The Keeper of the Bees, page 14
“And ‘Grandma’ threw back her head and laughed until half the diners in the room looked in her direction. Then she took off her glasses and wiped her eyes and said, ‘Lord love you, child, your old Grandma wouldn’t know a calorie from a calumet! You’ll have to ask your up-to-date mother.’
“Then the youngster laid down her spoon and announced very positively, ‘I can’t eat thith jello leth I know if it’s got the right number of calorith!’
“And the white-haired lady answered, ‘Well, my dear, I am a pretty good physical specimen myself, and I’ve gotten along all my life without knowing whether I was eating calories or vitamins or rattlesnakes. I just go ahead and eat food that is what I want and tastes right and nothing happens to me. There won’t anything happen to you If you eat what you want for one day while you are lunching with me, and tomorrow Mother can tell you whatever it is that you want to know.’
“The baby thought that over and then she said cheerfully, ‘All right. I’ll dust eat it and thee what it doth to me! Maybe it will reduthe my hipths. Don’t you think they sthick out a little too much?’
“I looked at the little person carefully. She had the brightest eyes and the finest skin. You could see away down into her cheeks. Her lips were so red and her flesh looked so firm that I thought to myself, ‘Well, whatever calories and vitamins may be, they have certainly done very perfect work on you. If I were your mother, I’d keep you right straight on the path you’re going.’
“I asked Molly something about it and she tells me that she broke down a little with her school work last year and she took a trip to Denver. There she heard about a doctor who cures everything that ails you with what you eat. The idea seems to be that there are certain food combinations that you can’t safely mix. The point Molly brought out was that the great American breakfast, eggs and toast and bacon and coffee, is about a deadly combination. Molly said that doctor proved that the yeast of bread and the albumen of egg and the fat of bacon and what caffeine you get in coffee would kill a guinea pig in short order. It seems that you may eat all the eggs you want cooked any conceivable way, but you must not take them in combination with the yeast of bread and the acids of meat. You may eat all the starch you please at one meal; but you must not take it in combination with the acids of meat or albumen. You must keep the bread and potatoes and starchy things confined to one meal. Then for dinner you may have any kind of meat you want; but you must take it with vegetables that are not starchy. You must cut off the bread, beans, potatoes, any starch. You must confine the desserts to fruits and jellos and leave out the pastry. It is simple; it is easy. Merely a slightly different arrangement in combinations of the same things you have been eating all your life. But Molly says it makes all the difference in the world. She’s been trying it for a year and she says her flesh is so hard and her muscles work so fine, and her brain functions better and she doesn’t know she has a stomach. She thinks it’s wonderful. What I am going to do is to make a point of seeing her and get her to write out the combinations and then I am going to try them on myself and I can try them on you at the same time. And on your own hook you can try the sand and sunshine and the salt water and the sea fog and the tomato and oranges and we’ll see how we come out.” “At any rate,” said Jamie, “It will be more interesting to put in time planning a fight to live than to spend months moping around figuring on how soon I am going to die. In the meantime, if you would be so good as to fix up that arrangement you talked about for bandaging, I’d be very grateful. If I could get out of the weight of all this harness, I’d almost feel as If I’d been redeemed spiritually as well as physically.”
So Margaret went home to bring her sewing basket and her measuring tape, and Jamie sat on a chair while she took his measurement for the length and width the bandages need be and figured on the shoulder straps to support them. Then Jamie returned to his work.
At exactly ten o’clock he came up the back walk and selected two of the biggest, ripest tomatoes he could see on the Bee Master’s vines. He carried them to the kitchen and worked the juice from them through a small round sieve he found hanging on the wall, and when he had a tumbler overflowing, he lifted it and drank it with the keenest relish.
“That certainly hits the spot!” he said.
Then, being Jamie, and his early rearing being ingrained he emptied the pulp into the sink basket and turned the faucet on the sieve and when it was thoroughly cleaned, he wiped it on a towel hanging above the sink and laid it in the sunshine of the window sill to be quite sure that it dried thoroughly without rusting. From the hook beside the door he took down the Master’s bathing suit, and going to his room, divested himself of his clothing and stepped into the suit, and when he drew it up to button it over his shoulders, he was not wearing anything by way of dressings for his wound save a pad of gauze fastened in place with such binding as he could secure from a face towel pinned with safety pins. His bare shoulders felt wonderfully released. He was as elated as a woman with a hair-cut.
In old slippers to protect his tender feet, and with an old Indian blanket to keep his unaccustomed flesh from burning, and a handful of towels, Jamie went down the back walk, traveling slowly, out through the gate, and standing there he selected one spot where the waves of the bay stretched before him looked peculiarly clean and foamy white. Then he made his way between the mounds of gold primrose and the verbena that waited for the cool of the evening to show the loveliness of its face and to distil on the air its delicate perfume.
Gingerly Jamie set his bare feet on the wet sand. Slowly he advanced on the ocean. When the first cold waves broke over his feet he could have shouted with delight. They were not nearly so cold as he had imagined they would be. Only cold enough to give a refreshing feeling of exhilaration. A little farther out, a little farther out, he was in to his knees; then halfway to his waist; then to a point where he began to feel top heavy, to realize that he must either swim or go back. He could not feel that swimming was exactly the thing he should undertake, so he contented himself for the beginning with walking up and down at the greatest depth he could manage and preserve his equilibrium. He could not always tell exactly how the waves were going to run, and sometimes he stumbled on an unseen rock. Once he fell headlong and felt a cold wave, half of terror, half of delight, run through his blood while a colder wave of salty water washed clear over him. He stumbled to his feet and shook back his head. He reached down and scooped up handfuls of water and rubbed it up and down his arms and over his shoulders. He swung his long arms in it and kicked out his feet, and when he found that he was panting, he walked out and, purposely, in the cleanest, bluest place he could select, thoroughly immersed himself. Then he arose and went back to his blanket. He arranged it, and the towels he had brought, in such a way as to cover his arms and legs and his head, and to leave his trunk clad with the wet suit exposed, and he stretched himself on the hot sands and let the sun of California come raying straight down until it dried the salt water in the dressing pad and the suit into and around the wound on his breast. The amazing thing was that it did not sting nearly so badly as he had thought it would—nothing to compare with the severity of many of the different dressings that had been used until his flesh was cooked almost to the point where it would endure no further punishment.
Jamie found himself saying: “Salt. Saline solution.” It struck him that he had heard of natives in uncivilized countries using salt for the healing of wounds. He remembered institutions that advertised salt baths. There must be something pretty fine about salt used medicinally. Then he remembered that the little Scout had told him that every gallon of water dipped from the Pacific Ocean contained three and one half per cent of salt.
When he had lain for an hour in the sun, Jamie got up and went to his lunch, and afterward to twenty minutes on his feet in the garden, and then a nap. Then he drank the juice of two ripe oranges, drank it cool from the ice of the small refrigerator. It struck him, as he closed the refrigerator, that it might be a good idea to work up enough tomato juice to fill two or three glasses and consign that to the ice so that he could have it cool. So he went down to the garden and gathered the tomatoes and put that thought into action.
It was while he was in the kitchen working with the tomatoes that there came a rush of feet under the window and a blood-curdling series of yells broke on the air. Jamie dropped the tomato that he had been using extreme care not to drop and muttered an exclamation as he recovered it, drenched it under the faucet, and laid it on a plate. Then he stepped to the back door to see what the commotion might be.
Drawn up in front of him at a particularly erect angle and pulling off as snappy a salute as he was accustomed to seeing anywhere, stood the little Scout. Ranged along the walk there were three children concerning whose sex there could not be the slightest doubt.
The little Scout indicated the first youth in line.
“Eleven, possibly twelve,” said Jamie to himself.
The introduction, accompanied by a wave of the hand, and a flourish of a wooden sword, was this: “Fat Old Bill!”
Jamie’s quick eyes went to the face of the youngster. Fat Old Bill had not the slightest objection to being “Fat Old Bill.” He grinned, did his best at a salute, and stepped aside.
The Scout Master waved a sword, and a boy—“Possibly ten,” commented Jamie—a boy lean, slender, with olive skin and red lips, with black hair and big liquid black eyes, a boy unusually beautiful, stepped up, trimly saluted the Scout Master and then Jamie. The introduction that accompanied him was, “Pa’s and Ma’s Nice Child.”
Again Jamie’s eyes searched the face of the youngster, and it was evident that the “Nice Child” did not give a darn what the Scout Master called him.
The sword waved for the third time as the Nice Child stepped aside and the next boy fell into line—“Possibly thirteen and maybe fourteen,” was Jamie’s comment—a boy taller than either of the others, with enough flesh amply to cover his bones, red hair, blue eyes, and immaculate and unusually expensive and carefully selected clothing. There was a peculiar arch to the boy’s lips, a slight projection of the teeth, a flock of dancing lights shining in his eyes. The wooden sword waved a wide circle and grounded. The red-haired youngster executed a salute for the Scout Master so gracefully that it was a picture to see. His heels drew together, his chin lifted, his shoulders squared. The salute was wonderful. The Scout Master waved him on to Jamie with the introduction, “Angel Face.”
For the third time Jamie looked inquiringly and discovered that Angel Face was so accustomed to the title that he probably would have been annoyed if it had not been used.
Then, with little gray points of malice in his eyes, Jamie squared his shoulders and executed a for-sure, honest-to-goodness, four years in a bleedingly bloody war salute for the youngsters, and all of them pricked up their ears and recognized the real thing when they saw it.
“Gentlemen of the Scout Company,” said Jamie, “I am exceedingly gratified to be introduced to you. No doubt the Bee Master has been accustomed to welcoming you in his garden. In his absence, I extend the same welcome.” He turned to Angel Face. “Would you be good enough,” he said, “to give me an introduction to the Scout Master?”
The red-haired boy opened his eyes wide.
“The Scout Master knows you!” he said, defiantly. “Sure!” said Jamie. “The trouble with me is that I don’t know the Scout Master.”
At that minute a badly battered wooden sword circled through the air.
“Attention! Scouts to order!”
The boys lined up and saluted beautifully.
“Ready!” came the order of the Master. “Tell the world the name of your Scout Master!”
The boys squared themselves and paused ready. The eyes of each of them were focused on the point of the sword.
“Altogether now!” said the Scout Master. The sword waved through the air and in unison, at the tops of their voices, the boys began, each letter bitten off with a snap that fairly hurled it in the face of Jamie: “T-H-E, The. L-I-M-I-T, Limit—The Limit!”
They saluted and dropped back and the Scout Master stepped before Jamie, sheathed the sword, straightened the right hand down the seam of the pantaloons, laid the left across the breast, and the figure swayed forward in a profound bow. Jamie knew exactly as much as he did at the beginning—slightly more, for he saw that the Scouts really were obedient and really were well trained.
Then the Scout Master addressed Jamie: “The Bee Master lets us fight Indians here.”
“All right,” said Jamie. “Whatever he allowed goes with me.”
The Scout Master turned to the Scouts.
“Disband!” came the sharp order. “Prepare for attack!”
Jamie looked the Scout Master over. He had no notion when the Dutch bob had been brushed. It was ornamented with quite a collection of the wild oats of California and a few small twigs and leaves. The face might have been clean some time that morning. It certainly was not clean then. He saw a different shirt, but equally as disreputable, and the same breeches and shoes that had been worn on the first visit. The Scout Master marched down the length of the walk, heading straight toward an opening in the whitewashed board fence that separated the grounds of the Bee Master from those of Margaret Cameron. Jamie Watched while the right hand of the Scout Master went into a protruding pocket and from a mass of things that it contained selected a piece of red chalk. By that time Jamie had taken a seat on the bench under the jacqueranda and concentrated on the Scout Master. He had forgotten the Scouts. He had even forgotten to wonder why they had disappeared and where they went. With deft strokes, quick and sure, the Scout Master was executing on the white painted fence, with sufficient skill that the intention was recognizable, the figures of four Indians. The first was limned as leaning forward peering ahead. The second was more erect. The third faced front and the fourth followed.
When the Scout Master reached the girders to which the boards of the fence were nailed, he merely lifted the chalk, made a line on the edge, and dropped back again to the boards. By the time the four figures were blocked in sufficiently to be recognized, the Scout Master came back to Jamie and from a breast pocket of the shirt produced a genuine police whistle through the ring of which a leather string was knotted that passed around the neck. Lifting the whistle, the little Scout blew a shrill note, and bounding past bushes and over flowers, from different directions came the Scouts. Each of them was armed with a gaudily trimmed bow, a leather quiver on the back filled with crudely fashioned arrows. Most of the arrows were roughly dressed splinters of wood.
The Scout Master saluted.
“Scout One, my weapons!”
The imperative command was instantly answered by Angel Face. He saluted before the Scout Master and offered an extra bow and quiver of arrows. Gravely, the arrow pouch was slung over the shoulder and the strap fastened on the breast. Gravely, the bow was taken possession of and the sword sheathed.
“Scout Two!”
Fat Old Bill grinned the salute he could not make as he appeared around a lilac bush his arm loaded with big, dead-ripe tomatoes.
“Scout Two, advance and do your duty!” came the command, and Fat Old Bill waddled to the fence and set a big red tomato on the girder exactly where the heart might have been supposed to be in the anatomy of each crudely drawn man.
Then action began suddenly, whirlwind action. The voice of the Scout Master was shrill with excitement.
“Attention, Scouts! The enemy are upon us. Our homes, our children, our firesides are in danger! Keep in ambush. When you see the whites of their eyes, if you are ready, Griggsby, you may fire! Aim at the bloody hearts of them! Fire to kill!”
The Scout Master darted behind a clump of Scotch broom, fitted an arrow to the string of the bow, and selected the tomato heart of the first enemy for a personal target. Bill and the Nice Child and Angel Face chose for themselves different bushes and trees of the garden and at the Scout Master’s shrill cry: “Fire!” with various success in aiming, the arrows whanged against the fence.
Jamie sat watching the proceedings. He was in doubt as to what his position in the circumstances might be. The fence that had been particularly and shiningly white was most objectionably decorated in consideration of the beauty of the garden, Jamie wanted a liberal supply of those red tomatoes himself and he had been thinking when he gathered the ones he was preparing in the kitchen, that instead of allowing quantities of them to waste, it might be possible for him to carry them to the nearest corner vegetable stand and secure for them at least enough to buy a box of blackberries or red raspberries or some other necessary food that he might want. There was a possibility that such fine fruit as those tomatoes could be sold for enough money to replenish the cash drawer from which he was supposed to buy the milk and ice and the daily paper.
While he was meditating on these things, the air awoke to a series of shrill cries. if Jamie had been blindfolded, he would have sworn that there were twenty-five youngsters on the job instead of four. It was no longer possible to tell Fat Old Bill from Angel Face. The Scout Master was lost in a series of wildly revolving gyrations which included deftly leaping over flower beds, dodging behind trees, circling bushes, crawling belly to earth. A hail of arrows pinged against the fence, and presently, the wilder the excitement grew, the straighter the arrows seemed to be aimed, and tomatoes began flying far and wide. In the midst of the din a particularly well aimed arrow hit a particularly large tomato rather from below and jarred it from the fence. Among the wild cries Jamie could distinguish the voice of the Scout Master shouting, “Ha! Another enemy bit the dust!” And return shouts, “Call the ambulance!” “Put him on ice!” Suddenly Jamie sat back and began to laugh quietly, began to enjoy himself. The first thing he knew he was down on his hands and knees. He had gathered a handful of pebbles from the walk before him and then, screened by the jacqueranda, he began shooting the pebbles with accuracy and precision at the tomato hearts of the enemy. Seeing this the Scout Master went wild. “Soak ’em!” came the shout. “Pep up!”
