Sylvester filled his pipe again. An evening rain had started to fall and he was glad to have an excuse to keep rocking in his chair and smoke one more pipe full before he had to go out to the barn and settle the animals in for the night. As he lit the tobacco he wondered at the strangeness of his best friend, dead these three years, reappearing in the face of his daughter, asleep now upstairs where James had slept so many times. Her eyes were the same, and her shy way of smiling, he thought. Exhaling, he felt the old, bitter anger at his friend’s death, then put it out of his mind. Nothing to be done then, all those miles away, nothing to be done now, except to care for his girl while she was here in his home.
He had to smile at the thought of his nephew Daniel, so smitten by Rose.
She was a beautiful girl, and so sweet looking as she slept at the table. When Sarah asked him to help her upstairs, half asleep, Daniel had stared so hard at the girl as he held her arm that he missed his footing on the stairs and almost tumbled both of them down. Laughing, Sylvester had asked Daniel, on his way back down, if he had a shoelace loose, and Daniel actually looked before he realized his uncle was fooling with him. He gave Sylvester a hot look and went out the back door, Sylvester trailing along behind him, still laughing.
Smiling, Sylvester thought that soon he’d have to get Daniel and Roy out to his fishing camp, it had been months since they’d been out hunting and some venison would be nice this time of year. Be a good distraction for both the young men, with all these females in the house, he thought. But as the list of chores and obligations he had started scrolling through his mind he realized that it would have to be after the new year before they could get away, and he sighed. January then, he decided. There was too much to take care of right now. Maybe in the quiet of winter, he wished, and had to laugh a little at himself for feeling so wistful about getting his feet wet every day out in the Gulf Hammock, for dragging dead carcasses out of the swamp and sleeping in a damp, crowded shack. Funny how all that inconvenience sounded better than a nice peaceful pipe, right here on this porch.
Thinking of his camp made Sylvester think about Christmas, and the surprise he’d been saving for Christmas night. He almost laughed out loud, thinking about it. But he needed an accomplice, and he’d decided the only one he could trust was his wife, Gertrude. Mama would never approve and his sisters were too liable to forget and tell about it before time, and besides Happy and Beauty were the ones he hoped to surprise the most. But would she be back for Christmas this year? He frowned, and all the old anger and sadness washed through him again. Those people make life awful difficult, he thought, and tried to shake off the hopeless feeling he had whenever he had to deal with the craziness of the world.
He inhaled smoke, blew it out in smoke rings, a trick that always delighted him, and let his worries drift off with the smoke. I’ll send her a telegram, he thought, ask her special. Let her in on the secret, she’ll come just to see what happens. He smiled as he pulled his notebook from the inside pocket of his coat, jotted himself a note to go to the depot tomorrow. He didn’t need a reminder to remember Gertrude, but it would be satisfying to be able to cross it off.
As he smoked, he thought about what his sister Beauty had told him after dinner about the Davis brothers bothering her and Happy. The anger rose up again, but he grinned as he thought of her description of the boys running away when Happy said his name, and the anger faded down. The last time some of the older Davis boys tried a similar conversation with some of the girls, he’d warned them away from his sisters and they’d scurried right off. Those kind of boys liked to talk nasty but sure enough they were cowards in the face of an angry brother. Even after their father had told Sylvester he had no right to speak to his boys about anything, Sylvester noticed how the older Davis boys slipped off and disappeared whenever he was around. He was sure these two younger boys would do the same right after he spoke to them. All it took sometimes was to speak up and everyone became reasonable. Or at least cooperative, he thought, smiling.
After he tapped out his pipe Sylvester looked around, making sure no one was watching, and reached behind his chair to loosen part of a clapboard in the lower porch wall. He pulled out a baking powder tin and pried the lid off, silently, then reached in for one of the hard candies hidden in the can. He stealthily put the can back in his hiding space and replaced the board; those children would eat up every sweet thing in this house if I didn’t hide me some, he thought, gloating a little, but after enjoying the peppermint for a bit he pulled out his notebook to remind himself to get them some peach drops down at Wright’s store tomorrow, feeling a little guilty.
Maybe I’ll walk out to the Davis homestead now, right after I bed down those cows, he thought. No time like the present, I suppose, and there’ll be enough moonlight for the walk back.
Sylvester pulled the collar of his sheepskin coat up around his neck, put on his black Stetson and moved off the porch towards the barn. He called out to his hunting dogs in their kennel as he passed by, and started whistling a bright tune as he walked on.