T. Tembarom. Frances Hodgson Burnett

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CHAPTER V

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      At about the time Tembarom made his rush to catch the “L” Joseph Hutchinson was passing through one of his periodical fits of infuriated discouragement. Little Ann knew they would occur every two or three days, and she did not wonder at them. Also she knew that if she merely sat still and listened as she sewed, she would be doing exactly what her mother would have done and what her father would find a sort of irritated comfort in. There was no use in citing people's villainies and calling them names unless you had an audience who would seem to agree to the justice of your accusations.

      So Mr. Hutchinson charged up and down the room, his face red, and his hands thrust in his coat pockets. He was giving his opinions of America and Americans, and he spoke with his broadest Manchester accent, and threw in now and then a word or so of Lancashire dialect to add roughness and strength, the angrier a Manchester man being, the broader and therefore the more forcible his accent. “Tha” is somehow a great deal more bitter or humorous or affectionate than the mere ordinary “You” or “Yours.”

      “'Merica,” he bellowed—“dang 'Merica! I says—an' dang 'Mericans. Goin' about th' world braggin' an' boastin' about their sharpness an' their open-'andedness. 'Go to 'Merica,' folks'll tell you, 'with an invention, and there's dozens of millionaires ready to put money in it.' Fools!”

      “Now, Father,”—Little Ann's voice was as maternal as her mother's had been—“now, Father, love, don't work yourself up into a passion. You know it's not good for you.”

      “I don't need to work myself up into one. I'm in one. A man sells everything he owns to get to 'Merica, an' when he gets there what does he find? He canna' get near a millionaire. He's pushed here an scuffled there, an' told this chap can't see him, an' that chap isn't interested, an' he must wait his chance to catch this one. An' he waits an' waits, an' goes up in elevators an' stands on one leg in lobbies, till he's broke' down an' sick of it, an' has to go home to England steerage.”

      Little Ann looked up from her sewing. He had been walking furiously for half an hour, and had been tired to begin with. She had heard his voice break roughly as he said the last words. He threw himself astride a chair and, crossing his arms on the back of it, dropped his head on them. Her mother never allowed this. Her idea was that women were made to tide over such moments for the weaker sex. Far had it been from the mind of Mrs. Hutchinson to call it weaker. “But there's times, Ann, when just for a bit they're just like children. They need comforting without being let to know they are being comforted. You know how it is when your back aches, and some one just slips a pillow under it in the right place without saying anything. That's what women can do if they've got heads. It needs a head.”

      Little Ann got up and went to the chair. She began to run her fingers caressingly through the thick, grizzled hair.

      “There, Father, love, there!” she said. “We are going back to England, at any rate, aren't we? And grandmother will be so glad to have us with her in her cottage. And America's only one place.”

      “I tried it first, dang it!” jerked out Hutchinson. “Every one told me to do it.” He quoted again with derisive scorn: “'You go to 'Merica. 'Merica's the place for a chap like you. 'Merica's the place for inventions.' Liars!”

      Little Ann went on rubbing the grizzled head lovingly.

      “Well, now we're going back to try England. You never did really try England. And you know how beautiful it'll be in the country, with the primroses in bloom and the young lambs in the fields.” The caressing hand grew even softer. “And you're not going to forget how mother believed in the invention; you can't do that.”

      Hutchinson lifted his head and looked at her.

      “Eh, Ann,” he said, “you are a comfortable little body. You've got a way with you just like your poor mother had. You always say the right thing to help a chap pull himself together. Your mother did believe in it, didn't she?”

      She had, indeed, believed in it, though her faith was founded more upon confidence in “Mr. Hutchinson” than in any profound knowledge of the mechanical appliance his inspiration would supply. She knew it had something important to do with locomotive engines, and she knew that if railroad magnates would condescend to consider it, her husband was sure that fortune would flow in. She had lived with the “invention,” as it was respectfully called, for years.

      “That she did,” answered Little Ann. “And before she died she said to me: 'Little Ann,' she said, 'there's one thing you must never let your father do. You must never let him begin not to believe in his invention. Your father's a clever man, and it's a clever invention, and it'll make his fortune yet. You must remind him how I believed in it and how sure I was.'”

      Hutchinson rubbed his hands thoughtfully. He had heard this before, but it did him good to hear it again.

      “She said that, did she?” he found vague comfort in saying. “She said that?”

      “Yes, she did, Father. It was the very day before she died.”

      “Well, she never said anything she hadn't thought out,” he said in slow retrospection. “And she had a good head of her own. Eh, she was a wonderful woman, she was, for sticking to things. That was th' Lancashire in her. Lancashire folks knows their own minds.”

      “Mother knew hers,” said Ann. “And she always said you knew yours. Come and sit in your own chair, Father, and have your paper.”

      She had tided him past the worst currents without letting him slip into them.

      “I like folks that knows their own minds,” he said as he sat down and took his paper from her. “You know yours, Ann; and there's that Tembarom chap. He knows his. I've been noticing that chap.” There was a certain pleasure in using a tone of amiable patronage. “He's got a way with him that's worth money to him in business, if he only knew it.”

      “I don't think he knows he's got a way,” Little Ann said. “His way is just him.”

      “He just gets over people with it, like he got over me. I was ready to knock his head off first time he spoke to me. I was ready to knock anybody's head off that day. I'd just had that letter from Hadman. He made me sick wi' the way he pottered an' played the fool about the invention. He believed in it right enough, but he hadn't the courage of a mouse. He wasn't goin' to be the first one to risk his money. Him, with all he has! He's the very chap to be able to set it goin'. If I could have got some one else to put up brass, it'd have started him. It's want o' backbone, that's the matter wi' Hadman an' his lot.”

      “Some of these days some of them 're going to get their eyes open,” said Little Ann, “and then the others will be sorry. Mr. Tembarom says they'll fall over themselves to get in on the ground floor.”

      Hutchinson chuckled.

      “That's New York,” he said. “He's a rum chap. But he thinks a good bit of the invention. I've talked it over with him, because I've wanted to talk, and the one thing I've noticed about Tembarom is that he can keep his mouth shut.”