The Portygee Part 21

"Write or act or do something--"

"Yes, and that's true, too."

"But you don't, you know. You don't do anything. You've been talking that way ever since I knew you, calling this a one-horse town and saying how you hated it, and that you weren't going to waste your life here, and all that, but you keep staying here and doing just the same things.

The last long talk we had together you told me you knew you could write poems and plays and all sorts of things, you just felt that you could.

You were going to begin right away. You said that some months ago, and you haven't done any writing at all. Now, have you?"

"No-o. No, but that doesn't mean I shan't by and by."

"But you didn't begin as you said you would. That was last spring, more than a year ago, and I don't believe you have tried to write a single poem. Have you?"

He was beginning to be ruffled. It was quite unusual for any one, most of all for a girl, to talk to him in this way.

"I don't know that I have," he said loftily. "And, anyway, I don't see that it is--is--"

"My business whether you have or not. I know it isn't. I'm sorry I spoke. But, you see, I--Oh, well, never mind. And I do want you to know how much I appreciate your helping me as you did just now. I don't know how to thank you for that."

But thanks were not exactly what he wanted at that moment.

"Go ahead and say the rest," he ordered, after a short pause. "You've said so much that you had better finish it, seems to me. I'm lazy, you think. What else am I?"

"You're brave, awfully brave, and you are so strong and quick--yes, and--and--masterful; I think that is the right word. You ordered me about as if I were a little girl. I didn't want to keep still, as you told me to; I wanted to scream. And I wanted to faint, too, but you wouldn't let me. I had never seen you that way before. I didn't know you could be like that. That is what surprises me so. That is why I said you were so different."

Here was balm for wounded pride. Albert's chin lifted. "Oh, that was nothing," he said. "Whatever had to be done must be done right off, I could see that. You couldn't hang on where you were very long."

She shuddered. "No," she replied, "I could not. But _I_ couldn't think WHAT to do, and you could. Yes, and did it, and made me do it."

The chin lifted still more and the Speranza chest began to expand.

Helen's next remark was in the natures of a reducer for the said expansion.

"If you could be so prompt and strong and--and energetic then," she said, "I can't help wondering why you aren't like that all the time. I had begun to think you were just--just--"

"Lazy, eh?" he suggested.

"Why--why, no-o, but careless and indifferent and with not much ambition, certainly. You had talked so much about writing and yet you never tried to write anything, that--that--"

"That you thought I was all bluff. Thanks! Any more compliments?"

She turned on him impulsively. "Oh, don't!" she exclaimed. "Please don't! I know what I am saying sounds perfectly horrid, and especially now when you have just saved me from being badly hurt, if not killed.

But don't you see that--that I am saying it because I am interested in you and sure you COULD do so much if you only would? If you would only try."

This speech was a compound of sweet and bitter. Albert characteristically selected the sweet.

"Helen," he asked, in his most confidential tone, "would you like to have me try and write something? Say, would you?"

"Of course I would. Oh, will you?"

"Well, if YOU asked me I might. For your sake, you know."

She stopped and stamped her foot impatiently.

"Oh, DON'T be silly!" she exclaimed. "I don't want you to do it for my sake. I want you to do it for your own sake. Yes, and for your grandfather's sake."

"My grandfather's sake! Great Scott, why do you drag him in? HE doesn't want me to write poetry."

"He wants you to do something, to succeed. I know that."

"He wants me to stay here and help Labe Keeler and Issy Price. He wants me to spend all my life in that office of his; that's what HE wants.

Now hold on, Helen! I'm not saying anything against the old fellow. He doesn't like me, I know, but--"

"You DON'T know. He does like you. Or he wants to like you very much indeed. He would like to have you carry on the Snow Company's business after he has gone, but if you can't--or won't--do that, I know he would be very happy to see you succeed at anything--anything."

Albert laughed scornfully. "Even at writing poetry?" he asked.

"Why, yes, at writing; although of course he doesn't know a thing about it and can't understand how any one can possibly earn a living that way.

He has read or heard about poets and authors starving in garrets and he thinks they're all like that. But if you could only show him and prove to him that you could succeed by writing, he would be prouder of you than any one else would be. I know it."

He regarded her curiously. "You seem to know a lot about my grandfather," he observed.

"I do know something about him. He and I have been friends ever since I was a little girl, and I like him very much indeed. If he were my grandfather I should be proud of him. And I think you ought to be."

She flashed the last sentence at him in a sudden heat of enthusiasm. He was surprised at her manner.

"Gee! You ARE strong for the old chap, aren't you?" he said. "Well, admitting that he is all right, just why should I be proud of him? I AM proud of my father, of course; he was somebody in the world."

"You mean he was somebody just because he was celebrated and lots of people knew about him. Celebrated people aren't the only ones who do worth while things. If I were you, I should be proud of Captain Zelotes because he is what he has made himself. n.o.body helped him; he did it all. He was a sea captain and a good one. He has been a business man and a good one, even if the business isn't so very big. Everybody here in South Harniss--yes, and all up and down the Cape--knows of him and respects him. My father says in all the years he has preached in his church he has never heard a single person as much as hint that Captain Snow wasn't absolutely honest, absolutely brave, and the same to everybody, rich or poor. And all his life he has worked and worked hard.

What HE has belongs to him; he has earned it. That's why I should be proud of him if he were my grandfather."

Her enthusiasm had continued all through this long speech. Albert whistled.

"Whew!" he exclaimed. "Regular cheer for Zelotes, fellows! One--two--!

Grandfather's got one person to stand up for him, I'll say that. But why this sudden outbreak about him, anyhow? It was me you were talking about in the beginning--though I didn't notice any loud calls for cheers in that direction," he added.

She ignored the last part of the speech. "I think you yourself made me think of him," she replied. "Sometimes you remind me of him. Not often, but once in a while. Just now, when we were climbing down that awful place you seemed almost exactly like him. The way you knew just what to do all the time, and your not hesitating a minute, and the way you took command of the situation and," with a sudden laugh, "bossed me around; every bit of that was like him, and not like you at all. Oh, I don't mean that," she added hurriedly. "I mean it wasn't like you as you usually are. It was different."

"Humph! Well, I must say--See here, Helen Kendall, what is it you expect me to do; sail in and write two or three sonnets and a 'Come Into the Garden, Maud,' some time next week? You're terribly keen about Grandfather, but he has rather got the edge on me so far as age goes.

He's in the sixties, and I'm just about nineteen."

"When he was nineteen he was first mate of a s.h.i.+p."

"Yes, so I've heard him say. Maybe first-mating is a little bit easier than writing poetry."

"And maybe it isn't. At any rate, he didn't know whether it was easy or not until he tried. Oh, THAT'S what I would like to see you do--TRY to do something. You could do it, too, almost anything you tried, I do believe. I am confident you could. But--Oh, well, as you said at the beginning, it isn't my business at all, and I've said ever and ever so much more than I meant to. Please forgive me, if you can. I think my tumble and all the rest must have made me silly. I'm sorry, Albert.

There are the steps up to the pavilion. See them!"

He was tramping on beside her, his hands in his pockets. He did not look at the long flight of steps which had suddenly come into view around the curve of the bluff. When he did look up and speak it was in a different tone, some such tone as she had heard him use during her rescue.

"All right," he said, with decision, "I'll show you whether I can try or not. I know you think I won't, but I will. I'm going up to my room to-night and I'm going to try to write something or other. It may be the rottenest poem that ever was ground out, but I'll grind it if it kills me."