bunk. The early morning sunlight, shining against the curtains, traced the barred frame of the cabin window. Dan stretched and yawned silently, and lay still with lazy contentment. His hand could still feel the warmth in the blankets beside him.

Overnight a new atmosphere had stolen into the Sarsey Sal. As he lay there, Dan could feel it all round him. On the wall to the right of the curtain three print dresses hung, and beside them a cotton bag out of the top of which poked a bit of the collar of Molly’s red best dress. Her hat lay on the shelf above the nails; two pairs of shoes sat side by side in the corner. And Molly herself was humming a little tune in the kitchen, over and over, in snatches as she went about her work. Like many women whose speaking voice is strong and low, she sang in a small voice, almost shyly: —

“Down in the valley, The valley so low, Hang your head over, Hear the wind blow.”

Dan swallowed hard, as if he would have liked to cry, and sat up suddenly. Molly came to the curtain and put her head through. Her hair hung forward on her shoulder in a big loose braid, making her look ridiculously young. She was wearing a thin green print that brought out the bright flush in her cheeks; and her blue eyes, seeing his tousled hair and the patient, bewildered pleasure in his face, grew dark with tenderness. “Get up, lazy Dan. Come and get your breakfast.” She tossed his trousers onto the bed and went back to her work.

“Hear the wind blow, dear, Hear the wind blow, Hang your head over And hear the wind blow.”

He pulled on his trousers and laced his boots; his fingers were clumsy. Then he went on deck and drew himself a bucket of water, washed, and went to the stable. The horses were up and eager for their feed. He got them a bucket of water from the butt and stood by their heads watching them drink. The orlhorse lifted its head when it had drunk and brushed the back of his neck with its cool damp muzzle. Dan swore and thumped it with his fist, and the horse laid back its ears and pretended to nip him. Dan laughed at it and slapped its neck; and the horse pricked its ears suddenly and stamped. The other, impatient of the byplay, whickered into the belly of the manger for oats.

Dan brushed them down and grained them. They were a fairly good team, a little lighter than he liked a horse; but they were fattening from their week of rest. He put on their collars and adjusted the hames and went back to the cabin.

Molly had let down the table from the wall, and now she sat at one end, the coffeepot before her. The sunlight coming through the window caught in the edges of her hair.

“Good morning,” she said, her eyes on the high color the cold water had whipped up in his cheeks.

“Morning,” said Dan. He went over to the sink, felt for the comb behind the mirror, and ran it through his hair.

Molly laughed.

“It don’t do a bit of good to do that.”

“No,” he said. “I guess it don’t.”

“Come and set down, then. Here’s your coffee,” she said, pouring him a cup. “Whatever woman was on to this boat before you men tried to run things certainly knowed coffee. She stocked up good. There’s enough of everything to last us till we get ready to leave Rome, except for eggs and butter and milk.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan, starting in on his bacon and potatoes with relish.

She eyed him dubiously.

“I haven’t had time to make a pie,” she said. “But I’ll whip up something tonight.”

“This is good enough for me,” Dan said, looking her over with a broad grin.