第7章

No, no, don't make him talk to-night.Can't you see he's so sleepy that it's only the exercise of openin' his mouth to eat that keeps his eyes from shuttin'? How about that, son?"It was perfectly true.The long train ride, the excitement, the cold wait on the station platform and the subsequent warmth of the room, the hearty meal, all these combined to make for sleepiness so overpowering that several times the boy had caught his nose descending toward his plate in a most inelegant nod.But it hurt his pride to think his grandfather had noticed his condition.

"Oh, I'm all right," he said, with dignity.

Somehow the dignity seemed to have little effect upon Captain Zelotes.

"Um--yes, I know," observed the latter dryly, "but I guess likely you'll be more all right in bed.Mother, you'll show Albert where to turn in, won't you? There's your suitcase out there in the hall, son.I fetched it in from the barn just now."Mrs.Snow ventured a protest.

"Oh, Zelotes," she cried, "ain't we goin' to talk with him at ALL?

Why, there is so much to say!"

"'Twill say just as well to-morrow mornin', Mother; better, because we'll have all day to say it in.Get the lamp."Albert looked at his watch.

"Why, it's only half-past nine," he said.

Captain Zelotes, who also had been looking at the watch, which was a very fine and very expensive one, smiled slightly."Half-past nine some nights," he said, "is equal to half-past twelve others.

This is one of the some.There, there, son, you're so sleepy this minute that you've got a list to starboard.When you and I have that talk that's comin' to us we want to be shipshape and on an even keel.Rachel, light that lamp."The housekeeper brought in and lighted a small hand lamp.Mrs.

Snow took it and led the way to the hall and the narrow, breakneck flight of stairs.Captain Zelotes laid a hand on his grandson's shoulder.

"Good-night, son," he said quietly.

Albert looked into the gray eyes.Their expression was not unkindly, but there was, or he imagined there was, the same quizzical, sardonic twinkle.He resented that twinkle more than ever; it made him feel very young indeed, and correspondingly obstinate.Something of that obstinacy showed in his own eyes as he returned his grandfather's look.

"Good-night--sir," he said, and for the life of him he could not resist hesitating before adding the "sir." As he climbed the steep stairs he fancied he heard a short sniff or chuckle--he was not certain which--from the big man in the dining-room.

His bedroom was a good-sized room; that is, it would have been of good size if the person who designed it had known what the term "square" meant.Apparently he did not, and had built the apartment on the hit-or-miss, higglety-pigglety pattern, with unexpected alcoves cut into the walls and closets and chimneys built out from them.There were three windows, a big bed, an old-fashioned bureau, a chest of drawers, a washstand, and several old-fashioned chairs.Mrs.Snow put the lamp upon the bureau.She watched him anxiously as he looked about the room.

"Do--do you like it?" she asked.

Albert replied that he guessed he did.Perhaps there was not too much certainty in his tone.He had never before seen a room like it.

"Oh, I hope you will like it! It was your mother's room, Albert.

She slept here from the time she was seven until--until she went away."The boy looked about him with a new interest, an odd thrill.His mother's room.His mother.He could just remember her, but that was all.The memories were childish and unsatisfactory, but they were memories.And she had slept there; this had been her room when she was a girl, before she married, before--long before such a person as Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza had been even dreamed of.

That was strange, it was queer to think about.Long before he was born, when she was years younger than he as he stood there now, she had stood there, had looked from those windows, had--His grandmother threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.Her cheek was wet.

"Good-night, Albert," she said chokingly, and hurried out of the room.

He undressed quickly, for the room was very cold.He opened the window, after a desperate struggle, and climbed into bed.The wind, whistling in, obligingly blew out the lamp for him.It shrieked and howled about the eaves and the old house squeaked and groaned.Albert pulled the comforter up about his neck and concentrated upon the business of going to sleep.He, who could scarcely remember when he had had a real home, was desperately homesick.

Downstairs in the dining-room Captain Zelotes stood, his hands in his pockets, looking through the mica panes of the stove door at the fire within.His wife came up behind him and laid a hand on his sleeve.

"What are you thinkin' about, Father?" she asked.

Her husband shook his head."I was wonderin'," he said, "what my granddad, the original Cap'n Lote Snow that built this house, would have said if he'd known that he'd have a great-great-grandson come to live in it who was," scornfully, "a half-breed."Olive's grip tightened on his arm.

"Oh, DON'T talk so, Zelotes," she begged."He's our Janie's boy."The captain opened the stove door, regarded the red-hot coals for an instant, and then slammed the door shut again.

"I know, Mother," he said grimly."It's for the sake of Janie's half that I'm takin' in the other.""But--but, Zelotes, don't you think he seems like a nice boy?"The twinkle reappeared in Captain Lote's eyes.

"I think HE thinks he's a nice boy, Mother," he said."There, there, let's go to bed."