Brownsmith's Boy Part 51

"Right and wrong, my lad," he said, whipping out his knife and cutting them free. "Look here."

He took a piece of wet matting--a mere strip--and tied them up again, with his big fingers moving so quickly and cleverly that I wondered.

"There, that's the way. Looks the same as you did it, eh?"

"Yes," I said, smiling.

"No, it isn't. You tied yours in front of the stem, with an ugly knot to rub and fret it, and make a sore place when the windows were open.

I've put a neat band round mine, and the knot rests on the stick."

"Oh, I see!" I cried.

"Yes, Grant, there's a right way and a wrong way, and somehow the natural way is generally the wrong. Never saw one tried, but I believe if you took a savage black and told him to get up on a horse, he would go on the wrong side, put his left foot in the stirrup, and throw his right leg over, and come down sitting with his face to the tail.

Breakfast."

"What! so soon?" I said.

"Soon! Why, it's past eight."

I was astounded, the time had gone so quickly; and soon after I was saying "good morning" to Mrs Solomon, and partaking of the plain meal.

"Well?" said Mrs Solomon in her cold impa.s.sive way.

Mr Solomon was so busy with a piece of cold bacon and some bread that he did not look up, and Mrs Solomon waited patiently till he raised his head and gave her a nod.

"I am glad," she said, giving a sigh as if she were relieved; and then she turned to me and looked quite pleasantly at me, and taking my cup, refilled it with coffee, and actually smiled.

"Notice the missus?" said Mr Solomon, as, after a glance at his big silver watch, he had suddenly said "Harpusate," and led the way to the vineries.

"Notice Mrs Brownsmith?" I said.

"Yes; see anything about her?"

"I thought she looked better this morning than she did last night. Was she ill?"

"Yes," he said shortly. "Get them steps."

I fetched _them_ steps, and thought that a gardener might just as well be grammatical.

He opened them out, and opening his knife, cut a few strands of matting ready, stuck them under one of his braces, after taking off his coat, and then climbed up to the top to tie in a long green cane of the grape-vine.

"Hold the steps steady," he said; and then with his head in amongst the leaves he went on talking.

"Bit queer in the head," he said slowly, and with his face averted.

"s.h.i.+ed at you."

I stared. His wife was not a horse, and I thought they were the only things that s.h.i.+ed; but I found I was wrong, for Mr Solomon went on:

"I did, too. Ezra said a lot about you. Fine young shoot this, ain't it?"

I said it was, for it was about ten feet long and as thick as my finger, and it seemed wonderful that it should have grown like that in a few months; but all the time my cheeks were tingling as I wondered what Old Brownsmith had said about me.

"Sounded all right, but it's risky to take a boy into your house when you are comfortable without, you see."

I felt ashamed and hurt that I should have been talked of so, and remained silent.

"The missus said you might be dirty and awkward in the house. This cane will be loaded next year if we get it well ripened this year, Grant.

That's why I'm tying it in here close to the gla.s.s, where it'll get plenty of sun and air."

"What! will that bear grapes next year, sir?" I said, for I felt obliged to say something.

"Yes; and when the leaves are off you shall cut this one right out down at the bottom yonder."

He tapped a beautiful branch or cane from the main stem, which was bearing about a dozen fine bunches of grapes, and it seemed a pity; but of course he knew best, and he began cutting and snapping out shoots and big leaves between the new green cane and the gla.s.s.

"She was afraid you'd be a nuisance to me, and said you'd be playing with tops, and throwing stones, and breaking the gla.s.s. I told her that Brother Ezra wouldn't send me such a boy as that; but she only shook her head. 'I know what boys are,' she said. 'Look at her ladys.h.i.+p's two.'

But I said that you wouldn't be like them, and you won't, will you?"

I laughed, for it seemed such a comical idea for me to be behaving as Mrs Solomon had supposed.

"What are you laughing at?" he said, looking down at me.

"I was thinking about what Mrs Brownsmith said," I replied.

"Oh yes! To be sure," he continued. "You'll like her. She's a very nice woman. A very good woman. I've known her thirty years."

"Have you had any children, sir?" I said.

"No," he replied, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye; "and yet I've always been looking after nurseries--all my life."

In about an hour he finished his morning work in the vinery, and I went out with him in the garden, where he left me to tidy up a great bed of geraniums with a basket and a pair of scissors.

"I've got to see to the men now," he said. "By-and-by we'll go and have a turn at the cuc.u.mbers."

The bed I was employed upon was right away from the house in a sort of nook where the lawn ran up amongst some great Portugal laurels. It was a ma.s.s of green and scarlet, surrounded by shortly cropped gra.s.s, and I was very busy in the hot suns.h.i.+ne, enjoying my task, and now and then watching the thrushes that kept hopping out on to the lawn and then back under the shelter of the evergreens, when I suddenly saw a shadow, and, turning sharply, found that my friend of the peach-house had come softly up over the gra.s.s with another lad very much like him, but a little taller, and probably a couple of years older.

"Hullo, pauper!" said the first.

I felt my cheeks tingle, and my tongue wanted to say something very sharp, but I kept my teeth closed for a moment and then said:

"Good morning, sir!"

He took no notice of this, but turned to his brother and whispered something, when they both laughed together; and as I bent down over my work I felt as if I must have looked very much like one of the scarlet geraniums whose dead blossom stems I was taking out.

Of course, a boy with a well-balanced brain and plenty of sound, honest, English stuff in him ought to be able to treat with contempt the jeering and laughter of those who are teasing him; but somehow I'm afraid that there are very few boys who can bear being laughed at with equanimity.

I know, to be frank, I could not, for as those two lads stared at me and then looked at each other and whispered, and then laughed heartily-- well, no; not heartily, but in a forced way, I felt my face burn and my fingers tingle. My mouth seemed to get a little dry, too, and the thought came upon me in the midst of my sensations that I wanted to get up and fight.

The circ.u.mstances were rather exceptional, for I was suffering from two sore places. One started from my shoulder and went down my back, where there must have been the mark of the cane; the other was a mental sore, caused by the word _pauper_, which seemed to rankle and sting more than the cut from the cane.