Like Brothers

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Title:     Like Brothers
Author: Caradoc Evans [More Titles by Evans]

Silas Bowen hated his brother John, but when he heard of John's sickness, he reasoned: "Blackish has been his dealings. And trickish. Sly also. Odd will affairs seem if I don't go to him at once."

At the proper hour he closed the door of his shop. Then he washed his face, and put beeswax on the dwindling points of his mustache, and he came out of Barnes into Thornton East; into High Road, where is his brother's shop.

"That is you," said John to him.

"How was you, man?" Silas asked. "Talk the name of the old malady."

"Say what you have to say in English," John answered in a little voice. "It is easier and classier."

That which was spoken was rendered into English; and John replied: "I am pleazed to see you. Take the bowler off your head and don't put her on the harimonium. The zweat will mark the wood."

"The love of brothers push me here," said Silas. "It is past understanding. As boyss we learn the same pray-yer. And we talked the same temperance dialogue in Capel Zion. I was always the temperance one. And quite a champion reziter. The way is round and about, boy bach, from Zion to the grave."

"Don't speak like that," pleaded John. "I caught a cold going to the City to get ztok. I will be healthy by the beginning of the week."

"Be it so. Yet I am full of your trouble. Sick you are and how's trade?"

"Very brisk. I am opening a shop in Richmond again," John said.

"You're learning me something. Don't you think too much of that shop; Death is near and set your mind on the crossing."

John's lame daughter Ann halted into the room, and stepped up to the bed.

"Stand by the door for one minit, Silas," John cried. "I am having my chat confidential."

From a book Ann recited the business of that day; naming each article that had been sold, and the cost and the profit thereof.

"How's that with last year?" her father commanded.

"Two-fifteen below."

"Fool!" John whispered. "You are a cow, with your gamey leg. You're ruining the place."

Ann closed the book and put her fountain pen in the leather case which was pinned to her blouse, and she spoke this greeting: "How are you, Nuncle Silas. It's long since I've seen you." She thrust out her arched teeth in a smile. "Good-night, now. You must call and see our Richmond establishment."

"Silas," said John, "empty a dose of the medecyne in a cup for me."

"There's little comfort in medecyne," Silas observed. "Not much use is the stuff if the Lord is calling you home. Calling you home. Shall I read you a piece from the Beybile of the Welsh? It is a great pity you have forgot the language of your mother."

"I did not hear you," said John. "Don't you trouble to say it over." He drank the medicine. "Unfortunate was the row about the Mermaid Agency. I was sorry to take it away from you, but if I hadn't some one else would. We kept it in the family, Silas."

"I have prayed a lot," said Silas to his brother, "that me and you are brought together before the day of the death. Nothing can break us from being brothers."

"You are very doleful. I shall shift this little cold."

"Yes-yes, you will. I would be glad to follow your coffin to Wales and look into the guard's van at stations where the train stop, but the fare is big and the shop is without a assistant. Weep until I am sore all over I shall in Capel Shirland Road. When did the doctor give you up?"

"He's a donkey. He doesn't know nothing. Here he is once per day and charging for it. And he only brings his repairs to me."

"The largest charge will be to take you to your blessed home," said Silas. "The railway need a lot of money for to carry a corpse. I feel quite sorrowful. In Heaven you'll remember that I was at your deathbed."

John did not answer.

"Well-well," said Silas, whispering loudly, "making his peace with the Big Man he is"; and he went away, moaning a funereal hymn tune.

John thought over his plight and was distressed, and he spoke to God in Welsh: "Not fitting that you leave the daughter fach alone. Short in her leg you made her. There's a set-back. Her mother perished; and did I complain? An orphan will the pitiful wench be. Who will care for the shop? And the repairing workman? Steal the leather he will. A fuss will be about shop Richmond. Paid have I the rent for one year in advance. Serious will the loss be. Be not of two thinks. Send Lisha to breathe breathings into my inside--in the belly where the heart is. Forgive me that I go to the Capel English. Go there I do for the trade. Generous am I in the collections. Ask the preacher. Take some one else to sit in my chair in the Palace. Amen. Amen and amen." In his misery he sobbed, and he would not speak to Ann nor heed her questionings. At the cold of dawn he thought that Death was creeping down to him, and he screamed: "Allow me to live for a year--two years--and a grand communion set will I give to the Welsh capel in Shirland Road. Individual cups. Silver-plated, Sheffield make. Ann shall send quickly for the price-list."

His fear was such that he would not suffer his beard to be combed, nor have his face covered by a bedsheet; and he would not stretch himself or turn his face upwards: in such a manner dead men lie.

Again came Silas to provoke his brother to his death.

"Richmond shops are letting like anything," he said.

"The place is coming on," replied John. "I was lucky to get one in King's Row. She is cheap too."

"What are you talking about? There's a new boot shop in King's Row already. Next door to the jeweler."

"You are mistook. I have taken her."

"Well, then, you are cheated. Get up at once and make a case. Wear an overcoat and ride in the bus."

But John bade Ann go to Richmond and to say this and that to the owner of the house. Ann went and the house was empty.

A third time Silas came out of Barnes, bringing with him gifts. These are the gifts that he offered his brother John: a tin of lobster, a tin of sardines, a tin of salmon, and a tin of herrings; and through each tin, in an unlikely place, he had driven the point of a gimlet.

"Eat these," he said, "and good they will do you."

"Much obliged," replied John. "I'll try a herring with bread and butter and vinegar to supper. Very much obliged. It was not my blame that we quarreled. Others had his eye on the agency."

"Tish, I did not want the old Mermaid. You keep her. I got the sole agency for the Gwendoline."

"How is Gwendolines going?"

"More than I can do to keep ztok of her. Four dozen gents' laces and three dozen ladies' ditto on the twenty-fifth, and soon I order another four dozen ladies' buttons."

John called Ann and to her he said: "How is Mermaid ztok?"

"We are almost out of nine gents and four ladies," answered Ann.

"Write Nuncle Silas the order and he'll drop her in the Zity. Pay your fare one way will I, Silas."

Silas fled the next day into the Mermaid warehouse and sought out the manager. "My brother J. Owen and Co. Thornton East has sold his last pair of Mermaids," he said.

He brought trouble into his eyes and made his voice to quiver as he told how that John was dying and how that the shop was his brother's legacy to him. "Send you the goods for this order to my shop in Barnes," he added. "And all future orders. That will be my headquarters."

He did not go to John's house any more; and although John ate of the lobster, the herrings, and the sardines and was sick, he did not die. A week expired and a sound reached him that Silas was selling Mermaid boots; and he enjoined Ann to test the truth of that sound.

"It's sure enough, dad," Ann said.

John's fury tingled. He put on him his clothes and seized a stick, and by the strength of his passion he moved into Barnes; and he pitched himself at the entering in of the shop, and he saw that Ann's speech was right. He came back; and he did not eat or drink or rest until he had removed all that was in his window and had placed therein no other boots than the Mermaids; and on each pair he put a ticket which was truly marked: "Half cost price." On his door he put this notice: "This FIRM has no Connection with the shop in Barnes"; and this notice could be seen and read whether the door was open or shut.

After a period people returned to him, demanding: "I want a pair of Mermaids, please"; and inasmuch as he had no more to sell, they who had dealt with him went to the shop of his brother.

[The end]
Caradoc Evans's short story: Like Brothers

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