The Man Who Loved Children (42 page)

No mere return for courtesy, but that our friendship might outlast the grave!

Sam paused and leaned back on his heels at the beginning of the stanza, and with long lank cheek he studied Louie, who seemed to have grown out of recognition in the eight months of his absence; or else his imagination had twinkled and transformed her memory in that hot climate. Was this tall, powerful girl with stern, hangdog face really Louie, the child of love? But now the face twitched with a clownish pleasure and grave conceit; the face was both ludicrous and lachrymose: Sam wanted to strike her across the face to obliterate that execrably bizarre tragicomic mask which disgraced him. Sam stared her into silence so that the mask settled, sad, too old by years, between the waterfall hair, and then abruptly, his mouth opened and he laughed hard,

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, he-he-he; Ha-ha! A booby trap was given me and in return, a herring trail I gave; no mere return for courtesy but that our friendship might outlast the grave.”

The Pollits were flocking back, grinning from ear to ear, not knowing what the joke was but glad to see Sam at last in high spirits. They saw Louie and Little-Sam, Essie and the others, and had no idea how the thing had started,

“Ha-ha-ha,” shouted Sam, rocking on his haunches and pointing at Louie (at whom the newcomers looked in surprise), “an old black boot was given me and in return a herring head I gave, no mere return for courtesy but that our friendship might outlast the grave! A chamber pot was given me and in return a toilet bowl I gave, no mere return for courtesy but that our friendship might outlast the grave!”

The astonished Pollits crowded in, grinning confusedly and peering from one to the other, while Auntie Jo ignorantly, cried, “A wedding cake was given me and in return a petticoat I gave, no mere return for courtesy but that our friendship might outlast the grave!”

Ernie, very knowing, with a narrow-eyed leer, capered and delivered himself, “A dusty pup was given me and in return an old tin can I gave, no mere return for dusty pup but that our friendship might outlast the grave!”

“Louie said it,” declared Essie to everyone. “That was what Louie was reciting!”

But Sam recaptured the floor saying angrily, “If that’s Confucius, I’ll eat my hat.”

“It is,” cried Louie, “it is. You don’t know. Listen:

Let me be reverent, be reverent,

Even as the way of Heaven is evident,

And its appointment easy is to mar.”

Bonnie ignored all this, calling out, “Now let’s have a little song before we break up, not too loud, but not too soft.”

“Yes,” said the old man eagerly, “yes.” He picked the snuffbox out of his knitted waistcoat with the cat’s-eye buttons that he had got once when strolling round the world on a sailing vessel, from New Zealand, and offered it to his eldest son, Ebby, who was the only son to share what the girls called “father’s disgusting habit.”

“Yes,” he repeated, “for he’s a jolly good fellow, and so say all of us. What’s the matter with Sammy? He’s all right!”

“He’s a chip off the old block,” cried Bonnie beaming; and Old Charles tee-heed under his yellowed mustache.

“Samivel’s all right,” said he, raising the snuffbox to the level of his eyes and scrutinizing the design, vaguely scandalous, which consisted of two mermaids sitting on a beach. He raised the snuffbox higher and motioned round the family with it, beginning with a laugh, “Samivel is wery satisfactory to the old codger; ‘wery’ spelt with a ‘wee.’ ”

“Father!” cried Jo indignantly, as the little ones started to giggle, “Wee, wee.”

He slid the snuffbox into his pocket, “Shall I do All-of-a-Twist?”

“Oh, no, Father,” said Jo. “Not now.”

Old Charles appealed to the children, abstractedly picking his own pocket of the bandanna meanwhile, “ ‘I won’t abase myself by descending to hold no conversation with him.’
replied the Dodger
.”

“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” sang out Bonnie, touching the piano.

“For he’s a jolly good fellow,” Ebby sang.

“And so say all of us,” shouted Jo.

“Don’t,” said Sam, “don’t, boys and girls,” but his eyes were moist and to the children’s surprise he seemed older. His eyes had new crow’s-feet, and the tired upper part of the face, with sunken temples, for the hour resembled the weathered mahogany face of Old Charles.

“And why not?” shouted Jo jovially. “Aren’t you our very own Smithsonian? Our family genius? No, or yes?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Our only genius,” Jo continued.

Louie’s face lowered. By a curious chance Jo looked straight at Louie, grinning evilly, Louie thought.

“And you, Jo, aren’t you our genius too?” inquired Bonnie innocently. “Well, I guess we’re all small pertaters, only we don’t know it, all except Sam.” She spun on the stool.

“Tune up,” cried Grandfather in his trembling voice, and he began, in a furry voice full of little hidden screams or scratches,
The Gang’s All Here.

“Let Father give us a tune,” said Ebby delightedly, his good gray eyes caressing his father. “What’ll it be, Father?”

The old man ran to the center of the carpet, bagging his trousers, fussing his bushy gray hair, and pinching his cheeks to make them pink; so that they all answered that they wanted to hear
The Bold Fisherman.
Out of his coat pocket came the red bandanna which he tied in the open V of his blue shirt. The little boys were a bit ashamed, too, of the way his trouser band bulged, of the wrinkles in the legs, of the snuff spots on the handkerchief and the coat, and, in particular, of his eagerness to sing to them. But he was used to giving performances wherever he could, and he had far too many spawn, and spawn’s spawn, to notice the greensickness of little boys in seven-inch pants. He threw himself into the song, and the shocking perpetual youth of Grandfather ceased shocking them for a while,

Oh, there was a bold fisherman and he set sail from Billingsgate

To chase the mild bloater and the gay mackeeray;

But when he arrove off Pimlico, the stormy wynds they began to blow, and the little boat wibble-wobbled so,

That smack overboard he fell!

This was followed by an adorable
parlando
with improvisations during which Grandfather performed on his accordion, “my I. W. W. pianner,” as he called it, “music on the hoof.” Grandfather was generous with his shows, and he went through three stanzas. They had hardly stopped laughing and got through wild, prolonged applause (during which Henny was seen bleakly rotating past the doorway into the kitchen), when Grandfather ran to a corner of the room and seemed to fall behind the settee. They were just wondering whether they should go and help him when he reappeared jubilant, holding his old banjo between his legs and hands. When they saw it, they all shouted. Old Charles positively gave a goatlike leap at this shout and himself cried, “A seat, a chair for the wandering minstrel!”

Well, there was no stopping him; the children were delighted, and only the distrait noticed Henny, during the next song, moving with elephantine grace in the dining room, carrying a silver sugar basin. Then Ebby took the banjo and played
One Evening in the Month of May,
and during this Bonnie saw Henny, with a scowl, heaving herself to the bottom of the staircase and then heard her moving slowly up.

More refreshments were served, and during the bustle Henny came downstairs again, this time in the new pink Chinese dressing gown.

“I feel full as a tick,” said Henny, discouraged, “but I must take something; I know I’m empty,” and she sat down to the kitchen table with Jinny, not saying much, but gulping down hot tea hungrily. Then she restlessly went upstairs again.

“We’ll all be going soon,” said Jinny kindly. “I’ll pack them off, Pet!”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter; I’m so darned restless, I don’t care what they do: I hardly hear them,” said Henny. “Ugh! I’m going upstairs to rest; now I have indigestion! I’m a fool to mix my drinks. Tell Louie to bring me the bicarbonate.”

She labored upstairs. The Pollits below sang madly, “The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la, have nothing to do with the case.”

“I suppose Collyer left this house to Henny and you?” inquired Lennie of Sam.

“Oh, he promised it,” said Sam. “Don’t talk about it, Len; I was very fond of the old boy and he of me.”

“And that’s what I mean when I say and I sing,” sang the Pollits, leaning on each other’s shoulders round the piano.

“Have you told Henrietta yet?”

“No, she’s probably very tired. I telephoned the house and explained I’d tell her in the morning. I’ll go to the funeral; it will be the first I ever went to. I don’t like funerals, but dear Old David was different: I’m sorry I didn’t see him; I bitterly regret it. I loved Old David.”

They moved to the hall door.

“Pet will be very upset.”

“Of course! Her father!”

Louie came downstairs quickly, “Daddy, Mother’s sick, she says to call the doctor.”

“Ugh, ouf!” said Henny loudly.

“She shouldn’t have taken that wine,” said Sam, “and overexcited herself. You see, I can’t tell her tonight.”

“Oh, damn it,” said Henny loudly above.

Sam frowned.

“Louie!” called Henny, “Louisa! Bonnie!”

“I’ll go,” said Sam.

“Let Auntie Bonnie go,” Louie advised. “Auntie!” The Pollits were roaring, “The music goes round and round!”

“Auntie!” called Louie, looking through the rooms. Bonnie came running, flustered but cheerful, from the bathroom, holding a newspaper in her hand and saying, “Oh, Sam, what are they saying about Wally in Singapore; I forgot to ask? What does the British Empire say about the American Beauty?”

“And it comes out here!” they shouted, groaned, whined, and squeaked at the piano, bellowing with laughter.

Louie said quickly, “Auntie, Mother says will you go up!”

“Louie!” screamed Henny, unseen, seething with exasperation. “Louie, tell that mad crowd to stop it!”

Leonard turned back, “Shh! Shh! Henny’s sick!”

“I’ll pack them off,” cried Jinny, hurrying up to them.

Suddenly Henny screamed, “Samuel! Tell the damnfools to go,” and they heard her begin to moan. Jinny rushed in and turned herself into a dozen Jinnys, patting and pulling, packing them off, telling them where their coats were, apologizing, explaining—Henny was overtired with the excitement and must be left alone with her family.

Henny shouted, hoarse with anger, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Louie rushed downstairs again, making a noise enough for a cavalry horse, “Daddy, Mother says she’s too sick to stand it!”

“Nerves,” said Sam, in a tired way, “but I suppose it’s natural. Poor Pet is waiting; it’s the waiting at the end.”

Grandfather hurried up to Samuel, “What is it? The—”

“No,” said Sam, “it’s a fortnight too soon. Just hysteria.”

Old Charles said hurriedly, with a shamed, begging face, “Samuel, they never called any of the little ones after me—when it comes, if it’s a boy, will you call it Charles? I’ll ask Henny myself, dear boy, when the time comes. I haven’t got long to go; I’d like to see a little rogue of a Charlie called after his worthless old gaffer.”

“All right, Father,” Sam laughed a little; “he’s staking out his claim.”

“Here’s your coat, Lennie,” said Jinny bustling up, already dressed for going out. “Will you go out and start the car? and I’ll get the children.”

Bonnie came running down, “I can’t quite understand it, unless it’s—” she looked worried from one to the other. “Send for the doctor, Samuel.”

“Has she Doctor Rock still?” asked Sam frowning.

“Of course!”

“All right!”

Bonnie went to the telephone.

They heard Henny above.

The Pollits went scurrying, flying out by the open long windows and doors, shaking hands, backing into their coats, settling their hats, shouting, “Good-by! So long! See you in the comic supplement!” being whispered to, by their fathers and mothers, falling over people’s feet, tangling up their own and streaming out to their automobiles and along the street to the streetcar. Neighbors facing Tohoga House, in the semidetached brick cottages, came out on the porches to watch them go.

No one went to say good-by to Henny, who was reported sick. Upstairs Henny heard them go, racing and tramping. She sat in a chair beside Louie’s bed, with a stricken look, and when Louie reappeared after saying good-by, Henny said quietly,

“Tell your father to come up and see me!”

Samuel went upstairs reluctantly, and Louie, waiting at the foot of the staircase, heard his expostulations and Henny’s angry answers,

“How could I arrange for it? I had no money. It’s going to be here!”

“No money? What happened to all I sent? I denied myself for you and the children.”

“Don’t fight about money now, with the state I’m in! Get Doctor Rock.”

“I told you not to have Doctor Rock; he has a reputation.”

“I don’t give a damn what reputation he has: he suits me. He’s a good family doctor. Do I have to scream at you to get something! No sooner do you come home than it becomes a bedlam. Do I have to scream at you? Get him! Bonnie! Louie! Tell this idiot, tell this blockhead, tell him, Bonnie! Get him, you ugly beast! A woman in my condition has to beg and pray and explain!”

Louie rushed to the telephone and telephoned Doctor Rock again. The doctor’s calm voice, insolently calm, it seemed, said, “What is it? What did she say?”

“She says to come quickly.”

“I’ll send the nurse.”

The quarrel upstairs was being carried on in subdued tones. Sam presently came downstairs looking grave and quiet. He murmured impersonally to Louie, “Keep the children quiet: Mother’s ill.”

“I know,” said Louie rudely.

He looked coldly at her, “If you know, keep them quiet. I’m sick myself, Looloo,” he said breaking down suddenly. “I can’t go much further myself.”

He stumbled into the riotously littered dining room and across it, skirting every manner of grotesque and outlandish thing to the sunroom, where he threw himself on the settee.

“Looloo-dirl,” he called piteously, “come and talk to me.” She went in.