Читать книгу The Fighting Littles - Booth Tarkington - Страница 9

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Ripley Little went out through what appeared to be a humanly empty house and reached the sidewalk, on his way to the bus, before he remembered what had happened to his trousers and began to talk to himself about them and other matters. He returned, made the necessary exchange in his room, and, when he came downstairs, found his son awaiting him in the hall below.

“Listen, Father,” Filmer said, sympathetic earnestly. “Cousin Olita claims why you got to walk in the hot sun to the bus and then crowd in and rattle around all the way downtown instead of in a car you’re certainly the owner of, it’s because Goody’s been so used to using it she didn’t think. Cousin Olita claims Goody’s excusable on account of being in such a hurry not to miss any of the holiday Norman Peel worked his firm for; but I, for one, don’t think that’s a fair statement or that Cousin Olita uses her bean in the slightest.”

“Well?” Little walked slowly toward the open front door. “What of it?”

“If you’d just listen a minute——” Filmer begged, and his father indulged him; they paused in the doorway. “I could have saved all this and you’d be in that car now if I’d been really given the chance,” Filmer said. “I was going to tell you at lunch about it was back from Crappio’s; but nobody gave me much opportunity. What I’d like to ask you to remember is she’s out with it again while I’m not permitted even to lay a single finger on a wheel. All those hours while everybody else is doing what they enjoy, what do I do? Hunt four-leaf clovers in the grass with Cousin Olita? Is that what I get to do, Father?”

There was a quavering sincerity in the young voice, and it touched the father. “Maybe you’d better go to a movie,” Ripley Little said. “Here, my boy.” He gave Filmer half a dollar, went out to the sidewalk, and, mopping his forehead and the broad back of his neck, turned toward the distant corner where he’d catch his bus.

Filmer was gratified by the half dollar, though he didn’t know whether he’d use part of it on a movie or not. For the present, preferring to entertain himself with a little marksmanship, he went upstairs to his own room and returned with a small implement that he owned. This was a “slingshot” or miniature catapult made of a metal fork, two stout strips of rubber and a bit of leather, and, although Filmer had long passed the age (or thought he had) when such toys meant much in his life, he felt that it might now afford him perhaps a half hour’s pleasure. He gathered some pebbles and fragments of crushed stone from the driveway, and walked toward the canvas chairs under the big tree at the side of the lawn, intending to sit and shoot at such robins and sparrows as might come within range; but, perceiving that Cousin Olita was strolling in the same direction, he went round to the back yard.

There for a while he amused himself and a few birds by shooting at them; then, remembering that he’d left Bokakio in the midst of an important passage, he put the slingshot in his hip-pocket, retired into the garage and resumed his reading. Much of it was disappointing; but he persisted, plugging ahead through the interminable verbiage of the classic work and feeling himself only a little rewarded for his efforts. At last he yawned, rose from his stool, returned the book to the floor under the junk box, strolled languidly out to the sidewalk and sauntered northward. As he passed before the third house in that direction, Antoinette Fry ran out to the hedge and called to him.

“Filmer Little! Wait a minute, Filmer. Do me a favor? Please do, Filmer; that’s a dearie.”

“Listen, dame!” Filmer paused. “Don’t call me that. Believe me or not, I’m particular who I let have liberties with me. State your favor, if you got to, and I promise on my sincere oath I won’t do it.”

“You won’t?” Antoinette looked at him pleadingly over the top of the hedge, which was just to her chin. “Please! You’re going to Zorky’s Rialto Neighborhood Theater, aren’t you? Well, I had a date to meet Slops and Charl Beck there for the second afternoon show; but I can’t because my mother had to go out and she’s expecting a long-distance call from crazy Aunt Hannah whether she’s coming tomorrow or not, and I haf to stay home to get the call, no matter how long it takes, so I can’t meet ’em and it’s awfully late now; the second show’s prob’ly started. You’ll tell the boys for me, won’t you, Filmer? I’ll think you’re simply precious.”

“Listen here,” Filmer began. “Look, dame, didn’t I just inform you I’m particular who I let——”

“Now, Filmer!” Antoinette’s blue eyes, over the hedge, all at once became deeply personal, implied a mystic emotion. Only lately she’d learned how to do this; and almost simultaneously she’d begun the premature plucking of her eyebrows, the use of lipstick, the staining of her nails and the wearing of high-heeled open-toed slippers. As the hostile Filmer stared at her, she felt a strong prompting to overcome his indifference; the afternoon had been boring, without any boys at all about her. “I—I know what you think of me, Filmer,” she said in the hushed tone she was learning to use at the right times. “Couldn’t you stop hating me long enough for me to show you how unjust and everything it is? Filmer, I don’t care whether you give the other boys my message.”

“Phooey!” He laughed harshly. “Look, if you knew my opinions about you, Antoinette Fry, you couldn’t stand yourself. You’d let out just one screech and die on the grass.”

Antoinette was put upon her mettle. “I—I know, Filmer. All my life you’ve just despised me. It’s because you’ve always thought I didn’t appreciate you. It’s because you think I’m too dumb to see you’re different from any other boy.”

“What?” Suddenly and powerfully interested, he nevertheless tried to remain scornful. “Look, gal, what you think you’re talking about now?”

“You,” Antoinette said, making the pronoun long. “You, Filmer.” She looked away from him and pathos came into her muted voice. “You—you feel contempt for me because you think I don’t mind how you look down on me, and I expect you’re going to scorn the invitation to my party next week, even with a magician that gets out of handcuffs, because I’m repulsive to you for not showing I appreciate you’re the one different one.”

Filmer got red all over, both inside and outside his clothes. There were doings within his chest; faint explosions seemed to take place in his ears. Something brilliant and strange was happening to and in him, he didn’t know what; but the thought of going on to the movies became repellent. “Lis—listen, Antoinette,” he said thickly, and, retracing his steps to the gate, entered the yard.

He tried to use his accustomed slouch as he approached her; but his legs felt weightless and his knees unmanageable. He tried to seem to be chewing something; but his jaw was undependable. He tried to put utter contempt into his glance; but his eyelids didn’t work correctly—they became independent of him and blinked. Antoinette stood before him meekly; but was not the Antoinette Fry known to him. That old dame, three doors up his street, long believed mere meat for squirrels, a yaller-haired maker of sap-heads into sissies, was now in a trice ethereally transformed—a heavenly shape made of prismatic light.

“Lis—listen, Antoinette,” he said again. “What is all this hooey about me being all so different and everything?”

She touched his arm, and sweetened stars seemed to burst softly about him. “Let’s sit down on the nice warm grass, Filmer, and I’ll tell you.” They sat and she began to tell him. “Of course in your eyes, Filmer, I’m just nobody; but, whatever you think, I’m not too dumb to look up to you. Everybody knows you’re different. Even Charl Beck this morning said you’re the most reckless boy in town and don’t care what you do absolutely.”

“Well, that much is so,” Filmer admitted. “I don’t care a thing I do.”

“Well, that’s different, isn’t it?” Antoinette said. “I think it’s marvelous. Charl said you take some kind of tablets that he saw on the box ought to be regulated by a physician. He says you can eat ’em just the same as if they were candy.”

“Oh, you mean good ole Eucalina?” Filmer laughed negligently. “That’s nothing.” He brought forth the box of Eucalina tablets and let her see the inscription on the lid. “You can have one; but it’d prob’ly make you kind of sick, Antoinette. You haf to get used to ’em; they’re pretty strong.”

Carelessly he put three tablets in his mouth; but Antoinette protested. “Filmer Little! Why, I bet that’s prob’ly dangerous!”

“Might be for some individuals.” To dazzle her, he added three more tablets to those he already contained. He’d never before eaten anything like so many at once; but he didn’t think they’d hurt him, and even if they did—a little maybe—he didn’t believe it would be immediately, so what was the difference?

Antoinette touched his arm again. “Filmer, you don’t care a thing you do! Would you give up taking ’em if I asked you to, Filmer?”

“Well——” He ate another tablet. “Well—I might or I might not.”

“Please don’t take any more, Filmer. It scares me. Give ’em to me, Filmer, so I’ll know you’re safe.” She put her hand upon the box and tugged at it. Her fingers touched his, so did her shoulder; her face came close to his—he was enveloped in an ineffable odor of violet sachet and she in a powerful one of medicaments. His grasp upon the box became flabby; his whole being was like that, too, and Antoinette captured the Eucalina tablets, or, at least, what remained of them. “There! I’ll keep this little box, Filmer. I’ll keep it in my bureau drawer.”

“What——” he asked, breathless and swallowing feebly. “What—what for, Antoinette?”

“Oh, just because.”

“Antoinette, I—I guess I am pretty different, kind of. When did you first begin to notice I am?”

“Oh, ’way last year some time, I expect.” Antoinette was tired of talking about Filmer; she sat with her hands clasped round her knees, and her eyes were dreamy. “Filmer, do you know what I’d like to be like? You know that song Martin Mack sang in ‘Sweets to the Sweeties’? I’d like to be like that.” She crooned softly:

“You fulfil all the dreams that I admire,

You’re as pure as ice but a ball of fire!”

“I’d like to be like that, too,” Filmer said, and, not an hour agone, would have made a primitive attempt to slay anybody who accused him of talking like this. “I guess maybe we both are. Yes, sir; pure as ice but a ball of fire.”

“It’s my ambition,” Antoinette said. “Whenever anybody commences talking about me I wish they’d say, f’r instance, ‘Oh, you mean Antoinette Fry? She’s pure as ice but a ball of fire.’ ”

“I will,” Filmer promised. “I’ll say it whenever I get a chance, because sincerely it’s the way you are, Antoinette. Antoinette, last year when you first began to notice I’m—well, you know what you said—was it some time particular, like maybe when I was only just walking past your house, or you saw me doing something or heard me saying something to somebody, or when?”

“Well, one of those times maybe,” she answered absently, still thinking of her ambition.

Filmer felt that he’d better not eat any more tablets; but he had a longing to do something magnificent. He desired to be splendid before her, wished to show her that he was intellectual and also to do startling things that would prove he was even more different than she realized.

“Antoinette,” he said. “Do you like Rembrandt?”

“Who?”

“Rembrandt. He’s good. He’s my favorite artist.” After that, Filmer pulled the forked sling from his hip-pocket and looked about him for a missile. “I used to have fun with these things when I was little,” he said. “I used to go around plugging cars with acorns or maybe buck-shot when they went by. Makes people sore; they look back and yell. If I could find a little rock or——”

“You better not, Filmer. Here; try it with one of these if you want to.” Antoinette handed him one of the remaining Eucalina tablets. “That’d be just as much fun and won’t hurt anything.”

“Righto!” Filmer placed the tablet in the bit of leather; and he and Antoinette stood up, looking over the hedge. Then, drawing back the rubber bands of the sling, he aimed at the driver of a passing delivery truck, which was making the neighborhood noisy by backfiring. The tablet insipidly went far of the mark.

Other noises in addition to the backfiring broke the quiet of the afternoon. In the distance, but coming nearer, a motorcycle made uproar, and two boys, turning the next corner, began a bellowing: “Yay, Antoinette Fry! What’s detaining you, Antoinette? How long you expect us to wait? All year?”

“It’s Slops and Charl,” Antoinette said. “I guess the movie’s over. You better not shoot your sling any more, Filmer; there’s a motorcycle cop coming down the street.”

“What I care?”

Filmer, though slightly dizzy, he knew not why, had just seen something that inspired him. A familiar shape, an automobile lately restored to efficiency, was approaching. In the front seat his sister sat looking entrancedly at the spectacled neat youth beside her; after hours of driving, that day, Goody had tired, and now Norman Peel was at the wheel.

“Quick!” Filmer said, as the well-known car came near; and he seized from Antoinette another Eucalina tablet. With means so insignificant he expected small result, yet felt that he was well justified in doing whatever he could to annoy Goody and her new attendant. Something like loyalty sparked within Filmer; it seemed right to try to punish them at least a little for taking that car and making his father go all the way downtown on foot and in a bus on a hot day. “Watch me, Antoinette!”

He drew the bands of rubber to their utmost practical tension and aimed carefully. The car, being upon his side of the street and not far from the curb, offered him a fair mark; neither Goody nor the absorbed Norman Peel saw him. The little missile curved but slightly in the air, sped through the open front window of the sedan and ended its flight stingingly against the side of Norman’s nose. The coincidence of a simultaneous backfire from the delivery truck caused to flash through the young man’s mind for one startling instant a suspicion that he’d been accidentally shot. Brief as the thought was, it moved him to place a hand to his nose just at a moment when that hand was needed upon the wheel of the car he was supposedly guiding. The sedan swerved toward the opposite curbstone, and, after detaching one of its own mudguards as well as crumpling another belonging to a bright new coupé coming from the opposite direction, stopped surprisedly.