Flood Tide Part 4

"You'd much better come in an' have your breakfast properly."

"Oh, I don't want nothin' much," the altruist protested. "Just fetch me out a slice of bread or a doughnut. We've got to get at that pump of Zenas Henry's. I'm itchin' to know what's the matter with it."

Celestina looked disappointed.

"I've been savin' your coffee fur you since seven o'clock," murmured she reproachfully.

"That was very kind of you, Tiny," Willie responded with an ingratiating glance into her eyes. "You just keep it hot a spell longer, an' I'll be back. Likely I won't be long."

"You've been workin' five hours on your own pump!"

"Five hours? Pshaw! You don't say so," mused the tranquil voice.

"Think of that! An' it didn't seem no time. Well, it's a-pumpin' now, Celestina."

The mild face beamed with satisfaction, and Celestina had not the heart to cloud its brightness by annoying him further.

"That's capital!" she declared. "Here's your bread an' b.u.t.ter, Willie.

An' here's some apple turnovers fur you, an' Jan, an' Zenas Henry.

They'll be nice fur you goin' along in the wagon." Then turning to Jan she whispered in a pleading undertone:

"Do watch, Jan, that Willie don't lay that bread down somewheres an'

forget it. Mebbe if he sees the rest of you eatin' he'll remember to eat himself. If he don't, though, remind him, for he's just as liable to bring it back home again in his hand. Keep your eye on him!"

Jan nodded understandingly, and climbing into the dusty wagon, the three men rattled off over the sandy road. Willie dropped his tools into the bottom of the carriage but the slice of bread remained untouched in his fingers. Now that triumph had brought a respite in his labors he seemed silent and thoughtful. It was not until the Admiral turned in at the Brewster gate that he roused himself sufficiently to observe with irrelevance:

"Speakin' about that propeller of yours, Zenas Henry--it must be no end of a temper-rasper."

Zenas Henry slapped the reins over the horse's flank and waited breathlessly, hoping some further comment would come from the little inventor, but as Willie remained silent, he at length could restrain his impatience no longer and ventured with diffidence:

"S'pose you ain't got any notion what we could do about it, have you, Willie?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"No, not the ghost," was his terse reply.

That night, however, Celestina was awakened from her dreams by the ring of a hammer. She rose, and lighting her candle, tip-toed into the hall. It was one o'clock, and she could see that Willie's bedroom door was ajar and the bed untouched.

With a little sigh she blew out the flame in her hand and crept back beneath the shelter of her calico comforter.

She knew the symptoms only too well.

Willie was once again "kitched by an idee!"

CHAPTER III

A NEW ARRIVAL

The new idea, whatever it was, was evidently not one to be hastily perfected, for the next morning when Celestina went down stairs, she found the jaded inventor seated moodily in a rocking-chair before the kitchen stove, his head in his hands.

"Law, Willie, are you up already?" she asked, as if unconscious of his nocturnal activities.

The reply was a wan smile.

"An' you've got the fire built, too," went on Celestina cheerily. "How nice!"

"Eh?" repeated he, giving her a vague stare. "The fire?"

"Yes. I was sayin' how good it was of you to start it up." The man gazed at her blankly.

"I ain't touched the fire," he answered. "I might have, though, as well as not, Tiny, if I'd thought of it."

"That's all right," Celestina declared, making haste to repair her blunder. "I've plenty of time to lay it myself. 'Twas only that when I saw you settin' up before it I thought mebbe you'd built it 'cause you were cold."

"I was cold," acquiesced Willie, his eyes misty with thought. "But I warn't noticin' there was no heat in the stove when I drew up here."

Celestina bit her lip. How characteristic the confession was!

"Well, there'll be a fire now very soon," said she, bustling out and returning with paper and kindlings. "The kitchen will be warm as toast in no time. An' I'll make you some hot coffee straight away. That will heat you up. This northerly wind blows the cobwebs out of the sky, but it does make it chilly."

Although Willie's eyes automatically followed her brisk motions and watched while she deftly started the blaze, it was easy to see that he was too deep in his own meditations to sense what she was doing.

Perhaps had his mood not been such an abstract one he would have realized that he was directly in the main thoroughfare and obstructing the path between the pantry and the oven. As it was he failed to grasp the circ.u.mstance, and not wis.h.i.+ng to disturb him, Celestina patiently circled before, behind and around him in her successive pilgrimages to the stove. Such situations were exigencies to which she was quite accustomed, her easy-going disposition quickly adapting itself to emergencies of the sort. So skilful was she in effacing her presence that Willie had no knowledge he was an obstacle until suddenly the iron door swung back of its own volition and in pa.s.sing brushed his knuckles with its hot metal edge.

"Ouch!" cried he, starting up from his chair.

"What's the matter?" called Celestina from the pantry.

"Nothin'. The oven door sprung open, that's all."

"It didn't burn you?"

"N--o, but it made me jump," laughed Willie. "Why didn't you tell me, Tiny, that I was in your way?"

"You warn't in my way."

"But I must 'a' been," the man persisted. "You should 'a' shoved me aside in the beginnin'."

Stretching his arms upward with a comfortable yawn, he rose and sauntered toward the door.

"Now you're not to pull out of here, Willie Spence," Celestina objected in a peremptory tone, "until you've had your breakfast. You had none yesterday, remember, thanks to that pump; an' you had no dinner either, thanks to Zenas Henry's pump. You're goin' to start this day right.

You're to have three square meals if I have to tag you all over Wilton with 'em. I don't know what it is you've got on your mind this time, but the world's worried along without it up to now, an' I guess it can manage a little longer."

Willie regarded his mentor good-humoredly.

"I figger it can, Celestina," he returned. "In fact, I reckon it will have to content itself fur quite a spell without the notion I've run a-foul of now."

Celestina offered no interrogation; instead she said, "Well, don't let it harrow you up; that's all I ask. If it's goin' to be a long-drawn-out piece of tinkerin', why there's all the more reason you should eat your three good meals like other Christians. Next you know you'll be gettin' run down, an' I'll be havin' to brew some dandelion bitters for you." She came to an abrupt stop half-way between the oven and the kitchen table, a bowl and spoon poised in her hand. "I ain't sure but it's time to brew you somethin' anyway," she announced. "You ain't had a tonic fur quite a spell an' mebbe 'twould do you good."