The Light in the Clearing Part 17

"Why, Mr. Grimshaw, it's years since you've been in our house--ayes!"

said Aunt Deel.

"I suppose it is," he answered rather sharply. "I don't have much time to get around. I have to work. There's some people seem to be able to git along without it."

He drew in his breath quickly and with a hissing sound after every sentence.

"How are your folks?" my aunt asked.

"So's to eat their allowance--there's never any trouble about that,"

said Mr. Grimshaw. "I see you've got one o' these newfangled stoves," he added as he looked it over. "Huh! Rich folks can have anything they want."

Uncle Peabody had sat splintering the long stick of yellow birch. I observed that the jackknife trembled in his hand. His tone had a touch of unnaturalness, proceeding no doubt from his fear of the man before him, as he said:

"When I bought that stove I felt richer than I do now. I had almost enough to settle with you up to date, but I signed a note for a friend and had to pay it."

"Ayuh! I suppose so," Grimshaw answered in a tone of bitter irony which cut me like a knife-blade, young as I was. "What business have you signin' notes an' givin' away money which ain't yours to give--I'd like to know? What business have you actin' like a rich man when you can't pay yer honest debts? I'd like to know that, too?"

"If I've ever acted like a rich man it's been when I wa'n't lookin',"

said Uncle Peabody.

"What business have you got enlargin' yer family--takin' another mouth to feed and another body to spin for? That costs money. I ain't no objection if a man can afford it, but the money it costs ain't yours to give. It looks as if it belonged to me. You spend yer nights readin'

books when ye ought to be to work an' you've scattered that kind o'

foolishness all over the neighborhood. I want to tell you one thing, Baynes, you've got to pay up or git out o' here."

He raised his cane and shook it in the air as he spoke.

"Oh, I ain't no doubt o' that," said Uncle Peabody. "You'll have to have yer money--that's sure; an' you will have it if I live, every cent of it. This boy is goin' to be a great help to me--you don't know what a good boy he is and what a comfort he's been to us!"

I had understood that reference to me in Mr. Grimshaw's complaint and these words of my beloved uncle uncovered my emotions so that I put my elbow on the wood-box and leaned my head upon it and sobbed.

"I tell ye I'd rather have that boy than all the money you've got, Mr.

Grimshaw," Uncle Peabody added.

My aunt came and patted my shoulder and said: "Sh--sh--s.h.!.+ Don't you care, Bart! You're just the same as if you was our own boy--ayes!--you be."

"I ain't goin' to be hard on ye, Baynes," said Mr. Grimshaw as he rose from his chair; "I'll give ye three months to see what you can do. I wouldn't wonder if the boy would turn out all right. He's big an' cordy of his age an' a purty likely boy they tell me. He'd 'a' been all right at the county house until he was old enough to earn his livin', but you was too proud for that--wasn't ye? I don't mind pride unless it keeps a man from payin' his honest debts. You ought to have better sense."

"An' you ought to keep yer breath to cool yer porridge," said Uncle Peabody.

Mr. Grimshaw opened the door and stood for a moment looking at us and added in a milder tone: "You've got one o' the best farms in this town an' if ye work hard an' use common sense ye ought to be out o' debt in five years--mebbe less."

He closed the door and went away.

Neither of us moved or spoke as we listened to his footsteps on the gravel path that went down to the road and to the sound of his buggy as he drove away. Then Uncle Peabody broke the silence by saying:

"He's the dam'dest--"

He stopped, set the half-splintered stick aside, closed his jackknife and went to the water-pail to cool his emotions with a drink.

Aunt Deel took up the subject where he had dropped it, as if no half-expressed sentiment would satisfy her, saying:

"--old skinflint that ever lived in this world, ayes! I ain't goin' to hold down my opinion o' that man no longer, ayes! I can't. It's too powerful--ayes!"

Having recovered my composure I repeated that I should like to give up school and stay at home and work.

Aunt Deel interrupted me by saying:

"I have an idee that Sile Wright will help us--ayes! He's comin' home an' you better go down an' see him--ayes! Hadn't ye?"

"Bart an' I'll go down to-morrer," said Uncle Peabody.

I remember well our silent going to bed that night and how I lay thinking and praying that I might grow fast and soon be able to take the test of manhood--that of standing in a half-bushel measure and shouldering two bushels of corn. By and by a wind began to shake the popple leaves above us and the sound soothed me like the whispered "hush-sh" of a gentle mother.

We dressed with unusual care in the morning. After the ch.o.r.es were done and we had had our breakfast we went up-stairs to get ready.

Aunt Deel called at the bottom of the stairs in a generous tone:

"Peabody, if I was you I'd put on them b.u.t.ternut trousers--ayes! an' yer new s.h.i.+rt an' hat an' necktie, but you must be awful careful of 'em--ayes."

The hat and s.h.i.+rt and necktie had been stored in the clothes press for more than a year but they were nevertheless "new" to Aunt Deel. Poor soul! She felt the importance of the day and its duties. It was that ancient, Yankee dread of the poorhouse that filled her heart I suppose.

Yet I wonder, often, why she wished us to be so proudly adorned for such a crisis.

Some fourteen months before that day my uncle had taken me to Potsdam and traded grain and salts for what he called a "rip roarin' fine suit o' clothes" with boots and cap and s.h.i.+rt and collar and necktie to match, I having earned them by sawing and cording wood at three s.h.i.+llings a cord. How often we looked back to those better days! The clothes had been too big for me and I had had to wait until my growth had taken up the "slack" in my coat and trousers before I could venture out of the neighborhood. I had tried them on every week or so for a long time. Now my stature filled them handsomely and they filled me with a pride and satisfaction which I had never known before. The collar was too tight, so that Aunt Deel had to sew one end of it to the neckband, but my tie covered the sewing.

Since that dreadful day of the petticoat trousers my wonder had been regarding all integuments, what Sally Dunkelberg would say to them. At last I could start for Canton with a strong and capable feeling. If I chanced to meet Sally Dunkelberg I need not hide my head for shame as I had done that memorable Sunday.

"Now may the Lord help ye to be careful--awful, terrible careful o' them clothes every minute o' this day," Aunt Deel cautioned as she looked at me. "Don't git no horse sweat nor wagon grease on 'em."

To Aunt Deel wagon grease was the worst enemy of a happy and respectable home.

We hitched our team to the gra.s.shopper spring wagon and set out on our journey. It was a warm, hazy Indian-summer day in November. My uncle looked very stiff and sober in his "new" clothes. Such breathless excitement as that I felt when we were riding down the hills and could see the distant spires of Canton, I have never known since that day. As we pa.s.sed "the mill" we saw the Silent Woman looking out of the little window of her room above the blacksmith shop--a low, weather-stained, frame building, hard by the main road, with a narrow hanging stair on the side of it.

"She keeps watch by the winder when she ain't travelin'," said Uncle Peabody. "Knows all that's goin' on--that woman--knows who goes to the village an' how long they stay. When Grimshaw goes by they say she hustles off down the road in her rags. She looks like a sick dog herself, but I've heard that she keeps that room o' hers just as neat as a pin."

Near the village we pa.s.sed a smart-looking buggy drawn by a spry-footed horse in s.h.i.+ny harness. Then I noticed with a pang that our wagon was covered with dry mud and that our horses were rather bony and our harnesses a kind of lead color. So I was in an humble state of mind when we entered the village. Uncle Peabody had had little to say and I had kept still knowing that he sat in the shadow of a great problem.

There was a crowd of men and women in front of Mr. Wright's office and through its open door I saw many of his fellow townsmen. We waited at the door for a few minutes. I crowded in while Uncle Peabody stood talking with a villager. The Senator caught sight of me and came to my side and put his hand on my head and said:

"h.e.l.lo, Bart! How you've grown! and how handsome you look! Where's your uncle?"

"He's there by the door," I answered.

"Well, le's go and see him."

Then I followed him out of the office.

Mr. Wright was stouter and grayer and grander than when I had seen him last. He was dressed in black broadcloth and wore a big beaver hat and high collar and his hair was almost white. I remember vividly his clear, kindly, gray eyes and ruddy cheeks.