Yellow Hair

Pedro’s house stood high on its four legs, almost the last straggler among the huts of the Portuguese mill hands which crept up to the marshes outside the town. For six months Pedro had approached it at the end of his mill day with a ritualistic definiteness. His eyes on the ground, away from the sight of the cold, smokeless chimney, he would climb the rickety steps to the door. He would stand there for a moment, listening. Then he would take from the scanty concealment of the old tomato can the key to his house. Pushing open the door, he would thrust his head forward, and make a halting, somber survey of the kitchen. Finally, having closed the door, he would walk across the room and look into the tiny bedroom beyond. After a moment, with the dull movements of a sleep walking pirate, he would go about his routine of fire, supper, and bed.

To-night he stopped once as he neared the house. The air had a faint odor of smoke. He stared up at his chimney; was there a wispy gray curl against the sky? In his haste he stumbled on the steps. The tomato can was overturned.

Within came the creak of a rocker on a bare floor. He pushed open the door and thrust his head forward. The woman by the stove stopped rocking, and at a guttural sound from Pedro, shrank back in her chair. Pedro closed the door, and silently, his great body contracting, crouching, he pulled himself across the room to her. Beads of sweat stood out on his swarthy forehead. The woman’s full lips parted in a whimper; her pale blue eyes cringed under narrowed eyelids. Pedro lifted his hand, a huge hand, with crisp black hairs along the backs of the fingers. With the crooked forefinger he touched the woman’s untidy light hair.

“He—he hit me——” she cried suddenly.

Pedro straightened, and with a stride reached the door of the bedroom. On the low wooden bed slept a child, one hand curled under his cheek, moist yellow hair about his face. Pedro pulled the edge of the ragged quilt over the child’s body, waited as it stirred, and when it slept again, turned back into the kitchen.

“You bring him back—my boy——” he whispered.

The fear had left the woman’s face. She nodded.

“You come back to me? You be my girl again? Black Pedro’s girl?” There was a dogged humility in Pedro’s dark eyes; the cords in his throat were taut. “You stay?”

“You’ll be good to me?” The woman’s eyes glinted. She rose, tipping her head back to look up at Pedro, her throat swelling white out of the dirty blouse.

“When you go—I say I kill you—so!” He held out his great clenched fists, shaking them. A grimace twisted the woman’s lips. “A Portuguese kill his woman. But you—different. Not Portuguese. Me—I’m black—You—all white—and yellow hair.”

“Not many white women’d love you,” said the woman, slyly. “An’ I fetched him back.” She pointed to the bedroom. “’F ’tadn’t been fer him, I’d been treated better.”

“You stay?” implored Pedro.

“Sure.” The woman shrugged. “Set down and eat our potatoes I cooked. An’ after supper——” she paused, a smile at one corner of her full lips.