Chapter 5: An Odd Song

“There’s one thing certain,” thought I; “my household personnel is altogether too pulchritudinous for a man like Smith, and it begins to worry me.”

Considerably disturbed in my mind I reconnoitered Smith’s rooms, and found him, as I suspected, loitering there on pretense of re-arranging the contents of his bureau-drawers.

Now Smith had no legitimate business there; it was Clelia’s hour to do his rooms. But, as I say, I already had noticed his artless way of hanging about at that hour, and several times during the last two weeks I had encountered him conversing with the girl while she, her blonde hair bound up in a beguiling dust-cap, and otherwise undeniably fetching, leaned at ease on her broom and appeared quite willing to be cornered and conversed with.

My advent always galvanized this situation; Clelia instantly became busy with her broom and duster, and Smith usually pretended he had been inquiring of Clelia where I might be found.

He attempted the same dishonesty now, and, with every symptom of delight, cordially hailed me and inquired where I’d been keeping myself since breakfast.

“I’ve been out doors,” said I coldly, “where I hoped—if I did not really expect—to find you.”

This sarcasm put a slight crimp in his assurance, and he accompanied me out with docile alacrity, which touched me.

“It’s too good a household to spoil,” said I. “A little innocent gaiety—a bit of persiflage en passant—that doesn’t interfere with discipline. But this loitering about the vicinity of little Clelia’s too brief skirts is almost becoming a habit with you.”

“She’s a nice girl,” returned Smith, vaguely.

“Surely. And you’re a very nice young man; but you know as well as I do that we can’t arrange our social life to include the circle below stairs.”

“You mean, in the event of travelers arriving, they might misconstrue such a democracy?”

“Certainly, they’d misjudge it. We couldn’t explain why our cook was playing the piano in the living-room or why Clelia laid aside her dust-pan for a cup of tea with us at five, could we?”

“Or why Thusis and you went trout fishing together,” he added pleasantly.

A violent blush possessed my countenance. So he was aware of that incident! He had gone to Zurich that day. I hadn’t mentioned it.

“Smith,” said I, “these are war times. To catch fish is to conserve food. Under no other circumstances——”

“I understand, of course! Two can catch more fish than one. Which caught it?”

“Thusis,” I admitted. “Thusis happened to know where these Swiss trout hide and how to catch them. Naturally I was glad to avail myself of her knowledge.”

“Very interesting. You need no further instruction, I fancy.”

“To become proficient,” said I, “another lesson or two—possibly——” I paused out near the fountain to stoop over and break off a daisy. From which innocent blossom, absent-mindedly, I plucked the snowy petals one by one as I sauntered along beside Smith.

Presently he began to mutter to himself. At first I remained sublimely unconscious of what he was murmuring, then I caught the outrageous words: “Elle m’aime—un peu—beaucoup—passablement—pas-du-tout——”

“What’s that?” I demanded, glaring at him. “What are you gabbling about?”

He seemed surprised at my warmth. I hurled the daisy from me; we turned and strode back in hostile silence toward the bottling house.

My farmer, Raoul Despres, was inside and the door stood open. We could hear the humming of the dynamo. Evidently, obeying my orders of yesterday, he had gone in to look over and report upon the condition of the plant with a view to resuming business where my recent uncle had left off.

We could see his curly black head, and athletic figure inside the low building. As he prowled hither and thither investigating the machinery he was singing blithely to himself:

“Crack-brain-cripple-arm

You have done a heap of harm—

You and yours and all your friends!

Now you’ll have to make amends.”

Smith and I looked at each other in blank perplexity.

“That’s a remarkable song,” I said at last.

“Very,” said Smith. We halted. The dynamo droned on like a giant bee.

Raoul continued to sing as he moved around in the bottling house, and the words he sang came to us quite plainly:

“Crack-brain-cripple-arm

Sacking city, town and farm!

You, your children and your friends,

All will come to rotten ends!”

“Smith,” said I, “who on earth do you suppose he means by ‘Crack-brain-cripple-arm’?”

“Surely,” mused Smith, “he could not be referring to the All-highest of Hunland ... Could he?”

“Impossible,” said I. We went into the bottling house. And the song of Raoul ceased.

It struck me, as he turned and came toward us with his frank, quick smile and his gay and slightly jaunty bearing, that he had about him something of that nameless allure of a soldier of France.

“But of course you are Swiss,” I said to him with a trace of a grin twitching at my lips.

“Of course, Monsieur,” he replied innocently.

“Certainly ... And, how about that machinery, Raoul?”

“It functions, Monsieur. A little rust—nothing serious. The torrent from the Bec de l’Empereur runs the dynamo; the spring flows full. Listen!”

We listened. Through the purring of the dynamo the bubbling melody of the famous mineral spring was perfectly audible.

“How many bottles have we?” I asked.

“In the unopened cases a hundred thousand. In odd lots, quart size, twenty thousand more.”

“Corks? Boxes?”

“Plenty.”

“Labels? Straw?”

“Bales, Monsieur.”

“And all the machinery works?”

For answer he picked up a quart bottle and placed it in a porcelain cylinder. Then he threw a switch; the bottle was filled automatically, corked, labeled, sheathed in straw and deposited in a straw-lined box.

“Fine!” I said. “When you have a few moments to spare from the farm you can fill a few dozen cases. And you, too, Smith, when time hangs heavy on your hands, it might amuse you to drop in and start bottling spring water for me—instead of rearranging your bureau drawers.”

The suggestion did not seem to attract him. He said he’d enjoy doing it but that he did not comprehend machinery.

I smiled at him and made up my mind that he’d not spend his spare time in Clelia’s neighborhood.

“Raoul,” said I, “that was an interesting song you were singing when we came in.”

“What song, Monsieur?”

“The one about ‘Crack-brain-cripple-arm.’”

He gazed at me so stupidly that I hesitated.

“I thought I heard you humming a song,” said I.

“Maybe it was the dynamo, Monsieur.”

“Maybe,” I said gravely.

Smith and I walked out and across toward the cow-stables.

There was nothing to see there except chickens; the little brown Swiss cattle being in pasture on the Bec de l’Empereur.

“If time hangs heavy with you, Smith,” I ventured, “why not drive the cows home and milk them in the evenings?”

He told me, profanely, that he had plenty to do to amuse himself.

“What, for example, did he tell you?”

“Write letters,” he said, —”for example.”

“To friends in dear old Norway, I suppose,” said I flippantly.

“To whomever I darn well please,” he rejoined drily.

That, of course, precluded further playful inquiry. Baffled, I walked on beside him. But I sullenly decided to stick to him until Clelia had done the chamber-work and had safely retired to regions below stairs.

Several times he remarked he’d forgotten something and ought to go to his rooms to look for the missing objects. I pretended not to hear him and he hadn’t the effrontery to attempt it.

The words of Raoul’s song kept running in my mind.

“Crack-brain-cripple-arm

You have done a heap of harm—”

And I found myself humming the catchy air as I strolled over my domain with my unwilling companion.

“I like that song,” I remarked.

“Of course you would,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re so bally neutral,” he replied ironically.

“I am neutral. All Chileans are. I’m neutral because my country is.”