Читать книгу Spiffy Henshaw - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 4

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“Are you sorry that you’re leaving us?” asked the scoutmaster as they walked around on the platform waiting for the train to come in.

“Nope,” smiled Spiffy, “I’m never sorry for anything I do. I’m sorry for what other people do to me.”

“That’s your creed, eh? Well, my boy, perhaps you’ll have to do otherwise some day. Here’s your train—I wish you luck and plenty of common sense.”

Spiffy returned the proffered hand clasp, boarded the waiting train and went merrily on his way. In five minutes he had completely forgotten the best wishes of his scoutmaster and the thought of ever having common sense seemed tragic to him. It made him wonder if he could stand on the bottom step of the railroad coach for five minutes without being thrown off.

This idea was quickly dismissed by the appearance of a news butcher who entered his coach bearing a tray full of tempting looking candies. He called the man and bought some imported Swiss milk chocolate, a package of lemon drops and a five cent bag of salted peanuts. Also he inquired as to whether or not the business of the news butcher was a lucrative one.

Having received an affirmative answer he made a wager with the man that he could carry the tray the length of the train and sell more goods than he did.

“I’ll go you one,” laughed the news butcher, who was richly endowed with sporting blood. “If you can make a good showing I’ll give you what you ask for—providin’ it’s reasonable.”

Spiffy immediately took him up and started through the train, the tray adorning his khaki-clad figure quite imposingly. He cried his wares appealingly and looked pensively into the faces of the fair sex, both young and old.

“Help a scout who is earning his way home, lady?” he pleaded. “Buy a bar of chocolate or some lemon drops and you’ll be helping me.”

It was a hard hearted traveler who could resist the naive, Arnold Henshaw, alias Spiffy. Few did resist him and before the train entered Jersey City he handed the news butcher an empty tray. He had won his wager.

“Will a dollar do?” asked the genial news butcher.

“Sure,” answered Spiffy. “That ain’t bad for a half hour’s work. Gee, it was easy—I’m going to be a news butcher too after I quit school.”

Spiffy left the train at Weehawken and took a bus to the Erie Railroad Station at Jersey City. There he bought a ticket for Bridgeboro and after an hour’s wait was embarked once more upon another adventure.

The spotless looking town of Bridgeboro made quite a favorable impression upon him and after he had roamed its streets for a delightful hour he decided to call upon his aunt and uncle who lived up in the suburb of North Bridgeboro. It was his first visit there as his uncle was not kindly looked upon in the Henshaw family. His aunt Kate was pitied because of her marriage to a ne’er do well and while she had often visited Jersey City, Spiffy had never been allowed to mention his Uncle William Riker or to ask the privilege of visiting that household.

“I’ll see what my uncle’s like,” he said aloud as he waited for a bus to take him uptown. “I’m just going to find out because Ma and Pop told me never to go. I want to see why they don’t like him.”

Spiffy was not long in finding out for in ten minutes he alighted from the bus in front of his aunt’s humble looking cottage. He walked up the path between rows of overgrown weeds and as he stepped upon the porch he noticed that it was badly in need of repair.

His Aunt Kate opened the door and admitted him with a pained expression upon her tired, careworn features. Once inside, however, she put her arms around him and smiled affectionately. “I’m put out about you coming here,” she said in hushed tones. “Your father and mother will be angry, Arnold.”

“I know,” he admitted indifferently, “but ain’t you glad to see me, Aunt Kate?”

“Course I am, silly,” she said, glancing uneasily toward the stairs. “Your uncle’s upstairs, asleep. I don’t know how he’s likely to treat you—he has a chip on his shoulder on account of the way your Ma and Pop won’t recognize him.”

“Well, that ain’t my fault, is it?” Spiffy asked. “I never did nothing to him . . .”

“Is that your nephew Arnold?” asked a wheezy voice from the stairway.

They looked up to see the tall, spare frame of Mr. Riker bending over the worn balustrade. “You heard me!” he shouted to his startled wife. “Don’t stand there as if you was dead!”

“Yeh, it’s him, Bill,” she said, as if in a trance.

“Sure, it’s me,” Spiffy spoke up. “I came because I met a dandy scout feller by the name of Tom Slade and he works for a man named Temple and he owns a big scout camp in the Catskills. I bet it’s a better scout camp than the one I just got put out of.”

“Put out!” said his aunt, horrified.

“Sure,” said Spiffy boastfully. “Not many scouts can say that. Gee, they were glad to get rid of me and believe me, I was glad to get rid of them.”

“It serves your mother and father right,” said Mr. Riker still depending on the flimsy balustrade for support. “You wouldn’t ketch me lettin’ any youngster o’ mine wastin’ his time like that. Yuh wouldn’t git the chance to go in the first place. They’re a no good bunch!”

Spiffy looked up at his uncle, wonderingly. This was a different person he was encountering. Everyone that had any interest in him at all had continually urged him to be a good scout and here his uncle was denouncing them the same as he had been doing. He wasn’t quite sure that he liked to hear it.

“Aw, they ain’t so bad,” he said with all trace of bravado gone. “Gee, I did a lot of things to them and all I got was to be put in the kitchen to wash dishes and peel potatoes. They ought to ’ve given me a good sock for the way I treated them and the way I broke rules.”

“Yeh, that’s just it,” said Mr. Riker shuffling downstairs and into the living room. “They handle boys like they were made of silk instead o’ makin’ them rustle aroun’ and work and givin’ them a good beatin’ once in a while.”

“Well, it’s good you’re not the scouts,” said Spiffy bravely, “that’s all I’ve got to say! I was the only one that made any trouble up there and gee whiz, there’s hundreds of guys in that camp so that doesn’t prove it hurts scouts to be treated like they were silk, does it?”

Mr. Riker glared at his nephew and seated himself in a large, worn rocker. “I got no use for anything that gives boys time to do mischief. I had to work hard when I was a boy and now . . .”

“You let Aunt Kate do it,” Spiffy interposed with a smile.

Mrs. Riker put out a detaining hand, for her husband leaned forward in his amazement. “Well, you impudent pup, you,” he said to Spiffy. “What’s it your business if your Aunt Kate does work a little bit to help me out! I ain’t a well man, but I’d learn yuh to hold your tongue if you was under this roof.”

Mrs. Riker smiled feebly. “There now, Bill,” she said, trying to bring about a truce, “I’m sure Arnold didn’t mean to be impudent—he just repeated what he hears at home most likely.”

Mr. Riker scowled, got up from the chair and sought seclusion upstairs once more. “I’d learn him different if he was here,” he mumbled angrily as he left the top step. “I’d take some of it out o’ him.”

“I bet he would,” Spiffy said when his uncle was well out of earshot. “Gee, he’s a bear, ain’t he Aunt Kate?”

“Hush, Arnold,” said the patient woman, “don’t let him hear you. He’s always ready to pick everything up.”

“Gee, I wouldn’t want to live with him,” Spiffy admitted frankly. “If I had a father like that—gee, I just now realized that Pop ain’t half bad. He lets me do everything. Gee, I guess I’ll go right back home and apologize.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Arnold,” said his aunt. “You’ve given your father a lot of worry with your pranks and he’s a good man. He’s trying hard every day to earn a lot of money so’s you can have a good education and grow up to be a fine young man. And your mother too, think how she worries.”

Spiffy was all contrition. “Come on home with me, too,” he urged her. “Tell them how I said I was sorry—otherwise they’ll think I’m joking again.”

Mrs. Riker went over and hugged him. “I will, Arnold,” she said, sweetly. “I will, because at last you seem to have sense.”