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"I not wait me. I just come to fetch Maarda; she been city; she come soon now." But she left her "working" attitude and curled like a schoolgirl in the bow of the canoe, her elbows resting on her paddle which she had flung across the gunwales. "I have missed you, klootchman; you have not been to see me for three moons, and you have not fished or been at the canneries," I remarked. "No," she said.
Maarda had finished her story, but the recollections had saddened her eyes, and for a time we both sat on the deck in the violet twilight without exchanging a word. "Then the little Tenas Klootchman is yours now?" I asked. A sudden radiance suffused her face, all trace of melancholy vanished. She fairly scintillated happiness. "Mine!" she said. "All mine!
Then across the silence broke the little murmuring sound of the baby half crooning, half crying, indoors, the little cradleless baby that, homeless, had entered her home. Maarda returned, and, lifting the basket, again arranged the wrappings. "The Tenas Klootchman shall have this cradle," she said, gently. The sick woman turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
And Maarda and he fought the dread enemy hour after hour, day after day. Bereft of its mother's care, the Tenas Klootchman turned to Maarda, laughed to her, crowed to her, until her lonely heart embraced the child as a still evening embraces a tempestuous day. Once she had a long, terrible fight with herself.
The rising tide was unbeaching the canoe, and as Maarda stepped in and the klootchman slipped astern, it drifted afloat. "Kla-how-ya," nodded the klootchman as she dipped her paddle-blade in exquisite silence. "Kla-how-ya," smiled Maarda.
I took the hint, and said no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and the prospects of a good sockeye run this season. Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sun set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm. I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and holding two deck stools.
It was growing dark when Maarda left her guests, and entered her canoe on the quest for a doctor. The clouds hung low, and a fine, slanting rain fell, from which she protected herself as best she could with a shawl about her shoulders, crossed in front, with each end tucked into her belt beneath her arms Indian-fashion.
"It is a beautiful story, klootchman," I said, "and I feel a cruel delight that your men of magic punished the people for their ill choice." "That because you girl-child yourself," she laughed. There was the slightest whisper of a step behind me. I turned to find Maarda almost at my elbow.
The rising tide was unbeaching the canoe, and as Maarda stepped in and the klootchman slipped astern, it drifted afloat. "Kla-how-ya," nodded the klootchman as she dipped her paddle-blade in exquisite silence. "Kla-how-ya," smiled Maarda.
"I will wait me. I just come to fetch Maarda; she been city; she soon come now." But she left her "working" attitude and curled like a school-girl in the bow of the canoe, her elbows resting on her paddle which she had flung across the gunwales. "I have missed you, klootchman; you have not been to see me for three moons, and you have not fished or been at the canneries," I remarked.
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