A FISH FRY AND A STARTLING ANNOUNCEMENT
They got home at early supper time, fish and all. But one look into the
kitchen assured Bobby that it was useless to expect Meena to pan their
catch for them.
The "rabbit ears" stuck up on top of her head at a more uncompromising
angle than ever. Mr. and Mrs. Blake had not returned from town. At a
late hour Michael Mulcahey had come back with the carriage and announced
that his mistress would stay in town for dinner with Mr. Blake and they
were to be met at the 10:10 train.
Michael had just finished cleaning the carriage and now sat with his
pipe beside the stable door. He was a long-lipped Irishman, with kindly,
twinkling eyes, and "ould counthry" whiskers that met under his chin,
giving his cleanly shaven, wind-bitten face the look of peering out
through a frame of hair.
"'Tis a nice string of fish ye have, byes," he said.
"And I s'pose we got to give them to the cats," complained Fred. "They
won't cook 'em at my house, and Meena's got the toothache."
Michael grinned broadly, puffing slowly at his pipe. "Clane the fish,
byes. There's a pan jest inside the dure. Get water from the hydrant.
Have ye shar-r-rp knives?"
"Oh, yes, Michael!" cried Bobby.
"Scale thim fish, then. I'll start a fire in my stove. An' I've a pan.
Belike Meena, the girl, will give ye a bit of fat salt por-r-rk and some
bread. Tell her she naden't bother with supper. We'll make it
ourselves--in what th' fancy folks calls 'ally-frisco'--though _why_ so,
I _dun_-no," added Michael.
He knocked the dottle out of his pipe and washed his hands. The boys,
meanwhile, were cleaning the little fish rapidly, and whispering
together. They were delighted with the coachman's suggestion. It was
just what they had been hoping for. Fred even forgot his "grouch"
against Applethwaite Plunkit.
Bobby ventured to the kitchen door. Meena was just untying the red
bandage, but the moment she caught sight of him she hesitated. She may
have felt another slight twinge of "face ache."
"Vat you vant?" she demanded.
Bobby told her what they were going to do. Michael had his own plates,
and knives and forks. He had "bached it" a good many years before he
came to work for Bobby's father. Meena saw a long, quiet evening ahead
of her.
"Vell," she said, ungraciously enough, for it was not her way to
acknowledge her blessings--not in public, at least. "Vell, I give you
the pork and bread. But that Michael ban spoil you boys. I vouldn't
efer marry him."
"What did she say?" asked the coachman when Bobby returned to the room
over the harness closets in which Michael slept--and sometimes cooked.
"She says she won't marry you because you spoil us," declared Bobby,
winking at Fred.
"Did she now?" quoth Michael. "So she has rayfused me again--though it
wasn't just like a proposal _this_ time. Still--we'll count it so's to
make sure."
He gravely walked to a smooth plank in the partition behind the door,
and picked up the stub of a pencil from a ledge. On this board was a
long array of pencil marks--four straight, up and down marks, and a
fifth "slantingdicular" across them. There were a great many of these
marks.
Each of these straight, up and down, marks meant "No," and the slanting
mark meant another "No"; so that Meena's refusals of the coachman's
proposal for her hand were grouped in fives.
"The Good Book says Jacob sarved siven years for Rachael, and then
another siven. He didn't have nawthin' on me--sorra a bit! When
Meena's said 'No' a thousan' times, she'll forgit some day an' say
'Yis.'"
He went back to shaking the pan on the stove, in which the cubes of salt
pork were sputtering. He mixed some flour and cornmeal in a plate, with
salt and pepper. Wiping each of the little fish partly dry, he rolled
them in the mixture, and then laid them methodically in rows upon a
board. When the fat in the skillet was piping hot, he dropped in the
fish easily so as not to splash the hot fat about. Then with a fork he
turned them as they browned.
As he forked them out of the hot fat, all brown and crispy, he laid them
on a sheet of brown paper for a bit to drain off the fat. Then the
boys' plates and his own were filled with the well fried fish.
"There's just a mess for us," said Michael, as they sat down. "For what
we are about to rayceive make us tr-r-ruly grateful! Pass the bread,
Master Bobby. 'Tis the appetite lends sauce to the male, so they say.
Eat hearty!"
Bobby and Fred had plenty of the "sauce" the coachman spoke of. After
the excitement and adventures of the afternoon they had much to tell
Michael, too, and the supper was a merry one.
Fred had to go home at eight o'clock and an hour and a half later it was
Bobby's bedtime. But the house seemed very still and lonely when he had
gone to bed, and he lay a long time listening to the crickets and the
katydids, and the other night-flying insects outside the screens.
He heard Michael drive out of the lane to go to the station and he was
still awake when the carriage returned and his father and mother came
into the house. They came quietly up stairs, whispering softly, but the
door between Bobby's room and his mother's dressing-room was ajar and he
could hear his parents talking in there. They thought him asleep, of
course.
"But Bobby's got to be told, my dear. I have bought our tickets--as I
told you," Mr. Blake said. "We can't wait any longer."
"Oh, dear me, John!" Bobby heard his mother say. "_Must_ we leave him
behind?"
"My dear! we have talked it all over so many times," Mr. Blake said,
patiently. "It is a long voyage. Not so long to Para; but the
transportation up the river, to Samratam, is uncertain. Brother Bill
left the business in some confusion, I understand, and we may be obliged
to remain some months. It would not be well to take Bobby. He must go
to school. I am doubtful of the advisability of taking _you_, my
dear--"
"You shall not go without me, John," interrupted Mrs. Blake, and Bobby
knew she was crying softly. "I would rather that we lost all the money
your brother left--"
"There, there!" said Bobby's father, comfortingly. "You're going, my
dear. And we will leave Bobby in good hands."
"But _whose_ hands?" cried his wife. "Meena can look after the house,
and Michael we can trust with everything else. But neither of them are
proper guardians for my boy, John."
"I know," agreed Mr. Blake, and Bobby, lying wide awake in his bed, knew
just how troubled his father looked. He hopped out of bed and crept
softly to the door. He did not mean to be an eavesdropper, but he could
not have helped hearing what his father and mother said.
"We have no relatives with whom to leave him," Mrs. Blake said. "And
all our friends in Clinton have plenty of children of their own and
wouldn't want to be bothered. Or else they are people who have _no_
children and wouldn't know how to get along with Bobby."
"It's a puzzle," began her husband, and just then Bobby pushed open the
door and appeared in the dressing-room.
"I heard you, Pa!" he cried. "I couldn't help it. I was awake and the
door was open. I know just what you can do with me if I can't go with
you to where Uncle Bill died."
"Bobby!" exclaimed Mrs. Blake, putting out her arms to him. "My boy! I
didn't want you to know--yet."
"He had to hear of the trip sometime," said Bobby's father.
"And I'm not going to make any trouble," said Bobby, swallowing rather
hard, for there seemed to be a lump rising in his throat. He never
liked to see his mother cry. "Why, I'm a big boy, you know, Mother.
And I know just what you can do with me while you're gone."
"What's that, Bobs?" asked his father, cheerfully.
"Let me go to Rockledge School with Fred Martin--do, _do_! That'll be
fun, and they'll look out for me there--you know they are _awfully_
strict at schools like that. I can't get into any trouble."
"Not with Fred?" chuckled Mr. Blake.
"Well," said Bobby, seriously, "you know if I have to look out for Fred
same as I always do, _I_ won't have time to get into mischief. You told
Mr. Martin so yourself, you know, Pa."
Mr. Blake laughed again and glanced at his wife. She had an arm around
Bobby, but she had stopped crying and she looked over at her husband
proudly. Bobby was such a sensible, thoughtful chap!
"I guess we'll have to take the school question into serious
consideration, Bobs," he said. "Now kiss your mother and me goodnight,
and go to sleep. These are late hours for small boys."
Bobby ran to bed as he was told, and this time he went to sleep almost
as soon as he placed his head upon the pillow. But how he _did_ dream!
He and Fred Martin were walking all the way to Rockledge School, and
they went barefooted with their shoes slung over their shoulders,
Applethwaite Plunkit and his big dog popped out of almost every corner
to obstruct their way. Bobby had just as exciting a time during his
dreams that night as he and his chum had experienced during the
afternoon previous!
Nothing was said at the late Sunday morning breakfast about his parents'
journey to South America. Bobby knew all about poor Uncle Bill. He
could just remember him--a small, very brown, good-tempered man who had
come north from his tropical station in the rubber country four years,
or so, before.
Uncle Bill was Mr. Blake's only brother, and most of Bobby's father's
income came from the rubber exporting business, too. Uncle Bill had
lived for years in Brazil, but finally the climate had been too much for
him and only a few months ago word had come of his death. He had been a
bachelor. Mr. Blake had positively to go to Samratam to settle the
company's affairs and Bobby's mother would not be separated from her
husband for the long months which must necessarily be engaged in the
journey.
Bobby felt that he _must_ talk about the wonderful possibility that had
risen on the horizon of his future, so, long before time for Sunday
School, he ran over to the Martin house and yodled softly in the side
lane for Fred.
Fred put his head out of a second-story window. "Hello!" he said, in a
whisper. "That you, Bobby?"
"Yep. Come on down. I got the greatest thing to tell you."
"Wait till I get into this stiff shirt," growled Fred. "It's just like
iron! I just _hate_ Sunday clothes--don't you, Bobby?"
Bobby was too eager to tell his news to discuss the much mooted point.
"Hurry up!" he threw back at Fred, and then sat down on the grassy bank
to wait.
He knew that Fred would have to pass inspection before either his mother
or his sister Mary, before he could start for Sunday School. He heard
some little scolding behind the closed blinds of the Martin house, and
grinned. Fred had evidently tried to get out before being fully
presentable.
He finally came out, grumbling something about "all the girls being
nuisances," but Bobby merely chuckled. He thought Mary Martin was
pretty nice, himself--only, perhaps inclined to be a little "bossy," as
is usually the case with elder sisters.
"Never mind, Fred," Bobby said, soothingly. "Let it go. I got something
just wonderful to tell you."
"What is it?" demanded Fred, not much interested.
"I believe something's going to happen that you've just been _hoping_
for," said Bobby, smiling.
"That Ap Plunkit's got the measles--or something?" exclaimed Fred, with
a show of eagerness.
"Aw, no! It isn't anything to do with Ap Plunkit," returned Bobby, in
disgust.
"What is it, then?"
So Bobby told him.