THE HAPGOODS AND NATE.
The spring was backward that year, and on its first evening of real
softness and beauty the houses of Littleton seemed turned
wrong-side-out, like a stocking-bag, upon the streets. Every door-step
had its occupants, every fence rail its leaning groups (though fences
were scarce in Littleton), and the left-overs gathered in and around the
saloon, familiarly known as Lon's. Among the loungers on its broad,
unroofed platform, sat two men, tilted back in wooden armchairs, talking
in that slow, desultory fashion common among those who use hands more
than tongues in their battle with life.
"Yes," drawled one, as he cut off a generous slice from the cake of
fine-cut in his hands, "yes, I'm not saying but the town'll look better
when it's done, but what's it being done for? That's what I want to
know. 'Twon't make the plant any more valuable, will it?"
"It orter," was the response as the other knocked the ashes from his
black pipe, blew through its stem, and proceeded to fill it from a dirty
little bag drawn from his ragged coat pocket. "Good houses is better'n
shanties, ain't they?"
"Of course they're better, but that's just it. We can't none of us pay
any more rent than we're payin' now; so what'll he do about it?"
"Who?"
"The new man that owns it--young Early, ain't it?"
"Oh, the son; yes. It's just half way possible he thinks we ought to
have something better'n pig-styes to live in!"
"Well, he isn't any Early then! I've see the old man, and I know.
Straight's a glass rod, and not caring shucks for anything but his
money. He'd grind a feller down to biled-tater parings, if he could."
It was Lucy's father just speaking, and his name of William Hapgood had
been shortened to Bill among the villagers, who seemed to have little
use for family cognomens where family pride was not a failing. He was a
small man with a rasping voice and sharp nose, while the bristling
growth about his chin was red and his hair brown. All this denoted
temper, but not the deep and lasting kind; rather the flash-in-the-pan
sort, common enough among shrewish women, and only common in men of this
type. Just now his tone was bitter.
"Well, it's a change for the better anyhow, Bill," said the other, who
was large, dark, stolid, and kindly. "They've shortened our hours, and
allowed the shillin' a week extry. That's something."
"Oh, everything's something. I hain't seen no call to go down on my
marrer-bones yet, though. You allays did slop over at nothing, Nate."
"Oh, but what's the use o' bein' so everlastingly cranky and
onreasonable?"
"I ain't onreasonable. I say it's you're that, when you're so pleased
with the least thing. See here! Did you ever see a big boss that would
go halvers with his men in flush times, and of his own notion pay 'em
extry? No, you never did. But when the fires are mostly out, oh! then we
must live on half wages and be thunderin' thankful to git that. I say
there ain't one o' them that cares a copper cent for one of us, 'cept
just for what he can git outen us. I'm blessed if I believe they even
think of us as men at all--just lump us off with the machinery, like.
One man, one blowpipe, one marver--and the man least 'count of all."
The other chuckled softly, then waved his hand towards a group of
shapely cottages off at the right.
"When you get into one o' them new houses, with a piazzer acrost the
front, and plenty of windows, and a grass plot, and see Lucy washin'
dishes at the little white sink with the hot and cold water runnin' free
out of silver fassets, and know you don't have to tote your
drinkin'-water a block, and ketch what rain-water you can in a bar'l,
you won't feel so gritty, Bill!"
The other smiled somewhat sheepishly, pleased in spite of himself at the
picture, but rallied to the challenge with--
"But what's it all _for_? That's what gets me. I can't and won't pay no
more rent, and that's settled."
"Don't be allays looking fur traps, Bill."
"And don't you be walkin' into 'em open-eyed, Nate. No sir, you mark me!
We ain't got to heaven yet, and in this world o' woe folks don't go and
spend a big lot o' money just to make it easier fur the folks that's
under 'em--'tisn't nater."
"It mayn't be your nater, nor mine, but it may be some folkses. Well,
argy as you may, the place don't look the same, now does it? D'ye mind
the houses they've finished off? Well they're leveling off the yards
around 'em, and seedin' 'em to grass. Fact! I see it myself. And 'nother
thing. They're filling up that old flat-iron place, where we used to
cart rubbish to, and hauling trees to set out as they get it leveled
down. If 'twa'n't perfectly ridiculous I'd say 'twas to be a park--just
imagine a _park_!"
Both laughed gruffly, while a loiterer or two, just passing in or out
the swing doors, who had stopped to listen, joined in.
"The thing 't really is so," observed one of these with his hand on the
door, "is that they're a-goin' to have a church. It's so, Bill! Ground
was broke for it to-day, and I've seen the plan, and who do you think's
goin' to boss the job?"
"Who? Oh, some big architec' from town, of course," sneered Hapgood.
"Now, that's where you're off the track. It's Gus Peters."
"What? Gus Peters!"
Both men looked up, startled into real interest.
"How did it happen?" asked Nate.
"Don't know. It seems he's been studyin' the business, evenings and all.
He's allays mooning over plans and drawings; and so they've give the job
to him."
"Well, I never!" cried Hapgood. "That awk'ard--why, he can't finish off
a glass rod without break-in' it, or burning himself!"
"No, he's no blower!" laughed the other. "Nary kind, I reckon. But they
do say he's great on drawing plans. I'm glad there's something he can
do, and I guess it was a lucky day for him when he burnt his arms so
bad. We thought he'd have to go on the county, sure, with his hands so
helpless, but he seems to 've got along first-rate."
"Did he have an accident policy?"
"Don't know. Never heard of none. They say some relation or other's been
keepin' him in cash. Have a drink, Bill?"
"Well, don't care if I do. It's gettin' thirsty weather these warm
days."
Nate Tierney, the dark man, looked after him and chuckled again.
"It most generally is thirsty weather for Bill," he ruminated alone as
the men crowded within. "Guess I'll go along and take a look at Lucy and
the babies. Kinder seems to me if I had a lot o' nice little gals like
that I wouldn't git thirsty quite so often--but I don't know. The
stuff's powerful comfortin' when you git tired of rememberin'--I've
noticed that."
He strolled slowly down the lane-like street between the rows of houses,
like peas in a pod for sameness, and stopped, with a smile on his honest
face, as a little girl burst suddenly from the door of one and, closely
pursued by another, just a step higher, ran shrieking with laughing
fright right into his outstretched arms.
"There! I've caught you now," he cried, then called to the pursuer.
"What you up to, Rufie, chasing Tilly so? Do you want to scare her into
an idjit?"
Tilly, nestling in happy defiance within the shelter of his strong arm,
tried to tell her woes, while Rufie dancing hotly about outside,
declared in even shriller tones that Tilly deserved a slap and should
get it, adding invitations to the younger girl to come out and see if
she wouldn't, which were of doubtful persuasiveness. At this moment Lucy
appeared in the doorway, the little baby in her arms and a larger one
clinging to her skirts, to look anxiously and angrily after her younger
sisters.
"I've got 'em safe, Lucy," called Nate, restraining his laughing captive
and grasping at the other girl, "I'll bring in the pris'ners--don't you
worry! Now, girls, be good, can't ye? What did Tilly do, Rufie, that
makes you so fierce after her?"
"Stole my ribbon, the little----"
"Eh, eh! Stole is a big word for young lips," interrupted the man, while
the accused protested,
"I didn't neither! I was just lookin' at it to see if 'twould match my
new dress a lady guv me."
"Oh, looking!" was Rufie's sneering rejoinder. "Where is it now? Didn't
I see you tuck it in your pocket, you thief o' the----"
"Sh--h! That's not nice talk for a pretty gal like you, Rufie. Don't
call names like a hoodlum. Where's the ribbon, Tilly?"
"There, you old stingy!" bringing it forth with a flirt, to slap it
across her sister's face, at which the later snatched it eagerly with a
few choice epithets, which flowed as easily from her young lips as if
she had been ages old in sin.
Nate looked from one to the other, and the amused smile died out of his
face.
"I don't like you when you're that way, girls," he said in a hopeless
tone. "See how you worry sister!" for Lucy was calling fretfully,
"I do wish you two could be still one second! Tommy was asleep, and baby
almost, when you began screeching like a fire engine and racing and
slamming through the house--where's pa, Nate?"
"Pa? Oh, he--he's around uptown some'ers."
"I s'pose 'some'ers' means up to Lon's, as usual," snapped the girl
bitterly. "He might better live there and be done with it."
She was a slight creature, too pale and worn for even the natural
prettiness of youth, but her large, lovely eyes suggested that in a more
fortunate environment she might have been described as beautiful, by
that stretch of imagination which chroniclers of the great are allowed.
Many a so-called beauty of high caste has shown less natural endowment
than did poor Lucy, but dragging care had wiped out the life and sparkle
until, no one thought of her as attractive, even--only pathetic.
The man let go of the squabbling children to lift the fretting baby from
her weary arms, and followed her into the unkempt room, which made
almost the sole scene in her onerous life.
"You ain't got your dishes done yet, either; have you, child?" he asked
in sympathizing tones. "Well, well, I'll keep the youngsters while you
red things up. Here, girls, you come now and help sister, while I 'tend
baby, and we'll have things comfortable in a jiffy. Let's all try and be
good together."
The admonition proved effectual. Soon the girls were quietly at work,
and the little baby's startled eyes closed beneath the influence of the
gentle lullaby crooned by this rough-looking man, from whom some dainty
women might have shrunk in fear, had they met him on the public street.
When the little one was safely deposited in his wooden cradle, the other
baby, scarce two years older, being consigned to an uncomfortable nest
between restless Rufie and Tilly, in a bed scarcely wide enough for
them, the tired oldest sister dropped down on the door-step near kind
old Nate, who sat tilted back against the house wall, the legs of his
wooden chair boring deep holes in the sandy soil.
"You're pretty tired, ain't ye?" he asked with strong sympathy. "It do
sorter seem as if you had more'n your share sometimes, Lucy--it do,
certain sure!"
"I'd just give up if 'twa'n't for you and Marry," she returned wearily,
crouching in a forlorn heap, with elbows on knees and chin in palms.
"It's hard enough for women that's got their own young ones, and can
mind 'em and make 'em mind. I can't do nothing with ours, and when I go
to pa he just gets cross and lights out. And then he comes home--well,
you know how. He hit me with a stick, last night."
Nate's strong teeth came together with a click.
"He did? The old----" His sentence ended in a mutter.
"Oh, you can curse him"--she laughed drearily--"but what good does it
do? It don't take the ache out o' that welt on my arm and back any. The
skin's broke and it smarts."
She began to cry in a slow, patient way.
"It's queer I don't get used to it," she said presently, for Nate had
not tried to answer, but was puffing like a locomotive over wet rails at
his stub of a pipe. "I ought to by this time, but I don't. I s'pose it's
because when pa's good he's real good, and so kind it makes it hurt all
the more when he's off. Oh dear!" She gave a long sigh, pitifully
unyouthful in its depth of misery. "I was 'most glad when ma got through
with it all, and could rest and look so sort of peaceful in her coffin.
But I dunno. She kept more offen me than I knew of, I guess, and it's
growin' worse all the time."
Nate started up, letting his chair fall back with such force as to
threaten total extinction to its legs.
"It's a sin and shame, and I know it!" he said in his deepest voice.
"But you keep up your courage, Lucy. When things 'gets to the bottom
they're bound to go up again, for they never stand still."
He stood up and knocked his pipe clean against the wooden chair seat
with vigorous thumps that seemed to relieve him, and started towards the
street.
"Where you going?" asked Lucy remonstrantly. "I didn't mean to nag at
you, Nate."
"Don't I know it? And what if you did? Guess I'm big enough to stand it.
You just talk to me all you feel like; but see here, little girl, I
wouldn't be talkin' to nobody else--I wouldn't."
"Not to Marry?"
"Oh well, that French woman don't so much matter, 'cause most folks
wouldn't understand even if she tried to tattle, and I guess she don't.
But not to Mis' Hemphill--she's a most su'prisin' gossip, ye know--nor
to the Murfrees, nor Flahertys, nor nobody. These is fam'ly affairs,
Lucy, and they ain't for public ears. I'm going down to Lon's now, and
your pa'll get home soon--very soon. I'll see to that," grimly. "Now,
good night, and don't you shed another tear, will ye?"
He patted her shoulder kindly as he stepped past her, and Lucy looked up
with grateful eyes.
"If he's off, Nate, will you come with him?" she whispered fearfully.
"Bet yer life!" was the emphatic answer as he lumbered away on great
clumping shoes, true knight as any that used to ride away on a horse
just as clumsily arrayed in armor, and perhaps that romantic rider was
no better equipped in mind or heart than this glass-blower of the
nineteenth century.