Uncle William/Chapter 21

HERE was a letter for the artist. It contained a check from the Frenchman. He had bought three of the pictures—the one of Uncle William’s house and the two of the old Bodet place.

“Did you know it?” demanded the artist. He was facing Uncle William in the boat as they rowed home.

“I did n’t jest know it,” said Uncle William, with a long, easy pull, “but I reckoned suthin’ ’d be along putty soon. If it had n’t come to-day, I was goin’ to make Andy give us enough to begin on.”

“He would n’t have done it.”

“Oh, yes, h ’d ’a’ done it. He ’d ’a’ squirmed and twisted some, but he ’d ’a’ done it. He ’d ’a’ had to!”

The artist laughed out happily. “Well, now you can do as you like. We ’ll have the best boat there is going.”

Uncle William nodded. “I knew you’d want to. I ’ve been kind o’ plannin’ for it. We ’ll go down to-morrow or next day and see about it.”

The artist looked at him curiously. “I don’t believe you care half as much as I do!”

Uncle William returned the look, smiling broadly. “It ’ll seem putty good to feel my own boards under me again,” he said cheerfully.

“But you did n’t care when you did n’t have them,” said the artist. “You just toted those infernal kittens—”

Uncle William’s chuckle was genial. “Kittens ain’t everything,” he said mildly. “But I ’ve seen the time when kittens wa’n’t to be despised. You jest set that way a little mite, Mr. Woodworth, and I ’ll beach her even.”

“One thing I’m glad of,” said the artist, as the boat grated along the pebbles. “You can pay Andy.”

“Andy ’ll be glad,” responded Uncle William, “but it ’ll be quite a spell before he has a chance to.” He waved his arm toward the bay. “He ’s off for the day.”

The artist scanned the horizon with disappointed face. “He ’ll be back by noon, perhaps?”

Uncle William shook his head. “Not afore night. I can tell by the way he ’s movin’. We ’ll come up and hev dinner and then we can plan her out.”

They sat on the rocks all the afternoon, looking at the dancing waves and planning for the new Jennie. Uncle William drew models on the back of an old envelope and explained figures. The artist followed him with eager eyes. Now and then his chest expanded and he drew a deep breath of satisfaction.

“Feel ’s good, don’t it?” said Uncle William. “I ust to feel that way when I ’d been in debt a good while and made a big ketch. Seemed ’s if the whole world slid off my shoulders.” He shook his head. “But it was kind o’ foolishness.”

“Would n’t you feel that way now?” demanded the artist.

“I don’t believe I would,” said Uncle William, slowly. “It ’s a kind o’ wicked feelin’—when the sun ’s a-shinin’ jest the same, and the water ’s movin’ up and down,—” he motioned toward the harbor,—“and the boats are comin’ in at night, settlin’ down like birds, and the lights.” He looked affectionately at the water. “It ’s all there jest the same whether I owe anybody or not. And the rocks don’t budge much—” He laid his big brown hand on the warm surface beside him, smoothing it in slow content.

The artist looked at him, smiling a little wistfully. “It sounds all very well to talk about,” he said, “but the world would go to rack and ruin if everybody felt that way.”

“I ust to think so,” said Uncle William, placidly. “I ust to lie awake nights worryin’ about it. But late years I ’ve give it up. ’Seems to jog along jest about the same as when I was worryin’—and I take a heap sight more comfort. Seems kind o’ ridiculous, don’t it, when the Lord ’s made a world as good as this one, not to enjoy it some?”

“Don’t you feel any responsibility toward society?” asked the artist, curiously.

Uncle William shook his head with a slow smile. “I don’t believe I do. I ust to. Lord, yes! I ust to think about folks that was hungry till my stummick clean caved in. I ust to eat my dinner like it was sawdust, for fear I ’d get a little comfort out of it, while somebody somewheres was starvin’—little childern, like enough. That was al’ays the hardest part of it—little childern. I ust to think some of foundin’ a’ sylum up here on the rocks—sailin’ round the world and pickin’ up a boat-load and then bringin’ ’em up here and turnin’ ’em loose on the rocks, givin’ ’em all they could stuff to eat. And then one night, when I was cal’atin’ and figgerin’ on it, I saw that I could n’t get half of ’em into my boat, nor a quarter, nor a tenth—jest a little corner of ’em. And then it come over me, all of a sudden, what a big job I ’d tackled, and I jest turned it over to the Lord, then an there. And all the next day I kep’ kind o’ thinkin’ about it out here on the rocks—how he ’d took a thousand year—mebbe ’t was more; a good long spell, they say—to get the rocks ready for folks to live on—jest the rocks! And like enough he knew what he was plannin’ to do, and did n’t expect me to finish it all up for him in fo’-five years. Since then I’ve been leavin’ it to him more—takin’ a hand when I could, but payin’ more attention to livin’. I sort o’ reckon that ’s what he made us for—to live. The’ ’s a good deal o’ fun in it if you go at it right.”

“That ’s a great idea, Uncle William,” said the artist.

“It ’s comf’tabul,” assented Uncle William. “You get your livin’ as you go along, and a little suthin’ over. Seems ’s if some folks did n’t even get a livin’ they ’re so busy doing things.”

He was silent for a while, his blue eyes following the light on the water. “The’ was a man I sailed with once,—a cur’us sort o’ chap,—and when he wa’n’t sober he could tell you interestin’ things. He had n’t been a sailor al’ays—took to it ’cause he liked it, he said. And he tol’ me a good deal about the goings-on of the earth. Like enough ’t wa’n’t so—some on it—but it was interestin’. He told me ’t the earth was all red-hot once, and cooled off quicker on the outside—like a hot pertater, I s’pose. You ’ve heard about it?” He looked inquiringly at the artist.

The artist nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, I ’ve thought about that a good many times when I ’ve been sailin’. I could see it all, jest the way he put it, the earth a-whirlin’ and twirlin’, and the fire and flames a-shootin’ up to the sky, and rocks and stones and stuff a-b’ilin’ and flyin’—” Uncle William’s eye dwelt lovingly on the picture. “I ’d seem to see it all jest the way he tol’ it, and then I ’d put my hand out over the side of the boat and trail it along in the water to cool off a little.” Uncle William chuckled. “Sometimes it seems ’s if you ’d come a million miles all in a minute—rocks all along the shore, good hard rocks ’t you could set on, and the hill up to the sky with grass on it, green and soft, and the water all round. It a’most takes your breath away to come back like that from that red-hot ball he talked about and see it all lyin’ there, so cool and still, and the sun shinin’ on it. I got to thinkin’ ’bout it, days when I was sailin’, and wondering if mebbe the Lord wa’n’t gettin’ folks ready jest the way he did the rocks—rollin’ ’em over and havin’ ’em pound each other and claw and fight and cool off, slow-like, till byme-by they’d be good sweet earth and grass and little flowers—comf’tabul to live with.”

The artist sat up. “Do you mean to say you would n’t stop folks fighting if you could?”

Uncle William eyed the proposition. “Well I dunno ’s I ’d say jest that. I ’ve thought about it a good many times. Men al’ays hev fit and I reckon they will—quite a spell yet. There’s Russia and Japan now: you could n’t ’a’ stopped them fightin’ no more ’n two boys that had got at it. All them Russians and them little Japs—we could n’t ’a’ stopped ’em fightin’—the whole of us could n’t hev stopped ’em—not unless we ’d ’a’ took ’em by the scruff o’ the neck and thrown ’em down and set on ’em—one apiece. And I dunno ’s that ’d be much better ’n fightin’—settin’ on ’em one apiece.”

The artist laughed out.

Uncle William beamed on him. “You see, this is the way I figger it: Russia and Japan wa’n’t fightin’ so much for anything they reely wanted to git. It was suthin’ in ’em that made ’em go for each other, tooth and nail, and pommel so—a kind o’ pizen bubbling and sizzling inside ’em; we ’ve all got a little of it.” He smiled genially. “It has to work out slow-like. Some does it by fightin’ and some does it by prayin’; and I reckon the Lord ’s in the fightin’, same as in the prayin’.”

The artist looked at him curiously. “Some people call that the devil, you know.”

Uncle William cleared his throat. He picked up a little stone and balanced it thoughtfully on the palm of his hand. Then he looked up with a slow smile. “I ain’t so well acquainted with the devil as I ust to be,” he said. “I ust to know him reel well; ust to think about him when I was out sailin’—figger how to get ahead of him. But late years I ’d kind o’ forgot— He ’s livin’ still, is he?”

The artist laughed quietly. “They say so—some of them.”

Uncle William’s smile grew wider and sweeter. “Well, let him live. Poor old thing! ’T won’t hurt none, and he is a kind o’ comfort to lay things on when you ’ve been, more ’n usual, cussed. That ’s the Andrew Halloran over there to the left.” He pointed to a dusky boat that was coming in slowly. “That ’s his last tack, if he makes it, and I reckon he will. Now, if you ’ll go in and start the chowder, I ’ll see if he wants any help about makin’ fast.”