Read Ebook: The Portygee by Lincoln Joseph Crosby

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Ebook has 3069 lines and 121409 words, and 62 pages

THE PORTYGEE

Overhead the clouds cloaked the sky; a ragged cloak it was, and, here and there, a star shone through a hole, to be obscured almost instantly as more cloud tatters were hurled across the rent. The pines threshed on the hill tops. The bare branches of the wild-cherry and silverleaf trees scraped and rattled and tossed. And the wind, the raw, chilling December wind, driven in, wet and salty, from the sea, tore over the dunes and brown uplands and across the frozen salt-meadows, screamed through the telegraph wires, and made the platform of the dismal South Harniss railway station the lonesomest, coldest, darkest and most miserable spot on the face of the earth.

At least that was the opinion of the seventeen-year-old boy whom the down train--on time for once and a wonder--had just deposited upon that platform. He would not have discounted the statement one iota. The South Harniss station platform WAS the most miserable spot on earth and he was the most miserable human being upon it. And this last was probably true, for there were but three other humans upon that platform and, judging by externals, they seemed happy enough. One was the station agent, who was just entering the building preparatory to locking up for the night, and the others were Jim Young, driver of the "depot wagon," and Doctor Holliday, the South Harniss "homeopath," who had been up to a Boston hospital with a patient and was returning home. Jim was whistling "Silver Bells," a tune much in vogue the previous summer, and Doctor Holliday was puffing at a cigar and knocking his feet together to keep them warm while waiting to get into the depot wagon. These were the only people in sight and they were paying no attention whatever to the lonely figure at the other end of the platform.

The boy looked about him. The station, with its sickly yellow gleam of kerosene lamp behind its dingy windowpane, was apparently the only inhabited spot in a barren wilderness. At the edge of the platform civilization seemed to end and beyond was nothing but a black earth and a black sky, tossing trees and howling wind, and cold--raw, damp, penetrating cold. Compared with this even the stuffy plush seats and smelly warmth of the car he had just left appeared temptingly homelike and luxurious. All the way down from the city he had sneered inwardly at a one-horse railroad which ran no Pullmans on its Cape branch in winter time. Now he forgot his longing for mahogany veneer and individual chairs and would gladly have boarded a freight car, provided there were in it a lamp and a stove.

The light in the station was extinguished and the agent came out with a jingling bunch of keys and locked the door. "Good-night, Jim," he shouted, and walked off into the blackness. Jim responded with a "good-night" of his own and climbed aboard the wagon, into the dark interior of which the doctor had preceded him. The boy at the other end of the platform began to be really alarmed. It looked as if all living things were abandoning him and he was to be left marooned, to starve or freeze, provided he was not blown away first.

He picked up the suitcase--an expensive suitcase it was, elaborately strapped and buckled, with a telescope back and gold fittings--and hastened toward the wagon. Mr. Young had just picked up the reins.

"Oh,--oh, I say!" faltered the boy. We have called him "the boy" all this time, but he did not consider himself a boy, he esteemed himself a man, if not full-grown physically, certainly so mentally. A man, with all a man's wisdom, and more besides--the great, the all-embracing wisdom of his age, or youth.

"Here, I say! Just a minute!" he repeated. Jim Young put his head around the edge of the wagon curtain. "Eh?" he queried. "Eh? Who's talkin'? Oh, was it you, young feller? Did you want me?"

The young fellow replied that he did. "This is South Harniss, isn't it?" he asked.

Doctor Holliday, on the back seat of the depot wagon, chuckled. Jim did not; he never laughed at his own jokes. And his questioner did not chuckle, either.

"Does a--does a Mr. Snow live here?" he asked.

The answer was prompt, if rather indefinite. "Um-hm," said the driver. "No less'n fourteen of him lives here. Which one do you want?"

"A Mr. Z. Snow."

"Mr. Z. Snow, eh? Humph! I don't seem to recollect any Mr. Z. Snow around nowadays. There used to be a Ziba Snow, but he's dead. 'Twan't him you wanted, was it?"

"No. The one I want is--is a Captain Snow. Captain--" he paused before uttering the name which to his critical metropolitan ear had seemed so dreadfully countrified and humiliating; "Captain Zelotes Snow," he blurted, desperately.

Jim Young laughed aloud. "Good land, Doc!" he cried, turning toward his passenger; "I swan I clean forgot that Cap'n Lote's name begun with a Z. Cap'n Lote Snow? Why, darn sure! I . . . Eh?" He stopped short, evidently struck by a new idea. "Sho!" he drawled, slowly. "Why, I declare I believe you're . . . Yes, of course! I heard they was expectin' you. Doc, you know who 'tis, don't you? Cap'n Lote's grandson; Janie's boy."

He took the lighted lantern from under the wagon seat and held it up so that its glow shone upon the face of the youth standing by the wheel.

"Hum," he mused. "Don't seem to favor Janie much, does he, Doc. Kind of got her mouth and chin, though. Remember that sort of good-lookin' set to her mouth she had? And SHE got it from old Cap'n Lo himself. This boy's face must be more like his pa's, I cal'late. Don't you cal'late so, Doc?"

Whether Doctor Holliday cal'lated so or not he did not say. It may be that he thought this cool inspection of and discussion concerning a stranger, even a juvenile stranger, somewhat embarrassing to its object. Or the lantern light may have shown him an ominous pucker between the boy's black brows and a flash of temper in the big black eyes beneath them. At any rate, instead of replying to Mr. Young, he said, kindly:

"Yes, Captain Snow lives in the village. If you are going to his house get right in here. I live close by, myself."

"Darned sure!" agreed Mr. Young, with enthusiasm. "Hop right in, sonny."

But the boy hesitated. Then, haughtily ignoring the driver, he said: "I thought Captain Snow would be here to meet me. He wrote that he would."

The boy was walking away. And to hail him as "Bub" was, although Jim Young did not know it, the one way least likely to bring him back.

"Bub!" shouted Jim again. Receiving no reply he added what he had intended saying. "If I run afoul of Cap'n Lote anywheres on the road," he called, "I'll tell him you're here a-waitin'. So long, Bub. Git dap, Chain Lightnin'."

The horse, thus complimented, pricked up one ear, lifted a foot, and jogged off. The depot wagon became merely a shadowy smudge against the darkness of the night. For a few minutes the "chock, chock" of the hoofs upon the frozen road and the rattle of wheels gave audible evidence of its progress. Then these died away and upon the windswept platform of the South Harniss station descended the black gloom of lonesomeness so complete as to make that which had been before seem, by comparison, almost cheerful.

The youth upon that platform turned up his coat collar, thrust his gloved hands into his pockets, and shivered. Then, still shivering, he took a brisk walk up and down beside the suitcase and, finally, circumnavigated the little station. The voyage of discovery was unprofitable; there was nothing to discover. So far as he could see--which was by no means far--upon each side of the building was nothing but bare fields and tossing pines, and wind and cold and blackness. He came to anchor once more by the suitcase and drew a long, hopeless breath.

He thought of the cheery dining room at the school he had left the day before. Dinner would be nearly over by now. The fellows were having dessert, or, probably, were filing out into the corridors, the younger chaps to go to the study hall and the older ones--the lordly seniors, of whom he had been one--on the way to their rooms. The picture of his own cheerful, gay room in the senior corridor was before his mind; of that room as it was before the telegram came, before the lawyer came with the letter, before the end of everything as he knew it and the beginning of--this. He had not always loved and longed for that school as he loved and longed for it now. There had been times when he referred to it as "the old jail," and professed to hate it. But it had been the only real home he had known since he was eight years old and now he looked back upon it as a fallen angel might have looked back upon Paradise. He sighed again, choked and hastily drew his gloved hand across his eyes. At the age of seventeen it is very unmanly to cry, but, at that age also, manhood and boyhood are closely intermingled. He choked again and then, squaring his shoulders, reached into his coat pocket for the silver cigarette case which, as a recent acquisition, was the pride of his soul. He had just succeeded in lighting a cigarette when, borne upon the wind, he heard once more the sound of hoofs and wheels and saw in the distance a speck of light advancing toward the station.

The sounds drew nearer, so did the light. Then an old-fashioned buggy, drawn by a plump little sorrel, pulled up by the platform and a hand held a lantern aloft.

"Hello!" hailed a voice. "Where are you?"

The hail did not have to be repeated. Before the vehicle reached the station the boy had tossed away the cigarette, picked up the suitcase, and was waiting. Now he strode into the lantern light.

"Here I am," he answered, trying hard not to appear too eager. "Were you looking for me?"

The holder of the lantern tucked the reins between the whip-socket and the dash and climbed out of the buggy. He was a little man, perhaps about forty-eight or fifty, with a smooth-shaven face wrinkled at the corners of the mouth and eyes. His voice was the most curious thing about him; it was high and piping, more like a woman's than a man's. Yet his words and manner were masculine enough, and he moved and spoke with a nervous, jerky quickness.

He answered the question promptly. "Guess I be, guess I be," he said briskly. "Anyhow, I'm lookin' for a boy name of--name of--My soul to heavens, I've forgot it again, I do believe! What did you say your name was?"

"Speranza. Albert Speranza."

"Sartin, sartin! Sper--er--um--yes, yes. Knew it just as well as I did my own. Well, well, well! Ye-es, yes, yes. Get right aboard, Alfred. Let me take your satchel."

He picked up the suitcase. The boy, his foot upon the buggy step, still hesitated. "Then you're--you're not my grandfather?" he faltered.

"Eh? Who? Your grandfather? Me? He, he, he!" He chuckled shrilly. "No, no! No such luck. If I was Cap'n Lote Snow, I'd be some older'n I be now and a dum sight richer. Yes, yes. No, I'm Cap'n Lote's bookkeeper over at the lumber consarn. He's got a cold, and Olive--that's his wife--she said he shouldn't come out to-night. He said he should, and while they was Katy-didin' back and forth about it, Rachel--Mrs. Ellis--she's the hired housekeeper there--she telephoned me to harness up and come meet you up here to the depot. Er--er--little mite late, wan't I?"

"Why, yes, just a little. The other man, the one who drives the mail cart--I think that was what it was--said perhaps the horse was sick, or something like that."

"No-o, no, that wan't it this time. I--er--All tucked in and warm enough, be you? Ye-es, yes, yes. No, I'm to blame, I shouldn't wonder. I stopped at the--at the store a minute and met one or two of the fellers, and that kind of held me up. All right now? Ye-es, yes, yes. G'long, gal."

The buggy moved away from the platform. Its passenger, his chilly feet and legs tightly wrapped in the robes, drew a breath of relief between his chattering teeth. He was actually going somewhere at last; whatever happened, morning would not find him propped frozen stiff against the scarred and mangy clapboards of the South Harniss station.

"Warm enough, be you?" inquired his driver cheerfully.

"Yes, thank you."

"That's good, that's good, that's good. Ye-es, yes, yes. Well--er--Frederick, how do you think you're goin' to like South Harniss?"

The answer was rather non-committal. The boy replied that he had not seen very much of it as yet. His companion seemed to find the statement highly amusing. He chuckled and slapped his knee.

"Ain't seen much of it, eh? No-o, no, no. I guess you ain't, guess you ain't. He, he, he . . . Um . . . Let's see, what was I talkin' about?"

"Why, nothing in particular, I think, Mr.--Mr.--"

"Didn't I tell you my name? Sho, sho! That's funny. My name's Keeler--Laban B. Keeler. That's my name and bookkeeper is my station. South Harniss is my dwellin' place--and I guess likely you'll have to see the minister about the rest of it. He, he, he!"

His passenger, to whom the old schoolbook quatrain was entirely unknown, wondered what on earth the man was talking about. However, he smiled politely and sniffed with a dawning suspicion. It seemed to him there was an unusual scent in the air, a spirituous scent, a--

"Have a peppermint lozenger," suggested Mr. Keeler, with sudden enthusiasm. "Peppermint is good for what ails you, so they tell me. Ye-es, yes, yes. Have one. Have two, have a lot."

He proceeded to have a lot himself, and the buggy was straightway reflavored, so to speak. The boy, his suspicions by no means dispelled, leaned back in the corner behind the curtains and awaited developments. He was warmer, that was a real physical and consequently a slight mental comfort, but the feeling of lonesomeness was still acute. So far his acquaintanceship with the citizens of South Harniss had not filled him with enthusiasm. They were what he, in his former and very recent state of existence, would have called "Rubes." Were the grandparents whom he had never met this sort of people? It seemed probable. What sort of a place was this to which Fate had consigned him? The sense of utter helplessness which had had him in its clutches since the day when he received the news of his father's death was as dreadfully real as ever. He had not been consulted at all. No one had asked him what he wished to do, or where he wished to go. The letter had come from these people, the Cape Cod grandparents of whom, up to that time, he had never even heard, and he had been shipped to them as though he were a piece of merchandise. And what was to become of him now, after he reached his destination? What would they expect him to do? Or be? How would he be treated?

In his extensive reading--he had been an omnivorous reader--there were numerous examples of youths left, like him, to the care of distant relatives, or step-parents, or utter strangers. Their experiences, generally speaking, had not been cheerful ones. Most of them had run away. He might run away; but somehow the idea of running away, with no money, to face hardship and poverty and all the rest, did not make an alluring appeal. He had been used to comfort and luxury ever since he could remember, and his imagination, an unusually active one, visualized much more keenly than the average the tribulations and struggles of a runaway. David Copperfield, he remembered, had run away, but he did it when a kid, not a man like himself. Nicholas Nickleby--no, Nicholas had not run away exactly, but his father had died and he had been left to an uncle. It would be dreadful if his grandfather should turn out to be a man like Ralph Nickleby. Yet Nicholas had gotten on well in spite of his wicked relative. Yes, and how gloriously he had defied the old rascal, too! He wondered if he would ever be called upon to defy his grandfather. He saw himself doing it--quietly, a perfect gentleman always, but with the noble determination of one performing a disagreeable duty. His chin lifted and his shoulders squared against the back of the buggy.

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