Kitabı oku: «Hepsey Burke», sayfa 6
CHAPTER XII
HOUSE CLEANING AND BACHELORHOOD
Apart from Mrs. Burke, there was no one in the town who so completely surrendered to Mrs. Maxwell’s charms as Jonathan Jackson, the Junior Warden. Betty had penetration enough to see, beneath the man’s rough exterior, all that was fine and lovable, and she treated him with a jolly, friendly manner that warmed his heart.
One day she and Mrs. Burke went over to call on Jonathan, and found him sitting in the woodshed on 138 a tub turned bottom upwards, looking very forlorn and disconsolate.
“What’s the matter, Jonathan? You look as if you had committed the unpardonable sin,” Hepsey greeted him.
“No, it ’aint me,” Jonathan replied; “it’s Mary McGuire that’s the confounded sinner this time.”
“Well, what’s Mary been up to now?”
“Mary McGuire’s got one of her attacks of house-cleanin’ on, and I tell you it’s a bad one. Drat the nuisance.”
“Why Jonathan! Don’t swear like that.”
“Well, I be hanged if I can stand this sort of thing much longer. Mary, she’s the deuce and all, when she once gets started house-cleanin’.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Betty sympathized. “It’s a bother, isnt it? But it doesn’t take so long, and it will soon be over, won’t it?”
“Well, I don’t know as to that,” replied Jonathan disconsolately. “Mary McGuire seems to think that the whole house must be turned wrong side out, and every bit of furniture I’ve got deposited in the front yard. Now, Mrs. Betty, you just look over there once. There’s yards and yards of clothes-line covered with carpets and rugs and curtains I’ve been ordered to clean. It’s somethin’ beyond words. The 139 whole place looks as if there was goin’ to be an auction, or a rummage sale, or as if we had moved out ’cause the house was afire. Then she falls to with tubs of boilin’ hot soap-suds, until it fills your lungs, and drips off the ends of your nose and your fingers, and smells like goodness knows what.”
“Jonathan!” Hepsey reproved.
“Are you exaggerating just the least bit?” echoed Betty.
“No ma’am, I’m not. Words can’t begin to tell the tale when Mary gets the fever on. I thought I noticed symptoms of house-cleanin’ last week. Mary was eyein’ things round the house, and givin’ me less and less to eat, and lookin’ at me with that cold-storage stare of hers that means death or house-cleanin’.”
“But, Mr. Jackson,” Betty pleaded, “your house has to be cleaned sometimes, you know.”
“Sure thing,” Jonathan replied. “But there’s altogether too much of this house-cleanin’ business goin’ on to suit me. I don’t see any dirt anywheres.”
“That’s because you are a man,” Hepsey retorted. “Men never see dirt until they have to take a shovel to it.”
Jonathan sighed hopelessly. “What’s the use of bein’ a widower,” he continued, “if you can’t even 140 have your own way in your own house, I’d just like to know? I have to eat odds and ends of cold victuals out here in the woodshed, or anywhere Mary McGuire happens to drop ’em.”
“That’s tough luck, Mr. Jackson. You just come over to dinner with Donald and me and have a square meal.”
“I’d like to awful well, Mrs. Maxwell, but I dasn’t: if I didn’t camp out and eat her cold victuals she’d laid out for me, it’d spoil the pleasure of house-cleanin’ for her. ’Taint as though it was done with when she’s finished, neither. After it’s all over, and things are set to rights, they’re all wrong. Some shades won’t roll up. Some won’t roll down; why, I’ve undressed in the dark before now, since one of ’em suddenly started rollin’ up on me before I’d got into bed, and scared the wits out of me. She’ll be askin’ me to let her give the furnace a sponge bath next. I believe she’d use tooth-powder on the inside of a boiled egg, if she only knew how. This house-cleanin’ racket is all dum nonsense, anyhow.”
“Why Jonathan! Don’t swear like that,” Betty exclaimed laughing; “Mr. Maxwell’s coming.”
“I said d-u-m, Mrs. Betty; I never say nothin’ worse than that—’cept when I lose my temper,” he added, safely, examining first the hone and then the edge of the scythe, as if intending to sharpen it.
Hepsey had gone into the house to inspect for herself the thoroughness of Mary McGuire’s operations; Betty thought the opportunity favorable for certain counsels.
“The trouble with you is you shouldn’t be living alone, like this, Jonathan. You have all the disadvantages of a house, and none of the pleasures of a home.”
“Yes,” he responded, yawning, “it’s true enough; but I ’aint a chicken no more, Mrs. Betty, and I’ve ’most forgot how to do a bit of courtin’. What with cleanin’ up, and puttin’ on your Sunday clothes, and goin’ to the barber’s, and gettin’ a good ready, it’s a considerable effort for an old man like me.”
“People don’t want to see your clothes; they want to see you. If you feel obliged to, you can send your Sunday clothes around some day and let her look at them once for all. Keeping young is largely a matter of looking after your digestion and getting plenty of sleep. Its all foolishness for you to talk about growing old. Why, you are in the prime of life.”
“Hm! Yes. And why don’t you tell me that I look real handsome, and that the girls are all crazy for me. You’re an awful jollier, Mrs. Betty, though I’ll admit that a little jollyin’ does me a powerful lot 142 of good now and then. I sometimes like to believe things I know to a certainty ’aint true, if they make me feel good.”
For a moment Betty kept silent, gazing into the kindly face, and then the instinct of match-making asserted itself too strongly to be resisted.
“There’s no sense in your being a lonesome widower. Why don’t you get married? I mean it.”
For a moment Jonathan was too astounded at the audacity of the serious suggestion to reply; but when he recovered his breath he exclaimed:
“Well, I swan to man! What will you ask me to be doin’ next?”
“Oh, I mean it, all right,” persisted Mrs. Betty. “Here you’ve got a nice home for a wife, and I tell you you need the happiness of a real home. You will live a whole lot longer if you have somebody to love and look after; and if you want to know what you will be asking me to do next, I will wager a box of candy it will be to come to your wedding.”
“Make it cigars, Mrs. Betty; I’m not much on candy. Maybe you’re up to tellin’ me who’ll have me. I haven’t noticed any females makin’ advances towards me in some time now. The only woman I see every day is Mary McGuire, and she’d make a pan-cake griddle have the blues if she looked at it.” 143
Mrs. Betty grasped her elbow with one hand, and putting the first finger of the other hand along the side of her little nose, whispered:
“What’s the matter with Mrs. Burke?”
Jonathan deliberately pulled a hair from his small remaining crop and cut it with the scythe, as if he had not heard Betty’s impertinent suggestion. But finally he replied:
“There’s nothin’ the matter with Mrs. Burke that I know of; but that’s no reason why she should be wantin’ to marry me.”
“She thinks a great deal of you; I know she does.”
“How do you know she does?”
“Well, I heard her say something very nice about you yesterday.”
“Hm! Did you? What was it?”
“She said that you were the most—the most economical man she ever met.”
“Sure she didn’t say I was tighter than the bark on a tree? I guess I ’aint buyin’ no weddin’ ring on the strength of that. Now, Mrs. Betty, you just try again. I guess you’re fooling me!”
“Oh no, really I’m not. I never was more serious in my life. I mean just what I say. I know Mrs. Burke really thinks a very great deal of you, and if you like her, you ought to propose to her. Every 144 moment a man remains single is an outrageous waste of time.”
Jonathan grinned as he retorted:
“Well, no man would waste any time if all the girls were like you. They’d all be comin’ early to avoid the rush. Is Mrs. Burke employin’ your services as a matrimonial agent? Maybe you won’t mind tellin’ me what you’re to get if the deal pulls off. Is there a rake-off anywheres?”
Betty laughed, and Jonathan was silent for a while, squinting at the scythe-edge, first from one angle, then from another, and tentatively raising the hone as if to start sharpening.
“Well, Mrs. Betty,” he said presently, “seein’ I can’t possibly marry you, I don’t mind tellin’ you that I think the next best thing would be to marry Hepsey Burke. She’s been a mighty good friend and neighbor ever since my wife died; but she wouldn’t look at the likes of me. ’Twouldn’t be the least use of proposin’ to her.”
“How do you know it wouldn’t? You are not afraid of proposing, are you?”
“No, of course not; but I can’t run over and propose, as I would ask her to lend me some clothes-line. That’d be too sudden; and courtin’ takes a lot of time and trouble. I guess I ’most forgot how by 145 this time; and then, to tell you the truth, I always was a bit shy. It took me near onto five years to work myself up to the sticking point when I proposed to my first wife.”
“Well, now that’s easy enough; Mrs. Burke usually sits on the side porch after supper with her knitting. Why don’t you drop over occasionally, and approach the matter gradually? It wouldn’t take long to work up to the point.”
“But how shall I begin? I guess you’ll have to give me lessons.”
“Oh, make her think you are very lonely. Pity is akin to love, you know.”
“But she knows well enough I’m mighty lonely at times. That won’t do.”
“Then make her think that you are a regular daredevil, and are going to the bad. Maybe she’ll marry you to save you.”
“Me, goin’ to the bad at my age, and the Junior Warden of the church, too. What are you thinkin’ of?”
“It is never too late to mend, you know. You might try being a little frisky, and see what happens.”
“Oh, I know what would happen all right. She’d be over here in two jerks of a lamb’s tail, and read the riot act, and scare me out of a year’s growth. 146 Hepsey’s not a little thing to be playin’ with.”
“Well, you just make a start. Anything to make a start, and the rest will come easy.”
“My, how the neighbors’d talk!”
“Talk is cheap; and besides, in a quiet place like this it’s a positive duty to afford your neighbors some diversion; you ought to be thankful. You’ll become a public benefactor. Now will you go ahead?”
“Mrs. Betty, worry’s bad for the nerves, and’s apt to produce insomny and neurastheny. But I’ll think it over—yes, I will—I’ll think it over.”
Whereupon he suddenly began to whet his scythe with such vim as positively startled Betty.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CIRCUS
The Maxwells were, in fact, effectively stirring up the ambitions of their flock, routing the older members out of a too easy-going acceptance of things-as-they-are, and giving to the younger ones vistas of a life imbued with more color and variety than had hitherto entered their consciousness. And yet it happened at Durford, on occasion, that this awakening of new talents and individuality produced unlocked for complications.
“Oh yes,” Hepsey remarked one day to Mrs. 148 Betty, when the subject of conversation had turned to Mrs. Burke’s son and heir, “Nickey means to be a good boy, but he’s as restless as a kitten on a hot Johnny-cake. He isn’t a bit vicious, but he do run his heels down at the corners, and he’s awful wearin’ on his pants-bottoms and keeps me patchin’ and mendin’ most of the time—‘contributing to the end in view,’ as Abraham Lincoln said. But, woman-like, I guess he finds the warmest spot in my heart when I’m doin’ some sort of repairin’ on him or his clothes. It would be easier if his intentions wasn’t so good, ’cause I could spank him with a clear conscience if he was vicious. But after all, Nickey seems to have a winnin’ way about him. He knows every farmer within three miles; he’ll stop any team he meets, climb into the wagon seat, take the reins, and enjoy himself to his heart’s content. All the men seem to like him and give in to him; more’s the pity! And he seems to just naturally lead the other kids in their games and mischief.”
“Oh well, I wouldn’t give a cent for a boy who didn’t get into mischief sometimes,” consoled Mrs. Betty.
At which valuation Nickey was then in process of putting himself and his young friends at a premium. For, about this time, in their efforts to amuse themselves, 149 Nickey and some of his friends constructed a circus ring back of the barn: After organizing a stock company and conducting several rehearsals, the rest of the boys in the neighborhood were invited to form an audience, and take seats which had been reserved for them without extra charge on an adjoining lumber pile. Besides the regular artists there were a number of specialists or “freaks,” who added much to the interest and excitement of the show.
For example, Sam Cooley, attired in one of Mrs. Burke’s discarded underskirts, filched from the ragbag, with some dried cornstalk gummed on his face, impersonated the famous Bearded Lady from Hoboken.
Billy Burns, wearing a very hot and stuffy pillow buttoned under his coat and thrust down into his trousers, represented the world-renowned Fat Man from Spoonville. His was rather a difficult role to fill gracefully, because the squashy pillow would persist in bulging out between his trousers and his coat in a most indecent manner; and it kept him busy most of the time tucking it in.
Dimple Perkins took the part of the Snake Charmer from Brooklyn, and at intervals wrestled fearlessly with a short piece of garden hose which was labeled on the bills as an “Anna Condy.” This he wound 150 around his neck in the most reckless manner possible; it was quite enough to make one’s blood run cold to watch him.
The King of the Cannibal Islands was draped in a buffalo robe, with a gilt paper crown adorning his head, and a very suggestive mutton-bone in his hand.
Poor little Herman Amdursky was selected for the Living Skeleton, because of the spindle-like character of his nethermost limbs. He had to remove his trousers and his coat, and submit to having his ribs wound with yards of torn sheeting, in order that what little flesh he had might be compressed to the smallest possible compass. The result was astonishingly satisfactory.
The Wild Man from Borneo wore his clothes wrong side out, as it is well known wild men from Borneo always do; and he ate grass with avidity. Wry-mouthed and squint-eyed, he was the incarnation of the cubist ideal.
When all this splendid array of talent issued from the dressing-room and marched triumphantly around the ring, it was indeed a proud moment in the annals of Durford, and the applause from the lumber pile could be heard at least two blocks.
After the procession, the entertainment proper consisted of some high and lofty tumbling, the various 151 “turns” of the respective stars, and then, last of all, as a grand finale, Charley, the old raw-boned farm horse who had been retired on a pension for at least a year, was led triumphantly into the ring, with Nickey Burke standing on his back!
Charley, whose melancholy aspect was a trifle more abject than usual, and steps more halting, meekly followed the procession of actors around the ring, led by Dimple, the Snake Charmer. Nickey’s entree created a most profound sensation, and was greeted with tumultuous applause—a tribute both to his equestrian feat and to his costume.
Nickey had once attended a circus at which he had been greatly impressed by the artistic decorations on the skin of a tattooed man, and by the skill of the bareback rider who had turned somersaults while the horse was in motion. It occurred to him that perhaps he might present somewhat of both these attractions, in one character.
Maxwell had innocently stimulated this taste by lending him a book illustrated with lurid color-plates of Indians in full war paint, according to tribe.
So Nickey removed his clothes, attired himself in abbreviated red swimming trunks, and submitted to the artistic efforts of Dimple, who painted most intricate, elaborate, and beautiful designs on Nickey’s person, 152 with a thick solution of indigo purloined from the laundry.
Nickey’s breast was adorned with a picture of a ship under full sail. On his back was a large heart pierced with two arrows. A vine of full blown roses twined around each arm, while his legs were powdered with stars, periods, dashes, and exclamation points in rich profusion. A triangle was painted on each cheek, and dabs of indigo were added to the end of his nose and to the lobe of each ear by way of finishing touches.
When the work was complete, Nickey surveyed himself in a piece of broken mirror in the dressing-room, and to tell the truth, was somewhat appalled at his appearance; but Dimple Perkins hastened to assure him, saying that a dip in the river would easily remove the indigo; and that he was the living spit and image of a tattooed man, and that his appearance, posed on the back of Charley, would certainly bring the house down.
Dimple proved to be quite justified in his statement, so far as the effect on the audience was concerned; for, as Nickey entered the ring, after one moment of breathless astonishment, the entire crowd arose as one man and cheered itself hoarse, in a frenzy of frantic delight. Now whether Charley was enthused by the applause, or whether the situation reminded 153 him of some festive horseplay of his youth, one cannot tell. At any rate, what little life was left in Charley’s blood asserted itself. Quickly jerking the rope of the halter from the astonished hand of Dimple Perkins, Charley turned briskly round, and trotted out of the yard and into the road, while Nickey, who had found himself suddenly astride Charley’s back, made frantic efforts to stop him.
As Charley emerged from the gate, the freaks, the regular artists, the gymnasts, and the entire audience followed, trailing along behind the mounted tattooed man, and shouting themselves hoarse with encouragement or derision.
As Charley rose to the occasion and quickened his pace, the heat of the sun, the violent exercise of riding bareback, and the nervous excitement produced by the horror of the situation, threw Nickey into a profuse sweat. The bluing began to run. The decorations on his forehead trickled down into his eyes; and as he tried to rub off the moisture with the back of his hand the indigo was smeared liberally over his face. His personal identity was hopelessly obscured in the indigo smudge; and the most vivid imagination could not conjecture what had happened to the boy. It was by no means an easy feat to retain his seat on Charley’s back; it would have been still more difficult 154 to dismount, at his steed’s brisk pace; and Nickey was most painfully conscious of his attire, as Charley turned up the road which led straight to the village. At each corner the procession was reinforced by a number of village boys who added their quota to the general uproar and varied the monotony of the proceeding by occasionally throwing a tin can at the rider on the white horse. When Charley passed the rectory, and the green, and turned into Church Street, Nickey felt that he had struck rock bottom of shameful humiliation.
For many years it had been Charley’s habit to take Mrs. Burke down to church on Wednesday afternoons for the five o’clock service; and although he had been out of commission and docked for repairs for some time, his subliminal self must have got in its work, and the old habit asserted itself: to the church he went, attended at a respectful distance by the Bearded Lady, the Fat Man, the Snake Charmer, the King of the Cannibal Islands, the Living Skeleton, and the Wild Man from Borneo, to say nothing of a large and effective chorus of roaring villagers bringing up the rear.
It really was quite clever of Charley to recall that, this being Wednesday, it was the proper day to visit the church,—as clever as it was disturbing to Nickey 155 when he, too, recalled that it was about time for the service to be over, and that his mother must be somewhere on the premises, to say nothing of the assembled mothers of the entire stock company—and the rector, and the rector’s wife.
Mrs. Burke, poor woman, was quite unconscious of what awaited her, as she emerged from the service with the rest of the congregation. It was an amazed parent that caught sight of her son and heir scrambling off the back of his steed onto the horse-block in front of the church, clad in short swimming trunks and much bluing. The freaks, the regular artists, the gymnasts, and the circus audience generally shrieked and howled and fought each other, in frantic effort to succeed to Nickey’s place on Charley’s back—for Charley now stood undismayed and immovable, with a gentle, pious look in his soft old eyes.
For one instant, Mrs. Burke and her friends stood paralyzed with horror; and then like the good mothers in Israel that they were, each jumped to the rescue of her own particular darling—that is, as soon as she could identify him. Consternation reigned supreme. Mrs. Cooley caught the Bearded Lady by the arm and shook him fiercely, just as he was about to land an uppercut on the jaw of the King of the Cannibal Islands. Mrs. Burns found her offspring, 156 the Fat Man, lying dispossessed on his back in the gutter, while Sime Wilkins, the Man Who Ate Glass, sat comfortably on his stomach. Sime immediately apologized to Mrs. Burns and disappeared. Next, Mrs. Perkins took the Snake Charmer by his collar, and rapped him soundly with the piece of garden hose which she captured as he was using it to chastise the predatory Wild Man from Borneo. Other members of the company received equally unlooked-for censure of their dramatic efforts.
Nickey, meantime, had fled to the pump behind the church, where he made his ablutions as best he could; then, seeing the vestry room door ajar, he, in his extremity, bolted for the quiet seclusion of the sanctuary.
To his surprise and horror, he found Maxwell seated at a table looking over the parish records; and when Nickey appeared, still rather blue, attired in short red trunks, otherwise unadorned, Donald gazed at him in mute astonishment. For one moment there was silence as they eyed each other; and then Maxwell burst into roars of uncontrollable laughter, which were not quite subdued as Nickey gave a rather incoherent account of the misfortune which had brought him to such a predicament.
“So you were the Tattooed Man, were you! Well, 157 I suppose you know that it’s not generally customary to appear in church in red tights; but as you couldn’t help it, I shall have to see what can be done for you, to get you home clothed and in your right mind. I’ll tell you! You can put on one of the choir boy’s cassocks, and skip home the back way. If anybody stops you tell them you were practising for the choir, and it will be all right. But really, Nickey, if I were in your place, the next time I posed as a mounted Tattooed Man, I’d be careful to choose some old quadruped that couldn’t run away with you!”
“Then you aren’t mad at me!”
“Certainly not. I’ll leave that to my betters! You just get home as fast as you can.”
“Gee! but you’re white all right—you know it didn’t say nothing in the book, about what kind of paint to use!”
Maxwell’s eyes opened. “What book are you talking about, Nickey?” he asked.
“The one you let me take, with the Indians in it.”
Maxwell had to laugh again. “So that’s where the idea for this ‘Carnival of Wild West Sports’ originated, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” Nickey nodded. “Everybody wanted to be the tattooed man, but seeing as I had the book, and old Charley was my horse, I couldn’t see any 158 good reason why I shouldn’t get tattooed. Gee! I’ll bet ma will be mad!”
After being properly vested in a cassock two sizes too large for him, Nickey started on a dead run for home, and, having reached the barn, dressed himself in his customary attire. When he appeared at supper Mrs. Burke did not say anything; but after the dishes were washed she took him apart and listened to his version of the affair.
“Nicholas Burke,” she said, “if this thing occurs again I shall punish you in a way you won’t like.”
“Well, I’m awfully sorry,” said Nickey, “but it didn’t seem to feaze Mr. Maxwell a little bit. He just sat and roared as if he’d split his sides. I guess I ’aint goin’ to be put out of the church just yet, anyway.”
Mrs. Burke looked a bit annoyed.
“Never mind about Mr. Maxwell. You won’t laugh if anything like this occurs again, I can tell you,” she replied.
“Now, ma,” soothed Nickey, “don’t you worry about it occurrin’ again. You don’t suppose I did it on purpose, do you? Gosh no! I wouldn’t get onto Charley’s back again, with my clothes off, any more than I’d sit on a hornet’s nest. How’d you like to ride through the town with nothin’ on but your swimmin’ 159 trunks and drippin’ with bluin water, I’d like to know?”
Mrs. Burke did not care to prolong the interview any further, so she said in her severest tones:
“Nicholas Burke, you go to bed instantly. I’ve heard enough of you and seen enough of you, for one day.”
Nickey went.
