Evening Star Newspaper, March 2, 1930, Page 90

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 2, 1930. «‘GOOD_BYE, SAILOR”_BymberfRichm’chjm U Story of the Sea by a Master of This Class of Fiction—Romance and Tragedy Mingle in This Tale of a Man and Girl. N E had seen the white buildings of Bombay rise from the mists of morning and had watched the wind scatter like snow the cherry blossoms of Japan. Twice he had voyaged to the Black Sea and heard the women singing as they trimmed wheat in the holds with their wooden shovels, and the trip before he met Emma he had circled Africa. In some ways he was very wise. He told Emma he was 22, because he was shy about his youth, but actually he was 19 and had been at sea five years. He was stocky and wide-shouldered then, with eyes as blue and friendly as a Sum- mer sky. His sandy hair seemed almost white between the edge of his dark cap and the rich brown of his smooth face. He wore a blue jersey under his rough serge jacket and round his waist fastened a wide black belt with a shiny buckle of brass. Strong he looked, strong sand gay, and not five years of wide faring and a contact with hidden things, not even the liguor flush beneath his tan when he met Emma could make him anything but a boy. Emma kept a little junk store in the dock district with her aunt. She was nearly 17 at this time, a thin, pallid-skinned girl with great dark eyes and dark hair combed severly back and tied with a red bow. She wore a skirt of black cloth reaching just below her knees, and cheap white cotton blouses with short sleeves that betrayed the pathetic boniness of her arms. Ordinary enough she was. Only her eyes, and her lips with their strangely sweet curve, saved her from utter mediocrity. Her voice was reedy, somewhat uncertain at times, but bearing already a hint of the richness and depth that was to come to it. Perhaps it was some dim feeling of her potential qualities that made the young sailor, entering the store to buy some knick-knack, remain to banter and talk, to lean his elbows on the scarred old counter, a cigarette smoking between his brown fingers, his flushed face turned eagerly to- wards her, with the eyes dancing and blue and bright beneath the level brows. Em did not particularly like him at first. So many sailors tried to make love to her. She was a little terrified of them, but because she was alone with her aunt, and her aunt It was small encouragement the young saflor had that first time, when he stopped in the store to banter with Emma. She answered him shrugged, made a wide gesture of fare- so that his teeth were a white his tan, and, straightening, he for the door, all the arrogance of youth his shoulders and the set of his head. turned before he stepped into the street, blew back a kiss, and then he was gone. With a little relieved sigh Emma hurried back to her aunt, who was calling for something or other. Emma was surprised several times that day to discover she was thinking of bright and friendly eyes, blue mirrors in a rich brownness. She sighed a little. He had been so young and gay. It was a pity, she decided with a curt in the dock district and had kept the store for her aunt ever since she had been 13 and left school. She was very wise. And she would never marry a sailor. He appeared the next morning, looking rather shy. He bought some odds and ends which he quite obviously had no use for, and then tried to lean at ease on the counter and banter as he had done before. Emma watched -him curiously for a while and some of the weariness went out of her eyes. After all, he Jooked so clean and big and friendly. She be- gen to talk with him, answer him at length. After a while he sat on the counter and she sat opposite him, not without some misgivings, smiling tremulously and plucking at the cor- ner of her blue apron with quick, nervous fin- gers. He kept his face averted for the most part, watching his finger trace a pattern on the scarred wood, and she thought it would be nice to stroke his hair. She was quite ashamed of herself for that and almost blushed. He returned every day after that, sometimes came twice a day, and they had long talks always. They were both very young and the hardness of life had touched them. Yet they were eager for understanding, for sympathy. They were very lonely and life had seemed quite without meaning or aim until they had met. But now for Emma the grimy little store was transformed and she no longer hated it. And for him there was no longer pleasure in drink- Ing with the men in the bars and bantering with the hard-faced girls who hung around the shipping offices, all of which had been the only way he knew to pass the time between ships. -~ Emma told him of her father’s death at sea, ©f her mother’s second marriage to a Dutchman who had taken her abroad to live. Emma was left with her aunt, whose husband had been killed by a falling cargo-hook years before, be- queathing to her the little junk store out of which she and Emma made some sort of a poor living. Emma had only been to school a few years, but she had never forgottéen what she had learned. And she had such ideas, queer ideas as she said. She had read most o’ the old books in the store, all of those on the shilling shelf and at least half of those on the sixpenny shelf. There was a lot of things she wanted to see and do. She wanted nice clothes, She wanted to see the country, trees, hills, fresh green grass. A girl she knew had once spent a week end in the country and she said it was wonderful, so big and glorious after the pave- ments, the smoke, the cabs and horses, the sailors, docks and ships. But Emma doubted if she could ever go. She had to watch the store all the time and on Sunday afternoons, when they closed, she had to stay with her aunt. The sailor told her how he had no recollection of his mother or father at all; how it seemed he had just grown up in a half dozen homes among many women whom he had called aunt or mother indiscriminately. He had been a street urchin, earning a few pennies by turning somersaults and walking on his hands outside the dock gates where the sailors would watch him. Then he had joined a gang of young toughs terrorizing merchants and finally, when he was 14, he had gone away on a ship .bound for India. Like a fairy tale it was to Emma and she would listen starry-eyed and forget to pluck at her blue apron. ONE Sunday, a week before he was to sail again, he met Emma’s aunt. The old lady had beer growing more and more curious and disturbed over' the regular visitor to the store and her sharp, querulous voice had more than once called Emma when the sailor and she were silent for too long, looking at each other in one of those sudden and mysterious pauses in their talk. It was a nervous time when they were called in together to see the aunt, Emma leading the way and her hand locked in his to encourage him. The old lady sat by the window that over- a sailor’s He answered nervously, fiddling with his cap until she told him he 2§18;RERY, BRIERE They were out of the houses at last and running along a wide road between trees and hedges. And there was a hint of blue hills in the distance and beyond the trees there were miles of clear green grass. Emma sat en- thralled and the sailor stared for long minutes, to half turn at intervals and steal side glances at her rapt expression. Far outside the city, where the bus line ended, they got off and went through a hedge to wander along a footpath meandering across the fields. They picked flowers, little spots of color sprinkling the green. Emma laughed at the antics of a squirrel and murmured awe- struck like exclamations when she found a tiny nest with two little blue eggs inside it. So they wandered and wandered until they came to a dusty highroad and found a sleepy old inn with a white-haired, red-cheeked little man smoking a short clay pipe by a table out- side the door. They drank two glasses of milk each and sat on a bench against the inn wall and stared, half sleepy now, at the fields over which they had come, with the dark green hedges criss- crossing everywhere and the footpath like a thin brown snake wriggling toward them. They sat thus a long time, their hands locked, the lazy Summer sun warm upon them through the tree shadows, the birds singing and the butter- flies dancing across the fields. Emma picked some sweet peas before she went. The little man said she could take all she could carry, so she filled her arms. She loved sweet peas, she said. She had always loved them. Many, many times in the Summer when the flowergirls had passed along by the store she had taken pennies from her little stock and bought a spray to cherish and watch. And the sailor nodded, because in his heart there had grown a warm understanding of this girl, the memory of whose eyes and lips had turned him from a deep-water man’s shore de- bauch to sober, sweet weeks of love. He thought he was a man, as Ermma thought she was a She ran to the door and looked after him, her eyes starry and dreaming. woman, grown-up and wise, but the little white- haired, red-checked host of the old inn, who watched them go off across the fields to catch the bus home, knew they were only chil- dren HE sailed with the midnight tide the next Saturday, bound for Port Said, Zanzibar, Karachi, Ceylon and Rangoon. Nine months away. They said good-by and, then, almost without meaning to, they leaned toward each other and their lips touched. He turned abruptly and went, his face crim- son, and she ran to the door and leaned against the lintel and looked after him, her eyes starry and dreaming. He turned at the corner, was still for a moment, and then he lifted his hand to wave. Her own hand fluttered, and she so faint not even those who were pass- at t moment could hear her. “Good- 2%, 8 EEEEg ; of the sandalwood boxes on the table treasures, while for hers he spent hours making a neat little wallet of Spanish half-hitching with twin hearts, ar- row-pierced, painted carefully outside in red. It seemed an age to both of them before he returned, though the intervening months gave them brave visions and long minutes of sud- den reverie which were very, very sweet. When he at last came home, he seemed bigger, gen- tier, and yet a little more serious than he had ever been. Emma was queerly different, too, more shapely, glowing, her great eyes twin stars. She had put up her hair by now and lowered her skirts and a new poise and confi- dence were hers. He appeared in the doorway of the store toward evening, when the shadows were gath- ering and the lights beginning to glow across the wet pavements and muddy streets. Straight from the ship and the docks he had come, the old smile on his lips and his eyes bluer and more friendly than ever in the tan of his face. Emma was busy at the counter serving a customer, and it was not until the man flung down a silver coin and turned to go that she looked up. And then she was still. And the sailor was still. The customer had to push him impatiently aside to reach the street, but neither of them noticed that. In the store those two looked at each other for a long time. And then Emma’s hand fluttered, stirred just the smallest bit against her apron and the sailor roused as from a dream and came slowly forward. He took off his wet cap and with a smile ran his fingers through his sandy hair, as if per- plexed. He said something and Emma nodded. He put out his hand, hesitating, and after a little pause she laid hers within it. Their fingers tightened almost hurriedly, fell apart, and then from the inner room came the queru- lous voice of the little old lady and for some reason they both laughed, and Emma told him to bring his bag in and that her aunt would be glad to see him. It was a wonderful night. They had a small fire burning in the iron grate. Emma laid the little white scrubbed table with the best table- cloth. Her aunt insisted that the glassware and chinaware she was saving in the big ma- hogany chest must be used tonight, and Emma produced some fine big napkins she had made herself while he had been gone. In the midst of these preparations he talked mostly to her aunt, but his eyes followed Emma and they were troubled. She was so very con- fident and assured now, not like the thin, pal- lid-skinned girl he had left. It made his heart skip beats when she put on a white apron to cook dinner, when her dark hair wisped about Rer white ears and some- times got in her eyes, when the heat from the broken iron stove lifted an even brighter red to her cheeks and seemed to make her glow. It brought an ache to his throat to watch her 2 i move, every motion graceful now, easy, lithe, natural. And more than once he caught her watching him, her brows lifted a little, her lips parted, something queerly speculative and warm in her eyes. He would have given the world to have put his arms about her then and feel her head upon his shoulder. THEY sat down to eat at last. Emma kept her eyes on her plate and ate quite me- chanically and grew quite confused once when he asked her if she would like any salt. He cut up his meat and put some of it in his mouth and apparently swallowed it whole. He had no recollection of eating at all. He could not take his eyes from Emma. The little aunt sat huddied in her chair, her eyes dimmer now, watching first one and then the other and sip- ping between times at her tea cup and nibbling her biscuit. She complained querulously at last that they were both so quiet folks would think he hadn’t been away nine months for all they were saying. At which Emma’s ears went pink and the sailor hurriedly began to talk of some member of the crew who had fallen down a hatchway in Port Said. Very professional he was. And an unusual twinkle passed for a mo- ment across the old lady’s eyes. There was the washing up then and they grew easier and laughed at intervals quite naturally while he wiped the dishes she passed to him. Until their hands began to touch and once, when they both bent to pick up some- thing she had dropped, their checks brushed one against the other and they grew suddenly quiet again, until the sailor roused himself, as if he remembered something, and, picking up his sea-bag, placed it on the table and began to let go the boat lacing which held its mouth together. Emma brought the red-shaded oil lamp closer and watched his hands as they ripped the knots apart, brown and strong with blue tattooing on their backs. Wonderful hands, she thought. He was so big and brave and friendly. Then she was lost in delight. He had brought her tribute from all the world. Whales’ teeth and sharks’ jaws; carved ebony boxes, silks from India, tea from Ceylon, a magnificent shawl from Port Said, and, lastly, a ring of hammered gold with a solitary peare shaped pearl blister mounted in a snake's jaws. She clasped her hands together and said soft little words and her eyes shone with the won- der of it all. And yet she was afraid. No man had ever brought her such things before, such costly things. She was afraid to take them, not for what they might imply but because she would not know what to do with them and they must have cost him so much, most of his wages perhaps. But he laughed and gestured widely. What would he do with them if she refused them? He had searched the shops and bazaars for her. She would never know how many streets and alleys he had tramped looking for gifts within reach of his pocket. Nor how much the memory of her lips and eyes had helped him to spend his money that way instead of with his shipmates in the water front bars. No, she would never know that. But she must take the gifts. He took her hand at last, shyly still but with a trace of firmness, and on one finger he put the ring of hammered gold with the pearl blister mounted between a snake's jaws. And then, and because the flush was in her cheeks again and she looked very lovely, he kissed her, trembling and afraid as she wac, trembling and afraid as he was himself. And nothing else mattered . . . Life was very wonderful. The dim and dusty little junk store absorbed the whole world and all the things within it were as bright' and golden as the treasures of a great palace. The little aunt in the back room was querulous no more, for she had a warm new blanket for her knees and feet, her cannister of tea was always filled, there was always something for Emma to cook now and there was no need to worry if a day passed and there were no customers. The whole place seemed wakened to a strange and