In a little sunken place, behind a rock, some rods away, Westover found
Jeff lurking with his dog, both silent and motionless. “Hello?” he said,
inquiringly.
“Come back to show you the way,” said the boy. “Thought you couldn't
find it alone.”
“Oh, why didn't you say you'd wait?” The boy grinned. “I shouldn't think
a fellow like you would want to be afraid of any man, even for the fun
of scaring a little girl.” Jeff stopped grinning and looked interested,
as if this was a view of the case that had not occurred to him. “But
perhaps you like to be afraid.”
“I don't know as I do,” said the boy, and Westover left him to the
question a great part of the way home. He did not express any regret or
promise any reparation. But a few days after that, when he had begun
to convoy parties of children up to see Westover at work, in the late
afternoon, on their way home from school, and to show the painter off to
them as a sort of family property, he once brought the young Whitwells.
He seemed on perfect terms with them now, and when the crowd of larger
children hindered the little boy's view of the picture, Jeff, in his
quality of host, lifted him under his arms and held him up so that he
could look as long as he liked.
The girl seemed ashamed of the good understanding before Westover. Jeff
offered to make a place for her among the other children who had looked
long enough, but she pulled the front of her bonnet across her face and
said that she did not want to look, and caught her brother by the hand
and ran away with him. Westover thought this charming, somewhat; he
liked the intense shyness which the child's intense passion had hidden
from him before.
Jeff acted as host to the neighbors who came to inspect the picture, and
they all came, within a circuit of several miles around, and gave
him their opinions freely or scantily, according to their several
temperaments. They were mainly favorable, though there was some frank
criticism, too, spoken over the painter's shoulder as openly as if he
were not by. There was no question but of likeness; all finer facts were
far from them; they wished to see how good a portrait Westover had made,
and some of them consoled him with the suggestion that the likeness
would come out more when the picture got dry.
Whitwell, when he came, attempted a larger view of the artist's work,
but apparently more out of kindness for him than admiration of the
picture. He said he presumed you could not always get a thing like that
just right the first time, and that you had to keep trying till you did
get it; but it paid in the end. Jeff had stolen down from the house with
his dog, drawn by the fascination which one we have injured always has
for us; when Whitwell suddenly turned upon him and asked, jocularly,
“What do you think, Jeff?” the boy could only kick his dog and drive it
home, as a means of hiding his feelings.
He brought the teacher to see the picture the last Friday before the
painter went away. She was a cold-looking, austere girl, pretty enough,
with eyes that wandered away from the young man, although Jeff used all
his arts to make her feel at home in his presence. She pretended to have
merely stopped on her way up to see Mrs. Durgin, and she did not venture
any comment on the painting; but, when Westover asked something about
her school, she answered him promptly enough as to the number and ages
and sexes of the school-children. He ventured so far toward a joke with
her as to ask if she had much trouble with such a tough subject as Jeff,
and she said he could be good enough when he had a mind. If he could get
over his teasing, she said, with the air of reading him a lecture, she
would not have anything to complain of; and Jeff looked ashamed, but
rather of the praise than the blame. His humiliation seemed complete
when she said, finally: “He's a good scholar.”
On the Tuesday following, Westover meant to go. It was the end of his
third week, and it had brought him into September. The weather since he
had begun to paint Lion's Head was perfect for his work; but, with the
long drought, it had grown very warm. Many trees now had flamed into
crimson on the hill-slopes; the yellowing corn in the fields gave out
a thin, dry sound as the delicate wind stirred the blades; but only the
sounds and sights were autumnal. The heat was oppressive at midday, and
at night the cold had lost its edge. There was no dew, and Mrs. Durgin
sat out with Westover on the porch while he smoked a final pipe there.
She had come to join him for some fixed purpose, apparently, and she
called to her boy, “You go to bed, Jeff,” as if she wished to be alone
with Westover; the men folks were already in bed; he could hear them
cough now and then.
“Mr. Westover,” the woman began, even as she swept her skirts forward
before she sat down, “I want to ask you whether you would let that
picture of yours go on part board? I'll give you back just as much as
you say of this money.”
He looked round and saw that she had in the hand dropped in her lap the
bills he had given her after supper.
“Why, I couldn't, very well, Mrs. Durgin--” he began.
“I presume you'll think I'm foolish,” she pursued. “But I do want that
picture; I don't know when I've ever wanted a thing more. It's just
like Lion's Head, the way I've seen it, day in and day out, every summer
since I come here thirty-five years ago; it's beautiful!”
“Mrs. Durgin,” said Westover, “you gratify me more than I can tell you.
I wish--I wish I could let you have the picture. I--I don't know what to
say--”
“Why don't you let me have it, then? If we ever had to go away from
here--if anything happened to us--it's the one thing I should want to
keep and take with me. There! That's the way I feel about it. I can't
explain; but I do wish you'd let me have it.”
Some emotion which did not utter itself in the desire she expressed made
her voice shake in the words. She held out the bank-notes to him, and
they rustled with the tremor of her hand.
“Mrs. Durgin, I suppose I shall have to be frank with you, and you
mustn't feel hurt. I have to live by my work, and I have to get as much
as I can for it--”
“That's what I say. I don't want to beat you down on it. I'll give you
whatever you think is right. It's my money, and my husband feels just as
I do about it,” she urged.
“You don't quite understand,” he said, gently. “I expect to have an
exhibition of my pictures in Boston this fall, and I hope to get two or
three hundred dollars for Lion's Head.”
“I've been a proper fool,” cried the woman, and she drew in a long
breath.
“Oh, don't mind,” he begged; “it's all right. I've never had any offer
for a picture that I'd rather take than yours. I know the thing can't be
altogether bad after what you've said. And I'll tell you what! I'll have
it photographed when I get to Boston, and I'll send you a photograph of
it.”
“How much will that be?” Mrs. Durgin asked, as if taught caution by her
offer for the painting.
“Nothing. And if you'll accept it and hang it up here somewhere I shall
be very glad.”
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Durgin, and the meekness, the wounded pride, he
fancied in her, touched him.
He did not know at first how to break the silence which she let follow
upon her words. At last he said:
“You spoke, just now, about taking it with you. Of course, you don't
think of leaving Lion's Head?”
She did not answer for so long a time that he thought she had not
perhaps heard him or heeded what he said; but she answered, finally:
“We did think of it. The day you come we had about made up our minds to
leave.”
“Oh!”
“But I've been thinkin' of something since you've been here that I
don't know but you'll say is about as wild as wantin' to buy a
three-hundred-dollar picture with a week's board.” She gave a short,
self-scornful laugh; but it was a laugh, and it relieved the tension.
“It may not be worth any more,” he said, glad of the relief.
“Oh, I guess it is,” she rejoined, and then she waited for him to prompt
her.
“Well?”
“Well, it's this; and I wanted to ask you, anyway. You think there'd be
any chance of my gettin' summer folks to come here and board if I was
to put an advertisement in a Boston paper? I know it's a lonesome place,
and there ain't what you may call attractions. But the folks from the
hotels, sometimes, when they ride over in a stage to see the view,
praise up the scenery, and I guess it is sightly. I know that well
enough; and I ain't afraid but what I can do for boarders as well as
some, if not better. What do you think?”
“I think that's a capital idea, Mrs. Durgin.”
“It's that or go,” she said. “There ain't a livin' for us on the farm
any more, and we got to do somethin'. If there was anything else I could
do! But I've thought it out and thought it out, and I guess there ain't
anything I can do but take boarders--if I can get them.”
“I should think you'd find it rather pleasant on some accounts. Your
boarders would be company for you,” said Westover.
“We're company enough for ourselves,” said Mrs. Durgin. “I ain't ever
been lonesome here, from the first minute. I guess I had company enough
when I was a girl to last me the sort that hotel folks are. I presume
Mr. Whitwell spoke to you about my father?”
“Yes; he did, Mrs. Durgin.”
“I don't presume he said anything that wa'n't true. It's all right. But
I know how my mother used to slave, and how I used to slave myself; and
I always said I'd rather do anything than wait on boarders; and now I
guess I got to come to it. The sight of summer folks makes me sick! I
guess I could 'a' had 'em long ago if I'd wanted to. There! I've said
enough.” She rose, with a sudden lift of her powerful frame, and stood a
moment as if expecting Westover to say something.
He said: “Well, when you've made your mind up, send your advertisement
to me, and I'll attend to it for you.”
“And you won't forget about the picture?”
“No; I won't forget that.”
The next morning he made ready for an early start, and in his
preparations he had the zealous and even affectionate help of Jeff
Durgin. The boy seemed to wish him to carry away the best impression
of him, or, at least, to make him forget all that had been sinister or
unpleasant in his behavior. They had been good comrades since the first
evil day; they had become good friends even; and Westover was touched
by the boy's devotion at parting. He helped the painter get his pack
together in good shape, and he took pride in strapping it on Westover's
shoulders, adjusting and readjusting it with care, and fastening it so
that all should be safe and snug. He lingered about at the risk of being
late for school, as if to see the last of the painter, and he waved his
hat to him when Westover looked back at the house from half down the
lane. Then he vanished, and Westover went slowly on till he reached
that corner of the orchard where the slanting gravestones of the family
burial-ground showed above the low wall. There, suddenly, a storm burst
upon him. The air rained apples, that struck him on the head, the back,
the side, and pelted in violent succession on his knapsack and canvases,
camp-stool and easel. He seemed assailed by four or five skilful
marksmen, whose missiles all told.
When he could lift his face to look round he heard a shrill, accusing
voice, “Oh, Jeff Durgin!” and he saw another storm of apples fly through
the air toward the little Whitwell girl, who dodged and ran along the
road below and escaped in the direction of the schoolhouse. Then the
boy's face showed itself over the top of one of the gravestones, all
agrin with joy. He waited and watched Westover keep slowly on, as if
nothing had happened, and presently he let some apples fall from his
hands and walked slowly back to the house, with his dog at his heels.
When Westover reached the level of the road and the shelter of the woods
near Whitwell's house, he unstrapped his load to see how much harm had
been done to his picture. He found it unhurt, and before he had got the
burden back again he saw Jeff Durgin leaping along the road toward the
school-house, whirling his satchel of books about his head and shouting
gayly to the girl, now hidden by the bushes at the other end of the
lane: “Cynthy! Oh, Cynthy! Wait for me! I want to tell you something!”