Читать книгу The Portygee - Joseph Crosby Lincoln - Страница 6

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A brisk rap on the door; then a man's voice.

“Hello, there! Wake up.”

Albert rolled over, opened one eye, then the other and raised himself on his elbow.

“Eh? Wh-what?” he stammered.

“Seven o'clock! Time to turn out.”

The voice was his grandfather's. “Oh—oh, all right!” he answered.

“Understand me, do you?”

“Yes—yes, sir. I'll be right down.”

The stairs creaked as Captain Zelotes descended them. Albert yawned cavernously, stretched and slid one foot out of bed. He drew it back instantly, however, for the sensation was that of having thrust it into a bucket of cold water. The room had been cold the previous evening; plainly it was colder still now. The temptation was to turn back and go to sleep again, but he fought against it. Somehow he had a feeling that to disregard his grandfather's summons would be poor diplomacy.

He set his teeth and, tossing back the bed clothes, jumped to the floor. Then he jumped again, for the floor was like ice. The window was wide open and he closed it, but there was no warm radiator to cuddle against while dressing. He missed his compulsory morning shower, a miss which did not distress him greatly. He shook himself into his clothes, soused his head and neck in a basin of ice water poured from a pitcher, and, before brushing his hair, looked out of the window.

It was a sharp winter morning. The wind had gone down, but before subsiding it had blown every trace of mist or haze from the air, and from his window-sill to the horizon every detail was clean cut and distinct. He was looking out, it seemed, from the back of the house. The roof of the kitchen extension was below him and, to the right, the high roof of the barn. Over the kitchen roof and to the left he saw little rolling hills, valleys, cranberry swamps, a pond. A road wound in and out and, scattered along it, were houses, mostly white with green blinds, but occasionally varied by the gray of unpainted, weathered shingles. A long, low-spreading building a half mile off looked as if it might be a summer hotel, now closed and shuttered. Beyond it was a cluster of gray shanties and a gleam of water, evidently a wharf and a miniature harbor. And, beyond that, the deep, brilliant blue of the sea. Brown and blue were the prevailing colors, but, here and there, clumps and groves of pines gave splashes of green.

There was an exhilaration in the crisp air. He felt an unwonted liveliness and a desire to be active which would have surprised some of his teachers at the school he had just left. The depression of spirits of which he had been conscious the previous night had disappeared along with his premonitions of unpleasantness. He felt optimistic this morning. After giving his curls a rake with the comb, he opened the door and descended the steep stairs to the lower floor.

His grandmother was setting the breakfast table. He was a little surprised to see her doing it. What was the use of having servants if one did the work oneself? But perhaps the housekeeper was ill.

“Good morning,” he said.

Mrs. Snow, who had not heard him enter, turned and saw him. When he crossed the room, she kissed him on the cheek.

“Good morning, Albert,” she said. “I hope you slept well.”

Albert replied that he had slept very well indeed. He was a trifle disappointed that she made no comment on his promptness in answering his grandfather's summons. He felt such promptness deserved commendation. At school they rang two bells at ten minute intervals, thus giving a fellow a second chance. It had been a point of senior etiquette to accept nothing but that second chance. Here, apparently, he was expected to jump at the first. There was a matter of course about his grandmother's attitude which was disturbing.

She went on setting the table, talking as she did so.

“I'm real glad you did sleep,” she said. “Some folks can hardly ever sleep the first night in a strange room. Zelotes—I mean your grandpa—'s gone out to see to the horse and feed the hens and the pig. He'll be in pretty soon. Then we'll have breakfast. I suppose you're awful hungry.”

As a matter of fact he was not very hungry. Breakfast was always a more or less perfunctory meal with him. But he was surprised to see the variety of eatables upon that table. There were cookies there, and doughnuts, and even half an apple pie. Pie for breakfast! It had been a newspaper joke at which he had laughed many times. But it seemed not to be a joke here, rather a solemn reality.

The kitchen door opened and Mrs. Ellis put in her head. To Albert's astonishment the upper part of the head, beginning just above the brows, was swathed in a huge bandage. The lower part was a picture of hopeless misery.

“Has Cap'n Lote come in yet?” inquired the housekeeper, faintly.

“Not yet, Rachel,” replied Mrs. Snow. “He'll be here in a minute, though. Albert's down, so you can begin takin' up the things.”

The head disappeared. A sigh of complete wretchedness drifted in as the door closed. Albert looked at his grandmother in alarm.

“Is she sick?” he faltered.

“Who? Rachel? No, she ain't exactly sick . . . Dear me! Where did I put that clean napkin?”

The boy stared at the kitchen door. If his grandmother had said the housekeeper was not exactly dead he might have understood. But to say she was not exactly sick—

“But—but what makes her look so?” he stammered. “And—and what's she got that on her head for? And she groaned! Why, she MUST be sick!”

Mrs. Snow, having found the clean napkin, laid it beside her husband's plate.

“No,” she said calmly. “It's one of her sympathetic attacks; that's what she calls 'em, sympathetic attacks. She has 'em every time Laban Keeler starts in on one of his periodics. It's nerves, I suppose. Cap'n Zelotes—your grandfather—says it's everlastin' foolishness. Whatever 'tis, it's a nuisance. And she's so sensible other times, too.”

Albert was more puzzled than ever. Why in the world Mrs. Ellis should tie up her head and groan because the little Keeler person had gone on a spree was beyond his comprehension.

His grandmother enlightened him a trifle.

“You see,” she went on, “she and Laban have been engaged to be married ever since they were young folks. It's Laban's weakness for liquor that's kept 'em apart so long. She won't marry him while he drinks and he keeps swearin' off and then breaking down. He's a good man, too; an awful good man and capable as all get-out when he's sober. Lately that is, for the last seven or eight years, beginnin' with the time when that lecturer on mesmerism and telegraphy—no, telepathy—thought-transfers and such—was at the town hall—Rachel has been havin' these sympathetic attacks of hers. She declares that alcohol-takin' is a disease and that Laban suffers when he's tipsy and that she and he are so bound up together that she suffers just the same as he does. I must say I never noticed him sufferin' very much, not at the beginnin,' anyhow—acts more as he was havin' a good time—but she seems to. I don't wonder you smile,” she added. “'Tis funny, in a way, and it's queer that such a practical, common-sense woman as Rachel Ellis is, should have such a notion. It's hard on us, though. Don't say anything to her about it, and don't laugh at her, whatever you do.”

Albert wanted to laugh very much. “But, Mrs. Snow—” he began.

“Mercy sakes alive! You ain't goin' to call me 'Mrs. Snow,' I hope.”

“No, of course not. But, Grandmother why do you and Captain—you and Grandfather keep her and Keeler if they are so much trouble? Why don't you let them go and get someone else?”

“Let 'em go? Get someone else! Why, we COULDN'T get anybody else, anyone who would be like them. They're almost a part of our family; that is, Rachel is, she's been here since goodness knows when. And, when he's sober Laban almost runs the lumber business. Besides, they're nice folks—almost always.”

Plainly the ways of South Harniss were not the ways of the world he had known. Certainly these people were “Rubes” and queer Rubes, too. Then he remembered that two of them were his grandparents and that his immediate future was, so to speak, in their hands. The thought was not entirely comforting or delightful. He was still pondering upon it when his grandfather came in from the barn.

The captain said good morning in the same way he had said good night, that is, he and Albert shook hands and the boy was again conscious of the gaze which took him in from head to foot and of the quiet twinkle in the gray eyes.

“Sleep well, son?” inquired Captain Zelotes.

“Yes . . . Yes, sir.”

“That's good. I judged you was makin' a pretty good try at it when I thumped on your door this mornin'. Somethin' new for you to be turned out at seven, eh?”

“No, sir.”

“Eh? It wasn't?”

“No, sir. The rising bell rang at seven up at school. We were supposed to be down at breakfast at a quarter past.”

“Humph! You were, eh? Supposed to be? Does that mean that you were there?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a surprised look in the gray eyes now, a fact which Albert noticed with inward delight. He had taken one “rise” out of his grandfather, at any rate. He waited, hoping for another opportunity, but it did not come. Instead they sat down to breakfast.

Breakfast, in spite of the morning sunshine at the windows, was somewhat gloomy. The homesickness, although not as acute as on the previous night, was still in evidence. Albert felt lost, out of his element, lonely. And, to add a touch of real miserableness, the housekeeper served and ate like a near relative of the deceased at a funeral feast. She moved slowly, she sighed heavily, and the bandage upon her forehead loomed large and portentous. When spoken to she seldom replied before the third attempt. Captain Zelotes lost patience.

“Have another egg?” he roared, brandishing the spoon containing it at arm's length and almost under her nose. “Egg! Egg! EGG! If you can't hear it, smell it. Only answer, for heaven sakes!”

The effect of this outburst was obviously not what he had hoped. Mrs. Ellis stared first at the egg quivering before her face, then at the captain. Then she rose and marched majestically to the kitchen. The door closed, but a heartrending sniff drifted in through the crack. Olive laid down her knife and fork.

“There!” she exclaimed, despairingly. “Now see what you've done. Oh, Zelotes, how many times have I told you you've got to treat her tactful when she's this way?”

Captain Lote put the egg back in the bowl.

“DAMN!” he observed, with intense enthusiasm.

His wife shook her head.

“Swearin' don't help it a mite, either,” she declared. “Besides I don't know what Albert here must think of you.” Albert, who, between astonishment and a wild desire to laugh, was in a critical condition, appeared rather embarrassed. His grandfather looked at him and smiled grimly.

“I cal'late one damn won't scare him to death,” he observed. “Maybe he's heard somethin' like it afore. Or do they say, 'Oh, sugar!' up at that school you come from?” he added.

Albert, not knowing how to reply, looked more embarrassed than ever. Olive seemed on the point of weeping.

“Oh, Zelotes, how CAN you!” she wailed. “And to-day, of all days! His very first mornin'!”

Captain Lote relented.

“There, there, Mother!” he said. “I'm sorry. Forget it. Sorry if I shocked you, Albert. There's times when salt-water language is the only thing that seems to help me out . . . Well, Mother, what next? What'll we do now?”

“You know just as well as I do, Zelotes. There's only one thing you can do. That's go out and beg her pardon this minute. There's a dozen places she could get right here in South Harniss without turnin' her hand over. And if she should leave I don't know WHAT I'd do.”

“Leave! She ain't goin' to leave any more'n than the ship's cat's goin' to jump overboard. She's been here so long she wouldn't know how to leave if she wanted to.”

“That don't make any difference. The pitcher that goes to the well—er—er—”

She had evidently forgotten the rest of the proverb. Her husband helped her out.

“Flocks together or gathers no moss, or somethin', eh? All right, Mother, don't fret. There ain't really any occasion to, considerin' we've been through somethin' like this at least once every six months for ten years.”

“Zelotes, won't you PLEASE go and ask her pardon?”

The captain pushed back his chair. “I'll be hanged if it ain't a healthy note,” he grumbled, “when the skipper has to go and apologize to the cook because the cook's made a fool of herself! I'd like to know what kind of rum Labe drinks. I never saw any but his kind that would go to somebody else's head. Two people gettin' tight and only one of 'em drinkin' is somethin'—”

He disappeared into the kitchen, still muttering. Mrs. Snow smiled feebly at her grandson.

“I guess you think we're funny folks, Albert,” she said. “But Rachel is one hired help in a thousand and she has to be treated just so.”

Five minutes later Cap'n 'Lote returned. He shrugged his shoulders and sat down at his place.

“All right, Mother, all right,” he observed. “I've been heavin' ile on the troubled waters and the sea's smoothin' down. She'll be kind and condescendin' enough to eat with us in a minute or so.”

She was. She came into the dining-room with the air of a saint going to martyrdom and the remainder of the meal was eaten by the quartet almost in silence. When it was over the captain said:

“Well, Al, feel like walkin', do you?”

“Why, why, yes, sir, I guess so.”

“Humph! You don't seem very wild at the prospect. Walkin' ain't much in your line, maybe. More used to autoin', perhaps?”

Mrs. Snow put in a word. “Don't talk so, Zelotes,” she said. “He'll think you're makin' fun of him.”

“Who? Me? Not a bit of it. Well, Al, do you want to walk down to the lumber yard with me?”

The boy hesitated. The quiet note of sarcasm in his grandfather's voice was making him furiously angry once more, just as it had done on the previous night.

“Do you want me to?” he asked, shortly.

“Why, yes, I cal'late I do.”

Albert, without another word, walked to the hat-rack in the hall and began putting on his coat. Captain Lote watched him for a moment and then put on his own.

“We'll be back to dinner, Mother,” he said. “Heave ahead, Al, if you're ready.”

There was little conversation between the pair during the half mile walk to the office and yards of “Z. Snow and Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware.” Only once did the captain offer a remark. That was just as they came out by the big posts at the entrance to the driveway. Then he said:

“Al, I don't want you to get the idea from what happened at the table just now—that foolishness about Rachel Ellis—that your grandmother ain't a sensible woman. She is, and there's no better one on earth. Don't let that fact slip your mind.”

Albert, somewhat startled by the abruptness of the observation, looked up in surprise. He found the gray eyes looking down at him.

“I noticed you lookin' at her,” went on his grandfather, “as if you was kind of wonderin' whether to laugh at her or pity her. You needn't do either. She's kind-hearted and that makes her put up with Rachel's silliness. Then, besides, Rachel herself is common sense and practical nine-tenths of the time. It's always a good idea, son, to sail one v'yage along with a person before you decide whether to class 'em as A. B. or just roustabout.”

The blood rushed to the boy's face. He felt guilty and the feeling made him angrier than ever.

“I don't see why,” he burst out, indignantly, “you should say I was laughing at—at Mrs. Snow—”

“At your grandmother.”

“Well—yes—at my grandmother. I don't see why you should say that. I wasn't.”

“Wasn't you? Good! I'm glad of it. I wouldn't, anyhow. She's liable to be about the best friend you'll have in this world.”

To Albert's mind flashed the addition: “Better than you, that means,” but he kept it to himself.

The lumber yards were on a spur track not very far from the railway station where he had spent that miserable half hour the previous evening. The darkness then had prevented his seeing them. Not that he would have been greatly interested if he had seen them, nor was he more interested now, although his grandfather took him on a personally conducted tour between the piles of spruce and pine and hemlock and pointed out which was which and added further details. “Those are two by fours,” he said. Or, “Those are larger joist, different sizes.” “This is good, clear stock, as good a lot of white pine as we've got hold of for a long spell.” He gave particulars concerning the “handiest way to drive a team” to one or the other of the piles. Albert found it rather boring. He longed to speak concerning enormous lumber yards he had seen in New York or Chicago or elsewhere. He felt almost a pitying condescension toward this provincial grandparent who seemed to think his little piles of “two by fours” so important.

It was much the same, perhaps a little worse, when they entered the hardware shop and the office. The rows and rows of little drawers and boxes, each with samples of its contents—screws, or bolts, or hooks, or knobs—affixed to its front, were even more boring than the lumber piles. There was a countryfied, middle-aged person in overalls sweeping out the shop and Captain Zelotes introduced him.

“Albert,” he said, “this is Mr. Issachar Price, who works around the place here. Issy, let me make you acquainted with my grandson, Albert.”

Mr. Price, looking over his spectacles, extended a horny hand and observed: “Yus, yus. Pleased to meet you, Albert. I've heard tell of you.”

Albert's private appraisal of “Issy” was that the latter was another funny Rube. Whatever Issy's estimate of his employer's grandson might have been, he, also, kept it to himself.

Captain Zelotes looked about the shop and glanced into the office.

“Humph!” he grunted. “No sign or symptoms of Laban this mornin', I presume likely?”

Issachar went on with his sweeping.

“Nary one,” was his laconic reply.

“Humph! Heard anything about him?”

Mr. Price moistened his broom in a bucket of water. “I see Tim Kelley on my way down street,” he said. “Tim said he run afoul of Laban along about ten last night. Said he cal'lated Labe was on his way. He was singin' 'Hyannis on the Cape' and so Tim figgered he'd got a pretty fair start already.”

The captain shook his head. “Tut, tut, tut!” he muttered. “Well, that means I'll have to do office work for the next week or so. Humph! I declare it's too bad just now when I was countin' on him to—” He did not finish the sentence, but instead turned to his grandson and said: “Al, why don't you look around the hardware store here while I open the mail and the safe. If there's anything you see you don't understand Issy'll tell you about it.”

He went into the office. Albert sauntered listlessly to the window and looked out. So far as not understanding anything in the shop was concerned he was quite willing to remain in ignorance. It did not interest him in the least. A moment later he felt a touch on his elbow. He turned, to find Mr. Price standing beside him.

“I'm all ready to tell you about it now,” volunteered the unsmiling Issy. “Sweepin's all finished up.”

Albert was amused. “I guess I can get along,” he said.

“Don't worry.”

“I ain't worried none. I don't believe in worryin'; worryin' don't do folks no good, the way I look at it. But long's Cap'n Lote wants me to tell you about the hardware I'd ruther do it now, than any time. Henry Cahoon's team'll be here for a load of lath in about ten minutes or so, and then I'll have to leave you. This here's the shelf where we keep the butts—hinges, you understand. Brass along here, and iron here. Got quite a stock, ain't we.”

He took the visitor's arm in his mighty paw and led him from shelves to drawers and from drawers to boxes, talking all the time, so the boy thought, “like a catalogue.” Albert tried gently to break away several times and yawned often, but yawns and hints were quite lost on his guide, who was intent only upon the business—and victim—in hand. At the window looking across toward the main road Albert paused longest. There was a girl in sight—she looked, at that distance, as if she might be a rather pretty girl—and the young man was languidly interested. He had recently made the discovery that pretty girls may be quite interesting; and, moreover, one or two of them whom he had met at the school dances—when the young ladies from the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had come over, duly guarded and chaperoned, to one-step and fox-trot with the young gentlemen of the school—one or two of these young ladies had intimated a certain interest in him. So the feminine possibility across the road attracted his notice—only slightly, of course; the sophisticated metropolitan notice is not easily aroused—but still, slightly.

“Come on, come on,” urged Issachar Price. “I ain't begun to show ye the whole of it yet . . . Eh? Oh, Lord, there comes Cahoon's team now! Well, I got to go. Show you the rest some other time. So long . . . Eh? Cap'n Lote's callin' you, ain't he?”

Albert went into the office in response to his grandfather's call to find the latter seated at an old-fashioned roll-top desk, piled with papers.

“I've got to go down to the bank, Al,” he said. “Some business about a note that Laban ought to be here to see to, but ain't. I'll be back pretty soon. You just stay here and wait for me. You might be lookin' over the books, if you want to. I took 'em out of the safe and they're on Labe's desk there,” pointing to the high standing desk by the window. “They're worth lookin' at, if only to see how neat they're kept. A set of books like that is an example to any young man. You might be lookin' 'em over.”

He hurried out. Albert smiled condescendingly and, instead of looking over Mr. Keeler's books, walked over to the window and looked out of that. The girl was not in sight now, but she might be soon. At any rate watching for her was as exciting as any amusement he could think of about that dull hole. Ah hum! he wondered how the fellows were at school.

The girl did not reappear. Signs of animation along the main road were limited. One or two men went by, then a group of children obviously on their way to school. Albert yawned again, took the silver cigarette case from his pocket and looked longingly at its contents. He wondered what his grandfather's ideas might be on the tobacco question. But his grandfather was not there then . . . and he might not return for some time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with careful carelessness, its end upon the case—he would not have dreamed of smoking without first going through the tapping process—lighted the cigarette and blew a large and satisfying cloud. Between puffs he sang: