At a turn in the Riverton Road he met the Red Admiral.
He stopped, reflectively. He hadn't seen the Admiral in some time, and it pleased him to be led by that gay adventurer now. The Admiral flitted down the Riverton Road, and Peter ran gaily2 after him. He led the boy a fine chase across fields, and out on the road again, and then down a lane, and along the river, and through the pines, and finally to the River Swamp woods. Peter came fleet-footed to Neptune3's old cabin, raced round it, and then stopped, in utter confusion and astonishment4. On the back steps, with an umbrella beside her, and an easel in front of her, sat a young woman so busy getting a bit of the swamp upon her canvas that she didn't hear or see Peter until he was upon her. Then she looked up, with her paint-brush in her hand.
"Hello!" said she, in the friendliest fashion, "where did you come from?"
She was a big girl, blue as to eyes, brown as to hair, and with a fresh-colored, good-humored face. Her glance was singularly clear and direct, and her smile so comradely that Peter took an instantaneous liking5 to her. He wondered what on earth she meant by coming here, to this lonely place, all by herself. But she was making a picture, and his interest was more in that than in the painter.
"May I look at it, please?" he asked politely. He smiled at her, and Peter had a mighty6 taking smile of his own.
"Of course you may!" said the lady, genially7. Hands behind his back, Peter stared at the canvas. Then he stepped back yet farther, lifted one hand, and squinted8 through the fingers. The young lady regarded him with growing interest.
"Well, what do you think of it?" she asked.
The young woman wasn't a quick worker, but she was a careful one, and very exact. Unfinished though it was, the picture showed that; and it showed, too, a lack of something vital; there was no spontaneity in it.
"I've never seen anybody paint before, though I've always wanted to," said Peter, and fetched an unconscious sigh of envy.
"You haven't said whether or not you like it," the girl reminded him.
"It isn't finished," said Peter. His eyes went to the familiar woods, the beloved woods, and came back to her canvas. "I think when it's finished it will be like a photograph," he added.
Claribel Spring—for that was the big girl's name—knew her own limitations; but to meet a criticism so exact and so just, from a barefooted child in the South Carolina wilds wasn't to be expected. She took a longer look at the boy and thought she had never before seen a pair of eyes so absolutely, clearly golden. Those eyes would create a distinct impression upon people: either you'd like them, or you'd find them so strange you'd think them ugly. She herself thought them beautiful.
"You seem to know something about pictures, even unfinished ones," she told him comradely. "And may I ask who you are, and why and how you come flying out of the nowhere into the here of these forsaken9 woods?"
"Oh, I'm only Peter Champneys," said the boy with the golden eyes, shyly. "I hope I didn't startle you? It's my butterfly's fault. You see, I never know where I've got to follow him, or what I'm going to find when I get there."
"Your butterfly? You mean that Red Admiral that just whizzed by? He skimmed over my easel," said the young lady.
"Is that his real name?" Peter was enchanted10. "A black fellow with red on his coat-tails, and a sash like a general's? Then that's my butterfly!" said Peter, happily. He smiled at the girl again, and finished, na?vely: "I owe that butterfly a whole heap of good luck!"
She told him she was spending some time with the Northern people who had lately bought Lynwood Plantation11, a few miles down the river. She liked to prowl around and paint things.
"And now," she asked, "would you mind telling me something more about that butterfly of yours? And where some more of the good luck comes in?" She was growing more and more interested in Peter.
Peter dropped down beside the easel, his hands clasped loosely between his knobby knees. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should find himself talking freely to this Yankee girl; it was the most natural thing in the world that she should understand. So Peter, who, as a rule, would have preferred to be beaten with rods rather than divulge12 his feelings, told her exactly what she wished to know. This must be blamed upon the Red Admiral!
She caught a sharp outline of the child's life, poor in material circumstances, but crowded to the brim with thought and feeling and emotion, and colorful as the coast country was colorful. He had kept himself, she thought, as sweet and limpid13 as a mountain spring. He was wistful, eager, and mad to know things. His eyes went back again and again, with a sort of desperate hunger in them, to the canvas on her easel, as if the secret of him lay there. The girl sat with her firm white chin in her firm white hands, and looked down at Peter with her bright blue Yankee eyes, and understood him as none of his own people had ever understood him. She even understood what his innate14 reticence15 and decency16 held back. Who shall say that the Admiral wasn't a fairy?
"I'd like to see that first little sketch17," she said, when he had finished. Her eyes were very sweet.
For a second he hesitated. Then he rose, went into the deserted18 cabin, and took from the cupboard a dusty bundle of papers—pieces of white cardboard, sheets of letter-paper, any sort of paper he had been able to lay his hands on. Riverton and the surrounding country, as Peter Champneys saw it, unrolled before her astonished eyes. It was roughly done, and there were glaring faults; but there was something in the crude work that wasn't in the canvas on her easel, and she recognized it. She singled out several sketches19 of an old negro with a bald head and a white beard, and a stern, fine face innate with dignity. She said quietly:
"You are quite right, Peter: the Red Admiral is undoubtedly20 a fairy." And after a moment, studying the old man's face: "He's rather a remarkable21 old man, isn't he?"
Peter looked around him. On that terrible night Daddy Neptune had stood just where the easel was standing22 now; over there by the tumble-down chicken house, Jake had fallen; and the space that was now green with grass had been full of vengeful men, and howling dogs, and trampling23 horses. Peter took the sketch from her, looked at it for a long moment, and, as briefly24 as he could, and keeping himself very much in the background, he told her.
Claribel Spring looked around her, almost disbelieving that such a thing could happen in such a place. She looked at the quiet-faced boy, at the sketches, and shook her head.
When she was ready to go, Peter helped pack her traps, picked up her paint-box, and slung25 her folding-easel and camp-stool across his shoulder. Lynwood was some three miles from the River Swamp, and shall a gentleman allow a lady to lug26 her belongings27 that distance?
"Miss Spring," said Peter, anxiously, as they reached the porch of Lynwood, "Miss Spring, do you expect to go about these woods much—by yourself?"
"Why, yes! Nobody here has time to prowl with me, you see. And I can't stay indoors. I've got to make the most of these woods while I have the opportunity."
Peter looked troubled. His brows puckered28. "I wonder if you'd mind if I just sort of stayed around so I could look after—I mean, so I could watch you painting? May I? Please!"
Claribel sensed something tense under that request. She longed to get at Peter's thought processes. She was immensely interested in this shabby little chap who made astonishing sketches and whose personality was so intriguing29.
"Why, of course you may, Peter. But would you mind telling me just why you want to come with me—aside from the painting?"
Peter shifted from one bare foot to the other.
"Because somebody's got to go with you," he blurted30 flatly. "Don't the people here know you mustn't go off like that, by yourself? There—well, Miss Spring, there are bad folks everywhere, I reckon. Our niggers"—Peter's head went up—"are the best niggers, in the world. But—sometimes—And—and—" He looked at her, trying to make her understand.
Claribel Spring considered him. He might be about fourteen. His head just reached her shoulder. And he was offering to take care of her, to be her protector! That's what his anxiety meant. "Oh, you darling little gentleman!" she thought.
"I see. And I'll be perfectly31 delighted if you can manage to come with me, Peter," said she, sincerely. "And listen: I've been thinking about those sketches of yours, while we were walking home, and I've got the nicest little plan all worked out in my mind. You shall take me around these woods, which you know and I don't. You'll be my guide, philosopher, and friend. In return I'll teach you what I can. You needn't bother about materials: I have loads of stuff for the two of us. What do you say?"
It was so unexpected, so marvelous, that an electrified32 and transformed Peter looked at her with a face gone white from excess of astonished rapture33, and a pair of eyes like pools in paradise when the stars of heaven tremble in their depths.
Claribel Spring was a better teacher than artist, as she discovered for herself. She had the divine faculty34 of imparting knowledge and at the same time arousing enthusiasm; and she had such a pupil now as real teachers dream of. It wasn't so much like learning, with Peter; it was as if he were being reminded of something he already knew. He had never had a lesson in his whole life, he didn't go about things in the right manner, and there were grave faults to be overcome; but he had the thing itself.
She taught him more than the rudiments35 of technique, more than the mere36 processes of mixing colors, more than shading and form, and perspective, and flat surfaces, and high lights, and foreshortening. She was the first person from the outside world with whom Peter had ever come into real contact, the first person not a Southerner with whom he had ever been intimately friendly. And oddly enough, Peter taught her a few things.
Riverton learned that Peter Champneys had been engaged as a sort of fetch-and-carry boy by that big Vermont girl who was stopping at Lynwood. They thought Miss Spring charming, when they occasionally met her, but when it came to trapesing about the woods like a gipsy, quite as irresponsible as Peter Champneys himself—"Birds of a feather flock together," you know.
Claribel Spring was just at that time passing through a Gethsemane of her own, and she needed Peter quite as badly as he needed her. Peter was really a godsend to the girl. Her quiet self-control kept any one from discovering that she was cruelly unhappy, but Peter did at times perceive the shadow upon her face, and he knew that the silence that sometimes fell upon her was not always a happy one. At such times he managed to convey to her delicately, without words, his sympathy. He piloted her to lovely places, he made her pause to look at birds' nests, at corners of old fences, at Carolina wild-flowers. And when he had made her smile again, he was happy. To Peter that was the swiftest, happiest, most enchanted summer he had ever known.
It ended all too soon. He went up to Lynwood one morning to find Claribel packing for a hasty departure. It was a new Claribel that morning, a Claribel with a rosy37 face and shining eyes and smiling lips. She had gotten news, she told Peter joyously38, that called her away at once—beautiful news. The most wonderful news in the world!
She turned over to Peter all the material she had on hand, and gave him painstaking39 directions as to how he was to proceed, what he was to strive for, what to avoid. And she said that when he had become a great man in the big world, one of these days, he wasn't to forget that she'd prophesied40 it, and had been allowed to play her little part in his career. Then she kissed Peter as nobody had ever kissed him except his mother. And so she left him.
He was turning fifteen then, and getting too big for the penny jobs Riverton had in pickle41 for him. Nothing better offering, he hired out that autumn to a farmer who fed his stock better than he did his men. Peter's mouth still twists wryly42 when he remembers that first month of heavy farm work. The mule43 was big and Peter wasn't, the plow44 and the soil were heavy, and Peter was light. Trammell, the farmer, held him to his task, insisting that "a boy who couldn't learn to plow straight couldn't learn to do nothin' else straight, and he'd better learn now while he had the chanst." Peter would have cheerfully forfeited45 his chance to learn to plow straight; but the thing was there to do, and he tried to do it.
Sunday, his one free day, was the only thing that made life at all endurable to Peter. It was a day to be looked forward to all through the heavy week. Early in the morning, with such lunch as he could come by, his worn Bible in his coat pocket and a package of paper under his arm, Peter disappeared, not to return until nightfall. The farmer's over-burdened wife was glad enough to see him go; that meant one less for whom to cook and to wash dishes.
All the week, after his own fashion, Peter had been observing things. On Sundays he tried to put them down on paper. He had the great, rare, sober gift of seeing things as they are, a gift given to the very few. A negro plowing46 in a flat brown field behind a horse as patient as himself; an old woman in a red jacket and a plaid bandana, feeding a flock of turkeys; a young girl milking; a boy driving an unruly cow—all the homely47, common, ordinary things of everyday life among the plain people, Peter, who had been set down among the plain people, tried to crowd on his scanty48 supply of drawing-paper on Sunday in the woods.
Peter had learned to draw animals playing, and birds flying, and butterflies fluttering, and folks working. But he couldn't draw a decent living-wage for his daily labor49. He was only a boy, and it seemed to be a part of the scheme of things that a boy should be asked to do a man's work for a dwarf's wages. And the food they gave him at the Trammell farm-house was beginning to tell on him. Peter asked for more money and was refused with contumely. He asked for a change of diet, and was informed violently that this country is undoubtedly going to the dogs when folks like himself "think theirselfs too dinged uppidy for good victuals50. Eat 'em or leave 'em!"
Peter couldn't eat them any more, so he left them. He discharged himself out of hand, and went back to Riverton and Emma Campbell with forty dollars and a bundle of sketches.
The doctor in Riverton got most of the forty dollars. However, as he needed a boy in his drug store just then, he gave the place to Peter, who took it willingly enough, as he was still feeling the effects of bad food and heavy farm work. He learned to roll pills and weigh out lime-drops and mix soft drinks, and to keep his patience with women who wanted only a one-cent stamp, and expected him to lick it for them into the bargain.
Grown into a gawky chap of sixteen, Peter didn't impress people too favorably. They felt for him the instinctive51 distrust of the conservative and commercial mind for the free and artistic52 one. The Peter Champneyses of the world challenge the ideal of commercial success by their utter inability to see in it the real reason for being alive, and the chief end of man. They are inimical to smugness and to complacent53 satisfaction. Naturally, safe and sane54 citizens resent this.
There was one person in Riverton who didn't share the general opinion that Peter Champneys was trifling55, and that was Mrs. Humphreys. Mrs. Humphrey still tasted that ice-cream and cake Peter had given to old Daddy Christmas on a hot afternoon. It was she who presently persuaded her husband to take Peter into his hardware store, at a better salary than the doctor paid him.
Everybody agreed that it was noble of Sam Humphreys to take Peter on. Of course, Peter was as honest as the sun, but he wasn't businesslike. Not to be businesslike is the American sin against the Holy Ghost. It is far less culpable56 to begin with the first of the deadly sins on Sunday morning and finish up the last of the seven on Saturday night, than to have your neighbors say you aren't businesslike. Had Peter taken to tatting, instead of to sketching57 niggers in ox-carts, and men plowing, and women washing clothes, Riverton couldn't have been more impatient with him. Artists, so far as the average American small town is concerned, are ineffectual persons, godless creatures long on hair and short on morals, men whom nobody respects until they are decently dead. It disgusted Riverton that Peter Champneys, who had had such a nice mother and come from a good family, should follow such examples.
But Peter meant to hold fast to his one power, though every hand in the world were against it, though every tongue shouted "Fool," though for it he should go hungry and naked and friendless to the end of his days. He wished to get away from Riverton, to study in some large city under good teachers. Claribel Spring had stressed the necessity of good teachers. Grimly he set himself to work to obtain at least a start toward the coveted58 end.
By incredible efforts he had managed to save one hundred and ten dollars, when Emma Campbell fell ill with a misery59 in her legs. Although she had a conjure60 bag around her neck, a rabbit foot in her pocket, and a horseshoe nailed above the door, she was helpless for a while, and Peter had to hire another colored woman to care for her.
Emma was just on her feet when Cassius took it into his head to die. There was a confusion of husbands and wives between Emma and Cassius, but she mourned for him shrilly61. What deepened her distress62 was the fact that in repudiating63 him his last wife had carried off all his small possessions, and there was no money left to bury him. Now, not to be buried with due and fitting ceremonies and the displayed insignia of some churchly Buryin' Society, is a calamity64 and a disgrace. Emma felt that she could never hope to hold up her head again if Cassius had to be buried by town charity.
Peter Champneys hadn't lived among and liked the colored people all these years for nothing. He looked at big Emma Campbell sitting beside the kitchen table with her head buried in her arms, a prey65 to woe66. Then he went to the bank and drew what remained of his savings67. Cassius was gathered to his father's with all the accustomed trappings, and Emma's grief was turned to proud joy. But it was another proof of the unbusinesslike mind of Peter Champneys. His small savings were gone; he had to begin all over again.
Decidedly, the purple heights were a long, long way off!
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1
spouse
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| n.配偶(指夫或妻) | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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Neptune
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| n.海王星 | |
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astonishment
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| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
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liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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squinted
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| 斜视( squint的过去式和过去分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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Forsaken
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| adj. 被遗忘的, 被抛弃的 动词forsake的过去分词 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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plantation
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| n.种植园，大农场 | |
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divulge
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| v.泄漏(秘密等)；宣布，公布 | |
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limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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reticence
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| n.沉默，含蓄 | |
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decency
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| n.体面，得体，合宜，正派，庄重 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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sketches
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undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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standing
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trampling
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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slung
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lug
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| n.柄，突出部，螺帽；(英）耳朵；（俚）笨蛋；vt.拖，拉，用力拖动 | |
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belongings
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puckered
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| v.（使某物）起褶子或皱纹( pucker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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intriguing
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| adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心 | |
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blurted
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| v.突然说出，脱口而出( blurt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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electrified
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| v.使电气化( electrify的过去式和过去分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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rapture
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faculty
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rudiments
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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joyously
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| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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painstaking
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| adj.苦干的；艰苦的，费力的，刻苦的 | |
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prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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pickle
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| n.腌汁，泡菜；v.腌，泡 | |
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wryly
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| adv. 挖苦地，嘲弄地 | |
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mule
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| n.骡子，杂种，执拗的人 | |
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plow
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| n.犁，耕地，犁过的地；v.犁，费力地前进[英]plough | |
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forfeited
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| （因违反协议、犯规、受罚等）丧失，失去( forfeit的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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plowing
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| v.耕( plow的现在分词 )；犁耕；费力穿过 | |
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homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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scanty
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| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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victuals
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| n.食物；食品 | |
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instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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complacent
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| adj.自满的；自鸣得意的 | |
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sane
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| adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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culpable
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| adj.有罪的，该受谴责的 | |
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sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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59
misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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60
conjure
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| v.恳求，祈求；变魔术，变戏法 | |
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61
shrilly
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| 尖声的； 光亮的，耀眼的 | |
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62
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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63
repudiating
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的现在分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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64
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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65
prey
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| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
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66
woe
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| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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67
savings
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| n.存款，储蓄 | |
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