OUR
NATUPSKI
NEIGHBORS
BY EDITH
MINITER
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OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
OUR
NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
BY
EDITH MINITER
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published October, 1916
THE CUINN il BOOEN CO. CRESS
Co
J. E. T. D.
Who Made These Stories Possible
2137271
CONTENTS
SPARROWS, GYPSY MOTHS AND SUCH
CHAPT
ER
PAGE
I
MRS. NATUPSKI
3
II
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE
. . 18
III
ABNER S TRY
3Q
IV
Two OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH ....
- - 63
V
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE
. . 89
VI
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY
. - 103
VII
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE)
. . 131
VIII
A SNOOT AT THE LAW
tA t
V J.J.A
THE SECOND GENERATION
*t-J
I
POTS AND KETTLES
163
II
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON .
. 182
III
Miss ANNIE S. NATUPSKI
. 2O4
IV
SUCH A CHANCE ........
. 22O
V
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS
237
VI
A MERICAN MARRIAGE . . .
. 254
VII
LATHER AND FLOWERS
. 276
VIII
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? ....
293
IX
OLD BILLS TO PAY
. 310
X
LORDS OF THE LAND
327
SPARROWS, GYPSY MOTHS
AND SUCH
MRS. NATUPSKI
MRS. NATUPSKI looked skyward from a narrow street
in a great European seaport. She counted the windows.
Three perhaps four. She walked up three flights of
stairs to reach her room, but it was difficult to under
stand if that made the number of windows, counting
from the pavement, three or four. Where she had come
from there had been no tall buildings, like this one near
the docks. She must not make a mistake. If four there
would have to be a longer rope. Still, it was foolish to
waste money on one too long. Better pay the landlord
and be done with it.
Wrapping her skirt about the ring of bread which
hung over her arm, she pulled herself up the three flights.
The room she entered was a mere crevice among many
which the house held for the accommodation of those
seeking temporary shelter before sailing. A bed was in
it, a chair and a child. On the wall a black and red
poster announced sailings of the Hamburg-American
line. Mrs. Natupski could not read this, but the dates
were not only impressed on her mind those already
passed had been marked in pencil. " Kronprincessin
Caecilie " was two weeks gone. It was the boat with
which her train had connected the last of the trains
which had brought her from Poland.
She had been all impatience to leave Poland. Hardly
3
4 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
could she attend to the vociferous farewells of relatives,
who gathered in numbers the day she left her own town.
They knew well enough she did not hear, but they had
forgiven she had ears only for the call across the sea.
The strained look of the listener never left her eyes even
when she automatically answered the questions of
wonder-crazed Stanislarni, the four-year-old now
balanced upon his stomach and the window-sill, trying
to catch a view of life in the alley from which his
mother had just come.
She snatched his legs in a quick frenzy which seemed
more anger than fear, gave him a couple of blows that
would have felled an adult carefully reared; then fold
ing him in her arms sat and choked him with mother love.
It was a hot afternoon. The still air held sounds as in
a solution the squalling of lots of babies, gruff voices
of men answering the shrill complaints of women, in
many dialects; street cries from a neighboring square.
" Hell " cried Mrs. Natupski, darting her beady
eyes upon the child, who seemed drowsing.
He straightened his little back, and lisped the word
after her. " L ! " His mother shook him.
" Mowie ze me! Hell "
His second attempt was better. She went on, " O ! "
His baby mouth pursed into a round, and Mrs. Natupski
swooped toward him as if to give reward in the form of
a kiss, then as suddenly desisted, and broke into Polish
speech. The child nodded, and made the best he could of
the greeting he was being taught.
" Hell-o, pa-pa ! " It sounded like the work of a badly
worn phonograph record. Mrs. Natupski thought it was
pretty good. She hushed him when a step came outside
MRS. NATUPSKI 5
the door, however, but it was not the landlord. She
might save the seven marks yet.
The child said he was hungry and she gave him some
of the bread. She would eat none until later. That
way supper made breakfast.
They would be surprised, those relations in Poland, if
they could know she had not gone in the first boat. Nor
yet in the second. Perhaps she would not go in the
" Augusta Victoria," which sailed next. She crossed her
self, then tumbled Stanislarni into bed without any pre
liminary undressing, and proceeded to count her money.
It was tied into strange parts of her clothing, and she
kept each lot separate, in a little pile on the chair. This
on the right Kani had sent at Christmas. The sum was
not large. It came in the letter where he had said Lowell
in America was a lonely place and he wanted to see his
little Stanislarni. The other sum, much larger, had come
from the dealer who sold for her all she had except the
clothing she and Stanislarni were wearing, and the things
in the canvas extension case under the bed.
She had feared it might be necessary to wait in this
city; the farewell gift of Uncle Vladimir to Stanislarni
was to pay for that. As it had paid, those coins were
now missing. She had not thought it would be so long
a wait a week and then more weeks. How Wardi had
cried when she learned Mrs. Natupski was not going on
the " Kronprincessin Caecilie." Wardi was a girl she had
made friends with on the train, who bought sweet things
for Stanislarni. Wardi had an incredible sum sewed
into the top of her stocking leg, and longed to spend it,
because, as she explained, her man had done well in
America, and would be at that place called Ellis Island
6 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
with much more. Some did pick up coins in the Ameri
can streets, it seemed, though poor Kani was not one.
Stanislarni was lying on his back, his mouth wide open
in a manner that would raise suspicion of adenoids once
he was adopted into his future country. Mrs. Natupski
thought she too would go to bed, and rose from the
floor, where she had been squatting worshiping the
money in the chair. Straightening up, a pang shot
through her. She could barely repress a scream. Then
it passed, and she realized the time had come to con
tinue her journey. Only she had to work carefully, and
save the seven marks ticket agents would not sell a
pfennig short ! She took a coil of rope from under her
bolster and fastened it beneath Stanislarni s armpits,
shamelessly padding the child with sheets and blankets.
The extension case she fastened some distance from the
end of the rope, with a double loop. And then, having
frightened the little one into probable silence by an ac
count of the fearful vengeances awaiting him should
he make the slightest noise, she pushed him from the
window, as a mother bird shoves her young from the
nest.
Was the rope long enough? The time came when
there was some slack. Suppose he had stopped upon a
lower window ledge, should fall to the street and be
killed? Another pang! She tied the rope to the foot of
the bed, and went out, locking the door. The landlord,
whom she met in the lower hall, kept on smoking his
porcelain pipe serenely. He did not mind her coming and
going, since she always left her child in the room. When
she took the boy would be time to ask if that remittance
had arrived. At the supper table he enjoyed his pumper-
MRS. NATUPSKI 7
nickel and beer, and did not know he had lost seven
marks.
Stanislarni and the extension case were within reach,
in the alley. Five minutes later Mrs. Natupski was lay
ing down the money for a third-class passage to New
York. The agent saw she was pale, and, in her own
tongue, bade her cheer up, it would soon be over. He
spoke as of an ordeal, but to Mrs. Natupski all woe was
passed. She had planned wisely, and Stanislarni s little
brother would be born in the hospital of the big ship,
where were comforts of which Mrs. Natupski had heard,
but which she yet dimly comprehended : good food well,
she could understand that midwives in starched clothes
men doctors white beds; and no need to move for a
fortnight. She had got up and cooked Kani s supper
two hours after Stanislarni s birth. And nothing to pay
nothing at all ! It was certainly worth the waiting.
They etherized her, for no luxuries are denied those
who buy a $15 passage to the land of the free. Her last
thought was of Kani. He would be no longer lonesome
in that Lowell of America. Nor poor, even if he had
missed finding money as did Wardi s man. The hundred
dollars with which one bribed the great country was, she
knew, returned. The sum was just as you gave it, and
Kani should have it all; except, of course, what was
needed to take one to that Lowell in America
In the meantime, Kani had left Lowell and had gone
first to Mifflin Grove, then to West Holly, a small town
fifteen miles distant. He took Olka with him. He had
married her at New Year, perhaps because the weather
was cold, probably in order to have a woman when he
8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
should secure that farm which was the goal of his am
bition. Kani had not forgotten Marinki in Poland. He
had felt the truth when he wrote about wanting to see his
little Stanislarni. At Christmas time he even made in
quiries as to the cost of bringing over a woman and two
children. He knew there would be two by the following
summer.
Yes, he would have liked to see Marinki and Stanis
larni especially Stanislarni. But to spend all that
money ! It would mean putting off buying the farm for
a whole year. It would be foolish. So he took Olka
for wife, and with Olka her savings. Combined with
his own, which might otherwise have been squandered in
steamship tickets, a first payment was made on the Jud-
son Buckland place, in West Holly.
Mrs. Buckland had been ten years trying to sell her
rickety house and one hundred barren acres. Kani
thought he was shrewd to buy from a woman, who
would, of course, be easy to cheat. He could scarcely be
lieve in his own fortune when the place became his.
And Mrs. Buckland pinched herself as she drove from
the lawyer s with two hundred dollars cash and a mort
gage note. Those Polanders were sure great workers,
she reflected.
She would get her interest quarterly, even if she oc
casionally took a crop for it.
One October evening, three months after Mrs.
Natupski so skilfully took ship from Europe, Kani
Natupski and his Olka sat gloating on the steps of their
new home, which was a very old house, weather-beaten
by half a century of New England winters, warped by an
equal number of draughty summers. The windows rat-
MRS. NATUPSKI 9
tied, the doors sagged, the chimney needed topping off,
there were huge wasps nests under the front gable, squir
rels had gnawed great holes in the roof, and rats ran
everywhere. Kani thought it perfection.
Night was near at hand, that was why he was not
working. By and by he might light the lantern and go
out to the barn, where he would give the horse a beating
and several quarts too much grain. This excessive
generosity, in addition to corn on the ear, would ulti
mately founder a fine animal, but Kani was blissfully
ignorant of the assured result. He must feed the cow,
too; the one from which Mr. Bowes had offered to buy
future calves. Mr. Bowes was in the veal-producing
line, and a great aid to other farmers who supplied
creamery milk. Natupski would none of him.
" No calf," he had replied with great decision to the
querist on the other side of the barb wire. " My cow
have no calf. Can t stop have calf. Me need milk. All
time."
Why did Mr. Bowes laugh?
Kani could hear the cow lowing expectantly while he
took the ragged sweater from Olka s shoulders and
wrapped it about his own. Cousin Nick Kovinski, who
sat with them, frowned, but Kani did not mean a cruelty.
He was dispassionately considering the greatest good.
The air had a tang. It would be very bad if he, the man
and the worker, should take a chill and be sick. Cousin
Nicholas was young, besides his was the disadvantage
of American birth. When he should marry Olka s sister
and buy a farm he would doubtless be glad to assume
the good Polish way of woman ruling. He had spoken
already of a liking for the place next door, whence came
io OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
those whiffs of vinegar and spices that stood for Nancy
Slocumb s piccalil.
The Natupskis had a good smell of their own, too.
They were burning brush. Kani grinned when he looked
at the blazing mass, from which a slender gray smoke
went heavenward, after curling about the topmost twigs,
as if loath to leave. He was thinking of the fine after
noon s work he had done, grubbing up that topmost bush.
It grew in a corner of the homelot, of a tallness to his
shoulder when he stood on the wall, and it had little red
leaves all over it. Just meant to be pretty, of course, it
would have to go. He had denuded the house of the
woodbine and the wistaria which softened its ugly angles,
and made short work of the syringas and lilacs by the
door.
He knew what trouble they caused, in the spring; he
had seen it on his first trip of inspection, made the previ
ous May. Folks came along and broke off branches and
said, " Pretty, pretty." He didn t want them to say
" Pretty, pretty," in front of his house. He wanted
them to say, " Natupski, he rich. Natupski, big farm,
plenty children."
Here was the farm, the children were just beginning.
He cast a glance of something remotely related to affec
tion at little Statia, two weeks old, who lay on Olka s
knee. Then he began to tell about grubbing up the
red-leaved bush.
Oh, how he had worked, with crowbar and spade and
his bare hands. Proudly he exhibited many wounds.
Mr. Slocumb and his man had tried to keep him from
working, too. They had talked very fast and loud, using
many English words which he did not know. Only he
MRS. NATUPSKI u
did know they begged him not to destroy the bush. For
some reason they did not want to see it go. By and by
Mr. Slocumb himself had yelled very loud and jumped
right over the barb wire, and grabbed the spade. But
he, Natupski, got the better of the old fellow. With a
kick he did it. And displayed two rows of handsome
white teeth as he grinned thereat. Oh, if he kept on as
he began, and had many children to help him, he would
show those people a fine farm and a rich farmer.
He had no suspicion it was the Judson Buckland crack
swamp blueberry bush he had destroyed the one which
yielded bushels of prime salable berries every summer.
Blueberries he had not known in Poland. He was in
America to get rich, that seemed necessary, but he had
no idea of accepting American advice.
The holocaust of values continued, and Kani, rising,
tucked his shirt into the waistband of his trousers, for
one had to make that much concession to American prej
udice when crossing the road, and started toward the
barn. He turned and reminded Olka that she had yet to
pursue and shut up the chickens. Half a hundred of
them, practically nude of feathers, were squawking al
ways about the premises, in the house as likely as not,
and helping themselves from the barrels of stale bread
which served as chief article of food alike for family and
poultry. Supplemented by astringent cider it kept the
breath of life in Kani, and had enabled Olka to nourish
Statia, but it would not put plumage on the chickens.
Kani was untroubled by the fact, evident to all the
neighborhood not named Natupski, that the little things
would turn up their toes and peep their last peep at the
first real sharp weather.
12 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
The woman gained her feet and began to call " Cheek,
cheek," then stopped to gaze at another woman who was
standing in front of the house. She was not very young-
looking, this other woman, but perhaps this was because
her hair was unkempt, and her eyes sunken in a sallow
face. She wore a gay and filthy costume which Olka,
at the door, knew was made in Poland. Olka herself
had American clothes a 39-cent kimono above a
crinkled seersucker petticoat; and she pulled her hair
over a wire roll with rhinestone-set side combs. She
observed with scorn the full skirt of chocolate woolen,
the little fringed shawl embroidered in a floral design
perhaps Polish certainly America had no such green
roses and purple foliage the clumsy jewelry and silk
head scarf. The stranger carried on one hip a solemn-
eyed infant, and on the other hip balanced a gray ex
tension case, extended to its full extent. By her side
walked a boy. His shoes were sheathed in copper, his
flapping trousers were of cotton stuff, turned dirt color,
and above them was a tattered apron. He too bore a
burden, a small bundle, wrapped in black oilcloth.
The newcomer leaned against the fence, resting the
child and the extension case alternately, as if unable to
decide which gave greater relief.
Kani had paused in the road and was still fumbling at
his shirt. A mere lad he seemed, for he was slight of
figure, blonde, and with the ingenuous, direct gaze of
one whose aims in life were simple.
The foreign-looking woman pushed the older child
with her foot, exhibiting a Congress gaiter having its
elastic gores worn threadbare. Thus reminded, the lad
repeated a lesson he had been weary months learning.
MRS. NATUPSKI 13
" Hell-o, pa-pa ! " he cried, mechanically. And as the
man only continued to stare, he repeated, " Hell-o,
pa-pa ! "
Kani struck his hands to his forehead.
"God! God!" he shouted.
It was not bewilderment at the presence of the two
women he had married, though Mr. and Mrs. Slocumb
would have thought so. It was sheer amazement at the
fact that little Stanislarni should be capable of coming
to America and addressing him in the English tongue.
Still, he was in a fix, and after a few moments realized
the fact. Marinki, by the road, and Olka, at the door
he must now lose one or the other. He did not feel in
any way to blame for the way things had turned out;
only Marinki was to blame. He could not send her
money to come to America because he was using his
money to buy the farm. With a farm there must be a
woman, and if your Polish wife stops in Poland you take
one near at hand. But those two beautiful children, and
Stanislarni a big boy ! Olka had only had a girl. Kani,
standing in the road, third in the immortal triangle,
mentally put the child to work that very instant.
" Up, Stanislarni, it is almost morning. Quick, to
the barn, you carrying one pail and I three; see, you
save me a trip back that way. Now, Stanislarni, up
through the little hole in the platform; you are small and
can go there, so I need not climb the ladder. Throw
down hay, much hay, oh, much more than that. Now
run with me to the bread bin, take this and throw to the
chickens ah, you like that. You laugh to see them all
come running. I must milk now, and you can carry in
chips for the fire; and by and by you shall go to the
i 4 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
field with me, and after I have stuck the fork into the
hill of potatoes you shall creep up and put them into the
basket. I will teach you to follow the cows, too, and
wave a stick, you can run after them, and be just as
much use as that big dog the folks named Perkins are
so proud of. I saw the woman break a loaf in two and
give both parts to him one day. Just think, a whole loaf
of bread, and a dog, only good for chasing cows and bark
ing when folks pass. So come on, Stanislarni; and when
your legs shake because you are tired, I will not beat you
very hard, for you are my first-born, and I love you
much."
Olka came to the fence and looked scornfully at the
old greenhorn. Did she want work? Was she some
relation to Kani, that he never told her about ? The boy
tentatively ran out his tongue at Olka. The latter thought
his mother encouraged him by another furtive kick.
As the most cutting thing she could say she remarked
to Kani, in their own tongue, " One would think that
old woman looked on you as her husband."
Kani, moistening his lips with his tongue a couple of
times, replied simply, " She does."
Olka burst into a torrent of Polish vituperation, skil
fully embroidered with English filth.
Mrs. Natupski lifted her head and listened. Then she
proudly reassumed her two hip burdens, called Stanislarni
sharply, and turned on her way. Kani s jaw dropped.
He ran after her.
" Come back ! You come back ! " he yelled. Then he
pursued her, shouting explanations. " You too far !
Me all alone. Me here all alone. Come back. Stanis
larni come back."
MRS. NATUPSKI 15
He tried to speak English. Perhaps he thought the
child did not understand Polish. When he caught up to
them he ran alongside and continually repeated his frag
ments of pleading. The woman trudged right on, but
the child, already weary, began to lag and whimper; let
go his hold on his mother s skirts and half turned.
" Pairs! " he cried, pointing at the house.
As in a pillar of fire Olka stood by the burning bush.
Whether she had tried to follow, and had carelessly
pulled her flimsy kimono through the blaze, or if she
had not cared for life, knowing herself deceived, Kani
Natupski was never to be told. Cousin Nicholas saved
her from the result of whatever accident or purpose
there was. Whipping off his coat, a roomy old ulster
inside which he had been shivering in the sharp air, he
rolled her on the ground, from which she was then helped
up unhurt.
The burning bush, perhaps exasperated at loss of its
prey, blazed with extra fury; by its light Olka and
Nicholas exchanged a few rapid words and then sepa
rated, he going barnward, she entering the house. Im
mediately, in the glare, Nicholas could be seen leading
out the noble black horse for which Kani was still in
debted two notes of three and six months each at six and
a half and five per cent. Attached thereto was the shin
ing wagon for which he had forwarded the proceeds of
the owen to South Bend, Ind. The harness had already
been put in place. Kani was settling for the harness on
the basis of $2.50 a month.
At her child s exclamation Marinki had whirled about,
she even joined Kani in panting up the hill down which
she had marched so proudly. Seeing them coming,
16 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Cousin Nicholas gave a sharp call, whereat Olka stumbled
out of the house. With one hand she held firmly on her
head a mass of lace curtains and stringy plumes, the
thing that had been her wedding hat. With the other
hand she fumbled at the fastenings of her $6.98 bargain
wedding gown. She walked unsteadily because she had
thrust her toes into French-heeled slippers. A pair of
striped stockings green and a near-silk petticoat, corn
color, hung on her arm. Nicholas lost no time boosting
her (and his concertina) into the wagon. Following over
the tailboard he grabbed the reins and drove off in too
much of a hurry to sit down. Both yelling derision, and
Olka helping what she could by plying the whip, they
vanished from the vision of Mrs. Natupski.
As for Kani, he was employed running hither and
yon, crying excitedly, " Statia, my little Statia, where
she gone, where she gone?"
Marinki believed him bewailing that other woman.
She could not keep a dignified scorn from her gesture,
as she pointed over the brow of the hill, where wheel
tracks would be seen come morning. But Kani had
suddenly begun to laugh. " Here she s, here she s ! " he
bellowed, finding the baby sleeping on the step. Olka
had chosen what she thought the better part. Lacking
time to assemble both her infant and her fine clothes,
she went with the clothes. They should help her to a
new husband. The baby would not do that, unless she
took another Polander of the old fashion. Feeling the
breath of Cousin Nick on her neck she didn t believe she
would so choose.
Kani had but one idea in recovering his offspring, to
shoot it into the arms of Marinki. They closed mechani-
MRS. NATUPSKI 17
cally about the little gift. At the same time the almost
three months older Wajeiceh, whose native sod was a
steerage cabin, slid off her hip. He landed on the ground
with a thump and set up an astounded yell. His baby
hood had been brought to an abrupt end, but he did not
know that was why he cried.
Mrs. Natupski picked him up, with half an arm, and
followed her husband and Stanislarni into the house. It
had been a long journey from Poland, not to speak of the
weary search for Kani which began with that Lowell in
America, and had only just ended in West Holly. So
many were the adventures that this great one at the last
loomed no larger than the wonders of the tiled bath on
ship, or constant marmalade for breakfast.
Dropping wearily into the broken rocking-chair which
Mrs. Judson Buckland had not thought worth moving,
and baring her bosoms to the two infants, " Siedziec w
domu" ("I am come home"), said Mrs. Natupski.
II
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE
ALL was soon as peaceful in the Natupski mansion
as could be any house that contained two infants under
twelve weeks of age. Mrs. Natupski complacently per
formed the duties of a mother. Kani drudged as a beast
of burden but for occasional detours into the stable,
where he hugged Stanislarni and then beat him for not
properly cleaning the cow-pen. A fork had been put
into the boy s hand, as the proper implement for a four-
year-old.
Not so did peace reign in any other part of West
Holly. The disturbance began with Nancy Slocumb at
the breakfast table with her husband.
" You know the Polanders, Abner," she said, while
dishing out fried pork and cream gravy.
He nodded, grinned, and put his hand sympathetically
on a lump which Kani Natupski s shoe had raised during
the altercation over the blueberry bush.
"You recollect the wife he had yesterday?"
" Guess I can manage to keep a good-looking woman
in my mind so long."
" Don t be coarse, Abner ! Well, there s a wife there
today, but she s the spitting image of somebody else."
" Shucks ! " said Abner, allowing two extra spoonfuls
of sugar to cover the four already in his cup, and hoping
Nance would put this prodigality down as due to ex-
18
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 19
citement. " How d ye know so much ? Maybe it s a
walkess come to help out. The baby was born a fort
night since."
" Don t tell me. If they d been going to have hired
help they d have got one first thing. Besides, there s
another mystery. The baby s two-three months old."
Abner considered that impossible.
" Fact," continued Nancy, " for I slipped up on the
stoop when nobody was round. It lay in the rocker, I
poked my finger into its mouth, and it was cutting a
tooth!"
" A feller in English history or Shakespeare was born
with em," Abner volunteered, but Nancy cared nothing
for the past, being wholly concerned with the immediate
present in West Holly. Something, she declared, must
be done, and at once. These foreigners came to live
nigh us, and as like as not they were used to being
Mormons " or worse " in their own country. And it
was a man s place to investigate.
Whereupon Nancy walked to the telephone and called
up Mrs. Perkins, Mrs. Blanchard Bowes, Mrs. Hiram
Farrar, and all her other female neighbors, in order that
they might convey these suspicions to their men folks
in properly lurid style. In the meantime Abner went
about the matter man fashion, for he looked over the
fence at Kani Natupski and after speaking of the
weather, politics, winter coming on and how chilly it
was getting nights, to each of which the reply was an
unmitigated " Yah ! " he came out with, " Got company
to your house ? "
" Wife. Lil boy. Baby," said Natupski. " In ship,
from Poland. Me glad."
20 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Abner sat down hard, got up quickly to see where he
had split the fence rail, and dragged himself into the
presence of Nancy, where he was obliged to gratify her
with the intelligence that she had been almost right.
At the same moment the appearance of Mrs. Natupski on
the piazza with an infant draped over each arm solved
another mystery.
Public opinion was soon roused against the mischievous
foreign element, and while Kani and Marinki continued
their labors as packmule and mother and foster mother,
West Holly adorned them with various titles, not even
sparing that of " murderer." The poor young woman,
Olka, it was declared, might be even then weltering in
her gore down cellar, or at least pining away in the
garret. When the men sneered at these theories, the
women retorted to effect that " Such things did happen,
so now, and not only in Mrs. Southworth s novels. Look
in your daily papers! "
Suspicions of violence departed when Olka took to
driving about with Nicholas Kovinski in the buggy that
had been Natupski s, after the once Natupski nag, but
this made the moral aspect of the affair more shocking
than before.
West Holly was an ordinary piece of a large town,
set apart for something akin to self-government because
of a huge sparsely inhabited hill which intervened be
tween it and all the rest of Holly. To get anywhere you
went a long way around the mountain. Really, this bit
of a settlement should have attached itself to Lansing
or Hamson, both towns being much nearer than were
Holly Centre or Holly Depot, but it clung tenaciously
to Holly, perhaps in order to swell with pride when-
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 21
ever any one mentioned Holly Academy, where no West
Hollyite of the older generation but Blanchard Bowes
ever essayed to go, and he was expelled in one term for
coaxing a calf to the upper floor of the female dormitory.
West Holly considered itself a village all complete. It
had a church and graveyard, but no grocery, whereby one
obtains a perfect picture of the kind of a place it was. The
church was one door wide and two windows deep. The
minister was a non-resident, borrowed for Sunday after
noons from the Methodists of Hamson. There was a
good sheriff, however, always available unless he had
over-addicted himself to hard cider; and Blanchard
Bowes was land surveyor, fence-viewer, hog reeve,
justice of the peace, and sole owner of a painted barn
with a cupola and weathervane.
Not being devoid of modern literature or a woman s
club, West Holly knew other places wrestled with an
" immigrant problem," but the Natupski problem was
its own and its first. West Holly, not ungleefully, pro
ceeded to wrestle.
It was decided not to speak to the Rev. Mr. Skeele,
because, in a way, as Mrs. Sabrina Perkins pointed out,
he too was a foreigner, having been born in Nova Scotia.
Besides, he lived in Hamson, and West Holly didn t want
its scandals spread all over the county,- Mrs. Perkins
was strong for " haling " the wicked Polander before
justice, and putting him through a regular trial. Say,
at the schoolhouse some evening, when the chores were
done up. She and the other women could lend a lamp
apiece, and Mr. Bowes might preside. Natupski had
picked up considerable English, however he did it so
quick, and she guessed between em all they could under-
22
stand what he might have to say for himself. Not that
there was anything in his defense to be said. It was
perfectly evident that he had deceived that poor young
creature, Olka, and now deprived her even of her child.
A mother s heart always cleaved clave clove how
ever you put it to her child. Look at the divorce cases
when all the quarrel was over how to divide the children.
Sometimes the other party kidnapped em, too. It meant
something, the way she and the Kovinski fellow rode up
and down the highway.
Six West Holly men met at the watering trough one
afternoon, and while waiting for precedence, the matter
of Mr. Natupski and the two Natupski women came up.
" My women folks," grunted Blanchard Bowes, " de
clare he ought to be convicted and tried. Yes, that s the
correct order, according to their way of putting it."
" Mrs. Perkins," observed Sabrina s husband, " con
siders them a disgrace to the neighborhood. Says we ll
be a byword to the rest of the town unless we take
some sort of action."
Three nods from as many heads indicated the preva
lence of Mrs. Perkins opinions. Abner Slocumb drove
up last.
" How s your wife feel ? " asked Mr. Bowes. " You re
the nighest to the seat of war and should have the
strongest opinions."
" My wife s way of thinking," said Abner, " is just
like every other woman s. She wouldn t want to be
caught out of style, whether twas matter of a bunnet or
state o mind."
" Great pity," remarked Bowes, " that Mrs. Judson
Buckland sold out. If she hadn t been in such a hurry
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 23
to turn her land into cash and move to the depot, she d
likely have had a real good offer from some party that d
been an addition to the neighborhood. But women are
always carried away with novelty."
Each man hastened to agree to this, which, as a general
proposition, might be true, though it hardly applied to
Mrs. Buckland, whose farm had been in the market ten
years, without a taker, before the arrival of Kani
Natupski.
Mr. Perkins objected chiefly to the inevitable lowering
of what he referred to as " West Holly standards."
" Say you have company from the city," he explained,
" and you hitch up and take em round to show em
West Holly is getting to amount to something these days.
You point out the Blanchard Bowes peach orchard, and
tell how many men and dogs patrol night times when
the peaches is most ripe, and their eyes begin to stick out.
Then you go on to Abner Slocumb s and they take in the
bay windows and iron stag in the front yard and the
squirting fountain with the boy and girl under an um
brella, and they have to allow ain t anything tastier or
more fancy in the city itself. So far so good, but then
it s necessary to drive past Natupski s, and after that
you ve got to cave in. Every bit of green grubbed up,
house spilling filth, and the whole family certain sure to
be walking round half dressed. No use to take em
further. They won t believe we know how to live like
folks when we tolerate such a human hog-pen on our
main-traveled road."
" And what it will be when those children get school
age I shudder to think of," observed Hiram Farrar, who
boarded the teacher and always had the inside history of
24 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
how the educational system, with or without vertical
penmanship, was working on the baker s dozen of West
Holly pupils.
" Be we men or mice? " piped up the sixth man in so
shrill a voice that every person and some horses jumped.
Solomon Russell sat well hidden under the hood of his
low-topped buggy. He and his little chunk were never
aggressive. The horse was only beginning to sip what
water remained after the voracious tall animals had
been satisfied. All six men were coming from the cider
mill. Five long wagons were laden with barrels. Solo
mon had only a modest cask, coyly hidden under a plush
lap robe.
Solomon had never married ; he lived alone, in a house
he had inherited, and spent most of his time driving
around pleading poverty. As he dressed neatly and
plead in a low, refined voice, he was generally successful
in obtaining concessions. The hire of a yoke of oxen
and a plow, $5 a day to every one else, was only $3.75
to Solomon, with a stout boy thrown in to hold the
plow. Naturally Solomon Russell would not approve of
Kani Natupski, whose idea of farming was one of
personal hard labor. So, " Be we men or mice? " piped
up the old bachelor.
" What s your meaning? " asked Blanchard Bowes.
" Be we going to stand this invasion or be we going
to drive em out, first thing, before any more gets in?
America for the Americans, is my cry. I got it from
father. He was a Know-Nothing and left a lot of read
ing about that party which is just as good now as then.
There, I ve said my say. If I was a next-door neighbor,
like Slocumb, or had land adjoining, as you, Bowes, it
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 25
wouldn t be long before there was a vacant house where
Natupski s is. What s law and order for? Be we men
or mice ? "
Feeling he had made a neat speech, Solomon cramped
his wheels, turned in an incredibly small mud puddle, and
sent the little chunk pattering away while the impression
was good.
The other men likewise departed, after registering a
vague opinion that something must be done to cut this
festering canker out of the otherwise pure body politic of
West Holly.
Abner Slocumb, almost at home, met Mrs. Judson
Buckland, whose old calico horse was droning down the
road at its own gait, while the driver exulted over a
wad of money which she was spreading over her capa
cious lap, irrespective of danger from what highway
robbers might infest West Holly.
Mrs. Buckland was the free-and-easy sort. " Hullo,
there," she bawled, " look at all the nasty greenbacks
Natupski s paid me quarter s interest, right on the nail.
Took em out of his boot hope they ll hold together till
I can get em to the bank. I started to show em to your
wife, and make her green with envy, but she just squealed
* germs and bolted the door."
" All dollar bills? " asked Abner.
" Sure. The poor runt can t pick up much but chicken
feed this time of year. If I d sold to an American he d
have held me off till next season s crops, and I d been
just the soft-hearted fool to let him."
Abner, only too well aware that he was generally ready
to beg for time when the interest was due on his mort
gage, smiled in a sickly manner and as Solomon Russell
26 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
half an hour earlier mentally hoped Natupski wasn t
setting what was to become a West Holly fashion.
Mrs. Buckland went on gloating. " Overpaid me, too,
into three dollars, on account of the bills sticking to
gether, as I ve just found out. I think he saw it just as
I drove down the road, for he came through the house
roaring something in his jargon which I thought best
not to hear. Then, judging from the sounds, he went in
and beat his wife. Say, ain t she aged rapidly? My
eyesight ain t very good, and these foreign faces never
make much impression on me, but honest to goodness
she didn t seem to me the same woman I got a glimpse of
last July. And where do they get such a snarl of young
ones?"
Abner escaped without explaining things to the volatile
Mrs. Buckland. She was too good a gossip to be trusted
with West Holly s closet skeleton.
When he was safely beyond hailing distance he turned
and watched Mrs. Buckland and her outfit disappear.
The horse being piebald, her buggy painted yellow with
red running-gear, and her attire a pink and green-striped
shirtwaist above a blue plaid skirt, there was a total im
pression as of a crazy quilt borne away by a sluggish
wind.
" Always a darn nice neighbor," mused Abner, " for
borrowing saleratus and such. And I don t think it s
improved her one mite having become a creditor. Took
three dollars over and above her due ! "
Abner pulled a neat pocketbook from his vest and
inspected the contents. There were exactly three one-
dollar bills. And what different bills from those Mrs.
Buckland bore away from Natupski s! Nancy Slocumb
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 27
washed and dried every piece of paper money that came
into her house the specie had to stand a good scouring
with whiting and later polishing under chamois skin.
Abner s three bills looked so new that he might have
just made them himself.
After he had put the horse up he meandered to the line
fence and took careful note of what Natupski had been
doing all day. Clearing a field of stones. It was marvel-
ously cleared, too; and not a corner left for harboring
seed-scattering weeds. Abner Slocumb wasn t that sort
of a farmer, but he could appreciate it.
Natupski was out by the road, waving a hand, bruised
and bloody from stone picking, at the butcher s cart.
He meant to buy no meat this evening not even his
usual meager purchase of half a pound of Hamburg
steak. Mrs. Natupski, drooping over the two infants
who were dragging her down, looked a hollow-eyed dis
appointment, but said nothing.
Abner Slocumb could not avoid connecting the pass
ing of the butcher and Mrs. Buckland s unmerited gain.
" Plaguy old woman, eat up with avarice," muttered
Abner, and looked again at his clean dollar bills. He had
been intending to break one of them at the butcher s
cart, but he too waved the white top along. After all,
he and Nance didn t need lamb chops at twenty-eight
cents the pound. They could make out perfectly well
with bacon, ham, dried beef, salted mackerel, codfish in
cream, baked beans, and a couple those roosters that
strutted round eating their heads off.
When he went into the house if there wasn t his
creditor come about the interest on the Slocumb place.
Only no one would have suspected it.
28 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
This creditor spoke about the new branch railroad
and the cat and whether the governor had been justified
in refusing to sign a bill for a feeble-minded home in the
county, so all the idiots needn t be sent away off to
Boston, where their folks could hardly have the satisfac
tion of seeing them twice a year. Nothing was said
about anything so vulgar as money. After an hour of
this the creditor rose to go, and while drawing on a pair
of driving gloves commiserated with the Slocumbs on
their new neighbors.
" You must feel it," were the words, " this invasion.
Such old settlers as your family you hold it on a grant
from the Indians, don t you? "
" My forbears," laughed Abner, " are generally sup
posed to have got the better of the red man one time the
latter was wagged out with fire water. I ve never felt
very consequentious over the transaction."
" Oh, it was quite justifiable quite. You see, the
red men never developed or improved the country. They
had to go to the wall in the interest of civilization. Now,
these Natupskis "
" I haven t any cash on hand just now," cried Abner,
as if glad to talk of anything not Natupski. And so he
was, for memory of that stoneless field contrasted with
his own, feeding in which was possible only to the
proverbial sharpened sheep s nose. If his forbears per
formed a noble deed in supplanting the savages, what
would be the historic opinion of a slack New Englander
who acted as obstructionist to an industrious Polander?
So, " I haven t any cash on hand," he blurted out, adding,
" I calculate to sell the apples next week, or maybe the
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 29
week after. I d have tried to catch up if I d known you
was coming."
And, " Oh, that s perfectly satisfactory," returned the
creditor. " I just thought I d drop in while I was
up this way. You can mail me a check when it s
convenient."
Abner Slocumb glowed with manly pride at the manner
in which the affair was conducted, and the creditor seemed
quite contented, too. Not so did Mrs. Judson Buckland
treat Kani Natupski. Oh, not so! Abner felt that he
ought to thank the Powers that Be that fate hadn t made
him a foreigner with a mortgaged farm in West Holly.
Then he wondered what the Powers that Be had to do
with it.
In the end he went out in the yard and looked at his
three dollar bills. He felt a queer, a thoroughly non-
New England impulse. He would like to walk up to
Natupski and say, " Here s three dollars for you. Do
what you gol ram please with it." Only he was afraid
the Polander wouldn t take the money. He had an
idea he was proud under all his dirt and vermin and
ignorance, proud ! There was only one way to get round
such pride. Tell a lie. Slocumb told it like a gentle
man.
He handed the three dollars to Natupski, with a story
of having been entrusted with the money by Mrs. Buck-
land when she found she had been overpaid. He won
dered if he had saved Mrs. Natupski from a beating by
his deception. And then again, was it not a bruise she
was nursing on her cheek? Had he saved her from a
beating? And, after all, why should he save her from
a beating?
3 o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
He felt he had somehow got the better of Mrs. Buck-
land. That alone was worth three dollars.
" Pretty small potatoes, I call it, picking on a foreigner
because he is one. What sort of a figure d we cut in his
country, I d like to know? Green as grass to ways and
lingo."
Right after this came a call to the schoolhouse that
evening. Blanchard Bowes was driving about, asking
the men of West Holly to meet and discuss the Natupski
scandal.
Slocumb considered a while, rolling a pebble this way
and that under his boot. Finally he said, slowly, " Wai
yes I guess I ll be on hand."
" Do we want the women folks ? " asked Bowes.
Slocumb came to a sudden decision. " We do not,"
he said.
"On account the scandalous doings?"
" On account the scandalous doings. The tow row
is liable to be something awful."
" I suppose so," said Bowes, and went to drum up
recruits, licking his lips.
The schoolhouse was warm as toast and bright with
six-lantern power when the men assembled. They felt
they were part of history, and bore themselves with dig
nity, not to say as on stilts. But over on the Judson
Buckland place Mr. and Mrs. Natupski little dreamed
what this evening was in their life story. They thought
it the first real frosty night of the year, when both babies
had the colic because economy had dictated no fire in
the bleak house ; and Stanislarni nearly gave up the ghost
from unwonted indulgence in green chestnuts. The cow
was sick, too, and a veterinary came to look at her and
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 31
shake his head, which cost two of Abner Slocumb s
three dollars. Mr. Natupski dragged his leather belt
a notch or two closer as the supperless night wore on,
and Mrs. Natupski polished her teeth with a piece of hard
bread on which the chickens had whetted their beaks
without making any impression. In fact, it was, for
them, a very ordinary evening, because if the vet. wasn t
always called, something was generally dying in the hen
house or barn.
Farming in Massachusetts was different from farming
in Poland besides, Kani Natupski had not been a farmer
in Poland. In Poland he had envied the farmers, that
was why he had so yearned for a bit of land.
He would accept no advice from Americans. His
own people, in this country many years, told him to accept
no American advice. The Americans did not know how
to live, they spent money as fast as they earned it, they
seemed to think one earned only to spend.
Looking at his wife Marinki, Kani felt a sudden
pleasure in that she had followed him from Poland. He
did not send for her because it seemed foolish to bring
a wife from Poland when one had a wife at hand here,
but Olka had been something of a disappointment. She
had wasted five minutes every morning combing her
hair, and had asked money to buy clothes when less than
a year married. Marinki would be a help. She could
not buy clothes, for she knew no American words with
which to ask for them in shops.
While he went about, thinking all this, hauling poultry
from the frosty trees in which they persisted in roosting,
and flinging them, a squawking mass, into the dusty
shed; and between whiles helping his wife to cuddle the
32 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
sick children in warmed rags, his fate was being settled
in the seat of learning for West Holly.
The arraignment was the same as that at the watering
trough. West Holly resented the invasion of Natupski.
It was ready to drive him out, by fair means or
foul.
Fair means describing to the proper authorities that
immoral performance, bringing a wife home who was
no wife at all.
Foul means cutting his wire fences.
The first would probably put Mr. Natupski in jail.
Mrs. Natupski would then be unable to keep the farm,
Mrs. Judson Buckland would foreclose, and the immi
grant peril be forever over in West Holly.
(" Unless she sells to the Jewish Ag. Soc.," Solomon
Russell murmured, but no one paid any attention to the
poor old bach.)
The men had disposed themselves according to char
acter. Blanchard Bowes was in the teacher s seat on the
platform. Blanchard Bowes was the sort of man who
naturally takes chairs and gravitates to platforms. Solo
mon Russell was on the dunce stool. That, too, was
natural. Solomon had been there most of his schooldays.
Josiah Perkins used a desk for a seat. Josiah and his
wife were always out for novelty. Abner Slocumb was
in the front seat, the one so front it had no desk in front
of it. He was endeavoring to construct a spit ball and
doing pretty well considering how many years it was
since he had made them every day.
Abner was thinking what a lot of old hounds we West
Holly men were, and what a poor sort of an anise bag
we were pursuing (no, he wouldn t dignify Natupski by
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 33
calling him a fox). Blanchard Bowes, up there, had
exactly the sagacious long face of a certain Dowsabel
that bayed the mountain each autumn; Perkins wore the
ferret look of a younger animal; and Sol Russell be
tokened a worthy desire to run with both hound and hare,
and be in at the death, whoever was killed. Abner fell
to wondering if there was any council fire at which the
hopes of his ancestors were settled, some time in the
seventeenth century.
Suddenly he pasted Sol Russell in the forehead with
his new construction, and stalking to the blackboard
wrote :
Pride
Covetousness
Wrath
Gluttony
Envy
Sloth
And, in another column :
Prudence
Justice
Temperance
Fortitude
" Anybody know what I m driving at? " he asked, and
Solomon Russell nodded.
"Oh, you think you know, eh, Sol? Well, Sol, walk
to the board and write the title best way you know how."
34 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Solomon selected a crayon that pleased him and pro
duced in fine and fancy lettering:
" Seven Deadly Sins."
" Good. You shall have a Reward of Merit card, Sol,
to take home, if I can find where teacher keeps em.
Seven Deadly Sins. I left the third blank, so s not to risk
any shadow of a bad word disturbing the morals of
school tomorrow, but it starts with 1 and ends with t
and has four letters, and you can guess what tis. Now
let s take em in order, since I think our Natupski neigh
bors have been accused of pretty much all of em, taking
it by and large. Pride comes first. And indeed it is
a deadly sin. I own to it myself. I m house-proud and
barn-proud and tarnal-proud of the Slocumb family.
When I was younger I was too proud to work out. Folks
thought I was easy as Tilly, but I wasn t, I was proud.
No Slocumb had ever been anything but his own master.
Now, it don t seem to me we can truthfully call this
Natupski fellow one bit proud. As I take it he dug like
a nigger in the mill to make a payment on Mrs. Buck-
land s weed-bound farm, and he isn t above hitching
himself into the shafts since he s lost his horse, for I ve
seen him. So we ll have to cut out any warrant for
pride.
" Covetousness. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor s
ox, nor his wife, nor anything that is thy neighbor s.
Gosh, he don t. He hasn t borrowed so much as a curry
comb yet, and that s more n most of us can say of
American born and raised neighbors. Remember that
winnowing mill of yourn, Bowes, that you always had to
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 35
spend two days chasing from place to place when you d
any grain to winnow? Why, Natupski has even set up
a grindstone of his own, first one on the place since it
was a place. He seems to think I bought my grindstone
to grind my own scythes on. The Bucklands acted as
if they thought it was kep for their special benefit. As
for wives stop snickering, gents. I will only remark
that he don t exactly need any of our n at the present
time, having, as it were, bit off more n he can chew in
that line.
" For the last four he may be wrathy, but he keeps
it pretty much for home use, and won t pick a quarrel if
you let him alone ; gluttony folks living on bread crusts
are let out on that score; he s too cock-sure of his own
ways being correct to rightly know what envy is; and
when it comes to sloth we, who get our eight hours sleep
and doze over the newspaper all noon, haven t any call
to criticise a poor cuss who, so far as my observance
goes, works eighteen hours a day and does chores the
rest of the time.
" Let us now pass to the other column, containing, as
I presume you are aware, the four cardinal virtues. Pru
dence, justice, temperance, fortitude any one proving
up to that standard must be a pretty good fellow. Now
isn t our neighbor prudent ? He puts his money into land
and home, instead of blowing it on good times, as most
young chaps who emigrate away from West Holly start
doing. He practises justice and pays his bills on the
tick, whether he can buy a supper or not. He s temper
ate. I never expect to have to haul him out of the wheel-
tracks into his barn to sleep it off, as I ve hauled our
worthy sheriff more n once on Sundays when his wife
36 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
wasn t to home to do it herself. Fortitude! That s a
big word with a lot of meaning. Still, it seems to me it s
another way of spelling bravery, and he s a brave man
who undertakes to support a wife and three children on
Judson Buckland s worn-out land, and pay for the land
while he s a-doing it."
" They that know nothing fear nothing," piped up
Mr. Perkins. " I just read that out en a copybook here.
You ve made out a good enough case for the foreigner,
but I think you ve slurred a leetle mite over that third
sin, the unmentionable one. He s an immoral man by
his own showing, and we can t harbor an immoral man
in our community. Marrying one woman while you ve
got another and a couple of young ones is doing that
can t be glossed over. It stinks, plain as the nose on
your face."
" Well," said Abner, " some of us are church-goers,
and we might get the Rev. Mr. Skeele to give a discourse
from that text about the one without sin casting the first
stone. You know, gentlemen, there is a part of West
Holly known as Silver Street? "
Indications of unrest were noticeable in the assembly.
" Over in what s been called Silver Street since the
Tory tax collectors before the Revolution never found
more n a single sixpence thereabouts, were two families
living peaceable and happy side by each. One couple had
three boys, the other one girl. The father of the girl
set eyes on the mother of the boys, and she didn t mind.
So it was proposed to t other husband and wife that they
consent to swap partners. At first they was inclined to
be ugly about it, but at length they agreed on one condi
tion, they should be rid of family cares. It was done
IN CIVILIZATION S SERVICE 37
the woman and her three boys moved to the other house,
and the man who had one child of a Saturday night, as it
were, found himself possessed of four on Monday fore
noon. Did we do anything to purify West Holly from
this splotch on our reputation as a moral, law-abiding
folks ? We did not. We grinned and passed a few sassy
remarks and let it go at that. Some said they guessed
the ins and outs wasn t rightly understood, and probably
all parties was fully justified ; others guessed maybe they
went to the county seat and got a bill, and it wasn t any
of our business to go prying round to find out. The
women one and all stood up for the wives for the reason
that they was neat housekeepers. I believe one of em
sozzled her kitchen floor every day, and that went a long
ways in softening public opinion.
" Mr. Natupski maybe has a good excuse, only we
haven t asked him to give it. Perhaps he heard a while
back that his wife in the old country was dead or going
to be married again. He certainly has done his full duty
in one particular, and so s she. They took that little baby
and kept it to home where it s no expense or trouble to
the town; though I have heard of married men fore
handed, too leaving deluded girls and their offspring to
come on the town."
"What about the deceived young wife?" put in Mr.
Bowes, sententiously. " It seems to me something should
be done for her."
" She s done it for herself, I hear," replied Slocumb.
" She was married to Nicholas Kovinski this afternoon.
He s got a good paying job hauling school children from
Holly Centre. Recollect, he took Natupski s horse."
" This case seems to have run to seed," observed
38 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Bowes. " The defense has choked the prosecution silent.
As the lanterns are burning out, I propose we go home."
Abner intended to walk, but accepted a lift in Solomon
Russell s buggy.
" It beat all creation, that argument you put up for
Natupski," piped Russell, as they drove into a darkness
accentuated by flashing Northern lights. " And you d
likely spent considerable time beforehand thinking what
to say. You must be almighty anxious to keep the
Polackers next door to you."
" Honest to man," said Abner, " I was wishing every
gol darned minute that the town had done as it threat
ened one time, and bought the Judson Buckland shanty
for a pest house ! "
Ill
ABNER S TRY
AFTER his public championship it was generally ex
pected that Abner Slocumb would " do something to
civilize Natupski," but Abner seemed inclined rather to
talk than to act. Such indeed was the seeming inclina
tion of all West Holly. For instance :
" Cold-blooded critters, ain t they ? " said the hired
man, as he earned $2.50 a day watching for the sound
of the six-o clock whistle to be heard in the Slocumb
mowing.
" Well, I do know. Sometimes I think they be, n
sometimes I wonder if they be," was Abner s well-quali
fied response. His wife said Abner always qualified
everything, even the cider he drank. Sometimes he put
water into it, more often red pepper.
A year had gone by since the great events recorded
in the last chapters, but the Natupskis, it will be noticed,
were still favorite topics of conversation. In memory
West Holly lived as a peaceful neighborhood where
nothing happened before the Natupskis. Afterward
when any two were gathered together it was no stunt for
a third to guess the subject which made their jaws wag.
" Pretty unfeeling the way he goes on," commented
the hired party, tossing the thin windrows, and leaving
the heavier masses of hay for his employer s attention.
" Yes, he does that," Abner acknowledged, adding,
39
40 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
with a chuckle, " My wife, she can t see through em.
F r instance, they set round on soap boxes in the house,
but he s bought my hay-cutter to use chopping feed
to the barn."
"You don t say!"
Abner indicated he had said. The mind of the man,
considerably more agile than his right arm, leaped to
another view of the matter.
" How you cal ate to get along without it ? "
" Oh well I can chop what little I require by hand,
I guess. Twon t be convenient, but I can make out. I
was mighty glad to complete the bargain, for I needed
money the worst way. My wife had set her mind on a
parlor carpet. She said, true enough, the old one had
been down most ever since we was married. A woman s
got to have something new once in a while to make her
contented, y know; besides, I feel she earns a good deal
of what the farm produces."
This without reflecting that for a good many years
the Slocumb farm had not produced anything worth
naming as a profit.
" Besides," continued Abner, with the lordly reasoning
which was rapidly reducing him to a genteel penury, " if
I feel I gotta have a hay-cutter, I c n always sell a cow
and buy me a new one. Say, what s that noise? "
" I b n sensing it some time. Seems to come from over
Natupski way."
" Well, let it come. We ll let it alone. I started in
trying to be a good neighbor to him, but when he de
stroyed that blueb ry bush, sez I, go it, there s no cure
for obstinacy, any more n f r red hair, cept dyeing."
Nevertheless, Abner stopped to help the hired man
ABNER S TRY 41
listen. That worthy had, of course, ardently embraced
the first opportunity to quit work.
" Pretty bumptious noise. Sounds like some one danc
ing a devil s breakdown."
Abner s response was to stab the turf with his fork
and a thunderstorm impending also to say, " I presume
he brung it on himself, but I can t help that. Be you
coming or be you not ? "
" I be," said the hired man, " soon s I get a fid o
tobacco in my cheek."
A weird agglomeration of sounds was in the Natupski
barn. There were the irregular thuds of fierce blows
backed by the energy of excitement; mixed with growls,
groans, shrieks. Peering into the dusky interior the
men presently sorted out the noises. The shrieks came
from a cow-stall, wherein no one was visible, the growls
were from Kani Natupski, who likewise produced the
blows. They were directed at the hay-cutter, and deliv
ered with an ax. Kani was barefooted, his khaki trousers
slopped about his ankles, and his black shirt was rapidly
working loose from the leather strap by which the little
man held himself together. With every blow he leaped
into the air and came down on the unlucky machine
roaring.
Although the contraption had been bought and (well)
paid for, Abner Slocumb felt personally hurt at the way
his ex-property was being treated. Perhaps a man had a
right to kill his own hay-cutter, but at least the deed
shouldn t be consummated without a word of warning.
" Here you, let up, let up! " Abner bawled, advancing
boldly. " If the durn thing won t work, let me at it."
He thought that possibly Natupski s ire had been raised
42 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
by a failure to understand the mechanism. Abner was
not quite unacquainted with a form of revenge known
as cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Natupski paid no slightest attention to the remon
strance, but from the manger of the inhabited stall popped
up three disheveled heads Mrs. Natupski s, little
Wajeiceh s and Statia s. The woman merely hissed,
" He fierce ! he fierce ! " and popped her face back under
the hay.
Slocumb turned open-mouthed to his hired man, who
let discretion temper his valor in the open door.
"Well, what d ye make of it?"
" Better come home-along. Let em squiggle out s
they can."
"I ll be durned if I will. Here, what you doing?"
he roared at Natupski, letting out his voice so it had to
be heard above all the other din.
The banging ceased for a moment, then Natupski,
lowering his forehead and coming forward in the blindly
butting manner of a temper-mad man who sees red, made
for Slocumb, yelling a Polish word which neither New
Englander identified with the fearful accusation " Mur
derer ! " yet such it was.
Abner could not believe his neighbor s charge was
made in earnest, it was only when the ax actually began
to descend that he realized this was no joke. With a
jump on his own part he escaped, while the hired man
gave aid by tossing a stone at Natupski and hitting the
stall where lurked the woman and children. Redoubled
shrieks from that direction seemed to bewilder Natupski;
he returned to the hay-cutter.
At the same moment, under advantage from the slight
ABNER S TRY 43
lull in superior noise, Slocumb found the source of the
groans. While his father killed the machine in the dim
perspective, and his mother hid in the middle distance,
Stanislarni, with two fingers off, peacefully bled to death
in the foreground.
A noble picture of misplaced vengeance, pessimistic
acquiescence in cruel fate, and general incompetence.
Abner Slocumb might not know the first thing about
making his business pay, but such a crisis as this put him
on his mettle, and he felt able to cope withal.
" Git me a slab o shingle," he called to the hired man
would that he had used such a tone of command in
ordering his own work to be done " now take my jack-
knife and slit off the tail o my shirt it s whiter n yours.
Then git over n help me fix a turnyquit to stop this loss
o blood."
In a jiffy the child was out of danger, though Mrs.
Natupski crazily tried to prevent their touching Stanis
larni by getting in their way, beating her breast, clutch
ing their shoulders, and otherwise misconducting herself.
Such behavior, however, was not quite nonunderstand-
able. Slocumb knew she was begging him not to hurt
the kid. His Nancy wouldn t have behaved so, but
gritted her teeth and delivered her nearest and dearest
up to tortures unnamable had it been considered correct;
however, there weren t many womenfolks in this world
like Nancy Slocumb, and Abner ought to know, for she
told him so many times a year.
Just as the man was completing his " first aid " and
Stanislarni had ceased to groan, because he had fainted
away, the hay-cutter collapsed with a crash, and lay a
corpse, one might say, amidst the hayseed on the well-
44 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
polished floor. Kani dropped the ax, spit on his blistered
hands, and leaping to the hired man s back soon reduced
that Samaritan to a similar ruin. Slocumb did not wait
for a greater effort to be directed his way. Snatching
the child he ran out of the barn and across the yard. He
was followed by an awful jangle of consonants, dried
dung and other missiles, but cleared the fence unharmed
and broke abruptly on the sweet peace of his sitting-
room, where Nancy sat sewing crocheted edging on
dish towels which she didn t need.
" That looks like a Natupski young one," she re
marked, controlling a great excitement with the aid of a
frigid demeanor.
" Tis."
" How d you get saddled with him ? And where you
going?"
" I guess," said Abner, " I m going to jail, if that hel
lion of a father of his catches me. Hurry up, Nance.
I want Dr. Gibson and the phone number of the Mercy
Hospital, and ten yards o clean rag, and the hoss hitched
up, and aromatic spirits ammony, and a couple o large
pillars, and something to eat, and a wet sponge, and Dr.
Chase s recipe book What to Do in Case of Accident
page."
" Anything more ? " asked Nancy, sarcastic-like, and
yet moving so quickly she had most of the requirements
assembled even as they were named.
"Yes. A clean shirt."
While he hauled at the mangled garment, and Nance
bathed the boy s face from the odoriferous bottle in
which chunks of camphor gum had floated in a sea of
alcohol ever since the day when Nancy s mother had
ABNER S TRY 45
inherited it from her grandmother, Abner urged his wife
to look out and see if the hired man was back.
" Back from whereabouts ? " she wanted to know.
" I left him getting killed in Natupski s barn," re
turned Slocumb, cool as a cucumber. " The critter s done
for my hay-cutter and took my hired help next I wish
to goodness he d let my belongings be. Darn, ain t that
fool ever going to show up ? "
" Here he comes, round the road, walking as if he was
all lamed up."
Abner called out to effect that he wanted the horse
harnessed, but the man glumly declined to do anything
more that day until he d gone home and had " her "
put some " arniky " on his back and legs. A loud buzz
coming nearer up the road showed up presently as Dr.
Gibson in his buggy, Nancy having been successful in
catching him at Blanchard Bowes , and convincing him
that the Natupski child offered a more pressing case than
Mrs. Bowes nervous prostration of fifteen years stand
ing.
" Good enough," quoth Abner, when the physician had
complimented him on his " first aid " and started with the
child to meet the ambulance already on its ten-mile run
from the city hospital. He breathed a long sigh of re
lief, and turned to adjust the gingham tie which he wore,
even at haying time, under the turndown collar of his
neat cotton shirt. " Whatever bad marks the guardian
angels score up against us in the big book up yon
der I guess will be partly balanced by the record of
this afternoon. We ve certainly done ourselves
proud."
"Indeed!" ejaculated Nancy. "I sh d say we had!
46 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
And to prove you re right, Abner Slocumb, here comes
the rain like cats n dogs V pitchforks tines down."
" Thunder ! " grinned Abner, not meaning the ex
clamation should refer in any particular way to the
style of shower just arrived. " And six load o my best
upland grass out in it."
" Well, you re a smart one," sneered Nancy, in reality
all puffed up with pride in a husband who put humanity s
business ahead of hay.
" Well, it goes to show our reward s in heaven."
" Seeing s tain t here," Nancy snapped.
Abner picked up the Springfield Republican and his
wife retired to the kitchen, where she proceeded to knock
up something specially delectable, elaborate, and expen
sive for supper. Presently her voice was heard.
"Say, Abner!"
" Spit it out."
" That Polander show any sense o gratitude for what
you done ? "
" Pelted me with cow manure."
Nancy s eyes flashed scorn, and she instantly put a
double portion of butter into what she was making, at
the same time deciding to frost it. Abner certainly
merited some reward !
Just as she shut the oven door the hired man came
back, smelling like a front yard with a Balm o Gilead
tree in it.
" Thought I might s well make it a full day," he ob
served, with a glance at the clock. He added that he
felt pretty pindling, though, and not more n able to hold
the cat.
" I see Natupski s I came along," he continued. " Say,
ABNER S TRY 47
that feller s madder n tunket. He lets me out, though.
Seemed to be right down sorry for lighting onto me like
he did. But he s still got it in for you, Slocumb."
Abner rustled his paper, to get at Sam Bowies real
opinions, and remarked he wasn t going around looking
for thanks.
" It s worser n that. I listened to his jargon quite a
while, and got it conjured out finally that he blames you
for the whole business. Seems to think if you hadn t
sold him the cutter he d have his young one now, good s
new."
" Great reasoning," commented Nancy. She didn t
see it was about as logical as hers had been when she
accused a saloon in Hamson of sending forth her
nephew in such a state that he fell asleep on the railroad
track.
N what s more, he s a-lotting on doing you some
harm, I surmise," the man went on. " I left him turn
ing the grindstone for his ax, and I wouldn t wonder if
your young peach trees suffered fore sunup."
" Oh, shut up ! " yelled Abner, exasperated by this
constant reiteration of annoyance. " Don t give me
none of your surmises. The watermelons you worry
about never get stole."
Brave words, spoken to due effect; yet the warning
was Abner s first thought as he wakened next morning
when the dawn was hinting at its arrival, and early birds
began to remind others not quite so early of that doomed
worm. Some one was about at Natupski s barn, and
Abner trembled a moment for his trees. He hoped
Natupski wasn t going to prove that sort of a fellow.
The Slocumbs had lived on this side of the mountain
48 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
for half a dozen generations, always taking pride in
getting along with their neighbors. Sometimes one
had to eat considerable humble pie, but twas generally
worth it. Abner didn t think much of neighborhood
quarrels. You began with a line fence, and whichever
was in the right as likely as not got the worst of it in the
end. What if Natupski did hack into a tree or so? Best
set it down to some varmint and let it go at that. If
you took the law on him you d be forever riding over
to the county town, wasting money on lawyers, and in
the end he d likely set your buildings afire.
So Abner turned over, stuffed a ruffled pillow slip into
his ear, and was rewarded by not hearing a team drive
past at a lively clip. It came back while the Slocumbs
were at breakfast. Kani Natupski was driving. The
hired man reported he had been to the Mercy Hospital
to see little Stanislarni.
" Went the five mile to the depot, caught the first
trolley, and was back here in time to do a day s work.
My, that feller s got git up and git ! "
Abner wished some other fellows had ditto, while
Nancy said primly she was pleased (and surprised) the
foreigner had as much interest in the child as that showed.
It was her unuttered but faithfully held belief that every
alien lived in hope of getting his offspring into an insti
tution where, if possible, it would be marooned for
childhood. Abner, as taxpayer, was helping to support
goodness only knew how many !
The next morning it rained. Abner turned easily on
his feathers as he heard the monotonous drip drip on
the tin roof of the parlor bay-window, and prepared for
another nap. It happened no hay was down to worry
ABNER S TRY 49
about, and the garden was spoiling for a good soaking.
He d milk late, for once, and tell Nance to cook up a lot
of flapjacks. They always ate well at rainy-day break
fasts when he had time to eat them in.
A team drove down the road at a lively clip. He
couldn t believe it, even when he woke up Nancy to help,
but that Natupski father was making the fifteen-mile
journey again, just for the sake of ten minutes beside
the cot where Stanislarni luxuriated in such cleanliness
and care as had never been his before.
" The dum fool," bleated Abner, later in the day, as
he saw the drenched man driving the discouraged horse
along the swampy road. Kani was evidently soaked to
the skin, and his hat, a cheap derby, had disintegrated to
pulp, besides turning most of its dye into a violet hue
that mottled his cheeks. As for the animal, it was plainly
tired out. Such unwonted journeys, in addition to work
in the hay field all day, would ruin anything not an
* all-day " horse.
The sight was too much for Abner s philosophy.
Dashing his knife into a sea of syrup, he opened the
door and begged Natupski to come in and have some
breakfast.
"Jest to show I don t bear malice I mean, you don t.
It s all ready n waiting. Grub, you know, Natupski,
victuals eatings whatever you call it. Come along.
Do come along."
And he yelled to Nancy to set the griddle back and fry
another mess of cakes.
The sole response of Natupski was a whip cut. It was
sent Slocumb way, and accompanied by the objectionable
word which Abner now understood meant something
50 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
akin to " murderer." Then another cut sent the jaded
horse on a last spurt.
Nancy laughed, with a couple of foolish tears in her
eyes. " Now I guess you will leave him alone," she
remarked. " Here, don t fill up too much on flapjacks.
I m going to open a jar o the new currant jell to see
what it s like."
Of course, they said, he wouldn t go next morning,
which promised to be hot and a great hay day; but he
did. When he came up the road in the blazing sun, nod
ding from want of sleep, while his sweat-flecked horse
hung its dejected head and limped, one hardly knew
which to pity most.
Nancy, one mass of nerves, made a long step to the
phone. Abner understood. She felt the fear that was
agitating him that the child might be on the dangerous
list. While Central got the number, he fled to bovine
society. She d give him the news in a lump. He guessed
he could stand it better so.
She stumbled over the words, and he believed the
worst, but it was only dander getting up.
" They say they say the boy s getting along splendid.
No complications nor nothing. Got the appetite of a
little pig, and has a great time jiggling toys with his
well hand. They ve just give him some barley sugar to
pacify him for taking away a mess o mouldy stodge his
pa brung him."
" There s no fear o mortification ? " muttered Abner,
absent-mindedly offering an astonished calf the measure
of oats intended for the horse.
" Nary bit."
A pause, then, " Pity he wouldn t let well enough alone,
ABNER S TRY 51
thout getting his betters all work up," she offered, and
flounced into the house.
But Natupski wouldn t, and by the end of a week all
that part of West Holly was on edge. The wires, once
alive with reports about the price of early potatoes or
late strawberries, Mrs. Perkins condition and the best
food for orphaned infancy, now buzzed mainly for
Natupski. Central could scarcely find an unbusy moment
in which to unburden herself of the daily weather. No
body seemed to care about the barometer and areas of
moisture could be as stationary as they pleased without
rousing remonstrance. It was only, " Hello say, the
hoss fell twice going by my place. We renced out his
mouth with cool spring water and he moved along after
a while, but I doubt if he ever manages it again. The
man? Oh, the man s all in."
Or perhaps a message such as this went from house
to house : " Say, you know the Polander lives t other
side the mountain ? Well, watch good, and when you see
he don t go by, call me up and I ll go out and look after
him. He s more dead n alive for want o rest and
liable to fall in his tracks any minute."
Kind women stood by picket fences with perspiring
jugs of sweetened water, which Kani did not refuse.
Children offered corncob dolls and well-thumbed picture-
books, for the father to take to the little boy in the
hospital. The father appeared grateful, but nearly al
ways he forgot to give the presents to Stanislarni. His
energy was so intensely concentrated on getting to that
bedside each day, that he was worse than a log when
he got there. Once he began to scold the boy for not
recovering more quickly, so as to be on the farm helping
52 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
papa by turning the grindstone, treading hay, raking
after, weeding the garden, throwing down straw from the
high beams, and performing other trifles of labor which
unAmericanized Poland held fit for five years. There
was a dreadful scene, in the midst of which Kani was
turned out of the ward, and the nurses confided to one
another a wish that he would now leave the kid to get
well in peace.
Vain hope. He shambled in next morning, but slightly
improved in temper and appearance. Blanchard Bowes
had started what was presently to be a style in West
Holly, volunteering the use of a fresh horse to take
Natupski from his house to the station, while the jaded
one recuperated in a roomy box stall. After that the
journeys were made with more comfort, though the man
himself showed the results of rising at 3 a.m., after a
long evening mowing by moonlight.
The chief sufferer was Abner Slocumb, who got even
less sleep than Natupski. He had taken to walking the
floor nights, because the state of things got on his nerves,
and Nancy didn t know whether to give him another dose
of the spring s sulphur and lasses, or to mix an infusion
of wild cherry bark with his cider.
It did not help Abner toward tranquillity that most of
the neighbors seemed convinced he was somehow to
blame for the loss of Stanislarni s fingers. Natupski s
description of the affair, in a language largely not under
stood by his hearers, was responsible for this impression.
The little Polander had got it in for Abner, and, one
couldn t believe, not without reason !
Nancy used to slip into the hen-house and talk to the
chickens. She told them that what she mainly abhorred
ABNER S TRY 53
was the utter uselessness of it all. There no need to
have been an accident, to begin with, if the Natupskis
had any sense. Who ever heard of a five-year-old child
let meddle with a hay-cutter? And then if your young
one did get hurt why send good money after bad by
destroying property? Above all, what did possess the
ijit that was willing to let the little tyke lie on the barn
floor and die, to go every mortal day fifteen mile to look
at him? That was the most useless performance of all.
The boy was doing fine ; and yet a fool man had to frazzle
himself, kill a horse, and maul the town out of plumb
when he d be better employed tending to his summer
work like a sane being. Nancy believed in keeping emo
tions on a taut line of practical result; she loved Abner
to death, but if he died tomorrow there would be a great
feeling of satisfaction in having made over the pillow-
ticks in the spring, and she would be quite capable of
quelling her grief sufficiently to knock up plenty of flour
victuals for the funeral.
With the passing of the last of the six weeks, West
Holly s interest in Natupski began to wane. People
wondered how much longer they would be expected to
furnish horses to haul his good-for-nothing carcass to
the trolley? Stanislarni was reported as up and larking
about the corridors. He had kicked a nurse who objected
to being bawled at in evil-sounding Polish every time her
apron tickled the boy. She couldn t believe it a word
of endearment. It sounded something quite different.
Anyway, Miss O Brien was down on all these foreigners,
having the true pride in her native America of an adap
tive girl three generations from ancestors who had
" plenty Gaelic " and a scarcity of anything else.
54 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
There came an evening when Natupski, it was under
stood, was up a tree. No one offered to take him to the
car next morning. Even when he called and looked
wistful at their back doors they did not melt. Blanchard
Bowes was cutting alfalfa. Hiram Farrar murmured
something about cowpeas. The poor little man, with his
usual waste of effort, trotted as many miles about the
neighborhood as he was trying to save himself, and after
all got no horse. Lashing his own legs with the whip
he carried, perhaps with a view to keeping himself from
going to sleep standing up, Natupski kicked open the
Slocumb gate and stamped his way across the piazza.
Consternation reigned in that establishment. The
hired man panted in at another door, giving it as his
opinion that the Polisher had come to lick Abner. This
was delivered in an excited whisper, but Nancy spoke
her mind audibly.
" If you, Abner Slocumb, demean yourself so far s to
talk to him you re a bigger fool than I take you to be,"
she said.
Then she went on putting nutcakes into a pail. It
was their wedding anniversary tomorrow and they al
ways celebrated it by going off somewheres. This time,
luckily, the Giffordville Fair was opening just in time.
They d drive over, starting before light, and to save
money for Nancy, when on pleasure bent, was like
John Gilpin s wife in having a frugal mind she had
manufactured a magnificent loaf of cake that was going
to get her through the gate on an Exhibitor s ticket
besides, as likely as not, taking a prize that would pay
for baiting the horse and all.
The little man stood and knocked with the whip butt
ABNER S TRY 55
for some time. He could hear steppings about within,
but no one seemed disposed to answer. Finally he stum
bled away.
" By gum," said the hired man, " he s got cheek.
Ain t going home, but right out to the barn."
Abner felt it necessary to follow. The two con
fronted each other in the growing twilight of the horse
stall.
" Looky here," remonstrated the New Englander,
" don t you think you re getting pretty bunkum ? This
barn don t go with the Judson Buckland place, you
know."
Of course the sarcasm was thrown away. Natupski
had an eye for the horse and nothing else. He tried
brazenly to get by Abner s bulky form and disturb the
peace of that splendid animal that stood calmly munch
ing bits of its bed, while careful to disturb neither the
cat that rested on the natural saddle of its back, nor
the hen that had chosen to hatch a belated brood in the
manger.
" Him," said Natupski, briefly, but with assurance,
" Me got to have him."
" Well, you won t, and that s flat. I ve a use for my
own hoss as it happens, but if twas otherwise "
Natupski, calm as if eating apples, began to pick up
portions of the harness which hung by the stable en
trance.
" Here, you ! Put that headstall where you found it !
I tell you this hoss is going to haul me and my wife
to Giffordville cattle show tomorrow. And even if
twasn t "
Suddenly an idea of being refused his boon filtered
56 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
into Natupski s brain. He dropped the bits of leather,
and stood like a child whose snow house has suddenly
collapsed in a February thaw a child so young he can t
realize ice won t last the year through. The wildness of
his red-rimmed eyes, bloodshot from loss of sleep, sought
the top of the barn, where the light of the afterglow
penetrated from a great latticed cupola, and then his
gaze turned out of doors. Mentally, it is to be presumed,
he went again the rounds of the inhospitable neighbor
hood, whence his feet had taken him to Slocumb s last.
Perhaps there was some natural pride in the man, per
haps he had not wanted to ask this favor from one whom
he had elected should be an enemy. He had forced him
self to forgive Slocumb. He acted as one who had not
reckoned on refusal. All his energy had been concen
trated in forgiveness, he had none left to use in pleading.
He went all to pieces, fell on his knees, blubbered, tried to
clasp Abner s hand as that of a patron, said things he
had never thought to say in America, where he had
understood all were equal.
Abner had been offended at his effrontery, he was
disgusted at seeing the man play baby.
" I wouldn t lend ye my hoss if he was twins," he
roared. " Git up and git out."
A little flash of the old anger sent Natupski off shak
ing his fist.
Abner went into the house.
" Of course he didn t get what he come after? " asked
Nancy.
" Of course not/ said Abner.
He did not walk the floor that night, but hopped into
bed feeling firm and cool, as when a boy he would dive
ABNER S TRY 57
deeper than any other in the old swimming-pool. He
thought he was going to have a great night for sleep, and
start fresh as a daisy for the fair. His mind was pretty
easy the interest on the mortgage didn t fall due until
the crops would be in, and perhaps they would all do
better than he was afraid they wouldn t. The sheets
felt grateful to his tired limbs. He always did enjoy a
cricket s chirping. Nance s heavy breathing ought to
send one off directly. Only he couldn t sleep. His
thoughts would wander right away from his own vine-
embowered dwelling to that one over the way, whence all
leafage had been rudely swept. He could not think of
his own bedroom, with its matted floor, drawn-in rug,
cretonne upholstered shirtwaist box and bureau covered
with crocheted mats over pink silesia. It went to
Natupski s, that vagrant mind; it saw the rooms
which hadn t been swept out since the Natupskis
moved in, where the moonbeams struggled through
windows well curtained by films of dirt, and where
a large family lived without any of the things he
and Nancy thought necessary for two. He remembered
Nancy observing once that she didn t suppose, judging
from the Natupskis, there was such a thing as a pin
cushion in Poland. This seemed to him hardly likely to
be true, since there must be rich folks in that far-off
land, who lived decently. He supposed what strained
out into America was the dregs. But to think of any
folks without a pincushion, or a pipe-rack, or a silk string
to hang neckties on! Maybe West Holly folks were
victims of " house pride," but they treated by and large
alike. Even that lady pauper, Mrs. Anderson, had got
the town fathers to subscribe to a fashion paper for her !
58 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
What he anticipated a noise. Nancy stirred quickly,
too. Perhaps she had not been as fast asleep as she had
pretended. Abner leaped to the window, softly withdrew
the screen, and leaned afar out. He could hear the bed
creak as Nancy sat up. Ten minutes went by, then Abner
replaced the screen and slipped under the counter
pane.
" Any one to the barn ? " Nancy whispered.
" Oh, no," said Abner. " All s tight as a drum that-
a-way."
She did go to sleep then, and he was able to steal out
unnoticed in the deepest darkness of the second morning
hour. He did not light the lantern until safely hidden
by the barn door. Horse, cat, and hen were alike amazed
at the disturbance. He sent pussy hunting and led the
horse softly into the barn floor, where he tackled. A
few armfuls of hay spread on the gravel enabled him to
pass to the road in something near absolute silence.
" Nance don t know it," he sniggered, " but a durn
good midnight hoss thief was sp iled in making me. It s
what I was cut out for."
A dim light flickered in Natupski s ell. You couldn t
call any room there either kitchen or parlor, for there
was a bed in the apartment holding the cook-stove, and
the coarse lace curtains stretched across the foreroom
windows hid only an accumulation of junk. Mrs.
Natupski sat out of doors. Wajeiceh and Statia were
doing something dangerous in which themselves, the cat,
and a butcher-knife were involved. Mr. Natupski was
not to be seen.
" Where s he ? " asked Abner, wondering if he were
talking to a blank wall.
ABNER S TRY 59
The woman got up and pointed down the road. Then
she walked a few steps, nodded solemnly, and sat down.
Abner understood. The poor creature had started on a
desperate tramp. But perhaps one might catch up with
him yet. There was a nickel clock on the mantel ; he took
it to the woman and she pointed to midnight. Kani
would be almost at the depot by now unless he had
fallen in a faint. Quite forgetting Nance and the wed
ding day, Abner got into his own buggy and shook the
reins. As he drove, with one leg hanging out, in the
approved fashion of West Holly, he wondered how he
could make it plain to Natupski that he bore no grudge
not even for last night s untold injuries and that this
softening was not brought about through fear, but be
cause after all a good American, raised in a clean home
and educated nine winter terms in the red schoolhouse,
felt he owed more than common kindness to an alien
minus such advantages. Natupski wasn t manly, nor
sensible, but maybe if neighbored right such qualities
could be driven into him.
Due to overmuch prodding of bushy roadsides, Abner
arrived at the depot after the first trolley had left. The
sun was up and the day gave indications of being hotter
than blixon. The depot always was a stuffy, uncom
fortable place, anyhow. Shut in by hills, it nestled close
to the river, now at its lowest, gleaming back of the
paper mill like a tiny silver scarf held in place by jutting
jewels of rocks. It glistened but never seemed to be
getting anywhere; so rapid was its flow that no wavelet
was visible. Abner had his fill of looking at it, of seeing
the hands pour forth from their funny little double
cottages to be sucked up by the factory door; of driving
60 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
the horse from one bit of shade to another. The car came
back, but no Natupski got out. Abner felt puzzled.
Could the chap be lying up there on the road, suffering,
in some hideaway place he had missed? In spite of a
yearning stomach he waited another hour, and then began
the weary drive back to where Nance would wait in a
worry that would quickly turn to a real mad fit. He
didn t blame her, either. What had possessed him to go
and spoil the whole day for the sake of a miserable
little ungrateful no-account runt?
It was the utter lack of any gratitude on Natupski s
part that galled most. Abner didn t hide the doings of
his right hand from his left. He knew he d been a
mighty good neighbor to Natupski, right from the start.
He d made no mean remarks when Mrs. Buckland sold
to Polanders, and he d jumped in quick to save the blue
berry bush. And mighty few men would let a lot of
good upland hay go to ballyhack to try and argufy with
a crazy man. What had he got for it ? Only abuse. Not
an indication the miserable Polander sensed any thank
fulness whatsoever. Yet he supposed the cardinal virtues
were the same in any language.
As he approached his own dwelling Abner dismounted,
to let the horse bury its nose in the roadside hogshead,
which kept ever full of sweet water, trickling from a
far-away spring in open troughs of log.
Who was this dancing along the wheel tracks?
Natupski actually Natupski. And beside him Stanis-
larni, in all the glory of a clean face and hygienic promise
of a close haircut, principal advantages fetched from the
hospital, unless one counted much more English than
his parents could understand. The face was rapidly being
ABNER S TRY 61
disfigured by large chunks of pink frosting from a
hunk of cake which somehow seemed familiar to
Abner.
A team, driving off in the opposite direction, showed
how father and son had made the journey. Probably
some good-natured hospital doctor had been the
charioteer, and they had gone Hamson way.
"See! see!" yelled Natupski, jerking his child into
the air by the leaping exuberance of his joy. " My little
Stanislarni come home! My little Stanislarni come
home ! "
" And then," as Abner would report by and by, " if
the crazy loon didn t up and kiss me in two places ! "
Slocumb escaped as fast as possible and after com
forting the horse with oats got into the kitchen, where
Nancy, smiling as a basket of chips, was rapidly
unpacking luncheon pails and reducing the pantry to a
complete forgetfulness of ever having been disturbed
for an impending picnic.
As he suspected, she had cut the cake.
" Natupski s boy s home," she said, snippy-like.
" As if I didn t know it. He s led me a pretty dance.
Got my hired man out of commission, sp iled a good
mess o hay, ruined my reputation, girdled six fine peach
trees, and made us miss the first celebration since we
was married. Still, I d rather have his ill-will than
his gratitude. Bussing me twice in the public high
way ! "
" I didn t know about the trees," said Nancy, looking
at the cake as if she wished she could put it together
again.
" I didn t intend you should," returned Abner. " It s
62 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
a dead secret betwixt me and him. Done last night when
we d orter been asleep. But that smacking it happened
much as five minutes ago take down the receiver quiet,
Nance, and see what they re saying about it along the
line."
IV
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH
YEARS before Kani Natupski knew there was an
America, a fortissimo suite, played pianissimo, sent
sound waves through West Holly from the old Pinkney
place, next door to what would ultimately be Natupski s
(the other next-door, not Slocumb s).
Ma am Pinkney died and left a will, which satisfied
neither of her daughters.
" Cat s foot ! " exclaimed Julia Farrar, she that was a
Pinkney. " I should think mother might have remem
bered me with something worth having, as I ve not had
to be supported since I was seventeen and married Hiram
Farrar."
Julia Farrar was given all the Pinkney land abutting
on Farrar acres.
" Mother knew what she was after, I don t doubt,"
observed Juletta Pinkney, " but she evidently failed to
consider that my youth was sacrificed to her and to
father."
Juletta received the Pinkney mansion and what was
left of the land with Julia Farrar s share subtracted.
This was the worst forty acres.
The sisters divided the personal property.
"Suffering ages!" remarked Julia Farrar. "What
under the sun did mother mean? Me to take the parlor
sofa and you to keep the chairs! You to have two vol-
63
64 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
umes Pamela/ and me the rest, so neither of us ll ever
be acquaint with the whole story! Mother must have
been a doddering ijit. I think we could break the will."
" Mother," returned Julia, " presumably understood
her own mind. Is there anything special you hanker
after, Julia?"
" I don t care a dutch curse," cried Julia Farrar, " for
anything but that Rising Sun quilt with all the pieces of
my school dresses in it. And the pink luster set. I d
just as soon call it all off for the pink luster set."
" You may have the quilt of your selection," said
Juletta, " and I will balance it by one of the hand-woven
blankets. As far as the chiny goes, I presume mother
had it in her mind when she said things was to be
divided."
" Good Lord and Tom Malindy," Julia Farrar re
sponded. " Do you set there in that fiddle-backed chair
and tell me to my face our mother didn t suppose one or
t other of us would have the full set? Juletta Pinkney,
you act like a natural-born fool, same as you did when
you wouldn t hear to Hiram Farrar and left him for me.
Looks likely mother believed I d be satisfied to accept
six cups and sassers and leave the same for you."
" Certainly not," asserted Julia. " Mother wished us
to divide them. Will you take the cups or the saucers?
It is quite immaterial to me which I keep."
War was declared from that moment, a bitter war,
which kept West Holly all wrought up. For virulence
no quarrel equals a family quarrel; and Julia Farrar,
after accepting the cups, was able to exasperate Juletta
with much better success than she could have employed
with any mere acquaintance.
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 65
West Holly, with the usual neighborhood propensity
to arrange (and well arrange) the affairs of other people,
held that Juletta was to be envied. She had a house and
forty acres. It would cost her nothing to live abso
lutely nothing! A cup of tea and a piece of bread would
make a meal for an old maid. They wouldn t expect her
to even set the table, but just take a bite standing in the
pantry. She would be well able to have a black silk
every five years, shingle the house, which had needed it
since the Civil War, and subscribe liberally to the Metho
dist denomination.
But Juletta farmed according to precedent, which put
always the same crop in the same place. If the potato
patch did not yield a sufficiency of potatoes she bought
more, but planted nothing extra another year. It was
the manner of the Pinkneys, and they had been growing
poorer for six generations, ever since the first Pinkney
came over the Bay Path from Dorchester and secured
one of those preposterous grants, ten miles long and half
a mile broad, by which Holly was divided when it was
" Outward Commons."
Quintus Pinkney, of the fifth generation, had fully
established the family ruin by an attempt to redeem the
Pinkney acres. He died land poor, bequeathing Sextus
a bewildering variety of lawsuits.
Now there was only Juletta, who said it seemed as if
all nature and the fraternity of hired men were in league
against one poor old maid. Abner Slocumb informed
her she had no monopoly on the attentions of potato bugs,
tomato worms, and men afflicted with inertia and gross
and confirmed habits of intoxication.
" I wonder," said Juletta, " how the women managed
66 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
in the old times? My maternal grandmother was left
alone when her husband went to the French and Indian
wars. On his return he found she had settled the mort
gage, while the farm was twice the bigness of what he
had left."
Juletta did not consider that her maternal grandmother
went dressed in one gown, probably linsey-woolsey, and
was up early and down late. As for grandmother s
house, it had been furnished with bare necessities. The
pink luster was after her day.
Juletta performed no outdoor labor. She sat, white-
handed, in the parlor, covering the backs of old en
velopes with figures proving how much poorer she would
be after she had paid off the harvest hands. Then she
made the envelopes into squills, being economical, if not
prudent.
There came a day in summer when Mrs. Judson Buck-
land jubilantly hailed her spinster neighbor.
" Glory be ! " she shouted. " I ve sold the farm."
Juletta knew she had wanted to sell it ever since the
death of Judson Buckland. In fact, she had wanted to
sell it for so long that there had ceased to be any dis
quieting novelty in the idea. But now that it was sold
Juletta shivered with apprehension. She felt changes
all about. Hints had been in the air some time, but she
had tried to ignore them. Talk about trolleys around
the mountain, putting green hay in barns, using engines
to uproot stumps, rotating crops, curing consumptives on
piazzas. She had listened, but fixed her own mind against
innovations. She determined never to ride on electric
cars or store uncured hay, and if she was blessed with
weak lungs she would shut herself in a room with an
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 67
airtight stove and make an edifying end in the good
old fashion.
But a Polish family next door was making the new
New England come extremely close !
" You don t need to neighbor with em," snapped Mrs.
Buckland, who could not have forborne going to tea
with a cannibal, had one happened to buy near her, and
" I guess it won t ever come to that," returned Juletta,
in her customary mulish mildness. It never did. Miss
Pinkney lived almost two years in the next house to the
Natupski family without being seen by any of that
family. This was possible because Juletta seldom went
abroad, not caring to risk meeting Julia Farrar. She
viewed the passing from a pantry window shielded with
slats. And though there was a narrow piazza on the
south side, Juletta never sat out. The Pinkneys never
had sat out.
All the more startling, therefore, was the unearthly
yell that disturbed Kani Natupski one spring morning,
the second year after his arrival in West Holly, when he
was doing violence to West Holly agricultural traditions
and a piece of ground. The yell was most amazing in
that it did not come from any part of his own domain.
There yells were common. Marinki yelled at the chil
dren, Stanislarni yelled at the cow, Statia and Wajeiceh
at the calves; even the small baby yelled at the cat, and
that pampered animal meekly obeyed orders and stood
still to have its tail pulled.
Yes, there was a small baby, and its arrival had been
absolutely devoid of excitement. Kani, recollecting the
birth of Statia, when both doctor and nurse had been
called in attendance on Olka, was very grateful to
68 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Marinki for having followed him from Poland. This,
despite the disappointment of another girl, and the queer
fact that Marinki herself seemed proud of the affair, and
would call the little one by her own name.
Kani could not dream, nor would his wife tell, that
she rejoiced in a girl because she hated to see him with
the wee Statia in his arms. She intended to provide
plenty of both kinds in her own brood.
But this yell came from the old Pinkney place, where
when had a yell ever come from the old Pinkney place ?
Even the family quarrel had been conducted in ladylike
tones, and after sending Julia Farrar the cups Juletta had
retired to an upper room and whimpered.
On this May morning she yelled, right in her own
front yard, among the budding peonies and fading lilies
of the valley. Natupski looked over the fence. A little
woman with white hair was wringing her hands as if
they were clothes newly washed. Her snowy curls,
which, from a parting, hung on either side of her face,
swayed against the two pairs of spectacles on her sharp
little nose. The slender braid of hair that usually mingled
with the curls until it went to join the " done up " sec
tion in the rear, had fretted itself loose, and made a
dissipated appearance in the sunshine, being customarily
so set at liberty only in connection with a night
cap.
"What matter?" asked Natupski.
Miss Pinkney closed her eyes, whirled three times, and
pointed. Her index finger was directed right over the
way, where the bewildered man saw a robin carrying
straw.
" Hei ? " he grunted, and climbed the fence. Miss
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 69
Pinkney shrieked, " Don t look at the door ! I can t
stand it if you look at the door! "
Natupski looked. A weird fur bundle hung on the
latch.
" Little small cats. Your little small cats, missus? "
Heavens, no! I m Miss Pinkney!"
This explained nothing to Kani Natupski, who did
not know that every Pinkney came into the world a
cat-hater. He had lived in West Holly nearly two years,
but he had never heard about Perry Pinkney, who started
West in 49, with a bowie knife, a pistol, and one clean
shirt, but came home in consequence of being put into a
stage coach where the other passenger wore a coat on
which a cat had lain. Natupski merely thought it proper
to make a closer inspection of the door s adornment.
" He dead," was the comment conveyed to the dis
tracted lady. As she answered nothing beyond a gasp,
he went on to ask, " You want him? "
" No, no ! Take em away ! That is, don t take em
away while I can see you touch em. I can t bear to
think that you can bear to touch em. Ah ! Ah ! "
Down she sank under the old cherry tree and beat her
heels in frenzy, until this brought reminder that the
tree sheltered a great ant hill.
West Holly, knowing Juletta Pinkney only by her
seventy-five years of genteel behavior, would never have
believed she knew so many excited woman tricks as were
displayed that morning to Kani Natupski. For half an
hour she kept him jigging back and forth from the door
where hung the martyred kittens, to his own fence.
" Take em," she would scream, " please take em and
hide em," but when he essayed doing so she decided that
70 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
the very idea was too ghastly for contemplation. The
climax was reached when he got tired of bothering with
the old woman, and remembered his neglected work. So,
" Out of way! " he bawled, and pushing her toward the
Japanese quince bush, went over and untied the bunch
of fur. Miss Pinkney, entirely out of her head for the
moment, flung herself at him, with dreadful conse
quences. Never, while life remained, would she forget
the shock of that collision with the filthy man and the
dead animals. She tumbled into the house and lived the
rest of the day on camphor-soaked lumps of sugar.
The sensation lasted, mingled with an awful shame.
To have lost her dignity, and before such a spectator!
Juletta Pinkney came to hate Kani Natupski more than
she hated her sister Julia Farrar; for he had been present
when she went mad, while Julia Farrar was only the
probable cause of the madness. Whenever the Natupskis
came into their yard and exchanged remarks in their
native tongue, Miss Juletta fancied they were shouting
abuse at her. If the children pelted the atmosphere with
gravel, after the aimless manner of children who play
so seldom they hardly know how to go about it, she
imagined their father had told them to pepper the Pink
ney house. That the neighbors called and never spoke
about cats struck her as a suspicious circumstance. Of
course Julia Farrar would have told what she intended
doing, and Juletta couldn t imagine that chattering
Polish monkey keeping a still tongue, either.
Miss Pinkney, from living alone, had a somewhat
magnified sense of her own importance in West Holly.
People were a good deal more concerned about the long
drouth than about Juletta Pinkney s affairs. Mr. and
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 71
Mrs. Natupski had no idea why she gave them so many
black looks. They now saw her often, because she used
the back door, which was on their side, after the affair of
the kittens had caused the South door to seem haunted.
At the Pinkney house the front door was never opened
except to take the coffin out.
Juletta used to appear pretty often to grind pink luster
bits into condition powder for chickens. For the better
affliction of Julia Farrar, Juletta had gone to baking
pies in the saucers. Whenever one went to pieces in the
oven she ground the remnants into powder, lest her
sister should somehow secure the pieces and restore a
saucer by sour milk cement and twenty-four hours
boiling.
It was rumored that every time Juletta did this, Julia
Farrar went out and smashed a cup against the side of
the barn. It seemed an incredible story, because Julia
Farrar was a great hand to keep everything. She never
wilfully threw away so much as an old hoopskirt. She
thought as like as not they d come round again. Still
Sabrina Perkins, who knew everything, stated it as a
" positive fact " that when two saucers alone remained to
Juletta, Julia Farrar had just a couple of cups.
On the 1 2th of July they finished haying at Juletta
Pinkney s. The news went all over the neighborhood
that they finished haying at Juletta Pinkney s. The drouth
had made the crop light, and then it had been decided
that the upland wouldn t pay for cutting. The upland,
which had filled two barns and left enough for a re
spectable stack in the time of Quartus Pinkney! On
the same day Juletta examined her bank-book, after
paying the men, and saw her balance one of two figures.
72 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
On the mahogany before her lay a notice from the bank
in Hamson, calling attention to interest considerably
overdue on the mortgage.
Miss Pinkney sighed gently, but did not lose her dig
nity. This was only ruin that confronted her; she felt
that she could meet ruin like a Pinkney. Besides, it
didn t come suddenly. It had been drawing nearer every
minute since she and Julia Farrar had read the will.
" If you had left me everything, mother," she said,
in mild reproach, to the simpering crayon portrait above
the narrow mantel, " I could probably just have stuck
it out and put up a stone for myself in the graveyard.
The land was worth about $3,000 and I certainly couldn t
last beyond 83. Father passed on at 83, and grand
father at 81. As it is, mother, I ll have an auction and
make inquiries about a good Old Ladies Home."
The bills came out from Hamson, smelling of fresh
ink, and were stuck up under the sign at the cross roads,
on the schoolhouse fence, Natupski s corn-barn, the rear
of Solomon Russell s buggy, and other places of public
information. On the loth of August there would be
sold, at the residence of the late Sextus Pinkney, Esq.,
house, barn, forty acres of land, together with stock,
tools, vehicles, and household furniture including . . .
Two pink luster saucers were not especially named,
but they were in many minds. Would Juletta allow them
to be placed in the sale, thence, of course, to go into pos
session of the Farrars? Would she bake a farewell pie
in each? Would she carry them with her to the Old
Ladies Home in Mifflin Grove, where it was understood
she was to seek admission, her credentials being five
hundred dollars in money and a black silk gown?
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 73
On the loth there was a large turnout. Juletta guessed
it equaled her grandfather s funeral, which was still
remembered as one of note. Quintus Pinkney, dying,
had given orders that no clergyman of any denomination
was to attend his obsequies. But, it being difficult to
realize a funeral without a minister, it was finally decided
to invite three, a Methodist from Hamson, the Holly
Centre Congregationalist, and a Baptist who happened
to be visiting in town. The last no sooner entered the
house than the dead man rose in his coffin and towered
above the assembly.
:< You were only a young girl, I ve heard mother say,"
remarked Mrs. Perkins, who was keeping Miss Juletta
company in the seclusion of the middle room, while the
auction went on, " but you were perfectly cool and col
lected, though every one else, without exception, fled
in hysterics. She always used to hold you up as such
an example of deportment. Juletta Pinkney never loses
her head, she would tell us. You never have lost your
head, have you, Miss Pinkney ? "
Miss Pinkney, slightly confused, turned the conversa
tion once more to her grandfather s funeral. " There
was no need to get excited, Sabrina," she remarked. " It
wasn t grandpa s ghost come to be revenged because we
were giving him a proper funeral. There was merely a
board dry-rotted in the parlor floor, and it gave way at
the coffin foot. Fifty-eight carriages followed the hearse.
I believe there are just as many here today."
" The crackers and cheese won t begin to go round,"
commented Mrs. Perkins, " but I suppose it s just as
well, as there s nothing to drink. There s Solomon Rus
sell torturing the poor old pump again. Hear it sigh."
74 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Seem s if I never knew such a dreadful dry spell,"
said Juletta, to make conversation. In her heart she was
all tremulous with a sense of the violence being done to
the Pinkneys corn-sheller by putting it under the ham
mer. But she maintained a firm front. No one but the
Polish shrimp should ever boast of seeing Juletta Pink-
ney give way. " It never was so when I was a girl,"
she went on. " I recollect just once the well give out. I
was about sixteen. And it must have been something
unusual, because father rejoiced in the chance to clean it."
" He found a lot of curious truck, didn t he ? "
" I don t think so. There was a set of teeth and a
few old shoes and the collar of a dog we d lost unac
countably, but nothing remarkable for a well that had
never been cleaned since it was dug."
She hardly knew what she was saying, for Mr.
Natupski had entered the yard.
" There s the Polander," said Mrs. Perkins, " come
for a meal of crackers, I s pose. My, how the folks are
laughing."
An exquisite joke had just been played on Natupski.
He had been nodded to by half a dozen men. When he
ducked his head in response the auctioneer declared him
the owner of a lot being worked off, comprising two
yards of rusty stove pipe, a Pub. Doc. for 1872, and a
mangy stuffed fox.
" And sold for fifty cents," said the auctioneer, " to
Mr. Natupski. Change for a dollar ? Certainly. Kindly
remove your goods."
Of course Natupski didn t need the stuff, and was
torn with rage to see half a dollar disappear. He tried
to say he only wanted to bid on the Jersey cow, but
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 75
nobody would listen to broken English in the hubbub.
Anyway, cows weren t being sold just then. Only trash
was being sold. Every country auction furnishes much
trash, and the Pinkney garret had yielded many quick-
silverless mirrors, tableless legs, and bottomless band
boxes. The crowd had found it an uneventful day, since
most of the interesting items had been bid in by a strange
man who didn t seem to care what he paid. " Might as
well have some fun/ said Abner Slocumb, and bid a
nickel " sight unseen " for which he secured a leaky
demijohn.
Then Solomon Russell was implored to " be a sport,"
and accepted, for a dime, something described as " an
article of universal household utility," which turned out
a cradle.
After that Natupski was made to appear eager. They
got him in a ring and slapped him on the back so
that he always nodded when the bidding had gone high
enough. Soon he owned several sermons in pamphlets
with the long " s," a number of broken clocks, a coffin
plate, a clapper without a churn, and some dozens of
cracked dishes.
The last had been hastily made into a " lot " by Mrs.
Perkins, when news came that Polish Natupski was bid
ding like a wild man would buy anything, or could be
made to appear ready to do so.
" After all," said Abner Slocumb, when, the interval
of fooling being over, a decorous move was made to go
into the house and sell tipup tables and mahogany high
boys, " you needn t get your dander up, Natupski. You
ain t spent but $2.60, and the young ones 11 pick a lot
of playthings out of the truck."
76 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Natupski had no words for the benighted American.
That a sane man should be suspected of a readiness to
pay $2.60 for playthings! Children didn t need play
things if you gave them plenty of work. Besides, he
needed that $2.60, because his quarterly interest would
be due by and by. He was always saving for that
quarterly interest, even when one quarter had just been
paid. He was not like the American farmers, who paid
half what was owing, and then went off and celebrated.
He didn t go into the house, because he was afraid
they would make him buy something more. He got a
wheelbarrow and carted his purchases home. He didn t
know it was etiquette to let the crowd have these jokes
to kick and smash, just as it was a generous performance
to buy uneaten pies at church suppers and play roll the
platter with them in the highroad.
The auction got talked over at Slocumbs supper.
" I don t think much of it," said Nancy, deftly dishing
out dip toast. " It wasn t fair and square. Positively
without reservation the bills read, and twas no such
thing."
" Can t see why not," returned Abner. " They trotted
out a lot of stuff I d put in a bonfire. Poor Natupski
bought a coffin plate."
Two very valuable things wasn t put up."
"What was they?"
" Those two pink luster sassers."
Abner roared. " I suppose you women lotted on seeing
em sold sep rate."
There d have been bidders. If we ever have an
auction "
" Don t talk about it," cried Abner, averse to any com-
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 77
parison of his own course with that which had brought
the great Pinkney family to so sad an end. " I was
brung up to call the auctioneer the man who followed the
undertaker. But unless the Charter Oak bu sts, Nance,
you ll find I m worth more dead than alive. What s that
hid way back of the teapot ? Loaf of cake ? Pass it this
way so I can get the taste of the bread out of my mouth."
Two chunks having been devoured, he asked, " What
was you so concerned about those saucers for? "
" Well, I didn t know if they wasn t run up too high
I might bid one of em in "
" And give it to Julia Farrar ! More fool you ! She
and Farrar can afford to have Have-land, or whatever
the latest dewdab is, only they re so condemned near."
" I should give it to Miss Pinkney," said Nancy. " It s
a sin and a shame the way she s come out, just because
she wasn t a master good manager. And only of her
own will can any one have a clear title to that house,
because her granther left a settlement in the North
chamber to any of his unmarried female grandchildren.
I ve seen the words North room, passage in the entry
thereto, and two shelves in the butt ry. She needn t go
to no Old Ladies Home thout she s perfectly willing."
" Well," quoth Abner, " what s the use setting like a
queen in a North bedroom when you ain t left yourself
nothing to set on, and no victuals to eat, and not even a
pink sasser to eat from?"
" She s got the sassers," returned Nancy. " That s
what I was speaking of. She held em out, so it wasn t
a sale fair and square."
Abner stared. " You was desirous of spending some
of my cash in getting em back for her " he began.
78 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Certainly. I want her to have em. But it s the
principle of the thing that makes me mad," retorted
Nancy, as she retired to the kitchen. Abner was so
stupid. " I d most rather talk to a cat than a man," she
told herself. " Quite as much satisfaction. Don t neither
of em know what you re aiming at."
At this very moment Juletta Pinkney was glancing
about her old house with a candle that guttered grease
over her bare hand, looking for those very saucers. She
had hidden them this is really romantic ! in the secret
drawer of Granther Pinkney s secretary. Then she had
taken them out, because the crowd was about to come in
and start bidding on the furniture. She was sure she
put them into her carpet bag, which stood half packed in
the middle room. No one had been in the middle room
but herself and Sabrina Perkins. Yet the saucers had
disappeared.
Sabrina, who was waiting to get home and take Miss
Pinkney with her, called sharply from the road.
" It s most dark. Better leave things till morning.
I ve just got to get back and set bread."
Juletta s old white face appeared at an upstairs win
dow, looking, in the twilight, a good deal like the ghost
of the last Pinkney.
" You trot along, Briny," she said, with her (almost)
never varied self-command. " I ve mislaid something
of consequence. I m going to find it if it takes all night."
Mrs. Perkins drove off.
" I wouldn t stay in the poky old place after sunset,"
she assured herself, " but I s pose it s second nature to
her."
Any stranger would have thought the rooms especially
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 79
ghostly this evening, with bureaus standing where they
didn t belong, in front of windows; every uncarpeted
board having its own squeak, and all the closet doors
standing wide open as if to give the skeletons egress.
But Juletta didn t mind. Besides being used to the old
house, all her interest was concentrated on finding those
pink luster saucers.
She searched and searched, through her own property,
and that which had been bid in by the man who bought
the house. She searched until it was getting on for nine
o clock, and the candle went out. It went out while
she was in the North room, which was yet hers by right
of inheritance, under her grandfather s will.
" We sha n t pass the papers until tomorrow," she
thought, and threw open the shutters that she might take
a look on what was probably the last property holding of
a Pinkney in West Holly. The moon had risen and did
something to atone for the fact that Juletta s once care
fully tended kerosene lamps were scattered all over the
neighborhood.
She sat down on the edge of a bed which had been
stripped to its bare cords. It was horrid to have to go
over to Sabrina s, to stop right in the face of the change
she, who hated change, had wrought in West Holly.
Mrs. Judson Buckland was in the right of it, when she
moved the very next minute after the sale was com
pleted. Several had asked Miss Pinkney to visit
round while good weather lasted, but she guessed she
wouldn t.
" I ll put myself into the home tomorrow and be done
with it," she declared. " If I can t be Miss Pinkney of
the old Pinkney place no more, I ll go and be an inmate
8o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
in an institution. I always did hate betvvixts and be-
tweens."
She rose to depart, and then she heard a noise. Some
body had come crossways through the homelot, under the
plum trees. Somebody got over the wall do\vn by the
willows, knew how to avoid the old dry ditch back of
the well, and tripped as with accustomed feet to the
door in the shed.
This door in the shed was a Pinkney secret. All the
world knew of the front door, the South door; even the
Natupskis could see the back door. But the door in the
shed was so artfully hidden that no Pinkney had ever
locked it at night, even with money in the house. It was
approached by such a winding way, through piles of
seasoned wood, past pitfalls of swill barrel, up steps
and down, with avoidance of other stairs that led into a
workshop and a back butt ry, that no one could success
fully negotiate it who had not been brought up in the
house.
" Whoever you are," said Juletta, with an awful calm,
and looking like a polite old wraith in the moonlight,
" you came in through the shed, so you re either an an
cestor s spirit, or Julia Farrar. Well, you re Julia
Farrar!"
A little amazement crept into her tone, but she re
pressed it immediately. She and Julia Farrar hadn t met
for almost a quarter of a century, but the house was
hers until tomorrow, and she would show she was mis
tress of the place and of herself.
Julia Farrar was brazen and outspoken. Brazen and
outspoken as she had been forty-nine years before, when,
breaking a sentimental deadlock, she had roused her
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 81
sister at midnight, with the request, " Don t meach,
Juletta, speak out straight. Do you want Hiram Farrar
or be you planning to give him the mitten? Because if
the last is your intention I m going after him myself."
"Ain t you got kerosene?" she now asked, just as
if she had been talking to Juletta every day for the past
twenty- five years. " I d better have fetched a lantern."
She sat down at one of the front windows. The moon
shone becomingly on her broad, pasty face, making her a
fairly good-looking woman. Usually she could " never
hold a candle " to Juletta, but just now Juletta, before the
other window, seemed witchlike, as if ill fortune had
tweaked her features.
But, and for it she applauded herself, she was able to
keep perfectly calm. As she would afterward tell herself
the story, when she might awake along toward morning
and it would be too early to rise, " I recollected my man
ners and that I was a Pinkney. Julia Farrar didn t.
She acted fidgety and all strung up. Sat and laughed for
two hours at nothing in particular. It proves what comes
from marrying out of the family."
Julia Farrar s first remark, after the long laughing
spell, was rather offensive. " Why don t you speak out,"
she said, " and ask what I m come for ? You must be
dying of curiosity. I m sure I should be."
" I presume one always has a reason for making a
seeming unseasonable call," replied Juletta, as nicely as
if this were a quilting party and she and Julia Farrar
snapping wet-starched strings across the frame.
" One has," snickered Julia Farrar, in a hilarious
manner ill becoming her years, false teeth, and the fact
that she and the other lady present were supposed to be
82 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
actively supporting a family quarrel. " I had some
things bid in for me today. I came to see em safely
disposed."
The other chair in the nearly dismantled room creaked.
" Some things bid in." Juletta knew what things.
Pink saucers. She had always suspected Sabrina Perkins
of being double-faced ! But Julia Farrar hadn t got em
yet, that was proved by this sneaking up between daylight
and dark. Those saucers should never leave the house
intact, Juletta swore it. Unless over her dead body.
What was Julia Farrar giggling about now? The
Natupskis, who could be heard at their usual midnight
noise. " Don t they ever quiet down ? " she was asking.
Juletta stopped to wonder if they ever did quiet down.
She guessed they didn t.
" They re rather company," she observed, and waved
a palm leaf fan.
" You must hate to think of going away and quitting
em," said Julia Farrar, and laughed some more. Juletta
might have risen and smitten her in the jaw, but she had
never smitten Julia, even when they were both children,
though even then Julia had been very clever at roiling
the other s temper.
Night began to wane, while the two old women sat
facing one another, with an occasional giggle from one,
an occasional remark from the other. A soft gray took
the place of blackness, and trees and the Natupski barn
stood forth in that new washed, clear-cut appearance
which marks a summer s dawn. This was a signal for
the Natupskis to get up, if indeed they had ever been to
bed. Kani came forth, wearing a milk pail upside down
on his head, and carrying a few articles of clothing.
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 83
Mrs. Natupski sat on the edge of the piazza, and shook the
youngest baby into animation. The children bathed by
rolling in the dew. At least they rolled in the dew.
"Ain t they never out o sight? " asked Julia Farrar.
" I should think you d be tickled crazy at the idea of
being shut of them."
Juletta assumed the full panoply of elder sister dignity.
" Was you thinking of stopping to breakfast?" asked
she. " Because, if so, I must inform you there s not a
mite of china in the house."
" What ? " returned Julia Farrar, with that idiotic
giggle which had kept Juletta s fingers twitching all
night, " not even your two pink luster sassers? "
Juletta started forward precipitately, then remembered
whom she was, sat back, and tried again. This time she
was able to soar upward like a balloon new-inflated in
agricultural show time. " I beg your pardon, Julia
Farrar. You mean your two pink luster sassers."
" Mine ? Oh, not mine. I wish they were mine, for
I ve the cups to match. Still there s the will, if you
wish to hang on to em. I m sixty-five. Sixty-five sees
things different from forty. So keep the pink luster
sassers if so be it your conscience tells you to."
Juletta opened her mouth, some like a nicely disposed
fish almost determined to accept the bait, and then closed
it with a snap.
" I would tell the truth and shame the devil," she ob
served, in her delightfully exasperating, painfully polite
manner.
Julia Farrar struggled to her feet, panting, because she
was of stoutish habit, and unused to sitting up all night.
She looked out into the green world wherein the Pinkney
84 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
place was set like a brown jewel in a jade setting. Two
little nondescript birds were squabbling on one bough.
They chattered and pecked one another, yet neither would
fly away. There were unoccupied miles all about them,
a multitude of idle twigs, yet they stayed on one bough
pestering each other. What either wanted it was im
possible to tell, but it was quite plain one would never go
and leave the tree for the other.
Julia Farrar laughed again. She laughed until Juletta
wondered if living with Hiram Farrar had left her
touched. Hiram was a good man, as men went, but
married life of any sort presupposed change, and change
was dangerous to the mind. Juletta had felt so at twenty-
six. That was why she had given Hiram up.
" Say," cried Julia Farrar, with brutal frankness,
" don t let you and me be a couple of ninkums, like those
dozzy birds out there. I don t know what you re driving
at, but this is what I want. Two pink luster sassers.
You ought to be giving em to me this identical minute,
Julet. Then I could give you the cups, and we d stick
em together up in the corner cupboard, where they used
to be. It s what I intended when I had that man bid
in the house and the barn and the land and all that was
worth saving of the furniture."
For the second time in her long, self-controlled life
Juletta broke down. She didn t shriek, as she had done
when she found dead cats at her door, but she allowed
two symmetrical tears to course over her white cheeks,
as she said, " Then this is yours and Hiram s "
"Mine," returned Julia Farrar. "I ve sold the land
I got by mother s will, and it was enough to pay for the
place. Quit crying, Julet. Quit, I say! Of course you
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 85
couldn t go to that old woman s almshouse in Mifflin
Grove, while you have a settlement in this very room.
And now where are those pink luster sassers ? "
" I d be pleased to have you state," said Juletta, re
stored by a double dab from an edge of her petticoat, a
handkerchief being no part of her costume because she
hadn t wanted one since twenty-five years ago.
" You think I ve got em?"
" I certainly do. I think Sabrina Perkins assisted you
to their possession."
Juletta was all the more strenuous in her belief be
cause of an overwhelming gratitude for what Julia
Farrar had done in saving the home. Now, without
working out the details, she felt assured of living out
her days in the familiar rooms, and having the front door
pried open for her remains.
" You re frank, I must say," grinned Julia Farrar,
" but you re on the wrong tack. I ll be just as open-
mouthed. I think you ve got em in some hideaway
place."
In their mutual passion both had drawn to the side
window; Julia Farrar pettishly drumming on the sill,
Juletta clasping the plug of wood that kept marauders
from lifting the sash. Kani Natupski, in his morning
leaps and bounds, had gone to his house, whence he
was now issuing. In each hand he bore a dish, laden
with repulsive brown fluid. The dishes were pink.
Julia Farrar did not giggle. " He buy anything? " she
asked.
" Two dollars and sixty cents worth of trash,"
answered Juletta in a manner not especially stately
almost tinged with anxiety.
86 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
The birds on the bough kept on sputtering. Perhaps
they enjoyed it. They sputtered all day. Their erstwhile
human prototypes, united in a common horror, consulted
with each other and decided to call on Abner Slocumb.
" Please go to Mr. Natupski," gasped Juletta, " and
endeavor to secure the articles he took at the auction."
" Tell him we ll proceed against him by law unless
he gives em up," said Julia Farrar. " He won t know
we can t do it."
" Offer him anything he wants," continued Juletta.
" Yes. Here s a ten-dollar bill which it s lucky I had
in my pocket," cried the practical Julia Farrar.
Natupski saw Slocumb approaching, while two women
loitered in the Pinkney dooryard. For some reason he
hauled Stanislarni from the bread barrel, thrust on him
the stuffed fox, and snorted in his ear the amazing order,
"Play!"
"Hei?"
" Say, Natupski, where s that truck you bought to
next-door auction? It was all meant for a joke, you
know fun, just for fun. Here s two dollars and sixty
cents and I ll take it all."
" Yah ? " ironically. Then, back of the hand to Stan
islarni, who strayed near with the fox, " Play ! "
" Five dollars, Natupski, for the things. You said
they wasn t no use to you."
"Oil"
Slocumb, perturbed at the other s density, did some
thing Nancy would never have allowed drew out a plug
and bit off a considerable chew. Then he resumed
negotiations, and ran the price up to ten dollars. It was
the limit ; perhaps he showed that in his voice. Perhaps
TWO OLD BIRDS ON ONE BOUGH 87
Natupski needed exactly ten dollars to make up his
quarter s interest.
At any rate, he thrust the bill into his pocket, collected
a wheelbarrow load, which he transferred to Miss Pink-
ney s doorstep, after soundly belaboring Stanislarni for
having too conscientiously obeyed orders, and played one
of the glass eyes out of the fox s head.
So Miss Juletta became repossessed of one stuffed
fox and a glass eye, several sermons in pamphlet form,
two yards of rusty stovepipe, a Pub. Doc. of 1872, a
number of broken clocks, a coffin-plate, a clapper without
a churn, and some dozens of cracked dishes.
The last were all white.
Julia Farrar raised an angry face from the inventory
and faced Juletta. Juletta was haggard.
For an awful moment each suspected the other of
double-dealing. The quarrel of a quarter of a century
was very near being continued to the edge of the grave.
Then Natupski crossed the road and the same picture
came to the memory of both.
" He did carry pink sassers, drat him ! " exclaimed
Julia Farrar.
" You are not incorrect in your surmise," was Juletta s
comment.
In the end the cups moved to the Pinkney place, as
did also Julia Farrar and her husband Hiram. Juletta
lived in serene and irresponsible glory in the North
chamber, passing through the entry thereto, and keeping
plenty of goodies on her share of the shelves in the
butt ry.
Natupski swaggered in his mind. He had got the
better of the old woman for making a fool of him;
88 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
that was all he cared. He hadn t liked it at all that the
old woman flung dead cats in his face, and told him in
one breath to take them away and not to take them away.
As for the pink saucers, they were very handy down
in the barn cellar to hold the stuff one put on the places
where the dehorned young creatures were sore. When
the women had come suddenly on him, after looking at
the wheelbarrow load, and shouted, " Is that all ? Are
you sure that s all?" he had shaken his head and batted
his eye and answered, " Me not understand."
They had believed him, those fool Americans. But he
knew quite well what they were after. He had lived in
West Holly almost two years, and what he could have
told the inhabitants about themselves would have sur
prised them.
V
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE
ABNER SLOCUMB lacked determination. Every time
he looked over to Natupski s he was reminded that he
lacked determination. And then, too, Nancy never by
any chance let him forget.
How many times had he settled on terms of implacable
animosity to his Polish fellow-farmer, only to be turned
away by something that seemed pretty serious to an
American such as the uprooted berry bush or the mar
tyred hay-cutter but about which the Polish agricul
turalist would allow no interference. How many trips
had he made to the Natupski barn with information as
to the market for potatoes, a sure cure for botts on
horses, or the weather man s prophesy of storm signals
tomorrow, get your hay in this afternoon, only to have
his well-meant advice flung in his teeth. Then would
Abner Slocumb darn all interlopers of non-English-
tongued varieties, and resume scorn and derision as a
couple of upper garments.
And still Abner could never quite content his social
soul with emulating the unneighborly frigidity that
existed always on the Pinkney side of the Natupski
farm.
" They say," observed Abner the January following
the famous Pinkney auction, " that you have to summer
8 9
90 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
and winter folks to know em. Done both twice and a
half to Natupski and by Godfrey Mighty he gets harder
to guess right along."
" Give him up," returned Mrs. Slocumb in her thinnest
lip manner.
" Wise counsel," laughed her husband, " and you ve
taken it yourself, as all counselors don t. I keep aim
ing to do the same, too, but the critter makes so much
noise when he tries to get quietly out of fixes that I
don t succeed particular well. Hear considerable of a
towse this afternoon?"
Nancy nodded.
" He d got that new horse wedged in between the
wall and a stone boat, and cause the creature couldn t
move he was whipping it to make it move. I stood it
a spell, then went and made him lay down the whip and
unbuckle the harness. The horse stepped out, sort o
shivery, and looking back said plain enough, Glad I m
shut o that ! You know how a horse can speak, with
great rolling eyes. You d thought that Polish scrimp
would a felt some pleasure at the way the noble creature
stood stock-still, not offering to move, but no. The
brute Natupski picked up the whip and commenced
lashing again, s if the horse was to blame all through.
By the way, Nance, where was you?"
She laughed in the self-taunting manner she assumed
when " acting foolish."
" Oh, to Natupski s, course. If you had him in the ten-
acre lot, I had all the rest in that kitchen bedroom Mrs.
Judson Buckland said was too small for a sewing-machine
and a dressmaker to oncet. Two or three s got croup. I
looked across and see em gasping through all the win-
91
dow grime. Remembered my goose grease and slipped
over with it and flannel."
Both lay on the table, whither Mr. Slocumb sent an
inquiring glance.
" We never had any children, thank the Lord ! " she
burst out. " But common sense and observation have
taught me the way to bring em up. Feedings at regular
times, a proper formula, with a teaspoonful of water
or six drops of orange juice if necessary. The second
year scraped beef and educators. In case of a choking
spell a kettle of hot water under a sheet tent, with liberal
application of lard or goose grease to the chest. Tain t
no way to fight it to tie a charm round the young one s
neck and then sit on the floor and wail."
She swept the rejected medicaments into the chimney
cupboard.
" Polish babies, being nourished on germs, at irregular
intervals of from fifteen minutes up to half a day, may
have their croups different," she snorted.
Perhaps Nancy Slocumb was right; at any rate,
Wajeiceh, Statia, and the new baby, whose name was
getting gradually changed from Marinki to Marinka, re
covered from this spell of sickness with a celerity that
spoke well for their constitutions.
The few American babies in West Holly, pursued with
wet sponges, hygiene, and sterilized linen, had the rickets,
didn t weigh what they ought for their age, sometimes
died. Natupski kept his family intact, with several grati
fying incretions. Kazia followed Marinka and Novia
put Kazia s nose out of joint. This was giving Statia
a good many little sisters, but Kani was too busy getting
a man s work out of Stanislarni to voice many com-
92 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
plaints. This one born in Poland was proving a husky
delight to his father. Even before he stopped beating
him with the goad, Kani never looked at his oldest son
without a great feeling of thankfulness that the boy had
not been wasted on Poland. He shivered sometimes
when he reflected on his narrow escape from a total
missing of this fine young hired man who was his to com
mand until of age.
Stanislarni was about ten when his father stopped
beating him. Stanislarni convinced his father that he
could do more work when not exhausted by a licking, and
wonderful to relate Kani Natupski believed it,
though only so far as Stanislarni was concerned. He
kept on pounding Wajeiceh and threatening the girls if
they did not work to suit him.
Nine years after his arrival in West Holly two more
boys had come to prove Mrs. Natupski s assertion
that, given time, she could provide her husband with
plenty of both kinds. Stepan was the elder, and the
advent of Tadcuse might have been celebrated simul
taneously with the last payment to Mrs. Buckland, only
the payment left nothing to celebrate with. For about
then her piebald horse, now tottery on the legs, made a
last trip to the house over the way from the barn he was
born in. The best of the crops and the cream of the
profits could no longer be claimed by the lady who drove
him.
Owing to the fact that Nancy Slocumb had been
snubbed when she advised oiling Stepan at three weeks,
since he seemed a tendsome child, she had been two
years trying to copy the Pinkney plan. Abner helped her
because she made him. They did pretty well in turning
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE 93
their backs on the house next door and resolutely using
the rooms and looking from the windows on the opposite
side. Hence they were amazed one fine morning to see
Natupski slouching up their walk, in his hand a torn slip
of paper which he tendered in silence to Abner.
" What s this ? A mortgage note and canceled. What
d ye show it to me for? "
Natupski shook his head in pure bewilderment.
" Me paid M s Buckland," he murmured, in a puzzled
manner, evidently thinking this a mysterious call for
more moneys.
Slocumb of course abandoned his role of non-inter
ference in a self-forgetful rejoicing that his little neigh
bor was out of debt. He never expected to reach that
halcyon state himself, but then he had not to suffer
Mrs. Judson Buckland as a creditor.
He snatched the paper and lit it with the match he
applied to his pipe.
" Rah for you," he shouted and explained himself.
" Now you re rich, Natupski. All this is yourn ! "
He swept a half-circle with his thumb, the horizon
one limit, his own domain another. It was indeed a
sparkling prospect for a man who had once lived in
Poland envying landowners. The soil peeping up be
tween crops of Natupski s planting was black with fer
tilizer, fine as sand from much working over, and always
weedless. In Natupski s barnyard a fine herd of cows
gathered nightly, for Kani had learned by experience how
to care for his creatures. Splendid fowls stalked about,
making one forget the featherless chicks that had been
buried by the hundred in the first two years of Natupski s
farming.
94 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
His house looked just as when he moved in, with
nine years accretion of dirt; but the barn had been ef
ficiently patched with new boards, plastered with dung,
and shingled with cedar shingles at an extravagant price
per thousand.
But Natupski, despite all these reasons for gloating,
shook his head gloomily.
" Nie. Me poor. Me poorest man in all world. Me
got no hope."
" Shucks ! You got a whole lot little hopes. Besides
one big one Stanislarni. That chap s so darn cute not
one of the neighbors ever manages to get a glimpse of
those left-hand fingers was nipped off in my hay-cutter."
The small man, whose boyish grace was already turn
ing to a wizened agility, would not rise to the bait.
Something troubled him so that he was not willing to
brag of his big boy. He leaned against the post and
groaned.
They were on the stoop, where Nancy tried to banish
her husband the warm half of the year. It was her
ideal to get the inside of the house immaculate and then
go outside and live. But whose ideal is achieved ? Cer
tainly not Nancy Slocumb s. The line storm or the
minister to tea were always interfering. But today they
were on the stoop and when she looked at Natupski s
shoes she was glad.
Natupski spoke next with bitter emphasis. " Me not
going to stay on farm."
" Heavenly Betsey ! " shrilled Nancy from her place
in the background, where she was stringing beans.
"Looking to sell?" Her mind rapidly sought the
chances for neighborhood improvement, and found none.
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE 95
" What next ? " she asked herself, and answered,
" Hungarians, I s pose."
The Polander was shaking his head as he said, " Me
go way. Jus go way."
" I see," drawled Slocumb. " Think you ll treat your
self to a vacation, now you re shut of the mortgage."
" Me go other land."
" Back to the old country, where you were raised ?
Take any of em with you? "
" Me go lone, all lone," crooned the little Polander,
falling at a straight-backed chair and trying to rock
in it.
" What not even your wife ? Well, I s pose you
want her to look after the farm "
" No good ! " he exploded with great force. " She
not know how to tend farm. Not know how to tend
children. Me go nights cover up little boys. Me say who
cover up little boys next year."
" Wai Statia s getting a sizable girl," Slocumb tried
to say, but the broken speech went on, " Wife need me.
Children need me. Stay five year, then go. Not so
bad."
" Then why not stick to it that spell?" Slocumb sug
gested.
" Me sorry," Natupski continued, in doleful singsong.
" Me awful sorry. That why."
" Reason and a half," derided Slocumb. " You re
sorry you got to go, and you got to go cause you re
sorry "
Natupski stamped his foot.
"Me awful sorry sorry here!" He put his hands
on the place where the khaki of his trousers met the
96 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
black of his shirt. And then, " Me sorry here, too," and
spread his stumpy fingers on his throat.
The Slocumbs, dimly discerning what he would be at,
sat gazing, then rallied.
" I see. You re under the weather. Sick? "
" Me sorry. Yes. Me no care for farm. No care
nothing."
" Have a doctor," snarled Nancy, the more viciously
because softened into sympathy a few moments before.
" Me did."
"Dr. Gibson?"
" Ump."
"What d he say?"
" Doctor feel me all over. Doctor say no nothing
matter. Me say you damn fool."
The affair of the doctor being thus suddenly closed,
Slocumb, after blinking, observed, " But see here,
Natupski, don t you want to get well ? "
" Sure. All folks want get well. But don t get well.
Hospital full folks want get well. But don t get well.
Tell me how get well me give farm. Give Stanislarni.
Give all children. Give wife "
" Sh! " warned Nancy, rising and shaking nothing off
her gingham apron. " I don t believe you re half s sick s
he was last year. Can you eat an aig ? "
Yes, Natupski could do that.
" Well, he couldn t."
" Not one egg? Jus one egg? "
" No. Couldn t down it. Had to have the white set
off n frothed up. Now "
" I can manage the cow and the calf and all the rest
o the rhymed version," put in Slocumb.
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE 97
Natupski ran a bleared eye over the Slocumb form,
muscular and strong.
" And I sleep " Slocumb went on, when Natupski
interrupted.
" Me no sleep. Me cry. Wife cry. Children cry.
No sleep."
" He couldn t, till I got him outdoors. Ever sleep
outdoors ? "
" Nie ! " Then, brightening up, " Me smash rest o
window."
Nancy sat down hard at that and remained until the
visitor was gone, after demonstrating, by a considerable
thumping of breast and stomach, the places where he was
not " sorry," implying disease in all other parts of his
anatomy.
Then she made a long step to the phone and asked
Central to give her Dr. Gibson. Every receiver was
down on the line, she knew that, but those listening for
salacious symptoms heard only, " Say, Doctor, why didn t
you do something for that sick Polander on the Judson
Buckland place? He s able to pay full price now, you
know."
" I m aware of the fact," returned the doctor, " but
what s the use? "
" You set me watching Abner last year. Why not
let Natupski s wife cure him?"
" Being what she is, she won t. Not one of em 11
take care of another that s sick. They sit round and
wait."
"But what s the matter of him?"
She listened with all heed during the ensuing pause
and nodded at the answer she expected, " Starvation."
98 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" You see," she was yelling ten minutes later to Mrs.
Natupski (forcibly waylaid between duties such as
nursing the baby and pitching hay), "he can t get well
without nourishing food. Oh, dear, I don t s pose she
senses a word I m saying. These, there," pointing to a
pair of pullets, and going through a dumb show of fri-
casseeing. " And aigs. Lots of aigs. Milk, too." She
imbibed a couple of quarts from her own fist. " Come
here, Statia," seizing on the girl who was fetching
baby Tadcuse to the maternal fount. " Tell your
ma " she repeated her words and heard them turned
into excitable Polish.
Mrs. Natupski rejected the idea with vigorous gestures.
" Says," volunteered Statia, " papa no will let."
" I presume," returned Nancy, " he counts every aig
and knows how many hens there be."
She meant this for sarcasm, and felt like bursting into
sympathetic tears when the little girl replied that it was
really so. Mrs. Slocumb had known New Englanders
who were " near," but their wives had won unmoral
victories by holding out a pound of butter to a churn
ing, a chick to a brood. After all, life must be pretty
hard as a Natupski.
She laid a kindly arm on the other woman s shoulder,
and then turned home.
" She told me," Statia put in Polish, " she will bring
back nice things for papa."
The Natupskis had been tempted with very few gifts
from their scornful neighbors, but Mrs. Natupski smiled
in Nancy s face over the basket containing the yellow-
legged fowl, the dozen eggs, the jar of cream, though
she did force acceptance of a square of vari-hued Polish
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE 99
embroidery in return. Nancy regarded the gaudy bit in
questioning amazement. " Don t know what to do with
it any more n a cat knows how to wag two tails," she
observed, as she locked it into a drawer where she kept
all the " too good " things, as mother s last set of false
teeth and Mr. Slocumb s stepfather s first wife s mar
riage certificate.
A fortnight passed, during which Kani absorbed as
much cream and as many guaranteed eggs as the best
sanitarium could have induced the most obstinate of
" lungers " to put away. He had been benefited after
the surreptitious manner recommended to wives of dipso
maniacs, for Mrs. Natupski was unexpectedly clever in
chicanery. The chickens could not, to be sure, be " ad
ministered secretly in a cup of coffee," but he had picked
many bones without comment after being told a story,
entirely fiction, concerning an unfortunate biddy that
flew against the grindstone and was picked up
dead.
The end, however, did not justify the means. Kani
was no better. He coughed in the night, and roused the
family at unholy hours to join him in praying for saintly
interposition. The third donation was accepted, but
gloomily. Nancy was almost determined to call up Dr.
Gibson and tell him his diagnosis was wrong. While
she sat considering, and at the same time mending a sock
and holding the cat, a usual day had an unusual ending
next door.
Mrs. Natupski, having done four hours work before
breakfast, swallowed a few unsavory morsels, and then
beat the children all round, this being her method to
insure their willingness that she should depart to the
ioo OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
field. As it was haying time she did her full share of
loading, raking after, even mowing away. Statia stag
gered about the untidy yard, weighted by fat young Tad-
cnse, and keeping an eye on the creeping Stepan and the
waddling Novia. Kazia and Rinka had been sent to
glean raspberries from the Slocumb canes. Statia did
not forget to put the fowl to boil, as Mrs. Slocumb had
advised, and, there being no sale in West Holly for green
peas, the meal was indeed almost American to which
the Natupskis sat down at sunset, mamma having worked
so late that in hastening to the baby she had time to
bestow but a single kick on the passing horse. It was
her usual fashion to be more liberal in wanton tyranny,
which was simply a handing on of her husband s former
manifestations toward her in the happy days when he
possessed health and strength and was sustained in energy
by the fearful anticipation of Mrs. Buckland s quarterly
calls.
Mamma was so busy simultaneously satisfying the
hunger of the baby and her own appetite that not until
the second leg was pulled from the fowl did she notice
papa. She saw he was eating in a way that reminded
her of her bridegroom Kani tearing the black bread at
their first meal together in Poland. A wing followed the
leg, and half the breast disappeared in two gulps. With
this meat he drank six cups of the boiled chicory which
had been doctored with eggs and cream at noon, and left
for Statia to warm up. Finally he reached across the
board, abruptly removed the plate from under Statia s
nose and shoveled the food into his mouth with two
sweeps of a knife.
The girl, who had lost time by trying to eat nice, with
LETTING NATUPSKI ALONE 101
a fork, put up a lip, but there was no little girl crying
done in Natupski s house that day.
Papa rose, stretched his arms, lowered his head like
an infuriated beast, and from under his brows looked his
wife in the face.
" Labial! " he roared. Then he leaped over his chair,
and made a passing kick at the only unbroken pitcher on
the premises. In a moment more he had Mrs. Natupski
by the arm and was administering resounding slaps to
the side of her head such slaps as one might give an
obstinate ox if one was cruel. Nor did this end the
episode. The goad was on the piazza, and after being
shouted at several times Wajeiceh, trembling, brought
it to papa, who forthwith lashed mamma stingingly.
This scene Mr. and Mrs. Slocumb interrupted. They
had never, in all their nine years of living next door,
ventured to actually call on the Natupskis, but " Come
on," said Abner, " let s give the cuss one more chance to
treat us like men and brothers. He s under the weather
and we owe him kindness on that account, any
how."
They took one look of frenzied horror at the scene,
then dragged one another home with curdling blood.
Nancy was hysterical for the first time in her life.
" That poor, poor woman ! Toiling all day and a
nursing baby and eating crusts while he has the fat
of the land "
" A dumb brute," said her husband, " only I m morti
fied to insult the critters by comparing him to em "
" And to think" Nancy choked " that I and I alone
am to blame. Forcing nutritious food on her for him so
she may become a victim of abuse. She ll always hate me
102 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
now, and no wonder. Abner, we must make a vow
never "
" I mean always " he interrupted.
" Never to interfere with the Natupskis," she
screamed.
" Always to let the Natupskis alone," he roared.
Enter Mrs. Natupski, bruised, even bleeding, but
voluble.
" Zbawiciel! " she shouts, and having shown her grati
tude by addressing these gaunt New Englanders as
saviors and redeemers, adds that thanks to them she has
her husband back as he was in the honeymoon
" Pierwscy, miesiac po slubie!"
And falls down and worships, much to the embarrass
ment of her neighbors.
VI
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY
" WHAT S he got ? " asked Mrs. Nancy Slocumb, hold
ing her needle at the full thread s length from the stock
ing whose thinnest part was stretched over a well-rounded
sea-shell. She was mending hose, as usual, before the
holes broke, while Abner read a letter they had just re
ceived from a nephew in Boston.
A few weeks had passed since Mrs. Natupski s horrify
ing exhibition of gratitude, but the Slocumbs could not
forget.
As usual, after a falling out of understanding between
the two nationalities, the border line was strictly ob
served, and all communication reduced to mere civilities.
The Slocumbs had retired to that sitting-room which
looked " the other way " when Nancy said, " What s
he got?" and " N-e-u-r-r-th-nic," said Abner, shooting
out the final sentence as if afraid it might stick in his
system and clog the works.
"What s that?"
" It s what he s got," was Abner s best offer.
" Don t try to be funny with me. If you can t tell,
say so right out." Nancy was as encouraging as a school
teacher dealing with a boy whom one is desirous of
trapping after school.
" I think," said Abner, " it s a disease. The letter goes
on to say the doctor tells him he s worked too hard and
103
104 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
he must go to a place where there s absolutely nothing
to do. So he s coming here next Saturday."
" Gracious ! " exclaimed Nancy, her mind rapidly film
ing all the carpets that must be up and down, and all the
cooking that must be done, before she would be ready to
welcome young Arthur, now fifteen, and by her unseen
since he was in short pants.
Abner had at last found chuckling food and was shak
ing gleefully. " What I like," he gurgled, " is his coming
here because there s absolutely nothing to do. Rowen to
cut, oats to cradle, apples to pick, fodder corn to save, and
that ball-faced cow liable to come in any day! If I did
all I ought to do every twenty-four hours I d overtake
myself on the way up to bed."
When the boy arrived Nancy was not slow in finding
out what neurasthenic was and pleased to learn that Ab
ner was partly wrong. It was not a disease, certainly
not; just a state of the system. As for the work, that
was what study was called nowadays.
Abner reminded himself of his boyhood, when lads
considered winter school a neat sitting-down job, wel
come after eight months wrestling with planting, cultivat
ing, and reaping. How almost incredible it seemed that
one of his blood should hold it a task to read books.
Abner rather flaunted his own practical prowess as he
drove the hired man to the ten-acre piece. Nancy
thought it a good thing if having the boy around
was going to make her easy-going husband take that
course.
But no sooner did Arthur get wonted to life in West
Holly than he wanted to go home. Actually packed his
little valise and deposited it in the sitting-room, with the
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 105
remark that the nearest train was the 4 130, and he didn t
mind walking if uncle needed the horse.
Uncle remonstrated.
" Land o Goshen," he said, " I don t favor this a-tall.
Lotted on your staying till sweet apple time. Wanted
to see you get some color in your face and fat onto your
ribs. Don t you like it here with us?"
" Y-yes. You and aunt are awful kind," stammered
the boy. " But you see I want something to do."
Abner shook his head and wondered what we were
coming to.
He had heard a great deal about the fatal fascination
of city life, and here was a mere boy an example of long
ing for vaudeville and passing crowds.
It seemed a case for feminine cajolement. Nancy was
called.
" Say, Arthur s thinking he wants to go home-along.
Thinks it s too tarnation dull on a farm. I want you to
tell him haying 11 be over pretty soon, and then we ll
try and lay ourselves out more in the way of enter
taining."
" Surely," said Nancy. " There ll be Sunday-school
picnic for one thing, and cattle shows start around
August"
" H m, h m," nodded Abner, in approval. Then he
added, " And you n she can take the hoss any after
noon and go a-cousining."
" Oh, you haven t understood," interrupted Arthur,
blushing pitifully. He was a nice boy, and really dis
tressed because his uncle and aunt thought him ungrate
ful. " You mustn t trouble to take me about. It s
only "
106 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" You mustn t leave," said Abner, " till you ve had
more of your aunt s cooking. Why, Arthur, garden
sass is hardly begun to come yet. And there won t be
chickens broiling-size before next week."
" I was planning roast sucking-pig for Sunday din
ner," interpolated Nancy, " and if you re sick of pie
plant pies and strawberry shortcake, which I admit we
have had pretty regular because just now s between hay
and grass for pie-filling "
" Apples being out, and blueb rys not yet turned,"
Abner put in, intelligently.
" Why, I ll send to the store for raisins and citron and
stir up a batch of fruit-cake. I d just love to do it."
" And I d just love to eat some on t," said her gallant
husband, smacking his lips. " So would you, Arthur, if
you once got your teeth into it. Your Aunt Nancy
don t pattern by any woman when it comes to makin
cake-
" And you mustn t think you ve wore your welcome
out," she was saying. " I admit I was some sca t when
Abner said you was a-coming. You see, I ain t much
used to boys, and I s posed you d hector the cat, n track
in mud, and throw things round upstairs till the spare
chamber looked bout ready to ride out. From what I
rec lect o my brothers that was the only sort o boy there
was. But you re not like that, Arthur. I must say your
ma or somebody has trained you splendid. The cat s
never so happy as when you re a-making of her, and I
never did see anything quite so cute as the hangers you ve
fixed for the clothes press with old wire and a broom
handle."
Arthur had to do something to stop them talking, so
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 107
he burst into tears he was only fifteen, remember, and
suffering from neurasthenia and sobbed out he was
quite happy at West Holly didn t want to go out nights
could be contented for weeks lying in the hammock
reading " Japhet in Search of a Father " and the other
products of the bookcase but that he felt his precious
time was being wasted.
" When I say there s nothing to do," he added, polish
ing himself off with a handkerchief fresh from the folds,
" I mean there s nobody to do anything for."
Abner s jaw dropped. A boy, only fifteen, complain
ing there was nobody to do anything for! As he re
called it, Abner s own youth loomed up a period entirely
occupied with devising schemes to get out of doing things
for folks. All the boys were similarly employed in
escaping woodboxes that must be filled, carpets that
must be beaten, grandfathers who must be run errands
for.
" What particular line of thing was you planning to
do for somebody, when you get back to the city ? " asked
Abner, adding, "Of course it s right down good of you
to consider your ma so much, though she writes she s
managing to make out."
Arthur stared.
" I don t help mother," he observed. " We have dif
ferent lines. She s in Civic Improvement clean-up day,
you see, and all that. Most of the fellows mothers are,
now. Municipal housekeeping it is called. But I m wor
ried about my club my own special club."
Abner and Nancy stood silent, talked out. The boy
went on, " I organized it all myself, though it meets at
the West End Settlement House. I began with five and
io8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
now from twenty-five to thirty come every evening.
They are splendid chaps and getting a fine tone; they
agreed to take turns being director while I was away, and
the scribe was going to write me all that happened. Then
I thought maybe I could organize something like it out
here a corresponding branch. But all the boys I ve met
in West Holly are home from Academy and ahead of
me in things. So I think I d better go back, where I can
really do some good, and not spend the whole summer
just amusing myself. I m too mature, you know, for
anything like that."
Abner suddenly sat down and began to roar.
"Ho-ho-ho!" he laughed. "So that s what s eating
you? The grub s all right and the place s all right, but
you want some submerged tenth to do a little good to.
Have I guessed right?"
Arthur nodded, though it touched a raw spot to have
his " work " thus ridiculed. Perhaps Abner saw, for he
presently stopped laughing and put a few questions.
" Serious, now, boy, tell me about it. Who are this
twenty-thirty and what d ye do to em?"
" Well, they are mostly newsboys. Russian Jews.
And oh, so eager to learn things. Why, when it came to
naming the club one boy suggested West End Society
and the rest all said no. They didn t expect to live in the
West End all their lives, they said; they would go to
better places when they were men and earning money, but
they should always keep the club going, so they wanted a
name they never need change."
" Well, what s it called ? " asked Nancy.
" The Oliver Wendell Holmes Guild."
" I suppose that s your notion ? " Abner gasped.
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 109
" Oh, no. Every suggestion has to come from a mem
ber. I d never have got along with them at all only by
letting the boys run things."
" Then what s the use of you? " Abner inquired, puz
zled. " Why couldn t they have made up a club all
alone?"
Arther couldn t tell, only they didn t. He was director.
All the clubs in the settlements had directors. It was
the director s business to keep out of everything and yet
be in it all.
" You see, I gave em little talks," he remarked, with
firm modesty. " I was always ready and studied up, but
I didn t say anything until they asked. And then I
brought round other boys, who told em things they
wanted to know. Things I wasn t up in. Once I was
ready to run away, when they insisted I should explain
Football Signals. You see I never have time for athlet
ics. But I got our school captain of the Eleven to come
up and he was perfectly splendid. He put on his spiked
shoes and other togs downstairs, and then I got a pan of
mud and mussed him and he wore his nose-guard the
entire evening. My, the club was pleased, and I was
solid with them after that."
" Arthur," exclaimed his uncle, " I beg your pardon! "
"What?"
" I m afraid I been thinking you was sort of a molly
coddle ; your aunt said you was good as a niece round the
kitchen, and I was afraid you d grow up and be some
thing sissy, like a gent schoolmarm. Now I know better.
I ll bet your aunt anything she pleases to name that you re
cut out for a circus man."
"Oh, don t!" grinned Arthur. "I really did help
i io OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
those kids. And you should have seen the treat they in
sisted on giving me before I came out here. They said
I d been doing things for them all winter, so now I must
be their guest. And they took me to an amusement
park, and I had to eat peanuts and drink sarsaparilla and
ride flying horses, while those splendid little chaps, who
have to sell four papers to earn a single penny, paid the
nickels. I tell you, uncle, I never expect to swallow such
soda water again. They just stood round in a circle and
looked happy while I drank alone."
" The little tykes ! " said Abner, while Nancy flirted
her apron into her eyes and wondered what such a club
would do with half a barrel of Early Astrachans.
" Put most of em in their pockets to carry home to
the littler kids," said Arthur. " They re always doing
that. Try it with ice-cream and greasy drumsticks at
the big Christmas dinners. But it s getting awfully late,
uncle. I ve not much time to spare if I catch the 4:30."
" Take that valise right up chamber," responded Ab
ner. " I won t have any nephew o mine going back to
the city complaining the rooral deestricts is short of
anything. We got a sample of about everything that s
going right here in West Holly."
" Oh, uncle, not slums ! "
"What is slums?" asked Abner, settling back in his
chair with an ease that augured ill for what hay was out,
since if the hired man was not asleep under a birch
sapling, then it was because he was smoking his pipe
under the pines.
" Oh you know. Dirty houses, old, and never built
to be used for what they are used now. And the people
don t know how to live clean, besides many of them are
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY in
new to America, so they can t understand what is
best."
" Boy," remarked Abner, " if your description s c rect,
and I reckon tis, we ve got as good slums as any one
could want right hereabout. Oh, yes. As dirty a house
as one need hanker after old, never intended to be used
as tis used; people who don t know the first thing about
living clean; and so new to America that they "
" Haven t a fly-screen, a wash-rag, or a door that ll
shut on the premises," quoth Nancy, catching her hus
band s drift.
:< You ve said it. Now, Arthur, that high-named club
might have been very well for a starter, but there s a
tougher job cut out for you here in West Holly. We re
going to let you tackle the Natupskis ! "
" What are they ? " stammered the boy, and having a
confused remembrance of being already introduced to a
lot of objects with similarly confusing names Holsteins,
Berkshires, Minorcas.
" What are they ? Hard to tell. When the young ones
take vermin into school we call em pests ; n again when
the man reclaims a old barren pasture and makes it feed
fifteen creatures where before three starved, I say they re
precepts and examples. Anyway, they re your meat.
Come from Poland, don t know the first thing about
American ways, and don t want to know. I tackled the
man, and was called a murderer for my pains; your aunt
set out to be good to the woman, and got the poor thing
a beating. I design you should get after the children."
Arthur appeared bewildered, but he saw plainly enough
his uncle was making fun of that Oliver Wendell Holmes
Guild.
ii2 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" He thinks I m a silly kid," the boy reflected. " Well,
I did help those newsboys I did so ! Let him bring on
his old country slum." And aloud he asked mildly how
many young people were supposed to await " tackling."
" There s a snarl of em," said Nancy.
" He d better take the ones already broke in to school/
observed Abner. " Stanis, the biggest boy, is turned
thirteen, I should say."
" And Statia," put in Nancy. " She s ten and bright s
a button, if some one d only tell her what for."
" Not girls," Arthur murmured. " I couldn t tell a girl
anything."
" All right. It s completely your funeral," was Ab-
ner s lugubrious comment, as he finally rose to look after
the hay. " You better start in straight off, Mr. Eleemosy
nary Hardworker. You ll probably find your congrega
tion out stealing something off n my farm."
Arthur set his jaw and explored the premises. There
was a shed the upper part of which would make a good
enough meeting place. It was approached by a trap-door,
which was splendid in itself; and the bare floor was only
encumbered by shavings from stray carpentry. Arthur
swept vigorously, and borrowed some old chairs from the
garret, also a sort of rocking-bench that he could not
know was a chair cradle. On a light stand he placed the
splendid gavel he found in the cellar (it was a bung
starter) and over the wide window he draped the felt
banners of his school. He was glad he had brought
them. It would have seemed wrong to start a club with
out felt banners. Arthur decided it looked good enough,
and went to find his Natupskis. On the way he meditated
anent his first talk.
"HI-JINKS" IN WEST HOLLY 113
Oh" The Toothbrush."
After that, " Hygiene of Hair and Nails," " Fresh Air
in the Sleeping-Room," " Mastication of Food," cul
minating in " The Daily Bath." Arthur had been trained
in that large school which endeavors to secure moral
regeneration through sanitation.
Being an adept in catching boys he had no trouble in
securing the presence of two young male Natupskis at his
first evening session, which began with sunset and con
tinued under the bright light of Aunt Nancy s well-
polished lantern.
Looking the lads over some understanding of their
loneliness thrilled Arthur s little practical heart.
Arthur no longer remembered that he wanted to
" make good " as a means of getting back at Uncle
Abner. He really yearned to give these waifs some
present happiness. He began to talk more eloquently
than he had ever talked at the Oliver Wendell Holmes
Guild.
His subject was that other club in the West End of
Boston. From it he passed to the subject of himself.
He had come to West Holly, he said, and he was lone
some.
" Let s meet here every night, if you like. Perhaps
not quite so often? You are to say what we are to do.
We will take turns being in charge."
Stanislarni nodded a very shock head. The younger
boy stared.
" We will do things together. Things we like to do,"
Arthur went on, rather nervously. His city newsboys
had not received him in silence such as this, they had been
ii4 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
forever bobbing up and waving their hands for recogni
tion. " Er games, for instance."
It was hurrying things to produce these so early in the
evening, for he had depended on dominoes and tiddly-
winks to sugarcoat a half-hour s instruction. But the
constant gaze of four ox-like eyes had effect in putting
the young missionary out of his reckoning.
Not a boy looked at the enticing table. Even when
Arthur stooped to get the checkerboard from under a
chair, he could feel the top of his head being bored by a
piercing gaze.
As a gambler who plays his last penny " Go Bang "
was added to the pieces on the board. Arthur sank back
exhausted and waited.
The place grew full of those dreadful sounds that ring
in the ears of those who suffer from stage fright. Stanis-
larni slowly uncrossed his right foot and crossed his left.
Wajeiceh wetted his lips. The table gave an independent
creak. The wind in the trees sounded like a rainy day.
Arthur was afraid that if he tried to speak he would find
he had lost his voice. What was his topic for the even
ing?
" The Toothbrush."
At the O. W. H. Guild it had been bad form to intro
duce it abruptly. One worked up to it with tact. How
did one begin ?
" Let us tell a story let us each tell a story. Benny
Levi, will you not begin ? Tell us the first thing you re
member."
Benny tells a tale, probably apochryphal, about going
to Heder.
" That is very nice. Now I am going to tell you what
"HI-JINKS" IN WEST HOLLY 115
I first remember. I suppose you will all laugh. The
first thing I remember is having a toothache."
Obedient laughter accompanied by much falling off
chairs.
" Well, boys, I ve never forgotten that toothache.
Have any of you had the toothache? Then I m sure
you ll never forget it. Now we none of us like to have
toothache. Do we like to have toothache? Course we
don t. And the only way not to have it is to brush our
teeth every time we eat anything."
Due pause for hilarity, then continuance : " Oh, it s
all right to laugh, but those of us who have had the
toothache know it was no laughing matter. Perhaps we
had to go to the dentist and have it pulled out. Just
think, that tooth will never grow again!"
Pause for consternation. Next, " I, for one, have
made up my mind to always brush my teeth, and so not
have any of them pulled out. I m going to brush them
up and down, because the dentist says that is the correct
way. And I am going to take lots of care of my tooth
brush and keep it in a wax-paper case, like this. Would
any of you boys like to try it, with me ? We might agree
to brush our teeth three times a day for a week, and to
report if we forgot. Mr. Sporrow, the kind man who
built this house, sent up all these nice, sealed-up brushes,
and if any one wants to take one he may. They are
not gifts, they are only loaned. I m sure he would like
every boy here to borrow one and keep it for a while.
Then bring it back, and let him know if you are not
glad. And he will have a new brush and a tube of
paste for every one who hasn t forgotten."
That clever sop to self-respect, loaning the toothbrush,
n6 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
seemed to all the settlement workers the top-notch of
delicacy. " I ve fifty-five brushes lent out," they would
brag to one another.
Arthur felt that he must make a break. He opened
his mouth to start the toothbrush peroration, when an
immense bump on the underside of the trap-door saved
the evening. Stanislarni, who was sitting over it, jerked
out a very American "Ow ! " Wajeiceh growled "What s
matter ? " and looked pugnaciously at Arthur. Stanis
larni recovered first and grinned, after cuffing his brother.
" Bet yer," he said, " my sister Statia. She mad."
Another bump lifted the trap. The boy looked for
instructions.
"Give a lick?" he asked.
" Why, of course not," said Arthur, naturally dis
tressed at this manner of dealing with the female sex.
He advanced to parley. Pert little Statia, her black
hair adorned with cobwebs, a result of butting that
wooden trap, peered eagerly around the forbidden place.
" Lemme in," she said, peremptory as a militant at the
door of Parliament. " I got more English than any of
em. I can talk awful good. Teacher telled me so."
" B-but this is a boys club. Just for boys, you know,"
explained the afflicted Arthur. Stanislarni, catching his
drift, showed that his former silence had been the result
of choice, by exuding a mass of Polish talk which Arthur
hoped was less abusive than it sounded.
" A right," said Statia, at the finish. " Go ahead. I
sit here."
She plumped herself on the top step, politely out of the
room, practically in it.
Arthur felt the impossibility of letting her brothers
"HI-JINKS" IN WEST HOLLY 117
bang the trap down on her head, and restrained their
desire to do so. He got back to his chair, and began the
toothbrush patter, hardly knowing what he said.
" Let us tell a story let us each tell a story. Stanis-
larni Natupski, will you not begin? Tell us the first
thing you remember."
As he feared, no giggles, no apochrypha, no anything.
Stanislarni sat as if made out of wood. It was quite
dreadful. Arthur lacked inventive power, he could see
no way of dashing into the toothbrush lecture but by the
well-learned path.
A voice, from the stairs, broke his revery.
" Ask me, mister. Don t ask them greenhorns."
He asked her.
" First I remember is Stanislarni has a banana. Some
nice rich person is give him a banana. He bites with the
skin on and it is bad. Stanislarni is a awful green
horn."
Having thus neatly scored off her customarily tyran
nical brother, Statia folds her hands over her inadequate
seersucker skirt and beams.
Arthur goes on. He repeats the story of his own
toothache. When he pauses for laughter, it is Statia
who laughs. When he stops for consternation over the
tooth that will never grow again it is the intelligent female
who interpolates, " Second tooth." Even the brisk-witted
Russian Jews hadn t thought of that. But at the invita
tion to borrow a toothbrush, which Arthur illustrated by
the production of a half-dozen, properly sealed (he never
left home without them), it was the masculine element
that abruptly arose.
" No good a club," said Stanislarni. " Teeths. Dam !
n8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
I want George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and
Mister Thaddeous Roosevelt. Teeths ! Dam ! "
Followed by his subservient brother he clattered down
the stairs, not in the least minding that he walked all over
Statia. Indeed, she was upstairs before they were
down.
" Don t yer care," she grinned. " You lemme take
one them brushes and I ll use it good on all the small
kids. They s too little to kick."
Arthur essayed to append something of the doctrine
concerning individuality in toilet matters, but she refused
to listen. Pocketing the wax-paper packet neatly by
putting it down her neck as the heroine does all in
criminating documents in the melodrama she mean
dered about, touching everything and approving generally.
"These chairs is nice. Slocumbs , ain t they? Do
they stay out here always ? " Then, seeing the games,
"What for?"
Arthur endeavored to explain. She recognized domi
noes, but the beautiful Go Bang board appealed most
heartily.
At nine o clock, when Abner Slocumb crept out to see
how the experiment was resulting, he found a dirty little
girl and a pale-faced youth playing their seventh game
of Go Bang by the waning flame of the lantern.
" Light her long the road a piece," said Abner, but
Statia didn t need such attention. She ran off gaily,
yelling, " Sure I come tomorrow. And bring them green
horns."
"Wai, you made a good start?" asked Abner.
Arthur didn t know. He might have thought he had
because, as his uncle reminded him, a girl was as well
"HI-JINKS" IN WEST HOLLY 119
worth saving as a boy, but her next-to-farewell request
had been very disquieting.
" I s pose you couldn t, please, mister, gimme a chew? "
It was perfectly evident that Arthur had a good sum
mer s work cut out for him in West Holly.
ii
True to her promise, Statia appeared the next evening
holding two younger brothers by the ear. One was only
Stepan, not yet four, but his sister answered for him as
eligible to any masculine society, since, if any one would
give him a cigarette, he would smoke it and swallow the
butt just as skilfully as she could do it herself.
" Here, you, mister, they wants to wash their teeths.
They wants to wash their teeths all the time. Shut
up, Stepan ! Ain t I a-telling you ? Don t you go putting
your talk in. Oh, mister, I most killed our baby. He
ain t got washing size teeths, but I didn t think."
" Say," said Uncle Abner, who exercised a general
oversight in the evening sessions for which he bought
kerosene and Nancy baked gingersnaps, " why don t the
biggest boy come round ? " And " He went off mad,"
said Arthur, " saying something about Roosevelt and
Washington. Of course I m not stuck on myself to that
extent. I couldn t keep school."
Abner reflected. " I sh d judge," he remarked, " that
Oliver Wendell Holmes business was just a sort of
washing-machine."
His words had effect. Arthur burrowed in the old
bookcase and disinterred Edison s comprehensive en
cyclopedia. It was rather disgusting that he, a well-
120 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
educated American boy, didn t feel equal to telling Stanis-
larni Natupski about the Father of his Country. But
wood-carving, botany, and laboratory work did take such
a lot of time!
He sent a polite message, which he hoped was properly
delivered, to Stanislarni, announcing the immortal Wash
ington as a topic, and the thirteen-year-older con
descended to come and shove his sister from her pet seat
in the chair cradle, at the end of the table.
Stanislarni listened, low-browed, to the Cherry Tree
story, to the Crossing of the Delaware, to the sufferings
at Valley Forge, to the insults put upon the first president
by John Hancock, to the greetings of the maids at Tren
ton personating the thirteen states.
" Huh," commented young Poland, " not so much.
He wasn t great as the great Sobieski."
Arthur realized, with a pang, he had never heard of
the great Sobieski. However, he decided if Stanislarni
wanted American statesmen he should have them, and
promised Abraham Lincoln for the next night. Stanis
larni listened, but still gave the palm to the great
Sobieski.
" He stayed back, did Aberham Lincoln," was the
crushing criticism of the man who raised millions for
defense.
" But he wasn t a soldier," explained Arthur. " The
country needed him to get money for the great war, and
men. It was his duty to stay in the White House."
" Poh for such a president," sneered Stanislarni.
The great Sobieski did not do so. He ride front of all
mans, waving sword, hollering Come on! He not get
killed any theater show. He the great Sobieski ! "
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 121
Again Arthur realized, with a pang, that he had never
heard of the great Sobieski. So of course he couldn t
be very great! Following an example in vogue long
before the March Hare employed it as a means of ex
trication from conversational tangles, he was about to
propose a change of subject, when Statia bobbed up and
saved him the trouble.
" Shucks for great Sobieskis ! " she cried. " We ain t
Polisher no more. We re American. Aberham Wash
ington is the Father of my Country anyhow, and
Wajeiceh and Stepan s. Shut up, kids. I m a-telling
you. Now I suppose you couldn t, please, mister, tell us
some those Hi-Jinks."
Hygiene was what she really enjoyed, and Arthur
responded with a few words on " Mastication of Food."
Stanislarni remained, but only to request a literary pro
gram next.
" Sure I come some more," he said, when Arthur
timidly suggested a desire for the pleasure of his com
pany. " You shall tell me Longfellow, Shakspere, Miss
Beecher Toe, Lowell, Mass., and Lord God Byron."
" Arthur appears to have considerable of a job laid
out," remarked Aunt Nancy, after a peep into the sitting-
room, where all the poetry in the house was assem
bled.
" Hain t heard no complaint of late concerning his not
having nothing to do," returned Uncle Abner.
Arthur felt pride in the result of his literary cram
ming. He took Longfellow to the bridge by moonlight,
and then later he took him out and buried him and put up
his monument in quite another place at Mt. Auburn; he
compressed Shakspere into five hundred words, credited
122 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Mrs. Stowe with starting the Civil War, sent Lowell as
Ambassador to England, and let Byron die with gallan
try in Greece.
" Huh," said Stanislarni, " didn t they make no poetry?
The great Mickiewicz he made poetry."
Of course Arthur had never heard of the great Mickie
wicz, but his chief regret was for not having understood
Stanislarni s want. Why had he not prepared himself to
repeat "The Psalm of Life" and "To Be or Not to
Be ? " instead of getting up a " theme " ?
As usual, Statia came to the fore.
" Say, mister, don t get a peeve on Stanislarni. Tatulo
papa talks all time on great Mickiewicz; but those
readings about Coopies in the magazine teacher has to
school is more nicer. Now I like we should learn about
teeth some more. Stanislarni never heard that."
But the oldest Natupski firmly declined any but ethical
information.
" Teeths to hell," he observed, with a succinctness at
which Arthur alone shuddered. " Come on, now, you tell
some American poetry and I ll tell some the great
Mickiewicz made."
Arthur brisked up. "Oh, a debate!" he exclaimed.
" That would be fun. And we ll ask Uncle Abner to
judge."
" Such foolishers, you boys," sneered Statia. " Stan
islarni can say it in Polish. Tha s all."
A cloud settled over the assembly, until it appeared
that the girl had stuck up the bogy only to have the
pleasure of knocking it down.
" Here, lemme tell you. Stanislarni learn the Ameri
can, and you, mister "
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 123
" Good ! " cried Arthur. " I ll send for a translation
tomorrow."
Statia was somewhat bewildered, having probably
thought Arthur could easily master the Polish tongue in
a few days, and Stanislarni inquired in surprise if all
" greats " were in American books.
"English?" said Arthur. "I suppose so."
Then why, Stanislarni wanted to know, were any of
the people in his adopted country ignorant of the great
Mickiewicz ?
Arthur didn t stop to think up an explanation, he was
trying to keep Statia from considering herself part of
the debating team. In the end she was forcibly self-
annexed to Arthur s side with the announcement that
tatulo had " teached her a say." To make matters even
Wajeiceh and Stepan were turned over to Stanislarni.
" Let him have em both, mister," she remarked. " I
guess they ain t no good."
Since it had been impossible to hide any light under
any bushel in West Holly after the introduction of the
rural phone, the fact that Abner Slocumb s nephew from
the city had started a club to take in the Natupski children
had been common property from the start. Now Arthur
found that the coming literary trial was to be attended
not only by Uncle Abner and Aunt Nancy, but by Mr.
Hiram Farrar of the school board and the Rev. Mr.
Skeele of the Methodist church.
Arthur made the shed chamber extra clean and incited
Statia to helping him weave garlands of oak leaves and
ground evergreen. Wajeiceh and Stepan were drafted,
by their energetic sister, into helping. Only Stanislarni
held aloof. He was fully occupied in trying to re-
i2 4 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
member not the words of his selected poem, but where
to put his hands when reciting. Arthur, training his
opponent with great conscientiousness, had said, " Oh,
no, don t wipe em on your sides no, nor wave em in
the air no, indeed, you must not scratch your head let
em hang easy see, like mine."
" Sure," said Statia, who assisted at everything.
" Like mister s, easy, right on the bend in his pants."
Arthur flushed. He hadn t been aware that the crease
Aunt Nancy had so obligingly pressed into his serge
trousers was so very noticeable!
The evening arrived, Mr. Farrar perspired in shirt
sleeves, and the minister looked cool, as a minister must,
in a black coat. Nancy had invited several of the
neighbor women to hear the children speak pieces. With
her they sat on the cradle bench and waved palm leafs.
Mr. Natupski had come, armed with his goad. Statia
whispered to Arthur that he was going to lick whoever
forgot. Mrs. Natupski couldn t come. Tadcuse was
having all the afflictions of a baby s second summer.
They wouldn t kill him, but they were severe, so Mrs.
Natupski couldn t come.
The shed chamber was a pretty sight, adorned with
green garlands; on the table glowed a great bunch of
marigolds, and golden rod and asters had been tacked all
round the window space, making a frame for the night.
Evidence of successful lectures on hygiene was visible in
the clean face and hands of Statia and the relatively
decent appearance of Wajeiceh. Stanislarni, it was
rumored, would not wash until he might have to, when
school began.
The selection for Wajeiceh had been made by Stanis-
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 125
larni, without reference to his comparative lack of ac
quaintance with the English tongue. Never, perhaps,
had such work been made of " Spartacus to the Gladi
ators." Mr. Farrar and Abner had to laugh, but ex
cused themselves by saying they remembered choosing
that piece when they had to speak Fridays in the old red
schoolhouse.
Then Stanislarni rose and began in a rumbling young
bass voice:
" What, Phoebe, are you come so soon
Where are your berries, child?"
He went on, in a manner beautifully serious, to give
the whole twenty-eight stanzas of that immortal poem;
indeed, with hardly a pause, he followed it with the next
seventeen of " The Blackberry Girl at Church." Arthur
was prepared for a start of surprise when that young
ruffian for Stanislarni was big for his age, and had a
well-deserved reputation for pugnaciousness in the
neighborhood repeated this mawkishly sentimental
story of old-fashioned almsgiving. It had been young
Natupski s own choice from a book of " Selections." He
was by no means deterred when Arthur had explained
shrilly it wasn t real poetry or written by any one
" great."
But the club director was not prepared for the chalking
of a white line down the middle of each Stanislarni leg,
soberly arranged by Statia just before the big boy
stepped to the front.
" Because his pants don t bend," she explained, nodding
intelligently to the rather astonished audience.
126 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
The English tongue having had adequate representa
tion, it was now Poland s turn.
" Miss Anastasia Natupski will now recite two poems
of Adam Mickiewicz, the most famous poet of Poland,"
said Arthur, in the easy manner he had acquired at the
O. W. Holmes Guild, " and I will give them in English."
Miss Anastasia swelled with pride at her fine name,
and spoke glibly. She knew she alone had to fear papa s
goad; he couldn t be sure if the rest spoke correctly or
otherwise.
Arthur got up rather wearily. He had been trotting
about all day absorbed, like Martha, in many cares; he
had sweltered in the hillside pasture pulling up ground
pine, he had been worried with drilling the poor little
boy, who ought, by rights, to have been required to lisp
nothing more difficult than " I love little kitty " or " Mary
had a lamb." The book with the translation had not ar
rived until the last minute, he had committed his lines to
memory in the midst of sweeping, lugging chairs, and
helping Aunt Nancy with the " refreshments." With
the polite, well-drilled inanity of his excellently inten-
tioned but shallow nature, he began:
THE FATHER S RETURN
Go, children, all together go
Unto the pillar on the hill,
Before the picture there bow low,
For father pray with all thy will.
For father still is far away,
Where streams arc swol n and wild beasts howl,
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 127
And seeking us, by night or day,
Must pass the wood where robbers prowl.
In a pleasant tone Arthur told the story the children
prayed, then was heard " the sound of wheels approach
ing," and father arrives, asking:
And is mother well, your aunt and the maids
Here are grapes in the basket, boys.
Then glee resounds in the wooded glades,
And the air is rent with noise.
Soon, however, joy turns to grief, for the robbers
leap forth and the father is being borne away, when the
leader of the band, " mustached, with saber drawn,"
orders him liberated. While lying in wait he had, it
seemed, overheard the prayer of the children :
Though I listened at first with laugh derisive,
Soon to pity my heart was stirred. ^
Merchant, depart to the woods I go
And, children, come sometimes here,
Before the pillar, bending low,
Give me a prayer and a tear.
It was completed, and lo, a miracle.
Arthur fell in love ! And though it was only with an
author and a poem, it was as deep and sincere a love as
could be given to any earthly object. This was indeed
the great Mickiewicz he knew it, he felt it. No wonder
Stanislarni had been impatient of the pabulum spread
128 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
before him. Others felt as Arthur did, too. The wist
ful story had brought tears to the eyes of Aunt Nancy
and the minister, while even Uncle Abner looked as he
did at church. Mr. Natupski appeared startled at hear
ing his favorite author in an English version. Before the
end of the poem he abruptly rose and threw his goad out
of the window.
Thus there was nothing for him to do but pull his hair
when, by way of a surprise, " Miss Anastasia " offered
what she said was
Jeszcze Polska me zginela
and which Arthur then gave as
Poland is not yet lost.
In unison (and English) they piped up
While we live she is existing,
Poland is not fallen
and Mr. Natupski growled in the chorus,
March, march, Dombrozvski,
From Italy s plain.
Our brethren shall meet us
In Poland again.
Arthur sat down, the exaltation of his mind showing
in his eyes. He was firmly determined that whatever
happened the next winter, he would read everything
" HI-JINKS " IN WEST HOLLY 129
Englished of Mickiewicz and Wybicki. The company
drew numerous long breaths, and was only just able to
come back to earth at the sight of lemonade and jelly roll
cake.
Able, also, to talk of the sensation.
" Well, I vum," said Mr. Farrar, " I never knew there
was anybody wrote any poetry come up to Whittier s
1 Barefoot Boy/ but I must say I s pose, Mr. Skeele,
you ve read all this Mr. Mikkywitz ever wrote? "
The minister shook his head, smiling.
" But I m going to," he remarked, exchanging a look
of intelligence with Arthur.
The three gentlemen judges announced the Polish
authors to have " won out," and the copy of " One
Hundred Choice Selections " which Abner Slocumb had
provided as a prize was given to Statia, who employed it
variously during the evening to bang her younger brothers
into good behavior and to strike envy to the heart of
Stanislarni. That young gentleman was in the position
of the reformer who lives to find himself the victim of
his theories. He had bragged of the great Mickiewicz
until even these Americans came to believe it just about
the time he was coming to believe in other greatness. He
guessed, anyhow, it all came from letting a girl in. That
about " teeths " was just meant for a girl. He ostentar
tiously erased the chalk mark from each leg, and decided
he would never have a real bend in his pants a reform
to which he had been almost persuaded earlier in the
evening. He wouldn t go to school any more, either.
Books were no use. He would do like tatulo wanted, go
into the Mifflin Mills, earn a heap of money as much as
five dollars a week and in a few years have a farm
130 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
like papa. That was the thing to do. Papa could fix up a
paper saying he had been born over sixteen years ago in
Poland.
It was but a short time that the lantern hung o nights
in Abner Slocumb s shed chamber. Arthur went back
to the city, and was only known to the Natupskis as the
sender of frequent souvenir postal cards. One winter
day, on returning from a strenuous session of the O. W.
Holmes Guild, he found his mother smiling over a letter
from Uncle Abner. There was a postscript.
Tell Arthur Stanylarny Natupski is gone to work in
the mill where the hands live in bording houses sleping
three in a bed for the day shift same for night adding up
to half dozen and no chance to air or turn matras on a
forged school cirtifycate. Stacy is doing better. She
tole her ma she wold wash her neck whatever the weather
and not with the kind of sope floors is washed with
neither. So he has not lived in vane for its as much to
save a girl as a boy and so your ant thinks too.
Arthur believed his work had not been without due
reward, for if he hadn t taught the Natupskis much, the
Natupskis had taught him a good deal even more than
appreciation for Mickiewicz and the great Sobieski,
though that was much.
As for Stanislarni, he gave him up, even to the extent
of cutting him from the souvenir card list. Arthur was
a good sort, but un-eyed for the future. He could not
discern when and where he would next find the name of
Natupski, and in what juxtaposition to his own.
VII
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE
IT could not be denied that America was having its
effect on the Natupskis. Stanislarni, over at Mifflin
Grove, had gone into a Chinese restaurant, eaten chop
suey, and pronounced it " darn good." He said all
Americans thought it was darn good. Wajeiceh wanted
to argue with his father when his father refused to tell
for what reason the boy would have a whipping. It was
his assertion that no American father licked a boy with
out a reason. Did ever any one hear of such nonsense ?
Nine-year-old Rinka and seven-year-old Kazia said
teacher said they should learn their lessons and go to
bed, instead of staying in the barn until midnight drop
ping ears into the corn-sheller. She said she didn t keep
a school for kids to sleep in. What d ye say to that talk,
tatulo ?
Only Mrs. Natupski did not seem in the least recon
structed. She plodded on in the old country ways until
even her very own children wished she wouldn t. First,
from Statia s lips, came a sneering " Greenhorn ! "
Mrs. Natupski made no reply, and Statia thought she
didn t notice, but she did. She could think of a great
many replies, but there was difficulty in employing them,
because Mrs. Natupski had never really learned to speak
English, while Statia was rapidly forgetting her little
Polish speech. On the whole, thought Mrs. Natupski, it
131
132 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
would be better to tell Kani. She might be too hard on
the girl, herself, for she was always a stepmother, and
on this day felt like it. It would be a revelation to Statia
to learn suddenly what a stepmother reared in Poland
might do to a disobedient stepdaughter.
Mrs. Natupski did not expect sympathy from her hus
band, but his goad was generally so ready for action that
Kani did not hold it in restraint even when it was only
to be employed in avenging a mere insult to his wife.
But this time papa was on Statia s side. He absolutely
refused to beat the girl. Statia was only getting Ameri
can. He liked that. He hoped all the children would
get American. And he was going to buy a threshing-
machine and no longer do it with flails like in the old
country. As for what Statia said wasn t it true?
And he went out with a swagger that showed he was
wearing high-heeled, box-toed tan shoes, with white
buttons on them !
Mrs. Natupski reflected. So she was a greenhorn,
and worthy of being so called ? She, the mother of seven,
who had always done her share of the field work, and
more than her share of the barn work, whatever her ma
ternal duties or her household cares.
She looked on the next farm, and what did she see ?
Nancy Slocumb, American without " getting " that
way. Nancy rose at the advanced hour of 6.30, after
Abner had started the fires, filled the tea kettle, ground
the coffee, and put the potatoes boiling. Did Nancy do
her share of work out of doors? Far from it. Mrs.
Natupski had heard her calling Abner when she wanted
so much as a head of lettuce from the garden.
Setting her lips and nodding her head, Mrs. Natupski
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE 133
made up her mind that Kani had temporarily gone astray.
When the shoes were worn out perhaps he would come to
his senses. And in the meanwhile he must be paying for
the thresher.
Stanislarni gave the next jolt. He was her own son,
and her first-born, so that the hurt from him far worsted
Statia s. He came by the turnip field, one holiday, with
a half-dozen mates American boys from the grammar
school in the village by the depot. Mrs. Natupski stopped
work and waved her hoe with a shout, but Stanislarni
hurried on, while the other boys laughed. Mrs. Natupski
stood in the mud, stonily thinking. She did not realize
the picture she made, wearing Kani s worn-out boots, a
draggled skirt hanging in scallops, a jacket of Stanis-
larni s own from which all her wizened arms protruded
below the elbow, and with her dark hair tied under a
filthy red and yellow rag that in every thread proclaimed
its old country origin.
She finished the field before she went back to the house
and hung the hoe on a horizontal apple-tree limb already
decorated with a row of scythes. Perhaps she might
never take it down again !
Next day she went raspberrying. Kani had not ex
pected her to go; instead he had laid out for her some
thing like a hired man s full day, and a few duties over.
But she went raspberrying, and lugged the pails of red
berries halfway round the mountain, where she sold
them to Mrs. Blanchard Bowes.
Whereby the Bowes family indulged in a luscious short
cake; Mrs. Natupski put forty cents into an old stocking,
and Kani detailed plans for the morrow, to include all
that day s work added to as much more. But Mrs.
134 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Natupski picked raspberries while they lasted, then began
on huckleberries, went on with them- until blueberries,
taking a detour into blackberries low bush followed by
high. Of course she could not do this every day, without
being brought openly to account, and in her quiet way she
decided the time for that was yet to come. She resumed
the hoe and rake, and worked ably five days out of six,
but the sixth was sure to find her missing, and she alone
knew how the stocking-hoard grew.
Once she took her berries to a house way down the
road to Hamson, where she had never stopped before. It
was a tiny cottage, very clean and sparkling, from pris
matic window-glass to whitewashed stones outlining
the path to the barn. Even the grass seemed less dusty
here than in any other dooryard that sultry August, and
the scarlet runners trained on strings beside the wee
porch had certainly been sponged off that very after
noon.
Mrs. Natupski knocked and a woman of about her own
age came to the door. Like her house, she was not very
beautiful, but exquisitely clean. She said the berries
were " fine and dandy," and made Mrs. Natupski come
in.
" You poor thing, you," she observed, " you must be
all tuckered out. Set ye down and I ll fetch a cooling
drink."
Mrs. Natupski perched on the edge of a wooden chair
that glistened with three coats of thick yellow paint, until
the woman came back with a big goblet of sweetened
water the combination of molasses, ginger, and H 2 O
once popular in haying time and then it was evident the
hostess intended to take her pay in sociability.
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE 135
" Say," she began, " it s pretty plain we re both in
the same boat. I m right glad you happened along, too,
for it s my first, and I m scart out my wits in this out
place. Husband says we can get a doctor in half a jiffy,
with the telephone and all, but what if it was in the night
and the girl in Central asleep? Does she keep awake,
I d like to know ? And would she be willing to drink lots
o coffee about then, so s to be sure o not closing her
eyes ? Another worry, too, is about getting some one to
come and stay. We ve got a reg lar city nurse for ten
days, but of course it will be some time after that before
I m around, and there don t seem to be nobody in this
neighborhood that wants to hire out. How do you
manage ? "
Mrs. Natupski understood two-thirds of this, and
rather wished she was able to reply. How did she
manage? Why, sometimes, if it were winter, she did
not go to the barn for as much as a week. Otherwise
an addition to the family meant practically no change in
her habits. As she was unable to answer she smiled
again, and said, shaking her head, " Me Polander."
" Oh, you re one o them families up on the mountain ?
Well, stay and rest a piece, do, even if we can t have a
dish o gossip. I ll go on with my work, if it s all the
same. I m in something of a hurry."
She was busy with a new wire dish drainer, and Mrs.
Natupski hitched her chair nearer to see. First she drew
on a covering of pale blue cambric, and then fitted a
dainty slip of dotted white muslin with bows of blue
ribbon. There were little pockets in the muslin, and
these she proceeded to fill. A white brush went into one,
a wash cloth sealed in wax paper into another, and then
136 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
appeared a regiment of pins, big and little, and various
shaped cushions to hold them.
"Cute, eh?" the woman laughed, holding the com
pleted basket aloft. " And light as a feather. Only ten
cents, too I mean the drainer."
Seeing the other s intentness, she continued, " If you
want to wait I ll hyper upstairs and get all my things.
They ain t so fancy, but I did em myself, every stitch."
Mrs. Natupski did wait, and handled the soft flannels,
the white slips, the pink " outing " kimono, and the
knitted cap with reverence.
" Got your things ready? " asked the woman, with the
careless curiosity of a neighbor.
"Nie!" and Mrs. Natupski shook her head. She
never had anything ready. The newest member of her
family simply had to take a chance of being wrapped in
something none of the rest was wearing.
" Oh, well, p r aps you got lots o time. Or maybe
you buy yourn. You can get real nice layouts all com
plete layettes they call em, goodness only knows why.
He got me a catalogue of one them mail-order houses,
but I d ruther make mine. Here tis; possibly you d like
to look it over."
She thrust into Mrs. Natupski s hand the twelve-pound
book wherein was listed every known commodity, from
malachite roofing to horseshoe nails. It opened of itself
at the layettes, and the hostess pointed out the one she
liked best.
" Everything plain, but the picshures say neat, and
plenty enough for a summer or fall baby, when you can
get to do washing regular. Only $6.98. I d know but
I d try it another time. One gets tired sewing, and it s
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE 137
mighty easy to mark that cowpon, No. 5, put the money
in a invellup, and nothing more. Well, must you be
going? Come again, any time you get so fur. I m al
ways glad to see a friendly face."
The catalogue weighed more than two pails of berries,
but Mrs. Natupski did not mind. She was in a hurry
to count the contents of the stocking and see what she
could make of the puzzling American coins.
Anything above fifty cents being beyond her com
prehension, she was obliged to call on Statia for help.
" My, my, mamma, what a lot o money," cried the
girl, looking admiration at the accumulation of pennies
and nickels. " Did papa give it to you ? Papa s pretty
good, ain t he? "
" How much ? " demanded Mrs. Natupski, ignoring the
question.
Statia put the different coins by themselves, and after
numerous false starts and long pauses, announced the
sum-total of seven dollars and thirty-eight cents.
" Gee, mamma," she chattered, as Mrs. Natupski pre
pared to hide the hoard in her bosom, " you didn t ought
to take that all places where you go. It s a whole lot.
Why, some one might steal it."
" Sure. You lose it, all right ! " Kani, having entered
the kitchen in time to see the money disappearing, now
lounged across the table, and giving the stocking a pull
poured the coins into his own broad hands.
Mrs. Natupski silently produced the catalogue, which
opened of itself at the layettes, and pointed out the $6.98
outfit. Then she raised her eyes to Kani, and dropped
them to the money, which represented such a number of
aching backs, lacerated fingers, and sunburns on her part.
138 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Surely he would see that she was at last trying to be
an American. In Poland one did not so, but this was
very different from Poland, as Kani and Statia had often
reminded her.
Kani rose from the table, with his favorite grunt, and
poured the jingling mass into his pockets, dividing it
pretty equally on both sides of his khaki trou
sers.
" Safe ! " he said, condescendingly. " Me not get
robbed. Me take care of all money."
It seemed to Mrs. Natupski that she had always known
this would happen. She put the catalogue into the stove
with her regret already overcome by further determina
tion. Some day she and Kani would have it out with
each other. Not yet !
The eighth member of the brood arrived one hot Sep
tember day, and lacking a layette seemed quite healthy
and happy dressed in nothing particular, and the fates
undecided whether she should bear an old country name
of many syllables or a brisk American one sounding
like a sudden cry for help.
Kani was displeased, not only because the child failed
to be another boy, but by the way his wife lay on the
straw tick, smiling pleasantly, and having for her only
occupation the keeping comfortable of a baby that had
chosen to arrive in fly-time. Why didn t she get up and
attend to things, as always before? Couldn t she know
the wheat was ready to reap, the apples ripe for cart
ing to the vinegar mill? Did she feel a sickness any
where, he asked anxiously, whereat she shook her head
and settled more comfortably in bed. Kani didn t know
how extremely difficult the muscular woman, used to
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE 139
constant outdoor activity, was finding this self-imposed
rest. He could not see her jump when he went out, and
trot from window to window in her bare feet, grinning to
note how things lagged for want of her. Determined to
keep her bed ten days, Mrs. Natupski consulted the
calendar, each morning. Hereon she had marked the
day of her release ; it gleamed cheerfully beneath a lugu
brious picture of a bereaved widow (unprotected by life
insurance) scrubbing a living for her children. The
calendar was a tribute from the agent, who hoped to land
Natupski (and failed).
On Tuesday she would get up and resume life as she
lived it. Not before.
Saturday she descried Kani conversing with two men
of their own nationality, and he even had them into the
kitchen and treated to the cider he was saving for the
harvest. Then he came upstairs and asked once more
if she felt anywhere sick? Nie! Then why did she not
get up ? She only shook her head and rustled the straw.
Kani came nearer and his face assumed its occasional
mask of anger. She should get up, then, if he was
obliged to pull the bed down. He had the harvesters
coming Monday, and she must go out and bind. No one,
and well she knew it, was so skilful at the binding. He
had put it off two weeks now, the grain was spoiling and
could wait no longer. She must get up and be ready for
work by Monday.
"Nie!" said the woman. And added that she did
not stir from that until Tuesday.
Kani set his jaw and clenched his hands until the
knuckles turned white. Tuesday what nonsense! That
was no time to begin, he was obliged to hire the men for a
140 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
full week. The work was promised and a drink had
bound the bargain. She would get up Monday. If she
didn t he waved his hand in a way that showed how he
manipulated the ox-goad.
Mrs. Natupski, left to her own reflections, stole a
reassuring look at the calendar, and waited for the eve
of Monday. If she made an excursion to the barn before
then no one knew it, not even the baby, who was proving
a splendid sleeper. Sunday evening Mrs. Natupski called
Statia before supper was put cooking. What was there
to eat? Oh, just the bread and coffee. Papa said if
any one wanted more to go and sneak some peaches from
the Bowes orchard. Mrs. Natupski handed Statia a
broken cup in which was a small amount of white powder.
" Tatulo," said Mrs. Natupski.
Statia nodded. She supposed it was sugar that Mrs.
Slocumb or some one had given mamma for the baby.
As the quantity was so small Statia honorably refrained
from dipping even a moistened finger tip.
Mrs. Natupski, listening in the twilight, heard the
meal begin the scraping of chairs, Kani s sudden ad
monitions to the children, little nose-just-out-of-joint
Tadcuse s cry for milk before (evidently) Statia had it
warmed, a big slam when Stepan s tin plate went on the
floor, a grumble from Wajeiceh that boy was his father
over again and finally a roar as of an infuriated bullock.
Mrs. Natupski sat up, her hair dangling in elf locks about
her weather-beaten face. " He s got it," she told herself,
" He s found it." Shrieks from the children, and denials
in voices gruff and shrill from Wajeiceh and Statia
brought her to her feet. Sounds of a lash vigorously
wielded took her downstairs.
EMANCIPATION FOR ONE 141
" Stop ! stop ! " she cried in Polish to Kani. " They
don t know. I did it."
He tipped against the wall and stared at her with a per
spiring forehead. " You ? Lying abed there, what do
you know ? The coffee. A devil s mess. Only mine. A
white powder in it, just like what me put on the potato
in the summer. Only me keep the barrel covered. Mr.
Slocumb tell it is poison, kill one like it kill potato bug."
His wife nodded. Then she said, " Whatever was in
your coffee, Kani, I gave it to Statia for you."
" Why ? Why ? " he was inarticulate in amazement.
The woman grew voluble, in her own language. " You
say I am not American. Statia, there, who is none of
mine, calls me greenhorn. My boy, Stanislarni, is
ashamed of his mother when he is with depot boys.
You, Kani, tell me I must defend myself, that Statia
is right, and you cannot stop her calling me names. Very
well. I will defend myself. And I will be American."
Taking a reef in her petticoat, which had pulled itself
awry in bed and was slipping from her waist, she went
on, " American woman buy pretty things for their
American babies. But no, I cannot buy such things.
American women keep the money they earn by berries
and butter. But no, I am a greenhorn. I would lose
my money. American women stay in bed ten days
when their babies come."
She paused, and saw that Kani was listening intently,
then she ended in a crescendo, " Very well, I will lie in
bed ten days. It is only nine days till Monday, when
the harvest begins. I will not get up. An American lady
only gets up for a funeral. And for only a funeral will
I get up ! "
142 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Kani made one jump and she was afraid, for a mo
ment, that her last hour had come. However, he merely
grabbed her by shoulders and waist and hoisted her to
the floor above, there to be deposited on the straw mat
tress. Pushing the covers to her chin, he emptied his
pockets, making a pyramid of pennies and nickels on the
place where the solar plexus is popularly supposed to
lurk.
" Take rest, Marinki," he whispered, " take rest. The
men come tomorrow, pick up apples. Wheat me begin
wheat on Tuesday."
Mrs. Natupski, every nerve and muscle quivering for
exercise, breathed elation as she resigned herself to an
other twenty-four hours imprisonment. She could hear
Kani throwing out the coffee and smashing the cup.
He could never know she had won emancipation with two
spoonfuls of powdered plaster from a rat-hole near her
bed.
VIII
A SNOOT AT THE LAW
Two years had been added to the history of West
Holly since Kani Natupski paid for his farm and lost his
health, but he had by no means " gone away." Built up
with chicken broth and cream from the Slocumbs store,
he was afterward able to thrive under his own regimen.
Behold him, blessed with excellent health, a growing
family, a clear farm; and absolutely miserable!
He perceived he was not rich. Eleven years in
America, nine children, and not rich. In spite of his one
hundred acres of well-tilled land, his fat cows, his mon
strous pigs, his smart horse, a poor man. For he had
nothing beyond the farm and stock not even money to
buy more, which he coveted. It was hard to understand.
" Eleven year from Poland," he muttered, " and not
rich."
It upset all his calculations.
To be sure the neighbors all about him were likewise
poor, but they were Americans. Abner Slocumb not
only still owned to his mortgage, but seemed to think
he would have it always. " Inherited the darned thing
from granddad," he had been known to remark in a
jocular moment, when the interest was just paid.
" Nance and I couldn t keep house without it." Ameri
cans understood nothing of the way to live. They turned
up their very remarkable noses at the broken bread which
143
144 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Kani continued to have shipped weekly from the city.
Yet it cost much less than any other food, and with
coffee made from the chicory one grew it formed a
satisfying meal. Of course the chickens didn t like it
very well, but then it was best to feed them cracked corn.
One had to pamper animals and fowls, else they lay down
and died. Kani had learned this by many bitter experi
ences in those now far-off days when he was struggling
with quarterly payments to Mrs. Buckland when
Marinki had but lately come from Poland. Now he had
acquired wisdom in feeding stock, though he still ex
pected his family to restrain their present appetites in
the interest of future fortunes.
Long as he had lived beside them he had not ceased
to wonder over Americans, who were determined to eat,
whether or not they prospered. And even more be
wildering was the fact that these Americans not only had
no children, but rejoiced thereat. Mr. and Mrs. Abner
Slocumb in their childless neatness on the one side had
for several years been balanced by the presence of Mr.
and Mrs. Hiram Farrar in the old Pinkney place on the
other side. The Farrars were pretty old. Kani Natupski
had supposed they were grandparents, and artlessly in
quired after the supposed grandchildren one day when he
and Hiram were mutually strengthening a line fence.
" Ah," drawled Mr. Farrar, " there you have me where
the hair s short. Always wanted to be a grandpa, felt I
was cut out for it. Looked forward to it for years.
Should have been one, in fact, but for a trifling obstacle.
Don t amount to much, but it s kept me what I be, and
that ain t a grandpa. It s only this never raised no
children."
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 145
" Your lil boy die ? " asked Natupski. " Too bad ! "
" Die? He wasn t never born nor thought of."
" Girl ? " Natupski was still hopeful, though not en
thusiastic.
" Not so much as twins. Guess it s just as well. Boys
generally fetch up in jail, and a girl only stays around
till you get attached to her and then marries the meanest
scamp in town. Children are an awful responsibility.
My wife thought so too. And then, she was a Pink-
ney."
Natupski understood some of this, but remained un
shaken in his own belief that babies were so many aids
to the wealth that he still wished might lie in the future.
Shortly afterward he received a jolt in stumbling over
Abner Slocumb s point of viewing the same subject.
Passing congratulations on the news that Mrs. Natup
ski had made her eighth exertion to add to the number of
incipient farmhands in her husband s house, Abner
Slocumb followed the common fashion of a dig in the
ribs and the remark, " Lucky dog, wish I was in your
shoes!"
It meant nothing, because Natupski never seemed to
sense half you said, for one thing, and for the other you
didn t hanker to stand in his leather at all, you and your
wife being united in the same opinion as that of the
Farrars, that a snarl of young ones was a useless ex
pense and a pesky nuisance bound to worrit you into
your grave. But Abner neglected to say this in plain
language, so his sentiments were quite unappreciated by
partially Americanized Poland.
Natupski, after he had gone away and ruminated a
while, came back with the following outrageous proposi-
146 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
tion : " You pretty good man. Me help you out. Me
see. You all lone. No children. No help. Me help.
Me go right over your house. No baby. Next spring,
baby. Me like you. You pretty good man."
If any other had made the suggestion Mr. Slocumb
would have surely led him out into the swale and licked
the galluses off the wretch, but it didn t seem worth
while getting mad with the little Polack. Abner con
tented himself with doing as he should have done in the
first place, expressing his delight at having no mouths
to feed but those of " self and wife." After that Natup-
ski went home miffed; so, once more, the two nations
rested, each determined t other in the wrong.
On realizing that he was not rich, Kani naturally
sought a corrective for the situation among his offspring.
He was at work, himself, early and late; and Marinki,
with whom he most gallantly shared his complaint against
fate, was likewise never idle. What, he would have her
tell him, could they do that was now undone ?
She it was who set Statia up with crocheting. A
length of dirt-incrusted edging was now always dangling
from the girl s chapped wrist, whether she fed the chick
ens, drove home the cows, or tended the baby, whose
name had tumbled from the grab-bag of fate in the
romantic form of Yadna. Statia also did all the house
work that was done, so that mamma could continue sav
ing the wages of a man in such light forms of labor as
cultivating, haymaking, harvesting.
Stanislarni was still earning wages in Mifflin, the
larger part of which was carefully banked. The other
children were kept loaded with duties, from the hour
when Kani kicked them out at dawn, until they fell into
H7
torpor, which was often shortly after they had completed
the long walk from school.
Suddenly Mrs. Natupski seemed to go crazy. She
laughed, she clapped her hands, then slapped papa on
his khaki-covered knee until the dust rose in puffs.
School that was the trouble. Hours and hours every
day those children had been spending in that white-
painted building, wherein they learned strange and in
convenient things to drink only from individual paper
cups, to wash with soap that came out of a nickel spout.
The two were interrupted in their cogitations by the
sudden entrance of Statia, who dashed long-leggedly up
the slope to the barn, her fingers busy in her vermin-
teased hair, and her tongue wrapped hastily about the
collection of consonants informing papa that the cattle
were out.
Out, when he had put them into the big upland pasture
that very day, and nailed the barway with long spikes?
Oh, the brutes had broken down the fence in another
spot, had they ? He d see about that. Seizing his goad,
and giving Statia a tentative cut about the knees, which
of course she deserved as the bearer of bad tidings, he
slouched his way into the road and down the grass-
grown track.
" Come long," he bawled at Statia, who replied,
partly, " Can t. It s schooltime."
Well, there would be no school for her, mamma broke
in eagerly, nor yet for Wajeiceh, nor Rinka, Kazia, or
Novia. And Kani added, as an improving clause to this
license, that they might all come and help him build fence.
So Miss Olive Greene was forced to attend to her duties
in District 7 with most of her primary grades absent.
148 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
And Natupski got his cattle only after he had sleuthed
them almost to Holly Centre and paid a certain sum
per head " poundage." A farmer there had, it seems,
found them wandering in the highway, and shut them in
his barn. Kani was forced to settle for their " board and
keep " and something over as a fine.
It was a harrowing experience for a man who had
just begun to perceive that he was not rich. But when
the last strip of wire was fastened atop of the old stone
wall that formed the basis of all the fencing which
Natupski had secured when he bought the Buckland
place, when the unused part of the coil was abandoned
among the hardhack and bittersweet until it should be
loudly sought for next time, when the children were
sucking at lacerated fingers and mamma was binding up
Wajeiceh s forehead, bruised by a flying hammerhead,
Kani had the idea.
He did not tell his wife exactly what it was, it not
being good for a woman to know too much of a man s
plans, but he gave her a grunt of praise for having sug
gested keeping the children home from school, since
therein lay the best of the plan. He added, " Now we
going to be rich," and Marinki believed him.
It being unlucky to " carry Jews " (nod) when one has
work to do, Kani determined to begin laying the founda
tion for his fortune that very night. It was dark and
very muggy; black silence hung alike over the dwelling
of Kani Natupski and his brood and that of the Slocumbs.
In that point alone were the dwellings akin.
Natupski s was, of course, littered up with children.
Neighbors sometimes wondered how they got along with
so many cradles over there, but these wonderers were
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 149
not the near neighbors, who knew the popular bed for a
young Natupski was a soap-box.
Kani and his wife never undressed. In the winter
one s clothes assisted economy in blankets. In the sum
mer what was the use when one must rise at dawn and
that came at four o clock?
Mr. and Mrs. Slocumb, in their matted chamber, laid
their heads upon ruffled pillows, and if it turned cold
before morning would snuggle their bodies under a log
cabin quilt entirely silk, satin, and velvet.
Natupski had no real cause for worrying, beyond the
fantastic desire for a fortune; Abner Slocumb was being
considerably pressed for money. His complaisant cred
itor had passed away, leaving his estate in the hands of
trustees. They had turned the Slocumb mortgage over
to a bank, and the bank, in a heartless manner, demanded
its interest.
Nevertheless the sound sleepers "were not on the erst
while Judson Buckland place.
" Up, up," whispered Kani, in a vigorous hiss, " up,
lazy loafers ! " And he administered kicks with such
indiscrimination that the next to littlest baby got a couple,
and Stepan too, while the cat Natupski s cat was the
finest in the neighborhood, no one could tell why in
dignantly removed herself to Mrs. Natupski s side and
licked her whiskers in an aggrieved manner.
"What s matter, papa?" called Statia from the next
bare floor. " Anybody got colic ? "
No, but somebody might have something worse if he
or she didn t hurry. He wanted her, Statia, and
Wajeiceh and yes, Rinka might come. Only stop
scratching that match. He d have no light.
150
Mrs. Natupski raised herself on her elbow. She sup
posed he was going out to harvest oats. But he had
better take her along, rather than the children.
To which Kani interposed a rough refusal. If she
came away the baby would be sure to cry. For his pur
pose the children were well enough.
So he led them, stumbling and stuttering sleep in their
limbs, through the night to the upland pasture where
the Slocumb cattle chewed their cuds and breathed
heavily in well-fed content.
The next morning Abner Slocumb, making a long arm
for another doughnut at his breakfast table, was in
formed by a friendly passerby that his cattle must be out
fences seemed to be down all along the mountain road.
Abner did not reach for his goad, nor lash Nancy with
either whip or hard words. He kept right on forking the
nut-cake, and only called the cattle " pesky varmints."
They were discovered quite safe in the Natupski barn
yard, and Slocumb borrowed fifteen dollars from Blan-
chard Bowes to redeem them, giving Natupski hearty
thanks in addition for having, by presumed early rising,
prevented the animals straying.
A few more days and the same tale disturbed Blan-
chard Bowes himself, then Hiram Farrar, then Mercy
Bruill, who promptly fell in hysterics and claimed widow s
redemption, as in taxes, but all of whom paid, and gave
Natupski grateful words into the bargain.
No one thought it strange the cattle were always found
in his barnyard. He was up at all hours, the little runt,
while his young ones forever scoured the hills.
Kani believed he had discovered the source of all
wealth, the golden fleece, the Apples of Hesperides, the
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 151
Midas touch, and the one place in America where, as had
been told before he came from Poland, one might find
nuggets in the streets. It was so easy. One had only,
with the children s aid, to stampede the animals in the
direction of the weak link in the chain of fence every
fence had one, or you made it and presto ! they were in
the highway. Then to bed for a few hours, to rise before
dawn and as like as not discover the beasts making havoc
with your corn or garden. After which you collected
fifteen dollars eighteen even twenty and added it
to the store. All a by-product, too, since one worked just
as efficiently by day, only allowing the children a long
noontide nap under the shade of a haystack.
It went beautifully only for one impediment Mrs.
Natupski! Think of Marinki talking almost as boldly
as that Nancy Slocumb, who had never produced a boy,
talked to her Abner. Was there something in this
American air?
For several nights Mrs. Natupski listened sleepily
while papa turned out the older children, but so weary
was the poor drudge that her curiosity did not awaken.
She only rejoiced that he didn t need her, and turned to
deeper rest. Finding Nancy Slocumb sobbing under the
blueberry bush first stirred the little dark woman to
inquiry. Shifting her own pail of berries to better balance
the baby, she tapped Nancy on the shoulder and nodded
questioningly.
" Don t mind me," snapped Nancy, who felt " mad-
der n a wet hen " at being caught making a fool of her
self. " I came out here to have a good bawl where Abner
shouldn t know nothing about it. It s the interest money.
We re behindhand, and banks ain t given to waiting. Had
152 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
it all saved up, but the cattle have acted so like all pos
sessed getting out and it s gone in pound fines."
Then she threw her apron over her head and added
inconsequently, " No other L-kitchen 11 ever seem home
to me. I know just what sort of an east wind 11 make
the stove smoke every time."
People were apt to think Mrs. Natupski dunderheaded,
but she was nothing of the sort. A very little musing
and a few questions of the children made the matter
plain to the quiet little woman. Kani saw to it that the
cattle got loose, and then, owing to some mysterious
American law, he was enabled to get money for driving
them back to their owners. Mrs. Natupski approved of
it all, except as concerning the Slocumbs. Nancy had be
come endeared by numerous kindnesses, sullenly re
ceived. Mrs. Natupski determined the Slocumb cattle
should henceforth be sacred.
It was truth that Kani had been a bit hard on Abner.
His pasture was most convenient, to be sure, and when
one was very sleepy it was a temptation to stop at the
first fence, instead of climbing higher. Blanchard Bowes
was a rich man, and better able to pay; the Pinkney-
Farrar sisters had been disagreeable to the Natupski
children, and there might be satisfaction in turning their
creatures loose, but Slocumb suffered because of pro
pinquity. Three times he had paid the scot, and once
more he seemed to be marked as victim.
Dreamily in the now familiar darkness Kani and his
children played their parts. Down rolled the stones into
a soft bed of fern, the two strands of wire being pulled
to the ground and held by another stone. It looked like a
place where berry-pickers had made their way. A little
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 153
scattered salt attracted the cattle, and with sleepy
" Shoos ! " the children drove them to the highway and
turned them in the right direction. At least that was the
attempt, when Kani was fully roused by the appearance
of a white-clothed figure, while an earnest voice said,
" Nie, Kani, nie!"
It was Marinki, right in the opening, so that the cattle
had already turned back.
" Mamma ! " yelled Statia, in a voice to alarm the
township, but papa stilled her with a kick.
Mrs. Natupski, standing obstinately at the hole in the
wall, talked at her husband in a way no one would have
believed. Any other cows, very well. But not Mr. Slo-
cumb s. Not his any more. To which Kani made reply
a grunt. Then Marinki again oh, yes; he, Kani, was
certainly a wise and a great man, and his plan to be rich
was very wonderful; all the more, then, let out Blanchard
Bowes twenty-nine head rather than Slocumb s half
dozen. Another mile to go for them ? What was another
mile up the mountain to a strong man ? Kani s comment
on this was expressed in a sibilant click of tongue on
teeth, and a threatening snap of his fingers. His wife
kept right on. She would have him tell her if it was quite
safe, all this? Was there not a great danger of being
found out and somehow made to suffer? Mr. Slocumb,
now, lived near, and was always building up his fence.
Would he not begin to think it strange the wall so often
fell down ? And then might not even Mr. Slocumb turn
to the law. In Poland, now
Kani, quite infuriated, lashed the darkness, but missed
the woman. She had touched a little spot where the germ
of fear had already been established, not by easy-going,
154 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
trustful Abner Slocumb, but by Mr. Blanchard Bowes
himself. Kani could not surmise why, he blurted out,
but Mr. Bowes seemed to think it very strange his cattle
were loose a second time, and had made sharp remarks
about getting a constable to search for wire-cutters if
such a thing occurred again. Kani had determined so
rich and fierce-spoken a man could be a source of revenue
no longer. But Abner Slocumb had always fair words
and a confiding manner. Having thus explained why
it must be Slocumb cattle and not those of Bowes, Kani
hissed to keep his courage up, " Law ! American law !
Poh ! Poh ! Me make a snoot at it ! Me make a snoot
at American law ! "
Marinki did not move; the Slocumb cows still lounged
along the fence. Then, "Out of the way!" Kani sud
denly whispered. " Me drive cows over you."
With a slap on the back a big Holstein was made to
dash onward, and the baffled woman, sobbing with anger,
made a hasty step and fell, tangled in the wire.
" Oi ! Oi ! " she moaned, as the barbs tore her hair and
gashed her thinly clad body. Each time she essayed to
rise another bulky animal would scramble past her, send
ing a shower of pebbles to sting her face, and compelling
her to curl and shrink lest she should be trodden by the
awkward, cloven feet.
The last, a skittish two-year-old, did give her an un
toward kick, then the herd clumped off in the darkness
and she realized she was quite alone. Kani and the
children never returned along the road after these noc
turnal adventures. He drove the little ones through a
path among the sweet fern and sumach bushes, and so
by the rear into their own domicile. It was important
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 155
that any bad sleeper who might note cattle straying by the
road should not see any human beings near.
Marinki had not the slightest idea what hour it might
be, only it was very, very dark. Well, there would be no
hole in heaven if anything happened to her. That was a
consoling thought. So closely was she held by the barbs
and by a large stone that had pinned down her petticoat
that she could not move without increasing the scratches.
She was not afraid, out there on that lonely hillside, but
she was very tired, and the comparative softness of her
straw bed at home would have been grateful. Anger
continued to keep her warm, and she made up her mind,
heavily but decidedly, that Kani must now be made to
give way. He had done as he liked this time, but there
would be other times. Dawn did come presently; by its
first light Mrs. Natupski picked herself up, extracted the
burrs and beggar lice from her garments, and made her
way home, sucking the most accessible of her wounds.
Mrs. Natupski determined to remember the words,
" Constable," " Snoot," " American law." Each morn
ing for a week she repeated them like a prayer. Indeed,
right after prayer. It was difficult to learn how to write
them, but the children assisted, each one a bit, so that no
one might suspect.
In due time " Constable " (official title, not name, as
Mrs. Natupski had believed) received a rumpled postal
card, which informed him that Kani Natupski " Snoots
at American law." The handwriting was undecipher
able, being verily that of the Natupski family, for Mrs.
Natupski managed her husband s name, Statia did snoots
in the best perpendicular of District Number Seven,
Rinka accomplished American with the aid of consider-
156
able tongue chewing, and law in Polish alone demanded
an interpreter. The constable obtained one, in the person
of a schoolboy who knew more English slang than words
in his father s tongue. " Snoots at American law, eh ? "
observed the constable. " I wonder who in tarnation is
so concerned to tattle on the chap ? And one of his own
jargon talkers, too."
" I ve heard pa say the Nick Kovinskis got it in for
the Natupskis," volunteered the youthful interpreter.
" Shucks, you don t say ? What seems to be the
trouble?"
" Well, Mr. Kovinski married a lady was married to
Natupski once."
" Reason enough! " shouted the constable. " Making
snoots at American law. Gosh, that might be most any
thing. What s my next move? Oh, call on Miss Olive
Greene. These schoolmarms know all about their
scholars folks."
The constable s next move was nearly always to call
on Miss Olive Greene, but in the midst of an entranc
ing evening he did manage to introduce her Polish
pupils.
" Polish pupils," she replied. " I haven t any. The
Natupskis have not been to school since May. I sent
word to the truant officer, but I suppose it will be vaca
tion before he gets to this out-district. I m scared to
go after them myself. The man looks so fierce, and
the woman can t talk English, so I don t know if she s
abusing me or not."
The constable rose in excitement. So that was it? A
snoot at law indeed. It should rise in its majesty that
was him and overcome the snooters.
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 157
Mrs. Natupski had been watching every day for the
coming of strangers. She supposed Kani would go to
prison, but her own wrongs, in which Nancy Slocumb s
tears formed a coalition with festering scratches, kept
her firm. Kani appeared to have forgotten the night
incident, and impelled his wife to work as eagerly as ever.
There had come a lull in turning cattle out, but perhaps
that was because of a moon in its second quarter.
At last the strangers arrived. Three men piled in a
narrow buggy. They stopped to ask a question of Abner
Slocumb. Abner turned his thumb Natupski way.
Mrs. Natupski kept right on hoeing beans. The chil
dren stood in a gaping row. One of the men alighted and
handed a paper to Kani. It bore a red seal and in all eyes
was awesome. Mrs. Natupski began to tremble. After
all, had she done so well? Suppose Kani was put in
irons? What if he should be carried to some far-off
place, leaving her alone with the children? She did not
notice she was hoeing badly. A half-grown bean plant
was sacrificed.
One stinging box on the ear brought her back. The
men were cramping the buggy wheel. Evidently they in
tended to go away. Perhaps they would come again for
Kani, or send.
Statia," he was calling.
Giving her the paper he ordered her to read.
Statia wrinkled her neatly penciled brows, and
scratched her head partly from doubt. Then she looked
up puzzled. It was too much for her understanding.
Kani made a quick trip to the Slocumbs , Marinki trail
ing after.
Abner laid down his pipe and took up the paper.
158 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Oh, ho, Natupski," he said, " it seems you ve been
breaking the law."
Kani denied it, solemnly.
" Oh, you have. It s all here in black and white. You
was a good n law-abiding citizen up to last May, and
then you commenced your career of crime."
Natupski leaned on the fence and essayed a sickly smile.
His wife ventured to draw near and lean on the same
fence without reprimand. Looking closely, she perceived
that her husband s knees trembled.
" And since then you have infracted that is, bu sted
said law no less than eight times and under six separate
and identical counts. It s all here! "
Natupski, the trembling now extended to his hands,
turned to his wife and whispered the figures. Rapidly
she counted on her fingers. Slocumbs four times, and
the Bowes s cattle twice, the Sawyer girls yes, truly,
all came to eight. And the six? Well, Slocumb had six
cows, if that meant anything.
Wonderful, wonderful that what a man did in the
dark should come out in a paper, quite correct. Mrs.
Natupski was lost in amazement. Kani was shaking all
over, his few teeth chattering against each other despite
the eighty degrees of heat quivering in the air.
Mrs. Natupski drew still nearer her frightened mate,
nudged his elbow, and pointed to Mr. Slocumb. Kani
understood.
Drawing a wad of bills from the belt which never left
his body, sleeping or waking, Kani counted out forty-five
dollars.
" Others after supper," he shook out of himself, and
turned away.
A SNOOT AT THE LAW 159
" Stop, stop, what s this for ? "
" Cow," murmured Natupski.
" Aw, get out. You was in your rights there. Keep
your cash and say no more about it. I m going to let that
breachy two-year-old go for the interest, and without her
to lead em on I bet yer my cows won t make any more
trouble."
Mrs. Natupski, firm, and Mr. Natupski, trembling,
pointed to the paper.
" This ? Oh, it says if you don t now and forth
with send Anystatiz and Wajeiceh and Marinka and
Kazia, yes, and Novia to school in Deestrict Seven
and keep em there each schoolday until every last
one of em s turned of fourteen, you ll be haled to court
and made to tell what for. God save the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts."
Mr. and Mrs. Natupski turned toward one another,
united in horror. Before them stretched long years of
toil, unremitting, lightened by the assistance of the second
generation only at infrequent intervals known as vaca
tions.
What a country was this America, famed for liberty,
yet where parents might not manage their own children !
Abner chuckled.
" Nine of em now, ain t there ? Mighty pooty little
family. Darn sight pootier n ten."
Natupski was Americanizing fast. He replied to Slo-
cumb s jest in the very words Slocumb had once used.
" Luckee dog. Me wish me was in your shoe."
Eleven years in America, nine children, all but one to
be kept in school until 14. Natupski perceived he never
would be rich.
THE SECOND GENERATION
POTS AND KETTLES
AMERICAN language as adopted by the Natupski
family made constant use of the term " Where does it
get you? " It was no use to wash your face. That got
you nowhere. Why exterminate vermin ? That also got
you nowhere. By working early and late, eating little
and saving much, one (reasoning from analogy) got
somewhere.
Stanislarni Natupski had eagerly consented to leave
school at thirteen and enter the Mifflin Mills. No one but
Arthur Slocumb had expected him to do anything better.
He remained in the mills until he was (actually) over
seventeen. Being nerveless and teachable he had ad
vanced steadily until he finally held down a well-paid
job. Bosses recognized that Natupski did not go to
pieces in the last hour of the working day, when so many
did go to pieces and forfeit their fingers or their back
hair, according to sex. Even the horrors of the rooms
where humidifiers were installed had no effect on him.
He swabbed perspiration and worked right on with cus
tomary stolidity.
If Stanislarni had stuck it out he might have been made
a " super." More likely he would not have been made
a super, but would have figured at seventy-five in a news
paper item as the marvelous old man who had been given
163
164 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
a gold-headed cane in recognition of his record over
sixty years on one corporation.
One early summer morning, when four years ad
vanced toward this enticing goal, Stanislarni rose and
turned his bed over to the night-shift man, who was al
ready clamoring for it. He vaulted the pile of filth which
automatically gathers at the outer doors of factory tene
ments, and stepped briskly toward the brick bevy over
the bridge. It was not a day for indoors. Bits of fluff
were the only clouds in the blue, the trees were greening,
violets dotted the roadside grass, and a robin sang on an
electric light pole.
Stanislarni heard a panting breath by his side, and
looked down on Pania Wazowski. Pania was not long
from Poland. She wore a shawl over her head, and the
family breakfast, a loaf of bread, was hugged closely
to the bosom of her dirt-stiffened gown.
" Lo," she said, shyly. " Where you going, Stan
Natupski? "
Stanislarni heard the clock strike six. He had thought
it would strike seven. Then he remembered the hours
of the night shift had been changed. What should he
say to Pania? Where was he going? For a moment he
thought he would go and pull that night-shift man out
of his bed but no, let the poor fellow snooze. It would
be bad if a fellow could not fill in an hour on a June
morning. Still Stan Natupski, where are you going?
Paying no further heed to the pattering Pania
Stanislarni never did pay heed to girls he turned
abruptly from the millward way and struck into the road
leading to the city of which Mififlin Grove was a some
what independent suburb. He had ridden over this road,
POTS AND KETTLES 165
after dark, in trolleys, he had never walked it before.
Soon the corporation tenements were past, he saw long
rows of houses, set in yards, with gardens and shrubs
for further beautifying. Lace curtains waved in the
morning air, behind screen doors good-smelling break
fasts were cooking. Everybody was taking in ice, milk,
the morning newspaper, an Angora cat. Stanislarni had
been used to a few such dwellings about the mills, but
they were set apart for the elite supers and such. Here
were hundreds of them. The side streets, as he passed,
were lined with granolithic sidewalks and automobiles.
It would appear, then, that the ordinary citizen had these
things not the one or two " big " men whom Stanislarni
had contentedly observed from an acknowledged lowly
plane.
Quite forgetful that seven o clock now impended,
Stanislarni decided to find out who lived in these fine
houses. It being his way to proceed instantly in pursuit
of any idea, he began walking boldly to door after door.
If a plate or card showed above the electric bell he read
it. Otherwise he rang and bluntly inquired who lived
there. No one paid any attention, beyond answering his
questions. He was taken for a stupid boy looking for a
job.
At the end of an hour Stanislarni had accumulated a
mass of evidence that might have been useful to a politi
cal worker. His memory marvelous, only no one ever
told him so informed him that besides Smiths, Browns,
and Birnies, " American names," there were a good
many McCarthys and O Briens and a vast number of
Goldmans, Levys, Cohens, and Aronsons. That is, it was
not impossible for foreign-borns to support mansions and
1 66 OUBL NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
send their offspring to school with big hairbows and
white socks.
Yet not one Polish name !
Stanislarni had hitherto honored his father for work
ing hard and living poor, now he doubted. It really
seemed that the way his country people lived was wrong.
It got them nowhere.
The time had crept on to nine. The boss had by this
time cursed Stanislarni well and thoroughly, and put
his machines in charge of another. Stanislarni didn t
care. He was thinking that all the folks in the office, the
writing girls in white waists, the bookkeepers, the
draftsmen, did not get on the job until this prepos
terous hour. When he and thousands others had forgot
ten breakfast and almost sniffed dinner, these strolled in
picking their teeth. It wasn t fair, it wasn t. Stanislarni
had been so busy earning wages and getting promoted
that he hadn t thought much about it; now he decided
it wasn t fair. He felt the unfairness so strongly that he
brought his big fist down slam! while telling himself it
wasn t fair.
" Ouch ! " grunted the object banged, that turned out
to be the back of a fat neck. It appertained to a man
who had been leaning over a gate in an endeavor to see
up the street and ascertain that Mary and Katy got safely
to the other side.
" Excuse excuse, please," gasped the Polish boy, and
the stout gentleman kindly did so, even while shaking
pieces of collar button into places where they would be
least annoying.
At intervals he looked Stanislarni over. Then he said,
" I ve seen you before. Half an hour ago I was to the
POTS AND KETTLES 167
grocer s and you went up all the doorsteps on Banks
Street. What place was you looking for ? "
" No place," said Stanislarni. " I just wanted to know
how many houses was lived in by fellers from the old
country."
" How you find that out? "
Stanislarni briefly explained. The other s eyes bright
ened at this intellectual turn to the affair, while apologies
were offered for unconsidered belittlement.
" I supposed you was looking for a job. And it was
statistics. Say, I m some bear on statistics myself.
Won t you come in? "
Thus was Stanislarni introduced to the interior of one
of the gorgeous mansions. This was a very gorgeous
one. It had a porte-cochere, though lack of any wide
gate implied dearth of carriage company. There was
also a sleeping porch, occupied by the Boston terrier.
The stout man took his guest to a den by way of a long
meander through a green velvet parlor, a white enamel
dining-room, and a living-room so mission that Stanis
larni took it for a Baltimore lunch. He had seen a Balti
more lunch when he went to the city Saturday nights for
a hell of a time. The den was upholstered in puffs and
brave with the steins and posters whereby one knew it
for a den. Stanislarni s first performance even before
he let himself be awed by the finery was to work out
the geography of the house and prove that the den opened
directly from the hall. His host had taken him through
the other rooms to show they existed. Stanislarni liked
that. It was what he would have done himself.
" I guess he should be a Jew," Stanislarni told Stanis
larni, while accepting one of the cigarettes that were
168 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
shoved his way. He was then asked, " Why you get
statistics? Working on some newspaper?"
" No. I don t work no place today. I wanted to find
out how such nice houses was had. I wanted to know if
all the fellers had em was American-born."
" You American-born ? "
" No. I was four when mamma came from Poland.
My brother was born on ship."
"So? Polish?" He was so very mildly interested
that Stanislarni at once reconstructed his ideas and told
himself, " Russian he is, I bet me a cent."
The fat man now leaned back in a massive arm-chair
and assumed the air of a magistrate examining witnesses
in an intricate civil case.
" So, my young friend, you admire this beautiful sub
urb ? And maybe you think sometime you d like to come
here to live yourself? Well, it ain t easy. For one not
American-born oh, it ain t easy. And more specially
for Polanders it ain t easy."
Stanislarni dovetailed this expert opinion to the lesson
of doorplates and felt condemned. His entertainer went
on, " To be sure, some us folks in this neighbor
hood ain t always had it so nice. We re what they
call self-made. Now me, myself say, how old be
you?"
" Seventeen," replied Stanislarni, for once determined
to indulge himself in the luxury of the truth.
" Oh ! " The other pulled out a watch and stared it
in the face.
Stanislarni could take a hint, even though appearing
stodgy. In fact he generally took hints most quickly
when most stodgy.
POTS AND KETTLES 169
" Seventeen years from Poland," he said, helping him
self to a second smoke.
"Oh that s it. And you were four then? Voted
yet?"
" No/
" Father took out his papers ? Is it this ward he lives
in?"
" He lives to West Holly," said Stanislarni, shortly.
" I wasn t talking about him."
The gentleman rose, tiptoed to a letter-press, opened a
slide, and disclosed beer bottles cuddling round an ice
cake.
" It s early," he said, " but prosit ! "
" He s a dam Dutchman," thought Stanislarni, while
getting tangled in a stein lid and defying any onlooker
to grin.
" At your age it is to laugh I was peddling garden
truck. Before that I sold papers. I have even shined
shoes."
It is impossible for mere words to show how proud
he was of all this. That he actually swelled with pride
is proven by his suddenly unbuttoning his waistcoat,
though Stanislarni thought a silk shirt had something
to do with it. He went on, " Of course that wasn t so
much. Any fool can push a pushcart. The thing is to
know when to get out. Like in the stock market. I
always knew when to get out. I knew it when I wove
jute at so much the cut or when I did janitor s work
with a third-class license. After a while I got out of
business and took up politics. Ran last year for common
council. Excuse me there s the phone."
He closed the Circassian walnut door, leaving Stanis-
170 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
larni a few moments with the glory that was from boot-
blacking, the grandeur founded in truck-peddling. Stanis-
larni meditatively counted the cigarettes and put a few
in his pocket.
" Stucked on yourself, you is," he remarked to an en
larged crayon portrait of his host, " just like a darn
Swede."
The citizen of the world came back, almost breathless.
" Call from the mayor," he said, with a hard look that
defied a listener to think otherwise. " Him and me is
rather pals. You see, our grandfathers " he paused
for effect " came to this country the same time."
Stanislarni understood. His spirits, that had quick
ened when he heard of boot-blacking and coal-shoveling,
tumbled below their usual level. All guesses as to nation
ality had been wrong. This was a real American (with
an Irish name, Stanislarni knew enough of politics to be
sure he had an Irish name) with a mayor for a friend.
" I got to be at the C. H. in half an hour," the other
went on. " Want to ride to the city in my car ? "
" No," said Stanislarni, with a smile that expressed
that pathetic Polish proverb, " Always you can hear the
tears in their laughter." All this had got him nowhere.
He thought he would go back and be humble to the boss.
" Thank you, mister, for the pleasant hour," he went on.
" I just remembered it s most ten, and my job she starts
at seven. Goo by."
" Here, don t go off mad. I d like to help you, honest
I would. I always like to help young fellers with ambi
tion. But we can t all be at the top, you know. One
thing, I have education. I wasn t anywhere and wouldn t
have got anywhere, only I got educated. That s what
POTS AND KETTLES 171
this country requires education. Lookit President
Wilson Taft Roosevelt where they been without
education ? Or the mayor o Boston ? He s even been in
jail. Now most fellers been in jail would know they
couldn t be mayor and let it go at that. He didn t. Hired
a man to go round with him to caucuses and such and
ask every time How about that jail sentence? Give
Mr. Candidate a swell chance to answer back, I done
it for a friend. And what he done was take an examina
tion, so you may say it s education put him in the
mayor s chair. Now I take it you ain t much educa
tion?"
Stanislarni shook his head gloomily, fearing to even
mention District Seven of West Holly.
" And Polish-born besides. My boy, if you got a decent
job, believe me, you better stick to it. Why, it was some
horrible effort I made before I got that " he pointed
triumphantly to a beribboned sheepskin that hung over
the humidor. " One time I had all the Y.M.C.A. betting
I wouldn t make it."
Stanislarni went out properly subdued and his enter
tainer saw him go, and then called up a grin. He always
held out helping hands to young men with votes present
or potential but he didn t encourage them in aspira
tions to his own eminence. He was tickled at sending
that youth forth satisfactorily burning with envy and
hopelessness.
All went well until the depressed Stanislarni turned to
make sure the door was fast closed. He saw a silver
plate polished to the last degree.
Taddeous Wajakalowski
172 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" By God ! " Stanislarni informed the surrounding at
mosphere. " He is a dam Polisher all the time ! "
He rang the bell with assurance, walked over the
answering maid, and slapped into the den, where Mr.
Wajakalowski was trying to decide which of two motor
ing caps was the most knowing.
" Hullo, Mr. Wajakalowski," said Stanislarni, ripping
the top off a beer bottle and letting the contents gurgle
into his stein. " You see, I corned back. I didn t know
when your grandpa and the mayor s got to this country
same time it was in different ships. Now I want you
please to tell me all you did, beginning with next first
from the jute mill. So far, you see, I already got."
Mr. Wajakalowski made a gesture of despair.
" Would you go to college ? Why, you don t know the
beginning of the entrance requirements."
" Yah," said Stanislarni, rudely swilling beer. " You
shall tell me. That Y.M.C.A. did you say helped you
to know how? Then it shall help me. And anyhow,
mister, I thinks I ain t so foolish. I thinks even now I
talk better as you. I done it for a friend. Mayors
never says so. What else you do besides Y.M.C.A. ? "
Mr. Wajakalowski cowered behind his mahogany flat
desk. At length he ventured to say, humbly, " I got
married. It s a good thing to be married young. Keeps
a feller from going out evenings spending money."
Stanislarni slammed down the stein and made a second
exit, which he diversified by yanking aside a portiere
and gaping into the living-room, where a little girl was
playing the piano with marvelous skill (and her feet).
" Too much blue eyes," said Stanislarni, and banged
his way into the street. It was half an hour before Mr.
POTS AND KETTLES 173
Wajakalowski understood that his youngest daughter
had been considered as a possible wife and summarily
rejected.
By then Stanislarni was out in Holly. Soon after he
started on a five-mile tramp to his father s farm.
Kani Natupski was found, as generally, adoring his
swine. By constant and pertinacious attention he had
reared a monumental sow and in her whereabouts he
always was when not asleep or slave-driving the family.
He stopped smiling at the pig and frowned at his big son.
" What s doing? " he asked. " You on strike? "
" I ve quit," said Stanislarni.
" Good nuf ," returned the father, who always pre
ferred his children should work directly under his eye and
lash. " Start cutting hay next week. Good nuf."
Stanislarni went directly to the point.
" Where s my money-book ? " he asked.
" Oh, she safe. In pocket belt like mine."
" Le s see it."
" Me too busy," grumbled the father, and scratched the
pig. A pause ensued. Then, " I want to see my money-
book," said Stanislarni, as if the matter hadn t been
mentioned before.
His father walked away. Stanislarni patiently fol
lowed. Kani led his son all over the farm and into the
barn, Stanislarni calmly sauntering after and at inter
vals giving reminder that he was waiting around to see
the money (i.e., bank) -book. He had been through this
part of it before. The real fight would come if he de
clined to return the book. Kani finally drifted back to
the pig-pen, there being nowhere else to go, and reluc
tantly drew out the book.
174 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" All ri ," said Stanislarni, and quickly hid the precious
possession inside his clothes. Then Kani forgot the pig
for an instant, and cursed inadequately in English, more
satisfactorily in his native tongue.
" Spender," he bawled, " anyhow the moneys you can t
get. The bank man he will not give it."
Stanislarni stopped so suddenly one foot remained in
the air.
" Dam / he muttered to himself. He knew what his
father said was true. Kani had gone with him when he
made his first deposit, after working a month in the
mill. The bank people had carefully explained to the
man and boy such terms as " under age " and " guardian."
Everything began to look black once more, just as when
he made his first exit from the Wajakalowski mansion.
Kani was tuggingly vigorously at his son, endeavoring
to extract the book as one pried potatoes from rocky soil.
Then a bright light illumined Stanislarni s vision and he
gave his father a push and surged onward. As he went
he shouted, " The cash-money s all mine. The man
said it was when I was twenty-one."
" Fool ! " bawled the father. " You be seventeen."
And Stanislarni holloaed back, " Nix. I m twenty-one.
A paper to the Mifflin Manufacturing Associates office
says so."
Kani stood bewildered, making rapid calculations on
his fingers. He had, to be sure, sworn before somebody
that his oldest son was seventeen four years before, but
but how could that have been when Stanislarni was
his oldest child and Marinki and he married at sixteen
and nineteen? Kani almost determined to monkey no
more with American laws.
POTS AND KETTLES 175
Stanislarni, assured as to his career on the financial
side, next attacked the Y.M.C.A. He found Mr. Steel
of that organization on guard.
" I ve come " said the boy.
Mr. Steel saw the rough clothes and unpolished boots,
and said " Employment Bureau next door."
" T anks. I ve come "
" Gymnasium registration this evening."
"Is it? I ve come "
" Excuse me, I m very busy. Can you call some
other "
" No," growled Stanislarni. " I ve come today and I
can t come no more. I m going on from here."
Mr. Steel did then stop his important work he was
plotting a circular to interest exactly such boys as Stanis
larni in the work of the association and looked up.
" Oh what d ye want? " he asked, fatuously.
" What college does presidents go to ? "
" I I don t quite understand."
" A feller a man he told me all presidents went to
college. Which one?"
" Why er, Mr. Taft went to Yale. And Roosevelt,
Harvard "
" That s the one," exploded Stanislarni, bringing down
his fist till the ink bottles jumped. " I go to Harvard.
Tell me how."
Mr. Steel was interested at once. He called to other
departments and when he got the men in he showed them
the boy who wanted to go to Harvard. Some of them
were men who had been, and they thought it specially
funny. Only one youth, an extra gym instructor who
was trying to worm his way into an institution of higher
176 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
culture any institution of higher culture that would let
him work as he studied did sit down and talk.
" At school ? " he asked.
" Not now. Vacation," said Stanislarni, calmly.
" Oh h ! Well, I suppose you know it s darn hard
to pass the entrance exams."
" I know it," said Stanislarni. " I buy books and
pretty soon I know it all."
" Gosh, tain t simple as that. If you weren t to a
prep school you got to have tutors and all sorts of fancy
training. Then there s the kale. That s what stumps
me. I m so long earning fifty dollars ahead that I spend
a hundred while I m at it."
" Oh money," said Stanislarni, with a sweep of the
hand. " She don t hurt me none. How much it cost
this college ? "
" One can scrape through on five hundred a year.
Less if he tends a furnace. But where s the five hun
dred?"
" How much you take," asked Stanislarni, " to show
me those books ? "
Cupidity gleamed in the poor rat s eye; he named a
dollar an hour, expecting to be beaten down.
" Come, begin," said Stanislarni, " I got no time for
fooling."
And tendered the dollar forthwith.
The lad felt he was robbing the poor fathead, but be
cause he saw a good supper in that dollar he accepted it.
Mr. Steel grinned when he saw the two walking off, and
made a crack anent the blind leading the blind.
For three weeks the rat his name was Ralph Brown
ing phoned excuses and did not come to work. Then
POTS AND KETTLES 177
he sent word that he gave up the position, " having se
cured a steady one, more lucrative."
He had indeed, its name being Stanislarni Natupski.
His teachers in District Seven would not have remem
bered the boy as an especial glutton for learning, but that
was probably because books then seemed to get you no
where. Ralph Browning s nose was now seldom far
from the grindstone, and it was not until spring that he
reappeared at the Y.M.C.A., hollow-eyed, but alert. No
circular being imminent at that season, Mr. Steel was
talkative.
" Haven t seen you since you walked off with the im
migrant boy. By the way, Mr. Blanchard of the night
school tells me you ve sent for the past performance
exam, queries."
" Yes," said Browning, " and I wish you d ask him to
look over these answers."
" Ask him yourself. Here he comes."
Browning whistled under his breath out of the window
while Mr. Blanchard bent a quizzical brow over the
papers. Soon he said, " This isn t your hand? "
" No. It s another fellow who s making this try."
After a while Mr. Blanchard straightened, and spun
his glasses on their cord.
" It s a good test," he said, " but a queer one. Many
quite easy questions aren t answered at all, while some
difficult ones are taken flying. The odd part of it is that
there s absolutely no incorrect answer. What the man
knows he is sure of unless he worked unfairly. This
isn t a hoax, Browning? "
" No, indeed," said Browning. " It s say, Mr. Steel,
you remember the Polish boy? Well, these are his
178 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
papers, and that s what he s learned since last summer,
with my assistance. And I don t know if he s a real man
or some automatic thing an Edison guy made out of the
memory the rest of us have missed. I read him a thing
and it seems to be his for keeps. That s how his answers
are so straight, when he makes em at all."
" Not like the most of you, who know so many things
that aren t so," snapped Mr. Blanchard.
" But the thing is does he know enough to get into
Harvard?"
" He can be stuffed," said Mr. Blanchard. " The ex
aminations aren t until May. And then there s the sum
mer to work off conditions. A marvelous memory!
But I suppose he has no reasoning power and no
money? "
" Can t say as to the first," laughed Browning, " but I
think he s not poor. Every time I suggest an hour off he
shells out a dollar. But I m glad you ll take him over.
He s given me the willies."
It was characteristic of Stanislarni that except for an
occasional picture postal he held no communication with
his home in West Holly. Neither did he buy new clothes,
attend moving-picture shows, or always take off his boots
when he went to bed. His mind was concentrated wholly
on the business in hand. By and by, when going to col
lege did for him what it had apparently done for Mr.
Wajakalowski, he intended to have all his little sisters live
in his fine house and play pianos with their feet.
And so it came to the important week in May and
Stanislarni Natupski sat in a room at Harvard and wrote
answers to queries with such rapidity that he had plenty
of leisure to gape about and wonder why the men in
POTS AND KETTLES 179
charge gave him such sour looks if they happened to pass
in patrol.
Stanislarni was truly a marked figure, with his huge
bullet head; besides he seemed idle so much of the time
that the examiners could but suspect he had introduced
some new and devilish method of dishonesty.
Stanislarni, cursed with neither imagination nor con
science, sat serene and unworried. He thought he saw
straight before him three years of scenes such as this
many times repeated, and if his clothes wore out in the
meantime he supposed he could buy a strong suit for
five dollars in Boston just as he had done at Cohen s
We Clothe the World in Mifflin Grove. The fact that
he had two thousand dollars ahead by no means incited
him to any extravagance.
While Stanislarni tried to fill in half an hour with en
tertainment of a roving eye he saw that the young gentle
man next him who was yet far enough away to make
" communication " difficult, if not dangerous was deeply
and frequently interested in his shirt cuff. No one hav
ing put the Polish boy wise as to these aids in available
information, Stanislarni stared in such undisguised
wonder that the youth blushed, wriggled in his chair, and
exhibited an illness at ease which Stanislarni understood
not in the least, and so could not know that his
inconvenient espionage, added to that of the regular
literary police, was driving a fellow-student nearly
frantic.
That afternoon a thunderstorm came up with peculiar
swiftness and in the darkest moment, while an obstinate
electric switch was being negotiated at the farthest end
of the room, Stanislarni saw the other student slip a tiny
i8o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
book under the table edge. In an instant Stanislarni had
darted from his seat and placed a grip of iron on the
volume, while in a whisper he hissed, " Fool ! "
The lights came up, the book disappeared, and Stanis
larni Natupski was caught standing. An anxious mo
ment ensued, then allowance was made for lightning act
ing on youthful nerves, and the boy was told, " Take
your seat, sir."
At the day s end the other youth waited for Stanis
larni to lope out into the lilac-scented air.
" I say," he said, " you re a good sort, keeping a still
tongue that way. I really thought you were going to
bawl me out."
" Here s your book," said Stanislarni. As he held it
out hidden by his huge hand the cover flew back and an
otherwise blank page showed the volume belonged to
Arthur Slocumb.
" I guess you know me," said Stanislarni. " Me and
you had a club once at West Holly. You gave my sister
teeth-brushes."
" Sure," cried Arthur. " You re Stanislarni Natupski.
And you re going to college ! "
Both boys grinned and began to walk away very fast
to wherever they were going. Where that was neither
had any idea. In a moment Arthur resumed talking.
" Say, this is great stuff. Just to think that the little
club I cooked up that summer I was so bored at the farm
should result in your being at Harvard with me!"
Stanislarni nodded and forbore to mention what had
really incited him to such intellectual effort. Arthur
prattled on, " Now I can put you wise to a whole lot of
things."
POTS AND KETTLES 181
" Yes," said Stanislarni. " I don t know much just
what a Y.M.C.A. feller showed me."
Arthur stopped and took a general survey of his com
panion.
"Shoes rotten! Socks degenerate! Trousers
impossible! Shirt a nightmare! Tie a blizzard!
What a pity you re St. Bernard size while I m in the
Collie class."
"What s matter?" asked Stanislarni. "I got this
necktie off a feller in the mill two years ago, but if you
want I should buy another I can do it. I got two
thousand dollars in my kick."
Arthur turned faint, dropped his chin, and forgot to
pick it up. Stanislarni went on, " And maybe I can put
you wise to somepin, too. So don t take no more books to
the examinations. I tells you the right numbers so
with my fingers under the table when the man he ain t
looking."
" Oh, thank you," said Arthur, meekly. " I thought
when you called me fool just now it meant you had Sun
day-school ideas from the Y.M.C.A."
" I said fool and fool you was," sneered Stanislarni,
" because the right answer ain t in this book at all. It s in
t other volume, page 88."
The boys passed, with slight conditions which both
felt sure would be safely worked off. Arthur soon
brought Stanislarni to recognition of ,the nail-buffer
and its uses; Stanislarni patted himself pridefully and
was prepared to tell any multitude that should by and by
elevate him to an office, " I did it I did it for a friend."
II
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON
WAJEICEH NATUPSKI was a pickle. All and sundry
were agreed as to that.
During Wajeiceh s schooldays there was a great deal
of talk in home kitchens about " associates." A boy
might be made or ruined by his associates. It was a pity
that District Seven had been invaded by foreigners and
state kids. The proper thing was to frown on all coast
ing frolics and ball nines that included these elements.
" It won t be very much to your advantage," a mother
would say, severely, while administering to her offspring
with caraway cookies, " to be seen going round with that
Polish boy."
Thus the Polish boy and the state kid were thrown into
each other s society, and by mutually marking time ar
rived simultaneously at their fifteenth year and the ninth
grade.
" Won t get us into their old High School," they
told each other with the air of having escaped a dire
peril.
The state kid was named Shaum Kelly. He had been
placed in West Holly after a lurid childhood divided be
tween slums and institutions. According to him the
slums were pleasant, but foodless; the institutions hot
beds of vice.
Wajeiceh and Shaum constructed a hangout in the
182
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 183
Bowes woods, making a tent of stolen bedquilts slung
over interwoven grapevines. West Holly, which calmly
accepted this friendship, would have rubbed its eyes had
it seen who was often with them in his grandfather s
woods. Frank Seymour, only child of a widow, who had
come to the Bowes mansion to eke out her small income.
Frank, with blue eyes and curled hair in a crest, might
have been galvanized from the frontispiece of some little
blue-and-gold book called " Orphan Willy." Search out
such a book. You will see the frontispiece had no chin.
Neither had Frank.
Wajeiceh and Shaum considered Frank the greatest
pal that ever happened. He furnished the ideas for the
three. Of course he was booked for the Academy, but
what should the others do now they had so cleverly
escaped High School?
" I got to work for my father," said Wajeiceh, with
the gloom appropriate to such a sickening announce
ment, " till I m twenty-one. Then I guess I ll strike.
Gee, he ll be mad !"
" Hell of a time to wait," said Frank, who introduced
the profanity. " Why don t you read the riot act
now?"
" Ouch ! " said Wajeiceh, and wriggled at the assured
result.
" If any man laid hands on me," said Frank, " I d
run away."
Glorious idea! Shaum took it up at once, being an
expert in running away. " Come on," he cried, " let s do
it. Let s all do it. Let s go to the city. And when I
say city it s the real city I do be meaning not Mifflin
Grove."
184 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
He spoke from splendid recollections, when policemen
had plucked him starving from gratings over warm res
taurant kitchens.
Frank was now happy. < The others had been
induced to lead him into temptation. He prepared to
fall.
" Listen," he said. " I ll put you wise to lifting some
stuff at the house and we lf go to the city. There we ll
live easy. Real cigarettes and beer not this sweet-fern
thing at all."
Animated by this description the hangout was solemnly
demolished. The quilts, wrapped around stones, were
sunk in the nighest pond, there to rise and give West
Holly women awful shocks as they recognized the Flying
Goose or Love in Eden patterns missing since years ago
from the clothes line. Wajeiceh, be it remembered, was
a pickle ! Yet his imagination did not now dictate any
exploit more criminal than taking a pie from Nancy
Slocumb s pantry window. Frank s soared to brilliant
heights.
" I say," he whispered, at the rendezvous, down the
road a piece from the Bowes mansion, " who s bare
footed?"
Wajeiceh was thriftily carrying his only shoes.
" Slip over the piaz and in that open window. There s
a bill-book on the slide of the desk. I got to have it.
Dassent go myself because the folks in the next room
might hear me and wonder why I was out of bed. There s
no light except where they are."
Wajeiceh did not realize that this book held Mr.
Blanchard Bowes profits of a week s peach sales, and
that it would mean something serious to be caught. He
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 185
did the trick. Mr. Bowes, dozing in the dark, afterward
remembered a moving shadow that seemed more sub
stantial than anything in a dream.
" Good," said Frank, pocketing the money and tossing
the book into the bushes with highwaymanish ease. At
Holly depot he bought tickets for Boston, though the
other two thought something adventurous and economi
cal might be done with a freight train.
" Supposed you fellows were out for living easy,"
quoth Frank, pumping change into a slot-machine.
The journey was uneventful except for the brilliant
moment when Frank tipped the brakeman twenty-five
cents for a pillow. Wajeiceh could not sleep for thinking
of it. " Easy come, easy go," said the gallant receiver
of stolen goods.
In the early morning the boys stood at the entrance
of the passenger station. That city, destined to give
them an easy living, was waking up. A tall boy with a
single leg arranged papers in the safety island of the
square. Other boys swept walks. One came out of a
restaurant and slapped on the glass a sign reading " Com
bination breakfast thirty cents." It was so new that the
purple fluid ran over last night s signs, oatmeal and eggs
putting welsh rabbit in the discard.
The wandering senses of the boys were brought to a
focus by a loud question, " Who wants to carry these
cases? "
An obvious drummer had taken two heavy pieces of
luggage from a red-capped porter. Shaum, once of the
city, understood. This pirate would expect you to lug
that business all over town for a dollar and lunch money.
" Nothing doing," said Shaum airily and turned away.
186 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Frank was insulted. He, grandson of " Peach Orchard "
Bowes, a luggage carrier!
" Hire a taxi," said he, " they re only four dollars an
hour."
The man laughed and staggered off.
"What about eats?" asked Shaum, whose stomach
had become used to nourishing food at regular intervals
in the West Holly home where a paternal state had
placed him.
Frank drew a hand from either pocket empty!
" I ve been frisked ! " he said glibly. He savored the
situation. It was almost as if he read about it in paper
covers. Then he caught Wajeiceh s look of consterna
tion, followed by a quick " See you tonight, right here,"
before the Polish boy was up the street in pursuit of the
drummer, whom he caught changing hands.
" I d like the job, mister," he volunteered, but it was
not so easily obtained.
" Um," remarked the man, " what s the matter with
that light-complected chap? He looked honest."
Wajeiceh stood in open-mouthed dismay. His bad
reputation seemed to have followed him to the city.
" I m awful strong," was the best he could offer, and
when he did get the job it was for the dollar minus the
meal.
" Hurry up, splay-foot ! " was his greeting from
Shaum that evening at the place of meeting. " We got a
dandy room. Rent? The old woman didn t ask for it
in advance. She said Frank looked honest."
The boy who looked honest was laid across the bed,
with his feet on a pillow. " This is the life," he ob
served, wrenching the top from a beer bottle.
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 187
" Fool, you," was Shaum s comment on Wajeiceh s
first day in the city. " Padded the hoof and blistered
the two hands of you, and for what ? "
Wajeiceh laid the dollar bill on the bureau. The
others regarded it with proper scorn. Work ten hours
for that! Work!
Nevertheless they were quite willing it should pay for
three suppers.
The landlady seemed to have borrowed the drummer s
spectacles. "That Polander your chum?" she asked
the angel- faced Frank next morning.
" I m helping him out a bit," said Frank, jingling the
coins remaining from Wajeiceh s earnings.
Take my advice, don t trust him. He s got a bad
face," said the woman, and went on working with the
feather duster, flirting dirt from one piece of furniture
and leaving it to settle on another.
After coffee and sinkers Wajeiceh proposed visiting
a place which he had discovered the day before, where
" Help Wanted " advertisements could be read on big
cards, but "Who wants to be reading em?" Shaum
wanted to know, and Frank said, " You keep forgetting
we came to the city to live easy."
Wajeiceh was very grateful for this kind reminder,
but a few hours spent in eating nothing reconciled the
others to the Polish boy s seeking a job. He became
one of a " crew " that went about belawned suburbs
ringing doorbells and distributing samples of something
nobody wanted. A man waited at the head of the street
and saw that no house was neglected, not even those
approached by thirty-eight steps. Each evening he as
sembled his assistants on a corner, where there was a flat-
i88 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
topped fence, and paid off. You were expected to show
up next day. If you didn t he cursed and put another ad.
in the want column.
Wajeiceh grew footsore and haggard, also dirty. One
evening Shaum went out and did not return. " Gee, I
shall miss Shaum," was Frank s comment, " I shall be
alone all day." Wajeiceh, slopping about in mangled
shoes, wherein cardboard inner soles alone kept his toes
from the pavement, was haunted by a picture of Frank
alone all day. Tired as he would be, he pinched him
self awake evenings to listen while Frank talked. Frank
was a very good talker, but Wajeiceh was always cruelly
sleepy. Then, too, he had to be up early to provide
Frank with daily cigarettes. Frank said it wasn t worth
while for him to get up. Just as soon as he got up he
would begin eating breakfast and that would be a nice
state of affairs.
" It ain t so bad, being alone all day," was his comment
after a week had passed and Shaum failed to return.
" Besides, more eats for little Frankie and you."
Wajeiceh was very grateful for this recognition of
his needs, though he still ate much less than he wanted.
He had been used to something approaching it at papa s
in West Holly. He still deceived himself with the idea
that he was living easy. He wished he could get a better
job, so that Frank might have more to spend. It was
pretty bum, being right in the city, where were all sorts
of shows, and short of coin. Nor was Wajeiceh devoid
of ambition. He believed he could command a " crew "
himself if he had a decent rig. Frank licked his lips. A
boss got twelve dollars a week. Lots of spending in
twelve dollars. He proposed Wajeiceh should put on
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 189
what of his would fit. And say here s ten cents. Get
your pants pressed!
Wajeiceh, meekly accepting a dime of his own money,
paid unconscious tribute to the dignity that attends those
who live easy. Pretty well turned out he went after
the better job, animated by the desire to have a larger
sum for slipping Frank.
Was he a dupe? He was still a little bewildered at
being admitted to the friendship of Blanchard Bowes s
grandson. He lacked the self-reliance of his brother
Stanislarni, who at this very time was completing his
freshman year at college with a record of " making
good," in the face of more than common obstacles.
Stanislarni owed a great deal to his American chum,
too; but he had not chosen a Frank Seymour. Arthur
Slocumb would never have made a pretty frontispiece,
but he had a chin.
During Wajeiceh s temporary absence Blanchard
Bowes arrived at the furnished room. He had been de
layed in tracing the boy by Mrs. Seymour s frantic re
fusals to have him looked for anywhere except in hospi
tals and morgues, but the return of Shaum Kelly to West
Holly had helped a great deal.
Frank was discovered living easy in trousers and
undershirt.
"How s this?" said Mr. Bowes. "Where are your
shoes?"
" Worn out, poor darling, on the cruel pavements,"
sobbed his mother. " We must buy a pair at once.
Six D with a box toe. I always pay seven dol
lars."
Grandfather stirred not. " Where s the rest of your
igo OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
suit? " he asked, hard as when he was extolling a carload
of seconds in the open market.
Mother knew. " Pawned ! " she shrieked. " To keep
from starvation. Oh, hurry to a drug store for beef
extract. You have pawned it?"
" Not exactly," murmured Frank. The old man was
looking at the still smoking stubs in the ash tray, and
getting ready to disbelieve any hard-luck story. So
Frank told the truth. He had loaned his clothes to an
other fellow, so the other fellow might get a job.
"Dear, unselfish boy!" yelled Mrs. Seymour, and
Blanchard Bowes acknowledged she was right. Yes,
though the borrower was the impossible Natupski.
" Your evil genius, sweetheart," moaned Mrs. Seymour.
" We know it all how he stole grandfather s money
and Mrs. Perkins s only bedquilt pieced by her dead
sister in turkey red. I suppose you stopped here with him
to save him from ruin in this awful city. Now we will
take you home and send you to a military academy at
Peekskill. Your grandfather says all letters you write
must be supervised, but you can put any special message
under the stamp and I ll never fail to look."
Mrs. Seymour and her recovered jewel rode in the
parlor car. Mr. Bowes took stern charge of the Natupski
culprit in the smoker. Kani Natupski was in waiting.
Mr. Bowes handed over the boy as to the keeper of a
prison van.
" Here he is," said the exasperated grandfather.
" Better give him a licking he ll remember."
" Sure," replied Mr. Natupski. " Leaving right in
time to make hay. You lick yours, too? "
"Well, I m afraid I can t," was the reply. "His
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 191
mother don t think he was to blame. Twas your boy
led him into it."
West Holly was of the same opinion, to a woman.
" You see what happens," they said, " to any boy who
goes around with a Natupski."
ii
After his artistic beating, the story of which was long
prominent in West Holly horrors, Wajeiceh remained
immured in fertilizers, obscured by haystacks and fat
swine, for over a year. Then, considering him cured
of his propensity to wild oats, his father gave him a
dime and let him go to cattle show. It was a very wee
cattle show, held at Holly Centre in a cheerful spot
bounded on two sides by the graveyard. One would not
suppose a boy could get into mischief there. He might
only waste a nickel bucking the knife game, or tire himself
at weight-lifting more than he would by a day in the
harvest field. Ah, but this is reckoning without girls !
Wajeiceh had never noticed girls before this day.
At fifteen minutes past two he was considering whether
he should spend his dime on the three-legged calf or his
stomach. At 2 125 he was inviting Harriott Bruill to have
an ice-cream cone. Harriott should have accepted, be
cause it was the only " attention " she was to receive all
day. Harriott was an ordinary girl, with freckles; not
hair enough for the style, but clever at eking it out with
ribbon; a blue muslin blouse, and a string of beads. She
was always fingering the beads. Her hands were pretty,
white, and bloodless. They were very different from
Natupski hands. Wajeiceh knew her slightly she had
192 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
been to District Seven " off and on " while visiting her
grandmother, old Mercy Bruill.
" Oh, I guess not," she said, but never offered to
move from before the stand where the cones were dis
played.
" Come on please," said Wajeiceh. He had wild
visions of a halcyon afternoon, spent walking beside
Harriott to every point of interest on the grounds.
He ordered the cones prepared and held one out, en
ticing in pink and brown. Harriott wanted it. The day
was sultry, she was thirsty, and she wanted it. She also
wanted a beau. She had never had one, and the fact was
against her at home. " I was wrong to let your grand
mother call you Harriott," her mother had been known
to say. " It s a regular old maid s name."
But to go with a Natupski ! to meet other girls
and see their first look of ardent envy turn to one of
derision.
" I guess I mustn t stay," she mumbled, and as she
turned Wajeiceh s rejected offering was thrown into the
Midway mud. He stood aghast, glaring at the pink
ruin which stood for so much loss. Turned down! In
the face of multitudes, turned down ! Two other girls
who had been watching, asked each other with exquisite
sarcasm, "Did you ever get left?"
Wajeiceh had as soon proffered his nickel s worth to
either as to Harriott. He was yearning for zest in life.
If those girls had let him walk about with them, had
allowed him to play a few games of croquet in their door-
yards, had invited him to a " promenade concert " in the
winter, they would have done all the missionarying re
quired of a pretty girl. A capital opportunity for civic
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 193
improvement was lost that autumn afternoon when Har
riott turned away and Phoebe and Beulah laughed.
Wajeiceh flung the other cone at Harriott. It landed
splash between her shoulders. The two, while scraping
off ice-cream and quieting Harriott s convulsive sobs, con
gratulated her on having shown the Polish scum its place.
Phoebe and Beulah believed, because their parents had
told them so, that we could sell farms to Natupskis, go
to school with Natupskis, naturalize Natupskis (male)
and count their votes town meeting day, and all the
while keep Natupskis at arm s length socially.
Wajeiceh was a festering sore on youthful Holly. Not
being cured, he became offensive.
The next time his father gave him a day off he went
to Mifflin Grove and walked three times round the rail
road station. A very pretty girl with pink cheeks smiled
at him. Wajeiceh s eyes were dulled by following fur
rows; he felt flattered, and smiled back.
" Looking for a friend ? " she asked. " So m I. Did
you ever get left ? "
Wajeiceh could now grin at the phrase. Maisy she
said her name was Maisy took his arm openly and led
him into the street. She had come to Mifflin, she de
clared, on a visit, but there was no one to meet her.
She d just go in a booth and phone and then he
could take her anywhere he wished. Had he a nickel
handy ?
His father having given him a whole quarter of a
dollar, he had. Afterward they sat an hour in the
park. The things she asked him to buy before the hour
was up! Wajeiceh didn t fancy this line of talk, as it
reminded him constantly that he had no money, but he
194 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
was very happy sitting by Maisy s side. Several West
Holly people passed by and saw him.
When he went away Maisy reminded him she would
be in the same place the next Saturday afternoon.
Wajeiceh didn t think he would meet her then, because
his revenge on Holly was already complete. He d got a
girl ! He d shown em. But back in West Holly, mixing
mortar Kani Natupski was setting the neighbor
hood an example in the shape of a cement milk cooler
he kept telling himself that Maisy would be in the same
place next Saturday afternoon. He wondered if she
would wear the same clothes and if one of her cheeks
was always redder than the other. And he thought he
would ask her why she drew little lines about her eyes.
It seemed to be settled that he would meet her Saturday
afternoon, and she did not appear surprised to see him.
He asked about the eyes.
" What d ye make pictures of black lines about em
for? " he blurted out. He didn t care if she was peeved.
Harriott Bruill and the girls of Holly had it in their
power to make him wretched or happy on the turn of a
word, but Maisy was powerless. She was also shameless.
" Why, to make my eyes look big, stupid ! " she ex
claimed, and beamed under her lacy hat brim.
Wajeiceh was not impressed. " Big eyes, glutton,"
he observed, remembering the old country proverb often
employed by his father to repress the family appetite.
" You ve got big eyes," pouted Maisy, in her best
wise wax-doll manner, and " There you have it," re
turned Wajeiceh, waving his hand.
Quite suddenly Maisy began to cry. She owed her
landlady, she confessed, and was miserable about it. " I
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 195
didn t da st go home last night till ever so late," she
whispered. " I walked the streets in all the rain and
thin shoes "
She showed her shoes to prove it. They were thin,
but bore no indication of having been out in the rain.
Wajeiceh knew something of thin shoes himself, from
his attempt to live easy in Boston, and emptied his pocket
on Maisy s lap. She invited him to come and see the
bill lifted, but he said in consternation, " I don t care
what the dump s like."
To fill in the idle time Maisy began to abuse home-
sheltered girls who weren t obliged to live in furnished
rooms. Wajeiceh should have learned about Harriott,
Beulah, and Phoebe from direct association; that being
impossible he began to despise them on the false valuation
of a painted sister.
" High schoolers are the limit," Maisy declared, " and
even the ladies magazines write em up." Which she
proved by a news-stand. " Their lady mothers go to
Daughters of Evolution, and the girls do just what they
like. Lookit, a boy told me he knew a drug store sold
more dope to Mifflin High than any street in N York."
Wajeiceh went home in a hurry, with a bad taste in
his mouth, but the story stung. Could it be true those
dainty girls were as Maisy had described them? He
wished he could find out. But he would want to kill
himself if she was right.
A picnic impended in Rivers Grove, and Wajeiceh got
permission to go. It was announced as a " Get To
gether " picnic, and all the Hollys would be represented.
Great tables were being built under the trees, and plank
seats arranged alongside. The combined ministerial
ig6 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
force of the three villages would invoke a divine blessing
on the gathering.
Wajeiceh, with boyish faith in words, believed it would
be a " get together " picnic. He thought somebody there
would have a word of friendship for a Natupski. He
was rather tired of meeting Maisy, and some instinct
told him she would not enjoy the picnic.
" I won t take her," he told himself. " I ll just take
sardines."
He had more money than usual just then, having
helped Abner Slocumb build a cement well curb in an
occasional hour when he would otherwise have rested.
He bought all the sardines the grocer at Holly Centre
had in stock. He even remembered lemons and a knife.
In the wake of the post-office clerk, the bookkeepers
from the paper mill, the butcher, and numerous young
farmers Wajeiceh drifted into the grove. Girls in white
muslin were setting the table. Wajeiceh dumped his tin
boxes at one end of the festive board, making a lemon
pyramid nearby.
Soon Tom Newell, who had bugled in training camps,
gave them " taps," and they, not knowing it was inap
propriate, sat down immediately. The blessings were
asked, and then, " Oh, we have sardines," was the general
shout. " Somebody has brought sardines. Or were
they sent by the grocer? No, not any ham sandwiches
for me. Nor cornbeef. I dote on sardines. Never had
enough sardines in all my born days."
The little fishes went up and down the board, which
became liberally oiled with splashings. The Methodist
minister took his on crackers. The Congregationalist
preferred his in a bread sandwich, with lemon. Others
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 197
grabbed them by the tails and devoured them as cats do
mice, starting at the head. Blanchard Bowes alone
skinned his and removed the backbone, thereby being half
a box behind his neighbors.
Wajeiceh Natupski ate sandwiches when he could
reach them. No one passed him anything. Every one
wondered what he wanted there anyway, at a " get
together " picnic. It was impossible to get together when
fellows would push in whom it was desirable to keep out.
He spoke twice. To the man at his left he said,
" Please pass the sardines." He didn t hear him. Later
he asked the girl on his right, " What we going to do
after supper? " She didn t hear him, either.
Presently the young people grouped themselves under
the trees by the side of the pond and lifted their voices in
song. Wajeiceh could sing as much as any one there,
which wasn t much. When " There s a Little Spark of
Love Still Burning " was started, he joined in. Five
seconds later he was singing alone.
In a bitterness which he could feel, but not express, the
boy hot-footed it to Mifflin Grove.
" What do you think ? " buzzed the rural phones next
day. " Whatever do you think ? That dreadful Natupski
scalawag went right straight from the picnic to a bar
room in Mifflin, and never came home till daylight. He
looked dreadful peak-ed. He ll land in jail sure as fate."
Wajeiceh had found Maisy in the park. She told
him she was hungry, and as he had not spent quite all
his money supplying Holly with sardines, he took her to
a place where they ate and drank.
Maisy seemed to feel like talking.
" Do you know," she said, " I like you, kid. I ve a
i 9 8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
darn good mind to get you drunk some night and marry
you."
Wajeiceh, unwontedly stimulated by a pony of beer,
almost wished she would. Perhaps the subsequent beat
ing his father would give him might help him to forget
the picnic in Rivers Grove.
Maisy went on telling the story of her life. The rest
of her name was Violet Gold. She told them it was
Violet Gold when she went to work in the necktie factory
after she left school. Her father had been a gold-beater
before he was sent to the island. She had lived in Boston,
on Amethyst Street.
" There was a guy ... his name was Tom . . .
some beef ... he was always gassing about the happy
day when he d be raised to fourteen dollars. I was to
have my own oil stove and he d say how perf ly lovely t
would be to come home and see me plastering onions
on the skirt steak. . . . You got a look like him when
you laugh. ..."
" I ain t laughing now," said Wajeiceh, who believed
every word.
* Course not, cause I m telling you a sad story. Well,
was a night . . . hot! Me and Tom was on a street
where was trees. Never been there before. Well, it
was certainly some street. Make a corking education reel.
Leaves, you know, showing their shapes on the side
walk. And Tom says, Vi let, let s get married. Just
like that ! Well, I was under the influence. ... I was
going to say I would . . . but I looked up and there
was a man. Well, he was a man. I d seen him before.
Knew I d see him again. I wouldn t want to see him
again every day, but some day I would want to
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 199
and he d be right there. His kind is always right
there."
She stopped and beckoned to a waiter. " I m sick of
ginger ale," she muttered. " Bring some Scotch and
seltzer."
Wajeiceh couldn t see how the man knew what she
meant.
The story was finished in a hurry. " I laughed in
Tom s face. Felt fit to die that minute. Thought it was
the green leaves on those trees made me do it. Because
if I married Tom I wouldn t know nothing about frying
steak. I d want to be where the lights was bright. Tom
was too good for that kind. He deserved a wife wasn t
city-wise.
" So I met the one in the spats and the braid on the
sides of his dress pants and the rest of the swell scenery.
It was one grand summer. Say, come again on the
Scotch and seltzer. I need it something fierce."
Wajeiceh had to assist her to the furnished room.
They were pleasantly met by a suave landlady who did
not in the least match Maisy s picture. He held the
basin while the woman bathed Maisy s head. When she
felt better the girl grabbed his sleeve and babbled a
sequel to her story.
" Lookit. Come fall I went to that darn street again.
My pumps was falling off my feet and I didn t have no
underthings. It was down and out, and the leaves was
brown. How many kinds of a fool was I ? Tom didn t
get no country goil. Didn t know no country goil. He
went hell bent after one worse n I ever thought of being.
The lemonade was sour and I d passed up the sugar once
too often. And the leaves was brown. I d done different
200 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
if I d remembered the leaves would turn brown."
"Kind o sickening, ain t it?" said the landlady to
Wajeiceh. " But she s a cute little thing in the fore
noons, before she s been out. Comes into the kitchen
and helps me with the wash as handy as can be. She
knows how went to work in a laundry soon as she
left school."
Wajeiceh dropped the basin and let Maisy s head fall.
He had believed every word. He had compared himself
with Maisy, and when he saw her shivering under the
brown leaves he saw also Wajeiceh Natupski facing the
adamant enfilade of that " get together " picnic. The
girls of Holly had been hard as nails, so he had turned
to Maisy. And Maisy had failed him. She was a liar.
Were all girls hard as nails or liars?
" She told me it was a necktie factory," was his bitter
and inadequate explanation to the landlady. Then he
tore from the house, purposely missed the last car, and
drilled all the way to West Holly. Thus he arrived at
sun-up, after having talked his disgust to Virginia rail
fences along the way.
Three weeks later there came a holiday commemorat
ing the discovery of America. Wajeiceh had once " com
mitted to memory " and declaimed, from the platform of
District Seven, a part of the " Port of Ships " :
ft . . . Adm ral, say but one good word
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leaped as a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"
Wajeiceh wished he had never sailed on. He worked
until mid-afternoon in the " underneath of the barn."
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 201
His father was building new walls of cement. Wajeiceh
had heard them say it would last longer than he would,
growing harder all the time. He felt he was making a
tomb.
Then Novia had to stick her head down and say,
" Whaw, ain t it dark ? And smells like grave
yards."
Wajeiceh knew the sun was bright up in the great
outdoors. It would be bright in Mifflin Grove. He
threw down his trowel and ran for his other clothes,
while his father was still in the woods marking trees.
In due time he got to Mifflin. The park was full of girls
American girls, in kilted skirts and immaculate mid
dies. Wajeiceh walked round and round, intoxicating
himself with looking at them. He hankered for some
thing clean positively and entirely clean. He loved his
mother and sisters, but they were dirt-colored. Even
the park seemed new-scrubbed today in the dazzling
October sunlight. A lawn mower had just passed over
the grass, the odor of wilting blades made Wajeiceh
sick. There had been just such an odor, of dying grass,
when he had met Harriott. The flowers in the park
glowed with hectic fire, as flowers do when frost is in the
air.
Still Wajeiceh went round and round. Asters,
the smell of new-mown hay, splashing fountains,
a burst of music, laughing passersby, all told him
it was a holiday and he was alone. Even boys
shunned him. Old Frank had never sent him so much
as a souvenir card. Of course a Blanchard Bowes grand
son couldn t have remained always in Boston supported
by a Natupski, but he had liked living easy while it lasted,
202 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
old Frank had. Now not so much as a card. Lots of
others in West Holly had them, though.
In the glut of girls four girls were now noticeable.
First, Beulah, Phoebe, and Harriott.
Behind them, Maisy. Maisy in something bright and
silky, with a few buttons off, because buttons off didn t
matter if you had style.
Beulah, Phoebe, and Harriott shied like frightened
colts and ran to a seat by the bandstand.
"Oh," gasped one, "did you see him?"
" He acted queer."
" They say he drinks."
" I thought he was going to speak."
" He wouldn t dare."
" He s talking to a dreadful girl."
" See she s going into an awful place."
"Where?"
" That one, with the swinging doors."
" Hush, Harriott. You re green. We mustn t let on
we know what that place is. It s a Place ! "
" She s looking over her shoulder at him."
" And beckoning. The bold piece ! "
" Just think, Harriott, how you d be feeling if you d
eaten ice-cream with him that day at the fair."
Harriott sighed. " I suppose he ll end in the lockup,"
she whispered. " Mother said I only need wait a little
to see what would happen to any girl who went round
with a Natupski."
All three agreed he was lost, and went home to spread
the story in Holly. But he was not lost. He had told
Maisy, " So you worked in a laundry ? And told me it
was a necktie factory ! "
EVERYBODY S DAUGHTER AND MY SON 203
Her nods and becks had no effect on him. He went
back to his father s barn, took his licking, and resumed
working in cement. With teeth set he determined he
would yet make Holly respect him. And do it alone
no thanks to any girl Beulah, Phoebe, Harriott! He
didn t realize that he ought to thank Maisy.
Ill
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI
THE spring she was sixteen Statia Natupski decided to
" work out." The American inhabitants of West Holly
considered that it was what might have been expected.
Of course their daughters wouldn t work out. Their
daughters were booked for situations as schoolma ams,
bookkeepers in the mills, or clerking in a store. But the
American parents saw nothing peculiar in a Natupski
working out, though as a matter of fact Kani Natupski
could buy some of them twice over. He offered himself
to the world as filthy and ignorant, and was taken at his
own valuation. The Natupski children were looked
upon as the banes of Miss Olive Greene s career as a
teacher. Every winter she told at Hiram Farrar s how
they were sewn up for the season, and every spring she
hoped they would be ripped out long before it was reason
able to expect they would be.
So, when Statia announced she was going to Mrs.
Sabrina Perkins s to " work out," the general feeling was
only one of commiseration for Mrs. Perkins. And, after
all, it was so difficult to keep any sort of help that per
haps Mrs. Perkins was not so much to be pitied. Gone
forever were the good old days when at the docks you
could grab off a green girl who was open to teaching be
cause up to sailing she had done nothing but herd rein
deer. Nowadays even the steerage passengers had
204
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 205
" taken D. S." in their own lands, demanded six dollars
a week and got it.
One beautiful spring day Statia wiped the hearth
with the dishcloth, hung the glass towels on the roller
ready for the hired man s face, and found a place for
the frying pan in the china closet next the opalescent
finger-bowls. She had now been sixteen weeks with
Mrs. Perkins and felt all American housewifery at her
command.
" I guess that looks pretty good," she muttered, as she
pulled down the sleeves of her shirtwaist, and decorated
the back of a dining-chair with her seersucker apron.
Then she went out on the piazza and abruptly told Mrs.
Perkins she d go home.
Mrs. Perkins was surprised as she worded it " struck
all of a heap."
" Home, Statia? Why, you ve only just come."
" No m. Las March I left backside the mountain. I
guess I go home."
" But, Statia, think how much I ve taught you. Why,
when you came you put the knives on the lefthand side
of the plates, and you washed the cups and saucers after
the gridiron in the same water, and you served lettuce
in a colander dripping all over the best tablecloth, and
you put kerosene in the oil cruet, and you never heard
of scalding the skin off tomatoes, and you threw out the
rind of the cantaloupe, and put the seeds on the table in
soup plates with dessert spoons, and "
" No m. Yes m. Now I learned all those thing. I
guess I go home."
" And," the infatuated mistress went on, " you hadn t
any proper underclothes, Statia. Didn t I buy you a
206 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
cut of longcloth, and paper patterns, and show you how
to finish em after I d done the machine stitching? "
" Yes m. The combinations is nice sure and that
edging you give me perfectly grand. I guess I go "
" And your room, Statia. At your papa s you slept
on the floor and didn t know the meaning of a chif
fonier. I ve set apart that little chamber for you to
yourself, and the iron three-quarter bed with ruffled
pillow-slips, all complete, and a stand and candlestick like
a picture. Oh, Statia ! Besides, it s haying, and I don t
know how I can get along with the extra men and baby."
" Yes m. My papa, he s haying, too. I guess I go
home."
" The baby, Statia. However can you leave her ? She
loves you so, and puts out her little hands mornings for
you to play with her, like you know how. And I will
say this for you, Statia, ignorant as you are, you cer
tainly have a way with babies. Isabel took to you right
straight off."
" Yes m. Isabel awful nice baby. My mamma got
a baby. She s a boy. I guess I go home."
" Go," was the command jerked out of Mrs. Perkins
by the exasperation of the moment. " And don t think
I ll ever take you back."
" No m," returned Statia, promptly bursting into
tears, and at the instant eagerly clutching the last of her
wages which Mrs. Perkins reluctantly produced from a
mesh bag. " I think I won t. My papa don t like me
to work out no more."
Mrs. Perkins, in the intervals left after doing her
own work through haying, waxed voluble over her
wrongs.
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 207
" I took that girl, Mrs. Bowes, filthy, absolutely un
knowing of the commonest ways of decency. She was
bright and teachable, I admit, and picked up things fine.
Thinks I if she stays a year I ll make something of her.
And she leaves at the end of sixteen weeks. No quarrel,
no reason for going, just that Polish obstinacy I guess
I go home. Of course if the little tyke was homesick
I d gladly have let her have a week off, for I suppose
they be attached to their folks, queer as they seem to
us; but there was no reasoning with her, so away she goes,
bag and baggage, and I suppose that s the end. I
wouldn t recommend her, and she ll come to no good in
that den of filth."
Mrs. Bowes knew it even better than Mrs. Perkins,
being a nearer neighbor.
" No proper furniture at all," said she.
" No regular meal times."
" Always a baby, yet no baby clothes on the line "
" For that matter no washday "
" Children playing in the cow stable and chickens
roosting in the kitchen "
" Not a mop "
" Nor a dishpan. Dishes right in the sink."
" An old stocking for a dishcloth and the same one to
wash the children, if they ever are washed "
" In winter a pan on the back of the stove out of which
comes water to boil coffee and into which go hands and
soiled clothes "
The Natupski house seemed a collection of negations,
and so indeed it appeared to little Statia when she ar
rived after her education in Mrs. Perkins s kitchen. She
had learned so much where all was new one acquired
208 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
knowledge with every waking moment that it had
seemed to her impossible to wait another day without tell
ing papa and mamma. They, of course, could not imag
ine the pleasure of sleeping in sheets and eating from a
table covered with a cloth, nor how much better one
felt after a meal of soup, meat, vegetables, salad, pie and
tea, than when breakfast, dinner, and supper were alike
the unpalatable broken bread and boiled chicory. Be
sides, Statia had read several articles which Mrs. Perkins
had put in her way, written by great men and women
about exactly such people as her papa and mamma, people
who came from far-off places to America and made the
mistake of living in the old way.
" It say, papa," she chattered, on the evening of her
arrival, " that in America one should live like people here.
So one gets to be like them."
" Huh? " papa snorted. Who wanted to be like em?
Mostly Abner Slocumbs, farms mortgaged and buying
pianos.
" Oh, not always, papa. Look at Mr. Perkins and Mr.
Bowes, rich men and Americans."
This Kani Natupski acknowledged, but anyway they
didn t make it on their farms. Bowes was a big
politicker, and Perkins got paid for collecting taxes.
" Well, papa, but they get lected. And what s to keep
you from being lected to something sometime ? You got
nationalized papers, ain t you? And you go to town
meetings. Only we should live like Americans, so the
folks who vote for folks see you are reg lar cit zen."
Natupski swelled with pride for a moment, then the
caution bred by a childhood of poverty and repression
asserted itself and he shook his head. Perhaps when
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 209
the boys grew up things would be different. He was
as he was.
" The boys," broke in Statia. " Sure, the boys will
do big things. Only they must have American names.
We must all have American names."
Mrs. Natupski, who had been foddering the cattle, en
tered at this juncture and sat down heavily. Even better
than Kani did she appreciate the prettiness of Statia,
with her hair kept in place by combs and a black ribbon,
neat shoes and stockings on her trim feet, a well-hung
linen skirt (cut down from one of Mrs. Perkins s), and
the shirtwaist bought with the first week s pay. Still, she
was amazed at such revolutionary talk. American names,
indeed? Where did that idea come from?
" One from the old country, mamma," returned Statia,
" a big thick book, and the lady who wrote it named Mary
Antin. She and her papa and mamma and brothers and
sisters came from Polotzk not so long ago and right off
took American names. In Polotzk she was Mashke, but
Mary Antin she is now and her dinner she eats with
presidents, too."
Kani made his wife get up so he could have a chair
in which to put his feet. Then he remembered that every
one in West Holly, in the whole town, knew him as Kani
Natupski, and Stanislarni had got into college without an
American name.
" All right," shouted Statia, with the zeal of the true
convert. " Let em stay like they are. My name s
Annie S. Natupski, and don t you forget it."
Then she went upstairs to bed on the floor along with
little sister Novia, determined it was the very last night
she would ever sleep that way.
210 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
The American name worked wonders. Under it Statia
installed white iron beds with National springs complete,
and papa and mamma actually slept thereon, though the
first muttered " Tin ! " when they creaked, and mamma
thought she could never be really comfortable on any
thing but a tick fresh stuffed with straw. Fly screens,
too, appeared in every window, and papa was made
properly apologetic whenever he forgot and propped the
door open. Nor did Statia feel peeved when, of an
evening, she trimmed the Rochester lamp and set it cozily
on the round table in the front room, with the Morris
chair and willow-rocker hard by, only to see their natural
occupants making excuses to seek a congenial atmos
phere. She followed to the vicinity of the hog-pen and
said reproachfully, " Papa, I don t like it for you to let
me spend money on tables and chairs less you use em."
If papa made an exclamation that sounded very profane
it was in a language Statia was rapidly forgetting, and
he looked ashamed directly afterward.
Another day, " Papa, I made for you a punkin pie.
It s like the Americans eat."
And she sat smiling at his right hand until a wedge
disappeared.
Again, " Oh, papa, see how splendid I scrubbed the
floor. With sand, like Mrs. Slocumb showed me."
He truthfully admired the shining boards, glad this
day he was not made to eat another pie ; he felt akin to a
criminal when he managed to slop a few quarts of swill
on them. Statia said he ought to and the pantry was
no place for a swill barrel, anyway.
With mamma she felt she should have no difficulty,
for mamma had once, on a never-to-be-forgotten occa-
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 211
sion, the birth of Yadna, emancipated herself from cer
tain Old-World customs, and they had never been re
sumed when Yan came along two years later. So in her
presence Statia cheerfully went about sniffing at the cook
ing pots, and remarking that a single shirt wasn t clothes
enough for a five-year-old Yadna even in summer.
Statia gave orders, further, that mamma was to do no
more field work, but sit on the piazza for hours making
embroidery like Mrs. Bowes and Mrs. Perkins. Mrs.
Natupski s fingers were somewhat stiff for the needle, but
she seldom lifted her eyes from its shining point not
even when she suspected the hired boy was pulling up the
vegetables and hoeing the weeds.
Statia, being possessed with the energy of youth and
the hopefulness of a nation that ventures to emigrate,
enjoyed herself in this self-appointed mission. How
much better it was for her papa to spend money now,
than to hoard it as he had done. Presently she would
prove to him that he did want a coat of paint on the
house and a rambler rose over the door. She had al
ready told him to feel shame for uprooting the woodbine
when he bought the place from Mrs. Judson Buckland
the year she Statia was born. As for eating from
the kettle, and wearing a nightshirt, " Don t, papa ! "
and " It ain t decent not to do so," had become words
she repeated, parrotlike, all day long.
Thus things stood at Natupski s when news arrived
that Cousin Anton was coming to West Holly. He
too was a Natupski, and papa had not heard from him in
years. He wrote that he was quite worn out with in
justice, that now he began to feel he was " spinning fine "
and, though not of adventurous spirit, he had turned his
212 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
possessions into money and was sailing for America. He
arrived carrying an extension case which the younger
Natupskis held was stuffed with rubles.
Statia had prepared to lionize him, but he looked too
much like papa to be very interesting. Hard and unre
mitting labor, in both cases, had made the men wizened,
knock-kneed, stoop-shouldered before their time.
The children were presented to the new old cousin,
in turn, and with elaborate exposition of name
and capability. He examined each with the air of a
genial slave-driver. Statia was rather pleased that he
spoke longest about her. Afterward her parents seemed
to forget everything but their relative. The little ones
might have fallen asleep all over the floor but for Statia.
She told mamma so in the somewhat severe tone she had
unconsciously adopted of late, but mamma did not hear.
She was listening, spellbound, while Cousin Anton re
lated gossip of one " Pani Marya " whom it appeared
mamma had known in Poland. Statia got the children
upstairs, and presently came down with her crocheting.
Seated by the window she listened scornfully to the
infatuated conversation of the three elders, sprawled
over the table, on which Kani had put both cider and sour
wine, and where a bottle of weird shape (perhaps smug
gled by Cousin Anton) was exuding a colorless liquor of
great potency.
" Wiewilgas," " the hoopoos," " then I gave him some
thing for a keepsake oh, a good beating," " Jolkevski
from Myemtsevich," " 5 zloty, 10 groshes," " no English
but a toothful," "Upper Kryvoda, Lower, Vyvlash-
chyntse" over and over such talk repeated itself, as
the chorus when you sang " Yankee Doodle." Statia
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 213
considered this a poor way to welcome a newcomer to
America. Why not speak of the land he was to make his
own? Brag of the R. F. D. and the schools it didn t
cost a cent to go to.
Impatiently, Statia realized that her parents hadn t
been so happy as this for a long time. She it was who
had danced and clapped hands when the beds and tables
were put in place, but papa s looks were gloomy, and
mamma had sighed. Now how their eyes glistened and
what questions fell eagerly from their parted lips. Yet
all were talking of places none would ever see again.
To iconoclastic youth it was a sad waste of enthusiasm.
She looked up and caught the eye of Cousin Anton.
He turned to papa with a query. What did papa reply?
" Sixteen." He had asked her age. " Upper and
Lower " collections of consonants now disappeared from
the conversation, and Mrs. Natupski was also left out.
Once she stole a glance, half tender and half jealous, at
her step-daughter. Statia did not know that Cousin Anton
was already bargaining for her, and that Kani, while
less liberal than the prospective bridegroom wished, was
inclined to greater generosity than Mrs. Natupski ap
proved of, when she remembered the girls in her own
brood.
The evening ended with Statia very thoughtful. She
said good-night to her parents almost as submissively as
if she had not started to make them over. The next
morning Cousin Anton appeared in a sheepskin coat and
enormous boots, looking so like a picture of " typical
Polish peasant " in the supplementary geography that
Statia could scarcely refrain from a real American gig
gle. She was startled when he came straight to her,
214 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
and, touching her forehead with his thick lips, muttered
" Anastasi panienka (young lady)."
" My name is called Annie S. Natupski," she remarked,
in a somewhat indignant manner, and was flouncing
away, when her father, a bit anxiously, called her into
the entry.
" Cousin Anton he may buy Slocumb place," he
began.
" All right. I m willing," said Statia, in her pertest
Annie S. manner.
" If he get it cheap," Kani went on.
" Don t think he can," interposed Statia.
" Well, he think he get married. He start big, like
me and mamma didn t."
" Did he bring her from Poland? " Statia demanded.
"Who?"
"His wife?"
" Nie. He get one here. He take you."
Statia s eyes bulged. Then, getting used to the idea,
she asked, " What did you tell him to make him want
me, papa ? "
" Me say you wonder of a girl dam fine. Go to
school and know how to live nice. Not like girl from
Poland."
" And Cousin Anton ? "
" He say tha s all right. He never mind. He think
you and he do fine."
Statia could wait to hear no more, she had to go right
out where Cousin Anton was manfully shoveling dung,
and look him over thoroughly. To be sure he wasn t
pretty, but perhaps he did have that extension case full of
rubles. It would be fine to live in the Slocumb house and
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 215
have one s own way. To keep it nice, as Nancy Slocumb
did, with a copper tea-kettle always shining, ruffled sash
curtains washed and starched on alternate Mondays,
books and magazines with articles about " The Strangers
Within Our Gates " and the fashions.
" Boh ! " she cried suddenly, showing all her teeth to
the passing geese. " Cousin Anton wouldn t stand for
none such. Or if he did I d have to work my finger
nails off to make him. Why, even my papa takes Ameri
can ways hard, and he s sixteen years from Poland."
The deal for the Slocumb place hung fire Abner hav
ing no idea of selling and Cousin Anton seemed to
think love-making came after house-hunting. He had
never observed the birds, that mate first and then assemble
straws for nest-building.
Wajeiceh went to Mifflin Grove peddling one Saturday,
and came home accompanied by a youth whom he intro
duced as Tommy Donahue. Despite his name Tommy
Donahue discoursed very ably in Polish until he became
convinced that most of the family knew English.
" Tommy Donahue," laughed Statia, as she and the
handsome visitor stood under a wild grapevine supple
menting the meal which Statia, no longer domineering,
had allowed to be as meager as her father wished.
He laughed back. " Oh, I had another name. Only
no one could say it and I couldn t spell it. What is it
your father called you Stacy ? "
" My name," she returned, with great decision, " is
Annie S. Natupski. Miss Annie S. Natupski."
He understood and nodded. " Good enough," he said.
" I think Miss Annie S. is a awful handsome name."
Mrs. Bowes and Mrs. Perkins, on their way to " pass "
216 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
magazines for the West Holly book club, saw the two,
and Mrs. Bowes remarked, " There s your former maid
acting anything but maidenly."
" Yes. And with such a flash fellow ! I suppose that s
why she was so anxious to get away, to chase after
beaux."
" They re all like that," agreed Mrs. Bowes. " When
they re sixteen they think they re husband high."
As a matter of fact Statia was not "like that" at
all. When her father spoke again on behalf of Cousin
Anton, and the inconvenience of living over by Silver
Street, since Abner Slocumb wouldn t sell, the girl twid
dled her feet and said, almost as she had announced her
determination to Mrs. Perkins, " I guess I won t get
married."
Kani, on the doorstep, was splicing a chisel handle, as
he had seen Abner do, and making a poor job of it.
When his daughter spoke his hand slipped and the point
of the tool entered the fleshy part of his thumb. Statia
ran for a rag and began to wind a bandage as she had
been taught at school.
Tying the ends and tucking in the surplus, she re
peated, " I guess I won t get married, papa. You need
me to home."
" Yah ! " murmured Kani, docilely, " me need you to
home." He began to work once more on the chisel and
presently the girl went away, perhaps to inform mamma
that one should not boil eggs and baby s clothes in the
same or any tea-kettle. Kani Natupski regarded the
neat " first-aid " bandage with an expression of utter
loathing, then, grunting " Labial! " he tore it from his
hand and thrust it into his pocket. He continued work-
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 217
ing, paying no attention to his wound beyond shaking
off the blood when its flow inconvenienced him. So he
was found by Statia, who remonstrated in horror, " Oh,
papa, when I say and I say you get blood poisoning
so!"
Kani looked up. Exasperation, hatred of interfer
ence, fear for the loss of his ego, looked smoldering
from his grim eyes. Statia was well scared. Did papa
feel so about it? Had he lived all his years in privation
and filth because he preferred privation and filth? Did
he long to return to them even now? She recalled the
sinister merriment of that evening when Cousin Anton
arrived. Pulling at her heart strings was the wish to
make over home and family, and in her burned the energy
for the task. Love for papa and mamma had led her to
it. She could not enjoy her new-found experiences with
out asking them to share therein.
Well, now it was love for papa and mamma that would
take her away.
" Tatulo," she whispered, softly, in his very ear, " I
got for you a surprise. I guess I will get married."
Kani was delighted. " Good. Good girl ! " he cried,
patting her little shoe, which was all he could reach of
her. " Me go catch a colt and four, six young creatures.
For thee and Anton."
Statia sighed over her lost cause. Papa must have
been tortured indeed if he was willing to do all this to
be rid of her.
" Waiterminut," she burbled out, " I guess I ll get
married. But I guess I won t get married to Cousin
Anton."
"Oi! Oi!"
218 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" No, papa. I guess I ll get married to Tommy Dona
hue."
Karri s mouth sputtered objections, for which Statia
was ready. She knew that out of Tommy s fortune
" dog s boots might be made " as she Americanized it,
he smoked more cigarettes than he could afford, and
didn t earn day wages in a week. But " Just the same,
papa, I guess I ll get married to him. He wants what I
want, papa, and what you and mamma don t want. You
see, papa, me and him was both born in America."
So Cousin Anton " received a basket " (refusal) when
across the fields went the two improvident children one
October twilight, to set up housekeeping in a cottage
just beyond the Bowes place. It was as American as
inventive genius and the credit house could make it.
Statia had ruffled curtains and the kettle was agate
ware blue.
Mrs. Perkins called on Mrs. Slocumb.
" I ve run in on her," said the latter, " and she has it
comfortable and slick. You d be surprised."
" The little she knows she learned in my kitchen,"
observed the other, mollified.
" And I m getting to wonder," mused Nancy Slocumb,
" if mebbe she didn t come home-along with an idee o
getting her folks to live like folks. She was forever
stepping over for me to learn her ways o doing
things."
They pig it worse n ever, I understand, now that
relation from Poland s come."
" Abner tells me, though, that Natupski s getting fore-
handeder every year. He and t other have put in a bid
to chop off the river woodlot. Abner wanted to try, but
MISS ANNIE S. NATUPSKI 219
they wouldn t hear to any man that couldn t bond hisself
for a thousand."
Yes, it does beat all how those foreigners get along.
But give me less money, and decent living," commented
Mrs. Perkins. " By the way, I hear Statia scuse me,
Annie S. Donahue isn t so pizen perticular after all.
I guess there s Polish slackness underneath the varnish.
They say she turns all the plates upside down before she
washes dishes, and if nothing falls out sez they re clean."
" Oh, well," laughed Nancy, " we mustn t expect too
much. You know she s only the second generation ! "
IV
SUCH A CHANCE
No flock is without a cosset, and why should Kani
Natupski think to produce a family containing no failure ?
Yet he was disgruntled because Stepan grew crooked
where Stanislarni and Wajeiceh were straight weak
as they were strong.
That Stepan started handicapped was not considered.
West Holly women squealed when it was told that the
Natupskis had a baby whose wrist barely rilled a ringer
ring. Kani Natupski took heroic measures. When snow
fell he would throw Stepan into drifts from a second
story window, so that he might do his share of shoveling.
You see, Stepan must dig himself out or remain until
the February thaw. Papa laughed sometimes to see the
panting boy digging himself out. Papa supposed he was
making Stepan tough and hardy. He was giving him
inflammatory rheumatism.
Stepan lived through his seventh winter, which was
the one in which his brother Stanislarni prepared for col
lege, a parcel, done up in cotton wool and camphorated
oil. When they undid him he was crooked. And then
there was no use trying to make anything of him. The
Natupski elders practically abandoned Stepan. Believing
him ruined forever, they let the district school and the
neighbors do their worst.
Stepan was never taken anywhere. He knew his
220
SUCH A CHANCE 221
father s farm, Abner Slocumb s home lot, and the sandy
road to the schoolhouse. It is to be feared he had a small
mind. When the flag broke out on the tall staff before
District Seven his heart throbbed with painful delight.
Stepan would probably have liked to be a flag, so
high up, so straight.
It was the flags in the picture that held him hours in
front of the old corn-barn, which Kani Natupski had
allowed circus men to cover with posters the May after
Statia s marriage. The corn-barn attracted children
from all about.
Stepan had eyes for only the great cages bearing on
the corner flags flags of all kinds. They were pictured
in the highest of high winds and as large as was pos
sible if anything else was to be visible in the street below.
Stepan believed it all because he had never been out
in the world and knew nothing of the world s disappoint
ments. He was familiar only with West Holly, which
was never disappointing. The schoolhouse flag looked
as one would have it, and was as large as it was.
Besides money to pay for the use of the corn-barn, the
circus man had left passes. So the Natupskis would go
to their first circus. That is, papa would go; and a good
many of the children. Little else but circus was talked
in West Holly. Abner Slocumb was going in memory
of the days when he tried to crawl under the tent.
Blanchard Bowes was going because he expected com
pany from Boston. Stepan, of course, would not go.
The great day was "Saturday, but Miss Olive Greene
intended to let school out anyway. She had to go because
if she didn t her beau would go with another girl.
Confusion reigns in most large families when a merry-
222 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
making impends, and confusion reigned in the Natupski
home, which was now nearly redeemed from the unusual
outburst of chairs, tables, rugs, and sash curtains for
which Statia had been responsible the previous summer.
It was not a delightful confusion. The Natupskis never
had enough of anything to go around, and Wajeiceh
would get mad because Marinka had taken his fancy
arm-garters for quite another purpose.
" You shut up, whole caboodle of you," bawled Kani.
" Les me lick you to stay to home, ev ry dam one.
Wajeiceh can come early away and milk. Maybe me stay
in and get drunk. Not often your papa enjoys him
self."
But Wajeiceh was already gone, cross lots. So Kani
stuck his teeth together and tried authority with his
daughters.
" Some one is got to leave early," he announced.
" Pigs there is, remember. And old setting turkey may
hatch. Yes, she will hatch. One is got to leave early."
" Poh for turkey," snorted Marinka, prospective
pleasure having gone to her head. " Miss Turkey knows
how to tend her young ones, I guess. How d turkeys do
fore they belonged to folks? "
Then she climbed over the wheel, settled the pick of the
female headgear on her frizzes, and said, " Stepan can
feed em, for once."
Of course Stepan had wanted to go to the circus. It
had seemed as if he must go, because of the flags. He
could shut his eyes and see the great tent and all the
little ones, like mushrooms circled round a toadstool in
Slocumb s pasture after a rain. To the music of some
thing called a band lovely ladies rode an incredible num-
SUCH A CHANCE 223
her of horses, kissing hands. Above it all, flags. From
each tent a flag, and others strung on lines from peak to
peak of the largest.
He had made a very truthful circus, this Stepan who
never saw one. He was used to finding happiness in
dreams, but in spite of this dream of flags, the day seemed
flat after his father, brothers, and sisters had gone. He
listened to the waning sounds of chatter.
" Oh, Rinka, they say the ringmaster s so handsome.
A girl at Holly Centre went to Lansing last year and
seen him. When he cracks his whip it goes all through
you like a shiver. Say, papa, mayn t I have ten cents
for some Woolworth earrings?"
The last sound was Yadna s piping voice, wanting to
know, " Say, Rinka, do the lady in pink not wear no
dress but wings ? And is hoopla Polish, papa ? It comes
out her mouth in the picture, hoopla just like that. Well,
if it ain t Polish, whose talk is it? "
What a come-down to realize one was left in West
Holly, where it was so still the cows made a big noise
eating in the hill pasture.
Stepan felt this was not a disappointment for one day.
It was his life in all the years to come. He would never
go to the circus. Anger rose and ruled him for the first
time. He rolled in the dirt and bit the turf, with howls.
He had seen Marinka do this when papa refused her a
peek-a-boo waist. He had thought it foolish in a big
girl, but now he knew how she had felt.
By and by he came back to himself, a sad little boy.
His eyes smarted, his mouth was filled with mud. Both
legs ached and with every sob he shivered. Perhaps he
was going to die. He hoped so. He would lie down and
224 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
die and when papa and the girls came home they would
be sorry. They would say, " Stepan, he died because we
didn t take him to the circus. Poor Stepan ! "
As one cannot lie in the dirt all day, even though one
is about to die, Stepan got up and went into the house.
It would be dull there, but he had to go somewhere. Only
mamma would be at home, and the baby. Mamma was
always at home, and there was usually a baby.
Right where the gate would have been only for Natup-
ski thrift using the gate for firewood seven years before
Stepan was born, he found a ticket for the circus. It
stuck up in the wheel-track as if saying " Come, make
the most of me." Some of the circus party had let it
fall. He had only to get to Mifflin Grove and this would
admit him to the sights and wonders. He needn t die
now. He need only get to Mifflin Grove.
Over in Abner Slocumb s kitchen discussion ran high.
Nancy declared once and for all she would not be caught
dead going to the circus. She declared it a great many
times. " Abner Slocumb," she remarked, " I would be a
fool. I d spend fifty cents good money, with the interest
due and all, going to a wicked performance that the
Methodist Church never countenanced. Offers free
tickets to clergymen ! Don t tell me. Of course it offers
free tickets to clergymen because no clergymen ever take
em."
" Aw, don t make such a clack," said Abner, obnox
iously shaving himself a day ahead. " Ain t nothing im
moral in seeing the elephant h isting a wisp o straw in
his trunk and putting it on his back, nor in watching the
great polar bear everlastingly walk round the chunk of
ice in his cage. Educational and improving, Nance. So
SUCH A CHANCE 225
it says on Natupski s barn. G long over and read it for
yourself."
" I will not," she replied, nipping in her lips, " and you
men folks might been better employed than hanging
round there. Great polar bear indeed ! It s my opinion
all you men considered was that scandalous young woman
in short skirts a-straddle of eight horses in full gallop.
Not that you can make me believe there s any such
thing."
1 " Nance," whispered Abner, advancing razor in hand
and making motions that must have looked murderous
to the robin in the apple tree by the north window,
" there s two little fellers has atted me to go to the circus.
Guess who they be?"
" Can t," she returned.
" Two little fellers," Abner went on, sweeping the
lather from his cheeks with a rasp as of saw-filing, and
wiping his razor on a square of newspaper. " One s the
one I used to be, who never had fifty cents to call his
own. T other s the one we might have had. We d both
have gone and tooken him. You d not have stood out,
Nance, when twas our little chap wanted to see the
clown and the wonderful bearded lady ? "
" No," said Nancy, softened to that extent that she
cut a doughnut man with her ready knife instead of
sticking to the five-fingered variety, " I s pose I wouldn t.
But you know well enough, Abner, he never was nor
wanted. But if twas any young one you was a-going
to pleasure I wouldn t say a word. It s only that it looks
so foolish for you, a gre t grown man, to be going. Just
as if I was taking to doll babies."
" Any young one," said Abner, his eye ranging the
226 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
landscape. " Any young one a-tall. Well, here goes.
There s a Natupski young one left to home."
In this way there fell at Stepan s feet a marvelous
chance.
While Mr. Slocumb harnessed, Stepan went into the
house, biting his fingers to be sure he did not dream
asleep. He would see the animals and the flying people
on little swings. He would see the flags.
He climbed to the room where his mother lay in bed
with the new baby. Well, it was not a very new baby,
being all of a week old, and named Zinzic, but mamma
never got out of bed now inside of ten days.
" Such a chance, mamma," said Stepan. " You think
I will stay to home, and papa thinks I will stay to home.
But I won t. Such a chance."
Mrs. Natupski turned toward Stepan. Perhaps be
cause there was none other to look at the sleeping baby
didn t count she saw Stepan as if she had never seen
him before, learned the wistful beauty of his eyes, the
crisp curling of his abundant hair, the healthful glow
of his face. She hadn t thought of it in the past years,
but she loved Stepan.
" Dearest one," she murmured in her native language,
and drawing him near gave him a long kiss.
From next door came the sound of Abner Slocumb
harnessing, which meant abrupt " stand overs " and drop
pings of thills at vexatious periods.
* Such a chance," whispered Stepan, his voice muf
fled by the fuzzy neck ruffle of mamma s nightgown, in
which his lips were buried. " Such a chance."
Ten minutes later Abner Slocumb stepped carefully
over the rotten boards of the Natupski piazza, called
SUCH A CHANCE 227
aloud several times, and knocked with his whip stock,
with no response. There stood the door, wide open;
there walked the hens, in and out; there sat the cat on
the table, cleaning her whiskers ; it was just as it always
was; but for the first time in seventeen years nothing
human was in sight.
" Don t look nat ral," he reported to Nancy, " no man
beating nobody, no young ones bawling. Rinka ain t
fussing up a fancy bunnet. I don t know the place.
Keep an eye on it, Nance. I ll go along. Probably I ll
pick up the boy down the road a piece."
The buggy spun away under the nooning sun, but no
boy was picked up. Abner forgot his disappointment
when he got to Mifflin Grove, indulged himself in a real
good oyster stew twenty cents a bowl, our most ex
pensive dish and secured a place under the big top full
early. After all, it was the boy s loss, not hisn. Just
then a chap came along with a trick nose that he could
make four feet long without winking, and nothing was
worth thinking of but laughter.
The Natupskis were there in a row, a trifle less happy
than Abner Slocumb, because the circus makes its
strongest appeal to the Yankee character. Kani looked
darkly down the line. Only for its being a holiday he
should not think he was having such a fine time. He
guessed he would go and get drunk when it was over.
His eyes went again down the line, which began with
sleepy Yan, leaning against him, and ended with the
smartly dressed Statia and her husband, Tommy
Donahue. All his, all acquired since he came to America,
alone and poor. He ought to be having a fine time. Per
haps he would have had one could Marinki have left her
228 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
bed and come along. Only that would have left Stepan
alone.
But why leave Stepan ?
" Say, Statia," he called, interrupting a good joke
of the head clown, to disgust of surrounding mobs,
" Stepan would have liked it here."
" True for you, papa," Statia shrilled, for she was
quick and had caught the joke, so to the dickens with
all slowpokes in the back seats. " Me and Tommy said
so all along, didn t we, Tommy ? Stepan gets a big boy
now and deserves some fun. Miss Greene tells me he
does splendid in school. Likely he makes a somebody,
if he is crooked."
After the performance the Natupski family met Abner
Slocumb in front of the " September Morn " ballyhoo.
Abner was trying to muster courage to go in and be
fooled; the Natupskis were doing all the looking possible
for nothing.
" Hello," said Abner. " When you folks laying out to
go home ? I d know but it s all right, and I d know as
tis all right, but I was over there this forenoon and
couldn t raise hide nor hair o nobody. Thought I d
fetch the little lame feller to the doings, but he never
answered, though I hollered my fool head off."
A moment s pause and not a Natupski was in sight.
The entire family had been thrust on to an already over
loaded trolley car bound for Holly.
" By chowder," soliloquized Abner, " he does think
they is something wrong," and added himself to the
human freight. At Holly, teams were redeemed from
the public rack, and the route taken up around the moun
tain. Natupski drove as if animated by seven devils and
SUCH A CHANCE 229
his evident fright spread to Abner Slocumb. Natupski
reached home first in spite of his heavy wagonload.
There was a dead silence about the place. An old hen
was looking out of the garret window. That was pretty
bold for a hen, even at Natupski s. The fowls seldom
went upstairs now. The girls didn t seem to like em
around the bedrooms.
Kani ran hither and thither, in response to chaotic
ideas of danger. Had Stepan fallen down the holes in
the upper barn, where the hay came through to the man
gers ? Or was it the savage bull in the pasture that had
tossed him? Go, Wajeiceh, quick, and holler down the
well. Sometimes little boys fall down wells. The bucket
goes too fast, and the chain drags them in. The girls
thought of other dangerous places and examined the
rickety cellar stairs, the ell room with the missing floor
boards, the teetery barnyard wharfing.
" Stepan," every one was calling. " Oi, Stepan.
Come quick. If you is a-hiding come out quick. See
what we got for you. Lots of pretty things. Oi,
Stepan."
Never before had there been a home-coming when the
little crooked boy, gentlest of all the flock, was not smil
ing shyly at the door or window, expecting nothing but a
story of adventures in which he had not shared. Simul
taneously, a sense of their own selfishness came over the
family. It was more than the gentle regret that had half
spoiled the circus, though perhaps it was rooted in that.
The girls began to cry. They were tired, hot, nervous.
Worry overbalanced dignity, even Statia and Rinka
bawled like peevish babies.
" You shut up," snarled Kani. " Shut up or me lick
2 3 o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
every one together. What good is it me look every place
while you make such a noise? Go find some place to
look in."
" We ve looked every place. He ain t nowhere,"
wailed Rinka.
Kani threw himself on the step in stony despair. He
began to regret every failure in loving duty to the lost
child. There were a great many. It was wrong not to
have taken him to the circus. He could see that now.
And last winter he should have had a warm blanket to
sleep under, instead of sacking and bits of old carpet.
Shoes, too it had not been right to send him the long
frosty walk to school in October without shoes. And
the circus. Of course he should have gone to the
circus.
Wajeiceh was to blame! Kani decided Wajeiceh was
to blame, because if he could not blame and lick some
body he should go mad. Wajeiceh should have said,
" Tatulo, take Stepan." What if he did get beaten for
not minding his own business? If the little boy had been
at the circus he would not have been lost. And now it
grew dark and he could not be found. Nor even looked
for, unless there was oil in the lantern, and there never
was now Statia was married. Lazy girls, you go fill
the lantern and find your brother. Find for me my little
Stepan. He was dearer than any of you. He never
asked for a nickel. He never went no place where he
could spend a nickel. He never went to the circus.
Would we had gone alone, just me and him, and left you
home, ungrateful wretches.
Mr. and Mrs. Slocumb were, in the meanwhile, acting
the part of good neighbors, and investigating their own
SUCH A CHANCE 231
premises thoroughly, continuing the search after Kani
Natupski gave up to sit down and wail. Nancy, emerg
ing from a third going over the hog barn recesses, was
about to tell Abner she d " raked every hideaway place
with a fine-tooth comb," when she thought she saw two
dusky forms stealing under the garden fence. As she
looked they were lost in the raspberry canes. It gave her
such a turn she had to go into the house and take a swal
low of the strong green tea which had been brewing an
hour on the back of the stove.
Mrs. Slocumb s eyes had not deceived her. The larger
of the two sneaked up the Natupski back stairs, the little
crooked one came softly around the house and said to
his bewildered father, "Was you calling to me, papa?
Did you want me for anything? "
" Stepan ! Little Stepan ! " cried Kani Natupski, and
grabbed the child, while his bony figure was convulsed
with sobs. " Yes, me wants you for something. Me
wants you wants you to take to the circus tonight."
Stepan slipped to his feet and put one hand on his
father s cheek, while he answered, " Oh, but I wouldn t
want to go. Honest, I wouldn t care to go. It s after
sundown, so I wouldn t care."
Kani looked aghast for a moment, and then shook his
head sadly. He thought the boy was afraid of the dark
ness, having never been away in the night. To think that
he had never been shown what the street lights made of
Mifflin Grove!
Marinka and the rest crowded up with gifts. It had
been a wonderful day and no one had forgotten Stepan
at all.
But the most wonderful part could be told only by
232 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
secret glances between mamma s eyes and his. Here
after he and his mother would have things to tell each
other. Yet to think how near he had been, that forenoon,
to losing the chance such a chance !
Only for a thought it would have been lost. The
thought came while he lay against mamma s shoulder,
as she said " Dearest one." It was the thought that
mamma would be alone. And she would be more un
happy than he had been, because he had had mamma,
but she would not have Stepan. And if he had never
seen the circus, she had never seen anything but the barn
across the road.
Stepan did not consider that she had come from
Poland in the long ago.
Mamma had never seen the school flag.
Why should not mamma see the school flag?
" Oh, mamma," he cried, in her own tongue, " get up
and come with me. I will show you something beauti
ful. Such a chance ! "
Mrs. Natupski bared all her teeth and a few places
where teeth should have been. " You never tell," she
commanded, " and I will get up. Such a chance ! "
As on previous occasions of voluntary detention, Mrs.
Natupski was weary of pretending to be a fine lady and
resting her feet.
She wrapped herself in an old waterproof of Statia s
and into the sweet spring noon they stole she and
Stepan. The little baby lay on her arm. He would be
no trouble. Little Natupski babies never were. Abner
Slocumb was approaching the front of the house, out
of the back the woman and the boy slipped, to patter
over the crisp new grass, past the trees where fluffs of
SUCH A CHANCE 233
yellow feathers were fussing with tags of string and
horse hair. First she must look at the corn barn.
" See," said Stepan, pointing to this flag and that, and
" See," he cried in a louder tone, when his ringer reached
the great one pictured at the apex of the tent.
Mamma pointed out a tiny one, with such a look one
would think she was eating something that didn t taste
good. " Russ! " she said, way up in "her nose. Stepan
understood. That flag had kept Poland from being free,
so papa and mamma had been obliged to come to America.
He was glad they had come to America, but he was
quite willing to insult the Russian flag. So he con
demned it.
" Ain t straight," he said of the imperial eagle. Then,
putting a hand tenderly on the big flag of all, he looked at
mamma.
" Straight ! " she said approvingly of the thirteen
stripes, and Stepan glowed. Mamma knew of what he
was always thinking. She had never been told, but she
knew.
Her feet itching, they went on so quietly that nothing
in the hedgerow was disturbed. Violets kept peeping at
the sun, robins continued flinging trills into the air, and
what little snakes had ventured forth to bask kept on
basking. Usually Mrs. Natupski was death on snakes,
but this was not an ordinary day.
At the schoolhouse she was glad to rest and put the
baby to bed in the grass. It would have killed any
American baby, of course, to sleep on the ground in May
after a shower, but it would not injure Zinzic Natupski.
Now came the triumphant moment Stepan was to show
the flag. He went to the locker which had been arranged
234 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
on the outside of the building, so that the firstcomer
might hoist it on school-days without waiting for the
schoolhouse to be unlocked. Trembling with pleasure
Stepan slipped the flag on the rope and began to pull.
It was hard work and his hands were cut, but he would
not mind if only mamma would look. She leaned against
the bank with her eyes shut. Had she gone to sleep ? He
remembered the sad evening when she went to sleep
while Yadna was showing how to weave paper mats
kindergarten way. Yadna had cried and said she would
never, never again try to treat mamma as other girls
treated their mammas. But that had been in the house,
in winter, by the hot stove, after mamma had shoveled
all day.
" See, mamma, it floats out," he cried.
To his great joy she opened her bead-like eyes, and
began making her head go from side to side, as the flag
fluttered, while she chanted, " Straight, straight,
straight," to a sort of tune.
" Oh, mamma, sing," he begged, and she sang, trolling
out something she and Kani had used to hum when they
went to the woods before America was even a dream.
It was a pretty song, with flowers in it. She knew
another, with wolves, but she did not sing that. She did
not believe Stepan would like it. Besides, there were no
wolves in America.
Although there was nothing to eat but ends of bleached
grass blades, they were obliged to stay to salute the flag
at sunset. Stepan had set his heart on that.
Luckily the sun disappeared early from West Holly,
on account of the mountain, so Stepan s ceremony was
over long before official sundown. Mrs. Natupski stood
SUCH A CHANCE 235
and raised her hand as he told her even the baby s
hand was held up. To Stepan belonged the thrilling ex
perience of bringing down the flag, and feeling himself
for a moment enveloped in its folds.
Then Mrs. Natupski peered through the windows at
the place where her children were being made into
Americans, and felt ready to go home for another ten
years.
There is probably nothing pleasanter than to go home-
along in the gloaming when the air is perfumery and a
gentle fatigue tells of the garnering of pretty memories.
So Mrs. Natupski and Stepan went home on the great
circus day.
With all the chores impending the family was galvan
ized into action just after Kani put his son down, half
suffocated with the hugging that alone seemed adequate
expression of a great relief. In ten seconds milk pails
clashed, cows rattled into stanchions, and much pro
fanity, English and Polish, was heard in the vicinity of
the pig-pen.
Stepan meant to help all he could, in small ways, and
the ways were not always so small because, like most
crooked boys, he was handy-fingered. When he col
lided with one of the others he would put a shy question
about the circus. Was it as nice as the pictures on the
corn-barn ?
Kazia thought the ringmaster was nicer, indeed, quite
as handsome as the Holly Depot station-agent, but not
so satisfactory. He was grand and awful, but one
could never know him, and the station-agent lifted his
cap whenever he saw her, just as if she was a grown
lady.
236 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
To Yadna Stepan ventured a question about flags.
Did she see any?
" Sure," said Yadna. " They was sugary ones. A
ole lady in a sunbunnet sold em fi cents a bag. Only
I didn t have no fi cents."
Stepan joined Novia in laughing at the little girl,
and then Wajeiceh came in with a dish of milk froth
for the cat and emptied his pocket of a pungent hand
ful of those very sweeties. " You missed it, kid," he
said. " You ought to have called papa s bluff and made
him take you this evening. Another year another
year s a long while. And the acrobats were sure great.
A big fellow took a little fellow and threw him right
over the heads of everybody. He d have been smashed
to jelly only for the net."
Stepan, who had never forgotten being flung from the
upper window into the snow, was rather glad he would
not see that. He had the day with mamma to remember;
it was enough to find one open heart. Mamma might
scold by and by, and even beat him, because she would
be mamma, but she had seen the flag, and she had known
why he loved it. When he had said nothing, she had
said "Straight."
" Papa," said Yadna, " circus comes every year, don t
it?"
Yah. Nex time you stay all home. Stepan goes."
Well, perhaps. But not in the night. Stepan had said
not in the night, and papa had felt glad because he was
tired, and there were all the barn cattle to feed. Papa
did not know Stepan would not go in the night because,
of course, at sunset all the flags were hauled down!
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS
" Now we ve got em," said Arthur Slocumb, " now
we ve frothed and foamed to get em, I wonder what
good they are to us ? "
He referred to the documents showing that Arthur
Slocumb and Stanislarni Natupski had obtained degrees
at Harvard.
Stanislarni, before answering Arthur s question, re
moved a flaring pipe from his mouth in order to grin.
" Frothed and foamed in truth," he observed. " Get
ting that has knocked my one last illusion on the head.
I found most things were not what I expected them to
be, but I did cling to the idea that a dignitary would
so far put himself out as to personally hand me a sheep
skin. The great day s over. We chased round in the rear
of processions and didn t get a smell of the alumni. After
I ve lost you a few dozen times I think I ll go away where
I can be quiet, when I see you hot-footing from some
where and you say Got your sheepskin ? And of course
I S ay "
" Of course you say Search me.
" Exactly. And you tell me to go over there, into the
basement, and a fellow ll give me it. And I do. And
he does. And it isn t a sheepskin ! In a basement ! "
" Now we ve got em," said Arthur, " I wonder what
good "
237
23 8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Shut up ! You said it once. It ll do you good all
right all right, because two or three years from now you
may be diving into another basement and getting another.
That is, if you stick to law school. Two or three years
from now. What ll I be at two or three years from
now
" Something worth while, wherever you are," answered
Arthur, stoutly. " No fellow could put up the fight
you have to make good, and make good, without being
the big noise afterward."
" Ah," observed Stanislarni, pushing a pound of fist
through his hair. " There, my dear Arthur, you touch
me on the raw. If there s one thing above all others I m
anxious not to be, it s the big noise. That job is griev
ously over-filled by too many Americans whose birth, like
mine, keeps em from running for president on the ticket
of Personal Exploitation. We write of our childhood,
and when we describe our birthplace as furnished entirely
with a bread bin and religious symbols, and tell how we
slept in the bin on the grub, some nice hygienic woman s
club writes us a letter and offers to listen if we will de
liver it a lecture. So we stand up and give our opinion
of the Declaration of Independence, and wonder audibly
how it is that it s waited all these years for us to ap
preciate it, implying that no one else has ever noticed it
at all. Then we re interviewed, and come out under a
caption calling attenticfa to Debt America Owes Aliens.
Debt! Poppycock!"
" And so," commented Arthur, taking this so apathet
ically that one imagines he had heard it before, " you
don t want to be a big noise ? "
" I want," said Stanislarni, " to be an ordinary citizen,
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 239
living quietly, decently, and without being pointed at as a
curiosity in the town of Holly."
" Get out! " bleated Arthur, now really startled. " You
aren t going into the country? Why not accept that
business offer and lose yourself in New York? "
" Begin at the ground up and learn the ins and outs
from the top down," Stanislarni read from a good-look
ing typewritten letter. " Well, I ll admit a desire to get
after the concern s written English. But I think I ll pass
it up. I don t think I want to spend my life buying
something and trying to sell it again. Too many of us
do that. And it s a very inadequate return for what our
fathers suffered in getting us over here. One may prob
ably buy and sell in the older countries. It s up to us
to make better use of what America offers."
" You talk like a blooming Chautauqua course your
self," sneered Arthur. " And you ll find your illusions
bu sted, as sure as you got your diploma in a basement
instead of from dignitaries in rows. But, of all places,
why Holly?"
" It happens to be my home."
" Yes," said Arthur, excited almost to tears, " and
that home will drag you down and sit on you. To a few,
like my old Uncle Abner, you ll be a fine fellow, a Polish
boy who went to college, but they won t understand you
in the least for all that. Your brothers and sisters will
expect you to aid em in all sorts of impossible ways.
And the town itself! Darn little self-satisfied, narrow-
minded, minister and doctor proud village."
" Perfectly good description," said Stanislarni, " hint
ing at several reasons why I m going."
" Oh, all right," returned Arthur, through clinched
2 4 o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
teeth. " Your haste to be off tells me that in spite of
your ultra-modest protestations, you are really intending
to take up he-dressmaking in your near-native dale. Tell
me one thing, which you going to make over first
Natupski family or town ? "
Stanislarni made the kiddish reply of a sofa pillow,
but as a fact the question troubled him on the train, and
he got into the smoker to think.
He wouldn t try to make over his father and mother,
because he knew they didn t want to be made over. Since
Statia s marriage papa had been only anxious to reduce
the new furniture to kindling wood, and start a cold
frame in the parlor. No, the Natupskis didn t relish
being reformed. Stanislarni, from his own indepen
dence, knew why they didn t relish it. He had never let
anybody but Arthur try it on him, and Arthur s power
extended nowhere beyond haberdashery.
Thinking of Arthur in that connection brought to mind
the first time his cicerone had taken him out to
buy things. Left alone Stanislarni would have gravi
tated to the gaudy stores with the cheap and nifty dis
play.
" Nix," said Arthur, " the places with the best shirts
have the modest shop windows."
That s it for my wares today," Stanislarni told
himself, " I ll put em in a modest shop window."
It was very late when Stanislarni left the train. That
is, it was very late for Holly. About half -past nine
o clock. Holly waited up until this train whistled its
way out of town, then called it a day, and extinguished
the lights. As the young man shouldered his luggage
and started to walk round the mountain the post-office
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 241
was bolted with a noise as of jails in furious grand
opera.
The grocery store did not follow suit.
Stanislarni felt that he must stop and learn the reason,
and was told that it was because several of the men were
inside kicking Dick Perkins awake.
" How d ye mean awake ? "
" Why, the fool took a contract to deliver a thousand
cords of wood at Mifflin Grove for a thousand dollars.
You know Dick of course, his folks live in West Holly.
Dick s married not to suit his mother, and he wanted
this thousand the worst way. Mortgage on his place
just going to be foreclosed, but he was let draw five
hundred in advance, and settled that. He s got to work
off the dead horse now, you see. Been on the job six
weeks and all in. Can t keep a man to spell him for
what he can afford to pay, and hasn t had a proper rest
for a month."
Stanislarni s entrance into the business life of Holly
was rather more abrupt than he had planned. Cast
ing his young trunk to the ground, he demanded
of the youth before him, " Hell ! Can t you drive a
span ? "
"Can I?"
" Well, why re you standing round liked a damned
stoughton bottle for? Why don t you take the load to
Mifflin?"
" Huh? How d I look butting in? His funeral. Not
mine. Nor yourn. Besides, he only offers a dollar and
a quarter a day."
Stanislarni took one glance at the interior of the store,
where the half -crazed Perkins was whimpering to be let
242 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
alone, even while he spurred his will to prop his eyelids
up.
" Knock that poor devil down and leave him lay,"
shouted Stanislarni, heaving in his baggage. " In the
morning I ll call for the valise and let him know he s
hired me to drive for a dollar and a quarter."
Stanislarni " spelled " his employer for a week, driving
every other load. He found Dick Perkins just as he
remembered him in District Seven, good-natured and
quite devoid of forethought. He was exactly the sort of
a chap who would agree to deliver one thousand cords of
wood for one thousand dollars, and see only the thousand
dollars. Stanislarni, on his trips, saw only the thousand
trips. If the trips could be managed right, the money
would be partly velvet. Not all, as poor Dick Perkins
had fatuously believed, but partly. Stanislarni covered
the ends of ties with figures proving the number of miles
to be traveled, and calculations of the depreciation in
horseflesh.
The last was the principal handicap. Stanislarni came
down into the Perkins kitchen one morning. (He
boarded with the young people so as to be near the
job.) Dick was groaning into his own clasped arms.
One of the second span was trembling on the legs, quite
unable to stand, let alone draw a load.
" Condition powder," advised Stanislarni.
" No use. I ve been keeping the creatures up with
them for some time. The last trip was made with a shot
of strychnine."
Stanislarni was struck with horror for as much as
fifteen seconds. This was Dick Perkins, whose mother
had introduced the S.P.C.T.A. in West Holly! The
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 243
very wagon drawn by the tortured beast bore a " Kind
ness to Animals " sign.
Dick Perkins proceeded to curse his luck, also his
young wife, who stood sniffing in the pantry door.
" And what s eating those horses," he went on, " God
only knows. Don t seem to me any job for two of em
to draw a load to Mifflin and haul the wagon back empty.
But down they lie and croak just to be vexatious. I
wish father d put me in the Navy, as he threatened."
Stanislarni stood like a young tower in the small
kitchen, a shoe in each hand. To think it was simple as
that, and he had missed it. Figured all over the ends of
ties, and then had missed it. And so simple! Well, all
great discoveries were stuck in front of noses, but people
didn t see em for centuries. Then along came some
genius and told em what to do with the squeal of the
pig or a similar waste product, and presto a fortune.
As his hired man continued to stand stock-still, Dick
Perkins stopped fuming after a time, and asked, sar
castically, " I say, Natupski, had you any idea of going
to Mifflin today?"
"Not in the least," said Stanislarni; " it ll need
twenty-four hours consideration."
" Is this a job at a dollar and a quarter a day," asked
Perkins, " or is it a darn debating society? "
" It s a school," said Stanislarni. " I want to take a
recess to learn the answer in."
" I suppose you mean the day off," said Perkins,
sulkily.
Stanislarni gave him a good look for the first time
since coming downstairs, and replied that he did. To
his surprise this seemed as much a matter for regret to
244 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Perkins as the sick horse and the looming ruin of the
contract. He didn t know that some men seldom see
essentials because of trifles.
Stanislarni s business kept him until afternoon at
Mifflin Grove, and when he came back he made a detour
to Holly Centre, where the foundation was being dug for
a large new addition to the dormitory buildings on the
Academy campus. He did not near West Holly until
almost sunset. He thought he would strike up the old
road, by Solomon Russell s, turn in cross lots, and go to
see his folks. He had been too busy driving to Mifflin
and resting between trips for more than brief calls in
the past week.
As he wriggled through the barb wire that separated
Natupski from Slocumb land, which was like going from
a desert to an oasis, because Slocumb s fields were suc
cumbing to long continued neglect, while Natupski s
responded to sustained industry, he saw a man leading
a tottering horse.
" Why, it s father," Stanislarni told himself. " Hello,
father."
Kani Natupski raised a pair of disapproving eyes.
" You? " said his father. " Why ain t you working?
Loafing four years, a feller ought to get rested."
Kani insisted on thinking going to college was one
long, useless vacation.
Stanislarni was looking at the horse. It was the
wreck of a once fine animal, ruined by overwork and too
heavy drafts on his strength. He recognized it. He
could not help but recognize it. It was the horse Dick
Perkins had kept up with condition powders and finished
with a shot of strychnine. Stanislarni knew something
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 245
about horses, for he had driven a dray in Boston one
vacation during his college course. It was the summer
before his sophomore year. The next summer he drove
a taxicab.
"What are you going to do with it?" he asked his
father. " Put it out to grass ? Hasn t Perkins pas
turage of his own ? "
Kani Natupski assumed a look of elation.
" Bought him," he gleed. " Dam good bargain.
Dick Perkins pay one hundred dollar two month ago.
Sell to me for ten. Dam good bargain."
" Don t see it," persisted Stanislarni. " You ll have to
feed the creature up all summer, and then I doubt if it s
ever worth much. See how it shakes when I touch its
flank? Its spirit s broken and its nerve s gone. He
doped it."
Kani jumped up and down with the impatience of his
joy-
" Sure he give dope. Dam fine thing. He show me
how. Use horse through haying one week ten days.
Save half of hiring horse at two dollar day. Hay in
knock urn on head. Two dollar for carcass to glue
factory. And want get in big load to barn in hurry,
bunch burrs under tail. Dam fine bargain."
Stanislarni s answer was to draw from a pocket the
revolver he had secured a permit to carry when on the
long night rides. A moment later the abused animal
lay dead on the hillside.
Then his hand went back into his pocket and this time
came forth with a ten-dollar bill. It was the only money
he possessed.
" Take it," he said, and pressed it within the not un-
246 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
willing hand of his father. Then he resumed his stride
to the house. After a moment s contemplation of the
dead bargain, the little man pattered by his side, taking
four steps to the son s one. Stanislarni was whistling,
having picked up this Yankee accomplishment from*
Arthur Slocumb. Kani was gnashing his teeth, crack
ing his finger joints, cursing and occasionally giving a
withering look at this huge marplot.
They reached the house without further incident.
Stanislarni, who had spent four years forgetting that such
obstacles were ever before doors, walked cleverly over the
hens and Zinzic and Yan on the step; Kani, who was
met by them many times a day, stumbled, and gave such a
vicious kick that it took half an hour to quiet the little
boys. After the noise subsided, Stanislarni went to the
piazza to speak to a few more brothers and sisters who
were assembled in an attractive and characteristic family
group. Rinka was mending a pair of gaudy stockings
with safety pins, Novia did nothing at all quite grace
fully, Wajeiceh hectored Tadcuse, and Yadna was chop
ping wood. Since Yadna was only seven years old this
was supposed to be most appropriate work for her, and
really she wielded the sharp little ax very well, while
splinters flew in a manner most deceptive to the chickens,
that always thought they would turn out to be eatable.
Stanislarni snatched the hatchet and turned to Wajei
ceh and Tadcuse. " You great big brutes," he remarked,
" sitting there and letting a little girl split wood ! "
He finished the job with stern expedition, while Yadna
sucked a ringer and criticized his manner of working.
It was plain she considered herself an adept at making
kindlings.
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 247
He went into the kitchen, washed his hands, dried them
by a few passes in the air, the roller towel being some
thing to shudder at, and joined the group on the piazza.
Novia slipped a dirty little hand into big brother s,
and crooked Stepan smiled from where he sat by mam
ma. He and mamma were great pals now, they were
bringing up baby Zinzic together.
Stanislarni made up his mind to consult his father
as to the plan which had been born in Dick Perkins s
kitchen, in the interest of which he had been to Mifflin
Grove and Holly -Centre that day.
" I suppose you know all about Dick Perkins s job,"
he began. " One thousand cords of wood to be hauled
to Mifflin Grove for one thousand dollars. He didn t
reckon on all the bad features muddy roads, sick horses,
wear and tear of wheels, besides its taking so much time
he can t hoe his crops or get in his hay. If he gives up
he forfeits what he s already earned, and must pay over
the advance which he has put into his house."
" Yah," said Kani, with the cheer of a prosperous man
passing judgment on an unprosperous one. " Dam
fool."
" Well, listen, father. Here s a plan I ve got to make
the job a paying instead of a losing one. What d ye
think of it ? You see, the horses get worn out, and can t
carry more than two cords, anyhow. At that rate, leav
ing out Sundays and storms, he ll be two years com
pleting the contract. He ll have paid about six hundred
to me, or whoever helps him drive; will have lost his
own time for twenty-four months, and have bought
several hundred dollars worth of horse flesh."
" Sure," commented Kani. " Dam Merican fool."
248 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Now for my plan. They re going to haul the bricks
and lumber for the new dormitory at the Academy from
Mifflin Grove. They ll use a motor truck. I ve got the
promise of the job to drive the truck. The pay is eighteen
dollars a week. Instead of sending the truck empty, I
have arranged to run it around the mountain, take on
four cords or so of wood, and drive them to Mifflin.
Bad, eh?"
Kani Natupski caught the idea even as his son pre
sented it. He might seem obtuse when a moral principle
was before him, but he could understand any plan that
involved making money. He jumped into the air, clapped
his hands, kicked Tadcuse playfully, and kissed Stanis-
larni with a loud smack. Then he handed his eldest
son his hat.
" Hurry up, quick," he said, " buy the job fore Per
kins sell to some one. He talk about giving bonus
horses, cow, wagon to one who take it from him. He
throw in for nothing what he already done. Hurry quick.
Novia, fetch slate and make figures. Eighteen dollar
week and one thousand for carrying wood. Multoplicate
and substract up. Then all come out is for hire of truck
round mountain and gasoline to Mifflin and back. Good,
Stanislarni. Fine, good. Rich you shall be. Dam rich."
" Not I," replied Stanislarni, leaning back and pulling
Van s ear. " I m to get the wages for driving. That s
fair and square. Perkins will have the money for carry
ing the wood the thousand dollars minus what the
extra truck load lets the building contractors in for.
And he can run his farm all the while his job is being
done."
At this untoward moment Novia presented the slate on
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 249
which her sum was done very neatly. Mr. Natupski
smashed the slate over the nearest head luckily that of
Wajeiceh, whose skull was reasonably thick. Then he
went out to the barn and raised hell for a couple of hours.
As it was by that time late even for West Holly, which
in the persons of the Natupskis kept hours that would
have scandalized Holly Depot, Stanislarni started for
his bed at Dick Perkins s. Right in the road he met
Perkins himself. Perkins was as angry as Kani Natupski
had been twice during the day, and he had a good many
more words to tell it in.
" Here s your bag," said he, slamming Stanislarni s
personal property at him. " You needn t come down to
the house for anything. Marion picked the things up.
They re all there. You re fired. Do you hear fired?
It s all over town, how you ve been snooping round to cut
under me. Run a truck round the mountain and carry off
my wood, while I m at home working like a nigger in the
hayfield or cradling oats. You riding round on an
auto, and me digging potatoes. Nice sitting down job
for Stanislarni Natupski, while Dick Perkins is breaking
his back ! Pretty soft for you. And I suppose you ex
pect me to pay you a dollar and a quarter a day for it."
" No," said Stanislarni, " I expect you to pay me
eighteen dollars a week."
" Well, you lose your guess. As I said, you re fired."
" Wait a minute listen ! " said Stanislarni, with the
good-natured tolerance that always gave him the air
of a massive St. Bernard dog smiling over a puppy
worrying a bone. And he carefully outlined the plan, as
he had outlined it to his father. Kani Natupski emerged
from the barn and stood in the semi-darkness, listening.
250 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Instead of seeing the scheme in all its beauty, as Kani
Natupski, the supposedly stupid foreigner, had seen it,
Dick Perkins grew more unreasonably angry with every
explanation. He knew he was being done by this
Polander; each appeal to his judgment added to the as
surance of being done. He would not be done. He had
been enough of a laughing-stock all through the affair,
kicked awake at Holly Depot by men who d always tell
it against him, if, like his great grandfather, he lived to
be a hundred and one.
" Save your breath to cool your porridge," he said,
roughly, when the ever-patient Stanislarni would have
urged him again to consider. " It s come to put up or
shut up. Will you buy the contract for cash? No
promises, but hard cash every cent I ve actually
earned ? "
Stanislarni turned his pockets.
" You see," he said. " Not a red. And that would be
no way for you to do, anyhow. You d lose all your time,
and the worth of the worn-out horse. Don t spite your
self."
" Money talks," sneered young Mr. Perkins. " Your
chance has come and gone. If you had any faith in your
own crazy scheme you d be willing to take a risk. But
you don t catch me. I ll turn the contract over tomorrow
to the first cash offer. G night."
So Stanislarni slept under his father s roof.
The next day his father treated him like one of the
family, told him twice to " shut up " at breakfast, and
set him a task repairing fence in a distant pasture. Stan
islarni good-naturedly shouldered an ax and went to the
work.
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 251
When Stanislarni returned to the house, hungry for
a much better supper than it would afford, his father
sat on the piazza, emptying sand and gravel from his
shoes. A white paper blotched with red seals lay on the
dirty boards. Kani shoved it toward his son and said
nothing. Stanislarni took it and read.
" Why, father," he said. " Why, father! "
It was a bill of sale, properly witnessed and drawn
up by Blanchard Bowes, J. P., wherein Solomon Russell
took from Richard Perkins all right and title to a certain
hauling contract, the consideration being pay at one dollar
per cord for the amount carried to date.
" Turn her," said Kani, and Stanislarni did. There
were two transfers, one from Solomon Russell to Kani
Natupski, and one from Kani Natupski to Stanislarni
of the same name.
The young man breathed hard. At five o clock that
day he hadn t been worth a penny, and he was very much
afraid he would not secure the trucking job without the
inducement of the backward haul. Now he was worth,
in prospect, a substantial sum. And his father had
brought it all about. His little shrunken father, only
half awakened from his alien ways, whom he had con
demned as having no interest in him, no sympathy for
him.
Father and son did not speak, they were as silent as a
couple of New Englanders might have been over an
affair of the heart, but Stanislarni took his father s boot
and groped inside for a stone lodged near the toe, and
Kani grunted when he got it back.
Just then Abner Slocumb strolled over for a con
fab.
252 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" How d ye like it, boy," he asked, " being the big noise
of Holly?"
" I hope my truck won t be such a nuisance as all that,"
was Stanislarni s comeback.
" Get out ! You know well enough what I mean. Say,
come over to our house to supper. She s making a short
cake and won t take no for an answer. Bring some the
others say Novy and Yadna and the little lame feller.
I d give you all a bid only we ain t got but half a dozen
of any kind of plates. We never laid out for a big
family."
Stanislarni would have remained beside his newly
discovered father, but the scurry of excitement among
the children was not to be withstood. Mrs. Slocumb s
food, however frequently sampled, was something of
which one never got quite enough.
Abner slouched back to tell " her " to put a leaf in the
table, while he sat and snickered at young Natupski
thinking he could do any gum-shoeing in Holly.
Over at Natupski s Stanislarni was unstrapping his
young trunk to get out a clean shirt and the other khaki
trousers. He also combed Novia s hair and buttoned
her dress, since it appeared that otherwise she would go
out to tea with neither attended to. And he took Yadna
to the sink and washed her quite thoroughly; with which
example Stepan turned himself out shining with soap.
So extraordinary was the result of all this preparation
that Nancy Slocumb would by and by say to Abner,
"Did you ever see such an improvement? It paid to
have him go to college. Those young ones haven t looked
so slick since Statia became Mrs. Donahue."
But just now there is one more scene with Kani, who
MODEST SHOP WINDOWS 253
draws Stanislarni back, as he is marshaling the little
crowd Slocumbward.
" It was in Poland," said Kani. " Dam long time
ago. You was born. Today. Dam long time ago. So
me make you gift. Because me never did yet."
He handed Stanislarni two dollars. The boy took it
wondering.
" Thank you, father. So it is my birthday, but I don t
really deserve money, when you have given me all the
paper represents a much greater present." He showed
the bill of sale. Kani waved it away as mere dross and
beamed at the two dollars.
" A gift," he repeated, " for your birthday. Jus a
gift"
Stanislarni went into the Slocumbs dining-room with
a heart mushy as the berries Mrs. Slocumb was lavishly
spreading on the cake. He did not know that this sum,
so sentimentally bestowed as a birthday gift, was actually
his due considering the ten dollars he had paid his father
on account of shooting the horse. Kani had done more
business that day than purchase the transfer of Dick
Perkins s contract. He had sold a horse s carcass to the
glue factory. The price paid was two dollars.
VI
/
A MERICAN MARRIAGE
" LOAFER ! " shrieked Kani Natupski, using the goad
to lick himself into a real good frenzy. " Lazy picshure !
What lets you always to sit down? Mamma, what does
she do? Kicks the horse, that s what she do. And
Wajeiceh the cow. Novia run after the chickens, awful
fast. And Yadna smash wood and the barn under for
the hen s eggs. And what do you? Wash yourself.
Wash yourself! Hell!"
He addressed Marinka, of whom he had lately realized
the truth that she had never earned her salt. Now she
was sixteen he planned putting her on the hay rake. It
was work warranted to displace most female internal
organs in a season.
There being no grass down, Kani thrust a bucket of
swill into Marinka s hold, and escorted her to the shack,
where dwelt a magnificent sow and thirteen piglets.
" Stop ! " he bawled, when Marinka was for dumping
the odorous liquid into the noisome trough. " One who
washes herself should know more better. In with you."
Sobbing with disgust, Marinka leaped into the slime
and battled against muck. After feeding began Kani
scratched the sow s spine and read his daughter a moral
lecture.
" See you. How useful she is. Three times each year
she pigs and thirteen at a lick. Even her diversions is
854
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 255
profitable. For a dollar each they sell without fattening.
Years she does this, then to the butcher s for a fine sum.
Clothes she wears none. Does she wash herself ? Never !
Take shame that of you I am less proud."
Marinka s underlip fell.
Down the road and into a kitchen prismatic with soap
she sped, coming to a halt with the cry, " Lo, Mrs. Tom
my Donahue. I ve come to ask you what next?"
Anastasia turned up her nose at the smell of pig and
with her first words touched on the chief cause of trouble.
" Marinka Natupski, why don t you wash yourself ! "
Marinka sank to the calico-covered lounge and whim
pered. " That s just it. Papa says I sha n t. He wants
I should clean the pen."
Statia stopped polishing the tea-kettle and gave her
sister a good look over, then spoke oracularly. " There,
just like I bet Tommy twould be when you done school.
Now why don t you do like I did, Rinka? Buy your
self swell clothes and go places. Sure enough, hanging
round papa s feeding pigs won t never get you nowhere."
" Swell clothes is nice," smiled Marinka. " Pink ones.
And feather hats. And I love riding on trolley-car front
seats when they go fast over railroad bridges. But
where ll I get the cash-money?"
" Didn t I say do like I did ? Get a job o work to
some nice lady s."
Marinka sighed. Of course Mrs. Slocumb and Statia
couldn t sympathize; they didn t have it so hard, they
had men to give them money, they were married
Married that was it ! Marinka saw a way out.
" Say, Statia," she observed, casually, " no old job
o work for me. I m going to get married."
256 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Whereat Statia insulted her by giggling and asking
"Who s the feller?"
Marinka had no answer right ready, but just then
there came from the barn a sound as of fifteen tin cans
falling on to three iron stoves and bringing down seven
ice tongs in their fall. At this Marinka followed the lead
ing of the gods, and said " Oh him! "
"Him?" Statia was quite incredulous. "Jeff
Browne?"
" Uh-uh. A Merican beau. I guess papa can t kick
bout a girl washing herself when she s a Merican
beau."
" Good enough when she got one," said Statia.
" You don t know him. Bet yer yer don t."
Marinka wanted to depart in pride, but her need of
Statia s help kept her meek.
" If I had swell clothes," she said, " he d know me."
She hoped for the loan of a dress, but Statia was
firmly set against spending her Tommy s small pay on
papa s big family.
" G long home," she counseled, " and cry a whole
lot. Maybe papa notices it and gives you some cash-
money."
It actually turned out that way. Kani, satiated with
sobs, threatened to use the goad unless told the cause
of the trouble. When he learned it was fifteen dollars
he looked at the weapon and handed over five. At the
same time he mused anent Marinka s younger sisters.
In Poland one married a girl for no more !
Statia helped with patterns and sewing-machine and
Marinka thus became equipped for the subjugation of
Jeff Browne.
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 257
To West Holly Jefferson was only a devilish noise
coming along the road. Being the milk collector, inter
mediary between cow-keeping and monthly checks, no
one could complain.
To little Marinka he was now become a King
Cophetua. ffsflu
At home Jeff was the family runt, of consequence only
to his maiden sister Ruth, who loved him as a child
cherishes the ugliest doll in the playhouse.
Ruth was the kind of girl who, when asked to take a
buggy drive, went; but when the young man swore
because the horse got its tail over the rein she plumped
down on her knees then and there and began to pray.
Still, the milk customers liked her because she kept the
books intelligently, and had a little way of appending
clever jingles to receipted bills.
Marinka reckoned without Ruth. Indeed, the Natup-
ski girl did not realize that Jefferson was not the head
and front of the milk business, in which the Browne
family was doing well. That dignity was really old
George Washington Browne s, whose hirsute face was
well known as that of chairman of the board of select
men, collector of Indian relics, and the only man in town
who subscribed to the Atlantic Monthly. The active
management, moreover, centered in W. Henry Harrison
Browne, the third son, a plump bachelor of forty, who
might be seen at any time between two and eight a.m.,
slumbering in a milk cart on the streets of Mifflin Grove.
All that town took milk " off " Browne s, and it was
presumed the horse delivered the bottles, as no one ever
saw W. Henry Harrison awake.
The oldest son was town clerk of Holly, the next was
258 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
assessor; there was a daughter older than Ruth who had
become a school teacher and ultimately married advan
tageously.
What Marinka knew of this made her endow Jefferson
with all the virtues, civic and private, of his brothers and
sisters.
Jefferson and Marinka might have met at the barn,
chaperoned by milk cans, but it had been more romantic
ally arranged.
Marinka had probably been always about in the
Natupski crowd, but barelegged and elf-locked. So,
when Jefferson saw her at Silver Lake Trolley Park it
was as Statia had predicted. He didn t know her at
all.
" Lo, Jeff Browne," she called, as he swaggered by
with a crowd of young fellows, all roystering, and all up
a tree for some real excitement.
Jefferson did not hear, and Marinka s lip drooped.
One of the boys, noticing, inquired, " Say, Jeff, who s
the skirt turning on waterworks for you ? "
"Huh?" asked Jefferson.
" Dam fine girl you icy-mitted. G long back n shout
her to a soda."
Jefferson reversed, gave Marinka what he would term
the onceover, and slouched to her side.
" S cuse," he muttered, almost taking off his hat.
" Didn t see yer before. Have a soda ? "
" No, thanks," said Marinka, lifting her eyes, and then
dropping the lids as one might curtains when the sun
shone too dazzlingly.
Jefferson came nearer and took his hands out of his
pockets.
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 259
" Awful glad to see yer here," he continued. " Come
on. Le s have a dish ice-cream."
" I guess not." Business of eyes repeated.
" Gee, it was lonesome fore I seen yer. Say, won t
you join me in a hot dog? "
" I don t care much about em."
Again the eyes.
Jefferson grasped her by the arm and propelled her
through the crowd to the evil-smelling baby wharf where
one might secure leaky boats at twenty-five cents an hour.
He did not ask her if she wanted a row, but put her
masterfully into the blue " Water Lily," removed his
coat, waistcoat, collar, cuffs, hat, and tie, tied his sus
penders about his waist, turned up his trousers, and
shoved off.
All this time he had no idea she was a Natupski.
By the time he learned her family connections he had
bought her a pound of good chocolates, a red, white, and
blue cane having a fluff of pink tissue paper on one end,
a hunk of popcorn, an ice-cream cone, and a dinner in the
Epworth League tent. Also he had had his tintype
taken with her.
After this Marinka felt she rightfully hailed him as
her knight and her ultimate rescuer whenever he came to
get her father s milk cans.
Jefferson never entered the Natupski home, having
imbibed the opinion of Ruth that it was an abode of
disease and vermin. Not that he feared either so awfully,
but what he saw through open doors of lamp-lighted
interiors never seemed attractive. Mrs. Donahue thought
little of her sister s conquest.
"What kind a beau is it you got?" she asked with
26o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
scorn. " A young feller driving a milk team so he can t
go out nights."
" Jeff s a nice feller," pouted Marinka. " He brings
me candy-bag most every Sunday."
" Poh eating stuff. That ain t nothing. Did he give
you anything nice for wear ? Silk stockings, maybe, or a
gold chain-locket? Tommy bringed me a chain-locket
the second time he come."
" Oh, Tommy Donahue ain t so much," cried Marinka.
" Only a Polisher if he did get him a Merican name.
Old Mr. Browne s folks been round here two-three hun-
der years. He is always Merican. Rich, too. Me
I sha n t live no little small house like this."
" Well," said Statia, briskly, " I only hope you have
it half so nice. All same, don t take up with Jeff Browne
because his papa so rich. He got lots brothers and sisters.
Sides, me n Tommy looked in tax book, and he not so
rich as our tatulo, after all, and you know what he do
for you."
Marinka clenched her hands in anger. Papa had
ordered her that very day into the blackberry canes. She
determined to go and spy out the land.
The next day she managed to annex her two sisters,
there being a temporary lull in blackberries, and a walk
of four miles cross lots brought them to a part of town
where the younger Natupskis never went. Coming up a
pleasant crooked lane Marinka skipped into the road
at a place where several wood-colored houses clustered
about a white school. Bewildered, she gaped. Not
another dwelling was in sight.
" Always I heard of the big Browne place," she told
the others. " Over this way. Which is it ? "
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 261
" Ask the man," said Yadna, who had positively no
modesty in her make-up. " Hi, mister ! .Where s Mr.
Selectman Browne s house?"
The passerby pointed with his thumb to the ugliest of
the lot.
" That ! " cried Yadna. " Why, tain t better n papa s."
Indeed, it was not so attractive, the Judson Buckland
place having been a fine mansion in its day and satisfac
tory in its ruin as a once beautiful woman is satisfactory
in old age. This building stood up, too tall for its
width, half clapboarded, unblinded, with no steps to the
front door, no supports to the piazza roof. It was like
a house some one had forgotten when partly built. Life
there could be no better than Statia s, if as good.
Marinka murmured, " I most as lieves feed pigs."
" Le s go home long the road," said Novia.
Marinka agreed, in listless chagrin. At a quarter of a
mile distant the highway jerked itself around a sand
bank shoulder, and the girls descried something well
worth observation. This mansion had retired from the
tumult, as sufficient unto itself, and demanding a home
lot of ten acres to breathe in. All alone it stood, mid
a wide expanse of flower studded lawn, from which an
occasional vase-shaped elm cropped up to cast beautiful
flowing shadows away from the sunset. The third story,
out- jutting, was supported by great pillars; the garret
window was a work of art surrounded by a laurel
wreath. Every window was hung with a muslin curtain
of immaculate whiteness; on the piazza, was a bevy of
lounging chairs and rustic tables. At the rear huge
barns and silos hinted at the means whereby this grandeur
was supported. It needed not the painted legend " G.
262 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
W. Browne Stock Farm " on the biggest and reddest of
the barns to reassure Marinka.
" There tis," she said serenely, and gloated.
" Whew ! " breathed Yadna. " Guess they must be the
rich persons. When it s yours will you give me one them
curtains to make me a dress-up dress?"
Marinka gaped her fill, picturing herself lounging on
the piazza in gold-heeled shoes. She guessed Tommy
Donahue would never give Statia anything the bigness
of that.
Now up to this period young Jefferson s courtship had
been of the passive kind. He had allowed Marinka
to climb into his wagon and had kissed her whenever his
wide mouth wasn t busy voicing brags of his prowess
at games of chance, wrestling, or getting the better of his
sister Ruth. Shortly thereafter circumstances induced
him to apparent increased initiative. She who had been
Esther Browne, now Mrs. James A. Hoppin, arrived
for her annual visit, and the Browne mansion assumed a
fortnight s aspect of peculiar animation. Mrs. Hoppin
lived in Yonkers, which almost implied New York. She
said she " always shopped at Macy s," and it sounded
very fashionable to those who knew not Fifth Avenue.
Esther had been the family beauty. Ruth resembled
her as a blurred copy resembles the real thing. Before
her calm gaze Ruth trembled, W. Henry Harrison woke
up, G. W. reminded himself that he was chairman of
the board of selectmen, and Jefferson ran away.
This year he had Marinka to run to. It was squalor,
but Jeff preferred it to the present home atmosphere,
where Esther was putting the whole family through a
catechism to which one never guessed the right answers.
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 263
" Why don t you have some ambition and go to the
Academy and save your money and keep out of bad com
pany and cut the hair on the back of your neck and sit
up straight and eat with your fork and make your ears
lie flat and use less profanity ? "
Good Lord, didn t old Es want a fellow to have any
fun? Ruth fussed, but after all she could always be
kept pleased if you remembered to whop the pious cal
endar she d put foot of the bed.
Jefferson had a pretty good time at Natupski s, being
foul-mouthed to his heart s content and smoking more
than was good for him. Marinka sat very close and on
the last evening of the fourteen her father referred to
Jefferson as " Your boy " in a way that made the girl
think she was formally engaged.
Then Esther went back to Yonkers and Jefferson told
Marinka it was too far to walk and he was going home to
pound his ear. It seemed to him a good enough excuse,
but he was not dealing with an American father. The
very next evening Kani Natupski invited him down from
the driver s seat and the following conversation took
place :
" You like Marinka ? Yes. Marinka think you one
grand boy? Sure. Marinka and you both get married
each together ? Say when."
Jefferson gasped like a fish suddenly taken from its
native element, and muttered, " Oh yes she s one dam
fine girl but I can t get married now. I ain t old
enough. And my folks only give me a dollar a week and
it goes for fine-cut. So I ain t fixed to get married.
Honest, Mr. Natupski, I ain t."
" Tha s all right," beamed Natupski. " Marinka one
264 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
dam girl. Sure." (He was perchance musing on a
recent stormy scene wherein his daughter had declared
with great spirit that she wouldn t husk corn if she died
alive; and her father had sworn, with equal fervor, that
she would either husk corn or see her father kill himself
making her. Whereat marriage had been suggested as a
compromise.) " How," Natupski went on, "next week
Wednesday? "
" I can t," moaned the distressed youth. " Father
wouldn t let me. And I ain t no new suit."
" Mebbe Saturday better. Sunday day off."
" Hell ! " roared Jefferson. " I say it can t be
done."
" Goo by," said Mr. Natupski, turning toward the
house. " Me tell Marinka. She real tickled. *
Jefferson whipped the horse away. He almost made
up his mind to go braking. Still, Marinka s vision had
power.
Saturday he went early on the route. By nine o clock
he was stepping softly across the fields to the secret
solemnizing of his own nuptials.
With the Donahues they drove to Mifflin Grove, where
they were made one. Afterward a delightful supper of
ice-cream, cake, and lager beer was enjoyed at a Polish
restaurant. Then came the drive home. Everybody was
pretty gay everybody but Jefferson. He began to
wonder what Ruth would do if she didn t find him in
bed as Henry drove to the barn at eight. Putting the
sleepy Marinka forcibly into the arms of the drowsy
Statia he mumbled, " See you tomorrow," slid over the
wheel, and was lost in the darkness.
" Darn his pictur," said Tommy Donahue, and then
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 265
began to laugh. " Anyhow, kid, you got your marriage
lines?"
:t You bet you," whispered Marinka, and clasped them
in hands which she felt were now in no danger of grow
ing callous at a cruel father s bidding.
Incredible as it may seem, Jefferson actually turned
over his paltry dollar a week to his wife, depending on
wheedlings of Ruth for his own pocket money! All
would have gone well if the minx had promptly given this
to papa, it being more than adequate for any board
obtainable under his roof, but she must needs squander it
for silk hosiery and a hat trimmed with most marabou.
One October afternoon Kani Natupski looked about
and found the single drone in his hive of industry, sitting
indoors, warming herself by a fire. The rest warmed
themselves with work, Marinka must make a fire. To
be sure it was only corncobs, of which bushels littered
the yard, but it was contrary to any Natupski principle
to have an October fire when you weren t cooking any
thing. He entered abruptly. Marinka had elevated her
feet to the back of a chair, the better to admire pink
silk legs. Kani gave a jerk both to that chair and the
broken one in which his daughter sat. Abruptly she as
sumed a perpendicular position.
" Up and cook supper while she burns ! " he shouted.
" It ain t only three," said Marinka. " We never eats
till seven."
" What for if we don t? Cook it while a fire you got.
There ll be no more."
He flung the cobs, basket and all, down the cellarway.
Marinka began to cry.
" Shut up! " snarled her father.
266 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Tatulo, I m cold."
Kani Natupski liked to be addressed by the Polish
term for father, but now he was beyond wheedling.
"Where s some money?" he demanded. "He give
you some last night."
" Only a dollar. I sent it in a envelope-letter."
"What after?"
" A a real imitation diamond hair comb," she blub
bered.
Kani falling into greater rage, Marinka got right up,
packed her small wedding fineries, and departed while
still a wisp of smoke hung over the chimney.
Now imagine the scene in that Colonial mansion when
Marinka neared the south door. It was late afternoon,
the sun was westering and lay in long rays on the tessel-
ated hall, thence streaming into the small room where
Ruth Browne sat making out milk bills. There was oil
cloth on the floor, giving shining evidence of being
washed daily with milk and water. On the south wall
ticked a banjo clock. Under it, in a Windsor chair,
slumbered old Tom, with nine years and thirty-two toes
to his credit. Ruth wore a plain dress of blue serge
covered by a gingham apron. Her hair was smoothly
braided and wound about her head. On her feet were
ribbed stockings and ugly, expensive shoes minus heels.
Jefferson was at the barn collecting cans, W. Henry Har
rison slept in bed, and G. W. greased the delivery cart.
A poor outlook for a bride in search of leisure. Ruth
looked up when a shadow fell across the ledger. Marinka
had walked right in, as a son s wife should.
" Me and Jeff was married six weeks ago," she said.
" I m come to stay."
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 267
Ruth marked the moment by the one ledger blot of her
existence, and went upstairs to wake W. Henry Harrison.
That somnolent individual being the prime mover in
the family, he decided that the young couple must be set
up housekeeping say in father s old house and given
enough to live on say, ten dollars a week. Only Jef
ferson must work for the money. No more sleeping
until eight o mornings.
It is difficult to tell the feelings of Marinka when she
found herself installed in the very doorstepless house that
had roused her scorn.
Jefferson was grateful for the matter-of-fact way in
which his escapade was regarded, and for the first time
in his life felt respect for W. Henry Harrison and senti
ment for Ruth.
" Guess this is bad," he would chuckle, grabbing Ma
rinka by the waist and chucking her to the ceiling a couple
of times, such boisterousness being his idea of making
love.
Marinka could not cook, of course, and she would not,
even after Statia came over and showed her how. They
lived largely on those convenient foods which come in
cardboard packages with a waxed paper inner wrapping.
If, as often at first, she dressed up and made a visit
to the big house, longing to play fine lady in the red-
carpeted parlor, she was sure to find it a day on which
they thought she should be at home.
" What your washing out so early ? You are
smart ! " observed Ruth the first time, which was Mon
day. Ruth was up to the elbows in suds, and set Marinka
to stirring starch over the hot stove. The next visit
was Saturday, when she was supposed to be baking, and
268 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
even Thursday was sacred to mending in the Browne
calendar.
Jefferson became obsessed by the idea, too. " Shall
I help you mix bread? " he would ask, like a boy with a
new toy, so anxious was he to screw the mixer to the
table edge. Ruth would have welcomed such domesticity,
but Marinka did wish he could let her alone. She had
planned to patronize the baker s cart when it passed next
day. It was from that cart she obtained the sponge cakes
which the deluded Jefferson supposed were his Rinka s
own productions. And, oh, the subterfuges she was
put to when he asked for them on days that the baker
wasn t due!
One afternoon Jefferson, going from his father s house
to his home, met the baker.
" Here s the order your wife was in such a stew about,"
said that worthy. " F you ll take it twill save me driv
ing that fur."
Jeff accepted the loosely-wrapped parcel, and walked
on. A November wind fluttered the paper, and he saw
what he was carrying. A sponge cake ! He banged it
so hard on the kitchen table that it fell in crumbs.
" They all said I d married a slack-twisted runagate,"
he muttered, bitterly, " but I didn t know you was a liar
as well. And me around bragging that even if you
couldn t boil water without burning it, you could make
sponge cake! I can stand a good deal, but, by God, I
won t stand being made a fool of."
And, turning, he went supperless to his evening task
of milk collecting.
Marinka had imagined she did not feel very well that
day, but she was able to pack her clothes and the best
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 269
of the spoons, and get to Statia s before dark. The
Donahues were but slightly sympathetic, and evidently
anxious to avoid responsibility. Tommy hitched up and
drove her to the Natupski house at once. Statia gave
advice.
" If he is like you say, and scare you, then tell papa
straight off no shinnaniganing. Have papa get a lawyer
and sue for separate s port."
" What s that? " asked Marinka.
When they told her she cheered up. " I get a set
furs," gleed the deserting wife. She was forever for
getting her cruel father s cruelty, but Kani had not for
given that October blaze set for the warming of pink
silk stockings. He met her at the door, inserted her
violently into the family circle now kitchen assembled,
and roared, " Mamma, give Rinka tato sack apron. She
in just time to cut sausage meat."
The place reeked with raw pork, which Kani was
having prepared for a profitable market. Poor Marinka,
then she ought to have regretted the too hasty leaving of
her new kitchen and dainty bedroom. At any rate, the
sight and smell of so much blood made her deathly sick
and she fell into that same broken rocker in a faint.
Kani, suspecting malingering, caught her roughly by the
shoulder, but his experienced wife motioned him away
with a grin. He was but a fool man, she said. Could
he not see he was in a way to become a grandfather?
" Dam ! " bleated Mr. Natupski and staggered out.
He supposed now she must be left to her mother.
So there came a fine day in June, which Kani wel
comed largely because it brought an end to Marinka s
immunity from toil.
270 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
In the meantime she made a terrible fuss. Even
Statia, who followed the American fashion of no baby,
agreed to that. Marinka moaned and implored the
family to " kill whatever it was quick " for so long that
a doctor was called the first time one had been at Natup-
ski s for childbirth. He declared the girl had gone flabby
and must be made to exercise. Statia and Mrs. Natupski
walked her up and down till they were worn out. Kani,
herding the little children downstairs, felt a slight vindi
cation. He knew she had refused to move many a time
just to anger him.
" Supper ready, M rinka," he had growled, and she
had drawled back, " Oh, I m too miserable to come down.
Let the kids bring me something nice up." Well, she
was paying for it paying with much suffering, if he
was a judge.
Statia finally lost her temper. " For goodness," she
said, " don t be so howlful. Think of all the little babies
mamma borned."
" I am a-thinking," sobbed Marinka. " It makes me
the worse every one I think of."
Finally the crisis passed and Marinka lay on the
(reasonably) white pillows, the mother of twins both
boys. Even Kani was interested.
" You never done nothing so much," he grinned at
grandmother Marinki.
It being necessary to feed and clothe twins, Jefferson
Browne was called into court and ordered to give half his
earnings to his wife. Lest Jefferson forget his duties,
W. Henry Harrison Browne sent the sum weekly to the
Natupski home. And naughty Marinka waited till she
had accumulated eighteen dollars and bought a lace
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 271
dress and a green parasol. Unwise Marinka. Her
parent, having learned the way to the county seat,
stormed over so imperiously that the selectmen of Holly,
headed by G. W. Browne himself, drove to Natupski s
and removed the twins.
" The father 11 take care of em," said G. W., after
learning that his daughter-in-law was exhibiting her
finery at Silver Lake.
The babies had already been christened Josef and
Alexander, the elder Natupskis considering these a neat
balance of claims between old Poland and new America.
On the Sunday following their removal to the Browne
mansion they were taken to the West Holly Methodist
meeting-house and came forth Woodrow Wilson
Browne and Grover Cleveland Browne. The Natupskis
were angry, Kani principally because he hadn t thought
of naming after presidents.
Jefferson looked with an awful fear at the two pink
objects of his creation, but it was Ruth who snuggled
the little ones, fed them according to wired advice from
experienced mothers, sat up nights with them, washed
their linen when she was so tired she wanted to cry.
Sleeping at opposite ends of an oval clothes basket,
propped on chairs beside Ruth, they gurgled aid in
making out milk bills, and clients noted an unusual
output of joyous poesy on the part of the maiden aunt.
Still her cares were greatly increased by the existence
of the marplots, she being of those who know not sub
stitution when duties are concerned, but only addi
tion.
In the meantime Mr. Natupski was too worried for
discussing a daughter s affairs. The great sow threat-
272 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
ened a litter, and that was something worth sitting up
nights and hiring a vet. for.
She outdid herself, and Mr. Natupski found himself
the proud possessor of twenty-two little pigs. He wouldn t
have taken off his hat that day to President Wilson,
Paderewski, or Blanchard Bowes himself.
All very gleeful, but how were twenty-two infants to
be fed at a maternal breast with accommodations for
thirteen? Kani Natupski burst into a room where his
daughter Marinka sat entirely surrounded by pink mus
lin. Her occupation appeared to be earnest contem
plation of one sleeve, which her sister Statia had com
pleted and pinned to the wall as proof that the paper
pattern was practicable.
" Now sit and look at it till you know how to
make the mate," Statia had said, and gone home.
There was every indication that Marinka would
take her at her word, if she sat there until next
spring.
"Hey, Rinka, you got some bottle?" demanded her
excited papa.
"What?"
" Some bottle. Baby bottle. Hurry pretty dam
quick."
" Certainly not," said Marinka, and fell to idly pleat
ing a rosy selvage.
" Well, where is he ? Two I buyed you. Where he
gone?"
" You mean the twinses bottles ? Why, Father
Browne took them with little Alec and Joe. You re
member that day I was to the Park."
Marinka was ostentatiously American with her
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 273
" Father Browne," even if equally alert to call her babies
only by the results of their Polish naming.
Her languid elegance received a shock the next mo
ment. She found herself whirled downstairs and de
posited in the Natupski buggy, to which Wajeiceh was
busily attaching the fastest Natupski horse. Soon
Wajeiceh was in the driver s seat, fretting like a jockey
before the shot.
" Like hell," was the father s direction to the boy.
To Marinka he hissed, " At Browne s you talk up. Get
what is yours."
Then, as Mr. Chick once advised, he went to see if
something temporary couldn t be done with a teapot.
Thus Marinka made a second descent upon the G. W.
Browne Stock Farm, but no blot ensued, for Ruth was
not making out bills, only feeding the twins. It was
fussy business, for one took a patent food, the other a
diluted condensed milk. The maiden aunt presided over
a large tray of droppers and shining bottles. She was
better prepared for shocks than she had been; the ad
vent of Marinka, still trailing a breadth of rosy muslin,
only caused her to say " Sh ! " and beckon the young
mother into the next room, where G. W. gloated over a
new relic.
"What?" said the old man, peevishly returning to
the present from an entertaining past in which he had
already been much disturbed by infantile wails. " She
wants her property ? Well, let her take it and go."
Two baskets were put into the buggy by the astonished
Ruth. One jingled all the way and its glassy rattle joyed
the heart of Kani Natupski. Here were whole dozens of
feeding bottles. Already he seemed to see rows of super-
274 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
numerary piggies waxing fat. It would never have oc
curred to any but an American grandfather to buy out a
drugstore, but Poland for once blessed New-World ex
travagance.
" Good. Good Rinka," he gleed, giving the girl praise
for the first time in her small life. Then, " Other basket
what ? More bottle ? "
The other basket just then waked to sound, and it be
came evident that Marinka had of a verity fetched back
all her property. Alexander Woodrow Wilson bawled
and Josef Grover Cleveland kicked. Kani Natupski
looked from the twenty-two pigs to the two babies, from
the matronly sow to the flippant Marinka. The latter,
well frightened at the unexpected end to the adventure,
fell to her knees in the muck and begged tatulo not to
strike her.
" I didn t go to do it, deed I didn t," she sobbed, with
truth, for the food-sodden little ones never peeped, and
she had had no idea what she was bringing home.
Her father helped her up with boot and hand. He
took that strip of rose-hued fabric, tore it into eleven
ribbons, attached a length to each twin, and with the
other bits adorned the tails of nine tiny pigs.
" So you know em," he snickered. " G long off. Get
on to youse job."
And Marinka did! A boy s young life had been
marred, a lonely woman was left more lonely, an ex
asperated court would presently refuse to interfere fur
ther in Polish-American matters, but there was this
noble result Marinka worked! From infant to infant
of the eleven she skipped, whenever as generally each
squealed for the contents of its bottle at the instant every
A MERICAN MARRIAGE 275
other one was seized with hunger-pangs. Only once
came a hint at flagging, when Mr. Natupski revived his
daughter by a serene kick, a reminder that she had
brought it on herself, and these sweeter words, " I say
wrong long go, Rinka. I say of you than ole sow I was
less proud. Nie, nie! For ole sow, this instant minute,
she but tend thirteen. And none with shirt. Hist,
Rinka, a runt lose hold. Nie, foolisher, not snub nose,
snout. Member, Rinka, when all holler snub nose be
put off, never snout. Snout bring cash-money soon.
Snub nose be t ree-four year fore he pick up tato. Me
you hear, Rinka! "
Marinka heard. Marinka did as she was told. The
Old World triumphed.
VII
LATHER AND FLOWERS
" PAPA," said Kazia, " would you be willing I should
ask you to give me anything I want ? "
" No," bawled her father, and kept right on with
what he was doing. He always said no to any request
made by a female member of the family so automatically
that he often declined an invitation to his own supper.
And he never looked up, because he knew they were
going to cry.
Kazia was at it now. He could hear a piteous sniff-
sniff above all the noise he was making by aiming a
rack at the ox-cart and failing to hit the mark. It was
terrible the effect this America had on womankind.
Sometimes Kani almost wished he had stopped in
Poland.
When Kazia had cried out what tears she could squeeze
she rubbed her nose on the top of her stocking and said,
as if in sudden discovery, " I m going on sixteen/
r< You shut up, you," bleated Kani, and resumed the
rack.
Kazia had now a bright idea. She took hold of the
other side and with her strong young arms guided the
clumsy concern over the stakes. Kani was overcome with
admiration and expressed it quite naturally.
" Dam hellion, stand there all day and don t move.
276
LATHER AND FLOWERS 277
Good mind to lick you for not doing so to help your
papa before. Well, what d ye want ? "
Now what Kazia did want was a wedding outfit, for,
not frightened at Rinka s stormy career, Kazia had em
barked on her own romance, and only lack of a home
and wherewithal to support it separated her from the
lad of her heart. She felt her moral right to a few
clothes and agateware pans, but dare she ask for what
she wanted when she had gone through all three Hollys
and Mifflin Grove, and pinned her young affections on
Nicholas Kovinski, Jr.?
Wonderful schemes were woven by the young couple,
snuggling in fence corners on summer nights. They
would pretend to be in need of funds for some noble
purpose, then elope " and get the old folks goats fine and
dandy," said Nick.
Here was Kazia, asked by her father what she wanted,
and with no more impressive manner of answering than
stammering " I I want some cash-money to "
Kani yanked a chain across the rack and said, " Cash-
money it always is. For clothes always for dresses and
silk stockings. Well, it sha n t be. For clothes, no.
For something else, maybe."
" Oh, I don t want things to wear," cried Kazia,
blindly following any leading. " No. Never nothing
like that."
"Well, what?"
" I I want," she stuttered, looking for inspiration in
the sky above and the mud below, " I I want to go to
some place away from here. I want not to live here
always. I m going on sixteen."
Kani looked gloomy. " Bet yer," he exclaimed.
278 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Bet yer that was how it would be when you made that
grand graduation. Mr. Bowes say the same. You bet
yer, Natupski, he say, such a fine girl she is won t stay
long to West Holly. Well, all ri . Go it. Go to Mr.
Farrar s right now. Give name and ask what cash
money is for carrying to trolley. Tell him your papa do
it for twenty-five cent less. You can walk most times."
This needs explanation. Holly maintained no High
School, but " farmed out " its scholars at Mifflin Grove.
Kani Natupski proposed to underbid the price allowed by
the town for taking a pupil from home to the trolley, and
then to make that pupil walk.
Kazia understood this, but what struck special horror
to her soul was the ghastly fact that he was going to
send her to High School!
At a tryst with Nick she sobbed the awful news into his
mercerized shirt sleeve, which was embroidered with a
pink silk " N," for Olka Kovinski was right up to date
in dressing her son. Perhaps that was one reason why
Kazia loved him so dreadfully. Nifty clothes even
ordinarily clean ones had an amazing attraction for any
young person condemned to the Natupski way of living.
" Oh, Nicky," she wailed, " he s going to send me to
High School. I wish I was dead this minute."
Nick said, " Suffering mush, that balls things up."
" Don t it? I told him I didn t want to live forever in
West Holly, and he told me I could go to High School
quicker n anything. I d never have believed it. No
body never would. He licked everybody when Stanis-
larni went to college so we couldn t lie down easy for a
week. And it takes four years to get through it. Oh,
Nicky, I shall die."
LATHER AND FLOWERS 279
" If I had ten dollars we d go to Boston," said the
valiant Nick, " and let em rave. If I had five dollars
we d go to Lansing."
"How much have you got?" asked the practical
Kazia.
He had forty cents, which wasn t much toward house
keeping. So he planned to meet her the next day quite
accidentally at a movie show in Mifflin Grove. Kazia
got there while her papa supposed she was still being
interrogated by the school board, and they were able to
enjoy an ecstatic period of hand-holding throughout the
" Perils of Pauline." She sadly related the particulars of
the interview with Mr. Committeeman Farrar.
" He said he was awful glad cause West Holly hadn t
had a High Schooler for as much as years. Said I was a
good shame on American girls. And he gave me a paper
so I needn t be examined. And I was hoping I d be
thrown out. Oh, I shall die."
" When you re dead it s a long time," said Nick. " I
got a plan."
She thought it was for eloping on the spot, but it was
nothing more thrilling than this he too would go to
High School!
In the meantime the fact that Kazia Natupski was
going to High School set West Holly into a ferment.
Some said it was a direct result of Stanislarni s going to
college. Others put it down to worthy initiative on the
part of the girl, in the face of home opposition. Mrs.
Sabrina Perkins thought it a triumph for suffrage. Mrs.
Blanchard Bowes consulted Mrs. Abner Slocumb as to
whether the girl had anything to wear.
bo " This is what I d suggest, Kazy dear," said the
28o OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
kindly Nancy, emphasizing each item by a thimble tap
on the fence dividing Natupski s barren dooryard from
Slocumb s mossy lawn, " half a dozen middies, at perhaps
ninety-eight cents each, and you can wash em yourself
come Saturday. No starch, which is a terrible advantage
with a meddlesome baby underfoot, as there always is to
your house. Many a child I ve known thrown into con
vulsions through drinking hot starch for pudden. A
plain serge skirt to accommodate em all. Whenever
your pa feels free to give you the money I ll have Mr.
Slocumb hitch up and drive us to the car. I can go with
you well s not, and if I couldn t I d take the time because
I want to see you started right. You re a smart girl,
Kazy, and we re all bound to be proud of you yet, I
guess."
And Kazia murmured " Yes m," with despair in her
heart.
Mr. Natupski glowered, but in time reconciled himself
to the extent of passing out a few dollars. The subse
quent orgy of shopping had no joy for Kazia. What
were the fabrics of Mifflin to one who lived only with
her cheek snuggled against a Waterbury watch in the
pocket of a fancy waistcoat? If it might have been a
wedding dress, now
The things were displayed on a clean sheet spread over
the Natupskis kitchen table. Mrs. Natupski grinned.
This was her girl ; she was tickled that Kani was doing
for Kazia more than he had done for Statia, the other
woman s child. Rinka thought they were pretty, but
" Not so fancy. Why didn t you get something fancier,
with nearsilk stockings? But I s pose Mrs. Slocumb
wouldn t let you. Not that she s got any taste. Always
LATHER AND FLOWERS 281
looks like the back of a hack, she does." Novia wist
fully fingered the soft lisle and said, " You re awful
happy, ain t you, Kazia?" And Kazia gave Novia a
push and replied, " I wish they was all at the bottom of
the river. And I wish I was dead."
Nevertheless there was compensation when she made
her trolley debut on a crisp September day, wearing the
blouse with red hip lacings and tie. This was very be
coming to the brown complexion resultant from a sum
mer at berry-picking. Nick whispered, " Say, you re a
picture, you are."
After a month the fact that young Nick Kovinski
was attending school in Mifflin leaked into West Holly.
" Too bad," said Kani. " Me you hear, Kazik. If
he dares look to you spit his way."
His daughter was that instant thrilling in memory of
the hand squeeze exchanged when Nick helped her off
the car. It was safe enough to let him do this, because
no Natupski horse was ever driven all the way to meet
Kazia.
" The very devil s in it," Kazia told herself, in the
augmented vocabulary acquired from associating with
real nice girls in a Greek Letter sorority. " Never tried
half a try and here I am class secretary and in line for
Gawd knows what."
" That was a clever little girl you sent to us from
West Holly," the assistant principal of the Mifflin High
School said to the head of the Holly school board. " If
you have any more such district school products we ll
give them welcome."
The school board head said he heard from the West
Holly teacher that few could equal Kazia Natupski.
282 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" It s ambition, sheer ambition, that has made that girl
what she is," he continued. " You know how keen the
bright ones among those foreigners are to get away from
their environment."
In the meantime Kazia certainly felt drawn away
from her school environment, even while she sat at her
desk and answered (quite correctly) the questions fired
at her by well-dressed and refined teachers. This Kazia
Natupski was a strange girl. The real Kazia ought to be
bargaining for her husband s tobacco in a Polish grocery
down by the jute mill.
"Why, Kazia, where are all your neat clothes?"
asked Mrs. Bowes, nipping into the Natupski yard a few
weeks after school ended. She was accompanied by a
stern female, a stranger to West Holly, but well known
in Holly Centre as the-woman-who-comes-here-summers.
Kazia had gleefully shucked all evidences of High
School life, and was clad in shapeless garments of sack
ing.
" Whatever you may think," said Mrs. Bowes in a
rapid aside, " she s a smart scholar and will well repay
any effort made to help her. Nothing flighty about her,
either, as there was about her two elder sisters. Both
went boy-crazy when they were her age, and married.
That s Marinka s twin she s tending now." Then turn
ing to Kazia, " My dear girl," she cooed, " your faithful
industry at school has not been unnoticed. Now you are
to have a reward. Mr. Farrar has told your father, and
he consents. This lady, Mrs. Tweed, lives in Eastfield.
You are going to live with her and go to Normal."
Kazia put up a hand as if to defend herself from a
blow.
LATHER AND FLOWERS 283
" Dazed with joy," one lady told another. " Let us
leave it to sink in. See you again, dear girl."
Behold Miss Kazia Natupski sitting down to her
first meal in the home of Professor and Mrs. Tweed at
Eastfield. Having arrived the night before the meal is
breakfast. The Tweeds are poor and have furnished
their house entirely with books and old china. Kazia
had laid her head, for the first time, on a pillow slip of
smooth linen. Rising she had been confronted by a real
bathroom. So met she did something not always cus
tomary with her, and washed behind her ears. Later,
when she learned what was really expected of one in a
bathroom, she would run the water with loud splashings ;
and toward February she might venture on an occasional
bath.
This morning Mrs. Tweed brought in the breakfast,
which consisted wholly of a dish of mush. Kazia Natup
ski thought it a very good breakfast, and was much sur
prised when an omelette followed, with toast and coffee.
She wondered if this was the way the Kovinskis lived,
with butter-spreaders at each plate, and clean napkins.
Her Nick ordered the waiter girls about in so lordly a
manner when he took her to the Mifflin ice-cream parlors
that Kazia could not believe any refinement of life beyond
him. Perhaps living with the Tweeds would pay, in
making her more worthy of Nick. Only why was it
necessary to fuss with the Normal School?
Her ideals improved, working from the outside in.
She didn t know they were ideals, she thought they were
Kovinski requirements. She shuddered when she remem
bered how she had attended the Mifflin High clean
blouse and skirt outside, and rags sewed on for the winter
284 UR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
underneath. In time she changed as often as Mrs. Tweed
herself, and cheerfully employed her Saturdays doing out
her things in Mrs. Tweed s prim kitchen. Her future
home, too, underwent metamorphoses, as her taste im
proved. When she had been in Eastfield a year she was
picturing herself in a gingham gown and long white
apron, looking out of a casement in a frame of scrim
" Dutch cut " above a row of scarlet geraniums eternally
in full bloom. Nick was coming up the path at
the sunset hour, with a bit of a new moon over
his shoulder.
And now came the great day when Kazia sent Nick
a postal card bearing words " The Same." It meant
she would stand at the corner of Walnut and Greenock
Streets, in front of the Baltimore Lunch, at 2 130 p.m.
the following Saturday.
Alighting from the Eastfield car Kazia took her stand
at the trysting place. She was rather too early, and in a
few moments became aware that her situation was not
a happy one. Rude people stared and jostled.
A flash youth drew near. He had bad shoes and a
hat like an unkempt green plush kitten. Kazia had a
moment in which to realize his necktie yellow hand
crochet, she made it herself in High School when he
stopped and exploded, " Well, kiddo, how s tricks ? "
It was Nick, with the charm of voice and lazy grace
that first won Kazia. They still had power. She forgot
the possibility of meeting Eastfield people, allowed him to
take her elbow in a masterful grasp and steer her into a
restaurant.
Nick ordered dinner a la carte, when he didn t mean
that at all, but it cost a quarter and included pie and
LATHER AND FLOWERS 285
coffee, so it must be worth the money. The napkins were
the color of the beverage and inscribed " Stole from the
Welton Lunch " in red chain stitch. Nick stole his and
informed Kazia it made up a dozen " for going to house-
keep with."
" There," said he, " now we ve fed our faces, where
next?"
Kazia suggested a walk in the park. It was the sunset
hour, the sky was flecked with tiny pink clouds like rosy
feathers shed from the wings of cupids.
" Nix," said Nick. " I ve just been marking time. I
got a dandy plan. Listen! I m going to take you home.
You and mamma got to be pals."
Kazia s heart stopped beating. " Does your mamma
suspect? " she gasped. She should have put on her best
underclothing! Only the moral support of a handmade
camisole with real Mechlin edgings could brace one for a
thing like this.
" Sure. I told her. That is, I told her I was going to
be married. When she begins talking about Mamie Top-
floor I says I has a steady. Didn t say your monaker was
Natupski. Twasn t necessary."
The Kovinskis now lived in Mifflin Grove, not far from
the mill, where father and son worked, but too far for
any confusion with tenements on the corporation.
The vestibule was done in a kind of fancy oilcloth that
imitated marble, and Mrs. Kovinski had ever a damp
cloth ready to wipe off the indecent scribblings of neigh
borhood youngsters. Kazia was allowed but a moment to
take in this grandeur. Nick used a latchkey and she
was left to tremble in the parlor while he sought his
mother in another part of the flat
286 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
How beautiful she would have thought it had she been
debouched therein direct from papa s house in West
Holly. The carpet was red, with a border. The walls
were blue, with a cut-out frieze. Nobody could count
the colors in the glass dome over the electric light. Under
it the center table displayed so realistic a leather scarf that
one could trace the shape of the denuded calf s legs in the
dangling corners. There were books in the room, too:
all of Laura Jean Libbey and much of Albert Ross.
The concertina, once constant companion of the elder
Nick Kovinski, had been replaced by a Victrola. The
Kovinskis were right up to date.
Mrs. Kovinski Olka, who had considered herself a
Natupski simpered into the room, bringing an impres
sion of hair dye and tight corsets. Kazia saw her nails.
They were black.
Throwing herself at a platform rocker in crushed
plush, she began to tilt and talk.
" Nicky, darling, go open some beer. How do you
do? I was sure surprised when Nicky tells me and his
papa he is got a steady. We was thinking of a Miss
Leary, top floor. But of course he has it like he wants,
same s he always has. It s on the fire escape, Nicky.
Push the cat off careful if she is put her kitten in a
empty. That little cat, she gets all places. Would you
believe it, my dear, Nicky s papa can t cut off a slice
cheese sometimes because she must have it for a bed?
Nicky, the opener is in the dish towel drawer, or maybe
it ain t. Well, my dear, Nicky don t tell me nothing
about you. Do you work out? "
Kazia did not need to reply, because Nick entered, bear
ing perspiring bottles, also three red and white tumblers
LATHER AND FLOWERS 287
which he carried neatly with his fingers thrust down
their insides.
" Have some, my dear. Oh, have some. My Nicky
never drinks nothing else. I say it is strong enough for
young folks. The little cat will lap it, too. You ought
to die laughing to see her take it from a spoon. Well,
Nicky, you tell her about the grocery ? "
" Nix, ma, left explanation stuff for you."
" Well, Nicky don t take to the mill, so he thinks he
like to keep a grocery. There ain t nothing like a good
little grocery to make a couple young folks happy. Get
a basement place, bundle wood round the door, can stuff
on shelves, cash register, and penny candy case. Your
papa, Nicky, know where to get those signs awful cheap
for most nothing."
" No Trust No Bust," nodded Nick, " and No Change
Penny Short."
" And a nicer one Trust in God but Sell for Cash.
For American customers. Goes great. Ain t no reason,
is there, Kazy Nick tells me you is called Kazy why
Armenies should have all grocery snaps?"
" It ll be a dandy," said Nick, ardently banging his
check knee against Kazia s blue serge one. " We ll live in
back, and have a buzzer on the door so you can step out
and see what s wanted. Course I shall have to be going
down the line a lot with cracker drummers."
" Nicky say shove that dead soldier out the way,
Nicky, and open me a new one that you ain t got
nothing to help make a start, but that s all right. Nicky
likes you and we always gives him what he s after.
His papa stocks up and pays a month rent in advance.
And I get you some clothes better than what you is got.
288 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Something bright you should wear and a rat under your
hair. Men likes to see their womens dressed up. Hey,
Nicky?"
Kazia saw something beautiful in all this, though her
year s growth of good taste was offended. Nick s mother,
by her bland glances of absolute confidence, showed the
perfect feeling of oneness that existed between herself
and son.
Mrs. Kovinski arose with difficulty, owing to tight
clothes and a ballast of beer, tottered across the room,
lovingly twitched her boy s necktie crooked, and left
the lovers to talk over their good fortune.
Nick, who had been so dull under the sunset sky,
could make love comfortably in this garish parlor. He
matched Kazia s fingers against his own, and regretted
that they couldn t hire a hall for the wedding, owing to
her father s hatred of the Kovinskis. It was an awful
shame, because, while a hall let you in for one hundred
dollars, what you took in presents and for the bride s
dancing privilege more than made it up.
Of course Kazia did not enjoy this! Oh, but she
did enjoy it. Trifling offenses against refinement were
overlooked. Habits of girlhood resumed power. She
thought it was dear of Nick to be wearing the dreadful
necktie, because she had made it. Besides, it was not so
very dreadful.
Dutch curtains or compressed yeast signs what mat
tered it which decorated the window when through it
one s love was to be seen ?
There was nothing fluid about Kazia, though Mrs.
Tweed would have thought there was. She had stuck to
her original determination, which was to marry Nick
LATHER AND FLOWERS 289
Kovinski, through a year at High School and another in
the Normal. Her first wish had been to bring herself
up to the Kovinski standard. She had gone a little
beyond, but it was easy enough to drop back.
Memory, Nick s kisses, girlish curiosity, all had power
over Kazia. The idea of marrying Nick was bound up
with her life; it could not be eradicated without havoc
such as is made when a blossoming vine is torn from a
tree. And she knew there must be compensations in
married life, or so many would not scheme for it. Even
Mamma Natupski, with all her hard work and many
babies, seemed perfectly happy, though papa touched her
up with the goad.
It grew late, and Kazia must get the car for Holly,
since some of the family would drive to meet it. A well-
kissed Kazia she was, and after a year in the Tweed
atmosphere a kiss was to her what one cocktail is to an
unbrandied stomach.
" Mamma," bawled Nick, shaking the portieres until
their brass rings jangled, " Kazik got to go."
Too bad," said Mrs. Kovinski, rubbing her rouged
cheeks to apparent erysipelas. " You shouldn t told
nobody to meet you. Nick s girl could stay here nice as
not. A spare room we don t fix, but just so good a
bed is the bath tub as anybody wants."
Proudly she displayed it. A feather tick filled the tub.
At one end lay two pillows in lace-edged slips. The
faucets had been plugged with putty. There was no
slightest danger that any one in the Kovinski household
would take a bath.
Mrs. Kovinski felt great pride in thus utilizing an
otherwise wasted room.
290 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
But Kazia had to go, and went, escorted by Nick and
followed by an adjuration to walk round by Alder Street
and see the basement. It was one of those places ap
proached by three downward steps, and having a third
of a window above ground. Alder Street was the center
of a Polish settlement. Kazia could almost see herself, a
few years hence, in the youngish women sitting on curb
stones thereabouts. She longed to stop fussing over her
physical self, and to just sit round feeling in her arms
a warm lump of fat which she had made.
At papa s house in West Holly, where a parlor fur
nished with celery boxes was presented as an apartment
of perfect propriety, Kazia was not very contented, but
that made her the more enamored of Nick. Only love
could make up for the loss of what Eastfield represented.
Kazia awoke at the end of a week feeling out of sorts.
Three days later she stopped eating, and lived only on
what nourishment might be found in chicory. The
cause was not papa s uninviting table, because she could
not eat when Mrs. Bowes invited her to tea, though
Mrs. Bowes offered flaky biscuits, orange pekoe infusion,
and the chocolate layer cake which Kazia had once de
scribed as " my favorite vegetable."
Sleep next deserted Kazia in the cluttered room which
she shared with Yadna.
"What s matter of you?" Statia asked. "You got
no life and your face is pasty-faced. Mamma thinks you
is too stuck-up to eat the grub. I don t blame you there,
but why can t you rustle up some raspb rys for your
self? You used to be pretty good at such doings. I
s pose you ll get so much as nine dollars a week teach
ing school?"
LATHER AND FLOWERS 291
Kazia had her lips open to cry out that she would never
teach school, even though there had come a letter from
Mrs. Tweed saying she had better come back at once and
hasten the time of graduation by entering the summer
session. She lacked energy for the argument that would
follow announcement of her real intentions.
Believing herself sick for a sight of Nick she went
boldly to Mifflin Grove one afternoon, but the experience
was ghastly. His kisses had lost savor. Mrs. Kovinski
expressed concern at her appearance.
" Looks like a sickness was coming on you," she said.
" I bet you your papa s house ain t no place to be nursed
up in. So if you want to come here I and Nicky would
get you good steak and onions and fried oysters and
bakeshop bread. The nice little bed in the bathtub is
ready."
When Kazia shivered awake that night, back in West
Holly, Mrs. Kovinski s words were right before her, in
front of a silly old moon. " Nice little bed in the bath
tub." Half horrible they were, half tempting. She was
repeating them to herself later when out in the road she
met Susy Perkins. Susy was now in High School,
and she wanted Kazia to come and help her in a
" theme."
Once it would have meant something revolutionary
for a Natupski to enter the Perkins house by any but the
back door, but Kazia was now considered to have lived
down her family.
" Subject s fierce," said Susy. " This new poetry
that don t jingle. Ma got me a book to study. Listen
to this for a title 4 The Bath. Wouldn t that jar you ? "
She read, as prose:
292 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" The sunshine pours in at the bathroom window
and bores through the water in the bath tub in lather
and flowers of greenish white. It cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel and cracks it into bright
light."
" What ? " cried Kazia, in a briskness foreign to her
tone since rounding Holly Mountain.
In conscientious monotone Susy repeated :
" The sunshine pours in at the bathroom window
and bores through the water in the bath tub in lather
and flowers of greenish white. It cleaves the water
into flaws like a jewel and cracks it into bright
light."
" Oh, excuse me," said Kazia, " I can t stop any
longer."
" And she went," asserted Susy, " as if she had seen
a germ! When I hustled to the door and asked when
she d be back she said, Probably never. I m going to
Eastfield to be a school teacher. Just as if everyone
didn t know that ! "
VIII
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS?
IN the sweet springtime of that year in which Kazia
Natupski discovered the imagists Kani Natupski sat at
breakfast grumping over his chicory infusion.
Taking account of stock he saw that daughters had not
gone well. Anastasia had made a fool of herself marry
ing American fashion. Rinka had put herself out at
interest and returned with dividends, the twins. This
was not doing badly, still little boys must be carried at a
loss a long time in this country. Kazia was away at
school he had never thought much of Kazia, because
she was not pretty. Novia followed. He decided some
thing might be done with Novia. Plus a dowry, Novia
should marry rich. Novia should be made blissfully
rich if he had to beat her into it.
As a fit prelude he ordered her into the field to drop
potatoes. He was feeling very independent this spring,
for Stanislarni had gone west to buy new auto trucks.
When the dormitory on the campus was finished, and the
last of the thousand cords of wood had been delivered in
Mifflin, Stanislarni found himself established in a busi
ness. All the Hollys wondered how they ever got along
without an auto express, and West Holly began to grow
prosperous because of securing what it had hitherto
lacked, a market for its products. So, though the " busi
ness " was not one he would have chosen, Stanislarni
293
294 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
proceeded to develop it. Just now Wajeiceh was in
charge, and Kani could not deny a feeling of freedom in
the absence of his big eldest son.
One afternoon, at about this time, the Natupski family
was under discussion at a meeting of the Woman s
Club in Mrs. Bowes s parlor. A social worker, who had
been imported, at considerable expense, to give a talk on
" The Needs of the Rural Sections," seemed to enjoy
being side-tracked into consideration of the Natupskis.
" The fascinating problem, as I see it," said she, with
her settlement center, high-salaried brightness, " is how
to lay hold of and influence this man. He has been with
in your gates for many years and still remains an alien.
Is it not so?"
The Woman s Club nodded one head.
" In my opinion the best bait is daughters." She
spoke with emphasis. There was a Minotauress-like
gleam in her eye. "He has daughters?"
Oh, yes, the Club replied; he had daughters. But it
was well known that he had never been open to their
influence.
" You see," explained Mrs. Bowes, " Mr. Natupski is a
Polander. Perhaps Polanders daughters your ex
perience, Miss Nettleton, has been with "
" Russian Jews and Italians. Oh, certainly. And our
invariable rule, which always works, is to bait with
daughters." She leaned back in her chair and beamed,
then went on, in fuller development, " We aim to touch
the sweet sentiment which exists in every nature, how
ever outwardly crabbed. We find a daughter and intrust
her with seeds. She plants them. The father takes in
terest. Whence came these blooms, my daughter? A
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 295
kind lady gave me the seeds, instructed me in their cul
ture. She shows me so many improving things, papa. May
I not adopt them in the home? The father, softened, lets
gratitude go out to those who have helped his child. It
is the little leaven, you know." She beamed again.
The Woman s Club considered until Mrs. Perkins ex
claimed " Piffle ! The little leaven, if twas that number
female Natupskis, couldn t do so much. His oldest girl
went to her home from my house with every intention of
becoming a ministering angel, but got sick of her job and
married the first chance she got. And no wonder.
Imagine that man saying to any of them, Whence come
these blooms, my daughter? I pass the house often
and I know what he says to em."
Miss Nettleton s jaw set for an argument, but just then
the auto came to take her to the station, and the next ten
minutes passed in tea and twaddle. Her words gained
weight only when she was gone.
" After all, it s her job," said Mrs. Bowes. " She must
be a dab at it if she gets that salary. Suppose we offer
the young people of West Holly free seeds and promise a
prize for the best posy bed tended by a girl ? My Helen
and your Susy can go into it, Mrs. Perkins, to take the
curse off. I thought I had made some impression on that
Natupski man when I got him to acting so docile over
Kazia s being sent to school, but ever since April he s
been a regular savage. Glares at me whenever I go by
as if I d done him a mortal injury. And there s Rinka
becoming a perfect drudge; while little Novia can t be
rescued in Kazia s fashion, because Miss Greene reports
she s just a sweet, pretty little dunce."
Mrs. Perkins didn t think much of the plan, but the
296 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
West Holly habit of deferring to any Blanchard Bowes
opinion had infected even the Woman s Club. On her
way home Sabrina paused before the barb wire behind
which a cross section of Natupskis dropped potatoes.
But the glittering prospect of perhaps winning a five-
dollar gold piece for skill in floriculture made no appeal.
Yadna s comment was a roar.
" Nix, marm, nix. Nothing doing for little Yadna.
No thank you, marm. I m out for stuff, I be, an you
may please put that in your ole gray bonnet. Quarter
acre papa is give me for my own and into onion she goes.
Good moneys in onions. But honest, Misses Perkins, you
wouldn t believe what a hell of a time I had to find
manure."
Mrs. Perkins wished Miss Nettleton was there to hear.
Yadna went on to further explain her plan.
" With onion money I gets me a little small pig. Swill
I save for it right now. Is you got any you ain t using to
your house, Mrs. Perkins?"
Feeling that as usual she had run against a stone wall
in trying to improve a Natupski, Mrs. Perkins was about
to go on, when an unkempt head upreared itself from a
bushy corner, to be assaulted with stones and rough
words.
" Wake up, Miss Stick-in-the-Mud. Novia shirk, will
not work."
Mrs. Perkins looked with special interest on the
" sweet, pretty little dunce " of District Seven, and saw
that since she had last observed her carefully the girl had
indeed grown in beauty, though she seemed neither clean
nor energetic. She rubbed her eyes with dirt encrusted
fingers, to the demoralization of all the hygiene she had
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 297
been taught by Miss Olive Greene. Then she smiled
shyly and let the vigorous Yadna shoulder her against
the barb wire.
" Ouch, your finger s torn ! " cried Mrs. Perkins, winc
ing in sympathy, but Mr. Natupski, from his position in
listening distance, said " It s a never mind " in a tone that
augured small possession of that " sweet sentiment "
which, according to Miss Nettleton, existed in every
nature, " however outwardly crabbed."
Before leaving the Bowes mansion Mrs. Perkins had
provided herself with the gaudiest of seed catalogues.
This she handed to Novia.
" See how pretty," she said, pointing to a pictured
parterre in which violets, zinnias, asters, and chrysanthe
mums mingled to a fine disarrangement of seasons.
Mr. Natupski made a long arm and snatched the book
from his daughter.
" Huh! " he said to page after page, ruffling it rapidly
from cover to cover, and then holding it out. Mrs.
Perkins reached, but so mincingly, for the Natupski barbs
were sharp and the Natupski hands were dirty, that the
book fell to the ground. As it was on his side Mr.
Natupski stooped to pick it up and appeared to get fixed
in that position. He stooped so long that Mrs. Perkins
stepped nearer and peered through the fence. Then he
straightened and began to question. Could his girl truly
have seeds, just what she wanted, and as many as she
liked?
Mrs. Perkins nodded assent.
" All ri , Novia," he exclaimed. " Don t you see
the lady s got a hurry? Speak quick. What you
like?"
298 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" S sunflowers," jerked out Novia, choosing thus be
cause she had a dim idea papa would be pleased at some
thing hens would eat.
Mrs. Perkins laughed, the sunflower having no aesthetic
value in West Holly. For this, or some other reason,
Mr. Natupski voiced a veto.
" Wait minute," he said, sweetly, to Mrs. Perkins.
" Excuse, please, while I speaks Polish. Poppies,
daughter, poppies."
"Poppies, tatulo (father)?"
" Yes. Tell the ugly old woman poppy seeds. For
an acre."
Not knowing Mr. Natupski s description of her, Mrs.
Perkins spent the time pitying the poor alien. He was
perhaps homesick for whatever posy he had loved in
Poland. It might be the bluebell. She remembered
something of bluebells in Sienkiewicz.
Novia again opened her pretty lips.
" Please, marm," she lisped, " it is poppies I would
like. An acre."
" An acre of poppies ! " Mrs. Perkins was startled, even
while glad the flower selected was one that would prob
ably succeed in West Holly soil.
" I give her ground for so much," said Mr. Natupski,
taking off his hat with a tardy politeness. " It shall
be nice. So far as looking, this way, that way,
poppy."
Mrs. Perkins was delighted. " Get the ground ready
at once," she said, as she started toward home. " I
promise you all the seed Novia can want."
The next day, while gleefully giving each member of
the Woman s Club a separate description of the inter-
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 299
view over the phone, Mrs. Perkins was interrupted by
her daughter Susy, who remarked, " Say, ma, one of
those nasty Natupskis was here and left this."
" Susan, your language is more objectionable than its
subject. What did the child want?"
" She was not a child. She was Novia and she s as old
as I am. And whatever she wants, she needs a tub. It
strikes me funny, ma, that after you ve raised me fussy,
so I m expected to wash any time I ve no other pressing
avocation, you haven t one-half the interest in me that
you have in those Polish impossibles. Here s the mes
sage. I call it too degenerate for firewood."
Miss Susy flounced out, rejoicing in having gotten
three large words and a good measure of home truth
into a single speech.
Mrs. Perkins gazed at the shingle, on which appeared
a printed word. By reference to a botanical encyclopedia
she discovered it was the name of a certain variety of the
poppy family. She understood but wasn t that Natup-
ski man cleverer than one might think ?
Or was it the sort of poppy that grew in Poland, which,
in West Holly, was to rouse the best sentiments in the
hitherto flinty Kani Natupski? She believed it was.
Over the growing of these poppies he would find grow
ing in his heart a love for his home. Never again on
barren ground would fall the West Holly ladies advice,
so often repeated, to effect that it wasn t wise to beat
one s daughters or starve one s family now in the cause
of a future fortune, or expect virtue and moral beauty to
thrive in dirt and neglect.
The poppy seed came, after a trifling delay (the ware
house explained that it was a rather large order), and
300 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Mrs. Perkins took keen interest in seeing Novia s slender
form always bending over the black earth. Mr. Natupski
certainly was doing the thing splendidly. This poppy
field seemed better fertilized than any other in his domain.
She tried to establish friendly relations with Novia, but
the girl did not like to talk. At times she did not under
stand what was said to her.
You love this work, don t you, Novia ? " Mrs. Per
kins remarked one hot June day. " My Susy says she
sees you out here in the very earliest morning, when she
is doing her barefoot dew stunts."
" No m," murmured Novia.
You mean, of course, that you are just looking for
ward to seeing it in blossom. It will certainly be lovely.
You won t regret any of the back-aching then."
" Yes m," said Novia.
" What ? Oh, well, I see. And your father excuses
you from the farm work so that you may be a little lady
gardener. It is kind of him, is it not, Novia? "
" No m," came again from Novia s close-pressed lips.
Mrs. Perkins walked off. Poor girl, she was either stupid
or sulky. Probably the former, as she gave all the
wrong answers.
When the poppies bloomed it was a sight for sore
eyes in West Holly. An acre of poppies, glowing as
bits broken from sundowns and dawns, trembling on their
slender stems in response to the tiniest of breezes, inviting
bee-kisses from miles around. Whatever Mr. Natupski
had planned for his daughter s poppy field, it attained
fame. Fanny Atwood, who reported the town for the
Hamson Chronotype, cut herself short in a most impor
tant item beginning " This week there are not many week-
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 301
end visitors who are spending any of the week in West
Holly," and wrote a long " piece " about poppies which
was part Edison s Encyclopedia and part the Natupski
field, and which came out with a hanging indentation head
on the first page. Madella Magee, who clerked in the
Post Office and eked out a living by snapshots, crochet
edging and shirtwaists made to your own measure, took
a photograph of the field, and by and by it came back on
a mendacious post card, claiming, despite the war, to be
" Printed in Germany," with all the colors wrong, and
sold like hot cakes. Abner Slocumb and the rest of the
farming fraternity scratched their heads and allowed
twas queerer n Dick s hat to see such a lot of land given
up by Natupski to a crop of positively no use.
Novia had answered Mrs. Perkins in perfect truth.
She hated poppies. Because of poppies she worked a
great deal harder than any previous year.
To a man working with Novia s advantage in view, the
behavior of Novia was exasperating. Sometimes her
father felt she would be no good unless she felt the lash
stinging about her legs. He might have to give her a
beating later on, when work was not pressing unless
the poppies were tended faithfully, and each capsule
pricked at the proper time.
This gave added reason for hating poppies, and Novia
crouched in the field, hating with all her feeble might, one
afternoon when a man on a piebald pony trotted from
the cross roads and paused to admire.
" Well, of all things," he said, gravely, speaking to the
pony (since Novia he could not see). "An acre of
poppies. Beats creation."
He leaned over the wall and plucked a handful.
302 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" H m. Sliced already. Lots of heads cut. Bangs the
bush!"
When Novia heard the bush mentioned she stirred,
thinking herself seen, so that he did see her, and took off
a larky looking felt hat that was the reason for a line
separating peach-blow from bronze across a Roman nose.
"The Natupski poppies?" he queried, brusquely.
Novia was cuddled among the flowers, he took her for
half her age. She nodded wearily. Another to want
to know all sorts of things, she supposed. Papa would
be angry. He was always angry, because whatever she
said was never the right answer. She would say nothing
to this one. Still it was disappointing when he simply
remarked " Sposh ! " and rode away. However, the
road he took led only to Jackson s Summer Boarders
Accommodated and in an hour he rode back and stopped
for another look.
Novia had improved her time. She had gone home
and washed her face. She did not stop to convince her
self there was any need of doing so, she just washed it.
He took off his hat immediately, because he saw Novia
was a girl, not a little girl. He spoke as one well es
tablished in friendly relations.
" You think they re dreadful handsome," he affirmed.
" I m told you re out here every day and all day."
Novia nodded " yes " to the second statement.
" I bet there s a hundred shades of color," he went on.
" Bet there s twenty-five reds and yellows. As to count
ing em old Rockefeller can try it when he s practised
counting his dollars. Miss Natupski, you are one won
derful girl to have done all this. I guess no one in the
neighborhood has your love for posies."
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 303
" I hate em," she said briefly and let it go at that. If
he wanted to stay and talk to her and very much she
wanted him to want to stay and talk he must under
stand the truth. Despite her hatred of them, Novia
hadn t lived among poppies all summer without learning
a good deal about them, and while the pony s mas
ter was mentally staggering under her blow she
poked about until she found a certain specially beauti
ful blossom. It was rose red, and no mere onlooker
could have seen it, modestly hidden among flaunting
blooms.
" For me? " he asked. " Oh, thank you. It s a top-
notcher, it is. You ought to seal the seed up separate
and put it on the market with the title Miss What s-your-
name Natupski."
" Novia, I m called."
" Oh, Novia Natupski. Say, that s a slick name, with
apt alliteration s artful aid, as we used to recite. I m
Bert Sears. And I ll keep this posy "
He was about to name some lengthy period, as a couple
of eternities, when the pony saved him any possible
prevarication by eating the poppy and then trotting away
in roguish fear.
" Oh sposh ! " Mr. Sears was compelled to shout and
cut down the road.
Novia called that evening on her eldest sister and
borrowed a pair of corsets. Furthermore she appro
priated the pink silk stockings that alone remained of
Marinka s sensational trousseau. With Kazia s shoes
hiding the ragged feet and Yadna s white dress pinch
ing the stays Novia took up her customary watch. Des
pite her glory Bert Sears knew her as far off as he could
304
see, and removed his hat that far, too. And held it in his
hand during a two hours dawdling talk.
" The pony s out to grass," he began. " I couldn t risk
his appetite on any more gifts."
Feeling the moral support of her sisters clothes, Novia
smiled. She was very pretty when she smiled. She had
been smiling when her father first got the idea she would
be worth earning a dowry for. Sears vaulted to the
wall ! his neat tan shoes and white thread socks dangled
beside the pink silk and shabby canvas. Novia knew he
was the finest man she would ever see.
" We look pretty gay this A. M.," said he, perhaps re
ferring to finery and perhaps to poppies. Novia chose
to think poppies.
" I m dead sick of poppies," she whispered. " I m only
sixteen. They ought to be gay. They ve got all my
summer."
Sears seemed to understand. " Poor kid," he said,
" I don t blame you." He took her hand and patted it
softly. Then, " Why in tunket," he inquired, " did you
set out such a monstrous garden for? "
" Tatulo, he told me I should."
"Tatulo?"
" Papa Mr. Natupski."
" Oh ! Your pa is powerful fond of flowers, I guess."
" He ain t. He throws out always the geranium slips
we has in tin cans winters. And a lady told me Mrs.
Slocumb it was when my papa bought the farm there
was piazza vines and bushes with roses on, and he pulled
em up quick before even mamma should get here from
Poland."
A queer smile curled about Sears s mouth, as if he had
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 305
never believed the Polander was raising poppies for
fun.
Then he supposed seed was to be saved for sale.
" I suppose it will be slathers of work keeping the
colors separate."
" How? " asked Novia, bewildered. " Oh, no, mister,
I won t have to sort out no colors. I guess I would be
crazy if I must do that. A funny man buys the poppy
juice off papa. He had a hair braid, but he talked good
as you and me. I guess he is what they call a Chink."
" I guess you re right, Miss Novia Natupski," said
Mr. Sears.
Then he laid her hand on the sun-warm wall and
deliberately rolled a cigarette, which he just as deliber
ately did not smoke, but deposited carefully in a waist
coat pocket. He also said " Sposh ! " It was not an
exclamation, but a question, fired into the universe.
Then he stopped harping on poppies and spoke to
Novia of herself. He learned about her career at school,
and her gentle regrets that she need go no more, being
" over age." She told of girlish plans, which proved
girldom to be girldom, in whatever nationality bred.
Perhaps that was why he kissed her when he went away.
Perhaps that was why he no more than kissed her.
Novia watched him Jacksonward, then threw herself
among the poppies, crushing their brightness on her lips
as if to absorb each hue.
Her father, coming out to gloat, thought her sleep
ing, and was about to enforce his " Up, lazy loafer," in
the usual way when Novia sprang to her feet and looked
at him with such transfiguration of beauty that the little
stunted man felt stunned.
306 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Darling poppies," cried the girl, " I love you. Awful
much I love you."
Turning suddenly on her father she flung her arms
about his grimy neck, sobbing, " And, darling papa, I
love you, too. Awful much I love you."
Kani hardly knew his daughter and could only gasp,
" What s doing? What s tickling you, Novia? "
" Oh, I feel so good. This is awful nice farm, and
you awful nice papa."
"Huh?"
" Yes. Why, papa, I even love that biggest pig. She
awful nice pig."
Mr. Natupski would have inquired more fully into the
cause of Novia s glee, but for being distracted by the sud
den entrance on the scene of practically half West Holly.
Talking, too.
" Say, Natupski, you didn t ought to have did so, you
know. Giving the neighborhood a bad name." This
from Hiram Farrar.
" The devil, Natupski, you shouldn t branch out into
big biz thout consulting somebody r other. I d a told
you what for," came from Abner Slocumb.
Mrs. Bowes screamed, hysterically, " We give you up
from now on. The Woman s Club gives you up."
Mrs. Perkins was there wringing her hands and her
handkerchief.
" Grand argument for anti-suffrage," piped Solomon
Russell. " Let the females keep to tacking bluebirds on
barn doors, while we men folks run things good like we
always done."
Mrs. Perkins flounced off. Slocumb tried to explain to
Natupski his near-crime.
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 307
You see," he said, " all those pieces in the paper
called attention to that poppy field. And a fellow has
been snooping round some time Sears, he s called.
Boards with the Jacksons. I surmise he s some sort of a
detective. A few minutes ago he called Mifflin Grove on
the phone, and told what he d worked out that you was
selling poppy juice to a Chinaman. And the Chink
he d got the name is under suspicion of some unlawful
dealings in opium. Ain t much doubt what your poppies
was going to-turn into."
" Sears was durn careless," put in Farrar. " Never
realized, I s pose, how all the receivers goes down when
ever any one commences to talk on our line. The women
started a clack, and we thought we d come up and warn
you, since you don t seem to have delivered the goods."
" Plow your poppies in to once and plants turnips on
their graves," advised Slocumb.
Bowes offered to lend his sulky plow, the only one in
town. Every one was sorry for the little ignorant Po-
lander, blenching under the dirt.
They could not know he was blenching with anger and
not fear. He had been quite well aware that selling
poppy juice to make opium was not exactly safe. His
had been a shrewd scheme to amass a small fortune.
Natupski stupid? He was not in the least stupid. He
was so clever that after living beside these neighbors
for twenty years he could fool them by feigning stupidity
when such feigning might get him out of a scrape. He
wished the men and women would go away so he could
curse in peace over the unlucky outcome of the brilliant
plan born in his mind as he saw the poppy page in the
seed catalogue Mrs. Perkins had let fall that spring
3o8 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
afternoon. It seemed a gift from heaven, the idea, com
ing just when he wanted money for Novia s dowry.
With the Woman s Club and Novia concerned it had
seemed to him the poppy field would pass as a girl s
garden.
Even now he wondered how that detective man had
learned so much. Only Novia knew of the Chinaman s
visit. She had been in the field when he came to look at
it, and to explain just how he wanted the juice collected,
with clever fingers, at the hour of dawn.
Susy Perkins gave the required information in a side
sneer for Novia s benefit. " I guess that was pretty bad,"
she sputtered. " Bert Sears sitting on walls holding
hands. Swell beau, Miss Novia, laying plans to get your
pa arrested."
Novia was of? in a flash, when the dreadful truth was
told. To the poppy field she fled, her heart as surely
wounded as if the drip of blood stained Anastasia s
corsets. It had meant nothing that she had thought it
meant his speaking softly, listening eagerly, pressing
his lips to hers. Where the poison had been sucked in
Novia tried to burn it out. She bruised her lips against
the wall. She fell in the dirt between masses of poppies.
She thought she would never rise. Life had been beauti
ful, now it was ugly. She wanted no more of it.
Yet one hint of her father s goad brought her to her
knees.
" Blab mouth," hissed Kani. " Take shame for your
self, vile girl. All the neighbors seen you lovemaking,
when me, me believed you worked. Up and take what s
coming."
Novia s kind and loving father, so keenly disappointed
WHENCE COME THESE BLOOMS? 309
in his beautiful plan to give the speculation s proceeds to
his daughter for a marriage portion, whirled her about.
He sought the most attractive spot for an opening blow.
Novia closed her eyes and longed for the sting that
might bring forgetfulness of a shameful memory, when
lying lips sought hers and found them, oh, so willing!
Trit-trot ! came a pony. " Sposh ! " said a voice in tone
of thunder.
il You, mister," snorted Natupski, " wait till this girl
is got licked and I do you the same."
Instantly Novia felt herself plucked from her father s
grasp and deposited on the pony s back. Mr. Sears then
removed his coat and bared a pair of muscular arms.
" Say, that program ain t quite correct. You got to
take me first."
Mr. Natupski stared at six feet and muttered.
" No show, eh ? And let me tell you, no reason. I d
stand with hands tied and let myself be beat up if you
had a reason. But I fixed it so you got warned in time,
and for your flyer in opium you re the worse for nothing
but a scare. Mr. Natupski, give me your hand and call
it half settled."
Natupski let fall the goad.
" Give me Novia and call it all settled."
Natupski grinned. After all, a poppy field would be
Novia s marriage portion.
IX
OLD BILLS TO PAY
MRS NATUPSKI sat alone in the house. It is hard to
believe, but she was quite alone. Everything from
Novia down was in District Seven, making it possible for
Miss Olive Greene to keep her job.
The committee faced the situation bravely. When the
last Natupski finished the ninth grade District Seven
would be no more. To give Miss Greene something to
do a kindergarten class had been formed, in which
Zinzic and Rinka s twins burst into comprehension every
forenoon. Mrs. Natupski did not like being alone.
She felt afraid, as if something unpleasant was going
to happen. It did. Stanislarni arrived. Mrs. Natupski
looked with awe at her handsome eldest son.
He came in, kissed his mother, and sat down patiently
by her side.
" I met father tatulo and Rinka," he said, speak
ing in the slow and careful manner which exasperated
his mother so that she wished he was reduced to the size
for beating. " He said he was going to the courthouse."
Mrs. Natupski shook her head in pretended doubt.
She remembered a time when she had waited for a ship
and taught a boy an English greeting. It was never
this boy. That other s mechanical " Hell-o, pa-pa,"
after many years, was more real than anything said today
by the well-dressed giant sitting beside her. He and
310
OLD BILLS TO PAY 311
Kani seemed to have much to talk about, but she under
stood nothing of their plans. She was only good to
tend babies, and the babies had stopped. Once she had
hoped to keep Stepan, but now they were saying he must
be sent to High School. That was the end. When they
went to High School they were lost.
After a while Stanislarni got tired of sitting still. He
went out of doors and inspected the swelling buds on
the pear trees. Then he disappeared round the house
and came in through the shed.
" Father tatulo has moved the fence," he observed.
Mrs. Natupski looked up and tried to read her son with
eyes that were very like the seeds to come later on the
hedge of tiger lilies that changed owners when the fence
went back. He looked too shrewd to win her confidence.
" If he wants to sell he better let it all go, and not dis
pose of it in this piecemeal fashion," Stanislarni went on,
musing aloud. " Father d buy, and the money in the
lump would be worth something to the Slocumbs."
Mrs. Natupski clinched her fists under her apron of
cracked black oilcloth. This was how he spoke of the
Slocumbs, whose chickens and cream had preserved his
father the time Tadcuse was the baby. Since Stanislarni
was now too large to beat she wished she had beaten him
oftener when he was small. She would give Yan and
Zinzic beatings when they returned from school. Per
haps twenty years from now they would bring her
sorrow.
Once more Stanislarni went out. Wandering aim
lessly, he came under a Slocumb window and saw an
awful sight Nancy Slocumb in tears. When Nancy felt
emotion she screwed her features into resemblance of
312 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
some terrifying gargoyle. She had been weeping for an
hour, and it would take days for her face to smooth
out.
Hurrying home, he found his mother had gone into the
front room, where she could see the newly located fence.
Her shoulders were shaking, and great crystal drops
rolled down her bulbous nose and fell off her leathery
chin. Stanislarni hadn t been so puzzled since his first
encounter with oyster forks, butter-spreaders, and finger-
bowls.
At the barn door he waited his father s coming.
"Mamma is crying," he began. " What s she sad
about? Has anything happened to any of us?"
Kani s face expressed exhilaration and guilt.
It was still possible to obtain information from Kani
Natupski by walking-match methods, and Stanislarni
always wore easy shoes when he went home. Today they
paced a mile to the woods and followed the new fence
back. They trotted in other directions to look at winter
rye and plowed fields. Finally Kani vaulted the new
fence and crashed through undergrowth, until he
emerged on a high cliff which overlooked all the Natupski,
Slocumb, and Pinkney domains, as well as much of the
Bowes and Perkins property. Stanislarni followed and
was glad to sit and rest on the mossy carpet topping the
huge ledge.
" Sunrise Rock " it had been for over a century, and
the initials of wandering students from Holly Academy
were healing over on all nearby trees. The students
made the place an object of their Mayflower and Chest
nut walks, and quarreled as to the legend connected there
with. Of course it was the scene of an Indian maiden s
OLD BILLS TO PAY 313
death, and she had thrown herself over the precipice.
But was she escaping from a cruel Englishman, or did
she die of sorrow because deserted by a lover of her own
people? At any rate, she had thrown herself over the
precipice. Stanislarni went to the edge and looked down.
It would be a terrible fall, but now the valley below was
filled with trees, the tops of which were but a little way
below the rock.
:< Yes," said Kani, as if a question had been asked,
" good lumber it is. Around here better couldn t be
found with a candle. And when it gets cut down you
shall make a fine thing hauling it, Stanislarni."
Stanislarni was startled. " Is Mr. Slocumb going to
sell the timber?" he asked.
Kani suddenly jumped to his feet and spoke as if
defending himself, though no accusation had been made.
" One hundred acre he had," he cried, " long fore me and
mamma comes here from Poland. And always a mort
gage. By and by into a bank the mortgage gets. Ei,
Stanislarni, if you must mortgage, never to a bank. M s
Buckland have a heart to a bank, ole she-devil she is ! So
me take mortgage. To oblige. Jus to oblige. Interest
due, take land, move fence. M s Slocumb cry, mamma
cry. Bimeby me take woodland, right here, give door-
yard. Move fence back. M s Slocumb ask to supper.
Mamma sing Oi ta dada. You like that, Stanislarni ? "
Stanislarni leaned against a big tree that was to other
pines what he was to his father. For a while he did not
speak, then he asked, " Why didn t you take the wood
land in the first place ? "
Kani kicked a couple of stones over the cliff and
seemed to enjoy hearing them crash through the trees.
314 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Slocumb fool," remarked Kani. " Not farm good.
Always buy things for wife. Water squirt in yard.
Dam fool."
Stanislarni did not repeat his question. He thought
he knew the answer. Mr. Slocumb had probably refused
to sell the Sunrise Rock woodland. He had often refused
to sell it in past years.
How exactly like Kani Natupski was this sudden
moving of the dooryard fence; this reckoning on the
tears of two women to give him what he meant to have.
Yet who could say it was not absolutely just that Abner
Slocumb should pay what he owed?
Stanislarni rushed by Slocumb s without so much as a
nod to Mr. Slocumb, whereat Abner was really hurt. He
went into the barn and told the horse.
In the house Nancy was elaborately busy ignoring eyes
like boiled gooseberries.
" That the oldest Natupski boy went by?" she pres
ently asked.
" Yep."
" Stop to pass the time of day? "
" Well, no. But I cal ate he was in a hurry."
" Nothing the sort. His father s had him up on Sun
rise Rock, and back and forth they walked like nothing
on earth so much s them two in the New Testament that
went into a High Place and One was tempted."
" Sh ! That s sacrilegious, Nance."
" Well, I don t feel perticular meek, and I don t be
lieve a word of that promise about their inheriting the
earth. G long out and do the chores. I ll have supper
in half an hour."
Abner went, knowing she needed fifteen minutes for
OLD BILLS TO PAY 315
another cry. Poor Nance, she was taking it hard. It was
the first time he had ever stood out against her, in all
their married life. She wouldn t have shed a tear if he d
let the woodlot go; it was the shame of that fence under
the sitting room window that was breaking her heart.
" Darn it all," he said, harking back a couple of de
cades, " why couldn t the town have bought of Mrs.
Judson Buckland for a pest house? "
Abner Slocumb just wouldn t acknowledge that his
predicament was due to the easy and procrastinating
habits of the Slocumbs.
Others wouldn t acknowledge it, either.
Halfway to the depot Solomon Russell, driving a new
little chunk, offered Stanislarni a lift.
" Git in," said Solomon, to Stanislarni, and then " Git
down " he said to the brown dog that was occupying half
his seat. For a good many years Solomon had won the
derision of West Holly by letting himself be bossed round
by a series of dogs, of which this was the third. Like
Mrs. Natupski, Solomon stood somewhat in awe of
Stanislarni, so " Git down where you belong, sir, on the
bottom the buggy," he repeated to the animal, adding
" I m going to bring this one up right. The others kind
o got round me, but you see I hadn t any experience with
the first feller, and I cosseted the second cause I was feel
ing so bad the other had to die. But this one ll toe the
mark. I m learning him manners. He was just setting
up here now as a reward for being good and riding
where he belonged yesterday."
Stanislarni laughed, and sat down on several million
dog hairs. " You think dogs have fine memories, Mr.
Russell," he observed.
316 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Solomon also laughed. " You won t believe it, for
young men nowadays don t believe nothing, but the
average dog s got twicet the memory of the average
man."
" That doesn t apply to West Holly men," said Stanis-
larni. " I m told that meetings of the committee in
charge of that great celebration we re going to have when
the town s 250 years old can t get down to business be
cause the West Holly contingent reminisces so much."
" I wonder," said Solomon Russell, with the excessively
simple air he admired to put on when he was about to say
something malicious, " if they ever tell that old
story about how your pa was like to been rid out on a
rail?"
"I wonder!" exclaimed Stanislarni. "Let me see,
that must have been when I was about "
" You was said to be four year old," put in Russell,
with the promptness of a man who is always pat with the
dates and details of other folks affairs. " Arterward
I believe a few years was added so s you could fool the
Mifflin Mills. But I guess you weren t more n five, any
how. It was right arter you ma got here from Poland,
fetching you and your brother the one that was such a
pickle till you took him in hand and steadied him down.
Folks round West Holly was kind o put out the way
your father deceived em. They was about ready to
make him git, bag and baggage, and I don t think their
methods would o been none too gentle, either. They was
all r iled up. Funny to think how things come out, ain t
it? I ve wondered a good deal, lately, if Abner
Slocumb d been quite so strenuous on the Natupski side
if he could have seen into the future."
OLD BILLS TO PAY 317
"I wonder? " said Stanislarni again. " He put up a.
good fight for my father, didn t he ? "
" Sure he did. Right in Deestrict Seven School, with
Bowes in the chair and me on the dunces block. Going
to git off here ? Well, goo night."
Solomon drove away, helping the dog to scramble on
the seat, and happy in having given the Natupski boy
something to think about.
Stanislarni abruptly plunged into a field grown up to
young birch, and breasted the bushes until he was hidden
from the road. Then he took off his hat and let the wind
cool his forehead, which was in a glow from Solomon
Russell s story. Stanislarni had never heard it before,
though he had mendaciously encouraged Solomon by
pretending to know it well.
After the still spring evening had done its soothing
best Stanislarni resumed the road. The next day he
came out to West Holly again. Folks who saw him go
by were of the opinion that he was snooping round to
help his father in something nefarious which was prob
ably worthy of admiration because bound to be a financial
success. The set of his shoulders was said to indicate a
masterful disposition, and there was a good deal Daniel
Websterlike in his massive head. " Going to see your
folks again ? " they asked. " You don t usually visit
em two days running!"
" This time," smiled Stanislarni, " I m going to call on
a lady."
It was only Miss Juletta Pinkney, and that every one
knew. Returning to West Holly at twenty-one Stanis
larni had immediately started to cultivate affection for
318 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Miss Pinkney, a brisk ninety. She had not, one observes,
kept her promise to her mother s picture.
Stanislarni went to the south door, raised the shining
knocker, and was admitted by the glum- faced house
keeper who sometimes changed her personality, because
West Holly was such a forsaken place to work out in,
but whose face was always glum.
Stanislarni took four steps up the long flight and
entered the north room. Julia Farrar was standing by
the window. She used to totter on her feet for hours,
talking to Juletta, and preserving the fiction that she was
going the next minute.
" My eye and Betty Martin," she said to Stanislarni,
" doesn t my sister hold her age? "
" I ve just found an example," said Juletta, " in
mother s family. We never used to speak of them, but
they were Hallowells, and their history has been put in a
volume. My double great grandmother has this on her
gravestone :
Sprightly I walked life s journey through
Till I arrived at ninety-two,
And then deferred my trip to heaven
Till all my years was one and seven. "
Julia Farrar nodded at Stanislarni. " See the stent
she s setting herself," said Julia, and disarranged her
teeth giggling, so that she had to totter across the hall
into her own domain.
Miss Pinkney and Stanislarni had discovered they were
affinities in the inconsequential way such affairs are usu
ally arranged. Stanislarni had looked nextdoor one day
OLD BILLS TO PAY 319
and observed that there was the quaint old lady who used
to speak so sharply to the Natupski children if they ven
tured to pick anything over the fence. At the same mo
ment Miss Pinkney noticed what a great hulking youth
that oldest Natupski was. He removed his hat he was
wearing one of those cheap Panamas that you fold into
your pocket if it rains. She never forgot his hat. Then
he bowed and showed his white teeth in a wide smile.
" Come up and see me, young sir," called Juletta, in her
clear old voice, and " By all means," returned Stanislarni
in his youthful roar. There was a good deal of amaze
ment when he continued to go in and out of the South
door, but after a while it died down. As we know, West
Holly could get used to anything.
Stanislarni seemed to find all the feminine society he
wished in that North room. He often mused, loverlike,
over Miss Pinkney s fleece of white hair, and her soft
hand, on which sparkled a valuable diamond. Julia
Farrar had given her the diamond on her eightieth birth
day. Julia Farrar often gave her things like that, saying
she didn t see any need of swapping wash rags for
presents just because they were old. Youth had youth,
that was about enough. Let old age have the gim-
cracks.
The romantic affection Juletta had conserved when she
was very young and wooed by Hiram Farrar and others
she freely gave to Stanislarni. Perhaps it was hardly
worth while to keep it any longer. She listened for hours
to his plans, and told him plainly when she thought his
neckties were abominable, calling them cravats.
Stanislarni sat down in a wing chair and beamed at
Miss Pinkney in another. The windows were full of
320 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
hyacinths and Juletta wore a hyacinth-colored gown and
a white crepe shawl. A slow fire smoldered behind the
brass fender. Sometimes the blue smoke came down the
chimney instead of going up; the smell of resinous wood
was then added to the perfume of flowers.
" You re not talking," said Juletta.
" I don t want to talk," said Stanislarni.
" Well, don t then, till you feel you want to," replied
Juletta, and added something to future years by taking a
nap. When she opened her eyes she was met by Stanis-
larni s smile. She always thrilled at that smile. It told
her that if anything happened to Hiram Farrar and Julia
and they were none so robust she would not be left
uncared for.
" I want you to tell me," said Stanislarni, " about the
three farms yours, my father s, and Mr. Slocumb s.
Who owned the land originally?"
" The Slocumbs came a little the first," Juletta ad
mitted, sadly. " The first Slocumb got it from the Injuns.
Then our ancestor, Primus Pinkney, took a grant from
the Mifflin settlers, who claimed everything in the Out
ward Commons, and he and the Slocumbs fixed up a
boundary."
" Land wasn t worth so much in those days," put in
Julia Farrar. " Twas about all they had. And trees
they burned em to get shut of em."
" And some time my father s farm was carved out? "
" Yes. A Buckland bought fifty acres from each, and
so it went down to Judson and Mrs. Judson. I ve heard
there was considerable feeling against the first Buckland.
He was from Canada and folks called him a foreigner."
" And then came my father from Poland a real
OLD BILLS TO PAY 321
foreigner ! I learned yesterday how excited West Holly
got over his arrival."
" Mr. Abner Slocumb," Juletta went on, " was always
a friend to your folks."
" I remember a good many cakes and little kindnesses,"
said Stanislarni.
There was probably other matters, too," said Ju
letta, " though I can t recall them. I had troubles of my
own about that time. But when it comes to settling ac
counts between the Natupskis and the Slocumbs you
mustn t let your father forget the debts he owes. On
this side, now, it s different. The Natupskis owe the
Pinkneys nothing "
Two pink luster saucers," came in sepulchral tones
from the next room.
"What?" roared Stanislarni, startled.
" I said, two pink luster saucers."
Juletta smiled and Julia Farrar rambled to the door
so she might be seen snickering. For some eighteen years
the tragedy of the saucers had served the ladies as a joke.
They used to wrap the cups in bulky parcels and present
them to each other Christmases. Juletta had found the
diamond ring inside one cup, the cup being in a sawdust
filled oyster keg.
Stanislarni put the story of the auction into that corner
of his mind where he kept the charming whimsicalities of
Miss Juletta, and went back to Holly, after a brief call
on his mother, whose cheeks were still salty. He was
hurrying to the trolley, when a woman tumped on a
parlor window and beckoned him to go round to the door.
The woman was Mrs. Judson Buckland, now so fleshy
that a calico pony would have been hard put to it to
322 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
drag her about. So she stayed at home and made folks
come to her. She was still the free-and-easy sort.
" Here, young feller," said she, " I understand your
father s going to put the screws on Abner Slocumb and
squeeze him till he hollers for help. What I m going to
tell would make a sight of difference if you d any sense
of gratitude, but I s pose you ain t. And at that it may
be some use in showing what a fool Slocumb always
was. The first payment your father made after mov
ing in was three dollars too much. Slocumb found it
out and over he goes and gives your pa three dollars outen
his own pocket, pretending I d sent it by him. Your pa
told me about it next time I called, before I could open
my head to say a word. Now it s nothing against your
folks to say three dollars about then probably looked
as big as three thousand would about now. Don t set
there staring at the door. I ve had my say and it s off
my chest. S long."
Stanislarni had listened to the three revelations with
the unmoved front acquired when undergoing mental
hazing in early college days. They had really impressed
him deeply; and he could not believe they would not
impress his father. The next day he invited his father
to come up on Sunrise Rock and have a talk. Mrs.
Natupski watched them, through tears. She climbed into
the garret and peeped from a window festooned with
dead wasps and the carcasses of flies in spider webs.
They talked a long time. They pointed. Kani once
lashed several trees. Finally they shook hands, like a
couple of Americans. She stumbled downstairs, unable
to see for weeping.
The men were also watched from next door. Nancy
OLD BILLS TO PAY 323
Slocumb had climbed to her garret to spy, only, of course,
she looked forth between festoons of red peppers and
green " yarbs."
Up on Sunrise Rock they were saying something like
this:
" What d ye think, father, of a man who don t pay
his just bills?"
Kani Natupski, seeing a connection with the Slocumb
mortgage, launched forth into a long description of what
he thought of such a man. He could not say all he
thought on the subject in English. He took refuge in the
speech of his native land. But he ended in good West
Holly, " Slocumb not pay me slap up me send um side
winder knock um slantindicular."
" What d ye think, father, of men who don t pay debts
of the kind money can t settle ? "
Then Kani Natupski got up and banged the trees. His
son was a fool. What if Mrs. Slocumb was always
putting pieces of pie over the fence? The Natupskis
didn t want her pie. He never ate pie, even when Statia
tried to make him. A money debt was the only debt.
Stanislarni made him pause and listen to a story of
the time when all West Holly had been on the point of
driving the Natupskis from town and Abner Slocumb
had stopped them. It did not impress Kani Natupski.
He lacked imagination to put himself back in those days,
just as he had lacked imagination to put himself back in
Poland by Marinki, when he married Olka.
Then Stanislarni told what his voice trembled to speak
of that pitiful little deception of the three dollars. But
Kani Natupski had known that long ago. And he
sneered when reminded of Mrs. Slocumb s kindnesses.
324 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
All this vexed Kani. He knew what it meant. Stanis-
larni wanted him to be good to the old fellow. Probably
he wanted to take the mortgage into his own hands, and
be an easy creditor, like the one Slocumb had a long
time ago.
" Stroke the cat and go off with nothing, while me
pay M s Buckland slam bang up," grumbled the father.
" No," said Stanislarni, " I don t intend to try to buy
the mortgage, and I don t want you to make me a present
of it."
" Sure not ! " Kani was in a terrible hurry to avoid
being considered capable of such a foolish action.
" I want you, father," and Stanislarni spoke with as
much slow impressiveness as he used when trying Eng
lish on his mother, " I want you to go, of your own
accord because it s your debt, you know to Mr. Slo
cumb and tell him he s to help you move the fence back to
where it used to be, before the post holes get sodded
over."
" A right," said Kani. " He give me equal swap on
woodland here. Me got t have woodland."
" No, father, there is to be no bargain whatsoever.
Move the fence back, stop mamma and Mrs. Slocumb
crying, and let things go on as they will. I m going to
propose a new crop to Mr. Slocumb strawberries, and
take them every day to Mifflin in the auto. Miss Pink-
ney says all round here was what the Indians called Min-
nichogue berry land. I think you ll get your interest
yet."
" Dam ! " said Kani. " Interests to hell ! Me don t
want interest. Don t want dooryard. Want woodland
jus woodland."
OLD BILLS TO PAY 325
" But what for ? You ve got all the wood we can
burn in a couple of lifetimes."
Kani thrust his head out and down in a way he had,
and looked as if doubtful whether to butt the person
vexing him or to dash his brains forth in a fury of
revenge. Finally he spoke.
" Me and Anton got plan. Keep awful still, so folks
sell cheap. Me got how you call it? option on woods
way to top mountain. Bowes sell he got lots more
Solomon Russell sell. Everybody sell, only Slocumb.
Slocumb must sell, so wood can be brought down this
way, over my land. Other ways too steep, too far."
" But father you wouldn t chop off the mountain? "
Stanislarni was not born in this country, but he felt all
the sentiment of West Holly, that chopping off the
mountain was a revolution.
"Ei? Make us rich. Big tree, growing long fore we
come from Poland. Growing for us."
Stanislarni put a protecting hand on the towering pine
by his side and wondered. Had these trees grown for
his father and Anton just as other trees had grown for
the first Slocumbs or Pinkneys ? They burned those not
needed for cabins and barns. His father would make
money with those falling to his share. Was there a
difference?
Yes, Stanislarni felt there was a difference, and he
must study it out. His father had found a country
ready made and had taken advantage of its offerings.
And first, at any rate, he must be forced to pay the
debt to Abner Slocumb.
" I think you re going to do what I suggest, father,"
he said, " because because "
326 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
" Because what for ? "
" Because " Stanislarni looked Pinkney way and
thought what Miss Juletta had told him, " because,
father, I learned yesterday of another debt you owe
a real money debt. You have been owing it many years.
But I intend to pay it, father, for you ! "
It was then Kani got up, self -accused of one knows
not what bewildering tangle with American finances in
his early West Holly days, and the watching women
saw hands shaken.
The fence was moved, Nancy Slocumb wiped her eyes
and entertained the juvenile Slocumbs at tea, while Abner
planned strawberries for another year for he had
always been best on planning. Stanislarni alone fell
down.
He went to Boston for the sole purpose of finding
two pink luster saucers, entered all the antique stores on
Boylston Street, and took part in the following conversa
tion:
" What would you want for two pink luster saucers to
match this cup? "
(He had filched one of the precious cups, with the con
nivance of Hiram Farrar. )
" About ten dollars each "
" Here s the money "
" If I had any such. But I haven t."
So the cup was sneaked back to live out a saucerless
old age with its fellow. However Stanislarni trusted
he might yet be able to settle the debt in some other way.
X
LORDS OF THE LAND
" NIE," said Kani Natupski. " Me not go. Can t go.
Old sow, she threaten."
Stanislarni was urging him to take an interest in the
25oth anniversary of Holly s founding.
" Nie," persisted Kani. " Old sow, she threaten. Me
to home. You and Stepan ride in automobile machine."
There was special bitterness in this last direction.
Stepan and Stanislarni had written a poem which saw
light in the Hamson Chronotype, stirred West Holly to
its foundations, and drove Kani Natupski to a point
where he would have up stakes and returned to his
native land but for the great war and hope of cutting
off the mountain.
Stepan had presented it as a " theme " to Miss Olive
Greene, while conscientiously declaring, " I made the
words, but my brother told me the thoughts."
The last were the outcome of a lecture by one of
those of " alien birth " whose patronizing Stanislarni
deplored.
" Will all the immigrants before me stand up," said
the lady, and when some half-dozen arose out of an
audience of two hundred, " Oh," said she, scornfully, " I
see I am addressing the Lords of the Land," and lam
basted them unmercifully.
327
328 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Stanislarni talked his feelings out in the presence of
Stepan, with this result :
An old New England theme, the Pilgrim Fathers came
To worship as they would, make others do the same.
They cleared the land of trees, began Thanksgiving Day;
They cleared the rattlers off, in safety made their hay;
They cleared the Redskins out, nor left a single stand;
The Hessians then cleared off, and they Lords of the
Land.
They d conquered ev ry foe, then to improve hard by
They slipped each man a vote, invented pumpkin pie,
Made poverty vamoose, taught ignorance to Hee,
And set a schoolhouse red where er a church might be.
The nice girls "service took," the men worked hand in
hand,
Yet each one for himself, and each Lord of the Land.
And then the Irish rushed from England s bulldog jaws,
As cops to carry out, as statesmen make, our laws;
Polanders came to learn, yet still evade the schools;
Italians longed to die unvexed by hygiene s rules.
And still they herd in slums, and will not understand
Ten in a room by night don t make Lords of the Land.
You were an alien folk who now are native sons,
Yet clung you to the old as do these other ones?
Nay, nay; tis writ that you oft cooked the Indian corn
In Indian ways before the first white child was born;
And no man whined for help who in cowhides could
stand
And work till he became a real Lord of the Land.
LORDS OF THE LAND 329
You would the stranger hordes, who make you question
"Why?"
Would cut the black bread out and learn New England
pie,
Your menus and your screens, your schools and bathtubs,
yea,
And to these stranger hordes just this you have to say
" New Pilgrim Fathers be, go cultivate their sand,
Then hence three hundred years you ll strut, Lords of the
Land."
Miss Olive Greene didn t know exactly what to make
of this, so she marked it with a double a, and said, " Go
cultivate their sand," wasn t a respectful manner of
speech about a Pilgrim Father. Then she showed it to
Miss Fanny Atwood of the Chronotype aforesaid.
Kani Natupski had clippings of the verses in all his
pockets. He would take them out and try to read them
and then go and beat a fence post. Telling him he must
stay three hundred years in this America before he would
be a Lord of the Land ! He, with an option on the timber
privilege of Holly Mountain.
This option was on the verge of being closed. The
logs would be snaked down to a pentway, as Abner
Slocumb had proved obdurate. It would result in cash
in the pockets of at least five men, and utter destruction
to Holly s chief beauty and principal source of water
supply.
" I say," said Abner Slocumb to Stanislarni, one June
evening, " would you like to take a walk with me begin
ning at Sunrise Rock and ending at Rattlesnake Peak ? "
" No," said Stanislarni, who shrank from any dis-
330 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
cussion of his father these days. It was not seemly to
be always quarreling with one s father.
" Didn t suppose you would," said Abner ; " come
along."
They paused but a moment at Sunrise Rock, then
plunged into the forest, and over the carpet of brown
leaves, bordered with brakes and beautified by a pattern
of partridge vines, made their way upward. Perhaps
it was forest primeval, at any rate these were trees to
whose growth more than one century had contributed.
Pines, hemlocks, maples, with here and there a splendid
" paper birch " of ghostly white stem ; to walk among
them was like walking in a Hans Andersen story.
" We better enjoy it," said Abner, chewing sassafras
leaves. " It s the last time we ll want to come up here.
I never had any heart, myself, for a place that s been
cut off. Makes me think of what I imagine a battlefield
might be. Nature don t do her work so vi lent and
sudden. Course we can imitate nature and take out a
tree here and there year after year, but that ain t the
road to fortune."
" I wish you d shut up," said Stanislarni.
" I know you do," said Abner. " Did you ever see
anything prettier than the sunshine creeping down be
twixt those walnuts? And look at the white rabbits
whooping it up in that clearing mongst the everlast
ing blossoms ! Next year I suppose this won t be nothing
but stumps and raggedy sumachs and general destruc
tion."
" I can t bear to think of it," said Stanislarni.
" Of course you can t," returned Abner Slocumb.
" Yet after all why shouldn t it be chopped off and some
LORDS OF THE LAND 331
newcomers get the benefit? I d know as my folks was
particular considerate of the rights and wishes of those
that come afore em, back in the seventeenth century.
I presume the Injuns thought considerable of their
woods, where they d chased the well, whatever they
chased and made trail marks on the trees and camped
and been masters of all they surveyed. Yet they said
What cheer ? to Roger Williams down in Providence
Plantations after the Puritans had driv him out, and I
understand they sold to my ancestor for a jug o fire
water and a ole gun."
" They didn t see the future," said Stanislarni.
" No. And I wonder sometimes if we Americans saw
it. If we had we wouldn t have cut and slashed and
forgotten those that was to come after us, and dried up
the water courses and been generally me for myself and
the devil take the hindmost. Well, here we be on Rat
tlesnake Peak. I ain t got no posterity, so I ain t no
call to regret this one place can t be left for em. Climb
up the ladder into that topmost tree, Stanislarni. They
say you can see the dome of the state house to Hartford
from it."
" I don t care a hoorah in hell for the state house at
Hartford," said Stanislarni.
" Sure not. Well, then let s go home-along. And I
want to talk with you about your future, Stanislarni,
which is a darn sight more importance than any old pine
tree. I s pose you re perfectly satisfied to boss a motor
truck all your life? "
" No," said Stanislarni, " I m not. You know well
enough I m not, Mr. Slocumb. I just drifted into that,
because Holly, and especially West Holly, needed some
332 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
way to reach a market, and no one else had thought of
risking an auto express. I m making money and giving
Holly something that was badly needed, but I m not
contented. Wajeiceh can run the business now; it seems
to me I ought to be doing something in which I would
use all the ability that is developed by education."
"Does it?" said Abner. "Well, it s too bad things
have turned out the way they has. And now good
night. I s pose I ll see you tomorrow in the parade."
The 250 years were up. Nature smiled, as it had not
smiled when the town was instituted. This took place,
said history, in a terrible storm. The first settlers 1 of
Holly met in the open, to praise the Lord and establish
town government; they were forced to adjourn to a
barn, and when the roof blew off they went elsewhere.
Now the town had an academy, a railroad, several
churches of warring denominations, three full grave
yards, a soldiers monument at Holly Centre, of atrocious
design; and the Natupskis.
Holly Centre spent itself on a parade. Winding under
the arched elms of the street, it was wonderfully im
pressive. First came the prominent townsmen, with
whom Kani Natupski would not walk; then an old-time
Master Buckland disciplining an early District Seven;
next Mrs. Sabrina Perkins churning in a chaise, as il
lustration of the way time used to be saved.
Next, the " Last Indian " on a float.
There he sat, before a wigwam hung round with pelts.
He was very old, one could see that, and longing for
the happy hunting ground. Holly history said this one
red man had lingered until the middle of the eighteenth
century and made his final stand on the mountain.
LORDS OF THE LAND 333
This was an unexpected part of the show and it made
an amazing appeal. Peanuts stopped on the way to
parted lips and jiggling children went for a moment un-
scolded.
" Who is the man ? " asked Mrs. Tweed, over from
Eastfield for the occasion. " He has gotten up the float
like an old painting, in subdued browns and dull reds,
in keeping with the sentiment. See the brown leaves
under foot the withered pine above the wigwam the
faded blanket? He is an artist. What is his name?
And how completely his face fulfils one s conception of
the Indian type."
" That s Stanislarni Natupski, ma am," said Abner
Slocumb, who was standing near. " And I tell you it s
taken work and thought to get up that living pictur.
That blanket it s hung outside my barn fading all
spring. Looks the spitting image of an Injun, don t he ?
I heard a fellow say in a lecture the American red man
favored a lot of nationalities, and I believed it when I
see Stan Natupski browned up."
Of course Kani Natupski did not approve of his son s
performances. Found at the close of day ostentatiously
hovering about the pig-pen, where nothing was happen
ing, he grunted, " Why you no take prize ? Six week you
spend painting tent and making bow arrow, then you no
take prize."
"Wasn t it noble of him?" burbled Yadna. "He
gave it up to The First Settlers float because there was
fifteen on that and they rehearsed so much. It was a ten-
dollar gold piece. I seen it with my own eyes.
Papa ran out his tongue at the wastrel and ordered
them both away. They were disturbing the sow.
334 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
Holly Depot had its innings and then came West
Holly s day. Kani Natupski could keep none of his
brood at work, though all got up as early as he did in
order that the weatherbeaten house might burst forth
into bunting. Stanislarni and Stepan proudly surveyed
the huge flag which covered the front from garret to
foundation.
" Good enough," said Abner Slocumb, from the bay-
window roof, where he perched while nailing the date of
his ancestor s Indian grant.
Then he chuckled so he narrowly escaped sliding off
the roof. " Wonder if the Perkinses will show a still? "
he inquired of the universe. " Prohibitionist Sabrina s
folks was in the rum and brandy making line way back.
Sure, I m ready for breakfast, Nance, if it s ready for
me. West Holly is all diddled up and the doings can t
begin none too soon to suit us."
The first to issue from the Natupski house was Kazia,
who had kept close to Mrs. Tweed the two previous
days. That lady had gone back to Eastfield, and Kazia
walked in apprehension. It would seem impossible to
escape meeting Nick Kovinski in West Holly, should he
come. Kazia had wanted him to take it hard when she
wrote she could not fulfil her promise to him, but he
had taken it with bitter jauntiness.
" Yet he didn t marry Mamie Leary, yet," thought
Kazia, and wondered why. She was rather afraid to
meet him suddenly in the lush June country, where they
had become lovers.
Thinking thus, Kazia stalked along to the three corners.
Suddenly, from behind her, came pattering feet, and to
her spoke a hurried voice.
LORDS OF THE LAND 335
" Kazia, Kazik, did you see any one on a red motor
cycle with a car longside?"
It was Rinka escaping papa s espionage; Rinka in a
sport hat, a striped jacket, white skirt, and fancy shoes.
How she had gotten them no one knows, as it now took
all that Jefferson Browne paid for the support of the
twins to support them.
" I did not," said Kazia, sternly. Since she had lived
in Eastfield she had come to disapprove of Rinka in
thorough manner. Straight and calm she stood, look
ing rather unsisterly. Mrs. Tweed considered her a
model, with plain coiled hair under an untrimmed
Panama hat, and large feet in ground gripper shoes.
Mrs. Perkins told Susy that was the way a self-respecting
young woman should turn herself out. Still Kazia had
not Rinka s tricks of eyes and so would probably miss
some of life s zest.
" If you do see anybody like that," gasped Rinka,
" I ll be down by the church shed. We ve missed each
other somehow papa made me help him change the
sow s bedding, and I had to dress all over again. He
wears a cap backside to and yellow giglamps."
" Rinka," said her sister, sternly, " I should think
you d had enough of men to keep out of scrapes. You
stay right here beside me."
" Not much I won t," returned Rinka, swinging her
immaculate skirt skittishly. " You haven t been home,
Kazia, much, and you don t know what a hell of a life
papa leads me. He got it in for me always, and now he
expects likely I ll stick around and be his nigger slave
till I m old as next-door Miss Pinkney for my keep.
Well, I been looking for today. I m going to go for a
336 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
ride over to Mifflin Grove. Then I m coming back and
I ll walk in on papa and say to him, G by, papa. Here s
where you get off. Just like that. Here s where you
get off. "
Kazia was amazed to faint speech. " What do you
mean what are you going to Mifflin for?" she whis
pered.
" To be married, you big goose. He don t care if
Jeff Browne did divorce me."
" Oh, Rinka," pleaded Kazia, " don t marry "
" Pooh for you ! You re an old maid, and like it, I
s pose. But I don t notice papa getting you to carry no
swill when you re round home. I m going to get married
and that s straight goods."
" I mean don t marry in this underhand way.
Stanislarni and I would arrange it in proper
fashion "
"Naw," said Rinka, " nothing doing. Papa ll be mad
enough to kill some one, and I want him to be, but I ain t
mean enough to get the rest of you in bad. I m just
going to break his heart all by myself. Listen ! I m
going to take the twins ! "
Just then they turned the corner by the church and
Kazia found herself caught in a snarl of her relations
Novia blushing beside Bert Sears, Wajeiceh proudly tell
ing Tadcuse how that the final clearing of this bit of land
as a green park on which to place the monument came
from the action of three boys who first leveled it and
threw off the large stones so they might play ball
there.
" Those boys," observed Wajeiceh, with the air of a
schoolmaster, " were named Wajeiceh Natupski, Frank
LORDS OF THE LAND 337
Bowes Seymour, and Shaum Kelly. The neighbors
often referred to them as pickles, which was not
polite."
" You ain t polite, either," said Tadcuse. " You said
yourself first. Lookit, what s Kazik making motions
for?"
The excited sister got Wajeiceh one side and told him
the awful tale. Marinka was going to elope.
" Good work ! " said Wajeiceh.
Kazia grasped him by the arm feverishly. " It must
be stopped," she declared. " No one knows who the
man is, or whether he ll support her and treat her well.
She s reckless. She was reckless before."
" Maybe so," said Wajeiceh, " though I ve got an idea
the first affair was done with father s full blessing.
Perhaps that s why the little devil thinks she can dis
pense with it this time. But you re wrong in one point.
The fellow ll support her. Hello, Stan!"
Kazia was turning to wring her hands for Stanislarni s
benefit, but Wajeiceh blurted out the news.
" Rinka s flew the coop."
" Good work ! " said Stanislarni.
This unanimity of masculine opinion brought Kazia to
despair. She burst into tears. " Brutes ! " she exclaimed,
" laughing while your sister rides to ruin on a motor
cycle "
" No, no, not so bad as that," said Stanislarni, " only
to a basement grocery store. She thinks she d rather
work there than in a pig-pen."
" I don t blame her," said Statia, calmly, as she joined
the group, without seeming to need any explanation of
the subject which was engaging them. Novia also came
338 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
near. " We ve been down to see them off," she whis
pered, " Bert and me. Rinka let me kiss her."
" They ve made a getaway," added Yadna. " Round
the Hamson road. He d brung a motor bonnet and
duster for Rinka. You wouldn t know her from a hole
in the ground."
Kazia s indignation had dried her eyes. " If you are
all acquainted with the affair," she said, bitterly, " and
all think it so fine, why let it be a secret business? "
" Sposh," said Bert Sears, " little sister-in-law-to-be,
you don t seem to be wise."
" She ain t," grinned Wajeiceh, " she don t know
Rinka s marrying Nick Kovinski ! "
; You remember who Nick Kovinski is, don t you,
Kazia?" asked Statia, but Kazia was saved from
replying !
The West Holly monument had to be dedicated, whe
ther or not affairs were quiet in the Natupski family.
So, " Shush, there, girls," warned Mrs. Perkins, finger
up, " the exercises are about to begin." Yadna ran to
join the children on the bank, whose voices soon rose
more or less tunefully, but with all the freshness and
bravery of untried youth, asserting
My country, tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
They sang so loud of her that even Kani Natupski
heard it, and was drawn away from his pig-pen. Con
scious of dirty clothes, he slouched behind the graveyard
wall, and watched every man take off his hat as
LORDS OF THE LAND 339
Blanchard Bowes finished his brief oration, and the
monument was uncovered. Kani Natupski privately
thought it a pretty poor affair. Only a huge boulder,
with a simple plate of bronze bearing the names of two
dozen West Holly men who had gone to fight the South
in the 6o s, and of the few others who had carried
guns in the Revolution, the War of 1812, the French
and Indian war, and that of 98. Small and unimportant
as West Holly was, it had been represented in every
contest. Abner Slocumb noticed this and spoke of it
to Solomon Russell.
" Can t say West Holly ain t stuck its finger in every
national pie," he observed. " We may not figure large
in census returns, but we generally got some of every
thing that s going."
" Yes," said Russell, " I understand the sheriff s tank
ing up and there s liable to be murder tonight at Natup-
ski s. One of the girls has eloped with young Kovinski.
There s always been bad blood between them families."
" Shucks," said Abner. " Anything Mr. Natupski
does now has to measure up to his oldest son s ruling.
I guess Stanislarni Natupski will keep murder from
being did if he has to kill some one in the process.
He s strong, Stanislarni is, and dependable. Always
know where to find him. His mother never did a better
day s work than when she brung up here with him, all the
way from Poland."
And where was Mrs. Natupski all this time? Would
not she have enjoyed seeing her Kazia bravely walking
arm in arm with Susan Perkins, her Novia an object of
envy to most any West Holly damsel, her Wajeiceh
escorting dignitaries about ? She and Stepan could have
340 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
exchanged looks of understanding, too, as the flag was
run up on the pole at one end of the new little park.
Mrs. Natupski was not there. Mrs. Natupski was
otherwise engaged. She had gone to the Mercy Hos
pital to have a baby ! Her having the baby was nothing,
but her going to the hospital was something to talk
about. The older children had insisted on it. Statia
made inquiries and arrangements, and Stanislarni drove
the car in which she went, accompanied by all her
daughters of adult size. It promised to make Mrs.
Natupski s place in society. No West Holly child had
ever been born in a hospital.
After they had left her Mrs. Natupski s mind reverted
to her other hospital experience. White tiling, men
doctors, nurses in starched clothes, and nothing to do,
nothing at all to do, for three weeks. They wouldn t let
you get up for three weeks. And the baby was taken
away to be trained. A nurse with polyglot linguistic
accomplishments took Mrs. Natupski to the nursery,
showed her the rows of cribs, and explained that the
ones crying were only taking their half -hour s allowance
of such exercise to develop their lungs. Every baby,
she remarked, had to cry half an hour for that purpose.
Mrs. Natupski thought it would take something extraor
dinary, like a sharp pin, to make one of her babies cry
that much.
Then she wanted to know how she could be sure al
ways of getting her own, and the kind nurse explained
about the adhesive plaster which was slapped on the
wrist as soon as an infant entered the world. Quite
contented, Mrs. Natupski let them etherize her, for
nothing was forbidden patients in this establishment
LORDS OF THE LAND 341
she might even have had something called twilight sleep,
only it would have seemed ridiculous for one who had
easily been the mother of ten.
Sunset came to West Holly, as usual, about half an
hour before it came anywhere else, on account of the
mountain. Abner Slocumb and Stanislarni Natupski
took down their flags. Stanislarni thought the old house
came out shabbier than ever after its one day of brave
apparel. He wondered how he could keep his self-made
agreement not to interfere in his father s affairs. All
these children and more growing up in filth and dis
order. A return of absolute ingratitude to all Holly s
opportunities in the cutting and slashing of the mountain.
There was mother to consider, too. He believed she
would return from the hospital longing for something
better than her home. He had caught her passing
an approving hand over enamelled paint in Statia s
kitchen.
Stanislarni turned and saw his father looking, also.
Kani spoke, then, with the bitterness of one who had
long chewed on the subject.
" My country of thee," said Kani, " thee I sing.
America. Hell with America. In America money, yes.
In Poland, not so much. In Poland fathers, mothers,
childrens, grandchildrens, all one. Me see you now.
There stand you. And you think you think white
paints, green blinds, fine chairs to rock over in, tin beds,
plates with pictures on. You think better mountain all
trees than copper money for me and Anton. You all
thinks so. You all thinks different from your papa.
Zinzic, c m here."
The little boy sidled up, finger in mouth. He sup-
342 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
posed papa was going to lick him; he couldn t tell what
for.
" Zinzic, you like house made new, all paint like
Statia s, and iron crib and chair-rocker in parlor stead
celery? "
" You bet you ! " said the child.
" And you like Rattlesnake Peak all tree, like now, or
no tree but stump ? "
" Trees ! Trees ! " shouted Zinzic. " No trees there,
teacher can t take us on bird walks."
Kani Natupski turned away with a gesture of despair.
He had interrogated Zinzic as one apt to be least touched
by American notions. Six years only in America and
see what it had done to him! Kani felt himself alone
in the world. And the worst of it was that he was to
blame. He had chosen this for his home and for the
home of his revolting children. He was not even quite
sure, in his inmost heart, that he would like to be back
in Poland, if there was no awful war. He was all the
more strenuous for the old ways because he felt himself
weakening as their sole representative.
Abner Slocumb slouched over, seemingly for a confab,
but really to bring news, gathered by telephone. Nancy
came about six paces behind him, which was the way she
and Abner went anywhere together. The cat nipped
along as far behind her as she was behind Abner.
" At 2 136 p.m. this afternoon in Mifflin," Abner began,
as if reading it out of a newspaper, " Arthur Slocumb,
J. of the P., united Mr. Nicholas Kovinski, Jr., to Mrs.
Marinka Browne, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kani Natup
ski of West Holly. Kindly omit flowers no, I don t
mean that ! "
LORDS OF THE LAND 343
For a moment Karri s eyes glittered ominously.
Twenty years ago he would have given Abner Slocumb
a whip cut, because that was the way one treated the
bringer of bad news. Ten years ago he would only have
beaten innocent members of the family. Now he stood
still and breathed hard. Yadna, who believed in having
it all out while the mood was on, put an addenda to the
notice. " And she says she s going to take the twins,
papa. Her new man is got a grocery store and little
boys is awful useful in a grocery."
" Never you mind that," said Abner Slocumb. " My
second piece of news ll make you forget grandchildren."
He resumed his mock reading. " At 2 136 p.m. this after
noon, in the Mercy Hospital, Mrs. Kani Natupski gave
birth to twins, both boys, and weighing fourteen pounds
in the lump, unsorted. Mother and children doing fine.
Mother kept by vi lent methods from shouldering
babies and footing it to West Holly to show em
off."
Every eye in that dooryard was fixed anxiously on
Kani Natupski. He might cry, he might kiss everybody
(Slocumb was looking out apprehensively for such a
demonstration), might kick Zinzic, might roll on the
ground and eat dirt.
He went into the house and put on his best clothes.
While he was gone, Abner Slocumb improved the
occasion.
" Well, altogether, you re some Natupskis," he re
marked. " Stanislarni stirred the artistic big bugs of
Holly, Rinka s provided something to talk about,
Statia s beans took the cake, she says " indicating
JNancy by a thumb " and now your ma has boosted the
344 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
population about two hundred per cent. And Stepan
wrote a pome. Only that ain t true.
New Pilgrim Fathers be, go emulate their sand,
Then hence three hundred years you ll strut, Lords of the
Land.
It ain t three hundred years by a long shot, but you
come pretty nigh to lording it."
" Remember," smiled Stanislarni, giving Nancy Slo-
cumb the only decent seat on the piazza, " there was pro
vision made for getting there sooner. Perhaps we ve
learned New England pie from living next door to you."
" This house certainly needs a bathtub," said Kazia,
sententiously, rousing herself from a vision of Rinka
and Nick drinking beer in that gaudy Kovinski front
parlor. " I m glad you put that in your verses, Stepan.
though they don t scan very well."
" Screens, too," observed Statia. " I tried em once,
but the way papa propped the door back they only kept
flies in."
" Oh," cried Yadna, " here s papa."
He had put on Wajeiceh s glossy new hat for the
purpose of tossing it over the kitchen chimney.
" Frolic, my soul, with thy coat off," he shouted in
his native tongue, and then lapsed into English. " Me
mad at nobody. He happy. Goo by, Rinka. Some
time me buy flour sack off you, show no ill feeling. You
two ones " turning to Stanislarni and Statia " shut
up thinking white paints and tipover chairs. Go buy em.
Listen at me. Buy em."
If he expected his children would wait to be coaxed,
LORDS OF THE LAND 345
he was disappointed. Statia instantly began to write out
a list at the suggestion of Mrs. Slocumb, Wajeiceh said
" sleeping porch," and Kazia (of course) " bathroom,"
while even the little ones spoke for brass beds and fluffy
rugs that helped you to get up early by being so nice
to step into. From the advanced state of their plans it
was evident that all the Natupski family had been con
sidering the deficiencies of their home a long time.
Kani went away to his beloved pig-pen, but soon came
back and sat down as if, for once, he preferred the com
pany of human beings. The old sow had grievously dis
appointed him. The litter was small and " all runts."
He had wasted the day watching her. Better to have
heard the music and eaten a good dinner in the grove.
" Of wife me am more proud," he remarked, and
repeated it several times as an astonishing proposition.
Then he added, quite of his own accord, " Next celebra
tion, tell you what, me ll go ! "
A promise for redemption 250 years hence seemed to
demand no comment, but it had one from Zinzic, whose
brains sprouted slowly. " Nobody on this piazza ll be
here then," he observed, " unless maybe me."
Abner Slocumb and Stanislarni did not join in the
laugh. They had gone into the road to see what the
cornice of the old house would need before painting,
and Abner had drawn the young man into the moonlit
lane from which one could see the white face of Sunrise
Rock.
" One other piece of news," he said, " I kept for you.
Your father 11 know it soon enough, and however he
feels about it he can t help its happening. The state is
going to take over the whole of Holly Mountain for a
346 OUR NATUPSKI NEIGHBORS
reservation. Everybody ll get paid a fair price, and not
a tree ll be cut cept as it s best for the others. And
Holly s to name the tree warden. How d the job appeal
to you, Stanislarni ? "
Stanislarni took a grip of something it turned out
to be Abner s hand and said it was exactly what would
appeal to him. But was he fitted for the position?
" No, you ain t," said Abner, " nor nobody in town
ain t, neither. But I understand there s some sort of a
Woodman Spare That Tree college where you can go and
learn. I ve talked it over with Bowes and old George
Washington Browne, and they re willing you should have
the appointment if you ll study up. Salary, I ll remark,
probably about half what the truck business brings you
in, but perhaps you ll sacrifice yourself for glory and
Holly."
" I will," said Stanislarni, and stammered out some
thing about a debt he owed the town. ...
" As to that," said Abner, " the town owes your pa
one. Only for his showing the danger we was in of
losing all the best o the mountain through private enter
prise I s pose we d never thought of petitioning the
legislature to save it."
Stanislarni stood like a young god of the trees, look
ing to the hills where lay his life work. Abner did not
feel called upon to tell him that he had bargained for the
appointment by promising to throw the Sunrise Rock
piece into the reservation. That was what he had done.
Long as they might live in West Holly, the Natupskis
would never get out of debt to the Slocumbs.
THE END
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