“Would you kill off everybody?” inquired Little-Sam thoughtfully. The children were much intrigued by this idea of universal destruction. But Saul Pilgrim was not interested in social ideas, and he would proceed with some idea of his in fish cookery. He wanted with Sam to work out a fish-cookery column “to interest the ordinary greedy and the housewife, who can be touched only through their stomachs,” said Sam, “in the conservation of some of our wondrous wild life.”
Then Tommy took him off secretly to the washhouse where, from behind the copper, he drew out the brace of boats he was making for Sam’s birthday, June twenty-third, a whaleboat and a buckeye. The whaleboat was little different from his rowboats and dinghies, but Louie would put cord round it in loops and make it all right; and on the buckeye Louie would put three sails, and they would fill it with little shells to look like a heavy load of oysters. Little-Sam had been scouting round the district for weeks and now had a marble bag full of wire and flooring nails, brads, tacks, and staples that he had found—most of them new or only slightly weather-stained. Saul had been selling newspapers, running round with his pleasant rosy face and straw hair, in a pair of gaiters against the mud, to get money to buy his father a new brace-and-bit, but now he had only enough money for a putty knife or two hinges for the new gate they were making for the driveway from driftwood. Saul hoped that this tale would draw a nickel or two from Mr. Pilgrim’s tender pocket, but it did not. Meanwhile, Ernie, with the same idea, was hanging impatiently in the background. Ernie was in the worst stew of the lot. (Ernie’s morale had, as Sam frequently said, “disimproved,” and he was showing a sad strain of Collyer sullenness and a tendency to weep when jeered at; so, to cure him of it, Sam had taken to calling him “Glossy-eyes.”) Glossy-eyes had meant to buy for his father a new steel square, but money had been short for a long time. He would never empty his money box if he could; but Henny had been borrowing from him for her trips to town and other little things, and not only could not afford any interest any more, but hardly ever paid him back. Even when she got her checks, she usually spent nearly all the money in a day or two, and what was left had to be sent to butcher or grocer to keep him in a good temper. Henny would not allow her eldest son to do jobs round the neighborhood; but Ernie had collected a great store of empty bottles, old iron, old springs, and old lead which he cheerfully begged and collectedly “found” in every rotting corner of the creek and cove. When would he have money? Ernie wondered. When would they let him go and get a job? Old David was dead. Old Ellen lived in a tiny cottage with Barry, who was pressed for money to buy drink and had had to let his mistress go (everyone knew it, and Ernie had seen the cottage and been frightened to notice that Old Ellen sat in the kitchen calmly, with her plump parchment hands on her knees, and her old black dress stretched to her hanging throat, and her large old eyes clear of any determination). The estate was nearly all sold and the business loaded with debts. Uncle Norman Collyer had quarreled with the whole family, the whole family was in debt and mostly without jobs (for now Old David was dead, the business could not keep them), and Uncle Philip had shot himself.
Ernie thought about it all during long hours. He harried Henny many days with his questions and calculations. He alone knew, of all the children, that Daddy had realized on his life insurance, that there was no fire insurance, and that there was a second mortgage on the house. He knew there was some delay about Daddy’s getting his new job, and he had already asked Sam to sell the strip of viny wilderness at Spa House alongside the dead end or at least build two garages there and rent them. With his money so low, Ernie found it next to impossible to sell his lead in dribs and drabs to get a few cents, but wanted to accumulate it, in order to get a fat sum at the end. If only his mother had allowed him to sell papers, he would have been happier. Meanwhile, Ernie’s lead was a standing joke, and even Henny grumbled perpetually about his “damnfool lead collection collecting dust and making rust marks on the cement floor, under his bed.” Sam wisely kept away from the washhouse while the children were showing their presents to Saul Pilgrim and, having nothing better to do, went into the boys’ room to smile to himself and also to step off the dimensions of a darkroom for photography that he proposed to build in one corner of it, near the kitchen sink, until such time as he could build in a bench and sink for the darkroom. He moved Ernie’s bed, and an astonishing sight met his eyes, five or six large lumps of lead, irregularly formed, and several small ones that seemed to have been hammered out of shape. He had not looked for several weeks and had no idea how Ernie had got so much. Beside the lead were the bottles and several pieces of iron. In moving the bed, he had upset a chamber pot, and the urine, with the sight of the lead and the rust marks on the floor, caused him to begin hallooing and howling for the children, in a great state of excitement, fun, and horror. Saul Pilgrim had to come in and see how his house was kept at eleven in the morning; and then Sam flung out of the room with him, until the mess was cleaned up, and then once outside he began to poh! and pooh! and fooey! and fwow! at the smells and sights, while the little boys stamped around giggling, and Ernie, the cause of all this, stood aside mournfully, until Sam called him “Glossy-eyes,” when he turned the corner, even more mournfully, and went down to poke a stick in the sand and write his name, “Ernest Paine Pollit.” On the beach their shouts still reached him, “Oh, fwow! What a pigsty!” and then commandment, “Goyls, clean up the stinking shop! It’s a pigsty! It’s a sump! It’s a garbage tip! Chicago is a violet farm by comparison,” then the boys giggling again, and a remark by Saul Pilgrim, and Henny shrieking out of a top window, “What’s the matter?” and Sam, actually replying to her, “Tell the dirty girls to clean up this pigsty of a house for once,” and Henny answering (all in the tops of the trees), “Ten maids couldn’t clean up after the filth you slop over the house every minute,” and Sam shouting, in a towering passion, “You look after my house and children, or I’ll get a separation,” and Henny yelling, “I couldn’t look after your child if I had ten hands and twenty eyes. Why don’t you stop her picking her nose?” (For Henny had had a row with Louie ten minutes ago.) After this came a calm, during which the girls, both bawling, cleaned up the room and stripped the beds to air, while Sam, in a low, sad voice, lectured the boys outside on female sluttishness, and told them the sort of wives they must pick. “When I saw my first baby was a girl,” continued Sam, pathetically, “I gave a whoop of joy, I wanted a little girl—”
“Roll yourself into a hoop and roll away,” cried Little-Sam boldly, and was immediately terrified. After months of silence and even savage mutism, he would come out with something queer and insolent, and could not stop it. Sam was used to him and merely gave him a mild kick in the pants. But Sam was quick enough to catch a little smile on his friend’s face, so he led him round to look at the new aquaria, and then into the boys’ room to ask his advice about the darkroom. Saul was an old hand and he knew better than to expect lunch; so about eleven-thirty he took himself off, after promising to send Sam a marlin for a birthday present, “the very next Tuesday as ever is,” said he. The children saw him go without regret; they felt he was a silly man enough to be writing poems in newspapers about “Goin’ Fishin’ ”; he had not handed out any nickels; he was in trouble with an old vixen (as Sam told them a thousand times), and his name, amongst his colleagues was “Baits” Pilgrim—even Sam often called him “Baits” or “Peelers.”
When he had gone, “Now,” said Sam, “tell Glossy-eyes to come and hump himself, too. I want to see that lead in the wash-house before lunch.”
“Ernie’s got lead, under his bed,” sang Little-Sam, and danced. “And Ernie’s got old iron; there’s the ferry siren.”
“It don’t Mattapeake,” said Sam.
Ernie rose slowly above the front rise (which Sam called the Butte) with a martyred expression.
“Lead out, Ermineus,” shouted Sam.
Ernie smiled with constraint, “I’m collecting it.”
“Collect it in the wa
shus.”
“I’m collecting it.”
“It’s gotta go to the washus, Ermineus,” wheedled Sam; “lotsa room there; no one will run off with your coupla tonsa lead. Two centsa ton, oh, boy what fun, but when de war come, it will go into a gun—” He stopped and said gravely, “That’s true: no Ermy, we cain’t colleck lead. Ain’t it enough to have the planes dropping bombs on ducks? We gotta get rid of it.”
Ernie will knock them dead,
With his lead,
said Little-Sam.
“I’ll get rid of it when I can sell it,” said Ernie. “You kids leave me alone: you all suck round Pad.”
“Now don’t say that, Ermy,” Sam reproached him: “they love their father. Do you think the Gemini like a mountain of lead in their room?”
“You leave me alone,” said Ernie.
“Now, Ermineus, now, now!”
“Well, you leave me alone,” remarked Ernie sulkily.
Sam looked handsome, spiritual, when he reproved Ernie, “I don’t want you to lose your temper, Erno; you’re all right, you’re a good sort, but sometimes you get that Collyer expression and then I want to kick your pants.”
Ernie tried not to look like a Collyer. When lunch was finished, though, Sam felt intrigued by the lead, and he said nicely, to Ernie, patting his shoulder, “Well, kids, a little yob before readin’ and writin’ and ’rithmetic; we’ll jes heft that lead out to the tool house.” The twins gamboled ahead to their room, which was at the back, looking over the orchard, and when they got in, they began to shriek and tug. “There it is, there it is!” Little-Sam lugged forth a huge, misshapen gray lump. Ernie went for him, gave him a whack, and said, “You leave that lead alone or I’ll murderya.” Sam was bending over looking at the lead, and Ernie cried angrily, “You leave that lead alone, I collected it,” and he gave Sam a push.
“What?” cried Sam, astonished. He pulled out the lead with assiduity after bestowing a bear cuff on Ernie. Ernie kicked him in the pants. Sam was so surprised as to be almost pleased. “Imagine doing that to your poor little Dad! Ermineus! Kids, Ermy akshooly went and kicked his poor little dad.” Ernie grinned shamefacedly, “You leave my lead alone, and I won’t.”
“You won’t anyhow,” said Sam, giving him a good whack. Ernie turned angry. Sam had managed to drag all the heavy stuff out now and, bothered by the exertion, he said angrily to his eldest son, “Ernest, if you’re going to sell it, why the juice don’t you sell it?”
The children tattled, “And he went past on Thursday, and Ermy wouldn’t.”
“He’s keeping it: he can’t bear to part with it,” the twins said.
“He’s in love with it,” said Evie, giggling and putting her fat brown hand over her mouth.
“He loves it,” said Sam, smiling to himself.
“Oh, I love you, lead,” said Saul falsetto. “Oh, I’m going to marry you, lead.”
Ernie grinned faintly. Sam smiled, and commanded, “Now, ebblebody ep cawwy yout diss yer leadulead.” (Everybody help carry out this lead.) The children buckled down and with much puffing and groaning heaved it all out, along the side porch across the lawn (which would some day be a tennis lawn), to the tool house which stood over near the dead-end street. Ernie stood by, not lifting a finger, disobeying Sam, grim until the last piece was stowed away. Sam surveyed him and then, with sundry comical kicks, told the children to start their homework. Ernie stood, self-contained, at the end of the porch. Sam went down the orchard, watching him from moment to moment, interested to see what he would do, ready to rush in and give a final nick, like a fisherman playing a game fish and ready for the plunge and tussle. As soon as they had dropped the last piece, grunting, and had made themselves scarce for fear of further jobs, Ernie rushed forward and began to drag and tug it all the way back. Sam let him take back two pieces before he fell upon him.
“Take that back!”
“It’s my lead!” Ernie doggedly dragged out another lump.
“Do what you’re told!” Sam dragged it from him and sent it loudly clopping across the yard towards the washhouse door. Ernie began to cry, at first, miserably and then bellowing, but obstinate, and rushed at his father like a bull calf,
“It’s mine, don’t touch it: it’s mine, I collected it; it’s mine!” He banged Sam with his two fists blindly. Sam caught him roughly by the arm and swung him round to look in his face. Ernie kept his face lowered and tried to punch Sam again.
Sam said sternly, giving him a mild kick, “Sam-the-Bold said, ‘The washhouse’!”
“It’s mine.”
“Then you’ve got to sell it. What are you keeping it for?”
The family was again timidly collecting, in various stages of beach attire, at the far edge of the scene, peering through the trellis from the western porch. “What are you keeping it for?”
Saul shouted helpfully, “It’s for your birthday, Pad!” Sam dropped Ernie’s arm at once and said gently, “Is it for Sam-the-Bold that you’re doing this?”
“I’m saving it!”
“Is it for me, Ermineus?”
“I’m saving it!”
Sam was beginning to smile to himself again, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I’m saving it!”
Sam, suddenly tiring of the struggle, began to stretch his long legs across the grass. At the porch, Little-Sam whispered wonderingly, “Pad, he’s taking it back again.” Sam nodded, “Sure nuf! Sure’s you’re alive! Ermy’s got some will power! Yessuh! And is it for me, really?”
“Yes,” they all confirmed eagerly.
Sam was delighted. He wheeled the twins round cheerfully and began to march them. “Now then,” he said, “To market, to market to buy a fat pig, home again, home again, jiggity-jig!”
When Louie started to bring out the lunch, she paused with a dish in her hand, and asked, smiling sillily, “Dad, can I ask Miss Aiden to lunch soon?”
“Old Aido,” shouted Sam, in appreciation: “the bewchus dame shall grace our board. What say next Choosday, my burf-day? Ask Old Aido to dinner next Choosday evo [evening].” Louie blushed and almost crumpled to the floor with pleasure. The children jeered a little, but they were anxious to see the famous and beloved beauty themselves. Henny, who was in the kitchen, grumbled a great deal, but gave in easily, only saying, “She must take potluck: I’m not making anything special for any hoity-toity schoolteacher.”
“She’s isn’t hoity-toity, Mother: she’s a wonderful woman, she’s so kind and understanding, she’s so nice, she’s a wonderful woman.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Henny; “well, when she comes here she’ll understand a few things too, if she’s so wonderful.” Louie never doubted for a moment that Henny would exert herself to make a good dinner for Miss Aiden, especially as it was Sam’s birthday too; but Ernie worried like a major-domo, running five times on Sunday and twice daily on Monday and Tuesday to ask, “Mother, what will we give Miss Aiden? Mother, are we going to have roast meat? Mother, what are we going to have for dessert? Mother, will there be a clean napkin for Miss Aiden? Mother, will you have some of my snapdragons on the table or some of Saul’s wallflowers? Mother, the oilcloth on each doorstep is worn right out, you can’t see the pattern.”
At each excursion, Henny would grumble and mutter things like, “Let her see! Who is she, the wonderful woman? What do I care? Don’t drive me crazy! Oh, you kids will have me in the bathouse! Stop bothering! I don’t care if we eat off the floor!” Though Louie was too blind to see it (after ringing up Miss Aiden in Baltimore and getting her consent, being in a delirium of expectant love), Henny made no special preparations even for Sam’s birthday. “Let his kids amuse him,” said she, to Louie who, however, took no more notice of this ominous remark than of anything else. Henny secretly believed that Miss Aiden could not be such a bad creature “if she took an interest in such a slummicker as Louisa,” and she made up her mind to let Miss Aiden see how the little girl really lived and how the grand Pollits really liv
ed and how she, “the mother of so many children,” really lived.
Sam’s birthday began in a lovely morning, and everyone got up early. There was dew on everything, the cedar-waxwings were eating the mulberries, and there was the sound of a bombardment from the corrugated iron roof of the new shed, where the wasteful little wretches, in their hundreds, threw down scarcely tasted berries. There was haze over everything, dew on the anthills, and the determined, brilliant wasps were at work, scratching wood fiber off the old wooden bench with a light rasping sound, zooming dizzily and plastering with a do-or-die air. It was so steamy-soft that the birds were relatively silent, except the bobbing, stripping cedar-waxwings and the black “devils of the sky,” far off with a soft cah-cah. The sky was gray with humidity, the sun could be looked at with the naked eye, a pan full of liquid, like a dish of snapdragon, and against this sky the leaves were sharp and austere as in a steel engraving. Henny, running about early to get the tea “so that the kids could prance around their father,” declared that she felt nervous as a cat. Louie looked at the silky sulky reflections of sepia and dun in the creek and thought they were like the shades of a woman’s unsunned breasts; there was a still, breeding, inward-looking moist atmosphere, so that it seemed beans would begin to push out of the earth suddenly; it was like a bride, heavy with child, dull and potent. Louie could hardly lift her heavy stumps, even when Henny called sharply, but she did arrive in the kitchen in time, and there Henny was kind to her, asked her if the children had all a present for their father, and what she had got for him; and furtively, and with a shamed face, Henny gave Louie a little parcel in tissue paper for him; it was a pair of hand-knitted socks (which he preferred and which were easier to reheel and retoe). “And your present?” whispered Henny. Louisa said, “I wrote a play.” Henny looked at her curiously, wondering at her cheapness, but at length said, “Well, I suppose your father will like it, at any rate,” and sent her off upstairs with the tea, where a great jamboree was in progress.
The Man Who Loved Children Page 46