Chapter VI
THE HEART OF MARY MALONE
"This is the job that was done with the reaper, If we hustle
we can do it ourselves, Thus securing to us a little cheaper, The
bread and pie upon our pantry shelves.
Eat this wheat, by and by, On this beautiful Wabash shore, Drink
this rye, by and by, Eat and drink on this beautiful shore."
So sang Jimmy as he drove through the wheat, oats and rye accompanied
by the clacking machinery. Dannie stopped stacking sheaves to mop
his warm, perspiring face and to listen. Jimmy always with an eye
to the effect he was producing immediately broke into wilder parody:
"Drive this mower, a little slower, On this beautiful Wabash
shore, Cuttin' wheat to buy our meat, Cuttin' oats, to buy our coats,
Also pants, if we get the chance.
By and by, we'll cut the rye, But I bet my hat I drink that, I drink
that. Drive this mower a little slower, In this wheat, in this wheat,
by and by."
The larks scolded, fluttering over head, for at times the reaper
overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks danced and chattered
on stumps and fences, in an agony of suspense, when their nests
were approached, and cried pitifully if they were destroyed. The
chewinks flashed from the ground to the fences and trees, and back,
crying "Che-wink?" "Che-wee!" to each other,
in such excitement that they appeared to be in danger of flirting
off their long tails. The quail ran about the shorn fields, and
excitedly called from fence riders to draw their flocks into the
security of Rainbow Bottom.
Frightened hares bounded through the wheat, and if the cruel blade
sheared into their nests, Dannie gathered the wounded and helpless
of the scattered broods in his hat, and carried them to Mary.
Then came threshing, which was a busy time, but after that, through
the long hot days of late July and August, there was little to do
afield, and fishing was impossible. Dannie grubbed fence corners,
mended fences, chopped and corded wood for winter, and in spare
time read his books. For the most part Jimmy kept close to Dannie.
Jimmy's temper never had been so variable. Dannie was greatly troubled,
for despite Jimmy's protests of devotion, he flared at a word, and
sometimes at no word at all. The only thing in which he really seemed
interested was the coon skin he was dressing to send to Boston.
Over that he worked by the hour, sometimes with earnest face, and
sometimes he raised his head, and let out a whoop that almost frightened
Mary. At such times he was sure to go on and give her some new detail
of the hunt for the fifty coons, that he had forgotten to tell her
before. He had been to the hotel, and learned the Thread Man's name
and address, and found that he did not come regularly, and no one
knew when to expect him; so when he had combed and brushed the fur
to its finest point, and worked the skin until it was velvet soft,
and bleached it until it was muslin white, he made it into a neat
package and sent it with his compliments to the Boston man. After
he had waited for a week, he began going to town every day to the
post office for the letter he expected, and coming home much worse
for a visit to Casey's. Since plowing time he had 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."
"That's all right," said Jimmy. "She didn't! She
kapes moaning over and over 'What did I do?' You hustle in and fix
it up with her. I'm getting tired of all this racket."
All Dannie heard was that he was to go to Mary. He went up the lane,
across the garden, and stepped in at the back door. Beside the table
stood a comely young woman, dressed in blue and white stripes. She
was doing something with eggs and milk. She glanced at Dannie, and
finished filling a glass. As she held it to the light, "Is
your name Macnoun?" she inquired.
"Yes," said Dannie.
"Dannie Macnoun?" she asked.
"Yes," said Dannie.
"Then you are the medicine needed here just now," she
said, as if that were the most natural statement in the world. "Mrs.
Malone seems to have an idea that she offended you, and drove you
from home, just prior to her illness, and as she has been very sick,
she is in no condition to bear other trouble. You understand?"
"Do ye understand that I couldna have gone if I had known she
was ill?" asked Dannie in turn.
"From what she has said in delirium I have been sure of that,"
replied the nurse. "It seems you have been the stay of the
family for years. I have a very high opinion of you, Mr. Macnoun.
Wait until I speak to her."
The nurse vanished, presently returned, and as Dannie passed through
the door, she closed it after him, and he stood still, trying to
see in the dim light. That great snowy stretch, that must be the
bed. That tumbled dark circle, that must be Mary's hair. That dead
white thing beneath it, that must be Mary's face. Those burning
lights, flaming on him, those must be Mary's eyes. Dannie stepped
softly across the room, and bent over the bed. He tried hard to
speak naturally.
"Mary" he said, "oh, Mary, I dinna know ye were ill!
Oh, believe me, I dinna realize ye were suffering pain."
She smiled faintly, and her lips moved. Dannie bent lower.
"Promise," she panted. "Promise you will stay now."
Her hand fumbled at her breast, and then she slipped on the white
cover a little black cross. Dannie knew what she meant. He laid
his hand on the emblem precious to her, and said softly, "I
swear I never will leave ye again, Mary Malone."
A great light swept into her face, and she smiled happily.
"Now ye," said Dannie. He slipped the cross into her hand.
"Repeat after me," he said. "I promise I will get
well, Dannie."
"I promise I will get well, Dannie, if I can," said Mary.
"Na," said Dannie. "That winna do. Repeat what I
said, and remember it is on the cross. Life hasna been richt for
ye, Mary, but if ye will get well, before the Lord in some way we
will make it happier. Ye will get well?"
"I promise I will get well, Dannie," said Mary Malone,
and Dannie softly left the room.
Outside he said to the nurse, "What can I do?"
She told him everything of which she could think that would be of
benefit.
"Now tell me all ye know of what happened," commanded
Dannie.
"After you left," said the nurse, "she was in labor,
and she could not waken her husband, and she grew frightened and
screamed. There were men passing out on the road. They heard her,
and came to see what was the matter."
"Strangers?" shuddered Dannie, with dry lips.
"No, neighbors. One man went for the nearest woman, and the
other drove to town for a doctor. They had help here almost as soon
as you could. But, of course, the shock was a very dreadful thing,
and the heat of the past few weeks has been enervating."
"Ane thing more," questioned Dannie. "Why do her
children dee?"
"I don't know about the others," answered the nurse. "This
one simply couldn't be made to breathe. It was a strange thing.
It was a fine big baby, a boy, and it seemed perfect, but we couldn't
save it. I never worked harder. They told me she had lost two others,
and we tried everything of which we could think. It just seemed
as if it had grown a lump of flesh, with no vital spark in it."
Dannie turned, went out of the door, and back along the lane to
the river where he had left Jimmy. "`A lump of flesh with na
vital spark in it,'" he kept repeating. "I dinna but that
is the secret. She is almost numb with misery. All these days when
she's been without hope, and these awful nichts, when she's watched
and feared alone, she has no wished to perpetuate him in children
who might be like him, and so at their coming the `vital spark'
is na in them. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, have ye Mary's happiness and those
three little graves to answer for?"
He found Jimmy asleep where he had left him. Dannie shook him awake.
"I want to talk with ye," he said.
Jimmy sat up, and looked into Dannie's face. He had a complaint
on his lips but it died there. He tried to apologize. "I am
almost dead for sleep," he said. "There has been no rest
for anyone here. What do you think?"
"I think she will live," said Dannie dryly. "In spite
of your neglect, and my cowardice, I think she will live to suffer
more frae us."
Jimmy's mouth opened, but for once no sound issued. The drops of
perspiration raised on his forehead.
Dannie sat down, and staring at him Jimmy saw that there were patches
of white hair at his temples that had been brown a week before;
his colorless face was sunken almost to the bone, and there was
a peculiar twist about his mouth. Jimmy's heart weighed heavily,
his tongue stood still, and he was afraid to the marrow in his bones.
"I think she will live," repeated Dannie. "And about
the suffering more, we will face that like men, and see what can
be done about it. This makes three little graves on the hill, Jimmy,
what do they mean to ye?"
"Domn bad luck," said Jimmy promptly.
"Nothing more?" asked Dannie. "Na responsibility
at all. Ye are the father of those children. Have ye never been
to the doctor, and asked why ye lost them?"
"No, I haven't," said Jimmy.
"That is ane thing we will do now," said Dannie, "and
then we will do more, much more."
"What are you driving at?" asked Jimmy.
"The secret of Mary's heart," said Dannie.
The cold sweat ran from the pores of Jimmy's body. He licked his
dry lips, and pulled his hat over his eyes, that he might watch
Dannie from under the brim.
"We are twa big, strong men," said Dannie. "For fifteen
years we have lived here wi' Mary. The night ye married her, the
licht of happiness went out for me. But I shut my mouth, and shouldered
my burden, and went on with my best foot first; because if she had
na refused me, I should have married her, and then ye would have
been the one to suffer. If she had chosen me, I should have married
her, juist as ye did. Oh, I've never forgotten that! So I have na
been a happy mon, Jimmy. We winna go into that any further, we've
been over it once. It seems to be a form of torture especially designed
fra me, though at times I must confess, it seems rough, and I canna
see why, but we'll cut that off with this: life has been Hell's
hottest sweat-box fra me these fifteen years."
Jimmy groaned aloud. Dannie's keen gray eyes seemed boring into
the soul of the man before him, as he went on.
"Now how about ye? Ye got the girl ye wanted. Ye own a guid
farm that would make ye a living, and save ye money every year.
Ye have done juist what ye pleased, and as far as I could, I have
helped ye. I've had my eye on ye pretty close, Jimmy, and if YE
are a happy mon, I dinna but I'm content as I am. What's your trouble?
Did ye find ye dinna love Mary after ye won her? Did ye murder your
mither or blacken your soul with some deadly sin? Mon! If I had
in my life what ye every day neglect and torture, Heaven would come
doon, and locate at the foot of the Rainbow fra me. But, ye are
no happy, Jimmy. Let's get at the root of the matter. While ye are
unhappy, Mary will be also. We are responsible to God for her, and
between us, she is empty armed, near to death, and almost dumb with
misery. I have juist sworn to her on the cross she loves that if
she will make ane more effort, and get well, we will make her happy.
Now, how are we going to do it?"
Another great groan burst from Jimmy, and he shivered as if with
a chill.
"Let us look ourselves in the face," Dannie went on, "and
see what we lack. What can we do fra her? What will bring a song
to her lips, licht to her beautiful eyes, love to her heart, and
a living child to her arms? Wake up, mon! By God, if ye dinna set
to work with me and solve this problem, I'll shake a solution out
of ye! What I must suffer is my own, but what's the matter with
ye, and why, when she loved and married ye, are ye breakin' Mary's
heart? Answer me, mon!"
Dannie reached over and snatched the hat from Jimmy's forehead,
and stared at an inert heap. Jimmy lay senseless, and he looked
like death. Dannie rushed down to the water with the hat, and splashed
drops into Jimmy's face until he gasped for breath. When he recovered
a little, he shrank from Dannie, and began to sob, as if he were
a sick ten-year-old child.
"I knew you'd go back on me, Dannie," he wavered. "I've
lost the only frind I've got, and I wish I was dead."
"I havena gone back on ye," persisted Dannie, bathing
Jimmy's face. "Life means nothing to me, save as I can use
it fra Mary, and fra ye. Be quiet, and sit up here, and help me
work this thing out. Why are ye a discontented mon, always wishing
fra any place save home? Why do ye spend all ye earn foolishly,
so that ye are always hard up, when ye might have affluence? Why
does Mary lose her children, and why does she noo wish she had na
married ye?"
"Who said she wished she hadn't married me?" cried Jimmy.
"Do ye mean to say ye think she doesn't?" blazed Dannie.
"I ain't said anything!" exclaimed Jimmy.
"Na, and I seem to have damn poor luck gettin' ye TO say anything.
I dinna ask fra tears, nor faintin' like a woman. Be a mon, and
let me into the secret of this muddle. There is a secret, and ye
know it. What is it? Why are ye breaking the heart o' Mary Malone?
Answer me, or 'fore God I'll wring the answer fra your body!"
And Jimmy keeled over again. This time he was gone so far that Dannie
was frightened into a panic, and called the doctor coming up the
lane to Jimmy before he had time to see Mary. The doctor soon brought
Jimmy around, prescribed quiet and sleep; talked about heart trouble
developing, and symptoms of tremens, and Dannie poured on water,
and gritted his teeth. And it ended by Jimmy being helped to Dannie's
cabin, undressed, and put into bed, and then Dannie went over to
see what he could do for the nurse. She looked at him searchingly.
"Mr. Macnoun, when were you last asleep?" she asked.
"I forget," answered Dannie.
"When did you last have a good hot meal?"
"I dinna know," replied Dannie.
"Drink that," said the nurse, handing him the bowl of
broth she carried, and going back to the stove for another. "When
I have finished making Mrs. Malone comfortable, I'm going to get
you something to eat, and you are going to eat it. Then you are
going to lie down on that cot where I can call you if I need you,
and sleep six hours, and then you're going to wake up and watch
by this door while I sleep my six. Even nurses must have some rest,
you know."
"Ye first," said Dannie. "I'll be all richt when
I get food. Since ye mention it, I believe I am almost mad with
hunger."
The nurse handed him another bowl of broth. "Just drink that,
and drink slowly," she said, as she left the room.
Dannie could hear her speaking softly to Mary, and then all was
quiet, and the girl came out and closed the door. She deftly prepared
food for Dannie, and he ate all she would allow him, and begged
for more; but she firmly told him her hands were full now, and she
had no one to depend on but him to watch after the turn of the night.
So Dannie lay down on the cot. He had barely touched it when he
thought of Jimmy, so he got up quietly and started home. He had
almost reached his back door when it opened, and Jimmy came out.
Dannie paused, amazed at Jimmy's wild face and staring eyes.
"Don't you begin your cursed gibberish again," cried Jimmy,
at sight of him. "I'm burning in all the tortures of fire now,
and I'll have a drink if I smash down Casey's and steal it."
Dannie jumped for him, and Jimmy evaded him and fled. Dannie started
after. He had reached the barn before he began to think. "I
depend on you," the nurse had said. "Jimmy, wait!"
he called. "Jimmy, have ye any money?" Jimmy was running
along the path toward town. Dannie stopped. He stood staring after
Jimmy for a second, and then he deliberately turned, went back,
and lay down on the cot, where the nurse expected to find him when
she wanted him to watch by the door of Mary Malone.