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Page 21
"I jess was looking at that thing," she said bashfully, pointing to
the semaphore.
He was still more astonished, for, looking at her dark eyes and
olive complexion, he had expected her to speak Italian or broken
English. And, possibly because for a long time he had seen and
known little of women, he was quite struck with her good looks. He
hesitated, stammered, and then said:--
"Won't you come in?"
She drew back still farther and made a rapid gesture of negation
with her head, her hand, and even her whole lithe figure. Then she
said, with a decided American intonation:--
"No, sir."
"Why not?" said Jarman mechanically.
The girl sidled up against the cabin, keeping her eyes fixed on
Jarman with a certain youthful shrewdness.
"Oh, you know!" she said.
"I really do not. Tell me why."
She drew herself up against the wall a little proudly, though still
youthfully, with her hands behind her.
"I ain't that kind of girl," she said simply.
The blood rushed to Jarman's checks. Dissipated and abandoned as
his life had been, small respecter of women as he was, he was
shocked and shamed. Knowing too, as he did, how absorbed he was in
other things, he was indignant, because not guilty.
"Do as you please, then," he said shortly, and reentered the cabin.
But the next moment he saw his error in betraying an irritation
that was open to misconstruction. He came out again, scarcely
looking at the girl, who was lounging away.
"Do you want me to explain to you how the thing works?" he said
indifferently. "I can't show you unless a ship comes in."
The girl's eyes brightened softly as she turned to him.
"Do tell me," she said, with an anticipatory smile and flash of
white teeth. "Won't you?"
She certainly was very pretty and simple, in spite of her late
speech. Jarman briefly explained to her the movements of the
semaphore arms and their different significance. She listened with
her capped head a little on one side like an attentive bird, and
her arms unconsciously imitating the signs. Certainly, for all
that she SPOKE like an American, her gesticulation was Italian.
"And then," she said triumphantly when he paused, "when the sailors
see that sign up they know they are coming in the harbor."
Jarman smiled, as he had not smiled since he had been there. He
corrected this mistake of her eager haste to show her intelligence,
and, taking the telescope, pointed out the other semaphore,--a thin
black outline on a distant inland hill. He then explained how HIS
signs were repeated by that instrument to San Francisco.
"My! Why, I always allowed that was only the cross stuck up in the
Lone Mountain Cemetery," she said.
"You are a Catholic?"
"I reckon."
"And you are an Italian?"
"Father is, but mother was a 'Merikan, same as me. Mother's dead."
"And your father is the fisherman yonder?"
"Yes,--but," with a look of pride, "he's got the biggest boat of
any."
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