Octopus — Book I, Chapter 5, Part 1

CHAPTER V

At seven o'clock, in the bedroom of his ranch house, in the white-painted iron bedstead with its blue-grey army blankets and red counterpane, Annixter was still asleep, his face red, his mouth open, his stiff yellow hair in wild disorder.

On the wooden chair at the bed-head, stood the kerosene lamp, by the light of which he had been reading the previous evening.

Beside it was a paper bag of dried prunes, and the limp volume of “Copperfield,” the place marked by a slip of paper torn from the edge of the bag.

Annixter slept soundly, making great work of the business, unable to take even his rest gracefully.

His eyes were shut so tight that the skin at their angles was drawn into puckers.

Under his pillow, his two hands were doubled up into fists.

At intervals, he gritted his teeth ferociously, while, from time to time, the abrupt sound of his snoring dominated the brisk ticking of the alarm clock that hung from the brass knob of the bed-post, within six inches of his ear.

But immediately after seven, this clock sprung its alarm with the abruptness of an explosion, and within the second, Annixter had hurled the bed-clothes from him and flung himself up to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed, panting and gasping, blinking at the light, rubbing his head, dazed and bewildered, stupefied at the hideous suddenness with which he had been wrenched from his sleep.

His first act was to take down the alarm clock and stifle its prolonged whirring under the pillows and blankets.

But when this had been done, he continued to sit stupidly on the edge of the bed, curling his toes away from the cold of the floor; his half-shut eyes, heavy with sleep, fixed and vacant, closing and opening by turns.

For upwards of three minutes he alternately dozed and woke, his head and the whole upper half of his body sagging abruptly sideways from moment to moment.

But at length, coming more to himself, he straightened up, ran his fingers through his hair, and with a prodigious yawn, murmured vaguely: “Oh, Lord!

Oh-h, LORD!

” He stretched three or four times, twisting about in his place, curling and uncurling his toes, muttering from time to time between two yawns: “Oh, Lord!

Oh, Lord!

” He stared about the room, collecting his thoughts, readjusting himself for the day's work.

The room was barren, the walls of tongue-and-groove sheathing--alternate brown and yellow boards--like the walls of a stable, were adorned with two or three unframed lithographs, the Christmas “souvenirs” of weekly periodicals, fastened with great wire nails; a bunch of herbs or flowers, lamentably withered and grey with dust, was affixed to the mirror over the black walnut washstand by the window, and a yellowed photograph of Annixter's combined harvester--himself and his men in a group before it--hung close at hand.

On the floor, at the bedside and before the bureau, were two oval rag-carpet rugs.

In the corners of the room were muddy boots, a McClellan saddle, a surveyor's transit, an empty coal-hod and a box of iron bolts and nuts.

On the wall over the bed, in a gilt frame, was Annixter's college diploma, while on the bureau, amid a litter of hair-brushes, dirty collars, driving gloves, cigars and the like, stood a broken machine for loading shells.

It was essentially a man's room, rugged, uncouth, virile, full of the odours of tobacco, of leather, of rusty iron; the bare floor hollowed by the grind of hob-nailed boots, the walls marred by the friction of heavy things of metal.

Strangely enough, Annixter's clothes were disposed of on the single chair with the precision of an old maid.

Thus he had placed them the night before; the boots set carefully side by side, the trousers, with the overalls still upon them, neatly folded upon the seat of the chair, the coat hanging from its back.

The Quien Sabe ranch house was a six-room affair, all on one floor.

By no excess of charity could it have been called a home.

Annixter was a wealthy man; he could have furnished his dwelling with quite as much elegance as that of Magnus Derrick.

As it was, however, he considered his house merely as a place to eat, to sleep, to change his clothes in; as a shelter from the rain, an office where business was transacted--nothing more.

When he was sufficiently awake, Annixter thrust his feet into a pair of wicker slippers, and shuffled across the office adjoining his bedroom, to the bathroom just beyond, and stood under the icy shower a few minutes, his teeth chattering, fulminating oaths at the coldness of the water.

Still shivering, he hurried into his clothes, and, having pushed the button of the electric bell to announce that he was ready for breakfast, immediately plunged into the business of the day.

While he was thus occupied, the butcher's cart from Bonneville drove into the yard with the day's supply of meat.

This cart also brought the Bonneville paper and the mail of the previous night.

In the bundle of correspondence that the butcher handed to Annixter that morning, was a telegram from Osterman, at that time on his second trip to Los Angeles.

It read: “Flotation of company in this district assured.

Have secured services of desirable party.

Am now in position to sell you your share stock, as per original plan.

” Annixter grunted as he tore the despatch into strips.

“Well,” he muttered, “that part is settled, then.

” He made a little pile of the torn strips on the top of the unlighted stove, and burned them carefully, scowling down into the flicker of fire, thoughtful and preoccupied.

He knew very well what Osterman referred to by “Flotation of company,” and also who was the “desirable party” he spoke of.

Under protest, as he was particular to declare, and after interminable argument, Annixter had allowed himself to be reconciled with Osterman, and to be persuaded to reenter the proposed political “deal.

” A committee had been formed to finance the affair--Osterman, old Broderson, Annixter himself, and, with reservations, hardly more than a looker-on, Harran Derrick.

Of this committee, Osterman was considered chairman.

Magnus Derrick had formally and definitely refused his adherence to the scheme.

He was trying to steer a middle course.

His position was difficult, anomalous.

If freight rates were cut through the efforts of the members of the committee, he could not very well avoid taking advantage of the new schedule.

He would be the gainer, though sharing neither the risk nor the expense.

But, meanwhile, the days were passing; the primary elections were drawing nearer.

The committee could not afford to wait, and by way of a beginning, Osterman had gone to Los Angeles, fortified by a large sum of money--a purse to which Annixter, Broderson and himself had contributed.

He had put himself in touch with Disbrow, the political man of the Denver, Pueblo and Mojave road, and had had two interviews with him.

The telegram that Annixter received that morning was to say that Disbrow had been bought over, and would adopt Parrell as the D. , P.

and M. candidate for Railroad Commissioner from the third district.

One of the cooks brought up Annixter's breakfast that morning, and he went through it hastily, reading his mail at the same time and glancing over the pages of the “Mercury,” Genslinger's paper.

The “Mercury,” Annixter was persuaded, received a subsidy from the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, and was hardly better than the mouthpiece by which Shelgrim and the General Office spoke to ranchers about Bonneville.

An editorial in that morning's issue said: “It would not be surprising to the well-informed, if the long-deferred re-grade of the value of the railroad sections included in the Los Muertos, Quien Sabe, Osterman and Broderson properties was made before the first of the year.

Naturally, the tenants of these lands feel an interest in the price which the railroad will put upon its holdings, and it is rumoured they expect the land will be offered to them for two dollars and fifty cents per acre.

It needs no seventh daughter of a seventh daughter to foresee that these gentlemen will be disappointed.

” “Rot!

” vociferated Annixter to himself as he finished.

He rolled the paper into a wad and hurled it from him.

“Rot!

rot!

What does Genslinger know about it?

I stand on my agreement with the P. and S. W.

--from two fifty to five dollars an acre--there it is in black and white.

The road IS obligated.

And my improvements!

I

made the land valuable by improving it, irrigating it, draining it, and cultivating it.

Talk to ME.

I know better.

” The most abiding impression that Genslinger's editorial made upon him was, that possibly the “Mercury” was not subsidised by the corporation after all.

If it was; Genslinger would not have been led into making his mistake as to the value of the land.

He would have known that the railroad was under contract to sell at two dollars and a half an acre, and not only this, but that when the land was put upon the market, it was to be offered to the present holders first of all.

Annixter called to mind the explicit terms of the agreement between himself and the railroad, and dismissed the matter from his mind.

He lit a cigar, put on his hat and went out.

The morning was fine, the air nimble, brisk.

On the summit of the skeleton-like tower of the artesian well, the windmill was turning steadily in a breeze from the southwest.

The water in the irrigating ditch was well up.

There was no cloud in the sky.

Far off to the east and west, the bulwarks of the valley, the Coast Range and the foothills of the Sierras stood out, pale amethyst against the delicate pink and white sheen of the horizon.

The sunlight was a veritable flood, crystal, limpid, sparkling, setting a feeling of gayety in the air, stirring up an effervescence in the blood, a tumult of exuberance in the veins.

But on his way to the barns, Annixter was obliged to pass by the open door of the dairy-house.

Hilma Tree was inside, singing at her work;

her voice of a velvety huskiness, more of the chest than of the throat, mingling with the liquid dashing of the milk in the vats and churns, and the clear, sonorous clinking of the cans and pans.

Annixter turned into the dairy-house, pausing on the threshold, looking about him.

Hilma stood bathed from head to foot in the torrent of sunlight that poured in upon her from the three wide-open windows.

She was charming, delicious, radiant of youth, of health, of well-being.

Into her eyes, wide open, brown, rimmed with their fine, thin line of intense black lashes, the sun set a diamond flash; the same golden light glowed all around her thick, moist hair, lambent, beautiful, a sheen of almost metallic lustre, and reflected itself upon her wet lips, moving with the words of her singing.

The whiteness of her skin under the caress of this hale, vigorous morning light was dazzling, pure, of a fineness beyond words.

Beneath the sweet modulation of her chin, the reflected light from the burnished copper vessel she was carrying set a vibration of pale gold.

Overlaying the flush of rose in her cheeks, seen only when she stood against the sunlight, was a faint sheen of down, a lustrous floss, delicate as the pollen of a flower, or the impalpable powder of a moth's wing.

She was moving to and fro about her work, alert, joyous, robust;

and from all the fine, full amplitude of her figure, from her thick white neck, sloping downward to her shoulders, from the deep, feminine swell of her breast, the vigorous maturity of her hips, there was disengaged a vibrant note of gayety, of exuberant animal life, sane, honest, strong.

She wore a skirt of plain blue calico and a shirtwaist of pink linen, clean, trim; while her sleeves turned back to her shoulders, showed her large, white arms, wet with milk, redolent and fragrant with milk, glowing and resplendent in the early morning light.

On the threshold, Annixter took off his hat.

“Good morning, Miss Hilma.

” Hilma, who had set down the copper can on top of the vat, turned about quickly.

“Oh, GOOD morning, sir;” and, unconsciously, she made a little gesture of salutation with her hand, raising it part way toward her head, as a man would have done.

“Well,” began Annixter vaguely, “how are you getting along down here?

” “Oh, very fine.

To-day, there is not so much to do.

We drew the whey hours ago, and now we are just done putting the curd to press.

I have been cleaning.

See my pans.

Wouldn't they do for mirrors, sir?

And the copper things.

I have scrubbed and scrubbed.

Oh, you can look into the tiniest corners, everywhere, you won't find so much as the littlest speck of dirt or grease.

I love CLEAN things, and this room is my own particular place.

Here I can do just as I please, and that is, to keep the cement floor, and the vats, and the churns and the separators, and especially the cans and coppers, clean; clean, and to see that the milk is pure, oh, so that a little baby could drink it; and to have the air always sweet, and the sun--oh, lots and lots of sun, morning, noon and afternoon, so that everything shines.

You know, I never see the sun set that it don't make me a little sad; yes, always, just a little.

Isn't it funny?

I should want it to be day all the time.

And when the day is gloomy and dark, I am just as sad as if a very good friend of mine had left me.

Would you believe it?

Just until within a few years, when I was a big girl, sixteen and over, mamma had to sit by my bed every night before I could go to sleep.

I was afraid in the dark.

Sometimes I am now.

Just imagine, and now I am nineteen--a young lady.

” “You were, hey?

” observed Annixter, for the sake of saying something.

“Afraid in the dark?

What of--ghosts?

” “N-no; I don't know what.

I wanted the light, I wanted----” She drew a deep breath, turning towards the window and spreading her pink finger-tips to the light.

“Oh, the SUN.

I love the sun.

See, put your hand there--here on the top of the vat--like that.

Isn't it warm?

Isn't it fine?

And don't you love to see it coming in like that through the windows, floods of it; and all the little dust in it shining?

Where there is lots of sunlight, I think the people must be very good.

It's only wicked people that love the dark.

And the wicked things are always done and planned in the dark, I think.

Perhaps, too, that's why I hate things that are mysterious--things that I can't see, that happen in the dark.

” She wrinkled her nose with a little expression of aversion.

“I hate a mystery.

Maybe that's why I am afraid in the dark--or was.

I

shouldn't like to think that anything could happen around me that I couldn't see or understand or explain.

” She ran on from subject to subject, positively garrulous, talking in her low-pitched voice of velvety huskiness for the mere enjoyment of putting her ideas into speech, innocently assuming that they were quite as interesting to others as to herself.

She was yet a great child, ignoring the fact that she had ever grown up, taking a child's interest in her immediate surroundings, direct, straightforward, plain.

While speaking, she continued about her work, rinsing out the cans with a mixture of hot water and soda, scouring them bright, and piling them in the sunlight on top of the vat.

Obliquely, and from between his narrowed lids, Annixter scrutinised her from time to time, more and more won over by her adorable freshness, her clean, fine youth.

The clumsiness that he usually experienced in the presence of women was wearing off.

Hilma Tree's direct simplicity put him at his ease.

He began to wonder if he dared to kiss Hilma, and if he did dare, how she would take it.

A spark of suspicion flickered up in his mind.

Did not her manner imply, vaguely, an invitation?

One never could tell with feemales.

That was why she was talking so much, no doubt, holding him there, affording the opportunity.

Aha!

She had best look out, or he would take her at her word.

“Oh, I had forgotten,” suddenly exclaimed Hilma, “the very thing I wanted to show you--the new press.

You remember I asked for one last month?

This is it.

See, this is how it works.

Here is where the curds go; look.

And this cover is screwed down like this, and then you work the lever this way.

” She grasped the lever in both hands, throwing her weight upon it, her smooth, bare arm swelling round and firm with the effort, one slim foot, in its low shoe set off with the bright, steel buckle, braced against the wall.

“My, but that takes strength,” she panted, looking up at him and smiling.

“But isn't it a fine press?

Just what we needed.

” “And,” Annixter cleared his throat, “and where do you keep the cheeses and the butter?

” He thought it very likely that these were in the cellar of the dairy.

“In the cellar,” answered Hilma.

“Down here, see?

” She raised the flap of the cellar door at the end of the room.

“Would you like to see?

Come down; I'll show you.

” She went before him down into the cool obscurity underneath, redolent of new cheese and fresh butter.

Annixter followed, a certain excitement beginning to gain upon him.

He was almost sure now that Hilma wanted him to kiss her.

At all events, one could but try.

But, as yet, he was not absolutely sure.

Suppose he had been mistaken in her; suppose she should consider herself insulted and freeze him with an icy stare.

Annixter winced at the very thought of it.

Better let the whole business go, and get to work.

He was wasting half the morning.

Yet, if she DID want to give him the opportunity of kissing her, and he failed to take advantage of it, what a ninny she would think him; she would despise him for being afraid.

He afraid!

He, Annixter, afraid of a fool, feemale girl.

Why, he owed it to himself as a man to go as far as he could.

He told himself that that goat Osterman would have kissed Hilma Tree weeks ago.

To test his state of mind, he imagined himself as having decided to kiss her, after all, and at once was surprised to experience a poignant qualm of excitement, his heart beating heavily, his breath coming short.

At the same time, his courage remained with him.

He was not afraid to try.

He felt a greater respect for himself because of this.

His self-assurance hardened within him, and as Hilma turned to him, asking him to taste a cut from one of the ripe cheeses, he suddenly stepped close to her, throwing an arm about her shoulders, advancing his head.

But at the last second, he bungled, hesitated; Hilma shrank from him, supple as a young reed; Annixter clutched harshly at her arm, and trod his full weight upon one of her slender feet, his cheek and chin barely touching the delicate pink lobe of one of her ears, his lips brushing merely a fold of her shirt waist between neck and shoulder.

The thing was a failure, and at once he realised that nothing had been further from Hilma's mind than the idea of his kissing her.

She started back from him abruptly, her hands nervously clasped against her breast, drawing in her breath sharply and holding it with a little, tremulous catch of the throat that sent a quivering vibration the length of her smooth, white neck.

Her eyes opened wide with a childlike look, more of astonishment than anger.

She was surprised, out of all measure, discountenanced, taken all aback, and when she found her breath, gave voice to a great “Oh” of dismay and distress.

For an instant, Annixter stood awkwardly in his place, ridiculous, clumsy, murmuring over and over again: “Well--well--that's all right--who's going to hurt you?

You needn't be afraid--who's going to hurt you--that's all right.

” Then, suddenly, with a quick, indefinite gesture of one arm, he exclaimed: “Good-bye, I--I'm sorry.

” He turned away, striding up the stairs, crossing the dairy-room, and regained the open air, raging and furious.

He turned toward the barns, clapping his hat upon his head, muttering the while under his breath: “Oh, you goat!

You beastly fool PIP.

Good LORD, what an ass you've made of yourself now!

”