by Van Reid
But when asked, Grace explained that they were staying with the Underwoods until the wedding and managed to offer further details about that event. Phileda and Cordelia carried the lion’s share of talk. There were several stops before Freeport, and other travelers came and went, but the rainy miles clicked by all too quickly. Soon the station was announced and the one party prepared to get off. Mister Walton would have gone out with them if Aunt Delia had been there to meet them, but he said his good-byes instead in the aisle of the car. Good wishes were passed full circle, and at the last moment Sundry gave a curt nod and said he would see the women out. Mister Walton watched his young friend stride ahead of the trio, a little surprised at this level of gallantry.
“So this is the Cordelia, for whom you left my side last summer,” said Phileda recalling how Toby had gone to Millinocket to volunteer in the search for the kidnapped young woman.
“Well, yes,” he said with the slightest hint of apology.
“I think her well worth it,” said Phileda. “But how often has Sundry seen Miss Morningside?”
“Only the once, I think, when we visited the Underwoods last July.”
“She is a lovely young woman,” said Phileda. “Very sweet.” She shifted to the other side of the aisle so that they could look out on the platform.
“Yes,” agreed Mister Walton, still a little surprised. “It only takes one look.” And he gave Phileda a particular look when he said this. “He has mentioned her a time or two, now that I think of it, but he’s kept any feelings a secret ... till now.”
“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” She took Mister Walton’s arm. “He must go to the ball, and that is the final word.”
Mister Walton chuckled. “He doesn’t seem very keen on the idea.”
“He told Miss Morningside he would think about it.”
Stepping onto the rainy platform of Freeport Station, Sundry gave the conductor a meaningful nod and the fellow retreated a pace or two. The young man stood with his hat off and his head getting wet. Grace looked a little suspicious, but once she had unfurled her umbrella she took Sundry’s offered hand and nodded her thanks.
Cordelia managed to get herself in front of her cousin and brightly thanked Sundry when she came down. “Good heavens, Aunt Grace!” she said, scooting beneath the woman’s umbrella. “That man looks just like the Prince of Wales!” Aunt Grace had met the prince on his visit to Portland when she was a very little girl and counted it a prominent moment in her life. The reference was surprising, and a little confusing, to her. She turned away from the young man who was about to hand her daughter down and looked through the rain in the direction that her niece was pointing. “Right there, Aunt Grace! Why, he has a striped waistcoat!”
Sundry heard none of this. Priscilla Morningside hesitated only briefly at the top of the steps before putting her hand out.
“Thank you, Mr. Moss,” she said, somehow looking down with her head and up with her eyes. It was not a calculated expression, but it had every effect of the most practiced coquetry. She stood where she set her feet, unmindful of the weather, then stepped a little closer to him so that another passenger could reach the steps. The family with the young children had climbed down and were noisily hurrying toward the station house.
Sundry thought for a moment that his voice might not function properly but then he managed to say “It’s good to see you again, Miss Morningside” without causing himself too much embarrassment. “You should get under cover.”
“Yes,” she answered in a breath, a very small smile on her lips and a very large one in her eyes.
“Priscilla!” declared Grace. “Get under cover! What are you about?”
“Mr. Moss,” said Cordelia, “you must come visit us someday soon, in Portland, before the wedding.” She stepped back into the rain to shake Sundry’s hand again, managing at the same time to delay Priscilla’s departure.
“Yes, thank you,” said Sundry quietly.
Priscilla had hardly moved since he let go her hand; her nearness to him, and Cordelia’s example, gave her every excuse to offer it to him again. Her shoulders were unnaturally lifted against the rain, or her mother’s disapproval, or her own reticent nature.
“Cordelia, I don’t know what you were talking about,” said Grace. “He didn’t look a bit like the prince. The prince has such a noble bearing and a grand beard. You would recognize him in an instant. Priscilla, come. We must find a porter and a carriage.”
“Bye,” said Priscilla simply before letting go of Sundry’s hand.
He nodded and gestured with his hat.
The conductor must have been a man of sympathetic nature, for he crossed before Sundry and stood in such a way that the young man might appear to be speaking with him while he watched Priscilla hurrying through the rain with her cousin and mother. “A very pretty young woman,” said the man.
Sundry didn’t remember to put his hat back on.
When the women had gone round the station with a porter, the conductor walked back toward the station house calling, “All aboard for Freeport, Brunswick, Cooks Corners, Harding, New Meadows, Ba-ath, Wiscasset, and points Ea-aist!”
“They are lovely young women,” said Phileda when Sundry returned.
“Do you think?” he replied.
“They are going to the ball.”
Mister Walton was looking out the window.
“I hope they find something nice to wear,” said Sundry.
8. The Attempted Reciprocation of Thaddeus Q. Spark
Mr. Joseph Thump peered from his parlor window and thought that there was a good deal of foot traffic along India Street for such a rainy morning. The oak before the house where he kept rooms drooped with newly budded leaves and dripped with an accumulated mist that also gathered on the window and warped his view. The macadam pavement of India Street glowed darkly. Several people beyond the gate and along the sidewalk appeared to take an interest in the house this morning. Perhaps a branch had come down. He leaned, first to one side, then another, bending his eyes toward the lawn.
“Hmmm,” he said himself. He slipped from his jacket pocket an almanac of tides (complete with adjustments for several localities along the immediate coast) and opened this to the appropriate page to consider the hours and minutes of high water that day. Every day, Thump compared the predictions of his almanac with those in the newspaper, and occasionally the Portland Courier and Captain Farthing’s Almanac of Time and Tide would disagree as to the exact moment of high water by as much as two or three minutes. He never felt quite right on such days.
As it happened, he felt a little out of kilter today, though for other reasons. Near at hand, upon the table by his favorite chair, was his crushed wallet. In his vest pocket was the item he so forcefully rescued the night before; he took this article from the pocket now, as he had done a dozen times since rising this morning, and considered it with a deep sigh.
There was a light rap at the hall door and he knew this would be his landlady, Mrs. Wilbur, with breakfast. Mrs. Wilbur and Millicent, the maid, set his place and arranged the several trays and plates and the day’s edition of the Portland Courier in the little dining room across from the parlor, but he waited till they were nearly done before he came in and thanked them. Mrs. Wilbur saw immediately the welt on his forehead.
“All that’s good, Mr. Thump!” she said. “What has happened to you?”
“I was struck by a piano key, Mrs. Wilbur,” he reported. “Thank you for asking.” His head was still ringing a little, now he thought of it.
“My stars, Mr. Thump! That’s a nasty swipe. Did you fall?”
“No, Mrs. Wilbur. The piano did.” Thump was lost in recollection and did not consider the image this news, coupled with his bruised head, might engender in a person’s mind.
“Well, I don’t wonder your head should ache,” said the astonished woman. “Take some tea and eat hearty, sir.” She scooted the maid out before her. Millicent was a plump young woman who was not easily r
oused from a generally bland expression, but she had taken great interest in the idea of a piano falling on Mr. Thump’s forehead. “Out, out,” Mrs. Wilbur said as she hied Millicent from the hall.
Something occurred to Thump as he regarded his breakfast and he returned to the parlor to look from the window again. What he saw roused a deep “Hmmm” of curiosity from him.
He was sorry not to do justice to his breakfast this morning, only managing a serving or two of sausage and eggs and toast and jam and smoked trout and potatoes and tea. He tried a sweet roll after this and felt quite done in, which was not like him. He had poured himself another cup of tea and wondered if it would be proper to go back to the parlor with it. He often referred to Mister Walton (or the Mister Walton in his mind) when he was faced with such quandaries and could not imagine the good man objecting to a body sipping tea on his feet. Consequently, Thump found himself standing at the parlor window considering the crowd on the rainy sidewalk and completely forgetting the cup and saucer in his hands.
Several of the people standing beyond the gate were some of the same several people who were standing there when he last looked, and when he had looked the time before that.
There was a small familiar rap at his door and Mrs. Wilbur leaned in from the hall. “Mr. Thump?” she queried in a strange little voice.
“Hmmm?” he said.
“Mr. Thump, there’s a Mr. Spark to see you.” She looked very searchingly at her boarder, as if she had not seen him properly before.
Thump felt strange, standing in the parlor with his cup of tea and saucer, and stranger still standing at the door with them. Mrs. Wilbur took no note but only looked at him some more, and said again, “A Mr. Spark to see you, Mr. Thump. I told him you were injured and he seemed to know it.”
Thump frowned thoughtfully, an expression that remained hidden behind his beard. Mrs. Wilbur was waiting. “Mr. Spark?” said Thump.
“And a boy,” said she.
“And a boy,” he echoed. He was reminded of Eagleton’s poem of the night before, but he had not seen seven robins; that had been Mister Walton. Thump had seen some robins the day before, but he had not counted them.
“They seem a little—’ began Mrs. Wilbur in a confidential tone. “Well, a little rough around the edges, if I might say it, though if they’re friends of yours I’m sure they’re nice enough.”
Mr. Spark, thought Thump. He only knew the one Mr. Spark, and that was the man who was nearly run over by their carriage yesterday evening. He hadn’t considered that fellow to be rough and thought it untoward of Mrs. Wilbur to suggest such a thing. He didn’t know many boys either, though he had spent some time in the company of a little fellow of four or five last fall and thought him pleasant. He was further disconcerted to notice that Millicent was staring at him over Mrs. Wilbur’s shoulder. It did not occur to him that they were startled by the resemblance between himself and Mr. Spark.
“Shall I tell them you’re indisposed, sir?” said Mrs. Wilbur.
Again, he thought of Mister Walton and could not imagine the chairman of the Moosepath League agreeing to any such subterfuge; the chairman would be glad of company and perhaps Thump had invited Mr. Spark to drop by, though he didn’t recall. “I will put my cup and saucer down,” he said decisively. “You may show them in, Mrs. Wilbur, and thank you.”
This was the prosperous side of town and Timothy Spark had not spent much time here. He thought the house on India Street was splendid, with its granite steps and wrought-iron fence; everything was outsized and marvelous—the great front door, the spacious hallway, the broad, dark stairs. While the landlady let them in, Tim waved to Mail on, who waited on the sidewalk in the rain. Tim’s father shook his umbrella closed and gripped it in one large paw.
Thaddeus gave his son certain last-minute instructions as the landlady led them up to the rooms of the mysterious Mr. Thump. The maid stood at the railing above and watched with undisguised interest while Tim and his dad mounted the stairs. Both women stared at Thaddeus Spark till the boy looked to see if his dad had food in his beard.
The landlady stopped them at the head of the stairs. Tim sensed an unfamiliar stillness beyond the door that led to Mr. Thump’s apartments—not simply a lack of many voices and lives jostling elbow to elbow but a palpable near silence, as if thought itself (but only thought) had thickened into something real. It was an alien sensation that perplexed the boy.
The landlady knocked lightly, and when the door was opened and she had announced them Tim saw past her elbow the man called Mr. Thump.
“Yes,” came a deep voice.
“Mr. Spark to see you, Mr. Thump,” said the woman. “And the boy.
Tim’s mouth opened and hung there. There were three elements about Mr. Thump that did not resemble Tim’s father: the first was Mr. Thump’s expression, which appeared uncertain, while Thaddeus typically exhibited more confidence than a card shark at country house poker; the second and third were Mr. Thump’s expensive trappings and the deep rumble of Mr. Thump’s voice. It was most extraordinary to see his father’s likeness dressed in such prosperous clothes, and speaking in oboelike tones.
“Mr. Thump,” said Tim’s father.
“Mr. Spark,” said Mr. Thump as he let them in; his expression indicated that the resemblance between himself and Thaddeus continued to surprise him as well. The visitors held their caps before them, their raincoats damp; Tim was fascinated as he scanned the hall furnishings and the glimpses of parlor and dining room that could be seen from the door. His father smelled strongly (and pleasantly, Tim thought) of lye soap.
“I do hope we waited long enough for you to rise and have some breakfast,” said Thaddeus. “I have come with double gratitude this morning, to thank you again for your presence on Commercial Street, but mostly to thank you for your Christian behavior of last night, and to offer whatever services my family might humbly provide you for saving my wife’s uncle.”
Tim’s father had not taken into consideration Mr. Thump’s knowledge (or lack thereof) concerning Mrs. Spark’s family. Thump did, in fact, attempt to reconcile this man’s wife’s uncle with the young police officer Calvin Drum. “It was more in the way of an accident, sir,” he said quietly.
“You are kind to say so, Mr. Thump,” said Thaddeus, misunderstanding the man’s meaning. “But Gillie is liable to accidents, and the worst kind, for sure. It takes quite a lot of accident to get a piano up a flight of steps and over a balcony railing, and I told my wife as much this morning after we visited him.”
“Your wife’s uncle, Mr. Spark?”
Mr. Spark answered in the affirmative with that abrupt Yankee inhalation that has busied linguists and baffled imitation. It was, in fact, the famous ‘ayuh“ that sounds differently on every peninsula in the State of Maine, and never anything like the letters that have been assembled to represent it.
Mr. Thump ventured forth again with, "Your wife’s uncle is-?”
“Gillie Hicks,” confirmed Tim’s father with a nod. “And had you not pulled Calvin Drum to safety, Mr. Thump, Gillie would be looking at the rest of his life behind bars. He’s an old rounder from way back, but it would have broke Mabel’s heart to see him plunked for murder.”
“Certainly, I am glad for her,” said the gallant rescuer, though he looked far from certain about anything.
“I knew you would be.” Tim’s father stood straighter, now that he had gotten this out of the way. “Now, ‘one good turn deserves something else,’ as the saying goes, Mr. Thump.” Thaddeus accepted the dearth of response as an invitation to continue. “‘Reciprocate,’ my old ma used to say, and it was not many years ago I asked someone what she meant. I heard something like it last winter at church. We go sometimes, Mrs. Spark and myself. And she says to me this morning, Mrs. Spark did, ‘Thaddeus, you find where Mr. Thump hangs his hat, and you go down there and offer up some service for his saving Uncle Gill.’ I was of the same mind myself.”
“I assure you, Mr. Spark,” rumbled M
r. Thump, “the necessity of any such ... service is ... unnecessary.”
Thaddeus didn’t seem to hear this. “You would do us a great favor, Mr. Thump,” he said, “by allowing us to do you a favor.” Recalling the presence of his youngest son, he put an arm over Tim’s shoulders and drew him forward. “I beg your pardon,” said Thaddeus. “This is Timothy K. Spark, my youngest boy. He’s a little thin but he’s wiry. Perhaps you might find him useful, running errands or the like. He can spit-shine a boot so’s you can see your face in it. I put him at your full disposal.”
Tim’s father gave Tim a gentle whack on the back and the boy stepped forward. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Thump,” said Tim, which greeting had been carefully rehearsed.
“Yes,” said Mr. Thump. He shook the boy’s hand carefully. The elder and younger Sparks could not know that it took all of Joseph Thump’s Waltonian observation and knowledge to respond to such a crisis. “I couldn’t accept your generous offer, Mr. Spark,” he said, “for something that so little put me out of my way.”
Tim’s father was a sympathetic man; he told the family later that they would only abash Mr. Thump by pressing their desire to reciprocate. “Ah, well, Mr. Thump,” said Thaddeus, “we’ll bide a while for another opportunity. Gillie’s in the lockup, by the way, and sends his best.”
Mr. Thump had the look of a man who had never been sent anyone’s best from jail, but he managed to mumble something encouraging in return.
The landlady, still at the door, swung it wide now to encourage Tim and his father to exit. She continued to glance from the taverner to Mr. Thump with wide eyes. “Saved a man’s life, you say?” she queried Tim’s father when the door was shut and they descended the broad stairs.
