And Uncle Henry hadn’t even looked up when Luke was letting the dog out. This seemed to indicate that he had forgotten about the collie.
“It rained, didn’t it, Uncle Henry?” Luke said quietly.
“Why, yes, it did, Luke.”
“Don’t you remember you said it wasn’t going to rain?” Luke said, as if he were reminding Uncle Henry that it was possible for him to be wrong in his judgment.
“Yes,” Uncle Henry said with a smile. “And in spite of my opinion that it wouldn’t rain. However, a rain like that will do the crops around here a lot of good. It’s what the fields need. A very useful rain.”
Though the rainfall had come in violation of Uncle Henry’s judgment of the weather, he accepted the violation cheerfully because the rain was needed.
“What are you going to do this morning, Luke?” he asked cheerfully.
“I don’t know . . . yet,” Luke said cautiously.
“I was wondering if you’d like to go along the shore and pick me some raspberries in that good patch before the neighbors clean it out entirely,” Aunt Helen said.
“Well, I could. Yes, I guess I could.”
“Look, Luke,” Uncle Henry said seriously. “You be businesslike about it. People pick berries to sell them. You strike a bargain first with your aunt.”
“A box of berries would cost me about twenty cents,” Aunt Helen said. “Although if they’re a little mashed and turning, I sometimes get them for ten and I can use them as well as the good ones. What’s your offer, Luke?”
“What’ll you give me?” he asked, with not much enthusiasm for he was watching their faces suspiciously, wondering why they were getting him out of the way.
“I’ll give you ten cents a box.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll get to it.” Then he added firmly, “I’ll take Dan with me.”
The sun was strong and it would be hot in the berry patch, so he took an old straw hat and he got a pail from the kitchen. He deliberately took a lot of time so he would be going out of the house at the same time Uncle Henry was crossing over to the sawmill. They went out together. Luke then whistled for the dog, his heart thumping a little as he waited to see if Uncle Henry would say, “Don’t bother taking the dog with you, Luke.”
Dan came trotting around the side of the house and Uncle Henry didn’t even notice him. “If I were you I’d pick berries every morning, Luke,” he said earnestly. “If you can’t sell them to your aunt, you can sell them anywhere along the line, and there’s nothing like the feel of money that you earn yourself. Well, so long, Luke. Remember, you’re in business now.”
“So long, Uncle Henry,” Luke said, and he watched his uncle go along the path with his big important stride, his white shirt spotless in the morning sunlight, the small straw hat on the back of his head.
“You know something, Dan,” Luke said as they went down to the river to get in the boat. “Uncle Henry is a reasonable man. A very reasonable man. I certainly talked to him last night, and maybe he liked the way I talked, and now he’s had a chance to think over what I said about you. If it made sense, why, he’d be the first one to see it.”
He was really only offering encouragement to himself. He still couldn’t believe that anything he could say would sound wise and persuasive enough to alter Uncle Henry’s judgment. The main thing was that Dan was still with him.
Usually when they got into the boat, they played their game and the dog became Captain Dan and they had their splendid conversations and the river and the woods and the whole world changed. And wanting it to be like any other morning, Luke cried out, “Here we are, Captain Dan!” But he couldn’t go on with it. It sounded feeble. His own mind wouldn’t leap to the fantasy. Even the words ‘Captain Dan’ worried him. The real world was now too painfully close to him, and too sharp and hard. So he rowed slowly and watched the bugs on the water. With his head on one side, the collie watched him and wondered. Once he let out an encouraging bark, as if to say, “We usually have a lot of quick fine conversation right here, don’t we, Luke?”
Beaching the boat, they went down the shore as far as the spot where the kids played tree tag on the vines. Luke was glad he had worn the old straw hat for the sun was strong. In no time the handle of the pail began to burn; the water on the lake sparkled so brightly he couldn’t even see the blue line where the drop began. In the woods it was sheltered from the sun, and yet actually hotter because the trees shut out the cool little breeze from the lake.
No one else was at the berry patch – it was too early – and Luke was glad, for he didn’t want to talk to anybody. It was as if he had to think calmly and seriously while he worked. Yet when the dog lay down in a cool spot by a rock and Luke got into the berry patch he was really working rapidly so he wouldn’t have to think. All that mattered was that he should get a big pail of fine fresh raspberries so his aunt would feel happy. It was important that everybody should feel happy. While they were all feeling happy and satisfied, no one would want to do anything to break the happiness.
His back got tired, the pail got heavy, and the sun was directly overhead. He lay down and rested a while. “We’d better get right back to the house, Dan, while Uncle Henry is having his lunch,” he said. “Maybe when he sees all these berries . . . Well, you know how much Uncle Henry admires an industrious man. Come on.”
Going along the beach in the hot sun, carrying the heavy pail of berries, the hat that was too big for him slipping down over his eyes and making his head sweat, was a wearying journey. Dan just loafed along till they got to the river, then he bounded ahead, jumped eagerly into the boat and waited expectantly.
At the sawmill it was quiet. The saws had stopped screeching. No one was moving around in the hot noon hour. After he had pulled the boat up at the little dock, Luke said to Dan, “Don’t you come with me, Dan. Go on. Go on around to the back of the house. Go on. You see, maybe if you keep out of sight, you can pass right out of Uncle’s Henry’s mind.”
Blinking at him with a mournful expression in its amber eye, the old dog stayed there; and Luke, gripping the pail in both hands, staggered toward the house.
“My goodness, look at all the berries that boy picked,” Aunt Helen cried enthusiastically, as Luke staggered in. “Just look for yourself, Henry. There’s a boy for you. There’s a berry picker.”
Uncle Henry, who had just finished his lunch, wiped his mouth with his napkin and beamed his approval. “No one will ever call that boy lazy,” he said warmly.
These were fine words and they delighted Luke. He wanted them to approve of him. As he sat down, wiped his forehead and took the glass of cold milk his aunt handed him, he said, “Aw, I’m not tired. I’m not even really hungry.” Tired as he was, he swung his leg indolently as if he were only waiting for them to ask him to do something else for them.
“Don’t just hand the berries to your aunt, Luke. Have her measure them out right now,” Uncle Henry insisted. “And see that you check the measurement. Be exact. It’s ten cents a box. You did all right there, Luke,” he said, and he went out on his way back to the mill.
While Aunt Helen was measuring out the berries, Luke had gone to the screen door to watch his uncle. It was as if he had to be aware of every move Uncle Henry made so he could understand what was in his mind. Both his hands were pressed against the screen door, and his eyes were alert.
Dan was nowhere to be seen. That was good; it was important that Uncle Henry should not have a picture of the dog in his mind as he went into the mill.
Then Uncle Henry, who was approaching the entrance of the mill, suddenly stopped and called out to old Sam Carter, who had gone into the mill ahead of him. Sam turned back and they stood there together, with Uncle Henry doing most of the talking and Sam nodding and understanding. Even at that it was a familiar picture. It was all right. Uncle Henry often stood talking to Sam and Sam always listened patiently and attentively. But then a little thing happened. Uncle Henry suddenly took a cigar from his vest pocket a
nd gave it to Sam.
Luke had never seen his uncle give Sam Carter a cigar. Uncle Henry would never hand a cigar to one of his working men on the job just as a friendly gesture.
While Luke was eating his lunch, all he could think of was this picture of Sam reaching for the cigar and nodding his head understandingly.
And when Luke had finished his lunch and was out on the veranda, Uncle Henry, coming toward the house, called, “Luke, come here, will you?”
“Yes, Uncle Henry,” Luke said.
“I’m out of cigars, my boy. Should have got a supply yesterday at the drug store. Nothing seems to go right unless I have a cigar in my mouth.”
It was true that he always had a cigar in his mouth when he was in the mill, though he sometimes forgot to light it.
“I want you to hop on your bike, Luke, and go into town and get me some cigars. Here’s the money.”
“Sure. I might as well take Dan with me,” Luke said.
“Better not, son,” Uncle Henry said. “It’ll take you all afternoon. I need a cigar.”
“Dan can keep up with me, Uncle Henry.”
“Luke, you ought to know it’s too hot a day to run a dog that far and back, trailing you on your bike. I want those cigars in a hurry, Luke.”
“Okay,” Luke said.
“That’s the boy. Get going, Luke,” Uncle Henry said. His uncle’s tone was so casual that Luke could hardly believe they were merely trying to get rid of him. Anyway, he had to do what he was told. He had never dared to refuse to obey his uncle’s order. But when he had taken his bicycle and had ridden down the path that followed the stream to the town road, and had got about a quarter of a mile along the road, he found that all he could think of was that picture of his uncle handing the cigar to Sam Carter.
Sick with worry he got off the bike and stood uncertainly on the hot, sunlit, dusty, gravel road. Ahead, a long swirling cloud of dust from a car drifted to the left and settled over the fields. Luke remained motionless, looking beyond the town at the blue mountains which had always beckoned and stirred him so mysteriously, and as he contemplated their blueness he seemed to be waiting for some omen. On a clear day like this the veil of mist which usually hung over the mountains was lifted and they became starkly blue. His eyes wandered helplessly to the sky over the lake where a patch of round full clouds were shaping themselves into a white castle over the blue water.
Sam Carter, he thought, was a gruff, aloof old man who would have no feeling for a dog. Sam Carter, who dragged himself dumbly through life knowing only one rule of conduct, which was to do exactly what Uncle Henry told him to do, was the one who had kicked at the dog the first day Luke had come to the mill. Of all the men at the mill, Sam Carter would surely be who Henry would ask to destroy a dog.
Suddenly Luke could go no further without getting some assurance that the dog would not be harmed while he was away.
From that spot on the road he could look across the field at an angle and see the house behind the rim of tree and the smoke coming from the chimney. If he could get close enough to the house so Dan could hear him, he could whistle softly; if Dan came running to him, he would know then that Uncle Henry’s conversation with Sam Carter had had nothing to do with the dog; his mind would be at peace, and he would let the collie follow him along the road about a quarter of a mile and then tell him to wait by the big tree stump where he usually waited after school; then he could hurry on to town.
Leaving the bike in the ditch, he started to cross the field; he was trying to keep out of the range of the house windows. In this field the grass was tall and there was a lot of sweet-smelling clover in bud, almost up to his waist.
About fifty yards away from the house he whistled softly, and waited. But there was no sign of the dog who, of course, might be asleep at the front of the house or over behind the sawmill in the shady spot by the river. When the saws whined, a dog couldn’t hear a soft whistle, so he whistled louder; he did not dare to whistle like that again. For a few minutes he couldn’t make up his mind what to do. Finally he decided to go back to the road, get on his bike, go back to where the river path joined the road, and leave his bike there and go through the tall grass to the front of the house and the sawmill without being seen.
Back at the road and on his bike again, he prepared a story which would justify his return if his aunt should happen to see him. Any little story about his bike would do; the back tire could need a little air; if the tire were soft and he came back to blow it up, Uncle Henry would commend him for it. It would look as if he were a sensible boy concerned about the care of his expensive bike.
At the river path he dismounted, let a little air out of the back tire, and left the bike there; if he were seen, he could pretend he was on his way to get the bicycle pump. He followed the river path for about a hundred yards. When he came to the place where the river began to bend sharply toward the house, his heart fluttered and his legs felt paralyzed, for there he saw the old rowboat in the place where the river was deep and in the rowboat was Sam Carter with the collie.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Practical Proposition
The bearded man in the blue overalls was contentedly smoking the cigar Uncle Henry had given him; the dog with a rope around his neck sat quietly beside him, his tongue sometimes going out in a tentative friendly lick at the brown hand holding the rope.
It was all like a crazy dream picture; all wrong because it looked so lazy and friendly; even the curling smoke from Sam’s cigar looked companionable. And the boat was there in a shaded spot on the river where the water was shadowed olive green. In the trees a woodpecker noisily drilled at a tree. The first wisp of blue smoke from the cigar had softly risen and had drifted ten feet away from the boat. Sam seemed to be hardly aware of the dog’s presence in the boat; the moment had little importance for him. Holding the cigar out in his hand, he inspected it with satisfaction, then sniffed at it as if he were calculating what it had cost Uncle Henry.
Sam’s left hand hanging deep in the water held a foot of rope with a heavy stone at the end. Flicking the ashes from the end of the cigar, Sam thrust it into his mouth, as if he were ready for action. Until Sam made this decisive gesture, Luke seemed to have been hypnotized by the peaceful calmness of the scene. But when Sam dropped the heavy stone, Luke cried out wildly, “Don’t, please don’t!” But the cry was drowned by the shriek of the saws at the mill. Even so Dan’s head had jerked up in recognition of that cry which had come too late. As the collie jumped at the water, half pulled there anyway by the tightening rope around his neck, he went into a long shallow dive except that the hind legs suddenly kicked up above the water, and then shot down; and Luke, watching it, sobbed and trembled, for it was as though the happy secret part of his life around the sawmill was vanishing forever.
But even as he watched, mute and helpless, he seemed to be following a plan without knowing it; he was already fumbling in his pocket for his jackknife. Jerking the blade open he pulled off his pants, kicked off his shoes, and prayed that Sam would quickly get out of sight.
Sam, who had watched the spot on the water where the dog had disappeared until it was smooth and unbroken by any little ripple or bubble, now looked vaguely at the river bank as if wondering if a cry had come from there. He searched the brushes and the grass. He squinted and pondered. A stupid expression came on his face. Then he began to row slowly to the bank, pointing the boat toward a spot about twenty feet farther up from the place where Luke lay hidden.
All Sam’s movements were so slow and deliberate that Luke prayed, “Oh, make him hurry, God. Oh, please, please, please, why doesn’t he hurry?” Inside himself he was tightened up like a spring. He edged a little closer to the water; his legs trembled, his body struggled against the strange power in his mind that held him back cautiously and forced him to wait. If he dashed out into the water now, Sam would see him and block the way.
Sam, having been given definite instructions to drown the dog, would carry out tho
se instructions, Luke knew, even if he had to keep the boat over the spot in the water where Dan had gone down for the last time. While he was holding on to himself, Luke could not take his eyes off that one spot in the water.
Sam, rowing lazily to the riverbank, stepped out of the boat, and in his dull methodical fashion he began to draw the boat up on the bank. It took him about two minutes to do this. Luke kept whispering, “Dan’s in the water. Dan’s dying. Dan’s choking to death.” Though his lips hardly moved, it was like a desperate shrieking protest, loud and terrifying in the darkness of his own mind. It was so hard holding on to himself that he started to sob again, and the river, the boat, the trees and the sky blurring before his eyes seemed to lurch and become black; he felt dizzy and thought he was going to faint. But the one part of his mind which was quick and wonderfully clear was calculating that Dan could stay two minutes under water unless he was choking to death. A person could be dragged from the water after being under three minutes or even five. “Oh, Dan, Dan,” he whispered, and it was like an agonized apology.
Sam Carter, having hauled the boat up on the bank, took the cigar out of his mouth and spat at the water. Then he took a red bandana handkerchief from his hip pocket and wiped his mouth carefully. He blew his nose loudly. Putting the handkerchief back in his pocket, he looked in the direction of the sawmill; he even took a step in that direction, then remembered that he was smoking the cigar, and he couldn’t go into the mill with the lighted cigar in his mouth. The boss might not like it. Only the boss smoked cigars on the job. Sam rarely had a chance to smoke during working hours. A fragrant cigar, once it had been put out, never tasted as good when lighted again. So Sam took a deep puff, exhaled slowly with vast satisfaction, then turned and sat down on the boat to snatch a few moments of pleasure with the cigar.
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