British Columbia -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Revenge -- Fiction; Sawmills -- Fiction
So as things went sweetly, Pete's heart grew sweet and he was sorry
he had kicked at Jenny's legs as she lay under the table, and sorry
he had torn up the pretty silk. After all it was natural enough that
Quin should give her something, and it was natural he wanted her.
But of course he couldn't get her, for she was virtuous and had a
Bible, and knew religion, and believed that Lejaub, or the diable,
would take anyone who was not virtuous. Both the Catholic and the
English priests said that, so it must be true. And, if she had
denied having the dress, he owned that he had often frightened her
and it was natural for her to say she hadn't got it, poor toketie
Jenny. He nobly determined to forgive her and say no more about it.
And then the exultant whistle declared with a hoot that the work was
over for the day, and the engines stopped and the saws whirred and
whined and drawled and yawned and stood still while the workers
clattered out, laughing and quite happy.
Oh, but it's good to be strong and well and to have work, but to have
none and thereby to get to cease to love it is very bad, oh, very bad
indeed. Let the wise know this, as the unwise and ignorant who
labour know it in their hearts and in their hands.
"Oho," said Pete as he strode across the yard, "oho!"
He was nobly determined to forgive. He would go in to Jenny and say,
"Look here, Jenny, I forgive you because you tell that lie, that
kliminwhit. I forgive you, but you be good, kloshe, tell your man no
more kliminwhit."
He came to his silent shack and didn't notice that no smoke, no
cooking smoke, came from its low chimney. He marched in bent on
forgiveness, and found the front room empty.
"She still cly about that silk," said Pete uneasily. He hesitated a
moment before he opened the inner door and called to her.
"Jenny, Jenny."
Silence answers you, Pete, silence and two empty rooms with a table
upset, and some few rags of dirtied silk still left by the predaceous
fingers or claws of the vulturine Annie.
"She velly closs, go out with some other klootchman," said Pete.
"Damn, I beat her again."
It was very hard indeed that he, the Man, should come in ready for
forgiveness and good advice with regard to future lies, and should
find no one meekly ready to accept pardon and to promise rigid truth
in future: it was very hard indeed, and Pete's brows contracted and
his heart was outraged.
"Now I not forgive," said Pete. "She not here, no muckamuck ready
and I so olo, so hungry."
He saw the steak that poor Jenny had cooked for his dinner. It lay
upon the floor, as she had lain on it. It was trodden and filthy and
Pete kicked it spitefully. He saw an old rag of a dress that was
Jenny's. It was the one she had discarded for Annawillee's horrid
yellow rag of quarantine, which said, "I'm Annawillee, be wise and
don't come near me." She had changed at Annie's, but Annie brought
it back and put it in sight. For she was a spiteful devil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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