Belle Maniates - David Dunne

Across lots to the Brumble farm came the dusty apparition of a boy, a tousle-headed, freckle-faced, gaunt-eyed little fellow, clad in a sort of combination suit fashioned from a pair of overalls and a woman’s shirtwaist. In search of “Miss M’ri,” he looked into the kitchen, the henhouse, the dairy, and the flower garden. Not finding her in any of these accustomed places, he stood still in perplexity.

“Miss M’ri!” rang out his youthful, vibrant treble.

There was a note of promise in the pleasant voice that came back in subterranean response.

“Here, David, in the cellar.”

The lad set down the tin pail he was carrying and eagerly sped to the cellar. His fondest hopes were realized. M’ri Brumble, thirty odd years of age, blue of eye, slightly gray of hair, and sweet of heart, was lifting the cover from the ice-cream freezer.

“Well, David Dunne, you came in the nick of time,” she said, looking up with kindly eyes. “It’s just frozen. I’ll dish you up some now, if you will run up to the pantry and fetch two saucers–biggest you can find.”

Fleetly David footed the stairs and returned with two soup plates.

“These were the handiest,” he explained apologetically as he handed them to her.

“Just the thing,” promptly reassured M’ri, transferring a heaping ladle of yellow cream to one of the plates. “Easy to eat out of, too.”

“My, but you are giving me a whole lot,” he said, watching her approvingly and encouragingly. “I hope you ain’t robbing yourself.”

“Oh, no; I always make plenty,” she replied, dishing a smaller portion for herself. “Here’s enough for our dinner and some for you to carry home to your mother.”

“I haven’t had any since last Fourth of July,” he observed in plaintive reminiscence as they went upstairs.

“Why, David Dunne, how you talk! You just come over here whenever you feel like eating ice cream, and I’ll make you some. It’s no trouble.”

They sat down on the west, vine-clad porch to enjoy their feast in leisure and shade. M’ri had never lost her childish appreciation of the delicacy, and to David the partaking thereof was little short of ecstasy. He lingered longingly over the repast, and when the soup plate would admit of no more scraping he came back with a sigh to sordid cares.

“Mother couldn’t get the washing done no-ways to-day. She ain’t feeling well, but you can have the clothes to-morrow, sure. She sent you some sorghum,” pointing to the pail.

M’ri took the donation into the kitchen. When she brought back the pail it was filled with eggs. Not to send something in return would have been an unpardonable breach of country etiquette.

“Your mother said your hens weren’t laying,” she said.

The boy’s eyes brightened.

“Thank you, Miss M’ri; these will come in good. Our hens won’t lay nor set. Mother says they have formed a union. But I ’most forgot to tell you–when I came past Winterses, Ziny told me to ask you to come over as soon as you could.”

“I suppose Zine has got one of her low spells,” said Barnabas Brumble, who had just come up from the barn. “Most likely Bill’s bin gittin’ tight agin. He–”

“Oh, no!” interrupted his sister hastily. “Bill has quit drinking.”

“Bill’s allers a-quittin’. Trouble with Bill is, he can’t stay quit. I see him yesterday comin’ down the road zig-zaggin’ like a rail fence. Fust she knows, she’ll hev to be takin’ washin’ to support him. Sometimes I think ’t would be a good idee to let him git sent over the road onct. Mebby ’t would learn him a lesson–”

He stopped short, noticing the significant look in M’ri’s eyes and the two patches of color spreading over David’s thin cheeks. He recalled that four years ago the boy’s father had died in state prison.

“You’d better go right over to Zine’s,” he added abruptly.

“I’ll wait till after dinner. We’ll have it early.”

“Hev it now,” suggested Barnabas.

“Now!” ejaculated David. “It’s only half-past ten.”

“I could eat it now jest as well as I could at twelve,” argued the philosophical Barnabas. “Jest as leaves as not.”

There were no iron-clad rules in this comfortable household, especially when Pennyroyal, the help, was away.

“All right,” assented M’ri with alacrity. “If I am going to do anything, I like to do it right off quick and get it over with. You stay, David, if you can eat dinner so early.”

“Yes, I can,” he assured her, recalling his scanty breakfast and the freezer of cream that was to furnish the dessert. “I’ll help you get it, Miss M’ri.”

He brought a pail of water from the well, filled the teakettle, and then pared the potatoes for her.

“When will Jud and Janey get their dinner?” he asked Barnabas.

“They kerried their dinner to-day. The scholars air goin’ to hev a picnic down to Spicely’s grove. How comes it you ain’t to school, Dave?”

“I have to help my mother with the washing,” he replied, a slow flush coming to his face. “She ain’t strong enough to do it alone.”

“What on airth kin you do about a washin’, Dave?”

“I can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty the tubs, fetch and carry the washings, and mop.”

Barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment.

“You’re a good boy, Dave, a mighty good boy. I don’t know what your ma would do without you. I hed to leave school when I wa’n’t as old as you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git eddicated. By the time I wuz foot-loose from farm work, I wuz too old to git any larnin’. You’d orter manage someway, though, to git eddicated.”

“Mother’s taught me to read and write and spell. When I get old enough to work for good wages I can go into town to the night school.”

In a short time M’ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less hearty appetites than those possessed by her brother and David.

“You ain’t what might be called a delikit feeder, Dave,” remarked Barnabas, as he replenished the boy’s plate for the third time. “You’re so lean I don’t see where you put it all.”

David might have responded that the vacuum was due to the fact that his breakfast had consisted of a piece of bread and his last night’s supper of a dish of soup, but the Dunne pride inclined to reservation on family and personal matters. He speared another small potato and paused, with fork suspended between mouth and plate.

“Mother says she thinks I am hollow inside like a stovepipe.”

“Well, I dunno. Stovepipes git filled sometimes,” ruminated his host.

“Leave room for the ice cream, David,” cautioned M’ri, as she descended to the cellar.

The lad’s eyes brightened as he beheld the golden pyramid. Another period of lingering bliss, and then with a sigh of mingled content and regret, David rose from the table.

“Want me to hook up for you, Mr. Brumble?” he asked, moved to show his gratitude for the hospitality extended.

“Why, yes, Dave; wish you would. My back is sorter lame to-day. Land o’ livin’,” he commented after David had gone to the barn, “but that boy swallered them potaters like they wuz so many pills!”

“Poor Mrs. Dunne!” sighed M’ri. “I am afraid it’s all she can do to keep a very small pot boiling. I am glad she sent the sorghum, so I could have an excuse for sending the eggs.”

“She hain’t poor so long as she hez a young sprout like Dave a-growin’ up. We used to call Peter Dunne ‘Old Hickory,’ but Dave, he’s second-growth hickory. He’s the kind to bend and not break. Jest you wait till he’s seasoned onct.”