III
During the following week Fessenden read little and was too amiably excited for battle. He had seen few strangers in that primeval wilderness—no gentleman but his father; and Mr. Abbott had taken pains to admonishhim that he was never to forget he was a gentleman—to criticise his table manners, gait, and carriage. In the course of his last visit, after he had twice swept his son’s elbows off the table and arrested his knife on its flight to the butter-dish, he had said, severely: “I am not raising you to be a congressman from a backwoods district. Without manners your morals might just as well be bad as good. I am no democrat. I believe in hard work, and above all things I despise the idle fools that rich fathers foist upon the world; but I equally despise the man who ever forgets he was born a gentleman. You were. One reason why I have persuaded Stanley Morris to come here is that you may be reminded constantly that you are not to grow up a country lout, and disgrace—your sister, when the time comes for you to meet. Do you think that small head can remember all this tiresome advice?”
“Youbetcherlife! But can’t I fight any more?” Fessenden had asked anxiously. “I feel mygoodestwhen I’ve wiped the face off’n a chap.”
“Oh, fight all you like. Never take an insult. Never see a woman insulted. Never take a back seat. If you did I’d disown you. But put on no airs, even when you are being properly educated by Morris. I despise a snob as much as I abhor a weakling.”
“What is a snob?”
“The snob is a man who furnishes comedy for others and tragedy for himself.”
Fessenden’s eyes were a hard blue stare, but experience had taught him that when his father was cryptic he did not intend to be questioned further.
Two rooms on the second floor facing the south were put in such order as young Abbott had heretofore associated with the unlicensed imagination of the story-teller. Not only were the walls covered with heavy red paper,but a special car was switched off at a distant station, and its contents, when hauled the intervening miles and unpacked, proved to be worn but red and luxurious furniture, four bookcases, several heavy rugs, two stoves, and some nine hundred books. Fessenden unwrapped and shelved every book, his fingers tingling, unfaithful for the moment to his chipmunks and rabbits, his hidden places in the forest where he was the mighty leader of an invisible robber band.
When all was in order, Mr. Stanley Morris arrived. He was very tall and attenuated, with a bulging brow and long pale fingers. Nature had designed him for the ascetic and scholar, and doubtless had taken back a mere sufficiency of his lung cells to complete her purpose. On this shelf of the world he could live into old age, pack his avid brain with the master thoughts of other men, and one day, possibly, give to the world a thought system of his own.
“He kinder gives me the dumps,” remarked Fritz Nettlebeck, as he filled his pipe in the kitchen that evening. “I don’t take to people who looks as if their brains was distributed all over them. His head-piece is twice the size of an ordinary man’s, but he looks as if he kept that for Sundays, and any other part of him would do as well for other days.”
“You’re gitten imagination,” said Christina, with contempt. She was a sour and elderly virgin, hard-worked, now that her mother was growing old, and disapproving of her brothers in all their phases. Beaux were few in that vast and lonely wilderness, and these few had passed her by. Even the hired man had failed to succumb to the potencies of propinquity and the only woman. She was an uncommonly good cook for an American of her class—her parents were Hamburgers—and had won favor with the campers who ventured into this part of theAdirondacks, Mr. Abbott among the number; but if her cake was delicate, her griddle-cakes light, her venison a culinary achievement, her temper had been bitter from childhood, her sarcasm a thing to make a strong man falter and slink away. Christina was very proud of this substitute for scholarship, and persuaded herself that it compensated her for all that lay buried in ligneous spinsterhood. “The young un’ll have to turn to now, I guess,” she continued. “Much chores you’ll git out of him if he’s got to learn all them books. And he’s real handy about the house, too. He’s mended a power of things for me.”
“You’re sweet on that kid,” said Nettlebeck, with borrowed sarcasm. “It’s about the only soft spot you’ve got. But if you make him sick again on cocoanut-cake, and his father finds it out, he’ll be packed off, I give you that.”
“Who is that father of his, anyhow?” Christina never argued when she was sure of defeat; and having sat up all night with Fessenden—who had stolen the greater part of the cake—she was not prepared to face the enemy. “I don’t believe he’s as poor as he makes out. The mortgage is paid off this farm, I happen to know—”
“And you’re insinuatin’ that your two brothers ain’t hard-workin’ enough to pay it off theirselves!” cried Nettlebeck, bringing his fist down on the table with such violence that Christina’s pile of clean plates rattled, and she gave a wholly feminine shriek. “If you ever insult me like that again I’ll git a wife, and how’ll you like that?”
This threat never failed to subdue Christina, for although she shrewdly guessed that no girl within a radius of a hundred miles had the courage to become her sister-in-law, she knew that a desperate man might make apilgrimage to some distant town which her fame had not penetrated. She sniffed, muttered something about not being minded to insult her own family, whatever she might think of folks in general, and carried off her dishes to their shelves.
“Mr. Abbott,” resumed Nettlebeck, having given his wrath such time to cool as a female could expect, “is a generous and self-sacrificin’ father, and he just worships that kid; he’d wear one suit of clothes a year to give him what he needed, and of course keep don’t cost much up here. As for this here Morris, he’s spent all his money on books and furniture, thinkin’ he was goin’ to be a college professor. Mr. Abbott must have got him cheap. And the little we git from the old man’s regular. Just you remember that.”
“I ain’t forgettin’. Nobody asked you to make excuses for Mr. Abbott bein’ alive. I s’pose he ain’t payin’ fur that canoe, either.”
“That there canoe is a second-handed one, and I got it dirt cheap. Mr. Abbott consulted me about it when he was here last, and asked me to do the best I could, as he’d like the kid to have a canoe if one could be got inside his means. But Fess ain’t to know it’s here till his birthday comes round; so mind your own business till the ice goes out, if you can.” And Mr. Nettlebeck slouched off to join his brother in the barn and avoid further questions.
“I ain’t no fool,” confided Christina to herself, as she “covered” her fire. “But I know which side my bread’s buttered on, and the young un’ll git no hint from me. Then when our share in raisin’ him is over, there’ll be a big present all-round, or my name ain’t Christina Nettlebeck. There’s been too many campers in these woods in my time, and I know a rich man and a gentleman when I see one. Mr. Abbott was the worst-lookin’ tramp in thewoods I ever saw, and that’s a sure sign. It’s lucky, though, the kid’s what he is, for I couldn’t stand a hateful brat, nohow.”