Vesty of the Basins Part 44

Vesty came next day at evening, but she took pains to be found in company with almost the entire Basin.

I was so much better that I was able to be about and receive my guests; at sight of Uncle Coffin even the maimed hand seemed to tingle healthily. He marched me to a chair with an ostentation of violence, that really treated me, however, with the softest gentleness, and sat me down.

"Dodrabbit ye!" he cried, standing off and regarding me. "What ye been a-doin' of, you young smas.h.i.+n', slas.h.i.+n', cavortin'-all-around young spark, you!"

"Well," said I, naturally feeling rakish after this, "I will tell you.

Miss Pray had a brood of chickens come off unseasonably to-day, who desired particularly and above all things, having taken a general outlook on life, not to live. Under Miss Fray's directions I have been amusing myself with trying to defeat that purpose. I have watched for any signs of hope in their world-disgusted eyes, dipped their unwilling beaks in food, put chips upon their backs to help them maintain an earthly equilibrium--so little desired by them, however, that oftener they have toppled over and turned their infantile legs entreatingly upward; but I have conquered; they live."

"Wal, neow," said Captain Leezur, my chiefest admirer, "ef you ain't a case to describe anything in natur'! Ef I had you areound I shouldn't never want no dagarrier of a sick chicken, for you'd call 'em right up afore me!"

I murmured my low thanks, blus.h.i.+ng as usual under flattery.

Vesty was talking brilliantly with some of the company, quite away from me. She had a bright, disdainful look, when I chanced to glance that way, new to her, but quite befitting--ah me! ah me!--some lady one might dream of, of high, disdainful quality.

"Ain't he a case neow to describe anything in natur'?" joyfully reiterated Captain Leezur to Uncle Coffin.

Uncle Coffin, with his hands on his knees, shook his head at me, finding no words quite to the mark.

"Dodrabbit ye!" said he; "you sly young dog, you!"

"That's what I tell him!" rippled the deep-gurgling brook of Captain Leezur's voice; "we're jest like nateral twin-brothers. Only," he added tenderly and gravely, "he ain't nigh so onG.o.dly as I use' ter be."

"OnG.o.dly! Why, dodrabbit ye, Leezur!" said this native Artichoke, "ye never done an onG.o.dly thing in yer life--'cept, maybe," he added, "to cuss a little when ye was fis.h.i.+n' for the bucket."

"'Specially," said Captain Leezur intelligently, "when the women folks has been thar afore ye, r'ilin' the water and jabbin' of her furder deown."

Uncle Coffin gave me an irresistible but a loving and true, not a malicious, wink.

"Speakin' o' women folks, Leezur," said he, "is there any news from Lot's wife?"

Captain Leezur cleared the mellow symphonies of those organs through which he intoned his speech; and was about to reply, fully and sweetly, when Captain Pharo made his appearance at the door.

Uncle Coffin sprang from his chair, and with a grave face, which only later broke out into those beams of affection which were storming his bosom, shook him violently by the collar, dragged him across the floor, and set him in a chair by the fireplace with a loud, conclusive thump.

"Dodrabbit ye, man!" said he, "I hain't heered your voice since I was a baby."

Captain Pharo, with a countenance full of delight and sympathy, pulled his ruffled jacket down nearer to the waist line, and lit his pipe.

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" continued Uncle Coffin, and turned from his pet to me with another wink, "what are yer days like now? They ain't like the gra.s.s, are they? I b'lieve they are, jest like the same old gra.s.s, or like the morning flower, the blighting wind sweeps o'er. She withers in an'--why don't ye never finish on 'er out, Pharo? Why don't ye never ring the last note on 'er--eh?"

"Because, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with a smile of deep meaning, "because thar's so many things that when they're onct finished they 're completely done for in this world; eat a meal o' vittles and thar 's the end on't; smoke a pipe an' she runs dead; I like t' have one thing left over. I like to feel, Coffin, by clam! 't thar's somethin' 't thar ain't go'n' to be no end on!"

Uncle Coffin had been studying him attentively, with his hands on his knees.

"Kobbe," said he, "you're a philosoffarer."

Captain Pharo wiggled uneasily.

"I don't say hippopotamar nor rhinosossarer," said Uncle Coffin; "I say philosoffarer."

Captain Pharo drew a strange breath of relief.

"Mebbe we're a little alike in that respec'," Captain Leezur a.s.sured him deliciously; "'cept 't he ain't nigh so onG.o.dly as I use' ter be."

"I don' know," said Captain Pharo. "I have worked sometimes, Sundays--poo! poo! hohum!--but not 'less 'twas somethin' 'mportant, gettin' in hay or somethin' like that. And I have--poo! poo! hohum!

Wal, wal--hauled out my lobster car sometimes Sundays waitin' for the smack--hohum!"

"Pharo," said Uncle Coffin, holding up his finger, "no more! I know ye. Thar ain't an onG.o.dly bone in yer body--'cept maybe when ye've lost yer pipe an' cussed a little."

"An' the women folks wants to haul ye over somewhar's on a flat sea to have yer gol darn pictur' took!" said Captain Pharo, with poignant recollection of a still unquiet grief.

"Kobbe," said Uncle Coffin, "no more!"

"'I know not why I love her, The fair an' beau'chus she; She bro't the cuss upon me, Und'neath the apple-tree: But she asked me for my jack knife, And halved 'er squar' with me, Sence all'as lovely woman Gives the biggest half to thee.'"

"Judah's wife writ that," exclaimed Captain Pharo, with a generic awe of poetry as poetry.

"She did," said Uncle Coffin, with eyes appreciative of the muse fixed gravely on the fire, "she did."

There was a daughter of Eve who was treating me very severely.

Instead of the old encouraging smile and gleam of merry recognition or sympathy in her eyes, there was now an averted gaze, bent very brightly, it seemed, on every one but me; in that direction alone, a studied coldness, a haughty carriage of the head. What could I expect?--but it broke my heart.

I subscribed silently to the mood of Belle O'Neill, whose mind was subject to vagaries, and who in the midst of the gay company was playing weird, plaintive "revival" tunes upon the mouth-harp, enthusiastically absorbed in her art.

Her mistress, Miss Pray, who notably for some time had been receiving the attentions of Pershal, the man who had been in California, had withdrawn with him, with tacit understanding of apologies, to the kitchen, where they were carrying on their courting, as all good Basins should, undisturbed.

The young people were playing a game of forfeits. I heard Vesty's penalty p.r.o.nounced; it was, to go and put her hand upon "the handsomest man in the room."

She began to move, with her lovely, erect head and brilliant, averted smile, toward the fireplace. Surely she would not put any ignominy or mockery upon me--ah, no! I knew in my heart. But she came nearer, and I gazed, spellbound; and then she bowed her beautiful head with a tender, laughing smile, and laid her hand on Captain Leezur's shoulder.

"Here!" she said.

Oh, how he laughed! Robins by the brook, and sun-sparkles.

"That 's right, Vesty!" he exclaimed; "that 's right, darlin'. Come and kile yourself areound them 't 's got some feelin's!"

He winked at Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin. The sweet girl blushed disdainfully--for some one--and, with a lingering touch on the dear man's shoulder, went away.

"I've all'as been kiled over a good deal," explained Captain Leezur gently, with a smile the subtlety of which he sought in a measure to hide.

"And we mustn't forgit," he added, "that thar 's a time for all things under the sun. Thar 's a time to be a bean-pole and thar 's a time to kile."

He winked at me; fearing that I had not understood, he winked still broader; then, moving his back toward his two companions, he directed full upon me a wink so vast and expressive that I endeavored at once to signify my enlightenment by replying in kind; but, unpractised as I was in the art, I could only infer what the unlovely aspect of my features must have been from the look of sorrowful disgust which immediately thereafter overspread Vesty's own.

But it transpired that that look of disgust was not for me. It was for Belle O'Neill, who, moved by another inspiration, had thoughtfully abandoned her mouth-harp to creep through the surrept.i.tious channel of the wood-box and learn how Miss Pray and Pershal were progressing in their courting.