Kitabı oku: «Who ate the pink sweetmeat?», sayfa 2

Gradually the crowd dispersed, Jan among the rest walking briskly, for he wanted to get home and tell his mother the story. It was not till after supper that he discovered the half-crown, and then it seemed to him like a sort of dream, as if fairies had been at work, and turned the pink sweetmeat into a bit of silver.

That night the three pairs of stockings had another chance for conversation. The blue ones and the green ones lay close together on the floor of the room where Jan slept with his brother, and the white ones which Greta had carelessly dropped as she jumped into bed, were near enough the half-opened door to talk across the sill.

“It has been an exciting day,” said the White Pair. “My girl got a Keble’s Christian Year at her school. It was the second-best prize. It is a good thing to belong to respectable people who take prizes. Only one thing was painful to me, she wriggled her toes so with pleasure that I feel as if I were coming to an end in one of my points.”

“You probably are,” remarked the Big Gray. “Yes, now that I examine, I can see the place. One stitch has parted already, and there is quite a thin spot. You know I always predicted that you would be in the rag-bag before you knew it.”

“Oh, don’t say such dreadful things,” pleaded the Little Blues. “Mrs. Wendte will mend her, I am sure, and make her last. What did your girl do with her sweetmeat?”

“Ate it up directly, of course. What else should one do with a sweetmeat?” snapped the White Pair crossly. “Oh, dear! my toe feels dreadfully ever since you said that; quite neuralgic!”

“My boy was not so foolish as to eat his sweetmeat,” said the Big Gray stockings. “Only girls act in that way, without regard to anything but their greedy appetites. He traded his with another boy, and he got a pocket-knife for it, three screws, and a harmonica. There!”

“Was the knife new?” asked the Blue.

“Could the harmonica play any music?” demanded the White.

“No; the harmonica is out of order inside somehow, but perhaps my boy can mend it. And the knife isn’t new – quite old, in fact – and its blade is broken at the end; still it’s a knife, and Wilhelm thinks he can trade it off for something else. And now for your adventures. What did your boy do with his sweetmeat, Little Blues? Did he eat it, or trade it?”

“It is eaten,” replied the Blue Stockings cautiously.

“Eaten! Then of course he ate it. Why don’t you speak out? If he ate it, say so. If he didn’t, who did?”

“Well, nobody ate the whole of it, and my boy didn’t eat any. It was divided between two persons – or rather, between one person and – and – a thing that is not a person.”

“Bless me! What are you talking about? I never heard anything so absurd in my life. Persons, and things that are not persons,” said the White Pair, “what do you mean?”

“Yes; what do you mean? What is the use of beating about the bush in this way?” remonstrated the Big Gray Pair. “Who did eat the sweetmeat? Say plainly.”

“Half of it was eaten by a policeman, and the other half by a rook,” replied the Little Blues, in a meek voice.

“Ho, ho!” roared the Gray Stockings, while the White Pair joined in with a shrill giggle. “That beats all! Half by a policeman, and half by a rook! A fine way to dispose of a Christmas sweetmeat! Your boy must be a fool, Little Blues.”

“Not a fool at all,” said the Blue Pair indignantly. “Now just listen to me. Your girl ate hers up at once, and forgot it. Your boy traded his away; and what has he got? A broken knife, and a harmonica that can’t play music. I don’t call those worth having. My boy enjoyed his sweetmeat all day. He had more pleasure in giving it away than if he had eaten it ten times over! Beside he got half a crown for it. An old gentleman slipped it into his pocket because he was pleased with his kind heart. I saw him do it.”

“Half a crown!” ejaculated the White Pair, with amazement.

“That is something like,” admitted the Big Gray Stockings. “Your boy did the best of the three, I admit.”

The Little Blues said no more.

Presently the others fell asleep, but she lay and watched Jan as he rested peacefully beside his brother, with his wonderful treasure – the silver coin – clasped tight in his hand. He smiled in his sleep as though his dreams were pleasant.

“Even if he had no half-crown, still he would have done the best,” she whispered to herself at last.

Then the clock struck twelve, and the day after Christmas was begun.

THE WHIZZER

That was a cold evening. The snow was just as dry as flour, and had been beat down till the road looked slick as a ribbon far up and far down, and squeaked every step. I pulled Mrar on our sled. All the boys went home by the crick to skate, but I was ’fraid Mrar would get cold, she’s such a little thing. I like to play with the girls if the boys do laugh, for some of the big ones might push Mrar down and hurt her. She misses her mother so I babies her more than I used to.

We’s almost out of sight of the schoolhouse, and just where the road elbows by the Widow Briggs’s place, when something passed us like whiz! I’d been pulling along with the sled rope over my arm, and my hands in my pockets, and didn’t hear a team or anything, but it made me shy off the side of the road, and pretty near upset Mrar. School lets out at four o’clock, and dusk comes soon after that, but it was woolly gray yet, so you could see plain except in the fence corners, and the thing that passed us was a man riding on nothing but one big wheel.

“O, see there!” says Mrar, scared as could be. I felt glad on her account we’s close to Widow Briggs’s place. It would be easy to hustle her over Briggs’s fence; but the thing run so still and fast it might take fences as well as a straight road.

The man turned round after he passed us, and came rearing back, away up on that wheel, and I stood as close before the sled as I could. He sat high up in the air, and wiggled his feet on each side of the wheel, and I never saw a camel or elephant, or any kind of wild thing at a show that made me feel so funny. But just when I thought he’s going to cut through us, he turned short, and stopped. He had on an overcoat to his ears, and a fur cap down to his nose, and hairy gloves on, and a little satchel strapped over his shoulder, and I saw there was a real small wheel behind the big one that balanced him up. He wasn’t sitting on the tire neither, but on a saddle place, and the big wheel had lots of silver spokes crossing back and forward.

“Whose children are you?” says the man.

“Nobody’s,” says I.

“But who owns and switches you?” says he.

“The schoolmaster switches me,” says I; “but we ain’t owned since mother died.”

Mrar begun to cry.

“We live at uncle Mozy’s,” says she. “They don’t want to give us away.”

The man laughed, and says: “Are you right sure?” But I hated to have her scared, so I told her the wheel couldn’t hurt her, nor him neither.

“I’ve seen the cars many a time,” I says, “and I’ve seen balloons, and read in the paper about things that went on three wheels, but this” —

“It’s a bicycle,” says he. “I’m a wheel-man.”

“That’s what I thought,” says I.

Then he wanted to know our names.

“Mine’s Steele Pedicord,” I says, “and this is my little sister Mrar.”

His eyes looked sharp at us and he says:

“Your mother died about six weeks ago?”

“Yes, sir,” says I.

“To-morrow won’t be a very nice Christmas for you,” says he.

“No, sir,” says I, digging my heel in the snow, for he had no business to talk that way, and make Mrar feel bad, when I had a little wagon all whittled out in my pocket to give her, and she cried most every night, anyhow, until aunt Ibby threatened to switch her if she waked the family any more. I slept with the boys, but when I heard Mrar sniffling in the big bed, a good many nights I slipped out and sat by her and whispered stories to take her attention as long as my jaws worked limber; but when they chattered too much with the cold, I’d lay down on the cover, with my arm across her till she went to sleep. I like Mrar.

“They said we might go up to cousin Andy Sanders’s to stay over,” says I. “We don’t have to be at uncle Moze’s a Christmas.”

“That’s some consolation, is it?” says he.

I was not going to let him know what the relations did, but I never liked relations outside of our place. At aunt Ibby and uncle Moze’s the children fight like cats. And they always act poor at Christmas, and make fun of hanging your stocking or setting your plate; for you’d only get ashes or corn-cobs. Aunt Ibby keeps her sleeves rolled up so she can slap real handy, and uncle Moze has yellow streaks in his eyes, and he shivers over the stove, and keeps everybody else back. At cousin Andy Sanders’ they have no children, and don’t want them. You durse hardly come in out of the snow, and all the best things on the table will make you sick. If there is a piece in the paper that is hard to read, and ugly as it can be, they will make you sit still and read it; and if you get done too quick, they will say you skipped, and you have to read it out loud while they find fault. I knew cousin Andy Sanders never had any candy or taffy for Christmas, but Mrar and me could be peaceable there, for they don’t push her around so bad.

“Well, hand me your rope,” says the man, “and I’ll give you a ride.”

I liked that notion; so I handed him the rope, and he waited till I got on the sled in front of Mrar.

“That’s Widow Briggs’s homestead; isn’t it?” he said, just before he started.

I told him it was, and asked if he ever lived down our way. He laughed, and said he knew something about every place; and then he set the wheel a-going. Mrar held tight to me, and I braced my heels against the front round of the sled. The fence corners went faster and faster, and the wind whistled through our ears, while you could not see one dry blade in the fodder shocks move.

“Ain’t he a Whizzer?” says I to Mrar.

We turned another jog, and the spokes in the wheel looked all smeared together. It did beat horse-racing. I got excited, and hollered for him to “Go it, old Whizzer!” and he went it till we’s past cousin Andy Sanders’s before I knew the place was nigh.

“Cast loose, now, Mister, we’re much obliged,” says I.

But he kept right on like he never heard me. So I yelled up louder and told him we’s there, and he turned around his head a minute, and laughed.

“Please let go, Mister,” I says. “That’s cousin Andy Sanders’s away back there. We’re obliged, but we’ll have to go back.”

The Whizzer never let on. He whizzed ahead as fast as ever. I thought it was a mean trick for him to play on Mrar, and wished I could trip up his wheel. It would be dark long before I got her back to cousin Andy Sanders’s; and the Whizzer whizzed ahead like he was running off with us.

I had a notion to cut the rope, but there was no telling when I’d get another, and it was new. I made up my mind to do it, though, when we come along by our old place; but there the Whizzer turned round and jumped off in the road.

I picked up the end of my rope, and shook my head, because I was mad.

“Why didn’t you let go?” says I.

“Haven’t I brought you home?” he says.

I looked at the shut-up house, and felt a good deal worse than when I thought he was running off with us.

“O Steeley,” says Mrar, “le’s go in and stay. I want to come home so bad!”

“Now you see what you done!” says I to the Whizzer. He was man grown, and I’s only ten years old, but he ought to knowed better than to made Mrar cry till the tears run down her chin.

I’d been to look at the house myself, but never said a word to her about it. Once at noon I slipped up there by the cornfields roundabout, and sat on the fence and thought about mother till I could hardly stand it. The house looked lonesomer than an old cabin about to fall; because an old cabin about to fall has forgot its folks, but all our things were locked up here, except what aunt Ibby and cousin Andy Sanders had carried off. Our sale was to be in January. The snow was knee-deep in the yard, and drifted even on the porch, but tracks showed where aunt Ibby walked when she got out a load of provisions and bedclothes. She had the front door key, and took even the blue-and-white coverlid with birds wove in, that I heard mother say was to be Mrar’s, and the canned fruit for fear it would freeze, when our cellar is warmer than their stove. She said to uncle Moze, when I was by unbeknown, that Mrar and me would have ten times as much property as her children, anyhow, and she ought to be paid more for keeping us. She might had our money, for all I cared, but I did not know how to stand her robbing things out of mother’s house, and wished the sale would come quick, and scatter them all.

The Whizzer leant his chin on his breast and looked pitiful out of his eyes at Mrar, for seemed like the tears had a notion to freeze on her face, only she kept them running down too fast; and he says:

“Let’s go into the house.”

“Oh, do, Steeley!” says Mrar, hugging my knee, for I was alongside the sled. “And I’ll cook all your dinners. And we’ll hang up our Christmas stockings every Sunday,” says she, “and aunt Ibby’s boys won’t durse to take away my lead pencil mother give me, and if you see them coming here, you’ll set Bounce on them.”

“Mrar,” says I, “we will go in and make a fire and act like mother’s just gone out to a neighbor’s.”

Then she begun to laugh, and one of her tears stuck to an in-spot that comes and goes in her face like it was dented with your finger.

“But now you mind,” I says, “if aunt Ibby or uncle Moze goes to whip us for this, you tell them I put you up to it and made you go along with me.”

Mrar looked scared.

“And you tell them,” says the Whizzer, lifting his wheel across the snow toward the gate, “that I put you both up to it and made you go along with me.”

I pulled Mrar over the drifts, and we went to the side door.

“Aunt Ibby’s got the big key,” I says, “and I’ll have to raise a window while you wait here.”

The windows were all locked down, but we went round and round till the one in the shed give way, and I crawled through and bursted the latch off the kitchen door. I breathed so fast it made my heart thump when I unlocked the side door and let the Whizzer and Mrar into the sitting-room. I noticed then he’d hung his wheel on the limb of a tree, for it glittered.

“Bounce ain’t here to jump on us, is he, Mrar?” says I.

“No; and he hates to stay at cousin Andy Sanders’s,” says she.

Bounce would come to the schoolhouse and kind of cry till I asked the master, “Please may I go out?” And then Bounce and me’d have a talk behind the schoolhouse, and I’d tell him I could not help it, and he’d own that he might live at aunt Ibby’s with us if he could only keep from chawing up their miserable yellow dogs; and we’d both feel better.

But I did miss him that minute I opened the door, when here he come like a house a-fire, and lit down on the floor panting and pounding his tail and laughing; and then he jumped up and pawed us in the dark till Mrar had to hold him round the neck to keep him still while I got a light. He must snuffed our tracks when we whizzed past cousin Andy Sanders’s.

I felt to the pantry and put my hand in the candle box, but aunt Ibby never left one. I knew there’s a piece in a candlestick in the shed cupboard, though. It burnt half out the night mother died. So I got it, and the Whizzer scraped a match, and lit the wick. The Whizzer and me set to, then, and brought in loads from the woodhouse. We built a fire clear up into the chimney, and Mrar took the broom, and swept all the dust into it. Bounce laid on the carpet and licked at us, and whacked his tail till we’s in a broad laugh.

The fire got me warmer than I’d been since mother died. The Whizzer took out a thick gold watch, and wound our clock and set it. Then he says:

“Let’s go over the house.”

And we did. I carried the candle, and Mrar and the dog went along.

The Whizzer looked in all the up-stairs presses, and opened the bureau drawers. I staid outside of the parlor, and Mrar and Bounce did too. I did not want to think of the sheet stretched in the corner, for it was not like mother under the sheet. But her picture hung up in there, and so did my father’s.

The Whizzer staid in with the candle a good while. I heard him going from one thing to another, and wondered what he was about. I’d rather gone out to the graveyard, though, and set on the fence watching mother’s and father’s graves, and heard the dry sumac bushes scrape together, than to stepped into the parlor. Father died a year before mother, but I didn’t like him the same as I did her.

Then we looked down cellar; and I thought I ought to tell the Whizzer about the provisions and bedclothes being taken out of the house, or he’d suppose mother never kept us nice. He smiled under his cap; and I found one jar of cand’ed honey behind some bar’ls where aunt Ibby overlooked it. We carried that up to the sitting-room. Mrar likes cand’ed honey better than anything.

Just as we come into the sitting-room, I heard somebody pound on the front door.

“They’re after us!” says Mrar.

“Let me see to it,” says the Whizzer.

So he stepped around the house, and came back with his wheel on his arm, and held the door open. The snow made out-doors light; and we saw a little fellow lead a horse and buggy through the yard into the barn lot, and he came right in, carrying a couple of baskets.

“All right, Sam,” says the Whizzer. “Put your horse in the stable, and then build a fire in the kitchen stove.”

The man he called Sam stopped to warm himself at our hearth, and I never saw such a looking creature before. He had a cap with a button on top of his head, and his hair was braided in a long tail behind. He laughed, and his eyes glittered; and they sloped up like a ladder set against the house. He was just as yellow as brass, and wore a cloth circular with big sleeves, but the rest of him looked like other folks. Mrar went back into the corner, and I noticed the Whizzer set his wheel against the wall, and I wondered if he’d left it out for a sign so the little yellow man would know where to stop.

The yellow man went out to his horse, and the Whizzer took off his cap and gloves and coat, and hung them in the sitting-room closet. He looked nice. His eyes snapped, and his hair was cut off close, except a brush right along the middle of his head. We set our chairs up to the fire, and I watched him and watched him.

“If you and that fellow travel together,” I says, “what makes him go in a buggy, and you on a wheel?”

“Oh, I like the bicycle,” says he. “I’ve run thousands of miles on it. I sent Sam out from San Francisco by the railroad, but I came through on the wheel. It took me three months.”

I thought he was a funny man, but I liked him, too.

When Sam came in from the stable, Mrar and I went to the kitchen and saw him cook supper. For one of the baskets was jam-full of vittles. He heated a roasted turkey, and made oyster soup and mashed potatoes and chopped cabbage. There were preserves the Whizzer called Scotch, and hot rolls, and jelly, and cold chicken, and little round cakes that melted in your mouth, and pickles, and nuts, and oranges; and we put the cand’ed honey on the table. The coffee smelt like Thanksgiving. Sam waited on us, and I eat till I’s ashamed. We never expected to have such a dinner in mother’s house any more.

When Mrar and I got down and begun to toss our oranges, the Whizzer told Sam to clear the things away and have his supper in the kitchen, and then to fix the beds as comfortable as he could. I’d made up my mind even if the Whizzer did travel ahead that Mrar and m’d stay there all night. Aunt Ibby’s would think we were at cousin Andy Sanders’s, and cousin Andy Sanders’s would think we were at aunt Ibby’s.

He sat in mother’s big chair before the fire and I felt willing. If it had been uncle Moze in the chair I wouldn’t felt willing. When a stick broke on the dog-irons we piled on more wood, and the clock ticked and struck nine, and I wished we’s never going away from there again. Mrar and I played and jumped, and he was blind man, and we had solid fun till we’s tired out. I showed him my books, for I never took one to uncle Moze’s. The boys there make you give up everything, and they lick their dirty thumbs to turn leaves.