Chapter IV: Will on His Way (3)

“She only kitched of a fire for a moment. ’Twas more over you than over Jinny, Oi should reckon. Bust into tears, she did, and when Oi said maybe as Jinny was mistook she nearly bit my head off. ‘Too lazy-boned to goo and give a hand to your own buoy-oy,’ says she. ‘Ain’t he shifted for hisself nigh ten years?’ says Oi. ‘Can’t you wait ten minutes more? Oi count he’ll be here before the New Jerusalem,’ says Oi. That dedn’t pacify her much, bein’ a female. Cowld-blooded—she called me. ‘There’s feythers,’ says she, ‘as ’ud be trimmed out with colours like Jinny’s hoss—not leave it to a gal as is no relation to decorate even her dog in his honour.’ ‘That’s for May Day,’ says Oi. ‘All wery fine,’ says she. ‘But May Day’s over and gone six days’—she’s a rare un for figgers is mother—‘time enough,’ says she, ‘for God to create the world in.’ ‘Maybe you’d like flags flourishin’ and flutterin’, says Oi, jocoshus like, ‘but Oi ain’t got no flags save my old muckinger.’ And with that, bein’ more shook than I let on, Oi blowed my nose into it, wery trumpet-like, and that seemed to quieten her, for her tantarums be over now, and the onny noise she’s makin’ is the fryin’ o’ them little old weal sausages for you.”

“Good!” cried the Prodigal Son, his face transfigured. “She remembered my passion for veal sausages!”

“‘And there’s pickled walnuts too! Put them out likewise,’ says Oi, ‘for ’tis a poor heart that never rejoices.’”

“But that’s your passion, not mine.”

“That’s what mother said. ‘But baint Oi to get no compensation?’ says Oi. And why dedn’t you write to her all these years, Willie?”

His face darkened again. “I’m no great shakes with a quill. And there wasn’t anything to say. I did write once to tell you I was safe across the Atlantic and was gone to make my fortune.”

“We dedn’t never get no letter.”

“No—it came back months after. I forgot to put England on it, thinking maybe Essex was enough. But it seems there’s a Mount Essex in the States, down Wyoming way, and the Yanks always think everything is for them. So I thought I’d best let things be, being on the go in those days.”

Caleb fully sympathized with the plea. “And have ye made your fortune, Will?” he inquired meekly.

“That depends on your idea of a fortune,” Will parried. But he had a complacent consciousness of those bank-notes behind the glove.

“My idea of a fortune be faith in God,” said Caleb.

“Yes, yes, I know.” The young man got off the box impatiently.

Caleb tugged at one of its handles.

“Lord, that’s lugsome!” he said, letting the long heavy chest subside. “Ef you ain’t come back rich, you’ve come back middlin’ powerful. All the way from Chipstone!” He clucked his tongue admiringly.

Having once left the miracle undenied, and feeling the situation now altogether beyond explanation to the bucolic intellect, Will again silently acquiesced in the Herculean imputation and took the other handle. “But why didn’t you bring a cart or a truck?” he asked as they began walking cumbrously towards the bridge.

“Ain’t got nowt but a wheelbarrow,” Caleb explained. “Times is changed—-Oi ain’t looker no more, and there’s two housen now. Old Peartree got to have a separate door, but ’twas a good bargain Oi put my cross to with the son o’ the Cornish furriner what Oi warked for these thirty-nine year. Mother will have it she’d ha’ made a cuter deal, she bein’ a dapster in figgers and reckonin’ out to a day when the New Jerusalem will be droppin’ down, but Oi don’t howd with women doin’ men’s business, bein’ as your rib can’t be your head.”

“I quite agree,” said Will, surprised to find such enlightened sentiments in his queer old parent. “But tell me about Ben and Isaac and the others.”

“They don’t write neither. We was lookin’ to you to tell us about the others as went furrin. Ben should be a barber in America, and they say as Christopher’s got a woife, colour o’ coffee.”

“Nonsense, dad!”

“Well, maybe ’twas Isaac.”

“No Flynt would marry a nigger woman,” said Will decisively.

“Oi’m right glad to hear it,” said Caleb. “For Oi count the young ’uns ’ud come out streaky and spotty like pigeons or cattle, and though they likely turn white when they die, and their souls be white all the time, Oi could never be comfortable along o’ finch-backed gran’childer.”

With such discourse they beguiled the heavy way, trudging behind their tall shadows, till at the gate of the drive of Frog Farm they saw Martha peering eagerly along the avenue of witch-elms. In another instant Will, letting go his box-handle, was choked in her hug and wetted by her tears.

“I can smell those sausages right here, mother,” he said, with a smile and a half sob. “How do ye howd?” And he emphasized the homely old idiom by patting her wrinkled cheek. She caught his hand in hers, and he was touched by the thin worn wedding-ring on the gnarled and freckled hand. His eyes roved round. “But surely this ain’t the house I was born in. Why, that was a giant’s castle.”

Caleb looked a bit uneasy: “You’re sure this _be_ Will?” he asked Martha in one of his thundrous whispers.

“Why, I’d know him in a hundred.”

“Well, there’s onny nine or ten.” And he laughed gleefully.

“Do be easy, Caleb. You’re getting as unrestful as Bundock.”

“I’m Will right enough,” Will intervened. “Only everything seems to have got so small. Come along, dad.” He took up his side of the box:

“Gracious goodness!” cried Martha, perceiving it at last. “My poor Will! Lugging that from Chipstone! Why didn’t you call to Jinny to stop and take it?”

“How was I to know that that was Jinny’s cart dashing by?” he said, moving forward quickly. “I suppose you didn’t ask her to stay for the sausages?” he added lightly.

“I couldn’t ask her, dearie,” said Martha. “She was terrible late, she said, and I know how crotched her wicked old grandfather gets at feeding-time.”

“How big she’s grown!” he observed carelessly.

“Big!” They both repeated the word, but from a different surprise.

“You said you didn’t see her,” said Martha sharply.

“I saw a big young woman flying by in the cart—I didn’t know then it was Jinny.”

“But you just said everything’s growed so little,” chuckled Caleb.

“So it has—all except Jinny.”

“And she isn’t so very big,” said Martha, “rather undersized, some folks would say.”

“Well, I’m not so oversized myself,” said Will.

“Will’s seen her toplofty over Methusalem,” explained Caleb. “Wait till he sees her on her pegs.”

“But I did see her on her pegs,” said Will, “at ‘The Black Sheep’!”

“Then why did you goo and carry that little old box?” inquired Caleb.

“She wasn’t in the cart then—how was I to guess she was the Carrier?” he answered crossly.

“But you could ha’ ast for the Bradmarsh carrier.”

“The coach was late,” he snapped.

“But Jinny hadn’t started yet,” persisted Caleb. “Bein’ as you seen her there.”

“Legends, my boy, legends.” Tony Flip’s euphemism for lies rang in Will’s brain. But legends, he was finding, are not easy to sustain. One lie breeds many, and he was sorry now he had allowed himself to be made a champion weight-lifter. “I thought being so late ’twas no use asking for the Carrier—’twas you I expected,” he said, turning the war back into the enemy’s country.

But they had now lumbered up with the box to the twin doors, and the task of dumping down the subject of discussion in a convenient place stayed the cross-examination.

The feast for the Prodigal Son had been laid in the parlour, and the scent of the fried sausages came appetizingly on the evening air, more poetic than any of Nature’s competing odours.

“Why, there’s my letter!” cried Will at the parlour door, beholding it on the mantelpiece. “You might have let me know you couldn’t meet me.”

He went in and took it down. “Not opened?” he cried crossly, the muggy atmosphere of the sealed chamber adding to his irritation. “And I told you exactly the day and hour I was coming!”

“We haven’t had time to get it read yet, dearie,” said Martha mildly. “I was going to take it to the dressmaker, but Saturdays I’m so busy and Sunday was Sunday, and yesterday I felt as if my ribs were grating together, and to-day was too hot.”

“Well, I shan’t write again in a hurry,” he said peevishly, and was about to tear the letter in twain. But Martha snatched it from him with a cry and slipped it into her bosom.

“Sit down, Will,” she pleaded. “Your sausages are spoiling.”

But the Prodigal Son would not batten at once upon the fatted calf. He felt too dusty, he said, and then, imperiously pushing at the diamond-paned casement and realizing with disgust it would not open, vanished in search of soap.

“He can’t be well,” whimpered Martha.

“Don’t worrit, dear heart,” Caleb consoled her. “Oi count even Samson wanted a wash arter he’d lugged that little old gate up the hill from Gazy.”