Auld Jeremiah/Chapter 9

“So, you see, sister, dear,” said the sign painter, “it has come out just as I predicted. True art must always find its proper level of appreciation, whether in the exposition, upon the operatic stage, or spread upon a sign. Here is a letter from the Town & Country Sign Painting Company, inclosing a check for three hundred and fifteen dollars for our last month's work. Read it aloud that I may bask anew in the sunshine of achievement.”

Ailsa picked up the typewritten sheet, and read as follows:

Ailsa clapped her hands. “That is splendid!” she cried, with a warm look at Joshua.

“It's all your doings, sister, dear. Now listen to this:

“So, you see, sister,” said Joshua, “you get raised to seventy-five dollars a month. Now that we've got the swing of working together on this 'Epic' series, we can splash 'em off in half the time. I'm thinking of putting you on a regular twenty-five-per-cent basis; I believe you'd earn a good deal over your seventy-five dollars a month that way, and I wouldn't feel so conscience-stricken about working you to death.”

“You are very good to me,” said Ailsa.

“Not a bit of it, any more than the company is good to me. It's merely good business on my part, just as it is on theirs. 'The laborer is worthy of his hire.' Well, our work here is finished, so it's back to town for ours.” He sighed.

“This farmer seems a good, honest sort of Dutchman, and he says that he'll keep Dobbin for his use as long as I like. As this is Sunday, we might as well stop here to-night, and go into town to-morrow morning. The farmer can take our stuff in early, when he goes to the station with the milk, and we can walk to the railroad and catch a train at about nine. It's only about a mile to the depot. I'll have him buy our tickets and check the stuff, so that we won't have to bother.”

“Have you anything in mind for the whisky signs?” Ailsa asked.

“Been thinking about that. I did some things around Dornoch that weren't so bad. There was one of an old inn at the Bonar Bridge across the Moray Firth. I could use that if I can manage to get hold of it. Just the thing. A knot of bushy-faced, kilted old guzzlers in front of the inn, with a beauteous Hieland lassie serving out 'a drap whusky' from a bottle of 'auld peet rick,' conspicuously labeled. In the distance, hills covered with the bonny purple heather, and a glimpse of the Moray Firth. What?”

“It would be perfect!” said Ailsa, with a little pang of homesickness, for she knew the spot well. “Where is your canvas?”

“I sold it to an old coot for five dollars once when I was hard up, before I had arrived at my present state of public recognition. He bought it to leave in his will to somebody he didn't like. As I have seen nothing in the papers of his demise, it's probably still stowed away in the attic. No doubt I can bribe his butler to lend it to me. But there's one thing I balk dead at—you can't paint with me in town.”

“And why not, pray?” Ailsa demanded crisply.

“You are too—spectacular. It would draw a crowd, and then some fresh guy would say something, and I'd poke him, and we'd both get pinched.”

“And who would dare pinch me?” Ailsa demanded hotly, having taken the statement in its literal sense.

“The large Hibernian in blue and brass buttons who preserves the public peace of the quarter where we might be engaged. No, I will give you a short vacation while I am doing the whisky signs. Besides, you would not care to be an exploiter of strong drink, would you?”

“Indeed, it is all in the day's work, and I am going to help, and you will see that nobody dares to molest me. Pinch me!” The high color flamed in her charming face. “I should like to see them try!”

Joshua looked at her, and laughed, but there was a slightly breathless tone to his mirth. Their eyes met across the well-garnished breakfast table, and for some reason Ailsa's dark lashes fluttered down, and the red blood glowed through the clear, tanned skin of the sign painter's lean face. He rose suddenly.

“Come!” said he almost curtly. “It's a lovely morning. What do you say to a stroll?”

Ailsa agreed, and went to get her hat and parasol, while Joshua walked out to the barn to say good morning to Dobbin and to liberate the squealing Mac. As their work had finished not far from the shores of the Sound, Joshua suggested that they have their lunch put up by the farmer's wife, and spend the day picnicking on the beach. To this Ailsa blithely agreed, and half an hour later found them sauntering leisurely down a sandy little road that wound through a grove of stunted pines and came out upon a broad, shingly stretch of beach on the edge of a bay, at the head of which was a snug port.

They seated themselves under the shade of a tree, and for some minutes neither spoke. Somehow, of late the sign painter's constant ebullition of high spirits appeared to have deserted him, while Ailsa, too, seemed to have fallen into the habit of long, musing silences. These came particularly when at times in the course of their work he insisted that she rest for a while. Then she would seat herself on the grass, and stroke Mac's wiry coat, while her eyes never left the square, athletic figure of Joshua as he painted away with his characteristic swift, sweeping strokes.

He was a much faster worker than the girl, though lacking in her truer sense of color and draftsmanship, and it was always Ailsa who pulled the picture together in the end, giving it the magic touch of life and motion that raised their joint production so far above others of the same character, and made of what might otherwise have been a blot upon the fair face of nature something that pleasantly attracted and held the eye of the casual observer.

For some time neither spoke. A faint draft of air from the north scattered the face of the water with sparkling jewels, and brought to them the briny odor of sun-dried kelp, for the tide was far out. Ailsa was sitting with her hands clasped about her knees, her gray eyes half screened by their long, dark lashes, and a faint smile on her full red lips as she watched Mac bounding joyously out into the wavelets that lapped the beach. Joshua, a little behind and to the left of her, watched Ailsa.

Both were in their holiday attire—Joshua in blue serge and negligee shirt. his coat thrown aside, and the sleeves rolled back from his muscular forearms; and Ailsa in a short skirt of light tweed, with a short-sleeved blouse and a little straw hat. Her clear complexion was ruddy with health, and in the bright morning sunlight her fine-spun, heavy hair shone like burnished copper.

Joshua studied the soft contour of her cheek, the delicate profile of the straight, pretty little nose, with its piquant suggestion of an upward tilt, the round but girlish bosom, and the soft bare forearms, and sighed like a porpoise that is glad to get to the surface. Ailsa, being far from deaf, heard the sigh, and turned, with a teasing smile on her fresh, pretty mouth.

“There you go again!” said she. “I told you not to eat so many waffles.” She looked at him critically, but with a misty softness in her eyes. “And if you don't look out you will be getting fat. There are two black, suspicious-looking lines on the wrong side of your belt buckle.”

There are also some dark, suspicious shadows in my soul,” said Joshua. “I am sad at the thought of going back to the hot and evil city.”

“You cannot be expecting to live always in Arcady.”

“That is why I make noises like a grampus coming up to blow. The waffles are the least of my troubles.”

And what is the greatest?” she asked, then turned to throw a stone for Mac.

“The future,” he answered; “or rather, the lack of it. There really isn't much ahead for a sign painter. At least, there isn't for this one. Now, with you it is different. Your talent is protesting against strewing pearls of art before commuting swine, even if you are not. So far it has done you no harm, because you have learned things about covering big surfaces. Some day you will be doing frescoes for lobster palaces and statehouses. Each sign that you have worked on has marked an upward step in your ability, while for some time I have been pivoting uncertainly on the tight rope of my perihelion.”

She turned and threw him a baffling little smile. Her eyes were very tender.

“So it is the jealousy that is bothering you?”

“No. Selfishness. I realize that it is only a question of time before I lose you.”

“Indeed? And what if I prefer to continue painting signs?”

“You have too good sense for that.”

“And how about yourself?” she asked gently. “Are you going to be content always to paint signs?” The look that she gave him was intense.

“'Fraid not. When I lose you I shall probably have a whack at something else. You might not think it, but I am a very versatile man. I can drive a bus, mix drinks, run an elevator, chop tickets, shove a lawn mower—oh, there's scarcely any limit to my accomplishments. Maybe I can get on the police force.”

She turned and fastened her gray eyes eyes severely upon him.

“You are not to be bitter,” said she, “or you may lose your assistant sooner than you think. You have never been that way until just lately, and if you keep on you will make me think that I am having a bad effect upon you, and that will never do at all. Do you know”—she regarded him speculatively through half-closed eyes—"sometimes I find myself wondering who and what you really are. It's plain enough that you are a gentleman born.”

There came a sudden yelp from Mac. Nosing a large crab with quick backward snatches of his head, the dog had grown a little overconfident, with the result that one of the strong pincers had fastened suddenly upon his lip.

“Ki-yi-yi!” shrieked Mac; and Ailsa scrambled to her feet. But Joshua—and one can scarcely blame him—had snatched up a pebble and shied it at the source of interruption. His aim was unintentionally good, for the stone, which was about the size of a pigeon's egg, struck the unfortunate animal full in the ribs, thus adding to his trouble.

“Ow-wow-wow' sang Mac, and flung his head in air. The crab was filliped high, landed in the water, and scuttled off, while Mac hurried, sneezing, to his adopted mistress, and flopped down, panting, at her feet.

Ailsa turned an angry face to Joshua.

“How can you be so cruel?” she cried,

“I didn't mean to hit him; and, anyway, you must admit it proved an excellent counterirritant,”

She turned her back squarely on him, and began to unlace her little shoes.

“What are you doing?” asked Joshua meekly.

“I am going in wading. You had better go and look for a spring.”

And Joshua went.