Part 10

He had made several trips to the village with the old cronies and they had acquired a large part of the stock of the general store. Their advent must have been a godsend to the aged proprietor.

“Now, John,” said Sipes, after the old man had finished his coffee, “you c’n go back to yer place jest once, an’ fetch anythin’ you want to keep that’s small, but don’t you bring nothin’ that weighs over a pound, an’ then you come an’ sleep in the cabin o’ the _Crawfish_ till we git the new fix’n’s on the shanty. We’ll feed you up so you’ll feel like a prize-fighter, an’ we’ll make Napoleon into a spring colt. He c’n stay in the work-shed ’til we make a barn fer ’im. We’r’ goin’ up there tomorrer night, an’ we’r’ goin’ to burn up the whole mess wot you leave, an’ you can’t go with us. We’ll chuck ev’rythin’ into that cusséd ol’ smoke-house, an’ set fire to it. Tomorrer night’s the night, an’ don’t you fergit it!”

John stayed for a couple of hours, but did little talking. Evidently he was deeply touched. He drove away slowly up the beach toward the only home he had known for many years. His quiet, undemonstrative nature was calloused by the unconscious philosophy of the poor. Gratitude welled from a fountain deep in his heart, but its outward flow was restrained by the rough barriers that a lifetime of unremitting toil and poverty had thrown around his honest soul.

He returned late the following afternoon. His wagon contained a few things that he said he wanted to keep, no matter what happened to him.

“Thar ain’t no value to the stuff I got ’ere, ’cept to me. If you’ll put this in a safe place ’til things git settled, I’ll be much obliged,” said the old man, as he extracted a small package from an inside pocket. He carefully opened it and showed us an old daguerreotype. A rather handsome young man, dressed in the style of the early fifties, sat stiffly in a high-backed chair. Beside him, trustfully holding his hand, was a sweet-faced girl in bridal costume. Pride and happiness beamed from her eyes.

“That thar’s me an’ Mary the day we was married. She died the year after it was took,” said the old fisherman, slowly. There was tenderness in the quiet look that he bestowed on the picture, and the care with which he rewrapped it and handed it to Saunders for safe-keeping.

The old daguerreotype had been treasured for over half a century. I knew that tears had fallen upon it in silent hours. Its story was in the old man’s face as he turned and walked over to his wagon to get the rest of his things.

“Now, hooray fer the fireworks!” shouted Sipes, when we had finished our after-dinner pipes in the evening. By the light of the lantern, the small row-boat was shoved into the lake. John watched the sinister preparations with misgivings. As we rowed away, Sipes called out cheerily, “Now you brace up, John; you ain’t got no kick comin’! You c’n stay an’ play with Cookie. He’ll make you some more coffee, an’ you’ll find a big can o’ tobaccy on the shelf.”

The old shipmates did not intend that any lingering affection that John might retain for his old habitat, or any heartaches, should interfere with his enjoyment of his new home, or with their delight in burning his old one. They had grimly resolved that the transition should be complete and irrevocable.

We reached the old fisherman’s former abode in due time. We found the tattered nets wound on the reels, which were old and much broken. We piled all of the loose stuff on the beach around the nets, and the leaky boat was set up endwise against them. With the lantern we explored the disreputable little smoke-house. It was filled with fish tubs, bait pails, and confused rubbish, and was redolent with fishy odors of the past that Saunders declared “a clock couldn’t tick in.”

We climbed up to the shanty on the edge of the bluff. The door of the ramshackle structure was fastened with a piece of old hitching strap that was looped over a nail. We entered and looked around the squalid interior. Four bricks in the middle of the room supported a nondescript stove. A rough bench stood against the wall, and a few tin plates, cups, and kettles were scattered about. The only other room was John’s sleeping apartment. A decrepit bedstead, that had seen better days and nights, an old hay mattress, a couple of much soiled blankets, a cracked mirror, some candle stubs, and two broken chairs were the only articles we found in it.

“All some people needs to make ’em happy is a lookin’ glass,” observed Sipes, “but ol’ John ain’t stuck on ’imself; wot does ’e want with it? He prob’ly busted it w’en ’e peeked in it to see if ’is ol’ hat was on straight.”

“I hope John’s got some insurance on this place,” Saunders remarked, as he dragged the mattress to the wall and piled the bedstead and chairs on it. We found a bottle half full of kerosene under the bench, which we emptied over the floor.

“Now gimme a match!” demanded Sipes.

When we reached the foot of the bluff the flames were merrily at work above us. The smoke-house, and the stuff accumulated around the nets, were soon on fire. We next visited Napoleon’s humble quarters on the sand, and another column of smoke and flame was added to the joy of the occasion.

“We can’t leave fer a while yet,” said Saunders; “no fire’s any good ’less somebody’s ’round to poke it.”

We spent considerable time watching the fires, to assure ourselves that the destruction was complete, and that there was no possibility of the flames on the bluff getting into the woods beyond through the dry weeds on the sand. There was a light off-shore breeze, so there was little danger.

“That ol’ joint’s clean at last,” observed Sipes, as we rowed away in the early hours of the morning.

From far away we looked upon the scene of Catfish John’s dreary life, illumined by gleams from the smouldering embers that played along the face of the bluff.

There were essentials that the old man’s humble surroundings had lacked. Long sad years were interwoven with them, but the faded face in the old daguerreotype may have lighted the dark rooms and helped to make the lonely place an anchorage, for is home anywhere but in the heart? It does not seem to consist of material things. Absence, estrangement, and death destroy it--not fire. Sometimes, out of the losses and wrecks of life, it is rebuilded, but not of wood and stone.

I arranged with John to transport my few belongings to the railroad station the next day, and regretfully left the contented old mariners and their happy “cookie,” who was no small part of the riches that had come from the Winding River.

On the way through the hills the old man opened his heart.

“Now wot d’ye think o’ them ol’ fellers? They battered ’round the seas an’ they been up ag’in pretty near ev’rythin’ they is. They come in these hills an’ settled down to fish’n’. We alw’ys got ’long well together. I done little things fer them an’ they done little things fer me. Sipes is a queer ol’ cod, an’ so’s Saunders, but all of us has quirks, an’ they ain’t nobody that pleases ev’rybody else. Now them ol’ fellers has got rich. I don’t know how much they got, but w’en anybody gits a lot o’ money you c’n alw’ys tell wot they really was all the time they didn’t have it. They’r’ all right, an’ you bet I like ’em, an’ I alw’ys did. They drink some, but they don’t go to town an’ go ’round all day shoppin’ in s’loons, like some fellers do. Mebbe they’ll git busted some day, an I c’n do sump’n fer ’em like they done fer me.”

I bade my old friend farewell on the railroad platform and departed.

* * * * *

In response to a letter sent to him in January, John was at the station when I stepped off the train one crisp morning a week after I wrote, but it was a metamorphosed John who stood before me. He was muffled up in a heavy overcoat and fur cap. He wore a gray suit, new high-topped boots, and leather fur-backed gloves. I hardly recognized him. Much as I was delighted with these evidences of his comfort, there was an inward pang, for the picturesque and fishy John, who had been one of the joys of former years, was gone. This was a reincarnation. The strange toggery seemed discordant. Somehow his general air, and the protuberance of his high coat collar above the back of his head, suggested an Indian chief, great in his own environment, who had been rescued out of barbarism and debased by an unwelcome civilization. He was like some rare old book that had been revised and expurgated into inanity.

“I got yer letter,” said the old man, after our greetings, “an’ ’ere I am! I yelled out at ye, fer I didn’t think you’d know me. What d’ye think o’ all this stuff them ol’ fellers ’as got hooked on me?”

Napoleon, sleek and apparently happy, with a new blanket over him, was standing near the country store, hitched to a light bobsled.

I congratulated the old man and inquired about our mutual friends. After we had put the baggage and some supplies from the store into the sled, we adjusted ourselves comfortably under a thick robe, and Napoleon trotted away on the road, with a merry jingle of two sleigh-bells on his new harness.

There were no tracks on the road after we got into the wooded hills, except those made by Napoleon and the sled a couple of hours before, and the cross trails of rabbits and birds that had left the tiny marks on the snow, in their search for stray bits of food that the frost and winter winds might have spared for their keeping.

Nature in her nudity is prodigal of alluring charms on her winter landscapes. The forests, cold, still, and bare, stretched away over the undulating contours of the dunes in their mantle of snow. The lacery of naked branches, silvered with frost, was etched against the moody sky.

He who is alone in the winter woods is in a realm of the spirit where the only borders are the limits of fancy. The big trees, like sentinels grim and gray, seem to keep watch and ward over the treasures that lie in the hush of the frozen ground, where a mighty song awaits the wand of the South Wind. The winding sheet that lies upon the white hills hides the promise as well as the sorrow. The great mystery of earth’s fecundity that is under the chaste raiment of the snow is the mystery of all life, and to it the questioning soul must ever come. The message of our loved ones, who are under the white folds, may be among the petals of the flowers when they open.

When we descended the steep road to the beach, we saw Shipmates’ Rest in the distance. Saunders came out to greet us on our arrival. He was enveloped in a heavy reefer, and wore a rather sporty-looking new cap. He conducted us into what was once the fish shanty, but, alas, what a change! It had been almost entirely rebuilt. There were five rooms. A stairway led to a trap door in the roof, above which was a railed-in, covered platform. A stone fireplace had replaced the old stove, and there was a large new cook stove in the kitchen, where Narcissus reigned supreme. I was struck with the almost immaculate cleanliness of the place. While the architecture was nerve-racking, and seemed to pursue lines of the most resistance, it looked very comfortable.

“Sipes is out hunt’n rabbits. He’ll be back shortly,” said Saunders. “You jest hang up yer things an’ make yerself to home. Cookie’s out back undressin’ some fowls, an’ ’e’ll be glad to see you.”

Narcissus soon appeared with a grin on his honest face.

“Ah ce’t’nly am glad to see you down heah again!” he exclaimed. “Ah was just fixin’ some chick’ns, an’ tomorrow we’ll have a fracassee with dumplin’s. Chick’ns have to wait ovah night in salt watah fo’ they ah cooked, but we got pa’tridges fo’ today. Ah you fond of them?”

Idle questions, propounded simply to make conversation, often inspire doubt of normal mentality. I had brought a new mouth organ and a ukelele for him from the city, and his delight over the little gifts quite repaid their cost.

My old friend Sipes arrived during the next hour, without any rabbits, and we had a happy reunion over the delicately roasted partridges. There were six of them, with little bits of bacon on their breasts--like decorations for valor on the field.

Sipes presided at the head of the table with the air of a medieval robber baron who had returned to his castle from a successful foray. A napkin was tied around his neck, and he wielded his knife and fork with impressive gusto. Prosperity had begun to bubble. I was told the prices of everything in sight, and informed of the cost of the glass that he had used to make a small skylight in the north room, so as to adapt it for a studio. In the fall I had jokingly alluded to something of this kind, but had no idea that it would be included in the plans. Compensation was grandly refused.

“You’r’ in on all this, an’ we want you to stick ’round ’ere w’en you ain’t got nothin’ else to do. You knowed us w’en we didn’t ’ave a dollar, an’ you thought jest as much of us, so you quit talkin’ ’bout payin’ fer sky-view glass. There’s nothin’ doin’!”

During the afternoon we heard intermittent strains of “Money-Musk” from the new mouth organ in the kitchen, accompanied by experimental fingering of the ukelele. Narcissus had devised an ingenious framework, which he had put on his head, to hold the mouth organ in place, and enable him to use his hands for the other instrument, but it was only partially successful.

One of the objects of the winter visit was to make some sketches of Saunders and Narcissus for this volume, which had been neglected during the fall. They seemed pleased, and were willing models. Saunders insisted on wetting and combing his hair carefully, and getting into stilted attitudes. He was finally persuaded to let his hair alone and wear his old cap. He was anxious that his ancient meerschaum pipe should be in the picture. It seeped with the nicotine of many years.

“The tobaccy that’s been puffed in that ol’ pipe ’ud cover a ten-acre lot,” he declared, and I believed him. “You can’t show that in the pitcher, but you c’n make it look kind o’ dark like. Gener’ly I smoke ‘Bosun’s Delight’ an’ it’s pretty good. It’s strong stuff an’ none of it ever gits swiped.”

When the drawing was finished he criticized it severely, which was quite natural, for no human being is entirely without vanity. Portrait artists, like courtiers, must flatter to succeed.

Narcissus also wanted a pipe in his picture. He thought it would look better than a mouth organ, and, as it was much easier to draw, I humored him. He posed with unctuous ceremony, and assumed some most serious and baffling expressions.

Sipes watched the proceedings with interest, and enlivened them with running comment.

“I been through all that lots o’ times. You fellers ain’t got nothin’ on me, an’ if you ever git in a book you’ll look like a couple o’ horse thieves. I know wot e’ done to me.”

The disapproval of these particular sketches was probably deserved. It is a fact, however, that, while readily admitting limitations in other fields of knowledge, there are few people who hesitate to criticize any kind of art work authoritatively. Their immunity from error seems to them remarkable, and to be the result of a natural instinct that they have possessed from childhood. “I know what I like” is a common and much abused expression. They who use it usually do not know what they like or what they ought to like. The phrase covers infinite ignorance, with a complacent disposition of the subject. The assumption of critical infallibility is complete before a portrait of the critic.

Many otherwise intelligent critics respect only age and established art dogma. The dead masters haunt pedantic essayists and opulent purchasers, who accept embalmed opinions that they would be incapable of forming for themselves. Extended consideration of this subject is out of place amid the landscapes of Duneland, where the shades of the justly revered old painters may have deserted their madonnas and be wielding spiritual brushes, charged with elusive tints that flow unerringly upon canvases as tenuous as the evening mists. On them filmy portraits of the old dwellers along the shore may take form and vanish with the morning light, for in these rugged faces are the same attributes that made humanity picturesque centuries ago. If one of these portraits could suddenly materialize, it would bring a staggering price, if there was no suspicion that a modern had painted it. Some stray rhymester has aptly said:

“_If Leonardo done it,_ _It is a masterpiece._ _If Mr. Lucas made it,_ _’Tis but a mass o’ grease._”

“We gotta git some pitchers fer them walls,” declared Sipes, “an’ you buy ’em fer us. Git some colored ones that’s got boats in ’em, an’ some fight’n scenes. I’d like to git a nice smooth han’-painted pitcher o’ John L. Sullivan, an’ I don’t care wot it costs!”

The old man wanted these things to enjoy. His purse pride had not yet suggested the idea of posing as a connoisseur and condescending patron of the enshrined dead, without love or understanding of what they did, but the germs were there that might enthrall him in the future, for affluence sometimes begets strange vanities.

Great masses of ice had been tumbled and heaped along the shore by the winter waves, and we saw little of the lake, except when we climbed the bluffs. The winds howled over the desolate beach at night in angry portent, and one morning a driving storm came out of the north. Occasionally, from somewhere out above the waves that thundered against the ice, we could hear plaintive cries of gulls that groped through the blinding snow. The drifts piled high against the bluffs on the wild coast. The flying flakes were swept along in thick clouds by the fury of the gale. The house was almost buried. The wind subsided after about twenty-four hours, but the snow continued and fell ceaselessly for three days.

When the skies cleared we opened the trap door to the “crow’s nest,” the covered platform over the roof, and looked out over the white waste. A few straggling crows accented the immaculate expanse, the blue billows were pounding the ice packs, and a part of the mast of the _Crawfish_ protruded in the foreground, but everything else was white and still.

We were snowbound for ten days, but contentment reigned at Shipmates’ Rest. We dug deep paths that enabled us to reach our water supply, and to communicate with Napoleon in his cosy little barn in the ravine.

The plentiful supply of canned goods, that Narcissus had wisely laid in, was drawn upon for sustenance.

“Them air-tights is life savers!” exclaimed Sipes, as he mixed up some lobster, lima beans, ripe olives, and prunes on his plate. “Wot’s the use o’ monkeyin’ with them fresh things w’en you c’n git grub like this that’s all cooked an’ ready? All ye need is a can opener to live up as high as ye want to go. Gimme some o’ that pineapple fer this lobster, an’ pass John them dill pickles!”

“You better let Cookie chop up that mess fer you an’ squirt some lollydop on it, an’ eat it with a spoon,” advised Saunders; “yer git’n’ it all over us!”

“It’s too bad they can’t can pie,” said Sipes, “but we got pudd’n’s. Hi, there, Cookie, fetch some o’ them little brown cans an’ tap ’em!”

Narcissus appeared with a delicious cranberry pie, “with slats on it,” and the pudding was forgotten.

“This is the life!” continued the old man, as he broke some crackers into his coffee, “wot do we care fer expense?”

Our evenings were spent in various interesting ways. John and Narcissus had grown very fond of each other, and they spent much time playing checkers. Numberless sound waves went out into the dark, over the cold snow, that came from music, laughter, and rattling poker chips.

There are many hardships in this life, both real and imaginary, but being snowbound at Shipmates’ Rest is not one of them.

A typical January thaw set in, and the warm sunshine released us from our feathery bondage. The _Crawfish_ was floated out on to the still lake, and we voyaged to the little town at the mouth of the river, from where I took the train for the grimy, noise-cursed city--cursed, indeed, for the unnecessary and preventable dirt and noise in most of our cities would hardly be tolerated in Hades.

It was August when I again visited Shipmates’ Rest. There was a lazy calm on the lake, and a delicate and peculiar odor from the evaporating water. Scattered flocks of terns, nimble-winged and graceful, skimmed over the surface, and dipped, with gentle splashes, for minnows that basked in the sun. The still air over the sandy bluffs shimmered in the heat.

I found my friends in the lake, where they had gone to get cool, and soon joined them.

There were more transformations on the beach. A mouse-colored donkey stood in the shade of the house, regarding us with wise and sleepy eyes. A black puppy gambolled at the water’s edge, clamoring for attention. A cow, which I recognized as “Spotty,” stood in the creek that flowed out of the ravine, peacefully chewing her cud and switching flies with her abbreviated tail. A couple of white pigs were squealing and grunting in a pen near the little barn, and about a dozen fluffy brown hens, attended by a dignified rooster, were wandering over the sand after stray insects. A tall flag-pole extended above the “crow’s nest” on top of the house.

All these things were explained at length, as we stood out on the smooth sandy bottom, with the cool water around our necks.

“That anamile wot’s huggin’ the house,” said Sipes, “is to hitch to the windlass w’en we have to haul the boat out. Cookie calls ’im Archibald, but ’is real name’s Mike. He goes ’round an’ ’round with the pole, like we used to do, an’ winds up the rope. W’en we want to run the boat in the lake, we got a block an’ tackle wot’s lashed to that spile out’n the water. We take the rope out from the boat to it, an’ run it back to the windlass, an’ Mike winds ’er out fer us. That kind o’ work ain’t fit fer nobody but a jackass, an’ ’e wouldn’t do it if ’e had money. Mike strays ’round the country a good deal at night fer young cabbage an’ lettuce an’ things, but he’s gener’ly ’ere on deck in the mornin’. Cookie bought ’im an’ the pup in the village this summer. We gotta have a pup, but he’s a cusséd nuisance. W’en ’e’s in ’e yelps to git out, an’ the minute ’e’s out ’e howls an’ scratches to git in. It takes ’bout all o’ one feller’s time to ’tend ’im, but ’e’s lots o’ company. He’ll bark if anybody snoops ’round at night. They’s val’ables ’ere an’ we gotta look out. We call ’im Coonie, an’ ’e’s some dog. Cookie’s teachin’ ’im a lot o’ tricks, an’ w’en ’e grows up ’e’ll be good to chase patritches out o’ the brush.

“We bought Spotty off o’ the Ancient up the river, an’ Cookie towed ’er in ’long the road through the hills with a rope. Somehow I alw’ys liked that ol’ girl, an’ we gotta have milk.

“Them squealers is to eat wot’s left out o’ the kitchen, an’ next winter they’ll quit squealin’. Them hens is from the village, too, an’ their business is to make aigs. Next year we’ll have slews o’ young chicks, an’ some w’ite ducks. Cookie’s got a rubber thing wot ’e fastens on that rooster’s bill ev’ry night w’en ’e puts ’im to bed, so ’e can’t crow an’ roust us out in the mornin’.

“We got a compass an’ a binnacle an’ a new spy-glass up in the crow’s nest. Me an’ Bill an’ John set an’ smoke up there in the shade an’ see fellers work’n way off, an’ watch Mike windin’ up the boat.”

“Tell ’im ’bout the motor, long as yer goin’ to keep this up all day,” interrupted Saunders.

“Oh, yes. We got a new one wot’s built in aft o’ the cab’n. It’s got two cylinders, an’ it works fine. We buried the old one up ’side o’ Cal’s dog. It ’ad to be that er us. Bill, you keep still w’en I’m talk’n!