Bunker Bean | Page 8

alligator in the act of

climbing a pole; a frail cup and saucer; a watch-chain fashioned from
Grammer's hair probably long before she fell into evil habits; a pink
china dog that simpered; a dusty black cigar with a gay red-and-gold
belt that had once upon a time been given to Gramper by a gentleman
in Chicago; a silver cup inscribed "Baby"; a ball of clearest glass,
bigger than any marble, with a white camel at its centre looking out
unconcernedly; a gilded horseshoe adorned with a bow of blue ribbon;
an array of treasure, in short, that made one suspect the Beans might
have been something after all if only they had tried.
Then on the lower shelf, when Grammer, relying on his honour, had
left the room, he made his wondrous discovery--a thing more beautiful
than ever he had dreamed of beauty; a thing that caught all the light in
the room and shot it back like a risen sun; a thing that excited,
enchained, satisfied with a satisfaction so deep that somehow it became
pain. It was a shell from the sea, polished to a dazzling brilliance of
opal and jade, amethyst and sapphire, delicately subdued, blending as
the tints in the western sky at sunset, soft, elusive, fluent. To his
rapturously shocked soul, it was a living thing. Instantly a spell was
upon him; long he gazed into its depths. It was more than deep; it was
bottomless. In some magic solution he there beheld himself and all the
world; imperiously it commanded his being. To his ear utterance came
from that lucent abyss, a murmur of voices, a confusion of tones; and
then invisible presences seemed to reach out greedy hands for him. It
was no place for a small boy, and his short legs twinkled as he fled.
Out in the friendly, familiar yard, he looked curiously about him,
basking in the sudden peace of it. A light wind stirred in the trees, the
sky was a void of blue, the scent of the lilacs came to him. That was all
reassuring; but something more came: a consciousness that he could
translate only as something vast, yet without shape or substance, that
opened to him, enfolded him, lifted him. It was a vision of boundless
magnitudes and himself among them--among them and with a power he
could put upon them. While it lasted he had a child's dim vision of the
knowledge that life would be big for him. He heard again the confusion
of voices, and his own among them, in far spacious places. He always
remembered this moment. In after years he knew it had been given him
then to run an eye along the line of his destiny.
The moment passed; his mind was again vacant. He picked a green

apple from the low tree under which he stood, bit into it, chewed
without enthusiasm, then hurled the remnant at an immature rabbit that
he saw regarding him from the edge of the lilac clump. The missile
went wild, but the rabbit fled and Bean pursued it. He was not afraid of
a rabbit--not of a young rabbit.
Returning from the chase, an unavailing one, he believed, only because
the game used quite unfair tactics of concealment, he remembered the
shell. A longing for possession seized him. It was more than that. The
thing was already his; had always been his. Yet he foresaw
complications. His ownership might be stupidly denied.
He went in to drag Grammer again before the whatnot, his mind
sharpened to subtlety.
"Are everything there yours?" He pointed to the top shelf.
"Everything!"
He lowered the pointing finger to the second shelf.
"Are everything there yours?"
"All of 'em!"
"Everything _there_?"
"Yes, yes!"
"And this one, too?"
"For the land's sake, yes!" averred Grammer of the choice contents of
the fourth shelf. She was baking pies and found herself a bit impatient
of this new game.
"Well, that's all, now!" and he dismissed her, not daring to inquire as to
the lower shelf. He had seen the way things were going--a sickening
way. But, having shrewdly stopped at the lower shelf, having prevented
Grammer from saying that those valuable objects were also hers, he
had still the right to come into his own. If the shell mightn't belong to
her it might belong to him; therefore it did belong to him; which, as
logic, is not so lame as it sounds. At least it is a workaday average.
It occurred to him once to ask for the shell bluntly. But reason forbade
this. It was not conceivable that any one having so celestial a treasure
would willingly part with it. When a thing was yours you took it, with
dignity, but quietly.
During the remainder of his stay he