Seventeen. Booth Tarkington

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СКАЧАТЬ he shouted. “Never! You expect me to walk through the public streets with that awful-lookin' old nigger—”

      “Genesis isn't old,” she managed to interpolate. “He—”

      But her frantic son disregarded her. “Second-hand wash-tubs!” he vociferated. “And tin clothes-boilers! THAT'S what you want your SON to carry through the public streets in broad daylight! Ye gods!”

      “Well, there isn't anybody else,” she said. “Please don't rave so, Willie, and say 'Ye gods' so much; it really isn't nice. I'm sure nobody 'll notice you—”

      “'Nobody'!” His voice cracked in anguish. “Oh no! Nobody except the whole town! WHY, when there's anything disgusting has to be done in this family—why do I always have to be the one? Why can't Genesis bring the second-hand wash-tubs without ME? Why can't the second-hand store deliver 'em? Why can't—”

      “That's what I want to tell you,” she interposed, hurriedly, and as the youth lifted his arms on high in a gesture of ultimate despair, and then threw himself miserably into a chair, she obtained the floor. “The second-hand store doesn't deliver things,” she said. “I bought them at an auction, and it's going out of business, and they have to be taken away before half past four this afternoon. Genesis can't bring them in the wheelbarrow, because, he says, the wheel is broken, and he says he can't possibly carry two tubs and a wash-boiler himself; and he can't make two trips because it's a mile and a half, and I don't like to ask him, anyway; and it would take too long, because he has to get back and finish cutting the grass before your papa gets home this evening. Papa said he HAD to! Now, I don't like to ask you, but it really isn't much. You and Genesis can just slip up there and—”

      “Slip!” moaned William. “'Just SLIP up there'! Ye gods!”

      “Genesis is waiting on the back porch,” she said. “Really it isn't worth your making all this fuss about.”

      “Oh no!” he returned, with plaintive satire. “It's nothing! Nothing at all!”

      “Why, I shouldn't mind it,” she said; briskly, “if I had the time. In fact, I'll have to, if you won't.”

      “Ye gods!” He clasped his head in his hands, crushed, for he knew that the curse was upon him and he must go. “Ye gods!”

      And then, as he stamped to the door, his tragic eye fell upon Jane, and he emitted a final cry of pain:

      “Can't you EVER wash your face?” he shouted.

IV

       Table of Contents

GENESIS AND CLEMATIS

       Table of Contents

      Genesis and his dog were waiting just outside the kitchen door, and of all the world these two creatures were probably the last in whose company William Sylvanus Baxter desired to make a public appearance. Genesis was an out-of-doors man and seldom made much of a toilet; his overalls in particular betraying at important points a lack of the anxiety he should have felt, since only Genesis himself, instead of a supplementary fabric, was directly underneath them. And the aged, grayish, sleeveless and neckless garment which sheltered him from waist to collar-bone could not have been mistaken for a jersey, even though what there was of it was dimly of a jerseyesque character. Upon the feet of Genesis were things which careful study would have revealed to be patent-leather dancing-pumps, long dead and several times buried; and upon his head, pressing down his markedly criminal ears, was a once-derby hat of a brown not far from Genesis's own color, though decidedly without his gloss. A large ring of strange metals with the stone missing, adorned a finger of his right hand, and from a corner of his mouth projected an unlighted and spreading cigar stub which had the appearance of belonging to its present owner merely by right of salvage.

      And Genesis's dog, scratching himself at his master's feet, was the true complement of Genesis, for although he was a youngish dog, and had not long been the property of Genesis, he was a dog that would have been recognized anywhere in the world as a colored person's dog. He was not a special breed of dog—though there was something rather houndlike about him—he was just a dog. His expression was grateful but anxious, and he was unusually bald upon the bosom, but otherwise whitish and brownish, with a gaunt, haunting face and no power to look anybody in the eye.

      He rose apprehensively as the fuming William came out of the kitchen, but he was prepared to follow his master faithfully, and when William and Genesis reached the street the dog was discovered at their heels, whereupon William came to a decisive halt.

      “Send that dog back,” he said, resolutely. “I'm not going through the streets with a dog like that, anyhow!”

      Genesis chuckled. “He ain' goin' back,” he said. “'Ain' nobody kin make 'at dog go back. I 'ain' had him mo'n two weeks, but I don' b'lieve Pres'dent United States kin make 'at dog go back! I show you.” And, wheeling suddenly, he made ferocious gestures, shouting. “G'on back, dog!”

      The dog turned, ran back a few paces, halted, and then began to follow again, whereupon Genesis pretended to hurl stones at him; but the animal only repeated his manoeuver—and he repeated it once more when William aided Genesis by using actual missiles, which were dodged with almost careless adeptness.

      “I'll show him!” said William, hotly. “I'll show him he can't follow ME!” He charged upon the dog, shouting fiercely, and this seemed to do the work, for the hunted animal, abandoning his partial flights, turned a tucked-under tail, ran all the way back to the alley, and disappeared from sight. “There!” said William. “I guess that 'll show him!”

      “I ain' bettin' on it!” said Genesis, as they went on. “He nev' did stop foll'in' me yet. I reckon he the foll'indest dog in the worl'! Name Clem.”

      “Well, he can't follow ME!” said the surging William, in whose mind's eye lingered the vision of an exquisite doglet, with pink-ribboned throat and a cottony head bobbing gently over a filmy sleeve. “He doesn't come within a mile of ME, no matter what his name is!”

      “Name Clem fer short,” said Genesis, amiably. “I trade in a mandoline fer him what had her neck kind o' busted off on one side. I couldn' play her nohow, an' I found her, anyways. Yes-suh, I trade in 'at mandoline fer him 'cause always did like to have me a good dog—but I d'in' have me no name fer him; an' this here Blooie Bowers, what I trade in the mandoline to, he say HE d'in have no name fer him. Say nev' did know if WAS a name fer him 'tall. So I'z spen' the evenin' at 'at lady's house, Fanny, what used to be cook fer Miz Johnson, nex' do' you' maw's; an' I ast Fanny what am I go'n' a do about it, an' Fanny say, 'Call him Clematis,' she say. ''At's a nice name!' she say. 'Clematis.' So 'at's name I name him, Clematis. Call him Clem fer short, but Clematis his real name. He'll come, whichever one you call him, Clem or Clematis. Make no diff'ence to him, long's he git his vittles. Clem or Clematis, HE ain' carin'!”

      William's ear was deaf to this account of the naming of Clematis; he walked haughtily, but as rapidly as possible, trying to keep a little in advance of his talkative companion, who had never received the training as a servitor which should have taught him his proper distance from the Young Master. William's suffering eyes were fixed upon remoteness; and his lips moved, now and then, like a martyr's, pronouncing inaudibly a sacred word. СКАЧАТЬ