章节正文
"Tom Dorgan," I said, "I'll bet your own teeth chattered the
first time you went in for a thing like this. I'm all right.
You'll squeal before I do."
"That's more like. Here's the gate. It's locked. Come, Nance."
With a good, strong swing he boosted me over, handed me the bag
of tools and sprang over himself. . . . He looked kind o'
handsome and fine, my Tom, as he lit square and light on his feet
beside me. And because he did, I put my arm in his and gave it a
squeeze.
Oh, Mag, it was so funny, going through Latimer's garden! There
was the garden table where I had sat reading and thinking he took
me for Miss Omar. There was the bench where that beast Moriway
sat sneering at me. The wheeled chair was gone. And it was so
late everything looked asleep. But something was left behind that
made me think I heard Latimer's slow, silken voice, and made me
feel cheap--turned inside out like an empty pocket--a dirty,
ragged pocket with a seam in it.
"You'll stay here, Nancy, and watch," Tom whispered. "You'll
whistle once if a cop comes inside the gate, but not before he's
inside the gate. Don't whistle too soon--mind that--nor too loud.
I'll hear ye all right. And I'll whistle just once if--anything
happens. Then you run--hear me? Run like the devil--"
"Tommy--"
"Well, what?"
"Nothing--all right." I wanted to say good-by--but you know
Tom.
Mag, were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnight--alone?
No, I know you weren't. 'Twas your ugly little face and your hair
that saved you--the red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty.
I can see you now--a freckle-faced, thin little devil, with the
tangled hair to the very edge of your ragged skirt, yanked in
that first day to the Cruelty when the neighbors complained your
crying wouldn't let 'em sleep nights. The old woman had just
locked you in there, hadn't she, to starve when she lit out.
Mothers are queer, ain't they, when they are queer. I never
remember mine.
Yes, I'll go on.
I stood it all right for a time, out there alone in the night.
But I never was one to wait patiently. I can't wait--it isn't in
me. But there I had to stand and just--God!--just wait.
If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a' given
out so soon. But I stood so still and listened so terribly hard
that the trees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and
creep. I heard things in my head and ears that weren't sounding
anywhere else. And all of a sudden--tramp, tramp, tramp--I heard
the cop's footsteps.
He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the
gate. I crouched down behind the iron bench.
And my coat caught a twig on a bush and its crack--ck was like a
yell.
I thought I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run.
I thought I'd faint. But I didn't--for there, asleep on a rug that
some one had forgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her
a quick slap, and she flew out and across the path like a flash.
The cop watched her, his hand on the gate, and passed on.
Mag Monahan, if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and
gone home with me, I'd been so relieved I'd never have tried
again. But he didn't come. Nothing happened. Nights and nights
and nights went by, and the stillness began to sound again. My
throat went choking mad. I began to shiver, and I reached for the
rug the cat had lain on.
Funny, how some things strike you! This was Latimer's rug. I had
noticed it that evening--a warm, soft, mottled green that looked
like silk and fur mixed. I could see the way his long, white
hands looked on it, and as I touched it I could hear his voice--
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!
Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well,
it's--it's different. It's as if the river had spoken--or a
tree--it's so--it's so different.
That saved me--that verse that I remembered. I said it over and
over and over again to myself. I fitted it to the ferry whistles
on the bay--to the cop's steps as they passed again--to the roar
of the L-train and the jangling of the surface cars.
And right in the middle of it--every drop of blood in my body
seemed to leak out of me, and then come rushing back to my
head--I heard Tom's whistle.
Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I
promised Tom. But you see I hadn't heard that whistle then. When
it came, it changed everything. It set the devil in me loose.
I felt as if the world was tearing something of mine away from me.
Stand for it? Not Nance Olden.
I did run--but it was toward the house. That whistle may have
meant "Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"
I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was
still quiet. Nobody inside had heard that whistle so far as I
could tell.
I crept along--the carpets were thick and soft and silky as the
rug I'd had my hands buried in to keep 'em warm.
Along a long hall and through a great room, whose walls were
thick with books, I was making for a light I could see at the
back of the house. That's where Tom Dorgan must be and where I
must be to find out--to know.
With my hands out in front of me I hurried, but softly, and just
as I had reached the portieres below which the light streamed, my
arms closed about a thing--cold as marble, naked--I thought it
was a dead body upright there, and with a cry, I pitched forward
through the curtains into the lighted room.
"Nance!--you devil!"
You recognize it? Yep, it was Tom. Big Tom Dorgan, at the foot of
Latimer's bed, his hands above his head, and Latimer's gun aimed
right at his heart.
Think of the pluck of that cripple, will you?
His eyes turned on me for just a second, and then fixed
themselves again on Tom. But his voice went straight at me, all
right.
"You are something of a thankless devil, I must admit,
Miss--Omar," he said.
I didn't say anything. You don't say things in answer to things
like that. You feel 'em.
Ashamed? What do I care for a man with a voice like that! . . .
But you should have heard how Tom's growl sounded after it.
"Why the hell didn't you light out?"
"I couldn't, Tom. I just--couldn't," I sobbed.
"There seems invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals
where Miss Omar is concerned. Also a disposition to use strong
language in the lady's presence. Don't you, young man!"
"Don't you call me Miss Omar!" I blazed, stamping my foot.
He laughed a contemptuous laugh.
I could have killed him then, I hated him so. At least, I thought
I could; but just then Tom sent a spark out of the corner of his
eye to me that meant--it meant--
You know, Mag, what it would have meant to Latimer if I had done
what Tom's eye said.
I thought at first I had done it--it passed through my mind so
quick; the sweet words I'd say--the move I'd make--the quick
knocking-up of the pistol, and then--
It was that--that sight of Tom, big Tom Dorgan, with rage in his
heart and death in his hand, leaping on that cripple's body--it
made me sick!
I stood there gasping--stood a moment too long. For the curtains
were pushed aside, and Burnett, Latimer's servant, and the cop
came in.
Tom didn't fight; he's no fool to waste himself.
But I--well, never mind about me. I caught a glimpse of a crazy
white face on a boy's body in the great glass opposite and heard
my own voice break into something I'd never heard before.
Tom stood at last with the handcuffs on.
"It's your own fault, you damned little chump!" he said to me,
as they went out.
You lie, Mag Monahan, he's no such thing! He may be a hard man to
live with, but he's mine--my Tom--my Tom!
What? Latimer?
Well, do you know, it's funny about him. He'd told the cop that
I'd peached--peached on Tom! So they went off without me.
Why?
That's what he said himself when we were alone.
"In order to insure for myself another of your most interesting
visits, I suppose, Miss--not Omar? All right. . . . Tell me, can
I do nothing for you? Aren't you sick of this sort of life?"
"Get Tom out of jail."
He shook his head.
"I'm too good a friend of yours to do you such a turn."
"I don't want any friend that isn't Tom's."
He threw the pistol from him and pulled himself up, till he sat
looking at me.
"In heaven's name, what can you see in a fellow like that?"
"What's that to you?" I turned to go.
"To me? Things of that sort are nothing, of course, to me--me,
that `luckless Pot He marr'd in making.' But, tell me--can a girl
like you tell the truth? What made you hesitate when that fellow
told you with his eyes to murder me?"
"How did you know?"
"How? The glass. See over yonder. I could watch every expression
on both your faces. What was it--what was it, child, that made
you--oh, if you owe me a single heart-beat of gratitude, tell me
the truth!"
"You've said it yourself."
"What?"
"That line we read the other night about `the luckless Pot'."
His face went gray and he fell back on his pillows. The strenuous
life we'd been leading him, Tom and I, was too much for him, I
guess.
Do you know, I really felt sorry I'd said it. But he is a
cripple. Did he expect me to say he was big and strong and
dashing--like Tom?
I left him there and got out and away. But do you know what I
saw, Mag, beside his bed, just as Burnett came to put me out?
My old blue coat with the buttons--the bell-boy's coat I'd left
in the housekeeper's room when I borrowed her Sunday rig. The
coat was hanging over a chair, and right by it, on a table, was
that big book with a picture covering every page, still open at
that verse about
Through this same Garden--and for ONE in vain!
IV.
No--no--no! No more whining from Nance Olden. Listen to what I've
got to tell you, Mag, listen!
You know where I was coming from yesterday when I passed Troyon's
window and grinned up at you, sitting there, framed in bottles of
hair tonic, with all that red wig of yours streaming about you?
Yep, from that little, rat-eyed lawyer's office. I was glum as
mud. I felt as though Tom and myself were both flies caught by
the leg--he by the law and I by the lawyer--in a sticky mess; and
the more we flapped our wings and struggled and pulled, the more
we hurt and tore ourselves, and the sooner we'd have to give it
up.
Oh, that wizen-faced little lawyer that lives on the Tom Dorgans
and the Nance Oldens, who don't know which way to turn to get the
money! He looks at me out of his red little eyes and measures in
first time you went in for a thing like this. I'm all right.
You'll squeal before I do."
"That's more like. Here's the gate. It's locked. Come, Nance."
With a good, strong swing he boosted me over, handed me the bag
of tools and sprang over himself. . . . He looked kind o'
handsome and fine, my Tom, as he lit square and light on his feet
beside me. And because he did, I put my arm in his and gave it a
squeeze.
Oh, Mag, it was so funny, going through Latimer's garden! There
was the garden table where I had sat reading and thinking he took
me for Miss Omar. There was the bench where that beast Moriway
sat sneering at me. The wheeled chair was gone. And it was so
late everything looked asleep. But something was left behind that
made me think I heard Latimer's slow, silken voice, and made me
feel cheap--turned inside out like an empty pocket--a dirty,
ragged pocket with a seam in it.
"You'll stay here, Nancy, and watch," Tom whispered. "You'll
whistle once if a cop comes inside the gate, but not before he's
inside the gate. Don't whistle too soon--mind that--nor too loud.
I'll hear ye all right. And I'll whistle just once if--anything
happens. Then you run--hear me? Run like the devil--"
"Tommy--"
"Well, what?"
"Nothing--all right." I wanted to say good-by--but you know
Tom.
Mag, were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnight--alone?
No, I know you weren't. 'Twas your ugly little face and your hair
that saved you--the red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty.
I can see you now--a freckle-faced, thin little devil, with the
tangled hair to the very edge of your ragged skirt, yanked in
that first day to the Cruelty when the neighbors complained your
crying wouldn't let 'em sleep nights. The old woman had just
locked you in there, hadn't she, to starve when she lit out.
Mothers are queer, ain't they, when they are queer. I never
remember mine.
Yes, I'll go on.
I stood it all right for a time, out there alone in the night.
But I never was one to wait patiently. I can't wait--it isn't in
me. But there I had to stand and just--God!--just wait.
If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a' given
out so soon. But I stood so still and listened so terribly hard
that the trees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and
creep. I heard things in my head and ears that weren't sounding
anywhere else. And all of a sudden--tramp, tramp, tramp--I heard
the cop's footsteps.
He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the
gate. I crouched down behind the iron bench.
And my coat caught a twig on a bush and its crack--ck was like a
yell.
I thought I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run.
I thought I'd faint. But I didn't--for there, asleep on a rug that
some one had forgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her
a quick slap, and she flew out and across the path like a flash.
The cop watched her, his hand on the gate, and passed on.
Mag Monahan, if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and
gone home with me, I'd been so relieved I'd never have tried
again. But he didn't come. Nothing happened. Nights and nights
and nights went by, and the stillness began to sound again. My
throat went choking mad. I began to shiver, and I reached for the
rug the cat had lain on.
Funny, how some things strike you! This was Latimer's rug. I had
noticed it that evening--a warm, soft, mottled green that looked
like silk and fur mixed. I could see the way his long, white
hands looked on it, and as I touched it I could hear his voice--
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,
And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake:
For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man
Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!
Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well,
it's--it's different. It's as if the river had spoken--or a
tree--it's so--it's so different.
That saved me--that verse that I remembered. I said it over and
over and over again to myself. I fitted it to the ferry whistles
on the bay--to the cop's steps as they passed again--to the roar
of the L-train and the jangling of the surface cars.
And right in the middle of it--every drop of blood in my body
seemed to leak out of me, and then come rushing back to my
head--I heard Tom's whistle.
Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I
promised Tom. But you see I hadn't heard that whistle then. When
it came, it changed everything. It set the devil in me loose.
I felt as if the world was tearing something of mine away from me.
Stand for it? Not Nance Olden.
I did run--but it was toward the house. That whistle may have
meant "Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"
I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was
still quiet. Nobody inside had heard that whistle so far as I
could tell.
I crept along--the carpets were thick and soft and silky as the
rug I'd had my hands buried in to keep 'em warm.
Along a long hall and through a great room, whose walls were
thick with books, I was making for a light I could see at the
back of the house. That's where Tom Dorgan must be and where I
must be to find out--to know.
With my hands out in front of me I hurried, but softly, and just
as I had reached the portieres below which the light streamed, my
arms closed about a thing--cold as marble, naked--I thought it
was a dead body upright there, and with a cry, I pitched forward
through the curtains into the lighted room.
"Nance!--you devil!"
You recognize it? Yep, it was Tom. Big Tom Dorgan, at the foot of
Latimer's bed, his hands above his head, and Latimer's gun aimed
right at his heart.
Think of the pluck of that cripple, will you?
His eyes turned on me for just a second, and then fixed
themselves again on Tom. But his voice went straight at me, all
right.
"You are something of a thankless devil, I must admit,
Miss--Omar," he said.
I didn't say anything. You don't say things in answer to things
like that. You feel 'em.
Ashamed? What do I care for a man with a voice like that! . . .
But you should have heard how Tom's growl sounded after it.
"Why the hell didn't you light out?"
"I couldn't, Tom. I just--couldn't," I sobbed.
"There seems invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals
where Miss Omar is concerned. Also a disposition to use strong
language in the lady's presence. Don't you, young man!"
"Don't you call me Miss Omar!" I blazed, stamping my foot.
He laughed a contemptuous laugh.
I could have killed him then, I hated him so. At least, I thought
I could; but just then Tom sent a spark out of the corner of his
eye to me that meant--it meant--
You know, Mag, what it would have meant to Latimer if I had done
what Tom's eye said.
I thought at first I had done it--it passed through my mind so
quick; the sweet words I'd say--the move I'd make--the quick
knocking-up of the pistol, and then--
It was that--that sight of Tom, big Tom Dorgan, with rage in his
heart and death in his hand, leaping on that cripple's body--it
made me sick!
I stood there gasping--stood a moment too long. For the curtains
were pushed aside, and Burnett, Latimer's servant, and the cop
came in.
Tom didn't fight; he's no fool to waste himself.
But I--well, never mind about me. I caught a glimpse of a crazy
white face on a boy's body in the great glass opposite and heard
my own voice break into something I'd never heard before.
Tom stood at last with the handcuffs on.
"It's your own fault, you damned little chump!" he said to me,
as they went out.
You lie, Mag Monahan, he's no such thing! He may be a hard man to
live with, but he's mine--my Tom--my Tom!
What? Latimer?
Well, do you know, it's funny about him. He'd told the cop that
I'd peached--peached on Tom! So they went off without me.
Why?
That's what he said himself when we were alone.
"In order to insure for myself another of your most interesting
visits, I suppose, Miss--not Omar? All right. . . . Tell me, can
I do nothing for you? Aren't you sick of this sort of life?"
"Get Tom out of jail."
He shook his head.
"I'm too good a friend of yours to do you such a turn."
"I don't want any friend that isn't Tom's."
He threw the pistol from him and pulled himself up, till he sat
looking at me.
"In heaven's name, what can you see in a fellow like that?"
"What's that to you?" I turned to go.
"To me? Things of that sort are nothing, of course, to me--me,
that `luckless Pot He marr'd in making.' But, tell me--can a girl
like you tell the truth? What made you hesitate when that fellow
told you with his eyes to murder me?"
"How did you know?"
"How? The glass. See over yonder. I could watch every expression
on both your faces. What was it--what was it, child, that made
you--oh, if you owe me a single heart-beat of gratitude, tell me
the truth!"
"You've said it yourself."
"What?"
"That line we read the other night about `the luckless Pot'."
His face went gray and he fell back on his pillows. The strenuous
life we'd been leading him, Tom and I, was too much for him, I
guess.
Do you know, I really felt sorry I'd said it. But he is a
cripple. Did he expect me to say he was big and strong and
dashing--like Tom?
I left him there and got out and away. But do you know what I
saw, Mag, beside his bed, just as Burnett came to put me out?
My old blue coat with the buttons--the bell-boy's coat I'd left
in the housekeeper's room when I borrowed her Sunday rig. The
coat was hanging over a chair, and right by it, on a table, was
that big book with a picture covering every page, still open at
that verse about
Through this same Garden--and for ONE in vain!
IV.
No--no--no! No more whining from Nance Olden. Listen to what I've
got to tell you, Mag, listen!
You know where I was coming from yesterday when I passed Troyon's
window and grinned up at you, sitting there, framed in bottles of
hair tonic, with all that red wig of yours streaming about you?
Yep, from that little, rat-eyed lawyer's office. I was glum as
mud. I felt as though Tom and myself were both flies caught by
the leg--he by the law and I by the lawyer--in a sticky mess; and
the more we flapped our wings and struggled and pulled, the more
we hurt and tore ourselves, and the sooner we'd have to give it
up.
Oh, that wizen-faced little lawyer that lives on the Tom Dorgans
and the Nance Oldens, who don't know which way to turn to get the
money! He looks at me out of his red little eyes and measures in
- sprang [spræŋ]
spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词) - reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- whistle [´wisəl] v.吹哨 n.口哨；汽笛 (初中英语单词)
- starve [stɑ:v] v.(使)饥饿 (初中英语单词)
- terribly [´terəbli] ad.可怕地 (初中英语单词)
- whisper [´wispə] v.耳语 n.低语；沙沙声 (初中英语单词)
- scream [skri:m] v.&n.尖叫(声) (初中英语单词)
- shiver [´ʃivə] v.&n.(使)颤抖；碎片 (初中英语单词)
- paradise [´pærədais] n.天堂；乐园 (初中英语单词)
- softly [´sɔftli] ad.软化地；柔和地 (初中英语单词)
- marble [´mɑ:bəl] n.大理石 a.大理石的 (初中英语单词)
- disposition [,dispə´ziʃən] n.安排；性情；倾向 (初中英语单词)
- pistol [´pistl] n.手枪 vt.用手枪射击 (初中英语单词)
- glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- hesitate [´heziteit] vi.犹豫，踌躇 (初中英语单词)
- gratitude [´grætitju:d] n.感激，感谢 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- lawyer [´lɔ:jə] n.律师；法学家 (初中英语单词)
- silken [´silkən] a.丝制的；柔软光滑的 (高中英语单词)
- ragged [´rægid] a.衣服破烂的 (高中英语单词)
- cruelty [´kru:əlti] n.残忍；残酷行为 (高中英语单词)
- patiently [´peiʃəntli] ad.有耐心地；坚韧地 (高中英语单词)
- stillness [´stilnis] n.不动；无声，寂静 (高中英语单词)
- devise [di´vaiz] vt.设计，发明 (高中英语单词)
- forgiveness [fə´givnis] n.原谅，饶恕；宽仁 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- upright [´ʌprait] a.直立的 ad.直立地 (高中英语单词)
- cripple [´kripəl] n.跛子 vt.使残疾 (高中英语单词)
- invariably [in´veəriəbli] ad.不变地；永恒地 (高中英语单词)
- concerned [kən´sə:nd] a.有关的；担心的 (高中英语单词)
- damned [dæmd] a.该死的 ad.非常，极 (高中英语单词)
- insure [in´ʃuə] vt.给...保险 (高中英语单词)
- hanging [´hæŋiŋ] n.绞刑 a.悬挂着的 (高中英语单词)
- squeal [skwi:l] n.&v.长而尖的叫声 (英语六级单词)
- wherewith [wɛə´wiθ] ad.用什么；用以 (英语六级单词)
- misunderstanding [,misʌndə´stændiŋ] n.误解；隔阂 (英语六级单词)
- contemptuous [kən´temptjuəs] a.蔑视的；傲慢的 (英语六级单词)
- sticky [´stiki] a.胶粘的；顽固的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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