Читать книгу To the Highest Bidder - Florence Morse Kingsley - Страница 6

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Jimmy Preston sat curled up on one foot by the table in Peg Morrison’s loft. His yellow hair was damp and towsled, for he had run bare-headed through the rain, bearing his precious book of “Vallable Information” tucked under his blouse.

“I didn’t bring my red ink,” he explained breathlessly to Peg, “‘cause I was ’fraid I’d spill it. I fought I could borrow some of yours.”

“You can, an’ welcome, son,” agreed Peg, “but remember that’ll give me an option on yours. Them that borrows ought to be willin’ to lend. They ain’t though, as a gen’ral thing. Borrowers is spenders, and lenders is savers, as a rule.”

“I’ll lend you my whole bottle of red ink an’ I’ll lend you my pen, too,” said Jimmy magnificently.

The little boy spread his book open on the table for Mr. Morrison’s inspection. “You see I’ve begun it already,” he said with pride.

“Le’ me see; what you got here?” and Peg traced the first wavering line with a horny forefinger.

“That’s how not to lose a letter,” said Jimmy proudly. “Barb’ra says sometimes letters are ’portant, an’ you don’t want to lose ’em.”

“‘Lev letters in the posoffis. They wil be saf ther,’” read Peg slowly. He paused and screwed his mouth in a noiseless whistle.

“Don’t you think that’s a vallable inf’mation?” demanded Jimmy anxiously. “If I hadn’t taken that letter and put it in my pocket, I shouldn’t have lost it. Barb’ra could have got it herself, and maybe it was ’portant. You can’t tell ’thout you read a letter whether it’s ’portant or not; an’ you can’t read a letter when it’s lost.”

“So you lost a letter ’dressed to Barb’ry, did you? H’m! Where’d you lose it?”

“If I knew, I’d go an’ find it,” said Jimmy soberly. “I put it in my pocket, an’ it was blue, an’ it was f’om out west. Barb’ra doesn’t know who it was f’om. But she’d like to know.”

“H’m!” repeated Peg. “You’d ought to carried it all the way right in your han’, where you c’d see it. Pockets are kind o’ dangerous when it comes to letters. I know a whole row o’ little boys ’at ain’t alive at all, ’count o’ a letter bein’ lost. They never was born,” he added by way of explanation.

Jimmy drew a deep sigh of sustained interest.

“You see it was this way,” continued Peg circumstantially. “The’ was a young feller ’at I used to know, an’ he was workin’ in a lumber-camp one winter where the’ wasn’t any pos’offis; one o’ the men used to carry the letters in an’ out, a matter o’ fifteen miles. One time he lost a letter this young feller wrote to his girl, an’ didn’t think to say nothin’ ’bout it; an’ she got all worked up ’cause she didn’t hear f’om him, an’ after a spell she up an’ married another man; an’ so the young man I was speakin’ of never got married, an’ never had any little boys o’ his own. He felt awful bad ’bout it fer a long time, but he ain’t never los’ a letter ’at b’longed to anybody else.”

The pattering sound of the rain on the barn roof increased to a steady roar as Peg related this short but instructive tale.

“I sh’d think those little boys would feel bad,” said Jimmy sympathetically. “I’d hate not to be alive.”

“Mebbe they do; an’ ag’in, mebbe they don’t,” observed Peg cautiously. “Anyhow, some of ’em would be growed up by this time; farmin’ it, mebbe, or keepin’ store.” His eyes wore a far-away look.

Jimmy dipped Peg’s pen in the red ink bottle.

“How do you spell not, Peg?” he inquired.

“K-n-o-t,” replied the old man, with a sigh.

Jimmy was silent for a long minute, his pen travelling slowly along the blue line and leaving a trail of wabbly red letters behind.

“‘Hough knot to los a letter,’” he read aloud, with honest pride in his achievement. “What’ll I say next, Peg?”

“Keep yer mind an’ yer eyes onto it till you get it t’ the person it’s meant for,” the old man said, with some sternness. “You’ve got to do that with ev’rythin’ you do,” he went on. “You can’t go moseyin’ ’long thinkin’ ’bout ev’rythin’ under the sun ’cept what you’re doin’. If you’re ploughin’, plough, an’ put all the grit an’ gumption you’ve got onto ploughin’. Most folks ain’t so smart ’at they c’n afford to run a d’partment store in their minds. Hold on! Don’t try to write all that. Jus’ say, pay attention to that letter. You know, Cap’n,” he went on impressively, “you come of awful fine stock. The Prestons was always smart; your great-gran’father, he was smarter ’an all possess, an’ your gran’father, he was jes’ the same.”

“An’ my father was, too,” interrupted Jimmy, eying the old man with a pucker between his brown eyes. “Wasn’t he smarter’n all possess, Peg?”

“‘Course he was, Cap’n,” agreed the old man hastily. “Up to the time he was took sick, he was A number one. An’ Barb’ry—I mean Miss Barb’ry, she’s awful smart an’ ambitious, too, fer a female. Oh, you’ll get along in the world, Cap’n, ’course you’ll get along! But losin’ letters is like losin’ other things, such as money an’—an’ health, an’ reputation an’—farms. It all comes o’ lettin’ yer mind kind o’ wander. You won’t do that, will you, Cap’n?”

The man’s voice trembled; he seemed anxiously intent on the little boy’s answer.

“I won’t, if I can help it, Peg,” Jimmy answered honestly. “But,” he added candidly, “I like to think ’bout things in school—all kind o’ things. When I look out the windows an’ see the trees wavin’ an’ hear the birds I like t’ p’tend I’m outdoors playin’.”

“Don’t you do it, Cap’n,” Peg spoke almost solemnly. “You keep a stiddy holt on them thoughts o’ yourn’ an’ nail ’em down to readin’, writin’, an’ ’rithmetic. If you ketch ’em a-wanderin’ out the window, you fetch ’em back an’ make ’em work. You c’n do it, every trip.”

“But if I don’t want to——”

“There you got it! Struck the nail square on the head, Cap’n. You’ve got to make yourself want to. You ain’t too young to learn, neither. Gracious! I wisht somebody’d told me what I’m tellin’ you, when I was ’bout your age. I’ve kind o’ reasoned it out, watchin’ folks an’ their doin’s, an’ noticin’ how I try an’ squirm out o’ doin’ things. The’s two folks in ev’rybody, Cap’n; a lazy, good-fer-nothin’ sort o’ a chap, that won’t do nothin’ in school, nor anywheres else if he c’n help it, an’ there’s a smart, good, up-an’-a-goin’ feller ’at’s anxious to git along in the world. I know ’em both inside o’ me. An’ ol’ lazybones come nigh onto ruinin’ me when I was a boy. Lord! I jes’ wouldn’ work! Ust t’ lie half th’ day in the sun an’ think o’ nothin’, when I’d ought t’ been hoein’ corn. Then I’d come in an’—say I had the backache, or th’ headache or—mos’ anythin’ I could think of. Ol’ lazybones is an awful liar, Cap’n. You don’t want t’ listen to anythin’ he says. You want to shet him up an’ keep him shet. He’ll lead a man t’ drink an’ to steal other folks’ time an’ money; he’s meaner’n pusley an’ slyer’n—well, he’s s’ durned sly, Cap’n, that you gotta be on his track all the endurin’ while.”

“Do you think I’ve got two folks in me, Peg?” asked Jimmy, laying his hand over the pit of his stomach with a worried look.

“I’m reelly ’fraid ye have, Cap’n,” said Peg firmly. “I never see anybody ’at hadn’t. But ef you git th’ upper han’ o’ ol’ lazybones now’t you’re small, you won’t have much trouble with him.”

“I’m not small, Peg,” Jimmy corrected him. “You said I was large an’—an’ hefty fer my age.”

“Sure you be, Cap’n, but you ain’t reelly a man growed. That’s what I mean, an’ I want you should grow up into an A number one man, full o’ grit an’ gumption. An’ you can’t do it unless you start right. You see, Cap’n, I’m gittin’ ’long in life an’ I’ve figgered it out ’at ’bout six folks out o’ every ten kind o’ see-saws back an’ forth betwixt bein’ lazy an’ lyin’ an’ no ’count, an’ bein’ industrious an’ truthful. Folks like that gits ’long so-so; they don’t hev no partickler good luck—ol’ lazybones keeps ’em f’om that; but they don’t git nowheres neither, ’cause they don’t stick to biz. Then the’s ’bout three out o’ ev’y ten thet gives right up to ol’ lazybones f’om the start; an’ he runs ’em right into th’ ground ’s fas’ ’s possible. The tenth man, he stomps on ol’ lazybones ev’ry time he opens his head t’ speak, an’ bimeby he gits on the right track s’ stiddy an’ constant ’at nobody c’n stop ’im. An’ he’s the one thet gits thar! I want you should be that kind o’ a man, Cap’n. An’ that’s one reason I give you that book o’ Vallable Info’mation. It’ll help you to kind o’ think over differ’nt things that happens. Now I’ll bet you won’t lose another letter in a hurry.”

“No, I won’t,” Jimmy said earnestly. “An’ I’m goin’ to try an’ stomp on ol’ lazybones.”

“That’s right, Cap’n,” cried Peg. “You jes’ stomp on him hard an’ proper. You git th’ upper han’ o’ him b’fore he grows too big and hefty, an’ bimeby he won’t bother you.”

“Peg,” said Jimmy, after a period devoted to reflection, “the Hon’rable Stephen Jarvis is in our house.”

“Dear me! You don’t say so!” ejaculated Peg, with a frightened start.

“He makes Barb’ra cry,” said Jimmy, scowling fiercely. “I wanted to stay an’ keep him f’om doin’ it; but Barb’ra said for me to come out here and see you. I’d like to stomp on him—hard!”

The subject of these dubious comments and conjectures, more ill at ease than his worst enemy had ever hoped to see him, sat in the dull light of the rainy afternoon, looking at Barbara Preston with new eyes: to wit, the eyes of a man.

“I suppose,” the girl said steadily, “you have come to tell me that you will foreclose the mortgage.” She gripped her hands close in her lap.

“No,” said Stephen Jarvis, “that was not my intention. As I have already informed you, the mortgage will foreclose itself, when the time comes.”

He stopped short and narrowed his lids frowningly.

“I have been thinking about you,” he said harshly, “since you left me so abruptly yesterday. Why did you do it? And yet, I am glad, on the whole, that you did. I want to tell you that I stood in my library door and witnessed my housekeeper’s dismissal of you from my house. Her own followed without delay.”

“I am sorry,” Barbara told him mechanically. She was noticing dazedly that Jarvis was dressed as she had occasionally seen him in church, and that his gloves and linen were quite fresh and immaculate.

“Why should you be sorry?” he demanded with a straight look at her.

“I—why, I think I should be sorry for any woman who had lost what she wanted to keep,” Barbara answered. “If you discharged her because I——”

“You were not primarily the cause of her dismissal,” he said coolly. “I had already told you that I was tired of seeing the woman about.”

He was silent for a long time, gazing frowningly at the floor.

Suddenly he looked up and, meeting Barbara’s astonished and somewhat indignant eyes, held them steadily with his own.

“You are wondering why I came here to-day. You are afraid of me, and you doubtless fancy with the rest of the world that you—dislike me exceedingly.”

Barbara opened her lips to reply.

“Don’t take the trouble to deny it,” he went on, with a faint sneer. “I know what most people think of me, perhaps with reason. But I am myself, not another; and so far, fear—dislike have seemed to me unavoidable.” Again his rigid lips relaxed into something like a smile, and he looked questioningly at the girl.

“It ought to be easy,” she said uncertainly, “to make people like you. You might——”

“I know what you are thinking of,” he interrupted rudely. “But it wouldn’t do. People fear and hate a hard man; they despise a fool. I refuse to be despised.”

He rose and walked up and down the room impatiently as if his thoughts irked him. Finally he paused before the window where a scarlet geranium blossomed on the sill, and turned a singularly flushed face upon the girl. For a dazed instant she wondered with a thrill of painfully remembered fear if he had been drinking.

“You will be startled at what I am about to say to you,” he said, in a changed voice. “I should have laughed at the idea if anyone had suggested it to me a week ago. But—I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife. No! don’t answer; don’t refuse! You haven’t thought what it means. You cannot consider the matter so suddenly. But this much you can understand, I will give you this place on our wedding-day—to do with as you like, and I will attach no conditions to the gift.”

Barbara had not removed her fascinated gaze from his face. She felt like one dreaming fantastically and struggling unavailingly to awake.

“Perhaps you do not realize what you have asked of me,” she said at last. “But—I will not sell myself for this farm. That is what you have asked me to do.”

Her eyes sparkled blue fire; her lips curled disdainfully.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said roughly. “I want nothing of the sort. I want you—you! I need you. I am more sure of it now than ever.”

He took three steps toward her, his rugged face alive with determination—the grim determination which had wrested all that he possessed from the grip of a hostile world.

“When I want anything,” he said doggedly, “I always get it. Didn’t you know that? I want you.”

“You’ll not get me—ever!” cried Barbara.

She knew it must be war to the bitter end between them, and she flung the gage of battle full in his face with fine recklessness.

“You may take everything I have, if you can. But you’ll not get me!”

He stood up and buttoned his frock coat over his white waistcoat.

“I’ll not take your answer to-day,” he said, quite unmoved by her anger. “I had no intention of doing so.”

He strode to the door without another look at her, signalled his coachman, stepped into his closed carriage, shut the door hard behind him and rolled away, with a smooth whir of shining wheels.