Выбрать главу

Yes, I suppose his name had something to do with it, although I’m not one of these advanced people who test everything by psychology. He did hate to have me call on him, and now that I think of it, it was probably because of course I had to use his name. Did you ever hear the like? He did take a lot of joshing because his name was Cain, and any time one of the other boys ragged him about it there was a fist fight. He was big and strong for his age and he would fight at the drop of a hat. In the four years I taught him he licked every blessed boy in school, just about, and some of the girls, too! There was no nonsense about chivalry in that child...

Oh, he stopped them making fun of it, yes. Toward the end of the fourth grade — when Opal Marbery inherited him, thank goodness! — no, she’s been dead for many years — toward the end, as I say, while he was still having plenty of fights, they weren’t about his name. But he and I had a feud over it to the bitter end. I always felt that it was a very unfair thing for a child to do. After all, I couldn’t help his name being Cain, could I? I had to call the little devil something...

URIAH SCOTT (“U.S.”) WHEELER

(68, principal of Fyfield Gunnery School. Kin to the Wheelers of Hill Drive. Kept referring to his family’s hero, Murdock Wheeler, Wrightsville’s last surviving vet of the G.A.R., who died in 1939, as if the old fellow had been General Grant himself. Was Cain’s teacher at the Gunnery School in 1911, when Cain was 14.)

My dear Mr. Queen, on the contrary I consider it an honor. I have always allowed myself to brag that I had a little something to do with shaping the character, and therefore the destiny of Mr. Bendigo. Although I’ve lived in Fyfield ever since coming to teach at Gunnery in 1908 as a very young man, I have always retained a soft spot in my heart for the town of my birth, and Mr. Bendigo is without doubt Wrightsville’s greatest living citizen. It’s high time indeed that someone like yourself collated the facts of his early life among us humble folk for posterity...

Yes, of course, about his name. Excellent point of character! His father enrolled him at Gunnery as Cain Bendigo — C-a-i-n — as nasty a trick to play on a future great man as I’ve ever heard of, haha! We used to joke about it in the Faculty Room. But he soon changed all that. A mere boy, sir, in a school in which discipline has always been preached and practiced as a cardinal virtue. My kinsman, Murdock Wheeler, who did distinguished service for our country in the Civil War, used to say...

He changed it! Just like that. One day he marched into the Administration Office and demanded that the spelling of his name be changed on the school’s roster from C-a-i-n to K-a-n-e. He had already begun heading his papers in his various classes with his first name in the revised spelling. He was confined to quarters for three days for his disrespectful tone and attitude. When he returned to classes, he immediately marched into the Administration Office and made the identical demand — in, I might add, haha, the identical tone! He was again punished, more severely this time. Nevertheless as soon as he was released, there he was again. His father was summoned to Fyfield. Mr. Bendigo senior, on hearing what had occurred, forbade the school authorities to alter the spelling of his son’s name. The boy listened in silence. When he came to my class that very day, his first action was to head a paper “K-a-n-e Bendigo”. It made a very pretty problem for us! — and I must confess it was a problem we never solved. He never wrote his name “C-a-i-n” again, to the best of my knowledge. And when he was graduated and saw that the name on his diploma was spelled “C-a-i-n” — the school had no choice, you see — he marched into Principal Estey’s office, tore the diploma in quarters before Dr. Estey’s nose, flung the pieces on the desk, and marched out again!...

CAIAPHAS TRUSLOW

(Town Clerk. ’Aphas succeeded Amos Bluefield as Clerk after old Bluefield’s death on Columbus Day eve in 1940. ’Aphas helpful throughout.)

Yep, here it is, Mr. Queen. William M. Bendigo and Ellen Foster Wentworth, June 2, 1898. My father knew Mr. Bendigo well. And Ellen Wentworth was the sister of old Arthur Wentworth, who was attorney for John F. Wright’s father. The Wentworths were one of the real old families. All dead now...

Well, yes, except for the two younger Bendigo brothers, but they don’t count, now, do they?...

About this marriage, that was Mr. Bendigo’s second. His first was...

They were married in the First Congregational Church on West Livesey Street. Reason I know is I was a choir boy at the ceremony. Way I heard it, Ellen Wentworth insisted on a church wedding just because her folks were against the match. She had a lot of spunk for a girl in those days. Wasn’t a soul there — not a soul in the pews, not even her family! No, there was one — Nellie Hinchley, who was holding Mr. Bendigo’s first child by his first wife on her lap...

Old Mr. Blanchard was pastor then — no, no, he’s been dead and gone for forty-two years — and he was so fussed he messed up the service. Mr. Bendigo got so riled at poor old Mr. Blanchard he puffed up to twice his size just holding himself in — and he looked like a mighty big man to us kids!...

Dr. PIERCE MINIKIN

...delivered the second boy, too. Different mother this time, one of the Wentworths. Ellen, her name was. Not as pretty as Dusolina. Dusolina was little and dark and had a face shaped like a valentine and big black eyes. Ellen was blonde and blue-eyed and on the skimpy side — looked a little bloodless. But she had breeding, that girl. And money, of course. Leave it to Bill Bendigo to pick up a bargain. There were lots of men from good families in Wrightsville tried to shine up to Ellen. But she wanted love. And I reckon she got it, haha!...

Oh, Bill was wild the second time, too. Not because the mother of the child died, though Ellen never was very strong and soon after developed the heart condition that in a few years made her a semi-invalid. It was because for his second child he’d made up his mind to have a girl. And damned if the baby didn’t outsmart him this time, too! Turned out to be a boy again. Bill never did get over that. If he hated young Cain for being a mother-killer, he had nothing but contempt for the second boy for not turning out a girl. Wouldn’t spit on him. These days a doctor would send a man like Bill to a psychiatrist, I guess. Those days all you could do was take a buggy whip to him, only Bill was too big. So when he said to me, “Doc Pierce, my wife has birthed a sneaky little demon who spent nine months in the womb figuring out how to cross me up, and there’s only one name for a baby like that. You go down to Town Clerk Orrin Lloyd and you register this child’s name as Judas Bendigo,” I tell you, young fellow, I was horrified. Said I wouldn’t do any such thing and he could damned well put that curse on his own child himself. And he did. Bill Bendigo had a cruel sense of humor, and he was cruelest when he was mad...

Don’t know how he squared it with Ellen. She found out pretty early in married life that there was only one boss in Bill Bendigo’s house. Of course, having a heart condition... Often wondered what became of Bill’s second boy. Imagine naming a boy Judas!...

MILLICENT BROOKS CHALANSKI

(69, aunt of Manager Brooks of the Hollis Hotel. Married Harry Chalanski of Low Village. Chalanski was Polish immigrant boy whom M.B. tutored in English, fell in love with, helped through State U. Their son is young Judson Chalanski who succeeded Phil Hendrix as Prosecutor of Wright County, when Hendrix went to Congress. One of the happiest mésalliances in Wrightsville!)