With this old lady there dwelt a niece, or a daughter, or a younger sister--relationship was vague--and this niece owned a little black dog.
But the old lady was dull of sight and in the dark pa.s.sages of her house she waved her arm and kept saying, "Whisk, n.i.g.g.e.r! Whisk, n.i.g.g.e.r!" for she had stepped once on the creature"s tail. Every year she gave a children"s party, and we youngsters looked for magic in a mirror and went to Jerusalem around her solemn chairs. She had bought toys and trinkets from Europe for all of us.
Then there was an old neighbor, a justice of the peace, who, being devoid of much knowledge of the law, put his cases to my grandfather.
When he had been advised, he stroked his beard and said it was an opinion to which he had come himself. He went down the steps mumbling the judgment to keep it in his memory.
It was my grandfather"s custom in the late afternoon of summer, when the sun had slanted, to pull a chair off the veranda and sit sprinkling the lawn with his crutch beside him. Toward supper Mr. Hodge, a building contractor and our neighbor, went by. His wagon usually rattled with some bit of salvage--perhaps an iron bath-tub plucked from a building before he wrecked it, or a kitchen sink. His yard was piled with the fruitage of his profession. Mr. Hodge was of sociable turn and he cried _whoa_ to his jogging horse.
Now ensued a half-hour"s gossip. It was the comedy of the occasion that the horse, after having made several attempts to start and been stopped by a jerking of the reins, took to craftiness. He put forward a hoof, quite carelessly it seemed. If there was no protest, in time he tried a diagonal hoof behind. It was then but a shifting of the weight to swing forward a step. "Whoa!" yelled Mr. Hodge. "Yes, yes," the old horse seemed to answer, "certainly, of course, yes, yes! But can"t a fellow shift his legs?" In this way the sly brute inched toward supper. My grandfather enjoyed this comedy, and once, if I am not mistaken, I caught him exchanging a wink with the horse. Certainly the beast was glancing round to find a partner for his jest. A conversation, begun at the standpipe, progressed to the telegraph pole, and at last came opposite the kitchen. As my grandfather did not move his chair, Mr.
Hodge lifted his voice until the neighborhood knew the price of brick and the unworthiness of plumbers. Mr. Hodge was a Republican and he spoke in favor of the tariff. To clinch an argument he had a usual formula. "It"s neither here nor there," and he brought his fist against the dashboard, _"it"s right here."_ But finally the hungry horse prevailed, Mr. Hodge slapped the reins in consent and they rattled home to supper.
Around this corner, also, there are echoes of children"s feet--racing feet upon the gra.s.s--feet that lag in the morning on the way to school and run back at four o"clock--feet that leap the hitching posts or avoid the sidewalk cracks. Girls" feet rustle in the fallen leaves, and they think their skirts are silk. And I hear dimly the cries of hide-and-seek and pull-away and the merriment of blindman"s buff. One lad rises in my memory who won our marbles. Another excelled us all when he threw his top. His father was a grocer and we envied him his easy access to the candy counter.
And particularly I remember a little girl with yellow curls and blue eyes. She was the Sleeping Beauty in a Christmas play. I had known her before in daytime gingham and I had judged her to be as other girls--creatures that tag along and spoil the fun. But now, as she rested in laces for the picture, she dazzled my imagination; for I was the silken Prince to awaken her. For a week I wished to run to sea, sink a pirate ship, and be worthy of her love. But then a sewer was dug along the street and I was a miner instead--recusant to love--digging in the yellow sand for the center of the earth.
But chiefly it is the echo of older steps I hear--steps whose sound is long since stilled--feet that have crossed the horizon and have gone on journey for a while. And when I listen I hear echoes that are fading into silence.