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Page 7
His new spirit of adventure being thus blunted, he spent much of the
next day indoors. Grammer opened the "front room" for him, no small
concession, for this room was never put to vulgar use; rarely entered,
indeed, save once a month for dusting. Here he found an atmosphere in
keeping with his own chastened gloom, a musty air of mortality and
twilight.
Such poor elegance as could be achieved by Beans alone, unaided by any
Bunker, was here concentrated; a melodeon that groaned to his touch,
with the startling effect of a voice from a long-closed tomb; a
centre-table, luminous with varnish; gilded chairs in formal array;
portraits in gilded frames; and best of all, a "whatnot," a thing to fit
a corner, having many shelves and each shelf loaded with fascinating
objects that maddened one because they must not be touched. Varnished
pine-cones, flint arrow-heads, statuettes set on worsted mats, tiny
strange boxes rarely ornamented--you mustn't even shake them to see if
they contained anything--a small stuffed alligator in the act of
climbing a pole; a frail cup and saucer; a watch-chain fashioned from
Grammer's hair probably long before she fell into evil habits; a pink
china dog that simpered; a dusty black cigar with a gay red-and-gold
belt that had once upon a time been given to Gramper by a gentleman in
Chicago; a silver cup inscribed "Baby"; a ball of clearest glass, bigger
than any marble, with a white camel at its centre looking out
unconcernedly; a gilded horseshoe adorned with a bow of blue ribbon; an
array of treasure, in short, that made one suspect the Beans might have
been something after all if only they had tried.
Then on the lower shelf, when Grammer, relying on his honour, had left
the room, he made his wondrous discovery--a thing more beautiful than
ever he had dreamed of beauty; a thing that caught all the light in the
room and shot it back like a risen sun; a thing that excited, enchained,
satisfied with a satisfaction so deep that somehow it became pain. It
was a shell from the sea, polished to a dazzling brilliance of opal and
jade, amethyst and sapphire, delicately subdued, blending as the tints
in the western sky at sunset, soft, elusive, fluent. To his rapturously
shocked soul, it was a living thing. Instantly a spell was upon him;
long he gazed into its depths. It was more than deep; it was bottomless.
In some magic solution he there beheld himself and all the world;
imperiously it commanded his being. To his ear utterance came from that
lucent abyss, a murmur of voices, a confusion of tones; and then
invisible presences seemed to reach out greedy hands for him. It was no
place for a small boy, and his short legs twinkled as he fled.
Out in the friendly, familiar yard, he looked curiously about him,
basking in the sudden peace of it. A light wind stirred in the trees,
the sky was a void of blue, the scent of the lilacs came to him. That
was all reassuring; but something more came: a consciousness that he
could translate only as something vast, yet without shape or substance,
that opened to him, enfolded him, lifted him. It was a vision of
boundless magnitudes and himself among them--among them and with a power
he could put upon them. While it lasted he had a child's dim vision of
the knowledge that life would be big for him. He heard again the
confusion of voices, and his own among them, in far spacious places. He
always remembered this moment. In after years he knew it had been given
him then to run an eye along the line of his destiny.
The moment passed; his mind was again vacant. He picked a green apple
from the low tree under which he stood, bit into it, chewed without
enthusiasm, then hurled the remnant at an immature rabbit that he saw
regarding him from the edge of the lilac clump. The missile went wild,
but the rabbit fled and Bean pursued it. He was not afraid of a
rabbit--not of a young rabbit.
Returning from the chase, an unavailing one, he believed, only because
the game used quite unfair tactics of concealment, he remembered the
shell. A longing for possession seized him. It was more than that. The
thing was already his; had always been his. Yet he foresaw
complications. His ownership might be stupidly denied.
He went in to drag Grammer again before the whatnot, his mind sharpened
to subtlety.
"Are everything there yours?" He pointed to the top shelf.
"Everything!"
He lowered the pointing finger to the second shelf.
"Are everything there yours?"
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