Spice Box (7 page)

“Gee! This is great!” he said with his mouth full. “Some class to this.”

“I guess you had pretty good lessons today,” said Martha, smiling and trying to be good company. “You didn’t have to stay after school.”

The boy grinned.

“No chance,” he said. “I never had a lesson in my life. I guess the teacher’d croak if I had a lesson. He sure did have it in for me today, but I shinned out when he wasn’t looking.”

The lady looked distressed.

“But won’t you get into trouble tomorrow?” she asked anxiously and wondered why she cared.

“I should worry!” shrugged the boy. “Might as well be one thing as another. He always has it in for me.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” said the lady in dismay.

“Aw, I don’t mind. I’m used to it,” he said with his mouth full. “Say—” He lifted his eyes toward the picture of the Colosseum. “That’s new, isn’t it? That wasn’t here before.”

Her eyes lighted. A boy had noticed a picture!

“Yes, it’s new. I bought it yesterday. Do you like it?”

“What is it?” he asked, knitting his brows and holding his judgment in reserve. “Did they have a fire or earthquake? Or was it someplace where they’d been bombing the town? I don’t get the idea. Strange thing to make a picture of.”

“Why, it’s the old Roman Colosseum. That is, it’s what is left of the Colosseum. The ruins, you know. It’s one of the great sights of the world that tourists go abroad to see, or did before the war broke everything up. I’ve always wanted to go to Rome and see it, and I’ve always liked the picture.”

“Gee, that’s where they had those bullfights, isn’t it? I remember they had a picture of that in our history book.”

Then his attention turned to the candlesticks.

“Those are new, too, aren’t they? Some class!”

“You like them? Yes, they’re new, or rather very old. I found them wrapped up in a bureau drawer. I like their shape. They are fine old brass.”

“They look a lot better than the junk that used to be here,” remarked the boy thoughtfully, turning back to the gingerbread and helping himself to another generous hunk.

“You must have been over here a good deal,” said Martha, surprised that Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Abigail would allow a boy within their sacred precincts.

“Sure, used to tend the furnace, and I used to come in this room when she paid me. She used to give me twenty-five cents a week.” He stopped and gave Ernestine a fragment of his cake.

Martha’s face lighted.

“Oh,” she said, “then perhaps I can get you to attend to my furnace next fall. But I think twenty-five cents is too little for all that work. How often did you come?”

“Morning and evening.” The boy’s eyes were shining.

“Well, will you have time to look after mine? And suppose we say fifty cents a week?”

“Oh gee!” he said, stooping to tickle Ernestine under the chin to hide his pleasure. “But good night! It ain’t worth that much!”

“Well, it’s settled then. I’m sure it will be worth at least that much to me.” Martha had very little idea about the prevailing standards of salaries for taking care of furnaces, but she was sure at first thought that twenty-five cents wasn’t enough, even if he did live only next door.

“Now,” she said, seeing that the gingerbread had pretty well vanished and the boy had stopped eating, “suppose we go down to the cellar and see if the furnace is all right for next fall. I know that’s some time away, but it is well to know what to count on, and I always like to have things in good order in plenty of time.”

She was surprising herself by making all these excuses for prolonging the boy’s call, but somehow the house seemed so much less cheerless with the boy’s cheery freckled face in it.

“Did you have the smoke pipe taken down?” asked the young fireman. “I told her it ought to be done, but she said she might want a fire again. And then when she took sick, of course, I didn’t come anymore. She had a nurse here, you know. The pipe was pretty old last winter.”

“Well, now I don’t know anything about that, whether it was taken down or not. I never had anything to do with furnaces before. Suppose we go down and look at it?”

So they went down. She walked anxiously through the unknown precincts of her cellar and looked around curiously.

“It’s plumb gone,” said Ronald wisely, putting a stubby finger through the rust. “See there! You’ll have to get a new pipe.”

“Well, that ought to be attended to at once, and have it ready to set up when it gets near fall. It’s always good to be prepared for changing seasons. I wonder where I’ll get someone to fix it. Do you know a good man near here? Could you get me one and see that he does what ought to be done? Of course I’ll pay you for your trouble. Suppose we say your salary begins now, and then I’ll feel free to call on you for little things when I need them. We’ll settle a fair rate, and you can keep a record of the time it takes. I suppose there will be a lot of things like this before I really get settled here and down to living.”

“Aw gee, I’ll do that, of course. I’ll get Bennett, he’s a good man. He doesn’t charge as much as Simpson either. He’s a good friend of mine. But I don’t want pay for a little thing like that. That’s not work.”

“Oh yes it is, and I must insist that you have a salary or a regular price by the hour, or something, or I will not feel free to call you when I need you.”

The boy looked at her as if she were a new specimen.

“Okay,” he grinned, “have it your own way, only you don’t haveta pay me for things that aren’t work.”

“Yes,” said the lady. “I’m paying for taking the responsibility of little things that I don’t understand and might forget, don’t you see?”

“Okay, if you’re sure it’s all right,” he said doubtfully. And so it was arranged. But she marveled at this attitude. A sense of financial fairness was not what she had always been led to expect of a boy. Was it possible that there were other boys like him? As she thought about it, she vaguely recalled a sentence in that article on boys that had said something about their fineness of soul. Well, if it meant that, she had to revise all her former ideas of boys.

“You’ve got a good house here,” said the boy suddenly, putting his hand on the stone foundation wall. There was a kind of proprietorship in the gesture, as though he had entered into a partnership with her and was pleased with the outfit.

“Yes, it’s well enough, I guess,” she answered and sighed. “It’s a little lonely, though, for me. I’ve been used to being where there are plenty of people, and the rooms here seem so small and dark.”

She was almost ashamed of her confidential outburst as soon as it was uttered, but the boy looked around with comprehension.

“Houses are that way,” he admitted. “I don’t like ’em myself. I like outdoors best. We fellows go down to the creek about three miles up in the country and camp on a big rock, put up a tent, and cook and lie out at night. Gee! It’s great! You can’t tell which is sky and which is creek sometimes. The fireflies are so big they look like stars, and the stars twinkle around like they were fireflies. Gee, I’d like to live there. The only room I ever saw that was big enough for me was our gym. It isn’t all cut up. It’s big and high and wide. You can breathe and run in it. Gee! I’d like to live in a house like that up there in the picture!” He pointed to the Colosseum. “Wouldn’t that be grand? When it rained you could crawl under a wall till it was over, and other times you’d just have the sky.”

She looked down at his eager face and her own heart entered into his feelings. For a wild moment she felt the call of the open, the irresistible longing for something big and free that she had never before even known she wanted.

“Say, do you wantta know what I’d do if I owned a house like this?” the boy went on. “I’d cut out all those partitions and make a big room out of it, if it were me. And I’d make one side, or a front, or something, all glass. You could do it, easy. You’ve got an alley next to you. Come on out, I’ll show you.”

She followed him out the front door down to the alley and watched his eager face while he pointed to the blank brick wall.

“There’s one down on Diamond Street got a bay window with flowers in it and a bird in a gold cage. You ought to see it. You’ve got room here for any number of windows. I’d get a carpenter if I was you and knock a hole there.” He pointed to the place he visioned for a window. She found her heart leaping with the desire to follow his suggestion, knock out the old dark wall and let in the air and light. What a beautiful thing that would be to do! But what would Aunt Abigail and Uncle Jonathan think if they knew that she even allowed such a thought to be mentioned in her presence? They would look upon it as desecration of their property!

A boy was coming down the street and Ronald put up two grimy fingers to his lips and let forth a shrieking whistle. Martha jumped before she realized what it was. But the boy’s attention was no longer on bay windows and elderly female neighbors. Something was evidently attracting his attention down the street.

“I gotta beat it,” he said hastily. “If you want anything, let me know. I’ll see you! So long!” And he was gone like a flash.

Martha Spicer recovered her senses eventually and realized that she was standing alone in her alley, gazing after a vanishing boy. The neighbors might have cause to think her crazy if she stayed here. She gave one lingering, comprehensive, considering glance at the ugly wall that reared above her, and turned to go in.

Ernestine met her at the door as she went in, and she stooped to pat her lovingly. A sense of well-being and a new zest for life entered into her.

Yet as the night latch clicked, the shadows of Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Abigail met her accusing eyes. Would she tear to pieces a good, respectable house in which they had lived a lifetime? She, a poor relation? What was good enough for them ought to be good enough for her! And there were the dull old curtains and the solid, respectable furniture. They all seemed to chime in with the protest. All except Ernestine, who seemed glad and rubbed up against her lovingly, and when she sat down, made a sudden spring into her lap and curled down, purring happily. She looked at the cat wonderingly for an instant and then laid her white hand on the thick fur and let the warmth of the friendly creature comfort her.

After that she sat for a long time rocking back and forth and thinking,
What if I
should
tear it down and make one big room? What if I
should
have a bay window? What if I
should
make a bright spot in the world for myself, and maybe some other people? What if I should?

Suddenly she looked at the clock, and the habit of a lifetime was upon her. It was time to go to bed.

But as she gave Ernestine a good-night pat and reached to turn out her light, she said to herself, “Tomorrow I will go down to the store and get the best Roman history book I can find and read up about the Colosseum.”

J
anice Whitmore was creeping very steadily back to life, and every time that Dr. Sterling went in to see her he felt more and more encouraged about her. It was almost like a miracle, he still felt, for she had been down at the very depths, and it had seemed so impossible to save her. It perhaps gave him more real professional pleasure than any case he had yet cared for. But there was a personal element about it, too, as if he had been given special supervision over this girl, the only one who had been present to do anything for her at the crucial moment, and he felt his responsibility was great.

He had spent much time thinking about her, wondering what her history might be and how soon he dared begin to question her a little. He had been letting the matter drift until she should seem to rouse from the deep apathy that had been over her since she first began to be conscious.

But there came a morning when he entered her room to greet her as usual and she turned to him with a faint smile on her lips, making her face for the instant almost startlingly beautiful. There was a reminder of the lovely beauty he had seen in that face lying against the snow that first night. He drew a quick breath and recovered his normal calm, but somehow he felt the time had come to go forward in the case. To that end, he sat down a few moments to talk.

“You are feeling better, aren’t you?” he asked. “I knew the day would come when I should see the look in your eyes as if you really wanted to live again.”

He was watching her very carefully, and he saw her start and catch her breath.

“Oh no,” she said with a slow quivering breath. “No, I don’t really want to live, only I know it is right to go on as long as God wills it so.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is. God knows what He has ahead for you, and there is a reason why He put you here, I suppose. I don’t know so much about these things, but I’m sure there is a reason God made you. But now, what is it that has made you feel you do not want to live? Wouldn’t it be better if you were to tell me? Can’t you trust me? I shall not make it public.”

“Oh,” she said, and great tears suddenly welled up into her lovely eyes and fell down slowly. “Yes of course,” she said softly. “You see, my only sister died, and her little baby girl died, too, and I’m quite alone in the world.”

Her lip quivered pitifully as she spoke, though she was evidently struggling for self-control.

“Oh, you poor child! That is very hard,” the doctor said sympathetically. “I know those things seem very terrible, especially at first. Were these deaths recent?”

“Yes, the baby died three months ago, and my sister was just buried …” She was going to say “today” till she realized that it wouldn’t be today anymore, for she had perhaps been here on this bed for a long time. “She was just buried the day—I came here—I guess. I can’t quite remember. It was in a storm, I know.”

“Yes,” said the doctor quietly, “it was in a storm. Do you know where I found you?”

She gave him a startled look.

“Did
you
find me? Where?”

“You were lying in the snow at the entrance to the cemetery near Willow Croft. Do you remember enough about it to know what you were going to do?”

She was quiet, thoughtful a moment.