The Valley of the Moon Jack London

by Jack London

  This tacit promise of continued acquaintance gave Saxon a little

  joy-thrill.

  "Say," he said, as they neared her neighborhood, "what are you

  doin' next Sunday?"

  "Nothing. No plans at all."

  "Well, suppose you an' me go buggy-riding all day out in the

  hills?"

  She did not answer immediately, and for the moment she was seeing

  the nightmare vision of her last buggy-ride; of her fear and her

  leap from the buggy; and of the long miles and the stumbling

  through the darkness in thin-soled shoes that bruised her feet on

  every rock. And then it came to her with a great swell of joy

  that this man beside her was not such a man.

  "I love horses," she said. "I almost love them better than I do

  dancing, only I don't know anything about them. My father rode a

  great roan war-horse. He was a captain of cavalry, you know. I

  never saw him, but somehow I always can see him on that big

  horse, with a sash around his waist and his sword at his side. My

  brother George has the sword now, but Tom--he's the brother I

  live with says it is mine because it wasn't his father's. You

  see, they're only my half-brothers. I was the only child by my

  mother's second marriage. That was her real marriage--her

  love-marriage, I mean."

  Saxon ceased abruptly, embarrassed by her own garrulity; and yet

  the impulse was strong to tell this young man all about herself,

  and it seemed to her that these far memories were a large part of

  her.

  "Go on an' tell me about it," Billy urged. "I like to hear about

  the old people of the old days. My people was along in there,

  too, an' somehow I think it was a better world to live in than

  now. Things was more sensible and natural. I don't exactly say

  what I mean. But it's like this: I don't understand life to-day.

  There's the labor unions an' employers' associations, an'

  strikes', an' hard times, an' huntin' for jobs, an' all the rest.

  Things wasn't like that in the old days. Everybody farmed, an'

  shot their meat, an' got enough to eat, an' took care of their

  old folks. But now it's all a mix-up that I can't understand.

  Mebbe I'm a fool, I don't know. But, anyway, go ahead an' tell us

  about your mother."

  "Well, you see, when she was only a young woman she and Captain

  Brown fell in love. He was a soldier then, before the war. And he

  was ordered East for the war when she was away nursing her sister

  Laura. And then came the news that he was killed at Shiloh. And

  she married a man who had loved her for years and years. He was a

  boy in the same wagon-train coming across the plains. She liked

  him, but she didn't love him. And afterwerd came the news that my

  father wasn't killed after all. So it made her very sad, but it

  did not spoil her life. She was a good mother end a good wife and

  all that, but she was always sad, and sweet, and gentle, and I

  think her voice was the most beautiful in the world."

  "She was game, all right," Billy approved.

  "And my father never married. He loved her all the time. I've got

  a lovely poem home that she wrote to him. It's just wonderful,

  and it sings like music. Well, long, long afterward her husband

  died, and then she and my father made their love marriage. They

  didn't get married until 1882, and she was pretty well along."

  More she told him, as they stood by the gate, and Saxon tried to

  think that the good-bye kiss was a trifle longer than just

  ordinary,

  "How about nine o'clock?" he queried across the gate. "Don't

  bother about lunch or anything. I'll fix all that up. You just be

  ready at nine."

  CHAPTER IX

  Sunday morning Saxon was beforehand in getting ready, and on her

  return to the kitchen from her second journey to peep through the

  front windows, Sarah began her customary attack.

  "It's a shame an' a disgrace the way some people can afford silk

  stockings," she began. "Look at me, a-toilin' and a-stewin' day

  an' night, and I never get silk stockings--nor shoes, three pairs

  of them all at one time. But there's a just God in heaven, and

  there'll be some mighty big surprises for some when the end comes

  and folks get passed out what's comin' to them."

  Tom, smoking his pipe and cuddling his youngest-born on his

  knees, dropped an eyelid surreptitiously on his cheek in token

  that Sarah was in a tantrum. Saxon devoted herself to tying a

  ribbon in the hair of one of the little girls. Sarah lumbered

  heavily about the kitchen, washing and putting away the breakfast

  dishes. She straightened her back from the sink with a groan and

  glared at Saxon with fresh hostility.

  "You ain't sayin' anything, eh? An' why don't you? Because I

  guess you still got some natural shame in you a-runnin' with a

  prizefighter. Oh, I've heard about your goings-on with Bill

  Roberts. A nice specimen he is. But just you wait till Charley

  Long gets his hands on him, that's all."

  "Oh, I don't know," Tom intervened. "Bill Roberts is a pretty

  good boy from what I hear."

  Saxon smiled with superior knowledge, and Sarah, catching her,

  was infuriated.

  "Why don't you marry Charley Long? He's crazy for you, and he

  ain't a drinkin' man."

  "I guess he gets outside his share of beer," Saxon retorted.

  "That's right," her brother supplemented. "An' I know for a fact

  that he keeps a keg in the house all the time as well."

  "Maybe you've been guzzling from it," Sarah snapped.

  "Maybe I have," Tom said, wiping his mouth reminiscently with the

  back of his hand.

  "Well, he can afford to keep a keg in the house if he wants to,"

  she returned to the attack, which now was directed at her husband

  as well. "He pays his bills, and he certainly makes good

  money--better than most men, anyway."

  "An' he hasn't a wife an' children to watch out for," Tom said.

  "Nor everlastin' dues to unions that don't do him no good."

  "Oh, yes, he has," Tom urged genially. "Blamed little he'd work

  in that shop, or any other shop in Oakland, if he didn't keep in

  good standing with the Blacksmiths. You don't understand labor

  conditions, Sarah. The unions have got to stick, if the men

  aren't to starve to death."

  "Oh, of course not," Sarah sniffed. "I don't understand anything.

  I ain't got a mind. I'm a fool, an' you tell me so right before

  the children." She turned savagely on her eldest, who startled

  and shrank away. "Willie, your mother is a fool. Do you get that?

  Your father says she's a fool--says it right before her face and

  yourn. She's just a plain fool. Next he'll be sayin' she's crazy

  an' puttin' her away in the asylum. An' how will you like that,

  Willie? How will you like to see your mother in a straitjacket

  an' a padded cell, shut out from the light of the sun an' beaten

  like a nigger before the war, Willie, beaten an' clubbed like a

  regular black nigger? That's the kind of a father you've got,

  Willie. Think of it, Willie, in a padded cell, the mother that

  bore you,
with the lunatics screechin' an' screamin' all around,

  an' the quick-lime eatin' into the dead bodies of them that's

  beaten to death by the cruel wardens--"

  She continued tirelessly, painting with pessimistic strokes the

  growing black future her husband was meditating for her, while

  the boy, fearful of some vague, incomprehensible catastrophe,

  began to weep silently, with a pendulous, trembling underlip.

  Saxon, for the moment, lost control of herself.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake, can't we be together five minutes without

  quarreling?" she blazed.

  Sarah broke off from asylum conjurations and turned upon her

  sister-in-law.

  "Who's quarreling? Can't I open my head without bein' jumped on

  by the two of you?"

  Saxon shrugged her shoulders despairingly, and Sarah swung about

  on her husband.

  "Seein' you love your sister so much better than your wife, why

  did you want to marry me, that's borne your children for you, an'

  slaved for you, an' toiled for you, an' worked her fingernails

  off for you, with no thanks, an 'insultin' me before the

  children, an' sayin' I'm crazy to their faces. An' what have you

  ever did for me? That's what I want to know--me, that's cooked

  for you, an' washed your stinkin' clothes, and fixed your socks,

  an' sat up nights with your brats when they was ailin'. Look at

  that!"

  She thrust out a shapeless, swollen foot, encased in a monstrous,

  untended shoe, the dry, raw leather of which showed white on the

  edges of bulging cracks.

  "Look at that! That's what I say. Look at that!" Her voice was

  persistently rising and at the same time growing throaty. "The

  only shoes I got. Me. Your wife. Ain't you ashamed? Where are my

  three pairs? Look at that stockin'."

  Speech failed her, and she sat down suddenly on a chair at the

  table, glaring unutterable malevolence and misery. She arose with

  the abrupt stiffness of an automaton, poured herself a cup of

  cold coffee, and in the same jerky way sat down again. As if too

  hot for her lips, she filled her saucer with the greasy-looking,

  nondescript fluid, and continued her set glare, her breast rising

  and falling with staccato, mechanical movement.

  "Now, Sarah, be c'am, be c'am," Tom pleaded anxiously.

  In response, slowly, with utmost deliberation, as if the destiny

  of empires rested on the certitude of her act, she turned the

  saucer of coffee upside down on the table. She lifted her right

  hand, slowly, hugely, and in the same slow, huge way landed the

  open palm with a sounding slap on Tom's astounded cheek.

  Immediately thereafter she raised her voice in the shrill,

  hoarse, monotonous madness of hysteria, sat down on the floor,

  and rocked back and forth in the throes of an abysmal grief.

  Willie's silent weeping turned to noise, and the two little

  girls, with the fresh ribbons in their hair, joined him. Tom's

  face was drawn and white, though the smitten cheek still blazed,

  and Saxon wanted to put her arms comfortingly around him, yet

  dared not. He bent over his wife.

  "Sarah, you ain't feelin' well. Let me put you to bed, and I'll

  finish tidying up."

  "Don't touch me!--don't touch me!" she screamed, jerking

  violently away from him.

  "Take the children out in the yard, Tom, for a walk,

  anything--get them away," Saxon said. She was sick, and white,

  and trembling. "Go, Tom, please, please. There's your hat. I'll

  take care of her. I know just how."

  Left to herself, Saxon worked with frantic haste, assuming the

  calm she did not possess, but which she must impart to the

  screaming bedlamite upon the floor. The light frame house leaked

  the noise hideously, and Saxon knew that the houses on either

  side were hearing, and the street itself and the houses across

  the street. Her fear was that Billy should arrive in the midst of

  it. Further, she was incensed, violated. Every fiber rebelled,

  almost in a nausea; yet she maintained cool control and stroked

  Sarah's forehead and hair with slow, soothing movements. Soon,

  with one arm around her, she managed to win the first diminution

  in the strident, atrocious, unceasing scream. A few minutes

  later, sobbing heavily, the elder woman lay in bed, across her

  forehead and eyes a wet-pack of towel for easement of the

  headache she and Saxon tacitly accepted as substitute for the

  brain-storm.

  When a clatter of hoofs came down the street and stopped, Saxon

  was able to slip to the front door and wave her hand to Billy. In

  the kitchen she found Tom waiting in sad anxiousness.

  "It's all right," she said. "Billy Roberts has come, and I've got

  to go. You go in and sit beside her for a while, and maybe she'll

  go to sleep. But don't rush her. Let her have her own way. If

  she'll let you take her hand, why do it. Try it, anyway. But

  first of all, as an opener and just as a matter of course, start

  wetting the towel over her eyes."

  He was a kindly, easy-going man; but, after the way of a large

  percentage of the Western stock, he was undemonstrative. He

  nodded, turned toward the door to obey, and paused irresolutely.

  The look he gave back to Saxon was almost dog-like in gratitude

  and all-brotherly in love. She felt it, and in spirit leapt

  toward it.

  "It's all right--everything's all right," she cried hastily.

  Tom shook his head.

  "No, it ain't. It's a shame, a blamed shame, that's what it is."

  He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, I don't care for myself. But it's

  for you. You got your life before you yet, little kid sister.

  You'll get old, and all that means, fast enough. But it's a bad

  start for a day off. The thing for you to do is to forget all

  this, and skin out with your fellow, an' have a good time." In

  the open door, his hand on the knob to close it after him, he

  halted a second time. A spasm contracted his brow. "Hell! Think

  of it! Sarah and I used to go buggy-riding once on a time. And I

  guess she had her three pairs of shoes, too. Can you beat it?"

  In her bedroom Saxon completed her dressing, for an instant

  stepping upon a chair so as to glimpse critically in the small

  wall-mirror the hang of her ready-made linen skirt. This, and the

  jacket, she had altered to fit, and she had double-stitched the

  seams to achieve the coveted tailored effect. Still on the chair,

  all in the moment of quick clear-seeing, she drew the skirt

  tightly back and raised it. The sight was good to her, nor did

  she under-appraise the lines of the slender ankle above the low

  tan tie nor did she under-appraise the delicate yet mature swell

  of calf outlined in the fresh brown of a new cotton stocking.

  Down from the chair, she pinned on a firm sailor hat of white

  straw with a brown ribbon around the crown that matched her

  ribbon belt. She rubbed her cheeks quickly and fiercely to bring

  back the color Sarah had driven out of them, and delayed a moment

  longer to put on her tan lisle-thread gloves. Once, in the

  fashion-
page of a Sunday supplement, she had read that no lady

  ever put on her gloves after she left the door.

  With a resolute self-grip, as she crossed the parlor and passed

  the door to Sarah's bedroom, through the thin wood of which came

  elephantine moanings and low slubberings, she steeled herself to

  keep the color in her cheeks and the brightness in her eyes. And

  so well did she succeed that Billy never dreamed that the

  radiant, live young thing, tripping lightly down the steps to

  him, had just come from a bout with soul-sickening hysteria and

  madness.

  To her, in the bright sun, Billy's blondness was startling. His

  cheeks, smooth as a girl's, were touched with color. The blue

  eyes seemed more cloudily blue than usual, and the crisp, sandy

  hair hinted more than ever of the pale straw-gold that was not

  there. Never had she seen him quite so royally young. As he

  smiled to greet her, with a slow white flash of teeth from

  between red lips, she caught again the promise of easement and

  rest. Fresh from the shattering chaos of her sister-in-law's

  mind, Billy's tremendous calm was especially satisfying, and

  Saxon mentally laughed to scorn the terrible temper he had

  charged to himself.

  She had been buggy-riding before, but always behind one horse,

  jaded, and livery, in a top-buggy, heavy and dingy, such as

  livery stables rent because of sturdy unbreakableness. But here

  stood two horses, head-tossing and restless, shouting in every

  high-light glint of their satin, golden-sorrel coats that they

  had never been rented out in all their glorious young lives.

  Between them was a pole inconceivably slender, on them were

  harnesses preposterously string-like and fragile. And Billy

  belonged here, by elemental right, a part of them and of it, a

  master-part and a component, along with the spidery-delicate,

  narrow-boxed, wide- and yellow-wheeled, rubber-tired rig,

  efficient and capable, as different as he was different from the

  other man who had taken her out behind stolid, lumubering horses.

  He held the reins in one hand, yet, with low, steady voice,

  confident and assuring, held the nervous young animals more by

  the will and the spirit of him.

  It was no time for lingering. With the quick glance and

  fore-knowledge of a woman, Saxon saw, not merely the curious

  children clustering about, but the peering of adult faces from

  open doors and windows, and past window-shades lifted up or held

  aside. With his free hand, Billy drew back the linen robe and

  helped her to a place beside him. The high-backed, luxuriously

  upholstered seat of brown leather gave her a sense of great

  comfort; yet even greater, it seemed to her, was the nearness and

  comfort of the man himself and of his body.

  "How d'ye like 'em?" he asked, changing the reins to both hands

  and chirruping the horses, which went out with a jerk in an

  immediacy of action that was new to her. "They're the boss's, you

  know. Couldn't rent animals like them. He lets me take them out

  for exercise sometimes. If they ain't exercised regular they're a

  handful.--Look at King, there, prancin'. Some style, eh? Some

  style! The other one's the real goods, though. Prince is his

  name. Got to have some bit on him to hold'm.--Ah! Would you?--Did

  you see'm, Saxon? Some horse! Some horse!"

  From behind came the admiring cheer of the neighborhood children,

  and Saxon, with a sigh of content, knew that the happy day had at

  last begun.

  CHAPTER X

  "I don't know horses," Saxon said. "I've never been on one's

  back, and the only ones I've tried to drive were single, and

  lame, or almost falling down, or something. But I'm not afraid of

  horses. I just love them. I was born loving them, I guess."

  Billy threw an admiring, appreciative glance at her.

  "That's the stuff. That's what I like in a woman--grit. Some of

  the girls I've had out--well, take it from me, they made me sick.

  Oh, I'm hep to 'em. Nervous, an' trembly, an' screechy, an'