Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin Page 6

  Mamma mistook Benjamin’s searching glance for quite another reason.

  “I must confess”—she shook her head—“it seems strange that Grimalkin is not here to say good-by to thee. It is not like him.”

  Papa stood thoughtful a moment. “A gopher, likely,” he mused. “Grimalkin ever was fond of an early morning hunt.”

  At sound of his name Grimalkin tried to squeeze out of the little porthole.

  Quick as a flash Benjamin clapped his hand over his stomach.

  “Is thee ailing, little wren?” asked Mamma.

  “No, Mamma!” replied Benjamin, his face reddening. “I am fine!”

  “He appears feverish to me,” said Sarah. “And from the way he is scratching he may be breaking out with the measles.”

  “The prospect of adventure always brings blood to the traveler’s face,” replied Uncle Phineas as he mounted and gave a hand to Benjamin. “Is thee comfortable perched behind me?”

  “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Benjamin in a panic, for Grimalkin was now exploring the back of Samuel’s coat and mewing faintly.

  “Let us be off,” he begged in a voice loud enough to drown out Grimalkin’s cries.

  Uncle Phineas’ horse pawed the ground in agreement.

  “Easy there,” cried Uncle Phineas, and the big pacer swung out of the courtyard while the family shouted words that Benjamin could not hear.

  Benjamin’s right hand and forearm were fastened securely about Uncle Phineas’ belt. With his left hand he now unbuttoned four more buttons of Samuel’s coat. He could feel Grimalkin scrabbling around for an exit. He could see Grimalkin’s head peer out like an opossum from its mother’s pouch.

  Benjamin heaved a great sigh of relief. They were safely off at last! Now they could both enjoy the sights and the smells of autumn.

  “Stroke Grimalkin for me,” chuckled Uncle Phineas.

  “How’s thee know?” gasped Benjamin.

  “Because,” laughed Uncle Phineas, “I saw a black tail wave from between the flaps of thy coat as I helped thee mount. I knew thee could not possibly have sprouted a tail so quickly.”

  Chapter 14

  THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE

  How could a boy be homesick with a traveling companion like Uncle Phineas? As they jogged along, he told such wondrous tales of Philadelphia that Benjamin’s imagination flew on ahead.

  They passed farm carts loaded with wheat and cabbages and pigs and chickens and flax and corn for the market in Philadelphia. But Benjamin hardly saw them.

  In his mind’s eye he was already there! He pretended he was a big, pompous man followed by a black cat and a slave pushing a wheelbarrow. He was striding from market stall to market stall, tasting little samples of butter and cheese, then stopping to let the black cat lick his fingers. When his half-boots came untied, the slave had to kneel down and tie them. No matter what went wrong, the slave had to fix it. At last he bought some huge turtles and lobsters, a firkin of butter and cheese, a suckling pig, a gammon of bacon, a skipple of salt, and led the way home, his nose in the air.

  To the pleasant music of Uncle Phineas’ voice and the steady hoofbeats of the big sorrel, Benjamin went on with his make-believe. He pretended next that he was the slave, pushing the wheelbarrow along the rough block pavement of the market street. On every hand he was bumped and jostled. He could feel his back and arms ache with the weight of the load. He could feel the perspiration run down his face. In fact, with Uncle Phineas acting as a windbreak and with Grimalkin’s furry warmth and Samuel’s extra coat, and the sun climbing higher and higher, Benjamin actually was perspiring!

  He tapped Uncle Phineas on the shoulder. “Uncle!”

  “Yes?”

  “I am glad I am a Quaker like Papa. He says it is wrong to have slaves.”

  “So it is!” replied Uncle Phineas as he brushed a low-hanging branch out of his way. “And especially in a city like Philadelphia. Does thee know what the name Philadelphia means?”

  “No, Uncle.”

  “Philadelphia is a Greek word. It means brotherly love.”

  “How did the Indians happen to choose a Greek name?” asked Benjamin, puzzled.

  Uncle Phineas slapped his thigh. “They didn’t,” he laughed. “They called it Coaquannock, which means a grove of tall pines.”

  “Are the pines still there?”

  “Not all of them, to be sure. Some are ships’ masts now. They sail the seas, then come back to rest in the port of Philadelphia, in sight of the very hills where they grew.”

  “Uncle Phineas, thee would have made a fine schoolmaster!” sighed Benjamin as he lifted Grimalkin to his shoulder.

  They were traveling over low roads now and early fall rains had churned them up. “Used to be we spoke of spring as mudtime,” mused Uncle Phineas. “Now it appears we have mudtime in autumn, too.”

  He fell silent, watching to see that his horse did not step in a chuckhole. The only sound to be heard was the sucking noise made by the sorrel’s hoofs and Grimalkin’s rumbly purring.

  The town crier was calling the hour of seven when Uncle Phineas and Benjamin and Grimalkin arrived in the City of Brotherly Love. Lanthorns twinkled in the entryways of the big brick houses. Slits of candlelight escaped through the shutters.

  Uncle Phineas was a bachelor and lived at the Penny Pot Inn. As they walked into the great room of the inn, a joint of meat was turning on a spit before the fire. Instead of a boy turning the roast, it was managed by a little dog running in a treadmill cage.

  Grimalkin high-tailed it for the hearth. He licked up all the little spatters of gravy, then sat hopefully waiting for more. “Turn faster! Faster!” he seemed to say. “I’m well-nigh starved.”

  Benjamin was tired, and the poor turnspit dog looked so tired, too, that a great wave of homesickness came over him. Perhaps it was not homesickness alone. Added to it was the hot feeling of guilt for sneaking Grimalkin away.

  Suddenly he was asking the innkeeper for a piece of paper and laboriously trying to write with a goose-quill pen that needed mending. Slowly the letters took form.

  For

  John West

  To be left at Door-Latch Inn

  near Springfield

  in Chester County

  Philadelphia,

  the 28th of the 10/mo 1746

  Dear Papa and Mamma—Grimalkin is with me. He traveled well in Samuel’s coat. I am sorry for hiding him. It was dreadful wrong of me. I hope to mend my ways, and hope thee will not mind paying the fourpence postage.

  Thy loveing son

  Benjn

  Luckily a postrider happened to be leaving for the west. He added Benjamin’s letter to the others in his saddlebag and thundered off into the night.

  Benjamin watched him out of sight. Then he trudged back to the hearth.

  “A good hot meal is what thee needs,” smiled Uncle Phineas.

  And it was indeed! Benjamin ate a great slice of beef, although he had not meant to at all because of the poor turnspit dog. He finally made a bargain with himself. He would ask for a second slice and save half of it for the dog and half for Grimalkin. Then he felt better at once.

  When the innkeeper’s daughter set a porringer of peas on the table with a little jug of honey, both Benjamin and Uncle Phineas recited together:

  “I eat my peas with honey,

  I’ve done it all my life.

  It makes the peas taste funny,

  But it keeps them on my knife.”

  All homesickness was gone.

  Chapter 15

  ON THE BANKS OF THE DELAWARE

  Philadelphia is a world in itself,” Uncle Phineas told Benjamin the next morning. “And it is thine and Grimalkin’s to explore. Listen sharp, lad. My shop is on Winn Street. Penny Pot Inn is hard by the River Delaware. The market is on High Street. Commit that to memory and thee will never get lost.”

  Neither the cat nor the boy got beyond the River Delaware. In the whole County of Chester, Grimalkin had never seen rats so mon
strous and lively. As for Benjamin, his eyes flew over the harbor. Now he knew why Jacob Ditzler wanted to come back to Philadelphia when he was man-grown. Here were things to see! Ships building. River boats and ships of the sea. Single-masted sloops. Two-masted brigs. Ships that carried a hundred ton!

  As they made their way down to the water front Benjamin spied a string of rawhide lying discarded in front of a warehouse. Suddenly he had an idea. He picked up the string and quickly made it into a cat’s collar with a long lead. Now he could explore the wharves without fear of losing Grimalkin.

  Together they visited all of the sail lofts. They saw apprentice boys sitting on low stools, mending sails with great long needles. They saw boys twisting hemp into ships’ ropes. Without stopping their work, the boys eyed Grimalkin curiously. Benjamin studied every face. Somewhere among the young apprentices he hoped to find the eager round face of Jacob Ditzler. But not one among the boys even resembled him. Perhaps, thought Benjamin, he is among the sailors loading or unloading the ships. Together the boy and the cat trudged the full length of the wharf, but most of the sailors they saw were grown men. Benjamin inquired at every warehouse, too, but no one had heard of a boy named Jacob Ditzler.

  By midday Benjamin was tired and discouraged. He shared a piece of journeycake with Grimalkin. Then they both curled up in the shelter of a long wooden shed and dozed in the sun.

  Just as they were falling into a deep sleep, they woke with a start. Steeple bells were clanging. Guns were saluting. And from all the red houses up and down the hillsides people came running.

  “What is it?” asked Benjamin of a lad who almost stumbled over Benjamin’s feet.

  The boy was running so fast he could not stop. “The Antelope Packet,” he called over his shoulder. “She’s almost ready to dock.”

  Benjamin scooped Grimalkin into his arms and raced in the direction of Winn Street.

  “Uncle! Uncle!” he cried as he burst into Uncle Phineas’ shop. “The city has come alive. I need a paintbox!”

  A slow smile spread over Uncle Phineas’ face. He reached far back on a shelf and produced a clean canvas and a paintbox exactly like the one he had sent Benjamin.

  The bells were still clanging. The guns were still saluting as Benjamin set up his canvas on the banks of the Delaware. Grimalkin patted and sniffed the cakes of paint. Then he settled down at Benjamin’s feet and blinked up as if to say, “This seems almost like home. Now I can take a real snooze.”

  Sailors from Spain and Portugal, from New England and old England, from the West Indies and the Azores gathered about Benjamin. Few spoke the same language. But they all understood the picture that took shape before their eyes. A shining river going out to sea. Men fishing on the banks. A ship in the harbor. And a white cow eying the water.

  Perhaps Benjamin would not have painted so easily had he seen the scarlet chariot of Samuel Shoemaker draw up behind him.

  Samuel Shoemaker was known throughout the colonies as a big merchant. If Uncle Phineas had five boxes of salt in his warehouse, Samuel Shoemaker had twenty and five. If Uncle Phineas had ten rolls, each, of calico and cambric, Samuel Shoemaker had ten times ten, and silks and velvets besides.

  After handing the reins to a slave, Samuel Shoemaker threaded his way through the crowd of sailors and tapped Benjamin on the shoulder with his gold-headed cane.

  Benjamin looked around in surprise. He had never seen a man quite like this before. His face was as plain as a salt box, but his wig and his clothes were wonderful to behold. His wig was tied to resemble pigeons’ wings at the sides. And he wore a purple waistcoat with a cascade of white ruffles that reminded Benjamin of the waterfall in Grevling’s picture.

  “Lad, who are you?” asked Samuel Shoemaker, his eyes on the canvas rather than on Benjamin.

  “Why, I am Benjamin West, son of John West,” replied Benjamin in a voice so like Papa’s that Benjamin scarcely knew it for his own. “I come from Door-Latch Inn, in the Township of Springfield, in the County of Chester.”

  The man threw back his head and laughed so vigorously that the powder from his wig rose like a white fog. “Egad!” he whistled. “You must be Pennington’s nephew. I am Samuel Shoemaker.”

  “Thee knows my Uncle Phineas?” asked Benjamin.

  “La, yes! Here is the proof.”

  And right there on the banks of the Delaware with all the sailors tapping their feet to the tune, the great Samuel Shoemaker recited:

  “I eat my peas with honey,

  I’ve done it all my life.

  It makes the peas taste funny,

  But it keeps them on my knife.”

  When the foot-tapping and the laughter died away, Mr. Shoemaker said: “I have just ordered a picture from the artist William Williams. I am on my way to his lodgings now and should be glad of your company.”

  “But I—I have a cat—”

  Mr. Shoemaker looked down at Grimalkin, who was now sniffing his shoe buckles.

  “A mannerly cat is welcome anywhere,” he nodded.

  “Why, that is what Mamma says. Her very words!” smiled Benjamin as he handed Mr. Shoemaker his paintbox.

  Carrying his picture very carefully in one arm and Grimalkin in the other, Benjamin climbed into the chariot while the sailors thumped one another on the back and grinned at his good fortune.

  • • •

  William Williams was a little cricket of a man who had gone to sea in his youth. He lived in a small studio with hardly any furniture. But to Benjamin it was the most beautiful room he had ever seen. Canvases lined the walls. And from them pink flamingo birds and ships’ captains and parrots and white-wigged ladies and gentlemen looked down with a superior air. It was almost as if they could smell the turnips and cabbages cooking in the rooms below. To Benjamin, however, no room had ever smelled more exciting. He sifted out the familiar cooking odors and breathed in the good smell of paints and oils.

  Mr. Shoemaker seemed in a hurry to leave. He introduced Benjamin and Grimalkin, asked when his picture would be delivered, then turned to go. “I’ll leave you two artists alone,” he said with a wink. “You’ll have much to talk about.”

  But when the door was closed Benjamin seemed to be struck dumb. He wanted to ask a million questions. Yet he could think of none.

  At last William Williams thought of a question. “What books,” said he, “have you read?”

  “Why, I’ve read the Bible. I’ve read about John and Thomas and Samuel and Joseph. My brothers were named for them.”

  “I mean books on the art of painting,” said Mr. Williams with a slow smile.

  “Oh,” gulped Benjamin in surprise. “Are there books on painting?”

  For answer Mr. Williams reached up on his chimney shelf and took down two sizable volumes. They were bound in brown leather that had the nice look of an old saddle.

  There was a kind of worship in the way Mr. Williams held them. “These two authors are Richardson and Dufresnoy. They were my teachers,” he said as he looked down at Benjamin. “Now they can be yours, too.” And he laid the books in Benjamin’s hands.

  Just then Grimalkin began to mew hungrily.

  “Yo-ho!” laughed Mr. Williams. “Here is a cat that wants his dinner. Now it so happens that a lady who is sitting for her portrait just brought me a whortleberry pie and a crock of fresh milk. I’ll heat the pie to make it juicy and toothsome. Meanwhile we can speak about your picture.”

  Benjamin had eaten nothing but dry journeycake since breakfast. His mouth watered at the thought of hot whortleberry pie, but no sooner had Mr. Williams left the room than his appetite was gone. He wished he could hide the picture. A hundred doubts began pricking at his mind. Were the colors too bright? Did the cow stand out too sharply?

  He had about decided to snatch up his picture and his cat and run down the flight of stairs when Mr. Williams returned with the pie and a basin of milk for Grimalkin. All the while that he set the milk on the floor and placed the pie in the warming oven at the side of t
he chimney, he had one eye on Benjamin’s picture.

  Benjamin stole a sly glance at his face. It was as blank as a wig rest. He listened for some word of criticism. None came. Instead, Mr. Williams reached for the tongs hanging at the side of the mantel, took a live ember from the fire, then slowly lighted his pipe.

  And just when Benjamin could bear the silence no longer, Mr. Williams spoke. Even then Benjamin could not tell how he felt, for all he said was, “Will you leave your picture with me, lad? I want to show it to Dr. Smith of the Academy.”

  Chapter 16

  “WE WISH TO BUY THEM”

  Can’t see that thee has changed much,” said Papa when Benjamin and Grimalkin returned from Philadelphia.

  “Except,” said Papa, stroking his beard thoughtfully, “thee and Grimalkin be thinner while thy knapsack appears heavier.”

  “Yes, Papa. It is filled with presents—a parcel of thread for Mary, bone buttons for Sarah, a comb for Hannah and buckles for Elizabeth.”

  “Mere trifles,” snorted Papa. “What gives it the bulk?”

  “A johnnycake pan for Mamma, and . . .”

  “And what?”

  “Two books,” replied Benjamin as he placed them in Papa’s hand. “For thee—and me,” he added in a weak voice.

  Papa looked over the books, trying to make out their titles. “My spectacles are on the candle shelf,” he said. “Take the books inside. They will bear looking into.”

  That night Benjamin went to sleep to the pleasantest of sounds. Overhead, the small patter of rain on the cedar shingles. Below, Papa’s voice reading aloud from Richardson’s book on the art of painting. Benjamin strained his ears. He could not make out the words, but the tune was good. For when Papa’s voice began to rise and fall and boom and quake, he was mightily pleased. Even Grimalkin could tell that. He burrowed deep in under the quilts and purred in his loud rumbly fashion, as he always did when Papa and The Family were at peace.

  • • •