THE next morning broke with an east wind blowing and a wet rain falling, but Ethel said that the two days in the country had made her feel like a different woman already, so I did not mind the rain, although a rainy day in the country, unless one be well fortified1, either by inner grace or outer books and the good things of life, is apt to be a dreary2 affair.
Breakfast was delicious. We have never had a cook who had so much—well, you might call it temperament3, as Minerva has. She will toss off a roll with the lightness that makes it a work of art, and her fried chicken is better than the broiled4 chicken of most cooks.
Ethel already better, and the breakfast such a poem: why, I felt that I was to be envied, and I wondered how people could be content to spend their summers on alien piazzas5, eating hotel dinners and watching hotel dwellers6 dress and pose and gossip.
There had been no more bats in Minerva’s belfry, and as she had always seemed like a sensible girl in the city, I made up my mind that she was reconciled to the country and that in a few days she would begin to have very much the same feeling for it that we have—for Ethel and I were born in the city, and the country is an acquired taste with us.
But while I was browsing7 around in the Wheelocks’ library, Ethel came to me and said:
“The worst has happened, Philip. Minerva says she won’t stay—that she just can’t. She wants you to get a horse and take her to the station right away.”
I laid down my book with a sigh. “What’s the matter now?” said I. “More wild animals?”
“No, it’s the rain and the east wind. She says the moaning of it through the shutters8 is awful and she can’t stand it.”
“Might have known it,” said I, bitterly. “I might have known it. You’re beginning to feel better and the worst seems to be over, and then Minerva plays her trump9 card and takes the cake.”
My metaphors10 were sadly mixed, but I didn’t care. I was not at that moment trying to construct logical metaphors. I foresaw what would happen if Minerva left and Ethel went into the kitchen permanently11. A sanitarium for her and I an enforced bachelor in some city room—for we had let our flat for the summer.
I do not often interfere12 with the household work, for my business keeps me at home most of the time, and I hold that when man and wife are both at home it is better to have but one housekeeper13 and that one a woman, but now I went out into the kitchen to try to mend matters, and I found Minerva looking at the steadily14 falling rain that was making Mount Nebo look like a ghost of itself. Now and again the blind rattled15 and always the wind moaned through it with a wintry effect that would have been admirably adapted to the return of the prodigal16 daughter.
And with each wail17 of the wind Minerva answered antiphonally, almost as if she were taking lessons in keening.
“Oh, myomy, myomy!”
Back and forth18 she rocked, her eyes glued to the dismal19 prospect20 (dismal to her, but with a surpassing beauty to sympathetic eyes), and the tears rolling down her face.
“Why, Minerva, what’s the matter? Got a toothache?” said I, affecting to be unwitting of the cause of her sorrow.
“’Deed, suh, it’s wuss’n a toothache. It’s the heartache. I knowed better when I said I’d come. Nance21 Jawnson told me how haw’ble the country was, but I felt sorry for Mis. Vernon, and so I come. Please get me away in a wagon22. That wind whines23 like it was a dawg howlin’ an’ I can’t stand dawgs howlin’ ’cause my sisteh died of one.”
Her words were ambiguous, but I was in no mood to carp or criticise24. She was suffering as acutely as a little child suffers when you throw her doll over the fence and I felt I must cheer her up and keep her if it—if it took all summer.
“Well, Minerva, we can soon stop the wind’s howling by opening the blinds.” I suited the action to the words and the wild moaning of the wind ceased. It was really almost as if the wind had been asking to have the blinds opened.
“Now you see, Minerva, that’s stopped and the rain will stop after awhile.”
“Yas’r, but it’s lonesome an’ I didn’t bring my ’cordeen. I forgot it till now.”
I knew she was a great hand to be trying patent medicines and supposed she referred to some bottled stuff, so I said,
“Oh, well, if that’s all, I can send for your medicine, or perhaps I can get some at Egerton.”
She looked at me in surprise as she said,
“I didn’ say nothin’ ’bout med’cine. I said I left my ’cordeen—”
“Oh, your accordeon. Can you play that?” said I, thankful that she had forgotten it.
“Yes indeedy.”
Her face grew pensive25 as she thought of the dreadful musical instrument which she had mercifully forgotten. I had never heard her use it at home, but Ethel told me afterward26 that she had been in the habit of going up on the roof with other cooks and the janitor27, and that her departure was always followed by weird28 strains which Ethel had supposed was the janitor discoursing29 music that had the dyingest fall of anything ever heard. But it seems that Minerva was the performer, and among those whose ears are ravished by the “linked sweetness long drawn30 out”—and then pushed back again, she was accounted an adept31.
Perhaps I could hold her by means of the accordeon. It was worth trying.
“Minerva,” said I, “Mrs. Vernon tells me that you want me to drive you down to the station and get you a ticket for New York. Now, if you go it will be a discreditable performance and an act unworthy of one who has always been well treated.”
I paused. The words were some of them a little beyond her, but they had made the more impression for that very fact.
“Mrs. Vernon is not strong enough to do the work and she came up here to gain strength. You are a very good cook, but if you left us now we would not care to have you when we returned to the city, and you will not find mistresses like Mrs. Vernon everywhere. There are those who forget that a servant is a human being, and you might happen to get such a mistress as that. I repeat that your going would be distinctly discreditable, utterly32 reprehensible33 and in the nature of a bad act. Now, if you must go, I am not the one to keep you, but if you go you go for good, which is not likely to be good for you.”
“Yas’r,” said Minerva, blinking at me.
“Now, if I send for your accordeon, will you give me your word of honour to stay your month out?”
I had used such a severe tone, mingled34 with what sorrow I could weave into it, and spotted35 with incomprehensible words, that Minerva was much impressed, and she said in a tone that was already more hopeful, “I give you my word, Mist. Vernon. My ’cordeen is like human folks to me.”
“Very well, I will write for it by the next mail. Where shall I tell Mr. Corson to look for it?”
“Mr. Corson ain’t got it. I lent it to the jan’ter the night befo’ I lef’ an’ he fo’got to give it back an’ I fo’got about it till the wind began to moan at me an’ then I got mo’ homesick ’an ever an’ thought of it.”
Think of being willing to swap36 the music of the wind for the cacophony37 of an accordeon! And yet, when some composer of the future introduces one in his Afro-American symphony and Felix Weingartner gives the symphony in Carnegie Hall, there may come a rage for accordeons and we shall no longer associate them with tenement38 houses and itinerant39 toughs, white and black.
I hastened to write the letter to the janitor, whose name was George W. Calhoun Lee, and Ethel, being housebound anyway, went into the kitchen to preserve some blueberries. I do not like preserved blueberries; neither does she, but there was nothing else she could think of to do in the kitchen, and Minerva needed “human folks” pending40 the arrival of the ’cordeen.
The Dalton boy came for the mail at noon and he had with him a string of trout41. They were fresh from the brook42 and were still wriggling43. I saw him pass into the house, and I followed him into the kitchen; for a string of trout is a joy to the eye—and I had a suspicion that Minerva would not know what to do with them.
She stared at them with the interest of a child, giggling44 every time one twitched45 its tail.
“Wha’ makes ’em move that way?” asked she of no one in particular.
“Why, they’re not dead yet,” I answered.
“An’ come all the way from New York?”
“Why, Minerva, these were caught in the brook down there in the valley. Weren’t they, Bert?”
“Yes, sir. Ketched all five inside an hour.”
Minerva’s eyes opened wider. “What’s a nower?” asked she.
Bert looked puzzled and so did Ethel, but I was able to explain and somehow the explanation struck Minerva as being very funny. She went off into a fit of laughter just like those she had had on the train when the cat howled.
“Inside a nower. That’s one awn me. Inside an hour.”
Ordinarily one does not go into the kitchen and provide amusement for the cook, but the events of the past few hours had so altered the complexion46 of things that I felt distinctly elated at having, in however humble47 a way, ministered to the joy of one as leaden hearted as Minerva and her laughter was so unctious, once it had got fairly started that first the Dalton boy, then Ethel, and at last I joined in and the east wind must have been astonished at his lack of power over our temperaments48.
After the laughter had subsided49 and Bert had gone on his way with the precious letter to G. W. C. Lee, I was about to leave the kitchen, forgetful of my errand, when Minerva, in a tone of delightful50 camaraderie51, said,
“Mist. Vernon, I can’t skin them fishes alive. They always come skinned from the fish store.”
“Well, I’ll kill them and scale them and clean them, and you can watch me, and the next time you’ll know how.”
Ethel had finished her berry canning and she now left the kitchen, winking52 at me as she did so as much as to say it was now my turn at the wheel. It was years since I had dressed a fish, but I snapped each one on the head as I had been taught to do by country boys in my own boyhood, and then I prepared them for the pan, scraping off much of their beauty in the process.
“Do they have North River shad out in that brook?” asked Minerva as I worked.
I thought at first it was a little pleasantry, but, looking at her, I saw she was perfectly53 serious—in fact, very serious, and I explained to her that cod54 and blue fish and sturgeon and sword fish never penetrated55 to these mountain brooks56, preferring the sea; and so, with cheerful chat on both our parts, we bridged over the end of the morning and a half a day was gone with Minerva in a better frame of mind than she had been the day before with the sun shining. So valuable a thing is diplomacy57.
While I was washing my hands, preparatory to lunch, Ethel being engaged in fixing her hair, I heard Minerva break out into song, and a moment later someone began to whistle in the kitchen.
Our window commanded a view of the side path, and no one had entered the kitchen since I had left it, but nevertheless two people were giving a somewhat unpleasant duet in the kitchen. The whistle did not accord with the voice, which had considerable of the natural coloured flavour—if flavour can have colour.
“Who can it be?” said I. “Minerva doesn’t know a soul up here, and no one up here would be apt to know ‘In the Good Old Summer Time.’”
“It’s positively58 uncanny,” said Ethel, taking the last hair pin out of her mouth and putting it into her hair. “I’m going to see. I want Minerva to make chocolate for lunch, and I forgot to tell her.”
Ethel went down and I hastily dried my hands and followed. If this fellow musician could be caged I would keep him for Minerva’s delectation. He should hang in the kitchen—so to speak. Minerva was evidently enjoying the duet—even more than we were.
I hurried and came within sight of the kitchen just as Ethel entered it. Ethel turned and came quickly toward me, her hand over her mouth to pen up her mirth.
We both rushed up stairs and sat down and had our second laugh of the morning in spite of the east wind. There was only one person in the kitchen, Minerva by name, and she was providing an obligato for her singing with her own lips. Minerva was performing the hitherto impossible feat59 of singing and whistling at the same time.
“When the ’cordeen comes,” said Ethel, “Minerva will be a trio.”
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1
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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temperament
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| n.气质，性格，性情 | |
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broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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5
piazzas
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| n.广场，市场( piazza的名词复数 ) | |
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dwellers
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| n.居民，居住者( dweller的名词复数 ) | |
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browsing
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| v.吃草( browse的现在分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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trump
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| n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭 | |
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10
metaphors
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| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
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11
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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12
interfere
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| v.(in)干涉，干预；(with)妨碍，打扰 | |
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13
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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14
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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15
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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16
prodigal
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| adj.浪费的，挥霍的，放荡的 | |
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17
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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18
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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19
dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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20
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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nance
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| n.娘娘腔的男人，男同性恋者 | |
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22
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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23
whines
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| n.悲嗥声( whine的名词复数 )；哀鸣者v.哀号( whine的第三人称单数 )；哀诉，诉怨 | |
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24
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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25
pensive
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| a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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janitor
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| n.看门人，管门人 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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29
discoursing
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| 演说（discourse的现在分词形式） | |
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30
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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31
adept
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| adj.老练的，精通的 | |
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32
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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reprehensible
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| adj.该受责备的 | |
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34
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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35
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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36
swap
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| n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易 | |
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37
cacophony
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| n.刺耳的声音 | |
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38
tenement
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| n.公寓；房屋 | |
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itinerant
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| adj.巡回的；流动的 | |
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pending
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| prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的 | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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42
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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43
wriggling
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| v.扭动，蠕动，蜿蜒行进( wriggle的现在分词 )；（使身体某一部位）扭动；耍滑不做，逃避（应做的事等）；蠕蠕 | |
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44
giggling
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| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
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45
twitched
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| vt.& vi.（使）抽动，（使）颤动（twitch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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46
complexion
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| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
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47
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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48
temperaments
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| 性格( temperament的名词复数 )； （人或动物的）气质； 易冲动； （性情）暴躁 | |
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49
subsided
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| v.（土地）下陷（因在地下采矿）( subside的过去式和过去分词 )；减弱；下降至较低或正常水平；一下子坐在椅子等上 | |
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50
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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51
camaraderie
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| n.同志之爱，友情 | |
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52
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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53
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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54
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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55
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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56
brooks
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| n.小溪( brook的名词复数 ) | |
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57
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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58
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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59
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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