COUSIN RUFUS’ STORY

My little story, Cousin Rufus said,

Is not so much a story as a fact.

It is about a certain willful boy —

An aggrieved, unappreciated boy,

Grown to dislike his own home very much,

By reason of his parents being not

At all up to his rigid standard and

Requirements and exactions as a son

And disciplinarian.

So, sullenly

He brooded over his disheartening

Environments and limitations, till,

At last, well knowing that the outside world

Would yield him favors never found at home,

He rose determinedly one July dawn —

Even before the call for breakfast — and,

Climbing the alley-fence, and bitterly

Shaking his clenched fist at the woodpile, he

Evanished down the turnpike.— Yes: he had,

Once and for all, put into execution

His long low-muttered threatenings — He had

Run off!— He had — had run away from home!

His parents, at discovery of his flight,

Bore up first-rate — especially his Pa,—

Quite possibly recalling his own youth,

And therefrom predicating, by high noon,

The absent one was very probably

Disporting his nude self in the delights

Of the old swimmin’ - hole, some hundred yards

Below the slaughter-house, just east of town.

The stoic father, too, in his surmise

Was accurate — For, lo! the boy was there!

And there, too, he remained throughout the day —

Save at one starving interval in which

He clad his sunburnt shoulders long enough

To shy across a wheatfield, shadow-like,

And raid a neighboring orchard — bitterly,

And with spasmodic twitchings of the lip,

Bethinking him how all the other boys

Had homes to go to at the dinner-hour —

While he — alas!— he had no home!— At least

These very words seemed rising mockingly,

Until his every thought smacked raw and sour

And green and bitter as the apples he

In vain essayed to stay his hunger with.

Nor did he join the glad shouts when the boys

Returned rejuvenated for the long

Wet revel of the feverish afternoon.—

Yet, bravely, as his comrades splashed and swam

And spluttered, in their weltering merriment,

He tried to laugh, too,— but his voice was hoarse

And sounded to him like some other boy's.

And then he felt a sudden, poking sort

Of sickness at the heart, as though some cold

And scaly pain were blindly nosing it

Down in the dreggy darkness of his breast.

The tensioned pucker of his purple lips

Grew ever chillier and yet more tense —

The central hurt of it slow spreading till

It did possess the little face entire.

And then there grew to be a knuckled knot —

An aching kind of core within his throat —

An ache, all dry and swallowless, which seemed

To ache on just as bad when he'd pretend

He did n't notice it as when he did.

It was a kind of a conceited pain —

An overbearing, self-assertive and

Barbaric sort of pain that clean outhurt

A boy's capacity for suffering —

So, many times, the little martyr needs

Must turn himself all suddenly and dive

From sight of his hilarious playmates and

Surreptitiously weep under water.

Thus

He wrestled with his awful agony

Till almost dark; and then, at last — then, with

The very latest lingering group of his

Companions, he moved turgidly toward home —

Nay, rather oozed that way, so slow he went,—

With lothful, hesitating, loitering,

Reluctant, late-election-returns air,

Heightened somewhat by the conscience-made resolve

Of chopping a double-armful of wood

As he went in by rear way of the kitchen.

And this resolve he executed;— yet

The hired girl made no comment whatsoever,

But went on washing up the supper-things,

Crooning the unutterably sad song, “Then think,

Oh, think how lonely this heart must ever be!”

Still, with affected carelessness, the boy

Ranged through the pantry; but the cupboard-door

Was locked. He sighed then like a wet fore-stick

And went out on the porch.— At least the pump,

He prophesied, would meet him kindly and

Shake hands with him and welcome his return!

And long he held the old tin dipper up —

And oh, how fresh and pure and sweet the draught!

Over the upturned brim, with grateful eyes

He saw the back-yard, in the gathering night,

Vague, dim and lonesome, but it all looked good:

The lightning-bugs, against the grape-vines, blinked

A sort of sallow gladness over his

Home-coming, with this softening of the heart.

He did not leave the dipper carelessly

In the milk-trough.— No: he hung it back upon

Its old nail thoughtfully — even tenderly.

All slowly then he turned and sauntered toward

The rain-barrel at the corner of the house,

And, pausing, peered into it at the few

Faint stars reflected there. Then — moved by some

Strange impulse new to him — he washed his feet.

He then went in the house — straight on into

The very room where sat his parents by

The evening lamp.— The father all intent

Reading his paper, and the mother quite

As intent with her sewing. Neither looked

Up at his entrance — even reproachfully,—

And neither spoke.

The wistful runaway

Drew a long, quavering breath, and then sat down

Upon the extreme edge of a chair. And all

Was very still there for a long, long while.—

Yet everything, someway, seemed restful-like

And homey and old-fashioned, good and kind,

And sort of kin to him!— Only too still!

If somebody would say something — just speak —

Or even rise up suddenly and come

And lift him by the ear sheer off his chair —

Or box his jaws — Lord bless‘ em!— anything!—

Was he not there to thankfully accept

Any reception from parental source

Save this incomprehensible voicelessness.

O but the silence held its very breath!

If but the ticking clock would only strike

And for an instant drown the whispering,

Lisping, sifting sound the katydids

Made outside in the grassy nowhere.

Far

Down some back-street he heard the faint halloo

Of boys at their night-game of “Town-fox,”

But now with no desire at all to be

Participating in their sport — No; no;—

Never again in this world would he want

To join them there!— he only wanted just

To stay in home of nights — Always — always —

Forever and a day!

He moved; and coughed —

Coughed hoarsely, too, through his rolled tongue; and yet

No vaguest of parental notice or

Solicitude in answer — no response —

No word — no look. O it was deathly still!—

So still it was that really he could not

Remember any prior silence that

At all approached it in profundity

And depth and density of utter hush.

He felt that he himself must break it: So,

Summoning every subtle artifice

Of seeming nonchalance and native ease

And naturalness of utterance to his aid,

And gazing raptly at the house-cat where

She lay curled in her wonted corner of

The hearth-rug, dozing, he spoke airily

And said: “I see you've got the same old cat!”