Within a minute or two of six o'clock that morning the sun rose, and it was broad, staring day. One instant the world was smothered1 in a damp, impenetrable, almost tangible2 grayness; the next, its nakedness lay discovered in a glare of light.
There was a sea of limpid3 lukewarm water heaving slowly; a ribbon of beach, metallic-white; a tangle4 of untended, unproductive vegetation; a village equally untended and unproductive, except of unnecessary babies, where listless brown people moved without much purpose, or, lacking the ambition even to make a show of activity, lolled where they were.
The tropical sun had no magic of half-lights to tinge5 it all with romance or stir it into fugitive6 beauty. Such as Sicaba was at heart, it stood revealed.
When the sun rose, John McGennis rose too, and stood for a moment, unshivering in the lukewarm air, to look down on the poverty of his town, before he turned to pour water over himself out of an old tomato-can.
Like the morning and the sea and the air, the water had no tang in it, and McGennis, drying himself slowly and methodically, felt no fresher for his bath. When a youthful and well-tempered body fails to respond to the caress7 of sluicing8 water, there is generally something wrong with the mind which inhabits it. There was with the mind of McGennis.
The trouble lay outside his window. That compound of staring sky and sea and stared-at village which the day revealed had overwhelmed him. As mere9 geological and botanical facts, Sicaba, Pagros, the Tropics, had proved too big for him. They made of him just a spot of life, meaningless as an ant toiling10 unendingly in the forest of the grass-stems. Tiny dot of intelligence that he found himself, in the midst of those triumphant11 physical forces, McGennis had come to wonder whether anything he could do among them mattered much.
Slowly and methodically, as he had bathed, he dressed—right sock, left sock, right shoe, left shoe, right puttee, left puttee, put the strap12 twice round, haul it through the buckle13 and tuck the end back neatly—and when he was trim in his khaki and yellow leather he stood for a moment with the irresolution14 of inertia15 on him. Then he pulled his knife from his pocket, strode across to the thick corner-post of his room, stooped, and with elaborate care cut a notch16 in the tough, dense17 wood.
The post, from the upward limit of his reach to well down toward his knees, was jagged with such notches18 lying in groups of seven, six side by side, and another cut diagonally across them. They were a calendar of more than ordinary significance, in the mind of its maker19. Each of them represented a day of "Grin, gabble, gobble," each checked off twenty-four hours in which he had stuck by his traditions, greeting every comer with that contortion20 of the lips which, conventionally at least, expresses pleasure, eating sufficient food to keep his body in repair—McGennis reverenced21 his body unthinkingly as an ancient Greek—and in which he had, both in his office and in the primitive23 society of Sicaba, "waggled his jaw," and thereby24 overcome a growing disposition25 to speechlessness.
With the fierce enthusiasm of an ascetic26, he cut these records, ineffaceably deep, on the mornings of the days for which they stood. Thus there could be no going back. Staring at him from the undecaying wood, they warned him that for one more stretch, at least, he must grin, gobble, and gabble, or be a quitter.
They served a more immediately practical purpose also. McGennis had found that it was the first grimace27, the first nibble28 at the food his Occidental stomach loathed29, the first burst of inane30 chatter31, which came hard. Once fairly started, the grin became a veritable smile—how boyish and appealing he had never guessed—the chatter became animated32 question and answer, and his stomach, more fundamentally human than Occidental, found even the food Sicaba afforded preferable to emptiness. But somehow the quiet of the evenings and the stillness of the long nights and the flatness of the dawns brought back continually the question: "What's the use?" and he would have his fight to make all over, with his notch.
On this particular morning, he stood for a while staring at the jagged post which was at once a cenotaph to his departed days and an altar prepared for the sacrifice of days to come. Without counting, McGennis knew that his latest notch rounded out a tale of three hundred and sixty-five. The possibilities of that one post were not exhausted33 yet, and his house held a dozen other posts, virgin34 still, and smooth. And even if he should endure to notch all the posts in all the houses of Sicaba and all the fringing palms along the beach, and all the trees in the primeval forest round about, it would result in—what?
McGennis had met a man once, down in Bacolot, who made a practice of getting as drunk as possible once each month, once and no more. It gave one something definite to look forward and back to, and hope for and regret, he had explained without embarrassment35, and that was an achievement for a white man in the tropics. McGennis, staring glumly36 at the record of his featureless year, felt that perhaps that man was as reasonable as any other.
Then, impulsively37, he stooped again and the knife-blade flashed with mimic38 fierceness as he hacked39 at his post. When he rose there were fourteen new notches in it. He had mortgaged a fortnight of his new year. There was no sense in it, very likely, but it was done, and irrevocable, and therefore comforting in a way. He stood back, and the first smile of the day curled his lips. The fool part of him amused the rest, and he turned to the sala and breakfast with some cheerfulness.
He was making his last few conscientious40 pecks at that meal, when the Municipal Secretary, exalted41 and short-winded personage, climbed his stairs puffingly and stood blinking in the door. McGennis set his cup down and uttered the sound which trustful Sicaba interpreted as the outburst of uncontrollable joy.
"Well, Secretario!" he cried, in his atrocious and unfaltering Spanish. "You're just in time for chocolate. Milicio!" he shouted to his cook.
The Secretary raised a pudgy hand in deprecation, the dignity of an official mission being on him. "It iss dhe lattair, Mr. Magheenis," he announced, holding out a crumpled42 official envelope. "Dhe Supervisor43 Provincial44 sends it wiv a man to running."
Smiling the contented45 smile of a fat man whose exertion46 is over, the Secretary sank into a chair and fanned himself with his hat. "Sena muy importante," he explained more familiarly. "The courier cost two pesos. I brought it over at once."
"A letter by courier and two pesos!" McGennis cried, knowing that surprise was expected. "We're getting up in the world. Excuse me if I read it, Secretario?"
"With pleasure," the Secretary murmured, but McGennis did not hear him. He heard nothing, saw nothing, but those surprising words in the crabbed48 writing of his chief, which changed life in a flash and settled that tormenting49 question once for all.
Twice he read the letter through greedily, before he dropped it to stare out through the open window. A kaleidoscopic50 change had overtaken Botany and Geology. The corner of the weedy plaza51 on which his house fronted now lay fresh and clean under the early sunshine and the salty breeze. Beyond it rose a grove52 of cocoa-palms, with brown-thatched houses nestled in their shade, and between the tall columns of the tree-trunks shot the crisp sparkle of the blue Visayan Sea. All at once, even Sicaba was exuberant53 with life, youthful in beauty, friendly. Half noting the change, McGennis raced along beside his thronging54 thoughts.
What the chief said was true. He had thought he was forgotten and stranded55 in Sicaba. Hastily his mind swept back over the dragging year he was just finishing. Again he saw himself an enthusiastic pilgrim with a work to do. Again he went through the disenchantment; felt the vastness and wildness of the Islands, triumphant Geology and Botany, burst upon him, reminding him for the first time that even an Engineer is only a man at bottom. And once again he felt his disappointment in the people, the simple, childlike, obstinately56 pliant57 folk who listened so interestedly, and opposed the inertia of dead centuries to every improvement. How was one to teach them anything? And why should a deputy provincial supervisor, placed in charge of the roads and bridges and harbors of the whole North Coast, with headquarters at Sicaba, try to create roads and harbors and bridges to supervise? That had become the question finally.
But he had kept on trying, and now a year was up and he had accomplished59 something, even in hopeless Sicaba. The town was a little cleaner for his having lived there. A few people had come to trust "America." And there were roads and bridges and harbors, on the blue-prints in his office. Perhaps it had paid after all. At any rate the people liked him, and he liked them. The fat old Secretario, now—
Just then that patient man interrupted him with the most suppressed of coughs. "Well, Secretario," said McGennis, rousing, "let's drink our chocolate. I must have been dreaming. I hope I haven't kept you waiting long?"
"Only a moment," the visitor assured him, though the Deputy Supervisor's day-dream had lasted long for any dream, "only a moment. I hope," he added, curiosity struggling with courtesy, "that I did not bring bad news."
"Bad news!" McGennis beamed on him. "You brought the best little old news you'll ever tote. Secretario, if you never promulgate60 worse news than that, you'll boost your circulation a thousand a day. It was red news with green edges."
The Secretary could understand the tone, if the words were beyond him, and his smile matched McGennis's own. "I could almost believe," he hinted with elephantine archness, "that the Government has increased your salary."
"Secretario," said McGennis approvingly, "you hit the truth in the eye that time. But that isn't the best of it."
"Not on your life!" McGennis shouted scornfully. "Not on your life, Secretario. They've raised me."
"Raised you," the Secretary murmured uncomprehendingly. Most of McGennis's conversation was half incomprehensible to him, and all the more entertaining just for that. It brought him into touch with words he had never heard of.
"In the eye again," McGennis applauded. "Secretario," he began impressively, smoothing out the crumpled letter, "the Old Man,"—so he spoke64 of his chief, the engineer in charge of the battle with Botany and Geology in the two great provinces of Pagros Oriental y Occidental—"the Old Man has had his eye on me, so he says. And I reckon he means it. Yes, sir, the old telescope has had a sight on yours respectfully clear up here in Sicaba."
"And he says," McGennis quoted freely, "that I haven't made good so worse, and that having watered and weeded the banana tree I shall now open my mouth and let something drop therein. And what, Secretario," McGennis demanded excitedly, "what do you suppose is going to drop?"
"You bet it is," McGennis shouted. "But you don't comprehend enough to notice. Look here, Secretario. You know they're building a road up in the Igorrote country, and the Igarooters won't work, and they're going to put me in charge of the worst section of it and see if I can make 'em work. Will I make them?" he demanded, rhetorically. "Will I? I'm sorry for them already yet."
"Yes," murmured the Secretary. "It is a very good idea. I comprehend with clearness, and up to a certain point I agree—"
"I don't believe it," said McGennis flatly. "Listen, Secretario. I'm going away, sabe? No more Sicaba in mine! No more bridges and harbors in a cat's eye, but some real live Igaroots and a bunch of picks and shovels67 and a road you can see! And dynamite68! Lord, Secretario, you don't know how good it'll seem to hear a real noise again, and—"
McGennis stopped suddenly, for something in his words had at last penetrated69 to the Secretary's understanding. Slowly the worthy70 officer put down his cup. Slowly he got to his feet, and over his broad, dull face a little procession of emotions made its slow way. Jovial71 interest gave place to surprise, surprise to dismay, and at last a heavy hopelessness settled on it. "You go away from Sicaba, Magheenis?" he asked. And then he plumped down into his chair again and sat there, an embodiment of chuckle-headed woe72.
"Lord," said McGennis to himself, looking at his victim contritely73, "I ought not to have tossed it out at him that way."
It was a relief that just at that moment a white-clad native teacher should come to the door of the schoolhouse on the far side of the plaza and ring a bell with nervous, insistent74 strokes. McGennis jerked out his watch, and realized that for the first time in Sicaba he was late in beginning his day. "Stay as long as you want to, Secretario," he called back, rushing for the stairs. The Secretary sat motionless, and McGennis, plunging75 out into the sunshine, felt a second pang76 of contrition77 for having tossed it out so suddenly.
But his regret was only momentary78. Somehow the morning sparkled as never morning had outside God's own country, and the Deputy Supervisor, pushing across the plaza with long, boyish strides, responded to it. "Going away, going away," was the refrain his feet patted out. Away from Sicaba, away from isolation79 and obscurity, out to the big, big chance which waited him. And the chief had been watching him, canny80 old Stewart who said so little and saw so much with those narrowed gray eyes of his; hard-mouthed Stewart, who handled his forces for the overthrow81 of Botany and Geology, down there in Bacolot, as a general handles his troops. And Stewart, whose approval was a grunt82, had said in so many words that he, McGennis, had made good. Truly, it paid to cut your notches and let the Stewarts look out for the meaning of them.
His eager, keen face was so bright, as he cut across the angle where church and convent wall a corner of the plaza, that the men who had been puttering there with stones and cement dropped their work to sing out cheery "Maayong agas" a dozen of them in a volley.
"Maayong aga, amigos," returned McGennis, and hesitated. He was already late for school, but then school is not one of the duties of an engineer in charge of half a province. One of the few duties that isn't his, McGennis had thought sometimes. Still, this school of Sicaba, in a way—
Somehow McGennis's mind was working in quick flashes, and even as he hung there on his heel he saw again just how that school had become one of his duties, and laughed grimly to think of it.
There had been a Maestro in Sicaba once, a bespectacled American from an East effete83 beyond words, but chronic84 indigestion—coupled with a coldness in the feet equally chronic, thought McGennis, with light scorn—had caused his early departure. And then the school, in the hands of four warring native teachers, male and female, had been going to the dogs, until McGennis, with his inherent dislike for seeing anything go to the dogs uncombatted, had, with a deft85 jerk of the wrist, straightened those four warring pedagogues86 into their collars and kept them there, till a Deputy Superintendent88 of Schools had come riding up from Bacolot to see what was to be done about it. McGennis still remembered that trim, slim, innocent-eyed Deputy with regretful admiration89.
"I reckon," McGennis had remarked, with the impersonal90 contempt of an Engineer speaking to a Teacher, "you'll be sending up another glass-eyed Dictionary to snarl91 'em all up—"
"I don't know," the Deputy Superintendent had said thoughtfully. "You've done surprisingly well with them yourself."
"In that case," the Deputy had said, looking at him with smiling innocence93, "I'll let you keep the school, just to fill up the time." And then, unexpectedly, he had swung to his saddle and flicked94 a spurred heel, and gone galloping96 away, his big Colt's swinging at his trim waist, and left McGennis wrathful yet admiring.
"I say, Mr. McGennis," had been his parting shot, "try to keep their accent and vocabulary back as close to the Mississippi as you can, won't you?"
Rather than quit, McGennis had taken the school and kept the restive97 teachers in line by counsel and admonition, and had even, when he was in town, taught for an hour each morning himself, smiling with lofty contempt for his womanish occupation as he revealed to his pupils an accent and vocabulary which had never been east of the Missouri. In a way it was his school, but the work those men were doing at the angle of the plaza was infinitely98 more his work, and, late or not, he swung on his heel for a look at it.
Of all his schemes for the redemption of Sicaba, that culvert and its tributary99 ditches was his pet. It had been a nice problem in drainage in a town whose highest ridge58 rose only a meter above high water, and which yet seemed to have an inexhaustible capacity for getting wet and staying wetter. The water had lain two feet deep all over the plaza, the last rains, and a score of men, fathers of families, had wrapped their faces in their clammy cotton blankets and died stolidly100 of fever, to say nothing of the women and the babies. The babies had been the worst of it. It made him growl101 out ugly curses to see the tiny coffins102 borne out of the church, two and three and four a day, with their tawdry draperies of pink calico draggled and beaten by wind and rain. He had made up his mind that it must stop. And it was stopped now, if Yankee ingenuity103 counted for anything, McGennis thought, as he looked down at the clean green mortar104 of his culvert.
"Is it good?" the foreman of the masons asked anxiously.
The Deputy Supervisor surveyed the work with puckered105 brows. "Fine, Miguel," he said genially106. "Couldn't be better," and the workmen smiled at each other like pleased children.
"Two, three, four days, it will be done," Miguel said proudly.
"Great!" cried his ruler. "You're a hustler. You and I've got a little Irish in us, I reckon, hey?" And then, chuckling108 over the bewilderment his speech had caused, he resumed his light-hearted way to school.
The big, sunny boys' room, where blackboards were fastened incongruously and perilously109 to nipa walls and bright-eyed, white-frocked Oriental youngsters sat at American desks when they must, and drew their legs up to squat110 comfortably at other times, was very cheerful ordinarily, far and away the homiest place in Sicaba. But as McGennis entered, he met a chilly111 air. For eleven months he had been impressing the beauty of punctuality on his charges, and now he had his reward. The children stared with round-eyed disapproval112. The teachers greeted him with frosty courtesy.
With twinkling eyes, McGennis marched to the desk. "I am late," he reported meekly113, "and—I will let Alejandro Angel name my punishment."
That was an inspiration. The angelic Alexander turned stiff with responsibility. "I sink," he announced at last, "we s'all all estay after eschool an' Meestair Magheenis s'all tell dhe estory of dhe Princesa who wass esleepy." A stir of approval greeted his pronouncement. The Sleeping Beauty was dear to the hearts of younger Sicaba.
Having made his peace, McGennis passed on to his own little room. And there, while detachments advanced to storm under his leadership the rough terrain114 of English speech, he fell to thinking again of his wonderful fortune. He would make those Igorrotes work, and he would learn all their legends and crafts and games, and they would be his people. Just as the people of Sicaba were.
McGennis, glancing down at the long bench where a platoon of his people sat with the impishly angelic Alexander at one end—the lower one—and the wan-faced village hunchback at the other, felt a sudden pang. For the first time he realized that some professional pedagogue87, some glass-eyed Dictionary, some heavy-handed, solemn fellow, might have those boys he had made his. If any one must come, he hoped it might be—McGennis ransacked115 his fancy for the sort of man he wanted. And he could not find one! At that he laughed outright116. "You're getting green-eyed," he said to himself, in humorous surprise.
"Teacher, what is green-eye?" demanded the hunchback, and McGennis knew that he had spoken his thought.
"Green-eyed means a gazabo that thinks he's It," he explained promptly; and "What is gazabo, Teacher?" demanded the tireless pursuer after knowledge.
"Time's up," said McGennis laughing. "Rush along the next gang, Alejandro, and if I catch you chewing bunga in school again I'll wring117 your neck, sabe?"
When the one hour of his unmanly work was done and the last detachment had departed, McGennis lingered for a moment in the little room, looking out on the plaza, and his eyes were very thoughtful, almost wistful. "I reckon," he muttered, "a fellow'd hate to leave the Hot Place if he'd been there long enough to get acquainted," and he seized his hat and hurried over to his office in the big, half-ruinous convent which served Sicaba for municipal headquarters. His step was not so wholly buoyant as it had been in the morning, and the world was not quite so youthfully exuberant. Not that it was dead, as he had seen it so often from his window at sunrise. It was simply—homelike.
And in his office, too, buoyancy was lacking. Instead of taking up the work he had laid aside the night before, and it was work which must be finished quickly if he meant to leave his house in order, he sat stupidly for a while, and then, half unconsciously, he reached up to a shelf and took down some blue-prints of work which could not be done for years. Not till all those roads and bridges had some habitation more local than a cat's eye. There was the swamp, Manapla way, a hundred good square miles of rich black mud where cacao would grow like a weed, and only a thousand cubic meters of drainage canal were needed, twelve hundred at the outside—
There was the growing bar at the mouth of Cadiz Viejo river. One jetty, placed knowingly, would scoop118 that out, and there was an ideal place for a dock—McGennis's short brown hand smoothed the curling blue-prints lovingly, as he fell to thinking again of an unescapable successor. Whom could Stewart send? There was Haskins. Haskins had the education, McGennis admitted reverently119, and could draw like a ruling-machine and figure like a comptometer. But Haskins couldn't make a monkey catch fleas121, and the North Coast needed a driver, a hard-handed—and yet not too hard. Brown could make 'em hustle107 all right, but he would have a new fight on every day. What the North Coast needed was a jollier—like Henry? No, Henry was a good fellow all right, but he made things cost like contract work in Frisco, and the North Coast was pitifully poor. What it needed was a contriver122 like—like—well, like—
"Oh, hell!" said McGennis profanely123. Suddenly he stood very straight above his draughting-table, for his door had opened.
The Municipal Secretary and the Municipal Presidente came in. They seemed to radiate an air of funerals, and McGennis's boisterous124 greeting died in his throat. The Secretary halted just inside the door and stood looking down, a lumpish statue of grief. The Presidente, a spare, eager-faced young native, came forward to McGennis's table.
"Damn!" said McGennis softly, looking at him.
"Se?or Magheenis," said the Presidente, "the Se?or Secretario says that you will go away. Assure me that he is mistaken."
"But," said the Presidente, "where go all our plans which we made together? Remember how we talked? You shall teach me how the good Presidentes—the Mayors—in America do, and so shall even Sicaba be made American also."
"I'm sorry, Presidente," said McGennis, "but you see—"
"I comprehend," said the Presidente. "We are too little, too poor, too worthless, to take the strength, the teaching, of a man like you—"
"Oh, cut it out!" McGennis begged.
"It is not to be expected, and I do not expect it, now that I comprehend." There was a simple and impressive dignity in the little Presidente. "But what comes to Sicaba, and to me? Excuse me, Magheenis amigo. I can not talk more now. Before you go I shall see you and thank you, but excuse me now."
"Damn!" said McGennis savagely126, looking after the two silent figures as they went out. "What right have they got," he demanded sharply of Some One, "to expect me to drool away my whole life up here in this God-forsaken hole? Here, you," he shouted roughly to the man-of-all-work about his office, "get my horse saddled up, quick. I've got to ride out and take a look at that cut on the Segovia road."
And so he rode away and escaped a day of unwonted excitement in Sicaba as the news spread. People told it to each other as they stood in twos and threes before the little tiendas, and the greater men of the town, gathered in the earthen-floored café, drank cognac in unusual and dangerous quantities, three and four thimblefuls, some of them; and the school children talked of it, tearfully, and the monkeyish little constabulary soldiers in their lime-washed barrack—McGennis had given them a touch of that pliant mule-driver's wrist of his, once or twice, when their inspector128 had been absent riding along the eighty miles of ladrone-harried coast which was his charge.
In all Sicaba only the Municipal Secretary, sitting in his office with an unlighted cigar between his pudgy fingers, and the young Presidente pacing up and down somewhere in his big house beside Sicaba River, did not speak of McGennis's going.
It was toward the end of the afternoon when the Deputy Supervisor rode back, himself again. Out there in the open, with the sun and wind about him, his brain had cleared. These people had no mortgage on his future. It was a wrench129 breaking old ties, but not to do it in this case would be a piece of—back-beyond-the-foot-hills—sentimentality.
So when he turned into the first street of the little city and a man stepped out from a tienda and asked: "You go away, Se?or Magheenis?" McGennis, jogging along with a smile on his face, was ready for him. "Sure," he said carelessly.
But he was not ready for what followed. For the man put a hand to his mouth and called shrilly130: "It is true," and from every tienda down the length of that long street, men and women came out and stood looking up at him, silently, sorrowfully, questioningly, as if there were something they wanted to understand, and couldn't. Before McGennis was half-way to the plaza, his smile was a savage127 grin, and he had kicked the big horse into a thundering gallop95. And so he rode down between the rows of silent people, looking straight ahead.
He had reached the plaza, and was swinging his horse for the corner where his house was, when the sight of the schoolhouse on the farther side checked him. This hour, just before sunset, had come to be the one playtime hour of his busy days, and he spent it at the school. Not as a teacher, nor among the boys who were his unofficial pupils. At the other end of the school from the boys' room was another equally big room crowded full of girls, and it was there, oddly enough, that McGennis spent the one happy hour when he did not have to be a Deputy Supervisor.
Oddly, for, as McGennis put it, he "had no use for skirts." In his short, tempestuous132 life he had seen many good men wasted for love of women, and far from being curious at their fate and the causes of it, he had drawn133 back into himself till he regarded the softer half of humankind with a suspicion which bordered on hatred134.
But there were women of another sort. Tiny things whose little clinging fingers could hardly circle one of his stubby ones. Wee things of such primal135 innocence that, as they stood unclad at the village wells, with their plump little brown bodies shining in the sun, and their wisps of black hair hanging all draggled about their faces, while their mothers poured water over them, they looked up unabashed if he came riding by, and smiled up friendlily, and lisped "Good-a-mornin'."
Of such women McGennis had no fear, and so it had come about, very gradually, that after all the others were gone, these little ones waited in the big room till McGennis came with a wonderfully colored book, and then, with shining eyes and tiny gurgles of excited laughter, they closed about him and wormed their warm little selves inside his arms and balanced precariously136 on his shoulders, steadying themselves by his hair, and lay piled, a heap of eager heads and forgotten arms and legs, on the big table where the book was, while the Deputy Supervisor revealed to them the thrilling difference between a peach and an apple, and the astonishing unlikeness of either to a violet. And any one who had come unseen on McGennis then, would hardly have known him for a Deputy Supervisor.
McGennis, at the plaza corner, felt suddenly that these friends of his were waiting for him then, and he could not bear to disappoint them. So he swung the big horse and galloped137 across and rolled from his saddle at the schoolhouse door and pushed it open and took one step inside, and stopped.
For from the benches and the crowded table there rose a wail138 of infantile despair, so shrill131 and queerly, pipingly minor139, so very manifestly the outpouring of very tiny broken hearts, that it was like a toy wail, almost ludicrous in its imitation of the real thing.
But McGennis did not smile at it. For an instant he stood, and then he turned and closed the door with fumbling140 fingers, and took the few steps to his horse stumblingly, and climbed heavily into his saddle, and with loose reins141 rode off to his house and went up to his ssla and sat down there, looking blindly out on Sicaba.
"With loose reins rode off to his house."
"With loose reins rode off to his house."
The sunset came, brightened, and faded, and passed away, and night shut down over Sicaba, and still he sat there. His muchacho came to light a lamp, and McGennis sent him away. Later his cook came, speaking authoritatively142 of dinner, and McGennis sent his cook away, too, and sat on in the dark.
At last it was the hour when even Sicaba, for a little while, must seem beautiful to the most hostile critic. It is the hour when the full power of night descends143 upon the world, when the wind dies away to the merest murmur47, and the drone of the surf becomes deep and solemn, and the great yellow stars burn very steadily144 against the soft velvet145 of the sky.
When that hour came, McGennis stirred, and stood up suddenly, and laid his hands on the broad sill of his window and looked down at Sicaba and up to the stars. "Of course I'm going to stay," he muttered impatiently, as if Some One had asked him a question. "But it's up to You. You butted146 into this game, and now You've got to play the cards. Pedro," he called, in quite another voice, "bring a light."
When the light was brought, he sat down at his table and drew pen and paper to him and began to write.
"Donald G. Stewart, C.E.," he wrote, tracing the magic initials with reverent120 care. McGennis would never write C.E. after his own name, unless some day he did the big, big thing which would lead a college to give him the right, honoris causa. He had not the education, he knew that.
"DONALD G. STEWART, C.E.
"Supervisor in Charge
"Provinces Pagros Oriental y Occidental.
"SIR:—I have the honor to request that I do not be transferred to Luzon, because there are some jobs here which are not done yet."
His eyes lighted with whimsical amusement as he thought of those "jobs"; teaching a presidente how to be straight, teaching brown, monkeyish soldiers not to run away, teaching the children—
"The fact is, Mr. Stewart," he wrote with less formality, "that I cannot leave the school which the Dep. Super. Schools kindly147 gave me to occupy my time. I am the best teacher he has got now, I think. You can ask him."
Then formality returned:
"I have the honor to thank you for the kind words you say about me making good. Of course I know they are not so.
"Very respectfully,
"JOHN McGENNIS."
"There," said McGennis, looking down thankfully at his completed letter, for he hated letter-writing, did McGennis, "I reckon that cinches it. When the Old Man reads that, he'll sabe I'm loco enough to let alone. Anyway," he added, "Haskins'll never get the chance to blow about draining Manapla swamp. Haskins has got the education all right, but he couldn't make a bald monkey catch his own fleas."
As he entered his bedroom, holding his chimneyless lamp high that the reek22 of it might not draw into his nostrils148, his eye lighted on the jagged post in the corner. "Well," said McGennis, looking at it, "she's all notched149 up for a couple of weeks, anyhow. I'm that much ahead." The boyish smile curled his firm young lips once more, as the fool part of him began to amuse the other parts. And then, contentedly150, he turned to his canvas cot, with the heavy, blue-gray blankets spread upon it.
It is hard and narrow and monkish151, that couch which the world provides for so many of her fighting men and pioneers, but to McGennis it seemed a Place of Rest.
So may they find it, all my far-wandering friends, when to-night they stretch themselves on the rasping canvas and draw the honest, blue-gray blankets over them.
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1
smothered
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| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
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tangible
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| adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的 | |
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limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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caress
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| vt./n.爱抚，抚摸 | |
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sluicing
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| v.冲洗( sluice的现在分词 )；（指水）喷涌而出；漂净；给…安装水闸 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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strap
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| n.皮带，带子；v.用带扣住，束牢；用绷带包扎 | |
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13
buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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14
irresolution
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| n.不决断，优柔寡断，犹豫不定 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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16
notch
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| n.(V字形)槽口，缺口，等级 | |
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dense
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| a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的 | |
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18
notches
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| n.（边缘或表面上的）V型痕迹( notch的名词复数 )；刻痕；水平；等级 | |
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19
maker
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| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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contortion
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| n.扭弯，扭歪，曲解 | |
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21
reverenced
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| v.尊敬，崇敬( reverence的过去式和过去分词 )；敬礼 | |
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22
reek
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| v.发出臭气；n.恶臭 | |
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23
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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24
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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25
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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26
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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27
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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28
nibble
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| n.轻咬，啃；v.一点点地咬，慢慢啃，吹毛求疵 | |
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29
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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30
inane
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| adj.空虚的，愚蠢的，空洞的 | |
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31
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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32
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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33
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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34
virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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35
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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36
glumly
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| adv.忧郁地，闷闷不乐地；阴郁地 | |
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37
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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38
mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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39
hacked
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| 生气 | |
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40
conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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41
exalted
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| adj.(地位等)高的，崇高的；尊贵的，高尚的 | |
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42
crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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43
supervisor
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| n.监督人，管理人，检查员，督学，主管，导师 | |
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44
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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45
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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46
exertion
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| n.尽力，努力 | |
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47
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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48
crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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49
tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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50
kaleidoscopic
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| adj.千变万化的 | |
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51
plaza
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| n.广场，市场 | |
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52
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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53
exuberant
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| adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的 | |
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54
thronging
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
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55
stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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56
obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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57
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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58
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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59
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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60
promulgate
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| v.宣布；传播；颁布（法令、新法律等） | |
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61
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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62
peg
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| n.木栓，木钉；vt.用木钉钉，用短桩固定 | |
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63
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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64
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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65
sipping
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的现在分词 ) | |
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66
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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67
shovels
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| n.铲子( shovel的名词复数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份v.铲子( shovel的第三人称单数 )；锹；推土机、挖土机等的)铲；铲形部份 | |
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68
dynamite
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| n./vt.(用)炸药(爆破) | |
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69
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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70
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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71
jovial
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| adj.快乐的，好交际的 | |
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72
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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73
contritely
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74
insistent
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| adj.迫切的，坚持的 | |
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75
plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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76
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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77
contrition
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| n.悔罪，痛悔 | |
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78
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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79
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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80
canny
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| adj.谨慎的，节俭的 | |
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81
overthrow
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| v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆 | |
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82
grunt
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| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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83
effete
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| adj.无生产力的，虚弱的 | |
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84
chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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85
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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86
pedagogues
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| n.教师，卖弄学问的教师( pedagogue的名词复数 ) | |
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87
pedagogue
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| n.教师 | |
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88
superintendent
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| n.监督人，主管，总监；(英国)警务长 | |
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89
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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90
impersonal
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| adj.无个人感情的，与个人无关的，非人称的 | |
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91
snarl
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| v.吼叫，怒骂，纠缠，混乱；n.混乱，缠结，咆哮 | |
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92
sarcasm
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| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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93
innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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94
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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95
gallop
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| v./n.(马或骑马等)飞奔；飞速发展 | |
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96
galloping
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| adj. 飞驰的, 急性的 动词gallop的现在分词形式 | |
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97
restive
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| adj.不安宁的，不安静的 | |
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98
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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99
tributary
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| n.支流；纳贡国；adj.附庸的；辅助的；支流的 | |
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100
stolidly
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| adv.迟钝地，神经麻木地 | |
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101
growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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102
coffins
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| n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物 | |
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103
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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104
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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105
puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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106
genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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107
hustle
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| v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌) | |
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108
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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109
perilously
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| adv.充满危险地，危机四伏地 | |
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110
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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111
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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112
disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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113
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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114
terrain
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| n.地面，地形，地图 | |
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115
ransacked
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| v.彻底搜查( ransack的过去式和过去分词 )；抢劫，掠夺 | |
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116
outright
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| adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的 | |
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117
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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118
scoop
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| n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出 | |
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119
reverently
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| adv.虔诚地 | |
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120
reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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121
fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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122
contriver
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| 发明者，创制者，筹划者 | |
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profanely
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| adv.渎神地，凡俗地 | |
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boisterous
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| adj.喧闹的，欢闹的 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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128
inspector
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| n.检查员，监察员，视察员 | |
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129
wrench
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| v.猛拧；挣脱；使扭伤；n.扳手；痛苦，难受 | |
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shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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tempestuous
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| adj.狂暴的 | |
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133
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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primal
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| adj.原始的；最重要的 | |
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precariously
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| adv.不安全地；危险地；碰机会地；不稳定地 | |
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galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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140
fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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authoritatively
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| 命令式地，有权威地，可信地 | |
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descends
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| v.下来( descend的第三人称单数 )；下去；下降；下斜 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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butted
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| 对接的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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148
nostrils
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| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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notched
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| a.有凹口的，有缺口的 | |
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contentedly
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| adv.心满意足地 | |
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monkish
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| adj.僧侣的，修道士的，禁欲的 | |
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