Part 4 (1/2)
”What did I hear them call yo' name?” he inquired gruffly.
Johnnie repeated her t.i.tle and gave him one of those smiles that went with most of her speeches. It seemed to suggest things to the old sinner.
”Huh,” he grunted; ”I riccollect ye now. Yo' pap was a Consadine, but you're old Virgil Pa.s.smore's grandchild. One of the borryin' Pa.s.smores,”
he added, staring coolly at Johnnie. ”Virge was a fine, upstandin' old man. You've got the favour of him--if you wasn't a gal.”
He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for ”the low-statured, wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered s.e.x.”
The girls about the table were all listening eagerly. Johnnie had the sensation of a freshman who has walked out on the campus too well dressed.
”Virge was a great beau in his day,” continued Pap, reminiscently. ”He liked to wear good clothes, too. I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's weddin' coat and wore it something like ten year--showed it off fine--it fitted him enough sight better than it ever fitted little old Ab. Then he comes back to Wimberly at the end of so long a time with the b.u.t.tons.
He says, says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made of wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters cheated ye on it. But the b.u.t.tons was good. The b.u.t.tons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back, 'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none, now the coat's gone.
Also, what I borry I return, as everybody knows.' That was your granddaddy.”
There was a tremendous giggling about the board as the old man made an end. Johnnie herself smiled, though her face was scarlet. She had no words to tell her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe which had earned them the name of the borrowing Pa.s.smores proceeded not from avarice, which ate into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would have shared with a neighbour their last bite or dollar, and had thus never any doubt of being shared with nor any shame in the asking.
”Yes,” pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chucklingly, ”I mind when you was born. Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?”
”My mother has often told me how good you and Mrs. Bence was to us when I was little,” answered Johnnie mildly. ”No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't found his silver mine yet--but he's still a-hunting for it.”
The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed immoderately, even as Buckheath had done.
”I'll bet he is,” he agreed. ”Pros Pa.s.smore's goin' to hunt that there silver mine till he finds another hole in the ground about six feet long and six feet deep--that's what he's a-goin' to do.”
The hasty supper was well under way now. Mrs. Bence brought the last of the hot bread, and shuffled into a seat. The old man at the head of the board returned to his feeding, but with somewhat moderated voracity. At length, pretty fully gorged, he raised his head from over his plate and looked about him for diversion. Again his attention was directed to the new girl.
”Air ye wedded?” he challenged suddenly.
She shook her head and laughed.
”Got your paigs sot for to git any one?” he followed up his investigations.
Johnnie laughed more than ever, and blushed again.
”How old air ye?” demanded her inquisitor. ”Eighteen? 'Most nineteen?
Good Lord! You're a old maid right now. Well, don't you let twenty go by without gittin' your hooks on a man. My experience is that when a gal gits to be twenty an' ain't wedded--or got her paigs sot for to wed--she's left. Left,” he concluded impressively.
That quick smile of Johnnie's responded.
”I reckon I'll do my best,” she agreed reasonably; ”but some folks can do that and miss it.”
Himes nodded till he set the little red curls all bobbing around the bare spot.
”Uh-huh,” he approved, ”I reckon that's so. Women is plenty, and men hard to git. Here's Mandy Meacham, been puttin' in her best licks for thirty year or more, an' won't never make it.”
Johnnie did not need to be told which one was Mandy. The sallow cheek of the tall woman across from her reddened; the short chin wabbled a bit more than the mastication of the biscuit in hand demanded; a moisture appeared in the inexpressive blue eyes; but she managed a shaky laugh to a.s.sist the chorus which always followed Pap Himes's little jokes.
The old man held a sort of state among these poor girls, and took tribute of admiration, as he had taken tribute of life and happiness from daughter and granddaughter. Gideon Himes was not actively a bad man; he was as without personal malice as malaria. When it makes miserable those about it, or robs a girl of her pink cheeks, her bright eyes, her joy of life, wearing the elasticity out of her step and making an old woman of her before her time, we do not fly into a rage at it--we avoid it. The Pap Himeses of this world are to be avoided if possible.
Mandy stared at her plate in mortified silence. Johnnie wished she could think of something pleasant to say to the poor thing, when her attention was diverted by the old man once more addressing herself.