Trust (71 page)

I observed that he was panting slightly.

I asked, "You mean he paid per Purse?"

"He had to. Did you ever read
The Odyssey?
Greeks are very hard. You know my mother has this sort of riddle she invented. 'If the money in parsimony can be seen it won't be perceived' is how it goes but it isn't wonderful until you hear how we spell the last word," and he recited aloud capital letters and hyphens several times over until I had captured understanding. "You see how wonderful it is? 'If the money in parsi-money can be seen it won't be Purse-sieved.' Harriet Beecher printed the whole thing on a chart. You see when my mother and father got married they took this vow that they would never spend more than fifty-five cents a pound on any cut of meat. And they never have. The first joke my mother ever said to my father was 'When meat is dear, Purse-severe'"—and very politely and perseveringly he spelled out the joke for me, which, however, I was this time able to seize at once. Mrs. Purse, it seemed, had a great many jokes, but, analyzed according to their dominant principle, they could be reduced to a single crystalline substance, what some would call an article of faith—she believed she had married a man with a comical name; and, further, she believed this placed her under a certain obligation to the muse, whom she unflaggingly Purse-secuted. But this I was not able to conclude until afterward.

"Your mother," I said diligently, to please my navigator, "must write the slogans on buses," and dipped a forefinger over the side to feel the current.

"Oh no, my father wouldn't let her," he told me gravely, "he says
never
deface
any
thing, especially library books. He was really pretty bothered when Mr. Tilbeck explained how he used up the beds."

"The beds?" I said.

"Well,
he
sleeps in the kitchen, on a green sofa with little French people doing these minuets all over it in the embroidery. Mr. Tilbeck likes to have a roof over his head. He said that to my mother. That's why he stays in the house even though nothing works in it. The stoves don't work and the faucets don't work and the electricity doesn't work. Nothing works in the whole house. That's how come there aren't any beds. The radiators don't work either."

"I don't see the connection," I said.

"Mr. Tilbeck chopped them up for the fireplace last winter. All the beds in the house."

"Oh," I said.

"There's plenty of other furniture upstairs though. Only there's this very unusual sort of purple mold growing over most of it. In the kitchen there's this tremendous old refrigerator that doesn't work and
it's
full of purple mold. Harriet Beecher and Al and Foxy all climbed in to see if they would fit but Mr. Tilbeck said they might die in there if the door closed on them. So they got out. He's very nice to children, you know."

"Who's Harriet Beecher?"

"My sister. We say Harriet Beecher for short. Her whole name is Harriet Beecher Stowe Purse. When my mother wants her to keep quiet she says 'Harriet Beecher, Stowe your tongue in its Purse.' That's because Harriet Beecher is an unusually talkative girl."

"The price of being a Purse," I noted. "Extravagance of language. Money talks."

He appeared to appreciate this, though not much. "Well, I'm quite extravagant that way myself on occasion. Basically that's the reason I'm the one who turned out to be the family black sheep. They thought Foxy was going to be, but now I guess I'm the one for sure."

"But didn't you just say you're going to be a minister?"

"I said I'm going to be a minister D.V."

"Oh I see. Your mother disapproves of a Purse with initials on it."

"She disapproves of a minister," he said gloomily, "because my father does. He says it's nothing but self-assertion. Our meeting doesn't have a minister. We just have this quiet and you can say things if you feel the spirit but I want to be a real
pastor
with a flock and everything and a pulpit and these very long sermons I like to make up. So that's how come I'm the black sheep."

"In this case the black shepherd," I observed. "What was Foxy's offense?"

"Self-assertion, same as me."

"Another minister?"

"Not Foxy," he said scornfully. "Foxy's against ministers. You see he thought he ought to act exactly like the person he was named for, or what was the use of his being named for that person, and he said he had to wear this black coat without a collar and this big black flat hat and everything, and say thee to everybody, to be true to himself. But my father said it was all just wilful self-assertion, and the reason they named him after George Fox in the first place was so he'd be courageous within but meek of mien and very plain and not go make a circus of himself everywhere. And Foxy said well Throw's worse, he wants to put an altar in the meeting and be a bishop and make people cough up their sins to him, and my father said well at least Throw doesn't put thee in his English compositions and get D in grammar."

"You're Throw?" I inquired.

"Henry David Thoreau Purse," he said grandly, "and Dee's Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Al's Bronson Alcott, and Manny's Walt Whitman, and Sonny's Ralph Waldo Emerson. We're all named after someone great. It was my father's idea. At first my mother thought it was pretty shocking. She even told my father it
might
be self-assertion and maybe even self-praise not to call one's children just John and Mary and Susan and plain names like that. But my father said it wasn't for self-assertion, it was for inspiration. And then my mother's whole face lit up and she said, 'Yes, that
is
a good thought, because you certainly can't make a silk Purse out of a sow's ear,' and so they did it."

"It's a remarkable story," I admitted. "I've never known any Quakers before."

"That's just what Mr. Tilbeck said. When he asked us to come and stay with him he said he wanted to be able to tell himself just once that he'd tented a Friend in need."

I watched the oars rise and mused in a corrective spirit and finally muttered "Tended."

"Oh no, tented, that's why my mother laughed so much. She laughed
very
much at that. It's a joke. You see Quakers are really called Friends."

"I know that. I read it in the
Times,
" I said.

He devolved on me a wronged look. "It's not a very good joke. The real reason she laughed," and I took this as I was meant to, for a rebuke, "is that my father says always respond adequately to your host as long as a principle isn't being violated. You know all those old tents he has?"

"Who has?"

"Mr. Tilbeck. He dragged them out when we came and slammed the dust and plenty of caked mud out of them and put them up and now we sleep in them. He put them up right near this terrific sort of spring that comes right out of these real woods back of the house. It's terrifically sanitary. We brought our own soap. You wouldn't expect that primitive living could be so sanitary. My father says it's very good preparation for Pakistan."

"Oh," I said, enlightened, "tented a Friend. Yes. Did your mother top that one? It would be a Big Top, of course," I offered blandly.

He rewarded this sally into Mrs. Purse's inmost pouch with the stern avoiding gaze of an archbishop about to reprimand a poacher on ecclesiastical precincts; he missed a stroke of the oar, clapping wood on wood—the hull gave out a blank sound with no overtone—and for a moment we weaved without direction. "I guess she did," he informed me, and I thought he was patronizing me until I heard his reply, which vindicated his manner and humbled my own. "She said 'If you'll permit me to coin a phrase, Mr. Tilbeck, rely on it that you will always have a Friend in a Purse.' Then you know what Mr. Tilbeck said to that?"

"Bravo?" I asked.

"What?"

"He said bravo?" I ventured again. "
I
would have said bravo."

"No, no, he made a joke. He got the hang of it. Eventually everyone does. He said 'For a coin like that, go to a Purse.' That's not bad, you know."

"For a beginner," I agreed, "it's not bad. It didn't violate any principle? I suppose your mother responded adequately?"

"Oh yes, she laughed very much. We all did. If it wasn't for Mr. Tilbeck, who knows
where
we'd be—he's the one that saved us. My mother said he snatched us right out of the jaws of despair. She said we were all really very lucky to have met a Purse-snatcher."

I told myself privately that if they ever hanged Mrs. Purse for her wit, I should like to have charge of the Purse-strings.

"You see," explained my pilot, "the people we rented our house to had to move into it a whole week before it was time for us to leave for Pakistan from Idlewild Airport. You know Idlewild Airport? It's right near New York City. We were supposed to stay in this hotel in New York City for this bunch of days in between, before we had to go to Idlewild Airport. My father arranged it all in advance. He wrote for a room reservation and everything. But when we got to this hotel we had the reservation for, the manager came out and looked at us and counted and said we couldn't stay there unless we took two more rooms. Then my father said it wasn't fair and he didn't see why he should be forced to undergo all that extra expense for no good reason. Then the manager said because there are fire laws, and you can't have nine people in one room. Then my father said we certainly didn't intend to set fire to the hotel. Then my mother said it was injustice and not the fire laws at all, because we were a united family and the manager was just trying to divide one Purse three ways to get more money. Then the manager made this awful sort of demon's face and said he was very sorry but he was pretty sure he didn't have any extra rooms anyhow so would we please clear the lobby. So then we spent the whole morning going to different hotels and they all treated us the same way. My mother said New York City is very hard on pocketbooks and Purses."

"But you were rescued all the same."

"Well, my father says expect the unexpected, that's how come," he affirmed. "We had to give up after a while because Dee was starting to holler, so we went into this Automat place and sat down, the whole nine of us, and my father was thinking maybe we ought to spend the money on the extra rooms, we had to stay somewhere, and all the time we were talking it over, there was this man. We didn't even notice him. In New York City you never notice anybody, and this man kept on sitting drinking coffee at a table and sort of eavesdropping. It was terrifically discouraging. In spite of everything my mother made a joke, she said we reminded her of the Children of Israel, we were so dis-Pursed, with no pillow for our wanderers' heads and no place to sleep. Then all of a sudden this same man that was drinking coffee comes up to her and says why not sleep with me, madam, if you people would like to I could set up these tents for you on this property I have. He said it was on this island that's called Town Island and there's no town on it, but if
we
came, right away there'd be a whole population. Then he told us about hiring Polygon's launch to come over with, because he had only this one little motorboat that wouldn't hold us all. He said if we didn't mind roughing it we could stay the whole week and he'd be glad to have the company."

"And you accepted?" I marveled. "Just like that, out of the blue?"

"Sure, we took the train right out to the boatyard."

"They weren't afraid? Your father and mother?"

"Of what?"

"Of a stranger. It might have been an ambush. He could have robbed them. He might have been a murderer. His whole idea could have been to fleece them."

"Not Mr. Tilbeck!"

"But they didn't know."

"My father says never turn down an angel of mercy. My father says trust in your fellow-man and you trust in the Lord."

I murmured, "That sounds very nice."

"But it's true! It hasn't cost us a penny since we got here, that proves it. It's
much
cheaper than any hotel. —See that sort of bend in the shore line up ahead? No, across." He pointed and listlessly I followed his finger toward the green. "That means we're practically there. It isn't taking very long, is it? Even without the motor."

But I was preoccupied with a meditation: Gustave Nicholas Tilbeck as angel of mercy. "It hasn't cost a penny?" I repeated.

"Not even for the groceries. Mr. Tilbeck bought everything. That was when the motor was still working. We cook things over a campfire, like cave people."

"He hasn't said anything about money?"

"You mean
asked
for it?"

"Like rent," I said. "For putting you up, for instance. Or for anything. Money in general, I mean."

He shot out a quick scornful whistle. "Mr. Tilbeck's
rich.
He's got tons of money. He's got this whole
island.
"

"But he burns beds, washes in a brook, cooks in the open—"

"Well, he doesn't think it's worthwhile to rehabilitate the place. He told my father that. You see he doesn't really
live
there. He doesn't live there permanently. He's a traveler. He lives wherever he pleases. He has islands with old houses all over. He has an island right off Greece, right in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean."

"Crete?"

"He didn't say its name. You know some islands don't have names. But he owns them all over. He's terrifically rich.

Somebody that rich wouldn't ask for rent, especially not from us. With nine of us it wouldn't be fair."

"It wouldn't be justice," I said. "Does your father believe that story?"

"My father says never look a gift horse in the mouth."

"That's new," I said. "That's one I never heard before. What about your mother?"

"She said it was bad manners to worry about anybody else's situation. She said we should just keep Purse-spective on our own."

"That makes sense too," I capitulated.

He spelled out c-e-n-t-s, and explained that his mother, being a Purse, insisted she was always full of this. "But my father told my mother confidentially one night that Mr. Tilbeck might be a counterfeiter," he informed me. "He has all this money. I saw it myself."

"Well, the question is did you see the minting machine?—To be fair, I mean."