"Eh? Who? Your grandfather? Me? He, he, he!" He chuckled shrilly."No, no! No such luck.If I was Cap'n Lote Snow, I'd be some older'n I be now and a dum sight richer.Yes, yes.No, I'm Cap'n Lote's bookkeeper over at the lumber consarn.He's got a cold, and Olive--that's his wife--she said he shouldn't come out to-night.He said he should, and while they was Katy-didin' back and forth about it, Rachel--Mrs.Ellis--she's the hired housekeeper there--she telephoned me to harness up and come meet you up here to the depot.Er--er--little mite late, wan't I?""Why, yes, just a little.The other man, the one who drives the mail cart--I think that was what it was--said perhaps the horse was sick, or something like that.""No-o, no, that wan't it this time.I--er-- All tucked in and warm enough, be you? Ye-es, yes, yes.No, I'm to blame, Ishouldn't wonder.I stopped at the--at the store a minute and met one or two of the fellers, and that kind of held me up.All right now? Ye-es, yes, yes.G'long, gal."The buggy moved away from the platform.Its passenger, his chilly feet and legs tightly wrapped in the robes, drew a breath of relief between his chattering teeth.He was actually going somewhere at last; whatever happened, morning would not find him propped frozen stiff against the scarred and mangy clapboards of the South Harniss station.
"Warm enough, be you?" inquired his driver cheerfully.
"Yes, thank you."
"That's good, that's good, that's good.Ye-es, yes, yes.Well--er-- Frederick, how do you think you're goin' to like South Harniss?"The answer was rather non-committal.The boy replied that he had not seen very much of it as yet.His companion seemed to find the statement highly amusing.He chuckled and slapped his knee.
"Ain't seen much of it, eh? No-o, no, no.I guess you ain't, guess you ain't.He, he, he...Um...Let's see, what was Italkin' about?"
"Why, nothing in particular, I think, Mr.--Mr.--""Didn't I tell you my name? Sho, sho! That's funny.My name's Keeler--Laban B.Keeler.That's my name and bookkeeper is my station.South Harniss is my dwellin' place--and I guess likely you'll have to see the minister about the rest of it.He, he, he!"His passenger, to whom the old schoolbook quatrain was entirely unknown, wondered what on earth the man was talking about.
However, he smiled politely and sniffed with a dawning suspicion.
It seemed to him there was an unusual scent in the air, a spirituous scent, a--"Have a peppermint lozenger," suggested Mr.Keeler, with sudden enthusiasm."Peppermint is good for what ails you, so they tell me.Ye-es, yes, yes.Have one.Have two, have a lot."He proceeded to have a lot himself, and the buggy was straightway reflavored, so to speak.The boy, his suspicions by no means dispelled, leaned back in the corner behind the curtains and awaited developments.He was warmer, that was a real physical and consequently a slight mental comfort, but the feeling of lonesomeness was still acute.So far his acquaintanceship with the citizens of South Harniss had not filled him with enthusiasm.They were what he, in his former and very recent state of existence, would have called "Rubes." Were the grandparents whom he had never met this sort of people? It seemed probable.What sort of a place was this to which Fate had consigned him? The sense of utter helplessness which had had him in its clutches since the day when he received the news of his father's death was as dreadfully real as ever.He had not been consulted at all.No one had asked him what he wished to do, or where he wished to go.The letter had come from these people, the Cape Cod grandparents of whom, up to that time, he had never even heard, and he had been shipped to them as though he were a piece of merchandise.And what was to become of him now, after he reached his destination? What would they expect him to do? Or be? How would he be treated?
In his extensive reading--he had been an omnivorous reader--there were numerous examples of youths left, like him, to the care of distant relatives, or step-parents, or utter strangers.Their experiences, generally speaking, had not been cheerful ones.Most of them had run away.He might run away; but somehow the idea of running away, with no money, to face hardship and poverty and all the rest, did not make an alluring appeal.He had been used to comfort and luxury ever since he could remember, and his imagination, an unusually active one, visualized much more keenly than the average the tribulations and struggles of a runaway.David Copperfield, he remembered, had run away, but he did it when a kid, not a man like himself.Nicholas Nickleby--no, Nicholas had not run away exactly, but his father had died and he had been left to an uncle.It would be dreadful if his grandfather should turn out to be a man like Ralph Nickleby.Yet Nicholas had gotten on well in spite of his wicked relative.Yes, and how gloriously he had defied the old rascal, too! He wondered if he would ever be called upon to defy his grandfather.He saw himself doing it--quietly, a perfect gentleman always, but with the noble determination of one performing a disagreeable duty.His chin lifted and his shoulders squared against the back of the buggy.
Mr.Keeler, who had apparently forgotten his passenger altogether, broke into song, "She's my darlin' hanky-panky And she wears a number two, Her father keeps a barber shop Way out in Kalamazoo."He sang the foregoing twice over and then added a chorus, plainly improvised, made up of "Di doos" and "Di dums" ad lib.And the buggy rolled up and over the slope of a little hill and, in the face of a screaming sea wind, descended a long, gentle slope to where, scattered along a two-mile water frontage, the lights of South Harniss twinkled sparsely.
