Chapter 9

AN ODD THANKSGIVING

The note of ill temper in the voice was so apparent that Dale hesitated for a second longer. Then, with a determined movement of his head, he set his stick against the door-casing, picked up the basket, and stepped into the kitchen. It was a long, low room, the walls and ceiling painted a dirty gray. Two of the three windows were tightly shuttered, so that Dale could barely make out the bent figure seated in a rocking-chair beside a rusty, decrepit cook-stove. At his entrance the three dogs began to bark again, but old Grimstone silenced them with a fierce gesture that sent them cowering under a table.

"What d' you want?" he demanded, glaring at the boy from under bushy brows. "I don't want to buy nothin', so you'd better git out."

"I haven't anything--for sale," returned the boy, finding it a little difficult to explain his errand. "It--it's your Thanksgiving dinner."

"Dinner!" snapped the old man. "What are you talkin' about? I ain't ordered nothin' from town."

"I know you haven't. It's one of the baskets from the church. I--I heard you'd had an accident and were all alone, so I--I thought I'd bring it out."

For a moment the old man sat silent, his hard, glinting eyes, full of sour suspicion, fixed on the boy's face. "What for?" he demanded suddenly.

"What for?" repeated Dale, puzzled.

"Yes; what for? What d' you expect to git out of it? You ain't toted a basketful o' truck all the way out here jest out of regard for me, I reckon. Who sent ye?"

Dale flushed, and unconsciously drew himself up a little. "Nobody," he returned briefly. "I'm a boy scout. We--we try to do a good turn for somebody every day."

Old Grimstone bent slightly forward, staring in a puzzled fashion at the trim, khaki-clad figure before him. His right arm, bulky with bandages and splints, was strapped tightly to his body; the other hand, gnarled and brown, with blue veins showing here and there, gripped the arm of the rocker. There was suspicion still in his glance, but back of it was the look of one groping dimly for something he could not understand. Suddenly he straightened with a jerk.

"Wal, set it down somewheres, then!" he growled ungraciously. "I ain't an object o' charity yet, but if you're bound to leave it, I s'pose I can use it somehow. You'd better be startin' back right away or you'll miss your dinner."

Dale placed the basket on a table and commenced to remove the paper. "I'm not going back yet," he explained cheerfully. "I'm going to stay and cook it for you."

For a moment there was silence. Then the old man grunted inarticulately; it might have been with surprise, or incredulity, or almost any other emotion. Dale's back was toward him, so he could not tell, but since there was no actual prohibition, he proceeded with the unpacking.

Somehow he was beginning to enter more into the spirit of the thing, beginning to feel an interest, almost an enjoyment, in doing it up thoroughly. Having taken off coat and sweater, his first act was to prepare the chicken for roasting. When it was safely placed in the oven he shook down the fire, added some more wood, and then turned his attention to a pile of unwashed dishes, which the indolent Hinckley was evidently accumulating until he considered it sizeable enough to be worth tackling. It was a task the boy ordinarily hated, but he meant to leave the room spick and span on his departure. So he rolled up his shirt-sleeves and plunged in, whistling softly as he worked.

Old Caleb Grimstone followed the boy's movements almost in silence. He had gruffly told him where he could find a pan for the chicken, and once he snapped out at one of the dogs who had come forth from under the table and was sniffing at Dale's legs. But for the most part he sat motionless beside the stove, his eyes, under their beetling brows, fixed intently on the busy figure with that same puzzled questioning in their depths.

At last, when Dale had pared the potatoes and put them on to boil, he suddenly growled, "Are you one of them boys that come sneakin' around the lake last summer?"

Dale reddened a little, but did not hesitate. "I was out here two or three times, I guess," he acknowledged.

The old man sniffed. "I s'pose you call _that_ one o' them 'good turns'--trespassin' on a person's property, an' payin' no attention to signs, an' all," he remarked.

"I wasn't a scout then," said Dale. He got a broom from the corner, and on his way past the old man's chair he paused, his eyes twinkling a bit. "Anyhow, on a roasting hot day you know a fellow'll do 'most anything to get a swim. I expect you were that way yourself, Mr. Grimstone, when you were a boy."

"Huh!" grunted the old man, disagreeably, but he made no further comment.

Once or twice, as he swept, Dale glanced curiously at the silent figure by the stove and wondered what the old fellow was thinking about. His eyes no longer followed the boy with sharp suspicion. His head was bent a little, and he stared blankly, unseeingly, at a knot in the board at his feet. For a long time he did not stir, save once to lift the thin, veined hand from the chair-arm, only to grip it again with a force that made the knuckles stand out white against the brown skin. At length, with a sigh, checked almost in its birth, he raised his head and frowned at Tompkins.

"Ain't you goin' to baste that fowl at all?" he inquired sharply.

Dale started guiltily at the reminder and hastened to the oven. The fowl was browning nicely, and as he spooned up the sizzling juices, he hoped his forgetfulness wasn't going to make any difference in its flavor.

Apparently it hadn't. After a number of anxious inspections, between which he set the table for two, put plates to heat, and arranged the remaining contents of the basket as temptingly as he could, he decided that the chicken was done, and Mr. Grimstone, peering doubtfully into the oven and even testing the fowl with a fork, grudgingly agreed. When the old man was served and his portion cut up so that he could manage it with a fork, Dale took his first taste with a little feeling of pride in his culinary achievement.

It was really a very appetizing meal, and the scout enjoyed it as only a healthy, hungry boy can. Mr. Grimstone made no comment one way or another. Once or twice he mumbled his annoyance at having to have his meat cut up for him by a boy, but the number of times that the process was repeated and the relish with which he consumed everything in sight was proof enough of his satisfaction in the unwonted fare.

As the curious meal proceeded to its conclusion he seemed almost to thaw a little. His manner was still crabbed and his voice sharp. He scowled a good deal, too, especially after some comment which might possibly be taken as approaching the amiable. But in one way or another, both at table and later while the dishes were being done up, he asked a good many questions in his short, snappy fashion.

Dale answered them readily, vaguely sensing, perhaps, that under the old man's surface crustiness lay a certain awkwardness at handling so unaccustomed a situation. After all these years of bitter warfare against boys it must be rather embarrassing, he thought, to treat one of them with even an approach to civility. So when he had told his name, and the troop he belonged to, and one or two other details the old man asked about, Dale went on to explain a little about their scout work and play, their weekly meetings and drill and other duties, their hikes and week-end camping-trips.

The old man listened almost without comment. He seemed more curious about the principle of the daily good turn, to which he reverted several times, always with expressions of doubt and skepticism. The idea of mere boys giving time and labor and sacrificing inclination and pleasure without thought of reward was incredible to him.

"It ain't natural!" he declared at last. "Mebbe one or two might, but not many. You can't tell me any other o' them young limbs in town would of give up their holiday to tote a basket o' truck out here an' cook it."

"Oh, yes, they would!" protested the boy, loyally, "if they'd thought of it."

"Humph!" grunted the old man. "They didn't happen to, though."

"One was enough, wasn't it?" smiled the boy. "You wouldn't have known what to do with two baskets."

The old man snorted doubtfully and did not pursue the subject farther. A little later, Dale discovered, to his surprise, that it was after four. He had no idea the time had flown so. He would have to hustle to get back to town before dark. Fortunately, the kitchen was cleared up, so after stoking the fire he got into his sweater and coat. Then he picked up the wide-brimmed felt hat and carefully rearranged the depressions in its crown.

"Good-by, Mr. Grimstone," he said, glancing over to where the latter had resumed his place by the stove. "I hope your arm won't be long coming around."

The old man frowned at him from under the bushy brows. His head was a little bent, and the long, bony fingers curved over the chair-arm. It was precisely the attitude with which he had greeted the boy's arrival; yet the latter was conscious of a subtle, intangible difference, felt rather than perceived.

"Good-by," he answered curtly. That was all until Dale reached the door and was turning the knob. Then, "Much obleeged," came jerkily from the thin, straight lips.

"You needn't be," smiled the scout. "I--I've had a very good time."

It was not exactly the polite fiction that perhaps it seemed. That was the odd part of it. As he went briskly down the lane the boy realized with surprise that not once had he thought regretfully of the rare turkey-dinner at home, or the fun with the fellows he had missed that afternoon. One of the dogs, still licking his chops from the dish of scraps that Dale had given them in the shed, trotted after him, and the boy bent to pat his head without a touch of nervousness.

"Your bark's a lot worse than your bite, old fellow," he said aloud.

He straightened up and glanced back at the rambling, weather-beaten house, whose roof lines seemed to merge into the cold gray of the sky, and something deeper than pity stirred him at the thought of the old man sitting alone there in the twilight.

"I shouldn't wonder if he was a good deal like his dogs," he murmured as he turned away. "I'm sort of glad--I found it out."

* * * * *

It was quite dark before Dale reached home. The return trip had been much harder to make than the one that morning. The holiday was over and there was no spirit of adventure to buoy him up, no consciousness that he was going to be of use to some one who needed him. Also, there was plenty of time to think of the good cheer he had missed at home--that family feast to which, as long as he could remember, they had sat down at three o'clock on Thanksgiving afternoon. It had become so fixed and seemingly immovable that Dale had not even considered the possibility of changing it. And so it was with a tired and lagging step that he walked up from the gate and opened the front door.

Inside, he paused suddenly and sniffed. For an instant he stood stock-still, eyes wide, mouth half open. Then, with a sudden, incoherent exclamation, he tore down the hall, past the lighted dining-room, and through the open kitchen door. The room was warm and bright, and filled with the delicious odor of roasting turkey.

"Mother!" he cried, his face shining. "You didn't have it-- You--you--waited!"

His mother straightened from closing the oven door and smiled at him--that wonderful, indescribable smile that somehow belongs to mothers.

"Of course I waited!" she said quietly. Then, as he leaped forward and clutched her in a bear-hug, she laughed softly and asked, just a little tremulously, "Didn't you think Father and I could do a good turn, too?"