Читать книгу Spiffy Henshaw - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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Spiffy strolled out around the back of the Riker cottage while he was waiting for his aunt to dress. This shabby home stood at the top of the hill on a little knoll of rocky ground and down below the river wound its way between grassy banks and sweet-smelling woods.

“I’d like to live here on account of the river,” he said enviously gazing at the placid looking stream. “Boy, I sure would swim—night and day.”

“Not if your Uncle Bill had anything to do with it,” said Mrs. Riker emerging from the cottage, dressed for the little journey. “I’m afraid the river wouldn’t do you much good as long as he was around. It ain’t done me a bit o’ good, I know that. And how I could swim when I was a young girl.”

Spiffy looked at her pityingly and made a solemn resolution that he was going to be better to her and to everyone. The world had been kind to him and he had done nothing in return and in this frame of mind he walked lightly out to the road, helping his aunt over all the rough places.

“That’s a scout rule—to be chivalrous,” he told her. “Funny that when I was a scout I never thought about it and now that I’ve been put out I start living up to it.”

“You haven’t been put out exactly, have you, Arnold?” Mrs. Riker asked anxiously.

“Maybe not,” he answered. “But I’d have a nerve to go back now after all I did.”

“Oh, they ain’t that kind to hold it against you if they see you’re sorry,” she said.

“I know it,” he admitted, “but I’m—aw, I’m ashamed now.”

“Well, that ain’t a bad sign,” she said, pleased. It was indeed a delight to her to see her favorite nephew so penitent and humble.

And Spiffy was humbled. The transformation had been so swift that he was himself amazed and he wondered all the way back to Jersey City whether Tom Slade had caused the change or whether it was his uncle’s denunciation of the scouts that set off the spark of his slumbering loyalty. At any rate, he pressed his face against the dusty windowpane of the old railroad coach and silently planned how he was going to win his way back into the scouts upon his own merits.

“I’ll start first by being kind to Mom and Pop,” he resolved in a half-whisper.

“What did you say, Arnold?” asked his aunt who just caught his lips moving.

He told her. “They won’t be so pleased to hear that I was just kicked out but when they know I got some sense on account of it, they’ll be glad.”

He walked expectantly beside his aunt all the way up the tree shaded street and poured forth upon her listening ears, the virtues that he hoped to live up to during the rest of his natural life. It was all very new and exhilarating to him.

The Henshaw home was located in the center of the block and as they approached it, they noticed a small group of women standing on its porch, talking and seemingly agitated. Mrs. Riker hurried a few steps and Spiffy ran ahead.

When the ladies espied Spiffy they ceased talking instantly and each one looked at him with grim and troubled features. Mrs. Riker was aware of this and mounted the porch steps with pounding heart. Was this an evil sign of her nephew’s home-coming or was . . .

“I’m awfully glad your Aunt Kate’s with you,” spoke one of the ladies to the wondering boy. “I’m glad because—well, oh . . .”

“I’ll tell him and Mrs. Riker,” interposed another neighbor. “I—oh, it’s hard to begin.”

“What is it?” Mrs. Riker demanded. “What’s the matter?”

At that juncture, a big burly policeman came out of the Henshaw’s front door and surveyed the tense group. Mrs. Riker saw the look of appeal that the ladies gave him and her heart seemed to forsake her. She knew then that some terrible thing had invaded that home.

“This is the Henshaw boy, officer,” an elderly lady said. “This is his aunt too—Mrs. Henshaw’s sister. You—you better tell them.”

The officer nodded and a look of pain crossed his genial looking features. “Someone’s got to do it,” he said quietly, “so it might as well be me.” He tried to smile at Spiffy and his aunt—a smile that told much.

Mrs. Riker spared him further, however. She nodded slowly and set her mouth as if to get ready for the threatening pain. “We’re ready, officer,” she said bravely. “Arnold and me.”

“It’s Mr. and Mrs. Henshaw, ma’am,” the man said dully. “They’ve just been killed in their car. A truck ran into ’em down the street and did for ’em. They’re a-waitin’ identification. Youse better go down.”

Spiffy never got over that shock exactly. Time softened it of course, but he always remembered that the world had seemed to slip out from under his feet. And that night when he sat with his aunt in the deserted home he was still too dazed to cry.

“All I can think of is that I didn’t get chance to tell them that I . . . Well, anyhow Aunt Kate, I spose I’ll go live with you, huh?”

Mrs. Riker nodded. “I’ll be good to you, Arnold,” she said softly.

“Yeh, I know it. But Uncle Bill—he don’t like the scouts, does he?”

“No, he doesn’t like the scouts.”

“And I do,” said the boy mechanically. “It serves me right that I like them when its too late.”

Two years passed.