Читать книгу To the Highest Bidder - Florence Morse Kingsley - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Abram Hewett and his son “Al” were distributing the mail in the narrow space behind the high tier of numbered glass boxes which occupied the left-hand corner of the general store known as “Hewett’s grocery.” There were not many letters and papers in the old leathern bag whose marred outer surface bore evidence to its many hurried departures and ignominious arrivals. Only the “locals” stopped at Barford; the expresses whizzed disdainfully past, discharging the mailbag on the platform of the ugly little station like a well-aimed bullet.

There was one letter in the scant pile awaiting official scrutiny over which the younger Hewett pursed his thick lips in a thoughtful whistle. He turned over the thin envelope, held it up to the light, squinted curiously at it out of one gray-green eye before he finally deposited it among the letters destined for general delivery.

This done, a slight sound drew his attention to the wabbly stand on the counter next to the post-office proper, whereon was displayed a variety of picture postal cards; “views” of Barford taken by the local photographer, and offered generously to the public at the rate of two for five cents. Intermingled with the photographic representations of the village were cards of a more general and decorative nature; impossibly yellow Easter chickens, crosses, wreaths, and baskets of flowers, in a variety of startling colors, and lurking behind these in a manner suited to the time of year (it being the month of April) were reminders of a Christmas past, in the shape of stars, holly wreaths, and churches, their lighted windows sparkling with mica snows.

Before this varied collection a small boy, with a scarlet tam perched on the back of his curly head, stood gazing with longing eyes.

“Oh! hello there, bub!” observed Mr. Al Hewett rebukingly. “You mustn’t touch them cards, y’ know.”

The boy stared at him from under puckered brows, his rosy mouth half opened.

“What are they for?” he demanded.

“Why, to sen’ to folks, Jimmy,” explained Mr. Hewett, with a return of his wonted good humor. “Easter greetings, views of our town, et cetery. Want one t’ sen’ t’ y’r bes’ girl?”

“Yes, I do,” said the child earnestly. “I want one for—for Barb’ra. I want this one.”

He laid a proprietary hand on a Christmas tree sparkling with tinsel lights and surmounted by the legend, “I wish you a merry Christmas.”

“Well, son, that card’ll cost you a nickel, seein’ it’s early in the season,” responded the youth humorously. “A nickel apiece; three fer ten. Shan’t I wrap you up an Easter greetin’ an’ th’ Meth’dist church along with it?”

The boy was engaged in untying a hard knot in the corner of his handkerchief.

“I’ve got ten cents an’ a nickel,” he said. “An’ I want ten cents’ worth of m’lasses an’ the mail an’ that card. It’s my birfday,” he added proudly, “an’ Barb’ra said I could buy anything I wanted with the nickel. She’s goin’ to make me some popcorn balls with the m’lasses.”

“How old are you, Jimmy?” inquired the youth, as he tied up the card in brown paper with a pink string, and languidly deposited the nickel in the till. “‘Bout a hunderd, I s’pose.”

“I’m six years old,” replied Jimmy importantly. “An’ I’m large of my age; Barb’ra says so.”

“Then it mus’ be so, I reckon. Say, here’s a letter fer Barb’ra f’om ’way out west. I’ve been wonderin’ who Barb’ra knows out west. Ever hear her say, Jimmy?”

The boy shook his blond head vigorously, as he bestowed the letter in the pocket of his coat.

“I’ll ask her if you want me to,” he said with a friendly little smile.

But young Mr. Hewett was back at his post behind the little window, where he presently became engaged in brisk repartee with a couple of red-cheeked girls over the non-arrival of a letter which one of them appeared confidently to expect.

Neither bestowed a glance upon the small figure in the red cap which presently made its way out of the door, carefully carrying a covered tin pail, and out of whose shallow pocket protruded the half of a thin blue envelope addressed to Miss Barbara Preston, in a man’s bold angular hand.

There was a cold wind abroad, roaring through the branches of the budding trees, and tossing the red maple blossoms in a riotous blur of color against the brilliant blue and white of the sky. To Jimmy Preston trudging along the uneven sidewalk, where tiny pools of water from the morning’s rain reflected the sky and the tossing trees, like fragments of a broken mirror, came a sense of singular elation. It was his birthday; in one hand he carried the beautiful sparkling card, and in the other the tin pail containing the molasses; while in the dazzling reflections under foot were infinite heights—infinite depths of mysterious rapture.

“If I sh’d step in,” mused Jimmy, carefully skirting the edges of a shallow uneven pool in the worn stones, “‘s like’s not I’d go clear through to heaven.”

Heaven was a wonderful place, all flowers and music and joyous ease. He knew this, because Barbara had told him so; and nearly all of the family were there—all but Barbara and himself. But there might not be popcorn balls in heaven; Jimmy couldn’t be certain on that point; and, anyway, he concluded it was better to stay where Barbara was and grow up to be a man as soon as possible.

The little boy broke into a manly whistle as he pictured himself in a gray flannel shirt with his trousers tucked into large boots, ploughing and calling to the horses, the way Peg Morrison did.

The sidewalk came to an end presently, together with the village street, just opposite the big house of the Honorable Stephen Jarvis. Jimmy stopped, as he always did, to look in through the convolutions of a highly ornamental fence at the cast-iron deer which guarded the walk on either side, and at the mysterious blue glass balls mounted on pedestals, which glistened brightly in a passing gleam of sunshine. There were other things of interest in the yard of the big house: groups of yellow daffodils, nodding gaily in the wind, red, white, and purple hyacinths behind the borders of blue-starred periwinkle, and shrubs with clouds of pink and yellow blossoms. In the summer there would be red geraniums and flaming cannas and pampas grass in tall fleecy pyramids. Jimmy wondered what it would be like to walk up the long smooth gravel path and open the tall front door. What splendors might be hid behind the lace curtains looped away from the shining windows; books, maybe, with pictures; a real piano with ivory keys, and chairs and sofas of red velvet.

“S’pos’n,” said Jimmy to his sociable little self, “jus’ s’pos’n me an’ Barb’ra lived there; an’ I should walk right in an’ find Barb’ra all dressed in a pink satin dress with a trail an’ maybe a diamon’ crown. She’d look lovely in a diamon’ crown, Barb’ra would.”

His attention was diverted at the moment by the sight of a smart sidebar buggy, drawn by a spirited bay horse, which a groom was driving around the house from the stable at the rear. The man pulled up sharply at the side entrance, where the bay horse pawed the gravel impatiently. Jimmy observed with interest that the horse’s tail was cropped short and bobbed about excitedly.

He was imagining himself as coming out of the house and climbing into the shining buggy, and taking the reins in his own hands, and——

He waited breathlessly, his eyes glued to an opening in the fence, while the tall spare figure of a man wearing a gray overcoat and a gray felt hat emerged from the house.

Jimmy recognized the man at once. He was the Honorable Stephen Jarvis. Few persons in Barford ever spoke of him in any other way. “The Honorable” seemed as much a part of his name as Jarvis. Jimmy, for one, thought it was.

“That’s me!” said Jimmy. “Now I’m climbin’ in; now I’ve took the lines! Now I’ve got the whip! And now——”

The vehicle dashed out of the open gate, whirred past with a spatter of half-frozen mud, and disappeared around a bend of the road where pollarded willows grew.

“My! I’m goin’ fast!” said Jimmy aloud. “But I ain’t afraid; no, sir! I guess Barb’ra’ll be some s’prised when she sees me drivin’ in! I’ll say, ‘Come on an’ take a ride with me, Barb’ra’; an’ Barb’ra, she’ll say, ‘Why, Jimmy Preston! ain’t you ’fraid that short-tailed horse’ll run away?’ An’ I’ll laugh an’ say, ‘Don’t you see I’m drivin’?’”

The laugh at least was real, and it rang out in a series of rollicking chuckles, as the child resumed his slow progress with the pail of molasses which had begun to ooze sticky sweetness around the edge. Observing this, Jimmy set it down and applied a cautious finger to the overflow; from thence to his mouth was a short distance, with results of such surprising satisfaction that the entire circumference of the pail was carefully gone over. “I guess,” reflected Jimmy gravely, “that I’d better hurry now. Barb’ra’ll be expectin’ me.”

A more rapid rate of progress brought about a recrudescence of the oozing sweetness which, manifestly, involved a repetition of salvage. By this time Jimmy had reached and passed the row of willows, cut back every spring to the gnarled stumps which vaguely reminded the child of a row of misshapen dwarfs; enchanted, maybe, and rooted to the ground like gnomes in the fairy-tales. Beyond the distorted willows, with their bunched osiers just budding into a mist of yellowish green, was the bridge with its three loose planks which rattled loud and hollow when a trotting horse passed over, and responded to the light footfalls of the child with a faint, intermittent creaking. On either side of the brook, swollen now to a muddy torrent with the spring rains, grew crisp green clumps of the skunk cabbage, interspersed with yellow adders’ tongues and the elusive pink and white of clustered spring-beauties.

“If I sh’d take Barb’ra some flowers, I guess she’d be glad,” communed Jimmy with himself. “I’m mos’ sure Barb’ra’d be awful glad to have some of those yellow flowers; she likes yellow flowers, Barb’ra does.”

He climbed down carefully, because of the molasses which seemed to seethe and bubble ever more joyously within the narrow confines of the tin pail, and having arrived at the creek bottom he set down the pail by a big stone and proceeded to fill his hands with pink and yellow blossoms. It was pleasant down by the brook, with the wind roaring overhead like a friendly giant, and the blue sky and hurrying white clouds reflected in the still places of the stream.

A thunder of hoofs and wheels sounded on the bridge, and the child looked up to see the round red face of Peg Morrison, and the curl of his whip-lash as he called to his horses.

“Hello, Peg!” shouted Jimmy, “wait an’ le’ me get in!” He caught up the pail and clambered briskly up the steep bank.

The man had drawn up his horses, his puckered eyes and puckered lips smiling down at the little boy.

“Wall, I d’clar!” he called out in a high cracked voice, “if this ’ere ain’t the Cap’n! Where’d you come f’om, Cap’n? Here, I’ll take your pail.”

“It’s got molasses in it, so you’d better be careful,” warned Jimmy. “I’m goin’ to have six popcorn balls an’ one to grow on, ’cause it’s my birfday an’ I’m large of my age.”

“Wall, now, I d’clar!” cried Peg admiringly, “so you be, now I come to think of it, Cap’n. You’re hefty, too—big an’ hefty.”

He pulled the little boy up beside him with a grunt as of a mighty effort. As he did so the blue letter slipped out of the small pocket, which was only half big enough to hold it, and dropped unnoticed to the ground. Then the wagon with a creak and a rattle started on once more.

“You c’n see,” said Peg gravely, “how the horses hes to pull now’t you’re in.”

“Didn’t they have to pull’s hard as that before I got in?” inquired Jimmy. “Honest, Peg, didn’t they?”

“Why, all you’ve got to do is to look at ’em, Cap’n,” chuckled Peg. “I’m glad it ain’t fur or they’d git all tuckered out, an’ I’ve got to plough to-day. Say, Cap’n, the wind’s blowin’ fer business ain’t it? You’d better look out fer that military hat o’ your’n.”

“It does blow pretty hard,” admitted Jimmy; “but my hat’s on tight.”

He glanced back vaguely to see a glimmer of something blue skidding sidewise across the road into the tangle of huckleberry and hard-hack bushes; then he turned once more to the man at his side.

“I’ve got a birfday present for Barb’ra,” he said eagerly.

“A birthday present fer Barb’ry? ’Tain’t her birthday, too, is it?” inquired Peg, clucking to his horses.

“No, it’s my birfday; but I got Barb’ra a birfday present with my fi’ cents. I’m six.”

“Sure!” cried Peg. “Anybody’d know you was six, Cap’n, jus’ to look at you! Six, an’ large an’ hefty fer your age. You bet they would! What sort of birthday present did you get for Barb’ry—hey?”

“If you’ll keep the molasses from spillin’ over I’ll show it to you,” offered Jimmy. “It’s a beautiful picture.”

“Wall, now I vow!” exclaimed Peg, when the pink string had been carefully untied and the sparkling Christmas tree exposed to view. “‘I wish you a merry Christmas,’” he read slowly. “Say, that’s great, Cap’n! Mos’ folks fergit all about merry Christmas long before spring. But they hadn’t ought to. Stan’s to reason they hadn’t. They’d ought to be merrier in April ’an in December, ’cause the goin’s better an’ it’s ’nuffsight pleasanter weather. I’ll bet Barb’ry’ll be tickled ha’f to death when she sees that.”

“It sparkles, don’t it, Peg?”

“Mos’ puts my eyes out,” acquiesced the man. “It’s all kin’s an’ colors o’ sparkles. It cert’ly is a neligant present. D’ye want to drive while I do it up fer ye?”

Jimmy took the reins.

“I won’t let ’em run away,” he said gravely.

“Run away?” chuckled Peg. “I’d like to see ’em run away with you a-holt o’ the lines. They wouldn’t das to try it.”

“I s’pose I’ll be able to work the farm before long, Peg,” observed Jimmy, after a short silence, during which he sternly eyed the bobbing heads of the old farm horses. “I’m pretty old now, an’ I’m gettin’ taller every day.”

“H’m!” grumbled Mr. Morrison. “I guess the’ ain’t no ’special hurry ’bout your takin’ charge o’ the farm, Cap’n. Me an Barb’ry’s makin’ out pretty well; an’ you know, Cap’n, you’ve got to go to school quite a spell yet.”

Jimmy knit his forehead.

“I guess there is some hurry,” he said slowly. “I’ve got to grow up’s quick’s I can.”

The man looked down at the valiant little figure at his side with a queer twist of his weather-beaten face.

“Did—Barb’ry tell you that?” he wanted to know after a short silence.

“No,” said Jimmy, shaking his head, “Barb’ra didn’t tell me. I—just thinked it. You see, it’s this way,” he went on, with a serious grown-up air, “I’m all Barb’ra’s got, an’ Barb’ra’s all I’ve got. We’ve just got each other; an’—an’—the farm.”

Peg pursed up his lips in an inaudible whistle. “You wasn’t thinkin’ of givin’ up the farm—you an’ Barb’ry; was you?” he inquired presently.

“What? Me an’ Barb’ra give up the—farm?” echoed Jimmy, in a shocked little voice. “Why—we couldn’t do that.”

“Seein’ the’s jus’ th’ two of you, Cap’n—you an’ Barb’ry, an’—an’—the farm, I didn’t know but what you was calc’latin’ t’ move int’ th’ village, where the’s more folks, an’——”

Jimmy shook his blond head vigorously.

“We couldn’t live anywhere else,” he said decidedly. “It’s—why, it’s our home!”

Peg had taken the reins and the wagon jolted noisily between the tall stone gate-posts, past the big elms and the groups of untrimmed evergreens, to where the house stood on its low grassy terrace, a gravelled driveway encircling it. It was a wide, low, old-fashioned house with narrow porches and small-paned windows, glittering in the sun like little fires. Obviously the house had not been painted for a long time; and its once dazzling walls and green shutters had softened with time and uncounted storms into a warm silvery gray which lent a certain dignity to its square outlines.

Jimmy climbed down over the wheel and dashed excitedly into the house.

“I’ve come, Barb’ra!” he shouted imperiously. “Where are you, Barb’ra?”

The door of the sitting-room opened and a young woman came out. She was tall and slender, with masses of warm brown hair, a red mouth, and a brilliantly clear pale skin; her gray eyes under their long dark lashes were wide and angry, but they softened as they fell upon the small figure in the red tam.

“I’ve got a neligant birfday present f’r you, Barb’ra,” announced the little boy loudly. “An’ I’ve got a quart of m’lasses an’ I’ve got a letter f’om way out west. An’ Al Hewett he wants to know——”

“Hush, Jimmy,” said the girl, stooping to kiss the child’s red mouth. “There’s—someone here. I—can’t stop now. Go and get warm in the kitchen. I’ll come presently.”

She opened a door peremptorily and the child passed through it, his bright face clouded with disappointment.

“Don’t you want to see your—birfday present, even?” he demanded with quivering lips. “I bought it with my fi’ cents, an’ it’s——”

But the girl had already closed the door behind her; he could hear her speak to someone in the sitting-room. There followed the sound of a man’s voice, speaking at length, and the low-toned murmur of a brief reply. Jimmy laid the small flat parcel containing the postal card on the kitchen table, and set the pail of molasses on a chair. There was a froth of sweetness all around the edge now, but Jimmy didn’t care. Vaguely heavy at heart he walked over to the window and looked out. Hitched to the post near the lilac bushes was a tall bay horse with a cropped tail. Behind the horse was a shining sidebar buggy with red wheels. The horse was stretching his sleek neck in an effort to reach the tender green shoots of the lilac bushes, his cropped tail switching irritably from side to side. Jimmy stared with round eyes.

Presently the side door opened and Stephen Jarvis came out quickly, jamming his gray felt hat low upon his forehead. He untied the horse, jerking the animal’s head impatiently to one side as he did so, and stepped to the high seat; then, at a savage cut of the whip, the horse darted away, the gravel spurting from under his angry hoof-beats.

“I’m glad I’m not that horse,” mused Jimmy, “an’ I’m glad—” he added, after a minute’s reflection—“‘at I’m not—him.”

He was still thinking confusedly about the short-tailed horse and his owner, when he heard Barbara’s step behind him.

The girl stooped, put both arms about the little boy, and laid her hot cheek on his. Then she laughed, rather unsteadily.

“Kiss me quick, Jimmy Preston!” she cried. “I want to be loved—hard!”

The child threw both arms fervently about his sister’s neck. “I love you,” he declared circumstantially, “wiv all my outsides an’ all my insides! I love you harder’n anyfing!”