Читать книгу Sam Small Flies Again: The Amazing Adventures of The Flying Yorkshireman - Eric Knight - Страница 5

Table of Contents

You can always tell the Irish,

You can always tell the Dutch.

You can always tell a Yankee;

But you cannot tell him much.

Mr. Smith was pleased with The Spread Eagle. He was pleased with Polkingthorpe Brig. The village was off the beaten track—the truly rural sort of English village the American always wants to see.

The inn was low and rambling, with great sloping roofs. Over the door swung the sign—a darksome bird in a weather-beaten setting.

Everything justified his decision to take this bicycle trip up into the north—the mullioned windows, the roaring fire, the Yorkshire accents of the men who shuffled over the sanded stone floor of the low-ceilinged room as they played darts. Mr. Smith was almost beginning to understand what they were talking about. During his excellent high tea he had sorted out the four men playing darts. One was Saw Cooper, a farmer; a small old man was referred to as Sam; a young, bright-faced lad who played darts left-handed was Gollicker Pearson; and the fourth, a huge man, was just called Ian.

Mr. Smith watched them play, listening to the endless thwock of the darts in the cork board as he finished his meal. The barmaid, plump, corn-haired, came toward him, her apron rustling stiffly.

“Would there be owt else?”

“No. It was a very good meal.” Mr. Smith smiled. He wanted to make the girl talk some more. “Er—what do they do for fun in this place of an evening?”

“Foon?” she repeated. “Well, they sit here—or o’ Sat’day neights lots o’ fowk goa ovver to Wuxley to t’pictures.” She waited. “They gate Boock D’Arcy i’ T’Singing Cowboy,” she added suggestively.

Mr. Smith had already become acquainted with British cinemas in small towns. Also, he was a Southern Californian, and had that familiarity with movies that belongs to all Southern Californians. He had no inclination to go four miles to see a last year’s Class B Western. “No. I think I’ll have another ale and sit here,” he said.

“If tha’ll sit ovver by t’fire, Ah’ll bring it to thee theer. Then Ah can clean oop here.”

Mr. Smith sat on the bench by the generous fire and nursed his ale. The dart game came to an end with Saw Cooper losing and paying for the round. The men brought their mugs to the fire. Mr. Smith shifted politely. The men, in the presence of a stranger, grew quiet. Mr. Smith decided to put them at ease.

“Pretty chilly for an October evening, isn’t it?”

The men considered the remark, as if looking at both sides of it. Finally Saw Cooper spoke.

“Aye,” he said.

The others nodded. There was silence, and the five regarded the fire. Then, suddenly, young Gollicker smiled.

“Tha shouldn’t heed t’cowd, being a Yankee,” he said.

“Ah, but I’m not a Yankee,” Mr. Smith said.

They stared at him in disbelief.

“Yankees,” explained Mr. Smith, “come from New England.”

They looked from Mr. Smith to one another. The big man named Ian took a deep breath.

“Yankees,” he said, “coom fro’ t’United States.”

“Well, yes. New England is a part of the United States,” Mr. Smith said. “But it’s thousands of miles away from where I live. In fact, believe it or not, I should think you’re closer to the Yankees than I am. You see, the United States is a big country. In the part where the Yankees come from, it gets very cold in the winter. Where I am—in Southern California—it never snows. Why, I’ve never known it to snow there in all my life.”

“No snow?” Gollicker breathed.

Mr. Smith smiled. For, after all, he was a Southern Californian—and they were discussing climate. “No snow,” he said. “In wintertime we have a bit of a rainy season, but after February it clears, and then it doesn’t even rain for nine months—not a drop.”

“Noa rain for a nine month—noan at all?” Saw Cooper asked.

“Not a drop. Day after day, the sun comes out, clear skies, never a drop of rain for nine months. Never!”

“Whet do ye graw theer, lad?” Saw asked, slyly.

“Lots of things. Truck, vegetables, oranges—all kinds of things.”

There was a silence again. Big Ian took a breath.

“Orinjis,” he said, and then took another breath, “graw i’ Spain.”

He looked at Mr. Smith so emphatically that Mr. Smith nodded.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “They grow in Spain, too, I understand.”

“Orinjis,” Ian repeated, “graw i’ Spain.”

That seemed to settle the question. They all looked in the fire in silence. Saw Cooper sniffed.

“Whet else graws theer?”

“Well, I have a ranch there; we grow alfalfa.”

“Whet’s that off to be?”

“Alfalfa? We use it for hay. It’s a desert plant originally, but it thrives in California. We get eight cuttings a year.”

“Eight cuttings o’ hay a year?”

“Eight cuttings a year.”

The little man, Sam, spoke for the first time: “Mister, if it doan’t rain for a nine month, how can ye get eight cuttings o’ hay a year?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Mr. Smith said. “We irrigate the land.” He went into a short but conclusive description of irrigating.

“Heh,” Saw Cooper said. “Wheer’s this here watter coom fro’?”

“In the San Fernando Valley we buy it from the water company, just like you do in your homes.”

“Wheer do they get it?”

“From reservoirs.”

“If it doan’t rain, where’s t’reservoys get t’watter?”

“Oh, we pipe it down from five hundred miles north. It rains a lot up there.”

“And ye sprinkle t’farming land out o’ t’watter tap. How mony acres hesta?”

“It isn’t like sprinkling from the tap, of course. I used that to illustrate. The pipes are large—we have fourteen-inch valves on our pipes. We flood the land—cover it right over with water.”

Saw looked in the fire. “Does corn graw theer?”

“Well, generally our land is too valuable to put into corn. But it will grow corn fourteen feet high.”

They made noises in their throats and shifted their feet.

“Fohteen foot,” Saw breathed. “Eigh, ba gum!”

“Mister,” Sam said, “once Ah were oop to see t’Firth o’ Forth brig. Ah suppose they hev bigger brigs i’ Yankeeland?”

Mr. Smith should have touched on the new Oakland bridge, but then, he was a Southern Californian.

“We have bridges, but they’re building vehicular tunnels under the rivers now.”

“Whet for?”

“Well, there’s so much motor traffic.”

“How mony moatorcars goa through ’em?”

Mr. Smith lit his pipe happily. They seemed quite interested in America.

“I couldn’t say. The way they turn ’em out, I should say there’s hundreds of thousands.”

“How fast do they turn ’em out?” Gollicker asked.

“I don’t know. I think they roll out finished at the rate of one every couple of minutes.”

“And they goa i’ tunnels, not i’ brigs?” Sam commented.

“Oh, we have some bridges.”

“Big uns, Ah suppose.”

“Well,” Mr. Smith said modestly, thinking of the Pulaski Skyway coming into New York, “we have some that go right over entire towns. You’re practically on one bridge for miles.”

Saw Cooper spat in the fire. “How mony fowk is there in all America?”

Mr. Smith didn’t know, but he felt expansive. And after all, there was South America too.

“A quarter of a billion, I should say,” he hazarded.

“A quarter of a billion,” they repeated. Then they stared at Mr. Smith, and he became aware of their disbelief.

“Wait a moment,” he said. “I think a billion is different in America from here. It’s a thousand million in America and a million million here, isn’t it?”

“A billion,” said Ian slowly, “is a billion.”

The others nodded, and then Ian stood. The others rose too.

“Oh—er—wait a minute. Won’t you all have a drink with me?” Mr. Smith invited.

“Us is off to play darts for a round—us four,” Ian said, meaningly.

The other three laughed.

“Ah knew them theer brigs o’ thine’d hev to be big,” Saw Cooper said as a parting shot as he swung over the bench. “That’s so’s they’d be able to goa ovver wheat what graws fohteen foot high when ye sprinkle it fro’ t’watter tap.”

He grinned at the others in victory.

“I didn’t say wheat; I said corn,” Mr. Smith protested.

“Same thing,” Saw snapped.

“It isn’t. Wheat grows in an ear. Corn grows on a cob; it has broad long leaves.”

“Heh! That’s maize,” Saw said.

Big Ian stepped between Saw Cooper and Mr. Smith.

“Now, lad,” he said flatly, “tha said corn, and Ah heeard thee. Thee and thy orinjis, and farming out o’ t’watter tap, and brigs ovver cities, and it nivver rains, and denying th’art a Yankee, and a billion is a billion and yet it ain’t. Tha’s tripped thysen oop a dozen times, it seems to me. Now, hesta owt to say?”

Mr. Smith looked at Big Ian, standing belligerently with legs widespread and his thumbs in the waistband of his corduroy trousers. He looked round and saw everyone in the inn waiting, silent.

Then a curious thing happened. In that minute the smell of soft-coal smoke and pig-twist tobacco and ale was gone, and instead Mr. Smith was smelling the mixed odor of sun-baked land and citrus blossom and jasmine and eucalyptus trees, just as you smell it in the cool darkness coming across the San Fernando Valley. And he was homesick. Suddenly it felt unreal that he should be so far from home, sitting in an English inn with these men about him. He looked up at the faces, forbidding in their expression of disapproval. And he began to laugh.

It was all so unreal that he laughed until he cried. Every time he looked up he saw the faces, now even more comical in their bewilderment than they had been in their disapproval. They stared at him, and then Big Ian began to laugh.

“Eigh, Ah’ll be jiggered!” he roared. “Drat ma buttons if Ah won’t!”

It was Mr. Smith’s turn to be puzzled now.

Big Ian roared, and suddenly slapped Mr. Smith on the back so heartily that his chin flew up in the air and then banged back on his chest. The others looked on in amazement.

“Why, whet’s oop, Ian?” Saw asked.

“Why, ye gowks!” Ian roared. “He’s laughing at ye! He’s been heving us on! Sitting theer for an hour, keeping his mug straight and telling us the tale! And us swallering it, thinking he was serious!”

“But,” Mr. Smith said—“but you don’t——”

“Nay, now no moar on it!” Ian roared. “Ye’ve codded us for fair, and done it champion! Lewk at owd Sam’s face!”

The others regarded Ian and scratched their heads and grinned sheepishly, and finally looked at Mr. Smith in admiration.

“But—” Mr. Smith began again.

“Nay, now, ye copped us napping,” Ian said, “and here’s ma hand on it. Soa we’ll hev noa moar—onless ye’d like to tell us whet Yankeeland’s rightly like.”

Mr. Smith drew a deep breath. “Well, what would you like to hear about?”

“About cowboys,” young Gollicker breathed. “Werta ivver a cowboy?”

For a moment Mr. Smith stood on a brink, and then an imp pushed him over.

“Of course I’ve been a cowboy—naturally,” Mr. Smith said. “What would you like to hear about it?”

“Wait a minute,” Gollicker said. They all adjusted themselves on the bench. “Now,” he went on, “tell us about a roundup—tha knaws, ‘Ah’m yeading for t’last roundup,’ like Bing Crosby sings.”

Mr. Smith held his mental breath and plunged.

“Ah,” he said. “A roundup and the life of a cowboy. Up at the crack of dawn, mates, and down to the corral. There you rope your horse——”

“A mustang?” Gollicker asked.

“A mustang,” Mr. Smith agreed.

“A wild one off’n the prairies, happen?”

“Indeed a wild one from off the prairies,” Mr. Smith agreed. “I see you know America yourself.”

Gollicker grinned modestly. “Doan’t let me interrupt, measter,” he apologized.

Mr. Smith drew another breath. He saw he was up against at least one expert, so he made it very good. Inwardly he thanked fate for what he had hitherto regarded as two entirely misspent weeks on a Nevada dude ranch. He gave them, in more senses than one, a moving picture of the cowboy’s life.

When he was done, Gollicker sighed and Big Ian nodded.

“Now,” Sam said, “how about them bloody buffalo?”

“Ah, the buffalo,” Mr. Smith said. “The thundering herd! The bison! For a while there was danger—or thought to be—that the herds were dying out. But now, I am glad to say—and no doubt you are just as glad to hear—the herds are increasing, and ere long, again the crack of a rifle will bring down a bull in full gallop.”

“But how about them bloody Indians?” Saw put in.

Mr. Smith considered the Indians at the station in Santa Fe. They didn’t seem at all satisfactory. But he was inspired. He drew himself up.

“You will pardon me if I do not speak of that,” he said. “We have not too much love for the paleface who stole our lands. I say ‘we,’ for my mother was Yellow Blanket, a princess of the Blackfoot tribe. Therefore, let us not speak of the white man and the red man.”

He stared into the fire—majestically, he hoped.

“Now, see what tha’s done?” Ian said to Saw. “Happen it’ll learn thee to keep thy yapper shut once in a while.... Tha maun excuse him, measter. Tell us about gangsters instead. Did’ta ivver run into any gangsters?”

“Run into them? Why, how could you help it?” Mr. Smith asked.

Swiftly and graphically he painted for them an America in which here was the town where the bullets of the gangs cracked day and night. Here was the last street, and on it the last house, and beyond that was the trackless prairie where the buffalo thundered, the cowboy rode and the Indian ever lurked.

As he finished, he looked up. Everyone in the inn was listening. Men had gathered behind him silently. At the bar, the maid leaned on her elbows, entranced.

“Ah, I talk too much,” Mr. Smith said.

“Nay, goa on, lad,” they said. “Goa on.”

“Well, it’s dry work. How about a drink?”

“Champion,” said Saw.

“Owd on,” Big Ian said. “Us’ll play darts for a round.”

“Now, Ian, if the lad wants to buy——”

“Ah said,” Ian repeated, “us’ll play darts—onybody that wishes to be in on t’round. And t’loser will pay.”

Mr. Smith paid anyhow, for the dart game was trickier than he had thought, and they all seemed to be experts.

He was getting very much better when the barmaid called: “Time, gentlemen, please.”

Mr. Smith was sorry. It had been a good evening. They all said good-night cheerfully. Big Ian shook him by the hand.

“Well, soa long, lad. We had a champion time. But Ah just want to say, tha didn’t fool me when tha were kidding us at first. Tha sees, for one thing, us goas to t’pictures and so us knaws whet America’s really like. And then Ah’d allus heeard tell that all Yankees were liars.”

“Yes,” Mr. Smith said, regarding his conscience, “I did tell some lies.”

“Aye, but Ah suppose it’s a way ye Yankees hev,” Ian said. “But it’s all right as long as tha told us t’ trewth finally.”