Uncle William/Chapter 11

HEN he returned the artist was awake. His eyes had a clearer look.

Uncle William surveyed them over the top of his parcels. “Feelin’ better?” he said.

“Yes.”

He carried the parcels into the next room, and the artist heard him pottering around and humming. He came out presently in his shirt-sleeves. His spectacles were mounted on the gray tufts. “I ’ve got a chowder going’,” he said. “You take another pill and then you ’ll be about ready to eat some of it, when it ’s done.”

“Can I eat chowder?” The tone was dubious, but meek.

“You ’ve got all your teeth, hain’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, I guess you can eat it.”

“I have n’t been eating much.”

“I should n’t think you had.” Uncle William spoke dryly. “You need n’t be a mite afraid o’ one o’ my chowders. A baby could eat ’em, if it had got its teeth.”

The artist ate the chowder, when it came, and called for more, but Uncle William refused him sternly. “You jest wait awhile,” he said, bearing away the empty plate. “There ain’t more ’n enough for a comfortable dish for me. You don’t want to eat it all, do you?”

“No,” said the artist, flushing.

“I thought not.” It took Uncle William a long time to eat his portion, and the artist fell asleep again, watching the rhythmic motion of the great jaw as it went slowly back and forth.

When he wakened again it was almost dark in the room. Uncle William sat by the window, looking down into the street. He came across to the bed as the artist stirred. “You ’ve had a good long sleep.” He laid a hand on the moist forehead. “That ’s good. Fever ’s gone.”

“It will come back. It always does.” There was anxious dread in the tone.

“It won’t this time.” Uncle William sat nodding at him mildly. “I know how you feel—kind o’ scared to believe anything—anything that ’s good.”

The artist smiled. “You never felt that way!”

“Just that way,” said Uncle William. “I did n’t want to believe I wa’n’t al’ays goin’ to be sick. I kep’ kind o’ thinkin’ I ’d rather be sick ’n not—jest as if the devil had me.”

“Yes”—the young man spoke almost eagerly—“it ’s the way I ’ve been! Only I did n’t know it till you said so.”

“The’ ’s a good many things we don’t know—not jest exactly know—till somebody says ’em.”

They sat quiet, listening to the hum from the street.

“I ’ve done some queer things,” said the artist.

“Like enough.” Uncle William did not ask what they were.

“They begin to look foolish.” He turned his head a little.

“Do you good—best thing in the world.”

“I don’t see how I could.” The tone was uneasy. “I must have been beastly to her.”

Uncle William said nothing.

“She did n’t tell you?” The artist was looking at him.

“She? Lord, no! women don’t tell anything you ’ve done to ’em—not if it ’s anything bad.”

“I might have known.... I fairly turned her out. But she kept coming back. She wanted me to marry her, so she could stay and take care of me.” He was not looking at Uncle William.

“And you would n’t let her?”

“I could n’t.—There was no money,” he said at last.

Uncle William glanced about him in the clear dusk. “Comf’tabul place,” he said.

The artist flushed. “She pays the rent, I suppose. They would have turned me out long since. I have n’t asked, but I know she pays it. There is no one else.”

“She is rich, probably,” said Uncle William.

“Rich?” The young man smiled bitterly. “She has what she earns. She works day and night. If she should stop, there would be nothing for either of us.”

“Not unless suthin’ come in,” said Uncle William. “Suthin’ might come in.—You ’d kind o’ like to see her, would n’t you?”

The artist held out a hand as if to stop him. “Not till I can pay her back, every cent!”

“Guess you need another pill, likely,” said Uncle William. He got up in the dark and groped about for the bottle. His great form loomed large above the bed as he handed it to the young man. “That ’s four,” he said soothingly. “Jest about one more ’ll fix ye.”

The young man swallowed it almost grudgingly. He lay back upon the pillow. “I can pay her the money sometime.” His gaunt eyes were staring into the dark. “But I can never make up to her for the way I treated her.”

“Mebbe she did n’t mind,” said Uncle William, non-committally. “Sometimes they don’t.”

“Mind? She could n’t help minding. I was a fiend to her. I did everything but strike her.”

A smile grew, out of the dark, in Uncle William’s face. “I was thinkin’ about that ol’ chief,” he said slowly—“the one that give me the pills. I treated him—why, I treated him wuss ’n anything. ’Course, he wa’n’t like white folks; but I was fightin’ crazy with the fever, not sick enough to go to bed, but jest sittin’ around and jawin’ at things. I dunno how he come to take such a likin’ to me. Might ’a’ been on account o’ my size—we was about the same build. I ’d set and jaw at him, callin’ him names.—Don’t s’pose he understood half of ’em, but he could see plain enough I was spittin’ mad. He ’d kind o’ edge up to me, grinnin’ like and noddin’, and fust thing I knew, one day, he ’d fetched a pill and made me take it. I was mad enough to ’a’ killed him easy, but ’fore I could get up to do it, I fell asleep somehow. And when I woke up I felt different. You feel different, don’t you?”

The artist smiled through the soft dark. “I would like to get down on my knees.”

Uncle William smoothed the spread in place. “They ’d feel kind o’ sharp, I guess. I would n’t try it—not yet. You wait till Sergia comes.”

“Will she come?”

“She ’d come to-night if she knew you wanted her. You go to sleep, and in the mornin’ you ’ll take that other pill.” He lifted the pillow and turned it over, patting it in place. “Why, that ol’ chief he was so glad when he see me feelin’ better he acted kind o’ crazy-like. I held out my hand to him when I woke up; but he didn’t know anything about shakin’ hands. He jest got down and took my feet and hugged ’em. It made me feel queer,” said Uncle William. “You do feel queer when you hain’t acted jest right.”