Kitabı oku: «Dorothy on a House Boat», sayfa 9

“What does Mr. Stillwell do, your husband, to tire him, so’t he needs the woods to rest him? Does he farm it?”

He had no sooner spoken the words than he was sorry; remembering the description of himself that Corny had given on their way out. And he was the more disturbed because his hostess left the question unanswered. In the silence of the room he began to grow very drowsy. His still wet clothing was uncomfortable and he would have been glad to replenish the scanty fire. But delicacy prevented this, so he settled back against the bench and was soon asleep. He was a sound sleeper always, but that night his slumber lasted unbroken for many hours.

He awoke at last in affright, throwing off a breadth of rag carpet which, in want of something better, Mrs. Stillwell had folded about him. Dazed by his sudden rousing from such a profound sleep he fancied he was again mixed in a wild battle with somebody.

Shrieks and cries, of laughter and of pain, shrill voices of terrified children, the groans of men, the anxious tones of a woman, all these mingled in one hubbub of sound that was horrible indeed.

Then something leaped to his shoulders and he felt his hair pulled viciously, while an ugly little face, absurdly human, leered into his and sharp little teeth seized upon his ear.

With a yell of distress he put up his hand to choke the creature, and saw on the other side of the room a bald-headed gentleman wrestling with a duplicate of his own enemy.

“Oh! oh! oh!” cried poor Lucetta, and could find nothing else to say; while a laughing face peered in from the field outside, enjoying the pandemonium within.

“Nothing but monkeys, dear! Do ‘let’s keep them over night just to show the blessed children’!” mocked the incorrigible Corny; while the indignant gentleman struggling in the kitchen with his long-tailed assailant, glared at him and yelled:

“Laugh, will you, you idle good-for-naught! I’ll have you in the lock-up for this! Rousing me out of bed with your tale of a sick boy and luring me into this! Let me tell you, Cornwallis Stillwell, you’ve played your last practical joke, and into jail you go, soon as I can get a warrant for you! I mean it, this time, you miserable, worthless skunk!”

Corny’s mirth died under the harsh words hurled at him and a grim closing of his square jaws showed that submission wasn’t in his mind. But it was a voice from the bed in the corner which silenced both men, as Gerald awoke and regarded the scene.

“The monkeys are mine. I mean they are Melvin’s. No, Dorothy’s. Somebody take ’em to Dorothy, quick, quick! Oh! my head, my head!”

Jim’s fear of the simians vanished. With a signal to the man beyond the window he clutched the creature from his back and hurled it outward. Then he rushed to the irate doctor, grabbed his tormentor and hurried with it out of doors. A moment later the door of the cage, which the curious children had unfastened, was closed and locked and peace was again restored.

Then said Corny Stillwell: “I’ll lug those monkeys to the Lily. That was hot talk Doc gave me! It’s one thing to call myself a vagabond and another to have him say so. I’m for the woods, where I belong, with the rest of the brainless creatures!”

“Pshaw! He didn’t mean that. You won’t be locked up. The monkeys are ours, the blame is ours, don’t be afraid!” counselled Jim, with his hand upon his host’s shoulder.

But the other shook it off, indignantly. “Afraid? Afraid! I? Why that is a joke, indeed!” and with that, his gun upon his back, the cage in his hand, he marched away.

CHAPTER XII.
UNDER THE PERSIMMON TREE

Saint Augustine cocked his pretty head on one side and looked roguishly up into Jim Barlow’s face.

“Be you goin’ to stay to my house all your life? ’Cause if you be I know somethin’.”

“I hope you do. But, I say, let that celery alone. What’s the fun of pulling things up that way?”

“I was just helpin’. I helps Mamma, lots of times.”

Saint Augustine was the second son of Lucetta Stillwell and certainly misnamed. There was nothing saintly about him except his wonderful blue eyes and his curly, golden hair. This, blowing in the wind, formed a sort of halo about his head and emphasized the beauty of the thin little face beneath.

Ten days had passed since Jim and his mates had come to Corny Stillwell’s cabin and Gerald still lay on his bed there. He was almost well now, Dr. Jabb said, and to-morrow might try his strength in a short walk about the yard. His illness had been a severe attack of measles, which he had doubtless contracted before his leaving home, and lest he should carry the contagion to the “Lilies,” Jim hadn’t been near the house-boat all this time. He had been worried about the children of his hosts but the mother had calmly assured him:

“They won’t take it. They’ve had it. They’ve had everything they could in the way of diseases, but they always get well. I suppose that’s because they are never pampered nor overfed.”

“I should think they weren’t!” Jim had burst out, impulsively, remembering the extremely meagre diet upon which they subsisted. In his heart he wished they might have the chance of “pampering” for a time, till their gaunt little faces filled out and grew rosy. He had thought he knew what poverty was but he hadn’t, really; until he became an inmate of this cabin in the fields. To him it seemed pitiful, when at meal time the scant portions of food were distributed among the little brood, to see the eagerness of their eyes and the almost ravenous clutch of the little tin plates as they were given out. Even yet he had never seen his hostess eat. That she did so was of course a fact, else she would have died; but the more generous portions of the meal-pudding which were placed before him made him feel that he was, indeed, “taking bread from the children’s mouths,” and from the mother’s, as well.

Dr. Jabb had gone to the Water Lily, now peacefully moored in “the loveliest spot on the earth,” as Farmer “Wicky” had described it, and reported Gerald’s condition. He had also added:

“He won’t need much nourishment till his fever goes down; then, Madam, if you can manage it you’d best send food across to the cabin for him. Let a messenger carry it to the entrance of the field and leave it there, where the lad, Jim, can get it. May not be need for such extreme precaution; but ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ Lucetta Stillwell is a noble woman, tied to a worthless husband whom she adores. They must be terribly poor, though she’s so proud you’d never guess it from her manner. I gave it to Corny hot and heavy, the other night, and at the time I felt every word I said. I don’t know. He’s no more capable of doing a man’s part in the world than that young pickaninny yonder,” pointing to Metty on the ground, fascinated by the jabbering monkeys in their cage near-by.

The doctor had said this to Mrs. Calvert very soon after Gerald was stricken, and had added a parting injunction:

“Don’t over-feed the sick boy and don’t begin too soon.”

Then he had ridden away and promptly forgot all about the case. So Mrs. Calvert delayed the shipment of food for several days, during which Jim had ample time to grow mortally sick of hasty-pudding, on his own account, and anxious on that of Lucetta. But gradually he had won her to speak more freely of her affairs.

“Yes, I do considerable of the work myself. You see it doesn’t come natural to Corny dear. He’s more a child than Saint Augustine, even, in some things.”

“Why, his brother said – Shucks!”

“What did his brother say, please?”

“Oh! nothin’. I didn’t mean – ”

Lucetta laughed in her gentle, patient way:

“Of course you didn’t mean and you don’t need. I know Wicky Stillwell and his wife, Lizzie, from A to Izzard. Good people, the best in the world and the smartest. But they can’t see a fault in Corny – not that I can either, understand! Only they don’t see why it is our farm – it’s his, really – doesn’t pay better. But we can’t afford to hire and a woman’s not so strong as a man. Yet we’re happy. Just as happy as the days are long and we’ve never starved yet. It’s my faith that there’s bread in the world enough for every mouth which needs it. God wouldn’t be a Father and not so order it. That’s one compensation of this life of mine, that you fancied might be lonely. I can’t go to church, I’m too far away, so I just pretend that all this – around me – is one church and that He’s in it all the time. I named each of the children after some holy person and I hope each will grow like his namesake – in time.”

“Did you plant this celery?”

“Yes. There was a man rode around, distributing government seeds, came from some ‘Farmer’s Institute,’ I reckon, and he gave them. Corny said it was hardly worth while, celery’s such a trouble; but I did it on the sly. Corny loves celery, just loves it; when he’s been lucky with his gun and brings home some game. Then! Won’t it be grand to have it for a surprise? Makes me think, it ought to be hoed right now. I’ll fetch the hoe.”

“You’ll do nothin’ of the sort while I’m loafin’ around, idle. Gerry doesn’t need me only now and again and I’m pinin’ for a job. You sit an’ rest, or teach the kids. Let me just work for my board. If you’ll tell me where the hoe is, please?”

When found Jim looked at it with dismay. The handle was fairly good but the steel part was broken in half and practically worthless.

“Reckon Wesley, my eldest son, must have been using it. He’s always trying to ‘make something.’ I think he’ll be a great inventor by and by. But really, it doesn’t seem hospitable – it isn’t, to let you or any other guest work. I can manage very well, very well, indeed. You can sit and read. We have a Shakespeare – what the children haven’t destroyed – a Bible, and two volumes of Scott. We’re real proud of our library and I keep it in my wedding chest. I have to, the children are so bright and inquiring.”

“Too inquiring I think! ’Tain’t healthy for ’em to be quite so smart!”

Jim laughed, shouldered his hoe, and marched away across the little strip of grass between the house and garden – so-called. The ground for this Lucetta’s feeble hands had dug with a spade that matched in condition the hoe Jim had found. Melon seeds had been sown there and had duly sprouted. But the “inquiring” minds of the children had daily pulled them up to see if there were any melons at the root. The potatoes had received the same treatment, the corn ditto, and the wonder was that even a few plants had survived their efforts to “make ’em grow faster.”

Now here was Saint Augustine “helping” to transplant the celery which had until now escaped culture at their hands.

Jim worked as he had never done even in all his active young life. His heart ached with pity for the little woman who faced her hard life so bravely and so happily, and he was revolving many plans to help her, and to a greater extent than a few days of farm labor could do.

“’Cause I say, I know somethin’.”

“Well, what is it, Sainty?”

“Ain’t ‘Sainty’, but ‘Au – gus – tine’. Say it nice, like Mamma does. She cried last night.”

“Never!”

“Yep, she did! She cried an’ she talked to herself right outside the winder where I sleep. She kep’ callin’ ‘Corny! Corny! come home!’ Just that way she said it and he didn’t answer a word. Corny’s my papa, don’t you know? He goes off times and stays an’ Wesley says my mamma gets scared he will be killed with his gun. Say, I’m goin’ to run away and find him. I am so. Don’t you tell. But I am. I’m goin’ to find that monkey cage and I’m going to travel all around the world and show ’em to folks for money. That’s what my papa said, that morning when we let ’em out and he went away. He said, my papa said: ‘Suppose younkers we start a circus of our own?’ He said he’d always wanted to do it and he knows the best things they is. He’s terrible smart, my papa is. My mamma says so, and she knows. My mamma and my papa know every single thing there is. My papa he knows a place where a man that lived hunderds and millions years ago dug a hole an’ put something in it, I reckon money; and my papa says if he’d a mind to he could go and dig it right square up, out the ground, and buy my mamma a silk dress an’ me a little cart all red an’ – ”

“There, chatterbox! Get out the way! If you want to help, take that little bucket to the spring and bring it full of water, to sprinkle these plants.”

“All right,” cheerfully answered Saint Augustine, and ran swiftly away.

Alas! he did not run swiftly back! Jim forgot all about him but toiled faithfully on till little Saint Anne came out to call him to dinner. She was his favorite of all the children, a tender-hearted little maid with her mother’s face and her mother’s serene gentleness of manner.

“Your dinner’s ready, Mister Jim, and it’s a mighty nice one, too. My mamma said they was more that chicken than any sick boy could eat and you was to have some. Wesley said couldn’t we all have some but mamma said no, ’twasn’t ours. Chicken’s nice, ain’t it, with gravy? Sometimes, don’t you know? we have ’possum, or rabbit, or something fine. Sometimes, too, if papa’s been to Uncle Wicky’s he fetches home a pie! Think o’ that! Yes, sir, a pie! My Aunt Lizzie makes ’em. Mamma never does. I guess – I guess, maybe, she thinks they isn’t healthy. Mamma’s mighty partic’lar ’t we shan’t have ‘rich food;’ that’s what she calls Aunt Lizzie’s pies, and maybe your chicken, and the sick boy’s cream. My mamma dassent let us use any cream, ourselves. She has to keep it for papa’s butter. She don’t eat any butter. It doesn’t agree with her stummy. I guess she thinks it don’t with mine. I never have any. The sick boy has all he wants, don’t he? But Daisy cow don’t make such a terrible lot, Daisy don’t. Papa says she ought to have more eatings and ’t our pasture’s poor. Mamma says Daisy’s a real good cow. She don’t really know what we childern would do without her. Daisy gives us our dinners. Sometimes, on Sundays, mamma gives us a little milk just fresh milked, before she churns it into papa’s butter. It’s nicer ’an buttermilk, ain’t it? And I shall never forget what Sunday’s like, with the sweet, doo-licious milk, an’ our other clo’es on. Each of us has other clo’es – think of that! You have ’em, too, don’t you? what your folks sent you from that boat where you used to live.”

“The boat where he used to live!” Little Saint Anne’s words spoke the thought of his own heart. The ten days since he had left it made the Water Lily seem far back in his life and gave him a wild desire to run off and find it again. Why should he, whom Gerald had openly despised, be chained to that boy’s bedside? Why should his own holiday be spoiled for a stranger, an interloper? There had been times, many of them, when he had almost hated Gerald, who was by no means a patient invalid. But whenever this feeling arose Jim had but to look at patient Lucetta and remember that, but for him, she would be alone in her care for her sick guest.

Now he was growing homesick again for the sight of dear faces and the pretty Water Lily, and to put that longing aside, he asked:

“Saint Anne, do you think you could carry a dish very carefully? If it had chicken on it could you hold it right side up and not lose a single bit? Because if you could, or can, I ’low the best thing you could do would be to ask mamma to send that nice dinner out here. Then we two would go down by the spring and sit under the persimmon tree and eat it. Just you and I together. Think of that!”

Saint Anne’s face lighted brilliantly, then instantly clouded. “None the rest? Not Wesley, nor Saint Augustine, nor Dorcas, nor Sheba, nor teeny-tiny David boy? Just me alone? I – I couldn’t. Mamma says it’s mean to be stingy of our things, so when I have two ’simmonses I always give one to who’s nearest. Not to give chicken would be meaner – ‘meaner ’n pussley’! I don’t mind being hungry – not much I don’t mind it – but when any of us is selfish all papa has to do is say ‘Pussley, pussley!’ quick, just like that, an’ we stop right away. But – but I’ll bring yours, if mamma’ll let me, and I’ll turn my face right the other way while you eat it, so I shan’t be tempted to ‘covet my neighbor’s – anything that is his.’ That’s in my kittenchasm that we childern say to mamma every Sunday, after we’ve had our milk. I’ll run right away now.”

Quite sure that his request would be granted and hoping that the surplus of Gerald’s dinner would be plentiful, Jim went to the spring and filled the rusty bucket always waiting there. Then he plucked six big burdock leaves and arranged them on a boulder. The little maid of the sweet, serious eyes had taught him a lesson in unselfishness; and whether the portion coming to him were much or little, each child should have its share.

Then he looked up and saw Saint Anne returning. Upon her outstretched arms she balanced the pewter platter, and upon this was set – Oh! glory! one whole, small chicken delicately roasted, as only Chloe could have prepared it. A half dozen biscuits flanked it and a big bunch of grapes. A tin cup fairly shone in its high state of polish, but its brilliancy was nothing as compared with the shining face of Saint Anne.

Behind her trailed four brothers and sisters, each stepping very softly as if in awe of the unexpected feast before them. The fifth child was missing, Saint Augustine, the mischief of the household, who was oftener under foot than out of sight.

“Where’s other brother, Saint Anne? Shall we wait for him? Did your mother save any for herself? Did Gerald need me?”

It was a long string of questions to be answered and the little girl counted them off upon her fingers.

“I don’t know where Saint Augustine is. Likely he’ll be ’round real soon. I guess we won’t wait – I mean the others needn’t – they look so watery around the mouth. No, mamma didn’t save any. She said she didn’t care for it. Funny, wasn’t that? As if anybody, even a grown-up mamma, could help caring! And the Gerald boy was asleep. I most wish he would be all the time, he – he speaks so sort of sharp like. Mamma says that’s cause he’s gettin’ well. Gettin’-well-folks are gen’ally cross and it’s a good sign. What you doing?”

Jim had pulled another burdock leaf and spread a bit of sweet fern upon it. He had an idea that Dorothy would have objected to the odor of burdock as mingled with a dinner. Then he carefully sliced with his pocket knife the daintiest portions of the little fowl and some of the bread. He added the finest of the grapes and turning to Dorcas and Sheba, said:

“Now, girlies, Saint Anne brought the dinner away out here, but it’s your job to take this much back to your mother. You are to tell her that this is a picnic and nobody would enjoy it unless she picnics, too. Will you tell her? Will you be real careful? If you will I promise you we others won’t eat a mouthful till you get back.”

They consented, but not too eagerly. They loved mamma, course; but they loved chicken, too. It required considerable faith on their part to go way back to the cabin and leave their dinners behind them, expecting to find them just as now.

However they started. Dorcas held the stem of the burdock leaf and Sheba its tip. Being somewhat shorter than her sister, Sheba’s end of the burden slanted downwards. The grass was hummocky. Their steps did not keep time very well. A fragment of Chloe’s well-flavored “stuffin’” slipped down upon Sheba’s fat fingers and – right before she knew it was in her mouth, yes, sir! Right before!

“Oh! Sheba! You’d oughtn’t not to have did that!” reproved Dorcas, severely. Then she stumbled over a brier. She had watched her sister too closely to see where her own feet fell, and one little cluster of grapes rolled to the ground.

“I guess that was ’cause I was lookin’ for ‘the mote in your eyes’ ’t I got a ‘beam’ in mine so’s I couldn’t see right smart,” observed this Scripture-taught child, in keen self-reproach.

“Did you get a beam? I didn’t. I can see real good. Say, Dorcas, ’twouldn’t not do to give mamma grapes what have fell into dirty grass, would it? Mamma hates dirt so much papa laughs hard about it. And – and it isn’t not nice to waste things. Mamma says ‘waste not want not.’ I ain’t wantin’ them grapes but I can’t waste ’em, either. Mamma wouldn’t like that. These ain’t our kind of wild ones, we get in the woods. These are real ones what grew on a vine.”

They paused to regard the fallen fruit. How the sunlight tinted their golden skins. They must taste – Oh! how doo-licious they must taste! As the elder, and therefore in authority, Dorcas stooped to lift the amber fruit; and, losing hold of the burdock leaf sent the whole dinner to the ground.

Then did consternation seize them. This was something dreadful. If mamma hadn’t been so terrible neat! If she’d only been willing to “eat her peck of dirt,” like papa said everybody had to do sometime, they could pick it all up and squeeze it back, nice and tight on the big green leaf, and hurry to her with it. But —

“Yes, sir! There is! A yellow wiggley kittenpillar just crawled out of the way. S’posing he left one his hairs on that chicken? Just suppose? Why, that might make mamma sick if she ate it! You wouldn’t want to make poor darling mamma sick, like the Geraldy boy, would you, Sheba Stillwell? Would you?”

Poor little Sheba couldn’t answer. She was in the throes of a great temptation. She hadn’t the strength of character of Saint Anne. She didn’t at all like that suggestion of a “kittenpillar’s” hair and yet – what was one hair to such a wicked waste as it would be if they left all that fine food to spoil, or for the guinea-hen to gobble.

“The guinea-hen eats a lot. She eats kittenpillars right down whole;” pensively observed Sheba, when she had reached this stage of thought.

“She shan’t eat this, then!” declared Dorcas, promptly sitting down and dividing with great care all this delectable treat.

“Why, little ones, what are you doing? Why aren’t you back yonder with the rest? I don’t see Saint Augustine there, either. Do you know where he is?”

As this simple question interrupted them the conscience-stricken children began to cry. One glance into their mother’s troubled face had aroused all their love for her and a sense of their own selfishness.

“Why, babies dear, what’s the matter? Have you hurt yourselves?”

“Yes, mamma, we have. We’ve hurted the very insides of us, in the place where mutton-taller can’t reach an’ you can’t kiss it well again. Your dinner was sent to you and – and —we’ve et it up!”

Dorcas delivered herself of this statement in a defiant attitude, her arms folded behind her, but her little breast heaving. And she could scarcely believe her own ears when the only reprimand she received was:

“Say ‘eaten,’ darling, not ‘et.’ I do wonder where my boy is! In some mischief, I fear, the precious little scamp!”

But she was still wondering when that day’s sun went down.