A Laugh and a Laugh [pp. 109-113]

OVERLAND MONTHLY
died, and that her children's children sometimes in their romping rolled down the
sides of a red gravel heap which squatted
meanly on a certain worn out, winding trail.
One afternoon a damp, chilling wind blew
from the southeast through a maze of
wooded ravines until it reached the old sycamore in front of the store and set it sighing. Jose sat on the bench under the
porch and the wind, finding its way beneath
the shelter, enveloped him like a dream of
the past. Finally Jose sighed, a long, deep,
comprehensive, arousing breath, and started
through the gathering mist back over the
wet bricks of the walk, across the bridge
and down the stony path to his cold, dark,
cheerless cabin.
But on the bridge three girls approached
him, walking as girls will walk, with their
arms affectionately about one another's
waists and shoulders. The one between
spoke soft Spanish words vivaciously and
there was the light of happy anticipation
in her sweet dark eyes.
As they passed old Jose, one of the
others said to her, "Just the same, though,
Ramon will have more dances with you tonight, Rita, than anyone else."
The girl threw back her head and laughed
quite merrily at the idea. "It is so absurd,"
she said.
Jose heard the laugh and the hollow
sound of their steps on the boards of the
bridge. He stopped and the stick fell from
his hand. A look of bewilderment came
into his eves and his mouth half opened.
He looked earnestly down into the turbid
water of the creek, and up at the hillside
where the trees waved like reminiscent
shadows. Then he said quickly in a plaintive voice, "Rita!" and after a pause,
"Rita!" and again almost sobbed, "Rita!"
Then he picked up his stick and shuffled on.
The three girls turned behind the cottages. A dim light shone through the
windows of the hall, and the muffled tones
of a violin and a piano indicated that the
musicians were in there rehearsing for
the dance that night.
As the darkness increased the wind blew
stronger, swashing overhead against the
trees and undergrowth of the ridges like
the surf of the ocean. Jose, holding the
match between tremulous, flaccid fingers
lighted his lamp, then he sat down wearily
on the edge of his bunk. But the commo
tion of the wind and branches seemed to
perturb him deeply; and this was very unusual. There was in the air a disquiet that
invested him. His eyes rolled restlessly and
inquiringly from the meager flame to the
roof whence above came the strange sounds
of the wind.
He took up a wooden-handled knife mechanically and cut from a half loaf a piece
of bread; yet he left it untasted on the
soiled shelf. After awhile he raised halfway to his lips a broken pitcher containing
wine, but lowered it to the floor without
drinking, as though his thirst had left him.
Finally he arose and passed into the breezy
darkness. His limbs, for two generations
uncertain and practically somnambulistic,
now carried him with a newly acquired
firmness. He did not remark this difference or consider where his footsteps went.
Fate pointed and the spirit of destiny led
him, yet Jose was sensible of only a void
interval.
He gradually became conscious of a
black shadow stretching from his feet and
broadening away until it was lost in darkness. By degrees it dawned in him that
this shadow was his own and that he was
standing in the yellow fan of light that
penetrated the obscurity through a wide,
open door. His eyes blinked at the glare,
and he stood waiting while a sound, deep,
continuous, and mingled with music, provoked in him a dull, meaningless anger. At
last it ceased, and there issued from some
region near the light a thrill of laughter
which Jose6 at first thought was a part of
the brightness, but in an instant it became
changed to his ears and intensified. He
recognized it, and it throbbed with his
heart and pierced his brain like a steel rod.
A youth and a girl, passing, had paused
a moment in their promenade to view the
night.
"The wind seems to be holding a dance
up on the hill," said the man, and even
this made the girl's laughter quaver as
they turned back into the crowded room.
They had not seen a gross, stooping mass
of humanity below them suddenly straighten
and wind the fingers of its left hand into a
fist.
The laugh had entered Jose's blood. He
felt a long-stifled anguish seethe through
him. His right hand whitened as it gripped
the handle of his knife. There were the
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