Uncle William/Chapter 8

NCLE WILLIAM carried the letter up the zigzag rocks in his big fingers. A touch of spring was in the air, but the Andrew Halloran rocked alone at the foot of the cliff. Uncle William turned back once to look at her. Then he pursued his way up the rocky cliff. He had not heard from the artist for over a month. He glanced down curiously at the letter in his hand, once or twice, as he climbed the cliff. It was a woman’s handwriting.

He sat down by the table, tearing open the envelope with cautious fingers. A strip of bluish paper fluttered from it and fell to the floor. Uncle William bent over and picked it up. He looked at it a little bashfully and laid it on the table. He spread the letter before him, resting his elbows on the table and bending above it laboriously. As he read, an anxious line came between his eyes. “Now, that ’s too bad—sick in bed—I want to know— Well, well! Pshaw, you need n’t ’a’ done that! Of course I ’ll go.” He picked up the bluish slip and looked at it. He pushed the spectacles back on his head and sat surveying the red room. He shook his head slowly. “He must be putty sick to feel like that,” he said.

He took up the letter again, spelling it out slowly.

Uncle William looked up, perplexed. “Sho, now! What does she mean by that? I did n’t do nuthin’—nuthin’ to speak of.”

Uncle William nodded at the letter with a genial smile, as if he saw the girl herself and responded to the wish. He returned the letter with the blue slip to the envelope and stowed it away in his pocket. He surveyed the room again, shaking his head. “I could n’t take their money, nohow,” he said slowly. “I must go and see Andy. He ’ll help out. He ’ll be reel glad to.”

He rose and began to set the table, bringing out the smoked herring and bread and tea and foxberries with lavish hand. He sat down with a look of satisfaction. Juno, from the red lounge, came across, jumping into the chair beside him. She rubbed expectantly against him. He fed her bits of the herring with impartial hand. When the meal was over, he went to the chimney and took out the loose brick, reaching in behind for the money. He counted it slowly. “Not near enough,” he said, shaking his head. “I knew there wa’n’t. I must go and see Andy.”

He washed the dishes and put them away, then he combed his tufts of hair and tied his neckerchief anew.

He found Andrew outside his house, feeding the hens. They stood in silence, watching the scramble for bits. “Shoo!” said Andrew, making a dash for a big cochin-china. “She eats a lot more ’an her share,” he grumbled, shaking out the dish. “Comin’ in?”

“I ’ve got a little suthin’ to talk over with ye,” said William.

“Come out behind the barn,” said Andrew.

Seated on a well-worn bench with a glimpse of the bay in the distance, William drew out the envelope. “I ’ve got a letter—”

Andy eyed it. “From that painter chap?”

“Well, not exactly. But it ’s about him. He ’s in a good deal of trouble—”

“What ’s he been doin’?” demanded Andy.

“He ’s been bein’ sick,” said William, reproachfully.

“Oh!” Andy’s face fell.

“He ’s sick now,” went on Uncle William. He drew the letter from its envelope. “He ’s feeling putty bad.”

“What ’s the matter of him?” said Andy, gruffly.

Uncle William studied the letter.

“It ’s a kind o’ fever—I guess—intermittent. Runs for a while, then lets up a day or two, and then runs again. We had it once—don’t you remember?—the whole crew, that time we broke down off Madagascar? ’Member how sick we felt?” Uncle William looked at him mildly.

Andy’s eye was fixed on the bay. “How d’ you know it ’s the same?” he said.

“Well, I don’t know it ’s the same—not just the same, but she says—”

“Who says?” Andy whirled about.

“Why, she says—Sergia says.— Did n’t I jest tell you, Andy?”

“You did n’t tell me nuthin’,” said Andy. He had returned to the bay.

“She is his—she is goin’ to marry him,” said William.

“Huh!”

There was silence for a minute, while Andrew digested the morsel. “When they goin’ to be married?” he said at last.

Uncle William shook his head. “That ’s jest it, Andy. They ’re in a heap o’ trouble.”

Andy stirred uneasily. “What ’d she write to you for?”

“I ’m comin’ to that—if you ’ll give me time. She thought mebbe I could help—”

Andy moved a little away. “You hain’t got the means,” he said decisively.

“No”—the tone was soothing—“but I can get it, mebbe. She wants me to come down.”

“To New York? You!” Andy looked at him.

William returned the look apologetically. “Does sound ridiculous, don’t it, Andy? I should n’t ever ’a’ thought of the thing myself, but she says he kind o’ needs me. Keeps askin’ for me when the fever is on, and don’t seem to get along much when it lets up. She kind o’ thinks if I was there, it would help him to brace up, somehow, a little.”

Andy made no response. The green light was dawning far down in his eye.

Uncle William watched it. “It ’s jest a sick man’s fancy, like enough.”

“When you goin’?” said Andy.

“I though ’bout day after to-morrow.”

“It ’ll cost a heap.”

“I know it.”

“You ’ve got it, I s’pose?” indifferently.

“Some of it,” said William.

Andy moved a little farther away. He was very near the edge of the bench.

Uncle William moved over by him, and laid a hand on his knee. “I was goin’ to ask you to lend me a hunderd, Andy.”

Andy wriggled a little. “You don’t hev to go,” he said feebly.

“If he needs me, I ’ll have to. I ain’t ever been needed much—livin’ alone so. You don’t know how ’t is. You have somebody to need you. Harriet needs you—”

“Lord, yes, Harr’et needs me. Don’t doubt she needs me this minute—pail o’ water or suthin’.” Andrew chuckled gloomily.

“And you hev your chickens, too.” Uncle William fixed his glance placidly on a strutting fowl that had appeared around the corner, cocking a surprised eye at them. William regarded her thoughtfully. “When a man ’s alone, there ain’t much he can do for folks,” he said slowly, “except feed Juno night and mornin’,—and she catches so many mice it ain’t really wuth while. Now a hen needs to be fed.”

“Guess they do,” grumbled Andy.

“And a cow,” went on Uncle William, “but there—” he checked himself. “What am I talkin’ about? How ’d I ever keep a cow? What ’d I do with the milk? I could n’t eat a whole cowful.” He sat gazing with far-off eyes at the glimpse of blue water.

Andy chewed scornfully on a bit of dry grass.

William turned to him suddenly. “We ’ll go down and draw out the money to-morrow morning,” he said.

Andy chewed anxiously. “I dunno as I can let you have it,” he protested.

“Oh, yes, you ’ll let me. You see I need it, Andy, and I ’m goin’ to pay you six per cent. How much do you get at the bank? Not more ’n five, do you?”

“Four and a half,” said Andy, grudgingly.

“Four and a half. Well, you see, I give you six. So there ’s a dollar and a half clear gain.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed to the dollar and a half and fed on it awhile. “I shall hev to ask Harr’et,” he said.

“Now, I would n’t ask Harriet.” Uncle William spoke soothingly. “She don’t agree with you and me a good many times—Harriet don’t.”

Andrew admitted it. He chewed awhile in silence. “You ’ll give me a mortgage?” he said at last. The tone was crafty.

“On my place!” Uncle William was roused. “No, sir, I don’t give mortgages to nobody.”

“Then I don’t see as I can let you hev it,” said Andy. “It ’s fair to ask for a mortgage. What if anything should happen to ye—down there in New York? Where ’d I be?” He looked at him reproachfully.

“You would miss me, Andy, and I know it. I ’m goin’ to be careful. I shan’t take no more resks ’n I have to.”

“Nor me, neither,” said Andy.

“That ’s right, Andy, you be careful, too, while I ’m gone. Why, ’t wouldn’t ever be like home—to come back and not find you here.”

Andy’s eyes widened. “What you talkin’ ’bout?” he said.

Uncle William’s gaze was on him affectionately. He looked a little puzzled. “I dunno jest what I did start to say,” he said apologetically. “I was thinkin’ what a store I set by you, Andy.”

Andy’s face softened a trifle. “Now, look here, Willum, a mortgage is fair. It would n’t hurt you none, nor your place—”

William shook his head. “I could n’t do it, Andy. I would n’t reely trust you with a mortgage. You might get scared and foreclose some day if I could n’t pay the interest, and you ’d be ashamed enough—doin’ a thing like that.”

The next day Andy drew the hundred from the bank and turned it over to William without even a note to guard his sacred rights. Andy had tried in the night watches to formulate a note. He had selected the best, from a row of crafty suggestions, about four o’clock. But later, as he and William went up the road, the note dropped by the way.

Uncle William stowed the money in his pocket with a comfortable smile. “You ’ve done the right thing, Andy, and I shall pay you back when I can. You ’ll get your interest reg’lar—six per cent.”

Andy’s face held a kind of subdued gloom. He mourned not as those without hope, but with a chastened expectancy. To lend William money had almost the fine flavor of gambling.

He saw him off the following morning, with a sense of widened interests. He carried, moreover, an additional burden. “Remember, Andy,” Uncle William called to him as the boat moved away, “she don’t like potato, and she won’t touch a mite of fish—’ceptin’ herrin’.” Juno had been intrusted to him.

Andy grinned a sickly good-by. “Good-by, Willum; I ’ll do as well as I can by her.” He turned away with a sudden sense of loss. The island seemed very empty. Juno did not like Andy, and he was needed at home. The mental effort of thinking up a menu three times a day that did not include fish and potato for a magnificent creature like Juno weighed heavily on him. He had proposed bringing her down to the house, thinking to shift the burden on to Harriet, but Uncle William had refused sternly. “She would n’t be comfortable, Andy. The’ ’s a good deal of soap and water down to your house and she would n’t like it. You can run up two or three times, easy, to see she ’s all right. Mebbe you ’ll get fond of her.”

Andrew had no rosy hopes of fondness, but as he turned away from the wharf, there seemed no place on the island that would hold him so comfortably as the little house on the cliff. He climbed the rocky path to it and opened the door. Juno sprang down from her lounge. When she saw who it was she gave an indifferent lick to her front leg, as if she always jumped down to lick her leg. Then she jumped back on the lounge and turned her back to the room, looking out of the window and blinking from time to time. The smoke of the steamer was dwindling in the distance.

Andy sat down in a vacant chair by the stove, staring at nothing. The sun poured in. It filled the room with warmth. Andy’s eyes rested on it vacantly. The stillness was warm and big. It seemed a kind of presence. Andy drew his hand across his eyes and got up. He went over and stood by the lounge, peering out. The smoke was gone. Juno turned her head and blinked an eye or two, indifferent. She ignored him pointedly. Her gaze returned to the sea. Andy had half put out his hand to stroke her. He drew it back. He had a sudden bitter desire to swear or kick something. He went out hastily, closing the door behind him. Juno, with her immovable gaze, stared out to sea.