The Portygee Part 25

"To pack up my things."

"To pack up your things! To pack up--Humph! So you really mean it!

You're really goin' to quit me like this? And your grandma, too!"

The young man felt a sudden pang of compunction, a twinge of conscience.

"Grandfather," he said, "I'm sorry. I--"

But the change in his att.i.tude and tone came too late. Captain Lote's temper was boiling now, contradiction was its worst provocative.

"Goin' to quit!" he sneered. "Goin' to quit because you don't like to work. All right, quit then! Go ahead! I've done all I can to make a man of you. Go to the devil in your own way."

"Grandfather, I--"

"Go ahead! _I_ can't stop you. It's in your breed, I cal'late."

That was sufficient. Albert strode out of the private office, head erect. Captain Zelotes rose and slammed the door after his departing grandson.

At ten that evening Albert was in his room, sitting in a chair by the window, gloomily looking out. The packing, most of it, had been done. He had not, as he told his grandfather he intended doing, left the office immediately and come straight home to pack. As he emerged from the inner office after the stormy interview with the captain he found Laban Keeler hard at work upon the books. The sight of the little man, so patiently and cheerfully pegging away, brought another twinge of conscience to the a.s.sistant bookkeeper. Laban had been such a brick in all their relations.h.i.+ps. It must have been a sore trial to his particular, business-like soul, those errors in the trial balance. Yet he had not found fault nor complained. Captain Zelotes himself had said that every item concerning his grandson's mistakes and blunders had been dragged from Mr. Keeler much against the latter's will. Somehow Albert could not bear to go off and leave him at once. He would stay and finish his day's work, for Labe Keeler's sake.

So stay he did and when Captain Zelotes later came out of his private office and found him there neither of them spoke. At home, during supper, nothing was said concerning the quarrel of the afternoon. Yet Albert was as determined to leave as ever, and the Captain, judging by the expression of his face, was just as determined to do nothing more to prevent him. After supper the young man went to his room and began the packing. His grandfather went out, an unusual proceeding for him, saying that he guessed he would go down street for a spell.

Now Albert, as he sat there by the window, was gloomy enough. The wind, howling and wailing about the gables of the old house, was not an aid to cheerfulness and he needed every aid. He had sworn to go away, he was going away--but where should he go? He had a little money put by, not much but a little, which he had been saving for quite another purpose.

This would take him a little way, would pay his bills for a short time, but after that--Well, after that he could earn more. With the optimism of youth and the serene self-confidence which was natural to him he was sure of succeeding sooner or later. It was not the dread of failure and privation which troubled him. The weight which was pressing upon his spirit was not the fear of what might happen to him.

There was a rap upon the door. Then a voice, the housekeeper's voice, whispered through the crack.

"It's me, Al," whispered Mrs. Ellis. "You ain't in bed yet, are you? I'd like to talk with you a minute or two, if I might."

He was not anxious to talk to her or anyone else just then, but he told her to come in. She entered on tiptoe, with the mysterious air of a conspirator, and shut the door carefully after her.

"May I set down just a minute?" she asked. "I can generally talk better settin'."

He pulled forward the ancient rocker with the rush seat. The cross-st.i.tch "tidy" on the back was his mother's handiwork, she had made it when she was fifteen. Rachel sat down in the rocker.

"Al" she began, still in the same mysterious whisper, "I know all about it."

He looked at her. "All about what?" he asked.

"About the trouble you and Cap'n Lote had this afternoon. I know you're plannin' to leave us all and go away somewheres and that he told you to go, and all that. I know what you've been doin' up here to-night. Fur's that goes," she added, with a little catch in her breath and a wave of her hand toward the open trunk and suitcase upon the floor, "I wouldn't need to know, I could SEE."

Albert was surprised and confused. He had supposed the whole affair to be, so far, a secret between himself and his grandfather.

"You know?" he stammered. "You--How did you know?"

"Laban told me. Labe came hurryin' over here just after supper and told me the whole thing. He's awful upset about it, Laban is. He thinks almost as much of you as he does of Cap'n Lote or--or me," with an apologetic little smile.

Albert was astonished and troubled. "How did Labe know about it?" he demanded.

"He heard it all. He couldn't help hearin'."

"But he couldn't have heard. The door to the private office was shut."

"Yes, but the window at the top--the transom one, you know--was wide open. You and your grandpa never thought of that, I guess, and Laban couldn't hop up off his stool and shut it without givin' it away that he'd been hearin'. So he had to just set and listen and I know how he hated doin' that. Laban Keeler ain't the listenin' kind. One thing about it all is a mercy," she added, fervently. "It's the Lord's own mercy that that Issy Price wasn't where HE could hear it, too. If Issy heard it you might as well paint it up on the town-hall fence; all creation and his wife wouldn't larn it any sooner."

Albert drew a long breath. "Well," he said, after a moment, "I'm sorry Labe heard, but I don't suppose it makes much difference. Everyone will know all about it in a day or two ... I'm going."

Rachel leaned forward.

"No, you ain't, Al," she said.

"I'm not? Indeed I am! Why, what do you mean?"

"I mean just what I say. You ain't goin'. You're goin' to stay right here. At least I hope you are, and I THINK you are... . Oh, I know,"

she added, quickly, "what you are goin' to say. You're goin' to tell me that your grandpa is down on you on account of your father, and that you don't like bookkeepin', and that you want to write poetry and--and such.

You'll say all that, and maybe it's all true, but whether 'tis or not ain't the point at all just now. The real point is that you're Janie Snow's son and your grandpa's Cap'n Lote Snow and your grandma's Olive Snow and there ain't goin' to be another smash-up in this family if I can help it. I've been through one and one's enough. Albert, didn't you promise me that Sunday forenoon three years ago when I came into the settin'-room and we got talkin' about books and Robert Penfold and everything--didn't you promise me then that when things between you and your grandpa got kind of--of snarled up and full of knots you'd come to me with 'em and we'd see if we couldn't straighten 'em out together?

Didn't you promise me that, Albert?"

Albert remembered the conversation to which she referred. As he remembered it, however, he had not made any definite promise.

"You asked me to talk them over with you, Rachel," he admitted. "I think that's about as far as it went."

"Well, maybe so, but now I ask you again. Will you talk this over with me, Albert? Will you tell me every bit all about it, for my sake? And for your grandma's sake... . Yes, more'n that, for your mother's sake, Albert; she was pretty nigh like my own sister, Jane Snow was. Different as night from day of course, she was pretty and educated and all that and I was just the same then as I am now, but we did think a lot of each other, Albert. Tell me the whole story, won't you, please. Just what Cap'n Lote said and what you said and what you plan to do--and all?

Please, Albert."

There were tears in her eyes. He had always liked her, but it was a liking with a trace of condescension in it. She was peculiar, her "sympathetic attacks" were funny, and she and Laban together were an odd pair. Now he saw her in a new light and he felt a sudden rush of real affection for her. And with this feeling, and inspired also by his loneliness, came the impulse to comply with her request, to tell her all his troubles.

He began slowly at first, but as he went on the words came quicker. She listened eagerly, nodding occasionally, but saying nothing. When he had finished she nodded again.

"I see," she said. "'Twas almost what Laban said and about what he and I expected. Well, Albert, I ain't goin' to be the one to blame you, not very much anyhow. I don't see as you are to blame; you can't help the way you're made. But your grandfather can't help bein' made his way, either. He can't see with your spectacles and you can't see with his."

He stirred rebelliously. "Then we had better go our own ways, I should say," he muttered.

"No, you hadn't. That's just what you mustn't do, not now, anyhow. As I said before, there's been enough of all hands goin' their own ways in this family and look what came of it."

"But what do you expect me to do? I will not give up every plan I've made and my chance in the world just because he is too stubborn and cranky to understand them. I will NOT do it."

"I don't want you to. But I don't want you to upset the whole kettle just because the steam has scalded your fingers. I don't want you to go off and leave your grandma to break her heart a second time and your grandpa to give up all his plans and hopes that he's been makin' about you."

"Plans about me? He making plans about me? What sort of plans?"

"All sorts. Oh, he don't say much about 'em, of course; that ain't his way. But from things he's let drop I know he has hoped to take you in with him as a partner one of these days, and to leave you the business after he's gone."

"Nonsense, Rachel!"

"No, it ain't nonsense. It's the one big dream of Cap'n Lote's life.

That Z. Snow and Co. business is his pet child, as you might say. He built it up, he and Labe together, and when he figgered to take you aboard with him 'twas SOME chance for you, 'cordin' to his lookout. Now you can't hardly blame him for bein' disappointed when you chuck that chance away and take to writin' poetry pieces, can you?"

"But--but--why, confound it, Rachel, you don't understand!"