Part 21 (1/2)

”Wall, I'm goin' home to-night,” said Emily, and, as I looked up at her, I caught the same mischievous gleam in her unsoftened eyes. ”So strike up Something lively now, and I'll waltz down the lane to it. 'Are your windows open towards Jerusalem?'--Lord, can't you think o' something warmer than that for this weather?”

But the singers were going on gloriously:

”Are your windows open towards Jerusalem?

Though as captives here a little while we stay For the coming of the King in His glory, Are you watching, day by day?”

Emily tightened the shawl around her neck with a quick motion. In going out, she took an indirect course through the room, purposely to pa.s.s by where I was sitting.

”Are your windows open towards Jerusalem?” said she, stooping and whispering in my ear: ”Dave Rollin's out there hangin' onto the fence one side the bushes, and Lute Cradlebow the other, and they don't see each other no more than two bats.”

”Are your windows open towards Jerusalem” was a favorite with the Wallencampers. On this occasion they repeated it several times. Captain Sartell and Bachelor Lot, who had been engaging in a game of checkers in the little kitchen, left the board as the well-loved strains greeted their ears, and came in to join the group.

Grandpa had been consigned to the kitchen stove, with a corn-popper. I do not think that he regretted being removed, somewhat from the more inspiring scenes which animated the Ark. I was amused to follow, with my ear, the old gentleman's progress in the successive stages of his corn-sh.e.l.ling and corn-popping operations with certain contingent misfortunes, as when he went into the pantry to look for a pan, and brought down a large quant.i.ty of tin-ware clanging about his ears, and rolling in all directions over the floor, while I immediately inferred from the tones of his voice that he was enjoying a little unembarra.s.sed colloquy with the powers of darkness. Once, in his shuffling peregrinations, he tipped over the little bench which sustained the water-pail. A deep sigh of horror and despair escaped his lips, and was followed by a ”What the Devil!” borne in upon the song-laden air with unmistakable force and distinctness.

”For Heaven's sake, ma,” said Madeline, looking up sharply; ”what can pa be a' doin??”

”Oh,” calmly said Grandma Keeler, ”I guess he's only settlin' down.”

And with Grandma, indeed, the turmoils of this sublunary sphere implied only a vast ultimate settling down.

But if such deep rest came to Grandpa, it was only as a dream from which he was soon to be rudely awakened.

The sound of his footsteps had ceased. I knew that he was seated in his chair by the fire, and I heard the long-handled popper shaken back and forth upon the stove, at first as if moved by the power of a steadfast purpose. But the sound grew fainter, the motions less regular. They were several times desperately renewed, and then ceased altogether, so quickly had Grandpa soared beyond the low vicissitudes of a corn-popping world.

Soon a burning smell arose. Then the door of the kitchen opened. Grandpa was startled. I knew the catastrophe. The corn-popper with its contents had been precipitated to the floor. Then I heard a courteous male voice, with just a touch of suppressed merriment in it:--

”Never mind, Captain! small business for you, steering such a slim craft as that, eh? On a red-hot, stove, too!”

”Humph! Topmast heavier than the hull,” replied Grandpa, accepting with grat.i.tude, in this extremity, the sympathy of the new-comer.

The other gave a low laugh.

”Never mind, Captain!” he repeated, ”we'll have it slick here in a minute.

Let me take the broom. You've got it wrong side up. By Harry, we've got the deluge _inside_ the Ark this time, Captain!”

”Tarnal water-pail slipped moorin's,” confessed Grandpa.

Then followed a vigorous sound of corn rattling, and water swas.h.i.+ng against the sides of the room, and I knew that Mr. Rollin, the elegant, was sweeping out the kitchen of the Ark.

”I guess they's somebody else come,” exclaimed Grandma, with hospitable glee. ”Wall, I declare for't. I guess I'll go out into my kitchen and git that little no-back cheer. Seems to me as though we'd got all the rest on 'em in use, pretty much.”

”I'll go, ma,” said Madeline. ”Teacher'll be wanted to play now, and may be she will? though she can't be got to do it for common folks.”

I did not enjoy playing on Madeline's melodeon. Any performances of that kind which I had undertaken had been confined exclusively to an audience of the Wallencampers. I had certainly never made an exception for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the fisherman. But I flattered myself that there was no trace of resentment in my tone when I said, ”Sit still, Madeline, please, I know where the chair is. Don't I, Grandma?” and was groping my way out through the green curtained ”keepin'” rooms, towards Grandma's culinary apartment, thankful for a momentary escape from the heated atmosphere of the ”parlor,” when I heard just behind me a voice of the most exquisite smoothness:--

”Miss Hungerford, allow me.”

”Mr. Rollin!” I exclaimed, with an overwhelming sense of the ludicrousness of the situation: ”How dared you come through the room where they were all sitting and follow me out here! Did Grandma tell you that I had gone after a little no-back chair for you to sit on?”

”She did,” replied Mr. Rollin, with impressive gravity: ”and I took it as most divinely kind of you, too; though, if I might be allowed any choice in the matter, I think I should be likely to a.s.sume a much more graceful and more easeful and natural position in a chair constructed after the ordinary pattern, Miss Hungerford, especially as after my exertions in the kitchen I feel the need of entire repose.”

”But this is the only one left,” I answered, with suppressed laughter.