by Van Reid
“I saw seven robins in the front yard this morning,” said Mister Walton
Eagleton was much taken with this intelligence. “My mother used to sing a verse about robins,” he said, and he had such a faraway look upon his face that his companions stilled their talk and considered the tall, handsome fellow till he spoke again, or, in this case, almost sang:
“‘The robin is a fairy creature,
Sweet of voice, and fair of feature;
One upon the grass so green,
Is thought a visitor to mean;
Two upon the tended lawn,
Tells us soon the sun is gone;
Three in any way or form,
Conjures up a summer storm;
Count four of this redbreasted bird,
And true love’s name will next be heard;
Five means luck, and six means laughter,
And happy tidings ever after;
But seven robins hopping, dear,
Will tell you some sweet child draws near.’”
There was something in Eagleton’s voice—in the song, and in the image of a mother singing it to her son—that caused Mister Walton to blink a little, and none of them were unmoved. Thump had something in his throat, and Ephram something in his eye. Sundry Moss, having taken his pause and a draught of air, nodded, as if in agreement with some newfound verity.
“That is lovely,” said Phileda McCannon, and she reached out and squeezed Eagleton’s hand. Eagleton reddened to the ears.
Sundry went ahead and spoke to a cabdriver, who waited with his horse and rig before the restaurant.
“Occasional showers tomorrow are probable,” said Eagleton, by way of good night when the remainder of the party reached the sidewalk.
Thump shook Mister Walton’s hand, and then Sundry’s, saying, “High tide at 8:48,” and Mister Walton beamed, as if this were the happiest of news.
Ephram bowed to Miss McCannon as he glimpsed at his watch. “It is 9:43,” he informed them all.
“I think we will walk, thank you,” said Eagleton when Mister Walton asked the three members if they would like to share the cab. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump often chose to walk after these gustatory occasions. Their chairman was a famous walker and they felt it behooved them to exercise their ambulatory muscles, as chance offered, with the hope of someday nearing his energetic pace.
“The fog is coming in,” said Sundry while he held the door of the carriage for Miss McCannon and Mister Walton. A sea mist had traveled the wharves and was now studying the nearest sidewalk with exploratory tendrils.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump continued to wave and forward their good wishes, particularly to Miss McCannon. They did not spare the driver their best, either, and touched their hats to the man as he chucked the reins and drove away. Mister Walton glanced out the carriage window as they turned up the hill, and caught sight of the three distinctive silhouettes beneath the streetlamp in front of the Shipswood Restaurant.
To begin with, it was a quiet ride to the City Hotel on Middle Street. Mister Walton said “You will write?” to Miss McCannon, and she replied sincerely “No doubt, as soon as I arrive.”
Mister Walton made a small sound (a mild version of Mr. Thump’s Hmmm) as an inward sort of expression captured his face. A certain question had been raised between himself and Miss McCannon, and Phileda, for reasons mysterious even to herself, had put off the simple answer.
Phileda McCannon had lived by herself for a good many years and perhaps realized, when Tobias Walton hinted at changing this state, that she had never appreciated the autonomy of her situation. She counted herself selfish and yet wondered if it were essential that she eke some conscious understanding of what her life had been thus far before moving into what it might be. She had never considered the satisfactions of being on one’s own, having spent her adult life outstripping loneliness with purpose and swift motion. The worst of it was an inability to articulate her crowded emotions to her patient beau.
Mister Walton’s response was puzzlement, just this side of hurt; his own lone state he considered unlikable and time away from Phileda to be wasted. It could be expected that his feelings would differ, as autonomy was something a man of his era (of most eras, to be sure) might take for granted.
Sundry knew that an offer on his part to go home by separate conveyance would be greeted by embarrassed of course nots and hasty don’t be sillys, but they might otherwise have done him a favor, for he experienced the awkward silence between these two usually fluent people with a little impatience.
They stopped for traffic at a crossing and waited for the evening’s last trolley to the Grand Trunk Depot to pass. “‘“In spring,’” said Mister Walton, almost beneath hearing, “‘a livelier iris changes—’”
This reminded Phileda of earlier conversation, and as the carriage rolled forward again, she said to Sundry, “You spoke of your father’s surprise when he asked your mother to marry him. Was your mother very astonished?”
“I’m not sure,” said Sundry. “I think he had to mention it to her three or four times before he could get her to listen very closely.”
Phileda made a silent O with her mouth. Mister Walton chuckled. They spoke then about Orland, where Phileda was going tomorrow, and Mister Walton’s house, which he had thought he was coming to close up and sell when he returned to Portland the previous summer, and Moss Farm, where Sundry had been born and raised. Sundry had been home to Edgecomb over Christmas, but he was hankering to see it again. They spoke of the play that Ephram had read about.
All too quickly, they arrived at the hotel, and Mister Walton saw Phileda to the foyer, where he held both her hands in his and practiced a willful, if uncharacteristic, sigh.
“Toby,” she said with more affection welling in her eyes than she might have cared to reveal in a public place.
“Shall I meet you in Hallowell when you come home?” he asked simply.
Feeling more selfish than ever, she nodded. She leaned forward and kissed him quickly and softly, then climbed the broad stairs of the hotel to her rooms. She had the image of the man standing in the foyer, looking lonely and perplexed, but when she went to the window the carriage was gone. She sat in the near dark, considering the still room and barely hearing the muted sounds of the hotel about her. What was it about this loneliness, she wondered, that could attract her away from a man like Toby Walton? What perverse imp, or unarticulated fear held her in abeyance? She had been a small bit annoyed at his indecisive courtship before he declared his love for her; she had kissed him passionately when he did declare it; yet as the winter wore on, she had grown fearful of what she had wanted and perhaps needed since meeting him.
She had been accused in the past of impulsiveness, but it often takes a good deal of preparation to appear unstudied and precipitate. Her mother (her dear mother) had been the only one to see Phileda as a willful eccentric. “It is well to be yourself, my sweet,” her mother had told her once, “but you should not have to think about it so much.”
There in the shadowed room, Phileda smiled through her tears to recall her mother’s voice. Phileda was so practiced at something near carelessness with herself that she feared she might easily be careless with another. And perhaps she had. “It’s not a problem, Phileda” was something her father used to say when she showed exasperation with a pent-up and cautious world. He could not have suspected (she could never have suspected) that his daughter was, in her own way, pent-up and cautious.
“It’s not a problem,” she said to herself there in the hotel room.
Back in the carriage, Mister Walton’s gloom was plain, and Sundry thought it polite to allow his friend and employer a minute or two to apprehend these honest feelings, but no more. The driver was turning the rig onto Congress Street when the young man said, “I thought those men must have been chasing Mr. Spark.”
“What was that?” said Mister Walton, which proved how abstracted he was. “I beg your pardon,” he amended.
“I th
ink Mr. Spark was being chased.”
Mister Walton took a moment to register this thought.
Sundry said, “It makes me wonder who or what he was waiting for when we met him.”
Mister Walton continued to think rather than answer.
“They’ll be planting at the farm,” said Sundry.
The fog had not yet reached Spruce Street when they pulled up before Mister Walton’s house, though the stars south and east of them were dim or altogether obscured. It had been a warm day for May, but it was good to get indoors as night reinforced its authority. A bit of the night had followed them in, Sundry thought, and it was a few minutes before he realized that it was not the hour but Mister Walton’s distraction that shadowed them.
They hung their coats and hats in the hall and retired to the kitchen, where, as was usual, they discovered a sweet note, and something sweet to eat besides, from Mrs. Baffin, the elderly retainer who, with her husband, cooked and cared for ‘young Toby“ still.
“My word,” said Mister Walton when he saw the small hill of lemon curd tarts on the kitchen table. “I ate so well at dinner, I’m not sure I can do these justice.”
“She’ll be disillusioned if we don’t do something with them,” said Sundry
Mister Walton chuckled. “I’ll get some milk from the icebox.”
While Sundry brought the glasses down from the cupboard, Mister Walton made the discovery of an envelope beneath Mrs. Baffin’s message. “A bit of mail for you,” he said, and, lifting it to his bespectacled gaze, added, “from Edgecomb.”
When the milk was poured, Sundry sat down and inspected the envelope, then his name and Mister Walton’s address, the return address of L. M., Moss Farm, Edgecomb, Maine, and the three-cent stamp bearing the likeness of Washington. He helped himself to a tart before passing the plate to Mister Walton.
Seldom has there been so sturdy a relationship between a man and his employer that was yet so vaguely defined as that between Sundry Moss and Mister Walton and yet it troubled neither of them. Mister Walton had hired the young man very much on the edge of a whim, and Sundry had responded by proving invaluable as a companion and diligent as an extra hand. He might have been a butler, or even a valet, if Mister Walton had needed such attention, but he did bring in the wood and coal, and he was good at repairing things. He carried their bags when they traveled, which seemed to be often. He was, above all, an excellent companion.
No specific duties had been assigned, and no certain salary had been discussed, so the first time that Sundry discovered on his dresser an envelope with his name on it and money in it he had responded with embarrassment. It was as if his father had offered to pay him for milking the cows. It seemed absurd, however, that he would continue doing for Mister Walton for nothing, and Sundry dealt with the situation by claiming that he had been paid too much. Mister Walton informed him that the amount was perhaps too little. Both saw the wisdom of never raising the subject again.
So Sundry could help himself to a glass of milk and a tart while taking the trouble to serve what he was indulging in and see no contradiction in his behavior. Mister Walton, for his part, accepted Sundry’s service like the generosity of a friend. Watching Sundry consider the letter before opening it, the bespectacled gentleman knew a vicarious pleasure that is only experienced through true friendship and regard.
Sundry finished one end of the tart, licked the tips of his fingers, and opened the envelope. A sheaf of paper came out, and he unfolded this to consider his mother’s handwriting, which was the definition of fine and proper.
Dear Sundry,
It seems a long while since Christmas when everyone was here. I heard from Varius the other day, so I am thinking it high time I got another letter from you as well. He visited Uncle Cyrus last February and I have heard about their time together from both of them. Cyrus writes that everyone wintered well, folk and animal alike, though he says “Old Rheum” has taken up permanent lodging. A cup of Beth’s birch-bark tea in the morning sets him up quite nicely, he says, and I will have to try this out on your father.
Varius drove on the ice straight down the Kennebec to Uncle Cyrus’s, I am told, though I don’t like to think of it.
Lillian Moss was writing about Sundry’s twin brother, Varius. “My brother was up to visit my Uncle Cyrus last February,” said Sundry. “Drove straight down the river.”
“It is a picture,” said Mister Walton. He and Sundry knew something about adventurous sleighing themselves.
Cyrus seems in a mood for reminiscence, and I wonder if he might benefit from more visitors. He tells of sitting on his porch now, with summer on its way, and thinking on meeting you at the station in past years. He did enjoy having young people around the place.
The young man could see his Great-uncle Cyrus as he read, and Sundry’s face reported happy, if wistful, memories.
He speaks of Myrtle and Martin and how they wanted to be sure he would write hello to you. I always half suspected that Myrtle was sweet on you.
Had Mister Walton been privy to the details of the letter, and had he also been watching his friend close enough to detect a slight change in Sundry’s expression he might have wondered if Myrtle’s regard had not been entirely unrequited. He was, however, peering at his lemon tart, as if certain mysteries might be solved by the close observation of it. “Mrs. Baffin has put something interesting in this,” he ventured.
Sundry broke away from his letter long enough to sample the pastry before him. For a long moment they ruminated over this enigma, and Sundry even wafted the tart beneath his nose. “There is something,” he agreed.
I understand Cyrus’s loneliness. The farm here is busy enough, but I have been missing small children about the place now that Bowdoin has turned ten and thinks he’s too old to coddle. Things must be very quiet on Cyrus’s farm of a spring day.
“My mother is suggesting,” said Sundry, “and not too lightly, that I might visit Uncle Cyrus, up at Norridgewock.”
“You used to stay with him in the summer, didn’t you?”
“Five summers in a row.”
“You always speak so fondly of him.”
“He’s a grand fellow,” said Sundry, and he returned to his letter.
I wrote to him a few weeks back and told him about meeting Mister Walton when you both visited Edgecomb last September. Perhaps you can bring him up that way with you so that Cyrus can tell Mister Walton about all the mischief you used to get into.
“Mother would like you to meet him,” said Sundry to Mister Walton, who had fallen briefly into a brown study. Sundry glanced at the next line in his mother’s letter and said, “She sends her best greetings.”
“And to her,” said Mister Walton as if Sundry might communicate these sentiments then and there. Then seemingly from nowhere, he added, “Phileda will be taking the 7:15 east from Grand Trunk.”
“We would have to get off at Brunswick,” said Sundry.
“Which is some distance along the track to Orland and Phileda’s destination.”
“The Maine Coast Railroad runs from Brunswick to Waterville, a short jog on the Maine Central goes to Oakland, and from there the Springfield Terminal deposits a person very nearly at Norridgewock.”
“I suggest,” said Mister Walton, “that we allow whatever breeze or notion to nudge us.”
“I was thinking,” said Sundry in agreement.
“We will begin by visiting your Uncle Cyrus.”
“Or Miss McCannon.”
Mister Walton smiled. Then, as if to justify himself, he added, “I was going to see her off, but I will just see her off in Brunswick rather than Portland. And we will return in plenty of time to attend the June Ball.”
“For you to attend,” said Sundry.
“Phileda seemed quite struck by the idea of your going.”
“Yes, she did,” said Sundry.
“We will go to Norridgewock, and allow whatever breeze to nudge.”
“I warn you, Miss McCannon may t
hink you’re on an adventure.”
“If there is the smallest gleam in my eye, you must speak to me,” said Mister Walton, his good humor restored. His heart was conscious of a reprieve. He would spend some extra hour or more, some few more miles with Phileda, and the thought of movement, of travel, stirred him from his doldrums.
Said Sundry, “If there is a gleam in your eye while Miss McCannon is near, I will let her draw her own conclusions.”
4. Kitchen Implements and Animal Intuition
“The atmospherics tonight bode something further than spring,” said Christopher Eagleton. Weather and its variability were his constant fascinations, and he read the prognostications every day in the Republican Portland Daily Advertiser, which journal he carried, even now, beneath one arm. Though the oldest of the three charter members, his animated demeanor, his blond hair and clean-shaven face gave him the appearance of a younger man. He was the Methodist among them.
They considered the sky for a time, then at Ephram’s bold suggestion they followed Commercial Street past the Sugar Refinery and almost to the Boston & Maine Railroad Depot, which was a portion of the waterfront they had rarely frequented. The lamps along this end of the avenue were bright, but fog had drifted off the harbor and the three friends were under the half-conscious perception that the buildings grew taller and more crowded, and the local surroundings dimmer and danker, as they walked. “I was very taken with your story concerning Miss Tucker at the Portland Theater, Ephram,” said Eagleton when they had considered his atmospherics for a moment.
“You are very kind,” replied Ephram—he of the fine mustaches. Ephram waved his copy of the city’s Democratic journal, the Eastern Argus, by way of gesture. Matthew Ephram carried about him three or four watches, so that, in a quiet room, he might sound like a piece of clockwork himself. His home was vastly populated with clocks and chronometers and even the silent hourglass slipping the minutes between the gongs and cuckoos; and every Sunday he reconciled his pocket watches (and, from these, the clocks at home) with the timepiece in the vestry of Portland’s Free Baptist Church. “Very kind,” he said again.
