The Portygee Part 3

He tramped out into the hall and the door closed behind him. Mrs. Snow turned apologetically to her puzzled grandson, who was entirely at a loss to know what the trouble was about.

"You see, Albert," she hesitatingly explained, "Laban--Mr. Keeler--the man who drove you down from the depot--he--he's an awful nice man and your grandfather thinks the world and all of him, but--but every once in a while he--Oh, dear, I don't know how to say it to you, but--"

Evidently Mrs. Ellis knew how to say it, for she broke into the conversation and said it then and there.

"Every once in a while he gets tipsy," she snapped. "And I only wish I had my fingers this minute in the hair of the scamp that gave him the liquor."

A light broke upon Albert's mind. "Oh! Oh, yes!" he exclaimed. "I thought he acted a little queer, and once I thought I smelt--Oh, that was why he was eating the peppermints!"

Mrs. Snow nodded. There was a moment of silence. Suddenly the housekeeper, who had resumed her seat in compliance with Captain Zelotes' order, slammed back her chair and stood up.

"I've hated the smell of peppermint for twenty-two year," she declared, and went out into the kitchen. Albert, looking after her, felt his grandmother's touch upon his sleeve.

"I wouldn't say any more about it before her," she whispered. "She's awful sensitive."

Why in the world the housekeeper should be particularly sensitive because the man who had driven him from the station ate peppermint was quite beyond the boy's comprehension. Nor could he thoroughly understand why the suspicion of Mr. Keeler's slight inebriety should cause such a sensation in the Snow household. He was inclined to think the tipsiness rather funny. Of course alcohol was lectured against often enough at school and on one occasion a member of the senior cla.s.s--a twenty-year-old "hold-over" who should have graduated the fall before--had been expelled for having beer in his room; but during his long summer vacations, spent precariously at hotels or in short visits to his father's friends, young Speranza had learned to be tolerant.

Tolerance was a necessary virtue in the circle surrounding Speranza Senior, in his later years. The popping of corks at all hours of the night and bottles full, half full or empty, were sounds and sights to which Albert had been well accustomed. When one has more than once seen his own father overcome by conviviality and the affair treated as a huge joke, one is not inclined to be too censorious when others slip. What if the queer old Keeler guy was tight? Was that anything to raise such a row about?

Plainly, he decided, this was a strange place, this household of his grandparents. His premonition that they might be "Rubes" seemed likely to have been well founded. What would his father--his great, world-famous father--have thought of them? "Bah! these Yankee bourgeoisie!" He could almost hear him say it. Miguel Carlos Speranza detested--in private--the Yankee bourgeoisie. He took their money and he married one of their daughters, but he detested them. During his last years, when the money had not flowed his way as copiously, the detest grew.

"You won't say anything about Laban before Mrs. Ellis, will you, Albert?" persisted Mrs. Snow. "She's dreadful sensitive. I'll explain by and by."

He promised, repressing a condescending smile.

Both the housekeeper and Captain Snow returned in a few minutes. The latter reported that the mare was safe and sound in her stall.

"The harness was mostly on the floor, but Jess was all right, thank the Lord," observed the captain.

"Jess is our horse's name, Albert," explained Mrs. Snow. "That is, her name's Jessamine, but Zelotes can't ever seem to say the whole of any name. When we first bought Jessamine I named her Magnolia, but he called her 'Mag' all the time and I COULDN'T stand that. Have some more preserves, Albert, do."

All through the meal Albert was uneasily conscious that his grandfather was looking at him from under the s.h.a.ggy brows, measuring him, estimating him, reading him through and through. He resented the scrutiny and the twinkle of sardonic humor which, it seemed to him, accompanied it. His way of handling his knife and fork, his clothes, his tie, his manner of eating and drinking and speaking, all these Captain Zelotes seemed to note and appraise. But whatever the results of his scrutiny and appraisal might be he kept them entirely to himself. When he addressed his grandson directly, which was not often, his remarks were trivial commonplaces and, although pleasant enough, were terse and to the point.

Several times Mrs. Snow would have questioned Albert concerning the life at school, but each time her husband interfered.

"Not now, not now, Mother," he said. "The boy ain't goin' to run away to-night. He'll be here to-morrow and a good many to-morrows, if"--and here again Albert seemed to detect the slight sarcasm and the twinkle--"if we old-fas.h.i.+oned 'down easters' ain't too common and every-day for a high-toned young chap like him to put up with. No, no, don't make him talk to-night. Can't you see he's so sleepy that it's only the exercise of openin' his mouth to eat that keeps his eyes from shuttin'? How about that, son?"

It was perfectly true. The long train ride, the excitement, the cold wait on the station platform and the subsequent warmth of the room, the hearty meal, all these combined to make for sleepiness so overpowering that several times the boy had caught his nose descending toward his plate in a most inelegant nod. But it hurt his pride to think his grandfather had noticed his condition.

"Oh, I'm all right," he said, with dignity.

Somehow the dignity seemed to have little effect upon Captain Zelotes.

"Um--yes, I know," observed the latter dryly, "but I guess likely you'll be more all right in bed. Mother, you'll show Albert where to turn in, won't you? There's your suitcase out there in the hall, son. I fetched it in from the barn just now."

Mrs. Snow ventured a protest.

"Oh, Zelotes," she cried, "ain't we goin' to talk with him at ALL? Why, there is so much to say!"

"'Twill say just as well to-morrow mornin', Mother; better, because we'll have all day to say it in. Get the lamp."

Albert looked at his watch.

"Why, it's only half-past nine," he said.

Captain Zelotes, who also had been looking at the watch, which was a very fine and very expensive one, smiled slightly. "Half-past nine some nights," he said, "is equal to half-past twelve others. This is one of the some. There, there, son, you're so sleepy this minute that you've got a list to starboard. When you and I have that talk that's comin'

to us we want to be s.h.i.+pshape and on an even keel. Rachel, light that lamp."

The housekeeper brought in and lighted a small hand lamp. Mrs. Snow took it and led the way to the hall and the narrow, breakneck flight of stairs. Captain Zelotes laid a hand on his grandson's shoulder.

"Good-night, son," he said quietly.

Albert looked into the gray eyes. Their expression was not unkindly, but there was, or he imagined there was, the same quizzical, sardonic twinkle. He resented that twinkle more than ever; it made him feel very young indeed, and correspondingly obstinate. Something of that obstinacy showed in his own eyes as he returned his grandfather's look.

"Good-night--sir," he said, and for the life of him he could not resist hesitating before adding the "sir." As he climbed the steep stairs he fancied he heard a short sniff or chuckle--he was not certain which--from the big man in the dining-room.

His bedroom was a good-sized room; that is, it would have been of good size if the person who designed it had known what the term "square"

meant. Apparently he did not, and had built the apartment on the hit-or-miss, higglety-pigglety pattern, with unexpected alcoves cut into the walls and closets and chimneys built out from them. There were three windows, a big bed, an old-fas.h.i.+oned bureau, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and several old-fas.h.i.+oned chairs. Mrs. Snow put the lamp upon the bureau. She watched him anxiously as he looked about the room.

"Do--do you like it?" she asked.

Albert replied that he guessed he did. Perhaps there was not too much certainty in his tone. He had never before seen a room like it.

"Oh, I hope you will like it! It was your mother's room, Albert. She slept here from the time she was seven until--until she went away."

The boy looked about him with a new interest, an odd thrill. His mother's room. His mother. He could just remember her, but that was all.

The memories were childish and unsatisfactory, but they were memories.

And she had slept there; this had been her room when she was a girl, before she married, before--long before such a person as Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza had been even dreamed of. That was strange, it was queer to think about. Long before he was born, when she was years younger than he as he stood there now, she had stood there, had looked from those windows, had--

His grandmother threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. Her cheek was wet.

"Good-night, Albert," she said chokingly, and hurried out of the room.

He undressed quickly, for the room was very cold. He opened the window, after a desperate struggle, and climbed into bed. The wind, whistling in, obligingly blew out the lamp for him. It shrieked and howled about the eaves and the old house squeaked and groaned. Albert pulled the comforter up about his neck and concentrated upon the business of going to sleep. He, who could scarcely remember when he had had a real home, was desperately homesick.

Downstairs in the dining-room Captain Zelotes stood, his hands in his pockets, looking through the mica panes of the stove door at the fire within. His wife came up behind him and laid a hand on his sleeve.

"What are you thinkin' about, Father?" she asked.

Her husband shook his head. "I was wonderin'," he said, "what my granddad, the original Cap'n Lote Snow that built this house, would have said if he'd known that he'd have a great-great-grandson come to live in it who was," scornfully, "a half-breed."

Olive's grip tightened on his arm.

"Oh, DON'T talk so, Zelotes," she begged. "He's our Janie's boy."

The captain opened the stove door, regarded the red-hot coals for an instant, and then slammed the door shut again.

"I know, Mother," he said grimly. "It's for the sake of Janie's half that I'm takin' in the other."