The wonder woman

“DO you see her now, Mr. David?”

I nodded, pointing into the coals. “I see a lion, and an old witch, and a monkey. I don’t see any woman.”

“There! There!” I cried. “She’s just going through the postern gate. Oh, she’s gone, lad! Never mind! Next time you may see her.”

“And is she prettier’n Wanza, Mr. David?”

“Perhaps not prettier,” I responded. “Wanza looking out from beneath the pink-lined umbrella on her peddler’s cart is very charming, indeed. But the woman I see in the fire is--oh, she’s altogether different!”

This was the customary tenor of my conversation with Joey as we sat before our fire of pine knots of an evening. The lad would point out to me queer kaleidoscopic creatures he saw deep in the heart of the pine fire; but his young eyes never saw the face I beheld there, and so I was obliged to describe my wonder woman to him.

It was not strange that Joey should share my confidence in this fashion. He had been my sole companion since the night four years before when I had found him--poor tiny lad--sobbing on the doorstep of a shack some three miles down the river. I had lifted him to my shoulder and entered the shack to find there a dying woman. The woman died that night, but before she passed away she gave the child to me, saying: “He is only a waif! I took him from my poor brother when he died over on the Sound, about six months ago. My brother was a fisherman. He picked the child up on the beach one morning after a fierce storm a year ago. I was meaning to keep the boy always, poor as I be. But now--you take Joey, mister,--he’ll be a blessing to you!”

A blessing! I said the words over to myself as I carried the boy home that night. I said them to myself when I awakened in the morning and looked down at him cradled in the hollow of my arm. I had been out of conceit with life. For me the world was “jagged and broken” in very truth. But looking down at the young stranger I thrilled with the sudden desire to smooth and shape my days again. To stand sure! And here was a companion for me! I was through with living alone!

I went to the window, threw it wide, and saw the dawn rosy in the east. A mountain bluebird that had a nest in a hole in a cottonwood tree hard by was perched on a serviceberry bush beside the window. I heard its song with rapture. I was smiling when I turned back to the bunk where I had left the child. The child was smiling too. He sat straight up among the blankets, his eyes were fixed on the bird, and he was holding out his little arms. I lifted him and carried him to the window, and he lisped: “I love birdie! I love you!”

And so Joey became my boy.

It was not only in the heart of the pine fire that I saw the radiant creature I described to Joey. When I looked from my workshop door at twilight across the shadowy river to the cool purple peaks of the mountains, the nebular mist arising seemed the cloud-folds of her garments. And when I lay on my back at noon time, in the cedar grove, gazing upward through the shivering green dome at the sky, I always dreamed of the splendor of her eyes.

I grew to wonder how I should meet her. Someway, I always pictured myself astride my good cayuse, Buttons, on the river road returning from Roselake village, gay in my holiday clothes, with a freshly shaven face, and a bag of peppermints in my pocket for Joey.

As it fell out I was in my shop by the river at work on a cedar chest. I was garbed in a dark-blue flannel shirt and blue overalls, and needed a hair-cut sadly. I heard a sound and looked up. “She has come!” I said to myself. “Out of the land of dreams she has come to me!”

A young woman stood before me. The face I saw was oval and flawless. The cheeks were a delicate pink. Her lips were vivid, her eyes luminous as stars. Her silky, lustrous hair was bound with a broad band of blue ribbon. Although her riding skirt was torn, her blouse soiled, although she was dusty and disheveled, with shadows of weariness about her splendid eyes, her manner was that of a young princess as she addressed me.

“This place is for sale, I understand?”

I had not thought of selling the few acres that remained of the hundred-and-sixty-acre homestead I had taken up eight years before; but I was so overcome with awe and confusion, that I stammered forth:

“Why, no--that is, I think not! I shall sell some time, I dare say.”

Her face showed a flash of amusement and then grew thoughtful.

“It is a desirable place,” she murmured, half to herself.

I knew then she had come to the shop by the yew path--the path that runs beneath the trailing yews and winds in and out like a purple-brown ribbon near the spring, where the moss is downy and green, and the bracken is high, and the breeze makes a sibilant sound in the rushes. I straightened my shoulders, laid aside my plane, and rolled down my sleeves. Thus far I had not fully appraised my visitor, having fallen a prey to the creeping paralysis of shyness at my first glance, but now, grown bolder, I stole a hardier look at her face. I saw the scarlet lips, the brilliant eyes, and the ivory forehead beneath the midnight hair. I saw the rose tint on her cheek, the tan on her tender throat where the rolled-back collar left it bare. I saw--and I breathed: “God help me!” deep in my heart; and there must have crept a warmth that was disquieting into my gaze, for she lowered her eyes swiftly, and slid her hand, in its riding glove, caressingly along the smooth surface of the cedar chest between us.

“What beautiful wood,” she said softly. “You are a carpenter--a craftsman,” she amended. “How wonderful to work with wood like this.”

“Christ was a carpenter,” a voice--a wee voice announced from behind us. Joey had stolen into the shop through the rear window as was his custom, and curled up on my work bench among the shavings.

“Who told you, lad?” I queried, being used to Joey’s terse and unexpected utterances.

My wonder woman looked at him sharply. Her black brows came together as she surveyed him, and she did not smile. Joey stared and stared at her, until I thought he never would have done, and she continued to scrutinize him. I saw her eyes wander over his attire. Poor lad--his collection of wearing apparel was motley enough--an old hunting coat of mine that almost covered him, a pair of trousers unmistakably cut over, a straw hat that was set down so far on his brown head that his ears had perforce to bear the weight; a faded shirt, and scuffed out shoes. But Joey’s scrutiny was more persistent than the one accorded him, and presently, my wonder woman was tricked into speech.

“Well?” she murmured, her lips relaxing.

Joey gave a great sigh, kicked up his heels like a fractious colt, and rolled over among the shavings. “Gracious Lord!” was his comment, delivered in awed tones.

“Joey!” I gasped, turning. But Joey was slipping, feet first, through the window. I caught him by the trousers and gave him a surreptitious shake, as I lowered him wriggling to the ground. He rolled over, rose to his knees; his brown eyes, big and soft, looked up at me affectionately; his lips parted in a grin of understanding.

“I’ll put the potatoes on, Mr. David,” he vouchsafed, and vanished.

The beautiful face was questioning when I turned back. “Mr. David,” she repeated. “He is not your boy then?”

I hesitated. “No,” I said slowly. Somehow, I was in no mood to tell her Joey’s story at that moment.

“Joey has the manners of a young Indian,” I apologized. “I hope he did not annoy you.”

“Children never annoy me,” she replied.

A tiny dimple played at one corner of her mouth and died suddenly as the half smile left her face. She bent her riding-whip between her hands and a look of distress came into her eyes.

“I am wrong, then, about this place being for sale? I saw a sign-board back there on the road. It said ‘For Sale’ in bold black letters. There was a big hand that pointed this way.”

A light broke in on me.

“It must be Russell’s old ranch on Hidden Lake,” I said. “To be sure, that is for sale. It has been for sale ever since I can remember.”

I saw her eyes brighten.

“There is a place I can buy, then? What is it like--this Hidden Lake?”

“It is a mere pond, hidden in the thickets. It can be reached from the river. If you can find the lead you can pole in with a canoe. It’s a famous place for ducks. The tules almost fill it in summer. There’s a good spring on the place, and I guess the soil is fair. One could raise vegetables and berries.”

“I don’t want to raise anything.”