Читать книгу Spiffy Henshaw - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Spiffy stood outside of his back door contemplating the river in its devious course from the bridge. Particularly was he interested in its flowing path after it left the reedy banks just below his uncle’s house.

It was not ten minutes since he had heard gay voices and carefree shouts echoing up the hill, causing him to immediately abandon his wood chopping and join in the shouting. Perhaps he did not abandon himself to the shouting as thoroughly as he had abandoned chopping wood but then he had his uncle to consider. That gentleman was a hard task master and Spiffy had long since learned to keep that knowledge uppermost in his young mind.

Two canoes loaded with scouts had hailed him, urging him to join them on that bright, warm morning. But Spiffy was only able to shout that Saturday was a busy day for him. He wanted to add that every day was a busy day but the slamming of a door from somewhere in the cottage prevented him.

Unwillingly he turned his back upon the river and upon the scouts and took up the axe. The door opened and someone stepped out of the kitchen. Spiffy did not look up but knew by the shiftless swish of the footfalls that it was his uncle.

“’S ’at you a-hollerin’ just before, Arnold?” the man asked in short, wheezy tones.

Spiffy let the axe rise and fall twice before he answered. “Yep,” he said, slowly. “Some of the fellers—scouts—were going up the river for all day. They wanted me to come. That’s about all.”

Bill Riker, as all North Bridgeboro called him, stared lazily at the axe glittering in the sunshine. He turned his head around without moving his tall, spare frame one inch and selected a soap box out of an accumulation of various other boxes standing piled up against the back of the little frame cottage.

“Fetch me that soap box, Arnold!” he rasped at the busy boy. “I’m tired out.”

Spiffy laid down his axe and went over. He dragged out the box from under the rest and pushed it toward his uncle. “I’m tired too,” he said, surprised at his own temerity. “All yesterday afternoon and since seven o’clock this morning I been chopping up this log. I got pains in my back even.”

Bill Riker flopped down onto the box and crossed his long legs. He watched his nephew for a few minutes then shook his head. “I declare you’re the laziest kid I ever did see. You ain’t got the slightest notion to be grateful for what your aunt and me is doin’ for you. Maybe you’d like to be traipsin’ around with them good-for-nothin’ scouts, eh?”

Spiffy stopped and faced him. “I once said they were good for nothing—I said it when my father and mother was alive and when I was up to a lake with them one summer. They were always nice to me even when I didn’t really belong to them. I didn’t know what I was talking about that time I guess—I even ran away and I disobeyed so many rules that they had to let me go back home. Gee, I was an awful sap when I think of it because I had a chance then. Now I haven’t any because you and Aunt Kate are too poor to let me join.”

Bill Riker disliked any pointed reference to his impecuniousness. He scowled. “Just as if I couldn’t afford to let you join if I wanted to,” he sneered. “But if I was a good deal richer than I am I wouldn’t let you join—they’re a lazy lot, they are, and they’d have you as bad as them in no time. You’re bad enough now,” he added as an afterthought. “You better hurry up with that choppin’ ’fore it rains. That wood’s got to get down celler ’fore night or your Aunt Kate won’t have no fire to cook your meals with. You’re glad enough to eat from us, ain’t you?”

Spiffy grasped the axe again with trembling fingers. He wondered how any boy could feel grateful to a man like his Uncle Bill. He wondered why relatives gave orphaned nephews a home and then spent the rest of their lives in making them feel miserable about it.

In the midst of these thoughts, his good but timid Aunt Kate opened the back door and looked out rather fearfully. “Bill,” she called in frightened tones. “Bill, Mr. Temple’s just stopped in front of the house in that grand car of his. I ’spect he’s come after the rent.”

An uneasy look crossed Bill Riker’s face and he stood up. “It’s blame easy for him to come pesterin’ me for money!” he wheezed and shook his fist in Spiffy’s direction. “All he’s got to do is to ride up here in a swell car and fill up his pockets and then go give it to them scouts what you want to traipse around with so bad. Yeh, give it to a lot of rascals what has nothin’ to do but go up on the river Saturdays and raise Cain. And you want to join ’em, eh? Hmph! Not while I got my senses you won’t.”

Spiffy could see nothing but his aunt’s work worn fingers tremulously holding the door open. His eyes blazed with anger. “Anyhow, they’ve been nice to me, the scouts have. I never forget when people are nice to me, even Mr. Temple,” he said bravely.

Bill Riker wheeled around as if to strike the boy. “Please!” his wife pleaded from the doorway. “Mr. Temple’s here, Bill. He’s a-knockin’ on the front door now.”

The mist of righteous indignation that blurred Spiffy’s vision did not clear away until long after the door closed behind his uncle. He threw his axe to the ground and walked a few feet, then stopped.

The voices of the shouting scouts had died away but the trail of the canoes was still visible in the sparkling water. Spiffy followed it with his shining black eyes and smiled. He could almost feel what it was like to be with them—just by looking and thinking.

“Anyway,” he said aloud, “the scouts saved me a good biff just then. Uncle Bill would have let one go at me if it hadn’t been for Mr. Temple that time. And Mr. Temple’s the scouts so I might as well give the credit to them.”