Читать книгу Mirthful Haven - Booth Tarkington - Страница 7

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He folded the paper displaying the Pelters’ family tree, replaced it, and pushed the book toward Edna. “There. That’s a good volume fer you to be readin’; you’ll find Pelters in it every now and then, p’ticu’ly in the earlier parts.”

She took the book and seemed to read; at least, her downcast eyes were fixed upon a printed page of it, while her father, returning to his study of Punch, became engrossed with the task he had set himself. He frowned as he read; his lips moved slowly with his decipherings, and, for five minutes, the big, littered room had been given to this studious silence, when footsteps were heard from the wooden front yard, and there came a knock upon the outer door. The caller did not wait for a bidding to enter, but opened the door and came in almost simultaneously with his knock. “Readin’!” he said in a cracked and husky voice. “Readin’! Readin’! Readin’! Always readin’! Dun’t see how you stand it!”

His entry nowise disturbed the placidity of the scene before him. The father and daughter sat with their backs to the door and consequently to the visitor; this evening call was so customary and expected, indeed, that neither of them turned or so much as looked up, though Pelter murmured, hospitably enough, “Set down. How’s Cap’ Wye?”

“I’m fair, thanky; leastways, fixed to live till mornin’,” the guest replied, seating himself near by. He had been a tall man in his prime but was now stooped permanently by the burden of old age; the lower part of his face was whitely frosted over with a week’s beard, and, upon each side of an eagle’s beak of a nose, beneath eyebrows that were like big white caterpillars, there twinkled sharp little gleamings from small green eyes still bright. He did not remove his old worn cap of imitation fur or his elbow-patched greenish overcoat; indeed, he was never seen out of them until the warm weather set in, and it was generally believed in Mirthful Haven that he slept in them and in his rubber boots—no unreasonable precaution against the draughtiness of his habitation. He was not a Mirthful Haven man, but a salt water wanderer with the lifelong habit of drifting up and down the coast in a dory and settling himself, at times, in some cove or harbor, or at the end of a beach, perhaps, for as long as pleased him. One day the incoming tide and an easterly push of wind upon the small, patched sails of his dory had brought him casually into Mirthful Haven; but the village was too far inland for him. He had taken up his quarters in a tumbledown hut among the sand dunes at the harbor mouth, and, as no one disturbed him, or even seemed to know who owned the hut, he was still a squatter there now, six years later. Believed to be ninety, he could not have been much upon the better side of that age; yet he lived by fishing, and his dory was often at sea in weather that kept stouter boats and younger men inside the breakwater. “Seas runnin’ wicked when ole Cap’ Wye ain’t outside,” the fishermen said; and, in this abbreviation of the title they had given him as a proper courtesy to one who owned and worked his own boat, there was a slight but observable discrimination. Mirthful Haven called Captain Embury “Cap’n”, for he had been one of that highest caste of captains, deep-sea men who rode the typhoon; the second syllable was denied to captains by courtesy, and the aged, coastal gypsy who had dropped in upon the Pelters this evening was never called anything except “Cap’ ” Wye.

“Readin’!” he croaked again in his salty old voice. “Readin’! Readin’! Readin’! Dun’t never find the two of you that you ain’t readin’! Dun’t see how you stand so much of it! Sh’d think you’d be all wore out with it! By Orry, sh’d think it’d kill you!”

“Well, ’tain’t so bad as that.” Pelter tossed his copy of Punch upon the table, filled his pipe, lighted it, and turned his chair to face the old man. “What’s the news, Cap’? You always know.”

“Clearin’,” said Wye. “Knowed ’twas goin’ to, this mornin’. Strip’ o’ stars to the nor’west. Knowed they would be. Git a breeze off the land to-morrow.”

“That all?”

“Well—” Wye passed his tremulous and mottled hand over the stubbly rime upon his chin. “King-pin o’ the dogfish’s b’en here to-day.”

“Who?”

“ ‘Who?’ ” the old man repeated, and seemed a little irritated. “What you mean astin’ me, ‘Who?’ You got any objection t’ my callin’ the summer people dogfish? Do it, yourself, dun’t you, sometimes?”

“Guess so,” Pelter said, and laughed. “I only wondered who you meant was the king-pin of ’em. Looks to me like they all thought they was king-pins.”

“So they do; they think so but they ain’t. Corning’s the king-pin, and you know it well as I do. Corning’s king-pin o’ the whole dogfish tribe, ain’t he?”

“Guess so,” Pelter said, and frowned. “Thinks he is, anyhow.”

“No. He is,” Wye insisted; and he added, as if dryly amused, “Corning hain’t got no special great regard fer you, Long Harry.”

“No,” Pelter assented. “Nor me fer him, neither, nor fer none of his family. Come here ’bout fifteen year’ ago, Cornings did, and started right in ’s if they was the biggest people in the world!”

“Well, they got ’bout the biggest house,” the old man said, and chuckled. “Goin’ to build it bigger, too; goin’ to put a big ’dition to it. That’s what Corning was here ’count of to-day. Come this mornin’ and had Woodbury Fogg up there with him all day, talkin’ over the contracts fer the carpent’rin’. Sent his showfer down to me to tell me to bring up new-caught fish fer his lunch. Didn’t have none, ’count the way the No’theaster kicked up some sea all week; but afterwhile I thought I might ’s well make a dolluh, so I took him up some haddock I’d smoked and offered to cook ’em fer him, myself, ’count o’ my knowin’ the best way to make ’em tasty. Corning ain’t so stuck up as you’d think, leastways not all the time. Had Woodbury Fogg to set right down in the dinin’-room and eat with him, nice and common; showfer waitin’ on the both of ’em. Come out t’ the kitchen after, thanked me good, give me couple dolluhs, ast me how I was and all. I went out in the yard with him and Woodbury Fogg, where the ’dition’s goin’ to be, right atop the highest ground on the whole o’ Great Point. Did you ever know they’s kind of a crack in the trees back o’ that lot and you can look ’way down on the habbuh from up there?”

“Yes; you can see that high point from down here, too, at Pelter’s.”

“Be funny if you couldn’t,” Wye said; and went on, with the unblemished tactlessness of an out-of-doors man: “Because it’s Pelter’s sets right the middle o’ the whole habbuh view from up there and spiles it. It’s a right handsome view, ’cept fer Pelter’s. You can look through that crack in the trees and see the whole stretch o’ habbuh and the village and the river windin’ away off towards Green Hills; but Pelter’s loams right in the middle of all the handsomeness so’t you can’t hardly help lookin’ at Pelter’s instead o’ the handsomeness. Corning said so, himself, and Woodbury Fogg ’greed with him right off.”

“Did he?”

“Corning said he had that crack in the trees cut t’ make a good, nice view fer the ’dition to his house when he sh’d come to build it. Now he’s goin’ to build, he said, he’d have to git that view fixed up right, some ways or other!”

“Did he? What’d Woodbury Fogg say to that?”

“Didn’t say nothin’, ’count o’ you and him both bein’ Mirthful Haven men, I guess; but he kind o’ put on a look ’s though he ’greed with Corning. Corning said Pelter’s wun’t hardly wuth much more’n a few hunderd dolluhs and he’d b’en hopin’ every year, sence he cut the crack, that either a wind’d come along and blow it away or it’d jest fall down, like it looked like ’twas always goin’ to. Said he’d made you a big offer fer the place—twelve hunderd dolluhs, which was anyways ’bout a thousand more’n Pelter’s was wuth—and then raised to fifteen hunderd; but all you did was jest put on a more cussed stubbun look. Said you thought you could hold him up and gouge him because he was a summer res’dent; but he wun’t that kind of a man. He wanted to be liberal with the natives, and he was liberal with ’em, too, he said; but he wun’t goin’ to be gouged—’speshually not by people that wun’t the right kind o’ characters to belong around Mirthful Haven anyways.”

“So? That’s what he said, was it?”

“Yes, ’twas,” the old man answered, nodding amiably. “Said Pelter’s was out o’ place in a nice, good, law-abidin’ commun’ty and ruined the looks o’ River Road, besides. Said he wouldn’t have a word to say if Pelter’s was a nice, neat place and belonged to a hard-workin’, respected family, like the main part o’ Mirthful Haven folks; but, the way ’twas, why, the S’lectmen and the village ought to find some way to git red of it. Said if they did, the summer people’d likely put up a nice, good, handsome yacht club where Pelter’s was, somethin’ that’d attract more summer visitors ’stead o’ discouragin’ ’em, fust time they drove out from the village to Great Point and had to pass Pelter’s. Said that’d mean more prosperity fer the natives and ’twas up to them to look out a little fer their own well-bein’.”

“So? What’d Woodbury Fogg say then?”

“Nothin’; but kep’ puttin’ on that look like he ’greed with him. Corning said River Road ought to have asphalt put on it and have a nice, good concrete sea-wall and cement sidewalks, and, if the town did that, the summer folks’ taxes’d pay fer it and the S’lectmen could easy enough condemn Pelter’s fer bein’ unsafe. Corning ast Woodbury Fogg if he didn’t think so, as S’lectman, himself, and if the other S’lectmen couldn’t be brought around to the same way o’ thinkin’.”

“So?” Pelter said again. “What’d Woodbury Fogg—”

“Nothin’. Jest looked serious; so Corning laughed and said he’d heard rumors a good many folks in Mirthful Haven wouldn’t think the Pelter family no great loss t’ the place, if so be the S’lectmen thought they ought to move away.”

“So?” Long Harry’s voice was harsh, and for a moment the whites of his eyes were conspicuous in the lamplight. Then he laughed, crossed his long legs, and said carelessly, “ ’Tain’t nothin’ new. Corning’s blowed himself up and let out wind like that often before now; ain’t hardly big enough frog to puff Pelter’s away, I guess. What else’d he say?”

“Nothin’. Him and Woodbury Fogg begun layin’ out where the rock’d have to be blasted fer foundations, and I come away. King-pin o’ the dogfish, though, Corning is, and dun’t cal’late to have his view ruined fer him much longer, if he can help it, neither, I guess!”

“No; guess not,” Pelter agreed placidly. The dog had come to rest a fond head upon the arm of his master’s chair, and, in response to this suggestion, Long Harry gently stroked him. “Funny people, ain’t they, Prince?” he said, in apparent communion with the mongrel. “Some of ’em want to ’sassinate you; some of ’em want to ’sassinate the rest o’ your family, and some of ’em want to ’sassinate the very house we all live in. Funny talk, ain’t it, Prince? Yes, sir, funny talk from people that got a good deal o’ proputty they trust to stand around empty the most part o’ the year, ’s if nothin’ could happen to it. Funny talk!”

“Yes, ’tis,” Wye agreed, chuckling; then his chuckle became a crackling of dry laughter and he pointed at Edna. Until a moment earlier she had sat gazing absently at the book in her lap; but now she moved suddenly—the book fell to the floor, and her blue eyes, lustrous and startled, turned upon her father a look of poignant inquiry in which there was a hint of dismay. “Look at her!” the old man cackled. “Handsome, ain’t she, when she opens her eyes like that!” He got to his feet, moaning a little in the midst of his laughter. “By Orry! Dun’t seem like I want to git up no more, once I set down. Time fer bed, though; must be long after eight o’clock.” He moved slowly to the door, alternately moaning and chuckling; but paused with his hand upon the latch to look back at Edna and cackle again. “Handsome!” he said admiringly. “High-steppin’ cutter, they say she is, but awful handsome! Handsome framed, too! I ain’t so old but what I’ve often took notice she’s got as handsome a frame as I ever see. They tell me I ain’t the only one!”

Cackling louder in applause of this sally, he opened the door and departed. The sound of his boots clumping over the wooden platform and away upon the board sidewalk had become inaudible before Edna’s expression altered; then her wide stare at her father flickered and narrowed, as her eyelids drooped. With bent head, she seemed to be looking at her hands, which were limp upon her lap, palms upward, and Long Harry, still stroking the dog, became conscious of a dreariness in her attitude that presently made him a little uncomfortable. He gave her a quick, sidelong glance, coughed and said, as if casually, “Cluss-mouthed old codger, Cap’ Wye; he don’t never say nothin’ much to nobody, ’cept us. No fear he’ll ever mention I said what I did ’bout summer people’s proputty bein’ where somethin’ might happen to it if a body had a-mind to do things that come into his head sometimes. What’s the matter?”

“Nothin’,” Edna said meekly; but a moisture was as audible in her voice as it was visible under her eyelashes. “Nothin’; I just—”

Long Harry stirred uneasily in his chair. “Look here!” he said. “You got no call to go hunchin’ up your shoulders ’s if somebody was goin’ to hit you from behind. I ain’t a-mind to set nobody’s house afire or nothin’; I ain’t a mind to do nothin’ ’t all—anyhow not’s long’s they let me alone and jest blow themselves off in big talk like that. If I was a-mind to do somethin’, I wouldn’t ’a’ spoke like I did, even before old Cap’ Wye.” He rose, came round the table to her and put his hand upon her shoulder. “Come a nor’west wind the sea might be down enough fer me to run outside pretty early, maybe. If you’re goin’ to be up in time to git my breakfast, how ’bout it’s bein’ bedtime now?”

At this touch of his upon her shoulder, a touch so rare that she could remember almost all the times that she had felt it before in her whole life, the tears beneath her lashes grew larger; she trembled with sudden happiness and sat almost not breathing, feeling that the more motionless she remained the longer might be that adored touch upon her shoulder. “Well, how ’bout it?” Long Harry said, shook her a little, went back to his chair, and began to fondle the dog affectionately. “Good old Prince! Sleepy, ain’t he? Got sense enough to know when it’s bedtime. Good old Prince!” He set his cheek tenderly against the dog’s head, and, as the daughter’s suffused eyes wistfully followed this gesture, an earthbound spirit, haunting the cluttered room, might have had its ethereal structure vibrated by two powerful streams of feeling—that of the daughter for her father, and that of the father for his dog.