Читать книгу Silas Bradford's Boy - Joseph C Lincoln - Страница 5

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At two o'clock that afternoon Mr. Ebenezer Tadgett, in what he called the "other back room" of his place of business on Main Street, was kneeling before a battered piece of furniture and humming a tune. The other back room in Mr. Tadgett's shop must not be confused with the back room; they were separate and quite individual apartments. The back room was small; the other back room was of good size.

The former was Mr. Tadgett's office. His flat-topped desk and desk chair were there; also a table, two other chairs and a small and ancient iron safe. Ebenezer had bought the safe of its former owner several years before, but at the time of its purchase the key could not be found, nor had it been found since. When asked, Mr. Tadgett was accustomed to say that he had been meaning to fit another key to that safe, but that he hadn't got round to it yet. Consequently, the safe was never locked.

The desk—it, too, like every other article of furniture on the premises, was secondhand—was heaped high with papers piled higgledy-piggledy, except for a small space in the center where the papers were pushed back to leave room for an ink-stand, a pen or two and a can of smoking tobacco. The chairs were of different patterns, one of them mended with cod line. The table was of the "tip up" variety and it was upon it that Ebenezer and Jotham Gott and Eliab Gibbons played cutthroat euchre at their regular Wednesday afternoon sessions.

The back room opened from the shop itself, and the shop was crammed with merchandise in various stages of dilapidation—chairs, tables, glassware, trunks, sea chests, lamps, dory anchors, pictures, books, rowlocks, clocks, garden tools, whatnots, crockery, oars, household and nautical discards of all sorts. When a Denboro citizen, male or female, desired to get rid of something which had outgrown use or fashion the invariable custom was to find out what Tadgett would give for it. If he would give nothing for it it was burned or thrown away. A thing he would not buy at some price was worthless indeed.

The other back room was at the rear of the back room. Its two windows looked out upon the back yard; across that yard was the garden gate of the Tadgett cottage, which faced on Mill Road. In the other back room Ebenezer kept his treasures. If you liked fine old things—really liked them and understood them, and showed that you liked and understood them—you might be admitted to that room. The craze for antiques was young yet, but Mr. Tadgett, although far from young, was a sufferer from it. He sold what he called junk to any one, but in order to get him to part with, or even to exhibit a really fine piece the would-be purchaser must possess tact and prove knowledge. Making believe helped very little. "It don't take me very long to spot a fake," boasted Ebenezer, "whether it's dressed up in mahogany or diamonds."

He spent a great deal of his spare time in the other back room, doing what he called resurrecting. He was resurrecting now. He was kneeling before a small drop-leaf table and scraping carefully at one of its edges with a sharp knife. The table was of a pleasing shape, but it was scarred and dented and had at some period of its existence been painted a hideous blue green. The edge from which Mr. Tadgett was so carefully scraping the green paint was beginning to show dully brown, and this brown surface was bisected with a line of lighter wood.

Ebenezer paused in his labor, sat back upon his heels, inspected the space he had just scraped, and smiled apparently with satisfaction. The tune he was humming grew louder, acquired words and became the verse of a song:

"Stick to your mother, Tom,

When I am gone,

Don't let her worry, lad,

Don't let her mourn.

Remember how she watched you

When I was far away—"

The singing stopped, for the bell attached to the Main Street door to the shop jingled, announcing the entrance of a visitor. Mr. Tadgett reluctantly laid the scraping knife on the floor and turned his head to listen. Then he slowly and stiffly rose from his knees to his feet.

"Stick to your mother

When her hair turns gray,"

he finished deliberately. Then he dusted his hands on his trousers and strolled into the shop.

The person standing there was a young man. Ebenezer, blinking behind cloudy spectacles, did not at first recognize him. "Yes, sir," he observed cheerfully.

"Mr. Tadgett, is it?"

"The same. Yes, sir."

"My name is Bradford."

"Eh? Bradford? Oh! Yes, yes, of course."

It was the young fellow who had passed the shop the previous afternoon; Jotham Gott had called him "Margaret Bradford's boy." Any long-time resident of Denboro would have recognized him. Ebenezer Tadgett was a comparative newcomer, having migrated from South Harniss only three years before.

"Bradford," repeated Ebenezer. "Oh, yes, yes. Well, it's a good seasonable day for this time of year, Mr. Bradford."

Banks Bradford agreed that it was. Then he said, "Mr. Tadgett, I noticed that card in your window."

"Did, eh? Well, that's comfortin'. I kind of hoped somebody might notice one of 'em sometime. Which one did you notice?" It was a fair question, for there were no less than seven lettered bits of cardboard hanging in the shop windows.

"The one about the rooms to let in the post-office block; Judge Blodgett's law offices, they used to be. That one."

"O-oh!" Mr. Tadgett shook his head. "Too bad, too bad," he added mournfully.

"Too bad?"

"Yes, sort of too bad, in a way. I had hoped 'twas the one about that secondhand mackerel sieve I've got for sale. I'd like to get rid of that seine. It takes up consider'ble space and it don't smell like lemon verbena, neither...But I have got the key to Judge Blodgett's rooms. Like to look at 'em, would you?"

"Why," said the other with an apologetic smile, "I have looked at one of them already."

Ebenezer stared at him. Then he took a bunch of keys from his pocket and stared at that. "Humph!" he grunted. "You must have eyes like a pair of gimlets. Or did you peek through the window?"

"No, I went into the building, just to see where the rooms were located, you know, and the door of the back room was open."

Mr. Tadgett regarded the bunch of keys thoughtfully. "Humph!" he grunted once more. "I'd have swore I locked that door yesterday forenoon, when Cap'n Bije Bradford and me went over to look at them rooms."

"Yes. Well, you see the key had been turned, but the door wasn't shut tight."

Ebenezer nodded several times; then he put the keys in his pocket. "I do see," he observed. "Yes, yes, I see. Well, I promised when they put those rooms in my care that I wouldn't forget to keep 'em locked up; but I don't remember promisin' to shut the doors afore I locked 'em. Half a loaf is better than no bread; they can't expect too much for three dollars a week, now can they?...So you looked the premises over on your own hook, eh?"

"I looked at one room, the smaller one."

"Sho, that one isn't for rent—not exactly. Cap'n Abijah Bradford has took a sort of what he calls option on that room for a week or so."

"Yes, I know. He told me. He thinks it will make a good office for me. I am his nephew."

"Eh?...Why, yes, so you are. Yes, yes...Humph! That makes you Hettie Bradford's nephew, too, don't it?"

"No"—promptly. "She is my cousin, that's all."

"Cousin, eh? First or second?"

"Why, second or third, I guess, if that makes any difference."

Again Tadgett nodded. "'Twould to me," he said with emphasis. "However, that's neither here nor yonder, as the feller said. Well, Mr. Bradford, what about them rooms? You've seen 'em and Cap'n Bije has seen 'em. Cal'latin' to take up the option on the one in back, are you?"

Banks hesitated. "I don't know whether I can do that or not. You and my uncle have discussed rent, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Would it be all right to ask what the rent of that back room, the smallest one is?"

Ebenezer rubbed his chin. "Why, it would be all right to ask," he observed.

"I see. Well, that matter is between you and Uncle Abijah, of course. I beg your pardon."

"Sho, sho! Nothin' to beg about. And considerin' who you are, I don't see why I shouldn't tell you the figure. That room can be hired by Cap'n Bije, or anybody he stands responsible for, for twelve dollars."

"Twelve dollars—a week?"

"Week! Good Lord, no! Twelve dollars a month."

The young man looked tremendously relieved. "Why, that's awfully cheap, isn't it!" he exclaimed.

"It would be cheap for a yoke of oxen, or a sealskin cape, but for that room it's a plenty. However, it's what Nathan Blodgett told me was the lowest I could sublet it for. Goin' to take it?"

A long breath, then a nod. "Yes, I am," said Banks Bradford. Then he added, "And now, Mr. Tadgett, there is something else. I suppose I shall have to have a little furniture."

"Well, it is a pretty general habit to have a little, that's a fact."

"Yes. I must have a desk and—and a chair or two."

"Two's more convenient; unless you're cal'latin' to play solitaire."

"I thought perhaps I might try to find what I want here in your place." He looked about the huddled mass of odds and ends in the shop.

The proprietor of the shop looked also. "Uh-hum," he drawled. "You never can tell till you do try. I'm willin' to guarantee you can find what you DON'T want; I make it a p'int to keep a good- sized stock of that on hand. But let's have a look. Desk first, eh? Humph! Now there's somethin'." He pointed to an ancient ruin, half hidden by a roll of musty rag carpet.

Banks pulled aside the carpet. "Is that a desk?" he asked dubiously.

"The folks I bought it of seemed sartin 'twas one once...Humph! Well, there ought to be more somewheres."

There were several more, varying from a huge ugly walnut secretary to pine tables with drawers missing or minus a leg. As the search proceeded Banks Bradford's expression grew more and more gloomy.

"Are these all you have, Mr. Tadgett?" he asked. "Just these here?"

"Just about...Eh? What's the matter?"

The door of the other back room was open and Banks was standing on its threshold looking in. "Why, there is a desk," he exclaimed— "that one in there."

Ebenezer peered over his shoulder. "Yes," he admitted. "That's a desk, of a kind. It's about as seedy, though, as the one I showed you first."

"Yes, but it is such a corking shape."

"Think so, do you?"

"You bet!" said Banks enthusiastically. "May I go in and look at it?"

"Yes, if you want to. It ain't for sale, though."

His visitor did not appear to have heard the last sentence. He was standing before the desk, regarding it with rapt interest. It was a small four-legged affair; a flat top covered with ragged faded felt; a drawer beneath, with an ancient copper handle hanging by one rivet; a low rack of pigeon-holes and tiny drawers, before which sliding ribbed partitions were partially drawn. It had been painted a hideous shiny black, but most of the shine had disappeared and the paint itself was peeling in patches.

"Some derelict, ain't it?" observed Tadgett, standing by the Bradford elbow. "'Bout ready for the kindlin' pile, eh?"

Banks did not answer. He bent forward and pulled gently at a tiny brass knob. One of the ribbed partitions slid farther across the rows of pigeonholes.

"A tambour desk!" he cried enthusiastically. "And look at those legs! And that handle! Why, it's the original handle—with the eagle and the thirteen stars. Yes, sir, it is!...Lord, what a pity the other one is lost! But perhaps it isn't lost. Have you got it, Mr. Tadgett?"

Ebenezer pulled open a drawer. The second handle was within. "Don't suppose it's hardly wuth while puttin' it on," he said. "A wreck like that must be pretty nigh past salvage, wouldn't you say?"

Bradford turned on him. "What are you talking about!" he cried. "It's a peach of a thing. I haven't seen so good a one for ever so long."

"Well, well! You don't tell me! So you like it, do you?"

"Like it! Who could help liking it?"

"Lots of folks, and without no trouble at all. Your Cousin Henrietta, now, she see it yesterday and what she said about it was pretty discouragin'. I told her the old codger I traded with for it had it out in the barn to keep seed potatoes in, and she said he couldn't have set much store by the potatoes."

"No? Well, Cousin Hettie is—"

"Yes?...What did you say she was?"

"She is Cousin Hettie."

"Um-hum; maybe that's enough. She did offer to take it off my hands, though. If I'd take back a gas-burner stove I sold her last month, she'd agree to take that old desk as a dollar's worth of part pay."

"She didn't really!"

"She did. I was the one that didn't. But I'm kind of surprised you like that desk—all painted up in mournin' so."

"That paint doesn't amount to anything. I'll bet if you scraped that paint off you'd find— What are you smiling at?"

By way of answer Mr. Tadgett pulled the desk from the wall. For six inches along the top at the back a space had been scraped clean of paint.

"Mahogany!" cried Banks Bradford. "I knew it. And look at that grain!"

"Good old San Domingo. You can't always tell what's underneath paint, on women or furniture. For instance, look at that table behind you. I'm resurrectin' it now."

Banks turned, saw the table and hastened to examine it. His enthusiastic exclamations seemed to please Ebenezer Tadgett extremely.

"There's a crippled highboy over in the corner," he said. "Cap'n Seth Lamon see it a spell ago and wanted to know if I picked it up on the beach when that schooner loaded with junk came ashore."

The highboy—it was a cripple—was examined and highly praised. Bradford looked about the other back room.

"Look at that chair—and that lamp," he cried, pointing. "This place is full of wonderful stuff. Why do you keep it all shut up in here?"

Ebenezer closed one eye, opened it, and closed the other. "We-ll," he drawled, "if you keep the wrecks out of sight the reg'lar customers—them that buy the bargains in the front room—have more confidence in your judgment...See here, you seem to know consider'ble about old things—good things. And you ain't by no means an antique yourself. How did you catch the disease? Wasn't born with it, was you?"

"I don't know," replied the other with a laugh. "I have it, I'm sure of that. I have a friend whose family are—sort of collectors, you know, and every time I visit their house I have an acute attack. I've got one now, and you are responsible, Mr. Tadgett."

"Sho, sho! Well, I suppose I'd ought to try and cure you, if I can."

"You needn't mind; I don't want to be cured. Gee, Mr. Tadgett, you've got some fine stuff! I suppose there is a lot more I haven't seen."

"Well, there's some. That's the only tambour desk, though."

"Of course"—this with a sigh and a longing look at the tambour desk. "And that would be too expensive for me, even if it was for sale. And you said it wasn't."

"Did I? Well, it ain't for sale to your Cousin Henrietta, that's a fact."

"I should say not; nor to any one else who didn't appreciate it, I hope. I musn't take any more of your time, Mr. Tadgett. You were working on that table when I interrupted you, I suppose."

"Yes, I was."

Bradford turned to go. Then he paused. "Would you mind if I stayed and watched you work a little while?" he asked. "I'd like to. I don't know what there is about old furniture and—and glass and all that, but there must be something. It gets me, that's all I can say."

For the first time during their interview Ebenezer Tadgett showed genuine enthusiasm. He slapped his knee. "That's it!" he vowed heartily. "That's what it does, it gets you. It got me more'n twenty years ago and it's got me for keeps now. Maybe it's the things themselves—maybe it's because each one of 'em is a sort of storybook, you know, and you get to wonderin' who made it in the fust place, and whose houses it had been in, and what it's seen, if it could see, and the like of that. I'd give more for one old bureau that had the right stuff in it and was made by a feller that knew how and cared, you understand, than I would for all the new factory-built stuff there is in Boston this minute."

He picked up his scraping knife and turned to the drop-leaf table. "Set down," he ordered. "Haul up one of them chairs over there and set down. I'd like to have you, Banks. Banks is your first name, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"Sartin. Sit right down, Banks. You just let me scratch away here for a spell, and by and by maybe we'll see what we can do about locatin' a desk and a couple of chairs for you. Oh, not out yonder"—with a contemptuous wave toward the front shop; "in here, amongst the storybooks...That's it—comfortable, be you? Good! Well, there! I've preached, my sermon. In a couple of minutes, unless this service is different from most of mine, I'll be liable to start in on a hymn. Know anything about music, do you?"

"Not much."

"That's good. Then you'll appreciate my singin'."

He bent over the table and resumed his resurrecting. A few minutes later, in exact accordance with his prophecy, he broke into song.

"The volley was fired at sunrise,

Just at the break of day.

And while its echo lingered

A soul had passed away—

"Humph! That's a nice line of holly inlay comin' out now. See it? Oh, I was pretty sartin 'twas there: I've run acrost this kind of table afore.

"Into the arms of its Maker

There to meet its fate.

A tear, a sigh, a sad good-by;

The pardon came too late!"

Just before suppertime that evening Capt. Abijah Bradford threw open the side door of his sister-in-law's house on Mill Hill and strode through the sitting room and dining room into the kitchen. Margaret Bradford was busy at the cook-stove.

"Why, hello, Bije!" she said. "Going to have supper with us, are you?"

Captain Abijah snorted. "No," he declared. "I'm too mad to eat. Where's that durned boy of yours?"

"Banks?"

"He's the only boy you've got, ain't he? And enough, too—of the kind. Where is he?"

"Upstairs in his room, writing a letter, I believe."

"Call him down here. I want him." Margaret opened the oven door and peeped inside. "Call him yourself, Bije," she said calmly. "I'm busy."

Her brother-in-law's red face grew redder, but as Mrs. Bradford seemed to consider the matter settled he yielded. Striding back to the foot of the stairs leading from the sitting room, he roared his nephew's name. "Banks?" he hailed. "You up aloft there, are you?"

"Yes. Is that you, Uncle Bije?"

"Sounds like me, doesn't it?"

"Yes, sir, very much."

It certainly did, but the captain was a trifle taken aback, nevertheless. "Well, come down this minute," he commanded. "I want to see you."

Banks descended promptly. His uncle met him in the sitting room.

"Look here," he demanded, "what's this I've just heard about you?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"I guess you can guess, if you don't know. You spent considerable time with Ebenezer Tadgett this afternoon, I understand."

"Yes sir, I did."

"But that's all I understand about it. Accordin' to Tadgett, you told him you'd take that back office of Judge Blodgett's."

"He told me that you had a week's option on it and I told him the option was taken on my behalf. That is what you told me yourself last night, Uncle Abijah."

"Humph! Yes, it was. But look here, boy, does this mean that you have decided to give up your Boston scheme and stay here for good?"

"Yes, sir."

"Stay here and do your lawyerin' in Denboro, same as I told you you'd ought to do?"

"Yes, sir."

Captain Bradford shook his head. It was evident that he was gratified, also that he was surprised and puzzled. "Well," he admitted, "I'm glad to know you've got that much common sense in your manifest. Changed your mind some in twenty-four hours, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"I have been thinking, as you asked me to."

"Is that so! Did you do the thinkin' for yourself, or did your mother do it for you?"

Margaret would have spoken but her son spoke first.

"I thought a good deal last night after I left you," he replied sharply. "This morning I asked mother a lot of questions. Then I walked up and down the beach for two or three hours, thinking again. Then I went in and looked at the room you had picked out for me. After that I called on Mr. Tadgett."

"So I heard. Why didn't you call on me? As I recollect, you were to see me as soon as you'd thought this business through."

"I did call on you, but you were out and Mr. Bassett said you told him you probably wouldn't be back before five."

This was true, and the captain's guns were spiked for the moment. But only for a moment. "Well, all right," he growled. "Nobody's neck would have been broken if you'd waited till five—but that's only part of it. Here's the main thing. Tadgett says you and he picked out furniture for that room and that you went ahead and bought it. Considerin' that I'll be expected to pay for that furniture it seems to me I might have some say in the buyin'. What's your answer to that?"

Banks' answer was very prompt. "Mr. Tadgett didn't tell you that you were expected to pay for it," he said.

"How do you know he didn't? And what difference does that make? Who will pay for it, if I don't? Your mother? No, she won't. She can't afford it, for one reason; and for another, I won't let her."

"It is paid for already. I paid for it myself."

Uncle Abijah was speechless. He turned to look at his sister-in- law. She was smiling. The captain swung back to glare at his nephew. "You paid for it?" he repeated. "With whose money?"

"My own. I had a little, about a hundred and twenty dollars. Some of it I saved from my allowance; of course that part was mother's really. The rest I earned this summer while I was out West. I looked up some legal records and things—oh, they didn't amount to much—for Mr. Davidson, my college friend's uncle. He was going to have his lawyer do it, but I told him I believed I could, so he let me try. I wouldn't let him pay me, but he insisted on giving me seventy-five dollars for what he called my traveling expenses. I meant to send it back to him, but—well, this morning I decided to keep it. I paid for the desk and table and two chairs I bought of Mr. Tadgett."

Captain Abijah stared. Then once more he turned to Mrs. Bradford. "Margaret," he demanded, "did you know about this?"

"No, Abijah; not until a little while ago, when Banks came home. Then he told me what he had done."

Banks himself broke in here. "Nobody knew about it, Uncle Bije," he said. "I thought it out for myself and I did it. I've rented the room in the post-office building and I've paid the first month's rent in advance. You may have to lend me enough to pay the second; I hope you won't, but you may. And mother, I suppose, will have to board and lodge me gratis for a while. I'm ever so much obliged for your kindness and your interest and your telling me the truth about things. I only wish you had told me sooner. Well, I know now. I've given up my Boston plan; I'm going to try my luck here at home. And," he ended very earnestly, "I'm going to get along just as fast as I can, and as much on my own hook as I can. You can depend on that, both of you."

Captain Bradford did stay for supper, after all. On his way home he dropped in—it was a sort of duty visit he paid once a week—on Cousin Hettie at her home on the Swamp Road. He told her of their young relative's plans for a career as an attorney in Denboro. Cousin Hettie was tremendously interested but somewhat spiteful.

"So that's what you and he talked about, Abijah," she observed. "Why you hid it from me all this time is your own affairs, I suppose, and I don't complain; I'm used to being pushed into a corner. When poor dear Silas was alive he always—"

"Oh, bosh! Nobody's shoved you into a corner. They'd have a lively time keepin' you there, if they did! And speakin' of Silas, I'm beginnin' to believe that boy of his won't make us so everlastin' ashamed of him as I was afraid he might. Margaret's done her best to spoil him, of course—"

"Certainly she has. Did you expect anything else from one of her family? Oh, dear, why a Bradford, and the very best of the Bradfords except dear father—oh, yes, and you and me, Abijah—why Silas ever married so beneath him I can't see. And never could. But the best of us have our weak spots. I presume likely I've got some of my own, if I knew what they were."

Abijah, at that moment, looked as if he were tempted to enlighten her. He resisted the temptation, however.

"Well, anyhow," he said with decision, "I'm easier about that young fellow than I have been before since his father died. I can look his portrait—Silas', I mean—in the eye tonight and feel better. The boy may never be as smart a man as his father—"

"Nobody could be that."

"Probably not. But he's beginnin' to show signs that he is a man, and that's somethin'. I tell you this, Hettie—no matter how much Banks there is in him there's some Bradford along with it."