Blue-Bird Weather Page 4

  II

  Marche, buried under a mountain of bed clothes, dreamed that people wererapping noisily on his door, and grinned in his dream, meaning to letthem rap until they tired of it. Suddenly a voice sounded through hisdefiant slumbers, clear and charming as a golden ray parting thickclouds. The next moment he found himself awake, bolt upright in the icydusk of his room, listening.

  "Mr. Marche! Won't you _please_ wake up and answer?" came the clear,young voice again.

  "I _beg_ your pardon!" he cried. "I'll be down in a minute!"

  He heard her going away downstairs, and for a few seconds he squattedthere, huddled in coverings to the chin, and eying the darkness in asort of despair. The feverish drive of Wall Street, late suppers, andtoo much good fellowship had not physically hardened Marche. He wasaccustomed to have his bath tempered comfortably for his particularbrand of physique. Breakfast, also, was a most carefully orderedinformality with him.

  The bitter chill smote him. Cursing the simple life, he crawled gingerlyout of bed, suffered acutely while hunting for a match, lighted thekerosene lamp with stiffened fingers, and looked about him, shivering.Then, with a suppressed anathema, he stepped into his folding tub andemptied the arctic contents of the water pitcher over himself.

  Half an hour later he appeared at the breakfast table, hungrier than hehad been in years. There was nobody there to wait on him, but the dishesand coffee pot were piping hot, and he madly ate eggs and razor-back,and drank quantities of coffee, and finally set fire to a cigarette,feeling younger and happier than he had felt for ages.

  Of one thing he was excitedly conscious: that dreadful and persistentdragging feeling at the nape of his neck had vanished. It didn't seempossible that it could have disappeared overnight, but it had, for thepresent, at least.

  He went into the sitting room. Nobody was there, either, so he broke hissealed shell boxes, filled his case with sixes and fives and double B's,drew his expensive ducking gun from its case and took a look at it,buckled the straps of his hip boots to his belt, felt in the variouspockets of his shooting coat to see whether matches, pipe, tobacco,vaseline, oil, shell extractor, knife, handkerchief, gloves, were intheir proper places; found them so, and, lighting another cigarette,strolled contentedly around the small and almost bare room, bestowing acontented and patronizing glance upon each humble article and decorationas he passed.

  Evidently this photograph, in an oval frame of old-time water gilt, wasa portrait of Miss Herold's mother. What a charming face, with itsdelicate, high-bred nose and lips! The boy, Jim, had her mouth and nose,and his sister her eyes, slightly tilted to a slant at the outercorners--beautifully shaped eyes, he remembered.

  He lingered a moment, then strolled on, viewing with tolerantindifference the few poor ornaments on the mantel, the chromos of wildducks and shore birds, and found himself again by the lamp-lit tablefrom which he had started his explorations.

  On it were Jim's Latin book, a Bible, and several last year's magazines.

  Idly he turned the flyleaf of the schoolbook. Written there was theboy's name--"Jim, from Daddy."

  As he was closing the cover a sudden instinct arrested his hand, and,not knowing exactly why, he reopened the book and read the inscriptionagain. He read it again, too, with a vague sensation of familiarity withit, or with the book, or something somehow connected with it, he couldnot tell exactly what; but a slightly uncomfortable feeling remained ashe laid aside the book and stood with brows knitted and eyes absentlybent on the stove.

  The next moment Jim came in, wearing a faded overcoat which he hadoutgrown.

  "Hello!" said Marche, looking up. "Are you ready for me, Jim?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "What sort of a chance have I?"

  "I'm afraid it is blue-bird weather," said the boy diffidently.

  Marche scowled, then smiled. "Your sister said it would probably be thatkind of weather. Well, we all have to take a sporting chance with thingsin general, don't we, Jim?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Marche picked up his gun case and cartridge box. The boy offered to takethem, but the young man shook his head.

  "Lead on, old sport!" he said cheerily. "I'm a beast of more burdensthan you know anything about. How's your father, by the way?"

  "I think father is about the same."

  "Doesn't he need a doctor?"

  "No, sir, I think not."

  "What is it, Jim? Fever?"

  "I don't know," said the boy, in a low voice. He led the way, and Marchefollowed him out of doors.

  A gray light made plain the desolation of the scene, although the sunhad not yet risen. To the south and west the sombre pine woods stretchedaway; eastward, a few last year's cornstalks stood, withered in theclearing, through which a rutted road ran down to the water.

  "It isn't the finest farming land in the world, is it, Jim?" he saidhumorously.

  "I haven't seen any other land," said the boy quietly.

  "Don't you remember the Northern country at all?"

  "No, sir--except Central Park."

  "Oh, you were New-Yorkers?"

  "Yes, sir. Father----" and he fell abruptly silent.

  They were walking together down the rutted road, and Marche glancedaround at him.

  "What were you going to say about your father, Jim?"

  "Nothing." Then truth jogged his arm. "I mean I was only going to saythat father and mother and all of us lived there."

  "In New York?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Is your--your mother living?"

  "No, sir."

  "I think I saw her picture in the sitting room," he said gently. "Shemust have been everything a mother should be."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Was it long ago, Jim?"

  "When she died?"

  "Yes."

  "Yes, very long ago. Six years ago."

  "Before you came here, then?"

  "Yes, sir."

  After they had walked in silence for a little while, Marche said, "Isuppose you have arranged for somebody to take me out?"

  "Yes, sir."

  They emerged from the lane to the shore at the same moment, and Marcheglanced about for the expected bayman.

  "Oh, there he is!" he said, as a figure came from behind a dory andwaded leisurely shoreward through the shallows--a slight figure in hipboots and wool shooting hood and coat, who came lightly across the sandsto meet him. And, astonished, he looked into the gray eyes of MollyHerold.

  "Father could not take you," she said, without embarrassment, "and Jimisn't quite big enough to manage the swans and geese. Do you mind myacting as your bayman?"

  "Mind?" he repeated. "No, of course not. Only--it seems rather rough onyou. Couldn't you have hired a bayman for me?"

  "I will, if you wish," she said, her cheeks reddening. "But, really, ifyou'll let me, I am perfectly accustomed to bayman's work."

  "Do you _want_ to do it?"

  She said, without self-consciousness, "If it is the same to you, Mr.Marche, I had rather that the bayman's wages came to us."

  "Certainly--of course," he said hurriedly. Then, smiling: "You look thepart. I took you for a young man, at first. Now, tell me how I can helpyou."

  "Jim can do that. Still, if you don't mind handling the decoys----"

  "Not at all," he said, going up to the fenced inclosures which ran froma rod or two inland down into the shallow water, making three separateyards for geese, swans, and ducks.

  Jim was already in the duck pen, hustling the several dozen mallard andblack ducks into an inland corral. The indignant birds, quacking aconcerted protest, waddled up from the shore, and, one by one, the boyseized the suitable ones, and passed them over the fence to Marche. Hehanded them to Molly Herold, who waded out to the dory, a duck tuckedunder either arm, and slipped them deftly into the decoy-crates forwardand aft.

  The geese were harder to manage--great, sleek, pastel-tinted birds whosewing blows had the force of a man's fist--and they flapped andstruggled and buffeted Jim till his b
londe head spun; but at last Marcheand Molly had them crated in the dory.

  Then the wild swans' turn came--great, white creatures with black beaksand feet; and Molly and Marche were laughing as they struggled to catchthem and carry them aboard.

  But at last every decoy was squatting in the crates; the mast had beenstepped, guns laid aboard, luncheon stowed away. Marche set his shoulderto the stern; the girl sprang aboard, and he followed; the triangularsail filled, and the boat glided out into the sound, straight into theglittering lens of the rising sun.

  A great winter gull flapped across their bows; in the lee of StarfishIsland, long strings of wild ducks rose like