A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill Part 17

"A cupful will do, 'til the morning. I'll bring it back before breakfast."

"Put it in this jar when you do. I keep what you pay back separate from ours, so's I can lend it to you again. We ain't used to chicory."

Norah coughed deprecatingly behind her hand:

"Sure you might make allowance fer a lady as busy as Mrs. Ivy. She can't get her mind down to ordn'ary things."

"Stop her settin' on club boards, and meetin' on committees, and tryin'

to regulate the nation, and she might remember to order the groceries.

What's she workin' on now?"

"A begger man. It was readin' Scriptures to him she was when I come away, and him a-settin' there, right pitiful, a-tellin' her how he'd lost all he had in the flood. A religious talkin' man if I ever heard one."

"Red-headed?" inquired Myrtella, arresting a hot iron in mid air.

"He was."

"When she gits done with him, you send him over here," Myrtella brought the iron down on the board with a thud. "If there is one person in the world I'm layin' for it's a red-headed flood-sufferer."

Norah on her way out encountered another visitor and turned back to announce him:

"Git on to what Bertie has drawed out here! The craziest, dirtiest kid!

Puts me in mind of a egg on a couple of toothpicks!"

Myrtella, peering over her shoulder, suddenly scrambled down the steps.

"It's Chick!" she cried, beaming upon him. "How long you been here, Chick?"

"And who's Chick?" asked Norah, instantly curious. "You seem to set a great store by him! What ails the child? What's he pointin' at our house for? Ain't he got a tongue in his head?"

"He has, though not so long as some folks. Chick! Bertie! Come in here!"

and without ceremony Myrtella swept them into the kitchen and slammed the door in Norah's face.

Once within her stronghold, she first embraced Chick, then dragged him forcibly to the sink, and subjected him to a vigorous scrubbing. Both actions apparently bored him acutely, for he turned his soap-dimmed eyes enviously upon the smaller boy who pranced about in transports of joy.

"We'll skate on the pavement!" Bertie was crying excitedly. "You can have one skate, and I'll have the other and we'll see who can beat."

"You won't do nothin' of the kind!" quoth Fate at the faucet. "I ain't goin' to have you racin' 'round and gettin' het up and takin' cold.

Besides, you ain't big enough to keep up with Chick!" Then seeing the disappointment her ultimatum had caused, she added, "if it wasn't for you stickin' every thing up, I might make you some candy."

"Oh, 'Tella! will you? 'La.s.ses candy? Ask him if he likes 'la.s.ses candy."

Violent nods of affirmation from the steam-enveloped victim.

Myrtella had started with the simple ambition to wash Chick's face, but the boundary line had proved troublesome. Whether she sharply defined it, or attempted artistic effects in chiaroscuro the result was equally unsatisfactory. Myrtella was nothing if not thorough; before she finished with Chick, he was standing with his feet in a bucket, as clean and wet and naked as a fish.

All this consumed time, and both boys were growing impatient, when a peculiar noise from outside attracted their attention. To Chick, only, the sound seemed to be familiar, for he laughed and wagged his head and pointed to the yard.

"It sounds like hiccoughs!" said Bertie, his head on one side.

Myrtella's mouth closed like a trap. "I'll hiccough him!" she breathed mysteriously, and leaving the children to watch the candy, she went out on the porch and closed the door behind her.

Bertie, in his short kilts, with his feet curled up in a chair, watched Chick with absorbed interest as he donned his ragged, dirty trousers.

A pair of purple suspenders that had once belonged to Mr. Flathers, excited his special admiration.

"Say, Chick, have you got a partner?"

Chick nodded.

"You couldn't be partners with me, too, could you?"

A violent shake of the head.

"I didn't think you could with two fellows at once." Bertie contemplated the boiling candy thoughtfully. "I could get lots of partners if I wasn't always sick. If you ever don't have the one you have got, could you take me, Chick?"

Chick looked him over critically, stood him up and measured heights and even felt his arm for muscle. Then he made a remark that while lacking lucidity was nevertheless conclusive.

"But I'm going to get bigger," urged Bertie.

"And I've got a music box, and a water pistol, and some marbles--"

At this Chick promptly produced a handful of marbles from his own pocket, and signified, by many whispers and hisses, that he was engaged in a wholesale and retail trade along that line, and open to negotiations.

Bertie made a hurried trip to the nursery and returned with a neat blue bag from which he poured treasures of agate and crystal.

Chick lost all interest in the candy. His professional reputation was at stake. Never could he face the gang on Billy-goat Hill, if he failed to fleece this lamb that Providence had so clearly thrust in his way.

Meanwhile Myrtella was exercising an elder sister's prerogative on the back steps, and bestowing upon her brother what she modestly called a piece of her mind.

For Phineas, in one of his periodical backslidings, had slid too far.

His ambition to excel as a regenerate had carried him out of the quiet pastures of the Immanuel flock, into the more exhilarating battle-field of the Salvation Army. Lured by the prospect of recounting his experiences on a street corner to the accompaniment of an accordion, he had forsaken the safe shelter of the Ladies' Aid, and sought new worlds to conquer.

The experiment had not been a success. He was now, at the end of a year, going from door to door, ragged and unkempt, playing the small and uninteresting role of flood-sufferer. But Phineas' spirit soared blithely above his circ.u.mstances. He even encouraged Myrtella in her tirade against him, spurring her on to fresh effort, as the monks of old! courted flagellation.

"That's right, Sis!" he urged, "you git it all out of your system. I says to the lady next door, I says, what I need is a dressing down from my good sister. She'll give me gussie, says I, then she'll light in an'

help me. That's her way, I says, there ain't a more generous person on this terrestrial globe. I 'lowed maybe she'd be moved to follow your example, but she wasn't. She handed me out a line of Sunday school talk fer more 'n a hour, then she didn't give me nothin' but this here Bible, an' me a starvin' man! I've ate a little of everything in my day, but I'm skeered to risk my digestion on Deuteronomies and Psa'ms!"

"Well, you needn't come beggin' 'round here, and trackin' in the mud,"

announced Myrtella firmly. "I'm done with you! You had just as good a chance to get on as me. I never ast favors of n.o.body; I went to work an' hustled. What's more, I ain't goin' to stop 'til I get to be a boardin'-house keeper. And what'll you be? A lazy, drunken, good-for-nothin' sponge."

Phineas, toying with his hat, suddenly sniffed the air and smiled.

"Mola.s.ses candy!" he exclaimed joyfully. "I couldn't git on to what was making me feel so good. Say, Sis, you must 'a' knowed I was a-comin'."

Myrtella stood in rigid disapproval on the top step and surveyed her next of kin with such chilling contempt that he decided to change his tactics.

"Honest, now, Sis, I never come to beg for nothin'. What I really come for was to tell you 'bout our good luck."

This move was so adroit that it caught Myrtella unawares, and elicited a faint show of curiosity. "We never knowed it 'til last week," Phineas proceeded mysteriously, "an' we ain't mentioned it to n.o.body 'til we git a parlor fitted up an' a sign painted."