Read Ebook: Beginners Luck by Hahn Emily

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1199 lines and 49646 words, and 24 pages

"Then there were lots of little things. Mother, I hate that place. I told you, Christmas. I said this would happen."

"But you promised to try, dear. Did you?"

"I did try at first. There was a meeting in the auditorium last week and there was a man there to talk. He used to be a friend of Roosevelt and he was Miller's cousin. They always play the Star Spangled Banner and you're supposed to stand at attention, and I didn't."

"But why didn't you?" said Bob. Blake said nothing. He couldn't explain. It had been a sudden rush of anger at everything; he couldn't put that feeling into words for Bob.

"Well, dear, and then?"

"I was called up to Miller and we had a fight about everything that had happened. There was something else; a silly old fight about making too much noise in the library."

Blake's eyes met Teddy's, and he thought he saw the other boy nod at him. He was a little comforted.

"Well, well, well," said Bob, standing up, "it's a revolutionary age. We mustn't take these things too seriously, Mary. Remember, we all outgrow it. I must be getting along. Come on, Ted. Remember Tuesday."

He patted Blake's head, kissed Mary, and went out. Teddy nodded casually and followed him. He looked a little embarrassed.

Mary patted Blake's head, too, but she couldn't think of anything to say. He put down a cookie on the table and said, "I'm awfully sorry. I couldn't help it, honestly."

"I know. But I'm a little worried. What will you do in the fall?"

"Couldn't I stop trying to go to school? It's no use, really. Let me go to work."

"Don't be ridiculous, dear. What could you do?"

"I don't know. Something. I don't want to worry you."

"You know you don't worry me. I want you to find yourself."

"Uh-huh." He twirled a button on his coat.

"Well," she said, "we'll think about it. You spend the summer here and get a good rest."

"What's it like?"

"Oh, I think you'll like it very much. There are plenty of people for you to play with."

"How are you?"

"Better, I think. Doctor Browning says to be very quiet this summer, and it ought to work wonders."

"Who's Madden?"

"That's a very nice boy. Bob says he is really talented. He's been here since early spring; I think he worked his way out just so he could join the art colony. So many of those boys do that sort of thing.... I think that we might find another school for you, dear, or a tutor. It would mean only one more year, and you'll like college."

"No, I won't. I don't want to go. Please."

"Well, we'll see.... I think dinner is ready."

He almost fell asleep at the table. It was the fault of the fire, so near his chair. He couldn't stop watching it. Along the cracks in the charcoal, little blue flames walked up and down lapping at the air. The room was filled with the faint parched sweet smell.

Anxious to get to his room and to look again at the mountains, he kissed Mary and went to bed. He undressed and lay down and turned to the window. But now there was nothing but darkness; the sky was full of very big bright stars and around the edge of the world there were no more stars. Big shadows had blotted them out, but what shape the shadows had or how far away they were, it was impossible to say. He drew his knees up and rubbed the pillow with his cheek and closed his eyes.

For a long time he could not go to sleep; he kept his eyes shut with an effort, against the waiting mass of the mountains; he smiled and jerked his pillow closer to his shoulder, with a nervous alert hand.

"And over there is Camel Rock," Gin shouted, trying to reach the far corners of the bus with her voice. Just then the driver went into low and made it more difficult. She sat as near the edge of her seat as she could without falling off when the bus turned a corner and rocked a bit. Eleven heads turned obediently towards Camel Rock.

"See it?" she screamed. "See the hump, and the head in front?" Her voice almost cracked.

They all saw it at last. Those who couldn't at first were helped by the others, standing up to look back at it while the bus went on. Gin sat back in the seat again and relaxed, swallowing hard. There would be nothing more to show them until Santa Clara; perhaps she could be quiet until then. She looked around to see if anyone was nursing a grievance. Would they expect her to keep talking in between the points of interest? Sometimes people wanted her to, other times they preferred to sleep. There was a fat man in the third seat who showed signs of being difficult; the kind of tourist who wrote letters to the company after the trip, commending and criticizing. Every courier lived in terror of such a letter.

"While I have nothing but praise for the courtesy and attention of your driver, I am sorry to say that none of us were satisfied with Miss Arnold's behaviour. She seemed distracted; she did not attend to her duties. She seemed to lose no opportunity for disappearing from us; whenever the occasion offered itself for her to wander off, she was nowhere to be found. I am unwilling to complain about anything connected with your excellent tours, but I must say that when I have paid an extra fare of forty-seven dollars and fifty cents...."

Gin took a deep breath and leaned forward to the fat man.

Mr. Butts merely grunted, but there was a satisfactory reaction from the old lady who sat in front of him. She turned and smiled nervously.

"Isn't this road dangerous for the speed we're going?" she quavered. "Of course it's perfectly beautiful. Mr. Butts, do look at that, right behind you!"

Mr. Butts turned his head resignedly and looked. The bus had come to a place that gave a short glimpse of Santa F? behind them, tiny and white and scattered. It was immediately hidden by the dark turbulent waves of hill around it as they drove on.

"Pretty," said Mr. Butts in his brief way.

Gin gave it up for the moment and settled back, fanning herself with her hat. The bus was hot and stuffy, although all the glass windows were open. She yawned and drifted off, thankful that she wasn't feeling particularly nauseated today by the constant motion. Some of the girls could never get used to it, but she seemed to be adjusted. She looked around apathetically at the dudes and wondered if they were all as stupid as they appeared or if it was because she needed sleep. Some days, it was true, everyone was perfectly charming. Those were the days that followed good healthy nights of sleep. There weren't many of them, she thought ruefully. She often thought ruefully of her habits, but never to the extent of changing them. No one did in Santa F? when they had lived there as long as she had.

One of the crowd today wasn't so bad, she thought. She had noticed him at the hotel office when he signed on at the last minute for the trip. As skilful as the clerk in sizing up the tourists, she had put him immediately in the pigeon-hole reserved for summer visitors who stayed the season. He was no train-tripper. He probably lived in one of the big houses outside of town, with a swimming-pool and a stable. A nice-looking kid, just a baby, probably sixteen. Since she had not seen him before, he must be new. Since he was wearing summer clothes of an extreme carelessness--blue shirt and white trousers and no hat--he was not a resident; residents of Santa F? never admitted that it was a summer resort; they tried to dress as if Santa F? were New York. Well, he'd be around now, riding around the Plaza, playing tennis with Teddy Madden, looking scornfully at the newcomers after he had been there a week, and talking learnedly of Indian customs. He was new, though: she could tell it by the fact that he was taking a trip with her and looking at everything with an ingenuous pleasure. She liked the way he looked out of the window. He was taking it hard.

It made her pensive and reminiscent: his youthful rapt gaze. She thought of the first time she had driven out here, with the couriers' training school. It had been raining; up on Baldy there was a light snow and there was mist around Jemez. She had felt terribly excited. All the other girls told her it was the altitude. Whatever it was, she liked it. And then the bus had come near Espa?ola and the valley.... They were almost there now; she watched the boy like a cat, to see what would happen to him when he saw it.

It was only for a few miles. Beyond, the land lived again, flushed to foliage by the lazy sandy river. Back of all of it were the real mountains, with pine forests and trout streams, but now while Gin and the boy looked at them they were too far off to be green; they were dead dark blue.

"My, that's gloomy," said the cheerful lady from Chicago. "Miss Arnold, is that land good for anything? Does the government own it, or what?"

The men of the party were already saying, "That would be fine for Cousin Sally," and the women were saying, "Now, John, be careful. We've just packed the trunk as it is; we can't buy everything we see," when Gin slipped away. She hurried around the corner of a house and walked down one of the many back paths, trying to get away before someone asked her to argue with an Indian about the price of the bowls. She stopped at one of the screen doors and peeped in. Her friend was at home, making a bowl in the middle of the whitewashed clay floor.

"Oh, come in, Ginny," said Rufina, pushing a chair with her feet. "I heard you coming. How are you? I haven't seen you here for a week. Been sick?"

"No, they sent me to the Canyon all of a sudden, and I just got back yesterday. How's all the family?" A sticky little girl, pursued by flies, climbed up in her lap.

"Not so good. My mother is still sick, but she is getting better. Did you bring many people today?"

"One full load, that's all."

"We have been busy. Yesterday there were so many. Two buses and other people coming by themselves, all day."

Outside the door a bulky shadow fell. It was the lady from Chicago, reconnoitering on her own. Gin wondered if she had been walking into any of the houses without knocking; it sometimes had an oddly infuriating effect on the Indians.

"Oh, there's Miss Arnold right at home in the middle of them. Come here, Eddie, here's the cutest thing. I want you to take a picture of it. Look, here's an Indian making a pot right in her own house. Isn't that darling? Would you think that you were in the States?"

"Come in," said Rufina. They stepped over the threshold and she sat back on her heels, smiling blankly.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet