Uncle William: The Man Who Was Shif'less Part 1

Uncle William.

by Jennette Lee.

TO GERALD STANLEY LEE

"Let him sing to me Who sees the watching of the stars above the day, Who hears the singing of the sunrise On its way Through all the night.

Let him sing to me Who is the sky-voice, the thunder-lover, Who hears above the winds' fast flying shrouds The drifted darkness, the heavenly strife, The singing on the sunny sides of all the clouds Of his own life."

UNCLE WILLIAM

I

"Yes, I'm shif'less. I'm gen'ally considered shif'less," said William Benslow. He spoke in a tone of satisfaction, and hitched his trousers skilfully into place by their one suspender.

His companion shifted his easel a little, squinting across the harbor at the changing light. There was a mysterious green in the water that he failed to find in his color-box.

William Benslow watched him patiently. "Kind o' ticklish business, ain't it?" he said.

The artist admitted that it was.

"I reckon I wouldn't ever 'a' done for a painter," said the old man, readjusting his legs. "It's settin'-work, and that's good; but you have to keep at it steady-like--keep a-daubin' and a-sc.r.a.pin' and a-daubin'

and a-sc.r.a.pin', day in and day out. I shouldn't like it. Sailin' 's more in my line," he added, scanning the horizon. "You have to step lively when you do step, but there's plenty of off times when you can set and look and the boat just goes skimmin' along all o' herself, with the water and the sky all round you. I've been thankful a good many times the Lord saw fit to make a sailor of me."

The artist glanced a little quizzically at the tumble-down house on the cliff above them and then at the old boat, with its tattered maroon sail, anch.o.r.ed below. "There's not much money in it?" he suggested.

"Money? Dunno's there is," returned the other. "You don't reely need money if you're a sailor."

"No, I suppose not--no more than an artist."

"Don't you need money, either?" The old man spoke with cordial interest.

"Well, occasionally--not much. I have to buy canvas now and then, and colors--"

The old man nodded. "Same as me. Canvas costs a little, and color. I dye mine in magenta. You get it cheap in the bulk--"

The artist laughed out. "All right, Uncle William, all right," he said.

"You teach me to trust in the Lord and I'll teach you art. You see that color out there,--deep green like shadowed gra.s.s--"

The old man nodded. "I've seen that a good many times," he said.

"Cur'us, ain't it?--just the color of lobsters when you haul 'em."

The young man started. He glanced again at the harbor. "Hum-m!" he said under his breath. He searched in his color-box and mixed a fresh color rapidly on the palette, transferring it swiftly to the canvas. "Ah-h!"

he said, again under his breath. It held a note of satisfaction.

Uncle William hitched up his suspender and came leisurely across the sand. He squinted at the canvas and then at the sliding water, rising and falling across the bay. "Putty good," he said approvingly. "You've got it just about the way it looks--"

"Just about," a.s.sented the young man, with quick satisfaction. "Just about. Thank you."

Uncle William nodded. "Cur'us, ain't it? there's a lot in the way you see a thing."

"There certainly is," said the painter. His brush moved in swift strokes across the canvas. "There certainly is. I've been studying that water for two hours. I never thought of lobsters." He laughed happily.

Uncle William joined him, chuckling gently. "That's nateral enough," he said kindly. "You hain't been seein' it every day for sixty year, the way I hev." He looked at it again, lovingly, from his height.

"What's the good of being an artist if I can't see things that you can't?" demanded the young man, swinging about on his stool.

"Well, what _is_ the use? I dunno; do you?" said Uncle William, genially. "I've thought about that a good many times, too, when I've been sailin'," he went on--"how them artists come up here summer after summer makin' picters,--putty poor, most on 'em,--and what's the use?

I can see better ones settin' out there in my boat, any day.--Not but that's better'n some," he added politely, indicating the half-finished canvas.

The young man laughed. "Thanks to you," he said. "Come on in and make a chowder. It's too late to do any more to-day--and that's enough." He glanced with satisfaction at the glowing canvas with its touch of green.

He set it carefully to one side and gathered up his tubes and brushes.

Uncle William bent from his height and lifted the easel, knocking it apart and folding it with quick skill.

The artist looked up with a nod of thanks. "All right," he said, "go ahead."

Uncle William reached out a friendly hand for the canvas, but the artist drew it back quickly. "No, no," he said. "You'd rub it off."

"Like enough," returned the old man, placidly. "I gen'ally do get in a muss when there's fresh paint around. But I don't mind my clothes.

They're ust to it--same as yourn."

The young man laughed anxiously. "I wouldn't risk it," he said. "Come on."

They turned to the path that zigzagged its way up the cliff, and with bent backs and hinged knees they mounted to the little house perched on its edge.

II

The old man pushed open the door with a friendly kick. "Go right along in," he said. "I'll be there 's soon as I've got an armful of wood."

The artist entered the glowing room. Turkey-red blazed at the windows and decorated the walls. It ran along the line of shelves by the fire and covered the big lounge. One stepped into the light of it with a sudden sense of crude comfort.

The artist set his canvas carefully on a projecting beam and looked about him, smiling. A cat leaped down from the turkey-red lounge and came across, rubbing his legs. He bent and stroked her absently.

She arched her back to his hand. Then, moving from him with stately step, she approached the door, looking back at him with calm, imperious gaze.

"All right, Juno," he said. "He'll be along in a minute. Don't you worry."

She turned her back on him and, seating herself, began to wash her face gravely and slowly.