Читать книгу Mirthful Haven - Booth Tarkington - Страница 5

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The gravelled highway over Great Point lies between the rocks and the summer cottages; it still keeps near the sea where it dips down from the Point to low open acres of bayberry bushes and juniper; but, after that, having crossed a little waste of sand dunes and coarse yellow grass near the harbor mouth, it turns abruptly inland and joins River Road, the straight and level thoroughfare that leads to the village. Edna Pelter, coming home sombrely from the rocks and the racing of white-maned coursers, all at once looked more cheerful as she left the grass and sand dunes behind her and stepped upon River Road’s bordering wooden sidewalk; before her, at the other end of the mile of grey roadway, the clustered houses and elms and the two neat spires of Mirthful Haven were delicately miniatured in blue against a rosy sky—but that was never a sight to bring any brightness upon her face.

Half-way from the village to the sea the river widens to form the upper end of the harbor, and from here, all the way to the massive old granite breakwater that protects the harbor mouth, there is ample riding for vessels of moderate draught, except at low tide. With the ebb complete, the channel is narrow, for then only the river itself is left winding sluggishly between mud flats and mussel shoals. River Road comes out from the village with the river upon its right and fields sloping up to Old Road upon its left; but for its second half-mile, nearer the sea, it is the crust of an embankment built over the flats and shoals, and is saved from the tidal water by retaining walls of stone and heavy old water-logged timber. Above these bulwarks, at each side of the road, runs a feebly protective, long wooden fence; the narrow board walk occupies the edge of the road toward the harbor, and here, though the sagging top rail of the fence offers a lounger little encouragement to sit upon it, he may at least rest his elbows if he chooses to brood upon curling processions of sand-eels at high water, or, when the wet flats are bared at low tide, upon the incautious spoutings of clams and the stealthy-mindedness of crabs.

The tide was low when the high school girl came to the board walk and turned her brightening face toward the distant village. A hundred yards in advance of her the protective fence was broken by a gateway that lacked a gate and gave access to a platform of boards resting upon wooden piles driven deep into the mud. The platform was large enough not only to support the gaunt clapboarded building that stood upon it but to serve as a sort of wooden front yard next to the road, and also as the floor of two connecting covered verandahs, one upon the seaward side of the building, the other at the rear, facing the river and known to its owners as the “back porch”. From it a long and narrow wooden pier staggered dubiously across the flats to a couple of landing-floats at the edge of the channel, where a small dismantled sloop and two or three rowboats reposed desolately in the mud; and all parts of this queerly cohesive group—the boats, the pier, the barnacled and slanting piles and the peak-roofed high box of a house, its whole angular shape a little a-tilt upon the platform—were the color of weathered dead wood. The place was ramshackle, haggard, lonely, and looked as if the next high wind would leave no more than the skeleton of it sprawled upon the mud; yet it was what brought light into the sombre eyes of Edna Pelter as she came toward it.

Above the front door that opened upon the little wooden yard was nailed a dingy signboard: “Pelter’s. Sailing and Fishing Parties Acomodated. Boats for Sale or Hire. Lobsters Clams and Fish.” Thus the place was known to Mirthful Haven, and also to those elevated and disturbing houses upon Great Point, as Pelter’s; and at Pelter’s Edna lived and had been born. She had grown up with the little wooden yard, the rickety pier and the mud flats for her playground; visibly her heart was lighter as she came home to this scarecrow of a place, and, when she emerged from the shadow of the long side verandah into the sunset light now golden upon the “back porch”, to find her father smoking there, she even smiled. In response, he turned his head slightly toward her, and, lowering his eyelids, gave her a glance beneath the surface of which a faint surreptitious humor seemed to play; but this exchange was all of their greeting.

He sat tilted back in an untrustworthy old cane-seated rocking-chair, with his long legs stretched upward before him and his brown rubber boots upon the verandah rail—a big, thin, shabby man with tousled, thick fair hair and a face that was hollow-cheeked and cross-lined, yet remained a handsome wreckage, all beauty not yet having been weatherbeaten out of it. Recognizably, his daughter had her looks from him; his eyes, too, were seen at a distance to be blue; but his had a twinkle, at once sardonic and careless, that hers lacked, and Mirthful Haven was fond of saying that he sometimes showed the whites of them like a bad horse. Indifferent to the sharp chill of the northern April air, he sat without a coat, the sleeves of his grey flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows, and its front exposed by the falling away of his buttonless waistcoat; his right hand held his pipe to his mouth and his left rested companionably upon the head of a dog that lay close beside his chair.

The dog, a big mongrel with some leanings toward a remote Airedale branch in his ancestry, rose, went to Edna, and, as she halted, stretched himself amiably before her, looking up at her with fond and intelligent eyes. She did not notice him, however; her father’s humorous glance at her had been but a momentary one, immediately returning to observe the movements of a stout man who was coming toward them from the other end of the pier, brandishing a long boat-hook in his hand. This stout man had lately been deep in the mud, for his high boots of rubber were caked with it almost to their tops; his broad face, moreover, was reddened by an emotion easily discernible as anger, and his lips moved in mutterings not yet audible upon the verandah.

Looking at him, Edna became pensive again. “Found it, did he?” she asked in a low voice. “Not so stingy he’s goin’ to make a fuss over as little a thing as that, is he?”

“Go on in the house,” Pelter said mildly, out of the side of his mouth, not looking at her. “Go on in and git supper.”

“None of the Wickses was ever any good,” she murmured thoughtfully, not moving. “All they live for is just to bother people. Don’t let him——”

“Go on in,” Pelter said, and moved his head in a slight gesture toward the wide doorway partly open behind him. “Freem Wicks ain’t hardly so able he’d know how to bother me much, I guess. You go in git supper started.”

“Well——” she said a little reluctantly; but, apparently obedient, pushed back one of the broad sliding-doors and went into the house. She made a momentary clatter at the stove; then tiptoed back toward the doorway, and, keeping herself out of sight from the verandah, stood listening.

Outside, her father continued imperturbably to watch the approach of the muddied stout figure with the boat-hook, and remained motionless, not even drawing upon his glazed corn-cob pipe, when the visitor’s mutterings became recognizable as semi-profane and inimical to all persons bearing the name of Pelter. “Pelters! My Godfrey Mighty! Always b’en the pests o’ this commun’ty; always will be! Wust pest-hole in the commun’ty! Always was and always will be! Pelters!” Then, arriving at the juncture of the pier with the verandah, the angry man halted and thrust the boat-hook forward for Pelter’s inspection. “See it?” he asked hoarsely. “See them ’nitials burnt into the handle? What you make them ’nitials out to be? ‘F’ and ‘W’, ain’t they? Does ‘F’ and ‘W’ stand fer Long Harry Pelter or fer Freeman Wicks? Which?”

But Pelter, ignoring both the protruded boat-hook and the questions addressed to him, seemed unaware that anything intruded upon a contemplation of the farther side of the harbor. His gaze passed over the mud flats beyond the channel to rest serenely upon the rocky banks and clumps of pine trees and wind-carved sand stretches of the opposite shore. This coolness, however, did nothing to lower the temperature of his questioner.

“You answer me!” the stout man shouted. “Does ‘F’ and ‘W’ stand fer Long Harry Pelter or fer Freeman Wicks? Which?”

“Might stand fer Frank Williams,” Pelter suggested casually, beginning to draw upon his pipe again. “Might stand fer Fred Watts. Might stand fer Ferd Wilson.”

“Yes, they might!” Mr. Wicks agreed, with hot satire. “Espeshually if they was men o’ them names livin’ anywheres nigh to this commun’ty; but as it happens to fall out, they ain’t!”

“No; but there’s a man by the name of Foster Wiles livin’ down east o’ here a piece. He put that boat-hook into a little tradin’ I had with him this March.”

“So you claim it as your own proputty, do you? You’re a-goin’ to git up out o’ that chair and try to hender me from luggin’ it back to my own boat where it belongs, are you?”

“No,” Pelter returned coolly. “I never was one to kick up a hullabaloo over as nothin’ of a thing as a boat-hook.”

“I thought not!” Mr. Wicks said, breathing heavily. “You know how I found out ’twas here? Ed Ma’sh told me. ‘When’d you fust miss it?’ he says to me. ‘Last September,’ I told him. ‘I hain’t see it sence the last night I was herrin’-torchin’ in September.’ ‘Who was out herrin’-torchin’ with you?’ he says. ‘My boy, Hugo, and Jeff Miller and Long Harry Pelter,’ I told him. ‘Then you’d ought to know who took it,’ he says. ‘Where’s the place to look fust in this commun’ty when a man misses his boat-hook or his oar-locks or maybe a block-and-ta’kle or a monkey-wrench, or half a keg o’ nails fer that matter?’ he says. ‘Why, Pelter’s,’ he says. ‘Long Harry’s got his floats out again after the winter,’ he says. ‘You go down to Pelter’s and poke around near that little ves-sell o’ Long Harry’s,’ he says. ‘Poke around Pelter’s, enough,’ he says, ‘and you’ll find it!’ ” Mr. Wicks paused for breath; then added, with a bitter vehemence, “Thought by this time I’d fergot all ’bout missin’ that boat-hook, didn’t you? By Godfrey Mighty, I don’t see how any man can set there and smoke without the grace to feel shame! Look at them ’nitials, I tell you!”

As he spoke, he thrust the handle of the boat-hook so close to the seated man’s face that for a moment Long Harry Pelter’s sidewise glance showed the whites of his eyes in the dangerous look defined by Mirthful Haven as that of a bad horse. Nevertheless, all he did was to smile faintly and say, “I’ll have this Foster Wiles write me a letter and prove it some day, Freem. You better talk ’bout shame to yourself. Seems to me I heard lately you made a great speech over bein’ a sinner up at some church meetin’ in the village. If you’re such a sinner as you say you are, yourself, you ought to feel quite a mite o’ shame, oughtn’t you?”

For a moment Mr. Wicks’s inflamed broad face showed a struggling perplexity; then he became stern. “You better think a little about hell fire!” he said. “You keep your tongue off o’ church matters until you git grace enough into you to beg fer mercy before the Throne! When I speak in church o’ bein’ a sinner, that’s a thing between me and my Maker; it don’t mean nothin’ I got to stand before any livin’ man or woman fer with my head bowed. In the sight o’ the Lord I’m a sinner like all mankind; but among my fellow-citizens I got a right to walk in the pride o’ my self-respect, and that’s somethin’ you hain’t never had the right to do!”

“And yet,” Pelter said reflectively, “it seems to me I recklect you accusin’ me o’ pride once or twice in the past. Seems to me I recklect some such thing.”

“I said the right to pride,” Mr. Wicks returned grimly. “You got Satan’s pride, and enough to lug you straight down into the brimstone when you die! You got the hell-fired pride that wun’t give down, even when you see them ’nitials before your eyes and know in your heart what they convict you of. Yes, and takin’ another man’s proputty ain’t all they convict you of, by a mighty sight! Look at them ’nitials right down on the end o’ the handle. All you had to do was to saw four inches off the end o’ that handle—’t wouldn’t ’a’ spoiled it none ’t all—but you was atchually too lazy to take the trouble! My Godfrey Mighty, when a man’s too lazy to exert himself that little to keep other people’s proputty from bein’ found in his keep, why, my Godfrey Mighty, you can’t hardly tell what to think of it!”

“Can’t you? Might think ‘F’ and ‘W’ stands fer Mr. Foster Wiles, mightn’t you?”

“No, I mightn’t!” Freeman Wicks shouted. “Think I don’t reckanize my own boat-hook? Think you hain’t b’en knowed to do the same thing before now? Ain’t it a piece with all you do? Why, jest look at you!” Here, by coincidence, the indignant man became even more vindictively loquacious than his son, Hugo, had been in the goading of Long Harry’s daughter earlier that afternoon upon Old Road. “Look at you! You had a good, able woman fer your second wife; her and her mother, too, was both good, nice, able women and tried to be a good, nice stepmother and step-grandmother to your two daughters. Even got ’em to Sunday-school a while, their stepmother did, the year before she died, and after that if their step-grandmother could ’a’ stood livin’ at Pelter’s any more she’d ’a’ brought ’em up somethin’ like! You think anybody in the commun’ty believes you ever lifted your little finger to keep ’em from runnin’ wild like they done? I’ll say this much fer Edna, though; anyhow she’s showed more energy ’bout Nina Grier’s sweater than you done ’bout my boat-hook—walked clear over to New Yarmouth and got it dyed blue. You and her ain’t heard the last o’ that, neither, I’ll trouble to warn you!”

“So?” Pelter said quietly. “You’re warnin’ me, are you, Freem?”

“Yes, I am! Abner Grier says he can git the dyein’ store clerks to swear to it, and he’s goin’ to come down on Pelter’s with the dep’ty sheriff and a search-warrant, soon’s he finds time. I ain’t goin’ to waste my breath on what’s the rest o’ the talk about her in this commun’ty, or on what happened to Nettie, all because what kind of any example’d they ever see you a-settin’ ’em, and when’d you ever show gimp or godliness enough to make ’em walk the straight path? I ain’t goin’ to use up my voice talkin’ to you on them questions. I come here to git my boat-hook, and I got it, and that’s everything I want with you. All I got to say is, you hain’t the decency to own even a dog like respectable people own. Look what he done last summer to them new summer people’s dog that rented the J. C. Pemberton cottage! Nigh tore him to pieces! Them people swore if they come back next year and this dog o’ yourn ever shows his face on the Point they’re goin’ to hire somebody to shoot him!”

“Did they?” Pelter inquired in a mild voice. The dog had returned to his side, and Long Harry’s brown hand again rested upon him genially. “How much did they say they’d give you fer doin’ it, Freem?”

The stout man, bafflingly insulted, stared fiercely. “Give who fer doin’ it?” he cried. “Who said—”

“Didn’t you?” Pelter said, stroking the dog’s head. “Didn’t you jest say you ’greed to do it fer ’em? There’s certain people o’ Mirthful Haven that seem to know pretty well which side their bread’s buttered on, and always take the part o’ the summer people against us that rightfully live here. I thought from the way you spoke you must be one o’ them certain people—‘natives’ that turn against ‘natives’ and shoot their dogs, maybe, when there’s a chance to make a dolluh off o’ the summer people. Didn’t you say—”

“I didn’t say nothin’ o’ the kind!” Freeman Wicks shouted. “Don’t you accuse me—”

“I ain’t doin’ any accusin’,” Long Harry Pelter interrupted. “That’s more your line, Freem. I jest take note o’ the fact that you drop around here like a good neighbor and find on my place a boat-hook I traded a man named Foster Wiles fer, and because it’s got his ’nitials on it you think it’s a smart act fer you to take it away with you in the place of one that dropped overboard when we was torchin’ herrin’. Then, because you feel maybe a mite ashamed, you bluster around and taunt me and my family with all our misfortunes and git yourself so worked up sympathizin’ with a summer family’s dog against a dog that was born and raised in Mirthful Haven that you threaten to take the summer family’s money fer shootin’ him. I jest take note of it, Freem; that’s all.”

For some moments Freeman Wicks was speechless; his chest heaved, his short neck appeared to distend slightly and his staring eyes to protrude. “You accuse me—” he said thickly. Then he threw the boat-hook down clattering upon the verandah floor. “By Godfrey Mighty!” he burst out. “I don’t believe a word about no Foster Wiles; but I ain’t goin’ to give no Pelter an excuse to go around this commun’ty accusin’ me o’ stealin’ boat-hooks and shootin’ dogs fer summer families!”

With that, he turned upon his heel and departed, stamping his way noisily upon the loose boards of the verandah at the side of the house. Long Harry did not move until the thumping of these enraged and defeated footsteps had subsided; then he rose, picked up the boat-hook and carried it into the house. When he moved at all, he usually moved quickly, and he crossed the threshold just in time to detect his daughter in the act of turning away from her listening-post to go to the stove. “Been busy?” he inquired dryly.

In response she gave him, over her shoulder, an adoring glance all radiant admiration, and, at this, the left end of his mouth extended slightly into a faint, lopsided smile. “Better git them cod fried,” he said. “Us Pelters got to have nourishment, jest like other people.”