Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock (early readers txt) 📗

I tried to interest her with narratives of my travels. They seemed—in some way that I could not divine—to fatigue her. "Leave me for a little, Harold," she would say (I forgot to mention that my name is Harold Borus), "I have a pain in my neck." At her own suggestion I had taken a trip around the world. On my return she urged me to go round again. I was going[Pg 155] round for the third time when the wrecking of the steamer had interrupted my trip.

On my own part, too, I am free to confess that my wife's attitude had aroused in me a sense of pique, not to say injustice. I am not in any way a vain man. Yet her attitude wounded me. I would no sooner begin, "When I was in the Himalayas hunting the humpo or humped buffalo," than she would interrupt and say, "Oh, Harold, would you mind going down to the billiard-room and seeing if I left my cigarettes under the billiard-table?" When I returned, she was gone.

By agreement we had arranged for a divorce. On my completion of my third voyage we were to meet in New Orleans. Clara was to go there on a separate ship, giving me the choice of oceans.

Had I met Edith Croyden three months later I should have been a man free to woo and win her. As it was I was bound. I must put a clasp of iron on my feelings. I must wear a mask. Cheerful, helpful, and full of[Pg 156] narrative, I must yet let fall no word of love to this defenceless girl.

After a great struggle I rose at last from the tar-bucket, feeling, if not a brighter, at least a cleaner man.

Dawn was already breaking. I looked about me. As the sudden beams of the tropic sun illumined the placid sea, I saw immediately before me, only a hundred yards away, an island. A sandy beach sloped back to a rocky eminence, broken with scrub and jungle. I could see a little stream leaping among the rocks. With eager haste I paddled the raft close to the shore till it ground in about ten inches of water.

I leaped into the water.

With the aid of a stout line, I soon made the raft fast to a rock. Then as I turned I saw that Miss Croyden was standing upon the raft, fully dressed, and gazing at me. The morning sunlight played in her hair, and her deep blue eyes were as soft as the Caribbean Sea itself.

"Don't attempt to wade ashore, Miss Croy[Pg 157]den," I cried in agitation. "Pray do nothing rash. The waters are simply infested with bacilli."

"But how can I get ashore?" she asked, with a smile which showed all, or nearly all, of her pearl-like teeth.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "there is only one way. I must carry you."

In another moment I had walked back to the raft and lifted her as tenderly and reverently as if she had been my sister—indeed more so—in my arms.

Her weight seemed nothing. When I get a girl like that in my arms I simply don't feel it. Just for one moment as I clasped her thus in my arms, a fierce thrill ran through me. But I let it run.

When I had carried her well up the sand close to the little stream, I set her down. To my surprise, she sank down in a limp heap.

The girl had fainted.

I knew that it was no time for hesitation.

Running to the stream, I filled my hat with water and dashed it in her face. Then I took[Pg 158] up a handful of mud and threw it at her with all my force. After that I beat her with my hat.

At length she opened her eyes and sat up.

"I must have fainted," she said, with a little shiver. "I am cold. Oh, if we could only have a fire."

"I will do my best to make one, Miss Croyden," I replied, speaking as gymnastically as I could. "I will see what I can do with two dry sticks."

"With dry sticks?" queried the girl. "Can you light a fire with that? How wonderful you are!"

"I have often seen it done," I replied thoughtfully; "when I was hunting the humpo, or humped buffalo, in the Himalayas, it was our usual method."

"Have you really hunted the humpo?" she asked, her eyes large with interest.

"I have indeed," I said, "but you must rest; later on I will tell you about it."

"I wish you could tell me now," she said with a little moan.[Pg 159]

Meantime I had managed to select from the driftwood on the beach two sticks that seemed absolutely dry. Placing them carefully together, in Indian fashion, I then struck a match and found no difficulty in setting them on fire.

In a few moments the girl was warming herself beside a generous fire.

Together we breakfasted upon the beach beside the fire, discussing our plans like comrades.

Our meal over, I rose.

"I will leave you here a little," I said, "while I explore."

With no great difficulty I made my way through the scrub and climbed the eminence of tumbled rocks that shut in the view.

On my return Miss Croyden was still seated by the fire, her head in her hands.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "we are on an island."

"Is it inhabited?" she asked.

"Once, perhaps, but not now. It is one of the many keys of the West Indies. Here, in[Pg 160] old buccaneering days, the pirates landed and careened their ships."

"How did they do that?" she asked, fascinated.

"I am not sure," I answered. "I think with white-wash. At any rate, they gave them a good careening. But since then these solitudes are only the home of the sea-gull, the sea-mew, and the albatross."

The girl shuddered.

"How lonely!" she said.

"Lonely or not," I said with a laugh (luckily I can speak with a laugh when I want to), "I must get to work."

I set myself to work to haul up and arrange our effects. With a few stones I made a rude table and seats. I took care to laugh and sing as much as possible while at my work. The close of the day found me still busy with my labours.

"Miss Croyden," I said, "I must now arrange a place for you to sleep."

With the aid of four stakes driven deeply into the ground and with blankets strung upon[Pg 161] them, I managed to fashion a sort of rude tent, roofless, but otherwise quite sheltered.

"Miss Croyden," I said when all was done, "go in there."

Then, with little straps which I had fastened to the blankets, I buckled her in reverently.

"Good night, Miss Croyden," I said.

"But you," she exclaimed, "where will you sleep?"

"Oh, I?" I answered, speaking as exuberantly as I could, "I shall do very well on the ground. But be sure to call me at the slightest sound."

Then I went out and lay down in a patch of cactus plants.

* * * * *

I need not dwell in detail upon the busy and arduous days that followed our landing upon the island. I had much to do. Each morning I took our latitude and longitude. By this I then set my watch, cooked porridge, and picked flowers till Miss Croyden appeared.

With every day the girl came forth from her habitation as a new surprise in her radiant[Pg 162] beauty. One morning she had bound a cluster of wild arbutus about her brow. Another day she had twisted a band of convolvulus around her waist. On a third she had wound herself up in a mat of bulrushes.

With her bare feet and wild bulrushes all around her, she looked as a cave woman might have looked, her eyes radiant with the Caribbean dawn. My whole frame thrilled at the sight of her. At times it was all I could do not to tear the bulrushes off her and beat her with the heads of them. But I schooled myself to restraint, and handed her a rock to sit upon, and passed her her porridge on the end of a shovel with the calm politeness of a friend.

Our breakfast over, my more serious labours of the day began. I busied myself with hauling rocks or boulders along the sand to build us a house against the rainy season. With some tackle from the raft I had made myself a set of harness, by means of which I hitched myself to a boulder. By getting Miss Croyden to beat me over the back with a stick, I found that I made fair progress.[Pg 163]

But even as I worked thus for our common comfort, my mind was fiercely filled with the thought of Edith Croyden. I knew that if once the barriers broke everything would be swept away. Heaven alone knows the effort that it cost me. At times nothing but the sternest resolution could hold my fierce impulses in check. Once I came upon the girl writing in the sand with a stick. I looked to see what she had written. I read my own name "Harold." With a wild cry I leapt into the sea and dived to the bottom of it. When I came up I was calmer. Edith came towards me; all dripping as I was, she placed her hands upon my shoulders. "How grand you are!" she said. "I am," I answered; then I added, "Miss Croyden, for Heaven's sake don't touch me on the ear. I can't stand it." I turned from her and looked out over the sea. Presently I heard something like a groan behind me. The girl had thrown herself on the sand and was coiled up in a hoop. "Miss Croyden," I said, "for God's sake don't coil up in a hoop."[Pg 164]

I rushed to the beach and rubbed gravel on my face.

With such activities, alternated with wild bursts of restraint, our life on the island passed as rapidly as in a dream. Had I not taken care to notch the days upon a stick and then cover the stick with tar, I could not have known the passage of the time. The wearing out of our clothing had threatened a serious difficulty. But by good fortune I had seen a large black and white goat wandering among the rocks and had chased it to a standstill. From its skin, leaving the fur still on, Edith had fashioned us clothes. Our boots we had replaced with alligator hide. I had, by a lucky chance, found an alligator upon the beach, and attaching a string to the fellow's neck I had led him to our camp. I had then poisoned the fellow with tinned salmon and removed his hide.

Our costume was now brought into harmony with our surroundings. For myself, garbed in goatskin with the hair outside, with alligator sandals on my feet and with whiskers at least six inches long, I have no doubt that I[Pg 165] resembled the beau ideal of a cave man. With the open-air life a new agility seemed to have come into my limbs. With a single leap in my alligator sandals I was enabled to spring into a coco-nut tree.

As for Edith Croyden, I can only say that as she stood beside me on the beach in her suit of black goatskin (she had chosen the black spots) there were times when I felt like seizing her in the frenzy of my passion and hurling her into the sea. Fur always acts on me just like that.

It was at the opening of the fifth week of our life upon the island that a new and more surprising turn was given to our adventure. It arose out of a certain curiosity, harmless enough, on Edith Croyden's part. "Mr. Borus," she said one morning, "I should like so much to see the rest of our island. Can we?"

"Alas, Miss Croyden," I said, "I fear that there is but little to see. Our island, so far as I can judge, is merely one of the uninhabited keys of the West Indies. It is nothing but[Pg 166] rock and sand and scrub. There is no life upon it. I fear," I added, speaking as jauntily as I could, "that unless we are taken off it we are destined to stay on it."

"Still I should like to see it," she persisted.

"Come on, then," I answered, "if you are good for a climb we can take a look over the ridge of rocks where I went up on the first day."

We made our way across the sand of the beach, among the rocks and through the close matted scrub, beyond which an eminence of rugged boulders shut out the further view.

Making our way to the top of this we obtained a wide look over the sea. The island stretched away to a considerable distance to the eastward, widening as it went, the complete view of it being shut off by similar and higher ridges of rock.

But it was the nearer view, the foreground, that at once arrested our attention. Edith seized my arm. "Look, oh, look!" she said.

Down just below us on the right hand was