Читать книгу Hervey Willetts - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 7

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When Hervey told the councilor at Temple Camp that he had a stepfather, he told something less than the whole story. He had both a stepfather and a stepmother. His father had died when he was very young and his mother had married a man named Walton who had been not only a good guardian but a very patient guardian to Hervey. Then, when he was old enough to feel a bereavement more keenly his mother had died, and after several years his stepfather had taken a second wife who had always been an affectionate stepmother to the twice orphaned boy.

So here was the odd situation of a boy living in the home of his childhood in the care of two people who were in no way related to him. It was characteristic of Hervey to get into odd situations and predicaments, and perhaps this position which he occupied in his own home in a fashion symbolized the position which he occupied in scouting and among boys generally. It was a position hard to duplicate, just as all of his stunts and resultant predicaments would have been hard to duplicate. He stood alone, or hung by his feet alone, or stood on his head. He was different, and everything about him was different. Of course, he did not regard having two step-parents as a stunt. But, you see, even in this he went a little further than most boys. He could handle two step-parents as easily as one, and he went upon his way rejoicing.

No sentimental pity for Hervey is justified by this step-parent condition in his colorful career. The worst that can be said of Mr. and Mrs. Walton is that they did not understand him. But then no one understood him. He, on his part, accepted them as he accepted everything. He had nothing against them; he had nothing against anybody. Scout rules, wandering pedlers, railroad conductors, scoutmasters, school principals, tramps, carnival actors, step-parents, were all the same to Hervey. He leaned a little toward carnival actors.

I have sometimes wondered whether he ever had any wistful thoughts of his own mother so lately gone from him. And what his story might have been if she had been spared. If he was capable of deep sentiment we shall have to find that in this narrative. He was certainly blithesome and content at this point of taking up the trail of his aimless and adventurous progress. Like the miller of Dee in the nursery rhyme, “he cared for nobody, no not he.” But he was incapable of malice. Perhaps that was the keynote of his nature. And it was not a bad keynote.

It was to this home, a pretty little house in Farrelton in the Berkshires, that Hervey returned after his summer at Temple Camp. And he overlooked the trifling matter of reporting that he had been dismissed and forbidden ever to return to those scenes of his roving freedom.

Hervey was akin to those boys who point a suggestive finger in the direction an automobile is going in the hope of getting a lift. But his method was far better than that of most boys. It had an original quality all his own which motorists found it hard to resist.

He would saunter diagonally across the road with a nonchalant air of preoccupation the while tossing a ball into the air. This he would dextrously cause to drop into the car which he had designs on. His preoccupied manner of crossing usually had the effect of slowing up the car. The truant ball gave him the opportunity to request its return. For the rest he depended on his personality to get a ride. He figured that if he could bring a passing auto to a halt the rest would be easy, as it usually proved to be.

As he emerged from the railroad station on the day of his return, he espied a Ford touring car starting off. He had not his trusty rubber ball with him so he was forced to make the usual direct request. Perhaps his rather cumbersome suitcase won him favor from the somewhat hard looking young man who drove the car.

This young man did not look like the sort who think too seriously about good turns. He was poorly dressed and wore a cap at that villainous angle affected only by young men of the strong-arm persuasion. He had also (what seemed to harmonize with his cap) a livid scar on his cheek, and he sat in that sophisticated sideways posture at the wheel which suggested the taxi chauffeur.

“You going up Main Street?” Hervey queried, as he took his seat beside the stranger. “I’m going as far as Hart Street.”

“I got yer,” said the young man accommodatingly. “Yer one er dem boy scouts?”

“Scout in looks only,” said Hervey laconically, alluding to his khaki attire.

“Youse guys is a lot of false alarms,” said the driver. “What can yez do?”

“Give me a dare,” said Hervey.

“Sure, I’ll give yer a dare.”

“Just give me one and I’ll show you,” said Hervey.

His rather bizarre challenge caused the stranger, whose remarks had been altogether casual, to glance sideways at him rather curiously.

“You just give me a dare, that’s all,” said Hervey complacently.

It seemed as if the young man’s mood of banter had changed to one of inquiring interest. His criticism had been surly, but not serious; now suddenly, he flattered Hervey by a kind of lowering inspection.

“Sure, I’ll give yer one,” said he; “only yer mother don’t leave yer out nights.”

“Oh, don’t she,” Hervey sneered. “You just give me a dare—you just give me one. I refused to take dares from people that wouldn’t even ride in a Ford, I did.”

Still the young fellow scrutinized him. “Yare?” he queried cynically.

“Sure I did; I called a bluff from a cowboy and I chucked his dare in his face.”

“Get out.”

“You just give me one and see,” said Hervey.

“Well, if yer mother will leave yer out,” said the young man, “you meet me in the parking space in back of the post office at ten o’clock to-night and I’ll give yer a dare all right; I’ll give yer a good one. I’ll show yer you’re a flat tire.”

“You call me a flat tire?”

“Sure, you’re a blowout—all noise and no action.”

This was too much for Hervey. He forgot that this was the evening of his welcome home. He forgot that he had ever been to Temple Camp or that this tough young stranger meant nothing to him. He never approached toward acquaintanceship by the usual slow process. And his sense of discrimination was conspicuous by its absence.

“I’ll be there all right, you leave it to me,” he said.

“Ten bells,” said the tough young fellow.

“You leave it to me,” said Hervey.