Wilderness of Spring

by Edgar Pangborn

  _Chapter Three_

  The builder had intended a storeroom off the kitchen, with no heat andone narrow window, where Gideon Hibbs in these days wrestled with Benand Reuben across the rackety battlefield of the classics. When the boyscame to Roxbury John Kenny, in a genial phase of turning things upsidedown, had hired a mason to build a fireplace in this austere chamber,and had purchased a magisterial new desk and high-backed chair for Mr.Hibbs. Then with his own hands he fetched from the attic two small olddesks, trusting only Ben to help him worry them downstairs, and grewdreamy at the marred and squeaky things, chuckling over jokes supersededforty-odd years before.

  In the house of the Reverend Mr. Elias Kenny of Boston, these desks hadsustained the squirmings of John Kenny and his brother George, whoseyoung hands left a network of schoolboy carvings now black with age. Thesatiny pine held room for Reuben and Ben to add a number of their own:arrows, circles, cabalistic squiggles; on Ben's a rising sun with aquestioning eyebrow, on Reuben's a portrait of Mr. Eccles that did scantjustice to his second-best ear.

  One other chair stood at the rear of the schoolroom, sacred to occasionswhen Uncle John strolled in to listen, owl-tufts cocked like secondaryears alert for a false quantity. At such times Mr. Hibbs became graveand slow-spoken. Hibbs was not an obsequious man: he merely found itimportant to satisfy Mr. John Kenny of Roxbury. It was at one of thosetimes that Reuben witnessed Uncle John's discovery of the new carvings,a pale crinkled hand descending to the desk, groping at B--R newlyincised. Reuben saw only the hand, fearing to look up lest he find UncleJohn sad or annoyed. After all the desk was a chip of history; havingserved John Kenny when he was a boy of twelve, it must have been made atleast as early as 1649, and from a pine tree that would have sprung upin the wilderness before the planting of Plymouth Colony. Theblue-veined hand lingered feather-light, restless like that of a blindman encountering something formidably new in the pattern of the known.Then it rose and passed gently through Reuben's hair, and the door ofthe schoolroom closed.

  This Thursday morning spring was assailing the house with lazyreminders, a ripple of breeze at the window Mr. Hibbs had sternlyclosed, a muted hammering from the shed where Rob Grimes was mending achicken coop at great leisure; earlier Reuben had heard the lonesomeSundayish clamor of the meeting-house bell nearly a mile away, warningthat Thursday was Lecture Day, when decent citizens take thought fortheir souls.

  "Very well, Reuben." Mr. Hibbs sniffed. "Lines twenty-one andtwenty-two, and pray note that you are not to stress the caesura in linetwenty-two, seeing there is no break in the thought."

  "quid fuit, ut tutas agitaret Daedalus alas, Icarus immensas...."

  "What's the matter? Are you considering, Mr. Cory, whether the caesurabe intended by the poet to indicate a pause for daydreaming?"

  "Icarus immensas nomine signet aquas."

  "You have the quantities correct, and may now construe."

  "'Why should Daedalus have----'"

  "'Should'? 'Should'? I see no subjunctive, Mr. Cory."

  "I was construing freely, sir."

  "Why?"

  "I thought it sounded smoother so, in English."

  "Fiddle! _Fuit_, not being subjunctive, cannot be so translated."

  "'Why was it that Daedalus safely moved his wings----'"

  "Mr. Cory, one light fugitive moment if you please. Concerning the word_tutas_: is this an adverb?"

  "No, sir."

  "If Ovid had wished an adverb he would have written----?"

  "_Tuto_, sir."

  "Yet he used this strange word _tutas_, which is----?"

  "An adjective, sir. _Tutas_, _-a_, _-um_, meaning 'safe.'"

  "Light breaks." Mr. Hibbs filled his clay pipe, deliberately maddeninghis tortured nose. "The source, incidentally, of a dreadful Englishword, 'tutor'--I suppose from some woeful misguided conceit to theeffect that a tutor can hold his charges in safety, Master Reuben, fromthe perils of error--_wharrmphsh!_--within and without. An adjective,then, and plural, I presume. The case, Mr. Cory?"

  "Objective, Mr. Hibbs."

  "Could it by any remote chance agree with--hm----"

  "It agrees with _alas_, sir."

  "Oh! How we do see eye to eye at times! _Tutas alas._ I could evenimagine it meant 'safe wings,' 'uninjured wings,' something like that,if an adverb had not gone flying past my aging benighted head. Nowconcerning this word _agitaret_. Did I hear you translate it as'moved'?"

  "I did, sir."

  "Had you considered the word 'agitate'?--excellent, _I_ should havethought, and taken direct from the mother Latin."

  "I did, sir, but the present-day meaning seemed unsatisfactory."

  "Why?"

  Reuben discovered he had pulled down his underlip. Mr. Hibbs had strivenfor three years to break him of the habit, but Reuben, as now, was oftenunaware he had done it until it was too late. He let it back gentlywithout the usual comforting pop. "To me," Reuben said, "the word'agitate' suggested fluttering. I might translate: 'Why was it thatDaedalus fluttered safe wings?'" He glanced up, honestly feeling asapologetic as a puppy caught _in flagrante_ with a ravished shoe. "Tome, sir, Daedalus was no butterfly."

  Ben knocked his Ovid on the floor and scrambled after it. Reuben guessedhe was trying to divert the lightning, but Mr. Hibbs paid the uproar noheed at all, staring at Reuben with a twitching nose. You could neverquite predict Gideon Hibbs: the next moment might be hell, or suddensunshine, or merely another sneeze.

  It was sunshine. Mr. Hibbs relaxed, a wrestler overcome, and laughed, alarge generous bray. "You have a point, Reuben. Oh yes!" He fumbled fora kerchief and blew the inflamed organ mightily. "Well, but I'm notcontent with so flat a word as 'moved.' Benjamin? Considering thewriggles you perform at your desk (and I declare only a young backsidecould endure it) you ought to be able to offer some word conveying thesense of a sustained and powerful motion."

  Shining with relief, Ben said: "'Plied'?"

  "Why, excellent!" Mr. Hibbs tensed in astonishment. "'Why was itDaedalus plied uninjured wings?'--mph, comes out in English as iambicpentameter, bless me if it doesn't. Satisfactory, Reuben?"

  "Yes, sir, I like that. 'Why was it Daedalus plied uninjured wings, butIcarus marks with his name the enormous waves?'"

  Out of a suspended hush, Mr. Hibbs sighed. "Benjamin, proceed. Ifpossible, without butterflies. Let us leave the butterflies to Reuben."

  Reuben thought with care: _He means no harm by that, none at all...._His eyes idly compelled the carved B--R to grow immense and blurred, andhe listened to Ben's voice:

  "nempe quod hic alte, demissius ille volabat; nam pennas ambo non habuere suas."

  "Quantities correct, Benjamin. Construe."

  "'Surely it was because Icarus flew high, and Daedalus lower; for bothwore wings that were not their own.'"

  "Eh, Benjamin, doing uncommon well today. High time of course--I am notprepared to consider this the millennium." Mr. Hibbs could seldom bearto leave a compliment undiluted. "Well, gentlemen, I suggest to you,these particular lines are something more than an exercise in grammarand prosody. I think, no more of the _Tristia_ today. Your grammars ifyou please--this afternoon it shall be Cicero of course."

  "Sir"--startled, Reuben saw his brother rising, not quite knocking overhis little desk--"sir, may I ask a favor?"

  Mr. Hibbs' lank features froze, but not completely. "Yes, my boy?"

  "Last night, sir, I wrote out a translation of the lines in _De Finibus_that you assigned us for this afternoon. I--wished to know if I could doso without aid. I mean, sir--Ru hath helped me often at other times,being swifter at these things, so I--so I didn't tell him of it. And ifit be satisfactory, Mr. Hibbs, may I go to Boston this afternoon?"

  Mr. Hibbs stared at the paper Ben handed him, like a man hit by a chunkof firewood. "Done without aid, ha?"

  "It was, sir. I even waited till Ru was asleep, for fear I'd give up andask him for help after all."

  Reuben gazed deeply into the swirling black midget
s that had been thetext of Ovid; he instructed himself: _It doesn't matter. It does notmatter. Seeing that he will go--_

  "No objection," Mr. Hibbs was saying vacantly--"no objection to the twoof you helping each other: I expect it and you profit by it, but I cansee, I understand, Benjamin, I--uh--commend your industry and thesentiment that must have prompted it." His voice trailed away under thethreat of another sneeze, and Reuben knew that he must speak.

  "It's quite true, Mr. Hibbs. I knew nothing of it till just now." _Wasthat good enough? Did I snarl, or squeak?..._

  "Of course. This translation is--not bad, Benjamin. Some errors, butnothing that cannot be caught up--uh--tomorrow. I'm assuming yourgreat-uncle hath nothing against it, or you would mention it,being"--the sneeze arrived and passed on--"being an honorable boy. Yes,you may have the afternoon. No precedent, of course."

  "I understand that, sir, and thank you."

  There was grammar, there was logic, there were Greek verbs, there was inthe air a warm premonition of luncheon. Mr. Hibbs tucked his booksunder his arm and marched upstairs, where he would allow himself afive-minute meditation before the meal. He was willing to explain thisexercise without embarrassment. It was not the same as prayer, but acontemplation of nothing, a device for clearing his mind of trivia inthe hope of perceiving a moment of truth.... "Ru, why don't you cometoo? You could easy catch up the work if he gives you the afternoon, andhe would--for all his barking you know you can twist him any way youplease."

  "No, bub," said Reuben lightly--but he was afraid to look up from hisdesk at the puzzled kindness he knew he would see. "There'll be a tagend of the afternoon when Pontifex hath done his worst, and I--wish todo something else."

  "Something else?"

  "Oh, I--nothing too important."

  Ben looked hurt. "About the Cicero--haven't I leaned on thee too much,Ru? I never did think to wound thee, doing that."

  "I'm not wounded! I"--_careful, Ru Cory!_--"I commend your industry."

  "Ru!"

  "I'm sorry. About this afternoon--you remember Mr. Welland?"

  "Welland? Oh, the doctor?"

  "Yes, I--he knows so much--I met him by chance the other day, when youwas in Boston----"

  It was no use. What had seemed clear a little while ago, a lamp in aparting of the mist, was now once more submerged in fog, and Reuben losthis way in a tangle of half-exasperated words, trying to reassure Benthat a wish to see Mr. Welland had nothing whatever to do with beingill.

  * * * * *

  Older and neater than neighboring houses, the Jenks house was shieldedfrom them by a coach house, and on the other side by a small fenced-ingarden. Such aloofness would not save it if flames like those of 1679 or'91 ever raged into this western quarter of the city, where many stillowned the forbidden wood-framed chimneys and hoped for the best. Firesin the past had usually started near the docks. That might be thereason why Captain Jenks wished to keep the breadth of the town betweenhim and the ships that were his daily bread.

  Approaching the house, Ben had been sharply aware of second-floorwindows, feeling eyes in a way remarkably like fright if only it weren'tabsurd to be frightened at calling on a girl. Now he held back his handfrom the knocker, studying the garden with unstable dignity, suppressinga hope that nobody was at home. He admired the grape arbor, enlivenedalready by a white and brown of buds, and noted here and there the braveglow of daffodils. Flagstone walks suggested a trust in permanence.

  He remembered other doorways, how they had stood between him and theunknown. Three years ago one had opened, himself and Reuben standing inrags on the threshold and unable to speak at all to the face withowl-tufts, for John Kenny had answered the door himself, looking downhis nose. "To what have I the honor--oh, my soul! Your mother's look,the both of you--come in out of the cold!" Not until hours later, whenthey were washed and fed and settled in the room where they now lived,did John Kenny speak of his sister's letter announcing their tragicdeath in the jaws of the beast, a passing hard example of the infinitewisdom of God. He had answered the letter, he said, with the propersentiments. Very much later, weeks later, Mr. Kenny's own consciencemoved him to write another letter even more stately, explaining that theboys appeared to be abundantly alive and would remain with him until ofman's years. This letter was never answered by Rachel Cory; after threeyears, it seemed unlikely that it ever would be. That doorway had openedon years of change, as all years are, but Ben held a private notion thatthe century really turned then, in March of 1704: for himself and Reubenan end to flame and trouble except for whatever stirred within--and thisonly natural, since any boy or man is a volcano with a thin crust andknows it.

  Ben sounded the knocker. Now he must remember to take off his hat afterthe door opened, not before--supposing it ever did.

  It opened. In Puritan gray and white, she of the brown face wasregarding him with amiable recognition. Ben had started to claw his hatat the first rattle of the latch; he checked that, and was now able toremove it, not gracefully but at least without dropping it on her shoes.All this the slave girl observed with calm, secure in cool gravity, awell-trained servant waiting for him to speak, but there could be nodoubt about that flash of welcome. "Mistress Faith Jenks--is she athome?" He spoke so softly he could hardly hear the noise himself.

  "I think so, sir." Again a sparkle shared, as if she had said aloud: "Ofcourse she is, Ben Cory of Deerfield, but I must make a show of going tofind out." In her actually spoken words Ben heard a puzzling foreignquality: the _th_ was almost a _t_. "Will you come in, Mr. Cory, thewhile I inquire?" The foreign stress altered his name to something likeCor_ee_. But she did remember him, name and all.

  Clarissa showed him through the entry--he knocked over nofurniture--into a parlor dim with heavy drapes at the windows such asBen had never seen. Mr. Kenny liked his windows casually plain to theworld. Clarissa moved to the drapes with the grace of a wild beingincapable of clumsiness. She said: "Let's have more light."

  "Thank you," Ben said. She glanced at him quickly, startled maybe by thethanks, then flung the cloth open and lingered briefly, a golden handraised to the drapery, the round of her cheek lovable in the sun.

  Ben realized he was rudely staring, in a sudden loss of blindness. Heautomatically damned himself for shameful thoughts--he came here to callrespectfully on _Faith Jenks_!--not to yearn and lust after a slavewench who doubtless owned not even a last name. In his confusion hecould no longer look at Clarissa. He heard her murmur some pleasant wordabout sitting down and making himself at ease. She was gone, and theroom cold.

  Clarissa's hand--now Ben could not even scold himself. He could notescape the sweetness of a golden hand, pink-palmed, shining in sunlightas a part of sunlight.

  Seated and short of breath he tried furtively to clean an over-lookedfingernail with a thumbnail, an operation tinged with futility. On thewall a sampler confronted him, not very well made--Kate would havesniffed--asserting: _And thine ears shall hear a voice behind thee,saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand,and when ye turn to the left. Isaiah, xxx; 21._ Ben Cory ventured amodest alteration in the angle of his chair.

  He remembered he did not know the religion of the Jenks family; hadstupidly failed to inquire about it of Uncle John. What if Faith werestrongly devout?--it was likely. What if she discovered with shock thathe had not seen the inside of a meeting-house since coming to Roxbury?...He fretted at the fingernail, borrowing trouble. Could a mandissemble, hiding essential doubts from a woman if he loved her? Shabbybargain: for my pretense, your love. He gave up the fingernail as a lostcause, and begged the moral dilemma to go away a while.

  Slowly, as it may dawn on a wanderer in the forest that he is underexamination from a thicket by the feral unconciliating eyes of aSomething--bear, catamount, Indian, he doesn't know, doesn't exactlywish to know--so it dawned on Ben that he was being studied from thehallway, in perfect silence, by a square lump of girl and a smaller lumpof yellowish dog.

 
Following her inclinations, the mother of Charity's dog might haveconceived and born a spaniel, but she must have been tempted by theDevil in the shape of a terrier. The snuff-colored result had beenamended by years of overeating into a hairy sausage too close to thefloor. His silky ears were tolerable spaniel, his eyes all spaniel infoolish sadness, blurred in the iris like some old human eyes. When Bensmiled, a wag disturbed the squirrely tail; he shambled up to analyzethe smell of Ben's feet and pronounce it fair. Charity nodded. "Heworships you. I foresaw it plain. Most uncommon for Sultan to worshipanyone."

  Ben studied Sultan in some alarm. He was lying on Ben's shoes, true, butit looked more like sleep than worship. "Often he growls withmenace"--Charity approached, awkward in a shapeless brown frock that didher no good--"the which he was prepared to do when we ambushed you."

  "I'd've gone straight up in the air. A perfect ambush."

  Charity planted her feet far apart and hid her hands behind her back."Did you play Inj'an when you was young?"

  "Oh, I did, Mistress Charity, my brother and I. Used to sneak off to thewoods where we were forbidden to go, which was wrong of us."

  "Why?"

  "The woods were dangerous--real Inj'ans."

  "I've seen real ones--not wild, though." She came nearer, not by walkingbut by a side-to-side evolution of spread feet, carrying her like astatue on small wheels. "Christian Indians, talked English allpiggedy-gulp."

  "I remember an old Indian at Deerfield, supposed to be a Christian. APocumtuck. Wore a cast-off bodice for a breechclout, and was alway----"Ben remembered the failing of Captain Jenks--"was alway a littlefoolish."

  "Faith is dressing her hair different, the which you're obliged tonotice or she'll be in a taking, the which I think is poo."

  "I'll be sure to notice it, Mistress Charity."

  "Be you"--Charity jerked her head; upstairs Ben could hear a mutedripple of women's voices--"in love with _her_?"

  Ben evaded. "Charity, I've met her but the once."

  No good. "I thought a person alway knew."

  "Oh--maybe they do and I'm just foolish."

  "I guess you are, but very wonderful."

  Maneuvered thus against a lee shore with the broadside raking him frombow to stern, Ben mumbled: "'Deed I'm not."

  "Not poo," said Charity, sinking him....

  "Do you go often to church, Mistress Charity?"

  "We're Church of England."

  "Oh, so was my mother."

  "Then a'n't you too?"

  "Well--my father was not a member of the congregation at Deerfield, andmy Uncle John is not a churchgoer, nor--nor am I."

  "Um. Thought everyone was obliged to go."

  "My Uncle John says it was so, years past. Now, if everyone went therewouldn't be meeting-houses to hold 'em.... Do you like going?"

  "Mr. Binyon was very wonderful."

  "He is--no longer with you?"

  Charity shook her head and sighed. "I do treasure his memory. Hethundered, as with the voice of many waters."

  "He--uh--died?"

  "Nay, he went back to England. Later they said his steps went down untothe--that is, he joined--well, somebody. I don't just know. Mr. Mitchingis not wonderful. He whuffles. In fact he is...."

  "Poo?"

  Charity came quite close, and seemed perilously near to smiling. "_You_said that--but I'll never tell. Nay, I do hold in my heart many thingsthat Mr. Binyon--thundered--but mustn't speak of him, and yet I dosometimes, because everyone says I own the nature of a heedless brat."

  "I don't say so."

  "You are different. Mr. Binyon spoke as with the voice of angels.Somebody said he was forty--he didn't look so terrible old.... Were allyour people killed at Deerfield, Mr. Cory?"

  "My father and mother. My brother escaped, with me. He's fifteen now,and I'm seventeen. And you?"

  "Thirteen in May. A sad time--nobody will ever listen."

  "You don't mean you're going to be thirteen forever?"

  "Do not be poo...."

  "He's a much better student than I, Reuben is."

  "I can read, by the way.... Was your mother very beautiful?"

  "Why--yes, Charity, she was. Everyone should be able to read."

  "I thought so because you are beautiful."

  "Now, Charity! You ought not----"

  "I know. Alway, everything wrong."

  "Not that, but--oh, never mind.... What do you like to read?"

  "Not romances. Faith reads those, by the way."

  "I've read but a few." In Mr. Kenny's helter-skelter library, Ben hadhad a glimpse of Aphra Behn and her long-winded imitators; he hadrather enjoyed the swashbuckling of _Oroonoko_. "Our tutor keeps us sohard pressed with the classics we can't read much else."

  "Um ... Mr. Cory, is it true that swallows spend the winter at thebottom of frozen ponds and streams all naked of any feathers?"

  "Nay, I've heard that but don't believe it. They must go south like somany others and return in the spring."

  "Um. All the same I drew a picture of some of them under the water allnaked of any feathers, and another on the brink--he hath just risen andput his feathers on again." She gulped and stuck out a blunt jaw. "Idraw many pictures, when I ought to be sewing. I like cooking if I cancook what I like."

  "But sewing is poo?"

  "You too would think so, had you been obliged to do it. Would you wishto behold the picture I made of swallows under the water all naked ofany feathers and one on the brink?"

  "Yes, I would, Charity."

  She whirled like a doll on a revolving pole and marched away. Sultanmoaned and followed, a slave to duty with a backward glance of apology.

  Ben heard other footsteps and rose, too soon, and bowed--too soon, sothat he was bent in the middle when Faith entered, grave and shining andyoung, preceded by the bulk of Madam Prudence Jenks, who clearly did notexpect a hand to be kissed or shaken but held both pale things curledbelow the twin billows of her bosom and entered the room thus, ratherlike an angel looking for breakfast, and allowed Faith to help her intoa chair, and loomed in it, rather like an angel disappointed but willingto wait. "'Tis most agreeable of you, Mr. Carey, to call upon us in oursimple afflicted seclusion."

  Uncle John hadn't mentioned that the Jenks family was secluded,afflicted, or simple. The drowned gaze of Madam Jenks suggested she hadrisen from a rest of ages under water, for the purpose (imposed on herby others) of viewing Benjamin Cory; if he proved not too detestably inneed of correction, she might submerge. Ben mumbled how happy he was tomeet her. For all their damp opacity, her prominent eyes were not atall blind.

  Faith's gold-brown hair lay in soft spirals above her ears; on the coilsrested a cap, no such cap as Puritan custom approved but a trifle offrivolous lace--the Mathers would have hated it as one of the stigmataof popery. Her dress today was dead-leaf brown. To Ben it lookeduncomplicated and demure, its very plainness encouraging the eye torejoice in what it held. Surely _she_ could never become gross andoverblown, the damask fading to an underwater bleach, dugs swollen todown pillows!

  "How charmingly you've done your hair, Mistress Faith!"

  "Oh, la, thank you, sir--I merely toss it together so to have it out ofthe way." (And thank _you_, Charity!) Hands chastely folded, Faithwatched him with unmistakable radiance; as Ben dared to meet her eyesshe blinked both of them. Ben's heart floated over shining fields. Hemust have said the right thing. In fact, as matters looked now he couldperfectly well sit down; it might even be expected of him.

  With larger sternness Madam Jenks repeated: "Most kind of you to call,Mr. Carey, seeing we have not been much about since our loss, the whichone must suffer with fortitude required of us by the Lord in hisinfinite mercy, very kind of you." A parchment contraption appearedmagically in her hand; she fanned the pallid orb of her face in a motiongrave and hypnotic.

  Faith patted her mother's arm where folds of baby-creases narrowed to atiny wrist. "Mama, I think Mr. Cory never met Uncle James." Faith'scharming double wink instructed Ben not t
o be even slightly dismayed bysudden Uncle James: she would see him through.

  A red enameled comb projected from Madam Jenks' tight-bound hair likethe comb of a hen, bobbing so unstably that Ben's anxiety climbed notchafter notch. "He did not know James?" Madam Jenks shook her head, butnothing happened. "A pity, seeing he was ever a worthy influence toyoung and old and would have profited much by knowing him, but Goddisposes." Pronouns, Ben noted, counted for no more than ripples, to bebrushed aside by the lady under full sail. Solidly abeam of him, cuttinghis wind and threatening to broach him just when he was trying to clawoff to windward, she seemed to be conveying a message: that BenjaminCory or Carey must have found it extraordinary difficult to maintain theChristian virtues with no assistance from Uncle James.

  "My father's brother-in-law," Faith interpreted. "He died last year, Mr.Cory. Mamma thought you might have met him."

  "Hadn't the honor, ma'am. I'm sorry to learn of your affliction."

  "He resteth in the Lord," said the fat woman, and beamed. "Lived inCambridge. I trust your grandfather is well?"

  "Yes, ma'am, very well these days." (What was the use?)

  "I join you, Mr. Carey, in praising, for that mercy, the Dispenser ofAll Things." Madam Jenks went on to pronounce the weather changeable;Ben agreed; Faith expressed intelligent neutrality. Small silence spreadlike a blot of ink.... "I understand you intend going to the collegethis year, Mr. Carey?"

  "Yes, ma'am, my brother and I."

  "Preparing for the ministry, I presume?"

  "Neither of us would appear to have the call, Madam Jenks."

  "Indeed.... Do you enjoy the Boston air?"

  "I don't think I've ever heard it, ma'am."

  "Your pardon, sir?"

  "Nay, I--beg _your_ pardon--I must have misunderstood."

  "My inquiry was in reference to the Boston air. Do you enjoy it?"

  "Oh, very much...."

  By some transition which Ben heard but didn't understand--the instant ofkaleidoscopic shift was blurred for him by a gleam of merriment inFaith--Madam Jenks was comparing cats and dogs. "'Tis true a cat is atidy beast and of value if she be a good mouser, but one can feel noaffection for them."

  "Why," said Ben, "our big yellow cat----"

  "They are treacherous," said Madam Jenks. The comb was rising. "Now adog is a faithful animal instant ever to his master's needs, for itwould appear the Lord hath prepared him for the service of man, and I amtrying, Faith, to recall the name of a small dog Mr. Jenks owned, youmust remember: I mean the one that was two before Sultan, or was itthree?--with a white ear."

  "You must be thinking of Prince, Mama."

  "No, my dear, seeing that Prince was the one that fell down the well,and Goodman Jennison spent the better part of a forenoon attempting torescue the poor brute and had no white ear to be sure."

  "Rags?"

  "Faith, Rags was black, and was given to us by Mr. Riggs when his goodwife was taken to the Lord, and was obliged for business reasons to goto Newport for some weeks, and certainly had no white ear, and wasindeed rather ill-natured, in fact we were obliged to give him away,since he did not return from Newport until some damage had already beendone to Goody Jennison's herb garden, the which I regret."

  Ben wondered how long Charity had been standing in the hallway, a paperclasped to her square breast and Sultan lying on her shoes. She mighthave been waiting for Ben to smile, since when he did she dislodged thedog with a backward step and brought him the paper, ignoring her elders.

  "My word, Charity!" Faith spoke kindly. "Mr. Cory doesn't wish to lookat pictures."

  "He told me he did," said Charity flatly, and laid the paper on Ben'sknee, leaning close. "This be the one with feathers restored."

  "Oh, I see." Confusedly, Ben saw more than that. It had never occurredto him that lines of ink on paper could move and sing. A streamglittered with fragmented ice. Ben could feel the vulnerable pride ofthe swallow twitching a pert forked tail, tilting a round head towarddistant cloud. And how should Charity have made him actually hear theslow yielding of a brook to the coming of spring? Those naked thingshuddled under the water--swallows maybe, or squirming babies, ambiguous,blind. The eye clung to them, not in laughter.

  "Charity," said Madam Jenks, "I believe Mr. Carey would prefer to lookat pictures another time."

  Charity tried to ignore that. In nearness she was all little-girlsoftness and warmth, electric. Little?--thirteen.

  "Charity," said Madam Jenks, "go and aid Clarissa with the refreshments.You should have remembered it before."

  Ben blurted: "Charity, this is beautiful."

  "Charity," said Madam Jenks.

  Charity inhaled carefully. "Very well, Mama, I will leave the room."

  The red comb popped. Ben had been half-prepared for that, and for thedeferential scramble he now performed. Under cover of the commotionCharity vanished with the picture, Sultan gloomily following.

  "Thankful heart!" The comb restored, Madam Jenks fanned herself. "Ahwell, a difficult time of life I suppose. You have no idea, Mr. Carey,the hours of grief and dismay, I have sought guidance on my knees, thewhich she'll be the death of me yet considering the palpitations of myheart, nevertheless when the Lord calls me to my long home I shallcertainly go."

  "Mama!" Faith murmured. "I'm sure in a few years she'll learn poise andmanners. 'Tis only a passing thing. Why, when I was her age I'm sure Iwas difficult too."

  "Nay, my darling, never intractable, never strange, alway a consolationto me. Faith is my great comfort, Mr. Carey, you've no idea."

  "I'm sorry she plagued you, Mr. Cory."

  "But--truly she didn't. Anyway, that picture--"

  "Art," said Madam Jenks sadly. "When I think how Mr. Jenks and I havestriven to teach her womanly ways, and all to no purpose, and then suchdreadful passion if she be crossed in the lightest particular, even inthese trivial childish notions of art, the which she could not have gotit from Mr. Jenks or myself, good heavens!"

  Charity said from the doorway: "I heard that." Sultan had given uptrying to sleep; he leaned against her leg and whined.

  "Oh, Charity, Charity--I suppose you never even went near the kitchen tohelp Clarissa."

  Charity's square face had gone dull red to the eyelids. "She said shehad no need of me. Mama, I brought that picture to Mr. Cory because hedid ask to see it."

  The red comb popped. Ben gathered it up again, but could not immediatelyreturn it, for Madam Jenks needed all her powers for speech. "I shouldhave supposed, Charity, that at your years you might have acquired sometrace of manners if not of gratitude, the which I do not ask although achild of thirteen is certainly capable, and never no unjust correctionnor harsh words if not wholly yielded up to depravity, the which----"

  "Mama, I am becoming exceedingly wrathful."

  "Charity," said Madam Jenks, "we will _not_ have one of your Times. Iforbid it. Go to your room, after all the effort your father and I havemade, and that continually."

  "Don't you bring Papa into it and him lying up there dead to the world!"

  "_Charity!_" That was Faith, rising, then kneeling quickly by hermother, whose round face had gone gray as ash.

  "I will go away forever," said Charity in a sudden loud rage of tears."Even as Mr. Binyon. I tell you my steps will go down unto the Whore ofBabylon!"

  * * * * *

  "Reuben, I've thought occasionally that the game hath something incommon with the course of living. The opening--that's a preparation likeyouth, and I alway thought, if a chess player might truly understand theopening no other player could defeat him--a'n't that so? Still, it istoo complex, the possibilities too near to infinite, for any mind tohold 'em all, and so the best of players will inevitably fumble theopening, at least a little, missing some bright opportunities, theresult a compromise with what might have been. Then the middlegame--action, struggle, changes of fortune, more opportunities lost, anda few fairly grasped at the just moment."

  "I believe I like that,
Mr. Welland. And the end game?"

  "The end game, if one may arrive at it--some die young, you know, somefrom a Fool's Mate, or blind chance may overset the board--but if onemay arrive--oh dear! Oh dear me! That knight, through my poor wall ofpawns--dare say it's all up with me. I will try this. What next?"

  "This, sir. You left a hole for my Bishop too."

  "So, for my sins, I did. Brrr!... Well, this."

  "Check!"

  "Blast!... If one may arrive at the end game--as I certainly can't here,my friend--'tis not unlike old age, a time demanding some coolness andprecision and the summary of the ending, which is no simple matter ofvictory or defeat or draw, I think."

  "I like the simile, but I'm not sure living is a game."

  "It is not, Reuben. I'm pleased you find the flaw. It will remind youthat any simile is a mischancy nag to ride. Ride him easy, perhaps forentertainment only, and be ready to jump off before he blunders into theditch on the left which is marked _reductio ad absurdum_. If I said,however, that living is a journey, would that be a simile?"

  "No, sir, I call that a fair description, no flight of rhetoric."

  "Mm-yas.... Let's see what remains for me here. I will try what the poorPawn can do, creeping into the breach, but I fear little David hath hereno slingshot."

  "Well.... Well, I'm afraid he did leave it at home, Mr. Welland, forthis is checkmate."

  "Ow!"

  "Ben would say I had scuttled him, nautical language being ever on hislips these days. He plays carelessly--in chess, I mean. And in living,with the carelessness of generosity. But he'll win his end game."

  "So much of what you say this afternoon ends with Ben! He's very closeto your heart, is he not?"

  "Oh, we--were alway close."

  "And went through much trouble together, I know, which it would seemhath strengthened the tie, but with those of a different nature it mighthave done the opposite. I had two brothers, Reuben. We drifted apart, asthey say--one lives now in England, the other died some years ago. Afterchildhood we were--oh, let us say like friends, but with strangelylittle to say to one another. Cherish what you have--devotion is notquite the commonest thing in the world."

  "This noon, sir, I tried to tell him something. It should have been asimple thing to say, but I lost myself in a most wonderful tangle ofmisunderstanding--yes, and finally gave it up like a fool, though laterI thought of a dozen different ways I might have said it plainly."

  "Mm-yas--a little strange. You speak clearly to me, as clearly as anyoneI can recall meeting, of any age."

  "Well--well, I told him I intended coming here, and he at once supposedthat I thought I was ill, and then in reassuring him that it was nothinglike that, I somehow lost track of what I had meant to say, whichwas--which was, sir, that one of my reasons in coming was to tell youthat I wish I might study medicine. Or at least hear whatever you mighttell me of such an ambition."

  "Oh.... That was only one reason, Reuben?"

  "Only one of--of many."

  "Continue, Reuben."

  "I'm confused about many things."

  "So am I. But it's a good reason, seeing two candles are a triflebrighter than one."

  "And you said to me that you and I ought to be friends."