The letter came while Mr. Pawket was chopping wood. His ax rested on a
stump and piles of white chips breathed fragrance around him as he stood
watching the buckboard of the Rural Free Delivery wind down the country
road.
The Rural Free Delivery consisted of a white horse, a creaking
buckboard, and a young woman of determined manner. A Rough Rider's hat
sat with an air of stern purpose on the Rural Free Delivery's dark head,
and a pair of surgeon's gauntlet gloves heightened her air of official
integrity.
As the buckboard approached the group of tulip-trees opposite Mr.
Pawket's residence he shoved back his hat and pulled a blue-spotted
handkerchief out of his hip pocket; passing the handkerchief over his
face, he greeted the Rural Free Delivery:
"Hot enough fer yer?"
It was really not so very hot, but if Mr. Pawket had not asked this
question he would have felt lacking in geniality. He did not, however,
go forward to intercept possible mail. There was the little iron box
with his name on it nailed to the tulip-tree; there was the red signal
to be adjusted. It pleased Mr. Pawket to realize that the government had
all this planned out for his special convenience and he was careful not
to upset regime. He watched the Rural Free Delivery climb down from the
buckboard, go to the little box on the tree, deposit one letter, lock
the box, and set up the signal. When the ceremony was concluded Mr.
Pawket came out from behind the barn. Walking with the heavy,
bent-kneed tread of the life-long farmer, he leaned upon the bars by the
cow-sheds.
"Many gitten 'em to-day?" he inquired.
The Rural Free Delivery climbed back into the buckboard; she pulled on
the gauntlets, replying with black-eyed reserve:
"Finn's folks had two--a asthma circler and a letter from that son they
thought was drownded. Mis' Sweetser's got a paper--- the one her
daughter is a manicurer sends her. And there's a box yet for the Grant
girl--her graduatin'-dress, I expect--seems she's too high-toned to wear
anything but machine-made."
The Rural Free Delivery whipped up the white horse and the stern
contours of the Rough Rider hat disappeared down the winding, shadowed
road. At last Mr. Pawket, rousing from the reverie induced by news of
the resurrection of Finn's boy, took down the bars and crossed the road
to the post-box. Dragging from his pocket a cluster of huge barn keys,
he sought among them for the infinitesimal key of the box. This small
key had the appearance of coquetting with Mr. Pawket--it invariably
disappeared behind the larger keys and eluded his efforts to single it
out; it seemed to him flirtatious, feminine; and as he stood like an old
Druid invoking the spirit of the tulip-tree, he addressed this small key
with benevolent irony.
"You'm a shrimp, that's what you are," Mr. Pawket said to the key.
"Nothin' but a shrimp.... Why in tarnation don't they have a key you can
see?... I'd hate to lose you on a dark night, I would," eying the key
severely.
But the shrimp key at least did its work, and Mr. Pawket with
unconcealed feelings of wonder and concern drew forth from the box the
letter. It was a large, rich-looking letter. The envelope was thin and
crackly, embossed with purple designs of twisted reptiles coiling around
a woman's face, and in one corner were small purple letters forming the
words "Hotel Medusa." The handwriting on the envelope was bold and
black, and the dark seal bore impress of a small winged form that Mr.
Pawket took to be a honey-bee. He regarded the letter suspiciously,
studying it from every position as he entered the kitchen door.
"Say, Mother, here's a letter. What'll I do with it?"
Mrs. Pawket came sighing from the washtub. She wrinkled her forehead as
one harried by the incessant demands of the outside world. Wiping her
hands on her wet apron, she took the letter, regarding it
contemptuously.
"Leave it be on the parlor mantel," advised Mrs. Pawket. "The twins is
comin' up the road. I can hear them hollerin' at that echo down by the
swamps. Leave it be; they'll attend to it."
Mr. Pawket, having carried out this injunction, stood by the door
considering whether it was worth while to go back to his chopping. The
sun was in the middle of the sky; he sniffed odors of the kitchen and
discerned a rich atmosphere known to his consciousness as "dinner-time."
"Now I'm here I may as well stay," he remarked to his wife. He sat
heavily down in a Turkey-red-covered rocking-chair, quoting facetiously:
"Ef yer never want to be sad and sorry
Just keep away from hurry and worry."
"The Rural says Finn's folks has heard from that young feller was
drownded."
Mrs. Pawket raised a disapproving face from contemplating a small kettle
of Irish stew, remarking, severely: "Much the Rural knows about it.
She's into everybody's business."
Mr. Pawket demurred. "Well, carr'in' the mail and all, she's liable to
sense a good deal. Some says she's always been foreknowledged. 'Twuz the
Rural foretold the blizzit last winter; 'twuz the Rural found out Hank
Jellaby's nephew was married. Wasn't it her knowed all the time who sot
Mullins's barn afire? There's a good many depends on the Rural for
keeping up with things."
Soon the sun was a green glare through the tulip-trees; that meant it
was half past twelve, and the twins raced in. They were hoarse from
intriguing with the echo in the swamp; but as they entered the gate
(careful to swing it the wrong way and squeeze through) they discussed
a tingling problem in mental arithmetic.
"If Mrs. Fenton gave her son two wapples" (snuffle), "and her nephew one
naple" (snuffle), "and two wapples to her son's friend, reservin' one
napple for herself and conservin' four rapples for the household, what
would be the sum of these given napples multiplied by four?"
Reciting this appalling chorus, the twins faced their grandfather, who,
poising his battered sun-hat on his knees, from the depths of his
arm-chair looked proudly, if fearfully, upon them.
"Say, Gramp', kin' you answer it?" demanded the twins.
Standing before him in the kitchen doorway, they mouthed it,
curly-headed, croaking synchronous challenge. They scraped their shoes
on a scraper near the door; one peered furtively under a covered dish on
the table while the other washed hands and face in a tin basin under the
grape-arbor. Together they made strange "snorting" noises of repressed
masculinity as, seizing knife and fork from the pile in the center of
the table, they took seats, elbows on plates, instruments waving in air.
"Kin you answer it?"
Mr. Pawket hedged. He also drew a chair up to the table and, spearing a
slice of bread with his knife, bent bushy brows.
"'Kin I answer it?' Well, that's a nice question. Would yer teacher like
me to answer it? No, he wouldn't. It's for your learnin', ain't it? Not
for mine. I'm all finished with them conundrums. Of course," went on Mr.
Pawket, airily--"of course I never done figurin' like that when I was a
boy. Them apples, now. Seems to me it all depends on the season. Ef the
lady was a widder, like as not she was took advantage of. I mistrust she
wouldn't be no judge of apples; not bein' a farmer, how could she know
that there's years when apples is valleyble, and other years when you
insult the pigs with 'em? But then--you talk about apples--Well, as for
a fine apple, whether it's Northern Spy or Harvest Moon...." Thus Mr.
Pawket skilfully directed the conversation into channels more familiar.
At last the twins, in a fine, concerted action of chewing, balanced
large slices of buttered bread on the flats of their hands, eyed their
grandparents, and, after swallowing with peculiar heavy efforts of the
epiglottis, remarked, simultaneously:
"Willum is comin' home."
Mr. Pawket started. He reached for his spectacles, solemnly polished
them, and put them on. Mrs. Pawket, bearing a large leaning tower of
griddle-cakes toward the table, halted as one petrified.
The twins bent over their plates, humped their shoulders, observing,
"That's what they all say down to the Center."
"Mr. Sykes heard it into the feedstore."
"Mis' Badger says it."
"They was all talkin' about it into the undertaker's."
"He's going to build a new house."
"His wife thinks she's goin' to like it here."
Mr. Pawket took off his spectacles. His wife! Willum with a wife?
The twins, now devouring griddle-cakes, turned on him with unmoved
faces.
"It's going to be a show-place. The butcher can tell yer all about it--a
grand house like a big railroad station, all gold pipes and runnin'
water."
One twin turned the syrup-jug upside down; there ensued a slight scuffle
between the two, each ardently attempting to hold his plate under the
golden falling globules.
"They'm goin' to have five ottermobiles, and one for the cook to run
herself around in; there's goin' to be one room all canary-birds, and
there's goin' to be a g'rage with painted winders and a steeple like a
church."
Mrs. Pawket sat down. She fanned herself with her apron.
"Set up to the table and eat, Mawther," feebly advised Mr. Pawket.
The twins, rapidly and scientifically consuming griddle-cakes, jaws
working, unemotional eyes watching the effect of their statements,
continued:
"They goin' to build on Cedar Plains."
"She's got the ideers."
"He's got the money."
"Just their ice-box alone is goin' to cost 'em two hundred dollars."
Mr. Pawket, with sudden irritation: "Now, now, now, that ain't sensible,
that ain't. Willum had ought to have talked it over with me. I'd like to
'a' reasoned with him. I could have showed him catalogues.... And them
two buildin' on Cedar Plains--it's onreasonable. It'll come hard on his
wife. She won't have no near neighbors; and look at how far they'll have
to go for weddin's and fun'rals and all."
Mrs. Pawket, suddenly bethinking her, rose and went into the "front"
room, or parlor, where, from a large mantelpiece ranged with
sugary-looking vases stuffed with brilliantly dyed grasses she plucked
the recently arrived letter. Looking at it upside down and with
nonchalance of disapproval, she put the letter before the twins,
commanding:
"Do as Grammar tells you and read it."
"That's right," said Mr. Pawket, spooning up gravy. He retucked a
kitchen towel in his neck, approving: "I don't know but what we ought to
read it. There may be sumpin' in it somebody wants we should know."
The twins handled the letter casually; they attacked the superscription
with glib unconcern.
"Hot-hell Medusa." began one twin, confidently.
He was instantly corrected by the other twin. "Yah--it is not
Hot-hell--it's _Ho_tel Medusa, It'ly. Yah!"
"It'ly? It'ly?" mused Mr. Pawket. "Well, I made out the I T, all right.
Now I ought to 'a' guessed the rest, It'ly bein' a place I'm familiar
with."
The twins were in conference.
"Medusa--you know who she was," remarked the elder twin by four seconds.
"Don't, huh? Snakes for hair--hey? Look at you and you turn into
stone--hey?"
"Shut up! She did not!"
"Shut up! She did!"
But the other twin busied himself with the post-mark.
"A. Malfi," he painfully deciphered....
"Say, Gramp', what's a Malfi?"
His brother remained engrossed with the embossed head of Medusa.
"Snakes for hair--turned 'em to stone--cut off her head," he chanted, in
blissful retrospect.
Mr. Pawket, reaching across the table, seized this student by the
collar. "Now, now, now! Whose head you cuttin' off?"
"Hern," explained this bloodthirsty twin. "She was a bad woman."
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that
talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none
of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new
young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no
good--that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope
with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she
is, see to it that you don't take no more notice of her capers."
The twins now registered aggrieved expressions; they scratched curly
heads with perturbed spoons. "Medusa's hist'ry." They roared it in hurt
explanation.
After some discussion of the curious anatomical outline of the supposed
honey-bee on the seal, Mrs. Pawket finally slit the envelope with a
dinner-knife, and the twins, holding the letter between them, gave a
dashing, if slightly incorrect, reading.
"AMALFI--IT'LY--HOTEL MEDOOSA.
"DEAR MR. AND MRS. PAWKET,--This letter is from William Folsom, the
little orphan boy for whom you did so much. What do you think? This
boy who boarded with you summers is coming back to America with his
wife, an Italian lady you are both sure to love! On account of
unforeseen business necessity, Mrs. Folsom and I are forced to give
up our charming ... vill ... villain ... villy...."
Here one twin ran down. The other twin looked over his brother's
shoulder, breathing thickly.
"Vanilla," he chewingly instructed.
"Vanilla ... our charming vanilla, and on account of recent
dev-dev-devil-elope-ments we are leaving It'ly at once. You
remember the fine old property my father owned, called Cedar
Plains? As I remember, it was not far from your farm where I spent
so many happy summers. It is on Cedar Plains that Mrs. Folsom and I
plan to erect our new home, an I ... talian van ... vill ... v...."
"Vanilla." This time it was Mr. Pawket who blandly supplied the word.
"I shall count on you as good friends and neighbors and I am
anxious to have my wife meet you. We have placed the building of
our new home in the hands of an architect friend of mine who is to
be on the spot until all is completed. Our beloved household
furnishings have already been shipped to America and we are living
for the present in this hotel. We shall come home by a somewhat
cir-cus-to-us route, not arriving until our new home is ready for
us. Won't you two good friends take Mr. Badgely as a boarder, and
do give him that stunning old room I used to have?
"With the kindest good wishes to you both,
"Your boy,
"WILLIAM FOLSOM."
The twins, having completed what had been for them a daring undertaking,
now looked about for release from an atmosphere grown suddenly boresome.
The elder by four seconds went to the door and, affecting intense
maturity, spat out from it. The younger, dipping his head in the
water-butt near the leader, took a small comb from his pocket and, using
the disturbed water-butt as a mirror, began parting into ideal
smoothness his upward-turning locks.
The first twin, seeing his brother's back turned, dug into his pockets
and, having brought out with an air of modest pride a fish-line, a
morsel of gingerbread, a bit of resin, human tooth, part of a human
bone, a kitten's skull, a chewed piece of gum, and an incredibly
besmirched Sunday-school card, extracted from these omens a large rusty
screw, which he proffered to his grandmother, muttering, "For your
Everything Jar." With a sudden shame at having been seen sympathizing
with the interests of a woman, this twin then seized his hat and fled
whooping down the road to school, followed by his brother, who, holding
between his vision and the sun a small bit of crimson glass, exulted in
the contemplation of a deep red universe.
Mrs. Pawket, bundling the dinner-dishes into a pan and pouring hot water
from the teakettle over them, sighed. Mr. Pawket, having again retired
to the Turkey-red-covered chair, watched his wife somewhat dazedly; he
was still thinking of the contents of "Willum's" letter.
"Comin' home by a cir-cus-to-us route," he soliloquized ... "and
devil-elopements. I suppose he knows what he's doin', but it all sounds
kindy resky to me. Did you get it that A. Malfi was his wife's maiden
name? Don't it sound sorter like a actress to you? One of them sassy,
tricky furriners, I'll bet. 'N' a vanilla--what call has Willum got to
build a vanilla, his age? A mansion, now--I could onderstand how the boy
would hanker for a mansion--he always had big feelin's, Willum had--but
a vanilla! Say, you ever seen one of them there contraptions?"
Mrs. Pawket, washing the dishes, hung up the soap-shaker and cast her
eyes upward as in an effort of memory. She reached for a dish-towel,
replying, somewhat evasively, "Where my mother come from they had 'em
a-plenty; there was one on every street."