For the Skipper was doing strange things, as he had threatened. Advancing quickly into the middle of the room, he cast around him the same searching glance with which he had scanned the kitchen. He went to the window, and threw back the blinds. The sunlight streamed in, as if it, too, were eager to see what shrouded treasures were kept secluded here. Probably the blinds had not been thrown back since Gran'ther Scraper died.
The parlour was scarcely less grim than the kitchen, though there was a difference in its grimness. Seven chairs stood against the wall, like seven policemen with their hands behind their backs; a table crouched in the middle, its legs bent as if to spring. The boy John considered the table a monster, transformed by magic into its present shape, and likely to be released at any moment, and to leap at the unwary intruder. Its faded cover, with two ancient ink-blots which answered for eyes, fostered this idea, which was a disquieting one. On the wall hung two silver coffin-plates in a glass case, testifying that Freeborn Scraper, and Elmira his wife, had been duly buried, and that their coffins had presented a good appearance at the funeral. But the glory of the room, in the boy John's eyes, was the cabinet of shells which stood against the opposite wall. He had once thought this the chief ornament of the world; he knew better now, but still he regarded its treasures with awe and veneration, and looked to see the expression of delight which should overspread the features of his new friend at sight of it. What, then, was his amazement to see his new friend pass over the cabinet with a careless glance, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world! Evidently, it was not shells that he had come to see; and the boy grew more and more mystified. Suddenly the dark eyes lightened; the whole face flashed into keen attention. What had the Skipper seen? Nothing, apparently, but the cupboard in the corner, the old cupboard where Mr. Scraper kept his medicines. The old man had sent John to this cupboard once, when he himself was crippled with rheumatism, to fetch him a bottle of the favourite remedy of the day. John remembered its inward aspect, with rows of dusty bottles, and on the upper shelf, rows of still more dusty papers. What could the Skipper see to interest him in the corner cupboard? Something, certainly! For now he was opening the cupboard, quietly, as if he knew all about it and was looking for something that he knew to be there.
"Ah!" said the Skipper; and he drew a long breath, as of relief. "True, the words! In the corner of the parlour, a cupboard of three corners, with bottles filled, and over the bottles, papers. Behold the cupboard, the bottles, the papers! A day of fortunes!" He bent forward, and proceeded to rummage in the depths of the cupboard; but this was too much for John's conscience. "I beg your pardon, sir!" he said, timidly. "But—do you think you ought to do that?"
The Skipper looked out of the cupboard for an instant, and his eyes were very bright. "Yes, Colorado," he said. "I think I ought to do this! Oh, very much indeed, my friend, I ought to do this! And here,"—he stepped back, holding something in his hand,—"here, it is done! No more disturbance, Colorado; I thank you for your countenance.
"Do we now make a promenade in the garden, to see your work?
"Yet," he added, pausing and again looking around him, "but yet once more I observe. This room,"—it was strange, he did not seem to like the parlour any better than he had liked the kitchen—"this room, to live in! a young person, figure it, Colorado! gentle, with desires, with dreams of beauty, and this only to behold! For companion an ancient onion,—I say things that are improper, my son! I demand pardon! But for a young person, a maiden to live here, would be sad indeed, do you think it?"
John pondered, in wonder and some trouble of mind. There was something that he had to say, something very hard; but it would not be polite just now, and he must answer a question when he was asked. "I—I thought it was a fine room!" he said at length, timidly. "It isn't as bright, somehow, as where I used to live with my mother, and—it seems to stay shut up, even when it isn't; but—I guess it's a fine room, sir; and then, if a person didn't like it, there's all out-doors, you know, and that's never shut up."
"True!" cried the Skipper, with a merry laugh; "out of doors is never shut up, praise be to Heaven!" He pulled off his cap, and looked up at the shining sky. They were standing on the door-step now, and John noticed that his companion seemed much less grave than usual. He laughed, he patted the boy on the shoulder, he hummed snatches of strange, sweet melodies. Once or twice he broke out into speech, but it was foreign speech, and John knew nothing save that it was something cheerful. They walked about the garden, and the Skipper surveyed John's work, and pronounced it prodigious. He questioned the child closely, too, as to how he lived, and what he did, and why he stayed with Mr. Scraper. But the child could tell him little. He supposed it was all right; his mother was dead, and there was nobody else, and Mr. Scraper said he was his father's uncle, and that the latter had appointed him guardian over John in case of the mother's death. That was all, he guessed.
"All, my faith!" cried the Skipper, gayly. "Enough, too, Colorado! quite enough, in the opinion of me. But I go, my son! Till a little while; you will come to-day to the 'Nautilus,' yes?"
But little John stood still in the path, and looked up in his friend's face. The time had come when he must do the hard thing, and it was harder even than he had thought it would be. His throat was very dry, and he tried once or twice before the words would come. At last—"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I am only a little boy, and perhaps there is something I don't understand; but—but—I don't think you ought to have done that!"