North of Boston | Page 7

ask you
later--don't let me forget it."
The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked
away.
A man? A brute. Naked above the waist,
He sat there creased
and shining in the light,
Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt.

"I'm moving into a size-larger shirt.
I've felt mean lately; mean's no
name for it.
I just found what the matter was to-night:
I've been
a-choking like a nursery tree
When it outgrows the wire band of its
name tag.
I blamed it on the hot spell we've been having.
'Twas
nothing but my foolish hanging back,
Not liking to own up I'd grown
a size.
Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?"
The
Doctor caught his throat convulsively.
"Oh--ah--fourteen--fourteen."

"Fourteen! You say so!
I can remember when I wore fourteen.

And come to think I must have back at home
More than a hundred
collars, size fourteen.
Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have
them.
They're yours and welcome; let me send them to you.
What
makes you stand there on one leg like that?
You're not much furtherer
than where Kike left you.
You act as if you wished you hadn't come.

Sit down or lie down, friend; you make me nervous."
The Doctor
made a subdued dash for it,
And propped himself at bay against a
pillow.
"Not that way, with your shoes on Kike's white bed.
You
can't rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off."
"Don't touch me,
please--I say, don't touch me, please. I'll not be put to bed by you, my
man."
"Just as you say. Have it your own way then.
'My man' is it?
You talk like a professor.
Speaking of who's afraid of who, however,


I'm thinking I have more to lose than you
If anything should
happen to be wrong.
Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat!

Let's have a show down as an evidence
Of good faith. There is
ninety dollars.
Come, if you're not afraid."
"I'm not afraid.
There's
five: that's all I carry."
"I can search you?
Where are you moving
over to? Stay still.
You'd better tuck your money under you
And
sleep on it the way I always do
When I'm with people I don't trust at
night."
"Will you believe me if I put it there
Right on the
counterpane--that I do trust you?"
"You'd say so, Mister Man.--I'm a
collector.
My ninety isn't mine--you won't think that.
I pick it up a
dollar at a time
All round the country for the Weekly News,

Published in Bow. You know the Weekly News?"
"Known it since I
was young."
"Then you know me.
Now we are getting on
together--talking.
I'm sort of Something for it at the front.
My
business is to find what people want:
They pay for it, and so they
ought to have it.
Fairbanks, he says to me--he's editor--
Feel out the
public sentiment--he says.
A good deal comes on me when all is said.

The only trouble is we disagree
In politics: I'm Vermont
Democrat--
You know what that is, sort of double-dyed;
The News
has always been Republican.
Fairbanks, he says to me, 'Help us this
year,'
Meaning by us their ticket. 'No,' I says,
'I can't and won't.
You've been in long enough:
It's time you turned around and boosted
us.
You'll have to pay me more than ten a week
If I'm expected to
elect Bill Taft.
I doubt if I could do it anyway.'"

"You seem to
shape the paper's policy."
"You see I'm in with everybody, know 'em
all.
I almost know their farms as well as they do."
"You drive
around? It must be pleasant work."
"It's business, but I can't say it's
not fun.
What I like best's the lay of different farms,
Coming out on
them from a stretch of woods,
Or over a hill or round a sudden corner.

I like to find folks getting out in spring,
Raking the dooryard,
working near the house.
Later they get out further in the fields.

Everything's shut sometimes except the barn;
The family's all away in
some back meadow.
There's a hay load a-coming--when it comes.


And later still they all get driven in:
The fields are stripped to lawn,
the garden patches
Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees
To
whips and poles. There's nobody about.
The chimney, though, keeps
up a good brisk smoking.
And I lie back and ride. I take the reins

Only when someone's coming, and the mare
Stops when she likes: I
tell her when to go.
I've spoiled Jemima in more ways than one.

She's got so she turns in at every house
As if she had some sort of
curvature,
No matter if I have no errand there.
She thinks I'm
sociable. I maybe am.
It's seldom I get down except for meals, though.

Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep,
All in a family row
down to the youngest."
"One would suppose they might not be as
glad
To see you as you are to see them."
"Oh,
Because I want
their dollar. I don't want
Anything they've not got. I never dun.
I'm
there, and they can pay me if they like.
I go nowhere on purpose: I
happen by.
Sorry there is no cup to give you a drink.
I drink out of
the bottle--not your style.
Mayn't I offer you----?"
"No, no, no,
thank you."
"Just as you