The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 38

The man sitting in the middle of the room pulled his pipe out of his mouth.

"What's that you say?"

She stood at the window, her eyes fixed steadfastly on that one dumb dog among all those yelping, snarling other dogs.

The man got up from his chair and came and stood beside her.

Unconsciously she shrank away from his nearness.

"Ain't you used to that by now;--ain't you?"

She turned toward him;--all but her eyes. Her eyes were still riveted out there upon the motionless chow chained in the center of the run.

"It ain't the noise; that,--that don't mean so much, James. It ain't the noise."

"Then what's the matter,--huh?"

She pointed a trembling forefinger at that yellow ma.s.s tied to the dog-house.

"Him," she whispered. "He don't make no racket, James."

The man peered over her shoulder.

"The chow?"

"Yes;" her voice was still. "China-Ching. He don't make no racket, James."

"I'd like to hear him," the man bl.u.s.tered. "I'd just like to hear one peep out of him;--that's all."

She saw his coa.r.s.e, hairy hand go to his hip pocket. She smiled bitterly. She knew the confidence he felt when he touched the mother-of-pearl handle of his pistol.

"You don't need that on him," she said. "He just sits there and don't never move. He don't hardly eat when you feeds him. He don't seem to have no heart left for nothing. He ain't like the terrier what had the distemper;--he ain't like the greyhound what had the hydrophobia,--so awful bad."

"What d'you mean?" The man muttered angrily. "Ain't they had the hydrophobia;--ain't they had the distemper;--ain't they?"

"You says they did, James."

"Ain't I the one to know? If I ain't been born with dog-sense, would folks be giving me their muts to care for?"

"You shot them pups, James."

"And what if I did?" He stormed. "They was dangerous--they was a menace to the community,--so they was. And see, here,--you take it from me, there ain't nothing more dangerous as a dog when he gets took that there way. Why, I've heard tell of dogs what have torn men limb from limb."

And then he added in afterthought: "Men that've been kind to 'em, too."

Her laughter rang out shrilly, piercingly.

"Aw, James," she giggled hysterically. "Aw, now, James--

"What's that?" His hand was on her hand. "See here, you, ain't I kind to 'em?"

His touch sobered her quite suddenly.

"Kind to 'em--?"

She repeated his words vaguely as though not fully conscious of their actual meaning.

The grip of his fingers tightened cruelly about her arm.

"Ain't I--kind--to--'em?"

"Oh, my Gawd," she whimpered. "Oh, my Gawd,--yes."

He went back to the center of the room and lighted the lamp on the bare-boarded, pine-wood table. Its light flickered in a sickly, yellow glow over the straight-backed chairs, across the unpapered walls, and dribbled feebly upwards to where the heavy rafters of the ceiling were obliterated in a smothering thickness of shadows.

"What're you standing there for? Pull down that blind! Come here, I say!"

The faint, motionless form there beside the dog-house. The wooden, stiffened att.i.tude of it. The great ma.s.s of the chow's rigid body that was gradually becoming absorbed into the gray shadow; that was slowly losing its faint outline in the saturating, blurring darkness.

She did as she was told; hastily, nervously. And then she came and stood beside the table. Try as she would to prevent it her eyes kept on staring through the curtained window.

Again she became conscious of the yelping, the prolonged whines, the quick, incessant barking; and running in growling under-current, the throaty, infuriated snarling.

"I can't stand it no more!" she shrieked. "It's too much,--so it is! I just--can't--stand--it--no--more!"

He looked up at her, startled.

"What under the canopy's eating you?"

She sank into a chair. The palms of her hands pounded against each other. In the lamplight her face showed itself pale and drawn with the eyes pulling out of its deadened setness in live despair.

"You got to do something for me, James." Her voice shook. "You simply got to do it. I ain't never asked nothing from you before this. I've been a good wife to you. I've stood for a lot,--Gawd knows I have. I ain't never made no complaint. You got to do this for me, James."

"Got to,--huh? Them's high words, my lady. There ain't nothing what I got to do. You ain't gone plum crazy, have you?"

"Crazy?" She muttered. "No, I ain't gone crazy;--not yet, I ain't. Only you got to do this for me, James."

"What're you driving at,--huh?"

She rose to her feet then. When she spoke her tone was quite controlled.

"You got to let that chow-dog go."

The man sprang erect.

"What d'you mean?"

"You--got--to--let--China-Ching--go! You got to let him get away. You got to make that China-Ching--free."

He laughed. The laugh had no sound of mirth in it. The laugh was long and loud; but its loudness could not cover the insidious evil of it.