The Keeper of the Bees, page 27
He wondered if he should start a systematic search for her; if he found her, whether she would be pleased or turn from him in anger. He wondered if there might not be assistance he could render her. He wondered if there might not be mitigating circumstances. Jamie could not ‘force himself to think of the Storm Girl as a girl who had broken the laws, the laws of God and the laws of man.
In those days he had an ever-present worry concerning Margaret Cameron. He had learned to respect his neighbor highly. He had learned to appreciate deeply the many kind and thoughtful things she did for his comfort. He felt that if the whole world were filled with mothers who were willing to remain at home, to shoulder the duties of caring for a home, to stick to sound common sense and reasonable judgments as Margaret Cameron had done, there would be more boys and girls willing to remain at home, willing to find entertainment there instead of on the beaches and in the canyons and in cheap public dance halls. Then he reflected that Margaret Cameron’s trouble at that present minute, as nearly as he could figure it, was because her only child had left home and was deliberately remaining away from home. Margaret had told him only that morning that Lolly had definitely decided to go with a party of young people who planned to hike through Yosemite and Muir Woods. She had written that she would try if possible to get back for a few days before school began in the fall, so a long, lonely summer was stretching before Margaret, and she frankly admitted to Jamie that there was an unrest, an apprehension hanging over her that it was quite impossible for her to dispel.
So when Jamie thought of Margaret, he thought sympathetically, wonderingly, and much of the time with a fair amount of indignation. He could but feel that something was due to parents who kept the home fires burning, who weathered the years, who had doctored their children and worked over them and prayed over them, who had used the utmost of their strength and bestowed the deepest of their love, who had unselfishly given and given all they had to give, and still had earned, seemingly, nothing whatever, not even gratitude. Jamie could not believe that the attention Margaret was paying to him was touched with the depth of devotion and tinged with the quality of consideration and love that she had given to any of the three youngsters she had loved and devoted herself to until they reached the point where they were able to fend for themselves. Now it was vacation. It was the time that other children were coming home, and neither of Margaret Cameron’s were coming, not the girl to whom she had given birth, nor the girl to whom she had given shelter. Why did not both of them come for a few weeks? Why did they not plan and come one at a time so that Margaret might have her vacation when other people were having theirs? Why did they not make some plans for her? Why did they not do something to break the monotony, the sacrifice, and the hard work of her life?
He resolved that he would work very hard. Then he would take a few days off and he would ask Margaret Cameron to go pleasuring with him. They would go where people were resting on the beaches. They might go somewhere on a boat. They could go into the city and hear some wonderful concerts or see some worth-while pictures, or to an interesting play. For his share of what she was making life mean to him, he would try to make some material return. That he settled on definitely.
One day Jamie mentioned Margaret’s children to the little Scout and found that the child was as indignant as he was.
“There isn’t any tellin’,” said the little Scout, “as to when Lolly will get here. She doesn’t think about much except herself and she does mostly what she pleases, but Molly will come. Her job’s a hard one and she may have to rest up a few days. She may have to close her rooms and get somebody else in them, but if Molly doesn’t come she’s got a mighty good reason, and when she comes, the camp fires and the picnics will begin, and there will be something worth while doing around these parts. When Molly comes she has greased her bearings and she’s hitting on six cylinders, and we go!”
The little Scout used both hands to illustrate how they went when Molly came home.
“There’s a lot of fun in Molly to the square inch! She wears a big kid grin on her face and she ain’t afraid of dirt.
and she ain’t afraid of water, and she ain’t afraid of work, and she ain’t afraid of spending a penny. Talk about persimmons! Molly’s them!”
“I’m waiting anxiously,” said Jamie, “to know Molly.” “Well, go on waiting,” said the small person. “Stick on the job, and when she does come, If you care about girls, why, there’s a girl that’s got some juice in her!”
“I believe you,” said Jamie. “I think you should know and I’ve every confidence in your judgment.”
The little Scout was crumbling bread along the edge of the back walk for a hen mocking bird that had nested in a date palm beside the pergola. A large chunk of apple from one that was being consumed in scarcely masticated chunks was laid beside the bread. In three more bites the apple disappeared, core and all. Juicy fingers were wiped on the seat of unusually soiled breeches, and the little Scout took a hold above the hands Jamie had gripped around the stems of some iris he was transplanting. The added strength that was brought to bear loosened the roots from the ground and the Scout Master and the Bee Keeper rolled promiscuously over each other and down the side of the mountain until they came to forceful impact with a grapefruit tree. They got up laughing, and Jamie gathered up the iris. The Scout Master stood daintily poised. A deep inhalation of breath, an in drawn upper lip, an out shot lower one, blew the dust from the deep gray eyes. A shake like a dog coming from the water was supposed to be sufficient to dislodge accumulated dirt. An ecstatic expression toned to idiotic sweetness settled on the small face. With the thumb and second finger of the right hand a very real piece of dirt was flipped with exquisite execution from the left shoulder. Then in pantomime Jamie’s condition was inspected through skillfully manipulated eyeglasses, that Jamie saw perfectly, even when they were not there.
“Aw, weally,” said the little Scout, “I hope you didn’t dawmadge yourself permanently.”
“No, I didn’t,” said Jamie, “and I entertain the same lively hope concerning you.”
“Aw, thanks awfully!” said the little Scout, and with a continuation of the same breath, “I betcha-” A hand dived into a pocket, brought up some small coin and inspected it carefully. The price of a hot dog and a strawberry pop were laid aside and the remainder estimated. “I betcha seven cents I can hang by one foot from the beam of the pergola right there!”
Jamie looked the situation over.
“I’m not taking your bet,” he said. “If your foot slipped and you came down there you’d knock your brains out.”
“I wouldn’t if I hit on the ground,” said the Scout Master.
“You would if you struck the stones within six inches of the ground.”
“Yes, and that’s the kick to it,” said the small person, “just to find out what I would hit on!” and immediately started scaling the pergola.
“Look here,” said Jamie, “cut that out! You aren’t going to hang from one foot from that cross section. I don’t know how long that pergola’s been built, and there’s been a lot of water thrown on it to wash the vines. It may be as rotten as sin.”
Steadily the Scout Master climbed upward and presently sat on the second bar bouncing up and down on it to ascertain its stability.
Jamie looked belligerent.
“I told you not to do that!” he said, provokedly.
“I ain’t going to do it,” answered the Scout Master, serenely. “I heard you. There’s nothing the matter with my ears. I can pull another one just as good, and if I come a smasher ’twon’t break any more than my leg. I’m going to hang by my little finger!”
Before Jamie had time either to say or to do anything, the body of the Scout Master was dangling and it was supported by one little finger of the right hand and nothing more.
“All in!” shouted the swaying youngster. “Look out! I’m coming down! I’m aiming for the dirt. Call Grayson If I hit the stone!”
Down came the Scout Master, landing deftly and with perfect precision on the freshly watered soil of the garden, perhaps four inches from the stones that might very easily have broken a leg.
“Now, look here,” said Jamie, “I told you I wasn’t feeling as good as I might one time, didn’t I?”
“Yes, and you didn’t need to tell me!” said the Scout Master. “I could see it for myself, but I can see now that you’re about as husky as they make ’em. You could drive a steam plough or run a stone crusher or swat a bandit, if you wanted to. I won’t do it again.”
Then the Scout Master planted a small pair of feet squarely in front of Jamie and looked at him with the very Devil dancing in the depths of the deep eyes.
“Got your goat, didn’t I?” taunted the little Scout. “Thought you’d have to go to the telephone and ring up Mother to come with the ambulance. By gracious! there goes your telephone!”
Jamie had gotten past the place where the ringing of the telephone was an event, it rang so frequently in those days. It might be Carey calling for help. It might be Grayson to explain some new legal technicality that he had encountered. It might be the bank calling. It might be the Scout Master’s mother wanting her offspring at home. Jamie wiped his hands on his trousers and walked to the telephone and picked down the receiver. The Scout Master sat on the stone that had failed to serve the purpose of breaking any bones, and with loving pride inspected the west half of the garden in which they were working and which constituted a beloved personal possession.
Looking over the length and the width of the acre that stretched down to the sea, said the little Scout: “When I get through High School, I’m coming here to live. They may take their darn colleges and gamble ’em and smoke ’em and drink ’em and Bolshevik ’em straight to the Devil! I’m going to get my education out of the books that the Bee Master put in his library. What was good enough for him, is good enough for me, and while I read his books I’ll be thinking about him. One of the reasons I’m going to keep clean and walk straight and be decent like he was is because I’m going where he went, and we’re going to see what we can get out of Heaven together like we got a good deal of fun out of earth. And, oh, boy! I wish he knew how I miss him!”
In the house, before the telephone with a face sheet white, hanging to the instrument for support, shaking in every part of his being, shorn of his new-found strength, torn to the depths of his soul, stood Jamie. He had picked down the receiver and said, “Hello!” as casually as any man ever had said it, and then answered in the affirmative to the inquiry: “Is this James Lewis MacFarlane of the Sierra Madre Apiary?” Then the voice had continued: “You are wanted immediately and most imperatively at the Maternity Hospital, corner of Irolo and Seventeenth Streets.”
“Yes,” panted Jamie.
The voice went on: “Your wife last night gave birth to a fine son, but she is not reacting from the anesthetic as she should, and we are growing alarmed. We found your address among her effects. Kindly see how quickly you can reach her. The probabilities are that she will be asking for you very shortly.”
Jamie hung up the receiver, picked up a pencil and wrote, “Irolo and Seventeenth Streets,” so that he would not forget. Then he reeled to the bedroom and began seeing how quickly he could put on suitable clothing to make his appearance on the street. As he worked he called for the little Scout and when the youngster appeared, he said: “Lock up quickly. Have the front door key ready for me. I have an urgent business call to the city and I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Aw!” said the little Scout, in disgusted tones, “I came to stay all day! There was a lot I wanted to get done on my property.”
“Yes, I know,” said Jamie. “Maybe to-morrow. You better call the gang and play the rest of the day on the beach or run along home.”
He was out of the door, locking it behind him. Then he made a headlong plunge down the walk and down the street toward the car line.
The little Scout stood looking after him.
“‘Important business!’ Well, I’ll tell the world it’s important! The house is on fire, the dog’s bit the baby, Ma’s lost her vanity case, the Government ain’t surviving God’s dropped out of Heaven, and there ain’t a darned thing right in the whole world! Leap to it, Jamie! Fix it all up fine! Oh, boy!”
The little Scout walked around the house, climbed in the back window, punched up Jamie’s pillow, and lay down on the foot of his bed.
Jamie sprinted to the nearest street car and rode to the city, getting instructions on the way as to where Irolo and Seventeenth Streets might be, and when he landed some distance away, he took a taxi. Once seated within it, he felt for the check book he had stuffed in his pocket and all the emergency change that lay in the little box on the top left-hand shelf of the working library of the bees. His thoughts were whirling in chaos. The Storm Girl. She had come to her hour of agony, bravely, without doubt, as she would. She had asked no help from him. She had brought a child into the world, a son. “A fine baby,” the voice had said, but it did not sound as if she were all right. The report had sounded ominous to Jamie. He had not known that anesthetics were a part of the birth of a child. A great many things had happened in the past six years that Jamie did not know about.
He had not known anything worth while in the beginning as to how human beings entered the world, but he had been told, he had deciphered for himself, the fact that it was not an easy journey either for the mother or the child, and at this hospital that he was going to there was a little living boy, and the ceremony Jamie had gone through had been for the purpose of covering the child with an honorable name. That “fine little fellow” he had been told about was James Lewis MacFarlane, Junior, and the fine girl, the Storm Girl, the girl of the deep eyes and the broad chest, the girl of the cold wet face and the clutching hands, the girl of the quivering lips and the staring eyes—what was it? She had not rallied from the anesthetic? She was not regaining consciousness as she should, and among her effects they had found his address, and he was on his way to her. A minute more and he would be in the room where she was. He would see her forehead, and the wealth of hair streaming over the pillow, and her white throat.
Jamie knew what he was going to do. That was definitely settled in his mind. He was going to take her hands and hold them tight. He was going to draw her face to his as she had voluntarily yielded it to him once. He was going to cover it with a passion of suffering kisses. He was going to tell her that he did not give a darn what had happened or how it had happened. He never could and he never would believe that dishonor had touched her or ever could touch her. He was going to make her well, and he was going to take her home, and he was going to take care of her. They were going to live together and love together, and they were going to make something very wonderful of life. The new blood, the fresh blood, the clean blood, surged up in Jamie until the hair was almost standing on his head. He was wringing his hands without knowing what he was doing.
“They aren’t efficient! They aren’t doing what they should! I’ll kill the doctor and wring the neck of every nurse in that hospital if they don’t get a move on them!” threatened Jamie. “Birth’s a natural function. You can’t tell me that a big, strong girl like that wouldn’t live through it if she had the proper care.”
Jamie raced into the hospital and to a desk and down a hall and into an elevator and then into a small room. He stood beside a bed and took one long look. Then he turned his ashen face from the doctor, waiting beside the bed, holding the wrist of the gasping woman, to the nurse.
“I have made a mistake,” he said. “They’ve given me the wrong number. This isn’t my wife.”
The nurse stepped over and from the contents of a drawer picked up a marriage certificate that he had seen before.
“James Lewis MacFarlane,” she read from it and replaced it in the drawer.
Jamie took a grip on the foot of the bed and leaned over. The girl lying on it was not a girl he ever had seen, not a girl who, by the wildest stretch of possibility, could have been the Storm Girl. Jamie gripped the insensate wood harder and bent lower and stared wide-eyed. What did it mean? How could this have happened? Why should this girl have in her possession the certificate which symbolized the marriage that he had entered into with the Storm Girl?
He made his way to the side of the bed and looked intently at the left hand lying nerveless on the coverlet. There was the ring that he had bought, on the third finger, the cheap little wedding ring. He picked up the hand and examined the ring until he made sure. He knew that both the doctor and the nurse were watching him.
The doctor spoke. “How long has it been since you’ve seen your wife?”
Jamie opened his lips to say that never in all his life had he seen the woman before him and stopped with the words unsaid.
If he said what he was thinking, if he repudiated her, if he left her to life or the greater mercy of death with the avowal that he did not know her, that he never had seen her, then where was the beauty of the deed that he had tried to do in covering a woman who needed a name with his? After all, it had not made any difference to him, the night of the storm, what woman bore his name if with it she recovered self-respect and a decent heritage for an unborn child—“a fine little fellow,” the doctor had said. If he opened his lips, the fine little fellow would no longer be fine. He would be a shame baby, a thing to be pitied, to be scoffed at, to be shifted around from one charity organization to another. He would be thrown on the world defeated in the right to a home, to love, to the proper kind of rearing. It would be no marvel if any wave of crime or of shame that any one could imagine should engulf him. And the girl. Jamie stared hard. He realized that if there were blood in the china-white face, if there were color in the lips, if there were luster in the hair, if those transparent eyelids would reveal pain-filled, beseeching eyes, she would be lovely. Possibly there was a man in the world who could have repudiated her. Jamie could not. Not Jamie MacFarlane. The words died without utterance.
