outside their beauty was fun, kindness, and a desire to be friends; from that minute one red-headed puppy-dog found something to live for.

My devotion had nothing to do with the ordinary love-affair. As for marrying her, no such idea entered my loft. I had no jealousies. All I wanted was for her to be near me, to be a friend of mine, and that she might be on hand to approve if I did something surprising. I wanted the privilege of her hearing me talk about myself; and, for the rest of it, I could sit and look at her beauty, the same as you or me could sit and listen to the greatest music. It meant more than just good looks; I wouldn't go too far if I said it was a kind of religion. And the devil take my soul if I forget the horse-sense and kindness that girl used in teaching a foot-loose boy what a different place this world is, from what he'd been like to think it, without her. A young feller's first outpourings toward a woman has more effect on him than even his mother's years of care. He kind of takes mother for granted. The other woman represents his own endeavors. I played in luck.

We were introduced, bang! When about ten feet away from me she took her hand from the rail to gather in one end of a shawl. At that minute the Matilda saw a whale, or something, and shied. We struck the mainmast together, me trying to hold her up. She said, "Why, how do you do?" I said I did very well, and was she hurt? She said, not in the least, thank you, except in her feelings, at being so clumsy. I said, if she was clumsy, why, then, why, then—Now I was a little bashful. Nobody could be a clodhopper who lived with my mother, and ordinarily I acted quite like a man when necessary, but this was a little sudden. I couldn't reach the word I looked for. With one hand braced against the mainmast, her hair standing in a black cloud about her head, the color whipped to her cheeks, she gave me a flash from the corner of her eye: "I'm afraid I lose my compliment," said she.

"The Matilda saw a whale, or something and shied"

Afterward I learned she had liked me from the first, too, and was afraid I mightn't turn out well. Lucky for me I didn't try to show off!

"I wouldn't think it a compliment to compare you to anything on earth!" says I, meaning every word of it.

She laughed out, hearty as a boy. "Royal!" she said, and held out her hand.

"And the hand is the hand of—?" she asked.

 Prev. P 32/117 next