A World Lost: A Novel (Port William) Read Online Free Page B

restless, reckless,
humorous, and loud. One Christmas-it must have been 1939-Henry
and I conceived the idea of giving him a cigarette tin filled with rusty
nails. Our mother wrapped it prettily for us and put his name on it. A
perfect actor, he received it with a large display first of gratitude and
affection, and then, as he opened it, of curiosity, anticipation, surprise,
indignation, and outrage. He administered a burlesque spanking and
stomping to each of our "bee-hinds," as he called them, uttering
throughout the performance a commentary of grunts, raspberries, and
various profane exclamations. Thus he granted success to our trick.

    At about that time his drinking seems to have become a problem
again. My father, who could not rest in the presence of a problem -who
in fact was possessed by visions of solutions - decided that Uncle Andrew
should come home and farm. Borrowing the money, my father bought
two farms, one that we continued to call the Mack Crayton Place about
five miles from Hargrave, and another, the Will Bower Place, adjoining
Grandma and Grandpa Catlett's place nearer to Port William. Uncle
Andrew, according to the plan they made, would look after the farms
while my father concentrated on his law practice. My father sent Uncle
Andrew enough money to buy a 1940 Chevrolet, and Uncle Andrew and
Aunt Judith came home. Uncle Andrew was then forty-five years old, five
years older than my father.
    That homecoming gave me a new calling and a new career. Uncle
Andrew and Aunt Judith rented a small apartment in a house belonging
to an old doctor in Hargrave. Uncle Andrew began his daily trips to the
farms, and I began wanting to go with him. I was six years old, and going
with him became virtually the ruling purpose of my life. When I was not
in school or under some parental bondage, I was likely to be with him.
On the days I went with him, the phone would ring at our house before
anybody was up. I would run down the stairs, put the receiver to my ear,
and Uncle Andrew's voice would say, "Come around, baby."
    I would hang up without replying, get into my clothes as fast as I could, and hurry through the backstreets to the apartment, where Aunt
Judith would have breakfast ready. She made wonderful plum jelly and
she knew I liked it; often she would have it on the table for me. Uncle
Andrew called coffee "java," and when Aunt Judith asked him how he
wanted his eggs, he would say, "Two lookin' atcha!" singing it out, as he
did all his jazzy slang.

    To me, there was something exotic about the two of them and their
apartment. I had never known anybody before who lived in an apartment; the idea had a flavor of urbanity that was new and strange to me.
Uncle Andrew and Aunt Judith had lived in distant places, in cities, that
they sometimes talked about. They had been to the South Carolina seashore, and Uncle Andrew had fished in Charleston Harbor. I had never
seen the ocean and I loved to quiz them about it. Could you actually ride
the waves? How did you do it? If you looked straight out over the ocean,
how far could you see? I could not get enough of the thought that you
could not see across it. Besides all that, Aunt Judith was the only woman
I knew who smoked cigarettes, and this complicated the smell of her
perfume in a way I rather liked.
    We would eat breakfast and talk while the early morning brightened
outside the kitchen window, and they would smoke, and Uncle Andrew
would say, "Gimme one mo' cup of that java, Miss Judy-pooty."
    Finally we would leave, and then began what always seemed to me
the day's adventure; I knew more or less what to expect at breakfast, but
when you were loose in the world with Uncle Andrew you did not know
what to expect.
    The Chevrolet was inclined to balk at the start, and Uncle Andrew
would stomp the accelerator and stab the engine furiously with the
choke. "That's right! Cough," he would say, stomping and stabbing, "you
one-lunged son of