章节正文
and the clumsy mugs of Twenty Mile, to which she likened herself.
And in such fashion and such terms the problem presented itself.
She was beaten. There was a woman other than herself better fitted
to bear and upbring Neil Bonner's children. Just as his people
exceeded her people, so did his womankind exceed her. They were
the man compellers, as their men were the world compellers. She
looked at the rose-white tenderness of Kitty Bonner's skin and
remembered the sun-beat on her own face. Likewise she looked from
brown hand to white--the one, work-worn and hardened by whip-handle
and paddle, the other as guiltless of toil and soft as a newborn
babe's. And, for all the obvioussoftness and apparent weakness,
Jees Uck looked into the blue eyes and saw the mastery she had seen
in Neil Bonner's eyes and in the eyes of Neil Bonner's people.
"Why, it's Jees Uck!" Neil Bonner said, when he entered. He said
it calmly, with even a ring of joyful cordiality, coming over to
her and shaking both her hands, but looking into her eyes with a
worry in his own that she understood.
"Hello, Neil!" she said. "You look much good."
"Fine, fine, Jees Uck," he answered heartily, though secretly
studying Kitty for some sign of what had passed between the two.
Yet he knew his wife too well to expect, even though the worst had
passed, such a sign.
"Well, I can't say how glad I am to see you," he went on. "What's
happened? Did you strike a mine? And when did you get in?"
"Oo-a, I get in to-day," she replied, her voice instinctively
seeking its guttural parts. "I no strike it, Neil. You known
Cap'n Markheim, Unalaska? I cook, his house, long time. No spend
money. Bime-by, plenty. Pretty good, I think, go down and see
White Man's Land. Very fine, White Man's Land, very fine," she
added. Her English puzzled him, for Sandy and he had sought,
constantly, to better her speech, and she had proved an apt pupil.
Now it seemed that she had sunk back into her race. Her face was
guileless, stolidly guileless, giving no cue. Kitty's untroubled
brow likewise baffled him. What had happened? How much had been
said? and how much guessed?
While he wrestled with these questions and while Jees Uck wrestled
with her problem--never had he looked so wonderful and great--a
silence fell.
"To think that you knew my husband in Alaska!" Kitty said softly.
Knew him! Jees Uck could not forbear a glance at the boy she had
borne him, and his eyes followed hers mechanically to the window
where played the two children. An iron hand seemed to tighten
across his forehead. His knees went weak and his heart leaped up
and pounded like a fist against his breast. His boy! He had never
dreamed it!
Little Kitty Bonner, fairylike in gauzy lawn, with pinkest of
cheeks and bluest of dancing eyes, arms outstretched and lips
puckered in invitation, was striving to kiss the boy. And the boy,
lean and lithe, sunbeaten and browned, skin-clad and in hair-
fringed and hair-tufted MUCLUCS that showed the wear of the sea and
rough work, coolly withstood her advances, his body straight and
stiff with the peculiar erectness common to children of savage
people. A stranger in a strange land, unabashed and unafraid, he
appeared more like an untamed animal, silent and watchful, his
black eyes flashing from face to face, quiet so long as quiet
endured, but prepared to spring and fight and tear and scratch for
life, at the first sign of danger.
The contrast between boy and girl was striking, but not pitiful.
There was too much strength in the boy for that, waif that he was
of the generations of Shpack, Spike O'Brien, and Bonner. In his
features, clean cut as a cameo and almost classic in their
severity, there were the power and achievement of his father, and
his grandfather, and the one known as the Big Fat, who was captured
by the Sea people and escaped to Kamchatka.
Neil Bonner fought his emotion down, swallowed it down, and choked
over it, though his face smiled with good-humour and the joy with
which one meets a friend.
"Your boy, eh, Jees Uck?" he said. And then turning to Kitty:
"Handsome fellow! He'll do something with those two hands of his
in this our world."
Kitty nodded concurrence. "What is your name?" she asked.
The young savage flashed his quick eyes upon her and dwelt over her
for a space, seeking out, as it were, the motive beneath the
question.
"Neil," he answered deliberately when the scrutiny had satisfied
him.
"Injun talk," Jees Uck interposed, glibly manufacturing languages
on the spur of the moment. "Him Injun talk, NEE-AL all the same
'cracker.' Him baby, him like cracker; him cry for cracker. Him
say, 'NEE-AL, NEE-AL,' all time him say, 'NEE-AL.' Then I say that
um name. So um name all time Nee-al."
Never did sound more blessed fall upon Neil Bonner's ear than that
lie from Jees Uck's lips. It was the cue, and he knew there was
reason for Kitty's untroubled brow.
"And his father?" Kitty asked. "He must be a fine man."
"Oo-a, yes," was the reply. "Um father fine man. Sure!"
"Did you know him, Neil?" queried Kitty.
"Know him? Most intimately," Neil answered, and harked back to
dreary Twenty Mile and the man alone in the silence with his
thoughts.
And here might well end the story of Jees Uck but for the crown she
put upon her renunciation. When she returned to the North to dwell
in her grand log-house, John Thompson found that the P. C. Company
could make a shift somehow to carry on its business without his
aid. Also, the new agent and the succeeding agents received
instructions that the woman Jees Uck should be given whatsoever
goods and grub she desired, in whatsoever quantities she ordered,
and that no charge should be placed upon the books. Further, the
Company paid yearly to the woman Jees Uck a pension of five
thousand dollars.
When he had attained suitable age, Father Champreau laid hands upon
the boy, and the time was not long when Jees Uck received letters
regularly from the Jesuit college in Maryland. Later on these
letters came from Italy, and still later from France. And in the
end there returned to Alaska one Father Neil, a man mighty for good
in the land, who loved his mother and who ultimately went into a
wider field and rose to high authority in the order.
Jees Uck was a young woman when she went back into the North, and
men still looked upon her and yearned. But she lived straight, and
no breath was ever raised save in commendation. She stayed for a
while with the good sisters at Holy Cross, where she learned to
read and write and became versed in practical medicine and surgery.
After that she returned to her grand log-house and gathered about
her the young girls of the Toyaat village, to show them the way of
their feet in the world. It is neither Protestant nor Catholic,
this school in the house built by Neil Bonner for Jees Uck, his
wife; but the missionaries of all the sects look upon it with equal
favour. The latchstring is always out, and tired prospectors and
trail-weary men turn aside from the flowing river or frozen trail
to rest there for a space and be warm by her fire. And, down in
the States, Kitty Bonner is pleased at the interest her husband
takes in Alaskan education and the large sums he devotes to that
purpose; and, though she often smiles and chaffs, deep down and
secretly she is but the prouder of him.
End
And in such fashion and such terms the problem presented itself.
She was beaten. There was a woman other than herself better fitted
to bear and upbring Neil Bonner's children. Just as his people
exceeded her people, so did his womankind exceed her. They were
the man compellers, as their men were the world compellers. She
looked at the rose-white tenderness of Kitty Bonner's skin and
remembered the sun-beat on her own face. Likewise she looked from
brown hand to white--the one, work-worn and hardened by whip-handle
and paddle, the other as guiltless of toil and soft as a newborn
babe's. And, for all the obvioussoftness and apparent weakness,
Jees Uck looked into the blue eyes and saw the mastery she had seen
in Neil Bonner's eyes and in the eyes of Neil Bonner's people.
"Why, it's Jees Uck!" Neil Bonner said, when he entered. He said
it calmly, with even a ring of joyful cordiality, coming over to
her and shaking both her hands, but looking into her eyes with a
worry in his own that she understood.
"Hello, Neil!" she said. "You look much good."
"Fine, fine, Jees Uck," he answered heartily, though secretly
studying Kitty for some sign of what had passed between the two.
Yet he knew his wife too well to expect, even though the worst had
passed, such a sign.
"Well, I can't say how glad I am to see you," he went on. "What's
happened? Did you strike a mine? And when did you get in?"
"Oo-a, I get in to-day," she replied, her voice instinctively
seeking its guttural parts. "I no strike it, Neil. You known
Cap'n Markheim, Unalaska? I cook, his house, long time. No spend
money. Bime-by, plenty. Pretty good, I think, go down and see
White Man's Land. Very fine, White Man's Land, very fine," she
added. Her English puzzled him, for Sandy and he had sought,
constantly, to better her speech, and she had proved an apt pupil.
Now it seemed that she had sunk back into her race. Her face was
guileless, stolidly guileless, giving no cue. Kitty's untroubled
brow likewise baffled him. What had happened? How much had been
said? and how much guessed?
While he wrestled with these questions and while Jees Uck wrestled
with her problem--never had he looked so wonderful and great--a
silence fell.
"To think that you knew my husband in Alaska!" Kitty said softly.
Knew him! Jees Uck could not forbear a glance at the boy she had
borne him, and his eyes followed hers mechanically to the window
where played the two children. An iron hand seemed to tighten
across his forehead. His knees went weak and his heart leaped up
and pounded like a fist against his breast. His boy! He had never
dreamed it!
Little Kitty Bonner, fairylike in gauzy lawn, with pinkest of
cheeks and bluest of dancing eyes, arms outstretched and lips
puckered in invitation, was striving to kiss the boy. And the boy,
lean and lithe, sunbeaten and browned, skin-clad and in hair-
fringed and hair-tufted MUCLUCS that showed the wear of the sea and
rough work, coolly withstood her advances, his body straight and
stiff with the peculiar erectness common to children of savage
people. A stranger in a strange land, unabashed and unafraid, he
appeared more like an untamed animal, silent and watchful, his
black eyes flashing from face to face, quiet so long as quiet
endured, but prepared to spring and fight and tear and scratch for
life, at the first sign of danger.
The contrast between boy and girl was striking, but not pitiful.
There was too much strength in the boy for that, waif that he was
of the generations of Shpack, Spike O'Brien, and Bonner. In his
features, clean cut as a cameo and almost classic in their
severity, there were the power and achievement of his father, and
his grandfather, and the one known as the Big Fat, who was captured
by the Sea people and escaped to Kamchatka.
Neil Bonner fought his emotion down, swallowed it down, and choked
over it, though his face smiled with good-humour and the joy with
which one meets a friend.
"Your boy, eh, Jees Uck?" he said. And then turning to Kitty:
"Handsome fellow! He'll do something with those two hands of his
in this our world."
Kitty nodded concurrence. "What is your name?" she asked.
The young savage flashed his quick eyes upon her and dwelt over her
for a space, seeking out, as it were, the motive beneath the
question.
"Neil," he answered deliberately when the scrutiny had satisfied
him.
"Injun talk," Jees Uck interposed, glibly manufacturing languages
on the spur of the moment. "Him Injun talk, NEE-AL all the same
'cracker.' Him baby, him like cracker; him cry for cracker. Him
say, 'NEE-AL, NEE-AL,' all time him say, 'NEE-AL.' Then I say that
um name. So um name all time Nee-al."
Never did sound more blessed fall upon Neil Bonner's ear than that
lie from Jees Uck's lips. It was the cue, and he knew there was
reason for Kitty's untroubled brow.
"And his father?" Kitty asked. "He must be a fine man."
"Oo-a, yes," was the reply. "Um father fine man. Sure!"
"Did you know him, Neil?" queried Kitty.
"Know him? Most intimately," Neil answered, and harked back to
dreary Twenty Mile and the man alone in the silence with his
thoughts.
And here might well end the story of Jees Uck but for the crown she
put upon her renunciation. When she returned to the North to dwell
in her grand log-house, John Thompson found that the P. C. Company
could make a shift somehow to carry on its business without his
aid. Also, the new agent and the succeeding agents received
instructions that the woman Jees Uck should be given whatsoever
goods and grub she desired, in whatsoever quantities she ordered,
and that no charge should be placed upon the books. Further, the
Company paid yearly to the woman Jees Uck a pension of five
thousand dollars.
When he had attained suitable age, Father Champreau laid hands upon
the boy, and the time was not long when Jees Uck received letters
regularly from the Jesuit college in Maryland. Later on these
letters came from Italy, and still later from France. And in the
end there returned to Alaska one Father Neil, a man mighty for good
in the land, who loved his mother and who ultimately went into a
wider field and rose to high authority in the order.
Jees Uck was a young woman when she went back into the North, and
men still looked upon her and yearned. But she lived straight, and
no breath was ever raised save in commendation. She stayed for a
while with the good sisters at Holy Cross, where she learned to
read and write and became versed in practical medicine and surgery.
After that she returned to her grand log-house and gathered about
her the young girls of the Toyaat village, to show them the way of
their feet in the world. It is neither Protestant nor Catholic,
this school in the house built by Neil Bonner for Jees Uck, his
wife; but the missionaries of all the sects look upon it with equal
favour. The latchstring is always out, and tired prospectors and
trail-weary men turn aside from the flowing river or frozen trail
to rest there for a space and be warm by her fire. And, down in
the States, Kitty Bonner is pleased at the interest her husband
takes in Alaskan education and the large sums he devotes to that
purpose; and, though she often smiles and chaffs, deep down and
secretly she is but the prouder of him.
End
- beaten [´bi:tn]
beat 的过去分词 (初中英语单词) - exceed [ik´si:d] v.超(胜)过；凌驾 (初中英语单词)
- likewise [´laikwaiz] ad.同样地；也，又 (初中英语单词)
- obvious [´ɔbviəs] a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词)
- apparent [ə´pærənt] a.显然的；表面上的 (初中英语单词)
- calmly [´kɑ:mli] ad.平静地；无风浪地 (初中英语单词)
- forehead [´fɔrid] n.额，前部 (初中英语单词)
- invitation [,invi´teiʃən] n.邀请；请帖；吸引 (初中英语单词)
- peculiar [pi´kju:liə] a.特有的；奇异的 (初中英语单词)
- scratch [skrætʃ] v.&n.抓，搔；抓伤 (初中英语单词)
- contrast [´kɔntrɑ:st] n.对比 v.使对比(照) (初中英语单词)
- striking [´straikiŋ] a.显著的，明显的 (初中英语单词)
- achievement [ə´tʃi:vmənt] n.完成；成就，成绩 (初中英语单词)
- grandfather [´grænd,fɑ:ðə] n.(外)祖父；祖先 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- savage [´sævidʒ] a.野蛮的 n.蛮人 (初中英语单词)
- motive [´məutiv] n.动机；主题 a.运动的 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- suitable [´su:təbəl, ´sju:-] a.合适的，适当的 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
- tenderness [´tendənis] n.娇嫩；柔软；温柔 (高中英语单词)
- paddle [´pædl] n.踏板 v.用浆划；划船 (高中英语单词)
- joyful [´dʒɔifəl] a.高兴的，充满快乐的 (高中英语单词)
- heartily [´hɑ:tili] ad.衷心地；亲切地 (高中英语单词)
- classic [´klæsik] a.第一流的 n.杰作 (高中英语单词)
- deliberately [di´libərətli] ad.故意地；慎重地 (高中英语单词)
- cracker [´krækə] n.爆竹；薄脆饼干 (高中英语单词)
- pension [´penʃən] n.津贴 vt.给予...抚恤 (高中英语单词)
- maryland [´mɛərilænd] n.马里兰(州) (高中英语单词)
- alaska [ə´læskə] n.阿拉斯加(州) (高中英语单词)
- mighty [´maiti] a.强有力的 ad.很 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- protestant [´prɔtistənt] a.新教的 n.新教徒 (高中英语单词)
- forbear [fɔ:´beə, fə-] v.容忍；克制 n.祖先 (英语四级单词)
- coolly [´ku:li] ad.冷(静地)，沉着地 (英语四级单词)
- watchful [´wɔtʃfəl] a.注意的；戒备的 (英语四级单词)
- blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
- whatsoever [,wɔtsəu´evə] (强势语)=whatever (英语四级单词)
- yearly [´jiəli] a.每年的；一年间的 (英语四级单词)
- ultimately [´ʌltimitli] ad.最后，最终 (英语四级单词)
- guiltless [´giltlis] a.无罪的；不熟悉...的 (英语六级单词)
- softness [´sɔftnis] n.柔软；柔和；温柔 (英语六级单词)
- mastery [´mɑ:stəri] n.精通；控制；优势 (英语六级单词)
- mechanically [mi´kænikəli] ad.机械地；无意识地 (英语六级单词)
- outstretched [,aut´stretʃt] a.扩张的；伸长的 (英语六级单词)
- commendation [,kɔmən´deiʃən] n.称赞，表扬；推荐 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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