Seventeen (Tarkington, 1916)/Chapter 15

N a warm morning, ten days later, William stood pensively among his mother's flowerbeds behind the house, his attitude denoting a low state of vitality. Not far away, an aged negro sat upon a wheelbarrow in the hot sun, tremulously yet skilfully whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, labor more to his taste, evidently, than that which he had abandoned at the request of Jane. Allusion to this preference for a lighter task was made by Genesis, who was erecting a trellis on the border of the little garden.

"Pappy whittle all day," he chuckled. "Whittle all night, too! Pappy, I thought you 'uz goin' to git 'at long bed all spade' up fer me by noon. Ain't 'at what you tole me?"

"You let him alone, Genesis," said Jane, who sat by the old man's side, deeply fascinated. "There's goin' to be a great deal of rain in the next few days maybe, an' I haf to have this boat ready."

The aged darky lifted his streaky and diminished eyes to the burnished sky, and laughed. "Rain come some day, anyways," he said. "We git de boat ready 'fo' she fall, dat sho." His glance wandered to William and rested upon him with feeble curiosity. "Dat ain' yo' pappy, is it?" he asked Jane.

"I should say it isn't!" she exclaimed. "It's Willie. He was only seventeen about two or three months ago, Mr. Genesis." This was not the old man's name, but Jane had evolved it, inspired by respect for one so aged and so kind about whittling. He was the father of Genesis, and the latter, neither to her knowledge nor to her imagination, possessed a surname.

"I got cat'rack in my lef' eye," said Mr. Genesis, "an' de right one, she kine o' tricksy, too. Tell black man f'um white man, little f'um big."

"I'd hate it if he was papa," said Jane, confidentially. "He's always cross about somep'm, because he's in love." She approached her mouth to her whittling friend's ear and continued in a whisper: "He's in love of Miss Pratt. She's out walkin' with Joe Bullitt. I was in the front yard with Willie, an' we saw 'em go by. He's mad."

William did not hear her. Moodily, he had discovered that there was something amiss with the buckle of his belt, and, having ungirded himself, he was biting the metal tongue of the buckle in order to straighten it. This fell under the observation of Genesis, who remonstrated.

"You break you' teef on 'at buckle," he said.

"No, I won't, either," William returned, crossly.

"Ain' my teef," said Genesis. "Break 'em, you want to!"

The attention of Mr. Genesis did not seem to be attracted to the speakers; he continued his whittling in a craftsman-like manner, which brought praise from Jane.

"You can see to whittle, Mr. Genesis," she said. "You whittle better than anybody in the world."

"I speck so, mebbe," Mr. Genesis returned, with a little complacency. "How ole yo' pappy?"

"Oh, he's old!" Jane explained.

William deigned to correct her. "He's not old, he's middle-aged."

"Well, suh," said Mr. Genesis, "I had three chillum 'fo' I 'uz twenty. I had two when I 'uz eighteem."

William showed sudden interest. "You did!" he exclaimed. "How old were you when you had the first one?"

"I 'uz jes' yo' age," said the old man. "I 'uz seventeem."

"By George!" cried William.

Jane seemed much less impressed than William, seventeen being a long way from ten, though, of course, to seventeen itself hardly any information could be imagined as more interesting than that conveyed by the words of the aged Mr. Genesis. The impression made upon William was obviously profound and favorable.

"By George!" he cried again.

"Genesis he de youngis' one," said the old man. "Genesis he 'uz bawn when I 'uz sixty-one."

William moved closer. "What became of the one that was born when you were seventeen?" he asked.

"Well, suh," said Mr. Genesis, "I nev' did know."

At this, Jane's interest equaled William's. Her eyes consented to leave the busy hands of the aged darky, and, much enlarged, rose to his face. After a little pause of awe and sympathy she inquired:

"Was it a boy or a girl?"

The old man deliberated within himself. "Seem like it mus' been a boy."

"Did it die?" Jane asked, softly.

"I reckon it mus' be dead by now," he returned, musingly. "Good many of 'em dead: what I knows is dead. Yes'm, I reckon so."

"How old were you when you were married?" William asked, with a manner of peculiar earnestness;—it was the manner of one who addresses a colleague.

"Me? Well, suh, dat 'pen's." He seemed to search his memory. "I rickalect I 'uz ma'ied once in Looavle," he said.

Jane's interest still followed the first child. "Was that where it was born, Mr. Genesis?" she asked.

He looked puzzled, and paused in his whittling to rub his deeply corrugated forehead. "Well, suh, mus' been some bawn in Looavle. Genesis," he called to his industrious son, "whaih 'uz you bawn?"

"Right 'n 'is town," laughed Genesis. "You fergit a good deal, pappy, but I notice you don' fergit come to meals!"

The old man grunted, resuming his whittling busily. "Hain' much use," he complained. "Cain' eat nuff'm 'lessen it all gruelly. Man cain' eat nuff'm 'lessen he got teef. Genesis, di'n' I hyuh you tellin' dis white gemmun take caih his teef—not bite on no i'on?"

William smiled in pity. "I don't need to bother about that, I guess," he said. "I can crack nuts with my teeth."

"Yes, suh," said the old man. "You kin now. Ev'y nut you crac' now goin' cos' you a yell when you git 'long 'bout fawty an' fifty. You crack nuts now an' you'll holler den!"

"Well, I guess I won't worry myself much now about what won't happen till I'm forty or fifty," said William. "My teeth 'll last my time, I guess."

That brought a chuckle from Mr. Genesis. "Jes' listen!" he exclaimed. "Young man think he ain' nev' goin' be ole man. Else he think, 'Dat ole man what I'm goin' to be, dat ain' goin' be me 'tall—dat goin' be somebody else! What I caih 'bout dat ole man? I ain't a-goin' take caih o' no teef fer him!' Yes, suh, an' den when he git to be ole man, he say, 'What become o' dat young man I yoosta be? Where is dat young man agone to? He 'uz a fool, dat's what—an' I ain' no fool, so he mus' been somebody else, not me; but I do jes' wish I had him hyuh 'bout two minutes—long enough to lam him fer not takin' caih o' my teef fer me!' Yes, suh!"

William laughed; his good humor was restored and he found the conversation of Mr. Genesis attractive. He seated himself upon an upturned bucket near the wheelbarrow, and reverted to a former theme. "Well, I have heard of people getting married even younger 'n you were," he said. "You take India, for instance. Why, they get married in India when they're twelve, and even seven and eight years old."

"They do not!" said Jane, promptly. "Their mothers and fathers wouldn't let 'em, an' they wouldn't want to, anyway."

"I suppose you been to India and know all about it!" William retorted. "For the matter o' that, there was a young couple got married in Pennsylvania the other day; the girl was only fifteen, and the man was sixteen. It was in the papers, and their parents consented, and said it was a good thing. Then there was a case in Fall River, Massachusetts, where a young man eighteen years old married a woman forty-one years old; it was in the papers, too. And I heard of another case somewhere in Iowa—a boy began shaving when he was thirteen, and shaved every day for four years, and now he's got a full beard, and he's goin' to get married this year—before he's eighteen years old. Joe Bullitt's got a cousin in Iowa that knows about this case—he knows the girl this fellow with the beard is goin' to marry, and he says he expects it 'll turn out the best thing could have happened. They're goin' to live on a farm. There's hunderds of cases like that, only you don't hear of more'n just a few of 'em. People used to get married at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—anywhere in there—and never think anything of it at all. Right up to about a hunderd years ago there were more people married at those ages than there were along about twenty-four and twenty-five, the way they are now. For instance, you take Shakespeare—"

William paused.

Mr. Genesis was scraping the hull of the miniature boat with a piece of broken glass, in lieu of sandpaper, but he seemed to be following his young friend's remarks with attention. William had mentioned Shakespeare impulsively, in the ardor of demonstrating his point; however, upon second thought he decided to withdraw the name.

"I mean, you take the olden times," he went on; "hardly anybody got married after they were nineteen or twenty years old, unless they were widowers, because they were all married by that time. And right here in our own county, there were eleven couples married in the last six months under twenty-one years of age. I've got a friend named Johnnie Watson; his uncle works down at the court-house and told him about it, so it can't be denied. Then there was a case I heard of over in—"

Mr. Genesis uttered a loud chuckle. "My goo'ness!" he exclaimed. "How you c'leck all' dem fac's? Lan' name! What puzzlin' me is how you 'member 'em after you done c'leck 'em. Ef it uz me I couldn't c'leck 'em in de firs' place, an' ef I could, dey wouldn' be no use to me, 'cause I couldn't rickalect 'em!"

"Well, it isn't so hard," said William, "if you kind of get the hang of it." Obviously pleased, he plucked a spear of grass and placed it between his teeth, adding, "I always did have a pretty good memory."

"Mamma says you're the most forgetful boy she ever heard of," said Jane, calmly. "She says you can't remember anything two minutes."

William's brow darkened. "Now look here—" he began, with severity.

But the old darky intervened. "Some folks got good rickaleckshum an' some folks got bad," he said, pacifically. "Young white germmun rickalect mo' in two minute dan what I kin in two years!"

Jane appeared to accept this as settlement of the point at issue, while William bestowed upon Mr. Genesis a glance of increased favor. William's expression was pleasant to see; in fact, it was the pleasantest expression Jane had seen him wearing for several days. Almost always, lately, he was profoundly preoccupied, and so easily annoyed that there was no need to be careful of his feelings, because—as his mother observed—he was "certain to break out about every so often, no matter what happened!"

"I remember pretty much everything," he said, as if in modest explanation of the performance which had excited the aged man's admiration. "I can remember things that happened when I was four years old."

"So can I," said Jane. "I can remember when I was two. I had a kitten fell down the cistern and papa said it hurt the water."

"My goo'ness!" Mr. Genesis exclaimed. "An' you 'uz on'y two year ole, honey! Bes' I kin do is rickalect when I 'uz 'bout fifty."

"Oh no!" Jane protested. "You said you remembered havin' a baby when you were seventeen, Mr. Genesis."

"Yes'm," he admitted. "I mean rickalect good like you do 'bout yo' li'l' cat an' all how yo' pappy tuck on 'bout it. I kin rickalect some, but I cain' rickalect good."

William coughed with a certain importance. "Do you remember," he asked, "when you were married, how did you feel about it? Were you kind of nervous, or anything like that, beforehand?"

Mr. Genesis again passed a wavering hand across his troubled brow.

"I mean," said William, observing his perplexity, "were you sort of shaky—f'rinstance, as if you were taking an important step in life?"

"Lemme see." The old man pondered for a moment. "I felt mighty shaky once, I rickalect; dat time yalla m'latta man shootin' at me f 'um behime a snake-fence."

"Shootin' at you!" Jane cried, stirred from her accustomed placidity. "Mr. Genesis! What did he do that for?"

"Nuff'm!" replied Mr. Genesis, with feeling. "Nuff'm in de wide worl'! He boun' to shoot somebody, an' pick on me 'cause I 'uz de handies'."

He closed his knife, gave the little boat a final scrape with the broken glass, and then a soothing rub with the palm of his hand. "Dah, honey," he said—and simultaneously factory whistles began to blow. "Dah yo' li'l' steamboat good as I kin git her widout no b'iler ner no smokestack. I reckon yo' pappy 'll buy 'em fer you."

Jane was grateful. "It's a beautiful boat, Mr. Genesis. I do thank you!"

Genesis, the son, laid aside his tools and approached. "Pappy finish whittlin' spang on 'em noon whistles," he chuckled. "Come 'long, pappy. I bet you walk fas' 'nuff goin' todes dinnuh. I hear fry-cakes ploppin' in skillet!"

Mr. Genesis laughed loudly, his son's words evidently painting a merry and alluring picture; and the two, followed by Clematis, moved away in the direction of the alley gate. William and Jane watched the brisk departure of the antique with sincere esteem and liking.

"He must have been sixteen," said William, musingly.

"When?" Jane asked.

William, in deep thought, was still looking after Mr. Genesis; he was almost unconscious that he had spoken aloud and he replied, automatically:

"When he was married."

Then, with a start, he realized into how great a condescension he had been betrayed, and hastily added, with pronounced hauteur, "Things you don't understand. You run in the house."

Jane went into the house, but she did not carry her obedience to the point of running. She walked slowly, and in that state of profound reverie which was characteristic of her when she was immersed in the serious study of William's affairs.