Читать книгу The Longhorn Feud - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 9

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When Sam Raeburn walked out to the Si Turner place that evening he found four signs at the four corners of the little field in which the house stood.

Halting, he shook his head. Then he called loudly, “Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy!”

“Yeah?” shrilled a voice.

“Come here!”

“Whacha want?” shrilled the voice of the unseen Jimmy.

“I want you!”

“What for?”

“Jimmy, come here!”

“I’m comin’.”

The front door of the shack opened, and Jimmy’s face appeared.

“We’re just gonna have supper,” he said. “You never seen such a spread.”

“You come on home,” said Raeburn.

Blue Barry appeared in the door behind Jimmy. “Come in, Mr. Raeburn,” said he.

Mr. Raeburn came and looked at the food that was heaped upon the table. He discovered two kinds of bread, three sorts of cakes, nuts, raisins, figs, delicious cakes of dates, to say nothing of oranges, apples, and other things arranged in a veritable mound in the center of the table. At this same moment perspiring Tom Willow jerked open the door of the oven, and a savory cloud of steam from a venison roast exuded into the room.

“Why,” said Mr. Raeburn, “it’s quite a spread you boys are having.”

“Spread?” said his son, enraged and desperate at this understatement “Why, it’s Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hallowe’en and New Year’s and Fourth of July and everything all rolled in together.”

“Sit down, sit down, Mr. Raeburn,” said Blue Barry, “and have a slice of roast venison.”

“Why,” said Raeburn, “if you’re insisting, I could take a taste and still have an appetite left for supper, I suppose.”

“Keep your hands off of that oven door!” roared Tom Willow, suddenly. “I’ll make a derelict of the first gent that lays his tarry hands on that there oven door. That venison ain’t done, and nobody this side of hell is gonna lay a tooth onto it before it’s done. You hear me talk?”

This thunder made Mr. Raeburn start. He glanced towards Blue Barry Litton; but the latter, though a frown of protest was on his forehead, merely shrugged his shoulders.

“When Tom’s cook, he’s the cook,” said Litton. “And there’s very little that I can do about it. Sit down here, sir, and try some of his tobacco in your pipe.”

Mr. Raeburn was charmed. One did not meet such cordial hospitality every day. Besides, he felt it an honor to be the only member of the community who was permitted to enter the house. After all, he would only stay a moment—and what was five minutes?

Besides, his young son stood at his shoulder, giving his arm a covert squeeze and whispering, “Gee whiz, pop! Ain’t he wonderful? Look at him—that’s Blue Barry!”

Willow began to compound a gravy. The fragrance of it filled the very soul of Samuel Raeburn.

Time fled. The outer sky was darkening. The window pane was a solid block of black into which sank the reflections from the room.

The further to enchant the flying moments, young Mr. Litton had some pleasant remarks to make about Jimmy that made Jimmy burn with pleasure, and even made the face of his father flush. It appeared that Litton could not possibly have succeeded in anything, from the moment he arrived in the town, had it not been for Jimmy’s help. Mr. Raeburn could see for himself that Jimmy was the hub about which the life of the house turned. Mr. Raeburn saw this, and inwardly remarked to himself that it never had been thus at his own house.

With a great cheer Tom Willow had just announced that the roast venison was done to a turn, when a voice called rather faintly, “Father! Father! Are you there?”

Mr. Samuel Raeburn turned pale. He looked at the black window pane, and without consulting his watch he knew instantly how much time had flowed behind him since he had left the gun shop to gather up Jimmy and march the truant home by the ear!

But as he sat there, rather pale and cold, realizing what he had done—or rather, what he had not done—young Barry Litton hastily sprang out through the doorway. He found the girl standing at the edge of his rented ground, leaning a hand upon one of his trespass signs.

“We’re waiting for nothing but you,” he said. “Come along in.”

“There is supper waiting at home,” said the girl. “I’ll go back.”

“You’ll come in,” said Blue Barry. “Please!”

“Good food ought not to be wasted,” said she.

“Exactly,” insisted Litton. “And we have tons more than we can use. You see, Jimmy did the ordering, and you’ll have to help us do the eating!”

His hand took her arm. His will fell upon her with a gentle compulsion. In a moment she was inside the door.

“Lou is here to join us!” exclaimed Blue Barry in a cheerful voice. “How’s that for a good fellow?”

And there she was in the kitchen, with Jimmy dancing around her, and her father looking at her with eyes wide with a mixture of guilt and pleasure and surprise.

Tom Willow, mopping his brow with a bandanna, was thundering, “Hey, come and get it—come and get it—Jimmy, gimme some of that hot water—sit down here. You’re here, sir. On his right, Miss Raeburn. You’re here, Mr. Raeburn. I’ll be along soon as I get some sand soap and hot water after my hands. That doggone venison grease sure sinks in!”

Lou was in her place before she knew, altogether, how she got there; and the stranger was talking cheerfully with her father. Jimmy was pinching her, and whispering in her ear, “Look at him, Lou. Ain’t he wonderful?”

She hardly heard the words. She was tingling from head to foot. She wanted to be angry, but she felt that she could not find anger in her soul. She wanted to escape, and yet she dreaded nothing more than leaving. She had a feeling that she was captive here, and yet there was a sweetness in it such as freedom could never have.

She looked straight before her as Blue Barry said, “Your coming makes it a real party, Lou.—It’s a regular house-warming!”

She had to frown a little at that, for she felt that a smile, just then, might be dangerous; she could not tell why.