The Portygee | Page 7

Ye-es, yes, yes. Have one. Have two, have a lot."
He proceeded to have a lot himself, and the buggy was straightway
reflavored, so to speak. The boy, his suspicions by no means dispelled,
leaned back in the corner behind the curtains and awaited developments.
He was warmer, that was a real physical and consequently a slight
mental comfort, but the feeling of lonesomeness was still acute. So far
his acquaintanceship with the citizens of South Harniss had not filled
him with enthusiasm. They were what he, in his former and very recent
state of existence, would have called "Rubes." Were the grandparents
whom he had never met this sort of people? It seemed probable. What
sort of a place was this to which Fate had consigned him? The sense of
utter helplessness which had had him in its clutches since the day when
he received the news of his father's death was as dreadfully real as ever.
He had not been consulted at all. No one had asked him what he wished
to do, or where he wished to go. The letter had come from these people,
the Cape Cod grandparents of whom, up to that time, he had never even
heard, and he had been shipped to them as though he were a piece of
merchandise. And what was to become of him now, after he reached
his destination? What would they expect him to do? Or be? How would
he be treated?
In his extensive reading--he had been an omnivorous reader--there were
numerous examples of youths left, like him, to the care of distant

relatives, or step-parents, or utter strangers. Their experiences,
generally speaking, had not been cheerful ones. Most of them had run
away. He might run away; but somehow the idea of running away, with
no money, to face hardship and poverty and all the rest, did not make
an alluring appeal. He had been used to comfort and luxury ever since
he could remember, and his imagination, an unusually active one,
visualized much more keenly than the average the tribulations and
struggles of a runaway. David Copperfield, he remembered, had run
away, but he did it when a kid, not a man like himself. Nicholas
Nickleby--no, Nicholas had not run away exactly, but his father had
died and he had been left to an uncle. It would be dreadful if his
grandfather should turn out to be a man like Ralph Nickleby. Yet
Nicholas had gotten on well in spite of his wicked relative. Yes, and
how gloriously he had defied the old rascal, too! He wondered if he
would ever be called upon to defy his grandfather. He saw himself
doing it--quietly, a perfect gentleman always, but with the noble
determination of one performing a disagreeable duty. His chin lifted
and his shoulders squared against the back of the buggy.
Mr. Keeler, who had apparently forgotten his passenger altogether,
broke into song,
"She's my darlin' hanky-panky And she wears a number two, Her father
keeps a barber shop Way out in Kalamazoo."
He sang the foregoing twice over and then added a chorus, plainly
improvised, made up of "Di doos" and "Di dums" ad lib. And the
buggy rolled up and over the slope of a little hill and, in the face of a
screaming sea wind, descended a long, gentle slope to where, scattered
along a two-mile water frontage, the lights of South Harniss twinkled
sparsely.
"Did doo dum, dee dum, doo dum Di doo dum, doo dum dee."
So sang Mr. Keeler. Then he broke off his solo as the little mare turned
in between a pair of high wooden posts bordering a drive, jogged along
that drive for perhaps fifty feet, and stopped beside the stone step of a
white front door. Through the arched window above that door shone

lamplight warm and yellow.
"Whoa!" commanded Mr. Keeler, most unnecessarily. Then, as if
himself a bit uncertain as to his exact whereabouts, he peered out at the
door and the house of which it was a part, afterward settling back to
announce triumphantly: "And here we be! Yes, sir, here we be!"
Then the door opened. A flood of lamplight poured upon the buggy and
its occupants. And the boy saw two people standing in the doorway, a
man and a woman.
It was the woman who spoke first. It was she who had opened the door.
The man was standing behind her looking over her shoulder-- over her
head really, for he was tall and broad and she short and slender.
"Is it--?" she faltered.
Mr. Keeler answered. "Yes, ma'am," he declared emphatically, "that's
who 'tis. Here we be--er--er--what's-your-name--Edward. Jump right
out."
His passenger alighted from the buggy. The woman bent forward to
look at him, her hands clasped.
"It--it's Albert,