Uncle William/Chapter 2

HE old man pushed open the door with a friendly kick. “Go right along in,” he said. “I ’ll be there ’s soon as I ’ve got an armful of wood.”

The artist entered the glowing room. Turkey-red blazed at the windows and decorated the walls. It ran along the line of shelves by the fire and covered the big lounge. One stepped into the light of it with a sudden sense of crude comfort.

The artist set his canvas carefully on a projecting beam and looked about him, smiling. A cat leaped down from the turkey-red lounge and came across, rubbing his legs. He bent and stroked her absently.

She arched her back to his hand. Then, moving from him with stately step, she approached the door, looking back at him with calm, imperious gaze.

“All right, Juno,” he said. “He ’ll be along in a minute. Don’t you worry.”

She turned her back on him and, seating herself, began to wash her face gravely and slowly.

The door opened with a puff, and she leaped forward, dashing upon the big leg that entered and digging her claws into it in ecstasy of welcome.

Uncle William, over the armful of wood, surveyed her with shrewd eyes. He reached down a long arm and, seizing her by the tail, swung her clear of his path, landing her on the big lounge. With a purr of satisfaction, she settled herself, kneading her claws in its red softness.

He deposited the wood in the box and stood up. His bluff, kind gaze swept the little room affectionately. He took off the stove-lid and poked together the few coals that glowed beneath. “That ’s all right,” he said. “She ’ll heat up quick.” He thrust in some light sticks and pushed forward the kettle. “Now, if you ’ll reach into that box behind you and get the potatoes,” he said, “I ’ll do the rest of the fixin’s.”

He removed his hat, and taking down a big oil-cloth apron, checked red and black, tied it about his ample waist. He reached up and drew from behind the clock a pair of spectacles in steel bows. He adjusted them to his blue eyes with a little frown. “They ’re a terrible bother,” he said, squinting through them and readjusting them. “But I don’t dare resk it without. I got hold of the pepper-box last time. Thought it was the salt—same shape. The chowder was hot.” He chuckled. “I can see a boat a mile off,” he said, lifting the basket of clams to the sink, “but a pepper-box two feet ’s beyond me.” He stood at the sink, rubbing the clams with slow, thoughtful fingers. His big head, outlined against the window, was not unlike the line of sea-coast that stretched below, far as the eye could see, rough and jagged. Tufts of hair framed his shining baldness and tufts of beard embraced the chin, losing themselves in the vast expanse of neckerchief knotted, sailor fashion, about his throat.

Over the clams and the potatoes and the steaming kettles he hovered with a kind of slow patience,—in a smaller man it would have been fussiness,—and when the fragrant chowder was done he dipped it out with careful hand. The light had lessened, and the little room, in spite of its ruddy glow, was growing dark. Uncle William glanced toward the window. Across the harbor a single star had come out. “Time to set my light,” he said. He lighted a ship’s lantern and placed it carefully in the window.

The artist watched him with amused eyes. “You waste a lot of oil on the government, Uncle William,” he said laughingly. “Why don’t you apply for a salary?”

Uncle William smiled genially. “Well, I s’pose the guvernment would say the’ wa’n’t any reel need for a light here. And I don’t s’pose the’ is, myself—not any reel need. But it ’s a comfort. The boys like to see it, comin’ in at night. They ’ve sailed by it a good many year now, and I reckon they ’d miss it. It ’s cur’us how you do miss a thing that ’s a comfort—more ’n you do one ’t you reely need sometimes.” He lighted the lamp swinging, ship fashion, from a beam above, and surveyed the table. He drew up his chair. “Well, it ’s ready,” he said, “such as it is.”

“That ’s all airs, Uncle William,” said the young man, drawing up. “You know it ’s fit for a king.”

“Yes, it ’s good,” said the old man, beaming on him. “I ’ve thought a good many times there wa’n’t anything in the world that tasted better than chowder—real good clam chowder.” His mouth opened to take in a spoonful, and his ponderous jaws worked slowly. There was nothing gross in the action, but it might have been ambrosia. He had pushed the big spectacles up on his head for comfort, and they made an iron-gray bridge from tuft to tuft, framing the ruddy face.

“There was a man up here to Arichat one summer,” he said, chewing slowly, “that e’t my chowder. And he was sort o’ possessed to have me go back home with him.”

The artist smiled. “Just to make chowder for him?”

The old man nodded. “Sounds cur’us, don’t it? But that was what he wanted. He was a big hotel keeper and he sort o’ got the idea that if he could have chowder like that it would be a big thing for the hotel. He offered me a good deal o’ money if I ’d go with him—said he ’d give me five hunderd a year and keep.” The old man chuckled. “I told him I would n’t go for a thousand—not for two thousand,” he said emphatically. “Why, I don’t s’pose there ’s money enough in New York to tempt me to live there.

“Have you been there?”

“Yes, I ’ve been there a good many times. We ’ve put in for repairs and one thing and another, and I sailed a couple of years between there and Liverpool once. It ’s a terrible shet-in place,” he said suddenly.

“I believe you ’re right,” admitted the young man. He had lighted his pipe and was leaning back, watching the smoke. “You do feel shut in—sometimes. But there are a lot of nice people shut in with you.”

“That ’s what I meant,” he said, quickly. “I can’t stan’ so many folks.”

“You ’re not much crowded here.” The young man lifted his head. Down below they could hear the surf beating. The wind had risen. It rushed against the little house whirlingly.

The old man listened a minute. “I shall have to go down and reef her down,” he said thoughtfully. “It ’s goin’ to blow.”

“I should say it is blowing,” said the young man.

“Not yet,” returned Uncle William. “You ’ll hear it blow afore mornin’ if you stay awake to listen—though it won’t sound so loud up the shore where you be. This is the place for it. A good stiff blow and nobody on either side of you—for half a mile.” A kind of mellow enthusiasm held the tone.

The young man smiled. “You are a hermit. Suppose somebody should build next you?”

“They can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I own it.”

“A mile?”

The old man nodded. “Not the shore, of course. That ’s free to all. But where anybody could build I own.” He said it almost exultantly. “I guess maybe I ’m part Indian.” He smiled apologetically. “I can’t seem to breathe without I have room enough, and it just come over me once, how I should feel if folks crowded down on me too much. So I bought it. I ’m what they call around here ‘land-poor.’” He said it with satisfaction. “I can’t scrape together money enough to buy a new boat, and it ’s ’s much as I can do to keep the Jennie patched up and going. But I ’m comfortable. I don’t really want for anything.”

“Yes, you ’re comfortable.” The young man glanced about the snug room.

“There ain’t a lot of folks shying up over the rocks at me.” He got up with deliberation, knocking the ashes from his pipe. “I ’m goin’ to make things snug and put down the other anchor,” he said. “You stay till I come back and we ’ll have suthin’ hot.”

He put on his oil-skin hat and coat, and taking the lantern from its hook, went out into the night.

Within, the light of the swinging lamp fell on the turkey-red. It glowed. The cat purred in its depths.