Houseng Problem

Henry Kuttner HOUSING PROBLEM

Jacqueline said it was a canary, but I contended that there were a couple of lovebirds in the covered cage. One canary could never make that much fuss. Besides, I liked to think of crusty old Mr. Henchard keeping lovebirds; it was so completely inappropriate. But whatever ouz roomer kept in that cage by his window, he shielded it—or them—jeal­ously from prying eyes. All we had to go by were the noises.

And they weren’t too simple to figure out. From under the cretonne cloth came shufflings, rustlings, occasional faint and inexplicable pops, and once or twice a tiny thump that made the whole hidden cage shake on its redwood pedestal-stand. Mr. Henchard must have known that we were curious. But all he said when Jackie remarked that birds were nice to have around, was “Claptrap! Leave that cage alone, d’ya hear?”

That made us a little mad. We’re not snoopers, and after that brush-off, we coldly refused to even look at the shrouded cretonne shape. We didn’t want to lose Mr. Henchard, either. Roomers were surprisingly hard to get. Our little house was on the coast highway; ‘the town was a couple of dozen homes, a grocery, a liquor store, the post office and Terry’s restaurant. That was about all. Every morning Jackie and I hopped the bus and rode in to the factory, an hour away. By the time we got home, we were pretty tired. We couldn’t get any household help—war jobs paid a lot better—so we both pitched in and cleaned. As for cooking, we were Terry’s best customers.

The wages were good, but before the war we’d run up too many debts, so we needed extra dough. And that’s why we rented a room to Mr. Hencharci. Off the beaten track with transportation difficult, and with the coast dimout every night, it wasn’t too easy to get a roomer. Mr. Henchard looked like a natural. He was, we figured, too old to get into mischief.

One day he wandered in, paid a deposit; presently he showed up with a huge Gladstone and a square canvas grip with leather handles. He was a creaking little old man with a bristling tonsure of stiff hair and a face like Popeye’s father, only more human. He wasn’t sour; he was just crusty. I had a feeling he’d spent most of his life in furnished rooms, minding his own business and puffing innumerable cigarettes through a long black holder. But he wasn’t one of those lonely old men

you could safely feel sorry for—far from it! He wasn’t poor and he was completely self-sufficient. We loved him. I called him grandpa once, in an outburst of affection, and my skin blistered at the resultant remarks.

Some people are born under lucky stars. Mr. Henchard was like that. He was always finding money in the street. The few times we shot craps or played poker, he made passes and held straights without even trying. No question of sharp dealing—he was just lucky.

I remember the time we were all going down the long wooden stair­way that leads from the cliff-top to the beach. Mr. Henchard kicked at a pretty big rock that was on one of the steps. The stone bounced down a little way, and then went right through one of the treads. The wood was completely rotten. We felt fairly certain that if Mr. Hen-chard, who was leading, had stepped on that rotten section, the whole thing would have collapsed.

And then there was the time I was riding up with him in the bus. The motor stopped a few minutes after we’d boarded the bus; the driver pulled over. A car was coming toward us along the highway and, as we stopped, one of its front tires blew out. It skidded into the ditch. If we hadn’t stopped when we did, there would have been a head-on collision. Not a soul was hurt.

Mr. Henchard wasn’t lonely; he went out by day, I think, and at night he sat in his room near the window most of the time. We knocked, of course, before coming in to clean, and sometimes he’d say, “Wait a minute.” There’d be a hasty rustling and the sound of that cretonne cover going on his bird cage. We wondered what sort of bird he had, and theorized on the possibility of a phoenix. The creature never sang. It made noises. Soft, odd, not-always-birdlike noises. By the time we got home from work, Mr. Henchard was always in his room. He stayed there while we cleaned. On week-ends, he never went out.

As for the cage .

One night Mr. Henchard came out, stuffing a cigarette into his holder, and looked us over.

“Mph,” said Mr. Henchard. “Listen, I’ve got some property to ‘tend to up north, and I’ll be away for a week or so. I’ll still pay the rent.”

“Oh, well,” Jackie said. “We can—”

“Claptrap,” he growled. “It’s my room. I’ll keep it if I like. How about that, hey?”