章节正文
asked Dannie for money as he wanted it, telling him to keep an
account, and he would pay him in the fall. He seemed to forget or
not to know how fast his bills grew.
Then came a week in August when the heat invaded even the cool
retreat along the river. Out on the highway passing wheels rolled
back the dust like water, and raised it in clouds after them. The
rag weeds hung wilted heads along the road. The goldenrod and
purple ironwort were dust-colored and dust-choked. The trees were
thirsty, and their leaves shriveling. The river bed was bare its
width in places, and while the Kingfisher made merry with his
family, and rattled, feasting from Abram Johnson's to the
Gar-hole, the Black Bass sought its deep pool, and lay still. It
was a rare thing to hear it splash in those days.
The prickly heat burned until the souls of men were tried. Mary
slipped listlessly about or lay much of the time on a couch
beside a window, where a breath of air stirred. Despite the good
beginning he had made in the spring, Jimmy slumped with the heat
and exposures he had risked, and was hard to live with.
Dannie was not having a good time himself. Since Jimmy's wedding,
life had been all grind to Dannie, but he kept his reason,
accepted his lot, and ground his grist with patience and such
cheer as few men could have summoned to the aid of so poor a
cause. Had there been any one to notice it, Dannie was tired and
heat-ridden also, but as always, Dannie sank self, and labored
uncomplainingly with Jimmy's problems. On a burning August
morning Dannie went to breakfast, and found Mary white and
nervous, little prepared to eat, and no sign of Jimmy.
"Jimmy sleeping?" he asked.
"I don't know where Jimmy is," Mary answered coldly.
"Since when?" asked Dannie, gulping coffee, and taking hasty
bites, for he had begun his breakfast supposing that Jimmy would
come presently.
"He left as soon as you went home last night," she said, "and he
has not come back yet."
Dannie did not know what to say. Loyal to the bone to Jimmy,
loving each hair on the head of Mary Malone, and she worn and
neglected; the problem was heartbreaking in any solution he
attempted, and he felt none too well himself. He arose hastily,
muttering something about getting the work done. He brought in
wood and water, and asked if there was anything more he could do.
"Sure!" said Mary, in a calm, even voice. "Go to the barn, and
shovel manure for Jimmy Malone, and do all the work he shirks,
before you do anything for yoursilf."
Dannie always had admitted that he did not understand women, but
he understood a plain danger signal, and he almost ran from the
cabin. In the fear that Mary might think he had heeded her hasty
words, he went to his own barn first, just to show her that he
did not do Jimmy's work. The flies and mosquitoes were so bad he
kept his horses stabled through the day, and turned them to
pasture at night. So their stalls were to be cleaned, and he set
to work. When he had finished his own barn, as he had nothing
else to do, he went on to Jimmy's. He had finished the stalls,
and was sweeping when he heard a sound at the back door, and
turning saw Jimmy clinging to the casing, unable to stand
longer. Dannie sprang to him, and helped him inside. Jimmy sank
to the floor. Dannie caught up several empty grain sacks, folded
them, and pushed them under Jimmy's head for a pillow.
"Dannish, didsh shay y'r nash'nal flowerish wash shisle?" asked
Jimmy.
"Yes," said Dannie, lifting the heavy auburn head to smooth the
folds from the sacks.
"Whysh like me?"
"I dinna," answered Dannie wearily.
"Awful jagsh on," murmured Jimmy, sighed heavily, and was off.
His clothing was torn and dust-covered, his face was purple and
bloated, and his hair was dusty and disordered. He was a
repulsive sight. As Dannie straightened Jimmy's limbs he thought
he heard a step. He lifted his head and leaned forward to listen.
"Dannie Micnoun?" called the same even, cold voice he had heard
at breakfast. "Have you left me, too?"
Dannie sprang for a manger. He caught a great armload of hay, and
threw it over Jimmy. He gave one hurried toss to scatter it, for
Mary was in the barn. As he turned to interpose his body between
her and the manger, which partially screened Jimmy, his heart
sickened. He was too late. She had seen. Frightened to the soul,
he stared at her. She came a step closer, and with her foot gave
a hand of Jimmy's that lay exposed a contemptuous shove.
"You didn't get him complately covered," she said. "How long have
you had him here?"
Dannie was frightened into speech. "Na a minute, Mary; he juist
came in when I heard ye. I was trying to spare ye."
"Him, you mane," she said, in that same strange voice. "I suppose
you give him money, and he has a bottle, and he's been here all
night."
"Mary," said Dannie, "that's na true. I have furnished him money.
He'd mortgage the farm, or do something worse if I didna; but I
dinna WHERE he has been all nicht, and in trying to cover him, my
only thought was to save ye pain."
"And whin you let him spind money you know you'll never get back,
and loaf while you do his work, and when you lie mountain high,
times without number, who is it for?"
Then fifteen years' restraint slid from Dannie like a cloak, and
in the torture of his soul his slow tongue outran all its
previous history.
"Ye!" he shouted. "It's fra Jimmy, too, but ye first. Always ye
first!" Mary began to tremble. Her white cheeks burned red. Her
figure straightened, and her hands clenched.
"On the cross! Will you swear it?" she cried.
"On the sacred body of Jesus Himself, if I could face Him,"
answered Dannie. "anything! Everything is fra ye first, Mary!"
"Then why?" she panted between gasps for breath. "Tell me why? If
you have cared for me enough to stay here all these years and see
that I had the bist tratemint you could get for me, why didn't
you care for me enough more to save me this? Oh, Dannie, tell me
why?"
And then she shook with strangled sobs until she scarce could
stand alone. Dannie Macnoun cleared the space between them and
took her in his arms. Her trembling hands clung to him, her head
dropped on his breast, and the perfume of her hair in his
nostrils drove him mad. Then the tense bulk of her body struck
against him, and horror filled his soul. One second he held her,
the next, Jimmy smothering under the hay, threw up an arm, and
called like a petulant child, "Dannie! Make shun quit shinish my
fashe!"
And Dannie awoke to the realization that Mary was another man's,
and that man, one who trusted him completely. The problem was so
much too big for poor Dannie that reason kindly slipped a cog. He
broke from the grasp of the woman, fled through the back door,
and took to the woods.
He ran as if fiends were after him, and he ran and ran. And when
he could run no longer, he walked, but he went on. Just on and
on. He crossed forests and fields, orchards and highways, streams
and rivers, deep woods and swamps, and on, and on he went. He
felt nothing, and saw nothing, and thought nothing, save to go
on, always on. In the dark he stumbled on and through the day he
staggered on, and he stopped for nothing, save at times to lift
water to his parched lips.
The bushes took his hat, the thorns ripped his shirt, the water
soaked his shoes and they spread and his feet came through and
the stones cut them until they bled. Leaves and twigs stuck in
his hair, and his eyes grew bloodshot, his lips and tongue
swollen, and when he could go no further on his feet, he crawled
on his knees, until at last he pitched forward on his face and
lay still. The tumult was over and Mother Nature set to work to
see about repairing damages.
Dannie was so badly damaged, soul, heart, and body, that she
never would have been equal to the task, but another woman
happened that way and she helped. Dannie was carried to a house
and a doctor dressed his hurts. When the physician got down to
first principles, and found a big, white-bodied, fine-faced
Scotchman in the heart of the wreck, he was amazed. A wild man,
but not a whiskey bloat. A crazy man, but not a maniac. He stood
long beside Dannie as he lay unconscious.
"I'll take oath that man has wronged no one," he said. "What in
the name of God has some woman been doing to him?"
He took money from Dannie's wallet and bought clothing to replace
the rags he had burned. He filled Dannie with nourishment, and
told the woman who found him that when he awoke, if he did not
remember, to tell him that his name was Dannie Macnoun, and that
he lived in Rainbow Bottom, Adams County. Because just at that
time Dannie was halfway across the state.
A day later he awoke, in a strange room and among strange faces.
He took up life exactly where he left off. And in his ears, as he
remembered his flight, rang the awful cry uttered by Mary Malone,
and not until then did there come to Dannie the realization that
she had been driven to seek him for help, because her woman's
hour was upon her. Cold fear froze Dannie's soul.
He went back by railway and walked the train most of the way. He
dropped from the cars at the water tank and struck across
country, and again he ran. But this time it was no headlong
flight. Straight as a homing bird went Dannie with all speed,
toward the foot of the Rainbow and Mary Malone.
The Kingfisher sped rattling down the river when Dannie came
crashing along the bank.
"Oh, God, let her be alive!" prayed Dannie as he leaned panting
against a tree for an instant, because he was very close now and
sickeningly afraid. Then he ran on. In a minute it would be over.
At the next turn he could see the cabins. As he dashed along,
Jimmy Malone rose from a log and faced him. A white Jimmy, with
black- ringed eyes and shaking hands.
"Where the Hell have you been?" Jimmy demanded.
"Is she dead?" cried Dannie.
"The doctor is talking scare," said Jimmy. "But I don't scare so
easy. She's never been sick in her life, and she has lived
through it twice before, why should she die now? Of course the
kid is dead again," he added angrily.
Dannie shut his eyes and stood still. He had helped plant star-
flowers on two tiny cross-marked mounds at Five Mile Hill. Now,
there were three. Jimmy had worn out her love for him, that was
plain. "Why should she die now?" To Dannie it seemed that
question should have been, "Why should she live?"
Jimmy eyed him belligerently. "Why in the name of sinse did you
cut out whin I was off me pins?" he growled. "Of course I don't
blame you for cutting that kind of a party, me for the woods, all
right, but what I can't see is why you couldn't have gone for the
doctor and waited until I'd slept it off before you wint."
"I dinna know she was sick," answered Dannie. "I deserve anything
ony ane can say to me, and it's all my fault if she dees, but
this ane thing ye got to say ye know richt noo, Jimmy. Ye got to
say ye know that I dinna understand Mary was sick when I went."
"Sure! I've said that all the time," agreed Jimmy. "But what I
don't understand is, WHY you went! I guess she thinks it was her
fault. I came out here to try to study it out. The nurse-woman,
domn pretty girl, says if you don't get back before midnight,
it's all up. You're just on time, Dannie. The talk in the house
is that she'll wink out if you don't prove to her that she didn't
drive you away. She is about crazy over it. What did she do to
you?"
"Nothing!" exclaimed Dannie. "She was so deathly sick she dinna
what she was doing. I can see it noo, but I dinna understand
then."
account, and he would pay him in the fall. He seemed to forget or
not to know how fast his bills grew.
Then came a week in August when the heat invaded even the cool
retreat along the river. Out on the highway passing wheels rolled
back the dust like water, and raised it in clouds after them. The
rag weeds hung wilted heads along the road. The goldenrod and
purple ironwort were dust-colored and dust-choked. The trees were
thirsty, and their leaves shriveling. The river bed was bare its
width in places, and while the Kingfisher made merry with his
family, and rattled, feasting from Abram Johnson's to the
Gar-hole, the Black Bass sought its deep pool, and lay still. It
was a rare thing to hear it splash in those days.
The prickly heat burned until the souls of men were tried. Mary
slipped listlessly about or lay much of the time on a couch
beside a window, where a breath of air stirred. Despite the good
beginning he had made in the spring, Jimmy slumped with the heat
and exposures he had risked, and was hard to live with.
Dannie was not having a good time himself. Since Jimmy's wedding,
life had been all grind to Dannie, but he kept his reason,
accepted his lot, and ground his grist with patience and such
cheer as few men could have summoned to the aid of so poor a
cause. Had there been any one to notice it, Dannie was tired and
heat-ridden also, but as always, Dannie sank self, and labored
uncomplainingly with Jimmy's problems. On a burning August
morning Dannie went to breakfast, and found Mary white and
nervous, little prepared to eat, and no sign of Jimmy.
"Jimmy sleeping?" he asked.
"I don't know where Jimmy is," Mary answered coldly.
"Since when?" asked Dannie, gulping coffee, and taking hasty
bites, for he had begun his breakfast supposing that Jimmy would
come presently.
"He left as soon as you went home last night," she said, "and he
has not come back yet."
Dannie did not know what to say. Loyal to the bone to Jimmy,
loving each hair on the head of Mary Malone, and she worn and
neglected; the problem was heartbreaking in any solution he
attempted, and he felt none too well himself. He arose hastily,
muttering something about getting the work done. He brought in
wood and water, and asked if there was anything more he could do.
"Sure!" said Mary, in a calm, even voice. "Go to the barn, and
shovel manure for Jimmy Malone, and do all the work he shirks,
before you do anything for yoursilf."
Dannie always had admitted that he did not understand women, but
he understood a plain danger signal, and he almost ran from the
cabin. In the fear that Mary might think he had heeded her hasty
words, he went to his own barn first, just to show her that he
did not do Jimmy's work. The flies and mosquitoes were so bad he
kept his horses stabled through the day, and turned them to
pasture at night. So their stalls were to be cleaned, and he set
to work. When he had finished his own barn, as he had nothing
else to do, he went on to Jimmy's. He had finished the stalls,
and was sweeping when he heard a sound at the back door, and
turning saw Jimmy clinging to the casing, unable to stand
longer. Dannie sprang to him, and helped him inside. Jimmy sank
to the floor. Dannie caught up several empty grain sacks, folded
them, and pushed them under Jimmy's head for a pillow.
"Dannish, didsh shay y'r nash'nal flowerish wash shisle?" asked
Jimmy.
"Yes," said Dannie, lifting the heavy auburn head to smooth the
folds from the sacks.
"Whysh like me?"
"I dinna," answered Dannie wearily.
"Awful jagsh on," murmured Jimmy, sighed heavily, and was off.
His clothing was torn and dust-covered, his face was purple and
bloated, and his hair was dusty and disordered. He was a
repulsive sight. As Dannie straightened Jimmy's limbs he thought
he heard a step. He lifted his head and leaned forward to listen.
"Dannie Micnoun?" called the same even, cold voice he had heard
at breakfast. "Have you left me, too?"
Dannie sprang for a manger. He caught a great armload of hay, and
threw it over Jimmy. He gave one hurried toss to scatter it, for
Mary was in the barn. As he turned to interpose his body between
her and the manger, which partially screened Jimmy, his heart
sickened. He was too late. She had seen. Frightened to the soul,
he stared at her. She came a step closer, and with her foot gave
a hand of Jimmy's that lay exposed a contemptuous shove.
"You didn't get him complately covered," she said. "How long have
you had him here?"
Dannie was frightened into speech. "Na a minute, Mary; he juist
came in when I heard ye. I was trying to spare ye."
"Him, you mane," she said, in that same strange voice. "I suppose
you give him money, and he has a bottle, and he's been here all
night."
"Mary," said Dannie, "that's na true. I have furnished him money.
He'd mortgage the farm, or do something worse if I didna; but I
dinna WHERE he has been all nicht, and in trying to cover him, my
only thought was to save ye pain."
"And whin you let him spind money you know you'll never get back,
and loaf while you do his work, and when you lie mountain high,
times without number, who is it for?"
Then fifteen years' restraint slid from Dannie like a cloak, and
in the torture of his soul his slow tongue outran all its
previous history.
"Ye!" he shouted. "It's fra Jimmy, too, but ye first. Always ye
first!" Mary began to tremble. Her white cheeks burned red. Her
figure straightened, and her hands clenched.
"On the cross! Will you swear it?" she cried.
"On the sacred body of Jesus Himself, if I could face Him,"
answered Dannie. "anything! Everything is fra ye first, Mary!"
"Then why?" she panted between gasps for breath. "Tell me why? If
you have cared for me enough to stay here all these years and see
that I had the bist tratemint you could get for me, why didn't
you care for me enough more to save me this? Oh, Dannie, tell me
why?"
And then she shook with strangled sobs until she scarce could
stand alone. Dannie Macnoun cleared the space between them and
took her in his arms. Her trembling hands clung to him, her head
dropped on his breast, and the perfume of her hair in his
nostrils drove him mad. Then the tense bulk of her body struck
against him, and horror filled his soul. One second he held her,
the next, Jimmy smothering under the hay, threw up an arm, and
called like a petulant child, "Dannie! Make shun quit shinish my
fashe!"
And Dannie awoke to the realization that Mary was another man's,
and that man, one who trusted him completely. The problem was so
much too big for poor Dannie that reason kindly slipped a cog. He
broke from the grasp of the woman, fled through the back door,
and took to the woods.
He ran as if fiends were after him, and he ran and ran. And when
he could run no longer, he walked, but he went on. Just on and
on. He crossed forests and fields, orchards and highways, streams
and rivers, deep woods and swamps, and on, and on he went. He
felt nothing, and saw nothing, and thought nothing, save to go
on, always on. In the dark he stumbled on and through the day he
staggered on, and he stopped for nothing, save at times to lift
water to his parched lips.
The bushes took his hat, the thorns ripped his shirt, the water
soaked his shoes and they spread and his feet came through and
the stones cut them until they bled. Leaves and twigs stuck in
his hair, and his eyes grew bloodshot, his lips and tongue
swollen, and when he could go no further on his feet, he crawled
on his knees, until at last he pitched forward on his face and
lay still. The tumult was over and Mother Nature set to work to
see about repairing damages.
Dannie was so badly damaged, soul, heart, and body, that she
never would have been equal to the task, but another woman
happened that way and she helped. Dannie was carried to a house
and a doctor dressed his hurts. When the physician got down to
first principles, and found a big, white-bodied, fine-faced
Scotchman in the heart of the wreck, he was amazed. A wild man,
but not a whiskey bloat. A crazy man, but not a maniac. He stood
long beside Dannie as he lay unconscious.
"I'll take oath that man has wronged no one," he said. "What in
the name of God has some woman been doing to him?"
He took money from Dannie's wallet and bought clothing to replace
the rags he had burned. He filled Dannie with nourishment, and
told the woman who found him that when he awoke, if he did not
remember, to tell him that his name was Dannie Macnoun, and that
he lived in Rainbow Bottom, Adams County. Because just at that
time Dannie was halfway across the state.
A day later he awoke, in a strange room and among strange faces.
He took up life exactly where he left off. And in his ears, as he
remembered his flight, rang the awful cry uttered by Mary Malone,
and not until then did there come to Dannie the realization that
she had been driven to seek him for help, because her woman's
hour was upon her. Cold fear froze Dannie's soul.
He went back by railway and walked the train most of the way. He
dropped from the cars at the water tank and struck across
country, and again he ran. But this time it was no headlong
flight. Straight as a homing bird went Dannie with all speed,
toward the foot of the Rainbow and Mary Malone.
The Kingfisher sped rattling down the river when Dannie came
crashing along the bank.
"Oh, God, let her be alive!" prayed Dannie as he leaned panting
against a tree for an instant, because he was very close now and
sickeningly afraid. Then he ran on. In a minute it would be over.
At the next turn he could see the cabins. As he dashed along,
Jimmy Malone rose from a log and faced him. A white Jimmy, with
black- ringed eyes and shaking hands.
"Where the Hell have you been?" Jimmy demanded.
"Is she dead?" cried Dannie.
"The doctor is talking scare," said Jimmy. "But I don't scare so
easy. She's never been sick in her life, and she has lived
through it twice before, why should she die now? Of course the
kid is dead again," he added angrily.
Dannie shut his eyes and stood still. He had helped plant star-
flowers on two tiny cross-marked mounds at Five Mile Hill. Now,
there were three. Jimmy had worn out her love for him, that was
plain. "Why should she die now?" To Dannie it seemed that
question should have been, "Why should she live?"
Jimmy eyed him belligerently. "Why in the name of sinse did you
cut out whin I was off me pins?" he growled. "Of course I don't
blame you for cutting that kind of a party, me for the woods, all
right, but what I can't see is why you couldn't have gone for the
doctor and waited until I'd slept it off before you wint."
"I dinna know she was sick," answered Dannie. "I deserve anything
ony ane can say to me, and it's all my fault if she dees, but
this ane thing ye got to say ye know richt noo, Jimmy. Ye got to
say ye know that I dinna understand Mary was sick when I went."
"Sure! I've said that all the time," agreed Jimmy. "But what I
don't understand is, WHY you went! I guess she thinks it was her
fault. I came out here to try to study it out. The nurse-woman,
domn pretty girl, says if you don't get back before midnight,
it's all up. You're just on time, Dannie. The talk in the house
is that she'll wink out if you don't prove to her that she didn't
drive you away. She is about crazy over it. What did she do to
you?"
"Nothing!" exclaimed Dannie. "She was so deathly sick she dinna
what she was doing. I can see it noo, but I dinna understand
then."
- highway [´haiwei]
n.公路，大道 (初中英语单词) - splash [splæʃ] v.&n.溅水声；涉水而进 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- despite [di´spait] prep.尽管 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- solution [sə´lu:ʃən] n.解答；解决；溶解 (初中英语单词)
- unable [ʌn´eibəl] a.不能的；无能为力的 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- purple [´pə:pl] n.紫色 a.紫(红)的 (初中英语单词)
- torture [´tɔ:tʃə] n.&vt.折磨；痛苦；拷问 (初中英语单词)
- sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
- scarce [skeəs, skers] a.缺乏的；稀有的 (初中英语单词)
- perfume [´pə:fju:m, pə´fju:m] n.香味 vt.使发香 (初中英语单词)
- horror [´hɔrə] n.恐怖；战栗 (初中英语单词)
- realization [,riəlai´zeiʃən] n.实现；认识 (初中英语单词)
- physician [fi´ziʃən] n.(内科)医生 (初中英语单词)
- flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- instant [´instənt] a.立即的 n.紧迫；瞬间 (初中英语单词)
- deserve [di´zə:v] v.应受；值得 (初中英语单词)
- sweeping [´swi:piŋ] a.掠过的 n.扫除；清除 (高中英语单词)
- hurried [´hʌrid] a.仓促的，慌忙的 (高中英语单词)
- mortgage [´mɔ:gidʒ] a.&vt.抵押 (高中英语单词)
- restraint [ri´streint] n.抑制；管束；克制 (高中英语单词)
- tumult [´tju:mʌlt, ´tu:-] n.喧哗；激昂；烦乱 (高中英语单词)
- rainbow [´reinbəu] n.彩虹 (高中英语单词)
- manure [mə´njuə] n.粪肥 vt.施肥于 (英语四级单词)
- manger [´meindʒə] n.槽；牛槽 (英语四级单词)
- interpose [,intə´pəuz] v.插入；调解；干预 (英语四级单词)
- partially [´pɑ:ʃəli] ad.部分地；局部地 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- whiskey [´wiski] n.威士忌酒 =whisky (英语四级单词)
- wallet [´wɑ:lit] n.(放钞票等的)皮夹子 (英语四级单词)
- nourishment [´nʌriʃmənt] n.食物；营养品(情况) (英语四级单词)
- august [ɔ:´gʌst] a.尊严的；威严的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- auburn [´ɔ:bən] n.&a.赭色(的) (英语六级单词)
- contemptuous [kən´temptjuəs] a.蔑视的；傲慢的 (英语六级单词)
- ringed [riŋd] a.带环的；戴戒指的 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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