PAGE 9
The Siren Of Scalawag Run
by
A moment later Peggy Lacey confronted Dickie Blue. She was reckless; she was defiant. She was tense; she was piercing.
“Look at me!” she commanded.
Dickie Blue was mild and smiling. “I’m lookin’,” said he. “I can look no other where.”
“Is you lookin’ close?”
“Ay. My look’s hungry for the sight o’ your dear face. I’m blind with admiration. I wants t’ gaze forever.”
“Where’s my roses now?”
“They’ve fled. What matter?”
“Ay–fled! An’ where?”
“They’ve retreated whence they came so prettily. ‘Tis a lure o’ that sweet color t’ come an’ go.”
Peggy gasped.
“Whence they came!” she faltered. “Ah, where did they come from, Dickie? Don’t ye know?”
“A while gone you was flushed with a pretty modesty,” Dickie replied, smiling indulgent explanation, “an’ now you is pale with a sad fright at my rough love-makin’.”
“I’m not frightened at all. Look at my nose!”
“‘Tis the sauciest little knob in the world!”
“Look with care. Count ’em!”
“Count what?”
“There’s three freckles on it.”
“Ay?”
“An’ a half.”
“Is it so?”
“There, now! I’ve told you the truth. I’m pallid. I’m freckled. What d’ye think o’ me now?”
“I loves you.”
“You don’t love me at all. You’re quite mistaken. You don’t know what you’re sayin’.”
Dickie was bewildered.
“What’s all this pother, Peggy?” he pleaded. “I don’t know what you’re drivin’ at, at all.”
“I’m pallid again, isn’t I?”
“What matter?” said Dickie. “Ah, Peggy, dear,” he protested softly, as he advanced, glowing, upon the trembling little maid before him, “all I knows is that I loves you! Will you wed me?”
Peggy Lacey yielded to his embrace. She subsided there in peace. It was safe harbor, she knew; and she longed never to leave its endearing shelter.
“Yes, sir,” she whispered.
At that moment Dickie Blue was the happiest man in the world. And he ought to have been, too! Dang me if he shouldn’t! And as for Peggy Lacey, she was the happiest maid in the world, which is somewhat surprising, I confess–never so happy as when, before she sought sleep to escape the sweet agony of her joy, she flung the widow Nash’s wicked little box of rouge into the driving darkness and heard it splash in the harbor below her chamber window.