Angel Island - Inez Haynes Gillmore (novels to improve english .TXT) 📗

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“You’re on,” Ralph said in a disgusted tone. “Foxy little devils!”

 

“Gee, it must have hurt!” Honey exclaimed. “They must have been torn to

ribbons at first. Some pluck, believe me!”

 

“I bet you dollars to doughnuts, Julia’s at the bottom of it,” remarked

Pete.

 

“No question about that,” Frank commented. “Julia thinks.”

 

“Considerable bean, too,” said Honey. “Well, we’ve got to put a stop to

it tonight.”

 

“Sure!” Ralph agreed. “Read the riot act the instant we get home. By the

Lord Harry, if it’s necessary I’ll tie my wife up!”

 

“I never could do that,” said Pete.

 

“Nor I,” said Frank.

 

“Nor I,” said Honey. “But I don’t think we’ll have to resort to violent

measures. We’ve only got to appeal to their love; I can twist Lulu right

round my finger that way.”

 

“I guess you’re right,” Ralph smiled. “That always fetches them.”

 

“I don’t anticipate any real trouble from this,” Billy went on as though

arguing with himself. “We’ve got to take it at the start, though. We

can’t have Angela flying after she’s grown.”

 

“Sure,” said Honey, “it’ll blow over in a few days. But now that they

can walk, let’s offer to teach them how to dance and play tennis and

bocci and golf. And I’ll tell you what - we’ll lay out some gardens for

them - make them think they’re beautifying the place. We might even

teach them how to put up shelves and a few little carpentering tricks

like that. That’ll hold them for a while. Oh, you’ll all come round to

my tactics sooner or later! Pay them compliments! Give them presents!

Jolly them along! And say, it will be fun to have some mixed doubles.

Gee, though, they’ll be something fierce now they’ve learned how to

walk. They’ll be here half the time. They’ll have so many ideas how the

New Camp ought to be built and a woman is such an obstinate cuss. Asking

questions and arguing and interfering - they delay things so. We’ve got

to find out something harmless that’ll keep them busy.”

 

“Oh, we never can have them here - never in the world,” Ralph agreed.

“But we’ll fix them tonight. How about it, old top?” he inquired

jovially of Frank.

 

Frank did not answer.

 

In point of fact they did not “fix” the women that night, owing to the

simple reason that they found the camp deserted - not a sign of woman or

child in sight or hearing.

 

“Well, there’s one thing about it,” Ralph said on their way back to the

New Camp the next morning, “you can always beat any woman’s game by just

ignoring it. They can stand anything but not being noticed. Now our play

is to do nothing and say nothing. They’re on this island somewhere. They

can’t walk off it, and they can’t swim off it, and they can’t fly off

it. They may stay away for day or more or possibly two. By the end of

week they’ll certainly be starved out. And they’ll be longing for our

society. We want to keep right at work as if nothing had happened. Let

them go and come as they please. But we take no notice - see! We’ve done

that once before and we can do it again. When they come home, they’ll be

a pretty tired-out, hungry, discouraged gang of girls. I bet we never

hear another word out of them on this subject.”

 

The men worked as usual the whole morning; but they talked less. They

were visibly preoccupied. At every pause, they glanced furtively up the

trail. When noon came, it was evident that they dropped their tools with

relief. They sat with their eyes glued to the path.

 

“Here they come!” Billy exclaimed at last.

 

The men did not speak; nor until they came to the little knoll that

debouched from the trail did the women. Again Julia acted as spokesman.

“We have given you a night to think this matter over,” she said briefly.

“What is your decision? Shall Angela’s wings go uncut?”

 

“No, by God! ” burst out Ralph. “No daughter of mine is going to fly. If

you - .”

 

But with a silencing gesture, Billy interposed. “Aren’t you women

happy?” he asked.

 

“Oh, no,” Julia answered. “Of course we’re not. I mean we have one kind

of happiness - the happiness that come’s from being loved and having a

home and children. But there is another kind of happiness of which when

you cut our wings we were no longer capable - the happiness that comes

from a sense of absolute freedom. We can bear that for ourselves, but

not for our daughters. Angela and all the girl-children who follow her

must have the freedom that we have lost. Will you give it to them?”

 

“No!” Ralph yelled. And “Go home!” Honey said brutally.

 

The women turned.

 

A dead tree grew by the knoll, one slender limb stretching across its

top to the lake. Peachy ran nimbly along this limb until she came as

near to the tip as her weight would permit. She stood there an instant

balancing herself; then she walked swiftly back and forth. Finally she

jumped to the ground, landing squarely on her feet. She ran like a deer

to join the file of women.

 

Involuntarily the men applauded.

 

“Remember the time when they first came to the island,” Ralph said, “how

she was proud like a lion because she managed to hold herself for an

instant on a tree-branch? Her wings were helping her then. Now it’s a

real balancing act. Some stunt that! By Jove, she must have been

practising tightrope walking.” In spite of his scowl, a certain

tenderness, half of past admiration, half of present pride, gleamed in

his eyes.

 

“You betchu they have. They’ve been practising running and jumping and

leaping and vaulting and God only knows what else. Well, we’ve only got

to keep this up two or three days longer and they’ll come back.” Honey

spoke in a tone which palpably he tried to make jaunty. In spite of

himself, there was a wavering note of uncertainty in it.

 

“Oh, we’ll get them yet!” Ralph said. “How about it, old fellow?” Ralph

had never lost his old habit of turning to Frank in psychological

distress.

 

But Frank again kept silence.

 

“Betchu we find them at home tonight,” Honey said as they started down

the trail an hour ahead of time. “Who’ll take me. Come!”

 

No one took him, luckily for Honey. There was no sign of life that

night, nor the next, nor the next. And in the meantime, the women did

not manifest themselves once during the daytime at the New Camp.

 

“God, we’ve got to do something about this,” Ralph said at the end of

five days. “This is getting serious. I want to see Angela. I hadn’t any

idea I could miss her so much. It seems as if they’d been gone for a

month. They must have been preparing for this siege for weeks. Where the

thunder are they hiding - in the jungle somewhere, of course?”

 

“Oh, of course,” Honey assented. “I miss the boys, too,” he mourned, “I

used to have a frolic with them every morning before I left and every

night when I got home.”

 

“And it’s all so uncomfortable living alone,” Ralph grumbled. He was

unshaven. The others showed in various aspects of untidiness the lack of

female standards.

 

“I’m so sick of my own cooking,” Honey complained.

 

“Not so sick as we are,” said Pete.

 

“Anybody can have my job that wants it,” Honey volunteered with a touch

of surliness unusual with him.

 

At noon the five women appeared again at the end of the trail.

 

In contrast to the tired faces and dishevelled figures of the men, they

presented an exquisite feminine freshness, hair beautifully coiled,

garments spotless and unwrinkled. But although their eyes were like

stars and their cheeks like flowers, their faces were serious; a dew, as

of tears lately shed, lay over them.

 

“Shall Angela fly?”’ Julia asked without parley.

 

The women turned.

 

“Wait a moment,” Frank called in a sudden tone of authority. “I’m with

you women in this. If you’ll let me join your forces, I’ll fight on your

side.”

 

He had half-covered the distance between them before Julia stopped him

with a “Wait a moment!” as decisive as his own.

 

“In the first place,” she said, “we don’t want your help. If we don’t

get this by our own efforts, we’ll never value it. In the second place,

we’ll never be sure of it. We don’t trust you - quite. You tricked us

once. That was your fault. If you trick us again, that’s our fault.

Thank you - but no, Frank.”

 

The women disappeared down the trail while still the men stood staring.

 

“Well, can you beat it?” was the only comment for a moment - and that

came from Pete. In another instant, they had turned on Merrill, were

upbraiding him hotly for what they called his treason.

 

“You can’t bully me,” was his unvarying answer. “Remember, any time they

call on me, I’ll fight for them.”

 

“Well, you can do what you want with your own wife, of course,” Ralph

said, falling into one of his black rages. “But I’m damned if you’ll

encourage mine.”

 

“Boys,” he added later, after a day of steadily increasing rage, “I’m

tired of this funny business. Let’s knock off work to-morrow and hunt

them. What gets me is their simplicity. They don’t seem to have

calculated on our superior strength. It won’t take us more than a few

hours to run them to earth. By God, I wish we had a pair of

bloodhounds.”

 

“All right,” said Billy. “I’m with you, Ralph. I’m tired of this.”

 

“Let’s go, to bed early tonight,” said Pete, and start at sunrise.”

 

“Well,” said Honey philosophically, “I’ve hunted deer, bear, panther,

buffalo, Rocky Mountain sheep, jaguar, lion, tiger, and rhinoceros - but

this is the first time I ever hunted women.”

 

They started at sunrise - all except Frank, who refused to have anything

to do with the expedition - and they hunted all day. At sunset they

camped where they fell exhausted. They went back to the search the next

day and the next and the next and the next.

 

And nowhere did they find traces of their prey.

 

“Where are they? Ralph said again and again in a baffled tone. “They

couldn’t have flown away, could they?”

 

And, as often as he asked this question, his companions answered it in

the varying tones of their fatigue and their despair. “Of course they

couldn’t - their wings were too short.”

 

“Still,” Frank said once. “It’s now long past the half-yearly shearing

period.” He added in another instant, “I don’t think, though, that their

wings could more than lift them.”

 

“Well, it’s evident, wherever they are, they won’t budge until we go

back to work,” Billy said at the end of a week. “This is useless and

hopeless.”

 

The next day they returned to the New Camp.

 

“Here they come,” Billy called joyously that noon. “Thank God!” he added

under his breath.

 

Again the five women appeared at the beginning of the trail. Their faces

were white now, hollow and lined; but as ever, they bore a look of

extraordinary pristineness. And this time they brought the children.

Angela lay in her mother’s arms like a wilted flower. Her wings sagged

forlornly and her feet were bandaged. But stars of a brilliant blue

flared