Читать книгу Growth of a Man - Mazo de la Roche - Страница 9

“LAZY SHAW MANIFOLD,” the teacher of the country school, Miss McKay, had sometimes called him. “You are lazy,” she had said, “because you have plenty of brains but you don’t use them. You’d sooner play than prepare yourself for the future. You’ll be sorry some day. You’ll be coming to me and saying, ‘Oh, Miss McKay, why didn’t you make me work?’ ”

“And what will you say?” he had asked, interested.

“I’ll say that I couldn’t make you study and that it serves you right to be ignorant and poor.”

“How old will you be then?” he had asked, to draw attention from himself.

“That has nothing to do with it,” she had answered sharply. “I am talking about how idle you are.”

As he trudged along the country road on this Monday morning his face was set in a mask of seriousness almost ridiculous so imposed on its childish curves. Even his walk was different, with his chest pressed forward in resolution and his feet planted in a direct line toward the school, not straying after everything that caught his eye.

Ahead of him on the road he saw Louie Adams, a girl two years older than himself but half a head shorter. She was the pupil of whom the teacher was most proud, for she was not only intelligent but worked very hard. Already her ambition pointed, with the hard sharpness of a slate pencil, toward becoming a schoolteacher herself. Louie was very poor; the dress on her back had once been Elspeth Blair’s, her shoes were patched, her hair hung in drab uneven locks about her wizened little face.

She was an unpleasing sight to Shaw. He had always avoided looking at her. Her relentless industry, combined with her drab looks, had repelled him. But now he looked at her with acute interest. She was two classes ahead of him and he was calculating how long it would take him to catch her up, to pass her.

He began to run and was soon at her side. She started and gave him a look of suspicion.

“Hullo!” he said.

“Hullo,” she returned curtly.

“You’re in good time for school, aren’t you, Louie?” he said companionably.

“Am I ever late?” she answered tartly.

“Oh no, you’re never late, Louie. You’re almost always first there. And you’re at the top of your class, too, aren’t you?”

Again she gave him a suspicious look and moved to the other side of the road. The two pairs of stubby boots plodded through the dust.

“What would you say if I was to pass the entrance as soon as you, Louie?”

She gave a contemptuous snort. “Hoo! You! Why, you’re only nine! And you’re no good at your books. You’ll not pass for years and years!”

He smiled at her enigmatically. “You wait and see. You just wait and see if I’m not in your class by Easter. And then wait a little longer and you’ll see me pass the entrance exam ahead of you.”

She was furious. She did not believe in his threat but it stirred her to her depths. She began to run toward the school as fast as she could. Shaw let her run a little way ahead, then he bounded after her. “I’m after you, Louie!” he called. “I’m catching up!”

She ran frantically, her schoolbag bouncing on her thin shoulder blades, her black-stockinged legs like the legs of a scurrying ant.

“I’m catching up!” he shouted. “I’m right on your heels, Louie! I’m here!” In his triumph he threw both arms about her, clutching her close. Her books fell to the ground. She burst into tears. How skinny she was! He wanted to crumple her to bits!

He heard the thud of horse’s hoofs, the rattle of wheels. The Reverend Mr. Blair drew in his horse and turned his piercing glance on Shaw. Ian and Elspeth were in the buggy beside him.

“Shaw Manifold,” he commanded, “drop that girl and look at me! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? You behave like a rowdy—yesterday you laughed out loud in church. This morning you ill-treat an innocent little girl on her way to school. But you shall be sorry for it! What did your grandfather say to you about your behavior in church?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing, sir!”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Or your grandmother?”

“Nothing.”

“Sir!”

“Sir.”

“Well, if they have no authority over you, I must see what I can do. Get into the buggy! Louie, get in, my child! Give me your hand.”

Grasping Louie’s bony little hand, he heaved her over the step and sat her on his knee, where she hiccuped and sobbed to the jolting of the buggy. Shaw clambered up and squeezed himself between Ian and Elspeth. He wondered what was going to happen to him.

He felt Ian’s fingers creeping up his side, Ian’s fingers feeling for the tenderest spots between his ribs. He grasped Ian’s wrist and held it. Elspeth’s little face was full of anxiety for Shaw. She did not much like Louie, and she resented the sight of Louie snuggled weeping on her father’s knee. She looked up into his face pleadingly. Would he tell the teacher of Shaw? Would the teacher punish Shaw?

Mr. Blair saw her upturned face out of the corner of his eye. She was his favorite child and his firm Calvinistic lips softened. He bent his head to hers and whispered—“Supposing it had been you whom Shaw was clutching so rudely on the way to school. What would you have said to that?”

“I’d have liked it,” said Elspeth.

Mr. Blair flicked his horse sharply with the whip. Elspeth’s answer had startled and shocked him. He frowned, wondering if he had been too lax with her, wondering if she might grow up into one of these modern women he had read of with such distaste. His profile was grim as they sped along the country road, with the fields spread lavishly on either side and the birds darting in quest of food for their young.

A stream of clumsily dressed children was trickling into the school when the buggy stopped before it. Ian was out first. Mr. Blair lifted Louie gently in his hands and turned her, with an encouraging smile, toward the door. He then set his Elspeth on her feet, but more firmly, and laid a heavy hand on Shaw’s shoulder.

“Now, my boy,” he said, “we’ll find your teacher.” He steered him through the door, followed by the little girls. Ian detached himself from the group and was absorbed by the other boys.

Miss McKay came forward, anxiety making her plain face still plainer. She was afflicted by pimples, and she had a habit of covering the more conspicuous of them with her hand. Her hands were singularly beautiful. Mr. Blair’s mind was suddenly jolted from its mission and he caught himself thinking—“What a face! What hands! If only she could always cover it with them! Truly the whims of Nature are astonishing!”

Resolutely he put his mind into the designed channel and said, in an impressive, ministerial voice—“I have brought Shaw Manifold to you, Miss McKay, for punishment. You must choose what form it is to take. I found him on the road treating Louie Adams very roughly. Her schoolbag was in the dust and she was crying. I am sorry to say that he misbehaved in church yesterday. You know nothing of that, I suppose, since you were not there.”

Miss McKay had succumbed to the weakness of the flesh and spent yesterday morning in bed, with a backache and Robert Elsmere. She was flustered and could only say:—

“Oh, I’m very sorry, Mr. Blair! I’m very, very sorry.”

“You may well be sorry,” he returned. “I am sure that we are all sorry.” His fine grey eyes swept over the assembled children, including them all in the general sorrowing.

His son, safe in the back row, murmured, “Amen, brother Blair, so be it,” sending the other boys into a state approaching suffocation.

“Why do you think Shaw behaved so to you, Louie?” asked Miss McKay, concealing, in her anxiety, only the less important pimples.

“I dunno, teacher,” answered Louie. “He just came along and told me he was going to get to the top of the class and then he began to chase me.”

“Why, he is not even in your class!” exclaimed Miss McKay. “He is even below little Elspeth. What made you say and do such things, Shaw?” She spoke kindly and his head drooped.

“Explain!” ordered the minister.

“Well,” said Shaw, “I made up my mind last night to be head of the highest class, and when I saw Louie on the road I remembered she was head and I chased her.”

“He is a truthful boy,” said Miss McKay.

“That doesn’t excuse his conduct. What are you going to do about that, Miss McKay?”

“Whatever you suggest,” she answered meekly.

“Then I suggest six on each hand with the strap. If you don’t object, I shall remain while the punishment is administered. It may have more effect.”

Miss McKay began to tremble. “You may take your seat, Louie.” She opened her desk and produced the strap.

“Remember, Shaw,” said Mr. Blair, “that this is being done for your good.”

“A-men, brother,” murmured his son. “So be it. Hit him hard, teacher! He’ll thank you for it!”

“Hold out your hand,” said Miss McKay.

Shaw held his broad-palmed, well-shaped hand on a level with his shoulder. Down came the strap, six times on each hand, stinging with Miss McKay’s flurry, her fear of being thought incompetent. Shaw turned pale. He felt that Mr. Blair’s eyes were boring into him, rejoicing in his pain. He kept his own eyes fixed on Miss McKay’s face, seeing how the pimples were left uncovered, how, with each blow, a fresh wave of color flooded her pale face. His own hands seemed somehow detached from him; he watched their suffering, ashamed for their humiliation.

“Now,” said Mr. Blair, “go to your seat and let this be the last time you ever behave in this ruffianly way, especially to a little girl whom we should all try to help.” He looked at his large gold watch, exchanged a few words with Miss McKay, and, after a long, compelling look at the assembled children, creaked out. They heard the wheels of his buggy rattle on the gravel.

For a while Shaw sat motionless, nursing his hands, seeing nothing, the rise and fall of Miss McKay’s voice going in and out of his head without meaning. She spared him any questions.

Presently a boy behind him poked him in the back and passed a note under his arm. It was from Ian and it read:—

First spit on them—then blow on them—it takes the smart out.

The Minister’s Son,

IAN

Shaw grinned. Surreptitiously he spat and blew. He made Ian’s note into a pellet and flicked it at Louie’s face. She gave him a look of hate and slowly the ebb of his self-respect turned. It began to flow in on him. It filled his veins with warmth. He raised his heavy eyes and began to listen to what the teacher was saying.

He went on listening. He never took those heavy eyes from her face. She became uncomfortable. She could not forget him for a moment. At the recess she kept him in.

“This is not a punishment, Shaw,” she said. “I simply want to know why you sat staring so. You made me feel queer. Aren’t you well?”

“I’m all right,” he answered gruffly.

“Very well, then—you may go out and play.”

He moved toward the door, then turned back.

“I stared,” he said slowly, “because I didn’t want to miss a word you said. What Louie told you is true. I’m going to be head of her class. I’m going to pass the entrance exam next year.”

“But, Shaw,” she cried, “you can’t! You can’t possibly do it! You don’t know what you’re saying! Whatever put such an idea in your head?” She was worried. Something had happened to the boy. He looked ill. She asked:—

“Where is your mother? I believe I heard that she has gone away.”

“Yes. She’s got a situation as a housekeeper. She’s got to work hard and—so have I. I’m going to pass the entrance first of the school. You’ll see!”

She was touched. She put her beautiful hand to her face. “I’ll help you all I can,” she said, but she thought that the poor boy was attempting the impossible.

Yet by the time the summer holidays came it did not seem quite so impossible. Shaw showed a stubbornness, a resolve, that almost disconcerted her. His homework was always prepared. He not only listened to what she was teaching his class but she caught him drinking in what was going on in the class above. She saw him form with his lips the answers to unanswered questions. At the end of the term he was easily at the top of his class.

Now that Shaw was in his tenth year his grandfather was determined that he should be more useful on the farm. The holidays were here and consequently he was free for the busiest season. He was set at hoeing. Hour after hour, day after day, week in, week out, he stood in the potato field or among the turnips and swedes, hoeing out the weeds.

It was a hot, humid summer. Even Roger Gower admitted that he had never before seen such a growth of weeds. At first Shaw hoed manfully, even hoping for a word of commendation, but the weeds were too much for him. Uproot them as he would, their fellows, their successors, thrust up, brandished their tough blooms, shook out their down with a million seeds attached, jeered at him above the smothered swedes.

Invariably Luke or Mark came to help him out. Those were the days that filled him with despair. The effort to keep up with the dogged relentless hoeing of these two left him too tired for sleep. He would toss on his little bed the hot night through. But at dawn, when his sleep was suddenly deep and peaceful, Beaty would come pounding up the stairs and wake him.

“Get up, lazybones! My, what a lazy lump you are!”

He would lie stupefied, staring through the small-paned window, pretending that he would not get up. “I won’t get up!” he would mutter. “Don’t you think you can make me, you mean old Beaty! I’ll lie here resting all day long and you’ll carry my meals up to me. You’ll carry them up on a golden tray with fine white linen, you mean old pig, Beaty!”

Then below, out of the jungle of his grandfather’s beard, would come a roar of—“Shaw!”

He would spring up frightened and hastily pull on his clothes, the muscles of his back and arms cruelly sore, and stumble down the stairs.

The best thing on these mornings was the drink of ice-cold spring water from the tin dipper. He would press his dry lips to the dipper and drink as though he would never get his fill. Into this icy liquid the stiff hot porridge fell in a solid lump that his stomach was incapable of digesting. It lay heavy for a long time, then suddenly he was ravenously hungry, yearning for the pork and potatoes and pie of dinner. He became hollow-eyed, pasty-skinned with a thick yellowish tan. The palms of his hands were ridged by calluses. His hair was harsh and dry. He walked to his dinner bent like a little old man.

Even a day of pouring rain or electric storm did not save him from toil. Stables were to be cleaned or wood to be piled. Only Sunday came as a respite, as a rich refreshment in the barren week. From Wednesday on he strained toward it. From its dawning he cherished every hour.

All the long afternoon he read, lying on his stomach in either orchard or hayloft. He stole candles from the kitchen and, with three nails driven into a square of wood, made himself a candlestick. In his room he read far into the night. He devoured Gulliver’s Travels, Livingstone’s Travels, Kingston’s Saved from the Sea, Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome, Henry Esmond, and Great Expectations. In turn he was the hero of each, transported to a new world. No print was too small, no pages too closely packed. He wallowed through Chapman’s Homer. Clean out of himself he was lifted by the wonder of The Tempest, and the strange music of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He mumbled aloud, in a way that would have been unintelligible to a listener but to him was strong declaiming:—

“When they him spy,

As wild geese that the creeping fowler eye,

Or russet-pated choughs, many in sort,

Rising and cawing at the gun’s report,

Sever themselves and madly sweep the sky,

So, at his sight, away his fellows fly;

And, at our stamp, here o’er and o’er one falls;

He murder cries, and help from Athens calls.”

There was no discrimination in his reading. He liked everything. What he wanted from an author was that the author should take him by the hand and lead him away from the life he was bound to, into worlds unknown. Let that world be the slums of London, the steaming jungle of Africa, the region of Lilliput or of ancient Greece, it scarcely mattered to Shaw. He was away! He was free!

He had no interest in the success or failure of the crops. Where many a boy would have found solace in the playful calves, the lambs, or even the bouncing little pigs, Shaw found none. There was no friendship between him and the collie dog who did his duty fiercely and cared for no man. Shaw slaved in a kind of stupor during the week, straining toward Sunday. He savored Sunday to its last moment, shut behind the walls of his imaginative egotism.

Through this weekday haze he saw his grandfather, his broad beard like a banner, lead the army of his sons from crop to crop. He saw his grandmother and her daughters plucking poultry, straining honey, making cheese, ironing huge white petticoats and stiff starched blouses. He heard them whispering and chuckling about their partners at country dances, the compliments they had had on their looks and their clothes. Jane Gower, who showed no affection for Shaw, could deny her own children nothing. After a hard day’s work she would sit up half the night stitching tucks or making rickrack lace for petticoats.

A married daughter, the one with the new baby, came home for a visit in August. The squalling infant became the hub around which all the women revolved. Shaw overheard whispered references to the “bad time” the mother had had in childbed. He looked at her with curiosity and distaste.

Almost every Sunday Leslie came to tea, and he and Beaty had the parlor to themselves. They sat side by side at table, Leslie very joky and sunburned till he was almost as swarthy as his mother; Beaty as shining as soap and water could make her, laughing at everything he said, showing off before her older sisters, quirking her little finger as she ate.

After tea Leslie would take her for a drive behind his spanking grey gelding. He would drive down the lane and turn through the gate at a speed that left the family gasping, half proud, half alarmed for Beaty’s safety. Compared to Leslie, Letitia’s slow-going, middle-aged betrothed, editor of a small-town newspaper, seemed tame. He and she would set off arm in arm for their evening walk, she a little disgruntled, he deprecating, talking long-windedly of his newspaper to impress her.

They were all of them unreal figures to Shaw, their doings without interest. But when they began to talk of the annual Presbyterian picnic he became suddenly alive to what the day might mean to him. It might mean hours of solitude, freedom to do as he pleased. He made up his mind that he would not go to the picnic.

He appeared at breakfast with a lugubrious expression, but no one noticed it. No one cared, he thought, how sad he looked, and tears of self-pity suddenly filled his eyes. They rolled down his cheeks.

This his grandmother saw.

“Whatever is the matter?” she asked.

“It’s my bad ear,” he said. “It’s aching so I can’t go to the picnic.”

She looked concerned. “Well, I declare,” she said, “that’s too bad! But don’t you worry! It will be all right. Just put it out of your mind.”

“I can’t,” he whined. “It’s been aching all night.”

“I’ll put some laudanum in it. Come along to my room after you’ve had your breakfast.”

“I don’t want any breakfast.” He cupped his ear in his hand and rocked on his chair.

“Let him stay at home if he wants to,” said Luke. “It’s a good thing to have someone on the place, in case of tramps.”

“Yes,” chimed in Esther, “let him stay, Ma! It will give us a little more room and he won’t have any fun if his ear is aching.”

So he was allowed to stay. He watched the feverish preparations of the girls, the packing of picnic baskets with ham and salmon sandwiches, layer cakes and cookies, from the corner where he sat nursing his ear. Not for a moment did he relax his expression of misery, for fear he might be set some work to do during the day.

At last the sound of the wheels died away. He was quite alone. He ran to the window to look after them. It seemed too good to be true. They were gone—every one of them—he was alone!

At first he scarcely knew what to do with himself. He felt dazed. The house which was always so overflowing with activity was empty, except for his small body. The rooms seemed suddenly larger. The quiet was almost startling. The collie came to the open door and looked in at him, then stalked away. It was still early, only seven o’clock in the morning. The picnickers were driving to a distant lake, then taking a steamboat to a pleasure park.

Shaw walked about the house as though he had never seen it before. He felt as though the family had been suddenly swept away by some catastrophe and he left in complete possession. He went into his grandparents’ room, saw the hastily made bed, the bottle of pinkish liquid his grandmother used as a hair restorer, his grandfather’s nightshirt thrown on a chair. He went through the girls’ rooms, helped himself to Beaty’s scent, took a “conversation” lozenge from the bag brought to Letitia by her lover. But he was afraid to venture into his uncles’ rooms. They would surely be aware of any trespass on his part.

He wondered what he would eat for breakfast. He decided on milk and honey because he had heard Mr. Blair speak of it with great unction in his sermons. He would have milk and honey and he would eat outdoors from the best dishes. He would have a picnic of his own!

He laid a supply of cookies on the best cake plate. He went to the dairy and, from the crock of fresh thick cream, filled one of the best glass tumblers. He filled a blue china bowl with honey. As he arranged these before him on the grass the morning sun streamed through the broad branches of the maple trees and a light breeze from the south lifted the thick hair on his forehead. He felt like an Eastern potentate.

He ate a little of the cream, to make room in the goblet for some honey. Then he added honey to the very brim. The first mouthful of this was beyond belief delicious. He sat absorbing it, gazing straight in front of him, seeing a procession of camels laden with embroideries and spices entering the shade of an oasis after a long journey across the desert. He himself was the Arab chief, silent, inscrutable, with the power of life and death over his followers. His enormous beard swept his chest and through it his voice came muffled and commanding, like a deep-toned drum.

So dreaming he finished the cream and honey. He ate a few of the cookies. Then he lay on his back, hands beneath head, legs crossed, staring into the sunny treetops. Two red squirrels were chasing each other up and down the trunks, leaping from bough to bough, their red tails flirting like insolent question marks. A chipmunk sat on the corner of the porch watching them, rigid with curiosity and surprise.

Shaw dozed, then fell deeply asleep. When he woke he felt rested and well. A deep silence pervaded the farm. The kitchen clock was striking nine. He had the day before him. He would lie on the grass and read, and when he was hungry he would eat more cream and honey.

He carried an armful of books from his room. He wanted to see them lying about on the grass, to feel the companionship of them. He handled them one after another, feeling his power over them, savoring the thought that he could, when he chose, extract the treasure from each in turn.

Now he began to read The Merchant of Venice. He read hour after hour without tiring. The sun rose high, the noonday was hot. Shaw pressed his bare feet happily into the tender coolness of the young grass. He grew hungry again and ate more cream and honey. After that he thought he would like a dip in the pool. The neighbors would be at the picnic. He would have the pool to himself.

But when he reached it he found the hired man, Jack Searle, already splashing about, only his surprisingly beautiful face and classic head visible. He called out to Shaw:—

“Oh, hullo, kid! So you stopped at home too, did you? Good egg! Come in for a swim!”

“That’s what I’ve come for.”

“Why didn’t you go to the picnic?”

“Didn’t want to. Wanted to read.”

“Ha ha, so you’re taking my advice, Mr. Noble Brow!”

“I didn’t want to go.” He made Shaw uncomfortable and sulky.

“Neither did I! Just to stop work is picnic enough for me. They can have their bloody picnic!”

Shaw recoiled from him. He had never heard such language before.

Searle laughed. “Well, you are a good little boy, ain’t you? Come along in and I’ll talk proper, I promise you. What have you been reading?”

“The Merchant of Venice.”

“But that ain’t a book! It’s a play.”

“ ’T isn’t a play! It’s a book.”

“It’s a play! I saw it once in Liverpool when I was on shore leave from a coal schooner.”

“You couldn’t! It’s all printed in a book. I have it upstairs. It’s by Shakespeare. It’s about a Jew that wanted to cut a pound of flesh off a Christian because the Christian owed him money and had spat on him.”

“That’s it! That’s the play! Haven’t you ever seen a play, you poor young blighter?”

“No, but I’ve heard of them—Uncle Tom’s Cabin and East Lynne and Colleen Bawn. I’d not be allowed to go. My folks think plays are wicked.”

“But they let you read ’em!”

“They don’t know.”

“Well, I wish you could have seen this play. That old Shy-lock would curdle your blood. By gum, he sharpened his knife and showed the whites of his eyes and kept on saying he would have the flesh, till the audience was sitting up like they would at a cockfight. He was right, too.”

“Right!” Shaw gasped. “Why—it would have killed Antonio!”

“What if it had! He deserved killing—him and his friends. Look at the way they’d treated Shylock! You bet I’d have done the same as he did.” He plunged head-first into the pool and for a moment was hidden in a smother of wavelets.

Shaw pulled off his clothes and waded in. The air was balmy, the coolness of the water delicious. Searle splashed him, played with him like another boy, yet he was older than Mark or Luke, who were so solid and staid. Shaw had an idea.

“Say,” he said, “would you like to come home with me and see the book? There’s nobody there but me.”

“All right,” agreed Searle, “I’ll go.” It seemed to Shaw that he did whatever came into his head without a moment’s consideration. Shaw stared up at him, as they plodded across the rough field, in wonder and a sort of wistful admiration.

Searle went into the house without ceremony and stared about him. He put up his hand and touched the low ceiling. He cast his eyes disparagingly over the room. “Not much of a house,” he said.

“It’s pretty old,” said Shaw.

“I like everything new and glossy. They’ve a better house where I work.”

“But the farmer is sort of mean, isn’t he?”

Shaw had a feeling of resentment for this disparagement of his home.

Searle flashed him a look from his fine eyes. “Mean!” he repeated. “Mean! Mean don’t express it! He’s as mean as dirt! He’d skin a louse for its hide and tallow. He makes me feel like old Shylock, he does! He’s insulted me in every shape and form.”

“Has he spat on you?” Shaw asked.

Searle grinned. “No, he hasn’t done that! I’d pity him if he did. But he’s said everything he can think of. We’re parting. This is the last you’ll see of me.”

“I wish you weren’t going.”

“Don’t you wish me to stay here! I wouldn’t wish that on a dog. I’m going—and I’m going to take my pound of flesh! Only it’ll be a hundred pounds!”

“What! Not off the farmer?” Shaw gave a small boy’s delighted gasp at an imagined horror. “There’d be nothing left!”

“I’m talking rot. You forget it,” said Searle, suddenly calm. He strolled about the room, inquisitively. “I don’t s’pose your grandpa has anything to drink about the place?”

“To drink?” repeated Shaw. “Tea, do you mean? Or buttermilk?”

“Lord, no! Whiskey, I mean, or a drop of gin.”

Shaw was horrified. “There’s never anything like that in our house,” he said gruffly. “I had cream for breakfast with honey in it. Would you like some?”

“You bet I would! You sound like a millionaire! I’ll wait here while you get it.” He sat down by the table and leant his head on his hand.

He was sitting there when Shaw returned with the cream. He looked dreamy. He roused himself and took what Shaw offered.

“The best is good enough for you, isn’t it?” He grinned into Shaw’s face. “Cream and honey! You’ll be owning a carriage and pair one of these days. You’ll be traveling de luxe on the best steamships. Don’t forget me, will you? When a ragged chap comes out of a lane to hold your horses or a steward comes to wrap up your legs as you lie stretched in your deck chair—that’ll be me!”

“What’s a steward and a deck chair and de luxe?” asked Shaw.

“De luxe is the costliest—when you pay through the nose for everything you want. A deck chair is the sort of sofa what rich folks loll in, while the stewards tuck them up like babies.”

“They couldn’t! Not men.”

“They do! You just wait and see!”

The strong “oi” sound in his voice, his cockney knowingness, his queer beauty, made Shaw uncomfortable. At the same time he liked having him with him, entertaining him, listening to his flattering talk.

The cream and honey, Searle said, made him feel sick. He lighted a cigarette and Shaw marveled to see such a thing in that house. Outdoors under the trees he offered Shaw one and taught him how to inhale. He handled Shaw’s books with more respect than he had shown to anything before, but Shaw was shocked to find that he could not read. A feeling of deep compassion for Searle surged through him. He said hesitatingly:—

“I’ll teach you how, if you like. We could meet on the sly.”

“Thanks,” answered Searle indifferently. “I’ll think about it.”

After he had gone Shaw again returned to his reading. The sun began to send its light slanting between the tree trunks. Hens and their broods came close to him, clucking and scratching. The cows came lowing to the gate of the barnyard and he went, as in a dream, and let them through. He saw, as in a dream, the milk trickling from a too full udder, a rump scratched by barbed wire, and returned to his books.

A strange sort of hunger was teasing his stomach. Reason told him that he should not again eat cream and honey. But, stronger than reason, appetite drove him to it. He went to the dairy and once more prepared the fabulous dish.

He cleaned up all traces of the feast and went and lay down on the grass near the pump stand. The air suddenly felt sultry. A feeling of deep melancholy swept over him. He buried his face in his arms and gave himself up to fretting for his mother.

After a while he was sick. He took a long drink of the ice-cold spring water and lay down again. The sun was sunk and clear moonlight made the shadows strange, the small sounds startling. As the day had seemed to belong to him, so he now seemed to belong to the night. He felt weak and afraid. An owl came from the woods and began to walk up and down the path, turning its wide stare at him as though in hatred. Then a whippoorwill called and another answered. To and fro they tossed the haunting words, louder and nearer and faster, till in their haste they stuttered them.

Shaw could bear it no longer. He fled through the dark house, feeling himself pursued. Hands reached out to catch him in ghostly embrace. Each creak of the stairs shot through him like a scream. Without undressing he threw himself on to the bed and pulled the covers over his head.

After a while he heard the horses stamping below. One in the stable uttered a loud whinny of welcome—Roger Gower’s voice was raised in orders. For the first time it sounded comforting to Shaw. He sighed in relief as he heard the girls giggling and whispering in their rooms.

He slept so hard the next morning that Beatrice had to drag him out of bed and stand him on his feet before he would wake. He stood half blubbering, scowling at her.

“Sakes alive,” she exclaimed, “you’ve not undressed! You’ve slept in your clothes! I’ll tell Ma—see if I don’t!”

But she did not tell. Esther came to the bottom of the stairs and called:—

“Beaty, come down here! You’ll never guess what’s happened at the Pages’.”

Beaty almost fell downstairs in her eagerness to hear gossip. The Pages were the unfriendly neighbors on whose farm Jack Searle worked. Shaw was instantly wide awake. He hurried down the stairs after Beaty.

At first he could not make out what the excitement was about. Not because there was a clamor of talk. The Gowers never talked loudly or interrupted one another. It was their taciturnity that made it hard to unearth the seed of the disturbance. Luke stood in the midst of the womenfolk. It was he who had brought the news. Shaw could tell that by Luke’s superior smile.

“Well—I declare!” ejaculated Jane Gower.

“Who’d ha’ thought it?” said Letitia.

“I would,” said Luke.

“Have you seen anything?” asked Esther.

“You bet I have! More than I’d tell you.”

“I want to know what you’re talking about,” from Beaty.

“Go on, Luke, do tell!” begged Esther.

“Oh, I’ve seen things! A feller can’t tell his sister everything.”

Beaty doubled up with laughter.

“You silly girl,” said her mother indulgently. “What’re you giggling at? You don’t even know what’s happened.”

“I say it serves old Page right,” said Esther. “Look at the way he acted over that boundary!”

“I wonder how her mother’s taking it.” A smile flickered across Jane Gower’s face.

“Terrible,” said Luke. “They’re all taking it terrible.”

“Who told you?” asked Letitia.

“The youngest boy. He came over to ask if any of us had seen the feller. Did you see him yesterday, Shaw?”

Shaw was suddenly cold. “Who?” he whispered. “See who?”

“Jack Searle. The Pages’ hired man.”

Shaw shook his head.

“What’s he done?” asked Beaty, through her laughter.

“Run off with Laura Page,” answered Luke.

At first Shaw could not take it in. This was the first time he had heard of an elopement in real life. He had read of them in books, but had looked on them as impossible to ordinary people.

“Are they going to get married?” he asked.

“We’ll hope so,” answered his grandmother grimly.

The thought of two people living together without marrying was too much for Beaty. She turned crimson and was almost suffocated by her laughter.

The thick-set figure of Roger Gower darkened the doorway. He was twisting his beard in his fingers, a sign of irritation with him.

“Are you going to fool about here all the morning?” he said to Luke.

The young man sulkily went out through the kitchen. The girls, with their father’s large blue eyes on them, began their morning work, but keeping near enough to each other for talk.

“How’s your earache?” Roger fixed his eyes on Shaw.

“My earache? Why—I dunno—I forget.”

Roger Gower stumped to the chest of drawers and opened the top one. He fumbled about in it with his short fingers. Then he turned and faced his wife.

“The seventy-five dollars,” he said, “that I got for the Jersey and her calf. It’s gone . . . it was here . . . under the bankbook, and it’s gone. . . .”