Sonnie-Boy's People — A Reader’s Guide

There was another little smile hovering. Necker waited hopefully. She, catching his eye, flushed and returned to her sewing. "We're all very happy here," she added after a moment, and, still flushing, resumed her needle.

Presently he pointed his cane at the boy on the beach. "A great deal of your brother in him, isn't there?"

"Very much. Our older friends back home say that it is like Greg--that is, my brother--being born all over."

"A fine boy, yes, Miss Welkie, and ought to be a great man some day. But I'll be running along now, Miss Welkie."

"You won't wait for him? He will be glad to see you, I know."

"Thank you; but after a man's been out there under that sun all day is no time for a friend to bother him. And I am a friend of your brother's, believe me, Miss Welkie. It is because I am a friend and an admirer of his that I'm here."

"But you will return later?"

"I will, thank you--after he's had time to clean up and eat and smoke, and a chat with his friend, I'll drop in for a little talk, and in that little talk, Miss Welkie, I hope you won't be against me, for I mean it for his best. So until eight o'clock to-night, Miss Welkie--_adios_." Necker, swishing his gold-headed cane, strolled leisurely away.

"I wonder what he wants of Greg," murmured Marie Welkie. And until his pea-green suit was lost to sight she speculated on his probable errand.

By and by her eyes, now less speculative, detected the smudge against the concrete walls. She took down a pair of glasses from the wall. It was the towboat leaving the wharf. The glasses took the place of her sewing, and they were still to her eyes when a sharp "Auntie!" came to her ears. "Tention, auntie! Colors!" warned the voice. Lowering the glasses, Marie came obediently to attention.

The sun was cutting the edge of the sea. The last level light lay on the long, slow, swelling waters like a rolling, flaming carpet, and in that flaming path the gray war-ships bobbed to anchor; and on the quarter-deck of every ship a red-coated band was drawn up, and from the jack-staff of every ship an American ensign was slowly dropping down. The boy stood with his back to her, but Marie knew how his heart was thumping, and she knew the light that would be on his face.

"O say! can you see--" came the swelling notes over the gently heaving bay. Marie could feel that young Greg was ready to burst; but she could not detect a move, not a quiver, out of him until the last note of the last bugle had ceased to re-echo. Then he saluted reverently, executed an about-face, and called out excitedly: "Auntie, auntie, there's papa now! Look!"

Marie pretended to see for the first time the towboat which, a hundred yards or so down the beach, was making a landing. "Sure enough, Greg!"

"Why, don't you see--godfather, auntie! O papa! Godfather!" He was off.

When he returned he was clinging on the one hand to a tall, brown, lean-cheeked, and rather slender man of thirty four or five, in dusty corduroy coat and trousers, mud-caked shoes and leggings, khaki shirt, and a hard-looking, low-blocked Panama hat; and on the other hand to a man also sun-tanned, but less tall and not so lean--a muscular, active man who may have lived the thirty years which Necker ascribed to him, but who surely did not look it now. At sight of Marie Welkie stepping down from the screened veranda he bounded like sixteen years across the beach. "Marie Welkie--at last!"

"Andie Balfe!" She took his hands within hers and drew them up in front of her bosom. The smile which Necker had so wanted to see again was there now, and now not to vanish in a moment. Balfe brushed her finger tips with his lips.

"How far this time, Andie?"

"From half the world around, Marie."

"And I would come it twice again to see your dear eyes smile."

"Could eyes be made so dull as not to light to your poetic touch, Andie?" And then, in a low voice, "Wait for the sunset." She stood upon her toes for her brother's kiss. "Another hard, hot day, Greg?"

"No, no, a fine day, Marie. Pedro"--he motioned to the negro at their rear--"put Mr. Balfe's suit-case in the corner of the veranda there. That'll be all to-night, except to see that Mr. Balfe's trunks come up from the towboat."

He paused on the veranda steps to get a view of the bay. As he stood there in silence, the lively notes of a dozen buglers came sharply to them. He still held the boy's hand.

"Getting so you know them all, aren't you, Sonnie-Boy? One minute from now ten thousand husky lads out there will be doing awful things to the commissary grub. But look there! Andie, did any of your kings or presidents ever offer you sights more gorgeous than that to view from their palace walls?"

It was the afterglow of the sunset, a red-and-orange glory fading into the blue-black velvet of a Caribbean twilight.

"It's by way of greeting to the far traveller. This may be the last place on earth here, Andie, but we warrant our sunsets to be the best on the market. But let's go inside and make ready to eat. What do you say, Sonnie-Boy?"

"But, papa, you said that when godfather came you would have the Little Men sing you a song for the steam-engine he sent me from Japan!"

"That's right, I did. But where is it?"

"Right here, papa." From the veranda corner he picked up a toy locomotive. "Look! _Lightning_, I've named it."

"A fine name for it, too. Well, let me see. How was it? Oh, yes! Lunch-time to-day it was, and your papa was smoking his cigar and looking out to sea all by himself. It was very quiet, with all the donkey-engines stopped and the men eating inside the walls. On the bluff beyond the fort I was sitting, with my feet hanging over the edge, and the mango-tree I've told you so often about was shading me from the sun. The wind was blowing just a wee mite, and every time the wind would blow and the tree would wave, a mango would drop into the bay. Plump! it would go into the ocean below, and every time a mango dropped down a Little Man in a green coat popped up."

"Shiny wet, Sonnie-Boy, and blowing their cheeks out like so many blub-blubs."

"What's blub-blubs, papa?"

"A blub-blub is a fat little fish who takes big long gulps deep down in the ocean and then comes to the top o' the water, and, when he sees anybody watching him, puffs out his cheeks and goes--blub-blub! like that."

"Like men sometimes, papa?"

"Just like. Well, by 'n' by there were twelve o' the Little Men in green coats, and they sat under the mango-tree all in a row and looked at me, and the one at the head o' the row puts up one finger, with his head to one side and his little round eye rolling out at me, and he says: 'Did Sonnie-Boy's godfather send him that steam-engine from Japan yet, what you told us about? 'Cause if he did, we have a fine pome about it.'

"'Yes, he did send him a fine steam-engine from Japan,' I said, 'and you go on and let me hear your pome, and if it's a good pome I'll give you all a fine ripe mango to eat.' And so they all puffs out their fat little cheeks and they begins:

"'Godfather bought him an engine, red and black, It wabbles slightly and the wheels don't track----'"

"But it don't, papa, 'n' the wheels do track."

"But that's what they said.

"'But Sonnie-Boy felt prouder than England's queen When it puffed real smoke and sure-enough steam.'"

"But it's a king in England, papa."

"I know, but that's the way the Little Green Men told me. Some things they don't know yet, they're so little.

"'He named it Lightning 'cause of its speed, And the 'casional spills he did not heed. All big roads had accidents, people knew-- There was danger sure when the whistle blew.'"

"It's true, 'bout th' accidents, isn't it, papa?"

"Nothing truer. Now, let me see. What else? Oh, yes:

"'The Lightning Express is coming back, Clear the way there, people, off the track! Or Sonnie-Boy's engine, red and black, Will knock you down and hit you whack!'"

"That's great, papa. And did they have a band with them?"

"No. No band, but one little six-toed fellow--I 'most forgot him--was playing on a hook-a-zoo. That's a sausage-shaped thing, with things like rabbit's ears on it. The music comes out the ears."

"And what kind of music, papa?"

"Oh, like a jew's-harp something, only being bigger 'twas louder. Zoo-zoo, zoo-zoo-zoo it went."

"I like those Little Green Men, papa, but where was the Little Blue Men to-day, did they say?"

"Oh, they'd gone to a wedding, the hook-a-zoo player said."

"They know everything, don't they, papa?"

"M-m-most everything."

"And will the Little Men tell me things when I'm a big man, papa?"

"If they don't, I won't let 'em have any more mangoes."

"An' what the bugle men play 'n' what the flags say when they hoists them up in the air on the big gun-ships, papa?"

"If you're a good boy, they will. And now what d'y' say if we go in and you tell Diana your papa wants some hot water out of the kettle. And while you're doing that and auntie and godfather are talking things over to themselves, I'll be laying out my razor and my soap 'n' things all ready to shave. There you are, there's the boy!"

It was after dinner on Welkie's veranda. The two friends had been smoking for some time in silence. Young Greg had just left with his aunt to go to bed. Balfe was thinking what a pity it was the boy's mother had not lived to see him now. He turned in his chair. "What would you do without him, Greg?"

Welkie understood what his friend had in mind. "It would be like the days having no sunrise. I'd be groping in the dark, and almost no reason for me to keep on groping. Splashed in concrete and slaked in lime, from head to toe, steaming under that eternal sun, five hundred spiggities and not half enough foremen to keep 'em jumping, I find myself saying to myself, 'What in God's name is the use?' and then I'll see a picture of his shining face running to meet me on the beach, and, Andie, it's like the trade-wind setting in afresh. The men look around to see what I'm whistling about. But"--Welkie sniffed and stood up--"get it?"

Balfe caught a faint breath, the faintest tang borne upon the wings of the gentlest of breezes.

Welkie went inside. Presently he returned with bottles and glasses. "When a little breeze stirs, as it sometimes does of a hot night here, and there's beer in the ice-box and the ice not all melted, life's 'most worth living. Try some, Andie--from God's country. And one of these Porto Ric' cigars. Everybody'll be smoking 'em soon, and then we poor chaps'll have to be paying New York prices for 'em, which means we'll have to make a new discovery somewhere."

"Wait, Greg--I almost forgot." Balfe stepped to his suit-case, took out a box of cigars, and handed it to Welkie. "From Key West. Hernando Cabada. When I told him I was going to see you, he sat down and rolled out that boxful, which took him three hours, and gave them to me for you. 'For my friend, Mis-ter Wel-keey-ay,' he said."

"Good old Hernando!" Welkie opened the box. Balfe took one, Welkie took one; they lit up.

"Ah-h--" Welkie woofed a great gob of smoke toward the veranda roof. "Andie, you won't have to make any chemical analysis of the ashes of these cigars to prove they're good. There is an artist--Hernando--and more! I used to drop in to see him after a hot day. He would let me roll out a cigar for myself in one of his precious moulds, and we'd sit and talk of a heap of things. 'Some day, Hernando,' I'd say, 'along will come some people and offer you such a price for your name that I reckon you won't be able to resist.' 'No, no, my friend,' he would say. 'For my nam' there shall be only my cigar. I shall mak' the good, fine cigar--until I shall die. And for the sam'--one pr-r-ice.' How'd you come to run into him, Andie?"

"I'd heard about him and you. I suspected, too, that he could verify a few things about the Construction Company."

"He did. And so they have been after you again?"

"And offering more money than ever?"

They smoked on. Again Balfe half turned in his chair. "I haven't seen you, Greg, since the President sent for you from Washington that time. How did you find him?"

"Fine. And I tell you, Andie, it heartened me to think that a man with all he's got to tend to would stop to spend an hour with an obscure engineer."

"You're not too obscure, Greg. What did he have to say?"

"Oh-h--said he wanted me to do a piece of special work, and he wanted me because several people, in whose judgment he had confidence, said I was the man for the job. You were one of 'em, Andie, he told me, and I'm thanking you for it."

"I'm not sure that you ought to thank me, Greg. With that big company you would be wealthy in a few years, but the trouble is, Greg, when I'm on the job I'm as bad as you, only in a different and more selfish way. I know only one road then, and once I set out I'd brush aside anything for the one thing, Greg."

"Of course, when it's for the flag."

"Could I do anything else?"

"Where would he come into it, Andie?"

"You don't think that your feeling for the lad and your work could ever clash?"

"How could they ever clash, Andie?"

"I don't know, Greg. I hope not." He relit his neglected cigar. "But what else did the President have to say?"

"He said it was a bit of emergency work he wanted me for, that only the remnant of a small appropriation was available for it, and that if I took it I would be pitiably paid; but that he wished me to do it, because some day, and that not too far away, it might have to stand the test not of friends, but of enemies. Also he said--let me see----"

"That for foreign policy's sake it would have to be done quietly, without advertising, as a bit of departmental work?"

"And that you would get no great reputation out of it, that your very report would remain a supplementary paper buried in departmental files?"

"Did it strike you that the conditions were hard, Greg?"

"Not after he explained things. And so when the Construction people said to me later: 'You're crazy, man! Look the two propositions in the eye!' I said: 'I've looked one of 'em at least in the eye and I'm passing the other up--and the other is yours.'"

"Lord, Greg! whether you're the best or the worst concrete man in the world is a small matter--you're a great man. And if some day--" Balfe let his front chair-legs come down bang and bounded to his feet.

"Greg"--it was Marie who had returned--"I don't know how I ever forgot, but I never thought till a moment ago--there was a Mr. Necker here to see you this evening."

"Well, you don't often forget, Marie. Must be the sight of those battle-ships. Necker? I don't know any Necker. You know him, Andie?"

"I was trying to guess coming over on the boat. I was still guessing when he got off. I could guess, Greg, who he is, but it would be only a guess."

"He didn't leave any message, Marie?"

"None, except to say that he would call again at eight. He seemed to know something of you and to be friendly."

"He must be a friendly soul to come to this place to see anybody. Well, when he comes we'll know. How'd you leave Sonnie-Boy?"

"He's waiting for you to say good night."

"I'll go up to him." He went inside.

Marie picked up her ensign. Balfe placed a chair for her at the little work-table, and himself took the chair on the other side of the table.

"A great joy for you, also--young Greg, Marie?"

"If you could hold him and feel his little heart against yours when he's saying 'Good night, auntie,' after he's said his prayers! His prayers and the 'Star-Spangled Banner' are his great set pieces."

"And between you and Greg it's safe to say he's got both letter-perfect."

"And spirit-perfect, we're hoping. But I must get on with this ensign for him."

"Pretty good size, isn't it, for a toy ship?"

"But it's a battle-flag. He'll have none but battle-flags. There, I'm up to the stars."

"You're never far from them. Let me make a stretching-frame of my fingers and square this end."

"Do. Not quite so tight. And now--those new States come in so fast!--how many now?"

"M-m--four eights and two sevens?"

"Four eights and two sevens."

She sewed rapidly, and without looking up, until she had completed the first row. "There--there's one of the eights. Now you can breathe again, Andie."

Balfe sat back. "What did you make of Mr. Necker, Marie?"

She, too, sat back. "I wonder what I did make of him. He was very curious about you."

"That's interesting."

"Yes. He asked questions and I couldn't quite fib to him, and yet I couldn't see why he should expect me to tell him all about you. And so"--she paused and the little half-smile was hovering around again.

"And so I did not attempt to check his imagination." She repeated the conversation of the afternoon. "I meant to speak of it at dinner, Andie, to you and Greg, but I forgot."

"Here's a far traveller--" He paused. She looked up, and quickly looked down.

"--who gives thanks that you forgot, Marie, in that first glad hour, Mr. Necker and his--well, his possible mission."

"You know something of him, then, Andie?"

"I'm still guessing. But I'm wondering now if you said to yourself when he had gone: 'After all, what will Greg get out of this government work? Is it fair to himself to refuse those great offers and stick down here? And what will it mean to young Greg?'"

Marie Welkie let the ensign drop onto the table. "My very thoughts in words, Andie. And while we're speaking of it, will Greg ever get the recognition due him, Andie?"

"Dear me, that some day! After he is dead, I suppose. You men are the idealists! But being only a woman, Andie Balfe, I don't want to wait that long to see my brother rewarded."

"And being only a man, Marie Welkie, I also want to see my friend rewarded before he's laid away."

"Who could answer that? But I stopped off in Washington on my way, Marie, and had a long talk with a man who is fine enough to appreciate the dreams of idealists and yet sufficiently human to allow for most human weaknesses. We discussed Greg and his work. The Construction people were mentioned. He asked me if I thought Greg would go with them. 'And if he does, Mr. President, can be he blamed?' was my answer."

"And how did he take it?"

"He leaned back in his chair and looked through his glasses with his eyebrows drawn together, in that way you'd think he was scowling if you didn't know him. After a moment he said: 'I should be sorry, but if he does, no professional or legal--no, nor moral--obligations can hold him.'"

"There! Greg does not even get credit for----"

"Wait. 'But will he?' he continued. I said that I did not think so. 'What makes you think he won't?' 'Because I know him, sir. But,' I went on, 'don't you think, Mr. President, that by this time he should have a word of encouragement or appreciation?' And that led to quite a talk."

"Greg and his work, Marie."