CHAPTER XXXII

We found only one white woman at Karluk, the wife of the manager of the cannery, a refined and accomplished lady.

Her home was in San Francisco, but she spent the summer months with her husband at Karluk.

We were taken ashore in a boat and were most hospitably received in her comfortable home.

About two o 'clock in the afternoon we boarded a barge and were towed by a very small, but exceedingly noisy, launch up the Karluk River to the hatcheries, which are maintained by the Alaska Packers Association.

It was one of those soft, cloudy afternoons when the coloring is all in pearl and violet tones, and the air was sweet with rain that did not fall. The little make-believe river is very narrow, and so shallow that we were constantly in danger of running aground. We tacked from one side of the stream to the other, as the great steamers do on the Yukon.

On this little pearly voyage, a man who accompanied us told a story which clings to the memory.

"Talk about your big world," said he. "You think it 'u'd be easy to hide yourself up in this God-forgotten place, don't you? Just let me tell you a story. A man come up here a few years ago and went to work. He never did much talkin'. If you ast him a question about hisself or where he come from, he shut up like a steel trap with a rat in it. He was a nice-lookin' man, too, an' he had an education an' kind of nice clean ways with him. He built a little cabin, an' he didn't go 'out' in winter, like the rest of us. He stayed here at Karluk an' looked after things.

"Well, after one-two year a good-lookin' young woman come up here--an' jiminy-cricket! He fell in love with her like greased lightnin' an' married her in no time. I God, but that man was happy. He acted like a plumb fool over that woman. After while they had a baby--an' then he acted like two plumb fools in one. I ain't got any wife an' babies myself an' I God! it ust to make me feel queer in my throat.

"Well, one summer the superintendent's wife brought up a woman to keep house for her. She was a white, sad-faced-lookin' woman, an' when she had a little time to rest she ust to climb up on the hill an' set there alone, watchin' the sea-gulls. I've seen her set there two hours of a Sunday without movin'. Maybe she'd be settin' there now if I hadn't gone and put my foot clean in it, as usual.

"I got kind of sorry for her, an' you may shoot me dead for a fool, but one day I ast her why she didn't walk around the bay an' set a spell with the other woman.

"'I don't care much for women,' she says, never changin' countenance, but just starin' out across the bay.

"'She's got a reel nice, kind husband,' says I, tryin' to work on her feelin's.

"'I don't like husbands,' says she, as short as lard pie-crust.

"'She's got an awful nice little baby,' says I, for if you keep on long enough, you can always get a woman.

"She turns then an' looks at me.

"'It's a girl,' says I, 'an' Lord, the way it nestles up into your neck an' loves you!'

"Her lips opened an' shut, but she didn't say a word; but if you'd look 'way down into a well an' see a fire burnin' in the water, it 'u'd look like her eyes did then.

"'Its father acts like a plumb fool over it an' its mother,' says I. 'The sun raises over there, an' sets over here--but _he_ thinks it raises an' sets in that woman an' baby.'

"'The woman must be pretty,' says she, suddenly, an' I never heard a woman speak so bitter.

"'She is,' says I; 'she's got--'

"'Don't tell me what she's got,' snaps she, gettin' up off the ground, kind o' stiff-like. 'I've made up my mind to go see her, an' maybe I'd back out if you told me what she's like. Maybe you'd tell me she had red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' a baby mouth an' smiled like an angel--an' then devils couldn't drag me to look at her.'

"Say, I nearly fell dead, then, for that just described the woman; but I'm no loon, so I just kept still.

"'What's their name?' says she, as we walked along.

"'Davis,' says I; an' mercy to heaven! I didn't know I was tellin' a lie.

"All of a sudden she laughed out loud--the awfullest laugh. It sounded as harrable mo'rnful as a sea-gull just before a storm.

"'_Husband!_' she flings out, jeerin'; '_I_ had a husband once. I worshipped the ground he trod on. _I_ thought the sun raised an' set in _him_. He carried me on two chips for a while, but I didn't have any children, an' I took to worryin' over it, an' lost my looks an' my disposition. It goes deep with some women, an' it went deep with me. Men don't seem to understand some things. Instid of sympathizin' with me, he took to complainin' an' findin' fault an' finally stayin' away from home.

"'There's no use talkin' about what I suffered for a year; I never told anybody this much before--an' it wa'n't anything to what I've suffered ever since. But one day I stumbled on a letter he had wrote to a woman he called Ruth. He talked about her red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' baby mouth an' the way she smiled like an angel. They were goin' to run away together. He told her he'd heard of a place at the end of the earth where a man could make a lot of money, an' he'd go there an' get settled an' then send for her, if she was willin' to live away from everybody, just for him. He said they'd never see a human soul that knew them.'

"She stopped talkin' all at once, an' we walked along. I was scared plumb to death. I didn't know the woman's name, for he always called her 'dearie,' but the baby's name was Ruth.

"'You've got to feelin' bad now,' says I, 'an' maybe we'd best not go on.'

"'I'm goin' on,' says she.

"After a while she says, in a different voice, kind of hard, 'I put that letter back an' never said a word. I wouldn't turn my hand over to keep a man. I never saw the woman; but I know how she looks. I've gone over it every night of my life since. I know the shape of every feature. I never let on, to him or anybody else. It's the only thing I've thanked God for, since I read that letter--helpin' me to keep up an' never let on. It's the only thing I've prayed for since that day. It wa'n't very long--about a month. He just up an' disappeared. People talked about me awful because I didn't cry, an' take on, an' hunt him.

"'I took what little money he left me an' went away. I got the notion that he'd gone to South America, so I set out to get as far in the other direction as possible. I got to San Francisco, an' then the chance fell to me to come up here. It sounded like the North Pole to me, so I come. I'm awful glad I come. Them sea-gulls is the only pleasure I've had--since; an' it's been four year. That's all.'

"Well, sir, when we got up close to the cabin, I got to shiverin' so's I couldn't brace up an' go in with her. It didn't seem possible it _could_ be the same man, but then, such darn queer things do happen in Alaska! Anyhow, I'd got cold feet. I remembered that the cannery the man worked in was shut down, so's he'd likely be at home.

"'I'll go back now,' I mumbles, 'an' leave you womenfolks to get acquainted.'

"I fooled along slow, an' when I'd got nearly to the settlement I heard her comin'. I turned an' waited--an' I God! she won't be any ash-whiter when she's in her coffin. She was steppin' in all directions, like a blind woman; her arms hung down stiff at her sides; her fingers were locked around her thumbs as if they'd never loose; an' some nights, even now, I can't sleep for thinkin' how her eyes looked. I guess if you'd gag a dog, so's he couldn't cry, an' then cut him up _slow_, inch by inch, his eyes 'u'd look like her'n did then. At sight of me her face worked, an' I thought she was goin' to cry; but all at once she burst out into the awfullest laughin' you ever heard outside of a lunatic asylum.

"'Lord God Almighty!' she cries out--'where's his mercy at, the Bible talks about? You'd think he might have a little mercy on an ugly woman who never had any children, wouldn't you--especially when there's women in the world with wavy red hair an' blue eyes--women that smile like angels an' have little baby girls! Oh, Lord, what a joke on me!'

"Well, she went on laughin' till my blood turned cold, but she never told me one word of what happened to her. She went back to California on the first boat that went, but it was two weeks. I saw her several times; an' at sight of me she'd burst out into that same laughin' an' cry out, 'My Lord, what a joke! Did you ever see its beat for a joke?' but she wouldn't answer a thing I ast her. The last time I ever see her, she was leanin' over the ship's side. She looked like a dead woman, but when she see me she waved her hand and burst out laughin'.

"'Do you hear them sea-gulls?' she cries out. 'All they can scream is _Kar_-luk! _Kar_-luk! _Kar_-luk! You can hear'm say it just as plain. _Kar_-luk! I'll hear 'em when I lay in my grave! Oh, my Lord, what a joke!'"