A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
keep Mr. Don from comin' home and hearin' the tales they was tellin'. He
is worth the whole bunch of 'em tied in a knot; a gentleman inside and
out, and his hand in his pocket ivery time you served him. Ain't that
somebody a-callin' ye down the back stairs?”
“Let 'em call,” said Myrtella, to whom these comparisons of past
places were replete with interest. “It's just Miss Hattie; if she's got
anything worth sayin', she can come down and say it.”
It was evidently worth saying, for a moment later, a thin,
sharp-featured girl of fourteen thrust her head in at the door.
“Myrtella, I told you I wanted that white dress fixed. I am going to
wear it this afternoon.”
“It's too early to wear summer clothes,” Myrtella announced, continuing
her ironing. “I never sewed the buttons on a purpose, so 's you couldn't
wear it.”
“Well I _will_ wear it! I am going right straight up stairs and pin it
on.”
As the door slammed, Myrtella turned a beaming face on Norah:
“It ain't hemmed!” she said with satisfaction.
Norah shrugged her shoulders:
“It would be a cold day that'd see anybody makin' me do the cookin' and
nursin', and sewin' for a family of four, for five dollars a week!”
Myrtella glared at her across the ironing board:
“Who said anybody was makin' me? I'm paid to do the cookin' and
housework in this house, and if I see fit to light in and boss things
'round a bit, it's my own business. Thank the Lord, I got manners enough
to attend to it! How much coffee did you come over here to borrow?”
“A cupful will do, 'til the morning. I'll bring it back before
breakfast.”
“Put it in this jar when you do. I keep what you pay back separate from
ours, so's I can lend it to you again. We ain't used to chicory.”
Norah coughed deprecatingly behind her hand:
“Sure you might make allowance fer a lady as busy as Mrs. Ivy. She can't
get her mind down to ordn'ary things.”
“Stop her settin' on club boards, and meetin' on committees, and tryin'
to regulate the nation, and she might remember to order the groceries.
What's she workin' on now?”
“A begger man. It was readin' Scriptures to him she was when I come
away, and him a-settin' there, right pitiful, a-tellin' her how he'd
lost all he had in the flood. A religious talkin' man if I ever heard
one.”
“Red-headed?” inquired Myrtella, arresting a hot iron in mid air.
“He was.”
“When she gits done with him, you send him over here,” Myrtella brought
the iron down on the board with a thud. “If there is one person in the
world I'm layin' for it's a red-headed flood-sufferer.”
Norah on her way out encountered another visitor and turned back to
announce him:
“Git on to what Bertie has drawed out here! The craziest, dirtiest kid!
Puts me in mind of a egg on a couple of toothpicks!”
Myrtella, peering over her shoulder, suddenly scrambled down the steps.
“It's Chick!” she cried, beaming upon him. “How long you been here,
Chick?”
“And who's Chick?” asked Norah, instantly curious. “You seem to set a
great store by him! What ails the child? What's he pointin' at our house
for? Ain't he got a tongue in his head?”
“He has, though not so long as some folks. Chick! Bertie! Come in here!”
and without ceremony Myrtella swept them into the kitchen and slammed
the door in Norah's face.
Once within her stronghold, she first embraced Chick, then dragged him
forcibly to the sink, and subjected him to a vigorous scrubbing. Both
actions apparently bored him acutely, for he turned his soap-dimmed eyes
enviously upon the smaller boy who pranced about in transports of joy.
“We'll skate on the pavement!” Bertie was crying excitedly. “You can
have one skate, and I'll have the other and we'll see who can beat.”
“You won't do nothin' of the kind!” quoth Fate at the faucet. “I ain't
goin' to have you racin' 'round and gettin' het up and takin' cold.
Besides, you ain't big enough to keep up with Chick!” Then seeing the
disappointment her ultimatum had caused, she added, “if it wasn't for
you stickin' every thing up, I might make you some candy.”
“Oh, 'Tella! will you? 'Lasses candy? Ask him if he likes 'lasses
candy.”
Violent nods of affirmation from the steam-enveloped victim.
Myrtella had started with the simple ambition to wash Chick's face, but
the boundary line had proved troublesome. Whether she sharply defined
it, or attempted artistic effects in chiaroscuro the result was equally
unsatisfactory. Myrtella was nothing if not thorough; before she
finished with Chick, he was standing with his feet in a bucket, as clean
and wet and naked as a fish.
All this consumed time, and both boys were growing impatient, when a
peculiar noise from outside attracted their attention. To Chick, only,
the sound seemed to be familiar, for he laughed and wagged his head and
pointed to the yard.
“It sounds like hiccoughs!” said Bertie, his head on one side.
Myrtella's mouth closed like a trap. “I'll hiccough him!” she breathed
mysteriously, and leaving the children to watch the candy, she went out
on the porch and closed the door behind her.
Bertie, in his short kilts, with his feet curled up in a chair, watched
Chick with absorbed interest as he donned his ragged, dirty trousers.
A pair of purple suspenders that had once belonged to Mr. Flathers,
excited his special admiration.
“Say, Chick, have you got a partner?”
Chick nodded.
“You couldn't be partners with me, too, could you?”
A violent shake of the head.
“I didn't think you could with two fellows at once.” Bertie contemplated
the boiling candy thoughtfully. “I could get lots of partners if I
wasn't always sick. If you ever don't have the one you have got, could
you take me, Chick?”
Chick looked him over critically, stood him up and measured heights and
even felt his arm for muscle. Then he made a remark that while lacking
lucidity was nevertheless conclusive.
“But I'm going to get bigger,” urged Bertie.
“And I've got a music box, and a water pistol, and some marbles--”
At this Chick promptly produced a handful of marbles from his own
pocket, and signified, by many whispers and hisses, that he was
engaged in a wholesale and retail trade along that line, and open to
negotiations.
Bertie made a hurried trip to the nursery and returned with a neat blue
bag from which he poured treasures of agate and crystal.
Chick lost all interest in the candy. His professional reputation was at
stake. Never could he face the gang on Billy-goat Hill, if he failed to
fleece this lamb that Providence had so clearly thrust in his way.
Meanwhile Myrtella was exercising an elder sister's prerogative on the
back steps, and bestowing upon her brother what she modestly called a
piece of her mind.
For Phineas, in one of his periodical backslidings, had slid too far.
His ambition to excel as a regenerate had carried him out of the quiet
pastures of the Immanuel flock, into the more exhilarating battle-field
of the Salvation Army. Lured by the prospect of recounting his
experiences on a street corner to the accompaniment of an accordion, he
had forsaken the safe shelter of the Ladies' Aid, and sought new worlds
to conquer.
The experiment had not been a success. He was now, at the end of a
year, going from door to door, ragged and unkempt, playing the small
and uninteresting role of flood-sufferer. But Phineas' spirit soared
blithely above his circumstances. He even encouraged Myrtella in her
tirade against him, spurring her on to fresh effort, as the monks of
old! courted flagellation.
“That's right, Sis!” he urged, “you git it all out of your system. I
says to the lady next door, I says, what I need is a dressing down from
my good sister. She'll give me gussie, says I, then she'll light in an'
help me. That's her way, I says, there ain't a more generous person on
this terrestrial globe. I 'lowed maybe she'd be moved to follow your
example, but she wasn't. She handed me out a line of Sunday school talk
fer more 'n a hour, then she didn't give me nothin' but this here Bible,
an' me a starvin' man! I've ate a little of everything in my day, but
I'm skeered to risk my digestion on Deuteronomies and Psa'ms!”
“Well, you needn't come beggin' 'round here, and trackin' in the mud,”
announced Myrtella firmly. “I'm done with you! You had just as good a
chance to get on as me. I never ast favors of nobody; I went to work
an' hustled. What's more, I ain't goin' to stop 'til I get to be
a boardin'-house keeper. And what'll you be? A lazy, drunken,
good-for-nothin' sponge.”
Phineas, toying with his hat, suddenly sniffed the air and smiled.
“Molasses candy!” he exclaimed joyfully. “I couldn't git on to what was
making me feel so good. Say, Sis, you must 'a' knowed I was a-comin'.”
Myrtella stood in rigid disapproval on the top step and surveyed her
next of kin with such chilling contempt that he decided to change his
tactics.
“Honest, now, Sis, I never come to beg for nothin'. What I really come
for was to tell you 'bout our good luck.”
This move was so adroit that it caught Myrtella unawares, and elicited
a faint show of curiosity. “We never knowed it 'til last week,” Phineas
proceeded mysteriously, “an' we ain't mentioned it to nobody 'til we git
a parlor fitted up an' a sign painted.”
“What for?”
“Fer see-ances! There's been a Dago doctor, calls himself Professor
King, hangin' 'round the Hill, an' the minute he lays eyes on Maria
Flathers he seen she was a mejium. He give her four lessons fer a
dollar, an' she begin to hear raps an' bells ringin' the fifth settin'.
Last night she begin to move the furniture.”
“She must 'a' been in a trance!” exclaimed Myrtella. “I been knowin'
Maria about fourteen years an' I never heard of her movin' the
furniture. She can go to more pains to scrub around a table leg than any
one I ever knowed.”
But in spite of her scoffing, Myrtella was impressed. For many years
she had considered a visit to a spiritualist, or clairvoyant, one of her
wildest and most extravagant dissipations. The possibility of having a
medium in the family was a luxury not to be lightly dismissed.
“Where'd you git the money fer the lessons?” she demanded suddenly.
Phineas hesitated and was lost.
“You spent Chick's! He's as ragged as a scarecrow. Looks like he don't
get enough food to push his ribs out. I ketch you spendin' the money I
give him on sperrits, livin' or dead, an' I'll never give you another
cent!”
“Now, Sis, hold on! You didn't lemme finish. I'm thinkin' some
of running a undertaker's business, along in conjunction with the
see-ances. We could keep tab on the customers then, and build up a good
trade. All on earth we need is just a little capital, an' we'd be a
self-supportin' couple inside a week.”
So convincing were Phineas' arguments, that in the end Myrtella
consented to act as _deus ex machina_ for the new psychical venture, on
condition that Chick should be properly clothed, and fed, and made to go
to school.
This agreement having been arrived at, Myrtella reached for her broom,
and began such a vigorous attack on the steps, that Flathers was forced
to conclude that his presence could be cheerfully dispensed with. He
gathered himself up, slapped his hat on the side of his head, tucked his
Bible under his arm, and made a sweeping bow.
“Fare thee well, my own true love. Bring the money Saturday night, an'
Maria'll wind up the sperrits an' let 'em manifest fer you, free of
charge. Sorry I can't wait fer that molasses candy to git done. You
might send me some by Chick. Adiew!”
Myrtella stood, broom in hand, and watched the loose-jointed figure
slouch down the pavement and out the back gate. He was cheerfully
whistling the doxology, and his face wore the rapt expression of one