Thatch

“ Polcher lifted the candle for a moment and briefly examined the head and shoulders of the old man, then dropped to the floor again.
“Ye’re a —— of a long time payin’ over that jug,” grumbled Thatch. “I want to be gittin’ back to my cabin. Goin’ to make a night of it. Reg’lar old blue devil comes out an’ grins at me—lives in the fireplace. Keeps yappin’ for me to make the fire hotter’n hotter. That is, he does when I have ’nough whisky.”
Polcher reappeared above the sill and seized Thatch by the arm and hoarsely accused:
“What the devil does this mean? This ain’t a prime, fresh scalp. ”

“ Sometimes the old thatch has been stripped before the new was placed: more often it has not, and the merest casual observer can, as he passes, easily become a critic of the thoroughness or otherwise with which the thatcher’s work has been performed, not only by sight of the different shades belonging to old and new, but by the varying thicknesses with which the roofs are seen to be covered. ”

“ As Uncle Thatcher ran, so ran his neighbors. Bounding across fields, leaping fences, rolling down the sandy face of the bluff, they arrived breathlessly before a small wooden hut at the foot of a sand dune, a little distance up from the edge of the beach—the boat-house of the whaling company. ”

“ While Mary stood at the gate, Uncle Thatcher himself sat upon the stone door-step, sharpening with a whetstone the edge of a "blubber-spade"—a sort of huge long-handled chisel, used to cut a whale's blubber from his carcass and into strips. He was a tall man, wirily and powerfully built, past middle-age, but still bearing well his years. ”

“ His hands were cold and trembling. He pulled a blanket up over him. He lay listening to the steady beat of the rain and the hissing spatter of a gutter. Now and then a puff of wind blew a faint cool spray in his face. There still lingered in the room a frail cedarwood gruff smell of her heavycoiled hair, a silkiness of her body where she had crouched wrapped in the sheet hiding.
Ed Thatcher sat in his bay window among the Sunday papers. His hair was grizzled and there were deep folds in his cheeks. The upper buttons of his pongee trousers were undone to ease his sudden little potbelly. ”

“ What time has eaten modern and clumsy hands have tried to repair; yet a glance will tell you that the old sound work means to outwear the patches.
The last of these famous thatchers lived in the round-house on your right as you leave Gantick by the seaward road. His name was old Nat Ellery, or Thatcher Ellery, and his age (as I remember him) between seventy or eighty. Yet he clung to his work, being one of those lean men upon whom age, exposure, and even drink take a long while to tell. For he drank; not socially at the King of Bells, but at home in solitude with a black bottle at his elbow. ”

“ The man was a grizzled artizan looking fellow well over fifty; extraordinarily like the old Thatcher, though darker of skin—yellow as a guinea, said Gantick; in fact and beyond doubt, the old man's son. He made no friends, no acquaintances ever, but confined himself to nursing the Thatcher, now tied to his chair by rheumatism. One thing alone gives colour to the Jagos' belief; the Thatcher who had sent for him could not abide the sight of him. ”

“ You can trapse after your lover, who'll be gone far enough by that time, no doubt. And what would Silas think of you if he knew of your conduct? Do you suppose my boy would ever look at a girl that get's herself talked about as you will? You shameless—"
"Shut up! There's been enough of this jaw and too much," suddenly interrupted Uncle Thatcher's rough voice, as he himself appeared in the door, looking in his night-dress of close-fitting shirt and drawers even bonier, longer, and more angular than ordinarily; like the silhouette of a skeleton almost. ”

“ They had come from Town for a month's holiday, bringing with them Thatcher—little Mollie's nurse—as general factotum.
They had barely been in the house an hour when a telegram summoned Thatcher to her mother's deathbed, and a day or two later urgent business recalled Jack to Town.
"I'll just call at the Lodge and get Mrs. Somers to come up as early as she can this morning, and stay the night with you, so you will not be alone long," he called as he hurried off. ”

“ Nevertheless she painted a sketch of Thatcher,—which now adorns the Company's office in San Francisco,—in which the property is laid out in pleasing geometrical lines, and the rosy promise of the future instinct in every touch of the brush. Then, having earned her “wage,” as she believed, she became somewhat cold and shy to Thatcher. Whereat that gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a certain meprise, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl,—to be protected always,—to be feared, never. ”

“ Thatcher, with a deep, contented sigh. “How good you are, Nevin! Do I look all right?”
[51]
“Oh, you’ll do,” said her husband, with an affectionate squeeze of the arm next him. “See here! You mustn’t look at me in the street that way; people will think we’re engaged.”
“Well, why not?” murmured Mrs. Thatcher. “I don’t care what anybody thinks—Darling!”
“Yes, my husband selected it,” said Mildred. The next door neighbour was standing in Mrs. Thatcher’s little drawing-room with her, and they were both looking down at a dark velvety rug with an Oriental blend of colours in it. ”

“ In short, what the old Thatcher had to tell, and what, with mouths agape and pipes grown cold in their nervous grasp, the seven middle-aged labourers for the first time in their lives listened to, was "Jack and the Beanstalk." Never did story-teller command a more attentive audience. They were with the thatcher every step of his way up the "ladder as high as the sky," and when Jack blew the horn that hung at the gate of the castle of the two-headed giant, every man wetted his lips with his tongue, as though in imagination he was taking a turn at it. ”

“ Women tourists turned to stare at him, and no wonder. A leading man on the London stage for many years, he had in his day set many feminine hearts to beating faster.
Thatcher appeared, his face more crimson than ever above his white shirt front, the eternal monocle in his eye. His luggage, too, came with him, and when he had paid his bill, he strolled over to Wayne. ”

“ Thatcher. . . . Mr. Lourton was at his very best."
"I guess I ought to rout out and go to church now and then, but you see I like to lay round the house Sundays."
"Of course Mr, Thatcher it's the only day you have. My husband was just like that. . . . But I think it's different with Mr. Lourton than with most clergymen. He has such an uptodate commonsense view of things. It's really more like attending an intensely interesting lecture than going to church. . . . You understand what I mean."
"Y'll tell you what I'll do Mrs. Culveteer, next Sunday if it's not too hot I'll go. . . . ”

“ He remarked with the diplomatic unconcern that it was best to employ with her:—
"Refused the offer, did you, Miss Farrell?"
"I certainly did. As between a fat old sport like Ed Thatcher and a gentleman like Mr. Bassett, money doesn't count—not even with a p.w.g., or poor working girl, like me. Hush!—are we quite alone?" She bent toward the door dramatically. "What he was playing for, as neat as a hatpin in your loved one's eye, was some facts about the boss's committee work in that last session I worked at the State House. Cute of Thatcher? Well, not so awful bright! ”

“ Red ferryboats shuttled back and forth.
"Daddy why arent we rich?"
"There are lots of people poorer than us Ellie. . . . You wouldn't like your daddy any better if he were rich would you?"
"Oh yes I would daddy."
Thatcher laughed. "Well it might happen someday. . . . How would you like the firm of Edward C. Thatcher and Co., Certified Accountants?"
Ellen jumped to her feet: "Oh look at that big boat. . . . That's the boat I want to go on." ”

“ The chubby man turned on him, delight bubbling through his thick voice. "Congradulade me, congradulade me; mein vife has giben birth to a poy."
Thatcher shook a fat little hand. "Mine's a girl," he admitted, sheepishly.
"It is fif years yet and every year a girl, and now dink of it, a poy."
"Yes," said Ed Thatcher as they stepped out on the pavement, "it's a great moment." ”

“ The Van Deust brothers sat smoking their pipes in the twilight on the wide porch of the old homestead overlooking the sea.
"I met Thatcher to-day when I was over at the village," said the younger brother, Jacob, "and he wanted to put the ten acre lot in corn on shares."
"Well," responded Peter, "I suppose he might as well have it as anybody. Somebody will have to work it. We are getting too old, Jacob, for ploughing and such-like hard toil ourselves, and a third will be all we'll want. ”

“ Here the road was broader, and we rode three abreast, silent, watchful, each busy with his own thoughts, and all alert for the signs of chase behind. Thrice my heart beat fast with the sound in my ears of galloping pursuers. Thrice I laughed to think that the patter of falling drops on the roadway should deceive my sense of sound. Here the track narrowed, and Thatcher shot ahead, flinging mud and water from his horse's heels fair upon us. There it broadened once more, and our willing beasts pressed forward and galloped beside the stableman's till the hoofs beat in unison. ”

“ Thatcher led the way, and Fitzhugh rode by my side.
“Look there!” cried Fitzhugh in my ear. “There's some one running to the hotel!”
I looked, and thought I could see a form moving through the blackness. The hotel could just be distinguished two blocks away. It might well be a scout of the enemy hastening to give the alarm.
“Never mind,” I said. “We've got the start.”
Thatcher suddenly turned to the west, and in another minute we were on the open highway, with the steady beat of the horses' hoofs splashing a wild rhythm on the muddy road. ”

“ At the end of a story at which Thatcher had guffawed loudly, they rose and crossed the veranda. Hearing them approaching, Bassett rose promptly, and they shook hands all round.
If there were any embarrassments in the meeting for the older men, it was concealed under the cordiality of their greetings. Pettit took charge of the situation.
"Well, sir," he boomed, "I might've known that if I came to town and broke into sassiety I'd get caught at it; you can't get away from home folks! Thatcher has filled me amply with expensive urban food in this sylvan retreat—nectar and ambrosia. ”

“ Nevertheless, he had time en route to sink in the waters of the North Platte, with many expressions of disgust, the little black portmanteau belonging to Thatcher, containing his dressing case, a few unimportant letters, and an extra shirt, to wonder why simple men did not travel with their important documents and valuables, and to set on foot some prudent and cautious inquiries regarding his own lost carpet bag and its important contents. ”

“ True, the tatterdemalion frieze of basket bearers still wove its rhythmic way over the mounds to the siftings where Thatcher was presiding as was his wont, but in the native part of the encampment there appeared a sly stir and excitement. ”

“ As he came within sound of the falling water, he heard voices, and pressing on, he was suddenly brought to an abrupt halt by recognizing the tones of Ralph Thatcher. What the young man was saying Tom did not catch, but the reply of Celia came to his ears with cutting distinctness.
“And does it seem to you honorable, Ralph,” she said, “to follow me here and talk to me in this way, when you know I am engaged to another man, and he your friend?”
“No man is my friend that takes you away from me!” Thatcher returned hotly. ”

“ That's all right, Sylvia. I've known Thatcher for years, and last fall I went up to his house-boat on the Kankakee for a week's shooting. Allen and Dan Harwood were the rest of the party—and I happened to tell the story of this little book—an unfinished story. We ought never to tell stories until they are finished. And it seems that Thatcher, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, has been raking up the ashes of an old affair of Bassett's with a woman, and he's trying to hitch it on to the story I told him about this book. ”

“ For nine days Mildred Thatcher lived as her neighbours, a life as thick and solid, as uninformed with the spirit as the rubber plant which stood neglected in the drawing-room by the pile of books—as yet unshelved—and the dusty upright piano. ”

“ Thatcher looked intently at Harlowe. But that gentleman's face betrayed no confusion. Thatcher refilled his glass a little awkwardly, tossed off the liquor at a draught, and rose to his feet.
“Come, old fellow, you're not going now. I shan't permit it,” said Harlowe, laying his hand kindly on his client's shoulder. “You're out of sorts! Stay here with me to-night. Our accommodations are not large, but are elastic. I can bestow you comfortably until morning. ”

“ It's looks that count in this city."
"I kin work all right. I'm a good worker," growled Bud with his mouth full.
"I'm tellin yez, that's all," said the redhaired man and turned back to his stove.
When Ed Thatcher climbed the marble steps of the wide hospital entry he was trembling. The smell of drugs caught at his throat. A woman with a starched face was looking at him over the top of a desk. He tried to steady his voice.
"Can you tell me how Mrs. Thatcher is?"
"Yes, you can go up."
"But please, miss, is everything all right?"
"The nurse on the floor will know anything about the case. ”