Читать книгу The Fighting Littles - Booth Tarkington - Страница 4

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In the butler’s pantry Gentry Poindexter, colored, tall, Zulu-ish and all in white, spoke with relish to his wife, the Littles’ housemaid. “Boss sutny madded up this day, Almatina. You go’ hear him cuss like you ain’t never hear him yet.”

Almatina, preparing a breakfast tray to be taken upstairs, shook her head. “You the dumb-earedest man I ever listen to, Gentry. How many times do I got to tell you it’s like Miss Olita says and Mr. Little’s cussin’ ain’t cussin’ at all. It sound like it; but it ain’t.”

“So?” the colored man said. “You and Miss Olita can tell me it ain’t cussin’ every day for seven months and Christmas; but if you right, then I ain’t got no more ability to listen good than a ant’s got money to buy him wrastlin’ pants.” He giggled whisperingly, placed a silver coffee-pot upon a Sheffield tray and stepped toward the door. “Settin’ at table ri’ now, holdin’ up the newspaper ’tween him and Miss Olita so he ain’t got to look at her. Ain’t makin’ a sound; but he go’ be buzz-boomin’ soon! Somebody go’ start him; but it ain’t go’ be me. Ain’t go’ be Gentry tell him whut happen las’ night. No, ma’am!”

Thereupon Gentry Poindexter opened the pantry door with his knee, passed into the dining-room and refilled the coffee-cup at the elbow of the stocky-bodied, middle-aged man who sat at the head of the mahogany Georgian table and irascibly stared at a morning newspaper. Cousin Olita bore him company, so to speak; but hushedly. She looked up from her place half way down the table, and spoke in a low voice.

“You might just leave the coffee-pot, Gentry. Mr. Little may like——”

“What?” Little looked over the top of his paper challengingly. “What may I like?”

“Nothing,” Cousin Olita said hurriedly. “I only told Gentry to leave the coffee-pot because you may like——”

“Like?” Ripley Little said again. “I’d like to know what’s left for me to like. I’m jammed if I see what’s left for anybody to like when every time a man looks at a newspaper for nine years he either sees where Hitler’s done something worse than he did yesterday or else reads something that means he’ll have to hire three lawyers to tell him how to write down everything he does in what little business he’s got left with what little money he’s got left in a way that won’t get him into the penitentiary.” He thrust the paper from him. “It seems slightly peculiar to me that you claim to have slept through all the rumpus in this house after midnight last night. I find that hard to credit, Olita, hard to credit.” He looked sternly at the colored man. “Gentry, that noise certainly penetrated to your quarters. What was it?”

A film of blankness overspread Gentry Poindexter’s face; his eyes became opaque and his whole person expressed nonreceptivity. “Me,” he said, “I ain’t turn off layin’ on my face from ten las’ night to six o’clock after daylight.”

“What? You mean to tell me you slept through all that?”

“When I sleep,” Gentry said, “I sleep. No, suh. Whutever ’twas, Gentry ain’t hear it.”

Little frowned at him. “You didn’t hear the siren?”

“Hear whut, Mr. Little?”

“I’m asking you. You didn’t hear a police car sirening all over this neighborhood last night?”

“Police? I got nothin’ to do with them people.”

“It sounded all the way from down the street, getting louder and louder,” Ripley Little said. “It didn’t stop its noise until it got in front of this house; and right after that a car turned into our driveway and job jam if it didn’t sound to me mighty like as if it was the car that had been doing the sirening! Then somebody drove a herd of cattle into the house, turned the phonograph on, and the cows tried to dance. You heard nothing?”

“I ain’t hear no cow dance, no, suh, Mr. Little. All night long I sleepin’ sweet on my face and ain’t hear——”

He was interrupted by the youth, Filmer, who came into the dining-room at that moment and took his place at the table. “Then you must ’a’ been dead, not asleep,” Filmer said. “I never heard such a disgraceful noise in this house in all my whole days. Bring me my cereal, Gentry.”

“Oh, then somebody did hear something, after all!” Ripley Little looked upon his son with a frowning slight approval, as Gentry departed. “I’m glad to be corroborated. Gentry and your Cousin Olita talk as if I’m suffering from auditory delusions, Filmer. They’d both take their oath that the neighborhood and this house were so peaceful throughout the night that they slept like lambs and heard no disturbance whatever. Can you tell me what caused it?”

“Easy,” Filmer replied. “I could win quiz contests all day on questions like that. It was Goody and Ham Ellers—I know I heard his voice—and the rest of her screwy crowd. I didn’t wake up till they were dancing right under my room; but they were creating such an outrage I wondered, Father, you didn’t go down and stop ’em.”

“So did I!” his father said testily. “So do I now! A thousand times I wonder why I permit this family to be subjected to such outbreaks in the dead of the night.” He looked crossly at Gentry Poindexter, who was placing Filmer’s cereal upon the table. “You can get ready to drive me downtown, Gentry.”

“Downtown?” Gentry asked in a surprised voice. “Downtown, Mr. Little?”

Little, rising from his chair, stared at him. “What’s the matter with you? Where else do I go except downtown, at this hour? Isn’t it your custom to drive me downtown in my car after breakfast?”

“Yes, suh; but I was jes’ thinkin’ about that.”

“You were? Just thinking about it, were you?”

“Yes, suh; I was thinkin’ kind o’ like this.” The colored man, avoiding his employer’s eye, discovered a crumb upon the polished surface of the table, removed it conscientiously with a napkin. “Mr. Little, ain’t I always says we intitle to be a three-car family, not one them cheap twos? Look at this fine big house, all that nice grass and flower bushes and them trees we got, nice driveway out to the street. By rights we a three-car family, Mr. Little. We——”

“What’s the matter with you?” Little inquired again. “Are you going to bring my car around or aren’t you?”

“Yes, suh. I was jes’ thinkin’——” Gentry carefully removed another crumb from the table, seeming intent upon this duty. “We pure and honestly need more’n jes’ one car, Mr. Little, for me to drive you downtown in and go after you in, and only one other for all the scramblin’ round Miz Little and Miss Goody does in it, ’specially Miss Goody. No, suh, yes’d’y noon Miss Goody had to leave that other car in Crappio’s garage and it won’t be out today; Crappio can’t say when. That other car been complainin’ since ’way las’ winter. Them old models hard to get in good condition once they break down. So we ain’t go’ be able use that one now, Mr. Little.”

“I’m not talking about the other car,” Little said. “I’m talking about my own car. Are you trying to tell me you’ve let it get out of commission? It was absolutely all right when you brought me home in it at five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Have you had it out since?”

“Me? No, no, suh! But yes’d’y evenin’ drivin’ you home I kind o’ notice we ain’t rollin’ so good. Seem like sump’n fixin’ to bust; she ain’t say whut. Indurin’ the night it look like she done it. Yes, suh, sump’n bust; this morning she won’t roll.”

“What! Do you mean to tell me that just standing in my garage that car——”

“She won’t roll, Mr. Little. She out. Madison Boulevard bus line got nice bus, though; yes, suh. Scuse me, suh.”

Gentry, carrying two crumbs in a napkin upon his tray, kneed himself back into the butler’s pantry, and Ripley Little, still standing, looked intolerantly at Cousin Olita, whose gaze was upon her coffee-cup. “Olita, do you think you can see to it that Crappio gets a repair man here in time to have my car put in condition to be sent downtown for me at lunchtime?” he asked.

“I—I’ll try, Cousin Ripley.” Cousin Olita drank from her cup, seeming interested in its upper rim as she did so. “I’ll do my best; but you know how repair men always are, Cousin Ripley. Of course the Madison Boulevard bus is very pleasant indeed; I like that bus, myself, Cousin Ripley. One always sees people one knows in the Madison Boulevard busses, really nice people, too; so that a bus ride on a Madison Boulevard bus often means really quite a nice sociable time and——”

“That’s why I hate it,” Little said as he opened the dining-room door and walked out into the wide front hallway.

Sounds from the other side of the white-paneled front door, thirty feet before him, brought him to a halt; and his forehead immediately became corrugated with displeasing suspicions. Footsteps clumped on the floor of the portico outside that door; young voices were heard confusedly and there was a fumbling at the polished big brass latch. Then the door opened, revealing four interestingly damaged male persons, in age between seventeen and twenty-one. Two of them had their right arms in slings; the third, with the aid of a crutch, humored an injured foot; and the fourth had a bandaged chin. At sight of the master of the house all of them paused; then the one with the bandaged chin advanced a few steps, looking serious.

“Listen, Mr. Little, please,” this one said. “Where’s Plunks?”

“Listen yourself, but not please,” Little returned. “I don’t wish to intrude upon your private business or manners, Hamilton Ellers; but don’t you usually ring the bell before entering people’s houses?”

“We thought you’d be gone, sir,” young Mr. Ellers explained unthinkingly.

“Ah! Too bad!” Ripley Little said. “Too bad; but I’m not. What’s the matter with all of you? Been in a night spot riot? Never mind, don’t inform me; I’m not interested. It’s a bit early to receive callers. Kindly permit me to suggest that you return to your homes—or to your surgeons.”

“Well——” Hamilton Ellers, abashed but only slightly so, touched his bandaged chin; then passed his hand over his irregular but not uncomely other features. “Well, sir, we’d really like to see Plunks if——”

“That’s not my daughter’s name.” Little advanced discouragingly. “I don’t enjoy hearing it applied to her. I realize that my objection means nothing to you; nevertheless, I still retain title to this property. Kindly retire—or unkindly if you prefer. I’m indifferent which, just so you retire. I bid you good-day—permanently if possible. Do I make my meaning at all clear?”

“Well, sir, if Plunks—I mean Goody——”

“I don’t?” Ripley Little continued his advance.

“Ye—es, sir.” Hamilton Ellers, at least law-abiding, clumped out to rejoin his friends in the portico, closing the door behind him; and Ripley Little, breathing noisily, passed into the living-room and from a window saw the four moving crippledly toward the front gate and the street. They spoke busily together as they went, but seemed downcast.

“ ‘Plunks’,” Ripley Little said, staring through the glass. “That’s nice. ‘Plunks’!”

“I don’t blame you, Father,” his fourteen-year-old son said sympathetically from the open double doorway behind him. “I don’t blame you for getting mad and talking to yourself.”

“Talking to myself?” Little turned. “I wasn’t doing anything of the kind.”

“Weren’t you, Father?” Filmer said. “Well, anyhow, I think you did the right thing. Goody heard you, too. She was leaning over the banisters and she’d have come down and interfered except I think she thought it’d just make it more embarrassing. She’s still up there, listening, and it ought to teach her something useful because she certainly heard——”

“I certainly did!” a sweet voice called vindictively from the stairway, and the prettiest girl for miles around—dark-eyed, brown-haired and stirringly graceful—sped down the steps and came rushing into the room.