The Valley of the Moon | Page 7

most terrible
things. I believe in God. Don't you? What do you think about God,
Saxon?"
Saxon shrugged her shoulders and laughed.
"But if we do wrong we get ours, don't we?" Mary persisted. "That's
what they all say, except Bert. He says he don't care what he does, he'll
never get his, because when he dies he's dead, an' when he's dead he'd
like to see any one put anything across on him that'd wake him up.
Ain't he terrible, though? But it's all so funny. Sometimes I get scared
when I think God's keepin' an eye on me all the time. Do you think he
knows what I'm sayin' now? What do you think he looks like,
anyway?"
"I don't know," Saxon answered. "He's just a funny proposition."
"Oh!" the other gasped.
"He IS, just the same, from what all people say of him," Saxon went on
stoutly. "My brother thinks he looks like Abraham Lincoln. Sarah
thinks he has whiskers."
"An' I never think of him with his hair parted," Mary confessed, daring
the thought and shivering with apprehension. "He just couldn't have his

hair parted. THAT'D be funny."
"You know that little, wrinkly Mexican that sells wire puzzles?" Saxon
queried. "Well, God somehow always reminds me of him."
Mary laughed outright.
"Now that IS funny. I never thought of him like that How do you make
it out?"
"Well, just like the little Mexican, he seems to spend his time peddling
puzzles. He passes a puzzle out to everybody, and they spend all their
lives tryin' to work it out They all get stuck. I can't work mine out. I
don't know where to start. And look at the puzzle he passed Sarah. And
she's part of Tom's puzzle, and she only makes his worse. And they all,
an' everybody I know--you, too--are part of my puzzle."
"Mebbe the puzzles is all right," Mary considered. "But God don't look
like that yellow little Greaser. THAT I won't fall for. God don't look
like anybody. Don't you remember on the wall at the Salvation Army it
says 'God is a spirit'?"
"That's another one of his puzzles, I guess, because nobody knows what
a spirit looks like."
"That's right, too." Mary shuddered with reminiscent fear. "Whenever I
try to think of God as a spirit, I can see Hen Miller all wrapped up in a
sheet an' runnin' us girls. We didn't know, an' it scared the life out of us.
Little Maggie Murphy fainted dead away, and Beatrice Peralta fell an'
scratched her face horrible. When I think of a spirit all I can see is a
white sheet runnin' in the dark. Just the same, God don't look like a
Mexican, an' he don't wear his hair parted."
A strain of music from the dancing pavilion brought both girls
scrambling to their feet.
"We can get a couple of dances in before we eat," Mary proposed. "An'
then it'll be afternoon an' all the fellows 'll be here. Most of them are

pinchers--that's why they don't come early, so as to get out of taking the
girls to dinner. But Bert's free with his money, an' so is Billy. If we can
beat the other girls to it, they'll take us to the restaurant. Come on,
hurry, Saxon."
There were few couples on the floor when they arrived at the pavilion,
and the two girls essayed the first waltz together.
"There's Bert now," Saxon whispered, as they came around the second
time.
"Don't take any notice of them," Mary whispered back. "We'll just keep
on goin'. They needn't think we're chasin' after them."
But Saxon noted the heightened color in the other's cheek, and felt her
quicker breathing.
"Did you see that other one?" Mary asked, as she backed Saxon in a
long slide across the far end of the pavilion. "That was Billy Roberts.
Bert said he'd come. He'll take you to dinner, and Bert'll take me. It's
goin' to be a swell day, you'll see. My! I only wish the music'll hold out
till we can get back to the other end."
Down the floor they danced, on man-trapping and dinner-getting intent,
two fresh young things that undeniably danced well and that were
delightfully surprised when the music stranded them perilously near to
their desire.
Bert and Mary addressed each other by their given names, but to Saxon
Bert was "Mr. Wanhope," though he called her by her first name. The
only introduction was of Saxon and Billy Roberts. Mary carried it off
with a flurry of nervous carelessness.
"Mr. Robert--Miss Brown. She's my best friend. Her first name's Saxon.
Ain't it a scream of a name?"
"Sounds good to me," Billy retorted, hat off and hand extended.
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Brown."

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