“You're goin' to get your head beaten off if you don't make yourself scarce pretty lively.”
“I wouldn't want that to happen for the world,” Billy drawled. “Come on, Saxon. This neighborhood's unhealthy for us.”
He started to go on with her, but Long thrust in front again.
Billy scratched his head, on his face exaggerated puzzlement.
“No, I don't get you,” he said. “Now just what was it you said?”
But the big blacksmith turned contemptuously away from him to Saxon.
“Come here, you. Let's see your program.”
“Do you want to dance with him?” Billy asked.
She shook her head.
“Sorry, sport, nothin' doin',” Billy said, again making to start on.
For the third time the blacksmith blocked the way.
“Get off your foot,” said Billy. “You're standin' on it.”
Long all but sprang upon him, his hands clenched8, one arm just starting back for the punch while at the same instant shoulders and chest were coming forward. But he restrained himself at sight of Billy's unstartled body and cold and cloudy eyes. He had made no move of mind or muscle. It was as if he were unaware9 of the threatened attack. All of which constituted a new thing in Long's experience.
“Yep, I do,” Billy answered airily. “You're a record-breaker at rough-housin'.” (Here Long's face showed pleasure.) “You ought to have the Police Gazette diamond belt for rough-housin' baby buggies'. I guess there ain't a one you're afraid to tackle.”
“Leave 'm alone, Charley,” advised one of the young men who had crowded about them. “He's Bill Roberts, the fighter. You know'm. Big Bill.”
“I don't care if he's Jim Jeffries. He can't butt in on me this way.”
Nevertheless it was noticeable, even to Saxon, that the fire had gone out of his fierceness. Billy's name seemed to have a quieting effect on obstreperous11 males.
“Do you know him?” Billy asked her.
She signified yes with her eyes, though it seemed she must cry out a thousand things against this man who so steadfastly12 persecuted13 her. Billy turned to the blacksmith.
“Look here, sport, you don't want trouble with me. I've got your number. Besides, what do we want to fight for? Hasn't she got a say so in the matter?”
“No, she hasn't. This is my affair an' yourn.”
Billy shook his head slowly. “No; you're in wrong. I think she has a say in the matter.”
“Well, say it then,” Long snarled at Saxon, “who're you goin' to go with?—me or him? Let's get it settled.”
For reply, Saxon reached her free hand over to the hand that rested on Billy's arm.
“Nuff said,” was Billy's remark.
Long glared at Saxon, then transferred the glare to her protector.
Saxon was elated as they started to move away. Lily Sanderson's fate had not been hers, and her wonderful man-boy, without the threat of a blow, slow of speech and imperturbable15, had conquered the big blacksmith.
“He's forced himself upon me all the time,” she whispered to Billy. “He's tried to run me, and beaten up every man that came near me. I never want to see him again.”
Billy halted immediately. Long, who was reluctantly moving to get out of the way, also halted.
“She says she don't want anything more to do with you,” Billy said to him. “An' what she says goes. If I get a whisper any time that you've been botherin' her, I'll attend to your case. D'ye get that?”
“D'ye get that?” Billy repeated, more imperatively17.
“All right, then. See you remember it. An' now get outa the way or I'll walk over you.”
Long slunk back, muttering inarticulate threats, and Saxon moved on as in a dream. Charley Long had taken water. He had been afraid of this smooth-skinned, blue-eyed boy. She was quit of him—something no other man had dared attempt for her. And Billy had liked her better than Lily Sanderson.
Twice Saxon tried to tell Billy the details of her acquaintance with Long, but each time was put off.
“I don't care a rap about it,” Billy said the second time. “You're here, ain't you?”
But she insisted, and when, worked up and angry by the recital20, she had finished, he patted her hand soothingly21.
“It's all right, Saxon,” he said. “He's just a big stiff. I took his measure as soon as I looked at him. He won't bother you again. I know his kind. He's a dog. Roughhouse? He couldn't rough-house a milk wagon22.”
“But how do you do it?” she asked breathlessly. “Why are men so afraid of you? You're just wonderful.”
He smiled in an embarrassed way and changed the subject.
“Say,” he said, “I like your teeth. They're so white an' regular, an' not big, an' not dinky little baby's teeth either. They're ... they're just right, an' they fit you. I never seen such fine teeth on a girl yet. D'ye know, honest, they kind of make me hungry when I look at 'em. They're good enough to eat.”
At midnight, leaving the insatiable Bert and Mary still dancing, Billy and Saxon started for home. It was on his suggestion that they left early, and he felt called upon to explain.
“It's one thing the fightin' game's taught me,” he said. “To take care of myself. A fellow can't work all day and dance all night and keep in condition. It's the same way with drinkin'—an' not that I'm a little tin angel. I know what it is. I've been soused to the guards an' all the rest of it. I like my beer—big schooners23 of it; but I don't drink all I want of it. I've tried, but it don't pay. Take that big stiff to-night that butted24 in on us. He ought to had my number. He's a dog anyway, but besides he had beer bloat. I sized that up the first rattle25, an' that's the difference about who takes the other fellow's number. Condition, that's what it is.”
“But he is so big,” Saxon protested. “Why, his fists are twice as big as yours.”
“That don't mean anything. What counts is what's behind the fists. He'd turn loose like a buckin' bronco. If I couldn't drop him at the start, all I'd do is to keep away, smother26 up, an' wait. An' all of a sudden he'd blow up—go all to pieces, you know, wind, heart, everything, and then I'd have him where I wanted him. And the point is he knows it, too.”
“You're the first prizefighter I ever knew,” Saxon said, after a pause.
“I'm not any more,” he disclaimed27 hastily. “That's one thing the fightin' game taught me—to leave it alone. It don't pay. A fellow trains as fine as silk—till he's all silk, his skin, everything, and he's fit to live for a hundred years; an' then he climbs through the ropes for a hard twenty rounds with some tough customer that's just as good as he is, and in those twenty rounds he frazzles out all his silk an' blows in a year of his life. Yes, sometimes he blows in five years of it, or cuts it in half, or uses up all of it. I've watched 'em. I've seen fellows strong as bulls fight a hard battle and die inside the year of consumption, or kidney disease, or anything else. Now what's the good of it? Money can't buy what they throw away. That's why I quit the game and went back to drivin' team. I got my silk, an' I'm goin' to keep it, that's all.”
“It must make you feel proud to know you are the master of other men,” she said softly, aware herself of pride in the strength and skill of him.
“It does,” he admitted frankly28. “I'm glad I went into the game—just as glad as I am that I pulled out of it.... Yep, it's taught me a lot—to keep my eyes open an' my head cool. Oh, I've got a temper, a peach of a temper. I get scared of myself sometimes. I used to be always breakin' loose. But the fightin' taught me to keep down the steam an' not do things I'd be sorry for afterward29.”
“Why, you're the sweetest, easiest tempered man I know,” she interjected.
“Don't you believe it. Just watch me, and sometime you'll see me break out that bad that I won't know what I'm doin' myself. Oh, I'm a holy terror when I get started!”
This tacit promise of continued acquaintance gave Saxon a little joy-thrill.
“Say,” he said, as they neared her neighborhood, “what are you doin' next Sunday?”
“Nothing. No plans at all.”
“Well, suppose you an' me go buggy-riding all day out in the hills?”
She did not answer immediately, and for the moment she was seeing the nightmare vision of her last buggy-ride; of her fear and her leap from the buggy; and of the long miles and the stumbling through the darkness in thin-soled shoes that bruised30 her feet on every rock. And then it came to her with a great swell31 of joy that this man beside her was not such a man.
“I love horses,” she said. “I almost love them better than I do dancing, only I don't know anything about them. My father rode a great roan war-horse. He was a captain of cavalry32, you know. I never saw him, but somehow I always can see him on that big horse, with a sash around his waist and his sword at his side. My brother George has the sword now, but Tom—he's the brother I live with says it is mine because it wasn't his father's. You see, they're only my half-brothers. I was the only child by my mother's second marriage. That was her real marriage—her love-marriage, I mean.”
Saxon ceased abruptly33, embarrassed by her own garrulity34; and yet the impulse was strong to tell this young man all about herself, and it seemed to her that these far memories were a large part of her.
“Go on an' tell me about it,” Billy urged. “I like to hear about the old people of the old days. My people was along in there, too, an' somehow I think it was a better world to live in than now. Things was more sensible and natural. I don't exactly say what I mean. But it's like this: I don't understand life to-day. There's the labor35 unions an' employers' associations, an' strikes', an' hard times, an' huntin' for jobs, an' all the rest. Things wasn't like that in the old days. Everybody farmed, an' shot their meat, an' got enough to eat, an' took care of their old folks. But now it's all a mix-up that I can't understand. Mebbe I'm a fool, I don't know. But, anyway, go ahead an' tell us about your mother.”
“Well, you see, when she was only a young woman she and Captain Brown fell in love. He was a soldier then, before the war. And he was ordered East for the war when she was away nursing her sister Laura. And then came the news that he was killed at Shiloh. And she married a man who had loved her for years and years. He was a boy in the same wagon-train coming across the plains. She liked him, but she didn't love him. And afterward came the news that my father wasn't killed after all. So it made her very sad, but it did not spoil her life. She was a good mother and a good wife and all that, but she was always sad, and sweet, and gentle, and I think her voice was the most beautiful in the world.”
“She was game, all right,” Billy approved.
“And my father never married. He loved her all the time. I've got a lovely poem home that she wrote to him. It's just wonderful, and it sings like music. Well, long, long afterward her husband died, and then she and my father made their love marriage. They didn't get married until 1882, and she was pretty well along.”
More she told him, as they stood by the gate, and Saxon tried to think that the good-bye kiss was a trifle longer than just ordinary.
“How about nine o'clock?” he queried across the gate. “Don't bother about lunch or anything. I'll fix all that up. You just be ready at nine.”
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1
doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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ballroom
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| n.舞厅 | |
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3
promenading
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| v.兜风( promenade的现在分词 ) | |
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4
butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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6
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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7
snarled
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| v.（指狗）吠，嗥叫， （人）咆哮( snarl的过去式和过去分词 )；咆哮着说，厉声地说 | |
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8
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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10
bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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11
obstreperous
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| adj.喧闹的，不守秩序的 | |
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12
steadfastly
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| adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝 | |
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13
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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14
gritted
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| v.以沙砾覆盖（某物），撒沙砾于( grit的过去式和过去分词 )；咬紧牙关 | |
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15
imperturbable
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| adj.镇静的 | |
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16
glowered
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| v.怒视( glower的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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imperatively
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| adv.命令式地 | |
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growl
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| v.（狗等）嗥叫，（炮等）轰鸣；n.嗥叫，轰鸣 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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soothingly
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| adv.抚慰地，安慰地；镇痛地 | |
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22
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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24
butted
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| 对接的 | |
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rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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smother
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| vt./vi.使窒息；抑制；闷死；n.浓烟；窒息 | |
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27
disclaimed
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| v.否认( disclaim的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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30
bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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31
swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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32
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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33
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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34
garrulity
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| n.饶舌，多嘴 | |
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35
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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