The Valley of the Moon. Джек Лондон
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reply, she kissed the hand again and murmured:
“I love your hands, Billy. To me they are the most beautiful hands in the world, and it would take hours of talking to tell you all they mean to me.”
“Whoa!” he called to the horses.
He pulled them in to a standstill, soothed them with his voice, and made the reins fast around the whip. Then he turned to her with arms around her and lips to lips.
“Oh, Billy, I'll make you a good wife,” she sobbed, when the kiss was broken.
He kissed her wet eyes and found her lips again.
“Now you know what I was thinkin' and why I was sweatin' when we was eatin' lunch. Just seemed I couldn't hold in much longer from tellin' you. Why, you know, you looked good to me from the first moment I spotted you.”
“And I think I loved you from that first day, too, Billy. And I was so proud of you all that day, you were so kind and gentle, and so strong, and the way the men all respected you and the girls all wanted you, and the way you fought those three Irishmen when I was behind the picnic table. I couldn't love or marry a man I wasn't proud of, and I'm so proud of you, so proud.”
“Not half as much as I am right now of myself,” he answered, “for having won you. It's too good to be true. Maybe the alarm clock'll go off and wake me up in a couple of minutes. Well, anyway, if it does, I'm goin' to make the best of them two minutes first. Watch out I don't eat you, I'm that hungry for you.”
He smothered her in an embrace, holding her so tightly to him that it
almost hurt. After what was to her an age-long period of bliss, his arms
relaxed and he seemed to make an effort to draw himself together.
“An' the clock ain't gone off yet,” he whispered against her
cheek. “And it's a dark night, an' there's Fruitvale right ahead, an' if
there ain't King and Prince standin' still in the middle of the road. I
never thought the time'd come when I wouldn't want to take the ribbons
on a fine pair of horses. But this is that time. I just can't let go
of you, and I've gotta some time to-night. It hurts worse'n poison, but
here goes.”
He restored her to herself, tucked the disarranged robe about her, and chirruped to the impatient team.
Half an hour later he called “Whoa!”
“I know I'm awake now, but I don't know but maybe I dreamed all the rest, and I just want to make sure.”
And again he made the reins fast and took her in his arms.
CHAPTER XII
The days flew by for Saxon. She worked on steadily at the laundry, even doing more overtime than usual, and all her free waking hours were devoted to preparations for the great change and to Billy. He had proved himself God's own impetuous lover by insisting on getting married the next day after the proposal, and then by resolutely refusing to compromise on more than a week's delay.
“Why wait?” he demanded. “We're not gettin' any younger so far as I can notice, an' think of all we lose every day we wait.”
In the end, he gave in to a month, which was well, for in two weeks he was transferred, with half a dozen other drivers, to work from the big stables of Corberly and Morrison in West Oakland. House-hunting in the other end of town ceased, and on Pine Street, between Fifth and Fourth, and in immediate proximity to the great Southern Pacific railroad yards, Billy and Saxon rented a neat cottage of four small rooms for ten dollars a month.
“Dog-cheap is what I call it, when I think of the small rooms I've ben soaked for,” was Billy's judgment. “Look at the one I got now, not as big as the smallest here, an' me payin' six dollars a month for it.”
“But it's furnished,” Saxon reminded him. “You see, that makes a difference.”
But Billy didn't see.
“I ain't much of a scholar, Saxon, but I know simple arithmetic; I've soaked my watch when I was hard up, and I can calculate interest. How much do you figure it will cost to furnish the house, carpets on the floor, linoleum on the kitchen, and all?”
“We can do it nicely for three hundred dollars,” she answered. “I've been thinking it over and I'm sure we can do it for that.”
“Three hundred,” he muttered, wrinkling his brows with concentration. “Three hundred, say at six per cent.—that'd be six cents on the dollar, sixty cents on ten dollars, six dollars on the hundred, on three hundred eighteen dollars. Say—I'm a bear at multiplyin' by ten. Now divide eighteen by twelve, that'd be a dollar an' a half a month interest.” He stopped, satisfied that he had proved his contention. Then his face quickened with a fresh thought. “Hold on! That ain't all. That'd be the interest on the furniture for four rooms. Divide by four. What's a dollar an' a half divided by four?”
“Four into fifteen, three times and three to carry,” Saxon recited glibly. “Four into thirty is seven, twenty-eight, two to carry; and two-fourths is one-half. There you are.”
“Gee! You're the real bear at figures.” He hesitated. “I didn't follow you. How much did you say it was?”
“Thirty-seven and a half cents.”
“Ah, ha! Now we'll see how much I've ben gouged for my one room. Ten dollars a month for four rooms is two an' a half for one. Add thirty-seven an' a half cents interest on furniture, an' that makes two dollars an' eighty-seven an' a half cents. Subtract from six dollars. …”
“Three dollars and twelve and a half cents,” she supplied quickly.
“There we are! Three dollars an' twelve an' a half cents I'm jiggered out of on the room I'm rentin'. Say! Bein' married is like savin' money, ain't it?”
“But furniture wears out, Billy.”
“By golly, I never thought of that. It ought to be figured, too. Anyway, we've got a snap here, and next Saturday afternoon you've gotta get off from the laundry so as we can go an' buy our furniture. I saw Salinger's last night. I give'm fifty down, and the rest installment plan, ten dollars a month. In twenty-five months the furniture's ourn. An' remember, Saxon, you wanta buy everything you want, no matter how much it costs. No scrimpin' on what's for you an' me. Get me?”
She nodded, with no betrayal on her face of the myriad secret economies that filled her mind. A hint of moisture glistened in her eyes.
“You're so good to me, Billy,” she murmured, as she came to him and was met inside his arms.
“So you've gone an' done it,” Mary commented, one morning in the laundry. They had not been at work ten minutes ere her eye had glimpsed the topaz ring on the third finger of Saxon's left hand. “Who's the lucky one? Charley Long or Billy Roberts?”
“Billy,” was the answer.
“Huh! Takin' a young boy to raise, eh?”
Saxon showed that the stab had gone home, and Mary was all contrition.
“Can't you take a josh? I'm glad to death at the news. Billy's a awful good man, and I'm glad to see you get him. There ain't many like him knockin' 'round, an' they ain't to be had for the askin'. An' you're both lucky. You was just made for each other, an' you'll make him a better wife than any girl I know. When is it to be?”
Going home from the laundry a few days later, Saxon encountered Charley Long. He blocked the sidewalk, and compelled speech with her.