And so, together, hand in hand, like little children, Edwin Dell and Mary Wood set out upon the shining road toward the bright promise of a new world.
THE UNFAMILIAR
WHO he was and what he was and where he came from no one knew. How he came to be in Crosby Corners was a mystery, and at harvesttime Connecticut farmers are too busy to peer into mysteries. He could not speak much English beyond “Yes,” “No,” “Hungry,” and “Go Hell.” He could gesture, however. He could gesture with his hands, his elbows, his eyes, his feet. He appeared to be trying by pantomime to convey the idea that he had been forcibly seized in his native land, which was remote, had been pressed into service aboard a ship, had been very ill at sea, had escaped at a port, had fled on a train, and had dropped, or been dropped, at Crosby Corners. The farmers, however, had no time to interpret pantomime. Farm-hands were scarce, and if a man had two hands and at least one good eye, they did not delve into his past or his pedigree; they put him to work. It was thus that the small, scared man in the velvet trousers entered the employ of Ben Crosby, richest farmer in that region.
“I found the little rascal,” Ben Crosby told his wife, “squealing like a pig in a hornet’s nest, and frightened almost out of his wits, with Constable Pettit marching him along by the ear. ‘Constable,’ I says, ‘what is that and where did you get it?’ He says to me: ‘I dunno what it is, Ben, but it looks foreign. I found it down by the railroad tracks trying to eat a raw potato. When I asked it what its name was, it said: “See.” ’ I says to the constable, ‘He may be a Gipsy or he may be a Hindu, and he looks as if he suspected you of being a cannibal. But,’ I says, ‘he seems wiry and he didn’t get that lovely tobacco-brown finish of his at a pink tea or from working in an office. Now I need hands worse than ducks need ponds. So turn him over to me ’stead of sticking him in the calaboose, and I’ll give him a job.’ Pettit didn’t want to be bothered with him, so he turned him over to me, and there he is out at the pump washing the dirtiest pair of hands I ever did see, and now and then rubbing his belly to show how hungry he is. I’ll send him to the back door, Hannah; you give him a lining of ham and eggs and pie, and then send him down to me. I’ll be in the twenty-acre lot.”
Presently there came a knock on the back door of the Crosby house. It was not at all a robust knock; it was a tap as faint and timid as a butterfly’s kick. Mrs. Crosby opened the door, and saw a small man standing there; his face was a rich brown, his eyes were black and apprehensive; he appeared to be ready to flee if the occasion demanded it. When he saw Mrs. Crosby, however, he bowed deeply. Such a bow had never before been executed in Crosby Corners except in the moving pictures. It was a sweeping, courtly thing, that bow, in which the small man swept off his wide felt hat and dusted the steps with it. Then he smiled; it was a humble, ingratiating smile. He looked toward the stove, where the sizzling ham was sending its aroma heavenward, and sighed. Mrs. Crosby pointed to a chair at the kitchen table, and he, with another bow, took it, and presently he was eating hungrily and freely. Mrs. Crosby now and then lifted an eye from her canning to regard the exotic stranger; she had a doubt or two at first whether it was quite safe for her to stay there. You never can tell what the foreigners may do, even if you are past forty and the mother of a grown daughter. She glanced into the dining-room, where, above the mantel, hung Grandpa Crosby’s Civil-War sword, a long, heavy weapon, and its presence reassured her. As she studied the man, she decided that any fear of him was quite groundless; if anything, he was afraid of her. His hair, she observed, was blue-black and long, but arranged in a way that suggested that he was a bit of a dandy. The stranger’s trousers surprised her greatly; they were of black velvet, really painfully tight, except at the bottom of each leg, where they flared out like bells. He had no belt, but instead a scarlet sash. His shirt, when new and clean, must have been a remarkable garment; it had been plaid silk, but it was now neither new nor clean. His boots were of patent leather and excessively pointed.
When he had eaten a very great deal he arose, bowed, smiled beatifically, and made gestures of gratitude. Mrs. Crosby pointed in the direction of the twenty-acre lot, and he understood. She saw him picking his way down the path; he was the first man she had ever seen whose gait at one and the same time included a mince and a swagger.
When Ben Crosby came in to his late supper that evening he announced:
“I was wrong about that new little fellow. He doesn’t seem to have done farm work. He’s willing enough, but he handles a hay-fork as dainty as if it was a toothpick. And, say, he certainly is the most scary human being I ever set eyes on. You should have seen him when the tractor came into the field with the mowing-machine. He gave a yelp and jumped on the stone wall, and if there’d been a tree handy, I guess he’d have climbed it. He looked as if he was afraid the machine would eat him. Pete High, who was driving it, said, ‘I guess it ain’t only his skin that’s yellow.’ I hope Pete isn’t right. I hate a coward.”
“Don’t you let Pete High pick on him,” admonished Mrs. Crosby. “Perhaps the man never saw a mowing-machine before. I remember how scared I was when I saw the first automobile come roaring and snorting along the road. And so were you, Ben Crosby.”
“Well, I didn’t let on I was,” replied her husband, harpooning a potato.