Читать книгу The Fighting Littles - Booth Tarkington - Страница 7

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His father called Filmer “my boy” eight or nine times, and Goody nothing at all, during the next several days. This had happened before; and being the favorite child rapidly became, as usual, almost a commonplace with Filmer. His whole first week of vacation, in fact, was rather a dull one; his mind had found little to dwell upon. Precocious spottily, though sievelike with a thousand minute vacancies, that mind was accustomed to absorb textbook formulae more quickly than could most of its competitors; and in his pardonable statement to his parents he had not exaggerated Miss Hoapmiller’s praise of him. Now, with no homework to fill the loose hours, and no daily triumphs over an audience of slower intellects, he almost missed the dear old schoolroom, almost could wish himself there again.

Fragrant mid-June and a torrid pea-green morning found him without engagements, stagnant in idea and almost without impulses. Nevertheless, as his aimless feet bore him out to stand in the portico after breakfast, a change took place; for a ruling element of conduct automatically departed out of him with the very closing of the door behind him. This element might be called the habit of domestic guardedness. Filmer indoors, and open to family observation, was one thing; Filmer at school was another; and Filmer outside of either home or school was yet another.

He yawned without shielding the aperture, stretched his arms, and then, moved by a vague prompting, went out to the shady sidewalk, and strolled southward. Beneath a hot blue sky and a few motionless cotton clouds he sauntered, not thinking formed thoughts, yet as aware of himself as if he had been a celebrated personage observed in every look and action.

Though he was short for his age, sometimes mortifyingly so, his style, he knew, was better than merely good. He was hatless, of course, proving his hair’s abhorrence of regimentation. His green jersey was not only wrong side front but wrong side out, too, so that the stitchings of “44” could be seen upon his back. His hot trousers, of a purpled blue, were incomparably baggy and shapeless, and no color at all could be ascribed to his once russet shoes. He walked loungingly, swinging his arms more than appeared needful, and now and then he moved his jaws as if he were chewing, though he wasn’t. He thought it looked well to appear to be chewing something and the action reassured him, helped him to make the glance of his eye what he wished it to be—disdainful of all life and property except his own.

Turning eastward at the next corner, he came upon a colleague hung spineless in a gateway, a boy who also wore, skeletonized, “44” upon his back. Unlacing his limbs, he joined Filmer in the stroll, and, as greeting, inquired, “Whaddy know, Fil?”

“Nertsy-nerts,” Filmer replied fashionably; then, as they walked on together, he drew forth a package of cigarettes, lighted one, and proffered the package. “Got the nerve to smoke yet, Mister Charlsworth Beck?”

“You know what I’d get,” Charlsworth said. “Listen, I thought your father was going to give you a car on your twenty-first birthday if you never smoke up to then. So how——”

“Is him saying so the same as me saying so?” Filmer asked. “If my family want to think promising me a car six or seven years from now’s the same as me taking the all-tobacco pledge, why, the way I look at it, Charl, it’s simply let ’em sizzle in their own grease.”

“Yes, but look, Fil. Don’t you want to get that car when you’re twenty-one years old?”

“Might or might not.” Filmer was lofty. “Listen. In the first place I don’t hardly expect to ever live to be twenty-one years old, and in the second place, look, supposing I would live that long, look, is it my business to go puffing around the family? What they don’t know won’t hurt ’em, will it?” Again he was heartless. “Just let ’em sizzle in their own grease!”

“But listen a minute, Fil; look here a minute. The reason I don’t smoke, myself, it’s because my mother can always tell. The only thing ever fixes my breath exactly right is a raw onion, and most of the time you simply can’t find one, and look, I hate ’em in the first place. What you do about your breath, Fil?”

Filmer remained superior. “Yes, a good many fellows that smoke away from the family have trouble with their breath. I used to worry some over mine till I worked out just the right substance for it. There’s just one substance that really does it. It’s Eucalina.”

“What?”

“Eucalina.” Filmer took from his pocket a small flat blue tin box. Charlsworth looked at the box, saw in white letters the name “Eucalina”, had a sketchy view of smaller print, “One every two hours until relieved”, and his eye caught the final words, lower down ... “should be regulated by the advice of a physician.” Filmer threw away what was left of his cigarette, opened the tin box, took out a small bluish-white tablet, and placed it in his mouth.

Charlsworth looked at him admiringly. “Say, listen, Fil. Isn’t that kind of medicine or something? Isn’t it kind of risky maybe?”

“Might be—for some people,” Filmer said easily, and restored the box to his pocket. “You got to learn to stand the taste; but I’m used to ’em.”

Charlsworth’s admiration increased. “Look! I’ve noticed sometimes you smell like kind of inside a hospital or somewheres. Don’t your family ever notice you smell that way, Fil?”

“Yes; but there’s medicated soap in the hall lavatory at our house and I just say I been washing in it.”

“Yes, but——” Charlsworth struggled interiorly with thoughts. “Well, look, f’r instance, Fil. Your family use that same soap sometimes, themselves, don’t they? So look; they know they don’t smell like you do, themselves, so when they notice you’re smelling and you tell ’em it’s the soap, and they know it don’t make them smell, themselves, but you do, why, listen, don’t they think that’s kind of funny and ask you why you smell when they don’t?”

“No, they don’t.” Filmer uttered a slight scornful laugh. “When I smell and they don’t and I say it’s the soap, well, their minds don’t go on working. They just think, ‘That’s kind of funny’, and quit and think about something else. It’s the way their minds work and it’s the way most people’s minds work.” Then he added, “It’s why if you got a few brains you can do just about what you like to in this world.”

“Boy! That’s telling ’em!” Charlsworth said. His friend had used an expression that pleased him and he now made it his own. “Do your own way and just let the family sizzle in their own grease, huh? ’S the way I do, too, Fil.” Then he became inquiring. “Look, Fil. What do you do when they say you simply got to do something you don’t want to?”

“Me? I say to myself, ‘Use the bean, old kid; use the bean.’ ”

Charlsworth’s lips moved thoughtfully, repeating this prescription, committing it to memory. The two boys, sauntering round the block, had now reached the corner of the shady street upon which Filmer lived, and here Charlsworth began to walk more lingeringly. He came to a stop.

“Look,” he said. “You heard Antoinette Fry’s going to give a party?”

“Her?” Filmer stopped, too, and in all sincerity was disgusted. “Listen. That dame could give a million parties; I wouldn’t be caught dead at ’em!”

“Why? Are you worse sourer on Antoinette Fry than you are on all of ’em, Fil?”

“Me? I wouldn’t look at Antoinette Fry if she was in the electric chair and they gave me a ticket! I wouldn’t——”

Charlsworth spoke hushedly in warning. “Listen, Fil; she might hear you!”

He made a nervous gesture toward the house before which they’d paused; and Filmer, glancing over the hedge that bordered the sidewalk, saw a girl sitting upon the verandah steps, prattling gayly to two boys. She was a beautiful little creature, animated, fair-haired and dainty. The blonde hair was waved glossily; her gold-figured blue blouse and her white linen skirt were new and unspotted. Her short white socks were inconsistently protected by small but adult high-heeled toeless blue slippers.

Filmer openly sneered. “Look at Bill and Slops listening to that dame like she was the supreme toots of this world! Not me! She’ll haf to show a few brains before she ever gets Filmer Little to——”

Charlsworth interrupted timidly. “Look, Fil. Say listen. Look. Let’s just go in and——”

“What?” Filmer, insulted, stared at him. “You want to go in there? You ask me to go in there and——”

“But I told you I heard she’s going to give a party, didn’t I?” Charlsworth said, in apologetic explanation. “Come on! We’ll just go in and laugh and show sarcasm at everything they say and——”

“Goo’ by, siss!” Filmer turned on his heel and slouched toward home. “Goo’ by, siss-boy! Go on in and watch her wag her old toes and wave her old fingernails she’s been sticking in her mother’s strawberry jam! Goo’ by, siss-boy!”

Charlsworth, depressed, joined the lively group on the verandah; and Filmer, having swaggeringly passed before the two next adjacent houses, paused to enact a fragment of drama for which the inspiration came upon him out of nowhere. Chewing nothing faster, but otherwise cool and deliberate, he elevated his left hand in which he held an invisible baseball. Then, enclosing this intangible with his right hand also, he lifted two fingers as a signal, “wound up”, elevated his left foot to the height of his head and pitched a miraculous curve. “Hot zingazooey!” he said, and, squatting upon his haunches, became an imperturbably chewing professional catcher, received the ball in an imaginary glove, said “Smack!” and, immediately an umpire, announced curtly, “Striker out!” This, for nobody’s benefit but his own, gave him a little satisfaction. He ate another Eucalina tablet and walked slowly into his own yard.

In one of the striped canvas chairs under a tree at the edge of the greenly simmering lawn, Cousin Olita sat knitting. As she glanced toward Filmer, upon his approach, her nose-glasses twinkled affectionately in a disk of sunshine that came through the foliage above her.

“That’s a nice boy,” she said, for no reason. “Come sit down in the shade; that’s right. You’ve got that medical smell again, Filmer. Your mother and I were talking about it yesterday——I mean about your having it from the soap when nobody else does. I told her it must mean something about your constitution. It might be one of these new things people have, and before it goes any deeper I told her she ought to send you to some crack right-up-to-the-minute doctor and he ought to give you a nice thorough examination all over. So often lately I’ve noticed your smelling like——”

“Is it your business or mine?” Filmer asked sternly. “You ’tend to yourself and I’ll ’tend to myself. If any doctor tries to examine me he’ll see what he gets, kindly remember when you go around discussing my affairs with my mother, please.”

Cousin Olita’s mind wandered from the smell. “Your sister’s having such a nice morning, Filmer. She’s gone out riding.”

“Riding!” Filmer exclaimed. “Do you mean to state that after what she did to Father’s car she’s now permitted to run up bills hiring horses while I’m not granted even the most niggardly allowance but haf to depend on handouts and pittancers——”

“Pittancers, Filmer? Don’t you mean pittances?”

“No matter what I mean,” he said. “Goody and her gang absolutely destroyed the best car this family’s got, the one Father uses for himself. He had to have Crappio sell it for junk, and now, on top of that if he lets her hire horses——”

“No, no!” Cousin Olita laughed. “I never can remember when you ought to say ‘riding’ and when you ought to say ‘driving’. Of course I was too young for the generation that used to talk about going out buggy-riding; but when I lived in Urnabula and one of the young gentlemen would try to steal a march and get me away from the others for the evening he’d usually ask me if I didn’t want to go out auto-riding with him. Of course ‘auto-riding’ is probably looked upon as an out-of-dated way of putting it nowadays; but——What’s the matter, Filmer?”

Her question was evoked by the startled incredulity of his expression. “You say some of ’em tried to steal a march and get you away from——” he began; then stopped, not because of tactfulness or to conceal his total unbelief but because of a thought more urgent. “Listen, Cousin Olita, it doesn’t make any difference which you think Goody’s doing right now, ‘riding’ or ‘driving’; but what’s she doing it in or on?”

“What? You mean what’s she out riding in, Filmer?”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I? In or on what?”

“Why, in the other car, Filmer. It got back from Crappio’s this morning just a little while after your father took the bus downtown, so Goody——”

“She did?” Filmer rose from the canvas chair in which he’d been reclining and stood rigid. “She’s actually had the front to take that car out?”

“Your mother said she could, Filmer.”

“What! My mother let her? She actually let that girl——” Filmer was unable to express his desperation by his voice alone; he threw himself full length upon the grass. “Hasn’t anybody in this universe got one particle of common sense left, not one single particle?”

“What’s the matter, Filmer?”

He sat up and passionately told Cousin Olita what was the matter; for herein was touched the sorest spot in all his bruised longings. Over and over, with acute feeling, the subject had been debated between himself and all the other members of his family and sometimes Gentry Poindexter, Filmer always holding the affirmative and everybody else the negative.

“If it’s come to this,” he said, toward the conclusion of his present oration to Cousin Olita. “If it’s come to where a girl that thinks the radiator’s what runs the engine and has no business on earth to have a driver’s license, and utterly ruined my father’s own car just a few nights ago——If it’s come to my mother granting permission to that girl to take out the only other car this family’s got the very minute it comes from Crappio’s where her driving laid it up, while I’m not even allowed to touch a wheel when I’m as good a driver as there is in this city, and my family fall back on the mere driveling legalistic excuse that I haven’t got a driver’s license because——”

“That isn’t the only reason, Filmer,” Cousin Olita interrupted, knitting placidly. “Don’t you remember that day of the family picnic when your father’s car was bran’ new and you got in it when nobody was looking and started it going and that cow and——”

“Listen!” Filmer said fiercely. “Did those animals receive one iota of injuries? Did my father haf to pay one iota of damages for that cow or that calf? I ask you to answer me!”

“No, they were only frightened; but you know what the new car looked like after the tree kept you from hitting them, Filmer; and don’t you remember how the farmer that owned them——”

“Listen! Everybody’s got to have an accident when he’s only a beginner, hasn’t he? How old was I when I had that accident? I ask you to answer me. How old was I?”

“Well—let me see. It wasn’t so long ago. You were——”

“Not long ago?” Filmer shouted. “I was thirteen years old. Only thirteen. That’s how long ago it was!”

“Thirteen,” Cousin Olita said reflectively. “Yes, I remember; it was about a year ago.”

“What! Listen! Do you ever expect to make a mathematician? Use the bean, can’t you? What’s thirteen from fifteen? Use the bean! What’s thirteen from fifteen?”

“Two,” Cousin Olita replied. “But the picnic was on Memorial Day, the thirtieth of May, I remember now; and you won’t be fifteen for two or three months yet, Filmer. So it’s only a little while since you were thirteen, you see.”

“I give up!” Filmer said. “I’m practically fifteen; but thirteen from fifteen don’t leave two any more. Two whole years have gone by in spite o’ that, though—but what’s the use! Here we’ve got a Mayor that won’t give you a driver’s license on merit and lets a girl that don’t know a spark plug from a tail-light have one, and I’m supposed to do nothing with my time while she rolls all over the United States with her old Ham Ellers just because he’s got wavy hair and such a boyish smile! I heard her say he had to a couple her gal-friends, myself. ‘Such a boyish smile’! Wouldn’t that poison the cats I ask you!”

“But, Filmer, why wouldn’t Hamilton Ellers have a nice boyish smile? He’s only nineteen, maybe twenty. Besides, what makes you think she’s out riding with him? She isn’t. As soon as the car was delivered, she telephoned to somebody she likes better and he got the day off from business right away and was here in a jiffy and they jumped in the car and——”

“Who?” Filmer asked scornfully. “Who got here in a jiffy and what’s a jiffy?”

“It’s a hurry, Filmer. Norman Peel.”

“Norman Peel,” Filmer echoed. “Why, she never——”

“Goody likes Norman Peel,” Cousin Olita said, smiled fondly, and, with a plump hand, pushed higher the cluster of large blonde curls above her pink forehead. “She never really got to know Norman until that party last Tuesday night, she tells me; but she’s been talking about him every minute since. I think it’s so nice when young people fall terribly in love.”

“You do?” Filmer rose to his feet and indelicately made gagging noises. “You think——”

“It’s pretty.” Cousin Olita, to Filmer’s view, looked idiotic—unmitigatedly so. “I’ve never known Goody to seem so much like being head over heels in love before. It’s sweet.”

Cousin Olita and her thoughts of love had become repulsive to Filmer; and, to make clear that they hurt his stomach, he placed both hands over it and went stoopingly into the house.