Kitabı oku: «Judith Lynn: A Story of the Sea», sayfa 5

“Jemmy, Jemmy, don’t!”

“Hooray! Now let’s dress fish. You’re all right – don’t you worry about bein’ a blot, when I tell you you’re a reg’lar brick! I’m proud o’ you!”

It was the longest speech Jemmy Three had ever made, and the peroration surprised himself as much as it did Judith. He put up his hand and cleared something away from his eyes – it couldn’t have been scales, for he left the scales there.

At five mother came hurrying down to find Judith. The scale-strewn beach and the scale-strewn children, the barrels in orderly rows waiting to be rolled to the little landing-place of the steamer, the heap of clumsy wet netting – all told her the whole astonishing story. And what they did not tell, Judith supplemented eagerly.

“I declare! I declare!” gasped mother in mingled pride and pity, “you two poor things, putting in like this! You’ll be tired to death – you’ll be sick abed!”

“Guess we’ll weather it,” nodded Jemmy Three, working steadily. “But if you think we ain’t hungry enough to eat a pine shing – ”

“I’ll go right home and boil some coffee and eggs and bring ’em down, and then I’ll go to work, too,” cried mother energetically. “You poor starved things!”

After a salt toilet in the surf, they ate a hurried breakfast with keen relish. Judith had forgotten her aching joints and lame muscles, and Jemmy Three had forgotten his sleepless night. Victory lay just ahead of them, and who cared for muscles or sleep!

“This is the best bread ’n’ butter I ever ate,” said Judith between bites.

There proved to be the “good eight” barrels, when they were done, and they were done by six o’clock, or a very little after. By half-past six, the barrels had been rolled down the slope of the beach to the little wharf not far away. Then the tired two rested, and remembered muscles and sleep.

They dropped in the soft, moist sand and rubbed their aching arms.

“I’m proud o’ you, Jemmy!” Judith said shyly, and looked away over the water. Her repentance had come back and lay heavily on her heart. She longed unutterably to recall those evil thoughts – to have another chance out there beyond to summon Jemmy Three with the little shrill old signal. How she would send it shrilling forth now!

“Jemmy,” she said slowly, as they waited, “you know our signal, don’t you? The one we used to practice so much.”

For answer Jemmy Three pursed his lips and sent out a clear “carrying” cry.

“Well, I wish – don’t you know what I wish?”

“’Twas Christmas,” Jemmy said flippantly, but he knew. He dug his bare toes in the sand – a sign of embarrassment.

“I wish I’d called you out there at the school!” lamented Judith, “even if you couldn’t have heard. I wish – I wish – I wish I’d called! If I ever strike another school – Jemmy, I’d give you half o’ this one if I dared to. But I’m afraid to have Blossom wait – I don’t dare to!”

“O’ course not,” agreed Jem Three vaguely. He did not at all know what Judith meant. Girls had queer ways of beginnin’ things in the middle like that. No knowin’ what a girl was drivin’ at, half the time!

“Jemmy – say – ”

“What say? Ain’t that smoke out there?”

“No, it’s a cloud. Jemmy Three, I’m going to tell you something. I want to. I’m going to tell you what that money’s going to do – you’re listening, aren’t you?”

“With both ears – go ahead.”

“Well – oh, it’s going to be something so beautiful, Jemmy! I never knew till day before yesterday that you could do anything so beautiful – I mean that anybody could. I never dreamed it! But you can – somebody can! There’s a man can, Jemmy! All you need is money to take you across to him and – there’s the money!” waving her hand toward the rows of barrels. Her eyes were shining like twin stars. She had forgotten aches and lameness again.

“I told Uncle Jem,” she went on rapidly, while Jem Three gazed at her in puzzled wonder and thought more things about girls. “He told me to go down to the hotel and ask that other little girl’s mother, and I meant to go last night! But I went to sleep last night! So I’m going to-day – I’m going to ask her to tell me just exactly how to do it.”

“Do what?” inquired Jem Three quietly. That was the only way to do with girls – pull ’em up smart, like that!

“Mercy! Haven’t I told you?” cried Judith. “Well, then – Jemmy, if you were a little mite of a thing – a Blossom, say – and a fairy came to you and said, ‘Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all the world?’ what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a little mite of a Blossom with a – with a – little broken stem.” Judith’s voice sank to a tender softness. She didn’t know she was “making poetry.”

The boy with his toes deep in the sand was visibly embarrassed. Whatever poetry lay soul-deep within him, there was none he could call to his lips.

“Wouldn’t you answer her, ‘Legs to walk with’?” went on the girl beside him softly. “You know you would, Jemmy! I would – everybody would. You’d say, ‘The beautifulest thing in the world would be to walk– dear fairy, I want to walk so much!’ And then supposing – are you supposing? – the fairy waved her wand over you and you —walked! Do you know what you’d say then? I know – you’d say, ‘See me! Judy, see me! Jemmy, everybody, see me!’”

Judith laughed to herself under her breath. The twin stars in her eyes shone even a little brighter.

“The fairy’s a great doctor – he’s across there, ’way, ’way out of sight. He’s going to wave his wand over Blossom. He waved it over another little broken girl, and she walked. I saw her. She said, ‘See me!’ – I heard her. That’s what the money is going to do, Jemmy.”

“Gee!” breathed Jemmy softly. It was his way of making poetry.

“And you see, I don’t dare to wait – I’m afraid something might happen to that doctor.”

“O’ course! – you go down there all flyin’ an’ see that woman, Jude.”

And that afternoon Judith went. It was to Mrs. Ben she went first; she felt acquainted with Mrs. Ben.

“Can I see – I’d like to see that mother whose little girl can walk,” Judith said eagerly.

“Land!” ejaculated Mrs. Ben.

“I mean,” explained Judith, smiling, “whose little girl was lame and a doctor made her walk by waving his wa – I mean by – by curing her. I heard her telling another mother. I’d like to see – do you suppose I could see that lady?”

“I guess I know who you mean – there ain’t been but one little girl here lately,” Mrs. Ben said. “But there ain’t any now. They’ve gone away.”

Chapter V

Judith went straight to Uncle Jem, sobbing all the way unconsciously; she was not conscious of anything but what Mrs. Ben had said.

“They’ve gone away! – they’ve gone away! – they’ve gone away!” It reiterated itself to her in dull monotony, keeping slow time with the throbbing pain of her disappointment.

Uncle Jem heard her coming – in some surprise, she came so fast. What was the child hurrying like that for? What had happened?

“I hear ye, child!” he called cheerily. The time-worn little pleasantry did him service as usual. “I’m layin’ low for ye!”

She crossed the outer threshold and the little box of a kitchen without slackening her excited pace, and appeared in the old man’s doorway, breathless and flushed.

“It’s too late!” she gasped, briefly. Then, because she needed comforting and Uncle Jem was her comforter of old, her head went down on the patchwork quilt that covered his twisted old frame, and she cried like a grief-struck little child.

“There, there, deary!” he crooned, his twisted fingers traveling across her hair, “jest you lay there an’ cry it all out – don’t ye hurry any. When ye get all done an’ good an’ ready, tell Uncle Jem what it’s all about. But take your time, little un – take your time.”

The child was worn out in every thread of the over-strained young body. The excitement and nervous rack of the last twenty-four hours was having sway now, and would not be put aside. And the keen disappointment that Mrs. Ben’s words had brought, added to all the rest, had proved too much even for Judith Lynn. She cried on, taking her time.

“There now! that’s right, storm’s clearin’!” said Uncle Jem, as at length the brown head lifted slowly. “Now we’ll pull out o’ harbor and get to work.” Which meant that now explanations were in order. Judith understood.

“They’ve gone away!” she said thickly. It takes time for throbbing throats to come back to their own. “It’s too late to find out. If I’d gone yesterday – ” She stopped hastily, on the verge of fresh tears.

“Go ahead, little un; weather’s a little too thick yet to see clear. Who’s gone away? What’s it too late for?” But even as he said it, Uncle Jem, too, understood. He went on without waiting, to give Judith more time.

“Hold on! – I can pull out o’ the fog myself. That mother o’ that little cured un – she’s the one that’s gone away, eh? You was too late to see her an’ ask your questions. I see. Well, now, I call that too bad. But ’tain’t worth another cry, deary.”

“Well, I won’t cry another one, so there!” cried Judith. “Only – only – ”

“I know – I know! We’ve got to slew off on another tack. You give Uncle Jem time to think, Judy. There’s a powerful lot o’ thinkin’-time handy when you lay here on your back for a livin’. Jest you run home an’ let your ma put you to bed. I’ve heard all about your goin’s-on, an’ I guess bed’s the best place for you! I’ll think it out while you’re restin’ up.”

But to unlettered people who rarely get in touch with what is going on in the thick of things, “thinking it out” is no easy matter. Their one frail little hold on the miracle that could make Blossom whole had snapped when the hotel mother and child went away. Where to turn next for information – what to do next – was a puzzle that would not unravel for any of them. In vain Uncle Jem wrestled with it, as he lay through long, patient hours. And Judith wrestled untiringly.

The mackerel-money came in due time, but the wondrous little blue check that came out of the official-looking envelope and lay outspread on Judith’s hard, brown palm had lost its power to give legs to little Blossom, and Judith gazed at it resentfully. What was the use of it now? A small part of it would get the little wheel-chair, but it was not a wheel-chair Judith longed for now. She put away the blue check safely, and took up the wrestling again. She would find the clue to the puzzle – she refused to give it up.

Then quite privately and uninvited, Jemmy Three began to think. No one had thought of asking his advice; thinking had never been Jemmy Three’s stronghold.

He went into his grandfather’s room one early morning arrayed in his best clothes. Not much in the way of a “best,” but Jemmy had “pieced out” as well as possible with scraps of his dead father’s best that had been packed away. He looked unduly big and plain and awkward in the unaccustomed finery, but the freckles across the deep brown background of his face spelled d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. Uncle Jem spelled it out slowly. His astonished gaze wandered downward, then, from “best” to “best.”

“Well?” he interrogated, and waited.

“I’m goin’ to the city, gran’father,” the boy said. “I’ve gotter, on a – a – errand. I thought I’d tell you.”

“Good idea!” nodded the old head on the pillows. The old eyes twinkled kindly. “I suppose ye want me to go out to your traps, don’t ye? An’ do a little trawlin’ while I’m out? Jest speak the word!”

Uncle Jemmy said nothing about getting his own dinner, but the boy had thought of that.

“Judy’s comin’ in at noon,” he explained. “I’ve got everythin’ cooked up. An’ she’s goin’ to look at my traps when she goes out to hers. I’ll be back in the night, sometime; don’t you lay awake for me, now, gran’father!”

He went out, but presently appeared again, fumbling his best cap in palpable embarrassment.

“I wish – I don’t suppose – you wouldn’t mind wishin’ me good luck, gran’father, would you?” he stammered. “I’d kind of like to be wished good luck.”

“Come here where I can reach ye,” the old man said cheerily, putting out his hand. “Wish ye luck? I guess I will! Ye’re a good boy, Jemmy. I don’t know what your arrant is, an’ I don’t need to know, but here’s good luck on it!”

“I tell you what it is, if – if it succeeds,” Jem Three said, gripping the twisted old fingers warmly. “I kind of thought I’d rather not tell first off. But I can, of course.”

“Off with ye, boy! Ye distract me when I’m doin’ a bit of thinkin’ for a lady! When ye get good an’ ready, then will be time enough to do your tellin’. Queer if I couldn’t trust a Jem!”

The city was twenty miles inland from the little flag-station, and the flag-station was ten miles away from Jemmy Three. He trudged away with his precious boots over his shoulder, to be put on at the little station.

Once in the city, he went directly about his “arrant.” He chose a street set thick with dwelling-houses as like one another as peas in a pod are like. He tramped down one side of the street, up the other, till at last he came upon what he sought. A smart sign hung on that particular house, and Jem Three mounted the high steps and rang the door-bell.

“Is this a doctor’s house? There’s a sign that says – ”

“The doctor isn’t at home,” the smart maid said smartly. “Will you leave your address on the slate, or will you call again at office hours – two till six.”

“I’ll call somewheres else,” Jem Three said briefly.

He called at many doors in many rows of pea – of houses. It was sometime before he succeeded in his quest. When at length he found a doctor at home, he was closeted with him for a brief space and then drove away with him in a trim little gig to a great, many-windowed house where pale people were sunning themselves in wheel-chairs about the doors. Jem Three made a call at the many-windowed house.

It was with considerable curiosity that two people down by the sea awaited the boy’s return from his trip, but oddly enough it was neither Uncle Jem nor Judith that he sought out at first. It was Judith’s mother, at her work down-beach at the summer cottage. Jemmy Three went straight to her. He had got home earlier than he expected and mother had worked later, so they walked back together in the cool, clear evening, talking all the way.