Part 33 (2/2)
”I don't want to be a part of it,” said Bibbs, with unwonted decision.
”I want to keep to myself, and I'm doing it now. I couldn't, if I went down there with you. I'd be swallowed into it. I don't care for money enough to--”
”No,” his father interrupted, still dangerously quiet. ”You've never had to earn a living. Anybody could tell that by what you say. Now, let me remind you: you're sleepin' in a pretty good bed; you're eatin' pretty fair food; you're wearin' pretty fine clothes. Just suppose one o' these noisy housekeepers--me, for instance--decided to let you do your own housekeepin'. May I ask what your proposition would be?”
”I'm earning nine dollars a week,” said Bibbs, st.u.r.dily. ”It's enough. I shouldn't mind at all.”
”Who's payin' you that nine dollars a week?”
”My work!” Bibbs answered. ”And I've done so well on that clipping-machine I believe I could work up to fifteen or even twenty a week at another job. I could be a fair plumber in a few months, I'm sure. I'd rather have a trade than be in business--I should, infinitely!”
”You better set about learnin' one pretty dam' quick!” But Sheridan struggled with his temper and again was partially successful in controlling it. ”You better learn a trade over Sunday, because you're either goin' down with me to my office Monday morning--or--you can go to plumbing!”
”All right,” said Bibbs, gently. ”I can get along.”
Sheridan raised his hands sardonically, as in prayer. ”O G.o.d,” he said, ”this boy was crazy enough before he began to earn his nine dollars a week, and now his money's gone to his head! Can't You do nothin' for him?” Then he flung his hands apart, palms outward, in a furious gesture of dismissal. ”Get out o' this room! You got a skull that's thicker'n a whale's thigh-bone, but it's cracked spang all the way across! You hated the machine-shop so bad when I sent you there, you went and stayed sick for over two years--and now, when I offer to take you out of it and give you the mint, you holler for the shop like a calf for its mammy! You're cracked! Oh, but I got a fine layout here! One son died, one quit, and one's a loon! The loon's all I got left! H. P. Ellersly's wife had a crazy brother, and they undertook to keep him at the house. First morning he was there he walked straight though a ten-dollar plate-gla.s.s window out into the yard. He says, 'Oh, look at the pretty dandelion!'
That's what you're doin'! You want to spend your life sayin', 'Oh, look at the pretty dandelion!' and you don't care a tinker's dam' what you bust! Well, mister, loon or no loon, cracked and crazy or whatever you are, I'll take you with me Monday morning, and I'll work you and learn you--yes, and I'll lam you, if I got to--until I've made something out of you that's fit to be called a business man! I'll keep at you while I'm able to stand, and if I have to lay down to die I'll be whisperin'
at you till they get the embalmin'-fluid into me! Now go on, and don't let me hear from you again till you can come and tell me you've waked up, you poor, pitiful, dandelion-pickin' SLEEP-WALKER!”
Bibbs gave him a queer look. There was something like reproach in it, for once; but there was more than that--he seemed to be startled by his father's last word.
CHAPTER XXV
There was sleet that evening, with a whopping wind, but neither this storm nor that other which so imminently threatened him held place in the consciousness of Bibbs Sheridan when he came once more to the presence of Mary. All was right in his world as he sat with her, reading Maurice Maeterlinck's Alladine and Palomides. The sorrowful light of the gas-jet might have been May morning suns.h.i.+ne flas.h.i.+ng amber and rose through the glowing windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, it was so bright for Bibbs. And while the zinc-eater held out to bring him such golden nights as these, all the king's horses and all the king's men might not serve to break the spell.
Bibbs read slowly, but in a reasonable manner, as if he were talking; and Mary, looking at him steadily from beneath her curved fingers, appeared to discover no fault. It had grown to be her habit to look at him whenever there was an opportunity. It may be said, in truth, that while they were together, and it was light, she looked at him all the time.
When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a little while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and said: ”There's something I want to read over. This:”
You would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a soul that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you for everything.... I shall never understand it all. I do not know how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak of it....
He stopped and looked at her.
”You boy!” said Mary, not very clearly.
”Oh yes,” he returned. ”But it's true--especially my knees!”
”You boy!” she murmured again, blus.h.i.+ng charmingly. ”You might read another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can give it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!'”
”I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one, unless I have to decide to study plumbing.”
”No.” She shook her head. ”You love and want what's beautiful and delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful for.”
Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. ”Why, no,” he said; ”I wanted something else more than that. I wanted you.”
”And here I am!” she laughed, completely understanding. ”I think we're like those two in The Cloister and the Hearth. I'm just the rough Burgundian cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and told everybody that the devil was dead.”
”He isn't, though,” said Bibbs, as a hoa.r.s.e little bell in the next room began a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count. ”He gets into the clock whenever I'm with you.” And, sighing deeply he rose to go.
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