Part 21 (1/2)

”What you suppose has happened to keep our young feller from the--the oysters, eh?”

”I'm not accounting for folks or things these days, Peter. I'm just keeping my eyes and ears open. Jan-an makes me uneasy!” This came like a mild explosion.

”What's she up to?” Peter sniffed.

”Land! the poor soul is like the barometer you set such store by.

Everything looking clear and peaceful and then suddenlike up she gets, as she did an hour ago, and grabs her truck and sets out for Mary-Clare's like she was summoned. Just saying she had to! These are queer times, brother. I ain't easy in my mind.”

”If Jan-an doesn't calm down,” Peter muttered, ”she may have to be put somewhere, as Larry Rivers once suggested. Larry hasn't many earmarks of his pa--but he may have a sense about human ailments.”

”Think shame of yourself, Peter Heathcote, to let anything Larry Rivers says disturb your natural good feelings. Where could we send Jan-an if we wanted to?” Peter declined to reply and Aunt Polly went on: ”Larry isn't living with Mary-Clare, Peter!” she added. This was a more significant explosion. Peter turned and his hair seemed to spring an inch higher around his red, puffy face.

”Where is he living?” he asked. When deeply stirred, Peter went slow and warily.

”He's hired Peneluna's old shack.”

Peter digested this; but found it chaff.

”You got this from Jan-an?”

”I got it from her and from Peneluna. Peter, Peneluna looks and acts like one of them queer sort of ancient bodies what used to sit on altars or something, and make remarks that no one was expected to differ from. She just dropped in this morning and said that Larry Rivers had taken her shack; was paying for it, too.”

”Has, or is going to?” Peter was giving himself time to think.

”Has!” Aunt Polly was pulling her cus.h.i.+ons into the cavities of her tired little body.

”d.a.m.n funny!” muttered Peter and added another log. The heat was growing ferocious. Then, as he eyed his sister: ”Better turn in, Polly. You look scrunched.” To look ”scrunched” was to look desperately exhausted. ”No use wearing yourself out for--for folks,”

he added with a tenderness in his voice that always brought a peculiar smile to Polly's eyes.

”I don't see as there is anything else much, brother, to wear one's self out for.”

”Why frazzle yourself for anything?”

”Why shouldn't I? What should I be keeping myself for, Peter? Surely not for my own satisfaction. No. I always hold if folks want me, then I'm particularly pleased to be had. As to frazzling, seems like we only frazzle just _so_ far, then a st.i.tch holds and we get our breath.”

In this mood Polly worried Peter deeply. He could not keep from looking ahead--he avoided that usually--to a time when the little nest at the far end of the sofa would be empty; when the click of knitting needles would sound no more in the beautiful old room.

”There's me!” he whispered at length like a half-ashamed but frightened boy.

Polly drew her gla.s.ses down and gave him a long, straight look full of a deep and abiding love.

”You're the st.i.tch, Peter my man,” she whispered back as if fearing someone might hear, ”always the saving st.i.tch. And take this to bed with you, brother: the frazzling isn't half so dangerous as dry rot, or moth eating holes in you. Queer, but I was getting to think of myself as laid on the shelf before Brace drifted in, and when I do that I get old-acting and stiff-jointed. But I've noticed that it's the same with folks as it is with the world, when they begin to flatten down, then the good Lord drops something into them to make 'em sorter rise. No need to flatten down until you're dead. Feeling tired is healthy and proper--not feeling at all is being finished. So now, Peter, you just go along to bed. I always have felt that a man hates to be set up for, but he can overlook a woman doing it; he sets it down to her general foolishness, but Brace would just naturally get edgy if he found us both up.”

Peter came clumsily across the room and stood over the small creature on the sofa. He wanted to kiss her. Instead, he said gruffly:

”See that the fire's banked, Polly. Looks as if I'd laid on a powerful lot of wood without thinking.” Then he laughed and went on: ”You're durned comical, Polly. What you said about the Lord putting yeast into folks and the world _is_ comical.”

”I didn't say yeast, Peter Heathcote.”