The Portygee | Page 7

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, isn't it?" she asked.
The boy nodded. "Yes," he said.
The hands unclasped and she held them out toward him. "Oh, Albert," she cried, "I'm your grandmother. I--"
The man interrupted. "Wait till we get him inside, Olive," he said. "Come in, son." Then, addressing the driver, he ordered: "Labe, take the horse and team out to the barn and unharness for me, will you?"
"Ye-es, yes, yes," replied Mr. Keeler. "Yes indeed, Cap'n. Take her right along--right off. Yes indeedy. Git dap!"
He drove off toward the end of the yard, where a large building, presumably a barn, loomed black against the dark sky. He sang as he drove and the big man on the step looked after him and sniffed suspiciously.
Meanwhile the boy had followed the little woman into the house through a small front hall, from which a narrow flight of stairs shot aloft with almost unbelievable steepness, and into a large room.