Where the Blue Begins | Page 7

They grew with astounding rapidity, ate
their food without coaxing, rarely cried at night, and gave him much
amusement by their naive ways. He was too occupied to be troubled
with introspection. Indeed, his well-ordered home was very different
from before. The trim lawn, in spite of his zealous efforts, was
constantly littered with toys. In sheer mischief the youngsters got into
his wardrobe and chewed off the tails of his evening dress coat. But he
felt a satisfying dignity and happiness in his new status as head of a
family.

What worried him most was the fear that Fuji would complain of this
sudden addition to his duties. The butler's face was rather an enigma,
particularly at meal times, when Gissing sat at the dinner table
surrounded by the three puppies in their high chairs, with a spindrift of
milk and prune-juice spattering generously as the youngsters plied their
spoons. Fuji had arranged a series of scuppers, made of oilcloth,
underneath the chairs; but in spite of this the dining-room rug, after a
meal, looked much as the desert place must have after the feeding of
the multitude. Fuji, who was pensive, recalled the five loaves and two
fishes that produced twelve baskets of fragments. The vacuum cleaner
got clogged by a surfeit of crumbs.
Gissing saw that it would be a race between heart and head. If Fuji's
heart should become entangled (that is, if the innocent charms of the
children should engage his affections before his reason convinced him
that the situation was now too arduous), there was some hope. He tried
to ease the problem also by mental suggestion. "It is really remarkable"
(he said to Fuji) "that children should give one so little trouble." As he
made this remark, he was speeding hotly to and fro between the
bathroom and the nursery, trying to get one tucked in bed and another
undressed, while the third was lashing the tub into soapy foam. Fuji
made his habitual response, "Very good, sir." But one fears that he
detected some insincerity, for the next day, which was Sunday, he gave
notice. This generally happens on a Sunday, because the papers publish
more Help Wanted advertisements then than on any other day.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "But when I took this place there was nothing
said about three children."
This was unreasonable of Fuji. It is very rare to have everything
explained beforehand. When Adam and Eve were put into the Garden
of Eden, there was nothing said about the serpent.
However, Gissing did not believe in entreating a servant to stay. He
offered to give Fuji a raise, but the butler was still determined to leave.
"My senses are very delicate," he said. "I really cannot stand the--well,
the aroma exhaled by those three children when they have had a warm

bath."
"What nonsense!" cried Gissing. "The smell of wet, healthy puppies?
Nothing is more agreeable. You are cold-blooded: I don't believe you
are fond of puppies. Think of their wobbly black noses. Consider how
pink is the little cleft between their toes and the main cushion of their
feet. Their ears are like silk. Inside their upper jaws are parallel black
ridges, most remarkable. I never realized before how beautifully and
carefully we are made. I am surprised that you should be so indifferent
to these things."
There was a moisture in Fuji's eyes, but he left at the end of the week.
CHAPTER THREE
A solitary little path ran across the fields not far from the house. It lay
deep among tall grasses and the withered brittle stalks of last autumn's
goldenrod, and here Gissing rambled in the green hush of twilight, after
the puppies were in bed. In less responsible days he would have lain
down on his back, with all four legs upward, and cheerily shrugged and
rolled to and fro, as the crisp ground-stubble was very pleasing to the
spine. But now he paced soberly, the smoke from his pipe eddying just
above the top of the grasses. He had much to meditate.
The dogwood tree by the house was now in flower. The blossoms, with
their four curved petals, seemed to spin like tiny white propellers in the
bright air. When he saw them fluttering Gissing had a happy sensation
of movement. The business of those tremulous petals seemed to be
thrusting his whole world forward and forward, through the viewless
ocean of space. He felt as though he were on a ship--as, indeed, we are.
He had never been down to the open sea, but he had imagined it. There,
he thought, there must be the satisfaction of a real horizon.
Horizons had been a great disappointment to him. In earlier days he had
often slipped out of the house not long