Pilon was still brooding, and Joe Portagee sensed the depth of his feeling. At last Pilon turned his head toward [71] his friend. “We learn by this that it is great foolishness to trust a woman,” he said.
“Did some woman take my pants?” Big Joe demanded excitedly. “Who was it? I’ll kick the hell out of her!”
But Pilon shook his head as sadly as old Jehovah, who, resting on the seventh day, sees that his world is tiresome. “She is punished,” Pilon said. “You might say she punished herself, and that is the best way. She had thy pants; she bought them with greed; and now she has them not.”
These things were beyond Big Joe. They were mysteries it was better to let alone; and this was as Pilon wished it. Big Joe said humbly, “Thanks for getting my pants back, Pilon.” But Pilon was so sunk in philosophy that even’ thanks were valueless.
“It was nothing,” he said. “In the whole matter only the lesson we learn has any value.”
They climbed up from the beach and passed the great silver tower of the gas works.
Big Joe Portagee was happy to be with Pilon. “Here is one who takes care of his friends,” he thought. “Even when they sleep he is alert to see that no harm comes to them.” He resolved to do something nice for Pilon sometime.
IX
How Danny was ensnared by a vacuum-cleaner and how Danny’s Friends rescued him.
DOLORES Engracia Ramirez lived in her own little house on the upper edge of Tortilla Flat. She did housework for some of the ladies in Monterey, and she belonged to the Native Daughters of the Golden West. She was not pretty, this lean-faced paisana, but there was in her figure a certain voluptuousness of movement; there was in her voice a throatiness some men found indicative. Her eyes could [72] burn behind a mist with a sleepy passion which those men to whom the flesh is important found attractive and downright inviting.
In her brusque moments she was not desirable, but an amorous combination came about within her often enough so that she was called Sweets Ramirez on Tortilla Flat.
It was a pleasant thing to see her when the beast in her was prowling. How she leaned over her front gate! How her voice purred drowsily! How her hips moved gently about, now pressing against the fence, now swelling back like a summer beach-wave, and then pressing the fence again! Who in the world could put so much husky meaning into “Ai, amigo, a’onde vas?”
It is true that ordinarily her voice was shrill, her face hard and sharp as a hatchet, her figure lumpy, and her intentions selfish. The softer self came into possession only once or twice a week, and then, ordinarily, in the evening.
When Sweets heard that Danny was an heir, she was glad for him. She dreamed of being his lady, as did every other female on Tortilla Flat. In the evenings she leaned over the front gate waiting for the time when he would pass by and fall into her trap. But for a long time her baited trap caught nothing but poor Indians and paisanos who owned no houses, and whose clothes were sometimes fugitive from better wardrobes.
Sweets was not content. Her house was up the hill from Danny’s house, in a direction he did not often take. Sweets could not go looking for him. She was a lady, and her conduct was governed by very strict rules of propriety. If Danny should walk by, now, if they should talk, like the old friends they were, if he should come in for a social glass of wine; and then, if nature proved too strong, and her feminine resistance too weak, there was no grave breach of propriety. But it was unthinkable to leave her web on the front gate.
For many months of evenings she waited in vain, and took such gifts as walked by in jeans. But there are only a limited number of pathways on Tortilla Flat. It was inevitable that Danny should, sooner or later, pass the gate of Dolores Engracia Ramirez; and so he did.
In all the time they had known each other, there had [73] never been an occasion when it was more to Sweets’ advantage to have him walk by; for Danny had only that morning found a keg of copper shingle nails, lost by the Central Supply Company. He had judged them jetsam because no member of the company was anywhere near. Danny removed the copper nails from the keg and put them in a sack. Then, borrowing the Pirate’s wheelbarrow, and the Pirate to push it, he took his. salvage to the Western Supply Company, where he sold the copper for three dollars. The keg he gave to the Pirate.
“You can keep things in it,” he said. That made the Pirate very happy.
And now Danny came down the hill, aimed with a fine accuracy toward the house of Torreli, and the three dollars were in his pocket.
Dolores’ voice sounded as huskily sweet as the drone of a bumblebee. “Ai, amigo, a’onde vas?”
Danny stopped. A revolution took place in his plans. “How are you, Sweets?”
“What difference is it how I am? None of my friends are interested,” she said archly. And her hips floated in a graceful and circular undulation.
“What do you mean?” he demanded.
“Well, does my friend Danny ever come to see me?”
“I am here to see thee now,” he said gallantly.
She opened the gate a little. “Wilt thou come in for a tiny glass of wine in friendship’s name?” Danny went into her house. “What hast thou been doing in the forest?” she cooed.
Then he made an error. He told vaingloriously of his transaction up the hill, and he boasted of his three dollars.
“Of course I have only enough wine to fill two thimbles,” she said.
They sat in Sweets’ kitchen and drank a glass of wine. In a little while Danny assaulted her virtue with true gallantry and vigor. He found to his amazement a resistance out of all proportion to her size and reputation. The ugly beast of lust was awakened in him. He was angry. Only when he was leaving was the way made clear to him.
The husky voice said, “Maybe you would like to come and see me this evening, Danny.” Sweets’ eyes swam in a [74] mist of drowsy invitation. “One has neighbors,” she suggested with delicacy.
Then he understood. “I will come back,” he promised.
It was midafternoon. Danny walked down the street, re-aimed at Torrelli’s; and the beast in him had changed. From a savage and snarling wolf it had become a great, shaggy, sentimental bear. “I will take wine to that nice Sweets,” he thought.
On the way down, whom should he meet but Pablo, and Pablo had two sticks of gum. He gave one to Danny and fell into step. “Where goest thou?”
“It is no time for friendship,” Danny said tartly. “First I go to buy a little wine to take to a lady. You may come with me, and have one glass only. I am tired of buying wine for ladies only to have my friends drink it all up.”
Pablo agreed that such a practice was unendurable. For himself, he didn’t want Danny’s wine, but only his companionship.
They went to Torrelli’s. They had a glass of wine out of the new bought gallon. Danny confessed that it was shabby treatment to give his friend only one little glass. Over Pablo’s passionate protest they had another. Ladies, Danny thought, should not drink too much wine. They were apt to become silly; and besides, it dulled some of those senses one liked to find alert in a lady. They had a few more glasses. Half a gallon of wine was a bountiful present, especially as Danny was about to go down to buy another present. They measured down half a gallon and drank what was over. Then Danny hid the jug in the weeds in a ditch.
“I would like you to come with me to buy the present, Pablo,” he said.
Pablo knew the reason for the invitation. Half of it was a desire for Pablo’s company, and half was fear of leaving the wine while Pablo was at large. They walked with studied dignity and straightness down the hill of Monterey.
Mr. Simon, of Simon’s Investment, Jewelry, and Loan Company, welcomed them into his store. The name of the store defined the outward limits of the merchandise the company sold; for there were saxophones, radios, rifles, knives, fishing-rods, and old coins on the counter; all [75] secondhand, but all really better than new because they were just well broken-in.
“Something you would like to see?” Mr. Simon asked.
“Yes,” said Danny.
The proprietor named over a tentative list and then stopped in the middle of a word, for he saw that Danny was looking at a large aluminum vacuum-cleaner. The dust-bag was blue and yellow checks. The electric cord was long and black and slick. Mr. Simon went to it and rubbed it with his hand and stood off and admired it. “Something in a vacuum-cleaner?” he asked.