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Malachi
by
“So they said he must walk the air?” suggested Pierre.
“Without leavin’ their seats,” someone added instantly.
“So. But that speech of ‘Freddy Tarlton here’?” “It was worth twelve drinks to me, no more, and nothing at all to Malachi,” said Tarlton. “When I said I’d come to him to-night to cheer him up, he said he’d rather sleep. The missionary, too, he can make nothing of him. ‘I don’t need anyone here,’ he says. ‘I eat this off my own plate.’ And that’s the end of Malachi.”
“Because there was no one to speak for him–eh? Well, well.”
“If he’d said anything that’d justify the thing–make it a manslaughter business or a quarrel–then! But no, not a word, up or down, high or low. Exit Malachi!” rejoined Freddy Tarlton sorrowfully. “I wish he’d given me half a chance.”
“I wish I’d been there,” said Pierre, taking a match from Gohawk, and lighting his cigarette.
“To hear his speech?” asked Gohawk, nodding towards Tarlton.
“To tell the truth about it all. T’sh, you bats, you sheep, what have you in your skulls? When a man will not speak, will not lie to gain a case for his lawyer–or save himself, there is something! Now, listen to me, and I will tell you the story of Malachi. Then you shall judge.
“I never saw such a face as that girl had down there at Lachine in Quebec. I knew her when she was a child, and I knew Malachi when he was on the river with the rafts, the foreman of a gang. He had a look all open then as the sun–yes. Happy? Yes, as happy as a man ought to be. Well, the mother of the child died, and Malachi alone was left to take care of the little Norice. He left the river and went to work in the mills, so that he might be with the child; and when he got to be foreman there he used to bring her to the mill. He had a basket swung for her just inside the mill not far from him, right where she was in the shade; but if she stretched out her hand it would be in the sun. I’ve seen a hundred men turn to look at her where she swung, singing to herself, and then chuckle to themselves afterwards as they worked.
“When Trevoor, the owner, come one day, and saw her, he swore, and was going to sack Malachi, but the child–that little Norice–leaned over the basket, and offered him an apple. He looked for a minute, then he reached up, took the apple, turned round, and went out of the mill without a word–so. Next month when he come he walked straight to her, and handed up to her a box of toys and a silver whistle. ‘That’s to call me when you want me,’ he said, as he put the whistle to her lips, and then he put the gold string of it round her neck. She was a wise little thing, that Norice, and noticed things. I don’t believe that Trevoor or Malachi ever knew how sweet was the smell of the fresh sawdust till she held it to their noses; and it was she that had the saws–all sizes–start one after the other, making so strange a tune. She made up a little song about fairies and others to sing to that tune. And no one ever thought much about Indian Island, off beyond the sweating, baking piles of lumber, and the blistering logs and timbers in the bay, till she told stories about it. Sure enough, when you saw the shut doors and open windows of those empty houses, all white without in the sun and dark within, and not a human to be seen, you could believe almost anything. You can think how proud Malachi was. She used to get plenty of presents from the men who had no wives or children to care for–little silver and gold things as well as others. She was fond of them, but no, not vain. She loved the gold and silver for their own sake.”