The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 39

"That's a good one," he shouted. "Let a dog go of his own sweet will when some day I'll be getting my price for him. That's the funniest thing I've heard in many a long day. Land's sakes! You're just full of wit,--ain't you?"

"I ain't," she retorted sullenly.

But he paid no attention to her.

"I never would have thought it--that's a cinch! Say,--it do seem I'm learning all the time."

Her teeth came together with a sharp snap.

"Better be careful you don't learn too much,--about me."

She whispered it beneath her breath.

"Muttering,--huh?" He leaned toward her over the table. "I don't like no muttering. I ain't the one to allow no muttering around me. Speak out--if you got something to say;--and if you ain't,--why, then,--shut up!"

The lamp threw its full light up into his face. Not one muscle, not one wrinkle, but stood out harshly above its crude flame. She drew back a step.

"All right." She had been goaded into it. "I'll speak up--All right.

That's what you wants, ain't it? I've stood for enough. I reckon I've stood for too much. You knows that. But you ain't thought that maybe I knows it,--have you? That makes a difference,--don't it? You knows the way you treats me,--only you ain't thought that I ever gives it no thought;--and I ain't,--no,--I ain't; not till you brought that there China-Ching here. Not--till--you--brought--China-Ching."

"What's that mut got to do between you and me?"

His eyes refused to meet her eyes that were ablaze with a strange, inspired light.

"Everything. From the day I seen you bring him here--; from the day I seen you beating him because he snapped at you--; from the day you chained him up to that dog-house to break his spirit--; from that day it come over me what you done to me."

"You're crazy;--plum crazy!"

"Oh, no, I ain't;" she went on in suppressed fury. "I've slaved for you when you was sober, and when you was drunk. I've stood your kicks and I've stood your dirty talk, and I've stood for the way you treats them there dogs. And d'you know why I've stood for it,--say, do you?"

His hands clenched at his sides. Their knuckles showed white against the soiled dark skin.

"No--and what's more--"

She interrupted him.

"I've stood for it all because I knowed that any time--Any time, mind you,--I could clear out. Whenever I likes I can get up and,--go!"

"You wouldn't dare;--you ain't got the nerve!"

"I have--; I have,--too."

"Where'd you go,--huh?"

"I'd get away from you,--all right."

"What'd you do?"

"That ain't of no account to you!"

He watched her for a second between half-closed lids. A cunning smile spread itself over his thick lips. He walked to the door and threw it wide open.

"You can go--if you likes;--you can go--now!"

Her hand went to her heart. The scant color in her face left it. She took one hesitating step forward and then she stood quite still.

"If you lets the dog go--I stays."

Her words sounded m.u.f.fled.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"The dog's my dog. I ain't able to see where he comes in on all this."

"You can't see nothing;--you don't want to see! It's knowing too well what that pup's up against that makes me want you to let him go. It's that I don't want to have the heart took out of him;--the way you took the heart out of me,--that makes me want to have him set free."

He gave a noiseless chuckle.

"So I took the heart out of you,--did I?"

She glared at him savagely.

"You knows you did!"

For a moment they were silent.

"Well?" He asked.

She saw him wave a hand toward the door.

"Aw, James, you can't be so cruel bad--You can't. The other dogs don't mind it--; they makes a noise and they tears around. And then they eats and drinks and late at nights they lies down and sleeps;--if there ain't no moon. But that China-Ching he ain't like them. Maybe--he is savage;--maybe you're right to be afraid of him."

His whole figure was suddenly taut. His head shrank into his shoulders.

"There ain't nothing I'm afraid of;--get that into your head--I ain't afraid of nothing--And if you wants to go,--why, all I got to say is, you can--git!"

A stillness came between them, broken only by the sounds from the kennels. The yelping, the shrill prolonged whines, the quick, incessant barking; and running in growling under-current, the throaty, infuriated snarling.

He went to the table and took the lamp up in one hand. He went over to the door and closed it with a loud bang. Then he started toward the stairs.

"If you ain't able to bring yourself to leave me," the words came to her over his shoulder, "you can come on up to bed."

Mechanically she followed him up the steps. Mechanically she went through the process of undressing and was.h.i.+ng. Long after he had fallen asleep she lay there wide awake watching the moonlight trickle in quivering, golden spots across the floor; lay wide awake listening to the eerie baying of the dogs.

She had had her chance of freedom and at the last moment her courage had failed her. What she had told him had been the absolute truth. She had never realized what had happened to her, what a stifled, smothered thing she had become, until that day when he had brought the chow-dog home to the kennels.

She had married James when she was very young. Their fathers' farms adjoined. It had been the expected thing and she had gone through with it quite as a matter of course. In those days he had been somewhat ambitious. The country-folk around admitted grudgingly that James Conover was a born farmer. Then the old people, both their fathers and his mother, had grown a bit older, and one by one they had died. There had been nothing violent in their deaths. Silent, narrow-minded, like most country persons they had grown a trifle more silent, a trifle more bigoted, and then they were dead. It had seemed to her that way at any rate. She had become conscious all of a sudden that she was alone with James. Strange that the consciousness should have come to her after she had been alone with him for three years; and then that she should only realize she was alone in the world with him the first time he came home drunk. After that he took to drinking more and more, and finally he gave up farming. It had been quite by accident that he took to boarding dogs; now and then buying one for a quick turn. He liked the job. As far as she could see it gave him more time to spend in the village saloon.