第30章

Even then nothing might have come of it had he and Sam not met in the path as he was sauntering back across lots to the main road and home.It was a brilliant moonlight night and the pair came together, literally, at the bend where the path turns sharply around the corner of Elijah Doane's cranberry shanty.Sam, plowing along, head down and hands in his pockets, swung around that corner and bumped violently into Albert, who, a cigarette between his lips--out here in the fields, away from civilization and Captain Zelotes, was a satisfyingly comfortable place to smoke a cigarette--was dreaming dreams of a future far away from South Harniss.Sam had been thinking of Gertie.Albert had not.She had been a mere incident of the evening; he had walked home with her because he happened to be in the mood for companionship and she was rather pretty and always talkative.His dreams during the stroll back alone in the moonlight had been of lofty things, of poetry and fame and high emprise; giggling Gerties had no place in them.It was distinctly different with Sam Thatcher.

They crashed together, gasped and recoiled.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Albert.

"Can't you see where you're goin', you darned Portygee half-breed?"demanded Sam.

Albert, who had stepped past him, turned and came back.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said you was a darned half-breed, and you are.You're a no-good Portygee, like your father."It was all he had time to say.For the next few minutes he was too busy to talk.The Speranzas, father and son, possessed temperament;also they possessed temper.Sam's face, usually placid and good-natured, for Sam was by no means a bad fellow in his way, was fiery red.Albert's, on the contrary, went perfectly white.He seemed to settle back on his heels and from there almost to fly at his insulter.Five minutes or so later they were both dusty and dirty and dishevelled and bruised, but Sam was pretty thoroughly licked.For one thing, he had been taken by surprise by his adversary's quickness; for another, Albert's compulsory training in athletics at school gave him an advantage.He was by no means an unscarred victor, but victor he was.Sam was defeated, and very much astonished.He leaned against the cranberry house and held on to his nose.It had been a large nose in the beginning, it was larger now.

Albert stood before him, his face--where it was not a pleasing combination of black and blue--still white.

"If you--if you speak of my father or me again like that," he panted, "I'll--I'll kill you!"Then he strode off, a bit wobbly on his legs, but with dignity.

Oddly enough, no one except the two most interested ever knew of this encounter.Albert, of course, did not tell.He was rather ashamed of it.For the son of Miguel Carlos Speranza to conquer dragons was a worthy and heroic business, but there seemed to be mighty little heroism in licking Sam Thatcher behind 'Lije Doane's cranberry shack.And Sam did not tell.Gertie next day confided that she didn't care two cents for that stuck-up Al Speranza, anyway; she had let him see her home only because Sam had danced so many times with Elsie Wixon at the ball that night.So Sam said nothing concerning the fight, explaining the condition of his nose by saying that he had run into something in the dark.And he did not appear to hold a grudge against his conqueror; on the contrary when others spoke of the latter as a "sissy," Sam defended him.

"He may be a dude," said Sam; "I don't say he ain't.But he ain't no sissy."When pressed to tell why he was so certain, his answer was:

"Because he don't act like one." It was not a convincing answer, the general opinion being that that was exactly how Al Speranza did act.

There was one young person in the village toward whom Albert found himself making exceptions in his attitude of serenely impersonal tolerance.That person was Helen Kendall, the girl who had come into his grandfather's office the first morning of his stay in South Harniss.He was forced to make these exceptions by the young lady herself.When he met her the second time--which was after church on his first Sunday--his manner was even more loftily reserved than usual.He had distinct recollections of their first conversation.His own part in it had not been brilliant, and in it he had made the absurd statement--absurd in the light of what came after--that he was certainly NOT employed by Z.Snow and Co.

So he was cool and superior when his grandmother brought them together after the meeting was over.If Helen noticed the superiority, she was certainly not over-awed by it, for she was so simple and natural and pleasant that he was obliged to unbend and be natural too.In fact, at their third meeting he himself spoke of the interview in the lumber office and again expressed his thanks for warning him of his grandfather's detestation of cigarettes.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, "I'm certainly glad that you put me on to the old boy's feelings.I think he'd have murdered me if he had come back and found me puffing a Pall Mall in there."She smiled."He does hate them, doesn't he?" she said.

"Hate them! I should say he did.Hating cigarettes is about the only point where he and Issy get along without an argument.If a traveler for a hardware house comes into the office smoking a cig, Issy opens all the windows to let the smell out, and Grandfather opens the door to throw the salesman out.Well, not exactly to throw him out, of course, but he never buys a single cent's worth of a cigarette smoker."Helen glanced at him."You must be awfully glad you're not a traveling salesman," she said demurely.

Albert did not know exactly what to make of that remark.He, in his turn, looked at her, but she was grave and quite unconcerned.

"Why?" he asked, after a moment.

"Why--what?"

"Why ought I to be glad I'm not a traveling salesman?""Oh, I don't know.It just seemed to me that you ought, that's all.""But why?"