To the Highest Bidder. Florence Morse Kingsley

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СКАЧАТЬ couldn’t guess if you tried,” she said gaily. “I just know you couldn’t. You’re such a dull boy.”

      “I can guess, too!” cried Jimmy with a shout of rapture. “It’s a cake! It’s my birfday cake! An’ it’s got six candles on it an’ one to grow on. I ’member last year it had only five an’ one to grow on; but I growed that one all up. I want Peg to see it. Can I go out t’ the barn an’ get him? Can I, Barb’ra?”

      The girl hesitated as she cast a troubled eye on the table set daintily with the pink china, and the few carefully cherished bits of old silver.

      “You may ask Peg to come in and have supper with you, if you like,” she said slowly. “Just this once—because it’s your birthday.”

      Jimmy didn’t wait for a second bidding; he dashed out of the back door with a boyish whoop, carefully studied from the big boys in school.

      Peg (shortened from Peleg) Morrison had worked on the Preston farm for so many years that he appeared almost as much a part of the place as the shabby old house itself, or the rambling structures at its rear known indeterminately as “the barns.” He slept over the carriage-house, in quarters originally intended for the coachman. Here also he cooked handily for himself on a rusty old stove, compounding what he called “tried an’ tested receipts” out of a queer old yellow-leaved book bound in marbled boards, its pages written over in Peg’s own scrawling chirography.

      “I wouldn’t part with that thar book for its weight in gold an’ di’mon’s,” he was in the habit of saying solemnly to Jimmy. “No, Cap’n, I reelly wouldn’t. I begun to write down useful inf’mation in it when I wasn’t much bigger’n you be now, an’ I’ve kep’ it up.”

      “Vallable Information, by Peleg Morrison,” was the legend inscribed on its thumbed cover. Jimmy admired this book beyond words, and quite in private had started one of his own on pieces of brown paper accumulated in the attic chamber where he played on rainy days.

      “Hello, Cap’n!” observed Peg with a genial smile, as the little boy thrust his yellow head in at the door of his quarters. “Say! I do b’lieve you’ve growed some since I seen you last. It must be them popcorn balls, I reckon. Pop-corn’s mighty tasty and nourishin’.”

      “I haven’t eaten ’em—not yet!” said Jimmy breathlessly. “An’, Peg, I’ve got a birfday cake—an’ it’s got six candles on it, an’ one to grow on; an’—an’ it’s all pink on top; an’ Barb’ra, she’s made a whole lot of biscuits; an’ we’ve got some strawberry ’serves, an’—an’ we want you to come to supper; jus’ this once, ’cause it’s my birfday. Barb’ra said to tell you. An’ she’s put on the pink dishes, too!”

      “Wall, now, Cap’n, that surely is kind of Miss Barb’ry. But you see I ain’t got my comp’ny clo’es on. M’ swallow-tail coat’s got the rear buttons off, an’ m’ high collar ’n boiled shirt’s to m’ wash-lady’s.”

      Peg winked humorously at Jimmy, in token that his remarks were to be interpreted as being in a purely jocular vein.

      “We don’t care ’bout clo’es—me an’ Barb’ra,” said Jimmy, grandly. “An’ I want you to see my cake wiv the candles burning. I’m goin’ to blow ’em out when we are all through wiv supper; then we’re goin’ to eat the cake.”

      “Wall, now I’ll tell you, Cap’n. I’ll mosey in ’long ’bout time you get t’ the cake. I wouldn’t miss seein’ them candles blowed out fer anythin’. You c’n tell Miss Barb’ry I’m obleeged to her fer th’ invitation—mind you say Miss Barb’ry, Jimmy. ’Cause that’s manners, seein’ I’m hired man on this ’ere farm.”

      “Does Barb’ra pay you lots o’ money?” asked Jimmy, with sudden grave interest.

      Peg puckered up his mouth judicially.

      “You don’t want t’ git in th’ habit o’ askin’ pers’nal questions, Cap’n,” he said, with a serious look in his kind old eyes. “‘Tain’t reelly p’lite, you know. An’ the’s times when it’s kind o’ embarrassin’ to answer ’em. But, in this ’ere case, I’m pertickler glad to tell you, Cap’n, that Barb’ry—I mean Miss Barb’ry—does pay me all I ask fur, an’ a whole lot besides. You see I hev special privileges here on this place that ain’t come by ev’ry day, an’ I value ’em—I value ’em highly. An’ that reminds me, Cap’n, that I’ve got a little present fer you, seein’ you’re six, goin’ on seven, an’ big an’ hefty fer your age. Jest you clap yer eyes onto that an’ tell me what you think of it. ’Tain’t what you’d call reelly val’able now; but you keep it fer—say fifty years an’ do what I’ve done with mine, an’ money won’t buy it f’om you.”

      “Oh, Peg!” gasped Jimmy, in a rapture too deep and pervasive for words, “is it—a val’able inf’mation book?”

      “That’s what it is, Cap’n,” chuckled Peg, holding off the book and gazing at it with honest pride. “Y’ see, I couldn’t find th’ mate to mine in looks; but this ’ere red cover beats mine all holler, an’ you see I’ve put ‘Vallable Information by James Embury Preston’ on it in handsome red letters. Take it, boy, an’ don’t put nothin’ into it ’at won’t be true an’ useful, is the prayer o’ Peg Morrison.”

      The old man’s tone was solemn and his blue eyes gleamed suddenly moist in the midst of their network of wrinkles.

      “The’s folks in this world,” he went on soberly, “‘at would be mighty glad if they had a book like that, full o’ tried an’ tested rules—fer conduct, as well as fer hoss liniment an’ pies an’ cakes. In the front page o’ mine I put down more’n twenty years ago, ‘Never promise anythin’ that you ain’t willin’ to set ’bout doin’ the nex’ minute.’ That’s a good sentiment fer man or beast. Ye c’n turn to a rule fer mos’ anythin’, f’om what to do fer a colt ’at’s et too much green clover, up to how to set on a jury. But I’ve took my time to it, an’ ain’t never wrote anythin’ down jus’ t’ fill paper. Now you trot along, Cap’n; an’ I’ll be with you before you git them candles blowed out.”

      “I—I’d like to shake hands, Peg,” said Jimmy fervently. “I’m too big an’ hefty to kiss people for thank you. But I like this book better’n anyfing—I mean anything.”

      He put out his small brown hand on which babyish dimples still lingered, and the old man grasped and shook it solemnly.

      “You’re more’n welcome, Cap’n!” he said heartily. “An’ thinkin’ y’ might like to set down a few sentiments I got you a bottle o’ red ink an’ a new steel pen. I like red ink m’self. It makes a handsome page.”

      “I never s’posed I’d have a whole bottle of red ink,” said Jimmy, with a rapturous sigh of contentment filled to the brim and running over. “Don’t forget to come and see my cake,” he called out as the old man convoyed him to the foot of the stairs with a nautical lantern.

      “I’m goin’ right back up to put on m’ swallow-tail,” Peg assured him. “You’ll see me in ’bout half an hour.”

      Barbara knit her fine dark brows a little over the birthday book with its quaint inscription.

      “I shouldn’t like you to suppose that was the way to spell valuable information,” she said crisply. “Suppose we put another СКАЧАТЬ