“Good-mornin’, Alek.”
“Good-mawnin’, Mist’ Bryant,” answered Alek, with a new deference. He was marching on, when he was halted by a word—”Alek!”
He stopped. “Yes, seh.”
“I found a knife this mornin’ in th’ road,” drawled Si, “an’ I thought maybe it was yourn.”
Improved in mind by this divergence from the direct line of attack, Alek stepped up easily to look at the knife. “No, seh,” he said, scanning it as it lay in Si’s palm, while the cold steel-blue eyes of the white man looked down into his stomach, “‘tain’t no knife er mine.” But he knew the knife. He knew it as if it had been his mother. And at the same moment a spark flashed through his head and made wise his understanding. He knew everything. “‘Tain’t much of er knife, Mist’ Bryant,” he said, deprecatingly.
“‘Tain’t much of a knife, I know that,” cried Si, in sudden heat, “but I found it this mornin’ in my watermelon-patch — hear?”
“Watahmellum-paitch?” yelled Alek, not astounded.
“Yes, in my watermelon-patch,” sneered Si, “an’ I think you know something about it, too!”
“Me?” cried Alek. “Me?”
“Yes — you!” said Si, with icy ferocity. “Yes — you!” He had become convinced that Alek was not in any way guilty, but he was certain that the old man knew the owner of the knife, and so he pressed him at first on criminal lines. “Alek, you might as well own up now. You’ve been meddlin’ with my watermelons!”
“Me?” cried Alek again. “Yah’s ma knife. I done cah’e it foh yeahs.”
Bryant changed his ways. “Look here, Alek,” he said, confidentially: “I know you and you know me, and there ain’t no use in any more skirmishin’. I know that you know whose knife that is. Now whose is it?”
This challenge was so formidable in character that Alek temporarily quailed and began to stammer. “Er — now — Mist’ Bryant — you — you — frien’ er mine—”
“I know I’m a friend of yours, but,” said Bryant, inexorably, “who owns this knife?”
Alek gathered unto himself some remnants of dignity and spoke with reproach: “Mist’ Bryant, dish yer knife ain’ mine.”
“No,” said Bryant, “it ain’t. But you know who it belongs to, an’ I want you to tell me — quick.”
“Well, Mist’ Bryant,” answered Alek, scratching his wool, “I won’t say ‘s I do know who b’longs ter dish yer knife, an’ I won’t say ‘s I don’t.”
Bryant again laughed his Yankee laugh, but this time there was little humor in it. It was dangerous.
Alek, seeing that he had gotten himself into hot water by the fine diplomacy of his last sentence, immediately began to flounder and totally submerge himself. “No, Mist’ Bryant,” he repeated, “I won’t say ‘s I do know who b’longs ter dish yer knife, an’ I won’t say ‘s I don’t.” And he began to parrot this fatal sentence again and again. It seemed wound about his tongue. He could not rid himself of it. Its very power to make trouble for him seemed to originate the mysterious Afric reason for its repetition.
“Is he a very close friend of yourn?” said Bryant, softly.
“F-frien’?” stuttered Alek. He appeared to weigh this question with much care. “Well, seems like he was er frien’, an’ then agin, it seems like he—”
“It seems like he wasn’t?” asked Bryant.
“Yes, seh, jest so, jest so,” cried Alek. “Sometimes it seems like he wasn’t. Then agin—” He stopped for profound meditation.
The patience of the white man seemed inexhaustible. At length his low and oily voice broke the stillness. “Oh, well, of course if he’s a friend of yourn, Alek! You know I wouldn’t want to make no trouble for a friend of yourn.”
“Yes, seh,” cried the negro at once. “He’s er frien’ er mine. He is dat.”
“Well, then, it seems as if about the only thing to do is for you to tell me his name so’s I can send him his knife, and that’s all there is to it.”
Alek took off his hat, and in perplexity ran his hand over his wool. He studied the ground. But several times he raised his eyes to take a sly peep at the imperturbable visage of the white man. “Y — y — yes, Mist’ Bryant. ...I raikon dat’s erbout all what kin be done. I gwine tell you who b’longs ter dish yer knife.”
“Of course,” said the smooth Bryant, “it ain’t a very nice thing to have to do, but—”
“No, seh,” cried Alek, brightly; “I’m gwine tell you, Mist’ Bryant. I gwine tell you erbout dat knife. Mist’ Bryant,” he asked, solemnly, “does you know who b’longs ter dat knife?”
“No, I—”
“Well, I gwine tell. I gwine tell who, Mr Bryant—” The old man drew himself to a stately pose and held forth his arm. “I gwine tell who, Mist’ Bryant, dish yer knife b’longs ter Sam Jackson!”
“THE OLD MAN DREW HIMSELF TO A STATELY POSE”
Bryant was startled into indignation. “Who in hell is Sam Jackson?” he growled.
“He’s a nigger,” said Alek, impressively, “and he wuks in er lumber-yawd up yere in Hoswego.”
THE STOVE
I
THEY’LL bring her,” said Mrs. Trescott, dubiously. Her cousin, the painter, the bewildered father of the angel child, had written to say that if they were asked, he and his wife would come to the Trescotts for the Christmas holidays. But he had not officially stated that the angel child would form part of the expedition. “But of course they’ll bring her,” said Mrs. Trescott to her husband.
The doctor assented. “Yes, they’ll have to bring her. They wouldn’t dare leave New York at her mercy.”
“Well,” sighed Mrs. Trescott, after a pause, “the neighbors will be pleased. When they see her they’ll immediately lock up their children for safety.”
“Anyhow,” said Trescott, “the devastation of the Margate twins was complete. She can’t do that particular thing again. I shall be interested to note what form her energy will take this time.”
“Oh yes! that’s it!” cried the wife. “You’ll be interested. You’ve hit it exactly. You’ll be interested to note what form her energy will take this time. And then, when the real crisis comes, you’ll put on your hat and walk out of the house and leave me to straighten things out. This is not a scientific question; this is a practical matter.”
“Well, as a practical man, I advocate chaining her out in the stable,” answered the doctor.
When Jimmie Trescott was told that his old flame was again to appear, he remained calm. In fact, time had so mended his youthful heart that it was a regular apple of oblivion and peace. Her image in his thought was as the track of a bird on deep snow — it was an impression, but it did not concern the depths. However, he did what befitted his state. He went out and bragged in the street: “My cousin is comin’ next week f’om New York.” ...”My cousin is comin’ to-morrow f’om New York.”
“Girl or boy?” said the populace, bluntly; but, when enlightened, they speedily cried, “Oh, we remember her!” They were charmed, for they thought of her as an outlaw, and they surmised that she could lead them into a very ecstasy of sin. They thought of her as a brave bandit, because they had been whipped for various pranks into which she had led them. When Jimmie made his declaration, they fell into a state of pleased and shuddering expectancy.
Mrs. Trescott pronounced her point of view: “The child is a nice child, if only Caroline had some sense. But she hasn’t. And Willis is like a wax figure. I don’t see what can be done, unless — unless you simply go to Willis and put the whole thing right at him.” Then, for purposes of indication, she improvised a speech: “Look here, Willis, you’ve got a little daughter, haven’t you? But, confound it, man, she is not the only girl child ever brought into the sunlight. There are a lot of children. Children are an ordinary phenomenon. In China they drown girl babies. If you wish to submit to this frightful impostor and tyrant, that is all very well, but why in the name of humanity do you make us submit to it?”
“Anyhow,” said Mrs. Trescott, determinedly, “that is what you should say to him.”
“It wouldn’t do the slightest good. It would only make him very angry, and I would lay myself perfectly open to a suggestion that I had better attend to my own affairs with more rigor.”
“Well, I suppose you are right,” Mrs. Trescott again said.
“Why don’t you speak to Caroline?” asked the doctor, humorously.
“Speak to Caroline! Why, I wouldn’t for the world! She’d fly through the roof. She’d snap my head off! Speak to Caroline! You must be mad!”
One afternoon the doctor went to await his visitors on the platform of the railway station. He was thoughtfully smiling. For some quaint reason he was convinced that he was to be treated to a quick manifestation of little Cora’s peculiar and interesting powers. And yet, when the train paused at the station, there appeared to him only a pretty little girl in a fur-lined hood, and with her nose reddening from the sudden cold, and — attended respectfully by her parents. He smiled again, reflecting that he had comically exaggerated the dangers of dear little Cora. It amused his philosophy to note that he had really been perturbed.
As the big sleigh sped homeward there was a sudden shrill outcry from the angel child: “Oh, mamma! mamma! They’ve forgotten my stove!”
“Hush, dear; hush!” said the mother. “It’s all right.”
“Oh, but, mamma, they’ve forgotten my stove!”
The doctor thrust his chin suddenly out of his top-coat collar. “Stove?” he said. “Stove? What stove?”
“Oh, just a toy of the child’s,” explained the mother. “She’s grown so fond of it, she loves it so, that if we didn’t take it everywhere with her she’d suffer dreadfully. So we always bring it.”
“Oh!” said the doctor. He pictured a little tin trinket. But when the stove was really unmasked, it turned out to be an affair of cast iron, as big as a portmanteau, and, as the stage people say, practicable. There was some trouble that evening when came the hour of children’s bedtime. Little Cora burst into a wild declaration that she could not retire for the night unless the stove was carried up-stairs and placed, at her bedside. While the mother was trying to dissuade the child, the Trescott’s held their peace and gazed with awe. The incident closed when the lamb-eyed father gathered the stove in his arms and preceded the angel child to her chamber.
“THE LAMB-EYED FATHER PRECEDED THE ANGEL CHILD TO HER CHAMBER”
In the morning, Trescott was standing with his back to the dining room fire, awaiting breakfast, when he heard a noise of descending guests. Presently the door opened, and the party entered in regular order. First came the angel child, then the cooing mother, and last the great painter with his arm full of the stove. He deposited it gently in a corner, and sighed. Trescott wore a wide grin.
“What are you carting that thing all over the house for?” he said, brutally. “Why don’t you put it some place where she can play with it, and leave it there?”
The mother rebuked him with a look. “Well, if it gives her pleasure, Ned?” she expostulated, softly. “If it makes the child happy to have the stove with her, why shouldn’t she have it?”
“Just so,” said the doctor, with calmness.
Jimmie’s idea was the roaring fireplace in the cabin of the lone mountaineer. At first he was not able to admire a girl’s stove built on well-known domestic lines. He eyed it and thought it was very pretty, but it did not move him immediately. But a certain respect grew to an interest, and he became the angel child’s accomplice. And even if he had not
had an interest grow upon him, he was certain to have been implicated sooner or later, because of the imperious way of little Cora, who made a serf of him in a few swift sentences. Together they carried the stove out into the desolate garden and squatted it in the snow. Jimmie’s snug little muscles had been pitted against the sheer nervous vigor of this little golden-haired girl, and he had not won great honors. When the mind blazed inside the small body, the angel child was pure force. She began to speak: “Now, Jim, get some paper. Get some wood-little sticks at first. Now we want a match. You got a match? Well, go get a match. Get some more wood. Hurry up, now! No. No! I’ll light it my own self. You get some more wood. There! Isn’t that splendid? You get a whole lot of wood an’ pile it up here by the stove. An’ now what’ll we cook? We must have somethin’ to cook, you know, else it ain’t like the real.”
“Potatoes,” said Jimmie, at once.
The day was clear, cold, bright. An icy wind sped from over the waters of the lake. A grown person would hardly have been abroad save on compulsion of a kind, and yet, when they were called to luncheon, the two little simpletons protested with great cries.
II
The ladies of Whilomville were somewhat given to the pagan habit of tea parties. When a tea party was to befall a certain house one could read it in the manner of the prospective hostess, who for some previous days would go about twitching this and twisting that, and dusting here and polishing there; the ordinary habits of the household began then to disagree with her, and her unfortunate husband and children fled to the lengths of their tethers. Then there was a hush. Then there was a tea party. On the fatal afternoon a small picked company of latent enemies would meet. There would be a fanfare of affectionate greetings, during which everybody would measure to an inch the importance of what everybody else was wearing. Those who wore old dresses would wish then that they had not come; and those who saw that, in the company, they were well clad, would be pleased or exalted, or filled with the joys of cruelty. Then they had tea, which was a habit and a delight with none of them, their usual beverage being coffee with milk.
Usually the party jerked horribly in the beginning, while the hostess strove and pulled and pushed to make its progress smooth. Then suddenly it would be off like the wind, eight, fifteen, or twenty-five tongues clattering, with a noise like a cotton-mill combined with the noise of a few penny whistles. Then the hostess had nothing to do but to look glad, and see that everybody had enough tea and cake. When the door was closed behind the last guest, the hostess would usually drop into a chair and say: “Thank Heaven! They’re gone!” There would be no malice in this expression. It simply would be that, womanlike, she had flung herself headlong at the accomplishment of a pleasure which she could not even define, and at the end she felt only weariness.
The value and beauty, or oddity, of the tea-cups was another element which entered largely into the spirit of these terrible enterprises. The quality of the tea was an element which did not enter at all. Uniformly it was rather bad. But the cups! Some of the more ambitious people aspired to have cups each of a different pattern, possessing, in fact, the sole similarity that with their odd curves and dips of form they each resembled anything but a teacup. Others of the more ambitious aspired to a quite severe and godly “set,” which, when viewed, appalled one with its austere and rigid family resemblances, and made one desire to ask the hostess if the teapot was not the father of all the little cups, and at the same time protesting gallantly that such a young and charming cream-jug surely could not be their mother.
But of course the serious part is that these collections so differed in style and the obvious amount paid for them that nobody could be happy. The poorer ones envied; the richer ones feared; the poorer ones continually striving to overtake the leaders; the leaders always with their heads turned back to hear overtaking footsteps. And none of these things here written did they know. Instead of seeing that they were very stupid, they thought they were very fine. And they gave and took heart-bruises — fierce, deep heart-bruises — under the clear impression that of such kind of rubbish was the kingdom of nice people. The characteristics of outsiders of course emerged in shreds from these tea parties, and it is doubtful if the characteristics of insiders escaped entirely. In fact, these tea parties were in the large way the result of a conspiracy of certain unenlight
ened people to make life still more uncomfortable.
Mrs. Trescott was in the circle of tea-fighters largely through a sort of artificial necessity — a necessity, in short, which she had herself created in a spirit of femininity.
When the painter and his family came for the holidays, Mrs. Trescott had for some time been feeling that it was her turn to give a tea party, and she was resolved upon it now that she was reinforced by the beautiful wife of the painter, whose charms would make all the other women feel badly. And Mrs. Trescott further resolved that the affair should be notable in more than one way. The painter’s wife suggested that, as an innovation, they give the people good tea; but Mrs. Trescott shook her head; she was quite sure they would not like it.
It was an impressive gathering. A few came to see if they could not find out the faults of the painter’s wife, and these, added to those who would have attended even without that attractive prospect, swelled the company to a number quite large for Whilomville. There were the usual preliminary jolts, and then suddenly the tea party was in full swing, and looked like an unprecedented success.
Mrs. Trescott exchanged a glance with the painter’s wife. They felt proud and superior. This tea party was almost perfection.
III
Jimmie and the angel child, after being oppressed by innumerable admonitions to behave correctly during the afternoon, succeeded in reaching the garden, where the stove awaited them. They were enjoying themselves grandly, when snow began to fall so heavily that it gradually dampened their ardor as well as extinguished the fire in the stove. They stood ruefully until the angel child devised the plan of carrying the stove into the stable, and there, safe from the storm, to continue the festivities. But they were met at the door of the stable by Peter Washington.
“What you ‘bout, Jim?”
“Now — it’s snowin’ so hard, we thought we’d take the stove into the stable.”
“An’ have er fiah in it? No, seh! G’w’on ‘way f’m heh! — g’w’on! Don’ ‘low no sech foolishin’ round yer. No, seh!”
Complete Works of Stephen Crane Page 133
